Copyright ©Monergism Books

The Works of Octavius Winslow

by Octavius Winslow 1808-1878

Table of Contents

Sermons:

1. Go and Tell Jesus

2. My Times in God's Hand

3. None Like Christ

4. The Preciousness of Christ

5. The Preciousness of God's Word

6. The Entire Pardon and Justification of the Believing Sinner

7. The Tried Believer Comforted

8. The Prophetical Glory of the Redeemer

9. The Glory of the Redeemer in His People

Books:

10. Christ's Sympathy to Weary Pilgrims (a selection of some of Winslow's best quotes)

11. CONSIDER JESUS (Thoughts for Daily Duty, Service, and Suffering)

12. Christ is Ever with You!

13. COUNSEL AND CONSOLATION FOR THE TEMPTED

14. DAILY NEED DIVINELY SUPPLIED

15. EMMANUEL, or Titles of Christ

16. GLIMPSES OF THE TRUTH AS IT IS IN JESUS

17. GRACE AND TRUTH

18. HELP HEAVENWARD

19. LIGHTS AND SHADOWS OF SPIRITUAL LIFE

20. MIDNIGHT HARMONIES

21. NO CONDEMNATION IN CHRIST JESUS

22. NONE LIKE CHRIST

23. PISGAH VIEWS (Heaven)

24. SOUL HEIGHTS and SOUL DEPTHS

25. THE FOOT OF THE CROSS

26. THE FULLNESS OF CHRIST

27. PERSONAL DECLENSION & REVIVAL OF RELIGION IN THE SOUL

28. THE HOLY SPIRIT, An Experimental and Practical View

29. THE INNER LIFE

30. THE LORD'S PRAYER

31. THE MAN OF GOD

32. THE MINISTRY OF HOME

33. THE NIGHTINGALE SONG OF DAVID

34. THE SYMPATHY OF CHRIST

35. THE TREE OF LIFE

36. DIVINE REALITIES

37. WORDS OF DIVINE COMFORT (a 31 day devotional)

38. THE GLORY OF THE REDEEMER

39. THE ATONEMENT

40. THE OFFICER'S DAUGHTER

41. GATHERED FLOWERS

42. THE HIDDEN LIFE (Gleanings from the journal of Whitmore Winslow)

43. MORNING AND EVENING THOUGHTS (a 365 day devotional)

44. THE PRECIOUS THINGS OF GOD

45. FROM GRACE TO GLORY

46. OUR GOD

Copyright

"Go and Tell Jesus"

At that time Herod the tetrarch heard the reports about Jesus, and he said to his attendants, "This is John the Baptist; he has risen from the dead! That is why miraculous powers are at work in him."
Now Herod had arrested John and bound him and put him in prison because of Herodias, his brother Philip's wife, for John had been saying to him: "It is not lawful for you to have her." Herod wanted to kill John, but he was afraid of the people, because they considered him a prophet.
On Herod's birthday the daughter of Herodias danced for them and pleased Herod so much that he promised with an oath to give her whatever she asked. Prompted by her mother, she said, "Give me here on a platter the head of John the Baptist." The king was distressed, but because of his oaths and his dinner guests, he ordered that her request be granted and had John beheaded in the prison. His head was brought in on a platter and given to the girl, who carried it to her mother. John's disciples came and took his body and buried it. Then they went and told Jesus. Mt. 14:1-12

As if to illustrate the nature and test the efficacy of His great and gracious expedient of saving sinners, it pleased the redeeming God that the first subject of death should be a believer in the Lord Jesus. Scarcely had the righteous Abel laid his bleeding lamb upon the altar—that altar and that lamb all expressive of the truth, and radiant with the glory of the person and work of the coming Savior—before he was called to seal with his blood the faith in Christ he had professed. But if the first victim, he was also the first victor. He fell by death, but he fell a conqueror of death. He lost the victory, but he won the battle. Thus was the “last enemy” foiled in his very first assault upon our race. The point of his lance was then turned, the venom of his sting was then impaired, and, robbed of his prey, he saw in the pale and gory form his shaft had laid low the first one of that glorious race of confessors, that “noble army of martyrs,” who in all succeeding ages should overcome sin, hell, and death, by the blood of the Lamb.
It was on an occasion similar to the death of the first martyr, that the passage suggesting the subject of these pages was written. Falling a sacrifice to his fidelity, as Abel had to his faith, John was now a mangled corpse—the victim of Herod’s sin and cruelty. Taking up the headless body of their master, the disciples of John bore it to the tomb, and then went and poured their tale of woe into the ear, and laid their crushing sorrow upon the heart of Jesus. “And his disciples came and took up the body and buried it, AND WENT AND TOLD JESUS.” It was, perhaps, their first direct communication with the Savior. They had known but little of Jesus until now. Another being had engaged their interest, and occupied their thoughts. Absorbed in their admiration of the star that heralded its approach, they had scarcely caught sight of the Sun which had just appeared above the horizon. In vain had John, with characteristic lowliness, reminded those who he was not the Messiah, and but His forerunner. Wedded to their master, they thought of, clung to, and loved only him. John must therefore die—the star paling and disappearing before the deepening splendor of the divine ascending Orb. All this was the ordering of infinite wisdom and love. The removal of John was necessary to make his disciples better acquainted with Jesus. They had heard of Him, had seen Him, and in a measure believed in Him; but they never fully knew or loved Him until now that profound grief brought them to His feet. What a Divine Savior, what a loving Friend, what a sympathizing Brother Jesus was! How truly human in His affinities, compassionate in His heart, gentle in His spirit! They had no adequate conception until the surge of sorrow flung them upon His sympathy. Ah! How they clung to Jesus now! Owning no other master, seeking no other friend, repairing to no other asylum in their lonely grief, “they went and told Jesus.” Favored disciples! Honored men! Oh! How many now hymning their praises in heaven, or still watering their couch with tears on earth, will alike testify that until God smote the earthly idol, or broke the human staff, or dried up the creature spring, JESUS was to them as an unknown Savior and Friend. Blessed, thrice blessed sorrow that leads us to Jesus! That sorrow—dark, deep, though it be—will wake the harp of the glorified to heaven’s sweetest melody. The bitterest grief of the saint on earth will issue in the sweetest joy of the glorified in heaven—because that grief, sanctified by the Spirit, brought the heart into a closer alliance and sympathy with Him who was emphatically a “man of sorrows and acquainted with grief”
We know so much of divine truth, my reader, as we have in a measure a personal experience of it in our souls. The mere speculatist and notionalist in religion is as unsatisfactory and unprofitable as the mere theorist and declaimer in science. For all practical purposes both are but ciphers. The character and the degree of our spiritual knowledge begins and terminates in our knowledge of Christ. Christ is the test of its reality, the measure of its depth, and the source of its growth. If you are advancing in an experimental, sanctifying acquaintance with the Lord Jesus, you are advancing in that knowledge which Paul thus estimates: “I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus, my Lord.” Dear reader, let the chief object of your study be to know the Lord Jesus. It may be in the region of your sinfulness, emptiness, weakness, and foolishness that you learn Him—nevertheless, however humiliating the school, slow the progress, and limited the attainment, count every fresh step you make in a personal acquaintance with the Lord Jesus as a nobler triumph, and as bringing you into the possession of more real wealth than were the whole chests of human knowledge and science mastered, and its untold treasures poured at your feet. When adversity comes—when death approaches—when eternity unveils—oh!—how indescribably valuable, how inconceivably precious will then be one faith’s touch, one faith’s glimpse of a crucified and risen Savior! All other attainments then vanish, and the only knowledge that abides, soothes, and comforts, is a heartfelt acquaintance with the most sublime fact of the Gospel, that “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.” Oh! Whatever other studies may engage your thoughts, forget not, as you value your eternal destiny, to study the Lord Jesus Christ.

Communion with Jesus
The subject which we must keep prominent before us is: Communion with Jesus. That there may exist a serious defect in the experience of many Christians touching this point, we solemnly believe. There is in the walk of many so wide a chasm between Jesus and their personal and confidential fellowship, as to leave upon the mind the conviction that they have no dealings with Jesus at all! Hence the distressing doubts, the timid fears, the obscure evidences, the beclouded hopes, that shade the luster, impair the vigor, and render dubious the religion of so many. The secret is, they have so little to do with Jesus! And, as a natural result, Jesus, in the bestowment of His favors, in the manifestations of Himself, in the breathings of His love, has so little to do with them! Oh! How sad, that such distance and coldness should ever exist between Christ and a soul redeemed with His most precious blood! What an evidence of the fallen condition of our humanity, and of its but partial sanctification, even in its renewed state.
We propose, in the further unfolding of this interesting subject, to state the grounds upon which the believer is warranted to go and tell Jesus—the occasions on which he is privileged to go and tell Jesus—and the blessings that will flow from his going and telling Jesus.
The first springs from what Jesus is Himself. The very fact that He whom we approach—the Being, the Savior, the Friend with whom this close and constant communion is maintained—is JESUS, forms our highest encouragement, our divinest warrant. It is not every great person who is at all times accessible. The official barriers which surround, or the austere address which marks him, may interdict and discourage all free and confidential approach. It is not so with Jesus. Infinitely great though He is—for He is the Maker of all beings and worlds—there is not a being in the universe so accessible as Jesus. We approach Him, and we find Him—sin only excepted—a being just like ourselves. His divine nature is clad with the human—His circumstances are human—His love is human—His sympathy is human—His compassion is human—His smile is human— His trials, temptations, sufferings, and sorrows, are human; all are so human that there is not a petition with which we approach, growing out of our suffering humanity, that challenges not a hearing, that awakens not a response. Let us add a few particulars. Do we go to Him burdened?—we are in the presence of Him who bore the mighty weight of sin. Do we go to Him in sorrow?—we are in the presence of Him who was acquainted with grief. Do we go to Him in temptation?—we are in the presence of Him who was tempted in all points like as we are. Carry we to His feet our adversities, poverty, need?—we are holding audience with Him who, when He sojourned on earth, was poor, homeless, and unbefriended—who subsisted by charity, and had not where to lay His head. And, then, there is another encouragement to our approach growing out of His official relations—they are all in our favor. His prophetical office—His priesthood—His royal character, all have a relation to our varied need. Exalted as His position is, each separate office that He fills warrants and invites our approach. And, as if to crown the encouragements accumulating around our access to Jesus, there are His own personal attractions—all-inviting and irresistible. Everything in the person of Jesus encourages our advance. Does glory charm us—does beauty attract us—does love win us—does gentleness subdue us—does sympathy soothe us—does faithfulness inspire confidence?—then, all this is in Jesus, and all invites us to draw near. He is the “altogether lovely,” and if our minds can appreciate the grand, and our hearts are sensible of the tender; if they feel the power of that which is superlatively great and exquisitely lovely, then we shall need no persuasion to arise, and go and tell Jesus every emotion of our souls, and every circumstance of our history. Take all that is tender in love—all that is faithful in friendship—all that is wise in counsel—all that is longsuffering in patience, all that is balmy, soothing, and healing in the deepest sympathy—and its embodiment, its impersonation is—JESUS. Can we, then, be insensible to all this personal attraction, and hesitate repairing to His feet—telling Him all? In addition to what Jesus is in Himself, there is the encouragement to repair to Him growing out of the covenant relations He sustains to His people. Apart from His ever-loving heart, kindly disposition, and sympathizing nature, Jesus is your Brother, your Friend, your redeemer. As a Brother, He knows the need of His brethren in adversity; as a Friend, He shows Himself friendly; and as next of redeemer, He has redeemed your soul, and bought back your lapsed inheritance. No, more, He is your Advocate in heaven, your Intercessor at the right hand of God, your Representative, having ascended up on high to take possession of heaven on your behalf, and to prepare a place for you. Upon His heart He wears your name—a precious pearl in the priestly breastplate. And there is not a moment of time, nor an event of life, nor a circumstance of daily history, nor a mental or spiritual emotion, in which you are not borne upon the love, and remembered in the ceaseless intercession of Christ. Is not this enough? What more, to win you to His feet in all the endearing confidence of one who delights in everything, to go and tell Jesus? Is there another being in the universe you can approach with such perfect repose of mind, with such full assurance of heart, with an unveiling of every thought, emotion, and feeling, so full, unreserved, and confiding? No! Not one!

His Mediatorial Work
The mediatorial work of the Lord Jesus constitutes another and assured ground of our approach. The full, complete, and free salvation which He by His obedience and death has accomplished for sinners, anticipates every objection, and answers every argument growing out of our personal and deep unworthiness. Nothing can withstand this plea. When we enter into His presence—be it as a sinner confessing guilt—be it as a penitent supplicating pardon—be it as a mourner unveiling sorrow—be it as needy asking grace—or, be it as a recipient of mercy offering the sacrifice of praise—we stand upon the basis of an Atonement which meets our case in its most peculiar form. It is utterly impossible that we can be repulsed. We approach Jesus by Jesus! We “take hold of His strength,” and a rejection of our suit must involve a rejection of Himself. We draw near by the way of His cross. We penetrate into His loving heart through His pierced side. His wounds are our “door of hope.” We plead His own merits—bathe in His own blood—enfold us in His own righteousness—and the one name that breathes from our lips in its purest fragrance and sweetest music is, His own!—that “name which is above every name.” Can He deny us? Will He reject us? Impossible! How shall we more strongly put the case? What more can we add to annihilate all your doubt and fear touching your reception, if you but arise and come to Jesus? Tell me after this statement—justified and borne out by every sentence of revealed truth—who shall dare interpose or come between your soul and Christ? What echoes of the “law’s loud thunder,” what lightning gleams of justice, what profound sense of sinfulness, what aggravated departures, shall presume to interdict your approach to the Savior! The Cross of Calvary clasped within the arms of faith, you may challenge the universe to forbid your approach to Jesus—every foe shall turn pale and shrink away. No sin, no curse, no Satan can stand beneath the sacred, solemn shadow of that cross where—impaled, suffering, dying —hung the incarnate God. Sooner at the bidding of a mortal shall the laws of nature stand still, and this universe cease to be; sooner shall Christ vacate His throne of glory, and God resign the government of all worlds and of all beings, than shall a poor penitent, humble, supplicating soul enter into the presence of Jesus, pleading His own infinite merits and most precious blood, be chilled by coldness, be awed by a frown, or be rejected with disdain. Once more, believing reader, would we remind you that Jesus your Surety Head has done all for you, and has left you nothing to do but go and tell Him all. He has paid all your great debt, annihilated all your innumerable sins, exhausted every particle of your tremendous curse, and is now set down at the right hand of God to secure by His intercession, and to administer by His government, the untold blessings purchased by His blood—can you then hesitate and demur? Approach Him, and with the gentlest pressure of faith, touch the spring of His heart’s love, and every door flies open to welcome you.

The Divine Relationship
In addition to all this, we have to blend the thought of the close and sacred relationship which binds you to Jesus, on the ground of which you are emboldened to approach and tell Him all. As a believer, you are one of the countless number given by the Father to Jesus. You are one of His sheep, His brother, His friend. To receive you with indifference, or to repulse you with scorn, would be to trample upon Himself—for we are as His brethren, “bone of His bone and flesh of His flesh.” In us, too, He beholds His Father’s image restored, His own righteousness imputed, and our bodies living temples of the Holy Spirit. When the eye of King Ahasuerus lighted upon Esther, robed and jeweled with royal splendor, her person found grace in his sight, and he bade her approach. With a complacency and delight infinitely transcending this, does Jesus contemplate the believer as he enters into the Divine presence, lovely with His loveliness put upon him. Extending the symbol of welcome, He invites your approach; His heart, responsive to your petition, is prepared, and His power, commensurate with your case, is “able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think.” O royal highway of access! Opened by the blood and kept open by the intercession of Christ, the much incense of whose merit ascends up moment by moment before the throne—there is not a thought, a feeling, or a circumstance, with which you may not go and tell Jesus.
Just as I am—Your love unknown
Has broken every barrier down,
Now to be Your, yes, Your alone,
O Lamb of God! I come!
Let me remind you, in vindication of the glory of Immanuel, that going and telling Jesus, implies on His part, no ignorance of, or indifference to your case. He who redeemed us is GOD—“God manifest in the flesh.” All people, all things, all events are known to Him from the end to the beginning. When, therefore, you stand in the presence chamber of Jesus you offer no request, breathe into His ear no sorrow, unveil to His eye no infirmity, with which, in all its most minute detail, He was not already infinitely better acquainted than yourself. Long before the sadness had shaded your brow, or a tear had dimmed your eye, or the burden had pressed your spirit, or the perplexity had woven its web around your path, or the archer had bent his bow and winged his shaft—Jesus knew it all, had appointed it all, had anticipated it all. It was no surprise to Him! Precious truth! Christ had entwined my perplexity with His thoughts, had wrapped my grief around His heart, had provided a pavilion for my safety before a pebble had paved, or a cloud had shaded, or a whisper of the storm had breathed over my path. “O Lord! You know my downsitting and mine uprising; You understand my thoughts afar off, You compass my path and my lying down, and are acquainted with all my ways.” Satisfied with such a fact, cheered by such a truth, animated by such a thought, you may unhesitatingly advance into the unknown history of another year; firm in the belief that Jesus will be faithful in fulfilling the promise, “I will bring the blind by a way that they knew not; I will lead them in paths that they have not known; I will make darkness light before them, and crooked things straight. These things will I do unto them, and not forsake them.”

Let me now briefly trace a few of the many occasions in which you are invited to avail yourself of this privilege.

Is Sin a Burden?
Are you burdened with a sense of sin? Go and tell Jesus. There is no burden that mortal ever bore like this! Do you feel this weight? Then there is spiritual sensibility, a holy consciousness, a divine life in your soul. This is not the mark of an unconverted nature. The corpse recoils not from its own corruption, nor is the rock sensible of its own weight. You feel yourself a sinner, your spirit is contrite for sin, your heart is broken for sin, your whole soul is bowed in the dust of self-abhorrence for sin. Then, my reader, there is life, spiritual, divine, deathless life in your soul; and you are just the one to go and tell Jesus. To whom can you repair with that burden, to whom confess that sin, to whom unveil that guilt but—JESUS? As a sinner you need a Savior—Jesus is your Savior. As guilty, you desire to know how God can pardon, justify, and accept you—Jesus, “the brightness of the Father’s glory, and the express image of His person,” is prepared to reconcile you to God, and thus bring you into perfect peace. “Being justified by faith we have peace with God, through our Lord Jesus Christ.” Appointed by God, Jesus is the infinite burden-bearer of our race. “Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows. He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities.” That burden you feel Jesus bore, for that sin you mourn Jesus suffered, for that iniquity you acknowledge Jesus bled—for that guilt, beneath which you tremble, Jesus died. Go, then, and tell Jesus all your sin. To whom can you tell it but to Him? He “came into the world to save sinners.” “Christ died for the ungodly.” His “blood cleanses from all sin.” His “name is JESUS because He saves.” To Him confess all your sin. Beneath His cross, watering His feet with tears of penitence, acknowledge your transgressions—unveil your every sin. He knows it all, yet would have you tell Him all; withholding, veiling, extenuating nothing. Only go and tell Jesus what a sinner you are, and that you are emboldened thus to come because He has revealed Himself as such a Savior; that it is His pardoning mercy—His boundless love—His gracious invitation—His tender, compassionate heart, that never yet rejected a seeking sinner, that warrants your coming, that draws and woos you to His feet. Oh! If instead of brooding over your unworthiness, magnifying your sins, and lessening His most free grace to sinners, you will but arise and go and tell Jesus, the song of the pardoned would soon burst in the sweetest melody from your lips. Only go to Jesus—
With all your sins against your God,
All your sins against His laws,
All your sins against His blood,
All your sins against His cause—
Sins as boundless as the sea!
And hide them in Gethsemane!

Are You Going Back?
Go and tell Jesus your backslidings. “My people are bent to backsliding from Me,” is the mournful language of God. “Our backslidings are many,” is the penitential acknowledgment of the Church. Backsliding, as the simple definition of the word intimates, is a going back. “They have gone backward and not forward,” says the Lord. How constantly do we recede in the ways of the Lord Jesus. And if, through restraining grace, there are no outbreaks of sin, there yet may be the secret declension of the soul, the hidden backsliding of the heart, all concealed from human eye, yet “open to the eye of Him with whom we have to do.” Oh! How little vital religion, how little of the anointing of the Holy Spirit, of the power of real godliness, is there in the souls of many who yet at the Lord’s table solemnly profess themselves His!

Perhaps, my reader, you are awakened to a sense of your backsliding from the Lord. Startled by the discovery, alarmed at the symptoms, deploring the consequences, you exclaim: “Oh! That it were with me as in days that are passed, when the candle of the Lord shone round about me.” You think of the “love of your espousals”; of your “song in the days of your youth, in the day when you came up out of the land of Egypt”; of the “green pastures and the still waters,” and your heart dies within you. Be it so—be it that you have wandered far from God, and that you have fallen by your iniquity; that you have pierced afresh the bosom of that Savior that has so often pillowed your head in weakness and grief; yet, go and tell Jesus! There is not in the universe a being who can so understand and sympathize with your case as He. Tell Him how your affections have strayed—how your love has chilled—how the spirit of prayer has waned in your soul, and what ascendancy the world, the creature, and self have obtained in your mind. Take with you words and turn to the Lord, say unto Him: “Take away all iniquity, and receive us graciously.”
In this connection of our remarks, we would venture upon an observation which relates closely to the happy and holy walk of the child of God. How many a believer in Jesus pursues his Christian course with a sad countenance, the reflection of a yet sadder heart, from the consciousness of the indwelling evil of his nature perpetually exhibiting itself in flaws, and failure, and dereliction, to which the eye of human affection is blind, but which to his own inspection are real, palpable and aggravated—not the less humiliating and abhorrent because unknown and unsuspected by all but himself. The remedy, what is it? Going and telling Jesus! Oh! If there be one view of this privilege more precious, endearing, and sacred than another, it is the liberty of admitting Jesus to the deepest confidence of the heart, of unveiling to Him thoughts, imaginations, and emotions, which no inducement could persuade us to reveal to our most dear and intimate friend. Bending beneath the cross, the eye reposing in faith upon the Crucified, there is no heart-wandering, no mental emotion, no secret so profound, no sorrow so delicate, no perplexity so great, no guilt so aggravated which the lowly, penitent heart may not fully and freely tell Jesus. It is the oversight of this truth that produces so much solitary grief in the minds of many of the Lord’s people. They forget what a Friend, what a Brother, what a Confidant, what a Savior they have in Jesus. They refuse to go and tell Him all; and thus, brooding over their failures and sins, nursing in loneliness their trials and sorrows, their “sore runs in the night, and their soul refuses to be comforted.”

Are You Walking in Darkness?
As a child of the light walking in darkness—go and tell Jesus. The path of the believer, though it be the only sunny path in life, is often shaded and dreary. There are spiritual despondencies and mental depressions peculiar to the divine life of a Christian. If the “Sun of Righteousness” had His periods of obscuration, His temporary eclipse when His whole soul was enshrouded in deep gloom, it is no great marvel that along a similar shaded path His disciples should travel. The cloud that envelops you may be so dense as to obscure every star, and to extinguish every ray. You cannot see Jesus, you cannot descry a single promise upon which you can rest your soul, not a word of Jesus from which you can extract comfort or gather hope. All means fail, and every spring of consolation is dried, and you have no evidence of your interest in the Savior, of your adoption into His family, of your title to glory—and you exclaim: “My God! My Father! Why have You forsaken me?” But, hush that murmur! God has not forsaken you. “O Israel! You shall not be forgotten of Me,” is His assuring declaration. What is your course? Go and tell Jesus! If in the universe there is one who can sympathize with this spiritual darkness it is He. Turn in faith to the full sunshine of this Divine Orb. In Christ’s light you shall see light upon all the hidden riches and glory of the kingdom of God within you. Sinful though you are, your soul, renewed and inhabited by the Holy Spirit, presents the pencilings and enshrines the gems of a Divine Artist, the beauty, grandeur, and costliness of which are hidden until Jesus shines upon it. It is the light flowing from the Sun of Righteousness that alone can make manifest the work of the Holy Spirit in our souls. This is one mode by which the Spirit “bears witness with our spirit that we are the sons of God.” He reveals Jesus to the believer. Opening, as it were, the casement, uplifting the window, He admits the light that streams from a Divine Sun, and the soul thus illumined, unveils the wealth, and sparkles with the glories that are garnered there—the restored image of God, and the precious, costly, imperishable graces of the Holy Spirit. Go, then, my reader, and tell Jesus the darkness that broods around you, and that conceals all this glory. Ask Him to arise upon your soul with healing on His wings. One ray darting from that Sun—and how soon will that long, dreary, “night of weeping” be succeeded by the bright “morning of joy.” “He that follows Me,” says the Savior, “shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life.”

Are You Tempted?
I will suppose you, my reader, to be a tempted soul—for temptation is an essential element in the spiritual discipline of the child of God. “There has no temptation taken you but such as is common to man." “Though now for a season, if need be, you are in heaviness through manifold temptations.” Through this furnace, more or less heated, all the followers of Jesus pass—they could not be like Him were it not so. He was tempted like as we are, that He might know how to sympathize with us, and we are tempted that we might fly to the asylum of that sympathy. Perhaps you are tempted to distrust God—to question the Savior’s love to you—to oppose the divine will—to fret, and murmur, and repine at the dealings of your Heavenly Father—to doubt the truth of the Bible, to look upon your professed Christianity as a fiction, and upon all your past experience as a lie. Poor tempted soul, what are you to do? Where repair? Already you are prepared to succumb to the foe. You have no heart to resist, no skill to fence, no power to vanquish. Satan is too subtle, experienced, and vigilant in this war to be easily foiled or soon overcome. Already your wounded conscience, confidence, and peace, testify to the perseverance and precision with which his “fiery darts” have been winged. Where, then, will you look? Go and tell Jesus. To whom can you more fitly repair for succor in temptation than to the tempted One? Lay all your case before Him. Tell Him how your faith trembles, how your courage fails, how your heart dies within you, and how ready you are to cast away your confidence, and to part with the anchor of your hope. Oh! Methinks, that in a moment—the scene of His own long, weary temptation in the wilderness still vivid in His remembrance—He will open every recess of His loving, gracious, sympathizing heart, and draw you within the blest pavilion until the storm be past. Tempted ones are peculiarly precious to Jesus. It is His own temptation over again, in the people of His members. And if there be a niche in His heart deeper, warmer, or more sacred than another, it is where He hides and shelters His Satan and sin-tempted disciples.

Are You Tried?
Go and tell Jesus your trials. To whom, as a tried Christian, but to Jesus can you go? Oppressed and sorrowful as our humanity is, there is lacking in each and all the tender, disciplined feeling that exactly harmonizes with our own chastened and pensive spirit. We take our sorrow even to a sorrowing believer, and we find his heart so charged with his own personal trial, his mind so perplexed with his own anxieties, or his spirit so bowed under its own concealed dejection, that we shrink from adding one drop to his brimmed cup by pouring into his sad heart the sadness of our own. He is silent of his own grief, but that silence, oh, how expressive!
But there is One to whom you may go, whose sorrows now are all over, and who is prepared to make yours His own. You are tried in your spirit—tried in your principles—tried in your faith—tried in your worldly calling—tried in your spiritual history—tried in your domestic circumstances—tried in those near and dear to you—where, son, daughter of trial, can you turn but to Jesus? Have you pondered this sacred and precious privilege? Has it ever bethought you to arise in your grief and go and tell Jesus? He was, as you are, a child of sorrow—a man of grief. Smitten, wounded, traduced, belied, foully accused, bruised, and heartbroken—and is fitted, as no other being in the universe is, to listen to the story of your trial, succor, soothe, and sanctify it.

Are You Bereaved?
These pages will, doubtless, find their way within the home of the bereaved. We refer to this sorrow with the most profound awe—we touch it with a shrinking hand. It seems almost too sacred for human sympathy to approach. But there is One, and only one, who can approach it; One, and only one, who can enter into and understand it; One, and only one, who can soothe it. It is Jesus! Contemplate Him in the bereaved home of Bethany! Martha and Mary are mourners. Lazarus their brother is dead. Jesus, their brother’s Friend and theirs, is come—but He has come too late! “Lord, if You had been here, my brother had not died.” No! Not too late! It was just the moment that Jesus should come. He timed His visit of sympathy and help with their grief and need. Beloved, Jesus never approaches you a moment sooner, or a moment later than your case demands. He will come—but it will be at the very instant that you most need Him. There shall be more than an angel’s chime of His sympathy with your sorrow—the most perfect and exquisite blending. If He come a moment too soon, your grief would not be matured enough for His sympathy; if a moment too late, that grief might have crushed you. Now, mark the thoughtfulness and skill, the delicacy and sympathy of Jesus. All is inscribed in one brief but expressive sentence: “JESUS WEPT!” To this weeping Jesus go! You return to the house of mourning from the grave where repose the ashes of one once animated and glowing with a spirit that blended with your own—you seem to have entombed a second self—all that gave existence an object, or life its charm. But rise, and go to Jesus. Tell Him what a wreck your heart is, what a blank life seems, and what wintry gloom enshrouds all the landscape of human existence. Tell Him how mysterious to your view seems the event—how heavy falls the blow—what hard, dark, rebellious thoughts of God now haunt your perturbed mind. Lay your grief upon Jesus’ breast. Think not that you are alone in your sorrow—that there is not one in this wide, wide world, one who can appreciate your loss, or enter into all the peculiar features of your afflictions, the delicate shadings of your sadness; Jesus can, and Jesus only. The vacancy, too, death has made, in your love and friendship, whatever be the relation, Jesus can fill. Ah! There is not a relation, many and varied though they are, both of domestic and social life, which the Son of God has not assumed, so that when these human ties are sundered by death, Jesus stands prepared to reknit, replace, and restore them, by Himself occupying the vacancy. In the rupture of the parental bond, He is a Father; of the filial, He is a Son; of the conjugal, He is a Husband; of the fraternal, He is a Brother; of friendship, He is Friend. Thus, in every condition of human life, whatever the peculiarity of its bond, the specialty of its sorrow, or the desolation it produces, Jesus avows His aptitude and readiness to meet and sympathize with it. Go, then, bereaved mourner, and present your claim to a newborn relation, it may be, to the Incarnate Son of God.

Are You in a Strait?
It is possible that you are entangled within the meshes of a present difficulty, to the unravelment of which no clue presents itself, and from which there appears no way of escape. Human ingenuity is baffled, creature strength fails, all earthly means are exhausted, and you are at your wits’ end. Behold your remedy, how near, how simple—go and tell Jesus. Take your difficulty and spread it before the Lord. Your appeal to His compassion, and your believing reliance upon His promise, will secure on your behalf infinite wisdom and omnipotent strength. Listen to the divine declaration, simple faith in which will raise you above your circumstances: “Behold, I am the Lord, the God of all flesh: is anything too hard for Me?” Then, what is your present entanglement, great though it be, to Him, “with whom nothing is impossible”? In a moment, and by a way transcending all your thoughts and conceptions, He can “pluck your feet out of the net,” and bring you into a “large place where there is no straitness.” Pore not despairingly over your obstacles, faint not under your adversity, sit not down, stunned and paralyzed, upon the stone of difficulty, asking, “Who will roll it away?”—here is your effectual remedy, adopt it in faith and you shall be delivered—go and tell Jesus. Enlist Him on your side, retain Him as your Counselor, honor Him by committing your case to His skill, power, and willingness, and He will guide you through all the intricacies of your position, making the rough path smooth, and the crooked path straight. Jesus has power to rescue you from all your entanglements. He can level the mountain, lift up the valley, roll aside the rock, and clear your way to an equitable, honorable, and happy adjustment of all your worldly difficulties. Only make use of Him. Only honor Him. Only confide in Him. Only call upon Him. All hearts are in His hand, all resources are at His command, all agencies are at His disposal; nothing is impossible with Jesus but to deny Himself—this He cannot do. Then, “be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known unto God.”

Tell Jesus Everything
What more shall we say? We will sum up all in a few words—Go and tell Jesus everything. You have much to disclose—tell Him all. Tell Him of the world’s woundings, of the saints’ smitings, of the spirit’s tremblings, and of the heart’s anguish. Tell Him your low frames, your mental despondencies, your gloomy fears, beclouded evidences and veiled hope. Tell Him your bodily infirmities—your waning health, failing vigor, progressive disease—the pain, the lassitude, the nervousness, the weary couch, the sleepless pillow, which no one knows but Him. Tell Him of your dread of death, how you recoil from dying, and how dark and rayless appears the body’s last resting place. Tell Him how all beyond it looks so dreary, starless, hopeless. Tell Him you fear you do not know Him, love Him, believe in Him. Tell Him that there is not a being in the universe—none in heaven or on earth— whom you desire as Himself. Tell Him all the temptations, the difficulties, the hidden trials and sorrows of your path. Tell—oh!—tell Him all! There is nothing that you may not in the confidence of love, and in the simplicity of faith, tell Jesus—no temporal need—no spiritual sorrow. “Casting all your care upon Him, for He cares for you.” “You people, pour out your heart before Him!” Tell Him your desolateness as a widow—your friendlessness as an orphan—your sadness and solitude as one whose heart is overwhelmed within you. Go, and lose yourself in the love of Jesus—hide in the wounds of Jesus—wash in the blood of Jesus—replenish from the fullness of Jesus, and recline upon the bosom of Jesus. Think not this a weak, sentimental Christianity to which we are urging you. We know no other than this—no other which so appeals to the intellect, as to the most sacred feelings and affections of the heart. This telling Jesus everything in our individual history—this recognition of His government in all our ways, and this reliance upon His power and love in all our circumstances—is the legitimate employment of a faith at once the most sublime exercise of the mind as it is the loveliest and holiest impulse of the heart. Here is a faith that recedes from the objects of sense, and “beholds Him that is invisible”; that leaves the region of illusions and shadows, and entwines itself with infinite realities; that carries all the interests and relations, responsibilities and accountabilities of time into the solemn, awful, and unalterable decision of eternity. In urging you, Christian reader, to the exercise of a privilege of personal contact and close transaction with Jesus, we have but endeavored to simplify a principle, in its application to all the minutiae of life, the divinest, loftiest, and most sublime that can possibly task the powers of the human soul. All the splendor of human philosophy, science, and prowess, pales before the moral grandeur which gathers, like a halo, around a mortal man reposing at the feet of the Incarnate God—unveiling his whole soul in all the childlike confidence of a faith that grasps Jehovah. At this focal point must meet the profound philosopher and the untutored peasant; the matured man and the little child—all taught, counseled, and supplied at the feet of Jesus.

It only remains that we briefly glance at the sanctifying influence this operation of faith must naturally exert.

Intimacy with Christ
The first result to which we refer is, the close intimacy with Christ which the habit cultivates. Human society will illustrate this. It is close dealings with our fellow beings that removes ignorance, dissolves prejudice, and unseals in our hearts the hidden springs of confidence, affection, and sympathy. How many of the Lord’s people stand aloof from each other’s society simply from not knowing one another. Did believers in the Lord Jesus more frequently meet in council, in service, in communion, how soon and entirely would the coldness, the party spirit; the jealousies, the erroneous impressions vanish which now, alas! divide the body of Christ, all whose members are “members one of another.” Knowing each other better, they would love each other more; and loving each other more, there would be more ready concession made to the freedom of judgment and the claims of conscience. The clergy of the various sections of the Christian Church stand too wide apart from each other simply because they do not know each other. And if the shepherds are thus sundered, it is no marvel that the sheep are divided! The Church of Christ is essentially one, why should she not be visibly one? Inseparable from Christ, why should we be separated from each other? With an essential unity of faith, why should we not all unite in excluding uncharitableness? Oh! If the Lord’s people—losing sight of every badge but Christian, and of every name but Christ—were to mingle more frequently, confidingly, and prayerfully together, how much more would they find of assimilation, of sympathy, and affection—how much less to sunder, separate, and censure, and how much more to admire, love, and imitate in each other than they had any conception of. “I believe in the communion of saints”—would then be, not a cold, heartless, unbelieving acknowledgment of a creed, but the sincere, glowing avowal of a fact! Apply this to our communion with Jesus. It would be impossible for us to cultivate the habit of telling Him every sin, every sorrow, every temptation, every trial, in a word, every incident of every hour of our daily history, and not increase in a knowledge of Christ. We would then “grow up into Christ in all things.” The flower absorbs the light, the heat, the air, the dew, and so maintains its vitality, unfolds its beauty, and breathes its fragrance. It is by a similar absorption of Christ into our souls that we grow, becoming vigorous, holy, and fruitful. “He that dwells in Me and I in him, brings forth much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing.” Oh! How endeared will Christ become, and God our Father in Him, by this habit of going and telling Jesus everything. The more frequently we go to Jesus the more intimately we shall know Him; and the more intimately we know Him, the more ardently shall we love, self-denyingly serve, and closely resemble Him. Oh! How close, confiding, and endearing will your intimacy become by this habit of going and telling Him everything! How will His glory, loveliness, and excellence unfold to your admiring eye. Day by day, and hour by hour, each exigency of its history will reveal stronger reason why you should admire, love, trust, and glorify Christ. Language cannot describe how growingly precious He will become to your soul; how more intensely your heart’s affections will clasp and firmly entwine around Him, your whole soul striving day by day to please and glorify Him here, longing to be with Him that you might see and enjoy Him hereafter forever.

The Strengthening of Faith
This habit, too, will greatly tend to the nourishing and strengthening of faith. It is faith that takes us to Jesus, and each fresh act of faith invigorates the divine principle. Faith, taking everything to Christ, and bringing back everything from Christ, by this process “grows exceedingly.” Would you, my reader, have a faith powerful and stalwart, a faith that can slay the vaunting foe with a pebble and a sling, that demurs not at probabilities or impossibilities, because it leans upon Him with whom all things are possible, then you must have close transactions with Jesus, the “Author and Finisher of your faith.” The eaglet’s eye acquires strength of vision by gazing upon the sun—thus will your eye of faith be strengthened by “looking unto Jesus,” the “Sun of Righteousness,” in everything, and for everything. This habit of continuous application to the Lord Jesus will keep your heart as an evergreen, planted by streams of water. The springs of its devotion will be kept pure and flowing; its affections fresh and ascending. My reader, true godliness has its empire in the heart. As a man’s heart is, so is he. The heart is the moral mainspring of the soul—it regulates and governs the whole man. Oh! Watch with sleepless vigilance, with the most prayerful interest, the power of godliness in your heart. Let other religious professors, if they will, split hairs and solve abstract problems in theology. Let them speculate and refine, spending their energies and time in upraising but the scaffolding of the building—let the religion of others more consist in frivolous conversation, heartless levity, and unholy gossip about preachers and preaching, churches and societies—criticizing, fault-finding, condemning—with you, my Christian reader, let the one, grand, momentous, absorbing matter be—the religion of God in your soul—the making sure work for eternity. A mere religious professor may talk about ministers and churches, and parishes, and societies all his life, and be lost forever! Alas! Alas! It is with a mournful and solemn conviction of its truth we pen it—the religion of thousands, and of tens of thousands, has no more spiritual vitality than this! Why is it that in the professing Church of God there is so much vain conversation, idle, worldly gossip—so much evil-speaking and backbiting—so much censoriousness, suspicion, and condemning? Alas! It is because there exists so little real, Christlike godliness in those who profess it. Why is it that there is so little of the meekness and gentleness of Christ, of the spirit of charity, kindness, and forbearance—the taking the low place—the refusal to join others in hurling the missile, in uncovering the infirmity, and in inflaming the wound of a Christian brother or sister? Alas! It is because multitudes who, though professing His name, have no close, heart-transactions with Jesus. The more closely you deal with Christ, the more faithfully you will deal with yourself, and the less inclination and time you will have to deal with others. You will feel that to “save yourself,” were a matter sufficiently momentous to absorb every feeling, and thought, and moment; and that, having made sure of this, all the time and energy and sympathy you have to spare would find its appropriate work in endeavoring to “save others.” How is it, then, with you, my reader? Is that kingdom of Jesus, which “comes not with observation,” which “consists not in foods and in drinks, but in righteousness, joy, and peace in the Holy Spirit,” dwelling, advancing, ascending in you? Are you a living soul—enshrining a living Christ—yielding in your life the fruit of a living faith, and cherishing a living hope of life eternal? What present transactions have you with Jesus—in your closet, by the wayside, in your families, and amid the din and conflict of your worldly calling? This will be the test and gauge of the reality and depth of your Christianity—your personal dealings with Christ.

Honoring Jesus
The crowning blessing accruing from this sacred privilege is—the praise, honor, and glory it will bring to Jesus. To secure this as its end were worth embarking in any labor, with any self-denial, and at any cost. To plant one gem in His crown—to blend one note in the anthem of His praise—to add one beam to the sun of His glory—oh!—ten thousand lives spent, ten thousand deaths endured, were as nothing! Conceive, if it be possible, what a continuous revenue of glory is accruing to Jesus from your constant habit of conferring with Him—communing with Him—drawing from Him in all the minute concerns of daily life. Each occasion that you repair to confess at His cross—to draw from His fullness—to lay your grief upon His sympathy—to confide in His counsel—to repose in His love, and to spread around you the adamant shield of His power, you place a fresh diadem upon His head—that head that will before long appear in the clouds of heaven, wearing and radiant with His “many crowns.”
Live in the constant expectation of soon seeing Him face to face—conversing with whom here below, cheered, beguiled, and sweetened many a weary step of your Christian pilgrimage. That moment is speeding on. In a little while and all that now wounds and ruffles, tempts and pollutes, will have disappeared like the foam upon the billow, and you shall eternally repose your weary soul in the bosom of Jesus.
A little while to wear the robe of sadness,
To walk with weary feet through thorny ways,
Then to pour forth the fragrant oil of gladness,
And clasp the girdle round the robe of praise.
Are you reader, entering upon the New Year still unconverted? Oh! We beseech you, begin it with contrition, confession, and prayer at the Cross. Dare not to add another year of impenitence, unbelief, and sin to the many which have gone before to judgment. Seek the “washing of regeneration,” which is, “the renewing of the Holy Spirit,” without which you cannot enter into the kingdom of glory. Seek it with all your heart, and seek it NOW.
Forward, believer in Christ, to the toils, duties, and trials of another stage of life’s journey! Christ is enough for them all, and Christ will be with you in them all, and Christ will triumphantly conduct you through them all. Begin your year—telling Jesus; continue it—telling Jesus; close it—telling Jesus. Imitate the early Christians, who, at the termination of their day of labor, “gathered themselves unto Jesus, and told Him all things, both what they had done, and what they had taught.” Tell Jesus you have no grace but what He communicates—no strength but what He gives—no love but what He inspires—no sympathy but what He vouchsafes. Then will come His sweet and instant response: “Do you hang upon Me, My loved disciple, for all? Then all benediction shall be yours, and yours forever!”
One word before we close. Do not dishonor the Lord by repairing to human counsel and sympathy first, and that failing, then betake yourself to Him. Many Christians are ruled by this principle of making Christ secondary and subordinate to the creature, greatly to their own loss and His discredit. But in all things, in all teaching, in all service, in all obedience, yes, in all your ways, give Jesus the preeminence. He asks it—expects it—and is most worthy of it. Go and tell Jesus first. Make Him your confidant before the creature. The bereaved disciples betook themselves to no mere human sympathy. They went sad and lonely from the grave of their Master to the bosom of their Lord, and buried their sorrow in His loving, sympathizing heart. Imitate their Christ-honoring example. Before you take counsel of man, or ask sympathy of friendship—before you confer and communicate with the dearest and nearest earthly friend—go and tell Jesus. Thus confiding in Him, He will return your confidence a thousand-fold. Pleased with your dependence, honored by your trust, and moved by your appeal, He will graciously respond: “You are My servant, I have chosen you, and not cast you away; fear you not; for I am with you: be not dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you: yes, I will help you; yes, I will uphold you with the right hand of My righteousness.” Enough! My gracious Lord! Enough! Arise, my soul! Go and Tell Jesus!

O Lord! How happy is the time,
When in Your love I rest;
When from my weariness I climb
Even to Your tender breast.

The night of sorrow ends there,
Your rays outshine the sun;
And in Your pardon, and Your care,
The heaven of heavens is won.

Let the world call itself my foe,
Or let the world allure;
I care not for the world—I go
To this tried Friend and sure.

And when life’s fiercest storms are sent
Upon life’s wildest sea,
My little bark is confident,
Because it holds by Thee.

When the law threatens endless death,
Upon the dreadful hill,
Straightway from its consuming breath
My soul mounts higher still;
She hastes to Jesus, wounded, slain,
And finds in Him her home,
Where she shall not go forth again,
And where no death can come.

I do not fear the wilderness,
Where You have been before;
No! Rather would I daily press
After You, near You, more!

You are my strength, on You I lean,
My heart You make sing;
And to Your pastures green at length
Your chosen flock will bring.

And if the gate that opens there
Be closed to other men,
It is not closed to those who share
The heart of Jesus then.

That is not losing much of life,
Which is not losing You,
Who are as present in the strife,
As in the victory!

Therefore, how happy is the time,
When in Your love I rest,
When from my weariness I climb,
Even to Your tender breast.

The night of sorrow ends there,
Your rays outshine the sun,
And in Your pardon and Your care,
The heaven of heavens is won!
(from the German of Dresler)

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

"My Times in God's Hand"

"My times are in your hand." Psalm 31:15.

What confirmation would the precious truth contained in these words derive from the personal experience of the man of God who penned them? Reviewing the past of his eventful history, he would trace the guiding and overshadowing hand of his heavenly Father in all the circumstances of the checkered and diversified scene; and as memory thus recalled the strange and momentous events of his life, with what overpowering solemnity would the conviction force itself upon his mind, that for the form and complexion of that life how little was it indebted to himself! Circumstances which chance could not originate, events which human sagacity could, not foresee, and results which finite experience could not determine, would at once lift his grateful and adoring thoughts to that God of infinite foreknowledge and love, whose overruling providence had guarded with a sleepless eye each circumstance, and whose infinite goodness had guided with a skillful hand each step. With this retrospect before him, with what intensity of feeling would the aged king exclaim: "My Times Are In Your Hand."

But if David felt this truth- that all his interests were in God's keeping, and under His supreme direction- so consolatory, as life drew near its close, how much more cheering may it be to us just entering upon a new year of life, all whose history is, to our view, wisely and beneficently enshrouded in obscurity, and all whose events, from the least to the greatest, are happily beyond our control. "My times are in your hand." Who can give us the heartfelt, soothing influence of this precious truth but the Holy Spirit by whose divine inspiration it was uttered? May He now unfold and apply with His sanctifying, comforting power this portion of his own holy word to the reader's heart!

The declaration that "our times are in the Lord's hand," implies that the future of our history is impenetrably and mysteriously veiled from our sight. We live in a world of mysteries. They meet our eye, awaken our inquiry, and baffle our investigation at every step. Nature is a vast arcade of mysteries. Science is a mystery, truth is a mystery, religion is a mystery, our existence is a mystery, the future of our being is a mystery. And God, who alone can explain all mysteries, is the greatest mystery of all. How little do we understand of the inexplicable wonders of a wonder-working God, "whose thoughts are a great deep," and "whose ways are past finding out."

To God nothing is mysterious. In purpose, nothing is unfixed; in forethought, nothing is unknown; in providence, nothing is contingent. His glance pierces the future as vividly as it beholds the past. "He knows the end, from the beginning." All his doings are parts of a divine, eternal, and harmonious plan. He may make ''darkness his secret place; his pavilion round about him dark waters, and thick clouds of the skies, and to human vision his dispensations may appear gloomy, discrepant, and confused; yet is he, "working all things after the counsel of his own will," and "at the brightness that is before him, his thick clouds pass." and all is transparent and harmonious to his eye.

And why this obscurity thus investing all our future? Would it not make for our present well-being; would it not be a satisfaction and a blessing, could we pull back the mystic veil, and gaze with a farseeing and undimmed eye upon "our times," yet awaiting us this side the grave? Remembering the past, you are, perhaps, ready to say: "Could I but have foreseen, I would have fore-arranged. Had I anticipated the result of such a step, or have known the issue of such a movement, or have safely calculated the consequences of such a measure, I might have pursued an opposite course, and have averted the evil I now deplore, and have spared me the misery I now feel." But hush this vain reasoning! God, your God, O believer! had in wisdom, faithfulness, and love, hidden all the future from your view. "You shall remember all the way which the Lord your God has led you these forty years." How has he guided, counseled, and upheld you! He has led you by a right way. In perplexity he has directed you- in sorrow he has comforted you- in slippery paths his mercy has held you up, and when fallen he has raised you again. From seeming evil he has educed positive good. The mistakes you have made and the follies you have committed in the blindness of your path, and in the sinfulness of your heart, have but led you to a closer acquaintance with, and to a stronger confidence in God. They have opened up to you new and more glorious views of his character and his government; while in leading you closer to the feet of Jesus in self-knowledge and self abhorrence, they have unlocked to you spring of spiritual blessings, fresh, sanctifying, and, unspeakable.

Beloved, God has placed us in a school in which he is teaching us to lay our blind reason at his feet, to cease from our own wisdom and, guidance, and lean upon and confide in him, as children with a parent. The goodness of God to us, combined with a jealous regard to his own glory, constrains him to conceal the path along which he conducts us. His promise is, "I will bring the blind by a way that they knew not; I will lead them in paths that they have not known. I will make darkness light before them, and crooked things straight. These things will I do unto them, and not forsake them."

Could the scenes of this year's history rise in their shadowy outline before us, or were an angel permitted to divulge a single page in the momentous volume of events just opened, how might we shrink from the revelation, and closing the book again, calmly wait until he should unfold its leaves, "in whose hand our times are!" How unfitted should we be to discharge our duties, to sustain our responsibilities, to meet our trials, cope with our difficulties, and bear with our sorrows, were they all to confront us this moment! Oh! how kindly, wisely, and tenderly does our Father deal with us! And in no part of his providential dealings is his goodness more clearly seen than in veiling all our future from our reach. Let us sit down at Jesus' feet, thanking him that the "life which we now live in the flesh," we live not by sight, but by "faith in the Son of God, who loved us, and gave himself for us."

But our "times" all wrapped in impenetrable mystery, are yet in the Lord's hand. The words are emphatic. Our times are not in the hands of angels or of men, still less in our own- they are in the Lord's, hand. It is an individual truth. "MY times." We deal too timidly with our individuality- with, the truth of God as individuals- with Jesus as individuals- with the covenant of grace as individuals- with our responsibilities as individuals. "What," you exclaim, "I, a poor worm of the dust, not worthy of his regard, too insignificant for his noticed, who have a heart so cold, a nature so, depraved, a will so perverse- "are my times in the Lord's hands?" Yes, dear reader, you may humbly adopt these words as, your own, and exultingly exclaim: "My times are in his hand."

How comprehensive, too, is this truth, "My times are in his hand!" Diversified as they may be- whatever the shape in which they are developed, or the complexion which they assume, attractive or repulsive, bathed with light or draped in gloom, all are there, exclusively and safely lodged in the Lord's hand. Let us specify a few of these "times".

Our time of PROSPERITY is in the Lord's hand. There are no circumstances of life in which we are more sadly prone to indulge in self-complaisance than those of earthly prosperity. Industry is enriched, and perseverance rewarded, wealth increases and blessings accumulate, and the "heart grows fat and kicks against God." The merchant-ship returns freighted with treasure- the acres of the tiller are fruitful, and his barns are filled with plenty, or prosperity in some form smiles upon our path, and then, alas! God is forgotten. We arrogate to ourselves the praise of our success. "My hand and the might of my power has gotten me this." But what is the language of God's word? "Beware that you forget not the Lord your God . . . lest when you have eaten and are full, and have built goodly houses and dwelt therein; and when your herds and your flocks multiply, and your silver and your gold is multiplied, and all that you have is multiplied; then your heart be lifted up, and you forget the Lord your God." But, oh! let us remember that all our past and all our coming prosperity, if indeed he shall so appoint it, is in the hand of God. It is his wisdom that suggests our plans, it is his power that guides, and it is his goodness that causes them to succeed. Every flower that blooms in our path, every smile that gladdens it, every mercy that bedews it, yes, "every good and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights." Oh! for grace to recognize God in our mercies, for a heart lifted up in holy returns of love, gratitude and praise! How much sweeter will be our sweets, how much more blessed our blessings, and endeared our endearments, seeing them all dropping from the outstretched, munificent hand of a loving, gracious, and bountiful Father!

But there are times of ADVERSITY, and, they too, are in the Lord's hand. As every sunbeam that brightens, so every cloud that darkens, comes from God. We are subject to great and sudden reverses in our earthly condition. Joy is often succeeded by grief, prosperity by adversity. We are on the pinnacle today- tomorrow at its bottom. Oh! what a change may one event and in one moment create! A storm- a conflagration- a slight oscillation of the funds- the morning's mail- the casual meeting of s a friend, may clothe our life in mourning. But, beloved, all is from the Lord. "Affliction comes not forth of the dust, neither does trouble spring out of the ground." (Job 5:6). Sorrow cannot come until God bids it. Health cannot fade, wealth cannot vanish, comfort cannot decay, friendship cannot chill, loved ones cannot die until he in his sovereignty permits.

Your time of sorrow is his appointment. The bitter cup which it may please the Lord you shall drink this year, will not be mixed by human hands. In the hand of the Lord is that cup. The cloud that may lower on your path will not gather at a creature's bidding. "He makes the clouds his chariot." Some treasure you are now pressing to your heart he may ask you to resign- some blessing you now possess he may bid you relinquish- some fond expectation you now cherish he may will you should forego- some lonely path he may design you should tread, yes, he may even bereave you of all, and yet all, all is in his hand.

His hand- a Father's hand- moving in the thick darkness, is shaping every event, and arranging every dispensation of your life. Has sickness laid you on a bed of suffering? has bereavement darkened your home? has adversity impoverished your resources? has change lessened your comforts? has sorrow in one of its many forms crushed your spirit to the earth? The Lord has done it! In all that has been sent, in all that has been recalled, and in all that has been withheld; his hand, noiseless and unseen, has moved. Ah! yes, that hand of changeless love blend's a sweet with every bitter, pencils a bright rainbow on each dark cloud, upholds each faltering step, shelters within its hollow, and guides with unerring skill, his chosen people safe to eternal glory.

Dear child of God, your afflictions, your trials, your crosses, your losses, your sorrows, all, all are in your heavenly Father's, hand, and they can not come until sent by him. Bow that stricken heart, yield that tempest-tossed soul to his sovereign disposal, to his calm, righteous sway, in the submissive spirit and language of your suffering Savior: "Your will, O my father! not mine, be done. My times of sadness and of grief are in your hand."

Times of SOUL-DISTRESS, spiritual darkness, and conflict, are in his hand. Many such are there in the experience of the true saints of God. Many the hard fought battle, the fiery dart, the desperate wound, the momentary defeat in the Christian's life. Taking advantage of the spiritual mist which may hover around the mind in the time of perplexing care and of gloomy providences, the foe, with stealthy tread, may rush in upon the soul like a flood. And when to this surprisal is added the suspension of the Lord's manifested presence, the veiling of his smile, the silence of his responsive voice, oh! that is a time of soul-distress indeed! But it is in the Lord's hand. No spiritual cloud shades, no mental distress depresses, no fiery dart is launched, that is not by him permitted, and for which there is not a provision by him arranged.

There is nothing which the Lord has taken more entirely and exclusively into his keeping, than the redeemed, sanctified souls of his people. All their interests for eternity are exclusively in his hand. In the infinite fulness of Jesus, in the inexhaustible supply of the covenant, in the exceeding great and precious promises of his word, he has anticipated every spiritual exigence of the believer. How precious is your soul to him who bore all its sins, who exhausted all its curse, who travailed for it in ignominy and suffering, and who ransomed it with his own most precious blood! Guarded, too, by his indwelling Spirit is his kingdom of righteousness, joy, and peace within you. Oh! endeavor to realize that whatever be your mental exercises, spiritual conflicts, doubts and fears, your "times" of soul-despondency are in the Lord's hand. Lodged there, safe are your spiritual interests. "All his saints are in his hand." And he to whose care you have confided your redeemed soul, has pledged himself for its eternal security. Of his own sheep he says: "I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. My Father, who gave them to me is greater than all: and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father's hand."

With like precious faith and humble assurance you are privileged to exclaim with Paul: "I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day." Ah! as soon shall Christ himself perish as one bought with his blood. No member of his body, insignificant though it may be, shall be dissevered. No temple of the Holy Spirit, frail and imperfect though it is, shall be destroyed. Not a soul to whom the divine image has been restored, and the divine nature has been imparted, upon whose heart the name of Jesus has been carved, shall be involved in the final and eternal destruction of the wicked. Nothing shall perish but the earthly and the sensual. Not one grain of precious faith shall be lost, not one spark of divine light shall be extinguished, not one pulsation of spiritual life shall die.

Oh! think of this, you who have fled all sinful and trembling to Jesus, you who cling to him as the limpet to the rock, as the ivy to the oak; never shall you lose that hold of faith you have on Christ, and never will Christ lose that hold of love he has on you. You and Jesus are one, indivisibly and eternally one. Nothing shall separate you from his love, nor sever you from his care, nor exclude you from his sympathy, nor banish you from his heaven of eternal blessedness. You are in Christ the subject of his grace, and "Christ is in you the hope of glory." All your cares are Christ's care, all your sorrows are Christ's sorrow, all your need is Christ's supply, all your sicknesses are Christ's cure, all your crosses are Christ's burden. Your life, temporal, spiritual, eternal, is "hid with Christ in God."

Oh! the unutterable blessings that spring from a vital union with the Lord Jesus! The believer can exultingly say: Christ and I are one! One in nature, one in affection, one in sympathy, one in fellowship, and one through the countless ages of eternity. The life I live is a life of faith in him. I fly to him in the confidence of a loving friend, and I reveal to him my secret sorrow. I confess to him my hidden sin. I acknowledge my heart-backsliding. I make known to him my needs, my sufferings, my fears. I tell him how chilled is my affection, how reserved is my obedience, how imperfect is my service, and yet how I long to love him more ardently, to follow him more closely, to serve him more devotedly, to be more wholly and holily his.

And how does he meet me? with a hearkening ear, with a beaming eye, with a gracious word, with an outstretched hand, with a benignity and a gentleness all like himself. Confide, then, dear reader, your spiritual and deathless interests in the Lord's hand. Careful only to "work out" in the holy life, the grace he has wrought in your soul, thus manifestly a "living epistle of Christ, known and read of all men."

At the time of DEATH. To those who, depressed with a painful foreboding at their final dissolution, are all their lifetime subject to bondage, how consolatory is the reflection that the time of the believer's death is peculiarly in the Lord's hand! It is solemnly true that there is a "time to die". An affecting thought- a time to die! A time when this mortal conflict will be over, when this heart will cease to feel, alike insensible to joy or sorrow, when this head will ache, and these eyes will weep no more, best and holiest of all, a time "when this corruptible shall put on incorruption, and this mortal shall put on immortality," and we shall "see Christ as he is, and be like him." The world we have left will move on then as now. Life's lights and shadows will gather in blended hues around our grave; but wrapped in death's sleep, dreamless sleep, we shall be unconscious of all that once distressed or charmed us- the frown of anger and the smile of love- "forever with the Lord."

If this be so, then, O Christian! why this anxious, trembling fear? Your time of death, with all its attendant circumstances, is in the Lord's hand. All is appointed and arranged by him who loves you and redeemed you- infinite goodness, wisdom, and faithfulness consulting your highest happiness in each circumstance of your departure. The final sickness can not come, the "last enemy" can not strike, until he bids it. All is in his hand; then calmly, confidingly leave life's closing scene with him. You cannot die away from Jesus. Whether your spirit wings its flight at home or abroad, amid strangers or friends, by a lingering process or by a sudden stroke, in brightness or gloom, Jesus will be with you; and upheld by his grace and cheered by his presence, you shall triumphantly exclaim, "Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff they comfort me," bearing your dying testimony to the faithfulness of God and the preciousness of his promises. My time to die is in your hand, O Lord! and there I calmly leave it.

There is a peculiar emphasis in a truth contained in the beautiful words upon which we have been commenting worthy of a more particular notice. In whose hand are the believer's times? In A FATHER'S HAND. Be those times what they may, times of trial, times of temptation, times of suffering, times of peril, times of sunshine or of gloom, of life or death, they are in a parent's hand. Is your present path lone and dreary? Has the Lord seen fit to recall some fond blessing, to deny some earnest request, or painfully to discipline your heart? All this springs from a Father's love as fully as though he had unlocked his treasury and poured its costliest gifts at your feet. Can you enter upon the unknown history of this year, troubles, it may be, looming in the shadowy distance- uncertainty hanging over your future path, not able to forecast a single probability of what may be your future lot- with a firmer, sweeter truth for faith to lean upon than this? "My times are in a Father's hand, and all will, all must be well."

In A REDEEMER'S HAND, too, are our times. That same Redeemer who carried our sorrows in his heart, our curse and transgressions on his soul, our cross on his shoulder, who died, who rose again, and who lives and intercedes for us, and who will gather all his ransomed around him in glory, is your guardian and your guide. Can you not cheerfully confide all your earthly concerns, all your spiritual interests to his keeping and control- "casting all your cares upon him who cares for you"? "Oh! yes," faith replies, "in that hand that still bears in its palm the print of the nail, are all my times; and I will trust and not be afraid."

In Whose Hand, Sinner? UNCONVERTED READER, do you ask, "In whose hand are my times?' I answer, in that infinite Sovereign's, "in whose hand your life is, and whose are all your ways." I confront you, standing upon the threshold of the new year, with this solemn truth- your times are in God's hand. "In him you live, and move, and have your being." You can not be independent of God for a single breath, a single thought, or a single step. From his government you can not break, from his eye you can not hide, from his power you can not flee. He holds you responsible for all your endowments, acquirements, and doings, and before long will say to you, "Give an account of your stewardship."

Oh! that this may be a year of new spiritual life to your soul- of living to the Lord. A new year it then, indeed, will be in your history, such as you have never lived before. Oh! that this year your stubborn will, after so long a resistance- your rebellious heart, after its years of closing and hardening against a beseeching, pleading Savior, may be sweetly constrained to bow to the despised Gospel of Christ- born of the Spirit a child of God, an heir of happiness which the revolution of time and the ages of eternity shall never terminate. Ah! of how many who read these pages may the decree have already gone forth: "Thus says the Lord, this year you shall die!" Oh! dismal sentence to those who have no union with the Lord Jesus!

Dear reader, you are preparing and resolving to spend this year as all the previous years of your life have been spent? What! in hating God, abusing his mercies, in despising his Son, in neglecting his salvation, in hardening your heart in sin, in living for the world and to yourself, and in treasuring up wrath against the day of wrath? Is such a life worthy of your being? Can you bend the knee upon the confines of this year and pray: "Great Author of my being! Father of all mercies! righteous Judge of the world! grant me another year of rebellion and impiety; more time to waste; more mercies to abuse; more means of grace to neglect; more property to squander; more influence to oppose and fight against you?" You shudder at the thought! You could not, for your life, breathe such a prayer. And yet, entering upon this year in an unconverted state, are not your thoughts, temper, and resolves, and ways far more expressive than words, insulting God with the spirit of a petition, the language of which you dare not utter?

Oh! that gently, persuasively drawn by the Holy Spirit, you may now betake yourself to the Lord Jesus as a self-destroyed, yet humble, repentant sinner. Oh! that this may be the happy hour of your spiritual espousals- of your covenant, unreserved surrender to the Lord, to be his child, his servant forever. True happiness, joy, and peace will ever be strangers to your heart until lit tastes the love of the Savior. Nor will you be able to give yourself to the high and noble duties of real life, or to contemplate death with calmness, and the eternity that stretches beyond it with hope, until you are reconciled to God, through the "one Mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus."

In pressing these thoughts upon your attention with equal earnestness and affection, would I exhort you to come to Christ without demurring at your sinfulness, or hesitating on the ground of having no fitness or worthiness to plead. Jesus saves none but sinners. Approach with a price in your hand with which to purchase your salvation, and you will be indignantly rejected! But approach the life-giving waters "without money and without price," and receive salvation as a free gift, and you will be cordially received! The atoning work is finished, the great salvation is purchased, the mighty debt is paid- all perfected and secured by the blood of God's incarnate Son. And now it is his good pleasure and delight to confer this priceless, precious boon upon every one who is of a "contrite and humble spirit," as an act of most free favor, however vile, undeserving, and poor the recipient might be. "By grace are you saved." "Therefore it is of faith that it might be by grace." Before the majesty and splendor of this precious truth all human glory must fade, all human pride must fall.

Were a crown to encircle your brow, or had you lived the life of the most rigid moralist, or were you possessed of all the spoils of ancient legend- yet, if saved you must be saved as was the humble publican, approaching in his spirit and breathing his petition: "God be merciful to me a sinner." That proud, rebellious, self-righteous heart of yours must be laid low in the dust. Oh! descend from the 'Babel of your own works', from the towering summit of which you have profanely hoped to build your way into heaven; tear from off you the 'fig-leaf righteousness' with the covering of which you have vainly sought to veil the moral deformity of your soul, and come and base your hope of heaven upon the "only name given under heaven whereby a sinner might be saved," and enfold yourself believingly in the righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ, and you shall be accepted. "Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus." It is written: "By the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight." And by the same inspiration it is also written: "But to him that works not, but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness." And, then, from this act of most free justification follows this precious, holy result: "Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God, through our Lord Jesus Christ."

Oh! then, by all the deathless interests that are at stake, by the desire for a holy life, a happy death, and a glorious immortality, cease from yourself; relinquish all reliance upon sacraments, religious duties, and charitable works, and under a spiritual, deep conviction of the desperate sinfulness of your fallen and corrupt nature, the "plague of your own heart," your entire inability to save yourself and your utter unpreparedness to stand before the holy Lord God, flee to Christ, and avail yourself of the great salvation which he has, effectually wrought and most freely bestows.

And what will be your reception by the Savior? Does it admit of a doubt? Oh! no, not one. He came into the world to save sinners, and he will save you. His compassion inclines him to save sinners, his power enables him to save sinners, his promise binds him to save sinners. "This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners." And, oh! how easy it is to be saved when the Holy Spirit draws the heart to Christ! It is not great faith, nor deep experience, nor extensive knowledge that are required. The dimmest eye that ever looked to Christ, the feeblest hand that ever took hold of Christ, the most trembling step that ever traveled to Christ, has in it present salvation, has in it life eternal. The smallest measure of real faith will take the soul to heaven. Yes, there is hope for the trembling penitent. Jesus suffered to the uttermost; therefore he is able to "save to the uttermost all that come unto God by him."

Let us, in conclusion, trace THE PRACTICAL INFLUENCE which this truth should exert upon our minds. The present aspect of our "times" as a nation, is gloomy and depressive to a degree. It is "a time of war!" The scourge which our hearts fondly hoped would be staid has fallen upon us with more than expected terror and destruction. The nation is clad in mourning. Scarcely is there a family from the highest to the lowest, that has not felt some vibration of the terrible shock. "Abroad the sword bereaves, at home there is death." Who can paint the anguish or describe the desolateness at the present time of many a home?

We turn to you who are thus so suddenly and deeply bereaved. Your present time of calamity is in the Lord's hand! He has made you a widow that he might be your God- a fatherless one that in him you might find mercy. "Shall not the judge of all the earth do right?" "I wound and I heal." Oh! that this the time of your deep, inconsolable grief may be the time of prayer, of seeking unto Him who has smitten and who alone binds up! "Acquaint now, now yourself with him, and be at peace;" and then, in deep, unmurmuring submission to the divine disposal, you will exclaim: "The cup which my Father has given me; shall I not drink it? He has done all things well."

DON'T BE ANXIOUS ABOUT ANYTHING. Let this precious truth, "My times are in your hand," divest your mind of all needless, anxious care for the present or the future. Exercising simple faith in God, "don't be anxious about anything." "Be content with such things as you have, for he has said, I will never leave you nor forsake you." Learn to be content with your present lot, with God's dealings with, and his disposal of you. You are just where his providence has, in its inscrutable but all-wise and righteous decision, placed you. It may be a position, painful, irksome, trying, but it is right. Oh! yes, it is right! Only aim to glorify him in it. Wherever you are placed, God has a work for you to do, a purpose, through you to be accomplished, in which he blends your happiness with his glory. And when you have learned the lessons of his love, he will transfer you to another and a wider sphere, for whose nobler duties and higher responsibilities the present is, perhaps, but disciplining and preparing you.

COVET, THEN, TO LIVE A LIFE OF DAILY DEPENDENCE UPON GOD. Oh, it is a sweet and holy life! It saves from many a desponding feeling, from many a corroding care, from many an anxious thought, from many a sleepless night, from many a tearful eye, and from many an imprudent and sinful scheme. Repairing to the "covenant ordered in all things and sure," you may confide children, friends, calling, yourself, to the Lord's care, in the fullest assurance that all their 'times' and yours are in his hand.

In a letter addressed by Luther to Melancthon, at Augsburg, there occur these striking remarks, which from their appropriateness to the present subject, I venture to interweave with my own. "Grace and peace in Christ! in Christ I say, and not in the world, amen. I hate with exceeding hatred those extreme cares which consume you. If the cause is unjust, abandon it; if the cause is just, why should we belie the promises of Him who commands us to sleep without fear? Can the devil do more than kill us? Christ will not be lacking to the work of justice and of truth. He lives! He reigns! What fear, then, can we have? God is powerful to upraise his cause if it is overthrown; to make it proceed if it remains motionless; and if we are not worthy of it, he will do it by others. For our cause is in the very hands of him who can say: 'No one shall pluck it out of my hands.' I would not have it in our hands, and it would not be desirable that it were so. I have had many things in my hands, and I have lost them all; but whatever I have been able to place in God's, I still possess."

ALL IN HIS HAND. Oh! yes, beloved reader, thank God that your times, your interests, your salvation, are all out of your hands, and out of the hands of all creatures, supremely and safely in his. Forward in the path of duty, of labor, and of suffering. Aim to resemble Christ more closely in your disposition, your spirit, your whole life. Soon will it be said: "The Master is come, and calls for you." He is coming. "Prepare to meet your God." Let your motto for this year be- Forward! Patient in endurance, submissive in suffering, content with God's allotment; zealous, prayerful, and watchful; be found, "standing in your lot at the end of the days;"

Trust God implicitly for the future. No sorrow comes, but shall open some sweet spring of comfort- no necessity transpires but shall endear a father's care- no affliction befalls but shall be attended with the Savior's tenderest sympathy. In him meet all confluence of grace for your hourly, momentary need. Let your constant prayer be: "Hold me up, and I shall be safe." Let your daily precept be "Casting all your cares upon him, for he cares for you." And then leave God to fulfill, as most faithfully he will, "his own gracious, precious promise: "As your days, so shall your strength be." Thus walking with God through this vale of tears, until you exchange sorrow for joy, suffering for ease, sin for purity, labor for rest, conflict for victory, and all earth's checkered, gloomy scenes; for the changeless, cloudless happiness and glory of heaven.

TIME, HOW SWIFT!

While with ceaseless course the sun
Hastened through the former year,
Many souls their race have run,
Never more to meet us here;
Fixed in an eternal state,
They are done with all below;
We a little longer wait,
But how little- none can know.

As the winged arrow flies,
Speedily the mark to find;
As the lightning from the skies
Darts, and leaves no trace behind.
Swiftly thus our fleeting days
Bear us down life's rapid stream;
Upwards, Lord, our spirits raise,
All below is but a dream.

Thanks for mercies past received,
Pardon of our sins renew;
Teach us, henceforth, how to live
With, eternity in view.
Bless your word to young and old,
Fill us with a Savior's love;
And when life's short tale is told,
May we dwell with you above.

Time, with an unwearied hand,
Pushes round the seasons past;
And in life's frail glass the sand,
Sinks apace, not long to last.
Many, who, as you and I,
The last year assembled thus,
In their silent graves now lie;
Graves will open soon for us!

Daily sin, and care, and strife,
While the Lord prolongs our breath,
Make it but a dying life,
Or a kind of living death.
Wretched they, and most forlorn,
Who no better portion know;
Better never to have been born,
Than to have our all below.

When constrained to go alone,
Leaving all you love behind,
Entering on a world unknown,
What will then support your mind?
When the Lord his summons sends,
Earthly comforts lose their power;
Honor, riches, kindred, friends,
Cannot cheer a dying hour.

Happy souls who fear the Lord;
Time is not too swift for you;
When your Savior gives the word,
Glad you'll bid the world adieu.
Then he'll wipe away your tears;
Near himself appoint your place;
Swifter fly, you rolling years,
Lord, we long to see your face.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

NONE LIKE CHRIST

"How is your beloved better than others?"
Song of Solomon 5:9

The power of contrast is acknowledged by all. The poet studies it in the construction of his epic; the artist in the coloring of his picture; the logician in the arrangement of his argument; the lover of nature as his eye roves over the outspread landscape– all are conscious of the presence and power of this principle. The object of contrast is not to create the ideal, or to foster the fictitious; but to confirm the existence, and heighten the power and impression of the true. It is thus that the beautiful becomes more attractive, the grand more sublime, the good more excellent, and the object which awoke our admiration and inspired our regard, enthrones itself more firmly and supremely upon the soul.

The Word of God is replete with contrasts. In no volume is the effect more striking. How constantly, by an easy and graceful antithesis, the Holy Spirit places in contrast the vanity of idols, and the existence of God; the insignificance of man, and the greatness of Jehovah; the evanescence of things temporal, and the permanence of things eternal; the deformity of sin, and the beauty of holiness; the objects and attractions of earth, and the scenes and allurements of heaven; our waywardness and unworthiness, with God's mercy and love. With what power, beauty, and reality are the great things of God's word thus brought out!

In presenting to you, my reader, the Lord Jesus Christ, as worthy of your undivided affection, supreme confidence, and unreserved service, infinitely distancing and eclipsing all other beings and all other objects brought in competition with him, we purpose adopting this principle; assured that the result must be, with the accompanying blessing of the Holy Spirit, the supreme enthronement of Christ in your admiration, trust, and love, as the "chief among ten thousand, and the one altogether lovely one." Happy shall we be if the conviction of the truth is deepened in your soul, NONE LIKE CHRIST!

Nor could we engage your thoughts upon a subject more suitable to the new and solemn period of time upon which we have entered. You are about to add another deathless chapter to the momentous volume of your personal history. As yet its lines are untraced, its events unrecorded. What that history may be, you have no vision to guide your knowledge; nor, if you are wise and trusting, do you wish to know– calm and fixed in the assurance that it is all prearranged in the covenant that is "ordered in all things, and sure," and that, impenetrable as is the veil that conceals it from your eye, God will permit nothing to transpire but what he has shaped and tinted with just that form and hue that will the most perfectly harmonize and blend, and will the most surely promote, your greatest well-being with his highest glory.

"What is your beloved more than another beloved?" It is clear, from this interrogation, addressed to the Church of Christ, that other and rival beings, other and competing objects, were brought into comparison with Christ, asking, if not a superior, yet an equal share of homage and regard; and the Church is challenged to a vindication of the higher and superior attractions claimed for her beloved Lord. "What is your beloved more than another beloved?"

It is a humiliating fact, that there exists no object, the most trivial and contemptible, which the unrenewed mind will not place in competition with, and choose in preference to, and delight in to the exclusion of the Lord Jesus Christ! Take a brief and summary view of these claimants to man's regard– these rivals of Christ– and see how far they are worthy of a moment's consideration, when brought in contrast with the incarnate Son of God. Before we proceed, however, to particularize, let us premise that this is no new phase or development of our depraved humanity. Our world has ever been a Christ-rejecting world. From the moment the angels' song broke in music upon the plains of Bethlehem, the prediction of the Christ-exalting prophet, Isaiah, commenced its sad fulfillment– "he is despised and rejected of men."

With some individuals, SELF is the rival– self in some of its many forms. Self-righteousness, self-seeking, self-indulgence, self-worship is the acknowledged and enthroned god– the "beloved" object of the unrenewed mind's supreme affection and worship.

With others, the WORLD is preferred to Christ– its acquisitions, opinions, and pleasures. O treacherous world what myriads have you drawn within your insatiable vortex, "drowning men's souls in perdition!" Reader, are you preferring its gayeties, its riches, its honors, its religion to Christ? Pause on the threshold of this solemn period of time, and ask– "What, should I die this year, will the world I have chosen in preference to the Savior do for me when eternity stares me in the face?"

Others place the CREATURE in competition with Christ; the creature and not the Savior is their "beloved." But what a fearful crime are they chargeable with, "who worship and serve the creature more (or rather) than the Creator, who is blessed forever." The creature is the defaced, the spoiled image of God. To prefer this marred and ruined temple to the glorious Being who constructed it, is to place yourself upon a level with the idolatrous Persian, who in his blindness worships the sun as the image of the Deity.

But what superior excellence and attraction has an earthly beloved, that you should choose, love, and adore it in preference to the Heavenly One, who, as human, is "fairer than the children of men," and who, as divine, is "God over all, blessed for evermore"? God will not hold him guiltless who loves, worships, and serves the creature rather than the Creator. Thus, there is nothing earthly, base, and contemptible which the natural man will not place above God, and prefer to Christ. His estate, his rank, his talents, his reputation, his very person, is "made to sit in the temple of God, showing itself that it is God," receiving the incense of adoration and worship, which alone belongs to Jehovah.

Reader, whatever earthly object reigns supreme in your mind and affections, dethrones and supplants the Lord Jesus. It may be your daily calling, or some pleasure of memory, or some object of taste– music, sculpture, painting, literature, science– whatever the master-passion of your soul, the supreme, all-engrossing object of your life, it is your Christ, your Savior, your beloved, your all; and with this, your only portion and preparation, you are, in a little while, to confront the bar of God "Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also."

But we approach yet closer our subject, and proceed to unfold the preeminent place Christ occupies in the universe of life, beauty, and love– in the world of nature and of grace– showing that there is not, amid this vast assemblage of magnificent objects and glorious beings, one like Christ.

"None like Christ!" How familiar is this sentiment to the family of God. Sometimes it is the expression of gladsome joy, at others, breathed in sadness and in grief. When some beam of holy rapture has lighted up the soul, and the preciousness of the Savior is felt, then the tongue exclaims, "None like Christ!"– there is no joy like that which Jesus inspires! Or, when some scheme of human happiness is blighted, some cherished friendship chilled, some idol-god smitten from its shrine, some earthly spring dried, turning from the scene, spirit-wounded, heart-saddened, and disappointed, the soul has fled anew to Christ, its true attraction and rest, and with a depth of emotion and an emphasis of expression, the inspiration only of such a feeling, the believer has exclaimed– "Lord, there is none like yourself! I learn your transcendent worth, I experience your matchless love, I behold your unrivaled beauty, I feel your inimitable tenderness, gentleness, and sympathy in this hour when my spirit is overwhelmed within me, and my earthly treasures float a scattered wreck upon the surging waters through which I come to you!"

But follow us, dear reader, while, in a, few particulars, we attempt to justify the preeminence of the Savior, and establish your believing soul in the truth that "there is none like Christ!"

I. No GLORY like His.

We begin with the statement, that there is no glory like Christ's glory. The universe is full of glory, because it is full of God. But God designed that his Son should occupy a place among created intelligences equal to himself touching his divinity, and inferior to himself only as touching his humanity; and both, mysteriously combined, constituting him "the head of all principalities and powers;" and, "that all men should honor the Son, even as they honor the Father," of whose glory Christ is the effulgence, and of whose substance Christ is the exact impress. The deep gloom of earth was never illumined with such a light as when the Son of God descended from heaven; and the brightness of heaven never shone forth with such a luster as when he returned back from earth, invested with the sinless robe of our nature– the divine prophet– the atoning priest– the triumphant king. Marvel not that all the hierarchies of heaven bend low before that central throne on which sits the glorified Redeemer, and that at his feet the elders cast their crowns. Surely, it is the wonder and the glory and hallelujah of heaven, that divinity could stoop so low, and not be less divine; and that humanity could rise so high, and not be less human. Oh! there is no glory like Christ's glory.

Reader, can you, with the exulting Evangelist, exclaim– "We have seen his glory, the glory of the only-begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth." Judge of the sacred vision by its hallowed effects– "We all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the spirit of the Lord." This transforming, sanctifying influence of Christ's surpassing glory is real and palpable. One beam darting into your heart will pale the glory of the world, the glory of the creature, and the glory of self. And when this divine sun has risen resplendent on your soul– a child of darkness though you are– a worm of earth hiding in your obscurity and gloom– you may emerge from your cloistered solitude and woe, bask in its warmth, sun yourself in its effulgence, and exult that, as a pardoned sinner, a justified believer, an adopted child, all this glory of Christ's is yours– your robe of righteousness and your diadem of beauty– constituting you a king and a priest unto God.

Oh! rest not, beloved reader, until this divine light has come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon you. Then, and not until then, will you arise and shine in the beauty of holiness, a child of the light, shedding its luster all around you; and henceforth, whatever be the leadings of your Savior, or the dealings of your God, the way along which he conducts you, checkered, winding, lonely, will be that of the "just, which is as the shining light which shines more and more unto the perfect day."

II. No BEAUTY like His.

Another observation naturally results from this– there is no beauty like Christ's beauty. We might expect that such divine glory, if ever it tabernacled on earth– the world's resplendent Shekinah– would be enshrined in a temple in all respects worthy of its dignity. We therefore find language like this– "When he comes into the world he says, sacrifice and offering you do not desire, but a body have you prepared me." It was a body prepared by the Holy Spirit, of real, yet sinless flesh, in which the Son of God was to dwell. Hence we find the inspired artist, in portraying Christ's beauty as man, represents him as "fairer than the children of men– grace is poured into your lips." Himself the source and author of all beauty, his own beauty eclipses all. We love to trace the creations of his beauty, in the varied and endless forms of loveliness which still linger, adorning and enriching this fallen world. Those bright constellations– Christ created them; those burning suns– Christ kindled them; those snow-wreathed Alps, those cloud-capped hills– Christ raised them; those verdant valleys– Christ spread them; that blushing rose, that graceful lily, that exquisite fern, that curious sea-flower tossed upon the shore, that wayside violet that screens the dew-drop from the sun, that winding stream, that leafy grove– Christ formed and penciled it all– Christ clad that magnificent landscape with its robe of living green; scented the air with its fragrance; and hollowed out the depth of that expanding ocean dimpled with beauty by the gentle breeze, or dreadful in its grandeur when trod by the giant storm. Truly, "he has made everything beautiful in his time." Oh! I delight to see the incarnate God, who died to save, scattering from the opulence of his own boundless resources all this jewelry, making man's sinful home so rich, so lovely, so attractive.

But his own beauty, who can describe it? His person so lovely, his nature so holy, his heart so fond, his spirit so gentle, his look so winning, his voice so soothing. His whole character, life, and demeanor so inlaid and resplendent with every human, spiritual, and divine perfection– truly, it was no imaginative picture, and it was no mere oriental imagery with which the Church, in her just and lofty conception, described him as the "Chief among ten thousand, and the altogether lovely one."

But Christ's beauty is shared with all those who have union with him. Washed in his blood, robed with his righteousness, and adorned with his graces, each believer is lovely, through his loveliness put upon him. And there is more of wonder, because there is more of God, there is more of beauty, because there is more of Christ, in that poor sinner who clings in penitence, faith, and love to the cross, looking up to God as a pardoned child, and pulsating with a life derived from the indwelling spirit, than in all this vast creation, enameled and sparkling with endless forms of loveliness.

Reader, has Christ's beauty caught your eye, and penetrated your soul, transforming you– reflecting his image in your Christ-like principles, your Christ-like spirit, your Christ-like walk, your whole Christ-like life? Then, dim and imperfect as is the copy, before long it will be complete, when you "shall see the King in his beauty," and join the faultless throng who encircle the throne of God and the Lamb. Oh! then, be it your employment to contemplate, study, and reflect the beauty of Christ, for there is no beauty like his!

"It is a finished portrait!" exclaimed an accomplished infidel, as the character of Christ was delineated to his view. It is a finished portrait– examine it, transfer it to yourself, and beware how you allow a creature's beauty– a being of human loveliness and love– to veil or shade a scintillation of Christ's surpassing beauty from your eye.

III. No LOVE like His.

There is no love like the love of Christ. The association of contrast will aid us here. God, who is love, is the author of all human affection. Love is the creation of Deity, the descendant of heaven, the reflection of God; and he whose soul is the most replete with divine love is the most like God. Paralyzed though our humanity is by the fall, tainted as it is by sin, the human heart is still the home of love in some of its loftiest and purest forms. It is impossible to behold its creations without the profoundest reverence. Who can stand, for instance, in the presence of a mother's love and not be awed by its dignity, won by its power, and melted by its tenderness?

But there is a love which equals, a love which excels, a love which surpasses it– it is the love of Christ! Institute your contrast. Select from among the different relations of life, the nearest and dearest; choose from those relations the deepest, purest, truest love that ever warmed the human breast, prompting to generous and noble deeds, to tender and touching expressions, to costly and precious sacrifices; and place it side by side with the divine love that chose you, the love that ransomed you, the love that called you, the love that soothes you, the love whose eyelid never closes, whose accents never change, whose warmth never chills, whose hand is never withdrawn– "the love of Christ which passes knowledge" and it is the very antithesis of selfishness. The love of Christ stands out in the 'history of the love', as the divinest, the holiest, the strongest of all love– unequaled, unparalleled, unsurpassed. Oh! there is no love like Christ's love! Trace its features.

1. The love of Christ is a REVEALING love. It uplifts the veil from the heart of God, and shows how that heart loves me. I would have known nothing of the love of my Father in heaven, but for the love of my Savior on earth. And that penitent, believing soul that feels the softest, gentlest pulse of Christ's love throbbing in his breast, knows more of the heart of God, sees more of the glory of God, and understands more of the character of God, than were earth and sky and sea to collect all their wonders and lay them at his feet.

2. The love of Christ is a CONDESCENDING love. No other love ever stooped like Christ's love. Go to Bethlehem and behold its lowliness, and as you return, pause awhile at Gethsemane, and gaze upon its sorrow, then pursue your way to Calvary, and learn, in the ignominy, in the curse, in the gloom, in the desertion, in the tortures, in the crimson tide of that cross– how low Christ's love has stooped. And still it stoops! It bends to all your circumstances. You can be conscious of the becloudings of no guilt it will not cancel, of the pressure of no sin it will not lighten, of the chafings of no cross it will not heal, of the depths of no sorrow it will not reach, of the dreary loneliness of no path it will not illumine and cheer. Oh! is there a home on earth where the love of Christ most loves to dwell, where you will oftener find, yes, always meet it? It is the heart-broken, contrite, and humbled for sin!

3. The love of Christ is a SELF-SACRIFICING love. "Christ has loved us, and has given himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling savor." What a laborious life, what a suffering death was his, and all was but the out-paying, outpouring of his love. Every precept of the broken law he obeyed, every penalty of an exacting justice he endured. The path that conducted him from Bethlehem to Calvary wound its lonesome way through scenes of humiliation and insult, of trial and privation, the storm growing darker and darker, the thunder waxing louder and louder, and the lightning gleaming brighter and brighter, until its pivotal horrors gathered round the cross and crushed the Son of God! O marvelous love of Christ! what more could you do than you have done? To what lower depth of ignominy could you stoop? What darker sorrow could you endure? Where did another cross ever impale such a victim, or illustrate such love?

4. Nor is there any love so FORGIVING as Christ's love. Forgiveness of injury is an essential element of true affection. We cannot see how love can exist at the same moment and in the same breast with an unbending, unrelenting, unforgiving spirit. Real love is so unique and lofty a passion, so Godlike and divine in its nature and properties, we can not conceive of it but in alliance with every ennobling, elevating, and worthy sentiment. Selfishness, malignity, revenge, uncharitableness, and all evil speaking, are passions of our fallen and depraved humanity, so hateful and degrading, it would seem impossible that they should exist for an instant in the same atmosphere with true affection.

But a yet loftier form, a more sublime embodiment of love is presented to us in the love of God which is in Christ Jesus. God cannot love– we speak reverently– and not forgive. Those whom God loves, God pardons. That God regards every individual of the fallen race with a feeling of benevolence, is unquestionable; "for he makes his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust;" but those to whom the love of God extends his everlasting, his special, and his redeeming love– the gracious, the full, the eternal forgiveness of all sin likewise extends. God could not love a being and give that being over into the hands of a stern, avenging justice. Divine love will never lose the lowest and unworthiest object of its affections.

If, my reader, you feel conscious that you love God, though your affection be but as a smoldering ember, as a glimmering spark, be sure of this, that God first loved you; and loving, he has pardoned you; and pardoning, he will preserve you to his heavenly kingdom, that you may behold his glory, and enjoy his presence forever.

We repeat the remark, there is no love so forgiving as Christ's love. A human love may for an instant hesitate and falter; it may dwell upon the wrong inflicted, the injury done, the wound still bleeding; may, in its very muteness, speak in tones of inexpressible sadness, of confidence betrayed, of feelings lacerated, of friendship sported with, and the heart may find it difficult to take back the wrong-doer– the offender forgiven and the offense forgotten– to its embrace. But not so Jesus; he has canceled, obliterated, erased every shadow of a shade of his people's sins, and they shall come no more into remembrance. "Then Peter came to him, and said, Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? until seven times? Jesus said unto him– I say not unto you until seven times; but until seventy times seven."

Contrast this love, my reader– the forgiving disciple, the forgiving Savior– and then exclaim– "Who is a God like you, who pardons iniquity, and passes by the transgression of the remnant of his heritage? He retains not his anger forever, because he delights in mercy."

There is no love, too, so gentle, so patient, so enduring, as Christ's love. Again and again you have questioned it, wounded it, forsaken it; again and again you have returned to it with tears, confession, and humiliation, and have found it as unchilled and unchanged as his nature. It has borne with your doubts, has been silent beneath your murmurings, has veiled your infirmities, and has planted itself a thousand times over between you and your unseen and implacable foe. It has never declined with your fickleness, nor frozen with your coldness, nor upbraided you for your backslidings, but all the day long, tracking your wandering, winding way, it has hovered around you with a presence that has encircled you within its divine, all-enshrouding, and invincible shield. Truly, there is no love like Christ's!

Nor is there any love that so chimes with human grief as his. Born in sorrow, schooled in adversity, baptized in suffering, acquainted with grief in its every shape, it is just the love for which our sorrows pant. There is but one heart in this vast universe that can meet your case, O child of affliction! it is the divine, yet human heart of Christ. All other love and sympathy, the most intense and feeling, touches but the surface of our grief. Its trembling hand often irritates the wound it seeks to heal; or, perhaps, from the very intensity of its sympathy, catches the contagion of our grief, and sinks at our side helpless, hopeless, and despairing. Then it is the love of Christ approaches, touches us, and we are healed; speaks to us, and all is peace. "O unexampled love! Love nowhere to be found, less than divine."

How much of sacred meaning is contained in the prayer breathed by Paul on behalf of the Thessalonian saints– "The Lord direct your hearts into the love of God." The image is expressive. You have often, doubtless, trodden in pensive thought the sands which belt some expanded ocean, when the tide has ebbed, and have marked the undulating surface of reef and shallow that has traced and disfigured it. You have revisited the spot when that tide has rolled back in its majesty and fullness, and lo! not a vestige of the former scene appeared; every shallow is filled, every line of blemish is erased, and the blue waves toss their jocund heads as gracefully and musically as ever.

Such is the love of Christ! When this divine ocean recedes from your soul, you are filled with dismay at the spectacle that appears is one of emptiness, barrenness, and deformity. The love of Christ in the soul depressed, all is depressed. That ebbing tide has borne upon its receding wave the heart's last throb of gladness, and the soul's last gleam of hope, and nothing meets the eye but spiritual aridness and sin. Alarmed at the sad picture, you are roused to prayer, and you cry– "Restore unto me the joys of your salvation!" Your petition is accepted, and the response is heard, "I am returned to Jerusalem with mercies," and once more Christ's love flows back in gentle wavelets upon your soul, veiling every infirmity, and nothing but the sweetest melody breathes from your heaving bosom.

IV. No SAVIOR like Him.

There is no Savior like Christ. Sin is inventive; itself the greatest invention of all. It is Satan's infernal machine for destroying precious souls by the million! In nothing is his ingenuity and power more put forth than in constructing expedients of salvation other than the atoning sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ. But Jesus is the one and only Savior of men; "neither is there salvation in any other; for there is no other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved." It is the glory of Christ's salvation that it is perfectly adapted to every condition of our fallen and helpless humanity. Christianity is the only religion that fully recognizes the natural and utter depravity of our nature, and our consequent impotence to save ourselves. Jesus, therefore, is the Savior of sinners. He has undertaken to save us just as we are. He finds us a ruin, and recreates us; he finds us fallen, and raises us up; he finds us guilty, and he cleanses us; he finds us condemned, and he justifies us– all our salvation is in him. All the merit God requires, all the help man needs, all the grace and strength our salvation demands, dwells in infinite fullness in Christ.

My reader, your everlasting future of happiness or of woe depends upon your acceptance of Christ as your Savior! Compared with this, your vital union with the Lord Jesus– churches are nothing, sacraments are nothing, religious duties are nothing, rites and ceremonies are nothing– because Christ must be all in the momentous matter of your everlasting well-being. Nothing saves you but faith in Christ, and, possessing that faith, nothing shall condemn you. You may adopt the soundest creed, may join the most apostolic communion, and may observe the most rigid austerities, and yet not be a Christian. United by faith to Christ, you may be saved in any Church; separated from Christ, you can be saved in no Church; "for other foundation can no man lay than what is laid, which is Jesus Christ." What a Savior, then, is Christ!

That there should be to us lost sinners any Savior, is marvelous; but that there should be provided for us such a Savior as Christ is, so divine and human, so atoning and gracious, so able and willing, distances all thought, and is above all praise. None will he reject, who come to him. Oh! it is impossible to exaggerate this statement. All thought droops, all words fail in their attempt to show what a Savior Christ is to poor lost sinners. He saves to the uttermost. He saves from the lowest depth of ruin, from the loftiest height of guilt, from the farthest limit of sin, from the utmost verge of the yawning precipice, from the very mouth of hell! "Where sin has abounded, grace does much more abound."

If, abjuring all human merit, bewailing and deploring all sin, you accept as a free-grace bestowment, the salvation Christ wrought in his soul's travail on the cross, you shall be saved. If you stay away from Christ, your best righteousness will not preserve you from the eternal pains of hell. If you humbly and believingly come to Christ, your worst sins will not exclude you from the everlasting joys and blessedness of heaven. But it is of the utmost moment that you clearly recognize the only character and the sole ground on which Christ will save you. He will only save you "as a sinner", and on the ground of his finished work, his infinite merit, atoning blood, and righteousness. You must stand where the tax-collector stood; must kneel where the "woman who was a sinner" knelt; must feel with Saul of Tarsus, that you are the "chief of sinners," must look and appeal to him with the true penitence and simple faith of the dying malefactor, and you shall be saved!

Cling Closer to Him! Believer in Jesus! cling closer and closer to the Savior, for there is none like unto him! Let the life you live be a daily coming up out of self, into Christ. Place no limit to your transactions with Jesus. As yet you have but touched the edge of his ocean-fullness, you have but tasted that he is gracious, you have but crept beneath the hem of his ample robe. Oh! let this year be one of advance; your motto, "forward." The truth each day's history will but confirm you in is, "There is none like Christ." The more you trust to, and the more you draw from him, the deeper and sweeter will be your conviction and experience of this. It is a truth he intends you shall experimentally learn. He will have you prize, and love, and serve him above and beyond all others.

The process by which you reach this high and holy attainment may be trying, the path rugged and toilsome, the ascent steep and difficult; it may cost you many a severe pang, many a deep sigh, many a lonely tear, many a sad wrench; nevertheless, a clearer realization of this truth, "none like Christ, none so near, none so powerful, none so precious," will more than recompense for all. Christ, in the sufficiency of his love and grace, will come and fill the blank, and soothe the pain, and dry the tear, and you shall look up, and with more than a seraph's rapture exclaim– "Whom have I in heaven but you? and there is none upon earth that I desire beside you."

V. No TEACHER like Him.

There is no teacher like Christ. Upon this point we can venture but a single remark. The Anointed of God, it is his office to reveal to us the great things of the Gospel. We are truly and savingly taught only as we are taught by him. Thankful for human teachers, we yet must exclaim– "Who teaches like Christ?" With immediate access to our minds, and a quick avenue to our hearts, by one text, by one trial, and by one circumstance of our history, he can, in a moment, bring us into the experience of the deepest and most spiritual truth. Who teaches with the authority, or with the skill, or with the patience and gentleness of Christ? Become his student, beloved reader, enter as a disciple his school, and the Holy Spirit, whose office it is to glorify Christ, will lead you into all truth. Oh! that this may be a year of deeper, more spiritual teaching! Oh! that we may know more of our own nothingness and insufficiency, and more of Christ's fullness, loveliness, and love! Lord that which I know not, teach me, for who teaches to profit like yourself?

VI. No FRIEND like Him.

There is no Friend like Christ. Beloved, it is possible that having many friends, you need yet one. God has, perhaps, endowed you with a nature keenly susceptible, your heart expanding to the warm and genial influence of true friendship. There is in your breast the responsive power of love, yet yearning for its object. Or, perhaps, the cold blast of sorrow has swept over the garden of your confiding affections, and the finest feelings of your nature, torn from the support to which they clung, lie broken, wounded, and bleeding. You yearn for a friend, in the wisdom of whose counsel, in the depth of whose affection, in the delicacy of whose sympathy, in the patience of whose endurance you can implicitly and ever rely; and from whose presence nothing for a moment separates. That friend is Christ! "I call you not servants, but friends," is his gracious avowal of the relation. "He is a friend that sticks closer than a brother."

There is not a friend on earth who loves you with his affection, who compassionates you with his sympathy, or is so powerful, so faithful, so near to you as Christ. Human friends do, indeed, divide our cares and double our joys; but Jesus does more. He takes all our cares upon himself, absorbs all our sorrows in himself, and makes all his joy our own. Let this be a year of closer friendship with Christ! Confide in his love, avail yourself of his power, and abase yourself worthy of so precious a friend. Beware, in your dealings with him, of distrust, of shyness, of cooled affection. Place in him your unquestioning confidence, and give him your undivided heart. Let not the sad memories of past fickleness and failure fling their dark shadows on the future, but enter upon that future surrendering yourself afresh to Christ as your best Friend.

Oh! there is none like him. Leave him for a while, though you may, for others, you return to him again with a yet deeper conviction of his superiority, exclaiming– "I find no friend like Christ. No love soothes me, no smile gladdens me, no voice cheers me, no arm supports me as his!"

You are entering upon a year which must be one of human infirmity, toil, and trial. Remember your chief, your best, your only Friend took upon him all your human infirmities, is identified with all your desires, and is acquainted with all your lonely sorrows. Now that he is elevated to the loftiest reach of purity, to the highest degree of dignity and glory, and that that heart, once the abode of overshadowing grief, is all sunshine now, but fits him all the more exquisitely as the all-powerful, all-helpful, all-loving, all-tender, ever-present Friend and companion of your homeward path to God.

O Christ! you ever have been, you are, and you shall ever be my Friend! In adversity, I will hide beneath your sheltering wing; in sorrow, I will nestle within your loving bosom; in weakness, I will entwine around your upholding arm; in need, I will repair to your boundless resources; in sickness, in languor, and in suffering, I will enfold around me your all-divine, all-human, all-pervading, all-soothing sympathy–
"And when I die,
Receive me, I'll cry,
For, Lord, you have loved me,
I can not tell why."

VII. No SERVICE like His.

And what service can be placed in competition with the service of Christ? The profession of Christian discipleship involves a service. The Christian life must needs have scope for the unfolding of its powers, and a field for the employment of its energies. But for the activity of Christianity our religion would become paralyzed and be dwarfed. It is a wise and merciful arrangement of its Author, that for the vital forces– the muscle and nerve and life of our Christianity– there should be provided a sphere ample and appropriate for their full development and play.

The graces implanted in the soul– graces instinct with all the energy and power of the divine, before whose invincible might the fiercest assaults of the foe have been repelled, and the armies of the aliens put to flight– would become shriveled and collapsed, a moral atrophy seizing the whole soul, but for the service which summons them to action. Christ's kingdom supplies the appropriate and commanding sphere. The field of your exertion may be extended or circumscribed, just as God appoints. It may be the vast amphitheater encircled by a great crowd of witnesses, gazing intently and anxiously upon your wrestling with sin and your battle with error; or, it may be some shaded nook, secluded from every eye, unaided and uncheered by human sympathy. Perhaps the sacred enclosure of home, or the night-watches of a sick-room, or the self-denying task of instructing a crude and sluggish class in the simple elements of the Gospel– yet is it Christ's service which engages you, and as such, it is perfect freedom and exquisite delight.

And truly there is no service to be compared with it– so ennobling, so satisfying, so joy-inspiring– or that brings with it so much of present and rich reward. Servant of Christ! keep good heart! Listen to your Master's feet behind you, upholding and cheering you on. He will soon come and pay you your full wages– will wipe the sweat of toil from your brow, and wreathe it with an amaranthine crown of glory, honor, and immortality. Then comes the welcome and reward– "Well done, good and faithful servant, enter into the joy of your Lord."

With such a service, and such a recompense, who, with but a spark of the love of Christ in his heart, will not exclaim– "Here, Lord, am I, what will you have me to do?" I have but one life– you have bought it with your life-blood– may it be yours– yours wholly, forever yours."

Christian reader, be up and doing– why do you stand all the day idle? Go, work in your Lord's vineyard. With a significance more profound, and with an earnestness more intense than that with which the words were uttered by the Mohammedan chief, pointing his sword to earth and then up to heaven, would we say to you– "Here is the place of labor; there is the place of rest."

'Tis not for man to trifle; life is brief,
And sin is here;
Our age is but the falling of a leaf,
A dropping tear.
We have no time to sport away the hours;
All must be earnest in a world like ours.
Not many lives, but only one have we;
One, only one–
How sacred should that one life ever be–
That narrow span!
Day after day filled up with blessed toil,
Hour after hour still bringing in new spoil."

There is no friend like Christ! The truth upon which we have been endeavoring to concentrate your thoughts, and with which we would yet a few moments longer detain you, is one of great practical influence. It chimes with every event, circumstance, and situation of your life. Let your faith deal with it as a divine verity, as a practical reality, that in whatever position God places you, he intends, by his dealings in providence, and by his teaching in grace, to bring you into the deeper experience of this the most precious of all experimental and practical truths– "No one can meet my case like Christ."

Whatever, through this year, your position may be– and I will hypothetically place it– let faith reason thus– "I am in great adversity; why should I resort to the help of man, he may fail me– there is none like Christ. I am in profound grief, my heart is melted within me; why should I repair to the soothing of human sympathy, it may disappoint me– there is none like Christ. I am in a great strait; insurmountable difficulties, inextricable perplexities weave their network around my path, and I am at my wit's end; why should I betake myself to human counsel– it may mislead me– there is none like Christ. My future looks dark and lowering– disease undermining my health– my energies failing, and the duties, responsibilities, and labors for which I have taxed my utmost powers, all lie untouched and neglected, yet why should I despond– there is none like Christ. My temporal circumstances are narrowing, resources fail me, poverty, with its humiliating attendants, stares me in the face, yet why should I yield to unbelief– there is none lice Christ. My corruptions are strong, my temptations irresistible, my sins many, my doubts and fears weigh me down to the dust, yet why should I despair– there is none like Christ. I am approaching the solemn hour of death, heart and flesh are failing me, and the veil of eternity is slowly rising to my view, yet why should I fear, and tremble, and shrink back, I have committed my soul to my Savior, and– there is none like Christ."

And, oh! what a mercy that you have never found one that could for a moment take his place; that, separated, perhaps exiled from all others, you are enclosed to Christ alone, nor wish another being to share your confidence or divide your affection with him. It is possible that you have made the experiment. You have traveled the circle of creation's good, have sipped at many springs, have gathered many flowers, have sought repose in many an embowered spot, but all have failed. You have returned to your true rest, exclaiming– "None like Christ. I find no love so soothing as his, no friendship so true, so gentle as his, no communion like communion with him. Christ is my all and in all."

Does the world challenge– "What is your beloved more than another beloved?" Your answer is at hand– "My beloved bore my sins, opened in his heart a fountain in which I am washed whiter than snow. My beloved sustains my burdens, counsels my perplexities, heals my wounds, dries my tears, supplies my needs, bears with my infirmities, upholds my steps, and cheers my pathway to the tomb. My beloved will be with me in the valley of the shadow of death, and with his presence I shall fear no evil. My beloved has gone to prepare a place for me in the many-mansioned house of my Father, and will come again and receive me to himself, that where he is, I may be also. My beloved will walk with me in the gold-paved streets of the new Jerusalem, will lead me to fountains of living waters, and will wipe every tear from my eyes. This is my beloved, and this is my Friend!"

Therefore Stand Firm. And yet have we need of constant vigilance, lest we should not always and in everything give Christ the preeminence. The rival interests, and the antagonistic forces of the world and the flesh are in perpetual play. These demand that, with the prophet, we should "stand continually upon the watchtower in the daytime, and be set in our wards whole nights." Should you discover any encroachment of your worldly calling upon the claims Christ has to your time and service, any rival affections to the claims he has to your whole heart, any secret demur to the claims he has to your unreserved obedience; should you, in a word, detect the undue ascendency or influence of any one being or object whose presence and power tends to shade the beauty, lessen the attractions, weaken the supremacy, or share the throne of Christ in your soul– that being and that object must be relinquished at once and forever!

Oh! what competitor can stand side by side with Christ? No minister, or pastor, or church, or friend, or companion, can bear a moment's comparison with Jesus. Not one who can assist you, defend you, provide for you, or bear with you as Jesus, who when the snow-flakes of wintry adversity fall thick and fast, and its cold blast moans drearily around you, will not leave yet side, who will be first to enter the house of woe, across whose threshold the loved remains have just been borne, to speak words of comfort to your bereaved heart; who will sustain you in languor, bend over you in sickness, and when the last look, before the eye is fixed and glazed, and the last breath, before the lips are mute and immovable in death, shall come, will be with you, viewless and noiseless to the attendant watchers, sustaining your spirit in the parting hour, then bearing it in his own warm bosom to the home eternally made ready. Then cling and adhere to Christ, and in all things give him the preeminence.

"Enthrone the precious Savior in your heart,
Let all your homage unto him be paid;
Allow no idol to usurp in part
The glory due to him who all things made.
In thought, word, deed, your life to him be given,
You shall be blessed on earth, and saved in heaven."

Be Faithful to His Word. There is yet another caution I would venture to give in reference to some of the social and popular movements of the day, the tendency of which, without due vigilance on the part of the sincere and earnest friends of true religion, may be adverse to its best interests, fatally injurious to the individuals contemplated by these movements, and subversive of the supremacy of Christ and his truth. We hail with gratitude and hope all efforts to advance "social science" and intellectual improvement, provided those endeavors are sustained and sanctified by Christian principle. I am thoroughly convinced that true national advancement can only be successfully secured by the power of a living Christianity. All other modes of elevating the masses utterly fail of reaching them. It is impossible to close the eye to the fact that, after all the exertions of our literary and scientific institutions, our libraries, reading-rooms, and lectures, there teems outside and far beyond our efforts, a vast outlying population of living beings, dwelling in ignorance and neglect, each one of whom might give utterance to the exclamation– "No man has cared for my soul!"

By what agency are we to compass and by what means are we to instruct them? We at once answer, by the feet of the city and the rural missionary, and by the sole instrument of Christ's Gospel. But widely different from this is the object promoted by "social science" and its kindred associations. And what is the result? We are advancing in secular knowledge and science, but, at the same time, we are equally advancing in worldliness, luxury, and indulgence; in extravagance of dress, and modes of life that, in numerous cases, far overtop reasonable and legitimate income. The consequences must be serious! The history of nations is luminous in the testimony it bears to the fact that high perfection in art and science, in intellectual improvement, luxury, and indulgence, apart from the conservative influence of Christianity, has ever been the culminating point that has marked their decadence and dissolution. We have passed through one phase of our national history, and "hero-worship" is nearly giving place to the worship of "social science," secular knowledge, and intellectual advancement. I can not look but with the most painful apprehension and alarm upon the unchristianized condition toward which we are as a nation fast drifting. Compromise at home, and neutrality abroad, is gradually blotting Christianity from our national escutcheon. It seriously behooves the ministers of the Gospel, our devout statesmen and senators, to be fully awake. If we are to retain the position God has given us in the scale of nations, or to rise to a yet loftier altitude of moral greatness and power, it will not be by the means of social science, worldly knowledge, wealth, luxury, and refinement– but by the influence of a living, vitalizing Christianity alone!

The Bible and its religion must be paramount; Christ and his Gospel must have the preeminence. Reason and learning must stand at the bar of Revelation, reverence its precepts, adopt its principles, and obey its voice. The moment that finds this nation glorying in her strength, in her wisdom, in her wealth, in her prowess, in her social progress, and in her high civilization, will date the beginning of her decline, and foreshadow the certainty of her downfall as a great, religious people; and her last history, like that of Greece and Rome, will be written in mourning, lamentation, and woe. Let the apostles and promoters of social science and of secular knowledge solemnly beware how, in the advancement of their objects, they ignore our Bible and abjure our God!

Be Spiritually Minded. It is an important practical deduction from the subject of these pages, that if true godliness is anything to us, it surely must be everything. There is no principle God has more closely and universally calculated in the universe than 'harmony'. And it is this nice adjustment, this perfect balance, and exquisite symmetry, everywhere pervading his works, which proves the mind that planned and the power that executed to be one and the same– divine.

Now it is this same harmony, as exhibited in true godliness, which illustrates its beauty and augments its power. How much is true religion shorn of its strength by the lack of more spiritual-mindedness in its professors! The worldly amusements to which many addict themselves– the opera, the card-playing, the ball, the gay party, the novel-reading, the luxurious living, the extravagant customs in which multitudes of religious professors, church members and communicants indulge, are sad blots upon their avowed Christianity, and effectual hindrances to the advancement of religion in their own souls and in the world. Oh! that with us vital religion– the pure, simple, self-denying, unearthly religion of Christ– might be paramount; its holy influence permeating our whole being, and giving form and tint and direction to all our engagements and conduct.

Difficulties we shall, indeed, have to overcome in the world, and, perhaps, opposing influences in our own homes; nevertheless, if Christ sees that our hearts are set upon ruling our lives by his divine precept, "Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness," he will aid our holy strivings and give his grace that, in our principles, our spirit, and our conduct, yes, in all things and everywhere, Christ may have the preeminence.

My reader, what is your "beloved"? If it is not Christ, what is it? The world? the creature? wealth? self? Are these the objects you place in competition with the Redeemer, and prefer to a religious life, a happy death, and a glorious eternity? Oh! what will they avail you when Christ, the Savior you have slighted, despised, and neglected, cites you to his judgment bar? Without the experience of a real conversion, of the new birth, of a saving interest in Jesus, should you die this year, you are forever lost! Pause, solemnly pause, upon the threshold of a new period of your probation, and ask the Holy Spirit to enthrone the Savior upon your loving, believing heart, that henceforth Christ may be the first, Christ the chief, Christ preeminent; so that for you to live or die may truly and emphatically be CHRIST; and then Christ and you will be together through eternity!

There is None like Him. Such is the truth, child of God, your heavenly Father has given you to learn through this coming year– None like Christ! Could he bring you into the experience of a truth more needful, more sanctifying, or more precious? Impossible! Strive after a closer walk, a more childlike transfer of every care, anxiety, and need to your heavenly Father, and his beloved Son, your elder brother. "He cares for you." Do not overlook today, in your anxious thoughts about the morrow. Travel not out of the present into the future. The grace that supports, the love that comforts, the resources that supply today's need, will, with tomorrow's demand, be ready at your hand. Do justice to the solemn present, and live with the same calm reliance upon God, and looking to Jesus, as if there but one second of time intervening between you and your heavenly home. Make the prayer your own of one of the earliest missionaries of the Cross to Ireland– "May the strength of God pilot me this day, the power of God preserve me, the wisdom of God instruct me, the eye of God view me, the ear of God hear me, the hand of God protect me, the way of God direct me, the shield of God defend me. Christ be with me, Christ before me, Christ after me, Christ in me, Christ under me, Christ over me, Christ at my right, Christ at my left, Christ at this side, Christ at that side, Christ in the heart of each person whom I speak to, Christ in the mouth of each person who speaks to me, Christ in each eye which sees me, Christ in each ear which hears me. Salvation is the Lord's, salvation is Christ's. May your salvation, O Lord! be always with us." (Patrick's prayer on his going to preach before the King of Ireland)

Imitating the spirit, and adopting the petitions of this remarkable prayer, your daily, happy, and holy experience and testimony will be– "None but Christ, none like Christ."

"I'll not leave Jesus– never, never!
Ah! what can more precious be?
Rest, and joy, and light are ever
In his hand to give to me.
All things that can satisfy,
Having Jesus, these have I."

Love has bound me fast to him,
I am his, and he is mine;
Daily I for pardon ask him,
Answers he with peace divine.
On that rock my trust is laid,
And I rest beneath its shade.

Without Jesus, earth would weary,
Seem almost like hell to me;
But if Jesus I have near me,
Earth is almost heaven to me.
Am I hungry? He does give
Bread on which my soul does live.

Oh! how light upon my shoulder
Lies my cross, now grown so small.
For the Lord is my upholder,
Fits it to me, softens all.
Neither shall it always stay–
Patience! it will pass away!"

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

"The Preciousness of Christ"

"Unto you therefore who believe He is precious." 1 Peter 2: 7.

A felt conviction of the preciousness of the Savior has ever been regarded by enlightened ministers of the gospel as constituting a scriptural and unmistakable evidence of the existence of divine life in the soul; and in moments when neither time nor circumstance would admit of the close scrutiny of a theological creed, or a nice analysis of spiritual feelings and emotions, the one and simple inquiry upon which the whole matter is made to hinge has been- "What is your experience of the worth of the Savior? Is Christ precious to your heart?" And the answer to this question has been to the examiner, the test and the measure of the soul's spiritual and vital change. And how proper that it should be so. In proportion as the Holy Spirit imparts a real, intelligent sense of personal sinfulness, there will be the heart's appreciation of the value, sufficiency, and preciousness of the Lord Jesus. An enlightened and thorough conviction of the nature and aggravation of the disease, will enable a physician to form a just conception of the remedial process by which it may be arrested and cured. We estimate the force of a motive power by the strength of the body it propels. Thus, as the conviction of our lost and undone condition deepens, as sin's "exceeding sinfulness " unveils, as the purity and extent of God's law opens, as the utter helplessness and impotence of self is forced upon the mind, the glory, the worth, the suitableness, and the preciousness of Jesus will, through the teaching of the Spirit, present itself vividly to the mind and heart, as constituting the one only foundation and hope of the soul!
The Bible recognizes but two specific and distinctive characters- the SINNER- the SAVIOR; and all others are but modifications of these. The saint is but the sinner converted, justified, pardoned, adopted, sanctified, saved, glorified. And all the official relations sustained by Christ in the economy of salvation are but so many varied and beautiful forms of the one Savior, of whom it is said, "Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is no other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved." Thus, then, as you feel your sinfulness, you will estimate the fitness and suitableness of the Lord Jesus Christ as your Savior. There will be a perfect agreement between your consciousness of guilt and your believing apprehension of the excellence of the Atonement to meet your case. Your sinnership and Christ's Saviorship will harmonize and dovetail in exact and beautiful fitness and proportion.
Oh, what a divine and blessed arrangement is this! With what grandeur, yet with what simplicity, does it invest the scheme of salvation! What solemnity, yet what hope, does it throw around the present and the future of the soul! It seems to fathom the lowest depth of my sinfulness, while it lifts me to the loftiest height of God's grace. In a volume designed to place before its readers a few of the precious things of God's revealed word, we commence, as is most proper, with the foundation and source of them all- the dignity, worth, suitability, and preciousness of Christ. The great truth upon which we are about to expatiate is announced in the words placed at the head of this chapter- "Unto you therefore who believe He is precious."
In the unfolding of this subject may there rest upon the writer and the reader the fresh anointing of the Holy Spirit, even Him of whom Jesus said, "He will bring me glory by revealing to you whatever he receives from me" -that, while we treat of a precious Savior, His preciousness may be FELT in our hearts, filling the whole soul with penitence, faith, and love. We propose, in the present chapter, to group our thoughts around two specific views of the subject- the Preciousness of Christ - and the Character of those to whom He is precious.

We commence with a consideration of CHRIST'S PERSONAL PRECIOUSNESS- His preciousness in Himself. It is the conviction of Christ's personal dignity and worth that gives to faith such a substantial realization of the greatness and preciousness of His work. We have need, beloved, to be cautioned against an error into which some have fallen- of exalting the work of Christ above the person of Christ- in other words, not tracing the efficacy of Christ's sacrifice to the essential dignity of Christ's person. The Godhead of the Savior admitted- His atoning death becomes a fact of easy belief. Once concede that He who died upon the cross was "GOD manifest in the flesh," and the mind will experience no difficulty in admitting that that death was sacrificial and expiatory.
The sufferings and death of a Being so illustrious must be in harmony with an object, and in connection with a result of equal dignity and momentousness; and where will there be found such an object and such a result as the SALVATION of man? The brilliant achievements of a general rushing to the rescue of a beleaguered garrison may so exalt his personal genius and valor as to invest his name with a glory peerless and immortal; but the reverse of this holds good with Christ.
There had been no glory in His achievements, no significance in His work, no efficacy in His blood, had there been no divine dignity and worth in His person. And, had He not taken a single step in working out the salvation of man- had He repaired no breach, wept no tear, endured no agony, shed no blood in the redemption of His Church,- had He, in a word, conferred not a solitary blessing upon our race- He still had been the ETERNAL SON OF GOD, divine, peerless, glorious- the object of supreme love, adoration, and worship by all celestial beings and through all eternal ages.
While, then, His sacrificial work illustrates His marvellous grace and love to sinners, that work owes all its acceptance and efficacy to the value imparted to it by the essential Deity of His person. Thus, it is the personal preciousness of Christ that imparts an official preciousness to His work. Who, then, is the Lord Jesus Christ? In common parlance, men term Him, "our Savior." But do the great body pause and reflect who Christ really is? Do they regard Him as the CREATOR Of this world- of all worlds? of their being- of all beings? Do they consider that "all things were made by Him; and without Him was not anything made that was made?" If so, would they not give Him divine homage, since that Who creates must be antecedent to and above the thing created, and therefore must be pre-existent and divine?
But what a grand and glorious truth is this to the believing soul- the absolute Deity of the Savior- the essential Godhead of Christ! How it endears Him to the heart as the Rock of ages upon which its hope is built! How precious must be every evidence of the divine strength, stability, and durability of that basis upon which the believing sinner reposes his whole salvation. Precious, then, is Christ as God. Precious in His Deity- precious as a distinct person in the adorable Godhead- precious as "God over all, blessed for evermore."
But pause, Christian reader, for a moment, in wonder and praise before this august truth. If there is a spot where we should put off the shoes from our feet, surely it is this. With what profound reverence, with what silent awe, yet with what adoring love should we contemplate the GODHEAD of our Redeemer! But for that Godhead we had been forever lost! His obedience to the law, His satisfaction to the justice of Jehovah, had been of no efficacy or avail, except only as it partook of the authority, dignity, and virtue of His higher nature. Do not question the existence of the fact because of the mystery of its mode. How Jehovah could become incarnate is a wonder we shall never, in this state of limited knowledge, fully understand; enough that it is so. Let reason reverently adore, and faith implicitly trust.
Hesitate not, then, to give full credence to all the glorious truths of the gospel, and to place the entire weight of your soul upon the Atonement of Jesus, and to believe that, sinner though you are, be it the very chief, such is the divine worth and sovereign efficacy of His sacrifice, you will, you must, you shall be saved to the uttermost, because your Creator is your Savior, and your Judge is your Justifier.
But this personal representation of the Lord Jesus involves also the preciousness of His manhood. His personal alliance with our nature, His condescending stoop to our humanity, is not the least endearing feature to the heart of His believing saints. We have claimed for the Son of God absolute Deity; we now claim for Him perfect humanity. "Flesh," real and substantial, yet, "holy, harmless, undefiled, and separate from sinners," was He "made." A humanity identical with His people in all but its original and actual sinfulness. "He knew no sin."
And yet, what a sin-bearer was He! All the transgressions of His elect met upon Him! But He could only bear sin, as He himself was essentially free from its taint. Had there been the remotest breath of pollution adhering to Him- had one drop of the moral virus circulated through His veins, it had rendered Him utterly and forever incapable of presenting to the justice of God, an atonement for sin. He then would have needed, like the high priest of old, to have offered for sins "first for Himself, then for the people." How precious, then, beloved, is our Lord Jesus as "bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh."
Think of His perfect humanity- a humanity free from sin, and therefore capable of dying for the ungodly, -a humanity laden with sorrow, and therefore capable of sympathizing with the afflicted. Precious to our hearts as God- precious as Man- precious as both united in one- inconceivably and eternally precious is He, whose name is "Wonderful," to His believing saints. Tell, oh tell, how precious is that humanity of the Son of God that partook, by actual participation, and still bears, by the most perfect sympathy, all the sinless weaknesses, infirmities, temptations, and sorrows of His people. Precious humanity! to which, when other human friendships are changed, and other human love is chilled, and other human sympathy is exhausted, you may repair, and find it an evergreen, a perennial stream, a gushing fountain of unchanged affection, tenderness, and sympathy, meeting and satisfying, to their utmost capacity, your hearts' deep pantings!
Precious humanity! that dries each tear, that bears each burden, that is touched with each infirmity, that soothes each sorrow, and that succours each temptation of His people. "In all things it behooved Him to be made like unto His brethren, that He might be a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make reconciliation for the sins of His people. For in that He himself has suffered being tempted, He is able to succor those who are tempted." Oh, love the Lord, then, all you His saints; laud Him, all you His people; and, in all your deep griefs, your lonely sorrows, your sore trials, your fiery temptations, your pressing needs, your daily infirmities, repair to the succourings, and the sympathies, and the intercessions of His humanity, and learn how precious Jesus can be to the hearts of His suffering and sorrowing ones.
Upon this rock of Christ's complex person God has built His Church, and the gates of hell cannot prevail against it. Precious is the Lord Jesus in His work. That must be a costly and substantial superstructure that reposes upon a basis so divine and perfect. No wise or experienced architect would, at a vast expenditure, lay a deep, broad foundation for the purpose of rearing upon it a small and fragile fabric. Look at the ground work of our salvation. "Thus says the Lord God, Behold, I lay in Zion, for a foundation a stone, a tried stone, a precious corner-stone, a sure foundation." Upon such a foundation we look for a superstructure in all respects worthy of its costliness and capability. We find it in the work of Jesus.
Oh, what a superstructure is it--nothing less than the salvation of His Church! Such a work was worthy of God, and of all the glory, wisdom, and power embarked in its accomplishment. Nowhere have we such a perfect view of the Divine glory as through the medium of the cross! That magnificent sky that spreads above us, studded and glowing with countless myriads of worlds, pales before the subdued glory, the softened splendor of the cross of Christ! Nowhere does Jehovah-Jesus appear to the spiritual, believing mind so exalted as when He stoops! so glorious as when in eclipse! so holy as when bearing sin! so loving as when enduring its punishment! so triumphant as when vanquished upon the cross!
Oh, do not study God in the jeweled heavens- in the sublimity of the mountain- in the beauty of the valley- in the grandeur of the ocean- in the murmurs of the stream- in the music of the winds. God made all this, but all this is not God. Study Him in the cross of Jesus! Look at Him through this wondrous telescope, and although, as through a glass darkly, you behold His glory- the Godhead in awful eclipse, the Sun of His Deity setting in blood- yet that rude and crimsoned cross more fully reveals the mind of God, more harmoniously discloses the perfections of God, and more perfectly unveils the heart of God, and more fully exhibits the glory of God, than the combined power of ten thousand worlds like this, even though sin had never marred, and the curse had never blighted it.
Study God in Christ, and Christ on the cross! Oh, the marvels that meet in it- the glory that gathers round it- the streams of blessing that flow from it- the deep refreshing shadow it casts, in the happy experience of all who look to Jesus and live- who look to Jesus and love- who look to Jesus and obey-who look to Jesus and embrace that blessed "hope of eternal life which God, who cannot lie, promised before the world began." A worthy structure this of a foundation so divine!
What could be more worthy of God, whose essence is "love," than the salvation of His people? In nothing could He appear more like Himself. Upon no platform could He so honorably and completely withdraw the veil from His perfections, and stand forth in His full-orbed majesty, "mighty to save," as this! Humble believer in Christ, you are saved! Happy saint of God, you shall be in heaven! Christ has paid your debt, opened your prison, broken your chains, and set you free from the law's curse, from sin's condemnation, and from death's penalty, and you will be forever with the Lord! Is not this enough to make your whole life, clouded and chequered though it be, a sweet psalm of praise- thus learning the first notes of the song that will employ your tongue through eternity?
How precious is the righteousness of Christ- a righteousness that fully justifies our person, completely covering all our deformity, and presenting us to God, "lovely through His loveliness put upon us;" wherefore the renown of the clothed and adorned Church goes forth through all the earth, and men inquire, "Who is she that looks forth as the morning, fair as the moon, clear as the sun, and terrible as an army with banners?"
And look at the preciousness of His sacrifice, which is as a "sweet-smelling savor unto God," ascending ever from off the golden altar before the throne, in one continuous cloud of incense, wreathing the people, perfuming the prayers, accompanying the offerings, and presenting with acceptance every breath of devotion, every accent of praise, and every token of love which His people here below lay at His feet. "By one offering He has perfected forever those who are sanctified." That "one offering," offered once for all, was so divine, so holy, so complete, so satisfactory, it has forever perfected the pardon, perfected the justification, perfected the adoption, and will perfect the sanctification when it perfects the glory of all the elect of Jehovah. Beloved, is not this enough to check every sigh, to quell every fear; to annihilate every doubt, and to fill you with peace and joy in believing? What shouts of praise to Jesus should burst from every lip as each believer contemplates the sacrifice that has secured his eternal salvation!
When Titus liberated the imprisoned Greeks, they clustered around his tent, chanting his praises and exclaiming, with impassioned fervor, "A savior! a savior! a savior!" Oh, with what deeper emphasis may every child of God, freed from the chains of sin and of death by the "liberty with which Christ has made him free," extol the person and chant the praises of that glorious Savior, and exclaim, "Jesus! Jesus! Jesus! He has saved His people from their sins!" Believer, demonstrate your sense of the preciousness of this great sacrifice by bringing to it daily sins, by drawing from it hourly comfort, and by laying yourself upon it, body, soul, and spirit, a "living sacrifice unto God."
How precious is Christ in all the offices and relations which He sustains to His people. Precious as the Head, the 'covenant surety' Head, of His people, the source of life, the seat of power, the fountain of all blessing. Reader, hold fast the Headship of Christ. Acknowledge no legislative head, no administrative head, no authoritative head, no reigning head of the Church, but the Lord Jesus Christ. There are under-currents of priestly domination in the Church of God in the present day, subversive of this cardinal truth, against which it behooves us to be on our guard. Acknowledge no spiritual Head and King in Zion but the Lord Jesus; and demonstrate your recognition of, reverence for, and love to, His government, by vindicating His Headship, bowing to His authority, and obeying His laws!
Oh, how blessed to be under the holy, benevolent, and gentle government of Christ, whose scepter is a scepter of righteousness, so mild and loving in its sway, that "He will not break the bruised reed, nor quench the smoking flax." Precious is He as the Husband of His Church, to whom He is united by the closest and most indissoluble ties, pledged to discharge all her obligations, to supply all her need, to soothe, by sympathy, her every sorrow, and to increase, by participation, her every joy.
Precious is He as a Friend -the Friend whose love is infinite and boundless, changing not with circumstances, chilling not with indifference, nor wearying with lapse of years- a Friend who shows himself friendly, who loves at all times, and who sticks closer than a brother.
Precious as a Brother, our kinsman-redeemer, our next of kin, claiming and exercising, as such, the right of redemption, and proving Himself, by His help and succor in all the calamities of His brethren, to be a "Brother born for adversity." Thus might we travel over all the offices and relations which the Lord Jesus sustains to His saints, and find in each that which endears Him to their souls, enthroning Him upon their hearts as the "chief among ten thousand," and exhibiting Him as "the altogether lovely one."
But to whom is Christ precious? This is a most important question. He is not precious to all. It is a privileged class, a peculiar people, a little flock, few and scattered, hidden and unknown, who feel the Savior's preciousness. Only to the believer is Christ precious; the declaration of the Holy Spirit is, "Unto you therefore who BELIEVE He is precious." This is philosophically as well as scripturally true. There cannot possibly be a felt conviction of the worth of an object of which we have no intelligent and clear perception. There must be something to create interest, to awaken admiration, to inspire love; the object must be seen, known, and tried.
Now, the only spiritual faculty that discerns Christ, and in discerning Christ realizes His preciousness, is faith. Faith is the optical faculty of the regenerate, it is the spiritual eye of the soul! Faith sees Christ, and as Christ is seen His excellence is recognized; and as His excellence unfolds, so He becomes an object of endearment to the heart! Oh, how lovely and how glorious is Jesus to the clear, far-seeing eye of faith! Faith beholds Him the matchless, peerless One; His beauty eclipsing, His glory outshining, all other beings! Faith sees majesty in His lowliness, dignity in His condescension, honor in His humiliation, beauty in His tears, transcendent, surpassing glory in His cross!
In natural things, as the beauty of an object unveils to the eye, it awakens in the mind a corresponding interest. The grey mist of morning slowly rising from off the face of nature, revealing a landscape of rich and varied beauty- the blending of mountain and valley, the green meadows and winding streams, presents an object which, in every mind susceptible of the sublime and the beautiful, inspires the feeling of admiration and delight. Beloved, in proportion as the personal dignity, beauty, and excellence of the Lord Jesus unfolds to the believing eye, He becomes more sensibly and deeply enshrined in the heart's warmest love! We must know the Lord Jesus to admire Him, and must admire Him to love Him, and must love Him to serve Him.
The believer, too, beholds a suitability in Christ, sees Him to be just the Savior adapted to the necessities of his soul; and this renders Him peculiarly precious. "I see Him," exclaims the believer, "to be exactly the Christ I need- His fulness meets my emptiness- His blood cleanses my guilt- His grace subdues my sin- His patience bears with my infirmities- His gentleness succours my weakness- His love quickens my obedience- His sympathy soothes my sorrows- His beauty charms my eye. He is just the Savior, just the Christ I need, and no words can describe His preciousness to my soul!"
There is thus an appropriation of Christ in the personal experience of every believer which endears Him to the heart. A Christ unappropriated is a Christ whose worth is undervalued, and whose preciousness is unfelt. The believer can say, "Christ is mine, and I have all things in one, even in Christ, who is my all and in all." This simple, trembling faith, sublime in its simplicity, mighty in its tremblings, sweeps all the treasures of the everlasting covenant of grace and all the fulness of the Surety of the covenant into its lap, and exclaims, "All is mine, because Christ is mine, and I am Christ's."
Do not shrink, beloved reader, from what the quaint divines of other days, and, perhaps, of a deeper experience and of a sounder creed than ours, were wont to term a "Christ-appropriating faith." If you have fled to Jesus as a poor, empty, believing sinner, there is not a throb of love in His loving heart, nor a drop of blood in His flowing veins, nor a particle of grace in His mediatorial fulness, nor a thought of peace in His divine mind, which is not yours, all yours, inalienably yours, as much yours as if you were its sole possessor! And in proportion as you thus deal with Christ, individually traveling to Him, living upon Him, living out of Him, dealing as personally with Him as He deals personally with you, He will involve Himself in your concerns, and will become growingly precious to your soul.
There are peculiar circumstances in the believer's experience when Christ becomes especially precious to the soul. For example: in the deeper ploughings of the heart's hidden sinfulness- when the Holy Spirit reveals more of the innate corruption of our nature, and gives a more spiritual perception of sin's exceeding sinfulness, oh, how precious does the finished work of Christ then become! how precious the blood that cleanses from all sin! If God is leading you through this stage of Christian experience, beloved, be not alarmed; it is but to build up His dear Son upon the wreck and ruin of your own merit, strength, and sufficiency. He will have us love His Son with a love like His own- a love of divine, supreme, ineffable affection- and this can only be felt in the region of our own nothingness!
In circumstances of spiritual relapse, how precious does Christ become, as the Restorer of His saints, as the Shepherd that goes in quest, of His stray sheep, and brings it back to the fold with rejoicing! How unspeakably dear is the Savior to the wandering yet restored heart! Our backslidings are perpetual and aggravated, our affections fickle and truant, our faith fluctuating, our love waning, our zeal flagging, our walk often feeble and unsteady; but Jesus does not withdraw His eye from His own work in the soul, and never for a moment loses sight of His stray-going sheep. Ah, there are few aspects of the work of Jesus more precious in the experience of the saints of God than His divine and gracious restorings. "He restores my soul," is a declaration of David which finds its response in every believer. Precious, then, is that Savior who breaks the heart, checks its waywardness, restores its wanderings, heals its backslidings, rekindles its love, and once more wakes its languid, silent chords to sweetest harmony.
How precious is Christ in the season of fiery temptation! When the arch-foe comes, robed as an angel of light, with gentle tread, and oily tongue, and soft persuasiveness, seeking to ensnare and beguile the unsuspicious and unwary -leveling his darts at the very foundations of our faith- insinuating his doubts of the truth of the Bible, of the being of God, of the sufficiency of the Savior, of the reality of a future world- thus seeking to shake the confidence, obscure the hope, and destroy the comfort of the Lord's people- oh, how precious then is Christ as the Conqueror and Spoiler of Satan; as He who enables the trembling believer to quench the fiery dart in His own blood, and to take refuge beneath His outspread, all-sheltering wing!
How doubly precious must the Savior have been to the tempted Peter, when Christ assured him that, by an anticipated intercession, He had blunted the keen edge of the sword by which the subtle enemy sought the downfall of his disciple. Tempted believer, the Tempted One, He who, alone and unaided, battled with Satan those forty days and nights in the solitary wilderness- is He who was "in all points tempted like as we are," and "knows how to deliver the godly out of temptation," and will shortly bruise Satan, crushed and conquered, under your feet.
In the hour of adversity, of trial, of sorrow, oh, how precious is Christ in the experience of the believer! It would seem, beloved, as though we had never really known Him until then. Certainly, we never knew from experience that there was so much that was human, tender, and compassionate in His heart until sorrow touched our own. We had no conception what a fount of sympathy was there.
A new bend in your path, a new epoch in your history, or a new stage in your journey, has frosted with the snowflake and swept with the storm-blast of winter, the entire landscape of life; fortune gone, friends removed, health failing, poverty threatening, need pressing. Oh, how dreary and lonely seems the path you tread! But pause- it is not all winter! Jesus approaches! He unveils a bosom once pierced, shows a heart once sad, and drawing you within its blest pavilion, hides you from the wind and covers you from the tempest. You never thought Jesus had a heart of such exquisite tenderness until now.
I do but give utterance to the experience of many a timid believer, many an afflicted Christian, when I say that, looking back upon all the way the Lord our God has led us, we can thank Him for the swelling surge, can bless Him for the wintry blast, can praise Him for the falling blow that veiled the sky, and draped the landscape, and smote the idol, since that was the suitable occasion of making the Savior better known to you, and of endearing him unutterably to your heart!
"You have known my soul in adversities." And that adversity was the time in which you were more fully brought to know Him. Chastening seasons are teaching seasons; suffering times are Christ-endearing times; trying dispensations are purifying processes in the experience of the godly. The whirlwind that swept over you has but cleared your sky and made it all the brighter, but deepened your roots and made them all the firmer. Earth may have lost a tie, but heaven has gained an attraction. The creature has left a blank, but Christ has come and filled it. Setback has made you poor, but the treasures of divine love have enriched you. In the Lord Jesus you have more than found the loved one you have lost; and if in the world you have encountered tribulation, in Him you have found peace. O sweet sorrow! O sacred grief, that enthrones and enshrines my Savior more pre-eminently and deeply in my soul!
There is a supremacy in the feeling of Christ's preciousness to the believer, which is worthy of a remark. Christ has the pre-eminence in the affections of the regenerate! "Whom have I in heaven but you? and there is none upon earth that I desire beside you." Listen to His own words, asserting His claim to a single and supreme affection: "Whoever loves father or mother, brother or sister, wife or children, more than Me, is not worthy of Me." There are natural ties of affection- the parental, the marital, the filial. There are ties, too, of human love and friendship, linking heart to heart; but not one word does He who inspired those affections, who formed those ties, breathe, denying their existence or forbidding their exercise.
No, the religion He came to inculcate distinctly recognizes these human relations, and seeks to strengthen and intensify by purifying, elevating, and immortalizing them. But mark the emphatic word employed by Christ- "MORE than Me! " All these affections are to have full play and exercise, but ever to be maintained in profound subordination to Himself, and to be so sanctified and employed as to become auxiliaries and aids to the higher and purer affection of supreme attachment to the Savior! In a word, Christ should become more supreme and precious to our hearts by all the sweet, sacred relations and affections of life. We should enjoy the creature in Him, and glorify Him in the creature.
Christ is not only supremely, but He is increasingly precious to the believer. It must be so, since a closer intimacy with a perfect being increases our knowledge of His perfection, and, in the same ratio, our admiration and love. The further the believer advances in the divine life, the more he must necessarily become acquainted with Christ; for his spiritual progress is the measure of his growing knowledge of the Lord Jesus. We can only really advance in grace, truth, and holiness, as we have close relations with Jesus, constant transactions with the Savior.
Christ is our life; and our growth in spiritual life is Christ increasing within us. It is as utterly impossible to cherish a holy desire, to conceive a heavenly thought, to perform a good action, to conquer a single infirmity, or to baffle a solitary temptation, apart from a direct communication with Christ; as for the lungs to expand without air, or light to exist without the Sun. Oh, yes! Christ is increasingly precious to the believer. The absence from His beatific presence- distance from His blest abode- the vicissitudes of life- the fluctuations of time- the advance of infirmities- the increase of anxieties and cares- and the formation of new friendships, do not render the Savior less precious to the believing soul.
Other objects often lose their attraction, their desire to interest, or their power to charm us, by the lapse of years; but JESUS is that glorious object who grows more precious to the heart in time, as His capacity unfolds of making us supremely happy; and in eternity will become increasingly the object of our love, and the theme of our song, and the source of our bliss, as growing ages unveil His loveliness, His glory, and His grace!
Beloved reader, is Jesus increasingly precious to your soul? Each day's history, each day's trial, each day's sin, each day's need, should endear the Savior to your heart, because in each and all of those circumstances you should have direct and close dealings, daily and personal transactions, with Christ! You cannot cultivate an intimacy with Christ and not be enamored of His beauty, charmed with His graciousness, and absorbed with His love!
Be cautioned against an eclipse of the Savior! Let no object come between your heart and Christ! Do not be presumptuous when in high spiritual frames, nor be depressed when in low ones. Do not let your conscious shortcomings, failures, and stumblings estrange your affections from Jesus. Nor allow pride or carelessness to insinuate itself, if the Lord confers upon you some especial favor or proof of His regard.
The foot is more apt to slide in the smooth than in the rough path; and it is more difficult to carry with a steady hand the brimmed than the empty cup. Walk humbly with God in all circumstances, especially after seasons of peculiar nearness to Him in your soul. Forget your spiritual attire, and your ornaments, and think of and love only Him who clothed you so beautifully and who adorned you so magnificently. Do not toy with your graces, but look to Him who gave them. Let all your thoughts, affections, and admiration be concentrated in that precious Savior, who took all your sins, deformity, and sorrow upon Himself, and who transferred all His righteousness, beauty, and blessing upon you!
Oh, let your heart and Christ's heart be one heart! Receive as precious everything that flows from the government of Jesus. A precious Christ can give you nothing but what is precious. Welcome the rebuke- it may be humiliating; welcome the trial- it may be painful; welcome the lesson- it may be difficult; welcome the cup- it may be bitter; welcome everything that comes from Christ in your individual history. Everything is costly, salutary, and precious that Jesus sends. The rude tones of Joseph's voice, when he spoke to his brethren, were as much the echoes of his concealed affection, as the softest, gentlest accents that breathed from his lips. The most severe disciplinary dispensations in the government of Christ are as much the fruit of His eternal, redeeming love, as was the tenderest and most touching expression of that love uttered from the cross.
All is precious, wise, and salutary in the dealings of Christ. His teachings, His woundings, His withholdings, His withdrawings, His slayings, His changed countenance, His altered tones,- when, in a word, His uplifted hand lands heavily upon us, smiting us seven times, even then, oh, how precious should Christ be to the believing soul! Then it is we learn by experience what a balsam exudes from His pierced heart for the very wound His own hand inflicted! What a covert from the stormy wind, and what a hiding-place is He from the fierce tempest which His own providence created! What a succouring, appropriate to our sorrow, springs from the very hand that winged the dart which pierced us through and through!
Oh, precious Christ! so divine, so all-sufficient, so indescribably precious, may we not welcome with thankfulness and receive with submission all that You do send- the mingled ingredients of bitter and sweet, the blended tints of light and shade, of all the wise, righteous, and salutary dispensations of Your wise, loving, and ever watchful providence?
But there is approaching a period-ah, how it speeds! -which will be the most solemn and severe, yet the sweetest and truest test of the sustaining, soothing power of Christ's preciousness in the experience of His saints- the last sickness and the closing scene of life. Imagine that moment to have arrived! All of earth's attraction ceases, all of creature-succor fails. Everything is failing- heart and strength failing- mental power failing- medical skill failing- human affection and sympathy failing; the film of death is on the eye, and the invisible realities of the spirit-world are unveiling to the mental view. Bending over you, the loved one who has accompanied you to the shore of the cold river, asks a sign. You are too weak to conceive a thought, too low to breathe a word, too absorbed to bestow a responsive glance. You cannot now assert your faith in an elaborate creed, and you have no profound experience, or ecstatic emotions, or heavenly visions to describe. One brief, but all-emphatic, all-expressive sentence embodies the amount of all that you now know, and believe, and feel; it is the profession of your faith, the sum of your experience, the ground of your hope- "Christ Is Precious to My Soul!" Enough! The dying Christian can give, and the inquiring friend can wish no more.
Dearest Savior, be close to me in that solemn moment! Tread the valley by my side, pillow my languid head upon Your bosom, speak these words of heart-cheer to my struggling, panting, departing soul, "Fear not, I Am with you" -then, it will be happiness for me to die, -death will have no venom- the grave no gloom- eternity no dread; and, from the measured experience of Your preciousness on earth, I shall pass in triumph through the shadowy portal into the full sunshine and perfect realization and eternal enjoyment of all that faith believed, and love desired, and hope expected, of Your full-orbed glory and preciousness in heaven. "In your presence is fulness of joy; and at your right hand there are pleasures for evermore!"

"Precious Jesus! O how lovely are You to my longing heart.
Never, never let me grieve You, never from You let me depart.
Precious Jesus! all in all to me You art."

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"The Preciousness of God's Word"

"The word of the Lord was precious in those days." I Samuel 3:1.

Among the precious things of God the saints of the Most High will ever regard as transcendently precious His revealed Word. But for this revelation we had known nothing of those precious things upon which this volume is designed to engage the reader's thoughts. The works of creation, varied and rich in their forms of beauty, while they testify to " His power and Godhead," -thus leaving man inexcusable for his atheism,  -nowhere supply an answer to the momentous question, "What must I do to be saved?" They bear a palpable and solemn witness to man's apostasy, but they testify nothing to his recovery. They tell of a fallen, but not of a restored humanity. They speak not of a Savior of a salvation of hope of heaven. I may wander in sad and pensive thought upon the sunny banks of its flowing rivers, I may tread its carpeted vales, or climb its cloud-capped mountains, reveling amid its beauty, its grandeur, and sublimity, and yet find no repose for this restless mind, no peace for this troubled heart, no hope for this sinful and lost soul. Not a flower below, not a star above, tells me of JESUS, a Savior!
I turn to the "GLORIOUS GOSPEL of the blessed God," and my case as a ruined, self-destroyed, condemned sinner, is met by that single, but comprehensive and sublime announcement- "This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners." Beloved reader, the kingdom of nature, replete as it is with the wisdom, power, and benevolence of Jehovah, every spire of grass, every lowly flower, every towering mountain, every glimmering star, rebuking the "fool's" denial of a God, can never disclose how you may be pardoned, justified, and saved. No solution can it supply to the great moral problem of the universe how God can be just, and yet the justifier of the ungodly.
The "gospel of the grace of God," which these pages propose to unfold, meets to the utmost your case as a sinner, bringing life and immortality to light, and thus revealing to you a hope, resplendent and eternal, beyond the gloom and corruption of the grave.
In the prosecution of our subject, let it be premised that there are points which it is not our province to discuss. The reasonableness of a revelation from God, the necessity of a revelation, the fact that such a revelation is given to us in the Bible, are questions we must assume as established. It is rather to the worth and preciousness of God's Word, than to any line of argument in proof of its divinity, that we must bend our thoughts. And yet, let it not be supposed that we slight or undervalue evidence as substantiating the truth of the Bible. Everything that is solemn and precious to us as believers is bound up in the fact, that the BOOK upon which we ground our hope of the future is, what it declares itself to be, the WORD OF THE LORD. The moment our faith in the divinity of the Holy Scriptures is shaken, everything else trembles with it. Life, in all its moral relations, wears another and a totally different aspect. Its foliage is withered, its flowers are blighted, its springs are embittered, and the entire landscape of the present and the future is enshrouded in, gloom and despair. No marvel, then, that error should plant its strong and stern battery in front of this the most precious doctrine of our faith -the Divine inspiration of the Scriptures.
How truly has the apostle described the unbelieving mind -"The god of this world has blinded the minds of those who believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them." We hold it, then, of infinite moment that our faith in the divinity of the Bible. in the plenary inspiration of the Scriptures, should grow stronger and stronger; and that whatever tends to instruct and confirm us in this doctrine of our faith, be it a fact in history, a discovery in science, or a page in the volume of our personal history, should be welcomed by us with eagerness, and be acknowledged with devout thanksgiving and praise.
The Lord keep you, my reader, from the low views of divine inspiration prevalent in this day! If this foundation be destroyed, or even apparently shaken, what else has your immortal soul to build upon but quicksand, every step, passing to eternity, over which sinks your soul deeper and deeper in doubt, darkness, and despair ?
As the Word of the Lord, then, it is most precious. It could possess no real intrinsic worth apart from this fact. The Bible claims to be nothing less than the WORD OF GOD. " All scripture is given by inspiration from God," and "holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit." We part the lids of this sacred volume, and we listen to God's voice sometimes in terrific thunder, at others in entrancing music now in sublime majesty, then gentle as an infant's whisper, in mercy and in judgment God's Word speaks. That infidelity should wish to disbelieve and stifle this divine voice speaking from the Bible, is no marvel, since, if the Bible is true, infidels have no hope. An illustration of this may be cited. The late William Wilberforce, when passing through a town in which a noted infidel was imprisoned for blasphemy, called to see him. He endeavored to engage the unhappy sceptic in a conversation upon the Scriptures, but he declined, saying, that he had made up his mind, and did not wish his conclusions disturbed. Pointing to the Bible in the hands of his visitor, he remarked, in a manner which betrayed deep malignity of heart, blended with mental despair, " How, sir, do you suppose that I can like that Book, since, if it be true, I am undone forever?" "No," replied the illustrious philanthropist and Christian, " this is not a necessary consequence, and need not be. This Book excludes none from hope who will seek salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us, that whether we wake or sleep we may live together with Him." Thus infidelity rejects the Bible for fear it is true! We recur to the thought that God's Word is precious because it is truly and emphatically His Word, the Word of JEHOVAH. And when the believer opens the Bible, it is with the profound and solemn conviction that he is about to listen to the voice of God!
But not only is the Word of God precious as a revelation of His being and perfections, but to the child of God it is peculiarly so as revealing the mind and will of God. What the thoughts and purposes of God were could be but dimly gathered from the external works and operations of nature. If these divine thoughts were ever made known to man, GOD himself must reveal them. "Can you by searching find out God? can you find out the Almighty unto perfection?" We cannot fully fathom even the finite mind; how much less the Infinite! If at all acquainted with the science of physiognomy, we may trace some faint glimmer in the human countenance of the mental emotions, but this is all the index we have of the hidden thoughts and feelings of the soul. Now, by a similar process, we may learn something of God. The face of nature the natural countenance of God is replete with his power, wisdom, and beauty. There is enough of His Godhead to confound and silence the deepest and loudest atheism of man. But nature can go no further. It leads me to the vestibule, but cannot conduct me into the glory within. It tells me there is a God, but it reveals not His nature and character as a Father and a sin-forgiving God. But where nature leaves me, revelation comes to my aid. Hence the high estimate in which God is represented as regarding His own Word. "You have magnified Your Word above all Your name." That is, God has magnified His Word above every other manifestation of His name, there being no such revelation and illustration of the Deity as is found in His revealed Word. Do the heavens and the earth declare the glory of God? Does providence testify to His divine government? How much more His revealed truth! Truly, "You have magnified Your Word above all Your name."  As a revelation of His character, the Word of God is precious. What we gather of God's moral character from the kingdom of nature is more inferential than positive. From its creation, we infer the being of God; from its loveliness, we infer that God is beautiful; from its wonders, we infer that God is great; from the admirable unity and fitness of all its parts, we infer that God is wise; from the merciful blessings so richly and profusely scattered over its surface, we infer that God is good; and from the judgments which follow sin, and land upon the sinner, we infer that God is holy and just. But for the clear, positive, and complete revelation of God's character as a righteous, holy, wise, merciful, and sin-pardoning God, we must repair to His written Word. God has unfolded more of His moral character, perfections, and glory in the following words, spoken to Moses on Mount Sinai, amid the awful emblems of His majesty, than in all the beauties, wonders, and sublimities of His created work: "And the LORD descended in the cloud, and stood with him there, and proclaimed the name of the LORD. And the LORD passed by before him, and proclaimed. The LORD, the LORD God, merciful and gracious, long-suffering, and abundant in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty; visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon the children's children, unto the third and to the fourth generation." (Exod. xxxiv. 5-7.) What a glorious unfolding of God! What a foreshadowing of the yet richer unfolding of the gospel! If God was so glorious on Mount Sinai, what must be His glory as revealed on Mount Calvary!
As a revelation of the love of God, His Word is inexpressibly precious. We want to know more than the mind of God. We are sinners, and we want to read His heart—His loving, gracious, sin-forgiving heart. We want to know, not only what His thoughts and purposes are, but what are His feelings towards us. Does He love us? Does His justice smile on us? Does His heart expand with mercy, and glow with affection towards us ? The Bible alone supplies the answer to these momentous questions. There we read—as we read it tableted in no part of this vast and beautiful universe— "GOD is LOVE." And when we approach the subject yet closer, penetrate more deeply into the heart of God, what a transcendent, marvellous unfolding of His love is presented in the gift of His beloved Son! Read the declaration, often read before, yet to  read again and again with deepening wonder, gratitude, and praise— "God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life." "In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him. Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us, and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins."
How precious ought that Word to be to our hearts which contains such declarations and reveals such truths as these! Well may the apostle exclaim, "Here in is love!" as if he had said, and he might have added, "and nowhere else but here!" Nowhere in the heavens above, or in the earth beneath, or in the waters under the earth; no star, no flower, no creature, so reveals, expresses, and embodies the love of God as the gift of His dear Son to die for our sins. Oh, what love is this! "God so loved the world!" So loved, that He gave Jesus! Jesus is the most precious exponent of God's love; Jesus descends from the bosom of His love; Jesus draws aside the veil of His love; Jesus is God's love expressed, God's love incarnate, God's love speaking, laboring, dying, redeeming! Beyond this it would seem impossible that love could go. Oh, let every affection of our heart, every faculty of our soul, every power of our mind, every action of our life, embody as its grateful response the words of the adoring apostle, "Thanks be unto God for His unspeakable Gift!"
We are conducted to another view in the progress of our subject, illustrating the preciousness of God's Word. We refer to its gospel announcements. Jn this light, we cannot conceive of a more costly, precious blessing than the Word of God. The Gospel is the most valuable treasure the believer possesses. Everything else is shadowy, chimerical, transitory, passing away. Nothing is real, nothing substantial, nothing satisfying and abiding, except the "glorious gospel of the blessed God." Jt is the glorious gospel, because it is replete with real glory in reveals a glorious God, it makes known a glorious Savior, it proclaims a glorious salvation, and it unveils the hope of a glorious immortality. And all other glory in comparison of the "glorious gospel of the blessed God" is as visionary and fleeting as a midnight dream. Nowhere does Jehovah appear so glorious as in the gospel of His grace. There He is revealed as a sin-forgiving God; there He is mirrored forth as a "just God and a Savior," there He is portrayed as a reconciled God in Christ; and there He is represented as standing in the relation, and exercising the love, of a FATHER. O glorious gospel that presents such a view of God to the sinner's believing eye! "God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself. What declaration can more clearly indicate the love of God to us, as the moving, originating cause of our salvation, than this?
There is a marked, and we think, essential defect in the theology of many Christians touching this subject, which tends much to obscure the Divine glory, and to lessen in our view the greatness of God's love in man's salvation. We refer to the statements which represent God as angry, incensed, and vindictive, and as appeased, pacified, and reconciled by the death of Christ. Is not this an essential misapprehension of God's everlasting love to His people? Would it not appear from this representation of God that the Atonement of Christ was the originating cause of His love, rather than that His love was the originating cause of the Atonement? We think so. We look upon this notion of God as enshrouding the glory of redemption, by the palpably false view it presents of the Divine character. But the correct statement is the converse of this. God loved us- and as a result, Christ died for us. The Atonement of the Son of God was not the procuring cause, but the consequence, of the Father's love. Christ did not inspire God with love to man, but expressed it. He did not die to originate the Divine affection, but to expound and exhibit it. The love of God to His people was as eternal as the eternity of His being, as everlasting as His uncreated nature. "I have loved you with an everlasting love." It panted, it yearned for an outlet. It sought and found it in Christ. The Atonement of Jesus, uniting and harmonizing all the perfections of the Deity, supplied the channel through which the ocean of Divine love washed the shores of this earth, its soul-healing waves spreading like a sea of life over our sin-tainted, curse-blighted, sorrow-stricken humanity.
When, therefore, the Scriptures speak of Divine reconciliation, as in the passage just quoted, we are to understand the full expiatory satisfaction given to God's moral government through the Atonement of Christ, by which His law is honored. His justice is satisfied. His holiness is secured, His truth is maintained, and He appeared upon earth walking among men, "reconciling the world unto Himself."
But the experience of the believer supplies, perhaps, the most powerful and conclusive testimony to the preciousness of God's Word. We have not been advancing a vain thing, but a well-attested fact, in affirming the divinity and value of revelation. We are now about to cite the child of God- yes, the whole Church of Christ as testifying to the preciousness of the Word of the Lord. How many a truth-experienced, gospel-believing, Christ-loving heart will respond to the words of David, "How sweet are Your words unto my taste! yes, sweeter than honey to my mouth." What says Jeremiah? "Your words were found, and I did eat them; and Your word was unto me the joy and rejoicing of my heart." Corresponding with this is the experience of the universal Church, find it where we may, whatever may be the dissonance of opinion prevailing upon less essential and important questions of polity and worship.
It is precious to the believer, first, because it is divine, attested, experienced Truth. Is it not so that, to you who believe in God's Word, every other word in comparison seems a fiction and a fable? And that, as you grow in grace, as your acquaintance with, and experience of, the Word of God deepens, as you near eternity, your hold upon everything else grows fainter and fainter, and your grasp upon it grows firmer and firmer?
Now, God's Word is truth. He who is emphatically " the Truth," because He is essential truth, and the substance of revealed truth, has affirmed this in His sublime and memorable prayer—properly the Lord's Prayer—"Your Word is truth." Pursue this thought for a moment. There would seem to exist a necessity that it should be so, since it is the Word of the God of truth, partaking of the nature of that God whose truth it is. All that emanates from God must be a transcript, in some degree, of what He is. It is faintly so in the works of nature; yet more clearly so in the kingdom of providence: perfectly so in the empire of grace. The great truth, then, to which these three witnesses testify is this, "He is the Rock, His work is perfect: for all His ways are judgment: a God of truth and without iniquity, just and right is He." (Deut. xxxii. 4.) It follows then, as clearly as any conclusion can from  premise, that His Word is true—eternally, essentially, immortally true. True in the Savior it reveals—in the salvation it declares—in the doctrines it expounds—in the precepts it enforces— in the promises it speaks—in the hopes it unveils —and in the threatenings it denounces. "YOUR WORD is TRUTH."
As divine truth, then, it is most precious to the believer who has staked his all of future and eternal happiness upon its veracity. Let your faith, beloved reader, have more close dealing with the truth of God's Word. Whatever gloomy and untoward providences may gather their shadows around your path, hold fast your confidence in the truth of God's Word. You shall find mutability in everything but this. God will vary His providences, but cannot alter His Word. "Forever, 0 Lord, Your Word is settled in heaven." Heaven, with its resplendent glory and surpassing wonder—earth, with its countless myriads of beings, its beauty, and its history, shall be a thing of yesterday, not a vestige remaining to tell of its existence, its grandeur, and its greatness; but "the Word of the Lord shall endure forever."
All that God has Whispered in mercy, or has thundered in judgment—the promise of love, the threatening of wrath—all the precious words upon which He has caused our souls to hope the succourings pledged, the sure mercies covenanted, the assurances given, the consolations engaged, the oath sworn, shall all be fulfilled. Then, amid the fluctuations and the vicissitudes of all sublunary things, the home of childhood changed, the place of hallowed memories and sacred associations changed, the friends and companions of our choicest, sunniest years changed, adversity and death flinging their deep shadows upon life's landscape, we will approach the closer and cling the firmer to the eternal, unchangeable TRUTH of our God. Your faith, beloved, in God's word of promise may be severely tried by God's dealings with you in providence the one may appear to oppose and contradict the other but ever remember that God cannot deny Himself, nor alter the word that has gone out of His mouth. If the sentence of death seems pronounced upon the promise of God by His strange and mysterious procedure, forget not that there is yet life in the Word of the Lord; and that when the stone that sealed the tomb of all your mercy is rolled away, the Word upon which your soul has reposed, upon which your heart has lived, to which your faith has clung, and which has kept alive the spark of hope within your breast, shall come to life again, every sentence, word, and syllable fulfilled to the letter by Him of whom it is said, "It is impossible that God should lie." Oh, cling then to Christ's Word, as the mariner to the plank, as the mother to her infant, yes, as a humble believer in that divine and gracious Savior who has said, "Him that comes unto me I will in no wise" literally, "I will never, no, never, cast out."
As testifying of Jesus and His salvation, the Word of God must ever be transcendently precious to the believer. The Bible is, from its commencement to its close, a record of the Lord Jesus. Around Him the divine and glorious Center -all its wondrous types, prophecies, and facts gather. His Promise and Foreshadowing, His holy Incarnation, Nativity, and Baptism, His Obedience and Passion, His Death, Burial, and Resurrection, His Ascension to heaven, His Second Coming to judge the world, and to set up His glorious kingdom, are the grand and touching, the sublime and tender, the priceless and precious truths interwoven with the whole texture of the Bible, to which the Two Witnesses of Revelation the Old and the New Testaments bear their harmonious and solemn testimony. Beloved, let this be the one and chief object in your study of the Bible the knowledge of Jesus. The Bible is not a history, a book of science, a poem, it is a record of Christ. Study it to know more of Him, His nature, His love, His work. With the magnanimous Paul, "count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus your Lord."
Then will God's Word become increasingly precious to your soul, and its truths unfold. You will trace the history of Jesus, see the glory of Jesus, admire the work of Jesus, learn the love of Jesus, and hear the voice of Jesus, in every page. The whole volume will be redolent of His name, and luminous with His beauty. Oh, what were the Bible to us apart from its revelation of a Savior! Is there not great danger of studying it merely intellectually and scientifically, of reveling among its literary beauties and its grandeur, blind to its true value, and without any desire to know that precious Savior who died for sinners, that Divine Redeemer who purchased the ransom of His Church with His own blood; that Friend who loves us, that Brother who sympathizes with us, that enthroned High Priest who intercedes for us within the veil?
May we not resort to it as mere controversialists, polemics, and partisans, searching it but for weapons of attack upon a Christian brother's system or creed, or quoting it but to give countenance and complexion to a favorite dogma? But do we study the "Word of Christ" spiritually and honestly, as those whose souls hunger and thirst for this the bread and water of life? Do we search it diligently and earnestly as for hid treasure—treasure beyond all price? Can we say with David, "O how love I your law ! it is my meditation all the day?" "The entrance of your Word gives light; it gives understanding unto the simple. I opened my mouth, and panted: for I longed for your commandments,"—"Your Word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path."
Do we read it with a child-like mind, receive it with a believing heart, bow to its teaching with reverence of soul, and receive its decisions in all questions of faith and practice as decisive and ultimate? In a word, do we search the Scriptures humbly, prayerfully, depending upon the guidance of the Spirit, to find Jesus in them? Of these Scriptures He is the Alpha and the Omega—the substance, the  sweetness, the glory—the one, precious, absorbing THEME. Listen to His own words, "Search the Scriptures, for these are they which testify of me." Moses wrote of Me—David sang of Me—seers prophesied of Me—evangelists recorded My life —apostles expounded My doctrine—and martyrs have died for My name. "THESE ARE THEY WHICH TESTIFY OF ME." Yes, Lord! Your word is precious to our souls, because it reveals to us Your glory, and tells us of Your love!
Precious, too, is the Word of God, as containing doctrine, precept, and promise. The doctrines are precious, as affording instruction to the mind, and establishment to the faith of the child of God. There can be no real, stable building up in God's truth when the great doctrines of grace are faintly believed and loosely held. These doctrines, then, which exalt the Lamb of God, which lay the glory and power and boasting of the creature in the dust, and which exhibit the electing love and sovereign grace of God in his salvation, are most precious to the truth-experienced heart of the believer in Jesus.
Not less precious to him is the preceptive teaching of God's Word. When there is a real experience of the power of the doctrines, there will be a love of the precept. You will desire to be sanctified, as well as justified—to have your heart purified, and your life molded by the holiness of the truth. The precept that enjoins separation from the world—that teaches us to deny all ungodliness, and to live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present evil world—that bids us take up our daily cross and follow a crucified Savior, and realizing our resurrection life in Him, thus to seek those things that are above, where Christ sits at the right hand of God—must be precious, inconceivably precious, to a Christ-loving heart.
The rebukes, too, of God's Word, humbling though they are, yet are welcome to the believer. The Word that gently chides your backslidings, unveils your follies, checks your inconsistencies, lays your pride, self-seeking, and self-boasting in the dust, is precious to your soul. The Christian feels, that "all Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works," and therefore he welcomes all. Beloved, count not less dear to  your heart, or as less the tender unfolding of God's love, those parts of His truth which reprove humble, empty, and lay you low. The rebukes and reproofs of God's Word are as valuable and precious in themselves as the promises, since both equally seek the sanctification of the believer, and both emanate from the same Divine mind, and flow from the same loving heart.
As a source of Divine consolation how many will testify to the preciousness of God's Word! The Bible, while it is a proclamation of mercy to the vilest sinner, is equally the book of the afflicted. As a system of consolation Christianity has no equal. No other religion in the wide world touches the hidden springs of the soul, or reaches the lowest depths of human sorrow, but the religion of Christ. Saints of the living God! suffering members of a suffering Head! we cite you as witnesses to this truth. When your hearts have been overwhelmed, when adversity has wrapped you within its gloomy pall, when the broken billows of grief have swollen and surged around your soul, how have you fled to the Scriptures of truth for succor and support, for guidance and comfort! Nor have you repaired to them in vain. "The God of all comfort" is He who speaks in this Word, and there is no word of comfort like that which He speaks. The adaptation of His truth to the varied, the peculiar and personal trials and sorrows of His Church, is one of the strongest proofs of its divinity. Take to the Word of God whatever sorrow you may, go with whatever mental beclouding, with whatever spirit-sadness, with whatever heart-grief; whatever be its character, its complexion, its depth unsurpassed in the history of human sorrow, there is consolation and support in the Word of God for your mind.
There is in these sacred pages a voice of sympathy and soothing chiming with your grief; and thus "by the comfort of the Scriptures you have hope" that God will not leave you in trouble, but will sustain you in it, will bring you out of, and sanctify you by it, to the endless glory and praise of His great and precious name. O you sons of God whose faith has been strengthened by the histories of the Old Testament saints whose minds have been instructed by the dealings of God with His Church in the wilderness whose hearts have been comforted by the rich experience of David in the Psalms -whose views of God's kingdom prophets have enlarged -whose knowledge of Christ's history evangelists have deepened -whose souls apostles have established in the faith, we cite you as witnesses to the divinity and preciousness of God's Word. "You are my witnesses, says the Lord."
Testify to an infidel world what the Bible is, and to the saints what you have experienced it to be. Tell how its revealed truths have established you, how its illustrious examples of piety, faith, and love have animated you, how its exceeding great and precious promises have comforted you, and how the glorious hope of heaven which the gospel unveils has inspired you to run with patience the race set before you, looking unto Jesus. Tell how this precious Word of God has made clear many a perplexity, has illumined many a dark road, has cheered many a lonesome way, has soothed many a deep sorrow, has guided and upheld many a faltering step, and has crowned with victory many a feat of arms in the great battle with Satan, the world, and sin. May we not say of the Bible, as David said of Saul's sword, "There is none like it."
Christian mourner, let me once more direct your eye too dimmed perhaps by tears to behold this divine source of true, unfailing comfort. God's Word is the book of the afflicted. Written to unfold the wondrous history of the "Man of Sorrows," it would seem to have been equally written for you, 0 child of grief! God speaks to your sad and sorrowing heart from every page of this sacred volume, with words of comfort, loving, gentle, and persuasive as a mother's. "As one whom his mother comforts, so will I comfort you." The Bible is the opening of the heart of God. It is God's heart unveiled, each throb inviting the mourner, the poor in spirit, the widow, the fatherless, the bereaved, the persecuted, the sufferer, yes, every form and child of affliction and grief to the asylum and sympathy, the protection and soothing of His heart. Oh, thank God for the comfort and consolation of the Scripture! Open it with what sorrow and burden and perplexity you may, be it the guilt of sin, the pressure of trial, or the corrodings of sorrow, it speaks to the heart such words of comfort as God only could speak.
Have you ever borne your grief to God's Word, especially to the experimental Psalms of David, and not felt that it was written for that particular sorrow? You have found your grief more accurately portrayed, your state of mind more truly described, and your case more exactly and fully met, probably in a single history, chapter, or verse, than in all the human treatises that the pen of man ever wrote. What a proof that the Bible is the Word of God! We verily believe that no Christian is thoroughly versed in the evidences of the truth of the Bible, or is in a right position to understand its divine contents, until he is afflicted. Luther remarks that he never understood the Psalms until God afflicted him.
Fly to the Word of God, then, in every sorrow. You will know more of the mind and heart of God than you, perhaps, ever learned in all the schools before. We must be experimental Christians, if Christians at all. A bare notionalist, a mere theorist, an empty professor of religion, is a fearful deception. Study to know God's Word from a heartfelt experience of its quickening, sanctifying, comforting power. Sit not at the feet of men, but at the feet of Jesus. His Word can alone instruct you in these sacred and precious truths. You must learn in Christ's school, and be taught by the Holy Spirit. And if you are truly converted, spiritually regenerated, a real believer in the Lord Jesus, think not that some strange thing has happened to you when the Lord causes you to pass under the rod of discipline, brings you into trial, and makes you to partake of what may seem to you a soul-diet that is anything but healthful and nutritious, "the bread of adversity, and the water of affliction." (Isa. Xxx.20)
But affliction is one of the Lord's moulds for shaping you into an experimental Christian. And to be an experimental Christian His Word must be inwrought into our soul. What can we know of the promises, the succourings, the sympathy of God's Word, its perfect adaptation to the crushed and sorrowful condition of our humanity, but for trial? Thus, more than one-half of the Bible is a "garden inclosed, a spring shut up, a fountain sealed," until the Lord lays sorrow upon our hearts, and brings us into circumstances of adversity. Then this garden unveils its beauty, and this spring pours forth its refreshment, and this fountain overflows with its rich and varied supply. Oh, with what power, depth, and sweetness does the Word of God unfold to us then! It is as though a new book had been composed, another constellation in the spiritual hemisphere had burst upon the telescope of faith, another Arcadia had floated into view, a new world had been discovered!
"Blessed is the man whom You chasten, O Lord, and teach him out of Your law." "Unless Your law had been my delight, I should then have perished in my affliction." Draw, then, O child of sorrow, your consolation from God's Word. Put it not away as if it were for others, and not for you. There is not a promise in the Bible, of pardon, of grace, of help, of sympathy, but it is yours, because you are Christ's, "in whom are all the promises of God, and in Him are Yes and Amen to the glory of God the Father." Oh, clasp this precious Word of comfort to your sorrowful heart, and exclaim, "It is mine! The Jesus of whom it speaks is mine, the salvation it reveals is mine, the promises it contains are mine, the heaven it unveils is mine, and all the consolation, comfort, and sympathy which wells lip from these hidden springs, is MINE."
The Word of God is equally valuable and precious to the believer, because of its quickening power. There is a divine vitality in the Word, which, like Ezekiel's vision of the waters, conveys life wherever it comes in "the power and demonstration of the Spirit." As the instrument of regeneration and of sanctification, the Bible is beyond all price. The statements touching these two points are many and conclusive. We quote but a few: "The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul, making wise the simple, rejoicing the heart, enlightening the eyes." (Ps.xix. 7, 8.) See how David extols its quickening power: "This is my comfort in my affliction: for Your word has quickened me." "I will never forget Your precepts: for with them You have quickened me. "As the instrument of the new birth, thus does the Holy Spirit speak of it: "Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the Word of God, which lives and abides forever." (I Peter i. 23.) "The Word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart." (Heb. iv. 12.)
And alluding to it equally as the appointed instrument of holiness, our Lord prays to His Father, "Sanctify them through Your truth." And to the disciples He employs similar language: "Now you are clean through the word which I "have spoken unto you." Employing the same argument, the apostle thus exhorts the saints: "Seeing you have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit unto unfeigned love of the brethren, see that you love one another with a pure heart fervently." Clearly, then, is God's Word an instrument of spiritual life and of gospel holiness, and as such commends itself to the deepest reverence, the warmest love, and the  most diligent study of the believer. Allow, beloved reader, a few words of exhortation bearing upon this subject.
Study the Scriptures of truth with a heart in prayerful uplifting for the accompanying power, light, and anointing of the Holy Spirit. The Word is but a dead letter, unattended by the Spirit. The Word of God is a "sword," but the sword is effectual only as it is wielded, by the power of the Spirit. "The sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God." Expect, then, this Word to be powerful in your own souls, as in the souls of those upon whom you bring it to bear, only as it is clothed with the divine and irresistible might and energy of the Holy Spirit. Then it will quicken, enlighten, and convince; then it will convert, comfort, and sanctify. Ever remember that the Divine Author of the Bible is at your side—invisible and noiseless—when you sit down to read it. Graciously and kindheartedly He is bending over you, prepared to explain what is difficult, to harmonize what is contradictory, and to shed a flood of light upon each page, causing Heaven's glory to dart into your soul from the diamond spark of a single passage!
Such, beloved, are the effects of the gospel, when clothed with the authority and power of God the Holy Spirit. It was the folly of the Jews to think to find life in the Scriptures without Christ: life in the letter without the Original of life. (John v. 19,40.) 'Except the Lord build the house (that is, the temple), they labor in vain that build it.' Without God all endeavors to build a spiritual temple, are like the strivings to wash a blackamoor white. No believing in the Word, though preached a thousand times, without God's revealing arm. (Isaiah liii. I.) It is not the tool that makes the watch, but the artist by it. No instrument can act without the virtue of some superior agent. It is the altar that sanctifies the gold, and Christ that sanctifies the ordinance.
Paul may plant by his doctrine and miracles, Apollos may water by his affectionate eloquence, but God alone can give the increase by His almighty breath. Man sows the seed, but God only can make it fructify. Then have your eyes fixed upon God. It is the Word of His lips, not of man's, whereby any are snatched out of the paths of the destroyer, as well as kept from them. Man's teachings direct us to Christ; God's teachings bring us to Christ. Man brings the gospel at most to the heart; the Spirit only brings the gospel into the heart. Man puts the key to the lock; God only turns it, and opens the heart by it. It is God only can knock off the fetters of spiritual death, and open the gates that the King of Glory may enter with spiritual life. If any, therefore, will regard the Word more than as an instrument, or a partner with God in His operations. He may justly leave you to the weakness of this, and deny the influx of His own strength.
Cultivate a profound reverence for God's Word. Nothing is more grievous to the Holy Spirit than a trifling with revelation. The words of Scripture are divinely inspired. "Holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit." "Which things also we speak, not in the words which man's wisdom takes, but which the Holy Spirit takes." Stand in awe of this Holy Book! Beware of referring to it doubtfully, or of quoting it with levity. To adopt the words of Scripture irreverently, to speak of any of its parts with suspicion, or to employ its phraseology flippantly, is to cast discredit upon inspiration, to press it into the service of the flesh, and to make the Word of God the jest-book of the profane. This is awful trifling with the thoughts and words of the Holy Spirit. God says, "I will look to him . . . . who trembles at my Word." This was David's holy reverence, "My heart stands in awe of Your Word." And this his prayer, "Order my steps in Your Word, and let not any iniquity have dominion over me."
This profound conviction of the divinity and authority of God's Word will constrain you to bring the state of your soul, your doctrinal sentiments, and your daily life, to its unerring test. The only divine and sure standard is the Word. "To the law and to the testimony," should be our constant rule. Regard, in all matters of faith and practice, the Word of God as authoritative in its teaching, paramount in its voice, and final in its decision. Whatever doctrine or practice squares not with this standard, that will not stand the searching test of this divine touchstone, reject as unworthy your belief and adoption. Let this be your daily practical acknowledgment. "Your Word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path." Taking into your hands this lamp, and guiding your steps by this light, your feet will never slide. Cling to the Word of God the more firmly, as others attempt to sap the foundations of its divinity. Be "valiant for the truth on the earth," and " contend earnestly for the faith once delivered to the saints." "Let the Word of Christ dwell richly in you in all wisdom," hiding it in your heart, that you sin not against Him. Read it with prayer for the teaching of the Holy Spirit, comparing scripture with scripture, spiritual things with spiritual. Search it to know more of Christ, more of His atoning work, more of His mediatorial suitability to meet your every state of mind and heart. Study it to know the will of God, the love of your heavenly Father. Take every doubt, perplexity, and sorrow to the Word of God. And before you unfold its sacred leaves, lift your heart in prayer to the Eternal Spirit to guide your reading, to open your understanding, and to unveil your eye to this divine well-spring of life. This is the only rule we suggest for the spiritual and practical reading of God's Word.
Human helps may aid you in the study of the sacred literature of the Bible; but to read it with a view to the feeding and nourishing of the divine life in your soul, that you may grow in knowledge, faith, and holiness, that you may be instructed, comforted, and armed for the holy war, you need but rely upon the teaching of the Holy Spirit, who is promised to guide you into all the truth as it is in Jesus.
Beware of studying the Bible as a lover of history, of science, of poetry. Study it as a sinner, anxious to know how you may be saved. Read it to ascertain how God can pardon, justify, and take you to heaven when you die. Lay aside your caviling, debating, and speculating, and approach the Bible as a little child, as a sincere inquirer, as a humble learner, desirous of knowing the Scriptures, that are able to make you wise unto eternal life. In a research so momentous, lay aside all other books, and be the student of this one the Book of God. Salvation is its one, its grand and absorbing theme, and this is all you need to know as a sinner bound for the judgment-seat of Christ.
A notional, speculative reception of the Bible prepares an uneasy pillow for a dying hour; and it is marvellous and solemn to reflect how every subject, every theme, every question growing out of the history, philology, or destiny of God's Word, gives place in that awful moment to the one momentous, sublime salvation therein revealed, by which the soul may escape from hell and soar to heaven. Who then desires to listen to learned disquisitions upon the literature, the eloquence, the poetry, or the sublimity of the Bible? Who, when nature is dissolving, earth is receding, eternity is opening, is in a condition to weigh, examine, and sift the evidences of the divinity of the Scriptures? The earnest, imploring language of such a one, alive to a conviction of sin and danger, is, "Is there pardon, is there salvation, is there hope for such a sinner as I am? Does the Word of God tell me how I may be saved ? Read to me of Christ. Tell me of the Savior. Point me to the Lamb of God. Direct my eye to the cross, and let me behold Him whose blood cleanses from all sin. Read to me, speak to me, tell me only of JESUS."
Precious Book, that fully meets a crisis of our being, and an awakened, alarmed state of mind, so tremendously solemn as this!  We close this chapter with an earnest appeal to your judgment, conscience, and heart in favor of the Word of God. Whatever you neglect, neglect not the Bible. If a professed believer, beware how you blend in your reading the chaff of human fiction and story, with the wheat of God's Word. It is utterly impossible, reason as you may, that you can cultivate a spiritual and devout taste and desire for the truth of God and the fiction of man. The Bible and the novel can never stand side by side. As a Christian, guard against the light, frivolous, frothy literature of the day. It will lessen your conviction of what is true, it will depreciate the value of what is divine, it will impair your taste for what is spiritual, and it will bring poverty, barrenness, and death into your soul. God speaks to you from every paragraph and sentence of this Holy Book. It is His voice that we hear, His signature that we behold, His ineffable glory, which, the more it is viewed in this bright mirror, may the more powerfully command our wonder and praise. When we approach these divine oracles, and hear the voice of God sometimes speaking out of the midst of the fire, but more often from the blood of sprinkling which speaks better things than the blood of Abel, we may well bend our knee, and take the shoes from off our feet, for the ground on which we stand is holy. Oh that power might come down upon us from the Spirit of truth and grace, and beams from the Sun of righteousness break in upon our minds as we contemplate the intrinsic glories of the Bible! Let the truth and weight of these revelations sink deep into your ears. As men of this world merely, as creatures of time, more especially as the proprietors of immortality, you have a thousand-fold deeper interest in the Bible than in any other, or all other books. It is just as important that you who have the opportunity should become acquainted with the Scriptures, and believe, and love, and obey them, as it is that you should be saved. This Book offers to you that which most you need, that which is infinitely more to you than all other things, glory, honor, immortality, and eternal life. We cannot but look upon the prevailing indifference with which the Word of God is regarded, as one of the evils over which we are loudly called to mourn.
You send the Bible to the ignorant and destitute, you carry it to every cottage and waft it to every country, and thanks to God that you do so. But to what extent is it studied in your churches, read in your families, taught to your children? There is no surer evidence of living without God in the world than living without intimate communion with the Bible. Who that does not mean to remain in impenetrable obduracy, who that does not form the deliberate resolve to close every avenue to the divine influence, that is not prepared to plunge the dagger of the second death into his own bosom; can live in the neglect of these Scriptures of God? And if you believe them, and understand them, will you refuse them the submission of your heart and your everlasting obedience? Do you accredit the stupendous truths contained in this volume, and shall they awaken no deep interest, and urge you to no solemn preparation for your last account? There is not one among those who will not prove a savor of life unto life, or of death unto death. What can we add more to this searching, solemn appeal to you who are living in a wilful neglect of that Book which tells you of life in this world, and out of which you will be judged in the world which is to come? Disbelieve, or neglect the Word of God, and you reject the only chart to eternity.

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"The Entire Pardon and Justification of the Believing Sinner"

"The Speciality of the Design of the Atonement"

"In that day there shall be a fountain opened to the house of David and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, for sin and uncleanness." - Zech. xiii. 1.

We have already, in the opening chapter of this work, remarked upon the incompetency of natural reason to understand spiritual truth: neither the nature, the harmony, or the end of Divine truth can it discern. This incapacity may be traced, not to a deficiency of mental endowment, or to the extreme abstruseness of revelation, for the weakest intellect, enlightened and sanctified by the Spirit of God, may grasp the profoundest doctrine in the great system of theology, so far as the revelation of that doctrine extends- but to the lack of a spiritually-renewed mind. This is the cause and this only. There is the mind, and there is the truth; the one vigorous, the other lucid; and yet there is no sympathy the one with the other. How, on other grounds, can it be accounted for? There is no spiritual taste for the investigation of God's holy Word. The moral tone of the mind harmonizes not with its holy and lofty themes. The one is on the side of holiness, the other on the side of sin. The one asserts the authority and spirituality of the law, the other assumes the attitude of hostility to that law. Where then is the affinity? where the sympathy? On other subjects it may be at home; here, it is tossed upon an open sea. In the investigation of other themes, it may prove itself a giant in power; here, it betrays the feebleness of a dwarf. It follows then, as a self-evident truth, that the mind must be changed, and changed by God himself, before Divine truth will either be understood or received. Hence we find the Apostle, in behalf of the Ephesian Christian thus praying: "That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him, the eyes of your understanding being enlightened." Eph. i. 17, 18.
Of all the doctrines of the Gospel, thus dark and inexplicable to an unrenewed mind, is the doctrine of Christ's Atonement in its especial and gracious design. This can only be understood by a mind awakened to the nature and turpitude of their personal sin. As the expiation of sin was the great design of Christ's wondrous death, so no individual, thus ignorant of sin, however vast his mental powers, and however firm his belief in the truth of Divine revelation, can discover and welcome this truth. We speak not, and need we again assure the reader, of mere theoretical views of truth. O no! We speak of a higher grade of knowledge than this. There is as wide a difference as possibly can be, between a reception of the truth in the judgment, and the reception of the truth in the heart. Let no man be deceived. To deceive others is awful- but to deceive one-self; more awful yet! It is to this natural darkness, this ignorance of sin, this lack of the Spirit's teaching, that we are to attribute all the false and erroneous views that men have advanced touching the nature and design of Christ's death. It is our solemn belief, that all error in theology, especially that which undermines the Atonement, has its rise in the setting aside the law of God. Let the law be fully recognized in its Divine authority, its inflexible dignity, and its spotless purity; let its condemnatory sentence be felt in the soul; let all hope of justification by its obedience be swept away, and let the sinner stand forth in the full blaze of its terrors; and then will be seen the absolute necessity of an Atonement, and precisely such an Atonement as the adorable Redeemer offered upon the cross. No individual then, taught by the Spirit, who is emphatically designated "The Spirit of Truth,"- made to see the exceeding sinfulness of sin as against a holy God- emptied of all self-sufficiency- the eye open to the inward plague, and laid prostrate in the dust as a poor, broken-hearted sinner- no individual thus taught, would ever affirm that Jesus died with any other design than that for which he did die, that is, to offer to Divine Justice a full and infinite satisfaction for sin.
This brings us to the immediate discussion of the subject. May we feel, that the ground on which we now stand, is holy. If there be a subject, the consideration of which we should approach with caution, humility, and prayer, it is this. May our hearts be lifted up to God for the teachings of his Spirit, whose blessed office, in the economy of grace, it is to glorify Christ, "taking of the things that belong to him, and showing them to the soul." John xvi. 14. O for his holy anointing, while we treat of this stupendous subject- Christ presenting himself a sacrifice for sin! For the purpose of presenting the subject clearly before the mind of the reader, we shall first adduce those prominent portions of God's Word, which declare the end and design of Christ's death to be an Atonement for sin; it will then be appropriate to show that the Atonement of Christ is a full and entire blotting out of the sins of his people; this will prepare us to glance at the great covenant blessings which an experimental belief of this truth conveys into the soul.
The Word of God, the only rule of faith and duty, distinctly and invariably represents the death of Jesus as a sacrifice, and the especial and gracious design of that sacrifice, an Atonement for sin. If this is denied, how are we to interpret the following remarkable passages? "He was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed." Isa. liii. 5. "The Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all." Ver. 6. "This is my blood of the New Testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins." Matt. xxvi. 28. "When we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly." Rom. v. 6. "He has made him to be sin (or a sin offering) for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him." 2 Cor. v. 21. "In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace." Eph. i. 7. "Forasmuch as you know that you were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold, from your vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers; but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot." 1 Pet. i. 18, 19. "For if the blood of bulls and of goats, and the ashes of an heifer sprinkling the unclean, sanctifies to the purifying of the flesh: how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the Eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?" Heb. ix. 13, 14. "Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins." 1 John iv. 1O.
How perfectly unintelligible these declarations of God's Word, if we regard them not as so many affirmations of the great doctrine in question! Let not the reader turn away from God's Word. If he be a disbeliever in the doctrine of Christ's vicarious sufferings, let him be cautious how he tampers with these solemn declarations. They affirm the doctrine of the Atonement, or nothing at all. They possess no meaning if interpreted in any other light. Recur again to the amazing expressions- "Wounded for our transgressions." "Bruised for our iniquities." On him the "iniquity of us all." "Blood shed for the remission of sins" "Died for the ungodly." "Made sin." "Through his blood the forgiveness of sins." "Propitiation for our sins." What see we here, but the Atoning blood- the full satisfaction- the bearing of sin- the surety, the substitute?
And how shall we account for the sufferings of Christ, which were intense, and mysterious, if not on the ground of their vicarious character? Those sufferings were intense in the extreme. There was a severity in those who, if not required by Divine justice, would be perfectly unaccountable. Heaven, Earth, and Hell, all were in league against him. Survey his eventful history mark every step which he took from Bethlehem to Calvary; and what do we learn of his sufferings, but that they were of the most extraordinary and intense character? His enemies, like dogs of war, were let loose upon him. His professed followers themselves stood aghast at the scenes through which their Lord was passing- one betraying him, another denying him, and all, in the hour of his extremity, forsaking him. Is it any wonder that, in the anguish of his soul, his suffering humanity should exclaim, "Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; yet not my will, but yours be done." In that awful moment, all the waves and billows of God's wrath, due to the sins of his people, were passing over him. The Father, the last resource of sympathy, veiled his face, and withdrew from him his sensible presence, and on the cross, draining the cup of sorrow, he fulfilled the prophecy which spoke of him- "I have trodden the wine-press alone; and of the people there were none with me." Isa. lxiii. 3.

His sufferings, too, were mysterious. Why a holy, harmless Being, whose whole life had been one act of unparalleled beneficence, should be doomed to persecution so severe, to sufferings so acute, and to a death so painful and ignominious, the denier of the atonement must be embarrassed to account. But the doctrine of a vicarious sacrifice explains it all, and presents the only key to the mystery. "He was made sin for us, who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him." 2 Cor. v. 21. "Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us." Gal. iii. 13. All the mystery now is gone. He was "made sin for us." He was "made a curse for us." He bore the sin, and consequently the penalty of sin. Had we been left, Christian reader, to bear our sins, we must inevitably have borne alone the punishment of our sins. But Jesus took upon him our sins. For this, he became a party in the covenant of redemption; for this, he assumed our nature; for this, he sorrowed in Gethsemane; for this, the law of God exacted its utmost claim; and for this, the justice of God inflicted the utmost penalty. O what a truth is this! The Son of God offering himself up a sacrifice for sin! He who knew no sin; who was holy, harmless, and undefiled; not one thought of evil in his heart, yet made sin, or a sin-offering!
O the bigness of the thought! If God had not himself declared it, we could not have believed it, though an angel's trumpet had announced it. God himself must proclaim it; and because he has so proclaimed it, we believe it. And God alone can write it upon the heart. 'O blessed and adorable Immanuel! and was this the end and design of your intense and mysterious sufferings? Was it that you should obey, bear the sin, endure the curse, and bow your head in death, that I might go free? Was it in my stead, and in my behalf? O unexampled love! O infinite and free grace! That God should become incarnate: that the Holy One should so take upon Him sin, as to be dealt with by stern justice as though He were Himself the sinner: that He should drain the cup of wrath, give his back to the smiter, endure the shame and the spitting, and at last be suspended upon the cross, and pour out his last drop of most precious blood- and all this for me- for me a rebel- for me a worm for me the chief of sinners! Be astonished, O heavens! and be amazed, O earth! Was ever love like this?'

It will now be appropriate to show from God's Word, that the Atonement of the blessed Redeemer was a full and entire blotting out of the sins of the believer. Need we say anything upon the vast importance of this truth? Need we say how closely it stands connected with the peace, the sanctification, and the eternal glory, of the sinner that hangs on Christ? Let not the reader be satisfied to rest upon the mere surface of the truth, that Christ has made an Atonement for sin; this may be believed, and yet the full blessedness, peace, and sanctification of it not enjoyed. And why? Because he enters not fully into the experience of the truth. Shall we not say, too, because his views of sin rest but on the surface of sin's exceeding sinfulness? Deep views of sin will ever result in deep views of the Sacrifice for sin. Inadequate knowledge of sin result in inadequate knowledge of Christ. Low views of self result in high views of Christ. Be satisfied then not to rest upon the surface of this wondrous truth. May God the Eternal Spirit now lead us into it!

Before we consider the completeness of Christ's Atonement, it may be proper to glance at the BASIS OR CAUSE of that completeness. This arises from the infinite dignity of his Person: his Godhead forms the basis of his perfect work. It guarantees, so to speak, the glorious result of his Atonement. It was this that gave perfection to his obedience, and virtue to his Atonement: it was this that made the blood He shed efficacious in the pardon of sin, and the righteousness He wrought out complete in the justification of the soul. His entire work would have been lacking, but for his Godhead. No created Savior- that dream of the Socinian- could have given full satisfaction to an infinite law, broken by man, and calling aloud for vengeance. How could such a sacrifice, as we would suppose a created Savior to offer, have "magnified the law, and made it honorable?" utterly impossible! A finite being had broken it- an infinite Being must repair it. An obedience was required, in every respect equal in glory and dignity to the law that was violated. The rights of the Divine government must be maintained, the purity of the Divine nature must be guarded, and the honor of the Divine law must be vindicated. To accomplish this, God himself must become flesh, and to carry this fully out, the incarnate God must die! O depth of wisdom and of grace! O love infinite, love rich, love free! Love...
"Not to be thought on, but with tides of joy,
Not to be mentioned, but with shouts of praise."
Stamped, as the work of Christ is, with the infinite glory and dignity of his Godhead, it will now be an easy and a delightful task to trace its perfection, as it is seen first, in the entire blotting out of all sin, and second, in the complete justification of the person.
The pardon of a believer's sins is AN ENTIRE PARDON. It is the full pardon of all his sins. It were no pardon to him if it were not an entire pardon. If it were but a partial blotting out of the thick cloud- if it were but a partial cancelling of the debt- if it were but a forgiveness of some sins only- then the Gospel were not be glad tidings to his soul. The law of God has brought him in guilty of an entire violation. The justice of God demands a satisfaction equal to the enormity of the sins committed, and of the guilt incurred. The Holy Spirit has convinced him of his utter helplessness, his entire bankruptcy. What rapture would kindle in his bosom at the announcement of a mere partial atonement of a half Savior- of a partial payment of the debt? Not one throb of joyous sensation would it produce. On the contrary, this very mockery of his woe would but deepen the anguish of his spirit.
But, go to the soul, weary and heavy laden with sin- mourning over its vileness, its helplessness, and proclaim the Gospel. Tell him that the Atonement which Jesus offered on Calvary was a full satisfaction for his sins. That all his sins were borne and blotted out in that awful moment. That the bond which Divine justice held against the sinner was fully cancelled by the obedience and sufferings of Christ, and that, appeased and satisfied, God was "ready to pardon." How beautiful will be the feet that convey to him tidings so transporting as this! And are not these statements perfectly accordant with the declarations of God's own Word? Let us ascertain. What was the ark symbolical of, alluded to by the Apostle, in the ninth chapter of his Epistle to the Hebrews, which contained the manna, Aaron's rod, and the tables of the covenant, over which stood the cherubim of glory shadowing the mercy-seat? What, but the entire covering of sin? For, as the covering of the ark did hide the law and testimony, so did the Lord Jesus Christ hide the sins of his chosen, covenant people; not from the eye of God's omniscience, but from the eye of the law. They stand legally acquitted. So entire was the work of Jesus, so infinite and satisfactory his obedience, the law of God pronounces them acquitted- and can never bring them into condemnation. "There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit." "Who is he that condemns? It is Christ that died." How could the Apostle, with any truth, have made a declaration so astounding, and uttered a challenge so dauntless as this, if the point we are now endeavoring to establish were not strictly as we affirm it to be?
And does not the phraseology which the Holy Spirit employs in announcing the doctrine of Divine forgiveness confirm the statement we have made? "I have blotted out, as a thick cloud, your transgressions, and, as a cloud, your sins: return unto me; for I have redeemed you." Isa. xliv. 22. Where would be the constraining power of the motive to "return" to God, but on the ground of a full and entire blotting out of all sin? This it is that subdues, overcomes, and wins back God's wandering child. This it is that abases the soul- deepens the conviction of its vileness, makes the sin of departure, of ingratitude, of rebellion, so abhorrent, when on the broad basis of a full and free blotting out of sin, God bids the soul "return." 'I have blotted out all your sins, therefore return. Though you have gone after other lovers- though you have departed from me- forgotten and forsaken me, yet have I blotted out, as a thick cloud, your transgressions: return, for I have redeemed you.' Again: "In those days, and in that time, with the Lord, the iniquity of Israel shall be sought for, and there shall be none; and the sins of Judah, and they shall not be found." Jer. 1. 2O. "He will turn again, he will have compassion upon us; he will subdue our iniquities; and will cast all their sins into the depths of the sea." Micah vii. 19.
What an astounding truth is contained in these two passages! In the one it is declared, that if the iniquity of Israel, and the sin of Judah, be sought for, they shall not be found. So entire was the blotting out, so glorious was the work of Jesus, so perfect his obedience, that if the eye of God's holy law searches- and where can it not penetrate? it cannot discover them. In the other, it is declared, that, so fathomless are the depths of that sea of atoning blood, which Christ has poured out, that in it are cast, never to be found again, all the sins of the believer. So that the trembling soul may exclaim, "You have in love to my soul delivered it from the pit of corruption: for you have cast all my sins behind your back." Isa. xxxviii. 17.
And who can read, without deep emotion, these affecting announcements by the God of heaven? Gently chiding his wayward, yet beloved people, he says: "But, my dear people, you refuse to ask for my help. You have grown tired of me! You have not brought me lambs for burnt offerings. You have not honored me with sacrifices, though I have not burdened and wearied you with my requests for grain offerings and incense. You have not brought me fragrant incense or pleased me with the fat from sacrifices. Instead, you have burdened me with your sins and wearied me with your faults. I—yes, I alone—am the one who blots out your sins for my own sake and will never think of them again." Isaiah 43:22-25. "I will cleanse them from all their iniquity, whereby they have sinned against me; and I will pardon all their iniquities whereby they have sinned, and whereby they have transgressed against me." Jer. xxxiii. 8. "Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits: who forgives all your iniquities; who heals all your diseases. For as the heaven is high above the earth, so great is his mercy towards those who fear him. As far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us." Psalm. ciii. 2, 3, 11, 12.
Look up, you saints of God, who are disconsolate through fear of condemnation. See all your sins charged to the account of your mighty Surety. Yes, see them all laid upon him as your Substitute. See him bearing them away- sinking them in the ocean of his blood- casting them behind his back. Look up and rejoice! Let not the indwelling of sin, the remains of corruption, cause you to overlook this amazing truth- the entire blotting out of all your sins, through the atoning blood of your adorable Immanuel. It is truth, and it is your privilege to live in the holy enjoyment of it. Fully received into the heart, by the teaching of the Holy Spirit, its tendency will be of the most holy, sanctifying, abasing character. It will weaken the power of sin- it will draw up the heart in pantings for Divine conformity- it will deaden the influence of the objects of sense- expel the love of the world and of self- impart tenderness to the conscience, and cause the soul to go softly- "Walking worthy of the Lord, unto all pleasing, being fruitful in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God." Col. i. 1O.
Before we pass to an experimental view of the kindred, though distinct doctrine of justification, we would beg the Christian reader's serious attention to a subject of the greatest importance, and yet one much overlooked- we allude to the intimate connection between a daily habit of confession of sin, and the application of the atoning blood to the conscience. This is a point of deep significance- and for the lack of clear and scriptural views of it- or from not having seriously considered it at all, the believer in Christ walks for days, and it may be, months, without the blood upon the conscience. The sympathy between the soul's deep and humble confession of sin and the sense of the blotting out of that sin, is great. God has so ordained it. In turning to the book of Leviticus xvi. 21, we find a beautiful and striking illustration of this important point. Thus we read: "And Aaron shall lay both his hands upon the head of the live goat, and confess over him all the iniquities of the children of Israel, and all their transgressions in all their sins, putting them upon the head of the goat, and shall send him away by the hand of a fit man into the wilderness." Here was the confession of sin and the pardon of sin, closely and beautifully blended. The one would have been useless if separated from the other. There could be no pardon without confession, and the mere confession, without the bearing away of sin, would have availed nothing in averting God's holy displeasure. In the first Epistle of John, this Apostle thus writes- ver. 8, 9.- "If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." Observe the close relation in this passage- "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins."

Let us unfold some of the evils that result from a neglect of this duty, and some of the blessings that result from its observance. Sin unconfessed, tends to remove that holy familiarity which ought always to subsist between God and the believer. This communion is of the tenderest kind. The communion between a called, pardoned, and adopted child, and its heavenly Father, is more close and endearing than even that between a mother and her first-born child. Standing in the righteousness of the adorable Immanuel, the Father opens, without reservation, all his heart- pours down the ocean fulness of his love- communes by the inward voice of the indwelling Spirit and draws up the affections to Himself. Who can fully enter into that amazing expression of the Apostle's, "Beloved of God"? On God's part, too, how precious is his own work in the soul of his child. That lowly view of self- that contrite sigh- that broken heart- that faint and feeble longing for Christ- that hungering and thirsting for righteousness- that poverty of spirit- those broken accents of prayer- that feeble lisping of a child, "Abba, Father!" O how unutterably dear is it all to the heart of God! But let the spiritual reader imagine how much of this holy communion is destroyed, and this confidence weakened, by the remains of guilt upon the conscience, through the neglect of a full and free confession of sin.
A sense of guilt upon the conscience invariably occasions distant views of God. The moment Adam became conscious of having sinned, he hid himself from God's eye. He sought concealment from the endearing presence of Him who had been wont to walk in the cool of evening through the bowers of paradise, in sweet and confiding communion. It is so now. Guilt upon the conscience, sin unconfessed, imparts misty, gloomy, distorted views of God. We lose that clear endearing view of his character, which we once had. We dare not look up with holy, humble boldness. We misinterpret his dealings- think harshly of his ways- and if providences are dark, and afflictions come, in a moment we exclaim, 'I have sinned, and God is angry.' And so we seek concealment from God. We sink the Father in the judge, and the child in the slave.
Another evil that results from sin unconfessed is, the hardening tendency it produces upon the conscience. To a child of God who has felt and mourned over the power of sin, we need not stay to prove how hardening is the tendency of sin. How it crusts the heart with a callousness which no human power can soften; and which often requires heavy affliction to remove. Where a child of God, then, neglects the habit of a daily confession of sin, by slow and almost imperceptible degrees, the conscience loses its tenderness, and becomes, by this gradual process, so hardened, as at length to think nothing of a sin which at one period would have filled the soul with horror and remorse.
One more evil we may mention, and that is, that a neglect of this most important duty causes a fearful forgetfulness of sin, without the sweet sense of its forgiveness. The believer loses sight of his sin, not because he knows it to be pardoned, afresh blotted out, but from a mere carnal forgetfulness of the sin. The child of God on whose conscience the atoning blood has been afresh sprinkled, cannot soon forget his sin. O no! Freed from a sense of its condemnation, delivered from its guilt, and looking up to the unclouded face of a reconciled God, yet he remembers how far he could depart from the God that so loved him, and so readily and freely forgave him. The very pardon of his sin stamps it upon his memory. He thinks of it, only to admire the love, and adore the grace, and extol the blood that blotted it out- and thus he is led to go softly all his days. "My soul has them still in remembrance, and is humbled in me." Lam. iii. 2O. But the believer who neglects the duty and the privilege of confession, loses the remembrance of his sin, until brought under the rod of the covenant; then some deep and heavy chastisement recalls it to his memory, and fills him with shame, humiliation, and contrition. In this state, the Eternal Spirit comes into the soul with his restoring mercies, leads the abased and humbled believer afresh to the "fountain opened"- God the God of all comfort, speaks in language of comfort and says, "I will establish my covenant with you; and you shall know that I am the Lord: that you may remember, and be confounded, and never open your mouth any more because of your shame, when I am pacified toward you for all that you have done, says the Lord God." Ezek. xvi. 62, 63.
THE BLESSINGS that result from a strict observance of daily confession of sin, are rich and varied. We would present them as in one group. The conscience retains its tender susceptibility of guilt. Just as a breath will tarnish a mirror highly polished, so will the slightest aberration of the heart from God- the smallest sin, leaves its impression upon a conscience in the habit of a daily unburdening itself in confession, and of a daily washing in the fountain. Going thus to God, and acknowledging iniquity over the head of Immanuel- pleading the atoning blood- the conscience retains its tenderness and its sensitiveness- and sin, all sin, is viewed as that which God hates, and the soul abhors.
This habit too, keeps, so to speak, a clear account between God and the believer. Sins daily and hourly committed are not forgotten- they fade not from the mind, and therefore they need not the correcting rod to recall them to remembrance. For let us not forget, God will eventually bring our sins to remembrance. "He will call to remembrance the iniquity." Ezek. xxi. 23. David had forgotten his sin against God, and his treacherous conduct to Uriah, until God sent the prophet Nathan to bring his iniquity to remembrance. A daily confession then of sin, a daily washing in the fountain, will preserve the believer from many and perhaps deep afflictions. This was David's testimony- "I acknowledged my sin unto you, and my iniquity have I not hid. I said, I will confess my transgressions unto the Lord, and you forgave the iniquity of my sin." Ps. xxxii. 5.
See, then, the close connection between an honest and minute confession of sin, and the application of the precious blood of Christ. Let the child of God be encouraged to take all his sins to his heavenly Father. Have you sinned? Have you taken a single step in departure from God? Is there the slightest consciousness of guilt? Go at once to the throne of grace- stay not until you find some secret place for confession- stay not until you are alone; lift up your heart at once to God, and confess your sin with the hand of faith upon the great atoning Sacrifice. Open all your heart to him. Do not be afraid of a full and honest confession. Shrink not from unfolding its most secret recesses- lay all bare before his eyes. Do you think he will turn from the exposure? Do you think he will close his ear against your breathings? O no! Listen to his own encouraging, persuasive declarations- "Go and proclaim these words toward the north, and say, Return, backsliding Israel, says the Lord; and I will not cause my anger to fall upon you: for I am merciful, says the Lord, and I will not keep anger forever. Only acknowledge your iniquity, that you have transgressed against the Lord your God." Jer. iii. 12, 13. "O Israel, return unto the Lord your God, for you have fallen by your iniquity. Take with you words, and turn to the Lord; say unto him, Take away all iniquity, and receive us graciously." Hos. xiv. 1, 2. "I will heal their backsliding, I will love them freely; for my anger is turned away from him." Ver. 4. O what words are these!
Does the eye of the poor backslider fall on this page? And as he now reads of God's readiness to pardon- of God's willingness to receive back the repenting prodigal- of his yearning after his wandering child- feels his heart melted, his soul subdued, and struck with that amazing declaration, "Only acknowledge your iniquity" would dare creep down at his feet, and weep, and mourn, and confess. O is there one such now reading this page? then return, my brother, return! God, the God against whom you have sinned, says, "Return." Your Father, the Father from whom you have wandered, is looking out for the first return of your soul, for the first kindlings of godly sorrow, for the first confession of sin. Return, my brother, return! God has not turned his back upon you, though you have turned your back upon him. God has not forgotten to be gracious, though you have forgotten to be faithful. "I remember you,"- is his own touching language- "the kindness of your youth, the love of your espousals." Jer. ii. 2. O! then, come back; this moment, come back; the fountain is still open- Jesus is still the same- the blessed and Eternal Spirit, loving and faithful as ever- God ready to pardon. Take up then the language of the prodigal and say, "I will arise and go to my Father, and will say unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven and in your sight, and am no more worthy to be called your son." "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness."
We now proceed to SHOW HOW FULL AND ENTIRE IS THE JUSTIFICATION OF A BELIEVER. This will not require much amplification- seeing that, if the pardon of a believing sinner is a full and entire forgiveness it follows that, so must be his justification. They both result from the same glorious cause- the perfection of our adorable Lord's obedience.
Let us briefly enquire what we are to understand by the righteousness of Christ imputed to a believer, and thus constituting the sole ground of his acceptance. It is not our intention to view the subject metaphysically, but in the clear light of God's own Word. We deprecate the introduction of a metaphysical and scholastic mode of reasoning in the exhibition of Divine truth. God's Word does not require it; it is quite unnecessary in the investigation of the mind of the Spirit. The evils, too, resulting from it, are many and dangerous. God's Word is obscured, mystified, and often its simple meaning fearfully perverted. The mind in search of the truth, not being able to follow a metaphysical argument, or to comprehend the meaning of a scholastic term, becomes perplexed, embarrassed, and discouraged, and at length gives up the investigation. May it not be a subject of important enquiry how far the pulpit and the press, in their efforts to diffuse evangelical knowledge, may be chargeable with the adoption of a mode of discussing religious truth, far removed from the beautiful simplicity of the Gospel, and tending to mar its beauty, pervert its meaning, and impart to the learner crude and misty views of Divine truth? Confident are we, that that ministry would come clothed with most unction, and that treatise would be read with more blessing, and that believer would walk more in peace and joy in the Holy Spirit, where God's Word was most honored, most prayerfully studied, and most studiously followed. This Book tells best and simplest its own wondrous story. But to return from this digression.
We mean by JUSTIFICATION, or rather, we would say, the Word of God means by Gospel justification, the imputation of Christ's infinite and finished righteousness to a repenting, believing sinner; the making over of his perfect obedience in behalf of his church to him that believes. Christ obeyed not for himself, but for his Church. It is an absurdity to suppose that he obeyed the law for himself- the law of God demanded no personal obedience from Christ- for he was perfectly holy, had never sinned, had never broken the law: and to suppose the law exacting obedience, and holding out its threats to a being who was immaculately holy, and therefore had never incurred its penalty, is to take a most obscure and defective view of truth. True, Christ was made under the law, but it was "to redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons." Gal. iv. 4, 5. If he was obligated to do anything for himself, as under the personal curse of the law, then he became incarnate for himself, obeyed for himself, endured the curse for himself, suffered for himself, died and rose again for himself.
As made under the law, true, he was bound to obey, in its every iota, that law, but it was for the people for whom he had entered into a covenant engagement with the Father. In their behalf he kept the Law- for it was not possible that he could himself break it- Satan came, tried, and tempted him, and found nothing in him. John xiv. 3O. In their behalf he endured the curse, and suffered the penalty. And on the ground of his obedience- his obedience, or righteousness imputed to them, in the same manner in which their sins were imputed to him- they stand before God, the holy, the heart-searching God, fully and freely "justified from all things." "For he has made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin," (there is the imputation of our sins to him,) "that we might be made the righteousness of God in him" (there is the imputation of his righteousness to us). 2 Cor. v. 21. "He is the kind of high priest we need because he is holy and blameless, unstained by sin. He has now been set apart from sinners, and he has been given the highest place of honor in heaven. He does not need to offer sacrifices every day like the other high priests. They did this for their own sins first and then for the sins of the people. But Jesus did this once for all when he sacrificed himself on the cross." Hebrews 7:26-27. With this explanation of the doctrine, let us proceed to unfold it.
The righteousness wrought out by the incarnation, obedience, sufferings, and death of Christ, is a most glorious righteousness. It took in the whole law of God. It did not soften down, or ask for a compromise of its claims. It took the law in its utmost strictness and honored it. It gave all the law demanded, all it could demand. And what stamped this righteousness with a glory so great? what enabled the Redeemer to offer an obedience so perfect? What, but that he was God in our nature! The Law-giver became the Law-fulfiller. The God became the Substitute- the judge became the Surety. Behold, then, the justification of a believing sinner! He stands accepted in the righteousness of Christ with full and entire acceptance. What says the Holy Spirit? "In the Lord shall all the seed of Israel be justified, and shall glory." Isa. xlv. 25. "And by him (the Lord Jesus) all who believe are justified from all things, from which you could not be justified by the law of Moses." Acts xiii. 39. "Accepted in the Beloved." Ephes. i. 6. "And you are complete through your union with Christ. He is the Lord over every ruler and authority in the universe." Col. 2:10 "Christ loved the church, and gave himself for it, that he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the Word, that he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having a spot or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish." Eph. v. 25- 27. "He has made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him." 2 Cor. v. 21. Mark the expression, "Made the righteousness of God"!
So called because the righteousness which Christ wrought out was a Divine righteousness, not the righteousness of a created being, of an angel, or of a superior prophet, else it were blasphemy to call it "the righteousness of God." O no! the righteousness in which you stand, if you "are accepted in the Beloved," is a more costly and glorious righteousness than Adam's, or the highest angel in glory: it is "the righteousness of God." The righteousness of the God-Man; possessing all the infinite merit, and glory, and perfection of Deity. And what seems still more incredible, the believer is made the righteousness of God in Christ. Made that righteousness, so that, beholding him in Christ, the Father can "rest in his love, and rejoice over him with singing." Zech. iii. 17. Is it not then we ask, a perfect, a complete justification? what can be more so? Do not the passages we have quoted prove it? Can any other meaning be given to them, without divesting them of their beauty and obvious sense? Would it not be to turn from God's word, to dishonor and grieve the Spirit, and to rob the believer of a most influential motive to holiness, were we to take a less expanded view of this subject than that which we have taken? Most assuredly it would. Then let the Christian reader welcome this truth. If it is God's truth, and we humbly believe we have proved it to be so- it is not less his privilege than his duty to receive it.
What consideration shall we urge upon him why he should welcome it? Shall we say his sanctification is intimately connected with it? and what an argument should this be with a child of God! To be holy- to be like God- to be conformed entirely to the will and image of Christ- to have the temper, the taste, the principles, the daily walk- all like our blessed Immanuel, who is "the chief among ten thousand, the altogether lovely." O! can a believer aspire to a more lofty aim? And this righteousness- this infinite, this Divine, this finished righteousness, received in the heart by the power of God the Holy Spirit, broken up to the soul, lived upon daily, will promote all this: "In your righteousness shall they be exalted." Psalm lxxxix. 16. The righteousness of Christ has a most exalting tendency; it exalts a believer's view of God, of his character and perfections; it exalts his view of Jesus, his person, work, and love; it exalts the believer himself; it takes him out of himself, above and beyond himself; it exalts his principles, his practice, his affections, and conforms him to Christ.
Shall we say his happiness is intimately connected with it? And where is the believer that does not desire to walk happily with God? This is the attainment the world are eagerly in search of- but the believer in Christ is its only possessor; he has found it, and found it in Jesus; he has found it in a renunciation of self-righteousness, and in a humble reception of Christ; and there is no happiness, worthy of the name, that is sought and found outside of Jesus. What true happiness can the heart feel while it is unrenewed, its sins unpardoned, the soul unjustified, and therefore under condemnation, and exposed to the wrath of a holy and just God? O dream not of happiness, reader, until you have gone as a repenting sinner to the cross of Christ; until the atoning blood has been applied to your conscience, and the Spirit bears his witness to your adoption.
If this, and this only, is the source of all true happiness, then the more constantly and closely the believer realizes his full and complete acceptance in the Beloved, the greater must his happiness be. You may be a son or a daughter of affliction; in this furnace you may be chosen, Isa. xlviii. 1O, and through this furnace it may be the Lord's holy will you should pass all your days. You may be a child of poverty, possessing but little of this world's comforts, lonely, neglected, despised. Yet, O look up! you are precious in God's sight dear to him as the apple of his eye; his heart yearns over you with more than a mother's exquisite fondness for her child, because he has loved you with an everlasting love, and, to the praise of the glory of his grace, has "accepted" you "in the Beloved." Eph. i. 6. Realize this, and, though rough and thorny may be your path, and fiery the furnace, and deep your poverty, and lonely your situation, you shall experience a peace, and a happiness, to which the world around you is an utter stranger.
Shall we say, the holy influence which a believer is called to exert around him, will be greatly augmented, and powerfully felt, by an abiding realization of his full and entire acceptance in Christ? The child of God is "the salt of the earth," "the light of the world." He is surrounded by moral putrefaction and darkness. By his holy, consistent example, he is to exert a counteracting influence. He is to be purity where there is corruption, he is to be light where there is darkness. And if his walk is consistent, if his life is holy, his example tells, and tells powerfully, upon an ungodly world. Saints of God catch, as it were, the contagion of his sanctity. The worldling acknowledges the reality of the Gospel he professes, and the bold sceptic falls back abashed, and feels, "how appropriate goodness is." What then will so elevate his own piety, and increase the power of his influence, as a realization of his justification by Christ? O how this commends the religion of Jesus! We will suppose a Christian parent surrounded by a large circle of unconverted children. They look to him as to a living Gospel; they look to him for an exemplification of the truth he believes; they expect to see its influence upon his principles, his temper, his affections, his whole conduct. What then must be their impression of the Gospel, if they behold their parent always indulging in doubts as to his acceptance, yielding to unbelieving fears as to his calling? Instead of walking in the full assurance of faith, saying with the apostle, "I know whom I have believed." 2 Tim. i. 12- instead of walking in the holy liberty, peace, and comfort of acceptance, there is nothing but distrust, dread, and tormenting fear. How many a child has borne this testimony- "The doubts and fears of my parent have been my great stumbling-block!" O then, for the sake of those around you- for the sake of your children, your connections, your friends, your domestics, realize your full, free, and entire acceptance in Christ.
Is it any marvel then- reviewing our ground- that in speaking of his beloved and justified people, God employs in his Word language like this: "All beautiful you are, my darling; there is no flaw in you." Song 4:7; "He has not beheld iniquity in Jacob, neither has he seen perverseness in Israel." Num. xxiii. 21. Carry out this thought. Had there been no iniquity in Jacob? Had there been no perverseness in Israel? Read their histories, and what do they develop but iniquity and perverseness of the most aggravated kind? And yet, that God should say he saw no iniquity in Jacob, and no perverseness in Israel, what does it set forth but the glorious work of the adorable Immanuel- the glory, the fitness, the perfection of that righteousness, in which they stand "without spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing?" Eph. v. 27; in themselves vile and worthless- sinful and perverse-  deeply conscious before God of possessing not a claim upon his regard, but worthy only of his just displeasure, yet counted righteous in the righteousness of another, fully and freely justified by Christ.
Is this doctrine startling to some? Is it considered too great a truth to be received by others? Any other Gospel than this, we solemnly affirm, will never save the soul! The obedience, sufferings, and death of the God-man, made over to the repenting believing sinner, by an act of free and sovereign grace, is the only plank on which the soul can safely rest. Let it attempt the passage across the cold river of death on any other, and it is gone! On this it may boldly venture, and on this it shall be safely and triumphantly carried into the quiet and peaceful haven of future and eternal blessedness. We acknowledge the magnitude of this doctrine; yet is it not to be rejected because of its greatness. It may be profound, almost too deeply so, for an angel's mind; the cherubim may veil their faces, overpowered with its glory, while yet with eager longings they desire to look into it- still may the weakest saint of God receive it, live upon it, walk in it. It is "a deep river, through which an elephant might swim, and which a lamb might ford."
Nor let any individual slight it, because worldly men have held it in unrighteousness. To the heart of a child of God it should not be the less precious because of this. The abuse of any single truth is no argument against the soundness or utility of that truth: if so, then might we set aside well near every doctrine of the cross, because well near every doctrine of the cross has been abused to unholy purposes. It is a solemn thing for a believer to overlook any single doctrine, to stand aloof from any single truth of God's holy Word, because the pearl has been trampled under foot of swine- because ungodly men, receiving the truth notionally in the judgment, and not experimentally in the heart, have walked after their own lusts, deceiving and deceived. O no, we look not to them for an exemplification of the great doctrines of grace; nor are we to attribute their abuse of God's truth to the legitimate tendency of the truth itself. This we assign as a reason why we contend so earnestly for experimental religion: there is no true holiness of heart and of life without it. The mere prater about doctrine, his head filled with notions, and his heart with pride and unmortified sin, may walk in the outward garb of Christianity, deceiving others, and, what at the day of judgment will be most awful, deceiving himself- but the day of separation, the day of sifting, will come, when the wheat will be gathered into the garner, and the chaff will be burned with unquenchable fire.
Let not the reader then turn his back upon a truth, because unholy men have brought it into reproach- then might he turn his back upon Jesus, because of the wounds which, again and again, he has received in the house of his friends. The doctrine of God's eternal, sovereign, and unconditional election of a people, his redemption of them by the sacrifice of his Son Jesus Christ, his particular and effectual calling of them by the Eternal Spirit, their complete pardon and justification, and their preservation to eternal glory- these are God's truths, and not to be rejected. They come from God, and, when received in the heart, they lead to God; they have their origin in him, and to him they draw the soul. Precious truths! How they abase the sinner, how they exalt the dear Redeemer; how they glorify God, how they empty, humble, and sanctify the soul! We would not be the individual to speak anything against them, or think slightingly of them, no, not for our right hand, or for our right eye.
And now, may we not inquire, Have you, dear reader, this robe upon you? In whose righteousness do you at this moment stand? Is it all merely profession? Startle not at the question- turn not from it- it is for your life we ask it. Do you wonder that such a scrutiny into the ground of your hope should be made? Are you astonished at the solemn fact implied in this question? Do not be so. Many have lived in the mere outward profession- have put on Christ in the external garb have talked well of him- have been baptized in his name- given liberally for his cause, and after all, have gone into eternity holding up the empty lamp! O marvel not then, that we repeat the question, In whose righteousness do you at this moment stand? Mere profession will not save your soul; your being found mingling among the wise virgins will not secure you an admittance with them into heaven; your talking respectfully of Jesus will avail you nothing; your church memberships, your liberality, your irreproachable deportment, your spotless morality, your regular attendance on the sanctuary, all, all are vain without the justifying righteousness of the God-man upon you.
What do you know of the broken heart and the contrite spirit? What do you know of the healing blood of Jesus? What do you know of a sense of pardon and acceptance? What do you know of the witness of the Spirit? What do you know of a humble, low, abasing view of yourself? What do you know of a holy and a close walk with God? What do you know of communion and fellowship with the Father and his dear Son? In a word, what do you know of yourself as a helpless, ruined sinner, and of Jesus as a rich, able, and present Savior? Ponder these solemn questions! The hand that pens them trembles with awe as it traces them on this page. This is a day of great profession- a day of great ingathering into the church; a day when much chaff must necessarily be gathered with the wheat. It was so in the primitive days of the church, when apostles, inspired by the Spirit of God, were the men who planted, watered, and gathered in the sheaves. Shall it then be thought a thing incredible with you that, in the present day, the minister may be deceived, and the hearer deceived, and neither of them know it? It solemnly behooves each professing member of Christ's church, of every name and denomination, narrowly to scrutinize his motives, deeply to probe his heart, and closely and habitually to examine the foundation on which he is building for eternity. Thus shall he walk, if he be an adopted child, in the sweet and holy realization of his pardon and acceptance; thus shall he experience the blessedness of the man whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered; and thus, too, shall he constantly be "a vessel unto honor, sanctified, and fit for the Master's use, and prepared unto every good work."

There are many and peculiar BLESSINGS which an experimental belief and realization of this great truth conveys into the soul, a slight glance at some of which will close this chapter.
First, A consciousness of perfect security, and freedom from condemnation. Let us not be misunderstood. We mean not to affirm, that a child of God is secure only as he realizes his pardon and acceptance. Far be it from us to utter a sentiment like this. Many and long are the seasons of spiritual darkness and sensible withdrawments of God's presence, through which the believer is often called to pass; seasons, during which his hope seems to have perished, Lam. iii. 18; and God, as he believes, has forgotten to be gracious, Ps. lxxvii. 9; seasons, during which he cannot look up as a pardoned sinner, as a justified soul, as an adopted child, and say, "Abba, Father!" All is midnight gloom to his soul. And while God seems to have withdrawn, Satan instantly appears. Taking advantage of the momentary absence of the Lord, for, let it be remembered, it is not an actual and eternal withdrawment- Satan levels his fiery darts; suggests hard thoughts of God; tempts the soul to believe the past has been but a deception, and that the future will develop nothing but darkness and despair. Satan, that constant and subtle foe, frequently seizes, too, upon periods of the believer's history, when the Providences of God are dark and mysterious- when the path, along which the weary pilgrim is pressing, is rough and intricate- or, it may be, when he sees not a spot before him- the way is obstructed, and he is ready to exclaim with job, "He has fenced up my way that I cannot pass, and he has set darkness in my paths." Job xix. 8; or with Jeremiah, "He has hedged me about, that I cannot get out." Lam. iii. 7.
Let it not then be forgotten by the soul that walks in darkness and has no light, that the providential dealings of a covenant God and Father, which now are depressing the spirits, stirring up unbelief, and casting a shade over every prospect, may be seized upon by its great enemy, and appropriated to an occasion of deep and sore temptation. It was thus he dealt with our blessed Lord, who was in all points tempted as his people, yet without sin, Heb. iv. 15. Satan, taking advantage of his prolonged fast, and the weakness of body and hunger which were the consequence- for, let it ever be borne in mind, God took upon him pure humanity with all the sympathies of our nature, and with all the weakness which clung to it presented the temptation in its most pliable form. Luke iv. 2- 13. And if the Head thus was tempted, so will be the member- if the Lord, so the disciple. And for this very end was our blessed Lord thus tempted, that he might enter sympathetically into all the circumstances of his tried and suffering people- "For in that he himself has suffered being tempted, he is able to support those who are tempted." Heb. ii. 28.
But we must not, we dare not, refrain from ascribing this spiritual darkness to another, and perhaps more obvious cause, we allude to a distant and careless walk. This will as certainly bring darkness into the soul, with its painful attendants- unbelief- loss of thoughts of God- slavish fear- as if an individual were to close every inlet of a habitation to the rays of the sun, and sit down amid the gloom and the obscurity with which he has enshrouded himself. There is no true spiritual light but that which beams from the Sun of Righteousness; and to this every inlet of the soul must be open. All other light is false- it is but like the treacherous beacon erected upon a rock-bound coast, for the purpose of beguiling to its shore the unsuspecting bark. To enjoy this light then, a believer must dwell near the Sun, he must live close to Christ: he must live the life of daily faith upon him- he must look away from himself to Jesus- he must walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing- he must be found prayerful and diligent in the means; while, rising above them, he draws all his light, life, and peace from the God of the means.
O what losers are they who walk as Peter walked- at a distance from their Lord- what seasons of endearing communion- what tokens of love- what visits of mercy they rob themselves of! What losers are they who neglect the means of grace- closet prayer- church fellowship- the communion of saints- the blessed ordinances of baptism and the Lord's supper- these channels, through which a covenant God conveys such untold blessings into the soul of his dear child! For "the secret of the Lord is with those who fear him;" and to fear him, is not to dread him as a slave, but as a child to walk in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blamelessly. O! what losers then are such!
While penning this closing part of the chapter, the writer was sent for to administer spiritual consolation to one on the confines of eternity, who, at an early period of her life, professed publicly her attachment to the Lord, but who, after a time, walked no more with Jesus; and now the season of sickness, and probably of death, had come! And O! could he have gathered every wandering, every backsliding, every careless, worldly professor of Christ around that bed, to have listened to the deep regrets, the bitter self-reproaches, the piercing cries for pardon, that fell from her lips, and to have witnessed, too, the deep anguish that wrung her agonized bosom, how more powerfully would they have warned, and how more persuasively would they have pleaded, than the page which now warns and pleads with the careless, prayerless, worldly professor! Christian professor! are you walking at a distance from Christ, if following him at all? Are you opening your heart to the world- laying yourself out for its entanglements? Are you conforming to it in your spirit, your policy, your maxims, your dress, your pursuits, your friendship, your religion? Are you neglecting the means of grace, the sanctuary of God- the preaching of the Gospel, the prayer-meetings, the communion of saints? Are you neglecting prayer- family prayer- social prayer- sanctuary prayer- most of all, closet prayer?
O, if so, how fearfully you are turning your back upon God! how wantonly are you trampling your precious privileges under foot! What a harvest of sorrow are you sowing for a dying hour! what reason have you to tremble, lest after all, Christ has never been formed in your heart, the hope of glory! What is your present hope? Is it merely a profession? Give it up- abandon it as worthless, and as a sinner undone, a sinner without hope, go to Jesus. A mere profession will never save you. A bare supposition will only delude you. You must have the witness of the Spirit. But to the soul following hard after God, we would say, there are two 'exceeding great and precious promises,' which a child of God should ever keep in view: "Unto the upright there arises light in the darkness." Ps. cxii. 4; "Unto you that fear my name shall the Sun of Righteousness arise with healing in his wings." Mal. iv. 2. Thus it is evident that to those who walk uprightly before God- upright in heart, as well as upright in outward conduct- upright in principle as well as upright in practice- and to those who walk in the holy filial fear of God, the Lord has his choicest covenant blessings. But to return:
We say not, then, that a momentary sense of God's withdrawment from the believer affects his actual security in the atoning blood: this, nothing can disturb. The safety of a child of God hinges not upon a frame or a feeling, the ever varying and fitful pulses of a believing soul. O no! The covenant rests upon a surer basis than this; the child of the covenant is sealed with a better hope and promise. He may change, but his covenant God never; his feelings may vary, but his Father's love never veers: He loved him from all eternity, and that love extends to all eternity. As God never loved his child for anything he saw, or should see, in that child, so his love never changes for all the fickleness, sinfulness, and unworthiness, he daily and hourly discovers. O where would the soul fly but for this truth? When it takes into account the sins, the follies, the departures, the flaws of but one week; yes, when it reviews the history of but one day, and sees enough sin in a thought to sink it to eternal and just perdition, but for an unchangeable God, to what consolation would it resort?
But what forms the great security of the believer? what, but the atoning blood? This, and this only. The Father, beholding his child in his beloved Son, washed and clothed, pardoned and justified, can "rest in his love, and rejoice over him with singing." The atonement guarantees his eternal safety. What formed the security of Noah and his family, when the deluge of God's wrath descended upon an ungodly world? The ark in which God had shut him. What formed the security of the children of Israel in Egypt, when the destroying angel passed through the camp waving in his hand the weapon of death? The blood of the Pascal lamb, sprinkled on the lintel and doorposts of their dwellings; and where this sacred sign was seen, into that house he dared not enter, but passed on to do the work of death where no blood was found. Exactly what the ark was to Noah, and the blood of the lamb was to the children of Israel, is the atoning blood of Christ to the believing soul. It forms his eternal security.
Reader! is that blood applied to you? Are you washed in it? Is it upon you at this moment? Precious blood! precious Savior who shed it! precious faith that leads to it! how it washes away all sin! how it lightens the conscience of its burden, heals the heart of its wound- dispels the mist, and brings down the unclouded sunlight of God's reconciled countenance in the soul! O, adore the love and admire the grace that opened the fountain, and led you to bathe, all guilty, polluted, and helpless as you were, beneath its cleansing stream! and with Cowper let us sing,
"E'er since by faith I saw the stream
Your flowing wounds supply,
Redeeming love has been my theme,
And shall be until I die.
"Then in a nobler, sweeter song,
I'll sing your power to save;
When this poor lisping, stammering tongue
Lies silent in the grave."

Second- deeper views of sin's exceeding sinfulness, may be regarded as another invaluable blessing, resulting from a realizing apprehension of the atoning blood. No child of God, if he is advancing in the divine life, but must mourn over his defective views of sin. The holier he grows, the more sensible he is of this: yes, may we not add? the deeper the view of his own vileness, the stronger the evidence of his growth in sanctification. A growing hatred of sin, of little sins, of great sins, of all sin- sin detected in the indwelling principle, as well as sin observable in the outward practice, O, it is one of the surest symptoms of the onward progress of the soul in its spiritual course. The believer himself may not be sensible of it, but others see it; to him it may be like a retrograde, to an observer it is an evidence of advance. The child of God is not the best judge of his own spiritual growth. He may be rapidly advancing when not sensible of it; the tree may be growing downwards, its roots may be expanding and grasping more firmly the soil in which they are concealed, and yet the appearance of growth not be very apparent. There is an inward, concealed, yet effectual growth of grace in the soul; the believer may not be sensible of it, and even others may overlook it, but God sees it: it is his own work, and he does not think disdainfully of it.
God, in his gracious dealings with the believer, often works by contraries. He opens the eye of his child to the deep depravity of the heart; discloses to him the chamber of imagery; reveals to him the sin unthought of, unsuspected, unrepented, unconfessed, that lies deeply embedded there. And why? Only to make his child more holy; to compel him to repair to the mercy-seat, there to cry, there to plead, there to wrestle for its subjection, its mortification, its crucifixion. And through this, as it were, circuitous process, the believer presses on to high and higher degrees of holiness. In this way, too, the believer earnestly seeks for humility, by a deep discovery which the Lord gives him of the pride of his heart; for meekness by a discovery of petulance; for resignation to God's will, by a sense of restlessness and impatience; and so on, through all the graces of the blessed Spirit. Thus there is a great growth in grace, when a believer's views of sin's exceeding sinfulness, and the inward plague, are deepening.
But how are these views of sin to be deepened? By constant, close views of the blood of Christ- realizing apprehensions of the Atonement. This is the only glass through which sin is seen in its greater magnitude. Let the Christian reader, then, deal much and often with the blood of Christ. O! that we should need to be urged to this; that, once having bathed in the "fountain opened," we should ever look to any other mode of healing and of sanctification! For, let it never be forgotten, that a child of God is as much called to live on Christ for sanctification as for pardon: "Sanctify them through your truth." And who is the truth? Jesus himself answers, "I am the truth." Then we are to live on Jesus for sanctification: and happy and holy is he who thus lives on Jesus. The fulness of grace that is treasured up in Christ, why is it there? For the sanctification of his people- for the subduing of all their sins. O forget not, then, that he is the Refiner, as well as the Savior; the Sanctifier as well as the Redeemer.
Take your indwelling corruptions to him; take the besetting sin, the weakness, the infirmity, of whatever nature it is, at once to Jesus: his grace can make you all that he would have you to be. Remember, too, that this is one of the great privileges of the life of faith- living on Christ for the daily subduing of all sin. This is the faith that purifies the heart; and it purifies by leading the believer to live out of himself upon Christ. To this blessed and holy life our Lord Jesus referred, when speaking of its necessity in order to the spiritual fruitfulness of the believer: "Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself; except it abide in the vine; no more can you, except you abide in me. I am the vine, you are the branches: he that abides in me, and I in him, the same brings forth much fruit: for without me you can do nothing," John xv. 4, 5.
O that the church of Christ, and each individual member, would but realize this truth, that simpler, closer, more experimental views of Jesus would essentially strengthen the tone of inward spirituality and comfort! The great secret of all comfort in seasons of affliction, is to take the affliction, as it comes, simply to Christ; and the great secret of all holiness, is to take the corruption, as it rises, simply to Christ. It is this living upon Christ for all he needs, this going to Christ under all circumstances and at all seasons, which forms the happy and holy life of a child of God. There is no other path for him to walk in. The moment he turns from Christ, he becomes like a vessel loosed from its moorings, and driven at the mercy of the winds from billow to billow. Christ must be all in all to him. Friends, domestic comforts, church privileges, ordinances, means of grace, nothing must suffice for Jesus. And why does the Lord so frequently discipline the soul? why remove friends, why blight domestic comforts, why rob us of church privileges, why close up the ordinances, and write death upon the means of grace? O why, but to open away through which he himself might enter the believer, and convince that lonely, bereaved, and desolate heart, that he is a substitute for everything, while nothing shall ever be a substitute for him! He will have the supreme affection of his saints; they shall find their all in him; and to this end he sends afflictions, crosses, and disappointments, to wean them from their idols, and draw them to himself.
Sometimes, in order to learn experimentally this holy truth, that Christ must be every thing, the Lord, the Spirit, leads back the believer to first principles! He is led to retrace his steps, go over the ground he has traveled, and find his comfort and his evidence at the very spot from where he first set out. He has to come as at first, a poor, empty, helpless sinner, hanging on a full, rich, and all-sufficient Savior. After all he has passed through of severe trial and fiery temptation, after all the storms and tempests, the conflicts and the victories, he is compelled to betake himself afresh to Jesus, empty and helpless as when first he cried for mercy. This, let us assure the reader, is no small proof of God's love, thus to be led back to first principles. Let him not be discouraged if the Lord is dealing thus with him now; let him count it all joy if his Great Teacher has seen fit to put him in a lower class, and has given him the first lesson of Christian experience to learn- that lesson is the first and the last lesson. Happy and holy is he who thoroughly learns it. The author will not soon lose the impression left upon his mind by an interview with that eminent servant of Christ, the late Rev. Rowland Hill, a few months previous to his death, who, when speaking of his then state of mind, remarked in his peculiarly solemn manner- "Sir, when I enter heaven, I shall enter it, crying, 'God be merciful to me a sinner!"' Coming from such a man, and at such a time, it was an affecting and striking testimony to the blessedness of being led back to first principles.

Third- a conformity to the death of Christ may be regarded as another and a great blessing, resulting from a personal realization of the atoning blood. Indeed, we dare affirm, that conformity to his death can only be obtained by close, individual, realizing views of the cross. It is in the cross sin is seen in its exceeding sinfulness. It is in the cross the holiness of God shines with such ineffable luster. This is the sun that throws its light upon these two great objects- the holiness of God, the sinfulness of the sinner. Veil this sun, remove the cross, blot out the Atonement, and all our knowledge of holiness and sin vanishes into distant and shadowy views. Faith, dealing much and closely with the cross of Christ, will invariably produce in the soul conformity to his death. This was the great desire of the apostle: "That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death." Phil. iii. 1O. This was the noble prayer of this holy man. He desired crucifixion with Christ; a crucifixion to sin, to indwelling sin, to sin in its every shape, to sin in principle, sin in temper, sin in worldly conformity, sin in conversation, sin in thought, yes, sin in the very glance of the eye. He desired not only a crucifixion of sin, of one particular sin, but of all sin; not only the sin that most easily beset him, the sin that he daily saw and felt, and mourned over, but the sin that no eye saw but God's- the sin of the indwelling principle- the root of all sin- the sin of his nature.
This is to have fellowship with Christ in his sufferings. Jesus suffered as much for the subduing of the indwelling principle of sin, as for the pardon of the outbreakings of that sin in the daily practice. Have we fellowship with him in these sufferings? There must be a crucifixion of the indwelling power of sin. To illustrate the idea: if the root be allowed to strengthen and expand, and take a deeper and firmer grasp, what more can we expect than that the tree will shoot upward, and branch out on either hand? To cut off the outward branches is not the proper method to stay the growth of the tree: the root must be uncovered, and the axe laid to it. Outward sins may be cut off, and even honestly confessed and mourned over, while the concealed principle, the root of the sin, is overlooked, neglected, and allowed to gather strength and expansion.
We do not assert that the inherent evil of a believer will ever be entirely eradicated, in his present earthly life. To expect this, would be to expect what God's Word has not declared: but that it may be greatly subdued and conquered, its power weakened and mortified, this the Word of God leads us to hope for and aim after. How is this to be attained? Faith dealing frequently and closely with Christ the atoning blood upon the conscience- the "fountain opened" daily resorted to- the believer sitting constantly at the foot of the cross- gazing upon it with an eye of steady, unwavering faith- "looking unto Jesus." In this posture, sin, all sin- the sin of the heart, the sin of the practice- is mourned over, wept over, confessed, mortified, crucified. Let the reader again be reminded, that all true crucifixion of sin springs from the cross of Christ.

Fourth- a most powerful incentive to prayer is found in a close and realizing view of the atoning blood. What encouragement does it present to this blessed and holy life of communion with God! the atoning blood! the mercy-seat sprinkled over! the High Priest before the throne! the cloud of incense constantly ascending! the Father well pleased! What can more freely invite the soul that pants for close and holy communion with God? And when the atoning blood is realized upon the conscience, when pardon and acceptance are sealed upon the heart by the Eternal Spirit- O then what a persuasion to draw near the throne of grace has the believer in Christ! Then, there is no consciousness of guilt to keep the believer back; no dread of God; no trembling apprehensions of a repulse from God. God is viewed through the cross as reconciled, and as standing in the endeared relationship, and wearing the inviting smile, of a Father. With such an altar, such a High Priest, such atoning blood, and such a reconciled God, what an element should prayer be to a believer in Christ! Let the soul, depressed, burthened, tried, tempted, as it may be, draw near the mercy-seat: God delights to hear, delights to answer. Taking in the hand the atoning blood, pleading the infinite merit of Christ, reminded the Father of what his Son has accomplished, of his own gracious promise to receive and favorably answer the petition endorsed with the name, and presented in behalf of that Son- the feeblest child of God, the most disconsolate, the most burdened, may approach and open all the heart to a prayer-hearing and prayer-answering God. Let the atoning blood be strenuously pleaded, let the precious and infinite merit of Christ be fully urged, and the blessing petitioned for will be obtained.
May not this be assigned as a reason why so few of our petitions are answered, why so little blessing is obtained, the faint pleading of the atoning blood? There is so feeble a recognition of the blessed way of access, so little wrestling with the precious blood, so little looking by faith to the cross, the dear name of Immanuel so seldom urged, and when urged so coldly mentioned- O! is it any marvel that our prayers return to us unanswered, the petition ungranted, the draft on the full treasury of his love unhonored? The Father loves to be reminded of his beloved Son; the very breathing of the name to him is music; the very waving of the censer of infinite merits to him is fragrant. He delights to be pressed with this plea; it is a plea at all times prevalent; it is a plea He cannot reject; it glorifies himself, honors his Son, while it enriches him who urges it.
And O, in the absence of all other pleas, what a mercy to come with a plea like this! Who can fully estimate it? No plea has the poor believer springing from himself: he searches, but nothing can he find on which to rest a claim; all within is vile, all without is marred by sin; unfaithfulness, ingratitude, departure, do but make up the history of the day. But in Christ he sees that which he can urge, and in urging which God will hear and answer. "Having, therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way, which he has consecrated for us, through the veil, that is to say, his flesh; and having a High Priest over the house of God; let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water." Heb. x. 19- 22.

Fifth, We would allude but to one other blessing growing out of the atonement realized- the spring it gives to all holy evangelical obedience. The great impelling motive of all Gospel obedience is, the love of Christ in the heart. David acknowledged this principle when he prayed, "I will run the way of your commandments, when you shall enlarge my heart." Psalm cxix. 32. The apostle admits it when he says, "The love of Christ constrains us." In order to walk as an obedient child, to bear the daily cross, and yield obedience to the law of Christ, to delight in the precepts as in the doctrines of God's truth, the atoning blood must be realized. How easy and how sweet will then become the commandments of the Lord! Duties will be viewed as privileges, and the yoke felt to be no yoke, and the cross felt to be no cross.
If these are the inestimable blessings connected with personal and close realizing views of the blood of Atonement, surely the Christian reader will strive to live near the fountain: this is the only spot where his soul shall flourish. As the gentle flower which blooms unseen by the side of some veiled fountain, is, from the constant moisture it receives, always beautiful and fragrant, so is that believing soul the most fruitful, holy, spiritual, and devoted, who daily dwells by the side, yes, in the "fountain opened for sin and uncleanness." We see not how a child of God can be fruitful otherwise. A sweet and abiding consciousness of pardon and acceptance is essential to spiritual fruitfulness. No believer can advance in the Divine life, wage a daily war with the innumerable foes that oppose him, and be fruitful in every good work, who is perpetually in search of evidence of his adoption. We need all our time, all our energies, all our means, in order to vanquish the spiritual Philistines who obstruct our way to the heavenly Canaan: we have none to send in search of evidences, lest while they have gone the bridegroom comes! O then to know that all is right- the thick cloud blotted out- the soul wrapped in the robe of righteousness- ready to enter in to the marriage supper of the Lamb! To die will be quite enough: to face and grapple with the King of Terrors will be sufficient employment for the spirit struggling to be free: no time, no strength, no energy then to search for evidences. Let not the professor of Christ leave the "sealing" of his pardon and acceptance to that fearful hour; but let him earnestly seek it now, that when he comes to die, he may have nothing to do but to die; and that will be quite enough.

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"The Tried Believer Comforted"

"The Sympathy of the Atonement"

"For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are--yet was without sin." Hebrews 4:15

Could we draw aside, for a moment, the thin veil that separates us from the glorified saints, and inquire the path along which they were conducted by a covenant God to their present enjoyments, how few exceptions, if any, should we find to that declaration of Jehovah, "I have chosen you in the furnace of affliction!" Isa. xlviii. 1O. All would tell of some peculiar cross; some domestic, relative, or personal trial which attended them every step of their journey; which made the valley they trod truly "a valley of tears;" and which they only threw off when the spirit, divested of its robe of flesh, fled where sorrow and sighing are forever done away. God's people are a sorrowful people. The first step they take in the divine life is connected with tears of godly sorrow; and as they travel on, sorrow and tears do but track their steps. They sorrow over the body of sin which they are compelled to carry with them; they sorrow over their perpetual proneness to depart, to backslide, to live below their high and holy calling. They mourn that they mourn so little, they weep that they weep so little; that over so much indwelling sin, over so many and so great departures, they yet are found so seldom mourning in the posture of one low in the dust before God. In connection with this, there is the sorrow which results from the needed discipline which the correcting hand of the Father who loves them almost daily employs. For, in what light are all their afflictions to be viewed, but as so many correctives, so much discipline employed by their God in covenant, in order to make them "partakers of his holiness?" Viewed in any other light, God is dishonored, the Spirit is grieved, and the believer is robbed of the great spiritual blessing for which the trial was sent.
There is something so remarkable in the words of the Holy Spirit which we have quoted, that before we enter more fully into the discussion of our subject, we must again call them to the reader's mind. The passage is, "I have chosen you in the furnace of affliction." With what is the Divine will, as stated in these words, connected, respecting the afflictions of the believer? Is it with the circumstances of time? Is it since they were brought into existence that God determined upon the circumstances that should surround them, and the path they should tread? O no! The trying circumstance, the heavy affliction, stands connected with the great and glorious doctrine of God's eternal, sovereign, and unconditional election of his people. They were "chosen in the furnace"- chosen in it before all time- chosen in it from all eternity- chosen in it, when he set his heart upon them, entered into an everlasting covenant with them, and took them to be his "chosen generation, his royal priesthood, his holy nation, his peculiar people." O, thus to trace up every affliction that comes from God to his eternal choice of his people; to see it in the covenant of grace; to see it connected with his eternal purpose of salvation; thus viewed, in connection with his eternal love, in what a soothing light does it place the darkest dispensation of his providence!
But, there is another thought in the passage equally blessed: "I have chosen you"- in what? in prosperity?- no: in the bright summer's day?- no: in the smooth and flowery paths of worldly comforts?- no: "I have chosen you in the furnace of affliction." "The furnace of affliction!"- is this according to our poor finite ideas of love and tenderness? O no! Had we been left to choose our own path, to mark out our own way, it had been a far different one from this. We should never have thought of affliction as a source of blessing. But God's thoughts are higher than our thoughts, and his ways above our ways.
Our great object in this work has been, to keep prominently and distinctly before the mind of the reader the absolute necessity of experimental religion. Without this, we have shown that all gifts and knowledge and profession were worse than worthless; that if the grace of God is not in the heart, the truth of God merely settled in the understanding, as to all holy, practical purposes, would avail a man nothing. Having expatiated upon the necessity and nature of experimental religion, together with the great Author of the work, it seems appropriate that the reader now be led to a consideration of that method which a good and covenant God frequently employs, yet further to deepen his gracious work in the heart of his dear child, to try its character, test its genuineness, and bring the soul more fully into a personal experience of the truth. This method, it will be shown, is the sanctified discipline of the covenant.
The very WISDOM seen in this method of instruction proves its divine origin. Had the believer been left to form his own school, adopt his own plan of instruction, choose his own discipline, and even select his own teacher, how different would it have been from God's plan! We would never have conceived the idea of such a mode of instruction, so unlikely, according to our poor wisdom, to secure the end in view. We would have thought that the smooth path, the sunny path, the joyous path, would the soonest conduct us into the glories of the kingdom of grace- would more fully develop the wisdom, the love, the tenderness, the sympathy of our blessed Lord, and tend more decidedly to our weanedness from the world, our crucifixion of sin, and our spiritual and unreserved devotedness to his service. But "My thoughts are completely different from yours, says the Lord. And My ways are far beyond anything you could imagine. For just as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways and My thoughts higher than your thoughts." Isaiah 55:8-9
Nor is the believer fully convinced of the wisdom of God's method of procedure, until he has been brought, in a measure, through the discipline; until the rod has been removed, the angry waves have subsided, and the tempest cloud has passed away. Then, reviewing the chastisement, minutely examining its nature and its causes- the steps that led to it- the chain of providence in which it formed a most important link- and, most of all, surveying the rich covenant blessings it brought with it- the weanedness from the world, the gentleness, the meekness, the patience, the spirituality, the prayerfulness, the love, the joy- he is led to exclaim, "I now see the infinite wisdom and tender mercy of my Father in this affliction. While in the furnace I saw it not. The rising of inbred corruption, unbelief and hard thoughts of God darkened my view, veiled from the eye of my faith the reason of the discipline; but now I see why and wherefore my covenant God and Father has dealt with me thus; I see the wisdom, and adore the love of his merciful procedure." It is our purpose to show that, the path of affliction along which the believer walks, is the path of God's own appointment; and that, walking in this path, he comes into the possession of rich and varied blessings not found in any other.
This is a truth much forgotten, especially by the young Christian, who has just set out on his pilgrimage. To his eye, now opened to the new world into which grace has introduced him, all seems fair and lovely. "The love of his espousals," is the one theme of his heart. All above, beneath, and around him, seems but the image of his own joyous feelings- the sea unruffled, the skies unclouded, the vessel moving gently as over a summer sea, and the haven of rest full in view.
"Tongue cannot express
The sweet comfort and peace
Of a soul in its earliest love."
He thinks not that all, now so fair, will soon change- that the summer sea will be lashed by angry billows- that the sky will look dark and threatening- that the fragile bark will be tossed from billow to billow- and that the port will be lost to sight. How needful then that this important truth, "through much tribulation we must enter the kingdom," should be ever kept in view!
In looking into God's Word, we find it full and decisive on this point. We have already commented upon Isa. xlviii. 1O: "Behold, I have refined you, but not with silver; I have chosen you in the furnace of affliction." There is yet another remarkable declaration in Zech. xiii. 9: "And I will bring the third part through the fire, and will refine them as silver is refined, and will try them as gold is tried." Our Lord's own testimony harmonizes with this declaration: "In the world you shall have tribulation" -as though he had said, 'Expect nothing less: it is a world of sorrow! and while in it, you shall have tribulation. It is your lot. It is the way of my appointment it is the path I have ordained you to walk in- it is the path I have trod myself, and I leave you an example that you should follow my steps: "In the world you shall have tribulation, but in me you shall have peace." And so taught his apostles. They went forth confirming the souls of the disciples, and exhorting them to continue in the faith, and that we must "through much tribulation enter into the kingdom of God." Acts xiv. 22.
From the declarations of God's Word, let us pass to consider THE EXAMPLES. The entire histories of the Old and New Testament saints presents to us a people "chosen in the furnace of affliction." Paul inquires, "What son is there whom the Father chastens not?" He seems to throw out a challenge: 'Where is the exception to this principle of the Divine procedure? Where is the child taken unto God's family- where is the adopted son who has never felt the smartings of the rod, whom the Father chastens not?' More than this. Let it not be supposed that the feeblest of God's saints- those who have the least measure of grace and strength, who find the ascent difficult, and whose advance is slow and tardy- are those whom the Lord most frequently and sharply afflicts. O no! In looking into the Word of truth, in reading the memoirs of God's ancient saints, it will be found that those whom He blessed most, who were the most distinguished for some eminent grace of the Spirit, some mighty exploit of faith, some great act of devotedness, were those whom He "most deeply afflicted." "The branch that bears fruit, he purges it, that it may bring forth more fruit." Let the histories of Abraham, Jacob, Moses, Job, and David testify. Let Paul's "thorn in the flesh" speak. And what is the testimony?- that the most eminent of God's saints are the most afflicted. Their eminence grew out of their afflictions. Like their blessed Lord, they were perfected through suffering. They became thus strong in faith, holy in life, close in their walk, devoted in the service of their Master, by the very discipline through which they passed. They were eminently holy, because eminently tried.
And what was the life of our adorable Lord? Anything but exemption from suffering. His life was one continuous trial. From the moment he entered our world he became leagued with suffering; he identified himself with it in its almost endless forms. He seemed to have been born with a tear in his eye, with a shade of sadness on his brow. He was prophesied as "a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief." And from the moment he touched the horizon of our earth, from that moment his sufferings commenced. Not a smile lighted up his benign countenance from the time of his advent to his departure. He came not to indulge in a life of tranquillity and repose; he came not to quaff the cup of earthly or of Divine sweets, for even this last was denied him in the hour of his lingering agony on the cross. He came to suffer, he came to bear the curse- he came to drain the deep cup of wrath, to weep, to bleed, to die. Our Savior was a cross-bearing Savior; our Lord was a suffering Lord. And was it to be expected that they who had linked their destinies with his, who had avowed themselves his disciples and followers, should walk in a dissimilar path from their Lord's? He himself speaks of the incongruity of such a division of interests: "The disciple is not above his master, nor the servant above his lord. It is enough for the disciple that he be as his master, and the servant as his lord." Matt. x. 24, 25.
There can be no true following of Christ as our example, if we lose sight of him as a suffering Christ- an afflicted Savior. There must be fellowship with him in his sufferings. In order to enter fully and sympathetically into the afflictions of his people, he stooped to a body of suffering; in like manner, in order to have sympathy with Christ in his sorrows, we must in some degree tread the path he trod. Here is one reason why he ordained that along this rugged path his saints should all journey. They must be like their Lord; they are one with him: and this oneness can only exist where there is mutual sympathy. The church must be a cross-bearing church; it must be an afflicted church. Its great and glorious Head sought not, and found not, repose here: this was not his rest. He turned his back upon the pleasures, the riches, the luxuries, and even the common comforts of this world, preferring a life of obscurity, penury, and suffering. His very submission seemed to impart dignity to suffering, elevation to poverty, and to invest with an air of holy sanctity a life of obscurity, need, and trial.
We are far from considering the present posture of the church that of a cross-bearing church. The church has thrown off the cross. Her path would be less smooth, the world less her friend, and she less the favorite of the world, were this not the case. How can we believe that she is bearing the cross, when we view her trimming policy, her compromising character, her worldly conformity, her efforts to catch the vain breath of human applause, her self-proclaimed importance, her heralded benevolence, her trumpeted fame, her sectarian badge, the waving of her treason-flag, and the shout of her shibboleth? O no! She bears not the cross as in her primitive days. We speak not in a tone of unkind rebuke: we love the church universal; we love all and know no distinction of name or sect who love the Lord Jesus in sincerity and in truth; and it is this love we bear the whole elect of God which impels us to avow our solemn conviction, that the present is not the cross-bearing age of the church. True, she is extending her conquests far and wide; true, she is sending the preached and the oral Word into almost every accessible part of the globe; true, she is pouring in of her abundance into the treasury of the Lord: yet, with all this seeming prosperity, the true piety of the church may be exceedingly low, and there may exist in her bosom evils that call loudly for the correcting hand of God.
We have seen, then, that our blessed Lord sanctified, by his own admission, a life of suffering; and that all his followers, if they would resemble him, must have fellowship with him in his sufferings. The apostle Paul seems to regard this in the light of a privilege. "For unto you," he says, "it is given in the behalf of Christ, not only to believe on him, but also to suffer for his sake." Phil. i. 29. It seems, too, to be regarded as a part of their calling: "For even hereunto were you called: because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that you should follow his steps." 1 Pet. ii. 21. Happy will be that afflicted child of God, who is led to view his Father's discipline in the light of a privilege. To drink of the cup that Christ drank of- to bear any part of the cross that he bore- to tread in any measure the path that he trod, is a privilege indeed. This is a distinction which angels have never attained. They know not the honor of suffering with Christ, of being made conformable to his death. It is peculiar to the believer in Jesus; it is his privilege, his calling.
There is often a severity, a grievousness in the chastisements of our covenant God, which it is important and essential to the end for which it was sent not to overlook: "Now no chastisement for the present seems to be joyous, but grievous." Heb. xii. 11. He who sent the chastisement appointed its character: he intended that it should be felt. There is, we would solemnly remind the reader, as much danger in underrating as in overrating the chastisements of God. It is not uncommon to hear some of God's saints remark in the very midst of his dealings with them, "I feel it to be no cross at all; I do not feel it an affliction; I am not conscious of any peculiar burden." Is it not painful to hear such expressions from the lips of a dear child of God? It betrays a need, so to speak, of spiritual sensitiveness- a deficiency of that tender, acute feeling, which ought ever to belong to him, who professes to have reposed on Jesus' bosom. Now, we solemnly believe that it is the Lord's holy will that his child should feel the chastisement to be grievous; that the smartings of the rod should be felt. Moses, Jacob, Job, David, Paul, all were made to exclaim, "The Lord has chastened me sorely."
There are many considerations which seem to add a grievousness to the chastisements of God. When it is remembered that our chastisements often grow out of our sin; that, to subdue some strong indwelling corruption, or to correct for some outward departure, the rod is sent; this should ever humble the soul- this should ever cause the rebuke to be rightly viewed- that, were it not for some strong indwelling corruption, or some step taken in departure from God, the affliction would have been withheld. O how should every stroke of the rod lay the soul in the dust before God! "If God had not seen sin in my heart, and sin in my outward conduct, he would not have dealt thus heavily with me." And where the grievousness of the chastisement is not felt, is there not reason to suspect that the cause of the chastisement has not been discovered and mourned over?
There is the consideration, too, that the stroke comes from the Father who loves us- loves us so well, that if the chastisement were not needed, there would not be a feather's weight laid on the heart of his child. Dear to him as the apple of his eye, would he inflict those strokes, if there were not an absolute necessity for them? "What! is it the Father who loves me that now afflicts me? does this stroke come from his heart? What! does my Father see all this necessity for this grievous chastening? Does he discover in me so much evil, so much perverseness, so much that he hates and that grieves him, that this severe discipline is sent?" O how does this thought, that the chastisement proceeds from the Father who loves him, impart a keenness to the stroke!
And then there is often something in the very nature of the chastisement itself that causes its grievousness to be felt. The wound may be in the tenderest part; the rebuke may come through some idol of the heart; God may convert some of our choicest blessings into sources of the keenest sorrow. How often does he, in the wisdom and sovereignty of his dealings, adopt this method! Abraham's most valued blessing became the cause of his acutest sorrow. The chastisement may come through the beloved Isaac. The very mercy we clasp to our warm hearts so fondly, may be God's voice to us, speaking in the tone of severe yet tender rebuke. Samuel, dear to the heart of Eli, was God's solemn voice to his erring yet beloved servant.
Let no afflicted believer, then, think lightly of his chastisements: it is the Lord's will that he should feel them. They were sent for this purpose. If I did not feel the cross, if I was not conscious of the burden, if the wound were not painful, I should never take it to the mercy-seat, there to seek all needed grace, support, and strength. The burden must first be felt before it is cast upon the Lord; the chastisement must be felt to be grievous before the tenderness and sympathy of Jesus will be sought.
There is equal danger of overrating our afflictions. When they are allowed too deeply to absorb us in grief; when they unfit us for duty, keep us from walking in the path God has marked out for us, hold us back from prayer and from the means of grace; when they lead us to think hardly and speak harshly of God- then we overrate God's chastisements, and prevent the good they were so kindly sent to convey. There are many and rich blessings found in this the Lord's appointed path of affliction, and in no other, which we would for a moment glance at. We speak now of those afflictions which have been sanctified to the soul by the Spirit of God.
First- The view they give us of the faithfulness of God in sending the affliction, is no small mercy. This was the light in which David viewed his afflictions: "I know, O Lord, that your judgments are right, and that you in faithfulness have afflicted me." Ps. cxix. 75. O what an act and triumph of faith is this, to count God faithful in sending the affliction; when messenger follows messenger- when wave follows wave- when our dearest comforts are taken- our cisterns broken- our props removed from beneath us- children, friends, health, wealth, character, all touched by God- O then to feel and acknowledge, that God is faithful still- that "in faithfulness he has afflicted!"
It is one thing to be convinced in the judgment of this truth, and it is another thing to acknowledge and approve of it in the heart. But, when the Eternal Spirit works in the tried believer this still, composed, and satisfied frame, then the language of the bereaved and wounded, yet resigned heart, is, "True, Lord, I needed this rod, my heart was torpid, wavering, wandering, proud. This rouses, fixes, recalls, humbles me. I know you, love you better now. I see the emptiness of self and the world, and I die to both. You, Lord, will have my whole heart; Lord, it is yours. Your love is judicious, not falsely fond. It is in faithfulness to my soul that you have afflicted. My good, not my ease, is what you, my God and Father, consult. It is good for me that I have been afflicted."
It is no small attainment to be built up in the faithfulness of God. This forms a stable foundation of comfort for the believing soul. Mutability marks everything but of God. Look into the church, into the world, into our families, ourselves: what innumerable changes do we see on every hand! A week, one short day, what alterations does it produce! Yet, in the midst of it all, to repose calmly on the unchangeableness, the faithfulness of God! to know that no alterations of time, no earthly changes, affect his faithfulness to his people! And more than this- no changes in them- no unfaithfulness of theirs, cause the slightest change in God! Once a Father, ever a Father; once a Friend, ever a Friend. His providences may change, his heart cannot. He is a God of unchangeable love. The promise he has given he will fulfil; the covenant he has made he will observe; the word that has gone out of his mouth he will not alter. "He cannot deny himself." Peace then, tried believer! Are you passing now though the deep waters? Who kept you from sinking when wading through the last? Who brought you through the last fire? Who supported you under the last cross? Who delivered you out of the last temptation? Was it not God, your covenant God, your faithful, unchangeable God? This God, then, is your God now, and your God forever and ever, and he will be your guide even unto death. It is walking in the ordained path of trial, that the believer learns out the Divine faithfulness.
In this path, too, he learns his own nothingness. And what a lesson is this to acquire! For a child of God, not to confess merely- for nothing is easier than confession- but to feel his nothingness; to be conscious that he is the "least of all saints;" to be willing to be thought so; to feel no repining at being over-looked- cast in the shade yes, trampled under foot- O what an attainment is this! And yet, how few reach it! how few aspire after it! It is to be learned only in the path of sanctified affliction. Other discipline may mortify, but not humble the pride of the heart- it may wound, but not crucify it. Affliction sanctified by the Spirit of God lays the soul in the dust; gives it low thoughts of itself. Gifts, attainments, successful labors, the applause of men, all conspire the ruin of a child of God; and, but for the prompt, and often severe, discipline of an ever-watchful, ever-faithful God, would accomplish their end. But the affliction comes- the needed cross- the required medicine- and in this way are brought out "the peaceable fruits of righteousness"- the most beautiful and precious of which is, a humble, lowly view of self.
And is not this, too, the method by which holiness is attained? So says God's own Word. Speaking of the needed chastisements of our heavenly Father, the apostle assures us, that they were "for our profit, that we might be partakers of his holiness. "Heb. 12:1O. Job anticipated this as the result of God's afflictive dealings with him: "When he has tried me, I shall come forth as gold." Job 23:1O. It is the fire of affliction, the furnace of trial, that searches and purifies the heart; it is here the tin and tinsel are consumed; it is here the dross is separated from the pure ore, and the gold is brought forth reflecting back the image of him who, as the refiner, watches with tenderness, and faithfulness, the process of trial through which the precious metal is passing.
And is not this the method by which the righteousness of Christ is made to stand out in all its glory and fitness? Sanctified affliction teaches the soul its utter destitution. The believer often commences his spiritual journey with shallow and defective views of the perfect fitness and glory of the Redeemer's justifying righteousness. There is, we admit, a degree of self-renunciation, there is a reception of Christ, and there is some sweet and blessed enjoyment of his acceptance. Yet, his views of himself, and of the entire, absolute, supreme necessity, importance, and glory of Christ's finished work, are as nothing compared with his after experience of both. God will have the righteousness of his Son to be acknowledged and felt to be everything. It is a great work, a glorious work, a finished work, and he will cause his saints to know it. It is his only method of saving sinners; and the sinner that is saved shall acknowledge this, not in his judgment merely; but from a deep heartfelt experience of the truth, 'to the praise of the glory of his grace.'
It is then, we say, in the successive stages of his experience, that the believer sees more distinctly, and adores more profoundly, and grasps more firmly, the finished righteousness of Christ. And what is the school in which he learns his nothingness, his poverty, his utter destitution? The school of deep and sanctified affliction. In no other school is it learned, and under no other teacher but God. Here his high thoughts are brought low, and the Lord alone is exalted. Here he forms a just estimate of his attainments, his gifts, his knowledge; and that which he thought to be so valuable, he now finds to be nothing worth. Here his proud spirit is abased, his rebellious spirit tamed, his restless, feverish spirit soothed into passive quietude; and here, the deep, humbling acknowledgment is made, "I am vile!" Thus is he led back to first principles. Thus the first step is retaken, and the first lesson is relearned. The believer, emptied entirely of self; of self-complacency, self-trust, self-glorying, stands ready for the full Savior. The blessed and eternal Spirit opens to him, in this posture, the fitness, the fulness, the glory, the infinite grandeur of Christ's finished righteousness, leads him to it afresh, puts it upon him anew, causes him to enter into it more fully, to rest upon it more entirely; opens it up to the soul, and discloses its perfect fitness in his case.
And what a glory he sees in it! He saw it before, but not as he beholds it now. And what a resting place he finds beneath the cross! He rested there before, but not as he rests now. Such views has he now of Christ- such preciousness, such beauty, such tenderness he sees in Immanuel- that a new world of beauty and of glory seems to have floated before his view; a new Savior, a new righteousness appear to have been brought to his soul. All this has been produced by the discipline of the covenant- the afflictions sent and sanctified by a good and covenant God and Father. O, you tried believers! murmur not at God's dispensations; repine not at his dealings. Has he seen fit to dash against you billow upon billow? Has he thought proper to place you in the furnace? Has he blasted the fair prospect- dried up the stream- called for the surrender of your Isaac? O, bless him for the way he takes to empty you of self, and fill you with his own love. This is his method of teaching you, schooling you, and fitting you for the inheritance of the saints in light. Will you not allow him to select his own plan, to adopt his own mode of cure? You are in his hands; and could you be in better? Are you now learning your own poverty, destitution, and helplessness? and is the blood and righteousness of Jesus more precious and glorious to the eye of your faith? Then praise him for your afflictions; for all these disagreeable dispensations are now, yes, at this moment, working together for your spiritual good. It is no small mercy to have clear, close views of the glory and absolute fitness of Christ's righteousness. "If, from this moment," is the beautiful sentiment of an old divine, "I had all the purity of angels, all the sanctity of seraphs, all the immaculate love of pure spirits made perfect, I would part with all to stand before God in the righteousness of Christ."
Other and equally important blessings might be enumerated as resulting from the sanctified dealings of God with his people. Leaving the tried and experienced reader to supply them from a page of his own history, we pass to the consideration of the SYMPATHY OF CHRIST, as the point to which we had intended to have given more distinct prominency in this chapter. The view which the Atonement presents of the sympathy of Christ is most glorious! The Divine compassion and sympathy could only be revealed by the incarnation of Deity. In order to the just exhibition of sympathy of one individual with another, there must be a similarity of circumstances. The like body must be inhabited, the same path must be trod, the same, or a similar, sorrow must be felt. There can be no true sympathy apart from this. A similarity of circumstances is indispensably necessary. See then the fitness of Christ to this very purpose. God took upon him our nature, in order to bear our griefs, and carry our sorrows. Here we enter into the blessedness that flows from the human nature of Christ.
As God merely, he could not endure suffering, nor weep, nor die: as man only, he could not have sustained the weight of our sin, grief, nor sorrow. There must be a union of the two natures to accomplish the two objects in one person. The Godhead must be united to the manhood; the one to obey, the other to die; the one to satisfy Divine justice, the other to sympathize with the people in whose behalf the satisfaction was made. Let not the Christian reader shrink from a full and distinct recognition of the doctrine of our Lord's humanity; let it be an important article of his creed, as it is an essential pillar of his hope. If the Deity of Jesus is precious, so is his humanity: the one is of no avail in the work of redemption apart from the other. It is the blending of the two in mysterious union that constitutes the "great mystery of godliness."
Approach then the humanity of your adorable Lord. Turn not from it. It was pure humanity. It was not the form of an angel he assumed; nor did he pause in his descent to our world to attach himself to an order of intelligent beings, if such there be, existing between the angelic and the human. It was pure humanity, bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh, which he took up into intimate and indissoluble union with his Deity. It was humanity, too, in its suffering form. Our Lord attached himself to the woes of our nature, he identified himself with sorrow in its every aspect. This was no small evidence of the love and condescension of Jesus. To have assumed our nature, this had been a mighty stoop: but, to have assumed its most humiliating, abject form, this surpasses all our thoughts of his love to man. The dark picture of fallen humanity was before him, drawn in its most gloomy and repulsive features; and, although he could not possibly have taken up into union with him our fallen humanity without the peculiar weakness inseparable from it, yet there were walks through life he might have chosen, and in which suffering and sorrow would have been greatly mitigated and softened, if not entirely unknown. But, he chose the suffering state; he preferred to link himself with sorrow and tears, they being more in harmony with the mission on which he had come, and with his own pensive and sympathetic nature.
It was necessary that our Lord, in order to sympathize fully with his people, should not only identify himself with their nature, but in some degree with their peculiar circumstances. This he did. It is the consolation of the believer to know, that the shepherd has gone before the flock. He does not bid them to walk in a path which his own feet have not first trod, and left their impress. As the dear, tender, ever-watchful Shepherd of his sheep, "he goes before them," and it is the characteristic of his sheep, that they "follow him." Our Lord was eminently fitted to enter sympathetically into every circumstance of his dear family, so that no believer shall he able to say, "Mine is a solitary case; my path is a lonely path: I walk where there are no footprints; I bear a cross which none have borne before me; surely Jesus cannot enter sympathetically into my circumstances." -then there would have been a limit to the tender sympathy of Christ. If there were a case among his dear family of trial, affliction, or temptation, into which Jesus could not enter, then he could not be "in all points" the merciful and sympathetic High Priest.
View the subject in any aspect, and ascertain if Jesus is not fitted for the peculiarity of that case. Shall we commence with the finer feelings of our nature?- they belonged to him, and in him were of a far more exquisitely tender and chastened character than in us. His heart was delicately attuned to the gentlest harmony of ours. Not a refined and tender emotion, but he possessed in a higher order; the tenderest affection, the most delicate and confiding friendship, were not strangers to his capacious heart. He knew, too, what it was to have those gentle ties rudely sundered by inconstancy, and painfully severed by death. Over the treachery of one, and the tomb of another, his sensitive spirit had poured out its grief. Beloved reader, the heart of Jesus is composed of the finest chords. You know not how accurately and delicately it is attuned to yours, whether the chord vibrates in a joyous or a sorrowful note. You are perhaps walking in a solitary path; there is a peculiarity in your trial: it is of a nature so delicate, that you shrink from disclosing it even to your dearest earthly friend; and though surrounded by human sympathy, yet there is a friend you still need, to whom you can disclose the feelings of your bosom- that friend is Jesus. There is sympathy in Jesus to meet your case. Go to him- open all your heart do not be afraid, he invites, he bids you come.
Christian reader, we suppose you to be no stranger to grief. Your heart has known what sorrow is; you have borne, perhaps for years, some heavy, painful, yet concealed cross. Over it, in the solitude and silence of privacy, you have wept, agonized, and prayed. And still the cross, though mitigated, is not removed, Have you ever thought of the sympathy of Christ? Have you ever thought of him as bearing that cross with you? as entering into its peculiarity, its minutest circumstance? O, there is a fibre in his heart that sympathizes, there is a chord there that vibrates to that grief of yours; it is touched the moment sadness and sorrow find their lodgment in your bosom. That cross he is bearing with you at this moment; and although you may feel it to be so heavy and painful, as to be lost to the sweet consciousness of this, still, it rests on him, as on you; and were he to remove his shoulder but for a moment, you would be crushed beneath its pressure. "Then why, if so tender and sympathizing, does he place upon me this cross?" Because of his tenderness and sympathy. He sees you need that cross. You have carried it, it may be, for years: who can tell where and what you would have been at this moment, but for this very cross? What evil in you it may have checked; what corruption in you it may have subdued; what constitutional infirmities it may have weakened; from what lengths it has kept you, from what rocks and precipices it has guarded you; and what good it has been silently and secretly, yet effectually working in you all the long years of your life; who can tell but God himself? The removal of that cross might have been the removal of your greatest mercy. Hush, then, every murmur: be still, and know that he is God; and that all these trials, these cross dispensations, these untoward circumstances, are now working together for your good and his glory.
And what would you know- may we not ask?- of Jesus- his tenderness, and love, and sympathizing heart- but for the rough and thorny path along which you have been thus led? The glory and fulness, the preciousness and sympathy of Christ, are not learned in every circumstance of life. The hour of prosperity, when every thing passes smoothly on- providences smiling- the heart's surface unruffled- the bud of hope expanded into the fall flower- the gladsome sunlight of creature happiness gilding every prospect with its brightness- this is not the hour, nor these the circumstances, most favorable to an experimental acquaintance with Christ. It is in the dark hour- the hour of trial and of adversity- when the sea is rough and the sky is lowering, and providences are mysterious, and the heart is agitated, and hope is disappointed- its bud nipped, and its stem broken, and creature comfort and support fail; O, then it is the fulness, and preciousness, and tenderness of Jesus are learned! Then it is the heart loosens its hold on created objects, and entwines itself more fondly and more closely around the incarnate Son of God! Blessed Jesus! Brother born for our every adversity! Did you take our nature up into union with your own? And can you, do you weep when we weep, and rejoice when we rejoice? O, adorable Son of God! we stand amazed, and are lost in this love, at your condescension and this sympathy. Draw our hearts to yourself- let our affections rise and meet in you, their center, and cling to you, their all.
Shall we go on, as we proposed, to classify the peculiar trying circumstances of God's dear family? They are so many and so diversified, we know not where to commence, nor where to terminate. "Many are the afflictions of the righteous." Each heart has its own sorrow- each soul bears its own cross; but Jesus is enough for all, he has sympathy for each and all his suffering people. Are you suffering from pining sickness? Are your days wearisome and your nights sleepless from the inroads of disease? Then there is sympathy in Christ for you; for it is written, "Himself took our infirmities, and bore our sicknesses." He remembers that you are but dust; and, we doubt not, his blessed body knew what languid days and sleepless nights were. O, then, think of Jesus. That disease that wastes- that pain that racks- that debility that unnerves you, Jesus knows fully and sympathetically. True, he is now beyond all physical feelings; yet his tender heart sympathizes still.
Are you suffering from temporal poverty? Are sources on which you depended broken up? Friends on whom you have leaned, removed? Does need stare you in the face? And are you at a loss to know from where the next supply may come? Even here, my brother, even here, my sister, can Jesus sympathize with you. He, like you, and like the greater part of his people, was poor in this world's goods. No home sheltered, no daily-spread table provided for him; he was a poor, homeless, houseless, friendless wanderer! The foxes had holes, and the birds had nests, but Jesus had nowhere to lay his blessed head- that head that ached and bled for you. Take your poverty to him; take your needs to him. Let the principle of faith now be exercised. Has he died for your soul- has he pardoned your sins- has he given you himself, then will he not with himself freely give you all things necessary for your temporal comfort, while yet a pilgrim upon earth? Take your poverty and your need simply and directly to Jesus, think it not too trifling and too trivial to disclose to him; he has an ear to hear your cry, a heart to sympathize with your case, and a hand to supply all your need. Then again we say- take your needs simply and directly to Christ.
Has death entered your domestic circle, plucking from it some precious and valued member?- the affectionate parent the tender husband- the fond wife, or the endeared child? Has he "put lover and friend far from you," leaving the heart to weep in silence and sadness over the wreck of hopes that were so bright, and over the rupture of ties that were so tender? O, there is sympathy in Christ even for this! Jesus knew what it was to weep over the grave of buried love- of friendship interred; he knew what it was to have affection's ties broken, leaving the heart wounded and bleeding. He can enter into your sorrow, bereaved reader- yes, even into yours. See him at the tomb of Lazarus- see him weep- "behold how he loved him." What! do you repair to the grave of the dear departed one to weep, and Jesus not sympathize with you? Let not unbelief close up this last remaining source of consolation- the tender sympathy of Christ. He can enter into those tears of yours: the heart's desolateness, loneliness, and disappointment, are not unknown and unnoticed by our blessed Immanuel.
And why has the Lord dealt with you thus? why has he torn the idol from its temple? why has he emptied the heart, and left it thus lonely and desolate? O why, but to prepare that temple for himself; why, but to pour into its emptiness the full stream of his own precious love and sympathy! For this, beloved, has he been, and, it may he, is now dealing with you. That heart of yours belongs to him- he bought it at a costly price; it belongs to him- he conquered and subdued it by the omnipotence of his Spirit; it belongs to him- he has sealed it with his precious blood. And he would have you know this, too, by deep and sweet experience. He would have you know how he has loved you, and loves you still; he would have you know that you are his; his by eternal election; his by gift by purchase- by conquest- by a covenant that all your departures, all your unfaithfulness, all your unworthiness, all the changing scenes through which you pass, shall never, and can never alter. All this, it is his will you should experience. Then, bow with submission to the discipline; as a weaned child, sit at his feet, adopting his own blessed words, "Not my will, but yours be done."
Thus, dear reader, does the glorious Atonement of the Son of God open to us the ocean sympathy of his heart. But for that Atonement, nothing should we have known of his sympathy; but for his cross, nothing of his love; but for his death, nothing of joy on earth, and nothing of glory in heaven- all, all springs from the Atonement of Jesus. "Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has gone through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to the faith we profess. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are--yet was without sin. Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need." Hebrews 4:14-16

"Soon we go from grace to glory,
God's own hand shall lead us there;
Soon shall we rehearse the story
Of his gracious dealings here.
"Soon will end our earthly mission,
Soon will pass our pilgrim days,
Hope give place to full fruition,
Faith to sight, and prayer to praise."

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

"The Prophetical Glory of the Redeemer"

These things said Esaias, when he saw his glory, and spake of him. John 12:41

Isaiah said this because he saw Jesus' glory and spoke about him. John 12:41

Isaiah was referring to Jesus when he made this prediction, because he was given a vision of the Messiah's glory. John 12:41

How true is it that "the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy!" "To Him gave all the prophets witness." Of Him, as of one only glorious person, they delighted to testify- of Him, as of one only precious subject, they delighted to speak. Never did the Divine Spirit rest upon them with greater power- never did they strike their prophetic harps to strains so high, so rich, so sweet, as when Emmanuel was their theme. And is it too much to say, that magnificent as is the drapery in which their writings are clothed- gorgeous as is the imagery, and sublime the doctrines, in which these announcements are invested, they would possess no beauty, glory, or sweetness, but for- Jesus?
The confidence and the joy of the Church has ever been the prospective view she has had of the coming Messiah. Through the long vista of ages she saw Him advancing; and though the vision was distant and dim, yet, persuaded of the promise, she embraced it, and rested in it, believing that God was able as He was willing to make good all that He had in covenant mercy pledged to do. The incarnate God was her hope, her joy, her trust; and living or dying, the "Consolation of Israel" was the pole-star on which the eye of her faith was ever and immovably fixed. It pleased God to raise up a school of prophets, whom He endowed with extraordinary powers of inspiration, filling them with the Holy Spirit, whose especial office it was to feed this desire, to animate this hope, and to strengthen this expectation of faith, by keeping the glorious truth of the approaching Savior constantly and prominently before the eye of the Church. "Of which salvation the prophets have inquired and searched diligently, who prophesied of the grace that should come unto you: searching what person, or what period of time the Spirit of Christ who was in them did signify, when He testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ, and the glory that should follow."
That we are justified in looking into the prophetical Scriptures for peculiar revelations of the glory of Christ will appear clear from a reference to a few passages bearing upon this subject. Our Lord's conversation with the two disciples journeying to Emmaus is strikingly in point. In the first place, Jesus gently chides them for their lack of faith in the prophetical writings relating to Himself. "O fools, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken." He then passes to the great subject before Him, "And beginning at Moses, and all the prophets, He expounded unto them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself." The same day, and on another occasion, appearing in their assembled midst, "He said unto them, These are the words which I spoke unto you while I was yet with you, that all things must be fulfilled, which were written in the law of Moses, and in the prophets, and in the Psalms concerning me. Then opened He their understanding, that they might understand the Scriptures."
In a conversation He held with the Jews, how pointedly did He refer to His glory as beaming from beneath the veil of the Mosaic writings! "Do not think that I will accuse you to the Father: there is one that accuses you, even Moses, in whom you trust. For had you believed Moses, you would have believed me, for he wrote of me." And well did He exhort them to "search the Scriptures; for in them you think you have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me." Thus invited and encouraged, let us address ourselves to the pleasing task of drawing aside the prophetical veil, thus revealing the hidden glories of our Emmanuel. The unfolding of this subject will be found to present a brief exposition of those striking words of the evangelist: "These things said Elijah, when he saw His glory, and spoke of Him."
We commence with the testimony which the prophetical Scriptures bring to the doctrine of our Lord's Deity. Clearer intimations of the Divinity of Christ are nowhere found than in the Old Testament writings. "In the year that king Uzziah died, I saw also the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and His train filled the temple. Above it stood the seraphim: each one had six wings; with twain he covered his face, and with twain he covered his feet, and with twain he did fly. And one cried unto another, and said, Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord of hosts: the whole earth is full of His glory. And the posts of the door moved at the voice of Him that cried, and the house was filled with smoke. Then said I, Woe is me! for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips: for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts." What an august revelation of the glory of Christ's Godhead was this which broke upon the view of the lowly prophet! How instructive is each particular of his beatific vision! Mark the profound humility of the seraphim- they veiled with their wings their faces and their feet. They were in the presence of Jesus. They saw the King in His beauty, and covered themselves.
Bat the effect of this view of our Lord's Divine glory upon the mind of the prophet, is still more impressive: "Then said I, Woe is me! for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips ... for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts." What prostrated his soul thus low in the dust? What filled him with this self-abasement? What overwhelmed him with this keen sense of his vileness? Oh, it was the unclouded view he had of the essential glory of the Son of God! And thus will it ever be. The beaming forth of Christ's glory in the soul, reveals its hidden evil; the knowledge of this evil lays the believer low before God with the confession, "I abhor myself. Woe is me, for I am undone!" Beloved, let this truth be ever present to your mind, that as we increasingly see glory in Jesus, we shall increasingly see that there is no glory in ourselves. Jesus is the Sun which reveals the pollutions and defilements that are within. The chambers of abomination are all closed until Christ shines in upon the soul. Oh, then it is these deep-seated and long-veiled deformities are revealed; and we, no longer gazing with a complaisant eye upon self, sink in the dust before God, overwhelmed with shame, and covered with confusion of face. Holy posture! Blessed spectacle! A soul prostrate before the glory of the incarnate God! All high and lofty views of its own false glory annihilated by clear and close views of the true glory of Jesus. As when the sun appears, all the less lights vanish into darkness, so when Jesus rises in noontide glory upon the soul, all other glory retires, and He alone fixes the eye, and fills the mind. "With twain they covered their faces, and with twain they covered their feet." Their own perfections and beauty were not to be seen in the presence of the glory of the Lord. How much more profound should be the humility and self-abasement of man! Have we covered ourselves- not with the pure wings of the holy cherubim- but with sackcloth and ashes, before the Lord? Have we sought to veil- not our beauties, for beauties we have none; but our innumerable and flagrant deformities, even the "spots upon our feasts of love," the sins of our best and holiest things; and, renouncing all self-glory, have we sunk, as into nothing, before God? Oh, we are yet strangers to the vision of Christ's glory, if we have not! If the constellations of human gifts and attainments, distinctions and usefulness, on which unsanctified and unmortified self so delights to gaze, have not retired into oblivion, the Sun of Righteousness has yet to rise upon our souls with healing in His wings.
His glory as the God-man is reflected with equal clearness from the prophetical page. Thus was it predicted that the eternal Son of God should assume an inferior and a human form. "Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call His name Emmanuel." "Unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon His shoulder: and His name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace." Could any truth be more emphatically or distinctly stated? Oh, what love in the Father does it unfold, that not only He should have promised His dear Son, but that He should have held out that promise at so distant a period, and in such terms, as would lay an unequivocal foundation for the faith, hope, and joy of the saints, in all ages of the world!
His Divine anointing, constituting an important feature of His official glory, and opening a channel of the most costly blessing to the Church, forms a distinct and sacred theme of the prophetical writings. "The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me; because the Lord has anointed me." "And there shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a Branch shall grow out of his roots: and the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him." This anointing was upon the Redeemer, in infinite richness and fragrance. "God gives not the Spirit by measure unto him." As essentially Jehovah, He needed it not; but as the great High Priest, and the mediatorial Head of His "Church, which is His body, the fulness of Him that fills all in all," it was necessary that the anointing oil should be upon Him in its utmost plenitude. As one with Him, all the members alike participate. "It is like the precious ointment upon the head, that ran down upon the beard, even Aaron's beard: that went to the skirts of his garment;" even to the lowest believer- Ah! and he that lies the lowest, obtains the most of this "precious ointment," as it descends from Jesus: the hand of faith that touches but the hem of His garment, receives from Him who was "anointed with the oil of gladness above His fellows." Dear reader, are you professedly one with Jesus and His saints? then seek, oh diligently seek, a large and still larger degree of this holy and fragrant anointing. Rest not short of it. Do not be satisfied to proceed another step without it. Do not be content with a mere profession, having a name to live, yet lacking all the essential evidences of real life, while discovering many of the fearful attributes of actual death.
The possession of this anointing of the Holy Spirit will decide the momentous, and perhaps with you doubtful, question of your union with Christ. Men will take knowledge of you that you have been with Jesus, and learned from Him. Your life will be a reflection, faint at best, yet a reflection of His holy life. You will bear some resemblance to the "altogether lovely" one; your spirit will breathe His meekness; your demeanor will be stamped with His gentleness; your whole conversation will be seasoned with His grace; all your "garments will smell of myrrh, and aloes, and cassia, out of the ivory palaces;" an unction will pervade your prayers, a power irresistible will accompany your labors, and in every place you will be a sweet savor of Christ, blessed and a blessing.
Christ, the foundation of the Church, was a truth, the great glory of which the evangelical prophet also saw and spoke of. "Thus says the Lord God, Behold, I lay in Zion for a foundation a stone, a tried stone, a precious corner-stone, a sure foundation." How identical of the Redeemer is this splendid prophecy! Every word in the passage, and every quality of the figure, is expressive of some essential part of His character and work. Jesus is fitly compared to a "stone" for strength and durability. He is a "Savior, and a great one" "mighty to save." "I have laid help upon one that is mighty." If it were probable that the fact of His Deity should be announced in a voice of thunder from the eternal throne, can we suppose it would be uttered in terms more decided and explicit than those which fell upon the ear of the exiled evangelist from the lips of Christ Himself? "I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the ending, says the Lord, who is, and who was, and who is to come, the Almighty." And what a needed truth is this! None but an Almighty ransom could have saved from going down to the pit. Jesus is our ransom, and Jesus is the Almighty.
The Redeemer is not only a stone, but a "tried stone." The grand experiment has been made- the great test has been applied, and, to answer all the ends for which the Lord God laid it in Zion, it has proved completely adequate. Never was a foundation tried as this. In the eternal purpose of Redemption, Omnipotence tried it. In the Divine mind there existed no lurking suspicion, no embarrassing uncertainty, as to the result. The Father knew all that this foundation was to sustain, and well He knew, too, that it was capable of sustaining all. Stupendous were the consequences. His own glory and the honor of His government were involved; the salvation of His elect was to be secured; death, with all its horrors, was to be abolished; life, with all its immortal, untold glories, was to be revealed; hell was to be closed, and heaven opened to all believers. With such momentous realities pending- with such mighty and glorious results
at stake, the Eternal mind, in its purpose of grace and glory, would lay for a foundation a "tried stone." Blessed Emmanuel! how effulgently does your glory beam from beneath Your prophetical veil! You are that "tried stone,"- tried by the Father when He laid upon You all His people's sins and transgressions, bruised You and put You to grief. Tried by the law, when it exacted and received from You Your utmost obedience to its precepts. Tried by Divine justice, when it kindled around You its fiercest flame, yet consumed You not. Tried by the Church, built upon You so securely that the gates of hell shall never prevail against her. Tried by poor sinners, who have brought their burdens of guilt to Your blood, and have found pardon and peace. Tried by believers, who have taken their trials to Your sympathy, their sorrows to Your love, their wounds to Your healing, their weakness to your strength, their emptiness to Your fulness, their petitions to Your ear, and have never, never been disappointed. Oh yes, You are that "tried stone," to whom I would come moment by moment.
"A precious corner stone." Of whom does the prophet speak this, but of Jesus, compared with whom nothing is precious? He alone is worthy of the term, who alone can smooth life's rugged path, sweeten life's bitter trials, lighten life's heavy burdens, and this by daily and hourly emanations of His own life, grace, and preciousness. Oh, how precious- what language can express it? Is this precious stone to him who, conscious of his vileness, poverty, and nothingness, or with a spirit oppressed with deep trial, or bleeding from painful bereavement, wades to it through the billows, exclaiming, "When my heart is overwhelmed, lead me to the Rock that is higher than I." Precious in His all-atoning blood; precious in His all-justifying righteousness; precious in His infinite fulness; precious in every office that He fills; in every work that He performs; in every promise that He makes; is Christ to him who, finding all other foundations but as sliding sand, builds his hope of glory upon the incarnate God. "To you, therefore, that believe, He is precious."
A "corner stone," too, is our glorious Redeemer. The important position which this occupies in the spiritual building- its essential relation to the compactness, strength, and durability of the whole fabric, we fear, is not duly considered by many who are professedly "living stones in the spiritual house." And yet how momentous and how holy is the instruction it conveys! The corner stone is that which unites the parts of the edifice: it is to the building what the key stone is to the arch; it imparts unity, symmetry, and strength. The Lord Jesus has been the uniting stone of the Church in all ages. The saints of the Patriarchal, Levitical, and Christian Churches, all meet and form, in Him, one glorious temple of the living God. "No longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow-citizens with the saints, and of the household of God:" they are "built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief Corner Stone; in whom all the building, fitly framed together, grows unto a holy temple in the Lord," and thus becomes "a habitation of God through the Spirit."
To allude to another figure employed by the Holy Spirit to illustrate and enforce the same blessed truth- the unity of the Church- the Lord Jesus is declared to be the one spiritual HEAD of His "Church, who is His body, the fulness of Him that fills all in all." Thus in itself one by its oneness with Him, it is represented as "growing up into Him in all things, who is the Head, even Christ: from whom the whole body, fitly joined together, and compacted by that which every joint supplies, according to the effectual working in the measure of every part, makes increase of the body unto the edifying of itself in love." "There" (in Christ)- "is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus," and "Christ is all and in all." To the consideration of this holy and precious theme- THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH- let us for a few moments turn our attention.
That there are divisions in the Church of God, visible and painful; that the one body is sadly dismembered, the seamless robe rudely torn and disfigured, is a truth too glaring to conceal, and almost too painful and humiliating to acknowledge. Alas that it should be so! Oh, how much is the unity of the Church lost sight of in the din of religious controversy, and in the heat of party zeal! How does brother look coldly upon brother, and minister glance suspiciously at minister, and church stand aloof from church! Ought this so to be?
And to what may it in a great degree be traced? We believe, to a forgetfulness of the truth, that all true believers are "one in Christ Jesus;" that the blood of the Lamb is the bond of union of the saints; that He is the "corner stone," uniting all the parts of the one edifice; and that, if built upon Him, we are one with that Church, and that Church is one with Christ.
The unity of the mystical Church of God consists not in a unity of creed. A higher, a diviner, and a more endearing principle unites her than this. Ardently as it should be desired, and fervently as it should be prayed for, that the promised day of millennial blessedness may speedily come, when the "watchmen shall see eye to eye," when from every battlement in Zion the silver trumpets shall emit one sweet harmonious sound; yet, even then, not more essentially will the Church of God be one than she is now. True, her unity will be more visible, her divisions will be healed, her bleeding wounds will be stanched, her internal conflicts will have ceased; "Ephraim shall not envy Judah, and Judah shall not vex Ephraim any more;" and the harsh sounds of strife, now so loud and discordant, be lost in the sweet strains of peace and love floating from every lip; yet is the Church at this moment essentially one and indivisible. Not, then, in a unity of creed, or of ecclesiastical polity, does the real unity of the Church consist, but in the "unity of the Spirit," that unity sustained by the "bond of peace." She has been baptized, not into one form of church government, or into one system of doctrinal truth, but "by one Spirit we are all baptized into one body, whether we are Jews or Gentiles, whether we are bond or free; and have all been made to drink into the same Spirit." The "one Spirit" regenerating all the children of God, fashioning their hearts alike, uniting them by a living faith to the Head, equally dwelling in, teaching and guiding, comforting and sanctifying them, demonstrates the perfect oneness of Christ's body. And thus, then, when an individual crosses our path in whom the spirit of Jesus breathes, who manifests a union to the Head, and who speaks the language and bears the image of the Father, and a resemblance to the one family, be his climate and color, be his name and minor points of creed, what they may, it becomes our solemn duty, as it is our great privilege, to extend to him the recognition, and to greet him with the tender and holy affection of the one brotherhood. In the Lord's eye he is a member of His body, and he should be so in ours. And if, refusing to own the relationship, we withdraw the hand of Christian love, we render our own regeneration doubtful, we wound and grieve and deny the Spirit in him. It is written, yes, it is written by the pen of the Holy Spirit, "Whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ, is born of God; and every one that loves Him that begat, loves Him also that is begotten by Him."
I would recur to what may be considered one of the most fruitful and painful causes of the defective Christian union which so much mars the beauty and impairs the moral power of the Church of God in our day. I allude to the great distance from Christ which characterizes the spiritual walk of so many believers. The effect of this upon the operation of Christian love is obvious. A distance in spirit from the Head, leads to a distance in spirit from the members of the body. As with the beams of the sun, the further they recede from their center, the wider are they separated from each other; so it is with the "children of the light." Each believer is a solar beam- an emanation from the Sun of Righteousness. The more remote he lives from Christ- the center of the soul- the wider will he be alienated in affection and in spirit from the members of Christ. His eye less simply and constantly looking unto Jesus, his sense of union to, and communion with, Him weakened, love waning, faith declining, there will of necessity be a lessening attachment to the Church of Christ. But the converse, oh, how precious! The rays of light reflected back to the sun, meeting and rejoicing in their center, meet and rejoice in themselves. So with the saints. Drawn closer to Jesus- our wandering steps retraced- restored by those sanctifying unfoldings of the cross, which the Spirit delights to impart, the eye of penitence and faith, swimming though it be in tears, once more turned on Christ, love rekindled in the heart, oh, how will the affections, in their fondest and holiest power, go forth towards "all them who love our Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity!" His image will be their passport to our hearts; His name will secure their welcome to our homes.
Have you felt, dear reader, the sanctifying, cementing power of the Redeemer's love in your heart? Then, with all affectionate fidelity is the question proposed- how far do you deem yourself justified in regarding with frigid affection and distance of spirit any believer in Jesus, or in declining communion at the throne of grace, or alliance and confederation in the cause of our common Lord, with any portion of the Church of God, on the plea of a lack of ecclesiastical uniformity, or unity of doctrinal creed as a basis of union? Is this the unity of the Church spoken of in the word of God? Are you prepared for the result to which this plea for separation will lead you? Are you willing to defend it on a dying-bed, and go with it to the judgment-seat of Christ? Examine it in the light of God's word, and see where it springs, what is its nature, and what are its tendencies. Remember the words of our Lord, in His reply to the disciple who frowned upon an expression of zeal for the glory of Christ, because it was not from one of their own party- "And Jesus said, Forbid him not; for there is no man who shall do a miracle in my name that can lightly speak evil of me." And is it not a solemn thought, that in turning our back upon any holy, consistent member of Christ, we turn our back upon Christ Himself; and that in standing aloof from any holy confederation or Christian enterprise for the advancement of His truth and kingdom, because its promoters follow not with us, our very neutrality may be justly interpreted as criminal indifference, and our refusal to lend our cooperation, an act of hostility to Him whose subjects we profess to be! Oh that for the "divisions of Reuben there were great searchings of heart!" Yes, Jesus is the "corner stone" of the one Church, and the more firmly we build on, and the more closely we adhere to Him, the more tenderly and closely will the hearts of all the saints be "knit together in love." Precious Jesus! draw us nearer to Yourself; then shall we be drawn nearer to Your one family, redeemed by Your most precious blood!
"A sure foundation," is the last quality of excellence specified concerning this precious Stone. As if, in so momentous a matter as the salvation of the soul, to remove all lingering doubt from the mind, to annihilate all imaginary and shadowy conceptions of Jesus, Jehovah, the great Builder of the Church, declares the foundation thus laid to be a real and substantial one. Confidently here may the weary rest, and the sinner build his hope of heaven. All is sure. Sure that the word he credits is true- sure that the invitation that woos him is sincere- sure that the welcome extended to him is cordial. Sure, in coming to Jesus, of free forgiveness, of full justification, of complete and eternal acceptance with the reconciled God. Sure that, in renouncing all self-dependence, and building high his hope of glory on this foundation, he "shall not be ashamed nor confounded, world without end." All, too, is sure to the believer in the covenant of grace, of which Jesus is the Surety and Mediator. Every promise is sure- the full supply of all our needs- the daily efficacy of the atoning blood- the answer to our prayers, though long delayed- the hope of being forever with Jesus- all, all is certain and sure, because based on Jesus, and springing from the heart of the unchangeable God, and confirmed by the oath of Him who has said, "Once have I sworn by my holiness, that I will not lie unto David."
There is yet another prophecy of our glorious Redeemer, as remarkable for its literal fulfilment as for its affecting nature and solemn instruction. It is that He should be a "stone of stumbling and a rock of offence," and that Jew and Gentile should be confederated against Him. "And He shall be . . . . for a stone of stumbling, and for a rock of offence to both the houses of Israel." "Israel, who followed after the law of righteousness, have not attained to the law of righteousness. Why? Because they sought it not by faith, but as it were by the works of the law: for they stumbled at that stumbling stone; as it is written, Behold, I lay in Zion a stumbling stone and rock of offence." What a literal fulfilment has this prophecy received! To the Jews, once God's favorite people; now a "nation scattered and peeled," wandering over the face of the earth- for where have human footsteps trodden that the Israelite has not penetrated? "without a king, and without a prince, and without a sacrifice, and without an image, and without an ephod, and without teraphim," but in whose history promises of mercy and restoration are strangely blended with predictions of their apostasy and dispersion; even to them has the Messiah ever been, as He now is, a "stone of stumbling and a rock of offence."
But not Jews only- Jews and Gentiles confederated together against the Son of God, form a gloomy portion of prophetic announcement, containing a yet more mournful shadow- a large portion of the Gospel record. "The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together against the Lord, and against His anointed." "And the same day Pilate and Herod were made friends together, for before they were at enmity between themselves." Compare these passages with Acts 4. 8-11. How striking and solemn the instruction conveyed in this incident! Pilate and Herod, standing in the attitude of the deadliest hate to each other, are now made friends!
And what strange, but mighty power has thus suddenly subdued their animosity, and turned their hatred into love? What mystic chain has drawn and bound together these hostile rulers? Their mutual and deep enmity against Jesus! Believers in Christ! are the enemies of our glorious Redeemer, inspired by a natural and kindred feeling of hatred, induced to forget their private quarrels, and merge their differences in one common confederation to crush the Son of God, the object of their mutual hostility- and shall not the friends of the Redeemer, constrained by that Divine
principle of love which dwells in the hearts of all who are born of God, quench their heart-burnings, bury their antipathies, and draw more closely together, in one holy, vigorous, and determined alliance to exalt the Son of God, the glorious and precious Object of their mutual affection? Oh, if Jesus is the bond of union to those who hate Him, how much more should He be the bond of union to those who love Him! Beneath His cross how should all unholy jealousy, and bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamor, and uncharitableness, be mourned over, confessed, abhorred, and renounced by the children of the one family; and how should all who love the Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity, be unhesitatingly and cordially recognized as such, thus "endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace!"
What a distinct prophetical view bad Isaiah also of the NATURE AND GLORY OF THE REDEEMER'S WORK! He thus foretells it: "Behold, the Lord has proclaimed unto the end of the world, Say you to the daughter of Zion, Behold, your salvation comes; behold, His reward is with Him, and His work before Him." And he thus describes it: "The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek: He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound." We can with difficulty realize, as the eye traces this evangelical declaration, that we are reading the prophecy, and not its fulfilment; the shadowy writings of the Old, and not the noontide revelation of the New Testament, so luminous with the Gospel, so fragrant with the name, so replete with the work, of Jesus is it. Oh, what tidings of joy and gladness are here to the heart-broken, burdened captive! Could announcements be more suited to his case, more appropriate to his circumstances, more soothing to his heart? Here, from the very heart of the Bible, Jesus Himself speaks. And never, in the days of His flesh, when preaching from the mountain, or in the synagogue, were sweeter sounds uttered from His lips than these. This was the work that was before Him, to seek and to save lost sinners, to save them as sinners, to rend asunder their chains, to deliver them from their captivity, and to introduce them into the glorious liberty of the sons of God.
THE QUIET, LOWLY, UNOSTENTATIOUS CHARACTER OF JESUS, blending with the most exquisite tenderness of heart, the pen of the evangelical prophet with equal vividness and beauty portrays. "He shall not cry, nor lift up, nor cause His voice to be heard in the street. A bruised reed shall He not break, and the smoking flax shall He not quench." Compare this beautiful prophecy with Matt. 12. 15-20. Could the fulfilment be more perfect? Was not the entire life of our Lord in exact harmony with this prophetical portrait? Did not the glory of His lowly life, which Isaiah saw with a prophet's far-reaching eye, illumine, as with a living light, every step and every act of His history! Verily it did! Truly might He say, "Learn from me, for I am meek and lowly in heart." The most sublime miracles, the most stupendous exertions of power, and the most brilliant displays of philanthropy, on which a self-aggrandizing man would have established successfully his claims to profound and universal homage, He only referred to as sustaining the glory of His Father in His Divine mission; while all earthly honor and temporal power that might have accrued separately to Himself He utterly rejected, veiling His own person in the deep folds of that humility which clothed Him as a garment. Shrinking from the intense gaze of a delighted multitude, and from the murmuring breath of popular applause, He would vanish as in a moment from the scene of His benevolence, either to lavish His boundless compassion on other and more wretched objects of suffering and woe, or to hide Himself amid the gloom and solitude of the desert. Never was humility like Yours, meek and lowly Lamb of God! Subdue this hated self in us- lay low this pride- suppress these inward risings, and draw, in fairer and deeper lines, Your own image on our souls!
The limits of this chapter will not permit us any further to linger amid these delightful twilight unfoldings of the Redeemer's glory; else it would be easy, and perhaps profitable, to show how distinctly were foretold, and how literally were fulfilled, all the events and circumstances associated with His mysterious humiliation, sufferings, and death. There are, however, two points connected with Isaiah's unfolding of the prophetical glory of the Redeemer, too instructive in the spiritual and important truth which they convey to be entirely overlooked.
It will be observed, that John observes of Isaiah that he saw the glory of Christ. "These things said Elijah, when he saw His glory." The glory of the Redeemer has ever been an object visible to the spiritual eye. What the evangelist here records of the prophet, he also avers of himself and his fellow disciples. "And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory." Here is a point of vital moment, entering deeply into the very soul of experimental Christianity. May the Spirit of all truth give us a clear and solemn perception of it!
If a man sees not the glory of Christ, we hesitate not to say of him, that with regard to all other spiritual objects he is totally blind- he is yet a stranger to the illuminating grace of the Holy Spirit. To see the Redeemer's glory, the eye must be spiritual; a spiritual object being only discerned by a spiritual organ. Hence the apostle prays in behalf of the Ephesian Christians, "That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him: that the eyes of your understanding being enlightened." So self-evident is this truth, that a lengthened argument to establish it would seem unnecessary. As an intellectual mind alone can grapple with an abstruse problem in science, and as a mechanical genius alone is fitted to comprehend the movements of a complicated piece of mechanism, so, in revealed truth there must be an adaptation of the mind to the nature of the truth investigated. The eyes of the understanding must be enlightened; the soul must be brought into harmony with Divine truth, or rather into harmony with the God of truth.
We are willing to concede, that to a man of intellect and taste, there is much of the Scriptures of truth peculiarly and powerfully attractive. The literature of the Bible, confessedly of the loftiest character, is especially alluring to such a mind. The beauty of its diction- the boldness of its conception- the richness of its imagery- the profoundness of its philosophy- the sublimity of its poetry- the antiquity of its history, conspire to throw around it an interest and a charm peculiarly fascinating to a man of profound thought, to the philosopher, the poet, and the historian. It is just possible enough for an individual to study the Bible as he would study any branch of human science, or investigate the authenticity of any historical document: he may perceive the beauty of its evidence, and feel the power of its demonstration, and this shall be the utmost limit of his knowledge of the word of God! The "sword of the Spirit" maybe so sheathed in the intellect, or wreathed with the flowers of a poetic fancy, that the heart may never have felt the keenness of its double edge, piercing and separating it from its sinful and idolatrous self. "For the word of God is quick and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intentions of the heart." We will venture a step further. As a natural man, I may, on certain indisputable evidence, admit the Bible to be a record from God. I may give to its sublime revelations my firm credence, to its Divine character my profound reverence, to its pure ethics my warmest admiration, and to its holy doctrines my strongest adherence and most zealous advocacy. I may believe Jesus to be no impostor, and His religion no cunningly devised fable, and His name the only name given under heaven whereby we may be saved, and yet remain totally blind to the true glory of the Redeemer! All the while that I am thus examining the outworks of Christianity, or traversing the outer courts of the great sanctuary of truth, I have not yet taken a single step within the sanctuary of my own bosom, exploring its hidden plague, and searching out that direst of all evils that ever tainted and ruined a finite creature- the heart's natural, deep, and deadly enmity against God! Blind to my own guilt, wretchedness, and woe, is it a thing incredible that I should be blind to the true glory of the Savior; and that to me His obedience, sufferings, and death- facts of transcendent magnitude and importance, interwoven with my dearest interests, and kindling an undying light around my every step to eternity- should be to me but as the dreams of my boyhood? So true is it, "the natural man receives not the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned."
But, enlightened by the Spirit of God, the believer beholds the glory of Jesus. Brought to see no glory in himself, yes, nothing but deformity in that on which the eye once so complacently rested; the glory of the Redeemer, as it is reflected in His person, in His atoning blood and justifying righteousness, His infinite fulness of grace to pardon and to sanctify, fills now the entire scope of his moral vision, and lifts his soul in admiring and adoring thoughts of the holiness and love of God!
More than this, such is its transforming influence, he comes to be a partaker, in a degree, of that very glory which has arrested his eye and ravished his heart. On him the glory of the Lord has shined, the Sun of Righteousness has risen, he rises from the dust, and shines arrayed in garments of light from Christ's reflecting light. A sight of Jesus assimilates the soul to His Spirit: a contemplation of His beauty transforms the believer more and more into the "child of the light;" and thus perpetually "looking unto Jesus," the path he treads kindles and glows with an increasing effulgence, until its luster expands into perfect, cloudless day. "We all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord."
The medium through which the spiritual eye beholds the glory of Christ, is faith. It is a hidden glory until the Eternal Spirit imparts this mighty principle to the soul. The eye of reason cannot discern it, the eye of intellect and of sense cannot behold it- it remains a veiled thing, 'dark with excessive brightness,' until God the Holy Spirit utters His voice, "Let there be light." "Abraham," says Christ, "rejoiced to see my day: and he saw it, and was glad." At that remote period, how did he see it? -by faith. Through the long and dreary vista of advancing ages he saw the day dawning, the sun rising. By faith he beheld Jesus approaching. He saw His blood, His righteousness, and his own interest there, "and he was glad." The beamy prospect dilated the patriarch's heart with joy. Oh yes, a sight of Jesus by faith, be it distant and dim, be it shadowy and imperfect, fills the soul with ineffable gladness, lights up its onward way, sweetens its solitude; enlivens its loneliness, and soothes it amid its deepest sorrows.
Isaiah not only beheld the glory of Christ, but he also "spoke of it." While he mused upon the wondrous sight, "the fire burned, then spoke he with his tongue." He could not but speak of that which he saw and felt. And who can behold the glory of the Redeemer, and not speak of it? Who can see His beauty and not extol it- who can taste His love and not laud it? "Come," will be the invitation, "see a man who told me all things that ever I did: is not this the Christ?" The Church of old, as her eye wandered over the beauties of her Lord, broke forth in expressions of wonder and praise; and, after particularizing and extolling these beauties, she then exclaims, as if all language were exhausted, "Yes, He is altogether lovely. This is my beloved, and this is my
friend." "In His temple does every one speak of His glory." So did the sweet singer of Israel. "I will speak of the glorious honor of Your majesty, and of Your wondrous works. And men shall speak of the might of Your terrible acts: and I will declare Your greatness. They shall abundantly utter the memory of Your great goodness, and shall sing of Your righteousness. They shall speak of the glory of Your kingdom, and talk of Your power; to make known to the sons of men His mighty acts, and the glorious majesty of His kingdom." "We beheld His glory," is the testimony of John. And in his preface to his First Epistle he could testify, "That which we have seen and heard (of the Word of life) declare we unto you." Yes, the saints of the Most High must speak of the King in His beauty. They are constrained to show forth His praise, and tell of His love and loveliness, who is to them more precious than the gold of Ophir; yes, dearer than life itself. The Pharisee may murmur, the worldling may scorn, and the cold-hearted professor may rebuke; yet, "if these should hold their peace," who have been redeemed by His most precious blood, and who are looking forward to His second appearing, as an event which will fully introduce them to His glory, and conform them to His likeness, "the stones would immediately cry out."
Some important CONCLUSIONS flow from the subject which it has been the attempt of this chapter to unfold. The first that it suggests to the mind is, the perfect harmony of the Old and the New Testaments, thus confirming our faith in the Divine authenticity of the Scriptures of truth. Upon what other ground can we account for this singular agreement of the Word with itself, and for this exact and literal fulfilment of its predictions, but on that of its divinity? "Your word is truth," is the glorious and triumphant inference fairly deducible from a fact so striking and self-evident as this. And in what particular is this beautiful harmony especially seen? -in exalting the Lamb of God. The Old and the New Testament Scriptures of truth do for Christ, what Pilate and Herod did against Him- they confederate together. They unite in a holy alliance, in a sublime unity of purpose, to show forth the glory of the incarnate God. Divine book! Precious volume! Behold an illustration of what the Church of the living God should be, a transparent body, illumined with the glory of Immanuel, and scattering its beams of light and beauty over the surface of a lost and benighted world. How much does a perfect representation of the glory of the Redeemer by the Church depend upon her visible union! A mirror broken into a thousand fragments, cannot reflect the glory of the sun with the same brilliancy, power, and effect, as if a perfect whole. Nor can the Church of God, dismembered, divided, and broken, present to the world the same harmonious, convincing, and effective testimony to the glory of Jesus, as when, in her unimpaired oneness, she is seen "looking forth as the morning, fair as the moon, clear as the sun, and terrible as an army with banners." Oh then, by all that is fragrant in the name of Jesus, by all that is sanctifying in His glory and attractive in Isis cross, by all that is sweet and persuasive in Christian love, by all that is solemn in the near approach of death and eternity, and by all that is blissful in the hope of eternal life, springing from the one atonement, reader, seek to promote the visible unity of Christ's Church. Resolve, beneath the cross, and by the grace of God, that you will not be a hindrance to the accomplishment of so blessed, so holy an end. Hold the faith with a firm hand, but hold it in righteousness. Speak the truth with all boldness, but speak it in love. Concede to others what you claim for yourself- the right of private judgment, and the free exercise of an enlightened conscience. And where you see the image of Jesus reflected, the love of Jesus influencing, and the glory of Jesus simply and solely sought, there extend your hand, offer your heart, breathe your blessing and your prayer. Oh, this were to be like Christ; and to be like Christ is grace below, and glory above!
This subject, of momentous importance, admits of an individual application. Reader, what do you think of Christ? What are your apprehensions of His glory, as it has thus far been placed before you? Do you see beauty, surpassing beauty, in Emmanuel? Has His glory broken upon your view? Has it beamed in upon your mind? Has a sight of Jesus, seen by faith, cast you in the dust, exclaiming, "I have heard of You by the hearing of the ear: but now my eye sees You. Wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes"? Your honest reply to these searching questions will decide the nature and the ground of your present hope for eternity. On the confines of that eternity you are now standing. Solemn consideration! It is of infinite moment, then, that your views of the Son of God should be thoroughly examined, sifted, and compared with the inspired word. A crown now lowered on your brow, a kingdom stretched at your feet, a world gained and grasped, were as infants' baubles, compared with the tremendous interest involved in the question, "What do you think of Christ?" And what do you think of Him? Is He all your salvation and all your desire? Have you laid sinful self and righteous self beneath His cross? and in all your poverty, nakedness, and vileness, have you received Him as made of God unto you, "wisdom and righteousness, sanctification and redemption"? Does His glory dim all other glory; and does His beauty eclipse all other beauty in your eye? Can you point to Him and say, in the humble confidence of faith and joy of love, "This is my Beloved, and this is my Friend"? Eternal God! but for the righteousness of Your Son, I sink in all my pollution! but for the atoning blood of Emmanuel, I perish in all my guilt! Holy Father, look not on me, but behold my Shield, and look upon the face of your Anointed! And when Your glory passes by- the glory of Your majesty, Your holiness, and Your justice-  then put me in the cleft of the rock, and cover me with Your hand while You pass by.
Cultivate frequent and devout contemplations of the glory of Christ. Immense will be the benefit accruing to your soul. The mind thus preoccupied, filled, and expanded, will be enabled to present a stronger resistance to the ever advancing and insidious encroachments of the world without. No place will be found for vain thoughts, and no desire or time for carnal enjoyments. Oh, how crucifying and sanctifying are clear views of the glory of Emmanuel! How emptying, humbling, and abasing! With the patriarch, we then exclaim, "I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes." And with the prophet, "Woe is me! for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips . . . My eyes have seen the King." And with the apostle, "God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world." Oh, then, aim to get your mind filled with enlarged and yet expanding views of the glory of the Redeemer. Let it, in all the discoveries it affords of the Divine mind and majesty, be the one subject of your thoughts, the one theme of your conversation. Place no limit to your knowledge of Christ. Ever consider that you have but read the preface to the volume, you have but touched the margin of the sea. Stretching far away beyond you, are undiscovered beauties, and precious views, and sparkling glories, each encouraging your advance, inviting your research, and asking the homage of your faith, the tribute of your love, and the dedication of your life. Go forward, then! The glories that yet must be revealed to you in a growing knowledge of Jesus, what imagination can conceive, what pen can describe them? "You shall see greater things than these," is the promise that bids you advance. Jesus stands ready to unveil all the beauties of His person- and to admit you into the very arcade of His love. There is not a chamber of His heart that He will not throw open to you; not a blessing that He will not bestow upon you; not a glory that He will not show to you. You shall see greater things than you have yet seen: greater depths of sin in your fallen nature shall be revealed; deeper sense of the cleansing efficacy of the atoning blood shall be felt; clearer views of your acceptance in the Beloved; greater discoveries of God's love; and greater depths of grace and glory in Jesus shall be enjoyed. Your communion with God shall be closer, and more the fruit of adopting love in your heart; your feet shall be as hinds' feet, and you shall walk on your high places. Your "peace shall flow as a river, and your righteousness as the waves of the sea." Sorrow shall wound you less deeply; affliction shall press you less heavily; tribulation shall affect you less keenly; all this, and infinitely more, will result from your deeper knowledge of Jesus. Ah, wonder not that the heaving, panting, thirsting soul of the apostle exclaimed, "Doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the
excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord. That I may know Him, and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being made conformable unto His death." "Then shall we know, if we follow on to know the Lord."
Let your life be a clear reflection of the glory of the Redeemer. The saints of God are the only witnesses to this glory- the only reflectors the Lord has in this dark and Christ-denying world. HOLINESS, springing from the fount of the Spirit's indwelling grace, cherished and matured by close views of the cross, and imparting a character of sanctity and beauty to every act of your life, will be the highest testimony you can bear to the Redeemer's glory. That glory is intrusted to your hands. It is committed to your guardianship. Seeing, then, that it is so, "what manner of people ought you to be in all holy conversation and godliness"! How exact in principles, and upright in conduct- how watchful over temper, and how vigilant where most assailed, how broad awake to the wiles of the devil, and how watchful against the encroachments of sin- how strict in all transactions with the world; and how tender, and charitable, and meek, and forgiving, in all our conduct with the saints! Alas! we are at best but dim reflectors of this great glory of our Lord. We are unworthy and unfaithful depositories of so rich a treasure! How much of clinging infirmity, of unmortified sin, of carelessness of spirit, of unsanctified temper, of tampering with temptation, of a lack of strict integrity and uprightness, dims our light, neutralizes our testimony for God, and weakens, if not entirely destroys, our spiritual influence! We are not more eminently useful, because we are not more eminently holy. We bring so little glory to Christ, because we seek so much our own. We reflect so faint and flickering a beam, because our posture is so seldom that of the apocalyptic angel, "standing in the sun." We realize so imperfectly our oneness with, and standing in, Christ; and this will ever foster a feeble, fruitless, and drooping profession of Christianity. "As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine, no more can you, except you abide in me." Oh to know more of this abiding in Christ! See how Jesus invites His saints to it. Are they fallen? He bids them take hold of His strength. Are they burdened? He bids them cast that burden on His arm. Are they wearied? He bids them recline on Him for rest. Does the world persecute them, do the "daughters of Jerusalem" smite them, does the watchman treat them unkindly? He bids them take refuge within the hallowed sanctuary of His own pierced and loving heart. Do they need grace? He bids them sink their empty vessel beneath the depths of His ocean fulness, and draw freely "more grace." Whatever corruptions distress them, whatever temptations assail them, whatever adversity grieves them, whatever cloud darkens them, whatever necessity presses upon them; as the watchful Shepherd, as the tender Brother, as the faithful Friend, as the great High Priest, He bids His saints draw near, and repose in His love. Oh, He has a capacious bosom: there is room, there is a chamber in that heart for you, my Christian reader! Do not think your lot is desolate, and lonely, and friendless. Do not think that all have forsaken you, and that in sadness and in solitude you are threading your way through an intricate desert. There is One that loves you, that thinks of you, that has His eye upon you, and is at this moment guiding, upholding, and caring for you: that one is Jesus! Oh that you could but look into His heart, and see how He loves you; oh that you could but hear Him say, so gently, so earnestly, "Abide in my love!" Cheer up; you are in Christ's heart, and Christ is in your heart. You are not alone: your God, even your Father, is with you. Your Shepherd guides you; the Comforter spreads around you His wings, and heaven is bright before you. Soon you will be there. The pilgrim will repose his weary limbs; the voyager will be moored in his harbor of rest; the warrior will put off his armor, and shout his song of triumph. Then look up! Christ is yours, God is yours, heaven is yours. If God is for you, who can be against you? And if you find disappointment in created good, it will but endear Jesus; and if you know more of the inward plague, it will but drive you to the atoning blood; and if you have storms and tempests, they will but shorten the voyage, and waft you the quicker to glory.
"Thanks be unto God for his unspeakable gift!"

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"The Glory of the Redeemer in His People"

"I am glorified in them." John 17:10

Upborne on the pinion of faith, we have been soaring to the third heaven, contemplating for awhile the glory of our Emmanuel within the veil. Sweet and ravishing sight! Soon, oh! so soon to be seen without a glass; and seen but to be transformed into the same glory! The further consideration of our subject recalls us again to earth, to behold yet another manifestation of the glory of the Redeemer- even His glory in His saints. The unfolding of this truth will be found to confirm and illustrate another equally important one; namely, the perfect oneness of Christ and His Church, and the consequent reciprocity of interest and affection which exists: thus showing, that while Christ represents the Church above, the Church represents Christ below; while she is glorified with Him in heaven, He is glorified in her on earth. Holy, blessed, and indissoluble unity!
The manifested glory of Christ in His Church is clearly and emphatically stated in the sublime prayer of our dear Lord, to which we have already had occasion more than once to allude. Addressing His Father, He claims with Him- what no mere creature could do- a conjunction of interest in the Church, based upon an essential unity of nature. "All mine are Yours, and Your are mine, and I am glorified in them." What angel in heaven could adopt this language, what creature on earth could present this claim- "All Yours are mine!" It would be an act of the most daring presumption; it would be the very inspissation of blasphemy: but when our Lord asserts it- asserts it, too, in a solemn prayer, addressed on the eve of His death to His Father- what does it prove, but that a unity of property in the Church involves a unity of essence in being? There could be no perfect oneness of the Father and the Son in any single object, but as it sprang from a oneness of nature. We think this demonstratively true. Two things equal to a given thing, must be equal to each other. The axiom will apply with equal force to the truth before us. Convincing evidence of His Deity! Oh reject it not! He that lives and dies in the disbelief of the absolute Godhead of Jesus is lost forever. I assume not the office of his judge: I pronounce not the sentence of his condemnation. He who shall judge him in the last day has already foredoomed him- "If you believe not that I AM He, you shall die in your sins."
The mutual interest, then, which Christ thus claims with His Father, refers, in this instance, specifically to the Church of God. And it is delightful here to trace the perfect equality of love towards the Church as of perfect identity of interest in the Church. We are sometimes tempted to doubt the perfect sameness, as to degree, of the Father's love with the Son's love; that, because Jesus died and intercedes, the mind thus wont to familiarize itself with Him more especially, associating Him with all its comforting, soothing, hallowing views and enjoyments, we are liable to be beguiled into the belief that His love must transcend in its strength and intensity the love of the Father. But not so. The Father's love is of perfect equality in degree, as it is in nature, with the Son's love; and this may with equal truth be affirmed of the "love of the Spirit." "He that has seen me," says Jesus, "has seen the Father." Then he that has seen the melting, overpowering expressions of the Redeemer's love- he that has seen Him pouring out His deep compassion over the miseries of a suffering world; he that has seen His affectionate gentleness towards His disciples; he that has seen Him weep at the grave of Lazarus; he that has followed Him to the garden of Gethsemane, to the judgment-hall of Pilate, and from thence to the cross of Calvary, has seen in every step which He trod, and in every act which He performed, a type of the deep, deep love which the Father bears towards His people. He that has thus seen the Son's love has seen the Father's love. Oh, sweet to think, the love that travailed- the love that toiled- the love that wept- the love that bled- the love that died, is the same love, in its nature and intensity, which is deep-welled in the heart of the triune God, and is pledged to secure the everlasting salvation of the Church. "All mine are Yours, and Yours are mine, and I am glorified in them."
We are now to show IN WHAT PARTICULARS THE REDEEMER IS GLORIFIED IN HIS CHURCH.
He is glorified in being the covenant Head of all blessing to His people. How distinctly has the Holy Spirit declared this precious truth- "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places (things) in Christ." Here is our true Joseph with all the treasures which a Father's love can bestow, or which the covenant of grace provides, placed in His hands and at His disposal. It has "pleased the Father" to constitute Him the Head of the Church, and that in Him, as such, "all fullness should dwell." Here, too, is our true spiritual Eliakim, of whom it is sweetly prophesied, "And they shall hang upon Him all the glory of His Father's house, the offspring and the issue, all vessels of small quantity, from the vessels of cups even to all the vessels of flagons." Isa. xxii. 24. Who sustains, as 'a nail fastened in a sure place,' all the glory of the Church, but Jesus? In Christ the Church is chosen. In Christ it is preserved. In Christ it lives. In Christ it is pardoned. In Christ it is justified. In Christ it is sanctified. In Christ it will be glorified. Thus does all the glory of the spiritual house hang on Christ- He is its foundation, He is its corner-stone; in Him; "fitly framed together, it grows up a holy temple in the Lord;" and He will be the top-stone, which shall be brought forth on the day of its completion, amid the shoutings of "Grace, grace unto it!"
On Him, too, hang all the 'vessels' of the house, the 'vessels of cups and the vessels of flagons;' the small and the great, the young and the old, the feeble and the strong, all the saints hang on Jesus, and Jesus supports and supplies all. See, how the 'vessels of cups, the vessels of small quantity,' hang upon Him, and how He supplies them. "And, behold, there came a leper, and worshiped Him, saying, Lord, if You will, You can make me clean. And Jesus put forth His hand, and touched him, saying, I will; be clean. And immediately his leprosy was cleansed." "And one of the multitude answered and said, Master, I have brought unto You my son, who has a dumb spirit . . . . and ofttimes it has cast him into the fire, and into the waters, to destroy him: but if You can do anything, have compassion on us, and help us. Jesus rebuked the foul spirit, saying unto him, You dumb and deaf spirit, I charge you come out of him, and enter no more into him." "And, behold, a woman, who was diseased with an issue of blood twelve years, came behind Him, and touched
the hem of His garment: for she said within herself, If I may but touch His garment I shall be whole. But Jesus turned Him about; and when He saw her, He said, Daughter, be of good comfort; your faith has made you whole. And the woman was made whole from that hour." "And He said unto Jesus, Lord, remember me when You come into Your kingdom. And Jesus said unto him, Verily I say unto you, Today shall you be with me in Paradise." "And, behold, a woman of Canaan came out of the same coasts, and cried unto Him, saying, Have mercy on me, O Lord, Son of David; my daughter is grievously vexed with a devil. But He answered her not a word. . . . . Then came she and worshiped Him, saying, Lord, help me. But He answered and said, It is not fit to take the children's bread, and to cast it to dogs. And she said, Truth, Lord: yet the dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their masters' table. Then Jesus answered and said unto her, O woman, great is your faith: be it unto you even as you will."
Behold, how these 'vessels of small quantity' hang on Jesus; and behold, how He sustains and fills them. They are but as 'vessels of cups'- their knowledge is defective, their grace is limited, their experience but shallow, their faith but small, and they themselves but little- oh! how little, who can tell?- in their own eyes; yet, coming thus to Jesus' grace, exclaiming-
"Other refuge have I none,
Hangs my helpless soul on You,"
He receives them, He welcomes them, He bears them up, He supplies them, He fills them; He rejoices in their feeble grace, He despises not their little strength, He crowns their weak faith, He grants them the utmost desires of their hearts. Oh, what a Jesus is our Jesus! Were ever such gentleness, tenderness, and skill manifested towards the "bruised reed and the smoking flax? "
Dear reader, are you a 'vessel of small quantity?' It may be that, through the infirmities that encompass you, the trials that oppress you, the temptations that assail you, the clouds that surround you, you can receive Christ's fullness but in a limited degree; truth is understood but partially, there being doctrines, perhaps, hard to be understood, and precepts still harder to be obeyed. Light beams in upon the mind but faintly, the Scripture statement of the heart's deep subtlety and desperate wickedness is but slowly, cautiously, doubtingly received; the daily cross imposed by Christian discipleship, sometimes taken up, as often laid down; the rough way wounding the feet, the strait way causing them to stumble. Christ's grand atonement, His one, perfect obedience, His great and finished work, the sprinkling of His blood upon the conscience, the completeness of a believing soul in His righteousness, and the consequent "peace and joy in the Holy Spirit," but little known. These, it may be, are some of the features that mark your case. Yet, feeling your own vileness, and Christ's sufficiency and preciousness, and constrained to hang on Him solely and exclusively, as all your salvation and all your desire; though you can receive but a 'small quantity' of knowledge, of grace, and of love, you are yet a 'vessel of gold' in His house, and Jesus bears you on His heart, sets you as a seal upon His arm, and presents you each moment before God complete in Himself.
But there are also in this house "vessels of flagons," the larger vessels- saints of a deep grace, of gigantic faith, of profound knowledge. Hear one of them exclaim, "I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless, I live; yet not I, but Christ lives in me and the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave Himself for me." Oh how abundantly did this beloved apostle drink of "the river of God!" How deeply did he sink into the ocean of Christ's fullness! How high did he soar into the beatific presence of God, until sweeping the heavens with his expanded pinions, all the treasures that sparkle there seemed gathered into his soul. Yet, a large vessel though it was, in himself he was poor, vile, and empty; counting himself as the "chief of sinners," esteeming himself "less than the least of all saints," and ascribing all that he was as a renewed man to "the grace of God." In this his poverty, vileness, and emptiness, he hung with the small vessel, solely, entirely on Christ. The thief saved at the last moment, and Paul, the great apostle of the Gentiles, side by side hung on Jesus. "Of His fullness have all we received, and grace for grace." Both were pardoned with the same blood, both were justified by the same righteousness, both were filled from the same source, and both are now in glory, chanting the same song, and together casting their crowns before the throne. Thus is Jesus made the "Head over all things to His Church;" and His Church becomes in all its members, be they small or great, "the fullness of Him that fills all in all." Thus is Christ glorified in them. And oh, what infinite mind can compute the revenue of glory thus accruing to the Redeemer through His saints?
In the conversion of His people- their translation from nature to grace, the Redeemer is glorified. This is the first step to a manifest glorifying of Christ in His called saints. Conversion is the commencement of an endless revenue of glory to Christ. To behold a poor sinner living a life of practical enmity to God, hatred to Jesus, rebellion against the Divine government, and willful and determined hostility to the one glorious plan of salvation; perhaps a blasphemer, a persecutor, and injurious; now changed, now conquered, now sitting at the feet of Jesus, "clothed and in his right mind," oh, is there no glory thus brought to the grace of Christ Jesus? To see him translated out of darkness into God's marvelous light; emancipated from the power of sin and Satan, and made the Lord's free man; the rebellious will
conquered, the hard heart subdued, the proud spirit humbled, the hatred turned into love, and the long roving mind now finding its center of rest and fountain of happiness in the reconciled God, oh! is there no crown of glory placed on the head of Jesus in all this? Say, you angelic spirits, bending over the mercy-seat in deep contemplation of its awful mysteries of incarnate grace and dying love- whose eyes glisten and whose bosoms expand with new effulgence and joy over one sinner that repents, do you see no glory deepening around the Son of God, as each vessel of mercy is called in, emptied of self, and filled with Jesus? Yet not to angels, but to saints themselves, we appeal. Hear the testimony of one- "Afterwards I came into the regions of Syria and Cilicia; and was unknown by face unto the churches of Judea which were in Christ: but they had heard only, that he who persecuted us in times past, now preached the faith which one he destroyed. And they glorified God in me." Oh, how are the power, the wisdom, the grace, the love of the Redeemer glorified, and God through Him, by every new accession thus made to the number of the redeemed! Aim to be instrumental in bringing one soul to receive the Lord Jesus as all its salvation, and you bring more glory to His name than were a thousand worlds like this to start into being at your fiat. "Those who are wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament; and those who turn many to righteousness, as the stars forever and ever."
But how is He glorified in God's acceptance of His people through Him! Who can entertain a doubt of this, that has any experimental knowledge of the great work of the Lord Jesus? Look at this for one moment. God's justification of the believing sinner through the righteousness of His Son, is His seal to the perfection, and efficacy, and worth of Christ's obedience and death. What glory, suppose you, would encircle the form of Gabriel, were it possible for Jehovah to accept a poor sinner in his righteousness! How high would this act advance him in dignity, and honor, and praise above all celestial intelligences! But oh! we stand, beloved, in a better and a diviner righteousness than that of angel or archangel; we stand in the righteousness of the incarnate God! and that God, the holy Lord God, should accept a poor sinner in the righteousness of His Son, places that Son in the ascendant of all creatures, "dwelling in light," the full effulgence of which "no man has seen, nor can see." This truth, unfolded to his soul by the Holy Spirit, constrained an eminent saint of God to exclaim, "Had I all the faith of the patriarchs, all the zeal of the prophets, all the good works of the apostles, all the holy suffering of the martyrs, and all the glowing devotion of the seraphs; I would disclaim the whole, in point of dependence, and count all but dross and dung when compared with the infinitely precious death and the infinitely meritorious righteousness of Jesus Christ my Lord." But one yet more eminent for his deep experience of this truth, has thus recorded his testimony: "What things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ. Yes, doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ, and be found in Him, not having mine own righteousness which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith." Who can compute the glory brought to Jesus by God's full justification of the poor believing sinner through the righteousness of His beloved Son?
He is glorified in the progressive holiness of His people. "The kingdom of God is within you," says Christ. The increase of this kingdom is just the measure and extent of the believer's advance in sanctification. This is that internal righteousness, the work of God the Holy Spirit, which consists in the subjugation of the mind, the will, the affections, the desires, yes, the whole soul, to the government and supremacy of Jesus, "bringing into captivity," says the apostle, "every thought to the obedience of Christ." Oh, you who are "striving against sin," longing to be "conformed to the image of God's Son," panting to be more "pure in heart," "hungering and thirsting for righteousness," think that in every step which you take in the path of holiness, in every corruption subdued, in every besetting sin laid aside, in every holy desire begotten, Christ is glorified in you! But you perhaps reply, "the more I strive for the mastery, the more I seem to be conquered. The more strongly I oppose my sins, the stronger my sins seem to be." But what does this prove? it proves that "God is working in you both to will and to do of His good pleasure," -that the kingdom of God is invading the kingdom of Satan- that the Spirit dwelling in the heart is warring with the flesh. It is truly remarked by Owen, that "if a believer lets his sins alone, his sins will let him alone." But let him search them as with candles, let him bring them to the light, oppose, mortify, and crucify them, they will to the last, struggle for the victory. And this inward warfare, so graphically and touchingly described in the seventh chapter of the Epistle to the Romans, undeniably marks the inhabitation of God the Holy Spirit in the soul.
But to see one advancing in holiness, thirsting for God, the heart fixed in its solemn purpose of entire surrender; cultivating higher views, and aiming for a loftier standard; to behold him, perhaps, carving his way to the throne through mighty opposition, "fightings without; fears within; "striving for the mastery of some besetting sin, sometimes foiling, and sometimes foiled, sometimes with the shout of victory on the lip, and sometimes with painful consciousness of defeat bowing the heart; yet still onward- the needle of the soul, with slow and tremulous, but true and certain, movement, still pointing to its glorious attraction, God- faith that can never fail, and hope that can never die, and love that can never be quenched; hanging amid their warfare and in all their weakness upon the "nail fastened in a sure place." How is Christ, our sanctification, glorified in such a saint!
Oh to be like Jesus! meek, and lowly, and gentle, and kind, and forgiving; without craftiness, without deceit, without malice, without revenge; without one temper, or thought, or feeling, or look, that is unlike Him! Beloved, mistake not the nature and the evidence of growth in sanctification. In all your self-denial in this great work, be cautious of grace-denial. You will need much holy wisdom here, lest you overlook the work of the Spirit within you. You have thought, it may be, of the glory that Christ receives from brilliant genius, and profound talent, and splendid gifts, and glowing zeal, and costly sacrifices, and even extensive usefulness. But have you ever thought of the glory, the far greater, richer glory, that flows to Him from the contrite spirit, the broken heart, the lowly mind, the humble walk; from the tear of godly repentance that falls when seen by no human eye, and the sigh of godly sorrow that is breathed when heard by no human ear; and the sin abhorrence, and self loathing, and deep sense of vileness, and poverty, and infirmity that takes you to Jesus with the prayer- "Lord, here I am; I have brought to You my rebellious will, my wandering heart, my worldly affections, my peculiar infirmity, my besetting and constantly overpowering sin. Receive ,me graciously, put forth the mighty power of Your grace in my soul, and subdue all, and rule all, and subjugate all to Yourself! Will it not be for Your glory, the glory of Your great name, if this strong corruption were subdued by Your grace, if this powerful sin were nailed to Your cross, if this temper so sensitive, and this heart so impure, and these affections so truant, and this mind so dark, and these desires so earthly, and these pursuits so carnal, and these aims so selfish, were all entirely renewed by Your Spirit, sanctified by Your grace, and made each to reflect Your image? Yes, Lord, it would be for Your glory, through time and through eternity."
Especially is the Lord Jesus glorified in the life of faith which His saints live upon Him. The experience of every believer is, in a limited degree, the experience of the great apostle of the Gentiles, the tip of whose soaring wing, we, who so much skim the earth's surface, can scarcely touch- "The life which I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God." "Like precious faith" with his, dwells in the hearts of all the regenerate. Along this royal highway it is ordained by God that all His people should travel. It is the way their Lord traveled before them; it is the way they are to follow after Him. The first step they take out of the path of 'sense', is into the path of 'faith'. And what a mighty grace do they
find it, as they journey on! Do they live? it is by faith.  Do they stand? it is by faith. Do they walk? it is by faith.  Do they fight? it is by faith. Do they overcome? it is by faith. Do they see what is invisible? it is by faith. Do they receive what is incredible? it is by faith. Do they achieve what is impossible? it is by faith. Glorious achievements of faith!
And, oh, how eminently is Jesus thus glorified in His saints! Was it no glory to Joseph that, having the riches of Egypt in His hands, all the people were made, as it were, to live daily and hourly upon Him? Was no fresh accession of dignity brought to His exaltation, by every fresh acknowledgment of His authority, and every renewed application to His wealth? And is not Jesus glorified in His exaltation, and in His fullness, and in His love, and in His grace, by that faith, in the exercise of which, "a poor and an afflicted people," the needy and the tried Church, are made to travel to, and live upon, Him each moment? Ah, yes! every corruption taken to His sanctifying grace; every burden taken to His omnipotent arm; every sorrow taken to His sympathizing heart; every need taken to His overflowing fullness; every wound taken to His healing hand; every sin taken to His cleansing blood; and every deformity taken to His all-covering righteousness, swells the revenue of glory, which each second of time ascends to our adorable Redeemer from His Church.
You may have imagined- for I will now suppose myself as addressing the seeking soul- that Christ has been more glorified by your hanging back from Him- doubting the efficacy of His blood to cancel your guilt, and the power of His grace to mortify your corruption, and the sufficiency of His fullness to supply your need, and the sympathy of His nature to soothe your grief, and the loving willingness of heart to receive and welcome you as you are, empty, vile, and worthless; little thinking, on the contrary, how much He has been grieved, and wounded, and dishonored, and robbed of His glory, by this doubting of His love, and this distrusting of His grace, after all the melting exhibitions of the one, and all that convincing evidence of the other.
But, is it the desire of your inmost soul that Christ should be glorified by you? then do not forget the grand, luminous truth of the Bible, that He is the Savior of sinners, and of sinners as sinners- that in the great matter of the soul's salvation, He recognizes nothing of worthiness in the creature; and that whatever human merit is brought to Him with a view of commending the case to His notice- whatever- be it even the incipient work of His own Spirit in the heart- is appended to His finished work, as a ground of acceptance with God, is so much detraction from His glory as a Redeemer- than which, of nothing He is more jealous- and, consequently, places the soul at a great remove from His grace. But like Bartimeus, casting the garment from you- be that garment what it may- pride of merit- pride of intellect- pride of learning- pride of family- pride of place- yes, whatever hinders your entering the narrow way, and prevents your receiving the kingdom of God "as a little child," and coming to Jesus to be saved by Him alone, brings more real glory to Him, than imagination can conceive, or words can describe.
If, then, Jesus is especially glorified in the faith of His people, let yours be a life of faith in all its minute detail. Live upon Him for spiritual supplies; live upon Him for temporal supplies. Go to Him in dark providences, that you may be kept from sinking: go to Him in bright providences, that you may be kept from falling. Go to Him when the path is rough, that you may walk in it contentedly: go to Him when the path is smooth, that you may walk in it surely. Let your daily history be a traveling to Jesus empty, and a coming from Jesus filled. Keep the truth constantly and prominently before your eye, "The just shall live by faith." If this be so, do not expect that God will ever permit you to live by sight. Bend your whole soul submissively to Him in this matter. Let His will and yours be one. If, in the course of your wilderness journeyings, He has brought you into a great strait, yes, to the very margin of the sea, still at His bidding, 'go forward,' though it be into that sea. Trust Him to cleave asunder its waters, making a dry passage for your feet, and causing those very waves that threatened to engulf you, now to prove as a cloud canopying you above, and as walls of strength, fencing you in on every side. Remember, too, that it is one peculiar exercise and precious privilege of faith, to "wait patiently for the Lord." The Divine exhortation is, "Commit your way unto the Lord; trust also in Him; and He will bring it to pass." "Rest in the Lord, and wait patiently for Him." This patience of the soul is the rest of faith, on the faithful God; it is a 'standing still, to see His salvation.' And the Divine encouragement is, that in this posture will be found the secret of your real power. "In quietness and in confidence shall be your strength." "Their strength is to sit still." Be watchful against everything that would mar the simplicity of your faith, and so dim the glory of Jesus. Especially guard against the adoption of unlawful or doubtful measures, with a view to disentanglement from present difficulties. Endure the pressure, submit to the wrong, bear the suffering, rather than sin against God, by seeking to forestall His mind, or to antedate His purpose, or by transferring your interests from His hands to your own.
"Beware of desperate steps: the darkest day,
Wait but tomorrow, will have passed away."
Oh, the glory that is brought to Jesus by a life of faith! Who can fully estimate it? Taking to Him the corruption, as it is discovered- the guilt, as it rises- the grief, as it is felt- the cross, as it is experienced-  the wound, as it is received; yes, simply following the example of John's disciples, who, when their master was slain, took up his headless body,
and buried it, and then went and poured their mournful intelligence into the ear of Jesus, and laid their deep sorrow on His heart; this is to glorify Christ! Truly is this "precious faith," and truly is the "trial of our faith precious," for it renders more precious to the heart "His precious blood," who, in His person, is unutterably "precious to those who believe."
By a patient endurance of suffering for His sake, the Redeemer is greatly glorified in His saints. The apostle- and few drank of the bitter cup more deeply than He- presents suffering for Christ, in the soothing light of a Christian privilege. "Unto you it is given in the behalf of Christ, not only to believe on Him, but also to safer for His sake." And how touchingly did the experience of the disciples correspond with this: "They departed from the presence of the council rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for His name." Has it pleased the Lord, dear reader, to place you in a somewhat similar position? Ah! is it no suffering to stand up in the midst of one's beloved family, surrounded by irreligion, and worldliness, and a total disregard of the fear of God, a lone and a despised witness for Jesus? Ah! is it no suffering to thread the intricate and narrow way, or to run with you the Christian race, in the domestic circle- no eye beaming with holy love, no voice responding in cheering accent, no hand to guide, no arm to lean upon, no bosom to weep upon, no kindred spirit, no second self; to see one's God denied, one's Savior rejected, one's religion scoffed, one's principles trampled under foot, and one's privileges curtailed; to have one's name cast out as evil, to be counted a fool, an enthusiast, or mad; to endure the loss of temporal interest, and domestic happiness, and earthly prospects, and in a sense to "forsake house, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for Christ's sake;" -is this no path of trial and suffering? "But if you be reproached for the name of Christ, happy are you," for thereby is Christ glorified in you. He is glorified in your patient endurance of suffering, in your meek submission to reproach, in your overcoming evil with good, your return of prayer for cursing, of blessing for railing, and of love for hatred. Believer, suffering for Christ! rejoice, yes, rejoice that you are counted worthy to suffer shame for His sake! What distinction is awarded you! What honor is put upon you! What a favored opportunity have you now of bringing glory to His name! -for illustrating His sustaining grace, and upholding strength, and almighty power, and infinite wisdom, and comforting love! By the firm, yet mild maintenance of your principles, by the dignified, yet gentle spirit of forbearance, by the uncompromising, yet kind resistance to allurement, let the Redeemer be glorified in you! In all your persecution for righteousness' sake, let your eye be immovably fixed on Jesus. In Him, and in this peculiar path, you have a bright example. "Consider Him that endured such contradiction from sinners against Himself, lest you be wearied and faint in your mind." Remember how, for your redemption, He "endured the cross, despising the shame;" and for your continual support, "is set down at the right hand of the throne of God." "Wherefore lift up the hands which hang down, and strengthen the feeble knees," "for the Spirit of glory and of God rests upon you."
Great, too, is the glory brought to our incarnate God by the sanctified afflictions of His saints. How deep these often are, let many testify; and yet the deeper the affliction, the deeper the glory. Behold the glory brought to God by Daniel in the den of lions; by Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, in the fiery furnace; and by Paul and Silas in the prison. And what is their history, but a type of all the afflicted members of God's family? The Lord will be glorified in His people- therefore does He afflict, and try, and chasten them. "The Lord tries the righteous." He has His den, His prison, His furnace. He has His own mode, His appointed way of proving His work in their hearts; and whether by the lions' den, or the prison, or the furnace, He is glorified in them. To see how Christ can shut the mouth of the lion, and can temper the devouring flame, and can unbar the doors of the prison-house, how glorious thus appears His power! To mark the resigned will, the subdued spirit, the mute submission, the cheerful acquiescence in the deepest affliction, how glorious thus appears His grace! To behold the daily strength imparted, the precious promises applied, the soothing consolation experienced, how glorious thus appears His love! To see the chaff scattered, and the dross consumed, and the mind brought into perfect harmony with God's will, to say with David, "My soul is even as a weaned child," how glorious thus appears His wisdom! Oh, if these are the blessings which blossom upon the rod, then welcome the rod! If this is the glory brought to the name of Jesus by a process of sanctified affliction, then welcome the affliction! Only see that He is truly glorified in you by it. See that He is glorified while you are in the furnace, by your passive graces; see that He is glorified when you have come forth from the furnace, by your active graces. "Wherefore glorify you the Lord in the fires, even the name of the Lord God of Israel." "When He has tried me, I shall come forth as gold."
Nor must we overlook that path walking in which the Redeemer is so manifestly glorified in His saints- even the way of a holy and cheerful obedience to His commands. Were we to select a single word from the Bible which we would desire to be distinctly, prominently, and constantly before the eye of the believer, it would be- obedience. The stress which the Holy Spirit has laid upon the duty is great, and the blessing and honor which the Lord has attached to its observance, is immense and encouraging. It involves every covenant mercy, and it is the great secret of all holiness, and therefore of all happiness.
What the Lord once spoke to His ancient people, He speaks at the present to all His spiritual Israel, "Now, therefore, if you will obey my voice indeed, and keep my covenant, then you shall be a peculiar treasure unto me above all people, for all the earth is mine. And you shall be unto me a kingdom of priests, and a holy nation." And who does not trace the blessing which the Lord has attached to obedience in the history of Abraham, when, at God's command, be bound his son as a sacrifice upon the altar- "And in your seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed, because you have obeyed my voice." And see how the Lord confirmed the fact of his obedient walk, and fulfilled the promise of blessing to his son Isaac, to whom He said, "Sojourn in this land, and I will be with you, and will bless you; for unto you, and unto your seed, I will give all these countries, and I will perform the oath which I aware unto Abraham your father . . . because that Abraham obeyed my voice, and kept my charge, my commandments, my statutes, and my laws." Rich, too, is the blessing annexed to the promise, "If you be willing and obedient, you shall eat of the good of the land." And solemn and searching the word addressed by the holy prophet to the temporizing king, "Has the Lord as great delight in burned offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams."
As King in Zion, our adorable Lord Jesus delights to reign over a loving and an obedient people. Thus He has made their obedience to His commands a test of their love to His person- "If you love me, keep my commandments." "Teaching them to observe all things whatever I have commanded you," was the last charge given to His disciples. Now it is this keeping of His commandments, this observance of what He has enjoined, that glorifies Him in His saints. Coming to Him in our ignorance, glorifies Him as our Prophet; coming to Him with our guilt, glorifies him as our Priest; and walking obediently to His precepts, glorifies Him as our King. It places the crown upon the head of His sovereignty, it recognizes the spiritual nature of His kingdom, and it upholds the purity, majesty, and authority of His laws. It becomes, then, the solemn and imperative duty of every believer to search the will and testament of his dying, risen, and exalted Lord, to ascertain all that He has enjoined upon his obedience in the way of precept and command. For how can he be a good and an obedient subject, if be understands not the laws of Christ's kingdom? Then, when the precept is clearly revealed, and the command is distinctly made known, immediate, self-denying, and cheerful obedience is to follow, as that path which, while it insures the sweetest peace to the soul, brings the highest glory to Christ. Let yours be an obedient walk, dear reader! Let your obedience be the fruit of faith, the dictate of love. Permit no reserve in your obedience! let
it be full, honest, and complete. Search the New
Testament Scripture, and examine closely your own walk, and ascertain in what particular your obedience to Christ is deficient. Be upright, honest, and sincere in your inquiry. Let your fervent prayer be, "Lord, what will You have me to do? Is there any precept of Your word slighted, any command disobeyed, any cross not taken up? Is there any desire to withhold my neck from Your yoke, or to withdraw my shoulder from Your burden, or to mark out a smoother path than that which You have chosen and bid me walk in? Is there any secret framing of excuse for my disobedience, any temporizing, any carnal feeling, any worldly motive, any fear of man, any shrinking from consequences? Lord, You know all things, You know that I love You. You are precious to my soul, for You have borne my sins, endured my curse, carried my cross; and in return do only ask, as an evidence of how much I owe, and how much I love, that I should keep Your commandments, and follow Your example. Now, Lord, take my poor heart, and let it be Yours, Yours only, and Yours forever. Let Your sweet love constrain me to 'run in the way of Your commandments,' for this will I do when You shall enlarge my heart." Then will follow the precious fruits of obedience, even as the bud expands into the blossom, and the blossom ripens into the fruit. There will be a growth, a delightful expansion of the life of God in the soul! and with the increase of the Divine life, there will be an increase of all the precious 'fruits of the Spirit.' "Thus says the Lord, your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel! I am the Lord your God, who teaches you to profit, who leads you by the way that you should go. Oh that you had hearkened to my commandments! then had your peace been as a river, and your righteousness as the waves of the sea." See that your Redeemer is glorified in your obedience; that for the happiness of your soul, and for the honor of Christ, you "stand complete in all the will of God!"
The branch of our subject, thus imperfectly placed before the reader, is deeply practical. In what a solemn and responsible position it places every believer! "You are my witnesses, says the Lord." "I have created him for my glory." "You are my servant, O Israel, in whom I will be glorified." Then, how "very jealous for the Lord God of hosts" should we be! How vigilant, lest in any degree, or in any way, we withhold from Christ the glory due unto Him. There are many ways by which we may be betrayed into this grievous sin- a careless walk- unmortified sin- self-indulgence- a light and volatile spirit- a neglect of means- a distant walk with God- coldness of love towards the saints. But especially mixing up with, and indulging in, a sinful conformity to the world, its fashions, its pleasures, its literature, its religion. Christian professor! can you rigidly conform to these fashions- can you spend your hours over that novel- can you attend that ball- can you move in that dance- can you embark in that enterprise, and glorify Jesus by it? Put the question fairly, honestly, and closely to your conscience, "Do I bring glory to Christ by this? Is my Redeemer thus magnified in me before the world and the Church?" Oh, aim for a high standard! Do not be a common-place professor. Do not be an ordinary Christian. Shun not to be singular. Dare for the glory of Christ to come out of the world, not to touch the unclean thing, and to be separate, set apart for God alone. "Herein is my Father glorified, that you bear much fruit! so shall you be my disciples." Thank God for the little, but, oh, aim for the 'much fruit!' -strong faith, ardent love, self-consuming zeal, unreserved obedience, holy, and entire, and supreme surrender. "From me is your fruit found." Your union with Christ, your living in Christ, your close adherence to Christ, your constant drawing from Christ, will be found to involve the happy secret of that great fruitfulness which brings most glory to the Triune God. Come- drawn by grace, constrained by love, attracted by the glory and the preciousness of Jesus- come now to that one' altar which sanctifies both the giver and the gift,' and as you lay yourself upon it, body, soul, and spirit, exclaim with the apostle, "Christ shall be magnified in my body, whether it be by life or by death." The solemn vow is taken! The holy surrender is made! It is seen, it is heard, it is ratified in heaven. May you be so strengthened from above, "that the name of our Lord Jesus Christ may be glorified in you, and you in Him, according to the grace of God, even the Lord Jesus Christ," is the devout and fervent desire of one who, with you, through time and through eternity, hopes to unite in the grateful, adoring, and never ceasing hallelujah,
"Thanks be unto God for His unspeakable Gift!"

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CHRISTS SYMPATHY TO WEARY PILGRIMS

Table of Contents

1. What a boundless, fathomless ocean!

2. Lean hard!

3. The flaming sword of justice quenched in the holy, loving bosom of Jesus!

4. Plunge into this fathomless, boundless ocean of love!

5. Love suffering, and bleeding, and expiring!

6. It is I!

7. The personal attractions of Jesus

8. For you!

9. He will be our guide even unto death!

10. For me a worm!

11. The tears of Jesus!

12. Why, then, these fears? Why this distrust?

13. Christ's sleepless vigilance over His people!

14. Looking at the world through the cross

15. Bring your sorrows to Me!

16. This divine secret!

17. For me, a poor worthless sinner!

18. The wrath of God let loose upon His Son!

19. He has done all things well!

20. A Father's hand!

21. A soul-satisfying spectacle!

22. When His beauty is seen

23. Your Almighty Friend!

24. Christ must be all!

25. As though it had never been!

26. What is heaven?

27. Oh encouraging truth!

28. Your present adversity

29. The little things of life

30. All dropping from the outstretched, munificent hand of a loving, gracious, and bountiful Father!

31. That most excellent and superlative knowledge!

32. The altogether lovely one!

33. The chief object of your study

34. Deeper knowledge of Jesus

35. The astonishing, the marvelous love!

36. Because He loved her!

37. Eternally repose your weary soul in the bosom of Jesus!

38. The solitary object of His love!

39. That friend!

What a boundless, fathomless ocean!

Eternal love moved the heart of Jesus to relinquish . . .
heaven for earth;
a diadem for a cross;
the robe of divine majesty for the garment of our nature;
by taking upon Himself the leprosy of our sin.
Oh, the infinite love of Christ!
What a boundless, fathomless ocean!

Ask the ransomed of the Lord, whose chains He has dissolved, whose dungeon He has opened, whose liberty He has conferred — if there ever was love like His!

What shall we say of the ransom price? It was the richest, the costliest, that Heaven could give! He gave Himself for us! What more could He do? He gave Himself; body, soul and spirit. He gave His time, His labor, His blood, His life, His ALL — as the price for our ransom, the cost of our redemption. He carried the wood and reared the altar. Then, bearing His bosom to the stroke of the uplifted and descending arm of the Father — He paid the price of our salvation in the warm lifeblood of His heart!

What a boundless, fathomless ocean! How is it that we feel the force and exemplify the practical influence of this amazing, all commanding truth so faintly? Oh, the desperate depravity of our nature! Oh, the deep iniquity of our iniquitous hearts! Will not the blood-drops of Jesus move us? Will not the agonies of the cross influence us? Will not His dying love constrain us to a more heavenly life?

Lean hard!

"Cast your burden upon the Lord — and He shall sustain you." Psalm 55:22

It is by an act of simple, prayerful faith that we transfer our cares and anxieties, our sorrows and needs, to the Lord. Jesus invites you come and lean upon Him, and to lean with all your might upon that arm that balances the universe, and upon that bosom that bled for you upon the soldier's spear!

But you doubtingly ask, "Is the Lord able to do this thing for me?" And thus, while you are debating a matter about which there is not the shadow of a shade of doubt, the burden is crushing your gentle spirit to the dust. And all the while Jesus stands at your side and lovingly says, "Cast your burden upon Me — and I will sustain you. I am God Almighty! I bore the load of your sin and condemnation up the steep of Calvary; and the same power of omnipotence, and the same strength of love that bore it all for you then — is prepared to bear your need and sorrow now. Roll it all upon Me! Child of My love! Lean hard! Let Me feel the pressure of your care. I know your burden, child! I shaped it — I poised it in My own hand and made no proportion of its weight to your unaided strength. For even as I laid it on, I said I shall be near, and while she leans on Me, this burden shall be Mine, not hers. So shall I keep My child within the encircling arms of My own love. Here lay it down! Do not fear to impose it on a shoulder which upholds the government of worlds! Yet closer come! You are not near enough! I would embrace your burden, so I might feel My child reposing on My bosom. You love Me! I know it. Doubt not, then. But, loving me, lean hard!"

The flaming sword of justice quenched in the holy, loving bosom of Jesus!

"He Himself bore our sins in His body on the tree!" 1 Peter 2:24

The most significant and appalling demonstration of God's holiness that the universe ever beheld, infinitely distancing and transcending every other — is the sufferings and death of His only and beloved Son! The cross of Calvary exhibits God's hatred and punishment of sin in a way and to an extent which the annihilation of millions of worlds, swept from the face of the universe by the broom of His wrath, could never have done!

Behold the most solemn display of God's hatred of sin! Finding the sins of the Church upon Christ as its Surety, Substitute, and Savior — the wrath of God was poured out upon Him without measure! Finding the sins of His people laid upon His Son — God emptied upon His holy soul, all the vials of His wrath due to their transgressions! Go, my soul, to Calvary, and learn how holy God is, and what a monstrous thing sin is, and how imperiously, solemnly, and holily bound, Jehovah is to punish it, either in the person of the sinner, or in the person of a Surety. Never was the Son of God dearer to the Father than at the very moment that the sword of divine justice, flaming and flashing, pierced to its hilt His holy heart!

But it was the wrath of God, not against His beloved Son — but against the sins which met on Him when presenting Himself on the cross as the substitutionary sacrifice and offering for His Church. He gave Himself for us!

What a new conception must angels have formed of the exceeding sinfulness of sin, when they beheld the flaming sword of justice quenched in the holy, loving bosom of Jesus! And in what a dazzling light does this fact place the marvelous love of God to sinners! Man's sin — and God's love; the indescribable enormity of the one — and the immeasurable greatness of the other; are exhibited in the cross of Christ as nowhere else.

Oh, to learn experimentally these two great facts: sin's infinite hatefulness — and love's infinite holiness! The love of God in giving His Son to die; the love of Christ in dying; the essential turpitude and unmitigated enormity of sin, which demanded a Sacrifice so Divine, so holy, and so precious!

Plunge into this fathomless, boundless ocean of love!

Christ is wonderful in His love. Love was the first and eternal link in the golden chain lowered from the highest throne in heaven — down to the lowest depth of earth. That Christ should love us was the beginning of wonders. When we endeavor to comprehend that love, measure it, fathom it, scale it — we learn that it has heights we cannot reach, depths we cannot sound, lengths and breadths we cannot measure! Such love, such divine love, such infinite love, such everlasting love, such redeeming, such dying love — is an ocean whose eternal waves waft into our fallen world, every wonder of God and of heaven.

That Jesus should love such beings as us — that He should love us while we were yet sinners — that He should set His heart upon us, choose us, die for us, save us, and finally bring us to glory, knowing what we were, and what we would prove to be — oh, this is wondrous love indeed!

Plunge into this fathomless, boundless ocean of love, O sin-burdened one! It will cover all your sins, it will efface all your guilt; it will flood over all your unworthiness — and, floating upon its golden waves, it will gently waft you to the shore of eternal blessedness!

How often have you wondered why Christ should set His heart upon such a one as you! And is it not a wonder that, amid all your fickleness and backslidings, and cold, base returns — this love of God towards you has not chilled or changed? But do not rest, do not be satisfied with your present limited experience of Christ's wonderful love. It is so marvelously great. This ocean of love is so fathomless, boundless, and inexhaustible — that you may plunge, with all your infirmities, sins, and sorrows, into its fullness, exclaiming, "O, the depth!" The well is deep! Drink abundantly, O beloved!

"May you have the power to understand, as all God's people should — how wide, how long, how high, and how deep His love is. May you experience the love of Christ, though it is too great to understand fully!" Ephesians 3:18-19

Love suffering, and bleeding, and expiring!

The love of Christ! Such a precious theme! Of it, can we ever weary? Never! Its greatness, can we ever know? Never! Its plenitude, can we fully contain? Never! Its depths cannot be fathomed, its dimensions cannot be measured! It passes knowledge! All that Jesus did for His people was but the unfolding and expression of His love.

Traveling to Bethlehem — I see love incarnate!

Tracking His steps as He went about doing good — I see love laboring!

Visiting the house of Bethany — I see love sympathizing!

Standing by the grave of Lazarus — I see love weeping!

Entering the gloomy precincts of Gethsemane — I see love sorrowing!

Passing on to Calvary — I see love suffering, and bleeding, and expiring!

The whole scene of His life — is but an unfolding of the deep, and awesome, and precious mystery of redeeming love!

"May you have the power to understand, as all God's people should — how wide, how long, how high, and how deep His love is. May you experience the love of Christ, though it is too great to understand fully!" Ephesians 3:18-19

It is I!

"Take courage! It is I! Do not be afraid." Mark 6:50

Listen, then, to the voice of Jesus in the storm!

It is I who raised the tempest in your soul — and will control it.

It is I who sent your affliction — and will be with you in it.

It is I who kindled the furnace — and will watch the flames, and bring you through it.

It is I who formed your burden, who carved your cross — and who will strengthen you to bear it.

It is I who mixed your cup of grief — and will enable you to drink it with meek submission to your Father's will.

It is I who took from you worldly substance, who bereft you of your child, of the wife of your bosom, of the husband of your youth — and will be infinitely better to you than husband, wife, or child.

It is I who has done it ALL!

I make the clouds My chariot, and clothe Myself with the tempest as with a garment. The night hour is My time of coming, and the dark, surging waves are the pavement upon which I walk. Take courage! It is I! Do not be afraid.

It is I — your Friend, your Brother, your Savior! I am causing all the circumstances of your life to work together for your good.

It is I who permitted . . .
the enemy to assail you,
the slander to blast you,
the unkindness to wound you,
the need to press you!
Your affliction did not spring out of the ground, but came down from above — a heaven-sent blessing disguised as an angel of light, clad in a robe of ebony.

I have sent all in love!

This sickness is not unto death — but for the glory of God.

This bereavement shall not always bow you to the earth, nor drape in changeless gloom your life. It is I who ordered, arranged, and controlled it all!

In every stormy wind,
in every darksome night,
in every lonesome hour,
in every rising fear,
— the voice of Jesus shall be heard, saying, "Take courage! It is I! Do not be afraid."

The personal attractions of Jesus

Yes, He is altogether lovely! This is my Beloved, and this is my Friend!" Song of Songs 5:16

The personal attractions of Jesus are all inviting and irresistible!

His love wins us.
His glory charms us.
His beauty attracts us.
His sympathy soothes us.
His gentleness subdues us.
His faithfulness inspires us.

He is the "altogether lovely One!"

Jesus is all that is tender in love.
Jesus is all that is wise in counsel.
Jesus is all that is patient and kind.
Jesus is all that is faithful in friendship.
Jesus is all that is balmy, soothing, and healing.

The heart of Jesus is ever loving towards His children.
The disposition of Jesus is ever kind towards His children.
The nature of Jesus is ever sympathizing towards His children.

Jesus is your Brother, your Friend, your Redeemer.
As your Brother — He knows the need of His brethren in adversity.
As your Friend — He shows Himself friendly.
As your Redeemer — He has redeemed your soul from sin and hell.

Jesus has ascended up on high to take possession of
heaven on your behalf, and to prepare a place for you!

Upon His heart He wears your name as a
precious pearl in the priestly breastplate.

There is . . .
not a moment of your time,
nor an event of your life,
nor a circumstance of your daily history,
nor a mental or spiritual emotion of yours —
in which you are not borne upon the love, and
remembered in the ceaseless intercession of Christ.

Yes, He is altogether lovely! This is my Beloved, and this is my Friend!" Song of Songs 5:16

For you!

"The Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me!" Galatians 2:20

Is Jesus precious to your heart?

Is He the object of your supreme admiration and delight?

Does He have your warmest affection?

Do you love Jesus?

You must light your torch of affection for Christ — at the altar of Calvary. You must go there, and learn and believe what the love of Jesus is to you: the vastness of that love; the self-sacrifice of that love; how that love of Christ labored and wept, bled, suffered, and died for you!

Can you stand before this love — this love so precious, so great, so enduring, so self-consuming, so changeless; and know that . . .
for you was this offering,
for you this cross,
for you this agony,
for you this scorn and insult,
for you this death —
and feel no sensibility, no emotion, no love to Jesus? Impossible!

Do not be cast down, then, in vain regrets that your love to Christ is so frigid, so fickle, so dubious. Go and muse upon the reality and the greatness of the Savior's love to you — and if love can inspire love, while you muse, the fire will burn, and your soul shall be all in flame with love to Jesus!

He will be our guide even unto death!

"For this God is our God forever and ever! He will be our guide even unto death!" Psalm 48:14

The world passes away. Everything here in this present world is changing.

"Life is like a painted dream;
Like the rapid summer stream;
Like the fleeting meteor's ray;
Like the shortest winter's day;
Like the fitful breeze that sighs;
Like the waning flame that dies;
Darting, dazzling on the eye;
Fading in eternity!"

A rope of sand,
a spider's web,
a silken thread,
a passing shadow,
an ebbing wave,
are the most fitting and expressive emblems of all things belonging to this present earthly state.
The homes that sheltered us in childhood — we leave.
The land which gave us birth — we leave.
The loved ones who encircled our hearths — pass away.
The friends of early years — depart.
And the world that was so sunny, and life that was so sweet — is all beclouded and embittered — the whole scenery of existence changed into wintry gloom. Such are the saddening, depressing effects of life's vicissitudes.

But in the midst of all, "This God is our God forever and ever!" All beings change — but God. All things change — but heaven. The evolutions of time revolve, the events of earth go onward, but He upon whom all things hang, and by whom all events are shaped and controlled, moves not. "For I am the Lord, I change not."

Our affairs may alter.
Our circumstances may change.
Our relations and friends may depart one by one.
Our souls in a single day pass through many fluctuations of spiritual feeling.
But He who chose us to be His own, and who has kept us to the present moment — is our covenant God and Father forever and ever, and will never throw us off and cast us away.

"For this God is our God forever and ever! He will be our guide even unto death!"

For me a worm!

"The Lord Jesus Christ, who gave Himself for our sins" Galatians 1:3-4

"He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins" 1 John 2:2

O what an astonishing truth is this! The Son of God offering Himself up a sacrifice for sin! He who knew no sin — who was holy, harmless, and undefiled — not one thought of evil in His heart — yet made sin, or a sin offering! O the magnitude of the thought! If God Himself had not declared it, we could not have believed it, though an angel's trumpet had announced it.

O blessed and adorable Immanuel! Was this the end and design of Your intense and mysterious sufferings? Was it that You should obey, bear the sin, endure the curse, and bow Your head in death — that I might go free? Was it in my stead, and in my behalf?

O unexampled love! O infinite and free grace! That God should become incarnate — that the Holy One should so take upon Him sin, as to be dealt with by stern justice as though He were Himself the sinner — that He should drain the cup of wrath, give His back to the smiters, endure the shame and the spitting, and at last be suspended upon the cross, and pour out His last drop of most precious blood — and all this for me! For me a rebel! For me a worm! For me the chief of sinners! "The Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me!" Galatians 2:20. Be astonished, O heavens! and be amazed, O earth! Was ever love like this?

The tears of Jesus!

"Jesus wept." John 11:35

These are among the most wonderful words recorded in the Bible. They mark the most exquisitely tender, touching, and expressive incident in His whole life. "Jesus wept" — wept from emotion, wept from sympathy. Is there a more consolatory, soothing view of Christ's love than this? It is a compassionate, sympathizing, weeping love!

The sympathy of Jesus never wearies or slumbers, it never chills or forgets.
It entwines with our every cross.
It attaches to our every burden.
It frosts with sparkling light, each darkling cloud.
It is not the vapid sentiment of fiction, nor the morbid sympathy of romance. It is a divine-human reality. It is the sympathetic love of the Incarnate God!

Let your faith, then, repose with confidence on the reality of Christ's sympathy with your grief. Oh how sacred and precious are the tears of divine love — the tears of Jesus! Soothed and sustained by such a sympathy as Christ's, we may well drink meekly the bitter cup which our Father mingles. We can well afford to be severed from all other sympathy, and weep out our sorrow in lonely places — with Jesus sympathizing with us . . .
by the couch of languor,
by the bed of darkness, and
at the grave of buried love.

O afflicted one, tempest-tossed and not comforted, do not refuse this cup of consolation which the Holy Spirit, the Comforter, would give you — the sympathy of your Lord and Savior, your Friend and Brother in the time of your calamity. Yield yourself to its irresistible power, and it will draw you submissively to His feet, and hush to rest your sobbing heart upon His bosom!

Why, then, these fears? Why this distrust?

Jesus has all the treasures of the everlasting covenant, all the fullness of the Godhead, all the resources of the universe — in His keeping, and at His disposal!

Look at the starry sky — Jesus strewed it with its jewelry.
Look at that enchanting landscape — Jesus enameled it with its loveliness.
Look at that cloud-capped mountain — Jesus reared it.
Look at that beauteous lily — Jesus painted it.
Look at that soaring bird — Jesus feeds it.

He, with whom is all this strength and beauty — is your Brother! Are you not better and dearer to Him than these? He has loved and chosen you from all eternity, ransomed you with His blood, and inhabited you by His Spirit. Why, then, these fears? Why this distrust? All He requires of you is to bring . . .
your emptiness — to His fullness;
your grief — to His sympathy;
your confusion — to His unerring wisdom;
your temptations and trials — to His sheltering wing.

Spread your case before Him in the humble confidence of a child. Listen to His words, "I give them eternal life, and they will never perish — ever! No one will snatch them out of My hand!" John 10:28

Christ's sleepless vigilance over His people!

"Surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age!" Matthew 28:20

What an exalted and endearing truth is Christ's sleepless vigilance over His people! Imagine yourself threading your way along a most difficult and perilous path, every step of which is attended with pain and hazard, and is taken with hesitancy and doubt. Unknown to you and unseen — there is One hovering around you each moment . . .
checking each false step,
guiding each doubtful one,
soothing each sorrow,
and supplying each need. All is calm and silent. Not a sound is heard, not a movement is seen; and yet, to your amazement, just at the critical moment, the needed support comes — you know not from where, you know not from whom! This is no picture of imagination — but a divine reality.

Are you a child of God on your pilgrimage to paradise by an intricate and a perilous way? Jesus is near to you at each moment, unseen and often unknown. You have at times stood speechless with awe at the strange interposition on your behalf, of providence and of grace — when no visible sign indicated the source of your help. There was no echo of footfall at your side, no flitting of shadow athwart your path. No law of nature was altered nor suspended, the sun did not stand still, nor did the heavens open. And yet deliverance, strange and effectual deliverance, came at a moment most unexpected, yet most needed.

It was Jesus your Redeemer, your Brother, your Shepherd, and your Guide! He it was who, hovering around you — unknown and unobserved, kept you as the apple of His eye, and sheltered you in the hollow of His hand. It was He who armed you with bravery for the fight — who poured strength into your spirit — and grace into your heart, when the full weight of calamity pressed upon them. Thus has He always been to His children.

The eye that neither slumbers nor sleeps — was upon you! He knew in what furnace you were placed, and was there to temper the flame when it seemed the severest. He saw your frail vessel struggling through the tempest — and He came to your rescue at the height of the storm!

How has He proved this in seasons of difficulty and doubt! How often, at a crisis the most critical of your history, the Lord has appeared for you! Your lack has been supplied — your doubt has been solved — and your perplexity has been guided. He has delivered your soul from death — your eyes from tears — and your feet from falling. You are never for an instant out of His heart — out of His thoughts — out of His hands — or out of His eye!

Go then, and lay your weariness on Christ!

Take your bereaved, stricken and bleeding heart to Him!

What is your sorrow?
Has the hand of death smitten?
Is the beloved one removed?
Has the desire of your eyes been taken away with a stroke?

But who has done it?

Jesus has done it! Death was only His messenger. Your Jesus has done it. The Lord has taken away. And what has He removed? Your wife? Ah, Jesus has all the tenderness that your wife ever had. Her love was only a drop from the ocean of love which is in His heart. Is it your husband? Jesus is better to you than ten husbands. Is it your parent, your child, your friend, your all of earthly bliss? Is the cistern broken? Is the earthen vessel dashed to pieces? Are all your streams dry? Jesus is still enough. He has not taken Himself from you — and never, never will.

Take your bereaved, stricken and bleeding heart to Him — and rest it upon His heart, which was once bereaved, stricken and bleeding, too! He knows how to bind up the broken heart, to heal the wounded spirit, and to comfort those who mourn.

What is your sorrow?
Has health failed you?
Has property forsaken you?
Have friends turned against you?
Are you tried in your circumstances?
Are you perplexed in your path?
Are providences thickening and darkening around you?
Are you anticipating seasons of approaching trial?
Are you walking in darkness, having no light?

Simply go to Jesus! He is an ever open door — a tender, loving, faithful Friend, ever near. He is a Brother born for your adversity. His grace and sympathy are sufficient for you.

Go to Him in every trial. Cast upon Him every burden. Take the infirmity, the corruption, the cross as it arises — simply and immediately to Jesus! Jesus is your loving and confiding Brother and Friend, to go to at all times and under all circumstances.

Looking at the world through the cross

Jesus could accomplish man's redemption in no other way than by crucifixion — He must die, and die the death of the cross. What light and glory beam around the cross! Of what prodigies of grace is it the instrument, of what glorious truths is it the symbol, of what mighty, magic power is it the source! Around it, gathers all the light of the Old Testament economy.
It explains every symbol;
it substantiates every shadow;
it solves every mystery;
it fulfills every type;
it confirms every prophecy
— of that dispensation which had eternally remained unmeaning and inexplicable — except for the death of the Son of God upon the cross!

Not the past only, but all future splendor gathers around the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. It assures us of the ultimate reign of the Savior and tells of the reward which shall spring from His sufferings! And while its one arm points to the divine counsels of eternity past, with the other it points to the future triumph and glory of Christ's kingdom in the eternity to come. Such is the lowly, yet sublime; the weak, yet mighty instrument — by which the sinner is saved, and God eternally glorified.

The cross of Christ is the grand consummation of all preceding dispensations of God to men.

The cross of Christ is the meritorious procuring cause of all spiritual blessings to our fallen race.

The cross of Christ is the scene of Christ's splendid victories over all His enemies and ours.

The cross of Christ is the most powerful incentive to all evangelical holiness.

The cross of Christ is the instrument which is to subjugate the world to the supremacy of Jesus.

The cross of Christ is the source of all true peace, joy, and hope.

The cross of Christ is the tree beneath whose shadow all sin expired, all grace lived!

The cross of our Lord Jesus Christ! What a holy thrill these words produce in the heart of those who love the Savior! How significant their meaning — how precious their influence! Marvelous and irresistible, is the power of the cross!

The cross of Christ has subdued many a rebellious will.
The cross of Christ has broken many a marble heart.
The cross of Christ has laid low many a vaunting foe.
The cross of Christ has overcome and triumphed — when all other instruments have failed.
The cross of Christ has transformed the lion-like heart of man, into the lamb-like heart of Christ.
And when lifted up in its own naked simplicity and inimitable grandeur — the cross of Christ has won and attracted millions to its faith, admiration, and love!

What a marvelous power does this cross of Jesus possess! It changes the Christian's entire judgment of the world. Looking at the world through the cross — his opinion is totally revolutionized. He sees it as it really is — a sinful, empty, vain thing! He learns its iniquity — in that it crucified the Lord of life and glory. His expectations from the world, his love to the world — are changed. He has found another object of love — the Savior whom the world cast out and slew! His love to the world is destroyed by that power which alone could destroy it — the crucifying power of the cross!

It is the cross which eclipses, in the view of the true believer — the glory and attraction of every other object!

What is the weapon by which faith combats with, and overcomes the world? What but the cross of Jesus! Just as the natural eye, gazing for a while upon the sun, is blinded for the moment, by its overpowering effulgence to all other objects — so to the believer, concentrating his mind upon the glory of the crucified Savior, studying closely the wonders of grace and love and truth meeting in the cross — the world with all its attraction fades into the full darkness of an eclipse! Christ and His cross are infinitely better than the world and its vanities!

"May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world." Galatians 6:14

Bring your sorrows to Me!

"Bring him here to Me." Matthew 17:17

In your moment of disappointment and despair, Jesus meets you with the gracious words, "Bring it here unto Me." And now your spirit revives, your heart bounds, at the words, and you exclaim, "Behold, Lord, I come!"

Jesus says, "Bring your sorrows to Me!" Never did the soul find so powerful a magnet, attracting to itself affliction in every form, and sorrow in every shade — as Jesus. Standing as in the center of a world of woe — He invites every daughter of sorrow, of sin, of grief to repair to Him for support, sympathy, and healing. As the High Priest of His Church for whom alone He suffered, and wept, and sobbed — He unveils a bosom capacious enough and loving enough, and sympathizing enough — to embrace every sufferer, and to pillow every grief. Accept, then, His compassionate invitation, and bring your grief to the soothing, sustaining, sanctifying grace of His heart!

This divine secret!

"Casting all your care upon Him — for He cares for you!" 1 Peter 5:7

How full of soothing and repose are these words! Where, in the world's wilderness, grows the flower of heart's-ease, as it blooms and blossoms here!

What cares have they lightened!

What anxieties have they removed!

What burdens have they unclasped!

What springs of joy and comfort and hope have they unsealed in many a sad and oppressed heart!

But do you not, beloved reader, need to be put in constant remembrance of this divine secret . . .
of rest, amid toil;
of repose, amid disquietude;
of soothing, amid corroding cares;
of confidence and hope, in the midst of change and troubles?

Bewildered and oppressed by the multitude of anxious thoughts within you — is there not a danger of being so absorbed by the care — as to overlook the Caretaker? Is there not a danger to forget the heart's ease — in the overwhelming of the heart's anxiety?

"Casting all your care upon Him — for He cares for you!"

For me, a poor worthless sinner!

"He Himself bore our sins in His body on the tree, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; by His wounds you have been healed." 1 Peter 2:24

Blessed announcement! Not the less hateful, nor hated, is the sin because it is forgiven and entirely blotted out. Oh no! Let the Lord touch your heart, Christian reader, with a sense of His pardoning love, with the assurance of His forgiveness — and you will go and hate, and mortify, and forsake it, more resolutely and effectually than ever!

Must the Son of God become the Son of man, that those who are by nature children of wrath — might become the sons of God! Must God, the eternal God, the high and lofty One, stoop so low as to become incarnate, and that for sinners — for me, a poor worthless sinner!

To save me from eternal woe — must Jesus suffer, agonize, and die — die in my stead, die for my sins, die an accursed death!

Ah! Lord, what must sin be — what must my sin be!

How little have I thought of it, how little have I mourned for it, still less have I hated it as I ought to have hated it! Lord, how vile, how unutterably vile I am!

Oh hated sin! Do You forgive it, Father of my mercies? This only makes it more hateful still.

The wrath of God let loose upon His Son!

Divine holiness is best exhibited in the cross of Jesus. Not hell itself, as dreadful and eternal as is its suffering — the undying worm, the unquenchable fire, the smoke of the torment that goes up forever and ever — affords such a solemn and impressive spectacle of the holiness and justice of God in the punishment of sin — as is presented in the death of God's beloved Son!

An eminent Puritan writer thus strikingly puts it,
"Not all the vials of judgment that have or shall be poured out upon this wicked world;
nor the flaming furnace of a sinner's conscience;
nor the irrevocable sentence pronounced against the rebellious devils;
nor the groans of the damned creatures
— give such a demonstration of God's hatred of sin, as the wrath of God let loose upon His Son!"

Never did Divine holiness appear more beautiful and lovely — than at the time our Savior's countenance was most marred in the midst of His dying groans. This He Himself acknowledges in that penitential psalm, when God turned His smiling face away from Him, and thrust His sharp knife of justice into His heart, which forced that terrible cry from Him, "My God, my God, why have You forsaken Me? Why are You so far from saving Me, so far from the words of My groaning? Yet You are enthroned as the Holy One!"

Such an impressive view of God's holiness, the angels in heaven never before beheld — not even when they saw the non-elect spirits hurled from the heights of glory down to the bottomless pit, to be reserved in chains of darkness and woe forever!

Jesus was the innocent One, dying for the guilty ones — the holy One, dying for the sinful ones!

Divine justice, in its mission of judgment, as it swept by the cross, found the Son of God impaled upon its wood beneath the sins and the curse of His people.
Upon Him, its judgment fell;
on His soul, its wrath was poured out;
in His heart, its flaming sword was plunged!
And thus, from Him, justice exacted the full penalty of man's transgression — the last farthing of the great debt!

Go to the cross, then, my reader, and learn the holiness of God. Contemplate the dignity of Christ — His preciousness to His Father's heart — the sinlessness of His nature. And then behold . . .
the sorrow of His soul;
the torture of His body;
the tragedy of His death;
the abasement;
the ignominy;
the humiliation
into the fathomless depths of which the whole transaction plunged our incarnate God!

And let me ask, standing, as you are, before this unparalleled spectacle, "Can you cherish low views of God's holiness, or light views of your own sinfulness?"

He has done all things well!

"He has done all things well!" Mark 7:37

Yes, from first to last, from our cradle to our grave, from the earliest pang of sin's conviction, to the last thrill of sin's forgiveness, from earth to heaven — this will be our testimony in all the way the Lord our God has led us in the wilderness: "He has done all things well!"

In providence and in grace,
in every truth of His Word,
in every lesson of His love,
in every stroke of His rod,
in every sunbeam that has shone,
in every cloud that has shaded,
in every element that has sweetened,
in every ingredient that has embittered,
in all that has been mysterious, inscrutable, painful, and humiliating,
in all that He gave,
in all that He took away,
this testimony is His just due, and this our grateful acknowledgment through time and through eternity: "He has done all things well!"

Has He converted us through grace by a way we had thought the most improbable?
Has He torn up all our earthly hopes by the roots?
Has He thwarted our schemes, frustrated our plans, disappointed our expectations?
Has He taught us in schools most trying, by a discipline most severe, and lessons most humbling to our nature?
Has He withered our strength by sickness, reduced us to poverty by loss, crushed our heart by bereavement?

And have we been tempted to exclaim, "All these things are against me!"
Ah! no! faith will yet obtain the ascendancy, and sweetly sing:
"I know in all things that befell,
My Jesus has done all things well!"

Beloved, it must be so, for Jesus can do nothing wrong!

Study the way of His providence and grace with the microscopic eye of faith — view them in every light, examine them in their minutest detail, as you would the petal of a flower, or the wing of an insect; and, oh, what wonders, what beauty, what marvelous adaptation would you observe in all the varied dealings with you, of your glorious Lord!

A Father's hand!

"My times are in Your hand!" Psalm 31:15

Our times of adversity are also in God's hand. As every sunbeam that brightens, so every cloud that darkens, comes from God. We are subject to great and sudden reverses in our earthly condition. Joy is often followed by grief; prosperity is often followed by adversity. We are on the pinnacle today; tomorrow at its bottom. Oh! What a change may one event and one moment create! But, beloved, ALL is from the Lord!

Afflictions do not spring from the soil, nor do troubles sprout from the ground. Sorrow cannot come until God bids it. Until God in His sovereignty permits —
health cannot fade,
wealth cannot vanish,
comfort cannot decay,
friendship cannot chill, and
loved ones cannot die.

Your time of sorrow — is His appointment. The bitter cup which it may please the Lord that you shall drink this year, will not be mixed by human hands. In the hand of the Lord, is that cup!

Some treasure you are now pressing to your heart — He may ask you to resign.
Some blessing you now possess — He may bid you to relinquish.
Some fond expectation you now cherish — He may will that you should forego.
Some lonely path — He may design that you should tread.

Yes, He may even bereave you of all — and yet all, ALL is in His hand! His hand! A Father's hand, moving in thick darkness, is shaping every event, and arranging every detail in your life!

Has sickness laid you on a bed of suffering?
Has bereavement darkened your home?
Has adversity impoverished your resources?
Has change lessened your comforts?
Has sorrow in one of its many forms crushed your spirit to the earth?
The Lord has done it!
In all that has been sent,
in all that has be recalled, and
in all that has been withheld —
His hand, noiseless and unseen, has brought it about!

Ah! yes, that hand of changeless love . . .
blends a sweet with every bitter;
pencils a bright rainbow in each dark cloud;
upholds each faltering step;
shelters within its hollow — and guides with unerring skill, His chosen people safe to eternal glory!

Dear child of God, your afflictions, your trials, your crosses, your losses, your sorrows — all, ALL are in your heavenly Father's hand, and they cannot come until sent by Him!

Bow that stricken heart! Yield that tempest-tossed soul to His sovereign disposal, to His calm, righteous sway, in the submissive spirit and language of your suffering Savior, "May Your will, O my Father! not mine, be done. My times of sadness and of grief are in Your hand."

Beloved, all is in your Father's hand! Be those times what they may:
times of trial,
times of temptation,
times of suffering,
times of peril,
times of sunshine or of gloom,
or times of life or death,
they are in your Father's hand!

Has the Lord seen fit . . .
to recall some fond blessing,
to deny some earnest request, or
painfully to discipline your heart?
All this springs from a Father's love — as fully as though He had unlocked His treasury and poured its costliest gifts at your feet!

All of our times are in our Redeemer's hands! That same Redeemer who carried our sorrows in His heart, our curse and sins on His soul, our cross on His shoulder; who died, who rose again, and who lives and intercedes for us, and who will gather all His ransomed around Him in glory — is your Guardian and your Guide! Your times are in the hands of Him who still bears the print of the nails!

A soul-satisfying spectacle!

The sight of Jesus is a soul-satisfying spectacle!

The penitent soul is satisfied, for it sees in Jesus a free pardon of sin.

The condemned soul is satisfied, for it receives in Jesus a free justification.

The believing soul is satisfied, for it discovers in Jesus a fountain of all grace.

The tried, tempted, sorrowful soul is satisfied, for it experiences in Jesus all consolation, sympathy and love.

Oh, what an all-satisfying Portion is Jesus!

He satisfies every holy desire — for He realizes it.

He satisfies every craving need — for He supplies it.

He satisfies every sore grief — for He soothes it.

He satisfies the deepest yearnings, the highest aspirations, the most sublime hopes of the renewed soul — for all these center and end in Him!

When His beauty is seen

"Yes, He is altogether lovely! This is my Beloved, and this is my Friend!" Song of Songs 5:16

O what a Savior is Jesus Christ! He is the chief among ten thousand! Look at His sinless, yet real humanity — without a single taint, yet sympathizing with us in all our various conditions — our afflictions — our temptations — our infirmities — our griefs. Now that He is in glory, He is still cherishing a brother's heart, bending down His ear to our petitions — ever standing near . . .
to catch our sighs,
to dry our tears,
to provide for our needs,
to guide us by His counsel, and
afterwards to receive us to glory!

O what a Savior is Jesus Christ! When He is known — all other beings are eclipsed.
When His beauty is seen — all other beauty fades.
When His love is felt — He becomes supremely enthroned in the affections.

To know Him more, becomes the one desire of the renewed mind; and to make Him more known, is the one aim of the Christian life. O what a Savior is Jesus Christ!

Your Almighty Friend!

"Yes, He is altogether lovely! This is my Beloved, and this is my Friend!" Song of Songs 5:16

Because Jesus is the Almighty God — His people have an Almighty Burden-Bearer.

We are a burdened people. Every believer carries a burden peculiar to himself. What is your burden, O believer?
Is it indwelling sin?
Is it some natural infirmity of the flesh?
Is it a constitutional weakness?
Is it some domestic trial?
Is it a personal or relative trial?
Is it the loss of property?
Is it the decay of health?
Is it soul anxiety?
Is it mental despondency?

Come, oppressed and burdened believer, ready to give up all and sink! Behold Jesus, the Almighty God, omnipotent to transfer your burden to Himself, and give you rest! It is well that you are sensible of the pressure — that you feel your weakness and insufficiency — and that you are brought to the end of all your own power. Now turn to your Almighty Friend, who is the Creator of the ends of the earth — the everlasting God, who does not faint, neither is weary.

Oh, what strength there is in Jesus for the weak, and faint, and drooping of His flock! You are ready to succumb to your foes, and you think the battle of faith is lost. Cheer up! Jesus, your Savior, friend, and brother — is the Almighty God, and will perfect His strength in your weakness. The battle is not yours, but His! Jesus . . .
sustains our infirmities,
bears our burdens,
supplies our needs, and
encircles us with the shield of His Almightiness!

What a Divine spring of consolation and strength to the tired and afflicted saint, is the Almightiness of Jesus. Your sorrow is too deep — your affliction too heavy — your difficulty too great for any mere human to resolve. It distances in its intensity and magnitude, the sympathy and the power of man.

Come, you who are tempest-tossed and not comforted. Come, you whose spirit is wounded, whose heart is broken, whose mind is bowed down to the dust. Hide for a little while within Christ's sheltering Almightiness! Jesus is equal to your condition.
His strength is almighty!
His love is almighty!
His grace is almighty!
His sympathy is almighty!
His arm is almighty!
His resources are infinite, fathomless, measureless!
And all this Almightiness is on your side, and will bring you through the fire and through the water.

Almighty to rescue — He is also your Brother and Friend to sympathize. And while His Divine arm encircles, upholds, and keeps you — His human soul, touched with the feeling of your infirmities, yearns over you with all the deep intensity of its compassionate tenderness!

"Yes, He is altogether lovely! This is my Beloved, and this is my Friend!" Song of Songs 5:16

Christ must be all!

We cannot keep our eye too exclusively or too intently fixed on Jesus. All salvation is in Him. All salvation proceeds from Him. All salvation leads to Him. And for the assurance and comfort of our salvation, we are to repose believingly and entirely on Him. Christ must be all! Christ the beginning — Christ the center — and Christ the end.

Oh sweet truth — to you who are sensible of your poverty, vileness, and insufficiency, and of the ten thousand flaws and failures of which, perhaps, no one is cognizant but God and your own soul! Oh, to turn and rest in Christ — a full Christ — a loving Christ — a tender Christ, whose heart's love never chills, from whose eye darts no reproof, from whose lips breathes no sentence of condemnation! Christ must be all!

As though it had never been!

Beloved, soon, O how soon! all that now loads the heart with care, and wrings it with sorrow — all that dims the eye with tears, and renders the day anxious and the night sleepless — will be as though it had never been! Emerging from the entanglement, the dreariness, the solitude, the loneliness, and the temptations of the wilderness — you shall enter upon your everlasting rest, your unfading inheritance, where there is no sorrow, no declension, no sin, no sunset, no twilight, no evening shadows, no midnight darkness! But all is one perfect, cloudless, eternal day — for Jesus is the joy, the light, and the glory thereof!

What is heaven?

Beloved, what is heaven? What is the final glory of the saints? Is it not the best place, the richest inheritance provided by the Father for the people ransomed and brought home to glory by His Son? Heaven is a place designated by God, chosen and consecrated by Him for the people redeemed by the precious blood of His dear Son. And when we enter there, we shall enter as children welcomed to a Father's home! It will be the best that God can give us! He will bestow upon us, who deserved the least — the best in His power to bestow:
the best Savior,
the best robe,
the best banquet,
the best inheritance.

In heaven, there will be . . .
nothing more to taint,
nothing more to sully,
nothing more to embitter,
nothing more to wound,
no serpent to beguile,
no Eve to ensnare,
no spoiler to destroy,
no sin to defile,
no adversity to sadden,
no misunderstanding to alienate,
no tongue to defame,
no suspicion to chill,
no tear,
nor sickness,
nor death,
nor parting.

It will be the best part of the pure, radiant, glorified universe which God will assign to His people! Saints of the Most High!

Let the prospect cheer, sanctify, and comfort you! It will not be long that you are to labor and battle here on earth. It is but a little while that you are to occupy your present sphere of conflict, of trial, and of sorrow. The time is coming — oh, how fast it speeds! Soon the Lord Jesus Christ will bring you home to heaven!

"In My Father's house are many rooms; I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with Me — that you also may be where I am!" John 14:2-3

Oh encouraging truth!

"I the Lord search the heart!" Jeremiah 17:10

Solemn as is this view of the Divine character — the believing mind finds in it sweet and hallowed repose. What more consolatory truth in some of the most trying positions of a child of God than this — the Lord knows the heart! The world condemns us, and the saints may wrongly judge us — but God knows the heart! And to those who have been led into deep discoveries of their heart's hidden evil, to whom have been made startling and distressing unveilings — how precious is this character of God, "I the Lord search the heart."

Is there a single recess of our hearts we would veil from His penetrating glance? Is there a corruption we would hide from His view? Is there an evil of which we would have Him ignorant? Oh no! Mournful and humiliating as is the spectacle, we would throw open every door, and uplift every window, and invite and urge His scrutiny and inspection, making no concealments, and indulging in no reserves, and framing no excuses when dealing with the great Searcher of hearts, exclaiming, "Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. Point out anything in me that offends you, and lead me along the path of everlasting life."

And while the Lord is thus acquainted with the evil of our hearts, He most graciously conceals that evil from the eyes of others. He seems to say, by His benevolent conduct, "I see My child's infirmity." Then, covering it with His hand, exclaims, "but no other eye shall see it, but my own!" Oh, the touching tenderness, the lovingkindness of our God! Knowing, as He does, all the evil of our nature, He yet veils that evil from every human eye — that others may not despise us as we often despise ourselves. Who but God, could know it? Who but God, would conceal it?

And how blessed, too, to remember that while God knows all the evil, He is as intimately acquainted with all the good that is in the hearts of His people! He knows all that His Spirit has implanted — all that His grace has wrought. Oh encouraging truth!
That spark of love, faint and flickering;
that pulsation of life, low and tremulous;
that touch of faith, feeble and hesitating;
that groan, that sigh;
that low thought of self that leads a man to seek the shadows;
that self-abasement that places his mouth in the dust;
oh, not one of these sacred emotions is unseen, unnoticed by God! His eye ever rests with infinite compassion and delight on His own image in the renewed soul.

Your present adversity

"And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose." Romans 8:28

It is palpably clear and emphatically true, that all that occurs in the Lord's government of His people conspires for, and works out, and results in, their highest happiness and their greatest good. The gloomiest and most painful circumstances in the history of the child of God, without a solitary exception — are all conspiring, and all working together, for his real and permanent good.

The painful and inexplicable dispensations, which at the present moment may be thickening and deepening around your path, are but so many mysteries in God's government, which He is working out to their certain, satisfactory, and happy results. And when the good thus embosomed in the lowering cloud of some crushing providence, accomplishes its benevolent and heaven-sent mission, then trial will expand its dark pinions and fly away — and sorrow will roll up its somber drapery and disappear!

All things, under the government of an infinitely great, all-wise, righteous, and beneficent Lord God, work together for good. What that good may be — the shape it may assume — the complexion it may wear — the end to which it may be subservient — we cannot tell. To our dim view it may appear an evil — but to God's far seeing eye it is a positive good. Oh, truth most divine! Oh, words most consolatory!

How many whose eye traces this page, it may be whose tears bedew it, whose sighs breathe over it, whose prayers hallow it — may be wading in deep waters, may be drinking bitter cups, and are ready to exclaim, "All these things are against me!" Oh no, beloved of God — all these things are for you! Do not be afraid! Christ restrains the flood upon whose heaving bosom He serenely sits. Christ controls the waters, whose sounding waves obey the mandate of His voice. Christ's cloudy chariot is paved with love! Then, fear not! Your Father grasps the helm of your storm-tossed vessel — and through cloud and tempest, will steer it safely to the port of endless rest!

Will it not be a real good, if your present adversity results . . .
in the dethronement of some worshiped idol?
in the endearing of Christ to your soul?
in the closer conformity of your mind to God's image?
in the purification of your heart?
in your more thorough fitness for heaven?
in a revival of God's work within you?
in stirring you up to more prayer?
in enlarging your heart to all that love the same Savior?
in stimulating you to increased activity for the conversion of sinners, for the diffusion of the truth, and for the glory of God?

Oh yes! good, real good, permanent good must result from all the Divine dispensations in your history.

Bitter repentance, shall end in the experienced sweetness of Christ's love.
The festering wound, shall but elicit the healing balm.
The overpowering burden, shall but bring you to the tranquil rest.
The storm, shall but quicken your footsteps to the Hiding Place.
The bitter-cold north wind and the balmy south wind, shall breathe together over your garden — and the spices shall flow out.

In a little while — oh, how soon! you shall pass away from earth to heaven, and in its clearer, serener light shall read the truth, often read with tears before, "And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose."

The little things of life

"But even the very hairs of your head are all numbered." Luke 12:7

You know so little of God, my reader, because you live at such a distance from God. You have . . .
so little communion with Him,
so little confession of sin,
so little searching of your own conscience,
so little probing of your own heart,
so little transaction with Him in the little things of life. You deal with God in great matters. You take great trials to God, great perplexities, great needs; but in the minutiae of each day's history, in what are called the little things of life — you have no dealings with God whatever — and consequently you know so little of the love, so little of the wisdom, so little of the glory, of your resplendent covenant God and reconciled Father.

I tell you, the man who lives with God in little matters — who walks with God in the minutiae of his life — is the man who becomes the best acquainted with God — with His character, His faithfulness, His love. To meet God in my daily trials, to take to Him the trials of my calling, the trials of my church, the trials of my family, the trials of my own heart; to take to Him that which brings the shadow upon my brow, which rends the sigh from my heart — to remember it is not too trivial to take to God — above all, to take to Him the least taint upon the conscience, the slightest pressure of sin upon the heart, the softest conviction of departure from God — to take it to Him, and confess it at the foot of the cross, with the hand of faith upon the bleeding sacrifice — oh! these are the paths in which a man becomes intimately and closely acquainted with God!

All dropping from the outstretched, munificent hand of a loving, gracious, and bountiful Father!

Beloved, remember that all our past and all our coming prosperity, if indeed He shall so appoint it — is in the hand of God.
It is His wisdom that suggests our plans,
it is His power that guides, and
it is His goodness that makes them successful.

Every flower that blooms in our path,
every smile that gladdens it,
every mercy that bedews it,
comes to us from our heavenly Father.

Oh! for grace to recognize God in all our mercies!
How much sweeter will be our sweets,
how much more blessed our blessings,
how much more endeared our endearments
— to see them all dropping from the outstretched, munificent hand of a loving, gracious, and bountiful Father! Oh! for a heart lifted up in holy returns of love, gratitude and praise!

That most excellent and superlative knowledge!

There is everything we need in Jesus to endear His name to our hearts.
He is our Prophet, teaching us the will of the Father.
He is our Priest, offering up Himself as our atoning Victim.
He is our King, erecting His throne in our hearts, and subduing us to Himself as His loving and obedient subjects.
He is our Friend, loving us at all times.
He is our Brother, bone of our bone, and flesh of our flesh, born for our adversity.
He is our Great High Priest, touched with the feeling of our infirmities, tempted in all points as we are — and in our sorrows, griefs, and trials encircling us with the many-folded robe of His tender, loving sympathy.

O to know Jesus — that most excellent and superlative knowledge! With Paul we may well count all things but loss for its possession. To know Him as the Savior — to know Him as our Friend — to know Him as our Brother — to know Him as our Advocate — to know Him as our Portion, is endless life and glory!

The altogether lovely one!

With what pen, dipped though it were in heaven's brightest hues, can we portray the image of Jesus?

The perfection of our Lord was the perfection of holiness. His Deity, essential holiness; His humanity without sin, the impersonation of holiness. All that He was, said, and did — was as flashes of holiness emanating from the fountain of essential purity, and kindling their dazzling and undying radiance around each step He trod. How humble, too, His character! How holy the thoughts He breathed, how pure the words He spoke, how gentle the spirit He exemplified, how tender and sympathizing the outgoings of His compassion and love to man. He is the chief among ten thousand, the altogether lovely one!

The chief object of your study

We know so much of divine truth, my reader, as we have in a measure a personal experience of it in our souls. The mere speculatist and notionalist in religion is as unsatisfactory and unprofitable as the mere theorist and declaimer in science. For all practical purposes, both are but ciphers.

The character and the degree of our spiritual knowledge, begins and terminates in our knowledge of Christ. Christ is the test of its reality — the measure of its depth — and the source of its growth.

If you are advancing in an experimental, sanctifying acquaintance with the Lord Jesus, you are advancing in that knowledge which Paul thus estimates, "I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord." Dear reader, let the chief object of your study be to know the Lord Jesus. It may be in the region of your sinfulness, emptiness, weakness, and foolishness — that you learn Him. Nevertheless, however humiliating the school, slow the progress, and limited the attainment, count every fresh step you make in a personal acquaintance with the Lord Jesus — as a nobler triumph, and as bringing you into the possession of more real wealth than were the whole chests of human knowledge and science mastered, and its untold treasures poured at your feet!

When adversity comes — when death approaches — when eternity unveils — oh! how indescribably valuable, how inconceivably precious will then be one faith's touch, one faith's glimpse of a crucified and risen Savior! All other attainments then vanish, and the only knowledge that abides, soothes, and comforts — is a heartfelt acquaintance with the most sublime fact of the Gospel — that Jesus came into the world to save sinners. Oh! Whatever other studies may engage your thoughts, do not forget, as you value your eternal destiny, to study the Lord Jesus Christ!

Deeper knowledge of Jesus

Cultivate frequent and devout contemplations of the glory of Christ. Immense will be the benefit accruing to your soul. The mind thus preoccupied, filled, and expanded, will be enabled to present a stronger resistance to the ever advancing and insidious encroachments of the world. No place will be found for vain thoughts, and no desire or time for carnal enjoyments. Oh, how crucifying and sanctifying are clear views of the glory of Emmanuel! How emptying, humbling, and abasing! With the patriarch, we then exclaim, "I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes." And with the prophet, "Woe is me! for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips, for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty." And with the apostle, "But God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world."

Oh, then, aim to get your mind filled with enlarged and yet expanding views of the glory of the Redeemer. Let it, in all the discoveries it affords of the Divine mind and majesty, be the one subject of your thoughts — the one theme of your conversation. Place no limit to your knowledge of Christ. Ever consider that you have but read the preface to the volume; you have but touched the fringe of the sea. Stretching far away beyond you, are undiscovered beauties, and precious views, and sparkling glories — each encouraging your advance, inviting your research, and asking the homage of your faith, the tribute of your love, and the dedication of your life.

Go forward, then! The glories that yet must be revealed to you in a growing knowledge of Jesus — what imagination can conceive, what pen can describe them? Jesus stands ready to unveil all the beauties of His person; and to admit you into the very pavilion of His love. There is not a chamber of His heart that He will not throw open to you — not a blessing that He will not bestow upon you — not a glory that He will not show to you.

You shall see greater things than you have yet seen:
greater depths of your sin shall be revealed,
deeper sense of the cleansing efficacy of the atoning blood shall be felt,
clearer views of your acceptance in the Beloved,
greater discoveries of God's love, and
greater depths of grace and glory in Jesus shall be enjoyed.

Your communion with God shall be closer, and more the fruit of adopting love in your heart. Your feet shall be as hinds' feet, and you shall walk on high places. Your peace shall flow as a river, and your righteousness as the waves of the sea.
Sorrow shall wound you less deeply,
affliction shall press you less heavily,
tribulation shall affect you less keenly,
all this, and infinitely more, will result from your deeper knowledge of Jesus.

The astonishing, the marvelous love!

The cross of Jesus, inspires our love to Him. It would seem impossible to be brought by the Holy Spirit to the foot of the cross, and not feel the inspiration of love. Surely a believing apprehension of the amazing, the unparalleled love of Jesus, bending His look of forgiveness upon us from the cross — will thaw our icy hearts into the warmest glow of affection. Believe that Jesus loves you — and your heart shall glow with a love in return which will bear it on in a willing obedience and unreserved surrender, in faithful service and patient suffering, enwrapped, consumed amid the flames of its own heaven inspired and heaven ascending affection. The astonishing, the marvelous love, He has exhibited in giving you His beloved Son to die in your stead — are cords by which He would draw your loving heart to Himself!

Because He loved her!

Jesus sustains no association to His Church more expressive, than that of the marriage relationship. From all eternity, He forever betrothed her to Himself. He asked for her at the hands of her Father — and the Father gave her to Him. He entered into a covenant that she would be His. The conditions of that covenant were great, but not too great for His love to undertake. They were, that He should assume her nature, discharge her legal obligations, endure her punishment, repair her ruin, and bring her to glory! He undertook all, and He accomplished all — because He loved her! The love of Jesus to His Church, is the love of the most tender husband. It is single, constant, affectionate, matchless, wonderful. Jesus . . .
sympathizes with her,
nourishes her,
provides for her,
clothes her,
watches over her, and
indulges her with the most intimate and endearing tenderness!

Eternally repose your weary soul in the bosom of Jesus!

Forward, believer in Christ, to the toils, duties, and trials of another stage of life's journey! Jesus is enough for them all. Jesus will be with you in them all. Jesus will triumphantly conduct you through them all.

Beloved one, live in the constant expectation of soon seeing Jesus face to face — conversing with He whom here below, cheered, comforted, and sweetened many a weary step of your Christian pilgrimage. That moment is speeding on. In a little while and all that now wounds and ruffles, tempts and pollutes — will have disappeared like the foam upon the billow, and you shall eternally repose your weary soul in the bosom of Jesus!

The solitary object of His love!

It is a great mercy when we can retire from the crowd and deal with God individually — when we can take the precious promises to ourselves individually — when we can repair to Jesus with individual sins, infirmities, and sorrows — feeling that His eye bends its glance upon us — His ear bows down to us — His hand is outstretched to us — His whole heart absorbed in us as though not another petitioner or sufferer offered a request, or unveiled a sorrow. As if, in a word, we were the solitary object of His love!

His invitation to you is, "Come unto Me." He would have you come. You cannot honor Him more than by . . .
recognizing His personal relation to yourself,
disclosing your personal circumstances,
making personal confession of personal sin,
presenting personal needs, and unveiling personal infirmities, backslidings, and sorrows!

That friend!

"There is a friend who sticks closer than a brother." Proverbs 18:24

The power of human sympathy is amazing — if it leads the heart to Christ. It is paralyzed — if it leads only to ourselves. Oh, how feeble and inadequate are we to administer to a diseased mind, to heal a broken heart, to strengthen the feeble hand, and to confirm the trembling knees! Our mute sympathy, our prayerful silence — is often the best exponent of our affection, and the most effectual expression of our aid.

But if, taking the object of our solicitude by the hand, we gently lead him to God — if we conduct him to Jesus, portraying to his view the depth of His love, the perfection of His atoning work, the sufficiency of His grace, His readiness to pardon, His power to save, the exquisite sensibility of His nature, and thus His perfect sympathy with every human sorrow — we have then most truly and most effectually soothed the sorrow, healed the wound, and strengthened the hand in God.

There is no sympathy, no love, no gentleness, no tenderness, no patience, like Christ's! Oh how sweet, how encouraging — to know that Jesus sympathetically enters into my afflictions — my temptations — my sorrows — my joys. May this truth endear Him to our souls! May it constrain us to unveil our whole heart to Him, in the fullest confidence of the closest, most sacred, and precious friendship. May it urge us to do those things always which are most pleasing in His sight.

Beloved, never forget — let these words linger upon your ear, as the echoes of music that never die — in all your sorrows, in all your trials, in all your needs, in all your assaults, in all your conscious wanderings, in life, in death, and at the day of judgment — you possess a friend that sticks closer than a brother! That friend is Jesus!

"Yes, He is altogether lovely! This is my Beloved, and this is my Friend!" Song of Songs 5:16

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

CONSIDER JESUS
Thoughts for Daily Duty, Service, and Suffering

Table of Contents

Preface

1. Consider Jesus– in Lowliness of Birth

2. Consider Jesus– in the Elevation of Rank

3. Consider Jesus– in the Possession of Wealth

4. Consider Jesus– in the Straitness of Poverty

5. Consider Jesus– in the Exercise of Influence

6. Consider Jesus– in Filial Subjection

7. Consider Jesus– in Obedience to Divine Law

8. Consider Jesus– in Obedience to Human Law

9. Consider Jesus– the Object of Popular Favor

10. Consider Jesus– the Object of Popular Hate

11. Consider Jesus– as Without Deceit

12. Consider Jesus– as Tempted by Satan

13. Consider Jesus– as Afflicted

14. Consider Jesus– Our Paymaster

15. Consider Jesus– as Forsaken by Man

16. Consider Jesus– as Forsaken by God

17. Consider Jesus– in Loneliness

18. Consider Jesus– as Not Alone

19. Consider Jesus– in Soul-trouble

20. Consider Jesus– in Communion with God

21. Consider Jesus– in the Forgiveness of Injury

22. Consider Jesus– in the Exercise of Praise

23. Consider Jesus– in the Avoidance of Offence

24. Consider Jesus– in Sickness

25. Consider Jesus– in the Anticipation of Death

26. Consider Jesus– in Intercessory Prayer

27. Consider Jesus– in Bereavement

28. Consider Jesus– as Receiving Sinners

29. Consider Jesus– in His Atoning Blood

30. Consider Jesus– in the Power of His Resurrection

31. Consider Jesus– in His Second Appearing

PREFACE

"O Jesus! make Yourself to me
A living, bright reality;
More present to Faith's vision keen
Than any outward object seen;
More dear, more intimately near,
Than even the sweetest earthly tie."
–Charlotte Elliott

"Consider Jesus, the apostle and high priest whom we confess." Hebrews 3:1

It is a great privilege of the believer to live by the day upon Jesus. He cannot properly or safely go beyond it, nor has he any especial promise to warrant his so doing. The promise is, "as your days so shall your strength be." And it is no little achievement of faith if, indeed, its strength lasts even to this limited period. Each day's need is enough to task all our energies, and exhaust all our supplies, without our "taking thought for the morrow."

But what a mercy thus to live upon Christ! To feel that, when we exchange the morning's dreams for the day's stern and trying realities, that the prayer of faith may draw large supplies from Jesus; and, that thus replenished and equipped, we may safely reach its close unscathed by the fiery ordeal through which we have passed.

To aid the Christian in this daily life, these pages have been written. The subjects selected are, for the most part, of a doctrinal and practical nature--subjects, indeed, upon which ponderous tomes have been written--and yet the plan pursued by the author has necessarily restricted his meditations to the smallest possible space, and to a mere fragmentary and elementary unfolding of each topic. But, unpretending as his work is, it may meet the needs of the weary, the suffering, and the sorrowing believer not having time or strength for a more elaborate volume; and thus be as a small casket of perfume, incensing some couch of languor, and filling some chamber of sickness with the fragrance of that Name which is above every name, and which, to those who know and love it, is as ointment poured forth--the divine, the precious, the ever-to-be-adored name of--JESUS!

Consider Jesus– in Lowliness of Birth

"Is not this the carpenter's son?"--Matthew 13:55

What a remarkable fact in the history of Jesus does this question, asked with mingled surprise and contempt, betray! It presents Him in a point of light in which, perhaps, few have paused to study Him, and yet than which there is scarcely another more real and instructive. It invites us to consider Jesus as the Son of man, as the son of a carpenter, and in all probability, until He began to be about thirty years of age, assisting Joseph in his humble calling. Hence it was asked concerning Jesus, "Is not this the carpenter?" How truly did the Son of God identify Himself with the humanity and the curse He came to ransom and remove. And when we see those hands which built the universe building earthly dwellings for man--squaring the beam, plying the saw, thrusting the plane, driving the nail, constructing and raising the framework--we behold personally Him tasting the bitterness of that part of the curse which enjoined, "In the sweat of your face shall you eat bread."

We learn from this that, obscurity of birth and lowliness of craft are no dishonor to him whose condition it may be; and that they have often been found in alliance with true greatness of character, high devotedness to God, noble and useful deeds for man. God, who is no respecter of people, looks upon man's outward estate with a very different eye to that with which the world looks upon it. You ask for the proof. Behold, the Incarnate Son of God, instead of selecting, as He might have done, a princess for His mother and a palace for His birth, lo! His reputed father is a carpenter, His mother, though of royal lineage, is too poor to present on the day of her purification an offering more costly than "a pair of turtle-doves," and the scene of His wondrous advent is among the beasts of the field feeding quietly at their troughs.

But, consider Him. You are, perhaps, taunted for your obscure birth, looked down upon for your humble calling, slighted for your social position, and are discouraged from any attempt to rise above it and strike out a path of wider influence and nobler exertion. But learn from Jesus that there is no dishonor in humble parentage, that true dignity belongs to honest toil, and that personal piety, consecration to God, and far-reaching usefulness to man, may be closely associated with those whose niche in society is low in the scale, and whose walk through life is along its more shaded and secluded pathway.

We have referred to LABOR. Here, again, Jesus demands our consideration. Our Divine Savior might be termed, in modern parlance, a 'working man.' He was, in early life, a carpenter. Labor was concurrent with man's creation. Before the fall, God sent him into the garden to keep it. And although the ground brought forth spontaneously, yet it was beneath his culturing hand that the earth was to bloom and blossom as the rose. Idleness was no part of our original constitution; God never intended that man's powers should be stunted, and that his life should evaporate in useless and ignoble repose. Be up, then, and doing. Be ready for any labor, prepared for any duty, willing for any sacrifice, active, honest, and earnest in any and every sphere in which God may place you.

Consider Jesus! He knows your walk. He will sympathize with, and give you grace for, the difficulties and discouragements, the temptations and trials, peculiar to your position in life. And however obscure your birth, or lowly your calling, or cramped your powers, strive to imitate, please, and glorify Him. Not totally hidden will then your light be. Your trust in God, your resemblance to Christ, the example of your honest industry, patient endurance and virtuous bearing--which poverty could not crush or obscurity veil--will influence for good all whose privilege it may be to know, admire, and love you. Thus your "light will shine out of obscurity," and, humble though your course and limited though your sphere may have been, you will not have lived for God and for man in vain.

Consider Jesus– in the Elevation of Rank

"King of kings, and Lord of lords." –Revelation 19:16

The twofold nature of Jesus brought Him into the closest personal relation to, and sympathy with, the two great divisions of the race--the Commonalty and
the Nobility--and thus He becomes a proper subject of instructive study to both. We have considered His obscurity and abasement as man; it remains that we study Him as possessing the highest rank and as wearing the noblest title as God--"KING of kings, and LORD of lords." The present reflection, therefore, addresses itself to those upon whom is conferred the honor, the duties, and the responsibilities of high birth and rank. It is not often that such are especially selected by the ministers of religion as objects of pious instruction. For every other class Christian sympathy is felt, and religious efforts made; while those of higher caste in society are passed by in cold neglect, as if their eternal interests were not equally as precious, and as if their soul-perils were not transcendently greater. But what are the godly instructions we may gather from a consideration of Jesus in the light of His elevated rank?

The first that impresses us is that, human rank is of Divine appointment. Every privilege of nobility originates with God. "He puts down one, and raises up another." Human society in its framework manifests His molding hand. It is impossible to trace the various grades which exist, the dependent relation of each to the other, and of all to God, and not admire His wisdom and adore His goodness in the marvelous construction of societies. To Him, then, you are to refer your rank. Whether by inheritance, or by privilege, you are bound to acknowledge God in its bestowment, seriously pondering the end for which it was given, the responsibilities it involves, the duties it imposes, and the solemn account you have to give of its use at the last Great Day.

Consider Jesus as on no occasion either denying or renouncing His rank. On the contrary, at the very moment that He was engaged in the most condescending act of His life He asserted it. "I, your LORD and MASTER, have washed your feet." It has been the mistaken idea of some good men that, conversion to Christ imperatively demanded and necessarily involved a relinquishment of their social position. No judgment could be more at fault, no step more unscriptural. The religion of Christ levels and destroys nothing but ungodliness and error. The Bible teaching is, "Let every man abide in the calling wherein he was called." If, then, the grace of God has called you in the higher walks of life, ennobled and titled, to relinquish your position and, consequently, its moral influence in the Church and in the world, were a folly and a sin. Providence and Grace never clash. Where Grace has called you, there let Providence keep you, and use you for God.

Consider Jesus in the humility and condescension which rank imposes. Was there ever a being so high, and yet ever one so meek and lowly, as Christ? Watch against the arrogance of high birth. The costliest and brightest gem in your coronet will be the humility with which you wear it. "Condescend to men of low estate." "Learn of Me, for I am meek and lowly in heart."

Consider Jesus as consecrating His rank to the good of man and the glory of God. See that yours is not selfishly possessed, but magnanimously employed. Wear it not as a mere adornment, but use it as a mighty power, capable of conferring elevation, prosperity, and happiness upon all who are privileged to come within the warmth and glow of its sunshine. Keep the impressive fact full in view that, at Jesus' feet every princely diadem, and sacred mitre, and noble coronet, and ermined robe must be laid, and into His hands the stewardship be surrendered! Lay your title at His feet now--a holy and a consecrated thing to God! Under a solemn sense of its dreadful responsibility, seek grace from Christ to devote it to the increase of His kingdom, the furtherance of His gospel, and the well-being of man in the world.

Consider Jesus– in the Possession of Wealth

"He was RICH." –2 Cor. 8:9

Rank and wealth may exist apart from each other. In Jesus they were combined. He could not be the Divinest, and not be the Richest Being in the universe; the Creator, and not the Owner of all worlds. Moreover, He could say, "All SOULS are mine" –a wealth second only to the affluence of His own absolute Godhead. Thus He becomes a study for the wealthy--a study for a rich Christian--oppressed with the anxieties, exposed to the snares, armed with the power, and speeding to the final Judgment laden with the fearful responsibilities and the solemn account of WEALTH! But, 'Consider Him.'

Jesus ascribed His wealth to God. While asserting essential Deity, He ever acknowledged His dependence upon His Father as the Mediator and Redeemer of man. In this light we interpret His remarkable declaration--"The Son can do nothing of Himself but what He sees the Father do." "As the Father has life in Himself, so has He given to the Son to have life in Himself." Thus consider Him! To God you owe, and to God you are bound to ascribe, your wealth. Your own efforts and skill had been a failure, disappointing and ruinous, but for His enriching blessing. Say not in your heart, "My power and the might of mine hand has gotten me this wealth. But you shall remember the Lord your God: for it is HE that gives you power to get wealth." Do you thus give God the glory? And as you survey your broad acres, and count your treasured gold, and speculate on your profitable investments, do you in your heart gratefully and devoutly acknowledge, "I owe all this to God! Not my hand, nor my skill, nor my toil, but to Your favor, help, and blessing, O Lord, alone I attribute it?"

Jesus, though rich, was destitute of the PRIDE of wealth. Human pride is one of the most operative causes of self-destruction--and wealth is its prolific parent. "Behold," says God to Jerusalem, "this was the iniquity of your sister Sodom, pride and fullness of bread." The poor are often oppressed with a sense of their insignificance, but the rich are prone to be inflated and self-important, "pride"--purse-pride--"compassing them about as a chain." Rejoice if Divine grace has taught you your spiritual poverty, nothingness, and vileness, so enabling you to walk humbly with God in your wealth. "Let the rich rejoice in that he is made low:" –laid low beneath the cross--"because as the flower of the grass he shall pass away."

Jesus was free from the WORLDLINESS of wealth. The rich are peculiarly exposed to the world. The means which they possess of surrounding themselves with its pomp and show, its luxury and pleasures, are a terrible snare, which the grace of God alone can conquer. Study Jesus! With the world at His command, how unworldly! From not thus studying and imitating Him, many a wealthy professor has made shipwreck of his faith, character, and usefulness, swept away by the irresistible force of unsanctified riches. "Demas has forsaken me, having loved this present world." Oh! beware of the world! Your "riches will become corrupt, your gold and your silver cankered, and their rust shall be a witness against you," if they plunge you into the temptations, covetousness, and sins of this present evil world!

Jesus devoted His riches to the glory of God. Is your wealth thus devoted? Is "Holiness to the Lord" impressed upon your coin? Whose superscription does it bear? Christ has poor brethren needing help. His cause languishes from lack of support. His devoted, faithful ministers, many of them, are toiling amid straitness and pinching poverty. Oh, liberally scatter your wealth, and as you lay it down at the feet of Jesus, exclaim with lowliness and gratitude, "Of Your own have I given You, dearest Lord!" Thus cultivating a generous liberality, watching against the temptations of riches, and keeping in full view the solemn account of your stewardship, let your constant, earnest prayer be--"In all times of our WEALTH, good Lord, deliver us!"

Consider Jesus– in the Straitness of Poverty

"He became poor." –2 Cor. 8:9

The wealth of Jesus, of which we have already spoken, was essential; His poverty, of which we are now to speak, was willingly assumed. "He became poor." By an act of unparalleled beneficence, He emptied Himself of His wealth and linked Himself with a life of dependent poverty. The only riches He retained--and these He scattered with a profuse and unbounded generosity--were the 'unsearchable riches of His grace', bestowed indiscriminately and freely upon the vilest of the race. So poor was He, holy women ministered to Him of their substance; and so homeless, the foxes had holes, and the birds of the air nests, but He, the Creator of the world, had not where to lay His head! "Consider Him."

We learn, in the first place, that poverty may exist in alliance with greatness and moral wealth. There is nothing in poverty essentially degrading or demoralizing. Wealth, unsanctified by Divine grace, may depress our moral instincts, vitiate and impair our noblest faculties, developing and arming, to an almost unbounded extent, the innate evil of our nature; but poverty, hallowed of God, has often proved a school of grace in which that same nature has been molded into a vessel of honor, pencilled with the beauty of holiness, sanctified and made fit for Christ's service.

Thus, poverty is not essentially sinful, though springing from original sin, and is often the sad and bitter fruit of willful transgression against the soul and God--improvidence, indolence, and intemperance, entailing poverty and need, misery and woe. Yet, as in the case of our adorable Lord, and in countless instances of His disciples, it may be allied to the highest intellectual development, to the richest spiritual grace, and to the noblest formation of character. Did there ever exist one so poor in this world, yet one so holy, so gracious, and so useful as Jesus? Learn of Him, then, who stamped with so great a dignity, and invested with so rich a luster, a life of virtuous poverty and need, before which the worth and glitter of unsanctified riches fade into insignificance.

Straitened circumstances aid in the development of a life of faith in God. Such was the life of Jesus. As man, He as much lived by faith on God as His disciples. He never bids us walk in a path divergent from His own, but in each one "left us an example that we should follow His steps." Thus the poor are dependent upon God, and the poverty of the Christian--often his greatest wealth--leads him to prayer, and prayer brings him into closer acquaintance with God, and the more he knows of the character of God, the more he learns to love and fear and trust in Him. "The life I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God." Oh, take your poverty to God. Your Heavenly Father knows and is pledged, has promised and is able, to supply all your needs. Do you think that He who feeds the birds of the air will neglect the children of His love? Never! Oh, how your very poverty may enrich you in prayer, faith, and grace! Sweet to live a life of childlike dependence upon God! To know and feel, "My Father thinks for, and takes care of, me."

The poverty of Jesus was the wealth of others. Thus there are none, so straitened and tried in their circumstances, who may not contribute, in some degree, to the temporal or the spiritual necessities of others. "As poor, yet making many rich." Hence we often find in the poor the greatest sympathy and help for the poor. Let not your limited resources, then, be a veil for stinginess; your poverty an excuse for unkindness. But imitate the early Christians, whose "deep poverty abounded unto the riches of their liberality;" and consider Jesus, "who, though He was rich, yet for our sakes became poor, that we through His poverty might be made rich." Be submissive to God's will in poverty. LET CHRIST BE YOUR SOUL'S PORTION. Lay up treasures in heaven. And let your life, amid its toil and trial, its poverty and need, be a holy preparation for your riches of glory above. "Trust in the Lord, and do good; so shall you dwell in the land, and verily you shall be fed."

Consider Jesus– in the Exercise of Influence

"Be followers of me, even as I am of Christ." –1 Cor. 11:1

INFLUENCE is the subject which these words suggest for our present meditation--the influence of Christ reflected in the influence of the Christian. "Follow me, as I follow Christ." The power of influencing others is a wonderful and responsible gift of God. Every individual possesses it. Unknown though his name, and obscure though his sphere may be, he is the center of a circle touching at every point for good or for evil all who come within the radius of his moral power--the potency of which cannot be measured, the results of which can never be fully known.

No person is absolutely neutral in this life--none so humble as not to take hold on the vitalities of some individual's inner being, thoughts, and feelings. High or low, rich or poor, we throw off from us, and we receive in return, trains of influences which shape the opinions, mold the characters, and determine the destinies, both of ourselves and others. We may not be able to explain the nature or estimate the results of this law; nevertheless, in the last great day the truth will flash upon us with startling effect--"No man lives to himself." The question once defiantly and insultingly asked of God, "Am I my brother's keeper?" will be answered with a Divine affirmative crushing as thunder, or thrilling as music,"You were! and you have ruined him forever by your ungodly example," or, "You have saved him forever by your holy influence!" How solemn this truth! It is this power of action and reaction--this reciprocity of moral influences--which gives a character, reality, and responsibility to all our thoughts, words, and deeds in this present life; and which makes every man, in every circle, to a great extent his brother's keeper. But consider Jesus.

His influence was INDIVIDUAL. There was an individuality in His life which acted powerfully upon all whom it reached. But we forget our individuality! We lose ourselves in the crowd. We follow it, act with it, and thus we forget that, with regard to the religious opinions which we hold, the moral influence which we insensibly exert, the solemn reckoning which we are finally to meet, "every one of us is to give an account of HIMSELF to God." "Resolved, that I will live and act as an individual." So wrote Harlan Page in his diary; and so he lived and died, and God used his individual influence to the conversion of hundreds. Let us keep in mind the fact, that individual responsibility, duty, and influence, are untransferable. We cannot make them over to a church, or to a society, or to another individual. Born as individuals, we live as individuals, and as individuals we die, and shall be judged.

The example of Jesus was HOLY and SANCTIFYING. All who came into His presence could feel how dreadful, yet how attractive, HOLINESS was! Is ours such? Can we in sincerity say, "Follow me, as I follow Christ?" Is our example as a religious professor such as to influence others for good?--as a parent, such as you would desire your children should imitate?--as a husband or wife, as a brother or sister, as a master or mistress, such as to mold for holiness in this life, and for happiness in the life to come, those whom it daily reaches? Is our example such as to attract them with the beauty of holiness, to impress them with the excellence of Jesus, the service of God, and the solemnity of eternity?

Oh, let your example pencil, like the sun, the image of Christ upon all on whom its transforming rays are reflected. But this can only be as you yourself follow Christ. If you would that others be a holy reflection of you, you yourself must be a true and holy reflection of Jesus. Let the light of your influence so shine, that others seeing may rejoice in it. Be a "living epistle of Christ," so legible and lovely as to be known and read of all men, that all may be affected by the reading thereof. Thus men will behold your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.

Consider Jesus– in Filial Subjection

"He was subject unto them." –Luke 2:51

This was one of the most instructive and lovely traits in our Lord's character--His subjection to parental authority. What period and what condition of life has He not personally impressed with His greatness and hallowed with His sanctity? As Irenaeus beautifully remarks, "He came to save all who are born again unto God; infants and little ones, and children and youths, and those of old age. To little ones He was a little one, sanctifying those of that age, and giving them an example of godliness, righteousness, and dutiful subjection." To this latter feature of our Lord's early life let us direct our present consideration. "He was SUBJECT unto them." What a study for the young! what an example for the Christian youth! May the Holy Spirit unfold and impress upon our hearts and lives the holy and beautiful lesson!

The submission of Jesus to His parents was NATURAL. Our Lord was ever true to nature, as nature was ever true to Him, its Creator. Filial submission is an instinct of our being. The existence of parent and child implies the existence of a law prescribing and regulating their relative duties. Had there been no divine precept, and irrespective of all that is positively commanded, nature would prompt the child's duty to its parents. But, what reason dimly teaches, revelation clearly and positively enjoins. When the word of God says, "This is right," it means, this is just or equitable. Deny the obligation to obey, and you deny the authority to command; ignore the child's duty, and you repudiate the parent's relation. Thus, though our humanity is like a smitten and decayed trunk, the instincts and affections of our nature still cling to it as the ivy clasps with inseparable tenacity the crumbling oak around which it entwines.

The submission of Jesus to His parents was obediential--that is, He obeyed them. Obedience is the great law of filial piety--disobedience its most unnatural and unholy violation. Under the Mosaic dispensation disobedience to parents was thus fearfully punished: "If a man has a stubborn and rebellious son who does not obey his father and mother and will not listen to them when they discipline him, his father and mother shall take hold of him and bring him to the elders at the gate of his town. They shall say to the elders, 'This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious. He will not obey us. He is a profligate and a drunkard.' Then all the men of his town shall stone him to death." (Deut. 21:18-21).

Is the law of the Christian dispensation less binding? Listen to the command--"Children, OBEY your parents in the Lord, far this is right." Again--"Children, OBEY your parents in all things, for this is well-pleasing unto the Lord." Beware of this sin! If under the law it was so terribly marked, of how much more severe punishment shall they be counted worthy who violate this law of filial obedience under a dispensation clothed with such solemn sanctions!

Jesus' subjection to His parents was the subjection of LOVE. Filial affection will secure the profoundest reverence for parental authority, and the most implicit obedience to parental command, when that command contravenes no higher law, and asks the surrender of no Christian principle. Oh, how sweet and lovely to submit to the will and obey the command of a parent we deeply reverence and love! It is that invests with such surpassing dignity, holiness, and beauty the unquestioning obedience of a child of God to his Heavenly Father. He obeys God because he loves Him, and there is no obedience so willing, so cheerful, or so complete as the obedience of love. "If you LOVE me, keep my commandments." If God has removed your earthly parent, be it your aim to transfer your love, submission, and obedience to your Heavenly Father, "in whom the fatherless finds mercy."

Consider Jesus– in Obedience to Divine Law

"He became obedient unto death." –Phil. 2:8

A higher obedience of Christ is this, than that we have just considered, since it is obedience to a Divine law and to a Heavenly Parent. Those who honor and obey God will not be found willfully and persistently dishonoring and disobeying an earthly one. The higher law, recognized and honored, will mold and regulate all subordinate relations. Oh that the fear of God in our hearts might so shape and sanctify the ties, duties, and trials of this present probationary scene, as to make them subservient to His glory! "Surely I know that it shall be well with those who fear God."

But consider the obedience of Jesus. It was SUBSTITUTIONARY obedience. Although consenting to come under a law which He had never broken, no obedience, therefore, to that law was required for Himself. Made under the law as man, He was bound to obey it, but it was the obligation of a Surety. He honored to the utmost every precept, but it was on behalf of those for whom in the covenant of grace He had entered into engagement. It was strictly substitutionary. "By THE OBEDIENCE of one shall many be made righteous." My soul! contemplate this blessed truth. Your covenant Surety Head has answered in your stead all the requirements of the law you had broken, and under whose great condemnation you did lay, thus paying all your great debt and delivering you from a terrible and eternal condemnation.

It was DIVINE obedience. It was the obedience of GOD in our nature, and therefore the righteousness which springs from it is termed the "Righteousness of God." God, intent upon accomplishing His eternal purpose of saving a portion of the race, provided a divine righteousness for our justification in the obedience of His co-equal and co-eternal Son, and so we are "made the righteousness of God in Him." Glorious truth! "In your righteousness shall they be exalted." It exalts us above angels, above ourselves, above sin, above condemnation. And because it is divine, it places us before God in the condition of a present and complete justification.

"And lest the shadow of a spot
Should on my soul be found,
He took the robe the Savior wrought,
And cast it all around."

The obedience of Christ is IMPUTED to us by the Spirit. In the same manner by which He became sin for us, we become righteous in Him--by imputation. Glorious truth! It is the marrow and fatness of the gospel to those who feel the plague of sin, and who have long starved their souls with the husks and chaff of their own worthless doings. "Unto whom God imputes righteousness without works."

It follows that the obedience of Jesus is ours FREELY, because ours by faith. Are you, O my soul, bankrupt of all merit and worthiness? Have you nothing to pay? Then, listen to the divine declaration--sweeter than angels' chimes--"By GRACE are you saved through FAITH, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God." –My soul! It is not yours by your own doings, nor your deservings, nor your sufferings. "It is by FAITH, that it might be by grace." "Lord, I believe! help my unbelief."

Imitate Jesus. Let your walk before the Lord be obedient. Let your obedience be loving and unreserved. "Behold, to OBEY is better than sacrifice, and to HEARKEN than the fat of rams." Aim, Caleb-like, to 'follow the Lord fully,' standing complete in all the will of God. If Jesus thus fully obeyed for you, all He asks in return is that, if you love Him you will evince that love by OBEYING His commandments. Love will make any act of self-sacrifice for Christ sweet, the relinquishment of any sin unhesitating, and the bearing of any cross pleasant.

"Jesus, Your blood and righteousness,
My beauty are, my glorious dress;
Midst flaming worlds, in these arrayed,
With joy shall I lift up my head.
"When from the dust of death I rise,
To take my mansion in the skies,
Even then shall this be all my plea–
Jesus has lived and died for me."

Consider Jesus– in Obedience to Human Law

"Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's." –Matt. 22:21

The obedience of Jesus, whether natural or moral--whether yielded to a divine or a human law--was, like all that He did, worthy of Himself. In no instance did He exhibit anything approaching resistance to constituted authority. Rebellion against Satan and sin was the only insubordination that marked our Lord's life on earth. On no occasion did either His doctrine or His practice come into direct and hostile antagonism with the State. The example before us is striking and conclusive of this. We read that the "Pharisees took counsel how they might entangle Him in His talk." They came to Him and inquired, "Is it lawful to give tribute to Caesar, or not?" But Jesus perceived their wickedness, and said, "Why are you tempting me, you hypocrites?" Had He pronounced it unlawful, caught in their snare, they would instantly have denounced Him to Herod as teaching treason against Caesar, and thus have evoked the rage of the people and the hostility of the government. But mark the wisdom and equity with which He defeated the design and exposed the craft and wickedness of His enemies, and in so doing, enunciated and enforced the moral precept which we are now to consider--"Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's." The consideration of the duty we owe, as Christians and citizens, to human law, may not be out of place, since there exists a strong and growing tendency to override all human law, and to ignore all civil authority, than which there is not a more direct violation of God's word or a more palpable violation of the spirit of Christianity.

Jesus recognized the existence of the civil power as an institution of God himself: "Everyone must submit himself to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God. Consequently, he who rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves." (Rom. 13:1, 2). Such must be our starting-point in all our relations to civil government. Recognizing the human ordinance to be of divine appointment, the question of reverence to authority and of obedience to law will not reasonably admit of a moment's hesitation.

Jesus rendered unhesitating and implicit submission to both CIVIL and ECCLESIASTICAL law. We have seen it in reference to the State; another example is before us of His reverence for the Temple. When "tribute money" was demanded--or the didachma, or half-shekel levied for the religious purposes of the temple--He acknowledged its lawfulness, and, lest He should give offence by refusing to obey, He at once wrought a miracle, and paid the money (Matt. 17:24-27). Thus complete was our Lord's obedience to God and man. Upon no civil or religious law would He trample, since He had declared, "It becomes us to fulfill ALL righteousness." If a law presses upon conscience, or contravenes religious liberty, the remedy is obvious--not disobedience, but repeal; not tumultuous assemblies and inflammatory harangues, but constitutional petition. The Legislature and the Throne are accessible to the lowest and most oppressed subject of the land.

Jesus taught us that subjection to the civil magistrate was not incompatible with reverence to, and the fear of, God. How skillfully He combines them both: "Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and unto God the things that are God's." As disciples of Jesus, as children of God, as Christian citizens, let us so walk as to stand complete in all the divine will. First, and above all, let us obey God. Then will follow, in the Family relation, obedience to parents; in the State, obedience to magistrates; and in the Church of Christ, "obedience to those who have the rule over us" (Heb. 13:17).

"Let Caesar's due be ever paid
To Caesar and his throne;
But consciences and souls were made
To be the Lord's alone."

Consider Jesus– the Object of Popular Favor

When Jesus entered Jerusalem, the whole city was stirred and asked, "Who is this?" –Matthew 21:10

Jesus was now enthroned upon the highest wave of popular favor. It was, perhaps, the only moment in His earthly history in which it might be said that His popularity was in the ascendant. The sun of human glory now shone upon Him in all its splendor. He was for a moment the idol and the delight of the people. They thronged His path, carpeted it with their garments, strewed it with foliage, and rent the air with their loud and joyous hosannas. All this was strange to Jesus. It was a new page in His history, a new lesson in His life, which would fit Him in all future time to sympathize with and support those who should be subjected to a like perilous ordeal in their Christian career.

We learn that, seasons of earthly prosperity in the experience of the Christian may be perfectly compatible with his close walk with God. The sunshine of God and the smile of the creature may be permitted for a while to blend, tinting with their bright hues the varied forms and objects of existence. These are some of the few 'lights' intermingled with the many 'shadows'--with which God pencils the picture of life. Are our callings prospered, are our homes happy, do friends smile, are neighbors kind, and have the lines fallen to us in pleasant places? These are gleams of light upon our path across the desert, and in them, O my soul! see that you trace a Father's hand, and acknowledge a Father's heart. The picture of your life is not all somber. If the clouds shade, the sunshine brightens it; if judgment frowns, mercy smiles; and if the bread and the water of affliction are at times your appointed portion, with it He gives His love to soothe you, His presence to cheer you, His arm to sustain you, His Heaven to receive you, and says, "You shall not be forgotten by Me."

We learn, also, how meekly and lowly a child of God should walk in times of worldly prosperity. Jesus was not inflated with pride, nor lifted up with vainglory by this ebullition of popular favor. Oh, how great the grace required to walk humbly with God in times of worldly prosperity! When "Jeshurun waxed fat, he kicked." When earthly riches increase, or worldly honors are bestowed, or human applause is lavished, then is the time to flee to the mountain of strength, to the armory of truth, to the solitude of the closet, and to wrestle with God for help to resist and overcome the soul-perils to which all these seductions fearfully expose us. O my soul! be doubly on your guard, be whole nights in your watch-tower, when floating with the tide, wafted by the wind, irradiated with the sunshine of creature good, of earthly prosperity. The world's dizziness, the creature's caresses, the heart's self-satisfaction, would prove your downfall and ruin but for the restraining grace of God.

We also learn how empty and evanescent a thing is the bubble of popular favor. When Jesus was come into Jerusalem, "all the city was stirred." But before many days elapsed, the air that rang with His acclaim echoed with His execrations; the voices that then sang "Hosanna!" now shouted "Crucify Him! crucify Him!" and from that very city they led Him out to die. O my soul! bid low for the world's applause; set light by man's favor; be not ensnared by creature smiles. Fill not your censer with the incense, and shape not your sail to catch the breath of, human popularity; still less the favor and adulation of the saints. Their idol today, you may be their object of ridicule tomorrow. 'Hosanna' now, 'Crucify Him' then! Walk humbly with your God. Cling to the faithfulness of the unchanging One, to the friendship of the loving One, to the strength of the Almighty One, and to the compassion and sympathy of the crucified One, and let your Jesus be all in all.

"Earthly friends may fail or leave us,
One day soothe, the next day grieve us,
But this Friend will ne'er deceive us
Oh, how He loves!"

Consider Jesus– the Object of Popular Hate

"He was despised and rejected—a man of sorrows, acquainted with bitterest grief." Isaiah 53:3

Our Lord's was a chequered history. Lights and shadows thickly blended in the marvelous picture of His life. The lights were but few; the shadows predominated. He did not come into the world to be joyful and happy, but to make others so. Hence the portrait--"He was despised and rejected—a man of sorrows, acquainted with bitterest grief." We have just looked upon one of the earthly lights thrown upon the picture; we are now to contemplate one of its dark shadows. From viewing Him as for the moment favored with the adulations of the multitude, we turn to behold Him the object of their bitter scorn and rejection.

"He was despised and rejected—a man of sorrows, acquainted with bitterest grief." There is much in this chapter of Jesus' history worthy of our consideration, and not a little that may be found to reflect in no inconsiderable degree the experience of many Christians. My soul, turn to it. It is a mournful yet a holy picture of Him you love. There is a bitterness in the contemplation, and yet a sweetness indescribably sweet. It is pleasant and cheering to know that your Lord Jesus has gone before you, has trodden the path you tread, and that the sorrow which now rests upon your soul so darkly is but the shadow of the yet darker sorrow that rested upon His.

Jesus was the object of popular hate, because of the DIVINITY OF HIS PERSON. Are real Christians less so? Were we not partakers of the Divine nature, we would not drink, in some small degree, of this cup that He drank of. The world despises the image of Christ. If it hated the fair and perfect Original, it will also hate the copy, however dim and imperfect it may be. Be of good cheer, then, if a portion of the world's hatred of Jesus comes upon you. It is a sure evidence that you are in some measure assimilated to your beloved Lord, reflecting His divine and holy image, though marred with many a blot, and shaded with many a cloud.

Jesus was despised because of the UNWORLDLINESS OF HIS LIFE. "The world hates me because I testify of it, that the works thereof are evil." His whole life was one ceaseless testimony against the ungodliness of this ungodly world. It rejected Him because He was holy. In proportion as the life we live is a solemn and consistent protest against the vanities and sinfulness of the world, so will it hate and cast us out. "You are not of the world; therefore the world hates you." In His memorable intercessory prayer, Jesus reminds His Father, "The world has hated them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world." Accept, then, the world's despisings as your glory. The farther you recede from it, the more powerful your testimony, and the more decided and consistent your unworldly walk, the more virulent will be its malignity, bitter its hate, and wide its separation.

Jesus was equally the object of offence to the world, because of HIS TESTIMONY TO THE TRUTH. On one occasion His enemies took Him to the brow of a hill to hurl Him down to His death, for the testimony which He bore to the Sovereignty of Divine Grace. And it is recorded that, on a similar occasion, many of His disciples went back, and walked no more with Him. The offence of the cross is not ceased. If, through the Holy Spirit's teaching, and the Savior's grace, you are enabled to bear a humble, loving, yet firm and uncompromising testimony to the truth as it is in Jesus, think it not strange if you are called to suffer.

The more spiritual and unadulterated, the more scriptural and unworldly your views of the gospel--its doctrines, its precepts, and its institutions--the more the world, even much of the so-called religious world, will separate from your company, hate, and despise you. But rejoice with exceeding joy if thus counted worthy to suffer shame for Jesus' sake. Keep your eye intently upon Him, and ever remember His animating words--"Be faithful unto death, and I will give you a crown of life." Lord, let the world despise, and even the saints reject me--enough that I am loved and approved of You!

Consider Jesus– as Without Deceit

"He committed no sin, and no deceit was found in his mouth." 1 Peter 2:22

Purer than the purest crystal, more transparent than the brightest sun, was the character of Jesus. It needed but the visual organ purged from the blinding and distorting effects of sin to have looked into the deepest recesses of His heart, to have seen every pulse, to have read every thought, and to have fathomed every purpose of His soul--so open, transparent, and childlike was He. His foes sought with deception to ensnare Him, but He was too innocent to be ensnared. The moral atmosphere of His being was too pure and translucid for their wicked purposes to find a single fault. They could fix no thought, excite no passion, rouse no imagination within His breast that would have left a taint or a cloud upon that pure, bright spirit of His. What He declared of Satan could with equal truth have been affirmed of ungodly men--"The prince of this world comes, and has nothing in me." They found no evil in Him upon which their own sinfulness could work. Wickedness could not for a moment exist in an atmosphere so holy.

Consider the integrity and honesty of Jesus as the fulfillment of a prophecy: "Neither was any deceit in His mouth" (Isa. 53:9). Ponder carefully, my soul, every fulfillment of prophecy concerning your precious Jesus. It will fortify you against the assaults of infidelity and the suggestions of Satan, and enlarge your knowledge of, and deepen your love to, the Savior. Behold the fulfillment of this remarkable prediction--"Neither was deceit found in His mouth."

There was no deceit in THE TRUTHS WHICH JESUS TAUGHT. All that the Father revealed to Him He made known to His disciples. He falsified nothing, obscured nothing, kept back nothing. What a lesson for us! Are we ministers of Christ? Then it is our solemn duty to guard against deceit and hypocrisy in our ministrations of the truth. There must be no adulteration of the Word, nothing doubtful in our statement of the Deity and Atonement of Christ, no mental reservation in preaching the doctrines of grace, no denying or neutralizing the Person and work of the Spirit, not the slightest vestige of craftiness or deceitfulness in handling the word of the living God. Woe unto us if we preach not the great truths of the gospel as Christ taught them! We must preach Christ only and wholly, and with Paul be able to testify--"We have renounced the hidden things of dishonesty, not walking in craftiness, nor handling the word of God deceitfully; but by manifestation of the truth, commending ourselves to every man's conscience in the sight of God." My soul! beware of holding the truth with guile!

Jesus was guileless in ALL HIS ACTIONS. Everything that He did was as open and as transparent as the light of day. Thus, my soul! learn of Him. Let there be nothing doubtful or ambiguous in your dealings with the world; no deceit or equivocation in your communion with the saints; but let every action and motive and end be as clear and pure as the sun's noontide splendor. Lord, in all things "let integrity and uprightness preserve me."

Above all, Jesus was without guile in HIS WALK BEFORE GOD. He could say, and He only, "I do always those things which please Him." It is here, O my soul, you have the most closely to commune with your own heart, and to weigh and ponder and scrutinize every step you take. "You, Most Upright One, do weigh the path of the just." Oh, walk before God with a perfect heart, and let your prayer be--Lord, search me! and should I not be real, honest, transparent--graciously, effectually root up every noxious weed, especially that hateful weed of hypocrisy, from Your own garden; and let no principle or motive, aim or end exist but what You approve, and what will be for Your honor and glory. By the sanctifying grace of Your Spirit, by the searching power of Your word, by the hallowed discipline of temptation, affliction, and sorrow, make me an Israelite indeed, in whom is no deceit!

Consider Jesus– as Tempted by Satan

"Then was Jesus led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil." –Matt. 4:1

It is a consolatory reflection to the child of God that, since the temptations of Satan constitute so severe, yet so essential a part of his spiritual training for glory, Jesus, his Surety-Head, was Himself subjected to a like discipline, equally as essential, yet infinitely more severe, to the completeness of His mediatorial character as the High Priest "touched with the feeling of our infirmities." My soul! devoutly consider your Jesus in this interesting point of light, and with faith's lowly hand pluck a rich cluster of refreshing fruit from Him, your living, life-giving, and life-sustaining Vine. Never forget that, through electing love, and most free and sovereign grace, you are an engrafted branch of that Vine; and that all the fruit that grows upon, and that all the fruitfulness that springs from it (Hos. 14:8), belongs to you. "He that abides in me, the same brings forth much fruit."

Of whom was our Jesus tempted? "Of the devil." The 'heel' of the 'woman's seed' was now bruised of the 'serpent.' And oh, what a bruising! Forty days and forty nights enclosed with the devil in the wilderness, and during that period subjected to every form of fierce assault, until, exhausting his quiver, Satan defeated, retired from the conflict for a season. Such, O my soul! is your great accuser and tempter.

Emancipated from his captivity, you are not yet entirely exempt from his fiery darts. Think it not a strange thing that you should be his target. All the saints of God, more or less, are subjected to a like discipline. He incited David to number the people, smote job with great boils, sifted Peter as wheat, hindered Paul again and again; and, selecting the most shining mark of all, hurled his darts, thick and flaming, at the Lord Himself. Cheer up, then! your great adversary is wounded, deadly wounded; you have to do with a conquered foe, ever under the control of the "Lion of the tribe of Judah," and you yourself shall bruise Satan under your feet shortly.

And what were some of the darts hurled by Satan at Jesus? The devil tempted Him to distrust God, to commit self-destruction, to yield to the splendor, riches, and possessions of the world, to pay him religious homage. Such was the fiery ordeal through which the Son of God passed. And such are some of the darts by which the devil seeks to wound your conscience and disturb your peace. In need, you are tempted to distrust God; in despondency, to self-violence; in ambition, to grasp the world; and in the idolatrous propensities of your nature, to love and worship the creature more than the Creator. O my soul! count it a great honor to be tempted by the same tempter and with the same temptations as your blessed Jesus, through whom you shall get the victory.

Jesus was now being made like unto His brethren. It was necessary, in order to His perfect sympathy with us, that He should be in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin (Heb. 4:15). Fly to Him, then, O tempted one! He is not a High Priest who can be indifferent to your present assault, since He was pierced by Satan, and in a measure is still pierced by the fiery darts which now pierce you. Accept your present temptation as sent to make you better acquainted with His preciousness, His sympathy, His grace, His changeless love. Regard it, also, as a part of that spiritual discipline that is to teach your hands to war, and your fingers to fight in the present with the world, the flesh, and the devil; and to prepare you to take your place among the palm-bearing conquerors of heaven, who overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, who shout the victor's song, and cast their crowns at Jesus' feet. "Take the shield of faith, with which you shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked."

Consider Jesus– as Afflicted

"He was afflicted." –Isa. 53:7

For this Jesus was born. His mission to our world involved it. In the righteous arrangement of God, sin and suffering, even as holiness and happiness, are one and inseparable. He came to destroy the works of the devil; and sin, being Satan's master-work, Jesus could only destroy it as He Himself suffered, just as He could only 'abolish death' as He Himself died. He was truly "a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief." In the gospel according to Isaiah--the fifty-third chapter of which might have been written by a historian recording the event of the Savior's sufferings after it had transpired, rather than by a prophet predicting it seven hundred years before it took place--the circumstances of our Lord's afflictive life are portrayed with a fidelity of narration and vividness of description which can only find their explanation in "the Spirit of Christ, which was in him, testifying beforehand of the sufferings of Christ and the glory that should follow."

"He was afflicted." What touching and expressive words are these! Consider them carefully, my soul. Attempt, if it be possible, an analysis of your Lord's afflictions. And the first feature that presents itself is, that He was afflicted BY GOD. How clearly is this fact put--"We did esteem Him smitten by God and afflicted. It pleased the Lord to bruise Him. He has put Him to grief." Was Jesus, then, afflicted of God? So are we! The God that smote Him, smites us; the paternal hand that mingled His cup, prepares ours. O my soul! refer all your trials to God. Be not tossed about amid the troubled waves of second causes, but trace all your afflictions, however dark, bitter, and painful, directly to the wisdom, righteousness, and love of your Father in heaven. "Himself has done it." Enough, Lord, if I but see Your hand and Your heart guiding, shaping, and controlling the whole.

Jesus was afflicted BY MAN. "He was despised and rejected by men." Beloved, how many of our trials, and how much of our wounding, springs from the same source! This should teach us to cease from man, and to put no confidence in the arm of flesh, since ofttimes the staff we thought so pleasant, and on which we leaned so confidingly, is the first to pierce the hand that too fondly and too closely pressed it.

Jesus was afflicted IN THE SOUL. "My soul is sorrowful, even unto death." Is not soul-sorrow our greatest, even as the soul is the most spiritual, precious, and immortal part of our nature? Is your soul-sorrowful? Are you conflicting with sin, harassed by doubts, depressed with fears, sorrowful almost unto death?--consider Jesus as having passed through a like soul-discipline, and uplift your prayer to Him--"My heart is overwhelmed; lead me to the Rock that is higher than I."

Jesus was BODILY afflicted. We do not read of actual disease of body, but we do read of bodily suffering such as infinitely surpasses all to which we can possibly be subjected; and endured, be it remembered, O my soul! for YOU! This may be the Lord's affliction in your case. A diseased body, distressing nervousness, extreme debility your daily cross. Be it so--it is all the fruit of everlasting and eternal love. Receive it believingly, endure it patiently, and be anxious only that the rod thus laid upon you by a Father's hand should bloom and blossom with holy fruit to the glory of God.

Affliction was a SCHOOL for Jesus. "He LEARNED obedience by the things which He suffered." Not less is it ours. We enter it, for the most part, with but a mere notional, theoretical acquaintance with God, and with Christ, and with our own selves; but sorrow's hallowed discipline transforms us into experimental Christians, and, gazing upon the lowly Savior, we exclaim--"I have heard of You by the hearing of the ear; but now my eye sees You. Therefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes." O my soul! if this be the result of affliction, let the scythe mow you, the furnace dissolve you, the flail thrash you, the sieve sift you; it will but conform you the more closely to your once afflicted, suffering Lord.

Consider Jesus– Our Paymaster

"He was oppressed." –Isa. 53:7

The Hebrew word here rendered "oppressed," signifies to exact, or, to demand payment. It is so rendered in the following passage--"The creditor shall not EXACT of his neighbor, nor of his brother, in the year of release." The word taskmaster comes from the same root; and as there is no noun prefixed to the original, the words may be fitly rendered--it was exacted of Him, demanded, required, and He was 'afflicted,' or, He answered. A truer view of the office and work of the Lord Jesus does not exist; nor is there a more gracious and comforting point of light in which a poor, sin-burdened, guilt-oppressed soul can study Him.

By nature all are God's debtors, owing Him supreme love, perfect holiness, entire obedience, and unreserved service--yes, our whole being, body, soul, and spirit. To meet this great debt, we are--by nature, in consequence of the fall, morally and utterly unable--bankrupt of all righteousness and strength, having "nothing to pay." No will, no heart, no might--in a word, there being in us no good thing. O my soul! ponder this your state by nature--owing an infinite debt to God, with no possible way of discharging a single fraction of the claim, deserving to be cast into the prison of eternal punishment until you have paid the uttermost farthing.

But consider Jesus as the Church's great PAYMASTER and SURETY. Jesus, in eternity, entered into a bond, signed with His own hand, and afterwards sealed with His own blood, to free us from all this great debt. In fulfillment of that covenant engagement, in the fullness of time He was born of a woman, made under the law, and by His perfect obedience and atoning death, He gave full satisfaction to the Divine government, and so Law and Justice exacted from Him the obligation He had undertaken to meet. And now was fulfilled His own prophecy concerning Himself--"Then I restored that which I took not away." Jesus restored the glory of God, of which He had not robbed Him. He satisfied Divine justice, which He had never injured. He fulfilled a Law He had never broken, and so restored to it a righteousness He had never taken away. And He made satisfaction for sins He had never committed; and so, "He restored that which He took not away."

Sin is a debt--Jesus paid it when He bore our sins in His own body on the tree. Obedience is a debt--Jesus paid it when, by the obedience of One, many were made righteous. Death is a debt--Jesus paid it when He bowed His head on the cross and gave up the spirit. And when thus we behold Him dragged into the court of human justice, and sentenced to a felon's death--and when we follow Him to the garden of His sorrow, sweating great drops of blood, and thence to Calvary, and see Him nailed to the accursed tree--suffering, bleeding, dying--what do we behold but the exacting from Him the full payment of the bond for the honoring of which He had entered into an eternal suretyship on His people's behalf?

What life and liberty are bound up in these words--"I forgave you all that great debt!" Believing soul, the debtor's prison is no longer your abode. The bond is cancelled, and God, the Creditor, fully satisfied with the Atonement of His beloved Son, has given a full discharge both to Him and to us, in that He raised Him from the dead. No longer, then, look at your sins, unworthiness, nothingness, and poverty; but look to Jesus, and, looking constantly by faith at Him, walk in the holy, happy liberty of one all whose debt is cancelled, and for whom there is now no condemnation. Is Jesus your Paymaster, O my soul? Then He has equally engaged to provide for your temporal needs, to deliver you out of all your difficulties, and to enable you to meet all your worldly engagements. Surely He who has paid your greater debt to God, will help you honorably to pay your lesser debt to man.

Consider Jesus– as Forsaken by Man

"Then all the disciples forsook Him, and fled." –Matt. 26:56

What a sad contrast does this picture present to the one we have just been viewing--"Jesus, our fellow-sufferer." His time of suffering has now come, but, lo! "all His disciples have forsaken Him, and fled." Is there nothing, my soul, in this affecting and significant fact from which you may gather much that is instructive and consolatory concerning your own condition? We have been contemplating the sympathy of Jesus with His afflicted saints. And oh, what heart can conceive, or imagery portray, the reality, humanity, and tenderness of that sympathy! In all our afflictions He is afflicted, in all our trials He is tried, in all our persecutions He is persecuted, in all our temptations He is tempted. My soul! there is no sympathy among men, saints, or angels, that can compare with Christ's. And yet how thankful should you be for the smallest measure of human sympathy given you. It may have been, and doubtless was, but as a drop in comparison of the ocean-fullness of Christ's; nevertheless, that drop has proved inexpressibly and immeasurably soothing, sweetening many a bitter trial, gilding many a cloud, and lighting the pressure of many a burden. For this uplift your praiseful heart to God.

But even this drop of 'creature sympathy' afforded you was denied your suffering Lord. How earnestly and touchingly did He ask it! "Stay here and watch with me, while I go yonder and pray." And when from the scene of His conflict and anguish He returned, sobbing and gory, to bury His grief in their compassion and love--lo! He found them sleeping! How gentle, yet how searching, His rebuke--"Could you not watch with me one hour?" What condition in the experience of the saints does this page of our Lord's history meet? It meets a sad and painful one--one which could only thus be met--the lack of human sympathy.

You are, perhaps, in a condition which needs the sympathy of a kind and loving spirit, and your sad and clinging heart yearns for it. But, as in the case of your sorrowing Lord, it slumbers at the moment that you most needed its wakeful, watchful expression. And yet its very absence may prove your richest soothing, by bringing you into a closer experience of the sympathy of Jesus. Having Himself felt its need and its lack, He is all the more fitted, as your fellow-sufferer, to sympathize with, and supply your present need.

You are, perhaps, suffering from MISPLACED AND WOUNDED AFFECTION. You have naturally allowed the fibers of your heart to entwine around some object of its warm and clinging love; but chilled affection, or the whisper of envy, or the venomed tooth of slander, has wrenched those fibers from their stem, and trailed them, torn and bleeding, in the dust. How like Jesus now you are, of whose loved disciples it is recorded, "They all forsook Him, and fled."

Or, you are suffering from BETRAYED AND DISAPPOINTED CONFIDENCE. One you thought a friend, tender and true, has deserted you; a judgment upon whose guidance you leaned has misled you; a source upon whose supplies you depended has failed you; a confidence in which you too implicitly reposed has betrayed you; and thus you are learning the lesson Jesus learned when, "all His disciples forsook Him, and fled."

Cheer up, my soul! there is One who has promised never to leave you. When father and mother, husband and wife, lover and friend, forsake you, the Lord will take you up. He who was deserted by friends and followers, will cling to you in prosperity and in adversity, in weal and in woe, with unfaltering fidelity and unchanging love; and though all forsake you, yet will He not in life, in death, and through eternity. How great and precious the divine promise--"They may forget, yet I will not." "Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today, and forever." Precious Jesus! though all forsake me, as all forsook You; yet YOU will never leave me, nor forsake me!

Consider Jesus– as Forsaken by God

"My God, my God, why have You forsaken me?" –Matt. 27:46

My soul! was it not enough that your Lord should be forsaken of man in His sorrow? Was it essential to the accomplishment of your salvation, and to your support and comfort in seasons of soul desertion and darkness, that He should likewise be forsaken of God? Yes! it must be so. The history of the universe never presented such an abandonment--a being so holy, and yet so entirely and so severely forsaken of God and man--as that which Jesus was now experiencing upon the accursed tree. With what a depth of emphasis that word must have sounded from His pale lips, quivering with agony--"'My God, my God, why have YOU FORSAKEN me?' You, my Father--You whose glory I am vindicating, whose government I am honoring, whose Name I am glorifying, whose Church I am redeeming--why, my God, my God, have YOU forsaken me? I can endure to be abandoned by man, but to be forsaken by YOU, my Father, in the hour of my deepest sorrow, at the moment of my keenest suffering, is the bitterest ingredient in my cup of bitter, the darkest hue in my cloud of darkness." Let us devoutly consider Jesus as passing through this eclipse of His soul, and receive the holy instruction and comfort the spectacle was designed to convey.

Of WHOM was Jesus forsaken? His Father. And when, O my soul! you walk in a sense of divine desertion, who is it that says to you, "For a small moment have I forsaken you, but with great mercies will I gather you?" –it is your Father in heaven. It is a Father's momentary withdrawment; and although this thought adds keenness to the discipline and intensity to the cloud, is there no consolation in knowing that the hiding is paternal--a Father secreting Himself from His child--and but for a moment? Thus, though He hides Himself, He is a Father still.

But, what was a cloud of thick, all-enshrouding darkness to Jesus is salvation's light to us. Even as His sorrow is our joy, His wounds our healing, His death our life--so His abandonment on the cross, as a foreign divine expresses it, is "our bridge to heaven; an unfathomable abyss for all our sins, cares, and anxieties; the charter of our citizenship, the key whereby we may open the secret chamber of communion with God."

Thus, if you are, O my soul! walking in darkness and have no light, let the thought be as a ray playing on the brow of your cloud, that, it is not the darkness of hell and condemnation, but the darkness only through which all the 'children of light' more or less travel--the darkness with which the Sun of Righteousness Himself was enshrouded--and which, when it is past, will make the sunshine of God's love and the Savior's presence all the sweeter, dearer, brighter.

And how did Jesus deport Himself in this season of Divine forsaking? What supported and comforted Him during this total and dreadful eclipse through which His sinless soul passed? He trusted in God. His faith could still exclaim, "MY God, MY God." So lean upon your covenant God, O you children of light walking in darkness. As the veiling clouds, though they hide, cannot extinguish the sun, neither can your gloomy seasons of Divine desertion extinguish one beam of the Savior's love to you. If all is dark--a hidden God, an absent Savior, a frowning providence--now is the time to have faith in God. "Who is among you that walks in darkness, and has no light? let him trust in the name of the lord, and stay upon his God." Stay yourself upon His covenant faithfulness and unchanging love, and believe that Jesus intercedes for you in heaven, and that soon you shall reach that blissful world where your sun shall no more go down, nor your moon withdraw itself.

"Through waves, and clouds, and storms,
He gently clears your way:
O Wait His time--your darkest night
Shall end in brightest day."

Consider Jesus– in Loneliness

"And shall leave me alone." –John 16:32

Jesus, for the most part, lived a lonely and solitary life. It was of necessity so. There was much in His mission, more in His character, still more in His person, that would baffle the comprehension, and estrange from Him the interest and the sympathy of the world; compelling Him to retire within the profound solitude of His own wondrous Being.

The TWOFOLD NATURE of Jesus contributed essentially to the loneliness of His life. The 'great mystery of godliness, God manifest in the flesh,' would of itself confine Him to an orbit of being infinitely remote from all others. Few could sympathize with His perfect sinlessness as man, fewer still with His essential dignity as God.

As it was with the Lord, so, in a measure, is it with the disciple. The spiritual life of the renewed man is a profound mystery to the unregenerate. Strangers experimentally to the New Birth, they cannot understand the 'divine nature' of which all believers are 'partakers.' Nor this only. Even among the saints we shall often find our path a lonely and solitary one. How much may there be in--the truths which we hold, in the church to which we belong, and even in the more advanced stages of Christian experience we have traveled, which separates us in fellowship and sympathy from many of the Lord's people. Alas! that it should be so.

Our Lord's WORK contributed much to His sense of loneliness. How expressive His words--"I have food to eat that you know not of. My food is to do the will of Him who sent me, and to finish His work." And so may it be with us. The Christian work confided to us by Jesus may be of such a character, and in such a sphere, as very much to isolate us from the sympathy and aid of the saints. It has concealed temptations, hidden trials, unseen difficulties, distasteful employments, with which we can expect but little sympathy and pity; compelling us, like our blessed Lord, to eat our 'food' in solitude. But, oh, sweet thought! the Master whom you serve knows your appointed sphere of labor, and will, by His succouring grace, soothing love, and approving smile, share and bless your lonely meal.

The TEMPTATION of Jesus rendered His path lonely. He was alone with the devil forty days and nights in the wilderness. No bosom friend, no faithful disciple, was there to speak a word of soothing sympathy. And are not our temptations solitary? How few are cognizant of, or even suspect, the fiery assaults through which we, perhaps, are passing. Of the skeptical doubts, the blasphemous suggestions, the vain thoughts, the unholy imaginations transpiring within our inner man they know nothing--and this intensifies our sense of loneliness. But the Tempted One knows it all, and will not leave us to conflict single-handed with the tempter, but will with the temptation make a way for our escape. "The Lord knows how to deliver the godly out of temptation."

The SOUL-SORROW of Jesus rendered His path lonely. Prophesying of Himself, He said, "I have trodden the winepress alone; and of the people there was none with me." How lonely may be your grief, O believer! None share your sorrow, few understand it. You are 'as a sparrow alone on the house-top.' There are none to watch with you in the garden of your anguish--your wounded heart, like the stricken deer, bleeds and mourns in secret. But your sorrow is all known to your loving, compassionate Savior; whose wisdom appointed it, whose love sent it, whose grace sustains it, and who will soothe and strengthen you with His tenderest sympathy. Let your labor of love, your lonely sorrow, throw you more entirely upon, and bring you into closer, more believing, and more loving relations with, the Savior; wean you more from the creature; separate you more from the world; and set you more supremely apart for God. Oh! then you will thank Him for the discipline of loneliness as among the holiest and most precious blessings of your life!

Consider Jesus– as Not Alone

"And yet I am not alone, because the Father is with me." –John 16:32

There is a sweetness in every cup, a light in every cloud, a presence in every solitude of the Christian's experience. It was so with Jesus, who will mold all His followers like unto Himself. We have just considered Him in loneliness--forsaken by man, deserted by God. But now comes the alleviation--the sweetening of the bitter, the gilding of the cloud, the soothing of the solitude. He was never less alone than at the moment that He mournfully said to His retiring disciples, "You shall leave me alone;" for, as if immediately recovering Himself from the painful sense of MAN'S DESERTION, He added, "And yet I am not alone, because the Father is with Me." No; Jesus never was really alone. Shunning human society, and plunging into solitude the most profound, as He often did, His Father's presence was there to sweeten and soothe it, to replenish and strengthen Him for the work He had given Him to do, and to make those long midnight hours of holy watching and wrestling prayer, melodious with the music, and radiant with the sunshine of heaven. Oh yes, Jesus was not all alone!

Nor are you really alone, O child of God! Alone, indeed, you may be as to human companionship, affection, and, sympathy. Nor is this trial of your spirit to be lightly spoken of. God has, perhaps, given you by nature a confiding, warm, and clinging heart; a heart that yearns for companionship, that seeks a loving, sympathizing friend, to whose bosom you may confide the thoughts and emotions of your own--"another self, a kindred spirit, with whom you may lessen your cares by sympathy, and multiply your pleasures by participation." But the blessing is not permitted you; or, if once possessed and enjoyed, is possessed and enjoyed no longer--the coldness of death, the yet colder and more painful chill of 'alienated affection and changed friendship', has left your heart like a tree of autumn, stripped of its foliage, through whose leafless branches the wintry blast moans piteously.

But this discipline of the affections, though intensely painful to a heart gushing with sensibility like yours, may prove one of the costliest blessings to the soul. A heart that is satiated with the creature, has little or no place or yearning, for Christ. And when the Lord is resolved to be supreme, and finds a 'rival sovereign' enthroned, or a 'created idol' enshrined, He wisely and lovingly removes it, to make room for Himself. Oh, it is when the heart is withered like grass--when its chords are all broken, and its fibers are all torn, and silence, desolation, and solitude reign within--wounded by one, betrayed by another, forsaken by all--that Jesus approaches and occupies the vacant place, takes down the harp from the willow, repairs and retunes it, then breathing His own sweet Spirit upon its wires, wakes it, to the richest harmonies of praise, thanksgiving, and love. My Father, I cannot be alone, blessed with Your presence, solaced with Your love, cheered with Your fellowship, kept by Your power, and wisely, gently led through the solitude of the wilderness, home to be with Yourself forever! "You are near, O Lord!"

"You are near--yes, Lord, I feel it–
You are near wherever I rove;
And though sense would try conceal it,
Faith often whispers it to love.

"Am I fearful? You will take me
Underneath Your wings, my God!
Am I faithless? You will make me
Bow beneath Your chastening rod.

"Am I drooping? You are near me,
Near to bear me on my way;
Am I pleading? You will hear me–
Hear and answer when I pray.

"Then, O my soul, since God does love you,
Faint not, droop not, do not fear;
For, though His heaven is high above you,
He Himself is ever near."

Consider Jesus– in Soul-trouble

"Now My soul is deeply troubled." –John 12:27

In this lay our Lord's greatest suffering--His soul-sorrow. Compared with this, the lingering, excruciating tortures of the cross--the extended limbs, the quivering nerves, the bleeding wounds, the burning thirst--were, as nothing. This was physical, the other spiritual; the one, the suffering of the body, the other, the anguish of the soul. Let a vessel traversing the ocean keep afloat, and she may still plough the deep and brave the tempest; but let the proud waves burst in upon her and she sinks. So long as our blessed Lord endured outwardly the gibes and insults and calumnies of men, not a complaint escaped His lips; but, when the wrath of God, endured as the Surety-Head of His people, entered within His holy soul, then the wail of agony rose strong and piercing--"Save Me, O God, for the floodwaters are up to My neck. Deeper and deeper I sink into the mire; I can't find a foothold to stand on. I am in deep water, and the floods overwhelm Me. I am exhausted from crying for help; My throat is parched and dry. My eyes are swollen with weeping, waiting for my God to help Me." Psalm 69:1-3

How true is God's word--"The spirit of a man will sustain his infirmity; but a wounded spirit, who can bear?" Such was Christ's. And why was His soul troubled? One rational answer alone can be given--He was now bearing sin and, consequently, the punishment of sin--the wrath of God overwhelming His soul. This was the 'cup' which He prayed might, 'if possible, pass from Him.' Divine justice, finding the sins of God's elect meeting on His holy soul, exacted full satisfaction and inflicted the utmost penalty. And thus a glorious gospel truth shines out of this terrible cloud of Jesus' soul-sorrow– that is, the substitutionary character and the atoning nature of His sufferings and death. Upon no reasonable ground other than this can we satisfactorily account for His language--"My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death." But turn we now from Jesus to His saints.

Believer in Jesus, yours is, perhaps, soul-sorrow. A sense of sin troubles you, the consciousness of guilt distresses you, and you begin to think you know nothing of God's pardoning love. Oh, what would you not give to be quite sure that your sins were all forgiven for Jesus' sake!

Or, your soul is in sorrow, perhaps, from the painful loss of the evidences of your saintship and adoption. Like Bunyan's pilgrim, you have dropped the 'white stone with the new name,' and, retracing your steps, mournful and sad, to recover it, you exclaim, "Oh that it were with me as in days that are past, when the candle of the Lord shone round about me."

Or, you are, perhaps, in soul-distress in consequence of the corroding doubts and distressing fears which assail you; and instead of going on your heavenly way rejoicing, forgetting the things that are behind, and pressing on towards those things that are before, your time is spent, as just intimated, in searching for Christian evidences, and in battling with unbelieving doubts and fears.

Or, perhaps, your soul may be in sorrow because you discern so little love to God, so faint a resemblance to the Savior, and so little real, vital, operative religion in your life--in a word, the spiritual life beating with a pulse so sickly and faint, that your soul is cast down within you.

One word of encouragement. Be thankful to God for this soul-sorrow--it is a sure evidence of spiritual life. A soul dead in sin is insensible to any real distress because of sin; a heart destitute of love to God, feels no distress because it does not love Him. A graceless sinner never longs for grace: an unrenewed person never thirsts for holiness, and a dead soul never breathes after life. Take heart, then, O believer, for your soul-sorrow is the prelude to your soul's eternal joy.

But see to it that Christ has alone to do with your present sorrow. Take it only to Him. It will prove the greatest, the holiest joy of your life, if it makes you better acquainted with Jesus. O sweet and welcome sorrow, which He who changed the water into wine changes into a joy unspeakable and full of glory. Any sorrow, Lord, if it but enthrone YOU more supremely upon my heart, to reign--"the Lord of every motion there."

Consider Jesus– in Communion with God

"And in the morning, rising up a great while before day, He went out, and departed into a solitary place, and there prayed." –Mark 1:35

To whom can this impressive picture of high devotion properly apply but to Him whose life was one continuous act of prayer; whose vital and all-pervading atmosphere was communion with God? Jesus literally "walked with God." As man, He was deeply conscious of the spiritual necessities of man; and as the God-man Mediator, He felt the need of looking up to the Strong One for strength, to the Wise One for wisdom, to the Loving One for sympathy--in a word, to His Father in Heaven for the constant replenishing of His daily need from the boundless resources of His own Infinite Being, for the great work His Father had given Him to do.

Wise will it be for us to consider Jesus touching the article of prayer. If He, the sinless One, He the mighty One, He the divine One felt, deeply and momentarily felt, the need of drawing from above by the breath of prayer those supplies needful for the accomplishment of His work and for the glorifying of His Father, oh, how much more have we need that prayer should precede, accompany, and follow every step we take; that communion with God should prompt, aid, and sanctify every act of our lives; that, in a word, in imitation of our blessed Lord, we should often rise up a great while before day, and depart into a solitary place, and, before secular and worldly things took possession of our minds, give ourselves to prayer.

My soul! consider this precious privilege! Is there a holier, sweeter, or more needful one? Consider Jesus in this matter, and form your prayerful life upon the model of His. He always approached God in prayer as His Father. His spirit, His language, His approach was filial. "Holy Father." "My Father." Equally is this your privilege. God stands to you in the close, the endeared relation of a Father by adopting grace, and it were a dishonor done to His name, and an ignoring of His Fatherhood, to approach Him in prayer in any other relation and character than this. Oh, feel that, when you pour out your sinful heart, your sorrowful heart, your broken heart before Him, you are pouring it all into a Father's ear, a Father's bosom.

The prayer of Jesus was REAL COMMUNION with God. So let yours be, O my soul! Rest not content with the form of prayer, the duty of prayer, the act of prayer. Be not satisfied unless conscious of the listening ear of God, the responding heart of Jesus, the vital breathing of the Spirit. Oh, let your communion with heaven be a blessed reality. Do not leave the Mercy-Seat without some evidence that you have been in solemn, holy, precious audience with the Invisible One. It may be the evidence of contrition, of humiliation, of confession; or, of simple faith, of child-like love, of filial trust--but leave it not until God in Christ has spoken to you face to face. Oh, whatever your sin, or sorrow, or need may be, rise amid the twilight shadows which drape your soul, and give yourself to prayer!

By this example of Jesus, we are taught the necessity and the blessedness of secret prayer. "He departed into a solitary place, and there prayed." My soul! enter into your closet, and shut the door behind you, and pray to your Father in secret. You have secret declensions to confess, secret sorrows to unveil, secret wants to present, secret blessings to crave. Away, then, to your chamber. Take with you the blood of Jesus, and with your hand of faith upon His Word, open all your heart in filial, loving confidence, to God, and, in paternal love, He will open all the treasures of His heart to you. Let nothing keep you from secret communion with God. Business, family, friends must all give place to this, if you want soul prosperity. Five minutes alone with Jesus will carry you through five hours of toil and trial. "Come, my people, enter into your chamber." Lord! I come!

Consider Jesus– in the Forgiveness of Injury

"Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do." –Luke 23:34

If the Christian precept of FORGIVENESS be estimated by the magnitude of the injury forgiven, then these words of Jesus present to our view a forgiveness of an inconceivable and unparalleled injury. The greatest crime man ever committed was the crucifixion of the Son of God; and yet, for the forgiveness of that crime, the Savior prays at the very moment of its perpetration, fully persuaded of the sovereign efficacy of the blood His enemies were now shedding, to blot out the enormous guilt of the sin of shedding it.

This interceding prayer of Jesus for His murderers was in the sweetest harmony with all He had previously taught. On no gospel precept did He seem to lay greater stress than the precept of forgiveness of injury. "FORGIVE, and you shall be forgiven." "When you stand praying, FORGIVE, if you have anything against any." "But if you do not FORGIVE, neither will your Father who is in heaven forgive you your trespasses." "How often shall my brother sin against me, and I FORGIVE him? Until seven times? Jesus says unto him, I say not unto you, Until seven times, but UNTIL SEVENTY TIMES SEVEN." Where shall we find any Christian precept enjoined in our Lord's teaching so lucidly explained, so frequently enforced, or so impressively illustrated, as the forgiveness of injury?

Thus, what Jesus taught in His preaching, He embodied in His example. In addition to this prayer for His murderers, uttered amid the insults and tortures they were at that moment inflicting--see Him healing the ear of one of the band sent to arrest Him; see Him turning a look of forgiving love upon the penitent dying at His side; listen to the charge He gave to His apostles after His resurrection, to 'begin' their work of unfolding the message of salvation 'at Jerusalem,' whose inhabitants were to be the first to drink of the Rock they had smitten, and the first to wash in the blood they had shed. Oh, was ever forgiveness of injury like Christ's? My soul, sit down at His feet, yes, beneath His cross, and learn the lesson now so solemnly taught, and so touchingly enforced, even the lesson of forgiving and praying for your enemies, and for all who despitefully use you--"Father, forgive them!"

We cannot pass through an ungodly world, nor even mingle with the saints, and not be often unjustly misrepresented, strangely misunderstood, and unkindly wounded. The lily grows among thorns; the lamb goes forth among wolves. So Jesus reminded His disciples. And yet it is the saddest thought of all that, our deepest wounds are those which we receive in the house of our friends. There are no injuries so unexpectedly inflicted, or so keenly felt, as those which we receive from our fellow-saints.

But, oh, the blessedness of writing as Christ did, those injuries upon the sands, which the next flood-tide of forgiving love shall instantly and utterly efface! Standing before this marvelous spectacle of forgiveness--Christ on the cross praying for His slayers--what true believer in Jesus can think of the wrong done to himself, the injustice inflicted, the pain produced, and yet harbor in his heart a revengeful, unforgiving spirit? My soul, go to the brother who has offended, to the sister who has wounded you, and say, "In lowly imitation of my Savior, I FORGIVE you all that wrong." "Therefore, as God's chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you." Col. 3:12-13

This prayer of Jesus was ANSWERED. On the Day of Pentecost among the three thousand converts were many of His murderers, who, pierced in their heart, washed in the fountain their own hands had opened, and were forgiven. So soon did God answer the prayer of His Son! Let us, like Jesus, "pray for those who despitefully use us." Who can tell how soon God may answer, turn their hearts, convert and save them?

Consider Jesus– in the Exercise of Praise

"I will declare your name to my brothers; in the presence of the congregation I will sing your praises." –Hebrews 2:12

These are the words of Jesus quoted by the apostle from a prophetical psalm concerning Him. We have considered Him as teaching us by His example to pray; it may promote our personal holiness by considering Him as teaching us to PRAISE. Praise is an element of the gospel. It entered essentially, if not prominently, into our Lord's personal life. "A man of sorrow," though He was--oftener seen to weep than to smile--yet there were moments when gleams of joy shone upon His soul, and strains of praise breathed from His lips.

Our Lord was of a THANKFUL spirit, and a thankful spirit is a praiseful spirit. How often the words were on His lips, "I thank You, O Father." He thanked God for the sovereignty of His grace for manifesting Himself to His disciples, for the food He was about to distribute, and over the grave of the friend He was about to raise from the dead. In all things Jesus was of a thankful, and therefore of a praiseful spirit.

And so, my soul, should you be! You have everything to praise God for. For the GLORIOUS GOSPEL of the blessed God; which, in the blessed announcements it makes of full pardon, of free justification, of gracious adoption, of present grace and future glory--is praise, all praise, eternal praise. There is not one announcement in the gospel to dishearten or repel a poor, penitent sinner. To such it is a 'joyful sound' without one jarring note, a salvation without a condition, a righteousness without a work, a pardon without money, a heaven without human merit or purchase--all the free gift of God's most free and unmerited grace. Is not this sufficient to awaken the deepest gratitude and the loudest praise in your soul?

And, O my soul! what shall be said of the praise due from you for the GIFT OF JESUS? Can you think of Him for a moment, and not feel your whole soul thrilling with thanksgiving and tremulous with praise? Oh, praise God for Jesus--for such a divine yet such a human Savior--for such a life, for such a death, for such a righteousness, and for such an Atonement as His. Is there no deep response of your heart to the thankful, praiseful words of the apostle--"Thanks be unto God, for His unspeakable gift?" Oh, praise Him for such a lovely and loving, for such a gracious and precious Savior, but for whom, you had been lost forever!

And have you not reason to praise God for YOUR CONVERSION? Oh, what a wonder of sovereign grace that ever you were brought out of nature's darkness into God's marvelous light! That, ever divine power drew you, and divine love chose you, and divine blood cleansed you, and a divine righteousness was imputed to you! That, ever you did hear the voice of Jesus, when lying in your blood, cast out to the loathing of yourself, saying to you, "Live!" And that then He washed you, and clothed you, and decked you with ornaments, and put a fair chain on your neck, a crown and a mitre on your head, and you became lovely through His loveliness put upon you--a king and a priest unto God! Praise, oh, praise Him loudly for that happy day when, having betrothed you in eternity, He savingly drew you to Himself, and you became His. Can you recall the memory of that blissful hour, and not make the desert ring with your loudest, sweetest praise?

"Oh! to grace, how great a debtor!"

My soul! seek from God the spirit of thankfulness, and cultivate habitually the grace of praise. It is a soul-purifying and a God-glorifying grace. It keeps the heart in perpetual bloom, and converts the life into a daily psalm! Praise God for all--praise Him for the blessings--of His providence, for the barrel of meal and for the cruse of oil that have not failed, for the providence that brightens, for the sorrow that shades, for the mercy that smiles, and for the judgment that frowns--for God's love breathing through all. Thus shall you be learning to sing the 'new song,' and to unite in the never ending music of heaven, where–
"Praise shall employ our noblest powers,
While immortality endures."

Consider Jesus– in the Avoidance of Offence

"Lest we should offend." –Matt. 17:27

How truly was our Lord Jesus 'harmless' because He was 'undefiled.' In Him was no sin. That His Gospel should have been an offence to the scribes and Pharisees, and that His cross was an offence to the world, is no marvel. It was so then, it is so now, and it will be so to the end. But our Lord never, in any one instance, gave NEEDLESS offence. His heart was too tender, His disposition too kind, His nature too holy, maliciously and thoughtlessly to wound the feelings or offend the 'innocent sentiments' of others. Maligned by His enemies, misunderstood and neglected by His friends, yet on no occasion did He retort, revile, or wound; but, with the harmlessness of the dove and the innocence of the lamb. He opened not His mouth. Let us learn of Him in this holy feature of His character, study it closely, and imitate it faithfully.

A desire to avoid offence does not demand a compromise of our Christian faith or profession. On no occasion did it in the life of Jesus. When He might have avoided a snare, or warded off a thrust, or escaped a wound by concession, conciliation, or compromise, He stood firm to His own truth and His Father's honor, unswerving and unswerved--and yet the "sword" with which He fenced and foiled His foes was, "bathed in heaven" (Isa. 34:5). Thus, O my soul! learn of Him. Let this be your guiding precept, as it was Christ's, "speaking the truth in love." Offences will come. For, since "the offence of the cross is not ceased," we cannot maintain its great distinctive and essential doctrines purely, faithfully, manfully, and not evoke animosity against us; nor the hostility and offence of the world.

And yet the Christian law, "giving no offence, neither to the Jews, nor to the Gentiles, nor to the Church of God," is unrepealed; and the Christian precept, "that you may live pure and BLAMELESS lives until Christ returns" is still binding upon all true followers of the meek and harmless Savior. "The mind that was in Christ Jesus," dwelling in us, will lead us to respect the convictions, to be tender towards the feelings, and to be charitable towards the infirmities, and to honor the consciences of other Christians differing from us in things not essential to salvation. "It is good neither to eat flesh, nor to drink wine, nor anything whereby your brother stumbles, or is offended, or is made weak."

"Lest we should offend." What instructive words, O my soul, are these! How much evil in the world, dissension in the Christian Church, and alienation in families would be avoided and averted were the holy precept taught in these words of Jesus more fully observed. Let us, then, pray and watch against every least violation. Let us be careful of our words, our motives, and our actions, lest, wounding and offending one of Christ's little ones, we offend and wound Christ Himself. Oh never give needless cause of offence to a weak believer, to a conscientious Christian, to a tried, tempted child of God--to one who, in his own way and sphere, is seeking to serve his Lord and Master. Let us deny ourselves any and every gratification, and allow any and every loss involving not disloyalty to Christ and compromise of His truth--rather than hurt the feelings, wound the conscience, or put a stumbling-block in the way of one who loves Jesus, and for whom the Savior died.

Oh, how seldom we remember, how faintly we recognize, the perfect ONENESS of Christ with His people! That it is utterly impossible to do an injury to, or confer a favor upon, a true believer in Jesus, and not be brought into personal contact with Jesus Himself--"He that touches you touches the apple of my eye." "Inasmuch as you have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, you have done it unto me." Lord, help me more and more clearly to see You in Your saints; and in conferring upon them a kindness, or in inflicting on them an injury, to see Jesus only!

Consider Jesus– in Sickness

"He Himself took our infirmities, and bore our sicknesses." –Matthew 8:17

How closely and tenderly is Jesus one with His Church! Take the subject of the present meditation as an illustration. There is not a chamber of pining sickness, nor a couch of suffering languor, at which His presence may not be experienced in all the divine power and human sympathy of His nature. The careful reader of His life must have been deeply impressed with the frequency with which His personal contact with bodily infirmity and disease is recorded, and with what promptness and skill He addressed Himself to the task of alleviation and cure. "And He healed people who had every kind of sickness and disease." And still His power and skill are needed, and still are the same. Into the shaded chamber of how many a sick one whom Jesus loves will these pages come, breathing, it is humbly prayed, the soothing fragrance of His Name around the restless pillow! "He Himself took our infirmities, and bore our sicknesses." Let us consider IN WHAT WAY Jesus did this.

He bore our sicknesses WHEN HE BORE OUR SINS. Sin is the prolific source of all evil, and especially of all disease. This reflection embitters and intensifies the sufferings of the child of God. The thought that, perhaps, had it not been for some particular defection, some hidden declension of soul, some sin of omission or of commission, his Heavenly Father would not have not sent the discipline of sickness--is intensely painful to the heart that desires to please God in all things. But how consolatory the truth that, if we may trace all disease to sin as its original and primary cause, we may also trace all sin to the cross of Christ, where He atoned for it, unsealing in His own heart's blood a stream which has cleansed it all away. Oh, let this thought, my soul, soothe and comfort you--that in all your bodily suffering there is no condemnation, the atoning blood of Jesus having washed you whiter than snow, leaving you not the cause, but the effects only of your sin.

But, if sin is the originating cause of sickness, love--divine, everlasting, unchangeable love--is the immediate and proximate cause. That is a sweet expression in reference to Lazarus--"He whom you LOVE is sick." No physician can bring to your sick-bed a medicine so healing, a remedy so soothing, as this truth--that your sickness originated with a Father's love--love selecting the NATURE, love appointing the TIME, love grouping all the CIRCUMSTANCES of the affliction. If, Lord, I can but see that Your love kindled this burning fever, appointed these silent hours, this darkened room, this unrefreshed bed, these quivering nerves, this throbbing head, this fluttering heart--"may Your will, not mine, be done."

Jesus bears our sickness in the grace and sympathy by which He enables us, uncomplainingly and submissively, to bear it. Oh, what a hallowed sanctuary is often the sickroom of a child of God! What divine presence is there felt, what glorious manifestations of the Savior are there made, what holy lessons are there learned, what heavenly prospects are there unveiled! Jesus is there, and thus makes it all that it is.

Be not hasty in judging of the state of your soul in sickness. Mind and body reciprocally and powerfully act upon each other. A diseased body will often impart its morbid complexion to a healthy soul; and, looking away from Jesus, will fill it with doubt, darkness, and despondency. It is what Christ is, and not what you are, that is to fill you with peace, joy, and hope.

Cheer up, my soul! this long, this painful sickness is not unto death, but that God may be glorified. When He has tried you, you shall emerge from this fire all the holier, and more Christ-like--rising from your couch and going forth from your sick-room, "as a bridegroom coming out of his chamber, rejoicing as a strong man to run a race." And thus by the sanctifying discipline of sickness, your covenant God and Savior is but preparing you to dwell in that happy land, the inhabitants of which shall no more say, "I am sick."

Consider Jesus– in the Anticipation of Death

"Father, save Me from this hour." –John 12:27

There were some expressions of feeling in our Lord's life which can only be accounted for on the ground of His perfect humanity. Such, for example, as His apparent shrinking from suffering and death. And this, in its turn, can only find a solution in the fact that, He was not suffering as a common sufferer, but as the Sin-Bearer of His Church. We read of martyrs going to the stake displaying, apparently, much more fortitude than Jesus did in view of His death. The reason is obvious. In the case of the Christian martyr there was no burden of sin, no mental anguish increasing the tortures through which they passed to glory. The sense of God's forgiving love, and of acceptance in Christ, transformed the fiery chariot in which they ascended to heaven into a 'chariot of love'.

But the case of our Lord Jesus was essentially and totally different. His holy soul was suffering for the sins of His Church, and this was the cause of the shrinking and the cry in the garden of Gethsemane--"If it is possible, let this cup pass from me." He bore in His sufferings the burden of their sins, while they in theirs bore only the burden of His love. But what comfort springs from this consideration of Jesus shrinking from suffering and death, to those who are expecting the near approach of the hour of their dissolution!

Consider Jesus as having Himself TASTED death. What a comfort is this fact! He knows what death really is. He tasted its bitterness, was pierced by its dart, felt its sting, and at length succumbed to the foe. He died! Thus, He can enter into your expectancy, fear, and shrinking, in view of this terrible crisis of your being, as no being on earth, or even in heaven, can. The glorified spirits look back upon death, but you are looking forward to death, and in its solemn anticipation there is but One Being in the universe who can deliver you from its bondage and its fear, That being is--JESUS.

But Jesus not only died, but, in dying, He OVERCAME and ABOLISHED death. It is no longer in the experience of the believer in the Lord Jesus death to die. Jesus has, in a sense, so annihilated death, so entirely absorbing it in His own Essential life, that He has declared; "If a man keeps my saying, he shall not SEE death." What an entire abolishment of death, must that be when a dying believer shall not see death! Yes, O my soul! looking in simple faith to your Savior, you shall see JESUS ONLY in that solemn moment. So entirely will He fill the whole scope of your vision, that death will be an invisible object--the pale messenger entirely hidden from your view by the personal sufficiency, beauty, and presence of Jesus. Glorious Savior! veiling the foe so long and so painfully dreaded, my dying eye will see You only--death's illustrious Victim, yet death's triumphant Conqueror.

Be not, then, O my soul! distressed in the prospect of your departure. Christ has come to "deliver those who, through fear of death, were all their lifetime subject to bondage." Alas! through lack of faith in Jesus, we suffer a thousand deaths in anticipation, while in reality we shall not suffer one! "Those who SLEEP in Jesus" is the epitaph which the Holy Spirit inscribes over the dust of every believer in Him. Away, then, with your fears, O my soul! Learn to die daily to sin, to self, to the world; and then from the valley of the shadow of death will ascend, as you pass down, the triumphant shout, "Thanks be unto God, who gives me the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ."

O You! from whose belt hang the keys of Hades and of death; go ahead of the "last enemy" with Your grace, accompany him with Your presence, and follow him with Your power; then shall I fear no evil, but fall asleep in Your arms and wake up in Your likeness.

"It is not death when souls depart,
If You depart not from the soul."

Consider Jesus– in Intercessory Prayer

"I pray for them." –John 17:9

There is no part of Christ's Priestly office more soothing to the sick, tried, and suffering believer, than His intercessory supplication on their behalf. To know that we are borne upon the prayerful hearts of our fellow-Christians, in times when providences are trying, and our hearts are breaking, is unspeakably soothing. How much more so is the thought that Jesus, our merciful High Priest, Friend and Brother born for adversity, is praying for us in heaven--our names worn upon His heart, our woes and needs, sins and sorrows entwined with His prayers before the throne; that, His intercession for us is not a past, nor even an anticipatory intercession alone; but, that it is a present intercession, an intercession moment by moment, "NOW appearing in the presence of God for us."

O sweet thought that, when some new trial comes, and some dark cloud lowers, and some bitter sorrow crushes; at that very moment Jesus is praying for us, asking His Father on our behalf the strength that will support; the grace that will sanctify; the love, comfort, and precious promise applied by the Spirit, that will calm, soothe, and sustain us. Thus consider Him.

Intercessory prayer for others is one of our most spiritual and richest privileges. "Pray one for another." "Praying for all the saints," is the divine and apostolic precept constantly enforced, and by arguments the most persuasive and touching. How many of the Lord's tried ones, through bodily pain, or mental depression, or crushing sorrow, cannot pray for themselves! What a privilege to pray for them, to be "God's remembrancers" on their behalf, to imitate Jesus, and intercede for them outside the veil, while He intercedes for them within the veil! Thus, intercessory prayer on earth, and intercessory prayer in heaven, will envelop them as with a cloud of incense, and the tried saint will be upheld, and the weak strengthened, and the tempted shielded, and the sorrowing comforted, and the sick soothed, and the dying one supported and cheered, as he passes down the valley, homeward to be forever with the Lord.

For the use of those who visit the sick and the dying, the following PRAYER for one who appears to be approaching the eternal world is affectionately suggested–

"O Father of mercies, God of all comfort, our only help in time of need, we fly unto You for support on behalf of this sick person lying under Your hand, in great suffering and weakness of body. Look graciously upon him, O Lord; and the more the outward man decays, strengthen him, we beseech You, so much the more continually with Your grace in the inner man. Give him sincere repentance for all the errors of his past life, and true faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, that, washed in His atoning blood, which cleanses from all sin, he may have peace with God before he goes hence and be seen no more . We know, O Lord, that there is nothing impossible with You, and that, You can raise him up as from the grave, and prolong his life; yet, if it be Your will that he should die, so fit and prepare him for the solemn change by the regenerating grace of Your Spirit, and simple reliance upon the Savior of sinners, that his soul may have an abundant entrance into Your everlasting kingdom, through the sole merits and mediation of Jesus Christ our Lord, to whom, in union with Yourself, O Father, and with You, O Holy Spirit, be all honor and glory, world without end. Amen."

Offering up by that dying couch and in that solemn moment, this prayer in faith of the Divine assurance, that, "He is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by Him, seeing He ever lives to make intercession for them," we may humbly hope that, at the evening time it shall be light; and that, at the last moment, the brand shall be plucked from the burning, and free grace wear the crown.

Consider Jesus– In Bereavement

"Jesus wept." –John 6:35

With what baptism of suffering was not Jesus baptized? What cup of sorrow did not He drink? Well may He ask, "Are you able to drink of the cup that I shall drink of, and to be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?" "Yes, Lord," every believing saint may reply, "by Your grace I AM ABLE; for, while without You I can do nothing, with You strengthening me I can do all things." Jesus replies, "You shall, indeed, drink of my cup, and be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with; for all My members shall be conformed to Me, their Head." "Dear Lord," responds the believing soul, "if affliction, temptation, and sorrow but mold me into Your image, and conform me to Your life, do with me as seems good in Your sight."

There are few sorrows more bitter and more keenly felt, than the sorrow of bereavement. Jesus knew what this sorrow was; let us consider Him in this light.

Are you bereaved? so was Jesus. When the wondrous words were written on which this meditation is founded, He was weeping at the grave of the friend He deeply, tenderly loved, and now as tenderly and deeply mourned. Baptized with your present baptism of woe, drinking your present cup of grief, He knows your sorrow, can fathom with His love its depths, soothe with His sympathy its anguish, and enter into all the intricate and delicate network of the loss and loneliness it entails. "Jesus wept."

And still in compassionate sympathy He weeps with those who weep. How truly human was the heart, and Divine the arm, of Jesus. With the one He moistened the grave with tears, and with the other He unclosed its doors and set its captive free. Both these natures--the Divine and the human--encompass you in your present bereavement. You need both, and both you have. The exercise of His DIVINE POWER in resurrection He may reserve for the moment when "those who sleep in Jesus will God bring with Him; when the Lord Himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trumpet of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first." But the outflow of His HUMAN SYMPATHY shall be now, tear mingling with tear, sigh responding to sigh, in this dark hour of your calamity.

My soul! let your first, your great desire be--not that your wound may be stanched, or your grief soothed, but that your God may be glorified in the fires; that henceforth your smitten and grieved heart may enshrine and enthrone Jesus, as the object of its single homage, and as the sovereign of its supreme rule. Has your God written you a widow?--then will He be to you the widow's God. Has He made you an orphan?--in Him the fatherless finds mercy. Has He by this visitation of death broken a supporting staff, dried a spring of affection, severed a source of supply, put out the lights of life one by one?--fear not! you shall now lean upon His arm, repose upon His heart, live upon His resources, and walk in His light. Thus learning by sweet, though painful experience, that the Lord never removes one blessing but to replace it with a greater; never seals up one spring of happiness but to unseal a deeper one. Then, let your bereaved heart exclaim--"Whom have I in heaven but You, and who is there on earth that I desire besides You?" All are not gone! Your God may have removed one by one of earth's sweet treasures; but He will never take Himself from you. Death may rob you of all but Christ.

"Launched on the tide of God's eternal love,
His ark beneath you, and His light above,
What can you fear? Be still, my soul, be still!
Your God has never left you--never will."

Consider Jesus– as Receiving Sinners

"This man receives sinners!" –Luke 15:2

Nothing gave greater offence to the scribes and Pharisees than the divine mission of Jesus to save sinners. No greater and more virulent accusation could they allege against Him, than that, He extended His compassionate regards to the vile and the wretched, admitting the most flagrant offenders to His mercy, and inviting the most notorious sinners to His fellowship. And yet this, His greatest reproach, was His highest honor. Pluck this jewel from His mediatorial crown, and it has lost its costliest gem. Extract this note from the "joyful sound," and you have hushed its sweetest melody. Remove this object of His mission from His coming, and you have reduced His incarnation, sufferings, and death to a gigantic waste.

Oh, with what glory does the fact that, "This man receives sinners," invest the Son of God! How should our hearts glow with gratitude, praise, and love! If the individual who makes two blades of grass to grow where only one grew before, is regarded as a public benefactor; if we deck the person of him who, at the risk of his own, saves the life of another, what shall we feel towards the Son of God who, in the plenitude of His compassion and love, bowed the heavens, and came down to save countless myriads of our race from the "bitter pains of eternal death"!

Yes, "He receives sinners." He receives them as sinners--lost, undone, self-destroyed sinners--sinners too vile and too helpless to save themselves--who, if He does not save them, never can be saved. He receives sinners of all conditions and of every hue, of every depth of guilt and character of crime. Oh, if there were a sinner out-sinning all sinners--every sin tainting, every crime attaching to him--an abandoned profligate, an unbelieving scorner, a reviling blasphemer, a red-handed murderer, a profane infidel, a daring atheist, a moral parricide whose transgressions have broken a mother's heart and bowed a father's gray hairs in sorrow to the grave--sins as scarlet and red as crimson--as a cloud for darkness, and as the sands on the sea shore for multitude--if, I say, there be such a one whom He would not save, and could not save, then would there be silence in heaven and exultation in hell at the announcement that Jesus Christ had ceased to save to the uttermost bounds of sin and guilt all who, in penitence and faith, came to God through Him.

It follows, then, that, receiving them just as they are, He receives them freely, apart from all fitness or worthiness, of their own. "By grace are you saved." "Being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus." "Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and you shall be saved." What a joyful sound! Come, then, O my soul, to Jesus, without hesitation or delay.

"Just as I am I and waiting not
To rid my soul of one dark blot;
To Him whose blood can cleanse each spot,
O Lamb of God, I come."

Assured of the fact that you yourself have come to Jesus and are saved, be it your aim to bring others to Him, that they may be saved too. Oh, live and labor, if need be, suffer and die for Him, whose greatest glory is, that He receives and saves sinners, who has received and saved you!

"He receives sinners." Hear it, you that are afar off, wandering in ignorance and sin. Hear it, you who, amid the tortures of a guilt-oppressed conscience, are inquiring, "What must I do to obtain mercy and forgiveness?" Hear it, you who once walked in the way of holiness, but have turned aside to sin and folly. Hear it, you who are resigning yourselves to dark despair, tempted to terminate a present misery by the self-infliction of a future, a more fearful and interminable one. Oh, hear it, all you poor and wretched, you humble and penitent, you broken-hearted and burdened--"This man receives sinners, and eats with them." "Come unto me, all you that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest."

Consider Jesus– in His Atoning Blood

"The blood of Jesus, His Son, cleanses us from every sin." 1 John 1:7

The blood of Jesus is everything. It is the central doctrine of our faith, the present and eternal life of our souls. There is no pardon, no salvation, no heaven but by blood--the blood of the Lord Jesus. Were we to relinquish every other revealed truth, and concentrate upon this one our supreme and lasting study, resolving all our knowledge of the Bible into an 'experimental and personal acquaintance' with ATONING BLOOD--as, like a purple thread, it runs from Genesis to Revelation, it would not be a too exaggerated view of this vital and momentous subject. The blood is everything to us--it is everything to God. He provided it, is satisfied with it, beholds it, and when He sees it on the soul, that soul becomes a living and a lovely soul in His sight. May our meditation on atoning blood exalt our views of its dignity, increase in us its power, and endear to our hearts the preciousness of Him who shed it!

The blood of Jesus is DIVINE. It is the blood of God's Son, the God-man Christ Jesus. In this consists its sovereign virtue. The Divine nature of Christ rendered His obedience and death an offering and a sacrifice to God of a sweet-smelling savor.

The blood of Jesus is ATONING. It was shed for sin, it has made to Divine justice a full satisfaction for sin, it puts away sin. Is sin your burden, O my soul? Is it for your sins you do moan and weep, and are cast down? Behold, the sin-atoning blood of Jesus; believe, and weep no more. Here is that before which not a sin can stand.

The blood of Jesus is CLEANSING. It "cleanses us." Oh, this is what you do so deeply need, my soul! Sin-forgiving, guilt-removing, heart-cleansing, conscience-purifying blood. All this is the blood of Jesus to you. Wash in it, and you shall be whiter than snow. "He that is washed is clean, every whit." And mark the tense of the wonderful words on which this meditation is based--it is the present tense. The blood "cleanses." It has cleansed, it will cleanse, but, as touching our daily walk as believers in Jesus, we have to do with its present cleansing. In our Christian travel through a sinful world the feet are apt to slide, prone to wander, and are constantly contracting fresh defilement, needing the daily washing in the blood. What a sweet thought, O my soul! that the fountain is open, and the blood cleanses, even now cleanses us, from all sin.

The blood of Jesus SPEAKS. "The blood of Christ that speaks." Oh, what a voice has the blood of Jesus! What sweetness and majesty, what gentleness and power! It speaks, and the troubled conscience is at rest; it speaks, and the broken heart is healed; it speaks, and the tormenting doubt is hushed; it speaks, and the trembling fear is quelled. It speaks, also, within the veil. The voice of Jesus' blood is heard in glory, sweeter and louder than the voices of all the minstrels round about the throne. My soul, the voice of Jesus' blood pleads louder for you in heaven, than all your sins can plead against you on earth.

It is sprinkled blood--that is, APPLIED blood. Therefore it is called, "the blood of sprinkling." The blood of Jesus practically will not avail us unless applied to the conscience, just as the blood of the Paschal lamb had availed nothing to the Israelite, when the first-born of Egypt was slain, had it not been sprinkled upon his house. And so God said, "When I SEE the BLOOD, I will pass over you." O my soul! look well to this. Why is it that you are so doubting and fearful? Why are you not walking in a full sense of your pardon and acceptance in JESUS–basking in the sunshine of a present and assured salvation? Is it not because you are stopping short of the applied blood? Oh, come to the blood, the blood of sprinkling! Keep no guilt upon your conscience, no anguish for uncleansed sin in your heart; but wash daily in the precious blood of Christ, which cleanses from ALL sin.

Consider Jesus– in the Power of His Resurrection

"That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection." –Phil. 3:10

Is there not some danger of lingering too exclusively at the cross, to the exclusion of the grave of Jesus? In other words, do we give the subject of Christ's RESURRECTION that place in our faith and meditation which we give to His Death, and which God gives it in the great scheme of our salvation? Essential and precious as the atoning Death of Jesus is, it had availed us nothing apart from His Resurrection. We needed more than death--we needed life! We needed more than the bond presented by Divine justice, and paid--we needed the seal of its acceptance on the part of God. This was given when God raised up Jesus from the dead, "who was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our justification."

Christ's Resurrection from the grave by the power of God was the Father's attestation to the completeness of the Son's work, and His public acknowledgment of its acceptance. Thus the Resurrection of Christ is to us what a legal acknowledgment is at the hands of a creditor whose claim has been met, whose bond is cancelled. The believing soul sees in the emptied tomb of Jesus the evidence and the acknowledgment of his full discharge from all the demands of Law and all the threatenings of justice. Now, it is the power of this truth in our souls that more immediately concerns us. The Resurrection of Jesus is an accomplished fact--what we want to experience is, His Resurrection-life in our heart. This was Paul's prayer--"That I may know Christ, and the POWER of His Resurrection."

We first feel this when we realize our mystical union with Jesus. There can be no experience of the power of anything apart from a personal contact with it. Let us first settle the question, "Am I one with Christ?" Have I a vital and spiritual union with the Savior? If so, then I am risen with Him, as the apostle says--"If you be risen with Christ." O my soul, consider into what an exalted and blessed state your union with Christ places you, making you, through free and sovereign grace, a partaker of all that He was, of all that He now is, and of all that He will be when He comes with all His saints in majesty and glory.

By the power of Christ's Resurrection, we enter into a new, or resurrection-life--"Quickened together with Him." Our blessed Lord, when He rose from the dead, rose with a new-born life. Leaving in the tomb the grave-clothes--the napkin and the shroud--He came back clad with His resurrection robes--a new and wondrous life! Of this resurrection-life all are partakers who know the POWER of His Resurrection.

O my soul, fear not, then, that anything shall ever separate you from Christ. This cannot be, since your spiritual life is bound up and hidden with the Resurrection-life of Jesus.

The power of Jesus' Resurrection is experienced by us when by it we rise above earth, and "seek those things which are above, where Christ sits on the right hand of God." Has Jesus risen? Then we, also, must rise. As He left death and earth behind Him, so we, if we be risen with Him, "through faith of the operation of God, who raised Him from the dead," must rise superior to the deadly pomps and vanities of this poor world, and walk with God in "newness of life." Oh to feel the "power of His Resurrection," in a life dead to sin and the world, but living to holiness and God!

We wait to know yet more of the "power of Christ's Resurrection," when the trumpet of the Archangel shall sound, and the dead in Christ shall rise first. The slumber of the grave gently broken, the glorified spirit returns to its awakened dust--then both ascends into the air to meet the descending Lord. O blessed, glorious consummation of the power of Christ's Resurrection!

Consider Jesus– in His Second Appearing

"Looking for that blessed hope, the glorious appearing of the great God and our Savior Jesus Christ." –Titus 2:13

A Savior 'to come' has been the hope of the Church of God in every age and dispensation. The Old Testament saints looked for His coming to save; the saints of the New Testament look for His coming to reign--even "The GLORIOUS appearing of the great God and our Savior Jesus Christ." There are, in fact, three personal appearances of our Lord mentioned in the Scriptures. His first, when "He APPEARED to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself." The second, "Now to APPEAR in the presence of God forever." The third, when "He shall APPEAR the second time without sin (that is, without a sin-offering) unto salvation." In each of these appearances of Jesus, my soul! you have a personal and precious interest. His past appearance was to save you, His present appearance is to intercede for you, His future appearance will be to glorify you.

And so Jesus is the "Alpha and Omega" of your salvation, from the first eternal throb of love towards you--if we may speak of a beginning of that which in reality had no beginning--to the last throb of love to you--if we may speak of the end of that which in reality has no ending. Thus, Christ is all and in all to you, the First and the Last, and, as good Romaine was used to express it, "and all that comes between." Let us consider Jesus in the light of the blessed hope, His glorious appearing, a befitting subject for the close of our daily meditation upon Him.

It will be a PERSONAL appearing. As He went up into heaven so will He return--in person. "This SAME Jesus who was taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as you have seen him go into heaven." So says God's Word, and so we believe. As His ascension was personal, so will be His coming again. This is a sweet thought, my soul, for you to dwell on. He will come not by His spirit, or by His angels--thus gathering His saints unto Him by proxy--but He will come for them Himself. It will be a personal appearing of the great God, our Savior.

It will, consequently, be a VISIBLE appearing of Jesus. "Behold, He comes with clouds, and every eye shall see Him." "When He shall appear we shall see Him as He is." Oh the thought of gazing upon His person, of beholding Him robed in majesty divine, and yet looking so human, so like His brethren, of whom He will now appear, more manifest than ever, the Elder Brother!

He will come WITH ALL HIS SAINTS. Those who sleep in Him will be raised, and those who are alive at His coming will be translated. Moses and Elijah, who appeared with Him in His transfiguration, were eminent representatives of these two conditions of the saints at His coming; Moses, representing those who died, and Elijah, those who will then be translated so that they shall not see death. "The DEAD in Christ shall rise first: then we who are ALIVE and remain on the earth shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air." Thus, whether living or dying in the Lord, we shall all meet again around the descending Person of Jesus, heart pulsating with heart, hand clasped in hand, one anthem sweetly chiming from every lip. "Worthy is the Lamb, for He was slain for us."

This subject is eminently PRACTICAL. It makes Jesus more precious. How quicker beats the pulse and warmer throbs the heart of the bride anticipating the speedy return of her long absent lord! Blessed Jesus! You are the Bridegroom of Your Church, and the Beloved of my soul, and the thought of soon and forever beholding You makes my soul as the wings of Amminadab--unclasped, uplifted, and ready to fly!

O my soul! let not the coming of the Lord surprise you in a state of unregeneracy, unconverted and unprepared! None can meet Him with joy but those who are BORN AGAIN of the Spirit, washed in His blood, and clothed in His righteousness. Is this your assured condition? Then, happy are you!

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Christ is Ever with You!

Table of Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 1. The FAREWELLS

"Surely, I am with you always — even unto the end of the world!" Matthew 28:20

There were two farewells of our Lord on earth, and they formed two of the most touching and instructive epochs of His history. As the sun, setting amid a flood of liquid gold, invests the whole heavens with variegated tints of beauty long after the majestic orb has run its race, so there clustered around the two earthly sunsets of Christ — the most divine assurances, the most precious promises, the most brilliant hopes that ever shed their light and glory upon the pathway of the Christian Church; and which will linger upon its spiritual sky in deathless splendor until He comes again in His glory to set no more forever.

The first farewell of Christ, was when He parted from His disciples on His return to heaven. To them, it was a time of inexpressible grief. To part with Christ was to part with their all. Yet He would not leave them comfortless; nor will He, beloved, ever so leave you. Blended with His departure was the most precious promise and the most costly gift Heaven could bestow or the Church receive — the promise and gift of the Holy Spirit, as the Comforter, Teacher, and Indweller of the Church: "If I depart — I will send the Comforter." What an hour of blessing was this! What a glorious setting of the Sun of righteousness! What spiritual benedictions, what resplendent hopes gather, like a glowing halo, around the sinking of this Divine Orb!

And still the glow lingers. And still the setting rays tinge with unfading light and glory, the gloomy clouds which often drape in woe earth's pilgrimage. We have abiding with, and dwelling in, us the Holy Spirit the Comforter, sent of Christ — to lead us to Christ, to testify of Christ, to assimilate us to Christ, and to sanctify us to dwell with Christ forever! Oh, could the personal departure of our Lord have been blessed and graced with an assurance more transcendently great, precious, and glorious than this?

Our Lord's second farewell was when He closed the sacred canon of Scripture, fencing it with the most solemn warning, and sealing it with the most illustrious promise. And, as the threatening of woe to those who should either take from, or add to, the perfect Word of God, resounded solemnly on the ear, it was succeeded and softened by words which will live and linger in the sweetest cadence until the promise they contain shall be fulfilled: "Behold, I come quickly!"

Then all that is dark in providence and grace, shall be lucid; and all that is discrepant, shall be harmonized; the bliss of the saints will be complete, the mystery of God will be finished, and God will be all in all. O believer in Jesus! long for that day that shall bring the Beloved of your soul arrayed in all His Father's and His own glory. He will come quickly, suddenly, unexpectedly — His advent surprising both the Church and the world — the one slumbering in the light, and the other in the dark. But let us who are of the day be sober, watchful, hastening unto His coming, prepared as a bride for her husband — loving and desiring Him with a single, ardent, wakeful affection. "Come, Lord, Jesus, come quickly!"

But it was in connection with His first farewell that Christ spoke the memorable and precious words, "Surely, I am with you always!" It is not to a future — but to an ever-present Christ with His saints, that these pages will direct your thoughts.

What the Lord has laid up for us, by what road He will lead us, what lessons He will teach us, by what discipline of trial He will mature us for present service and prepare us for future rest — we will not be too curious to search out. It is enough, that it is all in the covenant, and in His hands who administers the covenant.

And whatever new lights and shadows may be penciled upon life's picture, though our song is of both mercy and of judgment — we will patiently wait and calmly trust its gradual and timely unfolding, assured that all our trials will be shrouded blessings, and all those blessings will be bright stepping-stones, aiding our progress in the divine life, our nearness to God, and our fitness for heaven.

Embarking upon a new stage of your pilgrimage, I propose placing the pilgrim's true Staff in your hands, upon which, if you lean in childlike faith, you will be firmly upheld, safely led, securely kept, divinely strengthened, cheered, and comforted every step of your journey. It was left by our Lord for the use of His whole Church when He exchanged the scene of His humiliation, for the throne of His glory. He Himself placed it in the hands of His apostles, who, now that their pilgrimage is closed, have transmitted it to us. In the name of Christ, I now put this divine Staff in your hand, and bid you firmly grasp it and set out anew for heaven. "Surely, I am with you always — even unto the end of the world!"

Let me for a moment concentrate your thoughts upon Him whose promise is thus pledged: "I am with you." Were you assured of the personal presence, ever attending, ever clinging, ever abiding — of a beloved friend selected from a wide and choice circle; and were that one friend the most wise, the most powerful, the most true, the most loving, confiding, and sympathizing — would you not be content to dwell with him through all your future lot — to make him the confidant of your bosom, the partaker of your every joy, the sharer of your every sorrow?

That Friend is Christ! He occupies the preeminent position of being ever near to His people! Everywhere, and at the same moment — His presence is . . .
the atmosphere that enfolds them,
the shield that encircles them,
the sun that guides and cheers their path to the celestial city, where His glorified presence fills . . .
each soul with ineffable happiness,
heaven with its sweetest song, and
eternity with its transcendent splendor!

When Jesus left our earth, He entwined the personal interests of His people around His heart, and bore them with Him to heaven; leaving the gracious promise, that, though personally and visibly withdrawn from the scene of their journeyings, trials, and conflicts — His spiritual presence should ever and everywhere encircle them, until like Himself, they should exchange earth for heaven.

"Lo! Mark! Behold! I the Incarnate God, I who opened my bleeding heart for your redemption on Calvary, I who am your dearest Friend, your Elder Brother — I am with you always, in all places, and at all times, unto the end of the world!"

Saint of God! This is the promise of promises, the richest pearl of all the promises, exceeding in its mightiness and preciousness; while it is the substance, sweetness, and pledge of all the rest! Christ is ever with you, and were this the one and only assurance of the Word of God upon which He had caused your soul to hope, you may gratefully and truthfully exclaim, "Lord! it is enough! with this Staff I will travel onward; and if through fire and through water, You are leading me. Upheld by Your power, and soothed by Your sympathy — I will press forward until You shall bring me into a wealthy place!"

Christ's presence with His people was once, though not now, physical. He was bodily in the midst of His Church. Oh, it is a marvelous truth, the belief of which imparts a conviction of verity to the whole Gospel, that, eighteen hundred years ago, the incarnate God actually tabernacled upon this earth, trod its soil, sailed upon its lakes, drank of its springs, admired its flowers, bedewed it with tears, and consecrated it with blood. That babe of Bethlehem smiling in its mother's arms — that carpenter of Nazareth shoving the plane and plying the saw — that young man, pale and thoughtful, standing at Pilate's bar — that victim of woe impaled upon the central cross — listen, O heavens, and be astonished, O earth — was "the fullness of the Godhead bodily!"

It is written by the pen of the Holy Spirit, and let no profane hand dare attempt its erasure, "The Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us." Yes! your flesh, O believer! laden with infirmity, sorrow, and woe. And He wears it still in a spiritual and glorified form, and is with you in suffering and weakness and infirmity — ever sympathizing, ever sustaining. Try your spirit, whether it be Christ-taught, Christ-loving, Christ-trustful — by its firm, realizing faith in this cardinal and precious truth, for, "every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God."

In addition to this, there is Christ's representative presence with His people in the embassy, fullness, and preaching of the Gospel. The Gospel is glad tidings of Christ, it is the message of His grace, the proclamation of His love to lost sinners. The Gospel is Christ first, Christ last, Christ midst, Christ without end.

Christ is the prophet of the Gospel — teaching His people His doctrines.

Christ is the priest of the Gospel — bearing and making atonement for their sins.

Christ is the king of the Gospel — reigning in the hearts of loyal and loving disciples.

Thus, Christ is present wherever and whenever the good tidings of that Gospel are preached, to "bind up the broken-hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captive, to give beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness, to comfort all that mourn." Remember, O you neglectful, unbelieving hearer of Christ's Gospel, that it is not the minister you slight nor the message you scorn — it is Christ Himself. "We beseech you In Christ's stead" — as though Christ Himself were pleading with tears and blood, "be reconciled to God." O blessed, yet solemn thought, that, whenever my ears are saluted with the joyful sound, infinitely sweeter than angels' chimes — it is Christ's voice I hear, it is Christ's presence I feel, it is Christ's love that thrills and warms my soul, it is Christ's invitation to my weary spirit, Christ's words of sympathy to my sorrowful heart, Christ's promises of grace and strength and hope to my depressed and desponding mind. Oh, welcome, you divine and precious Gospel! bringing with you Christ's presence with a realizing power so personal, so conscious, and so soothing to the soul. We can bid farewell to things most near and dear to us, for the sake of Christ.

Chapter 2. Christ's PRESENCE

"Surely, I am with you always — even unto the end of the world!" Matthew 28:20

But it is the spiritual presence of Christ thus promised and pledged to His people: "Surely, I am with you always." This promise of Jesus, as precious as it is marvelous, is predicated upon His essential Deity. Were He, as some represent, only human and not absolutely divine — what confidence could we have in this promise? What comfort would it impart, what hope would it inspire, what protection would it afford? Where is the created being, be he man or angel, who could in truth speak in language so lofty and sublime as this? "Surely, I am with you always — even to the end of the world!" Would it not be the utterance of the boldest blasphemy in him thus to speak, and would it not be the truest delusion in us thus to believe?

But because our Lord Jesus was God, He spoke with authority, Godlike and divine. "I am with you always!" Oh, sublime thought! there is not a world, a being, a spot in the universe, however remote, insignificant, or obscure — there beams not a star, there flames not a sun, there breathes not a spirit, there exists not an empire — where Christ's government does not rule, Christ's power is not felt, Christ's glory is not displayed. Could the believer take the wings of the dawn, and fly to the most distant planet, or touch the utmost limit of space — there the smile of Christ's love would illumine him, the accents of Christ's voice would cheer him, the atmosphere of Christ's presence would encircle him, the power of Christ's omnipotence would uphold him — he would feel the right hand of Christ gently laid upon his spirit; and in the solemn stillness and fathomless depth of that profound solitude, he would exclaim, "you are near, O Lord!"

We repeat the inquiry for the purpose of pursuing it more fully: Whose presence is thus promised and pledged? It is the presence of Christ! The Christ who is God. "Immanuel, God with us." The Christ who made all worlds, created all beings, governs all empires, controls all events. The Christ who replenishes earth with beauty, heaven with glory, eternity with song. The Christ before whom angels and archangels, principalities and powers bend, and at whose name every knee shall bow, and every tongue confess that He is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. The Christ whose glory is divine, whose beauty is peerless, whose wealth is boundless, whose love is as infinite as His being. The Christ who took your human nature — that same infirm, suffering nature which now wearily you wear — and in that nature bore and put away forever your sins, uplifted and forever removed your curse, paid all your great debt to Divine justice, sorrowed for you in the garden, suffered and expired in your stead on the cross, rose from the grave, irradiating it with the hope of the "first resurrection," ascended up to heaven, lives and intercedes for you, representing your person and presenting your prayers and praises with ineffable acceptance and delight to His Father and your Father, to His God and your God.

The Christ who loves you with an affection whose depth no line can sound, whose constancy no change can chill, whose care of, whose sympathy for, whose watchfulness over you — is the warmest, tenderest love that ever pulsated in a human breast. The Christ who acknowledges Himself your Brother, has proved Himself your Friend, and who assures you that as the head is in union with the body, and the vine is one with the branch — is ever with, ever one with, ever close to you in an invisible, yet real and conscious presence; from which neither life with all its changes, nor death with all its solemnities, shall be able to sever you! Such, child of God, is the Being who breathes these gentle, assuring words into your ear, "I am with you always!"

O honored saint of God! You have . . .
the Divinest in the universe to love you,
the Mightiest in the universe to shield you,
the Loveliest in the universe to delight you,
the Dearest in the universe to soothe, cheer, and gladden you!
O favored disciple of Jesus — you have such a one ever at your side! Tell me, if, of all whom you have ever loved, or all who have loved you — the one who was given to your youth to love you more tenderly than all; yes, the being who loved you yet more deeply, tenderly, and unchangeably still — who loved you as a mother only could — is there one of all these whose presence ever with you, you would prefer to Christ's love?

The question grieves you, you shrink from the comparison, and with uplifted eye, moistened with tears, yet beaming with affection — you exclaim, from the profoundest depths of your soul, "Whom have I in heaven but You? and there is none upon earth that I desire beside You!"

But we must remind you, before we proceed further, that the presence of Christ with His people involves equally the presence of the First and Third Persons of the ever-blessed and glorious Trinity. It is a triple staff we place in your hand, in grasping which, your faith leans upon infinity in its threefold manifestation. We can have nothing to do truly, spiritually, and savingly with one Person of the Godhead — without an equal faith in, and love to, the others. When Christ pledges His presence with you, He unites with it the Fatherhood of God, its boundless sources of love, wisdom, and strength.

Christ came to make known the Father's mind, to reveal the Father's love, to bring home to heaven the Father's family, predestined to the adoption of children. "No man knows the Father — but he to whom the Son will reveal him." "He who has seen Me — has seen the Father." That great God, that eternal Father, who thus spoke to His Church, speaks equally to you: "Fear not, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand!" "Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have summoned you by name; you are mine! When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned; the flames will not set you ablaze. For I am the Lord, your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior!"

Oh, seek to realize this precious truth in all your journeying: the presence of Christ — is the assurance that your Heavenly Father is with you. Christ's voice speaking to you in love — is the echo of the Father's voice. Christ's smile of delight beaming upon you — is the brightness of the Father's smile. Christ's precious promises sustaining and soothing you — are the "exceeding great and precious promises" of God, which are "all yes and amen in Christ Jesus, unto the glory of God the Father."

It is a truth, equally as revealed and equally as precious, that the presence of Christ with His people involves also the presence of the Holy Spirit. Oh that we had a more spiritual, vivid, grateful apprehension of the Divinity, personality, and gracious work of the Spirit — our Spiritual Quickener, our Divine Comforter, our Indwelling Sanctifier, our Infallible Teacher. "I believe in the Holy Spirit," is one of the vital articles of our Creed. Is it equally the deep, experimental, sanctifying sentiment of our heart? Do I firmly, practically believe in the Divine personality of the Holy Spirit, in His official relation to my salvation, in His absolute necessity in regeneration, in His tender, changeless love as my Comforter, in His indispensable necessity as my Teacher, and in His gracious, sanctifying power, as ever abiding with, and dwelling in me? Such is the magnitude and extent of the promise of Christ, "I am with you!" We repeat, it involves the love of the Father who adopted you, the grace of the Son who died for you, the power of the Spirit who quickened you, the Triune-Jehovah!

Before I refer to the circumstances in which you may anticipate a full realization of this precious promise, let me remind you of the offices of Christ it involves, the materials of this triple Staff which Jesus places in your hand.

Chapter 3. Christ a GUIDE

"Surely, I am with you always — even unto the end of the world!" Matthew 28:20

Christ is with us, as our guide. How deep our need of Him as such, and how endeared does it make Him! So blind are we, so dark is our future, so perplexing is our present path — that the very next step might be a false one — taking us into a wrong direction, entailing untold anxieties and sorrows, or hurling us from a precipice into total ruin! Yes, we need just such a guide as Christ!

What Alpine traveler would attempt the ascent of a steep glacier, or cross the dangerous pass — unattended by an experienced guide — one who knew the route, whose skillful eye could detect the treacherous crevice, and whose strong arm could fence the narrow, winding way?

Our path to eternity demands just such a guide as the prophet foretold Christ would be. "I have given Him," says God, "for a Leader and Commander to the people." His own gracious words corroborate this statement when speaking of Himself as the Shepherd of His flock, who "Goes before them, and the sheep follow Him, for they know His voice."

Oh, what a privilege — in every path of doubt, in every circumstance of danger, where human judgment is either warped or beclouded, and your own mind hesitates and falters — to have such a wonderful Counselor, such a divine Guide as Christ at your side! As such — He is ever with you!

He will guide you . . .
with His eye of providence,
and with His hand of power,
and with His heart of love!

He knows the way that you take — for He has ordained it.

He knows every crook in your lot — for He has appointed it.

He will . . .
roll away the stone of difficulty,
level mountains,
fill up valleys,
make the crooked path straight,
and the rough place smooth; this will He do unto you, and not forsake you.

Oh, be honest and upright with Him! Go to Him first, consult Him first, acknowledge Him in all your ways — before you consult any human guide. May Christ, in all the minute details of your life, have the pre-eminence. Learn to lay your own desires and thoughts at His feet.

"He guides the humble in what is right — and teaches them His way!" Psalm 25:9. Not our way — but "His way." We must first surrender our way and will — before He will teach us His. He guides the "humble" — the childlike, trustful, unquestioning disciple, who humbly locks his hand in Christ's and says, "Lord, lead me and guide me, not in my own way — but in Yours!"

Oh, take a firm grasp of this unfailing Guide, and you shall travel safely and surely, through all your unknown future. Be honest and sincere only to know and to walk in the Lord's way, the way in which He would have you to go; and then will He fulfill His most gracious promise, "Surely, I am with you always" — in the midst of the utmost peril and dangers!

Chapter 4. Christ a SHIELD

"Surely, I am with you always — even unto the end of the world!" Matthew 28:20

Christ is ever with His people — as a shield and deliverer. Our estimation of this truth, will be proportioned to our intelligent apprehension of the number and potency of our enemies — and the costliness and preciousness of the treasure thus divinely protected.

With what unslumbering vigilance,
with what divine power,
with what changeless love —
does the Lord Jesus shield the work of grace in the soul of His people!

Who keeps that spark alive — in the midst of the ocean?

Who guards this vineyard night and day — lest any hurt it?

Who preserves . . .
faith from faltering,
love from chilling,
hope from dying?

Who . . .
strengthens the 'work of grace' when it is feeble,
raises it when it droops,
restores it when it relapses,
keeps it in the cold of winter and the drought of summer;
and, when the frosts and winds of autumn would nip and scatter its foliage — clothes it with the freshness and bloom of spring?

Oh, it is Jesus, encircling with His all-protecting shield — the work of grace which His death has accomplished, and which His Spirit wrought!

"The Lord is my rock, my fortress and my deliverer; my God is my rock, in whom I take refuge! He is my shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold!" Psalm 18:2

Trembling believer! The work of grace in your heart shall never die! The kingdom of righteousness, peace, and joy in your soul — is indestructible! "They shall never perish!" is the declaration of the Shepherd who bought you with His blood! You are watched over by Christ — and kept by the power of God. And although the tide of spiritual affection may ebb, and the shadows of twilight fall thickly upon your soul, and you are ready to regard your conversion a mistake, your religion a delusion, and your hope a fallacy — thus casting away your confidence; yet there is One who knows His own work, recognizes His own image, reads His Spirit's writing in the soul, and must Himself cease to be — before He allows those living embers of love He has enkindled upon the altar of your renewed heart, to die. The rain may descend, the winds may blow, the flood may surge — "But the inextinguishable flame burns on, and shall forever burn!"

There are assaults from which alone Christ can shield us!

Innumerable and invisible,
sleepless and restless,
working with an almost almighty power,
everywhere with an almost omnipresent existence,
ever plotting our ruin —
are the spiritual enemies of our soul, and the sworn foes of our faith!

The world and its fascinations,
Satan and his devices,
the flesh and its tendencies,
error and its disguises —
are all confederate against the child of God, opposing his every advance in holiness!

But Christ is our ever-present shield, near at the moment of assault, and skillful to deflect and disarm it! "Fear not, Abram, I am your shield!" are words addressed to all who have like precious faith with him.

Listen to Paul when defending Christianity before Nero: "At my first answer no man stood with me — but all men forsook me. . . . Notwithstanding the Lord stood with me and strengthened me." Severed from the protection and sympathy of man — he was all the more conscious of the presence and love of God. This is the manner of the Lord with us. The stage shall be swept of the human — to give place to the Divine. When the last human prop bends, and the last spark of creature-hope expires — hail it as the harbinger of Christ's nearness, that the more signal may appear His loving deliverance, and the more complete and undivided His glory.

Oh yes! the Lord encompasses you! Encircled by danger — you are also encircled by Christ! When you embark in His cause on foreign service, enter the carriage of a railway, launch upon the treacherous sea, bend your steps of mercy to the bedside of the sick, travel the lone and dreary road — be your experience what it may, let your mind be kept in perfect peace, trusting in this truth: the ever-present protection of Jesus. The unhealthy climate shall be harmless, the sickening malaria shall be innocuous, the perilous transit shall be safe — curtained within the pavilion of your Savior's love. Swelling above the tempest, louder than the voice of many waters, or whispered in the still solitude — shall be heard the words of Jesus, ""So do not fear — for I am with you! Do not be dismayed — for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand!" Isaiah 41:10. Lord, it is enough! My heart trusts in You, and I am helped!

Christ is with His people as the Head and Depository of all their spiritual supplies. The resources of the believer, although not from himself, and often, like Hagar's well, veiled from the eye — are yet, like that well-spring of water, flowing at the very side of the needy saint.

Destitution may reign far and wide, and the plaintive cry ascend from many a famished lip, "Who will show us any good?" Yet the Christian's soul, fed with the hidden manna and quenched from the river, the streams of which make glad the city of God — is kept alive in famine and in draught, and is like "a watered garden, and like a spring of water whose waters fail not."

And what explains this mystery? The nearness at his side of a full Christ, overflowing with a redundancy of grace, love, and sympathy — suiting every circumstance, answering every call, supplying every demand.

New exigencies may occur in his daily history,
new demands made upon his mental and physical powers,
trials of a new form may transpire,
new infirmities may strike,
sorrows hitherto untasted,
temptations before unknown —
all marking a new epoch in his history, a new phase of Christian experience — and all clamorous for the grace that is to sustain, the sympathy that is to soothe, the wisdom that is to guide. And shall they ask in vain? Never! Christ is with us — furnished, given, and pledged to supply amply and fully — all the necessities of His people.

"And of His fullness — we have all we received grace upon grace!" John 1:16. That is, grace following grace; grace answering every call for grace; more grace, grace out-measuring all past supply, all present need, "exceeding abundantly above all that we can ask or think." O blessed truth!

In the world's insolvency — the believer has a safe bank!

In the world's famine — he has a full granary!

In the world's drought — he has springs of water!

In the world's heat — he has his pleasant and grateful shade!

And all this is concentrated in Christ; for Christ is all. O favored saint! to have a full, overflowing, excess supply, so near; exiled from all other resources, other supports failing, other springs drying, other shadows vanishing as in a night — and he, perchance, sitting him down to die in hopeless grief, lo! words fall upon his ear softer, sweeter than angels' chimes, "I am with you always; with you in this lonely place and at this trying moment — to unseal your eye to the boundless fullness, that it pleased the Father would dwell in Me for you, the Father's child."

"Hold me up — and I shall be safe!"

Chapter 5. Christ a TEACHER

"Surely, I am with you always — even unto the end of the world!" Matthew 28:20

Christ is with His people — as a Teacher. There exists no office of Christ that is not openly impugned and denied in the present day — and not one more so than His prophetic office. False teaching everywhere and alarmingly abounds. The teaching of men is exalted above the teaching of Christ, and, as a consequence, Infidelity and Popery are rife, and the people are following after the false prophet and the beast. This is a day in which the Lord's true people must exhibit their loyalty to Christ in His prophetic office — as the sole, divine, authorised Teacher of the Church. To Him, as our Teacher — must we only look; and His teaching — must we only follow. There is no safety but at Christ's feet! We must accept no doctrine, and observe no practice — but what comports with the teaching, example, and simplicity of His Word. If true and faithful disciples — to Christ we must closely and exclusively adhere. We have but one master, Christ; to Him we stand or fall.

Beware, in religious sentiments, of the fascination and influence of ecclesiastical authority, cultivated intellect, and polished teachers: all this is of man, and partakes of the errors and sinfulness of man. Untaught by the Holy Spirit, and unsanctified by God's grace — we have seen the most brilliant and eminent gifts prove but as decoy lights — glimmering along the bleak, fatal shores of Infidelity and Romanism — alluring, and then wrecking, upon the rocks, quicksands, and shoals — the too confiding, unsuspecting mind, "handling the word of God deceitfully."

Oh, be Christ's true disciple — loyal to His person, and faithful to His truth! It is the Word of Christ which quickens you, sanctifies you, comforts you. Nor can you part with one doctrine of Christ, without inflicting the most serious injury upon your soul, and shading His glory. "Let the Word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom." The more experimentally you know of Christ's truth, and the more simply you walk in Christ's truth — the holier and the happier will you be. Oh, how increasingly glorious to your eye and precious to your heart, will Christ become! You will more and more clearly see, that all truth centers in Christ, and that Christ is the substance of all truth; that to know Christ — is to know the truth; and to know the truth — is to be freed from the blinding influence, erroneous teaching, and boasted authority of man. Blessed Jesus! O Divine Prophet of Your Church! "Happy are Your men, happy are these Your servants, who stand continually before You, and that hear Your wisdom."

Christ must our wisdom in the midst of ignorance. He must be our Teacher, for He can teach without any man at all. "Who is a teacher like Him!" Job 36:22

Chapter 6. Christ a SAVIOR

"Surely, I am with you always — even unto the end of the world!" Matthew 28:20

"She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus — because He will save His people from their sins." Matthew 1:21

Christ is ever with us — as a Savior. Oh, how the heart thrills, and the eye beams at the mention of the name of Jesus! What we chiefly need is — not wisdom to guide, or power to shield, or sympathy to soothe, or might to strengthen; it is Salvation — the soul saved — a Savior to save us to the uttermost! We need guilt-atoning blood, soul-justifying righteousness, sin-subduing grace! We need a Savior who has done all, suffered all, paid all, and leaves us nothing to do but, believe and be saved. This is Jesus!

My reader, salvation is the finished work of Christ, and the free gift of God; and nothing less and nothing more is required of you than that, with a penitent and believing heart — you trust in the blood and righteousness of the Lord Jesus. God has laid all your sins, all your curse, and all your condemnation — upon Christ! And all that He asks of you in return is, a believing, loving, obedient reception of His Son. Oh, then, grieve not; dishonor not the Savior by doubting His willingness or ability to save you!

Christ is the all-sufficient and only Savior and Redeemer for all those who will truly put their trust in Him. He saves to the uttermost all who come to God by Him.

Chapter 7. Christ in SERVICE

"Surely, I am with you always — even unto the end of the world!" Matthew 28:20

Christ is ever with you — in service. The religion of Jesus is an active, self-denying religion. The Divine Master has left the scene of His own toil — but He has given to every disciple, his work. Each has his mission — something to do for souls, something to accomplish for the Savior, some glory to bring to God. Realizing in some degree what a debtor to the Lord he is; what he owes to the love that chose him, to the blood that ransomed him, to the grace that called him, to the Savior that gave Himself a sacrifice — the believer exclaims from the depth of his grateful heart, "Lord, what will you have me to do?" And now, to labor for Christ is his highest desire and ambition; be the service home or foreign, pleasant or self-denying, distinguished or obscure, to rule an empire or to sweep a crossing.

In this service for Christ — Christ is ever with you. Unseen and unheard, He is close at your side — guiding your judgment, strengthening your faith, nerving your heart, sustaining and cheering your spirit, honoring, blessing, and rewarding your labor. Oh, think not that Christ can leave you for a moment, while you are active and toiling for Him. He knows all your difficulties, marks your discouragements, is cognisant of your infirmities, sees your faintings and deficiencies, and how burdensome, delicate, and humbling the task. Do you think, while engaged in a service of love for His name, the sweat upon your brow, the pressure of your mind, anxiety and exhaustion absorbing life itself, foes threatening, friends chiding, your own heart often misgiving — that Christ will leave you? Oh, never! "Lo I am with you always" — all days — are the words with which He seeks to strengthen and cheer you on in your work of faith and labor of love which you show for His dear name.

Christ must ever be with us in all the duties of life. We must have His presence as a power in our hearts. "I am with you always," has cheered thousands of hearts in the midst of arduous labors in His service.

Chapter 8. Christ in SUFFERING

"Surely, I am with you always — even unto the end of the world!" Matthew 28:20

Christ is ever with you — in suffering. He Himself was a sufferer. Oh, suffering never looked so lovely, martyrdom never wore a crown so resplendent — as when the Son of God bowed His head and drank the cup of woe for us! Himself a sufferer — is there a being in the universe who could take His place at your side in all the scenes of mental, spiritual, and bodily suffering through which your Heavenly Father leads you, comparable to Christ? What are your sufferings — contrasted with His? And what was there in the unparalleled greatness and intensity of His sufferings — to disqualify Him from entering with the warmest love and deepest sympathy into yours?

Suffering for His sake, or suffering His will — He is with you to sustain, to mitigate, to sanctify. It is given to you not only to believe — but also to suffer for Christ. Removed from the active sphere of your Christianity — the sphere and the service which, perhaps, you too fondly idolized — He has placed you in the school of passive endurance — a position the most irksome and trying to you. Look into the burning, fiery furnace of the three children of Israel: "Look! I see four men walking around in the fire, unbound and unharmed — and the fourth looks like the Son of God!" (Daniel 3:25) So is Christ with you in suffering. You shall pass through the furnace — the flames only destroying your bonds and setting you free from some dominant sin, some potent spell, some slavish fear — bringing you more fully into the happy, holy, realization of your adoption, pardon, and acceptance of God. Treading that furnace at your side, controlling its flames, tempering its heat — is the same Son of God who trod it with them, and who says to you, "Surely, I am with you always!"

The blessed Savior is never more with His people than in suffering. He himself has been a sufferer, and He knows how to pity His people when they suffer; and if best for them — He can send them quick relief.

Chapter 9. Christ in RETIREMENT

"Surely, I am with you always — even unto the end of the world!" Matthew 28:20

Christ is ever with you — in retirement and solitude. It was in this path of loneliness, consecrated to contemplation and prayer — that our blessed Lord was the most effectually trained and girded for His mission of love. He frequently and habitually sought retirement. Sequestered from the world, withdrawn from His disciples — He would thread the mountain crags and seek in its deep ravines and hidden recesses — the solitary place for prayer. Entering that lonely garden "over the brook Kedron," amidst its hallowed shades, its leafy grottoes, and its solemn stillness — He spent the night preceding his crucifixion in agonizing prayer, imploring strength from His Father for the morrow.

How simple and concise, yet how pregnant with meaning, is the narrative of Christ's habits of solitude: "And in the morning, rising up a great while lefore day, He went out and departed into a solitary place, and there prayed." How holy and instructive, and how melting — the pathos of this spectacle! Child of solitude! whose social position, or whose mental idiosyncrasy, or whose refined and sensitive nature, or whose bodily infirmities — separate you from your fellows, cloister you from the world — oh, your path was trodden by your Lord! He walked it before you, and He will delight to come, and by the soothing of His love, and the succourings of His grace, and the manifestations of His glory — re-tread again, those footprints He has left upon your shaded way, cheering and comforting you with His presence.

Oh, you cannot be alone! You are alone with Christ! Blessed loneliness, hallowed solitude — shared and sweetened and sanctified by Jesus! Around that sleepless pillow, by that couch of pain, in that room of stillness — Christ's presence hovers. Holy are the lessons which He will now teach you; sweet are the truths which He will now unfold to you; soothing are the words which He will now speak to you; unutterable the blessings, into the experience of which He will now bring your soul.

It has pleased Him, perhaps, to deny you home and friends and means of grace — thus severing and separating you from all, but Himself. Be it so — He still is yours. In separation and solitude — He will unfold to you the secret of His covenant, the secret of His love. And now your soul, unclasping her pinions, rises nearer to heaven, nearer to God. Disengaged from the world, severed from the creature, cut off from resources — Christ will have more of your heart, and you will have more of His, than ever. Solitude shared with His presence and sunned with His smile; supplies more immediately traced to His hand — will increase your knowledge of God, strengthen your drooping faith, deepen your personal holiness, and give development, symmetry, and perfection to your entire Christian character. And when you emerge from it, thus trained and disciplined — you will go forth to active duty, "as a bridegroom coming out of his chamber, rejoicing as a strong man to run a race."

Chapter 10. Christ in BEREAVEMENT

"Surely, I am with you always — even unto the end of the world!" Matthew 28:20

Christ is ever with you — in the hour of bereavement. He, too, drank of this bitter cup. He does not offer you a heart unacquainted with your grief. He had much to do with death when on earth. He sympathized with its sorrow, awoke its slumbers, robbed it of its prey, became its Victim, and then its Victor! He has permitted this bereavement to visit you. Not without His will and His purpose of love — has He smitten you with this woe, visited you with this loss. Has your Heavenly Father written you a widow, an orphan, childless, friendless? Has He removed the joy of your heart, the light of your home, the hope of your family, the strong and beautiful staff upon which you leaned for support? Is your door darkened with the funeral that bears from its threshold, all that was so fondly loved and precious?

Oh, deem not yourself forsaken, desolate, and bereft! Christ was never nearer to you, than now. The Christ who bedewed the turf of Lazarus's grave with tears of bereaved affection for the dead, and of sacred sympathy with the living — is spiritually at this moment, by your side! He offers you a heart touched with your grief, throbbing with a love that more than compensates for the beloved one now cold in death! He offers you an arm that shall be equal in its strength and support to your emergency! He offers you a shield that will encircle your person, your position, and your interests — infinitely more potent and safe than that which at one fell stroke God has laid low. Christ is sensibly, and manifestly with you now — ah wish not to displace Him by recalling the treasure from which you have parted.

It is recorded of the amiable and pious Fenelon, that in the eulogy he pronounced over the Dauphin, his illustrious pupil and friend, as the corpse shrouded with the pall was placed in the church before the pulpit, where, "Lovely in death, the beauteous ruin lay!" he uttered these words; "There lies the hope of his father! the delight of his court! the object of the nation's joyful anticipation! But so convinced am I of his happy state, that, if the turning of a straw would bring him back, I would not turn that straw."

Weeping mourner! bereaved Christian! in the bright sunshine of hope which bathes the coffined remains of "one so dear," read this holy lesson of cheerful acquiescence with the will of your Father, and express your perfect satisfaction in the eternal happiness of the departed one now sweetly sleeping in Jesus. If the turning of a straw would recall him from the realms of glory — would you be willing to turn that straw? This new, deeper, and darker sorrow — shall bring Jesus with it.

Its anguish will be solaced by His love,
its loneliness will be shared by His presence,
its gloom will be brightened with His smile,
its calamity will be sanctified by His grace, and

all its new-born exigencies will be met by His boundless resources of wisdom, power, and love. "Surely, I am with you always!"

Christ is specially with His people in bereavement. In the sad hour when the heart is full of desolation, His voice is heard saying, "Let not your heart be troubled." We may be despoiled of the heart's richest treasures — and yet Jesus may fill it with His richest consolations.

Chapter 11. Christ in SICKNESS

"Surely, I am with you always — even unto the end of the world!" Matthew 28:20

Christ is ever with you — in sickness. There are some trials which in an especial manner bring Christ near to us. There is a secret in all sorrow — there is a deep secret in sickness. To whom can the sufferer confide it? The disease, perhaps, perplexes the judgment or baffles the skill of the physician. The nervous irritability, the mental sensitiveness, the extreme weakness, the acute agony which renders the sound of the gentlest footfall too powerful for the frame — may be but little understood by the most considerate, tender watchers at your side. They, perhaps — but little know what heroic fortitude, what patient endurance of spirit — lie concealed beneath all this uncomplaining suffering, what an incessant conflict is waging, and by what a superhuman struggle — the mastery is obtained of the mind over the body, and of God's grace over both.

How difficult it is to suppress irritation, and how hard to express gratitude, when even the smile of love and the tear of compassion can awaken no responsive feeling — where all is pain, uneasiness, and despondency!

But Christ is ever with you in your sickness! You may not always be sensible of it. Your physical infirmities may absorb all thought and consciousness, but that of suffering and languor, depriving you of the sensible enjoyment of the Lords presence. Notwithstanding, He is at your side, watching you with sleepless love, supporting with His own grace — the spiritual depression of your sou; and mitigating with His own power — the anguish of your bodily sufferings.

Think of the human and tender considerateness of Christ! He knows your frame, and remembers that you are dust, and does not exact and expect from you, more than you are capable of experiencing. Blessed sickness — that leads the mind more fully into the conscious presence of Christ — that pillows the restless head upon His changeless love — that realizes the encircling of His omnipotent arm beneath the sinking frame — that attunes the discordant will into sweeter and more perfect harmony with His — that gently molds the soul to His own meek and patient spirit! Oh, holy lessons, precious truths, costly blessings — learned and experienced on a bed of sickness and of suffering! And were this the only blessing — the clinging, soothing, sustaining presence of Christ with the sick one He loves, it were enough.

Chapter 12. Christ in TEMPTATION

"Surely, I am with you always — even unto the end of the world!" Matthew 28:20

Christ is ever with you — in temptation. The hour of temptation in the believer's experience, is one in which he may especially and safely rely upon the nearness to him of the Lord. Tried Himself in this crucible, as none ever were — He is prepared by all the workings of His power, all the restraints of His grace, and all the sympathy of His love — to support and deliver those who are tempted. Tempted in all points as you are — He knows how to foil the adversary, to quench the fiery dart, and to enable you, the solitary and the weak one — to put to flight ten thousand foes.

Tempted believer! your faith in the truth of the Bible, your confidence in the God of the Bible, your loyalty to the Savior of the Bible, your acceptance of the salvation of the Bible, your comfort from the promises of the Bible, your enjoyment of the hope of the Bible — assailed and tampered with by Satan — fear not! Greater is He who is with you — than those who are against you. "The Lord knows how to deliver the godly out of temptation." Take heart, then, tempted believer! you shall come forth from the fiery furnace, from this painful discipline, of which all the saints of God are partakers — with your faith more firmly grounded, your love more deeply rooted, your heart more thoroughly purified, and your hope of glory more unclouded.

All the more precious to your heart, will be that Divine Intercessor for His tempted ones, who says, "Satan has desired to have you that he might sift you as wheat — but I have prayed for you that your faith fail not." O you Satan-tempted soul, "Surely, I am with you always!"

Chapter 13 Christ in ADVERSITIES

"Surely, I am with you always — even unto the end of the world!" Matthew 28:20

In the temporal calamities and adversities of this life, in the vicissitudes of commerce, in the pressure of poverty — it is equally our privilege to plead in prayer and faith, this appropriate and precious promise of the Savior, and invoke His interposition, support, and aid.

Our Lord, when on earth, never showed Himself indifferent to the temporal necessities of man. We read that He had compassion on the multitude, because they had nothing to eat; and in the exercise of His sympathy, and in the interposition of His power — fed thousands with bread. He is still the same today.

Have your commercial transactions met with a reverse? Are you actually under the pressure of poverty — your wife and your little ones crying for bread? Go in prayer, my brother, and plead in childlike faith this gracious promise of Jesus, "Surely, I am with you always," and you shall not plead in vain.

Ah, yes! He has sent, He has permitted this calamity but to show you how near He is to you, how He will, as of old, tenderly compassionate your need, and then, in the boundlessness of His divine resources, abundantly supply it. See Christ, and Christ alone — in your present distress. Bow uncomplainingly, cheerfully, to His will. Lean confidingly, unwaveringly upon His arm. Trust His goodness, faithfulness, and power. And, oh, if this temporal calamity, this worldly sorrow — but draws your soul to Christ; if now you are aroused to prayer, and are led to turn to God, to seek spiritual blessing, the "bread of life," without which you perish, the "true riches" of grace on earth and of glory in heaven — then through eternity you will praise the Savior for the overwhelming calamity which saved your soul, as by fire.

Turn now, amid crushed hopes, wrecked fortune, the biting and the cries of poverty — to Him whose providence can cause the barrel of meal and the cruse of oil not utterly to fail, and whose grace can so sanctify your affliction and chasten your sorrow — as to make this present adversity the sweetest, holiest, costliest blessing of your life.

Yes! Christ is with you always — all your days! He is with you in the inexperience and temptations of your youth — to counsel and keep you! He is with you in the cares and anxieties of manhood — to sustain and soothe you! He is with you the feebleness, infirmity, and loneliness of old age — to be your staff and comfort. Christ is ever with you in widowhood — to vindicate your nights and cheer your desolation! He is with you in your lonely orphanage — to be to you as a father and a friend! He is with you in all the adversities and vicissitudes of life, its changing scenes and dying friends!

In the total absence of the kind sympathy for which you yearn, the affection for which you pant, the counsel and protection which you need — Christ will in your experience make good to the letter, His precious promise, "Surely, I am with you always!" Oh! to have His presence with you in these circumstances, you can well afford to part with all others.

You are perhaps anticipating a trial, and, like the disciples in the transfiguration — you fear as you enter into the cloud, the portentous shadow of which is darkening and closing around you. But how groundless were their fears! and equally so are yours. Christ was with them in the cloud, and a Father's voice issued from its bosom. Never were they more honored, or more safe. The same Christ, the same almighty, loving Friend — is with you in the cloud which now you so much dread. Oh, trust your trembling soul to Him!

Is it the heart's wrench you fear? Is it mental despondency you dread? Is it bodily suffering from which you shrink? Is it temporal loss you anticipate? "I am with you always!" is the soothing, assuring promise with which Jesus would have you meet it. He will strengthen, sustain, soothe, and comfort you — with His blissful presence at the moment of the trial. Trust Him now! He never yet belied Himself, never broke this precious promise in a solitary instance.

"As your day — so shall your strength be." "As your day!" His presence will dissipate the gloom, quell the fear, hush the murmur, deaden the suffering; and, thus encircled by His arms — He will bear you through it, to the eternal praise and glory of His name!

In all our distresses and adversities — Christ is ever with us. Friend of sinners! Lord of saints! my trembling spirit shrinks; I fear as I enter into this cloud! Be sensibly near me. Let me feel Your hand, hear Your voice, realize Your presence — then shall I fear no evil, for You are with me, Your rod and Your staff will support and comfort me. "Surely, I am with you; I will be with you. Fear not." Enough, my gracious Lord! I will now enter into the cloud; I will gird me for the trial, and, supported by Your grace and soothed by Your love — will glorify You in the fire!

Chapter 14. Christ in DEATH

"Surely, I am with you always — even unto the end of the world!" Matthew 28:20

Christ is with you — in the hour and article of death. Never did a believer in Jesus die alone! Alone he may be as to all human aid and Christian sympathy. But he cannot be really and actually alone; for, if ever Christ fulfils this exceeding great and precious promise, "I am with you always" — it is when His blood-bought, ransomed saint enters and passes through the shaded valley. He is with you to speak the promises, to mete out the grace, to stifle fear, to repel the tempter, to apply the blood, to strengthen faith, and to waken the echoes of the silent valley with the music of His voice: "I am with you."

Amid the prostration of earthly hopes, when unable to glance one thought on a dark future, when the stricken spirit, like a wounded bird, lies struggling in the dust, with broken wing and wailing cry, longing for pinions to fly away from a weary world, to the rest and quiet of the grave; in that hour of earthly dissolution, He who has the keys of death at His belt, nay, who has tasted death Himself, and better still, who has conquered it — draws near in touching tenderness, saying: "Surely, I am with you! I am with you to cheer you, to comfort you, to support and sustain you! I, who once wept at a grave, am here to weep with you! I will be at your side in all that trying future; I will make my grace sufficient for you, and my promises precious to you, and my love better than all earthly affection. I am the strength of your heart and your portion forever!"

In summary, Oh! seek much, living and dying — of the sensible presence of Christ! Let this be the grand, essential character of your religion: a religion, the essence, the sunshine of which is the ever conscious presence of Jesus. Walk daily at His side. Cultivate confidential transactions with Him. Allow no sin to grieve Him, no distrust to wound Him, no coldness, shyness, or distance of fellowship to lessen one throb, to suppress one desire, to congeal one current, or to prevent one act of your love. As his disciple and follower, separate yourself from the world, and bear His cross after Him boldly and uncompromisingly, yet meekly and heroically. Be happy in all His dealings with you; all that He sends or withholds, gives or removes — for He has said, "I will never leave you, nor ever forsake you!" No! He will be with you until He brings you home to glory! Precious presence of Christ on earth! it is the dawn of glory, the pledge of heaven, the foretaste of celestial bliss, the first-fruits of the golden harvest of eternity!

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

COUNSEL AND CONSOLATION FOR THE TEMPTED

Table of Contents

Preface

1. The Tempter, Occasion, and Scene of Christ's Temptation

2. Christ and the Christian Tempted to Distrust Divine Providence

3. Christ and the Christian Tempted to Self-Destruction

4. Christ and the Christian Tempted to False and Idolatrous Worship

5. Christ and the Christian Tempted with Worldly Grandeur and Possession

6. The Sympathy of Angels with Christ and the Christian in Temptation

7. The Sympathy of Christ with the Christian in Temptation

8. The Final Overthrow of the Tempter and Blessedness of the Tempted

Preface

"For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize
with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted
in every way, just as we are--yet was without sin." Hebrews 4:15

"Tis one thing to be tempted,
Another thing to fall."--Shakespeare.

The design of the present volume is not to examine the various hypotheses advanced as to the mode by which the Son of God was assailed by Satan in the wilderness. Accepting, as the author unhesitatingly does, the received and orthodox opinion that the Temptation, as narrated by the Evangelist, is not allegorical, but what it professes to be, a veritable fact,-the representation, not of a mythical, but of an actual transaction,-he finds no difficulty in presenting it in a point of light which he does not remember to have seen hitherto attempted, viz., the identity, in all its essential features, of Christ's temptation and those of the Christian.

Acceding-as we are bound-to the inspired declaration that our Lord was "tempted in all points like as we are," it follows that there must exist a corresponding coincidence in the collision of Christ with Satan, and the spiritual conflict in which every good man is engaged of the same nature and with the same foe. We do not, therefore regard a single attack of Christ by the Devil as not having its counterpart, in some degree, with the experience of every Christian. Nor can we imagine a fact more instructive and consolatory to those who, from the same source and with the same weapons, "are in heaviness through manifold temptations," than the assurance of the personal and perfect oneness of the tempted Head of the Church-as its great sympathetic nerve-with the tempted members of His Body.

The author devoutly trusts that the study of this entwined interest of Christ and His people-however imperfectly presented-may, with the blessing of the Holy Spirit, prove as soothing and sanctifying to the mind of the reader, as its discussion in these pages has been to his own. To the Divine benediction of the Triune God, and to the gracious acceptance of the one tempted Church of Christ, he prayerfully and affectionately commends the volume.

1. THE TEMPTER, OCCASION, AND SCENE OF CHRIST'S TEMPTATION.

"Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilderness, to be tempted of the devil"-Matt. iv. x.

No chapter of our Lord's brief yet eventful life-if we except the narrative of His Death and Resurrection-is replete with such marvelous interest, profound instruction, and rich comfort to the Christian Church, as His conflict with Satan in the wilderness. Nor will this appear surprising if we weigh the fact that Christ was a representative Person. In no instance of His life did He act other than in His official relation. Thus all He taught, did, and endured had a substitutionary reference to His people, and in no instance was exclusively of a personal and private character. That our Lord's Temptation was an indispensable part of His mediatorial work,-that it entered essentially into the lesson of "obedience He was to learn by the things which He suffered,"-and, moreover, that it constituted an absolute element of His personal fitness to "succour them that are tempted, being in all points tempted like as we are," will not admit of a doubt. Yet, nevertheless, all that He taught, did, and endured was as the legal and accepted Representative of His Church, in whose place, as its "Head over all things," He stood. Turn we now to the study of our Lord's Temptation, as endured, not exclusively for Himself, but as in mystical union with His people,-"tempted in all points like as we are." The inspired narrative is simple and concise. The Evangelist Matthew, with inimitable simplicity, thus introduces the remarkable event: "Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilderness, to be tempted of the Devil."

"To be tempted of the Devil"-The language of the inspired narrator admits of no reasonable misconception. He speaks of the Tempter in terms perfectly intelligible. There are individuals who, in their judicial blindness and supercilious self-conceit--influenced, perhaps, in their opinion in many cases by the terror which guilt inevitably inspires have found it convenient and soothing to ignore the positive existence of Satan altogether, affirming that there is no Devil! Others, while admitting the existence of a Prince of Evil, whose ravages they dare not deny, whose subtlety they cannot explain, and whose malignity baffles their astutest comprehension, yet reject the idea of personality, substituting for it the vague, incoherent notion of a principle of evil-an impersonal influence-a phantom of power! That our Lord was not acted upon by an abstract principle of evil-a shadowy, impalpable foe-all the circumstances of this most wonderful transaction clearly demonstrate. But the doctrine of the personality, equally as the actual existence of Satan, admits of the most rational and simple proof.

Among the angels "who kept not their first estate, and are now reserved under chains and darkness to the judgment of the great day," Satan, or the Devil, must be numbered; to whose pre-eminent dignity and power-the "tall archangel" of Milton-was conceded by his compeers the rank and supremacy of the Prince, or Leader of the countless legions spoken of as "the Devil and his angels." It is impossible intelligently to study the agency and power of Satan as recorded in the Bible, and yet predicate that agency and power as a mere influence, or abstract principle of evil! That the personification of a principle of evil, according to a well-known figure of speech, may exist apart from any claim to a real and personal existence, we fully concede. The Book of Job supplies numerous instances of this personification, where wisdom-height-famine-death, &c., are thus personified. But no obscurity veils the sense in which the figure of speech is here employed: every intelligent reader understands that the impassioned language is merely designed by the writer to impart a poetic animation and effect to his discourse. But how vastly different the style and force when Satan is the subject both of Christ and the inspired penman! Can language like this be predicated of a mere attribute-influence-a principle of evil: "Satan sins from the beginning." "Ye are of your father the Devil, and the works of your father ye do: when he speaks of a lie, he speaks of his own; for he is a liar, and the father of it." "Put on the whole armor of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the Devil." Does this language of Christ and the Apostle sound like a figure of speech-a principle-an influence,-or, is it of a personal existence-a being of vast intellect, consummate subtlety, fiendish malignity, clothed with a power, exerting an agency and ruling over an empire, second only to God Himself-of whom the sacred writers speak, and against whose machinations the Apostle thus warns us: "Be sober, be vigilant, because your adversary the Devil as a roaring lion walks about, seeking whom he may devour: whom resist steadfast in the faith." Accept the Unitarian hypothesis of an abstract principle of evil, a mere influence or attribute, as all that is meant in the Bible of the Great Tempter, and as affording a correct interpretation of these passages we have quoted proving his personality, and we have an example of reductio absurdum of the most felicitous description!

O Christian! forget not that in the great moral conflict in which you are enlisted, you are opposed by no mere principle, or influence, or phantom of evil, but by a Foe possessing a distinct personal existence, to whom-without the slightest deification-we ascribe an intelligence, power, and presence second only to the Divine Being Himself: whose presence is everywhere and at the same moment; who is conversant of your every action, and who reads your every thought, volition, and purpose, with all the ease and accuracy of a book! "Wherefore take unto you the whole armor of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand."

Passing from this view of the Tempter, let us consider the Temptation itself.

The Occasion of our Lord's Temptation was remarkably significant,-it was on the solemn and holy administration of His Baptism. Immediately after His submission to this sacred rite-immediately following His "fulfillment of all righteousness," immediately after the heavens had opened and the Spirit had descended upon Him-and the Father had testified to His Divine Sonship, and His well-pleasing-immediately that He had thus, by His Baptism, inaugurated His public ministry-lo! "He was driven into the wilderness, to be tempted of the Devil!" How similar and impressive this feature of Christ and the Christian's temptation! Our Lord, as the Mediator of His Church, had lessons to learn which could only be learned in this fiery conflict-a fitness to be attained as the sympathizing High Priest of His people, which only could be acquired as He Himself was tempted in all points as we are. No wonder, then, that, while His robes were yet streaming with the baptismal waters, and the halo of the Spirit's glory yet encircled His head, and the cadence of His Father's voice yet lingered upon His ear, that He should be led into the depths of the forest-the abode of wild beasts-to battle with the "Prince of Darkness," surrounded and backed by the confederated host of countless demons!

Is not this often the experience of the believer? In nothing, perhaps, is the identity of Christ and the Christian more signal. Have not some of our sharpest temptations, and sorest trials, and heaviest afflictions immediately succeeded a season of high, holy, spiritual exercise? After we have discharged some pious duty-have obeyed some Divine command-have performed some Christian service,-after a season of close communion with God, and a gracious manifestation of the Savior to the soul: lo! we have descended from the Mount, and are led into the wilderness to be assailed and wounded by some deadly shaft of the Devil! Thus was it with Paul: descending from the third heaven-glowing with its effulgence, and filled with the rapture of the scenes he had beheld, and the music he had heard-lo! he is led yet deeper into the wilderness, to become a shining mark for the enemy's flaming shaft-"the messenger of Satan to buffet him." Be not surprised, then, if thus it is with you, O Christian! Never have we greater need to be whole nights in our watch-tower-to be more strongly fortified against the assaults of the Devil, than when descending from the mount of transfiguration, or emerging from a fresh baptism 'in the sea and in the cloud' of God's love.

"Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilderness, to be tempted of the Devil." The relation of the Holy Spirit to the Temptation of Christ-and thus His association with us in all our temptations-is a most remarkable and instructive feature. In the symbol of a dove He had just appeared in the baptismal scene of our Lord; and now, in a not less remarkable and significant way, He appears on the field in one of the most important events of Christ's life. The forms of expression which record it vary, yet all agree as to the personal and actual relation of the Holy Spirit with the circumstance. Matthew records the more gentle influence of the Spirit-"led by the Spirit into the wilderness." Mark expresses it in stronger terms-"the Spirit drove Him into the wilderness"-impelled Him, as it were, by a strong, irresistible influence. Luke says, "Jesus being full of the Holy Ghost, returning from Jordan," &c. The original text, perhaps, more literally and expressively renders it-"Then was Jesus carried as by the Spirit." But whatever the force which the Holy Spirit employed, enough that He was personally connected with our Lord in His conflict with the Evil One-sustaining, comforting, and crowning Him with victory. Descending upon Him in the emblem of a dove at His Baptism, He now appears in the closest sympathy with His Temptation-a twofold baptism thus imparted to our Lord,-the baptism of water, and the baptism of the Spirit!

And thus, beloved, associated with all our temptations, is the Holy Spirit our Shield and Comforter. Not a shaft can touch, not a temptation befall us, but the Holy Spirit, dwelling in us as His temple, is present to quench the dart, or, if it wounds us, to heal, comfort, and sanctify. Thus in all the assaults of our great adversary the Devil, every Christian has the same Holy Spirit that led Christ to the scene of His trial, to prepare us for, to maintain us under, and to bring us through, the fiery ordeal; never for a moment withdrawing His presence, or averting His eye from the course of the winged arrow, or the inflamed wound of the victim.

The place of Christ's temptation was "the wilderness." Our Lord was already upon the border of the wilderness of Judea: but it was necessary that He should be led deeper into its remoteness and solitude-a depth so profound and desolate, that one of the Evangelists records the fact that He was "with the wild beasts," far removed from the abode and intercourse of man. The Son of God herding, as it were, with the brute creation-the companion of the untamed denizens of the forest!-O Thou glorious tempted One! to what abasement did Thou not submit, that, thus trained in the school of temptation, Thou might be one with Thy saints in theirs!

It is in this wilderness of the world we too find the scene of our temptation. The world itself is not the least successful agent of temptation employed by Satan to accomplish his hellish designs. The world is one of the greatest snares of the Christian. Its scenes-its grandeur-its show-its refinement-its friendship-its science-its pleasure-its wealth, its pomp-yea, its very religion, all conspire to give significance and force to the warnings of God's Word: "Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world. And the world passes away." "And be not conformed to this world; but be ye transformed." But, apart from the world itself there is nothing in our individual history which Satan may not make the occasion and instrument of a temptation. Our social position in the world may be one of peculiar snare; our calling in life especially so: our sore trials, crushing afflictions, and pressing needs all may furnish ample material for the purpose and devices of the Enemy. Yea, there is nothing that may not be an instrument of sore temptation-our poverty and wealth; our exalted position and our low estate; the publicity, the privacy of our life; our loves and hatreds, friends and foes may all become powerful engines of evil in the hands of our great, terrible, powerful, and unslumbering Enemy. The books we read-the literature we cultivate-the science we pursue-the recreations we indulge;-yea, the very religions we profess, and the Christian serviced we promote,-may, with all their apparent innocence and sanctity, but conceal from our eye the slimy trail and the deadly venom of the serpent! Then, "let us not be ignorant of Satan's devices."

Settling in our individual consciousness, scripturally and honestly, the momentous question, on whose side we are arrayed-that of the Great Tempter, or that of the Great Tempted One;-let us, treading in the footstep of Him who was in all points tempted like as we are, "put on the whole

armor of God, that we may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places; wherefore take unto you the whole armor of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand!

2. CHRIST AND THE CHRISTIAN TEMPTED TO DISTRUST DIVINE PROVIDENCE.

"And when He had fasted forty days and forty nights, He was afterward an hungered. And when the tempter came to Him, he said, If Thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread. But He answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God."-Matt. iv. 2-4.

Such was the first temptation of our Lord. And the intelligent reader will not fail to trace a striking analogy with the temptation presented to our first parents: both temptations having to do with appetite, both springing from the same source, and both involving an indictment of God: the one, impeaching the Divine veracity; the other, the Divine goodness. "When the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eye, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof and did eat." And so listening to the declaration of the serpent-"Ye shall not surely die"-and yielding to the temptation, she ate of the fruit, and brought death into our world and all our woe. And thus in both cases-that of the First and that of the Second Adam-the temptation took the form of an appeal to appetite. "And when He had fasted forty days and forty nights, He was afterward an hungered."

Satan, with an intelligence and cunning peculiarly his own, knows how to shape his assault to the time and circumstance of the assailed. In no instance were his knowledge and subtlety more conspicuous than now, and in no instance was his shaft leveled at so illustrious a mark. It was of the physical condition of our Lord that Satan now took advantage. Forty days and forty nights' abstinence from food-while the fact on the one hand demonstrated His Deity, on the other it confirmed His Humanity-must have produced an effect upon His bodily frame, intensely exhausting. How natural, yet how artful, that Satan, availing himself of this peculiarly trying position of Christ, should select from his quiver an arrow so singularly appropriate and so precisely aimed! And in this particular we trace a close parallel of the Christian's temptation to Christ's. In both instances the enemy adroitly adapts his temptation to the individual circumstances of his victim. Seizing upon our physical, mental, and spiritual condition-the infirmity of the body, the depression of the mind, and the spiritual phases of the soul-he selects the most fitting shaft, and with the accuracy of an eye that never misses, hits the very centre of his mark. The appeal of Satan, as we have remarked, was to the physical feeling of hunger-the most natural and powerful of all the animal conditions of our nature. It has exerted and vindicated its all-potent and stern authority in instances where intellect the most commanding, and genius the most brilliant, and heroism the most lion-hearted, and even piety the most fervent, have acknowledged its supremacy and kissed its scepter. And now came the battle! Availing himself of this physical infirmity-the painful, gnawing, cravings of nature-the subtle Foe thus approaches with his battery-"When the Tempter came to Him he said, If Thou be the Son of God, command that these stones become bread." How suitable and subtle this form of temptation! His first step is to place in a questionable light the Divine Sonship of our Lord: "If Thou be the Son of God." He does not-and he dare not-deny it; but investing the fact with a thin transparent veil of reality, he would fain throw upon our Lord the proof of His Divine Messiahship. Full well, and despairingly, did the wily Demon know that Christ was the Son of God! Listen, my reader, to the reluctant yet honest confession: "The unclean spirit cried out, saying, What have I to do with Thee, Thou Jesus of Nazareth? I know Thee who Thou art, the Holy One of God." "And devils (demons) came out of many, crying out and saying, Thou art Christ the Son of God." Satan delights in a shining mark! The loftier the position and the holier the employment, the greater is his malignity and the more artful and persevering his assault. Oh, were ever before, or since, his barbed arrows hurled at such a being as Christ? Such is the form in which he often moulds his temptation of the Christian. He will set you doubting your sonship and questioning your saintship, and then set you upon a line of unscriptural and questionable proof, which will but give countenance to his charge, and involve the fact of your conversion in a yet more impenetrable mystery. An important truth confronts us here-viz., that the devils never absolutely denied, but invariably acknowledged, the Deity of our Lord. It was left for man-fallen, sinful man-to do what demons never attempted-to pluck the diadem of Divinity from His brow, and trail it in the dust!

And now, mark the subtle form of the temptation: "If Thou be the Son of God-or, as the original would sustain the rendering, 'Seeing Thou art the Son of God'-command that these stones be made bread." How natural and plausible the temptation! Jesus was enduring the torturing pangs of hunger: how natural and how easy to have proved His Divinity by thus supplying the pressing needs of His Humanity! That He could by a single volition have converted the stones into bread, Satan himself did not doubt. But would it have been morally right? Would He not thus have brought His miraculous power into collision with Divine providence? Most assuredly! He would have performed a miracle at the expense of His Father's glory. And how does our Lord quench this flaming dart of Satan? With what weapon does He foil His subtle foe? It is with "The Sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God." "He answered and said, it is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God." The meaning of these words is obvious.

Our Lord, as man, lived as much a life of faith on the Father as we. We too much overlook this fact. He could not in all points have been tempted like as we are had this not been so. Oh, I love to trace this life of faith which my Lord and Savior lived! And when I am tempted and tried-when the 'cruse of oil and the barrel of meal' are well-nigh exhausted, oh it is blessed to recall the moment when He who bore my sins in His own body on the tree, was an hungered and thirsted; and as Man, poor, needy, and often dependent upon the bounty of others-for the holy women ministered unto Him of their substance-He trusted in the providence and promise of His God. It was the taunt of His murderers when writhing in agony upon the cross-"He trusted in God: let Him deliver Him now, if He will have Him." Little thought they to what a blessed fact in our Lord's history they were unwittingly testifying-the faith of Christ in His Father!

To this particular assault of Satan the Christian is constantly exposed. We have remarked upon Satan's wisdom and sagacity in moulding his temptations to the circumstances of the tempted. In nothing, perhaps, is this more apparent than in availing himself of times of difficulty and need to inject distrust of the Divine power and goodness. To the Christian in temporal embarrassment he will suggest a worldly mode of relief, compromising the simplicity of his faith and dishonoring the faithfulness of his Lord. "Command these stones that they be made bread." To a man in deep and pressing poverty-a true Christian or a worldling-he will insinuate some scheme of obtaining money of doubtful expediency-the gambling-table, the turf, the stock-exchange, or some other speculative mode equally dishonest and dishonorable;-so tempting the bait and so skilful the angling, as effectually to attract and fatally to ensnare the soul not conversant with, or suspicious of, his devices. It is but the old policy a thousand times over-"Command these stones that they be made bread." Oh, let us 'resist the Devil, that he may flee from us!' But, beloved, has your Heavenly Father ever given you reason to distrust His providence, to doubt His love? You have often felt the pressure of need; it may be, the gnawings of hunger, the weight of trouble-has He not as often appeared for your relief? The temptation, perhaps, has been to set you upon debating the fact of your Divine sonship, and consequently to distrust your Divine Father; and thus doubting your filial relation to God, and calling in question the reality of your conversion to Christ, you have equally doubted God's paternal care of you. Satan, well knowing that he has shorn the locks of your strength, has lessened your moral power, and weakened the only and all-powerful motive to a loving, childlike reliance upon the providential care of your Heavenly Father, thus setting you upon the vain, God-dishonoring task of satisfying the gnawings of hunger by converting stones into bread!

But how are you to resist the temptation and foil the tempter? With the weapon wielded by your Lord-"The Sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God." "But He answered and said, it is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God." It is an interesting fact that the only offensive part of the Christian armor is the "Sword of the Spirit"-all other parts of the panoply are defensive. With this we are to oppose, and with this vanquish, our foe. Faith grasping the weapon-"It is written"-renders the soul invulnerable to the most flaming darts, and the weakest combatant invincible to the most subtle foe. We have nought to lean upon but the naked Word of God-nor want we more. Our blessed Lord summoned no angels to His rescue, neither did He draw upon the infinite resources of His Godhead-both He might have done. But, to teach His saints in all ages, and under all temptations, that by the Word of God alone they were to conquer, He met and repulsed every assault of Satan by the words, "It is written." Are we tempted to distrust the providence of God in a time of pressing need? Prompted by atheistical unbelief, are we resorting to unscriptural and unlawful means-commanding the stones that they be made bread? Oh, let us pause in our folly and sin, and fix the eye upon those Divine, magic words-"It is written." Dwell upon them for a moment. Are you in trouble? It is written-"Call upon Me in the day of trouble, and I will deliver thee." Are you in want? It is written-"My God shall supply all your need according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus." Are we cast down with overwhelming care? It is written-"Be careful for nothing, but by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, make known your requests unto God." Are you painfully conscious of the power of indwelling sin? It is written-"Sin shall not have dominion over you." Are you assailed by the ungodly world? It is written-"In this world ye shall have tribulation, but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world." Measuring the faithfulness of God by the inconstancy of man, are you tempted to believe that the Divine faithfulness and power and love of God will finally fail you? It is written-"Let your conversation be without covetousness; and be content with such things as ye have; for He has said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee. So that we may boldly say, The Lord is my Helper, and I will not fear what man shall do unto me." Are your sins many and as scarlet: your sense of guilt heavier than you can bear? It is written-"The blood of Jesus Christ, His Son, cleanses us from all sin!" In a word-Are you in pressing need-wanting bread, pinched with hunger? It is written-"He shall dwell on high: his place of defence shall be the munitions of rock: bread shall be given him; his water shall be sure." Enough! It is written-"Heaven and earth shall pass away, but My words shall not pass away." But, oh infinitely beyond the wants of the body are the needs of the soul! It is written-"Man doth not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God doth man live." This is the bread by which we really live-Christ Jesus, the bread of life. "I am the bread of life" Oh, ye who are striving and toiling for the bread that perishes, remember the words of God-"Man doth not live by bread alone." This is not your life-this not your true bread. The body will resolve itself into its original element, and "earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust," will be its final condition; but the soul, immortal as its Sire, will live on through the endless cycles of eternity. For this, our present and future state, God has provided by the gift of His beloved Son-the bread that comes down from heaven, which gives life to the world. By this bread alone you really live! The soul has needs that God only can meet-hunger that Christ alone can supply-yearnings that eternity alone can compass. Oh, starve not your soul for the body-rob not your higher, nobler, and more enduring nature to meet the appetites and demands of a nature fleeting, transient, and perishing, and which soon will perish! It is written-"What will it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul?" Oh, feed not your soul on ashes; turn from the husks of worldly wealth, carnal delight, human ambition, political place and power,-and heed the wants, and respond to the claims, and satisfy the yearnings and aspirations of the soul-destined to live in Heaven or Hell for ever! "Man doth not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God doth man live." Bend your ear to His gracious but most solemn words-"Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, ye have no life in you. Whoso eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day." Lord! evermore give me this bread.

"Bread of Heaven! on Thee I feed,
For Thy flesh is meat indeed!
Evermore my soul be fed
With this true and living Bread!
Day by day with strength supplied
Through the life of Him who died.

"Vine of Heaven! Thy blood supplies
This vast cup of sacrifice.
'Tis Thy wounds my healing give;
To Thy cross I look and live.
Thou my life! oh let me be
Rooted, grafted, built on Thee!"

3. CHRIST AND THE CHRISTIAN TEMPTED TO SELF-DESTRUCTION.

"Then the devil took Him up into the holy city, and set Him on a pinnacle of the temple, and said unto Him, If You be the Son of God, cast Thyself down; for it is written, He shall give His angels charge concerning You; and in their hands they shall bear You up, lest at any time You dash Thy foot against a stone. Jesus said unto him, It is written again, You shall not tempt the Lord thy God."-Matt. iv. 5-7.

This, doubtless, was the most crucial of our dear Lord's temptations. The imagination can scarcely picture to itself an assault more revolting to the feelings of Christ, or a temptation of the Christian more dishonoring to God, than this solicitation of the Devil to the impious act of-self-destruction! Life is a precious, solemn, and responsible thing. The love of life, or, the law of self-preservation, is a divinely-implanted principle of our nature. It is not only an instinct common to the animal creation, but it constitutes one of the noblest and holiest canons of humanity. "You shall love thy neighbor as thyself," defines this divine law of proper self-love, which is none other than the natural law of self-preservation God has most wisely and beneficently instituted. We are fallen and depraved; and it is not the least evidence and result of our sinfulness the low estimate men in general form of the value, necessity, and preciousness of life. We "thank God for our creation;" but, in many instances, the very beings from whose lips the heartless acknowledgment has breathed regard life, and sport with life, and waste life, as though there were not attached to it a reality, responsibility, and an account of the most vital, solemn, and tremendous nature!

Far different was the case with our Lord, Himself essential Life, and the Fountain and Giver of life to all sentient beings. Possessing a Life-as the Savior of the race-which was to redeem countless millions, can we imagine a temptation of the Devil from which His whole being would more wholly and indignantly recoil, than that couched in the words of the tempter, as, standing upon the pinnacle of the Temple, he exclaimed-"Cast Thyself down"? To have brought his battery thus to bear upon the very life of Christ-to prompt Him to fling from Him, by a self-destroying hand, that life upon which hung interests more precious, solemn, and deathless than countless worlds, was a master-stroke of the arch-foe of God and man. True, that life was to pass away-that life was to be sacrificed-but under other and far different circumstances, and by a will and a hand other than His own. That life received of His Father-"For as the Father has life in Himself, so has He given to the Son to have life in Himself"-was to be offered on the cross as a sacrifice and atonement to the moral government of God for the sins of His elect Church. But, neither the fullness of time or the crucial mode of self-sacrifice of His life had yet come; and Satan's attempt to anticipate it was one of the fiercest darts selected from his quiver.

It is instructing to remark that the first temptation presented to our Lord was to distrust Divine providence; the second was to presume upon it. And thus these two extremes-distrust and presumption-are frequently weapons by which Satan assails the children of God-the one, the weapon of despair; the other, the weapon of unlawfulness. The subject of the present chapter is peculiarly difficult and painful, unfolding a most trying temptation of Satan often presented to the Christian, and not unfrequently with success; but, difficult and painful as it is, its discussion is necessary, and, in some instances, with the Divine blessing, may be found timely and profitable. As we are considering the temptations of Christ and those of the Christian in some of their essential features as identical, let us glance at two or three of the particulars of the present one. The scene of this temptation of Christ is suggestive: "Then the Devil takes Him up into the Holy City, and set Him upon a pinnacle of the Temple." We are left to conjecture by what influence the Devil thus transported the Son of God; but we are not equally left in ignorance as to the power which the Devil is sometimes permitted to exert over the objects of God's love and care.

There is no place and no occasion in the Christian life which may not become the theatre of Satan's assaults. On the last occasion he presented his temptation to Christ in the depth of the lone and far-off wilderness, with no human sound to break its profound solitude. But here his tactics are changed. The scene of his temptation is not the solitude of the desert, but the pinnacle of the Temple. Be the scene of temptation the privacy of the chamber or the publicity of the city, Satan is equally at home in plying his wily arts and in accomplishing his dark designs. No place is too hallowed! The Holy City-the sacred Temple-are often his most favourite and successful places of attack. The pinnacle of the Temple, in its sacred and sublime elevation, is a chosen position of the tempter, but a dangerous one for the Christian; for the greater the height, the more conspicuous and tremendous the fall! It is here we need the most strength and the most sleepless vigilance. Young Christians-not to speak of more advanced believers-are often ambitious of a high position in the world and in the Church. We naturally love to climb. Seeking great things for ourselves, place and power, wealth and distinction, are pleasant and attractive objects with which Satan loves to bait his hook. They tempt us to mount, little thinking that Satan is aiding our ascent, more desirous even than we ourselves are of reaching such an altitude as will render our downfall more easy and more dire. There are but few Christians who can bear the exaltation to which our common humanity so ardently aspires. The head turns giddy, reason is unhinged, and we become self-inflated; and from our sublime elevation-the pinnacle on which we stand, "the observed of all observers,"-we may fall, the depth of which can only be measured by the elevation from which we were plunged. "Seek you great things for thyself? Seek them not." Keep on lowly ground; the humble only are safe.

"He that is down need fear no fall."

It is one thing for God to place us upon a pinnacle of the Temple, it is quite another thing for Satan! Is it a fact, my reader, that your elevation in the Christian Church has proved promotive of your spiritual and personal religion? Is sin more abominable-self more loathed-holiness more thirsted for-the world more scorned-the power of the world to come more absorbing-and Christ more admired and precious? Alas! it may be far otherwise. For elevation to dignity and power is a trying position for a man of God. Few can pass through the fiery ordeal and remain unscathed. In the same proportion to the pinnacle elevation of the Christian, the foundation becomes more flimsy, the standing more insecure, and the drop more certain and more fatal.

"Line o'er line,
Terrace o'er terrace, nearer still and nearer
To the blue heavens"-
rises the uplifted and inflated soul, until from the pinnacle of its dizzy altitude it topples to the earth; and great is the fall thereof! A thousand times, O Lord, would I rather be a doorkeeper in Thy house than stand upon its most towering pinnacle.

Once more the Divine Sonship of our Lord is assailed: "If You be the Son of God," or, as it is in the Greek, "Seeing You art the Son of God." We repeat the fact that demons never denied the Godhead of Christ, but invariably and unhesitatingly acknowledged it, and did it homage. It was left for man, in his depravity and arrogance, to ignore and scorn a doctrine which the devils believed, and at which they trembled! In this particular the temptation of Christ and that of the Christian are remarkably coincident. Satan's first great step in promoting his dark design is to call our personal Christianity in question. He will set us upon the task of debating our Divine adoption, and consequently denying our sonship. He will engender doubts respecting the reality of our conversion, and suggest to the mind that all our past religious experience has been but a delusion, our Christian profession hypocrisy, and that with all our shining gifts, zealous service, and prominent position in the Church of God we have in reality no part or lot in the matter. And the moment he has succeeded in foisting upon us the idea of self-deception, he has opened an easy avenue to the temptation of self-destruction! Oh, heed not, believer, the suicidal voice of this Evil One! Were you really self-deceived and deceiving-were you still in an unconverted and unrenewed state, would he, think you, set you upon the work of doubting your spiritual state-of questioning the genuineness of your conversion? Would it not rather be his policy to rock the cradle of your false hope, and ply you with yet deeper draughts of the narcotic which had so long promoted your profound and fatal insensibility-thus fostering the belief that you were saved, well knowing that you were lost? If Satan was compelled by the force of a conviction he could not resist to acknowledge the Divine Sonship of Christ, his device, on the other hand, is to throw a doubt upon ours, and thus, by admitting the one and denying the other, he aims to accomplish his subtle and hellish purposes.

"Cast Thyself down from hence." Such was the temptation presented by the Devil to our Lord-the temptation to lay violent hands upon His own life! What must have been the horror-what the profound sense of the tempter's satanic malignity and arrogance-awakened in Christ's mind by the bare suggestion of self-destruction! His holy soul must have shuddered at the very thought! By suicidal hands to rid Himself of a life given to Him of His Father-a life upon the existence and the eventual sacrifice of which the lives of countless myriads of the race hung, must have been a crime, the blackness and enormity of whose guilt could only have been measured by His own infinite and holy mind.

It was no little aggravation of this temptation to self-destruction that it should have been suggested as presuming upon the Divine care. "For it is written, He shall give His angels charge concerning You: and in their hands they shall bear You up, lest at any time You dash Thy foot against a stone." Here was the appalling act of self-destruction suggested, strengthened, and encouraged by a presumed reliance upon the promise and power of God to frustrate or prevent it-God thus made a party to one of the saddest and most unnatural afflictions to which humanity can be subjected. How fluently-though always to pervert it-can Satan quote the Word of God! It is not always safe to follow Scripture as quoted by the mouth of bad men. Neither is it more safe to be influenced in our actions by vague Scriptural texts and impressions conceived by our own mind, and yielded to by our own treacherous hearts.

But this temptation to self-murder is common to God's people; and in this we trace a striking identity of Christ's temptation and the Christian's; and so unseals another spring of sympathy flowing from the union of the Lord's tempted ones with their tempted Lord Himself. "Cast thyself down-destroy thyself-ease you of thy pain of body-get rid of thy despondency of mind-thy spiritual doubts and fears-thy trouble, responsibility, and wants." Such is the temptation and such the reasoning by which many Christians are assailed. That there should exist the fact that in some instances the temptation has proved but too successful, is one of those dark events in the providence of God the mystery of which will all be explained in another and brighter world, when what we know not now we shall know then, and all to the eternal glory of His great Name. Such a calamity-assuming the case to be that of a child of God-is not without its peculiar alleviation and instruction. It is a truth which no reasoning can controvert, that the life thus self-sacrificed touches not upon the spiritual life that is hid with Christ in God. And, moreover, that as no Christian under the control of reason, and possessing a healthy mind, and walking in the light of the Lord, would thus voluntarily and rashly anticipate death in one of its most repulsive and appalling forms, the inference is logically and philosophically sound, as it is Scripturally and consistently true, that as no moral responsibility attaches to the act, the spiritual and eternal state of the soul remains undisturbed, and the soul is safe. The ascent to heaven was, indeed, like Elijah's, with a "whirlwind and in a chariot of fire;" but, like Solomon's chariot, it was "paved with love;" and thus proves Christ's permitted mode of conveying to Himself the soul redeemed with His own most precious blood. A mystery, dark and inscrutable, envelops the appalling event: why God should permit a child of the light to pass into eternity under a cloud so dark and by a mode so awful, is a problem of His moral government the solution of which must alone be found in that infinite wisdom that can make no mistake, in that perfect righteousness that cannot be unjust, and that Divine love that knows no change. "It is the glory of God to conceal a thing." "Verily You art a God that hides Thyself." "Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?" Is this, my reader, the dark sorrow that bows you to the earth? "Be still and now that I am God," is the Divine voice to which now you must bend your ear. No comfort will accrue from an attempt to trace the cause of an event so awful, or to find a clue to a mystery so solemn and profound. "Thy will be done!" must be the calm, patient, and submissive language of thy soul. In this holy quietness and confidence thy repose and strength will be found.

The class of pious individuals to whom this temptation is presented is a large and a touching one. The suicidal propensities of a mind passing through a partial eclipse are often powerful and irresistible. Hundreds of God's people thus tempted through physical suffering, mental despondency, and religious melancholy, are patent to all whose especial and benevolent mission calls them to minister to a mind diseased. The temptation by which our Lord was assailed is reproduced in the persons and experience of many of His saints-"Cast thyself down from hence." Shall we attempt a portrait of your case, my reader? It is, perhaps, physical. Disease has taken a strong hold upon your system; the body is tortured with suffering, the nerves quiver with agony-sleep is a stranger to your pillow-and, "Cast thyself down from hence," is the horrible impulse that haunts you. Or your case is mental. Trouble and anxiety, embarrassment and want, bow thy spirit to the dust-"Cast thyself down from hence," whispers the wily serpent in your ear. Or, your despondency is spiritual. Assailed by doubts and fears touching the state of your soul, you begin to question the reality of your conversion; and, thinking that your soul is lost, the tempter suggests an easy but a terrible solution of all your religious difficulties-"Cast thyself down from hence: He has given His angels charge over you."

But, my reader, listen to reason-listen to conscience-listen to God! "Do thyself no harm," is the tender, imploring voice of each. Christ the tempted One-assailed by this very tempter and by this very temptation, and who by the Word of God resisted and overcame-is all-sufficient in His love and power, grace and intercession for you; and looking to Him will assuredly give you the victory. "I have prayed for you that thy faith fail not," were the words addressed to one-and now equally addressed to you-whose grace, like yours, was sifted as wheat, and whose faith, like yours, was tried as by fire. "He that overcomes will I make a pillar in the temple of my God, and he shall go no more out: and I will write upon him the Name of my God, and the name of the city of my God, which is new Jerusalem, which comes down from my God: and I will write upon him my new Name." "Be you faithful unto death, and I will give you a crown of life." "Why art you cast down, O my soul? and why art you disquieted within you? Hope you in God, for I shall yet praise Him, who is the health of my countenance and my God."

If, my reader, you are haunted by the dark temptation of self-destruction, sit down, and as a Christian calmly and dispassionately reason the matter with yourself. Mind and faith have not entirely abandoned you; and, with prayer for Divine help, summon these to your aid in battling with and resisting the temptation; and consider the grounds you have for closing your ear to the tempter's voice, and resisting an insinuation so base, a crime so terrific.

Think, in the first place, what a sin the act would involve. Calmly and deliberately to fling away a life God has given you for your enjoyment and His glory-to cast it, as it were, in His face as a worthless thing-what language can describe the turpitude of guilt of such an act? Consider, too, the base ingratitude to your Maker the sin would express. You have often in the sanctuary, and with audible voice, "thanked God for your creation." Equally have you reason to thank Him for its preservation. Through how many dangers, seen and unseen, from infancy to manhood,-your life has been preserved, times without number redeemed from destruction the most eminent! And now, by a deliberate and willful violation of the law of self-preservation God has implanted in your nature, to take that life away, how base the ingratitude! how dark the crime! Reflect, too, how important and precious your life is to those whose very existence seems bound up in yours; and who, under God, depend upon your industry and toil, your influence and care, for their daily sustenance. Think of the conjugal, parental, or filial tie thus ruthlessly and painfully severed, and imagine, if you can, the terrible result! A still more powerful dissuasive grows out of the dishonor and check such an act would bring upon the religion of God-the name of Christ-the interests of the Gospel and the progress of the Christian Church. What a triumph of Satan-what a weapon for the infidel-what an argument for the ungodly! Think of the great things the Lord has done for you-the Lord that died for you on the cross, and that now intercedes for you before the throne. Resist then, oh resist, this dark temptation of the Evil One: implore strength from God-seek grace from the all-sufficiency of Christ-and invoke the aid, comfort, and power of the Holy Spirit. And at every whisper of the enemy-"Cast thyself down"-send up to God in Christ the fervent, believing, importunate prayer-"Keep back Thy servant from presumptuous sins; let them not have dominion over me."

"God moves in a mysterious way
His wonders to perform;
He plants His footsteps in the sea,
And rides upon the storm.

"You fearful saints, fresh courage take;
The clouds ye so much dread
Are big with mercy, and shall break
In blessings on your head."

4. CHRIST AND THE CHRISTIAN TEMPTED TO FALSE AND IDOLATROUS WORSHIP.

"Again, the Devil takes Him up into an exceeding high mountain, and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them; and said unto Him, All these things will I give You, if You wilt fall down and worship me. Then said Jesus unto him, Get you hence, Satan: for it is written, You shall worship the Lord thy God, and Him only shall you serve."-Matt. iv. 8-10.

The most barbed and potent shaft in Satan's quiver was reserved for the last and final throw: the most arrogant and blasphemous onslaught for the closing scene of the temptation, and for the most signal discomfiture of the Tempter. The combined ingenuity of hell could not possibly have invented, or its hottest furnace have forged, a weapon more profane, venomous, and offensive-the Son of God incited to do homage and worship to the Devil! "Fall down and worship me." How must His holy soul have shuddered, and His loyal feelings have recoiled, at the bare thought! The proposal was the very height of blasphemy! But turn we now from the tempted Christ to the tempted Christian.

Conceding that there may exist but little, if any, danger of a reproduction in the experience of the believer of the same gross, profane, and appalling temptation, yet, transforming himself into an angel of light-as is his subtle and insidious mode-may not Satan approach us in a form so fascinating and disguised, with language so insinuating and arguments so plausible as to seduce us into a species of false and idolatrous worship, scarcely less impious, dishonoring, and offensive to God? All spurious and superstitious worship-whatever its object or its mode-is an indirect acknowledgment of, and a Divine homage paid to, the authority and power of Satan. Little do those who, professing and calling themselves Christians and Protestants, reflect that in so doing, they are indirectly "sacrificing to devils and not to God." Let us direct our attention to some of those unlawful and idolatrous objects and modes of worship which are not less offensive to God than was Satan's suggestion to Christ-"Fall down and worship me."

Of all the sins common to our fallen nature, God has the most signally marked that of Idolatry, or False Worship. The reason of this is obvious. Other sins may aim at some one perfection of His Being-this aims at His very Being itself: it is the worst species of Atheism; for while in name it acknowledges, in worship it denies Him. It were far less a crime to assert that there is no God, than, while in theory acknowledging, in practice we ignore Him. It is more than a mere negation of His existence; it is a positive insult and dishonor done to His Great and Holy Name.

Man is by nature an idolater. The Fall having diverted the mind from God, it seeks some object of worship other than God only. The renewed man is not entirely exempt from this sin. Hence the exhortation of the Apostle addressed to the early Christians, and in these last days addressed to us: "Little children, keep yourselves from idols," "My dearly beloved, flee from idolatry." Surely, it was not the gross and senseless idolatry of the heathens to which the Apostles thus refer; from this many of those saints to whom they wrote had already been delivered; but to other idols and other worship, less palpable and degrading, but not less superstitious or offensive to God. Let us specify a few.

How much has Satan to do in promoting the idolatry of self, by which the Christian is so much and so severely tempted! The worship of self-or self-righteousness-is a natural and fearful form of idolatry. It is an innate and never entirely eradicated principle of our nature, but clings to us to the very last of life. Alas! the holiest and the best of us want to be something, and to do something, when in reality we are nothing, and can do nothing. "Though I be nothing," was the noble confession of the great Apostle of the Gentiles. We walk in our religious life, for the most part, upon stilts-always appearing in the eyes of others taller than we really are! If God condescends to make us of use in His service-if the Holy Spirit employs us as instruments in conversion, instruction, or comfort to souls,-or, if He adorns us with some eminent spiritual gift or grace-Satan is at one elbow suggesting to self to put in its claim to some share of praise, dividing the honor and glory with God. What is this idolatry of self but the old temptation-"Fall down and worship me"? But real greatness and true humility have ever been in alliance with entire abnegation of self. Listen to John, the forerunner of Christ-"Whose shoe-latchet I am not worthy to unloose." Listen to Paul, the great Apostle-"Less than the least of all saints, sinners of whom I am chief." Transcending all examples of self-abnegation and humility, behold the Lamb of God! Who can worship at the manger of Bethlehem-who can behold the Incarnate God making Himself of no reputation, and taking upon Him the form of a servant-who can see Him stooping to bathe the disciples' feet-who can sit at His feet and hear the marvelous words as they fall from His lips, "Learn of Me, for I am meek and lowly in heart"-who can stand before the cross and gaze upon the Creator of all worlds impaled between two malefactors, Himself dying as the chief,-and not shrink into his own nothingness, bewailing that he should ever have been betrayed into the folly and the sin of burning the incense of idolatry before the wretched idol-self! My soul! beware of self-idolatry-the most insidious, hateful, and degrading form of idolism to which the soul can be subjected. It is but the old temptation in another and more subtle shape-the little, contemptible idol self-echoing the cursed language of Satan-"Fall down and worship me." If, through any good thing wrought, you merit human approbation, "let another praise you, and not your own mouth; a stranger, and not your own lips." And when thus praised, let the reflection crimson our cheek that, did the eulogist know us as God does, or as we know ourselves, censure and not applause, condemnation and not approval, would be our just reward. "Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God; but made Himself of no reputation, and took upon Him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men. And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled Himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross." Oh, that the weapon wielded by our Lord with such crushing effect may conquer and overcome this self-idolatry in us!-"You shall worship the Lord thy God, and Him only shall you serve."

Human intellect is a popular and powerful idol, and clusters around its attractive shrine countless admiring and ardent worshippers. To the undue place and power awarded to Human Reason in matters of religious faith, must be ascribed much of the infidelity of the age. Intellect, in the creed of many, is but a synonym of Rationalism,-substituting a speculative interpretation and intellectual reception of Revelation for the teaching of the Holy Spirit, and the experience of the heart, and that reverential and devout submission of faith which God's Word demands. To this cause we trace much of the loose views of Inspiration-tampering with the Atonement and Sacrifice of Christ-speculative and erroneous theories touching the final condition of the lost-the eternity of future suffering, and the natural immortality of the soul dogmatically and unblushingly denied-with which, alas! the pulpit and the press are so rife. We pen not a sentence tending to narrow the province of Reason in matters of faith. On the contrary, we are prepared fully to maintain that Reason and Revelation, Science and Religion, are not divorced and antagonistic forces-as some suppose-but are-if we may be allowed the expression-en-rapport-in harmonious and continuous communication the one with the other; conspiring to lay their richest treasures at the feet of Revelation, and testifying, as with one voice, that God's Word is true! So far from ignoring the province and power of the intellectual faculty, we admit that Reason is the grandest gift with which man is endowed-the faculty which approximates the nearest to the Creator,-and that it is as much the duty of Reason to study, examine, and sift the truth of the Bible and the evidences of Christianity, as it is the duty and the privilege of Faith humbly and unquestioningly to receive them. Our simple object is to guard the reader against the undue exaltation and supremacy of the intellectual powers, a fertile cause of much of the prevailing atheism and semi-skepticism of the day: exhibited either in a covert tampering with the inspiration of the Bible, or in the unblushing and avowed rejection of Revelation altogether.

The idolatrous pride of intellect! Alas! in how many melancholy instances has it resulted in the sad abandonment by the imperious idol of its too ardent worshipper! The words of the prophet, addressed to Jeroboam the son of Nebat, concerning his idolatry, have found a singular and melancholy application in many instances to the idolatrous devotee of the human mind-"Thy calf, O Samaria, has cast you off!" The god you did worship so devoutly-in whose power you did confide so implicitly-has disowned and forsaken you-"has cast you off"-scorning the worship and despising the worshipper. Let the melancholy history of many a mental wreck testify! The over-wrought brain has become plastic-its unnatural tension of study and thought has disturbed the mental balance; and the mind that was enthroned so firmly and so proudly-that shone in the realm of literature so brilliantly-and gave promise of attaining to the loftiest eminence of ambition so hopefully-has become a ruin and a blank! "Thy god, O Samaria, has cast you off." Alas! the wise man gloried in his superior wisdom-the intellectual man prided himself of his brilliant intellect-the wrangler plumed himself of his high scholarship-and the scientist boasted of his great discoveries-and in a moment God-who will not give His glory to another-has smitten the idol to the dust! It was but a drop of blood mounting to the brain-a sunbeam falling upon its surface-and the intellect collapsed, and the mind passed into the dark eclipse of driveling idiocy, or, into the still darker night of moody madness! Oh, that men would employ their vast intellectual endowments, their rich mental acquisitions, for the good of their fellows, and the glory of Him at whose tribunal they are to render an account of their talents, be it the one or the ten! We can scarcely portray or even imagine a spectacle more appalling than that of an intellect of rare power, a gifted mind highly cultivated and richly stored, passing from the scene of its probation to that of its account, with no 'gain' to present-no 'account' to deliver-as the fruit of its gigantic powers, prolonged existence, and tremendous responsibility, save the brilliant history-the sentimental fiction-the vapid story-the frivolous song-or, perhaps, the sad memorials of an atheistic and infidel philosophy! Shades of Macaulay, Scott, and Byron! of Dickens, Thackeray, and Mills!-vanished stars from the republic of letters-where have ye left the glory of your great powers, and what their solemn record and reward?

But is the Christian student entirely invulnerable to this temptation-indirectly presented by the Evil One-of falling down before the idol Intellect? We trow not. Are there not in our universities, our schools of science, and along the various professional walks of life, those with the sacred office of the Christian ministry in view, or are actively engaged in the discharge of its sacred functions-who yet are too ardent devotees-idolaters, in truth-of human intellect?-the learning, philosophy, and science of this world filling the entire vision of the soul, to the total exclusion of more weighty matters-"the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus the Lord." Candidates for the holy ministry have great reason to guard against this species of idolatry. It has not been untruly remarked that in our Universities Christ has often been crucified between the Classics and Mathematics. The fascination of abstract study-the absorbing power of human science-has exerted a deteriorating influence upon the spiritual interests of the soul; and the aspirants for the most solemn office a mortal can fill, emerge from the academical shades but imperfectly, if at all, prepared to enter upon a work the Great Apostle has in these words so distinctly and emphatically described-"Christ sent me not to baptize, but to preach the Gospel: not with wisdom of words, lest the cross of Christ should be made of none effect. We preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumbling-block, and unto the Greeks foolishness; but unto them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God." Whenever man's judgment is made the sole interpreter of the Bible, and human learning and scientific research are substituted for the Divine illumination and experimental teaching of the Holy Spirit, God is dishonored-the Bible is a sealed book-and the mind, in its search for truth, is left to grope its way amid the shadows of ignorance, the rocks of error, and the quicksands of sin. Oh, let us, then, be solemnly aware of the idolatry of Intellect! "Fall down and worship me," is its constant and ensnaring challenge. How many, carried away with the erudition of the schools, and even the eloquence of the pulpit-giving themselves too exclusively and absorbingly to the pursuit of intellectual studies, and swayed in their religious opinions by the authority of master-minds and commanding rhetoric, have sacrificed themselves at the shrine of their idol!

Author of my being! Giver and Sustainer of my mind! renew, sanctify, and guide my intellectual powers. And, as You did create them for Thyself, and dost hold me responsible for their possession and accountable for their use, vouchsafe me grace to employ them for the best good of my fellows, and the highest glory and honour of Thy Great Name!

The idolatry of wealth forms another, a more sensual and degrading species of temptation brought to bear upon our fallen humanity by the great enemy of souls. The love for wealth is as strong and absorbing as it is fascinating and universal. Its thirst is, to the covetous worldling, what the desire for strong drink is to the inveterate inebriate-the one all-consuming passion-the ruling demon of the soul. And, as in the case of the drunkard, the more the passion is fed, the more fiercely-and, to all human appearance, unquenchably-the flame burns,-so the more devoutly the idol wealth is worshipped, the more imperious is its sway, and the more insatiable its demand. It is the natural, but singular, effect of great and unsanctified wealth that it freezes the finest currents, and corrodes the loveliest sentiments of the soul-engendering parsimony and inspiring covetousness: and the more successful the effort to acquire it, the more intense grows the desire of its accumulation,-it is the curse of affluence, unblessed of God! Nor is this all. "The love of money"-records the inspired Apostle-"is the root of all evil." To this corrupt principle-"the love of money"-and to this unappeased hankering-the anxiety for its possession-may be traced-as a natural and fertile cause-that low standard of commercial morality which, alas! has found so many startling and humiliating examples in this and in other lands: examples of misplaced confidence-heartless fraud, enormous defalcation-and reckless speculation,-tarnishing many an escutcheon, dishonoring many a home, and breaking many a heart! How many a merchant-prince, who stood upon the highest eminence of commercial distinction, honor and affluence, have not hesitated, sacrificing integrity, character, and fortune upon the altar of their favorite god, around whose altar lie scattered the wrecks of many a fair name-happy home, princely fortune-and the hope of another and a better world. How emphatically and solemnly is the truth of the Bible verified day by day: "They that will be rich fall into divers temptations and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful lusts, which drown men's souls in destruction and perdition. For the love of money is the root of all evil." Oh, beware of the idolatry of money! "If riches increase, set not your heart upon them." Unsanctified by the love of God and the grace of Christ, they create penury, engender meanness, strengthen selfishness, destroy natural affection, and take the place of God! That wealth is a power-and, when sanctified and guided by God, a mighty power-who can doubt? Oh, if the rich but recognized more solemnly the responsibility of its possession, the luxury of its dispersion, and the blessing of its reflex influence-blessing him that receives, still more him that gives-would there not be less hoarding and more scattering! less selfishness and more of that expansive sympathy which He displayed, of whom it is written-"Ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, who, though He was rich, yet for our sakes became poor, that we through His poverty might be made rich." Pause not at admiration, but aspire to emulate this meritorious and illustrious Pattern of self-sacrifice and wondrous compassion. Study your Model closely. Dwell upon the countless riches He abjured and the abject poverty which He assumed-all for you! Blush, as you stand before this Divine-Human Statue, that you are so imperfect a reflection of its beauty. Remember, O Christian, that you are God's purse-bearer-the King's almoner-the Church's treasurer; and that, as Christ's steward, and not a proprietor-as God's trustee, and not an owner;-for the ten, the five, and the one talent confided to your trading, ere long you must render an account to your Lord. Give of your abundance to assist Christ's cause, which may languish; relieve the need of some saint who may be necessitous; lighten the burden of some hard-working servant of Christ, bowed beneath its weight and ready to sink; light up with sunshine some desolate heart pining in the cold shade of anxiety, loneliness, and want. Oh, learn the happy secret of preserving riches by their liberal dispersion; clip their pinions by a little seasonable charity, lest they take wing and fly away! Remember that, "there is that scatters and yet increases, and there is that with holds more than is meet, and it tends to poverty." God's word is true! and sooner or later we shall find it so. "Let your conversation be without covetousness, and be content with such things as ye have; for He has said, I will never leave you nor forsake you." With a precept so holy, and a promise so precious, what true Christian will not turn a deaf ear to all those specious allurements to immediate and great wealth with which the apostles and priests of Mammon seek to beguile and ruin the unsuspecting and covetous? O Christ, my Master! give me grace to write "Holiness to the Lord" upon all I am and all I have; remembering that not my own, but "of Thine have I given You."

"We give You but Thine own,
Whatever the gift may be;
All that we have is Thine alone,
A trust, O Lord, from You.

"May we Thy bounties thus
As stewards true receive,
And gladly, as You givest us,
To You our first-fruits give.

"To comfort and to bless
To find a balm for woe,
To tend the lone and fatherless,
Is angels' work below.

"The captive to release,
To God the lost to bring,
To teach the way of life and peace-
It is a Christ-like thing.

"And we believe Thy Word,
Though dim our faith may be;
Whatever for Thine we do, O Lord,
We do it unto You."

Creature idolatry takes its place among the many forms of temptation to which the Christian is exposed. It is true our blessed Lord was not thus tempted, for His love and friendship were pure from all idolatry and sin; notwithstanding, He not the less measures out grace for, and exercises sympathy with, all those who, through the depth and exuberance of human affection, are enamored of its idol, and are thus exposed to its idolatry. The heart is as much the creature of God as the mind; human love as much a Divine inspiration as human thought. And as God hates nothing that He has made, we may infer that the proper development and legitimate exercise of the affections cannot be displeasing in His sight. "God is love," and God is the Inspirer of love, and the source of all the blessings which flow through its channel. He has made love-His own love-the pivot upon which all His Perfections revolve. Its greatness and grandeur, culminating at the Cross, blends in the sweetest and most perfect harmony all His moral attributes, moulding them into a resplendent bow which encircles the throne upon which He sits-the bow of His covenant salvation, "round about the throne." "Mercy and truth are met together; righteousness and peace have kissed each other." This being so,-God's love electing us to salvation, and sacrificing His beloved Son to accomplish it, forming those sacred relations of life which are centers of its existence and channels of its flow,-surely they err who say it is a sin to love, and to love to the utmost capacity of loving! But the sin and danger lie-not in loving-but in such an inordinate and supreme surrender of the affections as to transform their object into an idol and their love into idolatry. But God, who is love, demands the supreme, the undivided heart. Does He then frown upon human affection in its natural and sacred outflow? Would He still a single throb of those sacred and precious relations of life He Himself has formed? So far from this, He has selected earthly love as an emblem of the Heavenly, and human relations as types of the Divine. God's relation to us is Parental: Christ's love to us is Conjugal: His friendship Filial. Who can study the safeguards God has thrown around the different relations of life-especially the Domestic Constitution-the sanctity, obligations, and blessings He has attached to each-and not be profoundly impressed with the idea of God's high estimate of human affection? But it is here we need the most unslumbering vigilance and the most unceasing prayer-vigilance, lest our affections should become inordinate and idolatrous; and prayer, that Divine grace may control, and the Holy Spirit sanctify, the relations God has formed and the love He has inspired. The earthly idols of the heart-whatever the idol be-God will and must 'abolish.' If it is the intellect-He veils it; if wealth-He removes it; if health-He blows upon it; if the creature-He recalls it! We often wonder at the mysterious event that breaks the strong and beautiful staff-that nips the young flower in the bud-that removes from our fond gaze the fully developed object of loveliness and love. "You shall worship the Lord thy God, and Him only," explains the mystery! A fond mother had an only and adored child, which she never allowed out of her sight, or for a moment entrusted to the care of another. She forgot that Christ took especial and loving care of little children, and would not confide it to His care. Sitting by her side at an open window, on one occasion, in an unguarded moment her little one sprang from her arms, and falling from a fearful height, instantly perished!-so appallingly was her idol smitten, so signally was her idolatry marked, and so affectingly was the sin of her distrust of God righteously, yet lovingly, corrected! And why this discipline of our earthly loves?-why this chastening of our human affections? The answer again returns-"You shall worship the Lord thy God, and Him only." Oh, that God may be the supreme Object of our love! Oh, that Christ may hold His right and rightful place in our hearts! Who so loving as God? Who so lovely as Jesus? He has but imperfectly studied the subtlety and sounded the depths of the human heart, who is not thoroughly convinced of the dangers which attach to its affections; and the holy discipline and vigilance those affections need!

"The brightest things below the sky
Give but a flattering light;
We should suspect some danger nigh
Where we possess delight.

"Our dearest joys and nearest friends,
The partners of our blood,
How they divide our wavering minds,
And leave but half for God!

"The fondness of a creature's love,
How strong it strikes the sense!
Thither the warm affections move,
Nor can we call them thence.

"Dear Savior! let Thy beauties be
My soul's eternal food;
And grace command my heart away
From all created good."

False, or idolatrous, religious worship is, perhaps, the most prevalent and ensnaring form of idolatry, but, important as this illustration of our subject is-especially at the present time-the limits of this chapter allow but a brief illusion. Upon how many professedly religious altars in the present day the Athenian inscription, "To the Unknown God,"-may be inscribed. The temple in which they stand, the ritual which they observe, the homage they present, is essentially mediaeval in its appointments, and superstitious and idolatrous in its worship. "Fall down and worship me," is the voice rising from that 'high altar,' and resounding through those gloomy aisles. "Hear the word of the Lord," oh, ye idolatrous worshippers-"To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto Me? . . . When ye come to appear before Me, who has required this at your hand, to tread My courts? Bring no more vain oblations; incense is an abomination unto Me; . . . the calling of assemblies, I cannot away with; it is iniquity, even the solemn meeting. Your new moons and your appointed feasts My soul hates; . . . I am weary to bear them. And when ye spread forth your hands, I will hide Mine eyes from you; yea, when ye make many prayers, I will not hear." My soul! beware of false and idolatrous worship! Ponder often and devoutly the weighty and solemn words of thy Lord: "The true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth; for the Father seeks such to worship Him. God is a Spirit; and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth." Cherish the profoundest sincerity, observe the sternest simplicity, and cultivate the highest spirituality in all thine approaches to God-public, social, private. There is but one Being in the universe before whom you can offer the undivided love of your heart, the profoundest homage of your mind, the deepest devotion of your soul-yea, before whom you can prostrate your whole being-it is that great God who has said-"You shall love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind," and whose own unparalleled love to us is thus expressed-"God commends His love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." Oh, let this truth be engraved, as in marble, on the tablet of your memory-let it be written, as with a sunbeam, on the consciousness of your daily life-that God looks only at the heart, and that, where that heart offers to Him its pure incense of love, prayer and praise, every forest is a cathedral, every home a sanctuary, every spot an altar, and every worshipper a priest! Let us, when tempted, as was our Lord, to false and idolatrous worship, repel the dart and foil the Archer with Christ's invulnerable weapon-"It is written, You shall worship the Lord thy God, and Him only shall you serve."

"Is there a thing beneath the sun,
That strives with You my heart to share?
Take it away, and reign alone,
The Lord of every motion there!"

5. CHRIST AND THE CHRISTIAN TEMPTED WITH WORLDLY GRANDEUR AND POSSESSION.

"Again, the Devil takes Him up into an exceeding high mountain, and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them; and said unto Him, All these things will I give You, if You wilt fall down and worship me."-Matt. iv.8, 9.

From the temptation of our Lord to idolatrous worship, we pass to the argument by which it was urged. The argument was as insinuating as the proposal was base, and both illustrated the deep subtlety of the enemy, and established his claim to the title our Lord had given him as, "a liar from the beginning." The reward of Satanic homage thus held out to the eye of Christ was that of empire; in other words, the glory and sovereignty of the world. "Again, he takes Him up into an exceeding high mountain, and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them; and said unto Him, All these things will I give You, if You wilt fall down and worship me." It is impossible for the observant mind not to remark the genius and pertinacity of the Devil, the study of which cannot fail to be deeply instructive to those who, assailed by a like temptation, should not be ignorant of his devices.

Finding that neither privacy nor publicity-the solitude of the wilderness or the elevation of the Temple-were successful in the accomplishment of his dark and ignoble designs, the Enemy changed his tactics, and by some extraordinary power-the nature of which we are left to conjecture-led Christ from the pinnacle to the mountain, and set Him thereon. Which of the many "mountains round about Jerusalem" he selected for his purpose does not appear; nor is it of moment, since in all probability, had it been specified, it would have become, as was the brazen serpent which Moses erected in the wilderness, an object of blasphemous deification and superstitious worship. Suffice it to say that, doubtless, from its great elevation, it commanded a landscape view of the whole land of Palestine, of the most enchanting description, and with all its hallowed associations-embracing in its wide range the vine-clad hills of Judea-the spicy mountains of Arabia-the vast country of Gilead-the fertile plains of Moab-the river of Jordan, and the entire extent of the Red Sea. What a scenery of surpassing beauty-what kingdoms of undying glory-what events of historic interest-what hallowed associations and precious memories would in a moment of time burst upon the eye and unveil their grandeur to the mind of our blessed Lord! "All these things will I give You, if You wilt fall down and worship me!" In this proffer of dominion and wealth, as the price of Christ's prostration of His soul at the feet of Satan-this attempted achievement of his infernal sovereignty over the inner being of our Lord-several things are singularly and instructively involved. The first was the attempt to subordinate the spiritual to the material-the union of the homage of the inner man with the grandeur, pomp, and circumstance of the outer world; in other words-the possession of human power, earthly glory, and worldly wealth, at the expense of conscience, principle, and the will and honor of God,-the noblest powers of the soul thus prostrate at the feet of the most degraded and tyrannous despot! Alas! does not the sad spectacle everywhere present itself of men acquiring worldly wealth, human distinction, and political power at the expense of the spiritual and eternal interests of the soul?-the high and noble powers of their being sacrificed at the altar of Mammon, or falling down before the 'golden image' of false greatness, religious skepticism, or superstitious worship, which the Nebuchadnezzar of this world has set up? "All these things will I give you, if you wilt fall down and worship me."

But a worse aspect of the subject presents itself. This temptation of our Lord-repeated every day in man's history-was not only an attempt to subordinate the spiritual to the material-worldly position, wealth, and power purchased at the sacrifice of great spiritual principles-but, what is more serious, it was a subordinating the Divine to the human. This has ever been one of Satan's most infernal designs and master-strokes of policy. Everywhere we see vigorously at work a species of practical atheism, the tendency and object of which are, to cast off God's will, to renounce His sovereignty and to ignore His truth-erecting an ecclesiastical system, dogmatic creed, and religious worship "above all that is called God, and that is worshipped," in direct contravention of His Word,-thus subordinating God's will to man's, Christ's righteousness to the creature, and revealed truth to human error-the intellect, conscience, and affections of the soul on their knees at the feet of Satan! What, we ask, is the idolatry of the mind, the adulation of the affections, the homage of wealth, and the glorification of self everywhere patent-but the old temptation-overcome by Christ, but overcoming man-"Fall down and worship me."

Another and scarcely less instructive feature of this temptation of worldly dominion to which our Lord was subjected, is the strong, withering light it throws upon the character of Satan as a cunning, insolent, and lying deceiver. He well knew that, when he offered all these kingdoms and the glory thereof to Christ as the bribe of His homage, the offer was made to Creation's God, and the World's Proprietor-and that of Christ's own was he giving Him! He could not have approached our Lord on a side more invulnerable, or with a bribe less potent. What influence could this appeal to ambition and avarice have upon Him who owned the world-who was about to die for the world-taking out of it a Church redeemed by and for Himself-and then destroying the casket when He had secured the jewel?

But, as we have observed, the temptation to worldly grandeur and possession presented to Christ, is daily repeated in the experience of the Christian. Satan has no more ready, potent, or successful instrument of assault upon the personal religion and Christian usefulness of the believer than the world. Failing, in the case of our Lord, to secure homage and worship by the presentation of worldly blandishments, he plies his arts with His followers, wounding the Lord in the person of His disciples. The world, that had no attraction for Christ-save only its redemption-alas! constitutes one of the most seductive temptations of the Christian. Satan is constantly presenting it in endless forms of attraction, wearing as many disguises, and backed by every species of argument. It is his craft to present only the bright side of the world, carefully concealing the darker and more repulsive one; the flower without the thorn-the picture without the shading-its emptiness and heartlessness-its selfishness and malice-its deceitfulness and malignity-its ingratitude and baseness-its hollow friendships and its false loves. Oh! these are the thorns and these the shadows the cunning Tempter conceals when he presents the world and the glory thereof in exchange for the homage and the worship he asks. There is not a ruse he does not employ by which to bring the world to bear upon the Christian. The eye delighting in beauty-the ear ravished with sounds-the taste delicate and dainty,-"The lust of the flesh and the lust of the eye and the pride of life"-are so many media through which the attractive power and ascendancy of the world attain an easy conquest in the mind of the Christian.

We are told that Satan "showed unto Him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time." How rapid the movements of the Evil One! how soon-"in a moment of time"-can he draw the heart of the creature from Christ-the mind from devout meditation-and the whole soul from things that are divine, heavenly and eternal! There is no little cunning on the part of Satan in this rapidity of motion. The glory of the world is so flimsy-its pleasures so shallow-its promises so hollow-they will not admit of or allow a long survey. Satan will not leave time for reflection and prayer. Earthly things will not admit of inspection. Taking us off our guard-as "in a moment of time"-he unveils all the charms and attractions of the object to the mind, and says, "All these will I give you, if you wilt give up Christ-and religion-and heaven-and fall down and worship me." Oh, let us not be ignorant of his devices! Ere you are aware, he will present the temptation-the world-in some fascinating form, and in a moment you are spell-bound and ensnared! He will allow no time, no not a moment of calm consideration, due examination, and earnest prayer. The temptation is as rapid in its proposal as its possession is fleeting and its happiness unsubstantial! He is in too great a hurry to accomplish his purpose, to permit time for reflection. The favorable moment may be past; the flood-tide may turn, and the golden opportunity be lost of prostrating your religious principles and Christian profession-intellect, affections, and conscience-at his feet. How suggestive and solemn the words-"He showed unto Him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time!" In one moment of time, and by a single temptation, how great a loser may you be! Seduced by its power, convinced by its arguments, ensnared by its glitter, the world has enchained you a slave at its feet. Thus captivated and bound, you have compromised your religious principles, injured your Christian profession, done violence to your conscience, destroyed your peace, dishonored Christ, and sinned against God. Oh, who-calmly and thoughtfully-would bid so high for this poor world-purchasing its baubles and its friendship at so costly a price?

But let us not be misunderstood. We are not seeking to foster a supercilious contempt and ungrateful regard for the world. This would be most dishonoring to God. He has not created this world-fashioning it so wonderfully, endowing it so richly, and adorning it so beautifully-that we should be blind to its grandeur, indifferent to its enjoyments, and ungrateful for its blessings, flowing through a thousand channels. Far from this. If God does not despise the world-fallen and sinful though it is-why should we? It is said of the ungodly-"Because they regard not the works of the Lord, and the operation of His hands, He shall destroy them, and not build them up." God has garnished this bright world with pleasant homes, hallowed it with sacred temples, and furnished it with countless mercies, all for the pleasure and enjoyment of the beings He made to people it. Spenser has thus beautifully embodied the idea:
"All the world by You at first was made,
And daily yet You dost the same repair;
Nor ought on earth that merry is and glad,
Nor ought on earth that lovely is and fair,
But You the same for pleasure did prepare."

The religion of Christ imposes not upon its disciples such atheistical indifference to, and reclusive isolation from, the world as would abandon its relations, ignore its duties, or even exempt us from its temptations and trials-"For then must ye needs go out of the world." Monasticism is not an institution of the Gospel-the order of monks is no appointment of Christ; but both are in direct antagonism to the genius, spirit, and obligations of Christianity. What were the words of our Lord as embodied in His sublime intercessory prayer-"Father, I pray not that You should take them out of the world, but that You should keep them from the evil. They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. As You hast sent Me into the world, so have I sent them into the world." Christ has sent His people into the world, not to model their lives according to its principles and religion, but to witness for Him, and with Him, that "the works thereof are evil." They are placed in the world as the school of their graces-as the theatre of their conflicts-as the field of their labors: the words of Him whom the world cast out and crucified ever ringing in their ears-"Ye are the light of the world-ye are the salt of the earth." And the prayer of every true-hearted disciple of Christ should be-"Lord, what wilt You have me to do? Here am I; send me-even me!"

"Make use of me, my God!
Let me not be forgot,
A broken vessel cast aside,
One whom You needest not.

"I am Thy creature, Lord,
And made by hands Divine;
And I am part, however mean,
Of this great world of Thine.

"You usest all Thy works,
The weakest things that be
Each has a service of its own,
For all things wait on You.

"You usest the high stars,
The tiny drops of dew,
The giant peak and little hill-
My God, oh use me too.

"All things do serve You here,
All creatures great and small
Make use of me-of me-my God!
The weakest of them all."

"All these things will I give you, if you wilt fall down and worship me." Such is the world's echo of Satan's voice! No higher ambition has the world than the supreme homage of its slaves! What will it not promise as a bribe for their devotion and their worship? It says to the man of business-"Worship me, and I will give you wealth." To the scholar-"Worship me, and I will give you fame." To the politician-"Worship me, and I will give you place and power." To the lover of pleasure and the serf of sensuality-"Worship me, and I will give you happiness." To the heartbroken and downcast-"Worship me, plunge into my pleasures and excitement, and I will give you peace and comfort." How simple and facile seems the concession! It is but a little thing-"Only worship me!" It was but to bend the knee to him for one moment that Satan asked the Son of God. The request granted, what mind could have calculated the issue involved in that simple and instantaneous act? All Heaven would have been robed in sackcloth, and all Hell would have shouted for joy!

It is in this artful, unsuspicious way the world-Satan's great weapon-approaches the Christian. It will not startle you-seeing you are a religious professor, a constant communicant, a disciple of Christ-by enforcing too hard or too conspicuous a compliance with its demand. No! Like the Despot by whom the world is governed, it is too wily and cautious to unmask its designs. It asks no great thing at your hand, as a recognition of its authority and as an expression of your homage. All that the world proposes is just a slight relaxing of Christian consistency-a little concession of puritanical strictness. "It is but a little thing," argues the world, "only a quiet hand at whist-a little innocent dance-an attractive theatrical-a popular opera-a harmless venture on the Turf; is it not a little one? Only bend the knee and do me homage." And thus this wicked, Christ-rejecting, God-ignoring world, travels the entire circle of humanity, offering as a bribe for its homage and its worship gifts it has none to bestow-rich in promises it never can fulfill. Oh, what a liar is the god of this world! and what a lie the world he rules! Has it ever realized one expectation it held out, or made good one pledge it has given? Pursue the inquiry! Ask the millionaire if his colossal fortune has brought him full satisfaction? Ask the statesman if his grasp of power has realized his ambitious hopes? Ask the scholar if his senior wranglership has met the highest aspirations of his soul? Ask the brilliant courtier if the smile of royalty has kindled sunshine in his heart? Ask the daughter of pleasure and fashion if the splendid dress, the exciting dance, the enchanting music, the incense of admiration and flattery, have given unalloyed pleasure to her heart, or imparted repose to her throbbing brow? "Vanity of vanities, all is vanity and vexation of spirit," will be the melancholy response of each and of all! And yet the worshippers of mammon, the slave of sensuality, the daughter of gaiety, and the aspirant of literary honor and political power, goes round the wide circle inquiring-"Who will show me any good?" And thus will it ever be.

"Attempt how vain-
With things of earthly sort, with aught but God,
With aught but moral excellence, truth, and love,
To satisfy and fill the immortal soul!
To satisfy the ocean with a drop;
To marry immortality to death;
And with the unsubstantial shade of time,
To fill the embrace of all eternity."

Be it the diadem of the sovereign, the coronet of the peer, the mitre of the priest, the golden hoard of the miser-uneasy lies the head with no pillow of repose save the rotation of office, the uncertainty of wealth, the knee of human adulation, or the breath of popular applause:
"What is this passing scene?
A peevish April day!
A little sun, a little rain,
And then night sweeps along the plain,
And all things fade away!"

But easy lies the head whose treasure is in Heaven-whose Portion is God-whose Savior and Friend is Jesus, and whose hope beyond the grave is, "Glory, and honor, and immortality, and eternal life." Oh, cease, my reader, to be the world's poor slave! It will exact health and fortune, reputation and happiness, as the conditions of its favor! And when it can exact no more, like Samaria's calf, will "cast you off," and all that gave to earth its charm and to life its existence. And then when you have nothing more to give-when riches have cast you off, and health has cast you off, and desire has cast you off and friends have cast you off, and you lie down in sickness and want-the world you loved so fondly, and worshipped so ardently, and served so faithfully, will draw around you the curtains of gloom, and leave you to die alone, a deserted and poverty-stricken death!

But there is One who will never cast you off! Make God your soul's portion, Christ your heart's rest, and as this world of shadows and dreams fades upon your earthly sense, they will unveil to the eye of your spirit a world of reality, splendor, and holiness, where hearts never break, and love never is false; where hopes never wither, and sin never taints. Fly to Jesus! Shelter beneath His outspread wing, nestle within His loving heart. Soon you pass from this present evil world. The spell that holds you so closely and so strongly will be broken, and you will "give up the ghost, and in that very day all your thoughts will perish." All your thoughts of enterprise, all your thoughts of gain, all your thoughts of ambition, all your thoughts of pleasure, all your vain, irreligious, skeptical thoughts-all, all will perish! Oh, what a stern fact is Death! What a solemn anticipation is Eternity! How near to us its realities-Judgment, Heaven, Hell-nearer than the grave,-for the soul reaches its final and changeless destination ere the body mingles with its kindred dust. Did we think and feel aright, each oscillation of the pendulum, would awaken serious reflection, since it records how precious is time, and how swiftly the little and unheeded moments are shortening the preface of eternity! Into that eternity you cannot carry the title you bore, the scepter you swayed, the wealth you hoarded, the false religion you cherished! Naked you came into the world, and naked you leave it. Where, then, will you leave your glory and your wealth?

"'He died rich'-that loudest laugh of hell."

The herald-at-arms may pronounce your titles, the sculptor perpetuate your virtues, the biographer record your achievements, and the journalist announce how rich you were; but, if you have not 'laid hold upon eternal life,' and in your vain attempt to 'gain the world have lost your soul,' oh! what avails it all?

Once more be persuaded to set your mind upon things above and not upon things on the earth. Implore the Holy Spirit to impart to you a new and Divine nature-a sense of sin-faith in Christ-and love to God. Henceforth, you will live no longer to yourself, to the flesh, to the world; but rising to the dignity of a responsible, accountable, and immortal being, you will wake from the long dream of your life to a conviction of the reality, solemnity, and endlessness of the life to come. There is hope for the most sinful and unworthy! Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners; and if, turning to Him, penitent, humble, and believing, He will save you. When health casts you off, and riches cast you off, and friends cast you off, and you lie down to die alone-Jesus, in whom you have put your trust, will draw near, make all your bed in sickness, strengthen you on the couch of languishing, and when your spirit departs hence will receive it into glory, honor, immortality, and eternal life.

But a vital question yet remains to be considered. How may the Christian resist and overcome the world? How are its attractions to be withstood-its temptations resisted-its duties and obligations met? We dare not reply to these interrogations in language other than God's Word. "This is the victory that overcomes the world, even our faith." To repel an allurement so fascinating, to foil a foe so deadly, demands a weapon of Divine temper, and an arm to wield it of supernatural strength. We possess both in these words-"This is the victory that overcomes the world, even our faith." But faith in who?-and faith in what? In the first place, faith in the Crucified One. "Who is he that overcomes the world, but he that believeth that Jesus is the Son of God?" It is by looking to Jesus-by the power of the cross-by the grace that the Savior imparts-by the love that He inspires-by the glory that He unveils, that the believer can grapple and overcome this seductive and powerful foe. In the light of the cross, oh, how does the tinsel and glitter of the world fade! To love Christ and to cling to the world-to be loyal to the one and a follower of the other-is a contradiction in terms, a moral impossibility. The worldling's life and the Christian's life are, in their principles, spirit, and end, as wide as the poles asunder-as essentially distinct as light and darkness, holiness and sin. Who by faith can look at Jesus-can study His unearthly life, His unworldly religion, His crucifixion to the world and by the world, and then court the smiles, and seek the pleasures, and adopt the principles of that world that wove a crown of thorns, and erected a cross of ignominy for Him? That the Christian must, necessarily, be in the world-sustaining honorably its natural relations-discharging faithfully its moral obligations and diligent in its business-admits not of a moment's doubt. But this implies no union with-love for-or conformity to-the world. He is in the world-but-
"Distinct as the swimmer from the flood,
The lyrist from his lyre."

Another, and not less effectual, mode of resisting the temptations and overcoming the power of the world is faith in the unseen realities of eternity-"looking not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal." Oh, how do the shadows and dreams of earth and of time dissolve and vanish into their own emptiness before our believing and realizing view of death, judgment, and eternity! Not that the 'power of the world to come' will lessen the legitimate importance, or render us indifferent to the proper interests, duties, and obligations of the present life. So far from this, faith in the future will dignify, hallow, and elevate the natural and lawful pursuits and duties of the present; and he who lives the most for eternity, will live the best for time!

Realizing that you are dead with Christ-are risen with Christ-and that even now you are reigning with Christ-oh! come out of the world-live above the world-and let your heavenly life evidence that you "seek those things which are above, where Christ sits on the right hand of God:" that you have set your affections on things above, not on things on the earth; and that your heart is where its precious treasure is-with Christ your Beloved in the heavenlies. Thus looking at Calvary-and beyond it to the crown-the palm-the harp that await you in glory, you will exclaim in the glowing language of the Apostle-"God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified to me, and I unto the world!

6. THE SYMPATHY OF ANGELS WITH CHRIST AND THE CHRISTIAN IN TEMPTATION.

"Then the Devil left Him, and, behold, angels came and ministered unto Him."--Matt. iv. 11.

Resisted and discomfited in his every attempt to ensnare and overcome the Son of God, Satan retires, ingloriously defeated from the conflict, leaving our Lord Victor upon the field. "And, behold, angels came and ministered unto Him." The angels' sympathy with Christ in this the hour of His long and exhausting temptation was singularly beautiful and appropriate. He had been forty days and forty nights in personal and deadly conflict with the Prince and Leader of the mighty host of fallen angels. It was now graceful and proper that, retreating from the battle vanquished and crest-fallen, good angels should take their place, and in honor of His triumph, as in sympathy with His weariness and want, minister-as angels only could-to the Lord of angels. What a spectacle of marvelous and touching beauty! Methinks, all heaven must have looked down upon the scene filled with awe, instruction, and praise!

"So Satan fell; and straight a fiery globe
Of angels, in full sail of wing, flew nigh!
Who, on their plumy vans, received Him soft
From His uneasy station, and upbore,
As on a floating couch, through the blithe air."

The ministration of angels-or, messengers, as the word signifies-occupies a prominent and important place in the history of the world and of the Church. But in no point of view is their service so conspicuous and interesting as in its association with Christ Himself. In each of the most momentous events of His personal life, angels bore a prominent and impressive part. They were commissioned to announce the approach of the greatest event in the history of the universe-the incarnation of the Son of God. And when that stupendous fact had actually transpired, how sweetly broke their midnight music over the plains of Bethlehem-"And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying, Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men."

From the manger of Bethlehem we pass to the garden of Gethsemane. We behold the incarnate God bowed in sorrow to the ground-the blood-sweat upon His brow-the cup of trembling in His hand-and the cry of submissive anguish on His lips-"If this cup may not pass from Me, except I drink it, Your will be done." And then, in His soul-agony and bodily weakness, "There appeared an angel unto Him from heaven, strengthening Him." How instructive and touching the scene! It was the hour of Christ's greatest weakness. It was the focal point of His soul's agony. It was the brimming, foaming, overflowing of His cup of woe! As man-the Man of Sorrows-He needed strengthening. From whence shall it come? His Father might have strengthened His humanity. From His own Divine nature Christ could have strengthened Himself. But no! the office was assigned to an angel! Another element of humiliation was to be added to the cup; His humanity was to be brought into so low a condition-so entirely separated from all the resources of the Uncreated and Infinite-as to be cast in the hour of its suffering and need upon the compassion and aid of the created and the finite. And "an angel strengthened Him." Oh, how truly did He now appear as "made lower than the angels." In what way the angels thus strengthened their sorrowful Creator and Lord we are not told. But, doubtless, they were commissioned to assure His human soul, thus bowed in grief, that He was still an object of Divine favor; that, in love that cup of woe was given; that, the promise that the Father would stand by Him in the hour of His woe, should be fulfilled; that, glory and honor would crown His sufferings and death; and that the joy set before Him-for which He now was draining the cup, and soon was to endure the cross-was the complete salvation of the people His Father had given to His hand. "And there appeared an angel unto Him from heaven strengthening Him."

From the garden we follow Him to the sepulchre. Again the angels are His attendants. They encircle His tomb. They sit, the one at the foot and the other at the head, where His sacred body had lain. They were the first to announce His resurrection, as they were the first to proclaim His birth. "And, behold, there was a great earthquake: for the angel of the Lord descended from heaven, and came and rolled back the stone from the door, and sat upon it. His countenance was like lightning, and his raiment white as snow; and for fear of him the keepers did shake, and became as dead men. And the angel answered and said unto the women, Fear not ye: for I know that ye seek Jesus, which was crucified. He is not here; for He is risen, as He said. Come, see the place where the Lord lay." Honored celestials! Honored, above many, to be the heaven-commissioned body-guard at the tomb of the Son of God! Holy watchers! what a mission must that have appeared to you, when ye rolled away the stone from the door of the sepulchre, and beheld the illustrious Prisoner on whom ye waited come forth triumphant over the grave! Privileged, too, were ye to be the first to announce to the world that He that was dead was alive again, and bore in His girdle, henceforth and for ever, the keys of hell and of death!

From the sepulchre we follow the angels to the Mount of Olives, the scene of our Savior's personal and glorious ascension into heaven. Again they form His guard of honor! Hovering around the Mount, how eagerly they wait the moment when, springing from its summit, He should take His heavenly flight. Clustering in a countless throng around His ascending form, with shouts of triumph and paeans of praise they bore Him up to the celestial gates, and then demanded for Him a Conqueror's triumphant entrance! "Lift up your heads, O ye gates; and be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors; and the King of glory shall come in. Who is this King of glory? The Lord strong and mighty, the Lord mighty in battle. The Lord of hosts, He is the King of glory." Oh, never was conqueror attended with such an escort, or made an entrance so glorious and triumphant!

"They thronged His chariot up the skies,
And bore Him to His throne;
Then sweep their golden harps, and shout,
The glorious work is done."

But another-a final-and, in its circumstances of solemnity and grandeur, more momentous and impressive ministration of angels in the history of Christ, awaits its accomplishment. The angels will form a distinguished feature in the Second Coming of the Lord. The same celestial host who attended Him from His birth to His ascension, will conduct Him back to earth, swelling His train and aiding His triumph. "The Son of Man shall come in the glory of His Father with His angels." "And He shall send His angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together His elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other." Who will not believe that in the great events thus closing the drama of the world's history, and consummating the glory of the Church, the angels of God will take an essential and conspicuous share? But let us return from this digression to the subject more immediately before us-the sympathy of the holy angels in the hour of our Lord's conflict with Satan. "Then the Devil leaves Him, and, behold, angels came and ministered unto Him."

In what way they thus ministered to the tempted Savior is not stated. But can it be for a moment conjectured? Christ had fasted forty days and forty nights, and afterwards was an hungered, exhausted, and faint; for He was very man, as very God-and, as such, He needed bodily nourishment. From whence would it come? He could work a miracle and feed the famished thousands; but He was among the people as He that served, who had come, not to be ministered unto, but to minister; and to have exerted His Divine power in His own behalf now, by converting the stones into bread, would have been a momentary triumph of Satan. From whence then His needed nourishment? Angels brought it Him! Those celestial beings who provided a repast for Elijah when, weary and fretful, he laid him down beneath the juniper-tree to die, now brought food to the famished and exhausted body of the God of Elijah, their own Divine Creator and Lord. "And, behold, angels came and ministered unto Him." Oh, touching spectacle of wonder and love! Never was such a royal banquet-never such a host of celestial attendants-never so Illustrious a Guest! How grateful and refreshing to the depressed and exhausted Savior must have been this expression of angelic sympathy, and this supply of "angels' food!" But, let us not limit this expression of angelic sympathy with Christ to the material. Doubtless, there was much more than this-there was spiritual and mental refreshment. Would not these angelic students, who had studied the mysteries of redeeming love-"which things the angels desire to look into"-now seek to soothe and strengthen the human soul of the Redeemer in that fiery ordeal through which He had just passed? They had been sent from heaven charged with this holy and benevolent mission-to succour and comfort the Son of God! Would they not humbly remind the Savior of the Divine appointment of the trial through which He had passed-of the necessity of the discipline-personal and official-to which He had been subjected-of the untold blessings that would accrue to His Church-of the eternal glory that would redound to His Father from the long, agonizing temptation out of which He had just triumphantly come? In this way-bodily and mentally-would this angelic embassy minister to the Lord of angels in a moment when, as the God-man, 'heart and flesh were failing' through 'manifold temptations.'

Turn we now from the sympathy of angels with Christ in temptation, to the sympathy of angels with the Christian.

The ministry of angels is not a mere figure of speech, or, simply a poetic sentiment, but is in reality a distinctly and divinely revealed truth practically embodied in the history of the Church of God in all ages, and personally in the daily experience of each individual member of His Church. A single but expressive declaration of Scripture sets forth this doctrine, and places it in the strongest light as a matter-of-fact truth. After vindicating the superiority of Christ to the angels-demonstrating thus the Lord Jesus to be Divine-the Apostle naturally, and as an argument of their inferiority, thus, adverts to their office and ministry in the Christian Church:-"Are they not all ministering spirits, sent forth to minister for them who shall heirs of salvation?" We are thus brought face to face with the fact. Can we draw any other reasonable deduction from these words than this-that the whole celestial hierarchy is engaged in the comparatively humble, yet, nevertheless, highly honorable office of ministering spirits, or servants, appointed to aid the Church of God, collectively and individually, in its history on earth? How that ministry is exerted we are left very much to conjecture-the fact alone standing out in the clearest possible light. But, taking the recorded ministrations of angels as the standard of their present ministry, we may arrive at an intelligent, and by no means sentimental, idea of the service they now perform in the Church of God in its existing dispensation. In the first place, we have their appointment. They are not self-delegated. They are sent by Christ, their Lord and Creator, and this conclusively proves their inferiority to Christ Himself. They do not assume the office, but in a subordinate capacity-as the servants of the Church-are appointed, commissioned, and sent by a Power infinitely higher than their own. "Sent forth."

The objects of their ministry are, "the heirs of salvation," i.e., the whole elect Church of God. Adopted into God's family, all believers are "heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ Jesus." They are heirs, expectants, or inheritors of salvation. These include the whole Church of God-all the members of the one Church of Christ,-whatever their distinctive badge among men. Christ, in the dispensation of His favors-especially in His great salvation-recognizes no denominational differences: but, if holding Him the One Head-believing in Him, loving, serving, and following Him-all alike are acknowledged as the "heirs, of salvation," for whom is reserved an "inheritance incorruptible, undefiled, and that fades not away."

Their office, clearly, is "to minister." This, doubtless, includes an individual and unceasing guardianship; protection in danger, seen or unseen; counsel in perplexity; sympathy and support in sorrow and affliction; succour and supply in times of need; mental and spiritual strengthening when mind and soul are depressed and desponding; and above and beyond all-and this is an especial, touching, and solemn part of their holy ministry-attendance upon the redeemed spirit, in its flight to eternal glory. "And was carried by the angels into Abraham's bosom." We do not see, nor can we explain, the mystic ladder that communicates from heaven to earth, and from earth to heaven; but of this we are assured that by it, descending and ascending, the .angels of God are continuously bent on embassies of intelligence and on errands of love to Christ's heirs of glory. That the "family in heaven" is intelligently conversant of the history of the "family on earth"-without any express revelation of the fact, but arguing from analogy-I see no reason to doubt. Surely their interest in the concerns and progress of the kingdom of grace below, cannot be totally absorbed in the exclusive enjoyment of the kingdom of glory above. And if-as we are told-"There is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner that repents"-we cannot reasonably doubt that the intelligence of the conversion to Christ of our kindred left on earth-as conveyed by these ministering spirits-must heighten the bliss and swell the song of the "spirits of just men made perfect." And let it be borne in mind that this joy in heaven is not confined to the angelic host, but, as it is expressed, "joy in the presence of the angels of God over one that repents;" and that, consequently, with that joy must blend the joy of the glorified saints. Shall angels-strangers to redeeming love-thrill with ecstasy over the conquests of grace on earth, and those who have been redeemed by the blood of the Lamb be sensible of no emotion of gladness, and breathe no joyous anthem of praise at the good news that the kingdoms of this world are gradually becoming-and by the accession of their own kindred-the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ?

But here our observations of the angelic ministry must rest. Who can describe what their sympathy is when the fiery darts of Satan-fast and flaming-fly thick around the tempted believer? If angels ministered to Christ in the hour of His temptation, surely we may believe that the same office is discharged in the case of all tempted in a like manner with Him. Invisible and unheard, they troop around the person of every saint of God, bent upon the high and holy office of tending upon them for whom the Son of God sacrificed His own life. "The angel of the Lord encamps round about them that fear Him, and delivers them." "He shall give His angels charge over you, to keep you in all your ways. They shall bear you up in their hands, lest you dash your foot against a stone." Still we must keep in view that they are but God's messengers and Christ's servants, doing His will, accomplishing His purpose, and obeying His behests. They are to be recognized, not adored; loved, not idolized; revered, not worshipped. Infinitely above the highest angel in heaven is the "Captain of our salvation," bending over us with a Divinely intelligent and unslumbering care; and angels-His aides-de-camp-are only what He makes them, and nothing more. If any creature channel flows with blessing, He fills it; if empty, He exhausts it; reserving to Himself the sovereign and inalienable power to do as seems good in His sight, that He may be all and in all.

And yet how great the honor conferred upon the lowliest saint of God, that these holy, intelligent, powerful beings, commissioned by Heaven, should be his personal and constant attendants, fanned and enclosed each moment by their silken, noiseless, and unseen wings. Oh, who can tell how near, vigilant, and powerful, they are in every assault of Satan, in every moment of danger, and in every hour of grief, diverting the winged arrow-unveiling the concealed snare-snatching from some yawning precipice: or, should the arrow have pierced, or the feet have stumbled, or the sorrow have come-by some mysterious influence, we cannot now explain, but which will be fully known hereafter-healing the wound, soothing the spirit, and conducting our footsteps in the path of safety, pleasantness, and peace. And if the Son of God, the Creator and Lord of angels, condescended to accept the service of, and to be ministered to by, angels-if by them He was supplied in want, soothed in grief, and strengthened in battle-should it be thought a thing incredible that these same celestial beings should encircle our path, and cluster around our dying pillows, ministering to us of their love, succour, and sympathy? "Are they not all ministering spirits, sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation?"

"And is there care in heaven? and is there love
In heavenly spirits to these creatures base,
That may compassion of their evils move?
There is!-else much more wretched were the case
Of men than beasts. But O exceeding grace
Of highest God that loves His creatures so,
And all His works of mercy doth embrace,
That blessed angels He sends to and fro,
To serve to wicked man, to serve His wicked foe!

"How oft do they their silver bowers leave,
To come to succour us that succour want!
How do they with golden pinions cleave
The yielding skies, like flying pursuivant,
Against foul fiends to aid us militant!
They for us fight, they watch and duly ward,
And their bright squadrons round about us plant;
And all for love and nothing for reward;
O why should Heavenly God to men have such regard?"

7. THE SYMPATHY OF CHRIST WITH THE CHRISTIAN IN TEMPTATION.

"For in that He Himself has suffered, being tempted, he is able to succour them that are tempted."-Heb. ii. 18.

We ascend with our present subject into a higher and diviner region of thought and feeling. From the sympathy of angels in temptation, we rise to the sympathy of the Lord of angels. And if the one has proved so intelligent, soothing, and helpful in the hour of battle and of danger, what must be the power and effect of the other? Infinitely transcending the combined ability of all the hosts in heaven, must be that of the tempted Head and Savior of His Church. There is a point in sympathy and power which no angel can possibly reach. The truest and most effectual sympathy is that which flows from kindred suffering. He who soothes me in temptation-stanches my wound-and weeps when I weep-must be one whom the archers have pierced-whom adversity has schooled-whom sorrow has chastened. "Not being untutored in suffering," says an ancient classic, "I learn to pity those in affliction." And not less expressive the same sentiment as rendered by a modern poet-
"They best can bind
Who have been bruised oft."

It is here that the sympathy of Christ infinitely distances all other; and all the benevolent angels in heaven must yield the palm to Him. Probably no chapter of our Christian life brings us into such close and tender contact with the heart of Christ, or He with ours, as the temptations-satanic or otherwise-which constitute so essential an element in our Christian character here, and in our fitness for its higher and more perfect development hereafter.

In directing our attention to a view of Christ's sympathy in temptation, let us inquire what are some of its more distinctive characteristics. "For in that He Himself has suffered, being tempted, He is able to succour them that are tempted."

The first feature which will impress the thoughtful mind is,-its Priestly character. "We have not an High Priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin." It will thus appear that, one essential part of Christ's Priesthood is-sympathy with the tempted. There does not exist in the offices filled by Christ in the Church of God so essential and precious a one as His Priestly office. His sacrifice lays the foundation of all the other relations He sustains in the economy of redemption. He could not possibly be a Prophet to instruct, or a King to govern, or a Mediator to administer, or a Brother to sympathize, but as He first became a Priest to atone. There must first be the offering of a righteousness and the shedding of blood in vindication of the honor of the moral government of God, ere He could consistently exercise any one function of His mediatorial mission. And it is a noteworthy fact that, the most prevalent and arrogant attack of modern heresy is directed against the Priesthood of Christ! The underlying element of existing ecclesiasticism is a species of pseudo-sacerdotalism, arrogating to itself a priestly authority and function, entirely ignoring the office, and subversive of the work, of Christ, the one only Priest of His Church. It is from this sacerdotal element that springs-as a natural and logical sequence-the notions of apostolic succession, sacramental efficacy, auricular confession, and priestly absolution. Exorcise this ghostly pretension-priestly power-and with it will vanish the kindred spectres which wander among the tombs of those who are dead to the reality and power of the life of God in the soul of man.

But the Priesthood of Christ occupies its own solitary, unapproachable, and untransferable position in the Church of God. "We have a Priest"-a Divine Priest-a sacrificial Priest-an interceding Priest; and every true member of the "Royal Priesthood," needs and acknowledges no other. That there is a divinely appointed "priesthood" in the Church of Christ, composed of all believers, of every nation and from every communion, we readily and gratefully admit. "Ye are a Royal Priesthood." The conditions of this Priesthood are not submission to any rite, or subscription to any creed, or membership with any Church; but all true believers become members of this "Priesthood" in virtue of their spiritual and mystical union with the Lord Jesus Christ, the "Priest upon His throne." Thus the saints of God belong to the true "seed royal," through their relation to Christ, and will, with Him, reign "kings and priests" for ever. Oh, how faintly do the saints of God value their true royalty! How we forget that we belong to a "kingdom of priests"! that we are clothed with royal apparel-the robe of Christ's righteousness! that we sit at the King's table, and feed on royal dainties-that a life-guard from the Court of Heaven is commissioned to be our ministering attendants; that hereafter we shall reign with Christ in His kingdom of glory upon the New Earth and the New Heaven, for ever and ever. But to this royalty is attached the distinction and office of Priests. "Ye are a Royal Priesthood"-made so by Christ and through His Priestly office, and anointed as such by the Holy Ghost. To this office of Priests is attached the function of sacrifice: not an atoning, propitiatory sacrifice for sin-this exclusively appertains to the Great High Priest of His Church-but the sacrifices which, as a Royal Priesthood, we offer, are those of a broken heart and a contrite spirit-the sacrifices of prayer and praise-and the presentation of our "bodies as a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is our most reasonable service." And for this "kingdom of Priests"-this "Royal Priesthood," there awaits the anthem which will employ their tongues and tune their harps through eternity-"Unto Him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in His own blood, and has made us kings and priests unto God and His Father; to whom be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen." My reader, rise to the dignity of your Royalty, exercise your privilege as Priests; and while you strive to keep your royal apparel unspotted from the world, day by day offer the sacrifice of contrition of heart for sin, and thanksgiving and praise to Him who, by the one sacrifice of Himself, has for ever delivered you from its guilt and condemnation. "By Him, therefore"-our Priest, Sacrifice, and Altar-"let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually, that is, the fruit of our lips, giving thanks to His name." Oh, how fragrant your prayers-melodious your praises-and a sweet-smelling savor your offerings of love done to the saints,-the representatives of Christ-all presented and accepted in virtue of the One Sacrifice He our Priest has offered for us to God! Your cup of cold water quenching the thirst-your crust of bread satisfying the hunger-your seasonable garment clothing the nakedness-your visit of sympathy soothing the sickness-of one of Christ's disciples, is an "odor of a sweet smell, a sacrifice acceptable and well pleasing to God;" and is laying up for you a grateful recognition, a loving welcome, and a rich reward of grace in the Heavenly Kingdom; when Jesus will say to you, "Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these, My brethren, ye have done it unto Me. Enter you into the joy of your Lord." Hold fast the profession of your faith, without wavering, in the one sacrificing Priesthood of the Lord Jesus! Recognize no priestly authority, or power, or function in the Church of God but His! "Jesus only"-the One "High Priest over the house of God."-is the watchword of the Christian Church-the counter-sign of the great army of the living God-the one badge of the "Royal Priesthood" on earth and in heaven.

"Shall I trust my soul's salvation
To a fellow-creature's care?
Can a priest, a saint, or angel,
Save me in my dark despair?
None but Jesus, none but Jesus,
Hears a contrite sinner's prayer.

"Do I need a Mediator,
Other than the Son of God?
Can the Virgin Mary help me?
Jesus shed for me His blood
None but Jesus, none but Jesus,
Intercedes for me with God.

"Is there aught of praise or merit
Due to works my hands have done?
Can a life of tears and penance
For a single sin atone?
None but Jesus, none but Jesus:
He must save, and He alone.

"Can the waters outward washing
Inward change of heart supply?
Life and energy bestowing,
Can it bid corruption die?
Blessed Jesus, blessed Jesus,
Send Your Spirit from on high!

"Can the sacramental symbols-
Emblems of a Savior's love-
Can these satisfy the longings
Of a soul born from above?
None but Jesus, none but Jesus,
Food for fainting souls can prove."

The sympathy of Christ with the tempted is experimental. It is this attribute which, perhaps, more than any other, imparts to it such peculiar interest and tenderness in the experience of the Satan-tempted believer. How strikingly is this feature of personal experience of our Lord's sympathy with the tempted expressed by the Apostle: "In that He Himself has suffered, being tempted, He is able to succour them that are tempted." And again: "Who can have compassion on the ignorant, and on them that are out of the way; for that He Himself is compassed with infirmity." This is a most touching and soothing view of Christ's compassion. The sympathy He offers in infirmity, in sorrow, in temptation, is not theoretical and visionary; it is the fellow-feeling, the sympathy of One who has been taught in the same school of suffering, who has passed through the same furnace of affliction, who has endured the same fiery temptations-"tempted in all points like as we are, yet without sin." You look, in your sorrow, to the "Man of Sorrows;" in grief, to Him who was personally "acquainted with grief;" and in temptations from Satan, from the world, from man, to Him who battled with the devil-who was despised, rejected, and crucified by the world-and "who would not commit Himself to man, because He knew what was in man." Go ye then to Jesus, and tell Him just what you fear, just what you suffer, just what you are. The infirmity that oppresses you, encompassed Him; the flaming dart that pierces you, was hurled at Him; the painful cross you carry, bowed Him to the earth; the bitter cup you drink, once pressed His quivering lips.

The sympathy of Christ with the Christian is intelligent. It is not a blind, heartless sympathy, either unacquainted with, or indifferent to, our case. "I know their sorrows, and have come down to deliver them," was the wonderful and consolatory declaration of God concerning His people under the cruel and crushing service of Pharaoh. And what are the words of Jesus the Shepherd of His Flock but an echo of the same truth: "I know My sheep." Oh, how unspeakably assuring is this truth! Enough, that Christ knows our temptation, is acquainted with our sorrow, though not another being in the universe is cognizant of it. It is the sympathy of a full and intelligent knowledge of all the delicate shades, and the subtle circumstances-too sacred and intricate, perhaps, to explain to another-of the position in which we are placed, and of the temptations by which we are assailed. Such knowledge is too wonderful for us-it is high, we cannot attain unto it-for it is the knowledge of an Infinite and Divine mind. The most confidential friend may be ignorant of the mental and spiritual exercise through which we are passing, of the fiery conflict we are waging, of the temporal and anxious pressure we are sustaining, the lonely path we tread, the trying life we live, the daily cross we carry;-enough that Christ knows it all! And this assurance should infinitely outweigh the solitariness and sadness we experience, and which the ignorance, or, perhaps, the coldness, of all others may painfully augment. Who would exchange the compassion and individual knowledge of our daily life which Christ possesses for the most tender commiseration the human heart ever felt?

The sympathy of Christ is practical and helpful. In this feature it differs essentially from much of the so-called sympathy of the world. There exists a species of compassion which; apparently sincere and fervent, evaporates in mere words: "Depart ye in peace, be ye warmed and filled," is the utmost limit of its expression. The helping hand is not extended, the closed purse-strings are not unloosed, the tear of sympathy moistens not the eye, and thus no practical and timely outflow of sympathy is the response. And, "if a brother or a sister be naked, or destitute of daily food," or the mind oppressed with anxiety, or the heart bowed with grief, appeals to our compassion and asks our aid, of what practical avail if, with the priest and the Levite, content with an idle look of pity, we pass by on the other side, leaving the object of our heartless indifference to bear his burden or nurse his wound in lonely and unrelieved sorrow? Oh, for more reality in our religion! Oh, for more of the sweet, helpful charity of Christ!-that charity which, like the gentle dew of evening, distils silently and unseen, but softening and reviving, upon the fainting flowers-a link from the golden chain which entwines an angel's form-and which, like the mild radiance of the emerald, emits a softer and more pleasing luster than the sparkling diamond or the brilliant ruby. Such, if we are Christ's true followers, should be characteristic of our charity; like the Good Samaritan-not evaporating in empty, meaningless expression, but embodied and manifested in noble and fragrant deeds-
"Like the sweet South,
That breathes upon a bank of violets,
Stealing and giving odor."

Apply this to the sympathy of Christ with His tempted saints. How true, yet how faint, the illustration! Tempted in all points like as we are, is there a single form of assault with which He is not personally familiar, and with which He does not practically sympathize? Are you tempted by worldly attraction? distrust of God? creature idolatry? false worship? self-destruction? Oh, bend an ear to Christ's own words-"My grace is sufficient for you; My strength is made perfect in weakness." Not satisfied with a mere expression of sympathy, Christ imparts skill to fence, power to bear, grace to overcome. "There has no temptation taken you but such as is common to man; but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able, but will, with the temptation, also make a way that ye may be able to bear it." "The Lord knows how to deliver the godly out of temptation."

Nor let us overlook the exquisite tenderness of Christ's sympathy. Could language be more expressive of this than that of the Apostle? "We have not an High Priest who cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities, but was in all points tempted like as we are." 'Touched'-how full of meaning the word! We are 'touched'-our deepest sensibility and sympathy aroused-by a spectacle of suffering and want. Such is the sympathy of Jesus! He is touched with our misery, touched with our temptation, touched with our grief. Who can sound the depth, or portray the tenderness of that sympathy with bereaved sorrow embodied in the inimitable picture, which no artist has ever attempted to delineate-"Jesus wept"? Such is the sympathy of the Great Tempted One, to which we invite you. Approach Him with prayer and confidence-unveil to Him your trouble-make known to Him your want-confess to Him your sin-sob your grief upon His bosom-for "we have not a High Priest who cannot he touched with the feeling of our infirmities,"-and He is touched with yours.

The sympathy of Christ is not only that of a fellow-sufferer, but it is also that of an Intercessor. This office constitutes Christ's work in heaven. "He ever lives to make intercession." "By His own blood He entered once into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us." What a sweetly soothing truth is this, that every temptation that assails us-every affliction that bows us-every trouble that befalls us-every sorrow that crushes us-and every sin that wounds us, is represented in heaven. All are borne upon the breastplate-entwined with the prayers-perfumed with the incense of our once Sacrificing, but now Interceding, High Priest. "I have prayed for you-I am praying for you-I will pray for you," is the sweet assurance He addresses to all who, as He once did, are passing through the fiery ordeal of temptation-sifted as wheat-tried as gold-and are "filling up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ in the flesh." Words addressed by Christ to the Apostle Pete; are equally addressed to every assailed believer-"Satan has desired to have you that he may sift you as wheat; but I have prayed for you, that your faith fail not."

"Jesus, that King of Glory, reigns
On Zion's heavenly hill,
Looks like a Lamb that has been slain,
And wears His Priesthood still.

"He ever lives to intercede
Before His Father's face:
Give Him, my soul, your cause to plead,
Nor doubt the Father's grace."

"If any man sin, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous."

We must not overlook the crowning attribute of Christ's sympathy-its perfect sinlessness. "Yet without sin." In this, its purity, consists its power. Human sympathy-the most tender-must, necessarily, be imperfect from the fact of its sinfulness. Not a relation, nor a passion, nor a feeling, nor a sentiment of our humanity has escaped the effects of the Fall. Sin has palsied and infected the whole. Not thus the sympathy of Christ. Ignorance does not blind it-selfishness does not warp it-fickleness does not change it-ingratitude does not chill it-unworthiness does not forfeit it-time nor distance do not impair it, because sin does not taint it! "Yet without sin." Oh, how truly real, exquisitely tender, and unspeakably soothing and precious must that stream of sympathy be which flows from a spring so sweet and from a fountain so pure! Such is the sympathy of the Savior with all the tempted, tried, and sorrowful of His Church.

This thought of Christ's pure sympathy, suggests a cognate truth unspeakably comforting, and assuring to the tempted Christian. The perfect sinlessness of Christ in temptation teaches us that, temptations are not per se-in other words, of themselves-sinful. That, whatever the shaft of the adversary may be,-however skeptical and blasphemous, carnal and worldly, God-dishonoring and self-destroying the temptation-the mere presentation or suggestion of the Devil to the Christian mind involves no moral obliquity, and leaves upon the conscience no trace of guilt. Ignorance, or forgetfulness, of this fact has often occasioned needless mental suffering to many of the Lord's tempted saints. Where, in the history of His Church, shall we find so tempted, and yet so holy, a Being as the Lord Jesus Christ? And yet, not only did He emerge from the terrible ordeal unscathed, but He came forth with not the shadow of a shade of moral dishonor, of compromised integrity, attaching to His soul. We cannot say that He emerged from the furnace more purified and refined-for He was "without sin," and needed it not-but we may safely affirm that, as the suffering Mediator and Head of His Church, He became more thoroughly fitted by the discipline of temptation through which He passed to sympathize with and succour them that are tempted. "Though He were a Son, yet learned He obedience by the things which He suffered;" and that lesson of 'obedience' thus learned, involved a fellow-feeling-a sympathy the most perfectly intelligent and exquisitely tender-for all the weak and tempted ones of His Church.

"Touched with a sympathy within,
He knows our feeble frame;
He knows what sore temptations mean,
For He has felt the same."

Be not, then, cast down-write no bitter things against thyself, you tempted soul! Yielding not to the vile suggestion of the enemy-for temptation only becomes a sin as we succumb to its power-ye shall, like your tempted Head, come forth from the flaming furnace with not the smell of fire upon your garments. You may be sorely tempted by Satan to believe that the Bible is not true-that Christianity is not divine-that God is not faithful-that prayer is a delusion-that your sin is unpardonable-that Jesus does not save-and that your past religious experience and Christian profession is but delusion and hypocrisy, and your hope of heaven but a lie; nevertheless, these suggestions of Satan are not only all false, but, 'resisting' them with your Lord's invulnerable weapon, "It is written"-"he will flee from you"-one touch of the Divine Word overcoming him-leaving you, like your Lord, victor upon the field.

Forget not that temptation is an essential part of the development of Christian character here, and of the education and fitness of the Christian for glory hereafter. "Prayer, temptation, and study," remarked Luther, "are essential to the Gospel minister:" equally so to the private Christian. And, since temptation is a test of the reality of our grace, and the genuineness of our faith, and the stability of our hope, let us accept the discipline with meekness and love; and putting on the whole armor of God, withstand the Evil One, and having done all to stand. "Seeing then that we have a great High Priest that is passed into the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our profession. For we have not a High Priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need."

8. THE FINAL OVERTHROW OF THE TEMPTER AND BLESSEDNESS OF THE TEMPTED.

"That through death He might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the Devil; and deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage."-Heb. ii. 14, 15.

The mission of the Son of God in the flesh compassed a twofold object as it referred to Satan. The first, to destroy the works of the Devil; the second, to destroy the Devil himself. With regard to the first object, we read-"For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that He might destroy the works of this Devil." The second is equally as clear-"That He might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the Devil." No facts are more distinctly and solemnly revealed than the final overthrow and everlasting destruction of the Evil One, and the victory and eternal blessedness of the saints of the Most High, consequent upon that destruction. The "god of this world" is not to reign for ever! Too long, too widely and uninterruptedly has he maintained his supremacy and power over this fallen and sinful empire. In its history, as it will then be read and studied in the clear light of eternity, will be seen how central, significant, and appalling was the place usurped by him in the government of the race. And, as in the first creation of the world, he appeared conspicuous and active upon the scene, ere sin had yet defiled and the curse had yet blighted,-so, in the end of the world, he will reappear "the observed of all observers," to be arraigned and tried, overthrown and "punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of His power." The prophetic and significant words of our Lord-the great Tempted One concerning the great Tempter are yet to receive their full and solemn accomplishment-"I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven." Oh, yes! the rebellious, bloodstained standard of Satan is not for ever to float over this dark empire of sin and woe. His overthrow is certain-his doom is fixed-his days are numbered-"the chain which is to bind him is forged, and the fires which shall encircle him are kindled;" "the breath of the Lord, like a stream of brimstone, has kindled them." And all who followed his standard, who wore his fetters, and who obeyed his behests, will share his sentence, condemnation, and punishment-"Depart, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the Devil and his angels." We have alluded, in our opening remarks, to the destruction of the works of the Devil, as constituting an important part of Christ's mission. Let us briefly advert to this interesting and consolatory fact, as preparing us for the consideration of the final, ignominious, and total overthrow of the power and kingdom of the Devil himself at the Coming of the Lord. The passage we have placed at the head of this chapter limits our view to one particular work of Satan-his "power over death." And, probably, we could not specify any exercise of his power more terrible to the saints of God, or their deliverance from which is more firmly anticipated and ardently longed for than this.

"Him that had the power of death." The words are profoundly significant and solemn. They are not intended to ascribe to the Devil, originally and independently, an arbitrary and supreme power over death. This alone belongs to God, "with whom are the issues of death." And yet the language is strikingly significant and impressive-"Him that had the power of death." It refers, doubtless, to the fact that the Devil was the first introducer of sin, and consequently, of death; that he was the cause of death, and the instigator of death throughout his empire. That this power is limited and controlled by a higher power is implied and unquestionable. He has no power to inflict death in any single instance, beyond the permission of this superior and governing authority. But how appalling and far reaching this power! "He was a murderer from the beginning:" and all murders are the result of his instigation, and in the permitted exercise of his power. "The lust of your father the Devil ye will do," said Christ, addressing Himself to the Jews. And the crowning act of his murderous lust was his instigation of Judas to betray, and the Jews to murder, the "Lord of life and glory." And not content with thus suggesting and abetting the murder of our Lord, he strove with all the argument and persuasion he could command to prompt Him to an act of self-murder. "Cast Thyself down from hence." And still he exercises this terrible, though limited and curbed, power of death-as we have shown in a preceding chapter-by suggesting to the human mind the idea of self-destruction as a convenient and expeditious mode of escape from existing trouble, suffering, and shame. How graphically and accurately has our great national dramatist portrayed the mental exercises of the soul under the influence of this Satanic temptation to self-murder!

"To die,-to sleep;
No more; and, by a sleep, to say we end
The heart-ache, and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to,-'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wished. To die,-to sleep;-
To sleep perchance to dream:-ay, there's the rub;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause there's the respect
That makes calamity of so long a life;
For who would hear the whips and scorns of time,
The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,
The pangs of despised love, the law's delay,
The insolence of office, and the spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? who would fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,-
The undiscovered country, from whose bourne
No traveler returns,-puzzles the will,
And makes us rather bear those ills we have,
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought;
And enterprises of great pitch and moment,
With this regard, their currents turn away,
And lose the name of action."

But a more awful illustration of the power of death as possessed by Satan is yet to appear-his power to inflict the inconceivable and indescribable horrors of the "Second Death." That this power is conferred-under the control of a yet higher power-to his hands, who can reasonably doubt? When the "wicked shall be cast into hell," and "whosoever is not written in the Book of Life" into the "lake of fire," the power of death then entrusted to Satan will be exhibited in its most appalling form. But let me relieve this awful picture by presenting a bright and blessed contrast-the contrast of those over whom the Devil will have no such control: "Blessed and holy is he that has part in the first resurrection: on such the second death has no power; but they shall be priests to God and of Christ, and shall reign with Him a thousand years."

An interesting and important inquiry here occurs! in what way did Christ thus destroy the Devil? "That He might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the Devil." We see not as yet his destruction. Far from it! The world is still Satan's empire, ruled with a despot's unlimited sway. And, seeing that his time is short, and his overthrow inevitable and total, he would seem, in these "last days," to have 'come down in great power and wrath,' more wicked and fierce than ever. There are those who are blind to this fact. They tell us that the world as it grows older grows better! And, as proof of this assertion, they are wont to point to the rapid strides of civilization and refinement, of education, science, and social progress. They assure us that humanity is not so depraved, that the people are not so ignorant, and that society is more highly cultivated and refined. But what, and where, are the solid evidences of all this improvement? That civilization has increased-that education is on the march-and that luxury of living, polished manners, and advanced intelligence are the result, we readily admit. Nor do we overlook the results of sanitary reform-the efforts to reach the lowest strata of society-the great spread of Christian knowledge-the increased and honored labors of the evangelist at home, and those of the devoted missionary abroad. But with all this, the question still returns-Is the world really growing better? We trow not. Crimes the most hideous-social evils the most appalling-commercial immorality the most humiliating-atheism and infidelity the most bold-massacre and butcheries, legalized by the term of 'war,' and prosecuted in the name of Christ and under the holy banner of the cross,-are more rife, conspicuous, and widespread than ever! Who, as he intelligently surveys the present state of the world, and reads its history by the clear light of God's Word, can with any show of reason and of truth affirm that Satan is losing his power-that his sceptre is passing from his hand-and that the world, which has so long groaned beneath his iron will, is growing wiser, holier, and happier? And yet, with all this, there is a present moral destruction of Satan by Christ going on, typical and anticipatory of his final and eternal overthrow and destruction when the Redeemer shall come to restore all things to their more than pristine holiness and beauty. We can only suggest for the further study of the reader two or three illustrations of this moral victory of Christ over Satan.

In the conversion of the sinner it is palpable and indisputable. When the Holy Spirit regenerates a soul-and there is no spiritual regeneration but that which He imparts-"It is the Spirit that quickens, the flesh profits nothing"-the supremacy of Satan in that soul is destroyed. "No man can enter into a strong man's house, and spoil his goods, except he will first bind the strong man; and then he will spoil his house." Oh, what a blessed overthrow, spoiling, and casting out of Satan is this! He is now dethroned-his scepter broken-his kingdom supplanted-his captive delivered-and, henceforth, Jesus reigns in that regenerated and emancipated soul, triumphant, supreme, and for ever! My reader! is Satan's empire thus destroyed in your soul?

And what are the foiling and defeats in the after history and experience of the Christian but the continuous decreasing of Satan's power by Christ? 'When first emancipated from the supreme tyranny of Satan, by converting grace, it does not follow that the holy war is complete. The temporarily defeated foe-as in the case of our Lord-retires but "for a season," to return again and yet again to the battle, armed with a new shaft, and hurled with yet more skilful precision and potent effect. Thus we are taught that, when by Christ's grace we foil him in one attack, we have need to expect another, and to strengthen those weak points of the citadel the most exposed to the renewed charge. The physical power of Christ over demoniacal power was, doubtless, typical of His moral power over Satan in the soul. "For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that He might destroy the works of the Devil." Your daily life, O believer! is a continuous destroying by the Son of God of the works of Satan in you. The overthrow of his kingdom in the souls of the regenerate is a progressive, lifelong work: the last stone of the unholy edifice not cast down until the "earthly house of this tabernacle is dissolved," and the freed spirit is clothed upon with its house from heaven. Oh, what a Divine and skilful Captain of Salvation is ours! He observes the shaft drawn from the quiver-places his finger upon the bow that hurls it-diverts its winged course-and covers the head in the day of battle. How sweet is then the new song we sing-"Blessed be the Lord, who has not given us a prey to their teeth! Our soul is escaped as a bird out of the snare of the fowlers; the snare is broken and we are escaped. Our help is in the name of the Lord, who made heaven and earth."

"And deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage." There are few portions of God's Word over which the Christian mind has lingered with more painful and intense interest than this. Some of the most eminent saints-distinguished alike for great grace and heroic achievement-have dragged this oppressive chain for many a weary stage of the Christian life, nor dropping it until their feet smote the chill waters, and they passed over with the shout of victory upon their expiring lips-"O death! where is your sting?"

Having destroyed him that had the power of death, the destruction of death itself by Christ naturally and logically follows. The words of the Apostle in his letter to Timothy places this truth in a yet more clear and forcible point of light "Our Savior Jesus Christ, who has abolished death, and has brought life and immortality to light by the Gospel." In what sense has Christ thus abolished death in the history of His Church? Not literally, of course, since death still reigns, and will continue to reign until the Second Advent-"Whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of His mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of His coming:" then shall Antichrist be destroyed, and Death utterly and for ever abolished-"swallowed up in victory." But there are several senses in which Christ may be said already to have "abolished death" in the history of His Church. He has abolished death by destroying the law of sin and of death in the case of His people; and that law, thus repealed, death has no more legal power over them that believe in Jesus. Christ has abolished death as a penal evil, since, by putting away the sins of His people, He has taken from death its sting, rendering it a harmless foe! And how completely has Christ abolished death by changing the character of death in the dissolution of His saints! To these it is no longer death to die, but a gentle falling asleep, the soul awaking perfected in the likeness of Christ. How sweetly did Jesus thus speak of the death of the beloved brother of Bethany: "Our friend Lazarus sleeps: I go to wake him out of sleep." And it is recorded of Stephen-Christ's first martyr-"He fell asleep"-Oh! glorious death!-amid the infuriated shouts of his murderers and the storm of missiles beating around his head-his bruised and bleeding brow reposed upon the bosom of Jesus! And, addressing the bereaved Thessalonians, how tender and consolatory the language of the Apostle-"I would not have you ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with Him." To have so transformed this most appalling event of our being as to represent it by the exquisite image of a sleep-the very poetry of death-surely it may in truth be said-and in a sense most assuring to all those who dread the approach of the 'last enemy'-"Christ has abolished death." In your case, O believer! Christ, by His obedience and sacrifice, has so changed the character and the conditions of death that it no longer is a penal crime, but a covenant blessing; no longer a stern law, but a precious privilege; no longer to die, but sweetly and calmly to sleep. Oh, what must Jesus have endured in His personal conflict with Death, thus to have changed the entire character of death in behalf of all His saints! He met death as none had ever met the "king of terrors" before-in all its unmitigated bitterness, unalleviated agony, and most appalling circumstances: His dying pillow, a cross; His attendants, murderers; His restorative, wormwood and gall! What do we not owe to You, You precious Jesus! of love, obedience, and service, who met ten thousand deaths in one, that, when we die, we might fall sweetly asleep in You?

"What is Life?-'tis sitting,
Jesus, at Your feet,
All things gladly quitting
For that favored seat:
Where, in sacred union,
Earth and Heaven meet!

"What is Death?-'tis springing,
Savior, to Your breast;
'Tis the freed bird winging
To her glory-nest:
Life and Death with Jesus-
Heritage how blest!"

The 'love of Christ'! truly "it passes knowledge." The Lord the Spirit direct our hearts into this infinite ocean of love, tiding over all our sins, sorrows, and fears. "O Savior! was it not enough for You to be manifested in flesh? Did not that elementary composition carry in it abasement enough without any further addition; since, for God to become man, was more than for all things to be returned to nothing; but that, in the rank of miserable manhood, You would humble Thyself to the lowest of humanity, and become a servant? O Savior! in how despicable a condition do I find You exhibited to the world! lodged in a stable, cradled in a mange; visited by poor shepherds, employed in a homely trade, attended by fishermen, tempted by presumptuous devils, persecuted by the malice of envious men, exposed to hunger, thirst, nakedness, weariness, contempt. How many slaves, under the vassalage of an enemy, fare better than You did from ungrateful man, whom You came to save! Oh, let me not see only, but feel, this great mystery of godliness, effectually working me to all hearty thankfulness for so inestimable a mercy! And now, O Savior! what a superabundant amends is made to Your glorified humanity for all Your bitter sufferings on earth! Your agony was extreme, but Your glory is infinite; Your cross was heavy, but Your crown transcendently glorious; Your pains were inconceivably grievous, but short; Your glory everlasting. You, that stood before the judgment-seat of a Pilate, shall come in all heavenly magnificence to judge both the quick and the dead; You, that would stoop to be a servant on earth, rules and reigns for ever in heaven, as the King of eternal glory!"

The final overthrow and doom of the Great Tempter will not be more certain and appalling than it is distinctly and emphatically predicted. Among the apocalyptic visions which floated before the eye of the exiled Seer of Patmos, was one graphically and sublime descriptive of this signal and stupendous event. The prophecy would seem to divide itself into two parts-the one bearing upon the present scene of Satan's empire, the other referring to his future judgment and everlasting doom. With regard to the first, we thus read:-"And I saw an angel come down from heaven, having the key of the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand. And he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which is the Devil, and Satan, and bound him a thousand years, and cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set a seal upon him." This vision clearly refers to the position of Satan in the Millennium. During that blissful period of the world's history the devil will be relegated to "his own place." For six thousand years this Archfiend has maintained his cruel despotism over the entire earth, walking to and fro, seeking whom he may devour. Then a new and more blissful era in the world's history will have dawned. The Millennium-long the inspired song of the poet and the evangelical prediction of the prophet-will have arrived; and banished to the prison-house from whence he came-pinioned with a massive chain-the door of his dungeon secured with a great seal from heaven-Satan is "permitted to deceive the nations no more, till the thousand years should be fulfilled." Oh, what a halcyon period of holiness and rest will the earth-long travailing in weariness and woe-now experience! How changed the scene! The curse giving place to blessing-sin and crime to holiness and security-pestilence and sickness to perfect sanity and health;-national wars and feuds to universal concord and love-want and misery to plenty and delight; suffering, bereavement, and woe to a deathless, sorrowless, and tearless world. Blessed inhabitants! "God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain; for the former things are passed away."

"No sigh, no murmur, the wide world shall hear;
From every face He wipes off every tear;
In adamantine chains shall death be bound,
And hell's grim Tyrant feel the eternal wound."

But this thousand years of millennial holiness and repose-like all earth-bound objects-has an end. It must be remembered that Satan, though confined, is not yet cast into Gehenna; sin, though suppressed, is not yet extinct; and War, though ceasing, has not yet sheathed its sword. Humanity, though restrained, is still fallen and depraved; and Satan, though fettered and sealed, waits but his release. His temporary imprisonment terminates. "After that he must be loosed a little season," and resume his cruel reign of sin and bloodshed until his final and everlasting overthrow and doom, as thus graphically predicted in the apocalyptic vision of St. John, shall have arrived. "And when the thousand years are expired, Satan shall be loosed out of prison, and shall go out to deceive the nations of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather together to battle: the number of whom is as the sand of the sea. And they went up on the breadth of the earth, and compassed the camp of the saints about, and, the beloved city; and fire came down from God out of heaven, and devoured them. And the devil, that deceived them, was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast (the Papal power) and the false prophet (the Mohammedan) are, and shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever." How awfully sublime the scene! The doom of Satan is at hand-the last scene in the dark drama of his history is reached-and the chief Criminal of the universe is about to receive the due and just reward of his deeds. The great white throne is fixed; upon it the "Ancient of Days" is seated-and before Him all beings,-angels and men,-are cited to appear. Central, and towering above all of that countless throng, is Satan, the Head-Centre of Pandemonium. His trial commences and takes precedence of all the rest. In that trial, O tempted Christian! you will personally participate. "Know ye not that we shall judge angels?" You who once stood as a target for his flaming darts, frequently foiled, wounded, and cast down: you into whose mind this malicious Fiend-the seducer and destroyer of our first parents-often suggested the skeptical doubt-the blasphemous thought-the unhallowed imagination-the hostile will-you shall hear the voice of the Judge saying-"Come near, My saints, sit with Me upon My throne and aid the judgment, approve the sentence, and witness the doom of your great Adversary, malicious Tempter, false Accuser, and fiendish Foe. Come, place your feet upon his neck-and unite with the grand chorus of all the host of heaven in the universal acknowledgment of the holiness, equity, and truth of the sentence which consigns him to the "everlasting fire prepared for the Devil and his angels."-"You art righteous, O Lord, which art, and was, and shall be, because You hast judged thus." Tempted Christian! fight on-pray on-hope on. A few more flaming shafts, a few more hard fights, and the last battle is fought and the glorious victory won: and you shall see your great Tempter no more for ever. "The God of peace shall bruise Satan under your feet shortly." "And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb."

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

THE LORD MY PORTION or,
DAILY NEED DIVINELY SUPPLIED

Table of Contents

Preface

1. THE LORD MY PORTION

2. THE LORD MY HUSBAND

3. THE LORD MY BROTHER

4. THE LORD MY HOPE

5. THE LORD MY HELPER

6. THE LORD MY REFINER

7. THE LORD MY HEALER

8. THE LORD MY DELIVERER

9. THE LORD MY MASTER

10. THE LORD MY SERVANT

11. THE LORD MY TEACHER

12. THE LORD MY EXAMPLE

13. THE LORD MY BURDEN-BEARER

14. THE LORD MY SHEPHERD

15. THE LORD MY RESTORER

16. THE LORD MY LIGHT

17. THE LORD MY KEEPER

18. THE LORD MY CARE-TAKER

19. THE LORD MY PROVIDER

20. THE LORD MY REST

21. THE LORD MY BISHOP

22. THE LORD MY LEADER

23. THE LORD MY FOOD

24. THE LORD MY DRINK

25. THE LORD MY SAVIOR

26. THE LORD OUR PEACE

27. THE LORD MY JOY

28. THE LORD MY SONG

29. THE LORD MY CREDITOR

30. THE LORD MY EXPECTATION

31. CHRIST IS ALL, AND IN ALL

PREFACE

The Lord's people but imperfectly realize their boundless wealth. They resemble an heir to whom a vast estate has been bequeathed, but who yet remains ignorant of the rich and extensive mines which underlie its surface, filling every acre with veins of the richest ore, until some incidental upturned sod brings to light the precious deposit. God has given us His Word--a field of wealth incalculable; His Son--in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge; the covenant of grace--ordered in all things and sure; and Himself, our infinite, all-sufficient, all-satisfying, and inalienable--PORTION. Well may the apostle, summing up the inventory of our possessions, exclaim--as if no measurement or number could compass and compute their extent--"ALL THINGS are yours!"

To enable the pious reader to estimate in some experimental measure his vast opulence, is the design of this little work. The writer has endeavored to concentrate all the believer's wealth--where, in truth, God has deposited it--in JESUS; deeply, solemnly convinced that, it is the lack of more simple views of Christ, and a more direct application to His mediatorial sufficiency--dealing with the Father more immediately through the Son, in whom it pleased Him that all fullness should dwell--which is the cause of so much soul-leanness, prostration of spiritual power, and languor of love in many of the saints.

The points of light in which God in Christ may be regarded as the believer's PORTION were many and inviting. The writer trusts his pages will afford at least some faint reflection of "the unsearchable riches of Christ," to which the weakest, the obscurest Christ-believing, Christ-loving soul may prefer a personal claim, and say, "All is mine, for I am Christ's, and Christ is God's!"

THE LORD MY PORTION

"The Lord is my portion, says my soul; therefore I will hope in Him." Lam. 3:24

It is our great privilege, beloved, that we live in a portionless world. This is both our distinctive badge and our Christian charter. When God parceled out the land of Canaan among the tribes of Israel, He made an exception in the tribe of Levi, to whom He said, "You shall have no inheritance in the land, neither shall you have any part among them;" assigning as His reason, "I am your share and your inheritance." The gospel teaching of this is obvious and significant. As the Lord's true priesthood, this world is not our portion, nor earth our rest. It may have required some painful discipline, and no small measure of faith, on the part of the devout Levite, as he gazed upon the fertile meadows, the watered plains, and the vine-clad hills of the Promised Land, before he was made willing to relinquish it all for Him who is invisible--and it needs no little teaching and discipline of our God, and no little faith on our part, before we are led to give up the world, the creature, self, and all, for Christ--satisfied to have the Lord alone as our Portion, and heaven only as our inheritance.

But the Lord will not put His people off with anything unworthy of Him to give, or them to accept. He has set them apart for Himself, and Himself apart for them. "All believers are the Lord's CLERGY; and as they are His portion, so He is theirs." (Leighton.) "The Lord's portion is His people, Israel is the lot of His inheritance." "The Lord is my portion, says my soul." His love to us was so great, that when He could give no greater proof of that love, He gave HIMSELF. Nothing more could have expressed the yearnings of His heart, nothing less could have satisfied the desires of ours.

And oh, what a Portion is God! All that He is and all that He has is ours! Every attribute of His being is over us, every perfection of His nature encircles us, every pulse of His heart beats for us, every glance of His eye smiles upon us. We dwell in God, and God dwells in us. It is not the world which is our portion, but HE who made, upholds and governs the world. It is not the creature who is our portion, but the Lord of angels and the Creator of men. Infinite portion! illimitable power! immeasurable grace! boundless love! all-satisfying good! all, all is ours!

And what a Portion, O my soul, is Christ! A divine Christ, a redeeming Christ, a full Christ, a sympathizing, ever-present, ever-precious, ever-loving Christ.

'Lord, I bless You for the discipline that brought me to realize what a divine, all-satisfying Portion I have in Yourself. You took from me an earthly portion, only to enrich me with a Heavenly one. You removed from me the human prop upon which I too fondly and idolatrously leaned, that I might learn what Christ was, as my soul's all-sufficient, all-satisfying, and everlasting Portion. I can now admire the wisdom and adore the love that blasted my gourds and emptied me from vessel to vessel, that, rising superior to the broken staff, the drooping flower, and the failing spring of creature good, I might claim my portion as a true spiritual Levite in Yourself alone.'

Believer in Jesus! make the most of your portion. It is all-sufficient for all your need. God has, perhaps, made you poor in this world, that you might be rich in faith and an heir of that kingdom of glory, the New Jerusalem, He has prepared for you--whose foundations are precious stones, whose walls are jasper, whose gates are pearls, whose streets are pure gold, and through which softly flows the river of the water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and the Lamb, in the midst of the street of it, and on either side of the river is the tree of life, bearing twelve manner of fruit, and yielding her fruit every month. All this awaits you! Hope in the Lord, hope in adversity, hope in trial, hope against hope, for God in Christ is your present and eternal Portion. "The Lord is my Portion, says my soul; therefore I will HOPE in Him."

THE LORD MY HUSBAND

"The Lord is my portion, says my soul"

"For your Maker is your husband--the Lord Almighty is his name--the Holy One of Israel is your Redeemer; he is called the God of all the earth." Isaiah 54:5

How many--appropriate to our circumstances, and endearing to our hearts--are the titles and relations of God! Is there one more sacred or precious to the Christian widow than this--"Your Maker is your HUSBAND." The Lord brings us into a gracious and experimental acquaintance with Himself by the circumstances in which He places us. Just as we learn certain lessons in certain schools, so we learn the relationships which the Lord sustains to us in the positions in life to which those divine relations are the most appropriate. Thus, He may have written you a widow, a "widow indeed," that He might stand to you in a new and more endeared relation--even as you stand to Him in a new and more dependent character--the relation of a HUSBAND--the character of a widow. As such He is your portion. Your bereavement is so crushing, your grief so profound, your desolation so vast, your loss so irreparable, the pen shrinks from even the attempt to describe it. The strong and beautiful staff is broken, the earthly counselor is perished, the tongue is mute that blessed you, the bosom cold that pillowed you, the eye dim that smiled upon you, and the whole landscape of life is draped in wintry coldness and gloom.

But the Lord is your Portion. "For your Maker is your husband--the Lord Almighty is his name." Divorced by death from an earthly husband, you are united more especially and closely to a Divine and heavenly Husband--even to God in Christ, who stands now in a new and more endeared relation to you, as you have now a new and more sacred claim upon Him. The widow is an object of His especial regard. No being has He more closely fenced, none for whom He has discovered more tender care. Listen to some of His touching injunctions respecting you. "You shall not afflict the WIDOW." "Plead for the WIDOW." "He will establish the border of the WIDOW." "He relieves the fatherless and the WIDOW." Such is the divine Portion, under whose sheltering wing you have now come to rest. "Your Maker is your HUSBAND." All, and infinitely more, that the fondest, most powerful, and faithful husband ever was, the Lord is to you. Let Him, as none other can, fill the vacant place. He can make even your solitary and desolate heart sing for joy. Espouse Christ afresh. Renew your 'first love' to Him, the love of your earliest union.

Trace nothing but love in the removal of a human object so dear; and know that love--divine, tender, unchangeable love--will guard, guide, and comfort you until wedded hearts, sundered by death, shall meet to renew a fellowship of love in the glorified presence of Jesus never to be sundered more.

Blessed Jesus! heavenly Husband! let me now be united only and forever to You! Give me Your Spirit to seal the sacred union. Enable me, as enjoined in the word, "to trust in God, and to continue in supplication and prayer night and day, to lodge strangers, to wash the saints' feet, to relieve the afflicted, and diligently to follow every good work" (1 Tim. 5:5, 10). And thus striving by Your grace to glorify You in the solemn character of a God-fearing, God-trusting widow, enable me to rejoice in You as my portion--my Husband--believing that You will shield me in temptation, supply me in need, comfort me in sorrow, be with me in death, and give me a place at the marriage-supper of the Lamb.

In addition to the loneliness of widowhood, there may be the heavy charge and anxious responsibility of the parent. Your children, are half orphans--fatherless. Be it so. You have now a double claim on God's care and provision; and that claim, offered in the prayer of faith, He will acknowledge. His promise is--and on that promise you must rely--"Leave your FATHERLESS CHILDREN, I will preserve them alive--and let your widows trust in me." God will now be, in its fullest sense, your children's Father. He will preserve them alive; in other words, He will provide for the life that now is, and will make them partakers of the life that is to come in the sovereignty of His grace. Have faith in God! He never yet broke a promise to a saint--He never will to you!

THE LORD MY BROTHER

"The Lord is my portion, says my soul"

"Whoever does God's will is My brother." Mark 3:35

Precious portion this--Christ our BROTHER! If our religion bears this divine stamp of reality--the doing God's will--then, not only are all the saints of God our brethren, but all are Christ's brethren, He standing in the relation to all of the Elder Brother--"the FIRST-BORN among many brethren." The Elder Brother under the law was clothed with peculiar and great privileges. Not only to him belonged the birthright, but he was invested with great power, was entitled to a double share of the patrimony, and, what was of great importance, he was the priest of the family, discharging all the duties and offices of religion. Now all this, and much more, is Jesus our Elder Brother. To Him belongs every attraction that wins our admiration, every perfection that awakens our love, every quality that fits Him to discharge the high and peculiar duties and obligations of a brother. My soul, recall some of them, that you may possess a higher estimate of the worth and preciousness of this your Portion--the Lord your Brother; and learn to love Him more intensely, to trust Him more implicitly, and serve Him more faithfully.

As our Brother, Christ partakes of our human nature. He could not be our brother, nor feel a brother's love, nor discharge a brother's duties, were He not "bone of our bone, and flesh of our flesh." Thus we read, "Forasmuch as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, He also Himself likewise took part of the same--therefore in all things it behooved Him to be made like unto His BRETHREN." Sweet truth, O my soul! Jesus your Portion took into union with His divine your own veritable nature, and wears it still, that, from the highest throne in glory, a stream of human sympathy might continuously flow down, blending with every trial, temptation, need, and sorrow of the lowest disciple on earth.

This suggests another and a touching view of our Elder Brother. Jesus was educated in the school of suffering and sorrow. The personal experience of sorrow is essential to true sympathy. "If one member suffer, all the members suffer with it," just because all belong to one suffering body, of which Christ, the "Man of sorrows," is the one Head. My soul, make much of the sinless humanity of Jesus your Brother. He has sent your affliction that in it He, by sympathy, may be afflicted. He has unsealed your fount of tears that, in compassion, His might flow in the same channel with yours.

He wants you to know Him more intimately; and as there is not so strong and sure a test of real friendship and affection and relationship as adversity, so He sends the discipline of sorrow that we might prove His love, test His friendship, and know Him more experimentally and blessedly as our Brother born for adversity. O my soul! repair to Him as such. Is your earthly brother's house closed against you? the door of this Brother is ever open night and day. Come when, come how, come with what you may, never forget Christ, your Brother, is an open door. Aim only, aim constantly, to do God's will from the heart, for Jesus has said, "Whoever does the will of God is my brother."

It is no little or dubious evidence that Christ is our Brother--if we love Christ's brethren. If this is lacking we may justly question the reality of our fraternal relation to Christ. "By this we know that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren." Herein do we establish our relation by our likeness to the Elder Brother. Christ loves all His brethren alike. And if I love them--not because they are of my creed, or of my Church--but because they are Christ's brethren, then do I evidence my relation to the one and true Christian Brotherhood.

Lord, You are gone before us,
Our mansions to prepare,
In sympathy a BROTHER,
A Father in Your care.

No power in You is lacking,
Nor lacking is Your will;
Whatever our vessels measure,
Your love will ever fill.

THE LORD MY HOPE

"The Lord is my portion, says my soul"

"The Lord Jesus Christ, who is our hope."--1 Tim. 1:1

What a precious possession of the believing soul, springing from the Lord as his Portion, is hope. Rob the poor worldling of his--though it be but earth-bound, and fading as a midsummer's evening sun--and you have plunged him in the dark and deep abyss of despondency and despair. Man without hope is the most miserable being in the universe. But with the hope of the Christian glowing in his heart--a hope of which God is the Giver, Jesus the Foundation, the Spirit the Author, and heaven the goal--and there lives not among the happy, a happier being than he. Thus the believer is "saved by hope." Look, my soul, for a moment at this inestimable part of your portion, and learn more thoroughly in what it consists--what the sweet soothing it imparts, the holy obligations it imposes, and the splendid revelations it anticipates and unveils to faith's far-seeing eye. HOW does the believing soul arrive at the possession of Christ as its hope?

The first step is to relinquish every other. A hope of heaven built upon obedience to the law, upon our personal merits, upon anything of good that we fancy we are or can do, is a false hope; and, persisted in, will most assuredly make its deluded and unhappy possessor lamentably and eternally ashamed. Hope, too, springing from church privileges, religious ordinances, charitable gifts and pious duties, is equally fallacious and fatal.

But you, O believer, have not so learned Christ, if so be you have been taught by Him the truth as it is in Jesus. The Holy Spirit has written the sentence of death upon yourself, and upon all the dead works springing from self; and fleeing as from a plague-tainted garment out of your own righteousness, you have run into Christ, and enfolding yourself by faith in His righteousness, wrought by His obedience and dyed in His blood, you are justified and saved. Accepted in Him you are "beautiful as Tirzah, and all your garments smell of myrrh, and aloes, and cassia, out of the ivory palaces, whereby they have made you glad." And now you have a "good hope through grace," and "peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ." Then let us raise loud and high the thanksgiving anthem, "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His abundant mercy has begotten us again unto a living hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled, and that fades not away."

Look well to it that the lamp of your Christian hope is constantly trimmed and brightly burning. The golden oil that feeds the lamp is drawn from Jesus Christ, and the hand that trims the flame is faith. Despond not if at times the sun of your hope--to change the figure--is for a moment shaded, or is partially eclipsed. Built upon, and springing from Jesus Christ, it cannot entirely expire, since He Himself is our hope. Corruption within may strive to weaken it, adversity without may seem to shake it, temptations from concealed sources may fearfully assail it, nevertheless, your hope shall not perish from the Lord, but, built upon Christ, nourished by Christ, kept by Christ, and looking forward to being with and enjoying Christ forever, like a fine setting sun it shall grow larger and brighter as it descends, until dissolving into heaven's eternal effulgence it is lost in the full fruition of glory.

With such a hope as Christ, how strong and solemn the obligation to deny all ungodliness and worldly lusts, and to live godly, righteously, and soberly in this present evil world. How humbly and submissively should we bow to all our Father's afflictive discipline, since He has given us His beloved Son to dwell in our hearts "the hope of glory." Thus "every man that has this hope in him purifies himself, even as He is pure." Cheer up, then, disconsolate one!

THE LORD MY HELPER

"The Lord is my portion, says my soul"

That is why we can say with confidence, "The Lord is my helper, so I will not be afraid. What can mere mortals do to me?" Hebrews 13:6

The believer is as helpless in himself as he is portionless in the world; and both lessons are only learned by experience--the one, in the school of the soul's nothingness; the other, in the school of earth's insufficiency. Hallowed teaching this which leads to such blessed results! But the lesson of our spiritual helplessness is not once learned, and learned for all time. Oh no! It is a daily, hourly lesson, learned in every event and incident of our life, yet never completed until we pass to the wider sphere, the sublimer studies, the higher, nobler attainments of glory.

Oh, what divine studies await our enlarged faculties! what sublime revelations, our complete holiness! what an ocean of bliss, our hearts perfected in the love to God! But the present is the time of our spiritual education for heaven, and the great truth God is teaching us--by the deeper knowledge of ourselves, by all our mental infirmities and moral delinquencies, the discipline of trial, temptation, and sorrow--is, "Without Me you can do nothing."

"I was brought low," says David, "and He helped me." See how God teaches us. There is first the soul's down-casting before the Lord's uplifting. Oh, how low may we be brought! Low in our spiritual life, low in the graces of the Spirit, low in Christian evidences, low in mind, body, and estate; nevertheless, we have experienced the truth of God's Word, "When men are cast down, then you shall say, There is lifting up." O my soul! is the Lord, by His hidden teaching, or by His afflictive dispensations, mowing you down, and bringing you low? It is but bringing you to testify, with the psalmist, "I was brought low, and HE helped me." But look at our Helper!

Our Helper is DIVINE. "HE helped me." "The Lord is my helper." The Lord Jesus is all-sufficient as our Helper. "I have laid help," says the Father, speaking of the Son, "upon One that is mighty." The Father required help in the redemption of His chosen Church. He found it in His co-equal and co-eternal Son, in whom met all the divine and human requisites for the salvation of His elect. The help, too, the Father laid upon the Son, was help also for us. Therefore the Lord Jesus is our Helper--all-powerful, all-loving, all-pitying, yes, all-sufficient for all the needs we bring.

Our help is OPPORTUNE. It comes just at the moment we need it, and not a moment sooner. Our down-casting is the time of His uplifting. His help, also, is in His own time. The Lord is never before His time, and never after it, in His gracious interventions in our behalf. Wait, then, His time, O my soul! His time is best. "Blessed are all those who wait for Him."

His help, also, is EFFECTUAL. Human help fails to reach our case. The Lord's help is never baffled--it never falls short of our need, urgent, desperate though that need may be. Trust, then, the Lord, O my soul! for "He has said, I will never leave you nor forsake you. So that we may boldly say, The Lord is my helper; I will not fear what man shall do unto me."

But now, as to the nature of the help we need. Each believer walks, for the most part, in his own way, the Lord leading him by a path peculiar to Himself--a path in which he can observe no footprints but Christ's, and indeed a path so narrow as to admit as his companion Christ only. Is your need temporal? all the resources of heaven and earth are Christ's, and He who fed five thousand with a few loaves will not leave you, His beloved child, unnoticed and unsupplied. Cry importunately, "Lord, help me!" until He helps. Is your need spiritual? 'all fullness' dwells in Jesus. And whether your need be the pardon of sin, or the sense of acceptance in Christ, or grace to conquer some powerful, besetting infirmity, or support and comfort in present sorrow, or guidance in some trying perplexity, or deliverance in behalf of one you love--still cry, "Lord, help me!" and your prayer will not be in vain, so that you may boldly say, "THE LORD IS MY HELPER, I WILL NOT FEAR."

THE LORD MY REFINER

"The Lord is my portion, says my soul"

"He shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver."--Mal. 3:3

This is one of the essential appointments of our Lord in His mediatorial mission--the office and work of a Refiner and Purifier of His Church. Redemption involved more than deliverance from the guilt and condemnation of sin; it equally secured our emancipation from sin's tyranny and power--our sanctification as well as our salvation, a fitness for, equally as a title to, glory. It was not enough that Christ should purchase the "Field"--the world--for the sake of the "Pearl"--the Church; but having found the precious jewel, it is His purpose to mold it into a coronet of beauty, wearing it Himself until 'the end comes' when He shall have delivered up the kingdom to His Father, and then shall His redeemed Church be a "crown of glory in the hand of the Lord, and a royal diadem in the hand of our God."

It is a consolatory thought that our refining is in the hands of Jesus--the hands that were pierced for us on the cross. Lord, let me ever fall in Your hands, whether You correct, or rebuke, or slay, and not in the hands of man, for very many and very tender are Your mercies. My soul! your Refiner and Purifier is Jesus. Jesus shapes all your trials; Jesus sends all your afflictions; Jesus mingles all your sorrows; Jesus shapes and balances all the clouds of your pilgrimage; Jesus prepares and heats the furnace that refines you as silver and purifies you as gold. Then, O my soul, tremble not at the knife that wounds you, at the flame that scorches you, at the cloud that shades you, at the billows that surge above you--Jesus is in it all, and you are as safe as though you had reached the blissful climate where the vine needs no pruning, and the ore no purifying, where the sky is never darkened, and upon whose golden sands no storms of adversity ever blow or waves of sorrow ever break.

And, O my soul, what deep need is there for this refining and purifying of your Lord. What inward corruption, what carnality, what worldliness, what self-seeking, what creature idolatry, what God-dishonoring unbelief, imperatively demand the searching, burning, purifying fires of Christ's furnace! And this is the end of all--to take away your sin, and to make you a partaker of the Divine holiness.

And mark the Refiner's position. "He shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver." It would be fatal to his purpose did the smelter and refiner leave his post while the liquid mass was fusing and seething in the furnace. But there he patiently sits, watching and tempering the flame, and removing the refuse and the dross as it floats upon the surface of the molten ore. So Christ sits as a Refiner; and with an eye that never slumbers, and with a patience that never wearies, and with a love that never chills, and with a faithfulness that never falters, watches and controls the process that purifies our hearts, burnishes our graces, sanctifies our nature, and impresses more vividly His own image of loveliness upon our soul. If He places you in the fire, He will bring you through the fire, "that the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perishes, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honor and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ." But sweet and soothing is the truth that the believer is not alone in the fire. The Refiner is with us as with the three children passing through the burning furnace kindled by the king. The Lord will have us polished stones; and as some believers are more rusty and some more alloyed than others, they need a rougher file and a hotter furnace. This may account for the great severity of trial through which some of the Lord's precious jewels are called to pass. Not less dear to His heart are they for this; it is said God had one Son without corruption, but no son without correction; for "though He were a Son, yet learned He obedience by the things which He suffered." Look up, my soul, your Portion is your Refiner. Be still, humble, submissive. The knife is in a Father's hand, the flame is under a Savior's control.

THE LORD MY HEALER

"The Lord is my portion, says my soul"

"And He healed those who had need of healing."--Luke 9:11

How mercifully and marvelously is the Lord Jesus suited to the every condition of our sinful, fallen humanity. Take the present illustration. Sin is a deadly wound, a raging malady of the soul. Jesus is revealed as the Great Healer, His blood the sovereign remedy. His own gracious words teach this. "The whole need not a physician, but those who are sick. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance." What joyful news is here! It is as though a royal proclamation had gone forth throughout a plague-smitten city that a sovereign remedy had been discovered and an infallible physician provided, and that whoever were willing to avail themselves of the provision, would be freely and effectually healed.

Such is the royal announcement of the gospel to this sin-stricken world. What joyful tidings, O my soul, are here! Spiritually convinced of the fatal sting of the old serpent the devil; mournfully conscious of the deadly virus coursing its way through your whole being, paralyzing every faculty, and tainting every thought, feeling, and action; how welcome the gospel message that there is balm in Gilead and a Physician there, and that Jesus heals all those who have need of healing! All this is the provision of the Father's love. One in nature, the Father and the Son are one in the grand remedy provided for the healing of the soul, so that in bringing my case, desperate though it may be, to Christ, I have the divine warrant for believing that I shall be healed. "In this was manifested the love of God towards us, because that God sent His only-begotten Son into the world that we might LIVE through Him."

And what does the Lord heal? The Word of God shall answer. "He heals ALL our diseases." Can He heal bodily disease? Infallibly, effectually, instantly. When He was here on earth, evil spirits that none could cast out, fled at His word; diseases that none could cure, vanished at His touch. He does so now. His compassion, power, and willingness are the same. Sick and suffering saint! if it is for the glory of God and for your best good, Jesus can rebuke your disease and restore you to health again. But, if it pleases Him to continue your sickness, suffering, and languor, it is because in His higher prerogative of your spiritual Physician, He would promote thereby the health of your soul. Then, Lord, if this sickness, pain, and weakness are Your means to promote my sanctification and fitness for heaven, my will shall be lost in Your will, and Your will and my will shall be one.

Jesus is the Great Healer of all our spiritual diseases. He loves to undertake the care of the sin-sick soul, and never lost one who betook itself to His cross. Come with your spiritual disease, O my soul; it may have baffled every physician and distanced every remedy--Jesus and His Atonement can cure it. "He heals all your diseases." He binds up the broken heart, heals our backslidings, restores our wanderings, revives our declensions; and when faith droops through trial, and the spirit faints in adversity, and love chills through temptation, Jesus the Healer comes, and by the fresh application of His blood, and by the renewed communication of His grace, and by the quickening energy of His word, He heals us.

Beware, O my soul, of any healing but Christ's, and of any remedy but His blood. Watch against a false healing of your wound. None but Christ, and nothing short of the blood of Christ. Take your case, as it is, to Him. Go to no minister, to no church, to no rite, to no duty, but go at once to Jesus and His blood, and cry--believingly, importunately cry--"Heal me, O Lord, and I shall be healed." Oh, what a loving, gentle, skillful healer is Jesus! With not a frown of displeasure, with not a look of coldness, with not a word of upbraiding, will He cure you. He heals sin's worst malady, cures man's incurables, and never loses a patient who seeks His saving touch. "Lord, be merciful unto me--heal my soul, for I have sinned against You."

THE LORD MY DELIVERER

"The Lord is my portion, says my soul."

"Who delivered us from so great a death, and does deliver: in whom we trust that he will yet deliver us." 2 Cor. 1:10

It was a needful and precious petition the Lord Jesus taught His disciples--and which we require daily to offer--"DELIVER us from evil." We are in constant need of deliverance, exposed, as we are, to continued, varied, and potent evils, visible and invisible, temporal and spiritual, to evade and overcome which we have no native power, and can therefore hope for no self-deliverance.

But who is our true Deliverer? It is He who is our Portion, who taught us thus to pray, and who is Himself our Great Deliverer. Let us take the THREE TENSES employed by the apostle in the words at the head of this meditation, as illustrating the Lord's great deliverance of His people.

And first, there is the Lord's PAST deliverance. "Who deliverED us from so great a death." Jesus stooped from the throne of Deity to the cross of a condemned felon, to deliver us from 'so great a death,' and from the bitter pains and pangs of the 'second death,' the death that is eternal. A sin-offering for our sins, accursed with our curse, condemned by our condemnation, and dying our death, the precious blood streaming from His torn side and bursting heart made a full atonement for our vast and countless offences, effacing every syllable of the indictment that was against us, and blotting out every stain of sin that was upon us--thus having delivered us from so great a death. My soul! avail yourself of this wondrous deliverance, this perfect redemption, this free pardon; and by the application of the atoning blood to your conscience, walk in the happy enjoyment of all the blessings of a charter of salvation and celestial citizenship which Christ's deliverance makes yours.

Second, there is a PRESENT deliverance. "And He DOES deliver." In addition to the canceling of all past offences, Christ's deliverance involves our present emancipation from an unrenewed nature. To pardon our guilt and to leave us the servants of sin and the slaves of Satan would be a species of refined cruelty with which God could never be charged. Our present deliverance, then, is freedom from spiritual death, by which we become living souls, and thus we are now delivered from so great a death, and can join the apostle in "giving thanks unto the Father who has delivered us from the power of darkness, and has translated us into the kingdom of His dear Son." Yes! Jesus delivers now.

Are you in any present difficulty or sorrow, need or temptation? Christ can deliver you, and deliver you now. Cry mightily to Him. He has power to deliver, fullness to supply, and a loving, sympathizing heart to comfort. Your perplexity cannot baffle His wisdom, your needs cannot exhaust His resources, your sorrow cannot distance His sympathy. He who has delivered you out of six troubles will not forsake you in the seventh. O my soul! live upon a present Savior, rejoice in a present salvation, and do not forget that God in Christ is a very present help in every time of need.

Third, He who has delivered, who does deliver, will yet deliver us in all the FUTURE of our history. Faith acquires strength for the present by a remembrance of the past deliverances of God; and from the experience of the present, it looks forward with confidence to the future--"In whom we trust that He will yet deliver us." Then, O my soul, be not over-anxious about your future. God is faithful, Jesus is unchangeable, and all that the Lord your Portion has been He is now, and He will be in all future trouble, sickness, and death--an all-sufficient, all-loving, all-faithful deliverer, never leaving nor forsaking you, until He has "delivered you out of the miseries of this sinful world, having your perfect consummation and bliss in body and soul in His eternal and everlasting kingdom." "Call upon Me in the day of trouble--I will DELIVER you, and you shall glorify Me."

THE LORD MY MASTER

"The Lord is my portion, says my soul."

"You call me 'Master' and 'Lord,' and rightly so, for that is what I am." John 13:13

Emancipated from the slavery of Satan, the believer becomes the servant of Christ, and his highest honor that, henceforth, Christ is his Master. What a blissful exchange--the liberty of the child, for the bondage of the slave; the service of holiness, for the wages of unrighteousness; Christ his Master, for Satan his despot; and Canaan, with its vine-clad hills and sunny plains, its flowing rivers and spicy breezes, for the furnaces, the brick kilns, and the darkness of Egypt!

All this divine grace accomplishes--for, by the grace of God, we are what we are--and all this is involved in the relation which the Lord our portion sustains to us as our Master. It is clear that our Lord did not refuse to acknowledge the relation, but accepted and approved it. Not therefore as an empty title, but as a profoundly significant appellation, He recognized and commended it on the part of His disciples. Equally does it belong to us to claim Him as our Master, and diligently to inquire what are the privileges, duties, and blessings flowing to us from this high and sacred relation.

As our Master, we belong to the school of Christ. In other words, we are His disciples or learners. Plato had his school, and Pythagoras his, and proud were the disciples of each to be recognized as claiming either the one or the other as their master. Christ is our Master. He is divine, His school unearthly, His disciples spiritual, His doctrine and His teaching from above. My soul! in this sense--the highest, and holiest, and most solemn--call no man master except Christ.

There are many in this infidel and ritualistic age who set themselves up as heads of 'schools of religious thought' and teachers of theological doctrines, followed by multitudes of unreflecting and deluded admirers, but whose doctrines and practice, if faithful to Christ, we must ignore and shun as the garment saturated with the plague. Test the spirits by God's revealed word, for many false teachers are gone forth, denying the Lord Jesus, while yet presumptuously assuming the badge of His religion, and falsely wearing the livery of His Church. My soul! sit only at Jesus' feet, and drink of the pure wine of the gospel as it sweetly flows from His grace-anointed lips.

As our Master, we are bound to obey His commands. "If you love me, keep my commandments." And truly, Lord, Your commands are not arbitrary and grievous, but Your yoke is easy and Your burden is light; and in wearing the one and in bearing the other there is a present and great reward. "Your ways are ways of pleasantness, and all Your paths are peace."

Sweet and pleasant is His service. It blends the lowliest act with the highest honor, the most binding obligation with the most perfect freedom, the severest self-denial with the most exquisite enjoyment, the poorest offering with the richest reward. O my soul, in laboring for Christ you are serving a good, a loving, a faithful Master; and however obscure your sphere and humble your employment, His grace will aid you, His blessing will further you, and He will at the last day publicly and gratefully acknowledge and richly reward the cup of cold water given, and the box of fragrant ointment broken, in His name and for His glory.

As our Master, we His servants are to imitate Him. "The servant is not greater than his lord. If I, your Lord and Master have washed your feet, you ought also to wash one another's feet. For I have given you an example that you should do as I have done to you." Lord! may I so closely walk with You, so faithfully serve You, and so truly resemble You, that in the servant, the world may trace the image of the Master, whose I am and whom I serve, and glorify Your great and precious Name.

"Lord, if You Your grace impart,
Poor in spirit, meek in heart,
I shall as my Master be,
Rooted in humility."

THE LORD MY SERVANT

"The Lord is my portion, says my soul."

"For who is greater, the one who is at the table or the one who serves? Is it not the one who is at the table? But I am among you as one who serves." Luke 22:27

It is with the profoundest modesty and humility the pen traces the heading of this meditation! The Lord of life and glory, the Creator of all beings, the Maker of all worlds--our Servant! astounding truth! amazing condescension! fathomless grace! But, vast though it be, it is our privilege to receive this truth. Incredible as it may appear, we are bound to believe it, because He has Himself declared it. "I am among you as he that SERVES." Agreeable with this is the teaching of His apostle. "Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God--but made Himself of no reputation, and took upon Him the form of a SERVANT." My soul, you have been contemplating the Lord your portion in the character of a Master--now sit at His feet and study Him in the office of a Servant. Listen to His language. "For who is greater, the one who is at the table or the one who serves? Is it not the one who is at the table? But I am among you as one who serves."

In what an impressive light does this office place His greatness. It is only the truly great who can really descend. As the sun appears larger and more resplendent at its setting, so Christ, the Sun of Righteousness, never appeared more like Himself as when He touched at its lowest point the horizon of our humanity; as when He veiled the God in the man, the King in the subject, the Master in the servant, and then stooped to "wash the disciples' feet, and to wipe them with the towel with which He was girded." O my soul, let this wondrous spectacle heighten your admiration and intensify your love.

It was the Divinity of your Lord which stamped every word He spoke with a meaning so impressive, and which invested every act He performed with a grandeur so sublime. Learn from this that you are never more truly great as when you are serving Him in His saints--condescending, in imitation of Him, to men of low estate. No saint of God is too base, no service too lowly, to awaken your love, rouse your sympathy, and engage your service. Think it not above your dignity and position to leave your palatial abode and visit the humble cottage of a poor, aged, suffering saint, and in some humble and loving act become the servant of that 'royal priest,' that 'king's daughter,' that child of God, stricken with suffering, battling with poverty, and, more than all, his soul perhaps conflicting with spiritual doubt, darkness, and temptation. Oh, what a privilege to serve that sick, suffering, sorrowing one whom Jesus loves; and in so doing catch the chimes of His voice as they sweetly fall upon the ear--"Inasmuch as you have done it unto one of the least of these My brethren, you have done it unto Me."

And still Jesus is serving us. He is among us, and by a thousand kind and condescending acts is ministering to us. He is giving us grace to conquer sin, supplying us with strength to overcome the wicked one, administering comfort in all our sorrows, condescending to our lowly affairs, alleviating our sickness, adjusting our perplexities, mitigating our sufferings, soothing our griefs, and making the hearts of others kind, loving and sympathizing towards us. Oh yes, Jesus makes all our beds in sickness, invisibly and noiselessly moves about our chamber, watches with the most wakeful, tender vigilance around our couch, and in a thousand gentle ways administers to our comfort.

If such the Savior's service for us, what, O my soul, is your service for Him? Are you laying yourself out for Christ, consecrating your substance, talent, influence, time, willingly, unreservedly to the Lord? Then listen to His cheering words--"If any man serves me, let him follow me; and where I am, there shall also my servant be--if any man serves me, him will my Father honor." Then comes the final service of Jesus--"Blessed are those servants whose master finds them watching when He comes. I tell you the truth, He will dress Himself to serve, will have them recline at the table and will come and serve them." Luke 12:37

THE LORD MY TEACHER

"The Lord is my portion, says my soul."

"You are a teacher come from God."--John 3:2

We cannot dispense with any one mediatorial office of Christ, least of all with His office as a PROPHET, or, TEACHER. He came to make known Salvation. Before He could officiate at His altar as Priest, or sit upon His throne as King, He must reveal God's plan of redemption as a Prophet.

Look, O my soul, at one or two of the qualifications of Jesus as your Teacher. He is a DIVINE Teacher, a "Teacher come from God," to make Him known, to reveal the mind and to unveil the heart of the Father. His own words are, "All things are delivered unto me of my Father, and no man knows the Son but the Father; neither knows any man the Father save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will REVEAL Him." Oh, what a blessed Revealer of God is Jesus! He lifts the veil and shows me the Father as no planet in its glory could, as no mountain in its magnitude could, as no flower in its beauty could--no, not the greatest, most sublime, and loveliest object in nature could. "He that has seen me, has seen the Father."

He is also a HUMAN Teacher. We could not learn from angels. Our dulness would weary their patience, our waywardness would exhaust their love, our questions would baffle their knowledge. Our Teacher must be like ourselves, human. "And because he is human, he (the Old Testament high priest) is able to deal gently with the people, though they are ignorant and wayward. For he is subject to the same weaknesses they have."

He must be gentle, long-suffering, and infinite in knowledge. Such is Jesus. Oh, with what unfaltering love and unwearied patience--bearing with our dullness, indifference, and ingratitude--does Jesus teach us the precious things of His Word, and the yet more glorious and precious things of Himself. "Lord, I would humbly learn from You, and of You, what You are, and what Your truth is--never, never leaving Your feet."

And what does Jesus teach us? He teaches the plague of our own heart, the exceeding sinfulness of sin, the hatefulness and nothingness of self, the emptiness of the creature, and the insufficiency of the world. He makes us acquainted with the heart and character of our Father--His thoughts of peace, His purposes of grace, and designs of mercy. He reveals to us His own glory and beauty, fullness and preciousness. In a word, He teaches every spiritual truth and holy lesson essential to the completeness of our education for a heaven of perfect knowledge, purity, and love.

And how does Jesus teach us? He teaches by the illumination of the Spirit, by the letter of the Word, by the dispensations of His providence, and by the communications of His grace--yes, by all the events and circumstances, joys and sorrows, lights and shadows of our solemn and chequered life. He is teaching you, O my soul, more of your own nothingness and of His all-sufficiency, by one hallowed sorrow, by one fiery temptation, than, perhaps, you have ever learned in all your previous history--for "who teaches like Him?" Oh, what a university in the believer's training for heaven is Jesus' school of affliction! The astronomer only efficiently and practically acquires a knowledge of his sublime science when the sun has set, and the sable robe of night drapes every object in ebony gloom. Thus we, the students of a diviner, sublimer, and holier science--"the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ"--become the most spiritual and experimental in our attainments, when the sun of earthly good has set, and the starless night of weeping and of woe shuts every 'creature object' from our view. Blessed Teacher! You have often taught me in the deepest darkness of adversity, more than I ever learned in the brightest sunshine of prosperity!

"O Lord! give Your servant a lowly, meek, and teachable spirit, willing to learn any lesson or truth in any school or way Your infinite wisdom and love may appoint."

"Your way, not mine, O Lord,
However dark it be!
Lead me by Your own hand,
Choose out the path for me."

THE LORD MY EXAMPLE

"The Lord is my portion, says my soul."

"I have given you an example, that you should do as I have done to you."--John 13:15

In contending earnestly for the doctrine of the sacrificial nature of our Lord's atoning death, we may be in great danger of overlooking the fact that the whole life of Christ is constantly presented to us in the Scriptures as the model by which our own is to be molded. We needed a personal embodiment of the religion of the gospel--a perfect, peerless Example. In One only could we find it, even in Him whose gospel it was, and whose life was a pure and living reflection of the doctrines it taught, the precepts it inculcated, and the spirit it breathed. Let us, then, inquire briefly what are the arts of His holy life in which we may regard Him as imitable, and what the features of His character we may presume to transfer with humility and gratitude to ourselves.

We are to follow the example of Christ in His OBEDIENCE. "If you keep my commandments, you shall abide in my love, even as I have kept my Father's commandments, and abide in His love." Behold the example! As He obeyed His Father with a loving and unreserved obedience, so must His disciples walk in obedience to all His commands, ordinances, and precepts, taking up His cross daily and so following Him.

Lord, let there be no reserves in my obedience to You, as there were none in Your obedience to Your Father; but like Your servant Caleb may I follow You fully, doing the will of God from the heart.

We must be conformed to the HOLINESS and PURITY of Christ. "As He which has called you is holy, so you be holy in all manner of life." "Every man that has this hope in him purifies himself, even as He (Christ) is pure." O Lord, I can only be truly happy as I am truly holy; and I can only be truly holy as I am walking even as You walked.

We must be conformed to the HUMILITY and MEEKNESS of Christ. "Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me--for I am meek and lowly in heart." O Lord, never was there such a model of humility as Yours. Gladly would I transfer this lovely lineament of Your character and spirit to myself, and in heart and conduct walk humbly with God, and in lowliness and self-abnegation with my fellows.

We are to be conformed to the LOVE of Christ. "A new commandment I give unto you, that you love one another, as I have loved you." Oh, how loving was Jesus! He was all love--nothing but love. He loved God supremely; He loved man self-sacrificingly. Love led Him to obey God, love constrained Him to die for us. Lord, mold me to this lovely example of love--that love to You, and love to the saints, and love to sinners may be the all-commanding, all-constraining principle of my life.

We are to follow the example of Christ's FORGIVENESS of injuries. "Forgiving one another, if any man has a quarrel against any--even as Christ forgave you, so also do you." How few there are, even among the followers of Jesus, who present a fair and full reflection of this trait of His character, this prominent fact of His life.

"Lord, let me be found among the few! Give me grace meekly to overlook an injury, silently to suffer a wrong, generously to forgive and forget the unkindness done, the sorrow inflicted, the debt incurred by my fellow-servant, even as You have forgiven and forgotten my transgressions, canceling all my sins and remitting all my debts against You."

Would you resemble Jesus? Then study Him closely, study Him constantly. Study not faint, imperfect copies, but study the Divine-human Original--study Jesus only. The most perfect copy may mislead you, Jesus cannot. Aim to be, not saint-like, but Christ-like; not man-like, but God-like. Less like yourself, more like Jesus. Sir Peter Lely, the great artist, made it a rule never to look at a bad picture, having found by experience that, when ever he did so, his pencil took a hint from it. Lord! prune, chisel, pencil my soul as You will; only make me a perfect copy of YOURSELF!

THE LORD MY BURDEN-BEARER

"The Lord is my portion, says my soul."

"Cast your burden upon the Lord, and He shall sustain you."--Psalm 55:22

Wonderful words! Their sense is magical, their sound is music, their very utterance is repose! It is one of those flowers culled from the Lord's garden, pencilled with beauty and laden with perfume, which defies all human art to heighten the loveliness of the one, or to increase the sweetness of the other. And yet, as most flowers are more fragrant when crushed, and as the grape yields its sweetest juice when pressed, a simple exposition of these precious words, however gentle the pressure, may prove a spiritual fragrance and refreshment to some sin or trial-burdened child of God, whose glance may fall upon these pages.

The FITNESS of Jesus to be the Burden-Bearer of His people surely needs no proof to those who have studied His Word, and are in any measure acquainted with Him. He possesses all the essential qualifications for so demanding an office. What must be the overwhelming weight of all the sins, cares, trials, needs and wants, of His whole Church? What! a mere creature, a finite being, able to stand for one moment beneath the load! Preposterous idea! But our Burden-Bearer is equal in every respect of power, love, and sympathy, to sustain this mighty burden--the burden of God and the burden of the Church. "I have laid help upon one that is mighty," said Jehovah, and that 'help' involved all that the moral government of God demanded, and all that the necessities of the Church required in order to our salvation. Because He was essentially Divine, He was equal to the case. And now, O my soul, what is your burden? Remember the invitation is a personal one, and therefore includes every care and need, sin and sorrow, that you have. "Cast your burden on the Lord, and He shall sustain you."

Is SIN your burden? What a mighty sin-bearer is Jesus. "Jehovah has laid on Him the iniquities of us all." Then, cast this burden on Jesus. Though He bore it all once, He bears it all afresh in every sin we confess at His feet, and in every trace of guilt we bring to the renewed cleansing of His blood. Attempt not to carry your sin a single moment, or a single step--take it at once in penitence and faith to Jesus; confess it unreservedly, and wash afresh in the fountain still open and still accessible to you. "A person who has bathed all over does not need to wash, except for the feet, to be entirely clean."

Is TRIAL your burden, O my soul? Jesus is a 'tried stone,' and is, therefore, in all respects equal to yours. He has sent, or has permitted, this trial to befall you, that you might learn more of this precious tried stone. The Lord tests the faith of the righteous, that they might test His faithfulness. Test His wisdom to guide, test His strength to sustain, test His love to bring you through this trial, even as gold, to the glory of His great name.

Perhaps your burden is a DIFFICULTY which, like a huge stone, stands in your path, and which no human sagacity or power can remove. "Is anything too hard for me? says the Lord." He can unravel your perplexity, disentangle you from all your difficulties, and roll the stone from your path. Cast this burden upon Him. "My eyes are ever toward the Lord; for He shall pluck my feet out of the net."

Is NEED your burden? What need cannot the Lord supply? All the resources of Infinity are at His command. "The gold and the silver is mine, and the cattle upon a thousand hills," are the words with which He challenges your need, and would suppress your fear. Does He provide for the fowls of the air? then do you think that He will starve the children of His love?

But whatever your burden, cast it in the prayer of faith on the Lord. Peculiar and heavy though it may be, His strength and grace and love will sustain you. Encircled by His almighty arm, aided by prayer, upheld by the promises, strengthened by His grace, soothed by His sympathy, and comforted by His Spirit, you shall not sink, for it is written, "Cast your burden on the Lord, and He shall sustain you."

THE LORD MY SHEPHERD

"The Lord is my portion, says my soul."

"The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not be in want."--Psalm 23:1

The pastoral office of Jesus is in beautiful harmony with the existence of His Church under the similitude of a Flock. And there is scarcely any part of His mediatorial work which more essentially involves, or more clearly evidences, the twofold nature of our Lord as this. Fully to discharge the duties of the Shepherd of His Church, He must possess all the perfections of God, in equal balance with all the attributes of man. He must be divine to know, provide for, and keep His flock; He must be human to accomplish its salvation, and to sympathize with and aid its trials, infirmities, and temptations. Both these extremes of being--the Infinite and the finite--meet in Jehovah our Shepherd.

Our Lord is a loving Shepherd. But oh, what pen can describe the vastness of Christ's love to His sheep--His one fold? In proportion to our faith in the love of Christ to us will be the condition of our hearts towards Him. The Lord direct your heart, beloved--perhaps wounded by sin or shaded with sorrow--into the depths of this infinite ocean of divine love; that, filling the shallows, and tiding over the unsightly infirmities, failures, and sins of your Christian life, you may walk in its happy, holy influence. Oh, lose not sight of your Shepherd's love!

Christ is an atoning Shepherd. This was His own declaration. "I lay down my life for my sheep." These words will admit of no rational, intelligent interpretation other than that, having "loved us, He gave Himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice unto God." And what should be the sanctifying influence of the Atonement of Jesus? Should not His death for sin, be our death to sin? How forcibly the apostle puts this truth--"Who gave Himself for us, that He might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto Himself a peculiar people, zealous for good works."

Think, O my soul, of the power of your Shepherd. When David would prove his ability to confront the vaunting Goliath, he reminded Saul that he had slain both the lion and the bear which had invaded his father's flock. But Christ, our true David, the Lord our Shepherd, has overcome all our enemies--condemning sin, bruising Satan, conquering death and the grave--and has thereby proved His power to slay the lion and the bear of all our spiritual foes, ever prowling, ever watching, ever plotting to worry, wound, and, if possible, to destroy the sheep given to Him by His Father, and purchased with His own atoning and most precious blood. But, "They shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of His hands."

It is the especial province of the Shepherd to provide suitable and plentiful pasture for the sheep. This He most faithfully does. He provides the green pastures of His Word into which by His Spirit He leads us. Yet more, He has provided for us His flesh to eat and His blood to drink, figuratively, spiritually, believingly. Truly has He prepared a table of the richest and costliest provision in the wilderness, and before our enemies, at which He Himself presides, saying to each welcome guest, "Eat, O friends, drink, yes, drink abundantly, O beloved."

Sit down, O believer, and let your soul delight itself in fatness. Why should you be lean and famished, even though a famine may prevail, when all the promises of God are yours, and all the provision of the gospel is yours, and all the supplies of the covenant are yours, and, above all, all the fullness of Jesus is yours? Among these divine meadows you may roam, feed, and lie down until the Shepherd calls you to richer pastures on high. Until then, keep close to the Shepherd's side--'Jesus only'--and feed with the sheep--the ONE Church of Christ, and do all you can to enlarge the flock and to spread the renown of the Shepherd who ransomed you with His own blood, who sought you in the cloudy and dark day, and, laying you upon His shoulder, bore you gently back to His fold.

THE LORD MY RESTORER

"The Lord is my portion, says my soul."

"He restores my soul."--Psalm 23:3

It is not the least important duty of the Shepherd--under which similitude our meditation yesterday viewed our blessed Lord--to go in quest of the stray ones of the flock. It would be an extraordinary exception indeed, were there none such--no silly lamb, no fickle sheep wandering from the fold. The religious history of the believer is a history of declension and revival, of departure and return, of his backsliding and of the Savior's restoring. The regenerate soul is bent upon backsliding from the Lord. The sun does not more naturally decline, nor the planets start off from their center, than does the believing heart wander from God.

"O Lord, how many and hidden are my soul's departures from You, You only know! How often my love chills, my faith droops, my zeal flags, and I grow weary, and am ready to halt in Your service. Mine is a sinful, roving heart, fickle to You as the changing wind; false to my vows as a broken bow. But You, O Lord, are my Shepherd, and You restore my soul; pitying my infirmity, knowing my wanderings, and tracking all my steps, You recover, heal, and pardon Your poor, silly sheep, prone to leave Your wounded, sheltering side in quest of that which can be found in Yourself alone."

He restores us gently. When He might justly commission some harsh messenger to awaken us from our reverie, and bring our sin to our remembrance, He sends a gentle Nathan to say to us, "You are the man"--some kind and loving messenger, filled with the 'meekness and gentleness of Christ,' to remind us of our backsliding, to deal with our sin, and to win and lead us back to the Savior, towards whom our love had chilled, and from whom our feet had strayed. Recall His own gentle dealing. Behold Him traversing mountain and valley in search of the one sheep that had wandered; nor resting until He had found it--then, laying it upon His shoulder, with soft and gentle step, He bears it back to the fold, amid the welcomings of the flock, the music of its own restored joy and the songs of angels.

The faithfulness of Jesus in our restorings is not less conspicuous. Though we prove faithless and unbelieving--and oh, what words can describe our unfaithfulness to Christ!--yet He is faithful and cannot deny Himself. It is a sweet truth, O my soul, which you should never forget, that the love and constancy and promises of Jesus are never negated or affected by your conduct towards Him. When our love to Jesus chills, or our spiritual frames and feelings fluctuate, we are prone to infer a similar change in the Lord; whereas, to awaken us from our drowsiness, to bring us to reflection and prayer, He may suspend the sensible manifestations of His presence and the especial communications of His grace; and, ceasing to stand and knock, may withdraw Himself a while, leaving us to exclaim, "I opened to my beloved, and He had withdrawn Himself." Nevertheless, His loving-kindness He will not take from us, nor allow His faithfulness to fail.

Oh, the love of Jesus in curbing our waywardness, checking our wanderings, arresting, healing, and restoring our souls. Truly He forsakes not His people, though they forsake Him times without number. How can He turn His back upon one bought with His sufferings, groans, and tears? How can He forsake the work of grace wrought in the soul by His Spirit? He may withdraw Himself for a time, gently to awaken us from our slothfulness and slumber, yet He returns again, and our lips gratefully sing, "He restores my soul."

And for what intent are all the Lord's loving corrections and faithful rebukes--His measured, though often painful, and even crushing afflictions--but to bring back our wandering hearts to Himself? O blossoming rod, O sweet bitter, O bright cloud, O loving, gentle chastening, that arrests my wanderings, hedges my path so that I cannot find my lovers, and turns my feet back to His ways of pleasantness and to His paths of peace. "He restores my soul, He leads me in the paths of righteousness, for His name's sake."

THE LORD MY LIGHT

"The Lord is my portion, says my soul."

"The Lord is my light."--Psalm 27:1

Without approaching the Pantheistic idea that all nature is God, the Christian can trace God and Christ in all nature; and affirm that, the religion which glows in the sunbeam, sparkles in the dew drop, breathes from the floweret, is the religion of Christ; because, material though the object be, it yet shows forth the glory of God, images some feature of Christ's person, illustrates some truth of His word, and inculcates some lesson of His gospel. Nature, more true to God than man, ever rises above and beyond itself, elevating the renewed and reflective soul from matter to mind, and from mind to spirit, until, quickened with a life from God, the soul soars to God through Christ, to find its study, happiness, and repose in His infinite fullness as that fullness is embodied and revealed in the person and work of the Lord Jesus.

"Read nature; nature is a friend to truth;
Nature is Christian; preaches to mankind,
And bids dead matter aid us in our creed."--Young

But the natural man is spiritually dark; yes, in the abstract meaning of the term, he is darkness. "The way of the wicked is as darkness." "The light which is in them is darkness." Hence, departing out of this world still in the darkness of an unrenewed state, they go from the inner to the "outer darkness," where there is weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth. My unconverted reader, ponder, oh, seriously, prayerfully ponder this dreadful condition and these appalling words! Living in this world without Christ, you live in the darkness of spiritual death; and dying without Christ, you pass to a darkness infinitely and eternally remote from every ray of light and joy--a darkness that is 'OUTER' and 'FOREVER.'

But what is true conversion? The words of inspiration shall answer. It is a "calling out of darkness into God's marvelous light" (1 Pet. 2:9). Have you so been called--called by the especial and effectual grace of God? Oh, it is of more infinite moment that you should know that you are converted, born again of the Spirit, that you have become a "new creature in Christ Jesus," that you are a 'child of the light,' and are safe for eternity, than to possess the diadem of the universe! For, "what shall it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and lose his own soul?" Solemn, urgent question!

But Christ is the Christian's Light. The believer is a 'child of the light and of the day,' having passed into God's marvelous light. 'Marvelous light' it is! 'Marvelous,' because it is divine, flowing from Him who is Essential Light, the Fountain of all Light. 'Marvelous,' because it is Incarnate Light, dwelling in Christ Jesus, who is our Light. 'Marvelous,' because it is communicated to us by the Holy Spirit, by whom alone the darkness of the soul is dissipated, and Christ, the true light shines. In a word, 'marvelous,' because of the surprising grace, the free and sovereign mercy by which we who were once darkness are now light in the Lord.

Yes, O my soul, Jesus is your light. He is the Light of your salvation, the Light of your comfort, the Light of your path, the Light of your hope of glory. "In Your light we shall see light." Guided by His light you shall walk through dreary nights and cloudy days, through tempestuous seas and stormy winds of adversity, temptation, and sorrow, until He leads you home to "the inheritance of the saints in light," where "the sun will no more be your light by day, nor will the brightness of the moon shine on you, for the Lord will be your everlasting light, and your God will be your glory. Your sun will never set again, and your moon will wane no more; the Lord will be your everlasting light, and your days of sorrow will end." Isaiah 60:19-20

THE LORD MY KEEPER

"The Lord is my portion, says my soul."

"Those who You gave me I have kept."--John 17:12

And who could keep His people but the Lord Himself? All the saints and angels in heaven could not keep a believer from finally falling and forever perishing. Unable to keep themselves, how could they keep another? There is not one rational being in the universe who, left to his own upholding, but would prove his own destroyer--and terrible would his suicide be! The restraining and upholding power of God over His creatures, is marvelous, universal, and incessant. "Power belongs unto God." It reigns in heaven, it rules on earth, it is felt in hell. "God has spoken once, TWICE have I heard this (heard it in the solemn tones of its resounding echo), that POWER belongs unto God." "Kept by the POWER of God."

In the intercessory prayer which Jesus, in the exercise of His priestly office on earth, offered--the Royal Prayer, pre-eminently and emphatically the Lord's Prayer, a type of His intercession on our behalf within the veil--His keeping of His people is solemnly affirmed, "Those that You gave me I have kept, and none of them is lost." But you will perhaps reply, "Was not Judas given to Jesus, and was he not lost?" Most assuredly! and the answer to this is, Judas was given to Christ as a disciple, as an apostle, as a minister, but not a saint, nor for the salvation of his soul. And what a dreadful picture, and what a solemn lesson does his history present! We gather from it how far a religious professor, or a Church officer, or a preacher of the gospel distinguished for his gifts and usefulness may go, and yet be utterly destitute of the converting grace of God, and dying so, "go to his own place." O Lord, "hold me up, and I shall be safe." "Keep back Your servant from presumptuous sins, and let them not have dominion over me." "Search me, O God, know my heart; try me, and know my thoughts, and see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the everlasting way."

But the Lord is our keeper. He is a Divine keeper. Deity alone could keep us from falling. The same power that upholds the universe upholds the saints, and no power short of this could uphold them one moment. My soul! the Savior that redeemed you and called you, keeps you; and because He is divine, you are divinely kept, kept every moment, and kept forever! "Kept by the power of God, through faith unto salvation."

But we equally needed a human keeper, one in personal union with our nature, acquainted with our weakness, in sympathy with our infirmities, temptations, and sorrows. We have all this in Jesus, the Lord our Keeper. Oh, there is not an angel in heaven who could have compassion upon our infirmities, pity our weaknesses, sympathize with our assaults, bear with our proneness to fall, and restore us when we wander. Jesus can! Jesus does!

Nor does this divine keeping release us from the solemn obligation of personal and incessant prayer and watchfulness. There is a sense--limited indeed--in which the believer is his own keeper. "Keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life" (Jude 21). Let us, then, be in our watchtower whole days and whole nights, watching over our besetting sins, watching against the evil of the world, and watching against the assaults of the Evil One of the world. Oh, you weak and humble saint of God, often fearful lest at last you will fall short of heaven, look up! the Lord that bought you with His blood, called you by His grace, preserves you by His indwelling Spirit, and who prays for you moment by moment that your faith fails not, keeps you, and will continue to keep you, until He brings you to glory. "Now unto Him who is able to keep you from falling, and to present you faultless before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy, to the only wise God our Savior be glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and forever! Amen!"

THE LORD MY CARE-TAKER

"The Lord is my portion, says my soul."

"He cares for you."--1 Pet. 5:7

This may be with you, my soul, a day of anxious care. The sun shines brightly, all nature is clad in beauty, and every object smiles. But with you it is a cloudy and dark day, and your heart is sad--a care presses you, anxiety shades you. And now you are casting about if perhaps you may respond to it--yet with much unbelief, despondency, and fear as to the result. But, be still! The Lord, who is your Portion, is enough for each cloudy day, and is enough for this. Come, sit down and meditate a while upon this truth, and see if this pressure may not prove a real uplifting, this anxiety a sweet repose, and this cloud reflect a silver light, by stirring you up to prayer, and leading you to learn more experimentally and blessedly what Jesus is in His all-sufficiency for all our needs. Thus, "Out of the eater will come forth meat, and out of the strong will come forth sweetness."

If the Lord cares for us, then without any figure of speech He is our Care-taker. Though all worlds, all beings, all events, all creatures, are hanging upon His arm, and yet we have not a care, infinitesimal though it be as an atom, or light as a cobweb, but the Lord cares for it. Can anything more truly and impressively illustrate the greatness of Jesus than this--that, as great is He, nothing in the history of His saints is too small or trivial for His notice and regard. Alas! we deal too imperfectly with God in the little sins and the trifling acts of disobedience in the daily duties of life. It is one of the believer's highest attainments in grace to live to God in small things. We think, for the most part, that because God is so great, He can bend His infinite mind only to objects and things that are great. Whereas, we forget that, He who is so great that the heaven of heavens cannot contain Him, has condescended to say, "I dwell with him also who is of a contrite and humble spirit."

But He cares for us. My soul, has not Jesus proved it? Did He not care for you when He embarked in the work of your salvation? Did He not care for you when you were dead in trespasses and in sins? And when the Holy Spirit convinced you of sin, and broke your heart, and led you in holy contrition to the cross, did not Jesus manifest His care for you then by raising you up from His feet, enfolding you in His arms, and applying His atoning blood to your conscience, saying to your tempest-tossed spirit, 'Peace, be still,' and there was peace?

The Lord cares for you still. He cares for your needs, for your trials, for your temptations, for your sorrows. Still more, He cares for your holy, happy walk--for the doubts and fears and tremblings which sometimes assail you--for the darkness which often enshrouds you--for the loneliness and solitude of the way by which He is leading you home to Himself. Only cast your care upon Him, whatever it may be, with a child's simple, unquestioning, unhesitating faith, and be anxious only how you may most love, trust, and glorify Him. Make His service your delight, His honor your study, His truth your care, and sweet peace will spring up in your soul, shedding its soothing influence throughout your whole being. "Don't be anxious about anything--but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be known unto God. And the peace of God (this is the Christian's true heart's ease), which passes all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus."

But if you go to Him with your care, and return with it still corroding, shading, and crushing you, it is not because the Lord refuses to take it upon Himself, but because you refuse to transfer it to Him. You go, and you come away with it still entwined around your heart, and wonder that you find no relief. But, leave with Him your care, be it the care of your soul or the care of the body, hang it upon His arm, lay it upon His heart, and sweet will be the repose your Father in heaven will give. "HE CARES FOR YOU."

THE LORD MY PROVIDER

"The Lord is my portion, says my soul."

"And my God will supply all your needs according to his glorious riches in Christ Jesus." Philip. 4:19

The anxious care of yesterday has expanded into the pressing need of today. The trouble that was near has come, and the need you anticipated is urgent. Be it so. The life God intends His people should live is not one of sight but of faith, not one for tomorrow but for today. For the most part, He will allow them to have nothing in hand, lest it should mar the simplicity, and so interfere with the operation of their faith. Like the poor widow whose little oil God increased by Elisha, we are often led to exclaim--"Your handmaid has nothing in the house but a jar of oil." Our dear Lord recognized our daily life of faith, by teaching us to offer the daily prayer, "Give us this day our daily bread."

The apostle wrote these words in grateful acknowledgment of a gift of love he had just received from the Philippian saints. He had ministered to them of his spiritual things, and they, in return, ministered unto him of their temporal things, "an odor of a sweet smell, a sacrifice acceptable and well-pleasing to God." And now, as if conscious of his inability to make them any adequate return in kind, he instructs them in a truth, and breathes for them a prayer, most precious--"And my God will supply all your needs according to his glorious riches in Christ Jesus."

Let your soul anchor itself on this truth, "God is my God," and though the winds may blow, and the billows surge, and the sky darken, you shall not be moved. Needs may be great and urgent, claimants harsh and pressing, resources clean gone, yet, if the believing soul can take hold of God, and claim its interest and proprietorship in Him, none of these things shall move it. And God is your God, O my soul! Your God in an everlasting covenant, your God in Christ Jesus, your God in a thousand troubles past, your God and your Guide even unto death.

God is as pledged as He is able to supply all our temporal need. He would have us recognize and deal with Him as the God of providence equally as the God of grace. The divine promise is, "Your bread and your water shall be sure." Has He ever failed you? He may have brought you to an extremity--the barrel of meal and the cruise of oil well-near exhausted--"not anything in the house but a jar of oil"--yet He knows your need, and at the last will appear and supply it. Faith may be sharply tried, but it shall surely triumph in the end. "Gad, a troop shall overcome him--but he shall overcome at the last." There may be a present and a temporary defeat of faith in its battle with trying and afflictive circumstances, but, like the tribe of Gad, it "shall overcome at the last." God shall supply all your temporal needs according to His covenant engagement and inexhaustible resources. Only trust Him.

Above all, is the Lord our spiritual Provider. If He provides for the body, most assuredly, and yet more richly and amply, will He provide for the soul. "There is grain in Egypt." There is the raining manna and the gushing rock in the desert. All the supplies of the covenant of grace, all the fullness that is in Christ Jesus, all the boundless resources of the Triune Jehovah, are for the needs of the believing soul. You need more faith--Jesus is its Author, and He will increase it. You need more grace--out of His fullness you may draw 'grace for grace,' or, as it is in the Greek--wave on wave. You need more love--feed its waning flame at the altar of His, and while you are musing on His wondrous love, the fire of yours shall burn. Thus take all you need to your Heavenly Provider, and He will supply it--not according to your stinted desires, or unbelieving expectations, or personal deserts--but, "according to his glorious riches in Christ Jesus."

"What need shall not our God supply
From His abundant store;
What streams of mercy from on high
An arm almighty pour?

"From Christ, the ever-living spring,
Those ample blessings flow;
Prepare, my lips, His name to sing
Whose heart has loved you so."

THE LORD MY REST

"The Lord is my portion, says my soul."

"They have forgotten their resting-place."--Jer. 50:6

To the weary, way-worn soul how sweet and expressive the word--Rest. The class is a large one. We need not extend our research into the outer world--there, indeed, the circle has no limit. Oh, what a wearied humanity is ours! But, restricting our observations to the regenerate Church of God, who of all the saints composing it will not exclaim--"The sweetest chimes that float from the belfry of heaven are those that breathe of rest for the weary soul." Sit down a while and listen to the music, and, weary and sad though you are, did ever sweeter strains of melody break on the ear than these words of Jesus, "Come unto me, all you that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest"?

Who can count the myriads now in glory, once toiling through this weary world, footsore and sad, often "ready to halt," on whose ears these words fell "in sweeter strains than angels use," causing them to 'lie down in a quiet resting-place.' But are these words fully and clearly understood by all the Lord's weary ones? If so, why do unrest and roaming exist among them to so painful an extent as it does? Is it not because the following points are not clearly seen and practically recognized?

Do we distinctly see that a personal Savior is the true rest of the believing soul? We may rest in the gospel of Christ, in the promises of Christ, in the work of Christ, and yet be far from that real rest which brings with it a comfortable assurance of perfect forgiveness and freedom from condemnation which it is our privilege to attain. Until our humble faith apprehends a Personal Savior, we have not fully apprehended that for which we are apprehended of Christ Jesus--we have not reached our highest point of rest--rest in Jesus Himself. The saints of God deal too faintly with the Personalities of the ever-blessed Trinity. They seem to forget that Three Distinctions in the Godhead are not attributes, or influences, but, Divine and distinct PERSONS. They lose sight of the Personality of the Father, and of the Personality of the Son, and of the Personality of the Spirit; and in so doing they dishonor each distinct Person of the Godhead and rob Him of His distinction and glory. And now we are invited, weary and worn and sad, to a Personal Savior, in language it would seem impossible to misinterpret. He does not say, 'Come to my church,' or, 'come to my minister,' or, 'come to my gospel,' or, 'come to my work;' but, in the clearest and most emphatic language--paraphrasing His words--He says, "Come unto ME; pass by every object and being and work, and cast yourself, guilt-laden and ready to perish, in faith upon ME, a living, loving, personal Savior, and you shall find the rest for which your weary spirit pants." Thus, O my soul, come! Thus, O Lord, I do come!

And oh, what a rest is Jesus! In embracing Him we embrace all rest--the blood that pardons, the righteousness that justifies, the grace that sanctifies, the sympathy that soothes, the power that keeps--is all realized in a personal acceptance of a personal Redeemer. To Him, then, repair, O sin and sorrow-laden one! Rest in the love His heart cherishes, in the blood His heart shed, in the compassion His heart feels, yes, in all that He is--all things are yours, for you are Christ's, and Christ is God's.

Beware of forgetting your Resting-place. It was the sin of the Church of old, "They have forgotten their resting-place." Let memory forget all else--the fondest being, the dearest name, the loveliest object--but in sin's weariness and woe, in affliction's sorrow and suffering, in starless nights and cloudy days, when all other resting-places are broken and destroyed, oh, do not forget that your present, your true, and your only resting-place is--JESUS.

"I heard the voice of Jesus say,
Come unto me and rest–
Lay down, you weary one, lay down
Your head upon My breast.

I came to Jesus as I was–
Weary and worn and sad;
I found in Him a resting-place,
And He has made me glad."

THE LORD MY BISHOP

"The Lord is my portion, says my soul."

"The Bishop of your souls."--1 Pet. 2:25

The Greek word, episkopos, rendered Bishop, signifies Overseer, one who watches over the interests of the Church, superintends its order, and administers its discipline. In this sense it primarily and pre-eminently applies to the Lord Jesus Christ as the Universal Bishop of His one elect Church, and especially as the Bishop, or, Overseer of each individual member of that Church. Now, there is something peculiarly beautiful and assuring in this title of Jesus, as it relates to the spiritual interests of the believer. Observe, Jesus is the Bishop, or, Overseer of the soul, as distinct from the providential care He takes of the body. "The Bishop of your souls." Study your Lord, O believer, as sustaining this high, responsible, and close relation to you, and receive the divine instruction and rich comfort the Holy Spirit intended to convey to you thereby.

As the Bishop of our soul, He is its author; thus, He is more than all other bishops could possibly be--He is a creating bishop. Thereby Jesus proves His Divinity. The Creator must necessarily be before and above the thing created. Now creation is ascribed to Jesus. "All things were made by Him (Logos, the Word), and without Him was not anything made that was made." To what rational conclusion do these words conduct us but the one, that the Bishop of our souls is essentially and absolutely GOD? Oh, blessed, assuring truth! what substance and stability it gives to faith reposing upon the Atonement. The Atonement reposes, in its turn, upon--DEITY.

Jesus is a life-giving Bishop. We have more than natural life from Him; we have spiritual life. "In Him was life" essential; in Him also was life Mediatorial; and this life was in Him for us. "Christ who is our life." Sweet thought! the spiritual life by which we become, in the highest sense, 'living souls,' is in Jesus, and from Jesus our Bishop! In virtue of our union with Him, we become partakers of His life; and this we have, not so much in virtue of our engrafting into Him as His dwelling in us by His Spirit. Thus, each believer has a risen or a living Christ dwelling in His heart through the Spirit by faith. And thus the regenerate soul is safe forever, since, before he can be lost, the personal Savior dwelling in him must perish!

Jesus is also a soul-redeeming Bishop. He has done what no other bishop ever has done, or ever could do--He died for us. The Church of Christ has had her martyr bishops--such were Latimer and Cranmer--but they only died for the truth, whereas Christ died for His Church. Their blood was witnessing, sealing blood--Jesus' blood was atoning, redeeming blood. How dear, then, to our divine, redeeming Bishop, must be the souls for whom His own travailed in the unknown sorrow of the garden, and in the death-agonies of the cross!

Lastly, Jesus is, in the divinest and most blessed sense, the Bishop, or Overseer, of our souls. He guards, watches over, keeps, and guides us, moment by moment, with a vigilance, tenderness, and individuality inexpressibly great. "The eyes of the Lord are over the righteous." The eye of His providence watches over your body, the eye of His grace watches over your soul. It is the oversight of love, eternal love, redeeming, unchanging love! Oh, what a loving Bishop is Jesus! Was ever love like His? Was ever such love heard of, thought of, displayed, as the love of Jesus, the Bishop of our souls? My soul, keep near your Bishop's side! No other bishop possesses His authority, can give His Spirit, offer His sacrifice, or communicate His grace. Earthly bishops are but men, men of like passions as ourselves--sinful, fallible, mortal. But Jesus is the Divine human Bishop, at whose feet, O my soul, you sit--to whose authority humbly you submit--in the luster of whose divine mitre you ever rejoice, until He shall exalt you to be a "king and a priest" in the Church above, where at His feet all crowns, and coronets, and mitres shall be devoutly and adoringly laid, and He shall be "LORD OF ALL."

THE LORD MY LEADER

"The Lord is my portion, says my soul."

"He shall gently lead those that are with young."--Isaiah 40:11

In other words, those who are burdened, and need a skillful, sure, and gentle Leader. Such is Jesus, and as such, the Scripture, which cannot be broken, is fulfilled which prophesied concerning Him. "Behold, I have given Him for a LEADER to the people." We need just such a Leader as Christ is. Our journey to heaven is across a waste, howling wilderness, through an enemy's country, all armed and combined to resist, dispute, and oppose our every step. It is a road, also, all untraveled and unknown. Over the entrance of every new path is written--"You have not passed this way heretofore." A new bend in our life transpires, a new path in our pilgrimage is presented, involving new duties and responsibilities, new cares and trials; and like the disciples who, on Mount Tabor, feared they entered into the cloud, with fear and trembling we gird ourselves for the new, cloud-veiled position which God in His goodness has appointed us.

But why these doubts, these tremblings, these fears? Jesus is our Leader. He knows all the way that we take, has mapped every road, has appointed every path, and leads us through no duty or sorrow or suffering in which He has not gone before us, leaving us an example that we should follow His steps. As a Teacher, He leads us into all truth; as a Captain, He leads us from victory to victory; as a Shepherd, He leads us into green pastures; as a Guide, He leads us along our difficult path, skillfully, gently, safely, and so fulfills His precious promise, "I will instruct you and teach you in the way in which you shall go--I will guide you with my eye." Oh, what a combination of blessings center in Christ, flowing forth like beams of light from the sun, as streams of water from the fountain, touching at every point, in every place, and at every moment all the circumstances, needs, and trials of His Church.

And HOW does Jesus lead us? He leads us graciously. He leads us in conversion by His Spirit out of ourselves, and out of the broad road of destruction into Christ, the narrow way, but the way everlasting. He leads us along all the stages, and through all the exercises, of our Christian experience, leaving us not when our frames are low, and our evidences are obscured, and our faith is assailed, and darkness, often thick darkness, covers our soul as with a pall. Who could skillfully, patiently, and faithfully lead us along all the mazes, intricacies, and perils of our Christian course safely to glory but Christ our Leader?

He leads us by His providence. "I will guide you with my eye." It has been quaintly but truly remarked, that, "they who watch the Lord's providences will never lack a providence to watch." God's eye, by which He guides His people, is His providence, and it is our wisdom to keep an eye of faith vigilantly, constantly upon His eye of providence, watching every glance, and interpreting every look, as guiding us in the way in which we should go.

Commit yourself, O my soul, confidently to the Lord's leading. The way may appear all wrong to you, but it is the right way. Mystery may enshroud it, trials may pave it, sorrows may darken it, tears may bedew it, and not an answering look or an echoing voice may relieve or cheer its loneliness, nevertheless He is leading you by the right way home. "I will lead the blind by ways they have not known, along unfamiliar paths I will guide them; I will turn the darkness into light before them and make the rough places smooth. These are the things I will do; I will not forsake them." Isaiah 42:16

"Now, Lord, I take You at Your word, make good this promise. I am a poor, blind child, not knowing my way; and when I do see it, I am often so burdened that I cannot walk. Take me by the hand, and gently, skillfully lead me until traveling days are over, and I am at home with You forever. You have promised gently to lead the burdened and feeble who cannot travel, still less keep up with the flock. Lord, lead me!"

THE LORD MY FOOD

"The Lord is my portion, says my soul."

"For my flesh is the true food, and my blood is the true drink." John 6:55

The believer in Jesus is divinely and richly fed. He lives on more than angels' bread. We know but little what that food is, but this we do know–
"Never did angels taste above
Redeeming grace and dying love."

This wondrous feast was reserved for man--fallen, sinful man, doomed to die. Draw near in faith, O my soul, and sit down afresh at this heavenly banquet provided for you by electing love and sovereign grace. Listen to the description of the Feast as given by Him who is both its Founder and Substance, "For my flesh is the true food, and my blood is the true drink. All who eat my flesh and drink my blood remain in me, and I in them."

Listen again, and to the same gracious voice inviting you to the meal, "Eat, O friends, drink, yes, drink abundantly, O beloved." Was there ever such a provider, ever such a provision, ever such guests? Let us consider in a few words the two elements of which this Royal Banquet is composed. The present meditation will include the first.

"For my flesh is the true food." The language is obviously figurative, and is to be interpreted as His words on another occasion are, "I am the door," and as those employed by the evangelical prophet, "All flesh is grass." This, the only rational and correct theological interpretation the words of our Lord will admit, at once explodes the notion of a corporeal, or, real presence of Christ in the elements of the Lord's Supper--a notion religiously held by the genuine Romanist, and surreptitiously adopted by the semi-Romanist--while yet claiming the profession and dignity of a Christian and a Protestant!

Such is the divine bread, the true nutriment of the renewed soul. The Lord never intended that His people should live on anything below Himself. The life within us is divine, and its nourishment must be divine. It is from heaven, and its nourishment must be heavenly; it is supernatural, and its food must be spiritual. If we attempt to live upon anything but Christ, we shall soon exclaim with bitterness of soul, "My leanness! my leanness!" As our natural life can only be sustained by food suited to its nature and maturity--milk for babes and strong meat for those who are of full age--so our spiritual life can only be kept healthy and vigorous by living upon food adapted to its requirements--which is Christ the Bread of life--His flesh is the true food. "The one who feeds on me will live because of me."

Such is the daily life of faith we are to live, and living such only, can we grow in grace and in a knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. The fruits of the Spirit within us are kept vigorous, healthful, and abounding by the life, the nourishment they daily derive from Christ. Nothing else is true spiritual food. The word, the ministry, the ordinances are all divinely appointed and exceedingly needful and precious means, but they are not Christ, and only help as they lead us to Christ. Oh, live daily and simply upon Christ, and your soul shall be fat and flourishing. Live upon Him for everything--for the grace that subdues the power of sin, and for the blood that cleanses the guilt of sin. Live upon Him for the wisdom that counsels, and for the sympathy that supports you. Live upon Him for the evidences of your union with Him, and for the union itself. Look not within for holiness and comfort, but look only to Jesus. Seek not your fruitfulness from yourself, but from Christ. "From me is your fruit found." Your true, your only food is the flesh of Christ, eaten in simple faith--that is, a full, a loving, a gracious, an ever-present Savior, standing at your right hand prepared to respond to your every cry, and to supply your every need, and to soothe your every sorrow.

Again I repeat, attempt to live upon your spiritual exercises, upon your faith, or love, or joy, or peace, or fruitfulness, and your soul will starve; but, live a life of daily, hourly faith on Christ, and your soul shall be "filled with the fruits of righteousness, which are by Jesus Christ unto the glory and praise of God."

THE LORD MY DRINK

"The Lord is my portion, says my soul."

"For my flesh is the true food, and my blood is the true drink." John 6:55

Life is sustained by life. It is God's ordained law in nature, His yet higher law in grace. The believer is the subject of spiritual life, but his life springs from, and is nourished by, life--the life of Jesus. His soul lives, but only as it is fed and nourished by the life blood of the Savior. "The blood is the life." "It is the blood that makes atonement." Jesus having given us His flesh to eat, offers yet more. He presents to us a cup to drink, a wondrous cup, such a cup as angels never tasted; and yet the vilest of earth's fallen race are permitted to drink freely of it, have drank deeply of it, are drinking of it now, and will continue to drink of it until they pass to that bright and holy world where "they shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more;" but, where they shall eat of the "hidden manna," and drink from the "pure river of the water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and the Lamb." And now what are we to understand by our Lord's words--"My blood is the true drink."

The first thought which they suggest is, the believer's experimental acquaintance with Christ. To taste or to drink of a thing is to have an experimental knowledge of it. There are many religious professors who read of Christ's blood, and hear of Christ's blood, and outwardly commemorate Christ's blood, but who never spiritually and experimentally drink of Christ's blood. Oh, let us not be mere professing, theoretic Christians; but real, vital, experimental Christians--living by Christ, living on Christ, and, having Christ in us the hope of glory, looking forward to that blessed hope of being with Christ forever.

Another idea is, the soul-quickening, nourishing power of Christ's blood. We drink naturally that our life may be strengthened, refreshed. Thus we drink spiritually and by faith of the blood of Christ, that the Divine life within us may be invigorated, revived. "Except you eat the flesh of the Son of Man, and drink His blood, you have no life in you." Oh, there is nothing which so truly and so effectually moistens and nourishes our Christian graces as the blood of Jesus. As there is life in the blood, so the blood constantly flowing around our living, believing, loving hearts, nourishes the roots of our grace, and causes faith and love, peace and joy, patience and hope, to bloom and blossom, and bring forth fruit in our souls.

Our Lord also signified by the expression the continuous application to the sin-healing, guilt-cleansing efficacy of His blood. As our natural thirst needs incessant supplies, not less intense and imperious is the thirst of the spiritual healthy soul for the constant application of the blood that cleanses from all sin. Our spiritual travel through a sin-polluted and sin-polluting world, involving constant contamination and taint, demands our frequent washing in atoning blood. "A person who has had a bath needs only to wash his feet; his whole body is clean." O my soul! keep the roots of your profession well moistened with Christ's blood. Keep your heart constantly sprinkled with Christ's blood. See that all your religious doings and duties are cleansed in Christ's blood. Live near the Fountain, live, yes, in the Fountain.

"So shall your walk be close with God,
Calm and serene your frame;
So purer light shall mark the road
That leads you to the Lamb."

Constrained by love, and in the exercise of faith, approach, O my soul, the Table of the Lord, and eat of His flesh and drink of His blood in obedient, grateful remembrance of Him who gave His life a ransom for you, and who said, "Do this in remembrance of me." "Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day." Let no sense of unworthiness, weakness of faith, or coldness of love keep you back; since you come, not to remember yourself, but your Lord--not to commemorate your love to Him, but His great, His dying love to you.

THE LORD MY SAVIOR

"The Lord is my portion, says my soul."

"You shall call His name Jesus--for He shall save His people from their sins."--Matt. 1:21

It is from this alabaster box of precious ointment that the sweetest, holiest odor breathes on the Church, and throughout the world, wherever and by whomever the name of Jesus, which is as ointment poured forth, is proclaimed. But, wherein lies the great charm, power and sweetness of this One Name? It is in the fact that He--SAVES. "His name shall be called Jesus, for He shall save." Of all the points of light in which the Lord our Portion is seen, there is not one equal to this--the Incarnate God--my SAVIOR. All other glorious and precious views are swallowed up in this.

If Jesus were not a Savior, He would be nothing to us. But if we can spell His name JESUS, though it may be with faith's most stammering tongue and faltering accents, we may put in a personal and confident claim to all that Jesus is, and to all that He has done. There are many from whose lips this precious name frequently and musically breathes, but who, while they bend the knee to it, are still the servants of sin and the slaves of Satan--having never experienced in their souls the saving power which this name contains, or the emancipation it was designed to confer. They know the name of Jesus historically, intellectually, theoretically; but nothing of it personally, spiritually, savingly. What multitudes saw Him, heard Him, conversed with Him, followed Him, and shouted their "hosannahs" when He was upon earth, who, nevertheless, slighting and rejecting Him, died a Christless, graceless, hopeless death, with no other prospect than that of the impious Balaam, "I shall see Him, but not now; I shall behold Him, but not near."

But, O my soul, what a debtor are you to divine, free, and discriminating grace; for to you the name of Jesus is life, joy, peace, and hope yes, it is "every precious name in one," the dearest, sweetest name in earth or in heaven. You have not simply heard of Him with the hearing of the ear, but you have been drawn to Him by cords of love, or impelled by an overwhelming sense of your lost condition as a poor sinner, finding salvation in no other name but His. But, whether drawn or driven, Jesus is precious to you, the chief among ten thousand, the altogether lovely One; yes, He is to your faith, hope, and love "all, and in all;" your Alpha and Omega, your first, and last, your resounding, never-ending jubilee. But what does our precious Jesus actually do for us?

He saves us from the guilt of sin. This He accomplishes by His precious blood-shedding. "Such were some of you, but you are washed." "He that is washed." "The blood of Jesus Christ, His Son, cleanses us from all sin." Walk, O my soul, in the constant realization of this, by a daily application of the blood to the conscience. Keep not the guilt of sin for one hour--but the moment its taint distresses, and the cloud shades, and the wound inflames, go at once to the Fountain opened, wash, and be clean.

Jesus saves us, too, from the power of sin. "He shall subdue their iniquities." This is what the truly saved soul pants for--deliverance from the tyranny of sin. We cannot be happy--blessed be God--while one sin remains unsubdued, while one corruption has the ascendency. But, by His conquering grace Jesus saves us from the dominion of sin, breaking its neck, subduing its principle, weakening its power, enabling us to shout, "Thanks be unto God, who always causes us to triumph in Christ Jesus."

Jesus saves us also from the condemnation of sin. Condemned Himself as our Surety for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh, so that, "there is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus." Oh, what a finished, accepted, glorious salvation is ours! But not only are we saved from the condemnation of sin, but we are saved unto eternal life. Jesus will not leave the work He has undertaken incomplete, nor be satisfied until He has safely brought all His blood-bought, blood-washed, blood-saved people home to glory.

THE LORD OUR PEACE

"The Lord is my portion, says my soul."

"He is our peace."--Eph. 2:14

There is a beautiful gradation in the development of the graces of the Spirit in the believing soul--first peace, then joy. This is a merciful and gracious provision of our God. There are, alas! but few rejoicing Christians; and yet, in the absence of joy–(the subject of our next meditation,) what a comfort that we may arrive at a state of peace, this being a fruit of the Spirit growing lower down on the tree, 'bearing all manner of fruit,' and therefore more accessible than the higher grace of joy, a fruit found on loftier boughs, and growing in a sunnier region. "The kingdom of God is righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit."

Thus we often hear in the dying experience of God's saints the expression--"I am not joyful, but I am peaceful. I have no great ecstacy or transport of feeling, but my soul believingly, sweetly rests on Jesus, and I am kept in perfect peace." Well, this is no small Christian attainment and divine blessing; and if our peace is a genuine fruit of the Spirit, springing from simple faith in Jesus, the effect of His peace-speaking blood upon the conscience, it is worth countless worlds, and "passes all understanding." A few reflections may aid us in the fuller realization of this blessed state.

In the first place, we must keep the great essential truth ever in view that, not only can Christ make peace, give us peace, and bequeath His peace as a precious legacy, but, Jesus himself is our peace. "Christ is our peace." This thought raises us above a mere dogma, to a Person--above the truth of Christ, to Christ himself. God says of the sinner at variance with Him--"Let him take hold of my strength, that he may make peace with me; and he shall make peace with me" (Isa. 27:5). Now "Christ is the Power of God," or, the Strength of God, taking hold of whom in faith we are at "peace with God, through our Lord Jesus Christ." Thus the expression so general, "he made his peace with God," as applied to many who pass out of this world into eternity without any scriptural evidence of conversion, involves a fearful delusion and a fatal error. The sinner cannot of himself make his peace with God. Christ has already made peace, or rather, Christ is Himself our peace; and until we believe in Christ, and have received Christ, our boasted peace is false--it is the peace, not of life, but of death--the peace of Satan, easily understood; not the "peace of God, which passes all understanding."

Yes, Jesus is our Peace. He stood in the breach, bore the sin, endured the curse, and suffered the condemnation. Upon Him fell the stroke that bowed His holy soul in sorrow to the earth, and so secured our reconciliation with God. "There is one Mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus," even Jesus, "the Prince of Peace."

And now the atoning work of Jesus in its two distinct branches--the blood that pardons, and the righteousness that justifies--is the channel through which peace flows into our soul. The one is termed, "peace-speaking blood," the other is represented as placing us in a state of free and full justification, and so bringing us into the experience of peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Behold, then, O my soul, the channel through which your true peace flows--the blood of Christ applied to the conscience, and the righteousness of Christ put upon you by the Spirit.

The Lord can give you peace in trouble. When the tempest rages and the waters are dark and billowy, beneath the surface your peace from God, through Christ, may flow like a river. You are firmly anchored in faith on God. "You will keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on You, because he trusts in You." Guard against that which would compromise your peace, O my soul. Toy not with temptation, trifle not with conscience, walk not at a distance from Jesus. Wash daily in the Fountain, and your peace shall be as an ever-springing well. "When He gives quietness, who then can make trouble?" "Now the Lord of peace himself give you peace always, by all means."

THE LORD MY JOY

"The Lord is my portion, says my soul."

"Yet I will rejoice in the Lord! I will be joyful in the God of my salvation." Habakkuk 3:18

The lowly bud of peace has now blown into the fragrant flower of joy--a higher grace and a more advanced stage in the happy life of the believer. That this is an attainment in the divine life to which, alas! but few Christians arrive, has already been intimated. And yet it is a kindred grace of the Spirit, growing upon the same 'tree of life,' though, as we have remarked, found upon its higher and more sunlit boughs. The apostolic precept, "Rejoice in the Lord always, and again I say, rejoice," is as personally and as solemnly enjoined as any holy precept of God's Word. It may aid you, O my soul, in attaining in some measure to this high, holy state, if you will consider some of the reasons why the child of God should be a joyful Christian, yes, always rejoicing!

In the first place, we ought to rejoice that God is our God in an everlasting covenant. Can the wing of faith soar higher? Is there beyond this another, a loftier, or a richer spring of happiness? Surely not! To be enabled to say, in the exercise of humble, filial faith, "God is my God, my Father, my Portion, my All," is to pluck the richest, sweetest fruit that grows upon the tree of life. Oh, rise to this, my soul! Uplift your too drooping pinion and soar! Listen to the words of God Himself respecting the remnant, or third part left in Jerusalem, and whom He will bring through the fire, and refine them as silver is refined, and try them as gold is tried--"I will say, It is my people; and they shall say, The Lord is my God" (Zech. 13:9). Oh, what a joy to lay faith's hand upon Jehovah and exclaim, "This God is my God! all His perfections smile upon me, all His attributes encircle me, all His resources are at my command; He is my God forever and ever, and will be my guide even unto death."

What a rich, fathomless fountain of joy is Jesus, O my soul. All the offices He fills, all the relations He sustains, all the supplies He possesses, belong to you. His thoughts entwine you, His heart beats for you, His eye is over you, His hand guides and keeps you moment by moment. Who ought not to be joyful who can say, "Christ is my Brother, my Goel, (next of kin,) Christ is my Friend, loving me at all times; Christ is my Redeemer, ransoming me from condemnation; Christ is my High Priest, making constant and successful intercession for me within the veil. Oh, realize what a portion, what a treasure, what a very present help, what an almighty, sympathizing, full Savior Jesus is, and the water of your sorrow shall be turned into the wine of your joy.

And what a joy should it be that you have a throne of grace at all times to repair to. He who knows from personal and sweet experience the privilege and power of prayer, must be a joyful Christian. Is there a higher, holier, sweeter privilege this side of glory? Dark though the cloud is, crushing the burden, bitter the sorrow and pressing the want, the moment the believer arises and gives himself to prayer, the cloud dissolves, the burden falls, the sorrow is soothed, and the need is met and more than supplied. "They looked unto Him, and were lightened." Oh, what joy is this--access by the blood of Jesus within the holiest, lost in the effulgent glory that encircles the throne of a Father's love!

And what a joy to know that we are saved! Realizing this fact, it would be no exaggeration of our joy were we to proclaim from the house top--"I am saved! I am saved! for ever saved!" Think what hell is! think what heaven is! and then to know, to be quite sure, that we are snatched from the one and shall soon arrive at the other. Oh, this is "joy unspeakable and full of glory." The thought of being in heaven--forever with the Lord--no more sin, no more suffering, no more tears, no more death, no more separation--oh, it were enough to lift us superior to present tribulation, and to make the desert across which we journey resound with our songs of joy, until we rise to sing forever the new song before the throne of God and the Lamb.

THE LORD MY SONG

"The Lord is my portion, says my soul."

"The Lord is my song."--Psalm 118:14

A joyful spirit is a praiseful spirit; and He around whom our loftiest, sweetest praises gather, has, for the encouragement of this holy exercise said, "Whoever offers praise glorifies me." That there are, as we have remarked, so few joyful believers, will account for there being so few praiseful believers in the Church of God. Praise is one of the holiest graces, as it is one of the sweetest employments, of the believing soul. As far as the enjoyments of the glorified saints are revealed--and the door of heaven is only open ajar, in order that sight might not in any degree impair the simplicity of faith--we learn that, praise is the chief employment and recreation of the saints in glory. Read attentively the unveilings of heaven, dim though they are, in the Apocalypse, and this fact will come home to you with great power--that, the 'golden harps,' and the 'new songs,' and the loud 'hallelujahs' of heaven, all indicate that music, or praise, is the grand recreation of the glorified saints who stand upon Mount Zion, and upon the sea of glass, having the harps of God; their high, transporting anthem--the "Song of Moses, the servant of God, and the Song of the Lamb!"

My soul, pluck your harp from the willow, where too long it has hung in silence, and, waking its lower notes, praise your God for providential mercies--for the blessings of this life--food and clothing, home and friends, His daily care and thought of you.

Praise Him for sovereign, calling, converting grace. Oh, did we but fully realize what conversion is, and were more clearly assured that we were truly converted, would not the very thought kindle our soul with the deepest thanksgiving, and wake our harps to the loudest praise?

Praise Him for preserving grace. We need the same divine power that called us by grace, to keep us from falling from the profession of grace. From the possession of grace, the true believer can never fall. "The righteous shall hold on his way, and he that has clean hands shall grow stronger and stronger." "They shall never perish." But the history of God's Church proves that no power can keep the best of saints from falling into the worst of sins, but the power of God. Have you been thus kept, O my soul, in many temptations, dangers, and stumblings? Then wake your harp to the high praise of Christ's power, faithfulness, and love. "Kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation."

The Lord, too, is our song in view of the consolations and comforts of His grace. You have been brought through many deep sorrows, have traveled many dark stages, and cloudy days of your earthly pilgrimage; but your consolations have been neither few nor small. The God of all comfort has never deserted you, "the Consolation of Israel" has never failed you, and the Divine Paraclete, the Holy Spirit, the Comforter, has ever stood by to soothe, soften, and heal your wounds with the wine and the oil of divine grace and human sympathy--both flowing from the heart of Jesus.

Then, uplift your praises with every morning's light and evening's shadow. Praise Him with a new song for every new blessing. Praise Him for everything; for the cloud that shades, for the beam that brightens, for the mercies given, for the mercies withheld; for all He removes, for all He bestows. Praise Him for every affliction He sends, for every cross He appoints, for every sorrow He mingles, for every temptation He permits. Praise Him for present sickness and suffering, bereavement and loss; for a blessing is in it all, and all demands our grateful praise. Oh, cultivate a thankful, praiseful spirit. It will cheer many a lonely path; sweeten many a bitter trial; lighten many a burden borne along life's weary, dusty road, home to God. Soon the praises of earth will be exchanged for the higher, holier, and more lasting praises of heaven. And then will come the "new song" of glory, honor, and thanksgiving unto Him who sits upon the throne, and unto the Lamb, forever and ever.

THE LORD MY CREDITOR

"The Lord is my portion, says my soul."

"How much do you owe my master?" Luke 16:5

There is not a greater debtor in the universe than the believer in Jesus. The natural man owes God much--ten thousand talents--but the renewed man owes God ten thousand times more--a debt of love, gratitude, and service such as the highest number cannot compute, or the longest eternity pay. It is very salutary to keep constantly in mind our indebtedness to Christ. We are prone to forget it. We are tempted at times to imagine that, some little service of love, or act of obedience, or season of suffering, has cancelled, in some degree, the immense obligation we are under to God; no, more, we are even tempted to cherish the delusion that, by this very sacrifice on our part of self-denying service and endurance of suffering, we have actually made the Lord Himself our debtor! But this will not always be the reflection of a truly spiritual mind and Christ-loving heart; of one who, in view of what Jesus has done for him--the hell from whence he is ransomed, and the heaven to which he is raised, exclaims–
"Were the whole realm of nature mine,
That were a present far too small;
Love so amazing, so divine,
Demands my soul, my life, my all."

We owe Jesus supreme, obedient, and self-denying love. Oh, if there is a being in the universe whom it were no exaggeration of affection to love with every throb of our hearts, it is JESUS. This supreme concentration of love on one object implies no rupture of tie, or lessening of affection towards others. There is a self-love, natural and proper; there is conjugal love, holy and deep; there is parental love, tender and enduring; and there is filial love, God-commanded and God-honored--all these bonds of affection may exist in harmony with a supreme love to Jesus, which, while it recognizes and hallows them, towers above, transcends, and out-shines them as the sun the inferior planets which revolve around it, their center.

We owe Jesus unwearied service. True religion is practical. The grace of God in the heart is diffusive. Divine love in the soul is constraining. The service of Christ, to which our grateful love binds us, is perfect freedom and a supreme delight. Are you, my soul, devoting yourself to the service of your Lord, who consecrated His whole life, yes, Himself for you? Are you lending a loving, sympathizing, helping hand to His ministers--vindicating, encouraging, aiding them? Are you seeking the conversion of souls, and thus aiding to increase His kingdom? What are you doing for Jesus?

We owe Jesus our talents, time, and substance. If we recognize the fact that we are not our own proprietors, then it follows that there was nothing exaggerated in the entire devotion of the early Christians, of whom it is recorded, "No one claimed that any of his possessions was his own." Yes! we are not our own, but Christ's; and if we withhold from Him our one talent, burying it in the earth; our time, frittering it away in the mere baubles and trifles of life; our property, lavishing it in self-indulgence, we are robbing Christ of what by right of creation, redemption, and vow of consecration belongs to Him, proving ourselves to be unfaithful stewards. Can we ever do or suffer too much for Him who paid all our great debt of obedience, and suffering, and death both to law and justice, that we might go free? Oh no! My soul! how "much owe you unto my Lord?" Lord! I owe You my talents, my rank, my wealth, my time, my all!--body, soul, and spirit, through time and through eternity.

"When this passing world is done,
When has sunk yon glowing sun,
When we stand with Christ above,
Looking o'er life's tale of love;
Then, Lord, shall I fully know–
Not until then--how much I owe.

"When I stand before the throne,
Dressed in beauty not my own;
When I see You as You art,
Serve You with unsinning heart;
Then, Lord, shall I fully know–
Not until then--how much I owe."

THE LORD MY EXPECTATION

"The Lord is my portion, says my soul."

"My soul, wait only upon God; for my expectation is from Him."--Psalm 62:5

It is the sin, as it is the mortification, of the believer, to expect too much from the creature, and too little from the Lord. In the one case disappointment, often painful and humiliating, is the inevitable result; in the other, a precious fulfillment of the divine and gracious promise, "Those who wait for Me shall not be ashamed." How elevated and hallowed the experience of David, as embodied in the portion which suggests our present meditation, "My soul, wait only upon God; for my expectation is from Him."

Look, first, at the OBJECT of the believing soul's expectation--it is God.

Faith, hope, and love could not stretch their pinions higher. And yet, divine as is this Object of expectation, high and lofty as is His place of abode, holy and bright as is His nature, the lowliest soul, uplifting its longing, believing, expecting gaze, may reach Him, and realize its highest, fullest expectation! Oh, how faintly we deal with the all-sufficiency of our God!--how we limit the Holy One of Israel!--how we confine and distrust Jesus! My soul! has God in Christ ever failed, ever disappointed you? Has there ever been--can there ever be--any confounding of His wisdom, any baffling of His power, any lessening of His resources, any exhaustion of His goodness, faithfulness, and love? Never! Then, O my soul, cease from man, cease to make flesh your arm, abandon your expectation of help, of supply, of sympathy from the creature, and wait only upon God.

And study, my soul, the POSTURE--waiting. It is the posture of faith, the attitude of love, the expression of patience and hope. We are often too impatient of the Lord's delays in our behalf. We may indeed pray, "make no tarrying;" and yet the vision may tarry its appointed time, but, though it tarry, it will surely come. The Lord may keep you long waiting at the throne, to test your sincerity, and try your faith, and prove your love, but, in the end, He will appear--your prayer is heard, and shall be answered.

And look at the EXCLUSIVENESS of this expectation. "My soul, wait only upon God"--only upon Him. Ah! how hard the lesson! How tenaciously and idolatrously we cling to the creature! With the creature in one hand, and with the Creator in the other, we think to carve our way through all oppositions, difficulties, and needs. But, no! this must not be. The Lord will have our simple, honest, and exclusive trust. He will not allow us to expect from man what only can be found in Himself. He is a jealous God, and will have our honest, undivided hearts. Are you seeking salvation? Let go of all expectation of finding pardon, and peace, and hope in anything of your own doing; and simply and only take hold in faith of Jesus, and your expectation of being saved--saved without a work of your own--saved from the power, guilt, and condemnation of sin--saved now, saved at once, and saved forever--shall never be ashamed.

And what, O my soul! might you expect? Everything! There is no limitation. God's promise is, "Open your mouth wide, and I will fill it." Could language be more simple and explicit, or promise more full and precious? Expect, O my soul, great things from God. Expect large supplies of grace from Jesus. Let your expectation be high as His being, wide as His resources, vast as His love. Expect His answer to your prayer; expect the fulfillment of His word; expect His providential supplies of your need; expect sympathy and soothing in your grief; expect deliverance in the mount of danger; expect, at the last distressing moment, strength, support, and deliverance; grace to help you in every time of need. And when heart and flesh fail, and you pass down the shaded valley, solitary and alone, expect that Jesus will be with you there; and your expectation shall not be disappointed, nor your hope be made ashamed. "My soul, wait only upon God; for my expectation is from him."

CHRIST IS ALL, AND IN ALL

"The Lord is my portion, says my soul."

"Christ is all, and in all."--Col. 3:11

We close these devout meditations with a magnificent Doxology--Christ all, and Christ in all! It is an epitome, the substance, the consummation and crown of the whole. Each theme has been a wider opening of the Divine jewel box, presenting another and a closer glimpse of the precious, priceless gem it contained. We now uplift and remove the lid, and, lo! it stands before us in all its grandeur, luster, and completeness--CHRIST, ALL AND IN ALL. Language is exhausted, imagery supplies its last symbol, imagination drops her wing, for inspiration can bear it no higher--Christ is all, and in all!

"Blessed Jesus! You are all in all, in creation and redemption, in pardon, grace, and glory. You are all in all in Your Church, and in the hearts of Your people--in all their joys, all their happiness, all their exercises, all their privileges. You are all in all in Your word, ordinances, means of grace, the sum and substance of the whole Bible. Do we speak of promises? You are the first promise in the sacred word, and the whole of every promise that follows; for all in You are 'Yes and Amen'. Do we speak of the law? You are the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believes. Do we speak of sacrifices? By Your one sacrifice You have for ever perfected those who are sanctified. Do we speak of the prophecies? To You give all the prophets witness, that whoever believes in You shall receive the remission of sins. Yes! blessed, blessed Jesus, You are all in all. May You be to me, Lord, the all in all I need in time, and then, surely, You will be my all in all to all eternity!"

My soul! all that Jesus has is yours! Every perfection of His nature, every throb of His heart, every thought of His mind, every drop of His blood, every shred of His righteousness, every atom of His merit, is yours! How rich and vast the inventory! How precious and boundless the wealth! Draw largely upon His opulence--He will honor every draft--sink deeply into His fullness--He will supply every need--"for all is yours."

But, my soul, Jesus is not only all to you, but He is in all that concerns you. He is in every event of your history, and He is in every circumstance of your life. He is in every affliction--sanctifying it; He is in every sorrow--sweetening it; He is in every cloud, brightening it--He is in every burden--sustaining it; He rides upon every storm and walks upon every billow, saying to the winds and the waves, "Peace! be still." Oh, never meet an event or a circumstance in your daily life, be it sad or joyous, but let your faith exclaim, "Jesus is in this! He sent it, He comes with it, He will control it, and I shall prove the all-sufficiency of His grace, and He shall have every ascription of my praise!" And if the Lord has seen fit to remove from you the one you loved--the blessing you prized--the supplies you needed--the prop upon which you leaned, it is only that He Himself should be your all in all. Jesus can fill every blank, replace every loss, and be infinitely more to you than the fondest and most essential treasures He ever gave or took away!

Christ will be all in all when eternity is nearing, and the eye is closing, and the heart is chilling, and the pulse is sinking, and the countenance is changing, and earth is disappearing, and heaven is opening, and friends are weeping--oh then, then, JESUS will be ALL AND IN ALL! Down the shaded valley--across the swelling flood--up the celestial hills--onward to the throne high and lifted up--glory bathing it, saints and angels circling it, anthems floating around it--Jesus will then appear as never before--THE ALL AND THE IN ALL of His Church.

"My flesh and my heart fails; but God is the strength of my heart, and my portion forever."

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

"EMMANUEL, or Titles of Christ"

Table of Contents

Preface

1. Christ, Emmanuel, or God with Us

2. Christ, the Wonderful

3. Christ, the Counselor

4. Christ, the Mighty God

5. Christ, the Everlasting Father

6. Christ, the Prince of Peace

7. Christ, a Man of Sorrows

8. Christ, the Resurrection and the Life

9. Christ, Our Righteousness

10. Christ, the Alpha and Omega

PREFACE.

The personal and official titles of our Lord Jesus, unlike the names and designations of the world, are real and substantial things- each one possessing profound significance and unfading glory. They have not been inaptly denominated, by a divine of the sixteenth century, a "cabinet of jewels." With them our Lord is completely invested Himself the divinest, the most costly and precious one of all. They emblazon His person, shed luster upon His work, and will sparkle upon brow when in His Second Coming, "upon His head shall be many crowns." Each title embodies a distinct meaning and illustrates a particular truth, the significance and preciousness of which the Holy Spirit can alone unfold and the believing heart alone appreciate. Like His twofold nature, the titles of our Lord are wonderful, and, like His infinite resources, they are exhaustless. The present volume is an attempt to explore, in a limited degree, this costly treasure. The author is painfully conscious that he has scarcely opened the sacred casket, and that even the few precious gems he has exposed to view, he fears are placed in a light so dim, and are arranged with a hand so inartistic, as greatly to obscure their luster and to veil their worth. With his readers he is prepared to exclaim, "The half has not been told us!" And yet so essential is it to know the Lord Jesus, so important to believe in, admire, and love Him, the author is consoled by the thought that the dimmest presentation, the feeblest uplifting of the Savior, may win to Him a soul and plant a new jewel in His crown. May this be the happy result of these pages!

There is, perhaps, no name belonging to our Lord with which the believer is in more practical and constant communion than the one selected as the distinctive title of this volume- "Emmanuel, God with us." How blessed to know that our daily life is a daily realization and experience of its truth, power, and preciousness. God in Christ is with us in all places, in all circumstances, and at all times. In all our "adversities of mind, body, and estate," "in all times of our tribulation; in all times of our wealth; in the hour of death and in the day of judgment, "Christ is "Emmanuel, God with us!" If the present volume but serve to keep this glorious name of our divine Redeemer, and the precious truth it expresses, prominently and constantly before the Christian Church, it will have served its mission; and to the Triune Jehovah shall be ascribed all the praise.

Christ- Emmanuel, or God with Us

"They shall call His name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us."- Matthew 1:23.

"All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet: The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel– which means, 'God with us.'" Matthew 1:22-23

The titles of the Lord Jesus were not like those of the world, empty and vain sounding things. Each one possessed an impressive meaning, significant either of some distinguished trait of His personal character, or illustrative of some important aspect of His official work. There is no study of our Lord more precious and instructive to those who love Him than the varied and expressive names He wears. A single title is to them often as a volume replete with divine truth, as a mine of untold wealth, as a box of most precious ointment, as a tower of impregnable strength.

We are about to consider a few of Christ's more familiar and prominent titles; and, as introductory to the series, have selected, perhaps, the most significant and impressive one of all. This remarkable title is the fulfilment of a prophecy, and the confirmation of our faith in the truth of His Messiahship; the unfolding of a twofold nature- it brings before our view at once His Deity and humanity. The narrative is in this way- "All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet: 'The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel"– which means, God with us.'" Matthew 1:22-23

As I have remarked, we have here a famous prophecy fulfilled, and a wondrous person revealed. The former view of the subject would alone supply us with ample material for reflection. It is no light thing in the present day to maintain the integrity of God's word. On every hand, and from

every quarter it is malignantly and fiercely assailed. Men deeply erudite, religious in profession, and eminent in their relation to the Church, are devoting all the power and influence their learning and position can command, to the destruction of the Bible. I speak advisedly- the destruction of the Bible! The Word of God is wholly divine; and as a volume thus wholly divine, it must, in faith, humility, and love, be received. Impugn the integrity of any one part, and you have impugned the integrity of every other. Loosen one stone of the sacred fabric, and you have loosened all. Tamper with the integrity of this book, or question the veracity of that narrative; reject the inspiration of this gospel, or doubt the canonical integrity of that epistle, and you have taken away my Bible, and what have I left?

The God dishonoring theories, therefore, which several modern writers have advanced, the refined and subtle shades of inspiration which many have drawn, all converge to one point- the virtual denial of inspiration entirely; and all tend to one solemn and inevitable result- the overthrow of God's Word. A"ept, then, with gratitude every fulfilled prophecy as evidencing the truth of the Bible, and as establishing your individual faith in the inspiration, integrity, and preciousness of that Divine Word, which is all that you have to guide you through the sins and snares and sorrows of this life to the happiness and the glories of the life that is to come. Hold fast to the integrity of these two witnesses- the Old and the New Testament. They confirm and establish each other. The Old Testament predicts the New, and the New Testament fulfils the Old; and thus both unitedly testify, "Your Word Is Truth."

In entering upon a consideration of the present title of our Lord, we are in the very outset confronted by the most marvellous and glorious doctrine of the Christian faith- the DEITY of the Son of God. This is an essential doctrine of revelation, not accepted by any one particular branch of the Christian Church, but is the received tenet of the whole. Even in the creed of the most corrupt of all religious communions, the Church of Rome, it is found to exist, though blended with so much that is erroneous in doctrine, and overlaid with so much that is superstitious in worship, as entirely to neutralize its power and utterly to veil its luster. Perhaps, the most lucid and earnest embodiment of this essential truth of the gospel is found in the doctrinal formula of the English Church. The article to which we refer runs thus- "The Son, who is the Word of the Father, begotten from everlasting of the Father, the very and eternal God, and of one substance of the Father, took man's nature in the womb of the blessed virgin, of her substance; so that two whole and perfect natures, that is to say, the Godhead and Manhood, were joined together in one person, never to be divided, whereof is one Christ, Very God and Very Man, who truly suffered, was crucified, dead, and buried, to reconcile His Father to us, and to be a sacrifice, not only for original guilt, but also for all actual sins of men." But this fundamental doctrine of our faith- the Deity of Christ- rests not upon human testimony alone. It appeals to a high and divine authority in support of its truth- it rests upon the revelation and teaching of God's inspired word. To this let us turn.

The title of our Lord under consideration distinctly affirms His Deity- "GOD with us." The proof we advance confirmatory of this doctrine must, in our limited space, be but a summary. The title itself would seem to carry to every ingenuous and earnest mind desiring to know what is truth touching this doctrine, sufficient evidence of its veracity. The presence of God with man has, in all dispensations of the Church, been an acknowledged fact. The Jews, as God's peculiar people, had the more immediate token of His presence by an appearance of glory enshrouding with its divine effulgence the holy tabernacle. This they termed the Shechinah, or, the Divine Presence. God was with them in that "cloud by day and pillar of fire by night." But this symbolic and extraordinary manifestation of the Divine presence was to cease with the first temple. A new and more spiritual dispensation was to supersede the old, and another and more wonderful temple was to enshrine the Deity! God would still be with His people and dwell amid His Church, but it would be "GOD manifest in the flesh," and this is the name by which He should be known- "EMMANUEL, GOD with us." And what is the line of proof? Briefly this. All that belongs to Deity is ascribed to our Lord. For example- The names and titles of Deity belong to Him. He is emphatically called the "First and the Last " "Who was, and is, and is to come" "The Almighty" "The Everlasting Father" " The Lord of Glory " "The Lord God of the holy prophets"

"The only begotten Son of God" "The brightness of His glory, the express image of His person." These, as I have remarked, are not vain-sounding titles, but embody and express His GODHEAD. Had he not a preexistence before He touched the horizon of our earth, had He not subsisted eternally in the divine essence and glorious majesty of the Supreme God, could it with any propriety have been said to Him, "Your throne, O GOD, is forever and ever" "We give You thanks, O Lord God Almighty, who is, and was, and is to come" "You are the same, Your years shall not fail" "The same yesterday, today, and forever."

But not the titles only, but the works of Deity, are ascribed to Him. It is said, that "all things were made by Him, and without him was not anything made that was made" that, "by Him all things were created that are in heaven, and that are in the earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers; all things were created by Him, and for Him, and He is before all things, and by Him all things are held together." "He upholds all things by the word of His power" that, "His throne is forever and ever." Surely He who is before the created, must Himself be uncreated; He who is before all beings, must be pre-existent; He who can create, sustain, and govern all worlds and all beings and all things must be the eternal, omnipotent, omnipresent, and everlasting Jehovah. And yet all this is ascribed to our blessed Lord.

The miracles of our Lord were equally confirmatory of His divinity. By the exercise of His divine and miraculous power. He healed the sick, restored sight to the blind, hearing to the deaf, strength to the paralyzed, fed thousands with a few loaves and small fishes, controlled the tempest, and exhibited His power over death and the grave, despoiling their laurels, rescuing their prey, bringing back the spirit from Hades and the body from the grave to life and service again.

And did our Lord ever deny His essential deity? Never once! On the contrary, He invariably vindicated the doctrine, boldly acknowledging that He was one with God. Hence He said, "If I do not the works of any father, believe me not. But if I do, though you do not believe, believe the works, that you may know and believe that the Father is in me, and I in Him." "I and the Father are one." And then, when closing His ministry on earth, as if most fully and demonstratively to establish His union with the substance and incomprehensible nature of the Godhead, He commissioned His apostles to go forth and to "baptize all nations in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit." Had our Lord not been equal with the Father, how confused, inappropriate, and impious were this language, thus representing Himself as the joint and equal object of our faith, hope, and love. And how animating and sanctifying is the thought that, when thus dedicating ourselves to the Triune God, rendering to each divine person the most unquestioning faith, the warmest love, the divinest worship, and the most dutiful obedience, it is because we recognize three distinct people in the One Godhead, and look for rich and inestimable blessings flowing from, the love of God the Father, through the merits of God the Son, and by the power of God the Holy Spirit.

This suggests another view of the subject, equally confirmatory of the doctrine. I refer to THE NECESSITY OF CHRIST'S DEITY, AS IMPLIED IN THE WHOLE ECONOMY OF REDEMPTION. There could have been no salvation of sinners apart from the Three People of the Godhead. In accomplishing this, the master work of Jehovah, it was necessary that an ample satisfaction should be made to the moral government of God, in the shape of a full atonement for infinite transgression, that thereby the righteousness of the law might be fully vindicated, and the claims of justice be fully met. It was equally necessary that a provision should be made, not only for the pardon of sin and the justification of the sinner, but that, also (and without which neither of them could have availed to bring the sinner to heaven) provision should be made for the spiritual renovation of the soul. Hence the necessity of the Trinity. The Father is reputed as loving man; the Son, as dying for man; the Spirit, as regenenating man; and an equal Divine love binds its threefold girdle around every believing saint. Do we need further proof? Behold Him setting the seal to the truth of his Deity, and manifesting to all that He was the King of kings and Lord of lords, by overcoming Satan, by vanquishing death, by bursting the barriers of the grave, and by ascending triumphantly to heaven, leading captivity captive, and from thence dispensing the blessings of His grace to men, even the rebellious, that God might dwell with them.

Before I venture upon the second part of this subject, let me bespeak, in behalf of the truth which has engaged our first thoughts, the most prayerful study, and the most implicit belief of all the Lord's people. The doctrine of the Incarnation is the chief corner-stone of our faith. Here reposes the entire fabric of our salvation. This is the key that unlocks the deep mystery of divine love; this the solution to every difficulty that presents itself to the soul in its struggle to be saved. Let your faith simply grasp this truth, and all is safe with your everlasting well-being. Do not pause to sound it with the poor plumb-line of your reason, before you believe it. Wait not to under stand, before you receive it. Receive it with the simplicity of a little child, and it will make you happy. It is the great mystery of Godliness. How, then, can you, a finite being, a sinful finite being, be supposed fully to comprehend a truth which touches the very heights, and sounds the very depths of infinity itself; over which angels bend with humility, reverence, and awe? Lay down your reason at the feet of faith, and let faith take her place at the feet of Jesus, and, as I have said, receive the kingdom of God as a little child, and you shall be saved. Deem it not uncharitable when I say, that there is, there can be, no salvation apart from a belief in the doctrine of the Incarnation of God for the salvation of man. In the words of the evangelist, "Neither is there salvation in any other; for there is none other name under heaven given among men, by which we must be saved." This is the "Stone" which the deniers of the Deity and atonement of Christ set at nothing, rejecting which, they build the fabric of their future upon the quicksands of their own works, reposing upon which, shame and everlasting contempt must be their portion. Become, then, a humble worshiper at Bethlehem, a believing student at Calvary, a joyful saint at the tomb, and yours will be the divine benison of him "that believes, and yet has not seen." The path of the soul's travel to glory, commences at the manger, winds round the cross, sweeps past the grave, ascends to, and is lost in, the perfect sight of faith, and the full fruition of hope, and the boundless sea of love circling round the throne of heaven-
"Where sits our Savior, crowned with light,
Clothed in a body like our own."

But we approach that branch of our subject which brings it home more closely and blessedly to our individual selves. "Emmanuel, God WITH US. How wondrously and completely does this truth, the Incarnation, span the wide chasm between the Infinite and the finite- God and man! God is no longer to the believer's mind an incomprehensible and invisible abstraction. He is brought near, as it were- visible, tangible, real- in a word, He is WITH us. Let us illustrate in a few particulars this marvellous, and not less experimental and precious, truth.

In the first place, Emmanuel is GOD WITH US. We here ascend infinitely above the human. It is not merely an angel that is with us- a man that is with us; it is Deity who is with us, none less than Jehovah Himself, Israel's covenant God and Keeper. We cannot do with anything short of Deity. If Deity does not come to our aid, if Deity does not stoop to our low estate, if Deity does not save us, we are lost to all eternity. When we fell in the first Adam, our humanity lost all its original righteousness and strength. If Deity did not interpose on our behalf, if God did not Himself embark in our rescue, the inevitable consequence must have been the shades of endless death. But a plan of deliverance had been conceived from everlasting. God, in the infinite counsels of His own mind, resolved upon the salvation of His eternally chosen and loved people. He saw that there was no eye to pity them, and no arm to save them. He resolved upon our salvation, embarked in it, accomplished it; and eternity, as it rolls upon its axis, will magnify His name, and show forth His praise.

And, O beloved! what an assuring and comforting truth is this- God with us! Now we feel equal to every service, prepared for every trial, armed for every assault. Deity is our shield, Deity is our arm, Deity is our Father and our Friend. We deal with the Divine. Deity has died for us, has atoned for us, has saved us, and will bring us safely to the realms of bliss. "This God is our God, forever and ever, and will be our Father even unto death." Oh, see, my reader, that your hope is built upon nothing more and upon nothing less than Christ. The "Rock of Ages" must be your only foundation if saved. If you stand not in the "righteousness of God" when you appear in His presence, He will say to you, "How did you get in here, not having on the wedding garment?" Speechless will then be the tongue now so fluent and ingenious in its many and vain excuses, or so loud and earnest in its heartless responses in religious worship. I solemnly repeat that, if you have no better righteousness to appear before God in than your religious duties, or rites, or doings, when summoned to His dread tribunal, it had been better for you never to have been born. Oh, cast from you the leprous garment you so long and so fondly have clutched, as though it were a white and beautiful robe fit to appear in the presence of the holy, holy, holy Lord God; and accept in penitence and faith the "righteousness of God, which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all, and upon all those who believe." Deadly doings are deadly things, sinking you as a nether millstone down to the shades of the bottomless pit. But one believing look at the crucified Savior is life and immortality, raising you above the curse, above your sins, out of the horrible pit and the miry clay of your present condemnation, into the sun-lit regions of forgiveness, peace, and hope.

Once more, let me remind my believing reader that "Emmanuel is God with us." Come, then, and lean upon His omnipotent arm. You have no need which from His infinite supplies cannot be met; no stone of difficulty in your pilgrimage which His might cannot remove; no burden which His arm of power cannot bear, no perplexity which His wisdom cannot guide: in a word, no condition to which Christ our ever present God is not equal. In faith and humility make practical use of your Savior's divinity; and when all that is merely human has failed, broken like a rope of sand, dissolved like a passing vapor; or has pierced your too fondly leaning hand like a shattered reed, then take hold of this precious truth, and say, "My Savior God is with me in all the boundless resources of His Godhead, why then should I fear?"

It follows from the preceding truth that Emmanuel is GOD WITH US REVEALED. The great object of Christ's mission to our world was to make God known to man in all the glory of His being and harmony of His perfection. Nature gives but a dim and imperfect reflection of God. That was all the knowledge of the Divine Being that Cain possessed, and he expressed his idea of God in the offering which he brought of the fruits of the earth. His was a natural conception of God, and he embodied that conception in a natural religion. But Abel's knowledge of God embraced His moral attributes- holiness, justice and truth; and his offering of a slain lamb presented as a sacrifice, embodied his conception of the moral character and government of Jehovah, and was at the same moment a penitential confession of his sinfulness, and a believing apprehension of the Lamb of God slain from the foundation of the world. Oh, let your knowledge of God embrace a wider range of His being, government, and glory than the sun, the stars, or the flowers afford you. Across yon azure sky no words are emblazoned assuring you of the pardon of sin, of salvation, of heaven. How you maybe saved from hell and prepared for heaven can only be learned as you behold "the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ." Christ reveals God as sin-forgiving and reconciled. Yes, more: where do we learn the parental character of our God but in Christ? At whose feet, and gazing up into

whose face do we learn to lisp His endeared name as Father, but Christ's! Do we inquire, Show us the Father, and it suffices us? Jesus answers, "He that has seen Me has seen the Father." Thus our Emmanuel uplifts the awful veil, and shows us God as pardoning our sins, as justifying our person, and as enfolding us within the embrace of His paternal love. There is probably no versification extant embodying a more true and beautiful conception of this grand idea than that of the illustrious Watts, still leading the service of song on earth:

"Dearest of all the names above,
My Jesus and my God!
Who can resist Your heavenly love,
Or trifle with Your blood?
It is by the merits of Your death
The Father smiles again;
It is by Your interceding breath
The Spirit dwells with men.

"Until God in human flesh I see
My thoughts one comfort find,
The holy, just, and sacred Three
Are terror to my mind;
But if Emmanuel's face appear,
My hope, my joy begins;
His name forbids my slavish fear,
His grace removes my sins."

Emmanuel is GOD WITH US IN OUR HUMAN NATURE. How near are You, O Lord! clothed with my very flesh! What! did You stoop to my humanity? Did You take up into union with Your Deity my poor inferior nature? Were You bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh? Did this my nature, so diseased, paralyzed, and tortured, so nervous, weak, and trembling, and which ofttimes I sigh to lay down as a burden I cannot longer bear- did this same nature veil, as with a garment, Your Deity, my Lord? How near have You brought Yourself to me! Truly You are God with me, for You are God in me. Thus the humanity of our incarnate God unseals a spring of ineffable sympathy. We need human sympathy because we are human. Angelic sympathy could not meet our case, neither Divine compassion alone. One loving, tender, sympathizing touch of the human, in the sorrows and sufferings of our humanity, oh, how soothing and pleasant it is! Emmanuel once craved and asked it, though denied; and He will not chide you, clinging child of suffering and grief, for craving and asking it too. "For we have not a High Priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities, but was in all points tempted like as we are, but without sin."

Emmanuel is GOD WITH US SAVINGLY, bearing our sins, expiating our crime, and "giving Himself for us as an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet smelling savor." He was with us presenting such an atonement to God in the way of obedience and death as met all the demands of the law, and as satisfied all the claims of justice, and as reconciled us forever unto God. "In whom we have redemption through His blood, even the forgiveness of sins." It was the divine virtue of his Deity that imparted a sovereign efficacy to His active and passive mediation. It was thus: "He offered Himself without spot unto God," that we, who were defiled with sin, might receive a free and full forgiveness. Thus it is by the "blood of God" sin is cleansed; and by the "righteousness of God" we are justified; and by the "grace of God" we are saved. Thus upon the head of our Emmanuel the crown of Deity shall eternally flourish. Can you, then, O penitent, weeping sinner, doubt either the ability- or the willingness of Christ to save you? Or can you, O trembling believer, doubt that He will keep that redeemed soul you have committed to His care until that day when He shall present it to the Father as one of the many sparkling gems of His mediatorial diadem?

Emmanuel is GOD WITH US IN EACH EVENT AND CIRCUMSTANCE OF OUR EARTHLY HISTORY. That history is all foreknown to, and is all prearranged and shaped by, Himself. No uncertainty, nothing merely accidental, belongs to the most trivial incidents of our life. It is sustaining and consolatory, beloved, to bear this in mind. The crushing event may, at its first burst, stagger our faith in this truth. It is so unexpected and untoward, so strange and mysterious, we are compelled, at the moment of its occurrence, to exclaim, "Is God's hand in this? has this a place in the everlasting covenant? can this be among the all things that are working for my good?" and for the moment our feelings are stunned, and faith is staggered. But the Lord comes to our help. He leaves not His child long in doubt, either as to the source of the event, or the hand that has given it its mission, and that guides its outcome. Yes, beloved, all your individual history, from your first to your last breath, is in the everlasting covenant of grace. An invisible Hand- that Hand a Father's- holds the mystic thread interwoven with and knitting together the whole web of your present life. Oh, how assuring the faith, and soothing to the mind, to look at swelling billows, at darkling skies, at drooping clouds, and see our loving Father in all! We need more fixedness of faith on our divine and immovable Center. Everything out of God is changeable, and changes. Nothing here is stable, nothing permanent. God only is immutable. Heaven only is true. But in all the shifting scenes and passing events of this chequered, changeful life, the believer recognizes the Invisible Hand that moves the whole. He sees inscrutable wisdom where others see nothing but rashness; order where others see only confusion; the silver light where others see but unmitigated gloom.

And why? because the justified live by their faith. The man of the world is a man of 'sight', and by 'sensible' objects alone he lives; but the man of God walks by faith, deals with the objects of faith, and by faith he stands. This is the clue by which he unravels the wonders of God's providence, this the key by which he unlocks the mystery of God's word. Looking through the wondrous telescope of faith, he beholds "the things that are unseen and eternal." Interpreting all events by this divine principle, he sees God in all.

"There is a light in yonder skies,
A light unseen by outward eyes;
But clear and bright to inward sense
It shines, the star of Providence.
The radiance of the central throne,
It comes from God, and God alone;
The ray that never yet grew pale,
The star 'that shines within the veil.'
And faith, unchecked by earthly fears,
Shall lift its eye, though filled with tears;
And while around 'tis dark as night,
Untired shall mark the heavenly light.
In vain they smite me- men but do
What God permits with different view
To outward sight they wield the rod,
But Faith proclaims it all of God.
Unmoved thus let me keep my way,
Supported by that cheering ray,
Which, shining distant, renders clear
The clouds and darkness thronging near."

But perhaps there is no part of a Christian's experience in which this title of our Lord is more expressive and precious than in the season of ADVERSITY, when passing through the discipline of trial, sorrow, and need. It is then, if ever, we feel that we need Christ with us; and it is then, if ever, that He is. He is Emmanuel- God with you in your affliction, O afflicted one; and the waters shall not overflow you; for He controls the winds and the waves. He is with you in your bereavement, O bereaved one; for when on earth His warmest tears were wept in sympathy with a grief like yours. He is with you, O tempted one; for He was in all points tempted like His brethren, and knows how to support those who are tempted. What is your present condition? Are disease and suffering slowly dissolving the earthly tabernacle? Does the wild tempest of adversity sweep fiercely over you? Is the poisoned shaft of calumny leveled at you? Does the lying tongue of malice pierce you? Listen to the soothing invitation of Emmanuel, which bids you come and hide in the chambers of His love until these calamities be overpast. He would have you, in faith, spell the syllables of this precious title, and receive the strong consolation which distills from the assurance that God in Christ is a very present help in your time of trouble. The divine promises given to the Church of God are the precious legacy of the Church now. "Fear you not, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am My God. I will strengthen, yes, I will help you with the right hand of my righteousness." "When you pass through the waters I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overflow you; when you walk through the fire, you shall not be burned; neither shall the flame kindle upon you. For I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior."

Emmanuel is God with us in the solemn hour when heart and flesh are failing, and death, the appointed messenger of the everlasting covenant, comes to usher the freed spirit into the glorious presence of the Lord. In anticipation of that solemn hour, faith has need to strengthen itself with this precious truth. It is a solemn thing, even for the Christian, to die. And the renewed mind is often filled with dread at the prospect. But if Jesus is with His saints, it surely is at this trying and solemn hour. Was it ever known that Christ left one of His blood-ransomed saints to pass over Jordan alone? Did He ever guide their journey through the wilderness, and then desert them at the margin of the cold river? Never! I have known many a believer go doubting, and fearing, and trembling down to the river's brink, but I never knew one who did not leave all his doubts, fears, and tremblings upon its bank, and pass over in peace, or joy, or triumph. Then, when the Christian racer approaches, pantingly, the goal- when the weary and footsore pilgrim nears the end of his journey- when the voyager has weathered the last storm, and enters the harbor- when the warrior has fought his last fight, unclasps his armor, and sheaths his sword, oh, then shall we realize, as never realized before, how really, closely, blessedly, Emmanuel, God in Christ, was present, leading us gently down the shaded valley, and triumphantly up the celestial hills of everlasting light and glory. Oh, let death be to you a pleasant thought; for God will be with you then, and Emmanuel the title He will wear. God with us in life, God with us in death, God with us and we with God through eternity.

This surely must speak pointedly and powerfully to the unconverted. Your Godless life, my reader, is a constant ignoring of this truth- "God with us." The reverse of this truth is your experience, God from me. The fool has said in his heart, No God." That is, you want no God. Your life is a practical embodiment of the awful sentiment the poet has placed in the mouth of his Atheist- "Absence from You is best."

You are striving to live independently of God. You feel that you can do without Him. More than this, you are aware that death is the common lot of man, and therefore you know that you must die, but you prefer to die without Christ. Thus you are resolved to live independently of God, and to die independently of the Savior. What a miserable life, and what an appalling death is this! It is to live without one drop of true happiness, and to die without one ray of real hope. If this be your present and final condition, nothing is more certain, as nothing is more solemn, than that the hell of the Bible must be your doom. The "bottomless pit," the "cup of wrath without mixture," "everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord," the "worm that never dies, the fire that is never quenched," must be your awful, indescribable, changeless portion forever.

But has the Holy Spirit made you to feel your lost condition?- has He shown you the plague of your own heart?- has He made you to long for salvation? Do you hunger and thirst after Jesus? Then, accept believingly, accept unhesitatingly, accept now the overture of the Gospel. "Him that comes unto Me, I will in no way cast out." "Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and you shall be saved." "The blood of Jesus Christ, the Son, cleanses us from all sin;" and you shall know the "blessedness of the man whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered, unto whom the Lord shall not count iniquity."

Live in a realizing sense of the Lord's presence. Do not be satisfied with a religion of which this is not an essential element. Seek to live in this atmosphere, and in no other. Go nowhere, and indulge in no recreation from which your Lord will be absent. O be jealous of His presence! Let not worldliness, or levity, or coldness thrust Him from your arms. And should you walk in darkness, or wade through affliction, or battle with Satan, unconscious of the sustaining, cheering presence of Emmanuel, yet fear not. He is nearer to you than you imagine. Unseen, unheard, and unfelt, Christ is still at your side, "A very present help in time of need." He knows your sorrow, sees your difficulty, is acquainted with all your mental despondency and spiritual distress, and presently your tear-dimmed, cloud-veiled eye, shall be open, and you shall see Emmanuel at your side, in all the benignity of His love, and in all the might of His power. Soon we shall realize this presence in glory, unshaded by a cloud, unmingled with a tear. No more darkness, no more grief- no more sin, and no more separation- "Forever with the Lord." Walk in the sunshine of this blessed hope, and you shall walk in the light of life. Your present light affliction is not worthy to be compared with the glory so soon to be revealed. O how we shall marvel, when we plunge into this sea of love and glory, that we ever allowed present trials and disappointments and persecutions to affect us as they did! One breath of heaven, one refrain of its song, one sight of our glorified Emmanuel will obliterate all the sad memories of the past, and light up the endless joys and splendors of the future.

God with its! O glorious name!
Let it shine in endless fame;
God and man in Christ unite;
mysterious depths and height!
God with us! amazing love
Brought Him from His courts above
Now, you saints, His grace admire,
Swell the song with holy fire.
God with us! but tainted not
With the first transgressor's blot;
Yet He did our sins sustain,
Bear the guilt, the curse, the shame.
God with its! O wondrous grace!
May we see Him face to face,
That we may EMMANUEL sing,
As we ought, our God and King.

"Christ, the Wonderful"

"His name shall be called Wonderful." Isaiah 9:6.

In the universe, where all is wonderful, itself the most wonderful of all, there yet exists a wonder which eclipses all. And when this beautiful world- beautiful still, though marred by sorrow and tainted by sin- shall have been dissolved in the fires of the last day, and its grandeur, glory, and history shall have become a thing of yesterday, this wonder will remain the object of admiring and adoring love, everlasting as eternity. Ask you who this Wonder is? It is the Son of God- Jesus, the Savior of men! "His name shall be Called wonderful." If, my reader, you have carefully and devoutly studied His name Emmanuel, God with us, you will be prepared for the exposition of a name which will unfold new wonders to our admiring and adoring souls at each step in the progress of our study.

God has implanted in the human heart a love of the wonderful. And not only has He inspired the sentiment, but in countless forms He has met it. He has clothed the universe with the wonderful. Turn the eye where we may, it lights upon some object of wonder, which, but for the blinding and stupifying power of sin, would awaken the exclamation from every lip, "How great is His beauty! how great is His power!" In sending His beloved Son into the world, in bestowing upon man His unspeakable gift, God has met the sentiment of wonder in man in a way- we say it with reverence- He Himself could not surpass. The Incarnation of God is the wonder of the universe. All other demonstrations of God's power and wisdom, goodness and glory, pale before the splendor of this marvellous event. In view of this profound stoop of Deity, this unique and costly exhibition of God's love to man, could our Savior wear a title more expressive or more appropriate than this- "His name shall be called wonderful"? We are about to attempt an unfolding in some faint measure of this wonder of wonders. To see it spiritually, to experience it savingly, is of more worth to us than to gaze upon and understand the greatest wonders in the material universe. What if the arcade of all natural and scientific marvel were opened to us, and we could understand all mysteries and all knowledge and all tongues, and yet saw nothing to awaken our astonishment in God's greatest wonder, nothing to inspire our admiration in God's greatest beauty, nothing to incite our love in God's most precious gift- even Him whose name is Wonderful– oh! it had been better for us to have lived and died with the idiot's stare and the madman's frenzy! But, so long as we remain rational and responsible, to see no beauty or loveliness or love in the Lord Jesus, and to die without one life-look at the Crucified One, is of all appalling events the most appalling. May the Holy Spirit of truth unveil to our minds the hidden wonders of the Son of God, while we attempt to study the deep significance of this His name.

In the first place, HIS ABSOLUTE DEITY justifies the name thus applied to Him by the Holy Spirit. God is wonderful, the most wonderful being in the universe, "Who alone does wondrous things." What low conceptions do men in general form of God! What imperfect thoughts of His greatness! To what may we trace man's idolatry of man? – to his wrong thoughts of God. To what may we attribute man's light views of sin? – to his inadequate view of God's holiness. In a word, wrong and bedwarfed views of God lie at the root of all idolatry, disobedience, and sin. In proportion as the greatness of God unfolds to us, everything else becomes great. In the light of His great holiness, we see the great guilt of sin. In view of His great power, we see the great sin of unbelief. Low views of His law, and superficial views of sin, and imperfect feelings of trust, are all traceable to the low thoughts we have of God.

But our low sense of God cannot really affect His greatness. He is great and glorious, essentially and unchangeably so, whatever men's thoughts of Him may be. At best we know but little of God, so infinitely great is He. He reminded His servant that He could see only His "back parts," that is, parts or degrees of what He was; the whole of God no mortal possibly knowing." Can you by searching find out God? Can you find out the Almighty to perfection?" Impossible!
"The more of wonderful
In Him, the more we should assent.
Could we conceive Him, God He could not be;
Or, He not God, or we could not be men."

What a view of our Lord Jesus does this present to the believing mind! All this divine glory, all this unsearchable greatness, belongs essentially to Him, and all justify His name as "Wonderful." When the angel of the covenant appeared to Manoah, Manoah asked Him, "What is Your name? " The angel of the Lord said unto Him, "Why do you ask my name, seeing it is wonderful." It is the same word in the original which our translators have rendered in Isaiah, "Wonderful;" thus identifying the "Angel of the Lord" who appeared so wondrously to Manoah, with Him of whom the evangelical prophet wrote, "His name shall be called wonderful." Oh, how sad the spectacle of men calling themselves Christians, yet, while thus wearing outwardly that honored name, practically denying it by their refusal of divine honor to Christ! It has ever been one of the master efforts of Satan to rob our Lord of His Divinity. Among the many crowns He wears, this is the crown of all; and to pluck it from His kingly head, and thus degrade Him to the level of a mere creature, has been one of the earliest and latest efforts of the 'great serpent, the devil.' What is this but the conflict predicted in Eden- "He, (the seed of the woman, that is Christ,) shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise His heel." Satan, we are told, believes and trembles. Well does he know that the foundation-stone of the whole fabric of man's salvation is the Deity that wrought it. Well is he assured that none but God could save. And although there is not a solitary instance on record, in the life of our Lord, of Satan's denial of His essential Deity, (on the contrary, several in which Satan acknowledged it,) yet it has ever been his master effort to lead men to the commission of a crime of which it would seem as if he himself were guiltless- the crime of rejecting the Godhead, and thus denouncing the personal glory of the Son of God! I would exhort you, my reader, to listen to no reasoning, and to harbor no doubt whatever, tending to shake your faith in this fundamental truth of Christianity, this foundation stone of your salvation. In proportion to the strength of your faith in the essential Deity of the Savior, will be the firmness and stability of your hope, resting on the blood that, from its divine virtue, "cleanses from all sin," and on the righteousness that, because it is the "righteousness of God," justifies from all things.

Christ is Wonderful in THE CONSTITUTION OF HIS PERSON, AS GOD AND MAN UNITED. Wonderful that the Son of God should take upon Himself our nature, that He should be "made flesh," and dwell as man among men. The expression is a strong one, "made flesh." It implies His pre-existent nature, and His assumption of one inferior to His own. He was not always flesh. He was 'made flesh' when He was 'born of a woman,' and 'made under the law.' Let it be borne in mind that our Lord's wondrous stoop was not the exchange of one finite nature for another. It was not a mere lowering of Himself in the scale of creation. It was not the finite taking an inferior position among finite beings. Far from this. It was Deity allying itself with humanity. It was the Godhead emptying, humbling itself, to a nature infinitely more beneath itself than the human is beneath the angelic. And what was the condition of the nature our Lord assumed? It was fallen, degraded, tainted, sunk in the lowest depths of sin and wretchedness and woe. And yet He stooped to it! And yet He assumed it! And what was most wonderful of all, He still remained "without sin" "holy, harmless, undefiled, and separate from sinners! He wrapped the leprous garments of sin about Him, and yet "knew no sin!" He took upon Him our sins, bore them, suffered, died, and atoned for them, and yet He was sinless. Is not this wonderful? Sin made Him sorrowful, but could not make Him guilty. It touched Him, but could not taint Him. It made Him die, but could not make Him sin. Satan came to Him, tempted Him, probed Him, sifted Him as wheat, but, Christ tells us Himself, "found nothing in Him." Here, beloved reader, is our hope as poor, sinful, guilty, lost sinners. In Christ we have a holy Redeemer; in His atonement a sinless offering; in the Lamb of God a Victim "without spot or blemish;" in His sacrifice, a peace-offering for sin of a "sweet- smelling savor unto God" How full of encouragement and consolation is this truth to those who feel sin dwelling in them, tainting and destroying all they do- who see the need of confessing their very confessions, of weeping over their very tears, of renouncing their best and holiest doings as grounds of merit and acceptance with God, and of standing only and fully in Christ! Behold in faith a spotless Victim, a sinless offering, a pure sacrifice, an atonement, that cancels all your guilt, a righteousness that hides all your deformity. Be no more cast down because you find nothing but the defiling, defacing touch of sin and imperfection in your best and holiest and most lovely doings. Jesus presents Himself before God in your behalf, and God sees you only in Him. Jesus wraps around you, in exchange for the leprous garment of your sins, the white robe of His divine, unsullied righteousness, which presents you to God without spot or wrinkle; and God, thus beholding you only in the Son of His love, sees in you no perverseness, and traces in you no sin. Why, then, should you yield to a moment's despondency, or despair because of the indwelling sin that defiles the fountain, and because of the outward taint that mars the beauty of
all that you are, and of all that you do? Oh what a mercy that, when we go to God in prayer, in confession, in supplication, these poor trembling, unclean hands can repose upon the Head of a sinless Victim, and lift up a holy sacrifice, and present a sin-offering in which the holy, searching eye of God can see no sin. Here is a chain which fathoms the lowest depths of our sinfulness and unworthiness, and if taken hold of by faith, will uplift the desponding, despairing soul out of the horrible pit and the miry clay of its vileness, wretchedness, and woe, and place its feet upon the Rock, and plant a new song of salvation upon its tongue. Well does Jesus deserve the name of "Wonderful!"

But wonderful is THE UNION OF THESE TWO NATURES in our Lord. When God created man out of the dust of the earth, endowing him with intelligence, and arraying him with the beauty of holiness, there issued from His hands the masterpiece of creation, wisdom, goodness, and power. Angels must have gazed upon the glorious creature with astonishment and praise, receiving from that pure reflection of Deity new lessons of the character of God. But there remained a display of God's wisdom and praise, holiness and love, which should as far transcend this as the Infinite towered above the finite, as the Uncreated distanced the created. The union of the Infinite with the finite, of the Divine with the human, in the Person of Him whose name is "Wonderful," was that eclipsing display of Deity, before whose strange, marvellous manifestation and splendor, every other paled into insignificance. God is the greatest wonder in the universe. But that He should, in His essential and undiminished glory, dwell in that young man, that poor and despised man, often, perhaps, seen plying industriously the implements of the carpenter- for He was, as man, the son of a carpenter, and doubtless, as subject unto His father, aided him in his humble but honorable craft- oh, this must have been a wonder to those who recognized His Deity, yet saw with their bodily sense nothing but His poor
exterior! Yes, He was" God over all, blessed for evermore." The Deity, unimpaired, untouched, dwelt in that mysteriously constituted Person of our Lord. How wonderful the union! Never, except in the Old Testament anticipations of the Incarnation, which now and then threw a trembling beam upon those dark shadows, has so wonderful a spectacle been beheld. In Christ we see the union of Deity and humanity; of the Creator and the creature; of Omnipotence and weakness, of Majesty and lowliness; of wealth and poverty; of joy and sorrow. Yes, beloved, the Lord Jesus allied Himself to all that is human, to all that belongs essentially to your nature. Are you feeble? Christ was weak. Are you poor? Christ battled with poverty. Are you lowly? Christ was esteemed a root out of the dry ground. Are you tempted? Christ was set up as a target for Satan's fiery darts, and the archer sorely grieved Him, and shot at Him, and hated Him. Are you a child of sorrow? He
was a man of grief. Are you without means, friendless, solitary, homeless? All this was Jesus, and all this He was that He might show His wonderful union with His saints in all that belonged to them, that the Head might be one with the Body, and all the menrbers of that Body be conformed to Him their Head. Behold a continuous, never ceasing stream of sympathy from Jesus, with all His people, in all their individual and collective circumstances, meandering like a pure, silvery stream throughout this fallen world, reaching, penetrating, soothing the remotest and most obscure place of gloom and sorrow where dwells a sinner ransomed with His precious blood. Lose not sight of this wonderful union of Him who is the Wonderful. Keep firm hold of it. Other ties may weaken, other bonds be severed, other unions be dissolved, but this one never! Nor does it depend even upon your realization of its existence. Like the electric cable submerged in the deep ocean, it is there intact, though you see it not. Your peace, and comfort, and joy will be increased in proportion as you know it; but its existence depends, not upon your love or faith, faithfulness, or fruitfulness, but upon the immutable nature and unchangeable love of your Lord.

CHRIST IS WONDERFUL IN HIS WORK. The works of God are manifold, and all are perfect. But His great, His greatest, His master-work, is the salvation of His people. If before He has unveiled His whole Being; all His divine attributes are revealed, harmonized, and glorified in this wondrous scheme of saving sinners. Look at this work in its several parts. Wonderful was His perfect obedience to the law. Never before was that law so illustrated, honored, and magnified, as by the obedience of Christ, the Lawgiver. Had the whole human race through eternity kept perfectly every precept; their obedience had not shed such luster on the law as one act of our Lord's obedience did. Was it not wonderful to see Him who was above the law, made under it, who was the Lawgiver, become the law-fulfiller, that He might yield such an obedience– the obedience of the righteous One- as would fully justify, and thus place in a state of righteousness all who should believe in Him! Thus we are "made the righteousness of God in Him."

Behold your present standing, believer in Christ! Turn your eye away from all your failures in obedience- the flaws and imperfections that mark your sincere endeavors to serve Christ and to glorify God- and see where your true acceptance is, even in the Beloved of the Father, "The Lord our righteousness." "Accepted in the Beloved," is the record that will raise you above all the fears and despondencies arising from your shortcomings and failures, and fill you with peace, and joy, and assurance.

Wonderful, too, is Christ in His death. This was the second part of His atoning work. Wonderful the spectacle of Essential Life condescending to die! To see Him who had given life to all living beings, and from whom at the very moment that He yielded up the spirit, a stream of vital power was flowing into every creature that had breath, now paling and stiffening in death! Oh, it was a sight of wonder to the universe! Never was a death attended by such wondrous results. It touched sin, and it was cleansed. It touched the curse, and it became a blessing. It touched itself, and it died. It touched the grave, and it yielded back its prisoner. It touched the gate of paradise, and the kingdom of heaven was opened to all believers. This was the "grain of wheat which fell into the ground and died," and which, in virtue of that death, brought forth much fruit. Oh, wonderful that Jesus should die that death for us, poor sinners, who, not He, deserved to die. Wonderful, that that one death should have given so perfect satisfaction to Divine justice as to have emancipated countless millions from its eternal punishment.

Penitent sinners! humble believers! that death was for you. For you the crimson blood, for you the dying agony, for you the expiring convulsion, for you the yielding up the spirit. Come and gather the sacred, precious fruit that grows upon the Cross of Calvary. Lift your believing hand, tremulous though it be, and pluck the bending clusters of pardon, and peace, and joy, and hope, and triumph. Jesus, the Wonderful, died for you, died in your stead, died that you might never die. Christ died for our sins; and accepting in faith this wondrous fact, you shall pass from death unto life, and never see death. Oh! the wonders that spring from this wonderful death of Jesus! Never shall we come to the end of them. All is peace with God now. Truly is Christ our spiritual Jonah. As the tempestuous sea became a perfect calm the moment the prophet was cast into its angry billows, so the moment our blessed Lord plunged into the sea of God's wrath, yielded Himself up to death, that wrath was appeased, and all was peace. And now that a most sure atonement has been made by His suffering and death for sinners, comfort flows into the troubled conscience, and all is peace between God and the believing soul. Tremble not, then, O believer, at the prospect of death. Christ will not allow the deepening shadows that drape the margin of the cold, dark river to hide Him from your view. He who died for you will meet you there; and taking your hand of faith in His hand of love, will gently lead you over, and all the shining ones that line the shore will welcome you on the other side.

Not less wonderful is Christ's resurrection. This was the headstone of the sacred edifice of our redemption. For this reason, after His resurrection, the apostles went forth preaching, not so much the fact of their Lord's death, as the fact of His resurrection. "And with great power gave the apostles witness of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus." Now, the death of Jesus quickens into life. The Victim becomes the Victor. Death itself dies. Jesus is risen indeed; and from that empty tomb goes forth throughout the Church on earth and in heaven, as with electric power, a new-born life, quickening all whom it touches with immortality. Behold, then, your grave, O Christian, radiant with the light of your Savior's wondrous resurrection! It is no longer cold, nor dark, nor lonely. Jesus has made it the resting place of those who sleep in Him. It is the sacred urn in which the Lord has deposited the ransomed dust of the ruined temple of the Spirit, there to repose beneath His watchful eye until the trump of the archangel shall bid it rise. "Now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the first-fruits of those who slept."

Oh, what comfort distills from this truth to the bereaved, who sorrow not as those who have no hope. The grave has closed over all that gave to life its charm, and to your heart its bliss. But oh, let faith, and hope, and love entwine in the garland you lay upon that cold breast; "for this corruptible shall put on incorruption, and this mortal shall put on immortality. Then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is your stint? O grave, where is your victory? Thanks be unto God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.''

"Why do we mourn departed friends,
Or shake at death's alarm?
It is but the voice that Jesus sends,
To call them to His arms.
Why should we tremble to convey
Their bodies to the tomb?
There the dear flesh of Jesus lay,
And left a long perfume.
The grave of all His saints He blessed,
And softened every bed;
Where should the dying members rest,
But with the dying Head?
Thence He arose, ascending high,
And showed our feet the way;
Up to the Lord our flesh shall fly,
At the great rising day."

Christ is wonderful in His love. Shall I say it? this wonder seems to transcend and eclipse all others. It was the first and eternal link in the golden chain lowered from the highest throne in heaven down to the lowest depth of earth. That Christ should love us was the beginning of wonders. When we endeavor to comprehend that love, measure it, fathom it, scale it, and learn that it has heights we cannot reach, depths we cannot sound, lengths and breadths we cannot measure, we are prepared for every wonder belonging to and springing from Him who is Wonderful. Such love, such Infinite love, such Divine love, such everlasting love, such redeeming, dying love, is an Ocean whose eternal waves waft into our fallen world every wonder of God and of heaven.
"Let all the world fall down and know,
That none but God such love could show."

That Jesus should love such beings as we; that He should love us while we were yet sinners; that He should set his heart upon us, choose us, die for us, call us, and finally bring us to glory, knowing what we were, and what we should prove, Oh, this is wondrous love indeed! Plunge into this fathomless, boundless ocean of love, O you sin-burdened one! It will cover all your sins, it will efface all your guilt; it will flood over all your unworthiness; and, floating upon its golden waves, it will gently waft you to the shore of eternal blessedness. How often have you wondered how Christ should set His heart upon such an one as you! It was because His name was "Wonderful." And is it not a wonder that, amid all your fickleness, backslidings, cold, base returns, this love of God towards you has not chilled or changed? But do not rest, do not be satisfied with your present limited experience of Christ's wonderful love. It is so marvelously great, the Ocean is so fathomless, boundless, and inexhaustible, you may plunge, with all your infirmities, sin, and sorrow, into its fulness, exclaiming, "O the depth!" "The well is deep," drink abundantly, O beloved!

But, perhaps, to some, whose penitent, weeping eye, moistens these pages, the greatest wonder in Christ of all is, that He saves sinners- still greater, that He will save them! And truly this is wonderful; but it is just like Christ. It harmonizes with our highest conception of His character, and with every perfection of His being, and with every sentence of His Word. You have, perhaps, thought that it would be too Wonderful an act of grace on the part of Jesus to save you. That it would be one of the greatest moral wonders in a world so wonderful, that you should become a saint, a child of God, an heir of glory. Admit it. Yet, considering what Christ is, what He has undertaken to do, what He has done, and what He has promised to do, it would be a greater wonder if He did not save you. That it would be a marvellous manifestation of His grace to save you, I acknowledge; but this is no argument against, but rather for your salvation. Jesus deals with wonders. He has enriched the universe with the wonders of nature- the world teems with the wonders of His providence, and the Church is illustrious with the wonders of His grace. Thus, the very greatness of your salvation is an argument for its accomplishment. Because it would be a wonderful, marvellous display of electing love and sovereign mercy, that Christ should convert you by His grace, change you by His regenerating Spirit from a rebel to a child, from an heir of hell to an heir of heaven– therefore you have every encouragement to hope in Christ's salvation. Thus, your case is met by the very name the Savior bears. Faith, however weak, and hope, however faint, and love, however feeble, may expect a present salvation in Christ. So wonderful is His love to sinners, so wonderful the freeness of His grace, so wonderful the boundlessness of His power, so wonderful the cases of conversion which the history of His grace records, you have every encouragement and warrant to cast yourself upon the Lord Jesus. Dreadful as may have been your rebellion against God, dreadful your life of sin, dreadful the lengths to which in iniquity, and crime, and resistance of the Savior you have gone; yet, if the Holy Spirit has now convinced you of sin, laying you in the dust, humbled, penitent, and heart-broken, yet more wonderful is the efficacy of Christ's blood, the greatness of His love, the freeness of His grace, and the illimitable power to save to the uttermost all that come unto God by Him.

Hesitate not, then, O penitent, to approach the Savior! He never rejected one true penitent- He will not reject you. The only suitor that He was ever known to refuse is the man who seeks to purchase, by His own merits, rather than receive it as an act of free grace, the salvation that cost Him His heart's life-blood. Come with an empty hand, come without a plea springing from yourself- come sincerely, unworthy as you are, and you shall read His name, "Wonderful," in a light you never read before.

How wonderful, too, is Christ's sympathy and compassion. Wonderful that, from One so divine as He- clothed with all the attributes, and performing all the works of Deity- there should flow such a stream of human feeling; that, He should be so Divine to help, yet so human to support; so God-like to deliver, yet so man-like to sympathize. There, then, let us take our griefs, and woes, and sufferings. So wonderful is His sympathy, He will bow down His ear to your faintest whisper, will enter into your deepest sorrow, will heed your smallest need.

Yes, all that belongs to Christ is wonderful. Wonderful is the grace that He incessantly and immeasurably metes out to His people. Wonderful is the intercessory work He is carrying on in heaven on their behalf. Wonderful His knowledge of His people, their names, and their needs, so that not one, the poorest and most obscure of the flock, escapes His eye or fails of His love.

Wonderful will He appear in His second coming! O the wonders of that day! When the trump shall sound, and the graves will open, and the sea give up its dead, and the heavens will be rolled up as a scroll, and the earth will melt with fervent heat, and all, yes, all, shall stand around the judgment seat! Reader, are you anticipating that event! Are you prepared for its solemn issues? Are you living with death, eternity, and judgment before you? Lose not a moment in determining these questions. Make sure work for eternity by flying immediately to Christ. His name is "Wonderful," and wonderful is His grace and love to poor sinners.

But how fearful must be the final condition of those who prefer sin and self, lusts and pleasures, the creature and the world, to this wonderful Christ. The final, indescribable and eternal sufferings of the lost will be in proportion to their rejection of this wonderful Savior. Nothing can either keep you out or mitigate the torments of hell, if you die in your present persistent course of sin against God and your own soul. Hell is astonishing! Astonishing that it should exist- astonishing that it should be peopled by such countless souls- astonishing that its worm never dies nor its fires ever extinguished- astonishing that it should be forever and ever! But the righteousness of God provides it, the justice of God demands it, the immortality of God perpetuates it, and are all astonishing; and thus the appalling wonder involved in the existence and intensity and eternity of future punishment finds its true and solemn solution. Oh risk not, I implore you, the precious, the undying well-being of your soul! Think what it must be to be lost! Forever lost! Do not be carried away by the modern heresy that denies the eternity of future punishment, and do not be deceived by the equally false notion of the eternal unconsciousness of the soul. Both ideas are contradicted by the Word of God, which, in a matter of such infinite importance to you, must be your sole guide. Go to Jesus, sit at His feet, learn of Him, believe in Him, embrace Him, and you are saved!

Live preparedly for, and in daily anticipation of, the full and glorified vision of this wonderful Savior, when we shall see Him as He is, be completely like, and forever with Him. This vision of glory constantly floating before the eye of your faith, will tend to draw off your thoughts, affections, and desires from this poor world; dim its luster, weaken its attraction, and deaden its power. We become worldly, as we have much to do with the world; we grow heavenly, as we have much to do with heaven. Think that, in one hour, yes, in one moment of time, you may leave all your wealth, and learning, and honors, and creature loves, and find yourself a disembodied spirit rushing through space, past suns and moons and stars- where? Ah! where? Bound for heaven or for hell! Borne by angels to the one, or dragged by demons to the other! But if you believe in the Savior, and have seen the wonders of His person, grace, and love; if you are trusting only in His blood and righteousness for salvation, and are living and longing for His appearing, then soon, oh, how soon! the curtain will be drawn, and you shall see Jesus in all His unveiled wonder! Oh, what wonders await our astonished view! Could we realize this fact more, how should we rise superior to present trial and sorrow, suffering and loss; and, soaring upon the wing of faith and hope, be more with Him we love within the veil. How should we pray for holiness, pant for holiness, strive for holiness, knowing that, without holiness no man shall see the Lord! Oh, let us keep fast by the cross, sheltered close by the Savior's side, washing daily in His blood, confessing Him before the world for the Lord living, and unto the Lord dying.

"Jesus, Lord, I lie before You,
Low in dust I worship You!
Brightness of God's awful glory,
You can stoop to worthless me,
And 'mid seraph songs on high,
Bend to catch my breathed sigh
Jesus, Savior, You are mine!
"Son of God! Your Father's treasure!
He yet gives You all to me
Angels vainly toil to measure
What I have in having Thee.
Grace so vast bewilders heaven;
God to me His Christ has given
Jesus, Savior, You are mine!
"Let life's hours of joy or sadness
Come and go as You shall please
Earthly grief, or earthly gladness
What have I to do with these?
Creature comforts all may flee;
You Lord, are enough for me
Jesus, Savior, You are mine!
"A soul more lost never lay before You;
Guilt has never louder cried
Just the more in You I'll glory,
Who for one so vile have died;
Kissed me, cleansed me, made me whole,
Wrapped your skirt around my soul
Jesus, Savior, You are mine!
"Not in heaven alone I deem You,
Lord, I feel Your presence near!
Yes, Your Spirit dwells within me,
joins in grace's wondrous tie;
Join us so- that Yours is mine,
join us so- that mine is Your
Jesus, Savior, You are mine.
"Lamb of God! I'm lost in wonder,
When I search Your searchless love;
Praises fit I sincerely would render,
Sincerely would sing like saints above
Here, full hearts can only weep,
Drowned in mercy's glorious deep
Jesus, Savior, You are mine!

"Christ, the Counselor"

"His name shall be called... Counselor." Isaiah 9:6.

How marvelously adapted to the varied and ever-changing necessities of His people are the titles of our Lord. They can find themselves in no new or peculiar position in their daily history, but the Spirit, the Comforter, testifying of Christ, unveils a Name among the many that He wears which exactly harmonizes with it. It is thus we learn in each day's experience that, all fulness dwells in Jesus; and thus, too, we are more deeply instructed in the blessed mystery of that life of faith on Christ, so touchingly and poetically portrayed by the sacred penman in his description of the Church- "Who is this that comes up from the wilderness, leaning upon her Beloved?"

We now consider a title of Christ strikingly confirmatory of this remark. Who of us has not, at some period of his life, and at some critical stage of his eventful journey, stood in need of guidance and counsel infinitely beyond the human? Our path must necessarily be one of constant and great perplexity. We are often involved in a maze, entangled in a labyrinth, enclosed within the meshes of a web, to extricate ourselves from which we are utterly powerless. Sin has done this. Before Adam fell, to use a nautical phrase, it was plain sailing for the gallant barque God had just launched upon the bright, smooth sea of life. Not a cloud shaded the sky, not a storm disturbed the atmosphere, not a wavelet ruffled the sea. Its course was straight and radiant to the haven of endless bliss. But our journey now to eternity, whether we cross a desert or plough an ocean, is broken and tempestuous. It is a winding, stormy way to heaven. God leads His people about in the wilderness. The place is often rough and the path is crooked, the valley dangerous and the hill difficult, demanding the skillful guidance and upholding of a Power with whom there is no perplexity, and with whom nothing is impossible. Let two or three examples of this suffice.

The Christian path, just because it is that of the Christian and not the worldling, is a difficult and perplexing one. Our Lord to forearm, forewarned us of this. "Narrow is the gate and narrow is the way, which leads unto life, and few there be that find it." The way itself is a broad way, a high way, a royal way, a large place- a place in which the saints walk in holy liberty, going in and out and finding pasture. But indwelling sin makes it difficult, and encircles it with hardship. It is not an easy thing to walk with God. It is the most blessed, yet the most difficult walk of the believer. Were there no indwelling sin, how easy and how sunny would it be! But when we would do good- earnestly desiring, "whether we eat or drink, or whatever we do, to do all to the glory of God"- evil is present with us, thwarting and neutralizing the good. But to walk closely and holily and humbly with God, as it is the highest, so is it the most difficult walk of the Christian in his homeward travel.

The path of truth, too, is a difficult and perplexing one. It is no easy matter to walk in the truth- keeping the strait, narrow, central path, turning neither to the right hand nor to the left, lest we fall into error. It is a great thing to hold the doctrines of grace in their right position; to exalt free grace on the one hand, and to avoid its abuse on the other; to maintain the liberty of the disciple of Christ, and yet to set the face as a flint against licentiousness. Oh how many sincere, anxious minds are pressing the inquiry– "What is truth!" They long, they pant, they pray for a satisfactory reply. Perplexed by the conflicting opinions of men, agitated by books, and excited by sermons, tossed thus from billow to billow in the rough, broken sea of polemical theology, they are perplexed to know what doctrine to believe, what system to adopt. Oh, how much we here need a Divine Counselor!

The path of Church polity, too, is encompassed with perplexity. Amid the many Christian communions throwing wide their portals for the convert- each one possessing some essential feature of Christ's true Church, and holding forth distinctively and prominently some important doctrine or institution of the gospel- the question is often most embarrassing to the earnest Christian- With which branch of the Church of God shall I unite? With a heart expanding with love to Christ, and thus expanded, embracing in its affection and sympathy the one and indivisible Body, yet feeling it right to attach his interests and his influence to a particular branch, it is often a question of painful perplexity- which? Need we not, in this particular, counsel higher than our own?

The path of providence, too, is often paved with difficulties, and beset with perplexities with which we can ill cope. Our way to heaven is through an intricate wilderness and across a circuitous desert. To many even of the Lord's people this is literally the case. Visit their abodes, and ponder the struggle passing within! All is poverty and discomfort. Penury of bread, scantiness of clothing, pining sickness, loathsome disease, excruciating suffering, with no human friends, no soothing alleviation, no earthly comforts. And yet not entirely unrelieved is this dark picture. Christ dwells in that obscure abode. God's eye is watching over it. The angels of God, ministering spirits sent forth to minister to the heirs of salvation, hover around that Christian home, that tried, suffering saint. There is gnawing poverty, and yet boundless wealth; deep need, and yet a rich supply; acute suffering, and yet exquisite pleasure; keen sorrow, and yet unspeakable joy. And why these paradoxes? How are we to understand these strange contradictions? The apostle gives us a clue in a page of his own history. "As unknown, and yet well known; as dying, and, behold, we live; as chastened, and not killed; as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, yet possessing all things." This unravels the mystery. The possession of Christ explains it. He who has Christ in him, and Christ with him, and the hope of being forever with Christ in glory, is not a poor, nor a sorrowful, nor a suffering, nor a lone man. He can say, "I am not alone, for my Father is with me. I am not poor, for all things are mine. My body is diseased, but my soul is in health. I have all and abound."

But apart from this extreme case, how entangled and perplexing are often the dispensations of God's providence in the history of all believers, demanding counsel from God alone. How often are we brought to our wits' end in some mysterious and intricate turn of our affairs, and we know not to what human counselor to repair for the wisdom that shall aid us in our difficulty. It is in this school we learn the need of a Counselor higher than man. And learning thus this lesson, the Lord is but preparing us for a closer acquaintance with Himself, the Divine Counselor of His Church. We would know but little of Christ, our transactions with Him would be few and distant, could we find anything in the creature that would in any degree be a substitute for Him. So carnal are we, could we find one foothold upon earth upon which we could take our stand, how seldom should we rise to heaven! Alas! what a humiliating confession to make! But it is not less true than painful. Thus, then, God is teaching us our need of a Divine Counselor by all the mysteries and perplexities of our individual history. He will have us love and reverence His Son. Despised and rejected by the world, He will have His people honor and love Him, even as they honor and love Himself. And when His dealings are dark and mysterious, His footsteps in the great deep, and His ways past finding out, overwhelming the human mind with embarrassment and dismay, He is thus but preparing us to take our place at the feet of Jesus, who is
wonderful in counsel and excellent in working.

But, perhaps, it is around the all-important matter of our salvation, that our profoundest and most painful perplexity gathers. As this, of all questions, is the most momentous, so the perplexities and difficulties which attach to it are often most embarrassing and insurmountable. "What must I do to be saved?" would seem a simple question, though the most momentous that man ever propounded; and yet how bewildering and dark every answer but the gospel's! This,
no reader, may be your present and all-absorbing perplexity. Blessed perplexity! May I not state it thus? for what were all the questions of human science and philosophy compared with this one, "What must I do to be saved?" when death stares us in the face? To be awakened, then, to this vital inquiry– to come in contact with the doubts, and perplexities, and difficulties connected with it- to be brought to the conviction that the Gospel only can answer the question, and that Christianity can alone solve the difficulty and bestow the blessing– is a far more blessed and enviable state than could you have squared the circle, or have penetrated the source of the Nile. Upon this subject, then, you are perplexed. You cannot clearly understand how God can pardon the guilty, or justify the ungodly. You cannot distinctly see how Christ offered Himself as a substitutionary sacrifice for man. You are embarrassed to understand why a God so merciful should not, without the intervention of an Atonement so costly, pardon the sin and save the sinner. The strange and marvellous union of judgment and mercy, of justice and love, of holiness and grace in the cross of Christ, perplexes you. But if the plan of redemption presents no difficulty to your mind, your own sinfulness perchance does? Here, probably, is your great stumbling-block. You can see Jesus to be the Savior, and faith in Him the way by which you are saved; but your great, your apparently insurmountable difficulty is- the number and vastness of your sins. The question with you is, not that Jesus is the Savior, but "is He my Savior!" Not that He saves sinners, but, "will He save me?" Not that faith is the instrument of salvation, but, "have I faith?" Truly, if ever a poor perplexed soul needed divine counsel, it is you; and if ever a counselor in all respects equal to this and every case of difficulty were provided, that Counselor is Christ. "His name shall be called Counselor." To this part of our subject let us now bend our devout study.

Our Lord's fulness in every respect as the Counselor of His people is found in the existence of His twofold nature as God and man. As God he possesses all the essential qualifications for the office. He could not be the true Counselor of His Church were He not God. The counsel His people demands is superhuman, super-angelic; it is Divine. It must possess no infirmity, no uncertainty, no blindness. It must be incapable of erring. It must not be warped by prejudice, nor perverted by gift. It must be so divine that no difficulty shall embarrass it; so righteous that no bribe shall purchase it; so perfect that no case shall baffle it. It must be capable of seeing the end from the beginning; in its eye every event must be as transparent as ten thousand suns, and as easy of solution and guidance as the most self-evident problem could possibly be. Moreover, it must embrace as its clients an infinite number of people, living in all ages, dwelling in all lands, in every place, and at the same instant of time. There must be Omnipresence, Omniscience, and Omnipotence. What, I ask, but absolute Deity could be equal to this? And yet Christ by the voice of prophecy is declared to be the Counselor of His Church. Possessing all these divine and essential attributes, it follows that He is equal to Jehovah, yes, that He is Jehovah, and hence another and indisputable argument in favor of His glorious divinity.

In view of this fact, can we reasonably hesitate for a moment in bringing our case to Christ for adjudication and adjustment? It is, perhaps, a case beyond the grasp of all others to solve. It is too profound for man, too high for angels; Deity alone can compass, Deity alone solve and unravel it. To Deity, then, you bring your perplexity when you bring it to Christ the Counselor. Oh, say not that the doctrine of our Lord's divinity is a dry, abstract truth! It is so experimental and so practical a truth that it is interlaced with the everyday life of the believer. There is not, beloved, a circumstance, or event, or incident in the minutiae of your daily walk, but in its occurrence you are encompassed with the divine nature and resources of Jesus. You cannot proceed a step without Deity! Walking with Jesus, in God you live and move and have your being. Mere created knowledge could not have anticipated that event, mere created intelligence could not have shaped it, mere created wisdom could not have guided it, mere created power could not have controlled it; God alone could meet its need. How often apparently does the most simple question in our life baffle the wisdom of the most astute. And on what trivial matters frequently do we find the most wise and intelligent at fault. Well did our Lord say to His disciples, "Without Me you can do nothing."

But we take another step in the consideration of our Lord's qualification to be the Counselor of His Church, when we contemplate His fitness as man. It was in reference to this part of His nature that the prophet spoke these words- "And there shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a Branch shall grow out of his roots; and the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord." Thus was our blessed Lord, as man, filled with the "Spirit of counsel and wisdom," qualifying Him as the perfect Counselor of His people. His human judgment knew no infirmity. His wisdom as man was perfect. In Him dwelt "all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge." Was not this tested to the utmost by His enemies? How eagerly they sought by argument to silence, and by sophistry to ensnare Him. With what impiety and hostility they sought to entrap Him into lawlessness and treason; while Satan himself for forty days and forty nights brought all his power to bear upon our Lord's perpetration of sin. But all in vain. They were not able to resist the wisdom, the power, and the holiness, with which He battled, foiled, and overcame them. Such is our wonderful Counselor. Can we for a moment doubt His perfect power to undertake all the cares, to cope with all the difficulties, and to solve all the doubts, and to disentangle all the perplexities brought to Him by His saints in all places and at all times!

The consideration of our Lord's first EXERCISE OF HIS OFFICE AS COUNSELOR takes us back to eternity past. We there find Him as the Second Person in the ever blessed Trinity, acting in consort with the Father and the Spirit in the creation of the world, but more especially in the higher work of its redemption. I would commend to my reader's careful and devout study the eighth chapter of the book of Proverbs, from the twelfth verse to the close. There are few portions of God's word in which the pre-existence of Christ is more fully or strikingly set forth than in these remarkable passages. In the creation of the world, our Lord, privy to the purposes, decrees, and thoughts of the Godhead, was present and essentially concerned as counseling and consulting with the Father and the Spirit. If language has any meaning, this is clearly the case, from the terms employed to describe it, "And God said, Let us make man in Our image, after Our likeness." And again we find the same terms, denoting a plurality in the Godhead, employed when Jehovah resolved to confound the builders of Babel. "And the Lord said, let us go down there and confound their language." But, as we have remarked, it was in the great work of salvation that the office of Christ as His Church's Counselor the most conspicuously and gloriously appears. The prophet Zechariah says, "And the counsel of peace shall be between them both."

In this divine and eternal counsel the plan of redemption was devised, the Redeemer appointed, and the redeemed chosen; the assumption of flesh by the Son of God, His sufferings and death, his burial and resurrection, were all thus planned and settled "By the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God." What a glorious view does this present of the everlasting love and overflowing grace of the Triune-Jehovah towards His people. How assuring and refreshing thus to travel back to the eternal source from where flows every sweet and holy spring that quickens, fertilizes and gladdens the believing soul here below. And although the Eternity and self-existence of God will ever remain an unsearchable and profound mystery of grace and love, yet ever supplying new material for study and for song, still to this infinite source we may trace the streams of that river which makes glad the city of God. Doubt not, then, O Christian, the unchangeableness of God's love to you in Christ Jesus. An essential part of His nature, it is from everlasting to everlasting the same. Your love, like the ocean's tide, may ebb and flow. Sometimes like a flood inundating your whole being; at other times so ebb as to expose to view all the aridness and unloveliness of your soul, as the receding tide reveals the shallows and unsightliness of the shore.

Nevertheless, no dispensation of God, however threatening, and no fluctuations of Christian experience, however painful, can reach the source from where this river of love flows down to your soul, or divert from you a single stream. Do not stay away, then, from Jesus, and restrain not prayer and praise before God, because your spiritual frames are low, and your soul untuned. Since God did not set His heart upon you because He foresaw anything of worthiness in you, so He will not withdraw His heart from you because of any unworthiness He may now observe in you. Thus are we instructed to regard Christ as Jehovah's Counselor, and as such equal to God Himself; for, in the language of the apostle, "Who has known the mind of the Lord? Who has been His Counselor." If, then, with Christ God took counsel in the great matters of creation, providence, and grace, it follows that He must be equal with the Father, since God could not seek counsel, nor needed it, from any creature- man, though the most perfect and splendid production of His creative power.

I ask not a stronger evidence of the essential Deity of my Redeemer than this single, naked fact that, He was a party in the great council of Jehovah when redemption was conceived, and when the foundations of the earth and the heavens were laid. Truly may Jesus say, "I am God, and there is none like me; declaring the end from the beginning, and from the ancient times the things that are not yet done, saying, My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure."

But let us now consider this expressive name of our Lord in its relation to His people. If Christ is Jehovah's Counselor, equally is He the Counselor of His Church. And in the first place, Jesus Christ is the Counselor for His people. "If any man sin, we hove all Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous." He is the Great Pleader on our behalf. He espoused our cause in eternity, as we have seen, when He became a party to the eternal covenant of grace between the three people of the Godhead on behalf of the Church. From that moment- if, indeed, a transaction stretching into the unknown and illimitable depths of a past eternity may be so termed- He has ever appeared the Counselor and Advocate "that pleads the cause of His people."

Our circumstances require just such a Counselor as Christ is, ever to appear on our behalf in the high court of heaven. We have a cause of infinite moment, interests at stake of deathless value, lodged in that Court, and entrusted to His hands. The believer is involved in ceaseless litigation. Sin, and Satan, and the world, and his own corrupt and deceitful heart, and an ever wakeful and accusing conscience, are perpetually dragging him into court, and witnessing against him. But in that court this Great Counselor ever stands, "now to appear in the presence of God for us." He confronts every indictment, meets every charge, and silences every accusation by the appearance of Himself. He exhibits His blood, presents His merits, pleads His resurrection, and demands, on the ground of what He is, and of what He has done, the full acquittal and immediate discharge of every saint against whom sin and Satan and the world bring their accusation and urge their testimony. Thus the accuser of the brethren is foiled, the accusation falls, and the accused acquitted. What vast comfort flows from this view of the advocacy and intercession of Christ for us within the veil! Had He not pleaded, as David expresses it, "the causes of our soul"- for we have many causes to entrust to His advocacy- how quickly and triumphantly would our enemies have prevailed. You are, perhaps, now in a position demanding just such an Advocate as Jesus. You have a cause for Him to plead. It is an anxious, baffling, urgent one. It demands the best and the most skillful and powerful advocacy. Behold your Counselor! In the prayer of faith commit your cause, entrust your case to Christ, and doubt not the successful and happy issue. Does sin grieve you? does conscience condemn you? does Satan accuse you? does man oppress you? Enlist your Advocate in heaven in your behalf, place it confidently in His hands, for "He ever lives to make intercession for us."

But not only is Christ a counselor for His people, but He is also a counselor to His people. He gives them counsel. Many are the doubts and perplexities in the course of the believer's life, which his own skill fails to meet. In a single day, some unexpected and untoward event has plunged us in a sea of difficulty, baffling all human wisdom to guide, and distancing all human power to control. At such a moment how helpful and soothing to realize the presence and have the guidance of One who sees the end from the beginning, who can be surprised by nothing unforeseen, and who can Many are the doubts and perplexities in the course of the believer's life, which his own skill fails to meet. In a single day, some unexpected and untoward event has plunged us in a sea of difficulty, baffling all human wisdom to guide, and distancing all human power to control. At such a moment how helpful and soothing to realize the presence and have the guidance of One who sees the end from the beginning, who can be surprised by nothing unforeseen, and who can
be baffled by nothing present. This was the joy of the Psalmist. "I will bless the Lord, who has given me Counsel: my heart also instructs me in the night season." Such, my reader, may be your present case. You are, perhaps, perplexed to know the path of duty. Some event has transpired, some stone of difficulty has landed upon your path, which baffles your wisdom to guide, and exceeds your power to remove, and you are brought to your wits' end. Do you remember the command of Moses to the judges whom he appointed to adjust the difficulties of the Israelites? "Bring me any cases that are too difficult for you, and I will handle them." A greater than Moses is your judge and Counselor. Listen to His words– "I will instruct and teach you in the way which you shall go; I will guide you with my eye." Listen yet again to His command addressed to the distressed and baffled parent whose child the disciples were powerless to relieve– "Bring him to Me." Now, act faith in Christ, your Divine, unerring Counselor. The cause which has proved too hard for the wisdom, experience, and skill of man- the perplexity which has baffled your utmost intelligence and ingenuity to guide- bring to Christ. Why should you sit down beneath your difficulty, discouraged and despairing? In the lanbuage of the prophet would I ask, 'Has your Counselor perished? No! this cannot be, for Jesus ever lives as your Advocate. Then why yield to despondency or despair? Why succumb to your difficulty, and sink beneath your load? Your perplexity is nothing with Christ. What is all dark to you, is all light to Him. What to you is an entangled skein, is to Him a perfect mosaic. He can bring you out of all your difficulties, opening a way for your escape from all your troubles, make the crooked path straight and the rough place smooth. "Commit your way to Him, trust also in Him, and He shall bring it to pass."

But, perhaps, your greatest perplexity is the salvation of your soul. "What must I do to be saved?" is the great question which, in its present and far reaching importance, absorbs every other. But who can counsel you in this great difficulty as Christ can? Your salvation is a matter in which He is personally and deeply concerned. He undertook it, embarked in it, accomplished it, and is prepared to guide you by His Spirit, and teach you through His truth how you may be saved. Since Jesus is personally interested and concerned as no other being in the universe can be, not excepting your own self, in the great matter of your soul's salvation, bring your doubts, difficulties, and anxieties to Him. The everlasting happiness of your awakened and anxious soul is a matter bound up with every purpose of His eternal counsel, every thought of His mind, and feeling of His heart. He embarked His whole being, gave Himself body, soul, and spirit to save you from endless woe. He sorrowed in Gethsemane even unto death; suffered unknown agonies on the Cross; poured out His last drop of blood; and breathed His last breath to save you from going down into the pit. Then, in the face of all this love, grace, and mercy to poor sinners, hesitate not to bring the difficulties, perplexities, and anxieties respecting your soul's salvation to Jesus for instruction and adjustment. He will remove every impediment. By one drop of His blood the mountain of sin will dissolve; by one touch of His hand the huge difficulty shall vanish; by one word of His mouth the perplexing doubts and agitating fears which throng and assail your anxious soul will disappear, and you shall exclaim, "I have found it! I have found it! I have found salvation, and pardon, and peace in Christ, and my soul expands with joy unspeakable and full of glory."

And if there is one on earth to whose difficulties, perplexities, and anxieties Christ is prepared to give counsel and help, it is he who, through sin, and doubt, and darkness, is working and struggling to find his way to Himself. To such an one He says, "Poor soul! do you inquire after me? Am I the object of your desire, your search, your love? Are you perplexed with doubts, trembling with fears, struggling with difficulties, and yet through all, though faint, still pursuing the one great object of your soul- salvation? then I will help you, I will strengthen you, yes, I will guide you, and bring you into my kingdom of grace here, and finally into my kingdom of glory hereafter." And what, as such, is the counsel Christ gives to all anxious, sin-burdened, Jesus-seeking souls? Oh, it is counsel like Himself, loving, gracious, free. "Come unto Me, all you that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." "I counsel you to buy of me gold tried in the fire, that you may be rich, and white clothing that you may be clothed." Oh, heed then His gracious counsels; approach Him, though with burthened mind, and anxious heart, and trembling faith, for He has promised, " Him that comes unto Me, I will in no wise cast out."

What a precious Counselor is Christ in seasons of deep affliction! If, in the course of the Christian's life, he feels the need of one to feel for him, to think for him, to act for him, it is when the hand of God is heavy and sore upon him. Your calamity has, perhaps, stunned, paralyzed, crushed you. Your mind seems to have lost the faculty of thought, your heart the power of feeling. You find yourself, through overwhelming grief and sin, totally incapacitated to think, to decide, to act for yourself. Oh, uplift that eye, swimming with tears; that heart crushed with woe, to Jesus, your promised, faithful, present Counselor! Place your case in His hands; He will undertake and accomplish all for you now. He sees your affliction, and in it He is afflicted. He knows your sorrow, and by it is touched. He is acquainted with the difficulties and embarrassments with which this calamity has surrounded you, and stands prepared, gently, skillfully, and safely, to lead you through them all. What though death has smitten the loved one of your heart; or the sweeping storm of adversity has scattered the treasure and earnings of years; or chilled affection and changed friendship has left your heart to bleed, unstanched by human hand, your grief to weep in secret, unsoothed by human sympathy? Yet you are not alone; for Christ, your Counselor and Friend, is at your side, and bids you unveil your sorrow, and commit your way, and make known your need to Him, and He will hide you under the shadow of His wings until the calamity be overpast.

Nor is it less the office of Christ, as His people's Counselor, to defeat with His wisdom the plots of ungodly and designing men, who, like Ahithophel, seek by wicked counsel to injure the righteous, to pervert the truth, and to dishonor God. Who but such a divine Counselor as Christ could thus thwart the stratagems, foil the arts, and disappoint the purposes of Satan and his emissaries, turning to foolishness the wisdom, and bringing to nothing the subtlety of the enemies of Christ and the foes of His faith? Let the persecutors of the saints, and the emissaries of evil "take counsel together against the Lord and against His Anointed, saying, Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us, He that sits in the heavens shall laugh, the Lord shall have them in derision." Do not be afraid, then, Christian, of those who, by fraud and falsehood, by malice and rage, seek to injure you, and through you, wound the Savior and His cause. They shall fall by their own counsels, and in the pit they have dug for you they shall themselves be entombed; for Christ is your Counselor, and "the Counsel of the Lord, that shall stand."

Oh, you who are walking after the devices of your own hearts, beware lest God give you up to your own Counsel, and you perish in your folly and your sin! "Destruction is certain for those who try to hide their plans from the Lord, who try to keep him in the dark concerning what they do! 'The Lord can't see us,' you say to yourselves. 'He doesn't know what is going on!'" Remember, you have interests at stake more precious and undying than the universe. An eternal heaven or hell tremble in the balance. Away, then, to Christ, and engage His counsel on your behalf. Entrust your soul to His advocacy, commit its eternal safety to His hands. Jesus only can save you. But He will not save you in your sins, but from your sins- their power, guilt, and condemnation. Thus saved, thus cleansed by His blood and robed with His righteousness, you will go and sin no more as once you sinned. You will live for God, and testify for Christ, and labor for man, and strive after that holiness without which no man can see the Lord.

Child of God, yield yourself- the affairs of your family and the perplexities of your calling in life- to the supreme government and guidance of your heavenly Counselor. Commit yourself unto Him, acknowledge Him in all your ways, and seek light to know, and strength to do, and grace to suffer His will in everything. Let your heart and Christ's heart, your will and God's will, be one. And whatever mystery and darkness may shroud from your view the path by which your heavenly Father is leading you, let the filial trust and the cheerful hope of the Psalmist be yours– "Nevertheless, I am continually with You; You hold me by my right hand. You shall guide me with Your Counsel, and afterwards receive me to glory."

"Wherever I go, whatever my task,
The counsel of my God I ask,
Who all things has and can;
Unless He give both thought and deed,
The utmost pains can never succeed,
And vain the wisest plan.
"For what can all my toil avail?
My care, my watching, all must fail,
Unless my Savior's there;
Then let Him order all for me,
As He in wisdom shall decree;
On Him I cast my care.
"For nothing can come, as nothing has been,
But what my Father has foreseen,
And what shall work my good;
Whatever He gives me I will take,
Whatever He chooses I will make
My choice with thankful mood.
"I lean upon His mighty arm,
It shields me well from every harm,
All evil shall avert;
If by His precepts still I live,
Whatever is useful He will give,
And nothing shall do me hurt.
"But only may He of His grace,
The record of my guilt efface,
And wipe out all my debt;
Though I have sinned He will not straight
Pronounce His judgment, He will wait,
Have patience with me yet.
"When late at night my rest I take,
When early in the morn I wake,
Halting, or on my way,
In hours of weakness or in bonds,
When vexed with fears my heart desponds,
His promise is my stay.
"To those I love will He be near,
With His consoling light appear,
Who is my shield and theirs;
And He will grant beyond our thought
What they and I alike have sought
With many tearful prayers.
"Then, O my soul, be never afraid,
On Him who you and all things made
Do you all calmly rest;
Whatever may come, wherever we go,
Our Father in the heavens must know
In all things what is best."

Let me, in conclusion, exhort you not to lose sight of the accessibility of your Heavenly Counselor. In a moment you may place your case in His hands, and in a moment find a solution to all your difficulties. The divine promise is, "If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him." Seek in uprightness of heart to know only the Lord's mind and will in the matter, and He will teach you His truth, and lead you in His paths. "Light is sown for the righteous, and gladness for the upright 'in heart." Thus divinely guided and upheld, none of your steps shall slide; and when traveling days are over, He who thus guided you with His counsel will bring you into His glory.

"Your counsels, Lord, shall guide my feet,
Through this dark wilderness;
Your hand conduct me near Your seat,
To dwell before Your face."

"Christ, the Mighty God"

"His name shall be called... the mighty God.'' Isaiah 9:6.

How richly accumulative and conclusive, as we proceed in our study of the titles of Christ, are the evidences which they afford, to the cardinal doctrine of the Christian faith
-His essential deity. So true is that doctrine, and so interwoven with the entire structure of the Bible, it confronts us at every turn, and crosses our path at every step in our research into the untold wealth of this sacred volume, each new evidence yet stronger than the last, and all combining to confirm our faith in a truth, apart from which we cannot possibly be saved. This remark may fall with a startling effect on the ears of those who reject the evangelical scheme of the Bible, and who may deem it as savoring both of bigotry and uncharitableness. But the premises in the case force us to this conclusion. If an architect rear an edifice upon an inadequate basis, or if a drowning man repels the spar that floats at his side, or refuses to enter the life-boat launched for his rescue, surely it were no violation either of reason or of charity to affirm that disaster and death will be the natural and inevitable result of so infatuated and suicidal a course. The application of this illustration to the subject before us is perfectly true and simple. There is- there can be- but one way of salvation for lost sinners. If we have not found, and are not walking in that way, where is then the possibility of being saved? If there is but one road to the great metropolis, and we diverge from it into another and an opposite one, it is no marvel that we never reach it. These simple illustrations of the greatest, the profoundest, the most momentous truth that ever engaged the thoughts of men, address themselves to the simplest understanding.

To present a summary of the essential points involved in the premises- there is but one channel of pardon- the atoning blood of Christ; there is but one way of justification- the imputed righteousness of Christ; there is but one instrument of salvation- faith in Christ. If as a guilty sinner needing forgiveness, if as a condemned sinner needing righteousness, if as a lost sinner needing salvation, I unbelievingly, wilfully, and persistently despise and reject the only Name given under heaven whereby I must be saved, surely to say, in the solemn words of Scripture, "...there is no other sacrifice that will cover these sins. There will be nothing to look forward to but the terrible expectation of God's judgment and the raging fire that will consume his enemies." -is but to speak the words of truth and soberness, and to enunciate a truth than which none more true and solemn was ever uttered.

But the title ascribed by the prophet to Christ, now to be considered, must annihilate the doubt of every candid and ingenuous mind touching this doctrine, so essential to be believed. "His name shall be called... the mighty God.'' Beyond this title of Deity He could not go. A stronger declaration of His divine nature could not be given. Nor is this the only place in which it occurs. Isaiah, in another part of his evangelical prophecy, has these remarkable words uttered by God- "All the world will know that I, the Lord, am your Savior and Redeemer, the Mighty One of Israel." In the words of the Psalmist, we have the same title ascribed to Christ- "Your throne, O God, endures forever and ever. Your royal power is expressed in justice." In the first chapter of the Epistle to the Hebrews, eighth verse, these identical words are transferred and applied to Christ. Turning to the Book of the Revelation, we find our Lord Jesus appropriating to Himself the same title- "I am the Alpha and the Omega—the beginning and the end," says the Lord God. "I am the one who is, who always was, and who is still to come, the Almighty One." Let us close these passages with one which may justly claim to be regarded the crowning one of all- "Without question, this is the great mystery of our faith: God made manifest in the flesh." I invite the reader, skeptical on this great doctrine of our faith, to a devout and earnest study of these declarations. So forcible and conclusive are they in their bearings upon a tenet which all must believe who are saved, and disbelieving which none can be saved, he who rejects them will be found inexcusable at the Great Day when we must give account to God as much for what we believe as for what we say or do.

There are those who hold themselves irresponsible for their religious creed- but God does not. They reason that they are no more accountable for this than for the hue of their skin or the color of their coat. I trust this flippant argument, popular with a certain class of sceptics at one time, has become too obsolete and exploded to be disinterred from the grave of the past. And yet we meet with much bearing a strong resemblance to it in the skeptical reasoning of the present day. God has given us a divine revelation of Himself, His mind and will, and of our duty to Him; and, as responsible beings hastening to the treat tribunal, we are bound to believe it. And for our relation to this revelation- whether we receive or reject it– every one of us must give account of himself to God. Oh, deal with this doctrine of Christ's Divinity as one who is to stand in the judgment. It is essential to your eternal happiness that you should so regard it. Your hope of heaven must stand upon a basis equal to its greatness- the atonement of Christ is that basis. The Atonement must, in its turn, stand upon a foundation equal to its stupendousness- the Deity of Christ is that foundation. "And whoever shall fall on this stone shall be broken: but on whomsoever it shall fall, it will grind him to powder." Let us devote the remainder of these pages to a few illustrations of Christ's Almightiness, as we find them scattered and glowing like gems upon every page of the New Testament writings.

The first which arrests our attention is our Lord's ALMIGHTINESS IN CREATION. Creation is the highest work of Almightiness. He that creates must be before and above the thing created, and must therefore be uncreated and divine. Now, to create a world, yes, countless worlds- of which this is the least in magnitude, though the most illustrious in history- out of nothing, must have demanded resources that were infinite, and therefore almighty. And yet creation is ascribed to our Savior. Thus– "All things were made by Him; and without Him was not anything made that was made." Again- "God, who created all things by Jesus Christ." Thus everything that exists, all material worlds, and all beings, rational and irrational, who inhabit them, are included in this vast creation of Christ. "You, Lord, in the beginning have laid the foundation of the earth, and the heavens are the works of Your hands." I have remarked that there is no stronger proof of Omnipotence than the power of creation. Hence we find Jehovah so frequently appealing to the creation of the heavens and the earth as distinguishing Him, the only true God, in opposition to the Gods of man's invention and creation. "The Lord is the true God, He is the living God, and an everlasting king: the Gods that have not made the heavens and the earth, even they shall perish front bite earth." But this creative power is everywhere in the Bible ascribed to Christ, and is an irrefutable evidence of His essential Almightiness. If any one doubts it, and flippantly affirms that creation were an easy task, within the range of creature power, and is therefore no conclusive evidence of Deity, I challenge the vaunting objector to a practical proof of his argument. Bid him form a blade of grass, pencil a flower, or create an insect, and how blank and confounded will he appear? And yet he dares to pluck this divine pearl from the brow of Jesus, and to trample His crown and trail His glory in the dust. Surely the conclusion which we draw from this statement ought to be sufficiently logical and conclusive to satisfy every inquiring mind that He who bears the title of "The Almighty," is, and must be, essentially Divine.

But a yet greater exercise of the almighty power of the Lord is seen in THE NEW CREATION OF THE SOUL. The creation of this universe, with its countless worlds, were as nothing in comparison with the new birth of the creature man. "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation;" or a new creation. What an essential and glorious work is this! In what terms can we describe it? The pen of inspiration shall draw the portrait. It is a dead soul made alive, an enemy against God transformed into a son, a slave of Satan translated into a subject of Christ, a child of darkness changed into a child of the light, a guilty and polluted sinner washed whiter than snow. Surely these emblems will suffice to inspire the mind with a conviction of the necessity, reality, and blessedness of the new creation, the spiritual regeneration of the soul, of which Christ is the divine author. "I have come," says the Savior, "that they might have life." "The hour is coming, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear shall live." What a conclusive proof, and what a transcendent display, have we here of the Almightiness of Jesus! His divine image restored, a living temple made, a spiritual house reared, a sinful heart renewed, a new nature implanted, a lost soul saved! If Almightiness were required to make a world out of nothing, surely to make a new creature, or a new creation, all divine and holy, instinct with life and radiant with beauty, sharing the nature and reflecting the image of God, out of materials all wrecked and ruined, polluted and debased, were a manifestation of Almightiness infinitely distancing and totally eclipsing every other exercise of its creative power. My reader, are you a living witness to the almighty power of Jesus in the new and spiritual creation of your being? Are you born again? Momentous question! Upon its decision is suspended the future destiny of your soul- its endless prosperity or its endless woe, its everlasting bliss or its everlasting punishment. With interests at stake so precious, with a destiny before you so solemn, postpone not your decision for a single day. One day may decide your future forever. In one moment you may be in eternity! Once lost, is to be forever lost. What words are adequate to describe the importance, to enforce the necessity, or to urge the immediate consideration of seeking a saving knowledge of Christ? True religion is the only thing of vital importance, of real and pressing consequence.

Everything else- the pleasures that delight, the studies that attract, the engagements that absorb, the loves that chain, and the friendships that charm us- are but as the evening shadows dancing upon the wall. True religion is everything. To be prepared to die, to be ready for eternity, to have
made sure of heaven, are the only things worthy the serious and absorbing consideration of a responsible, accountable, and immortal being. How faint and imperfect the idea we form of the appalling agonies of the body and the insufferable anguish of the soul in its state of unceasing woe! Indeed, I believe that it is not possible to approach anything like a perfect conception of the appalling reality. Around the actuality of the awful condition itself there gathers not the shadow of a shade of doubt. So that while the Bible lifts, as with a reluctant and guarded hand, the awful veil that discloses the terrible and endless sufferings of a lost soul, it makes no concealment whatever of the reality and eternity of the dread fact. The terms employed by the Holy Spirit in the description of the final and endless state of the ungodly, are significantly few, but appallingly impressive.
"For the Lord holds a cup in his hand;
it is full of foaming wine mixed with spices.
He pours the wine out in judgment,
and all the wicked must drink it,
draining it to the dregs." Psalm 75:8.
"Topheth—the place of burning—has long been ready.... it has been piled high with wood. The breath of the Lord, like fire from a volcano, will set it ablaze." Isaiah 30:33.
The sinners among my people shake with fear. "Which one of us," they cry, "can live here in the presence of this all-consuming fire?" Isaiah 33:14.

Turning to the New Testament revelations on this awful subject, we find the terms are singularly measured but appallingly significant- "The worm that never dies." The punishment is eternal- "And the devil, who deceived them, was thrown into the lake of burning sulfur, where the beast and the false prophet had been thrown. They will be tormented day and night for ever and ever." Rev. 20:10. "Then they will go away to eternal punishment." Matthew 25:46. "Then he will say to those on his left, 'Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels." Matthew 25:41.
The body suffers- "It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell." Matthew 5:29.
The soul suffers- "Rather, be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell. Matthew 10:28.

What need we more? Will not these clear and emphatic statements, on the authority of God's revelation, suffice to explode every false view of hell, and answer the argument of the modern errorist alleged against the Scripture doctrine of the existence and eternity of future punishment?

But the next view of our Lord's Almightiness will immensely relieve this dark and terrible picture of future, endless punishment. "MIGHTY TO SAVE," was His own prophetic and gracious announcement. "Who is this who comes from Edom, from the city of Bozrah, with his clothing stained red? Who is this in royal robes, marching in the greatness of his strength? It is I, the Lord, announcing your salvation! It is I, the Lord, who is mighty to save!" Isaiah 63:1. It will be thus seen that the power of Christ is on the side of saving mercy. That, magnificent as is His creative power; His redemptive, saving power- His power to redeem, and freely to save- saving even to the uttermost- is greater and more magnificent still. The work of our salvation was a great, a stupendous work, demanding the utmost resources of Infinity. None but Jehovah could save: "Salvation is of the Lord." If there is any work of God which demonstrates His Deity, it is the work of saving lost man. None but God could or would have embarked in this mighty, this perilous undertaking, of rescuing the sinner, self-destroyed, guilty, and inevitably doomed to everlasting punishment. But Jesus undertook and girded Himself for the work. It involved the relinquishment of heaven, with all its bliss, its glory, its joy, and His advent to earth, amid all its sin, its suffering, and its woe. No, more, it demanded His personal surrender and sacrifice- the offering up of Himself as an oblation for man to God on the altar of Divine justice. "Christ also has loved us, and has given Himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice io God for a sweet-smelling savor."

If the creation of the world demanded the power of the Almighty God, much more its redemption. What was essentially required in the case? The harmony of the Divine attributes, the honor of the Divine government, the vindication of the Divine law, the satisfaction of Divine justice- in a word, the endurance of the wrath of God, and the penalty of a death the most ignominious and painful. But more even than this. There was involved in the accomplishment of the salvation of the Church, the bearing of her sins, the bringing in of a new and an everlasting righteousness, the endurance of the curse, and the full payment of the great debt due to God. All this demanded the utmost resources of the Deity. There must be Divine wisdom, Divine power, and Divine love. But Jesus was equal to the undertaking, and accomplished it. To almighty God, the salvation of countless myriads, even at such a cost, and by such a sacrifice, was not an impossible thing. To any other and finite being, it would, it must have been, an impossibility. If the Almighty God had not undertaken it, the entire universe of fallen beings must have perished forever. But here was a work worthy of Jesus, worthy of His divine love and infinite power.

It is a glorious work, even for a created being, to save. The highest benefactor, and the truest philanthropist, is he who instrumentally saves a soul from death. To plant a single gem in the Savior's crown; to heighten, by one songster, the hallelujah of the Lamb; to occupy a solitary mansion in the Father's house with a ransomed tenant, oh, it were worth the toil and suffering of a life! What, then, must have been the joy that was set before Him of saving myriads from endless death- of studding the 'many crowns' worn at His appearing with countless jewels- of peopling heaven with the redeemed of earth, and of securing an eternal revenue of glory to His Father, He willingly endured the cross, despising the shame!

Who but the Almighty God could have sustained the burden of all the sins of the elect? have exhausted the curse, have borne the condemnation, and have suffered the penalty, and yet have risen again from the grave? Oh yes, salvation was a mighty work; but Jesus was Almighty to achieve it. God placed our salvation on One that was mighty, strong to deliver, mighty to save. One single sin would have sunk the Church to the bottomless abyss; but Jesus bore all the sins of the whole elect of God; and although the tremendous load crushed His humanity to the death, His Godhead bore Him up, carried Him successfully through, and landed Him safe in heaven, amid the acclaim of angels and the hallelujahs of saints- the suffering and slain VICTIM now the triumphant and enthroned VICTOR over hell, death, and the grave!

In view of this truth, can you for a moment doubt His ability to save you? His power, strange in judgement, is at home in mercy. He loves to exercise it- not to wound, but to heal; not to crush, but to lift up; not to condemn, but to save; not to consign to hell, but to raise the soul from its lowest depths of sin to the highest heaven. Oh, had not love to poor sinners stirred within His breast, He had left them forever to perish. As the Almighty God, He had power to condemn or to save. In exercising that power against the sinner, He had been immaculately holy, unimpeachably just.

But He loved man, He loved His Church; devised and embarked in an expedient by which He could exercise His power on the side of mercy, and yet in harmony with truth; in the interests of grace, and yet in unison with righteousness; for the salvation of sinners, and yet for the glory of God. His power was to save sinners to the uttermost- to save the vilest, the very chief! He is able to save you, O guilt-distressed, sin-burdened soul. He is able to cleanse you from the guilt, to free you from the tyranny, and to save you from the condemnation of all your sins- sins the oldest and the stubbornest– sins of the greatest magnitude and of the deepest dye. This may be just the perfection of the Savior in which your trembling faith longs to find repose. Your doubt is not concerning His willingness, because you infer that a Savior who could pass through a life of suffering so fearful, and to die a death so ignominious, must be willing to save sinners; but the question with which your hesitating faith grapples is- "Is Jesus able to save so great a sinner as I am? Is His strength equal to His love, His power commensurate with His will?" Read the answer in the name which He bears- "the almighty God," and doubt no longer. Oh, can your faith, for a moment, stagger at His power to save you, who was wounded for our transgressions, and was bruised for our iniquities; who bore the wrath of God, made a full atonement for our sins, and upon whom God laid the weight of our transgressions, and the burden of His glory? Doubt no longer. Were your sins and guilt ten thousand times heavier and darker than they are, the power of Christ would be Almighty to save you. "Do you believe that I am able to do this?" is the only question He asks, as He stretches forth His hand to uplift your burden, to efface your guilt, and set your sin-bound soul free, and saying to you, "Go in peace, your sins are forgiven."

Because Jesus is the Almighty God, His saints have AN ALMIGHTY BURDEN-BEARER. We are a burdened people; every believer carries a burden peculiar to himself. "Your burden," is the language addressed to each child of God. What is your burden, O believer? Is it indwelling sin, or some natural infirmity of the flesh? Is it a constitutional weakness, or some domestic trial? Is it a personal or relative trial? Is it the loss of property, the decay of health, soul-anxiety, or mental despondency? Come, oppressed and burdened believer, ready to give up all and sink! Behold Jesus, the Almighty God, omnipotent to transfer your burden to Himself, and give you rest. It is well that you are sensible of the pressure, that you feel your weakness and insufficiency, and that you are brought to the end of all your own power. Now turn to your Almighty Friend, who is the Creator of the ends of the earth, even the everlasting God, who does not faint, neither is weary. How precious is the promise addressed to you! "He gives power to those who are tired and worn out; he offers strength to the weak. Even youths will become exhausted, and young men will give up. But those who wait on the Lord will find new strength. They will fly high on wings like eagles. They will run and not grow weary. They will walk and not faint." Isaiah 40:29-31

Oh, what strength there is in Jesus for the weak, and faint, and drooping of His flock! You are ready to succumb to your foes, and you think the battle of faith is lost. Cheer up! Jesus, your Savior, friend, and brother, is "the Almighty God," and will perfect His strength in your weakness. The battle is not yours but His, and you have no need to fight, but to stand still and see the salvation of God!

As the Almighty God, Christ is able to PRESERVE to eternal salvation all His saints. His power is engaged, as His promise is given, to bring to glory every soul redeemed by His most precious blood. All whom the Father has given to Him, shall come to Him, and not one shall perish. And truly, no power but an Almighty one could keep a single saint from final falling. The best and holiest saint would perish but for the upholding, preserving power of Christ. "Hold me up," is one of the wisest, and should be one of the constant prayers of a saint of God. David fell, and Solomon fell, and Peter fell, as if to teach the Church in all future ages, that no child of God could keep himself; but that, left to himself, the best of
saints would fall into the worst of sins. But not one shall finally perish. They may stumble and fall- fall to the breaking of their bones, and go limping and halting to the grave- nevertheless, the almightiness of Jesus is pledged to restore and finally to bring them safely into the realms of eternal bliss.

How replete with the richest comfort and encouragement are His precious words respecting the sheep of His pasture- "My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one can snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; no one can snatch them out of my Father's hand." John 10:27-29. Will not these divine assurances suffice to dissipate every fear and suspicion you may have as to your final and eternal glory? You sometimes fear you will one day perish by your enemies, or that, just as your barque nears the port, it will strike upon some quicksand or sunken rock at the bottom of the harbor, and become a stranded and a total wreck. But why reason you thus, and forget that your Redeemer is the Almighty God, and that, by two immutable things, in which it is impossible for Him to lie, His oath is pledged, His promise is given, and His power is engaged, to pilot you safely through, and to give you "an abundant entrance Into the everlasting kingdom of your Lord and Savior Jesus Christ?" "Kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation," the feeblest lamb given to Christ by the Father, and by Him ransomed with atoning blood, and inhabited by the Spirit, shall be
brought safe to glory. Having begun the work of grace in your soul, He has power to complete it. Its beginnings may be small, and its progress slow- but a thought, a sigh, a tear, a prayer only, marked by all the symptoms of extreme feebleness and doubt; nevertheless, it is the first pulse of life, and the first ray of light, and the first spark of love, and the first beam of glory in the soul; and the same Power that called it into being will quicken that pulse, and deepen that ray, and fan that spark, and brighten that beam, until the soul, ready for its ascent, shall hear a voice from the excellent glory, saying, " Come up here;" and then the embryo saint of earth shall become more glorious, and take his place nearer the throne, than the mightiest angel in heaven.

How many and precious the EVIDENCES OF CHRIST'S ALMIGHTINESS which traced His brief but eventful life on earth. What were His works of beneficence, what His miracles of love, what His words of life, what His acts of grace, but proofs of His being the "Almighty God"? "My Father is always at his work to this very day, and I, too, am working." "Believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; or at least believe on the evidence of the miracles themselves." Thus He appealed to His works of power as the credentials of His divinity. And still it is His delight to exercise this power in behalf of His people. Not, indeed, as then, in miraculous agency, but as then in healing our sicknesses, in sustaining our infirmities, in bearing our burdens, in supplying our needs, and in encircling us with the shield of His Almightiness amid the persecutions and assaults of our foes.

What a Divine spring of consolation and strength to the tired and afflicted saint is the Almightiness of Jesus. Your sorrow is too deep, your affliction too heavy, your difficulty too great for any human to resolve. It distances in its intensity and magnitude the sympathy and the power of man. Come, you tossed with tempest and not comforted- come, you whose spirit is wounded, whose heart is broken, whose mind is bowed down to the dust, and hide for a little while within Christ's sheltering Almightiness. Jesus is equal to your condition. His strength is almighty, His love is almighty, His grace is almighty, His sympathy is almighty, His arm is almighty; His resources infinite, fathomless, measureless; and all this Almightiness is on your side, and will bring you through the fire and through the water into a wealthy
place.

BLENDED WITH THIS DIVINE ALMIGHTINESS IS THE DEEPEST COMPASSION of His sinless and perfect manhood. Omnipotent to help, He is human to succour; Almighty to rescue, He is your Brother and Friend to sympathize. And while His Divine arm encircles, upholds, and keeps you, His human soul, touched with the feeling of your infirmities, yearns over you with all the deep intensity of its compassionate tenderness. As man, He is mighty; as God, He is Almighty.
"His heart is made of tenderness,
His affections melt with love."

But let not THE UNCONVERTED forget that the power of Christ is on the side of holiness, and against sin. And that, while mercy is its appropriate and delightsome exercise, judgment is equally its righteous and appropriate display. As the Almighty God, He saves; as the Almighty God, He condemns. Beware then rousing the ire of His power, lest He punish your persistent rebellion, impenitence, and sin, exclaiming, "when I sharpen my flashing sword and begin to carry out justice, I will bring vengeance on my enemies and repay those who hate me." Oh, it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God, even though He bear the form of a Savior! The wrath of the Lamb is more fierce and terrible than the wrath of the most malignant foe, since it is the wrath of injured love, of despised mercy, of rejected grace. Your only salvation now, as it will be your only hope then, is to lay down the weapons of rebellion, to receive the Savior, and to hide by faith beneath His sheltering cross, yes, within the wounds of His pierced side. Oh to feel embraced- within the arms, and enfolded to the bosom of this Divine, this gracious, this Almighty Redeemer!
"Jesus, lover of my soul,
Let me to Your bosom fly!"

The PRACTICAL BEARINGS of this subject are varied and important. Whether we look at the Church of God, or at the gospel of Christ, the POWER of the Savior finds its appropriate and full scope. It is the great palladium of the Church. Hence, when Jesus was about to invest the apostles with their Great Commission, He prefaced it with these remarkable words, "All Power is given unto Me in heaven
and in earth. Go you therefore and teach all nations." They were to go forth relying upon His illimitable POWER as the Divine Head and Mediator of His Church, for the strength that should sustain, and for the blessing that should crown their labors. And, oh, how fully and faithfully He made good to the letter His exceeding great and precious promise! Clothed with this panoply, they traversed the world, everywhere preaching Christ crucified and Christ risen, "The Lord working with them, and confirming the word with signs following." Such is the power upon which we are now to rely in the work of propagating Christ's truth, extending His kingdom, stemming and arresting the flood of error and superstition rushing and surging through the land. The secret of our great strength is not in the orthodoxy of articles, nor in denominational organization, nor in prelatical interference, nor in ecclesiastical courts, nor in human legislation, nor in the learning, or gifts, or piety of Christ's ministers- these are alone but ropes of sand with which to bind the great leviathan of the day. The secret of our strength is- the power of Christ, the almighty God. Oh, let us take hold of this power in prayer and faith, and we may gaze upon the ark tossed amid the broken waves without a solitary fear. We want stronger faith in, and more incessant dealing with, the almighty power of Jesus. The Lord may have permitted the rapid and alarming progress of the false doctrine and idolatrous worship of the present time, just to teach us how powerless is the human arm to cope with and avert it. And when we hear the cry raised, "We must seek more political power," we lift our voice to Jesus the Almighty God, and earnestly cry, "With God's help we will do mighty things, for He will trample down our foes." "Arise, O Lord, and plead Your own cause."

One way by which the Lord brings us into closer alliance with His power is to REDUCE OUR OWN STRENGTH. He reduced Gideon's great army to three hundred men; removed Saul's ponderous armor from the stripling David; brought Jehoshaphat into great straits; planted a thorn in Paul's flesh- all, all to teach them their own nothingness, and then to perfect His strength in their weakness, and to prove that His grace was sufficient for them. Oh, it is a great though a humbling lesson, against which the flesh resolutely rebels, that of our own weakness, folly, and nothingness. But this lesson must be learned if ever we are brought to realize what the strength and all-sufficiency of Christ is. The noble and great apostle was willing to learn it in just the self-abasing, self-emptying way the Lord chose. "Three different times I begged the Lord to take it away. Each time he said, My gracious favor is all you need. My power works best in your weakness. So now I am glad to boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may work through me." Oh let Jesus be exalted and His name magnified, though it be upon the wreck and ruin of our own might, importance, and fame.

And truly, if ever He is exalted and glorified in us, it will be in our nothingness, weakness, and poverty. He will empty us from vessel to vessel if He ever intends to fill us with His grace and power, and use us as instruments in vindicating His honor, in advancing His kingdom, and in defending valiantly and successfully His truth upon the earth. Accept, then, all your self-acquaintance, however humbling; all the discipline of trial and sorrow, however painful; all your frustrated purposes and deranged plans and disappointed hopes, however they may seem to go against you; as the teaching of God designed but to arm you with a power, to clothe you with a strength infinitely above and beyond your own; thus rendering you, a worm of the dust, equal to the accomplishment of any work, and invincible to the assaults of every foe. "As your day, so shall your strength be."

There is one truth connected with our subject fraught with the richest encouragement to God's people. It is this- Christ is so Almighty that He knows how to stoop to, and to sympathize with, the weakest strength of His saints. Listen to His recognition of this- "You have a little strength." Who speaks thus? The almighty God, the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last. What! does the Almighty One, the Creator of the heavens and the earth, take cognizance of my little strength? Yes, beloved, He despises not the day of small things, and overlooks not the little strength of His saints, yes, even those who have no might. How should this encourage you to use the little that you have in working out your own salvation, in making your calling and your election sure, and in laborings to bring souls to Christ! Jesus regards with ineffable delight your little faith and love, your little knowledge and experience, your feeble endeavors to serve and honor Him, since that little is the divine fruit of His Spirit, and the free gift of His grace. But do not be content to remain where you are. "Let the weak say I am strong." "Be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus."

All your real power is in Christ. In His strength you can do great things for God, and suffer great things for Jesus. Bring your strong corruptions to His grace, and your little strength to His omnipotence, and your very weakness shall turn to your account by drawing you into a closer alliance with the Lord in whom you have righteousness and strength. Thus you will be taught to understand the apostle's sacred paradox- "When I am weak, then am I strong."

Come, you of fearful heart, of sorrowful spirit, burdened and wounded, and hide beneath the outspread wing of this Almighty Savior. His Omnipotence is engaged to uphold you through the wilderness, to guide you with its counsel, and afterwards to receive you to glory. Consecrate your noblest powers to Him who spreads the shield of His omnipotent power around you. Battle with sin, mortify the flesh, resist Satan, overcome the world, fight the good fight of faith, and before long you will wear the victor's crown, wave his palm, and chant his song forever! "And now, all glory to God, who is able to keep you from stumbling, and who will bring you into his glorious presence innocent of sin and with great joy. All glory to him, who alone is God our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Yes, glory, majesty, power, and authority belong to him, in the beginning, now, and forevermore. Amen."

"Though here the storms of sorrow roar,
And raise in cares a troubled sea;
Yet when I land on yonder shore,
There shall he calm enough for me.
Why then for tempests need I care,
Since they but drive me sooner there."

"Christ, the Everlasting Father"

"His name shall be called.... the Everlasting Father." Isaiah 9:6

It is not to the First Person of the blessed Trinity that these words primarily refer. In that case our theme would properly be, the Fatherhood of God. This prophecy- a portion of which we have already considered- clearly belongs to the Lord Jesus Christ. It is to Him the evangelical prophet thus gives witness. This interpretation may at first sight perplex the minds of some readers of the Bible. They will be embarrassed by the application to the Second Person, of a title which they have been wont, and properly so, to ascribe to the First Person of the Trinity– in other words that, to the Son of God should be given a designation which would seem by the concurrent testimony of Scripture to belong exclusively to the Father. This title of our Lord will, perhaps, involve, in view of some minds, an insuperable difficulty. They will be disposed to ask, "How can a child just born be a father? How can an 'infant of days' be the 'Ancient of days?' You ask me to believe a doctrine which carries upon its very face an absurdity and a contradiction." But, suppose I were to answer your questions by putting to you one which the Savior once addressed to the caviling Pharisees, "How can David's son be David's Lord?" With your view of a mere created Savior you could not answer this question, neither can any one who does not believe that Christ was God and man united. But, believing this doctrine- the Deity and the Humanity of the Son of God- the difficulty vanishes. As God, Christ was David's Lord; as man, He was David's son, because He was born of the house and lineage of David. By reasoning, we find a solution of the mystery before us. As man, our blessed Lord was "a child born;" as God, He was the "everlasting Father." As born of a woman, He was the "holy child Jesus;" as uncreated and from everlasting, He was the Father of eternity. With the utmost propriety, therefore, was He entitled "the everlasting Father." But we trust that, in our present exposition, all difficulty will be removed, and that this expressive title of Christ- "the everlasting Father"- will be found not less applicable, instructive, and endearing than any we have as yet considered.

Every view of the Lord Jesus is significant and precious to the believing mind. He is a wonderful being, composed of a complex nature, combining an infinite variety of perfections, human and divine. Study him from what stand-point we may, some new trait of excellence and beauty is unveiled, heightening His glory and deepening our love. We cannot find His parallel in nature. There are some works of art which, whatever the genius they display or the beauty they embody, can only be seen to perfection in one kind or degree of light. Viewed in any other, and there appears such a commingling of color and confusion of design as entirely to destroy the effect of the picture.

And there are some characters which can only be thus studied. View them as patriots, or as philanthropists, or as heroes, or as thinkers, and they appear to perfection- in any other character they are lost. But not so our blessed Lord Jesus. Contemplate Him in every light, view Him from any stand-point, study Him in every office and relation and act, and whether you view parts or the whole of His character, He appears in perfect symmetry, fairer than the children of men, the chief among ten thousand, the altogether lovely. But let us now view Him under a new and impressive title as the "everlasting Father." How are we to understand this? May the Divine Spirit teach us!

We have already reminded the reader that we must keep the Three Persons of the Godhead in their distinct relation– the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Properly speaking, the First Person of the Trinity is the Father, and must be regarded as distinct from the Son. On every suitable occasion our dear Lord asserted His divine Sonship. He hesitated not to speak of Himself as distinct from the Father, as with the Father from eternity, as the only-begotten and beloved Son of the Father; and as anointed of the Father, to whom the Father had committed all judgment. And yet our Lord is styled the "everlasting Father." In what sense are we to understand this?

In the first place, HE IS DIVINELY ONE WITH THE FATHER. Distinct in person, yet one in essence; separate in relation, yet one in nature, He is of the same substance with the Father. In this sense we are to understand His remarkable declaration, "I and the Father are one." One, not as we have intimated, in person- for the Father is a distinct person- the Son is a distinct person- and the Holy Spirit is a distinct person- but one in nature and essence. The verb is plural, and the passage may be rendered, "I and my Father, we are one." They are one in mind and heart, one in purpose and counsel, one in will and affection. Now in this sense we may read this title of Christ, "the everlasting Father," and how significantly it appears! So essentially is He one with God- yes, so truly and absolutely God, that, without losing His personal relation, He may be justly styled the "everlasting Father." Perhaps, there is not another title of our Lord more truly descriptive of His divine nature than this. So essentially is He the same with the Father, that He is, even without intending any confusion of people, called the "Father." Thus, though He do not be the Father, touching His personality in the Godhead, yet is He properly and justly so denominated.

Moreover, He is called the "everlasting Father," because He alone makes the Father known to us. There was but One being in the universe who could fully reveal the Father. It is thus declared, "No man has seen God at any time; the only- begotten Son who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him." Listen to the Savior Himself. "No man knows the Son but the Father; neither knows any man the Father, but the Son, and he to whom the Son will reveal Him." In this light, too, we interpret the meaning of those remarkable words, couched in the form of a gentle, yet searching rebuke, addressed to Philip, "Philip, don't you even yet know who I am, even after all the time I have been with you? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father! So why are you asking to see him? Don't you believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words I say are not my own, (that is, not of myself separate from the mind of the Father,) but my Father who lives in me does his work through me. Just believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me. Or at least believe because of what you have seen me do." Oh, glorious revelation of God! Groping in the darkness of nature, amid stars and flowers and rocks, men search for God and find Him not: for who by searching amid "the things that are made" can learn God's moral character and relations? Nowhere is the glorious fact written in flaming letters across the heavens- nowhere does it glow in the sunbeams, or is breathed by the wind, or is echoed by the sea, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. But men pass by the only true revelation of God in Christ Jesus. A veil is on their hearts, the shadow of death is upon their souls, and they know not and see not God. But this veil is done away in Christ. Uplifted and removed by Him, lo! the Father stands before us in full-orbed majesty, every perfection and attribute of His nature, every thought of His mind and affection of His heart revealed- a just God and a Savior. Oh that men would learn that their only true, saving knowledge of God is through Christ- "This is life eternal, that they might know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom You have sent." What a precious truth is this to you who know just enough of your heart's plague to take you to Christ, and just enough of Christ to be assured that you are saved.

It is in the light of this title of Christ that we learn the parental relation in which God stands to us. Christ is the "everlasting Father," because He makes His Father known to us as Our Father. We could have known nothing of God as sustaining this close relation, and as wearing this endearing character, but as Jesus taught us it. And how outspoken was He on this point. With what unreserve He admitted us to this truth. He taught us to pray: "Our Father Who is in heaven." And after His resurrection, and on the eve of His ascension, He reminded His disciples that He was about to "go to His Father and to our Father." Who but the eternal Son could reveal the parental relation and portray the paternal character of God? Until He thus uplifted the veil, how profound the ignorance of the world and even of the Church respecting it. Listen to His emphatic declarations– "Oh righteous Father, the world has not known You." "No man knows the Father but the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal Him." "I have manifested Your name unto the men whom You gave me out of the world." O what a precious treasure the only-begotten of the Father now possessed, and with what a glorious mission was He charged- that of revealing the great Jehovah to man in the light and glory of a reconciled Father. Such is the relation as embodied in the title of our Lord- the "everlasting Father."

Christ, as the "everlasting Father," reveals the paternal love of God. The love of God to us must be a divine revelation. The fall of man obliterated from the human mind all consciousness of the love of God. To the sin-obscured eye of man, God appeared no longer a Father, but a judge; no longer a loving friend, but a relentless foe. "The carnal mind is enmity against God;" and why? Because all vestiges of His character are effaced from the mind, and through the distorting medium of guilt, man looks upon God in any and every relation than as a Father, and as clothed with any and every attribute but love. But Christ has come to vindicate the character, and reveal the relation of God. "God is love." And the only-begotten Son of God, who was in the bosom of the Father, left that bosom, His heart all glowing with the love within whose infinite depths He had eternally dwelt. He came to make known, what He only could, the marvellous fact, that God still loved us. Within the compass of one declaration, He embodies a truth, the dimensions of which were as vast and glorious as His being- "God so loved the world, that He gave His only-begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life."

Sin had not annihilated the love of God. Rebellion had not alienated the heart of the Father. From the moment the fatal fruit was plucked, the love of God ceased to flow, as once it did, when the unsinning creature trod the sylvan walks of paradise in holy converse with God. But although restrained, it had not ceased; although hidden, it was not lost. God was still love, and still loved man. And what expedient would He adopt, in order to assure man of this great fact, that, while sin had changed his views of God, it had not touched God's love to him? He adopted the only one adequate to meet the case. Love must become incarnate; and in the person of the only-begotten Son of God proclaim, "God sent not His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved." Behold, child of God, the precious truth Christ, as the "everlasting Father," makes known to you. God loves you, loves you as Father, loves as no earthly father possibly could. He came to show us that
God's love was parental. Passing by all other relations, He selected that which He knew entwined the closest and the dearest around the human heart- the relation of a parent– and taught us to approach God in prayer, and faith, and love, in the endearing appellation of Father. And shall we not open our hearts to this paternal love of God without a single feeling of distrust? If Christ has taught us this truth, it were base unbelief to doubt, still more base ingratitude to reject it. Shall this truth, the knowledge of which Christ, the "everlasting Father," came from heaven to impart, remain in our possession a dead and useless thing? Shall we first distrust it, then sport with it, and at last put it away from us as a matter of no concern of ours? God forbid! You earthly parents, look into your hearts, and see if there exists a passion half so deep, a sentiment half so tender, a feeling half so deathless, as the love you cherish for your offspring. But what is the love, what the pity, what the self-denying, all-absorbing, life-sacrificing affection reposing in every cloister of your heart, compared with the ocean of love that dwells in the heart of your heavenly Parent for you? And yet how prone to doubt it! how ready to question it! how faintly we realize it! how little we practically employ and personally experience it in our hearts! But, beloved, keep yourselves in this paternal love of God. Abide in it, live in its enjoyment, walk in its light, be constrained by its influence; in a word, be filled with it, let it be your guiding star, the robe you wear, the atmosphere you breathe, the goal that allures your spirit to immortality!

In the light of this paternal love of God, the fountain of which Christ, the "everlasting Father," came to unseal, we are to read all the dealings of God. If God's dispensations are dark and mysterious, His footsteps in the sea, and His thoughts a great deep; if His providences are painful, trying to faith and patience, let faith interpret them of love. The Father's love, that gave you the Son of His love, will withhold no blessing, and will send no trial, but what shall eventually terminate in a deeper, wider unfolding of the great love with which, as a Father, He loves you.

As the "everlasting Father," our blessed Lord Jesus equally unfolds to us the unity of the Father in His atoning work. A more important truth is not taught us by the Great Teacher than this. There exists in the minds of some a latent suspicion, touching the part the Father took in the redemption of the Church, highly detrimental to His glory. The idea is, that the Atonement is the cause rather than , the result of God's love; that the death of the Son inspired the love of the Father. But nothing could be more contrary to the real fact. When our Lord Jesus declared, "My Father is in Me, and I in Him," "I and My Father are One," the great truth He thus sought to enunciate was, the essential and perfect unity of the Father and the Son in the great Atonement He offered once for all for the sins of His people. In fact, there is a sense in which- only short of identity- the obedience of the Son was equally the obedience of the Father, and the sufferings of the Son were equally the sufferings of the Father, and the Atonement of the Son was equally the Atonement of the Father. In this wondrous scheme of saving sinners, they were essentially, indivisibly, and eternally one. Two persons, but one heart, one mind, and one will. What encouragement you have here to approach God in the character and with the petition of a sinner. Your warrant to come is what Christ is, and what He has done, in perfect harmony with the Father. He is the "everlasting Father," because He represents His Father and our Father, His God and our God. "He that has seen Me has seen the Father," is an emphatic declaration of Christ we cannot, when treating of this subject, too frequently repeat. Oh for more faith to give a reality and a present actuality to this truth! Oh to feel that when my faith entwines around my Savior, and when my love enfolds Him in its embrace, I include the eternal God as made flesh in the person of Christ, the "everlasting Father." What substance and reality does this unity of the Father and the Son in redemption give! What augmentation of love, what increase of power, what stronger attraction of the cross, when we remember that every step Christ took in redemption, every pang He endured, every groan He uttered, every sigh He breathed, every tear He wept, all the throes and agonies and pulsations of His soul-travail in the garden- supplied us with a line enabling us to fathom the Father's love, grace, and compassion to an infinite depth, yet leaving that depth immeasurably deeper still! "Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us, and gave His Son to be a propitiation for our sins." "Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are His judgments, and His ways past finding out!"

This expressive title is also intended to remind us that Christ leads us to the Father. How emphatic His words bearing upon this truth- "No man comes unto the Father but by Me." Christ is the "everlasting Father," because He introduces us to the Father; presents us for pardon, for acceptance, for adoption. Thus in coming believingly to Christ we come filially to the Father, and the Father receives us graciously, because He is well pleased with His beloved Son. What sweet encouragement is this never to hesitate approaching God! If our eyes rest not upon Jesus, but are looking exclusively within ourselves, and at our sins, backslidings, and unworthiness- at the trials, and difficulties, and discouragements which would impede our approach- then we shall never find our way to God. We shall weep in secret, pine in solitude, and carry our load of sin, care, and need alone, unsoothed, uncheered, unsustained by the comfort, sympathy, and power we should have found in drawing near unto God. But Jesus leads us to Him just as we are, gives us access by His own blood into the Divine presence, and lays us as His children upon the paternal heart of God. Hence is He styled the "everlasting Father." In drawing us to Himself, he draws us to the Father, and in conducting us into the immediate presence of the Father, He leads us up to the Divine and infinite spring-head from where flowed the love that gave Him to us, the Friend and Savior of sinners. This, my reader, opens to you the sweetest and holiest privilege this side of heaven- access to the Father, through the merits and blood-shedding of Jesus. I repeat, what great encouragement to a close and filial walk with God! With such an open door to God as Christ, the "everlasting Father"- a door open in the lowest depths of soul-sorrow, open in our deepest valley of suffering, in our gloomiest day of adversity, in our darkest night of sorrow- why should we hesitate coming to our heavenly Father in the name of Christ, the "everlasting Father," the Son of His love? Oh, faintly do we realize the reality and freeness of this privilege of sweetest and free access into the presence of God by prayer, through the atoning blood of Jesus. There is everything in yourself to keep you at a distance; there is everything in Christ to bring you near. Having put away your sins– broken down every barrier- cancelled all your great debt– rising from the grave, and ascending into heaven to represent your person and present your petitions- having done all this, we are invited to "draw near with a true heart, in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water."

Avail yourself, my reader, of this sacred and precious privilege. The angels in heaven are not so favored. They are near to God as unfallen creatures, standing in their own righteousness; but you are nearer to God than they, standing as a sinner in the imputed righteousness of God Himself. They approach the throne of glory in the atmosphere of their own holiness; you, who were far off by wicked works, are brought near by the blood of Christ, and commune with God, as angels cannot, as the objects of His electing love, as the children of His adopting grace, as partakers of His Divine nature. Arise, then, and with boldness enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus; for your heavenly Father extends to you, in Him, the golden scepter, the symbol of approach, and bids you present your every petition, and make known your every request. And what are your petitions? Ah! how many and varied, how urgent and touching, the needs of the Lord's people are! "Blessed Lord, I am oppressed with anxiety and care; undertake for me!" "My Father, I am smitten with adversity; hide me under the shadow of Your wings." "My God, I am mentally depressed, and am walking in great darkness; let the light of Your countenance shine upon me!" "Lord, my heart is broken with sorrow, my soul is bowed down with grief, all Your waves and Your billows are gone over me; lead me to the Rock that is higher than I." "Jesus, Savior, I come tainted with sin, and burdened with guilt; my transgressions are as crimson, and my sins as the sands for multitude: purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow." "O Lord, I fear I am deceived, have committed the unpardonable sin, and shall be a poor castaway, and never reach heaven at last. Dissipate my fears, and remove my doubts; lighten my burden, confirm my hope, and say unto my soul, I am your salvation." Coming thus, my reader, to God, in the name of Christ the "everlasting Father," you may unveil every sorrow, make known every request, acknowledge every sin, and lose yourself, with all your needs and woes, in the fathomless depths of His unchanged, unchangeable love.

It is greatly encouraging, too, to consider our Lord Jesus as the "everlasting Father." Our thoughts are thus carried back to the past of His being, are concentrated upon the present of His existence, and are carried onward to the future of His coming. We need this doctrine of Christ's everlasting being; for all around and within us is changeful and passing away. Nothing earthly, nothing human abides; change is visibly and indelibly written upon all. It is the cankerworm embosomed in the heart of earth's loveliest flower, and feeds at the root of time's most refreshing gourd. But the most frequent and painful changes are those we
find in our spiritual life. What fluctuations of experience, what fickleness of love, what variations of faith, what ebb and flow of our religious feeling! And then, how changing the events of Divine providence!- how many dissolving views, lights and shadows, joys and sorrows, smiles and tears, are often crowded into the history of a single day! How sad and painful, too, the separations in life!- distance parting us from one, death sundering the link that bound us to another! Truly all here is changing; but here is One who changes not- even Christ, "the everlasting Father." Other relations will cease, other friends will relocate, other joys will fade, other hopes will die, and other ties will break; but Jesus Christ is "the same yesterday, today, and forever." Christ is essentially immutable; He is the Surety and Mediator of the everlasting covenant, Himself the "everlasting Father." And because He has an unchangeable priesthood, He ever lives to make intercession for His people, and saves to the uttermost extent of sin, and to the latest period of time.

How comforting is the assurance which this truth gives us of the everlasting love of Christ! It never veers, never chills, and knows not the shadow of a change. Measuring Christ's love to us by our love to Him, we often imagine that it must necessarily be affected by the cold, chilling atmosphere of our hearts; that when our love to Him ebbs, His love to us also ebbs; that when ours proves fickle and treacherous, wandering after some creature idol, then His love, exacting reprisals, in like manner starts off, and quits us for another and perhaps more faithful object. No! the love of Jesus to His saints, of our Joseph to His brethren, of Christ the "everlasting Father" to His children, is eternal as His being, is as unchangeable as His nature. "Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?" It has separated us from all others for itself, and it will never separate, or allow anything else to separate us from itself. "Having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them unto the end." Yield not, then, to despondency, beloved, when you discover the mercury of your love sink, even though it be to freezing-point. There may be times when you can scarcely detect its existence, so faint its beating pulse, so congealed its warm current. But since Christ's love is not the effect, but the cause of ours to Him, and is an everlasting love, glowing in His heart ages that cannot be numbered or measured before one pulse throbbed in ours, we may take comfort in the assurance that no variation of affection in us towards the Savior can in the slightest degree affect the tenderness, depth, or immutability of the great love with which He has loved us.

Look, then, to Christ's love to you, and not to your love to Christ. Go and lay your icy heart upon His flaming heart of love; go to His cross, and there muse upon the love that bore your sins, that suffered and bled, that wept, and groaned, and died for you, paying the death-penalty of your transgressions; and, while you thus muse, the flame will kindle, the fire will burn, and your tongue will break forth into singing-
"Oh for this Love, let rock and hills
Their lasting silence break,
And all harmonious human tongues,
The Savior's praises speak.
"Were the whole realm of Nature mine,
That were a present far too small-
Love so amazing, so divine,
Demands my life, my soul, my all."

If our Lord Jesus, though our elder brother, yet stands to us in so close and endearing a relation as the "everlasting Father," should there not be in our hearts the responsive spirit of filial love? If God in Christ is our Father, surely it behooves us to know our adoption by grace, and to obey and serve, and come to Him, not as slaves and aliens, but as children and brethren, whom His own free love constrains to an unreserved obedience and to a holy walk. "Because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying Abba, Father." Rest not short of this
attainment; sink not below your adoption; see in Christ the reflection of your heavenly Father's relation to and love for you; and walk in the holy liberty of sons and daughters, upheld by His "free Spirit;" and, thus upheld, bringing forth the "fruits of the Spirit, love, joy, peace, patience, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance."

Thus realizing our adoption, we shall know more what it is to have power with God in prayer. There is no petition like that of a child, no language that goes so directly to a parent's heart as a son's. "Abba, Father," has more power with God than all other appeals the most eloquent in diction, persuasive in argument, or protracted in length. As Luther observes, "This feeble crying is a mighty voice in the ear of God, and so fills heaven and earth that God hears nothing else; for it drowns the cries of all other things whatever." Let this encourage you to come like a little helpless child with your simple cry to Him, your "everlasting Father." Speak out all you need, or if your language is broken, lisp it again and again; the Lord will not send you empty away. The shortest prayer and the most simple cry has shot past all other more elaborate and lengthened prayers, and has reached heaven the first. The eloquence of groans, the voice of tears, the language of desire, the utterances of the heart- these are things which have power with God, and prevail. Oh, then, arise and give yourself to prayer, and though the answer tarry- wait, it will surely come.

It is profitable to keep in remembrance the fact, that we are fruitful in holiness only as we live upon Him from whom our fruit is found. Holiness is a plant of paradise, a divine principle, a fruit of the Spirit, found only in the truly regenerate. Its Author, therefore, like its origin, must be supernatural and divine. To this end we must be looking to Jesus, be living upon Jesus, keeping close to Jesus, abiding in Jesus, without whom we can do nothing. Let me simply illustrate this thought. Gather from your vine a cluster of grapes. Mark how the fruit that stands the highest and is the nearest to the wood looks the largest, blossoms the richest, and tastes the sweetest, just because it hangs the closest to the vine and derives more largely of its vitality. So is it with the believing soul. Look at those saints who live the nearest to the cross, how much more fruitful are their souls, and how much more lovely their lives, adorned with the "beauties of holiness," than others, who, though equally engrafted on Christ the vine, live at so remote a distance from Him, the source of their spiritual life, grace, and strength, as to appear sickly, unfruitful, and ready to die. Oh cease, then, to live upon spiritual frames and feelings, to look at your duties, service, and barrenness; but, like Mary and the other holy women, stand close by the cross of Jesus, draw largely from the fulness of Christ, take every taint of guilt, every shade of sorrow, every dart of Satan, every disappointment in the creature, every assault of the world, every wound of the saints, every want and trial and perplexity to Jesus; so shall you be a fruit-bearing branch of the Vine, fulfilling the desire of your Lord, "Herein is My Father glorified, that you bear much fruit; so shall you be My disciples."

O Christian, have you learned these lessons? Then let your actions be Christ-like, and walk as you have Him for an example. He lived to teach you how to live, and He died to teach you how to die. He that will not follow the example of Christ's life shall never be saved by the merits of His death. As He is the root on which a saint grows, so He is the rule by which a saint squares. If He is not your soul's staff to guide you to heaven, He will never be your soul's ladder to mount up to heaven. We should be as willing to be ruled by Christ as we are willing to be saved by Christ. God made one Son like to all, that He might make all His sons like to one. If the life of Christ is not your portion, you are dead. God in Christ is a Father that stamps upon all His children the lovely image of Christ. They resemble Him to the very life. God will allow no man to wear the livery of Christ upon him who has not the likeness of Christ within him. "We all with open face, beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image, from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord."

Viewed in the light of this divine and endearing relation, how parental appear the rebukes and corrections of Christ, the "everlasting Father." As a father pities His children, so the Lord pities those who fear Him, and those also whom He corrects, and whom He corrects because He loves them. "For the Lord disciplines those he loves, he punishes those he accepts as his children." Are you a tried believer, an afflicted saint, a chastened child? Has adversity swept from you riches? has disease robbed you of health? has death bereaved you of the desire of your eyes? O misinterpret not these, the dealings of the "everlasting Father." Could you spy into His heart, not one thought or feeling of anger towards us would you see. There has been a holy and, perhaps, urgent needs be for this discipline. It has been sent either as a corrective or as a preventive; either as a rod to restore, or as a curb to restrain you. There may be divine mystery in it, but nothing unwise; severity, but nothing unkind; bitterness, but no wrath; a cloud of thick darkness, but not unrelieved by the softening luster of the rainbow which is round about the throne. He that sits upon that throne is Jesus, your Savior; Christ, your "everlasting Father;" and He judges righteously. Accept, then, your present affliction as the fruit of love, as the dictate of wisdom, and as a part, an indispensable part, of your education for heaven, your fitness for glory.

Jesus Himself trod the path you now tread. "Though He was a Son, yet learned He obedience by the things which He suffered." And if He, your sinless, perfect Lord and Savior, was taught in this school, taught the holy lesson of obedience, shall we shrink from a like discipline, from being taught a like lesson, as among the many sons God our Father is bringing to glory? Be still then, O chastened child, and know that He is God, even your God. You are in His hands, and oh, how safe are you there! Better, far better, to fall into a Father's hands, though it hold a rod uplifted even to slay, than to be left in the hands of the dearest creature upon earth. A loving Father's frowns are better than the treacherous creature's smiles. "Faithful are the wounds of a friend, but the kisses of an enemy are deceitful." Give me the wounds, if I must have them, of my Heavenly Friend, and let who will take the world's caresses. Peace, then, troubled soul! You are in God's hands, and He can do nothing wrong. Give Him back kisses for His smitings- return Him smiles for His frowns- and let the accents of cheerful acquiescence respond to the voice that bids you resign your Benjamin, or slay your Isaac.

And what, my reader, if you have no part or lot in this matter? What if you cannot look upon the Lord Jesus as your "everlasting Father"? Then the children's inheritance is not yours, and, dying thus portionless, Christ will be your everlasting judge. Oh, that solemn, that significant word, "everlasting!" "Everlasting punishment!" "Everlasting
life!" If Christ is "everlasting" then the punishment which He will award to the impenitent, and the happiness which He will bestow upon the righteous, must be also everlasting; "for He is of one mind; and who can turn Him?" Annihilation! there is not such a thing in the universe. God Himself must be annihilated before one soul, saved or lost, can ever cease to be. "These shall go away into everlasting punishment but the righteous into life eternal." Oh, fly to Christ! There is no forgiveness of sin, no acceptance of the sinner, no salvation of the lost, no hope of glory, but in Christ Jesus. Simple, child-like faith in Christ will put you in happy possession of pardoning, justifying, adopting grace now; and that grace will put you in possession of the fulness of glory hereafter. The two are inseparable. Grace is glory militant, and glory is grace triumphant. Grace is glory begun, and glory is grace made perfect. Grace is the first degree of glory, glory is the highest degree of grace. Grace is the seed, glory is the flower. Grace is the ring, glory is the sparkling diamond in the ring. Grace is the growing infant, and glory is the perfect man of grace. Thus, however limited the degree, and imperfect the growth of your grace now, you have grasped by faith the last and lowest link of the golden chain let down from heaven, which before long will raise you to the first and highest. "For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified."

Christ, the Prince of Peace

"His name shall be called . . . the Prince of Peace." Isaiah 9:6

We live in a morally revolted world. Spiritual rebellion, anarchy, and lawlessness run riot throughout its vast empire. It has cast off its allegiance to God, has dethroned Him its Sovereign, has armed itself in resistance of His authority, and acknowledges the reign and obeys the laws of another and a usurping king. Such is the inevitable consequence of the fall, such the natural and melancholy effect of sin- that sin of rebellion of which our first and yet unsinned parents were guilty, when the woman "took of the fruit (which God had strictly forbidden) and ate, and gave also unto her husband with her, and he also ate." From that fatal moment to the present the standard of insurrection against God has floated over this mutinous world, flinging its dark, deadly shadow upon every fair and sunlight spot of this vast province. What is true of the whole race, it needs no argument to show, is equally true of each individual. "The carnal mind is enmity against God: and it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be, so then those who are in the flesh cannot please God." Thus we have the melancholy picture of the entire population of the earth, collectively and individually, traitors against God, living in opposition to His authority, trampling both His laws and their allegiance defiantly and ignobly beneath their feet.

But God will not thus be robbed of His glory. For that glory He made man- and man, redeemed, regenerated, restored, shall yet yield to every perfection of His nature, and to every enactment of His law, a revenue of glory and of obedience, worthy of His being, and lasting as eternity.

The expedient by which this glorious result is accomplished is of His conception. "Salvation is of the Lord." In the infinite depths of His own mind, in the eternal councils of the ever blessed Trinity, foreseeing man's apostasy and rebellion, Jehovah arranged the plan- the wondrous expedient- of overcoming man's rebellion, of dislodging his enmity, and of bringing back once more this sinful, disloyal world to its original and rightful fealty to Himself. And what was the expedient? It was nothing less than the descent of His only and beloved Son into this traitorous empire, clothed in the very nature of the rebel race He came to subdue, redeem, and save. "For when we were without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. For scarcely for a righteous man will one die; yet peradventure for a good man some would even dare to die. But God commends His love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us."

The title belonging to our Lord Jesus we are now to consider is strikingly and impressively illustrative of His mission of love and reconciliation to our world. It was not on a mission of justly-deserved judgment that He came, but on an embassy of undeserved mercy. God would overcome man's evil with good. He might have blotted this apostate and rebellious world from the creation, assigning its place with the angels who kept not their estate, but are reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day. But, O everlasting love, and discriminating grace! He set His heart upon man, and resolved to become man- even the God-man Mediator; that He might save man. It is in the light of an embassy of peace that we are now to contemplate the Advent of the Son of God to our world. He came an Ambassador of peace, plucked an olive-branch from the paradise of heaven, and sweeping across the dark waters of man's curse, bore that curse to the hill of Calvary, and dipping it in blood- His own heart's blood- waved it before the eyes of a sinful and rebellious world, and proclaimed, "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace and good will to men!"

The subject of these pages, at all times instructive and suitable, was never more so than now. The agitated condition of the nation, the disturbed atmosphere of the Church, and the physical throes and changes through which the earth seems passing, all would point to the present state of society, the Church, and the world as a period in which a study of the peaceful Advent of our Lord as the Messenger of love, unity, and concord, would seem the most appropriate and welcome. Not less appropriate is it to the Holy Festival of the Christian Church, upon the threshold of which we stand, the birth of earth's Great Visitant, the Savior of the race, an event the celebration of which is at all times, but never more singularly so than now, calculated to heal the divisions and hush the strifes between man and man, knitting and cementing divided families, alienated brethren, and dissevered communities into one household and brotherhood. How expressive and suggestive, then, the title we now consider- "And His name shall be called the Prince of Peace."

The interest and importance of this subject in its bearings upon the present spiritual and future condition of the soul cannot possibly be exaggerated. Nor does its interest or importance lessen, as we have remarked, when viewed in its relation to the present religious state of the world and the disturbed and divided state of the Christian Church. It would seem as if the divine exhortation, "Pray for the peace of Jerusalem," was never more appropriate or urgent than now. The title of our Lord we have selected for our present meditation leads our thoughts directly to the true fountain of peace!– whether it be the peace of God in the soul of man, or whether it be the peace, unity, and concord of the Church, which the "Prince of Peace" purchased with His own blood. May the Holy Spirit, the glorifier of Jesus, open and unfold to us the deep, holy significance of this subject, and make His own truth quickening, comforting, and sanctifying to our souls.

The first feature of this title which arrests our attention is THE REGAL CHARACTER OF CHRIST. He is described as "The Prince of Peace." We have already in the consideration of preceding titles brought before the reader both the Prophetical and Priestly offices of Christ. The present one serves to complete the series by directing our attention to His Kingly office. His name shall be called "the Prince

Me Prince of Peace." This is not the only passage in which this royal title is applied to Christ. Thus in Ezekiel, "And the Lord will be their God, and my servant David (Christ) a Prince among them: and the Lord has spoken it." And in the next chapter, "My servant David (Christ) shall be their Prince forever." Yet more striking the prophecy in Daniel 9, "Know therefore and understand, that from the going forth of the commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem, unto Messiah the Prince, shall be seven weeks, and threescore and two weeks." Turning to the teaching of the New Testament, we find the same regal title assigned to Him. Thus in Acts 5 we read, "Him has God exalted with His right hand to be a Prince and a Savior, for to give repentance to Israel, and forgiveness of sins." And in Rev. 1, "Jesus Christ, who is the faithful Witness, and the first begotten of the dead, and the Prince of the kings of the earth." We need not multiply these Scripture proofs of our Lord's regal character. And yet it is of great importance, and closely concerns our obedience to Christ, that we fully believe in His Kingship, that we possess clear views of His sovereignty, and that by close, earnest study of His laws and commandments, we are found loyal to the dignity of His person, to the interests of His truth, and to the supremacy of His government and reign in the earth. This is a time in which the territory of Christ is insolently invaded by foreign foes, and His crown rights haughtily denied, and His very crown itself plucked daringly from His kingly brow. Surely this is the time when all who are His true subjects, all who wear His uniform, who follow His standard, and receive their pay at His hands, should be found loyal to His crown, and by "earnestly contending for the faith once delivered to the saints," prove themselves "good soldiers of Jesus Christ," valiant for His truth upon the earth. Let us proceed to consider IN WHAT SENSE THE LORD JESUS CHRIST IS WORTHY THE TITLE HE BEARS AS THE "PRINCE OF PEACE."

The subject, as previously remarked, is especially suitable to the sacred festival we are about to celebrate- the Holy nativity of the Son of God, His gracious and blessed advent to our world to set up a kingdom of peace. It was an Advent of love, an embassage of peace. He came to reconcile God to man, man to God, and man to his fellow-man. There was anarchy, discord, and disorder in the universe. Sin had disturbed its harmony. By dislodging man from his center, it had thrown confusion and turmoil throughout our entire humanity. Severing man from God, it severed man from himself, and man from his fellow-man. Oh, what imagination can conceive, or language describe, or pencil portray the disorder- physical, intellectual, and moral- which reigns throughout this fallen world consequent upon the Fall? Sin has convulsed the universe as by an earthquake, has smitten our humanity as with paralysis, has "set on fire the course of nature, and it is set on fire of hell." The whole matter resolves itself into a wide and terrible alienation between God and man. Man's distance from God is defined by his sinfulness. God's distance from man is defined by His holiness. If these two extremes of being- a holy God and an unholy man- could possibly meet without the intervention of an Atonement, then the Advent to our world of the Prince of Peace were a needless and wasteful expedient on the part of God. But there was not, and there could not possibly be, a reconciliation of these two contending and widely-seceded parties, God and the sinner, but as God Himself devised an expedient that would render it just and honorable to Himself. If reconciliation were to be effected, and peace made, and harmony restored, the first step must be on the part of Jehovah Himself. The plan must originate with Him, and by Him it must be effected. Thus we are introduced more immediately to the subject of these pages- the peace which God has accomplished through Christ between Himself and fallen man.

As the "Prince of Peace," our Lord Jesus PROCURES PEACE BETWEEN GOD AND MAN. The problem of effecting reconciliation could only be solved by the Prince of Peace. It had baffled the ingenuity of a synod of angels, composed of every celestial being in heaven. The thought of reconciling God and man, in a way that would uphold the rectitude and honor of the Divine government, would never have crossed a finite being's mind. It was the conception of one mind alone- the mind of the Eternal Lord God- and was lodged, eternally lodged, in that Mind myriads of ages before an angel was created. There are no second, no after-thoughts, of the Divine mind. If, then, God is eternal, never having had a beginning, then the thought of saving man by the Incarnation of Deity was as eternal as the Mind that conceived it. Thus, our Lord Jesus was the Peace-procurer of His Church. He was the true Levi of whom Jehovah said, "My covenant was with Him of life and peace." None but He could have effected it. There was disruption and separation, dissension and discord, a terrible schism between the Creator and His creatures. The Prince of Peace alone had dignity, authority, and power to effect peace. As none but the express Image of God could restore the divine image to man's destroyed soul; as none but Essential Life could breathe life into man's dead soul; as none but perfect Holiness could restore the reign of holiness in man's sinful soul; as none but the Son of God could make us sons of God, and none but the Beloved of God could make us beloved to God, so none but the "Prince of Peace" could bring us into a covenant of peace with Jehovah. Thus the Lord Jesus became our Peace-procurer.

In love and mercy He undertook what He alone could undertake. Oh, it was a great, a marvellous work, the work of restoring unity and friendship between God and man! Hence the twofold nature of our Lord. Mediating between the two extremes of being, the Infinite and the finite, the Divine and the human, He must partake of the nature of both. Effecting peace on the part of God, He must be God; effecting reconciliation on the part of man, He must be man. Hence the glorious fact, which at this season of Advent we celebrate- "God manifest in the flesh." Let your faith, my readers, embrace this truth afresh. It will strengthen your confidence in the reality of the peace the Prince of Peace has secured for you. It was no mere resemblance of peace He procured, no unauthorized compact into which He entered; no reconciliation which either party in the agreement could not honorably accept- Oh, no! Because He was God, He was essentially fitted to mediate for God; and because He was Man, He was in all respects fitted to negotiate for man; and thus God has accepted His mediation, and so "God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself."

THE PROCURER.

But our Lord Jesus was also our Peacemaker. He not only originated the scheme, but He personally embarked in its accomplishment. He not merely procured, but He effected it. Sin is the great bar between God and man. Nothing separates them but this. And if sin is not removed, it must remain forever an inseparable, impassible, eternal barrier between God and man, heaven and hell. But Christ, the Prince of Peace, undertook its removal. He girded Himself to the work of breaking down this middle wall of partition- sin. The covenant of peace was made between Him and God, made and signed, sealed and ratified. He undertook the office of Mediator; for "there is one Mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus." Thus, He is emphatically called "Our Peace." See how beautifully the apostle reasons out this precious truth! Addressing the converted Gentiles, He puts them in remembrance of their past unconverted state by nature, and then of their present state of reconciliation by grace "But now in Christ Jesus you who sometimes were far off are made near by the blood of Christ; for He is our peace."

And now the question rises, HOW did the Lord Jesus, the Prince of Peace, accomplish His great work? He could only accomplish it in one way- by Himself becoming the responsible party in the great controversy between God and man. On the part of God, He undertook to render a complete obedience to the law, to give a full satisfaction to justice, to harmonize all the Divine perfections, and not only to uphold in its perfect integrity the honor of the moral government of God, but to invest that Government with a luster in the eyes of all celestial intelligences, before unknown. And how was this done? By the Lawgiver becoming- O surpassing love! O wondrous grace! hear it, O heavens, and be astonished, O earth!- by the lawgiver be coming the law-fulfiller! And what did He on the part of man? He paid the great debt, the ten thousand talents, when man had nothing to pay. He stood in the breach. He placed one hand, the hand of His Deity, on God; and He placed the other hand, the hand of His Humanity, on man- "so making peace."

But this was not all. He must die. It is by blood we are brought near to God, even "by the blood of Christ." Before He could become to us the Prince of Peace, He must be the Captain of our salvation, and He must gird on the armor for the great battle with sin, Satan, and the world. He must endure the wrath of God. He must drink the cup of woe. He must, in a word, sacrifice Himself. Oh, what arithmetic can compute the price of our peace with God? Who can ever estimate what it cost Jesus, the Prince of Peace, to heal the breach, to terminate the controversy, to make peace by the blood of His cross, between God and man? Never was reconciliation effected on such terms; never was peace purchased at such a price- even the incarnation and obedience, the death and resurrection of the Son of God, the Prince of Peace. And now God, through Christ, is reconciled, the way to His forgiving love opened through the pierced heart of Jesus, the Peace-maker. It is now honorable, on the part of God, to negotiate with the rebel man an eternal armistice; yes, to hold out His reconciling hand- yes, to make the first overture- yes, to take the very first step in advance in the way of reconciliation. How clearly the apostle states this truth- "God was in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them, and path committed unto us the word of reconciliation."

Pause and consider what is your present position, my Christian reader, as one between whom and God perfect peace is restored. How dimly many of the Lord's dear people see this truth! How few fully realize it! The consequence is, they are, if we may thus speak, so shy of God, cultivate such distant transactions with Him, and love, and trust, and obey Him so imperfectly as a Father, all whose thoughts towards them are "thoughts of peace," and all whose feelings and dealings are love. But even this invalidates not the reality, and disturbs not the continuance of their peace with God through Christ, the perfect agreement which, through Christ, subsists between God and the weakest, obscurest saint.

Jesus, the Prince of Peace, by the putting away our sins, by the exhaustion of our curse by the full equivalent made, by the harmony created in the perfections of God, has made up the quarrel, has effected a reconciliation, has procured, effected, and ratified an "everlasting covenant of peace" between God and His Church; and it is utterly impossible now for God to conceive one thought of anger, or to cherish one feeling of alienation, or indulge one act of judgment towards the reconciled people of His love. Oh rise, beloved, to this purer, truer relation to God! Proclaim this as your present spiritual standing before Him. All is peace, secret peace, perfect peace, received peace, between God and your soul. There is not, on your part, the shadow of a shade of sin, nor, on God's part, the shadow of a shade of unpropitiated anger interposing itself between God and your soul. Jesus is our peace; His preceptive obedience has hushed the law's loud thunder. His sacrificial death has appeased the incensed anger of justice; His atoning blood has extinguished every spark of hell; and now every believing sinner is in reconciliation with God- is, through Christ's death, at-onement with the Triune Jehovah, and can walk with God in holy and perfect agreement.

But Christ, as the "Prince of Peace," is not only the Procurer, He is also the GIVER of peace. Before He ascended into heaven, He bequeathed to His Church this sacred legacy of peace. How precious and significant the terms of this bequest! "Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you; not as the world gives, give I unto you." And when He would forearm by forewarning His disciples of the trials and privations they should find in the world, with what exquisite tenderness and love He seeks to smooth and prepare their minds for the tribulations that awaited them: "These things have I spoken, that in me you might have peace. In the world you shall have tribulation, but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world."

And truly the saints of God do experience the world to be the scene of varied and great tribulations. It is the battle-field of the Church, the scene of many a hard-fought conflict with the ungodliness and the ungodly of this ungodly world. Beloved, bear in mind that your dear Lord has lovingly forewarned you that tribulation is your pathway through the world home to Himself. Do not be, therefore, surprised at the trials, and the conflicts, and the woundings of the way. "In the world you shall have tribulation." It was the path your Lord and Leader traveled. And would you tread a smoother path than His? Do you desire an easier, nearer, shorter road to glory than that imprinted with His blessed feet, bedewed with His tears, and empurpled with His blood? Oh, no! But, behold your true peace- "In Me you shall have peace." In and from the world there is no peace. The world and the Christian are in deadly hate and antagonism. "Love not the world," is the apostolic command; and, "If the world hate you," is the Lord's warning.

The world, its enjoyments and pleasures, its riches and honors, can give no peace to the soul. It is itself "like the troubled sea, which casts up mire and dirt." With all its fleshly enjoyments, attractions of rank and affluence, of pomp and power, the worldling is an utter stranger to real, substantial, satisfying peace. "There is no peace, says any God, to the wicked." Poor worldling, think of this. How long will you seek this priceless, precious pearl, down in the dark mine of this fallen, rebellious, sin-tainted, and curse-blighted world? All is turmoil and change; all is sickening disappointment here. And when you have traversed every continent, and have sipped every spring, and have plucked every flower, and have eaten of every fruit, and have heard every claim of fame, of earth's good, your cry still is, "Who will show me any good?"

But, if the first Adam has bequeathed to his posterity a legacy of tribulation, the Second Adam has bequeathed to His Church a legacy of peace. "In the world you shall have tribulation; in Me you have peace." How instructive and emphatic the words, "In Me." Not in ourselves, not in our pious duties; not in our active doings; not in our religious forms and spiritual feelings, but in Christ. Blessed teaching, precious truth! We have not far to travel, nor impossibilities to accomplish. It is near to us, and without a doing of our own- it is in Jesus, all in Jesus. He is our peace, and in Him alone.

His Gospel is the gospel of peace. What is the literal signification of the word- "Glad tidings." And why is the Gospel glad tidings to poor sinners? Because it is a proclamation of peace with God in and through Christ. It is the Gospel of reconciliation, and our ministry is the "ministry of reconciliation." "All things are of God, who has reconciled us to Himself by Jesus Christ, and has given to us the ministry of reconciliation." Oh yes, the Gospel publishes Peace to the troubled conscience, to the broken heart, and the contrite spirit. Peace to the rebel willing to ground his weapons and be reconciled to God. Peace- sweet, holy, assured peace- to the soul tossed with many a doubt, agitated with many a fear, and almost ready to despair. O glorious Gospel! The Gospel that proclaims a full and free reconciliation with God to every humble penitent. A Gospel breathing not one repelling word, uttering not one harsh sound, in the ear of a poor, humble sinner. It is, in a word, the music of the grace of God, the sweetest refrain of which is, "that God was in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them; and has committed unto us the word of reconciliation." What a noble office is the Christian minister's, and how charming His message! Not only is His voice music, but His feet are

beautiful. For thus says the evangelical Isaiah, "How beautiful upon the mountain are the feet of him who brings good tidings, that publish peace." Oh, that our preaching were a more full and clear unfolding of the ministry of peace!- peace, present and assured peace, through the applied blood of Jesus. Ambassador of Christ! let this be the staple of our ministrations. Thousands of our hearers are kept in bondage and fear for the lack of a more full and simpler statement of the message of peace. 'We do not sufficiently and simply direct their eyes to Jesus, the Prince of Peace. We clog the message of salvation with such legal conditions; we append to the proclamation of Peace such slavish terms, and we preach the doctrine of the Atonement with such cold reserve, as to foster in the minds of many of the Lord's people slavish dread rather than filial love; thus forging and riveting chains upon those whose peace Christ had purchased with His blood, and whose souls the truth has made free.

Let us, then, remember that we never preach the gospel of Christ unless we proclaim, broadly and boldly, the reconciliation the Prince of Peace has effected with God. It is the greatest, the most momentous and joyous announcement that can possibly be made, that peace is effected between heaven and earth; that, God is reconciled to sinners through Christ; that, "there is one Mediator between God and man, the man Christ, Jesus." And never shall we succeed in fully emancipating the saints of God from their legal fetters, and so promoting a healthy, vigorous Christianity, an evangelical, unreserved obedience, until we lead believers more entirely out of themselves, to see what their high and holy liberty, their Christian freedom, is in Christ Jesus. "Stand fast therefore in the liberty with which Christ has made us free, and do not be entangled again with the yoke of bondage."

The kingdom of Christ is A PEACEFUL KINGDOM. He is the Prince of Peace. Zion's King is a peaceable King. He came to erect a sovereignty of peace in the very heart of a world of rebellion against God, and of war with itself. And wherever His kingdom of peace extends, civilization follows barbarism, hatred is supplanted by love, the feuds, and divisions, and wars of nations cease, and peace and good-will among men spread their loving influence; diffusing unity, harmony, and love. Oh, what a world will that be when the dominion of the Prince of Peace shall be universal. "In His days shall the righteous flourish; and abundance peace, so long as the moon endures. He shall have dominion, also, from sea to sea, and front the river unto the ends of the earth." Oh, aid the coming of this peaceful reign of Jesus, the Prince of Peace, by your personal efforts, by your consecrated wealth, but, above all, by your believing prayers. If ever there was a time when the Lord's people should be up and doing, it is the present. With trumpet voice the crisis summons us to the help of the Lord, to the help of the Lord against the mighty. The Lord has a controversy with the land. A great struggle is passing between truth and error in the nation. We are well assured of the result- that, His truth must and will eventually and triumphantly prevail; but this circumstance releases us not from the obligation, no, the privilege, of doing all we can, and even of suffering all we may, in defense of His truth, in furtherance of His kingdom, and in vindicating the honor and glory of His great Name. And when, at this season, in adoring faith and love, we worship at the shrine of Bethlehem, let us afresh dedicate our ransomed and renewed being to the service and kingdom of the Prince of Peace, seeking a deeper baptism of the Spirit of holiness, that we may be vessels of honor, sanctified and meet for the Master's use.

But an interesting and important question presents itself at this stage of our subject- How is it that all the Lord's true people, possessing, as they do, this precious grace of peace, yet know so little of its personal experience and power! We do not hesitate to trace the cause mainly to a failure in the

application of the blood of Christ to the conscience. The blood of Christ is called the "blood of sprinkling." It is also emphatically denominated "peace-speaking blood." Both of these terms imply a personal application. Now, where there is no personal application of the blood of Christ to the conscience, there can be no assured peace; an unapplied Atonement is, in a sense, an unblest Atonement. It was the sprinkling of the blood on the dwellings of the Israelites that gave them perfect peace while the angel of destruction swept by, bent on his work of death. In other words, it was the applied blood of the slain lamb that spoke peace and safety to the dwellers in that house. For this we plead- the blood of Christ sprinkled upon the conscience, speaking peace.

The conscience has been well termed God's deputy. Now, if we are, through Christ, at peace with God, conscience, God's deputy, must also be at peace, and can cause within us no enmity or dread. It is a precious truth, that the same blood that sprinkles the Mercy-seat in heaven, sprinkles the believer's conscience on earth. And as the blood speaks peace "within the veil," so it speaks peace to all believers who follow Christ "outside the camp." Let no sin-distressed saint doubt the sovereign efficacy, the peace-speaking power of the blood, as brought into personal contact with the conscience. Surely, if the blood of Christ has power to satisfy God, it should satisfy us. Where Infinite Holiness can raise no objection, the sin-distressed conscience need not. If the holy Lord God has accepted the blood as a full atonement, need we demur accepting it in faith, as the earnest of our pardon, and the ground of our hope? Truly, nothing will satisfy an enlightened, quickened conscience, but that which satisfies a holy God; and whatever satisfies God, may well satisfy us. If God is reconciled, surely we may be. This is the true foundation of peace, God at peace with us. It may not always be enjoyed- clouds may veil it, it may be bathed in no sunshine; still it is there, living and shining, like that sun, in its concealed grandeur, and, like that sun, will again burst through every veiling cloud, more effulgently and gloriously than ever.

Another cause of the little enjoyment of this peace, in the experience of many of the children of God, may be traced to their looking too exclusively within and at themselves, rather than looking simply at Jesus. Turning the eye within ourselves, we see nothing but darkness and confusion- every beast of prey, and every unclean bird. In a word, everything to depress, weaken, and discourage us. God can alone read His own superscription, and recognize; His own image in the renewed soul. Indwelling sin, and the heart's deep sorrow, often veils its features, and hides it from our view. What peace, then, do we find peering down into this deep, dark abyss of our own hearts? But, ascending from their depths, coming to the surface, and gazing upward upon the glorious Sun of Righteousness, the beauteous flower of peace will bloom and blossom in your heart, filling your whole soul with its heavenly sweetness.

Another cause for the interrupted peace of some may be traced to wilful disobedience of a known command. "Great peace have they who love My law, and nothing shall offend them." It was God's lament over His distressed people- "Oh that you had hearkened to my commandments! then had your peace would have been as a river, and your righteousness as the sands of the sea." To how many disobedient children of God will this lament apply! They see a positive command of Christ, but, because it imposes a cross, or prescribes some self-denial, there is a sinful reserve in their obedience, and a consequent check in the flow of their peace. But if we would eat of the good of the land, we must be willing and obedient. Oh, let us, then, walk with Jesus as obedient children! How great will then be our peace! It will flow into our souls like a river, and our righteousness will be as the waves of the sea.

Nor must we forget how soon and how sensibly the peace of God in the soul may be affected by indulged sin and conformity to the world. No two things exert a more injurious influence upon this holy peace of the Spirit than these. "The lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and the pride of life," are all opposed to that holy peace of mind which it is the privilege of the believer always to experience. We cannot allow sin, nor sinfully conformity to the world, nor indulge in anything forbidden by the Word of God, and inconsistent with the religion of Jesus and our Christian profession, without seriously, fatally compromising the peace of God in our soul.

At peace with God through Christ, aspire to the benediction of the peace-maker. Imitate your blessed Master, the Prince of Peace, and be a mediator between those whom infirmity or misunderstanding have sundered. If yourself at variance with a brother or a sister, rest not until you are reconciled. Let the petition rise to God from a true and honest heart- "Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those that trespass against its." Be a peace-maker in your family, in your church, in your circle, in your neighborhood. Be a promoter of peace, cost you what it may. "Overcome evil with good." Wait not for your offending or offended brother's coming to you, but, like your Lord and Savior, take the first step towards him. Go, in the meekness and gentleness of Christ, and tell him his fault, and honestly acknowledge your own, and you shall be a threefold conqueror- you shall conquer your brother, and shall conquer Satan, and shall conquer yourself.

"A peace is of the nature of a conquest;
For then both parties nobly are subdued,
And neither party loser."

"Blessed are the peace-makers; for they shall be called the children of God."

"The hand of peace is frank and warm,
And soft as ringdove's wing;
And he who quells an angry thought,
Is greater than a king."

Let us beware of a false peace. That such may be our fatal snare is clear from the solemn charge of God- "For they have healed the hurt of the daughter of my people slightly, saying, Peace, peace; when there is no peace." Such is the peace of the unregenerate, such the peace of the religious formalist, such the peace of the self-deceived hypocrite, and such the peace of the false professor. They cry, "Peace, peace," when God has not spoken peace. It is the peace, the still, unconscious, unbroken peace of death! Be well assured,

then, that your peace has been preceded by a spiritual arousing of the conscience, by a divine awakening of your soul, to a sight and examination of the plague of your own heart, your condemnation under the law, and your deep need of Christ. See that there has been the wounding before the healing, the storm before the calm, the conviction that you are a sinner lost by nature, before you cherish the hope of the sinner saved by grace. Ask the Holy Spirit to open up to you the deep, precious meaning of the apostle's words, "Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ." Looking in faith only to Jesus for your acceptance with God, building alone on this divine and most sure foundation which God Himself has laid, bathing in the blood and clothing with the righteousness of the Prince of Peace, you need not question the genuineness of the peace which flows like a river in your soul.

"Now the Lord of peace Himself give you peace always, by all means. The Lord be with you all."

Christ, a Man of Sorrows

"A man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief. Isaiah 53:3.

Of whom does the evangelical prophet speak these words but the Lord Jesus? It would seem impossible for the most learned Gentile, or the most prejudiced Jew, to find another being in the history of our race to whom the several particulars of this singular prophecy, this remarkable description, could properly apply. The portrait is too marked in its features, the character too life-like in its delineations, to be mistaken for any other being in a world where all are bowed with sorrow, than Him to whom alone it applies- the Suffering Messiah, the "Lamb slain from the foundation of the world." Entering upon a season which more especially concentrates our meditations upon the passion of our Lord, could we select a portion better calculated to guide our reflections, or a picture more deeply to affect our hearts, awakening that feeling of penitence and sentiment of gratitude which the spectacle of our suffering Savior should ever inspire, than that which presents to us our blessed Lord Jesus as "a Man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief?" May the Divine Spirit, whose office in redemption it is to take of the things of Christ and show them unto us, bring our souls into close and believing contact with the cross of Jesus, that, as we gaze upon this, the most wonderful scene the universe ever beheld, we may "have fellowship with Him in His sufferings." Let us, in our present meditation, consider in their order, our Lord in His redeeming humanity- the nature of His sorrow- and then the blessings which flow from a believing sight of Him whom our sins thus pierced. "A man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief."

OUR LORD IN HIS REDEEMING HUMANITY-
"A man." Humanity was essential to His sufferings. He could only suffer as man. It was the only vehicle through which sin-atoning suffering could flow. Hence the doctrine of the Incarnation underlies the whole system of Christianity. "God manifest in the flesh," is the transcendent fact, the all in all, of the Christian religion. And he who denies this fact, who would extract this essential tenet from the Christian faith, exposes the fabric of his hope to utter and eternal ruin. Man redeeming man is a revealed truth, a doctrine of salvation resplendent upon every page of the sacred word. Such is the truth which meets us on the threshold of our subject. "A MAN of sorrows." Let us contemplate this truth in a few of its more important aspects.

In the first place, our Lord as man was real man, truly man, "very man of very man," as the Creed expresses it. "A body have you prepared me." "The Word was made flesh." Then we read, "Forasmuch as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, He also Himself likewise took part of the same; that through death He might destroy Him that had the power of death, that is, the devil; and deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage." These are remarkable words. They set forth the great truth under consideration in points of light which no other passages of holy writ so impressively do. We too imperfectly realize this fact. Jealous- and properly so- of the Deity of Christ, we may too faintly regard His humanity. Hedging around the great doctrine of His Godhead with every text and argument which the Bible furnishes and the mind suggests, we may lose sight of the fact that, equally essential to our salvation, indispensably so as an element of His atoning death, is the doctrine of the real manhood. In bearing then our sins to the sacrifice of Christ, our guilt to the blood of Christ, our infirmities to the succour of Christ, our grief to the compassion of Christ, we find ourselves confronting a Divine being clothed in our veritable nature, a man as we are men, human as we are human, "bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh." It is no mere hallucination of the mind, no mere shadowy, impersonal being, whom we face, but "God manifest in the flesh"- a truly human and personal Savior, in whose presence we find ourselves in sin and suffering and woe. Oh, precious truth to those who yearn for the human in close and perfect sympathy with their own bruised, tried, and crushed humanity. How near is the Son of God brought to us! How close the Deity! We seem to see God, to feel God, to hear God in the wondrous incarnation of His beloved Son.

The humanity of Christ brings Jehovah within reach of the shortest hand of faith, of the faintest breath of prayer, of the dimmest eye of love. Oh, deal personally and closely, my reader, with this great and experimental truth of the gospel- the "fulness of the Godhead bodily in Christ." Your faith in close contact with this wondrous mystery will give you such a realizing sense of the Divine nearness and fellowship as will, under all circumstances and in all places, make God to you a real and a felt presence. You will thus "acquaint yourself with Him,'' and this closer acquaintance will dislodge from your mind those distant and vague conceptions, those distrustful and distressing feelings which you may hitherto have cherished of God, replacing them with filial confidence, sweet affection, and holy fellowship. Thoughts of God will now be pleasant, to draw near to Him your holiest privilege, to obey and serve Him your sweetest liberty and highest delight.

The humanity of Christ was not only real, but it was voluntary. It was a self-assumed humanity. "He also Himself took part of the same." It was not a forced nature, a coerced humiliation, to which the Son of God subjected Himself. Not so was it with us. We did not voluntarily take upon us our nature, it was given to us; we did not assume, we received it independently of our own will. The choice was not given to us whether we should be made brutes, or men, or angels; but God gave us a body as it pleased Him. But our blessed Lord, left to His own will and choice, chose to be man that He might redeem man. Dwelling in a pre-existent state of essential life and glory, He had power over all existence- for all life flowed from Him, and it was competent in Him to select the nature He most loved, and He selected ours, for from everlasting "His delights were with the children of men." He had, too, an essential purpose, and a covenant engagement to accomplish in this. He had entered into covenant with His Father to ransom His elect Church, His eternally chosen and loved people. This He could only do- and still His will was left perfectly free- by assuming the very nature He was to redeem. Therefore we read that, "as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, He also Himself likewise took part of the same." He was bound to take upon Him our nature, but He was self bound- bound by His own will, bound by His own law, bound by His own love "in all points to be made like unto His brethren," as truly flesh and blood as they. Oh, what a dignity has thus been put upon our nature! To what a scale of greatness and glory has this wondrous stoop of Deity raised it! The only true light in which to study the dignity and importance of our nature is the Incarnation of the Son of God. How raised, ennobled, and honored, would angels have deemed themselves had Divinity allied itself with their pure, seraphic forms! But, "He took not upon Him the nature of angels, but He took upon Him the seed of Abraham," and by this wondrous alliance, this profound stoop, He has elevated our nature infinitely higher than angels, and so our redeemed humanity in heaven stands nearer the throne than they.

We approach a step closer to our subject when reminded by the passage upon which we are commenting that, our blessed Lord assumed our nature in order to die. "That through death," or, in order "that through death He might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil." We naturally shrink from death. It is a terrible crisis, a fearful contingency of our nature, from which all our animal instincts recoil. But He who knew what death was, though He had not yet "tasted death," assumed a nature which He was well aware must pass through the throes and agonies of a mortal dissolution. Before He left the repose of His Father's bosom for the embrace of the cross, the entire scenes of Gethsemane and of Calvary passed vividly before His mind. And yet He chose a nature that must die, took a body in order to die; elected death- and of all deaths the most torturing and humiliating- as the consummation and the goal of His human existence. With this line, my reader, endeavor to comprehend something of the "height and depth, the length and breadth, of the love of Christ," "the Man of sorrows," which yet "passes knowledge." Into what else but love- infinite love, self-sacrificing love, unparalleled love- can we resolve this amazing step of Jesus? Before the eye of His omniscience, the whole scene of His humiliation and suffering passed. The cross, with all its sorrow and joy, its pain and pleasure, its ignominy and glory, its defeat and triumph, stood before His mind, as really and as truly as though it had been reared upon Calvary ages before He exchanged the abode of his glory for the scene of His shame. Herein is love, and nowhere else but here! Wonder, O heavens! be astonished, O earth! break forth into singing, O my soul! for the Lord has done great things for you. He took upon Him your nature, knowing that it would be smitten, and bruised, and scourged and spit upon, and His face marred more than the face of any man; and that, when all forms of indignity were exhausted, His foes would drag His sacred body to Golgotha, and impale it upon the accursed tree. Was ever love like this!

We are thus conducted to the last thought under this branch of the subject- the absolute necessity to His sorrow that Christ should be man. An absolute God of sorrow were a contradiction of terms, a moral impossibility. If the Son of God were to become personally acquainted with grief, He must become human. He could only sorrow as the "Man

of sorrows." Not that He divested Himself of His Deity for a moment. This were as utterly impossible as that His Deity could suffer. The Godhead and the Manhood of Christ were one and indivisible throughout His entire travail of soul. The one nature was as essential to His suffering as the other. Neither were independent of the ether in this great act of His life. As man He suffered; as God He atoned. As man He offered Himself an oblation for sin: as God He imparted to that oblation all its sacrificial virtue. His humanity was the vehicle of His divine offering; His Divinity gave to His humanity all its atoning efficacy and perfection. His Divinity was the altar upon which His Humanity was offered; and thus He made to Divine justice a full atonement for the "Church of God, which He purchased with His own blood."

What must be the sin-atoning nature, what the guilt-cleansing efficacy of that blood, which the Holy Spirit thus terms "God's own blood!" Shall we henceforth hesitate availing ourselves of its sovereign virtue? Shall we question its efficacy in our case? Shall we deem ourselves sinners too great, our transgressions too numerous, our guilt of too deep a hue, for the Savior to cleanse, for God to forgive? Forbid it, Man of sorrows! forbid it, dying love of Christ! I will come to You, believe in You, receive You; wash me in Your blood, and robe me with Your righteousness, though my sins were red like crimson, and my transgressions were countless as the sands.

We now approach the subject more especially suggested by the impressive title of our Lord, "the Man of Sorrows." The spectacle upon which we gaze is a marvellous one- the ground upon which we stand is holy- the event we contemplate the most stupendous and momentous in the history of the universe. In what sense are we to regard our Lord Jesus as the " Man of Sorrows and acquainted with grief"?

In the first place, He was a Man of Sorrows, because, as man, He was born under the curse. Sorrow was an consequence of the curse. God pronounced a curse upon the earth, and upon man in his passage through it, when His divine and holy law was broken. How awful its terms- "Cursed is the ground for your sake; in sorrow shall you eat of it all the days of your life; thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to you; and you shall eat the herb of the field; in the sweat of your face shall you eat bread, until you return unto the ground." Now our blessed Lord, in order to remove the curse, must first bear it; and in bearing it He became emphatically; and in a sense and to a degree as none other could, a "Man of sorrows." Behold, my soul, in the sorrow of the Savior, the pledge of the utter annihilation of your curse! His soul-grief, His bodily suffering, absolved you from it all. It fell upon Him in all its unmitigated, unmeasured force. There was no condoning the curse, no soothing or sweetening of its harshness and bitterness; but, standing in the place of His Church, He became a "curse for it;" and so was He a "Man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief."

In this light interpret all the dispensations of your God which look so threatening, feel so crushing, and utter their pealing voice as from the "secret place of thunder." Christ has entirely rolled the curse from off His people, turning it into a blessing. Thus, those very trials and sorrows, which, in the case of the ungodly, are "thorns and thistles" of the curse, in the experience of God's saints are blossoms, and flowers, and fruit, the hallowed result of sorrow's discipline, in which no curse is found. What real, what pure blessings, then, must our Father's corrections be, since from them Christ has extracted every particle of the curse, every drop of wrath, every frown of anger, every spark of hell! But, oh my soul, forget not what an element of severity must this have been in the soul-sorrow of your Lord! What an embittering ingredient in that cup of woe which trembled in His hand, yet which, for the love He bears you, He drank to the very lees, exclaiming, "Your will be done!"

As the sin-bearer of His Church, Christ was a "Man of sorrows." Thus, the sufferings of our Lord were vicarious, the sorrow of His soul sin-atoning. No other rational solution of His sufferings and grief can be found than this. The prophecy from where this title of our Lord is taken- a prophecy of the sufferings of Christ- is so real and so life-like that it might well be taken for a chapter of one of the evangelists- completely vindicates the vicarious nature of our Lord's sorrow. In this part of God's word, the sin-bearing, sin-atoning character of His death is presented with a clearness so distinct, the seeing eye cannot possibly mistake, and with a force so commanding the candid mind cannot possibly resist. How simple, solemn, and irresistible the statement of the evangelical prophet!- "He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement of our peace was upon Him, and with His stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray- we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all." "It pleased the Lord to bruise Him: He has put Him to grief: when You shall make His soul an offering for sin, He shall see His seed, He shall prolong His days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in His hand." Such is the Old Testament key to the New Testament history of our Lord's sorrow.

How confirmatory of this prophetical statement of our Lord's sorrow, as the Sin-Bearer of His people, is the teaching of His evangelists and apostles! "Christ died for our sins, according to the Scriptures." "Christ has loved us, and has given Himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet smelling savor." It were not necessary to multiply proof in evidence of a fact so demonstrably true. No other fact provides the least satisfactory clue to the deep soul-sorrow of our Lord but this. If that sorrow was not the consequence of His bearing sin- if His sufferings were not expiatory, His death sacrificial, His blood sin-atoning, then there is a mystery in the whole transaction of the cross which must forever remain inexplicable.

Beloved, what penetrates your heart with the deepest grief- what imparts to your soul the bitterest sorrow? Is it not sin? Does not the consciousness of guilt, the thought of having grieved the Spirit, of having wounded Christ, fill your very soul, at times, with unutterable anguish, and bow you to the dust in the profoundest spirit of self-abasement? Think, then, what must have been the overwhelming soul-sorrow of our blessed Lord, standing, as He did, beneath all the sins of His whole elect Church, from the first sin of Adam to the sins of the last chosen vessel of mercy.

But what language can portray, what imagination conceive, the depth of the sorrow which afflicted the holy soul of Jesus! Listen to His words, "Now my soul is deeply troubled. Should I pray, 'Father, save me from what lies ahead'? But that is the very reason why I came!" "My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death. . . . . O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me." Without the consciousness of personal guilt- for "He knew no sin"- He bore in His holy soul the fiery vengeance of Divine justice, endured the full tempest of Divine wrath, passed through the terrible darkness of the cross, when, in the unfathomable anguish of his soul, he exclaimed, "My God, my God, why have You forsaken me!" Oh, what a terrible eclipse of His soul was this! The hidings of God's face, the suspension of His sensible presence from His human soul, created a "horror of great darkness"- a darkness that truly might be felt. And had He not throughout all this sorrow, abandonment, and darkness been upheld by the power of His Deity, He must have succumbed, and His Church have perished forever. We shudder at the thought! But we suppose an impossibility. True, the humanity of our Lord was now passing through the deep baptism of suffering, but its union with His divinity sustained and bore it triumphantly through. The sacrifice was noble, as the sin which demanded it was great. An infinite justice was evoked, perfect law was broken, but an infinite Savior gave a full equivalent to the one, and made a full satisfaction to the other. The dignity of His Divinity conferred upon the sufferings of His humanity all the sin-atoning virtue and efficacy they possessed. Their sovereign value was as inseparable from His sufferings as His Divine nature was inseparable from the human. As Charnock remarks, "The union of His natures remained firm in all His passion; and, therefore, the efficacy of the Deity mingled itself with every groan in the agony, every pang and every cry upon the cross, as well as with the blood that was shed. The Divinity that could not suffer was joined to the suffering flesh, to render the sufferings salutary and saving." Such is the redemption view of the mysterious yet actual union of the two natures of Christ. Apart from this union there could have been no redemption- the manhood of our Lord was the seat of atoning suffering, His Godhead the fountain of atoning merit. As man He sorrowed, as God He bore the man triumphantly through the sorrow, "and when He had by Himself purged our sins, sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high."

Oh yes! our Lord was indeed a "Man of sorrows." Sorrow was His distinctive badge. He was "acquainted with grief;" or, as the Hebrew expresses it, He was known of grief. Sorrow and grief were His most familiar acquaintances, His constant companions. With them He was in unceasing converse. From His lowly cradle of the manger, to His ignominious death-bed of the cross, He ate of the bread of adversity and drank of the water of affliction, a full cup being wrung out to Him. And when we count the forms of sorrow through which He passed, the sources from where His afflictions flowed, the blood-thirsty persecution of man, the fiery assault of Satan, the treachery of false and the fickleness of true disciples, the insults and cruelty of His slayers; and, chief of all, the exceeding sorrow and blood-sweat of the garden, the mental anguish springing from the Divine wrath and justice, and the hidings of His Father's face in infinite displeasure for the sins of the people for whom He was Surety, oh, well might we put into His groaning lips the dolorous cry of Jerusalem, "Is it nothing to you all, all you that pass by? behold, and see if there be any sorrow like My sorrow with which the Lord has afflicted Me in the day of His fierce anger." Oh, great and wondrous love of God, that for us He should so smite, so put to grief the Son of His love. Herein is love, "not that we loved God, but that He loved us, and gave His Son to be a propitiation for our sins."

"Angels here may gaze and wonder
What the Lord of love could mean
When that heart was torn asunder,
Never once defiled by sin."

Let us briefly notice a few of THE SPECIAL BLESSINGS which flow from a believing view of Christ's sorrow.

And first, from this deep sorrow of our Lord springs our deepest joy. We see in His sorrow the putting away of all our sin. And is not this a matter of joy unspeakable? To be assured that our transgression is forgiven, our sin is covered; that the baptism of grief through which His holy soul passed- as no other baptism could- has "blotted out, as a thick cloud, our transgressions, and as a cloud our sins," surely this should make us patient in suffering, joyful in tribulation, and cause us to bear cheerfully every cross, and to gird ourselves willingly to every service our Lord- the Man of sorrows, sees fit to impose.

Alas! how few joyful believers there are, how few make the desert ring with their songs of gladness, and wake the echoes of praise in the strange land, simply because they deal so seldom and so faintly with the sorrow of the Savior's cross. Believer in Christ, do you know that that sorrow of your Lord has buried forever in its fathomless depths all your sins, past, present, and to come; and from His unknown agony, from His inconceivable grief, from His bitterest sorrow, you may extract the material of your richest joy, and wake the notes of your sweetest harmonies, marching to conflict and to conquest to the music of the victor's song. Oh, be joyful then! The joy of the Lord will strengthen your soul, your sacrifice of praise will glorify His name. You bring no honor to your Lord by indulging in a mournful and desponding spirit, in a doubting and fearful mind. His sovereign grace has burst your chains, unloosed your yoke, and brought your soul out of prison, conferring upon you a dignity of which the angels cannot boast, even the divine adoption of a child; and you ought to go forth to service and to suffering with a jubilant and gladsome spirit. Up, then, you pardoned and justified adopted saints, from the ashes and shadows in which you too fondly love to grope, and pluck your harp from its willow, wake its wires to the highest praise of redeeming grace and dying love, for your home is in heaven. There is everything in Jesus to make you a happy and a joyful Christian; everything that the renewed soul requires, carrying within him a depraved and treacherous heart, bearing about a body of sin and death, and passing through an ungodly, ensnaring world- a world of unmixed pollution, ceaseless trial, and heartless disappointment.

We see also in this title of our Lord a shadowing forth of that assimilation to Him, of which all His saints must more or less partake. The members must be conformed to their divine Head, the brethren to their elder Brother. This was the ardent desire and prayer of the holy apostle, "I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death." Was our Lord a Man of sorrows? There must be no difference between us and Him. Shall He be a Man

of grief, and we men of pleasure? Shall He wear the thorn, and we only the rose? Shall the world, that frowned upon Him, smile upon us? Shall He endure its curse, and we receive its blessing? He its sting, and we its caress? Oh, no! We, too, must be acquainted with grief. We must be prepared to suffer with Christ, and to suffer for Christ. We must bear His cross, confess His name, and follow hard after Him, though the path we tread be rough and flinty. Shame for Him must not confound its; toil for Him must not weary us; suffering for Him must not daunt us; loss for Him Must not make us afraid. "Unto you it is given, on the behalf of Christ, not only to believe on Him, but also to suffer for His sake."

Oh, be you assured of this, that the discipline of sorrow through which you are now passing, is an evidence of your oneness with Christ, a seal of your adoption, and fitting of your soul for glory! Oh, seek rather its sanctification than its soothing; desire its fruit more than its removal! Let the sweet thought reconcile you to sorrow, and cheer you on in its lonely path, that Christ is your fellow-sufferer, and the cup you now drink, He drank, leaving the sweetness of His lips in undying fragrance upon its brim.

This conducts us to a third blessing- the compassion and love which flow from Christ's sorrows. As a Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, He was educated for the suffering Church. He could not possibly have been a sympathizing High Priest, had He not been taught and trained in the school of sorrow: "Though He were a Son, yet learned He obedience by the things which Ne suffered." What an ocean of sympathy is here! It is quite possible to overtask the sympathy even of God's saints. Human compassion must necessarily have its limit; and even where it exists in its truest and tenderest form, it may not have been trained in our peculiar school, nor have been molded to our especial form of sorrow. But Christ was a Man of sorrows- not of one sorrow, but of many. Is there one we have of which He did not partake? Is there one grief that shades our spirit that did not cast a deeper shadow upon His? His cup of woe was composed of many ingredients, His crown bristled with many thorns, His back was lacerated with many stripes, His body was pierced with many wounds, many sorrows bound their iron bands around His smitten, broken heart. Thus is He prepared to share, and in sharing to soothe, and in soothing to bury, in His deepest sympathy, the many and varied afflictions of His people.

Yes, our Lord was "acquainted with grief." Expressive words! He knew it not merely from report, neither from observation, but from personal and intimate experience. And He is acquainted, beloved, with yours. "I know their sorrows," said God, when He looked down, and came down, from heaven, to deliver His people from the iron furnace of Egypt. Christ is intimately acquainted with your personal sorrow, has tasted your bereaved grief, knows your domestic trials, and has His eyes of paternal love and justice upon all the unholy accusations by which your "enemies, persecutors, and slanderers," falsely and cruelly assail you. Let this comfort your spirit and strengthen your hands in God. Acquaint yourself with Him in this, and sweet will be your peace.

This subject is not without its solemn relation to the unconverted. If such was the sorrow of the sinless One, bearing, as He did, the sins of His Church, what will be the sorrow, the unmitigated, endless sorrow of the soul passing into eternity hearing its own sins? The thought is overwhelming! All sin brings sorrow, either in this life or in the life that is to come. "Some men's sins are open beforehand, going before to judgment"- these are the sins of God's people, which have been repented of, confessed, and forgiven, having been judged and condemned in the person of Christ, their Surety- "and some men they follow after"- these are the sins of the unrepentant, unbelieving, and unpardoned, which follow them into eternity, and will confront them as witnesses in the great day of judgment, when the secrets of all hearts will be revealed. And then follows the remorse and anguish, the undying worm, and the unquenchable fire; even that "cup that is full mixture, the dregs thereof all the wicked of the earth shall wring out, and drink them."

O you trifler, and you scorner, and you procrastinator, and you despiser and rejecter of the "Man of Sorrows," you may laugh now, but the days of your sorrow are to come. Better, infinitely better, be a mourner for sin all your days, and go weeping tears of Godly sorrow to your grave, than be merry now with a carnal, worldly, sinful merriment, and hereafter gnaw your chains in bitter and eternal anguish! O Lord, give me a place among Your true mourners! Let me lament with them, sorrow with them, with them wet my couch with tears for sin, and go to my dying bed abhorring myself, and repenting in dust and ashes, crying, "God be merciful to me a sinner," than enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season, but to pass, when that joy is fled, to all the pangs and horrors of the "second death." Oh, what will these pangs and horrors be, to quench which not one drop of water will be given!

But has the Lord, my reader, given you a broken heart for sin? Are you a mourner at His feet, a weeper at the cross? Then, happy are you. Jesus has pronounced you so. "Blessed," happy, "are the poor in Spirit; blessed are those who mourn." And God has said, "I dwell in the high and holy place; with him, also, that is of a contrite and humble spirit, and to revive the heart of the contrite ones." Bring your broken heart to the "Man of sorrows;" for it is His office to "preach good tidings unto the meek, to bind up the broken-hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives." The balsam that exuded from His heart of sorrow, that distilled from His pierced side, will heal your wounded spirit, bind up your broken heart, and turn your sorrow into joy, your tears into dancing.

If hell is a place of endless sorrow, heaven is a place of eternal joy. How glorious the description of the New Jerusalem saints! "God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain; for the former things are passed away." Look forward, then, you sorrowing ones, to that bright and holy world, where sin shall no more taint you, and temptation no more assail you, and sorrow no more shade you, and suffering no more distress you, and where "the days of your mourning shall be ended."

The last view we venture to present of the atoning sorrow of our Lord is that which constitutes the crowning truth of all- His finished work. When Jesus cried, "It is finished," all His sorrow was over- all His grief was at an end; for then He "made an end of sin, and brought in a new and everlasting righteousness." It is on the ground of His finished work the soul that believes in Him sees the entire putting away of all his transgressions, and complete acceptance of his person before God. "It Is Finished!" Wondrous words! Glorious declaration! The law is honored- justice is satisfied- the debt is paid; and now, whoever believes in Jesus shall not come into condemnation, but has everlasting life! Child of God! see your finished salvation! Mourning soul! dry your tears; look to Jesus and be saved. Sin-bound laboring sinner! cast your heavy burden and your deadly doings down at the foot of the Cross; Atonement is all made, the work is all done; trust in Jesus, and you shall find rest unto your soul. Oh, blessed announcement of the Gospel, that you have nothing to do but believe! That, freer than the water springing from the fount, freer than the light flowing from the sun- freer than the air laden with earth's scents, is the finished salvation Christ has provided for poor, lost sinners. How clear the teaching of God's word touching this precious truth! "Being justified freely by His grace, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God has set forth to be a propitiation through faith in His blood." Resting in this finished salvation of Christ, the vilest sinner shall be saved, the feeblest saint shall not be lost. They only will fail of the glorious blessings of this great charter of salvation- the finished work of Christ- who, refusing to accept it as it is, presumptuously dare to supplement it by their own work of human merit. Attempt, if you will, to add luster to the sun, beauty to the landscape, value to the pearl- but attempt not the profane, the criminal act, of adding anything of your own merit, worthiness, or doing, to the Finished Work of the Lord Jesus Christ. Despise and reject His finished salvation, and though you were the most scrupulously moral, and strictly religious, and profusely charitable, dying, robed in this your own righteousness, you will be lost forever. But, believe in Christ, accept in faith His finished work, and although you were the vilest sinner and the feeblest saint, you shall be forever saved.

"It is finished!"- You have said it,
What more can sinners need
It is finished; on this truth we lean
This glorious truth we plead.
It is finished!"- You have made an end
Of sin by Your own blood,
And in Your perfect righteousness
Does bring us unto God.

"It is finished!"- By Your Spirit's power
This precious truth apply,
To the hearts and consciences of those
Who still in darkness lie.
That all Your own beloved ones,
Rejoicingly be brought,
Into the glorious liberty
Your finished work has wrought.

"It is finished!"- Oh, we thank You, Lord,
And seek Your promised grace,
Sufficient for our every need,
Until we behold Your face.
Then, Jesus, fully satisfied,
Our longing hearts shall be,
When in Your likeness we awake,
And all Your glory see.

Christ, the Resurrection and the Life

Jesus told her, "I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die like everyone else, will live again." John 11:25

Words of Divine majesty and of sublime import! Who could in truth have spoken them but Essential Life? They were uttered at the grave, and rang in living, crushing tones through the dark domain and dungeon of death. The tomb was shaken, the grim tyrant relaxed his grasp, and "he who was dead came forth bound hand and foot with grave clothes." Jesus- Lazarus- and death- stand before us in the scene, types of people and of truths with which we have an individual, solemn, and eternal relation. One object, however, must alone engage our especial study- it is He who occupies the central position of the picture- Christ, the "Resurrection and the Life." We have, as yet, considered no title of our Lord which blends our thoughts with a scene of such sublime interest as the present. The resurrection of Christ as a fact of our religion, and the resurrection of the body as an event in our history, are obviously so essential to the truth of the one, and so entwined with the hopes of the other, it is impossible not to regard them as two of the most vital and glorious doctrines which can possibly challenge the belief and engage the study of the Christian mind. And as the Church of God, at the present season, irrespective of its different nationalities and denominational distinctions- is a devout and adoring worshiper at the Savior's tomb, it may be proper that these pages, in sympathy with the solemn yet joyous occasion, should aid in molding and animating its meditations upon "the hope of Israel"- Christ's resurrection for us, and our resurrection with Him. These words of Jesus are as a voice from the grave. They are uttered in tones of peculiar emphasis and solemnity. It was not likely that in a position of such solemnity, and surrounded by an audience of so unique and, in some respects, of so skeptical a character, Jesus would have given utterance to words not pregnant of the profoundest meaning, and capable of withstanding the severest test of truth. When, therefore, in response to the confession of Martha, who boldly asserted her belief in the doctrine of the resurrection at the last day, "Jesus said unto her, I am the Resurrection and the Life," we may be assured that He represented Himself as wearing a title the import of which was of the most vital and sublime character. Let us illustrate this magnificent title of our Lord, and then trace some of the precious blessings which result from it to the saint and the sinner. IN WHAT SENSE IS CHRIST THE RESURRECTION AND THE LIFE?

He is essentially so. When He says, "I am the Resurrection and the Life," He speaks as Jehovah, He spears absolutely as God. He in effect says, "I am the infinite, eternal, self-existent Jehovah. I am uncreated, the fountain of life; all life flows originally and essentially from Me." To take a lower view of the Speaker than this, to give to His words an interpretation less important and divine, would at once be to compromise the entire subject of these pages. The magnificent superstructure of the Resurrection rests entirely upon the personal dignity of our Lord. If He is not divinely, essentially "the Life"- that is, ceasing to be God if He were not so- then there is no "resurrection to eternal life." There would be a resurrection of the whole human race, but it would be the "resurrection of damnation." It is because Resurrection life in Christ is essential and divine- uncreated, independent, exhaustless, and, therefore, deathless- that the grave of those who sleep in Jesus is lighted up with the luster and glory of the first resurrection.

Oh, what majesty, what authority, what power beams forth from this declaration- "I am the Resurrection and the Life!" Never did our Lord utter words more worthy of Himself, or assume an attitude more dignified and sublime. Christ was the Resurrection and the Life infinite ages before a pulse of life beat in angel or human form. Dwelling in His own eternity, happy in His own existence, He was the Resurrection and the Life when there was no other intelligence to admire His glory but Himself. I pray, my reader, that your faith in this truth may be no vague, unsound thing. In proportion to your belief in the Godhead of the Savior will be your confidence in the truth and possibility of the resurrection. That there are mysteries in that truth I fully concede- mysteries which must ever elude the grasp and baffle the research of the most potent and sagacious inquirer; nevertheless, confronted with this doctrine of Christ's infinite nature, brought to the touch of His Divine and essential Omnipotence, they vanish like the dew of the morning, or the spray of the sea. If, then, our Lord is essentially the Resurrection and the Life, shall it be thought a thing incredible that He should raise the dead?

Our Lord is the "Resurrection and the Life,'' as it is by Him the doctrine of the resurrection and of eternal life is revealed. Until He uplifted the veil, the most dim and confused notions of a future state existed. The Jews, it is true, believed in the doctrine, but their traditions so neutralized and their corruptions so overlaid it, as almost entirely to veil its glory and to destroy its influence. But Christ revealed the truth. "Bringing life and immortality to light by the gospel," He uplifted the veil of the future, scattered the shadows of the tomb, and declared, "The hour is coming in the which all that are in the grave shall come forth; those who have done good unto the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil unto the resurrection of damnation." Having thus revealed, He proceeded to illustrate the doctrine. Two examples shall suffice. The touching narrative of the first runs thus-

A funeral procession was coming out as he approached the village gate. The boy who had died was the only son of a widow, and many mourners from the village were with her. When the Lord saw her, his heart overflowed with compassion. "Don't cry!" he said. Then he walked over to the coffin and touched it, and the bearers stopped. "Young man," he said, "get up." Then the dead boy sat up and began to talk to those around him! And Jesus gave him back to his mother. Luke 7:12-15

Each feature of this remarkable incident is replete with the most tender instruction. We may note the compassionate love of Christ for the widow, His sympathy with the sorrow of her bereavement, and His power over death. It is this latter feature which presents Him before us at this moment encircled with the deepest interest. Who but "the Resurrection and the Life" could have stood between that corpse and the grave, and before the body had reached its home, summoned back its departed spirit, rekindling the inanimate clay with life, intelligence, and beauty?

This compassion of Jesus towards the mourning widow, bereft of her earthly prop, unveils an exquisite trait of His character. Of the many cases of human suffering which came under our Lord's notice, not one exceed this in its touching interest. She was a widow, a bereaved widow, following her only son to the grave. What an appropriate occasion for the interposition of His sympathy as man and of His power as God! Every spring of His compassion was unveiled, every resource of His Deity employed. He stopped the coffin, awoke the dead, gave back the son, and made the widow's heart to sing for joy! Truly is He the "Resurrection and the Life."

Weeping widow! Christ can as easily awaken the dead soul as He did the lifeless body. Are you mourning over the spiritual death of your child? Are you following in tears, entreaties, and prayers your son, sinful and wayward, as to an early and dishonored grave? Weep not, then, afflicted parent! Christ, who is our life, passes by. And although spiritual death may hold its subject firm within its iron grasp, and unbelief would suggest, "Your son is dead, trouble not the master," yet He who once spoke the words, "Young man, I say unto you, Arise!" can speak the words of life, and your son lives! A Christian mother's prayers were never lost! Your son may be far from God, dead in trespasses and in sins, yet, though the child of many tears of anguish, he is the child of many prayers of faith, and those prayers shall come up through Christ as a memorial before God, your son given back to you again, by Him who is the Resurrection and the Life.

The second illustration our Lord gave of the doctrine He had come to reveal is that with which His present title especially stands connected. In introducing it the evangelist thus gives us the key-note to the thrilling narrative. "Now Jesus loved Martha, and her sister Mary, and Lazarus." But Lazarus, the sick one whom He loved, was dead, and it was around his grave the group we are now depicting was gathered. And what a group! There were present the Jews who "came to Martha and Mary to comfort them concerning their brother." Still nearer to the grave stood the bereaved sisters, the one loud and impassioned in her grief, the other silent and thoughtful. In the center of the group stands Jesus, dignified and majestic, yet groaning in spirit and bathed in tears. Lifting His eyes to heaven, he prays, Father, I thank You that You have heard me. And I know that you hear me always." "And when He had thus spoken, He cried with a loud voice, Lazarus, come forth! And he that was dead came forth bound hand and foot with grave clothes."

How resplendent the glory of Jesus now as the "Resurrection and the Life." He had revealed the fact of the resurrection; He now confirms it. He had brought life and immortality to light by His gospel; He now illustrates it. He had declared Himself the "Resurrection and the Life;" He now proves His right to the magnificent title by re-opening Hades and by unsealing the grave. Here let us pause and bid you thus reason- "Am I a disciple of Jesus, learning at His feet the mystery of the resurrection and the truth of my future and endless life? These subjects are vast. Their mystery baffles me, their solemnity awes me, their greatness overpowers me. Reason tells me, and conscience echoes the truth, there is a future state where I am to live forever. But I am perplexed, bewildered, and in darkness. Where can I turn? Where shall I find the light for which I yearn? the rest for which I sigh?" Come, you doubting and perplexed inquirer, and take your place as a true, lowly disciple at the feet of Him who is the "Resurrection and the Life," and learn of Him. He alone can solve your doubts, remove your perplexities, and quell your fears. Believe in Him, receive in humble faith His Word, trust in His salvation, and life and immortality will shed the luster of its hope upon your soul.

Our Lord Jesus not only reveals the doctrine, but IN HIM IS LODGED THE POWER OF BESTOWING THE RESURRECTION AND THE LIFE. Essentially, the blessing belongs to Him. As no other being could make it known, so no other could confer it. Martha, to whom the title was originally declared, acknowledged her belief in the general fact of the resurrection, and also in its particular application to the case of her brother. "I know that he shall rise again in the resurrection at the last day." But our Lord leads her farther than this. He draws her from the fact of a resurrection to Himself, the Resurrection- from a doctrine to a Person.

Jesus told her, "I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die like everyone else, will live again. They are given eternal life for believing in me and will never perish. Do you believe this, Martha?" John 11:25-26 In other words- "I am essentially the Resurrection and the Life. I, by my own divine power, can raise your brother when and how I please. I hold in my hands the keys of hell (Hades) and of death, and by a word can recall the spirit and rekindle the dust." And then follows the glorious confession of her faith- "Yes, Lord," she told him. "I have always believed you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one who has come into the world from God." John 11:27

It is a glorious truth that the power by which the dead are raised belongs to Christ! That He will occupy a prominent place in the resurrection at the last day is evident from His own testimony. "Verily, verily I say unto you, the hour is coming, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God: and those who hear shall live." "No man can come to me, except the Father, who has sent me, draws him: and I will raise him up at the last day." Thrice these words are repeated in the course of this chapter- "I will raise him up at the last day." In this sense our Lord is emphatically the "Resurrection and the life." In that great day when the Lord shall descend from heaven, and the trumpet of the archangel shall sound, the divine power of Jesus will light up the dust of all the buried dead with life and immortality- some to honor and some to dishonor. "The dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear shall live."

Oh, sinner, if you do not hear the voice now uttered in tones of mercy and speaking words of salvation and of love, you will hear it then in tones of anger and speaking words of woe. You may now be as the deaf adder, wilfully closing your ears to the voice of the charmer, but the day is coming when you will, you must, you shall, hear the voice of Him who is the Resurrection and the Life, piercing the "dull, cold ear of death," reverberating through the silent mansions of the grave, quickening you with resurrection-life, and summoning you to the final and dread judgment. Oh, listen to the voice of Jesus! Turn not from it- it is for your life. Bend close a hearkening ear; fall low at His feet; hang intently upon His lips; catch every word of grace that proceeds out of His mouth, for "now is the accepted time, now is the day of salvation." Oh, Lamb of God! let me hear Your voice of love and mercy now that, when I hear Your resurrection-voice at the last day, exclaiming, "Arise, you dead, and come to judgment!" I may then recognize it as the same almighty voice that roused me from a death of sin and quickened me into a life of righteousness; that said unto me, "Live," and henceforth I lived to You.

But Christ, by His own resurrection, has ESTABLISHED HIS DIVINE AND EXCLUSIVE CLAIM TO THE TITLE He now wears as the "Resurrection and the Life." This fact in His history and this doctrine of our faith constitutes the central principle of both. It is a self-evident truth that had He not risen from the dead, all His pretensions to Messiahship, all His claims to be the Son of God and the Savior of sinners, must have fallen to the ground; and in that fall must have perished the salvation of the Church and the hope of the sinner. But no such event awaited Christ, and no such catastrophe awaits man. He arose from the dead exactly as types foreshadowed, and as prophets predicted, as He Himself promised, and as evangelists and apostles testified and preached, and He was thus "declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the Spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead." Were it our present object to meet the cavil of the infidel, rather than confirm the faith and comfort the heart of the Christian, nothing were easier than to demonstrate, on Scripture grounds, the truth of Christ's resurrection; thus establishing His claim to the sublime title these pages assign to Him. The facts in His case were indisputable. He was brought before the tribunal of Pilate, He was tried, was sentenced to death, was crucified, was taken down from the cross, was laid in a new sepulcher, a stone was rolled against the door, it was sealed, and a watch set over it of Roman soldiers, to whom it was certain death had they slept. The victory of His foes seemed now certain and complete. But vain were their precautions, and still more vain their momentary triumph! A messenger from heaven, "his clothing white as snow, and his countenance like lightning," came and rolled back the stone from the door, and the Son of God rose triumphant! And when the holy women came in the gray twilight of morning to the tomb, lo! they were challenged by the inquiry, "Why do you seek the living among the dead? He is not here, He has risen. Come, see the place where the Lord lay." And then, to meet all credulity and to set at rest all doubt, He appeared in His risen body among the twelve apostles as they were assembled in an upper room, exhibited the scars of His wounds, and with His own lips assured those who it was even He Himself, and said unto them, "Thus it is written, and thus it behooved Christ to suffer, and to rise from the dead the third day; and that repentance should be preached in His name among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. And you are witnesses of these things." And thus instructed and confirmed, the apostles went forth preaching everywhere, "and with great power gave witness of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus and great grace was upon them all."

Now, what are some of the BLESSINGS which specially accrue to us from the fact of Christ's resurrection? The reply to this question will conclude this chapter, with an experimental and practical application of our subject. We have already presented as one illustration of this magnificent title of our Lord, the light which it throws upon the great and sublime fact of our eternal future. In His resurrection from the dead we have shown that Christ has emphatically "brought life and immortality to light." Until the bars of His prison were unloosed, and the door of His sepulcher was thrown open, a dense and impervious haze enveloped the doctrine of a future state. The Pentateuch, it is true, threw some rays of light upon the dark cloud; they were, however, but faint and few. The heathen, also, were not without some dim conceptions of the existence of a future state of the soul, as their pagan idea of Tartarus as a place of torment, and of Elysium as one of happiness testifies. But it was reserved for the Resurrection of Christ fully to uplift the veil and bring to light the glorious fact which would at once set at rest all doubt and dissipate all speculation, supplying scepticism with its fullest answer, and Christianity with its richest triumph. Blessed Redeemer! You did come from heaven, Your robes streaming with glory, that in its light we might see light upon our mysterious and endless future. Thanks be unto You for so emptying and irradiating Your grave that through it we might look into eternity, and behold the "kingdom of heaven opened to all believers." By Your impurpled cross we travel to Your tomb, and through Your tomb we follow You to Your glory; and, bathed in its ineffable effulgence, we take our place in the heavenlies, the risen members exalted with their enthroned Head, "far above all principality and power, and might and dominion." Thus we pass through the vestibule of Christ's empty grave into heaven itself, where He, our risen and glorified Redeemer, now is.

Another essential blessing resulting from Christ's resurrection is the spiritual life which it confers upon all believers. Had our Lord continued a prisoner of the grave- a dead Christ still- there had been no spiritual life. The true life of the Church springs from the resurrection life of her Lord. Mystically one with Him, we share each stage He traveled in working out our salvation. We have "fellowship with Christ in His sufferings," we are "dead with Christ," we are "risen with Christ," and we ascend with Christ into heaven, and we shall come with Him in His glory, and shall reign with Him in the New Jerusalem forever and ever. Thus, in its fullest and most emphatic sense, "Christ is our life." "I have come," He says, "that you might have life, and that you might have it more abundantly." We have spiritual life from Christ as He is Essential Life, but we have a more abundant supply of this precious blessing when we more fully know "the power of His resurrection." Oh, there is a spiritual power in the resurrection of Christ which His Church, in union with Himself, feels throughout the entire body, the extremest and lowliest member pulsating with its divine and deathless vitality. It raises the believing soul from a death of sin, out of a grave of corruption, and above a hell of condemnation. The saints went to the cross of Christ when He was "delivered for our offences," and they passed through the grave of Christ when He "rose again for our justification." How blessedly the apostles experienced the power of Christ's resurrection! Listen to the testimony of the chief of them- "I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ lives in me." Again, "Always bearing about in our body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body." They bore about with them the dying of the Lord Jesus in the persecutions and losses, in the sufferings and death which they endured for His sake; but the life also of Jesus was made manifest in their mortal flesh in the vitality and strength, the succouring and sympathy which, flowing from a risen, living Savior, enabled them to endure this daily dying for Christ, sustained by the daily life of Christ. The grand evidence to them that Christ was alive was the support and consolation they experienced in the service and suffering for Christ. There was a daily dying, and yet a daily living- both bound up in Christ. He had told them on the one hand, and He tells us, "You shall be hated by all men for my name's sake;" and He told them on the other, "Because I live, you shall live also." All this transpired in their experience. They were persecuted, as He predicted; and they were comforted, as He promised. They died daily, and daily they lived through the manifestation of Christ's life in their mortal body.

Nor were they alone in this experience. In a measure it is substantially ours. We bear about the dying of the Lord Jesus when we mortify the flesh, crucify the world, endure hardness, pass through trial, and suffer persecution; and we bear about the life also of Jesus in His power keeping us, in His grace sustaining us, in His sympathy soothing us, in His love animating us. The "great tribulation" is to come, times of fiery persecution are at hand, when the followers and confessors of Christ will find the words of one of the earliest and noblest Christian martyrs more expressive of their experience than in these easy and silken days of religious profession- "We who live are aways delivered unto death for Jesus' sake, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our mortal flesh." But before those days of physical persecution and trial come, is there no spiritual dying with, and living by Christ? Most assuredly there is! Oh, it is a blessed death the believer daily dies! There may not be the shattered earthly tabernacle, the "marks of the Lord Jesus " in our wounded and mutilated forms, nevertheless, there is a moral and spiritual crucifixion of the flesh in its affections and lusts, the body offered up as a living sacrifice unto God on the altar of a holy obedience. There is the crucifixion of the old man with Christ, that the body of sin might be destroyed, even when the sword is not drawn, and the faggots are not kindled, and the cross is not reared- that deadly apparatus of torture and suffering so familiar in the history of the "noble army of martyrs."

What is your daily history, beloved, but a daily and a living testimony to the truth that Christ is risen and is alive? How is it that you are borne through a single day of your earthly history? And when you rise in the morning, and think of what you have to pass through in that one day, and when at night you place your head upon the pillow and reflect how God carried you through it, what a witness you are to the power of Christ's risen life! You tried Him in that trial, you proved Him in that necessity, you looked up to Him in that difficulty, you fled to Him in that temptation, you trusted Him with that burden, and you never found in a single particular His promise falsified, "Lo! I am with you aways." He showed you your emptiness, taught you your nothingness, impressed upon you the sentence of death that you should not trust in yourself; and when He had thus reduced your strength, humbled you in your own eyes, emptying you from vessel to vessel, He then put forth His all-sustaining, all-comforting, all-shielding life in your soul; and so you had the most conclusive and convincing of all evidences that Christ was risen and alive, and that He lived to succour, shield, and comfort His saints, serving and suffering for Him here below.

How wonderful, too, is the "power of Christ's resurrection " in the spiritual elevation it imparts to the believing soul. The life of the believer is a resurrection-life; it is the resurrection-life of Christ. And if we are partakers of Christ's risen life, we share also its earth-receding and its heaven-attracting power. Thus exhorts the apostle, "If you then are risen with Christ, seek these things which are above, where Christ sits on the right hand of God. Set your affections on things above, and not on things on the earth. For you are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God." Are we manifesting the power of the risen life of Christ in an unearthly, heavenly life? When Christ rose from the grave, He rose above earth, above corruption, above the world, and ascended up into the heavenlies. If, then, we have union with Christ in His resurrection, we are seeking after

heavenly things, are cultivating a heavenly mind, are transferring our affections from things below to things above, are even now sitting with Christ at the right hand of God! What a high and heavenly calling is ours! Oh, to know more of Christ and the power of His resurrection! Oh, for more of the sanctifying; elevating life of Jesus in our souls! We would then rise, where we now grovel; ascend, where we now droop; fly, where we now walk. The world will lose its charm, the creature its power, the flesh its thraldom, and we shall feel that we have left death behind us and a grave beneath us, while we "press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus."

Remember, oh believer, that yours is a risen life, emerging from a new tomb into a new and higher region of purity, thought, and love. Debase it not. Beware of unholy alliances, of worldly conformity, of sin's contamination, of the "garment spotted by the flesh." Never forget that you are risen with Christ, are one with Him in His new and resurrection-life. Let your daily walk be a daily resurrection- a perpetual renewal of your spiritual and heavenly calling. You will confront trial and temptation, conflict and toil; but, realizing the power of Christ's resurrection in your soul, you will be so energized and stimulated as to rise superior to the things that are seen and temporal, in wrapped communion with the things that are unseen and eternal. Oh, to what a high, holy elevation will you attain in constant fellowship with the living Savior! Emerging from the dust that entombs, and throwing off the grave-clothes that bind, you will move in an inner spiritual world, breathe a higher life, and hold fellowship with beings of another and holier sphere.

But where is Christ? Alas! how we seek the living among the dead! Like the holy women of old, we are searching for a dead Christ in the grave, forgetting that He who is all our salvation and all our desire, and whom we often seek in tears, is not here, but is RISEN and ascended up on high, and is at the right hand of God, making intercession for us. What, then, is the lesson the Lord would teach us by this? Even the lesson of dealing less with His grave and more with His throne; looking up rather than looking down. We are not to seek life where there is only death. Never shall we find spiritual quickening from lifeless doings, duties, and ceremonies. This is seeking the living among the dead. Our spiritual life is in and from a risen Savior; and in proportion as we get the power of His resurrection in our souls, and live a life of daily faith upon a living, interceding, ever-present Christ, we shall live the higher life of a soul that lives for God in all the minutiae of daily life, living to Him in little as in great things, so that, whether we eat or drink, or whatever we do, we do all to His glory!

Child of sorrow! take your sorrows and afflictions to a living Christ. He is alive to all your troubles, griefs, and needs. He lives to succour you with His grace, to strengthen you with His might, to soothe you with His sympathy, to comfort you with His love, and to bear you on His interceding heart moment by moment. You are bereaved! Death has shaded your home, and has broken its strongest and most beautiful staff. The grave entombs your heart's treasure, and with it your loving heart. But what if earthly friends are gone, and life's joys are fled; Jesus lives! and one glance of His loving eye, one word of His gentle voice, one touch of His living hand, will raise you superior to your deepest sorrow, and will more than compensate you for your greatest loss.

When I saw him, I fell at his feet as dead. But he laid his right hand on me and said, "Don't be afraid! I am the First and the Last. I am the living one who died. Look, I am alive forever and ever! And I hold the keys of death and the grave." Only realize what a Treasure, and Portion, and Friend you have in Christ- in Christ ascended- in Christ alive- in Christ making intercession for you- and your widowed heart will again sing, and your orphan spirit will yet rejoice, and life's landscape will yet throw off its wintry dress, and once more quicken into life, and bloom into beauty, and burst forth into song, and this will be its anthem- "He has done all things well!"

Christ is the "Resurrection and the Life" of all who sleep in Him. "But the fact is that Christ has been raised from the dead. He has become the first of a great harvest of those who will be raised to life again." Need we explain this expression? At the time of harvest the Jews were required to bring a single sheaf, first threshed in the outer court, and then taken by the priest, waved in the four winds of heaven, and presented before the Lord as the first-fruits of the harvest, now to be sickled and gathered in. Thus, "Christ has been raised from the dead. He has become the first of a great harvest of those who will be raised to life again." He is a pledge and earnest of a like glorious resurrection of all those who sleep in Him. If, therefore, we deny the resurrection of Christ, we must deny the resurrection of the saints. Listen to the sublime argument of the apostles,

"For if there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ has not been raised either. And if Christ was not raised, then all our preaching is useless, and your trust in God is useless. And we apostles would all be lying about God, for we have said that God raised Christ from the grave, but that can't be true if there is no resurrection of the dead. If there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ has not been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, then your faith is useless, and you are still under condemnation for your sins. In that case, all who have died believing in Christ have perished! And if we have hope in Christ only for this life, we are the most miserable people in the world.

But the fact is that Christ has been raised from the dead. He has become the first of a great harvest of those who will be raised to life again." 1 Cor. 15:13-20

Oh, what a halo surrounds the grave of a sleeping saint! It is the halo of Christian hope, the day-dawn of the "first resurrection." "On the cold cheek of death smiles and roses are blending, And beauty immortal awakes from the tomb!"

They may have died in distant climates- no friend to wipe the cold dew from their brow, answer their last look of love, or receive their last confession of faith, and then close their eyes in death. Their sacred ashes may repose in foreign soil, or beneath the rolling surges of the deep- no mound or stone to tell where. But, He upon whose tomb angels sat and watched, Himself sits upon and watches theirs- the Resurrection and the Life.

"The mourners came at break of day,
Unto the garden sepulcher,
With saddened hearts to weep and pray,
For Him, the loved One, buried there.
What radiant light dispels the gloom?
An angel sits upon the tomb.

"Then mourn we not, beloved dead,
Even while we weep and pray,
The happy spirit has but fled
To brighter realms of heavenly day.
Immortal hope dispels the gloom,
For Jesus sits upon the tomb."

The comforting apostle says, "And now, brothers and sisters, I want you to know what will happen to the Christians who have died so you will not be full of sorrow like people who have no hope. For since we believe that Jesus died and was raised to life again, we also believe that when Jesus comes, God will bring back with Jesus all the Christians who have died." "The Lord Himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the Archangel, and with the trump of God; and the dead in Christ shall rise first." Oh yes! the "Resurrection and the Life" was with them in their departing hour, and still He watches their sleeping dust, a ruined temple of the Holy Spirit, and precious in His sight; and when He comes in person, and in great glory, with all His saints with Him, then at His voice the sea shall give up its holy dead, and death and Hades the holy dead that are in them, and so those who sleep in Him shall rise first. "Blessed and holy are those who have part in the first resurrection; on them the second death has no power." And then, when this "corruption shall put on incorruption, and this mortal shall put on immortality," from the sunny plains of India, from the lonely glens of Africa, from the distant wilds of China, from Asia's blood-stained heights, from every spot consecrated by the ashes of the holy dead, will ascend the shout, "O death! where is your sting? O grave! where is your victory?" What a divine religion is Christ's!- what a sublime hope is the Christian's! With such a religion, and such a hope, who would not be the lowliest believer in Jesus?

What will be your resurrection, unconverted reader? There will be but two- the first is the "resurrection unto life;" the second, the "resurrection unto damnation." "Those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt." Fall down at His feet, penitent and believing, and let your prayer be, "O Lord, raise me by Your Spirit from a death of sin into a life of righteousness; that at Your second coming to judge the living and the dead, I may be found numbered among those who shall have their part in the First Resurrection, upon whom the Second Death shall have no power. "I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die like everyone else, will live again." John 11:25

Christ, Our Righteousness

"Behold, the days come, says the Lord, that I will raise unto David a righteous Branch, and a King shall reign and prosper, and shall execute judgment and justice in the earth. In his days Judah shall be saved, and Israel shall dwell safely: and this is his name whereby he shall be called, the Lord Our Righteousness." Jeremiah 23:5-6

"For the time is coming," says the Lord, "when I will place a righteous Branch on King David's throne. He will be a King who rules with wisdom. He will do what is just and right throughout the land. And this is his name: 'The Lord Is Our Righteousness.' In that day Judah will be saved, and Israel will live in safety." Jeremiah 23:5-6

There is but one being to whom this remarkable prophecy can properly apply. But one has ever appeared on the earth to fulfil it. And if no other ever appears, then it strictly follows that either that one is He, or else this prophecy shall never be fulfilled. We address this argument, in the outset of our present exposition, with confidence to the intelligent Jew, to the candid Gentile, and to all who believe prophecy to be the Word of God; and, as such, must sooner or later be literally and inevitably fulfilled. All the expressions of this prophecy refer to Christ, the Messiah. In Him and by Him it has received its full, personal accomplishment; and by no torture of criticism, ingenuity of argument, or sophistry of reasoning can it be properly interpreted of any other than Jesus of Nazareth. Let us group and examine briefly the several points in the description.

He was to be of the lineage of David. This was literally so. Christ was born of a virgin, "of the house and lineage of David." He was to be righteous. To Christ this particular exactly and exclusively applies. He was holy, the holy One; "He did no sin, neither was deceit found in His mouth." He was "holy, harmless, undefiled, and separate from sinners;" and when tried by Satan- who, had there been anything in Christ congenial to his nature, would have discovered and proclaimed it- he found nothing in Him. He was to be "a King" This also belonged to Christ. He was "king of the Jews." He disguised but never ignored His regal character. When interrogated by Pontius Pilate, "Are you a king, then?" He affirmatively replied, "You say that I am a king. To this end was I born- and for this end came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth." Deny the kingship of Christ in His own proper person, and you render ambiguous and unintelligible a great portion of the New Testament writings. It is predicted in this prophecy that He should "reign and prosper." Spiritually this was fulfilled in Christ when upon earth; but there awaits a literal and universal fulfilment, when He shall come in the glory of His kingdom, and take to Him His great power and reign. He now reigns on the throne with His Father, and will so reign until His enemies be made His footstool.

It is said that He should "prosper." This He does in the progress of His truth and in the extension of His kingdom, going forth by His Spirit with the gospel conquering and to conquer; in subduing His enemies and calling in His saints, the pleasure of the Lord prospers in His hands. Moreover, He was to "execute justice and judgment on the earth." This He did in the administration of His laws, and in defending His people from their enemies, and in "rendering unto Caesar the things that were Caesar's, and unto God the things that were God's." In His reign it is predicted that "Judah shall be saved, and Israel shall dwell safely." So shall it be with all the elect of God. All shall believe in and confess Him. They shall be saved from the guilt and power of their sins; from the law, its curse and condemnation; from all their enemies, and from the wrath which is to come. And beneath this victorious standard, and surrounded by Him as with a wall of fire, His Church shall dwell safely, the gates of hell unable to prevail against it.

In view of this spiritual and literal exposition of these several particulars of the prophecy, I again confidently challenge- Has any individual ever lived, either before or since the days of Christ, in this or in any land, other than Christ Himself, to whom this description could apply; or, applying it to whom, would not be absolute and unmitigated blasphemy! But we are now conducted in the course of our rapid examination to the very gist of the whole passage- the title which it

ascribes to Christ. "And this is the name by which He shall be called, the Lord Our Righteousness." In endeavoring to open up this title of our Lord, we shall show in what sense Christ is our righteousness- how His righteousness becomes ours- and then the blessings which flow from its possession.

IN WHAT SENSE CHRIST IS OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS- This title of our Lord at once points to His essential dignity as God. The construction is remarkable. The prophet does not designate Him as the righteous One, using the concrete, but righteousness itself, using the abstract term. Thus God is said not to be loving, but love- the abstract form in both texts is thus employed to show that these perfections- righteousness and love- are essentially and absolutely God's. Would it not be a fraudulent invasion of the divine dignity, a robbing God of His honor, to have denominated a mere creature, were he the holiest and purest even of the species, abstract and essential righteousness? Could this title be grounded in anything but essential Deity? A mere creature may be righteous through the possession of a righteousness imputed, a righteousness imparted, a righteousness given.

Every act of human obedience must necessarily partake of the moral taint of the being by whom it is offered. Just as under the law the touch of the leper rendered ceremonially unclean the person or the thing he came in contact with, so everything to which sinful man puts his hand must partake of the taint of his sinful and corrupt nature. As water cannot rise above its level, so no nation can rise above its religion, no individual can rise above his nature, and no act can rise above its motive. The moral leprosy sin, of which all by nature are partakers, inoculates with its virus, and taints with its malaria all our religious doings- thus corrupting and neutralizing every attempt of man to render obedience and honor to the commandments and precepts of God's holy law. It follows from this that, seeing the sinner can only be saved on the footing of a law obeyed in every enactment, kept in every precept, magnified and honored in the dignity of its character and in the holiness of its nature, it must be by another obedience and infinitely beyond his own. This train of thought conducts us to the truth we seek to establish.

The divine dignity and personal holiness of Christ provided all the moral fitness and qualification which the case demanded. As the sinner could only stand with divine acceptance in a Divine righteousness, the "Lord our righteousness" fully met the case. Hence the strong language of God's Word. "The Righteousness of God, which is by faith of Jesus Christ, unto all and upon all those who believe." And again, "He has made Him to be sin for us, who knew no sin, that we might be made the Righteousness of God in Him." Magnificent truth! precious announcement! The believing sinner stands before God in the righteousness of God Himself! He is as righteous- not essentially so, but legally- as God is righteous. If he is "made the righteousness of God in Christ," this must emphatically be so. And since no other righteousness could justify him before God, this must unquestionably be so. To what dignity does this righteousness raise the believer here, and to what super-angelic glory will it raise him hereafter? In your righteousness shall they be exalted."

The justified sinner therefore stands the closest to God of any created being in the universe. Nearer to the throne of the Eternal he cannot stand. What marvellous love! Who will dare assert that salvation is not, from first to last, of free, discriminating grace! Let your eye pierce the veil that falls between earth and heaven. Behold that shining, warbling being, standing so near to the throne of glory, bathed in the overpowering effulgence of its rays. Who is he? He was once a sinner upon earth, the vilest of his race, the dishonored of his generation, forsaken by man and abhorred of God. But Jesus met him, and divine love drew him, and sovereign grace rescued, pardoned, and saved him. And now washed from all his guilt by the blood, freed from all condemnation by the righteousness of Christ, he stands before the throne "without fault," a "king and a priest unto God." Such is the great love of Jesus! "He raises the poor from the dust and lifts the needy from the ash heap; he seats them with princes and has them inherit a throne of honor." And all this grace, and all this glory, and all this bliss flows from the "Lord our righteousness."

Reader, here let me pause and once more remind you of a truth essential to your everlasting well-being. Nothing short of the righteousness of Jehovah Himself can free you from endless condemnation. You must appear before God- if you stand with acceptance- in a divine righteousness. You must, if saved, be saved upon the footing of a law every requirement of which has been met. Its demands are holy, its restrictions are inexorable. It exacts full submission, insists upon perfect holiness, enters beneath the surface, penetrates every cell of the mind, and grapples with every fibre of the heart; it analyses every volition of the will, sifts every desire of the soul, and weighs in its unerring scale every motive and every action of the man. In a word, it is "the candle of the Lord, searching all the innermost parts of the belly." "Wherefore the law is holy, and the commandment holy, just, and good." It is on these stern and inflexible grounds that the law is so fearfully terrible to all offenders- and all are so. To look, then, for salvation by the works of the law, it were better to meet the lion rushing wild and hungry from his lair, than thus to expect "help from this destroyer, which rends the center of the heart" in pieces, and from whom none can rescue us. The law is the "minister of death" to every transgressor, and opens the gates of hell to all impenitent and unbelieving sinners! We have adverted to its inflexible rule. Nothing can abate, nothing soften, nothing arrest it. It sifts every motive, shakes every confidence, storms every citadel, and breaks up every hope not founded upon the Rock of Ages- the Lord our Righteousness. It meets the sinner like "a lion by the way and slays him." As says the apostle, "sin revived, and I died."

Confronted thus by God's holy law, the momentous question is raised- "How can man be just (or justified) with God?" "Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean?" The gospel alone can supply the answer, and that answer is contained in the significant and impressive title of Christ- "His name shall be called, the Lord Our Righteousness." And now we pass from the region of sin, death, and hell, into that of

holiness, life, and heaven; standing, as it were, amid the splendor of the "great white throne," with the "rainbow round about it," the emblem and the pledge that, for us there is no condemnation," since we stand before God in "the Lord our righteousness." We are thus conducted to the question-

IN WHAT WAY DOES CHRIST BECOME THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF HIS PEOPLE? How are we to understand that the righteousness of one individual becomes in reality the righteousness of another, yes, of countless myriads of beings? The reply to these questions will bring us to the practical issues of this great subject.

In the first place, Christ becomes our righteousness by personal substitution. This was the first step in the wonderful process, and must be kept prominently before us. The law of substitution is fully recognized in the affairs of men. It is shadowed forth in various instances recorded in the Scriptures of truth. We remind the reader of Reuben becoming surety to his father for Benjamin; and of the apostle Paul discharging a like obligation to Philemon on behalf of Onesimus. In this sense, yet infinitely higher, the Son-Surety, stood in your place, did all, and endured all, and paid all for you. By a substitutionary act He made your sins His sins, your obedience His obedience, your curse His curse, your debt His debt- He took it all upon Himself, His Father accepting and sealing His suretyship by raising Him from the dead. "Who was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our, justification." Oh, love and admire, serve and glorify this precious Savior, who has so freely, so willingly, so fully done all this for you. You cannot love Him too intensely, nor serve Him too self-denyingly, nor exalt Him too highly; who threw Himself in the breach and exclaimed, "Father, lay all their sins and transgressions upon me. Charge their debt to my account. Upon me let their punishment fall. Let my life be for their life, my death for their death, my condemnation for their condemnation, my heaven for their hell!"

Christ becomes our righteousness by His personal obedience. Not less clear are the Scriptures of truth touching this essential doctrine of our salvation. Thus we read, "By the obedience of One shall many be made righteous." Who is this "One" of whom the apostle speaks, but the "Lord our righteousness?" But, you ask, how could the Law-giver become the Law-fulfiller? We again answer in the language of God's Word- "When the fulness of time was come, God sent forth His Son made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons." Could any answer be more explicit? It tells us that, in assuming our humanity, the Son of God necessarily became submissive to the law, since He took upon Him a nature born under its obligation and exposed to its penalty. As man, therefore, He was as much under the law, and was as personally and as strictly bound to obey the law, and in default of obedience as much exposed to its penalty, as any individual of the human race. Keeping in view the doctrine we have just insisted upon- the substitution of Christ for us- we shall experience no difficulty in understanding, still less in receiving, the doctrine of Christ's personal obedience to the precepts of the law in our stead. It follows that creature-merit, or man's own righteousness, can avail nothing in the great matter of his justification. Jehovah must keep, Jehovah must honor, Jehovah must magnify His own law, if, on the basis of a law inviolate, a law upheld and preserved in its most stringent precept, the sinner is saved. Rob Christ of His divinity, and you rob His obedience of its efficacy, and the sinner of his hope.

We learn from this part of our subject, the utter inadequacy of a human righteousness to justify the sinner before God. If it required the merit of Deity, if no other than Jehovah Himself could supply an obedience to the law man had broken, on the ground of which God could, with honor to Himself, justify the guilty, then the inference is as strictly logical as the fact is tremendously solemn that, in the language of Scripture, "By the works of the law shall no flesh be justified." Again, "As many as are of the works of the law are under the curse; for it is written, Cursed is every one that continues not in all things which are written in

the book of the law to do them." What a fatal blow do these words aim at the Babel of self-righteousness which multitudes are raising up, from the summit of which they vainly hope to leap into heaven! "Under the curse!" No repeal of its tremendous anathemas, no possible avenue of escape- while still under it- from its fiery and eternal condemnation! "Under the curse!" The very law you are striving to keep, cursing your every effort to keep it! The law cursing your soul, cursing your religion, cursing your duties, cursing your engagements- yes, turning your every blessing into a curse. This may be thought strong language, but the word of God justifies it. "As many as are of the works of the law are under the curse." What language could be stronger- what declaration more impressive? Oh that the Holy Spirit might use it to the rousing to a conviction of his state and danger every mere notionalist, every proud pharisee, every self-deceived professor, every soul dead in trespasses and sins, whose eye may light upon this page!

I have said there is no way of escape open to those who live and die in this condition. But to others whose eyes the Holy Spirit has opened to see their sin and danger, the righteousness of Christ provides a remedy. He was "made a curse for us," He was the "end of the law for righteousness to every one that believes," and so by His obedience and death, by His blood and righteousness, He emancipates us from the thraldom, cancels the curse, and delivers from the condemnation of the law, and thus we are "made the righteousness of God in Him."

What a "door of hope" is here set open to the soul, brought, after long and painful teaching, to despair of finding acceptance, pardon, and grace by its own works. Long and earnestly have you striven to work your way to heaven. Like the disciples on the sea, you have "toiled in rowing" against a contrary wind and a strong current, and are ready to give up all for lost. Like the poor diseased woman in the gospel, you are "nothing bettered, but rather grown worse." Oh, blessed extremity! Happy end of all hope springing from yourself! Your soul is now, if the expression may be used, ripe for Christ. You are just in the condition to accept Him, and He to accept you. You have reached that critical point in your spiritual history which decides your state for eternity. Like Paul's mariners, you are in danger of sinking; and like them, you are prepared to throw overboard everything that imperils your safety, exclaiming with the apostle on another occasion, and who doubtless recalled to mind his shipwreck when he wrote the words, "I once thought all these things were so very important, but now I consider them worthless because of what Christ has done. Yes, everything else is worthless when compared with the priceless gain of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. I have discarded everything else, counting it all as garbage, so that I may have Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ– the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith." And now having thus "lightened the ship," like the weary mariners, you "wish and wait for the dawn" of salvation. Lo! it is come! Jesus draws near and says to your soul, "I am your salvation without a work of your own. Look unto Me and be you saved; I am the Lord your righteousness. Only believe." What joyful tidings are these! Saved without a work of human merit! Saved just as you are! Saved by free and sovereign grace! Saved by simple, childlike faith in Christ! Saved forever! Hope now dawns upon your path, heaven smiles down upon your soul, and henceforth your Christian life on earth becomes a sweet and holy psalm.

HOW DOES THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF CHRIST BECOME OURS? The righteousness of Christ, by which we are alone justified, becomes ours by imputation. What is meant by imputation? The literal idea is, the imputation of anything to an individual which did not originally belong to him. Now our justification strikingly illustrates this. The instance of Abraham is the first we quote. "Abraham believed in the Lord, and it was counted unto him for righteousness." James, alluding to the same event, says, "Abraham's faith was imputed unto him for righteousness." Paul confirms this idea when he says, noticing the case of Abraham, "And it was not written for his sake alone, that it was imputed to him, but for us also, unto whom it shall be imputed if we believe." We are clearly taught in these passages that the justification of Abraham, the friend of God, the father of all those who believe, the mirror of Old Testament piety, resulted not from a personal righteousness, but from an imputed righteousness. And that the divine dealing with Abraham is an example of God's dealing with us, the apostle says, "To him that works not, but believes in Him that justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted unto him for righteousness." Thus, written as with a sunbeam, the glorious truth shines upon the sacred page, that when any child of Adam is justified it is by the imputation of a righteousness not his own- even the righteousness of Him who is emphatically called "The Lord our Righteousness."

The righteousness of Christ becomes ours by faith. This truth has already appeared in the course of our discussion. Faith is the divine and holy principle which places us in a justified state. "Being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ." "For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith– and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God– not by works, so that no one can boast." Tell me that I must purchase my pardon, must merit no justification, must come to the Savior with a price in my hand, and you extinguish the last ray of hope. If these be the terms upon which I am to be saved, then I am lost to all eternity! But, tell me that I have nothing to pay, that I may come to the waters of salvation, to the milk and honey of the gospel, "without money and without price," that, if I present myself at the door of Divine mercy, as Naaman "covered with leprosy," as Lazarus "full of sores," as the prodigal "clothed with rags," as Paul the "chief of sinners," as the malefactor on the cross turning his last and final look at Jesus, that I may come as a bankrupt debtor, as a self-destroyed sinner, then you pencil the hue of hope in its brightest hues upon the dark thunder-cloud draping my soul." Oh, do words more inspiring, does music so enchanting breathe through this world of sin and woe than the divine announcement of a freely-given salvation to the vilest child of Adam's fallen race? Truly may the inspired apostle write- "Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us." What are these words but a New Testament echo of an Old Testament voice- "Ho, every one that thirsts, come to the waters, and he that has no money: come, buy, and eat; yes, come, buy wine and milk without money, and without price."

Thus the voice of free grace, which strikes its key-note in paradise, rolls throughout the inspired Scriptures, waxing stronger and growing sweeter until it reached its heightened note in the last and closing echoes of the Apocalypse. "And the Spirit and the bride say, Come. And let him that hears say, Come. And let him that is athirst come. And whoever will, let him take the water of life freely." Come, then, my reader, just as you are, poor, penniless, naked, and receive in faith, and as the gratuitous bestowment of the God that justifies the ungodly, this divine and beauteous righteousness, "which is unto all and upon all those who believe." Are you a penitent prodigal, returning to your Father in rags and wretchedness and woe? Behold, He comes running to you.

Joy, too, is a fruit of justification. "I will greatly rejoice in the Lord, my soul shall be joyful in my God; for He has clothed me with the garments of salvation, He has covered me with the robe of righteousness." Oh, be joyful, you who stand in the Lord your righteousness! You maybe heavily afflicted, deeply tried, sorely tempted, yet, standing in righteousness of Christ you are exalted above the billows and clouds that gather around your pathway to heaven, eternal sunshine bathing all your glorious and endless future!

Then the hope of glory is the last blessing to which we refer. A present justification is the pledge of a future glorification. "Whom He justified, them He also glorified." Oh, how truly has Christ, the "Lord our righteousness," "opened the kingdom of heaven to all believers!"

When from the dust of death I rise,
To take my mansion in the skies,
Even then shall this be all my plea,
'Jesus has lived and died for me.'

"Bold shall I stand in that great day,
For who aught to my charge shall lay?
While through Your blood absolved I am
From sin's tremendous curse and shame."

Christ the Alpha and Omega

"I am Alpha and Omega, the first and the last." Rev. 1:11

"I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End." Rev. 22:13

What stately and impressive titles are these! Hitherto we have considered the names of our Lord as they came to us indirectly from the mouth of His inspired servants, the prophets, all of whom gave witness to Him. But we find ourselves now at the feet of Christ Himself, receiving from His own lips two of the most magnificent and instructive titles which He wears. "I am Alpha and Omega, the First and the Last." He who spoke these words is The Truth. Arrogating to Himself no false designation, assuming no distinction, and claiming no homage, that was not rightfully His own, we may safely, in the outset of our exposition, cherish the strongest faith in the veracity of His word, and open our hearts, as the flower to the sun, and receive the life-giving influence which these magnificent words are intended to impart.

The occasion on which they occurred illustrates their significance and heightens their grandeur. They were spoken to an honored disciple of Christ in deep trial. John, to whom they were originally addressed, was now in Patmos, for the word of God and for the testimony of Christ Jesus. He was in tribulation and exile. The blue waters of the Aegean Sea, as they washed the shores of his lonely island, chimed mournfully with the lonely sadness of his spirit. At this juncture Jesus drew near, and spoke to him words fraught with the tenderest love, made known to him revelations of the most sublime character, and unveiled to his eye visions of unsurpassed glory. All this was well calculated to instruct the mind, and to raise the spirit of the martyr superior to the malicious cruelty of Nero. It was on this occasion the words were uttered which we are about to consider. John, with his own peculiarly graphic and terse pen, thus narrates the remarkable scene: "I was in the Spirit on the Lord's day, and heard behind me a great voice, as of a trumpet, saying, I am Alpha and Omega, the first and the last." "And I turned to see the voice that spoke with me. And being turned, I saw seven golden candlesticks, and in the midst of the seven candlesticks one like unto the Son of man." We have no difficulty, then, in identifying Him who thus, speaking in a tone so authoritative, and in words so majestic and divine, exclaims, "I am Alpha and Omega, the first and the last." It is the Lord Jesus Christ. And how true the portrait which He here presents of Himself! His beloved Evangelist was now suffering tribulation for the word of God and for the testimony of Jesus Christ. Was He ignorant of, or indifferent to, the condition of His faithful servant? Far from it! That same Jesus who dwelt in the bush, and from the midst of its flames spoke to Moses and said, "I have surely seen the affliction of my people . . . . and I have come down to deliver them," knew the sorrows of His servant John, and came down to instruct, sustain, and comfort him with these sublime revelations, which he was commanded to write in a book. How much we learn here of the Lord's tender love towards His saints. Exiled they may be by and from man; never can they be from Jesus. They may be imprisoned, banished, fettered; they may be separated from their brethren, severed from the Church, removed far away from the saints and ordinances and privileges they love- yet there is Christ to strengthen their drooping faith, to revive their fainting spirit, and to sweeten and sanctify their solitude.

And how His manifested, gracious presence makes the prison ring with praises, irradiates the sick-room with brightness, and opens a door in heaven even amid the gloom and stillness of a desert island! We little surmise what thoughts of peace and purposes of mercy the Lord has in setting us so entirely apart from others. It is but to set us apart for Himself. From His presence we never can be banished, from His person we never can be separated. The time of our isolation and loneliness is the occasion when He draws near, and in the multitude of our thoughts within us His comforts delight our soul. "When my father and my mother forsake me, then the Lord will take me up." Especially are seasons of trial and persecution for His name and truth's sake occasions of His manifestation, sympathy, and love. The spiritual martyrdom of the Church still lives, even if the spirit of the martyr is "ready to die." The offence of the cross is not ceased. The great verities of our faith, the distinctive doctrines of grace, are still impugned, hated, and rejected by men of carnal reason and of corrupt hearts. The gospel is still an offence, and Christ is still despised and rejected of men. And they who conform to the simplicity of the gospel, preach it in its fulness, and live in its purity, shall suffer persecution. But let this thought solace and sustain you in all your trials, tribulations, and losses for the truth's sake- that, He who appeared to His suffering servant John in words of such touching tenderness and in visions of such resplendent glory, laying His right hand upon him and saying, "Fear not, I am the first and the last, I am He that lives, and was dead and buried, and am alive for evermore," will draw near and perfect His strength in your weakness, and prove His grace all-sufficient for your need.

But to return from this digression to the subject more immediately before us. Let us inquire IN WHAT POINTS OF VIEW THE LORD JESUS IS THE "ALPHA AND THE OMEGA, THE FIRST AND THE LAST." A few words will suffice to explain to the intelligent reader the literal meaning of these titles. It is well known that they are the first and the last letters of the Greek alphabet, denoting, properly, the first and the last. The Jews were wont to adopt this method of denoting a thing in its entirety. Thus, when they described Adam as transgressing the law, and Abraham as keeping it whole, it was their custom to say, they either broke or observed it from Aleph to Tau; that is, from the first to the last letter of the Hebrew alphabet. Interpreted in this light, these titles of our Lord possess a profound and comprehensive significance.

We have just entered upon a new period of time, and are yet standing within the solemn shadow of its vestibule. The misty twilight of its commencement enshrouds from our view all the future of the year, as we attempt to peer into its dark and mysterious unknown. How assuring, how soothing the truth these pages are about to unfold- Christ the Alpha and Omega, the First and the Last! Christ the beginning of the year, and Christ the end of the year. To commence the year aright is to commence it with a fresh act of faith in, and a renewed consecration of ourselves to, the Lord Jesus. Thus beginning the year with Christ, we shall close the year with Christ; and this beginning and closing with Christ involves the presence, and grace, and blessing of Christ all through its yet undeveloped history. (Written January 1)

These titles, in the first place, clearly define the essential Deity of our Lord. It would seem impossible for a candid, ingenuous mind to resist the conviction which the authority and majesty of these words convey of the divine dignity and superior nature of the Speaker. "I AM the First and the Last!" Could this be predicated of an inferior, that is, a mere created being, if language is at all designed to convey intelligent ideas? Impossible! When Jehovah would assert His divine greatness, He employs precisely this language, "Thus says the Lord the King of Israel, and his Redeemer the Lord of hosts: I am the first, and I am the last; and beside me there is no God." Again, "Listen to me, O family of Jacob, Israel my chosen one! I alone am God, the First and the Last." The obvious interpretation, then, of these titles would apply to the proper Deity of the Lord Jesus Christ. They set forth the glorious truth- a truth which we must ever maintain forms the basis of the Atonement, which in its turn constitutes the foundation of our hope- that the entire Godhead of Jehovah belongs to our Lord Jesus. He is the First of Deity- the Last of Deity, and so comprises the whole of Deity- "The Almighty," "God ever all, blessed for evermore." Knowing no beginning, He will know no ending; but is "from everlasting to everlasting," "Who is, and which was, and Who is to come, the Almighty." Such is the great fundamental doctrine of our Christian faith, such the teaching of the passage before us, and such must be the basis of our salvation and the groundwork of our hope. Receive it, my reader, with unquestioning and unquestionable belief. From first to last Jesus our Savior is God. "In Him dwelt all the fulness of the Godhead bodily."

The First and the Last. He includes in His person all the essential perfections, the divine attributes, the eternal, infinite, and boundless resources of Deity. What an exalted view does this give us of Him upon whom our hope of endless glory hangs! Truly is He a "nail fastened in a sure place," upon which is suspended the glory of God, the salvation of sinners, and the fulness of grace the saints need in their homeward travel. Upon this sure support let your faith rest. Here where God the Father has nailed your sins, and suspended the honor of His name and the glory of His moral government, let your soul hang, and you are safe for eternity. Jesus is divine enough, and strong enough, and has room enough to bear you up- vile, worthless, the chief of sinners though you may seem to yourself to be- and none that hang upon Him, that hope in Him, that wait for Him, shall be ashamed.

There, too, O child of God, bring all your burdens. Has God laid your sins upon His beloved Son? Then surely you may in confidence lay upon Him the cares and anxieties, the trials and the sorrows, the difficulties and needs of your pilgrim life- casting all your care upon Him, seeing that He cares for you. This is done in the exercise of a simple faith, and in the utterance of a child's prayer. No long journey to make, no elaborate petition to prepare, no self-readiness to effect; but approaching the mercy-seat, all sprinkled as it is with the peace-speaking, intercessory blood of Jesus, you may in one moment place your petition at the foot of the throne in heaven; and while you are yet speaking, and before you rise from pouring out your heart before God, the response will come, and your peace will flow like a river, and your righteousness as the waves of the sea.

Christ is the Alpha and Omega, the first and the last of the inspired Scriptures of truth. He is the sum and substance both of the law and the gospel. He is the one great theme both of the Old Testament and the New. The whole Bible is designed to testify of Christ, "Search (or, as the word means, 'excavate, dig into') the Scriptures, for in them you think you have (or in them you have) eternal life. These Scriptures point to Me." In Christ the Messiah, in Jesus the Savior, in the Son of God the Redeemer, all the truths of the Bible center; to Him all the types and shadows point; of Him all the prophecies give witness; while all the glory of the Scriptures, from Genesis to Revelation, culminates at the cross of Christ. The Bible would be an inexplicable mystery from first to last but for Christ, who unfolds and explains it all. He is the one, the golden Key which unlocks the divine arcade of revelation. Until He is seen, the Bible is, in a sense, a great Apochrypha; but when He is found, it is a glorious Apocalypse, every mystery opened, every enigma explained, every discrepancy harmonized, and every truth and page, sentence and word, quickened with a life and glowing with a light flowing down from the throne of the Eternal God.

Who, as he opens the 'typical' Scriptures, and reads of the applied blood of the Paschal Lamb, thinks not of the "blood of sprinkling," even the blood of "Christ our passover, sacrificed for us"? Who, as he beholds the scapegoat let go into the wilderness, thinks not of Christ "bearing our sins in His own body on the tree"? Who, as he studies the mystery of the "Tabernacle of Testimony in the wilderness"- its construction and its furniture: the showbread, the golden candlestick, the veil, the altar of burnt-offering, the pure olive oil, the laver, the incense-altar, the sacred fire, the priesthood, the holy garments- sees not the Lord Jesus as the significance, the beauty, and the glory of it all? When Jesus "spoke of the tabernacle of His body," He, as it were, pointed to Himself a s the "Tabernacle of Witness," all whose mysteries find their full explanation and deep meaning in Him, the true Tabernacle of the Church. Who can read of the manna falling from heaven around the camp, thus daily, amply, and freely supplying the needs of the whole host of Israelites, and not recall the words of Jesus, "I am the Bread of life. Your fathers ate manna in the wilderness, and died. This is that bread which comes down from heaven, that a man may eat thereof, and not die. I am the living Bread which came down from heaven: if a man eat of this bread he shall live forever." Who can read of the living bird dipped in the blood of the slain bird, and then set free, and not think of a risen, living Savior, bathed in His own blood upon the cross, and then rising from the grave, the hope and the resurrection of the Church, proclaiming to every humble, believing saint, "Because I live you shall live also"? And then, as we travel down the stream of prophecy, how sweet the music of the words which fall upon the ear as we float upon its silvery stream- "To Him give all the prophets witness." "The testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy." And, as we revel in the narratives of the evangelists, and unfold the epistles of the apostles, and close our research with the sublime Apocalypse of the apostle John, we read these titles of our Lord in a light which renders divinely luminous and savingly intelligible every word and syllable- "I am Alpha and Omega, the first and the last." Thus Christ is the sum and substance of the Scriptures. Speak we of the law? Christ fulfilled every precept, kept every command in behalf of His people, and thus He became the "end of the law for righteousness to every one that believes." Speak we of the gospel? Christ is the substance of the whole. All its divine doctrines, its holy precepts, its gracious instructions, its precious promises, its glorious hopes, meet, center, and fill up their entire compass in Jesus. He is the Alpha and the Omega of the Bible, from the first verse in Genesis to the last verse in Revelation. Oh, study the Scriptures of truth with a view of learning Christ. Do not study the Bible as a mere history; do not read it as a mere poem, do not search it as a book of science; it is all that, but infinitely more. The Bible is the Book of Jesus- it is a Revelation of Christ. Christ is the golden thread which runs through the whole. The law and the gospel are His divine, His living witnesses. They have been denied, maligned, and burned a thousand times over- but they live and witness for Him still! The Old Testament predicts the New, and the New fulfils the Old, and so both unite in testifying, "Truly, this is the Son of God!" Blessed Lord Jesus! I will read and study and dig into the Scriptures of truth to find and learn more of You! You, Immanuel, are the fragrance of this divine box of precious ointment. You are the beauteous gem sparkling in this divine cabinet. You are the Tree of life planted in the center of this divine garden. You are the Ocean whose stream quickens and nourishes all who draw water out of this divine well of salvation. The Bible is all about You.

"Now let my soul, eternal King,
To You its grateful tribute bring;
My knees with humble homage bow,
My tongue perform its solemn vow!

"All nature sings Your boundless love,
In worlds below and worlds above;
But in Your blessed Word I trace,
Diviner wonders of Your grace.

"There, what delightful truths I read!
There I behold a Savior bleed;
His name salutes my listening ear,
Revives my heart, and checks my fear.

"There Jesus bids my sorrow cease,
And gives my burdened conscience peace,
Raises my grateful passions high,
And points to mansions in the sky."

"For love like this, O let my song
Through endless years Your praise prolong!
And distant climes Your name adore,
Until time and nature are no more."

Christ is Alpha and Omega, the first and the last, of our salvation. In nothing do these titles of our Lord receive more striking and impressive illustration. This view of Jesus comes home to every spiritually awakened heart, to every divinely enlightened mind. The moment the Holy Spirit shows the sinner the dark plague-spot of his soul, he is at once brought to despair of doing anything of himself in the matter of his salvation. He sees the commandment to be infinitely holy and exceeding broad, extending to the least sin, sweeping through the mind with the rapidity, and almost with the scathing, of the lightning's flash. The idea of finding any meritorious goodness, any self-worthiness in himself, vanishes from his thoughts, and he takes his place by the side of the publican, smiting on his breast, and exclaiming, "God be merciful to me a sinner! " And seeing the deep-rooted evil of his nature, the desperate wickedness of his heart, the utter worthlessness of his own doings, the plague-smitten righteousness he had so fondly embraced, he throws himself at the feet of Jesus, his last, his final, his only refuge. And now, for the first time, he learns to spell, though with a stammering tongue, these wondrous, precious titles of Jesus, "I am Alpha and Omega, the first and the last."

Let us see, then, HOW THIS TRUTH MEETS OUR CASE.

Jesus is the first and the last in the pardon of sin. That there is forgiveness with God, forgiveness of the greatest sins, is one of the sweetest refrains in the music of the gospel. "Who is a God like unto you, who pardons iniquity, and passes by the transgression of the remnant of his heritage. He retains not His anger forever, because He delights in mercy." But Jesus is the sum and substance of this pardon. It comes alone through His wounded body, His pierced and bleeding heart. There is no forgiveness of sin, no guilt-cleansing, no conscience purifying, but through the atoning blood of Jesus. "Without the shedding of blood there is no remission." "The blood of Jesus Christ, His Son, cleanses us from all sin." To this blood, this blood alone, let me direct your eye, my sin-distressed, guilt-burdened reader. I ask not how many, nor hove deep a dye, your sins are. Enough that you feel, and are sensible of them; that you deplore, and mourn over them. I meet you with the blood, the blood that can wash your sin-tainted, guilt-oppressed soul whiter than snow. And how, you ask, am I to avail myself of this full and free pardon of sin? I answer, simply and only by believing in Jesus. Listen to the proof: "For God sent Jesus to take the punishment for our sins and to satisfy God's anger against us. We are made right with God when we believe that Jesus shed his blood, sacrificing his life for us." Oh, what precious words are these! "What!" you respond, "is there pardon for me?- is there forgiveness for one so vile as I?" Yes; through the blood of Jesus, there is a complete, a free, a present pardon- a pardon which no unworthiness shall ever cancel, which no ingratitude shall ever revoke. Believing this truth- experiencing the blood of atonement upon the conscience- how sincere and earnest will be your desire never to presume upon this irrevocable, ineffaceable forgiveness of a sin-hating, yet a sin-forgiving God, but will only, and all the more, draw from it your strongest obligation to deny all ungodliness and worldly lusts, and to live godly, righteously, and soberly in this evil world."

Christ is also the first and the last of our justification before God. As in our pardon, so in our justification, nothing of our own finds a place. Not a shred of our own doings is woven in the web of our righteousness. How luminously the apostle argues this truth! "For no one can ever be made right in God's sight by doing what his law commands. For the more we know God's law, the clearer it becomes that we aren't obeying it. But now God has shown us a different way of being right in his sight—not by obeying the law but by the way promised in the Scriptures long ago. We are made right in God's sight when we trust in Jesus Christ to take away our sins. And we all can be saved in this same way, no matter who we are or what we have done." Thus clear is it that, if we are ever justified, it must be by a righteousness entirely foreign to ourselves- by the righteousness of another. And who is He? Even Him who is entitled "The Lord our Righteousness." Of this justifying, this acquitting righteousness, this righteousness imputed to us who believe, and without a work of our own, Christ is the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last. It is all in His divine and full obedience to every precept of the law in our stead; so that every believing soul is "accepted in the Beloved," and is "complete in Him." The crowning of this great truth, is the declaration of the apostle- "For God made Christ, who never sinned, to be the offering for our sin, so that we could be made right with God through Christ." Behold the method of our justification!

Let a few words suffice to place this great, cardinal truth in a simple form, seeing there exists so much crudeness, darkness, and error, even among professedly gospel teachers and writers touching this essential truth. The sinner can only be saved on the footing of law- he cannot be illegally saved. But, man has broken the law of God, and in spirit he breaks it every day. Here is the remedy. "The Son of God was made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons." In our stead He kept every precept, obeyed every command, and by His divine obedience He "magnified the law, and made it honorable." Standing as our Surety, dying in our stead, His obedience becomes ours, and thus we are "made the righteousness of God in Him." Such is the simple statement of this doctrine of salvation. Beware of any and every other theory of justifying righteousness but this. If Christ is not our Law-fulfiller, we are lost to all eternity. Keep the law, I cannot myself; and yet I can only be justified by God on the footing of a perfect law, a law fulfilled and honored in its every precept. Where can I turn? to whom can I look? Lo! a voice from the sacred page breaks upon my ear: "As by one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous." O heart-reviving, hope-inspiring words! Now I have found an obedience that compasses the law, and invests it with a new and surpassing luster, even the obedience of Christ- the Lawgiver becoming, as my Representative, the Law-fulfiller; and now I stand before God on the footing of the righteousness of the law, upheld, honored, and magnified by the obedience of Him who is the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last of my non-condemnation, and of my eternal standing with acceptance before the holy Lord God.

"No more, my God; I boast no more
Of all the duties I have done;
I quit the hopes I held before,
To trust the merits of Your Son.

"Now, for the love I bear His name,
What was my gain I count my loss
My former pride I call my shame,
And nail my glory to His cross.

"Yes, and I must and will esteem
All things but loss for Jesus' sake;
O may my soul be found in Him,
And of His righteousness partake."

"The best obedience of my hands
Dare not appear before Your throne;
But faith can answer Your demands,
BY pleading what my Lord has done."

Sincerely, my reader, would I shut you up to this one truth- Christ, the first and the last of your salvation; and, as Romaine quaintly expresses it, "and all that comes between." In a word, Christ the whole- the whole of our obedience to the law, the whole of our satisfaction to justice, the whole of our merit before God. Christ, the first and the last, and all that intervenes, of our personal, present, and eternal salvation; in a word, "Christ all and in all." Christ our only Priest, atoning for us. Christ our only Prophet, teaching us. Christ our only King, subjugating our entire will, conscience, and heart, yes, our whole being, to His own possession and supreme control.

The subject thus partially discussed is eminently COMFORTING AND PRACTICAL.

Let Christ be to us the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last of all created beings. As He stands at the head of creation, "the first-born of every creature," and in His Church "the first-born among many brethren," "that in all things He might have the pre-eminence," so let Him be the first and the last in our love, in our choice, and in our service. We need be jealous and watchful here. There are many beings and objects that compete for our heart. The world struggles for the supremacy; the creature strives for the ascendancy; sin in some of its endless forms would dethrone Him from our affections- but to none of these rivals must we give place, no, not for a moment. These glorious titles of Christ must be engraved by the pen of the Holy Spirit upon our whole being. "I am Alpha and Omega, and must be the first and the last of your whole soul. You are mine by the gift of my Father, by the purchase of my death, by the power of my resurrection, by the conquest of my grace, by the indwelling of my Spirit, by your own voluntary, solemn, and irrevocable surrender and consecration to my glory." Then, Lord, I am, and will be, Yours wholly, Yours only, forever and forever Yours.

"It is done, the great transaction's done,
I am my Lord's, and He is mine;
He drew me, and I followed on,
Charmed to confess the voice divine.
"High Heaven, that heard the solemn vow,
That vow renewed shall daily hear;
Fill in life's latest hour I bow,
And bless in death a bond so dear."

In the discipline of trial through which God may lead you, let your eye be intently fixed upon Christ as the first and the last in this part of your spiritual training for heaven. Christ is the Alpha and the Omega of all our afflictions. With Him they begin, with Him, and in Him, and to Him they will end. He begins our discipline of sorrow in infinite wisdom, righteousness, and love; and so great a blessing will His sanctifying grace make it to us, that it shall end in His own eternal glory and praise. Oh to see Jesus in the first gush of our grief, in the first shading of our cloud, in the first taste of the cup our Father gives us to drink. He but designs by the trial our closer acquaintance with Himself, and our more perfect assimilation to His image. Think not, O afflicted one! that some strange and condemning thing has happened to you; that God is angry, that Christ is withdrawn, that you are not a child of God, and that your hope is perished from the Lord. Oh, no! far from this! God is now dealing with you as a Father- considerately, faithfully, lovingly; and He would have you in return deal with Him as a child- trustfully, obediently, submissively. A child you are, though you may have been a foolish, wayward, rebellious child, still a child, and God still a Father. As Christ was the Alpha of your affliction, so He will be the Omega; and as He is the first in this adversity that has befallen you, in this blow that crushes you, in this sorrow that wrings your heart, so will He be the last, the guide, the comforter, the sympathizer, all through this dark hour of suffering, of bereavement, and of tribulation, by which so skillfully, gently, and safely He is leading you home to Himself, where His own dear hand will wipe every tear from your eye.

As the Alpha and the Omega, what a pledge have we of the unchangeableness of His love! As we love Him because He first loved us, so we shall continue to love Him, because He will love us unto the end. As Christ is the first of our love, so He will be the last. And since no line can stretch back into the past eternity of His love, so no line can measure its everlasting future. Since the Lord's love to us had no beginning, it can have no ending. "Having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them unto the end." Oh no, His love cannot change! Christ will love us to the end of all our sins, to the end of all our backslidings, to the end of all our base returns, to the end of all our trials, and sorrows, and sufferings, yes, to the end of life, and then on through an eternity of love that shall know no ending. "Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today, and forever." Take heart, saint of God; for Jesus having loved you first, will love you last, and love you forever!

But, perhaps, we remark in conclusion, the most august and solemn exhibition of these impressive titles of our Lord awaits the period of His Second Coming, to perfect the Church and judge the world. There will then rest no obscurity upon their meaning, and there will then blend not a dissonant sound with the universal acclaim. Foes will then unite with friends, angels with men, the lost with the saved, in doing homage to Christ, as the "Alpha and Omega, the first and the last." At the "Name of Jesus every knee shall bow, and every tongue shall confess that He is Lord, to the glory of God the Father." No part of revelation is clearer, none sublimer, not one more solemn, than that which presents the Lord Jesus Christ as coming in His personal majesty and power, as the last and final end of all things- the world's history and the Church's full redemption. As all things began with Christ, so all will end in Christ. The Lamb slain from the foundation of the world, He will then be the "Lamb standing on the Mount Zion, and with Him a hundred forty and four thousand, having His Father's name written in their foreheads." Then will He be the last, as He was the first, and will appear manifestly and gloriously, the end, as He was eternally and divinely the beginning. All the purposes of God, all the councils of eternity, all the revelations of truth, all the history of the redeemed Church, all the grandeur of redemption, all the honor, praise, and glory of a restored universe, will then find their fullest meaning, their deepest emphasis, their noblest expression, their sweetest, endless song, in Him as the "Alpha and Omega, the first and the last," that God may be all in all.

Oh to be one of that great multitude which no man can number, who shall have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb and though many will doubtless have come out of the great tribulation, yet will they be "purified, and made white, and tried," and all shall appear before the throne of God, and serve Him day and night in His temple; and He that sits on the throne shall dwell among them. "Shall I be there?" you silently ask. Yes, if feeling yourself a poor, lost, helpless sinner, you are trusting believingly, and simply, and only in Jesus; though your faith may be but a touch, and your love but a spark, and your hope but a glimmer, you shall be there; and no tribute of thanksgiving and no song of praise will sound louder or sweeter than yours.

Closing this chapter with a reference to the coming of the Lord, let me remark that, distant as may seem this event- yet perhaps nearer than the most sagacious prophet or the most ardent expectant may imagine- it is one of the most deeply sanctifying truths of the Bible. Hence, when the apostles would urge upon the saints of God personal holiness and unreserved consecration, one of their most powerful and impressive arguments is, "the coming of the Lord." Hence, too, at the very close of the sacred canon, the Coming of the Savior forms the last, as, at the opening of the inspired Scriptures, it formed the first, truth divinely revealed. How impressive the Savior's announcement, how earnest the Church's response! "He who testifies these things with, Surely I come quickly. Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus." In view of this glorious fact, let our constant attitude be that of watchfulness, prayer, and hope. The coming of the Lord to purify us from all sin, to release us from all sorrow, and to reunite us in eternal love and fellowship to those who sleep in Him now, and whom He will bring with Him then, should be, and must be, an inseparable element of our holy religion, and a distinctive feature of our Christian character. Let us separate ourselves from the world, and crucify the flesh; that thus our daily life may be a daily dying to sin, and of holy living to the Lord- preparing for and hastening unto this glorious appearing of the great God our Savior. "Since you have been raised to new life with Christ, set your sights on the realities of heaven, where Christ sits at God's right hand in the place of honor and power. Let heaven fill your thoughts. Do not think only about things down here on earth. For you died when Christ died, and your real life is hidden with Christ in God. And when Christ, who is your real life, is revealed to the whole world, you will share in all his glory. So put to death the sinful, earthly things lurking within you. Have nothing to do with sexual sin, impurity, lust, and shameful desires. Don't be greedy for the good things of this life, for that is idolatry."

Oh, let us blend the blessed hope- the glorious appearing of the Lord- with every service done for God, with every cross borne for Jesus, with every mercy He sends, with every blessing He takes, with every sorrow that shades, and with every smile that brightens us- let all converge towards one glorious hope- the coming of Jesus in person to receive us to Himself, and our gathering together unto Him with all the elect and ransomed Church. Let the hope which dimly illumined the path of the patriarch, but which beams with brighter effulgence upon ours, cheer us traveling up the hill home to God- "But as for me, I know that my Redeemer lives, and that he will stand upon the earth at last. And after my body has decayed, yet in my body I will see God! I will see him for myself. Yes, I will see him with my own eyes. I am overwhelmed at the thought!" Job 19:25-27

"Thus sang the holy Job;
And the same hope still animates the saints
Of God on earth, whose bodies shall be raised
To meet the Lord. Then we shall see those hands
Once pierced for sins on Calvary's cross,
Holding the scepter of a universe;
Those feet once nailed to the accursed tree,
Standing, all glorious, on Mount Olivet.
And on that sacred head once crowned with thorns,
The crown of all dominion shall be seen.
Nor shall that glorious crown be His alone,
But shared with all His people in that day.
O glorious prospect of the Church of God,
To cheer her heart in this vast wilderness!"

"I am the Alpha and the Omega—the beginning and the end," says the Lord God. "I am the one who is, who always was, and who is still to come, the Almighty One." Rev. 1:8.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

GLIMPSES OF THE TRUTH AS IT IS IN JESUS

Table of Contents

Preface

1. The Voice of the Charmer!

2. Alone with Jesus

3. The Pastor's Request for the Prayers of His Flock

4. A Word in Season from Christ to the Weary

5. The Axe Laid at the Root

6. Broken Cisterns

7. The Coming of the Lord in its Relation to Nominal Christianity

8. Christian Love, a Test of Christian Character

PREFACE

The title of the present volume will sufficiently explain its character and design. Unlike the previous productions of the same pen, it presents no continuity of subject- each chapter forming a uniting link in the chain of the discussion; but it exhibits a variety of themes, having no essential relation to each other, except that which the rays of light may be said to possess- each flowing from the same source, and converging to the same center. The Lord Jesus Christ is the Sun of the Christian system. He is the Fountain and the embodiment of all divine and spiritual truth. Every truth proceeds from, and leads to, him. The mind is furnished with real knowledge in proportion to its advance in the 'knowledge of Christ Jesus'. We hesitate not emphatically to affirm, that there is absolute darkness in the soul of man- be his attainments in human knowledge profound and brilliant as they may; if "God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, has not shined in his heart to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ." Oh! what is the real value of all his boasted knowledge apart from this?

What though the philosopher has ransacked all the mysteries of nature, if he is yet ignorant of the God of nature, as revealed through Christ? What though the astronomer revels amid the glories of the material heavens, if he is experimentally unacquainted with the path by which he may arrive at the glories of the heaven of heavens? What though the geometrician may be able to measure all quantity, if he has not bestowed a serious thought upon the measureless eternity upon which he is soon to enter? And what though the physician, skilled in the science of healing, is able to baffle every form of bodily disease, if he has no knowledge, in the cure of his own spiritual distemper, of the balm that is in Gilead, and of the Physician who is there? We ask, what real good, as it regards themselves, does it avail ? None whatever. See the vanity of all human knowledge, weighed with the momentous interests of an eternal world, except that which makes us it wise unto salvation.

It has been the aim of the writer in the following pages to exhibit this all-important truth, prominently and in various points of light. The work, in consequence, may be found to address itself more immediately to an unrenewed state of mind, or to a mind theoretically, but not experimentally, acquainted with the gospel, than perhaps may please the taste, or realize the expectation of some. Nevertheless, the writer trusts, that minds matured in grace may here and there obtain a glimpse of Jesus and of his truth- dim and imperfect though it may be- which, with the accompanying blessing of the Holy Spirit, will instruct and comfort, sanctify and stimulate the soul in the heavenly way.

It is proper briefly to allude to the history of this work. Scotland is its birth-place. It contains the substance of a few discourses which the author delivered from the pulpit of different Christian denominations, during a recent visit to that magnificent and interesting land. Yielding to the desire of several, for whom he cherishes the tenderest Christian love- albeit, in this instance, he may not commend the partiality of their judgment- they are snatched from assigned oblivion, and now appear in another, and a permanent form. The author has no idea that the solicitation of friends to publish is always a valid plea for inflicting a new volume upon the public. Nor has it in the present case, he thinks, blinded his eye to the very imperfect manner in which he has performed his task. And yet but for this prompting, which he would sincerely trace to a higher influence, he had never undertaken it. If, however, the same blessed Spirit who condescended to speak by these truths from the pulpit, will, to the same extent, speak by them from the press, the utmost wish of the author's heart will be granted. He cannot refrain from saying, that his work is literally ushered into the world upon the breath of prayer. The intimations which he has received from various quarters, of the especial and fervent supplications which have been made in its behalf, encourage him to hope that much glory to the Lord will accrue from this feeble production of his pen.

The author cannot close this allusion to the origin of his volume, without being permitted to remark, that one, who earnestly pleaded for its publication, has since then passed away from earth, to the world of full revelation, of complete holiness, and of perfect love. The event has had the effect, he trusts, of imparting to his own mind, in tracing these pages, more vivid and realizing views of eternity. Strange though it may appear, he has felt a consciousness of her nearness, more palpable and sweet, than when last he bowed with her at the throne of grace, and in the midst of her own domestic circle. The home of the glorified is of more easy access, in the spirit's travel, than any home of earth. In the realization of faith, and in the anticipations of hope, and in the yearnings of love, Heaven is a nearer point. It is with the immaterial that we have communion; it is with mind that we converse; it is with spirit that we blend. And the more full their development, and the more complete their nature, the sweeter is the communion, and the higher is the enjoyment. And yet, though thus exercising that "faith which is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen," we are forced to exclaim, "O the mystery of the invisible world! Where are the loved, the beautiful, and the holy, who have flitted from us and have disappeared? Do they know us- do they see us- do they attend us- do they love us still?

But this we do know- that they are holy and happy, for they are with Christ, and are like him. And of this, too, we may be well assured, that to us the awful mystery will soon be explained; and we who are now wondering at the departed, will be 'wondered at,' for we shall mingle with the 'spirits of just men made perfect,' 'knowing even as we are known.'

But let us follow her, as she followed Christ. She loved the Lord- she lived for the Lord- and she waited and looked for the coming of the Lord- and now she is forever with the Lord. She needs not these partial and shadowy 'glimpses of the truth as it is in Jesus;' for the full, the unclouded vision of the Lamb is hers. She has passed within the veil, where the Forerunner had for her entered, and she has 'come to Jesus the Mediator of the New Covenant,' and she sees him, not 'through a glass darkly,' -but face to face. Her posture was always that of a lowly sinner, leaning in simple faith upon the atoning work of Immanuel. Her natural amiability and loveliness, great and admired as they were, never concealed from her view the plague of her own heart, nor beguiled her from the great truth, that only as she stood in the righteousness of the incarnate Son, could she appear with acceptance in the presence of the holy Lord God.

Never was there an instance of more entire laying down of self at the foot of the cross, drawing from it the motives that led to a simple and unreserved surrender to the Lord. Thus clothed in the "righteousness of God," we believe that she is 'without fault before the throne,' adoring the grace that brought her there.

"The Voice of the Charmer"

"Their poison is like the poison of a serpent: they are like the deaf adder that has stopped its ears, that will not heed the voice of the charmer, however skillful the enchanter may be." Psalm 58:4-5

How glorious is the nature, and what an inestimable blessing to man, socially and individually considered, is the Gospel of Christ! It is a revelation of the most stupendous expedient, and a solution of the profoundest problem that ever interested the heart, or engaged the thought of the Eternal Mind. The salvation of guilty man secured in a way consistent with infinite holiness- the claims of stern justice reconciled with the pleadings of divine mercy- the moral government of God vindicated- and love, the favorite perfection of his nature, indulged- form the one sublime and precious theme of which it speaks in strains of newborn and unheard of melody. Well does the Holy Spirit entitle it, the "glorious Gospel of the blessed God." Thus, while this Gospel is to the sinner the golden chain of grace lowered to the very depth of his wretchedness and woe, it is an all-encircling shield thrown around the purity and the honor of that Being to whose nature it assimilates, and to whose communion it lifts him.

And yet, strange to say, man, the only creature personally interested in this wondrous revelation, is of all intelligences the least astonished at its glories, or affected by its appeals. Angels scan its mysteries, and adore- devils believe its announcements, and tremble; but man, whom it most deeply concerns, and to whom it is especially sent, "will not heed the voice of the charmer, however skillful the enchanter may be." May the Spirit of truth and love impart his own blessing, while we proceed to consider the nature of the gospel charm, and the guilt and consequences of its wilful neglect.

By every reflective and right-thinking mind, the gospel will be regarded as the most invaluable boon God ever bestowed upon our nation, while its withdrawal would be the greatest calamity that could arrest its prosperity and blight its happiness. The unenlightened philosopher, the political economist, and the wily statesman, may dispute the justness of this sentiment; but man's unbelief cannot invalidate God's truth. Let God be true, and every man whose opinions contravene His veracity, be a liar, rather than that God were false. The gospel has made us, as a nation, all that we are- great, privileged, and free. Her greatness, her privileges, and her freedom, Britain owes not to the wisdom of her legislation, to the influence of her letters, or to the prowess of her military; but to Christianity, and to Christianity alone. But for this, she had still been classed with the idolatrous nations of the east. When the great apostle of the Gentiles planted his foot upon her shores, and, amid the heathen altars and idolatrous shrines consecrated to Woden, to Thor, and to Tuesco, proclaimed the gospel of Jesus Christ, he laid the foundation of all her future glory.

And although there have been periods in her remarkable history when the pale star of Popery has seemed in the ascendant, and the sun of gospel truth has for a while been obscured, yet the morning has again dawned- a morning without clouds"- and emerging from beneath the veil of night, it has shone forth with increased power and splendor, covering with overwhelming defeat every attempt to banish it from the land. And so it will continue to confound its enemies until the last conquest it achieves shall usher in the coming of the Son of man.

We might also adduce the history of the Western World as affording another evidence of the gospel as a national blessing. Contrast the present elevated moral, intellectual, and social condition of America, with the period, but recent, when the Indian paddled his canoe along her majestic waters, and the smoke of his rude wigwam, and the yell of his senseless worship, rose amid the stillness and the gloom of his unbroken forests; and to the inquiry, "What has so rapidly advanced, and so far elevated her in the scale of civilized nations?" we unhesitatingly reply, "the glorious gospel of the blessed God," planted upon her shores by the labors, and nourished by the prayers, the sacrifices, and the tears of the Pilgrim Fathers, of whom the world was not worthy. We have made and have given this prominence to these remarks, feeling their importance and necessity.

There exists a marvellous tendency to undervalue the influence of Christianity as a great national blessing. Civilization, education, and science are thrust forward, as though all our greatness and true glory had been achieved by, and would be perpetuated through, them. It is alarming to think of the progress which these semi-infidel views are making. But as the gospel alone made, so the gospel alone can preserve us what we are. Christianity is the basis of our institutions, and the bulwark of our strength. Our very existence as a nation depends upon it. The setting of this sun, to change the figure, would be the precursor of a fearful night of moral and intellectual gloom, the signal for every foul spirit of darkness to emerge from his hiding place, and stalk in triumph through the land. Let us hold fast the pure gospel. Nothing but its diffusion can retain it in our midst. No civil power can preserve it. It must take hold on the masses, it must enthrone itself on the hearts, embody itself in the intellects, and incorporate itself with the habits of the people. To attain this end, we must circulate the Bible, sustain the divine institution of the Christian ministry, live the gospel individually, and be more earnest and united in prayer for a deeper baptism of the Holy Spirit upon our churches.

But it is of the relation of man to the gospel, as an individual, and not as a society, we are particularly to speak in the present chapter. And in the foreground let us contemplate the charming Savior whom the gospel reveals, the Savior of God's providing, and in all points of view a gift worthy of so great and glorious a Giver. There are two passages of God's word which convey to the mind the most forcible and exalted views of the personal excellence and dignity of the Lord Jesus, at which we may give a rapid glance. The first portrays his matchless beauty, the second his incomprehensible greatness. "You are fairer than the children of men: grace is poured into your lips; therefore God has blessed you forever," Psalm 45:2.

This doubtless refers to the perfection of his human excellence. As man, his beauty transcends the loveliest of human beings- "fairer than the children of men." Their beauty is mixed; his is pure. Theirs is derived; his is from himself. Theirs decays; his is imperishable. His body prepared by God; his mind filled with all the wisdom, grace, and holiness of the Spirit- he stands forth the "bright and morning star," the perfect, peerless Son of man. O for an eye to see and admire his excellence! and not admire only, but to imitate. O for grace to lie at his feet, and learn from his meekness! to lean on his bosom and drink of his love; to set the Lord always before us, never moving the eye from this perfect model, but ever aiming to transcribe its lineaments upon our daily life. Yes! you are "fairer than the children of men!" you altogether lovely One! And as I gaze upon your perfections, wandering from beauty to beauty, my admiration increases, and my love deepens, until, in the assurance of faith, and in the transport of joy, I exclaim, "this is my Beloved, and this is my Friend."

Respecting his superior nature, not less clear and emphatic is the declaration of his essential greatness. "No man knows the Son but the Father," Matt. 11:27. Surely these words are sufficient to remove all doubt as to his Deity. Were he only man, with what truth could it be affirmed of him, that "no man knows the Son?" It is the property of an angel, that he understands the angelic nature; and of man, that he understands the human nature. It is the perfection of God that He only understands the nature of God. Who, then, but the Infinite, can measure the infinite greatness of the Son of God? The loftiest created imagination, the mightiest human intellect, the profoundest angelic research, falls infinitely short of what he is. The Father alone knows the Son, because he is of the same nature and mind with the Father.

Beware of holding this doctrine lightly. A more important one- one more glorious or more precious, asks not the confidence of your faith. Hold it fast, even as the vessel in the storm clings to its anchor. This gone, the next mountain wave drives you upon the quicksand of doubt and perplexity, and then where are you? Consider how important must be that single truth, on which the value, the preciousness, and the efficacy of all other truths depend. Such a truth is the Godhead of Christ.

How glorious an object, then, is this Savior, whom the gospel thus reveals! It is true his essential greatness, like the peace which he himself gives, "surpasses all understanding;" yet like that peace, he may be known, though he cannot be measured. "We may know experimentally," as Owen beautifully remarks, "that which we cannot know comprehensively; we may know that in its power and effect, which we cannot comprehend in its nature and depths. A weary person may receive refreshment from a spring, who cannot fathom the depth of the ocean from where it proceeds." That this is true of the "love of Christ, which surpasses knowledge," is equally true of the person of Christ himself, whom "no man knows but the Father." Think not that all his beauty is concealed. They, in whom it has pleased the Father to reveal his Son, "behold his glory;" they "see the King in his beauty;" the discovery of his excellence often captivates their soul, and the sense of his love often cheers their hearts; while in lively faith and joy they exclaim, "I am my Beloved's, and my Beloved is mine."

Take one more view of Him who is the "chief among ten thousand." Look at his sinless, yet real humanity; without a single taint, yet sympathizing with all the conditions of ours: afflicted in our afflictions; tempted in our temptations; infirm in our infirmities; grieved in our griefs; "wounded for our transgressions, bruised for our iniquities;" and now that he is in glory, still cherishing a brother's heart, bending down his ear to our petitions, ever standing near to catch our sighs, to dry our tears, to provide for our needs, to guide us by his counsel, and afterwards to receive us to glory. O what a Savior is Jesus Christ! Wonder not, my readers, that when he is known, all other beings are eclipsed; that when his beauty is seen, all other beauty fades; that when his love is felt, he becomes supremely enthroned in the affections; and that to know him more, is the one desire of the renewed mind, and to make him more known, is the one aim of the Christian life.

What charming tidings, too, does the gospel announce! Take the doctrine of PARDON, the very mention of which thrills the soul with gladness. Pardon through the blood-shedding of God's dear Son for "all manner of sin," and for the chief of sinners! What myriads have gone to glory, exulting with their expiring breath in those melodious words, "the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanses us from all sin!" Is there no music in this declaration to the ear of a sin-burdened soul? And when the called children of God behold in that blood of Immanuel- the sea which has drowned all their sins, the fountain which has cleansed all their guilt, the source of their reconciliation, the cause of their peace, and the ground of their access- is not the gospel a joyful sound to their ears?

And yet how few live in the full enjoyment of this truth, "You will cast all my sins behind your back." "You have forgiven all their iniquity." "I have blotted out as a cloud your transgressions, and as a thick cloud your sins." Precious truth! Since God has spoken it, faith exclaims, "I believe it. On this I can live holily, and on this I can die happily."The Gospel speaks, too, of a RIGHTEOUSNESS which places the believing sinner in a state of complete justification- a righteousness better than that of Moses, and superior to that of angels, because it is the "righteousness of God Himself."

Among the many glorious names which our Immanuel bears is, "JEHOVAH our Righteousness." He is made from God the righteousness of his people. As their law-fulfiller, obeying; as their surety, suffering in their stead, they become the righteousness of God in Him, so that the very name itself which Jesus bears in connection with our justification becomes ours. "In those days shall Judah be saved, and Jerusalem shall dwell safely: and this is the name by which she shall be called, Jehovah our Righteousness." Thus the believer wears the clothing, and takes the name of Him, who is emphatically the husband of his Church. See how complete she is in him- Colos. 2:10. How glorious- Eph. 5:7. How lovely, Ezek. 16:14. In this righteousness she is exalted, Psalm. 139:16; and in this it is her privilege greatly to rejoice, Isa. 41:10.

Is this righteousness yours, my reader? Have you cast aside the defiled, worm-eaten garment in which by nature you stand; and are you clothed in the fine linen, clean and white, which is the righteousness of the saints? Search and see! You may have gone far in a profession of Christ, in a visible enrolment among his people; and yet were the King to enter the banqueting room where you sit partaking the symbols of his death, to see the guests, it is possible that in view of his solemn, searching inspection, you may be found not having on the righteousness of Christ.

But if you have renounced your own merits, and have fled entirely from yourself to Jesus, then to this sweet note of the joyful sound, your heart responds, exclaiming, "In the Lord have I righteousness;" "My soul shall make her boast in the Lord; the humble shall hear thereof and be glad." Standing in this perfect, spotless robe, you will aim after a life corresponding with a privilege so exalted; and whether living or dying, you will be openly and manifestly the Lord's.

A FREE GRACE voice will possess a charm to the spiritual ear which no word of man can fully express- and this is the true idea of the gospel. But for this, what charm to a convinced sinner would the gospel of Jesus possess? How could the rest, the privileges, and the blessings of this great charter of divine mercy raise a solitary emotion of gladness in the heart, were they not the gratuities of the God of grace? What music, do you think, to the ear of a condemned felon would be the pardon of his sovereign, were it upon terms which the very circumstances of his case rendered unavailable? What a cruel mockery would it be of his helplessness, and what a bitter taunting of his woe! But stand upon the threshold of his gloomy cell, and read to him in tones worthy of the announcement, a free, unconditional pardon; throw wide open his door, knock off his chains, and "say to the prisoner, Go forth," with no obligations imposed, but such as boundless goodness would dictate, and such as deathless gratitude would recognize- loyalty to a sovereign so gracious and benignant- and you do indeed bear to him glad tidings. You irradiate his dark dungeon with brightness, and you fill his desolate heart with joy. Such are the tidings which the Gospel proclaims.

Listen to it- eloquent are its accents: "By grace are you saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God." "It is by faith that it might be by grace." "Without money, and without price." "And when they had nothing to pay, he frankly forgave them both." "Come and take of the water of life freely." Are you a self-destroyed, self-condemned, bankrupt sinner, with, nothing to pay? Then may you exclaim, "Never was music so sweet to me as this! Salvation free! Redemption without money! Heaven without creature merit! All springing from the heart of God, and flowing down through the channel of the Savior's merits."

As a system of Divine and unfailing CONSOLATION, there is a charm in the gospel of Jesus of indescribable sweetness. Originating with that God, not only whose name and whose perfection, but whose very essence is love, and who Himself is the "God of all comfort," it must be a gospel of "strong consolation," commensurate with every conceivable sorrow of his people. Let those testify who, amid the trials and the conflicts of their pilgrimage, have thus experienced it. Indeed it is only by this test that its real character can be estimated. As we can convey no adequate idea of sound to the deaf, of color to the blind, or of life to the dead, neither can we by the most elaborate reasoning or eloquent description, impart to a mind estranged from sorrow- if such there be- any proper conception of the magic power of the gospel, as a consummate system of the richest consolation and support.

But let a Christian be placed in circumstances of the deepest grief and sorest trial- the bread and the water of affliction his food- the iron entering his soul- the heart bereaved- the mind perplexed- the spirit dark- all human hopes blighted, and creature cisterns failing him like a spring in the summer's drought; then let the Spirit of God, the Divine Paraclete, open this box of perfume, breathing into his soul the rich consolations, the precious promises, the strong assurances, the divine counsels, and the glowing hopes which it contains, and in a moment the light of love appears in his dark cloud, his fainting spirit revives, and all is peace!

Oh! that must be a charming gospel which can meet the necessities of man at every point; whose wisdom no human perplexity can baffle, and whose resources of sympathy and comfort, no case of suffering or of sorrow can exhaust. Tried soul! repair to this unfailing spring of comfort. God speaks to you in it- it is the unsealing of the heart of Jesus- it is the still small voice of the Spirit. It speaks to you- it bids you "cast your burden on the Lord, and he will sustain you;" "Call upon him in the day of trouble, and he will answer you." It assures you that amid, all your perplexing cares, "He cares for you." It promises you that for your flint-paved path, your "shoes shall be iron and brass;" and that "as your days are, so shall your strength be." It tells you that a "woman may forget her nursing child, yet God will not forget you;" that in all your assaults, you shall dwell on high, your place of defense shall be the munitions of rocks;" and that though hemmed in on every side by a besieging foe, and all other supplies cut off, yet "your bread shall be given you, and your water shall be sure." It invites you to lay your griefs and weep out your sorrows upon the bosom of Jesus, and so "leaning upon your Beloved, ascend from the wilderness." O to be led into the heart-felt experience of these truths, even while passing through billows of sorrow to a martyr's flames!

Not the least important and endearing element of the Gospel to a believer's heart, is its HOLINESS. All its truths to him are precious, because the tendency of all is to sanctify. What to him were its soothing consolations dissevered from its holy precepts? What were its comfort, if that comfort were secured at the expense of holiness? What though it dried his tears, but did not subdue his corruptions? What though it assuaged the fountain of his grief, while it left that of his sins unchecked? Its greatest charm were gone! No; he would desire guidance, instruction, and consolation, only so far as they advanced his divine conformity.

He longs, he pants, he prays, to be a holy child of God. That he so often and so far misses his mark- that he is so frequently foiled, disappointed, and forced back, in his strivings after sanctification, is to him the bitterest of bitter sorrows. But when at any time, and in any degree, he is enabled through grace to "do the will of God from the heart," and when in the great conflict of faith he advances to the foe, and covers that advance with glory, or retreats only to eclipse the glory of his advance, a shout more full of music never rose to heaven, than that which breaks from his adoring lips, "Thanks be to God who gives us the victory, through our Lord Jesus Christ."

The "charmers," from whose lips this divine melody proceeds, are the true ministers of Christ, whom he has chosen, called, and furnished with grace and gifts, and to whom he has committed a dispensation of the gospel. Their appointment is from God; their succession is from Christ; their anointing for, and designation to, the work are from the Holy Spirit. He himself, though a minister of the Lord Jesus, is but an "earthen vessel," encompassed with, and often well near crushed by, the infirmity of which he is, in common with others, the subject. "For every high priest taken from among men, is ordained for men, in things pertaining to God, . . . who can have compassion on the ignorant, and on those who are out of the way; for in that he himself is compassed with infirmity."

He is often alarmed by the thought, that truth so divine and so pure should flow through a channel so earthly and so defiled; and that to an office so spiritual, and to a work so great, he should bring grace so shallow, and attainments so limited. Yet God has placed him in the office; and although tempted at times to relinquish his high trust, yet he is as often deterred by the solemn voice of conscience, "Woe is unto me, if I preach not the gospel!" But we would be far from conveying a gloomy representation of the office and functions of the Christian ministry. It is true, many, influenced by sordid and unworthy motives, seek admittance to the holy office; and that these should find its sacred labors distasteful and wearisome, is no marvel. But there are others who can humbly adopt the language of their Master, "My food and my drink are to do the will of Him who sent me, and to finish his work."

They delight in their employment; they find their rest in their toil; and they often reap their highest joy from that which is the cause of their deepest sorrow. To proclaim that gospel which has often charmed his own soul- to preach that Jesus, at times so precious to his own heart- to comfort others with the comforts with which he himself has been comforted by God- to wipe a solitary tear from the eye- to chase a single grief from the heart- to smooth a dying pillow- to save a soul from death- to guide a saint to glory- O to him it were worth a million lives, were they even lives of tenfold toil and trial!

With all its solemn responsibilities, its wearisome labors, its painful anxieties, its lonely sorrows, who would not be a gospel charmer? Who would not, like Jesus, be anointed to preach good tidings unto the meek- to bind up the broken-hearted- to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound? With such a commission, and beneath such anointing, is it any marvel that such a minister should, like the apostle, look down from his lofty eminence with contempt upon the wisdom of man and the learning of the schools, the moment they clashed with the wisdom of God and the glory of the cross- that he should go forth, and to the lettered and the ignorant, to the polished and the rude, make known nothing but Christ crucified? These, then, are the "charmers." And of them the sweet poet sings,
"How beauteous are their feet
Who stand on Zion's hill!
Who bring salvation on their tongues,
And words of peace reveal!
How charming is their voice!
How sweet the tidings are!
Zion, behold your Savior King!
He reigns and triumphs here."

But what is it to "charm wisely?" True wisdom has been defined that power which accomplishes the greatest results by the simplest means. Then, here is wisdom! To save souls from eternal death, by the "foolishness of preaching," must be regarded as the highest point to which wisdom can soar. It is recorded concerning the apostles, that they "so spoke, that a great multitude, both of the Jews, and also of the Greeks, believed." They presented Christ so prominently- they divided truth so skillfully- and they preached with such power, point, and simplicity, that "multitudes were added to the Lord."

See with what contempt they looked down upon the unsanctified wisdom and lore of this world! Addressing the Corinthians, their great leader could say, "my speech and my preaching were not with enticing words of man's wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power." He charmed wisely; and by the influence of his preaching, pagan altars were destroyed, senseless idols were abandoned, the Pantheon and the Lyceum were forsaken, and "a great 'company of the priests were obedient to the faith;" but it was not with the "wisdom of this world," in order that their "faith should not stand in the wisdom of man, but in the power of God.

And why may not the same results in the employment of the same means be ours? Do we not preach the same gospel? Don't we deal with the same intelligent and deathless mind? Don't we draw our motives and our appeals from the same eternity? True, we possess neither the spirit of prophecy nor the gift of miracles. We need them not. Nor did the apostles in their grand work of converting men to God. They never in a single instance quickened a soul by the power of a miracle. The extraordinary gifts with which they were endowed were bestowed for another and a different purpose. The cases of our Lord and of his Forerunner are strikingly in point. The ministry of Jesus, although attended by a succession of miracles the most brilliant and convincing, resulted in fewer conversions than the ministry of John, who did no miracle.

To what divine agency, then, did the apostles themselves trace the extraordinary result of their preaching? To what, but the demonstration of the Spirit? O for tongues of fire to proclaim the glad tidings of the gospel! With such a Savior to make known- with such revelations to disclose- with such souls to save- with such results to expect- is it of a wonder that we should speak with any other? To charm wisely, then, is so rightly to divide God's word, as not to confound truth with error- so discriminatingly to preach it, as to separate the precious from the vile- and so distinctly and prominently to hold up the cross of Christ, as to save immortal souls. The cross, the cross must be the central object exhibited in our ministry, to which every eye must be directed, and before which all the glory of man must fade.

The Holy Spirit, too, must be more honored- his anointing more especially sought- and his influence more earnestly insisted upon. Apart from this, no ministry, be its character in other respects what it may, has any real power. How poor a thing it is, distinguished only by its learning, its genius, and its eloquence, and destitute of the vital warmth, and impassioned earnestness, and soul-subduing, and heart-awakening energy of the Holy Spirit! Weighed in the balance of the sanctuary, it is as light as air; estimated in view of the judgment, it is an awful mockery.

But a most solemn part of this subject remains to be considered. We allude to the reception which this heaven-sent message of reconciliation meets from multitudes on whose external ear only its accents of melody fall. The charge which God brings against such resolves itself into the indictment of a wilful neglect and rejection of this immense privilege. "Who will not heed the voice of the charmer, however skillful the enchanter may be." The character here alluded to has its classifications, to which, lest any should be self-deceived in so momentous a matter, we will briefly advert.

There are, in the first place, those who may be said to receive, and yet who do actually reject the gospel of Jesus. Supposing ourselves addressing such, we would present a line of argument somewhat like this: You are not, in the skeptical sense of the term, an unbeliever. In other words, you shudder at the idea, and would resent the suspicion of being an infidel. You believe the Holy Scriptures to be a divine record, Christ "a teacher come from God," and the Christianity which he taught a heaven-authenticated record of the doctrines to be believed and the precepts to be followed, essential to that "holiness without which no one can see the Lord." And yet, strange to say, notwithstanding all this, you are an unbeliever! Your unbelief is of a most alarming and fatal character; more ensnaring than that which saps the foundation of Christianity; because, while it professes to credit its truth, it practically makes it a lie, and thus fosters one of the most fatal delusions that ever imperilled the immortal soul!

Do you live as if you believed the gospel to be true? What moral influence does your professed belief exert over you? What shape and coloring does it impart to your habits of reflection and of feeling? You affirm that you believe in the gospel; but upon what part of your conduct is the influence of that belief felt and seen? You declare that you have faith; but where are its fruits? Alas! the moonbeams fall not more coldly and powerlessly upon the sterile earth, than does the light which your intellectual faith sheds upon your whole path to eternity. You live as if there were no God- no Savior- no heaven- no hell- no death- no judgment- no eternity. Immersed in business or intent upon wealth, panting for fame or eager in chase of pleasure, the dread future, whose bleak, rock-bound coast you are each moment nearing, is all, all forgotten.

You consider yourself as a rational, reasonable, and sane being. But is it rational, reasonable, or sane, to merge the momentous interests of an ever-enduring future in the fleeting shadows of a present moment? What a mere fragment of your being is your present earthly life! Compared with the eternal future, it is as the particle of sand which the wind lifts and wafts from the shore, or like a drop of the spray which it scatters from the ocean's wave. And yet see how you live! And oh, how imperfectly you measure the great work to be done with the brief moment allotted to its accomplishment! You vainly imagine that it can all be crowded into, and accomplished within the space of a dying hour- that a business the most momentous that ever engaged the thought or enlisted the feelings of man, may be safely deferred until the period when the wasting away of sickness, and the fever of delirium, the madness of convulsions, the writhings of pain, and the throbs and throes of dissolving nature, shall task to the utmost all the powers of the mind- oh, what sheer madness is this!

See, then, to what your professed faith in the gospel of Christ brings you! The devils believe, and tremble at what they believe. You believe, and yet tremble not! O what a lie does your whole life give to your faith! The decided irreligion, worldliness, and thoughtlessness, which make up its history, prove your faith in the gospel to be a most woeful deception. It may be a sound faith, as far as reason and philosophy go; but a mere assent of the understanding to the truth is not the faith which the truth itself requires.

There are others, who profess no belief whatever in the gospel of Christ. Theirs is an entire, open, undisguised rejection of this divine system of truth. The atheist rejects it, in his avowed disbelief of God's being- the infidel, when he pronounces the Bible a fiction, and Christianity a lie- the Jew, when he exclaims, "not Jesus, but Barabbas"- the Socinian, in his denial of the Deity of the Son of God- the neologist and the transcendentalist, when they betray the Savior with a kiss. This class is a large one. It embraces in its melancholy catalogue the careless, the indifferent, the scorner, the scoffer, the worldling, the impenitent, the moralist, the pharisee- in a word, all- be they the learned, the philosophical, the intellectual, the refined, or the religious, according to the world's notion- all who are not born again of the Spirit, and who are not exemplifying the power of the truth which is according to godliness.

But there is a feature in this sin which imparts to it a still darker and more fearful complexion. We allude to its wilfulness. There is in it the exhibition of a will not only totally unrenewed and unholy, but assuming an attitude of positive and determined hostility to this wondrous message of God's grace. Ponder the terms of this indictment: "Their poison is like the poison of a serpent: they are like the deaf adder that has stopped its ears, that will not heed the voice of the charmer, however skillful the enchanter may be."

With this corresponds our Lord's description of the same character- "For the hearts of these people are hardened, and their ears cannot hear and they have closed their eyes— so their eyes cannot see, and their ears cannot hear, and their hearts cannot understand, and they cannot turn to me, and I should heal them." O it is this wilful rejection of the gospel of Jesus which more than all demonstrates your deep degeneracy, and constitutes the most alarming feature of your sin.

We can but briefly, in conclusion, advert to the appalling consequences of this wilful shutting of the ear against the sound of the gospel. They are most effectively told in the words of God himself. Thus he describes the sin and its punishment: "But they refused to listen to this message. They turned stubbornly away and put their fingers in their ears to keep from hearing. They made their hearts as hard as stone, so they could not hear the law or the messages that the Lord Almighty had sent them by his Spirit through the earlier prophets. That is why the Lord Almighty was so angry with them. Since they refused to listen when I called to them, I would not listen when they called to me, says the Lord Almighty." Zech. 7:11-13. O ponder, I beseech you, reader, these awful words, and no longer "pull away your shoulder" from Christ's yoke, nor "stop your ears" against his voice.

n the New Testament, the record of mercy and of love, it is fearfully written, "the Lord Jesus will be revealed from heaven in blazing fire with his powerful angels. He will punish those who do not know God and do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. They will be punished with everlasting destruction and shut out from the presence of the Lord and from the majesty of his power 2 Thes. 1:7-9 Are you prepared for this?

But not with a note of terror would we close this chapter. The last vibration that lingers on your ear shall be the "voice of the charmer." How rich the melody!
"In strains as sweet as angels use,
The gospel whispers peace."

And sweeter too, "Ho! every one that thirsts, come to the waters, and he that has no money, come, buy and eat; yes, come, buy wine and milk without money and without price." O let your ear drink in this heavenly sound! It is God himself who speaks. Every word is from his heart. "Look unto Me, all you ends of the earth, and be saved, for I am God, and there is none else." Look unto Jesus, and not to yourselves. You stagger at your great unworthiness. What were this but to suppose that you would never be otherwise? No! Your worthiness is in Christ- your merit is in Christ- your righteousness is in Christ- your beauty is in Christ- your salvation is in Christ- all, all is in Jesus Christ. Out of him you are lost, and lost forever. Through him, though you were the vilest sinner whom the Spirit of God ever drew to the feet of Jesus, you may be saved, and saved forever!

"Alone with Jesus"

And Jesus was left alone, with the woman still standing there. Jesus straightened up and asked her, "Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?" "No one, sir," she said. "Then neither do I condemn you," Jesus declared. "Go now and leave your life of sin." John 8:9-11

Well did the trembling king of Israel exclaim, when with an air of tender faithfulness the prophet placed before him the choice of those evils which should mark his sin- "Let me fall into the hand of the Lord, for very great are his mercies, but let me not fall into the hand of man." Every point of light in which his decision can be viewed, justifies both its wisdom and its holiness. It was wise: he knew that the Lord was his God: as such, he had long been wont to deal with him in transactions the most solemn and confiding, and thus, from knowledge and experience, he felt he could now safely trust in him. It was holy: he saw that God was most righteous in punishing his sin, and that in meekly submitting to that punishment which came more immediately from the Lord, he was sympathizing with the equity of the Divine Government, and was upholding the character of the "Judge of all the earth" as "most upright." Guided by these considerations, he would rather fall into the hands of the Lord, uplifted though they were to scourge.

Who has not made this prayer his own, and breathed it at the footstool of mercy? The "tender mercies of the wicked are cruelty," but the severest corrections of our Father are love. To be smitten by God is infinitely better to the believer than to be blest by man. The creature's affection often brings with it a snare; and the honor which comes from man tends to nourish the corrupt principle of depraved self. But whatever, in the experience of a child of God, that may be which comes more directly from the Lord, it brings with it its concealed but its certain and often unutterable blessing. O how safe are we in the Lord's hands! Though he frown, we yet may love. Though he scourge, we yet may cling. Though he slay, we yet may trust. "I will cause you to pass under the rod, and I will bring you into the bond of the covenant." With such an issue, welcome the discipline that leads to it. "Let me fall into the hand of the Lord, for very great are his mercies."

The touching narrative which has suggested these reflections and the subject of this chapter, affords another example of the blessedness of being exclusively in the Lord's hands. Here was a poor accused sinner rescued from the violent grasp of men, and thrown in all her helplessness upon the mercy of Jesus. And while the Spirit unfolds the great gospel truths which it so impressively illustrates, may we experience something of the blessedness and sweetness of spending an hour alone with Jesus!

The character of the scene which it portrays is judicial- the grouping natural, the objects interesting, the whole instructive. With regard to the first object which arrests our attention- THE PRISONER AT THE BAR- we can scarcely imagine a case more calculated than this to awaken the tenderest sympathies of Jesus. The accused, now pale and agitated, weak and trembling, was a woman. A wreck of her former self though she was, there still was an air of touching tenderness, if not of faded beauty and grandeur, still lingering amid the ruin. This would not escape the searching and discriminating glance of the Savior. She was a woman, and the acute sensibilities of her sex were hers. These had indeed received a fearful shock. It may be in the power of sin and crime deeply to obscure and greatly to blunt the fine and delicate instincts of our nature, but never totally to extinguish them. They will outlive the storm that may have scattered the verdure and dissipated the blossom of many an opening character. The external loveliness of that character may for a while be shaded, but there is a deathless beauty within- feelings, thoughts, purposes, and resolves, which die only with the dying breath. There is a class of feelings- certain sympathies and affinities- which would seem to be from their very nature imperishable. God has so ordered it.

A mother, for example, can never forget that she is a mother. The hidden fountain of feeling, unsealed in her heart, is ever springing up, pure and sparkling. She may wander from her home as a bird from its resting-place, but she will return and hover around her little ones; or she will clasp to her bosom with a firmness which the wrench of death only can relax, the infant that shares her wanderings and her guilt. And a woman is a woman still. Sin and sorrow may have beclouded the sun-light, and marred the joyousness of her spirit; but there are undercurrents of affection and feeling which the tempest that swept the surface has left untouched. That keen sensibility- that gentleness- that tenderness- that instinctive delicacy and that keen sense of honor- the peculiar traits of her sex- are still there. The delicate stem from which has fallen the beautiful flower, may bend before the blast; but tenderly raise, and kindly nourish it, it will live again, and bud and blossom as before. It may be a truant plant, still a plant of Eden, whose tint and fragrance may yet brighten and make glad the garden of the heart.

We should remember this in our walks and labors of benevolence. Brought, as we sometimes are, into contact with extreme cases of guilt and crime, we should not overlook the material we yet possess with which to repair the fallen structure. No heart should be considered too polluted- no mind too dark- no character too debased- for the power of God, working by human instrumentality, to restore. The surface may present to the eye the iron features of a hardened and a reckless character; nevertheless, there are springs of thought and feeling and memory beneath that repulsive surface, which, if touched by a skillful and a delicate hand, will unlock the door of the heart, and admit you within its most sacred recesses. Thus with gentleness and kindness you may soften the most hardened, disarm the most ferocious, calm the most violent, and attain complete possession of a mind that has long resisted and repelled every other subduing influence.

The law of love is the law of God's moral government of his people. By this, and by this alone, he rules them. All that is disciplinary in his conduct is resolvable into love. It is by kindness, "loving-kindness," yes, "marvellous loving-kindness!" that he wins back their truant hearts, and binds them closer to himself. "I am the Lord who exercise loving-kindness." "With loving-kindness have I drawn you." O to imitate him in this particular!- to be like God in his kindness to the children of men. Then would there be less sitting in the judgment seat- less readiness to cast the first stone- less harshness and censoriousness in our conduct and spirit towards others; and more of that self-judging, self-condemning, and self-abasement, before the holy, heart-searching, all-seeing Lord God, without which we may be awfully self-deceived.

But what an object was here, befitting the Savior's sympathy and power! Do you think, reader, that from it his pure and gentle spirit shrunk? Would he feel terrified or polluted by so close a proximity to an object of guilt and wretchedness? Ah, no! Come, you vaunting philanthropists of poetry and romance, who dissolve into tears over a fiction, and petrify at a reality- come, you who have your tears for imaginary woe, and recoil from contact with true misery- who deem it pollution to take kindly the hand of a poor wanderer, exclaiming, "Get away, for I am holier than you!" Come and learn what true philanthropy and sensitiveness mean.

Our Lord's was no gushy, sentimental humanity, standing aloof from the fallen and the despised, and attracting to itself only the virtuous and the worthy. It was a humanity that identified itself with our fall, and with all its consequent miseries. Itself pure, it yet took our sins; itself happy, it yet took our sicknesses and our sorrows. He came as the Savior, and sinners were the objects of his love and compassion. He was a man, and to nothing that was human, but its essential taint of sin, was he a stranger. He even carried our sins, as a crushing weight, upon that sinless frame; and that heart, to which sorrow was unknown, became "acquainted with grief."

O it is wondrous to see how closely the Son of God linked himself with fallen, suffering man! Touch what chord you may of the human heart, and there comes up from the depths of his an instantaneous and harmonious response. With what effect would some of these hidden springs of feeling in the human soul of Jesus now be touched! He would remember, as his eye fell upon this trembling object of his sympathy, that he himself was born of a woman, amid her perils and her pangs. He would remember, too, that there still was one who bore to him the endearing appellation of mother, and that yet others stood to him in the fond relation of sisters, and all that was tender in his heart would be moved. Looking at her humiliation, and thinking of his own, pity would melt his heart; and while listening to the voice of her clamorous accusers, with the garden of Gethsemane and Calvary full in view, her sin would stir to its center the deep fountain of his mercy. Then, O then, if ever, did he appear the "brother born for adversity." Then was fulfilled the Messianic prediction in the Psalms, "He shall deliver the needy when he cries; the poor also, and him that has no helper; for he shall stand at the right hand of the poor, to save him from those who condemn his soul."

But dismissing for a moment the narrative itself, let us turn our attention to the gospel instruction which it unfolds. The truths which it illustrates are of the deepest moment. It brings vividly before the mind the case of a soul under the conviction and condemnation of the law, standing in the presence of Jesus, awaiting his solemn decision. We are now approaching that period of a man's life, upon which depend the complexion of his future history here, and the character of his destiny hereafter. Conversion, without which the present life is a perfect blank, and the future is "written in mourning, lamentation, and woe," is that event in individual history which creates all things new. The step which we are now describing, is the first in the great matter of conversion.

The Holy Spirit asserts this when, by the apostle, he describes the law as our schoolmaster, to bring us unto Christ. And in the school of the law, the first and the grand lesson which the sinner learns is his sin, his curse, and his condemnation. There he is convinced of his vileness, convicted of his guilt, and learns his poverty, helplessness, and hell-deserving. All the fond conceit of his own worthiness, strength, and fitness, vanishes as a vapor, and he sees himself in the power, under the curse, and exposed to the tremendous condemnation of God's righteous, broken, avenging law. Thus convicted in the very act of his rebellion against God, he is brought, like a felon, into the presence of Jesus. There he stands, pale and trembling, his witnesses many and loud, while his own awakened conscience pleads guilty to the charge.

Are you that soul, dear reader? Has the law arrested and brought you within Christ's court? O you never were in such a position before- so new, so strange, so blessed! It may be, you never felt yourself so near hell as now, under the sentence of God's law; but you never were so near heaven as now, in the presence of Jesus. You are now in that court where justice to the fullest is honored, and where mercy to its utmost is extended. You are in Christ's court, at Christ's bar- awaiting the sentence of him who was made under that law, fulfilled its precepts, and endured its penalty to the uttermost. You are in the presence of him who came to deliver sinners from its curse and woe, and to raise them far above the reach of all condemnation. Never were you so sensible of your guilt and ruin as now, yet never were you so near the fountain that cleanses from all sin, nor so close to him who was pierced to shelter the vilest of the vile. Your Judge is your Savior. He who sits upon that throne is he who hung upon the cross. You are arraigned in the presence, and are thrown upon the mercy of him, the delight of whose heart, and the glory of whose character, it is to save sinners; whose love for them induced him to screen his glory, and to appear in humiliation- to suffer, bleed, and die. You are in the presence of him who, though he has ascended on high, and is now glorified with the glory "he had with the Father before the world was," is yet engaged in securing the precious fruits of his soul's travail.
"His glory now, no tongue of man,
Nor seraph bright can tell
Yet still the chief of all his joys,
That souls are saved from hell."
"For this he came and dwelt on earth;
For this his life was given;
For this he fought and vanquished death;
For this he pleads in heaven."
Look up, poor soul! for "your redemption draws near." Never yet did he allow a sin-accused, self-condemned sinner to go out of this court unblessed, unsaved.

We return again to the narrative; and the second thing which arrests our attention, is THE CONDUCT OF JESUS TOWARDS THIS POOR WOMAN. Thus does the narrator describe their relative position, as each silenced and conscience-stricken accuser retires from the scene. "And Jesus was left alone, and the woman, standing in the midst." Enviable position! The prisoner and the Judge alone! The sinner and the Savior alone! Her accusers were silenced; her, enemies had retired; and, surrounded by the stillness and the solemnity of the place, stood the woman alone with Jesus. Upon this interesting and instructive topic, let us pour out the fulness of our soul.

Can we imagine a position on this side heaven more replete with the bliss of heaven than this? What a privilege is nearness to Christ! Yet dear and precious as it is, how sadly is it overlooked! We may trace this in some degree to the believer's oversight of his oneness with Christ. Yet to forget this truth, is to forget that he lives. As the branch has one life with the vine, the graft one life with the tree, so he that is united to Christ, and grafted into Christ, has one life with Christ. Go where he may, he is one with Christ. Be his circumstances what they may, he is one with Christ. And as he is in Christ, so Christ is in him. And if Christ is in him, dwelling in him, living in him, walking in him, so also is Christ in every event, and incident, and circumstance of his history. He cannot look upon the darkest cloud that overhangs his path, but he may exclaim, "Christ is in my cloud; Christ is in my sorrow; Christ is in my conflict; Christ is in my need; Christ is all to me, and Christ is in all with me." We will specify a few occasions in which this blessed state is more especially realized by the believer.

In seasons of accusation, how precious the privilege and the feeling of being alone with Jesus! Satan, we know, is the great accuser of the saints. And yet how insensible are we of the great power which he still exerts over the people rescued forever from his grasp! It was Satan who stood up to persuade David to number Israel. It was Satan who would have prompted God to slay Job; and it was Satan who stood at the right hand of Joshua, to condemn his soul. Thus is he ever ready to assert his charge against the people of God.

Not less malignant is the world. Infidel in its principles, God-hating in its spirit, and Christ-rejecting in its whole conduct, it is no marvel that it should be the antagonist and the accuser of the saints. Sitting in judgment upon actions, the nature of which it cannot understand- interpreting motives, the character of which it cannot decide- ingeniously contriving, and zealously propagating, reports of evil- and ever ready to defame and to detract all who live godly in Christ Jesus must expect no mercy at its hand. Yes, the world is the accuser of the saints. Nor Satan and the world only.

How often, as the history of holy Job testifies, have the saints been found the accusers of the saints, (and with the deepest humiliation be it written,) with an uncharitableness and censoriousness, which might have kindled the world's cheek with the blush of shame. Thus does the church herself testify, "My mothers children were angry with me." "The watchmen that went about the city found me; they smote me, they wounded me: the keepers of the wall took away my veil from me." And from whom did our blessed Lord receive his deepest wounds? Were they not from those who ranked among his friends and followers?

But what so keen and so bitter as self-reproach? Accusations proceeding from others are often most unfounded and unjust. We have felt at the time the secret and pleasing consciousness that we "suffer wrongfully." The shaft flies, but the Parthian arrow falls not more pointless and powerless than it. But far different is the accusation which the true believer brings against himself. Seeing sin where others see it not- conscious of its existence and its perpetual working, where the saints applaud, and even the world admires, he lays his hand upon his heart, his mouth in the dust, and exclaims, "I am vile! I abhor myself!" Ah! no reproaches like those which an honest, sincere child of God charges upon himself. No accusation so true, no reproof so keen, no reproach so bitter. Happy are they who deal much in self-condemnation! If we judged ourselves more, we should judge others less. And if we condemned ourselves more, we should be less condemned.

But what a privilege in all times of accusation, come from what quarter it may, to be alone with Jesus! With him, when we know the charge to be untrue, to appeal to him as an all-seeing, heart-searching, and righteous Judge, and say, "Lord, you know my principles, my spirit, my motives, my aim, and that with honesty, purity, and singleness, I have sought to walk before you." Oh, it is a solace, the preciousness of which the throbbing heart may feel, but the most eloquent pen cannot describe! And when the accusation is just, and the believer feels, "Vile as I am in the eyes of others, yet more vile am I in my own eyes;" yet even then to be left alone with Jesus, self-reproved, self-condemned, is to be thrown upon the compassion of him, "very great are whose mercies."

Alone with him, not a reproving glance darts from his eye, nor an upbraiding word falls from his lips. All is mercy, all is tenderness, all is love. There before him the self-condemned may stand and confess; at his feet the penitent may fall and weep, and find, alone with Jesus, his arm a shield, and his bosom an asylum, within which his bleeding, panting heart may find safety and repose.

In seasons of mental depression and sorrow of heart, how welcome and precious is this privilege! The shadow and the spring, amid the burning desert, are not more welcome and refreshing to the way-worn pilgrim. Sorrow is more or less the cup of all. But few there are whose lips have not pressed its bitter brim! Ah! judge not of the heart's hidden emotions, by the calm sunlight that plays upon the surface. Beneath that expression of joyousness, the canker-worm may be feeding. At the very core of that lovely flower, the insect may be rioting. The countenance all radiant with smiles, and the spirit all dark with sadness; the tongue discoursing sweet music, and the heartstrings breaking with grief. But O the consolation- who can describe it?- of unveiling the bosom when alone with Jesus! There the artificial vanishes, and the reality appears. There sorrow may indulge, and tears may flow, and sighs may heave, and complaints may breathe, and the heart may whisper its most sacred feelings, because the sorrowing believer is alone with Jesus.

To whom did the desolate disciples of the martyred John repair for sympathy and comfort, in the hour of their sudden and overwhelming bereavement? We are told, that "they took up the body of John, and buried it, and went and told Jesus." They poured their grief into his ear, and they laid their sorrow on his heart. And when the bereaved believer, whose fond earthly treasure the grave entombs, withdraws from the crowd of human comforters, and seeks to indulge his lonely grief, where does he love to retire? Not to the grave; this were to worship the dead; but to weep out his sorrow alone upon the bosom of Jesus. Ah! you whom death has bereaved! tell me, is there anything like this so soothing?

But perhaps it is in the light of prayer that this privilege most beautifully and sweetly appears. Thus far we may not have been accompanied by the sympathies of every reader; but touching the subject of unfettered, unreserved communion with God in prayer, all true believers are one. Disengaged from the world, and withdrawn from the saints- the one as needful for the cultivation of a close walk as the other; for there is much danger of substituting the communion of saints for communion with the King of saints- the believer retires to be alone with Jesus. The occasion is the most solemn and holy of the Christian life. The closet is entered- the door is shut- Christ and the believer are alone! Tread softly as you pass that spot, and put off your shoes from your feet as you pause, for the Triune God is there! Who can tell the solemn, sacred transaction, now transpiring! What confession of sin! what breathing forth of sorrow! what moaning out of grief! what opening of heart to heart, and what blending of spirit with spirit! what expressions of mutual confidence, affection, and delight- the believer making known the secret of his sorrow, and Christ unfolding the secret of his love!

From this, too, its true source, the saint of God derives his great power in prayer. His amazing and prevailing strength appears at a time of the most apparent weakness, even when single-handed, and alone with Jesus. It was thus the patriarch wrestled and overcame. "And Jacob was left alone; and there wrestled a man with him until the breaking of the day. And when he saw that he prevailed not against him, he touched the hollow of his thigh; and the hollow of Jacob's thigh was out of joint, as he wrestled with him. And he said, Let me go, for the day breaks. And he said, I will not let you go, except you bless me." Never was there a conflict of so illustrious a nature, and of so strange a result, between powers so dissimilar and extreme. The incarnate God, as if to demonstrate his own divine power, and at the same time to make the victory of human weakness over Infinite Might more illustrious and palpable, touches the wrestling patriarch, and he is a cripple! And then at the moment of his greatest weakness, when taught the lesson of his own insufficiency, that flesh might not glory in the Divine presence, Omnipotence retires vanquished from the field, and yields the palm of victory to the disabled but prevailing prince. And why all this? To teach us the amazing power of prayer which the feeblest believer may have when alone with Jesus.

No point of Christian duty and privilege set before you in this work, will plead more earnestly and tenderly for your solemn consideration, dear reader, than this. It enters into the very essence of your spiritual being. This is the channel through which flows the oil that feeds the lamp of your Christian profession. Dimly will burn that lamp, and drooping will be your spiritual light, if you are not wont to be much alone with Jesus. Every feeling of the soul, and each department of Christian labor, will be sensibly affected by this woeful neglect. He who is but seldom with Jesus in the closet, will exhibit, in all that he does for Jesus in the world, but the fitful and convulsive movements of a mind urged on by a feverish and unnatural excitement. It is only in much prayer- that prayer secret and confiding- that the heart is kept in its right position, its affections properly governed, and its movements correctly regulated.

And are there not periods when you find it needful to leave the society of the most spiritual, sweet as is the communion of saints, to be alone with Jesus? He himself has set you the example. Accustomed at times to withdraw from his disciples, he has been known to spend whole nights amid the mountain's solitude, alone with his Father. O the sacredness, the solemnity of such a season! Alone with God! alone with Jesus! No eye seeing, no ear hearing, but his; the dearest of earthly beings excluded, and no one present but Jesus only, the best, the dearest of all! Then, in the sweetest and most unreserved confidence the believer unveils his soul, and reveals all to the Lord. Conscience is read- motives are dissected- principles are sifted- actions are examined- the heart is searched- sin is confessed- and iniquity is acknowledged, as could only effectually be done in the presence of Jesus alone. Is there, among all the privileges of a child of God, one in its costliness and its preciousness surpassing this?

Yet another view of our Lord's conduct towards this solitary object of his mercy. Who was now HER JUDGE? He who came into the world "not to condemn the world, but to save it." She was in the presence of him who left the realms of glory and his Father's bosom, to save the chief of sinners. Here was one; and his heart yearned, and his spirit was moved with pity and compassion. Not a reproving glance darted from his eye, nor an upbraiding word breathed from his lips. Listen to the music of his voice- "Woman, where are those your accusers? has no one condemned you? She said, No one, Lord. And Jesus said unto her, Neither do I condemn you: go, and sin no more." How like himself did he now appear! Here was a flower blighted- did He despise it? Here was a stem bruised- did he break it? Here was a plant crushed- did he trample it beneath his feet No! he took that blighted flower, and placed it in his bosom. With skillful and tender hands he bound up that bruised stem. He stooped and raised that prostrate plant, lifted it into sunshine, and bade it droop and fall no more.

O blessed type of Christ's conduct towards a penitent sinner! Behold the soul prostrated at the foot of the cross. He admits the truth of all the accusations alleged against him. He disproves not, nor palliates a single one. "Lord, I have destroyed myself," is his mournful humiliating acknowledgment. But alone the sinner and the Savior stand. The one all sin- the other all mercy. The one all fear- the other all love. The bosom of the one agitated and convulsed with guilt and shame- the bosom of the other thrilling, and yearning with mercy and forgiveness. "Are you," says Jesus, "convicted of this sin? Have you fled to my cross for salvation- to my bosom for shelter? Have you repaired to my blood for pardon, and taken hold of my righteousness for acceptance? Have you appealed to my compassion, and thrown yourself upon my mercy? Then I do not condemn you. You have touched every spring of tenderness in my heart; you have stirred my mercy to its very depth; you have crowned and glorified me, in that which is most dear to my heart- my power and my willingness to save to the uttermost; your sins are forgiven you; I condemn you not."

It will perhaps be replied- but he declined to condemn this woman as a civil judge. Grant it. Shall we then suppose that our Lord is less compassionate and merciful as a moral judge? If He refuses the office of a temporal magistrate, does it follow that he vacates that of a spiritual minister? If he does not sit in the seat of Moses, will he abandon his own mercy-seat? No. He came to seek and to save that which was lost. He came to call, not the righteous, but sinners to repentance. And to every repentant sinner brought into his presence, in the face of all his accusers, he says, "I condemn you not."

We turn to the closing scene of this instructive narrative- CHRIST'S DISMISSAL OF THE WOMAN. "Go, and sin no more." See how he manifests his abhorrence of the sin, while he throws his shield of mercy around the sinner. The Lord does not justify the sinner's transgression, though he justifies the sinner's person. In the great matter of salvation, justification and sanctification, pardon and holiness, are essentially and inseparably united. When the Lord Jesus dismisses a sinner with a sense of acquittal in his conscience, it is ever accompanied with that most affecting of all exhortations, "Sin no more." And as he passes out from the presence of Jesus, pardoned, justified, saved, the Savior's tender, soul-subduing words, from that moment seem to vibrate upon his ear, every step of his onward way. "Go, admire, and publish abroad the glory of that grace that has done such great things for you. Go, and spread his fame, and with your latest breath dwell upon his name, who, when sin, and Satan, and conscience accused you, and would have consigned you to eternal woe, appeared your Friend, your Advocate, and your Savior. Go, and when tempted to wound afresh the bosom that sheltered you, remember me from Gethsemane, from Calvary, and from the hallowed spot where I spoke to you, I condemn you not- go, and sin no more."

In closing this chapter, allow me, dear reader, to urge upon you the daily and diligent cultivation of that Christianity which derives its freshness, its vigor, and its gloss, from much hidden communion with Jesus. We plead not for the religion of the recluse. A monkish Christianity is not the Christianity of the Bible. When God, in the exercise of his sovereign grace, converts a man, he converts him, not for himself only, but also for others. He converts him, not for the church alone, but also for the world. He is to be a monument, whose inscription all may read- a city, whose beauty all may admire- a burning and a shining light, in whose radiance all may rejoice. He is to live and labor, and, if needs be, die for others. But we plead for more of that Christianity which is often alone with God; which withdraws at periods from the fatigue of labor and the din of strife- to renew its strength, and to replenish its resources, in a secret waiting upon the Lord. Christians must be more alone with Jesus. In the midst of what a whirlpool of excitement and of turmoil do numbers live! How few withdraw from domestic and public enjoyments, the calls of business, the duties of committees, of secretaryships, and of agencies- to hold communion alone with God! This must not be. The institutions which they serve, the calling at which they toil, the families for whom they labor, would be the gainers, rather than the losers, by their occasional sequesterment from the world, to be alone with God. And were our Lord still upon the earth, and contemplating their incessant action and little devotional retirement, and consequent leanness of spirit, would he not be constrained to address them as he once tenderly did his jaded and exhausted disciples, "Come aside into a desert place, and rest awhile?" He would allure them from others to himself.

It is possible, my dear reader, that this page may be read by you at a period of painful and entire separation from all public engagements, ordinances, and privileges. The way which it has pleased the Lord to take thus to set you aside, may be painful and humbling. The inmate of a sick chamber, or curtained within the house of mourning, or removed far remote from the sanctuary of God and the fellowship of the saints, you are perhaps led to inquire, "Lord, why this?" He replies, "Come aside and rest awhile." O the thoughtfulness, the discrimination, the tenderness of Jesus towards his people! He has set you apart from public for private duties, from communion with others for communion with himself. Ministers, friends, privileges, are withdrawn, and you are- O enviable state! alone with Jesus. And now expect the richest and holiest blessing of your life! Is it sickness? Jesus will make all your bed in your sickness, and your experience shall be, "his left hand is under my head, and his right hand does embrace me." Is it bereavement? Jesus will soothe your sorrow, and sweeten your loneliness, for he loves to visit the house of mourning, and to accompany us to the grave to weep with us there. Is it exile from the house of God, from the ordinances of the church, from a pastor's care, from Christian fellowship? Still it is Jesus who speaks, "There will I be unto you as a little sanctuary."

The very circumstances, new and peculiar as they are, in which you are placed, God can convert into new and peculiar mercies, yes, into the richest means of grace with which your soul was ever fed. The very void you feel, the very need you deplore, may be God's way of satiating you with his goodness. Ah! does not God see your grace in your very desire for grace? Does he not mark your sanctification in your very thirsting for holiness? And can he not turn that desire and convert that thirst into the very blessing itself? Truly he can, and often does. As one has remarked, God knows how to give the comfort of an ordinance in the lack of an ordinance. And he can now more than supply the absence of others by the presence of himself. Oh, who can compute the blessings which now may flow into your soul from this season of exile and of solitude? Solitude! no, it is not solitude. Never were you less alone than now. You are alone with God, and he is infinitely better than health, wealth, friends, ministers, or sanctuary, for he is the substance and the sweetness of all.

You have perhaps been laboring and watching for the souls of others; the Lord is now showing his tender care for your. And oh, if while thus alone with Jesus you are led more deeply to search out the plague of your own heart, and the love of his- to gather up the trailing garment- to burnish the rusted armor- to trim the glimmering lamp- and to cultivate a closer fellowship with your Father, how much soever you may mourn the necessity and the cause, you yet will not regret that the Lord has set you apart from others that you might rest awhile in his blest embrace- ALONE WITH JESUS.

"Alone with God! the universe shut out,
Earth, sense, and time, excluded and forgot;
All memories vanished of the parted past,
All prospects of the future overborne
And swallowed up in that one mighty sense,
That all-engrossing consciousness of God!"
"Alone with God! all earth-born love absorbed,
All earthly ties dissolved- all thoughts of those
Long held most dear, Elisha-like, who clung
Around the parting soul to Tabor's brink,
For a brief space (brief to eternity)
Lost in that all-pervading thought of God!"
"Alone with God! angelic hosts around
'In burning row,' attending, but unseen,
Angelic harps unheard, though far and high,
The sounding cadence of their anthem rolls;
The sea of crystal, and the streets of gold
The walls of jasper, and the gates of pearl,
Unnoticed all, resplendent though they be,
The throne, and Him who sits thereon, beheld,
Nothing else besides, in solitude sublime!
And do you shrink, my spirit, from the sight
Of untreated majesty, and quail
To meet the Eternal, naked and alone?"
"Alone with God! -I shrink not- He is great
His awful glory, when unveiled, might well
Consume the spirits He has made; but still
I shrink not- He is holy, too, and just,
And very terrible: He dwells in light
That no man can approach- no mortal eye
Can look upon and live; but there is One
Beside Him whom I dare to meet alone
Whom I have met alone at midnight hour,
In dark Gethsemane's sequestered shades,
Alone, though trembling friends and armed foes
Peopling the solitude, were round us there;
Whom I have met alone on Calvary's hill,
Though taunting crowds and dying men were there;
Whom I have met alone on Tabor's mount,
Unmindful of the little band that there
Held heavenly converse, sacredly amazed."
"Alone with Jesus! no, I cannot shrink
From that blest fellowship, unbroken, deep,
And soul-absorbing in the spirit land,
So often intruded on in this dark world,
By mortal joys and sorrows that would rob
My soul of that communion, pure and high."
"Alone with Jesus! on the Savior's breast
Fondly to lean, and think on none but him
How often my spirit feels lost in the crowd
Of fellow-worshipers below, above,
And longs, like his small band on earth, to be
'Led out into a desert place alone,'
To hear his voice, and share his love, as though
That voice and heart of love were only mine."
"Alone with God! in that blest solitude,
Could earth be lacking with its fleeting joys,
Or even its most abiding; and most pure
To fill the measure of a finite soul!
In that august communion could the loss
Of mortal converse shade the holy light,
Or mar the sacred joy which, as a tide,
A swelling tide of ecstacy, rolls in
Upon the spirit conscious but of God?"

The Pastor's Request for the Prayers of His Flock

"And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the saints. Pray also for me, that whenever I open my mouth, words may be given me so that I will fearlessly make known the mystery of the gospel" Ephes. 6:18-19

The Church of God, as if reflecting from its bosom, like a sea of glass, the order and the perfection of the heaven of glory, from which it descended, presents a beautiful harmony of relation and dependence in all its parts; while, as a whole, it forms a temple of magnificent construction and consummate symmetry- the Zion of God, the "perfection of beauty." In nothing does the evidence of this more strikingly appear than in the relation of the Church of God and the Christian ministry. The obligations involved in this relation, and the reciprocal influence which it is perpetually exerting, illustrate the harmony of this masterpiece of divine workmanship in a manner the most surprising. The Christian church and the Christian ministry are synchronous institutions. Separate and distinct from each other though they are, they yet never existed apart. There never was a church without a ministry; and the appointment of the Christian ministry always implied the existence of the Christian church- the one necessarily involving the other. Of this beautiful relation in one of its most interesting features we are now to speak- namely, the RELIANCE OF THE CHRISTIAN MINISTRY UPON THE INTERCESSIONS OF THE CHURCH.

It might be supposed, from a cursory view of this subject, that a Christian pastor, from the exalted nature of his office, and from the superior attainments in grace and knowledge to which he is supposed to have arrived, would occupy a place so far in the ascendant of the feeblest member of his flock, as to place him in a position independent of the influence which that individual might be capable of exerting. But not so. And here we trace the wisdom and the goodness of God in the nice adjustment of every part of the body of Christ to the whole. As in the physical structure of the human frame, the smallest and most insignificant muscles are observed to perform the most important and delicate actions- the minutest fibre transmitting a vital influence to the brain- so in the more beautiful and perfect body, the church of God, "much more those members which seem to be more feeble are necessary." Thus no pastor can be unaffected by the individual influence of the lowliest member of a Christian body.

The portion of God's word which suggests the topic of this chapter, presents to our view the sublime moral spectacle of the great Apostle of the Gentiles- a man full of wisdom and of the Holy Spirit, mighty in grace, and enriched in gifts- so deeply conscious of personal weakness, and so crushed by the weight of his official responsibilities, and so desirous, too, of delivering his divine message with a moral courage worthy of its high character, stooping to ask at the hands of the Ephesian church, and even of the obscurest member of that church, an interest in his intercessory prayers. "Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit- and for me, that utterance may be given unto me, that I may open my mouth boldly, to make known the mystery of the gospel." The subject is an interesting and an important one. Its bearings upon the mutual usefulness, holiness, and happiness of a pastor and his flock are solemn and far-reaching. It affords a solution of a difficult problem why there is often, comparatively, so little happiness and perpetuity in the pastoral relation; and why there is so much complaint on the one part of unprofitable preaching, and on the other part of careless and fruitless hearing. Prayer for the pastor is restrained before God! Let us endeavor to understand the meaning of the apostle's words, that we may feel the full force of his earnest and solemn request.

The first point to which it is proper to turn our attention is, THE SUBLIME TOPIC OF THE CHRISTIAN MINISTRY. The apostle designates it the "mystery of the gospel." He doubtless borrows the word from the secret rites of the heathen temples, to which none were admitted, and which none understood but the initiated. To all others they were mysteries. Freed from its original and profane use, it is here appropriately applied to designate the nature and the doctrines of the gospel of Christ, and thus becomes, by its association, a hallowed and expressive term. Nor is this the only place in which it occurs in the same use. Thus in I Cor. 2:7, "We speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, even the hidden wisdom, which God ordained before the world for our glory." Equally clear is it, that none are initiated into this mystery of the gospel but those who are partakers of the second birth. For "unless a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God." It is to him a mystery. He is blind and cannot see the glorious mysteries of this kingdom of grace. Addressing his twelve disciples, our Lord further elucidates this idea when he reminds them of their great and gracious privilege "Unto you it is given to know the mystery of the kingdom of God: but unto those who are outside, all these things are done in parables." Mark 4:11. Still more clearly is this truth developed in his remarkable prayer thus recorded: "In that hour Jesus rejoiced in his spirit and said, I thank you, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and the prudent, and have revealed them unto babes: even so, Father; for so it seemed good in your sight."

Permit one remark in passing. If, dear reader, you have been led in any degree into the knowledge of this glorious mystery of truth, hesitate not to ascribe it to the grace of God. Unto you it has been given to know the mystery of the kingdom. The sovereignty of God has so ordered it. The learning, the intellect, and the philosophy of the worldly wise and prudent, have afforded you no help in the solution and unraveling of these divine and glorious enigmas. "But God has revealed them unto us by his Spirit: for the Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God." To babes in Christ- to the lowly minded disciple- to the learner, willing to receive the kingdom of God, as a little child- God unfolds this mystery, that no flesh should glory in his presence. O favored, happy soul, if you, through the illuminating grace of the Holy Spirit, have been led into the mystery of the Father's love in Christ to poor perishing sinners! "Even so, Father; for so it seemed good in your sight!"

Now, here at the very threshold of the kingdom of grace, many hesitate and stumble. The glory of the Gospel- its divine mystery- is their great hindrance. The dim light of nature has conducted them thus far, and here they are brought to a stand-still. Looking into the sacred volume, and finding doctrines there propounded for their faith, which tower above their reason, they scornfully cast it aside, proudly and triumphantly asking, "If this were a revelation from God, why has He not excluded all mystery, clothing every truth with light, and freeing every doctrine from difficulty? Why can we not understand what he has revealed? Are we such babes in understanding, or such dolts in intellect, that these revelations should be veiled in mystery? And are we such fools as to believe that to be true which our reason pronounces to be false?" Thus, "vain man would be wise, though man be born like a wild donkey's colt."

But, if it may avail to argue with such an objector, we would inquire- Is not the world without you and the world within you crowded with problems, which laugh to scorn your oft-made attempts to solve them! Is not the universe of mind and of matter, of which you form a most mysterious speck, replete with mysteries which you cannot explore? Either search out those difficulties, and unravel those mysteries, and thus plant a new sun in the intellectual firmament, that shall dispel the lingering night of ages, or admit the truth of the mystery of the gospel. Where will you place your foot on this little planet of ours, that brings you not in contact with some law or with some product of nature which you cannot explain? The leaf that falls on the pathless desert, the dust brushed from the emmet's wing, baffle and confound you. The pulsations at your heart, the movement of your arm, awe and perplex you. Your very being is a fathomless mystery! Why, then, assume an air of such astonishment, and an attitude of such contempt- why look, why speak so doubtingly, when we present for your belief the mystery of revelation; the inexplicable wonders of God's salvation of man?

"Observe, I ask you," argues, with much force and beauty, an eminent continental divine, "in what manner the mysteries of which you complain have taken their part in religion. You readily perceive they are not by themselves, but associated with truths which have a direct bearing on your salvation. They contain them, they serve to envelope them; but they are not themselves the truths that save. It is with these mysteries as it is with the vessel which contains a medicinal draught; it is not the vessel that cures, but the draught; yet the draught could not be presented without the vessel. Thus each truth that saves is contained in a mystery, which, in itself, has no power to save. So the great work of expiation is necessarily attached to the incarnation of the Son of God, which is a mystery; so the sanctifying graces of the new covenant are necessarily connected with the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, which is a mystery; so, too, the divinity of religion finds a seal and an attestation in the miracles, which are mysteries. Everywhere the light is born from darkness, and darkness accompanies the light. These two orders of truth are so united, so interlinked, that you cannot remove the one without the other; and each of the mysteries you attempt to tear from religion, would carry with it one of the truths which bear directly on your regeneration and salvation. Accept the mysteries, then, not as truths that can save you, but as the necessary conditions of the merciful work of the Lord in your behalf."

"The true point at issue in reference to religion is this- Does the religion which is proposed to us, change the heart, unite to God, prepare for heaven? If Christianity produces these effects, we will leave the enemies of the cross free to revolt against its mysteries, and tax them with absurdity. The gospel, we will say to them, is then an absurdity; you have discovered it. But behold what a new species of absurdity that certainly is, which attaches man to all his duties, regulates human life better than all the doctrines of sages, plants in his bosom harmony, order, and peace, causes him joyfully to fulfil all the offices of civil life, renders him better fitted to live, better fitted to die, and which, were it generally received, would be the support and safeguard of society! Cite to us, among all human absurdities, a single one which produces such effects. If that 'foolishness' we preach produces effects like these, is it not natural to conclude that it is truth itself? And if these things have not entered the heart of man, it is not because they are absurd, but because they are divine." -Alexander Vinet

And yet how credulous is man when folly clothes itself in affected mystery, and demands his faith! The atheist, for example, seizing upon every childish cause that promises to solve his difficulties, and dispel his fears; the sceptic, launched upon the stormy sea of uncertainty and doubt, becomes the plaything of chance and fate, whose dreamings he implicitly believes. What folly so egregious has not man credited? By what imposture so gross has he not been entrapped? And to what superstition so abject has he not been a slave? And yet the sublime, glorious, precious mystery of the gospel, he, in the pride of his intellect, and in the depravity of his heart, scornfully and utterly rejects!

But let us specify some of the mysteries of the gospel, which, while it declares transcending our reason, yet propounds for our faith. We commence with the doctrine of the TRINITY. That this is a truth of express revelation, we think it will not be difficult to show. We may not find the term employed to designate the doctrine in the Bible, but if we find the doctrine itself there, it is all that we ask. On opening the Bible, with a view to the examination of this subject, the first truth that arrests our attention, is a solemn declaration of the Divine Unity- "Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God is one Lord." Deut. 6:4. Prosecuting our research, we find two distinct people spoken of in relation to the Godhead, under the titles of the "Son of God," and the "Holy Spirit of God," to whom are ascribed the attributes of Deity and the qualities of a person, implying Divine personality. A step further brings us to a passage in which we find these three distinct, divine people, associated in an act of solemn worship- "Go, teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit." What conclusion must we draw from these premises? First, that there is a unity in the Godhead; and secondly, that in this unity, or in this one Godhead, there is a trinity of people, or three istinct subsistences, styled the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Here, then, we have the doctrine for which we plead. The following passage clearly teaches the same glorious truth, Matt. 3:I6 "And Jesus, when he was baptized, went up straightway out of the water: and, lo, the heavens were opened unto him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove, and lighting upon him." What a conclusive evidence is this passage of the blessed Trinity! The FATHER speaks from the excellent glory; the SON ascends from the water, and receives the attestation of his Father; and the Holy SPIRIT descends from the heavens, and overshadows him. Here are three distinct people, to each of whom the marks of Deity are ascribed, and between whom it is impossible not to observe a bond of the closest and tenderest unity. Again, I Cor. 12:4-6 "Now there are diversities of gifts, but the same SPIRIT. And there are differences of administrations, but the same LORD. And there are diversities of operations; but it is the same GOD who works all in all." With what a sunbeam is this glorious truth here written! How richly it glows with light peculiarly its own! That here are three distinct subsistences, who can deny? And that they are equal, who can doubt? Gal. 4:6 "And because you are sons, GOD has sent forth the SPIRIT Of His SON into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father." Again, here are three people announced in connection with the blessed act of the Father's adoption of his people. Jude 2O:21 "But you, beloved, building up yourselves on your most holy faith, praying in the HOLY SPIRIT, keep yourselves in the love of GOD, looking for the mercy of our LORD Jesus Christ, unto eternal life."

Wilfully, or judicially blind must he be, who sees not in these words the great truth for which we plead. And it is the glory of our land, and the joy of our hearts, to know, that from every Christian pulpit, the doctrine of the blessed Trinity is proclaimed whenever the apostolic benediction is pronounced, "The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit, be with you all. Amen." That the mode of its existence is an awful mystery, we unhesitatingly admit; but it is not the mode of the fact, but the fact itself which the word presents as the object of our faith. I am not required to believe how the three people subsist as the One Godhead; but I am to believe upon the express testimony of revelation that they do so exist.

I find 'a trinity' within me- matter, mind, and spirit. I am baffled in my attempts to unravel the mystery. In vain I search for a clue; every attempt leaves me puzzled, lost, and more confounded. Do I therefore deny my own being? Or, do I not rather subordinate my reason to my faith, believing a fact, the truth of which I have the evidence, but the mode of which I cannot understand? Surely, then, if I cannot fathom the shallows of a finite existence, how can I fathom the depths of an infinite? Foolish man! expecting all else to be wrapped in profound mystery, and God alone to be understood! "Can you by searching find out God? can you find out the Almighty unto perfection. It is higher than heaven, what can you do? deeper than hell, what can you know? The measure thereof is longer than the earth, and broader than the sea."

There is so much excellence of thought, and so clearly expressed, in the following observations, pertinent to our subject, by one of the ablest divines, that we are constrained to quote them. Alluding to the doctrine of the Trinity, he remarks- "The doctrine of which I now speak is freely admitted to be above reason. But it is of consequence to observe, that on this very account, it seems impossible to prove it contrary to reason. It is a common and just remark, that there is an essential difference between anything being above reason, and being contrary to it; and that it may be the former, without being the latter. I think we may go a step farther, and affirm, as I have just hinted, that this very circumstance of its being the former, precludes the possibility of proving it to be the latter. I question whether anything that is above reason can ever be shown to be contrary to it. For unless we have some notion of the thing itself, on what principle can we make out the contrariety? Were we to say that the people of the Godhead are one and three in the same sense, we should evidently affirm what is contrary to reason; because such a proposition would involve, in the very terms of it, an irreconcilable contradiction; but so long as we do not pretend to know, nor to say, how they are one, and how they are three, to prove that we assert what is contrary to reason, when we affirm that they are both, is, from the very nature of the thing, impossible. For what is it which is to be proved contrary to reason? Upon the supposition made, we cannot tell- it is something which we do not know, of the nature and circumstances of which we are left in total ignorance. For our own part, so far from being staggered by finding mysteries in revelation, I am satisfied that the entire absence of them would have formed a much stronger ground for suspicion. All analogy excites and justifies the expectation of them. Nature, in its various departments, is full of them; and shall we, then, account it strange, that there should be any in the department of grace? They abound in the works of God; why, then, should we not wish for them in his word? They present themselves in the nature and constitution of every one of his creatures; and is it to be conceived, that in his own nature and essence nothing of the kind should be found? Is it reasonable to think that all should be plain and easily comprehensible, which relates to God himself, and that inexplicable difficulties should embarrass and stop our researches, only in what regards his creatures? Ought we not rather, on such a subject, to anticipate difficulties?- to expect to feel the inadequacy and the failure of our faculties?- and to expect this, with a certainty proportioned to the superior magnitude of the subject above all others that can engage our attention, and its complete and absolute remoteness from the sphere of all our senses, and of all our experience? If finite things every moment confound us, ought we to be surprised at finding that we cannot comprehend what is infinite? Let us remember the apostolic lesson, and let it be our desire, that we may think, and feel, and act, on all subjects, and on all occasions, consistently with the principle and spirit of it. 'I say, through the grace given to me, to every man that is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think soberly."' -Dr. Wardlaw

Before we dismiss all allusion to this doctrine, we must venture to observe that, in an experimental and practical point of view, it is a truth fraught with the richest blessing to a believing mind. The relation which it sustains to our spiritual knowledge, happiness, and future glory, is but little considered. It is to the Christian, the key of the Bible. The Spirit imparting skill to use it, and the power, when used, it unlocks this divine arcade of mysteries, and throws open every door in the blest sanctuary of truth. But it is in the light of salvation that its fitness and beauty most distinctly appear- salvation in which JEHOVAH appears so inimitably glorious- so like Himself. The Father's love appears in sending his Son- the Son's love in undertaking the work- the Holy Spirit's love in applying the work. Oh, it is delightful to see how, in working out the mighty problem of man's redemption, the Divine Three were thus deeply engaged! With which of these could we have dispensed? All were needed- and had one been lacking, our salvation had been incomplete, and we had been eternally lost. In bringing to glory the Church they thus have saved, the sacred Three are solemnly pledged. And in the matter of prayer, how sustaining to faith, and how soothing to the mind, when we can embrace, in our ascending petitions, the blessed Three in One! "For through him (the Son) we both have access by one Spirit unto the Father."

The doctrine of the INCARNATION presents another gospel mystery, if possible, more astonishing than the one which we have just considered. We can more easily understand that there should be three people in a unity of subsistence, than that God should be manifested in the flesh. The analogy of the one meets us everywhere; we turn the eye within ourselves, or we turn it outside upon the broad expanse of God's creation- from every point of observation, a trinity of existence bursts upon our view. But, of the other, in vain we search for anything approaching to resemblance. It was a thing so unheard of and so strange, so marvellous and so unique, that there was nothing in the sublime or the rude, in the bold or the tender of nature's varied works, to prepare the mind for, or awaken the expectation of, a phenomenon so strange, so stupendous, and so mysterious. We do not overlook the fact that there have been found to exist in the history of nations, ideas that would seem analogous to the revealed doctrine of the incarnatian. For instance, the Pythagorean doctrine of the transmigration of souls- the Hindoo idea of the incarnation of Vishnu, and other examples which might be adduced. But how far these dim and vague notions were extracted from biblical tradition would be a nice and interesting question. But that the doctrine of the incarnation of the Son of God is any other than a pure and express revelation, no true believer will for a moment question. It was a secret originating and enclosed within the mind of JEHOVAH. He only could reveal it. Not that the possibility of such an event astonishes us. With Jehovah all things are possible. "Is anything too hard for me?" is a question that would seem to rebuke the first rising of such an emotion, "A God allowed, all other wonders cease."

But we marvel at the fact itself. Its stupendousness amazes us- its condescension humbles us- its glory dazzles us- its tenderness subdues us- its love overpowers us. That the uncreated Son of God should become the created Son of man- that the Eternal Word should be made flesh and dwell with men- that he should assume a new title, entwining in the awful letters that compose his divine name, others denoting his inferior nature as man, so revealing himself as Jehovah-Jesus! O wonder, surpassing thought! Before this, how are all others infinitely outshone; their luster fading away and disappearing as stars before the advancing light!

But viewed as a medium of the most costly blessings to the church of God, how precious a mystery does the incarnation of our Lord appear! The union of the divine and the human in Immanuel, is the re-union of God through the second Adam with fallen man. The first Adam severed us from the Divine nature- the second Adam re-unites us. The incarnation is the grand link between these two extremes of being. It forms the verdant spot, the oasis in the desert, of a ruined universe, on which God and the sinner can meet together. Here are blended, in marvellous union, the gloomy clouds of human woe, and the bright beams of divine glory- God and man united! And will you, O theist, rob me of this truth, because of its mystery? Will you yourself reject it, because reason cannot grasp it? Then might I rob you of your God, (whom you ignorantly worship,) because of his incomprehensibleness, not one attribute of whom can you understand or explain. No! It is a truth too precious to part with so easily. God in my nature- my Brother- my Friend- my Counselor- my Guide- my Redeemer- my Pattern- my all! God in my nature- my wisdom, my righteousness, my sanctification, my redemption! But for this heaven-descending communication, of which the Patriarch's ladder was the symbol and the type, how could the holy God advance towards me, or I draw near to him? But he takes my nature that he may descend to me, and he gives me his nature that I may ascend to him. He stoops because I could not rise! O mystery of grace, wisdom, and love! Shall I doubt it?

I go to the manger of Bethlehem, and gaze upon the infant Savior. My faith is staggered, and I exclaim, "Is this the Son of God?" Retiring, I track that infant's steps along its future path. I mark the wisdom that he displayed, and I behold the wonders that he wrought. I mark the revelations that he disclosed, the doctrines that he propounded, the precepts that he taught, the magnanimity that he displayed. I follow him to Gethsemane, to the judgment hall, and then to Calvary, and I witness the closing scene of wonder. I return to Bethlehem, and with the evidences which my hesitating faith has thus collected, I exclaim, with the awe-struck and believing centurion, "Truly this is the Son of God!" All the mystery of his lowly incarnation vanishes, and my adoring soul embraces the incarnate God within its arms.

We marvel not that, hovering over the spot where this great mystery of godliness transpired, the celestial choir, in the stillness of the night, awoke such strains of music along the plains of Bethlehem, as were never heard before. They left the realms of glory to escort the Lord of glory in his advent to our earth. How gladly they trooped around him, thronging his wondrous way, their benevolent bosoms dilating in sympathy with the grand object of his mission. And this was the angel's message to the astonished shepherds: "Fear not: for behold I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David, a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God, and saying, Glory be to God in the highest, and on earth peace, and good will to men." Shall angels rejoice in the incarnation of the Son of God, and our hearts be cold and unmoved? Forbid it, love, forbid it, gratitude, forbid it, O my soul!

THE MYSTICAL UNION OF CHRIST AND HIS CHURCH is also declared to be one of the mysteries of the gospel. "This is a great mystery," says the apostle, "but I speak concerning Christ and his Church." That Christ and his people should be one- one as the head and the body- the vine and the branch- the foundation and the house- is indeed a wondrous truth. We cannot understand how it is; and yet so many, palpable, and gracious are the blessings flowing from it, we dare not reject it. All that a believer is, as a living soul, he is from a vital union with Christ. As the body without the soul is dead, so is a sinner spiritually dead without union to Jesus. Not only his life, but his fruitfulness is derived from this source. All the "beauties of holiness" that adorn his character, spring from the vital principle which his engrafting into Christ produces. He is skillful to fight, and strong to overcome, and patient to endure, and meek to suffer, and wise to walk, as he lives on Christ for the grace of sanctification. "Without me you can do nothing."

Is it not indeed a mystery that I should so be one with Christ, that all that he is becomes mine, and all that I am becomes his? His glory mine, my humiliation his. His righteousness mine, my guilt his. His joy mine, my sorrow his. Mine his riches, his my poverty. Mine his life, his my death. Mine his heaven, his my hell. The daily walk of faith is a continuous development of the wonders of this wondrous truth: That in traveling to him empty, I should return from him full. That in going to him weak, I should come away from him strong. That in bending my steps to him in all darkness, perplexity, and grief, I should retrace them all light, and joy, and gladness. Why marvel at this mystery of the life of faith? My oneness with Jesus explains it.

And what a mystery is THE OPERATION OF THE HOLY SPIRIT IN THE SOUL! That a work so renewing, so gracious, and so holy, should ever transpire in the heart of a poor sinner, is itself a wonder. What a marvellous view of the power, nor less of the grace of God, does it present! Every step in the mighty process awakens new amazement. The first conviction of sin that saddens the heart- the first beam of light that illuminates the mind- the first touch of faith that heals the soul, possesses more that is truly wonderful than the most sublime mystery, or the profoundest secret, in nature. There is more of God in it; and the more of God, the more of wonder; and the more of wonder we see in his work and operations, the more readily should reason assent, and the more profoundly should faith adore.

The mystery of grace is illustrated by the mystery of nature. "The wind blows where it wills, and you hear the sound thereof, but can not tell where it comes, and where it goes: so is every one that is born of the Spirit." I saw one man just yesterday living without God, and in total neglect of his soul's salvation. The solemn eternity to which he was hastening, gave him not a moment's serious concern. His heart was filled with pharisaical pride, worldly ambition, and covetous desires. Self was his God- the only deity he worshiped; this world was his paradise- the only heaven he desired. Today I see him the subject of deep and powerful emotion; a humble suppliant, in the spirit of self-abasement, pleading for mercy as the chief of sinners. What a change has come over him! How in a moment have old things passed away, and all things become new! And he who but as yesterday was dwelling among the tombs, himself dead in trespasses and sins, today is sitting as a lowly disciple and an adoring worshiper at the feet of Jesus. Where did this wondrous transformation, this new creation, come from? Oh, it was the Spirit of God who wrought it, and the work is marvellous in our eyes!

Nor do the SUSTAINING AND THE CARRYING FORWARD OF THIS WORK OF GRACE IN THE SOUL unfold less of the wonderful power of God the Holy Spirit. When we take into consideration the sinful mass which the little leaven of grace has to transform- the extent of that revolted territory which the new kingdom has to subjugate to itself- then the sustaining and the perfecting of this work is one continued miracle of wonder. To see one strong in conscious weakness maintaining his position in the face of much opposition- buoyed up amid billows of sorrow- growing in grace in the midst of circumstances the most unfavorable- witnessing for God and his truth at the loss of family affection and long-endeared friendship- is a spectacle that must fill the mind with adoring thoughts of the love and faithfulness and power of that divine Spirit whose work it is.

There are other doctrines comprehended in the gospel which equally come under the denomination of mysterious. Such is the doctrine of THE RESURRECTION OF THE BODY. "Behold," says the apostle in his splendid argument on this subject, "I show you a mystery: we shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet; for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed." And yet shall it be thought a thing incredible that God should raise the dead? He who could call into existence that which was not, shall he be baffled in recalling into existence that which was? Why, then, should we reject the doctrine of the resurrection, because the process of resuscitating the identical dead, God has concealed in profound mystery?

These are some of the gospel mysteries which the apostle desired to make known. He admitted that they were mysteries- mysteries which he could not fully unravel. It was enough for him that they were so revealed. He bowed his great intellect to the truth; and what his mighty reason could not comprehend, his humble faith implicitly and gratefully received. We may learn much from this. Let no minister of the gospel withhold any part, or doctrine, or truth of God's word, because it is "hard to be understood." Our functions are limited. We are but the expositors of what God has seen most consistent with his glory to make known. We are not to unloose seals which he has not broken, nor attempt to ascribe reasons for what he has seen fit to conceal. "He gives no account of any of his matters." All revealed truth is unqualifiedly to be declared. The doctrines of grace, towering though they do above the comprehension of carnal reason, and humbling though they are to human pride, are yet fully and broadly to be stated. "Even so, Father; for so it seems good in your sight," is the only answer we should give to him who dares to "reply against God." O for grace to preach as God has commanded; neither taking from, nor adding to, his revealed word!

It may be profitable for a moment to contemplate THE SPIRIT in which the apostle desired to make known this mystery of the gospel. The two blessings which he craved through the prayers of his flock were, utterance and boldness. "That utterance may be given unto me, that I may open my mouth boldly to make known the mystery of the gospel." The first which Paul desired was UNFETTERED UTTERANCE. He knew that He who made man's mouth could only open his lips to proclaim the unsearchable riches of Christ. Great as were his natural endowments, and rich and varied as were his intellectual acquirements, he felt their inadequacy when working alone. We should never fail to distinguish between the natural eloquence of man, and the holy utterance which the Spirit gives. Paul had splendid gifts, and commanding powers of elocution. But what were they? He needed more- he asked for more. Dear reader, if the ministry of reconciliation comes to your soul with any power or sweetness, remember whose it is. Give not to man, but to God, the glory. Be very jealous for the honor of the Spirit in the ministry of the word. It is "spirit and life" to you only as God gives utterance to him that speaks. It is mournful to observe to what extent the idolatry of human talent and eloquence is carried, and how little glory is given to the Holy Spirit in the gospel ministry.

But there was yet another ministerial qualification which Paul sought. He desired to be unshackled from the fear of man: "That I may open my mouth BOLDLY." Had we heard him utter this request, we might have been constrained to reply, "Do you desire boldness? You are the most courageous and heroic of the apostles. You fear no man." Ah! we forget that when God stirs up the heart of a believer deeply to feel his need, and earnestly to desire any particular grace of the Spirit, that grace will be the distinguishing trait of his Christian character. The very possession and exercise of a grace strengthen the desire for its increase.

The more we have of Christ, the more we desire of Christ. The heart is never satiated. Do we see a man earnest and importunate in prayer for faith? faith will be his distinguishing grace. See we another wrestling with God for deep views of the evil of sin? that man will be marked for his humble walk with God. Is it love that he desires? his will be a loving spirit. Be sure of this the more you know of the value and the sweetness of any single grace of the Spirit, the more ardently will your heart be led out after an increase of that grace. The reason why our desires for grace are so faint, may be traced to the small measure of grace that we already possess. The very feebleness of the desire proves the littleness of the supply. As all holy desire springs from grace, so the deeper the grace the more fervent will be the desire. The Lord rouse us from our slothful seeking of him upon our beds!

Here, then, is the apostle desiring boldness yet who so bold in preaching Jesus as he? It was the master-spirit- the distinguishing trait of his ministry. At the very commencement of his Christian career, when even the disciples stood in doubt of him, we find him "speaking boldly in the name of the Lord Jesus." Acts 9:29. The feathers were scarcely upon his wing, yet see how the eaglet soars! What promise of bolder flight and of fiercer bravery! One can almost see the white-haired martyr, in the Christian stripling. But just freed from the chain of Satan, we yet see at once the future character of the man- the fearless apostle of the Gentiles. His boldness never forsook him. His moral courage never failed him. He was never awed into silence by superior rank, nor brow-beaten into cowardice by vulgar threatening. Flattery never seduced, danger never alarmed him. Whether a friend or a criminal, fidelity and fearlessness were his strong characteristics. Whether among the polished or the rude, the lettered sceptics of Athens or the ignorant barbarians of Malta, he was the same; a dignified and graceful, but bold and uncompromising preacher of Jesus Christ. And yet this was the man who now was entreating the prayers of God's people, that he might with freedom of utterance and undaunted boldness make known the mystery of the gospel!

And who should be bold if not the ministers of the gospel? How can they be faithful and efficient preachers of the truth, if awed by a corrupt public sentiment, or fettered by a pusillanimous fear of man? How much is the glory of the truth shaded, and its power impaired, and the dignity of their office compromised, by the man-pleasing, man-fearing spirit which, alas, so much prevails! We meet with boldness everywhere: Satan is bold in his onset upon the church of Christ. Sin is bold in developing its dark designs. Error is bold in its attacks upon truth. Men are bold in disseminating soul-destroying doctrines, and in following corrupt and superstitious practices. The whole kingdom of darkness and of sin is moving on to the coming battle with the kingdom of Christ, with a boldness of enterprise and of attack, which fills the mind with awe and wonder. And is the ministry of reconciliation, of truth, and of holiness to be the only exception? Is it at all congruous that men should have boldness enough to declare their sins, to speak them, to proclaim them, to wear them, to glory in them; and that those officers who are sent for no other business but, in the name and authority of Almighty God, to fight against the corruptions of the world, should, in the mean time, hang down the head and be tongue-tied? that men should have more boldness to destroy themselves, and to do Satan's work, than we to save them, or to serve God? No! it is not congruous that men should be bold and fearless in sinning against God, and in plunging into hell; and that those who are sent to warn, and to expostulate, and to save, shall be time-serving, man-pleasing, and cowardly in the discharge of their high and solemn trust.

And was ever boldness a more needed qualification of the Christian ministry than now? Error is rampant- the truth is assailed on every side- the enemy is coming in like a flood - the ancient land-marks are removed- false teachers are beguiling souls- men who "seemed to be pillars" are as reeds shaken by the wind- and but few preach a whole gospel and a full Christ. Verily, never were holy courage and uncompromising fearlessness, in contending earnestly for the faith, more urgently demanded than at the present moment!

We have now reached, perhaps by a too lengthy discussion, the specific subject of this chapter; one, it must be admitted, of universal interest and of high importance, yet not often brought before the Christian church. We allude to THE NECESSITY OF PRAYER IN BEHALF OF THE CHRISTIAN PASTOR. It was through this channel the Apostle sought the ministerial fitness which he craved: "Pray also for me, that whenever I open my mouth, words may be given me so that I will fearlessly make known the mystery of the gospel." Not in this instance only does he cast himself upon the intercessions of the saints. Thus he writes to the church at Rome: "Now I beseech you, brethren, for the Lord Jesus Christ's sake, and for the love of the Spirit, that you strive together with me in your prayers to God for me." And then he proceeds to specify the petitions he would have them make on his behalf. He again pleads, "You also helping together by prayer for us." "For I know that this shall turn to my salvation through your prayers, and the supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ." "Withal praying also for us, that God would open unto us a door of utterance to speak the mystery of Christ." How significant is this language, and how touching are these appeals! The solemn earnestness which is here betrayed, is no expression of feeling exaggerated beyond the importance of the object eliciting it.

There are many weighty and solemn considerations, to a few of which we may allude, which powerfully plead for the prayers of the church of God in behalf of her ministers and pastors. The first which may be adduced is the magnitude of their work. A greater work than theirs was never entrusted to mortal hands. No angel employed in the celestial embassy bears a commission of higher authority, or wings his way to discharge a duty of such extraordinary greatness and responsibility. He is a minister of the Lord Jesus Christ- an ambassador from the court of heaven- a preacher of the glorious gospel of the blessed God- a steward of the mysteries of the kingdom. Properly to fill this high office- giving to the household their portion of food in due season- going down into the mine of God's word, and bringing forth to the view of every understanding its hidden treasures- to set forth the glory of Immanuel, the fitness of his work, and the fulness of his grace- to be a scribe well instructed, "rightly dividing the word of truth,"- to be wise and skillful to win souls, the grand end of the Christian ministry- oh, who so much needs the sustaining prayers of the church as the Ministers of the Christian church?

Secondly. The painful sense of their insufficiency supplies another affecting plea. For an office so high, how unworthy do they at times feel, and how imperfectly furnished with grace and gift for a work which "Might fill an angel's hands, Which filled the Savior's heart," do they appear to themselves to be! Who are ministers of Christ? Are they angels? Are they superhuman beings? Are they inspired? No, they are men in all respects like others. They partake of like infirmities, are the subjects of like assaults, and are estranged from nothing that is human. As the heart knows its own bitterness, so they only are truly aware of the existence and incessant operation of those many and clinging weaknesses of which they partake in sympathy with others. And yet, God has devolved upon them a work which would crush an angel's power if left to his self-sustaining energy. Oppressed often to the very earth with the consciousness of this, is it incongruous with a pastor's dignity and character that he should still acknowledge his dependence upon the prayers of the feeblest member of his flock?

Thirdly. The many and peculiar trials of the ministry and the pastorate ask this favor at our hands. These are peculiar to, and inseparable from, the office that he fills. In addition to those of which he partakes alike with other Christians- personal, domestic, and relative- there are trials to which they must necessarily be utter strangers. And as are they unknown to, so are they unrelievable by, the people of their charge. With all the sweetness of affection, and the tenderness of sympathy, and the delicacy of attention, which you extend to your pastor, there is yet a lack which Jesus only can supply, and which, through the channel of your prayers, he will supply. In addition to his own, he bears the burdens of others. How impossible for an affectionate, sympathizing pastor to separate himself from the circumstances of his flock, be those circumstances what they may! So close and so sympathetic is the bond of union, if they suffer, he mourns; if they are afflicted, he weeps; if they are dishonored, he is reproached; if they rejoice, he is glad. He is one with his church. How feelingly the apostle expresses this! "Besides those things that are external, that which comes upon me daily, the care of all the churches. Who is weak, and I am not weak? who is offended, and I burn not?" To see a Christian pastor, in addition to his own personal grief, borne often in uncomplaining loneliness and silence, yet bowed down under accumulated sorrows not his own- others looking to him for sympathy, for comfort, and for counsel; is a spectacle which might well arouse in behalf of every Christian pastor, the slumbering spirit of prayer. We marvel not to hear the chief of the apostles thus pleading, "Brethren, pray for us."

Fourthly. Your own personal profit through his ministry lays you under the deepest and most solemn obligation to give your pastor, in return, an especial and constant interest in your intercessions at the mercy-seat. Paul could say to the Philippians, "You are partakers of my grace." Most true is it, that in the grace bestowed by God upon a Christian pastor, all the members of the flock share. They partake of that which belongs to him. All the grace with which he is enriched- all the gifts with which he is endowed- all the acquirements with which he is furnished- all the afflictions with which he is visited- all the comforts with which he is soothed- all the strength with which he is upheld- all the distinction and renown with which he is adorned- belong alike to the church over which God has made him an overseer. There is in the pastoral relation a community of interest. He holds that grace, and he exercises those gifts, not on account of his own personal holiness and happiness merely, but with a view to your holiness and happiness. You are partakers with him. You are enriched by his 'fatness,' or are impoverished by his 'leanness.' The degree of his grace will be the measure of your own. The amount of his intelligence, the extent of yours. As he is taught and blessed by Christ, so will you be. The glory which he gathers in communion with God will irradiate you; the grace which he draws from Jesus will sanctify you; the wealth which he collects from the study of the Bible will enrich you. Thus, in all things, are you "partakers of his grace."

How important, then, that on all occasions he should be a partaker of your prayers! Thus your own best interests are his strongest plea. Your profit by him will be proportioned to your prayer for him. To the neglect of this important duty, much of the barrenness complained of in hearing the word may be traced. You have, perhaps, been wont to retire from God's house, caviling at the doctrine, dissecting the sermon in a spirit of captious criticism, sitting in judgment upon the matter or the manner of the preacher, and bitterly complaining of the unprofitableness of the preaching. With all tender faithfulness would we lay the question upon your conscience- How much do you pray for your minister? We repeat the interrogation more emphatically- How much do you pray for your minister? Here, in all probability, lies the secret of the great evil which you deplore. You have complained of your minister to others- alas! how often, and how bitterly, to your deep humiliation be it spoken- have you complained of him to the Lord? And have you ever seriously pondered the fact, that your soul's barrenness under the preached word- of which you seem in some degree aware- may, in a great degree, be traceable to yourself? The surmise, perhaps, startles you. The thought may never have occurred to your mind before. New and strange though it may be, it is yet worthy of your profoundest consideration.

Have you ever seriously reflected how closely allied may be the deficiency in the pulpit, of which you complain, to your own deficiency in the closet, of which you have not been aware? You have restrained prayer in behalf of your pastor. You have neglected to remember in especial, fervent intercession with the Lord, the instrument on whom your advancement in the divine life so much depends. You have looked up to him as a channel of grace, but you have failed to ask at the hands of Jesus that grace of which he is but the channel. You have waited upon his ministrations for instruction and comfort, but you have neglected to beseech for him that teaching and anointing by which alone he could possibly establish you in truth, or console you in sorrow. You have perhaps observed a poverty of thought, and have been sensible of a lack of power in his ministrations, but you have not traced it in part to your own poverty and lack in the spirit and habit of prayer in his behalf. You have marveled and lamented the absence of sympathy and feeling and tenderness, in the discharge of his pastoral duties, but you have forgotten to sympathize with the high responsibilities, and oppressive anxieties, and bewildering engagements, inseparable from the office which your pastor fills, and in which he may largely share, often "pressed out of measure, above strength, insomuch that he may despair even of life."

Thus in a great degree the cause of an unprofitable hearing of the word may be found nearer at home than was suspected. There has been a suspension of sympathy on your part, and God has permitted a suspension of sympathy on his. "If a man could, when he enters God's house," to quote an apposite remark of the godly Bishop Reynolds, "but pour out his heart in these two things- a promise and a prayer, 'Lord, I am now entering into your presence, to hear you speak from heaven unto me, to receive your rain and spiritual dew, which never returns in vain, but ripens a harvest either of grain or weeds, of grace or judgment. My heart is prepared, O Lord, my heart is prepared, to learn and love any of your words. Your law is my counselor, I will be ruled by it; it is my physician, I will be patient under it; it is my schoolmaster, I will be obedient unto it. But who am I that I should promise any service unto you? and who is your minister, that he should do any good unto me, without your grace and heavenly call? Be therefore, pleased to reveal your own Spirit unto me, and to work in me that which you require of me.' I say, if a man could come with such sweet preparations, of heart unto the word, and could thus open his soul when this spiritual manna falls down from heaven, he should find the truth of that which the Apostle speaks. You are not straitened in us, (or in our ministry,) we come unto you with abundance of grace; but you are straitened only in your own affections, in the hardness, unbelief, incapacity, and negligence of your own hearts, which receives that in drops which falls down in showers.

We exhort the people to pray for their ministers, since they have a service upon those who, without divine grace, none are sufficient for, that God would, by his special assistance, enable them to discharge so great a trust. God commands it; we beseech it; our weakness courts it; your souls require it. The more you pray for your minister, the more you will profit by him. You help to edify yourselves; you help him to study, and pray, and preach for you, while you pray for him."

Oh you flocks of the Lord, you churches of Christ, you saints of the Most High, pray, PRAY for your ministers! No one more deeply needs, no one more affectingly asks your prayers than he. For you he toils in the study, wrestles in the closet, and labors in the pulpit. For your best welfare he consecrates his youthful vigor, his mature experience, his declining years. To you he has been the channel of untold blessing. Often has the Lord spoken through him to your oppressed heart, thoughts of peace and words of love. He has often been instrumental in removing doubt from your mind, in clearing up points of truth that were hard to be understood, and in building you up on your most holy faith. Often, too, has he been the means of endearing Christ to you, leading you to him as a Counselor, as a Brother, as a Friend, and as a Redeemer, thus unveiling his glory to your eye, and his preciousness to your heart.

Perhaps he first told you of Jesus! From his lips you heard the life-giving sound of the gospel; by him you were wounded, by him you were healed, and by his hands you were received within the pale of the visible church. Oh, then, is it an unreasonable request that he should ask especial remembrance in the petitions which you breathe to God for "all the saints?" Think how often you have filled his mind with thoughtfulness, his heart with anxiety, his eyes with tears, his mouth with holy and fervent pleadings at the throne of grace. Then, will you not continue to pray for your pastor? Gratitude demands it. Remember him not in your petitions on ordinary occasions merely, but let there be especial seasons of prayer set apart for him alone.

Particularly if you know him to be passing through a season of trial, or sorrow, or mental anxiety, take him constantly and especially to the Lord. You need not know the cause of that sorrow. Proper feelings dictating, you will not wish to know. It will be enough for you that with delicacy of perception you have seen the shade of sadness on his brow; the look of anxiety in his eye; the expression of deep thoughtfulness upon his countenance; you will instantly take him in your heart to the Lord. And oh! who can unfold the extent of the blessing which your prayers may thus be the channel of conveying to his soul?

You may deem yourself, my reader, but an insignificant member of the flock. The grace which the Lord has given you may constrain you to think lowly of yourself, and to retire into the shade; but low and feeble though you may be in your own eyes, yet you have power with God in prayer. See yon little cloud sailing athwart that blue sky? It has absorbed its precious treasures from some hidden spring, and, guided by God's invisible hand, is going to unbosom itself upon some parched and thirsty spot, refreshing, gladdening, and fructifying it. The little rivulet, that flows noiseless and unseen from that shaded spot, has thus transmitted from its sequestered glen an influence felt far beyond it, and to an extent it never conceived and never can know. Such, dear reader, may be the character and such the results of your intercessions in behalf of your pastor. Silver and gold you have none to offer him. He asks not this at your hands. But your prayers you may give, and your prayers he does ask. He beseeches you, earnestly and affectingly, for the Lord Jesus Christ's sake, and for the love of the Spirit, that you strive in your prayers to God for him. And oh! the hallowing, gladdening influence which those prayers may shed upon his mind- eternity alone can reveal!

The return of blessing to yourself will be incalculable and immense. The moisture absorbed from the earth returns again to the earth in grateful and refreshing showers. And thus every prayer which you in fervency and in faith breathe to heaven for your pastor, will, through him, return again in "showers of blessing" upon your own soul.

"A Word in Season from Christ to the Weary"

"The Sovereign Lord has given me an instructed tongue, that I should know how to speak a word in season to him who is weary." Isaiah 50:4

A greater than the prophet Isaiah is here. It is even He who, alluding to his office as the servant of the Father, and the consequent humiliation of that servitude, thus speaks- "The Lord God has opened my ear, and I was not rebellious, neither turned away back. I gave my back to the smiters, and my cheeks to those who plucked off the hair. I hid not my face from shame and spitting." Who, then, is the speaker but Jesus? To no other will this remarkable description apply, and from no other could such precious words proceed. How full of significance and sweetness are they! With what melody will they fall on many an ear, and with what gladness will they thrill through many a heart!

They are addressed to the WEARY. Let us contemplate the character. It comprises a large class. Many there are who come within its description. All may not ascribe their weariness to the same cause, nor may all to the same degree be sensible of their state. Yet all are weary. Man is not naturally in his original and right position. The needle of his soul has been diverted from its center, and, until it regains it, will continue in incessant and tremulous motion- never at rest. To illustrate the thought by another figure. He who leaves his mother earth and launches upon the sea, must submit to all the caprices of the new element on which he has embarked. He becomes the sport of every current, and the plaything of every wave. Life is this sea, ever moving, ever restless, ever flowing on. Upon its bosom, and exposed to its currents and its storms, man is voyaging to eternity. And that, thus exposed to its ever fluctuating, shifting scenes, habits, and passions, he should be weary, can create no surprise in a reflecting mind.

The world is a wearying and a weary world. We will suppose ourselves appealing for the truth of this statement to the world's most admiring and devoted votary. It has lavished upon you the utmost that it can give. You have ransacked its treasures, and have reveled among his sweets. What have you found it to be? You have no scriptural hope of another and a better world- what is the result of your experience of this? Did that green and sunny spot on which you lay afford you repose? Did that pleasant draught which you quaffed, slake your thirst? Have rank and wealth, honor and distinction, pride and beauty, love and friendship, realized the heart's fond hope, and placed you beyond the reach of weariness! Have they left you nothing to wish, nothing to desire, nothing to lament? Is there no heaving of life's sea- no ripple upon its surface- no trembling of its bosom? Is all satisfaction, and quietude, and repose? We will anticipate your honest reply- "Far from it." There are yet a craving and a restlessness which nothing has met. So true is God's word, "The wicked are like the troubled sea, when it cannot rest." And so will it be until the creature man returns to his Creator God.

But not in the world of sense only do you complain of weariness. What rest, we would ask, have you found in the world of faith? Again the reluctant and mournful reply will be- "None." Least of all have you found it here. If the carnal mind and sensual heart found not satiety and repose in their own native world, they cannot be expected to find it in a world with which they have not the slightest sympathy. The world of faith is a foreign climate to the natural man; it is the antithesis of the world of sense. He that would pass from the one to the other must become a "new creature in Christ Jesus." There must be an entire revolution of mind and of feeling. Old things must pass away, and all things must become new. The moral constitution must be acclimated (so to speak) to the new world into which it is introduced. It cannot breathe its atmosphere, nor admire its scenery, nor enjoy its delights, nor participate in its employments, without a corresponding nature. It is impossible that rest can be found in things that are spiritual, by a heart all whose desires and appetites are carnal and only carnal.

Heaven itself would to such a one cease to be heaven. How truly and graphically the prophet describes this state: "And you say, 'What a weariness!' and you sniff at it contemptuously" (Mal. 1:13.) Is there not something peculiarly awful in this description of your state? What a weariness do you find in the religion of Christ! Of prayer you exclaim, "What a weariness!" Of public worship, "What a weariness!" Of hearing sermons, "What a weariness!" Of religious conversation, "What a weariness!" Of the service and work of the Lord, "What a weariness!" "and you sniff at it contemptuously, says the Lord Almighty." O awful condition! O melancholy state! The world heaving like an angry sea beneath your feet- the heavens lowering and threatening above your head! Things temporal and things spiritual alike affording no repose to your agitated and restless mind! How true is God's word: "The wicked are like the troubled sea when it cannot rest, whose waters cast up mire and dirt. There is no peace, says my God, to the wicked." Unconverted reader! this is your present character, and this your present state!

But these are not the "weary" to whom this passage especially addresses itself. They are the Lord's weary ones- souls quickened, aroused, made sensible of their condition, and led to seek and to find their rest in Jesus. "Him who is weary." The character may be regarded as descriptive of GRACE IN ITS EARLIEST AND WEAKEST UNFOLDINGS. When the Holy Spirit first enlightens and convinces, he produces a restlessness in the soul, which all created good refuses to meet. Previously to this, sin was not felt to be a burden, guilt produced no anxiety, eternity no fearfulness, and evil habits were not felt to be a galling and oppressive chain bound around the soul. The world's insufficiency was indeed acknowledged, and the soul's restlessness was felt; but still sin was loved, and the world was followed, and there was no brokenness of heart, nor contrition of spirit, nor going to Jesus for rest.

With others it was, perhaps, somewhat different. There was just awakening enough to produce alarm and anxiety of soul; sufficient light to reveal the pollution and the darkness; and knowledge enough to teach the necessity of a righteousness in which to stand before God. To work out that righteousness, and so find rest, was the object upon which the whole soul was bent. Circuitous was its march, toilsome its work, and wearisome its way. "Do this and live," was all the sound it heard, the only gospel it knew. "What shall I do?" was its mournful and despairing reply. But the Spirit of God takes the work into his own hands. And what a revolution of thought and of feeling transpires! Sin is now felt to be a heavy burden, hateful and hated. Past iniquities rise before the eye like Alp piled upon Alp, or roll over the soul, like wave succeeding wave. The spirituality of the law is seen, its curse is felt, its condemnation is dreaded. In a word, the whole soul is laid prostrate at the feet of Jesus, weary and heavily laden. But oh! we may pronounce it, blessed weariness! sweet brokenness and contrition!

Show me the spot on which JEHOVAH's eyes rest with delight, and over which angels hover and rejoice, and you take me to one whose heart God has made soft, whose spirit is contrite, who mourns for sin, repenting in dust and in ashes. This is weariness indeed! Reader, have you felt your sins, and not your sins only, but your own righteousness to be a burdensome and a wearisome thing, too heavy for you to bear? Then, you are included in the number of the Lord's weary ones, and may come and take your place with them at his feet, and hear the words he would speak to you.

The Lord's weary ones, too, include all those WHO FEEL THE BURDEN OF THE BODY OF SIN, AND ARE CAST DOWN AND WEARY, BY REASON OF THE DIFFICULTIES AND THE HARDNESS OF THE WAY. The Lord's people are emphatically a weary people. It is a "weary land" through which they are passing- it is no marvel that they should be faint, even though pursuing. Here is the cause of the greatest weariness. Not more truly does the "whole creation groan and travail in pain," than does he who "bears about with him the body of sin and of death, day by day." It is indeed to him a continual and unrelievable pressure. "Who will deliver me from the body of sin and of death?" is his constant and mournful cry. It is the union of the opposites in him that creates his burden. Life and death- holiness and sin- grace and nature- are in perpetual, and often fierce combat. In this lies the inward conflict. This is the fight of faith. Until life was breathed, and holiness was created, and grace was given, there were no oppressions, and no warfare, and no weariness. Think of this, you burdened and oppressed saints of God! Let this thought fall like a sunbeam upon your gloomy and saddened spirit. Let it cheer you in your cloudy and dark day. Were you dead, or were you still in unrenewed nature, you would be an utter stranger to this weariness; and could never understand the meaning of the apostle, "I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members."

THE ASSAULTS OF THE ADVERSARY contribute not a little to the sense of weariness which often prostrates a child of God. To be set up as a mark for Satan: the enemy smiting where sensibility is the keenest, assailing where weakness is the greatest, taking advantage of every new position and circumstance- especially of a season of trial, of a weak, nervous temperament, or of a time of sickness- distorting God's character, diverting the eye from Christ, and turning it in upon self- are among Satan's devices for casting down the soul of a dear believer.

And then, there are THE NARROWNESS OF THE NARROW WAY, and the INTRICACIES of the intricate way, and the PERILS of the perilous way, tending to jade and dispirit the soul. To walk in a path so narrow and yet so dangerous, that the white garment must needs be closely wrapped around; to occupy a post of duty so conspicuous, responsible, and difficult, as to fix every eye, some gazing with undue admiration, and others with keen and cold suspicion, ready to detect and to censure any slight irregularity- these add not a little to the toilsomeness of the way.

Add to this, THE NUMEROUS AND VARIED TRIALS AND AFFLICTIONS which pave his pathway to heaven; his tenderest mercies often his acutest trials, and his trials often weighing him to the earth- and you have the outline of a melancholy picture, of which he whose eye scans this page may be the original. Does it surprise us, then, that from the lips of such a one the exclamation often rises, "Oh that I had wings like a dove! for then would I fly away and be at rest. Lo, then would I wander far off, and remain in the wilderness. I would hasten my escape from the windy storm and tempest."

It is to such the Lord Jesus now addresses himself in words most appropriate and animating, "The Sovereign Lord has given me an instructed tongue, that I should know how to speak a word in season to him who is weary." His preeminent fitness for this peculiar and difficult office, is the first point with which he would arrest the attention. "An instructed tongue." The Lord's qualifications will appear in two or three particulars. His identity with their very nature describes him as well calculated to address himself to their case. Of the nature thus oppressed and weary, he in part partook. But for this, so infinitely removed had he been from their condition, he had been incapable of meeting its peculiar necessity. Absolute Deity could not, through the medium of sympathy, have conveyed a word of comfort to the weary. There had been lacking, not the power to relieve, but the mode of relieving the oppressed and sorrowful heart. There had been needed the connecting and transmitting chain- the heavenly highway of thought, of feeling, and of sympathy- between these extremes of being, the loving heart of God and the desolate heart of man. Unacquainted with grief, untouched by sorrow, unbeclouded by care, unaffected by weariness, an absolute God could not possibly offer the support and the condolence which sympathetic feeling alone could give, and which a jaded spirit and a sorrow-touched, care-oppressed, and sin-beclouded soul demanded.

Nor could angels afford the help required. The only burden which they know is the burden of love; and the only weariness they feel is the weariness of ever-burning devotion and zeal. It is this which gives strength to their wings, and swiftness to their flight. They are represented as "hearkening to the voice of the Lord," ready to speed their way on some embassy of mercy and love. In fulfilling this their ministry, their eye never slumbers, their pinions never droop. But we needed a nature so constituted as to enter into, and, as it were, become a part of the very weariness it sought to relieve.

Look at Jesus! "Behold the Man!" With weariness in every form he was intimate. He knew what bodily weakness was. Do you not love to linger in pensive thoughtfulness over that touching incident of his life which describes him as sitting fatigued upon Jacob's well? "And being weary, he sat thus upon the well." Picture him to your eye! See the dust upon his sandals- for he Jesus had walked forty miles that day- the sweat upon his brow, the air of languor upon his countenance, and the jaded expression in his eye! Do we deify his humanity? No! It was real humanity- humanity like our own. It is our joy, our boast, our glory, our salvation, that he was really man, as he was truly God.

Consider, too, what he endured for man, from man. This was no small part of the weariness of our nature into which he entered. How soon did he come to the end of the creature! Alas! the creature has an end, and sooner or later God brings us to it, and in the exercise, too, of the tenderest love of his heart. When most he needed its sheltering protection, he found the creature a withered gourd, and he bore his sorrow alone. And when he repaired to it for the refreshing of sympathy, he found it a broken cistern- and he panted in vain. Where were his disciples now? He was in trouble, but there was no one to help; he was in the storm, but no one would know him; refuge failed him, no man cared for his soul! He was in sorrow, but no bosom offered its pillow; he was accused, but no tongue was heard in its defense; he was scourged, but no arm was lifted to repel; he was condemned, but no one vindicated his innocence, nor sought to arrest his progress to the cross! Oh, how fully did Jesus realize the creature's nothingness, and so enter into his people's condition of weariness.

Contemplate, too, the pressure that was often, we might say always, upon his sensitive spirit. See him bearing our sicknesses and our sorrows; more than this, carrying our iniquities and our sins. Think not that your path is a lone one. The incarnate God has trodden it before you, and he can give you the clear eye of faith to envision his foot-print in every step. Jesus can say, and he does say to you, "I know your sorrow; I know what that cross is, for I have carried it. You have not a burden that I did not bear, nor a sorrow that I did not feel, nor a pain that I did not endure, nor a path that I did not tread, nor a tear that did not bedew my eye, nor a cloud that did not shade my spirit, before you, and for you. Is it bodily weakness? I once walked forty miles, to carry the living water to a poor sinner at Samaria. Is it the sorrow of bereavement? I wept at the grave of my friend, although I knew that I was about to recall the loved one back again to life. Is it the frailty and the fickleness of human friendship? I stood by and heard my person denied by lips that once spoke kindly to me; lips now renouncing me with an oath, that once vowed affection unto death. Is it straitness of circumstance, the galling sense of dependence? I was no stranger to poverty, and was often nourished and sustained by the charity of others. Is it that you are houseless and friendless? So was I. The foxes had their shelter, and the birds winged themselves to their nests, but I, though Lord of all, had nowhere to lay my head; and often day after day passed away, and no soothing accents of friendship fell upon my ear. Is it the burden of sin? Even that I bore in its accumulated and tremendous weight when I hung accursed upon the tree." Yes, Christian reader, you have not a High Priest who cannot be touched with the feeling of your infirmities, but was, in all points, tempted like as you are, though he was without sin. O how pre-eminently fitted is Christ to speak a word to the weary!

But in addition to this, Jesus possessed a derived fitness- a fitness communicated to him by his Father. This his words clearly imply. "The Lord God has given me the tongue of the learned." All the grace and the gifts with which, as man, he was furnished, were the bestowment of the Spirit of God, and were given in order to qualify him to speak to the weary. In a distinguished sense, he possessed the tongue of the learned; or, as the passage might be rendered, "The Lord Jehovah has given me an eloquent tongue, (literally, one skilled, practiced, instructed,) that I might know how to console the weary, or, that I may sustain the weary with a word."

Never was there a tongue like Christ's- so learned, so eloquent, and so skilled. "Never a man spoke like this man." Greece and Rome, in their "High and palmy state," never exhibited such philosophy as he taught, nor such erudition as he displayed, nor such eloquence as he breathed. Had he so chosen it, he could have placed himself at the head of a school of his own, and, with a beck, might have allured to his feet all the poets and philosophers of his day, proud to own him as their Master. But no! The wisdom and the eloquence of this world possessed no charm for him. He drew the learning and the melting power with which he spoke from a higher, even a heavenly source. His was divine philosophy; his was the eloquence of God! "The Lord Jehovah has given me the tongue of the eloquent."

And TO WHOM did he consecrate this learning, this wisdom, and this eloquence? To the very objects whom the proud philosophers and the doctors of his day despised and neglected- even the weary. What a field was here for the exercise of his skill and for the play of his benevolence! How fully would he demonstrate that he truly possessed the "tongue of the learned!" If, to interest the feelings of the exhausted; if, to enchain the attention of the weary; if, to concentrate upon one subject the powers of a mind, jaded and burdened; if, to awaken music from a heart whose chords were broken and unstrung, mark the loftiest reach of eloquence, then, his was eloquence unsurpassed- for all this he did. The beings whom he sought out and drew around him, were the burdened, the bowed down, the disconsolate, the poor, the friendless, the helpless, the ignorant, the weary. He loved to lavish upon such the fulness of his benevolent heart, and to exert upon such the skill of his wonder-working power. Earth's weary sons repaired to his out-stretched arms for shelter, and the world's ignorant and despised clustered around his feet, to be taught and blessed. Sinners of every character, and the disconsolate of every grade, attracted by his renown, pressed upon him from every side. "This man receives sinners," was the name and the character by which he was known. It was new and strange. Uttered by the lip of the proud and disdainful Pharisee, it was an epithet of reproach and an expression of ridicule. But upon the ear of the poor and wretched outcast, the sons and daughters of sorrow, ignorance, and woe, it fell sweeter than the music of the spheres. It passed from lip to lip; it echoed from shore to shore- "this man receives sinners!" It found its way into the abodes of misery and need; it penetrated the dungeon of the prisoner, and the cell of the maniac; and it kindled an unearthly light in the solitary dwelling of the widow and the orphan, the unpitied and the friendless.

Thus received its accomplishment the prophecy that predicted him as the "Plant of renown," whom Jehovah would raise up. Thousands came, faint, and weary, and sad, and sat down beneath his shadow; and thousands more since then have pressed to their wounded hearts the balsam that flowed from his bleeding body, and have been healed.

Let us turn our attention for a moment, to the subject-matter of our Lord's address to the weary. WHAT DOES HE SPEAK TO THEM? Some would reply, the law. No; the law of God never spoke a word of comfort to the weary. It was not designed for such. Its very nature for bids it. It can anathematize, alarm, and wound; but not a solitary word of consolation and soothing can it address to a soul weary and heavily laden with sorrow and with guilt. But it is the glorious gospel of the blessed God that the Lord Jesus speaks to his weary ones. It was designed and framed especially for them. Its very nature fits it for such. Every word is an echo of the love of God's heart. Every sentence is permeated with grace, mercy, and truth. The word which Jesus speaks, is just the word the weary need. It unfolds a free pardon, complete acceptance, perfect reconciliation with God, and all-sufficient grace to perfect this work in holiness. It bids me, as a sinner, approach just as I am; my poverty, my vileness, my guilt, my utter destitution, forming no just hindrances to my salvation, because his atoning work has made it a righteous thing in God to justify the guilty, and a gracious act in Jesus to save the lost. Yes, he condescends to assure me in that word of a free grace gospel, which he speaks with a tongue so eloquent, that I honor him in accepting his offered boon, and that I glorify him by trusting my soul into his Almighty hands.

There is yet an essential and most important truth here to which we would direct the reader's particular attention. We allude to the REST IN CHRIST to which his word to the weary especially invites. Our blessed Lord is not one that mocks the circumstances of the weary. When he speaks, it is with all the love of his heart, and when he invites, it is with all the sincerity of his soul. Listen, then, to his gracious words, "Come unto me, all you that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." With what brightness does the truth appear written with beams of heavenly light- JESUS, THE REST OF THE WEARY! "Come unto me." The Father has made his Son the resting place of his church. He Himself has vested His whole glory in Christ. He knew what Christ was capable of sustaining. He knew that as His Fellow -one equal with Himself, He could with safety entrust the honor of His government in the hands of His Son. He confided therein Himself! His government, and His church- all in Christ. To this "tried stone," He would now bring His people. He found it strong enough for Himself, and He knows it to be strong enough for them, and with confidence He invites the weary to come and repose upon it. Jesus but echoes the heart of the Father when he says, "Come unto me, I will give you rest." Never did the tongue of Jesus utter words more learned- more eloquent- more persuasive. Just the word we need.

By nature we foolishly seek rest everywhere, and in everything, but in Jesus. We seek it in the sensual world, we seek it in the moral world, we seek it in the religious world- we find it not. We seek it in conviction, we seek it in ordinances, we seek it in doing the works of the law, and still it evades us. We go from place to place, from mean to mean, from minister to minister, and still the burden presses, and the guilt remains, and we find no rest. No; and never will we find it, until it is sought and found solely, wholly, exclusively, and entirely in Jesus. Rest for the sin-weary soul is only to be met with in him who bore the curse for man's transgresion. Here God rests, and here the sinner must rest. Here the Father rests, and here the child may rest. Jesus is the great burden-bearer for God and for man. Listen again to the melody of his words: "Come unto me- I will give you rest." See, how he invites you, without one solitary condition. He makes no exception to your guilt and unworthiness. The word is, "Come unto me:" in other words, believe in me. To "come," is simply and only to believe.

And oh! how can we fully set forth THE REST to be found in Jesus? Let those testify who took their guilt to his blood, their vileness to his righteousness, their sins to his grace, their burdens to his arm, their sorrows to his heart. Let them tell how, in a moment, their sense of weariness fled, and rest, sweet, soothing rest to their soul, succeeded. Are you, my reader, a sin-weary soul? Then, to you is this invitation addressed: "Come unto ME- to me, the Savior, whose willingness is equal to my ability. To me; who never rejected a single soul that sought salvation and heaven at my hands. Come unto me -I will give you rest."

In the case of A TRIED BELIEVER, the rest that Jesus gives does not always imply the removal of the burden from where this sense of weariness proceeds. The burden is permitted to remain, and yet rest is experienced. Yes, it would appear from his procedure, that the very existence of the burden was essential to the experience of the rest. He does not withdraw the trouble from us, nor us from the trouble; and still the repose we sighed for is given. Wonderful indeed! But how is it explained? That burden takes us to Jesus! It is but the cause of our simply going to him. But for that sorrow, or that calamity, or that sickness, or that bereavement, we would have stayed away. The pressure compelled us to go. And how does he meet us? Does he open a way of escape from our difficulty, or does he immediately unbind our burden and set us free? No; better than this, he pours strength into our souls, and life into our spirits, and love into our hearts, and so we find rest. Thus are fulfilled in our experience the precious promises, "As your days, so shall your strength be." "My grace is sufficient for you."

But there is still a deeply interesting truth to be considered. It is THE TIMING OF THE LORD'S ADDRESS TO THE WEARY. It is always a "word in season." It is spoken just at the moment that it is needed. Herein is no small unfolding of the love of our Lord. Nor less an evidence of his complex person as God-man. How could he so time his word to the weary as to meet their emergency at its very crisis, did not his Deity make him cognizant of the critical junctures in which they were placed! And let it be mentioned, that this operation is going on in every place and at every moment! And how could he meet that crisis, and speak a word in season to the weary, but as his humanity was touched with the feeling of the infirmity? It is by this process of experience that we are brought into close views of the glory of our incarnate God.

Yes, it is a "word in season." When Jesus speaks to the penitent weeping at his feet, "Your sins are forgiven," who can describe the joy which now fills the heart, and the radiance of hope which now lights up the soul? It was, perhaps, at the moment of dark despair; all other refuge failed; all was given up for lost; and just as the last billow came rolling on, threatening to engulf the soul in woe, Jesus spoke a "word in season," and all was peace.

And when he speaks through the ministry of the word, or by the word itself, to the believer, wearied with conflict and with trial, it has been just at the moment that its sustaining and consoling power was needed. The eye that slumbers not, nor sleeps was upon you. He knew in what furnace you were placed, and was there to temper the flame when it seemed the severest. He saw your frail vessel struggling through the tempest, and he came to your rescue at the height of the storm. How has he proved this in seasons of difficulty and doubt! How often, at a crisis the most critical of your history, the Lord has appeared for you! Your lack has been supplied, your doubt has been solved, and your perplexity has been guided; he has delivered your soul from death, your eyes from tears, and your feet from falling.

A word by Jesus, spoken in due season, how good is it! In what an exalted and endearing light does this truth place Christ's sleepless vigilance of his people! Imagine yourself threading your way along a most difficult and perilous path, every step of which is attended with pain and jeopardy, and is taken with hesitancy and doubt. Unknown to you and unseen, there is One hovering each moment around you, checking each false step, and guiding each doubtful one; soothing each sorrow, and supplying each need. All is calm and silent. Not a sound is heard, not a movement is seen; and yet, to your amazement, just at the critical moment, the needed support comes- you know not from where, you know not from whom. This is no picture of imagination. Are you a child of God retracing your steps back to paradise by an intricate and a perilous way? Jesus is near to you at each moment, unseen and often unknown. You have at times stood speechless with awe at the strange interposition on your behalf, of providence and of grace. No visible sign betokened the source of your help. There was no echo of footfall at your side, no flitting of shadow athwart your path. No law of nature was altered nor suspended, the sun stood not still, nor did the heavens open; and yet deliverance, strange and effectual deliverance, came at a moment most unexpected, yet most needed. It was Jesus your Redeemer, your Brother, your Shepherd, and your Guide. He it was who, hovering around you, unknown and unobserved, kept you as the apple of his eye, and sheltered you in the hollow of his hand. It was he who armed you with bravery for the fight, who poured strength into your spirit, and grace into your heart, when the full weight of calamity pressed upon them. Thus has he always been to his children.

The incident of the disciples in the storm presents a striking instance of this. Behold him standing upon the shore, eyeing with riveted gaze the little boat as it struggled amid the sea. They were often invisible to human eye, but not a moment were they lost to his. Not even when in the mount alone in prayer, were they forgotten nor unobserved. He beheld from thence their peril; he knew their fears, and he hastened to their support. Stepping from the shore he approached them. O how majestic did his form now appear- walking like a man, and upon the water, like a God! They knew not that it was Jesus, and were afraid. But their knowledge of him was not necessary to their safety. It was enough that he knew them. And just as the storm was at its height, and their fears rose with their peril, he drew near and said in his own gentle soothing tone, unto them, "It is I, do not be afraid." It was a "word spoken in season."

It is one of the most blessed truths of the covenant of grace, that the God of the covenant is a "very present help in every time of trouble." Loving His people as He does, dwelling in them by His Spirit, their persons and circumstances continually before Him in the person and the intercession of His dear Son, how can He possibly lose sight of them for a single moment? They may, and they often do, lose sight of Him. They do not, alas! set the Lord always before their face. They do not train and discipline themselves to see Him in every event, circumstance, and incident of life. They are not clear-sighted to recognize, nor prompt to acknowledge Him in every providence that darkens or lightens upon their way. Were they but right-minded, they would exclaim of every good and of every evil as it came, "The Lord is in this!" But they are never for an instant out of his heart, out of his thoughts, out of his hands, or out of his eye.

How near to them, too, is THE HOLY SPIRIT! Dwelling in, and overshadowing them, he is at their side to guide, to uphold, and to cheer; bringing to their memory a precious promise, or writing upon their heart an animating truth, or opening before their eye some endearing glimpse of Jesus, just the moment it was needed. What a happy, what a favored people are the Lord's! "Happy is he that has the God of Jacob for his help, whose hope is in the Lord his God. Happy is that people that is in such a case."

But let us trace some of THE PRACTICAL CONCLUSIONS to which this interesting subject brings us. The Lord Jesus speaks at the present time to the weary. We need constantly to bear in mind the immutability of our Lord; that "Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, and today, and forever." That all that he ever has been- and oh! what has he not been? he is at this moment. What countless numbers are now bathing their souls in the bliss of heaven, whose tears were once dried, whose fears were once quelled, whose burden was once removed by those precious words spoken in season- "Come unto me, all you that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest!" O could they, bending now from their thrones, but speak to us, they would testify what substance, what reality, what sweetness, what power, and what charm they once found in them! And they would bid every weary spirit, every weeping penitent, every tried saint believe, and press the promise to their heart.

But a dearer, a lovelier, and a better than they, bids you receive it. Jesus himself speaks to you, "Come unto ME- and I will give you rest." All that he was in their happy experience, he will be in yours. The grace that made them what they once were, and what they now are, is sufficient for you. Go, and lay your weariness on Christ. Ask not, "Will he bear my burden?" He bears every burden brought to him. Not one poor, weary, heavy laden sinner does he turn away. You are, perhaps, a mourning penitent- he will receive you. You are, perhaps, a vile outcast- he will welcome you. He says he will, and he cannot deny himself. It is impossible that he should lie.

The Lord Jesus gives HIS PEOPLE THE TONGUE OF THE LEARNED, that they may sometimes speak a word in season to his weary ones. Have you not a word for Christ? May you not go to that tried believer in sickness, in poverty, in adversity, or in prison, and tell of the balm that has often healed your spirit, and of the cordial that has often cheered your heart? "A word duly spoken, how good is it!" A text quoted, a sentiment repeated, an observation made, a hint dropped, a kind caution suggested, a gentle rebuke given, a tender admonition left- oh! the blessing that has flowed from it! It was a word spoken in season! Say not with Moses, "I am slow of speech, and of a slow tongue;" or, with Jeremiah, "Ah, Lord God! behold I cannot speak, for I am a child." Hear the answer of the Lord, "Who has made man's mouth? have not I the Lord? Now therefore go, and I will be with your mouth, and teach you what you shall say."

And oh, how frequently and effectually does the Lord speak to his weary ones, even THROUGH THE WEARY! All, perhaps, was conflict within, and darkness without; but one word falling from the lips of a man of God, has been the voice of God to the soul. And what an honor conferred, thus to be the channel of conveying consolation from the loving heart of the Father to the disconsolate heart of His child! To go and smooth a ruffled pillow, and lift the pressure from off a burdened spirit, and light up the gloomy chamber of sorrow, of sickness, and of death, as with the first dawnings of the coming glory. Go, Christian reader, and ask the Lord so to clothe your tongue with holy, heavenly eloquence, that you may "know how to speak a word in season to him who is weary."

IN CONTENDING FOR THE FAITH, remember the Lord Jesus can give you the tongue of the learned. Listen to his promise- "I will give you a mouth and wisdom, which all your adversaries shall not be able to gainsay nor resist." Thus, the most unlearned, and the most weak, may be so deeply taught, and be so skillfully armed in Christ's school, as to be able valiantly to defend, and successfully to preach the truth, putting to "silence the ignorance of foolish men.

It is a matter of much practical importance, that you take heed not to anticipate or to forestall the promised grace. For every possible circumstance in which you may be placed, the fulness of Christ and the supplies of the covenant, are provided. That provision is only meted out as the occasions for whose history it was provided occur. Beware of creating trouble by anticipating it. Seen through the mist, the advancing object may appear gigantic in size, and terrific in appearance. And yet the trouble you so much dread may never come; or, coming, it will assuredly bring with it the "word spoken in season." In the case of every child of God, calamity never comes alone; it invariably brings Jesus with it.

There is a period approaching- the last and great crisis of human life- when we shall more than ever need the "tongue of the learned." It will be of all seasons most trying and solemn, the season that separates the soul from the body. To that each must come. The hand that holds this pen, and the eye that reads the lines which it traces, will relax, and grow dim in death, and the writer and the reader will meet together to read another book in the light of the great white throne- the book of life! Oh blessed indeed to find our names recorded there! But if Jesus is our salvation, why shrink from that hour? He will be there to speak a word in season to your weary soul amid the swellings of Jordan- loving, and faithful to the last.

Do not be surprised at any way which the Lord may take to bring your weary soul to rest in himself. It is not always in the crowd that he speaks comfortingly to the heart. More frequently he leads his people out, and takes them apart by himself alone. It is often in the privacy of separation and retirement, when the soul is curtained within his pavilion, that the greatest and the sweetest nearness to Jesus is experienced. "Behold, I will allure her into the wilderness, and speak comfortably to her." (margin- speak friendly, to her heart.)

Has the Lord been leading you about- severing this tie, and breaking up that repose; disappointing you here, and thwarting you there? Amazed, you have asked, "Lord, why this?" And the only reply has been the comfort which he has spoken to your weary, desolate heart. Thus does he make good in your experience his own exceedingly great and precious promise- "I will satisfy the weary soul, and will replenish every sorrowful soul."

"Is it for this my weary feet
So long the wilderness have trod,
Through winter's cold, and summer's heat,
Thus to be comforted by God?"
"Is it for this he brought the night,
And quenched awhile each tiny ray;
That He himself might be my light,
And turn the darkness into day?"
"Is it for this the waves arose,
And tempests raged, and would not cease,
That Christ himself might interpose,
And shed around a perfect peace?"
"Is it for this he chastened sore,
And let my soul in prison be;
That he might show an open door,
And say in tender love- 'Be free'"
"Is it for this he laid me low,
And filled my heart with strange alarms;
That I might let all others go,
And sweetly rest upon his arms?"
"Oh yes! my feeble faith descries
Bright light between each parting cloud;
And soon my soul, with glad surprise,
Shall mount and sing her song aloud."

The Axe Laid at the Root

"And now also the axe is laid unto the root of the trees: therefore every tree which does not produce good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire." Matthew 3:10

It is a solemn and a veritable thought, that human character is training and molding for eternity. Nothing in the universe of matter or of mind is stationary. Everything is in motion; the motion is progressive- the movement is onward. Things whose being is limited by the present state, obeying the law of their nature, advance to their maturity, and then perish. They attain their appointed and ultimate perfection, and then die. Beings destined for another, a higher, and a more enduring state, are each moment tending towards that existence for which their natures are formed, and to which they aspire. There is, innate in man, a principle which incessantly yearns for, and reaches after, a state of perfection and deathlessness. He would sincerely, at times, quench in eternal night the spark of immortality which glows in his breast. A morbid distaste of life, or a pusillanimous shrinking from its evils, or the anticipation of some impending calamity- in most cases springing from a mind diseased, and destroying the power of self-control; have tended to inspire and to strengthen this desire. But eternal sleep is beyond his reach. He sighs for it, but it heeds not his moan; he invites it, but it comes not at his bidding; he inscribes the sentiment over the charnel house of the dead, but it changes not their state- he may slay the mortal, but he cannot touch the immortal. The compass of his soul points on to life. The long, bleak coast of eternity, its shores washed by the rough billows of time, stretches out before him; and towards it, his bark each instant tends, and to it it will assuredly arrive. Such is the chain that links man to the invisible world! So interesting and important a being is he. An eternity of happiness or of misery is before him- from it lie cannot escape- and for the one or the other, mind is educating, and character is forming.

A truth kindred in its solemnity to this, is the nearness of judgment to every unconverted individual. To his eye- its vision dimmed by other and diverse objects- it may appear far remote. Damnation may seem to linger, judgment to tarry. Sentence executed against an evil work may appear delayed. But this is an illusion of the mental eye, a deception of Satan, a lie which the treacherous and depraved heart is eager to believe. Never was a snare of the devil more successful than this. But death, judgment, and hell are in the closest proximity to man; nearer than he has any conception of. His path winds along the very precipice that overhangs the billows of quenchless flame. Let him assume what position he may, high or low, fortified or unguarded, from that position there is but one step between him and death, between death and judgment, between judgment and a fixed and a changeless destiny. As one has truly remarked, what a creature of time is eternity! Time is, in some respects, more solemn and important than eternity. The present decides the future. The future is all that the present makes it. It is "troubled or serene, inviting or revolting, happy or miserable, a blessing or a curse, as time, omnipotent time, ordains it."

And this is the sentiment of the text which suggests our subject. "And now also the axe is laid unto the root of the trees: therefore every tree which brings not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire." There is much truth in these words, that is deeply and solemnly instructive. They describe the character of an unconverted state, warn us of its danger, and predict its doom. May the Spirit who speaks in the word, be the Spirit who illumines us, while that word is now laid open to our view!

What A TRUE DESCRIPTION have we here OF THE CHARACTER OF A CARNAL, UNREGENERATE SOUL- "Every tree which brings not forth good fruit." No pencil could more accurately delineate the condition of such a one. There cannot be, by any possibility whatever, the slightest misconception here. This is not descriptive of a renewed state. The expressive metaphor cannot, by the most forced construction, be made to apply to a state of grace. A living member of the true Vine is a fruit-bearing tree. The degree of his fruitfulness is another question. It is with the reality of the vital principle within him, that he has first and mainly to do. The question that takes precedence of all others is, his severance from the 'wild olive tree' of a carnal, lifeless nature, and his grafting into Christ the true Vine.

Can any metaphor, drawn from the world of imagery, more strongly and truly set forth an unconverted state than this? It is a tree that bears no good fruit. It is a soul utterly destitute of everything that is really good, holy, and spiritual. It makes no allusion to the verdant leaves of a 'mere Christian profession', or to the blossoms of ''good resolutions' and 'external reformations', which often appear in life. These may be many and fair to look upon. But it speaks of more than 'the leaf', and the promising 'blossom'; it speaks of 'fruit', and of 'good fruit', and of good fruit only. The "tree which brings not forth GOOD FRUIT."

It will now be proper for us to inquire into the NATURE and the PROPERTIES of the "good fruit" which is found in a state of grace, the absence of which decides a state of nature.

Shall we begin with PRAYER? Who will not pronounce this a fruit of the Spirit, and in its nature and influence, truly good? When Saul of Tarsus was smitten to the ground by the divine light which shone around him- all his pride and rebellion in a moment prostrated- the first accents heard from him in heaven, and announced on earth, were accents of prayer. There came a voice from the excellent glory, exclaiming, "Behold, he prays." Here was the first throbbing of life in the new-born soul. Here was spiritual breath, pouring out itself into the bosom of Him from whom it came. It was more than the sprouting leaf, more than the opening bud, more than the full-blown blossom; it was precious fruit, brought forth in the heart by God the Eternal Spirit. Are you a praying soul? Has the prayer ever burst from your lips, "God be merciful to me a sinner?" I ask not if you are theoretically, or notionally acquainted with prayer. You may be accustomed to the formal habit of prayer, and yet never pray. You may eagerly purchase, and diligently use every form of devotion which the piety or the skill of others has compiled, and yet the gladdening intelligence may never have passed from lip to lip in heaven- "Behold, he prays!" If this be true of you, you are that tree that brings not forth the good fruit of prayer. For years, perhaps it has been so. You have lived thus far a prayerless life. What! no hallowed communion with Heaven! No sweet fellowship with the Father! No yielding to the attraction of the throne of His grace!

What! an utter stranger to all this? Then, your life has been unsanctified by prayer- your family unblest by prayer- your business pursued without prayer. The dew of mercy has fallen, and the sun of prosperity has shone upon you; means of grace, and a thousand influences, have conspired to make you a man of prayer; and yet again and again has the Lord of the vineyard come seeking in you this good fruit, and found none. Then, what scriptural, reasonable, valid claim to the character of a child of God can you possibly have, lacking this, the first and the latest evidence of spiritual life?

In the House which Christ is rearing, and of which he is the foundation, all the stones are living stones. "You also as living stones, are built up a spiritual house." There are no dead materials here. In the scaffolding, and among the rubbish- things not forming essential parts of the building itself- we expect to find no life. Yes, solemn thought! among the builders themselves there may be, there often are, those having no sympathy with the nature and character and ultimate design of the structure whose walls they are helping to uprear. But in every stone, placed and cemented in that building, and forming an essential part, there is life- divine, spiritual, resurrection, deathless life, flowing from union to Christ, who has ever been, and ever will be, the "tried stone, the precious corner-stone, the sure foundation" of his church.

Then, do not be deceived; the scaffolding will be taken down, and the rubbish will be removed, and the workmen will be dispersed, and this beautiful and stupendous structure will present to the eye the spectacle of a "glorious church, not having a spot, or a wrinkle, or any such thing," partaking of the life, and radiant with the glory, of the Lord through eternity. Then, all those who had a Christian "name to live while they were dead," who were employed around this spiritual house, but formed no part of the house itself, will have their portion in the "second death." Speaking of the results of the Christian ministry, the Apostle employs this solemn language, "Every man's work shall be made manifest; for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire; and the fire shall try every man's work of what sort it is." These are searching, shuddering facts, relating both to minister and to people.

But oh! what a precious fruit of the renewed heart is true prayer! If there is a single exercise of the soul that places the fact of its regeneracy beyond a doubt, it is this. Prayer, that comes as holy fire from God, and that rises as holy incense to God- prayer, that takes me, with every need and infirmity, with every sin and sorrow, to the bosom of the Father, through the smitten bosom of the Son- prayer, that sweetens my solitude, that calms my perturbed spirit, that weakens the power of sin, that nourishes the desire for holiness, and that transports the soul, by anticipation, beyond the region of winds, and storms, and tempests, into the calmer presence of God, where all is sunshine and peace- O what a wondrous privilege is this!

That there is much of awful mystery yet to be unraveled in relation to this holy exercise of the soul, we readily admit. How prayer operates upon God we know not. That it can effect any alteration in His purpose, or change His will, or afford Him information, no one for a moment supposes. And yet, that it should be an ordained medium by which finite weakness seems to overcome Infinite strength, and a human will seems to turn the Divine will, and man's shallow mind seems to pour knowledge into the fathomless mind of God- that it should halt a threatened judgment, or remove an existing evil, or supply a present need- is a marvel in which, like all others of Divine revelation, I submit my reason to my faith, receiving and adoring what my reason cannot, unless I were God, perfectly comprehend.

The only solution which we have of this mystery of prayer, is contained in these words: "He that searches the hearts, knows what the mind of the Spirit is , because he makes intercession for the saints according to the will of God." The Holy Spirit thus inditing just that petition which is in harmony with the purpose, will, and love of Him who is emphatically the Hearer and the Answerer of prayer. What a volume might be composed on the subject of prayer, and yet the half would not be told! A compilation of its achievements would of itself be the work of the longest life. Blessed are they who can enter into the spirit of these words, "I give myself unto prayer." "It is good for me to draw near unto God." "Pray without ceasing." "Praying with prayer." "If we ask anything according to his will, he hears us; and if we know that he hears us, whatever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we desired of him." Have you, reader, this fruit? Then, restrain not prayer before God!

"Prayer is a creature's strength, his very breath and being;
Prayer is the golden key that can open the wicket of Mercy
Prayer is the slender nerve that moves the muscles of Omnipotence;
Therefore, pray, O creature, for many and great are your needs;
Your mind, your conscience, and your being, your rights commend you unto prayer,
The cure of all cares, the grand panacea for all pains,
Doubt's destroyer, ruin's remedy, the antidote to all anxieties."
(Tupper)

GODLY SORROW must be quoted as another fruit, good and precious, of the renewed heart. This, also, is the product of the Holy Spirit, indicating the life of God in the soul of man. No single exercise of mind is presented in the Word as holding so essential and important a place in a work of grace as this: it is absolutely indispensable as an element of conversion. There cannot be the subsequent stages of faith in Jesus, of righteousness, joy, and peace in the Holy Spirit, without the previous sense and sorrow of sin. We need, on this interesting subject, no other teaching than what is contained in these words: "Thus says the high and lofty One who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy: I dwell in the high and holy place, with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite ones." Again- "For all these things has my hand made, and all these things have been, says the Lord; but to this man will I look, even to him who is of a poor and contrite spirit, and trembles at my word."

Can any truth be more strongly and affectingly stated? This, too, was the doctrine which our Lord preached: "I say unto you, that except you repent, you shall all likewise perish." And so did his Apostles, when they declared, "God now commands all men everywhere to repent." No command, no duty can be more distinctly, intelligently, and solemnly defined and urged than this. But the inquirer will ask, "What is repentance?" The reply is- it is that secret grace that lays the soul low before God- self, loathed; sin, abhorred, confessed, and forsaken. It is the abasement and humiliation of a man because of the sinfulness of his nature, and the sins of his life, before the holy, heart-searching Lord God.

The more matured believer is wont to look upon a broken and contrite spirit flowing from a sight of the cross, as the most precious fruit found in his soul. No moments to him are so hallowed, so solemn, or so sweet, as those spent in bathing the Savior's feet with tears. There is indeed a bitterness in the grief which a sense of sin produces; and this, of all other bitternesses, is the greatest. He knows from experience, that it is an "evil thing and bitter, that he has forsaken the Lord his God." Nevertheless, there is a sweetness- an indescribable sweetness, which must be experienced to be understood- blended with the bitterness of a heart broken for sin, from a sight of the cross of the incarnate God. O precious tears wept beneath that cross!

But how shall I portray the man that is of a humble and a contrite spirit? He is one who truly knows the evil of sin, for he has felt it. He apprehends, in some degree, the holiness of God's character, and the spirituality of his law, for he has seen it. His views of himself have undergone a radical change. He no longer judges himself as others judge him. They exalt him; he abases himself. They approve; he condemns. And in that very thing for which they most extol him, he is humbling himself in secret. While others are applauding actions, he is searching into motives; while they are extolling virtues, he is sifting principles; while they are weaving the garland for his brow, he, shut in alone with God, is covering himself with sackcloth and with ashes. O precious fruit of a living branch of the true Vine! Is it any wonder, then, that God should come and dwell with such a one, in whom is found something so good towards Him? O no! He delights to see us in this posture- to mark a soul walking before Him in a conscious sense of its poverty, the eye drawing from the cross its most persuasive motives to a deep prostration of soul at His feet.

Dear reader, to know what a sense of God's reconciling love is- to know how skillfully, tenderly, and effectually, Jesus binds up and heals, your spirit must be wounded, and your heart must be broken for sin. O it were worth an ocean of tears to experience the loving gentleness of Christ's hand in drying them. Has God ever said of you, as he said of Ahab, "See how he humbles himself before me?" Search and ascertain if this good fruit is found in your soul.

And what shall be said of FAITH? Truly is it the crowning grace of all, and a most costly and precious fruit of the renewed mind. From it springs every other grace of a gracious soul. It has been designated the Queen grace, because a royal train ever attends it. Faith comes not alone, nor dwells alone, nor works alone. Where faith in Jesus is, there also are love, and joy, and peace, and long-suffering, and patience, and godly sorrow, and every kindred perfection of the Christian character, all blending in the sweetest harmony, all uniting to celebrate the glory of God's grace, and to crown Jesus Lord of all. Is it, then, surprising that this should be distinguished from all the others by the term "precious faith?" No! that must needs be precious which unfolds the preciousness of every thing else. It makes the real gold more precious, and it transmutes everything else into gold. It looks to a "precious Christ." It leads to his "precious blood." It relies unqualifiedly on the "precious promises." And its very trial, though it be by fire, is "precious."

It so changes the nature of the painful, the humiliating, and the afflictive, as to turn the Father's frown, rebuke, and correction, into some of the costliest mercies of life. Precious grace that bids me look upon God in Christ as reconciled; and which, in the absence of all, evidence of sight, invites me to rest upon the veracity of God!- which takes me in my deepest poverty to Jesus, my true Joseph, having in his hands, and at his disposal, all the treasures of grace and glory! These are some of the characteristics of this royal grace. "Being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ." By faith I can not only say that Jesus died for sinners, but that he died for me. Faith makes the great atonement mine. Faith appropriates to itself all that is in Christ. It lays its hand upon the covenant of grace, and exclaims, "All things are mine." Oh! to see one bowed to the dust under a sense of sin, yet by faith traveling to the blood and righteousness of the Lord Jesus for salvation, and finding it too- to mark the power of this grace in sustaining the soul in deep waters, holding it up in perilous paths- is a spectacle on which God Himself must look down with ineffable delight.

The application of this truth, reader, must be to your conscience- "Do you believe in the Soil of God?" Have you "like precious faith" with that which we have attempted to describe? Alas! it may be that you are that tree which does not bring forth this good fruit. Yours may be a species of fruit somewhat resembling it; but do not be deceived in a matter so momentous as this. "You believe there is one God- you do well, the devils also believe, and tremble." That is, you assent to the first proposition of true religion- the being of God; this is well, because your judgment assents to that which is true. And still you have not gone beyond the faith of demons! They believe, and yet horror inconceivable is but the effect of the forced assent of their minds to the truth- they "tremble." O look well to your faith! There must be in true faith, not only an intellectual assent, but also a heart consent. In believing to the saving of the soul, we not only assent to the truth of the word, but we also consent to take Christ as he is there set forth- the sinner's reconciliation with God. A mere intellectual illumination, or a historical belief of the facts of the Bible, will never place the soul beyond the reach of hell, nor within the region of heaven. There is a "form of knowledge," as well as a "form of godliness;" and both existing apart from vital religion in the soul, constitute a "vain religion."

Again we press upon you the important inquiry; Have you the "faith of God's elect?" Is it the faith that has stained the glory of 'merit', and laid the 'pride of intellect' in the dust? Is it rooted in Christ? Has it transformed you, in some degree, into the opposite of what you once were? Are any of the "precious fruits" of the Spirit put forth in your life? Is Jesus precious to your soul? And to walk in all circumstances humbly with God, is it the earnest desire of your heart? If there is no sorrow for sin, no going out of yourself to Jesus, no fruits of holiness, in some degree, appearing, then is yours but a "dead faith." Dead, because it is a part and parcel of a nature dead in trespasses and in sins- dead, because it is not the fruit of the quickening Spirit; dead, because it is inoperative, even as the lifeless root transmits no vitality and moisture to the tree- dead, because it never can bring you to eternal life. Of what value, then, is it? Cut it down! why does it cumber the ground? If, then, you have never brought forth the good fruit of prayer, and repentance, and faith, you are yet in the old nature of sin, of rebellion, and of death.

We are now conducted to a truly solemn branch of the subject under discussion: namely, THE IMMINENT DANGER TO WHICH AN UNCONVERTED STATE IS EXPOSED. "And now also behold the axe is laid unto the root of the tree: therefore every tree which does not bring forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire." Here is an unequivocal declaration of the over hanging judgment of Christless souls. "Their damnation slumbers not." It is "ready to be revealed." It is not that such a state is advancing to a judgment, so much as its closest proximity to that judgment, that constitutes the most solemn feature. Were you to repair to an adjacent plantation, and observe the woodman's axe lying by the side of some lifeless oak, you would naturally conclude- "here is the preparation for removal; its doom is fixed; the axe is laid at its root;" and you would naturally expect soon to see it level with the earth. You are that dead "tree that brings not forth good fruit!" At the root of your dead faith, and lifeless profession, and impenitent, prayerless, godless, Christless life, the axe of divine judgment is lying, ready to fell you to the ground. There it lies, waiting but the lifted hand of Justice, at the command of the long-suffering, but sin-avenging God- "Cut it down!" "Their judgment now of a long time lingers not." For a long time that judgment has been in abeyance- O how long!- but now it "lingers not."

Behold, "now also the axe is laid." And laid where? Not at the withered, fruitless branches merely; these, indeed, the Lord often severs. He removes gospel privileges, or withdraws great mercies, or cuts off peculiar and choice blessings; sickness, bereavement, reverses, enter the domestic circle, once bright and happy, throwing the pall of vacancy, of gloom, and of desolateness over all. In this way the Lord sometimes lays the axe at the pleasant branches of creature blessing and comfort, and they fall before our eye, leaving the heart bleeding, and brooding in gloomy loneliness over its loss. But the most alarming view of this truth is its personal relation to ourselves. The axe of God's judgment is lying at the root. In the due consideration of this fact, we lose sight of others, and concentrate all our thought and anxiety upon ourselves. It becomes now a truth of increased magnitude and solemnity; because no longer thinking of the branches which God has removed, or may yet remove from us, we are appalled by the irresistible conviction- "I must die! the axe is lying at the root."

Ah! this is the most calamitous of all divine judgments. This is the climax of horrors! This is the filling to the brim of the cup of woe. The loss of wife, or children, or property, or health, has often resulted in untold blessings to the loser. It has led him to seek and to find all that he had lost, and infinitely more, in Christ. The Eternal Spirit has made it the means and the occasion of his conversion to God. And thus while he has mourned in bitterness the severance of the pleasant branches, he has rejoiced with a joy unspeakable, in the mercy that has spared, and in the grace that has quickened, the root. And is it so, that the beloved of our hearts must die before we can live? Must bough after bough of fragrant blossom, and of pleasant fruit, be severed, before we are led to give to God our hearts and to Christ our service? Must the idol be crumbled, and its shrine be broken down, before the Holy Spirit enters to re-create, renew, and occupy us for himself? Yes, mourning reader, it is often so! "For us they languish, and for us they die."

O happy for you, if now the vacant niche in your heart is filled by him who indeed "died for us, that we might live through him." Yes, judgment is suspended over the fruitless tree. The axe is lying at the root. And when a man loses himself, it is the direst loss of all. "What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world; and lose his own soul?" And what matter if a man lose all that the world esteems good, if yet he himself is found in Christ! He may lose all, and yet save himself. Ah! better that every branch, and leaf, and blossom should die, than that the root should be forever destroyed.

The periods at which the state of human probation ceases, are various. We often behold the young fall suddenly before the axe of death. The spectacle is peculiarly affecting; awfully so, if there is no hope! Picture it to your mind. The sun had scarcely risen before it set. It went down while it was yet day. The morning of life had just dawned, gilding the horizon with the golden hues of promise, when lo! the night of the grave drew rapidly on, and quenched all in darkness! There were health and beauty, vivacity and vigor. Hope predicted, and the world promised, much. A thousand avenues proffered to guide the youthful traveler to the sphere of happiness. The morning rejoiced over his head, and everything around him wore a smiling appearance. He traversed the newborn world, now bursting into beauty upon his view, cropping the unblown flower, and drinking the untasted spring. With spirits buoyant as the morning air, health blooming on his cheek, genius sparkling in his eye, visions of bliss floating before his imagination, he set out upon the journey of life. But the axe is at the root! It rises- it strikes- and in a moment the "strong staff is broken, and the beautiful rod!" Fearful, if on that tree "no good fruit" were found! Happy, if early ripe for heaven!

Such a one I knew. Nature had cast him in her finest mold. Possessed of a form of exquisite symmetry, a countenance pencilled with lines of perfect beauty and mirroring the greatness of his soul, art in her noblest chiselings never embodied the idea of a more perfect man. Learning enriched his mind; travel added to his rich stores of thought and information, and heightened the polish and the grace of his address; a poetic genius, perfectly classic, imparted an indescribable tenderness and delicacy to his sentiments; while religion, heaven-born religion, threw its sanctity and its charm over all. On his return from mingling amid the classic scenes of Homer and of Virgil, and the yet more thrilling and hallowed scenes of Christ and of his apostles, he was invested with the holy office of the Christian ministry. In its sacred duties he was permitted for a while to engage; admiring multitudes hanging on the lips that spoke so eloquently of Christ and of his cross. But fell disease was insidiously feeding at the root of this beautiful cedar of Lebanon; and when life was the sweetest and the brightest, and hope spoke most flatteringly to his ear; and when, from the precious stores of thought and sentiment, his fascinating voice flung their treasures the most lavishingly around him, at that moment he sickened, and drooped, and died! The skillful hand of affection has reared a splendid monument to his memory, the materials of which his own richly furnished mind had supplied. But his true and imperishable record is on high.

But why recall the memory of the young and the beautiful who have passed away? To give, if possible, increased force and solemnity to the exhortation which the Holy Spirit addresses to the young, "Remember now your Creator in the days of your youth." Remember Him who created you, and who created you for his glory- who fashioned your form, and who endowed your mind, and who placed you in your present position in life, be it of rank and influence, or of lowliness and obscurity. Remember him as a holy, sin-hating God, and that you stand to Him in the relation of a fallen creature, impure and unrighteous, impotent and hostile, unworthy to live, unfit to die.

Remember what He must have done, and what He must do for you if ever that relation is changed, and you become a new creature, an adopted child, an heir of glory. Remember the strong and inalienable claims which He has upon you- claims which He will never relax nor revoke. He who commanded the first of the ripe fruits, and animals of the first year, to be offered to Him, bids you remember Him in the days of your youth!- your first days, and your best, while the body is in health, and the mind is vigorous, and all the faculties of the soul fit you especially for His service and His glory. Oh remember Him now, before other things and other objects come and occupy the place which belongs to God alone. Remember your breath is in His hands; that the axe of judgment is lying at the root of the green tree as well as the dry, that the blooming flower and the young sapling are often cut down long before the stately cedar or venerable oak bows itself to the earth. Build not upon length of days- plume not yourself with the laurels which profound learning, or brilliant talent, or successful enterprise may already have won for you. See how soon they fade upon the brow which they adorn! Think of Kirke White, and of Spencer, and of Urquhart, and of M'cheyne, and of Taylor, and of Swaine, and of Griffin- those beautiful cedars of God's Lebanon, how verdant and how fragrant were the honors which went down with them to the tomb! But they early lived in the Lord, and unreservedly for the Lord- and the Lord took them early to live with himself forever. They gave to Him the first and the best, and He took them the first to glory, and has given them the best of glory. Who would not live and die as did they?

"It matters little at what hour of the day
The righteous fall asleep. Death cannot come
To those untimely, who are fit to die.
The less of this cold world, the more of heaven,
The briefer life, the earlier immortality."

Build, then, on nothing beneath the sky except an immediate and undoubted interest in Christ. Until you are born again, you are in peril; until God possesses your heart, as to any real holiness, and usefulness, and happiness, your life is a perfect blank. You live to yourself; and not to live to Him who created you, who upholds you, and who will soon judge you- is a poor life indeed. O give to Christ the golden period of your life! Bind the early sacrifice upon the altar. Lay upon it the first fruits- Jesus is worthy of your young affections, and of the earliest development of your mind. O what a treasure is Christ! To begin life with Christ in the heart, is to begin with a radiant morning- the sure prelude of a smiling day, and of a cloudless evening!

Others are cut down in the meridian of life. With them, the romance of youth is past; the ideal has vanished, succeeded by the sober reality. Immersed in its cares, entangled with its perplexities, or eager of its gains, its honors, and its pleasures, they heed not the sun's altitude; they watch not how far it has declined upon the dial of human life, and how near its setting is! With noiseless wing, time pursues its flight, and borne imperceptibly along upon the rapid current of human affairs, they realize not that they were born and are destined for another world, until they touch its confines!

"And while the scene on either side
Presents a gaudy, flattering show,
They gaze, in fond amusement lost,
Nor think to what a world they go."

A few, and but a few, are spared to the winter of old age. The fruitless tree of many years, and of long and unwearied culture, is permitted to stand as a monument of God's tireless patience. The tints of autumn are upon its once green foliage, and its branches are withered and decayed. Long has God waited for the good fruit, but none has appeared. He has looked year after year, but has looked in vain. Judgment and mercy have been sent, and both have alike proved ineffectual. No alarm, no seriousness, no reflection, no repentance, no prayer, have given evidence that within the man there dwelt a living soul. God has smitten, but he has not returned; God has smiled, but he has not loved! Oh where is there a spectacle in human life more awful and affecting than a fruitless, unconverted aged person? To see the hoary head found in the way of unrighteousness, worldliness, carnality, frivolity, hardness of heart and unbelief; instead of spirituality and sobriety, contrition and faith, is melancholy indeed. There is a worldly old age, and a sensual old age, and a frivolous old age, and a skeptical old age, and an impenitent old age.

And there is, on the other hand, a heavenly-minded old age, and a verdant, fruitful old age, and a happy old age! Dear aged reader, which is yours? You are approaching the end of all earthly things; you stand upon the borders of the invisible world; soon its tremendous realities will open upon you: this may be the last appeal; the grasp of death may be near you now, and mercy may be about to utter her eternal farewell. My heart's desire and prayer to God for you is, that you may be saved, even at the eleventh hour.

And O, should there appear, even now, in the exercise of God's rich and sovereign grace, the puttings forth of godly sorrow, and the buddings of precious faith in your soul- if now, at even-tide, it should be light- "your light rising in obscurity, and your darkness as the noon-day"- then, remember for your encouragement, the laborers who were welcomed into the vineyard at the eleventh hour; and think of the expiring malefactor, who, amid the very pangs of dissolving nature, and when his spirit trembled on the verge of eternity, uttered his cry for mercy, in penitence and faith, and was heard, and was forgiven, and was received up into glory- and press the truth to your heart, that yet there is hope for you!

And what is THE FINAL END of the "tree that bears no good fruit?" It is "hewn down and cast into the fire." Even as a tree marked for judgment, it is "hewn down." Sometimes it is by a gradual process of decay, long wasting disease bringing down the sinner to the grave. At other times it is sudden- a single stroke lays him low. "His breath goes forth, he returns to his earth; in that very day his thoughts perish." All his 'thoughts' of long life, his 'thoughts' of worldly acquisition, his 'thoughts' of human fame, his 'thoughts' of domestic happiness, "in that very day his thoughts perish." A slight pressure upon the brain, a single pulse ceasing at the heart, a few moments' suspension of air, and the soul is gone, in the twinkling of an eye- gone to meet its God! The fruitless tree is hewn down!

AND WHAT FOLLOWS? Shall we lift the veil? Christ has done it. "Cast the unprofitable servant into outer darkness, there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth." O horror of horrors! O death of deaths! There they lie! They roll in billows of flame! They gnaw their chains in agony! They torment each other! They reproach themselves! They call for water! They shriek in despair! They blaspheme God! They invoke names once dear to them! They stretch out their hands! They sink, deeper, and deeper, and deeper, exclaiming, "This worm, this flame, this agony, forever- FOREVER!" Reader, there is a HELL! It is written- ah! and it is written with the pen of heaven- "The wicked shall go away into everlasting punishment." It is not the eternal sleep of the infidel- that is a dream. It is not the annihilation of the universalist- that is a lie. It is the Hell of fearful torments which the BIBLE reveals just as clearly as the heaven of ineffable delight. Yes, there is a HELL. Every moment its door opens and shuts upon some Christless sinner, entering to return no more- forever. "And now the axe is laid unto the root of the trees: therefore every tree which brings not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire." Eternal ages of torment will produce no alleviation and no change. "If the tree fall toward the south, or toward the north, in the place where the tree falls, there it shall be"- and that to all ETERNITY. Reader, you must be cut down, either by the sword of God's Spirit, or by the axe of God's judgment. Which?

Many will read these pages to whom this awful character will not apply. They are "trees of righteousness, of the Lord's own right hand planting." Removed from the wilderness of unrenewed nature, sovereign grace has placed you in the Lord's garden; if this be so, then upon you rests the high obligation to aim after much fruitfulness. Do not be satisfied with the low standard of the day. We are surrounded by a worldly, time-serving, man-pleasing, temporizing profession of Christianity. Many are dead while they live. There are the leaves of Christian profession, but where are the fruits of the Spirit? Rise superior to this standard, and dare to be singular for the Lord. Remember that Christ is your "Green Fir Tree from whom is your fruit found." All contrition for sin flows from a sight of his cross; all obedience to his commands, from a sense of his love; all victory over temptation, from the power of his grace; and all consolation in sorrow, from the sympathy of his heart.

Perhaps you are bearing fruit in the midst of deep trial. Ah! never were you, it may be, so fruitful as now! Your Father never saw his image in you so fairly reflected- Jesus never saw his grace in you so triumphant- the Spirit never beheld his work so evident in your soul as now. You are bringing forth much precious fruit beneath the pruning hand of the heavenly Husbandman. Come, then, and rest your weary spirit- and satiate your hungry soul under the "Green Fir Tree." Listen how sweetly he invites you- "I am like a green fir tree; from me is your fruit found." You are one with that Tree, if you are a living branch. You are invited to come and partake of its fruit, and to sit down under its shadow. Its leaves are for your healing, its fruit is for your nourishing, its branches are for your refreshing. All that Christ is, belongs to you.

He is the Green Fir Tree- "the same yesterday, and today, and forever." No circumstance and no event can possibly effect any change in him. All that he ever was, as portrayed in the word, he is now, and will continue to be. His word is faithful, his truth is firm, his love is unchangeable. Jesus is the EVER GREEN- others may change, but he, never! He remains the same rich, loving, kind, true, and precious Brother, Friend, and Savior; when the frosts and the snows of wintry adversity have congealed every spring, and have mantled with gloom every object of creature good. Repair to him when you may, you will find him the Green Fir Tree- always the same. May the sentiments of the sweet poet be those of every reader!

"Sweet is the voice which now invites,
And bids me shelter take
In Christ, the living Tree, whose leaves
No storms shall ever shake."

"Under his shade I would abide,
And there your love, dear Lord,
Shall, to this weary heart of mine,
Rich stores of peace afford."

"With him my life is hid in God,
From him my fruit is found;
Can anything, then, tear me from his love,
Can anything my hope confound?"

"Ah, no! he is the 'Green Fir Tree,'
Firm as the rock he stands;
Our hope as firm- to him we're bound
By love's electing bands."

"When they who 'neath his shade do dwell,
As corn revive shall they,
Like lily and the vine shall grow,
But not like them decay."

"But like unto Mount Lebanon,
They shall their branches spread;
And sweetest fragrance breathe through Christ,
Their life, their rest, their head."

"Broken Cisterns"

"My people have committed two sins:
They have forsaken Me,
the spring of living water,
and have dug their own cisterns,
broken cisterns that cannot hold water." Jeremiah 2:13

Sin has created a deep and an agonizing void in the soul of man. There was a period- Oh that its joys should now be enshrouded in a cloud so dark!- when every affection and aspiration of the human mind soared towards, and centered in, God. Possessing a nature assimilating with the Divine nature, and a heart capable of loving God with a compass and a grasp of affection worthy of its object- dwelling near the habitation of His holiness, and holding the closest communion with Him in all the privacy of his walk, man sought and desired no other happiness than that which flowed from God, the "Fountain of living waters." God was in all his mercies, and all his mercies led him to God.

But a woeful change has taken place. A fearful chasm has followed. The moment sin invaded paradise, touching with its deadly taint this glorious and happy creature, he swerved from the center of his repose, and becoming sensible of an instantaneous loss, his restless and craving soul went in quest of a substitute to occupy the void which his guilt had created. In a word, he forsook the Fountain for the cistern, the Creator for the creature; and God, in return, abandoned him to all the dire consequences of so foolish and so fatal an exchange. To the contemplation of this state, as it is portrayed in the history of the unrenewed mind, let us now bend our thoughts, gathering from it those lessons of wisdom which it is, so eminently calculated to supply.

The first great truth that meets us is, God's figurative revelation of Himself- "Me, the Fountain of living waters." Do we predicate this of the FATHER? Then, here is a truth which, for its vastness and its preciousness, is surpassed by no other. It meets a phase of Christian experience not often glanced at. We allude to the secret tendency which there is in us to a partiality in our estimate of the cost of redemption. There is a proneness to keep out of sight the interest which the Father took in the salvation of His church; and to look upon the work of the Son as though it originated and purchased all the love, and the benevolence, and the allurings which God the Father is represented as manifesting towards his revolted but recovered family. You have studied but imperfectly the wonders of redemption- have but partially seen its glories- with shallow line have fathomed its depth- and with feeble pinion have soared to its height, if you have not been accustomed to associate the Father's purpose of grace and love with every step which the Son took in working out the recovery of a lost church.

So wont are we to fix our admiring and adoring gaze upon the incarnate Son- so wont to entwine our exclusive affection around him who for us 'loved not his life unto the death,' as to come short of the stupendous and animating truth, that all the love, grace, and wisdom which appear so conspicuous and so resplendent in salvation, have their fountain-head in the heart of God the Father! May we not trace to the holding of this partial view, those hard and injurious thoughts of his character, and those crude and gloomy interpretations of his government, which so many of us bear towards him? And was it not this contracted and shadowy conception of the Father which Jesus so pointedly, yet so gently rebuked in his disciple, "If you had known me, you should have known my Father also: and from henceforth you know him and have seen him." To this, his incredulous disciple still objected, "Lord, show us the Father, and it suffices us. Jesus said unto him, Have I been so long with you, and yet have you not known me, Philip? He that has seen me, has seen the Father; how do you say then, Show us the Father?"

What further testimony, and what more conclusive proof need we? "He that has seen me, has seen the Father." Do we see the glory of Jesus beaming through the attempted concealment of his humanity?- it is the glory of the Father shining. Do we follow Jesus in his walks of mercy, and behold him lavishing the exuberance of his tenderness and sympathy upon the objects of misery and want who thronged his way?- strange though it may seem, yet, in those displays of love, and in those meltings of compassion, and in that voice of mercy, and in those tears of sympathy, we see and hear the Father himself. Do we contemplate the love of Jesus, laborings, suffering, dying?- we see the Father's love in equal vastness, strength, and intensity. He that has thus seen the Son, has also seen the Father.

Would we breathe a syllable, or pen a line, tending to lessen your attachment to the Son? God forbid! Rather would we heighten your love, and elevate it to a standard never reached before. We claim for Christ your highest admiration and your supreme affection; and unhesitatingly declare, that there is not an object in the universe so worthy of them as he. But we are jealous for the Father's glory; and we wish to guide you through the channel to the Fountain from where it flows- even the eternal purpose, the everlasting love, the covenant mercy of God the Father. Here is the grand secret revealed of God, so loving to the world. His love originated the salvation of His Church- the salvation of the Church did not originate His love. Think not, then, that the work of Jesus was the procuring cause of God's love to sinners! O no! You do him great injustice and wrong if so you interpret his affection. He loved the Church long before He sent His Son from His bosom to die for it. There was the love, thirsting, panting, and longing for an outlet, and only finding it through the riven bosom of Jesus. Oh! to see that every step which Jesus took to work out our redemption from the curse, was in perfect harmony with the purpose, the mind, and the heart of the Father! He could, with all truth, say, as he travailed in soul, "I and my Father are one." "I do always those things which please him." "The Father that dwells in me, he does the works." "I am in the Father, and the Father in me."

Behold, then, the Fountain of living waters! The infinite, the eternal, and inexhaustible Fountain- the Father's love! Do you now marvel at redemption? Do you now wonder at His unspeakable gift? The mystery is explained in the Father's love. "In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only-begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him." "Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that be loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins." Learn, dear Christian reader, to entwine the Father in the affections that cluster around the Son. Eternally welled in His infinite heart, was the love which constrained Him not to spare His own Son, that He might spare you. Give to him an equal place in your thoughts, your affections, your worship, and your service. Blend him with every view which you take of Jesus. Associate His love who gave, with every hallowed remembrance of his love who was given. And when you see the heart of the Son broken with sorrow, think that it "pleased Jehovah to bruise him and to put him to grief" for the love which He bore the Church. Behold what a fountain of life is God! All intelligences, from the highest angel in heaven, to the lowest creature on earth, drawing every breath of their existence from Him. "In Him we live and move and have our being."

But he is more than this to the Church. He is the Fountain of love as well as of life. The spirits of "just men made perfect," and the redeemed on earth, satiate their thirsty souls at the overflowing fulness of the Father's love. How much do we need this truth! What stinted views, unjust conceptions, and wrong interpretations have we cherished of Him, simply because we overlook His character as the Fountain of living waters. We "limit the Holy One of Israel." We judge of him by our poor, narrow conception of things. We think that He is such a one as we ourselves are. We forget in our approaches, that we are coming to an Infinite Fountain. That the heavier the demand we make upon God, the more we shall receive, and that the oftener we come, the more are we welcome. That we cannot ask too much. That our sin, and His dishonor, are, that we ask so little. We forget that He is glorified in giving; and that the more grace He metes out to his people, the richer the revenue of praise which He receives in return. How worthy of such an infinite Fountain of love and grace is His "Unspeakable Gift!" It came from a large heart; and the heart that gave Jesus will withhold no good thing from those who walk uprightly.

The same figure will apply with equal truth to the LORD JESUS CHRIST. It is a most expressive one. He thus appropriates it to himself- "Jesus stood and cried, saying, If any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink." And in another place he describes the water which he gives, as "living water." Jesus is essential life. But he possesses also mediatorial life, held in covenant for his people. To this life he alludes in these words: "Verily, verily, I say unto you, The hour is coming, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God: and those who hear shall live. For as the Father has life in himself; so has he given to the Son to have life in himself." Thus clear is it, that Jesus is the "Fountain of living waters." What moral death is in the soul of man until he drinks of this living water! We cannot, nor dare we, close our eyes to the truth, such are the precious interests at stake. The soul of man, as to everything that is holy and spiritual, is spiritually dead. His professed faith, and works, and prayers, and religion are dead. All he does while in an unrenewed state, springs from death. He may be powerfully operated upon by a kind of religious galvanism. There may be apparent alarm, and conviction, and excitement, under the preaching of the truth, and solemn providences; and yet (to illustrate his condition by a more scriptural figure), like the bones in Ezekiel's vision, though there may be a shaking, and the outward covering of skin and flesh, yet "there is no breath." "Having the form of godliness, but denying the power thereof." It is by the quickening of the Spirit alone, that he becomes a, living soul.

But what a Fountain of life is Jesus! The dead, on whose ear falls the sound of his voice, live. There is a grace in Christ- quickening, regenerating, life-giving grace; and to whomsoever that grace is imparted, he that was lying cold and inanimate in the valley, begins to move, to live, to breathe, and to arise. One touch of Christ, a whisper of his voice, a breath of his Spirit, begets a life in the soul that never dies. That faint and feeble pulsation which often the most skillful touch can scarcely detect, is as deathless as the life of God! A stream from the Fountain of essential life has entered the soul, and it lives, and will live, a glorious life, running on parallel with God's eternity. What a Fountain of life is Jesus! Think of its limitlessness. There is the fulness of life in Christ. The grace that is welled in Jesus, is as infinite in its source as it is divine in its nature. "In him dwelt all the fulness of the Godhead bodily." "It pleased the Father that in him should all fulness dwell."

An uncreated fulness, it must possess an inexhaustible infinity. Had the Father deposited this life-giving grace in all the angels in heaven, it had long since been exhausted. Think of the myriads, thirsting for holiness and for happiness, who have knelt and slaked their thirst at this Fountain- think of the myriads who have here filled their empty vessels, and have gone away with joy and hope springing high in their minds. Think of the myriads whose sins his blood has washed away, whose souls his righteousness has clad, whose corruptions his grace has subdued, and whose sorrows his love has comforted. Think of the iniquities which he has pardoned; of the backslidings which he has healed; of the grief which he has removed; of the tears which he has dried; of the souls which he has saved. Think of the myriads, once drinking from the stream below, but who are now drinking from the Fountain-head in glory.

And yet is this Fountain as full as ever! Not one hair's-breadth has it sunk. Jesus is as full of pardoning grace for the guilty, and of justifying grace for the vile, and of sanctifying grace for the unworthy, as ever: full enough to meet the needs of every poor, thirsty, panting soul who ventures near. Oh, what a precious truth is this! Precious indeed to him who feels his insufficiency, poverty, and need. What, reader, is your need? what your sorrow? what your trial? what your infirmity? what your burden? Whatever it may be, repair with it to the Fountain of living waters, and despair not of a gracious welcome, and of an adequate supply. It is a Fountain, and a living Fountain. It needs no persuasion to flow, for it flows spontaneously; and wherever it flows there is life.

This reminds us of its freeness. The grace that is in Christ Jesus must, from its very nature, be unpurchasable. It implies absolute poverty in the creature, and infinite affluence in God. Could it, by any possibility, be purchased, it would cease to be what it now is, the "grace of God." Because it is so great, so rich, and so infinite, God has made it as free as the sun-light and the air. Nothing can procure it. Tears cannot- convictions cannot- faith cannot- obedience cannot- prayer cannot- yes, not even can the most costly work of God's Spirit in the soul procure a drop of this "living water." God gives it, and he gives it, as the word implies, freely. This is its glory- it is an unpurchasable, and a freely bestowed gift. Upon no other terms is it granted. Consequently, no condition of human character, and no case of human guilt, are excluded. The vilest of the vile, the poor insolvent sinner, the needy, the wretched, the penniless, the voice of free grace welcomes to the "living waters."

What has kept you so long from this fountain? You have thirsted, and panted, and desired; but still your soul has not been replenished. You have, perhaps, long been seeking the Lord, asking the way, and desiring salvation. Why have you not found him? You have borne the heavy burden of sin, month after month, and year after year, knowing nothing of a sense of pardon, of acceptance, of adoption, of rest. And why? Because you have stumbled at the freeness of the gift. You have expected to receive it as a saint, not seeing that God will only give it to you as a sinner. But hear the word of the Lord: "By grace are you saved;" "Redeemed without money;" "Nothing to pay;" "Whoever will, let him come and take of the water of life freely." O receive into your heart this truth, and you will be a happy man! All creation will seem to smile upon you- the heavens will smile- the earth will smile- yes, God himself will smile. Dropping its chain, your emancipated soul will spring into the glorious liberty of the sons of God. What sovereignty, sweetness, and glory will now appear in the very act that forgives all, forgets all, and which introduces you into a new world, redolent of joy and delight. And while this precious fountain of grace and love, proceeding from the overflowing heart of the Savior, thus flows, you will exclaim, "My soul is caught, Heaven's sovereign blessings clustering from the cross, Rush on her in a throng, and close her round, The prisoner of amaze."

One other quality of the life-giving water of grace yet remains to be noticed- we allude to ITS SATISFYING NATURE. Can this be affirmed of any other bliss? Is this an ingredient in the thousand cups of creature good which men so eagerly put to their lips? Select your choicest, fondest, sweetest, temporal mercy, and say, is it satisfying to your soul? Does it, in its fullest enjoyment, leave no lack unsupplied, no desire unmet, no void unfilled? Does it meet the cravings of the mind? Go into the garden of creature blessing, and pluck the loveliest flower, and taste the sweetest fruit; repair to the cabinet of friendship, and select from thence its choicest pear; pass round the wide circle of earth-born joy, and place your hand upon the chief and the best- is it the feeling of your heart, and the language of your lips- "I am satisfied, I want no more?" Does it quench the spirit's thirst: does it soothe the heart's sorrow; does it meet the mind's cravings; does it quiet the troubled conscience, and lift the burden from the aching heart? O no! The height, the depth, the length, the breadth, exclaim, "It is not in me- am I in God's stead?"

But how blessed is that which truly satisfies! Listen to the gracious words of the Savior. "Whoever drinks of the water that I will give him, shall never thirst; but the water that I will give him shall be in him a well of water, springing up into everlasting life." Did language ever utter a sentiment more true than this! Jesus is an all-satisfying portion. They who have tried him can testify that it is so. His is not a satisfaction in name, but in reality and in truth. There is a felt, a realized sense of holy satiety. The MIND is content. The believer wanders no more in quest of happiness or of rest. He has found them both in Jesus. He is satisfied to stake his eternal all upon the finished work of Emmanuel- to live upon his smile, to abide in his love, to draw upon his grace, to submit to his will, to bear his cross, to be guided by his counsel, and afterwards to be received by him, and to him, into glory. "Whom have I in heaven but you? and who is there upon earth that I desire beside you?" "My heart is fixed, O God, my heart is fixed; I will sing and give praise," - are the breathings of his adoring, loving, fixed heart.

Who that has fully received Christ into his heart, finds that heart sighing to return again to the bondage and the flesh-pots of Egypt? No man, having tasted of the old wine of God's everlasting love in Jesus, desires the new wine of the world's ever-changing joys. Satisfied with what he has through grace thus found, he exclaims, "The old is better." The Lord Jesus imparts contentment to the soul in which he enters and dwells. Vast as were those desires before, urgent as were those necessities, insatiable as were those cravings, and restless as was that mind, Jesus has met and satisfied them all. The magnetic power of his love has attracted to, and fixed the mind upon, himself. "He satisfies the longing soul, and fills the hungry soul with goodness." The believer is satisfied that God should possess him fully, and govern him supremely, and guide him entirely, and be the sole Fountain from where he draws his happiness, gratefully acknowledging, "All my springs are in You." Thus is he content to be just what, and just where, his Father would have him. He is satisfied that he possesses God, and that possessing God, he has all good in God. He knows that his Father cares for him; that he has undertaken to guide all his steps, and to provide for all his needs. The only anxiety which he feels as to the, present, is, how he may the most glorify his dearest, his only Friend, casting the future on Him in the simplicity of child-like faith, which has "No care a day beyond today; No thought about tomorrow.

Nor is the satisfaction thus felt limited to the present state. It passes on with the believer to eternity. It enters with him into the mansions of bliss. There, in unruffled serenity, in unalloyed joy, in unmingled bliss, it is perfect and complete. "You will show me the path of life: in your presence is fulness of joy; at your right hand there are pleasures for evermore." Happy saint! who have found your all in Jesus! Glorified spirit! would we recall you to these scenes of sin, of suffering, and of death? No! the needle of your soul no longer varies and trembles, diverted from its center by other and treacherous objects- Jesus fixes it now, and fixes it forever. Drink on, you spirits of the just made perfect, drink! "O Naphtali! satisfied with favor, and full with the blessing of the Lord, possess you the west and the south." Yes, range the entire compass of infinite good, for all things in God, in Christ, and in the covenant, are yours, and yours to all eternity!

But man has his WRETCHED SUBSTITUTES for this "Fountain of living waters." This is the solemn charge which God here alleges against him. "They have forsaken me the fountain of living waters, and hewn out cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water." There are three circles into which we will introduce the reader, each one affording evidence and illustration of the truth and nature of this charge. The first circle, perhaps the widest and the most melancholy, is, the circle of a self-righteous world. In no instance does the truth of this statement receive so affecting a confirmation as in this. What is the sad history of man in relation to this indictment? Has he not forsaken the righteousness of God, and sought a substitute in his own? What is man's own righteousness, the best that he ever made, but the hewing out of a created cistern, in the place of the infinite fountain? When Adam fell, he forsook God; and when expelled from paradise, he came out with a fig-leaf covering, a wretched substitute for the beautiful robe which he had just cast aside, and a melancholy and expressive emblem and badge of his own shame, and of our ruin. It was then that the solemn charge was first laid at the door- of forsaking the Fountain for a cistern. And what a wretched cistern it is! See how contracted and how shallow!

In vain he "goes about to establish a righteousness of his own, not submitting himself to the righteousness of God." At every step he fails. "For the bed is shorter, than that a man can stretch himself on it; and the covering narrower, than that he can wrap himself in it." His obedience, at best, must be but a partial and an imperfect one, and failing in a single point, entails eternal despair. "For whoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all." But not only is it a shallow and contracted, but it is also a "broken cistern." It can hold no water of life or of peace, of consolation or of joy. In vain his spirit, tormented with guilt and agitated with fear, repairs to it for satisfaction and repose- it supplies it not.

Let a man, for example, who is thus seeking salvation by the law, take the holiest day in the calendar of his life; let it be as free as it is possible for a fallen creature to make it from sin; let it be filled up with religious duties and services- it closes, and the curtains of night have drawn around him. Reposing on his pillow, he throws forward a glance into the eternal world- he thinks of the holy God, of the righteous law, of the solemn judgment, and the question, "What, if this night I should be summoned to stand before my Judge! -what, if tomorrow's sun should rise upon my corpse, and I, a departed spirit, should be mingling with the dread realities of an unseen world!" -and he trembles and turns pale. What! has not his best obedience, his holiest day, his strictest observance brought peace to his conscience and quietness to his soul? What! does no bright hope of glory play around his pillow, and no loving, peaceful view of God cradle him to rest? Ah, no! he has "forsaken the fountain of living waters, and has hewn him out a cistern, a broken cistern, that can hold no water," and his night closes in upon him hung with the drapery of hopeless gloom.

To you, reader, is this solemn word now sent. Ah! while your eye has been scanning this page, has there not been in your heart the secret conviction of its truth? You have forsaken the righteousness of God, and for years have been digging into the law, hoping thus to find in its strictest observance, some well-spring of life and peace to your soul. But all your toil has been in vain, and all your time mis-spent. And why? because, "by the works of the law shall no man living be justified." And as true peace flows only through the channel of justification by faith, turning your back upon that channel, there is, there can be, no peace for your soul. O that this voice, now sounding in faithfulness in your ear, may awaken you to a sense of your delusion and your folly, and win you to the "good and the right way!" O that you may be persuaded to abandon the implements of a self-wrought righteousness, with which you have so long fruitlessly labored, and, just as you are- poor, guilty, vile, helpless, and hopeless- betake yourself to the "righteousness of God, which is by faith in Christ Jesus!"

The law is a "broken cistern;" it holds no sweet waters of salvation, it gives out no streams of peace. But the Lord Jesus is the living fountain. He is the "end of the law for righteousness to every one that believes." He has "brought in a new and an everlasting righteousness" for the full justification of poor sinners, such as you. Abandon at once and forever the broken cistern of a creature righteousness- too long has it allured but to deceive you- and repair to the fountain of the Divine righteousness, which never has and never will deceive a believing sinner. Drink, O drink, from this life-giving fountain! Here are peace, joy, confidence, and hope. Clothed in this righteousness, you can look your sins in the face, and death in the face, and hell in the face, and fear nothing. "Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect? It is God that justifies."

We introduce the reader within another circle. In THE UNRENEWED, UNGODLY WORLD, what accumulated and melancholy evidence presents itself of man's abandonment of an infinite for a finite good- the fountain for the cistern! It matters not whether he is found in the intellectual, or in the sensual world, the world of science, or of sense; whether he drinks from the more refined, or the more polluted source- he has forsaken God, and has sought out some false and wretched substitute. Man is an inventive creature. And from the moment that he first turned away from the infinite source of happiness, until the present, he has been bent upon "finding out many inventions" of creature good. Not a day returns but it finds him still delving into the earth in quest of that which will quench the burning thirst of his soul. He formed the cistern, and lo! it proves a "broken cistern that can hold no water!"

The man of science has effected his ingenious discovery, the geometrician has solved his abstruse problem, the scholar has completed his production, the statesman has carried his measure, the warrior has gained his battle, the speculator has amassed his wealth, and the competitor has won his prize- are they happy? Follow them into privacy, and behold them, when the fragrant incense of flattery, and the low murmur of applause, and the delirious excitement of success, and the burning flush of victory have, like a beautiful vision, passed away, and they are alone with themselves. Are they happy? Oh! that melancholy countenance, pale with thought- that deep-drawn sigh- that languid look- that restless pace- too painfully reveal that 'happiness'- that 'heaven-descending creature'- has not her home and her dwelling-place there!

And why do you marvel at this? They have committed two great sins- they have forsaken the Fountain of living waters, and have hewn out broken cisterns that can hold no water. Survey the daughter of worldly pleasure. She has retired from her evening fascinations to her couch of repose, intoxicated with the incense of adulation offered to her intelligence and her beauty. But the excitement evaporates, and the mind turns in upon itself- is she happy? Ask that heaving bosom- ask that aching head- ask that burning tear- ask that feverish restlessness- ask that sleepless pillow; each would exclaim- "It is not here!" And still do you wonder? Wonder not- she has forsaken the Fountain of living waters, and has hewn out a broken cistern that can hold no water.

Take the testimony of one who had ransacked the world of earthly good: "I have seen all the works that are done under the sun; and behold, all is vanity and vexation of spirit." And what is the history of creature idolatry, but a mournful record of beautiful and inviting cisterns, which, nevertheless, God has destroyed? This is a wide and an affecting circle. We enter it cautiously, we allude to it feelingly and tenderly. We touch the subject with a pen that has often sought (though in much feebleness, it is acknowledged) to comfort the mourner, and to lift the pressure from the bowed-down spirit. We enter the domestic circle; oh! what beautiful cisterns of creature good, broken and empty, meet us here! The affectionate husband, the fond wife, the devoted parent, the pleasant child, the faithful friend, laid low in death. They were lovely cisterns, and the heart loved to drink from them its bliss. But lo! God has smitten, and they are broken, and the sweet waters have passed away! Was there not a worshiping of the creature rather than the Creator? Was not the object deified? Was not the attachment idolatrous? Did not the loved one occupy Christ's place in the heart? Ah! the wound, the void, the desolateness, the lonely grief of that heart, but too truly tell who was enthroned upon its strongest and its best affections.

But we will seek an illustration of our subject from a narrower circle. Let us pass within the world of RELIGIOUS PROFESSION. What numerous and affecting proofs meet us here of the truth of God's solemn charge! Look at the false teaching of the day. What are the heretical doctrines which are now defended with such ability, and propagated with such zeal, but so many cisterns of error hewn out by man as substitutes for the fountain of revealed truth? -doctrines that sink revelation and exalt tradition, and so deny the word of God; that ascribe regenerating grace to sacraments, and so deny the Holy Spirit; that teach the "real presence" in the Lord's Supper, and so do away with the sacrifice and atonement of Christ; that make religion to consist in a mere observance of external rites, and so deceive and ruin immortal souls; that obliterate the revealed truth of future and eternal punishment, thus weakening the power and shading the glory of God's moral government. We hesitate not to say, that these, and their kindred heresies, are the inventions of man, and designed to beguile souls from the pure fountain of truth. They are cisterns of human contrivance, which hold no water but the water of death.

Shall we find nothing in the still smaller circle of the true Church of God which would seem to indicate a proneness to substitute some object in the experience of the believer for Christ? Verily, we think so. To adduce an example, alas! but too common- When the act of faith is substituted for the object of faith, what is this but the hewing out of a broken cistern? Whatever I put in Christ's place necessarily becomes a substitute for Christ. If I look to my faith for comfort, and peace, and evidence, instead of my faith looking to Christ for these, I exchange the Fountain for the cistern. We are now touching upon a truth of vital moment. Jesus is the fountain of all life, light, grace, and love to the believer. Faith is but the channel through which these blessings are received. And yet, who has not detected in his heart a tendency to look to faith for the evidence of his Christianity, instead of to Christ thus making the act of believing a substitute for the object in which we believe.

You have long been pleading, as your reason for the unsettled and unhappy state of your mind, the weakness of your faith. What, I ask, is this, but the making a Savior of your faith? It was not faith that died for you- it is not faith that saves you. It is Christ, and Christ alone. Your evidences, your peace, your joy, your hope, all, all must flow from Jesus. "You have made me glad through your work," was the Psalmist's experience. And your soul also will be made glad through the atoning, finished work of Christ. That you should have found faith a broken cistern of soul-comfort, should create in you no surprise. The Lord is jealous for his glory- he will not give it to a creature, nor will he give it to a grace. Precious as that grace may be, it never can be a substitute for Christ's precious work. If by any means I exclude the sun from my garden, should I wonder that my seed did not germinate, and that my flowers did not appear, and that my plants drooped and died? Surely not. And if I veil the Sun of Righteousness from my soul, if some intervening object is allowed to arrest his beams, so that they fall not directly and warmly upon the "incorruptible seed " sown in my heart, need I wonder that it springs not forth in blossom, or that the blossom falls before it sets in fruit? But turn, O believer, from this broken cistern to Jesus the fountain. Draw your comfort, not from the channel, but from the source where it proceeds. Stumble no longer at the weakness of your faith. Turn your eye from every object but the Lord our Righteousness, in whom you may stand before God, the object of his love and delight.

Again, when we substitute spiritual frames and feelings for a simple resting on the Lord Jesus, we hew out broken cisterns that afford no true refreshment to the soul. These feelings are perpetually varying. The billows of the sea, and the winds of heaven, are not more restless, fluctuating, and uncertain. But if the mariner incessantly watches the heaving ocean, guiding his bark by its ever-changing undulations and currents, what progress towards his haven will he make? And you will make no advance in the divine life, if your eye is ever upon yourself instead of Christ. What though the experience of today is the opposite of the experience of yesterday- yesterday all brightness, today all cloudiness; yesterday your soul like a well-tuned harp, today every string loosed and uttering no melody; yesterday Jesus felt to be so near and precious, today seeming to awaken not a loving emotion in your heart; yesterday communion with God so sweet, today none whatever; yesterday desiring to walk uprightly, holily, and humbly, today detecting so much that is vacillating, weak, and vile; -nevertheless, Jesus is not changed.

The work of Christ is the same- your acceptance in him is the same- his intercession in heaven for you is the same; then why should you fly to spiritual experiences for support, strength, and consolation- rising when they rise, falling when they fall- when all your standing, joy, peace, and hope are entirely out of yourself, and are solely in Christ? What though you change a thousand times in one day? Jesus never changes. God may vary His dispensations; He may alter His mode of dealing- He may change the nature of His discipline- He may vary the lesson, but His loving-kindness and His truth are as unchangeable as His very being. He may dry up the earthly cistern, but He will never seal up the heavenly fountain; that will flow on in grace through all time, and In glory through all eternity.

And is it not an evil thing thus to have forsaken the Fountain of living waters? God speaks of it as involving two evils- the evil of forsaking Him, and the evil of substituting a false object of happiness for Him. "My people have committed two evils: they have forsaken Me the Fountain of living waters, and they have hewn out cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water." We are now touching upon, perhaps, the most solemn and important part of this chapter- THE SINFULNESS OF FORSAKING GOD, AND OF SUBSTITUTING SOMETHING ELSE FOR GOD.

Dear reader, the true painfulness of this subject consists not in the sorrow which your heart may have felt in seeing your cistern broken. Ah no! the true agony should be, that you have, in your wanderings and creature idolatry, sinned, deeply sinned, against the Lord your God! This, and not your loss, ought to lay you low before Him. This, and not your broken scheme of earthly happiness, ought to fill you with the bitterness of sorrow, and clothe you with the drapery of woe. Oh! to have turned your back upon such a God, upon such a Father, upon such a Friend, and to have supposed that even a universe of creatures could have made you happy without Him, ought to bring you to His feet, exclaiming, "God be merciful to me the chief of sinners!" Is it no sin to say to God, as you have said a thousand times over- "I prefer myself to You- my family to You- my estate to You- my pleasure to You- my honor to You?" Is it no sin to have taken the gifts with which He endowed you, or the wealth with which He entrusted you, and forming them into a golden image, to have fallen down before it, exclaiming, "This is your God, O my soul!" O yes, it is a sin, the guilt and the greatness of which no language can describe.

There is coming a period, unconverted reader, when you will know it of a truth to be a sin. A dying bed! Ah yes! a DYING BED! the last cistern broken! the last joy fled! the last hope expired! And now, without God, and without Christ, and without hope! What! is there not one drop of your many earthly cisterns left to cool your spirit's burning? Have all your creature blessings fled, as if appalled by the horrors of the scene? Yes! all have fled, and have left you alone upon the dreary precincts of an eternal world! "Oh! how this eternity haunts me!" exclaimed a gay votary of worldly pleasure, the moment before her young, trembling spirit plunged into the dark and measureless abyss. "O Lord, the hope of Israel, all that forsake you shall be ashamed, and those who depart from you shall be written in the earth, because they have forsaken the Lord, the fountain of living waters."

And is it no sin, O believer in Jesus, to have turned away in your unbelief and inconstancy, from the glorious redemption which the Lord has obtained for you at such a price, and to have sought the assurance and the joy of your salvation from other sources than it? What! is not the atoning work of Jesus sufficient to give to your believing soul solid rest, and peace, and hope, but that you should have turned your eye from him, and have sought it in the polluted and broken cistern of self? O, slight not the precious blood, and the glorious righteousness, and the infinite fulness, and the tender love of Jesus thus! No! you dishonor this precious Jesus himself! Shall he have wrought such an obedience, shall he have made such an atonement, shall he have died such a death, shall he have risen and have ascended up on high, all to secure your full salvation and certain glory, and will you derive the evidence and the comfort of your acceptance from any other than this one precious source- "Looking unto Jesus!"

Look away, then, from everything- to Jesus. No matter what you are, look away from self- to Jesus. The more vile, the more empty, the more unworthy, the greater reason and the stronger argument wherefore you should look entirely off yourself- to Jesus. His atoning work is finished by him, and is sealed by the Father. It is impossible that God can reject you, entirely renouncing yourself, and fleeing unto Christ. Coming to Him in the name of Jesus, God cannot deny you. He has pledged Himself that whatever is asked in that name He will grant. Take Him at His word! Ask Him for the sense of His reconciled love- ask Him for the spirit of adoption- ask Him for the filial, loving, and obedient heart- ask Him for the meek, lowly, and submissive will. Yes, pour out your heart before Him: God waits to grant your utmost desire breathed out to Him in the name of Jesus. He has given you His beloved Son- O beneficence worthy of our God! O gift of gifts, priceless and precious beyond all thought! -what inferior blessing will He, then, withhold?

Allow, in closing this chapter, AN AFFECTIONATE EXHORTATION. Turn every loss of creature-good into an occasion of greater nearness to Christ. The dearest and loveliest creature is but a cistern- an inferior and contracted good. If it contains any sweetness, the Lord put it there. If it is a medium of any blessing to your soul, Jesus made it so. But forget not, beloved, it is only a cistern. And what more? Shall I wound you if I say it? Tenderly do I speak- and if, instead of leading you to, it draws you from, the Fountain, in unerring wisdom, and in tender mercy, and in faithful love, the Lord will break it, that you may learn, that while no creature can be a substitute for him, he himself can be a substitute for all creatures. Thus, his friendship, his love, and his presence, are frequently the sweetest and the most fully enjoyed, when he has taken all things else away. Jesus loves you far too much to allow another, however dear, to eclipse and rival him. "The day of the Lord will be upon all pleasant pictures," and then the poor, imperfect copy will retire, and give place to the divine and glorious Original; and God in Christ will be all in all.

One thought more- to some, perhaps, the sweetest in this work- the door of return is still open. The Fountain is still accessible! The waters of life still flow. "Ho! every one that thirsts, come to the waters and drink." "The Spirit and the bride say, Come." "Return, backsliding Israel, says the Lord, and I will not cause my anger to fall upon you; for I am merciful, says the Lord, and will not keep anger forever." Let your restored heart respond, "Come, and let us return unto the Lord; for he has torn, and he will heal us; he has smitten, and he will bind us up."

Be your posture, in view of the cisterns which the Lord has broken around you, one of high and holy expectation. The Lord often removes one mercy, preparatory to the bestowment of another. And he never gives less, but always more, than he takes away. You may have thought, in the depth of your heart's deep sorrow, that your wound was incurable, and that your blessing could not be replaced. But, ah! if Jesus now enters your heart through the breach which his own hand has made, and occupies the vacancy which his own providence has created, then will you know of a truth, that there is One who can heal your wound, and replace your mercy, giving you back infinitely more than he took away, in giving you HIMSELF.

You have, in the matter of your sorrow, to do with One who himself was wounded, who himself was a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; and who well understands the language of grief, the meaning of sighs, and the eloquence of tears. Do you go to your lonely chamber to weep there, thinking none are mindful of your grief? You, too, may chant a song in the night of your woe, in the language of a suffering brother-
"There was I met by One who had himself
Been hurt by the archers; in his side he bore,
And in his hands and feet, the cruel scar.
With gentle force, soliciting the task,
He drew them forth, and healed and bade me live."

Who can tell what thoughts of peace, what resolves of mercy, and what purposes of grace and love, may now be treasured in the heart of God towards you? The present mournful dealing may be but the dark background of a beautiful picture- portraying the brightest, the holiest, the happiest period of your life. And this broken cistern of earth-born hope, over which the eye weeps, and around which memory loves so fondly to linger, may but give place to those waters of renewing, sanctifying grace, which shall be in you a springing-well, rising into everlasting life.

All things and all events point us to, and are leading us towards, eternity. O how we absorb in our present sufferings and light afflictions, the thought of the coming death- the coming grave- the coming judgment- the coming heaven- the coming hell! Our sojourn here is but brief. We flit away like the shadow across the sun-dial. We weep today, we are wept for tomorrow. Today we are toiling, and fighting, and suffering; and anon, if believers in Jesus, we are with him, and "are come unto Mount Zion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly and church of the first-born, who are written in heaven, and to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect, and to Jesus the Mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling, that speaks better things than that of Abel."

Then, let us "gird up the loins of our minds, be sober, and hope to the end, for the grace that is to be brought unto us at the revelation of Jesus Christ." Christ will soon appear in the clouds of heaven. "The coming of the Lord draws near." "The Lord is at hand." Let us hew out no more cisterns of earthly good; but following the stream of the Lord's love- deepening and widening as it ascends- let us rise to the fountain-head in glory, having our conversation in heaven, and our affections on things above, where Christ sits- and from where he will come again at the right hand of God. "Drink, yes drink abundantly, O beloved!" of this river, is your Lord's loving invitation. You cannot take to it too many vessels, nor vessels too empty. The precious "fountain opened to the house of David, and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem," is "for sin and uncleanness." Then, as sinners, plunge into it, "wash and be clean."

Think not that you are alone in your grief at cisterns of creature-good thus broken. A 'cloud of witnesses' surrounds you, all testifying that the 'fleeting joy of earth' gives place to the full and permanent bliss of heaven; that Jesus now turns his people's sorrow into joy, by the sustaining power of faith, and the sweet-discoveries of love; and that he will perfect that joy when he brings them to drink of the "pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God, and of the Lamb." May sanctified sorrow enable you to sing, as one has done before you,

"O Savior! whose mercy, severe in its kindness,
Has chastened my wanderings, and guided my way,
Adored be the power which illumined my blindness,
And weaned me from phantoms that smiled to betray."
"Enchanted with all that was dazzling and fair,
I followed the rainbow- I caught at the toy,
And still in displeasure, your goodness was there,
Disappointing the hope, and defeating the joy."
The blossom blushed bright, but a worm was below;
The moonlight shone fair- there was blight in the beam;
Sweet whispered the breeze, but it whispered of woe;
And bitterly flowed in the soft flowing stream."
"So cured of my folly, yet cured but in part,
I turned to the refuge your pity displayed;
And still did this eager and credulous heart
Weave visions of promise, that bloomed but to fade."
"I thought that the course of the pilgrim to heaven
Would be bright as the summer, and glad as the morn;
You showed me the path- it was dark and uneven
All rugged with rock, and all tangled with thorn."
"I dreamed of celestial rewards and renown;
I grasped at the triumph which blesses the brave;
I asked for the palm-branch, the robe, and the crown;
I asked- and you showed me a cross and a grave."
"Subdued and instructed, at length, to your will,
My hopes and my longings I sincerely would resign;
O give me the heart that can wait and be still,
Nor know of a wish or a pleasure but Thine!"
There are mansions exempted from sin and from woe,
But they stand in a region by mortals untrod
There are rivers of joy, but they roll not below;
There is rest, but it dwells in the presence of God."
-Robert Grant

"The Coming of the Lord in its Relation to Nominal Christianity"

"Our lamps have gone out." Matthew 25:8

It is a distinguishing feature of the word of God that it is a record of stupendous and authenticated facts- a revelation of great and glorious events, a large portion of which yet remains to be fulfilled, but which will as certainly be accomplished as that God, whose Spirit in the prophets predicted them, is true. To the contemplation of one of these great transactions- the first in point of importance, and the greatest in point of grandeur- the attention of the reader will in this chapter be directed. The coming of the Lord in glory and majesty, is the event of unfulfilled prophecy- the central point of hope to the Christian Church, and will be the signal of terrible judgments upon nominal Christendom, and the unbelieving world. Surely it becomes a question with each individual, of the most serious moment, "What part will be assigned to me in the great transaction? What will be my position, and shall I be able to stand when he appears?"

The reader will at once perceive that it is our present design to view this subject in its practical bearing upon character, and more particularly in its solemn relation to a false profession of Christ. No statement in God's word can possibly be clearer than that which describes the Lord as finding, when he comes, a portion of the professing church in a state of actual unpreparedness for the event. They are not surprised in a state of infidelity, or of atheism, or of open and gross ungodliness, "eating and drinking with the drunken," but in the assumed character of professing Christians, mingling with the true church of God, and dreaming- alas! it is but a dream! -of an actual participation in the grace that is to be brought unto the saints at the revelation of Jesus Christ. Our Lord thus portrays their character and describes their state at his appearing- "And at midnight there was a cry made, Behold, the bridegroom comes; go out to meet him. Then all those virgins arose, and trimmed their lamps. And the foolish said unto the wise, Give us of your oil, for our lamps are gone (or, are going) out." Let us, in attempting a spiritual and a practical improvement of these solemn and searching words, direct our attention, first, to the great event to which they refer; and then, to an analysis of the character which they describe.

THE EVENT is none other than the SECOND COMING OF THE LORD. We are left to no speculation or surmise as to the certainty of this event. Not more clearly was the doctrine of the first advent one of express revelation and distinct announcement, than is the doctrine of the second advent. It is a doctrine of Scripture, and therefore to be studied and believed. And never will the standard of spirituality in the Christian church rise to its proper elevation, nor her serried ranks present so formidable a front to her foes, until she has been brought as fully to receive, and as joyfully to hail, the one advent as she has fully received and joyfully hailed the other. The truth is, the discussions which have agitated and divided the Christian church as to the mode of his coming, have; tended, we fear, to avert the eye of the church from the fact of the Lord's coming. And thus, the "blessed hope, the glorious appearing of the great God our Savior," which should have been a truth uniting, strengthening, and sanctifying the "one body," has been lost sight of amid the strife of party and the conflict of opinion. But we will endeavor to present to the believer's eye a scriptural glimpse of this great truth- a truth, than which, none can be more earth-detaching and heaven-attracting to a believing mind.

We have already gone at some length into the Scripture testimony to the doctrine of the second coming; but as it is possible that these pages may meet the eye of some who have not given to this line of argument any lengthened attention, we will arrange a few Scripture proofs under their proper heads, a candid and prayerful examination of which must lead to the conviction of the great truth which they so clearly substantiate. The reader is requested, at his leisure, to turn to the passages in his Bible.

1. The doctrine of the second coming of the Lord was fully believed and ardently anticipated both by the Old and New Testament saints.
2. Christ will come in the clouds of heaven.
3. His coming will be sudden and unexpected.
4. The gathering together of the saints to meet the Lord.
5. The trial of the Christian Church previously to the coming of the Lord.
6. The sealing of the saints in anticipation of this time of trial.
7. The saints will reign with Christ.
8. The iniquity of the earth will be full at the coming of the Lord. (See an analogy to this truth in the destruction of the wicked in the time of Noah. And subsequently of the Amorites. And then of the Jews.)
9. The gathering together of the Jews, their restoration to their own land, their conversion, and the judgment of God upon their enemies.
10. The coming of the Messiah, the signal of vengeance upon his enemies.
11. The doctrine of the second coming of our Lord, a holy influential truth.
A motive to godly sorrow.
To holiness of life and divine conformity.
To the mortification of sin in believers.
To spirituality of mind.
To patience and long-suffering.
To moderation and sobriety.
Against censorious judgment.
To ministerial fidelity and diligence.
To growth in grace and holiness.
To the study of prophecy.

From this line of Scripture testimony, to the truth of the doctrine of our Lord's second appearing, let us proceed to take a rapid glance at some of its more interesting and prominent CHARACTERISTICS. The first point that strikes us is, the long interval which transpires previously to the accomplishment of the event. But in this we see an illustration of the wisdom and mercy which have ever been so conspicuous in the Divine government. Immediately after the apostle had announced the truth of the Lord's coming, he found it necessary to guard the individuals to whom he had written against the idea of the Lord's immediate appearing- an error into which they had evidently fallen- and which, in a second letter, he thus corrects: "Now we beseech you, brethren, by the coming of our Lord Jesus, and by our gathering together unto him, that you do not be soon shaken in mind, nor be troubled, neither by spirit, nor by word, nor by letter as from us, as that the day of Christ is at hand." Thus it clearly appears that, so far from the doctrine of the Lord's coming being a strange and a novel idea to the early church, it was not only an article of their belief, but it was the theme of their joy, and the cherished object of their anticipation. The apostle, however, found it necessary to check this ardent feeling of the early Christians, by reminding them, that certain great events must transpire, preparatory to the coming of the Lord. He then proceeds to specify two in particular- a season of great spiritual declension, and the temporary ascendancy of the papal power. "Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day will not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition."

And is there nothing, we earnestly ask, in the events which are now transpiring, identical with these two remarkable premonitions of the advent of the Son of God? Are there not a sad waning of spirituality, a declension of vital godliness, of heart-felt religion? And are there not also a painful defection from the doctrines of grace, and a revival of Popery in a form the most specious and seductive, and therefore the more alarming? Let the reader make himself intelligently acquainted with the history of his own times, read, compare, and judge, and be found prepared for the final issue.

We may regard the delay attendant upon the second coming, in yet another and an interesting point of view, namely, as illustrating the dispensation of mercy under which we live. As in the antediluvian world, "the patience of God waited in the days of Noah," thus affording to the impenitent space for repentance before the Lord came in the terror of his judgment; so, as it regards the coming of the Son of Man, -the interval between the prediction and its accomplishment, is an interval of mercy to the ungodly and impenitent world. The patience of the Lord now waits. God has ever shown himself slow in the execution of judgment, but quick in the exercise of mercy. His wrath has been wont to linger, as if reluctant to break forth; but his goodness has ever gone before us, as if by anticipation, meeting and providing for our need. The coming of the Lord, while it will consummate the blessed hope of the Church, will, to an ungodly, infidel world, be the fearful signal of overwhelming judgments. Hence the delay. Mercy stays the uplifted arm of vengeance, and cries, "Forbear!" The Lord "waits to be gracious." "I gave her space for repentance."

The divine banner is extended, an armistice is proclaimed, proposals of peace are made, a plan of reconciliation is announced- rebel sinners are urged to ground their arms, and to submit to the government of God. Yet, see how the scoffers requite this merciful delay! "There will come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts, and saying, Where is the promise of his coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation." "Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil." But Christ will come, and "Who may abide the day of his coming? and who shall stand when he appears!" Not those who Christian walk in the counsel of the ungodly, and stand in the way of sinners, and sit in the seat of the scornful. They 'shall be like the chaff which the wind drives away; the ungodly shall not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous.'

But in what character, with especial relation to his Church, will our Lord appear? It will be twofold. He will come, first, as a triumphant King. As a victorious King, he is now enthroned in glory. "You have ascended on high; you have led captivity captive." He returned back to heaven as a conqueror over sin, hell, and death. Never did a Roman victor return from the battlefield bearing such spoil, nor amid such glory and acclamation, as that with which Jesus returned to his kingdom. The Captain of our salvation had gotten himself the victory over every foe of his Church. He met and battled, single-handed and alone, the combined hosts of his enemies, and hers. And although he fell in the conflict, he yet won the battle. He conquered by submitting to conquest; he overcame in being overcome. He slew death in being slain by death.

Do you want a confirmation to your belief in the essential Deity of your coming Lord? Behold it, beloved. Where will you turn to the record of a battle so strange, between combatants so opposite, and attended by results so wondrous? That, in the greatest weakness, our Lord should demonstrate his greatest strength; that, by a decided defeat, he should prove the victor; and that, in succumbing to the power and dominion of death, he should be the death of death! Oh! how truly divine does he appear! Believer in Jesus! the King, whose banner waves over you, has fought and won all your battles. One with him, every believer is victorious. Treading in his Lord's footsteps, he overcomes, even as he overcame. It is impossible but that the weakest believer must obtain the victory in the severe conflict which he is waging with the foe. He may at times be foiled, embarrassed, and overcome, but he will ultimately triumph. The battle may go against us, but not the war. Faith realizing its union with the Lord, obtains the victory. And never does the believer go forth to face the enemy in the name of Jesus, but with the disciples he may exclaim, "Lord, even the devils are subject unto us through your name." Come, you faint and exhausted warriors! and refresh your spirits and renew your strength with this precious truth- your Captain is victorious! He who lives for you upon the throne- he who dwells in you by his Spirit, is he who rose to glory with your every foe chained in defeat and humiliation to his chariot, "carrying captivity captive."

Do you still hesitate to believe so great a truth? Hark how his angelic escort heralded his approach to glory! "Lift up your heads, O you gates, even lift them up, you everlasting doors; and the King of glory shall come in. Who is this King of glory? The Lord strong and mighty, the Lord mighty in battle." "Hark, ten thousand harps and voices
Sound the note of praise above!
Jesus reigns, and heaven rejoices
Jesus reigns the God of love;
See, he fills yon azure throne!
Jesus rules the world alone."
"King of glory, reign forever!
Yours an everlasting crown
Nothing from your love shall sever
Those whom you have made your own;
Happy objects of your grace,
Destined to behold your face."
"Savior, hasten your appearing;
Bring, O bring the glorious day!
When, the awful summons hearing,
Heaven and earth shall pass away,
Then with golden harps we'll sing,
Glory to Our REIGNING KING."

But our Lord, although a victorious, is not a triumphant King. Nor will he be, until he comes the second time to receive his kingdom, and to reign in undisputed and universal supremacy in the bosom of a gathered church, and over a subdued and renovated world. He will then appear "more than a conqueror " -even TRIUMPHANT. He is represented as having, "after he had offered one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down on the right hand of God; from henceforth waiting until his enemies be made his footstool." What are we to gather from this statement? Much that is deeply and gloriously significant. It describes the Redeemer in the interval between the victory and the triumph- the victory which signalized his past humiliation, and the triumph which will aggrandize his coming glory. It defines his position of repose, and his attitude of expectation. It is impossible not to perceive, in these remarkable words, a reference to another and a final conflict- the issue of that conflict being the crowning act of his glory.

Are his enemies yet his footstool? Are all things yet subdued under him? Is the world subdued? Is sin subdued? Is Antichrist subdued? Are the powers of darkness subdued? Is death subdued? No! But they shall be. At what time? When Christ "shall appear the second time without sin," or a sin-offering, and therefore no more as a Priest who is to die; "unto salvation" -and therefore as a King who is to reign. "Then comes the end, when he shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father; when he shall have put down all rule, and all authority, and power. For he must reign, until he has put all enemies under his feet." Then, then will our Lord appear as a TRIUMPHANT KING to your eye.

Picture the scene! Every foe now falls before him. Death, the last enemy, is destroyed. All his enemies are "consumed with the word of his mouth" -the universal diffusion of his gospel, "and with the brightness of his coming" -the kingly power of his advent. All Antichrists retire- their imposture exposed, and their pretensions confounded- and CHRIST remains in triumph. All earthly kingdoms are dissolved- their dominion destroyed, and their glory passed away- and the kingdom of Messiah fills the world. All principalities and powers lay down their sovereignty at his feet, and Immanuel triumphantly reigns, having on his vesture and on his thigh a name written- "KING OF KINGS, AND LORD OF LORDS."

"He shall reign from pole to pole,
With illimitable sway;
He shall reign, when, like a scroll,
Yonder heavens have passed away.
Man's last enemy shall fall,
Hallelujah, Christ in God,
God in Christ, is all in all."

But our Lord will appear in another character- one particularly endearing to his Church. He will come as her BRIDEGROOM. "Behold, the Bridegroom comes!" Jesus sustains no relation to his Church more expressive than this. From all eternity he betrothed her to himself, and forever. He asked her at the hands of her Father, and the Father gave her to him. He entered into a covenant that she should be his. The conditions of that covenant were great, but not too great for his love to undertake. They were, that he should assume her nature, discharge her legal obligations, endure her punishment, repair her ruin, and bring her to glory. He undertook all, and he accomplished all- because he loved her. The love of Jesus to his Church is the love of the most tender husband. It is single, constant, affectionate, matchless, wonderful. He sympathizes with her, nourishes her, provides for her, clothes her, watches over, and indulges her with the most intimate and endearing communion.

"Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it; that he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word; that he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish." Reader, do you know what this union with Jesus is? Apart from its experience, pride not yourself upon any other union. The dearest, choicest ties of human affection are but as brittle glass. They are easily broken, and soon destroyed. No union, but that which is with Jesus, and in Jesus, extends beyond the grave. He must share in every tie of creature love, if it be holy and permanent. Think not that the union of holy hearts is dissolved by death. O no! -death does not sever, death unites the sanctified. The bonds of the holy are beyond his ruthless power to break. The love which the image of Jesus, reflected in his people, inspires, is as deathless as the love of Jesus himself. It is as immortal as their own redeemed, transformed, and glorified nature. And in reference to a more divine and elevated sentiment than that to which the poet refers, we apply his beautiful words,

"They sin who tell us love can die
With life all other passions fly,
All others are but vanity;
But love is indestructible.
Its holy flame forever burns;
From heaven it came, to heaven returns."

But the Lord Jesus will come in the clouds of heaven, and this will be the occasion of his public espousal of his Church. Her present union to him is secret and unknown, invisible to the world, and often concealed to herself. But he will appear, openly and visibly, to take her to himself; and before his Father and the holy angels, he will solemnize her eternal union. O what a time of splendor and of rejoicing will that be! Arrayed in his nuptial robes, Jesus will descend to make her his own; and she, ''prepared as a bride adorned for her husband, will go forth to meet him." Then will be heard the song of angels, "Let us be glad and rejoice, and give honor to him; for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and his wife has made herself ready." Yes! "blessed are they who are called unto the marriage-supper of the Lamb." May the writer and the reader, through grace, sit down together there!

But there will be those whom the coming of the Lord will surprise in a state of TOTAL UNPREPAREDNESS. Our allusion now is to NOMINAL PROFESSORS of Christ. To such the words of our Lord's parable unquestionably refer. That the "five foolish virgins" were professors of the Gospel, cannot admit of a doubt. They, too, like the true disciples of Jesus, had their lamps. But they were lamps merely, and nothing more. When the Bridegroom came, they were found empty, without one particle of oil, and the despairing cry was- "Our lamps are going out!" But let us, with all solemnity, portray the character.

In attempting to describe the case of a mere professor of the Gospel, we will commence with his religious creed. Herein, we fear, lies his deepest self-deception. He is, perhaps, a profound theologian, is well schooled in the 'five points' of divinity, is an acute reasoner, a skillful debater, and an able and vigilant defender of the outposts of Christianity. He can subscribe fully to the Thirty-nine Articles, to the Westminster Confession, and to the general truths of revelation. He has no doubt of the divinity of the Bible, his creed is well balanced, and his general views of truth would be considered evangelical and orthodox. And yet, thus far may he proceed in the deepest self-deception. With all this "form of knowledge," this lodgment of the truth in the understanding, this subscription of the intellect to the doctrines of revelation, he is an utter stranger to that heart-transformation, that inward illumination of the Holy Spirit, without which the soul is spiritually dead, the heart is unrenewed and unholy, and the whole moral man is unfit for the kingdom of heaven. In short, we have here the case of one who, while his judgment assents to the truth, his heart entirely rejects it. The Gospel is to him a thing of intellectual subscription, and not of heart experience. Not a single truth of the Bible has become an element of life and holiness in his soul.

The word, in its letter, is an instrument of light; but not, in its spirit, is it an instrument of quickening. With such deep-meaning declarations as these, he is experimentally unacquainted- "The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul: the testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple." "Your word has quickened me." "Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which lives and abides forever." "Of his own will begat he us, with the word of truth." "Sanctify them through your truth." Thus far will the religion of intellect extend. The grand point at which this religion rests short, is REGENERATION, a word mighty in its import, although entirely excluded from the theological vocabulary of the man of mere intellectual subscription to Divine truth. Yet, what a mighty doctrine is this! There it stands in the Bible, and it cannot be erased. We tell the man proud of his orthodoxy, and boasting of his well-poised creed- we tell the man of sound philosophy, and of high intellectual attainments, that though he had the gift of prophecy, and understood all mysteries and all knowledge, yet without the regenerating grace of the Holy Spirit, and supreme love to God, the light within him is darkness, and that darkness is the certain prelude to the "blackness of darkness" of despair. "Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God."

Shall we describe him in his general conduct? This, perhaps, is exemplary and commendable. As a member of a Christian church, holding, it may be, an office of distinction and responsibility, as a parent, as a master, as a citizen, men admire and commend him. He is a zealous partizan, is the man of societies, of committees, and of meetings. His name may be found high upon the subscription list, and appended to generous donations. He is a religious patriot. He will devote his talents, his time, and his wealth, to the erection of public sanctuaries, or to the propagation of the Gospel, or in promoting various benevolent and popular enterprises. In the more retired walks of domestic life, the same species of religion may be seen. He will bend his knee in family worship, catechize his children, instruct his domestics, and seek to inculcate and exemplify that which is lovely and of good report.

But follow this Christian professor into the world. Is it evident that the great separation has taken place? Is he there a witness for God? Ah, no! He can mingle with the world, and be of the world, and be as the world, and yet not misplace a single fold of the silken robe with which his religion invests him. He talks of its innocent recreations as sources of high and justifiable enjoyment. He can devour the contents of a novel, or contemplate the transactions of a play, with the same interest with which he bends over the pages of inspiration. The dizzy mazes of the dance, and the voluptuous music of the oratorio, and the delirious excitement of the cup, are sources of enjoyment greater and more frequent than the hallowed engagements of the sanctuary. This is the man of mere religious profession. Have I exaggerated the picture? Ah, no! I have drawn from life. That there are innumerable cases of false profession, not so glaring, or so strongly marked, or so easy of detection and of analysis as this, I readily admit. Instances, many of an external putting on of Christ, and of a very zealous engagement in his service, and of apparent consistency of walk, of much acquaintance with Scripture, and fluency of religious phraseology, in which, nevertheless, the great separation of the man from his own righteousness has never taken place; the conviction of sin, never felt; brokenness of heart, never experienced; faith in Jesus, never exercised; the pardoning love of God, never realized; the preciousness and graciousness of the Lord, never tasted.

Even this may, by some, be thought too strong a picture of self-deception. Not stronger than that which Jesus himself drew- "Not every one that says unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven, but he that does the will of my Father who is in heaven. Many shall say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in your name, and in your name have cast out devils, and in your name done many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you; depart from me, you that work iniquity." These are searching, solemn words! Who can read them with composure, without fixing his eye of faith upon the cross of Jesus, exclaiming, as he looks, "Sinners, of whom I am chief?" Who has not, at times, been overwhelmed with the self-agonizing thought, "What, if I should be found at last to have possessed nothing but the empty lamp of a Christian profession?" Happy are they whom the searching inquiry may lead more entirely from themselves, to look to Christ, to rest in Christ, to walk in Christ- in the truth of Christ, in the love of Christ, and in the spirit of Christ!

But the dim and flickering light which a mere informed judgment, or which an external profession gives, sooner or later is extinguished. A season of prosperity often proves fatal to a profession of godliness. Divine Providence smiles, riches increase, and with them the temptations and the snares, the luxury, indulgence, and worldly show, which are inseparable from the accumulation of unsanctified and unconsecrated wealth. And what are the results? In most, cases, the entire relinquishment of the outward garb of a religious costume. Found to be in the way of the full indulgence of the carnal mind, it is laid aside altogether; and thus freed from all the restraints which consistency imposed, the heart at once plunges deep into the world it all the while secretly loved, sighed for, and worshiped. Oh! what a severe, but true, test of religious principle is this! How soon it detects the spurious and the false! How soon does the verdure wither away! "The cares of this world, and the deceitfulness of riches, choke the word, and it becomes unfruitful." "The prosperity of fools shall destroy them."

But if a professing man passes through this trial, and still retains his integrity- still walks closely and humbly with God- still adheres to the lowly cross- bearing path of Jesus- is still found as diligent in waiting upon God in public and private means of grace- is still as meek, lowly, and kind, increasing in devotedness, liberality, and love, with the increase of God's providential goodness around him, such a man has the "root of the matter in him;" and "he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that brings forth his fruit in his season; his leaf shall not wither; and whatever he does shall prosper." His prosperity has not destroyed him.

A time of adversity is often equally as fatal to a profession of religion, founded upon no true Christian principle. If, in the smooth path, we are apt to slide, in the rough path we may stumble. Periods of great revolution in the history of the Christian Church, when God tries the principles, the conscience, the love, and the faith of his people, are testing-periods. What numbers make shipwreck then of their high profession! And when God enters the pleasant garden of a man's domestic blessings, and blows upon the lovely blossom, or blights the fair flower, or severs the pleasant bough, or scatters the hard-earned wealth of years, or wastes the body's vigor, or frustrates the fond scheme, how does an unrenewed man deport himself? Is his carriage humble, submissive, childlike? Does stern Christian principle now exhibit itself, in beautiful contrast with the trial that has called it forth? Does Divine grace, like the aromatic flower, now appear the sweeter and the lovelier for its being crushed? No, does not every feeling of the heart rise in maddened rebellion against God and against his government? Ah, yes! how accurately does Christ describe his case!- "he has not root in himself, but endures for a while; for when tribulation or persecution arises because of the word, by and by he is offended."

It is impossible to blind the eyes to the truth, that a time of trial, such as the Christian Church has never yet experienced, is fast approaching. Our Lord foretells it. "There shall be great tribulation, such as was not from the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be. And except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved: but for the elect's sake those days shall be shortened." Daniel's "horn" is yet to "make war with the saints, and prevail against them until the Ancient of Days come, and judgment is given to the saints of the Most High."

To this period of trial, just previously to the Lord's second coming, the same prophet again refers in language similar to Christ's. "At that time shall Michael stand up, the great prince who stands for the children of your people: and there shall be a time of trouble, such as there never was since there was a nation even to that same time." Then will the Lord bring the principles of his people to the touchstone of truth. Then will he sift professors as corn is sifted, and the storm will scatter the chaff of mere profession, while not a grain of the true wheat shall fall to the ground. The trial thus so clearly predicted, and so evidently approaching, will be, not so much a trial of separate branches of the Christian Church, as it will be a trial of the whole body. It will be a battle for the great essential truths of the gospel, held in common by all, and in which general and severe conflict, all the minor and indifferent things that have so long divided and dismembered the church of Christ, will be lost sight of and forgotten, merged in one great common cause, against one great common foe. This period of trial, while it thus will drive the sheep of the one fold more closely together- now alas! so widely separated and scattered- will be pre-eminently distinguished for its development of truth. The occasion for its investigation will be peculiarly favorable. It will be a conflict for the truth. "What is truth, what is the whole truth?" will be the inquiry of every lip. Christians will be placed in a better position, and be surrounded by more favorable circumstances, for its study.

Truth has never so clearly and powerfully developed itself- its nature and its energies- as in periods of trial and of suffering. What may be said of the growth of the believer in a personal knowledge of the truth, will, with equal propriety, apply to the advancement of truth in the world. The time of trial makes the truth more precious to the heart, and clear to the mind. The affections entwine more closely around it then, and the judgment more distinctly perceives its meaning and its bearings. What believer has not learned more of his Bible in a season of affliction than he had ever learned before? "It is good for me that I have been afflicted; that I might learn your statutes." Then let the dark cloud lower, and the tempest that will shake the Church of Christ to its center, come, it will but develop the nature, and accelerate the advancement of the pure truth as it is in Jesus. Men of different views, driven beneath the same shelter by the common storm, finding themselves bending before the same mercy-seat, and addressing their petitions to the same Father, deriving their consolation from the same source, and realizing their oneness in the same Lord, all the mists of prejudice and the congealings of coldness now melted away, they will read, and examine, and compare together; and the happy result will be a clearer unfolding of the mind of the Spirit in the word, and a more perfect harmony of judgment and of affection in those who are one in the heart and mind of God. Then will the truth, the divine, precious truth as it is in Jesus, spread, replenishing this sorrowful earth with gladness, and girding this dark globe as with a zone of heavenly light.

There are two periods of awful solemnity, which will be found utterly to extinguish the mere lamp of a Christian profession. Will you follow me, reader, to the dying bed of a false professor? It is an awful place! It is an affecting spectacle! No hope of glory sheds its brightness around his pillow. There is no anchor within the veil, to which the soul now clings in its wrenchings from the body. No Divine voice whispers, in cheering, soothing accents, "Fear not, for I am with you." No light is thrown in upon the dark valley as its gate opens, and the spirit enters. Coldness is on his brow, earth recedes, eternity nears, the vaulted damps ascend and thicken around the parting spirit, and the last wail of despair breaks from the quivering lip, "My lamp is gone out!"

Withdrawing from this affecting scene, let us in retirement read and ponder, with an earnestness and self-examination which we have never done before, the appropriate warning of Jesus, "Not every one that says to me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that does the will of my Father which is in heaven. Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in your name; and in your name have cast out devils; and in your name done many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you- depart from me, you that work iniquity. Therefore whoever hears these sayings of mine, and does them, I will liken him unto a wise man, which built his house upon a rock; and the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house, and it fell not; for it was founded upon a rock. And every one that hears these sayings of mine, and does them not, shall be likened unto a foolish man, which built his house upon the sand: and the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house, and it fell; and great was the fall of it."

And so will it be when the Son of Man comes. This great event will fix unchangeably the destiny of each individual of the human race. It will break like the loud artillery of heaven upon a slumbering church, and a careless world. It will find the true saints with "oil in their vessels with their lamps," though in an unwatchful state. It will come upon the nominal professor, grasping firmly his lamp of profession, but utterly destitute of the oil of grace, and in a state of as little expectation of, as preparedness for, the advent of the Lord. And it will overtake and surprise the ungodly world as the flood did in the days of Noah, and the fire in the days of Lot- "they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, they bought, they sold, they planted, they built, until the day that Noah entered into the ark, and until the same day that Lot went out of Sodom." "Even thus shall it be in the day when the Son of Man is revealed."

The true saints will arouse from their slumber- the spirit of slothfulness and lethargy into which they had fallen- and, trimming their lamps by a fresh exercise of faith in Jesus, will go forth as the "children of the light," to welcome their approaching Lord. False professors, too, startled by the cry which breaks upon the awful stillness of midnight- solemn as the archangel's trumpet- will eagerly feel for their lamps- their evidences of acceptance based upon an outward profession of the gospel, when lo! to their surprise and consternation, they find themselves destitute of one drop of oil with which to feed the flickering, waning flame, and they exclaim in despair, "Our lamps are going out!" And now the intellectual light goes out, and the moral light goes out, and the professing light goes out, and the official light goes out; and while they have fled to human sources to procure the grace they needed- their backs being thus then turned upon Christ, the "Bridegroom comes; and those who are ready go in with him to the marriage, and the door is shut."

They return with what they suppose the needed evidences, but now they learn- O that they should have learned it too late! -that to have had a mere professing name to live- to have outwardly put on Christ by baptism -to have united externally with the church of God- to have partaken of the Lord's Supper- to have promoted his truth, and to have furthered his cause- to have preached his Gospel, and even to have won converts to the faith, will avail nothing- alone and apart from union to Jesus by the Spirit, obtaining admittance to the marriage supper of the Lamb. "Afterward came also the other virgins, saying, Lord, Lord, open to us. But he answered and said, Verily I say unto you, I know you not." In view of such a catastrophe, O how poor, contemptible, and insignificant, appears everything, however splendid in intellect, beautiful in morals, or costly in sacrifice, except the humble consciousness of having Christ in the heart the hope of glory!

But, there are those, whose lamps of Christian profession will not go out when the Lord appears. They are his own chosen, redeemed, and called people. Their light, by reason of manifold infirmities, may often have burned but dimly through life; but there is vital religion in the soul- the golden, precious oil of grace, flowing from Jesus into their hearts. And this can never be extinguished. Many were the hostile influences against which their weak grace had to contend; many were the trials of their feeble faith, but the light never quite went out. The waves of sorrow threatened to extinguish it; the floods of inbred evil threatened to extinguish it; the cold blasts of adversity threatened to extinguish it; and the stumbling of the walk, and the inconstancy of the heart, and the declension of the soul, often, for a while, weakened and obscured it; but there it is, living, burning, and brightening, as inextinguishable and as deathless as the source from where it came.

The grace of God in the heart is as imperishable, and the life of God in the soul is as immortal, as God himself. That light of knowledge enkindled in the mind, and of love glowing in the heart, and of holiness shining in the life, will burn in the upper temple in increasing effulgence and glory through eternity. The divine light of Christian grace, which holy grief for sin has enkindled, which love to God has enkindled, which the indwelling of the Holy Spirit has enkindled, will outlive and outshine the sun in the firmament of heaven. That sun shall be extinguished, those stars shall fall, and that moon shall be turned into blood, but the feeblest spark of grace in the soul shall live forever. The Lord watches his own work with sleepless vigilance. When the vessel is exhausted, he stands by and replenishes it; when the light burns dimly, he is near to revive it; when the cold winds blow rudely, and the rough waves swell high, he is riding upon those winds, and walking upon those waves, to protect this the spark of his own kindling. The light that is in you, is light flowing from Jesus, the "Fountain of light." And can an infinite fountain be exhausted? When the Sun is extinguished, then all the lesser lights, deriving their faint effulgence from him, will be extinguished too- but not until then. Who is it that has often fanned the smoking flax? Even He who will never quench the faintest spark of living light in the soul. "You will light my candle." And if the Lord lights it, what power can put it out? Is not his love the sunshine of your soul? Is he not he himself your morning star? Is it not in his light that you see light, even the "light of the glory of God, in the face of Jesus Christ?" then, "Arise and shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon you!"

Of this holy and encouraging subject- the imperishable nature of true grace- let us take yet another view. And let it be remembered by the reader, that I am now referring especially to the weakest degree of grace ever found in a gracious soul- that grace cannot die. The divine life of a believer, from its very necessity, is deathless. The life of Adam was never so secure, even when he lifted his noble brow in spotlessness to God. The new life is more secure in a state of imperfection, than his was in a state of innocence. He stood in his own righteousness, upheld by his own power, and yet he fell. But we are more secure, because we stand in the righteousness, and are kept by the power, of God. His life was hidden in himself; our life is hidden in Christ, and is as secure in Christ, as Christ's is in God. It is truly remarked by Charnock, that "Adam had no reserve of nature to supply nature upon any defect;" but out of Christ's fulness we receive grace upon grace.

How much more ready are we to complain against this small measure of grace, than to praise God for the weakest grace, and to thank Him for an inexhaustible source, on which we may at all times fall back! The believer ever has a reserve of grace. His resources may often be exhausted, but he has a stock in Christ's hand, and which, for the wisest end, is kept solely in Christ's hands, upon which he is privileged at any moment to draw. Well is it that that supply of grace is not all in our hands, else it would soon be wasted; and well is it that it is not in angels' hands, else they would soon be weary with our continual coming. But the covenant was made with Christ, he being the Mediator as well as the Surety; and in him it pleased the Father that all fulness should dwell. Thus, in his hands the Father has intrusted the keeping of his weakest child, even your soul, beloved, though you are the weakest of the weak. An infant as much belongs to the family as the most matured member. Its place in the parent's heart is as strong, and its claim upon its share of the inheritance is as valid. So is it with the feeblest child of God.

And most faithfully does our Lord Jesus discharge his office. Is the church a garden? Jesus goes early to the vineyard, to see "whether the tender grapes appear, and the pomegranates bud." Is it a flock? Jesus "feeds his flock like a shepherd; he gathers the lambs with his arm, and carries them in his bosom." Can any imagery more affectingly set forth the tenderness of Christ towards weak grace- the weak lamb carried, not on the shoulders, not in the arms, but in the bosom of the Shepherd? Yes, there is one image, the most expressive and tender in the universe of imagery a mother's love for her infant. Does God compare His love to this? Hearken to His words "Can a woman forget her nursing child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? Yes, they may forget, yet will I not forget you."

O that you would, in the simplicity of faith, press this precious truth to your trembling, doubting, fearful heart! Nothing does the Holy Spirit seem to take such pains in comforting and strengthening, as real grace in its greatest weakness. Would he indulge our weak faith and our limited measure of grace? O no! But while he would have us sue for the highest degrees, he would yet watch over the lowest degree of grace in the soul. Remember, too, that the weakest grace has a throne of grace to supply it, and the God of grace to delight in it, and the Mediator of grace to influence it, and the Spirit of grace to brood upon it.

Though our grace be weak, yet the grace of all these is sufficient to preserve us. The weakest grace in Christ's hand shall stand, when the strongest nature without his guard shall fail. It is not our hold of Christ that so much preserves us, as Christ's hold of us; though the faith we hang by be a weak thread, yet Christ has a strong hand. Had you the grace of a glorified saint, you could not maintain it without his help; and that is sufficient to conduct through the greatest storms into the safe harbor. The 'preserved in Christ,' is the happy title of those who are "sanctified by God the Father."

But while I speak thus, it is in my heart, beloved, to urge you to aim after more than the glimmering light; in other words, to seek larger degrees of grace. Let your standard be the loftiest, and your aim the highest. Place no limit to that which God has not limited. Never cease expecting, until He ceases giving. If you are satisfied with your present measure of grace, a worse sign you could not have. To be content with being stationary in the divine life, places you in a doubtful position. It is an essential property of grace that it grows; it is the immortal seed of God, and must, from its very nature, germinate. If your faith does not increase, your doubts will increase; and if your grace does not strengthen, your fears will strengthen. Fill the measure with pure wheat, as one has said, and there will be no room for chaff. Aim after elevated principles if you desire elevated practice. Low principles inevitably lead to low practice. Watch against that which tends to impair the vigor of your grace. Watch against your most besetting sins- your greatest infirmities- your strongest temptations. Beware of your own heart- beware of self-confidence- beware of creature idolatry- beware of the world. Beware, too, of any neglect of the means of grace.

Nothing will more tend to keep your grace at a low ebb than this. God has appointed His channels of conveyance. They are the ministry of the word, and the reading of the word, prayer and praise, meditation, ordinances, and Christian communion. Beware that you do not despise any one of them. A neglected sanctuary- a forsaken throne of grace- an unread Bible- will soon bring leanness into your soul. The priests under the law were to bring fresh fuel to the altar, morning and evening, for the nourishment of the holy fire. "The fire shall ever be burning upon the altar; it shall never go out." It is thus God keeps alive the holy fire on the altar of our hearts in the use of His own appointed means. He has as much ordained the means of grace, as He has promised the grace of the means. You will invariably find, that grace languishes with duty. If, we are listless in duty, we shall soon become lifeless in duty. Therefore let us thirst after God, as the hunted deer pants for the water-brook. Especially draw largely by faith on Jesus. He is the great Reservoir from where all the conduits are supplied. All means of grace are just what Jesus makes them.

Behold, then, the coming of the Lord in its solemn relation to a nominal profession of Christianity. In a land where the institutions and the ordinances of religion are so strictly and so properly observed; where religious training from infancy, and the habit of an early connection with the visible church, and the consequent observance of the Lord's Supper is expected and enjoined, are such marked characteristics, would it be overstepping the bounds of propriety and delicacy, if, in view of this solemn event, we press upon the professing reader the importance of close self-examination, and of trial by the word of God touching the GREAT CHANGE, apart from which, the most splendid Christian profession will but resemble the purple robes and the fine linen with which Dives moved, in grandeur and in state, to the torments of the lost.

Professors of religion! Church communicants! office-bearers! -have you the root of the matter in you? Have you Christ in you? Are you temples of the Holy Spirit? Are you walking humbly with God? Are you born from above? Rest not short of the great change- the heavenly, the divine birth. Place no reliance upon your external relation to the church of God. Do not be deceived by a false semblance of conversion. You may go far, as we have shown, in a Christian profession, and even may live to see the Lord come in the air, and yet have not one drop of oil in your vessel with your lamp.

Have you sometimes trembled under the powerful exhibition of the truth so did Felix, and yet he never truly repented. Have you heard the Gospel gladly, and under its momentary influence, have done many things? so did Herod, and yet he kept Herodias, and beheaded John! Do you show much apparent zeal for the Lord? so did Jehu, but it was zeal for himself! Are you the associate and the companion of good and holy men? so was Demas, and yet he loved this present evil world! Have you been united to the church upon a profession of faith and by baptism? so was Simon Magus, and yet he was in the gall of bitterness and in the bond of iniquity! Do you desire to die the death of the righteous? so did Balaam, and yet he died as the fool dies!

O look well to your religion! Take nothing for granted. Think less of polishing your "lamp," than of having a large supply of oil, that when the Lord sends or comes, you may not be found in darkness, not knowing where you go! Without converting grace in your heart, your church relation is but the union of a dead branch to a living stem; and your partaking of the Lord's Supper, an "eating and drinking of the Lord's body and blood, (as symbolically represented therein,) unworthily." Receive in love these faithful admonitions, penned by one whose only hope, as the chief of sinners, is in the finished work of Immanuel, and let them take you to prayer- to the word- to Christ.

"The coming of the Lord draws near." If the apostle, in his day, could thus exhort the saints, how much stronger reason have we for believing that "the Lord is at hand!" Every movement in the providential government of God, indicates the near approach of great events. The signs of the times are significant and portentous. The abounding profession of Christianity- the advancement of human science- the increase of the papal power- the spirit of despotism, of infidelity, and of superstition, these three master principles- at this moment expanding through Europe, and struggling each with the others, and all with the gospel, for supremacy- and the extraordinary movements now going forward in reference to the return of the Jews- are heralding the approaching chariot of the King of kings. The Church of God will yet pass through severe trials- "many shall be purified,' and made white, and tried;" nevertheless Jesus lives, and Jesus shall REIGN, and the church shall REIGN with Jesus.

Let the thought of his coming be an influential theme of meditation and joy, of hope and action. The present is the suffering state of the Church. It is through much tribulation that she is to enter the kingdom prepared for her by her coming Lord. But, amid the sorrows of the pilgrimage, the perils of the desert, the conflicts of the field, the blasphemies, the taunts, and the persecutions of the world, the pangs of disease, and the wastings of decay, we will have our "citizenship in heaven, from where also we look for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body, according to the working whereby he is able even to subdue all things unto himself." He, "whom not having seen, we love," will soon appear, and then he will chase away every sorrow, and dry up every tear, and annihilate every corruption, and perfect us in the beauties of holiness. Then there will be no more rising of inward corruption, no more exposure to temptation, no more solicitations of evil, and no more wounding of the bosom upon which we recline. The heart will be perfected in love; and the mind, developing its faculties, enlarging its knowledge, and yielding up itself to those intellectual revelations, to that everlasting sunlight of the soul," which all will enjoy who love, and long for, Christ's appearing- will merge itself in the light and glory and holiness of the Eternal Mind.

O that the reign of Christ may be first by his grace in our hearts, then we may indeed expect to reign with him in glory! The cross below, is the only path to the throne above. The crucifixion now, the glory then. The sword in our hearts here, the crown upon our heads hereafter. Precious Jesus! hasten your coming! We love you, we serve you, we long for you, we look for you. Come, and perfect us in your likeness!

"Oh! loved, but not enough- though dearer far,
Than self and its most loved enjoyments are
None duly loves you, but who, nobly free
From sensual objects, finds his all in Thee."
"Glorious Almighty, First, and without end,
When will You melt the mountains and descend?
When will You shoot abroad your conquering rays,
And teach these atoms you have formed, your praise?"
"My reason, all my faculties unite
To make your glory their supreme delight;
Forbid it, Fountain of my brightest days,
That I should rob you, and usurp your praise!"
"My soul! rest happy in your low estate,
Nor hope, nor wish to be esteemed or great;
To take the impression of the will divine,
Be that your glory and those riches Thine!"
"Confess him righteous in his just decrees,
Love what he loves, and let his pleasure please;
Die daily- from the touch of sin recede;
Then you have crowned Him, and he reigns indeed!"
M. Guion

"Christian Love, a Test of Christian Character"

"We know that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren." 1 John 3:14

Surely it is a question of all others the most interesting and important, "Am I, or am I not; a true believer in the Lord Jesus Christ?" We do not say that the state of doubt and uncertainty from which this inquiry arises, necessarily invalidates the evidence of grace which already exists; nor would we have it inferred, that the question itself indicates a healthy, vigorous tone of mind. But what we affirm is, that where there exists the principle of life, and a growing acquaintance with the plague of the human heart, and a conscience increasingly tender, the question will sometimes arise, "Am I a living soul in Christ?"

In enabling us to meet and satisfy this inquiry, how kind and condescending is God, the Holy Spirit! A state of uncertainty as to his personal salvation, cannot be regarded by the believer as the most favorable for the cultivation of personal holiness. He, indeed, is the most heavenly-minded, happy, and useful child of God, who, with the lowly confidence of the great apostle, can say, "I know in whom I have believed." But we must admire the love of the Spirit in providing for the necessities of the weakest state of grace. If saints of advanced stature in Christ can sympathize but little with the timidity, the fearfulness, and the weakness of children of more dwarfish proportions, not so the loving, faithful Spirit of God. He is never above his own work. The smallest part is too precious to his heart, to allow of the withdrawment of his eye from it for a single moment. It is not the extent of the territory which he has subjugated to himself in the soul, that most thrills his heart with delight- this he is sure to perfect- but it is his having at all effected an entrance, and established himself permanently there. This is the ground of his greatest triumph, and the source of his highest joy- that after all the opposition and the difficulty, he should at last have gotten himself the victory.

Is it possible, then, that the tenderest bud of grace, or the faintest glimmering of light in the soul, can be a matter of indifference to him? Ah no! Would Titian have despised a painting upon whose outline he had stamped the impress of his genius, because its pencilings were not complete? Would Canova have destroyed his sculpture, almost breathing with life, because its chiselings were unfinished? And will the Holy Spirit, in drawing the moral likeness of God upon the soul, in modeling the mind for heaven, slight this, his master-piece of wisdom and of power, because of its present incompleteness? No! The faintest outline of the divine image, the roughest shaping of the divine nature in man, presents to his eye more beauty, and symmetry, and finish, than the finest pencilings of nature, or the most perfect modelings of are. The universe of loveliness and of wonder contains nothing that can compare with it.

Thus, rejoicing in his own work, he has placed before us, in the words which we have quoted, an evidence of Christian character, in the existence of Christian love. We do not say that it is the strongest attestation which might be given; no, it may be considered, by some, the weakest; and yet multitudes have met death with composure, and have gone to glory in peace, the Holy Spirit comforting their hearts by this sweet and lowly evidence- love to the brethren. "We know that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren." But before we enter fully upon our main subject, namely, Christian love, evidencing the reality of Christian character- it may be profitable first, to consider THE NATURE OF CHRISTIAN LOVE ITSELF, and then the existence and the operation of love as attesting its truth.

It is a state of transformation. The condition from which the renewed man passes, is that of death. This was his Adamic, or natural state. The sinner is by law dead; the curse is upon him, and condemnation awaits him. No, he is now condemned. "He that believes not, is condemned already." As in a state of grace, heaven is commenced below, so in a state of nature, hell is commenced below. Grace is the beginning of glory, and sinful human nature is the beginning of condemnation. The one has in it the element of eternal happiness; the other has in it the element of eternal woe. "Dead in trespasses and in sins," is the awful sentence written at this moment upon your brow. There is nothing in the history of that which is affecting and awful that will compare with it, but the condition itself of the finally lost. Indeed, the two states may be regarded almost as identical. The sinner is by law dead. He is under the curse of God, and is shut up to its condemnation, awaiting only the period of its final and eternal infliction. No, his condemnation has, in a measure, already commenced. "He who believes not, is condemned already." Listen to it, you unconverted men and women! Let the words, as they fall from the lips of Him into whose hands all judgment is committed, sink down into your ears like the knell of death. "He that believes not is CONDEMNED ALREADY." Your condition has been tried, the verdict has been given, the sentence has been pronounced, and nothing remains but the doom! The mournful preparation for its accomplishment is made. But one step, and you have passed beyond the reach of mercy, into the hands of your tormentors. Hark! Did you hear that sound? It has come from the invisible world. It is the great bell of eternity tolling the death of lost souls. Soon it will toll for you, if angels do not celebrate your heavenly birth. O think of passing from the death that is temporal, to the death that is eternal! -from the flames that might now be quenched, to the flames that are unquenchable. Rise and pray that God may not gather your soul with sinners, but that, numbered with those who shall have part in the first resurrection, upon you the second death may have no power.

But the believer in Jesus is one who has "passed from death unto life." Having somewhat touched upon this subject in the preceding pages, we will only seize upon a few of the more prominent characteristics illustrative of this renewed state. The Spirit of God has breathed into him the breath of life, and he has become a living soul. But, if possible, there is a yet stronger light in which we may view this change. The renewed man is a living soul, in consequence of his union with the life of Christ. We too little trace the life which is in us to the life which is in Jesus. The Spirit himself could not be our life apart from our union to Christ. It is not so much the work of the Spirit to give us life, as to quicken in us the life of Christ. The Apostle thus briefly but emphatically states it- "Christ, who is our life."

Hence we see the relation and the fitness of the second Adam to the church of God. In consequence of our federal union to the first Adam, we became the subjects of death- he being emphatically our death. And in consequence of our covenant union to the second Adam, we become the subjects of life- he being emphatically "our life." Hence it is said, "The second Adam is a quickening spirit." The headship of Christ, in reference to the life of his people, is written as with the point of a diamond in the following passages- "In him was life;'' "The Son quickens whom he will;" "The dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear shall live;" "I am the resurrection and the life: he that believes in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live;" "He that eats me, even he shall live by me;" "I am the life."

Now this life that is in Christ becomes the life of the believer in consequence of his union with Christ. "You are dead, and your life is hidden with Christ in God;" "I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ lives in me." And what is the crowning act of Christ as the life of his people? What but his resurrection from the dead? "We are risen with Christ;" "You are also risen with him;" "That I may know the power of his resurrection." This doctrine of the Lord's resurrection is the pivot upon which the whole system of Christianity hinges. He is risen, and in virtue of this, his people are partakers of a resurrection life to eternal glory. It is utterly impossible that they can perish, for they have already the resurrection-life in their souls. Their own resurrection to everlasting life is pledged, secured, antedated, in consequence of the risen Christ being in them the hope of glory. Thus is Christ the life of his people. He is the life of their pardon- all their iniquities are put away by his blood. He is the life of their justification- his righteousness gives them acceptance with God. He is the life of their sanctification- his grace subdues the power of the sins, the guilt of which his blood removes. He is the life of their joys, of their hopes, of their ordinances; the life of everything that makes this life sweet, and the life to come glorious.

But what an amazing truth is this! We see into what a new and holy life the believing sinner has passed. Leaving forever the low life of sense, he now enters on the exalted life which every believer leads- the life of faith in the Son of God. He has now learned to lean upon Jesus, his righteousness and his strength, his consolation and his support. He is happy in sorrow, joyful in tribulation, strong in weakness, as by faith he leans upon Christ.

What a life, too, is the life of communion with God, springing from his life of oneness with Christ! The believer now holds communion with essential life, with essential holiness, with essential love. The holy breathing of his soul is the fellowship of Christ below, with the Father above. It is the one life in heaven and on earth. What is prayer to you, my reader? Is it communion? is it fellowship? Does God meet you, and open His heart to you? Are you ever sensible that you have, as it were, attracted His eye, and possessed yourself of His ear? Is prayer the element in which your soul lives? Do you make every circumstance of life an occasion of prayer? As soon as sorrow, comes, do you take it to the Lord's heart? As soon as burdening care comes, do you take it to the Lord's arm? As soon as conscience is beclouded, do you take it to the Lord's blood? As soon as the inward corruption arises, do you take it to the Lord's grace? This, beloved, is the life of faith. Mistake not the nature of prayer. True prayer is never more eloquent and prevailing than when breathed forth in real desires, and earnest longings, and groans that cannot be uttered. Sighs, and words, and tears, flowing from a lowly, contrite heart, have a voice more powerful and persuasive than the most eloquent diction that ever clothed the lips of man. O to be led by the Spirit more perfectly into a knowledge of the nature and the power of prayer! for this is the grand evidence of our spiritual life.

This life of the renewed soul, springing from the indwelling of Christ by the Spirit, includes the crucifixion of self. "I live, yet not I." What a depth of meaning is contained in these words! We may not in this life be able fully to measure its depth, but we may in some degree fathom it. There is not- indeed there cannot be, a more sure evidence of the life of Christ in the soul, than the mortifying of that carnal, corrupt, self-boasting that is within us. For its utter annihilation, in this present time-state, we do not plead. This would be to look for that which the word of God nowhere warrants. But we insist upon its mortification; we plead for its subjection to Christ. Who has not detected in his heart its insidious working? If the Lord has given us a little success in our work, or put upon us a little more honor than upon another, or has imparted to us a degree more of gift or grace, O what fools do we often make of ourselves in consequence? We profess to speak of what he has done- of the progress of his work- of the operation of his grace; when, alas! what burning of incense often is there, to that hideous idol- self! Thus, we offer 'strange fire' upon the altar.

But the most gracious soul is the most self-denying, self-crucifying, self-annihilating soul. "I live, yet not I. I believe, and am comforted- yet not I. I pray, and am answered- yet not I. I preach, and sinners are converted- yet not I. I labor, and good is done, yet not I. I fight, and overcome- yet not I, but Christ lives in me." Beloved, the renewed life in us will be ever striving for the mastery of self in us. Self is ever striving to take the glory from Jesus. This is one cause of the weakness of our faith. "How can you believe," says the Savior, "who receive honor one from another, and seek not the honor which comes from God only?" "We know but little of God," remarks an eminently holy man, "if we do not sicken when we hear our own praise. And if we have kept the glory of God in view, rather than our own, remember, it is the gift of God, the work of his Spirit, which has gained a victory over self, through faith in Christ." O that the life of Christ within us may more and more manifest itself as a self-denying, self-mortifying, self-annihilating life- willing to be fools for Christ; yes to be nothing, that Christ may wear the crown, and God be all in all.

And remember that there will be a correspondence between the life of Christ in the soul, and the life which Christ lived when he tabernacled in the flesh. We have before remarked, that the indwelling of Christ in the believer is a kind of second incarnation of the Son of God. When Christ enters the heart of a poor sinner, he once more clothes himself with our nature. The life which Christ lived in the days of his sojourn on earth, was a life of sorrow, of conflict, of temptation, of desertion, of need, and of suffering in every form. Does he now live a different life in the believer? No; he is still tempted, and deserted, and in sorrow, and in need, and in humiliation, and in suffering- in his people.

What! did you think that these fiery darts were leveled at you? Did you suppose that it was you who were deserted, that it was you who suffered, that it was you who was despised, that it was you who was trodden under foot? No, my brother, it was Christ dwelling in you. All the malignity of Satan, and all the power of sin; and all the contempt of the world, are leveled, not against you, but against the Lord dwelling in you. Were it all death in your soul, all darkness, and sinfulness, and worldliness, you would be an entire stranger to these exercises of the renewed man. Behold the love and condescension of Jesus! that after all that he endured in his own person, he should again submit himself to the same in the person of his saints; that he should, as it were, return, and tread again the path of suffering, and of trial, and of humiliation, in the life which each believer lives. O how it speaks that love which surpasses knowledge! How completely is Christ one with his saints! And yet, how feebly and faintly do we believe this truth! How little do we recognize Christ in all that relates to us! and yet he is in all things. He is in every providence that brightens or that darkens upon our path. "Christ is all, and in all."

The unearthliness of this life is a feature that must not be overlooked. It is a divine and spiritual, and therefore an unearthly life. Its principles are unearthly, its actings are unearthly, its aspirations are unearthly, its pleasures are unearthly, its enjoyments are unearthly, its employments are unearthly, its aims are unearthly. It mixes not, it cannot mix, with earth. Most true it is, that that life which the believer lives is "in the flesh," but it is not of the flesh, nor after the flesh, and cannot coalesce with the flesh. The flesh may often deaden, and weaken, and becloud, and depress, and chain it down, but, like the needle of the compass, the moment it obtains its freedom, it turns to God again. O what a heavenly life is this! What a marvel that it should be found, like a precious pearl, in the midst of so much darkness, and pollution, and deadness, and earthliness! Who but God could maintain a life so immortal, in the midst of so much deadliness; a life so holy, in the midst of so much impurity; a life so heavenly, in the midst of so much earthliness. And yet so it is.

But may there be a personal persuasion of our possession of this divine life? The Apostle: answers this inquiry in the affirmative, when he says, "We know that we have passed from death unto life." For it is a thing of whose possession the believer may be assured. He can speak of its possession with holy boldness, and with humble confidence. The life of God in the soul authenticates itself. It brings with it its own evidence. Is it possible that a believer can be a subject of the quickening grace of the Holy Spirit, and not know it? Possess union with Christ, and not know it? the pardon of sin, and not know it? communion with God, and not know it? breathing after holiness, and not know it? Impossible! The life of God in the soul evidences itself by its actings. Are you sensible of your sinfulness? do you love the atoning blood? is Jesus precious to your soul? do you delight in God, and in retirement for communion with Him? Then, for your encouragement we remind you, that these are not the actings of a soul lying in a state of spiritual death, nor are these the productions of a soil still unregenerate. They proceed from the indwelling life of God, and are the ascendings of that life to God, the Fountain from where it flows. Thus the weakest believer in Jesus may humbly explain, "This one thing I know, that whereas I was blind, now I see." He knows that he has passed from death unto life.

The Holy Spirit is also a witness to the reality of this great change. "The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are the children of God." The mode of his testimony is in character with the fact which he authenticates. No voice is heard, no vision is seen, nothing tangible is felt, no law of our being is suspended; but by a silent and concealed, yet effectual, operation, he witnesses to the great fact of our having "passed from death unto life." He it is who breathes the cry of "Abba, Father," in the heart- who sprinkles the reconciling blood upon the conscience- who guides the eye of faith to the cross- and who, by thus testifying of the death of Jesus to the soul, testifies to the love of Jesus in the soul. From the cross of Immanuel he brings a flood of heavenly light, and sheds it upon his own regenerating work, proving its reality, and discovering its glories. Beautiful, holy, and perfect, as is the work of the Spirit in the soul, yet not a line is revealed until Jesus shines upon it. Then, how glorious does it appear.

But have all the saints of God alike this clear personal assurance? and is its possession essential to true faith? We are far from asserting this. We do indeed think that every regenerate soul must be sensible of a transformation of mind, of character, and of habit. He must acknowledge that by the grace of God he is what he once was not. To what can he ascribe this change but to the second birth? But even this secret persuasion may be connected with many harassing fears and distressing doubts. The constant discovery of the hidden evil, the perpetual tendency to remove the eye from Jesus, the dark and the painful often experienced in the dealings of God, will at times prompt the believer to question the reality of his life. "With all this," he inquires, "can I be a child of God?"

And yet the most holy saints have been the most doubting and fearful saints. David, for example, who had more testimonies of God's favor than any man, yet, as one says, he was at a loss sometimes to spell his evidences. And that holy man Rutherford remarks, "I have questioned whether or not I ever knew anything of Christianity, except the letters which make up the word." But doubting faith is not doubtful faith. If the believer has not the faith of assurance, he may have the faith of reliance, and that will take him to heaven. All the doubts and fears that ever harassed a child of God cannot erase his name from the Lamb's book of life, nor take him out of the heart of God, nor shut him out of glory.

"Unbelief," says Rutherford, "may, perhaps, tear the copies of the covenant which Christ has given you; but he still keeps the original in heaven with himself. Your doubts and fears are no parts of the covenant; neither can they change Christ." "The doubts and fears of the elect," remarks another, "are overruled by almighty grace to their present and eternal good; as conducing to keep us humble at God's footstool, to endear the merits of Jesus, and to make us feel our weakness and dependence, and to render us watchful unto prayer." Did ever an unregenerate, lifeless soul entertain a doubt or fear of its spiritual condition? Never. Was it ever known anxiously and prayerfully to question, or to reason about its eternal state? Never. Do I seek to strengthen your doubts? No; but I wish to strengthen your tried and doubting faith. I would tell you for your encouragement, that the minutest particle of grace has eternal glory in it, even as the smallest seed virtually contains all that proceeds from it- the blade, the ear, and the full corn in the ear.

Faint not, nor be discouraged in your trial of faith. There is not a sweeter way to heaven than along the path of free grace, paved with hard trials. It was the way which he trod who was "full of grace." Rich though he was in grace, yet see how deeply he was tried. Think not, then, that your sore trials are signs of a graceless state. O no! The most gracious saints have been the most tried saints. But rest not here. There is still richer, surer comfort for you-even the fulness of grace that is in Jesus- grace ever flowing, and yet ever full. Disclose to him your doubts and fears. Tell him you desire him above all good. Plunge into the sea of his fulness; and he who has created in your soul a thirst for grace, will assuredly and bountifully give you the grace for which you thirst.

But there is one test- a gentle, sweet, and holy test- by which the most timid and doubting child of God may decide the genuineness of his Christian character: the evidence to which we allude is, LOVE TO THE SAINTS. "By this we know that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren." The grace which is here singled out, is the sweetest and the loveliest of all the graces. It is the product of the Holy Spirit, it flows from the heart of God, and it, more than all others, assimilates the heart to the nature of God, for "God is love." Without love, what is the actual value of all intellectual endowments, acquisitions of knowledge, understanding of mysteries, or even the achievements of faith? But small indeed. "Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not love, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not love, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not love, it profits me nothing."

There is no truth more distinctly uttered, or more emphatically stated than this- the infinite superiority of love to gifts. And in pondering their relative position and value, let it be remembered, that the gifts which are here placed in competition with grace, are the highest spiritual gifts. Thus does the apostle allude to them: "God has set some in the Church, first apostles, secondly prophets, thirdly teachers, after that of miracles, then gifts of healing." And then follows his expressive declaration- "Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not love, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal." In other words, "Though I were an apostle, having apostolic gifts; or, though I were a prophet, possessed of prophetic gifts; or, though I were an angel, clothed with angelic gifts, yet, destitute of the grace of love, my religion were but as an empty sound, nothing worth." Is there in all this any undervaluing of the spiritual gifts which the great exalted Head of the Church has bestowed upon his ministers? Far from it. The apostle speaks of the way of spiritual gifts as excellent, but of the way of the grace of love as a "more excellent." Gifts may be possessed separate from love- but existing alone, they cannot bring the soul to heaven. And love may exist apart from gifts, but where love is found, even alone, there is that sweet, excellent grace that will assuredly conduct its possessor to glory. Grace embellished with gifts is the more beautiful; but gifts without grace, are only a richer spoil for Satan.

And why this superiority of the grace of love? Why is it so excellent, so great, and so distinguished? Because God's love in the soul is a part of God himself- for, "God is love." It is, as it were, a drop of the essence of God falling into the heart of man. "He that dwells in love, dwells in God, and God in him." This grace of love is implanted in the soul at the period of its generation. The new creation is the restoration of the soul to God, the expulsion from the heart of the principle of enmity, and the flowing back of its affections to their original center. "Every one that loves is Born of God."

Is it again asked why the love of His saints is so costly in God's eye? Because it is a small fraction of the infinite love which He bears towards them. Does God delight Himself in His love to His Church? Has He set so high a value upon it as to give His own Son to die for it? Then, wherever he meets with the smallest degree of that love, He must esteem it more lovely, more costly, and more rare, than all the most splendid gifts that ever adorned the soul. "We love him because he first loved us." Here, then, is that grace in the soul of man which more than all others assimilates him to God. It comes from God, and it raises the soul to God, and it makes the soul like God.

How encouraging, then, to know the value which the Lord puts upon our poor returns of love to him! Of gifts we may have none, and even of love but little, yet of that little, who can unfold God's estimate of its preciousness? He looks upon it as a little picture of Himself. He sees in it a reflection- dim and imperfect indeed- of His own image. And as He gazes upon it, He seems to say- "Your abilities, my child, are humble, and your gifts are few: your knowledge is scanty, and your tongue is stammering; you can not speak for me, nor pray to me in public, by reason of the littleness of your attainments and the greatness of your infirmity; but you do love me, my child, and in that love which I behold, I see my nature, I see my heart, I see my image, I see myself; and that is more precious to me than all besides. Most costly to Him also are all your labors of love, and obedience of love, and sacrifices of love, and offerings of love, and sufferings of love. Yes, whatever blade, or bud, or flower, or fruit grows upon the stalk of love, it is most lovely, and precious, and fragrant to God.

But there is another point of light which still more strongly presents to view the superior excellence and preciousness of the grace of love. We allude to the manifested love of the saints to one another. The apostle presents this as a true test of Christian character. He does not say, as he in truth might have said, "We know that we have passed from death unto life, because we love God;" but placing the reality of this wondrous translation upon a lower evidence, the Holy Spirit, by the inspired writer, descends to the weakest exhibition of the grace which his own power had wrought, when he says, "We know that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren." Thus, so costly in God's eye would appear this heaven-born, heaven-like grace, that even the faint and imperfect manifestation of it by one saint to another, shall constitute a valid evidence of his relation to God, and of his heirship to life eternal.

Our blessed Lord, who is beautifully said to have been an incarnation of love, places the evidence of Christian discipleship on precisely the same ground. "By this shall all men know that you are my disciples, if you have love one to another." He might justly have concentrated all their affection upon himself, and thus have made their sole and supreme attachment to Him the only test of their discipleship. But no! In the exercise of that boundless benevolence which was never happy but as it was planning and promoting the happiness of others, he bids them "love one another," and condescends to accept of this as evidencing to the world, their oneness and love to himself.

We are at length conducted to the consideration of the subject to which this chapter more specifically invites our attention- CHRISTIAN LOVE, A TEST OF CHRISTIAN CHARACTER. The affection under consideration, let it be remarked, transcends all similar emotions embraced under the same general term. There is a natural affection, and a human affection, and a denominational affection, which often binds in the sweetest and closest union those who are of the same family, or of the same congregation, or who assimilate in mind, in temper, in taste, or in circumstance. But the affection of which we now speak, is of a higher order than this. We can find no parallel to it, not even in the pure, benevolent bosoms of angels, until, passing through the ranks of all created intelligences, we rise to GOD Himself. There, and there alone, we meet the counterpart of Christian love. Believer, the love for which we plead is love to the brethren- love to them as brethren. The church of God is one family, of which Christ is the Elder Brother, and "all are members one of another." It is bound by a moral tie the most spiritual, it bears a family likeness the most perfect, and it has a common interest in one hope, the most sublime. No climate, nor color, nor sect, affects the relationship. Do you meet one from the opposite hemisphere of the globe, having the image of Christ, manifesting the fruits of the Spirit; who in his walk and conversation is aiming to cultivate the heavenly dispositions and holy habits of the Gospel, and who is identifying himself with the cause of God and of truth, and you meet with a member of the one family, a brother in the Lord, one who calls your Father his Father, your Lord his Lord, and one, too, who has a higher claim upon your affection and your sympathy than the closest and the tenderest natural relation that life can command.

But it is proper that we explain more clearly, in what the true UNITY of the church of God consists. The words of her Great Head shall be our sole authority and guide. "That they all may be one; as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be one in us." We commence with a declaration of a great truth, that the unity of the church of God, as set forth in this remarkable passage, is, her unity in the Triune God. Her unity in herself is the effect of a cause. She is one bodily, because she is spiritually and essentially one in Jehovah. The words, "One in us," convey the strongest idea, and afford the clearest evidence of her essential and individual unity, of any that exists. We commence with God the Father- she is one in Him. The apostle clearly states this in the Epistle to the Ephesians. "One God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all." All who? -the one church of God. One covenant God and Father unites the one family in heaven and in earth. They are one in His choice, one in His purpose, one in His covenant, one in His heart. The same will chose them- the same affection loved them- the same decree predestinated them: they are one in Him. Blessed truth!

"One God and Father." Behold them clustering together around the mercy seat- they come from various parts of the world, they speak different languages, they express opposite feelings, they unfold various needs and sorrows- yet, listen! they all address Him as, "Our Father." Every heart bows in love to Him- every heart is fixed in faith upon Him, and every tongue breathes, the lofty, and endearing, and holy name of, "Abba, Father." There, in the glowing light amid which the throne of mercy stands, all sectarian feeling dies, all denominational distinction is lost, and Christians of every name meet, and embrace, and love as brethren. Holy thought! One God loves all and protects all- one Father pities all, supplies all, bears with all, and, with an impartial affection, binds all together and alike in his heart.

The church is also one in THE SON- "There is one Lord." The Lord Jesus is the one Head, as he is the one Foundation of the Church. All believers are chosen in Christ, blessed in Christ, saved in Christ, preserved in Christ, and in Christ will be glorified. The work of Christ is the one resting-place of their souls. They rely for pardon upon the same blood, for acceptance upon the same righteousness, and for sanctification upon the same grace. One in Christ, all other differences and distinctions are merged and forgotten. "There is neither Jew nor Greek; there is neither bond nor free; there is neither male nor female, for You Are All One in Christ Jesus." Blessed truth! The "righteousness of God, which is unto all and upon all those who believe," imparts the same completeness to all believers in Christ. Upon the breast-plate of the great High Priest, now within the veil, every name is alike written- not a sectarian appellation dims the luster of the "Urim and the Thummin," in whose glowing light the names of all the saints are alike enshrined.

What a uniting truth is this! Jesus is the one Head of life, light, and love, to all his saints. He carried the transgression of all- he bore the curse of all- he endured the hell of all- he pardons the sin of all- he supplies the need of all- he soothes the sorrows of all- and he lives and intercedes for all. To him all alike repair- it is true, with different degrees of knowledge and of faith, and from different points; yet, to Jesus, as to one Savior, one Brother, one Lord, they all alike come. Oh! what a cementing principle is this! The body of Christ- the purchase of the same blood, loved with the same affection, and in heaven represented by the same Advocate, and soon, O how soon, to be "glorified together with him!" What love, then, ought I to bear towards him whom Jesus has so loved! How can I feel coldly to, or look unkindly at, or speak uncharitably of, one whom Jesus has redeemed with the same precious blood, and whom he carries each moment in the same loving heart.

The Church of God, too, is equally one in the HOLY SPIRIT. "By one Spirit are we all baptized into one body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether we be bond or free; and have been all made to drink into one Spirit." With what increasing glory does this great truth unfold itself! We seem to be brought to the climax of the argument here. One Spirit regenerating all, fashioning all, teaching all, sealing all, comforting all, and dwelling in all. Degrees of grace, and "diversities of gifts" there are, "but the same Spirit." That same Spirit making all believers partakers of the same Divine nature, and then taking up his abode in each, must necessarily assimilate them in every essential quality, and feature, and attribute of the Christian character. Thus the unity of the Church is an essential and a hidden unity.

With all the differences of opinion, and the varieties of ceremonial, and the multiplicity of sects into which she is broken and divided, and which tend greatly to impair her strength, and shade her beauty, she is yet essentially and indivisibly ONE- her unity consisting, not in a uniformity of judgment, but, better far than this, in the "unity of the Spirit." Thus, no individual believer can with truth say, that he possesses the Spirit exclusively, boasting himself of what other saints have not; nor can any one section of the Christian Church lay claim to its being the only true Church, and that salvation is found only within its pale. These lofty pretensions, these exclusive claims, this vain-glory and uncharitableness, are all demolished by one lightning touch of truth, even by that blessed declaration, "for by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body."

Behold, then, the threefold cord which unites the family of God. The ever blessed and glorious Trinity dwells in the Church, and the Church dwells in the blessed Trinity. Who can divide this body from itself, or separate it from God? Having thus endeavored to show in what the unity of the Church of God really consists, we proceed to the subject more especially before us- the manifestation of this unity by believers, and the evidence which it affords, and the consequent assurance which it imparts, of their personal relationship to God. "We know that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren."

The feeling here referred to is a love to the saints, as saints. Whatever natural infirmities we may discover in them, whatever different shades of opinion they may hold from us, and to whatever branch of the Christian Church they may belong, yet the feeling which is to establish our own divine relationship, is a love to them as brethren. Irrespective of all dissonance of creed, of denomination, of gifts, of attainment, of rank, of wealth, of nation- when we meet in a Christian professor the image of Christ, the family-likeness, our love will prompt us immediately to recognize that individual as a believer in Jesus, and to acknowledge him as a brother in the Lord.

And what are the grounds of my affection? I may esteem his character, and prize his gifts- may admire his talents, and feel there is an assimilation of disposition, of taste, and of judgment- but my Christian love springs from an infinitely higher and holier source. I love him because the Father is in him, and because the Son is in him, and because the Holy Spirit is in him. I love him because he is an adopted child of the same family, a member of Christ, and the same body, and a temple of the same Holy Spirit. I love him that is begotten, because I love him that begat. It is Christ in one believer, going out after himself in another believer. It is the Holy Spirit in one temple, holding fellowship with himself in another temple. And from hence it is that we gather the evidence of our having "passed from death unto life." "He that loves him that begat, loves him also that is begotten." Loving the Divine Original, we love the human copy, however imperfect the resemblance. The Spirit of God dwelling in the regenerate soul, yearns after the image of Jesus, wherever it is found. It pauses not to inquire, to what branch of the Christian Church the individual resembling him belongs; that with which it has to do is the resemblance itself. Now, if we discover this going out of the heart in sweet, and holy, and prayerful affection towards every believer in Christ- be his denominational name what it may- the most to those who most bear the Savior's image, then have we the Spirit of Christ dwelling in us.

A surer evidence we cannot have. There is the affection which surmounts all the separating walls of partition in the Church, and in spite of sects, and parties, and creeds, demonstrates its own divine nature and heavenly birth, by its blending with the same affection glowing in the bosom of another. And where this love to the brethren exists not at all, in any Christian professor, we ask that individual, with all the tenderness of affection consistent with stern faithfulness, where is the evidence of your union with the body of Christ? You have turned away with contractedness of heart, and with frigidity of manner, if not with secret disdain, from one whom God loves, whom Christ has redeemed, and in whom the Holy Spirit dwells, because he belonged not to your sect. Yes, you have turned away with coolness and suspicion from Christ himself! How can you love the Father and hate the child? What affection have you for the Elder Brother, while you despise the younger? And if you are a living branch of the same Vine, can you, while, cherishing those feelings which exclude from your affection, from your sympathies, and from your fellowship, other Christians, more deeply; wound Jesus, or more effectually grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom they are "sealed unto the day of redemption?"

Perhaps, my brother, you have long walked in darkness and uncertainty as to the fact of your own personal adoption into the family of God. Anxious fear and distressing doubt have taken the place of a holy assurance and a peaceful persuasion that you are one of the Lord's people. In endeavoring to trace this painful state of mind to its cause, did it ever occur to you, that your lack of enlargement of heart towards all saints, especially towards those of other branches of the same family, has, in all probability, so grieved the Spirit of adoption, that he has withheld from your own soul that clear testimony, that direct witness by which your interest in the covenant love of God, and your union with Christ, would have been clearly made known to you? You have grieved that same Spirit in your brother, who dwells in you, and upon whom you are so dependent for all your sweet consolation and holy desires; and he has suspended the light, and peace, and joy of your own soul.

But here is a test of relationship to the family of God which never fails. "We know that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren." From this, the weakest believer may extract the greatest consolation. Other evidences, beloved, may be beclouded. Divine knowledge may be deficient, and Christian experience may be limited, and the question, "Am I a child of God?" may long have been one of painful doubt; but here is an evidence which cannot deceive. You may doubt your love to God, but your love to His people, as such, proves the existence and the reality of your love to Him. Your attachment to them, because they are holy, is an evidence of your own holiness, which no power can invalidate or set aside. Since the Holy Spirit has constituted it as evidence, and since God admits it as such, we press its comfort, with all the energy which we possess, upon the heart of the doubting, trembling child of God. You may often have questioned the reality of your love to God, scarcely daring to claim an affection so great as this. Your attachment to Jesus, so inconstant, so wavering and so cold, may often have raised the anxious fear and the perplexing doubt. But your love to the people of God has been like a sheet-anchor to your soul. This you have not questioned, and you could not doubt. You have loved them because they were the people of God; you have felt an attachment to them because they were the disciples of Christ.

What can this prove, but your love to God, your affection to Jesus, and your own participation in the same Divine nature? It were a thing impossible for you to love that which is holy without a corresponding principle of holiness in yourself. Speaking of the enmity of the ungodly against his people, our Lord employs, this language: "If you were of the world, the world would love its own; but because you are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hates you." Now, if there is the opposite feeling to this, glowing in your hearts, be sure that, as the hatred of the world to the saints proves that it loves only its own, so your love to the saints places the fact of your union with them beyond all doubt.

Try your heart, beloved, by this test. Do you not love the people of God because they are His people? Is not Christ's image in them, that upon which you so delight to gaze, and, gazing upon which, often enkindles your soul with love to Christ himself? And do you not love to gather the choicest flowers of grace in the Lord's garden- growing in what bed they may- as those in whom your soul has the greatest delight- their different tints, their varied beauties and odors, rather increasing, than diminishing, the pleasure which they afford you? Then, let every Christian professor test his religion by this grace. Let him who has been wont to retire within his own narrow enclosure ask himself the question, "If I love not my brother whom I have seen, how can I love God whom I have not seen?"

Let us now briefly trace some of the operations of this heaven-born grace of Christian love, by which its real existence in our hearts is proved. We have endeavored to show, that it recognizes as brethren, all who are partakers of like precious faith with us, who hold Christ the head, who walk according to the Gospel of Christ, and who are laborings and seeking for the coming of his kingdom. We will now proceed to portray some of the EFFECTS of brotherly love.

It tenderly sympathizes with all the suffering believers. Here is the evidence of our own membership with the family of God. "If one member suffer, all the members suffer with it." And it is in this exercise of Christian sympathy that "the members have the same care one for another." The Church of God is a suffering Church. All the members are, more or less, and variously, tried. Many are the burdens of the saints. It would be impossible, we think, to find one, whose lip has not touched the cup of sorrow, whose spirit has not felt the pressure of trouble. Some walk in doubt and darkness- some are particularly set up as a mark for Satan- some suffer from a nervous temperament, discoloring every bright and beautiful picture of life- some are the subjects of personal affliction, pining sickness excluding them from all participation in the songs of Zion and the solemn assemblies of the saints- some are bereaved, sorrowing like Rachel for her children, or mourning, like the sisters of Bethany, for their brother. Some are suffering from narrowed and exhausted resources; and there may do not be a few, suffering even from actual poverty itself.

Ah! how many will say, "You have touched upon every sorrow but mine," -so extensive is the field of Christian sympathy! But what scope for the play of those heaven-born affections begotten in the heart of each true believer! "A new commandment give I unto you," says Christ, "that you love one another." And how is this commandment to be obeyed? The apostle answers, "Bear one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ." Therefore the bearing of one another's burdens is a necessary effect and proper exercise of this holy love. It will delight to recognize the suffering Savior in his suffering members. And it will go and lift the pressure from the spirit, and chase the sorrow from the heart, and dry the tear from the eye, and supply the pressing need. And if it cannot accomplish this, it will take its place by the side of the sufferer, sharing the sorrow and the need it has no power to comfort or remove. Is this law of Christ- the law of love- thus exhibited in you?

"Do you love Christ? I ask not if you feel
The warm excitement of that party zeal
Which follows on, while others lead the way,
And make his cause the fashion of the day
But do you love him when his garb is mean;
Nor shrink to let your fellowship be seen?
Do you love Jesus, blind; and halt, and maimed?
In prison support him; nor feel ashamed
To own him, though his injured name may be
A mark for some dark slander's obloquy?
Do you love Jesus in the orphan's claim,
And bid the widow welcome in his name?
Say not, 'When saw we him?' -Each member dear,
Poor and afflicted, wears his image here;
And if unvalued or unknown by you,
Where can your union with the Body be?
And if you thus are to the body dead,
Where is your life in Christ the living Head?
And if dissevered from the living Vine,
How can you dream that you have life divine!
"Sweet is the union true believers feel
Into one Spirit they have drunk; the seal
Of God is on their hearts- and thus they see
In each the features of one family!
If one is suffering- all the rest are sad;
If but the least is honored- all are glad.
The grace of Jesus, which they all partake,
Flows out in mutual kindness for his sake;
Here he has left them for a while to wait,
And represent him in their suffering state;
While he, though glorified, as yet alone,
Bears the whole church before the Father's throne."

In the exercise of brotherly love, there will also be a tender forbearance with all who differ from us in judgment. The exercise of private judgment is the natural and inalienable right of every individual. Sanctified by the Spirit of God, it becomes a precious privilege of the believer. He prizes it more than riches, claims it as one of the immunities of his heavenly citizenship, and will surrender it only with life itself. Christian love will avoid infringing, in the least degree, upon this sacred right. I am bound, by the law of love, to concede to my brother, to its fullest extent, that which I claim for myself. I am, moreover, bound to believe him conscientious and honest in the views which he holds, and that he maintains them in a reverence for the word, and in the exercise of the fear of God.

He does not see eye to eye with me in every point of truth- our views of church government, of ordinances, and of some of the doctrines, are not alike. And yet, discerning a perfect agreement as to the one great and only way of salvation; and, still more, marking in him much of the lowly, loving spirit of his Master, and an earnest desire, in simplicity and godly sincerity, to serve him, how can I cherish or manifest towards him any other than a feeling of brotherly love? God loves him, God bears with him, and Christ may see in him, despite of a creed less accurately balanced with the word of truth than mine, a walk more in harmony with the holy, self-denying, God-glorifying precepts of that truth. With an orthodoxy less perfect, there maybe a life more holy. With less illumination in the judgment, there may be more grace in the heart. How charitable in my interpretation, then, how loving in my spirit, how kind and gentle in my manner, should I be towards him!

How jealous, too, ought I to be of that independence of mind, in the exercise of which he may, notwithstanding, have arrived at conclusions opposite to my own! Cherishing these feelings, Christians who differ in judgment, will be placed in a more favorable position for the understanding of one another's views, and for the united examination of the word of God. Diversity of judgment, through the infirmity of our fallen nature, is apt to beget alienation of feeling; and, consequently, the development of truth is hindered. But where harmony of affection is cultivated, there will be a greater probability of arriving at more perfect agreement in sentiment, thus walking in accordance with the Apostle's rule- "I beseech you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you; but that you be perfectly joined together in the same mind, and in the same judgment."

Another exercise of Christian love will be its endeavors to avoid all occasions of offence. These, through the many and fast-clinging infirmities of the saints of God, will often occur. But they are to be avoided, and in the exercise of that love which proves our Christian character, they will be avoided. The child of God will desire to "keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace." Whatever tends to weaken that bond, he will endeavor to lay aside. Whatever he may discover in his communion with the saints calculated to wound, to distress, to alienate, to offend, either in his manner, or in his spirit, the healthy exercise of holy love will constrain him to overcome. He will avoid giving offence. He will be modest in the expression of his own opinion, respectful and deferential towards the opinion of others. He will avoid that recklessness of spirit which, under the cover of faithfulness, cares not to estimate consequences; but which, pursuing its heedless way, often crushes beneath its rough-shod heel the finest feelings of the human heart; saying and doing what it pleases, regardless of the wounds which, all the while, it is deeply and irreparably inflicting.

How sedulous, too, will he be to avoid anything like a dictatorial manner in enunciating his judgment, and all hard words and strong expressions in differing from authorities of equal, perhaps of greater weight than his own. Oh! were this divine affection but more deeply lodged in the hearts of all those who 'profess and call themselves Christians,' what courtesy of manner- what grace of deportment- what tender regard of one another's feelings- what kindness in word and in action- what carefulness to avoid inflicting even a momentary pain- what putting away, as becomes saints, all wrath, anger, evil speaking, and malice- and what constant remembrance of his solemn words, who said, "Whoever shall offend one of these little ones who believe in me, it were better that a mill-stone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depths of the sea," -would each believer exhibit! Lord, fill our souls more and more with this lovely grace of love!

The forgiveness of offences is an operation of Christian love, equally as essential and beautiful. If there is a single exercise of divine grace in which, more than in any other, the believer resembles God, it is this. God's love to man is exhibited in one great and glorious manifestation and a single word expresses it- FORGIVENESS. In nothing has He so gloriously revealed Himself as in the exercise of this divine prerogative. Nowhere does He appear so like Himself as here. He forgives sin, and the pardon of sin involves the bestowment of every other blessing. How often are believers called upon thus to imitate God! And how like Him in spirit, in affection, and in action do they appear, when, with true greatness of soul and with lofty magnanimity of mind, they fling from their hearts, and efface from their memories, all traces of the offence that has been given, and of the injury that has been received!

How affecting and illustrious the example of the expiring Redeemer! At the moment that his deepest wound was inflicted, as if blotting out the sin and its remembrance with the very blood that it shed, he prayed, as the last drop oozed and as the last breath departed, "Father, forgive them!" How fully and fearfully might he have avenged himself at that moment! A stronger than Samson hung upon the cross. And as he bowed his human nature and yielded up his spirit, he could as easily have bowed the pillars of the universe, burying his murderers beneath its ruins. But no! he was too great for this. His strength should be on the side of mercy. His revenge should impose itself in compassion. He would heap coals of fire upon their heads. He would overcome and conquer the evil -but he would overcome and conquer it with good. "Father, FORGIVE them."

It is in the constant view of this forgiveness that the followers of Christ desire, on all occasions of offence given, whether real or imaginary, to "forgive those who trespass against them." Themselves the subjects of a greater and diviner forgiveness, they would be prompt to exercise the same holy feeling towards an offending brother. In the remembrance of the ten thousand talents from whose payment his Lord has released him, he will not hesitate to cancel the hundred pence owed to him by his fellow-servant.

Where, then, will you find any exercise of brotherly love more God-like and divine than this? Forgiveness, in its immediate proposal, its greatest sweetness and richest charm appear. The longer forgiveness is delayed, the more difficult becomes the duty. The imagination is allowed to dwell upon, and the mind to brood over, a 'slight offence' received, perhaps never intended, until it has increased to such a magnitude as almost to extend, in the eye of the aggrieved party, beyond the limit of forgiveness. And then follows an endless train of evils; the wound festers and inflames; the breach widens; coldness is manifested; malice is cherished; every word, look, and act, are misinterpreted; the molehill grows into a mountain, and the little rivulet swells into an ocean, and happiness and peace retire from scenes so uncongenial, and from hearts so full of all hatred and strife.

But how lovely in its appearance, and how pleasurable in the feelings it enkindles, is a prompt exercise of Christian forgiveness! Before the imagination has had time to play, or the wound to fester, or ill-minded people to interfere, Christian love has triumphed, and all is forgiven! How full of meaning is our blessed Lord's teaching on this point of Christian duty! It behooves us prayerfully and constantly to ponder his word. Peter inquired of him, "Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him until seven times? Jesus says unto him, I say not, Until seven times, but, Until seventy times seven." Thus, true love has no limits to its forgiveness. If it observes in the bosom of the offender, the faintest marks of regret, of contrition, and of return, like Him from whose heart it comes, it is "ready to forgive," even "until seventy times seven."

O who can tell the debt we owe to His repeated, perpetual forgiveness? And shall I refuse to be reconciled to my brother? Shall I withhold from him the hand of love, and let the sun go down upon my wrath? Because he has trampled upon me, who have so often acknowledged myself the chief of sinners; because he has slighted my self-importance, or has wounded my pride, or has grieved my too sensitive spirit, or, it is possible, without just cause, has uttered hard speeches, and has lifted up his heel against me. Shall I keep alive the embers of an unforgiving spirit in my heart? Or rather, shall I heap coals of fire upon his head, not to consume him with wrath, but to overcome him with love? How has God my Father, how has Jesus my Redeemer, my Friend, dealt with me? Even so will I deal with my offending brother. I will not even wait until he comes and acknowledges his fault. I will go to him and tell him that, at the mercy-seat, beneath the cross, with my eye upon the loving, forgiving heart of God, I have resolved to forgive all, and will forget all. "And when you stand praying, forgive, if you have anything against anyone; that your Father also which is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses. But if you do not forgive, neither will your Father in heaven forgive your trespasses."

But some may reply, The breach is of so long standing, it is now too late to seek reconciliation. An old and acute writer thus meets the objection: "Well, then, if it be too late, give me leave to entreat one thing at your hands; it is this: I say if it be too late, and you say it is too late to be reconciled and to love one another, let me entreat this, that you should lay aside your garments- the garments of your profession of being Christ's disciples. For our Savior says, "By this shall all men know that you are my disciples, if you have love one to another." And, therefore, if it be too late to love one another, and to be reconciled, come and let us lay down our garments, let us lay down our profession of being the disciples of Christ; yes; let us lay down our expectation of heaven too, for says the apostle, 'Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God.' And is not passion, malice, and lack of love, flesh and blood? Certainly, certainly, if I do not walk in this way of love, it is not all my parts and all my gifts that will bail me from the arrest of that scripture, 'Flesh and blood shall not inherit the kingdom of heaven.' Believe it, believe it, it is not too late, it is not too late to love one another; it is not too late to do my work as long as it is not too late to receive my wages. And if I say, it is too late to be reconciled, what if God say to me, then it is too late for my soul to be saved?

And oh! what a lovely spectacle would it be- a spectacle on which angels would look down with delight- to see, in the exercise of this all-divine, all-powerful, all-expulsive emotion of Christian love, individuals, or families, or churches, who had long been at variance one with another, now drawn together in sweet affection, past injuries and old animosities forgotten in the joys of perfect reconciliation, forgiveness, and love! Let the holy attempt be made. "Put on, therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, affections of mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, long-suffering, forbearing one another, and forgiving one another, if any man have a quarrel against any: even as Christ forgave you, so also do you."

Christian forbearance is another beautiful exhibition of this feeling. The image of God is but imperfectly restored in the renewed soul. The resemblance to Christ in the most matured believer, is at best but a faint copy. In our communion with the saints of God, we often meet with much that calls for the exercise of our forbearance- many weaknesses of the flesh and of the spirit; and many peculiarities of thought and of manner. There are, too, diversities of gifts, and degrees of grace. Some are more deeply taught than others- some are strong, and some are weak- some travel rapidly, and others slowly- some are fearless and courageous, others are timid and scrupulous. Now all these things call for the exercise of Christian forbearance. The apostle clearly defines the rule that should guide us here- "We who are strong ought to bear the infirmities of the weak, and not to please ourselves."

Especially in 'church fellowship' will the grace of forbearance be called in requisition. When the providence of God has thrown together a community of individuals, composed of a great variety of character, and of mind, and of constitutional temperament, although each grade may be more or less modified by the renewing of the Spirit, there will still be a broad field for the passive exercise of love. In a church, necessarily imperfect, there may be found to exist many things, in which taste as well as judgment will be found at fault, calculated to engender a feeling of dislike, and even of disgust, in a mind refined and delicate. But here Christian forbearance must be exercised. They are the infirmities of the weak of Christ's flock, and they who are stronger in grace should kindly and patiently bear them.

In pursuing a different course, we may wound some of the most gracious, humble, and prayerful saints of God. We may be but little aware with what frequent and deep humiliation in secret, their conscious failings may overwhelm them. And we ought to bear in mind, that if we sometimes might wish to see in them less that was rough in speech, and abrupt and forward in manner, and fault-finding in disposition, they may detect in us a loftiness of spirit, a coldness of manner, and an apparent haughtiness of carriage, which may be an equal trial to them, demanding the exercise on their part of the same grace of forbearance towards us. How watchful, how tender, how kind, then, should we be, ever standing with that broad mantle of love in our hands, which "is patient and kind; which seeks not its own; is not easily provoked," prepared to cast it over the failing of a Christian brother, the moment it meets the eye!

The duty of brotherly admonition and reproof is a perfectly legitimate exercise of Christian love. It may be found the most difficult, but the result will prove it to be the most holy and precious operation of this grace. The Church of God is one family, linked together by ties and interests the closest, the holiest, and the tenderest. It is natural, therefore, that each member should desire for the others the utmost perfection of Christian attainment, and must feel honored or dishonored, as the case may be, by the walk and conversation of those with whom the relationship is so close. In Christian friendship, too, the same feeling is recognized. We naturally feel anxious to see in one whom we tenderly love, the removal of whatever detracts from the beauty, the symmetry, and the perfection of Christian character. Here, then, will the duty of brotherly admonition and reproof, find its appropriate sphere of exercise. But few things contribute more to the formation of Christian character, and to the holy walk of a church, than the faithful, Christ-like discharge of this duty.

It is true, it requires an extraordinary degree of grace in him who administers, and in him who receives, the reproof. That in the one there should be nothing of the spirit which seems to say, "Stand by, I am holier than you;" nothing to give needless pain or humiliation, but the utmost meekness, gentleness, and tenderness; and that in the other, there should be the tractable and humble mind, that admits the failing, receives the reproof, and is grateful for the admonition. "Let the righteous smite me," says David, "it shall be a kindness; and let him reprove me, it shall be an excellent oil." "He that refuses reproof errs, and he that hears reproof gets understanding, and shall be honored. Open rebuke is better than secret love; and faithful are the wounds of a friend." Thus, while this duty is administered and received in the spirit of the meek and lowly Jesus, the Church will be kindly affectioned one to another, knit together in love, and growing up into that state in which she will be without a spot, or a wrinkle, or any such thing.

True Christian love will avoid taking the seat of judgment. There are few violations of the law of love more common than those rash and premature 'infallible' judgments, which some Christians are ever ready to pronounce upon the actions, the principles, and the motives of others. And yet a more difficult and delicate position, no Christian man can be placed in than this. To form a true and correct opinion of a certain line of conduct, we must often possess the heart-searching eye of God. We must be intimately acquainted with all the hidden motives, and must be fully in possession of all the concomitant circumstances of the case, before we can possibly arrive at anything like an accurate opinion. Thus, in consequence of this blind, premature judgment, this rash and hasty decision; the worst possible construction is often put upon the actions and the remarks of others, extremely unjust and deeply wounding to the feelings.

But especially inconsistent with this love, when small unessential differences of opinion in the explanation of scriptural facts, and consequent nonconformity in creed and discipline, are construed into rejection of the faith once delivered to the saints, and made the occasion of hard thoughts, unkind and severe treatment. Let us then hear the Lord's words, "Judge not, lest you be judged." And the apostle's, "Why do you judge your brother? Or why do you set at nothing your brother? for we shall all stand before the judgment-seat of Christ. Let us not therefore judge one another any more."

Christian liberality, in alleviating the necessities of the Lord's poor, is an attribute of brotherly love which we must not pass by unnoticed. The greater number of the Lord's people are "poor in this world." "I will leave in the midst of you a poor and an afflicted people, and they shall trust in the Lord." The poor, the Church has always with her. They are a precious legacy committed to her care by her ascended Lord. The line of Christian duty is clear respecting them. Even in the old dispensation, we find more than a dim shadowing forth of this duty. "If your brother becomes poor, you shall relieve him. You shall not give him your money on interest, nor lend him your food for increase." "If there be among you a poor man of one of your brethren, you shall not harden your heart nor shut your hand from your poor brother: but you shall open your hand wide unto him, and shall surely lend him sufficient for his need. And your heart shall not be grieved, you shall not begrudge the gift, but shall give cheerfully, when you give unto him."

This duty becomes still more obligatory, and is enforced with still stronger motives, under the Christian dispensation. "Whoever has this world's goods, and sees his brother have need, and shuts up his compassion from him, how dwells the love of God in him? My little children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue, but in deed and in truth." Thus, "by love we serve one another." And what holy luxury of feeling has the Lord associated with the discharge of this Christian duty! Who has not realized, in walking in this sweet and lovely precept, a blessing peculiar to itself? Who has not felt that it was "more blessed to give than to receive;" that in this walk, the greatest expenditure has always resulted in the greatest increase; and that in supplying Christ's need in his poor, tried, and necessitous representatives, Christ has himself met us in the way with some manifest token of his gracious approval?

O for more love to Christ as exhibited towards his people! To see only Christ in them- be they lowly, or poor, or tried, or infirm, or despised, or reviled, or sick, or in prison, or in bonds- to recognize Christ in them, and to love Christ in them, and to serve Christ in them. This would bring more sweet discoveries of the indwelling of Christ in our own souls. How could we show our love to Christ in another, and not feel the sunshine of his love in our own hearts? Impossible! Oh! to hear him speak when the case of need presents itself, "Inasmuch as you have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, you have done it unto ME!"

True Christian love will excite in the mind, a holy jealousy for the Christian reputation of other believers. How sadly is this overlooked by many professors! What sporting with reputation, what trifling with character, what unveiling to the eyes of others, the weaknesses, and the infirmities, and the stumblings, of which they have become cognizant; marks many in our day! Oh! if the Lord had dealt with us, as we have thoughtlessly and uncharitably dealt with our fellow-servants, what shame and confusion would cover us! We would blush to lift up our faces before men. But the exercise of this divine love in the heart, will constrain us to abstain from all envious, suspicious feelings; from all evil surmisings; from all wrong construing of motives; from all tale-bearing- that fruitful cause of so much evil in the Christian church; from slander; from unkind insinuations; and from going from house to house, retailing evil, and making the imperfections, the errors, or the doings of others, the theme of idle, sinful gossip- "busy-bodies in other men's matters."

All this is utterly inconsistent with our high and holy calling. It is degrading, dishonoring, lowering to our character as the children of God. It dims the luster of our piety. It impairs our spiritual influence in the world. Ought not the character of a Christian brother to be as dear to me as my own? And ought I not as vigilantly to watch over it, and as zealously to promote it, and as indignantly to vindicate it, when unjustly aspersed or maliciously assailed, as if I, and not he, were the sufferer? How can the reputation of a believer in Jesus be affected, and we not be affected? It is our common Lord who is wounded- it is our common salvation that is injured- it is our own family that is maligned. And our love to Jesus, to his truth, and to his people, should caution us to be as jealous of the honor, as tender of the feelings, and as watchful of the character and reputation of every member of the Lord's family, be his denomination what it may, as of our own. "Who is weak," says the apostle, "and I am not weak? who is offended, and I burn not?"

O how graciously, how kindly does our God deal with His people! Laying His hand upon their many spots, He seems to say, "No eye but mine shall see them." Oh! let us, in this particular, be "imitators of God as dear children!" Thus shall we more clearly evidence to others, and be assured ourselves, that we have "passed from death unto life." But, inviting as it is, we must conduct this subject to a close.

Anticipate the happiness of heaven. It is a world of love. Love reigns in every heart- beams from every eye- glows on every cheek, and breathes from every lip. Nothing is there tending to interrupt the deepest flow of this, the holiest, the divinest, and the sweetest of all affections. The God of love is there; and Jesus, the revelation of love, is there; and the Holy Spirit, the revealer of love, is there; and from the infinite plenitude of each, the glorified spirits receive and drink full and everlasting draughts of love. O blissful regions these, where there are no more strifes, and divisions, and selfishness, and pride, and ambition, and coldness, and discord; but where the songs are the music of love; and the trees wave in the winds of love; and the rivers flow with the fulness of love; and the air is balmy with the soothing of love; and the bowers are fragrant with the odors of love! "Love is the golden chain that binds the happy souls above, And he's an heir of heaven, who finds his bosom glow with love."

Let us more deeply cherish in our bosoms this heaven-born affection; let us cultivate it more and more towards all with whom we hope to spend our eternity of joy. Let us "love as brethren." Why should we 'fall out by way,' when we are journeying to the same land of promise? And why should we stand aloof from one another, when We are All One in Christ Jesus?

"We are ONE in Christ our Lord,
Time has no chain to bind us,
We fear not death's sharp sword,
And the grave we leave behind us."
"We are ONE in faith below,
In hope and consolation,
Though garb and colors show
Shadows of variation."
"We are ONE in love divine,
Each stony heart renewing,
Let it reflected shine,
Christians, your hearts imbuing."
"We are ONE from Christ's last prayer,
Whom the Father hears ever,
And how can we despair,
Who from his love can sever?"
"We are ONE in homes on high,
Which Jesus is preparing,
For the blessed ones who die,
One cross, one glory sharing."
"We are ONE in Christ our Lord,
O You, of peace the Giver
From every strife abhorred
Your family deliver."
"We are ONE in Christ our Lord,
He speaks who knows no turning,
And we stay upon his word,
Its light afar discerning."
"We are ONE in Christ our Lord,
Though earth and hell endeavor
To change his mighty word,
Its truth abides ever."

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

GRACE AND TRUTH

Table of Contents

Preface

1. Jesus, Full of Grace

2. Faith in God

3. God, Comforting the Disconsolate

4. Christ's Intercession for Tried Faith

5. Nourishment for the Journey

6. The Chastening of Love

7. Holiness, the Fruit of the Chastening of Love

8. The Vitality of the Atoning Blood

9. Three Degrees of Christ's Manifestation

10. The Sick One Whom Jesus Loves

11. The Glorious Prospects of the Believer

12. God Resting in His Love

Preface

The present volume is designed to form a companion to one which immediately preceded it, (Glimpses of the Truth as it is in Jesus) and to which, in the general character of its subjects and mode of treating them, it may be thought to bear some resemblance, sufficient, at least, to identify them as originating from the same pen.

"Grace and Truth!" Magnificent and expressive words! Let not the Christian reader unfold these pages with the extravagant expectation of finding within them anything approaching to a consecutive and elaborate treatise upon these vast and lofty themes. They have no pretension of this kind. He will be disappointed, looking for this, in meeting with familiar, simple, and unconnected illustrations only, of these great subjects; not, however, the author trusts, the less important, precious, or sanctifying.

What is Grace? It is the heart of God overflowing- His free mercy in Christ to fallen man, coursing its benignant way through our lost world, and outmeasuring the ravages and the triumphs of sin. For, "where sin abounded, GRACE did much more abound."

What is Truth? Momentous question! The anxious inquiry of every age, of every Church, of every lip. Pilate knows it now. And he might have known it when the question first fell from his trembling lips- for ETERNAL and ESSENTIAL TRUTH stood as a criminal at his bar! But summon the witnesses, and they shall testify what is truth. Ask the devils who beheld His miracles and quailed beneath His power, and they will answer- "It is Jesus, the Son of God Most High." Ask the angels who beheld His advent and announced His birth, and they will answer- "It is the Savior, who is Christ the Lord." Ask His enemies who nailed Him to the tree, and they will answer- "Truly it is the Son of God!" Ask His disciples who were admitted to His confidence, and who leaned upon His bosom, and they will answer, "We believe and are sure that it is Christ, the Son of the living God." Ask the Father, testifying from the 'secret place of thunder,' and He will answer- "It is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased." Summon witnesses from the inanimate world. Ask the water blushing into wine- ask the sea calmed by a word- ask the earth trembling upon its axis- ask the rocks rent asunder- ask the sun veiled in darkness- ask the heavens robed in mourning- ask all nature agonized and convulsed, as He hung upon the tree- and all, as with one voice, will exclaim- Jesus is TRUTH.

Happy are they, who, through the teaching of the Holy Spirit, receive Jesus into their hearts as the truth- believe in Him as the truth- walk in Him as the truth, and who, under the sanctifying influence of the truth, are employing their holiest energies in making Him known to others as "the way, the truth, and the life" -thus, like their Lord, "bearing witness unto the truth."

In the Lord Jesus, then, as the head of the new-covenant dispensation, "Grace and Truth " essentially and exclusively dwell; and sitting at His feet, each sincere, humble disciple may receive grace out of His fulness and be taught the truth from His lips. "The law was given by Moses, but GRACE and TRUTH came by Jesus Christ."

To encourage the 'house of Jacob to possess their possessions,' is the lowly design of these pages. Should their perusal stimulate the Christian reader to seek an increase of grace from Christ, -impart to him clearer unfoldings of Jesus as the truth, or lead him into deeper, more comforting and sanctifying views of the 'truth as it is in Jesus,' -let him, in return, pray for the unworthy writer as greatly needing and desiring in his own soul a larger measure of these precious things. And all the glory shall be ascribed to the TRIUNE GOD, to whom exclusively and most justly it is due.

"Jesus, Full of Grace"

The wife of a man from the company of the prophets cried out to Elisha, "Your servant my husband is dead, and you know that he revered the Lord. But now his creditor is coming to take my two boys as his slaves."
Elisha replied to her, "How can I help you? Tell me, what do you have in your house?"
"Your servant has nothing there at all," she said, "except a little oil."
Elisha said, "Go around and ask all your neighbors for empty jars. Don't ask for just a few. Then go inside and shut the door behind you and your sons. Pour oil into all the jars, and as each is filled, put it to one side."
She left him and afterward shut the door behind her and her sons. They brought the jars to her and she kept pouring. When all the jars were full, she said to her son, "Bring me another one."
But he replied, "There is not a jar left." Then the oil stopped flowing.
She went and told the man of God, and he said, "Go, sell the oil and pay your debts. You and your sons can live on what is left." 2 Kings 4:1-7

It has seemed good to the Holy Spirit, the Divine Author of the Bible, to embody and exhibit some of the most important, spiritual, and magnificent truths of His word in the form of type, symbol, and similitude. Neither His wisdom nor His love, in thus throwing a drapery of apparent obscurity around revelations so momentous, can be questioned. It cannot be reasonably denied that God, who saw proper to unveil His own mind, and in a way of extraordinary revelation, communicate his will to man, could as easily, if so it pleased Him, not only have accompanied that revelation with the self-evident assurance that He, and no other, was the Speaker; but that also He could have cleared away whatever was mysterious and obscure from each truth, causing it to stand forth, palpable and demonstrative, bathed in the splendor of its own Divine effulgence. But with a view, doubtless, of simplifying the meaning, of heightening the grandeur, and of deepening the solemnity of truth in the estimation of the human mind, this peculiar mode of conveying it is, in part, adopted.

Nor for these reasons alone. The spirit of earnest and persevering research, is the spirit which a proper and successful study of the Bible demands. It is not everywhere upon the surface of God's word that the most important instruction is found. Though even there, truths the most spiritual and precious are sometimes scattered like brilliant constellations pendent from the firmament and visible to the naked eye; or, as gems detached from the ocean's cave, are sometimes thrown upon the shore, and gathered up by the pensive traveler. But in most cases the truth of God lies deep and invisible. A superficial and careless research will not conduct the investigator to its richest revelations. The mine must be excavated, the firmament must be explored, the ocean must be fathomed- in other words, the Scriptures must be searched with much prayer for the Spirit's teaching and with patient continuance; or their greatest beauties and their costliest treasures will remain concealed.

"All Scripture is given by inspiration of God;" and there is no type, nor symbol, nor parable, nor story, nor song, which enfolds not some profound truth, and which conveys not some deep practical lesson of wisdom, or some rich word of comfort, or some precious unfolding of JESUS, the "price of which is above rubies."

To this class of revealed truth may be assigned the instructive narrative which has suggested the topic of the present chapter of our work. The entire story is inimitably beautiful and exquisitely touching. And, were we to descant upon the doctrine of God's providential care of His people, the timely and considerate aid which He has ever been wont to extend on their behalf in seasons of trial and of emergency- limiting ourselves to these points, we should find rich and ample material in the narrative before us, for extended and profitable reflection.

The most prominent figure in this simple picture of real life, around whom gather the light and interest of the entire scene, is the prophet's widow. Her husband dying insolvent, she was found battling single-handed and alone with the embarrassed circumstances of a desolate and an impoverished widowhood. To this gloomy feature of her history must be added a trial, which, to a mother's heart, would be the filling up of the cup of sorrow to the brim- her husband's creditors had come to claim her two sons as bondmen, thus severing the last link of earth-born happiness, and suddenly bringing down her gray hairs with sorrow to the same grave which had just closed upon the husband of her youth.

At this crisis of her affairs the prophet Elisha comes to her door; his steps guided there, he knew not why, by the unseen yet ever-working hand of the widow's God. A solitary cruse of oil constituted all the temporal wealth of the widow. But God can bless, and in blessing can multiply the little that the righteous has. Therefore it is that "the little that a righteous man has, is better than the riches of many wicked." To see the power of God, nor less His love, in increasing to a sufficiency 'the little' of the righteous, stamps it with an infinitely greater value than the wealthiest revenues of the ungodly. And now God will augment her stinted resources to an abundance, although he would work a miracle to accomplish it.

At the command of the prophet, a number of vessels were obtained, 'empty vessels, not a few.' Then closing the door, this interesting group shut in with God, she proceeds, at the bidding of Elisha, to pour out the oil from the one full vessel into each empty vessel- They brought the jars to her and she kept pouring. When all the jars were full, she said to her son, "Bring me another one." But he replied, "There is not a jar left." Then the oil stopped flowing. She went and told the man of God, and he said, "Go, sell the oil and pay your debts. You and your sons can live on what is left."

And now did the widow's heart sing for joy. Her bond cancelled, her sons redeemed, her need supplied, and the lives of all thus rescued from famine and from death; what a radiance would light up that dreary dwelling, and what music would break from those grateful hearts! Oh, how good is God! He is a 'Sun and a Shield.' He is a 'very present help in trouble.' Reader, are you a widow, adding to the bitter anguish of recent bereavement, the sadness and the gloom of exhausted resources, of embarrassed circumstances, and the pressure of claims which you cannot meet? Take comfort from this sacred narrative, and from the 'exceeding great and precious promise' of your God- "Leave your fatherless children, I will preserve them alive; and let your widows trust in me."

What an amazing promise is this! What a word spoken in season! Who but God could speak it? He has spoken it, and He speaks it, bereaved widow, to you. It is your promise, as exclusively yours as though you were the only individual to whom it were addressed. God stands prepared to make it good. "I have sworn by my holiness that I will not lie," thus pledging His truth and holiness to fulfil this and every other appropriate promise in your individual and happy experience. In view of this precious promise can you not, then, rise superior to your present circumstances, exclaiming with the prophet, "Although the fig tree shall not blossom, neither shall fruit be in the vines; the labor of the olive shall fail, and the fields shall yield no food; the flock shall be cut off from the fold, and there shall be no herd in the stalls: yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will rejoice in the God of my salvation!"

But interesting and profitable as it might be to pursue this train of thought, our present and main design is to consider the narrative as illustrating, in some of its principal features, the higher operations of God in grace, rather than the subordinate arrangements of God in providence. The sacred episode presents this interesting subject in three essential points of view: the character of those whom the Lord Jesus replenishes with His grace; the sufficiency of the grace that is in Jesus to meet each case; and the continuance of the supply of grace until the great purposes of grace shall have been accomplished, and the mystery of God shall be finished. "They brought the jars to her and she kept pouring. When all the jars were full, she said to her son, 'Bring me another one.' But he replied, 'There is not a jar left.' Then the oil stopped flowing." And oh, that while bending our attention to this all important subject, 'great grace' may descend both upon the writer and the reader!

The vessels which the prophet commanded to be brought, let it be observed, were EMPTY VESSELS. Spiritual emptiness- an utter destitution of all original holiness and grace- is the great and essential characteristic of all who become partakers of the grace of Christ. They receive not this grace as saints, but as sinners; not as the righteous, but as the guilty; not as the meritorious, but as the unworthy. They become its recipients exclusively upon the ground of their utter destitution of all native righteousness whatever. With what clearness and power has the Holy Spirit delineated their spiritual condition! They are represented as 'poor,' as 'blind,' as 'sick,' as 'naked,' as 'in need,' as 'lost,' as 'enemies to God,' as 'despising and rejecting Christ,' as 'covered with filthy rags,' as self-destroyed,' as 'in their blood,' as 'without strength,' as 'ready to perish,' as 'sinners,' as the 'ungodly,' as 'joined to idols,' as 'lovers of pleasure,' as 'condemned,' as 'without God'- atheists; as 'without hope'- hopeless.

Melancholy, yet true, description of fallen man! That you will not admit this natural destitution of all holiness to be your real state, my unconverted reader, does not in the least degree invalidate the fact. So far from this, the very denial is but a stronger confirmation and a more fearful aggravation of the awful truth. For a maniac to deny that he is insane; for a dying man to deny that he is sick; for a bankrupt to deny that he is insolvent; for a galley-slave to deny that he is in chains- what folly and what madness were this! And yet this moral folly and insanity are yours, so long as you say, "I am rich and increased with goods, and have need of nothing, and know not that you are wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked."

But deny it though you may, this is your actual condition. As to any holiness and strength, heavenly wisdom, spiritual purposes and desires, your soul is an 'empty vessel.' Not a solitary ray of Divine light illumines your understanding, not one pulse of spiritual life throbs in your soul, nor one spark of heavenly love glows in your heart. No, more; there is not only the absence of all spiritual good, but there is the actual existence of all spiritual evil. The mere negation of holiness, if we can suppose such a state, would be less gloomy and appalling than the positive indwelling and supreme dominion of sin. Sin dwelling in you, Satan lording over you, and hell gleaming in your face, presents a picture of woe which baffles all description. You are a spiritual suicide, for you have destroyed yourself. You are a spiritual homicide, for your influence has destroyed others. You are a spiritual deicide, for the tendency of your sin is to annihilate the existence of God. Thus are you at war with universal being. Such is the power, and such the tyranny, of that monster evil- SIN!

Startle not, my reader, at my application of this appalling description of fallen nature to you. Read it not for another, but read it for yourself. Turn not away from it in unbelief and scorn. It is needful that you should recognize in yourself the moral image of the first Adam, that you might be led to seek a transformation into the moral image of the Second Adam. Your soul-I reiterate the truth- your soul is this 'empty vessel.' God has gone out of it; and as to the existence of any holiness, it is a vast and gloomy void. What can fill His place? Philosophy has tried, and Science has tried, and Poetry has tried, and the World has tried, and Wealth has tried, and Power has tried, and Pleasure has tried, and Friendship has tried- and all have failed to fill your soul's deep emptiness! Each exclaims, as in despair it retires, "It is not in me!" Presumptuous thought, that any created good, whatever, could fill a place designed for, and once occupied by, God Himself!

But there is a process by which the soul is brought to the knowledge of its spiritual destitution and emptiness. This transpires in that first stage of conversion which we denominate the conviction of sin. It is at the period when the 'plague of the heart' is felt, when the inward leprosy of sin is discovered, and the soul lies prostrate before God in the spirit and breathing the prayer of the publican, "God be merciful to me a sinner." What a change now passes over the soul! No longer disguised and denied, the startling discovery is made and acknowledged, "I am the chief of sinners." How has the 'gold become dross, and the wine water!' How impotent now the vaunted strength! how poor the boasted riches! how loathsome the prided greatness! how insignificant the paraded grandeur! how groveling the lofty pursuits! A world seems suddenly to have vanished, a universe to have disappeared; and a vast void rushes upon the view, with its dark, shoreless ocean, and its lowering and unending sky. Roused from his long and profound slumber, lo! he finds himself, as it were, the solitary occupant of this void, and the desolate voyager upon this ocean- traveling he knows not where! The spell that bound it is broken; the enchantment that held it is dissolved; the dream that entranced it is vanished; the slumber that stupified it is aroused; and the soul awakes to consciousness, to reason, and to life.

In what an imaginary, unrealistic world has he been existing, and he knew it not! What a craving emptiness has he been cherishing, and he suspected it not! And all the while he wondered why happiness was a stranger to his heart, and that joy fled at his approach. It was "as when a hungry man dreams, and, behold, he eats; but he awakens, and his soul is empty; or, as when a thirsty man dreams, and, behold, he drinks; but he awakens, and, behold, he is parched."

But another step is necessary to complete the soul's consciousness of its emptiness- the step that brings it to the cross. The great change which conversion effects, has a particular and an essential relation to sin. Before conversion, the love of God not having been brought into close contact with the mind- the conscience and the heart, thus receiving their impressions of Divine holiness through the intellect, continue in a dark and torpid state as to the nature, the guilt, and the consequences of sin. To this cause- an ignorance of the law of God, may be traced most of, if not all, the errors that have ever distracted the Christian Church, the sins that have polluted the world, and the ills that have affected our race. Blindness to the Divine holiness, which the law of God was designed to mirror forth, is the root of all sin, and sin is the source of all evil. ''Sin is the transgression of the law." Until the mind is brought to see the extent of the law's requirements, the purity of its precepts, and the inflexibility of its demands; it must have inadequate conceptions of the holiness of God, and, consequently, of the 'exceeding sinfulness of sin.'

The believer, viewing the precepts of the Divine law embodied in the life of Jesus, adopts it as his rule; and seeing the holiness of the Divine law exhibited in the death of Jesus, stands in awe of its spotlessness. In both, he sees how infinitely holy God is; and thus by conforming to the example of Christ, and by contemplation of the death of Christ, the one deep, ardent desire of his soul is, that he might be a "partaker of God's holiness,"- the highest, as it is the happiest, attainment to which, on earth or in heaven, he can arrive.

But oh, who can describe the holy, tender contrition which now takes possession of the soul brought near to the cross of Jesus? Who, but God, can fully interpret the meaning of those flowing tears, of that uplifted glance; of that panting of the heart, of that breathing of the lip- the heavings and the language of a soul moved to its center because of sin? If words of man can express these deep and holy emotions, David's penitential confession and prayer have done it. "Have mercy upon me, O God, according to your loving-kindness: according unto the multitude of your tender mercies blot out my transgressions. Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin. For I acknowledge my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me. Against you, you only, have I sinned, and done this evil in your sight."

I have, dear reader, at this stage of our subject, to propose a solemn and heart-searching question. Has this humiliation for your state reached your heart? Has this, contrition for sin touched your spirit? Are you acquainted with that "godly sorrow which is unto life," that "repentance which needs not to be repented of?" Do not be indifferently to this conviction. It is the first link in the chain of your salvation. It is the first step in your journey to the cross. No man will arise and go to Jesus, until convinced that he stands in need of Jesus. A Savior weeping, as it were, tears of blood, will only be looked upon by a sinner weeping tears of godly sorrow. A broken-hearted Savior, and a broken-hearted sinner, dwell together in the sweetest harmony. Thousands pass by the cross of Jesus and never raise a glance towards it. And why? The problem is easy of solution. They have never experienced a heart pierced and sorrowing for sin. The veil that is upon their mind hides the cross of Christ from their view. The look of forgiveness beaming from the eye of that Divine Sufferer, never meets their imploring look of sorrow and of faith. They have felt no burden of sin to lay upon Jesus, no sense of guilt to lay upon Jesus- and so they pass Him blindly, coldly by.

Oh awful condition! To be borne down with a load which Jesus only can unbind; to be enchained by sins which Jesus only can break; to be suffering from a distemper which Jesus only can heal; to be dying a death from which Jesus only can deliver; to be going down to a hell whose door Jesus only can shut- and yet to remain insensible and indifferent, is appalling indeed. Reader, if this is your state, of what are you thinking, of what are you dreaming? Of what opiate have you drunk, that you are so unconscious? By what spell are you bound, that you are so infatuated? With what delusions are you ensnared, that you are so insane? Do you imagine that your condition will always continue as it now is? Will not the fumes of that opiate evaporate, and the world's spell be dissolved, and the mental hallucination vanish, and this corpse-like coldness and this grave-like darkness to all the great and momentous realities of eternity, give place to other and appalling emotions? Doubtless they will!

There is fast approaching a period that will change the entire scenery of your future existence, and the relations of your present being. A sick and dying bed will impart another aspect to everything around you; and will place your character as a responsible, an accountable, and an immortal being in a new and an awful light. Do you now anxiously inquire, ''What, then, must I do?" The word of God supplies the answer,"repent and be converted." throw down your weapons! Relinquish your hostility to God! Humble yourself under His mighty hand. Lay down the weapons of your rebellion before the cross. You must repent, or you cannot be converted. You must be converted, or you cannot be saved. The whole case resolves itself into this- REPENT, or PERISH!

Thus does the Spirit of God empty the soul, preparing it for the reception of the grace o Christ. He sweeps and evacuates the house. He dislodges the unlawful inhabitant, dethrones the rival sovereign, and thus secures room for the Savior. He disarms the will of its rebellion against God, the mind of its ignorance of God, and the heart of its hatred to God. He throws down the barriers, removes the veil, and unlocks the door, at which the Redeemer triumphantly enters. In effecting this mighty work He acts as the Divine Forerunner of Christ. What the Baptist was to our Lord, 'crying in the wilderness, Prepare you the way of the Lord,' the Holy Spirit is in heralding the entrance of Jesus to the soul. He goes before and prepares His way. The Divinity of the Spirit furnishes Him with all the requisites for the work. He meets with difficulty, and He removes it- with obstruction, and He overcomes it- with opposition, and He vanquishes it. His power is omnipotent, His influence is irresistible, His grace is efficacious. There is no soul, however filled with darkness, and enmity, and rebellion, which He cannot prepare for Christ. There is no heart of stone which He cannot break, no brazen wall which He cannot prostrate, no mountain which He cannot level. Oh for more faith in the power of the Holy Spirit in the soul of man! How much do we limit, and in limiting how do we dishonor, Him in His work of converting grace!

The providential dealings of God are frequently instrumental in the hand of the Holy Spirit of accomplishing this emptying process, thus preparing the soul for the reception of Christ. The prophet thus strikingly alludes to it: "Moab has been at ease from his youth, and he has settled on his lees, and has not been emptied from vessel to vessel." It was in this way God dealt with Naomi. Listen to her touching words: "I went out full, and the Lord has brought me home again empty." Thus it is that the bed of sickness, or the; chamber of death, the loss of creature good, perhaps the loveliest and the fondest, has prepared the heart for Christ. The time of bereavement and of solitude, of suffering and of loss, has been the Lord's time of love.

Providence is the handmaid of grace- and God's providential dealings with man are frequently the harbinger of the kingdom of grace in the soul. Ah! how many whose glance falls upon this page, may testify- "Even thus has the Lord dealt with me. I was full, and He has emptied me. I was rich, and He has impoverished me. I was exalted, and He has laid me low. Not one cup only did He drain; not one 'vessel' only did He dash to the earth, but many. He has emptied me 'from vessel to vessel.'" Happy shall you be if the result of all this emptying and humbling shall be the filling and enriching of your soul with larger communications of grace and truth from Jesus.

A 'cloud of witnesses' around you testify to this invariable principle of the Lord's procedure with His people- that He enriches by impoverishing them; strengthens by weakening them; replenishes by emptying; and exalts by laying them low.
"Lord! why is this? I trembling cried
Will You pursue Your worm to death?
It is in this way, the Lord replied,
I answer prayer for grace and faith."
"These inward trials I employ,
From self and pride to set you free,
And break your schemes of earthly joy,
That you may seek your all in me."

From thus tracing the process by which God prepares the soul of man for the indwelling of His grace- in other words, from a consideration of the 'empty vessels,' let us direct our attention to another suggestive part of the narrative- THE ONE VESSEL OF OIL. It will be recollected that the resources of the widow consisted of a single pot of oil, from which all the empty vessels brought to its fulness were supplied. How expressive the emblem! The Lord Jesus Christ is the One Divinely appointed Head of all grace to the Church. Written as with a sunbeam is this precious truth. "And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth." "And of his fulness have all we received, and grace for grace." "It pleased the Father that in him should all fulness dwell." "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly things in Christ."

The headship of Christ sets forth the same truth. It is declared that God has given Him to be "Head over all things to his church, which is his body, the fulness of him that fills all in all." "Not holding the Head, from which all the body by joints and ligaments, having nourishment ministered, and knit together, inereases with the increase of God." Thus clearly does the Holy Spirit set forth the Lord Jesus as the one vessel of grace provided for poor empty sinners.

The fitness of this truth will instantly appear. It was a necessary part of man's redemption, that there should be a single Depositary, one Head, for the custody and administration of this infinite fulness of grace. The question might be supposed to arise- In whom of all the creatures of God shall this grace be deposited? To whom shall be intrusted the keeping and the dispensing of this precious treasure? Adam? It is true that he once stood as the head of all holiness and happiness to a Church yet unfallen. In himself poor, as all dependent creatures of necessity must be, God yet made him the head of all life to countless myriads of beings. But what was the result? Weak in himself, and proving insufficient even for a state of sinlessness, he fell; and in falling, wiped out the holiness, the happiness, and the immortality of a world. It was such an experiment upon the power of created strength as would forever prove the utter weakness and vanity of man even in his best state. "By one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin." Not to man, then, would this precious treasure be intrusted. We must look elsewhere for the being in whose hands it should be placed.

Shall some angel of superior rank and intelligence, of peerless beauty and strength, be the depositary of God's grace to sinners? Still the same objection presents itself. Angels are but finite creatures, weak and dependent; and as such, a portion of their order once abandoned the abode of infinite purity and love, preferring, in the madness of their pride, "to reign in hell, rather than serve in heaven." The angels that kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation, he has reserved in everlasting chains, under darkness, unto the judgment of the great day." Thus, then, is it clear that God could not confide the keeping of that grace which was to save lost sinners, and bring them to glory, to any mere creature, human or angelic. Beyond angels and men, then, we must travel.

Turning from all creatures, among whom He could not find the object for whom He searched, God 'looked within Himself,' and found it there in the person of His own, uncreated, and beloved Son, dwelling in His bosom from all eternity. Here was one in all respects fitted to be the great depositary of this Divine grace, and worthy of the high office of dispensing it in all its fulness and freeness to the necessities of lost man. Leaving the bosom of His Father, He descended to our world, took up into a union with His essential Deity the nature which He came to redeem, and thus in His complex person became the Head and the Dispenser of all grace to His "body the Church," ''the fulness of Him that fills all in all."

Here, then, is the vessel which Jehovah was pleased, in the covenant of grace, to constitute the Head of all salvation to His Church. The fitness and the beauty of the Lord Jesus Christ as the one Vessel of grace to the Church, are obvious. The person of our Lord was of the Father's construction. It was the sole conception of infinite wisdom, and the grandest. It would, therefore, in every respect be a work worthy of God. If upon the lowest production of His creative power God has left the imprint of His wisdom and skill, baffling the profoundest effort of man to imitate, how much more illustrious would His greatness appear in the construction of that Vessel to which He would confide alike the salvation of His Church and the vindication of His own glory! His grace was too Divine, too precious, and too holy, to be intrusted to the keeping of a mere creature.

The melancholy history of created excellence was still before him, "written in letters of mourning, lamentation, and woe." "The vessel that he made of clay was marred in the hands of the potter; so he made it again another vessel, as seemed good to the potter to make it." And in these glowing words is the construction of this new and peerless Vessel of grace announced. "The word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the father, full of grace and truth." Before this Vessel of grace, let us for a moment pause in adoring admiration of its greatness and its beauty.

It is the 'great mystery of godliness.' Angels are summoned to adore it. ''When he brings in the first-born into the world he says, And let all the angels of God worship him." It was the profoundest conception of God's wisdom, the master-piece of His power, and worthy of their deepest homage. Such an unveiling of the glory of God they had never gazed upon before. In the countless glories with which He had enriched and garnished the universe, there was not its symbol nor its type. All other wonders ceased to astonish, and all other beauty fades in comparison with this, the grandest, the peerless of all. As if fathoming the utmost depth of infinity, and collecting all its hidden treasures of wisdom and power, of grace and truth, God would seem to have concentrated and embodied, to have illustrated and displayed them in the person of His incarnate Son, "God manifest in the flesh."

In this was found to consist the fitness of Immanuel, as the covenant Head of grace to the Church. The Divine and costly treasure, no longer confided to the guardianship and ministration of a weak, dependent creature, was deposited in the hands of incarnate Deity, one whom the Father knew, His 'equal,' His 'fellow,' made strong for Himself; and thus it was secured to His Church, an inexhaustible and eternal supply.

But not in His Divine nature only did the fitness and beauty of our Lord, as the one Vessel of grace, appear. His human nature, so perfect, so sinless, so replenished, enriched, and sanctified with the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, conspired to render Him fairer than the children of men. But in what did the chief excellence and beauty of our Lord's humanity consist? Was it the glory of human wisdom, of worldly grandeur, of secular power? No, not in these! It was that which the world the least esteems, and the most hates, which formed the rich endowment of our Lord's inferior nature- the grace which dwelt within Him.

The world conferred no dignity upon Christ, except that of its deepest ridicule, and its bitterest scorn. In His temporal estate He preferred poverty to wealth, obscurity to distinction, insult to applause, suffering to ease, a cross to a throne. So indigent and neglected was He, though every spot of earth was His, and all creatures were feeding from His hand, He had no nightly shelter, and often no 'daily bread.' How affecting to those who love the Savior, and who owe all their temporal comforts to His deprivation, and all their glory to his abasement, are expressions like these: 'Jesus was hungry;' 'Jesus said, I thirst;' 'Jesus sighed deeply in his spirit;' 'Jesus groaned within himself;' 'Jesus wept;' 'The Son of man has no where to lay his head.' The incarnate God stooped this low! But in the midst of all this poverty and humiliation, God did seem to say, "I will make Him, my Son, more glorious than angels, and fairer than the children of men. I will endow Him immeasurably with my Spirit, and I will replenish Him to the full with my grace. I will anoint Him with the oil of gladness above His fellows." And when He appeared in the world, and the eye of the evangelist caught the vision, he exclaimed with wondering delight, "The glory of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth!"

And oh, how did all that He said and did, each word and action, betray the fulness of grace that dwelt within Him! The expressions that distilled from His lips were 'gracious words;' the truths that He taught, were the doctrines of grace; the works that He performed, were the miracles of grace; the invitations that He breathed, were the promises of grace; the blessings that He pronounced, were the gifts of grace- in a word, the blood that He shed, the righteousness that He wrought, the redemption that He accomplished, the salvation that He proclaimed, the souls that He rescued, and the kingdom that He promised, were the outgushings, the overflowings, the achievements, the triumphs, and the rewards of grace.

From this contemplation of the Vessel of grace, we now turn our attention to THE GRACE ITSELF. The narrative is still our guide. The first idea suggested is, the costliness and preciousness of the grace of Jesus. That one vessel of oil, as we have before remarked, was all of temporal wealth which this poor widow possessed. It was her only and her last resource. This exhausted, she must resign her two sons to a slave's life, and then lie down and die. How precious and priceless, then, to her would be each drop of this vessel of oil! But of infinite worth and of priceless value is the grace of the Lord Jesus. Its Divine origin and character stamp its value.

"The grace of God" is its designation and its nature. The redemption of man by Jesus Christ is an exhibition of God's grace which God cannot surpass. And the reason is, God cannot surpass Himself. It were a vain and profitless inquiry, whether God could have saved man by any other way more glorious to Himself. As the method which He adopted could never have suggested itself to any finite mind, to speculate, therefore, upon the possibility of another and a more august expedient, were the extreme of folly. It should be enough for me that the history of God's grace is but the history of Himself- that there is more of the Divine glory unfolded in this redemption-plan than I shall ever be able to master- though a mind developed to its utmost capacity is the faculty employed, and eternity itself the period assigned for its study.

And oh how entrancing is its history! Eternally welled in the heart of infinite love, this grace struggled for its freedom, this mercy panted for an outlet. Its love of holiness and its reverence for justice forbade that it should obtain that freedom and seek that outlet at the expense of either. Grace must appear in alliance with truth, and mercy in harmony with holiness. God must walk upon the battlements of His love, clothed with every perfection, and each exhibited in its unshaded luster. But how shall we describe the expedient that would combine, and where shall we find the person who should exhibit them thus, in their sweetest harmony and in their richest glory? The answer is at hand. "No man has seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, he has declared him." This is the key to the infinite grace of God. "I am in the Father;" said Christ, "and the Father is in me." Glorious announcement!

Collecting together all the riches of His grace, the Father places them at the disposal of His Son, and bids Him spread them out before the eyes of a fallen world. True to His covenant engagement, the eternal Son appears "made like his brethren," and announces that He has come to lift the veil, and show to us the heart of a gracious, sin-pardoning God. In declaring, that the "Father himself loves us," and that "he that had seen him," so full of grace, "had seen the Father," He affirms, but in other words, that He is a copy, a representation of the Father- that the love, the grace, the truth, the holiness, the power, the compassion, the tenderness that were exhibited in Him in such a fulness of supply, and were distributed by Him in such an affluence of expenditure, had their origin and their counterpart in God.

Oh! how jealous was He of the Divine honor! He might, had He willed it, have sought and secured His own distinction and advancement, His own interest and glory, apart from His Father's. He could, had He chosen it, have erected His kingdom as a rival sovereignty, presenting Himself as the sole object of allegiance and affection, thus attracting to His government and His person the obedience and the homage of the world. But no! He had no separate interest from His Father. The heart of God throbbed in the bosom of Jesus- the perfections of God were embodied in the person of Jesus- the purpose of God was accomplished in the mission of Jesus- and the will of God was done, and the honor of God was secured, in the life and death of Jesus. "I seek not my own will, but the will of him who sent me," was a declaration emblazoned upon His every act. Anxious that the worship which they offered to His Deity, the attachment which they felt for His person, the admiration which they cherished for the beauty of His character and the splendor of His works, should not center solely in Himself, He perpetually pointed His disciples upward to the Eternal Father. It would seem that, such was His knowledge of His Father's grace to sinners, such His acquaintance with His heart of love, that He could find no satisfaction in the affection, the admiration, and the homage yielded to Himself, but as that affection, admiration, and homage were shared equally by His Father. With Him it was an ever-present thought- and how could He forget it?- that the Father's grace filled to overflowing this glorious Vessel.

He had just left the bosom of the Father, and this was well near the first announcement which broke in music from His lips, "God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have everlasting life." And as He pursued His way through the awe-struck and admiring throng, He might often be heard to exclaim, in a voice that rose in solemn majesty above their loudest plaudits, "I seek not my own glory. I honor my Father."

The spiritual mind will at once perceive that our object in the preceding reflections has been to place the character of God as the "Lord God, merciful and gracious," in its own proper light. It is possible that this truth may appear to the reader as a newly-discovered planet in the firmament of revelation. It may be to him a new truth, presenting to his eye a fresh and a more kindly view of the paternal and gracious character of God. God, the original source of grace to sinners, has, perhaps, hitherto been but a timidly-received doctrine, if received at all. In the first thirstings of your newly-quickened soul, you sought and found the gentle rivulet of grace issuing from some isolated and shaded spot in your lonely path- and you "tasted that the Lord was gracious." Grateful for its refreshing, but panting for larger draughts, you followed the rivulet to the stream- and drank yet deeper of its fulness. Not satisfied with this, but longing to explore the glorious mystery of the supply, you traced the streamlet to the 'broad river,' transported with joy to find that all fulness dwelt in Jesus- and into it you plunged.

But here you have rested. Enamored of the beauty, and lost in wondering delight at the "breadth, and length, and depth, and height" of this river, you have reclined upon its green and sunny bank, forgetting that this river was but the introduction to an ocean, and that that ocean was nothing less than the heart of the Father, infinitely and eternally full of grace. And little did you think, as you sipped from the rivulet, and drank from the stream, and bathed in the river of grace, that there was a depth still deeper, which, like Ezekiel's vision of the holy waters, was so deep that it "could not be passed over." "What!" exclaims some tried believer, "Is the heart of Jesus a transcript of the heart of God? Is the Father as full of forgiveness, of love, of mercy, of compassion, of tenderness, as the Son? How different from all that I had conceived Him to be! I thought of God, and was troubled. His terrors made me afraid. His dealings with me have been severe. His way has been in the whirlwind and in the storm, and His path in the waters. His 'judgments' have been 'a great deep.' He has set a hedge about me that I cannot pass. He has spoken to me out of the thick cloud. He answered me by fire. He has spoiled my pleasant pictures, and filled my cup with bitter things! What! is this God all that you represent Him to be? Is He so full of grace and truth? Is He my God, my loving, reconciled Father?" Yes, even so! "It pleased the Father that in him should all fulness dwell."

And who can contemplate the work of Jesus and not be convinced of the costliness and preciousness of this grace? How precious is the grace that pardons, that justifies, that adopts, that sanctifies, that comforts, the vilest who believe in Jesus! And yet all this Jesus does. He died for sinners, he receives sinners, he saves sinners to the uttermost. O precious grace, that has opened a fountain which cleanses every stain; that has provided a robe which covers every spot; that "reigns through righteousness unto eternal life" in the soul it has renewed! Reader, have you felt the power, and tasted the sweetness of this grace? If so, you will feel that no imagination can conceive its beauty, and that no words can express its preciousness. You will regard it as worthy of your warmest love and your highest praise. You will aim to live upon it constantly, to draw from it largely, and to magnify it holily.

Nothing this side of glory will be so lovely in your eyes, or so dear to your heart, as the grace of Jesus. Ah yes! inestimably precious is it! There is more of God, and more of heaven, and more of holiness, and more of happiness, unfolded and experienced in one drop of this grace, than in ten thousand worlds like this. "Let others toil for wealth, and pant for glory, and plume themselves with gifts; Lord, give me Your grace; this is all my salvation, and all my desire!"

Another attribute of the grace of Jesus is its sufficiency. The widow's pot of oil was strikingly illustrative of this. By the miraculous power of God it became inexhaustible. It filled every vessel. Had other empty vessels, gathered from other dwellings, and of still larger capacity, been brought, there would still have been a sufficiency for all- not one would have been removed unfilled. Onward continued to flow the oil, ceasing not to flow until there was not a vessel more. Nor were any questioned as to whom the vessels belonged, and what their size, or form, or color. It was enough that they were empty vessels, brought to be replenished from the one vessel of oil.

Such, dear reader, is the grace of Jesus; Divine in its nature, infinite in its resources, it must be inexhaustible in its supply. "Of his fulness have all we received, and grace for grace;" that is, a counterpart, in measure, of the grace that is in Christ: as the paper receives the form of the type, and the wax the impression of the seal, so the softened and believing heart receives an exact counterpart of the grace that is in Jesus; "grace for grace."

The word 'fulness' in this passage is sometimes employed to express the idea of abundance. "The earth is the Lord's, and the fulness thereof;" that is, the abundance of the earth is the Lord's. But in this connection it has a meaning still more impressive. It signifies not only the fulness of abundance, but the fulness of redundance. A redundant fulness, an overflowing fulness. The vessel is not only full to the brim, but it runs over, and rushes on in ten thousand streams to the utmost limit of man's necessities. Such a redundance of grace was required to bring God and the sinner together. The gulf which separated these two extremes of being was just that which separates the bottomless pit in hell from the highest throne in glory. No finite being could annihilate it. All the resources of wisdom, and power, and benevolence, of all the angels in heaven, could not bridge it. But the redundant grace that is in Christ Jesus has crossed this gulf, and God and man meet, and are reconciled in one Mediator.

And now from the glorious heights of pardoning grace on which he stands, the sinner can look down upon a hell deserved, but a hell escaped. Such a redundant fulness of grace was never seen until Jesus appeared. The patriarchs and prophets saw this grace, but not as we are privileged to see it. They realized its sufficiency, but not its redundancy. The truth was revealed to them, but by degrees. The light beamed in upon their minds, but in solitary rays. The grace distilled, rather than flowed. They had the dew rather than the showers of grace.

And yet it was sufficient to meet their case. When Jehovah opened this fountain of grace to two of the greatest sinners the world ever saw, and declared that "the seed of the woman should bruise the serpent's head," dim and partial as was the discovery, it was sufficient to lift them from the dark borders of despair and of hell, into the sunny region of hope and of heaven. Thus the saints of the former dispensation saw this grace, but not so clearly as we see it. They dwelt amid the shadows, we in the full blaze of glory. They lived in the twilight of grace, but we in its meridian day. They had the law, but we have the Gospel. They had grace in the hands of Moses, but we have grace in the hands of Jesus. They were the 'children of the bondwoman,' but we are the 'children of the freewoman.' They had the 'spirit of bondage unto fear,' but we have the 'Spirit of adoption' unto love.

And one passage will explain the reason of this great difference: ''God, who at sundry times and in diverse ways spoke in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, has in these last days spoken unto us by his Son." 'Spoken unto us by his Son!' Behold the fulness, the redundance, the sufficiency of this grace! "The law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ." Such, reader, is he fulness of Jesus- this Divine Vessel of grace. And now, if this grace were sufficient for God- sufficient to enable Him to extend mercy to the utmost, to sinners the vilest, and yet remain strictly just, then, I ask, is it not sufficient, my reader, for you?

If God, on the basis of this grace, can come forward and extend His hand of reconciliation to you, may you not with the plea of this same grace advance and extend your hand of faith to God? If there is no difficulty, or reluctance, on the part of God, why should there be on the part of man? And has God ever hesitated? Has He ever refused, on the footing of Christ's merits, to save the penitent sinner, who, having heard that the King of heaven is a merciful King, has cast himself upon that mercy, like the servants of Benhadad, with sackcloth upon their loins, and ashes upon their head- humbly suing for life? Never! It is the delight of God, as it is His glory, to prove the power and the sufficiency of His grace in Christ Jesus to save man to the uttermost extent of his guiltiness and woe.

How overflowing with saving grace does the heart of God appear in these words: ''Seek the Lord while he may be found, call upon him while he is near: let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts, and let him return unto the Lord, and he will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon." Oh! place your empty vessel beneath this overflowing Fountain of grace! and remove it not until, in its measure, it becomes the 'fulness of Him who fills all in all.'

I have already remarked that when the vessels were brought at the prophet's command, no inquiries were proposed. There doubtless was a marked variety of form and capacity in these vessels- yet all alike received their supply from one and the same source. Believers in Jesus! Saints of the Most High! of different names and sections you may be, yet, composing, as you do, but one body, and one church, "out of his fulness have all we received." We came to Jesus, some with larger and some with smaller capacity; we came- some more vile and worthless than others- we came with different degrees of knowledge, and conviction, and faith, yet Jesus received all, welcomed all, and filled all. He asked us no such questions- in what religion we had been trained? in what church we had been educated? to what family we belonged? or what was the measure of our capacity to receive?

It was enough that He discerned in us His own Spirit's work- it was enough that He saw we needed Him, desired Him, looked to Him; that we felt that none but Himself could meet our case, and satisfy the thirstings of our longing hearts. He questioned not, demurred not, refused not- but, drawing us to Himself; all vile, and wretched, and poor, and empty as we were; he poured the stream of His saving grace into our souls, filling us with "joy unspeakable and full of glory."

Blissful moment! Believers in Jesus! "of his fulness have all we received." All the members of the one body, all the children of the one family- Jew and Gentile, male and female, bond and free- their climate, and color, and language differing- all the chosen of God, all the given of the Father, all the purchase of the Son, all the called of the Spirit, all, in virtue of their union to Christ, equally partake of this fulness. Where, then, is the boasting of one against another? it is excluded. Where are divisions, and envyings, jealousies, heart-burnings, and separations in the family of God? let them not be once named among you, but to be disowned and deprecated, as becomes the recipients and the debtors alike of the grace of Jesus.

Before passing on to our last topic, allow a word of exhortation, suggested by the importance and the preciousness of our theme. As this grace has done much for your soul, aim to do great things for the honor of this grace. Beware of shading its luster. As there are those who abuse the doctrine of grace, be it your constant endeavor to exalt the principle of grace. Deeply and everlastingly are you its debtor. Free grace has laid you under the most solemn and eternal obligation to be holy. The only thing that makes you to differ from the vilest being that pollutes the earth, or from the darkest fiend that gnaws his chains in hell, is the free grace of God. Then strive to glorify it by a life of deepening holiness. By cultivating a meek and Christlike temper, by pursuing a lowly, circumspect walk, and by laying yourself out for the happiness of man, and for the glory of God, prove, to the eternal confusion of all its enemies and slanderers, that the "grace of God that brings salvation, and has appeared unto all men, teaches us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present world."

Be the bold and holy champion of this grace, glorying in its principle, and practically illustrating its sanctifying power. Where others pervert it, you must vindicate it. Where others deny it, you must confess it. Where others tread it in scorn beneath their feet, you must lift it meekly up on high, as God's costliest bequest, man's richest inheritance. ''And they glorified God in me."

I would also caution you to beware of placing any limit whatever to the grace of Jesus. Be your circumstances what they may, remember that "God is able to make all grace abound towards you; that you, always having all sufficiency in all things, may abound to every good work." Make no allowance for sin, frame no excuses for inactivity- shrink from no cross, be disheartened by no difficulty, give place to no temptation, yield to no excessive grief, for Jesus has spoken it, and He now speaks it to you, "My grace is sufficient for you." Since, then, the grace of Jesus is illimitable, take a vessel of large capacity with you in your journeyings, to the one source of supply, that you may receive abundantly. Remember that, as a believer in the Lord Jesus, "All things are for your sake, that the abundant grace might, through the thanksgiving of many, redound to the glory of God"

Let your life be a perpetual traveling to this grace. Do not be satisfied with what you have already received. Go, again and yet again, to this Divine Vessel, taking every corruption as it is developed, every sin as it is felt, every sorrow as it arises, to Jesus; remembering for your encouragement, that though you have received much, yet "he gives more grace," and is prepared to give you much more than you have yet received.

Rejoice that the emptiness of the vessel is no plea against the filling of the vessel. If the Spirit of God has made you 'poor in spirit,' has wrought in you a 'hungering and a thirsting for righteousness,' betake yourself to the grace of Jesus. He does not want the full vessel, nor does the full vessel want Him. "He fills the hungry with good things, and the rich he sends empty away." He invites, He draws, He receives none but the empty. He will have all the glory of our salvation. He will magnify His grace in the creature's nothingness. Your emptiness shall eternally glorify His fulness. With the example and the words before me of him who styled himself the I chief of sinners, I hesitate not to encourage the greatest sinner to come to Christ. "Who was before a blasphemer, and a persecutor, and injurious: but I obtained mercy. . . . And the grace of our Lord was exceeding abundant with faith and love which are in Christ Jesus. This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief." Truly might he exclaim, "By the grace of God I am what I am."

Beware, then, I beseech you, of going to Christ for salvation in any other character than an empty sinner. Had the vessels been brought to Elisha other than empty, he would instantly have refused them, filled though they had been with ambrosia itself. Nothing should mingle with the oil. Nothing should shade the luster of the miracle. And so is it with the grace of Jesus. Brilliant genius, profound erudition, costly benevolence, and the purest ethics of natural religion, avail nothing in the matter of the soul's salvation. It is the ambrosia of which the vessel must be emptied before it comes to Christ. It must all be laid aside as constituting a plea of acceptance. The only plea admissible with Christ is, that without His grace you perish forever. "Lord, save, or I perish!"

We are now conducted to our final topic. There is a day approaching when 'every vessel of mercy' being filled, THE GRACE ITSELF WILL CEASE TO FLOW; there will be no more conferring of grace, because there will be no more recipients. "And he said unto her, There is not a vessel more. And the oil stopped." Until then, this grace will go on multiplying its subjects, increasing its conquests, and augmenting the Savior's glory. Then let us task our noblest energies, and employ our best exertions, in spreading abroad through all lands the knowledge of this Redeemer, so full of grace and truth. Let the tidings spread- let the widow and the fatberless hear it- let those who are ready to perish hear it- let the most distant and the most degraded tribe of man hear it- let the slave in his chains, the African in his lair, the Hottentot in his bush, the Indian in his prairie, the Hindoo in his jungle, the Greenlander amid his snows, and the Chinese bowing in his temple- yes, let a ruined and a famishing world, with trumpet tongue, hear it- that there is for every penitent a fulness of saving grace in Christ Jesus, and that "whoever will, may come and partake of the water of life freely."

Oh! why are not Christians broader awake to this God-like enterprise? Why are we not consecrating more talent and more time, more property and more personal influence, to the work of spreading abroad the knowledge of Christ?
"Glories will be his diadem,
And songs of ecstasies unknown,
Who forms for God one beauteous gem,
To sparkle on the eternal throne."

But let us for a moment transport our thoughts to the future. The future! Oh how bright it is, and full of blessing, to the "vessels of mercy prepared beforehand unto glory!" The grace ceasing on earth, is now followed by an exceeding and eternal weight of glory. He who has tasted that the Lord is gracious, shall assuredly see that the Lord is glorious! ''How may we know," is often a trembling inquiry, "that our departed friends are with Jesus?" Were they partakers, in the most limited degree, of the grace of Jesus? then, their safety is beyond all doubt. The grace which they possessed was the seedling, the germ, the first-fruits of glory. The light which illumined their souls, was the twilight dawn of heaven. It was utterly impossible that that germ could die, or that that light could be extinguished. It was as imperishable and as immortal as God Himself. The weak grace battled with sin, and the feeble light struggled with darkness, but both conquered at last. There they are- standing on the sea of glass, chanting the high praises of the grace that brought them there. Yonder they are- in the Father's house, in the Savior's mansions; they conflict no more, they weep no more, they hunger and thirst no more; for He who once gave them grace, now gives them glory.

"Grace is glory militant, and glory is grace triumphant; grace is glory begun, glory is grace made perfect; grace is the first degree of glory, glory is the highest degree of grace." Lift up your heads, you gracious souls! Heaven is before you, and your full redemption draws near. The Lord is at hand. His coming is near. That 'blessed hope' of the church, His 'glorious appearing,' will soon be realized, bursting upon your soul in all its blissful splendor, and then you shall be perfectly like, and forever with, the Lord.

But should you go to Him, before He returns to you- for if Jesus does not come for you, He will send for you- fear not th descend the dark valley, already trodden by your Lord and Savior. Dying grace is bound up in the covenant of grace; and Jesus, full of grace, to the last moment, will be there to dispense it to your need, His left hand under your head, and His right hand embracing you. "Until the day break, and the shadows flee away, get to the mountain of myrrh, and to the hill of frankincense."

Faith in God

Then Jesus said to the disciples, "Have faith in God." Mark 11:22

In laying the foundation of our faith in Himself, God has made it as firm and durable as Deity itself. Had He proposed for our confidence another and an inferior object, it had been but a mockery of the necessity and the woe He sought to relieve, the most bitter and humiliating. Faith is a divine principle. The object of its trust must necessarily be Divine. It is its privilege, as its boast, that all its concerns are transacted with Deity. It deals with nothing less. It is the queen grace of the royal priesthood, its home is the king's palace, and its position is always near, and its communion is always directly and exclusively with, the King himself. Descending from God, its tendencies are ever ascending to God. It struggles upward from the lowest degree, fighting its way through a host of the fiercest and most formidable foes, until it reaches Him, its Divine and blissful object. This will account for the indestructibleness of the principle of real faith; springing from, it is perpetually nourished by, God.

The church of the Apocalypse, driven into the wilderness, and nourished there, may illustrate the life of faith. It cannot really perish. Its operations may for a season be embarrassed, its actings for a while suspended, its pulsations fluctuating and tremulous, its oppositions and its trials formidable and severe, but it cannot perish. No power can draw it entirely away from God. Voyaging to the better land, faith is the believing soul's compass. The needle points to God, its one object and center. Nothing can divert it. As you cannot destroy the magnetic principle, although you may for a while disturb the regularity of its movement by the false attraction of a foreign object, so does true faith defy all annihilating power. Its movements may for a moment be tremulous, and its pointing not always true- for example, when second causes and creature confidence interpose between it and God- but relieve it of its pressure, and remove its false attraction, and, like the magnetic needle left to its free and uncontrolled operation, it will return again to its center, and point once more to its God.

And yet no exhortation does the believer more constantly need than that which has suggested the theme of the present chapter. In consequence of the many and sharp trials of faith, the temptations by which it is assailed, and the difficulties with which it has to cope, we require those inspiring words of the Savior to be ever sounding in our ears, "Have faith in God." And in what, my Christian reader, does this high exercise of the soul consist? Need I remark- and yet of elementary truths we should never lose sight- that it commences with the very first principle of the Gospel, ''Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ?" Our Lord embodies the same important sentiment in His remarkable words, "You believe in God, believe also in me." All professed faith in the Father, which ascribes not equal glory to the Son, is an awful delusion. Faith approaches God by Christ. Through this medium only can it behold Him. By this door only can it enter and hold audience with God. A faith, so called, that excludes the Savior, and by sequence denies the atonement, will make shipwreck of the soul whose course to eternity it proposes to steer; guided by such a compass, its doom is fixed and fearful- it must eventually strand the noble vessel upon the bleak, dark shores of eternity. It never will conduct it to the haven of eternal blessedness. As a sinner, what confidence can I have in the holy Lord God apart from faith in the atoning Savior? He is so great, so holy, and so true, that I cannot, I dare not approach Him, except through the mediation of One whom He has appointed and accepted. "I think of God and am troubled." Sin makes me afraid, but when I see the sin atoning blood upon the mercy-seat, and when God sees the sin-cleansing blood upon my soul, there is agreement, there is confidence, there is peace, there is fellowship. "How can two walk together except they be agreed?" Impossible! Here, then, is the ground-work of faith in God- believing with all the heart in the Lord Jesus Christ.

And now, supposing myself to be addressing a true believer in Jesus, I would endeavor to open up to his mind this- the great principle of all holiness and happiness- faith in God. Have faith in Him 'as God'. His character justifies it, His word invites it, His promises encourage it, His Son imparts it, His Spirit creates it, His blessing crowns it. How frequently in the word does God condescend to invite the exercise of faith in Himself by a declaration, and on the ground of what He is! Thus to Abraham: "And when Abram was ninety-nine years old, the Lord appeared to Abram, and said unto him, I am the Almighty God: walk before me, and be perfect." And again to His Church: "I am the Lord God, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt; open your mouth wide, and I will fill it."

How kind and condescending in God is this mode of asking and encouraging the confidence of His people! How signally does He come down to our weakness and infirmity! What a foundation for faith to build upon does He reveal; what a field for faith to work in does He open; what amplitude, what scope, and what riches amid which it may revel! "I am God all-sufficient. Is anything too hard for me?" Faith needs and asks no more. Less than this would not meet its case; more than this it could not have. When faith feels that it has God's word for its warrant in believing, God's command for its rule in obeying, God's promise for its encouragement in suffering, and God Himself as the foundation of its confidence and the center of its rest, it becomes invulnerable, and almost omnipotent.

The exact measure of our faith is the extent of our experimental knowledge of God. Acquaintance with God must inspire the mind with confidence in Him. The more truly we know, the more implicitly we trust in Him. It is in this way, among others, that He answers the prayer of His people, "Establish your word unto your servant, who is devoted to your fear." God establishes the truth of His word by enlarging the believer's knowledge of Himself, and this knowledge is mainly attained through the truth. The word reveals God, and an experimental knowledge of God confirms the truth of the word; the one thus establishing the other. Our faith, then, if it be a real principle, must have respect to God 'as God'. "Have faith in God." Acquaint yourself now with God, and be at peace; thereby good shall come unto you."

We have already hinted that true faith in God supposes Him reconciled in Christ. This is the ground-work of all holy, humble converse with God. But here we must be cautious of placing a limit, as, too many do. It is a great display of sovereign grace, that we should have peace with God. God reconciled to us in Jesus is, of all Divine and experimental truths, the greatest. Until this is experienced, we can affirm of no individual that he is safe for eternity. Yet, alas! what numbers reject this truth, and still dream on of heaven! But great as is this grace, it is not less our mercy to be advancing, on the ground of assured peace, to more matured attainments in universal holiness. We are, at best, but dull scholars in the science of spiritual arithmetic. We have imperfectly learned one of its first rules, that of adding grace to grace. "Giving all diligence," exhorts the apostle, "add to your faith virtue". Peace through the atoning blood being obtained, the movement is to be progressive, the course onward; each day, if possible, augmenting the measure of our grace, and adding to the number of the Spirit's graces.

Reconciliation with God is but the starting-post in the Divine life, not the goal; it is the commencement, and not the end of our course. In other words, vast numbers rest in their first reception of Christ. They are hopefully converted, they unite themselves with a particular section of the church of God, and settle down under an attached ministry. But here they seem to abide. There is no advance, no progress, no forgetting of the things that are behind, pressing upwards to higher rounds in the glorious ladder, which a gracious Father has let down out of heaven, by which we may ascend to heaven. Content with having placed the foot upon the first step, there they remain. There is no "following on to know the Lord." And yet why has the Lord removed the burden from the shoulder, but that we might mount upward? Why has He broken the chains from our feet, but that we may go forward? Thus are we constantly forgetting that the cross is our starting-point in our race- and yet ever to be kept in view; while holiness, breathed after upon earth, and in some blessed degree attained, but perfected in heaven, is our bright and certain goal.

Again, the exhortation of our Lord warrants the most implicit reliance upon the 'Divine faithfulness'. To have faith in God necessarily implies faith in Him as a God of truth. Hence the security which the believer possesses, that all that God has promised, He will assuredly perform. He has made all His covenant engagements to rest upon His faithfulness. With what frequency and earnestness He alludes to this! "God is not a man that he should lie, neither the son of man that he should repent: has he said, and shall he not do it? Or has he spoken, and shall he not make it good?" "I have spoken it; I will also bring it to pass; I have purposed it, I will also do it." ''Nevertheless my loving-kindness will I not utterly take from him, nor allow my faithfulness to fail. My covenant will I not break, nor alter the thing that is gone out of my lips." ''Once have I sworn that I will not lie unto David." "If we believe not, yet he abides faithful; he cannot deny himself."

But precious as these words are, they are only Divine asseverations of the truth. Faith has something still more substantial and firm to rest upon; something even superior to the averment of the promise- even the faithfulness of the Divine Promiser Himself. Here it is that faith has its stronghold- not the word of God merely, but the God of the word. God must be faithful, because He is essentially true and immutable. "He cannot deny Himself." "God that cannot lie." "It is impossible for God to lie." What asseverations of any truth can be stronger? And now, O believer, have faith in God, as true to His word, and faithful to His promise. Has the Spirit, the Comforter, caused your soul to rely upon His promises, to hope in His word? Have you nothing but the naked declaration to bear you up? Stand fast to this word, for God, who cannot lie, stands by to make it good.

Have faith in His faithfulness. In doubting Him, you cannot dishonor Him more. If to discredit the word of man, were an impeachment of His veracity, and that impeachment were the darkest blot that you could let fall upon His character; what must be the dishonor done to God by a poor sinful mortal, distrusting His faithfulness, and questioning His truth! But, "God is faithful." Have faith in Him as such. He is engaged to bring to perfection that which concerns you, to supply all your need, to guide your soul through the wilderness, to protect your head in the day of battle, and to guide you to ultimate victory, and rest. Oh, trust Him! It is all that He asks of you. Is it now with you a day of trouble? a time of trial? a season of pressure? Is your position perilous? Are your present circumstances embarrassed? Now is the time to trust in the Lord. "Call upon me in the day of trouble, and I will answer you, and will deliver you, and you shall glorify me."

Oh if God were to speak audibly to you at this moment, methinks these would be the words that He would utter: "Have faith in my faithfulness. Have I ever been untrue to my engagements, false to my word, forgetful of my covenant, neglectful of my people? Have I been a wilderness to you? What evil have you found in me, what untruth, what wavering, what instability, what change, that you do not now trust me, in this the time of your need? " Oh let your soul be humbled that you should ever have doubted the veracity, have distrusted the faithfulness of your God. ''But though we believe not, yet he abides faithful, he cannot deny himself." "A God of truth and without iniquity, just and right is he."

In all His dispensations- the severest and the darkest- have faith in God. This is, perhaps, one of the greatest achievements of faith. To believe in God when He smiles, to trust in Him when conscious of His nearness, to have faith in Him when the path is flowery and pleasant, is an easy task. But to have faith in Him when He 'holds back the face of his throne, and spreads his cloud upon it;' to love Him when He frowns; to follow Him when He withdraws; to cleave to Him when He would seem to shake us off; to trust in Him when His arm is raised to slay- this is faith indeed.

And yet all this the faith of God's elect can achieve. If not, of what value is it? Of what possible use to the mariner would be the compass which would only work in the day, and not in the night? which only served to steer the vessel in light winds, and not in rough winds? Faith, as we have already shown, is the believing soul's compass, guiding it as truly and as certainly to the heavenly port through the wildest tempest, as through the serenest calm.

To change the figure, faith is that celestial telescope which can pierce the thickest haze or the darkest cloud, out-distancing suns and stars glowing and sparkling in the far distance. It can discern God's smile under a frown; it can read His name to be 'love' beneath the dark dispensation; it can behold the Sun of Righteousness beaming through the interstices of the gloomy clouds; and now and then it can catch a glimpse of the harbor itself, and the towering turrets and golden spires of the 'new Jerusalem' glittering in the distance. Oh it is a wonderful grace, the precious faith of God's elect!

Is God dealing with you now in a way of deep trial, of dark providence, mysterious to your mind, and painful to your heart? Is He even chastening you for your backslidings, correcting you for your sins? Still "have faith in God." Sensible appearances, second causes, cannot in the least degree affect the ground of your faith, which, as we have shown, is God Himself- His immutable nature, His unchangeable love, His eternal purpose, His everlasting covenant, His own Divine and glorious perfections. Believe that you are in His heart, and that your interests are in His hands. Have faith in His wisdom to guide, in His love to direct, in His power to sustain, in His faithfulness to fulfil every promise that now relates to your best welfare and happiness.

Only believe in God that all things in His disposal of you, in His transactions with you, are working together for your present and eternal good. All that He expects and requires of you now, is to have faith in Him. The cloud may be dark, the sea tempestuous, but God is in the cloud, and "the Lord sits upon the flood." Even now it is the privilege of your faith to exclaim, "My soul, hope in God. He is my God, I will trust in him and not be afraid."

Oh, what inspiring words are these- "hope in God!" I hesitate not to say, my reader, you may hope in God. Though your case may seem desperate, to your eye cheerless and hopeless, not merely too intricate for man, but too unworthy for God, yet you may hope in God. Take your case to Him, hoping against hope, and believing in unbelief. Will He close His heart against you? Never! Will He repel you when you fly to Him? Never! It is not in the heart of God, no, nor is it in His power, to do so. Take hold of His strength- I speak it humbly, reverentially- and you have overcome God. You disarm Him of the instrument and of the power to punish you; you have laid your hand of faith upon the strength of His love, and have made peace with Him. You cannot cherish a hope too glowing, nor exercise a faith too implicit in God; hopeless, cheerless, and extreme as your case may seem to be. Impossible! God never appears so like Himself as in the season of the believer's darkness and suffering. At the very moment in which He sees the least of God, God appears the most what He is. The tenderest unfoldings of His heart are in sorrow, the brightest exhibitions of His character are in darkness, and the most glorious displays of His wisdom, power, and grace are seen looming through the mist.

Have faith in God, as the answerer of prayer. "This is the confidence that we have in him," says the apostle, "that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us; and if we know that he hears us, whatever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we desired of him." And what is the true prayer which the believing soul breathes, which Jesus presents, and which God answers?- is it not the prayer of faith? Unbelieving prayer is powerless with God. It prevails not. It is as the discharge of the rifle uncharged with the bullet- there is the transient flash, but there is no execution. Such is prayer without faith.

But believing prayer is prevailing, successful prayer. It assails the kingdom of heaven with holy violence, and carries it as by storm. It believes that God has both the heart and the arm; both the love that moves Him, and the power that enables Him, to do all and to grant all that His pleading child requests of Him. We may mention a few of the attributes of believing prayer. It is real prayer, because it is the expression of need. It springs from a felt necessity of the mercy which it craves. It is sincere prayer, welling up from a soul schooled in the knowledge of its deep poverty and need.

Oh, how much passes for real prayer which is not prayer! It is not the breathing of the soul, nor the language of the heart, nor the expression of need. There is in it no true approach to God, no thirsting for Christ, no desire for holiness. Were God to bestow the things which had been so thoughtlessly and heartlessly asked, the individual would be taken by surprise.

The prayer of faith is importunate and persevering. It will not take a refusal. It will not be put off with a denial. Thus Jacob wrestled with the Angel of the covenant until he prevailed- "I will not let you go until you bless me." Thus the woman of Canaan would not release the Savior from her hold until He had granted her suit- "If I am a dog, satisfy me with the crumbs." And thus, too, the man who besieged the house of his friend at midnight for bread, and did not leave until he obtained it; and the oppressed widow, who sought justice at the hands of the unrighteous and reluctant judge until he righted her, illustrate the nature of that prayer; even earnest, persevering prayer, which prevails with God, and obtains the blessing.

Believing prayer is humble. How low in the dust the truly importunate suppliant lies before God! There is nothing of bold ruffianism, of unholy freedom, in the cases of earnest prayer which we have cited. There is no irreverence of manner, nor familiarity of speech, nor rushing into God's holy presence as if He were an equal; but rather that awful consciousness of the Divine presence, that profound spirit of self-abasement, which seems to say, "How dreadful is this place!" "Behold, I am vile; what shall I answer you? I will lay my hand upon my mouth." Oh, how low is the heart from where arises the incense of believing prayer! How utterly unworthy it feels of the least of all the Lord's mercies; how unfit to be a channel of grace to others; and with what trembling it lies prostrate upon the spot where God, the Triune God, is passing by! ''Do not be rash with your mouth, and let not your heart be hasty to utter anything before God: for God is in heaven, and you upon earth: therefore let your words be few."

Submission is another attribute of the prayer of faith. Its utmost range of request is bounded, and its deepest fervor of spirit is chastened, by submission to the Divine will. It presumes neither to dictate to God, nor to counsel Him. It leaves the mode of answering its petitions- the time, the place, the way- with God. Trained, perhaps, in the school of bitter disappointment, it has learned to see as much love in God's heart in withholding as in granting its requests, as much wisdom in delaying as in promptly bestowing the blessing. And seeing that delays in prayer are not denials of prayer, he that believes makes not haste to anticipate the Divine mind, or to antedate the Divine blessing. "Your will, not mine, be done," ever breathes from the praying lip of faith.

Yet another, and the crowning attribute of believing prayer, is that it is presented in the name of Jesus. As it is life from God through Christ, so through Christ it is life breathed back again to God. It approaches the Divine Majesty by the 'new and the living way,' its mighty argument, and its one prevailing plea- the atoning blood of Jesus. This is the ground of its boldness, this the reason of its nearness, and this the secret of its power and success. "Whatever you shall ask in my name," observes Christ, "that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son."

Such, my reader, are some of the features of the prayer of faith. Are you not prepared to exclaim, "What a glorious privilege, then, is prayer!" Ah, yes! and you may add, "What mighty power, too, it possesses!" The power of a holy wrestler with God approaches the nearest to an act of omnipotence of any display of finite might whatever. Angelic mightiness must be weakness itself in comparison. What eloquence in that one word 'Father,' lisped in believing prayer! Demosthenes and Cicero, consumed in the blaze and conflagration of their own eloquence, never surpassed, no, never equaled it. It is breathed- and heaven's door expands; it is uttered again- and the heart of God flies open. With such a key in the hands of faith which may at any moment unlock the treasury of God, as prayer, why do we not oftener use it? Oh that the Spirit of God might stir us up to more earnest prayer! teaching us to enshrine everything, to envelope everything, to pervade and saturate everything in the heart and with the spirit of humble, importunate, believing prayer. Oh what real gainers should we be, did we, "in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let our requests be made known unto God!" "For what nation is there so great, who has God so near unto them, as the Lord our God is in all things that we call upon him for?"

In a word, my Christian reader, "have faith in God" at all times and in all things. This is the utmost that He asks at your hands. No unreasonable, or impossible requirement. Would Jesus have limited you to this single duty, making your whole happiness for both worlds dependent upon it, were it so? Never! Relinquishing your own wisdom, resting from your own toil, and ceasing from man, God would have you now cast yourself upon Him in simple faith, for all things. You have had faith in the creature, and it has disappointed you; faith in earthly good, and it has faded away; faith in your own heart, and it has deceived you. Now, have faith in God! Call upon Him in your trouble, try Him in your trial, trust Him in your need, and see if He will not honor the faith that honors Him. "HAVE FAITH IN GOD," -words of Jesus, oh how sweet! spoken to allure your chafed and weary spirit to its Divine and blessed rest. Press the kind message to your grateful heart, responding, in a strain of blended praise and prayer, ''Lord, I believe; help my unbelief."

"All joy to the believer, He can speak
Trembling, yet happy; confident, yet meek.
Since the dear hour that brought me to Your foot,
And cut up all my follies by the root,
I never trusted in an arm but Thine,
Nor hoped, but in Your righteousness divine.
My prayers and alms, imperfect and defiled,
Were but the feeble efforts of a child;
However performed, it was their brightest part,
That they proceeded from a grateful heart.

Cleansed in Your own all-purifying blood,
Forgive their evil, and accept their good;
I cast them at Your feet- my only plea
Is what it was, dependence upon Thee.
While struggling in the vale of tears below,
That never failed, nor shall it fail me now.
Angelic gratulations rend the skies;
Pride falls unpitied, never more to rise;
Humility is crowned, and FAITH receives the prize."

"God, Comforting the Disconsolate"

"God, who comforts those that are cast down." -2 Cor. 5:6

What an untold blessing to one believer may be the dealings of God with another! As 'no man lives to himself,' so no Christian is tried and supported, wounded and healed, disciplined and taught, for himself alone. God designs by His personal dealings with us to expound some law of His government, and to convey some lesson of instruction to the mind, or to pour some stream of consolation into the heart of others. Thus the experience of one child of God may prove the channel of peculiar and immense blessing to many. God, in this arrangement, is but acting in accordance with a law of our nature of His own creating- the law of individual and reciprocal influence. No individual of the human family occupies in the world a position isolated and alone. He is a part of an integral system. He is a member of a complete and vast community. He is a link in a mighty and an interminable chain. He cannot think, nor speak, nor move, nor act, without affecting the interests and the well-being, it may be, of myriads. By that single movement, in the utterance of that one thought, in the enunciation of that great truth, He has sent a thrill of sensation along an endless line of existence. Who can tell where individual influence terminates? Who can place his finger upon the last link that vibrates in the chain of intelligent being? What if that influence never terminates? What if that chain never ceases to vibrate? Solemn thought!

In another and a remote period, in a distant and an undiscovered region, the sentiment, the habit, the feeling, once, perhaps thoughtlessly and carelessly, set in motion, has gone on working for good or for evil, owned and blessed, or rejected and cursed, of Heaven. Nothing can recall it; no remorse, nor tears, nor prayers, can summon it back; no voice can persuade, no authority command it to return. It is working its way through myriads of minds to the judgment-seat, and is rushing onward, onward, ONWARD through the countless ages of eternity!

Thought is immortal. Its propagation is endless. It never dies, and it never ceases to act. The forest oak, beneath whose waving boughs we sit today, and which perhaps sheltered and shaded the Druid in his senseless worship centuries ago, owes its form, its species, and its tint, to the acorn which dropped from its remote ancestor. And still the seed is falling, and the winds, bearing it away, are dropping it where it will take root and spring up, and mount heavenwards, and extend its branches; and generations yet unborn will come and worship, perhaps the living and the true God, under its green foliage. Such is the history of personal character and of individual influence. Borne along upon the stream of time, who can calculate the good, or compute the evil, or descry the end of a single life? My soul! aim to live in view of this solemn thought!

But especially is this true of the child of God. He belongs to a people within a people, to a church within a church, to a kingdom within a kingdom- designated as a "chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a peculiar people." In this separate and hidden community, there is a Divine cement, an ethereal bond of union, which unites and holds each part to the whole, each member to the body in the closest cohesion and unity. The apostle more than recognizes- he emphatically asserts this truth, when, speaking of the church of God, he describes it as the "whole body fitly joined together, and compacted by that which every joint supplies."

And again, when speaking of the sympathetic influence of the Church, he says, ''And when one member suffers, all the, members suffer with it." And so also of the consolation. When Paul penned the letter to the church at Corinth, now under consideration, he was with his companions in circumstances of deep trial. He was 'cast down,' and disconsolate. God sought to 'stay his rough wind in the day of his east wind' by sending to him an affectionate Christian minister and beloved brother. "Nevertheless," writes the apostle, in recording the fact, "God, who comforts those who are cast down, comforted us by the coming of Titus." He who wrote these words has long since been in glory; and yet the experience he then traced upon the page, has been, and is still, telling upon the instruction, the comfort, and the holiness of millions, and will go on telling until time shall be no more.

Remember, my reader, you must depart this world, but your influence will survive you. Your character and works, when dead, will be molding the living; and they, in their turn, will transmit the lineaments and the form of a mind whose thoughts never perish, to the remotest posterity. "He being dead yet speaks." What an expressive epitaph! A truer sentiment, and one more solemn, never breathed from the marble tablet. The dead never die! Their memory speaks! Their character speaks! Their works speak, and speak forever!

But WHO ARE THOSE WHOM GOD COMFORTS? They are the 'cast down,' or, in other words, the HUMBLE. Their deeper humiliation is the great end, as it regards themselves, which God has in view in all His dealings with His people. "You shall remember all the way which the Lord your God led you these forty years in the wilderness, to humble you, and to test you, to know what was in your heart." The first step which God takes in this work of humiliation is in conversion. The great casting down of a man is when he is brought by the Eternal Spirit to see his true state as a sinner before God. When the mind is convinced of sin, and contrition bows the spirit, and self-righteousness falls before the cross, and Jesus is received into the heart, and the man ascribes his salvation solely to the free and discriminating grace of God- then it is that the great humiliation, the true casting down of the soul, takes place.

What a spectacle of spiritual beauty is this! To witness an idolatrous Manasseh, a proud Nebuchadnezzar, a self-righteous Saul, a covetous Zaccheus, trampling their own glory in the dust, and 'praising and extolling and honoring the King of heaven,' taking their stand upon the finished work of Jesus, and ascribing their recovery to the sovereign mercy of that God whom they had hated; must add delight to the inhabitants of heaven, as it does glory to heaven itself. Such humble souls God lifts up. Passing by the lofty, whom He disdains, and the self-sufficient, upon whose boasting He pours His withering contempt, He will show to the world that to "to this man will he look, even to him who is of an humble and a contrite spirit, and who trembles at his word." "And all the trees of the field shall know that I the Lord have brought down the high tree, have exalted the low tree, have dried up the green tree, and have made the dry tree to flourish: I the Lord have spoken it and have done it." This, then, is the first step which God takes in the true humiliation of the soul. With a view to 'hide pride from man,' the Lord veils his eye to his own 'imaginary' greatness, and opens it to his real deformity. "The loftiness of man is bowed down, and the haughtiness of men is made low: and the Lord alone is exalted in that day."

But in the subsequent and more advanced stages of the Christian life, we find much into the experience of which the believer is brought, tending to cast down the people of God. Without minutely describing the many causes of soul-disquietude which exist, we may group together in one view those, the most fruitful, which conspire to this casting down of the spirit. We may mention, as among the most powerful, the clinging body of sin, to which his renewed spirit is enchained, from which it sighs to be delivered, but from which death only frees it; consequently, there is the daily battle with a heart of unbelief, incessantly departing from God. Then there are the labyrinths of the desert, the straitness of the narrow way, the 'fears within, and the fightings without,' the trials of faith, the chastisements of love, the offence of the cross, the intricacies of truth, the woundings of the world, the unkindnesses of the saints, and the varied trials and afflictions of the wilderness- all these create oftentimes great disquietude and despondency of soul.

And when to these are added the yet more painful and humbling remembrance of his sins since conversion, his stumblings and falls, his unkind requitals of God's love, the base returns which he has made, and the deep ingratitude which he has felt for all the divine goodness, and the consequent hidings of God's face, and the withdrawments of Christ's presence, he exclaims in the bitterness of his spirit, "My soul is cast down within me." Ah! there is no humiliation like that which a sight and sense of sin produces, the heart laid open and the soul laid low before God. The world's bitter scorn, the creature's cold neglect, are nothing in comparison. In the one case, the heart is only mortified; in the other, it is truly humbled. The one is a feeling that has to do with man only- the other is an emotion that has to do with God.

And when once the believer is solemnly conscious of acting beneath the eye of God, the gaze of other eyes affects him but slightly. Oh how little do some professors deport themselves as though they had to do only with God! How imperfectly do they look upon sin as God looks upon it! But did they live more as setting the Lord always before them, how superior would they rise to the poor opinion of their fellow-sinners! To them it would then appear a very little matter to be judged of man's judgment.

Thus the 'soul of the people is much discouraged because of the way.' Ah! how imperfectly we know the history of a single believer! What gloomy despondency of mind, what deep anguish of spirit, what hidden sorrow of heart, and what painful trials, too personal and too sacred to reveal to another eye, may form the path along which the lonely traveler is pensively treading his way to God- no one knowing, and no one suspecting it! And then in this hidden path how little real sympathy is gathered from the creature! "We have but few companions with us," remarks a beloved minister of Christ. Enlarge your heart as you will in love towards the family of God- take an extended view, pray for a large heart, pray for width, pray for breadth, pray for largeness, yet beware of letting down the truth; and with that truth before you, you will be forced to acknowledge, 'few there be that find it.'

If a sound creed, if clear views of doctrine, if a little alteration of conduct, if addicting ourselves to a denomination; if this is Christianity, then we must change the text, and confess many 'there are many that find it.' But if Christianity is walking with God, living on Christ, aiming to please Him, if it be those who 'know the plague of their own hearts,' and feel sin to be their burden; if this be the characteristic of the family of God, that the desire of their souls is to consecrate themselves to the God who loved them and gave His Son to die for them- then it still remains a solemn truth, 'Few there be that find it.'

Some who once walked with us, have dropped away; they walk with us no more. Some have never walked with us, though they walk with Christ; they have out-walked us, out-run us, out-talked us. Some rejoice so much, they seem but little affected by the inward plague, though they may yet have to endure it, and will, if they are the children of God; and some there are that think so much of their plague, they never rejoice. We can have but little communion with them. And some have dropped away, gone away, because they have entered upon their holy home. Some- oh! it is touching- some that walked once with us to the house of God, and 'with whom we took sweet counsel'- where are they? In the world! Awful, fearful thought! Oh! it is among the things that make us feel our path to be a trying path; and oftentimes our 'soul is much discouraged because of the way.'

But if there is much to cast down the child of God, there is more to lift him up. If in his path to glory there are many causes of soul despondency, of heart-sorrow, and mental disquietude, yet in that single truth- God comforts the disconsolate- He has an infinite counterbalance of consolation, joy, and hope. That GOD COMFORTS THOSE WHO ARE CAST DOWN, His own truth declares. It is in His heart to comfort them, and it is in His power to comfort them. He blends the desire, deep and yearning, with the ability, infinite and boundless. Not so with the fondest, tenderest creature. The sorrow is often too deep and too sacred for human sympathy to reach. But what is fathomless to man, is a shallow to God. I have said, that it is in the heart of God to comfort His people. Everything that He has done to promote their comfort proves it. He has commanded His ministers to 'speak comfortably to them.' He has sent forth His word to comfort them. He has laid up all comfort and consolation for them in the Son of His love. And in addition to all this, He has given them His own Spirit to lead them to the Divine sources of 'all consolation' which He has provided.

Who could comfort the disconsolate but God? Who could effectually undertake their case but Himself? He only knows their sorrow, and He only could meet it. There is not a moment that God is not bent upon the comfort of 'those who are cast down.' All His dealings with them tend to this- even those that appear adverse and contrary. Does He wound?- it is to heal. Does He cause deep sorrow?-it is to turn that sorrow into a deeper joy. Does He empty?- it is to fill. Does He cast down?- it is to lift up again. Such is the love that moves Him, such is the wisdom that guides Him, and such too is the end that is secured in the Lord's disciplinary conduct with His people.

Dear reader, so interesting is this thought, I know not how to relinquish it- that it is in God's loving heart to speak comfortably to your sorrowful heart. Let but the Holy Spirit enable you to receive this truth in simple faith; and your grief, be its cause and its degree what they may, is more than half assuaged. Not a word may yet be spoken by the 'God of all comfort,' not a cloud may be dispersed, nor a difficulty be removed; yet to be assured by the Divine Comforter that the heart of God yearns over you, and that consolation is sparkling up from its infinite depths, waiting only the command to pour its stream of joyousness into your sorrow-stricken bosom, and it is enough. Yes, I repeat it- for every reiteration of so precious a truth must still be but a faint expression of its magnitude- it is in the loving heart of God to lift up your disconsolate soul from the dust. Listen to His words- there is melody in them such as David's harp spoke not when its soft and mellow strains soothed the perturbed spirit of Saul- "I, even I, am he who comforts you." Mark with what earnestness He makes this declaration. How solicitous does He appear to impress this truth upon the heart- that to comfort His own tried saints, is His sole prerogative, and His infinite delight. "I, even I, am he who comforts you."

But as it regards THE COMFORT ITSELF with which God comforts the disconsolate, how much have we yet to learn touching both its nature and the channel through which in His sovereignty it may flow to us. How prone is the believer to attach an undue importance to the mere 'instrument' of comfort! To give place to the feeling that when comfort vanishes, all other good vanishes with it- thus, in fact, making the real standing of the soul to depend upon an ever-fluctuating emotion. But let it be remembered that the comfort of grace may be suspended, and yet the existence of grace may remain; that the glory of faith may be beclouded, and yet the principle of faith continue.

Contemplate, as affording an illustrious example of this, our adorable Lord upon the cross. Was there ever sorrow like His sorrow? Was there ever desertion like His desertion? Every spring of consolation was dried up. Every beam of light was beclouded. All sensible joy was withdrawn. His human soul was now passing through its strange, its total eclipse. And still His faith hung upon God. Hear Him exclaim, "My God! my God! My Strong One! my Strong One!" His soul was in the storm -and oh what a storm was that! But it was securely anchored upon His Father. There was in His case the absence of all consolation, the suspension of every stream of comfort; and yet in this, the darkest cloud that ever enshrouded the soul, and the deepest sorrow that ever broke the heart, He stayed His soul upon God.

And why should the believer, the follower of Christ, when sensible comfort is withdrawn, cast away his confidence which has great recompense of reward?' Of what use is the anchor but to keep the vessel in the tempest? What folly were it in the mariner to weigh his anchor or to slip his cable when the clouds gather blackness, and the waves swell high! Then it is he most needs them both. It is true he has cast his anchor into the deep, and the depth hides it from his view; but though he cannot discern it through the foaming waves, still he knows that it is firmly fastened, and will keep his storm-tossed vessel from stranding upon a lee shore.

And why should the believer, when 'trouble is near,' and sensible comfort is withdrawn, resign his heart a prey to unbelieving fears, and cherish in his bosom the dark suspicion of God? Were not this to part with the anchor of his hope at the very moment that he the most needed it? I may not be able to pierce the clouds and look within the veil with an eye beaming with an undimmed and assured joy, but I know that the Forerunner is there; that the Priest is upon His throne; that Jesus is alive, and is at the right hand of God- then all is safe. Faith demands, hope expects, and love desires no more. I would have you, then, my reader, not overlook the truth that the covenant of grace has made provision for everything in the life of a child of God, especially for the life of suffering.

It strews the richest blessings, and the most profusely, upon the chequered path- the path inlaid with stones of various colors, and yet each one needful and most precious. "O you afflicted, tossed with tempest, and not comforted, behold, I will lay your stones with fair colors, and lay your foundations with sapphires." It is true that the covenant has anticipated as much the perilous season of prosperity, as the dark hour of adversity. But it always supposes the way to glory to be one of trial and of danger. A heavenly-minded man will learn to look upon the earthly distinction and wealth which the world, so lavish sometimes of its favors, may confer upon him, as a trial and a snare to one desirous of bearing the cross daily after his crucified Lord. And yet for this specific form of danger the covenant of grace amply provides. Be satisfied, my reader, with any station your God may assign you, believing that for every station in which He places His child, there is the grace peculiar to its exigencies, treasured up for him in the everlasting covenant.

We have now reached an interesting and important inquiry in the unfolding of our subject- HOW DOES GOD COMFORT THOSE WHO ARE CAST DOWN? His method is various. He adapts the comfort to the sorrow. He first writes the sentence of death upon all comfort outside of himself. If you have been accustomed to scrutinize narrowly God's way of dealing with you, you will often have marked this peculiar feature- that before He has unsealed the fountain, He has cut off the spring. In other words, He has suspended all human channels of comfort, preparatory to the fulfilment of His own exceeding great and precious promise, "I, even I, am he that comforts you." It was thus He dealt with His Church of old. ''Behold, I will allure her, and bring her into the wilderness, and speak comfortably to her." In that wilderness, as a 'woman of a sorrowful spirit,' she is brought: in that wilderness she is separated from her companions; yet in that dreary, lonely wilderness the God of all comfort speaks to her heart. And then follows the "song of the Lord in the strange land"- the music of the wilderness. "And she shall SING there, as in the days of her youth, and as in the day when she came up out of the land of Egypt."

This is one way by which God comforts the disconsolate. Overlook it not. It may be painful, humiliating, and trying to faith, but the issue, like all the conduct of our Heavenly Father, will be most blessed and holy. Is He now, in your case, writing the sentence of death upon all creature comfort? Does no eye pity you, no heart feel for you, no tongue address you, and is no hand outstretched to rescue you? Look now for God! for He is on the way, in the time of the creature's failure, Himself to comfort you.

By sealing a sense of pardon upon the conscience, God comforts the disconsolate. There is no comfort equal to this. As our deepest sorrow flows from a sense of sin, so our deepest joy springs from a sense of its forgiveness. What comfort can there be where this is lacking? what sorrow where this is felt? "When he gives quietness, who then can make trouble?" This was the comfort which God commanded the prophet to speak to His spiritual Jerusalem: "Say unto her, that her sins are forgiven." And this is the message which the Lord sends to His whole Church. This comfort have all His saints. Your sins, O believer, are forgiven. "I have blotted out your sins as a cloud, and your iniquities as a thick cloud," says God. You are not called upon to believe that God will pardon, but that He has pardoned you. Forgiveness is a past act; the sense of it written upon the conscience is a present one. "By one offering Jesus has perfected forever those who are sanctified," has forever put away their sins.

Faith in the blood of Jesus brings the soul into the possession of a present forgiveness. And when God the Holy Spirit thus imprints a sense of pardoned sin upon the troubled conscience, all other sorrows in comparison dwindle into insignificance. In all kinds of trouble, it is not the ingredients that God puts into the cup that so much afflict us, as the ingredients of our distempered passions mingled with them. The sting and the core of them all is sin: when that is not only pardoned, but in a measure healed, and the proud flesh eaten out, then a healthy soul will bear anything. After repentance, that trouble which before was a correction, becomes now a trial and exercise of grace. 'Strike, Lord,' says Luther; 'I can bear anything willingly because my sins are forgiven.' We should not be cast down so much about outward troubles, as about that sin, that both procures them and envenoms them. We see by experience, where conscience is once set at liberty, how cheerfully men will go under any burden: therefore labor to keep out sin, and then let come what will come.

Thus, beloved, God comforts His conscience-troubled people. He loves so to speak to their hearts. Is it any delight to Him to see you carrying your burden of conscious sin day after day, and week after week? Ah no! He has procured the means of your pardon at a great price- nothing less than the sacrifice of His beloved Son- and will not the same love which procured your forgiveness, speak it to your heart? Oh yes, the sun in the heavens pours not forth its light more freely, light itself speeds not more rapidly, the mountain stream rushes on not more gladsome and unfettered, than the pardon of sin flows from the heart of God to the humble and the contrite mourner. Is sin your trouble? Does conscious guilt cast you down? Look up, disconsolate soul! there is forgiveness with God. It is in His heart to pardon you. Repair to His feet, go to God's confessional, and over the head of the atoning sacrifice acknowledge your transgression, and He will forgive the iniquity of your sin.

And oh, what will be the joy of your heart, the music of your lips, the grateful surrender of yourself, when Jesus says, "Your sins are forgiven you, go in peace!" "Who is a God like unto you, who pardons iniquity, and passes by the transgression of the remnant of his heritage? he retains not his anger forever, because he delights in mercy."

God sometimes comforts the cast down, by bringing them to rest in the fulness and stability of the covenant. David was a man of great grace, a man after God's own heart, and yet he was deeply tried. The greater the amount of precious ore which the refiner places in his furnace, the severer the test to which he subjects it. This may explain what perhaps to some minds is a mystery in the Divine conduct- why the most distinguished saints have ever been the most tried saints. But see how God comforted David in the deepest trial which could wring a believing parent's heart. He had arranged, as he thought, for the best welfare of his family. God steps in, and disarranges all. Incest, treason, murder, are crimes which find an entrance within his domestic circle. His children make themselves vile, and he could not restrain them. What a cloud was now resting upon his tabernacle! How bitter were the waters he was now drinking! But see how God comforted him. "Although my house do not be so with God, yet he has made with me an everlasting covenant, ordered in all things, and sure: for this is all my salvation and all my desire; although he makes it (his house) not to grow."

Believer, this covenant is equally yours. You have the same individual interest in it that David had. The 'sure mercies' of the true David are yours as they were his. In the midst of domestic trial- family changes- thwarted designs- blighted hopes, God has made with you, in the hands of Jesus, its Surety and Mediator, an 'everlasting covenant.' In it your whole history is recorded by Him who knows the end from the beginning. All the events of your life, all the steps of your journey, all your sorrows and comforts, all your needs and supplies, are ordained in that covenant which is 'ordered in all things and sure.' And while mutability is a constituent element of everything temporal- 'passing away' written upon life's loveliest landscape, and upon the heart's fondest treasure, this, and this alone, remains 'sure,' and never passes away. Let, then, the covenant be your comfort and your stay, your sheet-anchor in the storm, the rainbow in your cloud, upon which God invites you to fix your believing eye; yes, all your salvation and all your desire, though He makes not domestic comfort to grow.

But of all the consolations which flow into the soul of the disconsolate, not the least is that he has a covenant God to go to in PRAYER. What can surpass this? What could supply its place? Nothing! In no way does God more effectually comfort those that are cast down than by drawing them to Himself! For this He has instituted prayer, sprinkled the mercy-seat with the blood of His Son, and sends the sweet promise and grace of His Spirit to invite and draw the disconsolate to Himself. A Christian when he is beaten out of all other comforts, has a God to run unto. A wicked man beaten out of earthly comforts, is as a naked man in a storm, and an unarmed man in the field, or as a ship tossed in the sea without an anchor, which presently dashes upon rocks or falls upon quicksands. But a Christian when he is driven out of all comforts below, no, when God seems to be angry with him; he can appeal from God angry to God appeased. He can wrestle and strive with God by God's own strength, can make use of His own weapons, and plead with God by His own arguments. What a happy estate is this! Who would not be a Christian, if it were but for this, to have something to rely on when all things else fail?

Approach, then, disconsolate soul! and pour out your sorrow to God in prayer. Your God is upon the throne of grace, and "waits that he may be gracious unto you." Then, "you shall weep no more: he will be very gracious unto you at the voice of your cry; when he shall hear it, he will answer you." Why are you then cast down? Trust in God- grace will be above nature, God above the devil, the Spirit above the flesh. Be strong in the Lord; the battle is His, and the victory ours beforehand. If we fought in our own cause and strength, and with our own weapons, it would be as nothing. But as we fight in the power of God, so are we kept by that mighty power through faith unto salvation. It lies upon the faithfulness of Christ, to put us into that possession of glory which He has purchased for us: therefore, charge your soul to make use of the promises and rely upon God for perfecting the good work that he has begun in you. Corruptions are strong, but stronger is He who is in us, than the corruption that is in us. When we are weak in our sense, then are we strong in Him who perfects strength in our weakness, felt and acknowledged. Our corruptions are God's enemies as well as ours; and, therefore, in trusting to Him, and fighting, we may be sure He will take our part against them.

Permit, in closing, A WORD OF AFFECTIONATE CAUTION AND COUNSEL. Take heed that it is God, and not man, who comforts you- that your consolation is divine, and not human. It may be the duty of your minister and the privilege of your friend to speak a promise to the ear, and to spread out before you the riches of divine comfort in the word; but it is the prerogative of the Holy Spirit alone to apply the promise, and to give a heartfelt possession of those comforts. Jealous of His love to you, and of the glory that belongs to Himself, God will delegate the office and commit the power of lightening the burden of your oppressed spirit, of soothing the sorrow of your disconsolate heart, to no created hand. "I, even I, am he that comforts you." "As one whom his mother comforts, so will I comfort you."

Beware, then, of a creature comfort, and of a false peace. Let no one comfort you but God Himself, and let nothing give you peace but the peace-speaking blood of Jesus. A wound may be covered, and yet not be healed; a promise may be spoken, and yet not be applied. To the God of all comfort, then, repair in your grief. To the precious blood of the Incarnate God go with your burden of sin. Oh, how welcome will you be, coming just as you are! How sacred will be your sorrow to His heart, how eloquent your pleadings to His ear, and how precious in His sight the simple childlike faith that severs you from all other dependences, and leads you to Him alone for comfort! Then will you exclaim- and not David's harp could discourse sweeter music- "My heart trusted in him, and I am helped. You have turned my mourning into dancing: you have taken off my sackcloth, and girded me with gladness; to the end that my glory may sing praise unto you, and not be silent. I love the Lord, because He has heard my voice and my supplications. Because he has inclined his ear unto me, therefore will I call upon him as long as I live."

In each season of casting down, ascend your watch-tower in the full expectation of an especial blessing. This would seem to be the order of God: "When men are cast down, then you shall say, There is lifting up." Expect great mercies through the medium of great trials; great comforts through great sorrows; deep sanctification from deep humiliation. All the trying dispensations of God in the histories of His people are preparatory to their greater grace. It was in this school the distinguished Apostle of the Gentiles was taught the greatest and holiest lesson of his life. Descending from the third heaven, all fragrant with its odors and glowing with its light, he was plunged into the deepest humiliation, in order that he might be instructed more thoroughly in that truth which he could not experimentally have learned even in Paradise itself- the sufficiency of Christ's grace to sustain the believer in the deepest trial.

Tried believer! Suffering saint! expect an especial blessing to your soul. If the Lord has led you in by the north gate, He will lead you out by the south gate. Dark though the cloud may be, and painful the path, have patience in your affliction, and God will give you a happy issue out of all your troubles. "Though your beginning was small, yet your latter end shall greatly increase." And, O blessed result, if sin is embittered, if holiness is sweetened, if some tyrant corruption is mortified, if communion with God is quickened, if Jesus is endeared, if your Father in heaven is glorified! "Why are you cast down, O my soul? and why are you disquieted within me? hope in God; for I shall yet praise him, who is the health of my countenance, and my God."

"My Father, O my Father, hear
Your poor unworthy child!
It is in Jesus I draw nigh,
In Jesus reconciled.
Bow down Your ear, my Father, bow;
No one can comfort me, but Thou."
"My Father, O my Father, hear!
In Him I venture nigh,
Who on the cross my sorrows bare,
Who sighs whenever I sigh.
Bow down Your ear, my Father, bow;
No one can comfort me, but Thou."
"My Father, O my Father, hear!
Strait is my thorny road;
Yet if I weep, ah! let no tear
Repine against my God.
Bow down Your ear, my Father, bow;
No one can comfort me, but Thou."
"My Father, O my Father, hear
This fickle heart control;
And let no idol love be there
O sanctify the whole!
Bow down Your ear, my Father, bow;
No one can comfort me, but Thou."
"My Father, O my Father, hear!
Subdue this self in me;
Let nothing that's dear, however dear,
Be dear compared with Thee.
Bow down Your ear, my Father, bow;
No one can comfort me, but Thou."
"My Father, O my Father, hear!
Possess me with Your love;
May I but glorify You here,
Then live with You above.
Bow down Your ear, my Father, bow;
No one can comfort me, but Thou."
"My Father, O my Father, hear!
And shall Your bosom be
My dwelling, while I sojourn here,
My home eternally?
Bow down Your ear, my Father, bow;
No one can comfort me, but Thou."
"And shall I see Your face,
Low at Your footstool lie,
Forever rest in Your embrace,
In perfect purity?
Thine ear, my Father, You do bow;
Yes, You do comfort, none but Thou."

"Christ's Intercession for Tried Faith"

And the Lord said, "Simon, Simon, behold, Satan has desired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat: but I have prayed for you, that your faith fail not." Luke 22:31-32

There is not, perhaps, a single truth which occurs more frequently or with greater clearness in the sacred writings, and which is more holy in its tendency and effect, than the doctrine of the present security and final glory of the saints of God. Standing as it does in the closest relation to the Divine glory- every perfection of God being involved in it- it is not surprising that the Holy Spirit of Truth should assign to it a position so prominent, and should ascribe to it an influence so mighty, in neutralizing the doubts, in soothing the fears, and in establishing and stimulating the soul in all practical godliness.

He who imagines that the doctrine of the final perseverance of the saints acts as a moral opiate to the soul, lulling it in a false security, soothing it to a state of inglorious quietude, has, we fear, either rejected the doctrine without investigation, or has studied it with a mind entangled by error, or warped by prejudice. But the truth is revealed, and as such we are bound to receive it. It is declared- written as with a sunbeam. "The righteous shall hold on his way; and he that has clean hands shall wax stronger and stronger." "The Lord does not forsake not saints." "He keeps the feet of his saints." "Though he fall, he shall not be utterly cast down for the Lord upholds him with his hand." "You shall guide me with your counsel, and afterward receive me to glory." "Being confident of this very thing, that he who has begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ." "Kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation." "They shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand."

It would be easy to multiply these proofs, so replete is the word of God with them, but surely these Divine declarations and assertions place the doctrine beyond the region of doubt. The holy influence of this truth is equally revealed. After assuring the believer of the promises of God- that He would dwell in His people, and walk in them, and that He would be their God, and that they should be His people- thus affirming the final salvation of the whole church- with what gracefulness of manner and earnestness of spirit does the apostle then proceed to educe and enforce the practical influence of the doctrine- "Having therefore these promises, dearly beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God."

It may at first glance be thought that the case which we have selected for our present reflections- the fall of the apostle Peter- involves a contradiction of the doctrine which we have just laid down. A minute examination of each point, however, will decide the question, how far it contains any warrant for believing that He who has commenced a good work in the soul will be found, in any single instance, either incapable or unwilling to complete it, or to have resembled the man who began to build and was not able to finish. We trust, on the contrary, that its spiritual investigation will be full of encouragement to those who are weak in grace, establishing to those whose minds are unsettled and wavering, sanctifying to the heart thirsting after deeper holiness, and tending to endear to all, the person and work of God's beloved Son.

It suggests for our meditation two deeply important and interesting topics- first, that the faith of the believer may be severely assailed, and, at times, may greatly waver; and, second, that the great reason why tried faith cannot absolutely and entirely fail is, the especial and ceaseless intercession on its behalf, of Jesus the great High Priest. Descend, Holy Spirit, and anoint, and teach, and guide us while endeavoring to unravel the mysteries of the kingdom of God within the soul, and while attempting to penetrate the glories of the kingdom of God within the veil.

That FAITH SHOULD BE MORE FREQUENTLY AND SEVERELY ASSAILED than any other grace of the Holy Spirit, will cease to create surprise as we become acquainted with the rank and position it occupies in the renewed soul. Placed in the very front of the battle, itself the strongest, the most determined and successful foe of the assailing powers of darkness and of sin, in effecting its overthrow; all their force, and skill, and malignity are marshaled and directed. But who is its chief and most formidable assailant? It is Satan, the accuser of the brethren, the tempter, the sworn enemy of God and man. It is he, the master spirit of darkness and woe, who, without possessing a single attribute of Deity, yet approaches so near in resemblance to the Divine, that in every place and at each moment of time he is present, narrowly watching, and closely studying, and incessantly working to deceive, and to overthrow, were it possible, the faith of the very elect. By what power or agency he is enabled to prosecute the dark designs of his gloomy intellect, and to effect the malignant purposes of his depraved heart, we cannot now venture at any length to premise. Whether with the subtlety and velocity which belong to light, there is an incessant expansion of thought, imparting a kind of personal ubiquity or omnipresence to the ruling mind of the infernal empire; or whether without being personally present, we may account for the extent of his agency, operating alike in every place, and at the same moment, by supposing intelligence communicated to, and commands issued from, him through the medium of that innumerable host of myrmidons who compose those 'principalities and powers' over which Jesus triumphed, 'making a show of them openly,' must, however strong the presumption, still remain points involved in much doubt and obscurity.

But there is one fact respecting which we are not left to conjecture. I allude to the eager and restless machinations of Satan to weaken, dishonor, and destroy the faith of God's elect. "And the Lord said, Simon, Simon, behold, Satan has desired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat." Observe here, the limitation of Satanic power in reference to the believer. "Satan has desired to have you." This is its utmost extent. He has no power nor control over the redeemed, but that which God permits. He can but 'desire,' and long, and plot; not a hand can he lay upon them, by not a single temptation can he assail them, not a hair of their head can he touch, until God bid him. "Satan has desired to have you."- there stood the arch-foe waiting permission, as in the case of Job, to destroy the apostle of Christ.

Dear reader, I need scarcely pause to remind you how consolatory is this truth to the believing mind. You have often trembled at the power of Satan, and perhaps well-near as often have been the involuntary object of his implacable hatred and deep devices. But press now this animating thought to your trembling heart- he has no control nor influence nor power over a redeemed soul but that which God permits, and which Christ allows. "Thus far shall you go, and no farther," are words which reveal his inferiority, prescribe his limits, and stay the progress of the proud fiend.

But let us inquire what is that which Satan desires to assault? It is the work of God in the soul. Against his own kingdom not a weapon is raised. It is his aim and his policy to keep all there undisturbed and peaceful. The chaff he never thinks of winnowing. But against the work of the Holy Spirit in the renewed mind, his battery is brought to bear; not a part of this work escapes him. Every grace comes in for its share of malignant attack; but especially the grace of faith. This he sifts and winnows to the utmost. As this is the queen grace, it is against this the treason plot is formed. When, for example, a repentant and believing soul approaches Christ with lowliness and hesitancy, and with the tremulous hand of faith, attempts to touch the border of His garment, or with a tearful eye looks up to His cross, then comes the assault upon faith in the form of a suggestive doubt of Christ's power and willingness to save- "Is Jesus able to save me? Has He power to rescue my soul from hell? Can He blot out my transgressions and redeem my life from destruction? Will He receive a sinner so vile, so unworthy, so poor as I? Has He compassion, has He love, has He mercy sufficient to meet my case?"

In this way Satan assails the earliest and the feeblest exercises of faith in the soul. Does this page address itself to any such? Believer, it is Satan's great effort to keep you from Jesus. By holding up to your view a false picture of His character, from which everything loving, winning, inviting, and attractive is excluded, by suggesting wrong views of His work, in which everything gloomy, contracted and repulsive is foisted upon the mind- by assailing the atonement, questioning the compassion, and limiting the grace of Christ, he would persuade you that in that heart which bled on Calvary there is no room for you, and that upon that work which received the Father's seal, there is not breadth sufficient for you to stand. All his endeavors are directed, and all his assaults are shaped, with a view to keep your soul back from Christ. It is thus he seeks to vent his wrath upon the Savior and his malignity upon you.

Nor does he less assail the more matured faith of the believer. The sturdy oak is swept by the storm equally with the feeble sapling. Not unfrequently the sharpest attacks and the fiercest onsets are made, and made successfully, upon the strongest believers. Seizing upon powerful corruptions, taking advantage of dark providences, and sometimes of bright ones, and never allowing any position of influence, or usefulness, or gift, or grace, that would give force, success, and brilliance to his exploit, to escape his notice, he is perpetually on the alert to sift and winnow God's precious wheat. His implacable hatred of God, the deep revenge he cherishes against Jesus, his malignant opposition to the Holy Spirit, fit him for any dark design and work implicating the holiness and happiness of the believer. Therefore we find that the histories of the most eminent saints of God, as written by the faithful pen of the Holy Spirit, are histories of the severest temptations of faith, in the most of which there was a temporary triumph of the enemy- the giant oak bending before the storm.

And even in instances where there was no defeat of faith, there yet was the sharp trial of faith. The case of Joseph, and that of his illustrious antitype, the Lord Jesus, present examples of this. Fearful was the assault upon the faith of both, sharp the conflict through which both passed, yet both left the battle-field victorious. But still faith was not the less really or severely sifted.

But there are trials of faith other than that which the case of Peter illustrates; his may perhaps be more properly denominated the temptation of faith. Faith has its trials as well as its temptations. Affliction is a trial of faith; sorrow in any of its multitudinous forms is a trial of faith; the delay of mercy is a trial of faith; the promise unfulfilled is a trial of faith; the prayer unanswered is a trial of faith; painful providences, mysterious dispensations, straitened circumstances, difficulties and embarrassments, all are so many trials of faith, commissioned and designed by God to place the gold in the crucible, and the wheat in the sieve, that both may be purified and tried. Ah! is it no trial of the believer's faith when the foundation upon which it rests is assailed? Is it no trial of faith to have distorted representations of God presented to its eye, dishonoring thoughts of God suggested to the mind, unbelieving apprehensions of Jesus, and His love, and His grace, and His word, foisted upon the heart? To entertain for one moment the idea that God is unfaithful to His word, or that in His dealings He is arbitrary and unkind; that Jesus is not what He represents Himself to be, an all-sufficient Savior of the lost, the healer of the broken in heart, the tender, gentle Savior, not breaking the bruised reed, but mending it, nor quenching the smoking flax, but fanning it? Oh yes, these to a holy mind are painful trials of faith, from which the tender conscience shrinks, and the sensitive heart recoils.

But there is something deeply instructive, as well as most consolatory, in one expressive word of our blessed Lord to His servant Peter, "Satan has desired to have you, that he might sift you as wheat." Here was that which marked the reality of his faith. It is only true grace that is really tried. No man puts mere dross into his furnace, or mere chaff into his sieve. All his toil and pains-taking would go for nothing, for it would come forth in its nature unaltered and unchanged- the dross would still be dross, and the chaff would still be chaff. Now the Lord tries, and Satan tempts, nothing but genuine grace. It is the wheat, and not the tares, that is made to pass through the fiery trial. Thus do afflictions and trying dispensations prove tests of a man's religion. When there is nothing but tinsel in a profession of Christianity, the fire will consume it; when there is nothing but chaff, the wind will scatter it. The furnace of temptation and the flail of affliction often prove a man's work of what sort it is, long before the discovery is made in a world where no errors can be corrected, and when it will be too late to rectify mistakes. Thus it is that so many professors, who have not the root of the matter in themselves, but endure for a while, are offended and fall away when tribulation or persecution arises because of the word.

But the wheat- the pure faith of the soul- is tried. "Other graces," remarks the holy Leighton, "are likewise tried in the same furnace; but faith is named as the root of all the rest. Sharp afflictions give the Christian a trial of his love to God, whether it be single and for Himself or not; for then it will be the same when He strikes as when He embraces, and in the fire of affliction will rather grow the hotter, and be more taken off from the world, and set upon Him. Again, the grace of patience is put particularly upon trial in distresses. And both of these spring from faith; for love rises from a right and strong belief of the goodness of God; and patience from a persuasion of the wisdom and love of God, and the truth of His promises. He has said, I will not fail you, and that we shall not be tempted above our strength, and He will give the issue. Now the belief of these things causes patience. The trial of faith works patience. For therefore does the Christian resign up himself, and all that concerns him, his trials, the measure and length of them all, unto God's disposal, because he knows that he is in the hands of a wise and loving Father. Thus the trial of these and other particular graces does still resolve into this, and is comprised under the trial of faith."

And why is the 'wheat' thus sifted? why is so Divine and precious a grace subjected to a process so humiliating and severe? Certainly not because of any intrinsic impurity in the grace itself. All the graces of the Spirit as they proceed from God, and are implanted in the heart, are pure and holy; as essentially free from sin as the nature from where they flow. But in consequence of the impurity of the heart, and the defilement of the nature in which they are deposited- the body of sin and death by which they are incased- they become mixed with particles of earthliness and carnality, the fine gold with dross, and the pure wheat with chaff. To purify and separate the graces of the Holy Spirit from these things, so foreign to their nature, the Lord permits these temptations, and sends these trials of faith.

We have remarked, that not only may the faith of a child of God be severely assailed, but that there are times when that faith may greatly waver. Is this surprising? No, the greatest wonder is, that with all these severe shocks, through which it passes, it does not entirely fail. Nothing but the Divinity that dwells within that grace, keeps it. Were it not Divine and incorruptible, it would entirely fail. Look at Abraham- on one occasion in the strength of faith offering up his son, and on another occasion in the weakness of faith denying his wife! Look at David- in the strength of faith slaying Goliath, and in the weakness of faith fleeing from Saul! Look at Job- in the strength of faith justifying God in the severest of His dealings, and in the weakness of faith cursing the day that be was born! Look at Peter- in the strength of faith drawing his sword and smiting a servant of the high priest's, and in the weakness of faith forced by a little maid to deny the Lord whom he had but just defended! Oh! the wonder of wonders is, that there remains a single grain in the sieve, or a particle of metal in the furnace, or a solitary spark in the ocean- that all is not utterly scattered, consumed, and annihilated! Nothing but the power of God, and its own incorruptible and imperishable nature, preserve it.

This thought suggests our second topic- THE INTERCESSION OF THE LORD JESUS IN BEHALF OF TRIED FAITH. "I have prayed for you that your faith fail not." That any one grace of the Holy Spirit in the renewed soul can ever utterly perish, would seem, from the nature of that grace, to be an utter impossibility. Nothing that is really holy and spiritual is ever destroyed. Divine principles, holy thoughts, spiritual desires, and Godlike actions, survive the period and outlive the occasion which called them forth, and gave to them an existence. Nothing perishes but the material and the fleshly. Upon these fleshly things, be they the fairest and the purest, the most magnificent and refined, 'passing away' is indelibly inscribed. "Meanwhile, heaven is attracting to itself whatever is congenial to its nature, is enriching itself by the spoils of earth, and collecting within its capacious bosom whatever is pure, permanent, and Divine, leaving nothing for the last fire to consume but the objects and the slaves of concupiscence; while everything which grace has prepared and beautified shall be gathered and selected from the ruins of the world to adorn that eternal city, which has no need of the sun, neither of the moon, to shine in it, for the glory of God does enlighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof." (Hall)

But we must not forget that the great preservative of faith, especially of tried faith, is the intercession on its behalf of the great High Priest within the veil. And yet no part of our Lord's mediatorial work is more overlooked than this, while no part is fraught with richer and more varied blessing to the Church of God. This work of intercession constituted an essential and a delightful part of the priestly office of our Lord Jesus. Not to atone only, but upon the ground of that atonement to base His office of advocate, and with the plea of that atonement to appear in the presence of God as an intercessor, equally entered into the engagements of Christ in behalf of His people. A moment's reference to the Levitical type will throw much light upon this part of the Savior's work. It will be recollected that the high priest, on the day of expiation, was to slay and to offer the sacrifice in the outer part of the tabernacle; after which he entered within the sanctuary, bearing in his hands the blood of atonement, and sprinkled it seven times upon and before the mercy-seat. He was then to bring a censer full of burning coals from off the altar, and his hands full of sweet incense beaten small, within the veil, and place it upon the fire before the Lord, "that the cloud of the incense might cover the mercy-seat."

All this was beautifully typical of the atonement and intercession of Jesus our great High Priest. The basis of our Lord's intercessory work is the great atonement of His own blood, with which He has fully met the claims of Justice, paid to the law its extreme demands, and blotted out the handwriting that was against His people in pronouncing their sins entirely and forever cancelled. Upon His atonement Jesus takes His stand as an Intercessor in heaven, within which He has gone to sprinkle His blood upon the mercy-seat, and to present the incense of His infinite and precious merits. Having purged our sins, He is forever sat down at the right hand of God, not in a state of inglorious ease, nor cold forgetfulness of His Church on earth, but to plead as its Advocate and to pray as its Intercessor each moment with the Father, pressing His suit on the ground of Justice, and resting His petition on the basis of merit. "For Christ has not entered into the holy places made with hands, which are the figures of the true; but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us." "He ever lives to make intercession."

Look up, O you of tried faith, and behold within the veil your Savior there, clothed in His sacerdotal robes, the great High Priest of heaven's temple, the glorious Advocate of heaven's chancery, representing His Church, and for each individual as for the whole body, praying the Father that the weak and tried faith of His saints might not fail. This is no image of the imagination. This is no picture of the fancy. It is a blessed and glorious reality, that our once atoning and now risen and exalted Redeemer is in heaven, bearing the breastplate upon His heart and the ephod upon His shoulder, in which each name is set of all the tribes of Israel. Yes, poor tried and suffering believer, your name is there, written not only in the Lamb's book of life, but written in the Lamb's heart of love.

In approaching God in any spiritual service, why is it that your person is an object of His complacent delight? Because Jesus presents it. Why do your prayers, imperfectly framed and faintly breathed, come up before the altar with acceptance and power? Because Jesus is in heaven, and as your pleading Advocate separates your petition from all its flaws, and as your interceding Priest purifies it from all its sin, and presents it as a 'golden vial full of aroma' to His Father. And when in pensive sadness you have trodden your lonely path, the spirit chafed, the heart wounded, the world desolate, and a thousand images of terror and of gloom filling the vast void, O little did you think that within that veil, so awfully mysterious to you, there stood one- your Friend and Brother, your Advocate and Priest- who knew your secret sorrow, and who at that moment was pouring out His full heart, His whole soul, in powerful and prevalent intercession, that your tried and wavering faith might not fail.

Nor must we overlook the individuality of our Lord's intercession. This is one of its most interesting features: "I have prayed for you." As if forgetting for that moment the whole Church, and regarding Peter as representing in his person each tempted believer, Jesus makes him the especial object of his prayer. How much comfort do we lose in overlooking this truth- in not more distinctly recognizing the personal interest which each believer has in the love of Christ! "My grace is sufficient for you." "I have prayed for you" are the gracious words with which Jesus would meet each individual case.

Think not, then, O believer, that you are alone, unloved, uncared for, unthought of; Jesus bears you upon His heart; and if loved and cared for, and remembered by Him, you can afford to part with some creature stream, however loved and valued that stream may be. Keep your eye intently fixed upon your Lord's intercession. In every tribulation look unto Jesus, mark His gracious hand directing the scourge and mingling the bitter cup; tempering its proper degree of severity, appointing the limit of its continuance, and converting seeming disasters into occasions of real good. In every infirmity and failing look unto Jesus, your merciful High Priest, pleading His atoning blood, and on its ground making intercession for you. In every prayer look unto Jesus, your prevailing Advocate, bearing the iniquity of your holy things, and recommending your broken petitions. In every temptation look unto Jesus, the author of your faith, the source of your strength, and the captain of your salvation, who alone is able to lift up the hands that hang down, to teach the fingers to fight, and eventually to make you more than conqueror over all your foes.

We too much lose ourselves in the crowd; and merge ourselves in the mass. We forget alike our individual interest in the covenant, and our personal obligation to glorify God in our different walks of life. But it is the especial privilege of the believer to concentrate upon himself, as in focal power, every thought and affection of God, just as the eye of a well-painted portrait may be said to fasten itself exclusively upon each individual in the room. "I have prayed for you." O cheering declaration! Christian reader, lose not sight of it. Come and lay your hand of faith upon the covenant of grace, and say, "the fulness of the covenant is mine." Lay your hand upon the covenant of God, and say, "the God of the covenant is mine; Jesus its Mediator is my Savior. He obeyed, suffered, bled, and expired, all for me. He has loved me, and has given himself for me. Lord! do You think of me? does my case come up before Your notice? do You bear any burden upon Your arm, my sorrow upon Your heart, my name upon Your lip; and do You pray for my poor, assaulted, and trembling faith? Yes, Lord, You do. I believe it, because You have said it- press the precious truth so rich in consolation to my trembling, grateful heart."

It is another beautiful view of our subject- the anticipative intercession of Christ. "I have prayed for you." The Lord as its shepherd goes before His flock. He precedes it every step, not only to map its path, but also to provide for all the circumstances, the most trivial and minute, of its history. To Him nothing can be unforeseen, from Him nothing can be concealed. No event can surprise Him, no contingency can thwart Him, no difficulty can embarrass Him. The entire history of the individual saint of God, from his first to his last breath, is written in His book, when as yet it had no existence, as minutely and as accurately, as though it were a record of the past. In anticipation of each developed circumstance, of each temptation and trial, difficulty and need- Jesus prays for His people: "I have prayed." It would seem as if the sorrow had reached His heart, before it touched our own; as if the assault had fallen upon Him before it fell upon us; and that, knowing what would transpire, seeing in what critical and painful circumstances His child would be placed, He anticipates his case by especial intercession on his behalf: "I have prayed for you."

Can the mind of the tried believer repose upon a truth more sustaining and soothing than this? It is a glorious unfolding of the love of Jesus, to know that when the sifting came, when faith was actually tried, that then Jesus prayed for the sufferer. But to be assured that before a dart was winged, or a shock was felt, or even a suspicion was awakened that the tempter was approaching, and that danger was near; Jesus, robed in His priestly garments and bearing the golden censer in His hand, had entered within the veil to make especial intercession for that trial of faith! Oh, it is a view of His love, which to the mind of the tempted believer would seem to overtop and outshine all others!

And for what does Jesus pray? That the temptation might not come? that faith may not be tried? O no! He asks not the Father in behalf of His people for their entire exemption from temptation and trial. Full well does He know that if conformed to Him their Head, they must through much tribulation enter the kingdom. Pure and sinless though He was, needing no sifting and no refining, He yet passed through each process as if there were in Him the chaff to scatter and the dross to consume. How much more needful does Jesus see that His people, in whom there is such a mixture of the precious with the vile, so much indwelling sin, so much powerful corruption perpetually seeking to destroy indwelling grace, should not be exempted from the process which, painful though it be, is absolutely needful and eternally good!

But Jesus prays that in the actual trial of faith it might not fail. And mark how signally the prayer was answered in the case of Peter. His faith did not fail. Trace his subsequent history. "When you are restored", said his Divine Master, "strengthen your brethren." He was restored. One look from Jesus, of painful remembrance, of gentle reproof, and of loving forgiveness, broke his heart, "and he went out and wept bitterly." Deep and sincere was his repentance. 'He went out,' apart from others, and sought some retired spot, where, alone with God, he might with tears acknowledge his transgression, and in faith seek the forgiveness of his sin. I repeat- trace his subsequent history. What a loving disciple, what a zealous apostle, what a vigilant pastor, what a useful preacher, what a valiant soldier of the cross, did he afterwards become! The chaff of self-confidence, and false zeal, and light views of sin, was now scattered in the sifting of his faith, and that faith was now purer and stronger than ever. Peter stood more firmly after he had lamented his fall, than before he fell; insomuch, that he found more grace than he lost grace.

Listen to the words with which, at his Master's bidding, he strengthens his brethren after his recovery. He reminds them that they are "kept by the power of God, through faith, unto salvation. Wherein you greatly rejoice, though now for a season (if need be), you are in heaviness through manifold temptations, that the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perishes, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise, and honor, and glory, at the appearing of Jesus Christ." Now, why is it, O believing soul, that your tried faith has not failed? Why have you passed through the sifting, with not one precious grain fallen to the ground? Because your great High Priest prayed for you before the trial, and prayed for you in the trial, and has not ceased to pray for you since the trial. All upholding grace, all restraining grace, all restoring grace, all establishing grace, has been meted out to you through the channel of your Lord's perpetual and ever-prevalent intercession. O how should this truth endear the Savior to your heart! With what holy contrition should it fill your spirit, and with what sweet affection should it constrain your soul to a simple and an unreserved surrender to God!

But what, my reader, if your religion should prove to be nothing but chaff? Does the bare probability startle you? Ah! there are multitudes whom it might well startle- for multitudes are thus deceived. Not a grain of pure wheat is found in their souls. There is no vitality in their faith, no solidity in their profession, no substance in their religion. Before every wind of false doctrine they bend, and by each blast of temptation they are carried away. The stubble of the field, and the chaff of the threshing-floor (fit emblems of their Christianity), are not more unsubstantial and fleeting than it. All is woeful deception. They have substituted a form of godliness for its power; union to the church for union to Christ; the baptism of water for the regeneration of the Spirit; gospel ordinances for sanctifying grace; works of benevolence for faith in the Lord Jesus. And thus their religion is hollow, unsubstantial, and unreal; possessing a "name to live, they are dead."

And what will be the end of such? Departing into eternity in this state of soul deception- building their hope of heaven upon this false foundation- in their sad experience must be realized the awful description which the evangelist gives of the judgment power of Christ; "whose fan is in his hand, and he will thoroughly purge his floor, and gather his wheat into his garner; but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire." Thus will perish all human religions, all false hopes, all hollow professions, all soul-destroying doctrines- the 'wood, the hay, the stubble,' of a form of godliness- destitute of the power. Unconverted reader, weigh and consider this solemn statement- it is for your life. Examine the nature and foundation of your hope. Let nothing be a substitute to you for the new birth, for faith in Christ, or for love to God. The most beautiful ritual, the most accurate creed, the most costly religion, the most splendid profession, without Christ in the heart, is but as fuel preparing for the final and eternal conflagration. To such the Savior pointedly and solemnly refers, when He says, "Not every one that says unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he who does the will of my Father which is in heaven. Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in your name? and in your name have cast out devils? and in your name have done many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me."

But if, dear reader, you are in possession of real faith, even in the smallest degree, expect its conflict and its trial. It is truly remarked by the holy Leighton, that God never had but one Son without sin, and never one without suffering. The existence of faith seems necessarily to imply, the endurance of suffering. Not, as we have shown in another part of this volume, because of any intrinsic defect in faith, but in consequence of the impurity of the heart in which that faith is lodged, its perpetual admixture with the dross of a mind but partially renewed, its constant contact with the objects and scenes of sense and of earth, render trial as essential to the purification of faith, as the flail to the pure wheat, and as the crucible to the precious metal.

The trials and temptations, therefore, with which God visits His people, are designed, as tests of faith. Without them we should lack some of the strongest evidences of experimental Christianity. Who would wish the stubble and the chaff to render doubtful the existence of the true grain, or the tin and the dross to obscure the luster of the fine gold? Welcome, then, every trial and test of your faith. Welcome whatever stamps its reality, increases its strength, and heightens its luster.

Nor be surprised that this, above all the graces of the Holy Spirit, should be a target for the great enemy of God. As faith is the grace which most glorifies God, which brings the greatest degree of joy and peace unto the soul, and which constitutes its mightiest shield in the conflict, it becomes an especial object of Satan's malignant attack. The most Christ-exalting, God-honoring, and sanctifying of all the Spirit's graces must not expect to escape its fearful assaults. If this 'gold' was 'tried in the fire,' in the sinless person of Jesus, is there not a greater necessity that in our fallen and corrupt nature it should be subjected to a second process of trial? It was tried in the Head to show that it was real gold; it is tried in the members to separate it from the dross with which it becomes mixed in its contact with our hearts. In the one case, the trial was to stamp its divine nature; in the other case, the trial is to purify it from the human nature. Thus are we honored to suffer in some small degree, as our Lord and Master suffered. Therefore, beloved, "do not think it strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened unto you; but rejoice, inasmuch as you are partakers of Christ's sufferings, that when his glory shall be revealed, you may be glad also with exceeding joy."

Keep your eye intently fixed upon the intercession of Christ. Is it a privilege to be borne upon the affectionate and believing prayers of a Christian friend? Ah yes! precious channels of heavenly blessing are the intercessions of the Lord's people on our behalf. But there is a Friend still closer to the Fountain of Mercy, still nearer and dearer to the Father, than your fondest earthly friend- it is JESUS, "who ever lives to make intercession for those who come unto God by him." Oh how precious is that declaration upon which in any assault, or trial, or perplexity, you may calmly and confidently repose: "I have prayed for you." Yes, when from confusion of thought, or pain of body, or burning fever, you cannot pray for yourself, and no friend is near to be your mouth to God, then there is one, the Friend of friends, the ever-skillful Advocate, and never weary Intercessor- no invocating saint, nor interceding angel- but the Son of God Himself, who appears in the presence of God moment by moment for you. O keep, then, the eye of your faith immovably fixed upon Christ's intercession; He intercedes for weak faith, for tried faith, for tempted faith- yes, for him who thinks he has no faith. There is not a believer who is not borne upon His heart, and whose prayers and needs are not entwined in His ceaseless intercession.

When you deem yourself neglected and forgotten, a praying Savior in heaven is thinking of you. When you are tried and cast down, tempted and stumble, the interceding High Priest at that moment enters within the holiest, to ask on your behalf strength, consolation, and upholding grace. And when sin has wounded, and guilt distresses, and unbelief beclouds, who is it that stands in the breach, that makes intercession, that removes the darkness, and brings back the smile of a forgiving Father? The Lord Jesus, the interceding Savior! Oh, look up, tried and assaulted believer! you have a Friend at court, an Advocate in the chancery of heaven, an Intercessor curtained within the holiest of holies, transacting all your concerns, and through whom you may have access to God with boldness.

How sweet are the fruits of the Lord's restoring grace! In the case of Peter, we read that "he went out and wept bitterly." He had never wept such tears, nor sorrowed with such a sorrow before. It was the look of the Savior's forgiving love which broke his heart, and dissolved his whole soul into penitence and sweet contrition. We trace the same in David: "I acknowledge my transgression, and my sin is ever before me. Against you, you only have I sinned, and done this evil in your sight. Restore unto me the joy of your salvation; and uphold me with your free Spirit. Then will I teach transgressors your ways; and sinners shall be converted unto you." Blessed and holy results of the Savior's intercession in behalf of tried, and tempted, and staggering faith! May we, dear reader, constantly taste the sweetness of the Lord's restorings. That restoring we need day by day, and His upholding grace moment by moment. Let no consciousness of departure from God keep us from returning to Him- seeing that Jesus lives and prays for us.

Heart-melting is the language of our sin-pardoning and soul-restoring God to His backsliding Church. "You have played the harlot with many lovers; yet return again to Me, says the Lord." And again, "And I said, after she had done all these things, Turn unto me." And yet again, as if he would exhaust all the tenderness of language, "Return, backsliding Israel, says the Lord; and I will not cause My anger to fall upon you: for I am merciful, says the Lord, and I will not keep anger forever. Only acknowledge your iniquity." Can we resist arguments, and appeals, and persuasives like these? And oh, may the result of our restoring be a closer, holier walk than ever! "The Lord will speak peace to his people, but let them not turn again to folly."

Jesus, let Your pitying eye
Call back a wandering sheep;
False to You, like Peter, I
Would sincerely like Peter weep.
Let me be by grace restored,
On me be all its freeness shown;
Turn, and look upon me, Lord,
And break my heart of stone."
"Savior, Prince, enthroned above,
Repentance to impart;
Give me, through Your dying love,
The humble, contrite heart.
Give, what I have long implored,
A portion of Your love unknown;
Turn, and look upon me, Lord,
And break my heart of stone."
"See me, Savior, from above,
Nor suffer me to die;
Life, and happiness, and love,
Smile in Your gracious eye.
Speak the reconciling word,
And let Your mercy melt me down;
Turn, and look upon me, Lord,
And break my heart of stone."
"Look, as when Your pitying eye
Was closed that we might live;
'Father (at the point to die
My Savior gasped), forgive!'
Surely with that dying word,
He turns, and looks, and cries, 'tis done!'
O my loving, bleeding Lord,
This breaks my heart of stone!"

"Nourishment for the Journey"

The angel of the Lord came back a second time and touched him and said, "Get up and eat, for the journey is too much for you." So he got up and ate and drank. Strengthened by that food, he traveled forty days and forty nights until he reached Horeb, the mountain of God. 1 Kings 19:7-8

We remarked in a previous chapter of this work, that in planning the varied histories of His saints, God had in view, not the instruction and blessing of one individual only, but also of many. He would embrace the 'whole family on earth' in the teaching, the warning, and the comfort found in the experience of a single member of that family. There is much in this thought calculated to soothe the mind of the tried and disciplined believer, and to reconcile him to the dispensations of his heavenly Father. In the light of this truth we cannot look upon the Christian sufferer but with a feeling of the intensest interest. There is a magnanimity, a loftiness of character, a moral heroism about the man, the conception of which we may but imperfectly convey to other minds, while it forms one of the most vivid and pleasing images of our own. How prompt should we be to offer to such an one the spirit's kindest sympathy, and to breathe on his behalf the heart's most fervent prayer! From his lips may well breathe the language of the self-denying apostle, "Whether we be afflicted, it is for your consolation and salvation, which is effectual in the enduring of the same sufferings which we also suffer: or whether we be comforted, it is for your consolation and salvation."

An incident in the life of the prophet Elijah presents an appropriate illustration of this truth. It is brief, but interesting and instructive. Fleeing from the murderous designs of Jezebel, the prophet was overtaken in the wilderness by weariness and exhaustion, and sitting down beneath the shade of a tree, in the fretfulness of his spirit, and the gloomy despondency of his mind, he requested of God that he might die. "It is enough; now, O Lord, take away my life; for I am not better than my fathers." At this critical moment, one of those ministering spirits, sent from the court of heaven to minister to the heirs of salvation, appeared at his side, gently touched him, and bade him arise and eat. And, lo! "there was a cake baked on the coals, and a cruse of water at his head. And he did eat and drink., and laid down again. The angel of the Lord came back a second time and touched him and said, "Get up and eat, for the journey is too much for you." So he got up and ate and drank. Strengthened by that food, he traveled forty days and forty nights until he reached Horeb, the mountain of God.

How simple and affecting yet instructive is this episode in the life of the prophet! What an unfolding of human imperfection, and of Divine forbearance! What a picture of the thoughtfulness, carefulness, and tenderness of God towards His people, contrasted with their unbelief, repining, and fretfulness towards Him! Oh, what a God is our God! At the moment that Elijah resigned himself to the feeling of loneliness and desolation, God was near to him. And when, faint from hunger, and exhausted from fatigue, he wished for death rather than life, behold, a table was spread for him in the wilderness by Him who in a subsequent and more complete development of His incarnation, supplied the needs of three thousand with five barley loaves and two fish. Strengthened and refreshed, he arose and addressed himself to the journey. It was an interesting though a long and toil some one.

"The desert over which Elijah traveled forty days and nights, was the same through which the tribes of Israel traveled during forty years, under the convoy of the cloudy and fiery pillar. Surely this, if any, was holy ground. It had been traversed by the feet of the mighty, it was rich with the most stupendous associations of thought, and with the most interesting recollections. Here the whole miraculous history of the ancient fathers would revive before him in the liveliest colors. Fresh images and scenes from that age of wonders would recur to his mind at every step, and the very profound silence around him would assist in the consideration of the sublime things of which these spots had been once the theater. As often as he descended into a green and palmy vale, he alighted in spirit upon some resting-place of his fathers. As often as the shade of an overhanging rock received him, it was as if the incense of the sanctuary breathed around him; for the prayers of the pilgrims of God had hallowed these shades. Here or there, he would think, perhaps Moses had rested and taken counsel in the sacred circle of his elders; and the leader of Israel would still seem kneeling before the Lord, and speaking to Him, 'as a man talks with his friend.' Thus one heart-elating thought would follow another. The history of the forty years' journey would attain a form and a vitality beyond what he had hitherto realized. At one time he would seem to be gathering the manna with the ancient fathers; at another to be standing with the wounded before the brazen image of the serpent, and feeling with them the return of health. Presently he would be in spirit at the altar which Moses built, and called it 'Jehovah-nissi,' -the Lord my Banner; and then again he would hear the desert resound with loud thanksgivings and solemn hymns of praise for the faithfulness and truth of Jehovah. Every new scene on which he entered would bring before him some new event and feature of those journeyings which were irradiated with the glory of God; and whatever consolation and encouragement is comprised in these histories, would rush upon him with sublime and overwhelming wonder, or exhilarate him with a spring of hope and joy, that seemed to give wings to his feet, and banish the last remains of fear and care from his spirit. Assured that he was pursuing his way under the shadow of the same Almighty hand which once covered the whole host of Israel, he would cheerfully pursue his journey, not doubting that he was led by the right hand of Him, who, under the juniper tree, had given him the direction to depart, and had endued his feeble frame with a strength which no fatigue of the journey was able to diminish; and that as soon as the end was attained, he should be bidden to rest, and lay down his traveling-staff in peace and safety." (Krummacher)

But there is a spiritual view of this narrative still more interesting and instructive. It suggests to the devout contemplation of the believing mind the following distinctive features of Christian experience- the believer in Jesus is journeying to the mount of God. Because of the greatness of the way the Lord has provided ample nourishment. And in the strength of that nourishment, thus timed to his necessities, he is enabled greatly to advance. "And he arose, and ate and drink, and went in the strength of that food forty days and forty nights, unto Horeb the mount of God."

With regard to the first point we may remark, what a poor and imperfect idea the ungodly world, in its blindness, forms of the Christian's happiness. It sees us break from its thraldom, and trample its fancied joys beneath our feet, and link ourselves to a life of perpetual conflict and of much tribulation, esteeming reproach for Christ greater gain than its best treasures, the ignominy of the cross higher honor than its noblest distinctions- and it marvels at the strangeness of our choice. "What!" it exclaims, "is this your happiness- these pleasures denied, these joys refused, these honors disdained, these distinctions relinquished, for a journey whose history is but the record of difficulty and peril, of weariness and need?" Yes! we reply; Christ and all this constitutes our happiness. Christ and His rugged cross, Christ and His bitter humiliation, Christ and His deep poverty, Christ and His despised burden, we prefer, and choose and glory in, rather than wear again the chains, and return again to the dominion of the world, and drink again of its delusive joys.

Who would desire to return to Egypt, who, in his wilderness journeyings, has caught a distant view of Canaan, and has tasted of its grapes? Who would wish to eject God's love from his heart, however faint its glow, when once that love is felt? Who would lose his hold of faith upon Christ, however feeble its grasp, when once that hold is gained? Or who would willingly resign his hope of glory, however dim its luster, when once that hope has dawned upon the soul? But the world knows us not. The life which we live upon Christ is with Christ, hidden from its view. And although it expects from our Christian profession- and it has a right so to expect- that we should return love for its hatred, and blessing for its curse, and labor for its persecution; and receive without reviling, and with meekness, its bitter scorn and its false imputations, while still toiling for its good- it is yet ignorant of the divine principle from where this grace of meekness, and patience, and forbearance, and love proceeds.

But let us learn to take the world as it is, nor expect more from it than it can give. Who would be hurt at the taunts of an idiot, or think of resenting the blows of a maniac? The world, with all its wisdom, knows not God. Folly and madness are in the heart, and it cannot therefore comprehend the mystery or perceive the beauty of the Christian life. "If the world hates you," says Jesus, "know that it hated me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love his own: but because you are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hates you."

But the true believer in Jesus is a traveler. He is journeying to a city of habitation, to the mount of God- and, blessed be God, He will soon be there! The apostle Peter dedicates his pastoral letter to the 'strangers scattered' abroad- the people of God dispersed over the face of the earth. Such is the Church of Christ. It is sometimes incorrectly called " the visible Church." The idea is unscriptural. Visible churches there may be, but a visible Church there is none. The saints of God are 'strangers and pilgrims' scattered abroad. They have no permanent abode, no certain resting-place. The Church is in the wilderness, journeying through it. The present is called the " time of our sojourning." We are but wayfarers at an inn, abiding only for a night. "Here we have no continuing city;" strangers and sojourners, as all our fathers were. But this, beloved, is the reconciling, animating thought- we are journeying to the mount of God. We are on our way to the good land, which the Lord our God has promised us; to the kingdom and the mansion which Jesus has gone to take possession of, and to prepare, for us. In a word- and this image is the climax of the blissful prospect- we are hastening to our 'Father's house,' the home of the whole family in heaven and in earth, the residence of Christ, the dwelling-place of God. To this each believer in Jesus is journeying.

The road is difficult, the desert is tedious- sometimes perilous from its smoothness, or painful from its roughness; its straitness now wearying, its intricacy now embarrassing. But who will complain of the path that conducts him to his home? Who would yield to the sensation of fatigue who is journeying to an eternal rest? Much of the disquietude and repining of spirit peculiar to the pilgrimage of the saints, arises from the faint conceptions which the mind forms of the coming glory. We think too faintly and too seldom of heaven. The eye is bent downwards, and seldom do we 'lift up our heads' in prospect of the 'redemption that draws near.' And yet how much there is in the thought of glory, in the anticipation of heaven- its nature and associations calculated to stimulate, to cheer, and to allure us onwards! It is the place where we shall be sinless; it is the residence where we shall see God; it is the mansion where we shall be housed with Christ; it is the home where we shall dwell with all the saints; it is the home at which are collecting all the holy of earth, some of whom have left our embrace for its holier and happier regions, and whom we shall meet again.

Why, then, should we be cast down because of the way, or for one moment lose sight of the glory that awaits us, or cease to strive for the fitness essential to its enjoyment? In a little while- oh, how short the journey!- and we shall be there! Then we shall realize, to their fullest extent, the beauty and the sweetness of the description so often read and pondered with tears of hope before- "You have come unto mount Zion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly and church of the first-born, who are written in heaven, and to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect, and to Jesus the Mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling, that speaks better things than that of Abel." O my soul! will you not stretch every nerve, endure every privation, and relinquish every weight, thus to reach this glorious mount of God?

But for all the exigencies of the Christian journey, God has amply provided. The Lord Jesus being the believer's 'way,' all nourishment for the pilgrimage of the saints is laid up in Him. All supply of wisdom for the perplexing way, of strength for the wearisome way, of grace for the perilous way, of sympathy for the trying way, is in Jesus. In Him has the Father laid up the provision for the wilderness journey. And what storehouses of nourishment- both testifying of Jesus- are the word of God, and the covenant of grace! How full, how rich and ample the supply! All the soul-establishing doctrines, all the sanctifying precepts, and all the precious, comforting promises, go to make up the nourishment for the wilderness journey.

Sometimes the Lord brings us into the very heart of the wilderness, just to prove to us how easily and how readily He can provide a table for us even there. And when all other resources are exhausted, and all supply is cut off, and every spring of water is dried, lo! He opens the eye of our faith to see what His heart of love has prepared. Are you, dear reader, sitting down to weep like Hagar, or to die like Elijah in the wilderness- desolate, weary, and exhausted? O see what appropriate and ample nourishment your God and Father has provided for you. The Angel of the covenant touches you with the right hand of his love, and bids you arise and eat and drink, yes, to 'drink abundantly.' In the glorious Gospel are 'all manner of pleasant fruits, new and old,' which the Lord has laid up for His people. "Go your way, eat your bread with joy, and drink your wine with a merry heart," for all this storehouse of nourishment, this table of provision, is for you. All the love that is in God's heart, all the grace that is in the Savior's nature, all the comfort that is in the Spirit's tenderness, all the sanctifying truths, and free invitations, and precious promises which cluster in the Gospel of Christ, all are yours- the sacred nourishment provided for your journey to the mount of God. Listen to the voice of Jesus, saying to you, as of old, "Come and dine."

We may now observe, that in the strength of this nourishment the believer is enabled to make great progress in the Divine life: "So he got up and ate and drank. Strengthened by that food, he traveled forty days and forty nights until he reached Horeb, the mountain of God." Thus it is with the spiritual traveler. The life of faith, which is both our high calling and precious privilege, is the theme necessarily suggested to us by this part of our narrative. It was in this school God placed, and was now teaching, His servant Elijah. This was the Divine mystery he was called to explore, and this the path he was invited to tread: "Strengthened by that food, he traveled forty days and forty nights."

We have here an illustration of one of the greatest principles in the Divine life- one of the most wonderful, precious, and influential- the principle of faith: "The just shall live by faith." It is in this way the Lord prepares His people for what He has prepared for them in the future of their history. That history is to them wisely and graciously concealed. The path of the future is to them all unknown, a veil of impenetrable mystery enshrouding it from view. In all this we trace the love of our heavenly Father. There may be, for anything that we know, a long season of poverty before us; many a weary stage is yet untraveled, many a new path is yet untrodden, many a battle is yet unfought, and many a temptation and trial are yet unmet. But faith, living upon the nourishment received, in the strength and sustaining power of some view of God which the Spirit has presented, of some especial grace which Christ has apportioned out, of some higher attainment in truth and experience and holiness, of some profounder lesson learned, of some especial mercy experienced, of some bright realizing view of glory caught, the believer may travel many a long and toilsome stage of his journey to the "rest that remains for the people of God."

Ah, how often has the Lord by His present dealings anticipated the future events of your life! For what circumstances of danger, of trial, and of need, has Jesus provided! He well knew- for He had appointed every step and every incident of your journey- the deep and dark waters through which you here to wade, the sands you were to cross, the mountains you were to climb, and the valleys into which you were to descend. That cup of sorrow was not mixed, nor that fiery dart winged, nor that heavy cross sent; before all the necessities it would create, and all the supplies it would demand, had been thought of and provided for by Him who knew the end from the beginning. And when the voice of love gently awoke you as from the stupor of your grief, you marveled at the table spread, and wondered at the supply sent; and you could not define the reason why so much love took possession of your heart, and so much grace flowed into your soul, and so much nerve clothed your spirit, and so much hope and joy bathed you in their heavenly sunlight, and shed their radiance upon your onward way- little thinking that this was the Lord's mode of providing nourishment for the journey. And when the period and event of your life, thus anticipated, arrived, then the recollection of God's preparatory dealings rushed upon your memory, and in an instant you saw how for the 'forty days and the forty nights" solitary travel, your God and Savior had been graciously and amply providing. But all this mystery the life of faith, by which the justified live, fully explains.

"O faith, faith! you blessed companion of the children of God! your wondrous power deprives the wilderness of its horrors, and the deepest solitude ceases to be solitary under your guidance! All that earth and heaven possess of beauty is yours, and with the treasures of heights and of depths you enrich your possessors! That which is distant is brought near by you; you develop hidden things, and awaken past events to new life. You merge the gloom of the present into the bliss of the future, and paint the sky of many a departing sun with the dawning radiance of a better world. In the midst of sublunary changes, you anticipate a peaceful paradise. You people our bereaved family circles with holy and heavenly company; you associate both worlds in close connection, and unite things past, present, and to come. In your light the sacred narratives seem acted over again, and our own personal history becomes a sacred record of providence. You have the power of realizing the dead as if they were alive; the patriarchs are our contemporaries, although their ashes repose in the sepulcher of near six thousand years. By your voice they still converse with us, although to human ears they speak no more; by your realizing aid they visit us in our darkness with kindness and consolation; by your light we see a cloud of them as witnesses encamped around us; and every grace they experienced is through these appropriated to ourselves. You nourish us with the promise made to Abraham; sustain us with the strong consolation of the oath divinely sworn unto Isaac; you give us the staff of Jacob to support our steps; you enable us with Moses's rod to divide the sea, and with David to leap over the wall and rampart! O faith, faith! you door-keeper of every sanctuary, you master over all the treasures of God! may He who is your Author draw near unto us, and He who is your Finisher bend down Himself towards us."

A circumstance in the life of our blessed Lord will suggest itself to the Christian reader, as affording an eminent and impressive illustration of this mode of God's dealings with His people, the study of which will be found replete with encouragement to those who are especially called to "walk by faith, and not by sight." The incident to which I allude, is Christ's temptation in the wilderness. For a period of 'forty days and forty nights' He fasted; at the end of which He was subjected to the most powerful and malignant attack of the great foe of God and man. It was one of those events in our Lord's history upon which hung results the most momentous- nothing less than the salvation of the Church and the eternal interests of the divine government. It was, so to speak, the great moral battle of the universe, the result of which would decide the right of government, and the salvation of countless myriads. It would be incongruous with all our ideas of the Savior's character, to suppose that He would anticipate such a conflict with indifference, or enter upon it unprepared; or that the Father, whose honor was so deeply concerned in the result, would withhold from His Son the resources demanded by an occasion of such interest and magnitude. Happily we are not left to doubt or conjecture.

In view of this great event, behold how God prepared Him for the trial- in other words, nourished Him for the forty days' travail in the wilderness. We read, that "Jesus, being full of the Holy Spirit, returned from Jordan," where He had been to offer an act of personal obedience to His Father, thus fulfilling in His baptism 'all righteousness.' And then follows the account of the temptation: "And was led by the Spirit into the wilderness, being forty days tempted by the devil." Who does not see that our Lord's preparation for the conflict was His being 'filled with the Holy Spirit'? His human nature, replenished to its utmost with all the grace and strength and consolation of the Divine Spirit, was prepared for the terrific shock through which it was to pass. And thus nourished and strengthened, He passed through those forty days and forty nights, battling and vanquishing His mighty foe.

And can you not look back, dear reader, upon all the way the Lord your God has led you in the wilderness these many years, and tell how He has gone before you, not only preparing the trial for you, but in adjusting your spirit to the trial? Can you not testify, to the praise of the glory of His grace, how He has trained you for the race, disciplined you for the conflict, and strengthened your back for the burden? Once and again the Angel of the covenant has surprised you; weak, exhausted, and ready to die, in some lonely path of your journey, and He has stooped and gently touched you, and bade you rise and partake of a new supply of grace and truth; and upheld by that grace, and in the strength of that truth, you have started afresh towards the mount of God. Oh what a loving, faithful God, and what a kind, tender Savior, are ours!

We may gather from the subject of this chapter some NEEDED AND HOLY LESSONS. We learn that the life most blessed to us, and most honoring to Christ, is a life of believing and perpetual dependence upon God. For forty days and nights the prophet traveled with no resources in hand, but having all in God. It was the travel of faith. Such is ours. "Who is this that comes up from the wilderness, leaning upon her beloved?" It is the Church of God, emerging from the world, and in her life of faith upon the Son of God, traveling towards the celestial mount. We cannot too frequently nor too deeply study the profound meaning of those words, "The just shall live BY FAITH." God will have His child perpetually looking to, leaning upon, and receiving from Him. At present we are but in a state of spiritual childhood. We are not therefore in a condition to be trusted with grace for the future. Improvident and careless, we should soon squander and exhaust our resources; and when the emergency came, we should find ourselves unprepared to meet it. The Lord, in wisdom and love, keeps all our grace in His own hands, and deals it out just as our circumstances demand.

O, who that knows his own heart, and the heart of Christ, would not desire that all his supply should be in God, and not in himself! Who, so to speak, would wish to be his own spiritual treasurer? Who that knows the blessedness of the life of faith, the sweetness of going to God in everything, and for everything, would wish to transfer his mercies from Christ's keeping to his own, or wish to hold in the present the supply of the future? Be satisfied, dear reader, to walk by faith, and not by sight. You have a full Christ to draw from, and a faithful God to look to. You have a 'covenant ordered in all things and sure,' and the precious promise, "As your days, so shall your strength be," to lean confidently upon all your journey through. Be content, then, to be poor and dependent. Be willing to travel on empty-handed, seeing God's heart opened, and Christ's hand outstretched to supply your 'daily bread.'

Oh, it is sweet to be a dependent creature upon God- to hang upon a loving Father- to live as a poor, needy sinner day by day, moment by moment, upon Jesus- to trace God in ten thousand ways, to mark His wisdom here, His condescension there; now His love, and then His faithfulness, all combining and exerted for our good- truly it is the most holy and blessed life upon earth. Heaven itself has nothing to be compared with it.

Yet another lesson. The Lord imparts extraordinary strength to meet an extraordinary occasion. Why should we, then, shrink from any trial, or flee from any duty, or turn aside from any cross, since for that trial, and for that duty, and for that cross, Jesus has provided its required and appropriate grace? You are perhaps exclaiming, "Trouble is near!" Well, be it so. So also divine grace is near- and strength is near- and counsel is near- and deliverance is near- and Jesus is near- and God is near- and a throne of grace is near. Therefore why need you fear, though trouble is near? "God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble." There is a table in the wilderness. There is a supply in the desert. "I sat under his shadow with great delight, and his fruit was sweet unto my taste." Our Joseph lives. And in anticipation of the seven years of famine, He has amply provided for His brethren; and He will send them on their journey with full sacks, and with their money in their sacks' mouth, that free grace might have all the glory.

And forget not, O believer, that you are journeying to the mount of God, and will soon be there. Behold it in the distance! What wonders encircle it! What glory bathes it! The exile of Patmos, lifting a corner of the veil, has presented it to our view: "And I looked, and, lo, a Lamb stood on the Mount Zion, and with him a hundred forty and four thousand, having his Father's name written on their foreheads." O what a spectacle of magnificence is this! There is Jesus, the Lamb as it had been slain. To Him every face is turned, on Him every eye is fixed, before Him every knee bends, and every tongue chants His praise, "Worthy is the Lamb that was slain." Around Him are gathering each moment the one Church of God, redeemed from among men. In the light and splendor of the scene all distinctions are absorbed, all minds assimilate, all hearts blend, all voices harmonize, and the grand, visible manifestation of the unity Of the Church is perfected.

To this consummation you are hastening- keep it fully in view. Do not turn aside, yielding to the enchanting scenes through which you pass; but forgetting the things that are behind, press forward to the mark of the prize of your high calling of God in Christ Jesus. To Mount Zion you will certainly arrive at last. Your feet shall stand upon its summit. Your voice shall blend with its music. Your heart shall thrill with its gladness. Your soul shall bathe in its glory. Oh! does not your spirit kindle with ardor, and is not your heart winged with love, while the mount of God unveils its splendor to your view?

Speak, Elijah! for you have reached that mount, and tell us what it is to be there! No! you cannot tell. You have heard its deep songs of joy- but their strains are unutterable. You have seen its ineffable glory- but that glory is unspeakable. Let your mantle fall upon us, and a double portion of your spirit be ours; and at our departure let your chariot of fire convey us to the skies, and we will be content to wait and gaze for awhile upon the distant vision- like some early traveler pausing upon the mountain's side to admire the ascending sun, until his features and his vestments borrow the crimson glow- until changed into the same image from glory to glory, as by the Spirit of the Lord, we reach it at last, and lose ourselves forever amid its transcendent beams- ceasing from our conflict, and reposing from our toil, in the beatific presence of God!

"And then shall cease the life of sin,
The conflict and the woe;
And then have thrown the destined dart,
My last, my conquered foe."
"And then shall come the morning light,
The golden noon of grace,
The gates of pearl, the sea of glass,
The Lamb's unveiled face."
"And then shall come the days of strength,
The awful form and wing;
When as a crowned prince I sit
With you, my Lord, my King."
"And then shall come the time of joy,
The golden harp and song;
The heart with love that overflows
Amid the ransomed throng."
"Thus patient wait, my tranquil soul,
And trust your Father's love
Though earth may bring the cloud and storm,
Bright sunshine reigns above."

"The Chastening of Love"

"As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten." Rev. 3:19.

Who is the speaker of these words? Even Jesus, described as the "faithful witness, the first begotten of the dead, the prince of the kings of the earth, the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last." Not Jesus as in the days of His humiliation; but Jesus in the height of His glory. Not Jesus when the tear was in His eye, and the shade upon His brow, and sadness in His heart; but Jesus exalted above all sorrow, manifested to the exile of Patmos in the splendor of his glorified humanity. The exalted and enthroned Savior is the speaker.

And to whom are these words spoken? They were addressed to the self-sufficient, self-approving church of Laodicea, whose spiritual state was neither warm nor cold, but such as God hated, as Jesus loathed. "Because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue you out of my mouth. You say, I am rich and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and know not that you are wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked." And yet to this church was addressed one of the tenderest and most sublime truths of the Bible; and immediately, too, after this severe and searching rebuke- "As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten: be zealous therefore, and repent."

The CHASTENING OF LOVE is the interesting theme which these words suggest. The Lord Jesus declares that He loves His people, and especially the people whom He chastens. Had we not a 'thus says the Lord' for its truth, its greatness would render it incredible; and had we not some experience of it in our own souls- alas! how small the measure! -it would be too spiritual and glorious for our conception. But who are the people upon whom the heart of Jesus is set? They are not angels; and yet He loves angels because they are elect and holy; He loves them as the creatures of His power, and as the messengers of His will. But God loves not angels as He loves man. The Lord Jesus bears not the same affection towards those unfallen and pure spirits as He does towards a poor sinner hiding in His wounded side, cleansing in His blood, and enfolding himself within the robe of His righteousness. He never took part of the nature of angels, nor wept over angels, nor bled for angels- but all this He did for man!

It is His Church, then, which is represented as the object of His love- His own people, the donation of His Father, the creatures of His choice, the subjects of His grace, the treasure of His heart. Is it asked wherein has He loved them? Rather might we ask wherein has He not loved them! Look at His assumption of their nature! What a mighty stoop was this- the Infinite to the finite! Were it possible for me to save the life of an insect by assuming the form of that insect, I should, by so doing, manifest my great benevolence. But behold the love of our incarnate God! His heart was bent, His whole soul was set, upon saving man. But He could save man only by becoming man. He could not raise our nature, but as He stooped and assumed that nature. He must not only look upon it, and pity it, and weep over it, but He must take it into the closest and most indissoluble union with Himself.

Nor was it the mere exchange, or blending together of natures so as to form one new nature. It was not the absorption of the Infinite into the finite, for He ceased not to be God, when He became man; He only veiled, He did not extinguish the glory of His Deity. In this consisted the mightiness of the stoop. I see no humiliation in the Savior's life but as it springs from this one fact- His condescension in taking up into union with His own divine our human nature. This was the first and greatest step in the path that conducted Him to the cross. All the acts of abasement and ignominy which follow were engrafted upon this. And, oh, what humiliation! Look at your nature! Contemplate it in some of its severest forms of degradation, and wretchedness, and woe. Are you not often constrained to blush that it is your own? Do you not turn from it at times with loathing and abhorrence, ashamed to confess that you are a man? Above all, what self-loathing, what self-abhorrence, when the Holy Spirit opens the chambers of iniquity in your own heart, and makes you acquainted with the abominations that are there! And yet this was the nature which the Son of God assumed! Herein is love! When He saw your nature fallen, ruined, and accursed- ejected from paradise as a loathsome thing- He came and allied Himself to it, in order that He might save it. If this truth, dear reader, has no glory to your eye, nor sweetness to your soul, what is your Christianity? From the depths of my heart I pity you. It is the foundation of Christianity, it is the marrow of the Gospel, it is the hope of the soul, it is that truth which takes every ruffle from the pillow of death. "I know in whom I have believed, and am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day."

And is not this just the truth we need as a suffering and a tried people? When do we extract the sweetest honey from this bitter of bitters? Is it not when our humanity is wounded, oppressed, and cast down? When do we most value and love the humiliation of the Incarnate God? Is it not when by suffering we are driven to it, then to learn the tenderness and the sympathy that are in Christ? O blessed affliction, sweet sorrow, friendly chastisement, that brings my soul into the deeper experience of what God is in my nature!

It is impossible to present at a single glance all the evidences of Christ's love to His people. We may refer to His suretyship engagement in their behalf as a most wonderful manifestation of His love. It includes all that is precious to the believer. He became our Surety, and in consequence He suffered as such. The teaching of the word of God on the subject of suretyship is clear and decided. It would appear to be a thing, if not forbidden, at least discountenanced as incurring risk, and exposing to sorrow. "He that is surety for a stranger shall suffer for it: and he that hates suretyship is safe." "If you be surety for your friend, if you have stricken your hand with a stranger, you are snared with the words of your mouth." "Do not be one of those who strike hands, or of those who are sureties for debts." Such is the teaching of the Holy Spirit on this subject. Were this precept more honored by the observance of God's people, how much loss and suffering would be prevented! What ruin and what sorrow have been entailed upon individuals and upon families by its total disregard! How few have ever thus 'struck hands' who have not been made to 'suffer for it'?

But we return to our Great Surety- the Lord Jesus Christ. He made Himself responsible to Divine law and justice in behalf of His people. He undertook to discharge all their debts, to meet every claim, and to reimburse the moral government of God the honor it had lost. His suretyship involved the provision of a righteousness which should completely justify His church; a righteousness, abused though it may be, and denied though it is, yet on its basis the believing sinner finds acceptance with God, and shall as certainly be in heaven as the saints who are already there. "Whom he justified, those he also glorified." It is just the righteousness we need, dear reader, at the end of our most holy day. When a close inspection, a careful dissection of that which has appeared the most spiritual and God-glorifying, lays the mouth in the dust, then, O then, how blessed to have one flawless, spotless, finished work to fall back upon, and on which we dare take our stand before the holy Lord God, and plead it with Him for acceptance and for heaven.

It is just the righteousness we need to deepen our view of sin, to increase our self-loathing, and to bring the peace of God into the soul in all its soothing and sanctifying influence. It is just the righteousness we need to sustain us amid the swellings of Jordan, when all other confidences give way, when the past seems one mass of sin, and the spirit trembles upon the confines of the dread future- then, O then, by faith to wrap around this robe, and with it strike the billows that they part asunder, and allow the soul to pass over, singing, "There is now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus!" Oh, herein is love!

The suretyship of Jesus also secured to His people the entire and free forgiveness of sin. "Who his own self bore our sins in his own body on the tree," or, to the tree. "Who was made sin (or a sin-offering) for us." "He was wounded for our transgressions; he was bruised for our iniquities." Blessed announcements! Not the less hateful, nor hated, is the sin because it is forgiven and entirely blotted out. Oh no! Let the Lord touch the heart, Christian reader, with a sense of His pardoning love, with the assurance of His forgiveness, and you will go and hate, and mortify, and forsake it, more resolutely and effectually than ever. And must the Son of God become the Son of man, that they who are by nature children of wrath, might become the sons of God? Must God, the eternal God, the high and lofty One, stoop so low as to become incarnate, and that for sinners; for me, a poor worthless sinner! To save me from eternal woe, must the Son of man suffer, agonize, and die; die in my stead, die for my sins, die an accursed death! Ah, Lord, what must sin be, what must my sin be! How little have I thought of it, how little have I mourned for it, still less have I hated it as I ought to have hated it! Lord, how vile, how unutterably vile I am! "And is this the return that I have made,"- exclaims the poor, humbled, abased, contrite soul, when it reflects on some instances of transgression against light and love, against rebukes, against restorings, against God Himself- "did the Lord deserve this at my hands? Oh base ingratitude! Oh hated sin! Do you forgive it, Father of my mercies? This only makes it more hateful still. Never, never can I forgive myself."

Yes! the Lord loves His people. The Father loves them, for He chose them. The Son loves them, for He died for them. The Spirit loves them, for He dwells in them. Look at the care which the Lord takes of them- the supplies of grace measured out to them- the yearnings of His heart over them- the gentleness of His dealings towards them- seeing how He is collecting them one by one to Himself, that they might be with Him where He is, and behold His glory! And never more ask, Wherein has He loved us?

And yet He CHASTENS them- but it is the chastening of love. "As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten." It is not always, nor in every circumstance of trial, that the children of adoption can receive this truth. While passing under His hand, while yet smarting from the rod, while the bitter cup still presses the lip, it is most difficult for the believer to comprehend and discern the Lord's love to him- yes, what seems to be still more hard to believe, that Jesus chastens him because He loves him. And yet, "those whom the Lord loves he chastens, and scourges every son whom he receives." The spring-head of all Divine chastisement is Divine love. There is not, there cannot be, one drop of wrath in the heart of God towards His people. Their Divine Surety bore it all- suffered it all- took it all away. One drop of infinite wrath left in the heart of God must have borne down the Church forever. That single portion would have been too much for it to bear. How, then, can poor, Christless, impenitent sinners, bear up under the deluge of the wrath which is to come? Had not our Surety been Divine as well as human, He could not have sustained it. And all who are out of Christ, who have no union to Christ, and no acceptance in Christ, must bear that wrath alone. "Who can stand before him when once he is angry?"

But Divine love chastens, because it sees the necessity for the correction. The Lord's love is not a blind affection. It is all-seeing, and heart-searching. When has He ever shown Himself blind to the follies of His people? When has His love been ignorant of their sinful departures? Was He blind to the unbelief of Abraham? He chastened him for it. Was He blind to the deception of Jacob? He chastened him for it. Was He blind to the impatience of Moses? He chastened him for it. Was He blind to the self-applause of Hezekiah? He chastened him for it. Was He blind to the adultery and murder of David? He chastened him for it. Was He blind to the idolatry of Solomon? He chastened him for it. Was He blind to the disobedience of Jonah? He chastened him for it. Was He blind to the self-righteousness of Job? He corrected him for it. Was He blind to the denial of Peter? He rebuked him for it.

It is our mercy to know that love marks our iniquity, and that love and not justice, grace and not vengeance, holds the rod, and administers the correction. Do you think, O chastened child of the Lord, that your Father would have touched you where your feelings are the most acute, where your anguish is the deepest, had He not seen a real necessity? Had He marked no iniquity, no flaw, no departure, no spot, you would have known what the 'kisses of His mouth' were, rather than the strokes of His rod. And yet believe it, for He has declared it, those stripes of His rod are as much the fruit and the expression of His love as are the 'kisses of His mouth.' "For whom the Lord loves he chastens." Sin is the cause of afflictions; were we free from sin we should be free from scourges. Afflictions cease not until sin is quite destroyed, which will not be in this world. Justice finds enough in every believer to punish, and mercy finds enough to pardon.

But all the afflictions of the believer are the effects of Divine love. They can resolve themselves into nothing else. While the same stroke, falling upon an unbelieving, rebellious, sin-loving sinner, may be the first-fruits of eternal punishment, to the saint of God it may prove the first-fruits of eternal glory. The correction which you at present consider as an argument of wrath, may be an evidence of love and an act of mercy. God will prune you, but not hew you down. The 'right hand of His mercy' knows what the 'left hand of His severity' is doing. Better for you to be a chastened son, than an undisciplined child of the devil. Oh yes! there was no anger, no vindictiveness, no vengeance in that heavy stroke which laid your heart's fondest treasure in the dust. Love smote, but love yearned while it smote.

The Lord's love likewise appears in appointing the rebuke and in tempering the chastisement. That rebuke might have been heavier, that chastisement might have been severer. The deep and dark waters might have engulfed the soul. The language of the chastising Father is most tender. "I will not make a full end of you: but I will correct you in measure." Thus perhaps your prayer has been answered, "O Lord, correct me, but with judgment; not in your anger, lest you bring me to nothing." And then has followed the pleasant psalm of grateful acknowledgment and praise: "The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and plenteous in mercy. He will not always chide: neither will he keep his anger forever. He has not dealt with us after our sins; nor rewarded us according to our iniquities." O could we always analyze the cup, how astonished should we be to find that in the bitterest draught that ever touched our lips, the principal ingredient was love! That love saw the discipline needful, and love selected the chastisement sent, and love appointed the instrument by which it should come, and love arranged the circumstances by which it should take place, and love fixed the time when it should transpire, and love heard the sigh and saw the tear and marked the anguish, and never for one moment withdrew its beaming eye from the sufferer.

Alas! how much is this truth overlooked by the disciplined believer! Think, suffering child of God, of the many consoling, alleviating, and soothing circumstances connected with your chastisement. How much worse your position might be, how much more aggravated the nature of your sorrow, and how much heavier the stroke of the rod. Think of the disproportion of the chastisement to the sin, for "know that God exacts of you less than your iniquity deserves." Think of the many Divine supports, the precious promises, the tenderness of God, the gentleness of Christ, the sympathy and affection dwelling in the hearts of the saints- and all this will demonstrate to you that the chastisement of the saints is the chastening of love.

Before proceeding to the next chapter, which will trace the sanctified results of God's loving correction, we would remark- how great the dignity and precious the privilege of chastened believers! They are the children of God. "Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God!" Angels, bright, sinless angels, stand not so closely and endearingly related to God as they. Wonderful love of God! that He should not think it a dishonor to own them as His sons, and to call Himself their Father, who by nature are the children of wrath, slaves to Satan, and the servants of sin. How great our dignity! Seek, reader, to know it, to enjoy it, to live to it. If there has been no sealing of your adoption upon the heart, give the Holy Spirit no rest until there is. If, in the holy, humble confidence of faith, there never has been an 'Abba, Father,' upon your lip, as one professing to be a child, and soon to be in eternity, it is time that there should be. Seek it earnestly, seek it importunately, seek it believingly, and you will have it. "You shall call me, my Father." "If I then be a Father," says the same God, "where is my honor?" Have you ever honored Him, loved Him, obeyed Him, glorified Him as your Father? Seek, O seek it with your whole soul. Bending over you, the Spirit of adoption waits to impress the great seal upon your heart. Loving you, the Father yearns to clasp you to His bosom, assuring you that you are His loved, pardoned, accepted child. As the loved, then, whom the Lord rebukes and chastens, let our carriage be that of children, even as His discipline is that of a Father. Let us receive the correction with meekness, and hear the voice of the Lord with reverence, since God is parental and loving in all His conduct towards His saints.

Nor let us fail to remember for our comfort that all the chastisement of the children of God are on this side of heaven. "We are chastened of the Lord that we should not be condemned with the world." Not so with the ungodly. Sinner! unconverted soul! you may laugh now, and sport now, and rejoice now, but remember- your chastisement is to come! Your condemnation is to come! Your stripes are to come! All your real woe is to come. It is coming now, it comes fast, it is near at hand, even at your door- for there is but a step between you and hell! and have you ever thought what it must be to lie down in eternal torment, what it must be to meet an angry God, to confront a despised Savior? To take the fearful plunge without one ray of hope- a starless, sunless, hopeless eternity? O happy if the Eternal Spirit so bless to your soul the perusal of this page as to awaken you to a solemn, an honest and earnest seeking of the Lord; to give up your procrastinations, your waiting for a more convenient season- your worldly excuses- your refuges of lies- the sparks of your own kindling in which you must lie down in sorrow- your dream of a future, a death-bed repentance; and casting all aside, hastening as a poor, lost, dying sinner to Christ, exclaiming, "I am a dying man! I need a Savior! I need the influence of the Holy Spirit to reveal that Savior, to lead me to that Savior, and to tell me that Savior is mine."

But no future sorrow awaits the children of God beyond the grave. They are chastened now, that they may not be condemned hereafter. All to come is joy and gladness, is purity and bliss. "God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes, and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying; neither shall there be any more pain, for the former things are passed away." O learn from this subject that you are not less the object of God's love because He corrects you. The suspicion has, perhaps, pressed coldly and darkly upon your heart, "He cannot love me, and force this nauseous cup to my lip." Hush that murmur! Be still that thought! and know, O chastened child, O daughter of sorrow, that God is love; and because you are His loved child, His loving correction now makes you great. Then, in the words of your suffering Head, say, "The cup that my Father has given me, shall not I drink it?"

"Yes, Lord, Your chastening hand is good,
Though painful now to flesh and blood,
It is my Father's voice of love,
His strength to show, my faith to prove."
"And shall a murmuring thought arise
Against my God, most good, most wise
My God, who has engaged to grant
Supplies of grace for every want?"
"No! rather would I, meek and mild,
Sit at His feet His chastened child,
And learn of Him my cross to bear,
Transformed into His image fair."
"I hear His voice in gentle strains
Soothing my sorrows and my pains,
My love I will not from you take,
Nor for one moment you forsake."
"While you are in the furnace held,
My strength shall be your help and shield;
And your support my arm shall be,
I will be near and solace thee."
"Do you forget the wounds for you
I bore upon the accursed tree?
Did not my love for you atone?
Then, think not you are all alone!"
"Soon will I come, and take you home,
To reign with me upon my throne;
Soon shall your tears be dried away,
In glory's cloudless, endless day.
"Then, Lord, my chastened spirit take,
Wholly renew it for Your sake;
May now Your image in me shine,
And fit me for the life divine."
"And whatsoever Your will may be,
That must be love that comes from Thee;
To You I would my will resign,
My heart, my life, dear Lord, are Thine."

"Holiness, the Fruit of the Chastening of Love"

"Our fathers disciplined us for a little while as they thought best; but God disciplines us for our good, that we may share in his holiness." Hebrews 12:10

It is not an exaggerated observation that the greatest of all afflictions is an affliction lost. An affliction sent as the servant of God, and yet not permitted to fulfil its mission of love in the soul's experience- a messenger bearing like a dove from heaven, an olive branch of peace plucked as from the tranquil bowers of paradise, and yet finding the door of the heart closed against its entrance- a season that might have been made the occasion of a more advanced proficiency in the knowledge of God, and a greater preparedness for heaven, entirely lost- lost no more to return. I repeat, that it is not an exaggerated sentiment, that the greatest of all afflictions is an affliction lost!

In the preceding chapter, we considered the chastisements of the believer as springing from the deep, unchangeable love of God. We should leave this intensely interesting theme but partially discussed, did we not place before the reader some of the great blessings which our heavenly Father designs to convey through this particular channel. The apostle's reasoning is clear and his argument conclusive: "Our fathers disciplined us for a little while as they thought best; but God disciplines us for our good, that we may share in his holiness."

In the unfolding of this second branch of the subject, we shall present some observations upon the holiness of God; then show in what sense all true believers are partakers of the Divine holiness; and then remark that they especially become so by the sanctified chastening of love. HOLINESS is an essential perfection of God. It is an inseparable part of His being. To conceive of a God infinite in essence, divine in majesty, almighty in power, wise in counsel, and eternal in duration, and yet destitute of holiness- infinite, essential purity- to suppose such a Being possessed of the least contagion of moral evil, would be to portray to the imagination- in reverence be it written- an Infinite Monster! We would picture Him before us arrayed with infinite power, wisdom, and duration, and yet lacking in that perfection which tempers, chastens, and beautifies all, and which makes Him truly what His word reveals Him to be- a God of love.

A denial of His being would not be a crime so fearful, nor involve a guilt of deeper dye, than would be a denial of his holiness. He who refuses to acknowledge that God is immaculately holy, breathes a more tremendous libel against God, than the Atheist, who, standing in the midst of ten thousand overwhelming demonstrations of His existence, yet impiously declares there is no God!

But how rich and palpable are the Scripture proofs- rather
say, revelations and unfoldings of God's holiness! One or two must suffice. That is a sublime and conclusive one uttered by the lips of the veiled cherubim- "And one cried unto another, Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts! the whole earth is full of his glory. And the posts of the door moved at the voice of him that cried, and the house was filled with smoke." Was there no other Divine perfection which they might have thus extolled? O yes! Jehovah was infinitely wise, infinitely powerful, and infinitely good; but HOLINESS was the greatest and grandest of all, and so they cry, "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts!" thus breathing forth their adoration to the Holy, Triune God.

Again, "Once have I sworn by my holiness that I will not lie unto David." Why did not God swear by His veracity, by His wisdom, or by His power? Because He was about to enunciate a great truth to the house of David; and with a view of imparting to that truth its greatest force, solemnity, and beauty, He swears by His holiness. As if He did say, "holiness is my illustrious perfection, my grandest attribute, and by it I swear that I will make good my word, that I will not lie unto David." For as 'men verily swear by the greater,' so God swears by His holiness, His greatest perfection, and highest glory. O you saints of the Most High, who, standing in the region of doubt, and enshrouded by dark providences, are led to ask, "Will God make good the promise upon which He has caused my soul to rest?"- look at this great truth- God has sworn by His holiness that He will not lie; and you have the warrant and the encouragement to trust in God, to confide in His word, and to resign yourself and all your interests into His fatherly, faithful, though chastening hands. By this solemn oath He has bound Himself to make good to the letter His every precious promise.

Take yet another view of this subject. Holiness is the image which God transfers from Himself to the renewed creature. God, in regeneration, draws upon the soul of man His own moral portrait. And what is the image of Himself which He thus transfers, glorious and imperishable, to the renewed mind? Is it His wisdom? No! Is it His truth? No! Is it His love? No! It is His holiness! As if He would say, "I will draw my image upon the renewed man, and it shall be that which is my glory, my beauty, my grandest perfection; and in making the creature holy, I will make him like myself." How strikingly has the Holy Spirit brought out this truth: "And that you put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness,"- a truth worthy of our profoundest study. In nothing does the renewed soul so closely resemble God as in holiness. May the Lord the Spirit write this truth deeply upon our heart!

But how has God manifested His holiness? He has not only revealed the fact in His word, but He has exhibited the perfection in various ways. Its most palpable, awful, and august demonstration is in the cross of His Son Jesus Christ. Behold the redemption which He has wrought; contemplate this the most stupendous of God's works, and where will you find such a demonstration of God's holiness as that which the cross of the incarnate God exhibits? Not all the vials of judgment that have ever been poured, or that ever will be poured out- not the flaming furnace in the conscience of the ungodly- not the irretrievable vengeance of God against the angels who kept not their first estate- not all the woe and suffering of the condemned in hell, convey any adequate idea of the holiness of God compared with the death of His own beloved Son. There hung the holy, spotless Lamb of God! He had never sinned; there had never been the slightest hostility of his will to his Father's; He had never harbored one treason thought against Jehovah, but had "always done those things which pleased him." Yet we behold Him exhausting the cup of Divine wrath, His human soul scathed by the lightning stroke of Divine justice, and His sinless body bruised, and wounded, and slain.

And what do we learn from the spectacle, but that God was so righteous, so holy, He could not pass by the iniquity of the Church, but as He punished it with the utmost severity in the person of its Surety? And what was the perfection of God, the contemplation of which in the hour of His agony upheld him? In prophetic language He tells us, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? why are you so far from helping me, and from the words of my roaring? O my God, I cry in the day time, but you hear not; and in the night season, and am not silent: but you are holy." This was the truth which gave His agitated soul rest beneath its overwhelming pressure. He saw God so holy in His withdrawment, so holy in the billows which went over His soul, so holy in taking vengeance for His people's sins, that He bowed His head in meek acquiescence to the Divine will: "but you are holy."

Hell is full of the Divine holiness; holiness in the manifestation of justice, holiness in its most glorious exercise. How fearfully are the lost now learning this truth! Think it not a trifling matter, unconverted reader, to look into the bottomless pit, and to know that there is but a step and you are there! You walk to the end of the treacherous plank, and you are gone! O solemn thought- but one step between you and the quenchless flame; but one step between you and endless torment! Throughout eternity the lost soul will be testifying to this truth- "God is holy; I was a sinner; I rejected His salvation, I turned my back upon His gospel, I despised His Son, I hated Himself, I lived in my sins, I loved my sins, I died in my sins, and now I am lost- to all eternity lost! And God is righteous in my condemnation.

But a more pleasing contemplation of the subject awaits us- the sense in which all true believers in Jesus are partakers of the Divine holiness. There is a holiness in God, let it be premised, that cannot be communicated to any creature. We allude to His essential holiness. It is utterly impossible that any creature can be a partaker of this. But there is a Divine holiness in which His saints, His holy ones, share- a holiness that is communicable. The creature was originally holy. He lost it by his union with the first Adam, he recovers it by his union with the second Adam: "That you put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness." Couple this passage with another- "Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises: that by these you might be partakers of the Divine nature." Thus, in the regeneration of the soul, we become partakers not of the Divine immutability, nor of the Divine wisdom, nor of the Divine power, but of the Divine holiness. We are "renewed in the spirit of our minds," are born again of the Holy Spirit, and have the germ of imperishable holiness implanted in the soul.

The ingrafting of the truth in the heart also assimilates the believer to the Divine holiness. The truth of God must be from its source and in its nature holy. The abuse or the perversion of any single truth does not and cannot affect the pure character and sanctifying tendency of that truth. Truth may be denied, tortured, and forced to the martyr's stake- it still remains, Divine, holy, and immortal- God's great instrument of sanctifying His chosen: "Sanctify them through your truth." To be a partaker of God's truth is to be a partaker of God's holiness.

Nor must we omit the indwelling of the "Spirit of holiness" in the believer. In this view he becomes in a high and solemn sense a "partaker of the Divine holiness." His body is a "temple of the Holy Spirit!" Surely no angel in heaven is such a partaker of God's holiness as he. He bears about with him- solemn thought!- the in-being grace and presence of the Holy Spirit, the third person in the ever-blessed Trinity! Surely there must be in Him a Divine nature, a holy principle, approximating to, and assimilating with, the Divine holiness.

Having thus rapidly traversed this important ground, we are better prepared to consider our main topic- THE PROMOTION OF THE BELIEVER'S HOLINESS THROUGH THE MEDIUM OF DIVINE CHASTISEMENT. "He for our profit, that we might be partakers of his holiness." It would be incorrect to suppose that the chastisements of our heavenly Father were in themselves pleasant and desirable. They are no more so than the physician's therapy, or the surgeon's lancet. But as in the one case, so in the other, we look beyond the medicine to its therapeutic qualities; we forget the bitterness of the medication in its remedial results. Thus with the medicine of the soul- the afflictions sent and sanctified by God. Forgetting the bitter and the pain of God's dealings, the only question of moment is, what is the cause, and what the design of my Father in this cause? The answer is- our deeper sanctification.

This is effected, first, by making us more thoroughly acquainted with the holiness of God Himself. Sanctified chastisement has an especial tendency to this. To suppose a case. Our sense of God's holiness, previously to this dispensation, was essentially defective, unsound, superficial, and uninfluential. The judgment admitted the truth; we could speak of it to others, and in prayer acknowledged it to God; but still there was a vagueness and an indistinctness in our conceptions of it, which left the heart cold and rendered the walk uneven. To be led now into the actual, heartfelt experience of the truth, that in all our transactions we had to deal with the holy, heart-searching Lord God, we find quite another and an advanced stage in our journey, another and a deeper lesson learned in our school. This was the truth, and in this way Nehemiah was taught. "Howbeit you are just (holy) in all that is brought upon us; for you have done right, but we have done wickedly." O blessed acknowledgment! Think not that we speak unfeelingly when we say, it were worth all the discipline you have ever passed through to have become more deeply schooled in the lesson of God's holiness.

One most fruitful cause of all our declensions from the Lord, will be found wrapped up in the crude and superficial views which we entertain of the character of God, as a God of infinite purity. And this truth He will have His people to study and to learn, not by sermons, nor from books, not from hearsay, nor from theory, but in the school of loving chastisement- personally and experimentally. And thus, beholding more closely, and through a clearer medium, this Divine perfection, the believer is changed more perfectly into the same moral image. "He for our profit, that we might be partakers of his holiness."

The 'rod of the covenant' has a wonderful power of discovery. Thus, by revealing to us the concealed evil of our natures, we become more holy. "The blueness (that is, the severity) of a wound cleanses away evil." This painful discovery often recalls to memory past feelings and sins. David went many years in oblivion of his departure from God, until Nathan was sent, who, while he told him of his sin, with the same breath announced the message of Divine forgiveness. Then it was the royal penitent kneeled down and poured forth from the depth of his anguished spirit the fifty-first Psalm- a portion of God's word which you cannot too frequently study. "I do remember my sin this day," is the exclamation of the chastened sufferer. Thus led to search into the cause of the Divine correction, and discovering it- perhaps after a long season of forgetfulness- the 'blueness of the wound'- the severity of the rod- 'cleanses away the evil;' in other words, more deeply sanctifies the soul. "Show me why you contend with me."

Submission to the Divine will is a great advance in holiness; and this is mainly and effectually attained through sanctified chastisement. In prosperity, how full are we of self-sufficiency! When the Lord asks our obedience, we give Him our counsel. But when He sends the rod, and by the accompanying grace of His Spirit sanctifies its stroke, we learn in what true obedience consists. It was in this school our blessed Lord Himself was taught. "Though He was a Son, yet learned He obedience by the things which He suffered." He learned to obey in suffering; to bring His will in suffering into complete submission to His Father's will. God has not in His family such obedient children as those who, 'passing under the rod,' are 'brought into the bond of the covenant.' Oh what a high Christian attainment is submission to the will of God! It is the noblest grace attainable upon earth!

When our Lord taught His disciples to ask to the Father for the spread of holiness, He embodied the petition in these words, "Your will be done on earth, as it is in heaven." The universal and complete holiness of heaven springs from the universal and complete perfection in which the will of God is done by angels and glorified spirits. In proportion as the Divine will prevails upon earth, holiness will reign. And oh what a beauteous earth, and what a blissful world would this be, were the will of God done by every creature! In the new earth, in which will dwell righteousness, it will be so. The original harmony of this fallen universe will then be restored, its pristine beauty recovered, and God, in the person of His Son, will once more reign over, and walk in the midst of, a people whose will shall be but the reflection of His own.

Then to approximate to the Divine will, is to assimilate with the Divine holiness. What God will, how God will, and when God will, defines the rule which should govern all the conduct and limit all the desires of the child of God. The instant the overwhelmed heart is brought into this state, the afflicted believer has planted his feet upon the rock that is higher than he. All is peace, all is composure, because all is submission to the will of God. "The Lord reigns" is the truth whose all-commanding yet gentle whisper has stilled the tempest, and calmed the waves. In its intense anxiety that the Divine will might be done, the chastened soul is but breathing after deeper holiness; and every fervent desire for the attainment of holiness, is holiness already attained. Blessed chastening of love, that produces in this bitter and uncongenial world, the buds and blossoms and fruits of heaven! A richer fruit grows not within the Paradise of God than HOLINESS. And yet, in the experience of a chastened believer, bleeding under the rod of his heavenly Father, there may be obtained such victories over sin, such purification of heart, such meekness of spirit, such Christ-like conformity, and such a discipline of the will, as to make him a rich "partaker of the Divine holiness."

But how shall we enumerate all the blessings which result from the chastening of love? We might tell how prayer is quickened, how pride is abased, how weanedness is attained, how charity is increased, how character is formed, how meditation and solitude are sweetened, how Christ is endeared, and how God is glorified. It will be recollected that in the ark of the covenant there was "Aaron's rod that budded." Our glorious covenant of grace has, too, its rod, its budding, its blossoming rod- and precious is the nature and rich the variety of the fruit which it bears. But in that ancient ark there was also the "pot of manna." "Mercy and judgment," bitter and sweet, light and shade, are blended in the covenant-dealings of God with His people. The rod and the pot of manna go together. If the one is bitter, the other is sweet. God will never send the rod unaccompanied with the manna. Jesus exhibited in the word, but unfolded by the Spirit, in the sweet sympathy of His nature, in the tenderness of His heart, as the "Brother born for adversity," is the manna, raising, sustaining, and strengthening the believer passing under the covenant rod of God. Thus, if afflictions be grievous, the fruit they bear is gracious.

In the history of the Jewish Church there is yet another type beautifully illustrative of God's dealings with the chastened Christian. I allude to the 'pillar' which guided the pilgrimage of the Church in the wilderness. By night it was a pillar of fire, and by day it was a pillar of cloud. The darkest night of weeping that can possibly enshroud the child of God, has its bright light- its alleviation, its promise, its guiding. And in the most prosperous period in the Christian's experience it is ordered by unerring wisdom and infinite love that there should be some counter-dispensation of trial to preserve the just balance of the soul. It has been well remarked that "Things never go so well with God's children, but they have still something to groan under; nor so bad, but they have still some comfort to be thankful for."

There are two portions of God's word so confirmatory of the leading principles laid down in this chapter, which, although probably familiar to the Christian reader, I would venture once more to recall to his attention. The passages to which I refer set forth the great truth before us- holiness, the fruit of Divine chastisement. "He shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver; and he shall purify the sons of Levi, and purge them as gold and silver, that they may offer unto the Lord an offering in righteousness." "Remove the dross from the silver, and out comes material for the refiner." Mark the great and glorious end of this fiery process- a righteous offering to the Lord; and a vessel formed, prepared, and beautified for the Refiner; a "vessel unto honor, fit for the Master's use." Blessed result! O the wonders wrought by the fire of God's furnace! Not only is 'God glorified in the fire,' but the believer is sanctified.

Have you ever observed the process of the sculptor in the preparation of his beautiful ornament? After removing it from its mold, skillfully and beautifully formed, he then traces upon it the design he intended it should bear, dipping his brush in varied hues of the brightest coloring. But the work is not yet finished. The shape of that ornament is yet to be fixed, the figures are to be set, the colors perpetuated, and the whole work consolidated. By what process? By passing it through the fire. The fire alone completes the work. Thus is it with the chastened soul- that beautifully constructed vessel, which is to adorn the palace of our King through eternity- the gaze, and wonder, and delight of every holy intelligence. God has cast it into the Divine mold, has drawn upon it the 'image of His Son,' with a brush dipped in heaven's own colors- but it must pass through the furnace of affliction, thus to stamp completeness and eternity upon the whole. Calmly, then, repose in the hands of your Divine Sculptor, asking not the extinguishment of a spark until the holy work is done. God may temper and soften- for He never withdraws His eye from the work for one moment; but great will be your loss if you lose the affliction unsanctified!

"We need not ask for suffering: when its test
Comes, we may prove too faithless to endure
We need not ask for suffering- it were best
We wait God's holy orderings, to insure
Our highest good. But we may ask from Him
That not one throb of grief, one dart of pain,
One burning pang of anguish, pierce in vain
This feeble being, in its faith so dim,
This fainting frame, or this over-burdened heart
We may implore Him He would grace impart,
And strength, to suffer still as the beloved
Of His own bosom. For, of all below,
The one affliction in this world of woe,
Most sad- is an affliction unimproved."

Oh! could we with a clearer vision of faith but see the reason and the design of God in sending the chastisement, all marvel would cease, all murmuring would be hushed, and not a painful dispensation of our Father would afford us needless trouble. David's pen never wrote more sweetly than when dipped in the ink of affliction; and never did his harp send forth deeper, richer melody than when the breath of sadness swept its strings. This has been the uniform testimony of the saints of God in every age. "It is good for me that I have been afflicted; for before I was afflicted I went astray, but now have I kept your law."

Learn to see a Father's hand, yes, a Father's heart, in every affliction. It is not a vindictive enemy who has chastened you, but a loving Friend; not an unfeeling stranger, but a tender Father, who, though He may cast you down in the dust, will never cast you off from His love. The Captain of your salvation- Himself made perfect through suffering- only designs your higher spiritual promotion in His army, by each sanctified affliction sent. You are on your way to the mansion prepared for you by the Savior, to the kingdom bestowed upon you by God. The journey is short, and time is fleeting; what though the cross is heavy and the path is rough- you have not far nor long to carry it. Let the deep-drawn sigh be checked by the throb of gladness which this prospect should create. "He will not always chide, nor remain angry forever." The wind will not always moan, nor the waters be always tempestuous; the dull vapor will not forever float along the sky, nor the sunbeams be forever wreathed in darkness. Your Father's love will not always speak in muffled tones, nor your Savior hide Himself forever behind the wall, or within the lattice. That wind will yet breathe music; those waters will yet be still; that vapor will yet evaporate; that sun will yet break forth; your Father's love will speak again in unmuffled strains, and your Savior will manifest Himself without a veil.

Pensive child of sorrow! weary pilgrim of grief! timid, yet prayerful; doubting, yet hoping; guilty, yet penitent; laying your hand on the head of the great appointed Sacrifice, you look up with a tear, confess your sin, and plead in faith the blood of sprinkling. O rejoice that this painful travail of soul is but the Spirit's preparation for the seat awaiting you in the upper temple, where the days of your mourning will be ended. You may carry the cross to the last step of the journey- your tear, even up to heaven's gate- but there you shall lay that cross down, and the last bitter drop shall there be wiped away forever! "Therefore will the Lord wait, that he may be gracious unto you; and therefore will he be exalted, that he may have mercy upon you: for the Lord is a God of judgment: blessed are all those who wait for him." Truly we may exclaim, "Blessed is the man whom you chasten, O Lord, and teach him from your law!" "He chastens us for our profit, that we might be partakers of his holiness."

"Lord unto You I lift a troubled heart,
A tearful eye;
But if Your hand has sent the sting, the smart,
If You be near,
Near, though unseen- upon my knees I'll pray,
Dry not those tears- take not that sting away."
"Clothe me with sackcloth, mingle my food
With ashes-still
I'll bless the hand that is 'educing good
From seeming ill'
Should I thus walk in darkness if my sight,
Could bear undazzled more of Heaven's own light?"
"Not until the molten gold be purified
Do you ease the flame;
Give me but grace Your will to abide.
To see Your aim,
To know that You are with me in the fire,
I need no more, and nothing else desire."

The Vitality of the Atoning Blood

"The blood is the life." Deut.12:23

How much has the most deeply instructed believer yet to learn of the essential value, the sovereign efficacy, and the mighty power of the atoning blood of Jesus! Standing though we are in a dispensation- the last and the most complete- in which the Great Sacrifice has been offered, the atoning Lamb slain, the blood actually shed, it is yet a mournful reflection, that with regard to the experience of many professing Christians, it is to be feared that they have not even so vivid and realizing a view of the glory and power of that blood as the believers of the Old Testament had, who only saw it in the dim type, but who yet by faith firmly grasped the Great Antitype. Read for instance the penitential psalm of David.

And yet, beloved reader, the atoning blood is everything to us. It is the groundwork of our salvation- yes, it is salvation itself. It is the source of our peace- yes, it is peace itself. It is the open door of heaven- yes, it is heaven itself. All that is really holy and precious to a poor believing penitent is bound up in the atoning blood of Jesus. The particular view of the subject upon which we have now entered- the vitality of the atoning blood- will arrest the attention of some who may not have contemplated it in this light before; and will, with the blessing of the Holy Spirit, commend itself powerfully to the best feelings of all, as the most sublime and most precious theme which could possibly employ their thoughts or enlist their affections. In the truest and most comprehensive sense it may be affirmed of the atonement of the Son of God, and of the salvation of the Church, which springs from it, "The blood is the life." We propose to spread before the Christian reader two or three important views of this deeply interesting subject.

If we refer for a moment to the type, it will be seen with what distinctness and power the Holy Spirit has brought out this great truth in the word- THE ESSENTIAL VITALITY OF THE ATONING BLOOD. The references which we propose to quote, let it be observed, are designed to illustrate one especial view of our subject- the value which God set upon blood, because of its vital principle, and its being the symbol of a Divine atonement for sin. Whether it was the blood of the lowest, or of the most costly sacrifice, whether it was shed unintentionally or purposely, Jehovah threw around it His protecting shield, rendering the spot where it fell sacred and precious.

Thus, then, with regard to the type, it will be recollected that God issued a solemn injunction that blood should never form an element of food. Why this prohibition? because of the essential value of that blood- there was life in it. "Moreover you shall eat no manner of blood, whether it be of fowl or of beast, in any of your dwellings. Whoever eats any manner of blood, even that soul shall be cut off from his people." Observe, on another occasion, after having given directions in reference to the sacrifice, God enjoins His command, "Only you shall not eat of the blood; you shall pour it out upon the earth as water." "Only be sure that you eat not the blood: for the blood is the life; and you may not eat the life with the flesh." Observe another occasion on which the eating of blood was expressly forbidden: "And whatever man there be of the house of Israel, or of the strangers that sojourn among you, that eats any manner of blood, I will even set my face against that soul that eats blood, and cut him off from among his people. For the life of the flesh is in the blood: and I have given it to you upon the altar to make an atonement for your souls for it is the blood that makes an atonement for the soul."

This restriction was solemnly binding upon Israel's huntsmen: "And I will turn against anyone, whether an Israelite or a foreigner living among you, who eats or drinks blood in any form. I will cut off such a person from the community, for the life of any creature is in its blood. I have given you the blood so you can make atonement for your sins. It is the blood, representing life, that makes atonement for the soul." Leviticus 17:10-11. One reference more and we pass on to the discussion: "Anything or anyone who touches the sacrificial meat will become holy, and if the sacrificial blood splatters anyone's clothing, it must be washed off in a sacred place. If a clay pot is used to boil the sacrificial meat, it must be broken. If a bronze kettle is used, it must be scoured and rinsed thoroughly with water." Leviticus 6:27-28

Another opportunity is taken of solemnly charging Israel to remember the blood of atonement. The hunter, in his full occupation, must keep atonement in his eye; and when he has his prey in his hand, must reverently stand still and pour out its blood to Jehovah, and cover it from the gaze of man and the ravenous appetite of creatures of prey. God would have the sinner's soul send up his adoring thanks to Him for atonement amid their forests and in their wilds. Redemption should be sung by every man in every situation; and none should be found in any situation wherein he cannot sing the song of Moses and the Lamb. Israel's huntsmen were to be men of faith. They were not to hunt for the gratifying of fiery wild passions, but for food and necessity. The chastening solemnity of 'pouring out the blood' was a check on the huntsmen. None who would not stay in their vehement, eager, keen pursuit to realize redemption must engage in this employment. It is not for the gay, wild sports of youth; or if fiery youth engage therein, it must lead them to the most solemn views of sin and righteousness. Yes, it shall be even a way of life to them. Let them go- let them ride furiously over rock and chasm- let them shoot the arrow– but lo! the field becomes an arena to lead them to the presence of the holy God. They must stand still at the blood! How awful is atoning blood! Even things without life, such as garments, are held in dreadful sacredness if this blood touch them. No wonder, then, that this earth on which fell the blood of the Son of God, has a sacredness in the eye of God. It must be set apart for holy ends, since the blood of Jesus has wet its soil. And as the earthen vessel, within which the sacrifice was offered, must be broken- and not used for any lower end again, so must this earth be decomposed and new-molded, for it must be kept for the use of Him whose sacrifice was offered there. And as the brazen vessel must be rinsed and scoured, so must this earth be freed from all that dims its beauty, and be set apart for holy ends. It must be purified and reserved for holy purposes; for the blood of Jesus has dropped upon it, and made it more sacred than any spot, except where He Himself dwells." -Bonar on Leviticus.

Now all these solemn and minute injunctions were designed to shadow forth the vitality, solemnity, and costliness of the expiatory blood of Immanuel. And if such be the value in God's holy eye of the blood of the Levitical sacrifice, what must be God's estimate of the dignity and preciousness of the atoning blood of His own Son, Jesus Christ- the blood of the incarnate God! Observe, it was the life-blood of His pure and sinless humanity. It is an essential doctrine of our salvation that the only part of our Lord's two-fold nature capable of actually atoning, was without sin. The apostle Peter, speaking of our redemption-price, affirms, that it was the "precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot." And the apostle Paul declares the same truth almost in the same words: "How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God." Herein did lie, in part, its essential value and vitality- it was the blood of Christ's pure and spotless life. Had there been the slightest degree of sin in Jesus, it would have tainted every drop of his atoning blood.

But the stream while it flowed from the very fountain of life- for the soldier's spear pierced both the heart and the pericardium of the Savior, and "forthwith there came out blood and water "- flowed also from a pure fountain, a fountain as sinless as God Himself. O you who know the plague of your own hearts, you who mourn for sin, behold the truth upon which your faith may calmly repose! You see sin, the defiling touch of sin, upon your best, and purest, and holiest offerings, all your sacrifices tainted and defaced with it. Yes, at that moment that your tears of penitence for sin flowed the freest, and your confessions of sin were the most minute and humiliating, and your heart was most perfectly unveiled before the searching eye of God, there was enough sin in those tears, and in those confessions, and in that unbosoming of the heart, to banish you eternally from heaven. That tear of godly sorrow falling upon an angel's white robe would have sullied it. "I cannot pray, but I sin; I cannot hear, or preach a sermon, but I sin; I cannot give an alms, or receive the sacrament, but I sin; no, I cannot so much as confess my sins, but my confessions are still aggravations of them. My repentance needs to be repented of, my tears need washing, and the very washing of my tears needs still to be washed over again with the blood of my Redeemer." (Berridge)

But here exists the true consolation of the humble penitent- the atoning blood of Jesus, in which he bathes his soul, was without spot. There was no sin in Christ; "He knew no sin; " "in Him was no sin. " Satan came and found nothing in Him. Here is a sacrifice which the vilest sinner may plead with God and meet with Divine acceptance. Come, you who grieve for sin, who weep over your tears, who confess your confessions, who sigh over your sighs, and behold with believing eye the pure stream that flows from the very seat of the Savior's life- even the heart that never, never sinned. Cleansed in this fountain, you shall appear before God, "whiter than snow,"- all sin forever put away.

But there is also a Divine vitality in the atoning blood of Christ. Here we assume still higher ground, and our subject opens in a more magnificent and important light. It was the blood, not merely of the human Son of the virgin, but of the Divine Son of God. In consequence of the union of the humanity with the Divinity, the blood of Jesus is expressly termed by the Holy Spirit, "the blood of God." "The church of God which he has purchased with his own blood." The Deity of the Son of God imparted a Divine vitality and value to the blood "which flowed from His human nature. So close and intimate was the mysterious union, that while the Deity effected the atonement by the humanity, the humanity derived all its power and virtue to atone from the Deity. There was Deity in the blood of Jesus- a Divine vitality which stamped its infinite value, dignity, and virtue. Observe in two instances how strikingly the Holy Spirit has coupled these two truths- the Deity, and the atonement of Jesus- "Who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins." "Awake, O sword, against my shepherd, against the man that is my fellow, says the Lord; smite the shepherd."

Here are brought out in the strongest light, and in the most beautiful and intimate relation, Deity and Atonement. It was not so much that our Lord was the Priest, as that He was the sacrifice; not so much that He was the offerer, as that He was the offering; in which did lie the value of His blood. "When He had by Himself purged our sins." "Who gave Himself for us." "When He offered Himself." What did He offer in offering Himself? He offered up His life- His twofold life. There was on Calvary the sacrifice of Deity with the humanity. The Deity not suffering, for it was incapable of suffering; nor of dying, for essential life could not die; but Deity with the humanity constituted the one offering which has perfected forever the salvation of those who are sanctified.

Profoundly and awfully mysterious as is this truth, faith can receive it. It towers above my reason, and yet it does not contradict my reason. While it transcends and baffles it, it does not oppose nor supersede it. Christian reader, the blood upon which you depend for your salvation is not ordinary blood- the blood of a more human being, however pure and sinless; but it is the blood of the Incarnate God, "God manifest in the flesh." It is the blood of Him who is Essential Life- the Fountain of Life- the "Resurrection and the Life;" and because of the Divine life of Jesus, from thence springs the vitality of His atoning blood. Oh, that is a Divine principle that vivifies the blood of Christ! This it is that makes it sacrificial, expiatory, and cleansing. This it is that enables it to prevail with God's justice for pardon and acceptance; this it is that renders it so efficacious, that one drop of it falling upon the conscience crushed beneath the weight of sin, will melt the mountain of guilt, and lift the soul to God. Hold fast the confidence of your faith in the essential Deity of the Son of God, for this it is which gives to His atonement all its glory, dignity, and virtue.

But let us take yet another view of our subject. The vitality of the atoning blood of Christ constitutes the spiritual life of the living soul. Thus is it true in a pre-eminent sense that "the blood is the life." The blood of Jesus is the life of the believing soul. There is a palpable and an awful death in the soul of an unconverted man. His prayers are dead- his duties are dead- his works are dead- his hopes are dead, yes, he himself and his whole religion are "dead in trespasses and in sins." It is the theological creed of some that to those who are spiritually dead, we ought neither to write, nor to preach. But with all meekness would we say, we have not so read God's word, nor have we "so learned Christ." The prophet Ezekiel was commanded to prophesy over the 'dry bones'; and Jesus himself not only warned the impenitent, but wept over them! Who can tell while we are writing and preaching, warning and inviting, the "breath of the Lord" may come forth and breathe over them, and they live!

But the life-possessing and life-imparting blood of Jesus is the life of the quickened soul. His blood not only purchased life for His people, but the application of His blood imparts it. It was necessary that the Son of God should die, that we might live. It was essential that Jesus should bleed, that life might flow from His wounds to our souls. The life must be offered: "I am the good Shepherd; the good Shepherd gives his life for the sheep." But for the shedding of the heart's blood of Jesus our heart had been forever a stranger to a single throb of spiritual life. One drop of the life-blood of Immanuel, as we have just observed, falling upon a soul dead in sin, in an instant quickens it with a life that will never die- such is the essential vitality of the atoning blood.

The blood of Jesus is also the life of our pardon and acceptance: "Whom God has set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God," that is, the transgressions of the Old Testament saints; the life-giving blood of Jesus extending its pardoning efficacy back to the remotest period of time, and to the greatest sinner upon earth, even to him "by whom sin entered into the world, and death by sin"- such is the vitality of the atoning blood of God's dear Son. And if the pardoning blood thus bore an antecedent virtue, has it less a present one? No! listen to the life-inspiring words! "In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace." Once more, "The blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanses us from all sin." It has a present life, an immediate efficacy. The life of our pardon! O yes! the believing, though trembling penitent, sees all his sins cancelled, all his transgressions pardoned, through the precious blood of Jesus. Nothing but the life-blood of the incarnate God could possibly effect it. And when, after repeated backslidings, he returns again with sincere and holy contrition, and bathes in it afresh, lo! the sense of pardon is renewed; and while he goes away to loathe himself, and abhor his sins, he yet can rejoice that the living blood of the Redeemer has put it entirely and forever away.

And what is the life of our acceptance but the blood of Immanuel? "Justified by his blood." The robe that covers us, is the righteousness of Him who is the "Lord our Righteousness;" who, when He had by one act of perfect obedience to the law, wove the robe of our justification, bathed it in His own life-blood, and folded it around His Church, presenting her to His Father a "glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing." Not only is it the ground of our present acceptance, but the saints in heaven, "the spirits of just men made perfect," take their stand upon it. "Who are these," it is asked, "who are arrayed in white robes? And where did they come from?" The answer is, "These are those who came out of great tribulation, and have washed their robes, and have made them white in the blood of the Lamb. Therefore are they before the throne." Thus pleading the justifying blood of Jesus, the believing, though distressed and trembling soul, may stand before God, "accepted in the Beloved." Wondrous declaration! Blessed state! Rest not, reader, until you have attained it. No, you cannot rest until you have received, by faith, the righteousness of Christ.

From where, too, flows the life of spiritual joy, but from the life-giving blood of Immanuel? There can be no real joy but in the experience of pardoned sin. The joy of the unpardoned soul is the joy of the condemned criminal on his way to death- a mockery and a delusion. With all his sins upon him, with all his iniquities yet unforgiven, every step brings him nearer to the horrors of the second death; what, then, can he know of true joy? But when the blood of Jesus is sprinkled upon the heart, and the sense of sin forgiven is sealed upon the conscience, then there is joy indeed, "joy unspeakable, and full of glory."

From where, too, flows peace-sweet, holy, divine peace, but from the heart's blood of the Prince of Peace? There can be no true peace from God where there does not exist perfect reconciliation with God. That is a false peace which springs not from a view of God pacified in Christ, God one with us in the atonement of His Son. "Spearing peace by Jesus Christ." "The blood of sprinkling speaks better things than the blood of Abel," because it speaks peace.

And from where do the ordinances derive their efficacy and power- but from the vitality of the Redeemer's blood? There could be no life, for instance, in the ordinance of the Lord's Supper, but as that institution presented in a lively picture to the faith of the recipient the life-blood of the Savior. With what clearness and solemnity has He Himself put forth this truth: "Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is food indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. He who eats my flesh, and drinks my blood, dwells in me, and I in him." Thus he who in lowly and simple faith drinks of the blood of Jesus partakes of the life of Jesus, because the life of Jesus is in the blood. And should the eye of an unconverted soul light upon this page, or should it arrest the attention of an unbelieving, and therefore an unworthy, recipient of the ordinance, let that individual seriously ponder these solemn words of Jesus- "Except you eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, you have no life in you." The ordinance has no life of itself; the mere symbol possesses no spiritual vitality whatever; it cannot impart life, nor can it sustain life. But the life in the ordinance flows from the exercise of faith, through this medium, with the life-blood of Jesus. Therefore, if you rest only in the symbol, if in this ordinance you partake not by faith of the blood of Jesus, your soul is destitute of spiritual life. In the words of Jesus himself, "You have no life in you." Solemn reflection!

But oh what life does the believing communicant find in the atoning blood! What food, what refreshment, what nourishment! Is it any wonder that Jesus should be to him the Chief among ten thousand, and that the blood of Jesus should be the most precious thing in the universe? If the death of Jesus is his life, what must the life of Jesus be! If the humiliation of Jesus is his honor, what must the exaltation of Jesus be! If the cross of Jesus is his glory, what must the throne of Jesus be! If Jesus crucified is his boast, what must be Jesus glorified! "If, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life."

Reader, is the blood of Jesus the life of your soul? So momentous is the truth, though presented before, bear with me for pressing it again upon your attention. Believe me when, with all affection and solemnity, I say that your religion, your creed, your profession, are lifeless if they are not vivified, pervaded, and animated by the blood of the Son of God. God can have no dealings with you in this great matter of your salvation, but through the blood. He cannot 'reason' with you about your sins of 'crimson' and of 'scarlet' dye but on the footing of the blood. He cannot meet you for one moment in any other character than as a 'consuming fire,' but as He meets you at, and communes with you from above, the mercy-seat sprinkled with blood. The blood is everything to God in the way of satisfaction, of glory, and of honor. The blood should be everything to you in the way of acceptance, pardon, and communion. There is not a moment in which God's eye of complaisance is withdrawn from the blood in the perpetual acceptance of the believer; and there should not be a moment in which our eye of faith, in every circumstance of our daily walk before Him, should not also be upon the blood.

But here the brief and imperfect discussion of this great truth must rest. The remaining portion of the chapter will be devoted to a few PRACTICAL REFLECTIONS. The subject lifts us to the very porch, and within the porch of heaven. And what is the great truth which it presents to our view there? -the prevalency of the life-blood of Jesus within the veil. The moment the ransomed and released soul enters glory, the first object that arrests its attention and fixes its eye is the interceding Savior. Faith, anticipating the glorious spectacle, sees him now pleading the blood on behalf of each member of His Church upon earth. "By His own blood He entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us." "For Christ has not entered into the holy places made with hands, which are the figures of the true; but into heaven itself, NOW to appear in the presence of God for us." There is blood in heaven! the blood of the Incarnate God! And because it pleads and prays, argues and intercedes, the voice of every sin is hushed, every accusation of Satan is met, every daily transgression is forgiven, every temptation of the adversary is repelled, every evil is warded, every need is supplied, and the present sanctification and the final glorification of the saints are secured. "Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect? It is God who justifies. Who is he that condemns? It is Christ who died, yes rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us." Draw near, you Joshuas, accused by Satan! Approach, you Peters, whose faith is sifted! Come, you tried and disconsolate! The mediatorial Angel, the pleading Advocate, the interceding High Priest, has passed into the heavens, and appears before the throne , for you. If the principle of the spiritual life in your soul has decayed, if your grace has declined, if you have 'left your first love,' there is vitality in the interceding blood of Jesus, and it prays for your revival. If sin condemns, and danger threatens, and temptation assails, and affliction wounds, there is living power in the pleading blood of Immanuel, and it procures pardon, protection, and comfort.

Nor let us overlook the sanctifying tendency of the pleading blood. "These things I write unto you, that you sin not." The intercession of Jesus is holy, and for holiness. The altar of incense is of pure gold. The advocacy of Christ is not for sin, but for sinners. He prays not for the continuance of sin, but for the pardon of sin. "The righteous Lord loves righteousness." And if sensible of our sin- if mourning over our sin- if loathing and turning from our sin, we come to God through Christ, then "we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous." The incense-breathing censer is in His hand the fragrant cloud goes up- the mercy-seat is enveloped- the Father smiles- and all once more is peace! Then, "I will arise and go to my Father, and will say unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you, and am no more worthy to be called your son."

Not the least costly blessing, flowing from the vital power of the atoning blood, is the life and potency which it imparts to true prayer. The believer's path to communion with God is called the "new and living way," because it is the way of the life-blood of the risen and living Savior. There could be no spiritual life in prayer but for the vitality in the atoning blood, which secures its acceptance. Not even could the Holy Spirit inspire the soul with one breath of true prayer, were not the atonement of the Son of God provided. Oh how faintly do we know the wonders that are in, and the blessings that spring from, the life-procuring blood of our incarnate God! Touching the article of prayer- I approach to God, oppressed with sins, my heart crushed with sorrow, my spirit trembling; shame and confusion covering my face, my mouth dumb before him. At that moment the blood of Jesus is presented, faith beholds it, faith receives it, faith pleads it! There is life and power in that blood, and, lo! in an instant my trembling soul is enabled to take hold of God's strength and be at peace with him, and it is at peace.

Of all the Christian privileges upon earth none can surpass, none can compare with, the privilege of fellowship with God. And yet how restricted is this privilege in the experience of multitudes! And why? simply in consequence of their vague, imperfect, and contracted views of the connection of true prayer with the living blood of Jesus. And yet, oh what nearness to, what communion with, the Father, may the lowest, the feeblest, the most unworthy child at all times and in all circumstances have, who simply and believingly makes use of the blood of Christ! You approach without an argument or a plea. You have many sins to confess, many sorrows to unveil, many requests to urge, many blessings to crave- and yet the deep consciousness of your utter vileness, the remembrance of mercies abused, of base, ungrateful requitals made, seals your lips, and you are dumb before God. Your overwhelmed- your spirit exclaims, "O that I knew where I might find him! that I might come even to His seat- I would order my cause before him, and fill my mouth with arguments." And now the Holy Spirit brings atoning blood to your help. You see this to be the one argument, the only plea that can prevail with God. You use it- you urge it- you wrestle with it. God admits it, is moved by it, and you are blest!

Let, then, the life-power of the blood encourage you to cultivate more diligently habitual communion with God. With low frames, with sinking spirits, with even discouragement and difficulty, you may approach His Divine Majesty, and converse with Him as with a Father, resting your believing eye, where He rests His complacent eye- upon the blood of Jesus. "Having, therefore; brethren, boldness (or liberty) to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way, which be has consecrated (or new made) for us, through the veil, that is to say, his flesh; and having a High Priest over the house of God; let us draw near." Oh the blessedness, the power, the magic influence of prayer! Believer! you grasp the key that opens every chamber of God's heart, when your tremulous faith takes hold of the blood of the covenant, and pleads it in prayer with God. It is impossible that God can then refuse you! The voice of the living blood pleads louder for you than all other voices can plead against you. Give yourself, then, unto prayer- this sacred charm of sorrow, this Divine talisman of hope!

"Lord! what a change within us one short hour
Spent in your presence, will avail to make,
What burdens lighten, what temptations slake,
What parched ground refreshed as with a shower!
We kneel, and all around us seems to lower;
We rise, and all the distant and the near
Stand forth in sunny outline, brave and clear.
We kneel, how weak! We rise, how full of power!
Why, therefore, should we do ourselves this wrong,
Or others, that we are not always strong!
That we are ever overborne with care,
That we should ever weak or heartless be,
Anxious or troubled, when with us is Prayer,
And joy, and strength, and courage, are with Thee!"

What a powerful motive does this truth supply to a daily and unreserved consecration of ourselves to the Lord! If, under the old economy, the utensil or the garment touched with blood was sacred and solemn, how much more the soul washed in the heart's-blood of Christ! When the king of Israel, in the heat of battle, and in the agony of thirst, cried for water, and some of his attendants procured it for him at the hazard of their lives, the God-fearing and magnanimous monarch refused to taste it, because it was the price of blood! but "poured it out before the Lord."

Christian soldier! it was not at the risk of His life, but more- it was by the sacrifice of His life that your Lord and Savior procured your redemption, and brought the waters of salvation, all living and sparkling from the throne of God, to your lips. You are the price of blood! "bought with a price." Will you not, then, glorify God in your soul, body, and substance, which are His? will you not pour it all out before the Lord- presenting it as a living sacrifice upon the altar flowing with the life-blood of God's own Son?

If there be a vital, and therefore a deathless, principle in the atoning blood of Jesus, then it will avail to the salvation of the chief of sinners to the latest period of time. Ages have rolled by since it was shed, and millions have gone to heaven in virtue of its merits, and yet it still avails! Listen, lowly penitent, to these glad tidings. Approach the blood of Jesus, simply believing in its Divine appointment and sovereign efficacy; and the pardon it conveys and the peace it gives will be yours. Behold the sacred stream, as vital and as warm, as efficacious and as free, as when eighteen hundred years ago all nature was convulsed at the sight of this blood starting from the pierced heart of its Incarnate Creator! and when the expiring malefactor bathed in it and was saved.

No more; if the virtue of the Savior's blood, before it was shed, extended back to the time of Adam and of Abel, for He was "the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world," surely since that it has actually been offered, it will continue its virtue through all the revolutions of time to the remotest age of the world, and to the last sinner who may believe. If Jesus is a 'priest forever,' the virtue of His sacrifice must abide forever, for He cannot officiate as a priest without a sacrifice. And as His gospel is to be preached to all nations, even to the end of the world, so the saving efficacy of His blood, upon which the gospel depends for its power and its success, must be as lasting as time.

"Christ's blood is never lost and congealed, as the blood of the legal sacrifices. His blood is called a new way. The word rendered new signifies a thing newly slain or sacrificed. His blood is as new and fresh for the work it was appointed to, as when it was shed upon the cross: as full of vigor as if it had been shed but this moment. It is blood that was not drunk up by the earth, but gathered up again into his body, to be a living, pleading, cleansing blood in the presence of God forever. He did not leave His body and blood putrefying in the gave; the sacrifice had then ceased and corrupted, it had not been of everlasting efficacy as it now is." (Charnock)

Seek a constant renewal of the blood of Christ upon the conscience. The lamb, under the former dispensation, was to be slain morning and evening. Our Divine and spotless Lamb once slain is no more offered, except as faith deals with Him morning and evening, as if He were newly slain. Herein the vital power of His blood beautifully appears. We need the perpetual application of the blood of sprinkling- a present coming to it. As often as the Israelite was bitten by the fiery serpent he raised his eye to the brazen one reared by Moses, looked again, and was healed. Since each day brings its fresh contraction of guilt, each day should bring its fresh application to the blood. Allow no new wound in the conscience to inflame and fester, but the instant it is received seek the balsam that heals it. This will keep the heart fixed upon God, will embitter the nature and weaken the power of sin, and will preserve the conscience like a polished mirror, attracting to itself the beneficent beams of God's love, and reflecting from its surface the light and luster of the Divine image.

There is one view of this important truth which bears with great solemnity upon the case of those who entirely reject the atoning blood. It will be best illustrated by a reference to an event in the history of the exodus of the Israelites. It will be recollected, that upon Pharaoh's refusing to release God's people from bondage, God commanded the first-born in every Egyptian house to be slain. It was a night of woe in the land of Egypt, long to be remembered. The only exception in this work of destruction was in favor of the children of Israel. And yet even they could not escape the judicial punishment but in the strictest compliance with the Divine method for their safety. They were ordered on the eve of that fearful night to take "a lamb without blemish, a male of one year," and to "slay it, and take of the blood, and strike it on the two side-posts and on the upper door-posts of the houses; and the blood," says God, " shall be to you for a token upon the houses where you are; and when I see the blood I will pass over you! and the plague shall not be upon you to destroy you, when I smite the land of Egypt."

They obeyed God. And when the angel of death sped his way through the land, smiting the first-born of each Egyptian family, he paused with solemnity and awe where he beheld the sprinkled blood- sheathed his sword, and passed on to do the work of destruction where no blood was seen. Thus will it be with the soul who has no interest in the life-giving and the life-saving blood of Jesus! The sinner who has not this Divine and sacred sign upon him is marked for condemnation; he is under the awful sentence of death! That sentence has gone forth- the destroying angel has received his commission- the sword is drawn- the arm is uplifted- one final word from that God who has long stretched out to you His beseeching, yet disregarded, hand- that moving, that inviting God, whose patience you have abused, whose mercy you have despised, whose law you have broken, whose Son you have rejected- and the stroke falls- and heaven is lost forever!

O fly to the atoning blood of Jesus! Not a moment is to be lost. Your only hope is there-y our only protection is there- your only safety is there. "When I see the blood, I will pass over you." Blessed words! Where he beholds the pure heart's-blood of His own Son- so precious to Him- sprinkled upon the broken, penitent heart of a poor sinner, He will pass him over in the great outpouring of His wrath; He will pass him over when the ungodly, the Christless, and the prayerless sinner is punished; He will pass him over in the dread day of judgment, and not one drop of wrath will fall upon him. Escape, then, for your life! Hasten to Christ. It may be late- your evening's sun may be setting, the shadows of eternity may be deepening around you, but you have the Divine promise- plead it in faith, and God will fulfil it in your experience- "And it shall come to pass that at evening time it shall be light." Relinquish now all the strongholds of your long rebellion against God, and Christ, and truth- give up your vain reasonings, and cavilings, and excuses, and come to the Lord Jesus, as a penitent and believing sinner; throw yourself upon His mercy, take hold of His blood, get beneath the covering of His righteousness, and tell Him that if He casts you off you are lost, eternally lost- and you shall be saved! "I went, and washed, and received sight!"

And when the chill of death is congealing the life-current of your mortal existence, and heart and flesh are failing- the world receding, eternity opening- what do you think will then throw life and vigor and bloom into death itself, illumine the dark valley, and place you in safety upon the highest wave of Jordan? Oh, it will be the living blood of the Divine Redeemer at that awful moment applied to the conscience by the Holy Spirit, testifying that all sin is blotted out, your person accepted, and that there is now no condemnation. "Precious blood! precious blood that has secured all this!" will be the grateful expression of your expiring lips, as your ransomed soul shoots across the dark stream into the light and splendor of eternity.

May the Lord bless to your soul, beloved reader, the consideration of this spiritual and important subject! May the Savior's life-possessing, life-imparting, and life-supporting blood be endeared to our hearts; and may we be constrained to wash daily in the fountain, living beneath the cross, where pardon and peace, joy and heaven are found- and found alone! Amen and Amen.

"Three Degrees of Christ's Manifestation"

"My beloved is like a swift gazelle or a young deer.
Look, there he is behind our wall!
Now he is looking in through the windows,
showing himself through the lattice." Song 2:9

Such is the infinite majesty, and such the superlative beauty of the Lord Jesus, that were He, in our present state, to stand before us fully unveiled to the eye, overwhelmed with the effulgence of His presence we should exclaim, "Lord, temper Your glory to my feeble capacity; or enlarge my capacity to the dimensions of Your glory!" When in the days of His humiliation He stood upon Mount Tabor in close converse with Moses and Elijah upon the decease which He was about to accomplish at Jerusalem, glowing with the grandeur of the theme, and fired with the thought of the redemption that was before Him, the veil of His humanity would seem for a moment to have dropped, and the Godhead it could imperfectly conceal, shone forth with such overpowering splendor that the disciples who were with Him fell at His feet as dead. After His ascension into heaven, and His inauguration at the right hand of His Father, He again manifested forth His glory in an apocalyptic vision to John at Patmos; and again the same overpowering effects were produced. "And when I saw him," narrates the exiled evangelist, "I fell at his feet as dead."

And yet this is the Savior "whom the nations abhor," whom "men despise and reject," possessing to their eye "no form nor loveliness wherefore they should desire him." This is He to whom the world He created, refused a home, and whom man allowed not to live, casting Him out as an accursed thing, too vile in their view to dwell among them- fit only to die! Oh that my head were waters, and my eyes were fountains of tears, that I might weep, dear Lord, while meditating upon the ignominy, the insult, and the suffering to which my species subjected You. Had another order of being so insulted Your person; so mangled Your form; so requited Your love; so slighted and abhorred You; I might have wept in secret places; mourned, and afflicted my soul, and vowed eternal vengeance against Your calumniators and your murderers! But it was hatred, ingratitude, and malignity wearing my own nature- it was MAN, yes, Lord, it was I myself! But for my sin, my crime, my hell, that spotless soul of Yours had known no burden, that gentle spirit no cloud, that tender heart no grief, and that sacred body no scar. And when I read the story of how You were wronged- how they calumniated You, blasphemed You, scourged You, spit upon You, mocked You, smote You, and then bore You to a felon's death- I could cover myself with sackcloth, and bury my face in ashes, and no more cherish the sin- the hateful, the abhorred, the accursed sin, that caused it all.

But, overpowering as a full unveiling of the majesty of the Lord Jesus would be to us in our present imperfect state, it yet ranks among our most prized and precious mercies, that He does at periods so graciously and especially manifest Himself as to awaken the exclamation, "This is my Beloved, and this is my Friend!" Holy and blessed are such seasons! Delighted, yet amazed, the believer inquires, "Lord, how is it that you will manifest yourself unto us, and not unto the world?" He answers, and resolves the mystery- as He does the mystery of all His dealings with us- into love. "He who loves me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him." Our experience of these divine manifestations of Christ form one of the strongest evidences of His indwelling in our hearts. To none but those who fear the Lord is the mystery of His covenant revealed. "The secret of the Lord is with those who fear him." They whose posture of soul most resembles that of the 'beloved disciple,' are led the deepest into the secret of God's love to us in Jesus. It would seem impossible for the Lord to withhold its disclosure from those who in confidence and in love reposed upon the heart that contained it. Their intimate acquaintance with Jesus must bring them into a closer relation and communion with God; it must result in a deeper acquaintance with Him- His glory, His mind, and His love. Blessed, but much forgotten truth- he who knows much of the Son, knows also much of the Father.

We propose to guide the reader's reflections to a subject of the deepest and holiest interest- the different manifestations of Christ to the soul. To one acquainted, in any degree, with these discoveries, whose Christianity is vital and real, something more than the mere "naming the name of Christ," what theme can be sweeter? Oh that the Spirit of truth, the Glorifier of Christ, may now enlarge our view of this subject; and while meditating on the manifestations of our Beloved, may He approach and make Himself known to us in the way of especial and blessed revelation.

The passage upon which this meditation is based PRESENTS OUR LORD IN THREE DIFFERENT POSTURES, each one most expressive and significant. We have CHRIST BEHIND THE WALL; CHRIST LOOKING IN THE WINDOW; and CHRIST SHOWING HIMSELF THROUGH THE LATTICE. My soul! behold your Beloved, bounding towards you 'like a gazelle or a young deer,' in all the fleetness and intensity of His affections, to manifest Himself to you. "Look, there He is BEHIND OUR WALL!" What wall? Not the wall of the old covenant of the Jewish Church, for that is removed, and can no longer obscure Jesus from the eye of the Church, or prevent His clear manifestation. He has removed it in order to bring Himself near to His people. "But now in Christ Jesus you who sometimes were once far off, are made near by the blood of Christ. For he is our peace who has made both one, and has broken down the middle wall of partition between us: having abolished in his flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments contained in ordinances." Behind this wall Jesus did once stand, and although thus partially obscured, yet to those who had faith to see Him, dwelling though they were in the twilight of the Gospel, He manifested Himself as the true Messiah, the Son of God, the Savior of His people. "Abraham rejoiced to see my day," says Jesus, "and he saw it, and was glad." But this wall no longer stands. The shadows are fled, the darkness is dispersed, and the true light now shines. Beware of those teachers who would rebuild this wall; and who by their superstitious practices, and legal representations of the Gospel, do in effect rebuild it. Remember that "Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believes."

But it is behind "our wall" that Jesus stands- the wall which we, the new covenant saints, erect. Many are the separating influences between Christ and His people; many are the walls which we, alas! allow to intervene, behind which we cause Him to stand. "Oh, my anguish, my anguish! I am pained at my very heart;" literally, as in the margin, the walls of my heart. What are the infidelity; (I had almost said atheism), the carnality, the coldness, the many sins of our hearts, but so many obstructions to Christ's full and frequent manifestations of Himself to our souls?

But were we to specify one obstruction in particular, we would mention unbelief, as the great separating wall between Christ and His people. This was the wall which obscured from the view of Thomas his risen Lord. And while the little Church was jubilant in the new life and joy with which their living Savior inspired them, he alone lingered in doubt and sadness, amid the shadows of the tomb. "Unless I thrust my hand into his side I will not believe." Nothing more effectually separates us from, or rather obscures our view of, Christ, than the sin of unbelief. Not fully crediting His word- not simply and implicitly relying upon His work- not trusting His faithfulness and love- not receiving Him wholly and following Him fully- only believing and receiving half that He says and commands- not fixing the eye upon Jesus as risen and alive, as ascended and enthroned, having all fulness, all power, all love. Oh this unbelief is a dead, towering wall between our Beloved and our souls!

And yet does He stand behind it? Does it not compel Him to depart and leave us forever? Ah no! He is there! O wondrous grace, matchless love, infinite patience! Wearied with forbearing, and yet there! Doubted, distrusted, grieved, and yet standing there- His locks wet with the dew of the morning- waiting to be gracious, longing to manifest Himself. Nothing has prevailed to compel Him to withdraw. When our coldness might have prevailed, when our fleshliness might have prevailed, when our neglect, ingratitude, and backslidings might have prevailed, never has He entirely and forever withdrawn. His post is to watch with a sleepless eye of love the purchase of His dying agonies, and to 'guard His vineyard of red wine, night and day lest any hurt it.'

Oh! who can adequately picture the concern, the tenderness, and jealousy with which the Son of God keeps His especial treasure? And whatever would force Him to retire- whether it be the coldness that congeals, or the fierce flame that would consume- yet such is His deathless love for His people, 'He withdraws not His eye from the righteous' for one moment. There stands the "Friend that sticks closer than a brother," waiting to beam upon them a glance of His love-enkindled eye, and to manifest Himself to them as He does not unto the world, even from behind our wall. "Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God."

CHRIST LOOKING IN THE WINDOW.
"Now he is looking in through the windows." The Church of Christ is His house. "Christ is a Son over his own house; whose house we are." The ordinances of His Church are the windows of this house, and in these ordinances Christ appears and manifests Himself to His people. But here let me remark how sadly are these windows obscured, these ordinances mystified, perverted, and abused by many. What numbers in their blindness substitute the mere window, for 'Christ appearing' in the window; as if an ordinance without Christ were anything. Every institution of the Christian Church in which Christ is not recognized, seen by faith, and by faith lived upon; is a window closed, darkened, and obscured; it exhibits no object and admits no light. And yet to thousands, the Lord's Supper is nothing more!

But to the soul hungering and thirsting for the Lord Jesus in the ordinance, Jesus presents Himself. He draws back the shutter, opens the window, stands within it, and looks forth upon His people, clustering around His table, desiring to remember His love. "Precious Jesus!" is the meditation of a soul, thus looking for its Beloved, "I have come to Your ordinance invited by Your love, drawn by Your Spirit, but what is it to my soul without You? The minister may open this institution with clearness and power, but if You do not manifest Yourself, to break and heal my heart- if I do not catch one glimpse of You, my Lord, it is no ordinance of grace or sweetness to my soul. I need by faith to see You in the baptism of Your sufferings, to feed upon Your flesh, and to drink of Your blood. I need to enjoy communion with You. You know, Lord, the workings of my heart; You know that this is the great desire of my soul, that I might enjoy fellowship with You. Oh that I might have more of Christ, that I might meet with Christ, that I might have some further manifestation of Christ, and that I might have my soul closer knit to Christ. I come with thirsting after Jesus, knowing my infinite need of Him, and His infinite excellency and fulness to meet my case. My soul does famish and perish without Christ; but in the enjoyment of Christ there is a sufficiency for the satisfying of my soul. That which I have had of Christ, sometimes in the word, and sometimes in prayer, has been sweet unto my taste; but I look for closer communion, for a clearer manifestation of Christ here, for this is the great 'communion of the body and blood of Jesus.' Behold, Lord, I approach these windows of Your house, a poor, unworthy, backsliding child, tried and tempted; yet just as I am, dear Lord, I come. I dare not, I cannot stay away from You, You Divine loadstone of my heart, You precious magnet of my soul! Draw me, and then I run after You; You show Yourself in the window; You overcome me with Your beauty and Your love- I exclaim, 'Turn away Your eyes from me, for they have overcome me.' Blessed Spirit! I have been taught to believe that You will take of the things of Jesus and show them unto me. Open the window of this ordinance, and let me behold my soul's Beloved standing within it. I cannot live, I cannot die, without Him. Living or dying I must have Christ. 'I am my Beloved's, and His desire is towards me;' and truly my soul's desire is towards Him. There is to my soul no love like Christ's love. There is no voice like Christ's voice. There is no sympathy like Christ's sympathy. There is no friend like this Friend- there is no Christ like my Christ. The window is open! 'The voice of my Beloved! behold, He comes, leaping upon the mountains, skipping upon the hills.' He looks forth at the window; and lively faith, and ardent love, and sweet contrition, and joy, possess and overwhelm my soul!"

"I love the windows of Your grace,
In which my Lord is seen.
And long to meet my Savior's face
Without a glass between."
"Oh that the happy hour were come
To change my faith to sight!
I shall behold my Lord at home
In a diviner light."
"Hasten, my Beloved, and remove
These interposing clays
Then shall my passions all be love,
And all my powers be praise."

CHRIST SHOWING HIMSELF THROUGH THE LATTICE.
This is a clearer and more glorious discovery of Christ, inasmuch as it is the manifestation of Christ in the revealed word. Our Lord does not want to conceal Himself from His saints. He remembers that all their loveliness is through Him, that all their grace is in Him, that all their happiness is from Him, and therefore He delights to afford them every means and occasion of increasing their knowledge of, and of perfecting their resemblance to, Him. The 'lattice' of His house is figurative of the doctrines, precepts, and promises of His Gospel. Through these the Lord Jesus manifests Himself, when we come to the study of the word, not as self-sufficient teachers, but as sincere and humble learners, deeply conscious how little we really know, and thirsting to know more of God in Jesus. The Lord Jesus often shows Himself through these 'lattices'- perhaps some type, or prophecy, or doctrine, or command- and we are instructed, sanctified, and blest. It is the loss of so many readers of the Bible, that they search it, but not for Christ. Men will study it with the view of increasing their knowledge of science and of philosophy, of poetry and of painting; but how few search into it for Jesus! And yet in knowing Him the arcades of all spiritual mystery are unlocked- all that God designed to communicate in the present world. To know God, is to comprehend all knowledge- God is only truly known as revealed in Jesus- therefore, he who is experimentally acquainted with Jesus, holds in his hand the key that unlocks the vast treasury of God's revealed mind and heart. "All things have been committed to me by my Father. No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him." O search for Christ in the 'lattice' of the word! The type contains Him, the prophecy unfolds Him, the doctrine teaches Him, the precept speaks of Him, the promise leads to Him.

How has the light of the beauty and excellence of Christ, flashing upon the understanding from the glass of the gospel, filled the will and affections of many with desire and love to that glory it represents, and that state it offers! Grace is a beam from the Sun of righteousness, but darted through the medium of gospel air; a pearl produced of the blood of Christ, but only in the gospel sea. Rejoice in the word, but only as the wise men did in the star, as it led them to Christ. The word of Christ is precious, but nothing more precious than Christ Himself, and His formation in the soul. Rest not in the word, but look through it, to Christ.

Blessed Lord, I would sincerely open this box of precious ointment- your own word- that the fragrance of Your grace and of Your name might revive me. It is Your word, and not man's word that can meet my case, and satisfy my soul. Man can only direct me to You, Your word brings me to You. Your servants can at best but bring You in Your gospel to my heart, but Your Spirit of truth brings You through the gospel into my heart. O show Yourself to me in the gospel 'lattice' of Your word, and I shall rejoice as one that has found great spoil- in finding You.

In conclusion, be cautious, dear reader, how you erect walls, or permit them to be erected, between Christ and your soul. Beware of that which separates from God- which separates, not from Himself, but from the manifestation of Himself; not from His love, but from the experience of His love; not from His covenant, but from the 'secret of His covenant.' "But your iniquities have separated you from your God; your sins have hidden his face from you, so that he will not hear. Nothing but sin separates between God and the soul. Affliction often quickens to a greater nearness to God; temptation and trial often are instrumental of a closer and holier walk; but sin invariably has a separating effect; it drives the soul from God. The moment the consciousness of guilt fastened itself upon the once undefiled and peaceful conscience of Adam, he ran away from God, like a constellation suddenly breaking from its attraction and its orbit, and wandering away into darkness, and distance, and death. God no longer attracted and fixed him; the light of his soul was extinguished, and he became a "wandering star"- yet destined, through sovereign grace, to be again brought back by the Sun of righteousness.

But if there is, perhaps, one sin more than another, that tends to throw up a towering wall of separation between Christ and the believing soul, it is the sin of unbelief. No sin can more dishonor the name of God, or grieve the heart of Jesus, or bring greater distress into the soul than this. God has done the utmost which His infinite wisdom dictated, to lay the most solid ground for confidence. "Wherein God, willing more abundantly to show unto the heirs of promise the immutability of his counsel, confirmed it by an oath: that by two immutable things, in which it was impossible for God to lie, we might have strong consolation, who have fled for refuge to lay hold upon the hope set before us."

He has made all the promises of the covenant of grace absolute and unconditional. Were faith simply to credit this, what "strong consolation" would flow into the soul! Take, for example, that exceeding great and precious promise, "Call upon me in the day of trouble: I will deliver you, and you shall glorify me." What a sparkling jewel, what a brilliant gem is this! How many a weeping eye has caught the luster, and has forgotten its misery, as waters that pass away! While others, perhaps, gazing intently upon it, have said, "This promise exactly suits my case, but is it for me? is it for one so vile as I? who by my own indiscretion, and folly, and sin, have brought this trouble upon myself? May such an one as I call upon God and be answered?" What is this unbelieving reasoning, but to render this Divine and most exhilarating promise, as to any practical influence upon your mind, of none effect? But the promise stands in God's word absolute and unconditional. There is not one syllable in it upon which the most unworthy child of sorrow can reasonably found an objection.

Is it now with you a 'day of trouble?'- God makes no exception as to how, or by whom, or from where your trouble came. It is enough that it is a time of trouble with you; that you are in sorrow, and in difficulty, and in trial- God says to you, "Call upon me in the day of trouble, I will deliver you." Resign, then, your unbelief, embrace the promise, and behold Jesus showing Himself through its open 'lattice.'

Take yet another glorious promise, "Whoever comes to me I will never drive away." "This is just the promise that my poor, guilty, anxious heart needs," exclaims a trembling, sin-distressed soul; "but dare I, with all my sin, and wretchedness, and poverty, take up my rest in Christ? What! may I who have been so long an enemy against God, such a despiser of Christ, such a neglecter of my soul and scoffer of its great salvation, approach with a trembling yet assured hope that Christ will receive me, save me, and not cast me out?" Yes! you may. The promise is absolute and unconditional, and magnificent and precious as it is, it is yours. "Whoever comes to me I will never drive away." Satan shall not persuade me, sin shall not prevail with me, my own heart shall not constrain me, yes, nothing shall induce me, to cast out that poor sinner who comes to me, believes my word, falls upon my grace, and hides himself in my pierced bosom! "Whoever comes to me I will never drive away."

My reader, is Jesus your soul's Beloved? Can you in humble faith exclaim, "I am my Beloved's, and my Beloved is mine?" Then, covet His manifestation to your soul; God in Christ has laid prostrate every 'wall' on His part that would prevent your near approach to Him. The Breaker is gone up before you, the gate is open, and God waits to reveal Himself to you in Jesus. "Draw near unto God, and He will draw near unto you." Is there any wall of separation on your part behind which your beloved Lord stands? Search and see. Is it the world, or the creature, or an unholy life? Yes, is there any self-erected object that obscures your view of Christ, and prevents His manifestations to you? Submit it to Jesus, and beseech Him in love, in gentleness, and in grace to remove it, rather than that you should lose one glimpse of your beloved Lord. He is behind that wall; let it fall- and behold! He stands before you, arrayed in ten thousand charms!

And do not be satisfied with the mere open window- seek for Jesus in the window, and looking forth upon you with eyes of love. Do not come away from an ordinance without seeing your Beloved in it. While engaged in the hallowed service, watch against the wandering eye, the wavering mind, the truant affection, the cold, formal frame. Fix every glance, and thought, and affection on one object- JESUS. Let it be indeed the "communion of the body and the blood of Christ." And as it is a solemn occasion of the Lord's especial nearness to your soul, let it also be a season of especial opening of your heart to the Lord. Confess to Him all your sins, declare to Him all your sorrows, make known to Him all your needs; for while thus, like the beloved disciple, leaning upon His bosom at supper, you may indulge in the fullest, closest, and most confidential communion with your Lord.

Oh seek to know that He is your Beloved; and attempt not to rest in anything short of the blessed assurance, "I Am my beloved's, and my beloved is mine."

"Long did I toil, and knew no earthly rest;
Far did I rove, and found no certain home
At last I sought them in His sheltering breast
who opens His arms, and bids the weary come.
With Him I found a home, a rest divine,
And I since then am His, and He is mine."
"Yes, He is mine! and nothing of earthly things,
Not all the charms of pleasure, wealth, or power,
The fame of heroes, or the pomp of kings,
Could tempt me to forego His love an hour.
Go, worthless world, I say, with all that's yours!
Go! I my Savior's am, and He is mine."
"The good I have is from His stores supplied;
The ill is only what He deems the best
He for my Friend, I'm rich with nothing beside;
And poor without Him, though of all possessed.
Changes may come- I take, or I resign,
Content, while I am His, while He is mine."
"Whatever may change, in Him no change is seen,
A glorious Sun, that wanes not nor declines;
Above the clouds and storms He walks serene,
And sweetly on His people's darkness shines.
All may depart! fret not, nor repine,
While I my Savior's am, and He is mine."
"He stays me falling; lifts me up when down;
Reclaims me wandering; guards from every foe;
Plants on my worthless brow the Victor's crown,
Which in return before His feet I throw;
Grieved that I cannot better grace His shrine
Who deigns to own me His, as He is mine."
"While here, alas! I know but half His love,
But half discern Him, and but half adore;
But when I meet Him in the realms above,
I hope to love Him better, praise him more,
And feel and tell, amid the choir divine,
How fully I am His, and He is mine."

The Sick One Whom Jesus Loves

When he heard this, Jesus said, "This sickness will not end in death. No, it is for God's glory so that God's Son may be glorified through it." John 11:4

In one respect only may it be said, that our Divine and adorable Lord would seem to have been exempted from the physical infirmities peculiar to the nature which He so voluntarily and entirely assumed- it does not appear that He was ever, in His own person, the subject of sickness or disease. It is indeed declared by His inspired biographer, thus confirming at the same time a prediction of one of the prophets, "Himself took our infirmities, and bore our sicknesses;" but this He did in the same manner in which He bore our spiritual sicknesses, without any personal participation. He bore our sins, but He was Himself sinless. He carried our sickness, but He Himself was a stranger to disease. And His exemption from the one, will explain His exemption from the other. His humanity knew no sin; it was that 'holy thing' begotten by the Holy Spirit, and as stainless as God Himself. As sin introduced into our nature every kind of physical evil, and disease among the rest, our Lord's freedom from the cause, necessarily left Him free from the effect.

He was never sick because He never sinned. No, He had never died had He not consented to die. With a nature prepared and conceived totally without moral taint, there were no seeds of decay from which death could reap its harvest. Under no sentence of dissolution, death had no power to claim Him as its victim. As pure as our first parents before the fall, like them in their original state of holiness, He was naturally deathless and immortal. Had He not, by an act of the most stupendous grace, taken upon Him the curse and sin of His Church, thereby making Himself responsible to Divine justice for the utmost payment of her debt, the 'bitterness of death' had never touched His lips. But even then His death was voluntary. His relinquishment of life was His own act and deed. The Jew who hunted Him to the cross, and the Roman by whose hands He died, were but the actors in the awful tragedy. The king of terrors wrenched not His spirit from Him. Death waited the permission of Essential Life before He winged the fatal dart. "Jesus yielded up the spirit," literally, made a surrender, or let go His spirit. Thus, violent though it was, and responsible for the crime as were its agents, the death of Jesus was yet voluntary. "I lay down my life," are His expressive words.

But there is a sense in which it may be said that our Lord was not exempt from sickness in the sense of His love for, and His union to, and sympathy with, all the sick of His flock. In this light it may be truly said, "Himself took our infirmities, and bore our sicknesses." Let us briefly follow out these thoughts, as suggested by the case of Lazarus. Believers in Jesus, though they are the objects of the Lord's especial love, are often the subjects of His painful dealings in sickness. In the bodily sicknesses of His people the Lord designs, in connection with their good, the promotion of His own glory. This may be traced in a sanctified recovery from sickness.

In alluding to the introduction of this infirmity of our nature, I have already remarked, that in the paradisiacal state of the world the human frame was a total stranger to the ravages of disease and the spoliations of death. It was of necessity so. There was no sickness, because there was no sin. The reign of holiness has ever been the reign of happiness. God, in justice to Himself, and in goodness to us, has indissolubly connected the two. Apart from each other they cannot exist. We address ourselves to the unconverted man, the poor seeker of this world's happiness, to the panting chaser after the child's bauble, the variegated bauble that dances before the eye of his fancy- and in truth and solemnity we affirm, that until the reign of holiness is once more set up in your soul, your notion of happiness is but a fiction, and your possession of it but a dream- the mere negation of the blessing.

In thus making the happiness of the creature to depend upon his holiness, let it not be overlooked, that God has studied the highest good of man equally with what was due to His own glory. Bent upon restoring him to happiness, He could only accomplish it by also restoring him to holiness; and in thus making man holy, He glorifies Himself by multiplying His own moral image.

We repeat, then, the moment that witnessed the suspension of the government of holiness in our world, saw the introduction of the curse, with all its entailed and dire effects. What must have been the astonishment and horror which seized the mind of Adam, hitherto a stranger to any physical malady, when for the first time he became conscious of the taint of bodily disease! What a new and strange sensation to him, the writhing pain- the burning fever- the maddening convulsion- the debility that unstrung and prostrated all the energies and vital powers of his frame! How overwhelming must have been the mournful reflection- keen as the adder's sting- "SIN, MY sin, has created this! How have I destroyed myself, and afflicted my posterity!"

But let us turn to the case of Lazarus, as presenting, in some of its main features, a type of all the sick ones whom Jesus loves. Here was one dear- O how dear- to the heart of Christ, and yet the subject of disease and the victim of death. His interest in Christ's love did not exempt him from the visitation of sickness; nor his union with Christ's person shield him from the shaft of the last enemy. Contemplate the beauty with which the Lord's love is in this instance brought out. As soon as they discovered that the hand of disease was upon their beloved brother, the affectionate sisters of Lazarus sent to Jesus. And what were the terms in which their message was couched? Observe, they did not say, "Lord, behold, he who loves you is sick;" but, "Lord, behold, he whom you love is sick!" They cast themselves solely upon the love of Jesus to Lazarus, and while their brother's love to Christ was indeed most precious as wrought by the Holy Spirit, and as a fruit of faith, they yet based upon it no plea and drew from it no argument wherefore the great Physician and Friend should hasten to the chamber of sickness where he lay; but, founding their request entirely upon the Lord's own love to him, they besought Him to come and heal him. They well knew that their brother's love was but the effect, the mere reflection, of their Lord's love to him. His love, they had been taught, was an infinite, an everlasting fountain. They knew that Jesus looked within Himself for that moved His heart towards a poor sinner, and not in that poor sinner, in whom He could see nothing but repulsive deformity. In appealing to His love, therefore, they pressed with skillful and delicate hand that spring which never needs but the gentlest touch of faith, and in an instant every chamber of His heart is opened.

"Behold, he whom you love is sick." What a wondrous truth is here revealed for you, dear saints of God, afflicted with bodily disease- for to you, this chapter is especially and in prayer dedicated- that the Lord's people are not, and cannot be, less the objects of His tenderest love, because He touches them with the hand of disease. I repair to the chamber of sickness, and take my place by the side of the beloved sufferer. The spectacle deeply affects me. I mark the ravages of disease, and the progress of death, advancing by slow and stealthy step, to plant the emblems of his conquest upon that pale brow. I watch the burning fever, the throes of agony, the exhaustion of decay, the weary days without ease, the long nights without sleep- there are tossings, and heavings, and pantings, and sufferings there, which the sufferer's lip cannot describe, still less the beholder's imagination conceive.

Or, if there is the absence of extreme pain, there is, perhaps, the long and tedious disease, life evaporating by slow degrees, the vital principle thrown off by minute particles, until the attenuated and weary-worn invalid is forced to exclaim, in the prophetic language of Jesus, "I can count all my bones: they look and stare upon me." Bending over the couch, I ask, "Is this one whom Jesus loves? Do the Lord's affections entwine around that skeleton form? Is this long-imprisoned sufferer dear to the heart of God?" Yes, faith instantly replies, and truth responds, "Behold, Lord, he whom you love is sick!"

This is the truth, dear invalid reader, upon which the Lord would pillow and sustain your soul- that you are the sick one whom He loves. Doubtless the enemy, ever on the watch to distress the saints of God, eager to avail himself of every circumstance in their history favorable to the accomplishment of his malignant designs, has taken advantage of your illness to suggest hard and distrustful thoughts of the Lord's love to you. "Does He love you? Can He love you, and afflict you thus? What! this hectic fever, these night-sweats, these faintings and swoonings, these insufferable tortures, this long-wasting, this slow, tedious disease-and yet loved by God! Impossible!" Such has been the false reasoning of Satan, and such the echo of unbelief. But Lazarus was loved by Jesus, and so are you! That darkened room, that curtained bed, contains one for whom the Son of God came down to earth- to live, to labor, and to die! That room is often radiant with His presence, and that bed is often made with His hands. Jesus is never absent from that spot! The affectionate husband, the tender wife, the fond parent, the devoted sister, the faithful nurse, are not in more constant attendance at that solemn post of observation than is Jesus. They must be absent; He never is, for one moment, away from that couch. Sleep must overcome them; but He who guards that suffering patient "neither slumbers nor sleeps." Long-continued watching must exhaust and prostrate them- but He, the Divine Watcher, "faints not, neither is weary."

Yes, Jesus loves you, nor loves you the less, no, but loves you the more, now that you are prostrate upon that bed of languishing, a weak one hanging upon Him. Again I repeat, this is the only truth that will now soothe and sustain your soul. Not the thought of your love to Jesus, but of Jesus's love to you, is the truth upon which your agitated mind is to rest. In the multitude of your thoughts within you, this is the comfort that will delight your soul- "Jesus loves me." Your love to Christ affords you no plea, no encouragement, no hope. You can extract no sweetness from the thought of your affection to the Savior. It has been so feeble and fluctuating a feeling, an emotion so irregular and fickle in its expression, the spark so often obscured, and to appearance lost, that the recollection and the review of it now, only tends to depress and perplex you. But O, the thought of the Lord's love! to fix the mind upon His eternal, unpurchased, and deathless affection to you- to be enabled to resolve this painful illness, this protracted suffering, this 'pining sickness,' into LOVE- Divine, tender, unwearied, unextinguishable love, will renew the inward man, while the outward is decaying day by day, and will strengthen the soul in its heavenly soarings, while its tenement of dust is crumbling and falling from around it.

All is love in the heart of God towards you! This sickness may indeed be a correction; and correction always supposes sin; but it is, as we have already shown, a loving correction, and designed to 'increase your greatness.' Not one thought dwells in the mind of God, nor one feeling throbs in His heart, but is love. And your sickness is sent to testify that God is love, and that you, afflicted though you are, are one of its favored objects. The depression of sickness may throw a shade of obscurity over this truth, but the very obscuration may result in your good, and unfold God's love, by bringing you to a more simple reliance of faith.

"Every cloud that spreads above,
And veileth love, itself is love."

O trace your present sickness, dear invalid reader, to His love who "himself took our infirmities and carried our sickness." If He could have accomplished the important end for which it is sent, by exempting you from its infliction, you then had not known one sleepless hour, nor a solitary day; not a drop of sweat had moistened your brow, nor one moment's fever had flushed your cheek. He, your loving Savior, your tender Friend, your redeeming God, had borne it all for you Himself, even as He bore its tremendous curse- your curse and sin, in His own body on the tree. Yield your depressed heart to the soothing, healing influence of this precious truth, and it will light up the pallid hue of sickness with a radiance and a glow- the reflection of the soul's health- heavenly and divine. "Lord, behold, he whom you love is sick."

But there is another most consolatory view of the sickness of the Lord's people which we desire to present- it is the promotion of His own glory which the Lord designs by it. God is the ultimate end of all beings and of all events. The securing to Himself of His own glory must be the grand motive in all that He has created and ordained. To have been guided by an inferior end- to have made the ultimate result of all creatures and events to terminate in themselves, would have been unworthy of His name, and a denial of Himself, for there is none greater than He. But all His works praise Him, and all holy creatures glorify Him. Every atom of matter, and every spark of intellect, will yield Him an endless revenue of honor. He will be glorified in the salvation of His Church, and He will be glorified in the condemnation of the ungodly. Heaven and hell will contribute to this end so long as He exists. "I have created him for my glory," is a sentence impressed upon every product of His power. Solemn truth!

We proceed to remark, then, that God's dealings with His people in seasons of bodily sickness, have this for their ultimate and great end- the glory of God. "Lord, behold, he whom you love is sick. When Jesus heard that, he said, This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of God might be glorified thereby." It is most true that Lazarus died, and for four days was the lifeless tenant of the grave. But death was only the ordained termination of his sickness, not the final result to be accomplished. The temporary cessation of life was but the means to the ultimate and great end, which was, "the glory of God." Therefore, with truth did our Lord say, "This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of God might be glorified thereby!" And O how illustrious was the glory brought to Jesus by the sickness and death of this disciple whom He loved! Shall we contemplate it for a moment? Let us go, then; in hallowed imagination, and stand- not by the sick bed, for the mortal struggle was now over- but by the grave of Lazarus.

What a halo surrounds it! It scarcely seems like the place of the dead, for Essential Life is present, and the grave is preparing, at His command, to yield back its prey. Wrapped in his winding-sheet, and reposing in the stillness of death, lay one whom Jesus loved. "Groaning in his spirit and troubled," He approached the spot. Behold the emotions of the Divine Redeemer! "JESUS WEPT." How truly human does He appear! How like the Elder Brother! Never more so than now. Philosophy may scorn to betray emotion, and human genius might deem it beneath its dignity to weep. But the philosophy and the genius of Jesus were Divine, and imparted a dignity and a sacredness to the emotions and benevolence of His humanity: and if it be true that by genius a tear is crystallized and exhibited to the admiration of future ages, surely the tears of sympathy and love which Jesus dropped over the newly-made grave of Lazarus, will thrill the holy heart with feeling to the remotest period of time, and perpetuate their wonder through eternity.

Bereaved mourner! cease not to weep. Stifle not your emotions, impede not the flow of your tears. They well up from the fountain of feeling placed in your bosom by the Son of God Himself, who, as if longing to experience the luxury of human emotion, bowed His Deity to your nature and wept. This only would I say, let your tears fall like the dew of heaven- gentle, noiseless, chastened; or rather, like the tears of Jesus- meek, resigned, submissive.

But not illustrious does appear His humanity only. Behold, on this occasion, how His Deity shone forth resplendent and overpowering. He who had just wept, and while yet the tear-drop lingered in His eye, with a voice of conscious God-like power, which showed how completely Essential Life held death within its grasp, exclaimed, "Lazarus, come forth! And he that was dead came forth." Behold the spectacle, you condemners of His Divine nature- you who would pluck the diadem from His brow, and force us by your soulless, lifeless creed to a reliance upon a created Redeemer- gaze upon the wondrous scene! See the Savior bathed in human sensibility like a man- behold Him summon back the dead to life like a God! Never did the glory of His complex person- the Son of man, the Son of God- burst forth with more overpowering effulgence than at this moment. Who will deny that the sickness and death of Lazarus brought glory to the Deity of the Savior?

But what was true of this servant of Christ, is also true of all the sick whom Jesus loves- their sickness is for His glory. Trace it in the origin of your sickness. It came not by accident, nor by chance- words which should never find a place in the Christian vocabulary of a child of God. It was God who stretched you on that bed of languishing. By the arrangement of your heavenly Father, those circumstances transpired which resulted in your present painful visitation. You have been looking alone at second causes- I do not say that they are to be entirely excluded in attempting to unravel the mystery of the Divine procedure, for they often develop links in the chain of God's providence most harmonious and instructive; but there is such a thing as resting in second causes, and not using them rather as steps in the ladder which conducts us up to God Himself as the first great cause of all the circumstances of our history, from our cradle to our grave.

Oh how is the Lord glorified when the sinking patient whom He loves, traces the mysterious and strange event which, arresting him in the midst of health and usefulness, has severed him from active life, from domestic duties, and public engagements, imprisoning him in that lone chamber of sickness and solitude, the prey of disease, and perhaps the destined victim of death- to the infinite, infallible, unerring wisdom of the Son of God!

In the gentleness, tenderness, and love displayed in the sickness, the Lord is glorified. What a touching expression is that of the Psalmist, "You Shall make all my bed in my sickness!" What a view it gives of the consideration of our heavenly Father- stooping down to the couch of His sick child- softening the sickness by a thousand nameless kindnesses- alleviating suffering and mitigating pain. Would you learn the Lord's touching tenderness towards His people? Go to the sick chamber of one whom He loves! Ten thousand books will not teach you what that visit will. Listen to the testimony of the emaciated sufferer- "His left hand is under my head, his right hand embraces me." What more can we desire?- what stronger witness do we ask? What! is Jesus there? Is His loving bosom the pillow, and is His encircling arm the support of the drooping patient? Is Christ both the physician and the nurse? Is His finger upon that fluttering pulse, does His hand administer that draught, does He adjust that pillow, and make all that bed in sickness? Even so. Oh, what glory beams around the sick one whom Jesus loves!

Trace it, too, in the grace which He measures out to the languid sufferer. The season of sickness is a season, in the Christian's life, of especial and great grace. Many a child of God knew his adoption but faintly, and his interest in Christ but imperfectly, until then. His Christianity was always uncertain, his evidences vague, and his soul unhealthy. Living, perhaps, in the turmoil of the secular world, or amid the excitement of the religious world, he knew but little of communion with his own heart, or of converse with the heart of God. No time was extracted from other and all-absorbing engagements, and consecrated to the high and hallowed purposes of self-examination, meditation, reading, and prayer- elements entering essentially and deeply into the advancement of the life of God in the soul of man. But sickness has come, and with it some of the costliest and holiest blessings of his life. A degree of grace answerable to all the holy and blessed ends for which it was sent, is imparted. And now, how resplendent with the glory of Divine grace has that chamber of sickness become! We trace it in the spirit and conduct of that pale, languid sufferer. See the patience with which he possesses his soul; the fervor with which he kisses the rod; the meekness with which he bows to the stroke; the subduing, softening, humbling of his spirit, once perhaps so lofty, fretful, and sensitive to suffering. These days of weariness and pain, these nights of sleeplessness and exhaustion, how slowly, how tediously they drag along, and yet not an impatient sigh, nor a murmuring breath, nor an unsubmissive expression, breaks from the quivering lip. This is not natural, this is above nature. What but Divine and especial grace could effect it? Oh how is the Son of God, in His fulness of grace and truth, glorified thereby!

In the result of this visitation, whether it be in recovery or in death, Christ is glorified by the sickness of His people. The control and power of Christ over bodily disease form one of the most instructive and tender pages of His history, when upon earth. We should like to have quoted largely from that page in this connection of our subject, had the limits of the chapter permitted. We can but briefly refer the reader to a few of the different traits of the Divine Physician's grace, as illustrated by the various cures which He effected. His promptness in healing the nobleman's son, John 4:43-54. His unsolicited cure of the sick man at the pool of Bethesda, and the man with a withered hand, John 5:1-9; Mark 3:1-6. The humility and delicacy with which He heals the centurion's servant, Matt. 8:5-13. The tenderness with which He restored the widow's son, Luke 7:11-17. The simplicity with which He recovered the man born blind, John 9:1-7. The gentle touch with which He cured the man sick of the dropsy, Luke 14:1-6. The physical and spiritual healing of the paralytic, Luke 5:17-28. The resistless compassion with which He cured the daughter of the Syrophenician woman, Mark 7:24-3O. The wisdom and the authority with which He healed the lunatic child, Luke 9:37-43. The power with which He ejected the demon from the man into the swine, Matt. 8:28-34. Truly the name of our Divine Physician is "Wonderful!" All this skill and power and feeling He still possesses; and in their exercise, in His present dealings with His suffering saints, is He glorified.

When human power has come to its end; when skill and affection can do no more; when man retires, and hope is extinguished, and the loved one is despairingly abandoned to death- then to see the Lord step forward and take the case in His hands, arresting the disease, rebuking the distemper, bringing back the glow of health to the cheek, vigor to the frame, elasticity to the limb, and brilliance to the eye, and raising as from the very grave itself- oh how glorious does He appear in that chamber of sickness!

Who bowed down His ear to the whisper, that faintly cried for help and support? Who heard the fervent, agonizing prayer that that precious life might be spared, which, in another room, broke from the lips of some anxious, holy wrestler- a parent, a brother, a sister, a friend, it may be? It was the Son of God! and oh how is He glorified in the recovery!

But trace it further in an increased acquaintance with God and His truth. The season of sickness is the schooling of the soul. More of God is unfolded then, and more of His truth is learned, than perhaps in any other circumstances. The individual was, it may be, but little more than a mere theorist. He could talk well about God, and Christ, and the Gospel. He could reason accurately, and argue skillfully, and speak fluently, and yet there was a great and melancholy deficiency in his religion; much was still lacking. But a lonely sick chamber has been his school, and sickness the teaching discipline. Oh how the character, and the perfections, and the government of God become unfolded to his mind by the teachings of the Spirit of truth! His dim views are cleared, his crude ideas are ripened, his erroneous ideas are rectified; he contemplates God in another light, and truth through another medium.

But the sweetest effect of all, is the personal appropriation of God to his own soul. He can now say, "This God is my God, and is my Father, and is my portion forever"- words of assurance hitherto strange to his lips. The promises of God were never realized as so precious, the doctrines were never felt to be so establishing, and the precepts never seen to be so obligatory and so sanctifying as now- blessed results of a hallowed possession of the season of sickness!

And what a pruning of this living branch has taken place! What weanedness from the engrossing claims of the earthly calling, from an undue attachment to created good, from the creature, from the world, and from what is the greatest weanedness of all- a weanedness from the wedded idol- self! What humility of mind, what meekness of spirit, and self-renunciation follow! Accompany him on his return to the world, where he has again been brought, as from the confines of the grave, and from the land of Beulah- he appears like another man! He entered that chamber as a proud man! he leaves it as a little child. He went into it with much of the spirit of a grasping, covetous, worldly-minded professor; he emerges from it with the world under his feet- 'Consecration to Christ, and holiness to God' written upon his substance, and engraved upon his brow. He has been near to eternity! he has been looking within the veil! he has been reading his own heart! he has been dealing with Christ! he has seen and felt how solemn a thing it was to approach the gate of death, to enter the presence of God- and from that awful point of vision, he has contemplated the world, and life, and human responsibility, as they are; and he has come back like a spirit from another sphere, clothed with all the solemnities of eternity- to live now as one soon in reality to be there.

What a holy and a lovely being does he now appear! A fresh conversion would seem to have taken place. The 'dust' swept from beneath his feet, he stands upon the naked 'rock' with a firmer foothold than ever. He is brought nearer to Christ. He has the inward witness more clearly to the preciousness of Jesus, and his own personal salvation. His lightness and levity are lessened, and there is a heavenliness of mind, a sobriety of manner, and a spirituality of conversation, which mark one who has been in close converse with the great realities of eternity. Truly his sickness was "for the glory of God, that the Son of God might be glorified thereby."

Or, if that sickness terminates in death's slumber, is He less glorified? Ask the spirit just emerged from its shattered tenement, and hastening away to its home on high- ask it as it enters the portals of heaven, the blaze of eternal glory bursting upon its view- ask it as it finds itself before the throne of God, once an earthly, polluted creature, now whiter and brighter than an unfallen angel- ask it as it rests in the bosom of its redeeming Savior, blissfully conscious of its final and eternal safety, and reposing in expectation of its complete glorification, when its reunion with the spiritual body shall take place on the morning of the first resurrection- ask, and it will testify how great was the glory brought to the Son of God by the termination of a sickness which, while it left kindred and friends weeping around the death-bed below, demonstrated His life, and power, and love, "who has abolished death, and brought life and immortality to light." Blessed words of Jesus! "This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of God may be glorified thereby."

But the subject is suggestive of much practical reflection. We would briefly present one or two. It addresses itself pointedly to those who have been arrested by the hand of bodily disease, after a long course of preparation for holy labor, and who may have just entered upon, or may have been stopped in the midst of, a career of usefulness, full of promise and of hope. It requires no effort of the imagination to portray the class of feelings and of thoughts which now agitate the heart and crowd upon the mind. The whole dispensation is, to you, mysterious, dark, and painful. Taking your view of its circumstances from the complexion of your own feelings, you are probably disposed to regard it rather as a token of Divine displeasure, than as a messenger of mercy, and as an evidence of love. But is it really so? Suffering from disappointed expectation, the mind sympathizing with the body; gloominess, despondency, and unbelief prevailing; are you fitted to form a clear and just view of God's present dealings with you? May not your judgment err, and your conclusion be wrong?

But is it true that God, by setting you aside from active engagements, has set you aside from all duty and labor? We think not. Is it too much to say, that He is now summoning you, though to a more limited and obscure, yet to a higher and holier, because more self-denying and God-glorifying, sphere of duty? Your present loss of health has brought with it its high and appropriate duties, obligations, and employments. It bears an especial message from God to you, and through you to others. Contemplate the work to be done in your own soul, and the testimony through this which you are to bear to the power of Divine grace, to the sustaining energy of the gospel, and to the character of God, and I ask if the lone chamber of sickness has not its especial and appropriate duties, responsibilities, and work; equally as difficult, as honorable, and as remunerative as any which attach to the sphere of activity, or to the season of health? You are called upon now to glorify God in a passive rather than in an active consecration to His service. Graces hitherto perhaps dormant, or but feebly brought into play, are now to be developed and exercised to their utmost capacity. Patience is to be cultivated, resignation is to be exhibited, faith is to be exercised, love is to be tried, and example is to be set- and are not these great, holy, and sublime achievements?

Who will affirm that there is no sermon to be preached from that solitary couch, that sick-bed- yes, and it may be more solemn, more searching, more full of Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit, than the pulpit ever preached. The Church and the world have now the testimony of one passing through the present and personal experience of what he speaks. A sick room is not the place for theorizing and experimentizing upon truth and eternity. All transpiring there, is stern reality. The dust of human applause is laid, the breath of adulation is hushed, the flush of excitement has faded, and the delirium of an admiring throng has passed away- the artificial gives place to the real. All is as substantial and solemn as eternity.

Deem not yourself a useless cumberer because sickness has incapacitated you for active labor. God has but changed your sphere of duty, transferring you, doubtless, to one more glorifying to Himself. What though your cherished hopes are blighted, what though your fond plans are frustrated, what though your brilliant prospects are darkened, what though your years of hard, ambitious study seem for nothing, and the honors won by unwearied application and midnight toil, are withering and drooping upon your brow? God is summoning you to a profounder study, to more splendid achievements, and to a more verdant and deathless reward.

Do you think that your life has been alla blank? Was Kirke White's? was Spencer's? was Brainerd Taylor's? and a thousand more, whose brilliant career was darkened, and whose opening prospects of eminence and of usefulness were suddenly arrested by sickness, and speedily closed by death? Oh no! Though dead, they still live, and speak, and influence. And who can tell for what nobler purpose and higher employment in heaven the severe mental and moral discipline through which they passed, was designed by God to fit them? No, it is impossible that the past, its toil and sacrifice, can be a blank in your history, or that its literary and spiritual acquisitions are utterly fruitless and lost. To say nothing of the pleasures which you have derived in your mental discursions through the glowing fields of literature and of science, of the high gratification you have felt in converse with ancient authors, and of the feeling of ecstatic delight which has thrilled your soul, when, with the Grecian philosopher, you shouted your "Eureka! Eureka!" over some deep mystery unraveled, or some profound problem solved.

What is a still more consolatory reflection, you have been cultivating those mental powers with which God has endowed you, in the precise way which His wisdom ordained, and which His providence marked out. The future, now mournfully realized, of disappointed ambition, of blighted hope, and of withered expectation, your Heavenly Father studiously concealed from your view, that nothing might suppress your ardor or daunt your zeal in its high and brilliant career of investigation and of thought. And which, let me ask you, would from your bed of sickness be the most painful and humiliating retrospect- the years spent in mental dissipation and wasted time, or the years which you have devoted to those acquisitions which expanded your mind, and enriched it with thoughts, which now shed an intellectual luster upon your pallid countenance, and supply material for pleasing reflection in the weary hours of sickness and of solitude?

But there is a view of your present trial even more soothing and consolatory than this. It is the thought that your heavenly Father- to whom, in youth, and, perhaps, by renewed dedication in riper years, you gave yourself in solemn covenant, to use you and to dispose of you as best promoted His glory- is dealing with you now; that His wisdom is infallible, His love immutable, and that all His thoughts towards you are precious thoughts of peace, and not of evil. Receive, then, with meekness your Heavenly Father's dispensation, which, while it has set you apart from the Lord's work, has set you apart more exclusively and entirely for the Lord Himself. Your great desire has been to glorify Him; leave Him to select the means which may best advance it. You have thought of health and activity, of life and usefulness, of being a champion for the truth, a herald of salvation to the ignorant and the lost, a leader in some high and laborious path of Christian enterprise- but He has ordained it otherwise. And now, by sickness and suffering, by silence and solitude, He is giving you other work to perform, which shall not the less secure your usefulness and promote His glory. Oh take this cup of trembling from His hands and say,

"My God, my Father, while I stray
Far from my home on life's rough way
Oh teach me from my heart to say,
Your will be done."

"Though dark my path, or sad my lot,
Let me be still and murmur not,
But breathe the prayer, divinely taught,
Your will be done."

"Should pining sickness waste away
My life in premature decay,
May I with meek submission say,
Your will be done."

"If You should call me to resign
What most I prize- it never was mine,
I only yield You what was Thine.
Your will be done."

"Control my will from day to day,
Blend it with Yours, and take away
All that now makes it hard to say,
Your will be done."

"And when on earth I breathe no more
The prayer often mixed with tears before,
I'll sing upon a happier shore,
Your will be done."

But let us not lose sight of the Physician of the patient. "The whole need not a physician, but those who are sick." That Physician is He who spoke these words. The power of the Son of God over the moral and physical diseases of men, prove Him to be just the Physician which our circumstances require. Do we need skill? He possesses it. Sympathy? He has it. Patience, tenderness, perseverance? all belong to Jesus. Wonderful Physician! No disease can baffle You, for You are Divine. No suffering can fail to move You, for You are human. Are your deep anxieties awakened, my reader, on behalf of some loved object, now pining in sickness, perhaps, to all appearance, in circumstances of extreme danger? In simple faith call in the aid of this Physician. Let the prayer of Moses for Miriam be yours, presented with the faith, and urged with the importunity, of the Syrophoenician mother, "Heal her now, O Lord, I beseech you." "I will come and heal her," will be His reply. Deem not the case beyond His skill. Thus reasoned the sister of Lazarus: "Lord, if you had been here, my brother had not died. But I know that even now, whatever you will ask of God, God will give it you." Go in prayer and faith, and lay your sick one at His feet. Jesus is with you. One word from Him, and the disease shall vanish; one touch of His hand, and health shall be restored. He who raised Lazarus from the grave, can bring back from its brink the dear one around whose fast waning life the veins of your heart are entwined. Ask believingly, ask submissively, ask importunately, and then leave the result with Him.

Christian sufferer! you marvel why the Lord keeps you so long upon the couch of solitariness, and upon the bed of languishing- why the "earthly house of this tabernacle," should be taken down by continued and pining sickness, the corrodings of disease, and the gradual decay of strength. Hush every reasoning, anxious, doubtful thought. Your Heavenly Father has so ordained it. He who built the house, and whose the house is, has a right to remove it by what process He sees fit. The mystery of His present conduct will, before long, be all explained. Yes, faith and love can even explain it now, "Even so, Father, for so it seems good in your sight!" Yours is an honorable and a responsible post. God has still a work for you to do. You have been waiting year by year in the quietness of holy submission the summons to depart. But God has lengthened out your period of weariness and of suffering, for the work is not yet done in you and by you, to effect which this sickness was sent. Oh what a witness for God may you now be! What a testimony for Christ may you now bear! What sermons- converting the careless, confirming the wavering, restoring the wandering, comforting the timid, may your conversation and your example now preach from that sick bed! And oh, for what higher degrees of glory may God, through this protracted illness, be preparing you!

That there are degrees of glory in heaven, as there are degrees of suffering in hell, and degrees of grace on earth, admits of not a doubt. "As one star differs from another star in glory," so does one glorified saint differ from another. Will there be the absence in heaven of that wondrous variety of proportion which throws such a charm and beauty around the beings and the scenery of earth? Doubtless not. Superior grace below, is preparing for superior glory above. And the higher our attainments in holiness here, the loftier our summit of blessedness hereafter. For these high degrees of heavenly happiness, your present and lengthened sickness may, by God's grace, be preparing you. Sanctified by the Spirit of holiness, the slow fire is but the more perfectly refining; and the more complete the refinement on earth, the more perfectly will the sanctified soul mirror forth the Divine Sun in heaven. Be, then, your beautiful patience of spirit- meek and patient sufferer- increasingly that of the Psalmist, "I have behaved and quieted myself as a child that is weaned of his mother: my soul is even as a weaned child."

Has the Lord recently recovered you from sickness? Then see that He receives much glory from your recovery. Let your life, which He has anew snatched from the grave, be anew consecrated to His service. Preserve in constant and grateful remembrance the hallowed seclusion, the sacred impressions, the solemn transactions of the sick chamber. "Vow, and pay your vows unto the Lord." Be doubly guarded against that which, previously to your illness, deadened the life of God in your soul. It is not seemly for a Christian to emerge from the solemnities and retirement of sickness, light, trifling, and earthly. We look for it far otherwise. We expect to see the froth of vain conversation subsided, the dust of earth blown away, the clinging attachment to objects of sense weakened; and in their place, sobriety of spirit heavenliness of deportment, and weanedness from earth. Let these Christian traits be yours, beloved reader. Let it appear by your increased spiritual-mindedness, that you have risen from the bed of sickness, and come forth from the place of solitude, like the "bridegroom coming out of his chamber, rejoicing as a strong man to run a race."

Cherish in your heart and perpetuate in your life a grateful sense and remembrance of the Lord's mercy in your recovery. He it was who healed you. He gave the skill, and blessed the means, and rebuked the disease. You were brought low, and He helped you. A monument of His sparing mercy, may you be a monument of His sanctifying grace. Let the life which He has 'redeemed from destruction,' be as a pleasant psalm to the Lord. "O Lord my God, I cried unto you, and you have healed me. O Lord, you have brought up my soul from the grave; you have kept me alive, that I should not go down to the pit. Sing unto the Lord, O you saints of his, and give thanks at the remembrance of his holiness; for his anger endures but a night: in his favor is life: weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning. You have turned for me my mourning into dancing; you have put off my sackcloth, and girded me with gladness; to the end that my glory may sing praise to you, and not be silent. O Lord my God, I will give thanks unto you forever." "Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits; who forgives all your iniquities, who heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from destruction, who crowns you with loving-kindness and tender mercies."

Go, with lowly and adoring spirit, to the house of the Lord, saying, "I will offer to you the sacrifice of thanksgiving, and will call upon the name of the Lord. I will pay my vows unto the Lord now in the presence of all his people." There lay yourself, a living sacrifice, upon the altar of your living High Priest- a renewed consecration to God.

"Here in Your courts I leave my vow,
And Your rich grace record;
Witness you saints who hear me now,
If I forsake the Lord."

You who visit sick and dying beds, tread solemn and important ground. You have need to visit much the throne of grace for the wisdom and the grace which such a sphere of labor requires. Remember that you are brought in contact with those with whom God is especially dealing. Your advantages for instruction and impression are great. Sickness has given a distaste for the world; God's judgment has perhaps aroused the conscience, and his dealings have made the heart soft. Your first step will be to ascertain, as far as it is possible, the real state of the soul. What medical man would attempt to prescribe for his patient without first thoroughly ascertaining the nature of the disease, its symptoms, phases, and the course of treatment demanded?

But your post is infinitely more important and responsible than his, whose only office is to heal the body. Having learned this, you will then be prepared to bring the grand remedy contained in the gospel of Jesus to bear upon the case. Let your unfoldings of that remedy be scriptural, simple, and appropriate. You will present such statements of divine truth as the nature of the case requires, making prominent the two great ingredients in your Divine recipe- the fall in the first Adam- the recovery in the second Adam; out of self, into Christ. Before the truly awakened, yet anxious, restless soul, you will array all the precious promises and gracious invitations of the Gospel, so amply provided for such. You will lay peculiar stress upon the finished work of Jesus, and the perfect freeness of the remedy which he has provided; especially holding up to view the great and glorious fact, that Christ died for the ungodly. You will explain faith to be the one simple channel through which flow pardon and peace to the soul- "believing in the Lord Jesus Christ;" while you unfold his richness to meet all the necessities of his own beloved and called people. But the Spirit of truth will be your Teacher and your Guide. Looking up to Him, and leaning upon Christ, your labor in this peculiarly difficult, trying, and important sphere of Christian exertion will not be in vain in the Lord.

Nor would I fail to remind the Christian physician, should the eye of such an one light upon this page, of the peculiar advantages which he possesses of uniting the healing of bodily disease with a deep solicitude for the spiritual welfare of the sick. The example of our adorable Lord, our great model in all things, presents a beautiful and instructive illustration of this union. Immediately preceding His magnificent sermon on the mount, it is narrated of Him, "And Jesus went about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing all manner of sickness, and all manner of diseases among the people. And his fame went throughout all Syria, and they brought unto him all sick people who were taken with diverse diseases and torments, and those who were possessed with devils, and those which were lunatics, and those who had the palsy: and he healed them."

Molding his Christianity and shaping his professional career after this illustrious example, doubly and immensely useful may the pious physician be. Let no delicacy of feeling lest you should invade the sacred functions of the Christian ministry- let no dread of being singular, nor fear of man, dissuade you from a work which God has so providentially placed in your hands. Some of the most illustrious names in the history of medical science have been identified with the profession and propagation of Christianity. Bateman and Hamilton, Hervey and Sydenham, Boerhaave and Mason Good, were Christian physicians. Illustrious as they were in the annals of science, still more honored and distinguished were they as men of whom it is their highest eulogy, that while they healed the bodily malady of the sick, they administered to the 'mind diseased,' and both in their professional and private life, walked with God.

And, oh, if but one soul is, by your instrumentality, brought to Christ- if one, wounded by the serpent, is led to raise his eye of faith, even in the agonies of death, and fix it upon the Savior- slain and lifted up for sinners the chief, the vilest- that were a blessing and a reward before which all the honors of your professional skill and reputation droop and die. Christian physician! be faithful to souls, be faithful to your high trust, be faithful to God.

The subject of Christian Missions, in connection with the medical profession, is becoming one of deepening interest and importance. It is found that a practical acquaintance with the art of healing, clothes the missionary of the Cross with an importance in the estimation of the heathen, and places in his hands an influence over their minds, superior to all other laborers in the field. The healing of the body opens an avenue to the healing of the soul. Confidence and gratitude, and even affection, are inspired within the 'savage breast,' and these prepare the way for the Gospel message. The human physician thus becomes the herald of the Divine; and the balm which he administers to the physical malady, is but the introduction to the 'balm of Gilead,' of which the diseased and deathless mind so deeply stands in need. The question of duty with pious medical men, as to their personal consecration to the missionary work, viewed in this point of light, is worthy of their most solemn and prayerful consideration.

The following remarks by a distinguished Christian physician are so singularly appropriate, and withal so excellent and eloquent, that I am happy to strengthen my appeal by their quotation. Alluding to the duty of pious medical men, he says, "And responsibility stops not at themselves. Having become Christians, they find it at once their privilege and their duty to become Christianizers too. A privilege- for thus only can they satisfy that burning desire which else consumes them- to make known and convey to others the blessings they have themselves received. And a solemn duty, inasmuch as God has given to them, more than to perhaps any other class of men, many and invaluable opportunities of advancing His glory, and doing His will, in the salvation of lost souls- perishing and yet immortal. It is commonly said that 'man's extremity is God's opportunity.' The heart is soft in sickness, and impressible; and the soul awakened, seeks earnestly for hope and comfort then. The faithful pastor is perhaps little less successful in turning souls to Christ, by his ministrations in the sick-room, than by those of the pulpit; and the faithful physician, too, can look back with thankfulness to many happy times, when with one hand he healed and soothed the body, and with the other guided the soul heavenward and home. Conversion may come mysteriously and softly as the breeze- no man knowing where it comes or where it goes. At other times it is dated back to special providences in perils and escape. But, oh! how often is it referred, with adoring gratitude, to some lingering disease or sudden and sore sickness! It is in the fear of death and judgment that conscience regains its power, and speaks for God. Memory upbraids and conviction grows deeper and darker; but memory alone will never bring peace. News, good news, is eagerly sought- news of hope and salvation. Then is the sowing time, while the earth is soft and open, and watered by the tears of penitence. Then is it that the smitten patient clings with child-like confidence to the physician; and, hanging life upon his looks and lips, implores his aid. Then is it that he, sad and sorrowful, his best skill baffled, and himself bereft of all hope of cure, yet rejoices in being able to say- 'One thing more I can do. It is the sure prescription: believe and live!' Then is it that in the deep furrow of affliction, the good seed may be by his hand hopefully laid. Nourished by the dews of the Holy Spirit, and warmed by the rays of God's love, it takes deep root, springs up, and bears fruit, to the praise and glory of His name." -Professor Miller of Edinburgh.

Let the Christian invalid be cheered with the prospect of before long arriving at that land the inhabitants of which shall no more say, I am sick. It is the land of light and love, of rest and holiness. The moment the spirit is 'absent from the body and present with the Lord,' it treads those balmy shores where health breathes in the air, flows in the waters, and sparkles in the sunbeams. There is no sickness in heaven, for "the people that dwell therein shall be forgiven their iniquity," and this accounts for the absence of all physical malady. There is no sickness in heaven, because there is no sin. But the more full enjoyment of this blessing is reserved for the new earth, upon which the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband, will dwell. Then it is that, "God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away."

Christian sufferer! you are nearing this land- a few more days of languishing and pain, a few more nights of weary wakefulness, and you are there! Do you see through the chinks of the, "earthly house of this tabernacle," "a building of God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens?" Do you see the "city which has foundations, whose Maker and Builder is God?" It has "no need of the sun, neither of the moon, to shine on it for the glory of God does enlighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof. . . The gates of it shall not be shut at all by day: for there is no night there."

Soon you will exchange this hospital for your Father's house, and as you cross the threshold, the last pang is inflicted, the last sigh is heaved, and the last tear is brushed from your eye. Then, at the resurrection of the just, comes the new body. "It is sown in corruption; it is raised in incorruption; it is sown in dishonor; it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness; it is raised in power. It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body." All this blessedness and glory JESUS has procured for you. All this blessedness and glory awaits you. And into its full possession and experience Jesus will soon bring you. Animated with such a prospect, and cheered with such a hope, patiently endure the prolonged sickness, the protracted suffering, exclaiming in the spirit and language of Jesus, "O my Father, if this cup may not pass from me, except I drink it, your will be done!"

"Beloved, I wish above all things that you may prosper and be in health, even as your soul prospers."

"When languor and disease invade
This trembling house of clay,
It is sweet to look beyond our cage,
And long to fly away."

"Sweet to look inward and attend
The whispers of His love;
Sweet to look upward to the place
Where Jesus pleads above."

"Sweet to look back and see my name
In life's fair book set down;
Sweet to look forward and behold
Eternal joys my own."

"Sweet to reflect how grace divine
My sins on Jesus laid;
Sweet to remember that His blood
My debt of sufferings paid."

"Sweet on His righteousness to stand,
Which saves from second death;
Sweet to experience, day by day,
His Spirit's quickening breath."

"Sweet on His faithfulness to rest,
Whose love can never end;
Sweet on His covenant of grace
For all things to depend."

"Sweet in the confidence of faith
To trust His firm decrees;
Sweet to lie passive in His hand,
And know no will but His."

"Sweet to rejoice in lively hope
That, when my change shall come,
Angels will hover round my bed,
And waft my spirit home."

"There shall my disimprisoned soul
Behold Him and adore;
Be with His likeness satisfied,
And grieve and sin no more."

"Shall see Him wear that very flesh
On which my guilt was lain;
His love intense, His merit fresh,
As though but newly slain."

"If such the views which grace unfolds,
Weak as it is below;
What rapture must the church above
In Jesus' presence know!"

"If such the sweetness of the stream,
What must the fountain be;
Where saints and angels draw their bliss
Immediately from Thee!"

"O may the unction of these truths
Forever with me stay;
Till from her sinful cage dismissed,
My spirit flies away."

The Glorious Prospects of the Believer

"Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God has prepared for those who love him." 1 Cor. 2:9

The believer in Christ must of necessity be a happy man. Though like the Master whom he loves- and loving, he serves- his path in some places may be paved with flint, or fenced with briar, yet amid it all, fed from the fullness of Christ and living upon the supply of the covenant, yes, upon the God of the covenant, he is, and he must be, a truly happy man. Beloved reader, we live below, far below our spiritual privileges. We claim not all the blessings of our birth-right, which, in this present time-state, are ours to enjoy. And if we rise not to the experience of what God has provided and promised for us now, what marvel that we so faintly imagine, and yet more faintly realize, the glories prepared for us hereafter. To a brief meditation upon these future glories this chapter invites you. And may the Eternal Spirit so cause us to see them with the glass of faith- the believer's telescope- as they are revealed in the word, as to fill our souls with heavenly and ardent desire for them.

What animating words are those which suggest the theme of our present reflections! It would, however, be doing violence to the text, and injustice to the Holy Spirit of truth, not to remark that there is undoubtedly a reference to the present blessedness as well as to the future prospects of believers. The Apostle primarily alludes to the doctrines of grace and to the mysteries of the Gospel, as inconceivable by, and as veiled to, the 'princes of this world:' and then adds, "But God has revealed them unto us by His Spirit; for the Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God." But as the present blessings and the future blessedness of believers are so closely connected, not only with each other, but in the experience of the child of God, we cannot well contemplate the one without carrying forward our thoughts to the other. It is with the glorious prospects of the saints of God we at present have especially to do. "Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God has prepared for those who love him."

It is of the greatest moment that we clearly understand FOR WHOM THIS FUTURE GLORY IS PREPARED. "Those who love Him." To such only does heaven unfold its gates of pearl. What, reader, are your pretensions to this character? Those who in reality love God form but a small portion of the human family. The great mass are lovers of self, lovers of pleasure, lovers of sin, rather than lovers of God. The fearful and universal characteristic of the unrenewed mind is enmity, and not love, to God. "The carnal mind is enmity against God." The word of God makes no exception in favor of those who say that they love God, or who profess that they love him, or whose creed is orthodox, or whose lives are fair, or who, according to the world's estimate, are deemed 'religious.' If there be lacking this essential element, this crowning grace of true religion- love to God- all is lacking. "Though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, but have not love, it profits me nothing."

But what an expressive and honorable designation is this- a designation belonging to all the people of God- "those who love him!" In this quality are merged all other and inferior distinctions of birth, and wealth, and learning, and power; and the one character, the one badge, the one style and title of all is- love to God. This is the one soul; animating, pervading, and assimilating the members of the one body, the children of the one family.

Love to God is a Divine emotion, implanted in the human heart, corresponding in its nature and quality with its Divine and holy Object. It is a moral affection inspired by the perfection of moral beauty. God is a perfect Being. "In him is no darkness at all"- neither intellectual nor spiritual. "There is no unrighteousness in him." He is the perfection of all perfection. Who can set forth the Almighty to perfection? He must be infinite in his powers of conception and description who can do it. All finite imagination droops, and thought expires, and language fails, and imagery fades, in the attempt to describe what God is. And yet He is sufficiently revealed in the word, and embodied in Jesus, to be known, and known to be loved. Love to Him constitutes the essence of true godliness. A religion that has not love to God as its great principle, its grand requirement, its supreme end, is, and must be, false. It supposes another and a higher object of affection. It enthrones upon the heart a sovereign, and recognizes a government antagonist to Jehovah's. It, in fact, supposes the existence of another God- for whatever object supplants Him in the affections of the creature, whatever divides the heart with, and alienates it from, Himself, is in direct opposition to the Divine law, and 'as God sits in the temple of God, showing itself that it is God.' "You shall have no other God but me."

In nothing has God acted more worthily of His nature than in constituting love as the soul and essence of religion, and Himself its supreme Object. In doing so, He has as much consulted the happiness of the creature as His own honor; as much our benefit as His glory. Indeed it would seem as if, in enjoining the obligation, in issuing the requirement, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind," He had a view to our happiness beyond every other end. Apart from the honor which accrues to Him from our obedience to this precept, what advantage can He derive from our affection? Himself the infinite sea of love, full to the eternal satisfaction of His own nature, what good could arise to Him from the tribute of affection poured from every heart? But He would bring us to a more perfect enjoyment of Himself by bringing us to love Him with a supreme affection. He who loves God, walks with God, dwells with God, is like God. He has not far to travel in order to find God. Let him look within upon his own tranquil conscience, let him wander through the illuminated chambers of his own soul, and there, in finding love, he finds God. If love is not there, neither is God there; for where love is, there is God enthroned upon the heart. "God is love; and he that dwells in love dwells in God, and God in him."

It is, then, the great characteristic of true believers that they love God. Their love embraces each person in the Godhead. They love the father- for to Him they are indebted for His unspeakable gift. They love the Son- for to Him they owe their redemption. They love the Spirit- for, having renewed them, He dwells in them forever as His temple. Such are all the children of God. O the blessedness they feel in loving God in Christ! O the happiness that springs from this divine, this heavenly emotion, expanding, purifying, and ennobling the soul! They ascribe its possession to no motive existing in themselves, but with the Apostle are ever ready to acknowledge, "We love him because he first loved us."

It is true, their love to God, the Triune God, is at best but an imperfect emotion, mingling with a thousand frailties, an affection unworthy of themselves, still more deeply unworthy of Him yet they love Him sincerely; He has drawn their hearts, has overcome them by His grace, and they are enabled to say, "Whom have I in heaven but you? and there is none upon earth whom I desire in comparison of you."

The deathlessness of love to God is a beautiful idea of Scripture. Every other grace will cease but that of love. Faith! that precious grace which has been as the sheet-anchor of our soul in the wildest storms; which, as our compass, has steered us through the deep billows and brought us in safety to the port; which, amid all the trials, needs, and perils of the way, was so great and so sweet a solace- when we reach the world of glory we shall need it no more, for faith must then give place to sight.

Hope! that pole-star of the soul, which cheered us with its mild luster many a weary step of our desolate journey, gilding the dark pictures of our earthly pilgrimage with its heavenly brightness, and alluring us on to the heaven from where it shone- when we reach the world of glory we shall need it no more, for hope will terminate in full fruition.

But Love will live forever! It will tread with us the dark valley, and will cross with us the swelling river, and enter with us into the realms of eternal blessedness- its home, from where it came, and where it again returns. "Whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away"- but 'love never fails,' but lives forever.

We proceed now to a rapid glance at the "things which God has prepared for those who love him." And first, there is the PRESENT blessedness of the saints. And, O, how sweet is this, what tongue of man or angel can describe? They are inconceivably great. "Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God has prepared for those who love him." Contemplate what He has prepared for us in the everlasting covenant of grace. "I will make an everlasting covenant with you, even the sure mercies of David," says God. This covenant, made with Christ, who is both its Mediator and Surety, secures to the believer all the mercies appropriate to his present state of conflict and of trial. They are 'sure mercies.' None others are so. The mercies of the worldling are as uncertain as the wind, as unstable as the sea. 'Passing away' is written upon them all. But the present blessings of the covenant child of God are 'sure.' Redemption, 'sure;' regeneration, 'sure;' salvation, 'sure;' the promises, 'sure;' a present God, 'sure;' a full Savior, 'sure;' eternal life, 'sure;'- all as 'sure' to the 'house of David' as Christ the spiritual David can make them.

Saints of God! what a sweet encouraging truth is this as you tread the vale of tears towards the mount of God! The world knows us not; the saints but imperfectly understand us. Tender and sympathizing as some are, how often are we compelled to say to them- "There are depths of sorrow in my soul, there are secret recesses in my heart, which you cannot reach. No one can touch those springs but Jesus. None can enter into and illumine the orbit but the Sun of Righteousness." Turning from the ignorance of the world, from the false judgment, the wrong interpretation, the misplaced confidence, the unkind rebukes of the saints, what a reviving cordial and what a soothing balm to the faint and wounded spirit is this truth- "the things which God has prepared for those who love him;" even the "sure mercies of ]David!"

But especially in the Lord Jesus, the Mediator of the covenant, are all great and glorious blessings prepared and treasured up. No conception can fully grasp the greatness of that declaration, "It pleased the Father that in him should all fulness dwell." Fulness of justification, so that the most guilty may be accepted. Fulness of pardon, so that the vilest may be forgiven. Fulness of grace, so that the most unholy may be sanctified. Fulness of strength, and consolation, and sympathy, so that the most feeble, afflicted, and tried, may be sustained, succored, and comforted. O how imperfectly are we acquainted with the things which God has prepared in Jesus for those who love Him! He would seem to have laid all His treasures at our feet. We go to Pharaoh, and he sends us to Joseph. We travel to the Father and sweet it is to go to Him!- but we forget that having made Christ the, "Head over all things to the Church." He sends us to Jesus. "Go unto Joseph." Precious words! Every need has the voice of the Father in it, saying, "Go to Jesus." Every perplexity is the Father's voice- "Go to Jesus." Every trial is the Father's voice- "Go to Jesus." If it pleased the Father to prepare in Christ all these spiritual things for those who love Him, surely it must be equally pleasing to Him that I, a poor, needy, ignorant, guilty creature, should draw from this supply to the utmost extent of my need. I will, then, arise with my burden, with my sorrow, with my need, and go to Christ, and prove if His infinite willingness to give, is not equal to His infinite ability to provide for me all that I need.

But let us turn to the contemplation of the FUTURE PROSPECTS of believers- of all contemplations perhaps the most sanctifying that can interest the feelings or engage the soul of man. In this sense of the passage it may in truth be said, "Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God has prepared for those who love him." We at present dwell but in the suburban parts of heaven. We tread here below its lower streets- the mere outskirts of glory. Now and then we catch a view of what is passing within the celestial city. We gaze for a moment upon its glittering spires, its star-paved streets, its walls of jasper, and its dome of light. An occasional strain of its music floating upon fragrant breezes, falls upon our ear, soothing the spirit and awakening desires to be there. But the glorious vision is not of long continuance. Pisgah's summit is again capped with clouds, and we descend to the valley beneath, to battle once more with sin and sorrow, and learn that heaven, though it soon will be, is not yet come.

I have remarked, that the contemplation of the coming glory is, of all meditative themes, the most deeply sanctifying. Heaven is revealed, and not as a state merely, but as a place, "I go," says Jesus, "to prepare a place for you." And upon the ear of the expiring malefactor He poured these enchanting words, "This day shall you be with me in Paradise." We have sufficient data given to us upon which to found some correct idea of what awaits us in the upper world. We glean from the sacred Scriptures enough knowledge of its nature and society, of its employments and blessedness, to awaken the most intense desire for its fitness and its enjoyment. It thus becomes the focal point upon which the believer's eye loves to fix its longing gaze.

In the race, he views it as his goal; in the warfare, he anticipates it as his prize; in the pilgrimage, he looks forward to it as his rest; and amid the toil of the pilgrimage and the battle of life he is often heard to betray the inward longings of his soul, "O that I had wings like a dove! then would I fly away and be at rest."

How blessed the prospect of attaining in heaven to a state of perfect holiness! This is its most glorious beatitude. Think of possessing a nature as pure and holy as the nature of God. Think of the soul being as a mirror concentrating upon its unsullied bosom all the moral perfections of Jehovah, nothing intercepting or dimming their rays, and returning the image of the Divine and glorious Object it reflects- each sparkling beam presenting a perfect resemblance of God. This is heaven. It is no picture of the fancy, it is no ideal conception of the imagination, but a real, and tangible, and scriptural delineation of the holy state awaiting every believer. "Beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, we shall be changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord."

In heaven we shall be freed from the indwelling of evil, and be delivered from the tyranny of corruption. Sin, now our thrall, our torment, and our burden, will then enslave, and distress, and oppress us no more. The chain which now binds us to the dead, loathsome body of our humiliation will be broken, and we shall be forever free! To you who cry, "O wretched man that I am," who know the inward plague, and feel that there is not one moment of the day in which you do not come short of the Divine glory, whose heaviest burden, whose bitterest sorrow, whose deepest humiliation springs from the consciousness of sin- what a glorious prospect is this! "It does not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like Him, for we shall see him as he is."

The absence of all evil, and the presence of all good, constitute elements of the heavenly state, which place its blessedness beyond the conception of the human mind. Assure me that in glory all the effects and consequences of the curse are done away- that the heart bleeds no more, that the eye weeps no more, that the spirit grieves no more, that temptation assails no more, that sickness, and bereavement, and separation, and disappointment are forms of suffering forever unknown, and let the Spirit bear his witness with my spirit- that I am a child of God, and a door is open to me in heaven, through which a tide of, "joy unspeakable and full of glory," rushes in upon my soul. And this is heaven. "God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away."

But heaven is not a place of negative blessedness merely. There is the positive presence of all good. "In your presence is fulness of joy, at your right hand are pleasures forevermore." The soul is with Christ, in the presence of God, and in the complete enjoyment of all that He has from eternity prepared for those who love Him. All soul, all intellect, all purity, all love- 'Eye has not seen, nor ear heard' the inconceivable blessedness in the full ocean of which it now bathes. Its society is genial, its employments are delightful, its joys are ever new. How deeply does it now drink of God's everlasting love, with what wondering delight it now surveys the glory of Immanuel, how clearly it reads the mysterious volume of all the Divine conduct below, and how loud its deep songs of praise, as each new page unfolds the 'height, and depth, and length, and breadth of the love of Christ,' which even then 'passes knowledge!' Truly we may call upon the "saints to be joyful in glory." Sing aloud, for you are now with Christ, you see God, and are beyond the region of sin, of pain, of tears, of death- "forever with the Lord!"

But we cannot conceive, still less describe, the glorious prospects of believers, for, "eye has not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God has prepared for those who love him." We shall soon go 'home', and experience it all. Then the eye will have seen, and the ear will have heard, and the heart will have realized the things which from eternity God has laid up in Jesus, and prepared in the everlasting covenant for the poorest, lowest, feeblest child, whose heart faintly, yet sincerely, thrilled in a response of holy love to His.

God Resting in His Love

"He will rest in his love." Zephaniah 3:17

It must be the mournful acknowledgment of every spiritual mind, that, after all the clear revealings of truth, and the deep teachings of the Holy Spirit, our views of what God is in Himself, of what He is to His people, and, we may add, of what His people are to Him, fall so far below what they ought to be. May not this disproportion of our conception of their magnitude and preciousness be traced, in a great measure, to the deficiency of our faith in the plain matter of fact statements of God's word? We stumble at the very simplicity of the truth. Take, for illustration, that single declaration- "God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in him, should not perish, but have everlasting life." The most unhesitating, simple belief of this, shall we say, matter of fact, yet astounding announcement- faith just receiving it without any qualification, or demur, exactly as it is found in the Bible- will teach us more in one hour of what God in Christ is to a poor penitential believer, than a century of human teaching. The truth is, we do but half believe the word of God. We doubt, we hesitate, we reason, we cavil, we add to it, and we take from it- we receive just so much as we can understand, and reject just so much as is not palatable or clear; and the sad consequence is, God reproves our unbelief by leaving us for a season to the effects of our unbelief.

But although we believe not, yet He remains true to every jot and tittle of His revealed truth. The imperfect credence which we give to its statements cannot invalidate His promise, nor alter the word that has gone out of His mouth. In the midst of all our slowness of heart to believe, and insensibility of heart to love, "He abides faithful." There, more immovable than the rock of the ocean, more impregnable than the battlements of heaven, firmer than the pillars of the universe, our God, our own covenant God abides, for "he will rest in his love."

In conducting these pages to a close, what theme of holier, tenderer interest, what view of God more elevating, soothing, and sanctifying, could we with greater appropriateness leave upon the mind of the pious reader, than 'God resting in His love'? May the Holy Spirit impart to us an enlightened view and a personal possession of this truth.

The perfection in which God is described as resting is, His love. That He should rest in this, and not in His holiness, or His wisdom, or His power, conveys the most exalted view of its transcendent excellence, and of His own ineffable delight in it. For what is God's love? It is not so much a perfection of His being as it is the essence of His being, for "God is love." It would seem as impossible to separate love from God, as to separate God from Himself. In resting in His love, He rests in Himself. Here, then, is one of the most sublime conceptions of God ever presented to the human mind. The great, Eternal God resting- from no exhaustion nor weariness- in His love. What infinite satisfaction with, and what inconceivable delight in Himself, does this Divine posture express! There is not, perhaps, another view of God in the Bible which sets forth this truth with such vividness as this.

In resting in His love towards His saints, He must rest in the Son of His love. "God was in Christ." It was only in Christ that the Divine perfections employed in saving man could meet, and harmonize, and repose. But one object could reconcile their conflicting interests, maintain the honor of each, and unite and blend them all in one glorious expedient of human salvation, as effectual to man as it was honoring to God- that one object was God's only and beloved Son. The essential dignity of the Son of God was such, that all agreed that the rebel sinner should live if the Divine Savior would die. Divine justice- vindicating holiness, and sustained by truth- pursued the victim of its vengeance until it arrived at the cross. There it beheld the provision of mercy, the gift of love- God's dear Son, suspended, bleeding, dying in the place of the sinner, "giving himself a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling savor"- and justice was stayed, stood still, and adored. It could proceed no further in arrest of the rebel- it had found full, ample, perfect satisfaction, and returned, exclaiming, "it is enough!" and God rested in His love.

Yes! Jesus is the rest of the Father. Listen to the declaration which He loved so frequently to repeat- "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased." With what holy satisfaction, with what fond complacence and delight does He rest in Him who has so revealed His glory, and so honored His name! How dear to His heart Jesus is, what mind can conceive, what language can express? Resting in Him, delighting in His person, and fully satisfied with His work, an object ever in His presence and in His heart, the Father is prepared to welcome and to bless all who approach Him in the name of Ills Son. "The Father loves the Son, and has given all things into his hand." And again, "The Father himself loves you, because you have loved me." Therefore Jesus could say, "Whatever you shall ask the Father in my name, he will give it to you." Behold the Father resting in His love- resting in the Son of His love- resting in the gift of His love. Approach Him in the name of Jesus, and ask what you will, "he will give it to you."

God rests in the people of His love. It had been no selfishness in God had He loved Himself solely and supremely, to the exclusion of every other object. He might have remained eternally happy in the contemplation of His own glory, delighting in His own infinite excellence, and resting in His love to Himself. But this would have been almost impossible. Himself essential Love, the infinite ocean of benevolence, it would appear that He could not rest in the abstract contemplation of His love, but must have other objects upon whom to lavish, and with whom to share it. It pleased Him, therefore, of His own free unconditional choice, to take out of the fallen race of man, a church, a people, whom He, "loved with an everlasting love," and had elected in Christ their Head. "According as he has chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him; in love having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he has made us accepted in the Beloved." "The foundation of God stands sure, having this seal, The Lord knows those who are his." They are a people for the most, part hidden from the knowledge of the world, and but few in number.

How few there are among the many professing Christ, who yet know anything by experience of the great and wondrous life of faith! Only they who are taught by the Spirit the plague of their own hearts can possibly know it. How few there are who appear to possess vital religion in their souls! How few choose Christ with His cross! The great mass of professors are aiming to separate Christ and His cross! They would sincerely bear the name of Christ, and be accounted as the followers of Christ, and do something for the cause of Christ, but they hide His cross, they are ashamed of His cross, they shrink from His cross. Christ and His outward lowliness, Christ and His poverty, Christ and His humiliation, Christ and the world's despising, form no part of their creed nor their religion. But Christ and the world, Christ and the popular voice, Christ and the slavery of sin, Christ and an unhumbled spirit, Christ and a love of money, and ease, and self-indulgence, make up the religion of vast numbers who yet profess, and call themselves Christians. Awful fact! How forcibly does it remind us of the solemn words of Jesus, "Not every one that says unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven." Let us, in view of this solemn truth, search our hearts, and ask the searching of God's Spirit; and in ascertaining the real state of our souls, let us take nothing for granted, rest not in past experience, nor in gifts, nor usefulness, but be satisfied only with the present, inward witness of the Holy Spirit.

Yes, God rests in the people of His love. They are precious, inconceivably precious to His heart. He keeps them as the apple of His eye. In their own view, they may be vile, polluted, worthless; but seen by Him in Jesus, He can, and He does say, to each one, "You are all beautiful, my love, I see no spot in you." Resting in Jesus, the Son of His love, He rests in His people, the objects of His love. He may afflict, and chasten, and rebuke, and try them, and permit them to be severely assailed; He may even hide His face from them for a little moment, and speak harshly to theirs, like Joseph to his brethren: He may disturb their resting-places, and scatter their creature mercies to the wind- nevertheless, you saints of God, "The Lord your God in the midst of you is mighty; he will save, he will rejoice over you with joy; he will rest in his love, he will joy over you with singing."

Nor will He be satisfied until He has gathered them all around Him within His house in heaven- Jesus presenting to Him the whole body, 'a glorious Church,' exclaiming, "Behold, I and the children whom you have given me." Then, and not until then, will the joy of the Lord over His Church be full. Then, and not until then, will His rest in the people of His love be complete.

God rests in the manifestation of His love. Even in our fallen state, with our impaired affections clinging to us, like the green ivy around a splendid ruin, we can understand something of this feeling. If love exists, where is the heart that can conceal the affection? It must, in some mode or other, express the sentiment it feels. If revealed only to God, the heart must unburden itself of its hidden, trembling emotion. But how delightful is the expression of affection! The parent feels it when he presses his little one to his fond heart. The mother, when she clasps her infant to her thrilling bosom. The friend, when he communes with his friend. But if this principle be so strong, and its expression so delightful, in such a nature as ours, all of whose affections are so sinful and selfish, what must it be in God!

Conceive, if it is possible, what must be the holy delight of God's heart in lavishing its affection upon His people; what must be the joy of Christ when He comes and manifests Himself to His saints as He does not unto the world. A benevolent mind delights in the exercise of benevolence. God is infinitely so. Infinite, therefore, must be the satisfaction of His heart, intense the delight of His soul, when He sheds abroad His love in the hearts of His people, when He draws near in the day that they call upon Him, and manifests Himself as a loving, tender, faithful Father. "You meet him that rejoices and works righteousness, those that remember you in your way." Since, then, the Father delights to unlock the springs of His love, and to fill the heart to overflowing, take your poor, timid, doubting heart, and place it beneath those springs, that it may be perfect in love, and, perfected in love, all slavish fear will be expelled.

God rests in the immutability of His love. It is a love that knows no change in its character, and no variation in its degree. There never has been a period in which the love of God in Christ towards His people has been more or less than it is at this moment. It must have been great before conversion, because then it was that He gave His only begotten Son that they might live through Him. Then, too, it was He sent His own Spirit to regenerate their minds, and to make them new creatures in Christ Jesus. If He thus loved them before conversion, when they were yet sinners, do you think, dear reader, that His love can be less since conversion? Impossible! God rests in the unchangeableness of His love towards His saints. Nothing can move Him from it. Nothing can disturb His repose.

When He set His heart upon His people, He foresaw and foreknew all that was in them. He knew when they would revolt, when they would start aside like a broken bow, when they would stumble and fall. He knew all their waywardness, and folly, and ingratitude. "I knew that you would deal very treacherously," says God. And yet He loved them. Acquainted with their sin, does He not chasten it? and in chastening, does He withdraw His love from them? Listen to His own words- "If my children forsake my law, and walk not in my judgments: if they break my statutes, and keep not my commandments; then will I visit their transgressions with the rod, and their iniquities with stripes. Nevertheless my loving-kindness will I not utterly take from him, nor allow my faithfulness to fail." What language can more strongly set forth the Lord's determination to correct the departures of His people, while yet resting in the unchangeableness of His love towards them?

The marginal rendering of the passage, which we have thus been briefly amplifying, is exceedingly beautiful and expressive: "He will be silent because of His love." Divine wrath is silent because love has hushed it. Divine justice is silent, because love has satisfied it. Sin is silent, because love has condemned it. Satan is silent, because love has vanquished him. God's love has silenced every voice but own. When an accusation was brought against a poor sinner in the presence of Jesus, and He was called upon to adjudicate in the case, it is recorded that He, "stooped down, and with his finger wrote on the ground, as though he heard them not." He was silent, because of His love!

And have we no accusers? Ah, yes, many and just. Conscience accuses, and Satan accuses, and sin accuses, and the world accuses- but Jesus accuses not; He is silent because of His love. They condemn loudly, fiercely, justly, but He never condemns. "And again he stooped down and wrote on the ground." Still not a word of condemnation breathed from His lips. He had been wronged, He had been sinned against, His own holy law had been broken, and the witnesses, many and malignant, are there to testify in truth against the sinner- but Jesus is silent, and silent in His love.

"Some write their wrongs in marble- He, more just,
Stooped down serene, and wrote His in the dust;
Trod under foot, the sport of every wind,
Swept from the earth, and blotted from His mind;
There, buried in the dust, He bade them lie,
And grieved He could not keep them from the Almighty's eye."

What sweet repose is here for the saints of God! Does God rest in His love? Then the believer in Jesus may rest in it too. Does Infinity find repose here? Then may a poor finite creature. Does Immanuel rest in it? Then may I, resting in Immanuel. If it is enough for Jehovah, surely it is enough for the people of Jehovah. Our dear Lord's exhortation harmonizes with this truth. "Abide in me." "As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you; continue in my love." Beloved reader, come and rest in this love- Jesus invites you to its blessed repose. Are you weary, tossed with tempest? Is there sadness in your spirit, sorrow in your heart, a cloud upon your mind? Is some crystal cistern broken, some fragrant flower withered, some fond and pleasant mercy gone? "Come, " says Jesus, "and rest in my love- rest in the reality of my love- rest in the depth of my love- rest in the tenderness of my love- rest in the deathlessness of my love!"

O blessed rest! Poor, heart-broken sinner, weeping penitent, weary, laboring soul! What do you need? Mercy? It is in Christ. Forgiveness? It is in Christ. Acceptance? It is in Christ. The silencing power of love? It is in Christ. A reconciled Father, a pacified God? He is in Christ. All that you need is in Christ. Draw near, then, and rest in His love. The Father rests in Jesus- His justice rests in Jesus, His holiness rests in Jesus, His truth rests in Jesus- His power rests in Jesus- and in Jesus you too may rest! God rests in His love towards you, because He rests in the Son of His love. And in the Son of His love your weary, jaded, trembling spirit may find full and eternal repose.

And whatever your present circumstances are, be the severity of your Father's dealings what it may, ever remember that He still rests in His love. Judging of Him by providences rather than by promises, your faith may become unhinged from this truth. But the standard by which you are to form your views of God's character is the same by which you are to judge of your own- His word. That word declares that He rests in His love, that He now rests in it, that He rests in it at the present time, and therefore He rests in it at the moment that His providences in your history are the darkest and most lowering. When to your view all things seem against you- when even God Himself seems against you, then is He resting with infinite satisfaction and delight in the love with which He has loved you from everlasting. And when all the mighty wheels of His providence are rapidly revolving, when event follows event, and convulsion succeeds convulsion; when your spirit is agitated, and your heart is alarmed, and your whole soul is awe-struck and appalled at the wonder-workings of His power, then is God calmly, serenely resting in His love towards you- unmoved, unruffled, unbeclouded by the things which convulse the universe.

If God thus rests in His love towards us, how jealous ought we to be of the fervor and fidelity of our love to Him! Ah! how inconstant, and wavering, and restless have been our affections! How little have we rested in our love to Christ! Other objects have attracted us away from it, and we have been as changeable as the wind, and as unstable as the sea. But let us watch over this holy affection, apart from which God takes no pleasure in our sacrifices or services. Let it be our aim to yield up whatever rivals Christ. He sacrificed all for the love He bore us; let us sacrifice all that He requires for the love we bear Him. Jesus is worthy- O how worthy- of our deepest, strongest, most self-consuming affection. And God, who gave us His Son, asks nothing in return but that we give Him our heart. Let His love, then, constrain us to a more unreserved obedience, to a holier walk, to a more ardent, inseparable attachment to Him, to His people, and to His cause.

Let us, in this day of easy and abounding profession- this day of papal encroachment, and of popish imitation- this day of exaltation of human authority above the word of God- this day of error, of rebuke, and of blasphemy- this day of rapid and of excited action- this last, solemn dispensation of the world- the events of which are rapidly ushering in the coming of the Son of man- let us, under the influence of more simple faith, and more fervent love, and brightening hope, 'go forth unto Jesus outside the camp, bearing his reproach,' resting amid our conflict and our toil, where the Father rests- where the sinner rests- where we may rest- in Jesus!

"Jesus, I rest in Thee,
In You myself I hide
Laden with guilt and misery,
Where can I rest beside?
It is on Your meek and lowly breast
My weary soul alone can rest."

"You Holy One of God!
The Father rests in Thee.
And in the savor of that blood
which speaks to Him for me.
The curse is gone- through You I'm blest,
God rests in You- In You I rest."

"The slave of sin and fear,
Your truth my bondage broke,
My happy spirit loves to wear
Your light and easy yoke;
Your love, which fills my grateful breast,
Makes duty joy, and labor rest."

"Soon the bright glorious day
The rest of God will come,
Sorrow and sin shall pass away,
And I shall reach my home
Then, of the promised land possessed,
My soul shall know eternal rest."

READER! "May the Grace of Our Lord Jesus Christ Be with Your Spirit. Amen."

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

HELP HEAVENWARD

Table of Contents

1. The Ransomed Returning Home

2. Progressive Meetness for Heaven

3. The Burdened Gently Led by Christ

4. The Clouds of the Christian and the Chariot of God

5. Trial, a Help Heavenward

6. Bonds Loosed

7. Human Care Transferred to God

8. Self-Communion

9. Backsliders Returning

10. The Swelling of the Jordan

11. Our Father's House

The Ransomed Returning Home

"And the ransomed of the Lord shall return, end come
to Zion with songs, and everlasting joy upon their heads:
they shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing
shall flee away."—Isa. 35:10.

The children of God are on their way to the Father's house. As
spiritual voyagers they are homeward-bound. Heaven is the place
at which they will as certainly arrive as that Christ Himself is there.
Already the expectant of glory binds the "wave sheaf " to his believing
bosom. Faith is the spiritual spy of the soul. It travels far
into the promised land, gathers the ripe clusters—the evidences
and pledges of its reality and richness—and, returning, bears with
it these, the "first-fruits" of the coming vintage. "My soul has
desired the first ripe fruits:" and he who has in his soul the "first-fruits
of the Spirit, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption
of the body," knows something in his experience of heaven upon
earth. Ah! many a glimpse and gleam of the heavenly land dawns
upon the Christian in the darkness of his dungeon, in the loneliness
of his exile, in the cloistered stillness of his suffering chamber.
Such was the rapture of a departing saint: "The celestial city is full
in my view. Its glories beam upon me, its breezes fan me, its odors
are wafted to me, its sounds strike upon my ear, and its spirit is
breathed into my heart. Nothing separates me from it but the river
of death, which now appears but as an insignificant rill, that may
be crossed at a single step, whenever God shall give permission.
The Sun of Righteousness has been gradually drawing nearer and
nearer, appearing larger and brighter as He approached, and now
He fills the whole hemisphere, pouring forth a flood of glory, in
which I seem to float like an insect in the beams of the sun; exulting,
yet almost trembling, while I gaze at the excessive brightness,
and wondering with unutterable wonder why God should deign
thus to shine upon a sinful worm"—Payson. Thus, long before the
4 Help Heavenward
believer reaches the celestial city, the evidences of its existence
and fertility float past his barque, as manifestly as did the tokens of
a new world the vessel which bore Columbus to its shores. The
relation of present grace to future glory is close and indissoluble. It
is that of the seed to the flower—of the morning twilight to meridian
day. Grace is the germ of glory; glory is the highest perfection
of grace. Grace is glory militant; glory is grace triumphant. Thus
the believer has two heavens to enjoy—a present heaven experienced
in the love of God in his heart, and a future heaven in the
fulness of joy that is at Christ's right hand, and the pleasures that
are for evermore. We wish not at this stage of our work to intro-duce
the dark background of the picture, and yet we cannot with-hold
the passing remark, that as heaven has its foretastes of happiness,
its preibations of glory, its dayspring from on high in the heart
of the regenerate, so has hell its dark forebodings, its certain approaches,
in the soul of many of the unregenerate—some shadows
of the "outer darkness" that will enshroud the lost forever. Reader,
is it heaven or hell of which you have in your experience the ear-nest?
One drop of hell, one beam of heaven, can fill the soul with
either!
And yet, though journeying homeward, we are but slow voyagers.
Our barque often slumbers upon its shadow, as if anchored
motionless in the still, calm waters within the haven, instead of
cleaving the mighty billows, and speeding its way m full sail for the
everlasting kingdom. Alas! how few there are who have an "abundant
entrance" into the kingdom of grace below. They are, at best,
but hangers upon the door of the ark; but borderers upon the land
that freely flows with the fulness of a full Christ. Like Israel of old
they "possess not their possessions." There is much of the good land
they have never explored. Much peace, much joy, much love, much
hope, much in an advanced knowledge of Christ and of God, and
of their interest in the Savior's love, and in the high and heavenly
calling, attainable, but to which they have not attained; they have
not apprehended that for which they are apprehended of Christ
Jesus. They are oftener heard mournfully to exclaim, "My heart
cleaves unto the dust," rather than in the more joyful strains, "O
that I had wings like a dove! for then would I fly away and be at
The Ransomed Returning Home 5
rest." To help your soul heavenward,—to point the steps by which
you may ascend nearer to God, and advance with quickened speed
towards your eternal rest,—to encourage, cheer, and stimulate,—
we proceed to expound the appropriate truths, and to unveil the
winning hopes, by which the gospel of Christ seeks to promote our
heavenly meetness, and to allure us to a world of perfect and end-less
bliss. We can scarcely select from the Word of God, as illustrating
the character, the journey, and the prospects of the believer,
a more striking and beautiful portion than that which we propose
in the present chapter to open. "And the ransomed q/ the Lord shall
return, and come to Zion with songs, and everlasting joy upon their
heads: they shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing
shall flee away," (Isa. 35:10.)
It is a most beautiful, expressive delineation of the character
of the Lord's people—"the ransomed of the Lord." Mark how the
Holy Spirit, whether speaking amid the twilight of the Old, or
in the meridian light of the New Testament, ever makes the Cross
of Christ the grand central truth. Here is a designation, which involves
great principles, and defines a distinct and separate condition
of our humanity. It casts into the deepest shade earth's proudest
titles, eclipses the glory of all intellectual greatness, and outbids
the world's dearest delights. Bring all the objects of sense, and
all the discoveries of science, and all the achievements of intellect,
and all the fame and distinction and glory for which heroes ever
sighed, or which senators ever won and place it in focal power side
by side with the salvation of the soul, and it pales into insignificance.
But let us, in a few words, open up this high character—the
"ransomed of the Lord."
The word implies a previous state of bondage, slavery, and servitude.
We speak properly of redeeming a captive, of ransoming a
slave. Now the "ransomed of the Lord" are delivered from just such
a state. By nature we are bondslaves, the servants of sin, the captives
of Satan. Christ's redemption changes this state; it ransoms
and emancipates the Church. It totally reverses our moral condition.
It makes a freeman of a slave; a child of an alien; a friend of a
foe; a saint of a sinner; an heir of heaven of an heir of hell. The
atoning work of Christ brings us back to our original and unfallen
6 Help Heavenward
state, while it advances us in dignity, glory, and safety transcendently
beyond it. We receive by the second Adam all, and infinitely
more than we lost in the first Adam. But look at the leading
points in this process of redemption. The Ransomer is God,—the
ransom price is the vicarious sacrifice of Jesus,—the ransomed are
the whole election of grace. How striking the words of Jehovah—
"Deliver him from going down to the pit, for I have found a ransom."
It is the gracious exclamation of the Father. He provides the
ransom. He found it reposing from eternity in His own bosom—
He found it in Himself—"God will provide Himself a lamb for a
burned offering." Thus does the New Testament confirm the Old,
while the Old Testament foreshadows the New. We read in the
Epistle of John, "Whom God has set forth to be a propitiation
through faith in his blood." "God so loved the world, that he gave
his only begotten Son." Do not fail, beloved reader, to trace up your
gracious springs to their infinite Fountain—God's everlasting love.
To stop at Calvary is to trace the river but halfway to its source. We
admit that the spiritual traveler arriving at the cross finds a new
world of grandeur bursting upon his view; but as he pursues his
research, and learns more of the character, and heart, and purpose
of God in salvation, there unfolds to his eye an expanse of moral
scenery, clad in such tenderness, unveiling such sublimity, and vocal
with such song, as infinitely transcends his loftiest thought or
conception of the character, government, and glory of Jehovah.
The Cross is the only standpoint, and Christ is the only mirror,
where God can be rightly studied and seen.
From this glance at the Father, the originating source of our
ransom, turn we for a moment to the Ransomer. No other being
could have achieved the work but Jesus. No other ransomer was
divine enough, nor holy enough, nor strong enough, nor loving
enough. He was just the Ransomer for God, and just the ransom
for man. Reposing one hand upon the throne of heaven, and the
other upon the cross of earth, by the sacrifice of Himself He so
united and reconciled God and man. Henceforth the cross and the
throne are one, and will form the study, admiration, and praise of
unfallen and redeemed intelligences through eternity. How clearly
the apostle puts this fact of our reconciliation!— "And having made
The Ransomed Returning Home 7
peace through the blood of his cross, by him to reconcile all things
unto himself; by him, I say, whether they be things in earth or things
in heaven. And you, that were sometime alienated, and enemies in
your mind by wicked works, yet now has he reconciled in the body
of his flesh through death, to present you holy, and unblameable,
and unreproveable in his sight," (Col 1:2022.) And where this
costly and precious offering? The Word of God alone can supply
the answer: "HEREIN IS LOVE!" Love eternal moved the heart of
Christ to relinquish heaven for earth—a diadem for a cross—the
robe of Divine Majesty for the garment of our nature, taking upon
Himself the leprosy of our sin, while in Him was no sin at all. Oh
the infinite love of Christ!—what a boundless, fathomless ocean!
Never was there, and never can there be, in the highest development
of the affections, such love as Christ's. Ask the "ransomed of
the Lord," whose chains He has dissolved, whose dungeon He has
opened, whose liberty He has conferred, whose music angels bend
to hear, if there ever was love like His! This is the love, beloved, we
are so prone to question in our trials, to quench in our sorrows, to
limit in our difficulties, and to lose sight of under the pressure of
guilt, and in the writhings of Divine correction. Oh, whatever else
you question, whatever else you doubt, question not, doubt not
the love that Jesus, your Ransomer, bears you!
And what shall we say of the ransom price? It was the richest,
the costliest, Heaven could give. "He gave Himself for us." What
more could He do? What less would have sufficed? It were, perhaps,
an easy sacrifice for an individual to give his time, or his property,
or his influence, or the expression of his sympathy for an object;
but to give himself to sell himself into slavery, or to immolate
himself as a sacrifice, were quite another thing. The Son of God
gave not angels, of whom He was Lord; nor men, of whom He was
the Creator; nor the world, of which He was the Proprietor; but
He gave HIMSELF, body, soul, spirit, His time, His labor, His blood,
His life, His death, His all, as the price of our ransom, as the cost
of our redemption. He carried the wood, and He reared the altar;
then, baring His bosom to the stroke of the uplifted and descending
arm of the Father, paid the price of our salvation in the warm
lifeblood of His heart. The Law exclaimed, "I am honored!"—
8 Help Heavenward
Justice said, "I am satisfied!"—"Mercy and truth met together, righteousness
and peace kissed each other"—and heaven resounded with
hallelujahs. "You are bought with a price;" and what a price, O Christian!
"You were not redeemed with silver and gold, but with the precious
blood of Christ." Bear about with you the vivid remembrance
of this truth, that your whole life may be a holy thing—a pleasant
psalm of thanksgiving and praise to God. How potent the argument,
how touching the motive!—"I am a ransomed being; I am
the price of blood—the blood of the incarnate Deity; therefore,
and henceforth, I am to glorify Him in my body, soul, and spirit,
who redeemed, disenthralled, and saved me."
How is it that we feel the force and exemplify the practical
influence of this amazing, all commanding truth so faintly? Oh the
desperate depravity of our nature! Oh the deep iniquity of our
iniquitous hearts! Will not the blood drops of Jesus move us? Will
not the unknown agonies of the cross influence us? Will not His
dying love constrain us to a more heavenly walk? Ransomed from
the curse, from sin, and from Satan, brought out of Egypt with a
high and outstretched arm, surely this should speed us onward,
quicken our progress heavenward, and constrain us, with Moses,
to "esteem the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures of
Egypt, having respect unto the recompense of the reward." How ought
we to "lay aside every weight, and the sin which does so easily beset
us, and to run with patience the race that is set before us, looking
unto Jesus," and so speeding our way to the heavenly city!
We need scarcely remind the reader that the "ransomed of the
Lord" compose the whole election of grace, the one Church of
Christ, and the one family of God. What a uniting, sanctifying, and
heaven helping truth is this! The divisions, which sunder and separate
the Church of God are human; the ties which bind and unite
the Church of God are Divine. The many systems of ecclesiastical
polity, and modes of worship, which present to the eye the Christian
Church as a "house divided against itself," are of man; but the
affection and sympathy, the doctrines and the hopes, which create
an essential oneness in the family, and domesticate the habits and
communion of its members, are of God—and because they are of
God, they shall never be destroyed. This truth is a heaven helping
The Ransomed Returning Home 9
truth. That which promotes our holiness, promotes our heavenliness;
and growing heavenliness advances us nearer to heaven. If we
walked more in love and fellowship and sympathy with the Lord's
people of each part of the one fold, we should have a sweeter cross
and a lighter burden to carry. Are we not making more real and
rapid progress in our heavenly course, and in meetness for heaven
itself, when "by love we are serving one another," rather than when
in the bitterness of a bigoted and sectarian spirit we wrangle and
dispute, "bite and devour one another?" Try the power of love,
beloved reader—lay aside the prejudice, suspicion, and coldness
which sunder you in fellowship and labor from other Christian
communions than your own, and see if you may not, by sacred
communion, mutual faith, prayer, service, and sympathy, gather the
strength and the encouragement that shall accelerate and smooth
your heavenward way. No grace advances the soul with greater force
towards a heaven of love than love itself—whether it be love to
man, or love to God who redeemed main " The love of Christ
constrains us."
And now let us consider the return home of the Lord's ransomed;
this truth will bring the beaming prospect of the Church of
God more closely before us. "The ransomed of the Lord shall return,
and come to Zion." The Church of God in her Babylonish
captivity, hanging her harp upon the willows that drooped over the
waters in which she mingled her tears, with her captivity turned,
and brought again to Zion, is an impressive symbol of the Christian
Church. We are in Babylon now, and prisoners of hope. But we
shall return from our captivity before long, and come to the heavenly
Zion. Earth shall not always be our place of exile; we shall not
always sing the Lord's song in a strange land, nor always shed these
tears, and wear these fetters, and endure those cruel taunts of our
foes. Each trembling step of faith, each holy aspiration of love,
each sin subdued, each foe vanquished, each trial past, each temptation
baffled, is bringing us nearer and still nearer to the bright
threshold of glory, upon which sister spirits stand beckoning us
home. Oh yes! we shall return! We shall return from our first departure
from our Father—from our exile from Paradise—from the
strange land into which we were driven—from all our heart and
10 Help Heavenward
household idols, from all our treacherous departures and base
backslidings, from all our secret and open conflicts, from all our
veiled and visible sorrows, from all that taints and wounds and
shades us now. Every wanderer shall return—the lamb that strayed
from the Shepherd's side, the sheep that broke from the fold, the
child that forsook the Father's home, all, all shall return, "kept by
the power of God," secured by the everlasting covenant, restored
and brought back by the unchanging love and faithfulness of the
ever living Head and enthroned High Priest within the veil. All
shall return.
But one element of bliss yet remains to complete and consummate
this return of the ransomed of the Lord—we refer to the
final resurrection of the body. We do not adopt the frigid idea, as
maintained by some, of an intermediate state, intervening between
the present happiness of the saints and the resurrection of the body,
during which the soul remains in a state of dreamy repose, and not
in the full play of its perfected and enlarged powers, basking in the
warm sunshine of the Divine glory. We rather adopt what we conceive
is the move scriptural and pleasant idea of the believing soul's
immediate entrance into the glorified presence—that, "absent from
the body, it is present with the Lord." But we hold, at the same
time, that the happiness and the glory of the saints are not complete
until the ransomed soul is once more the occupant of the
ransomed body, and that this reunion transpires on the morning of
the "first resurrection." If his truth is written upon the page of
God's Word as with a sunbeam. What says the Lord by the mouth
of the prophet?—"I will ransom them from the power of the grave; I
will redeem them from death: O death, I will be your plagues; O
grave, I will be your destruction," (Hos. 13:14.) And again, "Your
dead men shall live, together with my dead body shall they arise.
Awake and sing, you that dwell in dust: for your dew is as the dew of
herbs, and the earth shall cast out the dead," (Isa. 26:19.) How
strong was Job's faith in the glorious resurrection!— "I know that
my Redeemer lives, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon
the earth: and though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in
my flesh shall I see God." Then comes the full redemption—the
re-espousal of the ransomed body and the ransomed soul, both
The Ransomed Returning Home 11
now identically and eternally one, celebrating the "marriage supper
of the Lamb!" Glorious as the resurrection will be to all, especially
glorious will it be to some of the saints. Their frames, now
distorted by nature, paralyzed by disease, wasted by sickness, shall
then feel the quickening touch of Christ—gentle as a mother's kiss
waking her infant from its slumber—and spring from the dust a
spiritual body, refined and etherealized, vigor in every limb, symmetry
in every proportion, grace in every motion, perfection in
every sense—blindness shall no more dim the eye, nor deafness
blunt the hearing—clad in a robe of light, rivaling the splendor of
an angel's form, holiness sanctifying, and immortality enshrining
the whole. Shall this be thought by you a thing incredible? He who
is the "Resurrection and the Life" will accomplish it. His word is
given, His power is engaged, His glory is involved, and His own
resurrection is a pledge and "fIRST FRUITS" that He "shall change our
vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto His glorious body,
according to the working whereby he is able even to subdue all things
unto Himself."
And where shall we return? "To Zion." That Zion which John
saw and described:—"And I looked, and, lo, a Lamb stood on the
mount Zion, and with him an hundred forty and four thousand,
having his Father's name written in their foreheads." And still the
Lamb is the central object, whatever the apocalyptic vision John
beheld. Jesus is ever in the midst of His churches—His golden
candlesticks—standing up in His divine majesty, and in His invincible
strength, for the children of His people. Around Him cluster
His ransomed ones, all sealed in their foreheads—open, and manifest,
and visible to all—with the new name which adoption gives,
whereby they cry "Abba, Father." Then, there is the music with
which the ransomed of the Lord shall return to Zion—"with songs,
and everlasting joy upon their heads." The songs of the believer are
often mingled with sighs and groans in this vale of tears; it is a
blended song we sing, of "mercy and of judgment." But no, harsh
discordant notes will mar this newborn anthem. We shall sweep
no strings that jar, and touch no chords that respond not to the
diapason note of glory. Joy, now sadly interrupted, will then wreath
our brow as a diadem. Chanting music, crowned with joy, we shall
12 Help Heavenward
take our places with the sealed of God on Mount Zion. "Sorrow
and sighing shall flee away." What expressive and joyous words are
these! Sorrow without and sighing within, make up much of our
chequered experience here on earth. What a blended history is
ours! We commence our day with a heart freshly tuned, breathing
its morning hymn of praise so sweetly; but before the sun that rose so
brightly is set, what shadows have deepened around our soul! and
we lay an aching head upon our pillow, thankful that the blood of
sprinkling cleanses from all sin. But from the heaven to which we
are going, all sorrow and sighing will forever have passed. The
shadows will have dissolved, sin will be effaced, sighing will cease,
sorrow will be turned into "fulness of joy," and heaven will be resplendent
with undimmed and unfading glory, and resound with a
new and endless song. Is not this heaven worth living for, worth
suffering for, worth laborings for—no, if need be, worth a thousand
martyrdoms?
"A captive here, and far from home,
For Zion's sacred courts I sigh:
There the ransomed nations come,
And see the Savior 'eye to eye.'
"While here, I walk on hostile ground;
The few that I can call my friends
Are, like myself, with fetters bound,
And weariness my path attends.
"But we shall soon behold the day
When Zion's children shall return;
Our sorrows then shall flee away,
And we shall never, never mourn.
"The hope that such a day will come
Makes e'en the captive's portion sweet;
Though now we're distant far from home
In Zion soon we all shall meet."

"Progressive Meetness for Heaven"

"And I will send hornets before thee, which shall drive
out the Hivite, the Canaanite, and the Hittite, from be-fore
thee. I will not drive them out from before thee in
one year; lest the land become desolate, and the beast of
the field multiply against thee. By little and little I will
drive them out from before thee, until thou be increased,
and inherit the land"—EXOD. 23:28-30.
Sanctification—or heavenly meetness—is an initial work in the great
process by which God prepares the soul for glory. Justification,
that imminent act of His free grace by which the soul is brought
into a state of Divine acceptance, is a present and a complete work.
The moment a believing sinner accepts Christ, and is clothed upon
with His imputed righteousness, that moment he is in possession
of the Divine title-deed to the inheritance of the saints in light.
Thus, justification, because it is an imputed, and sanctification,
because it is an imparted act, though cognate doctrines, are dis-tinct
works, and must not be—as the Papacy has done, and as many
Protestants, with scarcely more light, blindly do—considered as
identical. By one act of faith in Christ we are justified; but it is by
a gradual work of the Spirit that we are sanctified. It is a solemn
declaration, "Without holiness no man shall see the Lord." There is
no vision of God, either present or future, save through the me-dium
of holiness. A holy God can only be seen with an enlightened
and sanctified eye. The spiritual vision must be "anointed with eye-salve."
The Divine Oculist must couch the moral cataract, must
remove the film of sin, ignorance, and prejudice from the mental
eye, ere one ray of Divine holiness can dart in upon the retina of
the soul. As one born blind cannot see the sun, so the soul morally
blind cannot see God. Therefore our Lord said to Nicodemus, "Ex-cept
a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God." He
cannot see it, because he is not a subject of the new and second
14 Help Heavenward
birth. We have remarked that this work of holiness is initiatory,
and therefore not complete. It is real, but progressive; certain, but
gradual; and although in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, God
can fit the believer for heaven, it yet goes forward little and by
little until it reaches the culminating point, and then the door of
glory opens, and receives to its bosom the soul fitted for its purity
and bliss.
In supplying the reader with a few helps heavenward, we plant
his feet upon one of the lowest rounds of the ladder, when we, at
this early stage of our subject, direct his thoughts to progressive
meetness for heaven. And we the more advisedly and earnestly do
this because of the crude and imperfect views of heavenliness which
many, especially young Christians, entertain, and in consequence
of which are involved in much legality of mind and distress of soul.
We have selected, as illustrating this important doctrine, an inci-dent
in the early settlement of the Israelites in Canaan. It was
God's arrangement that they should colonize the land amidst its
many and idolatrous inhabitants; who, so far from sympathizing
with their habits and worship, presented an antagonistic and for-midable
aspect: so that, while it was a land of rest and affluence, it
was yet a scene of perpetual invasion and conflict, demanding on
their part the watchful eye and the furbished weapon. Now the
God who planted them in the promised land could as easily have
exterminated their foes; not so—but, for reasons which His wis-dom
would dictate, and which His goodness would justify, He per-mitted
the inhabitants to continue in possession, until, by a pro-cess
gradual and progressive, Canaan should be decimated of its
idolatrous population, and His own people should go up into its
length and breadth, and fully possess the land which the Lord their
God gave them. "By little and little I will drive them out from be-fore
you." How strikingly are the two cognate yet distinct doc-trines
of the glorious gospel—justification and sanctification—il-lustrated
here;—the planting the children of Israel in Canaan illus-trates
the present justification of the Church of God; their pro-tracted
conquest of the land illustrates the gradual subjugation of
the believer's sinfulness to the supremacy of holiness, or, in other
words, his progressive meetness for heaven.
Progressive Meetness For Heaven 15
Now let us trace more fully the analogy between this part of
Israel's history, and the spiritual experience of the Church of God,
and of every individual member of that Church. Oh that the Di-vine
Spirit may be our Teacher, His grace our anointing, Christ the
first, the centre, and the last, and our advanced meetness for heaven
the personal and happy result of our meditation upon this sacred
truth! And if, child of God, heaven shall be brought nearer to your
soul, and your soul's meetness for heaven be promoted, we shall
thank our heavenly Father for this advanced step; and, strength-ened
and cheered, we shall seek another and yet another, and so
ascend, until, reaching the highest round, we find ourselves in
heaven.
Canaan was a land of rest: it was that good land in which the
Israelites were to terminate their long and wearisome march in
sweet and delightsome repose. The moment a poor believing soul
is brought to Jesus, he is brought to rest. "We which have believed
do enter into rest." The instant that he crosses the border that sepa-rates
the covenant of works from the covenant of grace, the mo-ment
that he emerges from the wilderness of his doings and toil—
his "going about to establish a righteousness of his own"—and en-ters
believingly into Christ, he is at rest. The true Joshua has brought
him into Canaan, has brought him to Himself; and his long travel-ling,
weary soul is at peace with God through Christ. "For he that
is entered into his rest, he also hath ceased from his own works, as
God did from his." Behold the rest! It is Jesus. His finished work—
His blood and righteousness—His law-fulfilling obedience—and
His justice-satisfying death, give perfect rest from guilt and con-demnation
and sorrow to him that simply enters—though it be but
a border-touch of faith—into Jesus. Oh, art thou a sin-burdened, a
wilderness-wearied soul? Art thou seeking rest in the law, in con-victions
of sin, in pious duties, in churches and sacraments?—each
one exclaiming, "It is not in me!" Turn from these, and bend your
listening ear to the gentle voice of your gracious Saviour—"Come
unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you
rest." What wondrous words are these! Tell me not that you are
too sinful, and unworthy to come; that you are too vile to lay your
head upon that sacred bosom; too guilty to bathe in that cleansing
16 Help Heavenward
stream; too poor to clothe you in that Divine righteousness. I reply,
Jesus bids you come. Can you, dare you, refuse? The instant that
you cease to labour, and enter believing savingly into Christ, that
instant you are safe within the City of Refuge, beyond the reach of
sin, and condemnation, and the law's curse, and the uplifted arm
of the avenger of blood: in a word, you are at rest. "Being justified
by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ."
The present tense—we have peace.
But notwithstanding this perfect state of pardon, justification,
and rest, into which the believing soul is brought, is sin utterly and
totally extirpated from his bosom? In other words, because for-giveness
is complete, and acceptance is complete, is sanctification
complete? Far from it, beloved. It is a good land and a wealthy, a
land of peace and rest, into which grace has led us, but it is, never-theless,
a land besieged by foes—for the Canaanites still dwell
therein—and of consequent warfare. The believer has to fight his
way to heaven. In the soul, in the centre of the very heart where
perfect rest and peace are experienced, there dwell innate and
powerful corruptions, ever invading our peaceful possessions, seek-ing
to disturb our repose, and to bring us into subjection. "O
wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this
death?"
Observe, too, these inhabitants of the land interposed a pow-erful
barrier between the Israelites and their full possession. They
were at best but borderers. They had, indeed, passed the confines
of the desert, and pressed the soil of the promised land, but how
small a portion of the vast territory did they as yet occupy! Far
beyond them, stretching in luxuriant beauty, were vine-clad hills,
and flowing rivers, acres of wheat and barley and pomegranates,
fountains and depths that spring out of valleys, which they had not
as yet explored. Is not this a picture of our spiritual state? How
much interposes between us and our spiritual possessions! What
keeps us from the "abundant entrance" into the kingdom of grace,
but our ever-present and ever-sleepless enemy, unbelief? What pre-vents
a more full and cordial acceptance of the righteousness of
Christ, but a constant dealing with our own unrighteousness? What
keeps us from enjoying more of heaven upon earth, but the too
Progressive Meetness For Heaven 17
absorbing influence of the world? What causes us to live so far
below the privilege of our high vocation—bedwarfs our Christian-ity,
lowers our profession, shades the lustre and impairs the vigour
of our holy religion—but the depravity, the corruption, the sin,
that dwelleth in us? These are the spiritual Canaanites which pre-vent
our going up to possess the good land in its length and breadth.
What an evidence this, that, though our Lord Jesus has put us into
a state of present and complete acceptance, we have not as yet
attained unto a state of perfect and future holiness—the Canaanites
still dwell in the land! We are called to "fight the good fight of faith."
Not only do we war with flesh and blood, but we "wrestle against
principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of
this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places." But why
should this check our advance? Why should the existence and ever-threatening
attitude of our foes prevent us from living upon a full
Christ, a present Christ, a loving Christ, day by day, hour by hour,
moment by moment? Clad in our invincible armour, why should
we not carve our way through the serried ranks of our foes, and
penetrate into the heart of Canaan, and pluck thence the grapes,
and gather the honey, and drink of the fountains, and explore the
hidden things which God has treasured for us in the covenant of
grace, in the fulness of our Surety Head, in the infinite greatness of
His own love, and in the unsearchable riches of His gospel—His
revealed truth? Oh, how much of the good land remains yet to be
possessed! Truly, "eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have
entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared
for them that love him." Well might the grateful Psalmist exclaim,
and each believer in Jesus respond, "O how great is thy goodness
which thou hast laid up for them that fear thee!"
There is one view of this truth exceedingly helpful to Zion's
travellers; we refer to the facts that God is never unmindful of the
trying and critical position of His people—dwelling in the midst of
their enemies, and their enemies dwelling in the midst of them.
He knows all your corruptions, your infirmities, your easy-beset-ting
sin, weakness, and frailty. He has, too, His unslumbering eye
upon all the stratagems and assaults of Satan—never, for an in-stant,
losing sight of, or ceasing to control and check this subtle and
18 Help Heavenward
sleepless foe. Never does thy Lord forget that the body He has
redeemed is yet a "body of sin and death," and that the soul He has
ransomed with His most precious blood, is still the seat of prin-ciples,
passions, and thoughts inimical to its perfect holiness, and
ever seeking to subjugate it to the body. Did not Jesus recognize
this truth when He said to His disciples, "Behold, I send you forth
as sheep in the midst of wolves." What expressive words! Sheep in
the midst of wolves! Who can save them? The Shepherd who gave
His life for them, the "Lion of the tribe of Judah"—He will keep,
shield, and preserve them. Oh, take the encouragement and com-fort
which this truth gives—that thy Lord knoweth thy exposure
to, and thy conflict with, the enemies of the land,—that you have
on your side, allied with you in this spiritual warfare, His loving
heart, His watchful eye, His outstretched arm, and all His legions
of angels sent forth to encircle you with chariots of fire. Ah! the
world may taunt you with your infirmities, the saints may chide
you for your haltings, your own heart may condemn you for its
secret declensious, but God, your Father, is very pitiful, and re-members
that you are dust; and Jesus, your Advocate, is very com-passionate,
and prays for you within the vail. The saints judge, the
world censures, the heart is self-abased; but Christ says, "I con-demn
thee not: go, and sin no more."
But we have the promise of conquest. God assured the Israel-ites
that He would drive out the Canaanites from before them.
Have we an assurance less emphatic, or a hope less joyous? What is
the promise of this, which appears one of the brightest constella-tions
in the glorious galaxy of the "exceeding great and precious
promises" of God? It is, "He will turn again, he will have compas-sion
upon us; he will subdue our iniquities; and thou wilt cast all
our sins into the depths of the sea." What a largess, what an accu-mulation
of blessings, what blest encouragement and heart-cheer
to the downcast traveller! "He will turn again." Again! He has turned
His loving eye, His outstretched hand, a thousand times over; what!
will He "turn again?" After all my baseness and ingratitude; my
sins without confession; my confession without repentance; my re-pentance
without forsaking; my forsakings so reluctant, so partial,
and so short—what! will He turn to me again, bend upon me once
Progressive Meetness For Heaven 19
more that loving eye, that forgiving look, that dissolves my heart at
His feet? Oh, who is a God like unto thee! And what, when He
turns again, will He do? He will drive out the Canaanites from
before us. In other words, "He will SUBDUE our iniquities." What
encouragement this to fall down at His feet—the feet that never
spurned a humble suppliant—and cry with His people of old, "Lord,
we have no might against this great company that cometh against
us; neither know we what to do: but our eyes are upon thee." With
such faith, and such an appeal, what sin will not God pardon, what
iniquity will not Christ subdue, against what confederate host will
not the Spirit of the Lord lift up a standard?
But let us not mistake our true position in this holy contest. It
is both aggressive and defensive. The children of Israel were not to
allow the inhabitants of the land to remain intact. They were to go
up armed, and drive back the foe. Thus is it with us. When our
Lord, the "Prince of peace," commanded, "he that hath no sword
let him sell his garment, and buy one." He doubtless intended it as
significant of the spiritual conflict in which they were to be en-gaged;
for, the temporal sword He never authorized in defense or
propagation of His truth. We are to be aggressive upon the terri-tory
of sin and of error, of ignorance and of the world. To these
confederate hosts—the Canaanites of the Church—we are to
present a bold, united, antagonistic front. The Bible nowhere ig-nores,
but, on the contrary, everywhere recognizes, the individual
responsibility of the Christian. What means the exhortation, "Put
on the whole armour of God?" What the injunction, "Work out your
own salvation with fear and trembling?" What but that, dwelling in
an enemy's land—the Canaanite, and the Ammonite, and the
Hittite, and the Perizzite, the Hivite and the Jebusite, all com-bined
against us—we are to "resist unto blood, striving against sin,"
and "to fight the good fight of faith,"—to "keep the body under, and
bring it into subjection,"—to "overcome the world"—to "resist the
devil,"—to "keep ourselves in the love of God"—and, "having done
all, to stand"— standing with girded loins, waiting and watching
for the coming of our Captain. O child of God! be not cast down
and discouraged in this holy war. The Lord, He it is that fights for
you. By prayer, by vigilance, by the sword of the Spirit, which is
20 Help Heavenward
the word of God, by keeping out of temptation, by doubling the
picket where you are the most exposed to the invasion of the foe—
above all, by bearing your conflicts to Christ, linking your weak-ness
with His strength, your infirmity with His grace, the errings
of your heart, the faltering of your feet, the hidden conflict of your
mind and will with evil, to His most tender, most reasonable, most
forgiving love; thus will He teach your hands to war and your fin-gers
to fight, and thus shall you exclaim, "With Christ strengthen-ing
me, I can do all things."
We have arrived now at a deeply-interesting and instructive
part of this chapter—the progressive meetness of the believer for
heaven. "By little and little I will drive them out from before thee."
If it so pleased Him, God could as instantaneously mature our
sanctification as He perfects our justification. By one stroke of His
arm He could have extirpated the idolatrous inhabitants of Canaan,
and have caused His flock to lie down in quiet places. But it was
His wisdom, love, and glory that they should be driven out "by
little and little." We must resolve the circumstance of God's per-missive
will touching the indwelling of sin in the believer, into the
same view of His character. His wisdom appoints it—His will per-mits
it—His love controls it. Where would be the display of His
grace and power in the soul, as it is now exhibited in the daily life
of a child of God, but for the existence of a nature partially sancti-fied?
How little should we learn of the mysteries of the life of
faith,—how imperfectly skilled in the heavenly war,—how stag-nant
the well of living water within us—how bedwarfed and para-lyzed
every grace of the soul,—how partial our knowledge of God,—
how little our acquaintance with Christ,—how small a measure of
the indwelling power of the Holy Ghost,—how little holy wres-tling
with the Angel of the Covenant,—how faint the incense of
prayer,—and how distant and dim an object to our spiritual vision
the cross of Christ, but for the gradual subduing of our iniquities,
the driving from before us "by little and little" our corruptions, the
progressive advance of the soul in its holy, sanctified meetness for
heaven!
Yes, it is "by little and little" this holy work is done! Here the
power of a sin is weakened, there the spell of a temptation is bro-
Progressive Meetness For Heaven 21
ken; here an advancing foe is foiled, there a deep-laid plot is dis-covered;
and thus "by little and little," by a gradual process, aggres-sive
and defensive, of spiritual encounter and extermination, the
spiritual Canaanites are subdued, and the soul becomes "meetened
for the inheritance of the saints in light."
The subject presented in this chapter is replete with instruc-tion,
encouragement, and help heavenward. Many of the Lord's
people are looking for the full, the complete sanctification which
the Lord has not appointed here, and which is only attained when
the last bond of corruption is severed. The more deeply the chil-dren
of Israel explored the good land, the more intelligently and
experimentally they became acquainted with the number and power
of their enemies. Thus it is we are taught. Ignorance of our own
heart, a false idea of the strength of our corruption, a blind, undue
estimate of the number and tact of our inbeing sins, is not favourable
to our growth in holiness. But the Holy Spirit leads us deeper and
deeper into self-knowledge, shews us more and more of the hid-den
evil, unvails by little and little the chamber of imagery, teaches
us "line upon line, here a little and there a little;" and thus, by a
gradual and progressive process, we are made meet for glory. Are
you, beloved reader, like the children of Israel, conscious of im-poverishment
by the marauding incursions of the enemy? then, do
as they did—cry unto the Lord. Thus we read—"And Israel was
greatly impoverished because of the Midianites; and the children of
Israel cried unto the Lord," (Judges 6:6.) Oh, besiege the throne of
grace, and your foes shall be driven back! Cry mightily unto Jesus,
your Commander and Leader, the Captain of your salvation, and
He will defeat their plots and deliver you from their power. Tell
Him that you hate sin, and loathe yourselves because of its exist-ence
and taint. Tell Him you long to be holy, pant to be delivered
from the last remnant of corruption, and that the heavenly voice
that bids you unclasp your wings and soar to a world of perfect
purity, will be the sweetest and the dearest that ever chimed upon
your ear. O blessed moment! with what splendour has the hand of
prophecy portrayed it before the eye:—"In that day shall there be
upon the bells of the horses, HOLINESS unto THE LORD; and the
pots in the Lord's house shall be like the bowls before the altar. Yea,
22 Help Heavenward
every pot in Jerusalem and in Judah shall be holiness unto the Lord
of hosts; and all they that sacrifice shall come and take of them, and
see the therein: AND IN THAT DAY THERE SHALL BE NO
MORE THE CANAANITE IN THE HOUSE OF THE LORD OF
HOSTS." (Zech. 14:20, 21.) O blessed day! when all false doc-trine,
and all superstitious worship, and all indwelling sin, and all
worldly temptation, and all self-seeking, and iniquity of every name,
and sorrow of every form, shall be utterly exterminated, and HO-LINESS
TO THE LORD shall hallow every enjoyment, and con-secrate
every thing, and enshrine every being. Speed, oh speed the
day, blessed Redeemer, when every throb of my heart, and every
faculty of my mind, and every power of my soul, and every aspira-tion
of my lips, and every glance of my eye, yea, every thought and
word and deed, shall be HOLINESS TO THE LORD! "Oh, pre-cious
day of God, when will it arrive? Shall the lovers of Jesus be
indeed delivered from all false pastors, all corrupt worship, and
the Lord have turned to the people a pure language, that they may
all call upon the name of the Lord, to serve Him with one consent?
Shall my soul indeed be freed, not only from all the sorrows, pains,
evils, and afflictions of sin around me, but, what is infinitely better
than all, from the very being and indwelling of sin within me? Shall
the fountain of corruption, both of original and actual sin be dried
up, so that I shall never think a vain thought, nor speak an idle,
sinful word any more? Is there such a day in which the Canaanites
shall be wholly driven out? Oh, blessed, precious, precious prom-ise!
Oh, dearest Jesus! to what a blessed state hast Thou begotten
poor sinners of the earth by Thy blood and righteousness! Hasten
it, Lord. Cut short Thy work, Thou that art mighty to save, and
take Thy willing captive home from myself, and all the remaining
Canaanites yet in the land, which are the very tyrants of my soul"
(Hawker). Welcome, oh welcome, beloved, every circumstance,
every dispensation, every trial that speeds you homeward, and
matures your soul for the heaven of glory Christ has gone to pre-pare
for you. It is "by little and by little," not all at once, that
believers fight the battle and obtain the victory: "They go from
strength to strength, every one of them in Zion appeareth before God."
Your path to glory shall be as the light, shining with ever-growing,
Progressive Meetness For Heaven 23
ever-deepening, ever-brightening lustre of truth, grace, and holi-ness,
until you find yourself lost amidst the splendours of a perfect
and eternal day! Onward, traveller, onward! From an earthly, you
are passing to a heavenly Canaan, in which no foe enters, and from
which no friend departs,—where eternity will be prolonged, as time
began, in a paradise of perfect purity and love,—amidst whose ver-dant
bowers lurks no subtle serpent, and along whose sylvan wind-ings
treads no ensnaring Eve. Shudder not to pass the Jordan that
divides the earthly from the heavenly Canaan. The Ark of the Cov-enant
will go before you, upborne upon the shoulder of your great
High Priest, cleaving the waters as you pass, and conducting you,
gently, softly, and triumphantly, home to God.
"I saw an aged Pilgrim,
Whose toilsome march was o'er,
With slow and painful footstep
Approaching Jordan's shore:
He first his dusty vestment
And sandals cast aside,
Then, with an air of transport,
Enter'd the swelling tide.
"I thought to see him shudder,
As cold the waters rose,
And fear'd lest o'er him, surging,
The murky stream should close;
But calmly and unshrinking,
The billowy path he trod,
And cheer'd with Jesus' presence,
Pass'd o'er the raging flood.
"On yonder shore to greet him,
I saw a shining throng;
Some just begun their praising,
Some had been praising long;
With joy they bade him welcome,
And struck their harps again,
While through the heavenly arches
Peal'd the triumphal strain.
24 Help Heavenward
"Now in a robe of glory,
And with a starry crown,
I see the weary Pilgrim
With Kings and Priests sit down;
With Prophets, Patriarchs, Martyrs,
And Saints, a countless throng,
He chants his great deliverance,
In never-ceasing song."
American—Anon.

The Burdened Gently Led by Christ

"He shall gently lead those that are with young"—Isaiah 40:11.

"Those that are with young"—those that are burdened; for such
are they whom Jesus gently leads. This is a large portion of the
"little flock" of which Christ is the Chief Shepherd, Leader, and
Exemplar. In nothing scarcely is the assimilation stronger—in no
particular more appropriate. It is proper and befitting that the sheep
of the Burden-bearer should themselves be a burdened flock. But
little would they know of Him as such—in the glory of His
Godhead, in the compassion of His manhood, in the strength of
His shoulder, and in the tenderness of His heart—but for their
wearisome, toilsome travail. They must be "with young" to know
what the "gentleness of Christ" is. A general view of our humanity
will present to the eye the spectacle of the "whole creation (ratio-nal
and irrational) groaning and travailing together in pain until
now." Our humanity is a burdened humanity, and we, who believe,
share that burden in addition to those of which the unregenerate
feel nothing. Spiritual life renders the soul sensible to many a crush-ing
weight, of which the soul spiritually dead is unconscious, just
as the corpse feels no pressure. We would not anticipate other por-tions
of this chapter, yet we cannot forbear the remark, at this
stage, that, if you discover in your soul that spiritual sensibility,
that sense of pain, suffering, and depression produced by a holy
consciousness of indwelling evil, of a nature totally depraved, or
those diversified spiritual exercises of the soul through which the
flock of the Lord's pasture more or less pass, then have you one of
the most indubitable evidences of spiritual life. We repeat the re-mark—
it is only a living man who is conscious of the pressure; a
corpse cannot feel. Spiritual sensibility is a sign of spiritual life.
The Lord's people, then, find them where you may, in high
circles or low, rich or poor, are a burdened people. Each one has his
26 Help Heavenward
cross, each his load, each his pressure. Oh, how ought this truth to
unite the people of God in holy affection, forbearance, and sympa-thy
towards one another! The precept which recognizes the bur-dens
of the Lord's people, in the same words binds them upon our
hearts: "Bear ye one another's burdens, and so fulfil the law of
Christ." But let us specify some of the burdens of the Lord's
people,—those of whom it is said, "He shall gently lead those that
are with young,"—and this will prepare us to consider the gentle-ness
of Christ towards them.
All the Lord's people are sensible of the burden of conscious
guilt. In this particular it may with truth be said that "He fashioneth
their hearts alike." In this school—painful yet needed—all are ex-perimentally
taught; and it may be added, that from it they never
entirely graduate until called home to glory. The lesson of our origi-nal
and deep sinfulness, the weakness, impurity, and vileness of
the flesh,—that there dwelleth in it no good thing,—is the daily,
hourly lesson of the Christian's life. If we ever extract any honey
from that precious declaration, "By grace are ye saved," it is under
the pressure of our personal and inexpressible vileness and noth-ingness.
Into this bitter cup the Lord distills the sweetness and
savour of His most free and rich grace. But oh, how few of our
species are conscious of this burden—the burden of the curse! And
yet it confronts them at every step, meets them in every object,
starts up before them at each turn. We cannot gaze upon the out-spread
landscape, nor walk into the beautiful garden, nor sail upon
the lovely lake,—we cannot pluck the flowers, nor breathe the air,
nor quaff the spring, but the sad, sad truth confronts us,—the curse
of God has blighted and blasted all! Is man spiritually sensible of
this? Ah, no! He sighs, but knows not why. He is fettered, but feels
no chain; sickens, and knows not the cause. He marvels to find a
sepulchre in his garden—disease, decay, and death in such close
proximity to his choicest, sweetest, dearest delights. He wonders
that his flower fades, that his spring dries, that his sheltering gourd
withers in a night. He knows not that the curse is there—that the
overshadowing vine breeds its own worm. Thus he treads life's
short journey, from the cradle to the grave, crushed beneath this
tremendous weight, nor sees, as he passes, the uplifted cross where
He was impaled who died to deliver us from its weight, yea, "who
The Burdened Gently Led By Christ 27
was made a curse for us." Here and there we see one of this long
and gloomy procession awakened to the conviction of the truth,
and exclaiming, "What shall I do to be saved?" Here and there we
descry a pilgrim, with the load upon his back, climb the sacred hill,
and reach the cross—look—and leave his burden, and pursue his
way, rejoicing in Christ, and exclaiming, "There is now no condem-nation!"
But the great mass pass on insensible and dead. Not so the
Lord's people. Emancipated, indeed, we are from the curse and
condemnation of sin, for Christ our Surety was "delivered for our
offences, and was raised again for our justification:" nevertheless,
the more healthy our spiritual life, the more frequently and closely
the conscience deals with atoning blood, the more alive and sensi-tive
will be our spiritual sensibility to the conviction and pressure
of that curse, which, though removed as a condemnation, yet re-mains
as a fact. The tenderness which the blood imparts, the con-viction
of indebtedness which Divine grace gives, deepens the sen-sibility
of sin; and, although standing beneath the shadow of the
cross, and reading our pardon there, the conviction of its exceed-ing
sinfulness is not the less, but all the more, acute. The curse,
though removed, has left its lingering shadow upon the soul, and
this, to a saint of God, is no little burden. And when to this is aided
the faltering of the Christian walk, the flaw of service, the imper-fection
of worship, the dead insect tainting the perfume of the
sacred anointing, the dust upon the sandal, the trailed robe, the
concealed, but not less real and sinful, appetency of the heart—its
foolishness and inconstancy—oh, is there no painfully-felt burden
in all this to a mind whose moral perceptions are quick, and whose
spirituality covets the close and holy walk with God?
How keenly sensible, too, are many of God's people of the
burden of bodily infirmity. The apostle numbers himself among
them, when, so feelingly and vividly describing this infirmity of
the flock, he says, "We that are in this tabernacle do groan, being
burdened." While all believers are conscious of this, many are more
painfully so than others. Some know not a single day's perfect
health, yea, many not an hour's freedom from wearying pain. Days
of languor and nights unsoothed by sleep are appointed to them.
Others, while, perhaps, exempt from positive disease, are afflicted
with an acutely nervous, sensitive temperament, subjecting them
28 Help Heavenward
to a species of sorrow which compels them to nurse their burden
in lonely isolation. It is with them incessant suffering. The trem-bling
of the aspen leaf startles them, their own shadow alarms them,
the flutter of an angel's wing, as he sweeps past on his mission of
love, would discompose them. This is their burden, and the last,
because the least known of all, that receives the soothing of human
kindness, consideration, and sympathy. Christians thus afflicted
require a mode of treatment peculiarly patient and gentle. Those
who are not conversant with the delicate sensibility of the nervous
system can but imperfectly estimate the acute suffering of such. Is
it trespassing too curiously into the awful mystery of Christ's un-known
agony, to venture the surmise that, in the terrible conflict
which so fearfully agitated His whole frame in the garden, as to
clothe it with a vesture of blood, there entered deeply this ele-ment
of suffering—the exquisite sympathy of the nervous system?
If this be true, and we see no reason to question it, then how ap-propriate,
precious, and soothing His compassion and sympathy
with all His members similarly afflicted! What, beloved, if your
case distances the sympathy, or baffles the cure, or even awakens
the reproach, of your fellows, let it suffice that every nerve quiver-ing
with agony, that every pulse fluttering with excitement, awak-ens
a response of tenderness and sympathy in the Sufferer of
Gethsemane. And oh, if this be so, you can well afford to part with
a creature's compassion and help, since it but makes room for Christ.
Ah! one five minutes' experience of His love in the heart, is of
more worth than an eternity of the creature's. And little think we
often, as we feel the human arm droop, and see the human eye
withdrawn, and are conscious of the chill that has crept over the
warm bosom upon which we fondly leaned, that Jesus is but pre-paring
us for a more full and entire enthronement of Himself in
our soul.
Then, there are others whose burden is a constant tendency
to mental despondency and gloom. Whether this is constitutional,
is produced by sorrow, or is the result of disease, the effect is the
same—a life perpetually cloud-vailed and depressed, scarcely re-lieved
by a transient gleam of sunshine. No little burden is this. "A
mind diseased" involves more real suffering, and demands more
The Burdened Gently Led By Christ 29
Divine grace, than a body diseased. And yet, how large a class is
this! What numbers are there of the Lord's people whose spiritual
hope is obscured by mental disease, and whose mental disease is,
in its turn, produced by some physical irritant—so close is the rela-tion
and so sympathetic the emotions of the body and mind. What
a mystery is our being! There is One—and but One—who under-stands
it. "He knoweth our frame; He remembereth that we are dust."
Your Saviour, beloved, experienced mental gloom and spiritual
depression as you never can. It was not always sunshine and joy
with your Lord. His path often wound along the lonely vale, and
across the dreary desert, and through the deep gloom of the path-less
forest—and He knows the way that you take. The spiritual
despondency of your soul, the cloud-vailings of your mind, the
absence of vigorous faith, of heaven-springing joy, and of undimmed
hope, affect not your union with Christ, touch not your interest in
the love of God, and render not doubtful or insecure your place in
the many-mansioned house of your Father in heaven. Will not this
truth be a little help heavenward? Will not this assurance, founded
as it is on the Word of God, distil some joy into your heart, and
throw some gleam of sunshine upon your path, and strengthen you
as a child of the light to walk through darkness, until you reach
that world of glory of which it is said, "And there is no night there!"
"Who is among you that feareth the Lord, that obeyeth the voice of
his servant, that walketh in darkness, and hath no light? let him
trust in the name of the Lord, and stay upon his God," (Isa. 50:10.)
"Light is sown for the righteous, and gladness for the upright in
heart." Take heart and go forward; "light and gladness" shall spring
up in your path just where and when the God who loves you, and
the Shepherd who leads you, sees best. They are "sown by God's
hand, and they shall spring forth beneath His smile. A love un-changing
and a covenant-keeping God is bringing you home to Him-self.
There is often, too, in the experience of many, the burden of
some heavy daily cross. A personal grief, or a domestic trial, or a
relative calamity, is the weight they bear, perhaps with not a day's
cessation. Is it no burden to have a wounded spirit? Is it no burden
to nurse a sorrow which interdicts all human sympathy, which ad-
30 Help Heavenward
mits not, from its profound depth and sacredness, another to share
it? Is it no burden to stand up alone for Jesus and His truth in the
domestic circle, allied in the closest bonds of nature to those con-cerning
whom we must exclaim, "I am become a stranger unto my
brethren, and an alien unto my mother's children"—in whom your
spiritual joy awakens no response, and your spiritual sorrow no
sympathy? But, oh, what a privilege and honour to endure reproach,
and separation, alienated affection, studied neglect, and relentless
persecution, for Christ's sake! "And on him they laid the cross, that
he might bear it after Jesus." Tried, persecuted disciple, "to you it is
given, in the behalf of Christ, not only to believe in His name, but
also to suffer for His sake." Upon you Jesus has laid the burden,
the sweet, the precious burden, of His cross, that you might hear it
after Him. Did ever burden confer such honour, bring such repose,
secure a crown so bright, or lead to such glory and blessedness?
"Whoever shall confess me before men, him shall the Son of man also
confess before the angels of God." Lord! make Thyself more pre-cious
to my heart—then will Thy burden be lighter, Thy yoke easier,
shame for Thee will be sweeter, and Thy cross, rude and heavy
though it be, will become increasingly my joy, my glory, and my
boast! Let us now turn our thoughts to the gentleness with which
the Divine Shepherd leads these His burdened ones "He shall
GENTLY lead those that are with young."
The Leader is Jesus—the Shepherd. He claims this as one part
of His pastoral office. "The sheep hear his voice: and he calleth his
own sheep by name, and leadeth them out." "He leadeth them out"—
leadeth them out of their unregenerate nature, out of their state of
condemnation, out of the world, and out of their families. And
whither does He lead them? He leads them to His cross, to Him-self;
and, thus accepting and resting in Him as their righteousness,
and their salvation, and their portion, He then leads them out to
the green pastures He has provided for the flock, where He causeth
them to lie down in safe and quiet resting-places. Oh, what a mo-mentous
step is this, the first that His people take! To be led out of
our own righteousness and unrighteousness, out of our wrecked
and polluted selves, out of the false confidences, the spurious hopes,
the ritual worship, and pharisaical religion to which we had been
The Burdened Gently Led By Christ 31
so long and so fondly wedded, and led to embrace the Lord Jesus
as our one, our sole, our sure hope for eternity, oh, it is heaven's
first, heaven's last and latest step; this step taken, heaven is sure!
Test your religion, beloved, by this. Has Jesus so taught you? Has
His sovereign grace been exhibited in leading you out of your worldly
circle? His converting grace in leading you out of your self-righ-teousness?
His pardoning, justifying grace in leading you to peace,
holiness, and hope?—then, if this be so, you are Christ's, and Christ
is yours. Thus does the Lord lead His people. He leads them through
the wilderness, up the steep ascent, and down into the low valley,
through water and fire, cloud and storm, thorn-brake and desert,
watching them with an eye that never slumbers, keeping them by
a hand that never wearies, and encircling them with a love that
never chills. Thus, step by step He leads them on, from grace to
glory, from earth to heaven, from the wilderness below to the para-dise
above. Not one of that flock, thus led, thus guarded, thus
loved, shall be missing when the Shepherd folds them on high. His
"rod and His staff " will be found to have restored them, guided
them, comforted them, and at last to have brought them home—
little faith, and fickle love, and weak grace, and limited experi-ence,
and defective knowledge, and faltering steps, finding their
way, through trial and temptation and suffering, home to God—
not one "vessel of mercy" missing. Oh, who but Christ could ac-complish
this? Who but the Divine Shepherd could thus have kept,
and thus have gathered, and thus have folded the sheep scattered
up and down in the cloudy and dark day? What an evidence of the
Godhead of Christ! Oh, crown His deity! crown it with your faith,
crown it with your love, crown it with your praise, ye who have
"now received the atonement;" for nothing short of this could place
you within the realms of glory. And this, when there, will be your
crown and joy for ever.
The "gentleness of Christ" is a theme on which the Holy Ghost
frequently dwells. It is an essential perfection of His nature. The
nature of Christ is gentle. It is not an accident of His being, an
engrafted virtue, a cultivated grace—it is essential to His very ex-istence.
Recollect that the two natures of our Lord were perfect. If
we look at His superior nature—the divine—the wondrous truth
32 Help Heavenward
meets the eye as if emblazoned in letters of living light, "God is
love." Now, Christ was an embodiment of the essential love of
God; consequently, gentleness was a perfection of His being. If we
view His inferior nature—the human—not less manifest was His
gentleness, since His humanity, though identified with the curse,
and laden with sin, and encompassed with infirmity, and shaded
with sorrow, yet was sinless humanity, free from all and the slight-est
moral taint; and so gentleness, in its most exquisite form, was
one of its most distinguished attributes. If, too, we connect with
this truth the fulness of the Spirit in our Lord's human nature, the
evidence of its essential and perfect gentleness is complete. And
was not the gentleness of Christ visible in His every act? There was
nothing censorious in His disposition, nothing harsh in His man-ner,
nothing bitter or caustic in His speech. If, with withering re-buke,
He denounced the hypocrisy of the scribes, or the self-righ-teousness
of the Pharisees, or the extortion of the lawyers, or His
rejection by the nation He had come to save, while no voice could
speak in words more fearful, yet none in tones more tremulous
with the deepest, tenderest emotion. But oh, how much oftener
the blessing breathed from His lip than the woe! Judgment was
His strange work; mercy His delight. Truly in all His works, in all
His ways, in all His discourses, the beautiful prophecy that fore-told
the gentleness of His grace was fulfilled: "He shall come down
like rain on the mown grass, as showers that water the earth." "The
bruised reed shall he not break, and the smoking flax shall he not
quench." But let us consider this specific illustration of Christ's
gentleness—His dealings with the burdened. "He gently leadeth
those that are with young."
We have an apposite illustration of this in the considerate ten-derness
of Jacob: "And he said unto him, My lord knoweth that the
children are tender, and the flocks and herds with young are with
me; and if men should over-drive them one day, all the flock will
die. Let my lord, I pray thee, pass over before his servant: and I will
lead on softly," (Gen. 33:13,14.) If such the tenderness, such the
considerateness of man, what must be that of Christ! Who can
portray the gentleness with which He leads His people? His gentle-ness,
as displayed in conversion, how great! drawing them with cords
The Burdened Gently Led By Christ 33
of love, and with the bands of a man—gradually unvailing their
vileness, and thus step by step leading them into assured peace.
His teaching, how gentle! "I have many things to say unto you, but
ye cannot bear them now." Here a little and there a little, He, by
the Spirit, softly leads us to truth—doctrine explaining doctrine,
precept leading to precept, promise following promise, and so, by
a gradual unfolding of the gospel, by a process of instruction the
most gentle, we are fed, first with the milk, and then with the
strong meat of the Word, and so grow up into Christ, the Truth.
Submit yourself, then, beloved, to His teaching. Burdened with a
sense of your ignorance, wearied with the teaching of men, per-plexed
and discouraged by the conflicting of human judgment, come
and learn of Christ. You will advance more in Divine instruction in
one day at the feet of Jesus than in a lifetime at the feet of Gamaliel.
The very gentleness of His teaching instructs. His patience, for-bearance,
and painstaking, His words of heart-cheer and commen-dation,
untinged by an unkind look, and untinctured by a harsh
word, will advance your experimental knowledge of Himself, and
so advance your soul heavenward.
Not less gentle is His guidance. Is the path our heavenly Fa-ther
has chosen for us paved with flint and sown with briar? Is it
narrow and serpentine, difficult and perilous, often lone and dreary?
How gently the Shepherd leads us along! How he goes before,
straitening the crooked, and smoothing the rough places, and roll-ing
the stone from before us! What unexpected mercies and inter-positions
and aids He causes to spring forth in our way; how He
mitigates expected suffering, allays foreboding fears, and disap-points
all our unbelieving and mournful anticipations, preventing
us with His goodness! And when we have reached that event in our
life which we the most dreaded, the spot which looked the darkest
in our history, lo! we have stood amazed at the marvellous loving-kindness
of our God—that very event has proved our greatest bless-ing,
and that very spot the sunniest and the brightest in the wilder-ness—
so gently has Jesus led us!
In affliction and sorrow, how gentle His dealings! Perhaps, it is
then that we learn more of this perfection of our dear Lord than at
any other time. The time of trial is a time that tests the reality of
34 Help Heavenward
things. It brings to the proof the friendship of the world, the real
help of the creature, the actual sufficiency of all earthly things.
Times of affliction are verily times of trial. But the greatest and
grandest discovery of all is the sufficiency, the preciousness, and
the gentleness of Christ. Oh, how little is known of the "Man of
sorrows" but in the hour of sorrow! There are soundings in the
depths of His infinite love, tenderness, and sympathy only made in
the many and deep waters of adversity. How gently does He deal
with our burdened hearts then! There is not a being in the universe
that knows how to deal with sorrow, how to heal a wounded spirit,
how to bind up a broken heart, as Jesus. Lord, teach us this truth!
Lead us into the depths of Thy love. Unvail the springs of Thy
sympathy. Shew us that in the languor of sickness, in the tortures
of pain, in the agony of bereavement, in the woundings of trial, in
the losses of adversity, Thou still art gentle, and that Thy gentleness
maketh us great.
We need as much the gentleness of Christ in the smooth as in
the rough path. Smooth paths are slippery paths. Times of prosper-ity
are perilous times to the Christian. Never is the man of God,
the man of Christian principle, more exposed to the corruption of
his own nature, the assaults of Satan, and the seductions of the
world, as when the world prospers with, and the creature smiles
upon him. Then is he walking upon enchanted ground,—then he
needs to pray, "Hold thou me up, and I shall be safe." "Let integrity
and uprightness preserve me." Oh to be kept from this sinful, un-godly,
treacherous world! If riches increase, to give the more to
Christ; if honours accumulate, to walk the humbler with God; if
influence and position and power augment, to write upon it all,
"HOLINESS UNTO THE LORD." But what can thus preserve,
thus sanctify, but the gentleness of Christ, who will not "suffer the
moon to smite us by night, nor the sun by day"—who, in the night-season
of adversity and in the daytime of prosperity hides us in the
cleft of the rock, and thus gently leads us heavenward?
And now, beloved, what a help heavenward, what strength
and heart-cheer, will you find in a believing reception of this truth—
the gentleness of Christ! Never doubt, never question, never re-ject
it. It is an ingredient in every cup you drink, it is light in every
The Burdened Gently Led By Christ 35
cloud you behold, it is an accent in every voice you hear of Christ's
dealings, leadings, and teachings. He is, He must be, gentle. He is
not only gentle, but He is gentleness. Gentleness is His nature,
because love is His essence. The heart of Christ is such that it
cannot be otherwise than gentle in its every feeling. The physician
is not less kind because he prescribes a nauseous remedy, nor the
surgeon less feeling because he makes a deep incision, nor the par-ent
less loving because he employs the rod. Nor is your Lord less
so, because the way by which He leads, and the discipline by which
He sanctifies, and the method by which He instructs you, may for
a moment vail the reality, light, and comfort of this truth—"He
gently leadeth those that are with young." Did Jacob lead the flocks
and herds with young gently and softly lest they should die? Oh,
how much more gently and softly does our Jacob, our true Shep-herd,
lead us! "He shall feed his flock like a shepherd; he shall gather
the lambs with his arm, and carry them in his bosom, and shall
gently lead those that are with young." Lest we should be weary, He
will not overdrive us; lest we should faint, He leads us by springs of
water; lest our soul should be discouraged by reason of the way. He
causeth us to lie down beneath the shadow of the Rock that is
higher than we.
If this be so, then yield yourself to the Lord's leading. Be sat-isfied
that He is leading you by the right way homeward. Do not
distrust His wisdom, nor question His love, nor fret, murmur, and
rebel that the way is not exactly just as you would have chosen. Be
sure of this, it is the right way; and if it is one of self-denial and of
difficulty, one of straitness and of cloud, yet it is the way home,
the ordained way, the only way that will bring you into the beatific
presence of Jesus. And His gentleness will constrain Him to bear
with you, and will suggest just such wise and holy discipline as will
impart robustness to your religion, completeness to your Christian
character, and sanctity to all the relations and doings of life.
O Lord, I am oppressed, undertake for me; I am burdened,
gently lead me; I am in darkness, stay my soul upon Thee; I am in
perplexity, skillfully guide me. Let me hear Thy voice saying, "This
is the way, walk ye in it." Let Thy pillar of cloud by day, and of fire
by night, lead and guide me gently homeward. Make Thy way
36 Help Heavenward
straight before my feet. My foes watch for my halting, my enemies
wait for my stumbling—hold Thou me up, and I shall be safe. Sor-row
swells my heart, tears dim my eyes, the billows swell, the sky
lowers, the cloud darkens, the winds sigh mournfully, and all my
landscape is wintry and cheerless—draw me within thy warm, thy
sheltering love. Thou hast laid me upon this bed of weakness and
of pain—come and make it in my sickness, and pillow this sleep-less,
weary head upon Thy breast. Thou hast nipped my favourite
flower, hast withered my pleasant gourd, hast removed my strong
stay, hast dried up my present resources, and hast left me to tread
the vale of life in loneliness, in want, and in tears—soothe, succour,
and uphold my trembling heart, my weak faith, my desponding
mind. "In the multitude of my thoughts within me, [let] thy comforts
delight my soul." In my widowhood, in my orphanage, in my
friendlessness, in my desolateness, in my need, I look, I run, I cleave
to Thee. Cast me not off from the bosom to which I fly. Shelter
me from the storm and tempest within Thy wounded side. Let
that eye that never wanders in its glance of love, that voice that
never falters in its accents of tenderness, that hand that never droops
in its outstretched help, that heart that never chills, that faithful-ness
that never veers, restore, soothe, and engirdle me. Lord, no
parent, no brother, no friend, no lover is like Thee; and I am learn-ing
Thy worth, Thy gentleness, and Thy preciousness in Thine own
appointed, wise, and holy way. Only let the result of this Thy present
dealing be my deeper holiness, my richer experience, my maturer
Christianity, my greater usefulness, my more advanced meetness
for heaven, my more simple, single, unreserved consecration to
Thee, and Thy more undivided, undisputed, and supreme enthrone-ment
within my soul.
"Is there a thing beneath the sun
That strives with Thee my heart to share?
Oh! tear it thence, and reign alone,
The Lord of every motion there!"
I cite you, my Christian reader, as Christ's witness to this truth.
Has not the Lord dealt gently with you? Gently has He carried you
over the rough place,—gently has He led you through the swelling
tide, —gently has He wounded, and with what gentleness has he
The Burdened Gently Led By Christ 37
healed you,—gently has He chastened, and how gently has He dried
your tears. With what gentleness has He dealt with you in sick-ness,
in suffering, and in grief. How gently He has corrected your
backslidings, restored your wanderings, guided your perplexities,
removed your burdens; and thus, with a power that is never ex-hausted,
with a skill that is never baffled, with a patience that never
wearies, with a love that never falters, and with a gentleness that
never overdrives, Christ is leading you step by step heavenward,
where, with a depth of gratitude and an emphasis of meaning unfelt
before, you shall exclaim, "Thy gentleness hath MADE ME GREAT."
Beloved, burdened with sin, burdened with grief, burdened
with sorrow, listen to the gentle voice which bids thee "cast thy
burden on the Lord, and He will sustain thee." Thy burden—what-ever
it may be—thy burden of care, thy burden of anxiety, thy
burden of sickness, thy burden of weariness,—cast it upon Jesus
the Burden-bearer, roll it from off thy shoulder upon His, transfer
it from thy heart to His heart, in the simplicity and directness of a
faith that doubts not, hesitates not, demurs not, because His word
has promised that His grace and strength and love shall sustain
you. No burden will Jesus have you feel but the easy burden of His
commands, the gentle burden of His love, the honoured burden of
His cross. In bearing these you shall find rest; for there is real rest
in obedience, in love, in the cross, yea, in whatever binds the heart
to Christ.
Imitate Christ in His gentleness. Be gentle to others as He is
gentle to you. "The servant of the Lord must be gentle." The great
apostle could say, "We were gentle among you, even as a nurse
cherisheth her children." "The wisdom that is from above is first
pure, then gentle," and it teaches us "to speak evil of no man, to be
no brawlers, but gentle, shewing all meekness unto alt men." Be
gentle to the lambs of the flock; be gentle to them whose grace is
little, whose faith is weak, whose strength is small, whose infirmi-ties
are many, whose sorrows are keen, whose trials are severe,
whose positions and paths in life are difficult and perilous. Oh, I
beseech you, by the meekness and gentleness of Christ, that you be
in this particular, Christ-like. Be gentle to them that have fallen by
the power of temptation; those who have travelled in the ways of
38 Help Heavenward
the Lord with so slow and tardy a step that they have been over-taken
by evil. Be gentle to the bruised reed and the smoking flax.
Be gentle, very gentle, to the broken heart and the wounded spirit.
Speak gently to those whom shame and grief and sin have bowed
down to the earth. Speak gently of those who, through weakness
and frailty, have erred in judgment or in practice. Oh, learn of Jesus,
in the gentleness with which He leads the burdened, and consider
yourself as never so closely assimilated to Him as when meekness,
lowliness, and gentleness clothe you as with a garment, and beau-tify
your whole carriage with their lustre.
"Gently, Lord, oh, gently lead us,
Through this gloomy vale of tears,
Though the changes Thou'st decreed us,
Till our last great change appears.
"When temptation's darts assail us,
When in devious paths we stray,
Let thy goodness never fail us,
Lead us in Thy perfect way.
"In the hour of pain and anguish,
In the hour when death draws near,
Suffer not our hearts to languish,
Suffer not our souls to fear.
"When this mortal life is ended,
Bid us in Thine arms to rest,
Till, by angel bands attended,
We awake among the blest.
"Then, oh, crown us with thy blessing,
Through the triumphs of Thy grace:
Then shall praises never ceasing
Echo through Thy dwelling-place."

The Clouds of the Christian and the Chariot of God

"Who makes the clouds His chariot."--Psalm 104:3

If God were perfectly comprehensible in His being and government to a finite mind, then either He must forego His claim to divinity, or we must cease to be human. And yet in nothing, scarcely, is the Christian more at fault than in attempting to fathom those dispensations of His government in which He conceals His purposes and enshrouds Himself; and failing, questions the wisdom and rectitude of His procedure! But how gently does the result rebuke and confound our misapprehension and distrust. When from the secret place of thunder He utters His voice--when, in His dealings darkness is under His feet--when he makes darkness His secret place, His pavilion round about Him dark waters and thick clouds of the skies, even then He is but making a way for His love to us, which shall appear all the more real and precious by the very cloud-chariot in which it travels. The believer in Christ has nothing slavishly to dread, but everything filially to hope from God. So fully is he pardoned, so completely is he justified, so perfectly is he reconciled to God, the darkest dispensations in which He hides Himself shall presently unveil the brightest views of His character and love; and thus the lowering cloud that deepened in its darkness and grew larger as it approached, shall dissolve and vanish, leaving no object visible to the eye but Him whose essence and name is Love. Oh, it is because we have such shallow views of God's love that we have such defective views of God's dealings. We blindly interpret the symbols of His providence, because we so imperfectly read the engraving of His heart. Faith finds it difficult to spell the word "Love," as written in the shaded characters of its discipline; to believe that the cloud which looks so somber and threatening is the love-chariot of Him who for our ransom gave Himself unto the death, because He so loved us!

The subject on which this chapter engages our thoughts presents another path heavenward of the Christian. And as this path is frequently, and by many, trodden, we desire to present it in such an aspect as shall help onward those who are walking in darkness having no light, or around whose way the dense dark clouds of Divine dispensations are gathering, filling the soul with fear and trembling. "He makes the clouds His chariot;" and soothed with this assurance, the beclouded, benighted traveler may "be still, and know that He is God." Let us view some of those clouds of the Christian pilgrimage which Christ makes His chariot.

The heavens are draped with many clouds of varied forms and hues. Such are, figuratively, the dealings of God with His people. Our Lord has many chariots. It is recorded of Solomon that his "chariots were fourteen hundred;" but "the chariots of God are twenty thousand:" and every cloud in the history of the Church and in the experience of the saints is a Divine chariot, and every chariot is, like the King of Israel's, "paved in the midst with love." We may illustrate this by a reference to Christ's state-chariot, or, in other words, the Lord's appearance to His people in the cloud of His essential and divine glory. It was in this cloud He entered and filled the tabernacle, "so that the priests could not stand to minister because of the cloud: for the glory of the Lord filled the house of the Lord," (1 Kings 8:11.) In this same cloud, too, He descended upon the Mount Sinai: "And a cloud covered the mount. And the glory of the Lord abode on Sinai," (Exod. 24:15, 16.) The same glorious chariot was seen descending and lighting upon the Mount Tabor, in that sublime and expressive scene of our Lord's transfiguration, when "He received from God the Father honor and glory, when there came such a voice to him from the excellent glory, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased." The same chariot of state waited His ascension and bore Him back to heaven, reinvested with the glory which He had with the Father before the world was; for as He went up, and His lessening form disappeared from the gaze of His disciples, "a cloud received Him out of their sight." In like manner, descending in the state-chariot of His own glory and the glory of His Father, shall He come again. "Behold, he comes with clouds, and every eye shall see him." Solemn scene! Sublime advent! Blessed hope of those who love and look and long for His appearing! Saints of God! it speeds on. The day of your full redemption draws near. The state-chariot of our Immanuel is preparing for its descent to the world, conveying Him to His Church, His loving, longing Bride. Lord! why tarry the wheels of your chariot? Come, quickly come, and terminate the reign of sin and sorrow and death in the dominion of holiness and happiness and endless life, and take Your wearying Church to Yourself.

May we not pause at this part of our subject and ask the reader-- Have you seen the King riding in His chariot of state? To drop the figure--Have you seen His glory, as the glory of the only-begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth? Oh, it is a grand spectacle, the glory that is in Christ Jesus, the glory of His person, His atoning work, His redeemed Church! Blessed are the eyes enlightened to behold it! Deem not your Christianity as true, nor your religion as sound, nor your hope as valid, unless you have seen by faith's spiritual, far-discerning eye Jesus in His divinity--the King riding, in majesty and beauty, in this cloud-chariot of His essential dignity and glory. It is only in the beaming effulgence of this glory that all our demerit and deformity is absorbed and annihilated. So divine, blinding, and overpowering is the essential glory of our redeeming God, that a believing sinner, enveloped by its beams, is changed into the same image, from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord. All his unrighteousness, his sins, and hell-deservings are consumed and destroyed by the Divine Sun of righteousness: Jesus makes this cloud His chariot, and waits to bless us with its vision.

There are, too, Divine truths--the mysteries of the gospel, for example--which may be regarded as the cloud-chariots of God. It is a favorite maxim--plausible yet sophistical--with the objector to Christianity, that where mystery begins faith terminates. And yet never did the genius of error forge a weapon more weak and powerless with which to attack our divine and holy faith! If the Bible be a revelation of God, mysteries must necessarily form an essential part, if not its very substance. It would indeed be marvelous if God should not know more than man; or that if, in condescending to reveal to man His being, His will, and His heart, there should not be problems in Divine truth man cannot solve, depths he cannot sound, mysteries he cannot unravel, and revelations he may not reconcile. Such, for example, are the revealed doctrines of the Trinity, the Incarnation, the Atonement, Election, Sovereignty, the New Birth, and the Resurrection. We own to the mystery which envelops much connected with these great verities of our faith; that there are depths too profound for reason's line to touch, modes of existence which forbid the rash doubts of the skeptic and the vain speculation of the philosopher, while they demand the unquestioning faith and profound homage of the believing mind.

And yet are we then to reject them? We may, we do, believe a thousand things in nature which the mind cannot fully comprehend. Our very existence is a mystery--every movement of the body, every action of mind, every volition of will, every emotion and affection of the heart, encompasses us with mystery. Yet on that account do we doubt our own existence? My being confounds, but does it transcend my reason? And are we not at every step confronting mysteries in nature and in providence which we accept as credible, but which else we must reject as incomprehensible? If, then, my reader, your mind is perplexed, agitated, and distressed respecting these clouds which veil much connected with the revealed truths of the gospel, learn you this lesson--that Christ makes these very clouds His chariot. In each and all of these profound yet glorious verities of our faith, these great and precious doctrines of the gospel, Christ is revealed, Christ is embodied, Christ travels. The gospel is the vehicle in which Christ makes his constant advent to our souls; and if our reason may not be able perfectly to comprehend all the parts of the vehicle, let it content our faith that Jesus, the revelation, the substance, and glory of all Divine truth, occupies it; and that before long the cloud of mystery, into which we entered with trembling will, as in the transfiguration, dissolve into light and splendor--pure and soothing-- and we shall see Jesus only.

Regard it as one of your chief mercies that your salvation depends not upon reason but upon faith: that you are not called upon fully to comprehend, but unquestioningly to believe and love: that you are not the less saved because your faith deals with obscurity, nor is your faith less real, precious, or saving, because it abjures the wisdom of the sage for the docile spirit of the child, and the learning of the philosopher for the humility of the disciple. Let your great study be the mystery of Christ's love to sinners--the mystery of Christ's love to you. The apostle was content to leave all mysteries to the day of perfect knowledge, might he but attain unto love. "Though I know all mysteries, and have not love, I am nothing." Study that grand truth, "God is love," as embodied in the cross of Christ, and you can well afford to refer all that is obscure and hard to understand in revealed truth to the day when we shall know all, as we also are known. Cease to dispute, cavil, and speculate on the subject of religion and revealed truth, and receive the gospel and enter into the kingdom of Christ as a little child.

In the momentous matter of your future destiny, you have but to deal with two specific and distinct facts--your sinnership, and Christ's Saviorship. What if you solve all the problems of science, and fathom all the deeps of learning, and unravel all the mysteries of truth, and yet are lost! What will your speculations, and researches, and discoveries avail, if at last they be found ineffectual to distill one drop of the water of life upon the tongue, now caviling and profane, then fevered and tormented in the quenchless flame? Are you not, by your present persistent course of unbelief, pride, and rejection of truth, in danger of finding yourself there? Oh, it is of infinite moment to you that you come as sinful to the blood, as condemned to the righteousness, as ignorant and unlearned to the feet of Christ. The great problem you have to work out is, your own salvation. The grand mystery you have to unravel is, the mystery of your union with Jesus. The momentous questions you have to decide are, the place, the society, and the employments of your endless future! Where, with whom, and how, you will spend your long eternity? Compared with these grave considerations, all your doctrinal hair-splitting and your religious speculations, your vain disputes and your dreamy hopes, are as the follies of drivelling idiocy, or the aberrations of a mind insane.

Shakespear portrays his "Lear" as gathering straws with the hand that had wielded a scepter, and devoting to the puerilities of imbecility a mind which once gave laws to a kingdom. With a yet more powerful hand the sacred historian describes the monarch of Babylon leaving the occupation and abodes of men, and betaking himself to the pursuits and companionship of irrational animals. But what are these sad pictures of a mind diseased, wrecked, and ruined, compared with the moral madness of the man who disbelieves the gospel, cavils at truth, and perils the eternal interests of his soul--who employs the rational powers with which God has endowed him in attempting to subvert the foundations of Christianity, to extinguish the beacon light erected on the headlands and the shores of time to guide the spiritual voyager safe to eternity, involving in the destruction of others, his own personal salvation?

Not less are the clouds of His providential government the chariot of God. "Clouds and darkness are round about Him," and in these dispensations of His government He moves among men, and especially His saints. It is by a "cloudy pillar"--sometimes turning towards us gleams of light, at others casting deep and dark shadows on our way--that God is conducting us heavenward. Oh, how many, and how varied in form and in hue, are the trying, afflictive, and disciplinary dealings of our heavenly Father! How soon the bright blue sky, smiling down upon us, may be wreathed with the drapery of clouds, each one dark and portentous. God blows upon wealth and it vanishes, touches health and it droops, smites the creature and it dies, and we exclaim in the words of David, "I am weary with my groaning; all the night make I my bed to swim; I water my couch with tears." But the night of cloud and gloom is to the kingdom of grace what the darkness of night is to the kingdom of nature. Darkness possesses the twofold property of concealing and revealing; and it would, perhaps, be impossible to say in which it most excelled--whether it does not reveal as much, if not more, beauty and wonder as it veils. Those clouds of providential dispensations, which turn our day into night, bring out to view such constellations of Divine promises, discover such perfections of the Divine character, and present such discoveries of Divine love, as to make even night more wonderful and resplendent than day. Ah, beloved! we should know but little what Christ's chariot of love was, but for the clouds in which He comes to us. Are cloudy dispensations gathering around you? Are God's ways such as fill you with fear and foreboding agitation and alarm? Does sickness threaten, resources fail, friendships chill, changes in the relations or social position of life approach? Is separation feared, death anticipated, followed in its gloomy wake by weakened dependencies, closed channels, sundered ties, the sad farewell to a parent's society, the home of childhood, and the dearest, sweetest ties of earth? Oh, these gathering clouds are but the Lord's chariot, in which He rides to you in all the wisdom of His dealings, the faithfulness of His covenant, the tenderness of His love, and the righteousness of His procedure.

"You fearful saints, fresh courage take;
The clouds you so much dread
Are big with mercy, and shall break
In blessings on your head.

"Judge not the Lord by feeble sense,
But trust Him for His grace;
Behind a frowning providence
He hides a smiling face."

But consider who it is that rides in this chariot. It is the Lord your God. Many of God's people are so absorbed in their contemplation of the chariot as to overlook HIM who sits in it. Their emotions vary according to the appearance which it presents. If the cloud is bright and promising, their feelings and hopes are correspondingly so; but should it wear a somber, threatening appearance, faith sinks and fears rise. But faith has nothing to do with the chariot, whatever may be its magnitude, shape, or hue, but with Christ in the chariot, with God in the cloud. For example, with regard to Divine truth, it is not with the vehicle of truth itself, but with Christ as revealed in the truth, that our faith must deal. I may not be able to comprehend and understand all the parts of the chariot--its complexity may baffle, its gorgeousness may blind me--but I may be able to see and understand who is enthroned upon its seat.

If the mystery of the doctrine of the Trinity, and of the Incarnation, and of the Atonement, and of Election, is so profound that I cannot explain or comprehend it, I still may discern in them one glorious object, and discerning that object, it were enough for my salvation. I can see JESUS in the Trinity, JESUS in the Incarnation, JESUS in the Atonement, JESUS in Election--and this will suffice until the night of Divine mysteries gives place to the meridian sunshine of a perfect and eternal day of knowledge and glory; and then I shall as fully understand the mysterious construction and comprehend all the different parts of the chariot as my mind will be capable of knowing, and my heart of loving Him, the Wonderful, who rode in it to my salvation. Then "shall we know even as also we are known." Oh, how fully and blessedly shall we know Jesus then! How gloriously will this great mystery of godliness, God manifest in the flesh, unveil to our enlarged and sanctified intellect. We shall no more see the King in His beauty as through a glass darkly, nor the good land very far off. With souls perfected in holiness, how clear will be the vision, how transparent the medium, how glorious the Object! There shall be no more night of mystery, no more night of obscurity, no more night of sin, no more night of weeping. No disease shall shade the intellect, no prejudice shall warp, no shock shall unhinge it. No adversity shall touch the heart, no bereavement shall sadden, no changed and chilled affection shall collapse it.

That there will be gradations of knowledge, and degrees of glory, I think is probable. There are so in the Church of God on earth; I see nothing to exclude the same from the Church of God in heaven. But this will not in the slightest degree affect the happiness or glory of the saints. Is there less beauty in a tulip-bed, or in a conservatory of flowers, because there is so rich an assemblage of varied colors? Or, is there less splendor in the heavenly bodies because there is so great a variety of magnitude, effulgence, and orbit? And will there be less enjoyment, or less beauty, or less song amid the countless numbers who throng the temple above, because "one star differs from another star in glory?" Oh, no! The glory and the happiness of each will be full and perfect. Every spirit will possess a happiness and reflect a glory equal to its capacity. As two luminous bodies in the celestial system may shine in perfection, though in widely different orbits, and with different degrees of splendor--and as two streams, the rivulet and the river, may course their way through a landscape, the one gliding in simple, pensive beauty, the other rolling in majestic waves, and yet each filling its channel, both equally charming the eye, and declaring the glory of God; so the "spirits of just men made perfect" shall each one be a differing, yet a full, vessel of happiness, the image of God shining with full-orbed splendor in both, though with different intensity, and by each one shall Christ perfect to Himself endless praise.

Oh, beloved, if we but reach that world of purity and of bliss, we shall be so satisfied with the orbit we roll in, the glory we emit, and the happiness we feel, as never to question the goodness or the righteousness of God in the sphere assigned us. Christ will then be all in all to us, and we shall be satisfied with all that Christ has done. I think that our bliss will be so complete, our joy so full, and our glory so resplendent, we shall scarcely be conscious that there is another saint fuller, happier, or more glorious than ourselves. Blessed world of glory! we long to be within your walls! Open, you everlasting doors, and admit us, that we may eat of the tree of life, and recline upon the sunlight banks of the crystal river that makes glad the city of our God.

The Lord, too, is equally in all the providential clouds which unfold His government and trace our pilgrimage heavenward. It is our wisdom and our happiness to know that there is not an event or circumstance, a cloud or a sunbeam, in our personal history and experience, that is not a vehicle of Christ. He makes the clouds His chariot; and His providential dispensations, whatever their form or their hue, are His means of approaching and visiting us. "The Lord has his way in the whirlwind and in the storm, and the clouds are the dust of his feet." Fear not, O Christian traveler, that dark, lowering cloud rising above you. It grows large, and it looks threatening, and you think it will overtake and consume you before you have crossed the plain and reached the shelter. Tremble not! it will roll no thunder, it will flash no lightning. The cross of Christ is the great moral conductor of the Church of God. Around that cross, law and justice met in dreadful array. The thunderbolt struck and the lightning scathed the Son of God, and upon Him they spent their force. And now beneath the shelter of that cross, the penitent sinner may safely stand, and the darkest cloud, and the loudest thunder, and the most vivid lightning that gathers and verberates and illumines above shall pass him by untouched, for there is now "no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus."

Why, then, fear the dealings, and the leadings, and the chastenings of God in providence? That somber chariot that appears at your door, enters your abode, mounts into your chamber, is the chariot of love, the chariot of Jesus. Christ is in that adversity, Christ is in that loss, Christ is in that bereavement, Christ is in that sickness; in a word, that cloud, be its nature, its form, and its darkness what it may, is one of the twenty thousand chariots of God in which He rides to your help, in His excellency, on the sky. Oh, learn to see Christ and to deal closely with God in all His dispensations and dealings with you. No enemy bent on destruction, no foe armed with vengeance, sits in the cloud-chariot that approaches you--it is your Father, your covenant God, your Redeemer. It is He to whose heart you are more precious than the universe, in whose eye you are more beauteous than angels, and on whose ear the accents of your voice fall with a melody infinitely surpassing the sweetest cherub before the throne.

Look not, I beseech you, at the somber hue of the chariot, but rather at the love and loveliness and graciousness of Him who sits within it. It is your beloved Lord! His person is white and ruddy--human and divine. His countenance is brighter than the sun shining in its strength. His voice is gentle, tender, and winning, uttering the speech and the accent and the words of love. Then be not afraid. Christ will never send an empty chariot to His people. When His chariot lights at our door, we may be assured that He is in it. No angel, no ransomed spirit shall occupy the seat, but He Himself. Welcome, then, the visit of your gracious King. He comes laden with the "sure mercies of David," freighted with covenant blessings, and bearing the sweet grapes and the fragrant flowers gleaned from the vineyards and the paradise of heaven. He comes in this cloud to talk with and to manifest Himself to you, and to make you more intimately and personally acquainted with Himself, with His truth, and His love. Welcome Him to your dwelling, receive Him into your heart, and bid Him abide with you there, never to leave you more. Be not satisfied unless you observe the King in the chariot. This only will dispel your fears and reconcile you to the dispensation, however dark and painful it may be. The moment you realize, "You are near, O Lord," that moment your heaving, panting bosom will be at rest. The disciples feared as they entered into the cloud upon the mount of transfiguration, but discovering the Lord in it, their trembling was changed into confidence, their apprehension into joy, and they gladly would build their tabernacle on its summit, and no more descend to the toil and the strife below.

Beloved, are you entering some overshadowing cloud trembling and apprehensive? Fear not! Your Lord is in it, and a Father's voice of love shall speak to you from out its veiling shadows, saying, "When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overflow you: when you walk through the fire, you shall not be burned; neither shall the flame kindle upon you. For I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior." Glorious cloud that enshrines the form of my redeeming God! Welcome, you coming chariot, that brings Jesus near to my soul. Your vesture is dark, your form gigantic, your appearance threatening, but my heart shall not fear, nor my faith falter, for in this will I be confident, that He makes the clouds His chariot, and in this chariot comes my Savior to shelter, to soothe, and to bless me. Truly, "there is none like unto the God of Jeshurun, who rides upon the heaven in your help, and in his excellency in the sky. The eternal God is your refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms."

Before long another chariot will appear at your door--the chariot sent to bear you home to God, to Christ, to heaven. We know not what form this messenger will assume--whether it will be Christ's state-chariot, which shall convey Him in person to us, or whether it shall be Christ's chariot of death, which will convey us to Him; but this we believe, and are assured of, that in a very little while and we shall see the Lord, and be with Him forever. The chariot is preparing for us, let us be preparing for the chariot. Let us so live detached from, and above, the world, and creatures, and earthly delights; let us so live in fellowship with God, and in communion with Divine and eternal things, that when the Lord's chariot gently knocks at our door, we may have nothing to do but to step into it and away to heaven! Aged saint! are you looking through the window and the lattice of your frail tabernacle, exclaiming, "Why is his chariot so long in coming? why tarry the wheels of his chariot?"

Be patient and trustful; the Lord's time is best, and before long you shall exclaim, "It is the voice of my Beloved that knocks! the Master is come and calls for me. Earth, farewell! friends, farewell! parents, kindred, wife, children, home, farewell! Sorrow, suffering, trial, sin, farewell! I go to be with Jesus forever!" And then a cloud of glory shall receive you out of their sight, and so shall you forever be with the Lord.

Trial, a Help Heavenward

"That we must through much tribulation enter into the
kingdom of God."—ACTS 14:22.

There are few things in the spiritual history of the child of God
more really helpful heavenward than sanctified trial. He treads no
path in which he finds aids more favorable to advancement in the
divine life, circumstances which more contribute to the develop-ment
and completeness of Christian character,—the teaching, the
quickening, the purifying,—than the path of hallowed sorrow—
sorrow which a covenant God has sent, which grace sanctifies, and
which knits the heart to Christ. The atmosphere is not more puri-fied
by the electric storm, nor the earth more fructified by the
descending rain, than is the regenerate soul advanced in its highest
interests by the afflictive dealings in God's government of His saints.
"Sweet are the uses of adversity" to an heir of heaven. Its form
may appear "ugly and venomous"—for "no chastening for the present
seemeth joyous but grievous;" but nevertheless it "bears a precious
jewel in its head"—for "afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of
righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby." Affliction is
to the believer what the wing is to the lark, and what the eye is to
the eagle,—the means by which the soul mounts in praise heaven-ward,
gazing closely and steadily upon the glorious Sun of righ-teousness.
Chastening seals our sonship, sorrow disciplines the heart,
affliction propels the soul onward. We should have a more vivid
conception of the power of affliction as an ingredient of holiness if
we kept more constantly in remembrance the fact that all the af-flictive,
trying dispensations of the believer are covenant dispensa-tions—
that they are not of the same character nor do they pro-duce
the same results as in the ungodly. They are among the "sure
mercies of David." In the case of the unregenerate, all afflictions
54 Help Heavenward
are a part and parcel of the curse, and work naturally against their
good; but in the case of the regenerate, they are, in virtue of the
covenant of grace, transformed into blessings, and work spiritually
for their good. Just as the mountain stream, coursing its way, meets
some sanative mineral by which it becomes endowed with a heal-ing
property, so afflictions, passing through the covenant, change
their character, derive a sanctifying property, and thus become a
healing medicine to the soul.
Thus we find tribulation the ancient and beaten path of the
Church of God. "A great cloud of witnesses" all testify to sorrow as
the ordained path to heaven. Both Christ and His apostles gently
forewarned the saints that "in the world they should have tribula-tion,"
and that it was "through much tribulation we must enter the
kingdom of God." Here may be descried the trail of the flock, and,
yet more deeply and visibly imprinted, the footsteps of the Great
Shepherd of the sheep, "leaving us an example that we should fol-low
His steps." Who, then, with Christ in his heart, the hope of
glory, would wish exemption from what is common to the whole
Church of God? Who would not sail to glory in the same vessel
with Jesus and His disciples, tossed though that vessel be amidst
the surging waves of life's troubled ocean? All shall arrive in heaven
as last, "some on boards, some on broken pieces of the ship, but all
safe to land." It is not necessary, beloved reader, that in a chapter
devoted to an exposition of the blessings which flow from sancti-fied
trial, we enumerate all, or even any, of the varied forms which
trial assumes. The truth with which we have now to do is the im-petus
trial gives to the soul heavenward—the friendly hand it out-stretches
to assist the Christian pilgrim to his shrine, the traveller
to his journey's end, the child to his Father's house. Our first re-mark,
then, with regard to trial is, that it is a time of spiritual
instruction, and so a help heavenward. It is not blindly but intelli-gently,
that we walk in the ways of the Lord, and are travelling
home to God. Great stress is laid by the Holy Ghost in the writ-ings
of the apostle upon the believer's advance in spiritual knowl-edge.
In his prayer for the Ephesian saints he asks for them, that
"the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give
unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of
Trial, A Help Heavenward 55
Him: the eyes of your understanding being enlightened." In another
place he exhorted the saints to "grow in grace and in the knowledge
of our Lord Jesus Christ." In his own personal experience he sets
no limit to his spiritual knowledge: "that I might know Christ," was
the great aspiration of his soul, and he "counted all things but loss
for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus his Lord." Now,
the school of trial is the school of spiritual knowledge. We grow in
a knowledge of ourselves, learning more of our superficial attain-ments,
shallow experience, and limited grace. We learn, too, more
of our weakness, emptiness, and vileness, the plough-share of trial
penetrating deep into the heart and throwing up its vailed iniquity.
And oh, how does this deeper self-knowledge lay us low, humble
and abase us; and when our self-sufficiency and our self-seeking
and our self-glorying is thus mowed down, then the showers of the
Saviour's grace descend "as rain upon the mown grass," and so we
advance in knowledge and holiness heavenward. Trial, too, increases
our acquaintance with Christ. We know more of the Lord Jesus
through one sanctified affliction than by all the treatises the hu-man
pen ever wrote. Christ is only savingly known as He is known
personally and experimentally. Books cannot teach Him, sermons
cannot teach Him, lectures cannot teach Him; they may aid our
information and correct our views, but to know Him as He is, and
as we ought, we must have personal dealings with Him. Our sins
must bring us to His blood, our condemnation must bring us to His
righteousness, our corruptions must bring us to His grace, our wants
must bring us to His fullness, our weakness must bring us to His
strength, our sorrow must bring us to His sympathy, and His own
loveliness and love must attract us to Himself. And oh, in one hour,
in a single transaction, in a lone sorrow, which has brought us to
Jesus, who can estimate how rapidly and to what an extent we
have grown in a knowledge of His person and work, His character
and love? I need not enlarge upon other branches of spiritual knowl-edge
which trial promotes—how it increases our personal intimacy
with God as our loving Father and Friend; and how it opens our
understanding to discern the deep things of God in the Scriptures,
so that the Bible in the hour of affliction appears like a new revela-tion
to us. Oh yes, times of trial are times of growth in experimen-
56 Help Heavenward
tal knowledge. We see God and Jesus and truth from new stand-points,
and in a different light, and we thank the Lord for the storm
which dispelled the mist that hid all this glory, unvailing so lovely a
landscape and so serene a sky to our view. Beloved, is the Lord now
bringing your religion to the touchstone of trial, testing your expe-rience
and knowledge and faith in the crucible? Be calm in the
assurance that He but designs your advance in an experimental
acquaintance with Himself, and His gospel, and that you shall
emerge from it testifying, "I have seen more of my own vileness,
and known more of Jesus, have penetrated deeper into the heart of
God, have a clearer understanding of revealed truth, and have
learned more of the mysteries of the divine life, on this bed of
sickness, in this time of bereaved sorrow, in this dark cloud that
has overshadowed me, than in all my life before." "Blessed is the
man whom thou chastenest, O Lord, and teachest him out of thy
law." Oh yes, we learn God's power to support, His wisdom to
guide, His love to comfort us, in a degree we could not have learned
but in the way of trial!
Trial quickens us in prayer, and so effectually helps us heaven-ward.
The life of God in the soul on earth is a life of communion of
the soul with God in heaven. Prayer is nothing less than the Divine
nature in fellowship with the Divine, the renewed creature in com-munion
with God. And it would be as impossible for a regenerate
soul to live without prayer, as for the natural life to exist without
breathing. And oh, what a sacred and precious privilege is this!—is
there one to be compared with it? When we have closed the door,—
for we speak now of that most solemn and holy habit of prayer,
private communion,—and have shut out the world, and the crea-ture,
and even the saints, and are closeted in personal, solemn, and
confiding audience with God, what words can portray the pre-ciousness
and solemnity of that hour! Then is guilt confessed, and
backslidings deplored, and care, unburdened, and sorrow unvailed,
and pardon sought, and grace implored, and blessings invoked, in
all the filial trustfulness of a child unbosoming itself in the very
depths of a father's love, pity, and succour. But precious and costly
as is this privilege of prayer, we need rousing to its observance.
Trial is eminently instrumental of this. God often sends affliction
Trial, A Help Heavenward 57
for the accomplishment of this one end—that we might be stirred
up to take hold of Him. "Lord, in trouble have they visited thee,
they poured out a prayer when thy chastening was upon them." To
whom in sorrow do we turn, to whom in difficulty do we repair, to
whom in want do we fly but to the, Lord? If in prosperity we have
"grown fat and kicked," if when the sun has shone upon us we have
walked independently and proudly and distantly, now that afflic-tion
has overtaken us we are humbled and prostrate at His feet;
retrace our steps, return to God, and find a new impulse given to,
and a new power and meetness and soothing in, communion with
God. Be assured of this, my reader, there is no help heavenward
like unto PRAYER. There is no ladder the rounds of which will
bring you so near to God, there are no wings the plumage, of which
will waft you so close to heaven as prayer. The moment you have
unpinioned your soul for communion with God,—let your pres-sure,
your sorrow, your sin be what it may,—that moment your
heart has quitted earth and is on its way heavenward. You are soar-ing
above the region of sorrow and battle and sin, and your spirit is
expatiating beneath a purer, happier, sunnier sky. Oh the soothing,
the strengthening, the uplifting found in prayer beneath the cross!
Thus trial helps us heavenward by quickening us to devotion, by
stirring us up to closeness of walk. Child of God! want you speedier
advance, heavenward? Seek it in closer converse with God. Oh,
what mighty power has prayer! It has controlled the elements of
nature, has stopped the sun in its course, has stayed the arm of
God! A man mighty in the prayer of faith is clothed with an invin-cible
panoply, is in possession of a force which Omnipotence can-not
resist, for he has "power with God and prevails." Oh, turn your
difficulty into prayer, turn your sorrow into prayer, turn your want
into prayer, turn your very sins and backslidings into confession,
supplication, and prayer, and on its wing your soul shall rise to a
region of thought and feeling and fellowship close to the very gates
of heaven. Lord, we thank Thee for the sacred privilege of prayer,—
we thank Thee for the mercy-seat, sprinkled with blood, the place
of prayer,—we thank Thee for Jesus' precious name, our only plea
in prayer,—we thank Thee for the divine grace of prayer,—and not
less, Lord, do we praise Thee for the trial, the suffering, the sor-
58 Help Heavenward
row which stimulates our languid spirit, and wakes our dormant
heart to the holy, earnest exercise of prayer!
Trials are necessary to wean us from the world. Perhaps nothing
possesses so detaching, divorcing an effect in the experience of the
Christian as affliction. The world is a great snare to the child of
God. Its rank is a snare, its possessions are a snare, its honours are
a snare, its enterprises are a snare, the very duties and engage-ments
of daily life are a snare, to a soul whose citizenship is in
heaven, and whose heart would fain be more frequently and exclu-sively
where Jesus, its treasure, is. Oh, how the things that are
seen vail the things that are not seen!—how do things temporal
banish from our thoughts and affections and desires the things that
are eternal! Why does the sun appear so small an orb, so minute a
speck to our eye? Simply because of its remote distance. Oh, is it
not thus that Christ with His surpassing loveliness, and heaven
with its winning attractions, and eternal things with their profound
solemnity, and communion with God in Christ, so soothing and
precious, are objects so dim and superficial just because we of the
earth earthy, live at so great a distance from God, and allow the
influence, of the world an ascendancy over us so supreme and ab-sorbing?
But God in wisdom and mercy sends us trial to detach us
from earth, to lessen our worldly-mindedness, more deeply to con-vince
us how empty and insufficient is all created good when His
chastening is upon us, to intensify our affection for spiritual things,
and to bring our souls nearer to Himself. "Take away the dross from
the silver, and there shall come forth a vessel for the finer," (Prov.
25:4.) "I will turn my hand upon thee, and purely purge away thy
dross, and take away all thy sin," (Isa. 1:25.) Oh, when the heart is
chastened and subdued by sorrow, when the soul is smitten and
humbled by adversity, when death bereaves, or sickness invades,
or resources narrow, or calamity in one of its many crushing forms
lights heavily upon us, how solemn, earnest, and distinct is the
voice of our ascended Redeemer, "If ye be risen with me, seek
those things which are above, where I sit at the, right hand of God.
Set your affections on things above, not on things on the earth. I
am your Treasure, your Portion, your All. Sharers of my resurrec-tion-
life, you are partakers of its holy, quickening power, and its
Trial, A Help Heavenward 59
heaven-bestowing blessings. Soon to be with me in glory, let your
heart travel thitherward, and in its loosenings from earth, its di-vorcements
from the creature cultivate the mind of my holy apostle,
who desired to depart and be with me." Oh that to this touching
appeal our hearts may respond, "Lord, whom have I in heaven but
Thee? and there is none upon earth that I desire beside Thee. Thou
hast stricken and wounded and laid me low, but Thou wilt com-fort,
heal, and raise me up again. Righteous art Thou, O Lord, when
I plead with Thee; yet let me talk with Thee of Thy judgments.
Let this trial detach me from the world, wean me from my idols,
transfer my heart to Thee, and speed my soul with a quicker step
heavenward." Thus the heart, crusted by the continuous influence
of earthly things, is mellowed by sorrow, through the sanctifying
power of the Holy Ghost, and then the Word becomes more fruit-ful,
and the Lord Jesus growing more precious, and conformity to
God more promoted, earth recedes and heaven approaches, and
we exclaim in the words of the Psalmist, "Before I was afflicted I
went astray: but now have I kept thy word. It is good for me that I
have been afflicted; that I might learn thy statutes." Thus, "afflic-tions
are God's most effectual means to keep us from losing our
way to our heavenly rest. Without this hedge of thorns on the right
hand and on the left, we should hardly keep the way to heaven. If
there be but one gap open, how ready are we to find it and turn out
at it! When we grow wanton, or worldly, or proud, how doth sick-ness
or other afflictions reduce us! Every Christian, as well as Luther,
can call affliction one of his best schoolmasters; and with David
may say, 'Before I was afflicted I went astray: but now have I kept
thy word.' Many thousand rescued sinners may cry, O healthful
sickness! O comfortable sorrow! O gainful losses! O enriching pov-erty!
O blessed day that ever I was afflicted! Not only the green
pastures and still waters, but the rod and staff, they comfort us.
Though the Word and the Spirit do the main work, yet suffering so
unbolts the door of the, heart, that the Word hath easier entrance."
The moral purity of heart which chastened trial produces must
have a distinct and prominent place in this enumeration of helps
heavenward. Holiness, as it is an essential element of heaven, be-comes
an essential element in our spiritual meetness for its enjoy-
60 Help Heavenward
ment. The inspired declaration is as solemn as it is emphatic, "Ho-liness,
without which no man shall see the Lord." The beautiful be-atitude
of our Saviour embodies and enforces the same truth,
"Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God." Let us not,
beloved, mistake this character. It is of infinite moment to us that
we properly understand it. It is emphatically "the pure in HEART"—
not the informed in judgment, not the reformed in life, not the
orthodox in creed, not the apostolic in worship; all these things
may exist, as did the outward ritualism of the Pharisees, apart from
inward sanctification. But the "pure in heart"—that is, those whose
hearts are sprinkled with the cleansing blood of Jesus, sanctified
by the indwelling of the Spirit, growing in a hatred to, and in a
disenthralment from, the power of indwelling sin—who feel its
existence, mourn its power, loathe its taint, and pray and strive for
holiness;—such shall see God. They shall see Him now in Christ,
in the gospel, and in the gracious manifestations of His love. And
they shall see Him hereafter without a cloud to shade, or a sin to
mar, or a sorrow to sadden, or a moment to interrupt the blessed
vision. Oh, with a prospect so full of glory, so near and so certain,
who that loves the Saviour would not strive after more of that
purity of heart, clad in which, and through whose medium, we
shall behold God for ever, as revealed and seen in Christ Jesus? To
this end let us welcome God's purifying agent—sanctified trial.
When He causes us to walk in the midst of trouble, let us be sub-missive,
humble, obedient. Resignation to the Divine will secures
the end God intends to accomplish—our personal and deeper ho-liness.
So long as we cherish an unsubmissive, rebellious spirit, the
medicine will not cure, the, lesson will not instruct, the agent will
not work its mission; in a word, our purity of heart will not be
promoted. In the words of Rutherford, "When God strikes, let us
beware of striking back again; for God will always have the last
blow." When His uplifted hand lights upon us, let us not fly up into
His face as the chaff, but fall down at His feet as the wheat. Thus,
if we "humble ourselves under the mighty hand of God, He will
exalt us in due time;" and in the school of His most trying dispen-sations
we shall learn the sweetest lessons of His love. Such, then,
may be denominated "the pure in heart." Perfect freedom from
Trial, A Help Heavenward 61
sin, the entire extermination of indwelling evil, root and branch, is
not the idea which our Lord here inculcates. This can only be af-firmed
of Christ Himself, of unfallen angels, and of the spirits of
just men made perfect. Therefore, let no dear child of God, desir-ing
internal holiness, thirsting and struggling for purity of heart, be
cast down or discouraged in the conflict by the daily, the hourly
consciousness and working of existing impurity. There may be real
holiness in the midst of innate unholiness; purity encircled by ind-welling
impurity; an intense thirst, an ardent prayerfulness for sanc-tification,
and some measure of its attainment, in a soul far, very
far, from having arrived at a state of perfect and entire sinlessness.
Does not the earnest desire, for holiness, and the constant struggle
for sanctification, prove the existence and indwelling power of evil
in the saints of God? Most assuredly. And the Lord the Spirit dis-covers
to us more and more of the inbeing and evil of sin, unvails to
us more vividly the chambers of abomination, that we may be the
more intently set upon the great work of sanctification, that we
may deal more closely with the blood, and be more earnest and
importunate in our cry, "Create in me a clean heart, O Lord, and
renew a right spirit within me." "As a thing is said to be pure though
it may have some dross cleaving to it, as is pure gold when it is
digged out of the mine, though there be much dross in it; and we
say it is pure air though for a time there be fogs and mists within it;
and it is pure water though there be some mud at the bottom; a
man may be said to have a pure heart though there be a cleaving of
much dross to it. Holy men have a fountain of original corruption
in them, and from this fountain sins arise continuously, as the scum
in the pot; but as in wine, or honey, or water, though the scum
arise, yet still it purifieth itself; contrarily in men of impure hearts
the scum ariseth, but it seethes not. 'She wearied herself with lies,
and her great scum went not forth out of her,' (Ezek. 24:12.) Holy
men have their scum arising in their hearts, as well as the wicked;
but here is the difference, wicked men's scum seethes in and mingles
together, but men of pure heart have a cleansing and purifying dis-position,
that casts out whatever evil comes, though it be constantly
rising ; though it be many times mixed, he still washeth himself
again; he cannot endure it; he doth not, as the sinner, delight in it.
62 Help Heavenward
But notwithstanding this boiling out of evil, he is a man of a pure
heart; yet may sin cleave to a man as dross to the silver, but it
mingles not with the regenerate heart, nor that mingles with it, no
more than oil and water do, which though they touch they do not
mingle together." There is much truth and deer acquaintance with
the human heart and the mystery of the divine life in these quaint
remarks, quoted from an old divine, which may instruct and com-fort
those of the "pure in heart" who are often cast down by the
working of indwelling sin.
If, then, trial is the believer's pathway to heaven,—if the afflic-tive
dealings of our heavenly Father are designed to accelerate our
progress in that path,—if, in the words of Leighton, God never had
one son without suffering, and but one without sin,—if in sorrow
the Savior is endeared, and sin is embittered, and the world is loos-ened,
and the soul, chastened and purified, is matured for glory,—
if, in a word, this gloomy portal of tribulation through which I pass
terminates my night of weeping, and ushers me into a world where
I shall bask in the young beams of a morning of joy, sickle the golden
fruit of the seed which often in tears I now sow to the Spirit, lay
my weary, panting soul on the bosom of my Saviour, and weep and
sigh and sin no more forever—then welcome, thrice welcome, sor-row!
Welcome my Saviour's yoke, His burden, His cross! Welcome
the discipline of the covenant, the seal of my sonship, the dealings
of my God! If this be the path to glory, this the evidence of adop-tion,
this the example my Saviour has left me, and this the help
heavenward which sanctified trial brings—the steps by which I
climb, the wings with which I mounts the door through which I
enter as a sinner pardoned through the blood and justified by the
righteousness of Christ—then, oh then, my Father, THY WILL,
NOT MINE, BE DONE!›
Trial, A Help Heavenward 63
"Jesus, 'tis my aim divine,
Hence to have no will but Thine;
Let me covenant with Thee,
Thine for evermore to be:
This my prayer, and this alone,
Saviour, let Thy will be done!
"Thee to love, to live to Thee,
This my daily portion be;
Nothing to my Lord I give,
But from Him I first receive:
Lord, for me Thy blood was spilt
Lead me, guide me, as Thou wilt.
"All that is opposed to Thee,
Howsoever dear it be,
From my heart the idol tear,
Thou shalt have no rival there;
Only Thou shalt fill the throne:
Saviour, let Thy will be done.
"Wilt Thou, Lord, in me fulfil
All the pleasure of Thy will;
Thine in life, and Thine in death,
Thine in every fleeting breath,
Thou my hope and joy alone:
Saviour, let Thy will be done."

BONDS LOOSED

"O Lord, truly I am your servant; I am your servant, and the son of your handmaid: you have loosed my bonds."—Psalm 116:16.

In nothing are there found to exist greater opposites, stronger points of contrast, than in the Christian character. The reason is obvious to a spiritual mind. The believer is composed of two natures essentially different, incessantly antagonistic, and eternally irreconcilable. Nothing can be more diametrically opposed in their character and actings than the divine and the human, the renewed and the unrenewed nature that is in the believer. A partaker of the new and divine nature through grace, and thus a child of God and an heir of heaven, he still is imprisoned and fettered by the old and fallen nature from which there is no release until the Master comes and calls for him. Now these two and opposite natures must be in perpetual hostility the one to the other. "What will you see in the Shulamite? As it were the company of two armies." Such is the spectacle which every child of God presents. The existence of these opposite principles of nature and grace, of sin and holiness, in the same individual must necessarily lead to much that is inexplicable and perplexing to those not thoroughly initiated into the mysteries of the divine life. To the eye of such a one, and not less visible to him within whose heart the conflict rages, there are often apparent discrepancies, contradictions, and opposites in the Christian life of a most painful and embarrassing nature, and thus often bringing those who are weak in faith, and but imperfectly instructed in God's Word and the knowledge of themselves, into much bondage and distress. They find it difficult, almost impossible, to reconcile these opposites of sin and holiness, these contradictions of grace and nature, with the existence and reality of that higher, nobler, purer nature of which all are partakers who are "born of the Spirit," and are "new creatures in Christ Jesus." Take as a single illustration of this the subject of the present chapter of our work—the bondage and the liberty, the bonds and the loosening of those bonds, which David delineates as his experience, and in which he but portrays the experience, more or less extended, of all the children of God. Here are the two opposites in bold relief exhibited in every believer in the Lord Jesus—bondage and liberty. In proffering you as a Christian pilgrim a little help heavenward, we should withhold one of the most potent aids in your pilgrim course did we not endeavor, by the power of the Holy Spirit, to loosen and remove some of those fetters by which so many of the Lord's people are bound, the galling and the weight of which so essentially impede them in their course heavenward.

The ungodly world is full of bondage. The world has its notions, of liberty; but we who have tasted the sweetness of Christ's liberty know that its notions are false, and that the liberty of which it boasts is only slavery. Every unconverted man and woman is a servant, a slave, a captive. "He that commits sin is the servant of sin." And those who are the servants of sin are, by virtue of that relation, equally the vassals of Satan,—"are led captive by him at his will." The popular cry. is, "Liberty!"—liberty of law, liberty of representation, liberty of prescriptive rights, literary and. commercial liberty. But do those who vociferate this cry, who demand, and justly too it may be, this freedom, know that they are the most degraded of all vassals, that they wear the most galling of all fetters, that they are the willing servants, the obedient slaves, the degraded serfs of the world's fierce despot, Satan? Ah no! "While they promise them liberty, they themselves are servants of corruption: for of whom a man is overcome, of the same is he brought into bondage." Reader! you are spiritually a slave or a freeman—which? A slave to an unregenerate nature, a slave of the world, a slave of Satan, a slave of self, a servant of sin,—or, one whose fetters Christ has wrenched, whose soul Christ has set free.

But the child of God, a freeman though he is, a partaker of the liberty with which Christ makes His people free, may have but a contracted and imperfect view of this liberty, may still walk in much bondage of spirit, reforge for himself fetters which Christ had broken, and return to those beggarly elements from which Christ had set him free. David was a mighty man of God. Who has read the spiritual exercises of his soul, as delineated in the 119th Psalm, without the conviction that he was a giant in grace? And yet we find him speaking of bonds! What means this? Just simply that a true freeman of the Lord may yet walk in strait paths, may cherish a bondage spirit, may be controlled by slavish fear, and may love and serve God with an unfilial, servile mind. Nor can we imagine greater impediments to religious progress, more powerful obstructions in our heavenward course, than just this spiritual bondage which marks the experience of so many. How few look fully into God's face as their Father? How few pray in the spirit of adoption? How few rejoice in the sense of pardoned sin, and possess the peace which flows from the justified state procured by the blood and righteousness of our Emmanuel? What numbers are enslaved by their creed, by their church, by their ritual, by their sacraments, by their religious duties, by their crude conceptions of the gospel, their dim views of divine truth, by their faint, defective realization of a personal and complete salvation through Christ? How can such travel with a fleet footstep the heavenly road, or mount with a strong and soaring wing the upper skies, chained to earth by bonds like these? Beloved, you are Christ's freemen; and "if the Son therefore shall make you free, you shall be free indeed." It is to expound more clearly to you what your freedom is, to show more fully your liberty in Christ Jesus, and thus to speed your way heavenward with more of heavenly joy and peace and hope in your soul, that we invite you to consider this fragment of the Psalmist's experience, which experience we desire may be yours: "You have loosed my bonds." What a loosening of our bonds is real conversion! Multitudes are yet in the bonds of an unregenerate state who assume that they are converted. There may be a false spiritual as a false natural birth. Many may pass through some of the earlier and incipient stages of conversion—such as the possession of light, and conviction, and alarm, and resolve—and yet not be truly converted. There may be that which has the appearance of the new birth, without the reality. Our Lord most solemnly affirms this of one of the ancient churches, "You have a name to live, and are dead." Oh, solemn thought! Oh, awful deception! The name of a living soul, the name of a Christian, the name of a disciple of Christ, and yet dead in trespasses and in sins, still in the gall of bitterness and the bond of iniquity, with not a loosed fetter that bound the soul to self-righteousness, to the love of the world, and to the captivity of Satan and of sin. But in true conversion the bonds are loosed. Christ touches them, and they are broken. One gentle pressure of His divine hand, and the soul is free. "For the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and of death." Oh, what a blessed freedom from the burden of guilt is this which Jesus gives! The moment Christ is seen to be the "end of the law for righteousness to every one that believes,"—the moment the burden of sin is laid upon Him, the atoning blood touches the conscience, the Holy Spirit testifies of Jesus as bearing all the sin, enduring all the punishment, and exhausting all the curse,—the believing soul bursts its fetters, and enters into liberty, the liberty with which Christ makes His people free. Beloved, cannot you say, in view of this truth, "Christ has loosed my bonds! I once wore the chain of my sins, and the galling yoke of the law, and the heavy manacles of a poor captive of Satan; but Jesus saw me, and had compassion, and said, 'Loose him, and let him go;' and my graveclothes fell off, my bonds were broken, and I sprang into the holy liberty of a sinner pardoned, justified, and forever saved; and my soul overflowed with joy unspeakable, and full of glory. The bliss of that moment, the sweetness of that first taste of liberty, can I ever forget! Truly the sacred poet depicts my feelings— "That sweet comfort was mine, When the favor divine I received through the blood of the Lamb; When my heart first believed, What a joy I received, What a heaven in Jesus's name! "'Twas a heaven below My Redeemer to know; 68 Help Heavenward And the angels could do nothing more Than to fall at His feet, And the story repeat, And the Lover of sinners adore. "Jesus all the day long Was my joy and my song: Oh that all His salvation might see! He has loved me, I cried, He has suffered and died, To redeem even rebels like me. "On the wings of His love, I was carried above All sin, and temptation, and pain; And I could not believe That I ever should grieve, That I ever should suffer again." When the Spirit's seal of adoption is impressed upon the heart, there is a loosening of the bonds of legality in which so many of God's children are held. How jealous is the Holy Spirit of the glory and enjoyment of our sonship! Listen to His language: "As many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God. For you have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but you have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father. The Spirit itself bears witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God." Do you ask, my reader, what is a legal spirit from which the Spirit of adoption frees us? I answer—It is that bondage which springs from looking within yourself for evidences, for comfort, and for motives which only can be found in looking to Jesus. It is that spirit of legality which prompts you to be incessantly poring over your works, instead of dealing simply and solely with the finished work of Christ. That is a bondage spirit which makes a Christ of duties and labors and sacrifices, of tears and confessions and faith, rather than directly and supremely dealing with Him "who of God is made unto us wisdom and righteousness, sanctification and redemption" Beloved, your works, your doings, your sacrifices, as means of comfort, and as grounds of hope, are nothing but filthy rags, the bones of the skeleton, the chaff which the wind scatters. Why have you not joy and peace and hope in believing? Simply because, unsuspected by yourself, you are putting your own work in the place of Christ's work. Oh that you may be led to cast yourself more entirely upon the atoning sacrifice of Jesus!—to believe that God looks not at a single work you do as justifying you in His sight, but that He looks only to the divine, sacrificial, flawless, perfect work of His beloved Son! Oh, come and rest where God rests, in the Crucified One! What! if He is pleased to accept you in His Son, are not you satisfied so to he accepted? What! if the blood and righteousness of Emmanuel are enough for God, are they not enough also for you? Away, then, with your fears and distrust and bondage, and enter fully into Christ! "Even so will he remove you out of the strait into a broad place, where there is no straitness; and that which shall be set on your table shall be full of fatness," Job 36:16.) Then shall you exclaim, "You have loosed my bonds." A sealed sense of pardoned sin, gives liberty to the soul. Many of the Lord's people walk in bonds from not seeing how fully and freely and entirely their sins are pardoned. If Christ has borne and has pardoned all your sins, then you have nothing to do with them. If He was condemned, suffered, died, and rose again for our offences,— if He bore them, satisfied for them, and by one blood shedding forever blotted them out, what have you, who believe in Him, to do with those sins which He has eternally obliterated,— "having forgiven you all trespasses?" Will you attempt to remove the propitiation, the mercy seat, which covers them? Will you endeavor to recall the thick cloud which His blood has forever cancelled? Will you look into the tomb, or sink your line into the sea, where Jesus has left all your transgressions? Oh, this will be to seek another sacrifice for sin,—to crucify the Son of God afresh,—to deny the efficacy of His blood,—and to cast a veil over the brightest luster of His cross. Your sins are forgiven you! You have no more to do with them than with a criminal who has been arraigned, condemned, and executed. Jesus stood as our. Sinbearer, Surety, and Substitute; was arraigned, and condemned, and crucified in our stead, and for our sins. "He was wounded for our transgressions; he was bruised for our iniquities." We have, therefore, nothing to do with the condemning power of our sins, for "God's own Son was made in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin," (or, by a sacrifice for sin,) "condemned sin in the flesh;" so that, if condemnation and guilt be removed, it is our privilege to walk in the holy, happy blessedness of the man whose transgressions is forgiven, whose sin is covered, unto whom the Lord imputes not iniquity. Let your life be a daily exercise of faith in the atoning, sin pardoning blood of Jesus touching the guilt and power of sin, and with David, you shall gratefully exclaim, "You have loosed my bonds."

The Lord also looses the bonds of those of His people who are "bound in fetters and are holden in cords of affliction." How many are wearing these fetters! The Lord tries the righteous, but He does not leave them in their trials. And again, "Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivers them out of them all." Listen, too, to the testimony of David. "I called upon the Lord in distress: the Lord answered me, and set me in a large place,"— broke the bonds of my affliction, and brought me into liberty. When we take a legal, and not a gospel view of affliction,—view it as the punishment of the slave, and not as the chastening of the child,— as judicial and not parental, we are brought into bondage. Oh, is it not enough that we are bound in fetters and are holden in cords of affliction, that we should add to these bonds those of unfilial submission, secret rebellion, restiveness, and repining? Oh, how we lose the soothing and the comfort, the succor and the liberty in deep and sore trial, by not tracing it all up to a Father's hand, a Savior's love, the arrangement and provision of the covenant of grace. Tried believer! were you now to lean with all your burdens on the Lord, to rest on Jesus, to wait patiently in all your perplexities and difficulties for God, oh, in what a large place would you walk! Could you in the overshadowing cloud, in this heavy calamity, in this sudden visitation, but realize that all God's thoughts are peace, and that every thought of His heart is love, and that all His dealings are right,—that as a father pities his children, so He pities you,—oh, how light would be these fetters, how silken these cords, how fragrant the blossoms upon this rod! "O God of my righteousness, you have enlarged me when I was in distress." Enlarged me when in distress! Yes, beloved; God, your own God, can enlarge your heart, and free your spirit, even in distress! What enlargement in prayer!—what traveling up of your soul to Him in communion!— what soaring of your heart in love!—what mounting upon the wing of faith, may you now experience and enjoy, though through fire and through water God may be bringing you! I believe that our heavenly Father often binds us with the fetters of trial and the cords of affliction, that our soul might be more fully brought into the liberty of adoption! It is in the narrow path of difficulty and sorrow that we often walk in the broad path of God's love. It is only in the school of sorrow that we learn the holiest and highest of all lessons—the lesson of resignation to the Divine will. It is when the cup touches our lips, that from them breathes the sacred words,—"NOT MY WILL, BUT YOUR BE DONE." "Let me never choose—or to live or die; Bind or bruise, in Your hands I lie." The Lord loosens our bonds when we walk in evangelical obedience. Nothing contributes more to the enlargement of the soul in the ways of the Lord than a profound and practical reverence for the authority and teaching of Christ. Christ is the great political or governing Head and King of His Church; and all who recognize the rule, headship, and sovereignty of the Lord Jesus in Zion, are solemnly bound to yield obedience to His laws. In so doing, He makes them to walk in a large place. "If you be willing and obedient, you shall eat the good of the land." Obedience to Christ, and the liberty of Christ, are correlative terms. It is in submitting to His yoke, and in bearing His burden, that true freedom is found. Many are wearily dragging along their pilgrimage the bonds of doubt and fear, simply because of willful disobedience to the Divine precepts and positive commands of their Lord and Master. They walk not in the liberty of the child, because they walk not in the precept of the disciple. But what was David's experience I "I will walk at liberty, for I seek your precepts." This preceptive obedience, many, wise in their own conceit, denounce as legalism and bondage; but the Psalmist felt it to be the sweetest and holiest liberty. The Lord keep you from Antinomianism in every form, in doctrine and in practice! Listen again to the words of David in which he strikingly incorporates his servitude and freedom: "O Lord, truly I am your servant; you have loosed my bonds." To be the Lord's servant, is to be the Lord's freeman; for Christ's service is perfect freedom. It is a service growing out of freedom, and it is a freedom found in service. O Lord, I am Your servant! You have freed me from the bonds of sin and Satan, and now my highest honor, and my dearest delight, and my most perfect freedom is, in serving You! Is not every heart which is touched by the emancipating, all constraining power of Christ's love responsive to this?—"That he would grant unto us, that we being delivered out of the hand of our enemies might serve him without fear, in holiness and righteousness before him, all the days of our life," (Luke 1:74.) Would you then, Christian pilgrim, speed your way heavenward?—burst the bonds which so long have hindered your loving obedience to Christ—the fear of man, the opinion of the world, the love of earthly repose—and come, take up your cross, and follow Him. Lord! do You ask obedience to Your precepts as the proof of my love to You? Then I will follow You wherever You go. Dissolve You my fetters, loosen my bonds, for "then will I run the way of Your commandments when You have enlarged my heart."

"O Lord, I am the son of your handmaid." Sacred and precious acknowledgment! Advanced to the kingdom of Israel though he was, David did not yet forget his relation and indebtedness to a Godfearing mother. The early instruction and prayers of that mother were the basis of all his future greatness, and were now treasured among his most precious recollections. With the incense of gratitude ascending from his heart for the loosing of his bonds, he blesses the hallowed remembrance of a godly parent, and offers devout thanksgiving to God for the sacred and precious gift. How clearly the future holy and honorable freedom from the appetites of the flesh, and from the slavishness of the world, and from the captivity of opinions, skeptical and loose, which distinguishes the high and noble career of many a man renowned in the Church of Christ, and in the world, may be traced to the early, hidden links of a Christian mother's training and prayers, eternity only can declare. Nor let us forget that when our hearts are charged with grief, and our path is lonely and our need is pressing, the hallowed recollection of all that God was in His faithfulness, and kindness, and responsive love to the voice of prayer breathing from a godly parent's lips, may encourage us to pray, and may furnish us with a more urgent plea at the throne of grace, the tenderness and force of which even GOD will not resist. "O Lord, truly I am your servant; I am your servant, and THE SON OF YOUR HANDMAID; you have loosed my bonds." Such is the undying influence of a godly parent—a Christian, praying MOTHER!

Are you, beloved, all your lifetime in bondage through the fear of death? Alas! how this impedes your happy, joyful progress heavenward! But Jesus can loosen, and virtually has loosened, these bonds. He reminds you that you are to contemplate not death, but His personal and glorious COMING; but that if your thoughts will wander from this bright and blessed hope to the more gloomy and repulsive object of your departure to Him, you are to remember that He has vanquished death, and has passed through the grave as your Substitute, your Surety, your Head; that He has extracted the venom of the one, and has irradiated the gloom of the other; and that you have no sting to apprehend, and no shadows to dread, because He has passed that way before you. Moreover, He has pledged His most loving and most faithful word that when you tread the valley, solitary and alone as you must be, you shall fear no evil, for that He, your risen, living Lord and Savior, will be with you. Lo! I am with you aways! Then, why hug these chains, why wear these bonds, when simple, unquestioning faith in this your Lord's assurance,—and, oh, He is worthy of your love's implicit confidence!—would disenthrall you? Perhaps with you life is ebbing, earth's toils and scenes are fading, and the ties that bind you here are one by one breaking, but that yet one fetter still enslaves you—the most painful and the heaviest of all—the fear of death! Oh, turn your eye to Jesus, with whom your soul is in living and inseparable union; Jesus, your life creating, life keeping Head— one glance, one touch, and your fears are dissolved, and your fettered spirit is free! What; will Christ be enough for life, its trials, its sorrows, its changes, its sins, and not be equal, in the supports of His grace, in the comfort of His love, and in the sunshine of His presence, for the sinkings, the becloudings, the partings, the throb and three of death? Away with such suspicion and distrust! How dishonoring to Him who so loved you as to part with the last drop of blood and the last pulse of life! Sickening, sinking, dying believer! your Savior is near. The present moment may find the cold chill of adversity stealing over you, perchance forsaken and neglected, lone and sad. But why these fears? Jesus is near,—oh, how near!—nearer than ever at this moment. His sheltering wing flutters over you, the warm pavilion of His heart encircles you. Compose the ruffled pinions of your redeemed soul for its glorious flight. Take a firm, clinging, unyielding hold of the Strong One, the Ransoming One, the Faithful One, the Near and Precious One, and you need fear no evil. Oh, what a hiding place is Christ! "'It is chilly; very chilly; And 'it is dark! There is no light in friendship's eye; On the heart's hearth No spark. "Let me draw near;—my Savior, Oh, so near! Let me once feel your tender smile,— Your own sweet smile Of cheer. "Let one fold of Your garment Wrap me round: Ah! blessed, happy spirit, now Your joy, your bliss, Is found!" Let us beware of self-imposed bonds. Christ binds us with no fetters but love, and imposes no bonds but those submission to which is our most perfect freedom. His gracious mission to our world was to break every bond, and to let the oppressed go free. The Spirit of the Lord God was upon Him, because the Lord anointed Him to proclaim liberty to the captive, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound. By His power the prey is snatched from the mighty, the lawful captive is delivered, and a door in heaven is opened to the prisoners of hope. He Himself became a bond-servant that we might become children, and a captive that we might be free. Oh, was ever love so vast, so self-sacrificing as this? We repeat the caution—forge for your soul no bonds but those which God imposes, which grace binds, and which love, obedient and willing, cheerfully wears for Christ. You are free to pray, free to enter with holy boldness and filial openness into the most holy place; you are free to claim and appropriate all the blessings of the covenant, and to draw unlimitedly from the fullness of the Savior. You are free to bring every sin to His atonement, and every sorrow to His sympathy, and every burden to His shoulder. You are free to follow the footsteps of the flock, to feed where they are pastured, and to lie down where they repose. You are free to go in and out of the one Church of your Father, and to find a home, a temple, and a banquet house wherever you realize the presence of the Master, or recognize the features of the disciple. The ONE Church of which you are a member is the "Jerusalem which is above, which is free, the mother of us all." Beloved, you are called unto liberty,—use it fully, use it holily.

You complain of bondage in prayer. Never, perhaps, are you so sensible of the chafing of the fetters as when you retire from the presence of man into the solemn presence of God. Oh, could you but then be free! Could you but pour out an unfettered heart, moved, prompted, and enlarged by God's free Spirit, how happy would you be! But no. You cannot pray. You have no wants, no desires, no emotions: thoughts seem stifled in their birth, words freeze upon your lips, and you rise from your knees as one whose devotions have been but as the chattering of the swallow. But why are you thus fettered? Are not these bonds your own creating? Are you not endeavoring to excite and rouse your own feelings, rather than seeking the influence of the Holy Spirit? Are you not relying upon your own intellectual efforts, instead of seeking to offer to God the sacrifice of a broken heart and a contrite spirit? Are you not bending your eye within and upon yourself, rather than looking from off and out of self, simply and only to Jesus? Do you not come with the self-sufficient spirit of the Pharisee, rather than in the self condemning spirit of the publican! Do you not approach God as a claimer of His regard, rather than as the petitioner of His bounty; as rich and full and indifferent, rather than as poor and needy and earnest? But listen to God's remedy, "Be filled with the Spirit." He is especially promised to burst your bonds in prayer, (Rom. 8:26.) Breathing upon them His all divine, all potent influence, all, one by one, will dissolve, and you shall come boldly unto the throne of grace, that you may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need. Again do I earnestly exhort you to cast yourself in prayer upon the love and power of the Holy Spirit, beseeching Him to give you to feel your soul's emptiness and poverty, and then, with that truth sealed upon your heart, to lead you to the fullness and sufficiency of Christ. One gracious touch of the Spirit,—one application of the atoning blood,—one dim sight of the cross,—one gentle word of the Savior, and your bonds are broken, and your soul is free. "Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty." Be this your prayer, importunately urged, until fully answered, Bring my soul out of prison, that 1 may praise your name. And for your encouragement in prayer, I would remind you of the promise, "The Lord hears the poor, and despises not His prisoners." Dwell much in holy and cheerful anticipation of the glorious and perfect enfranchisement which yet awaits your soul. It speeds on! Oh, what a deliverance to you will be the Coming of the Lord, should not the Lord anticipate it by the covenant messenger, Death! Then will you, O prisoners of hope, be emancipated from the in being of sin, from all mental beclouding and bodily infirmity, and in the twinkling of an eye, your spirit will breathe the sweet air of liberty, and in a world of wonder, glory, and love, with unfettered and untiring wing, expatiate in the range and sweep of its ever widening, ever receding horizon. That spirit, now free, will, at the trump of the archangel, descend and reunite itself with the slumbering dust,—the dust that sleeps in Jesus,—which shall then be reanimated, and, "delivered from the bondage of corruption" "fashioned like unto Christ's glorious body;" and then, and forever, the last link will be broken that bound me, O sin and death, to you!

"Holy Lord God! I love Your truth,
Nor dare Your least commandment slight,
Yet, pierced by sin, the serpent's tooth,
I mourn the anguish of the bite.
"But though the poison lurks within,
Hope bids me still with patience wait,
Until death shall set me free from sin,
Free from the only thing I hate.
"Had I a throne above the rest,
Where angels and archangels dwell,
One sin, unslain, within my breast,
Would make that heaven as dark as hell.
"The prisoner sent to breathe fresh air,
And blessed with liberty again,
Would mourn were he condemned to wear
One link of all his former chain.
"But oh, no foe invades the bliss,
Where glory crowns the Christian's head
One view of Jesus as He is,
Will strike all sin forever dead."

Human Care Transferred to God

"Casting all your care upon him; for he cares for you." 1 Peter 5:7

"Cast your cares on the Lord and He will sustain you.
He will never let the righteous fall." Psalm 55:22

Were we to take the world's estimate of the real value and happiness of a life of faith in God as the true one, how gloomy, joyless, and forlorn a life would it appear! The world imagines that there is nothing substantial, bright, or social in the religion of Christ—no reality, sunshine, or companionship! But how mistaken! We cite, as disproving this view, the precept we propose in this chapter to illustrate and enforce, which enjoins the transfer of human care to God. Where, in the world's wilderness, grows the flower of heart's ease as it blooms and blossoms here- "Casting all your care upon him; for he cares for you." How full of soothing and repose are these words! What cares have they lightened- what anxieties have they removed; what burdens have they unclasped; and what springs of joy and comfort and hope have they unsealed in many a sad and oppressed heart! But do you not, beloved reader, need to be put in constant remembrance of this divine secret of 'rest amid toil', of 'repose amid disquietude', of 'soothing amid corroding cares', and of 'confidence and hope in the midst of change and depression'? Bewildered and oppressed by the multitude of anxious thoughts within you, is there not a danger of being so absorbed by the care as to overlook the Caretaker? to forget the heart's ease in the overwhelming of the heart's anxiety? Verily we think so.
Hagar, pining with thirst, and blinded by grief, saw not the well of water flowing at her side. The disciples in the storm, filled with alarm, and absorbed by fear, recognized not the Lord Jesus walking to them upon the waves which threatened the foundering of their vessel. Thus often is it with us—thus may it be now with you. We look at the need, and not at Him who supplies it; at the storm, and not at Him who controls it; at the care, and not at Him who assumes it.
Is not the voice of the Lord mightier than the voice of many waters, yes, than the mighty waves of the sea? Is not the Caretaker greater than the care itself? Yet how we limit the Holy One, and magnify and multiply our cares, anxieties, and sorrows! But for the immutability of our redeeming God, whose unseen hand guides, and whose power, almost insensible to ourselves, sustains us, our care would consume us. How often we are upheld, we scarcely know by whom; kept in peace, we scarcely know how; preserved in safety, we scarcely know why.
But "the secret of the Lord is with those who fear Him;" and, sooner or later, we learn that Jesus has done it all, and has done it for His own glory. Sincerely would I, beloved reader, offer you a little help heavenward by inciting you to this transfer of anxious thought and chafing care to God. Lightened a little of your burden, with a more trustful heart and gladsome spirit you will speed your way homeward to that heaven of perfect repose, upon whose threshold you will leave the last anxious thought, and lay down the last earthly care, your weary, panting soul pillowed in eternal repose!
The world through which we pass heavenward—and oh, forget not, Christian pilgrim, it is a passage soon passed—is a world laden and crushed with care. Earthly care confronts us at every step, and in all whom we meet. The knitted brow, the restless eye, the compressed lip, the fevered expression, the bated breath, are as true an index of the mind oppressed with anxious thought, the heart shaded with human sorrow, as the dial is of the sun's altitude.
It is true the great device of the world is to conceal its care from others. But its transient gleam of artificial joy—the forced smile, the excited laugh, the unnatural levity, which imparts an air of happiness and freedom from eating care—but betray to the keen, penetrating eye of the spiritual observer that inward restlessness of the spirit, that lowering anxiety of mind, which can ill be concealed.
"If every man's internal care
Were written on his brow,
How many would our pity share
Who move our envy now!"
But it is of the care peculiar to the Lord's people that we particularly speak. And here we must be cautious to distinguish between the carefulness that is proper in a child of God and the carefulness which is the result of a distrust of God— the offspring of unbelief. We are to be careful, undoubtedly, to maintain good works, or our faith is vain; to take care of our own house, or we shall be found worse than the infidel; we are to care for the interests and prosperity of Christ's Church, or we ignore our individual membership; we are to be careful to walk holily and circumspectly, as followers of the Lamb, or we dishonor Christ. Now this implies a heavy weight of holy care, unslumbering vigilance, and unceasing prayerfulness on our part. These are cares which especially appertain to, and are inseparable from, our Christianity.
But let us consider that state of anxious sinful care which so much weighs down the spirit, so beclouds our spiritual joy, and is so corrosive of the best, holiest, and finest feelings of the soul, but which a simple, childlike confidence in our heavenly Father's promise, care, and love should chasten and moderate, yes, entirely remove. Hence the precept, "Casting all your care upon him; for he cares for you."
We may attempt to classify, but it would be impossible to enumerate, the cares which contribute so much to the mental anxiety and depression of the Christian. The cares of this life enter deeply into the anxiety of which the Lord seeks to lighten us. In proportion to the spiritual tone of the mind, and the closeness of the heart's converse with God and heavenly realities, will be the tenderness of the believer to the chafing and pressure of temporal cares. The more heavenly we grow, the more acutely sensitive do we become to the encroachment and influence of earth and earthly things.
In this connection let me remark that I fear too little prayerful consideration is felt by the Church in behalf of her Christian men of business. Sustaining responsibilities, burdened with cares, depressed by anxieties well-near crushing; earnestly desirous, and that very desire intensifying their feelings, that integrity and uprightness should preserve them, that by no faltering, no receding, no departure from the strictest line of Christian consistency should the cause of Christ be dishonored and their Christian character be compromised; are they sufficiently borne upon our sympathies and prayers?
Do we, in measure, make their burdens, their dangers, their anxieties our own? Do we ask for them of God the grace that will keep them in prosperity, and for the strength and comfort that will sustain and soothe them under the pressure and perils of anxious care? Does the Church of God sufficiently sympathize with her Christian merchants? May not the low standard of commercial morality, which in some departments of trade has obtained in this and other lands; the sad defection from honesty and uprightness which has marked the business transactions of some whose names have stood high in the Church's roll; the frauds, the defalcations, the nefarious dealings; be traceable, in a great degree, to the Church's unfaithfulness in her duty respecting them?
Verily we think so. Oh, let us pray more for godly men of business! Their snares are many; their perils are great, their cares are crushing, their anxieties are absorbing! They demand our Christian sympathy, our tender forbearance, our unceasing supplications, that, in all the temptations and intricacies, perils and anxieties, by which their path is begirt, God may hold them up, and conduct them through; kept from the low arts of trade; from the questionable practices of the world; from an inordinate anxiety for wealth; from every the slightest deviation from the straightest and strictest line of Christian integrity, from the taint and evil of the world, to the honor of the Church and the glory of their Lord.
Christian brethren, we offer you our sympathy, and breathe on your behalf our prayers! You may often lay an anxious, aching brow on your pillow at night, not knowing how you will meet the stern claims of the coming day; your commercial standing—dearer still, your Christian character—at stake. Be still! There is ONE who cares for you! Compose yourself to rest, in the calm assurance that on the morrow God will crown your obedience to the precept by His fulfillment of the promise—"Casting all your care upon him; for he cares for you."
Thus, then, our temporal cares, to us often so depressing, are objects of God's consideration. If godliness has the promise of the life that now is, it follows that no earthly care that saddens the heart or shades the brow is beneath His notice or regard. How many a child of God is struggling with large domestic demands and but slender revenues! Who can tell the troubled, the anxious feelings; the painful forebodings that pass through that mind! One only knows it. To Him there is nothing little, nothing insignificant, nothing beneath His notice and regard!
Are you a widow, with narrowed income and heavy demands? Are you an orphan, combating with loneliness and need? Are you a man of business, sustaining heavy liabilities, involved in perilous investments, and weighed down by ceaseless anxiety and care? Veiled from every eye but God's may be your pressure. These worldly engagements, these temporal cares and anxieties, are not too small for Him!
Then, there often presses upon the heart the anxiety to know the path of duty in which we should walk. This is no small care to the child of God. We are often brought to a standstill, and are, as it were, at our wits' end. Two paths, intersecting each other, diverging to the right and to the left, confront us, and we are perplexed to know which one we should take. Oh for a voice, distinct and familiar, behind us, saying, "This is the way, walk in it!"
In proportion, too, to the tenderness of conscience, and to the closeness and softness of the walk, will be the intense anxiety of the mind to know, and do, and even suffer the will of God. If such be the case with you, be assured that, though your faith and patience may be tried, the Lord will not leave you long in darkness and uncertainty. If the question be, How shall I know the will of my heavenly Father in this matter? you shall not in the end mistake it; for God cares for you.
But there are greater cares than these— the spiritual cares of the soul —which often press heavily upon the heart. You are anxious to know that you have an interest in Christ's redeeming love; that your name is written among the living in Jerusalem; that your sins are pardoned; that your person is adopted, accepted, saved; and that after death you will reign with Jesus forever.
You are anxious, too, that your Christian walk should be obedient, perceptive, believing; that you should be more heavenly minded, growing in knowledge, and grace, and divine conformity to the will of God and the image of Jesus. Ah! these are cares before which all others vanish into insignificance! There are no anxieties, no cares, no burdens like those which touch the present and future interests and well-being of the soul! How many a man would freely and joyfully part with all his worldly possessions for spiritual peace of mind, and for an assured hope of the future! Oh to be quite sure that we are SAVED! What is rank—what is wealth—what is learning— what is fame in comparison with this?—the dust, the foam, the dream, the shadow!
Anxious soul! Do you think that you nurse that spiritual anxiety alone? that no eye is wakeful to see, that no ear is bending to listen, that no heart is interested to sympathize? Ah, yes! He who travailed in sorrow for your salvation is personally, tenderly cognizant of the anxious, the profoundly anxious, desire of your soul that there may not rest the shadow of a shade of doubt and uncertainty upon the fact of its everlasting safety. You are not alone in this soul exercise. Jesus is with you.
The travel of your heart after him, the panting of your spirit for His salvation, the longing of your soul for an assured interest in His love; your tears, your sighs, your desires, your prayers, your watchings; awaken in the heart of your Savior the deepest, tenderest response. Ah! if the cares, anxieties, and solicitude you feel for your soul lie upon your heart with a pressure so intense as to shade the sunshine of life by day, and to bedew your pillow with tears by night, do you think that He does not yet more closely entwine your precious and deathless interests around His heart, who bought you upon the cross, and who wearily trod many a step to seek and find you in the cloudy and dark day, and who will deck His brow with you as a sparkling jewel, when He comes having on His head His many crowns!
But upon whom is the believer to place this care? There is no difficulty in determining. The transfer is at once from the human to the Divine, from the finite to the Infinite! We have but one true Burden bearer—one Almighty Caretaker; even Him whom God has made strong for Himself and strong for us—the Mighty and the Almighty Savior. In the matter of care the Lord would have us deal immediately and only with Himself.
This is the controversy He has with us— our unwillingness to make the transfer to Him. Oh, could you be assured that the friend you best loved on earth could lighten the burden and chase away the care before the evening's sun had set, would you not be found breathing your sorrows into his ear, and reposing your anxieties upon his heart? But to go to God— to pass by the human, and deal only with the Divine— to repair to the arm that was transfixed, and to the bosom that bled upon the cross, and repose your burden upon its power and love, oh, how difficult! -just because it is faith dealing with the Invisible.
And yet, no task so easy, or, in its issue, more blessed— just because it is faith dealing with the Mighty One. But God, guardful of His honor, will not yield this controversy, and, jealous of His love, will not abate one iota of His claim. To Him the transfer must be made. Behold the key that unlocks the mystery of His dealings! Why has He smitten, as with paralysis, that arm upon which you leaned? Why has He chilled, as with death, that bosom on which you reclined? Why has He exhausted, as by a burning drought, that cool spring, whose tide you quaffed? Why has He beclouded those sunny slopes, upheaved those verdant banks, which gave to the landscape of your life an aspect so picturesque, and to life itself a repose and a charm so exquisite?
Oh, but only to win, and woo, and draw you more closely beneath His own outstretched arm, and within His own sheltering bosom! He and He alone will share, and by sharing will soothe and exhaust, your care. Christ loves you too well, has bought you with a price too dear, has entwined you with interests too costly and precious, and has prepared for you a heaven and a destiny too glorious and lasting, to admit a rival, or unite with a partner in this office of Caretaker of the Church.
Oh, thank Him for clearing the path by removing, so kindly and so gently, the object that intercepted your approach to Him, so that no angel, no saint, no minister, no church, no friend, should come between Christ and you, veiling Him for an instant, or in the slightest degree, from your eye.
But you will ask, How is this transfer of care to be made? In the directions which we suggest we would give prominence to the exercise of unquestioning faith. Here there must be a taking God at His word. Our warrant for an act apparently so impossible and presumptuous as the transferring of every thought of anxiety, and feeling of sadness, and pressure of need, to the Great Jehovah must be as divine and unquestionable as the act itself. That warrant is God's revealed, infallible, unalterable word— "Cast your burden on the Lord, and he shall sustain you."
Your faith must credit, receive, trust in, and act upon this word without demur or condition, immediately and unreservedly, because it is the word of the living God! You must believe that God's power is able, and that His love is willing, and that His grace is sufficient to assume the transfer; that Christ, who has borne the heavier pressure of your curse, and your sins, and your very hell, is prepared to sustain, succor, and comfort you, removing your burden of care by absorbing it in Himself.
O wondrous act! O precious life of faith! How happy to us! How glorifying to God! Beloved, can you not, will you not, believe that Jesus at this moment stands prepared to make all your care His own? that He means what He says when He invites you, the weary and the heavy-laden, to Himself for rest? Do you think that He is taunting your sorrow, sporting with your care, trifling with your feelings, mocking your confidence, and asking you to believe, only that He might betray; to trust, only to deceive?
Oh no! This is not the Christ of the Bible. Did He ever deal thus with a poor sinner! Was it ever known that He invited to His feet an anxious, care depressed, burdened soul but to spurn that soul from His presence? Never! Oh, He is too true, too loving, too gentle, too kind, too faithful a Savior for that! Will you, then, wound Him with your doubts, dishonor Him by your unbelief, and force from under you, buffeting, as you are, amid the waves, this divine, sustaining plank— faith in the word and promise of the only true and living God?
Not less potent is prayer as a means of transferring care to God. God often sends the care to rouse us to call upon Him. We need an errand, and He sends a trial; we need an impulse, and He sends a sorrow; we need earnestness and importunity, and He sends the heavy and the continuous stroke— all His waves breaking over us. Prayer is the safety valve of the soul. The heart would break, the spirit would sink, despair would fold its dark shroud around us, but for the privilege of access to God through Christ. Many a burdened believer has exclaimed, "Why sit I here nursing in lonely grief my sorrow? I will arise and give myself to prayer." And the moment he has formed the resolution, before he has presented or even framed his petition, unutterable relief has come. "When my heart is overwhelmed, lead me to the Rock that is higher than I."
What, then, is your sorrow? Is it sin? Arise, and in prayer pour out your confession to Christ, and cast this burden on the Sinbearer. Is it temptation? Disclose it to Him who was once tempted too, and by the same Tempter, and who thus, from experience of what they feel, knows how to succor those who are tempted.
Is it need? Betake yourself to the throne of grace, and let your requests he made known unto God, and in quick and ample response He will supply all your need. Oh, try the experiment of prayer! All others may have failed you— try yet this one! Spread your care before the Lord. His providence and grace stand pledged to meet your every necessity.
"Have you a care, whose presence dread
Expels sweet slumbers from your bed?
To your Redeemer take that care,
And turn anxiety to prayer.
Have you a wish, with which your heart
Would feel it almost death to part?
Entreat your God that wish to crown,
Or give you strength to lay it down.
Have you a friend, whose image dear
May prove an idol worshiped here?
Implore your God that nothing may be
A shadow between heaven and thee.
Whatever the wish that breaks your rest,
Whatever the care that swells your breast,
Spread before God that wish, that care,
And turn anxiety to prayer."
"He cares for you." Such is the encouragement to a compliance with His holy precept. The care of God extends over all. "You open your hand, and supply the needs of every living thing." "You give them their food in due season." Oh, what a God is our God! But if such is God's goodness to His enemies; for He makes His sun to shine on the evil and the good; what must be His goodness to His children! If he has regard to the raven, and feeds it when it cries, will He, do you think, be indifferent to the plaintive note of His "dove, His undefiled one?"
It is an especial care with which God cares for you. He cares for your temporal interests— not one worldly anxiety, not one need of the life, is too insignificant for His regard. He cares for your spiritual interests— for your soul's prosperity, for your mental peace, for your joy of heart, for your growth in grace, for your character, your reputation, your usefulness.
It is personal care. He cares for you. He cares for your individual cares, for your personal interests, never for an instant merging and forgetting your individual claims upon His interest, protection, and love in the great body of His Church. What encouragement this to betake yourself to the Lord, transferring all care from your heart to His!
Let me conclude this chapter with one or two cautionary observations. Do not anticipate care! This is to exceed the limit, which God has prescribed. With the future you have no concern, as you have no knowledge. A covenant God has, from eternity, provided for that future. It is all in the everlasting covenant of grace, and will unfold and assume just that form and complexion which your God sees best. By anticipating care, and thus antedating your future, you grieve the Spirit of God, wound your own peace, and unfit yourself for present duty and trial. When that care comes— if come it should— it will bring with it its own support, and a fulfillment of the promise— "He cares for you."
Do not sit not brooding over your state, deploring its existence, and lamenting your lack of more faith, and grace, and love. Arise, responsive to the precept, and cast your burden upon the Lord, and He will sustain both you and it. This inordinate absorption within yourself will bring to you no relief, no heart's ease, and no nourishment to faith. One uplifted glance— one sight of Jesus— one believing touch of the promise of God, will bring more repose to your anxious spirit, more succor to your burdened mind, than a lifetime of self-absorption.
"No profit can you gain
By self consuming care;
To Him commend your cause,
His ear Attends the softest prayer.
Give to the winds your fears;
Hope, and be undismayed;
God hears your sighs, and counts your tears,
God shall lift up your head.
Through waves, and clouds, and storms,
He gently clears your way:
Wait you His time— your darkest night
Shall end in brightest day.
Remember that this casting of our care on God is a present and a constant duty. It is in the form of the present tense that the Holy Spirit, the Comforter, addresses us: "Casting all your care on Him." Defer it not until the morrow, nor wait a better frame— do it now! A present care will find a present Receiver, a present Helper, and a present relief. The Lord your God neither accepts nor rejects, grants nor denies you, because of the high or the low frame with which you approach Him. To suppose that He did— that the spiritual tone of your mind influenced His decision— were to make the turning point of His love to center in you rather than in Himself, and to argue that God was moved by other motives than those found within His own heart.
God's dealings with us from first to last, in the greatest and in the least; from the love that chose us from everlasting, to the smile that sheds its bright halo around our dying pillow; proceed upon the principle of His most free grace. And since He finds the motive of love and the bestowment of blessing solely within Himself, He, the unchangeable One, will not revoke the love, nor withdraw the gift, influenced by any fickleness or change He traces in you. Then, be your frame low, your heart dead, your faith weak— arise, and draw near to God, for the blood-tipped scepter bids you approach, and the blessing, the richest God can bestow, or you desire, awaits your full acceptance.
Oh yes! the Lord cares for you. Little, obscure, despised, unworthy though you may be, or deem yourself to be, the Lord has an interest in you, the closest, the tenderest that ever dwelt in a heart of love. Bought with the Savior's blood, a temple of the Holy Spirit, sealed with the earnest of the Spirit as a child of God and an heir of glory, oh, there is not a bright angel in heaven for whom God so cares as He cares for you! Will you not respond to this truth by transferring all your care to Him in the exercise of a humble, unquestioning faith?
Others may have ceased to care for you. Change has congealed the warm current of love, distance intercepts its flow, or death has stilled its pulse, and you feel as if there existed in this wide world no heart, no spirit, no mind that responded to, or that chimed and blended with your own. But there is One!— Jesus cares for you. The Heart of God, from which all other hearts kindle their affection, entwines you with its thoughts, its sympathies, its love; and the Eye that searches the universe with a glance, bends upon you its ceaseless look of love.
"When my father and my mother forsake me,"— when human affection quits its last, its latest, its most sacred home on earth; "then the Lord will take me up." The desolateness of widowhood shall claim His sympathy, the unbefriendedness of orphanage shall receive His protection, the suffering and languor of sickness shall be sustained by His grace, the grief of bereavement shall be soothed by His love, and the bed and valley of death shall be cheered and brightened with His radiant presence. Then, confide in and lean upon this divine, this human, this precious, this ever-present Savior. He asks your boundless confidence and your warmest love. Most worthy of it is He. Will you withhold it?
Take that anxious care which lies like lead upon your breast, which chases peace from your mind, joy from your heart, slumber from your pillow, shading all the landscape of life with wintry frost and storm, and lay it upon the heart pierced by the soldier's lance; the heart that distilled its last drop of lifeblood on the tree; and peace shall enfold you beneath its balmy wing.
"Be careful for nothing: but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto god. And the peace of god, which passes all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus."

Shall I not trust my God, Who does so well love me—
Who, as a Father, cares so tenderly?
Shall I not lay the load, Which would my weakness break,
On His strong hand, Who never does forsake?
He does know all my grief, And all my heart's desire;
He'll stand by me until death, through flood and fire.
And He can send relief: My Father's love, so free,
Until the new morning shall remain to me.
Who does the birds supply, Who grass, and trees, and flowers,
Does beautifully clothe, through ceaseless hours;
Who hears us before we cry; Can He my need forget?
No, though He slay me, I will trust Him yet.
When I His yoke do bear, And seek my chief joy
But in His righteousness and sweet employ:
He makes my soul His care; Early and late does bless,
And crowns work and purpose with success.
O blessed be His name! My Father cares for me!
I can no longer unbelieving be; All praise to Him proclaim;
I know He is my Friend; I know the Lord will love me to the end!

Self-Communion

"Commune with your own heart upon your bed, and be still."
Psalm 4:4.

It will be acknowledged by every spiritual and reflecting mind that the tendencies of the age are not the most favorable to the calm, solemn, holy duty of self-communion. We are fallen upon times of great religious, as well as worldly activity and excitement. So strong and rushing, indeed, is the tide, that there exists a fearful and fatal liability in those who profess to walk with God, as did Noah and Enoch, to neglect entirely one of the most essential and effectual helps heavenward- the due, faithful, and constant examination of the spiritual state and condition of their own hearts. To the consideration of this vitally-important subject- a subject so intimately entwined with our progress in the divine life- let us now address ourselves.
The Divine precept is emphatic- "Commune with your own heart upon your bed, and be still;" or, as it is rendered in another and a beautiful version of the Psalms, "Commune with your own heart in your chamber, and be still?" Both renderings are good, but perhaps the latter conveys more distinctly and impressively the idea of retirement for self-communion. "Come, my people, enter into your chambers," is the invitation of God to His Church. Like to this is the Savior's exhortation- "When you pray, enter into your closet." With everything but themselves the great mass of human beings by whom we are surrounded are in the closest communion. Man is in communion with nature in its glories, with science in its wonders, with art in its triumphs, with intellect in its attainments, with power in its achievements, with the creation in its attraction.
There is but one object with which he holds no rational, sacred, and close communion-- from which, though the nearest and the most important, he seems the most widely isolated; that object is- himself! He studies not the wonders of his being, the spirituality of his nature, the solemnity of his relations, the accountability of his actions, the immortality of his destiny. He thinks not of himself, and of death, and judgment, and eternity at the same moment. He will examine and prepare himself for worldly preferment, but his state as a moral being, his position as a responsible being, his future as an accountable and deathless being, absorbs not a moment, awakens not a thought, inspires not an aspiration of his soul! What a fearful verification of and comment upon the word of God, "dead in trespasses and in sins!"
But the saints of God present another and a widely-different class. The religion of Jesus, while it is designed to disarm man of selfishness, and, when enthroned supremely upon the heart, ennobles and expands it with the "expulsive power of a new affection," yet concentrates his most serious, devout, and earnest consideration upon himself. "Man, know yourself," becomes a heathen maxim, in its highest and noblest sense, Christianized. It is of the utmost moment, then, that the saint of God should be kept in perpetual remembrance of this sacred duty of self-communion: its neglect entails immense spiritual deterioration and loss; its observance will, more than all other engagements- for it stimulates to activity all others- effectually advance the soul in its heavenward course.
Self-communion is the topic which will now engage our thoughts- may we give to it the devout and earnest consideration which a subject so closely intertwined with our personal advance in heavenly fitness demands! Oh that this chapter of our work may be written and read under the especial anointing of God the Holy Spirit! Let us endeavor to ascertain what this sacred duty involves.

Know Your True Spiritual State Before God. In the first place, my beloved reader, commune with your own heart, to know its true spiritual state as before God. This will bring under your review the subject of conversion- a state which many take for granted without scriptural evidence of the fact; a great question in the matter of salvation, which, to speak after the manner of the schoolmen, too many beg- they assume the existence of their personal conversion without proof. And yet how vast the consequences of the most momentous question they take for granted! There is no statement clearer in God's Word than this, that to enjoy heaven we must become heavenly. God cannot cease to be God; therefore He could not make us, like Himself, perfectly happy, unless He made us, like Himself, perfectly holy.
The Holy Spirit must make us new creatures- the subjects of a nature that is Divine- in order to fit us for the enjoyment of a heaven that is pure. The questions, then, which we must weigh are- Have I passed from death unto life? Has my heart been convinced of sin? Am I a subject of the new birth? and from a state of insensibility to objects, and feelings, and hopes that are spiritual, eternal, and divine, have I been quickened by the regenerating Spirit to walk with God, and before the world, in newness of life? These are personal and serious questions, which must not, which cannot, be evaded without imperiling all that is most dear and precious to your everlasting well-being. Oh, give to your eyes no slumber until the subject of the new birth has awakened in your mind the profoundest thought. It is spoken by Him who is the Truth, and it is written by Him who is the Spirit of Truth, "Unless a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God."
Heaven or hell is suspended upon the issue! My reader! are you sensible that within you all things have been made new? that, whereas once you were blind, now you see? that your heart is in sympathy with objects that are spiritual, with enjoyments that are holy, with engagements that are heavenly?- in a word, that your views of sin and self, of God and of Christ and of the gospel, are radically, essentially changed, and that you seem to yourself the subject of a new-born existence, and the occupant of a new-created world?

Know The Existence and Condition of the Love of God in Your Own Heart. Commune with yourself to ascertain the existence and condition of the love of God in your heart. Enmity or love to Jehovah characterize us; there is no modified state between these extremes. A careful inspection of our hearts as to this principle will enable us correctly to decide our spiritual condition before the Lord. Do you love God because He is holy? His law, because it is righteous? His government, because it is divine and just? His ways, because they are wise, and right, and sure? Do you love Him for sending His Son into the world to save sinners? Do you love Him as a Father, as a Friend, as a God in covenant relation? How stands your heart, O believer! with God as to its love?
Christian, what is the warmth and vigor and ardor of your affections towards God? Do you so love God in Christ as, under its constraining influence, to do what He commands, to yield what He asks, to go where He bids, to hate what He hates, and to love what He loves; yes, to embrace Him with an affection simple, single, and supreme, oblivious, if need be, of every other claimant, and satisfied, if so He willed it, with Him alone? Oh, what is the state of your love to Jesus- frigid, selfish, inconstant; or, glowing, self-denying, fixed? You ask how your love to Christ may be tested and increased? Test it by obedience; "If you love me, keep my commandments." Increase it by a more close, believing dealing with Christ's love to you. Your love to Christ will never increase by feeding upon itself. You must light your torch of affection at the altar of Calvary. You must go there, and learn and believe what the love of Jesus is to you: the vastness of that love-- the self-sacrifice of that love-- how that love of Christ labored and wept, bled, suffered, and died for you. Can you stand before this love- this love so precious, so great, so enduring, so self-consuming, so changeless, and know that for you was this offering, for you this cross, for you this agony, for you this scorn and insult, for you this death, and feel no sensibility, no emotion, no love? Impossible! Sit not down, then, in vain regrets that your love to God in Christ is so frigid, so fickle, so dubious; go and muse upon the reality, the greatness, the present intercession of the Savior's love to you, and if love can inspire love, then methinks that, while you muse, the fire will burn, and your soul shall be all in flame with love to God. "The Lord direct your heart into the love of God."

Know Your Own Heart as to its Views of, and Feelings towards the Lord Jesus Christ. Commune with your own heart as to its views of, and its feelings towards, the Lord Jesus. The great question, which decides so much is, "What do you think of Christ?" Is it with you a reality that Christ died for sinners? Do you fully credit the promise by which God has engaged to accept through His sacrifice and intercession all who believe in His name? Do you believe Him to be divine, accept His obedience as justifying, and His death as sacrificial? Has it pleased God to reveal His Son in you? Is He precious to your heart? And do you receive Him, trust in Him, follow Him, and hope to be with Him forever, as all your salvation and all your desire? You ask me how you may come to a right conclusion in the matter. You long, you yearn, you pray to know whether or not you love Christ, are one of His disciples, and shall certainly be with Him where He is.
But why doubt it? Is the matter so difficult? If your mind were filled with admiration of a being, could you question the emotion thus awakened? If your heart were captivated by an object of superior intellect and beauty-- and that object, towards which the yearning and clinging of your affection went forth in a warm and ceaseless flow, became supremely enthroned in your sympathy and regard, would the fact admit of a moment's doubt? Would you call in question the existence, the reality, or even the intensity of your love? Impossible! The higher and more momentous question of your attachment to Christ admits of a yet easier solution.
Do I love Jesus? Is He the object of my supreme admiration and delight? Is He the chosen, the preferred, the supreme Being of my warmest affection? Is He precious to my soul? And am I trusting believingly, and exclusively, and without mental reservation, as a sinner utterly undone, self-abhorred, and self-condemned, to His atoning sacrifice? And still you hesitate! And yet you doubt! It is still a problem which you tremble to solve! You think of your sinfulness, your unworthiness, of the taint and flaw and unloveliness of all you are doing, of your faint love, of your weak faith, of your doubtful sincerity, and then you shrink from the thought of claiming an interest in Christ, and resign yourself to the conviction that your salvation is an utter impossibility- that you are not, and never will be, saved!
But to take a closer view of the matter. Upon what ground do you base this hesitation and justify this self-exemption from the great salvation? It is not for your worth that you are saved, but for Christ's worth. It is not on the ground of your personal merit that you are justified, but on the ground of Christ's merit alone. It is not upon the plea of your fitness, your tears, your confessions, your prayers, your duties, that God forgives and accepts you, but simply and exclusively upon the one plea of the Savior's sacrifice. The BLOOD of Christ pardons, the RIGHTEOUSNESS of Christ justifies you, and this is all that you require, or that God demands.
The great work is all done- it is not to be done. It is complete, finished, accepted, sealed. And you, as a lost sinner, without holiness, without strength, without one plea that springs from what you are, have nothing to do. Believe, and you are saved. Believing is not doing, it is not meriting, it is TRUSTING- it is the simple exercise of a faith in Christ which God gives, and which the Holy Spirit produces in the heart; so that your salvation, from beginning to end, is entirely out of yourself, in another. With what clearness and emphasis has the Spirit of truth set forth this: "By the works of the law shall no flesh be justified," (Gal. 2:16.) "But to him that works not, but believes on him that justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness," (Rom. 4:5.) All your own works, until your faith embrace the Lord Jesus, are "dead works," and dead works never took a soul to heaven!
You need as much the ATONING BLOOD to purge you from dead works as to purge you from deadly sins. Hear the words of the Holy Spirit- "How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from DEAD WORKS to serve the living God?" (Heb. 9:14.) And still you ask, "What then must I DO to be saved?" Do! I answer- NOTHING! All is done, completely and for ever done! Blessed, O thrice blessed be God! Christ has done it all- paid it all- endured it all- suffered it all- finished it all- leaving you, O sin-burdened, anxious, trembling, hesitating soul, nothing to do, and only to believe.
Will not this suffice? Will you demur a moment longer to commit yourself to Christ, to lay your soul on Jesus, to accept the salvation, the heaven, the crown, the eternal life He proffers you as the free bestowments of His grace? Your sins, countless as the stars, are no barrier to your salvation if you but believe in Jesus. Your transgressions, deep as scarlet and as crimson, shall not be of too deep a dye if you but plunge into the fountain of Christ's blood. His delight, His glory is to receive sinners- to receive you. And the moment you cease to give over doing, and begin only to believe, from that moment your soul rests from its labor, you enter into peace, and are forever saved!

Know the Ruling Principles of Your Actions. Commune with your own heart touching its ruling principles of action. It is a law of our moral being that the human heart must be governed by some all-controlling, all-commanding principle-- some secret potent spring that moves and regulates the entire powers of the soul. What is the ruling principle of your heart? Have you examined yourself to know?
Beware of self-treachery, the most easy and the most fatal of all species of deception. There are many deceitful things in the world. The wind is deceitful, the ocean is deceitful, the creature is deceitful, but the human "heart is deceitful above all things," and in nothing, probably, more so than in the principles and motives which govern and sway it. Oh, it is appalling to think what self-idolatry and self-seeking and self-complaisance may reign in our hearts, prompt and govern our actions!
How carefully and nicely may we adjust our sail and shape our course to catch the soft breath and win the low murmur of man's approbation and acclaim, as we float on the bosom of the stream, while ostensibly we are doing all for God! But, retreating to my chamber, let me, in solitude, self-scrutiny, and prayer, commune with my own heart. Laying bare, as with the deepest incision of the knife, its spiritual anatomy before God-- my motives, purposes, and aims-- can I say, "Lord! sinful though I am, the chief of sinners, yet do I desire to be ruled in my life by Your Word, to be governed in my principles by Your fear, to be constrained in Your service by Your love, and to make Your honor and glory the end of all I do." Thus ruled and swayed, how fragrant and acceptable to Him your lowliest service, your lowest offering!
It may be but the "widow's mite" you have cast into the treasury- to Him it is more costly than the jeweled diadem. It may be but a "cup of cold water" you have offered to a disciple in His name- to Him it is as beauteous and sparkling as the crystal river which flows from beneath His throne. It may be a service for Christ you have done, imperfect in itself and trying to your spirit, unrecognized and unrewarded by others; yet, the tribute of your heart, in harmony with His will, and promotive of His glory, this box of precious ointment which you have broken shall fill earth with the fragrance of your love, and heaven with the music of Christ's praise.

Know the Heavenly Tendencies of Your Own Heart. Commune with your own heart, and ascertain its heavenly tendencies-- whether the shadows of time or the realities of eternity have the ascendancy. Let no child of God deem such a scrutiny needless. The Word of God is replete with exhortations to the Church to set its affections on things above and not on the earth; to seek first the kingdom of God; to have its conversation in heaven. Encompassed as we are by earth, blinded by objects of sense, weighed down by human cares and anxieties, we need to be watchful against their secular influence upon our minds.
It is good, therefore, to retire to our chamber and examine the spiritual barometer of the soul, to adjust the balance of the affections, and to see that divine and eternal realities are obtaining a growing ascendancy and pre-eminence. How distinct and impressive the precept-- "Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him."- "Be not conformed to this world, but be you transformed."- "Who gave himself for our sins, that he might deliver us from this present evil world, according to the will of God and our Father."

Know Your Own Heart as to its Real and Habitual Fellowship with God. Commune with your own heart as to its real and habitual fellowship with God. Do we pray? What is the character of our prayers? Do we pray in the Spirit? Is our prayer communion? Do we walk with God as a Father, and with Christ as our best Friend? And is the throne of grace the sweetest, holiest, dearest spot to us on earth? For the lack of this honest communion with our heart, there is often an essential defect in our communion with the heart of Jesus. Our hearts grow so cold that we are insensible to the warmth of His. There is so little self-examination touching prayer, that our devotions glide into a cold, abstract formality, and petitions and supplications which should be as swift arrows shot from the bow of faith entering into the presence of God, congeal in icicles upon our lips. Oh, look well to the state of your heart in the matter of prayer- it is the true, the safest test of the spiritual condition of your soul. See that your devotions are the utterances of the Spirit, sprinkled with atoning blood, and offered in the lowly, loving spirit of adoption, the breathing of a child to God as your Father. This is "fellowship," and all other is but the name.

Know Your Progress in the Divine Life. Commune with your own heart as to your progress in the divine life. It is impossible to know correctly the distance we are on our heavenward way, the stages we have traveled, the points we have reached, without self-communion. The mariner examines his ocean-chart, the traveler the milestones of the road, to mark the progress he has made homewards; how much more necessary this for the voyager to eternity, for the traveler to the heavenly Zion! Everything in nature is advancing- nothing stationary. Progress is the universal law of the universe. Is the renewed soul- the heavenly traveler- alone to stand still? Is the living water, welled within the soul of the regenerate, alone to be stagnant? Is the kingdom of grace alone exempt from the operation of this law of progress? Let your inquiry then be- How high is my sun in the moral heavens? How near is it to its glorious setting? How far am I from the haven where my soul longs to be, sheltered from storm and billow in eternal safety and repose? "Knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep: for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed," (Rom. 13:11.)

And, then, as to the dealings of our heavenly Father, how close should be our self-communion! God deals with us that we might deal with ourselves, and then with Him. An affliction often recalls our thoughts and sympathies and care from others, and concentrates them upon our more neglected self. "They made me the keeper of the vineyard, but my own vineyard have I not kept." Why has the Lord, perhaps, taken you apart from the activities of life, from the duties of your family, and from the religious engagements which have been so exciting and absorbing? Just that in this lone hour, in this quiet chamber, on this bed of sickness and reflection, you might be the better schooled in the much-neglected duty of self-communion. God would have you now ascertain the why and the wherefore of this present discipline: what backsliding this stroke is to correct; what sin this chastening is to chide; what declension this probing is to discover; what neglected duty this rebuke is to make known; what disobeyed command this rod is to reveal.
Oh, how needed and wholesome and precious is self-communion now! Never, perhaps, before has your heart been laid open to such inspection, subjected to such scrutiny, submitted to such tests. Never have you been brought into such close contact with yourself; never has self-communion appeared to you so needed, so solemn, and so blessed as in this quiet chamber. Ah, my much-abused, much-neglected heart! how have I allowed you to wander, to be enamored, enchained, won, and possessed by others! How has your spiritual verdure withered, how have your fresh springs dried, your beauty faded, and your strength decayed! How cold, how inconstant, how unfaithful, how unkind have you been to your best, your dearest, your heavenly Friend! But for the restraints of His grace and the constraints of His love, and the checks of His gentle corrections, where, oh, where would you have gone? I thank you, Lord for Your discipline- for the shaded path, the severed tie, the lonely sorrow, the loving, lenient correction that recalls my heart to You!

Know the State of Your Heart Touching the Spirit of Thanksgiving and Praise. Commune with your own heart to ascertain its state touching the existence and exercise of the spirit of thanksgiving and praise. There is scarcely any part of our religious experience that receives less attention and insight than this. And in consequence of its neglect, we lose much personal holiness, and God much glory. Praise is as much an element of our Christianity, as distinctly a duty and a privilege, as prayer. And yet how little of it do we exhibit! We are so absorbed by the trials and discouragements of the Christian pilgrimage as to overlook its blessings and its helps. We dwell so much upon the somber coloring of the daily picture of life as to be insensible to its brighter hues.
But did we deal more with the good and less with the evil; did we weigh our mercies with our trials; were we to reflect that if one sorrow is sent, how much heavier a sorrow that one may have prevented-- if one trial comes, how much greater that trial might have been-- and that when the Lord sends us one discomfort, or permits one reverse, He sends us many comforts, and crowns our arms with many victories-- that there is not a dispensation of His providence, whatever its form and complexion, that is not a vehicle of mercy, that does not breathe a beatitude-- that the blessing of God, the smile of Jesus, and the voice of the Spirit's love, are in every event and incident and circumstance of our history-- then, what a more thankful, praiseful spirit should we cherish!
How should we examine our hearts to discover and expel thence the lurking spirit of murmur and rebellion and fretting against the Lord! how should we uplift every window, and remove every veil that would admit the beams of God's goodness entering and penetrating every recess, and lighting up the entire soul with the sunshine of mercy, and making it vocal with the music of praise! I have exhorted you, beloved reader, to cultivate self-communion as to the matter of prayer; with equal point and earnestness do I exhort you to this holy duty as to the matter of praise.
There exists a serious defect in the Christianity, a sad lack in the religious experience of many of the Lord's people touching this holy exercise. The Lord has declared, "Whoever offers praise glorifies me." And the holy apostle, speaking by the Spirit, exhorts, "Be anxious for nothing; but in everything by prayer and supplication, with THANKSGIVING, let your requests be made known unto God." And in another place we learn how comprehensive is this precept, "Giving THANKS always for all things unto God and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ," (Eph. 5:20.) Thanks always for ALL things! Then I am to cultivate a feeling of gratitude and to breathe a spirit of praise for all that my God and Father pleases to send me. I am always to be in a thankful, praiseful spirit for all the dispensations of His providence and grace.
What a holy state will my soul then be in! What happiness will it ensure to my heart, and what a revenue of glory will accrue to God! How will it lighten my burdens, soothe my cares, heal the chaffings of sorrow, and shed gleams of sunshine upon many a lonely, dreary stage of my journey. I am too little praiseful. I am looking only to the crossing of my will, to the disappointment of my hopes, to the foil of my plans, to what my Father sees fit to restrain and withhold, and not to the mercies and blessings, bright as the stars which glow and chime above me, and numerous as the sands of the ocean upon which in pensive sadness I tread; therefore it is that while those stars chant His praise, and those sands speak His goodness and power, I alone am silent! And yet, my Father, there is nothing in Yourself nor in Your dealings which ought not to inspire my deepest gratitude and praise to You!

Know with Certainty your Possession of Heart Religion. If, my beloved reader, there is one caution which I would urge with deeper emphasis of meaning and solemnity of spirit than another, it is this- be not satisfied without the clearest evidence of the personal possession of HEART-RELIGION. In nothing does there exist a greater tendency, a more easy road to fatal self-destruction than in this. The substitutes for heart-religion are so many and subtle, that without the closest scrutiny and the most rigid analysis of religious feeling and action, we may be betrayed, unsuspectingly to ourselves, into the gravest error.
You may be religious- very religious- conscientiously religious, and yet be destitute of vital true Christianity. Denominational partisanship is not true Christianity. Religious activity is not true Christianity. You may be the warm promoter and patron of that which is Christian and philanthropic and useful in its nature-- the school, the asylum, the bazaar, the society-- and yet not possess true Christianity! You may aid in the building of churches, in the appointment of ministers, in the securing of endowments, in the sanitary, moral, and intellectual well-being of a community, and still be destitute of VITAL true Christianity. You may submit to the rite of baptism, may go to the Lord's table, may take upon you in any form the vows of God, and yet remain without a changed heart and a renewed mind.
All this which I have been describing is but religious still life- the mere galvanism, the simulation, the counterfeit of vital godliness- a wretched copy of the original! Examine yourself by these tests: Do I know that my sins are pardoned through Christ? Have I peace with God in Jesus? Am I living in the enjoyment of the Spirit of adoption? Have I in my soul the happiness, the joy, the consolation, the hope which heart-religion imparts? Or- solemn thought!- am I endeavoring to quiet my conscience, to stifle self-reflection, to divert my thoughts from my unsatisfactory, unhappy condition and state of mind by the religious substitutes and subterfuges with which the present age so profusely abounds, and which, with those who are ensnared by them, pass for real spiritual life? Oh, commune faithfully with your own heart touching this matter!

Directions as to the Manner in which Self Communion is to be Engaged. A few directions as to the manner of engaging in this solemn duty of self-communion.
A spiritual work, we must, in its engagement, seek earnestly the aid of the Holy Spirit. He alone can enable us to unlock the wards, to unravel the mystery, and to penetrate into the veiled depths of our own heart. We need the knowledge, the grace, the love of the Spirit in a task so purely spiritual as this. Let us, then, betake ourselves to the Holy Spirit, invoke His power, supplicate His grace, and seek His renewed anointing. Our hearts His perpetual home, enshrined there in the new creation He has formed for Himself, He is better acquainted with them than we are ourselves, and is prepared to aid us faithfully and successfully to discharge this difficult and humbling task of self-communion. "You have an unction from the Holy One, and know all things." This divine anointing will essentially assist you in an experimental knowledge of yourself.
Blend communion with Christ with self-communion. Let converse with your own heart be in unison with converse with the heart of God. Endeavor to realize that in this sacred engagement God is with you, His thoughts towards you thoughts of peace, and the feelings of His heart the warm pulsations of His love. Associate all views of yourself with this view of God: that whatever discoveries you arrive at of waywardness and folly, idolatry and sin-- however dark and humiliating the inward picture-- not a frown of displeasure shall glance from His eye, nor a word of reproach breathe from His lips. Oh, do you think that He will join in your self-accusation? that because you loathe, and abhor, and condemn yourself, He will likewise loathe, abhor, and condemn you? Never. Listen to His words- "Thus says the high and lofty One that inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy; I dwell in the high and holy place, with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite ones."
Bending low at His feet, in penitential acknowledgment of sin, in the holy act of self-communion and prayer, no atmosphere shall encircle and embrace you but the atmosphere of Divine forgiving love. I venture to suggest another and the most important direction in this work of self-communion-- Commune with your own heart, looking fully to the cross of Christ. Without this, self-examination may induce the spirit of bondage.
It should never be entered upon but upon the principles, and in the spirit of the gospel. It is only as we deal closely with the Atonement, we can deal closely with sin. It is only as we deal faithfully with the blood, that we can deal faithfully with our own hearts. Overwhelming were the revelations of a rigid self-scrutiny but for the hold faith maintains of the sacrifice of Christ- the close, realizing apprehension it has of the cross of Jesus. You must commune with Christ's heart and your own heart at the same moment! Looking at Jesus in the face, you will be enabled to look your sins in the face; and as your love to Him deepens, so will deepen your sin and self-abhorrence.
As has been beautifully remarked, "for one look at yourself, take ten looks at Christ;" no dark discovery will then sink you to despair. Ah, how little we deal with the heart of our Lord! We find finite depths of iniquity in our own, but we forget the infinite depths of grace that are in His. Ours is cold and fickle in its love and constancy- His is overflowing with a love as changeless and immutable as His being. Oh, then, take every discovery you make in this humbling task of self-scrutiny to Christ.
Remember that if you are a believer in the Lord Jesus, every sin and infirmity and deficiency you discover, Christ has died for, He has shed His blood for, and has forever put away; and that, repairing anew to His atonement and His grace, you shall have your iniquities subdued, and your conscience purified, and your soul reinstated in a sense of pardon and Divine acceptance. It is beneath the cross alone that sin shall be seen, hated, conquered, and forsaken. Sin, guilt, unbelief, impenitence, cannot live a moment under the sacred shadow of the cross of Christ. Drag your foe there, and it is slain. Go there, my soul, and weep, mourn, and love; and in communing with your own heart, oh, forget not the yet deeper, closer communion with the heart of Jesus!

We will group together a few of the hallowed BLESSINGS that result from this habit of self-communion. In the first place, it will help to keep you acquainted with the true state of your soul. By this daily survey you will know how matters stand between God and your own conscience. Sin shall not seek supremacy, and you not know it; the world will not obtain an ascendancy, and you not be conscious of it; the creature will not become idolatrous, and you not be suspicious of its encroachment; Christ will not grow less in your estimation and love, and you remain insensible to the change. Self-communion will keep you whole nights upon your watch-tower, and the foe shall not surprise you.
The duty, too, will increasingly deepen the conviction of your individuality. You will feel it to be a solemn privilege to commune with your own heart; and thus your own responsibility- a fact so lamentably overlooked- will appear in its proper and impressive light. How few indulge in this searching inquiry into the state of their own hearts, lest their self-esteem should be lowered! Hence it is that we meet continually with people possessed of great shrewdness and sagacity in all other matters who are most lamentably ignorant of themselves. Many have obtained an extraordinary knowledge of mankind in general, and can discover at once the weak points of every individual, but are pitiably blind to every one of their own infirmities: it is amusing to observe that of all people within the circle of their acquaintanceship they are perhaps the only parties to whom their own failings are unknown.
Prosecuting honestly and vigorously this self-research, you will have less time and still less inclination to examine and judge your fellows. Vain and officious attempts to penetrate and unveil the hearts of others will give place to the yet more neglected, important, and humbling work of examining, unveiling, and searching your own heart. Oh that all who profess the name of the Lord Jesus were more deeply concerned about the spiritual condition of themselves as in the sight of God! There would then be less censoriousness and uncharitableness, less judging the motives and condemning the actions of others, and more humility, kindness, and love in the Church of God.
Commune with your own heart, and leave to others the solemn responsibility and duty of communing with theirs. To their Master they stand or fall. Enter into your chamber, and in the solemn, the awful stillness of an hour spent alone with God, deal with your own heart and be still. This work faithfully done, you will emerge thence too much filled with astonishment and condemnation at the discoveries you have made of your own self, to examine, judge, and condemn others!
Self-communion, too, will greatly conduce to growth in personal holiness. The eye will be more concentrated upon the seat of evil, the sentinel of your heart will be more wakeful, and sin and temptation will have less power to surprise and overcome you.
It will also promote true humility. Self-communion will lead to self-acquaintance, and this in its turn will dispel those vain delusions and conceits with which the flattery of others may have inflated us. Alas that there should be so much religious flattery and compliment- the most ensnaring and injurious of all species of adulation- among professors of religion! Here is the antidote- self-knowledge! This will turn the fine edge of the fatal weapon- self-communion! The too fond and partial opinion of your graces, your spiritual attainments and your usefulness, expressed by others, will leave you unscathed if you are found in much communion with your own heart in your chamber.
Few spiritual engagements, too, will more vigorously promote in your soul the yet higher and more solemn time of prayer. To know in some degree ourselves-- the heart, whose infirmities others see not, nor even suspect, but which we know to be so vile-- is to impel us to prayer.
Once more, how precious will Jesus grow with growing self-communion! How will it endear His atonement, His grace, yes, Himself, to the heart! That engagement which deepens the conviction of our own sinfulness, helplessness, and need, which discovers to us taint and flaw and imperfection in the "hidden part," the fountain all poisoned and impure, must deepen our sense of the infinite worth and preciousness of the Savior. Where can we look with one gleam of hope but to His blood and righteousness? That sacrifice offered once for all, that divine atonement, that perfect work, that righteousness that raises us above all demerit into the sunshine of God's presence, the light of which reveals not a speck upon us, just meets our case, quells our fears, and assures us of divine acceptance.
Surely, then, the closer the acquaintance we form with ourselves, while it throws us upon the Savior, must render Him an object increasingly precious to our hearts. Dealing closely with our own selves in the time of God's dispensations will elucidate much that is obscure, explain much that is mysterious, and soothe much that is painful and sad. When the Psalmist was sorely tried in his soul, when his sore ran in the night and ceased not, when his soul refused to be comforted, and his spirit was overwhelmed, when he was so troubled that he could not speak, then came the remedy: "I call to remembrance my song in the night: I commune with my own heart: and my spirit made diligent search."
And when from this process of self-communion-- searching into all the thousand memories of God's past loving-kindness and faithfulness laid up in the heart-- he arose, he arose a victor over all his dark forebodings, and gloomy fears, and depressing sorrows; his faith confirmed in the truth that the Lord never casts off His people, that His promise fails not for evermore, that He had not forgotten to be gracious, nor in anger had shut up His tender mercies.
Is your heart searching for one spring of comfort, for one ray of hope, for one throb of love in this the long, dreary night of your sorrow? Search, O child of God! for you shall find some stored remembrance there of God's past faithfulness and love, and this shall be a token to you that all that the Lord your God has been to you, He is now, and will be forever.
"When my heart is overwhelmed, lead me to the Rock that is higher than I." "Be still!" Let communion with your own heart soothe it to perfect peace and repose, calm in the assurance that nothing shall separate it from God's love-- that the government of all worlds and all beings and all things is upon Christ's shoulders-- that your heavenly Father is causing all things in your individual history to work together for good-- and that you may wait with confidence, quietness, and cheerful composure the issue of the night of gloom and tears which now enshrouds your soul within its gloomy pavilion.
"Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts: and see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting."

Backsliders Returning

"Return, you backsliding children, and I will heal your backslidings. Behold, we come unto you; for you are the Lord our God."—Jeremiah. 3:22.

There are some unveilings of God's heart, which can only be understood and met by responsive unfoldings of ours. It is not the flinty, impervious rock that welcomes and absorbs the heaven-distilling dew. Upon such an object in nature, beautiful and grand though it may be, the life-quickening moisture, thus descending, is a thankless and fruitless offering—a useless expenditure of one of nature's richest treasures. But let that dew, noiseless and unseen, fall upon the flower, the herb, the tree,—the earth which the ploughshare has upturned and the furrow has broken,—and how refreshing the boon, and how rich the return! Thus is it with such an exhibition of the heart of God as that which we have just presented—inimitable in its tenderness, unsurpassed in its condescension and grace. Let these words distill upon any other than a heart humbled, softened, lying low in a low place, in the consciousness of its sinful departure, its sad backsliding from God, and they awake no tender, holy, grateful response. How beautiful are the reciprocal influences of the human and the divine, as presented in the narrative! "A voice was heard upon the high places, weeping and supplications of the children of Israel: for they have perverted their way, and they have forgotten the Lord their God." That voice of weeping entered into the ears of God, and lo! the gracious invitation—"Return, you backsliding children, and I will heal your backslidings." And then follows the instant and grateful response—"Behold, we come unto you; for you are the Lord our God." Mark, how divine and restoring grace gently falls upon the lowly, penitent, returning soul; and then how the sin-contrite heart of the child goes forth to meet and embrace the sin-forgiving heart of the Father. Few will read the pages of a work designed to proffer a helping hand to Zion's travelers to whom that hand will be more needful and acceptable than the awakened, returning backslider. To such, languid and fainting, depressed and despairing, hesitating to return, doubting God's welcome,—evidences lost, soul-beclouded, fears rising, hope veiled,—the strongest cordials of God's most gracious, full, and free promises are needful to rouse, revive, and reassure the wanderer that the Lord invites, receives, and welcomes the returning backslider—the child retracing his way back to his forsaken Father.

God addresses them as backsliding CHILDREN. He can never forget His parental relation to them, though they may forget or abuse their filial relation to Him. Children though we are, adopted, sealed, and inalienably entitled to all the covenant blessings of adoption, we are yet backsliding children. The heart is ever swerving from God. The renewed soul possesses the principle of its own departure, contains the elements of its own declension, and but for the electing love, the restraining grace, the illimitable power of God, would destroy itself entirely and forever. Having in a former treatise (Personal Declension and Revival of Religion in the Soul) gone somewhat at length into the nature, causes, symptoms, and recovery of spiritual declension, my object now is specifically to meet that state of lukewarmness, tenderness, and hesitancy which marks the tremulousness of the contrite heart returning to God.

The language in which God addresses you is most reassuring. He calls you "children;" though a backslider, yet a child. Can the human parent ever forget, in the deepest provocation of his offspring, that still he is his child? God here meets His wanderer just where that wanderer stands most in need of a Divine assurance. What relation is it which spiritual backsliding the most contravenes, which sin the most obscures, and of which unbelief and Satan, presuming upon that backsliding, would suggest to the mind the strongest suspicion and doubt? We answer—the relation of Divine sonship. The backslider reasons thus—"Is my adoption real? Can I be a child of God, and prove so base, sin so deeply, and depart so far from my God? If a son, why am I so rebellious, disobedient, and unfaithful? Surely I cannot belong to the adoption of God, and grieve and wound the Spirit of adoption thus?" Now God meets the wanderer just at this critical juncture. He declares that though a backslider, yet he is still His child, and that no departure however distant, and that no sin however aggravated, has impaired the strength or lessened the tenderness, tarnished or shaded the luster of that relation. If God, then, comes forth, and, despite our backsliding, recognizes our son-ship, and acknowledges us as His children, who shall dispute or contravene the fact? "Let God be true, and every man a liar." Such, beloved, is the first consolation I suggest to your sad and depressed soul. Could it be surpassed by anything else I may offer? What! does God still call you His child? Does He not disown and disinherit you as a son of God and an heir of glory? Ah, no! He cannot forget that He has predestinated you to the adoption of children, that His Spirit has been sent into your heart, and that in happier days gone by you have often called Him "Abba, Father." And although you have been rebellious, backsliding, and stiff-necked, yet, taking with you words and turning to the Lord your God, He meets you as once He met His repenting, mourning Ephraim— "I have surely heard Ephraim bemoaning himself . . . Is Ephraim my dear SON? is he a pleasant CHILD? for since I spoke against him, I do earnestly remember him still: therefore my affections are troubled for him; I will surely have mercy upon him, says the Lord," (Jer. 31:18, 20.) Clear is it, then, that God's children do backslide; that it is no strange thing that their love to Him should wax cold, their faith decline, their strength decay, their zeal slacken, their godly frames grow sleepy and inert, the spirit of prayer be restrained, the means of grace be neglected; and, as a consequence of all this inward declension, the world should have an ascendancy, Satan prevail, and the sin that does most easily beset them attain a momentary triumph. But still they are God's children,—O wondrous grace! O changeless love!—and chastened, corrected, rebuked, and humbled, their heavenly Father will restore them to His pardoning love and gracious favor, and they shall again walk with Him filially, humbly, softly, as His dear children, "when He is pacified towards them for all that they have done."

What an invitation! "RETURN!" It is GOD who speaks it—the God from whom we have revolted, departed, and gone so far astray. It is the word of our Father, against whom we have rebelled, so deeply, so grievously sinned. He trammels His invitation with no conditions. His simple word is—"Return unto me!" And more than this,—He has placed before us an open door of return through Jesus His beloved Son. The covenant of works provided no restoration for the soul that departed from God under the first testament. But the covenant of grace has this distinction, this glorious feature—it places before the penitent backslider, the contrite child, an open door of return, a way of restored pardon, joy, and peace, and bids him enter. The Lord Jesus is this open door. The blood of Jesus, the righteousness of Jesus, the intercession of Jesus, the grace of Jesus, the quenchless love of Jesus, the outstretched hand of Jesus, unite in guiding the trembling footstep of the returning soul back to its Father. The present efficacy and the continuous presentation of the Lord's sacrifice in heaven, blended with His intercessory work, personally and constantly prosecuted before the throne, are a warrant that this door to God shall never be closed while there lives a penitent sinner to enter it. Beware of shading the luster of this truth—the present efficacy of the blood. "The blood of Jesus Christ CLEANSES"—it is in the form of the present tense the great truth is put. The past is gone, the future all to us unknown—it is with the present we have to deal. A present sorrow needing comfort, a present perplexity needing guidance, a present burden demanding support, a present sin asking forgiveness, with a present Savior prepared to meet and supply it all. Grasp this truth with all the intensity of your faith under present circumstances. Brood not over what is past, yield to no forebodings and fears as to what may be the future—grapple with the present. For it you have a door, which God Himself has opened and which neither man, nor Satan, nor sin, shall shut. You have a throne of grace now inviting your approach; and you have the blood of Jesus with which to enter, as new, as efficacious, as prevalent, and as free as when it streamed from His sacred body on the cross. Let there be no postponement, then, of your return to God. Tarry for no more favorable moment, wait not for a better frame, dream not that Christ will be more willing to present, or that God will be more ready to receive you at any future time than now; or, that by delaying you will be more worthy of His acceptance. Vain reasoning! God says, "Return unto me, and He means by this, "Return NOW!"

And what is the promise? "I will heal your backslidings." Backsliding from the Lord involves wounds, bruises, dislocation. It wounds the conscience, it bruises the soul, it breaks the bones of our strength, and causes us to travel in pain and halting many a weary step. Ah, there is nothing so wounding as departure from God! Nothing so bruising of the soul's peace and joy and hope as sin! Who can heal, who can bind up, who can mollify, who can reset these broken bones so that they shall rejoice again, but our sin-pardoning God? We have no self-power in this great matter of restoration. All that we can do is to make burdens, forge chains, carve crosses, inflict wounds,—in a word, destroy our own selves. Listen to David's experience—"I have gone astray like a lost sheep." This is all that he could do. But mark his conscious helplessness,—"seek your servant;" and then observe the imperishable nature of the grace of God in his soul,—"for I do not forget your commandments," (Ps. 119:176.) Of how many who bend over these pages will this be a faithful portrait! Lord! I can leave Your fold, can willfully depart from Your ways, can basely turn my back upon Yourself; but You must go in quest of me, seek and restore my soul; and this I may venture to ask, since I have not forgotten the happy days when Your candle shone upon my head, when Your light guided me through darkness, when the name of Jesus was as ointment poured forth, when I walked in sweet and holy communion with You, and fed with the flock beside the Shepherd's tent. "I do not forget your commandments." God will forgive! Christ will bind up the broken heart! The Comforter will restore joy to the soul! There is still balm in Gilead, and a Physician there. The healing balsam still bleeds from the wounded, stricken Tree of Life. The gate of paradise is yet unclosed, its portal garlanded with a thousand exceeding great and precious promises, all inviting your entrance and insuring you a welcome to its sunny banks, its shaded bowers, its peaceful quiet streams. "Who is a God like unto you, that pardons iniquity, and passes by the transgression of the remnant of his heritage? he retains not his anger forever, because he delights in mercy. He will turn again, he will have compassion upon us; he will subdue our iniquities; and you will cast all their sins into the depths of the sea," (Micah 7:18, 19.) What glad tidings these astounding words contain to repentant back-sliders! What a bow of promise and of hope do they paint upon the dark cloud of despair which enshrouds the soul! "He will turn again." Though He has turned a thousand times before, yet, "He will turn AGAIN;" not "seven times" only, but "seventy times seven."

And what is the response of the returning soul? "Behold, we come unto you; for you are the Lord our God." Behold, we come! just as we are. We come from the swine's trough; we come from feeding upon husks, upon ashes, and upon the wind. We come with the bruise, the wound, the dislocated limb. We come deploring our fall, confessing our departure, mourning over our sin; receive us graciously, love us freely, and turn your anger away from us. "I will arise and go unto my Father, and will say unto him, Father, I have sinned." What! after all that I have done—in the face of my willful transgression, of my base ingratitude, of my abused mercies, of my past restorings, of my aggravated departures, of all the past of Your mercy, Your goodness, Your faithfulness, Your love, do You still bid me return? Does the overture, the outstretched hand, the first step, come from You? Then, behold, I come unto You, for You are the Lord my God! Your power draws, Your goodness dissolves, Your faithfulness binds my heart, and, lo! I come. Your grace restores, Your love pardons, Your blood heals my soul, and, behold! I come. Your voice, so kind, invites me; Your feet, so unwearied, seek me; Your hand, so gentle, leads me; Your look, so loving, so melting, so forgiving, wins me: and, Lord, I must not, I dare not, I cannot stay away. Behold! I come unto You.

"Jesus, let Your pitying eye
Call back a wandering sheep;
False to You like Peter, I
Would gladly like Peter weep.

Let me be by grace restored;
On me be all patience shown;
Turn and look upon me, Lord,
And break this heart of stone.

"Look as when Your grace beheld
The harlot in distress,
Dried her tears, her pardon sealed,
And bade her go in peace;

"Foul, like her, and self-abhorred,
I at Your feet for mercy groan:
Turn and look upon me, Lord,
And break this heart of stone.

"Look as when, condemned for them,
You did Your followers see;
'Daughters of Jerusalem!
Weep for yourselves, not me.'

And am I by my God deplored,
And shall I not myself bemoan?
Turn and look upon me, Lord,
And break this heart of stone.

"Look as when Your languid eye
Was closed that we might live:
'Father,' (at the point to die
My Savior cried,) 'forgive;'

Surely with that dying word,
He turns, and looks, and cries, 'Tis done!'
O my gracious, bleeding Lord,
You break my heart of stone!"

Thus have we sought to win back to Christ the strayed one, and to help the returning wanderer heavenward. If the Lord has graciously given you to experience His restoring mercy, do not forget one great reason why you are restored—that you might hate and forsake the cause of your departure. If we have succumbed to temptation, it is not enough that we have broken from its snare; if we have fallen into sin, it is not enough that we have escaped from its power. God would have you learn thereby one of your holiest lessons—the deeper knowledge of that which tempted and overcame you, that you might go and sin no more. Restored yourself, seek the restoration of others. Hear the injunction of Christ to Peter in view of his recovery,—"When you are converted, strengthen your brethren." Seek to bring souls to Jesus. Let this be an object of life. Be especially tender, gentle, and kind to Christians who have fallen into sin, and are thereby wounded, distressed, and despairing. Extend a helping hand to lead them back to Christ. Your deep abhorrence of the sin must not be allowed to lessen your compassion and sympathy for the sinning one. This did not Jesus. If the Church has vindicated her purity and allegiance to Christ by a wise and holy discipline of the offender, "sufficient to such a man is this punishment, which was inflicted of many. So that contrariwise you ought rather to forgive him and comfort him, lest perhaps such a one should be swallowed up with overmuch sorrow. Wherefore I beseech you that you would confirm your love toward him," (2 Cor. 2:6-8.) Thus charged Paul the church to which he wrote, and in so doing he but imitates his Lord and Master, who, with a look of forgiving love, could comfort and restore his fallen apostle Peter. "Be you imitators of God, as dear children."

It is no uncommon thing for the Lord's backsliding children to be sadly and severely distressed and cast down by certain portions of God's Word, containing delineations of character and denunciations of woe which they suppose applicable to themselves; and which, so applied, inconceivably aggravate their soul distress, their mental anguish, and incapacitate them from receiving the promises and accepting the comfort which God, in His Word, so profusely and so graciously extends to His children, returning from their backslidings, with weeping and mourning, confession and prayer. Among the declarations thus referred to, which are supposed to have, the most direct application, and to wear the most threatening aspect, are those, so frequently quoted and as frequently misinterpreted and misapplied, found in the 6th chapter of the Epistle to the Hebrews from the 4th to the 6th verse:—"For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the good word of God, and the powers of the world to come, if they shall fall away, to renew them again unto repentance; seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put him to an open shame." Such are the solemn words, often perused and pondered with terror and despair by the child of God, which we now propose briefly to consider and explain. But before venturing upon their exposition let me, in the outset, distinctly and emphatically give it as my judgment that they in nowise refer to the case of the regenerate, and that by no ingenuity of criticism, and by no perversion of error, can they be made to bear strictly upon a state of real grace, or to invalidate in the slightest degree the revealed doctrine of the final salvation of the elect of God. Thus affirming our belief that the persons referred to by the apostle were not true converts to Christianity, had never passed into a state of spiritual regeneration, let us take each separate clause of these remarkable passages, and endeavor, in the fear of God, rightly to explain, and properly to apply His own truth.

"Those who were once enlightened." Not spiritually or savingly enlightened. The persons to whom these passages refer had some perception of the doctrines and principles of Christianity,—the mind was intelligent, the judgment informed,—but nothing more. They had received the knowledge of the truth in the intellect, but not the quickening, sanctifying power of the truth in the heart. It was an illumination of the mind only. They were so enlightened as to "see the evil effects of sin, but not the evil that is in sin; to see the good things which come from Christ, but not the goodness that is in Christ; so as to reform externally, but not to be sanctified internally; to have knowledge of the gospel doctrinally, but not experimentally; yes, to have such light into it as to be able to preach it to others, and yet be destitute of the grace of God." This is the enlightenment of which the apostle speaks, and nothing more. Their religion would, in modern terms, be denominated the religion of the intellect—a religion which, however sound in its orthodoxy and logical in its reasoning, is but as a palace of ice floating amid the snows and gloom of the polar seas. But this description cannot apply to you, penitent child of God! The truth as it is in Jesus has enlightened your judgment, and from thence has penetrated your heart, and in its light you see the sinfulness of your backslidings, the consciousness of which has brought you in sorrow and confession to the Savior's feet. It is safe, therefore, to conclude that you are not one of those persons whom the apostle describes as being once enlightened, as having swerved from the truth, whom it was impossible again to recover, seeing they had rejected the evidence upon which they avowed their belief in, and their attachment to, Christianity—the only evidence Christianity offers in proof of its divinity.

"And have tasted of the heavenly gift." A slight difference of opinion has existed as to the "gift" here referred to; some expositors, among whom is Owen, make the next clause exegetical of the present one. Without, however, perplexing the reader with needless criticism, we at once offer it as our opinion that the "heavenly gift" is the same as the "unspeakable gift" referred to in another place and by the same writer. It is quite possible for an apostate from the truth, having the illumination we have spoken of, to have possessed a certain knowledge of Christ, "the heavenly gift," without being renewed, sanctified, or saved. Does not Paul speak of his "no more knowing Christ after the flesh," as some still do, with a carnal, fleshly knowledge? Does he not, in another place, describe the conduct of some who had so far tasted of the heavenly gift as to "preach Christ," but to preach Him with "envy and strife, and contention, not sincerely?" And yet again, is it not true that the same apostle warns certain individuals against the sin of "eating the bread and drinking the cup of the Lord unworthily?" What does all this prove but that those who have tasted of the heavenly gift have no other knowledge of Christ than that which is natural, notional, and speculative? They have not Christ in their affections,—Christ as the object of supreme delight and love,—nor Christ in them the hope of glory. But you have not so learned Christ, O trembling penitent! It has pleased God to reveal His Son in you. You have tasted, felt, and handled, with a living, appropriating faith, the Lord Jesus. Your taste of this heavenly gift has been a heart-experience of His preciousness and fullness. And although you have gone astray like a lost sheep, yet you have not forgotten the power and savor of His precious name, which is now more than ever to you as ointment poured forth. And now your heart pines and your soul yearns to retrace its steps, to walk once more with the Shepherd whom you have forsaken, and to lie down again with the flock from whom you have strayed. What does this stirring within you prove,—this contrition, self-abhorrence, and sin-loathing,—but that you are not an apostate from the faith, a wanderer only from the fold, back to whose pasture and repose the faithful Shepherd is gently conducting you?

"And were made partakers of the Holy Spirit." This clause is more clear and definite. How far an individual may be said to partake of the Holy Spirit, and not be savingly converted, has been long a mooted question. These words, however, place the matter beyond doubt. The unhappy persons to whom they refer were undoubtedly partakers of the Holy Spirit, but in what sense? Let it be remembered that it was a distinctive feature of the early Church that there existed within its pale those who were endowed, some with ordinary, and others with extraordinary gifts of the Holy Spirit; such as the power of working miracles, of prophesying, and of speaking with tongues, and that these persons were possessed of, and exercised in many instances these gifts, as instruments of pride, covetousness, and ambition,—the works of the flesh in alliance with the gifts of the Spirit! Such, for example, was Simon Magus, who sought these supernatural endowments, not for the glory of God, but as sources of gain, and as ministering to his carnal aspirations. In his famous letter on "charity," addressed to the Church at Corinth, Paul recognizes the fact, that he might be so far a partaker of the Holy Spirit as to speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and understand all prophecies, and all mysteries, and yet be destitute of the Holy Spirit's regenerating grace. And clearly it is to such individuals our Lord so pointedly and solemnly refers in His dreadful description of the judgment, when He says, "Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in your name? and in your name have cast out devils? and in your name done many wonderful works?" To whom He will say, "I never knew you; depart from me, you that work iniquity." In the absence of the miraculous gifts of the Spirit, which we believe to have ceased in the Church with the last of the apostles, men may still be endowed with many ordinary spiritual gifts, conferring upon them a name, placing them upon a pinnacle of the temple, and winning for them the admiration and homage of their fellows, who yet are destitute of the converting grace of the Spirit. This is all that is meant by having been "made partakers of the Holy Spirit." But your case, penitent believer, bears no analogy to this. What does your present contrition, your distress and anguish of soul prove, but that you are quickened with spiritual life, and that the Holy Spirit dwells in you? that, despite your sinfulness, waywardness, and follies,—the grieving and wounding and quenching He has received at your hands,— the Spirit has not utterly departed from you, but that still your body is His temple and your heart His home?

"And have tasted the good word of God." The meaning of this clause is obvious. The revealed word, more especially the gospel of God, is the only interpretation it will admit. These false professors, these willful apostates, of whom the apostle writes, had heard the word of God with the outward ear, and had so far tasted its power as to yield an intellectual assent to its doctrines, and even to have felt some transient emotion, some stirring of the natural affections by the sublime and dreadful tenderness of its revelations. They had marked, too, the extraordinary power and triumph of the truth in the souls of others, and, moved by the law of sympathy, they were for a while the subjects of a natural and evanescent joy. They had witnessed the power of Satan in the human soul—how the gospel overcame it; the spell which the world wove around the heart—how the gospel had broke it; the period of perplexity—how the gospel had guided it; the season of sorrow—how the gospel had consoled it; the hour of sickness—how the gospel had strengthened it; the bed of death—how the gospel had smoothed it; the darkness of the sepulcher—how the gospel had illumined it; the fear of perdition—how the gospel had quelled it; the hope of salvation—how the gospel had confirmed it; the glory of immortality—how the gospel had unveiled it;—and their hearts were thrilled with a transient glow of gladness. Such were the emotions of Herod when he sent for John, did many things, and heard him gladly. And such, too, was the case of the stony-ground hearers, who heard the word, and anon received it with joy, but by and by they were offended, and fell away, not having root in themselves. These are they who had "tasted the good word of God," and this is all that they had experienced of its power. But not such is your experience, sorrowing soul! You have more than tasted, you have eaten of the good word of God, and His word is unto you the joy and the rejoicing of your heart. In that word your longing, sorrowful soul now hopes,—upon it, weary and sad, your heart now rests, until God shall fulfill its promise, and restore unto you the joy of His salvation.

"And the powers of the world to come." The age to come, as the word has been, and we think properly, rendered. Clearly the allusion is to the Messianic age, or the time and dispensation of the Messiah. This was the age, or the "world to come," to which the apostle refers in another place: "The world to come, whereof we speak." He is clearly referring to the gospel, in contradistinction to the legal dispensation; in the latter the word was spoken by angels, in the former the word was spoken by Christ. This age, or gospel dispensation, was to be ushered in and distinguished, "both by signs and wonders, and with diverse miracles and gifts of the Holy Spirit." Now, it will not be difficult to trace the application of this to the apostates whom these passages describe. They had lived in the early dawn of the gospel age, and amid its most wondrous and stirring scenes. They had beheld these signs, had marked these wonders, and perhaps had wrought these miracles. And so they had "tasted of the powers of the world to come." All this finds no application to your case, O backsliding yet returning child of God!

Now follows the sentence of the Holy Spirit upon these apostates from the profession of their faith. That sentence is the most solemn, the most terrible, that ever lighted upon the human soul. "It is impossible, . . . if they shall fall away, to renew them again unto repentance; seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put him to an open shame." The key to the explanation of this dreadful mystery is found in the word "repentance." Could they become the subjects of true repentance there might be hope, but with them this was impossible. For the fearful sin which they had committed, no repentance was provided,—for the deep guilt which they had contracted, no sacrifice had been offered,—from the apostasy into which they had plunged, no avenue of return had been made,—in a word, for the crime with which they were charged, no remission was given! Their salvation was IMPOSSIBLE! After having professed to believe in, and to have received the Messiah as the Son of God, as the Savior of men, they had openly and willfully and utterly rejected Him. By so doing they had repaired to Gethsemane, and justified the treacherous betrayal of Christ by Judas; they had gone to Calvary, and ratified the cruel murder of Christ by the Jews; they had fraternized with His enemies, and had joined their shout, "Away with Him! away with Him! Crucify Him! crucify Him!" And so they had "crucified the Son of God afresh, and put Him to an open shame." After having passed through all these stages of sin, of crime, and guilt,—having utterly abjured and renounced the only means and object and grace of repentance,—it was IMPOSSIBLE that they could be renewed, recovered, saved! For them "there remained no more sacrifice for sins, but a certain fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation, which should devour the adversaries."

But, beloved child of God! we are persuaded better things of you, and things that accompany salvation. The Holy Spirit has given you the truest, the strongest evidence of spiritual life in your soul—a broken and a contrite heart. Bring this sacrifice, and lay it upon Christ our "Altar," and God will accept it. Let the holy lessons we learn from the mournful, the irretrievable, the hopeless case of the willful APOSTATE be—not to rest on spiritual illumination, however great, nor on spiritual gifts, however eminent, nor on religious feelings, however ecstatic, but seek after the mortification of sin, a closer communion with the Lord, and still more to abound in those "fruits of righteousness which are by Jesus Christ unto the praise and glory of God." Upon you these dreadful words fling no darkling shadow, but your path is that of "the just, which is as the shining light, that shines more and more unto the perfect day."

"Welcome, weeping penitent;
Grace has made your heart relent:
Welcome, long-estranged child;
God in Christ is reconciled.

"Welcome to the cleansing fount,
Springing from the sacred mount;
Welcome to the feast divine,
Bread of life, and living wine.

"Oh, the virtue of that price,
That redeeming sacrifice!
Come, you bought, but not with gold,
Welcome to the sacred fold."

The Swelling of the Jordan

"How will you do in the swelling of Jordan?"—Jer. 12:5

We remarked in an earlier part of this work that the history of the children of Israel was strikingly illustrative, if not designedly typical, of God's spiritual Israel. And although, as in all illustrative and typical teaching of the Bible, we should bear in mind the marked ascendancy of the truth typified above the type, the thing symbolized above the symbol, yet there are always points of analogy and assimilation strictly true, impressively instructive, and strikingly beautiful, which it is our wisdom to study and apply. The emancipation of God's people from the iron furnace of Egypt, their march across the desert, their passage over Jordan, and their final settlement in the land of Canaan, are indisputable points of agreement, and present at one glance the moral map of the Christian's pilgrimage and journey from earth to heaven. And yet, as we gaze upon the two pictures, and contrast Pharaoh with Satan, the curse with Egypt, the wilderness with the heavenly pilgrimage, Jordan with death, Canaan with heaven, and Moses with Christ, we feel the force of the truth, how impotent is all material and earthly imagery to illustrate things spiritual and heavenly. We select, however, from these interesting points of history one only as illustrating an important and solemn stage in the believer's journey—the passage of the children of Israel over Jordan. The Church has for ages been used to consider, and not improperly, this event as foreshadowing the Christian's departure to glory by death, while with it has been blended the most solemn, tender, and holy thoughts, feelings, and anticipations that ever found a home in the believer's heart. Approaching the end of this volume, we feel there would be wanting an essential link in the chain of helps heavenward were we to omit gathering around the closing scene of the believer's life those appropriate instructions, soothings, and hopes essential to the succouring of the soul in so solemn and momentous a stage of its history. Doubtless to the eye of the children of Israel, as they stood upon its banks surveying the promised land beyond it, the intervention of Jordan was an object of gloom and terror. And as its waters, dark and cold, rose and swelled and broke in mournful cadence at their feet, as if in anticipation chanting the sad requiem of their death, we can easily imagine the question arising in many a sinking heart—"How shall I do in the swelling of this Jordan?" Ah! how many who bend in sadness and trembling over these pages, to whose sick-chamber or dying-bed they will travel, are resolving in their anxious breasts the question—"How shall I be able to meet death? how pass over this swelling flood? how may I meet this last, this latest, this most terrible crisis of my being?" Be still, these fears! hush these doubts, child of God! while we endeavor to show how you shall fearlessly, safely, and triumphantly pass through the swelling of Jordan, and reach your heavenly home at last.

"The swelling of Jordan"—words of solemn import, calculated to convey to the believing mind a gloomy idea of death. That there are swellings of Jordan in the Christian's experience we doubt not. For example, there are the fears with which the child of God anticipates the last enemy—there are the sad recollections of all his past sins crowding around his pillow—there are the suggestions of unbelief, perhaps more numerous and powerful at this moment than ever—and there is the shrinking of nature from the final wrench, the last conflict, the closing scene—the last glance of earth, the last look of love, the loosing of those fond and tender ties which entwine us so closely with those we leave—these are some of the swellings of Jordan. But oh, what are these in reality to the believer in Jesus? Nothing but the gentle ripple on the surface! Let me cite, as illustrating the groundlessness of your fears in anticipation of death, the history of the passage of the Church in the wilderness over Jordan. We read that God commanded that twelve priests, representing the twelve tribes, should bear the ark of the Lord before the people, and that the moment the soles of the feet of the priests that bore the ark were dipped in the brim of the water, the waters rose up on either side; and then we read that, "the priests that bare the ark of the covenant of the LORD stood firm on dry ground in the midst of Jordan, and all the Israelites passed over on dry ground, until all the people were passed clean over Jordan." Now here we have a beautiful representation of the passage of the children of God through death into heaven. Take each particular. There was present, first, the ark of the covenant. Upborne upon the shoulders of the priests, it went before and led the march of the advancing hosts. That ark was an especial and glorious type of the Lord Jesus. Christ, our divine Ark, has already cleaved the waters of Jordan, for He has passed through death in advance of His people. And still the Ark is with them. Never was there the departure of a believer unattended by the presence of Jesus. Delightful thought! Christ our Ark will divide the dark waters as we pass, will go before, will go with us, will be our rearward, and thus encircled by Christ, amid the swelling of Jordan, we will fear no evil. What more is needed than the sensible presence of the Savior to raise the heart superior to the fear of death, and to bear the soul tranquilly across the river? Fear not, then, believer—you will see His smile, you will hear His voice, you will feel His hand, and His conscious presence will enfold you as you pass.

Then, the feet of the priests stood firm in the midst of Jordan. The waters had parted, and on either side they stood as crystal walls of defense, while the hosts of the Lord passed over. Infinitely firmer do the feet of the saints stand on Christ when they die. The Rock on which you stand is a firm rock—the covenant of grace which you grasp is a sure covenant—the love of God in which you confide is an unchangeable love—the atoning work upon which you rest is a finished and accepted work. The throne of God in heaven stands not firmer than does the weakest and most fearful who, leaning on Jesus, clinging to Jesus, is sustained by Jesus, as he cleaves his way through the swelling of Jordan.

And then we are told that, all the people passed clean over. What an impressive illustration of the full salvation of the whole Church of God! All the people—the small as the great, the timid as the bold, the weak as the strong—not one left upon the shore, but all went over and stood an unbroken column on the other side. Blessed thought! the Church of Christ shall be finally and fully saved—not one shall be left upon the bank, not one shall perish amid the swelling of Jordan. You have often mused—"How shall I meet the final conflict? Will faith as weak, will grace as little, will knowledge as limited, will experience as shallow as mine be able to breast the swelling flood?" But why these fears? why these misgivings? why these doubtful reasonings? Weak as may be your faith, small your grace, limited your experience, you shall not perish, for it is not your hold upon Christ, but Christ's hold upon you, that insures your safe and certain passage over.

There are many other considerations well calculated to disarm the believing mind of its fear of death apart from those we have stated. Let me briefly remind you of a few.

Jordan was the passage to Canaan—death is the passage to heaven. Beyond the "swelling flood" faith observes the better land, the fair haven, the glorious and eternal inheritance of the saints. Let this thought exert a soothing influence on your mind. And then, to this add a kindred reflection—that, on the other side of Jordan you will greet again the loved ones from whom you parted on this side of the river. Our home circles are thinning; vacant places around our domestic hearth remind us that some, who sat with us there, have passed over.

Friend after friend is departing—familiar and loved faces are disappearing from our view—and life seems more lonely and the world more desolate. Well, be it so. We shall find all who sleep in Jesus again on the other side of the river. We accompanied them to the margin, saw them enter the swelling tide, heard their shout of victory, and then they vanished from our sight, and we saw them no more. And soon our time will come, when we, too, shall pass over and meet them all again. A touching incident, which we venture to quote, illustrates this train of thought—

A father and mother were living with their two children on a desert island in the midst of the ocean, on which they had been shipwrecked. Roots and vegetables served them for food, a spring supplied them with water, and a cavern in the rock with a dwelling. Storm and tempest often raged fearfully on the island.

The children could not remember how they had reached the island; they knew nothing of the vast continent; bread, milk, fruit, and whatever other luxury is yielded there, were things unknown to them.

There landed one day upon the island four Moors in a small boat. The parents felt great joy, and hoped now to be rescued from their troubles; but the boat was too small to take them all over together to the adjoining land, so the father determined to risk the passage first.

Mother and children wept when he embarked in the boat with its frail planks, and the four black men were about to take him away. But he said, "Weep not! It is better yonder, and you will all follow soon."

When the little boat returned and took away the mother, the children wept still more. But she also said, "Weep not! In the better land we shall all meet again."

At last came the boat to take away the two children. They were frightened at the black men, and shuddered at the fearful sea over which they had to pass. With fear and trembling they drew near the land. But how rejoiced they were when their parents appeared upon the shore, offered them their hands, led them into the shade of lofty palm-trees, and regaled upon the flowery turf with milk, honey, and delicious fruits. "Oh, how groundless was our fear!" said the children; "we ought not to have feared, but to have rejoiced when the black men came to take us away to the better land."

"Dear children," said their father, "our voyage from the desert island to this beautiful country conveys to us a yet higher meaning. There is appointed for us all a still longer voyage to a much more beautiful country. The whole earth, on which we dwell, is like an island. The land here is, indeed, a noble one in our eyes, although only a faint shadow of heaven. The passage here over the stormy sea is—death; that little boat resembles the coffin, upon which men in black apparel shall at some time carry us forth. But when that hour strikes, then we, myself, your mother, and you, must leave this world. So fear not. Death is, for pious men who have loved God, and have done His will, nothing else but a voyage to the better land."

Be not over anxious as to the time, the place, or the mode of your passage over Jordan. As death is in the covenant, so are all the circumstances of death likewise in the covenant, and they will transpire just as your covenant-God has fixed and arranged. Ah, how many feel the swelling of Jordan more in groundless, anticipative fears than in actual reality! But be not careful, beloved, about this matter. All is in the Lord's hands, and He will divide the swelling billows, and take you dry-shod over, and not a heaving, not an undulation of the cold waters, shall chill the warmth or ruffle the calmness of your breast.

"Where shall I die? Shall death's cold hand
Arrest my breath, while dear ones stand
In silent, watchful love, to shed
Their tears around my quiet bed?
Or shall I meet my final doom
Far from my country and my home?
Lord, to Your will I bend the knee,
You evermore have cared for me.

"How shall I die? Shall death's stern yoke
Subdue me by a single stroke?
Or shall my fainting frame sustain
The tedious languishing of pain?
Sinking in weariness away,
Slowly and sadly, day by day?
Lord, I repose my cares on Thee—
You evermore have cared for me.

"When shall I die Shall death's stern call
Soon come my spirit to appall?
Or shall I live through circling years
A pilgrim in this valley of tears,
Surveying those I loved the best,
Who in the peaceful churchyard rest?
Lord, I await Your wise decree;
You evermore have cared for me."

My unconverted reader! how will you do in the swelling of Jordan? Momentous question! All of us must die. The wicked and the righteous—the godly and the ungodly—the friend and the foe of God—all, all must bow to this law of our nature—this sentence of our humanity. Have you seriously pondered this question—"How will it be with me in death?" You are living now a Christless, a prayerless, a Godless, a hopeless life. You are living in sin, for self, and with no reference whatever to the solemn hour you are to meet, the dreadful event you are to confront, the fearful account you are to surrender. "After death the judgment." With no real preparation for death, how, do you think, will you meet the judgment? As death leaves you, judgment finds you. The dreadful scrutiny transpires, the tremendous account is demanded the moment that your unclothed spirit is hurried hence. The instant that your probation ceases, your final and changeless destiny begins. What will, what must be the end of your present persistent course of irreligion? You are living as if you were a god to yourself, as though God your Creator furnished you with those intellectual endowments, gave you those talents, lavished upon you those advantages, begirt you with that wealth, influence, and rank only to gratify your own ambition, promote your own selfish ends, and to minister to your perverted taste, carnal, earth-bound aspirations and desires. But no! God created you for a higher life—for a nobler end—for a more glorious being—for a sublimer destiny. He created you—your person, your mind, your gifts, your social position, your wealth—in a word, your body, soul, and spirit, your present and your future, FOR HIMSELF! Man! woman! I tell you, God created you for His own glory, and He will not fail of that one and sublime end of your creation, whether it be secured by His vengeance or His grace, by His justice or His mercy—by lifting you to heaven or sinking you to hell. I revert to the momentous question—What will you do when the dark, cold waters of death are swelling and surging and deepening around you? What will your rank avail you? what will your wealth do for you? what will your talents profit you? what will your pleasures supply at that moment when the curtain is falling upon all the false shadows of time, and is rising upon all the dread realities of eternity? But there yet is hope! Fall in penitence at the Savior's feet, and grasp in faith the Savior's sacrifice, and you are saved! Then Jordan will have no dread swellings for you, death no sting, the grave no gloom, eternity no terror.

Pharisee! what will you do in the swelling of Jordan? When your self-righteousness fails to support you—when your Babel of good works is crumbling around you—when your foundation of sand is sliding from beneath you—and the religion you have cherished is leaving you without support, without comfort, without peace, without hope—what then will you do? Death is confronting you! You have entered the river! It is dark, cold, and heaving; it deepens, surges, moans; it floats you from the shore of time; it bears you on to the ocean of eternity, and you disappear—a soul lost, LOST forever! Oh, cast from you the garment of your own righteousness, and accept in faith the Savior's, and then death's waters will waft you upon their gentle swelling safe to glory, and you shall be a soul saved, SAVED forever!

Anxious, sin-burdened soul! how will you do in the swelling of Jordan? Will you take with you those convictions, that load of guilt, to the brink of the river? Oh no! part with them now and forever! Lay them down at the cross, cast them at Jesus' feet, and in faith plunge in the sea of His atoning blood, and you need not dread the river of death.

Dying saint! look at death through Jesus, and how lovely will it appear! Christ invests every object beheld by faith through Him with beauty and attraction. Oh, you shall fall in love with death, and be enamored of the grave, if you will view them both through your dying, risen, living Lord! It is not with death you have to do, it is with death's Conqueror. Descend, then, to the river with a firm, unfaltering step—
"Shudder not to cross the stream,
Venture all your hopes on Him;
Not one object of His care
Ever suffered shipwreck there."

I put the question to the sincere humble believer in Jesus—How will you do in the swelling of Jordan? You reply, "I will cleave closer and closer to Jesus. As the waters deepen, I will plant my foot of faith firmer and firmer upon the Rock, until I find myself in glory." Then, fear not the swelling tide! Death will be to you—looking to Jesus, clinging to Jesus, accepted in Jesus—but a falling asleep—a translation from the family of God on earth to the family of God in heaven—a going from the Church below to the Church above. It is but a narrow stream that divides you, as seen by faith. You may go down to the margin of the river, weeping and lamenting as you go—
"Oh! could I make my doubts remove,
These gloomy doubts that rise,
And see the Canaan that I love
With unbeclouded eyes!

"Could I but climb where Moses stood,
And view the landscape o'er,
Not Jordan's streams, nor death's cold flood,
Should fright me from the shore."

But when you enter, your tears will cease to flow, and your song will commence, and your departure shall be like that of Bunyan's pilgrim, "Valiant-for-the-Truth," which that master of allegory thus inimitably describes:—"'My sword I give to him that shall succeed me in my pilgrimage, and my courage and skill to him that can get it. My marks and scars I carry with me, to be a witness for me that I have fought His battles who will now be my Rewarder.' And when the day that he must go hence was come, many accompanied him to the river-side, into which, as he went, he said, 'Death, where is your sting?'—and as he went down deeper, he said, 'Grave, where is your victory?' So he passed over, and all the trumpets sounded for him on the other side."

"Where can a sinner flee?
Who, oh who, will rescue me?
Dreading my deserved sentence,
Weeping tears of deep repentance!
Yawning grave! I fear to die,
Such burdens on my conscience lie!

"Hark! I hear my Savior say,
'I can take your guilt away;
I have bled that men might live,
Full salvation I can give:
I will help you, soul distressed,
Come unto Me—I'll give you rest!'

"Almighty Lord! I know Your voice,
In You believing I rejoice,
My Prophet, Priest, and King!
Now I can sing of joys on high,
O grave, where is your victory?
O death, where is your sting?"

Our Father's House

"In my Father's house are many rooms (or mansions, or dwelling places); if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am." John 14:2-3

Our adorable Lord came down to earth to allure us up to heaven. In all His delineations of that happy, holy place, He sought to present it to the believing eye clad in its richest beauty, and invested with its sweetest and most winning attractions. Its hope was to sanctify us, its prospect was to animate us, and its foretastes were to comfort us. Nothing, therefore, was lacking in the imagery with which He pictured its character, and in the coloring with which He painted its glory, to invite and attract us to its peaceful, blissful coasts. It may, indeed, be said that Christ's allusions to heaven were not frequent, and that His revelations of its state were but partial. Be it so. Sufficient, however, of the veil was uplifted to reveal the fact of its existence, to awaken the desire and to inspire the hope of its possession.
We cite, as illustrating this, the words at the head of this chapter. They are few, but how expressive! Heaven is portrayed as our FATHER'S HOUSE. What a precious, endearing, attractive view does this give us of our future and final rest—our eternal abode! "My Father's house!" How touching the words! How many hallowed associations, sunny memories, and precious thoughts cluster around the image! If there is one earthly spot dearer, sweeter, brighter than another, it is the home of our childhood. Around it, when years and oceans and continents have long and far severed us from its hearth, our fondest, warmest thoughts and recollections still cling. And we think, when sickness and loneliness and poverty steal upon us, could we but return to that home again, and again feel the warm embrace of a mother's love, and find ourselves beneath a father's sheltering roof, life would be a pleasant thing.
Thus Christ portrays our HEAVEN. He tells us it is a house—a Father's dwelling and that within its walls there are many mansions, one of which awaits each of us; and then, He bids us not to be troubled in heart by reason of the sorrow and privation of our present exile, since before long He would come and take us home. The FATHERHOOD of God is the first truth our Lord propounds in connection with this picture of heaven. It was a natural and befitting introduction to His attractive theme.
In speaking of the Father's house, He would first reveal to us the parental relation of God. We could never have given to this truth the grasp of faith it demands had not Christ revealed and explained it. It was He who first taught our lips to say, "Our Father!" In asserting His own relation as an Elder Brother, He flung around the entire brotherhood the filial bond that linked both Himself and them to the same God and Father. Oh, how dimly and imperfectly we realize to what dignity and privilege and glory a sinner's union with the Lord Jesus exalts him!—it is a relation to God but one remove from His own. Who would not be willing to forego all the righteousness of man, all the purity of saints, all the holiness of angels, to stand in the righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ? Now, it must be acknowledged that in asserting the Fatherhood of God in reference to Himself, our Lord adopted, as the "firstborn among many brethren," the most effectual mode of instructing us in a knowledge of the same filial relation. In claiming God as His Father, He claimed Him as ours too. How beautifully and touchingly were the traits of that filial relation exhibited in His own personal spirit and demeanor! Each act of His brief but eventful life was imprinted with filial confidence and love, and his whole career was a continuous recognition of the Fatherhood of God. Let us cite a few examples.
Speak we of prayer? Hear Him cry, "O righteous FATHER, the world has not known you, but I have known you. I know, FATHER, that you hear me aways." Speak we of duty? Hear Him exclaim, "Know you not that I must be about my FATHER'S business?" Speak we of reverence! Hear Him say, "Even so FATHER, for so it seemed good in your sight." Speak we of submission? Listen to His words, "Not my will, O my FATHER, but yours, be done." Approach we the solemn scene of His death? Hear Him exclaim, amid the maddening tortures of the cross, the thunders of God's anger, the lightning of God's justice rolling and flashing above and around Him, "FATHER, into your hands I commend my spirit." Do we track His footsteps to the mount from the summit of which He went back to glory? Hear His parting words, "I ascend unto my FATHER, and unto your FATHER,"
And as we return from these hallowed scenes, we ask ourselves, Is it any marvel that He, the Elder Brother, who could so embosom Himself in the Fatherhood of God, should teach our faltering lips, when we prostrate ourselves before the Divine Majesty of heaven and earth, to breathe the prayer, "Our FATHER, who is in heaven?" O beloved, allow your heart no repose, and the Holy Spirit no rest, until He seal 'Abba, Father', upon your heart! It would be impossible to compute or exaggerate the results that would follow from the blessing. What a mighty impetus would it give you heavenward! With what newborn power would it clothe your prayers! What soothing would it impart in suffering, what submission in trial, what sweetness to obedience! With what increased beauty and charm would it invest the whole landscape of life—its chequered scenes of joy and sorrow, sunshine and shade!—and in what a glow of golden light would it bathe the distant vision of the Father's unseen home to which Christ is conducting you!
See! the Heavenly Dove flutters over you, waiting to descend, as upon the baptized Son of God, testifying to your Divine sonship, turning your darkness into light, your sorrow into joy, your distrust into confidence, your fears into hope, and the condemnation you dread into a heaven assured. "Behold, what manner of love the Father has bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God."
We turn our attention now from the Father to the FATHER'S HOUSE. We have alluded to the hallowed attractions and the sunny memories which cluster around the paternal home. Transfer your thoughts, my reader, from the earthly to the heavenly— take the purest, the fondest, the most poetic conception you can form of the one, and blend it with the other—and still you have but the faintest analogy of heaven! And yet you have made some approximation to the idea. You have entwined around your heart the image and hope of heaven as your HOME. Earth has some foreshadowings of this truth. If "now are we the children of God," then ours is not a state of dreary orphanage; we are not fatherless and homeless. Christ reminded His disciples of this. "I will not leave you comfortless," -margin, ORPHANS. If, then, we are not fatherless, there is a sense in which we are not homeless: but that the lower rooms, the outer courts, the vestibules of the heavenly Home, are found on earth, in which we meet and hold communion with our heavenly Father.
What is the sanctuary, filled with His glory; the closet, hallowed with His presence; the chamber of sickness, soothed with His love; the hillside, where at eventide we go to meditate, sanctified with His fellowship, but our Father's Home coming down out of heaven to dwell a while with His children on earth? Where my Father is, there is my Father's house. It may be remarked of many of the ungodly that they go through a hell to hell; with equal truth it may be affirmed of the children of God that they pass through a heaven to heaven.
Our Father's house is a house of "many mansions," and EARTH is one of them. The universe is His abode; every sun and star His dwelling place; why should we exclude Him from this our own planet, though the smallest, yet, in its history, the greatest, the grandest of all? "The whole family on earth and in heaven" claim Him as the one Fathers and earth and heaven are but parts of the one Home. And oh, if earth—the vestibule, the portico of heaven— is so radiant with glory, what must be heaven itself!
"Since over Your footstool, here below,
Such radiant gems are strewn,
Oh, what magnificence must glow,
My God, about Your throne!
So brilliant here those drops of light;
There the full ocean rolls—how bright!
If night's blue curtain of the sky,
With thousand stars inwrought,
Hung like a royal canopy,
With glittering diamonds fraught,
Be, Lord, Your temple's outer veil;
What splendor at the shrine must dwell!
The dazzling sun, at noontide hour,
Forth from his flaming vase,
Flinging over earth the golden shower
Until vale and mountain blaze,
But shows, O Lord, one beam of Thine;
What, then, the day where You do shine!
Ah, how shall these dim eyes endure
That noon of living rays,
Or how my spirit, so impure,
Upon Your glory gaze;
Anoint, O Lord, anoint my sight,
And robe me for that world of light." -Muhlenburg.
While, therefore, we would not exclude earth as one of the mansions of the Father's abode, seeing it is the temporary dwelling place of so great a portion of the family, we must still view it as but one of the lower rooms, hallowed and radiant, indeed, with the Father's presence, yet, by service and discipline, designed but to prepare us for the staterooms above, the higher and nobler mansions, to which, before long, we shall be summoned.
Now, let us transfer our thoughts to the Father's house above, and endeavor to portray its spiritual architecture and its domestic privileges, not trespassing upon the region of the fanciful and ideal, but keeping soberly and strictly within the teaching of God's Word.
"In my Father's house there are many mansions." Guided by these words, the first view which it presents to the mind is its appointed and prepared state. We go to no uncertain home. It is the family mansion, eternally ordained and prepared for the dwelling of the saints. The everlasting love which chose us to salvation, the predestination which appointed us to be sons, provided the home we were eternally to occupy. What a sweet truth, beloved, is this!
Do we not, when after a long exile we turn our face homewards, delight to think that we shall find our home all ready for our welcome? Such is our heavenly abode. "For we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, a HOUSE not made with hands, eternal in the heavens," (2 Cor. 5:1.) The apostle, too, reminds us that it is "an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fades not away, RESERVED in heaven for you." And did not our blessed Lord declare the same truth when He said, "I go to PREPARE a place for you." We go, then, to a home all appointed and prepared, all garnished and made ready for our coming.
And oh, if, with regard to an earthly home, "It is sweet to think there is an eye that will watch for our coming, and look brighter when we come," infinitely more delightful is the thought that not one alone, but many eyes are now looking and watching for our coming to glory, and will gleam with deeper luster when we come! Ah yes! we shall find all prepared, anticipating our arrival, when we reach that blessed abode. It is even now ready: the crown glitters—the palm waves— the white robe flutters—and the harp is all strung and tuned by Christ's own hands!
This suggests another thought. The solemn hour of death once passed, the spirit, upborne by angels, finds itself at once ushered into the RECEPTION ROOM of heaven, the first of the "many mansions." There we shall see Jesus, not seated, but standing; as when He rose to receive His first martyr; to welcome us home, encircled by the general assembly and church of the firstborn, the spirits of just men made perfect, and an innumerable company of angels, waiting to greet our arrival. In advance, and more eager than all the rest of that blessed throng, will be the loved ones from whom we parted on the margin of the river across which they Passed to the Celestial City. Oh, what a reception! what greetings! what joy wishings then! "Welcome, husband! welcome, wife! welcome, child! welcome, parent, brother, sister, pastor, friend!" will burst from ten thousand times ten thousand lips, louder than the voice of many waters.
But the Savior's welcome will be the crowning one of all! With what ineffable joy will He receive home the fruit of His long and weary travail!—the sheep that often wandered from His side, and had as often been restored, but now will wander no more! the disciple that often wounded the bosom that sheltered him, had as often been forgiven, but now will wound it no more! Oh, who can imagine the infinite joy of that Savior when the celestial convoy ushers into His presence the sinner He ransomed by His blood, called by His grace, kept by His power, and in spite of all, through all, and out of all, at last brought home to His Father's house!
Blessed Lord! not one, the purchase of Your agony; not a sheep straying from Your fold, not a lamb sheltering in its weakness at Your side, not a sinner, stricken, wounded, raising its penitent and believing eye to Your cross; shall be lacking then to complete the number of Your elect, the roll call of Your redeemed Church. All— all shall be there! "You shall guide me with your counsel, and afterward receive me to glory."
The Heavenly repast, which succeeds the reception, will introduce us into the BANQUET HALL of heaven, another mansion of the Father's house. We have remarked that there are bright gleams of heaven falling upon earth's shadows. Among the most resplendent of these are the foretastes of the banquet which awaits us on high. The Church of Christ thus joyously records her experience of this truth—"He brought me to the BANQUETING HOUSE, and his banner over me was love," (Song of Solomon 2:4.)
What a chord in your heart do these words touch, O believer! It was JESUS who brought you! By the drawings of His love, the leadings of His sovereign grace, having sought and found, separated and called you, He led you gently and persuasively to His Church, richly stored with all blessings, where He made you to sit in heavenly places! He brought you, too, in a stately manner—His all conquering standard floating above you, upon which His name of LOVE was inscribed. Oh, admire and glorify the grace that brought you into this house of wine, to banquet with the King! and forget not that whatever may be the Lord's dealings with you, that all shielding and overshadowing banner of love still floats above you!
The gospel is another foretaste of the heavenly banquet. It is thus described by the evangelical Isaiah: "In this mountain shall the Lord of hosts make unto all people a FEAST of fat things, a FEAST of wines on the lees, of fat things full of marrow, of wines on the lees well refined." How full and rich is the gospel of Christ! How divine the provision— how ample the supply—how free the invitation! The forgiveness of all and every sin; your reconciliation with the offended Majesty of heaven; peace in your soul so divine, so great, that it "passes all understanding,"—life and immortality, the consummation and crown of its blessings!
Oh, pray for and cherish a spiritual zest for this gospel banquet! Bring to it your soul's craving, your spirit's weariness, your heart's sadness, your sin woundings, your worst and lowest frames; there is enough in its unfoldings of Jesus to "satiate every weary soul, and to replenish every sorrowful soul." There Christ will nourish you with the finest of the wheat; with honey from the rock will He satisfy you. Never forget that such is the fulness of the gospel of Christ, such its variety of blessings, such the sufficiency of its supply, and such the freeness of its bestowment, that it meets every case, every trial, every phase, and every need of our humanity!
What a banquet, too, is the Lord's Supper, where, perhaps, the brightest gleams of glory fall, since that, of all other institutions of Christ, the most closely unites and blends the atoning death and the millennial glory of Christ. "As often as you eat this bread, and drink this cup, you do show the Lord's death until he comes." How strangely, yet appropriately, are the CROSS and the CROWN of Jesus entwined in this sacred festival! Both are associated with our sweetest exercise of faith, hope, and love. Faith, with undimmed and steady eye, looks at the cross; hope, with expanded and untiring wing, soars onward to the crown; and love prostrates itself before both in adoring gratitude and praise.
Such are some of the foretastes; let us now consider the HEAVENLY BANQUET itself. Our Lord thus distinctly and emphatically refers to it: "I appoint unto you a kingdom, as my Father has appointed unto me; that you may eat and drink at my table in my kingdom, (Luke 22:29, 30.) And in a gospel parable He yet more graphically portrays the festival, in the narrative of a certain king who prepared a sumptuous banquet in honor of his son, and sent forth his servants to invite those who were ready. It was on this occasion the memorable scene of the intruder without the wedding garmuent is introduced. The door of the banquet hall is thrown open, and the king, arrayed in royal apparel, and with ineffable delight beaming in his countenance, enters the chamber; all resplendent with the purest light, and redolent of sweetest odors; to survey and welcome the guests. It is at this moment the discovery is made of the intruder; and the man who refused the appropriate garment provided by the king, and presumed to enter attired in his own, is expostulated with, sentenced, and removed from the scene of splendor and festivity into outer and eternal darkness!
The great and momentous truth our Lord sought to illustrate and enforce is, my reader, essentially connected with your future and endless well being; namely, the absolute, the indispensable necessity of being invested with the imputed righteousness of Christ, as giving us a title and a fitness for the heavenly banquet. Without the wedding garment you cannot appear with acceptance at the wedding supper. Without the investiture of Christ's justifying righteousness; your own utterly, entirely, unreservedly, and forever abjured, renounced, and forsaken; you appear at the banquet hall of glory but to confront and sustain a doom all the more confounding, overwhelming, and dire, from the presumptuous hope you had vainly cherished.
Oh, it is a fearful plunge as from the very door of heaven into the abyss of hell; as from the streaming light of glory into the outer darkness of the bottomless pit! Oh, come away from your doings and your failings, from your merit and demerit, from the things you have done and the things you have not done, from the keeping of religious days and fasts and festivals, from all the fond conceits of goodness, holiness, and righteousness in yourself, from all self-approval, self-justification, self trusting, and as a SINNER fly to the righteousness of Christ, accept it as a free gift, put it on in faith; and from that moment you shall be found complete in Christ, and robed for the banquet of heaven.
Of the BANQUET we know but little. Our blessed Lord was studiously partial and reserved in His revelations of heaven. It would seem as if He would deepen our surprise and enhance our joy by the present concealment He carefully observed. And yet He has told us sufficient, and revealed enough, to intensify our panting to be there. This much we know, that heaven is not a state, but a PLACE; not boundless space, but a LOCALITY; not the dwelling of a host, where we shall sojourn a while as guests, but our FATHER'S HOUSE, where we shall be CHILDREN at HOME forever.
We are assured, too, that its nature, its employments and pleasures, will, in all respects, be agreeable to the condition, and will harmonize with the capacity, dignity, and immortality of our unclothed and glorified nature.
The soul, divested of all that is material and earthly, will be fitted to enter into all that is spiritual and pure. The Banquet that your redeeming God will have prepared for you will be in consonance with the nature He had fitted for the banquet. And, oh, what imagination can adequately conceive the costliness, the richness, the variety, the ever increasing material of that heavenly existence with which the glorified will regale themselves through eternity! How will the mind revel amid the ever unfolding wonders of God's mind! how will the heart feast upon the ever unfolding depths of Christ's heart! how will the soul dilate and repose in its ever deepening, ever growing happiness!
Dim as our views of heaven are, surely it were enough to satisfy our most intense aspirations— the assurance that we shall be PERFECTLY HOLY. Advance me to a condition of sinlessness, to a place where HOLINESS sanctifies every heart, beams in every eye, breathes from every lip, sparkles in every action; of which every thought, and word, and look, and act, is its expression and embodiment; and you have placed me at the richest banquet God can provide, or my heart desire. "In your presence is fulness of joy; at your right hand there are pleasures for evermore." Lord! number us among the blessed who shall eat bread in Your kingdom, and who shall be called unto the marriage supper of the Lamb, at Your appearing and glory.
The Father's house has also its MUSIC MANSION. Adoration and praise would seem to constitute the principal employment of the redeemed in heaven. The visions of glory which floated before the eye of John were all associated with music. To his seagirt island were wafted the strains of the song sung by the hundred and forty and four thousand who stood on Mount Zion. In his lonely exile he heard the harpers harping with their harps. And of whom was that celestial choir composed?—the redeemed from among men. And who and what are the subjects of their song?—Jesus and His Redemption. "You are worthy, for you were slain, and have redeemed us to God by your blood out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation."
Blended with the song of Redemption will be the song of Providence. Retracing all the way your God led you through the wilderness, you shall gather material from each mercy and from each trial, from each joy and from each sorrow, for an eternal hymn of praise to His great and glorious name.
Beloved, you are learning these songs now in the house of your pilgrimage. As you cross the desert sands, or break your lone footsteps through the depth of the wilderness, or stand within the sacred shadow of the cross, God is preparing you for the MUSIC MANSION of glory. All His dealings with you in providence and in grace are but to train and attune the powers, affections, and sympathies of your soul to the sweet harmony of the spheres. Every sunbeam of mercy that gilds your path, and every cloud veil of judgment that shades it, every heavy footstep of the giant storm, every gentle wavelet dimpling the calm surface of the soul, every soft zephyr that lulls it to repose, is designed by God to instruct and mature you for the music of the celestial state!
A harp of gold, strung by angels, and attuned by Christ's own hands, awaits you in the MUSIC MANSION above, and soon you will sweep its chords to the high praises of the triune Jehovah, and all heaven will ring with its melody.
"Arise, my soul, arise,
Unfold your heaven born wings;
Your home is in the skies,
Where lofty Gabriel sings;
And loud, through all the spacious plain,
Is heard—The Lamb, the Lamb was slain!
Oh, may my bosom glow
With melody like this!
Oh, may my spirit bow,
When musing on their bliss!
Ah! did You die, dear Lamb, for me?
He bled—He groaned—He died for thee.
Oh, teach me that new song
Which occupies their time;
And say, will it be long
Before I shall reach that clime?
I'll wait until You shall call me home;
Yet come, Lord Jesus, quickly come.
Is there a harp for me?
(Oh, gently chide my fears!)
Is there a throne for me
Beyond the rolling spheres,
Where joys unchanging ceaseless flow,
And sin or death shall no one know!"
The THRONE ROOM of heaven is not one of the least appropriate and gorgeous mansions of the Father's house. The saints of God are a kingdom of priests—a royal priesthood—the heirs of a kingdom. And no character in their glorified state will be more visible and distinct than their regal one. The expectation of an earthly kingdom—the dream of the early Christians—our Lord dispelled by announcing that His kingdom was not of the world. But while He thus sought to inculcate more spiritual views of the nature of His Church, He at the same time broadly declared the fact of their present royalty and of their future reign. "And Jesus said unto them, Verily I say unto your, That you which heave followed me in the regeneration, when the Son of man shall sit on the THRONE of his glory, you also shall sit upon twelve THRONES, judging the twelve tribes of Israel," (Matt. 19:28.)
The apocalyptic vision of the seer confirmed this statement "And I saw THRONES, and they sat upon them . . . and they lived and REIGNED with Christ," (Rev. 20:4.) Our glorified Lord again referred to the enthronement of the saints in His cheering words addressed to the Christian combatant: "To him that overcomes will I grant to sit with me in my THRONE, even as I also overcame, and am set down with my Father in his THRONE." "Be faithful unto death, and you shall receive a CROWN of life."
Such, believer, are your royal and resplendent expectations. A public and glorious enthronement and coronation awaits you. A royal priest, you will before long be made like Christ, a "priest upon His THRONE." Emerging from your present incognito—the ignorance of the world and the cold neglect of the Church—you will be ushered into the THRONE ROOM of glory, saints and angels will escort you to your seat, and, amid the hallelujah chorus of countless myriads, Christ will CROWN you a KING and a PRIEST unto God, and you shall REIGN with Jesus forever and ever!
Oh, whatever obscurity may now veil your relation as belonging to the seed royal, let your demeanor be such as to stamp you with the character once ascribed to Gideon's brethren, of whom it was said, that "each one resembled the CHILDREN of a KING!"
We are trespassing not upon the region of Imagination when, in depicting the spiritual architecture and appointments of the Father's house, we refer to the PICTURE GALLERY as constituting one of its most appropriate and attractive mansions. It is not materializing heaven to transfer to its spiritual descriptions the expressive imagery of the material. In so doing we but imitate the Holy Spirit, who, in all His spiritual delineations of glory, hesitates not to dip His divine pencil in the bright, gorgeous colors with which God has tinted and enameled this beautiful world.
Painting, as a historic art is universally and practically acknowledged. As the handmaid to history, her aid and achievements have won the gratitude and admiration of ages. Transfer the illustration to heaven. Upon the walls of that magnificent gallery, depicted in color of living light, will be seen all the marvellous events of God's moral and providential government in the history of the universe, separately, visibly, and eternally traced.
Nor this only. What will be our astonishment and marvel, when we gaze upon the walls of that gallery, to behold our individual history, from our entrance into this world of woe, to our entrance into that world of glory; each event, each epoch, each step delineated with a lifelike truthfulness, a depth of tint, and a transparency of color which shall reveal all the past with startling vividness, overpowering the mind with wonder, and expanding the heart with praise!
Incidents which we had failed to note, events which we had totally forgotten, providences which we had blindly seen, and circumstances which we had strangely misunderstood, will then form a series of pictures, presenting a complete and perfect history of our individual life, illustrating the infinite wisdom, goodness, faithfulness, and love of our Father throughout the whole!
It is recorded of Elizabeth that, ignorant of the laws of painting, she commanded her portrait to be taken without a shadow upon the canvas. With an ignorance of the laws of moral painting equally as profound, and infinitely more serious, how often would we have obliterated from our history those somber pencilings of life's picture—the dark background and blended shadows—which the Divine Artist knew to be essential to the fidelity, harmony, and perfection of the whole!
We would have life without its moral discipline. We would efface from the portrait all the shadings of sorrow and sickness, suffering, poverty, and bereavement— leaving nothing but the bright and sunny hues of unmingled, unclouded happiness! But when we wander through the interminable PICTURE GALLERY of our Father's house, and gaze upon the carvings, the paintings, and frescoes of our whole life, each epoch, event, and incident— the lights and shadows beautifully and exquisitely blended— looking down upon us with startling fidelity from its jasper walls; we shall then see the infinite rectitude of our heavenly Father in all His present dealings with us, both of sorrow and of joy. With what vividness shall we then see the necessity, as much for the cold, dark pencilings, as for the warm, roseate tints of the picture; and for both the lights and shadows, the joys and sorrows of life, we shall laud and adore His great and glorious name!
Among the many mansions there will not be wanting one which will especially recognize heaven as a place of study. What a 'LIBRARY of knowledge', therefore, awaits us in our Father's house! Heaven is a place of thought, of expanded intellect, of matured and ever enlarging and enriching mind. Our minds are now but in the infancy of their being; and the themes of reflection and subjects of research which they grasp are necessarily graduated to our present infantile and limited powers. What an infinite sea of knowledge, upon whose shores we now but stand, is reserved for our higher life in glory!
The Library of Heaven! How vast! how rich! What volumes for study will be the histories of the universe—of our world—of man—of redemption—of our individual life! What exalted and sublime themes of thought, the being and character of God; the love, grace, and glory of Christ; the work, power, and gentleness of the Holy Spirit! In a word, what volumes for our study and research will be the Book of providence and the Book of grace!
And will THE BOOK have no place in that library? Verily, I believe that it will. I do not think that in the archives of heaven, the Sacred Scroll of God's Revealed Truth will be missing. That most marvellous of all wonderful books, the BIBLE; the parent, and source, and foundation of all that was accurate in history, true in philosophy, profound in science, rich in poetry, sound in ethics, and real in religion; will then unclasp its lids and unfold its leaves; and in a light that will explain every truth, elucidate every mystery, harmonize every discrepance, we shall read the Bible as we never studied its wondrous contents before! Not a truth will be lost!
It is recorded by a late historian that, had every copy of "Paradise Lost" been destroyed, such was the marvellous tenacity of his memory, he would have been able to have reproduced every sentence of that poem. Is it too much to affirm that, so engraved, engrafted, and inlaid is the precious Word of God in the souls of the regenerate, when every material copy of the Bible shall, with all that is merely human, have passed away, each truth of that Divine revelation shall be reproduced, read, studied, and preserved forever in the Library of our Father's House!
The subject which this chapter has but imperfectly discussed is most consolatory and sanctifying. Is it not a soothing reflection, that all those who depart this life trusting in Christ, we shall find again in the House of the ONE FAMILY? When we met their last look of love, and caught their last words of blessing, and then laid their dust to rest until the trumpet of the archangel sound, we were ready to ask, "Shall we see them again?" Oh yes! the gospel of Christ illumines the believer's grave with a living hope!
On our arrival in the Father's house, we shall find them all again; not one absent who on earth possessed the first fruits of the Spirit. How promotive is this truth of Christian union and brotherly love in the Church of God! In cultivating home feelings, domestic affections, and sympathies, in our anticipation of heaven, we shall instinctively feel drawn by a bond of irresistible attraction towards all who evidence their relation to the family of God. We shall prove our filial relation to God by our fraternal affection for His people; "Every one that loves Him that begat, loves him also that is begotten of Him."
Have we not all one Father? Are we not all brethren? Do we not sit at one table? And are we not all journeying to the same home? Why should we then fall out by the way? Why allow differences of judgment, or denominational distinctions, or party heats, suspicion, envy, and jealousy— those wretched fruits of the flesh— to fracture and alienate us the one from the other? Must not a lack of love like this be grieving to the heart and dishonoring to the name of our one Father? Let us no longer speak of tolerating a child of God, or deem it condescension to fraternize with one of the Lord's saints, because he belongs to another branch of God's family.
Away with such spurious Christianity! Rather let us, in the meek and loving spirit of the Elder Brother, feel ourselves honored in ministering to him in the lowliest office of Christian service, everywhere and on all occasions recognizing and loving him as a brother beloved of God, and thus recognize, love, and honor the Father in His child.
Oh for more Christlike LOVE in the family of God! This I consider to be the great, the chief lack in the professing Church of Christ in the present day. I speak not of differences of judgment, or modes of worship, or of denominational branches— these have existed, do exist, and will exist until Christ comes to unite all His people in one body, and blend all in one worship, and behold the answer to His prayer and the consummation of His desire— "that they all may be one."
But I speak of a lamentable deficiency of that LOVE which may and should exist despite of ecclesiastical differences, which derives not its inspiration, form, and tint from a denominational source or mold, but which proceeds pure and holy from God, and in its influence on the Church binds and assimilates in oneness of spirit, in fellowship of heart, and in unity of service all who are the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus.
Let us aim to model and to mold OUR EARTHLY HOMES after the heavenly. There righteousness dwells, holiness sanctifies, love reigns, perfect confidence and sympathy and concord exist. Why should not the earthly homes of the righteous be types of this? The domestic habitation is a most marvellous and benevolent appointment of God, and is designed, among other ends, to unite, strengthen, and sanctify the different relations of life, and thus secure and promote the mutual happiness and well being of each and all.
Thus God would make the FAMILY relation a type of His Church on earth and in heaven. But, alas! how has sin perverted this! What places of misery are some homes on earth, even where Religion is supposed to have found a temple and a shrine! Discord, where there should be harmony; suspicion, where there should be confidence; jealousy, where there should be delight; coldness, distance, and alienation, where there should be the warmest, closest and most endearing communion; harsh, abrupt expressions, where there should be nothing but pleasant words; indifference and neglect, where there should be the profoundest interest and sympathy; in a word, hatred, where there should be love.
But, beloved in the Lord, this should not be so with you! And with you it is an individual matter for our homes are just what the individual members of the family make them. One unhappy temper, one unbending will, one unloving, unsympathizing heart may becloud and embitter the sunniest sweetest home on earth! Oh, cultivate the affections, the sympathies, and the communion you hope to perpetuate in heaven! By mutual forbearance, gentleness, confidence and love; by deeds of kindness, delicate attention, and graceful demeanor, seek to transfer as much of the purity, love, and sunshine of your Father's House above as you can, to your Father's house below. And then, when you ascend from the earthly to the heavenly, it will be but the transfer of home affection, communion and happiness cherished, cultivated, and sanctified here, to a higher and nobler sphere; holy as God, enduring as eternity.
Let us cherish domestic thoughts and anticipations of heaven. This will make us long to be there. How confirmatory of this the dying testimony of some! Listen to their glowing language. "Almost well, and nearly at home," said the dying Baxter, when asked by a friend how he was. A martyr when approaching the stake, being questioned as to how he felt, answered, "Never better; for now I know that I am almost at home." Then, looking over the meadows between him and the place where he was to be immediately burned, he said, "Only two more stiles to get over, and I am at my Father's house." "Dying," said the Rev. S. Medely, "is sweet work, sweet work; home! home!" Another on his deathbed said, "I am going home as fast as I can, and I bless God that I have a good home to go to."
What sweet and powerful attraction has it to quicken our pulse and to speed us onward to its blessed abode! Heaven is to some richer in love than earth. With many there are no relatives so close, no friends so dear, no hearts so loving, no minds so congenial as those in heaven. And still it grows richer! Earth's ties are loosening, life's relations are lessening, sacred friendships are narrowing, the purple clouds of our pilgrimage are disappearing, and soon we ourselves will be the last shadow that shall melt into eternity! But these holy ties, these hallowed relations, these sacred friendships, these heaven enkindled loves, will all be found again in OUR FATHER'S HOUSE.

World, farewell! my soul is weary;
I would here no longer stay,
In your desert wild and dreary;
Heavenward will I wend my way.

World! in you is war and strife,
Pride and vanity are rife,
But in Heaven there ever is
Peace, and rest, and perfect bliss!

On that blessed shore arriving,
Pain and sadness at an end,
Done all anxious care and striving,
Resting with my dearest Friend!

In the world is need and woe,
And at last death's bitter throe;
But in Heaven above shall be
Peace, and joy, and purity.

What are earthly joy and pleasure?
Cloud and mist and empty wind.
What are worldly wealth and treasure?
Burdens for the weary mind.

Oh, what glorious songs are pealing
From that chosen, spotless throng;
Over the plains of heaven stealing,
'Holy, holy,' still their song!

World! in you are scoffs and jeers,
Hatred, woe, and bitter tears;
While in Heaven there ever is
Peace, and rest, and perfect bliss!

Here is weeping and repining,
Earthly joy not long endures;
If a while the sun is shining,
Soon dark night his beams obscures.

World! deep anguish is in you,
And the final agony;
But in Heaven above there is
Peace, and rest, and perfect bliss!

There my Lord unveils His glory,
I shall see Him face to face.
And repeat the wondrous story
Of a sinner saved by grace.

When the woes of earth are past,
And death's bitter pang at last,
Then in heaven above will be
Peace, and joy, and purity.

Oh to join the thrilling voices
Of that happy, sainted choir!
Each in Jesus Christ rejoices,
All their thoughts to Him aspire.

Cheer, my soul, the time is nearing
You your Savior's face shall see!
Do you love your Lord's appearing?
Joyful shall that moment be.

World! you have but storm and strife,
Fear and sadness, death in life;
While in Heaven there ever is
Peace, and rest, and perfect bliss!

Now, in love without dissembling,
Savior, school my willing heart,
That when worlds are round me trembling,
'Come,' I hear, and not, 'Depart.'

World! in you is fear and care,
Sin and sadness everywhere;
But at HOME there ever is
Peace, and rest, and perfect bliss!

"Father, I will that they also, whom you have given me,
be with me where I am; that they may behold my glory."

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

THE LIGHTS AND SHADOWS OF SPIRITUAL LIFE

Table of Contents

1. CHRIST, The Nature and Source of Spiritual Life

2. TWILIGHT, Day-dawn Before Sunrise of Spiritual Life

3. SHADOWS, The Obscurations of Spiritual Life

4. REVIVAL, The Depression and Revivification of Spiritual Life

5. SERVICE, The Sphere and Culture of Spiritual Life

6. SICKNESS, The Succor and Soothing of Spiritual Life

7. BEREAVEMENT, The Submission and Solace of Spiritual Life

8. RETIREMENT, The School and Discipline of Spiritual Life

9. HOLINESS, The Fruit and Flower of Spiritual Life

10. The Coming of the Lord, The Crown and Consummation of Spiritual Life

CHRIST, The Nature and Source of Spiritual Life

"I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ lives in me." -Gal. 2:20.

In a treatise designed to illustrate the moral phenomena of Spiritual Life- the lights and shadows which pencil its chequered history, it is essential that, in the outset, we scripturally and distinctly define its nature and indicate its source. On this vital subject it must not be concealed that opinions are extant which, when measured by the standard of God's Word, by which alone all theological teachings must be tested- will be found diametrically antagonistic to its teaching, and fatally perilous to those who receive them. In the creed to which we have referred, the idea is advanced- imported, doubtless, from the German school of thought, and endorsed with the name of one of its most learned divines- that Christianity is life derived from the sinless nature of Christ, as the 'ideal of humanity' and communicated solely by the authority and agency of the Church.

A more unscriptural and subtle theory- one more destructive of the true idea of spiritual life, and fatal to the eternal interests of those who adopt it, could not possibly be conceived. A spiritual and thoughtful mind will at one glance detect its fallacy and danger. The fact appears on the surface that it involves, as it is intended that it should involve, a total denial of the Deity and Atonement of Christ; while it equally includes a daring negation of the Office and Power of the Holy Spirit as the Divine Communicator of spiritual life, by whom alone the soul, "dead in trespasses and in sins," becomes truly and emphatically a "living soul."

It is a solemn enquiry how far the conception and reception of this heretical theory comprehends a real belief in the Bible as true, and in the religion of Christ as divine. If this be the accepted idea of spiritual life, and nothing more, it is difficult charitably to believe that those who hold it are really and experimentally, partakers of this divine blessing- are, in reality, "quickened with Christ."

Intellectually and theoretically they may accept the Bible to a certain degree as true; guarding their unbelief by the admission that, if not wholly inspired, there is at least inspiration in it; and that thus, par excellence, it is the most wonderful volume existent, as a book of history and philosophy, of poetry and ethics! As a Book of history and philosophy, of poetry and ethics, it is the most wonderful volume existent; but is it nothing more? Alas! what multitudes there are the fruitful offspring of this age of broad theory and speculative thought who thus accept the Bible as a text-book only without the slightest knowledge or profound conviction of its being wholly and only the Word of God: whose great revealed truth is, "Christ our life."

Enamored by the casket, they see not the Divine jewel it contains; admiring the frame, they are oblivious of the marvellous Picture it encases; fascinated, as we have remarked, with the Bible as a book profoundly philosophical, sublimely poetical, and divinely ethical; they are spiritually and wilfully blind to HIM to whom the Scriptures testify as the "light and the life of men;" who has emphatically declared- "I am the Way, the Truth, and the LIFE."

It is with SPIRITUAL LIFE, then, that we are now concerned. It will be acknowledged that life in its every form is a marvellous and a beauteous thing. There is, in reality, no place where life is not; there never was a time when life was not; and there never will be a period when life will cease to be. But, passing by all other forms of existence, our thoughts are now concentrated upon the divinest, most sublime, and holiest of all life- the life of God in the soul of man.

It is to this life the Apostle refers in the remarkable words which we now attempt to expound: "I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ lives in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave Himself for me." An important truth meets us in the outset- the believer's crucifixion with Christ. "I am crucified with Christ." The crucifixion of Christ had a twofold object- His personal crucifixion for sin, and our spiritual crucifixion to sin. It is in this latter sense we are to interpret the language of the Apostle.

Doubtless, the death of Christ, as a substitutionary offering for their sins, constituted the death of the power and dominion of sin in the regenerate. There could not possibly have been the breaking the scepter, and the overthrow of the despotism of sin in the soul, had not Christ "condemned sin in the flesh" when, impaled upon the cross, He exclaimed, "It is finished!" Crucified for them, all believers clearly recognize the truth that, through the sacrifice of Christ, they are delivered from the penal consequences of sin, and are, consequently, fully and forever saved. Resting simply by faith in Christ, they reach the happy experience of peace with God through Him who "made peace by the blood of His cross," and thus can joyfully exclaim, "In whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace."

Oh what a vital and blessed truth is this! It is the brightest light in the picture of the Christian's spiritual life. Indeed, there had been no light but for this, the source from where all other gleams of brightness flow. Every spring of blessing, every rill of joy, every ray of hope which composes the Christian life, has its primal cause in the cross of Christ. The Fountain that was there- opened the satisfaction that was there offered- the victory that was there achieved; laid the basis of that stupendous superstructure of salvation which but awaits the crowning of the edifice- to wit, "the redemption of the body," and its reunion with the redeemed soul, at the "glorious appearing of the great God our Savior."

But, not the least result of Christ's crucifixion for sin is the believer's crucifixion to sin- in other words, the gradual, and, when death releases him, the entire overthrow of sin's power and dominion in the regenerate soul. Christ crucified for us, is not the same thing as our being crucified with Christ. The one aspect of the cross puts away what we have done (our sins) - the other puts away what we are. The one is the crucifixion of sin- the other, the crucifixion of self; the one is the death of what I was- the other, the death of what I am.

By the substitutionary death of Christ, in virtue of our mystical union with Him, we died to the law, as a means of justification- "Through the law, I am dead to the law, that I might live unto God;" and we also died to sin as an accusing and condemning element- "God sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, condemned sin in the flesh."

Oh how faintly we apprehend this vital and glorious truth of SUBSTITUTION! It is the very soul and marrow of the gospel. All that Christ did was in the name, and on the account of, His Church; and in virtue of its oneness with Him, its Head, believers are mystically crucified with Christ, and are buried with Christ, and are risen with Christ, and are ascended with Christ, and are seated with Christ at the right hand of the Father in the heavenlies. We have nothing, then, to do with the putting away of sins which eighteen hundred years ago were arraigned and tried, sentenced and condemned, by our Substitute and Surety on the cross. What we have now to do with sin is its daily mortification and crucifixion in the body, that we should live no longer unto sin, or to ourselves, but as believers in Christ, to God, even "as those that are alive from the dead."

This introduces the second clause of the passage- the spiritual life of the believer, "Nevertheless I live." The Christian's is a paradoxical life; and no feature so strikingly and truly proves the dual, or the twofold, nature of the regenerate, as this. He is composed of opposites as wide apart as the poles asunder. No marvel that he is a wonder to others, and a yet greater wonder to himself! "I am," says David, "a wonder unto many." When he is weak, then is he strong; and when he dies, dies by the lingering death of a moral crucifixion- then, and only then, can he exclaim, "I live!"

It is an impressive declaration- not less true than solemn- which we pronounce in the exquisitely beautiful burial service, "In the midst of life we are in death." But Christianity reverses this sad sentiment, and in exultant language affirms of the believer in Jesus- "In the midst of death we are in life." In words more inspired and apostolic- "I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live." Such may be the declaration of every believer in Christ "I live."

He is the subject of new and spiritual life- not born with him naturally, nor communicated to him humanly, but is the result of a new birth, and is imparted by the Holy Spirit. "Born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. "

The condition, of which this new life is the reverse, is one of the most difficult truths to bring home to the moral conscience of the unregenerate mind. And why? Simply because he is spiritually dead. No reasoning, no persuasion, no appeal will convince a corpse that it is a corpse. Neither can you convince an unregenerate soul, spiritually lifeless, "dead in trespasses and sins" that, before it becomes an heir of glory, it must become a subject of grace. We have to deal with death in the mind, death in the affections, death in the will, in a word, with death in the whole being. The moral sentence under which the whole human race rests is the original one pronounced upon our first parent- "In the day that you eat thereof you shall surely die." In the Hebrew, "in dying, you shall die the death."

Addressing the converted Ephesians, the Apostle, describing their present renewed state, forcibly reminds them of their former condition "You has He quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins." This is no figure of speech, no hyperbole, but the announcement of an indisputable and most awful fact. Oh, it is a solemn reflection how far you may go in a Christian profession, in pious duties, and in religious forms; how orthodox may be your creed, and punctilious your ritual, and yet all the while remain in the rigor of spiritual death. To you may be addressed the solemn reproach of the Church in Sardis- "I know your works, that you have a name that you live, and are dead."

But every true believer is a quickened soul, and with the Apostle, in the words under consideration, can exclaim, "I live!" He is in possession of another, a new and spiritual life; and to some of the features of this spiritual life let us now proceed to address ourselves. The first one we mention is, the moral death which it involves. It is a life unto death, and yet a life unto life! -the germ and first-fruits of the life that is eternal. It would seem to be a life engrafted upon death. Thus the Apostle expresses it: "You are dead and your life is hid with Christ in God." "I through the law am dead to the law, that I might live unto God." "I am crucified with Christ; nevertheless I live." In what sense are we to understand this apparently contradictory language of the Apostle?

Clearly the moral death to which he refers, as a consequence of spiritual life, is the believer's death to the law as a covenant of works, as an instrument of life, and as a condemning power; his death also to sin as no longer ruling and reigning, though still dwelling and conflicting, in the living soul. This spiritual life, too, involves death to the slavery of the flesh, to the power of the world, and to the supremacy of Satan. In all this, beloved, you are dead, if the life of God pulsates in your quickened soul. The spiritual death that once held you as its victim has no more dominion over you. You are "through the law dead to the law, that you might live unto God." And a new and divine nature having been imparted, "sin shall no more have dominion over you;" for "you are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God."

Another feature of this life is, its divine nature and supernatural origin. It is above Nature (supernatural). 'Human nature' may counterfeit, but cannot imitate it. That there may be counterfeits of spiritual life, God's word makes it evident. Simon Magus believed, and yet was "in the gall of bitterness, and the bond of iniquity." Judas repented, yet "went out and hanged himself." Herod sent for John and heard the word from his lips gladly, but was eaten by worms. Oh, yes! Nature can go far in its forgeries of God's superscription, its counterfeits of the Spirit's work, and yet be Nature still.

'Human nature' prompts not the anxious question, "What must I do to be saved?" 'Human nature' inspires not the penitential prayer, "God be merciful to me a sinner!" 'Human nature' wrings not the agonizing cry, "O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?" 'Human nature' awakens not the sweet confession, "Lord, you know that I love you!" 'Human nature' can go so far, but no farther.

Convinced of its impotence and defeat, it retires baffled and discomfited from the vain attempt successfully to imitate God's own work of grace in the soul of man; and so it becomes an unwitting and unwilling witness to the truth, that there is a genuine supernatural life in the regenerate, which no spurious, galvanized religion can counterfeit- of which God the Father is the Source, God the Son the Author, and God the Holy Spirit the Conveyancer; and of which all spiritually-quickened believers are, through sovereign grace, the happy subjects.

How solemn is the personal question which this statement forces upon the thoughtful mind- "Am I truly born again? is my religion a reality? is the spiritual life I profess the divine breathing of God in my soul? O you 'Second Adam!' you who are a 'quickening Spirit!' decide this solemn question, and cause me to know that, 'I live; yet not I, but Christ lives in me! Lord, when you come in your glory, shall I be found but as 'reprobate silver;' grasping the burnished lamp of an empty profession, destitute of converting grace in my soul, having a name to live while yet dead? Search me, O Lord, and try me heart; examine me, and root out all that is false and spurious and dead, and make me a true temple of God through the Spirit!"

This conducts us to a most vital and important view of spiritual life- the indwelling of Christ in the soul. "Christ dwells in me." The spiritual life is Christ. It is not the believer that lives, but Christ living in the believer- "Christ, who is our life." "I have come that you might have life." "Christ in you the hope of glory." "I in them, and You in Me." Such are the terms which set forth this stupendous truth- the indwelling of Him who is essential life, in the quickened soul of the regenerate.

What a vivifying, sanctifying truth is this! Did we but live in the constant realization of an indwelling Savior, a reigning Sovereign, a loving Friend, what manner of people would we be in all holy conversation and godliness! How slow would we be to grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom Christ dwells in us, ever remembering that our bodies are the temples of God through the Spirit.

The indwelling of Christ in the regenerate soul is not less comforting than sanctifying. He dwells in the believer. It is His permanent residence, never to forsake it. He dwells there to watch His own vineyard night and day, lest any hurt it; to upbuild His kingdom in the soul; to subjugate to the scepter of His grace its corruptions and infirmities, the affections of the heart, the faculties of the mind, and the passions of the soul; in a word, Jesus dwells in the renewed heart as its consolation and hope; stopping the proud waves of sorrow which else might overwhelm it; illumining and gladdening it with the joys, the hopes, the sunlight of heaven.

Thus, it is a mutual indwelling of Christ and the believer. The believer dwells in Christ, his life hid with Christ in God; and by His Spirit, Christ dwells in the believer, his fount of consolation and his hope of glory. Blessed Jesus! make my body Your residence, my heart Your throne, my whole being Your sacred temple!

"As myrrh new bleeding from the tree,
Such is a dying Christ to me;
And while He makes my soul His guest,
My bosom, Lord, shall be your rest."

Another and most instructive characteristic of this spiritual life is, the crucifixion of self in us which it involves. This is, perhaps, one of the strongest and most convincing evidences of its reality and growth. "I live; yet not I." Here was an entire abnegation of self in the Apostle, and this grace constitutes the first round in the believer's ascent in this divine life. Self is the first citadel of the soul against which grace directs its battery. Until this is successfully besieged, there is no taking of "the town of Mansoul." Self-righteousness, self-trust, self-glorifying, must yield to the humbling, emptying power of the Spirit. Self must be mortally wounded before Christ lives in us. The two sovereigns cannot reign at the same time and upon the same throne. Self-righteousness, self-glorifying, self-seeking, must fall when Christ enters triumphantly to set up His kingdom, to erect His throne, and to subjugate all the powers and faculties of the soul to His own holy and gracious supremacy.

"I live; yet not I, but Christ lives in me." And so should every believer respond! "I live to God- I labor for man- I win souls to Christ- I give my wealth- I devote my time- I consecrate my gifts- I mortify the flesh- I vanquish Satan- I overcome the world yet, not I, but Christ that lives in me! Though I be nothing in myself, yet, Christ in me, and Christ with me, and Christ strengthening me, I can do all things."

Oh what vigilance it demands, lest this wretched self in us obtain a partial, or even a momentary, ascendancy! The two principles- self and grace- are in deadly antagonism the one to the other in the regenerate. In proportion as Christ lives in us, self dies. It is recorded that, "there was long war between the house of Saul and the house of David: but David waxed stronger and stronger, and the house of Saul waxed weaker and weaker."

And thus it is with the principle of self and the principle of grace in the believer; in other words, the old and the new nature in the regenerate. Between these two kingdoms- "the house of Saul" representing the old nature, "the house of David" the new nature- there is a perpetual and long war; but, as Christ increases in us, as we grow in a knowledge of Christ, and are more filled with Christ, and more closely assimilated to Christ- the new man will grow stronger and stronger, and the old man will grow weaker and weaker, until it dies.

And the instant that the work of sanctification is complete- for it is a progressive work, and is destined to completion- that instant the believer will hear the Lord's words- "Come up hither," and he will ascend to that pure and blissful world of which it is said, "And there shall in no way enter into it anything that defiles, neither whatever works abomination;" for all are washed in the blood and are robed with the righteousness of the Lamb. Oh blissful life! Oh glorious hope! The thought that I shall before long be freed from all sin, and be emancipated from the body of death, thrills soul with "a joy unspeakable and full of glory."

That very thrill convinces me that I am the subject of a life that is eternal, that I possess a nature containing the germ of perfect holiness, and that before long, beneath a warmer sun and a brighter sky, the germ will reach its full perfection, and I shall be- not what I now am, a sickly, drooping plant of righteousness- but a full-blown, perfect flower of holiness, blooming in deathless beauty in the Paradise of Heaven!

Such is that spiritual life the variations of which these pages propose to delineate. Oh seek to know it more and more in its reality, power, and growth! It is, "Christ in you the hope of glory." And since there are fluctuations in the spiritual as in the natural life of the soul- its ebb and flow, its lights and shadows- let this truth be uppermost in your mind, that through whatever phases and variations your spiritual life may pass, He who is your life, in whom it is safely and eternally lodged, knows not the shadow of a change: "Jesus Christ the Same Yesterday, Today, and Forever."

TWILIGHT– Day-dawn Before Sunrise of Spiritual Life

Until the day dawn, and the day star arise in your hearts." -2 Peter 1:19.

The acknowledged analogy of Nature and Grace- the argument of which Bishop Butler has so conclusively established, and with such a master's hand- must impress every thoughtful mind with the conviction that, One Infinite and Divine Intelligence is the Creative Power and emanating Source of both. Few points of analogy are more striking and beautiful than the one suggested by our present subject the day-dawn which precedes the sun-rising of grace in the soul.

Long before the orb of day has peered above the horizon, soft and golden rays trembling upon the eastern sky, have foretold and heralded his approach. To the poet's eye "In fine frenzy rolling, "few spectacles in nature are replete with such interest and loveliness as this. To a mind susceptible of the most delicate forms of beauty, the scene is far more enchanting and impressive than even the sun's full, noontide splendor. Now this is just the image the Holy Spirit employs to illustrate a most beautiful and interesting phase of spiritual life- that delicate and incipient state of grace which, in numerous cases of conversion, is the harbinger of the full advent of the Sun of Righteousness in the soul.

In this light we interpret the passage which supplies our present subject, "Until the day dawn, and the day star arise in your hearts." There is a day-dawn of grace, as there is a daydawn of nature- and the analogy is true and striking. Few who have not studied the varied phenomena of spiritual life are aware how faint and colorless, how almost insensible and invisible, may be the advent of the kingdom of grace in the soul of man. To this beautiful feature of conversion, day-dawn before sunrise, let us address our thoughts. "Until the day dawn, and the day star arise in your hearts."

The first feature which arrests the mind is, the profound darkness of the soul which precedes the first dawn of spiritual light. The spiritual darkness of the mind, in its abnormal or natural condition, it is almost impossible by any description or image adequately to depict. It surpasses Egyptian darkness; it is a darkness that might be felt. When God, who was the original Sun of the soul, withdrew from this magnificent orb, all spiritual light was extinguished, and a cloud of great darkness ensued, filling and mantling the whole being of man. True, there still remained the natural light of reason and of conscience and of the affections, when God left the soul; and these constitute man a morally responsible and accountable being.

But, spiritually, the soul passed into profound and total eclipse; and the darkness of night and of death, with all its derangement and disorder, flung its gloomy pall over man's entire being. How clearly the word of God puts the solemn truth! "Behold, darkness shall cover the earth, and gross darkness the people." Their foolish heart was darkened." "Having their understanding darkened." "If the light which is in you be darkness, how great must that darkness be!" What spiritual darkness veils the mind to the Being, character, and truth of God! What gross darkness steeps the soul, deranging the mental and enshrouding the moral faculties of the whole man! What impenetrable and fatal darkness hides the exceeding sinfulness, the indescribable enormity of sin!

My reader, this is your condition by nature. With all the splendor of your intellectual powers- with all the natural light of your reason- with all the luster of your scientific discoveries- with all the wealth of your gathered wisdom- with all the love, amiability, and winning attractions of your natural disposition, character, and address, you are still in nature's darkness, "having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in you, because of the blindness of your heart." You are walking in darkness, not knowing how perilous is your path, upon what a precipice you stand, and to what a world you go! Oh that "God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, may shine into your heart," and give you to see your darkness, and then "to behold the light of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ." Seek this in earnest prayer, lest your feet stumble, and your soul is finally and eternally landed in "outer darkness, where there is weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth.

"But, "the day dawns." How beautiful the image! how significant the words! How faint and trembling the first dawn of divine grace! How feeble and fluctuating the first pulse of spiritual life! It is, perhaps, but a thought, an emotion, a sigh, a misgiving, a tear, the first breath of prayer gently heaving the anxious breast. But it is real for all that. Just as the first and faintest streak of light trembling in the eastern sky is as really light as the meridian splendor of noontide day, so the first sigh, and the first tear, and the first prayer in the soul is as truly divine as the faith that moves the mountain, or the grace that embraces the martyr's stake. Cheer up then, you awakened, trembling soul! You have just enough light to render darkness visible; enough to see yourself a poor, ignorant, lost sinner, needing Jesus. Following, and not quenching, that light, it will increase more and more, grow brighter and brighter, until the perfect day.

And who is this "Day Star arising in the heart," of which the passage so glowingly speaks? Who but the Lord Jesus Christ, the "Star that should come out of Jacob," and who Himself declared, "I am the bright and Morning Star." Christ is emphatically "the Day Star." Stars are the jewelry which adorn the brow of night. When the sun has disappeared, the firmament blazes with countless constellations, fixed and revolving, vast and minute, which enkindle the vault of heaven with indescribable effulgence. A star in full, unclouded splendor, shining out at noonday would be an astronomical phenomenon, strange and unheard of.

But it is written, "His Name shall be called WONDERFUL." The Incarnation of the Eternal Son of God was the center and source of all the countless wonders that clustered around His wondrous life. And this is not the least, that He is the DAY, or Morning Star from on high, shining in the soul with a life and splendor compared with which all other is but the torpor and the shadow of death. As the "Day Star," our Lord Jesus Is Essential Light. Divine, His nature is self-existent and independent; Infinite, His resources are boundless and inexhaustible. Borrowing light from none, He imparts light to all others. Who but the Son of God could with reason and truth thus authoritatively and sublimely affirm, "I Am the Light of the World"?

All light the light of the natural and of the intelligent world- light of grace and of glory- flows from Christ, the Essential Sun of the universe, the "Day Spring from on high." This is the only light that can guide the soul to heaven. The light of reason and of nature "Leads but to bewilder, Dazzles but to blind." We ignore and undervalue not the natural light God has given to man. It is from Him, and, as such, is to be gratefully acknowledged and reverenced. But yet more unhesitatingly we affirm that, guided to eternity by this light alone, it is a light that will most assuredly and fatally mislead the traveler there. We cannot place this fact too prominently before the reader, that the human intellect is fallen and benighted; and that without the life of Christ and the illumination of the Spirit, it cannot find its way to God, or up to heaven.

We will concede to the soul of man all the marvellous powers- second only to Himself- with which God has furnished it. We will admit that it is capable of solving the most abstruse problems in science; that it can mathematically calculate the distance of the sun from the earth, and of the planets from each other; that it can triumph over the most formidable obstacles in nature, subjugating its most potent agencies to its control, bidding the very lightning obey its behests; and yet, with all this magnificent display of power, it cannot find out God, or take one step towards Him!

Let the reader study thoughtfully the first chapter of the first epistle to the Corinthians, and learn from thence the attested and solemn truth that, "the world by wisdom knew not God;" that, when every expedient of are and science had been tried to find out God, and discover a healing for creation's fatal wound, a panacea for man's moral malady, had failed, God took the work in His own hand; and "it pleased Him by the foolishness of the preaching of Christ crucified to save those who believe." Oh, when will the wise of this world cease to glory in their wisdom, and learn to place their intellectual powers and high attainments, not above the cross, where Pilate placed his Greek and Latin and Hebrew, but beneath the cross, where alone they must receive the kingdom of God, even as a little child? "Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child, he shall not enter therein."

But daylight before sunrise is deepening- the twilight is dissolving, and spiritual life, thus gently and gradually dawning, is about to rise in the heart in all its noon-tide power. The heart is the orbit of this new-born sun. It is there the first conviction of sin is experienced; it is there the first pulse of life is felt; it is there the first victory of faith is achieved; it is there the first emotion of love thrills the soul. The heart is the home, the temple, the throne of God's life in man's soul. A religion that illumines the intellect only, that goes not beyond an informed judgment, is as the moonbeams playing upon a palace of ice, poetical and beautiful, but lifeless and dead.

But the light of spiritual life is quickening. It illumines the judgment; but it does more, it quickens the soul, renews and takes captive the heart, vitalizing the passions and powers of the entire being; it ushers into existence a new world of thought and feeling and action, claiming our entire being, all for, and consecrating all to, God. This is the new birth! This is that great change of which Christ spoke as essential to the kingdom of heaven- "Marvel not that I said unto you, You must be BORN AGAIN."

Its advent, like the day-dawn before the sun-rise, may be faint and progressive; or, like the "new-born babe," may have a gradual and a hidden growth, and its birth be ushered in amid the throes and pangs of a soul convulsed to its lowest depths by sin's conviction, and the terror of the law. Nevertheless, the perfect day comes, the heavenly child is born, and all the angels sing together for joy! And thus the spiritual life enthrones itself upon the soul, never, never to be dethroned!

We are not, however, we trust, in thus depicting the process of spiritual life as a gradual work, from dawn to day, from childhood to full age, entrenching upon the sovereignty of the Spirit, who in this marvellous work does not limit Himself to one line of procedure, or restrict Himself to one process of action, but, "working all things after the counsel of His own will," quickens the soul at a time and by a mode that illustrates the inexhaustible opulence of His own means, and receives the largest revenue of glory to His own self. Thus, while spiritual life in some, perhaps in many individuals, is as the dawn of day, faint, slow, imperceptible, as in the case of Nicodemus; in others, it is rapid, sudden, instantaneous, as in the case of Saul of Tarsus, and of the three thousand converts on the day of Pentecost.

Let us be cautious, therefore, of limiting the sovereignty of the Holy Spirit to a given and prescribed mode of operation; and equally so how we sit in judgment upon any case of conversion, simply because it has transpired, not according to the mode by which we, perhaps, were 'born again,' but in a way totally different to our own, -in the one case, gradual as the day-dawn; in the other, rapid as the lightning's gleam; in the one, the soul is drawn; in the other, it is driven to Christ.

But, oh, though the paths by which the goal is reached may be different, the goal itself is one- Christ Jesus the Savior of sinners! All are taught alike to know the plague of their own hearts; all are led to wash in the same sin-cleansing blood; all put on the same soul justifying righteousness; and all alike produce the same "fruits of righteousness which are by Jesus Christ, unto the praise and glory of God." And thus, whether we enter the divine temple of God's Church by the south gate or by the north, whether by a soft gale or by a tempest, -all are brought to Jesus, and free and sovereign grace wears alone the crown, and the Triune Jehovah receives all the glory! "The wind blows where it wills, and you hear the sound thereof, but can not tell where it comes, and where it goes: so is every one that is born of the Spirit."

"As blows the wind, and in its flight
Escapes the glance of keenest sight,
So are the wonder-working ways
Of God's regenerating grace.

"As nothing can its power withstand
But Him who holds it in His hand,
So are the heart's corruptions slain
When once the soul is born again.

"As over our frames we feel the gale
Gently or mightily prevail,
So some are softly drawn to heaven,
And others as by tempest driven.

"And as the herbs, the flowers, the trees
Are seen to bend beneath the breeze,
So visible the change we view
When grace does thus the heart renew.

"Come, Holy Spirit, and impart
Your secret virtue to my heart;
And let this be the happy hour
To show Your mighty, quickening power!"

But there is the twilight of glory- the daylight before the sunrise, as well as of grace. What, indeed, is the day-star of earth but the harbinger of the Morning Star of Heaven? Grace in the soul is the embryo, the germ, the first-fruits of glory. It is not the quantity or the ripeness of the first sheaf that determines the future harvest, but the nature of the grain. And so, it is not the amount, or the strength, or the achievement of divine grace in the believer, but its reality that forever settles the question of its future and glorious harvest of eternal blessedness.

Oh to be true, real, honest, and genuine believers in Christ! Look more, my reader, to the character of your religion- to the reality of your conversion- to the nature of your faith, than to the amount of your religious knowledge, or the splendor and popularity of your Christian profession. We may have a name to live- a name high up in the records of the Church, and emblazoned on the roll of its charities- and yet be 'dead' to that divine and spiritual life, the faintest dawn of which in the soul is the token and pledge yes, the very commencement of the life that is eternal- a life of glory forever with the Lord.

In the anticipation of that glory, and in a growing fitness for its inheritance, let us aim to live! Soon it will dawn- yes, in countless souls, it has already dawned. If you feel sin a plague, and Christ precious, if you trample your own righteousness in the dust, and have put on by faith the righteousness of God, if your walk and conversation is holy, and are careful to maintain good works as fruits and evidences of your faith in Jesus, if you are 'chastened of the Lord, that you may not be condemned with the world,' of which chastening all the sons of God are partakers- then, beloved, the day-dawn of glory, the daylight before the sunrise of heaven, has already begun in your soul; and your path through the wilderness- though it be rough and thorny- the lights and shadows of spiritual life alternately penciling your way- shall be as the "shining light, that shines more and more unto the perfect day."

And then comes the meridian of glory! the noontide splendor of eternal purity and blessedness: no more clouds to shade- nor tears to dim- nor sickness to waste nor pain to torture- nor death to separate; best, and brightest, and holiest of all- nor SIN to disturb, mar, and taint. "As for me, I will behold Your face in righteousness: I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with Your likeness." Oh yes! SATISFIED, perfectly and forever satisfied. 'Satisfied' with all the way- its sunshine and its shade- by which You, my Lord, shall have led me there!

"I shall be satisfied, but, oh, not here,
Where sin its wild, dark waves tumultuous rolls:
Here is the conflict of the world and hell,
But never calm repose for human souls.

"Here is the turmoil, loud and fierce, of strife;
Here is the widow's woe, the orphan's tear,
The parent's grief as closes some young life;
I know there's nothing can satisfy me here.

"Earth's fairest scenes are soonest desolate,
Her coolest streams most speedily run dry;
No sooner is a new Elysium found
Than the Destroyer to its gates draws near.

"Where, then, may we ever reach that wondrous bliss?
Is there above or 'neath the firmament
One spot where longing souls may know the joy,
The speechless happiness of full content?

"Yes! to my mind a vision rises, fair
A royal city, streets of purest gold
A river through it flowing, trees and flowers
Whose loveliness can never on earth be told.

"There evermore to roam in those sweet fields,
No more to war with Satan, sin, and pride,
To join the wondrous chorus round the throne
Ah! then I shall be fully satisfied.

"But who can tell the bliss of that one word?
Satisfied! satisfied! while the ages roll!
Nothing to mar the joyous full content
There felt by every blessed, ransomed soul.

"Then when and where shall I be satisfied?
I ask, and know the answer that will come:
When in my Savior's likeness I awake
Where I shall dwell with Him in Heaven, my home."

"The Obscurations of Spiritual Life"

"Until the shadows flee away." -Solomon's Song 4:6

Shadow is as essential as light to the beauty of a landscape, or the perfection of a painting. Either, destitute of shading- the darker hues heightening the effect of the more brilliant coloring, and throwing into bolder relief the objects of nature, and the studies of the pencil- would lose more than half their expression and grandeur. Thus is it with the spiritual life of the soul. Light and shade are closely and artistically blended with the picture of the Christian's life. Drawn by a Divine Artist, all its parts- however inartistic and incoherent they may appear to the superficial eye, or even to the more tutored eye of the Christian himself- are essential to the completeness of the work, and are the production of Him who is "excellent in counsel, and great in beauty."
Let it be once admitted that God is a Great Artist, and that the Divine Image restored to the human soul is the masterpiece of His productions, and all mystery vanishes touching the necessity, wisdom, and perfection of blended light and shade in the daily walk of the believer. Our present subject, then, is of the SHADOWS of spiritual life. The words which suggest it are replete with instruction and beauty. They are, if we correctly interpret them, the language of the Church. "Until the day break, and the SHADOWS flee away, I will get to the mountain of myrrh, and to the hill of frankincense." The truth embodied in the first part of this passage has already received our attention. And yet we cannot too frequently or too emphatically remind the reader of the strong tendency there exists of overlooking the "day of small things" in the history of divine grace in the soul.
Living in an age of rapid thought, and of yet more rapid action- an age in which even religion has caught the spirit of the times, and immediate conversion would seem to be the popular idea of the day- and against this idea we are loath to breathe a word of dissent, seeing that the Holy Spirit is a Sovereign, and that, instant grace may be as real; and as frequent, as instant glory- may there not exist the danger of overlooking the mere faint and progressive process in which, perhaps, the majority of cases, divine grace dawns and grows in the regenerate soul?
But our present chapter proposes to delineate, not the lights which illumine, but the shadows which darken, the path of spiritual life in its course to that 'perfect day' of glory, that 'morning without clouds,' to which it is destined eventually and surely to arrive. In the absence of those shadows, which we now proceed to notice, how much of the beauty and completeness of the Christian character would be lacking! The landscape would be too light, the picture too brilliant. Both would lack that soul-subdued and chastened tone which the varied and somber hues of the Christian life impart. Let us, then, briefly trace a few of the clouds which thus shade the spiritual life of the believer.
The first we adduce is, the shadow of spiritual ignorance, which, more or less deeply, rests upon every pious mind. The spiritual education of the believer is, in its most advanced stage, but initiative and progressive. Compared with what he may yet attain, he has learned but the alphabet of divine knowledge. The Bible, with all his profound knowledge and research, is still but as the kindergarten book in his spiritual training; and the more advanced his attainments, the profounder and more humbling is his conviction how little he knows in comparison with what he yet may know.
Such was the experience and such the testimony of Paul, who, writing to the Philippian Church, thus expressed himself. "Not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect: but I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus." "That I may know Him." He knew Christ as few knew Him; but, placing no limit to his attainments, and thirsting for yet higher ones, praying to know more and still more of the Divinest, loveliest, and most wonderful Being in the universe, he was willing to forget- not ignore- 'the things which were behind' -the ground he had traversed- pressing forward and upward to higher rounds in his heavenly ascent, 'apprehending' or taking hold of that for which he was also 'apprehended' -or taken hold of by Christ Jesus.
Oh for more of this Christ-longing spirit of the Apostle! The grand secret of growth in grace, of planting our feet higher in the steep of holiness and love and heavenliness, of rising above earth and its sins and sorrows, is in knowing more of Christ. Realizing more our resurrection and ascension with Christ, it will be moral lever lifting the soul into a higher region of love and purity and communion, even where Christ sits at the right hand of God. Nor was the Apostle alone in this aspiration after the increase of spiritual knowledge. Listen to the prayer of Elihu: "That which I see not, teach me." Here is the humble acknowledgment of conscious ignorance.
How much there is in our spiritual education for heaven which we do not see! "We know in part." Let the range of study be as wide, and the spiritual eye as strong as it can be, the confession of the most advanced Christian will still be, "I see through a glass darkly- I know in part." Take, for example, our knowledge of sin. We do, indeed, know something of its blackness just enough to impel us to the Open Fountain; but our views are shallow, our conceptions cloudy, and our contrition imperfect. There is a depth in sin we have not sounded, a mystery we have not unraveled, and a turpitude we have not felt. "Who can understand his errors? Cleanse me from secret faults." The error of the judgement, the error of the will, the error of the affections. Hence, the necessity and wisdom of David's prayer- "Cleanse me from secret faults."
The secret faults against which he prayed were not sins committed in secret and veiled from every eye; but those faults which in themselves were secret, of which he himself knew nothing, nor even suspected- sins of the mind, sins of the affections, sins of nature, and "the iniquity of our holy things." "Cleanse me from secret faults." What a needed prayer for Christian men of business! The vast commercial transactions of the day, the opening fields of enterprise, the thirst for wealth, the ease with which it is acquired, the temptations to deviate from the strict line of integrity and uprightness, must, necessarily, involve a tendency to many 'secret faults,' against which the religious professor, borne on upon the rapid current of the age, has need vigilantly to watch and pray. Oh when will the mercantile men of our nation, imitating the example of the devout Thornton, that true Christian merchant of his day- erect an oratory side by side with the counting-house, to which, in 'all times of their wealth,' and in all times of their adversity, anxiety, and temptation, they may resort, and receive grace and strength and soothing, where alone it is found in holy, confidential communion with God!
Closely allied with the cloud of spiritual ignorance of sin, is the passing shadow of guilt upon the soul. Perhaps no shadow of the spiritual life is so darkening and depressing as this. It may, indeed, be but as a vapor- some known duty neglected- an opportunity of usefulness lost- an unkind word spoken- a hasty spirit betrayed some Christian principle faltering- still, it is a passing shadow; and the mirror of the conscience, which should ever be kept in the highest polish, is in a moment dimmed, and the soul is affected thereby.
And is there no remedy for this temporary obscuration of spiritual life no dissolving of this passing cloud? Oh yes! The blood of Jesus applied, effaces in a moment the sense of guilt, leaving not the shadow of a shade upon the conscience.
And what a chill shadow is the temporary obscuration of the Divine presence- the veiling of the light of God's countenance- the momentary hiding of Jesus from the soul. The vicissitudes through which spiritual life passes- its ebb and flow-its partial or its total eclipse- are, more or less, the experience of every believer. Oh, there is no sorrow like spiritual sorrow: no cloud so dark, no shadow so cold, no sky so rayless as that which intervenes between God and the living soul. It is a solemn and instructive thought, that He who is our spiritual life, Himself traveled through this stage of its history. "My God, my God! why have You forsaken Me?" It was the total eclipse of the "Sun of Righteousness," of which the natural sun, now clothed in sackcloth and in sympathy with its Creator, was a type.
Are you walking in soul-darkness, beloved? Is God hiding His face? Has Jesus suspended His sensible presence? and is this shadow, deep and dark, resting upon your spirit? Cheer up! It is not the darkness of unregeneracy, but the passing shadow of Christian life, and before long it will dissolve and vanish. Listen to the language of your covenant God and Father: "For a small moment have I forsaken you; but with great mercies will I gather you. In a little wrath I hid my face from you for a moment; but with everlasting kindness will I have mercy on you, says the Lord." The 'small moment' will before long pass, and the shadow will disappear- and the joyous language of your soul will be, "O God! You were angry with me; but Your anger is turned away, and You comfort me."
With the shadow of adversity, in some one or more of its protean forms, all true believers are familiar. "The Lord tries the righteous," and He tries them because they are righteous. Not more essential the knife that prunes the branch- not more necessary the fire that refines the gold- not more needful the storm that rarifies the atmosphere- than is adversity to the growth of the spiritual life of the soul. Is not the experience of every believer in harmony with that of the Psalmist? "Before I was afflicted I went astray: but now have I kept Your word." "It is good for me that I have been afflicted; that I might learn Your statutes." To no discipline is the divine life of the soul under greater obligation than that which thus prunes and refines, and which thus fructifies and purifies.
Sweet are the uses of adversity; and never so sweet as when most bitter! "Out of the eater comes forth meat, and out of the strong comes forth sweetness;" and from an adversity that looked so consuming- from an event that threatened, as with lion-strength, to crush every fair prospect of life- there has issued some of the costliest blessings in the believer's history.
God fashions graciously the hearts of all His children alike; "for what son is he whom the Father chastens not?" All are tried. The family provisions are "the bread and the water of affliction." "Humble and scanty fare this!" exclaims the worldling; nevertheless, lowly and distasteful as it may be to those who are living upon 'husks'- that which they call food- there is in it an element of sweetness, and a power of nourishment and growth, which the living soul only knows and fully tests. "The full soul loaths a honeycomb; but to the hungry soul every bitter thing is sweet."
Affliction times are fruit promoting times to God's "trees of righteousness." Afflictions deepen the roots, and clothe the boughs with the foliage and fruit of righteousness. Oh, who can fully estimate the real advance of the spiritual life of the soul in one hallowed trial, through one sanctified sorrow? The slumbering spirit of prayer is roused- the truant heart is recalled- trembling faith is strengthened- and the spirit shaded with sorrow and the soul bowed with calamity, turns to Jesus, and finds in the wounded and wounding hand of the Savior, the balm and the succor which 'heals the broken in heart, and binds up their wounds.'
There are some believers who only become fruitful in trial, who make no headway in their spiritual voyage but in a storm! Their language is the echo of the sweet poet of Olney; "More the treacherous calm I dread, Than tempests bursting over my head." And does not this shadow pass away? Oh, yes! When, like a faithful servant, it has discharged its errand; when its heaven-sent mission is fully accomplished, it will dissolve into the light of joy, and issue in a new song of praise. "The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and plenteous in mercy. He will not always chide: neither will He keep His anger forever." "Weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning."
In the literal night, when suffering, nervousness, or mental depression, banish sleep from the pillow, life's shadows- its responsibilities, cares, and anxieties- gather thick and dark around the soul. Every object assumes an exaggerated form of terror, and is clothed with a deeper hue of gloom. But all is not shadow to the Christian then. One remembrance of God, one glimpse of Jesus, one thought of heaven, one moment's realization of eternity, and the clouds dispel, the shadows flee, and the melody of the song- never so sweet as at night, floats like angel's chimes around the pillow.
"I have remembered Your name in the night" -Your name as Father, Your name as Jesus. "In the night His song shall be with me." "When I awake" -as from a troubled dream, from those darkling shadows which drape my bed- "I am still with You," and find myself reposing upon Your paternal bosom. Oh what a mercy to wake in the morning and feel ourselves with Jesus!
So it will be when we fall asleep in death! We shall awake in Heaven, and find ourselves still and forever with the Lord!

"In silence or the middle night,
I awake to be with Thee;
And through the shadows as the light
Your mercy smiles on me.
"I talk with You upon my bed,
In meditation blest,
And sweetly pillow there my head,
Upon my Savior's breast.
"I think of Him who knelt and prayed
At midnight on the hill;
Then walked the sea, His friends to aid,
And bid the storm be still.
"I think of Him who took the cup,
In dark Gethsemane,
And, gathering strength from prayer, rose up
To die for such as me.
"I think of heaven, where never more
The weary ask for night,
But ever freshening glories pour
New raptures on the sight.
"So do I learn a parable,
That in my darkest day,
When waves of sorrow round me swell,
The storm shall pass away.
"Nor will I turn my head aside,
Though bitter griefs be mine;
But say with Him, the Crucified,
Father, my will is Thine.
"Thus shall I praise You while I've breath,
To sing Your love to me,
And welcome even the night of death,
To wake and be with Thee."
The shadow of temptation, be it from Satan, from the world, or from his own heart is, to many Christians, the most severe and terrible of all that fall upon the soul. Our Lord passed through this fearful ordeal as none other ever did, or ever can. "Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. "And during forty days and nights He fought single-handed with the foe, assailed by him with every form of weapon, yet foiling him at every point, and quenching the flaming dart with the Divine shield of the Word- "It is written." Long and dark was the conflict, but He came out of it- as every tempted believer will- more than conqueror, even triumphant; as Daniel from the lions' den, unwounded; as the three Hebrews from the fiery furnace, unscathed.
Look up, tempted one! Your spiritual life needs this discipline. It is but a passing shadow, obscuring for a moment its luster and beauty. And yet how little of Christ as tempted in all points like as we are, and as succouring those who are tempted, should we experimentally know but for this shadow falling upon our spirit!
It is a pleasant thought, that the shadow of temptation, however severe, leaves no trace of guilt upon the conscience, except only when we voluntarily yield to its power. The mere assault of a temptation involves no sin, and leaves no taint. And this reflection should go far to lighten the dark shadow with which this subtle and malignant foe of the Christian seeks to overwhelm the soul.
"The Lord knows how to deliver the godly out of temptation," and He will deliver you. When He has tried you, you shall come forth as gold, your spiritual life all the purer, and your Christian character all the brighter, for the fiery temptation through which your loyalty to Christ and truth and conscience has passed.
But all is shadow here! The world is a shadow- and it passes away! The creature is a shadow- and the loveliest and the fondest may be the first to die! Health is a shadow- fading, and in a moment gone! Wealth is a shadow- today upon the summit of affluence, tomorrow at its base, plunged into poverty and dependence! Human friendships and creature affections are but shadows- sweet and pleasant while they last, but, with a worm feeding at the root of all created good, the sheltering gourd soon withers, exposing us to the sun's burning heat by day, and to the frost's cold chill by night! Oh, yes! 'Passing away' is indelibly inscribed upon everything out of and below, God; yet how slow are we to realize the solemn lesson it teaches- "What shadows we are, and what shadows we pursue!"
In this point of light our subject addresses itself pointedly and solemnly to the unconverted reader. What is your life but a vapor that passes away? and what its pursuits but shadows- unreal, unsatisfying, evanescent? Your rank, your wealth, your honors, your pleasures, are but phantoms which appear but for a little while, and then are lost in the deeper shadow of the grave, and the still deeper and longer shadow of eternity! Oh, turn from these dreams and hallucinations, and, as a rational, accountable, immortal being, on your way to the judgment-seat of Christ, fix your mind upon the solemn, endless future! You are going to die! And, oh, when that dread hour comes- viewed from a stand-point so real and appalling- how will your past life appear?
While penning this chapter, the writer was requested to visit a gentleman approaching the solemn hour of death. Casting his eye upon the rich gems of art which crowded the walls of his room, he pointed to them, and solemnly exclaimed, "What can all these shadows do for me now?" And such will be your exclamation when you come to die! Oh flee to Jesus! Believe in Christ! Embrace the Savior, who rejects no poor penitent sinner who comes to Him! "What shall it profit a man, if he gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?
"But there is a Shadow- which yet is not a shadow- beneath which we may recline and find perfect refreshment and repose. It is CHRIST, the "Shadow of a Great Rock in a weary land." He is a "Shadow from the heat," when the sun of affliction scorches us; "the Rock that is higher than we," when the heart is overwhelmed with the billows of grief. All other shadows will dissolve, but "Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and forever," and "knows not the shadow of a turning."
Soon the last cold shadow will fall upon us, and then all will be glorious and endless reality. Shrink not from death, O believer in Jesus! for, through Christ, it is but a shadow. Jesus, by dying and rising again, has annihilated the substance of death, transforming it into a phantom, a shadow, a sleep, an unsubstantial thing; through which the ransomed soul passes, and finds itself in a moment encircled by the realities, the splendor, and the music of Heaven- "absent from the body, present with the Lord."
"Yes, though I walk through the valley of the Shadow of Death, I will fear no evil: for You are with me." Until then- "Until the shadows flee away, I will go to the mountain of myrrh, and to the hill of frankincense," -I will go to Christ, and give myself to prayer.
"The clouds hang heavy round my way,
I cannot see;
But through the darkness I believe,
God leadeth me.
'It is sweet to keep my hand in His,
While all is dim,
To close my weary, aching eyes,
And follow Him.
"Through many a thorny path He leads,
My tired feet;
Through many a path of tears I go;
But tis sweet
To know that He is close to me
My God, my Guide;
He leadeth me, and so I walk
Quite satisfied."

"REVIVAL: The Depression and Revivification of Spiritual Life"

"O spare me, that I may recover strength, before I go hence, and be no more." -Psalm 39:13.

A dying bed is a solemn and searching standpoint from where to review the personal and past history- its lights and shadows of spiritual life! All is stern reality! The fictions and deceptions of religion now yield to the tremendous conviction that the soul, disengaging itself from the relations and delusions of time, is about to confront the dread realities and changeless decision of eternity! Such was David's position, and such his feelings, when he breathed the prayer- "O spare me, that I may recover strength, before I go hence, and be no more." His mental powers were waning, and the scepter of a long and prosperous reign was falling from his death stricken grasp. But, a more startling and solemn fact was unveiling to his mind!
Now it was that the real state of his soul, as before God, burst upon him in all its reality! In the true and searching light of that tremendous hour he discovered a declension and loss in the tone and evidence of his spiritual life which filled him with dismay. At the moment that he was about to confront the 'last enemy,' and fight the last battle, lo! the 'standard-bearer faints' by reason of exhausted spiritual power! The subject is singularly instructive and profoundly solemn. May the Spirit of life make its consideration a quickening power to our soul!
The first point raised is the spiritual state which David thus deeply deplores: it was the declension and decay of the life of God in his quickened soul. And, before we unfold this state, it may be necessary to remark that, this is not the condition or the prayer of a soul utterly destitute of spiritual life. A corpse is insensible of feeling- it has no consciousness of the absence of life. But where there is life, there is the intelligent and acute consciousness of waning health and vigor. So is it with the living soul. The fact of a believer's possession of spiritual life is evidenced by the consciousness of its decay. The felt loss of spiritual power proves to demonstration its previous existence just as pining sickness brings home to the sufferer the painful consciousness of the loss of vigorous health.
We should, therefore, in considering this condition, be careful to mark the distinction between a soul actually "dead in trespasses and sins," and a living soul lamenting, as David does, the decay of spiritual life. It is thus the Lord often teaches us by its negative, the real value of a positive blessing. He will have a thankful and praiseful heart. "Whoever offers praise glorifies me." And when, undervaluing His mercies, gratitude congeals in the heart, and praise sits silent upon the lips, He most wisely and righteously suspends His favor for a while, that we might appreciate more fully the value of the gift and the goodness of the Giver. "Open my lips; and my mouth shall show forth Your praise."
It is thus with the greatest of all gifts- the gift of spiritual life. We may not have valued that life, as we should have done; we have not employed it in the service of Christ and for God's glory, as He intended; and so He has allowed it for a while to decay, and permitted sin to have the ascendancy; and that thus we more deeply estimate its value, and learn to watch against its declension. We now turn to the case before us. A believer, in the near prospect of his departure, may deplore the loss of the sense of his adoption. At the moment that he plants his foot upon the threshold of his heavenly home, he discovers that- like Bunyan's pilgrim- he has "lost the white stone with the new name," and has to retrace many steps to find it. And thus, in place of the joy and hope he should experience in the near prospect of his arrival at his father's house, he is filled with doubt and dismay, and cannot enter glory with "Abba, Father," breathing from his lips.
May not this loss of the sense of adoption be attributed to two causes- the little filial dealing of the heart with God, and to the spirit of bondage in which the soul had been allowed too long to travel? If, then, receiving instruction from this fact, we would find ourselves in full and undoubted possession of the "white stone, and the new name written therein," at the moment when we shall need all the consolation and succor it is possible from every source to receive, let us be careful of our filial and close walk with God. Examine each day the evidences of our sonship- see that nothing shades a fact so divine and precious, and so walk in the holy liberty with which Christ has made us free from the power of sin and the fear of death- the liberty of filial communion with our Heavenly Father, and of submission to His paternal will- that thus living in a sense of our adoption, we may not drag our slavish chains to a dying bed, but meet our last enemy with the shout of liberty and the paean of triumph!
Not less conscious may the departing saint be of the loss of his sense of a present and complete acceptance in Christ. His prayer is "O spare me, that I may know my standing in Christ: my acceptance in the Beloved." And, alas just at the moment that he is summoned to the Banquet, he is casting about in search of evidence of his possession of the robe in which he is to appear! To what may this sense of loss be attributed? May it not, in part, be traced to those activities of religious life which too much draw off the believer's care of his personal and spiritual interests? The white robe may be loosely girded, and carelessly worn; it may hang slovenly, and trail heedlessly. And when most we need to know our full, free, and present justification our possession of the 'wedding garment' and the 'best robe'- the plaintive cry is heard, issuing as from the dying pillow- "O spare me, that I may recover strength."
We have ventured to ascribe this sense of loss to the Christian life lived too much in the region of social and public religious engagements; and to this we may add the deteriorating, deadening influence of theological polemics and ecclesiastical controversy. Scarcely any causes are more prolific of a loss of the vigor and evidence of spiritual life than this. Baxter speaks of his "hand as crushed in the vice of religious controversy." Now many a man of God will confirm this testimony of the worthy puritan, touching the spiritual loss of the soul experienced in the heat and strife of religious conflict- contending, it may be- not for some vital tenet of the faith- but for a non-essential rite, or a denominational shibboleth. A solemn lesson is taught us here!
We live in an age of great religious activity: the active, rather than the reflective and devotional element, would seem to be the leading characteristic of modern Christianity. It behooves us, then, to be doubly vigilant and prayerful, that we allow no earnestness and labor for others to draw us off from the state of our personal religion- our present standing before God, lest the lamentation is wrung from our lips in the hour of our departure- "They made me the keeper of the vineyards; but mine own vineyard have I not kept."
But, a fresh view of Jesus in death brings back the departing soul to its right position; faith is enabled to come to Christ, just as though it had never come before- and looking to Him, if not as an accepted believer, yet as a poor empty sinner, thankful to be able to come as such, the departing soul, having recovered strength, enters the valley with the victor's song upon its lips- "O death, where is your sting?"
The departing believer may discover that he was equally at fault in the distance at which he traveled from the "Open Fountain" thus finding himself on a dying bed without the clear sense of the applied blood- the sweet, joyous consciousness of the present and full pardon of all his sins. This is traceable, as we have hinted, to the too infrequent washing in the blood of Christ. The dwelling-place was pitched too far from the stream; the travel was at too remote a distance from the laver: and so the feet- dusty and soiled- when they smote the cold waters of the River, found the need of a renewed application to "the blood of Jesus that cleanses from all sin." "O spare me, that I may recover strength."
We need scarcely trace the declension and decay of spiritual life to its many exciting and proximate causes, since they will for the most part be obvious to every devout and observant mind. We may, however, briefly group a few of the more ordinary and fruitful ones. Among which we may cite: the distance of the soul in following Jesus; the restraining of secret prayer before God; the absorbing influence of the world- its calling, its conformity, its pleasures; sin indulged, unrepented and unconfessed; cold neglect of the means of grace; the walking by sight and not by faith; a separation in charity, affection, and communion from other saints; covetousness in withholding from the cause of Christ and of truth of our worldly substance more than is fit; the neglect of a daily washing in the fountain of Christ's blood, thus keeping the conscience tender, and the feet of our Christian travel constantly purified from the habitual contraction of earth.
All these are among the more immediate causes of the decay and declension of the spiritual life of the soul- fully discerned, it may be, only at the moment of its departure, with the prayer, breathing from the expiring lip, "O spare me, that I may recover strength, before I go hence, and be no more!"
But there is revivification of spiritual life, the existence of, and the provision for, which we must not overlook. This fact is implied in the prayer of David- "That I may recover strength." If spiritual life has its decays, it has also its recoveries; if its depressions, it has also its revivings. Nothing is more imperishable than the life of God in the regenerate; nothing more deathless than a spiritually living soul. The revivification may not transpire, in some cases, until the soul's near approach to eternity, yet, come it will, before the soul takes its flight to heaven.
It is the quaint remark of an old divine, that "God never puts any of His children to sleep in the dark;" that is, He does not allow them to die without some clear evidence, that, in death they are in life "dying in the Lord," who is their life, and are passing to that blessed "hope of eternal life, which God, who cannot lie, promised before the world began." But every true believer will feel it too solemn and momentous a thing to postpone the work of a renewed spiritual life until 'heart and flesh are failing,' and his feet smite the cold river over which he is about to pass.
It is our true wisdom to be laying up for a dying hour- living as those who are watching and waiting for the Royal Chariot that is to bear us to the King. Dying grace is, indeed, reserved for the dying hour; but it is the privilege of the child of God to "die daily," -dying to the power of inbred sin, the lusts of the flesh, and the pride of life; dying to the attractions of the world, the idolatry of the creature, and the still greater idolatry of self. Then, when we really come to die, having detached ourselves one by one from the "things that are seen and temporal," and, with a carefully-trimmed and brightly-burning lamp- the evidence of adoption, acceptance, and pardon, unquestionable and undimmed- we shall have nothing to do but to die!
Oh seek, then, a daily supply of spiritual life from Christ! Not merely has He come that you might have life, but that you might have it more abundantly. Christ is prepared to impart so richly and freely of this divine and precious blessing that you shall rise to a higher life- not another life- but a higher degree of the same spiritual life you already possess; a loftier standard of holiness and love and service- ascending the rungs of the spiritual ladder-the type of which Jacob saw in his midnight vision- until you plant your foot upon the summit, and find yourself- oh sweet surprise! -in heaven, 'safe in the bosom of Jesus!'
Among the most fruitful means of spiritual revival, overlook not the hallowed results of sanctified affliction. Times of trial are times of restoring and growth in the history of spiritual life. "Though I walk in the midst of trouble, You will revive me." The cloud of sorrow may be upon your heart, the shadow of death upon your tabernacle, but this may be the appointed way of quickening your soul to more spiritual sensibility, of recalling the truant affections, and of drawing you nearer, and still nearer to God. Oh blessed discipline of trial that quickens, revives, and strengthens the life of God in the soul!
Above all means of spiritual revival, seek to be "filled with the Spirit." All spiritual life is of His breathing; all communications of grace are of His conveyancing; of all evidences of our sonship, and pardon, and acceptance, He is the Witness; and of our hope of glory He is the earnest and the seal. "Grieve not the Holy Spirit of God, whereby you are sealed unto the day of redemption." Honor the Spirit- worship the Spirit- obey the Spirit- walk in the Spirit, and your peace will flow like a river, and your righteousness as the waves of the sea.
And if 'clouds'- dark and depressing- sometimes shade the picture of your spiritual life, 'lights'- luminous and cheering will throw a pleasant and hopeful radiance across the scene: and thus, through sunshine and shade you will be preparing for the glorious world of which it is said- "There shall be no night there, for the Lord God and the Lamb are the light and glory thereof." Oh, then, let your faith's eye- afresh anointed with Christ's true 'eye salve'- look from the present shadows of your spiritual life to the light beyond, where no shadow will ever fall upon your soul, but where all will be perfect and eternal sunshine- undimmed, unclouded forever! "Your sun shall no more go down; neither shall your moon withdraw itself: for the Lord shall be your everlasting light, and the days of your mourning shall be ended."
"Beyond the stars that shine in golden glory,
Beyond the calm, sweet moon,
Up the bright ladder saints have trod before you,
Soul! you shall venture soon.
Secure with Him who sees your heart-sick yearning,
Safe in His arms of love,
You shall exchange the midnight for the morning,
And your fair home above.
"Oh, it is sweet to watch the world's night wearing,
The Sabbath morn come on!
And sweet it were the vineyard labor sharing
Sweeter the labor done.
All finished! all the conflict and the sorrow,
Earth's dream of anguish over,
Deathless there dawns for you a nightless morrow
On Eden's blissful shore.
"Patience! then, patience! soon the pang of dying
Shall all forgotten be,
And you, through rolling spheres rejoicing, flying
Beyond the waveless sea,
Shall know hereafter where your Lord does lead you,
His darkest dealings trace,
And by those fountains where His love will feed you
Behold Him face to face!"

SERVICE, The Sphere and Culture of Spiritual Life

"And to every man his work." -Mark 13:34.

God has formed nothing- not the most infinitesimal product of creation- that has not a mission and that answers not an end. There is no waste in nature- nothing superfluous, or in excess. But, it is in the Christian life we find the most true and impressive illustration of this fact. If God has charged any creation of His wisdom, goodness, and power with a mission and a purpose worthy of Himself, it is the new creation, or, in other words, the spiritual life of the soul.

A new creation- as the believer is- a new world of being, of thought, and action, floats before him. He himself is that world! Partaking of a divine nature, invested with new powers and tastes and purposes, the regenerate man has found an object and end of life worthy the motive and the Author of his new-born being. It is now the noblest end and happiness of his life to live for God. Hitherto he has lived for himself. Up to a certain point of his creation, he has lived to the flesh. It could not possibly have been otherwise. Nature, apart from a supernatural power, will never rise above itself. "That which is born of the flesh is flesh," -and will be flesh, and nothing but flesh, until the end of its existence.

The new birth is not the transubstantiation- so to speak of the flesh into spirit; of the carnal into the spiritual: it is the infusion or impartation of a new and divine nature whereby the recipient becomes "a new creature in Christ Jesus." The old nature, though brought into subjection to the new, still retains its fleshly principles and its incessant propensity to sin. Now, it is for the appropriate and full exercise of the new nature or, the spiritual life of the believer- that God has provided.

It is a fixed law of our natural organism that exercise is essential to its development and growth. Its powers, left to an inert and inactive condition, would soon become paralyzed and bedwarfed. God has, therefore, mercifully ordained that labor should constitute an integral part of man's existence. This is not an accident, but an essential part of his original creation. Anterior to the fall of man, God sent him into the yet unsinned and uncursed garden to till it, thus teaching that labor is coeval with man's creation- a part of his abnormal existence. Now the same law equally applies to the spiritual as to the natural creation: and it is to this the preceding remarks have a bearing.

The object of the present chapter, therefore, is, to illustrate and enforce the truth, that Christian service is an appropriate sphere, and provides an efficient means for the development and culture, of the spiritual life of the soul. And we believe that the sequel will prove that, where indolence, selfishness, and inactivity have traced the personal religion of a Christian, his Christianity has, to a great degree, become stunted in its growth, unfruitful in its results, and impotent for good in its influence upon others.

The parable of our Lord upon which our present subject is based, strikingly and impressively illustrates it. Our blessed Lord speaks of Himself as "a man taking a far journey, who left his house, and gave authority to his servants, and to every man his work." The simple and obvious interpretation of the parable is found in the return of our Lord to the glory from where He came, leaving His house- or Church- on earth, and assigning to His ministers and all His servants each their duty- "to every man his work." The truth thus taught, and the precept thus enjoined, recognizes individual Christianity, and points to individual responsibility and office.

Christ has gone to heaven, to return again. During His absence, pending His return, all His servants have each one a charge to keep, a service to perform, a duty and a privilege to discharge in His name, and for His glory. "To every man his work." Now it is in a personal, diligent, and faithful performance of this service, the believer is to evidence the possession, develop the power, and promote the growth of his own personal religion. It is in this field of Christian service the active graces of the Spirit find their most appropriate sphere of exercise and culture. Before, however, we advert particularly to this point, let us first speak of Christian service: this will have prepared us to trace its reflex influence upon individual character.

"To every man his work." Personal responsibility and duty is the lesson here taught. As in a great building there are a variety of workmen, and each one has his special part in the superstructure so is it with Christ and with the world. Every Christian is a co-worker with God: employed in rearing that "spiritual house"- His Church which is destined to replenish the universe with His glory, and to fill eternity with His praise. All have not the same office; are not appointed to the same sphere; are not fitted for the same work. "For as we have many members in one body, and all members have not the same office," so we, being many, are one body in Christ; and to every man individually God has assigned his own work. It would be difficult to determine for another what is the most appropriate sphere of Christian service he is to occupy: this must be left to the Lord, and to his own intelligent consciousness.

No earnest Christian, longing to serve Christ, need be at a loss to know in what sphere the Lord would have him labor. He has but honestly and earnestly to send up the petition- "Lord, what will You have me to do? Show me Your way. Direct my steps to that field of service and of duty which You have ordained, and for which You have fitted me. Here am I, send me." This petition, offered with true-heartedness, the sphere of duty and of privilege, sooner or later, will be made known. That the Great Head of His Church- the Divine Architect and Builder of His spiritual Temple- has fitted you for, and appointed you to, a service, is not a question of doubt. He who does nothing without a purpose- who has formed not an atom or an insect without its adaptation to an end has not created you for an object unworthy your intelligence, responsibility, and destiny.

The obligations to a personal consecration of service to Christ are many and strong. Let a few suffice. And the first we mention is, your natural creation. "God has created all things for Himself." "I have created Him for my glory." The law of your creation imposes upon you the duty of loving, serving, and glorifying God. Not made to terminate in yourself, but in Him who made you, you are bound, by the law of your creation, to make God the one and the great end of your being. "No man lives to himself." He may strive so to do, but his relation to God renders it impossible. From that relation, as God's creature, he cannot disengage himself. It will follow him into eternity, and hold him in its grasp forever! Lost though he may be, he is still the creature of God's natural, and the subject of His moral, government; and God must cease to be what He is, before He relinquishes His claim!

But the obligation of the Christian to Christ's service rests upon a higher basis than the natural. He is not only the Lord's by creation, but he is His by redemption. As a redeemed subject, he is under the most imperious obligation to consecrate his ransomed being to the service of his Redeemer. "You are not your own," says the Apostle; "for you are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your bodies, and in your souls, which are His." Could any argument be so convincing, or any plea so touching, why we should dedicate to Jesus' service our entire being? Bought with a price so precious- ransomed at a cost so immense- can we hesitate for a moment compliance with the call, "Son, go work today in my vineyard"?

Oh, did we more vividly realize what it cost Jesus to make us what we are- delivering us from the curse, rescuing us from condemnation, paying our whole debt, and "opening the kingdom of heaven to all believers"- it would not be the question of a moment how much we should do, or how much we should suffer, or how much we should give, as an act of consecration, and as an expression of gratitude to Him, "who, though He was rich, for our sakes became poor, that we through His poverty might be made rich."

Called to be saints, with the especial and effectual call of the Spirit, implies that, henceforth, we are Christ's servants, and that His most free service is our highest ambition, our supremest delight, and our richest reward. Christians, in general, realize so faintly what Jesus has done and suffered for them, that the sense of obligation to enlist in His service, to advance His kingdom, and to vindicate His truth, is correspondingly faint; and the result is, a withholding- Ananias-like, of a 'part of the price,' all of which- without the slightest reservation should be laid at Jesus' feet. Called, then, with so high a calling as a saint- adopted to so high a dignity as a son of God- the obligation to service, the most demanding and self-denying, for Christ, allows not of a moment's hesitation or demur.

And when to these grounds- upon which Christ's claim to the consecration of our people, our intellect, our substance, rests- is superadded the hope of glory, the inheritance of heaven, the "forever with the Lord," the obligation is complete. What more could be added to render the bond more solemn, the reasoning more conclusive, the plea more irresistible? The reward of Christ's servant distances all conception, outvies all description. "Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, neither has it entered into the heart of man to conceive, the things which God has prepared" for him who serves the Lord Christ here. "If any man serve me, him will my Father honor." "Where I am, there shall also my servant be." "Be faithful unto death, and I will give you a crown of life that fades not away."

"To every man his work." Thus we are taught our individuality. It is a personal service, a service for the Lord, the discharge, responsibility, and account of which cannot possibly be transferred to another. "Son, go work in my vineyard," is the Lord's address to every individual Christian. None are exempt. "To every man his work" -and not another's. The important question with each one, then, should be "Lord, what will You have me to do? Show me, Lord, my work; then furnish me with the gift and grace it demands." And do you think that the Master and Owner of the Vineyard will leave you long in ignorance and suspense? Oh no! There is too much to be done- "the field is the world"-and, with many a saint of God, the night of the grave is near when no man can work. The sun of your life has far gone down, and nothing is left to labor and suffer for Jesus in, but the dim and shadowy twilight! Up, then, and work for Christ!

"To every man his work." You have yours. It may be as "a teacher of babes;" or, to visit the sick and the dying; or, to seek the wanderer, restore the fallen, and rescue the lost; or, to be an evangelist, or a Christian minister, or a foreign missionary, traveling to some far distant climate to unfurl the standard of the cross amid the gross darkness and degrading superstition and idolatry of a heathen world. Whether called to the highest post of Christian service abroad, or to be a "hewer of wood and a drawer of water" at home "anywhere, Lord, where I may best serve, and most glorify and honor You!"

In thus working for Christ and for man, we best promote our own spiritual life. The soul is as much created and fitted for activity- the mind as much formed and adapted for service- as the body. Yes, far more so. How often do we see the soul putting forth a might and majesty almost superhuman at the very moment that its mortal casement is falling in ruins from around it! -the mind thus asserting its superiority to, and its triumph over, the body. There are two classes of the graces of the Spirit- the active and the passive; the former, find their proper field and development in doing; the latter, in enduring; the one, in service; the other, in suffering. It is with the active graces this chapter especially deals. In Christian work the active graces of love-zeal-patience-fidelity-faith-and prayer are brought into appropriate and vigorous action; and, thus employed, acquire development, robustness, and growth.

Unemployed- allowed to vegetate and slumber- they grow enfeebled and paralyzed, and the spiritual life of the soul becomes retarded, stunted, and bedwarfed. But, as the present chapter has exceeded its assigned limit, we must hasten to conduct it to a conclusion by exhorting the reader to listen to the call of providence and of grace which is none other than the voice of Jesus- "Why do you stand all the day idle? Son, go work today in my vineyard?"

Oh, there is much to be done for a fallen world, and for a redeeming Christ! There is much land yet to be possessed. Souls are hurrying fast to death- what are we doing to save them? They are speeding rapidly to the judgment- what are we doing to prepare them? "This is a day of glad tidings, and we hold our peace." Satisfied of our conversion- if, indeed, we are- we heed not and seek not the conversion of others! Lord, deliver us from blood-guiltiness- the most terrible of all blood- the blood of souls! "When I say unto the wicked, you shall surely die; and you give him not warning, nor speak to warn the wicked from his wicked way, to save his life; the same wicked man shall die in his iniquity; but his blood will I require at your hand."

Solemn work! tremendous responsibility! appalling result! Oh that, when we give in our account when our work is done and our career is finished- we may, through grace, be enabled to exclaim with the faithful Apostle- "I am clear from the blood of all men!" Live, then, earnestly and lovingly in the service of Christ, and rich will be your present, great and glorious your future, reward. Your spiritual life- deepened and enlarged- will be enriched and beautified with many a precious fruit of righteousness; and your eternal life decked and honored with a many jeweled crown- will grow in knowledge, increase in happiness, and deepen in glory, as the endless cycles of eternity roll round. "They that are wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament; and they that turn many to righteousness as the stars forever and ever," "And he brought him to Jesus."

"What can I give to Jesus,
Who gave Himself for me?
How can I show my love to Him
Who died on Calvary?

"I'll give my heart to Jesus
In childhood's tender spring:
I know that He will not despise
So mean an offering.

"I'll give my soul to Jesus,
And calmly, gladly rest
Its youthful hopes and fond desires
Upon His loving breast.

"I'll give my mind to Jesus,
And seek in thoughtful hours,
His Spirit's grace to consecrate
Its early, opening powers.

"I'll give my strength to Jesus,
Of foot, and head, and will;
Run where He sends, and ever strive
His pleasure to fulfill.

"I'll give my time to Jesus;
Oh that each hour might be
Filled up with holy work for Him
Who spent His life for me!

"I'll give my wealth to Jesus:
It is little I possess;
But all I am and all I have,
Dear Lord, accept and bless.

"And if, O dearest Jesus,
Long life to me is given,
Your missionary let me be,
To win some precious souls for Thee,
And win them through eternity
To praise Your name in heaven."

"Sickness, The Succor and Soothing of Spiritual Life"

"Beloved, I wish above all things that you may prosper and be in health, even as your soul prospers." -3 John 2.

There is, perhaps, no picture of spiritual life in which its lights and shadows more strangely meet, or more harmoniously blend, than the one selected for the present chapter of our work. Certainly, there is no affliction in which sympathy, succor, and soothing, are more imperiously demanded; or, in which the grace and fruit of spiritual life are more conspicuous and rich, than the season and suffering of bodily sickness. Taking a comprehensive view of the subject, the circle to which this chapter will apply is illimitable.
Bodily disease, in some one or more of its complicated and countless forms, is a part of the sad inheritance bequeathed by our fallen Parent, of which every individual of the human race is heir. "All the world," says England's Poet, "is a stage, and all the men and women merely players," in the great drama of life, the scenes and issues of which are indescribably solemn and momentous! With equal truth, and by a figure yet more expressive, the world may be described as a vast Hospital, of which all are patients. But the present object limits our illustration of this subject to the "household of faith" sickness being one of the most common trials, as one of the most certain tests and helps, of spiritual life.
It was to such an one the beloved Gaius- the loving Apostle addressed the present epistle. How instructive and touching his words! "Beloved, I wish above all things that you may prosper and be in health, even as your soul prospers." The connection of bodily disease with soul health will at once suggest itself to the thoughtful reader. In the history of the believer's spiritual life, physical disease and spiritual health would seem almost convertible terms- as closely united and as reciprocally dependent the one upon the other as the body and soul itself. Sickness, viewed in the abstract- and apart from its hallowed results- is not a thing to be desired. And Bunyan- that wise and holy man, who at one period of his life derived so great a blessing from a season of illness- was betrayed into the unwise act of asking God for such another discipline! Thus a wise man may not always be wise. The Apostle would seem to have fallen into a similar mistake when three times be prayed for the removal of a dispensation of trial, the existence and prolongation of which, God saw the absolute necessity.
Oh, these examples should teach us to desire nothing- to seek nothing- to ask for nothing, less or more, than that God, in His infinite wisdom and goodness, knows we need, and sees fit to send. It is not proper or wise to pray for any evil that good might spring from it. Our duty, as our wisdom, simply is, to be still, committing all our concerns to the government of God, placing all our affairs in our Father's hands, who is too wise to err in counsel, and too good to be unkind in discipline. As our present object is to show how promotive bodily disease and suffering are of spiritual life, and to suggest such succourings and soothing as this most painful discipline demands, let us at once approach the subject.
We must remark, in the outset, that, in the sovereignty of God, sickness has often proved a means of conversion. Speaking figuratively, the sick-bed has become a converting-bed. Withdrawn by disease from the world's busy hum- its absorbing interests, its busy engagements, its ambitious hopes- to the quiet seclusion, the restless couch, the sleepless pillow, of a sick-room, the Holy Spirit approaches, and, amid the scene of pain and languor, of gloom and depression, commences that marvellous work of spiritual quickening which is to end in the soul's perfect and eternal health. And here the first pulse of spiritual life beats- and the first conviction of sin is felt- and the first tear of penitence is shed- and the first prayer for pardon is breathed- and the first look of faith is exercised- and the first thrill of love is inspired; and JESUS, that great Physician, has- as was His way when upon earth- made the body's physical disease the occasion and the channel of the soul's spiritual health.
Thus God, in the wonder-working of His sovereign grace, has brought that poor sinner to review penitentially his past life- to reflect thoughtfully upon his present condition- and to take a close, solemn, and realizing view of eternity! and in the agony of his soul to fly to Jesus- to look- believe and be saved; and from that sick-bed he has arisen a new creature in Christ Jesus- thanking God for his sickness through all time and through all eternity.
And who can fully describe the hallowed results of sickness in the experience of the advanced Christian? The quickening of his spiritual life- the deepening of the work of grace- the stirring up of the spirit of prayer- the recall of the truant heart to God- the self-acquaintance and sin-loathing- and the increased sense of Christ's preciousness are sacred and costly results of the sanctified discipline of sickness.
That illness has, perhaps, rescued from an existing evil, or has averted a threatening one. It required this 'decoy of health' to raise you from some profound depth- or to rescue you from some yawning precipice- or to place you in some yet loftier position of power and usefulness in the Church and in the world. And so the sickness of the body has, by its sanctified influence, quickened and advanced the spiritual life of the soul- and thus has, perhaps, proved the greatest boon, the most salutary and precious visitation of your life!
We have observed that, there are few experiences of the Christian in which the lights and shadows of his spiritual life meet and blend with such remarkable and perfect harmony as in the hour of sickness. Here are bodily disease-physical languor-torturing pain-and extreme nervousness; and, for a while, all objects, temporal and spiritual, and all beings, the closest and the fondest, are viewed through a jaundiced and distorted medium- the mind is shaded, the heart unstrung- and shadows, many and dark, dance upon the walls of that lone chamber, and fall thick and fast around that pillow of suffering. Hard thoughts of God are cherished- wrong interpretations of His providence are indulged- it is the "fourth watch of the night, and Jesus has not come!" and Satan, taking advantage of bodily suffering, mental despondency, and the temporary absence of Jesus, is hurling a whole quiver of fiery darts at his poor, enfeebled, and dejected victim!
These are the shadings of the scene. But, are there no lights in the picture? no bright touches of the Artist's Divine pencil? Oh yes! many and brilliant! and all the more brilliant from the dark shadows which have so thickly pencilled it, the effect of which has been to bring into bolder relief the great and essential features of the scene. Let us trace them.
The first bright light illumining the picture is the submission of the will. The conflict has been long and painful, the struggle terrible and severe- but, grace has conquered- God's will has triumphed! "Not my will, O my Father, but Yours be done," is now the music of the soul- the sacred anthem pealing from that sick pillow. Oh what a beauteous light is this- how pure, how brilliant! Angels, methinks, look down from heaven's glory to gaze upon the light of grace thus bathing that scene of suffering and languor. "The cup which my Father has given me, shall I not drink it?"
When Dr. Payson was asked by a friend, in a season of severe illness, if he could see any particular reason for the present dispensation, he replied- "No; but I am as well satisfied as if I could see ten thousand. God's will is the very perfection of all reason." Sublime reply! God's will- be it His permitting or His approving will- is the perfection of infinite wisdom, righteousness, and love; and therefore must do right, and cannot do wrong! Beloved, in your present mystery of suffering and season of languor, be your experience that of the pious Payson; yet higher and holier still- that of our Lord and Savior- "May Your Will Be Done!"
Oh, what words can describe, or imagery depict, the perfect peace, the sweet repose which, like the gentle dawn of light, or the soft zephyr of evening, will steal calmly over your soul the moment the conflict of the will ceases, and, in suffering and weakness, you are brought to "Lie passive in His hands, And know no will but His!"
The discipline of patience is another light blending with the shadows of sickness. No unimportant or untimely grace of the Spirit is this; the development and culture of which finds no school more appropriate, or discipline more effectual, than that of 'pining sickness.' The continuous endurance of unmitigated pain- the prolonged and deathly weakness- the failure of skill and remedies to promote a cure- the morbid irritability and fretting almost inseparable from the prolongation of suffering- and the remembrance of duties neglected, of affairs deranged, of expenses incurred- all conspire to render the discipline of patience the most needed and precious; and when attained, to shed one of the most luminous graces of the Spirit upon the shaded picture of bodily disease.
Patience is one of those flowers of the wilderness, springing up from the seed of heaven, which never grows so truly or blooms so lovely, as amid the sharp, cutting bursts of affliction. "The trying of your faith works patience. But let patience have her perfect work, that you may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing." "In your patience possess you your souls." "Lord, subdue my impatience and rebellion, and grant that, in this hour of pain and uneasiness, I may wait Your time and mode of recovery; and that, the true posture and acknowledgment of my soul may be that of Your servant David- 'Surely I have behaved and quieted myself, as a child that is weaned of his mother: my soul is even as a weaned child."'
The strengthening and increase of faith constitutes one of the brightest lights in the picture of spiritual life- and nowhere does that light glow with a richer luster than on a sick-bed. It requires no small faith, beloved, fully to believe that you are a sick one whom Jesus loves. "Lord, he whom You love is sick," is a precious declaration, as applicable to you as it was to Lazarus. Love blew upon the health that fades; love permitted the pain that afflicts; love appointed the disease that wastes; love, and nothing but love, has done it all. "Whom I love, I rebuke and chasten. Whom the Lord loves he chastens, and scourges every son whom he receives." Thus, when fever is consuming, and pain is torturing, and the nerves are quivering, and the mind is desponding, and the harpsichord of the soul hangs mournfully and silently upon the willow, it demands no little exercise of faith in the unchanging love, infinite wisdom, and righteous government of God to feel that it is all well!
But, this light shall not be lacking amid the deep shadows now gloomily draping the spiritual life of your soul. Faith shall triumph; for there is One in heaven "now to appear in the presence of God for us;" and, in virtue of Christ's present intercession, your faith, tried though as by fire, shall not fail, but shall rise superior to the slow process of decay, and grow brighter and stronger as the shadows fall, and strength fails- heaven thus opening and letting down such streams of glory around your sick and languid pillow as that faith, which is "the substance of things hoped for, and the evidence of things not seen," shall exclaim- "My heart and my flesh fails: but God is the strength of my heart, and my portion forever." Thus, "though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day.
"But a brighter light playing amid these darkling shadows is- the sensible, manifested presence of Jesus in the sick chamber of the disciple whom He loves. Yes, He is there! He is there as the Refiner- watching and tempering with unwearied eye and infinite skill the furnace fire of the sufferer. He is there as the Shepherd- guarding this tempted one of His flock, that no power pluck it from His hands. He is there to succor with His grace, to soothe with His love, to illumine with His presence, to cheer with His voice, and to encircle with His everlasting arms, the feeble, suffering, fainting child of His heart. "Lo! I am with you aways."
The glory brought to God by a long and lingering illness, eternity alone can fully reveal- and this is the brightest light of all, gilding and softening the shadows that drape the sick and dying-bed of a believer in Jesus. The sick-bed, the languid couch, of a saint of God is the most powerful and impressive pulpit in the land! No sacred rostrum of the most eloquent preacher gives utterance to such a sermon as issues from thence! The assembly waiting upon its instructions is large! Children and families, friends and neighbors, the Church below and the Church above, intent upon the scene, are waiting and watching, as with bated breath, the practical testimony to the reality and power of Christianity as a divinely sustaining, soul elevating, death-conquering religion- to the comfort of the divine promises- to the faithfulness of God- and to the sustaining grace and human sympathy of Christ- borne from this touching and solemn stand-point of life. The meekness and patience, the submission to the divine will, and the animating hope of glory, witnessed in that scene of debility, restlessness, and pain, speak with an argument more convincing than an Apostle's reasoning, and with an eloquence and pathos more winning than an angel's voice.
God is glorified in the fires, and the Name of the Lord Jesus is magnified. Sick and suffering saint of God! your couch stands upon the borders of that blessed land, the "inhabitants of which shall no more say, I am sick." Shrink not from the near approach of the "last enemy!" his form is lovely- his voice is soothing- his dart is stingless- and his mission a mission of love- sent to open your cage and set your spirit free- free as the dove soaring to its dove-cote in heaven! "Oh that I had wings like a dove! then would I fly away, and be at rest."
"When languor and disease invade
This trembling house of clay,
It is sweet to look beyond our cage
And long to fly away.
"Sweet to look inward, and attend
The whispers of His love;
Sweet to look upward to the place
Where Jesus pleads above.
"Sweet to reflect how grace divine
My sins on Jesus laid!
Sweet to remember that His blood
My debt of suffering paid.
"Sweet, in the confidence of faith,
To trust His firm decrees;
Sweet to lie passive in His hands,
And know no will but His."

"Bereavement, The Submission and Solace of Spiritual Life"

"Those who sleep in Jesus will God bring with Him.... Wherefore comfort one another with these words." -1 Thes. 4:14,18.

We approach in the present chapter- and with a tremulous hand the delineation of a cloud shading for a moment the luster of spiritual life, than which, perhaps, none falls upon the heart so darkly and coldly as it- the shadow of bereaved grief. What believer has not experienced it? Our blessed Lord Himself- the Lord of life and glory- was not exempt from this cloud, veiling for the while the sunshine of His human soul. It was one of the bitter ingredients of His cup of woe, as the "Man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief." He tasted it, and WEPT!
"Friend after friend departs: Who has not lost a friend? There is no union here of hearts That finds not here an end." We speak of death as casting its cold shadow upon the brightness of spiritual life. Let us not be misunderstood. That the life of God in the soul of man can be exposed to anything beyond the passing shadow of death is an idea which no scripturally informed mind will for a moment entertain. Intrinsically immortal, it cannot possibly be endangered by a vicissitude so sad and destructive as this. It may, indeed, as we have already shown be subjected to serious reverses, its vigor may be impaired, its growth checked, its luster dimmed, but its principle is as deathless as its Author; its existence as enduring as eternity. "They shall never perish," is the assurance of Him in whom this life is hid, and with whose eternity it is indissolubly entwined. Let this be for the comfort of those who are of a "fearful heart," who are "ready to halt," and often exclaim, "I shall one day perish by the enemy!"
With the shadow of bereavement, however, the believer is familiar. And in devoting a chapter of this volume especially to its consideration, our object is not heartlessly to re-open wounds partially healed; but rather to illustrate the hallowed influence of this dark shadow, in evidencing the actuality and in heightening the luster of spiritual life- as planets appear more numerous, and shine more brilliantly, when the night grows more dark and dense. These pages find you drowned in grief at the loss of one dearer to you, it may be, than life itself; for willingly would you have sacrificed your own to save that one life; and now that you have lost it, "life is less sweet, and death less bitter." With what words- words that shall not aggravate, but rather sooth; not wound, but rather heal- can we approach you in this the hour when the shadow of death is upon your tabernacle, and the 'desire of your eyes' is removed as in a moment, and the music of your heart is hushed in the stillness of the grave? Shall we endeavor to raise your mind above this terrible calamity by reminding you that- "God Himself has done it"?
In the first stage of your anguish you are, perhaps, searching amid its natural and proximate causes for some clue that will unravel the mystery, and for some ray of light that will illumine the cloud. But you can find none! The more exclusively you deal with the immediate circumstances of the event, the more bewildered you are with its mystery, and the more profoundly you are plunged in its grief. But, listen to the voice which says- "I have done it. Be not afraid. It is Lord" Whose voice is this? It is the voice of your God and Father- the voice of Jesus your Elder Brother- the voice of the widow's God, and of the Father of the fatherless.
Thus you are led to look from the painful circumstances of your bereavement, from its more immediate and distressing causes which, perhaps, you are tempted to think you might by affection and skill have greatly mitigated or, by more forethought and arrangement have prevented altogether- and you are filled with self-accusation, and tortured with self-remorse. But all this is dishonoring to God, and unjust to yourself; ungrateful to Him, and distressing to you. But, listen to the voice which says- "I have done it!" "Be still, and know that I am God." Thus you are invited to rise above the second causes, to the First Great Cause of your bereavement; and view this dark shadow, and interpret this inexplicable event, and seek soothing in this crushing sorrow, by recognizing in it the Hand of your Father in heaven, whose divine wisdom can do nothing wrong, and whose infinite love can do nothing unkind. "God Himself has done it."
Another strong consolation in this hour of your grief is the truth that, this event- so dark and crushing- was among the 'all things' of the everlasting covenant, and that, therefore, it must be right. Not by accident or chance- for there are no such terms in the Christian's vocabulary has this bereavement transpired. Your mind, in its first transport of grief; finds it difficult to grasp this anchor of your tempest-driven soul; and you can see nothing but darkness and mystery in an event that veils- as with scenery of your life. But, oh, heed the precious truth with which the King of Israel- wading far deeper and darker waters than yours- controlled their turbulence, and floated safely and serenely upon their topmost wave: "Although my house be not so with God; yet has He made with me an everlasting covenant, ordered in all things and sure: and this is all my salvation, and all my desire, though He makes it not to grow." In this same covenant is ordered your present shadow- ordered by the eternal purpose, the infinite wisdom, and divine love of your covenant God. Allow this truth to have its full weight with your bewildered mind, and anguished spirit, and your broken heart will sob its sweet response- "IT IS WELL!"
Let us briefly trace the relation of this discipline of sorrow to the spiritual life of the soul. The hallowed influence is most salutary. Bereavement, when sanctified by the Spirit is a life-quickening Power. Death, natural, thus becomes the secret of life spiritual. Oh, how many an individual has traced his first pulse of spiritual life his first conviction of sin- his first close, realizing view of eternity his first prayer to God- to the hour of bereavement! Not the beginning of spiritual life only, but its quickening and advance, we trace to the hallowed discipline of bereavement.
It is often the season of revived spirituality. Eternity is more solemnly realized- the mind is more withdrawn from the affairs of the present life- the heart is disengaged from the shadows of earth; and the things that are seen, and temporal, give place to the things that are unseen and eternal. Oh, see that this is one hallowed fruit of your present sorrow! God has sent it to revive His work in your soul to draw off your thoughts and affections from those earth-born things which have too much absorbed the vitality and impaired the vigor of your higher life your life for God- for heaven- for eternity!
Bereavement is a time of prayer. If ever the solace of prayer is felt, the preciousness of the Mercy Seat is realized, it is now. Your heart, stricken with grief, turns to God. The sad and startling discovery is made- unsuspected while the light of God was upon your tabernacle- that too far and too long your heart had roved from God- your communion had grown distant, and your affections chilled- and, shyness of God and leanness of soul have supervened, as the natural consequence of your remote and careless walk. But now the shadow of death has darkened the sunshine of your life: the destroyer has invaded the sanctuary of your home, and has plucked a cherished flower from your bosom- or, has broken a 'strong and beautiful staff' at your side- or, has laid low a venerable oak spreading its branches beneath the roof-tree of your dwelling- and your heart, bowed with grief, now bows itself in prayer to God, and the spiritual life of your soul throbs with a newer and more quickened pulse. Oh hail that as a heaven-sent blessing- robed though it be with the habiliment of mourning- which wakes the slumbering spirit of prayer, and sets you upon the work of calling upon God! The human idol is removed, but the Divine Savior takes its place!
Not the least blessing accruing from your bereavement is, the wholesome discipline to which it subjects the will. There is, perhaps, no affliction in which our will is brought into such collision with God's will as that of bereaved sorrow- the attitude of our will being either that of stern opposition to, or of sweet acquiescence with, the divine will. Before the conflict terminates, long and painful has been the struggle. Oh, it is so hard to yield what was most dear; to give back to God a loan, the possession of which seemed intertwined with every fibre of the heart, and the existence of which had become essential to life itself! But the issue of the conflict, prolonged though it be, has proved most blessed: God's will has prevailed! Tracing a Father's hand and a Father's heart-His all-wise and righteous government appointing the event, and His infinite and unchanging love sending it- your bewildered mind and bleeding heart bows in submission, with the words of Christ breathing from your lips- "My Father, if this cup may not pass from me, except I drink it, Your will be done."
Oh holy and blessed discipline! It is the highest attainment of grace this side of heaven! Angels and glorified spirits, bending from their thrones in glory, must view the struggle with the most intense interest, and celebrate the victory with a new anthem of praise! And thus, in this submission of your will to God, this terrible calamity has issued in such a development and growth of your spiritual life as leaves its reality without a doubt, and its luster without a cloud. And, as music sounds the sweetest in the stilly night, and as flowers, when bruised, breathe their richest perfume- so, your night of weeping and crushing grief has issued in the sweetest song of your bruised spirit, and in the holiest fragrance of your spiritual life. Oh, who can adequately portray the perfect calm- the hallowed repose- the ecstatic joy, when the Divine will is supremely enthroned in the soul, and the sad heart nestles itself- as a child weaned of its mother- in the very bosom of God!
A more intimate acquaintance with the Lord Jesus Christ may be placed high up in the list of blessings springing from the season of bereaved sorrow. We had almost placed it at the very summit. To know Christ more personally- more experimentally- more confidentially- must be the loftiest and most blessed attainment to which the spiritual life can aspire. But how is He truly to be known, except in the school of trial and suffering? In the varied perplexities and afflictions of life, how naturally we turn for counsel and sympathy to those who have trodden our path, have drank of our cup, and thus have become our "companions in tribulation." How truly will this apply to the Lord Jesus as to no other being in the universe! Do we confront a mountain of difficulty- tread we a path of trial- quaff we a cup of sorrow to which our Savior was an utter stranger?
How appropriate, then, your resort to Him in this special affliction which has befallen you- this shadow that descends so sombrely and frigidly upon your heart! What being in the universe ever came into such close contact with Death as our adorable Lord? He "tasted death" that every man that is, silently, quietly, calmly tasting its bitterness, might repair to Him for succor, sympathy, and deliverance.
And now that the cup trembles in your hand composed either of the bitterness of your own anticipated and approaching end, or, the, perhaps, greater bitterness of parting by death from one so loved- to whom can you turn with such confidence of faith, and with such assurance of sympathy, and for such supplies of strength, as to Him who wept at the grave, died on the cross, and is now alive, to gild with the bright sunlight of His love, the dark shadow of your sorrow?
"Those who sleep in Jesus will God bring with Him." Does your departed one 'sleep' in Him? Then, 'sorrow not as those who have no hope.' The body sleeps, but the soul is awake, and has awakened perfected in the likeness of God! They are done with toil and conflict, with sin and sorrow, with sickness, suffering, and death, are in the immediate presence of, and are forever with, the Lord. Would you beckon them back to earth? Oh, no! not for myriads of worlds! They will not, nor would they, come again to you; but you shall go to them when the 'little while' is past; and, reunited on the other and sunnier side of the River, shall spend eternity together in love that will know no chill- in light that will know no shadow- in fellowship that will know no weariness- in song that will know no interruption- and in service that will know no end!
"All is not lost that's passed beyond our keeping;
Light is not gone though sight be dim with weeping;
Sweet voices still are sounds of love repeating,
Though heavy ears scarce catch the tones retreating.
"Wave after wave, in endless circles flowing,
Breaks on the shore to which our barks are going;
Our parted treasures, wafted there before us,
Tomorrow's dawn may safely all restore us.
"The gales of heaven, their odorous freshness bringing,
With swifter speed our battered hull, are winging;
And clouds, that hide the sun from our discerning,
Quench not the distant beacon's steady burning.
"Brief is the space that from our loved divides us,
Thin is the mist that from their haven hides us,
Soft hands on high are beckoning signals holding,
White arms wait patient for our heart's enfolding.
"There, where from sight our blessed ones have vanished,
There, where our Father dear recalls His banished,
There lies the home that knows no removing,
There lives the love that never needs proving.
"There, dawns are pure, and purple lights unfading,
On happy brows dull sorrow casts no shading;
There gentle souls of coming ills are fearless,
And eyes once drooping, shining now, and tearless.
"There all, and always, dwell within His keeping,
Who sleeplessly cares while our care is sleeping;
How can we dare to falter in our praying,
Their perfect bliss against our sorrow weighing?
"Yet while we cease unwise and vain complaining,
We have but loaned- our title still retaining;
Love has a lien that time nor death can sever,
Our own are ours, forever and forever!"

"Retirement, The School and Discipline of Spiritual Life"

"And in the morning, rising up a great while before day, He went out, and departed into a solitary place, and there prayed." Mark 1:35.

We have already remarked, in the progress of this work, that the leading characteristic of the present age is far removed from anything approaching monastical life. On the contrary, the prevailing feature pervading all classes of society is that of extreme activity and feverish unrest. The spirit of the age is anything but in sympathy with the philosophy of Diogenes, or favorable to the culture of asceticism. This, however, must not be considered a cause of lamentation, since it is not for this species of retirement for which we plead! Limiting our remarks to what is termed 'the religious world,' it is in this the narrower and more sacred circle we repair for the illustration and enforcement of our present subject. The spirit of religion, as it now prevails, has caught the infection of the spirit of the world, and is far remote from that holy isolation and sacred retirement, so essential and helpful to the development and progress of the spiritual life of the soul; apart from which it must, necessarily, become attenuated in its character and checked in its growth. In devoting, therefore, a brief chapter to the especial consideration of this subject, we feel that we are but aiding the advancement of that religious life of the soul, to the promotion of which the present volume is devoted.
The words which form the basis of our remarks, unfold one of the most interesting and instructive incidents in the life of Christ. Our Divine and adorable Lord felt the absolute necessity- as man- of retirement for repose, meditation, and prayer. With extreme simplicity and conciseness the incident is thus recorded: "And in the morning, rising up a great while before day, He went out, and departed to a solitary place, and there prayed." The day preceding was one of incessant and unwearied employment in healing the afflicted and tormented resorting to Him for relief. For we read that, "At evening, when the sun did set, they brought unto Him all that were diseased, and those who were possessed with devils." The sun had gone down- the shadows of evening had gathered around Him- His benevolent work was done- and exhausted in body, yet more wearied in mind and agonized in spirit by the scenes of suffering and grief He had witnessed- He retired to His couch but not to rest. Bearing with His jaded frame the feeling of the infirmities He had witnessed and relieved, sleep had, in all probability, been a stranger to His pillow; "and in the morning, rising up a great while before day, He went out, and departed into a solitary place, and there prayed."
From this touching example of our blessed Lord in retreating from the society of men- even that of His disciples- to seek in retirement and solitude, in meditation and communion, that strength and energy and fortitude so essential to the accomplishment of the work His Father had given Him to do, teaches every believer one of the holiest and most instructive lessons of the Christian life. To its consideration let us address our thoughts, blended with the silent prayer that, an example so illustrious, a duty so essential, and a privilege so holy, may, with the divine blessing, greatly promote the health and advancement of the life of God in the soul of the reader.
Spiritual life is eminently fitted for religious retirement. It is a plant of Paradise- a flower of Eden- which only really grows in solitude. It is from Heaven- it derives its nourishment, as its existence from God- with God it deals, and to God its aspirations ascend. Our Lord emphatically declared that, "His kingdom was not of this world." And as his kingdom in his saints is composed of "righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit," the inference strictly logical, that the growth of this kingdom which is in the saints, cannot possibly be advanced by a world with which it has no sympathy, and from which it is so essentially alien. "For, what fellowship has righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion has light with darkness? and what concord has Christ with Belial?"
Thus we find Him who is Essential Life, and who is the spiritual life of the regenerate, retreating from the multitude who pressed so eagerly around Him- and even, as we have remarked, from the more genial companionship of His chosen apostles- and, threading the mountain ravines, seeking in their hidden recesses and profound solitudes, that quietude, stillness, and sequesterment for private meditation and prayer so essential to the repose of His spirit, the replenishing of His strength, and the accomplishment of His mission.
Follow Him on the memorable night which preceded His crucifixion- see Him pass over the brook Kedron into that lonely garden where he was wont to resort with His disciples; and, amid its sylvan walks, its leafy groves, and solemn shades, behold Him prostrate on the ground engaged in agonizing prayer, imploring strength and succor and comfort from His Father for the terrible 'hour' so near at hand! Oh, if He, the Source of our spiritual life, needed this its school and discipline, the lesson thus taught, is invested with tenfold import and interest to all who would mold their religious life on that of their Divine-human Exemplar!
A study of the lives of the Old Testament saints will also supply an impressive illustration of the necessity of religious retirement for the culture of spiritual life. See David, the king of Israel, retreating from the pomp of his court, and from the cares of his kingdom, to seek retirement for the purpose of holy communion with God. And on no occasion, and in no place, did his magic harp vibrate with sweeter music, send forth more pealing anthems of praise, or tremble with more soft and pensive notes of sorrow and contrition, than when alone with God in the solitude of the mountain, or in the seclusion of the cave.
Look at Daniel- interdicted by the decree of Darius from praying to his God, his life threatened in consequence- "entering into his chamber, and kneeling upon his knees three times a day, praying and giving thanks before his God." And who will doubt the connection of that retirement for communion with the Invisible One, with the faith and fortitude which enabled him to confront, with such dignity and calmness, the appalling terrors of the lions' den?
Such, too, was the holy habit of the primitive and puritan Christians. Persecuted and expatriated, "wandering in deserts and in mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth"- hunted like wild beasts- interdicted from worshiping God beneath their own sweet vines- driven to the shelter of the mountains, and to the solitude of the forest- oh! how sweetly did the voice of prayer and praise rise from beneath the overshadowing rock and the deep ravine, as from those secret sanctuaries ascended the rich, inextinguishable incense of holy devotion to the skies!
What has been, in all ages of the world, and in all dispensations of God's Church, a powerful aid to spiritual life, still is- the hallowed influence of religious retirement. It is necessary, in the first place, for self examination. No wise or prudent merchant will allow his yearly accounts to pass without a close and careful scrutiny as to his exact financial condition- balancing accurately his gains and losses- and taking an intelligent account of his present position. And no true Christian will be less anxious to know the exact state of his soul: ascertaining where he has made progress, and where he has lost ground; and how matters of such infinite moment stand between God and his soul. But absolute retirement is essential to this self-scrutiny. There must first be time made for the work- then disassociation from the too fond and flattering opinion of others- and then the 'calm retreat and quiet shade' appropriate to a process so spiritual and solemn, demanding mental examination the most profound, and no presence but that of God and the soul.
How can this close anatomy of the heart this honest dealing with self- this faithful turning over the page of conscience, be properly and effectually done, except as we retreat from our business, our profession, and our families, and accompany Isaac at eventide to the quietude of the fields to meditate, or follow Jesus to the solitude of the mountain to pray?
This holy retirement, too, is absolutely essential to the devout and careful study of the Word. The nourishment of spiritual life is the word of God. The Bible is the divine granary from where is extracted the fine wheat- the "incorruptible seed" by which the soul is fed and nourished. The divine life can only grow as it is sustained and strengthened by that which is divine. It seeks its native food. Fruit from the "Tree of life" alone can meet its requirements.
Hence the sickly life exhibited by many religious professors! The frivolous and frothy literature of the day- of which, alas! the press is so prolific- is exerting a most baneful influence upon the spiritual life of many Christian professors. In numberless cases the exaggerated fiction- the sensational story- the high wrought romance- is supplanting those works of the religious press contributed by the most intellectual, highly-cultivated, and spiritual minds in the literary and religious hemisphere. The effect of this upon the Christianity of the age must be deteriorating and disastrous in the extreme. How far the prevailing taste for this vapid, worldly literature- thus lowering the intellectual and impairing the spiritual powers of the mind- may contribute to the religious scepticism of the age, is a question of the profoundest gravity. What, then, is the great antidote to this far-circulating moral poison? We unhesitatingly answer- the private and devout study of God's word. We believe that the Bible can only be spiritually and experimentally understood as the student retreats from the arena of religious controversy and biblical criticism into the privacy of his chamber, and there, as upon his knees, invoking the aid and teaching of the Holy Spirit.
On one occasion our Lord gave utterance to a parable, the interpretation of which was obscure to the minds of His disciples to whom it was addressed. We then read that, "When they were ALONE, He expounded all things to His disciples." The crowd had dispersed the voices were hushed- the excitement had subsided- and "when they were alone"- in the calm, quiet privacy of that moment He interpreted the parable, and opened their understanding, that they might understand the meaning thereof. Thus He teaches us now.
It is not always in the crowd, and amid the voices of conflicting interpreters, or even from the pulpit, that the literal and spiritual meaning of the Scriptures is understood; but, when we withdraw into the privacy of the closet, or the solitude of the sick-chamber, He explains to us, and causes us to understand, the mind of the Spirit in the Word as at no other time and in no other way. And it may be that for this end, the Lord has set you apart by sickness or bereavement that He might set you apart both for Himself and for the deeper and more spiritual teaching and understanding of His truth. "The Lord has set apart the godly for Himself "-and to this end, He sets them apart from all others.
And, oh! in the quietude of that separation- in the stillness of that hour- you may have closer communion with God- know more of Christ and understand more of the truth, than at any previous period of your spiritual life! "And when they were alone, He expounded all things to His disciples."
'Alone' now with yourself- 'alone' with God- 'alone' with Jesus- 'alone' with the Spirit- oh how clear, how precious, and how comforting does the word of God become! and we exclaim with Jeremiah- "Your words were found, and I ate them; and Your word was unto me the joy and rejoicing of my heart." And with David- "How sweet are your words unto my taste! yes, sweeter than honey to my mouth!" Oh, it is thus when sequestered from man, and only with God, we excavate the gold and extract the honey from that "word which he has magnified above all His name."
Closely allied to this, is the necessity of religious retirement for the purpose of fortifying the spiritual and devout mind against the doctrinal errors, the ecclesiastical superstitions, and the infidel assumptions of an age like ours. How much there is in all this to divert the Christian from the maintenance and culture of personal piety- from a close, vigilant care of the health and growth of his higher, his spiritual, life! It is the strong current of Infidelity which we have in the present day more especially to breast. Superstition appeals not to the intellect, but to the senses; not to the mind, but to the passions. Infidelity on the contrary, professes to assail the mental citadel of the soul, and, consequently, its range of operation is wider- its proselytes more important, and its effects upon society more far-reaching and disastrous. The infidelity of the age is insinuating and plausible. It is not what it once was, ignorant and gross, bold and defiant; stalking abroad, stamped with features hideous and vile, blasphemous and repulsive. Modern religious scepticism, on the contrary, is in close alliance with learning and refinement, with place and power- civil and ecclesiastical; it walks abroad attired in silk and lawn, assuming the attractive and insinuating form of liberality and fashion; of expediency and worldly policy.
Oh how necessary it is that the man of God should frequently withdraw from these bewitching and seductive wiles of the enemy, that he may become more conversant with God's word- examine these wiles in its unerring light- and, from the armory of divine truth draw those heaven-tempered weapons by which he shall "be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand!"
The limits of this chapter will only allow us to refer at length to the paramount importance of seasons of retirement, for the sacred and solemn purposes of devout meditation and communion with God. It was for this purpose our Lord rose a great while before day, and retired to a solitary place. His oratory was the mountain's side- the deep ravine, overhung with dark, beetling crags- studded with ancient forests whose profound stillness alone was broken by their Divine Creator's voice of wrestling, agonizing prayer! There must we repair- tracking His holy footsteps- would we promote the life of God in our soul!
Prayer alone is the atmosphere of spiritual life. The word of God is its food, prayer is its atmosphere. As bread alone could not possibly sustain our natural life, apart from air, so the Word- divine and precious as it is, must be combined with a constant and close walk with God. Especially is this necessary after severe engagement in the active duties and privileges of religion. Our Savior presented a striking and instructive illustration of this in His own beautiful and consistent life. The whole of the day, and far into the night, preceding His retirement to the solitude of the mountain, He had been engaged in relieving human suffering, in curing disease, and in casting out demons; and before the day dawned- a great while before- He rose from His lowly couch, and "departed into a solitary place, and there PRAYED."
Oh, what a lesson learn we here! Of what moment it is that, after a day spent in religious activities- the mere machinery and scaffolding of the Christian Church- we should, in lowly imitation of the Savior, retreat to the hallowed solitude of our closet, and there commune with God- confess the failure and infirmity of our doings- and lave the 'feet' afresh in the blood that cleanses from all sin- even the iniquity of our holy things! "When you pray, enter into your closet, and when you have shut your door, pray to your Father which is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret shall reward you openly."
Oh the precious privilege of thus being alone with God!- the privilege of confessing all sin unveiling all sorrow- revealing all need- confiding every fear and feeling of the heart and from that hidden source drawing renewed supplies of grace and strength, counsel and comfort, to go forth and battle afresh with the temptations of the world, to discharge more efficiently the duties of our calling- and to struggle more manfully with, and to bear more patiently under, the trials, disappointments, and sorrows of life.
"Come apart, and rest awhile." Such is the loving, considerate invitation of Christ to all His servants! How needful, too, is the season of sacred sequesterment from the world- for refection upon, and preparation for, the world of glory and blessedness, of purity and service, for which we hope, for which we long, and to which we hasten! Everything here- comparatively- is unsubstantial, unreal, and evanescent! "All, all on earth is shadow; all beyond Is substance!" Do we long to be more heavenly? we must commune more closely with Heaven. Do we desire to be more spiritual? We must deal more frequently with the Divine. Realizing more vividly our mystical resurrection with Christ, we shall "set our mind on things above, not on things on the earth," "while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal."
We plead not for a monastic, or a conventual life; the life of the ascetic, or the recluse. Far from it! Monasteries- Convents- Retreats, are as opposed to the genius, as to the teaching, of Christianity. The gospel inculcates no such religion as this. But, we do plead for occasional sequesterment from the business of the world, and from the active duties of religious life, for the important and solemn purposes of trimming afresh the waning lamp of our Christian profession; for prayer, contrition, and confession; and for filling our urn with the pure water of life that flows fast by the oracles of God, and down from the crystal river proceeding from the throne of God and the Lamb.
It is in retirement, too- separated from those we most fondly love, and from the sympathy for which we most deeply sigh- that our divinest and richest consolation is often found. No condition of our humanity so perfectly harmonizes and shrinks from publicity- sorrow delicately loves retirement as the stricken gazelle nurses its wound alone. "Behold, I will allure her, and bring her into the wilderness, and speak comfortably unto her." Thus, beloved, the Lord may now be dealing with you. He is gently leading you in a solitary way- into the separation and loneliness of the wilderness- that He might speak to your sad, and bind up your bleeding, heart.
It was in the wilderness that David's hands were strengthened in God- it was in the wilderness that Jonathan ate of the honey- it was in the wilderness that the Israelites drank of the smitten rock- and it is still in the isolation and solitude of the wilderness of the world, and of all creature good, that God, "the God of all comfort," comforts those that are cast down, through the word, meditation, and prayer, imparting that mental repose and soothing of spirit found only as the soul lies down by the 'still waters' of a hallowed and devout retirement.
If, then, the Lord is now gently alluring you into the separation and solitude of the wilderness, be assured it is but to speak words of comfort and strength to your sad and lonely heart; and the solitary wilderness shall echo with your music, and the dreary desert shall bloom and blossom as the rose. There is no comfort so divine, no consolation so sweet, as that experienced in the depth of the world's solitudes- alone with God! "And Jesus departed into a solitary place, and prayed." And who can describe the divine soothing, strength, and comfort which His human heart, broken and crushed with sorrow, found in that solitude of fellowship With His Father?
Oh it is here, in the wilderness, your sorrow is understood, your grief is fathomed, your sympathy and soothing are experienced. It is here, with Christ alone, we feel our independence of human sympathy, rise superior to creature love, realize the grandeur of our nature, the sublimity of solitude, and the wealth of consolation, in being wholly, blissfully, and eternally swallowed up in God!
And yet there are moments, doubtless, when you are oppressed with a sense of isolation and loneliness, and sigh for a more enlarged enjoyment of 'the communion of saints' than as yet you have experienced. How much there is that sunders even saint from saint! Alas! that it should be so! Doctrine separates you from some- ecclesiasticism from others- or, perhaps, a more advanced stage in the divine life- outstepping in your spiritual knowledge and Christian experience many who but linger in the rear- and thus you are as "a pelican in the wilderness," as "a sparrow upon the house-top."
But this solitary way in which you walk has its especial and divinely-sent mission. There are experienced in it blessings found in no other path. Apart from its molding influence upon your religious character, it throws you more entirely upon God, and brings you into closer personal sympathy with one of the most touching and instructive periods of the Savior's history when, checking the rising sense of loneliness which stole over His spirit, He exclaimed- "And yet I am not alone; for my Father is with me." Oh count it a great honor when you can descry the footprint of Christ, and say- "Here my Lord and Savior walked, and here would I walk!"
May the practical effort of this meditation be the stirring of you up to seek more retirement from the world, that you may grow in grace and in fitness for heaven. Make time for the cultivation of personal and private religion, for prayer and meditation, and for the spiritual study of God's word, even though, like your Savior, you may be compelled to 'rise up a great while before day.' Let not your religion be an out-of-door religion- a Sunday attire- a professional robe! Let it be a religion which- while visible to every eye like the glow-worm, shines the brightest when no eye sees it but God's!
Is the time of your departure at hand? Are the shadows of life's evening falling fast and darkling around you? Oh let there be a solemn pause between time and eternity- between earth and heaven! Drive not the shadowy affairs of time into the dread realities of eternity! Seek a renewed baptism of the Spirit -a deeper seal of your acceptance in the Beloved -a fresh looking to, and taking hold of, Christ- casting from you all good works and all bad works, and running into Jesus, hiding you from them all in a fissure of the Rock cleft for you!
"Far from the world, O Lord, I flee,
From strife and tumult far;
From scenes where Satan wages still
His most successful war.
"The calm retreat, the silent shade,
With prayer and praise agree,
And seem by Your sweet bounty made
For those who follow Thee.
"There, if Your Spirit touch the soul,
And grace her mean abode,
Oh, with what peace, and joy, and love,
She communes with her God!
"What thanks I owe You, and what love,
A boundless, endless store,
Shall echo through the realms above
When time shall be no more!"

HOLINESS, The Fruit and Flower of Spiritual Life

"Filled with the fruits of righteousness, which are by Jesus Christ, unto the glory and praise of God." Phil.2:1

The great end of God (His own glory being the greatest of all) in imparting spiritual life to the soul, is its ultimate and complete restoration to the Divine Holiness. Sin had effaced His image and destroyed His work in man. The vessel- when scarcely had it passed from the hands of the Divine Artificer, a beauteous and perfect reflection of His moral and intellectual Being, was broken- shivered as into a thousand atoms- by the Fall. But, "known unto God are all His works from the beginning." Foreseeing the catastrophe, and from eternity anticipating its result, God revealed to the fallen creature man- pending his expulsion from Paradise- His purpose and mode of restoration to the nature and the image he had lost.

To the arch-destroyer of His work God thus announced it: "I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed; it shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel." How worthy of, and how like God, was this- how worthy of His love, and how like His holiness! "The vessel that He made of clay was marred in the hand of the Potter: so He made it again another vessel, as it seemed good to the Potter to make it." It is to this restoration of the Divine holiness we devote our present meditation.

The spiritual life of the regenerate is a holy and a fruit-bearing life. Sown with "the incorruptible seed of the word," and embodying the germ of the Divine nature, the fruit it bears is, "fruit unto holiness, and the end everlasting life." Thus the passage- of which this chapter is a brief exposition- applies in a greater or less degree to every regenerate soul- "Filled with the fruits of righteousness, which are by Jesus Christ, unto the glory and praise of God." The Fruit- the source of the fruit- and the end thereof- are the points which these remarkable words suggest for our meditation.

It is, "the fruit of righteousness." The soul of man is a fruitful tree, and there are two species of fruit which it bears- the fruit of unrighteousness, and the fruit of righteousness. In its natural, or unregenerate condition, the fruit it bears is, the fruit of sin. It must in the nature of things be so. Every seed has its own body, and the fruit it yields corresponds with its nature. "A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit." It is a fixed law of nature that, like produces like. And if men would but bring the common sense to bear upon things spiritual, that they bring to bear upon things natural, no truth would be more self-evident to the mind than that, the consequences of the life they live must be in harmony with the character of that life.

"Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatever a man sows, that shall he also reap. For he that sows to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that sows to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting." Solemn words! Oh that they may sink deep into the inmost recess of the soul of each sin-loving, sin-living reader of this page! You, O man! you, O woman! are sowing for eternity! If to the flesh, then of the flesh will be the harvest- a harvest of woe-blighted and blasted-fit fuel for the fire that knows no quenching. "He will gather the wheat into His garner; but He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire." Oh, with a destiny so appalling; with a Hell so awful and so endless as the certain result of your present life of self and sin, of worldliness and folly, of irreligion and atheism, staring you in the face, how can you remain so careless and insensible? "What do you mean, O sleeper? Arise and call upon your God!" Awake to righteousness, and sin not; for, as you sow in the life that now is, so shall you reap eternally in the life that is to come. But, it is with the "fruits of righteousness" we have, at present, more especially to do. And what are they? A few only can we name.

What a holy fruit is repentance for sin! It is the first-fruit which the trees of righteousness bear- "Repentance toward God." If, as we approach the tree, we discern the feeble, gentle putting forth of the bud of godly sorrow for sin- the conviction which the Holy Spirit imparts, the contrition which He alone inspires- then are we assured that life-divine, spiritual life- has begun in that soul; and this is its first and holiest fruit. Oh, what an guaranty- the first-fruits- of a golden harvest is that tender conviction of sin, that falling tear, that self-abasement, that broken and contrite heart! "To this man will I look," says God "even to him that is poor and of a contrite spirit, and that trembles at my word." If God "has made your heart soft" -if the Holy Spirit has made you 'sorry for your sin'- oh, despise not this first sheaf of the harvest! No sinner will ever repair to the sinner's Friend- no soul will ever betake itself to the Divine Physician- but he who, by the Spirit, is convinced of sin and its fatal disease. The first step to Jesus is measured by the first tear of godly sorrow for sin. "The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: a broken and a contrite heart, O God, You will not despise."

And what a precious "fruit of righteousness" is faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. This fruit may well be termed by the apostles- 'Precious faith." Faith is the moral alchemy that transmutes everything into gold. Where FAITH is, there is every divine blessing; it is the root and foundation of all holiness. It turns the curse into a blessing- trials into mercies- the water of affliction into the wine of joy- poverty into wealth- weakness into might- and from the eater brings forth food. It is the true philosopher's stone, that transmutes the basest metal into the most precious; builds with the tears of penitence a lovely bow of hope- resplendent and unfading-springing from the lowest base on earth to the highest arch of heaven.

A fruit, then, so marvellous and precious, must be a "fruit of righteousness." Faith is a holy and sanctifying grace. "Purifying their hearts by faith." It travels with sin to the Savior- with guilt to the blood- with emptiness to the fulness- and in all its conscious, clinging weakness, leans upon the Almightiness of the Almighty God. In view of a grace of the Spirit so mighty- of a "fruit of righteousness" so precious- we marvel not that the Apostles should pray- "Lord, increase our faith." That prayer- the holiest breathing, as the most lovely flower and precious fruit of spiritual life- shall be answered, that blessing shall be given, by whomsoever offered, by whomsoever asked.

Sorrow-laden, guilt-burdened soul, only believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and your burden shall fall, and your guilt shall vanish! Simple, unquestioning faith in Jesus saves- saves now, saves to the uttermost, and saves forever- the very chief of sinners. "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you shall be saved."

The very trial, too, of faith is precious. There is, perhaps, no grace of the Spirit which its Divine Author and Finisher more frequently or more surely subjects to the process of trial than the grace of faith. The more real and valuable the ore, the more the smelter subjects it to the crucible. Untried, untempted faith, is uncertain and unsifted faith. And, oh, how imperfectly are we aware of the small degree of our faith until God tests it, and tests it, perhaps, as by fire.

When the stream upon whose bosom we softly glide is undimmed by a shadow and unruffled by a wavelet, we can speak fluently, and preach eloquently, and write forcibly of the nature and properties of faith- its strifes and its trophies- but, when God gauges it by some heavy trial, fathoms it by some deep line of sorrow, then we discover the littleness and shallowness of the principle which we thought so strong and so profound. How then do we shrink from the excision of the knife that prunes it- from the flame of the furnace that tries it- from the roughness of the sieve that winnows it!

We asked the Lord to let us come to Him upon the waters, and we came but when the winds arose, and the waves surged and foamed around us, our faith trembled, our courage failed, and beginning to sink, we cried, "Lord, save, I perish!" Still, the trial is more precious than gold, though it be as by fire. 'The sin that does most easily beset us' is unbelief- "an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God." And to eliminate this dross from the gold- to purge this leaven from the wheat- is the great and holy end of our Father in every circumstance that tries, in every temptation that assails, in every cup His own hand presses to our lips. Oh precious, God-glorifying faith, that hangs upon God- that places all its affairs into His hands- that trusts His veracity, and that takes Him at His word!

And what a lovely flower of spiritual life is love! This is, perhaps, the most divinely-assimilating grace of the Spirit "God is love; and he that dwells in love dwells in God, and God in him." Filled with the fruit of love- love to God- love to Christ- and love to man, we grow God-like. We dwell in the Infinite Ocean of love and the Infinite Ocean of love condescends, in measure, to dwell in us. And just as, sometimes, we read a volume in a word, even so we experience an ocean in a drop! The spiritual life blooms with no fairer flower, and yields no sweeter fruit than this.

The religion of Christ is the religion of love. The "glorious gospel of the blessed God" is the proclamation of love; and the most astounding and most precious announcement floating upon its standard is the declaration- "God SO LOVED the world that He gave his only begotten Son." It is by love God seeks to overcome the evil of our nature, to dislodge the enmity of our mind; and thus He "overcomes evil with good." "The love of God shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit which He has given us," is the great constraining principle of the gospel, the motive-power of the soul. "The love of Christ constrains us;" that is, bears us onward upon its resistless current, to do and to endure, to obey and to suffer, just as He appoints. Oh to be filled with this divine-like fruit of righteousness!

The great need of the Church is LOVE- LOVE to the Lord, and LOVE to the disciple; LOVE to the Master, and LOVE to the servant; LOVE to Christ, impelling us to an unreserved obedience to His commands- willing and ready to be where, and to be what, pleases Him best and glorifies Him most; and LOVE to His people, constraining us to 'wash the feet of the saints,' if so be we might serve them and glorify Him.

But the "trees of righteousness"- like the "Tree of life in the midst of the Paradise of God" bear "all manner of fruit." "The fruit of the Spirit is LOVE, joy, peace, patience, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance." What a lovely fruit is Christian sympathy and benevolence! How distinctly and touchingly our Lord has defined it, while He foreshadowed its final reward! "Then shall the King say unto them on His right hand, Come, you blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom of heaven prepared for you from the foundation of the world: for I was hungry, and you gave me food: I was thirsty, and you gave me drink: I was a stranger, and you took me in: naked, and you clothed me: I was sick, and you visited me: I was in prison, and you came unto me." What a rich cluster is here! Who, as he views it, is not self-abased that his religion has been so barren of fruit so precious? Have we, in any measure, been thus fruitful?

A Christian poet, long gone to his reward- but who, though dead, still speaks, has left so expressive and beautiful a versification of these words of our Lord, that, though lengthy, we are tempted to transfer it to these pages, as presenting, perhaps, the most true and touching illustration of Christ's meaning to be found; and which will, doubtless, be as new, as acceptable, to many of the readers of this volume.

"A poor wayfaring Man of grief
Has often crossed me on my way,
Who sued so humbly for relief,
That I could never answer Nay.
I had not power to ask his name,
Where He went, or where He came;
Yet there was something in His eye
That won my love, I knew not why.

"Once, when my scanty meal was spread,
He entered: not a word He spoke.
just perishing for lack of bread,
I gave Him all. He blessed it, broke,
And ate; but gave me part again:
Mine was an angel's portion then;
For, while I fed with eager haste,
That crust was manna to my taste.

"I spied Him, where a fountain burst
Clear from the rock: His strength was gone.
The heedless water mocked His thirst;
He heard it, saw it hurrying on.
I ran to raise the Sufferer up:
Thrice from the stream He drained my cup,
Dipped, and returned it running over:
I drank, and never thirsted more.

"Twas night the floods were out; it blew
A winter hurricane aloof.
I heard His voice abroad, and flew
To bid Him welcome to my roof
I warmed, I clothed, I cheered my guest,
Laid Him on my own couch to rest;
Then made the hearth my bed, and seemed
In Eden's garden while I dreamed.

"Stripped, wounded, beaten, near to death,
I found Him by the highway-side;
I roused His pulse, brought back His breath,
Revived His spirit, and supplied
Wine, oil, refreshment: He was healed.
I had myself a wound concealed,
But from that hour forgot the smart,
And peace bound up my broken heart.

"In prison I saw Him next, condemned
To meet a traitor's death at morn.
The tide of lying tongues I stemmed,
And honored Him midst shame and scorn.
My friendship's utmost zeal to try,
He asked if I for Him would die;
The flesh was weak, my blood ran chill,
But the free spirit cried, 'I will!'

"Then in a moment to my view
The Stranger darted from disguise;
The tokens in His hands I knew
My Savior stood before my eyes!
He spoke, and my poor name He named:
'Of Me you have not been ashamed;
These deeds shall your memorial be:
Fear not! you did them unto Me.'
(James Montgomery)

And what holy fruit is the mortification of indwelling sin- the conquest of the world- the successful resistance of Satan- the sanctification of your intellectual powers- the consecration of your worldly substance- and the dedication of your influence, time, and service to Christ- in the vindication of His truth and the promotion of His kingdom: thus "walking worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing, being fruitful in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God."

But, we now reach an important enquiry- From where does the believer's fruitfulness come? The passage we are expounding supplies the answer- "Fruits of righteousness, which are by Jesus Christ." "From me is your fruit found. " In these wonderful words the secret of all holy fruitfulness is revealed. Our blessed Lord, as it were, reproduces them- "I am the Vine, you are the branches: he that abides in me, and I in Him, the same brings forth much fruit: for without me you can do nothing." Thus we are taught the most vital lesson of spiritual life- that, from Christ all our real holiness is derived.

How are we to understand this? We answer: We are fruitful of righteousness, in consequence of the atoning work of Christ. His obedience and death laid the foundation of our spiritual life, and from that spiritual life all holiness springs. We live, because Christ died. "Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a grain of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abides alone: but if it die, it brings forth much fruit." Our Lord, by this expressive simile, illustrates the precious truth. He was that "grain of wheat" that died. The process is a remarkable unfolding of the wisdom and goodness and power of God in creation. The substance of the grain dies, leaving the life of the germ untouched; and the substance which thus dies, forms the first nourishment of the tender germ by whose nutriment it germinates until it reaches sufficient vigor to extract its support entirely from the earth.

Thus the Lord Jesus taught that, though His body died, His essential life- the vital germ- remained; and, in process of time, He arose from the grave, "the first-fruits" of a rich and glorious harvest of countless souls saved, and eternity replenished with His praise and glory. Now, it is in virtue of this "grain of wheat," this dying and this living, that the divine nature becomes, as it were, engrafted upon our fallen nature; and thus we are "filled with the fruits of righteousness, which are by Jesus Christ."

In virtue, too, of our spiritual and personal union with Christ, we became fruitful. Apart from this engrafting into Christ, there can be no true evangelical holiness. Spiritual life derives its fruit, as its existence, solely from Christ. He Himself has taught us this truth in that beautiful simile of the Vine and the branch just quoted. As the scion is grafted into the stock and partakes of the vitality of the tree, and so yields fruit according to the nature of the stock, so the believer, engrafted into Christ, the living and true Vine, brings forth fruit corresponding with the nature, doctrine, and example of Christ, to whom he is thus united.

It is in virtue, too, of the grace that Christ, imparts, and of the strength that He gives, that the soul is filled with the fruits of righteousness; for, without Him we can do nothing- nothing! All our resources are in, and all our supplies are from, Him. "It pleased the Father that in Him should all fulness dwell;" "of His fulness have all we received, and grace for grace"- grace following grace, as wave follows wave. "The life I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God."

Behold, my reader, the source of your holiness! You can do nothing without Christ; but with Christ strengthening you, you can do all things. There is no daily cross you may not cheerfully carry- no deep-rooted sin you may not effectually vanquish- no fiery temptation you may not successfully resist- no self-denying service for God you may not willingly do- no fond idol you may not immediately surrender- no cup of sorrow you may not submissively drink- with Christ strengthening, succouring, helping you. "My grace is sufficient for you." Oh, live daily, hourly upon Christ! Make large drafts upon His immeasurable, unfathomable fulness. The 'Well is deep.' Your resources in God your supplies from Christ-are as immeasurable as infinity, as inexhaustible as Deity.

Thus you will be "filled with the fruits of righteousness." Do not despond and despair that your soul is so barren, your spiritual life so sterile. Take your emptiness, take your unfruitfulness to Christ in confession, prayer, and faith; and in the very act of so traveling to Him- telling Him all, and asking all- the withered branch will bud, the drooping plant will revive, the faded flower will bloom; and sweet will be your invitation to the Lord- "Let my Beloved come into His garden, and eat His pleasant fruits." Quick and loving will be His response- "I am come into my garden, my sister, my spouse: I have gathered my myrrh with my spice; I have eaten my honeycomb with my honey." Oh how rich now the fruit, and how fragrant now the flowers, of spiritual life! Not Eden in its pristine loveliness bore fruit so golden, or bloomed with flowers so sweet. Let your invocation be urged, until Heaven responds to your prayer- "Awake, O north wind; and come, you south; blow upon my garden, that the spices thereof may flow out. Let my Beloved come into His garden, and eat His pleasant fruits."

The great and holy end is, "the glory and praise of God." God does nothing and permits nothing that shall not terminate in the manifestation of His glory. He will be glorified in the eternal condemnation of the condemned, as He will be yet more glorified in the eternal salvation of the saved. "God has made all things for Himself. yes, even the wicked for the day of evil." "I have created him for my glory." Heaven and hell will both yield their tribute to His great Name! Not a sinner lost but will glorify forever His Justice and Holiness, His Truth and Power! Not a sinner saved but will yield Him a richer and more lasting revenue of glory, honor, and praise than the creation of countless worlds greater far than this.

Oh, let this thought animate us in our moral struggle with the world, the flesh, and the devil- that, every infirmity we conquer, every sin we avoid, and every temptation we foil- every fruit of righteousness we bear- and every flower of holiness we cultivate- enriching and adorning our spiritual life- yields to God more glory and praise and honor than the creation of the universe. "Herein in My Father Glorified, That You Bear Much Fruit; So Shall You Be My Disciples."

Accept the afflictive discipline of God as graciously and wisely designed but to increase the fruit and flower of your spiritual life. "He prunes it, that it may bring forth more fruit." Nothing will He remove but what has impeded your spirituality and usefulness; nothing will He send but what shall promote them. The vine-dresser, as he examines his vinery, may descry here and there a branch or a twig that appears thrifty and ornamental, but which itself bears no fruit, and excludes the sun from those that do. These he is compelled to remove. "Every branch in me that bears not fruit, He takes away."

And thus God removes our idols- and withers our gourds- and dries our springs- and lops off our branches, only that our spiritual life might be quickened, our heavenly mindedness increased, our usefulness promoted, and His great Name glorified. Oh, Divine Husbandman! prune and refine and sift me as seems best to Your godly wisdom, may I but bear more fruit of grace on earth, and in Heaven bloom with fruit immortal, to Your endless glory!

Not to wound you, lovely vine,
But your strength to foster,
That on these fair boughs of thine,
Richer fruits may cluster.

Skillful hands must prune and train,
Guiding hands must lift thee;
Soon will you reward my pains,
Beautiful and thrifty.

Not to grieve you, heart of mine,
Does your dear Lord chasten;
But His wayward, trailing vine
To His strength would fasten.

Not a leaflet would He crush,
Not a tendril sever
Only teach you how to grow
Fair and good for ever.

Do not droop, my gentle vine,
At my rugged dealing;
Soon will summer's breath of balm
Bring you growth and healing.

Murmur not, O stricken heart,
At your loving Master;
You shall know His purpose wise
In the bright hereafter.

The Coming of the Lord, The Crown and Consummation of Spiritual Life

"Hope to the end for the grace that is to be brought unto you at the revelation of Jesus Christ." 1Peter 1:13.

Could this volume close with a theme more appropriate to our subject, or more animating to the believing soul, than the present- the Coming of the Lord Jesus Christ as the crown and consummation of the Spiritual life of His saints? There are three revelations of the Lord Jesus spoken of in the Scriptures, with each one of which our spiritual life is essentially connected. His first revelation is His coming in the flesh to accomplish the salvation of His Church. His second, is His spiritual revelation in His saints. "It pleased God to reveal His Son in me." His third revelation is that which is now to engage our thoughts. "Hope to the end for the grace that is to be brought unto you at the revelation of Jesus Christ."

Such is our present subject- the Second Coming of Christ to complete and crown the spiritual edifice of His kingdom in His people. Between His first and second Coming there are strong points of analogy, as there are of contrast. These, however, will incidentally appear in the progress of our subject. We have only to premise- to prevent disappointment- that we are now concerned with the fact, and not with the mode of our Lord's Coming. Our object is simply to treat the subject, not so much in its relation to the structure of prophecy, as in its connection with the perfection and crown of the spiritual and glorious life of the Church-the 'grace'-that is, the glory- that is to be 'brought unto it at His revelation.' The Coming of the Lord in His glory, is the Hope- "the blessed Hope" -of the Christian Church, even as the coming of the Lord in His humiliation was the long-predicted and looked for hope of the Jewish Church. A Savior to come has in all ages and dispensations been the expectation of God's people. The terms which set forth this doctrine are decided and impressive. "Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Savior Jesus Christ." "We look for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ." "He shall come to be glorified in His saints, and to be admired in all those who believe." "The very God of peace sanctify you wholly; and I ask God that your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the Coming of our Lord Jesus Christ." It is a notable and instructive fact that, very rarely is the event of the believer's death- in other words, the believer's going to Christ- employed in the sacred writings as an argument to holiness, or an incentive to preparation; while, on the other hand, the Appearing of the Lord- or Christ's coming to him- is constantly set forth as a motive to diligence and watchfulness, comfort and prayer.

But let us not be misunderstood. We are far from looking with a cold and indifferent eye upon the fact of the Christian's going to Christ. It is indescribably blessed, and ought never to be foreign to our thoughts. "To die is gain." "Absent from the body, present with the Lord." "Having a desire to depart and be with Christ." The thought that, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, my 'soul may be as the chariots of Amminadab,' bearing me into the presence of the 'King in His beauty' is a solemn and sanctifying one. The death of the believer is a covenant mercy, as much in the covenant of grace as any covenant blessing. "All things are yours- death." It is therefore the privilege of the Christian to die; and he may be assured of this, that, as his death is in the covenant, so the covenant has provided for all the circumstances and exigencies of the impressive event. 'Grace' dying grace- will be brought unto him in death, even as 'grace' glorifying grace- will be 'brought unto him at the appearing of Jesus Christ.'

But, the pole-star of the believer is the Coming of the Lord. Thus is he taught to look above and beyond death- to Him who "has abolished death," and His coming as the "Resurrection and the Life" of all who believe in Him. The adaptation of this doctrine-the doctrine of the Second Coming of Christ to the constitution of our being, will appear obvious to every individual who has studied the philosophy of human nature. Is death, we ask, an object of dread to the natural mind in general? Far from it! With no event in human history is man more familiar- none does he less fear- and for none is so little preparation made- as death. It is a fact patent to every mind that men brave death in almost every form from considerations the most puerile and insignificant. Challenge their bravery, insult their people, and they will hasten to vindicate the one at the cannon's mouth, and resent the other at the point of the sword. Death is not the 'king of terror' to such. Thus, we may urge it as a motive to conversion with all the fervor and eloquence we can command, and yet fail to inspire one alarmed feeling, or rouse one serious thought.

But, change the theme- hold forth the Second Coming of the Lord to judge the quick and the dead- portray the august scene- the great white throne- the descending judge- the unfolding books- the trumpet sound- the graves opening- countless myriads crowding up to the judgment seat- the solemn decision- the shrieks of the wicked, rising far above ....... the war of elements, the wreck of matter, and the crush of worlds. "Mountains! rocks! fall on us!" -and you have touched a chord of feeling, and have unsealed a fount of thought, which the most vivid and impressive presentation of death would never have effected.

But let us direct our thoughts to this august event as it relates to the final glory of the saints. Not to speak prophetically, what are some of its most prominent and impressive features? The Coming of the Lord will be Personal. With the Personality of Christ we deal too faintly. Oh, it is not with the gospel of Christ or with the Church of Christ- or with the Ordinances of Christ or with the Ministers of Christ- we have mainly to do; but with CHRIST HIMSELF! "Come unto ME, all you that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest," is the gracious invitation. Oh truth most divine! oh privilege most precious! that teaches me to repair- not to a creed, or to a dogma, or to a system- but, to a PERSON: that Person God in my nature! One like myself- a personal Savior, and personal Friend- "touched with the feeling of my infirmities."

Now such will be the revelation of Jesus Christ at His Second Coming. It will not be a spiritual, but a Personal, revelation of our Lord. The angels, at His ascension, preached the Personal Coming of Christ. "This same Jesus, who is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as you have seen Him go into heaven." Blessed hope! That same Jesus- in the same form will come Himself to raise His saints, and present them as a "glorious Church" to His Father.

But, oh, how changed! No mock-majesty invests Him now! no thorn-crown is upon His head! no reedy-scepter is in His hand! no look of anguish shades His brow! He comes in His proper personal glory, and before His face the heaven and the earth flee away!

The revelation of the Lord will be Visible. "Every eye shall see Him." Magnificent spectacle! Appalling thought! -magnificent to those who loved, confessed, and served Him here below: appalling to those who, living and dying as Balaam, take up his melancholy lamentation- "I shall see Him, but not now: I shall behold Him, but not near." Oh how the imagination droops its wing in the attempt to soar to the splendor and sublimity of that spectacle- Christ visible to every eye!

Pause, then, for a moment, and contemplate, with the eye of faith, or if you have no faith, with the eye of imagination, this tremendous scene. Look at that point, far away in the ethereal regions, where the gradually lessening form of our Savior disappeared from the gaze of His disciples, when He ascended to heaven. In that point see an uncommon, but faint and undefined, brightness just beginning to appear. It has caught the roving eye of yon careless gazer, and excited his curiosity. He points it out to a second, and a third. A little circle soon collects, and various are the conjectures which they form respecting it. Similar circles are formed, and similar objections made, in a thousand different parts of the world. But conjecture is soon to give place to certainty- awful, appalling, overwhelming certainty. While they gaze, the appearance, which had excited their curiosity, rapidly approaches, and still more rapidly brightens. Some begin to suspect what it may prove; but no one dares to give utterance to his suspicions. Meanwhile the light of the sun begins to fade before a brightness superior to his own. Thousands see their shadows cast in a new direction, and thousands of hitherto careless eyes look up at once to discover the cause. Full clearly they see it; and now new hopes and fears begin to agitate their breasts. The afflicted and persecuted servants of Christ begin to hope that the predicted, long-expected day of their deliverance is arrived. The wicked, the careless, the unbelieving, begin to fear that the Bible is about to prove no idle tale. And now fiery shapes, moving like streams of lightning, begin to appear indistinctly amid the bright, dazzling cloud which comes rushing down as on the wings of a whirlwind. At length it reaches its destined place. It pauses: then, suddenly unfolding, discloses at once a great white throne, where sits- starry, resplendent, in all the glories of the Godhead- the Man Christ Jesus. Every eye sees Him; every heart knows Him.

Too well do the wretched, unprepared inhabitants of earth now know what to expect, and one universal shriek of anguish and despair rises up to heaven, and is echoed back to earth. But louder, far louder, than the universal cry, now sounds the last trumpet; and far above all is heard the voice of the Omnipotent, summoning the dead to arise and come to judgment. New terrors now assail the living on every side, no, under their very feet, the earth heaves as in convulsions; graves open, and the dead come forth; while, at the same moment, a change, equivalent to that occasioned by death, is effected by Almighty power on the bodies of the living. Their mortal bodies put on immortality, and are thus prepared to sustain a weight of glory or of wretchedness which flesh and blood could not endure. Meanwhile, legions of angels are seen, darting from pole to pole, gathering together the faithful servants of Christ from the four winds of heaven, and bearing them aloft to meet the Lord in the air, where He causes them to be placed at His own right hand, preparatory to the sentence which is to award to them everlasting life.

Christian, if you would gain more and greater victories over the world than you have ever done, bring this scene often before the eye of your mind, and gaze upon it until you become blind to all earthly glory. He who gazes long at the sun becomes unsusceptible of impressions from inferior luminaries; and he who looks much at the Sun of Righteousness, will be little affected by any alluring object which the world can exhibit.

It will follow from this exceedingly graphic description that the Coming of the Lord will be a visible spectacle- a spectacle seen by every eye; but especially and more gloriously so to the enraptured vision of the saints. "Behold, He comes With clouds; and every eye shall see Him, and they also who pierced Him." This is not a minor feature of the august event; it is one which the believing mind delights to anticipate.

A Savior seen is an object both to faith and sense. A believing sight of Christ is the spiritual life of the soul. Until He is thus seen, He must be an unknown and an unapplied Savior. The uniform teaching of the Bible is consonant with this truth. "Look unto me, and be saved, all the ends of the earth: for I am God, and there is none else." Responsive to the divine invitation of the Old Testament is the evangelist's invitation of the New. "Behold the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world." And all this harmonizes with the writing of the Apostles- "Looking unto Jesus."

Such is the action of faith. Looking to Christ is believing in Christ. It was by a look- a look of faith- that the serpent-stung Israelite was healed. "As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whosoever believes in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life." Oh what a guilt-removing, heart-cheering, soul-saving truth is this! Penitent sinner! a look of faith at Jesus will bring an immediate and free salvation to your soul. However distant the Object or dim the sight, one glance of Christ is life! Sensible of the moral virus circulating through your entire being- made to know the plague of your own heart arrived at the end of all human remedies- like the poor woman in the gospel, having "spent your all on physicians, and are nothing bettered, but rather grown worse"- now behold the Lamb of God! look and live!- look and be forever healed of your plague!

All your merit is in Christ all your salvation is in Christ: all your help is in Christ. "Christ is all, and in all," of your hope of heaven. And this salvation is yours on one condition only- that you receive, and do not merit it; that you accept, and do not purchase it. It is the free- unpurchased and unpurchasable- gift of God. "By grace are you saved." "It is of faith that it might be by grace." "By the works of the law shall no man living be justified." Oh, if you, a poor sin-laden soul- longing to find rest will but cast overboard the oar of your own doings, with which you are 'toiling in rowing' to get to heaven, and accept in faith the finished work of Christ, that weary soul of yours soon would find the rest for which it sighs!

But this first saving sight of Christ is the commencement of a series of yet clearer, more sanctifying and assimilating views of the same ineffable Object. The history of spiritual life- and this is one of its brightest 'lights'- is a continuous "looking unto Jesus." It is a looking to Jesus, and learning; looking to Jesus, and admiring; looking to Jesus, and loving; looking to Jesus, and obeying; looking to Jesus, and suffering; living and dying, still looking unto Jesus, until the dim but ravishing vision of earth is changed for the full, beatific vision of heaven!

This will be the "grace that is to be brought unto us at the revelation of Jesus Christ"- the unveiled sight of our glorified Redeemer. "We shall see Him as He is." To have seen Him by faith in His humiliation was a marvellous, soul-saving spectacle: but, to see Jesus in His glory- our true Joseph- "taken from prison and from judgment," and highly exalted with 'a name which is above every name,' coming in the clouds of heaven, escorted by angels, encircled by saints, and on His head the jeweled diadem of the universe, oh, this will be a spectacle, transcending and eclipsing all others! What a sanctifying effect should this hope have upon our mind! what a molding, unearthly influence should it exert upon our life! "Every man that has this hope in Him purifies himself, even as He (Christ) is pure." Thus the doctrine of the Coming of the Lord is one of the most practical, as one of the most consolatory, truths of the Bible. It is impossible fully to believe it, much less to receive it in the heart, and be insensible to its Christ-endearing and Christ-assimilating power. Surely the believer, whose heart is in heaven where Christ its treasure is, will be in frequent and close communion with his absent Lord; and the Church, as a Body, 'looking for and hastening unto the Coming of the Lord,' will long for the cry that shall break the stillness of the midnight hour- "Behold, the BRIDEGROOM comes; go out to meet Him!"

Lord, may I be found waiting and watching and praying for Your appearing! To see You, be this the ardent desire, the highest ambition of my soul: and whether I cross the river to come to You, or You do cross the river to come to me, let my lamp be daily trimmed and brightly burning, lest, "coming suddenly, You find me sleeping."

We can only allow ourselves a passing glance at two events consequent upon the Coming of the Lord, which must ever be radiant with hope, and replete with a soothing and sanctifying power, to the Christian mind- the first, the believer's Resurrection. This is "the grace that is to be brought unto us at the revelation of Jesus Christ." This is termed "the First Resurrection," a thousand years intervening between it and the Second. "The Lord Himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first." Could we fix your mind upon a blessing connected with the Coming of the Lord more glorious and precious than this?

The Resurrection of Christ was the crown and consummation of His humiliation; the Resurrection of the Christian will be the crown and consummation of his glory- the edifice of his spiritual life will then receive the 'top-stone, amid the shoutings of grace, grace unto it!' "Blessed is the pen" -so wrote an aged saint nearing her heavenly flight "and blessed the heart that indites it, that gives one cheering view of the mighty blessings that await the sleeping dead! The dust of the Christian reposes in quietude until the voice of Jesus rouses the slumberer perfected in His own beauty. Happy Christian! your journey may be a thorny one, and 'the last enemy' may be even now approaching; but, courage! the time is coming when this identical body- re-united to the soul- will be raised a glorious body- the soul increasing in knowledge, beauty, and bliss, through the countless ages of eternity. Oh the glory and the happiness of that moment, who can fully describe! Lord, increase my faith!" (Mary Winslow)

Such is the animating influence of a simple faith in the hope of the Resurrection, and such the spiritual breathing which that hope inspires! Who would not strive after holiness, "if by any means"- by the most strenuous exertions- he might, with the Apostle, "attain unto the resurrection of the dead;" and, with all who have departed this life in the Lord, have part in the First Resurrection. The re-union and the recognition of the saints stand high up in the catalogue of blessings synchronizing with this revelation of Jesus Christ.

One of the saddest and bitterest sorrows of earth is the separation, by death, from those we love. Oh the pang of receiving the last sigh- of catching the last look- of listening to the last word-of one who was to us in life more precious than life itself! But, the gospel unveils the hope of a re-union, and even before the risen body- of a recognition of all the holy dead! "For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so those also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with Him.... Wherefore comfort one another with these words." Who longs not for the "grace that is to be brought unto us at the revelation of Jesus Christ"?

"Oh thrilling thought, that I shall be
With Him who shed His blood for me,
Where nothing from Him can sever!
Where I, with sainted hosts above,
Overshadowed by the Holy Dove,
Shall banquet on His boundless love,
And know that word- 'forever'.

"Oh thrilling thought, to see Him shine,
For evermore to call Him mine!
With Heaven-all Heaven-before me;
To stand where angel myriads gaze,
Amid the illimitable blaze,
While He the Godhead full displays
To all the sons of glory."

And now will come the crown and consummation of our spiritual life! Unshaded by a cloud- uneclipsed by an object- it will shine forth as the sun in its meridian glory, ever deepening, ever widening with its new orbit of life and knowledge, of happiness and splendor. No shadows will dim it no doubts will disturb it- no fears will ruffle it- no sin will taint it now; but, lost in the Infinite Ocean "Where flows this river down to us," it will be swallowed up in God, and "God Shall Be All in All!"

Be watchful; be diligent be holy; for the Coming of the Lord draws near! The events flow transpiring in the world's history indicate its approach. The "signs of the times" are pregnant with profound and solemn significance. The 'fig-tree' blossoms! The Jews are hastening to their own land- the Turkish power is drying up- the nations of Europe are arming- earthquakes, and judgments, and rumors of war are, to the intelligent and observant eye- if not proximate signs of the Lord's Coming- yet are indices of a most ominous and significant character! "When these things begin to come to pass, then LOOK up, and lift up your heads; for your redemption draws near." Be this our holy and constant attitude- under all circumstances looking up, waiting and watching our Lord's appearing.

"Look up! when all around is bright,
And sunshine gilds each day;
When every earthly, sweet delight,
Is strewed along the way.

"Look up! and bless the God above,
Let gratitude arise;
Forget not Him, who in His love
Your every need supplies.

"Look up! when all is darkness round,
Your heart with grief oppressed;
When sorrow's darkest shadows drown
The joys within your breast.

"Look up! in earnest, faithful prayer
All is in mercy given;
Your every grief, your every care,
Is meted out in Heaven.

"Look up to Jesus! who has shed
His precious blood for thee;
Oh, raise your weary, drooping head,
And His salvation see!

"Look up! for strength and heavenly might
Upon your Savior wait;
And He shall make your Shadows Bright,
And crooked places straight.

"Look up! when death is hastening on
When life is almost over;
The victory then will soon be won,
And joys for evermore!

"Look up! by steadfast faith and see
The land of holy rest,
Where saints through all eternity
Shall be with Jesus blest.

"Look up! and hail your Coming Lord
He comes to call for you;
To burst your chain-to break your cord,
And set His prisoner free!"

"Until the Day breaks, and the shadows flee away, I will get to the Mountain of Myrrh, and to the Hill of Frankincense."

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

MIDNIGHT HARMONIES

Table of Contents

1. Songs in the Night

2. Jesus Veiling his Dealings

3. Solitude Sweetened

4. A Look from Christ

5. Honey in the Wilderness

6. The Godly Widow Confiding in the Widow's God

7. Looking unto Jesus

8. Leaning on the Beloved

9. The Weaned Child

10. God, Comforting as a Mother

11. Jesus Only

12. The Incense of Prayer

13. The Day Breaking

"Songs in the Night"

"God my Maker, who gives songs in the night." Job 35:10.

It will be acknowledged by all, competent to form an opinion in the matter, that a holy man is from the very necessity of the case a happy man. It is as impossible to separate happiness from holiness, as it is to separate light from the sun. The introduction of sin opened the door to all wretchedness; the restoration of divine purity closes the door by restoring the Divine image; and the nearer we approximate to the image of God, the more deeply we participate in the happiness of God. Sin is nothing more than a disturbance of the harmony once subsisting between the divine and the human will. Restore that harmony—let the will of God be done on earth as it is done in heaven—and earth will again, as it once did, reflect back the purity of heaven, just as the tranquil lake mirrors from its bosom the image and the splendor of the sun.
A saint of God is, then, a happy man. He is often most so when others deem him most miserable. When they, gazing with pity upon his adversities, and his burdens, and silently marking the conflict of thought and feeling passing within—compared with which external trial is but as the bubble floating upon the surface—deem him a fit object of their commiseration and sympathy, even then, there is a hidden spring of joy, an under current of peace lying in the depths of the soul, which renders him, chastened and afflicted though he is, a happy and an enviable man.
Worldling! refrain your tears, spare your pity. "Blessed are those who mourn now, for they are, and they shall be, comforted." "Thus says the Lord God: behold, my servants shall eat, but you shall be hungry: behold, my servants shall drink, but you shall be thirsty: behold, my servants shall rejoice, but you shall be ashamed: behold, my servants shall sing for joy of heart, but you shall cry for sorrow of heart, and shall wail for vexation of spirit." Weep not for him, but, O you Christless souls! weep for yourselves!
How fully do the words placed at the head of this chapter sustain this train of thought. Midnight harmony! Who can inspire it? Songs in the night! Who can create them? God can, and God does. The "God of all consolation," the "God who comforts those who are cast down," the "God of hope," who causes the "bright morning star" to rise upon the dreary landscape, the "God of peace, who himself gives peace, always, and by all means;" even he, our Maker and our Redeemer, gives songs in the night.
All music is of God's inspiration. The lark's cheerful carol—the nightingale's plaintive note—an infant's praise, and the music of the spheres— all are the voice of God. There is no instrument whose broken and untuned strings he cannot make discourse sweet strains—even a heart collapsed with grief. And there is no season in the Christian history which he cannot render vocal with a melody to which a seraph might breathlessly listen, from which he might derive new rapture, but which he would imitate in vain.
Music, at all times sweet, is the sweetest amid the sublimity of night. When in the solemn stillness that reigns—not a breath rustling the leaves, and echo herself slumbers,—when in the darkness that enshrouds, the thoughts that agitate, the gloomy phantoms that flit before the fancy, like shadows dancing upon the wall, there breaks upon the wakeful ear the soft notes of skillfully touched instruments, blending with the melting tones of well-tuned voices, it is as though angels had come down to serenade and soothe the sad and jaded sons of earth. But there are songs richer, and there is music sweeter still than theirs,—the songs which God gives, and the music which Jesus inspires in the long dark night of the Christian's pilgrimage. To this harmony let us now hearken. Three reflections are suggested by the words—The night season,—the songs in the night,—and the author of these night-songs. "God, my Maker, who gives songs in the night."
The season referred to by the inspired penman is figurative of the sorrow, gloom, and despondency into which all God's people are, more or less, brought,—the season of night. Designed though this little work is for the period of Christian solitude and sorrow, it is not improbable that it may find its way into the sick and gloomy chamber of a mind yet more sick and dark. It may not, then, be inappropriate to remark what an expressive image is the season of night of an unconverted state— a state of spiritual darkness and of death. Night is the season of gloom, of slumber, of visions. Such is the moral condition of the soul, unenlightened, unawakened, unsanctified by the Holy Spirit. The apostle touches upon this state, in the contrast which he finely draws between the believer and the unbeliever. "But you, brethren, are not in darkness, that the day should overtake you as a thief. You are all the children of light, and the children of the day: we are not of the night, nor of darkness, therefore, let us not sleep, as do others; but let us watch and be sober; for they that sleep, sleep in the night; and they that be drunken are drunken in the night."
What a solemn picture this, of an ungodly world, of our unconverted relatives; perhaps, my reader, of yourself. "Children of the night"—asleep—in darkness. Is not the night-season especially the season of dreams? Such is the spiritual night of the soul. Thus graphically is it described by the evangelical prophet Isaiah,—"As when a hungry man dreams, and, behold, he eats; but he awakens, and his soul is empty; or as when a thirsty man dreams, and, behold, he drinks; but he awakens, and, behold, he is faint, and his soul has appetite." Such is your state. You are asleep; the chains of spiritual slumber bind your moral senses; your plans, your pursuits, your pleasures, your realizations, all are but as the visions that sport around the pillar of night.
You imagine you are happy, you fancy liberty in your fetters, substance in your shadows, reality in your visions. But, by and by, you awake to the conviction—O how keen—that all is but a dream! The spirit is restless, the mind is unfed, the heart is sick, the soul is unsatisfied; all, all is one dark and desolate blank. Yes, God will write, yes, God has written, the sentence of death upon the worldling's enjoyment; and will teach him that all happiness is unreal, and all pleasure is unsubstantial that flows not from himself, and of which he is not the "exceeding joy."
Rouse yourself, then, from your sleep; the bridegroom is coming! the midnight cry of the approaching judge is about to break upon the slumber and darkness of your soul. It is high time to awake out of sleep. What if these words should startle you amid your worldliness and folly, your sin and rebellion, your day-dreams of earthly good,—"You fool, this night your soul shall be required of you!" What if you should awake up in hell! Horror of horrors! Listen to the warning of the Savior, "What shall it profit a man, if he should gain the whole world, and lose his own soul." Then, "awake you that sleep, arise from the dead, and Christ shall give you life."
Awful, if the present night of your unsanctified sorrow should be the harbinger, the prelude, the forecasting shadows of a future and an endless night of woe! But this season of night is signally descriptive of some periods in the history and experience of a child of God, and to them we especially restrict it. It reminds us of the period of soul darkness which often times overtakes the Christian pilgrim. "My servant that walks in darkness and has no light," says God. Observe, he is still God's servant. He is the "child of the light," though walking in darkness. Gloom spreads its mantle around him—a darkness that may be felt. Shadows thicken upon his path. God's way with him is in the great deep: "You are a God that hide yourself," is his mournful prayer. The Holy Spirit is, perhaps, grieved—no visits from Jesus make glad his heart—he is brought in some small degree into the blessed Savior's experience: "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"
But, sorrowful pilgrim, there is a bright light in this, your cloud—turn your eye towards it—the darkness through which you are walking is not judicial. It is not the darkness of an unconverted, alienated state. O no! you are still a "child of the day," though it may be temporary night with your spirit. It is the withdrawment but for "a little moment,"—not the utter and eternal extinction,—of the Sun of Righteousness from your soul. You are still a child, and God is still a Father. "In a little wrath I hid my face from you for a moment; but with everlasting kindness will I have mercy on you, says the Lord your Redeemer." "Is Ephraim my dear son? is he a pleasant child? for since I spoke against him I do earnestly remember him still."
And what are seasons of affliction but as the night-time of the Christian? The night of adversity is often dark, long, and tempestuous. The Lord frequently throws the pall of gloom over the sunniest prospect, touching his beloved child where that touch is the keenest felt. He knows the heart's idol: he is best acquainted with the fowler's snare—the temptation and the peril lying in our path. He knows better far than we the chain that rivets us to some endangering object; he comes and draws the curtain of night's sorrow around our way. He sends messenger after messenger. Deep calls unto deep: He touches us in our family—in our property— in our reputation—in our bodies. And O, what a night of woe now spreads its drapery of gloom around us!
Then it is—amid the deepening shadows—we seem to take a more dismal view of every object. All things loom in the mist. Our position, our circumstances, our losses, our prospects, all present a more gloomy and discouraging aspect, and assume a more exaggerated and magnified form, viewed in the somber hues now gathering and darkening around them. It is a "day of darkness and of gloominess, a day of clouds and of thick darkness, as the morning spread upon the mountains."
Such, too, is the season of mournful bereavement. What a night is that when the shadow of death falls upon our once bright and joyous tabernacle; when the destroyer enters and lays low some beloved object, around which the heart's affections, perhaps, too closely entwined. It is as though the noonday sun had suddenly become quenched in midnight gloom. "Lover and friend have you put far from me, and my acquaintance into darkness," is the heart's sad breathing. It was such a night to the heart of Jesus when he left the house of Bethany to go to the grave of Lazarus. Ah! who has not passed through the gloom and the pangs of this season? Who has not seen—the shadows approaching which forewarned of the coming woe? To take our position in the room of suffering, and to watch through the wearisome day and the lonesome night, the slow advance of the fell-destroyer,—to see the light retiring from our 'pleasant picture,' and its features of expression and its lines of beauty growing dimmer and fainter, until the shadow of death completely veiled it from our view—what a night of heartache is this! But hush!
"All are not taken! there are left behind
Living beloved, tender looks to bring,
And make the daylight still a blessed thing,
And tender voices, to make soft the wind.
But if it were not so—if I could find
Not love in all the world to answer me,
Nor any pathway but rang hollowly,
Where 'dust to dust' the love from life disjoined—
And if with parched lips—as in a dearth
Of water-springs the very deserts claim,—
I uttered to these sepulchers unmoving
The bitter cry, 'Where are you, O my loving?'
I know a voice would sound, 'Daughter, I AM,
Can I suffice for heaven, and not for earth?'"
But dark, and often rayless for a time, as are these various night-seasons of our pilgrimage, they have their harmonies. It is not completely night, as it is not completely day with us here. If the day has its dark periods, the night has its bright ones. If the one has its sounds of woe, the other has its notes of melody. There are—provided by him who "divides the light from the darkness"—softenings, alleviations, and soothings, which can even turn night into day, and bring the softest tones from the harshest discord. How humbling is the reflection, that in the depth of the deepest sorrow, the darkness of the darkest shade, we should lose sight of this precious truth.
The strong consolations which our God has laid up for those who love him, are so divine, so rich, so varied, that to overlook the provision in the time of our sorrow, seems an act of ingratitude darker even than the sorrow we deplore. O! it is in the heart of God to comfort you, his suffering child. Once convinced of this, and the bitterest ingredient in your cup has become sweet.
Let me assist you to the conviction of this truth by directing your attention, perhaps in an hour of dark woe, to some of those songs which the Lord enables his people to sing in the night-watches of their journey. This was pre-eminently David's experience. Few of the Lord's saints knew more of the night-travel of faith than this wonderful man of God. Happy shall we be if we study closely his instructive life. After alluding to the "Waves and the billows which had gone over him," he seems to be suddenly checked in his complainings by the recollection of the night-song: "Yet the Lord will command his loving-kindness in the day-time, and in the night his song shall be with me, and my prayer unto the God of my life," (Psalm xlii. 8.)
Here was midnight harmony! Amid the "noise of the water-spouts," and the swellings of "billows"—the midnight of his soul—lo! music rises! A song is sung, such as is not heard in heaven—for there is no night there—it is of kindness, it is of love, yes, it is of loving-kindness, manifested and experienced in the hour,—when sinking amid deep and dark waters the soul cries out for fear, "Lord, save, I perish!" O what loving-kindness must that be, suffering believer, which inspires a song so sweet, amid a season so dark as this!
"Awake my soul, in joyful lays,
And sing your dear Redeemer's praise;
He justly claims a song from me,
His loving-kindness, O how free!
When trouble, like a gloomy cloud,
Has gathered thick and thundered loud;
He near my soul has always stood,
His loving-kindness, O how good!"
The Psalmist, too, on another occasion of night-travel fed his drooping faith with the remembrance of songs he had previously sung: "I call to remembrance my song in the night," (Psalm lxxvii. 6.) It is no small wisdom, tried Christian, to recall to memory the music of the past. Think not that, like sounds of earth-born melody, that music has died away never to awake again. Ah, no! those strains which once floated from your spirit-touched lips yet live! The music of a holy heart never dies; it lingers still amid the secret chambers of the soul. Hushed it may be for awhile, by other and discordant sounds, but the Holy Spirit, the Christian's Divine Remembrancer, will summon back those tones again, to soothe and tranquilize and cheer, perhaps in a darker hour and in richer strains, some succeeding night of heart-grief.
"I remember you upon my bed, and meditate on you in the night-watches." "Restore unto me the joys of your salvation." Yet again: "At midnight I will arise to give thanks unto you because of your righteous judgments," (Ps. cxix. 62.) At midnight—the most lonely, rayless, desolate hour. 'When other hearts of sympathy are hushed to rest; when all the world seems dead to me, wrapped in deep unconsciousness of my silent vigils, in the midnight of my soul's deep grief I will arise from my pillow, moist with tears, and from my couch, worn with my tossings, and will give thanks unto you because of your righteous judgments.'
O what midnight harmony, beloved, is this! The blessed spirits of another world are hearkening: God bows down his ear and listens. Ah! my reader, there is not a single midnight of your history—never so dark as that midnight may be—for which God has not provided you a song, and in which there may not be such music as human hand ever awoke, and as human lip never breathed— the music that God only can create.
But what are some of the materials—the chords and notes—of these songs in the night? We begin with the key-note. Jesus himself is our song! If we cannot sing of Jesus and of his love in the night of our pilgrimage, of what, of whom, then, can sing? As all music has its ground-work— its elementary principles— so has the music of the believing soul. Jesus is the foundation. He who knows nothing experimentally of Jesus, has never learned to sing the Lord's song. But the believer, when he contemplates Jesus in his personal dignity, glory, and beauty— when he regards him as God's equal— when he views him as the Father's gift— as the great depositary of all the fulness of God, can sing in the dark night of his conscious sinfulness, of a foundation upon which he may securely build for eternity.
And when, too, he studies the work of Jesus, what material for a song is gathered here! when he contemplates Christ as "made of God unto him wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption;" when he views the atoning blood and righteousness which presents him moment by moment before God, washed from every stain, and justified from every sin, even now, in the night-season of his soul's deep depravity, he can sing the first notes of the song they chant in higher strains above: "Unto him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood, and has made us kings and priests unto God and his Father; to him be glory and dominion, forever and ever. Amen."
O! yes, Jesus is the key-note— Jesus is the ground-work of our midnight harmony. Is it a season of heart-ploughing, of breaking up of the fallow ground, of deeper discovery of the concealed plague? Still to turn the eye of faith on Jesus, and contemplate the efficacy of his blood to remove all sin, and the power of his grace to subdue all iniquity, O what music in the sad heart does that sight of him create! "My soul does magnify the Lord, and my spirit has rejoiced in God my Savior."
Is it a night of sorrowful affliction? What a friend, what a brother, what a helper is Jesus! Never, no never, does he leave his suffering one to travel that night unvisited, unsoothed by his presence. He is with you now, and of his faithfulness that never falters, of his love that never changes, of his tenderness that never lessens, of his patience that never wearies, of his grace that never decays, of his watchfulness that never slumbers, you may sing in the storm-night of your grief.
Fix your eye, dim with weeping though it be, upon this touching picture of your sympathizing Lord thus presented to your view: "The ship was now in the midst of the sea, tossed with waves: for the wind was contrary. And in the fourth watch of the night, Jesus went unto them, walking on the sea. And when the disciples saw him walking on the sea, they were troubled, saying, It is a spirit; and they cried out for fear. But straightway Jesus spoke unto them, saying, "Be of good cheer; it is I; be not afraid." Do you think there were no songs on that dark tempestuous night? Did no music rise from that storm-tossed vessel, and swell above the moaning of the sea? Ah, yes, beloved! Jesus was there! And Jesus gave the key-note: "It is I; be not afraid!" And then rose the music of faith and love from the lips of his transported apostle: "Lord, if it be you, bid me come unto you on the water."
Trembling believer! Jesus had been all that night in earnest, wrestling prayer for those loved disciples; and when their peril and fear were at their height, he hastened to their rescue and their comfort, treading the limpid wave with all the majesty and the firmness of a God. Jesus loves to visit us in our night-watches. Jesus is praying for us when in the storm! The incarnate God delights to be near his helpless and timid saints! And he is near—yes, near to you— the strength of your fainting heart, the support of your sinking soul; and you "shall have a song as in the night, when a holy solemnity is kept; and gladness of heart, as when one goes with a flute to come into the mountain of the Lord, to the mighty one of Israel."
Is it the night of bereavement? Ah, heavy as that night is, there is a song even for it, smitten, weeping soul. Jesus was bereaved. Can you not sing of this? "Jesus wept." Is there no melody in these words? O yes! As one, who himself knew and felt the blank which death creates in human friendship: as one, whose tears once fell upon the cold clay, while no hand was outstretched to wipe them, he sympathizes with your present sorrow, and is prepared to make it all his own. Wide as is the chasm, deep as is the void, mournful as is the blank which death has created, Christ can fill it; and filling it with his love, with his presence, with himself, how sweet will be your song in the night of your sorrow,—"He has done all things well." O there is not a single hour of the long night of our woe, but if we turn and rest in Jesus, we shall find material for a hymn of praise, such as seraphs cannot sing.
Nor must we pass by David's sweet song in the dark night of his domestic calamity and grief: "Although my house be not so with God; yet he has made with me an everlasting covenant, ordered in all things, and sure for this is all my salvation, and all my desire, although he makes it not to grow," (2 Sam. xxiii. 6.) The everlasting covenant which God has made with Jesus, and through Jesus with all his beloved people, individually, is a strong ground of consolation amid the tremblings of human hope, the fluctuations of creature things, and the instability of all that earth calls good. The Word of God meets the peculiar sorrow of domestic calamity with especial tenderness. David was tried in his children— how deep that trial was, few of us may know. But the covenant was enough for it; it was a covenant ordered in all things, and sure: and this was his song in the night. And of this same covenant, O sorrowful child of the covenant, you too may sing: The God of the covenant is your God, your Father, your unchangeable Friend.
What though domestic calamity enshrouds your spirit as with midnight gloom—the covenant in which your name is written, and your sorrow appointed, and your consolation provided, and your steps ordered, sheds its mild luster upon your way, and bids you sing in the night-time of your grief-
"Since you, the everlasting God,
My Father are become;
Jesus, my guardian and my friend,
And heaven my final home:
I welcome all your sovereign will;
For all that will is love:
And when I know not what you do,
I wait the light above.
Your covenant in the darkest gloom
Shall heavenly rays impart,
Which, my eyelids close in death,
Shall warm my chilling heart."
And who gives these songs in the night? "God our Maker." Who but God could give them? No saint on earth, no angel in heaven, has power to tune our hearts to a single note of praise in the hour of their grief. No, nor could any creature above or below breathe a word of comfort, of hope, or of succor, when heart and flesh were failing. Who but the incarnate God has power enough, or love enough, or sympathy enough to come and embosom himself in our very circumstances—to enter into the very heart of our sorrow—to go down into the deepest depth of our woe, and strike a chord there that, responding to his touch, shall send forth a more than angel's music?
It is God who gives these songs. He is acquainted with your sorrows: he regards your night of weeping: he knows the way that you take. He may be lost to your view, but you cannot he lost to his! The darkness of your night-grief may veil him from your eye, but the "darkness and the light are both alike to him." Then repair to him for your song. Ask him so to sanctify your sorrow by his grace, and so to comfort it by his Spirit, and so to glorify himself in your patient endurance of it, and so to make you to know the wherefore of your trial, and your trial so to answer the mission on which it was sent, as will enable you to raise this note of praise: "You have turned my mourning into dancing; you have put off my sackcloth, and girded me with gladness; to the end that my glory may sing praise to you, and not be silent."
In giving you a throne of grace, God has given you a song, methinks one of the sweetest ever sung in the house of our pilgrimage. To feel that we have a God who hears and answers prayer,— who has done so in countless instances, and is prepared still to give us at all times an audience—O! the unutterable blessedness of this truth. Sing aloud then, you sorrowful saints, for great and precious is your privilege of communion with God. In the night of your every grief and trial and difficulty, forget not that, in your lowest frame, you may sing this song, "Having boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way, I will draw near, and pour out my heart to God."
Chant, then, his high praises as you pass along, that there is a place where you may disclose every need, repose every sorrow, deposit every burden, breathe every sigh, and lose yourself in communion with God— that place is the blood-sprinkled mercy-seat, of which God says, "There will I meet with you, and I will commune with you."
Ah! but perhaps you exclaim, "Would that I could sing! I can weep, and moan, and even trust, but I cannot rejoice." Yes, but there is One who can give even you, beloved, a song in the night. Place your harp in his hands, all broken and unstrung as it is, and he will repair and retune it; and then, breathing upon it his Spirit, and touching it with his own gentle hand, that heart that was so sad and joyless shall yet sing the high praises of its God!
How much of God's greatness and glory in nature is concealed until the night reveals it! The sun is withdrawn, twilight disappears, and darkness robes the earth. Then appears the brilliant firmament, studded and glowing with myriads of constellations. O the indescribable wonder, the surpassing glory, of that scene! But it was the darkness that brought it all to view.
Thus it is in the Christian's life. How much of God would be unseen, how much of his glory concealed, how little would we know of Jesus, but for the night-season of mental darkness and of heart sorrow. The sun that shone so cheeringly has set; the gray twilight that looked so pensively has disappeared; and just as the night of woe set in, filling you with trembling, with anxiety, and with fear, lo! a scene of overpowering grandeur suddenly bursts upon the astonished eye of your faith. The glory of God as your Father, has appeared—the character of Jesus as a loving tender brother, has unfolded—the Spirit as a Comforter, has whispered—your interest in the great redemption has been revealed—and a new earth redolent with a thousand sweets, and a new heaven resplendent with countless suns, has floated before your view! It was the darkness of your night of sorrow that made visible all this wonder and all this glory: and but for that sorrow how little would you have known of it. "I will sing of mercy and of judgment: unto you, O Lord, will I sing."
Suffering, sorrowful believer! pluck your harp from your willow, and with the hand of faith and love sweep it to the high praises of your God. Praise him for himself— praise him for Jesus— praise him for conversion— praise him for joys— praise him for sorrows— praise him for chastenings— praise him for the hope of glory— O praise him for all! Thus singing the Lord's song in a strange land, you will be learning to sing it in divine sounds, such as are—
"Sung before the sapphire-colored throne
To him that sits, thereon—
With saintly shout, and solemn jubilee,
Where the bright seraphims, in burning row,
Their loud uplifted angel-trumpets blow,
And the cherubic host in thousand quires
Touch their immortal harps of golden wires,
With those just spirits that wear victorious palms,
Hymns devout, and holy psalms
Singing everlastingly;
That we on earth undiscording voice
May rightly answer with melodious noise;
As once did, until disproportioned sin
Jarred against nature's chime, and with harsh din
Broke the fair music that all creatures made
To their great Lord, whose love their motion swayed
In perfect harmony, while they stood
In first obedience, and their state of good.
O may we soon again renew that song,
And keep in tune with heaven, until God before long
To his celestial concert us unite,
To live with him, and sing in endless morn of light."

"Jesus Veiling his Dealings"

Jesus answered and said unto him, What I do thou knowest not now; but thou shalt know hereafter. John 13:7

Jesus replied, "You do not realize now what I am doing, but later you will understand." John 13:7

Jesus replied, "You don't understand now why I am doing it; someday you will." John 13:7

Our Lord, when he spoke these words, had just risen from the lowliest act of his most lowly life. Around that act there was thrown a veil of mystery which partially concealed its significance and its end from the view of his wondering disciple. There was much in this simple but expressive incident of the Savior's life which filled Peter's mind with perplexing thought. His first feeling was that of resistance, to be succeeded by one of astonishment, still deeper. He had marked each step in the strange proceeding– the loosened sandal, the bathing of the feet, the replacing of the robe; but the deep significance of the whole was to his view wrapped in impenetrable mystery. And how did the Savior meet his perplexity? Not by denying its mysteriousness, but by a promise of clearer light anon. "You do not realize now what I am doing, but later you will understand." And this explanation and assurance satisfied the mind of the amazed disciple. Simon Peter exclaimed, "Then wash my hands and head as well, Lord, not just my feet!" John 13:9
Each individual believer has a personal interest in this subject, especially those to whom these pages are inscribed-the Father's chastened ones. These words imply a concealment of much of the Lord's procedure with his people. In the preceding chapter we contemplated, under the similitude of the night-season, the present pilgrimage of the saints; a night, however, not entirely rayless, nor songless; not without some harbingers of the joyous morning, nor some key-notes of the entrancing melody with which that morning of joy will be ushered in. It is our wisdom to know that no pure, unmixed sorrow, ever befalls the Christian sufferer. Our Lord Jesus flung the curse and the sin to such an infinite distance from the church, that could his faith but discern it, the believer would see nothing but love painting the darkest cloud that ever threw its shadow upon his spirit. Akin to the preceding subject is the one upon which we now propose briefly to address the suffering reader. It speaks of a veiling of Christ's dealings, with the promise of an unveiling in a day far sunnier and happier than this. "You do not realize now what I am doing, but later you will understand."
With regard to our heavenly Father, there can be nothing mysterious, nothing inscrutable to him. A profound and awful mystery himself, yet to his infinite mind there can be no darkness, no mystery at all. His whole plan– if plan it may be called– is before him. Our phraseology, when speaking of the divine procedure, would sometimes imply the opposite of this. We talk of God's fore-knowledge, of his foresight, of his acquaintance with events yet unborn; but there is in truth no such thing. There are no tenses with God– no past– nor present– nor to come.
The idea of God's Eternity, if perfectly grasped, would annihilate in our minds all such humanizing of the Divine Being. He is one ETERNAL NOW. All events to the remotest period of time, were as vivid and as present to the divine mind from eternity, as when at the moment they assumed a real existence and a palpable form.
But all the mystery is with us, poor finite creatures of a day. And why, even to us, is any portion of the divine conduct thus a mystery? Not because it is in itself so, but mainly and simply because we cannot see the whole as God sees it. Could it pass before our eye, as from eternity it has before his, a perfect and a complete whole, we should then cease to wonder, to cavil and repine. The infinite wisdom, purity, and goodness, that originated and gave a character, a form, and a coloring, to all that God does, would appear as luminous to our view as to his, and ceaseless adoration and praise would be the grateful tribute of our loving hearts.
Throw back a glance upon the past, and see how little you have ever understood of all the way God has led you. What a mystery- perhaps, now better explained- has enveloped his whole proceedings! When Joseph, for example, was torn from the homestead of his father, sold, and borne a slave into Egypt, not a syllable of that eventful page of his history could he spell. All was to his mind as strange and unreadable as the hieroglyphics of the race, whose symbolical literature and religion now for the first time met his eye. And yet God's way with this his servant was perfect. And could Joseph have seen at the moment that he descended into the pit, where he was cast by his envious brethren, all the future of his history as vividly and as palpably as he beheld it in after years, while there would have been the conviction that all was well, we doubt not that faith would have lost much of its vigor, and God much of his glory. And so with good old Jacob. The famine- the parting with Benjamin- the menacing conduct of Pharaoh's prime minister, wrung the mournful expression from his lips, "All these things are against me." All was veiled in deep and mournful mystery. Thus was it with Job, to whom God spoke from the whirlwind that swept every vestige of affluence and domestic comfort from his dwelling. And thus, too, with Naomi, when she exclaimed, "Call me not Naomi, call me Mara: for the Almighty has dealt very bitterly with me. I went out full, and the Lord has brought me home again empty." How easy were it to multiply these examples of veiled and yet all-wise dispensation.
And is this the way of the Lord with you, my reader? Are you bewildered at the mazes through which you are threading your steps; at the involved circumstances of your present history; the incidents which seem so netted and interlaced one with the other as to present to your view an inextricable labyrinth? Deem yourself not alone in this. No mystery has lighted upon your path but what is common to the one family of God: "This honor have all his saints." The Shepherd is leading you, as all the flock are led, with a skillful hand and in a right way. It is yours to stand if he bids you, or to follow if he leads. "He gives no account of any of his matters," assuming that his children have such confidence in his wisdom, and love, and uprightness, as, in all the wonder-working of his dealings with them, to 'be still and know that he is God.' That it is to the honor of God to conceal, should in our view justify all his painful and humiliating procedure with us. "It is the glory of God to conceal a thing," as it will be for his endless glory by and bye fully to reveal it all. But there is one thing, Christian sufferer, which he cannot conceal. He cannot conceal the love that forms the spring and foundation of all his conduct with his saints. Do what he will, conceal as he may; be his chariot the thick clouds, and his way in the deep sea; still his love betrays itself, disguised though it may be in dark and impenetrable providence. There are undertones, gentle and tender, in the roughest accents of our Joseph's voice. And he who has an ear ever hearkening to the Lord, and delicately attuned to the gentlest whisper, shall often exclaim- "Speak, Lord, how and when and where you may- it is the voice of my beloved!"
But we have arrived at an interesting and cheering truth- THE FULL UNVEILING OF ALL THE LORD'S DEALINGS IN A HOLIER AND A BRIGHTER WORLD. "You do not realize now what I am doing, but later you will understand." That there is a present partial understanding of God's will and ways concerning us, we readily concede. We may, now and then, see a needs be for his conduct. The veil is just sufficiently lifted to reveal a portion of the 'end of the Lord.' He will make us acquainted with the evil which he corrects, with the backsliding which he chastens, with the temptation which he checks, and with the dangerous path around which he throws his hedge; so that we cannot escape. We see it, and we bless the hand outstretched to save.
He will also cause us to be fruitful. We have mourned our leanness, have confessed our barrenness, and lamented the distance of our walk, and the little glory we bring to his dear name- and lo! the dresser of the vineyard has appeared to prune his sickly branch, "that it may bring forth more fruit." "By this therefore shall the iniquity of Jacob be purged; and this is all the fruit to take away his sin." The deeper teaching, too- the result of the divine chastenings- has revealed to some extent the 'end of the Lord' in his mysterious conduct. O there is no school like God's school; for "who teaches like him?" And God's highest school is the school of trial. All his true scholars have graduated from this school. "Who are these who are clothed in white? Where do they come from? These are the ones coming out of the great tribulation. They washed their robes in the blood of the Lamb and made them white." Rev. 7:13-14. "Blessed is the man, O Lord, whom you chasten and teach out of your law." Ask each spiritually, deeply-taught Christian where he attained his knowledge- and he will point you to God's great university- the school of trial.
But there is a time coming, a blessed time of "good things to come," when the darkness will all have passed away, the mystery of God will be finished, and the present conduct of our Savior will be fully cleared up. "What I do, you know not now; but you shall know hereafter." O that "hereafter," what a solemn word to the ungodly! Is there, then, a hereafter? Jesus says there is; and I believe it, because he says it. That hereafter will be terrible to the man that dies in his sins. It will be a hereafter, whose history will be "written in mourning, lamentation and woe." It had been better for you, reader, living and dying, impenitent and unbelieving, had you never been born, or, had there been no hereafter. But there is a hereafter of woe to the sinner, as of bliss to the saint. "These shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal." (Matt. 25:46.)
The position which the Christian shall occupy hereafter, will be most favorable to a full and clear comprehension of all the mysteries of the way. The "clouds and darkness"- emblems in our history of obscurity and distress- which now envelop God's throne, and enshroud his government of the saints, will have passed away; the mist and fog will have vanished, and breathing a purer atmosphere, and canopied by a brighter sky, the glorified saint will see every object, circumstance, incident and step, with an eye unobscured by a vapor, and unmoistened by a tear. "Now we know in part, then shall we know even as we are known." And what shall we know? All the mysteries of Providence. Things which had made us greatly grieve, will now be seen to have been causes of the greatest joy. Clouds of threatening, which appeared to us charged with the agent of destruction, will then unveil, and reveal the love which they embosomed and concealed. All the mysteries of faith too will be known. "Now we see through a glass, darkly; (in a riddle) but then face to face; now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known."
The great "mystery of Godliness" will develop and unfold its wonders. His everlasting love to his church- his choice of a people for himself- his sovereign grace in calling them, all, all, will shine forth with unclouded luster to the eternal praise of his great and holy name. O what a perfect, harmonious, and glorious whole will all his doings in providence and grace appear, from first to last, to the undimmed eye, the ravished gaze of his white-robed, palm-bearing church.
Many and holy are the lessons we may gather from this subject. The first is- the lesson of deep humility. There are three steps in the Christian's life. The first is- humility; the second is- humility; the third is- humility. "You shall remember all the way which the Lord your God led you these forty years in the wilderness, to humble you, and to prove you, to know what was in your heart." In veiling his dealings, Jesus would "hide pride" from us. How loftily and self-sufficiently would we walk did we see all our present and future history plain before us.
We would ascribe to our own wisdom and skill, prudence and forethought, the honor which belongs to Christ alone. Let us, then, lie low before the Lord, and humble ourselves under his mysterious hand. "The meek will he guide in judgment, and the meek will he teach his way. All the paths of the Lord are mercy and truth unto such as keep his covenant and his testimonies." Thus writing the sentence of death upon our wisdom, our sagacity, and our strength, Jesus- the lowly one- seeks to keep us from the loftiness of our intellect, and from the pride of our heart prostrating us low in the dust at his feet. Holy posture! blessed place! There, Lord, would I lie; my trickling tears of penitence and love, falling upon those dear feet that have never misled, but have always gone before, leading me by a right way, the best way, to a city of rest.

"To cure you of your pride- that deepest-seated ill,
God humbled his own self- will you your pride keep still?"

We should learn from this subject to live by faith amid the enshrouding dealings of our God. Therefore are those dealings often so dark. Could we ever see all the road, faith would have no play; this precious, this Christ-honoring, this God- glorifying grace would lie dormant in the soul. But, in "leading the blind by a way that they know not," he teaches them to confide in the knowledge, truth, and goodness of their Divine escort- and that confidence is the calm unquestioning repose of faith.
"My spirit on your care,
Blest Savior, I recline;
You will not leave me to despair,
For you are love divine.
"In you I place my trust,
On you I calmly rest;
I know you good, I know you just,
And count your choice the best.
"Whatever events betide,
Your will they all perform;
Safe in your breast my head I hide,
Nor fear the coming storm.
"Let good or ill befall,
It must be good for me;
Secure of having you in all,
Of having all in thee." [Rev. H.F. Lyte]

Oh, sweet, consoling words of Jesus!- "What I do." Not what men do- not what angels do- not what you do– but, "what I do." Is the loved one wrenched from your heart?- "I have done it," says Jesus. Is the desire of your eyes smitten down with a stroke?- "I have done it," says Jesus. Is it the loss of property, of health, of position, of friends, that overwhelms you with grief?- "I have done it," says Jesus. "What I do you know not now; but you shall know hereafter." How many a mother has this promise soothed, while with an anguish such as a mother only knows, she has gazed upon the withered flower on her breast! How many a father, standing by the couch of death, grasping the cold clammy hand of the pride of his heart, has felt the power of these words, more sweet and more soothing than an angel's music- "What I do you know not now; but you shall know hereafter." Wait, then, suffering child, the coming glory- yielding yourself to the guidance of your Savior, and submitting yourself wholly to your Father's will.
"O Lord! how happy would we be,
If we could cast our care on thee,
If we from self could rest;
And feel at heart that One above,
In perfect wisdom, perfect love,
Is working for the best.
"How far from this our daily life!
Ever disturbed by anxious strife,
By sudden wild alarms;
O could we but relinquish all
Our earthly props, and simply fall
On your Almighty arms!
"Could we but kneel, and cast our load,
E'en while we pray, upon our God;
Then rise with lightened cheer,
Sure that the Father who is near
To still the famished raven's cry
Will hear, in that we fear.
"We cannot trust him as we should,
So chafes fallen nature's restless mood
To cast its peace away;
Yet birds and flowerets round us preach,
All, all the present evil teach
Sufficient for the day.
"Lord, make these faithless hearts of ours,
Such lessons learn from birds and flowers,
Make them from self to cease;
Leave all things to a Father's will,
And taste, before him lying still,
E'en in affliction, peace."

Jesus replied, "You do not realize now what I am doing, but later you will understand." John 13:7

"Solitude Sweetened"

"I am not alone, because the Father is with me" John 16:32.

It was not one of the least mournful features in the Savior's humiliation that the path he trod was in a measure solitary, and that the sorrow he endured was in its character a lonely one. He had created and had peopled the world— he had given to man a social constitution, had inspired the pulsation of love, and had imparted to his creatures a secret and strong affinity of mind to mind; and yet he was in the world as one to whom it afforded no home, and proffered no friendship. And was this no felt-trial to the Son of God? Did it enter nothing into the curse which he came to endure? Did it add no gall-bitter to his cup, no keenness to the sadness of his heart, no deepening to the shade upon his brow? Did the absence of a perfectly congenial mind, assimilating spirit, fond, confiding, sympathizing heart, on whose pillow he could lay to rest the corroding cares and mental disquietudes which agitated his own, create no aching void in the Redeemer's bosom? Surely it must. Our Lord was human— though divine— and as man he must have felt, at times, an intensity of yearning for human companionship proportioned to his capacity to enjoy, and his power to enrich it. The human sympathies and affections that belonged to him, pure and elevated as they were, could only awaken a responsive chord in a human breast. And for this he must have sighed. He was formed for the enjoyment of life, was endowed with a sensibility to the objects around him. He had affections— and he delighted to indulge them: he had a heart— and he longed to bestow it.
There were times, too, when he seemed to contract an attachment to inanimate objects: the tree beneath whose shade he had occasionally sat, the fields over whose verdure he had roamed, the sequestered spots where he had often strayed, the sea whose shores he had frequently trod, the mountain-slopes where he had been wont to stand, associated as they were with communion with God and converse with his disciples, had become sacred and endeared haunts to the holy and sensitive heart of Jesus.
It might indeed be said that the Savior loved and coveted solitude, occasionally stealing away to some favorite place for meditation and prayer. But there were other and more frequent occasions, especially in the deep, lonely sorrow of Gethsemane, when he seemed to feel the need and to ask the soothing of human sympathy. With what melting tones must these words have fallen on the ears of his little band of followers: "Tarry here, and watch with me."
Yes, our Lord's was a solitary life. He mingled indeed with man— he labored for man— he associated with man— he loved man— but he "trod the wine-press alone, and of the people there was none with him." And yet he was not all alone. Creatures, one by one, had indeed deserted his side, and left him homeless, friendless, solitary— but there was One, the consciousness of whose ever-clinging, ever-brightening, ever-cheering presence infinitely more than supplied the lack. "Behold, the hour comes, yes, is now come, that you shall be scattered every man to his own, and shall leave me alone: and yet I am not alone, because the Father is with me."
But from the history of Jesus let us turn to a parallel page in the history of his saints. The disciples of Christ, like their Lord and Master, often feel themselves alone. The season of sickness— the hour of bereavement— the period of trial, is often the occasion of increased depression from the painful consciousness of the solitude and loneliness in which it is borne. The heavenly way we travel is more or less a lonely way. We have, at most, but few companions. It is a "little flock," and only here and there we meet a traveler, who, like ourselves, is journeying towards the Zion of God. As the way is narrow, trying and humiliating to flesh, but few, under the drawings of the Spirit, find it.
If, indeed, true religion consisted in mere profession, then there were many for Christ. If the marks of discipleship were merely an orthodox creed— excited feeling— denominational zeal— flaming partisanship, then there are many that "find the way." But if the true travelers are men of broken heart— poor in spirit— who mourn for sin— who know the music of the Shepherd's voice— who follow the Lamb— who delight in the throne of grace— and who love the place of the cross, then there are but 'few' with whom the true saints journey to heaven in fellowship and communion.
But the path is even narrower than this— the circle is smaller still. How few real companions do we meet even among the saints of God! Loving them as we do, and yearning for a wider fellowship, yet how few there are with whom we can walk side by side! Doctrine divides us from some. If we speak of God's eternal love, and free choice, and discriminating mercy, we offend. "When our Lord preached the doctrine of sovereign grace, we read that "from that time many of his disciples went back, and walked no more with him." O it is a solemn and affecting thought, that even the very doctrines of Christ's gospel build a wall of partition between his true disciples.
Church government and ordinances sunder others. The blemishes and imperfections still clinging to the saints, such indeed as separated Paul and Barnabas, often interrupt the full harmony of Christian communion.
The difference of spirituality, too, which we find in the Lord's people, tends to abate much of that communion which ought to distinguish the one family of God. We meet, perhaps, with but few who have been taught precisely in our school, who see truth as we see it, and who observe ordinances as we observe them, or who can understand the intricacies of Christian experience through which, with toil and difficulty, we are threading our way. Few keep the same pace in the Christian race with us. Some linger behind, while others outrun us. There is one always so lost in a sense of his unworthiness as never to enter into our joy; and there is another towering, as on the eagle's wing, and soaring into a region whose very purity awes, and whose effulgence dazzles us. Thus are we learning the solitariness of the way, even in the very church and family of God within which we are embosomed.
But not from these causes alone springs the sense of loneliness which the saints often feel. There is the separation of loving hearts, and of kindred minds, and of intimate relationships, by the providential ordering and dealings of God. The changes of this changing world— the alteration of circumstances— the removals to new and distant positions— the wastings of disease and the ravages of death, often sicken the heart with a sense of friendlessness and loneliness which finds its best expression in the words of the Psalmist: "I watch, and am as a sparrow alone on the house-top." But if God "places the solitary in families," as he occasionally does, he more frequently sets the godly apart from others; and this has often been found to be one of his wisest and holiest appointments. "Come away and rest awhile;" "I will allure her into the wilderness," are divine expressions which would seem to indicate this instructive truth.
Shall we enter the chamber of sickness? Ah! what solitude reigns here. The gentle movement, the subdued voice, the soft tread, the smouldering embers, the shaded light, all signify that the scenes and the society and the excitement of the world without, intrude not upon the stillness of that world within. Weeks and months and years roll on, and still God keeps his child a "prisoner of hope." But since he has done it, it must be well done, for "his way is perfect."
To be arrested in the midst of activity, enterprise, and usefulness,— to be snatched from the pinnacle of honorable distinction, from the scene of pleasant labor, from the soothing society of friends, from the bosom of the domestic circle, within all of which we were so warmly nestled, and to find ourselves the sickly occupant of a lone and gloomy chamber, from which books and friends and family are excluded, is to some a trial of faith and patience demanding grace of no ordinary degree. The pastor torn from his flock, feels it,— the minister banished from his pulpit, feels it,— the Christian laborer laid aside from his loved employ, feels it,— the mother separated from her little ones, feels it; all feel it to be a school of which, though the teaching is most blessed, yet the discipline is most severe.
Shall we enter the house of mourning? Here is solitude indeed— the heart-aching solitude such as death only can create. What an awful stillness reigns here! The dread silence of all sounds has entered; even the living seem to hold their breath while the king of terrors passes by. The blinded windows— the light foot-fall— the wrapped thoughtfulness— the suppressed conversation— the air of desolateness resting on each countenance— and speaking from each eye, betokens how sad and deep and lonely is the grief with which each heart is breaking. Ah, yes! what a solitude does death often create in the life of the Christian.
The old companion, and the confiding friend removed— the "strong staff broken, and the beautiful rod,"— what a blank does the universe appear? But should we murmur at the solitary way along which our God is conducting us? Is it not his way, and therefore the best way? In love he gave us friends— in love he has removed them. In goodness he blessed us with health— in goodness he has taken it away. In faithfulness he vouchsafed to us affluence— in faithfulness he has recalled it.
And yet this is the way along which he is conducting us to glory. And shall we rebel? Heaven is the home of the saints; "here we have no continuing city." And shall we repine that we are in the right road to heaven? What, if in weariness and sorrow, you were journeying to the metropolis, where your heart's fondest treasure was embosomed; and you were to come to a way on whose finger-post was inscribed,— "The road to London," or, "The road to Paris," would you, because that road was lone and dreary and irksome, indulge in repining feelings, or waste your moments and your energies in useless regrets? Would you divert into another and an opposite, because a more pleasant and inviting path?
No! The image of your home with its sweet attractions— reposing like a fairy island in the sunny distance— would give wings to your feet, and carpet every step of that rough way with a soft mantle of green. Christ, your heart's treasure, is there! And will you murmur that the way that leads you to it and to him is sometimes enshrouded with dark and mournful solitude? O the distinguished privilege of treading the path that Jesus walked in!
But the solitude of the Christian has its sweetness. The Savior tasted it when he said, "I am not alone, because the Father is with me;" and all the lonely way that he traveled he leaned upon God. Formed for human friendship, and even knowing something of its enjoyment— for there reposed upon his breast the disciple whom he loved— he yet drew the love that sweetened his solitude from a higher than a human source. His disciples were scattered, and he was left to plod his weary way alone: but his Father with him— O this was enough!
The companionship of God is the highest, purest, sweetest mercy a saint of God can have on earth. Yes, it is the highest, purest, sweetest bliss the saints of God can have in heaven. What is the enjoyment of heaven? Not merely exemption from trial, and freedom from sorrow, and rest from toil, and release from conflict: O no! it is the presence— the full, unclouded presence of our Father there. To be with Christ— to behold his glory— to gaze upon his face— to hear his voice— to feel the throbbings of his bosom— to bask in the effulgence of God's presence— O this is heaven, the heaven of heaven!
The twilight of this glory we have here on earth. "I am not alone," can each sorrowful and banished soul exclaim, "because the Father is with me." Yes, beloved, your own Father. "You shall call me, my Father." In Jesus he is your Father— your reconciled, pacified Father— all whose thoughts that he thinks of you, are peace; and all whose ways that he takes with you, are love. The presence, the voice, the smile of a parent, how precious and soothing! especially when that presence is realized, and that voice is heard, and that smile is seen in the dark desolate hour of adversity.
God is our heavenly parent. His presence, his care, his smiles are ever with his children. And if there be a solitary child of the one family that shares the richer in the blessing of the Father's presence than another, it is the sick, the suffering, the lone, the chastened child. Yes, your Father is with you always. He is with you to cheer your loneliness— to sweeten your solitude— to sanctify your sorrow— to strengthen your weakness— to shield your person— to pardon your sins, and to heal all your diseases.
Hearken in your deep solitude to his own touching words: "Fear you not; for I am with you: be not dismayed; for I am your God: I will strengthen you; yes, I will help you; yes, I will uphold you with the right hand of my righteousness." Enough, my Father! if thus you are with me, I am not, I cannot be alone— and if such the bliss with which you do sweeten, and such the glory with which you do irradiate the solitude of your hidden ones, Lord, let me ever be a hidden one— shut out from all others, shut in alone with you!

"You are near,— yes, Lord, I feel it,
You are near wherever I move;
And though sense would sincerely conceal it,
Faith often whispers it in love.
"You are near,— O what a blessing
To the souls your love has blest!
Souls, your daily care confessing,
Daily by their God confessed.
"Why should I despond or tremble
When Jehovah stoops to cheer?
But O far rather, why dissemble
When Omniscience is near!
"Am I weak? your arm will lead me
Safe through every danger, Lord:
Am I hungry? you will feed me
With the manna of your Word.
"Am I thirsting? you will guide me
Where refreshing waters flow;
Faint or feeble, you will provide me
Grace for every need I know.
"Am I fearful? you will take me
Underneath your wings, my God!
Am I faithless? you will make me
Bow beneath your chastening rod.
"Am I drooping? you are near me,
Near to hear me on my way:
Am I pleading? You will hear me,
Hear and answer when I pray.
"Then, O my soul, since God does love you,
Faint not, droop not, do not fear;
For though his heaven is high above you,
He himself is ever near!
"Near to watch your wayward spirit,
Sometimes cold and careless grown;
But likewise near with grace and merit,
All your Savior's, His, His own." [J.S. Monsell]

There are many thoughts calculated to sweeten the season of Christian solitude which we need but simply suggest to the reflective mind. You cannot be in reality alone when you remember that Christ and you are one— that by his Spirit he dwells in the heart, and that therefore he is always near to participate in each circumstance in which you may be placed. Your very solitude he shares: with your sense of loneliness he sympathizes. You cannot be friendless— since Christ is your friend. You cannot be relationless— since Christ is your brother. You cannot be unprotected— since Christ is your shield.
Do you need an arm to lean upon?— his is outstretched. Do you need a heart to repose in?— his invites you to its affection and its confidence. Do you need a companion to converse with?— he welcomes you to his fellowship. O sweet solitude, sweetened by such a Savior as this!— always present to comfort, to counsel, and to protect in times of trial, perplexity, and danger.
There is so much soothing in the reflection that it is a Father's presence that sweetens the solitude of his child, that I know not how to express it. "MY FATHER IS WITH ME!" O what words are these! Who can harm you now? What can befall you? When and where can you be alone, if your heavenly Father is with you? He is with you on the ocean, he is with you on the land. He is with you in your exile, he is with you at home. Friends may forsake, and kindred may die, and circumstances may change— but "my Father is with me!" may still be your solace and your boast.
And O to realize the presence of that Father— to walk with God in the absorbing consciousness of his loving eye never removed, of his solemn presence never withdrawn, of his encircling arm never untwined— welcome the solitude, welcome the loneliness, welcome the sorrow, cheered and sweetened and sanctified by such a realization as this! "I am not alone, because my Father is with me."
Let the season of temporary solitude be a time of earnest prayer— of deep searching of heart— of much honest, close, filial transaction with yourself and with God. He may have allured you into the wilderness, he may thus have set you apart from all others for this very end. You have been communing much with books, and with men, he would now have you commune with your own heart and with himself!
And this, too, may be the school in which he is about to train you for greater responsibility, for more extended usefulness, and for higher honors in his church. Moses was withdrawn from Pharaoh's court and banished to the solitude of the wilderness forty years, in order to train him to be the great legislator and leader of God's people. Who can tell what numerous blessings are about to be realized by you, and through you, by the church of God, from the present season of silence and repose through which you are passing?
O to feel a perfect satisfaction, yes, an ecstatic delight, with all that our heavenly Father does! Submission is sweet, resignation is sweeter, but joyous satisfaction with the whole of God's conduct is sweeter still. "My Father, not my will but yours be done." Be this, then, your solace— this your boast— this your midnight harmony— "I AM NOT ALONE, BECAUSE MY FATHER IS WITH ME."

"How heavily the path of life
Is trod by him who walks alone,
Who hears not, on his dreary way,
Affection's sweet and cheering tone;
Alone, although his heart should bound
With love to all things great and fair,
They love not him,— there is not one
His sorrow or his joy to share.
"Alone,— though in the busy town,
Where hundreds hurry to and fro—
If there is none who for his sake
A selfish pleasure would forego;
And O how lonely among those
Who have not skill to read his heart,
When first he learns how summer friends
At sight of wintry storms depart.
"My Savior! and did you too feel
How sad it is to be alone,
Deserted in the adverse hour
By those who must your love have known?
The gloomy path, though distant, still
Was ever present to your view;
O how could you foreseeing it,
For us that painful course pursue?
"Forsaken of your nearest friends,
Surrounded by malicious foes—
No kindly voice encouraged you,
When the loud shout of scorn uprose.
Yet there was calm within your soul,
No stoic pride that calmness kept,
Nor Godhead unapproached by woe—
Like man you had both loved and wept.
"You were not then alone, for God
Sustained you by his mighty power;
His arm most felt, his care most seen,
When needed most in saddest hour.
None else could comfort, none else knew
How dreadful was the curse of sin;
He who controlled the storm without,
Could gently whisper peace within.
"Who is alone if God be near?
Who shall repine at loss of friends,
While he has One of boundless power,
Whose constant kindness never ends
Whose presence felt, enhances joy,
Whose love can stop each flowing tear,
And cause upon the darkest cloud
The bow of mercy to appear."

"A Look from Christ"

"The Lord turned, and looked upon Peter"—Luke 22:61.

And who can fully interpret that look? Painters have often attempted to portray it, but the pencil has fallen despairingly from their hands. The Savior was now standing face to face with Caiaphas—infinite purity confronting sin, infinite truth confounding error. It was to him a solemn and a critical moment. Pleading for his life, all his thoughts, and sympathies, and moments might be supposed to concentrate wholly upon himself. But no! he heard a voice behind him, the tones of which were familiar, though startling, to his ear. It was a voice to which he had often listened, as the ear listens to sweet sounds; but dear and familiar as it was, it uttered words of appalling import. It was the voice of a loved disciple, a sworn friend, who, but a few hours before, had vowed, with all the solemnity and emphasis of an oath, attachment and fidelity unto death. And what was its affirmation? "I know not the man!" His attention diverted from the trial, and his eye, withdrawn from his accusers, the "Lord turned, and looked upon Peter."
All thought and emotion seemed now to gather around one object--the Christ-denying disciple. His own personal case, now fraught with the deepest interest and peril; the tremendous responsibility which he at that moment sustained; standing on the eve of accomplishing the eternal purpose of his Father in the redemption of his church; the woe through which he was about to pass lowering and darkening around him; yet all seemed for the moment to tremble in the balance, before the case of a now fallen apostle. "And the Lord turned and looked upon Peter." Peter met the glance. Not a word was uttered, not a syllable was breathed, not a finger was lifted by the Savior; it was but a look, and yet it was such a look as pierced the heart of the sinning apostle. "Peter went out and wept bitterly."
Let us attempt its interpretation. The eye of Jesus is still upon us; it has often reproved us in our waywardness and folly; it has often cheered us in our loneliness and sorrow; and it may often chide and gladden us again. What is its language? It was a look of injured love. Christ loved Peter; he loved him with an everlasting love. When he allured him from his lowly calling, summoned him to be a disciple, and ordained him to be an apostle, and "a fisher of men," he loved him. Yes; and he loved him, too, at that moment. He was about to die—to die for Peter. He knew how false and treacherous he would prove; how, at a most critical period of his life, and amid circumstances the most painful, he would deny that he knew him, confirming the disownment with an oath and a curse; yet he loved Peter, loved him with an affection that never faltered or cooled--no, not even at the moment when the denial and the imprecation rose, fiend-like, from his lips.
What, then, was the language of that look which Christ now bent upon Peter? It was a look of Injured love! It seemed to say, "I am about to die for, you, Peter, and can you now deny me? What have I done, or what have I said, worthy of such requital?" And what, my reader, are all our backslidings, and falls, and unkind returns, but so many unjust injuries done to the deep, deathless love of Jesus? How do we forget, at the moment of excited feeling, that every step we take in departure from God, each temptation to which we yield assent, and each sin we voluntarily commit, is in the face of love inconceivably great, and unutterably tender. Injured love! how reproving its glance! "I have died for you," Jesus says; "for you I poured out my heart's blood; and can you, in view of love like mine, thus grieve, and wound, and deny me?"
It was a look of painful remembrance. "And the Lord turned and looked upon Peter. And Peter remembered the word of the Lord." His Lord's solemn prediction of his sin he seemed quite to have forgotten. But when that look met his eye, it summoned back to memory the faded recollections of the faithful and tender admonitions that had forewarned him of his fall. There is a tendency in our fallen minds to forget our sinful departures from God. David's threefold backsliding seemed to have been lost in deep oblivion, until the Lord sent his prophet to recall it to his memory. Christ will bring our forgotten departures to view, not to upbraid or to condemn, but to humble us, and to bring us afresh to the blood of sprinkling. The heart-searching look from Christ turns over each leaf in the book of memory; and sins and follies, inconsistencies and departures, there inscribed, but long forgotten, are read and re-read, to the deep sin-loathing and self-abasement of our souls. Ah! let a look of forgiving love penetrate your soul, illumining memory's dark cell, and how many things, and circumstances, and steps in your past life will you recollect to your deepest humiliation before God.
And O! how much do we need thus to be reminded of our admonitions, our warnings, and our falls, that we may in all our future spirit and conduct "walk humbly with God." The season of solitude and sorrow, suffering reader, is peculiarly favorable for this. It is a time of recollection. The past is recalled, the life is reviewed, principles, motives, and actions are examined, scrutinized, and weighed, and "the result, if the process is fairly and honestly" gone into, will be, "Lord! I do remember this day my sin and folly; pardon it, for your name's sake, and do you remember it no more forever!"
It was a look of gentle reproof. It seemed to convey that reproof in language like this— "I am now bearing your sin and curse; I am about to drink the cup of woe for you; to take you, a poor, lost, condemned sinner, into my very bleeding heart; and do you deny that you did ever know me? Can you inflict another and a deeper wound? Can you add another and a keener pang to those now falling, like a storm, upon me from my enemies, deriding, and scorning, and rejecting me?" O, what a reproof was that look! It was indeed tender; but its very tenderness made it all the more keen. Blessed Jesus! we love you for all the reproofs of your eye--reproofs most deserved, most searching. We have met your look in secret; in solitude and in sorrow it has spoken to us, revealing our sin and your displeasure, and we bless you for the look.
It was a look of full forgiveness. Who can doubt but that, at this moment, Jesus, by his blessed Spirit, did secretly write upon the heart of his backsliding disciple the free pardon of his sin. And such is ever the look of Christ to us. Be it a look expressive of wounded love; be it a look of mournful remembrance; or be it a look of searching reproof; it yet is always a look of most free and full forgiveness. "I have pardoned," is its language. And this is the meaning of Christ's look now penetrating the dark cloud of your heart's grief, suffering believer. It may revive the recollection of past offences; it may search, and rebuke, and alarm; yet beware of interpreting it all of displeasure; it is a look of loving forgiveness. The sharpest reproof the look of Christ ever conveyed to a believer, spoke of pardoned sin. It must be so, since the covenant of peace provides, and the atonement of Jesus secures, the entire canceling of all his sin.
Meet the eye of Jesus, then, with confidence and love. There may be self-reproach in your conscience; there is no harsh reproach in his look. The uplifted glance of your eye may be sin-repenting, the downward beaming of his is sin-forgiving. O! press to your heart the consolation and joy of this truth--the glance of Jesus falling upon his accepted child ever speaks of pardoned sin. Chastened, sorrowful, and secluded, you may be, yet your sins are forgiven you for his name's sake. O! I know not a truth more calculated to light up the gloom of a lone chamber, to lift up the drooping spirit of a heart-sick child of God, than the announcement that God, for Christ's sake, has pardoned all his transgressions and his sins, and stands to him in the relation of a reconciled Father.
Suffering child of God! with this divine declaration would I come to you in your sorrow and seclusion—"O Israel! you shall not be forgotten of me. I have blotted out, as a thick cloud, your transgressions, and, as a cloud, your sins. Return unto me; for I have redeemed you." O! that the Spirit, the Comforter, may sweeten your solitude and cheer your gloom, and give you this song to sing in the night season of your grief: "Bless the Lord, O my soul! and forget not all his benefits; who forgives all your iniquities, who heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from destruction, and crowns you with loving-kindness and tender mercies." Forget not that the look of Christ is ever, to his saints, a look of pardoning love.
The posture of Jesus when he looked upon his sinning disciple was most expressive. "The Lord turned." Here was the first step of recovery taken on the part of Christ. And what has all the restoring conduct of our Lord been towards us, but just this turning to us, when we had turned from him? We have wandered, he has gone after us; we have departed, he has pursued us; we have stumbled, he has upheld us; we have fallen, he has raised us up again; we have turned from him, he has turned to us. O! the wonderful love, and patience patience of Christ! And what is still his language, speaking to us in that look? "Return unto me, for I have redeemed you." And what should be the response of our hearts? "Behold, "we come unto you, for you are the Lord our God." Then, "let us search and try our ways, and turn again unto the Lord."
Yes, my reader, again. What! after all my backslidings and recoveries, my departures and returns, may I turn again to the Lord? Yes! with confidence we say it, "turn again unto the Lord." That look of love beaming from the eye of Jesus, invites you, woos you to return again, yes, this once more, to the shelter of his pierced side, to the home of his wounded heart.
And O! how acute the sorrow awakened by a look from Christ. "Peter went out and wept bitterly." How melting is the look of wounded love! A Father's eye, beaming with tenderness upon a rebellious, wandering child, inviting, welcoming his return--what adamant heart can resist it?
Peter's sorrow, too, was solitary. He went out from the high priest's hall, and sought some lone place to weep. Ah! the deepest, bitterest, truest grief for sin, is felt and expressed beneath God's eye alone. When the wakeful pillow of midnight is moistened, when the heart unveils in secret to the eye of Jesus, when the chamber of privacy witnesses to the confidential confessions, and moanings, and pleadings of a wandering heart, there is then felt and expressed a sorrow for sin, so genuine, so delicate, and so touching, as cannot but draw down upon the soul a look from Christ the most tender in its expression, and the most forgiving in its language.
And what, my reader, shall be the one practical lesson we draw from this subject? Even this— Let us always endeavor to realize the loving eye of Jesus resting upon us. In public and in private, in our temporal and spiritual callings, in prosperity and in adversity, in all places and on all occasions, and under all circumstances, O! let us live as beneath its focal power. When our Lord gave this look to Peter, his eyes were dim with grief; but now that he is in heaven, they are "as a flame of fire." To his saints not a burning, withering, consuming flame, but a flame of inextinguishable love! Deem not yourself, then, secluded believer, a banished and an exiled one, lost to all sight. Other eyes may be withdrawn and closed, distance intercepting their view, or death darkening their vision; but the eye of Jesus, your Lord, rests upon you always, in ineffable delight, and with unslumbering affection. "I will guide you with my eye," is the gracious promise of your God. Be ever and intently gazing on that Eye, "looking unto Jesus." He is the Fountain of Light; and in the light radiating from his eye you shall, in the gloomiest hour of your life, see light upon your onward way. "By his light I walked through darkness."
"We all, with open face, beholding, as in a glass, the glory of the Lord, are
changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord."

"Honey in the Wilderness"

"And when the people had come into the wood, behold the honey dropped . . . Wherefore he put forth the end of the rod that was in his hand, and dipped it in an honey-comb, and put his hand to his month; and his eyes were enlightened."
-1 Samuel 14:26, 27.

And when the people were come into the wood, behold, the honey dropped; but no man put his hand to his mouth: for the people feared the oath. But Jonathan heard not when his father charged the people with the oath: wherefore he put forth the end of the rod that was in his hand, and dipped it in an honeycomb, and put his hand to his mouth; and his eyes were enlightened. 1 Samuel 14:26-27

When they went into the woods, they saw the honey oozing out, yet no one put his hand to his mouth, because they feared the oath. But Jonathan had not heard that his father had bound the people with the oath, so he reached out the end of the staff that was in his hand and dipped it into the honeycomb. He raised his hand to his mouth, and his eyes brightened. 1 Samuel 14:26-27

They didn't even touch the honey because they all feared the oath they had taken. But Jonathan had not heard his father's command, and he dipped a stick into a piece of honeycomb and ate the honey. After he had eaten it, he felt much better. 1 Samuel 14:26-27

The Word of God is rich with the most beautiful and instructive similitude. We are aware there is a limit to its use, and that if that limit be overstepped, we may leave the field of a sober reality, for the uncertain and unsafe path of imagination. Yet, on the other hand, since God has "used similitudes by the ministry of the prophets," it were folly, no, it were sin to disregard them altogether as useless aids in illustrating and elucidating divine truth.
The army of the Lord was now faint and weary in the conflict. Saul had rashly enjoined that no individual should taste of food until the battle had been fought. Ignorant of the royal command, Jonathan, on coming to a certain woods, and beholding honey dropping upon the ground, in a moment of exhaustion, put forth the end of his rod, dipped it in the honey-comb and partook of it; "and his eyes were enlightened." Now each particular here is suggestive of some spiritual truth.
Firstly: the Lord's people are often weary and faint in their spiritual conflicts. It is no ideal picture of the Christian life when the Word of God represents it in the character of a warfare- it is a solemn and serious truth. To the tactics of this warfare we do not now refer; our remarks bear particularly upon that peculiar state which the conflict produces- weariness and exhaustion. It may be instructive to trace this condition to some of its causes.
Among these may be stated, the nature and the number of HIS SPIRITUAL FOES. It may be at the risk of damping the ardor of a young recruit, that we give prominence to this idea, nevertheless, ignorance of our enemies, their strength and variety, has often led to disastrous consequences. The very field upon which the battle is fought is one of sore temptation. What is the world to the believer, but one of his greatest snares? Is there in it anything that sympathizes with the Christian character? Anything in its pursuits, its pleasures, its policy, which advances in his soul the divine life? Can he in his weakness extract from it strength? Can he in his trials derive from it comfort? Can he in his difficulties ask from it aid? Quite the reverse. Yes, the very battlefield is one of severe temptation to the Christian warrior. We can only compare his position to an armed force going out to war, and startled at every turn by some wild beast rushing from its lair, or periled by some pitfall lying concealed at every step. This is no over-wrought picture of the world through which the saints are passing. Things that are lawful, are snares. Things, too, that wear the most innocent and innocuous form, often conceal the greatest danger. Yet how little are we broad awake to this. Why does the apostle so frequently and so earnestly warn the Church of God against the world? Because he knew it to be one of his most subtle and most dangerous foes. I believe the day is coming- hasten, Lord, its arrival! when God will so pour out his Spirit upon his church, that it will be considered then as glaring an inconsistency for a Christian man to become a partner in business with a worldly man, as it is now to form an alliance still closer and more sacred with one who is not a follower of the Lord Jesus. "Don't you know that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? Whoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God." "Wherefore come out from among them, and be separate, says the Lord."
And what shall we say of his great, unseen, but not less dangerous enemy- the devil? Satan has a more accurate knowledge of us than we have of ourselves. He studies us as we study a book. Without ascribing to him divine attributes, there is a kind of ubiquity belonging to him which renders him a most formidable, because an ever-present foe. Nor do we think that it is in things decidedly evil that Satan proves most successful with the child of God. It is oftener in things which wear the appearance and the semblance of good. It is Satan robed as "an angel of light" not Satan appearing as a fiend of darkness, that we have most to dread. Hence we have reason to beware of the many specious, but false religions of the day.
And when with the world and the devil, he numbers among his spiritual foes, the corruptions of his fallen nature, the subtlety and deep depravity of his own heart; is it marvellous that the believer should often be dispirited in the spiritual conflict? "Cast down, but not destroyed."
The DEFEATS too which he is constantly sustaining- the cutting off of supplies upon which he depended- the seeming withdrawment of the Captain of his salvation, as if indifferent to the conflict- the rusting of his armor- the defection in the camp of some, the desertion from the ranks of others, and the falls upon the battlefield of yet more, often deeply discourage the Christian soldier. His heart sickens, his spirits droop, his courage fails, and he lays down upon his shield, as if to die.
But there is HONEY IN THE DESERT for the Christian soldier, "faint yet pursuing." There is appropriate refreshment for the weariness and exhaustion of the conflict. The Israelites had been sore pressed by the Philistines. They had fought hard all that day. The rash injunction of their royal leader, had greatly aggravated their suffering. They were forbidden to partake of any nourishment until the evening. Exhausted and faint, weary and discouraged, they light upon a spot in the forest where honey fell, luxuriant and inviting, upon the ground. It met the case of the king's son. He partook of it, and his drooping spirit revived within him.
The Lord of hosts, the Captain of our salvation, has a kind and considerate regard for his weary and discouraged soldiers. They are fighting in his cause- they are battling for his truth- they have come to his help against the mighty, and in the hour when their strength fails, and their spirits droop, and their hearts faint, he will guide them to the spot in the desert, where the honey- the nourishment of his providing- is found, and of which they may eat abundantly.
The similitude of honey is one of frequent occurrence in the Bible. When God would describe the richness of Palestine, he speaks of it as a "land flowing with milk and honey." This, too, would appear to have been a provision especially made by him for the nourishment of his church in the wilderness. Moses says that the Lord made his people to "suck honey out of the rock, and oil out of the flinty rock." It is quite clear, then, that we may regard this species of food as the symbol of great spiritual blessings.
The SOURCES from where the Christian's nourishment is derived are various. We should be grateful to God that he has not limited us to one secondary source of spiritual nourishment. It was proper, it was wise and gracious in God that there should be but one Plant of Renown, but one Rose of Sharon, but one Lily of the Valley, but one Living Vine; in other words, that there should be but one Savior and Redeemer, but one Head and Reservoir of the church. But there are offshoots from this divine plant; there are streams issuing from this sacred fountain-head, from each of which the believer in his weariness and sorrowing may, by faith, extract the nourishment that strengthens and revives him. I would repeat it- be grateful to God for this. Suppose his people were shut up to but one means of grace- that means being the Gospel ministry; and suppose he were to assign your lot where no such channel were accessible- how would it fare with your soul? But it is not so. Let his Providence guide you to the farthest spot on the earth- the desert, the forest, the prairie- where no ministry of reconciliation proclaims the unsearchable riches of Christ, yet, even there, he can guide you to the spot where falls the honey, abundant as his own affluence, and free as his own grace can make it.
Such, believer, may be your present condition. The seclusion of a sick chamber, the solitude of the house of mourning, the deprivation in other ways of the wonted means of grace, may be to you like an exile from the land of milk and honey; but the Lord has his heart upon you still, and "he does devise means, that his banished are not expelled from him." There is honey for you in the wood.
What is the Word of God but this honey? David's experience shall testify. "How sweet are your words unto my taste! Yes, sweeter than honey to my mouth!" And from where does this honey fall, but from the heart of God? What is the word of God? It is the unfolding of the heart of God. His mind conveys the word, but his heart dictates the word. Take the promises: how "exceeding great and precious" they are. Have you not often found them sweet to your taste as the honey and the honey-comb? When some portion of the wold suited to your present need has been brought home to your heart by the sealing power of the Holy Spirit, how have all other sweets become bitter to your taste compared with this. Your Heavenly Father saw your grief, your divine Captain beheld your conflict and your exhaustion, and bade his Spirit go and drop that sweet promise into your sad heart, and you found the entrance of God's word gave light and comfort to your sad and gloomy spirit.
The love of God in Christ! O it is sweeter than honey! The love that gave Christ- that chose us in Christ- that has blessed us in Christ- that gives us standing in Christ; surely it passes all knowledge. To see it traveling over all the opposition of our unbelieving minds, and the corruption of our depraved hearts, and meeting us at some peculiar stage of our journey, in some painful crisis of our history, in some bitter lonely trial through which we are passing; how does this exalt our views of its greatness, and bring us into the experience of its sweetness.
Such, too, is the love of the Spirit. His love as tasted in his calling- in his comforting- in his sanctifying- in his witnessing, and in all his effectual and unwearied teaching. "God is love"- and on this truth- sweet in our present experience- we shall be living through eternity: "If so be we have tasted that the Lord is gracious."
But let us not overlook the honey-comb- the depository of this spiritual nourishment. "It pleased the Father that in Jesus should all fulness dwell." If the grace that flows from Jesus is sweet, Jesus himself is sweeter still. Let us not, then, be satisfied with the fulness of Christ; but let us live on the person of Christ: "He that eats of my flesh, and drinks of my blood, dwells in me, and I in him." I fear we have too little contact with Christ himself. We do not sufficiently make him our personal friend- walking with him, talking with him, confiding in him as we would with the dearest personal friend of our hearts. And yet this is our high and precious privilege. "This is my Friend," should be the language of every believer, as he points to, and leans upon, Christ.
The PLACE where this honey- the symbol of such spiritual blessing- was found, was the "wood." Beloved, the covenant of grace, the fulness that is in Christ, is not for heaven, but for earth. It is not for the church triumphant, but for the church militant- the church in her warfare. Here it is the battle is fought, and the conflict is passing, and the enemy assails, and the wound is inflicted, and the heart faints, and the spirit is discouraged, and the soul is weary. This honey of God's providing is for the season of sorrow and seclusion, for the need and weariness, the entanglement and loneliness of the forest.
Then, refuse it not, O child of sorrow! Stretch forth your rod of faith, and gather of it abundantly. "Eat, O friends," is your Lord's invitation. Drink deeply of your Father's love- draw largely from Christ's fulness- confide implicitly in God's word- invoke believingly the Spirit's help. All is for you. God is the God of the tried- Jesus is the Savior of the tried- the Spirit is the Comforter of the tried- the Bible, with all its consolations and its hopes, is the Book of the tried. Eat of this honey, and your spirit shall be revived. Your eyes will be opened to see new depths of love in God, new chambers of repose in Christ, new promises of sweetness in the Word, and new unfoldings of wisdom, truth, and goodness in the present conduct of him whose dealings may be veiled in painful mystery, but who will never forget to lead his valiant yet exhausted soldier to the honey in the wood.
Nor let us overlook the mingling of the bitter and the sweet in the Lord's dealings with us here. Like the Apocalyptic book eaten by John, which was in his "mouth sweet as honey: and as soon as he had eaten, was bitter;" so are often blended the varied dispensations of our God. It is a most wise and gracious arrangement. All bitter would have dispirited; all sweet would have glutted. The one would have created despondency, and the other, loathing. Thus, our sorrows and our joys, our trials and our succorings, our defeats and our victories, are strangely, wisely, and kindly blended in this the "time of our sojourning."
Be skillful and diligent to extract this honey from every, the bitterest flower. O that God may make us wise to do this. The sweetest apprehensions of Christ have often been in the bitterest dispensations of God's providence. The stone that was rolled upon the tomb of Christ was heavy: but Christ was beneath it. There may be a stone of difficulty in the way of our mercies, but faith rolling it away, that very difficulty will be found to have brought us to a living Christ full of sweet grace and truth. And let us remember, too, that it is along the path of filial and unreserved obedience that this honey is most thickly strewed. "O that my people had hearkened unto me, and Israel had walked in my ways!" What would have been their reward? "He would have fed them also with the finest of the wheat: and with honey out of the rock should have satisfied them."
Beware of being so surfeited with the world, with earthly care and carnal enjoyment as to loathe this honey. "The full soul loathed the honey-comb." Israel loathed the manna. Learn one reason why God has placed you just where you are- even to create in your soul a zest and a taste for this honey. He will embitter the world's sweets, when they embitter his. But Jesus can make the world's bitter, sweet, and the creature s sweet, sweeter. Receive all as from Christ, and enjoy all as in Christ, and then shall Christ be to you all and in all.
Soon we shall be in glory, soon we shall escape from the world, and enter the paradise of God. There the boughs are laden, and drop with honey that never wastes, and that never gluts. The weary pilgrim and the veteran warrior shall repose by the side of the rock from where flowed this precious food all through the desert, partaking of its fulness, lasting as eternity. You who have tasted the honey in the wilderness, shall assuredly partake of it in your Father's house.

"Spent with the toil of wasting war,
His hosts, with him, compelled to fast,
The longing chief of Israel saw
Where nature furnished wild meal.
"The aged terebinth had shed
Its pure and luscious treasure round;
And the rich feast lay duly spread,
Free as the winds along the ground.
"For there, upon the tangled grass,
Dropt the sweet burden of that hive;
Yet, until the dial's shade should pass,
No Hebrew might partake and live.
"The monarch's son, the empire's heir,
The leader in the conflict's van,
The victor- say, what was he there?
A weary, worn and famished man!
"He took and ate- no more oppressed,
From eyes, enlightened, flashed his joy!
O fainting soul! be you as blest
With drops of grace, that never cloy.
"And praise Him who leads sons of care,
Pursued by sin and sore distress-
From famine and from flight, to where
There's honey in the wilderness."
-William B. Tappan

The Godly Widow Confiding in the Widow's God

"Let your widows trust in me." —Jeremiah 49:11.

It is well! All that he does, who speaks these touching words, is well. It is well with you, for he who gave in love, in love has taken away the mercy that he gave. The companion of your youth, the friend of your bosom, the treasure of your heart, the staff of your riper and the solace of your declining years, is removed, but since God has done it—it is, it must be well.

Look now above the circumstances of your deep and dark sorrow, the second causes of your bereavement, the probable consequences of your loss— God has done it; and that very God who has smitten, who has bereaved, and who has removed your all of earthly good, now invites you to trust in him. 'Chance' has not brought you into this state; 'accident' has not bereft you of your treasure; God has made you a widow, that you may confide in the widow's God.

With your peculiar case the word of God in a pre-eminent degree sympathizes. It would seem, indeed, as if a widow's sorrow and a widow's desolateness took the precedence of all other bereavements in the Bible. It is touched with a hand so gentle, it is referred to with a tenderness so exquisite, it is quoted with a solemnity so profound, it would seem as if God had taken the widow's sorrow, if I may so express myself, into his heart of hearts. "You shall not afflict any widow,"—"He does execute the judgment of the widow,"—"The sheaf in the field shall be for the widow,"— "He relieves the widow,"—"He will establish the border of the widow,"—"A judge of the widow is God,"—"Plead for the widow,"— "If you oppress not the widow,"—"Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, to visit the widows in their affliction,"—"Let your widows trust in me."

What a cluster of divine and precious consolations for the widow is here! How do their extraordinary appropriateness to her case, their extreme delicacy in dealing with her position, their especial regard for her circumstances; above all, their perfect sympathy with her lonely sorrow, betray the heart from where they flow!

And who is the object of the widow's trust? "In me," says God. None less than himself can meet your case. He well considers that there is an acuteness in your sorrow, a depth in your loss, a loneliness and a helplessness in your position, which no one can meet but himself. The first, the best, the fondest, the most protective of creatures has been torn from your heart, is smitten down at your side; what other creature could now be a substitute? A universe of beings could not fill the void. God in Christ only can.

O! wonderful thought, that the Divine Being should come and embosom himself in the bereft and bleeding heart of a human sufferer—that bereft and bleeding heart of yours! He is especially the God of the widow. And when he asks your confidence, and invites your trust, and bids you lift your weeping eye from the crumbled idol at your feet, and fix it upon himself, he offers you an infinite substitute for a finite loss; thus, as he ever does, giving you infinitely more than he took; bestowing a richer and a greater blessing than he removed. He recalled your husband, but he bestows himself!

And O, the magnitude of this trust! It is to have infinite power to protect you, infinite wisdom to guide you, infinite love to comfort you, infinite faithfulness at all times to stand by you, and boundless resources to supply your every need. It is to have the God who made heaven and earth, the God to whom the spirits of all creatures are subject, the God who gave his dear Son to die for you, the God of the everlasting covenant to be your shield, your counselor, your provider, your God forever and ever, and your guide even unto death.

And what are you invited thus to entrust to God? First, your own self. It is one of the greatest, as it is one of the most solemn peculiarities of the Gospel, that it deals with us as individuals. It never, in all the commands it enjoins, and in all the blessings it promises, loses sight of our individuality. This, then, is a personal confiding. You are to trust yourself into God's hands; God seems now to stand to you in a new relation. He has always been your Father and your Friend. To these he now adds the relation of Husband.

Your present circumstances seem to invest you with a new claim, not upon his love—for he has always loved you, as he loves you now—but upon his especial, his peculiar, his tender care; the affectionate solicitude of the husband blending with the tender love of the father. You are to flee to him in your helplessness, to resort to him in your loneliness, to confide to him your needs, and to weep your sorrows upon his bosom.

Secondly, your children. "Leave your fatherless children; I will preserve them alive." A state of half-orphanage is one of peculiar interest to God. A fatherless child is an object of his especial regard and care. "You are the helper of the fatherless,"—"A father of the fatherless is God,"—"Enter not into the field of the fatherless; for their Redeemer is mighty, he will plead their cause with you." Encouraged by this invitation and this promise, take, then, your fatherless ones, and lay them on the heart of God! He has removed their earthly father, that he may adopt them as his own. His promise that he will "preserve them alive," you are warranted to interpret in its best and widest sense.

It must be regarded as including, not temporal life only, but also spiritual life. God never offers us an inferior blessing, when it is in his power to confer, and our circumstances demand, a greater. He will preserve your fatherless ones alive temporarily, providing all things necessary for their present existence; but, infinitely more than this, he will, in answer to the prayer of faith, preserve their souls unto eternal life. Thus it is a promise of the life that now is, and also of that which is to come.

Thirdly, your concerns are to be entrusted to God. These, doubtless, press at this moment with peculiar weight upon your mind. They are new and strange. They were once cared for by one in whose judgment you had implicit confidence, whose mind thought for you, whose heart beat for you, whose hands toiled for you, who in all things sought to anticipate every wish, to reciprocate every feeling; 'who lessened his cares by your sympathy, and multiplied his pleasures by your participation;' whose esteem, and affection, and confidence, shed a warm and mellow light over the path of life. These interests, once confided to his judgment and control, must now be entrusted to a wiser and more powerful friend-- to him who is truly and emphatically the widow's God. Transferred to his government, he will make them all his own. Your care will be his cares; your concerns will be his concern; your children will be his children; your need the occasion of his supply; and your fears, perils, and dejection, the period of his soothing, protection, and love.

And just at this period of your life, when every object and every scene appears to your view trembling with uncertainty and enshrouded with gloom, God—the widow's God—speaks in language well calculated to awaken in your soul a song in the night-- "LET YOUR WIDOWS TRUST IN ME." O! have faith, then, in this word of the living God, and all will be well with you. It will be well with your person, it will be well with your children, it will be well with your estate. The God who cared for the widow of Zarephath, the Savior who had compassion on the bereaved widow of Nain, is your God and Savior; and the same regard for your interests, and the same sympathy for your sorrow, will lighten your cares and cheer the desolateness of your widowhood.

Only trust in God. Beware of murmuring at his dealings, of doubting his kindness, of distrusting his word, and of so nursing your grief as to refuse the consolation your God and Savior offers you. The sweetest joy may yet spring from your bitter, lonely sorrow; and the richest music may yet awake from your unstrung and silent harp. If a human power and sympathy could "make the widow's heart to sing for joy," O! what joy cannot God's power and love create in that desolate, bleeding, widowed heart of your. Place it, then, all stricken and lonely as it is, in God's hands; and, breathing over it his loving Spirit, he will turn its tears, its sighs, its moanings, into the sweetest midnight harmony!

"Long have I viewed, long have I thought,
And held with trembling hand this bitter draught;
'Twas now first to my lips applied;
Nature shrank in, and all my courage died.
But now resolved and firm I'll be,
Since, Lord, it is mingled and reached out by Thee.

"Since its your sentence I should part
With the most precious treasure of my heart,
I freely that and more resign;
My heart itself, as its delight is Thine.
My little all I give to you;
You gave a greater gift, your Son, to me.

"He left true bliss and joys above,
Himself he emptied of all good but love;
For me he freely did forsake
More good than he from me can take,
A mortal life for a divine
He took, and did at last even that resign.

"Take all, great God! I will not grieve;
But still will wish that I had still to give.
I hear your voice; you bid me quit
My paradise; I bless, and do submit;
I will not murmur at your word,
Nor beg your angel to sheathe up his sword."

LOOKING UNTO JESUS

"Looking unto Jesus" – Hebrews 12:2.

It was no little kindness in our God that as one saving object, and one alone, was to engage the attention and fix the eye of the soul, through time and through eternity, that object should be of surpassing excellence and of peerless beauty. That he should be, not the sweetest seraph nor the loveliest angel in heaven, but his own Son, the "brightness of his glory, the express image of his person." God delights in the beautiful; all true beauty emanates from him. What a beautiful picture was this world as it rose from beneath his pencil! What a magnificent piece of sculpture was man, as he came forth from his hands! And despite of the withering blight which has fallen upon all that was once so perfect, how much beauty still lingers around the works and creatures of God! "He has made all things beautiful."

To recur to the thought just advanced, how worthy of himself that, in providing a Savior for fallen man, bidding him fix the eye of faith supremely and exclusively upon him, that Savior should unite in himself all divine and all human beauty; that he should be the "chief among ten thousand, the altogether lovely One." Adore the name, O! praise the love of our God, for this. To this peerless object, to this glorious Savior, then, we are now invited to look. And in "looking unto Jesus," let it be remembered that it is not exclusive of the Father, nor of the Holy Spirit. In looking unto Jesus for salvation, we include each Divine Person of the glorious Trinity. We cannot look unto Jesus without seeing the Father, for Christ is the revelation of the Father. "He that has seen me," says Christ, "has seen the Father." Nor can we contemplate Jesus exclusive of the Holy Spirit, because it is the Spirit alone who imparts the spiritual eye that sees Jesus. Thus, in the believing and saving view a poor sinner has of Jesus, he beholds, in the object of his sight, a revelation of each separate Person of the ever blessed Trinity, engaged in devising and accomplishing his eternal salvation.

Oh what a display of infinite love and wisdom is here, that in our salvation one object should arrest the eye, and that that object should embody an equal revelation of the Father, who gave Jesus, and of the Holy Spirit of truth, who leads to Jesus, and that that object should be the loveliest being in the universe! Looking unto Jesus! most refreshing and sweet are these words! What an embodiment of truth! How simple, yet how grand! How brief, yet how expressive! They involve the following points: "Looking unto Jesus," from everything; "Looking unto Jesus," in everything; "Looking unto Jesus," for everything.

First, "Looking unto Jesus," FROM everything. The eye cannot properly contemplate two different objects with equal simplicity and distinctness at the same moment. It is equally contrary to the philosophy of mind, that it can give its supreme study to more than one subject at a time. This will hold good in matters of faith. The object of faith is one, the trust of faith is one, the giver of faith is one, "looking unto Jesus." Now a true spiritual beholding of the Lord Jesus in the great matter of our eternal salvation, requires that we look away from every other object that would divide our attention, to him alone.

We must look from ourselves. This is, perhaps, the most common and insidious object that comes between the eye of the soul and Jesus. When God was ejected from the heart of man, self vaulted into the vacant throne, and has ever since maintained a supremacy. It assumed two forms, from both of which we are to look in looking savingly to Jesus. We must look from righteous self; from all works of righteousness which we can perform, from our almsgivings, from our charities, from our religious observances, our fastings, and prayers, and sacraments; from all the works of the law by which we are seeking to be justified; from all our efforts to make ourselves better, and thus to do something to commend ourselves to the Divine notice, and to propitiate the Divine regard; from all this we must look, if we rightly look unto Jesus to be saved by his righteousness, and by his alone. The noble language of the apostle must find an echo in our hearts: "I once thought all these things were so very important, but now I consider them worthless because of what Christ has done. Yes, everything else is worthless when compared with the priceless gain of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. I have discarded everything else, counting it all as garbage, so that I may have Christ and become one with him. I no longer count on my own goodness or my ability to obey God's law, but I trust Christ to save me. For God's way of making us right with himself depends on faith."

We must equally, too, look unto Jesus from unrighteous self. Our sins and transgressions and iniquities, red as crimson, countless as the sands, and towering as the Alps, are not for one moment to intercept or obscure our looking unto Jesus for salvation. Jesus is a Savior, as his precious name signifies. As such, he came to save us from our sins, be those sins ever so great for magnitude, or infinite for number. It is impossible that we can look unto Jesus, and feel the joy of his salvation flowing into our hearts, while at the same time we are looking at the number and the turpitude of our sins. We must not look at the sin and at the Savior at the same time; but beholding by faith him who "bore our sins in his own body on the tree," who was "made a sin-offering for us," who was "wounded for our transgressions, and was bruised for our iniquities," who shed his precious blood that the guiltiest may be cleansed, and the vilest saved, and between whom and the penitent sinner, though he were another Manasseh, another Saul of Tarsus, another dying malefactor, no transgression and no crime can interpose an effectual barrier, we shall see the exceeding greatness and sinfulness of sin in a clearer, and more searching and solemn light, than we possibly could viewing it apart from the cross.

Look unto Jesus, then, from your sins; their magnitude and their number interpose no difficulty, and from no real discouragement to your immediate approach to Christ. No argument based upon your unworthiness can avail to exclude you from an interest in his great salvation. He came into the world to save sinners, even the chief. All that he did, and all that he said, and all that he suffered, was for sinners. It is his work, it is his joy, it is his glory to save sinners. For this he exchanged heaven for earth, relinquished the bosom of his Father for the embrace of the cross. He was never known to reject a poor sinner that came to him; he has never refused to take within his sheltering side, to hide within his bleeding bosom, the penitent that sought its protection, fleeing from the condemnation of the law to the asylum of the cross. "Whoever comes unto me I will in no wise cast out." With such a declaration as this, flowing from the lips of Jesus, who can refuse to look from the greatness of his own sin and guilt to the greatness of his love, the greatness of his grace, the greatness of his salvation, "who came into the world to save sinners?"

In "looking unto Jesus," we must also look from churches, as from ourselves. God has placed salvation for a lost sinner in no church upon earth. He has ordained that salvation should exist only in the Lord Jesus. To substitute, then, the church of God for the Christ of God, faith in the church for faith in the Savior of the church, surely were a crime of the deepest guilt, entailing consequences the most dire. The church of God is herself a fallen, sinful, and impotent body. She is pardoned, justified, and accepted alone in her one divine and great Head; and "there is no other name given among men whereby they may be saved," but the name of Jesus. He, then, who is looking to any church, or to church privileges, for salvation, whatever the name by which that church is called, whatever the power it claims, or the authority it assumes, shall as assuredly perish in his vain refuge as Joab perished when he fled from the vengeance of the king, into the "tabernacle of the Lord, and caught hold of the horns of the altar," but fell beneath its sacred shadow, weltering in his blood. Escape, then, from every other refuge, and flee to Jesus, the true Sanctuary and the true Altar, where safety and salvation alone are found.

Second, "Looking unto Jesus," IN everything. In the deep study of the holiness of the law, and the strictness of Divine justice, what a suitable and glorious object for the alarmed and trembling spirit to look upon is he who came to honor that law and to satisfy that justice. Are you agitated by thoughts of the Divine holiness, and your own impurity? Do you tremble as you contemplate God's determination to punish sin, by no means clearing the guilty? Look unto Jesus, and let your trembling subside into the calmness with which his whisper stills the tempest. He has become "the end of the law for righteousness," to all that believe. His atonement, while it vindicates the majesty of the Father's government, spreads its mighty shield around the Father's child; and thus protected, neither the thunder of the law nor the flaming sword of justice can reach him. Oh the blessedness of looking, by faith, to Jesus, from the wrath and the condemnation justly due to our transgressions; to see all that wrath and condemnation borne by him who wept and bled in the garden, who languished and died upon the tree; to see Jesus, with the keys of all authority and power suspended from his girdle, closing up our hell, and opening wide our heaven! In the season of solitude and sorrow, Christian reader, when thoughts of God's holiness mingle with views of your sinfulness, and fears of Divine wrath blend with the consciousness of your just deserts, darkening that solitude and embittering that sorrow, O! turn and fix your believing eye upon the Divine, the suffering, the atoning Savior, and peace, composure, and joy will lull your trembling spirit to rest.

You are not sick, nor in solitude, nor in sorrow, because there is wrath in God, for all that wrath was borne by your Redeeming Surety. You are so – oh that you could believe it – because God is love. Divine goodness sent the sickness, mingled the cup of sorrow, and marked out your lonely path. It must be, since Jesus so bore away the curse and the sin, that God now brims the cup he emptied with the love that passes knowledge. "My son, despise not the chastening of the Lord, neither be you weary of his correction: for whom the Lord loves he corrects, even as a father the son in whom he delights." Your heavenly Father loves you, and delights in you; therefore he chastens and corrects you. "Despise" it not, then, on the one hand; and do not be "weary" of it on the other.

In every position of life, our privilege is to be "looking unto Jesus." God can place us in no circumstances, be they humble or exalted, in which we may not repair to Christ for the wisdom and the strength, the grace and the consolation, those circumstances demand. It is our mercy to know that God adapts himself to every position of his saints. He knows that in times of prosperity, the feet of his saints are apt to slide; and that in times of adversity, they are often pierced and wounded. Thus, in the smooth path, as in the rough, Jesus is to be the one object to which the eye is raised, and upon which it rests. If he exalts you, as he may do, to any post of distinction and responsibility, look unto Jesus, and study the self-annihilation and lowliness of his whole life; and seek the grace to sustain you in the position for which your own powers are most inadequate. If he lays you low, as in his dealings with his people he often does, from the depth of your humiliation let your eye look unto Jesus, who reached a depth in his abasement infinitely beneath your own; and who can descend to your circumstances, and impart the grace that will enable you so to adapt yourself to them as to glorify him in them. Thus you will know both how to abound, and how to suffer need.

In each season of affliction, to whom can we more appropriately look than to Jesus? He was pre-eminently the man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. If you would tell your grief to one who knew grief as none never knew it; if you would weep upon the bosom of one who wept as none ever wept; if you would disclose your sorrow to one who sorrowed as none ever sorrowed; if you would bare your wound to one who was wounded as none ever was wounded; then in your affliction turn from all creature sympathy and support, and look to Jesus; to a kinder nature, to a tenderer bosom, to a deeper love, to a more powerful arm, to a more sympathizing friend, you could not take your trial, your affliction, and your sorrow. He is prepared to embosom himself in your deepest grief, and to make your circumstances all his own. So completely and personally is he one with you, that nothing can affect you that does not instantly touch him.

Your temptations from Satan, your persecutions from man, the woundings of saints, and the smitings of the watchmen, all fall upon him. "The reproaches of those who reproached you fall on me." Tender to him are you as the apple of his eye. Your happiness, your reputation, your usefulness, your labors, your necessities, your discouragements, your despondencies, all pass beneath his unslumbering notice, and are the objects of his tenderest love and incessant care. If Jesus, then, is willing to come and make, as it were, his home in the very heart of your sorrow, surely you will not hesitate in repairing with your sorrow to his heart of love.

And when heart and flesh are fast failing, and the trembling feet descend into the dark valley of the shadow of death, to whom shall we then look, but unto Jesus? The world is now receding and all creatures are fading upon the sight; one object alone remains, arrests, and fixes the believer's eye, it is Jesus, the Savior; it is Immanuel, the incarnate and now present God; it is the Captain of our salvation, the conqueror of death, and the spoiler of the grave; it is our Friend, our Brother, our Joseph, our Joshua, loving, and faithful, and present to the last. Jesus is there to confront death again, and vanquish him with his own weapons. Jesus is there to remind his departing one, that the grave can wear no gloom and can boast of no victory, since he himself passed through its portal, rose and revived and lives for evermore.

Sick one! in your languishing, look to Jesus! Departing one! in your death struggles, look to Jesus. Are you guilty? Jesus is righteous. Are you a sinner? Jesus is a Savior. Are you fearful, and do you tremble? The Shepherd of the flock is with you, and no one shall pluck his sheep out of his hands. How fully, how suitably does the gospel now meet your case! In your bodily weakness and mental confusion, two truths are, perhaps, all that you can now dwell upon, – your sinfulness and Christ's redemption, your emptiness and Christ's sufficiency. Enough! you need no more; God requires no more. In your felt weakness, in your conscious unworthiness, midst the swelling of the cold waters, raise your eye and fix it upon Jesus, and all will be well. Do you hear not the words of your Savior calling you from the bright world of glory to which he bids you come, – "Arise, my love, my fair one! and come away." Let your trusting, joyful heart respond,

Jesus! my breath is failing; lead me on
Softly and gently, as my strength can bear;
Draw me to you in closer union,
And for eternal life your child prepare.
Let your love shine upon my soul, and chase
This mistiness and darkness quite away,
Until faith discerns her holy resting-place
Distinctly, in the perfect light of day.
Roll me in snowy clothing; store my heart
With precious jewels from your treasury.
This world is not my rest; let me depart,
And let my ransomed soul return to thee.
Well may I trust you, who yourself have given
To gain for me the peace and bliss of heaven.

Third, "Looking unto Jesus," for everything. A few words must express all that we would say upon this view of our subject. God has but one Treasurer, and the church but one Treasury, the Lord Jesus. He has deposited all fullness exclusively in Christ, that we might, in all need, repair only to Christ. "Looking unto Jesus," for our standing before God; "Looking unto Jesus," for the grace that upholds and preserves us unto eternal life; "Looking unto Jesus," for the supply of the Spirit that sanctifies the heart, and fits us for the heavenly glory; "Looking unto Jesus," for each day's need, for each moment's support; "Looking unto Jesus," for the eye that sees him, the faith that beholds the invisible; in a word, "Looking unto Jesus," for EVERYTHING. Thus has God simplified our life of faith in his dear Son. Severing us from all other sources, alluring us away from all other dependencies, and weaning us from all self-confidence, he would shut us up to Christ alone, that Christ might be all and in all. "They shall look upon him whom they have pierced, and shall mourn." "Look unto me, all you ends of the earth, and be you saved, for I am God, and there is none else."

"For the weakness of faith's eye" remember that Christ has suitably provided. His care of, and his tenderness towards, those whose grace is limited, whose experience is feeble, whose knowledge is defective, whose faith is small, are exquisite. He has promised to "anoint the eye with eye-salve that it may see," and that is may see more clearly. Repair to him, then, with your case, and seek the fresh application of this Divine ointment. Be cautious of limiting the reality of your sight to the nearness or distinctness of the object. The most distant and dim view of Jesus by faith, is as real and saving as if that view were with the strength of an eagle's eye.

A well-known example in Jewish history affords an pertinent illustration: the wounded Israelite was simply commanded to look to the brazen serpent. Nothing was said of the clearness of his vision or the distinctness of his view; no exception was made to the dimness of his sight. His eye might possibly be blurred, the phantoms of a diseased imagination might float before it, intercepting his view; no, more, it might already be glazing and fixing in death? Yet, even under these circumstances, and at that moment, if he but obeyed the Divine command, and looked towards, simply towards, the elevated serpent, distant and beclouded as it was, he was immediately and effectually healed. Thus is it with the operation of faith. Let your eye, in obedience to the gospel's command, be but simply raised and fastened upon Jesus, far removed as may be the glorious object, and dim as may be the blessed vision, yet thus "looking unto Jesus," you shall be fully and eternally saved. And soon – oh how soon! – we shall see him unveiled, unclouded in glory. Until then, let us run the race set before us; looking unto Jesus as the goal which we shall soon reach, and as the prize which we shall forever possess.

Wherefore droops your trembling soul?
Wherefore saddened is your brow?
Clouds around your path may roll,
But your God is present now;
Raise your eyes, the cross is there,
Steadfast still, though tempest frown;
Lift your head and breathe your prayer,
Claim your Savior for your own:
Make through him your strong appeal,
'Looking unto Jesus,' kneel.

He, the Author of the faith
Which your spirit shall renew,
In his sacred hour of death
Finished your salvation too;
Learn your Savior's power to see,
He the 'life, the truth, the way,'
Interceded e'en for thee
Before your heart had learned to pray.
Lift your heart, and lift your hand,
'Looking unto Jesus,' stand.

When the water-floods of grief,
Round your helpless head shall rise,
When there seems no relief,
Look towards the eternal skies.
There behold how radiantly
Beams the star of faith divine;

Yesterday it shone for you,
And today it still shall shine.
Ask no aid the world can give,
'Looking unto Jesus,' live.

When you feel by many a token
That the flesh shall soon decay,
And the golden bowl be broken,
And the silver cord give way;
There beyond the darksome veil,
Trust that he your eyes shall bless;
As the light of life shall fail,
Keep the Sun of Righteousness
Ever brightening in your eye,
And 'looking unto Jesus,' die!

"Leaning on the Beloved"

"Who is this that comes up from the wilderness,
leaning upon her beloved?" Song of Solomon 8:3.

The path of the believer is an ascent, from a dark path and desolate world under the dominion of sin and Satan, to a bright and glorious world, where God and holiness supremely and eternally reign. The first step, which he takes in this heavenly journey, is out of the wilderness of a wrecked and ruined nature, into the glories of a nature new and divine. Until this is done, there cannot possibly be any right direction or real progress of the soul towards heaven. Years may be exhausted in the rigid performance of religious duties— sacraments, fasts, charities, pilgrimages— but they count with God for nothing; they but fetter and impede, rather than free and propel the spirit in its holy and heavenly course. All these self-endeavors must cease; all these human doings must be abandoned.
Conversion, the conversion of which Jesus spoke to Nicodemus, is the severance of the sinner from himself, his divorcement from his wedded attachment to a broken law of Works, a legal righteousness, and his simple escape to the refuge set before him in the Gospel. There is no turning of the face to the Savior, until there is a turning of the back upon self! No man is in Christ, savingly and sensibly, until he is out of himself, legally and meritoriously. No man will enfold himself with the righteousness which is of God by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, until, seeing the utter worthlessness of his own righteousness, he renounces it at once and forever. This single step taken, it becomes the first of a series, each one constituting a daily coming up out of self, conducting the believer nearer and nearer to perfect and endless glory.
That the Christian's path should wind its way along an ascent, sometimes steep and perilous, always difficult and toilsome, should awaken no surprise and create no murmur. There is ever this great encouragement, this light upon his way, that it is a heaven-pointing, a heaven-conducting, a heaven-terminating path; and before long the weary pilgrim will reach its sunlit summit; not to lie down and die there, as Moses did upon the top of Pisgah, but to commence a life of perfect purity and of eternal bliss!
Turn your eye, dear reader, and rest it for a moment upon the beautiful picture, which Solomon presents, to your view in his inspired song. To what is the world compared? a wilderness. What object is seen in this wilderness? the church of God. What is she doing? she is coming up from the wilderness. What company is she in? the company of her Beloved. By what is she strengthened and upheld in her journey? she is leaning upon her Beloved. And what does the sacred painter describe as the effect of this spectacle? it excites the admiration and astonishment of all who behold it, and they exclaim:— "Who is this that comes up from the wilderness leaning upon the Beloved?" To one feature of this graphic description of the Church of God, let us turn our attention, namely, the posture of the believer in his ascent from the wilderness— leaning upon Jesus.
The object of the believer's trust is Jesus, his Beloved. He is spoken of by the apostle as "the Beloved," as though he would say, "There is but one beloved of God, of angels, of saints— it is Jesus." He is the beloved One of the Father. "Behold my servant, whom I uphold; my elect one, in whom my soul delights." "The only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father." "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased." If Jesus is thus so dear to the Father, what then must be the turpitude of the sin of rejecting him!— a sin, let it be remembered, of which even Satan cannot be guilty. Yes; Jesus is the beloved of God; and therefore, coming to God through him, it is impossible that a believing soul can be rejected.
But he is also the church's beloved, the beloved of each member of that church. Thus can each one exclaim, "This is my beloved, and this is my friend. He is ten thousand times more glorious to my view and precious to my soul, because he is mine. His person is beloved, uniting all the glories of the Godhead with all the perfections of the manhood. His work is beloved, saving his people from the entire guilt, and condemnation, and dominion of their sins. His commandments are beloved, because they are the dictates of his love to us, and the tests of our love to him."
O, yes! you have but one beloved of your heart, dear believer. He is "white and ruddy, the chief among ten thousand;" he is all the universe to you! Heaven would be no heaven without him; and with his presence here, earth seems often like the opening portal of heaven. He loved you, he labored for you, he died for you, he rose for you, he lives and intercedes for you in glory; and all that is lovely in him, and all that is grateful in you, constrain you to exclaim— "I am my beloved's, and my beloved is mine."
Such is the company in which the believer is journeying through, and coming up from, the wilderness. Was ever a poor pilgrim more honored? Was ever a lonely traveler in better company? How can you be solitary or sorrowful, be in peril or suffer need, while you are journeying homewards in company with, and leaning upon, Jesus?
But for what are you to lean upon your Beloved? You are to lean upon Jesus for your entire salvation. He is "made of God unto you wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption;" and for each one of these inestimable blessings, you are to depend daily upon Christ. Where can you lean for pardon but upon the atoning blood of Jesus? Where can you lean for acceptance, but upon the justifying righteousness of Jesus? And where can you lean for sanctification, but upon the sin-subduing grace of Jesus?
This leaning upon the Beloved, then, is a daily coming up out of ourselves in the great matter of our salvation, and resting in the finished work of Christ, no more, in Christ himself. We are to lean upon Jesus for a constant sense of pardon; to be coming perpetually to the blood of sprinkling, thus preserving the conscience clean and tender, and maintaining a filial, loving, and close walk with God.
You are to lean upon the fulness of your Beloved. He is full to a sufficiency for all the needs of his people. There cannot possibly occur a circumstance in your history, there cannot arise a necessity in your case, in which you may not repair to the infinite fulness which the Father has laid up in Christ for his church in the wilderness. Why, then, do you seek in your poverty, what can only be found in Christ's riches? why look to your emptiness, when you may repair to his fulness? "My grace is sufficient for you," is the cheering declaration with which Jesus meets every turn in your path, every crook in your lot, every need in your journey. Distrust, then, your own wisdom, look from your own self, and lean your entire weight upon the infinite fulness that is in Christ!
The posture is expressive of conscious weakness, and deep self-distrust. Who is more feeble than a child of God? Taught the lesson of his weakness in the region of his own heart, and still learning it in his stumblings and falls, and mistakes many and painful, in his self-inflicted wounds and dislocations, he is at length brought to feel that all his strength is out of himself, in another. He has the "sentence of death in himself, that he should not trust in himself." "I am weak, yes, weakness itself," is his language, "I am as a bruised reed, shaken in the wind; I stumble at a feather; I tremble at an echo; I frighten at my own shadow; the smallest difficulty impedes me; the least temptation overcomes me. How shall I ever fight my way through this mighty host, and reach in safety the world of bliss?"
By leaning daily, hourly, moment by moment, upon your Beloved for strength! Christ is the power of God, and he is the power of the children of God. Who can strengthen the weak hands, and confirm the feeble knees but Jesus? "In those who have no might, he increases strength." When they are weak in themselves, then are they strong in him. His declaration is— "My strength is made perfect in weakness." It is illustrated, it shines forth, and is exhibited in its perfection and glory in upholding, keeping, and succoring the weak of his flock. Lean, then, upon Jesus for strength. He has strength for all your weakness; he can strengthen your faith, and strengthen your hope, and strengthen your courage, and strengthen your patience, and strengthen your heart, for every burden, and for every trial, and for every temptation.
Lean upon him; he loves to feel the pressure of your arm; he loves you to link your feebleness to his almightiness, to avail yourself of his grace. Thus leaning off yourself upon Christ, "as your day so shall your strength be." In all your tremblings and sinkings, you will feel the encircling of his power. "The eternal God is your refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms."
And where would you lean in sorrow but upon the bosom of your Beloved? If you lean upon his arm for support, it is equally your privilege to lean upon his heart for sympathy. Christ is as much your consolation, as he is your strength. His heart is a human heart, a sinless heart, a tender heart, a heart once the home of sorrow, once stricken with grief, once an aching, bleeding, mournful heart.
Thus disciplined and trained, Jesus knows how to pity and to succor those who are sorrowful and solitary. He loves to chase grief from the spirit, to bind up the broken heart, to staunch the bleeding wound, and to dry the weeping eye, to "comfort all that mourn." It is his delight to visit you in the dark night-season of your sorrow, and to come to you walking upon the tempestuous billows of your grief, breathing music and diffusing calmness over your scene of sadness and gloom. When other bosoms are closed to your sorrow, or are removed beyond your reach, or their deep throbbings of love are stilled in death,— when the fiery darts of Satan fly thick around you, and the world frowns, and the saints are cold, and your path is sad and desolate, and all stand aloof from your sore,— then lean upon the love, lean upon the grace, lean upon the faithfulness, lean upon the tender sympathy of Jesus.
That bosom will always unveil to welcome you. It will ever be an asylum to receive you, and a home to shelter you. Never will its love cool, nor its tenderness lessen, nor its sympathy be exhausted, nor its pulse of affection cease to beat! You may have grieved it a thousand times over, you may have pierced it through and through, again and again,— yet, returning to its deathless love, penitent and lowly, sorrowful and humble, you may lay within it your weeping, aching, languid head, depositing every burden, reposing every sorrow and breathing every sigh upon the heart of Jesus. Lord! to whom shall I go? yes, to whom would I go, but unto you!
This posture of faith is equally expressive of the advancement of the soul. The church was seen leaning, but not stationary. She was strengthened and upheld of her Lord, but she was going forward. She was leaning and walking, walking and leaning. The power she was deriving from Christ stimulated her greater progress. She gathered strength from her close dealing with her Lord, only to employ that strength in urging her upward, heavenward, homeward way. It was not the posture of indolence, in which individual responsibility was lost sight of in conscious weakness, and weakness was made an excuse for slothfulness and drowsiness of spirit. We lean truly upon Jesus that we may advance in all holiness, that the grace of the Spirit may be quickened and stimulated, that we may cultivate more heavenly mindedness, and be constantly coming up from the world, following him outside the camp, bearing his reproach.
O! what encouragement have we here to cultivate heavenly mindedness, since for the task, so difficult, yet so pleasing, we may lean upon the all-sufficiency of our Lord's grace. Let our movement, then, be an advance; let our path be upward; let us gather around us the trailing garment, casting away whatever impedes rather than accelerates our progress; and leaning upon our Beloved, hasten from all below, until we find ourselves actually reposing in the bosom upon which, in faith and love, in weakness and sorrow, we had rested amid the trials and perils of the ascent.
What more appropriate, what more soothing truth could we bring before you, suffering Christian, than this? You are sick,— lean upon Jesus. His sick ones are peculiarly dear to his heart. You are dear to him. In all your pains and languishings, faintings and lassitude, Jesus is with you; for he created that frame, he remembers that it is but dust, and he bids you lean upon him, and leave your sickness and its issue entirely in his hands.
You are oppressed,— lean upon Jesus. He will undertake your cause, and committing it thus into his hands, he will bring forth your righteousness as the light, and your judgment as the noonday.
You are lonely,— lean upon Jesus. Sweet will be the communion, and close the fellowship which you may thus hold with him, your heart burning within you while he talks with you by the way.
Is the ascent steep and difficult? lean upon your Beloved. Is the path straight and narrow? lean upon your Beloved. Do intricacies, and perplexities, and trials weave a webbing around your feet? lean upon your Beloved. Has death smitten down the strong arm, and chilled the tender heart, upon which you were wont to recline? lean upon your Beloved. O! lean upon Jesus in every difficulty, in every need, in every sorrow, in every temptation. Nothing is too insignificant, nothing too lowly to take to Christ.
It is enough that you need Christ to warrant you in coming to Christ. No excuse need you make for repairing to him; no apology will he require for the frequency of your approach. He loves to have you quite near to him, to hear your voice, and to feel the confidence of your faith, and the pressure of your love! Ever remember that there is a place in the heart of Christ sacred to you, and which no one can fill but yourself, and from which none may dare exclude you.
And when you are dying, O! lay your languishing head upon the bosom of your Beloved, and fear not the foe and dread not the passage, for His rod and staff they will comfort you. On that bosom, the beloved disciple leaned at supper; on that bosom the martyr Stephen laid his bleeding brow in death; and on that bosom, you, too, beloved, may repose, living or dying, soothed, succored, and sheltered by your Savior and your Lord!
"Jesus can make a dying bed
Feel soft as downy pillows are,
While on his breast I lean my head,
And breathe my soul out sweetly there."
Thus leaning ever on Jesus, how sweet will be your song in the night of your pilgrimage. "Blessed be the Lord, because he has heard the voice of my supplications. The Lord is my strength and my shield; my heart trusted in him, and I am helped! therefore my heart greatly rejoiced, and with my song will I praise him."

"Holy Savior, friend unseen,
Since on your arm you bid me lean,
Help me throughout life's varying scene,
By faith to cling to you!
"Blest with this fellowship divine,
Take what you will, I'll never repine;
E'en as the branches to the vine,
My soul would cling to you.
"Far from her home, fatigued, oppressed,
My soul has found her place of rest;
An exile still, yet not unblest
While she can cling to you.
"Without a murmur, I dismiss
My former dreams of earthly bliss;
My joy, my consolation, this—
Each hour to cling to you.
"What though the world deceitful prove,
And earthly friends and joys remove;
With patient, uncomplaining love,
Still would, I cling to you.
"Often when I seem to alone tread
Some barren waste with thorns overgrown,
Your voice of love, in tenderest tone,
Whispers, "Still cling to me."
"Though faith and hope awhile be tried,
I ask not, need not, anything beside;
How safe, how calm, how satisfied,
The soul that clings to you.
"They fear not Satan, or the grave,
They feel you near, and strong to save,
Nor fear to cross even Jordan's wave,
Because they cling to you.
"Blest is my lot, whatever befall;
What can disturb me, what appall,
While as my rock, my strength, my all,
Jesus! I cling to you!"

"The Weaned Child"

"Surely I have behaved and quieted myself as a
child that is weaned of his mother: my soul is
even as a weaned child"—Psalm 131:2.

There are few lessons taught in God's school
more difficult to learn, and yet, when really
learned, more blessed and holy, than the lesson
of weanedness. The heart resembles the vine,
which as it grows, grasps and unites its feeble
tendrils to every support within its reach. Or, it
is like the ivy, which climbs and wraps itself
around some beautiful but decayed and
crumbling ruin. As our social affections develop
and expand, they naturally seek a resting-place.
Traveling, as it were, beyond themselves,
breathing love and yearning for friendship, they
go forth seeking some kindred spirit, some
"second self," upon which they may repose, and
around which they may entwine. To detach from
this inordinate, idolatrous clinging to the
animate and the inanimate creatures and
objects of sense, is one grand end of God's
disciplinary dealings with us in the present life.
The discovery which we make, in the process of
his dealings, of the insufficiency and insecurity of
the things upon which we set our affections, is
often acutely painful. Like that vine, we find that
we grasped a support at the root of which the
cankerworm was secretly feeding,—and
presently it fell! Or, like that ivy, we discover
that we have been spreading our affections
around an object which, even while we clung to
and adored it, was crumbling and falling into
dust,—and presently it became a ruin! And what
is the grand lesson which, by this process, God
would teach us? The lesson of weanedness from
all and everything of an earthly and a created
nature. Thus was David instructed, and this was
the result: "Surely I have behaved and quieted
myself as a child that is weaned of his mother:
my soul is even as a weaned child." It may be
profitable, tried and suffering reader, briefly to
contemplate this holy state, and then the way
by which the Lord frequently brings his people
into its experience.

Every true believer, whatever may be the
degree of his grace, is an adopted child of God.
It is not the amount of his faith, nor the
closeness of his resemblance to the family, that
constitutes his relationship; it is the act of
adoption by which his heavenly Father has made
him his own. If he can only lisp his Father's
name, or bears but a single feature of likeness
to the Divine image, he is as much and as really
a child of God as those in whose souls the
lineaments are deeply and broadly drawn, and
who, with an unfaltering faith, can cry, "Abba,
Father!" Doubtless there were many of feeble
faith, of limited experience and of defective
knowledge—mere babes in Christ—in the church
to which the apostle inscribed his letter; and
yet, addressing them all, he says, "Behold, what
manner of love that we should be called the
sons of God." But it is the character of the
weaned child we are now to contemplate. All
believers are children, but are all believers
weaned children? From what is the child of God
thus weaned?

The first object from which our heavenly Father
weans his child, is—himself. Of all idols, this he
finds the hardest to abandon. When man in
paradise aspired to be as God, God was
dethroned from his soul, and the creature
became as a deity to itself. From that moment,
the idolatry of self has been the great and
universal crime of our race, and will continue to
be until Christ comes to restore all things. In the
soul of the regenerate, divine grace has done
much to dethrone this idol, and to reinstate God.
The work, however, is but partially
accomplished. The dishonored and rejected rival
is loath to relinquish his throne, and yield to the
supreme control and sway of another. There is
much yet to be achieved before this still
indwelling and unconquered foe lays down his
weapons in entire subjection to the will and the
authority of that Savior whose throne and
rights he has usurped. Thus, much still lingers in
the heart which the Spirit has renewed and
inhabits, of self-esteem, self-confidence,
self-seeking, and self-love. From all this, our
Father seeks to wean us. From our own wisdom,
which is but folly; from our own strength, which
is but weakness; from our own wills, which are
often as an uncurbed steed; from our own ways,
which are crooked; from our own hearts, which
are deceitful; from our own judgments, which
are dark; from our own ends, which are narrow
and selfish, he would wean and detach us, that
our souls may get more and more back to their
original center of repose—God himself. In view
of this mournful exhibition of fallen and corrupt
self, how necessary the discipline of our
heavenly Father that extorts from us the
Psalmist's language: "Surely I have behaved
and quieted myself as a child that is weaned of
his mother." Self did seem to be our
mother—the fruitful parent of so much in our
plans and aims and spirit that was dishonoring
to our God. From this he would gently and
tenderly, but effectually, wean us, that we may
learn to rely upon his wisdom, to repose in his
strength, to consult his honor, and to seek his
glory and smile supremely and alone. And O
how effectually is this blessed state attained
when God, by setting us aside in the season of
solitude and sorrow, teaches us that he can do
without us. We, perhaps, thought that our rank,
or our talents, or our influence, or our very
presence were essential to the advancement of
his cause, and that some parts of it could not
proceed without us! The Lord knew otherwise.
And so he laid his hand upon us, and withdrew
us from the scene of our labors, and duties, and
engagements, and ambition, that he might hide
pride from our hearts—the pride of
self-importance. And O, is it no mighty
attainment in the Christian life to be thus
weaned from ourselves? Beloved, it forms the
root of all other blessings. The moment we learn
to cease from ourselves—from our own wisdom,
and power, and importance—the Lord appears
and takes us up. Then his wisdom is displayed,
and his power is put forth, and his glory is
developed, and his great name gets to itself all
the praise. It was not until God had placed
Moses in the cleft of the rock that his glory
passed by. Moses must be hid, that God might
be all.

Our heavenly Father would also wean us from
this poor, perishing world. In a preceding
chapter we touched upon the great snare which
the world presented to the child of God. It is
true Christ has taken him out of, and separated
him from, the world; assailed by all its evils,
and exposed to all its corrupting influences. The
intercessory prayer of our Lord seems to imply
this: "They are not of the world, even as I am
not of the world. I pray not that you should
take them out of the world, but that you
should keep them from the evil." And O what
an evil does the Christian find this world to be!
In consequence of the earthward tendency of his
affections, and the deep carnality with which the
mind is imbued, things which God designed as
blessings to soothe and soften and cheer,
become, by their absorbing and idolatrous
influence, powerful snares. Rank is a snare,
wealth is a snare, talent is a snare, friendship is
a snare. Rank may foster pride and ambition;
wealth may increase the thirst for worldly show;
talent may inspire a love of human applause;
and friendship may wean the heart from Christ,
and betray us into a base and unholy
compromise of Christian profession. Now from
this endangering world our heavenly Father
would shield, by withdrawing us. It is not our
rest, and he agitates it; it is not our portion, and
he embitters it; it is not our friend, and he
sometimes arms it with a sword. It changes, it
disappoints, it wounds; and then, thankful to
expand our wings, we take another and a bolder
flight above it. Ah! beloved, how truly may the
Lord be now sickening your heart to the world,
to which that heart has too long and too closely
clung. It has been your peculiar snare; your Father
saw it, and wisely and graciously laid his loving,
gentle hand upon you, and led you away from
it, that from a bed of sickness, or from a
chamber of grief, or from some position of
painful vicissitude, you might see its
sinfulness, learn its hollowness, and return as a
wanderer to your Father's bosom, exclaiming
with David, "My soul is even as a weaned child."

This weanedness, of which we speak, often
involves the surrender of some endeared object
of creature affection. The human heart is
naturally idolatrous. Its affections, as we have
previously remarked, once supremely centered
in God. But now, disjoined from him, they go in
quest of other objects of attachment, and we
love and worship the creature rather than the
Creator. The circle which our affections traverse
may not indeed be a large one; there are
perchance but few to whom we fully surrender
our heart; no, so circumscribed may the circle
be, that one object alone shall attract, absorb,
and concentrate in itself our entire and
undivided love—that one object to us as a
universe of beings, and all others comparatively
indifferent and insipid. Who cannot see that in a
case like this, the danger is imminent of
transforming the heart—Christ's own
sanctuary—into an idol's temple, where the
creature is loved and reverenced and served
lucre than he who gave it? But from all idolatry
our God will cleanse us, and from all our idols
Christ will wean us. The Lord is jealous, with a
holy jealousy, of our love. Poor as our affection
is, he asks its supreme surrender. That he
requires our love at the expense of all creature
attachment, the Bible nowhere intimates. He
created our affections, and he it is who provides
for their proper and pleasant indulgence. There
is not a single precept or command in the
Scriptures that forbids their exercise, or that
discourages their intensity. Husbands are
exhorted to "love their wives, even as Christ
loved his church." Parents are to cherish a like
affection towards their children, and children are
bound to render back a filial love not less
intense to their parents. And we are to "love our
neighbors as ourselves." Nor does the word of
God furnish examples of Christian friendship less
interested and devoted. One of the choicest and
tenderest blessings with which God can enrich
us, next to himself, is such a friend as Paul had
in Epaphroditus, a "brother and companion in
labor, and fellow-soldier;" and such an
affectionate friendship as John, the loving
disciple, cherished for his well beloved Gaius,
whom he loved in the truth, and to whom, in the
season of his sickness, he thus touchingly
poured out his heart's affectionate sympathy:
"Beloved I wish above all things that you
may prosper and he in health, even as your
soul prospers." Count such a friend, and such
friendship among God's sweetest and holiest
bestowments. The blessings of which it may be
to you the sanctifying channel, are immense.
The tender sympathy—the jealous
watchfulness—the confidential repose—the
faithful admonition—above all, the intercessory
prayer, connected with Christian friendship, may
be placed in the inventory of our most
inestimable and precious blessings. It is not
therefore the use, but the abuse, of our
affections—not their legitimate exercise, but
their idolatrous tendency—over which we have
need to exercise the greatest vigilance. It is not
our love to the creature against which God
contends, but it is in not allowing our love to
himself to subordinate all other love. We may
love the creature, but we may not love the
creature more than the Creator. When the Giver
is lost sight of and forgotten in the gift, then
comes the painful process of weaning! When the
heart burns its incense before some human
shrine, and the cloud as it ascends veils from the
eye the beauty and the excellence of
Jesus,—then comes the painful process of
weaning! When the absorbing claims and the
engrossing attentions of some loved one are
placed in competition and are allowed to clash
with the claims of God, and the attentions due
from us personally to his cause and truth,—then
comes the painful process of weaning! When
creature devotion deadens our heart to the
Lord, lessens our interest in his cause, congeals
our zeal and love and liberality, detaches us
from the public means of grace, withdraws from
the closet, and from the Bible, and from the
communion of the saints, thus superinducing
leanness of soul, and robbing God of his
glory,—then comes the painful process of
weaning! Christ will be the first in our
affections—God will be supreme in our
service—and his kingdom and righteousness
must take precedence of all other things. In this
light, beloved, read the present mournful page
in your history. The noble oak that stood so firm
and stately at your side, is smitten,—the tender
and beautiful vine that wound itself around you,
is fallen,—the lowly and delicate flower that lay
upon your bosom, is withered—the olive branches
that clustered around your table, are
removed—and the "strong staff is broken and
the beautiful rod;" not because your God did not
love you, but because he desired your heart.
He saw that heart ensnared and enslaved by a
too fond and idolatrous affection,—he saw his
beauty eclipsed and himself rivaled by a faint
and imperfect copy of his own image, and he
breathed upon it, and it withered away! "The
day of the Lord of hosts shall be upon all . . .
pleasant pictures." When an eminent artist, who
had concentrated all the powers of his genius
upon a painting of our Lord celebrating the last
supper, observed that the holy vessels arranged
in the foreground were admired to the exclusion
of the chief object of the picture, he seized his
brush and dashed them from the canvass, and
left the image of Jesus standing in its own
solitary and unrivaled beauty. Thus deals our
God oftentimes with us. O solemn words! "The
day of the Lord of hosts shall be upon all . . . .
Pleasant Pictures,"—all pictures that veil and
eclipse the beauties of him who is the
"brightness of the Father's glory, and the
express image of his person," God will
obliterate.

Filial submission to God's will, is, perhaps, one
of the most essential features in this holy state
of weanedness of which we speak. "Surely I
have behaved and quieted myself as a child that
is weaned of his mother." There are some
beautiful examples of this in God's word. "And
Aaron held his peace." Since God was "sanctified
and glorified," terrible as was the judgment, the
holy priest mourned not at the way, nor
complained of its severity, patient and resigned
to the will of God. He "behaved and quieted
himself as a child that is weaned of his mother."
Thus, too, was it with Eli, when passing under
the heavy hand of God: "It is the Lord; let him
do what seems him good." He bowed in deep
submission to the will of his God. Job could
exclaim, as the last sad tidings brimmed his cup
of woe, "The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken
away; blessed be the name of the Lord." And
David was "dumb and opened not his mouth,
because God did it." But how do all these
instances of filial and holy submission to the
Divine will—beautiful and touching as they
are—fade before the illustrious example of our
adorable and blessed Lord: "O my Father, if this
cup may not pass away from me, except I drink
it, your will be done." Ah! how did Jesus, in the
deepest depth of his unutterable sorrow,
"behave and quiet himself as a child that is
weaned of his mother? his soul was even as a
weaned child." Such, beloved, be the posture of
your soul at this moment. "Be still." Rest in your
Father's hands, calm and tranquil, quiet and
submissive, weaned from all but himself. O the
blessedness of so reposing!

"Sweet to lie passive in his
hands,
And know no will but his."

"God's love!" It is written upon your dark
cloud—it breathes from the lips of your bleeding
wound—it is reflected in every fragment of your
ruined treasure—it is pencilled upon every leaf
of your blighted flower—"God is Love." Adversity
may have impoverished you—bereavement
may have saddened you—calamity may have
crushed you—sickness may have laid you
low—but, "God is Love." Gently falls the rod in
its heaviest stroke—tenderly pierces the sword
in its deepest thrust—smilingly bends the cloud
in its darkest hues—for, "God is Love." Does the
infant, weaned from its wonted and pleasant
fount, cease from its restlessness and sorrow
reposing calmly and meekly upon its mother's
arms?—so let your soul calmly, submissively rest
in God. How sweet the music which then will
breathe from your lips in the midnight of grief:
"Surely I have behaved and quieted myself as a
child that is weaned of his mother: my soul is
even as a weaned child."

And who can bring you into this holy position?
The Holy Spirit alone can. It is his office to lead
you to Jesus—to reveal to you Jesus—to exhibit
to your eye the cross of Jesus—to pour into your
heart the grace and love and sympathy of
Jesus—to bend your will and bow your heart to
the government of Jesus, and thus make you as
a weaned child. The work infinitely transcends a
power merely human. It is the office and the
prerogative of the Divine Spirit—the "Spirit of
holiness"—who only can sever between flesh
and spirit, to bring you into the condition of one
whose will in all things is completely merged in
God's. And what is his grand instrument of
effecting this? The cross of Christ! Ah! this is it.
The Cross of Christ! Not the cross as it appeared
to the imagination of the Mohammedan Chief,
leading the imperial army to battle and to
conquest; not the cross pictured—the cross
engraved—the cross carved—the cross
embroidered—the cross embossed upon the
prayer-book, pendant from the maiden's neck,
glittering on the cathedral's spire, and springing
from its altar: not the cross as blended with a
religion of Gothic architecture, and painted
windows, and flaming candles, and waving
incense, and gorgeous pictures, and melting
music, and fluttering surplices: O no! but the
cross—the naked, rugged cross—which Calvary
reared, which Paul preached, and of which he
wrote, "God forbid that I should glory save in
the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which* the
world is crucified unto me, and I unto the
world." Faith, picturing to its view this cross, the
Holy Spirit engraving it on the heart in spiritual
regeneration, the whole soul receiving him
whom it lifts up, as its "wisdom, and
righteousness, and sanctification, and
redemption," gently and effectually transforms
the spirit, that was chafened and restless, into
the "meekness and gentleness of Christ." O
what calmness steals over his ruffled soul! O
what peace flows into his troubled heart! O what
sunshine bathes in its bright beams, his dark
spirit, who from the scenes of his conflict and his
sorrow, flees beneath the shadow and the
shelter of the cross. The storm ceases—the
deluge of his grief subsides—the Spirit,
dove-like, brings the message of hope and
love—the soul, tempest-tossed, rests on the
green mount, and one unbounded spring clothes
and encircles the landscape with its verdure and
its beauty. Child, chastened by the Father's
love, look to the cross of your crucified Savior.
And as you fix upon it your believing, ardent,
adoring gaze, exclaim—

"Wearily for me you
sought,
On the cross my soul you
bought;
Lose not all for which you
wrought."

What is your sorrow compared with Christ's?
What is your grief gauged by the Lord's? Your
Master has passed before you, flinging the
curse and the sin from your path, paving it with
promises, carpeting it with love, and fencing it
around with the hedge of his divine perfections.
Press onward, then, resisting your foe resolutely,
bearing your cross patiently, drinking your cup
submissively, and learning, while sitting at the
Savior's feet, or leaning upon his bosom, to be
like him, "meek and lowly in heart." Then,
indeed, shall "I have behaved and quieted
myself as a child that is weaned of his mother:
my soul is even as a weaned child."

"Quiet, Lord, my froward heart,
Make me teachable and mild,
Upright, simple, free from are;
Make me as a weaned child.
From distrust and envy free,
Pleased with all that pleases You.
"What You shall today provide,
Let me as a child receive;
What tomorrow may betide,
Calmly to Your wisdom leave.
'It is enough that You will care,
Why should I the burden heart.
"As a little child relies
On a care beyond its own;
Knows he's neither strong nor wise—
Fears to stir a step alone—
Let me thus with You abide,
As my Father, Guard, and Guide.
"Thus preserved from Satan's wiles,
Safe from dangers, free from fears,
May I live upon your smiles
Until the promised hour appears;
When the sons of God shall prove
All their Father's boundless love."

"God, Comforting as a Mother"

"As one whom his mother comforts, so will I comfort you" Isaiah 66:13.

It would appear from the Bible, that all the relations and affections of our humanity were really impressions of the Divine. All doubt, indeed, as to the correctness of this idea would seem to be removed by the inspired history of man's creation. We read: "God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him." The human soul, cast as it were in this Divine mold, comes forth imprinted and enstamped with the likeness of God. There is the transfer of the Divine to the human. The creature starts into being, a reflection of its Creator. Marred by sin though this image is, yet not utterly effaced are the lines and traces of the sacred original. The temple is in ruin, but it is still a temple, and beauty lingers round it, and God reenters it. The splendor of the creature is spoiled, but it is still God's offspring, and he disowns not his child. Man is fallen, but God, looking down upon the spoiled and scattered parts of the ruined structure—like the strewn fragments of a broken mirror—beholds in each the dim and multiplied but real resemblance of himself.
Trace each feature of this resemblance. Is it the parental relation? God is a Father. Is it the filial? Christ is a Son. Is it the conjugal? Our Maker is the Husband of his church, and the church is the Lamb's wife. And is not Christ described as a Friend and a Brother, and his church called by him his sister? Thus, then, would it appear that the different relations in which we stand each to the other, and the affections which these relations foster, have their counterpart in God—copies and impressions of a Divine original.
But there is yet another relation still more tender and holy, which would seem to be equally a reflection of the Divine character; we allude to the maternal. God represents himself as clothed with the attributes of a mother! "As one whom his mother comforts, so will I comfort you." In all the similitudes which we have employed in the preceding pages, illustrative of the Christian's consolation and support, is there any one that transcends, or that equals, this? Would it not seem that in adopting this impressive figure, in appropriating to himself this endearing relation, with which he would express the great depth of his love and the exquisite character of his comforts, God had surpassed himself? Has he before reached a point of tenderness like this? Could he have exceeded it? "As one whom his Mother comforts, so will I comfort you." Let us not obscure the beauty, or weaken the force of these words, by an extended exposition. A few thoughts will suffice.

God's family is a sorrowing family. "I have chosen you," he says, "in the furnace of affliction." "I will leave in the midst of you a poor and an afflicted people." The history of the church finds its fittest emblem in the burning yet unconsumed bush which Moses saw. Man is "born to sorrow;" but the believer is "appointed thereunto."
It would seem to be a condition inseparable from his high calling. If he is a "chosen vessel," it is, as we have just seen, in the "furnace of affliction." If he is an adopted child, "chastening" is the distinguishing mark. If he is journeying to the heavenly kingdom, his path lies through "much tribulation." If he is a follower of Jesus, it is to "go unto him outside the camp, bearing his reproach." But, if his sufferings abound, much more so do his consolations. To be comforted by God, and to be comforted as a mother comforts her child, may well reconcile us to any sorrow with which it may please our heavenly Father to invest us!
God comforts his sorrowful ones with the characteristic love of a mother. That love is proverbial. No line can fathom it, no eloquence can depict it, no poetry can paint it. Attempt, if you will, to impart brilliance to the diamond, or perfume to the rose, but attempt not to describe a mother's love. Who created the relation, and who inspired its affection? That God who comforts his people with a love like hers. And what is a mother's affection—fathomless and indescribable as it is—but as a drop from the infinite ocean of God's love!
Did ever a mother love her offspring as God loves his? Never! Did she ever peril her life for her child? She may. But God sacrificed his life for us. See the tenderness with which that mother alleviates the suffering, soothes the sorrow of her mourning one. So does God comfort his mourners. O there is a tenderness and a delicacy of feeling in God's comforts which distances all expression. There is no harsh reproof—no unkind upbraiding—no unveiling of the circumstances of our calamity to the curious and unfeeling eye—no heartless exposure of our case to an ungodly and censorious world; but with all the tender, delicate, and refined feeling of a mother, God, even our Father, comforts the sorrowful ones of his people.
He comforts in all the varied and solitary griefs of their hearts. Ah! there may be secrets which we cannot confide even to a mother's love, sorrows which we cannot lay even upon a mother's heart, grief which cannot be reached even by a mother's tenderness; but God meets our case! To him, in prayer, we may uncover our entire hearts; to his confidence we may entrust our profoundest secrets; upon his love repose our most delicate sorrows; to his ear confess our deepest departures; before his eye spread out our greatest sins. "As one whom his mother comforts, so will I comfort you."
God comforts the penitential sorrows of his backsliding children with a mother's changeless love. With our hearts 'bent upon backsliding,' how many, how aggravated, and how mournful are our departures from God! But does he disown and disinherit us for this? No! he still calls and receives us, and welcomes our return as children. "Turn, O backsliding children, says the Lord." "Return, you backsliding children, and I will heal your backslidings." "As one whom his mother comforts, so will I comfort you."
Inextinguishable, undecaying, and deathless is a mother's love. "It may be autumn, yes, winter, with the woman; but with the mother, as a mother, it is always spring." When has the door of her heart or her dwelling been closed and fastened against her wayward one? He may have abandoned the roof that sheltered his early years, and, tearing himself from the influences and the attractions of home, have become a wanderer upon life's troubled sea; he may have made shipwreck of character, of fortune, and of happiness, and become an outcast of society, with the stamp of infamy and outlaw branded upon his brow,—yet, should he in his far-wanderings come to himself, and his soul be humbled within him, and his heart burst with penitential grief, and, thinking of his sin, his baseness and ingratitude, resolve to arise and go to his mother, and sue for forgiveness at her feet, do you think that that mother could close her heart against her repentant child? Impossible! She would be the first, and, perhaps, the only one, who would extend to him a welcome, and volunteer him a shelter.
In the depth of her quenchless love, she would hail his return with gladness, forgetting all the bitterness of the past in the sweet joy of the present; and while other eyes might look coldly, and other hearts might be suspicious, and other doors might be closed and barred, the bosom which nursed him in infancy, and the home which protected his earlier years, would expand to receive back the poor, downcast, penitent wanderer. And see how she comforts! With what words of love she greets him! with what accents of tenderness she soothes him! with what gentleness she chases the tear from his eye, and smooths his rugged brow, and hastens to pour into his trembling heart the assurance of her free and full forgiveness.
This is the figure to which God likens his love to his people. "As a man whom his mother comforts, so will I comfort you." Acute is the penitential grief of that child which has strayed from its heavenly Father. Deep and bitter the sorrow when he comes to himself, resolves, and exclaims, "I will arise and go to my Father." Many the tremblings and doubts as to his reception. "Will he receive back such a wanderer as I have been? Will he take me once more to his love, speak kindly to me again, restore to me the joys of his salvation, give me the blessed assurance of his forgiveness, and once more admit me with his children to his table?" He will, indeed, weeping penitent!
Yet again, O listen yet again to his words, "As one whom his mother comforts, so will I comfort you." Is not this declaration well calculated to create the sweetest midnight harmony in the gloomy season of your contrition and grief? Surely it is. In the valley of your humiliation there is open to you a "door of hope," and you may enter and "sing there as in the day of your youth, and as in the day when you came up out of the land of Egypt," and in the first love of your espousals, gave your heart to Christ.
God will comfort your present sorrow by the tokens of his forgiving love. He invites, he calls, he beseeches you to return to him. He is on the watch for you, he advances to meet you, he stretches out his hand to welcome you, he waits to be gracious, he yearns to clasp his penitential, weeping Ephraim to his heart. "When he was yet a great way off, his father saw him, and had compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him."
Will a mother's love live on, warm and changeless, amid all the long years of her child's rebellion, forgetfulness and ingratitude? Will she, when he returns, and gently knocks at her door, and trembling lifts the latch, and falls, weeping and confessing, upon the bosom he had pierced with so many keen sorrows, press him to a heart that never ceased to throb with an affection which no baseness could lessen, and which no dishonor could quench? And will God our Father, who inspired that mother's love, who gave to it all its tenderness and intensity, and who made it not to change, turn his back upon a poor, returning child, who in penitence and confession sought restoring, pardoning mercy at his feet? Impossible! utterly impossible!
The love of God to his people is a changeless, quenchless, undying love! No backslidings can lessen it, no ingratitude can impair it, no forgetfulness can extinguish it. A mother may forget, yes, has often forgotten, her child; but God, never! "Can a woman forget her nursing child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? Yes, she may forget, yet will I not forget you." How touching, how impressive the figure! It is a woman,—that woman is a mother,—that mother is a nursing mother,—and still she may forget and abandon her little one: "yet will I not forget you," says your God and Father.
Touching, heart-melting, heart-winning truth! "Lord! we come unto you in Jesus' name! We have sinned, we have gone astray like lost sheep, we have followed the devices of our own hearts, we have wandered after other lovers, we have wounded our peace, and have grieved your Spirit: but, behold, we come unto you, we fall down at your feet, we dare not so much as look unto you, we blush to lift up our faces,—receive us graciously, pardon us freely, so will we loathe ourselves, hate the sin you do pardon, and love and adore and serve the God that forgives and remembers it no more forever! As one whom his mother comforts, so do you comfort us!"
Who can supply a mother's place? There is one, and only one, who can, and who promises that he will; it is the God who removed that mother. "As one whom his mother comforts, so will I comfort you." "Acquaint now yourself with him, and be at peace." The fond, affectionate, confiding mother sleeps in the dust. The most beautiful light of your home is extinguished. The sweetest voice that echoed through your dwelling is silent. The kindest and brightest eye that beamed upon you is closed in death. The author of your being, the guide of your youth, the confidant of your bosom, the joy of your heart is no more. Now let God enter and take her place.
All that that mother was—a refuge in every sorrow, an arbiter in every difficulty, a counselor in every perplexity, a soother in every grief, the center that seemed to unite and endear all the other sweet relations and associations of the domestic circle—God made her. She was but a dim reflection, an imperfect picture, a faint image of himself. All the loveliness, and all the grace, and all the wisdom, and all the sweet affection which she possessed and exemplified, was but an emanation of God.!
Make him your mother now. Take your secrets to his confidence, take your embarrassment to his wisdom, take your sorrows to his sympathy, take your temptations to his power, take your needs to his supply. O! acquaint yourself with him as invested with the holy character, and clothed with the endearing attributes of a mother.
He will guide you, shield you, soothe you, provide for you, and comfort you, as that mother, upon whose picture—as it smiles mutely upon you from the wall—you gaze with swimming eyes, never could. In vain you breathe before it your complaints, exclaiming, "as one that mourns for his mother" once so touchingly did,—
O that those lips had language! Life has passed
With me but roughly since I heard you last.
These lips are your,—your own sweet smile I see,
The same that often in childhood solaced me;
Voice only fails, else how distinct they say,—
'Grieve not, my child, chase all your fears away!'
Go and breathe your sorrows into God's heart, and he will comfort you, oh! with more than a mother's love! Blessed sorrow, if in the time of your bereavement, your grief, and your solitude, you are led to Jesus, making him your Savior, your Friend, your Counselor, and your Shield. Blessed loss, if it be compensated by a knowledge of God, if you find in him a Father now, to whom you will transfer your ardent affections, upon whom you will repose your bleeding heart and in whom you will trust, as you have been wont to trust in that mother— 'Who has reached the shore, Where tempests never beat, nor billows roar'.
How sweet is the thought that Jesus once felt the throbbings of a mother's bosom. And with what filial affection did he commit that mother to the care of the beloved disciple in the darkest hour of his woe. Acquainted with your loss, sympathizing with your sorrow, compassionating your loneliness, in all respects capable of entering into the circumstances of your case, he invites you to repair to him for comfort, the tender sanctifying comfort, which not even a mother could pour into your heart.
He can guide your youth, he can solace the cares of your riper years, he can strengthen and soothe the weakness and sorrow of declining age. But let your heart be true with him. Let faith be simple, childlike, unwavering. Cling to him as the infant clings to its mother. Look up to him as a child looks up to its parent. Love him, obey him, confide in him, serve him, live for him; and in all the unknown, untrod, unveiled future of your history, a voice shall gently whisper in your ear—
As one whom his mother comforts,
so will I comfort you.
Act but the infant's part,
Give up to love your willing heart;
No fondest parent's melting breast
Yearns, like your God's, to make blest:
Taught its dear mother soon to know,
The tenderest babe its love can show;
Bid your base servile fear retire,
This task no labor will require.
The sovereign Father, good and kind,
Wants to behold his child resigned;
Wants but your yielded heart—no more—
With his large gifts of grace to store:
He to your soul no anguish brings,
From your own stubborn will it springs.
But crucify that cruel foe,
Nor pain, nor care, your heart shall know.
Shake from your soul, overwhelmed, oppressed,
The encumbering load that galls your rest,
That wastes your strength in vain;
With courage break the enthralling chain.
Let prayer exert its conquering power,
Cry in the tempted, trembling hour—
My God, my Father, save your son!
It is heard, and all your fears are gone.
—Martin Luther

JESUS ONLY

"And when they had lifted up their eyes, they saw no man, except Jesus only" – Matthew 17:8.

There were occasions in our Lord's wondrous history when the drapery of his humiliation could but imperfectly conceal the indwelling splendor of His Godhead. Profound as that humiliation was – and to fathom its depth, we must scale the infinite height from when he stooped – it could not intercept all the rays of the Shekinah which slumbered within. Here and there a beam would dart forth from beneath the enshrouding cloud, often overwhelming with its effulgence those upon whom its brightness fell. Such was one of those occasions, a single incident in which has suggested the subject of the present chapter. Our Lord was now transfigured – the unveiling of his glory overpowered the three disciples who were with him in the Mount, who, when the bright cloud overshadowed them, and they heard a voice out of the cloud which said, "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; listen to him," "fell on their face, and were sore afraid. And Jesus came and touched them, and said, Arise, and do not be afraid. And when they had lifted up their eyes, they saw no man, except Jesus only." Blessed company in which now they found themselves alone! Moses, the type of the Law, and Elijah, the representative of the prophets, had passed away, and no one was left "except Jesus only." All their fears had subsided, for Jesus had calmed them. All their happiness was complete, for Jesus was with them. And is not this still the motto of every true believer, in the matter of his salvation, in the spiritual circumstances of his history, in the yearnings of his heart, in the hour of death, and amid the solemn scenes of the final judgment – "JESUS ONLY?" Let us reflect awhile upon each of these particulars.

In the believer's salvation, it is "Jesus only." The salvation of man is an embodiment of God himself. We will not merely say that it reveals his love, or that it reflects his wisdom, or that it displays his power, or that it unveils his holiness – it does all this – but much more. Salvation is not merely a demonstration of the Divine perfections; it is a demonstration of the Divine Being. The essence – the heart – the mind – the attributes – the character – the government of God, are all embarked, embodied, and exhibited in the salvation of man. It is a work so surpassingly stupendous, glorious, and divine, we can account for its vast and unique character, and its transcendent results, upon no other principle that its essential demonstration of Deity – "GOD manifest in the flesh." To mix, then, anything extraneous with this great and finished work, to add to it anything of human device, would seem a crime of deepest dye – a sin, the pardon of which might well extend beyond the provision of its mercy. God has, at every point, with a jealous regard for his own glory, exhibited and protected this great truth. Over the cross beneath which as a sinner I stand – inscribed upon the portal of the refuge into which as a sinner I flee – above the fountain within which as a sinner I bathe – upon every object on which as a sinner I believingly gaze, God has written one sentence – solemn, pregnant, and emphatic – "JESUS ONLY." Let us briefly confirm and illustrate it.

Jesus only could stoop to our low estate. He only could stand between justice and the criminal – the day's-man between God and us. He only had divinity enough, and merit enough, and holiness enough, and strength enough, and love enough, to undertake and perfect our redemption. None other could embark in the mighty enterprise of saving lost man but he. To no other hand but his did the Father from eternity commit his church – his peculiar treasure. To Jesus only could be entrusted the recovery and the keeping of this cabinet of precious jewels – jewels lost, and scattered, and hidden in the fall, yet predestinated to a rescue and a glory great and endless as God's own being. Jesus only could bear our sin and sustain our curse, endure our penalty, cancel our debit, and reconcile us unto God. In his bosom only could the elements of our hell find a flame of love sufficient to extinguish them, and by his merits only could the glories of our heaven stand before our eye palpable and revealed. Jesus must wholly save, or the sinner must forever perish. Listen to the language of Peter, uttered when "filled with the Holy Spirit," and addressed with burning zeal to the Christ-rejecting, self-righteous Sanhedrin; "The stone that you builders rejected has now become the cornerstone. There is salvation in no one else! There is no other name in all of heaven for people to call on to save them." Thus, in the great and momentous matter of our salvation, Jesus must be all. He will admit no co-adjutor, as he will allow no rival. The breach between God and man he will heal alone.

The wine-press of Divine wrath he will tread alone. The battle with the power of darkness he will fight alone. The bitter cup of Gethsemane he will drink alone. The rugged cross to Calvary he will bear alone. The last conflict with the power of hell he will sustain alone. The passage through the grave he will tread alone. Man's sins and sorrow, the sinner's curse and woe, he will endure singly and alone; "of the people there shall be none with him." What majesty gathers around the work and conquest of Jesus, thus accomplished and achieved single-handed and alone! What an impressive view does the fact present of the inconceivable mightiness of the work, and of the unparalleled almightiness of him who wrought it! Salvation was a word distancing all created power. It could only be secured by a power essentially and absolutely Divine. Jesus undertook the work alone, and alone he accomplished it.

What is the deduction, rigidly logical, and scripturally true? JESUS IS DIVINE. Here is the key to the mystery of the whole. Deity in alliance with humanity – the Deity supplying the merit; and the humanity the vehicle of atonement – singly and unaided wrenched the prey from the destroyer, broke the chain of the captive, and brought salvation and glory within the reach of the vilest of Adam's race. And because the Son of God wrought the stupendous achievement alone, alone "he shall bear the glory." Not a note shall swell to the praise, not a monument shall rise to the honor, not a beam shall irradiate the brow of another, from the work of our redemption. To Jesus only shall the anthem be sung, to Jesus only shall the honor be ascribed, to Jesus only shall the glory redound, Jesus only shall wear the crown. Hark! How they chant his high praises in the heavenly temple: "Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honor, and glory, and blessing." Oh yes, in heaven it is "Jesus only."

It follows, then, from all this, that salvation is a finished work. Precious is this truth to the believer's heart. And yet, how much is it practically overlooked! The judgment unequivocally admits it, but the doubts and tremblings which enslave and agitate the heart, and which, like ripples upon the surface, impart and unevenness to the peaceful serenity of the Christian's life, too evidently betray the feeble hold which his faith has upon this truth. But the doctrine remains substantially and unchangeably the same. The obedience, with which he answered the claims of justice, formed the two cognate parts of that mighty and illustrious work, of which, when he bowed his head in death, he exclaimed, "IT IS FINISHED."

Believer in Jesus! Remember all your confidence, all your hope, all your comfort flows from the finished work of your Savior. "Jesus only." See that you unwittingly add nothing to the perfection of this work. You may be betrayed into this sin and this folly by looking within yourself rather than to the person of Jesus; by attaching an importance too great to repentance and faith, and your own doings and strivings, rather than ceasing from your own works altogether, and resting for your peace and joy and hope, simply, entirely, and exclusively in the work of Jesus. Remember, that whatever we unintentionally add to the finished work of Christ, mars the perfection and obscures the beauty of that work. "If you lift up your tool upon it, you have polluted it." Nothing have we to do but, in our moral pollution and nakedness, to plunge beneath the fountain, and wrap ourselves within the robe of that Savior's blood and righteousness who, when he expired on the tree, so completed our redemption, as to leave us nothing to do but to believe and be saved.

"It is finished!" O words, pregnant of the deepest meaning! O words, rich of the richest consolation! Salvation is finished! "Jesus only!" Look from fluctuating frames, and fitful feelings, and changing clouds, to "Jesus only." Look from sins and guilt, from emptiness and poverty, to "Jesus only." The veil of the temple was rent in twain, and you may pass into its holiest, and lay upon the altar the sacrifice of a broken and a contrite heart, which shall be accepted through him who "gave himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God, for a sweet-smelling savor."

"It is finished!" Let devils hear it, and tremble! Let sinners hear it, and believe! Let saints hear it, and rejoice! All is finished. "Then, Lord, I flee to you, just as I am! I have stayed away from you too long, and 'am nothing bettered but rather grown worse.' Too exclusively have I looked at my unworthiness, too absorbed have I been with my penury, too bitterly have I mourned having nothing to pay. Upon your own finished work I now cast myself. "Save, Lord and I shall be saved!" Before this stupendous truth, let all creature merit sink, let all human glory pale, let all man's boasting vanish, and Jesus be all in all. Perish forms and ceremonies – perish rites and rituals – perish creeds and churches – perish, utterly and forever perish, whatever would be a substitute for the finished work of Jesus, whatever would be attempt to add to the finished work of Jesus, whatever would tend to neutralize the finished work of Jesus, whatever would obscure with a cloud, or dim with a vapor, the beauty, the luster, and the glory of the finished work of Jesus! It was "Jesus only" in the councils of eternity – it was "Jesus only" in the everlasting covenant of grace – it was "Jesus only" in the manger of Bethlehem – it was "Jesus only" in the garden of Gethsemane – it was "Jesus only" upon the cross of Calvary – it was "Jesus only" in the tomb of Joseph – it was "Jesus only" who, "when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty of high." And it shall be "Jesus only" – the joy of our hearts, the object of our glory the theme of our song, the Beloved of our adoration, our service, and our praise, through the endless ages of eternity. O, stand fast, in life and in death, by the FINISHED work of Jesus.

"Tis finished!" see the Victor rise,
Shake off the grave, and claim the skies;
You heavens, your doors wide open fling;
You angel choirs, receive your King.

"Tis finished!" – but what mortal dare
In the triumph hope to share?
Savior, to your cross I flee;
Say, "Tis finished!" and for me.

Then will I sing, "The Cross! The Cross!"
And count all other gain but loss:
I'll sing the cross, and to your tree
Cling evermore, blest Calvary.

In the spiritual exercises of the believer's soul, still it is "Jesus only." In the corrodings of guilt upon the conscience, in the cloud which veils the reconciled countenance of God from the soul, where are we to look, but to "Jesus only?" In the mournful consciousness of our unfaithfulness to God, our aggravated backslidings, repeated departures, the allowed foils and defeats by which our enemies exult, and the saints hang their heads in sorrow, to whom are to turn, but to "Jesus only?" In the cares, anxieties, and perplexities which troop around our path, in the consequent castings down of our soul, and the disquietude of our spirit within us, to whom shall we turn but to "Jesus only?" In those deep and mysterious exercises of soul-travail, which not always the saints of God can fully understand – when we see a hand they cannot see, and when we hear a voice they cannot hear; when we seem to tread a lone path, or traverse a sea where no fellow-voyager ever heaves in sight; the days of soul-exercise wearisome, and its nights long and dark – oh! to whom shall we then turn, save to "Jesus only?" Who can enter into all this, and understand all this, and sympathize with all this, but Jesus? To him alone, then, let us repair, with every sin, and with every burden, and with every temptation, and with every sorrow, and with every mental and spiritual exercise, thankful to be shut up exclusively to "Jesus only."

And whom does the heart in its best moments, and holiest affections, and intensest yearnings, supremely desire? Still the answer is, "Jesus only." Having by his Spirit enthroned himself there, having won the affections by the power of his love and the attractions of his beauty, the breathing of the soul now is, "Whom have I in heaven but you, and who is there on earth beside you?" Blessed is that soul, the utterances of whose heart are the sincere and fervent expression of a love of which Christ is the one and supreme object. Oh to love him more! Worthy, most worthy is he, of our first and best affection. Angels love him ardently and supremely; how much more should we, who owe to him a deeper debt of love than they; for whom he has done infinitely more than for angels! Would that this night be our motto, our principle, our life, – "To me to live is Christ." Let the love of Christ, then, constrain us to love him in return with an affection which shall evince, by the singleness of its object and the unreserved surrender of its obedience, that he who reigns the Sovereign Lord of our affections is – "Jesus only."

And when the time draws near that we must depart out of this world, and go unto the Father, one object will fix the eye from which all others are then receding, it is – "Jesus only." Ah! to die, actually to die, must be a crisis of our being quite different from reading of death in a book, or from hearing of it in the pulpit, or from talking of it by the way-side. The world fading in the view – life congealing at its fount – the brain swimming – the eye fixing – and yet conscious that in a few hours, or moments, the soul will take the tremendous leap, and bound away to a world unknown; rushing through suns and systems and scenes all new and strange and wondrous – Oh it is a solemn, an appalling thing to die!

But to the believer in Jesus, how pleasant and how glorious! "Absent from the body," he is "present with the Lord." Jesus is with him then. The blood of Jesus is there, cleansing him from all his guilt; the arms of Jesus are there, supporting him in all his weakness; the Spirit of Jesus is there, comforting him in all his fears: and now is he learning, for the last time on earth, that as for all the sins, all the perils, all the trials, and all the sorrows of life, so now as that life is ebbing fast away, and death is chilling, and the grave is opening, and eternity is nearing, "Jesus only" is all-sufficient for his soul.

And when the trumpet of the archangel sounds – waxing louder and louder – and the dead in Christ arise, and ascend to meet their Savior and their Judge, as he comes, in majesty and great glory, to receive his Bride to himself, – then, oh then, will every heart, and every thought, and every eye, of that ransomed church, be fixed and fastened and centered upon one glorious object – "JESUS ONLY." Believer! look to him – lean upon him – cleave to him – labor for him – suffer for him – and, if need be, die for him. Thus loving and trusting, living and dying for – JESUS ONLY.

Why should I fear the darkest hour,
Or tremble at the tempest's power?
Jesus vouchsafes to be my tower.
Though hot the fight, why quit the field,

Why must I either flee or yield,
Since Jesus is my mighty shield?
When creature comforts fade and die,
Worldlings may weep, but why should I?

Jesus still lives and still is night.
Though all the flocks and herds were dead,
My soul a famine need not dread,
For Jesus is my living bread.

I know not what may soon betide,
Nor how my needs may be supplied;
But Jesus knows, and will provide.
Though sin would fill me with distress,

The throne of grace I dare address,
For Jesus is my righteousness.
Though faint my prayers and cold my love,
My steadfast hope shall not remove,

While Jesus intercedes above.
Against me earth and hell combine,
But on my side is power Divine;
Jesus is all, and he is mine.

THE INCENSE OF PRAYER

"Let my prayer be set before you as incense" – Psalm 141:2.

God has a temple outside of heaven. Not all the worship, nor all the worshipers, are confined to that blissful world where he immediately dwells. He has another sanctuary upon earth – other worshipers and other services, where, with whom, and with which, the beams of his presence are as strictly promised and as truly shine as in the general assembly of the church gathered around him in glory. It is not the magnificent structure made with hands, with its splendid ritual and its ponderous ceremonial, flattering to the pride and captivating to the sense of man, but a temple and a temple-service far more beautiful in God's eye is that of which we speak. "Thus says the Lord, The heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool: where is the house that you build unto me? and where is the place of my rest? For all these things has my hand made, and all these things have been, says the Lord: but to this man will I look, even to him that is poor and of a contrite spirit, and trembles at my word." "Thus says the high and lofty One that inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy, I dwell in the high and holy place, with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite one." This is God's temple upon earth, this his worshiper, and this his worship. The material structure is nothing, the magnificent service is nothing, the formal worshiper is nothing, "but to this man will I look, even to him that is poor and of a contrite spirit, and that trembles at my word." Oh most solemn truth! Oh most precious words! "Lord! engrave them upon my heart by your blessed Spirit. Be my body your temple, my heart your sanctuary, your presence my life, my life your service."

The believer in Jesus is a royal priest, ordained to offer up spiritual sacrifices to God. He is called and consecrated, clothed and anointed, to a high and holy service. His calling is divine, his consecration is holy, his clothing is costly, his anointing is fragrant. Before the standing and the glory and the service of one of the royal priesthood, all the pomp and gorgeousness of Aaron's priesthood fade into nothing. Called according to God's purpose, consecrated and set apart by sovereign grace, invested with the righteousness of Christ, anointed with the Holy Spirit, and offering up the spiritual sacrifice of a "broken and a contrite heart," – is it surprising that God should look with an eye of ineffable delight upon such a worshiper? But of a single one only of these many interesting points must we allow ourselves at present to speak. We refer to the incense which every true believer in Jesus, in his character of a royal priest, offers to the Lord.

The subject presents the Christian to our view in his holiest and most solemn feature – drawing near to God, and presenting before the altar of his grace the incense of prayer. The typical reference to this is strikingly beautiful. "You shall make an altar to burn incense upon…and Aaron shall burn thereon sweet incense every morning; when he dresses the lamps he shall burn incense upon it. And when Aaron lights the lamps at even he shall burn incense upon it, a perpetual incense before the Lord throughout your generations." That this incense was typical of prayer would appear from Luke 1:10, "And the whole multitude of the people were praying outside at the time of incense." And David, though dwelling in the more shadowy age of the church, thus correctly and beautifully interprets this type: "Let my prayer be set before you as incense." It is an appropriate and an impressive figure. And thankful, dear reader, should we be to avail ourselves whatever in the Divine Word tends to teach us the nature, to illustrate the blessedness, to deepen the solemnity, and to engage our heats in the holy duty and sweet privilege of – PRAYER. Interesting and important as are the topics upon which we have previously addressed you, all must yield to the interest and importance of this one. Prayer is the vital breath of the living soul; prayer is the mode of our approach to God; prayer is the appointed channel of all blessing. The season contemplated throughout this little volume is especially the season in which prayer is found the most soothing and sanctifying.

All the precious blessings which we have endeavored to bring before your sorrowful heart, as calculated to comfort and heal it, are conveyed to you through this one mode – communion with God. Once we can persuade you to pour out your heart to him – thus severing you from all other resources of comfort, and shutting you up exclusively to prayer; in other words, shutting you up exclusively to God, we feel that we have conducted you through the surges of your grief to the rock that is higher than you. May the Eternal Spirit be our Teacher and our Comforter while briefly we speak of the INCENSE OF PRAYER.

The believer's censer – what is it? From where arises the incense of prayer ascending to the throne of the Eternal? Oh, it is the heart. The believer's renewed, sanctified heart is the censer from where the fragrant cloud ascends. Ah, believer, there are false, there are spurious censers waved before the throne of grace. There is no precious incense in them, no fire, no cloud. God smells no sweet savor in their offering. True prayer is the incense of a heart broken for sin, humbled for its iniquity, mourning over its plague, and touched and healed and comforted with the atoning blood of God's great sacrifice. This is the true censer; this it is at which God looks. May we not quote his words again, so expressive, so solemn, so precious are they? "TO THIS MAN WILL I LOOK, EVEN TO HIM THAT IS POOR AND OF A CONTRITE SPIRIT, AND THAT TREMBLES AT MY WORD." This is God's own chosen censer. This, and this only, will he regard. Oh! who can describe the worth, the beauty, and the acceptableness of this censer to him whose "eyes move to and fro throughout the whole earth, to show himself strong in the behalf of those whose heart is perfect towards him?" To this God looks. "For the Lord sees not as man sees; for man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart" (1 Sam. 16:7). Precious censer! molded, fashioned, beautified by God.

There exists not upon earth a more vile and unlovely thing, in the self-searching view of the true believer, than his own heart. From every other human eye that bosom is deeply, impenetrably veiled. All that is within is known only to itself. What those chambers of abomination are, God will not permit another creature to know. But oh, how dark, how loathsome, how unholy to him "who knows the plague of his own heart!" And yet – oh wondrous grace! God, by his renewing Spirit, has made of that heart a beautiful, costly, and precious censer, the cloud of whose incense ascends and fills all heaven with its fragrance. With all its indwelling evil and self-loathing, God sees its struggles, watches its conflict, and marks its sincerity. He has his finger upon its pulse – he feels every beat, records every throb. Not a feeling thrills it, not an emotion agitates it, not a sorrow shades it, not a sin wounds it, not a thought passes through it, of which he is not cognizant. Believer! Jesus loves that heart of yours. He purchased it with his own heart's blood, agonies, and tears, and he loves it. He inhabits it by his Spirit, and he loves it. It is his temple, his home, his censer, and never can it approach him in prayer, but he is prepared to accept both the censer and incense with a complacency and delight, which finds its best expression in the language of his own word, "I will accept you with your sweet savor."

And what is the incense pouring forth like a cloud from this precious censer? Oh, it is the incense of prayer! The most precious and fragrant incense that ever rose to heaven from a mere human heart. How shall we describe the costliness of this incense? Its materials, like those which Aaron cast into the censer, which the priests burned before the Lord, the offering of which was termed the "incense of spices," are most costly. They are divine materials cast into it by God himself; the heart's conviction of sin, its sense of self-loathing, its sweet contrition, its holy sorrow, its sincere repentance, its ingenuous confession, its full, free, and unreserved pouring out of itself before God, the Holy Spirit created. And that must in very deed be costly of which the Holy Spirit of God is the author.

And what shall we say of the fragrance of this incense? Oh how much have we yet to learn of the intrinsic sweetness of real prayer! We can but imperfectly conceive the fragrance there must be to God in the breathing of the Divine Spirit in the heart of a poor sinner. It is perhaps but a groan, a sigh, a tear, a look, but it is the utterance of the heart, and God can hear the voice of our weeping, and interpret the language of our desires, when the lips utter not a word; so fragrant to him is the incense of prayer. And when prayer arises from a heart touched by the Spirit of adoption, and is the breathing of a child's love and confidence and strong desire in the bosom of God, oh how rich the incense then!

And is the incense of a praying heart borne down by grief, smitten, and withered like grass, less fragrant to God? No, mourning Christian, prayer is God's appointed and surest relief for your sad heart. Give but yourself unto prayer, now in the hour of your sorrow and loneliness, and your breathings sent up to heaven in tremulous accents, shall return into your own disconsolate and desolate heart, all rich and redolent of heaven's sweet consolations. The holy breathings which ascend from a believer's heart, gather and accumulate in the upper skies, and when most he needs the refreshing, they descend again in covenant blessings upon his soul. No real, believing prayer is ever lost, even as the moisture exhaled from earth is never lost. That thin, almost invisible vapor, which the morning's sun has caught up, returns again, distilling in gentle dews, or falling in plentiful rain, watering the earth and making it to bring forth and bud. That feeble desire, that faint breathing of the soul after God, and Jesus, and holiness, and heaven, shall never perish.

It was, perhaps, so weak and tremulous, so mixed with grief and sorrow, so burdened with complaint and sin, that you could scarcely discern it to be real prayer; and yet, beloved, ascending from a heart inhabited by God's Holy Spirit, and touched by God's love, it rose like the incense cloud before the throne of the Eternal, and blended with the fragrance of heaven. Around that throne prayers are gathering, like clustering angels, and although the vision may tarry, yet, waiting in humble faith God's time, those prayers will come back again freighted with the richest blessings of the everlasting covenant, "even the sure mercies of David." God will grant you the desires of your heart. Jesus will manifest himself to your soul. To nothing has our Heavenly Father more strongly and solemnly pledged himself than to the answering of the prayer of faith. "You shall call, and I will answer."

But there is yet one aspect of our subject indescribably glorious, unspeakably precious. From where does the incense of prayer derive its true fragrance, power, and acceptance with God? Ah! beloved, the answer is near at hand. From where, but from the incense of our Great High Priest's atoning merit offered upon earth, and by ceaseless intercession presented in heaven. The opening of the seventh seal, in the apocalyptic vision, revealed this glorious truth to the wondering eye of the evangelist. "And another angel came and stood at the altar, having a golden censer; and there was given unto him much incense, that he should offer it with the prayers of all the saints upon the golden altar which was before the throne. And the smoke of the incense, which came with the prayers of the saints, ascended up before God out of the angels hand" (Rev. 8:3, 4). This angel is none other than the Angel of the covenant, Jesus, our Great High Priest who stands before the golden altar in heaven, presenting the sweet incense of his divine merits and sacrificial death; the cloud of which ascends before God "with the prayers of the saints."

Oh, it is the merit of our Immanuel, "who gave himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God, for a sweet-smelling savor," that imparts virtue, prevalence, and acceptableness to the incense of prayer ascending from the heart of the child of God. Each petition, each desire, each groan, each sigh, each glance, comes up before God with the "smoke of the incense" which ascends from the cross of Jesus, and from the "golden altar which is before the throne." All the imperfection and impurity which mingles with our devotions here, is separated from each petition by the atonement of our Mediator, who presents that petition as sweet incense to God. See your Great High Priest before the throne! See him waving the golden censer to and fro! See how the cloud of incense rises and envelops the throne! See how heaven is filled with its fragrance and its glory! Believer in Jesus, upon the heart of that officiating High priest your name is written; in the smoke of the incense which has gone up from that waving censer, your prayers are presented. Jesus' blood cleanses them – Immanuel's merit perfumes them – and our glorious High Priest thus presents both our person and our sacrifice to his Father and our Father, to his God and our God. Oh wonderful encouragement to prayer!

Who, with such an assurance that his weak, broken, and defiled, but sincere petitions shall find acceptance with God, would not breathe them at the throne of grace? Go, in the name of Jesus; go, casting yourself upon the merit which fills heaven with its fragrance; go, and pour out your grief, unveil your sorrow, confess your sin, sue out your pardon, make known your needs, with your eye of faith upon the Angel who stands at the "golden altar which is before the throne," and the incense which breathes from your oppressed and stricken heart will "ascend up before God out of the Angel's hand," as a cloud, rich, fragrant, and accepted.

O, give yourself to prayer! Say not that your censer has nothing to offer. That it contains no sweet spices, no fire, no incense. Repair with it, all empty and cold as it is, to the Great High Priest, and as you gaze in faith upon him who is the Altar, the slain Lamb, and the Priest, thus musing upon this wondrous spectacle of Jesus' sacrifice for you, his Spirit will cast the sweet spices of grace and the glowing embers of love into your dull, cold heart, and there will come forth a cloud of precious incense, which shall ascend with the "much incense" of the Savior's merits, an "offering and a sacrifice to God of a sweet-smelling savor."

Remember, that Jesus offers with the "much incense" the prayer of "all saints." In that number you, beloved, are included. The tried saints, the sick saints, the sorrowful saints, the tempted saints, the bereaved saints, the weak and infirm saints, the wandering and restored saints. Yes, "the prayers of all saints" are "offered upon the golden altar which is before the throne." Nor forget that there is evening as well as morning incense. "When Aaron lights the lamps at evening, he shall burn incense." And thus when the day-season of your prosperity and joy is past, and the evening of adversity, sorrow, and loneliness draws its somber curtains around you, then take your censer and wave it before the Lord. Ah! methinks at that hour of solemn stillness and of mournful solitude, that hour when grief loves to indulge, and visions of other days dance before the eye, like shadows upon the wall, that hour when all human support and sympathy fails, that then the sweetest incense of prayer ascends before God. Yes, there is no prayer so true, so powerful, so fragrant as that which sorrow presses from the heart. O, betake yourself, suffering believer to prayer.

Are you a pilgrim, and alone?
Far from the home once called your own?
From friendship's faithful bosom wrested,
In stranger hands your comforts vested,
Your life a cheerless wintry day,
Unlit by sunshine! – Rise and pray!

Smiled on you once the bliss of earth,
And flittering joys of transient worth?
Have you adored some idol shrine,
Or bent how many a knee at thine?
Faded those creatures of a day,
What have you left? – Arise and pray!

With tears, with bitterest agony,
The Savior wrestled, soul! for thee,
Before he could all-triumphant rise
To plead the accepted sacrifice:
So, until the world shall pass away,
Shall stand his words – Arise and pray!

Bring forth, then, your censer, sorrowful priest of the Lord! Replenish it as the altar of Calvary, and then wave it with a strong hand before the God, until your person, your sorrows, and your guilt are all enveloped and lost in the cloud of sweet incense as it rises before the throne, and blends with the ascending cloud of the Redeemer's precious intercession. Prayer will soothe you, prayer will calm you, prayer will unburden your heart, prayer will remove or mitigate your pain, prayer will heal your sickness, or make your sickness pleasant to bear, prayer will expel the temper, prayer will bring Jesus sensibly near to your soul, prayer will lift your heart to heaven, and will bring heaven down into your heart. "Lord, I cry unto you: make haste unto me: give ear unto my voice when I cry unto you. Let my prayer be set forth before you as incense; and the lifting up of my hands as the evening sacrifice." "I GIVE MYSELF UNTO PRAYER."

The prayers I make will then be sweet indeed,
If You the Spirit give by which I pray:
My unassisted heart is barren clay,
That of its native self can nothing feed:
Of good and pious works You are the seed
That quickens only where You say it may:
Unless You show to us Your own true way,
No man can find it: Father! You may lead.
Oh, do then breathe those thoughts into my mind
By which such virtue may in me bred,
That in Your holy footsteps I may tread;
The fetters of my tongue do You unbind,
That I may have the power to sing of Thee,
And sound Your praises everlastingly.

The Day Breaking

"Until the day breaks, and the shadows flee away, I will get me to the mountain of myrrh, and to the hill of frankincense"—Song Sol. 4:5.

IT is proper that we should now conduct our 'night thoughts' to a close. And with what topic more soothing and appropriate can we terminate our present reflections than the one suggested by the portion of the sweet song just quoted—the arrival of that blessed period when the shadows of our present pilgrimage will all have fled, succeeded by a "morning without clouds," and a day without a night? That we dwell so much in the region of present clouds, and so little in the meridian of the future glory, entails upon us a serious loss. We look too faintly beyond the midnight of time into the daylight of eternity. We are slow of heart to believe all that is revealed of the bliss that awaits us, and do not sufficiently realize that, in a little while,—O how soon!— the day will break,—the shadows will flee away,—and we shall bathe our souls in heaven's full, unclouded, endless light. 'Absent from the body,' we shall be 'present with the Lord.' To the consideration of this deeply interesting subject let us for a few moments; in conclusion, bend our thoughts.

We have already considered the night-season of travel as constituting a great portion of the celestial pilgrimage of the saints. Solomon, in the sacred Idyl from which we have selected the sublime stanza at the head of this chapter, again recalls our thoughts to this point, he refers to the "shadows" which gather round the pathway of the believer on his way to the eternal city. Nor is this an exaggerated description of the reality. The portrait of the Christian's life has its lights, bright and glorious: but it also has its shadows, deep and long; and both the light and the shade are essential to the perfection of the picture.

We have emerged, beloved, in our conversion, from the scene of shadows. Divine and sovereign grace has chosen and called us out of a world over which the funeral pall of the 'darkness of the shadow of death' spreads its broad mantle. "Darkness covers the earth, and gross darkness the people." The natural sun illumines,—its beams of light and splendor streaming alike through the windows of the palace and the lowly cot; but until Jesus, the Sun of Righteousness, is revealed and known, neither 'those who dwell in kings' houses,' nor those who occupy the humblest cottage on the hillside, are guided to eternity by a single ray from heaven. Now, seeing that the path of the "child of the light" lies through this dark world, it is no marvel if shadows, often varied and thick, should brood around his steps. Let us for a moment glance at some of them.

There are the shadows of spiritual ignorance thrown upon our path. With all our attainments, how little have we really attained! With all our knowledge, how little do we actually know! How superficially and imperfectly are we acquainted with truth, with Jesus, who is emphatically "The truth," with God, whom the truth reveals. "We know but in part." "We see through a glass darkly"—all is yet but as a riddle, compared with what we shall know when the shadows of ignorance have fled. There are, too, the enshrouding shadows of God's dark and painful dispensations. Our dealings are with a God of whom it is said, "Clouds and darkness are round about him." Who often "covers himself as with a cloud," and to whom the midnight traveler to the world of light has often occasion to address himself in the language of the church, "You are a God that hide yourself." Ah! beloved, what clouds of dark providences may be gathering and thickening around your present path! Through what a gloomy, stormy night of affliction faith may be steering your tempest-tossed bark. That faith eyeing the promise and not the providence—the "bright light that is in the cloud," and not the lowering cloud itself, will steer that trembling vessel safely through the surge. Remember that in the providences of God, the believer is passive—but with regard to the promises of God, he is active. In the one case, he is to 'be still' and know that God reigns, and that the "Judge of all earth must do right." In the other, his faith, child-like, unquestioning and unwavering, is to take hold of what God says, and of what God is, believing that what he has promised he is also able and willing to perform. This is to be "strong in faith, giving glory to God."

The divine withdrawment is another shadow, often imparting an aspect of dreariness to the path we are treading to the Zion of God. "Wherefore hide you yourself?" says Job. "For a small moment," says God to the church, "have I forsaken you. … In a little wrath I hid my face from you for a moment." Ah! there are many who have the quenchless light of life in their souls, who yet, like Job, are constrained to take up the lamentation, "I went mourning without the sun." There are no shadows darker to some of God's saints than this. Many professing Christians dwell so perpetually in the region of shadows, they so seldom feel the sunshine of God's presence in their souls, that they scarcely can discern when the light is withdrawn. But there are others, used to walk so near with God in the rich, personal enjoyment of their pardon, acceptance and adoption, that if but a vapor floats between their soul and the sun, in an instant they are sensible of it. O blessed are they whose walk is so close, so filial with God, whose home is so hard by the cross, who, like the Apocalyptic angel, dwell so entirely in the sun, as to feel the barometer of their soul affected by the slightest change in their spiritual atmosphere. In other words—who walk so much beneath the light of God's reconciled countenance as to be sensible of his hidings even "for a small moment." And then there comes the last of our shadows, "the valley of the shadow of death." There they terminate. This may be the focus where they all shall meet; but it is to meet only to be entirely and forever scattered. The sentiment is as true as the figure is poetic,—"the shadow of death." It is but a 'shadow' to the believer; the body of that shadow, Jesus, the "Captain of our salvation," met on the cross, fought, and overcame. By dying he so completely destroyed death, and him that had the power of death, that the substance of death in the experience of the dying Christian dwindles into a mere shadow, and that shadow melts into eternal glory. O death! how great was your triumph, and how overwhelming was your defeat when Jesus died. Never was your gloomy domain so dark as when Essential Life bowed his head and gave up the spirit. Yet never was it illumined with an effulgence so great, as when the Divine Conqueror passed through its gloomy chambers, and with a power and a victory mightier and more glorious far than Samson's, tore away its iron gates, and demolished its strongholds; throwing a brightness and a fragrance around the bed of death, in which, "until the day dawn and the shadows flee away," those who sleep in Jesus lie down and rest. "If a man keep my sayings he shall never see death." "Whose believes in me shall never die."

"Death's terror is the mountain faith removes;
'Tis faith disarms destruction,—
Believe, and look with triumph on the tomb."

"O you timorous souls! that are terrified at the sound of the passing bell; that tremble at the sight of an opened grave; and can scarce behold a coffin without a shuddering horror; you that are in bondage to the grisly tyrant, and tremble at the shaking of his iron rod, cry mightily to the Father of your spirits for faith in his dear son! Faith will free you from your slavery. Faith will embolden you to tread on this the fiercest of serpents. Old Simeon, clasping the child Jesus in the arms of his flesh, and the glorious Mediator in the arms of his faith, departs with tranquillity and peace. That bitter persecutor Saul, having won Christ, being found in Christ, longs to be dismissed from cumbrous clay, and kindles with rapture at the prospect of dissolution. Methinks I see another of Emmanuel's followers trusting in his Savior, leaning on his beloved, go down to the silent shade with composure and alacrity. 'Knowing,' says Peter, 'that shortly I must put off this tabernacle, even as our Lord Jesus Christ has showed me.' In this powerful name, an innumerable company of sinful creatures have set up their banners and overcome through the blood of the Lamb. Authorized by the Captain of your salvation, you also may set your feet upon the neck of this 'king of terrors.' Enriched with this antidote you may play around the hole of the asp, and put your undaunted hand on the cockatrice den. You may feel the viper fastening to your mortal part, and fear no evil; you shall one day shake it off by a joyful resurrection, and suffer no harm."

But let us turn from the shadows of night to the day-dawn, by which those shades will presently be succeeded. "Until the day break and the shadow flee away." It will not always be night with the expectants of glory. As the "children of the day and of the light," their present time-state would seem to be but an accident of their being, a temporary obscuration only, through which they are passing to the world of which it is said, " there shall be no night there; and they need no candle, neither light of the sun, for the Lord God gives them light: and they shall reign forever and ever." And yet we would be far from penning a sentence tending to foster in the Christian mind a spirit of discontent with his present night-season of humiliation and sorrow. We have already remarked, in a former part of this work, that there are glories revealed by the natural night, which the sun in all its splendor, so far from revealing, only hides from our view by its very brightness. We are as much indebted to the darkness of night for its magnificent unveilings of God's wonderful works, as to the noon-tide splendor which lights up the wonders and glories of earth. How limited had been our knowledge of the universe, and how partial our view of the divine affluence and greatness, had there been no natural night. A world of perpetual sunshine, would have been a world of gross mental darkness! The earth beneath and the sun above us would have been the limits of our knowledge. The beauties spread out upon the dissolving landscapes around us, we might have surveyed with admiration and delight, but the mighty expanse above us, the overspreading skies, the remote depths stretching far into space, all studded and crowded with suns and systems and constellations, would never have burst in grandeur and wonder upon our view. Of astronomy, that most delightful and fascinating of all sciences, we should have known nothing. But when the last lingering ray of the sun retires, and evening, glittering with heaven's rich jewelry, approaches; and night, wearing her diadem of star and planet, takes her allotted place in the earth's revolution,—then it is we go forth on our wondrous travel, and as we "consider the heavens, the moon, and the stars, which he has ordained," we exclaim with that devout astronomer, the Psalmist, "The heavens declare the glory of God; and the skies shows his handiwork." Thus is it with the dark dispensation of God with his people. Would you pass through a spiritual course of perpetual sunshine? Would you be exempt from the night-season of sorrow and of trial? O how little would you then know of God, and of Christ, and of truth! We hesitate not to affirm, that as in the natural world we are more deeply indebted to the instructions of the night than to those of the day, so in the spiritual world we experimentally learn infinitely more in the night-season of deep and sanctified affliction than in the bright, sunny day of gladness and prosperity. It may be a dark and tedious night of weeping and of trial, yet is it often a night in which Christ visits us, as he visits us at no other season. But from this digression let us turn our thoughts to the day-dawn, when the shadows shall all flee away.

We have alluded to the moral darkness of man,—the spiritual unregeneracy in which he is found by nature. The first light, then, that dawns upon the soul is the day-break of grace. When that blessed period arrives, when the Sun of Righteousness has risen upon the long-benighted mind, how do the shadows of ignorance and of guilt instantly disappear! What a breaking away of, perhaps, a long night of alienation from God, of direct hostility to God, and of ignorance of the Lord Jesus, then takes place. Not, however, strongly marked is this state always at the first. The beginning of grace in the soul is frequently analogous to the beginning of day in the natural world. The dawn of grace is at first so faint, the day-break so gentle, that a skillful eye only can observe its earliest tints. The individual himself is, perhaps, ignorant of the extraordinary transition through which his soul is passing. The discovery of darkness which that day-dawn has made, the revelation it has brought to view of the desperate depravity of his heart, the utter corruption of his fallen nature, the number and the turpitude of his sins, it may be, well near overwhelms the individual with despair! But what has led to this discovery? What has revealed all this darkness and sin? O! it is the day-break of grace in the soul! One faint ray, what a change has it produced!

And is it real? Ah! just as real as that the first beam, faintly painted on the eastern sky, is a real and an essential part of light. The day-break—faint and glimmering though it be—is as really day as the meridian is day. And so is it with the day-dawn of grace in the soul. The first serious thought—the first real misgiving—the first conviction of sin—the first downfall of the eye—the first bending of the knee—the first tear—the first prayer—the first touch of faith, is as really and as essentially the day-break of God's converting grace in the soul as is the utmost perfection to which that grace can arrive. O glorious dawn is this, my reader, if now for the first time in your life, the day-break of grace has come, and the shadows of ignorance and guilt are fleeing away before the advancing light of Jesus in your soul. If now you are seeing how depraved your nature is; if now you are learning the utter worthlessness of your own righteousness; if now you are fleeing as a poor, lost sinner to Christ, relinquishing your hold of everything else, and clinging only to him; and though this be but in weakness and tremulousness, and hesitancy, yet sing for joy, for the day is breaking,—the prelude to the day of eternal glory,—and the shadows of unregenency are forever fleeing away. And as this day of grace has begun, so it will advance. Nothing shall impede its course, nothing shall arrest its progress. "He which has begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ." The Sun now risen upon you with healing in his beams shall never stand still—shall never go back. "He has set a tabernacle for the sun" in the renewed soul of man, and onward that sun will roll in its glorious orbit, penetrating with its beams every dark recess, until all mental shadows are merged and lost in its unclouded and eternal splendor. "The path of the just is as the shining light, that shines more and more unto the perfect day."

But there awaits the believer a day brighter far than this; such a day as earth never saw, but as earth will surely see,—the day-break of glory. "Until the day break, and the shadows flee away." O what a day is this! It will be "as the light of the morning, when the sun rises, even a morning without clouds." Grace, which was the day-dawn of glory, now yields its long-held empire; and glory, which is the perfect day of grace, begins its brilliant and endless reign. The way-worn "child of the day" has emerged from the shadows of his pilgrimage, and has entered that world of which it is said, "there shall be no night there." Contemplate for a moment, some of the attributes of this day of glory.

It will be a day of perfect knowledge. When it is said that there will be no night in heaven, it is equivalent to the assertion, that there will be no intellectual darkness in heaven; consequently there will be perfect intellectual light. It is said that we shall then 'know even as also we are known.' The entire history of God's government will then be spread out before the glorified saint, luminous in its own unveiled and yet undazzling brightness. The mysteries of providence, and the yet profounder mysteries of grace, which obscured much of the glory of that government, will then be unfolded to the wonder and admiration of the adoring mind. The misconceptions we had formed, the mistakes we had made, the discrepancies we had imagined, the difficulties that impeded us, the prophecies that bewildered us, the parables that baffled us, the controversies that agitated us, all, all will now be cleared up; the day has broken, and the shadows have fled forever. O blessed day of perfected knowledge, which will then give me reason to see, that the way along which my God is now leading me through a world of shadows, is a right way; and that where I most trembled, there I had most reason to stand firm; and that where I most yielded to fear, there I had the greatest ground for confidence; and that where my heart was the most collapsed with grief, there it had the greatest reason to awaken its strings to the most joyous melody.

It will be a day of perfect freedom from all sorrow. It must be so, since it is written that "God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain; for the former things are passed away." What a cluster of sweet hopes is here! What a collection of bright beams throwing, in focal power, their splendor over that cloudless day. Child of solitude and sorrow! sick ones dear to Christ! bereaved mourners! hear you these precious words, and let music break from your lips! God will dry your tears! We have told you how the mother comforts her sorrowing one. See how God will comfort his. "Will God himself wipe my tears away?" Yes, child of grief, there will be no more weeping then, for—O ecstatic thought!—"God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes." O kind and condescending Father! And "there shall be no more death." No more rending asunder of affection's close and tender ties; no more separations from the hearts we love; no more blinded windows, nor coffins, nor shrouds, nor plumed hearse, nor funeral procession, nor opened graves, nor sealed sepulchers, nor "dust to dust, and ashes to ashes;" the mourners no more go about the streets, for death is now swallowed up in victory! "Neither sorrow nor crying." Grief cannot find existence or place in an atmosphere of such bliss. Not a cloud floats athwart that verdant landscape, nor casts a shadow over the deep tranquillity of that sun-light scene. No frustrated plans, no bitter disappointments, no withered hopes, no corroding cares, there mingle with the deep sea of bliss, now pouring its tide of joyousness over the soul. "Neither shall there be any more pain." Children of suffering! hear you this. There will be no more pain racking the frame, torturing the limbs, and sending its influence through the system, until every nerve and fiber quivers with an indescribable agony. "The former things are passed away."

It will be a day of perfect freedom from sin. Ah! this, methinks, will be the brightest and the sweetest of all the joys of heaven. It does not yet fully appear what we shall be; "but we know that when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is." The Canaanite will no more dwell in the land. Inbred corruption will be done away; the conflict within us will have ceased; no evil heart will betray into inconsistencies and sorrows, not a cloud of guilt will tarnish the unsullied purity of the soul. O assure me that there will be no more night of sin in heaven, and you have presented to my eye such a picture of its bliss, as tints the clouds of my dreary pilgrimage with the first dawn of its golden beams, and inspires my heart with yearnings to be there. You holy ones of God! weeping, mourning over indwelling and outbreaking sin, the last sigh you heave will be a glad adieu to pollution,—to be tormented with it no more, to be freed from it forever. "I shall be satisfied, when I awake with your likeness." This is heaven indeed.

And when does this day begin to break, and the shadows to flee? Go, and stand by the side of that expiring believer in Jesus—the day-break of glory is dawning upon his soul! He is nearing heaven; he will soon be there. Before long he will be nestling in the bosom of Jesus. In a few hours, perhaps moments, and O! what wonders, what glories, what bliss will burst upon his emancipated spirit. See, how he struggles to be free. Hark, how he exclaims to the loved ones who cling to him, and who gladly would detain him a little longer here,—"Let me go, for the day breaks!" O blessed day now opening upon his view, as shadow after shadow is dispersed, revealing the wall of sapphire, and the gate of pearl, and the jasper throne, and him who sits upon it, of the New Jerusalem, all inviting and beckoning him away.

But the noon-tide splendor of this day of glory will be at the second coming of our Lord in majesty and great power, to gather together his elect, and consummate the bliss of his church. "He shall come to be glorified in his saints, and to be admired in all those who believe." Precious in the sight of the Lord as is the death of his saints, and blissful to the saints themselves, as will be the time of their departure, yet not our death, but the Redeemer's glorious appearing, is the hope set before us in the Scriptures. "Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the Great God and our Savior Jesus Christ." Death, in its mildest form, is terrible to look at. Gild it, paint it with vermilion as you may, it is a ghastly object. We shrink from dying. Faith in Jesus can indeed bear the heart upon its towering pinion above the fear and humiliation of death, yet the dreadful accompaniments of the final hour will at times crowd upon the view, and cause the Christian soldier to quake, and tremble, and misgive. But not so is the contemplation of the coming of the Lord. O how animating the thought! O how glorious the prospect! O how sanctifying the hope! We have been speaking to you much of night, and there is a sense in which this creation, since the sun of its holiness set amid clouds and darkness, has seen no day. But the day is breaking, the morning is coming—"the day of the Lord is at hand." The 'signs of the times' all indicate the approach of great events. The forces are gathering, the field is clearing for the last and great battle. But what is the grand event, of which all others are but the heralds and precursors? It is the personal appearing of the Son of Man. He is coming to receive the kingdom,—to gather his elect from the four winds of heaven,—to quicken the sanctified dead, and to translate the holy living,—to reign forever with his church upon a new earth and beneath a new heaven, wherein will dwell righteousness. Suffering Christian! look rather to this blessed hope of the perfect day, than to the gloomy passage of the dark valley. "I will come again," says your gracious Lord, "and receive you to myself, that where I am, there you may be also." Let our hearts respond, "Come, Lord Jesus, come quickly."

And where shall we resort until then? We will follow the footsteps of the church. Listen to her words: "Until the day break, and the shadows flee away, I will get me to the mountain of myrrh, and to the hill of frankincense." The Lord has fragrant places of safety and repose for his people until he comes to fetch them to glory. What a "mountain of myrrh" is Jesus,—in whom we may abide, to whom in all lowering clouds we may repair, "until the day break and the shadows flee away." "God has anointed him with the oil of gladness above his fellows. All his garments smell of myrrh, and aloes, and cassia." Closer and closer let us cling to Christ—this precious "mountain of myrrh," whose "name is as ointment poured forth" to the Lord's faint and weary ones—until we see him face to face. Let us long for his appearing, let us invite him now to our hearts, in the language of the church: "Until the day break, and the shadows flee away, turn, my Beloved, and be you like a roe or a young deer upon the mountains of Bether." And O! how fragrant are those "hills of frankincense," which the Lord has provided for his people, in the means of grace, to which he invites, and where he meets and communes with them "until the day break and the shadows flee away." Such is the place of secret prayer—the place of social prayer—the place of public prayer, where the incense of devotion and love ascends, so precious, so cheering and strengthening to the weary. And what is the ministration of the truth, and what is the word of God, but the "hills of frankincense" to which we are privileged to betake ourselves until our Lord comes to us, or until we go to him. To these fragrant hills of safety and repose let us constantly repair; "Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is, but exhorting one another: and so much the more, as you see the day approaching."

"The night is wearing fast away,
A streak of light is dawning,—
Sweet harbinger of that bright day,
The fair Millennial morning.

"Gloomy and dark the night has been,
And long the way, and dreary;
And sad the weeping saints are seen,
And faint, and worn, and weary.

"You mourning pilgrims! cease your tears,
And hush each sigh of sorrow;
The light of that bright morn appears,
The long Sabbatic morrow.

"Lift up your heads—behold from far
A flood of splendor coming!
It is the bright and Morning Star
In living luster beaming.

"He comes—the Bridegroom promised long—
Go forth with joy to meet him;
And raise the new and nuptial song,
In cheerful strains to greet him.

"Adorn yourself, the feast prepare,
While bridal strains are swelling;
He comes, with you all joys to share,
The new earth his blessed dwelling."

"Until the day breaks and the shadows flee away; I will get to the mountain of myrrh, and to the hill of frankincense."

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

NO CONDEMNATION IN CHRIST JESUS

Table of Contents

Preface

1. No Condemnation

2. Freedom from the Law of Sin and Death

3. The Impotence of the Law, and God's Method of Meeting It

4. The Unregenerate and the Regenerate Contrasted

5. Spiritual-mindedness

6. The Enmity of the Carnal Mind

7. Pleasing God

8. The Indwelling of the Spirit in the Regenerate

9. The Body Dead, but the Spirit Life

10. The Resurrection of Christ

11. The Resurrection of the Christian

12. The Believer's Obligation to Mortify Sin

13. The Guidance of the Spirit

14. The Spirit of Adoption

15. The Spirit Testifying to the Believer's Adoption

16. The Christian's Joint Heirship

17. Present Suffering Weighed with Future Glory

18. The Earnest Expectation of the Renewed Creature

19. A Suffering World in Sympathy with Suffering Man

20. The First-fruits of the Spirit

21. Saved by Hope

22. The Sympathy of the Spirit with the Infirmity of Prayer

23. The Intercession of the Spirit in the Saints

24. All Things Working for Good

25. Divine Predestination

26. Effectual Calling

27. Free Justification

28. Eternal Glorification

29. God Is for Us

30. The Gift of God's Son, the Guarantee of All Other Blessing

31. The Believer's Challenge

32. The Believers Triumph

33. More than Conquerors

34. No Separation from Christ Jesus

PREFACE

It would have been no difficult task to have expanded the following pages- the substance of which was originally delivered by the author in the course of his stated ministrations, and in his usual extemporaneous mode of address- much beyond their present limit. His dread, however, of inflicting upon the public a volume, overgrown and unreadable- precious and alluring as was its theme- constrained him greatly to curtail his work; thus, he fears, exposing himself to the charge of having swept lightly and rapidly over subjects the greatness and importance of which demanded profounder thought, and more elaborate discussion. The portion of Holy Writ he has undertaken- it may be deemed somewhat too presumptuously- to expound, must be regarded as a mine of sacred wealth, as inexhaustible in its resources, as those resources are indescribable in their beauty, and in their excellence and worth, priceless.

It would, perhaps, be impossible to select from the Bible a single chapter in which were crowded so much sublime, evangelical, and sanctifying truth as this eighth of Romans. It is not only all gospel, but it may be said to contain the whole gospel. In this brief but luminous space is embraced an epitome of all the privileges and duties, trials and consolations, discouragements and hopes of the Christian. Commencing with his elevated position of No Condemnation from God, it conducts him along a path where flowers bloom, and honey drops, and fragrance breathes, and music floats, and light and shade blend in beautiful and exquisite harmony to the radiant point of no separation from Christ. And amid the beauties and sweets, the melodies and sunshine of this glorious landscape of truth, thus spread out in all its panoramic extent and magnificence before his eye, the believer in Jesus is invited to roam, to revel, and delight himself.

May the Holy and Eternal Spirit impart to the reader, and, through his prayers, increasingly to the writer, the personal possession and heart-sanctifying experience of the Divine treasures of this precious portion of God's Word. And, if this simple and imperfect outline may but supply a faint and glimmering light, guiding the reader to a more prayerful and thorough exploration of this mine of the "deep things of God," thus leading to the discovery of new and yet richer veins, the Author will not regret that the oil which fed the lamp has been drawn from his own exhausting, yet holy and delightful studies.

And now to the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, as unto the Triune Jehovah, be all honor and praise forever. Amen.

Leamington, April, 1862.

No Condemnation

"There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit." Romans viii. 1.

In these words the inspired Apostle supplies us with the key to the great and precious truths embodied in the chapter, upon the unfolding of which, as guided by the Holy Spirit, we propose to enter. They contain the leading proposition, which, thus distinctly enunciated, he proceeds with his usual vigor of mind, perspicuity of reasoning, and gentleness of spirit, clothing his thoughts with the most eloquent diction, to confirm and illustrate. He had been descanting, with much feeling and power, upon the painful and ceaseless conflict waging between the antagonist principles of the regenerate heart, illustrating it, as is evident from his use of the first person, by a reference to his own personal experience as a Christian. The question, mooted by some, whether Paul delineated a state preceding, or subsequent to, conversion, ought not, we think, to allow a moment's doubt. Since, from the fourteenth verse to the close of the chapter, he unfolds the operation of a law which only finds scope for its exercise in the soul of the renewed man, and with whose hidden and mysterious workings, the experience of the saints has in all ages coincided. But if this argument still leaves the mind perplexed, the opening of the present chapter would appear sufficiently conclusive to set the question at rest. Having portrayed with a master pen- himself sitting for the picture- the spiritual struggles of the children of God, he then proceeds, in the passage under consideration, to apply the divine consolation and support appropriate to a condition so distressing and humiliating. Lifting them from the region of conflict and cloud, he places them upon an elevation towering above the gloom and strife of the battle-field, around whose serene, sunlight summit gathered the first dawning of eternal glory.

"There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus." The transition from the desponding tone of the seventh chapter, to the triumphant language of the eighth, may appear somewhat startling and abrupt; yet it is perfectly easy, logical, and natural. The verse before us is an inference fairly deducible from the whole of the preceding discussion; and is, in fact, the grand conclusion toward which the Apostle had throughout the argument been aiming to arrive. Clear is it, then, as the sun, that if to the saints of God belong the conflict of sin and death, over whose thraldom they mourn; to them also equally belongs the deliverance from the curse and the condemnation, in whose victory they rejoice. Let us now address ourselves to the exposition of this sublime and solemn theme, in humble reliance upon the Divine teaching of the Spirit, pledged and vouchsafed to guide us into all truth.

'Condemnation' is a word of tremendous import; and it is well fairly to look at its meaning, that we may the better understand the wondrous grace that has delivered us from its power. Echoing through the gloomy halls of a human court, it falls with a fearful knell upon the ear of the criminal, and thrills with sympathy and horror the bosom of each spectator of the scene. But in the court of Divine Justice it is uttered with a meaning and solemnity infinitely significant and impressive. To that court every individual is cited. Before that bar each one must be arraigned. "Conceived in sin, and shaped in iniquity," man enters the world under arrest- an indicted criminal, a rebel manacled, and doomed to die. Born under the tremendous sentence originally denounced against sin: "In the day that you eat thereof you shall surely die;" or, "You shall die the death," he enters life under a present condemnation, the prelude of a future condemnation. From it he can discover no avenue of escape. He lies down, and he rises up- he repairs to the mart of business, and to the haunt of pleasure, a guilty, sentenced, and condemned man. "Cursed is every one that continues not in all things which are written in the book of the law, to do them," is the terrible sentence branded upon his brow. And should the summons to eternity arrest him amid his dreams, his speculations, and his revels, the adversary would deliver him to the judge, the judge to the officer, and the officer would consign him over to all the pangs and horrors of the "second" and "eternal death." "He that believes not, is condemned already." My dear reader, without real conversion this is your present state, and must be your future doom.

But from this woe all believers in Christ are delivered. The sentence of death under which, in common with others, they lay, is absolved; the curse is removed; the indictment is quashed; and "there is, therefore, now no condemnation"

But let us, for the better understanding of this subject, consider what this condition does not imply. It does not include deliverance from the indwelling of sin, nor exemption from Divine correction, nor the absence of self-accusation; still less does it suppose that there is nothing for which the believer deserves to die. All this exists where yet no condemnation exists. The battle with indwelling evil is still waged, and the loving chastisement of a Father is still experienced, and the self-condemnation is still felt, and daily in the holiest life there is still transpiring, that which, were God strict to mark iniquities, merits and would receive eternal woe; and yet the declaration stands untouched and unimpeached- "No condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus." This is the blessed condition we are now more fully to describe.

The freedom of the believer is just what it is declared to be- entire exemption from condemnation. From all which that word of significant and solemn import implies, he is, by his relation to Christ, delivered. Sin does not condemn him, the law does not condemn him, the curse does not condemn him, hell does not condemn him, God does not condemn him. He is under no power from these, beneath whose accumulated and tremendous woe all others wither. A brief and simple argument will, perhaps, be sufficient to establish this fact. The pardon of sin necessarily includes the negation of its condemnatory power. There being no sin legally alleged, there can be no condemnation justly pronounced. Now, by the sacrifice of Christ all the sins of the Church are entirely put away. He, the sinless Lamb of God, took them up and bore them away into a land of oblivion, where even the Divine mind fails to recall them. "How forcible are right words!" Listen to those which declare this wondrous fact: "I, even I, am He that blots out your transgressions for my own sake, and will not remember your sins." "You have cast all my sins behind your back." "Having forgiven you all trespasses" "Their sins and iniquities will I remember no more." The revoking of the sentence of the law must equally annihilate its condemnatory force. The obedience and death of Christ met the claims of that law, both in its preceptive and punitive character. A single declaration of God's Word throws a flood of light upon this truth- "Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us." The sentence of the law thus falling upon the Surety, who was "made under the law, that he might redeem those who were under the law," there can be no condemnation from it to those who have taken shelter in him. Thus, then, is it evident that both sin and the law are utterly powerless to condemn a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ. We have hinted, that the perfection of Christ's satisfaction supplies the meritorious and procuring cause of our non-condemnation. This truth cannot be too frequently repeated, nor too prominently kept in view. No legal obedience- no personal merit or worthiness of the sinner whatever- is taken into the account of his discharge from condemnation. This exalted position can only be reached by an expedient that harmonizes with the attributes of God, and thus upholds, in undimmed luster, the majesty and honor of the Divine government. God will pardon sin, and justify the sinner, but it must be by a process supremely glorifying to himself. How, then, could a creature-satisfaction, the most perfect that man, or the most peerless that angels could offer, secure this result? Impossible! But the case, strange and difficult though it is, is met, fully, adequately met, by the satisfaction of Jesus. The Son of God became the Son of man. He presents himself to the Father in the character of the church's substitute. The Father, beholding in him the Divinity that supplies the merit, and the humanity that yields the obedience and endures the suffering, accepts the Savior, and acquits the sinner. Hence the freedom of the believer from condemnation. "There is, therefore, now no condemnation." It is the existence of a present condition. It is the enjoyment of a present immunity. "He is now free from condemnation, not as if the sentence of acquittal were still in dependence, but as if the sentence had already passed, not as if he had to look, perhaps doubtfully and ambiguously, forward to some future day, when a verdict of exculpation shall be pronounced upon him; but as if he stood exculpated before God even now, and even now might rejoice in the forgiveness of all his trespasses." (Chalmers)

It is the simple belief of this fact that brings instant peace to the bosom. A present discharge from condemnation must produce a present joy. Open the iron-bound door of the condemned cell, and by the dim light that struggles through its bars read the sovereign's free pardon to the felon, stretched, pale and emaciated, upon his pallet of straw; and the radiance you have kindled in that gloomy dungeon, and the transport you have created in that felon's heart, will be a present realization. You have given him back a present life; you have touched a thousand chords in his bosom, which awake a present harmony; and where, just previous; reigned in that bosom sullen, grim despair, now reigns the sun-light joyousness of a present hope. Christian! there is now no condemnation for you! Be yours, then, a present and a full joy. "Christ has made atonement, and with it God is satisfied; and if so, well may you be satisfied- delighting yourselves greatly in the abundance of peace, and going forth even now in the light and liberty of your present enlargement."

"To those who are in Christ Jesus." We here touch a vital and profound truth. Rich and accumulative as the passages are which offer their aid in its elucidation, we despair of conveying to other than a mind experimentally acquainted with the truth itself, anything like an adequate representation of the imposing magnitude and glory of the condition. To be in Christ may really be felt, but not easily described. The first view, then, which we present, is that which illustrates the mystical indwelling of the church in Christ, when he stood as its substitute. As all the nations of the world were federally and mystically in Adam when he fell; so the "holy nation," the Church of God, was federally and mystically in the Second Adam, "the Lord from heaven," when in the counsel of God he presented himself as its Surety, and when in the fulness of time he appeared, all robed for the sacrifice, to discharge the engagement. Approach that cross, and what do you behold? Is it that you see a guilty one, suffering- a criminal, worthy of death? No; you see the sinless Son of God bearing the sin, and, by consequence, the condemnation of his people. And in that wondrous spectacle, you see brought to the bar of Infinite Justice- tried, sentenced, and condemned, in the person of their surety- all those who are in Christ Jesus. In Christ they were chosen- to Christ they were betrothed- with Christ they were united- by Christ they are saved,- and, sitting with Christ on his throne, they shall reign with him forever and ever.

But, there is the open, manifest being in Christ, on which we must lay especial stress in our attempted description of this blessed state. "Preserved in Christ Jesus," the sinner is eventually "called in Christ Jesus." "If any man be in Christ Jesus, he is a new creature." An external and nominal profession of the Gospel may exist, and exist, too, in connection with great knowledge, and fervent zeal, and costly sacrifice, and morality of a high order, apart from this internal change. Such a character our Lord describes in these words: " Every branch in me that bears not fruit he takes away." Such an individual is in Christ by an outward profession only. But a state of non-condemnation implies a being in Christ in a far higher sense. It includes the great truth of Christ being in us- "I in them." "We are in him who is true, even in his Son Jesus Christ." Thus it is a mutual in-dwelling- Christ in us, and we in Christ. Here is our security. The believer is in Christ as Jacob was in the garment of the elder brother when Isaac kissed him, and he "smelled the smell of the clothing, and blessed him, and said, See, the smell of my son is as the smell of a field which the Lord has blessed." He is in Christ, as the poor homicide was within the city of refuge when pursued by the avenger of blood, but who could not overtake and slay. He is in Christ as Noah was inclosed within the ark, with the heavens darkening above him, and the waters heaving beneath him, yet with not a drop of the flood penetrating his vessel, nor a blast of the storm disturbing the serenity of his spirit. How expressive are these scriptural emblems of the perfect security of a believer in Christ! He is clothed with the garment of the Elder Brother, the righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ, "which is unto all, and upon all those who believe." On that garment the Father's hands are placed; in that robe the person of the believer is accepted; it is to God "as the smell of a field which the Lord has blessed:" the blessing of the heavenly birthright is his- and for him there is no condemnation. Pursued by the avenger of blood, the threatenings of a condemning law, he has reached the city of refuge, the Lord Jesus Christ. Fearful and trembling, yet believing and hoping, he has crossed the sacred threshold, and in an instant he is safe- and for him there is no condemnation. Fleeing from the gathering storm- "the wrath which is to come,"- he has availed himself of the open door of the sacred ark- the crucified Savior- has entered, God shutting him in- and for him there is no condemnation. Yes, Christ Jesus is our sanctuary, beneath whose shadow we are safe. Christ Jesus is our strong tower, within whose embattlements no avenger can threaten. Christ Jesus is our hiding-place from the wind, and covert from the tempest; and not one drop of "the wrath to come" can fall upon the soul that is in him. O how completely accepted, and how perfectly secure, the sinner who is in Christ Jesus! He feels he is saved on the basis of a law, whose honor is vindicated; through the clemency of a righteous Sovereign, whose holiness is secured; and through the mercy of a gracious God, the glory of whose moral government is eternally and illustriously exhibited. And now is his head lifted up above his enemies round about him; for there is no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus. Reader, are you in Christ Jesus? Is this your condition? We repeat the solemn declaration- "If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature; old things have passed away; behold, all things are become new." Are you that new creature? Prove, examine, and ascertain. For if you are not born again of the Spirit, be well assured that you are still under the curse and sentence of the law. And while condemnation, in dark and gloomy characters, is written upon the brow of every unbelieving sinner out of Christ; Christ has said of all who have fled out of themselves to him, "He who hears my word, and believes on Him that sent me, has everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation, but is passed from death unto life."

"Who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit." We have here the character of all those who have secured, by faith in the Lord Jesus, their full discharge from the sentence of death. Thus, in the passage under consideration are clearly stated, the cause and the consequence of the believer's discharge. It has been shown, that our being in Christ is the ground of our not being in condemnation. It then follows, that as a fruit- a consequence of our immunity from condemnation- is our walking after the Spirit. Thus, while justification and sanctification are separate and distinct conditions, they yet are cognate truths, and co-exist in the experience of all the regenerate. The deduction which the Apostle here makes of holiness from acceptance; or rather, the order of sequence which he observes, is worthy of the reader's closest attention. Its lack of observance has kept numbers of sincere seekers of Christ in the cold dreary region of embarrassment and doubt, who, but for thus overlooking the order observed, or perhaps rather, by reversing that order, might have fully received into their souls that "kingdom which is righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit." Their great error has been an attempt to shape their course, not after the flesh, but after the Spirit, before having ascertained their being in Christ and consequent freedom from condemnation.

In plainer language, their placing sanctification in advance of justification; in substituting the effect for the cause; in looking to the Spirit rather than to Christ. How painfully distressing is the struggle of such an one! Sincere and earnest in his desire to love God, but with his back turned upon the cross, and his face towards the "mountain that burns with fire," he can see everything in God to awaken his fear, but nothing to inspire his love. He longs to obey God; but, lacking the impelling motive to obedience, he fails in every attempt. He sighs for rest; but his incessant effort to recover the ground perpetually sliding from beneath his feet, places that rest further and further beyond his reach. He would sincerely be holy; but, seeking his holiness in the way of doing, and not in the way of believing, he never attains it. But let us explain the words.

"To walk after the flesh" is to regulate the life and conduct according to our fallen and depraved nature. The "flesh," which stands for the corrupt desires and propensities, is the sole guide of the unregenerate. They are in the flesh, they are of the flesh, and they live according to the flesh. "The works of the flesh are manifest," and these they do. But the converse of this is the characteristic of all true believers. They "walk after the Spirit." Possessing, in common with the unregenerate, a fleshly nature, in which there dwells no good thing; they also partake of a new and divine nature, of which the unregenerate do not. Renewed by the Spirit, inhabited by the Spirit, sanctified by the Spirit, led by the Spirit, they aim to regulate their life according to his divine dictates, influence, and teaching. The bent of their minds is holiness: this they breathe after, pray and labor for, as the one great purpose of their being. That they are opposed by the flesh, and by it are often foiled, wounded, and cast down, cannot yet destroy the divine principle of their soul, any more than a false attraction can destroy the magnetic power of the needle. That there should ever be an occasional unevenness and irregularity in the walk of any of the Lord's people, is a matter of the profoundest humiliation; yet even in the stumblings and falls of a righteous man, it cannot in truth be said that he 'walk after the flesh,' seeing that he rises again, restored by the grace of Christ; and his desires and breathings after the Spirit are, perhaps, all the deeper and stronger for that fall. An unrenewed man falls, and where he falls he lies. "A just man falls seven times, and rises up again," and "walks," perhaps more softly than ever, "after the Spirit." "It is the direction of that sovereign faculty, the will, which explains the difference. If this be enlisted on the side of the flesh, as it is with every unconverted man, then he sins wilfully. If this be enlisted on the side of the Spirit, as it is with every man who has truly turned him unto the Lord Jesus Christ, then he may sin accidentally; and in some moment of sleep or of surprise he may be overtaken; and before the will, as it were, had time to rally and to recover, some outpost may have been carried, and even some advantage have been gained, to the length of a most humiliating overthrow. But deep is the grief that is thereby awakened, and strenuous is the resistance that is thereby summoned into the future warfare; and heavy is that mourning of sackcloth and of ashes with which the soul of the penitent offender is afflicted; and though he has stumbled in the way of temptation, he yet utterly refuses to walk therein- so giving testimony to the mode in which the leading tendencies of his spirit have most painfully and most offensively been thwarted, by the momentary power and assault of his great adversary; and that the whole drift of his choosing, and deliberating, and purposing faculties is indeed on the side of God and on the side of holiness." (Chalmers) What a high and privileged walk, then, is the believer's! While the slaves of the flesh are groveling amid their darkness and chains, he is walking after the Spirit, soaring and exulting in holy light and liberty.

The subject is suggestive of much important practical instruction.

What a ground of rejoicing does it afford you who are the saints of God! You may see within and around you- in your soul, in your family, and your circumstances- much that saddens, and wounds, and discourages you; but behold the truth which more than counterbalances it all- your freedom from condemnation. What if you are poor- you are not

condemned! What if you are afflicted- you are not condemned! What if you are tempted- you are not condemned! What if you are assailed and judged by others, you yet are not forsaken and condemned by God; and ought you not, then, to rejoice? Go to the condemned cell, and assure the criminal awaiting his execution, that you bear from his sovereign a pardon; and what though he emerge from his imprisonment and his manacles, to battle with poverty, with sorrow and contempt, will he murmur and repine, that in the redemption of his forfeited life, there is no clause that exempts him from the ills to which that life is linked? No! life to him is so sweet and precious a thing, that though you return it trammeled with poverty, and beclouded with shame, you have yet conferred upon him a boon which creates sunshine all within and around him. And why should not we "rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory," for whom, "through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus," there is now no condemnation? Christ has "redeemed our life from destruction;" and although it is "through much tribulation we are to enter the kingdom," yet shall we not quicken our pace to that kingdom, rejoicing as we go, that "there is now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus? " "These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full."

Be earnest and diligent in making sure to yourself your discharge from the sentence and penalty of the law. Sue out the great fact in the Lord's own court by fervent prayer and simple faith. Your Surety has cancelled your debt, and purchased your exemption from death. Avail yourself of the comfort and the stimulus of the blessing. You may be certain, yes, quite certain, of its truth. No process is more easy. It is but to look from off yourself to Christ, and to believe with all your heart that he came into the world to save sinners, and assurance is yours. The order is, "We believe, and are sure." Oh, do not leave this matter to a bare peradventure. Make sure of your union with Christ, and you may be sure of no condemnation from Christ.

As sin is the great condemning cause, let us aim to condemn sin, if we would rank with those for whom there is no condemnation. Most true is it, that either sin must be condemned by us, or we must be condemned for sin. The honor of the Divine government demands that a condemnatory sentence be passed, either upon the transgression, or upon the transgressor. And shall we hesitate? Is it a matter of doubt to which our preference shall be given? Which is best, that sin should die, or that we should die? Will the question allow a moment's consideration? Surely not, unless we are so enamored with sin as calmly and deliberately to choose death to life, hell to heaven. "The wages of sin is death." Sin unrepented, unforgiven, unpardoned, is the certain prelude to eternal death. Everlasting destruction follows in its turbid wake. There is a present hell in sin, for which the holy shun it; and there is a future hell in sin, for which all should dread it. If, then, we would be among "the pure in heart who shall see God," if we would lift up our faces with joy before the Judge at the last great day, if we would be freed from the final and terrible sentence of condemnation, oh, let us be holy, "denying all ungodliness and worldly lusts, and living righteously, soberly, and godly in this present world." Oh, let us condemn sin, that sin may not condemn us. And let us draw the motive that constrains us, and the power that helps us, from that cross where Jesus "condemned sin in the flesh."

In this great matter, there is an especial blessing attached to the act of self-condemnation. Self-condemnation averts God's condemnation. When a penitent sinner truly, humbly, graciously, sits in judgment upon himself, the Lord will never sit in judgment upon him. "If we would judge ourselves, we should not be judged of the Lord." The penitent publican, who stood afar off, wrapped in the spirit of self-condemnation, retired from his presence a justified man. The proud, self-righteous Pharisee, who marched boldly to the altar and justified himself, went forth from God's presence a condemned man. When God sees a penitent sinner arraigning, judging, condemning, loathing himself, he exclaims, "I do not condemn you, go and sin no more." He who judges and condemns himself upon God's footstool, shall be acquitted and absolved from God's throne. The Lord give unto us this secret spirit of self-judgment. Such was Job's, when in deep contrition he declared, "I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes." Such was David's, when he penitentially confessed, "Against you, you only have I sinned, and done this evil in your sight." Such was Peter's, when he vehemently exclaimed, "Depart from me, O Lord, for I am a sinful man." Such was Isaiah's when he plaintively cried, "Woe is me! for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips." Such was the publican's, when he humbly prayed, "God be merciful to me a sinner." O lovely posture! O sacred spirit of self-abhorrence, of self-condemnation! The Holy Spirit works it in the heart, and this stamps it as so precious, so salutary, and so safe. The great day of the Lord will unveil blessings passing all thought, and glories passing all imagination, to the soul who beneath the cross lies prostrate, in the spirit of self-condemnation. The judgment day of the self-condemning soul is on this side of eternity; while the judgment day of the self-justifying soul, is on the other side of eternity. And oh, how terrible will that judgment be!

How strong the consolation flowing from this truth to the believer in Jesus! No condemnation is the ground of all comfort to the suffering Christian. What a mighty breakwater is this condition to the rolling surge of sorrow, which else might flow in upon and immerse the soul! Let it be your aim to improve it on every occasion of suffering and trial. God may afflict, but he will never condemn you. Chastisements are not judgments; afflictions are not condemnations. Sickness, and bereavement, and low estate, based upon a condition of non-condemnation, you can welcome and patiently bear, since they are not the fore-castings of a coming storm, but the distillings of a mercy-cloud sailing athwart the azure sky of a soul in Christ. The fiery trials which purify our faith have not a spark in them of that "unquenchable fire" that will consume the condemned hereafter. Oh, what are the crosses and the discomforts of this present world, if at last we are kept out of hell? And oh, what are the riches, and honors, and comforts of this life, if at last we are shut out of heaven? At the bottom of that cup of sinful pleasure, which sparkles in the worldling's hand, and which with such zest and glee he quaffs, there lies eternal condemnation- the death-worm feeds at the root of all his good. But at the bottom of this cup of sorrow, now trembling and darkling in the hand of the suffering Christian, bitter and forbidding as it is, there is no condemnation- eternal glory is at the root of all his evil. And in this will you not rejoice? It is not only your holy duty, but it is your high privilege to rejoice. Your whole life not only may be, but ought to be a sweetly-tuned psalm, a continual anthem of thanksgiving and praise, pouring forth its swelling notes to the God of your salvation; since, beyond the cloudy scene of your present pilgrimage there unveils the light and bliss of celestial glory, on whose portal you read as you pass within- NO CONDEMNATION. Unless, then, you either distrust or disparage this your joyous condition and blessed hope, you must, in the gloomiest hour, and from the innermost depths of your soul, exultingly exclaim- "He is near that justifies me; who will contend with me? Let us stand together. Who is my adversary? Let him come near to me. Behold, the Lord God will help me! who is he that shall condemn me?"

Freedom from the Law of Sin and Death

"For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death." Romans viii. 2.

This passage has been regarded by some sacred critics as difficult of interpretation; one of whom furnishes three different meanings of the text, and then leaves the reader to make his own selection in the case. We think, however, that a simple examination of the words, taken in their connection, will remove the obscurity which may be supposed to veil them. The evident design of the Apostle is, to furnish an argument in support of the leading proposition he had just laid down, namely, the believer's deliverance from condemnation. There is clearly a connection between that declaration and the passage under consideration. "For the law of the Spirit of life." But the main difficulty seems to be in the meaning of the terms employed in the text. By some expositors, the "law of the Spirit of life" is interpreted of the influence or control exerted by the Spirit of God over the minds of the regenerate, emancipating them from the curse and tyranny of sin, and supplying them with a new authoritative enactment for their obedience and regulation, as those whose course is guided by the Spirit. "The law of sin and death," is by the same authority interpreted of the contesting power of sin, leading to death and condemnation; having its throne in the heart, and from its governing and despotic power, maintaining a supreme and dire sway over the whole moral man. The freedom, therefore, which the law of the Spirit of life confers upon those who are bound by the law of sin and death, is just the supremacy of one principle over the force of another principle: the triumph of an opposing law over an antagonist law.

But the interpretation which we propose for the adoption of the reader, is that which regards the "law of the Spirit of life," as describing the Gospel of Christ, frequently denominated a "law"- and emphatically so in this instance- because of the emancipation which it confers from the Mosaic code, called the "law of sin and death," as by it is the knowledge of sin, and through it death is threatened as the penalty of its transgression. With this brief, but, we believe, correct explanation of the terms of the passage, we proceed to consider the exalted liberty of the believer in Jesus, of which it speaks,; tracing that freedom to the instrument by whose agency it is secured. "For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made us free from the law of sin and death."

In the preceding chapter, we were led to regard all who were outside of Christ, as under a present, and as exposed to a future condemnation. Not less awful is the condition of the unconverted, as depicted in the passage before us. Reverse the state of the believer and you have the exact state of the unbeliever. Is the believer in Christ a free man? the unbeliever is a slave. Is the believer justified? the unbeliever is condemned. Is the believer a living soul? the unbeliever is a lifeless soul. Is the believer a reconciled son? the unbeliever is a hostile rebel. Is the believer an heir of glory? the unbeliever is an heir of hell. Between these two conditions there is no neutral ground. You are, my reader, either for Christ, or you are against Christ. In this great controversy between Christ and Satan, you are not an indifferent and unconcerned spectator. The Prince of Light or the prince of darkness claims your service, and presses you into the conflict. Oh, it is a matter of the greatest moment that you decide to which law you are bound- the "law of life," or "the law of death."

But in what sense is the believer "free from the law of sin and death?" As a covenant he is free from it. How clear and impressive is the reasoning of the Apostle on this point! "Know you not, brethren, (for I speak to those who know the law) how that the law has dominion over a man as long as he lives? For the woman who has a husband is bound by the law to her husband, so long as he lives ; but if the husband is dead, she is loosed from the law of her husband." The believer's union to Christ, represented under the figure of a marriage covenant, frees him from the condemnatory power of this law. He looks not to it for life; he rests not in it for hope; he renounces it as a saving covenant, and under the influence of another and a higher obligation- his marriage to Christ- he brings forth fruit unto God. Was ever liberty so glorious as this- a liberty associated with the most loving, cordial, and holy obedience? Not a single precept of that law, from whose covenant and curse he is released by this act of freedom, is compromised. All its precepts, embodied and reflected in the life of Christ- whose life is the model of our own- appear infinitely more clear and resplendent than ever they appeared before. The obedience of the Lawgiver infinitely enhanced the luster of the law, presenting the most impressive illustration of its majesty and holiness that it could possibly receive.

The instrument to whose agency this exalted liberty is ascribed is, the "law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus." The term law is forensic; though not unfrequently used in God's Word to designate the Gospel of Christ. "Out of Zion shall go forth the law." "The isles shall wait for his law." "Where is boasting then? It is excluded. By what law? Of works? No; but by the law of faith." In this sense we hold that the word is used in the text, to designate the Gospel of the blessed God, as the great instrument by which the freedom of which we have spoken is obtained. A few particulars will, we think, justify this view. The Gospel is the law which reveals the way of salvation by Christ. It is the development of God's great expedient of saving man. It speaks of pardon and adoption, of acceptance and sanctification, as all flowing to the soul through faith in his dear Son. It represents God as extending his hand of mercy to the vilest sinner; welcoming the penitent wanderer back to his home, and once more taking the contrite rebel to his heart. It is also a quickening law- emphatically the "law of the Spirit of life." What numbers are seeking sanctification from the "law of sin;" and life from the "law of death!" But the Gospel speaks of life. Its doctrines- its precepts, its promises, its exhortations- its rebukes, its hopes, are all instinct with spiritual life, and come with quickening power to the soul. "The words that I speak unto you," says Jesus, "they are spirit and they are life." "Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the Word of God, which lives and abides forever." Oh, there is life in the Gospel, because it is "the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus." It testifies of "Christ, who is our life." It declares that there is no spiritual life but in him. And although "the letter kills," working alone, yet in the hands of the Spirit it gives life. Thus clothed with the energy of the Holy Spirit, the Gospel proves a "savor of life unto life," to all who believe in it to the saving of the soul.

In concluding this chapter, we would remind those who can appropriate to themselves the language of the text, of the exalted privilege to which they are raised. A holy, filial, joyful liberty, is your birthright. It is the liberty of a pardoned and justified sinner. It is the liberty of a reconciled, adopted child. It is the liberty of one for whom there is "now no condemnation." And yet how few of God's people walk in the full enjoyment of this liberty? How few pray, and love, and confide, as adopted children! How few labor for life! Oh, sons of God, rise to this your high and heavenly calling! Your freedom was purchased at a high

price, undervalue it not. It is most holy- abuse it not. It binds you, by the strongest obligations, to yield yourselves unto God, as those who are alive from the dead. Be these the breathings of our soul- "Lord! my sweetest liberty is obedience to you; my highest freedom wearing your yoke; my greatest rest bearing your burden. Oh, how I love your law after the inward man! I delight to do your will, O my God!" The Lord grant unto us that we, "being delivered out of the hands of our enemies, might serve him without fear, in holiness and righteousness before him, all the days of our life."

The Impotence of the Law, and God's Method of Meeting It

"For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh." Romans viii. 3.

"For what the law could not do." It is still the moral law of which the apostle speaks. He affirms of that law that it is "weak." The assertion must be received with some qualification. It cannot be denied that the law has power. Divest it of all strength, and of what use would it be? How could it accomplish the design of its enactment? There is a sense, then, and an important one, in which the law has strength. Wherein does its potency lie? The law has power to convict of sin. It mirrors to a man his moral likeness; looking into this law he sees himself to be a sinner. It has power to bring him in guilty before God; to breathe over his head its fearful curse, and to shut him up to its eternal condemnation. With what a tremendous power, then, is this law invested! It wields a mighty arm.

Let the lawless tremble at its strength. Its divinity is not to be denied- its holiness is not to be impugned- its power is not to be trifled with. No man can do violence to this law with impunity. Deem it not a light thing to fall into its iron, merciless grasp. It lays its righteous hand upon you, exclaiming, "Pay me that you owe." And if the demand is not met- amply, fully met- it has authority and power to adjudge you to hell forever. Such is the strength of God's holy law.

But, nevertheless, there is a sense, and a vastly important one, in which the law is impotent- utterly powerless. What is it that the law cannot do? The law has no power to place the sinner in a justified state. In other words, it cannot fulfil its own righteousness. "By him, all who believe are justified from all things, from which you could not be justified by the law of Moses." "Therefore, by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight." Nor has it power to give life. "For if there had been a law given which could have given life, verily righteousness should have been by the law." It pronounces the unjustified sinner dead- his religion dead- his works dead- his faith dead; but with not one breath of spiritual life has it power to inspire the soul. Oh, the infatuation which prompts men to seek spiritual life from a law, powerful only as an instrument of eternal death! Nor has the law power to make anything whatever perfect in the great matter of man's salvation. "For the law made nothing perfect, but the bringing in of a better hope did; by the which we draw near unto God." These things the law fails to achieve. And herein is it weak. Holy in its nature, it is yet incapable of making the sinner holy. Righteous in its precepts, it yet cannot justify the ungodly. Reflecting the Divine image, it yet has no power to transfer that image to the soul. But let us trace this failure to its proper cause. From where, then, does this weakness of the law of God come from? We reply, not from any inherent defect in the law. "The law is holy, just and good," and of itself powerful enough to take the soul to glory. But the Apostle supplies the answer- "weak through the flesh." It was right that he should thus shield the dignity of the law, and maintain that there belonged to it a native force and capacity worthy of Him from whom it emanated, and equal to the accomplishment of the great end for which it was enacted. The weakness of the law, then, is to be traced, not to any inefficiency of the instrument, but to the sinfulness of man; not to the agent, but to the subject. What an impressive view does this give us of the deep depravity, the utter sinfulness of our nature! So great is the corruption of the flesh, that it opposes and thwarts the law in its great work of imprinting its image upon the mind of man. Oh, what must be the character and power of that sinfulness which can thus sever the locks of its strength, and divert it from its sacred purpose! Sincerely would it make us holy, but our depravity foils it. Sincerely would it recall our alienated affections, but our heart is so utterly estranged from God, that its generous effort fails. Thus the law is weak, through the corrupt and sinful flesh. Let us be deeply humbled by this truth. How entirely it stains the pride of all our fleshly glory! Where, now, is our native holiness, and our boasted pride, and our vaunted worthiness? The law, always on the side of purity and love, yearned to bring us beneath its holy and benign influence, but our carnality interposed, and it became weak.

"God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh." Thus has God graciously provided a remedy which exactly meets the necessity of the case. The law, thwarted and impaired by the depravity of the flesh, having failed to effect the salvation of the sinner, proving itself utterly powerless to justify or sanctify the soul, God is represented as devising another, a more stupendous and effective expedient. This was nothing less than placing the work in the hands of his own Son. The source from where this great and precious gift emanates, supplies a tender rebuke to all those defective views we are prone to entertain of the Father's love to us. What a fulness of meaning in these words- "God sending his own Son,"- sending him from the depths of his love, from the center of his bosom. Truly, "in this was manifested the love of God towards us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him." Herein, indeed, is love! Oh, what cold, suspicious thoughts we have cherished of it! How have we lost sight of it in deep trial, and in the bitter anguish of our spirit! How have we forgotten that he must love us- chastise and rebuke us as he will- who sent his own Son to give us life! Behold the grandeur and the fitness of God's expedient. The Father did seem to say to the beloved One reposing in his bosom- "My Son, our law has failed to accomplish the salvation of a single individual of the human race, through the opposing depravity into which it is sunk. Go on this embassy of love, assume the likeness of the sinner, and in Your mightiness to save, bring my many sons unto glory." Contemplate, too, the costliness of the gift. "His own Son." Angels are his sons by creation, and saints are his sons by adoption; but Jesus is pre-eminently and emphatically his OWN Son by eternal generation- co-equal, co-essential, and co-eternal with the Father, ineffably begotten from all eternity in the Divine essence. From the abundant proofs of this doctrine, with which the Scriptures of truth are so rich, one or two citations will suffice. Our Lord on every occasion acknowledged his filial relation to God. How often and how touchingly did the expressive words breathe from his sacred lips- "My Father." "I and my Father are one." "All things are delivered unto me by my Father." "In my Father's house are many mansions." Then, as it regards his being by eternal generation the Son of the Highest, hear what the Scriptures of truth affirm. "I know him," says Christ, "for I am from him, and he has sent me." How was Christ from the Father? Certainly not as it related to his mission mainly, but as it respected his eternal generation by the Father. For, observe in these remarkable words the two things are different and distinct; the being from the Father- and the being sent by the Father. Then, as it regards his Sonship, how conclusive are these words- "The Lord said unto me, You are my Son; this day have I begotten you." Beyond all dispute, Christ is the person spoken of here. Three times is this passage quoted in the New Testament, and on each occasion it is invariably applied to the Lord Jesus. The expression "today," has an obvious reference to the eternity of his generation. Eternity is with God but as one day- an eternal now. "Beloved, do not be ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day." Thus clear is it that Christ is God's "own Son," having the same essence and nature with himself; and that he is God's "only Son" by natural and eternal generation- "The only begotten Son of God." Further into the depths of this profound truth it would not be our wisdom to descend. There is much awful mystery connected with this fundamental verity of Christian faith, which forbids a too curious and rash investigation. Although it transcends our reason, it does not contravene our reason. It is propounded, like all cognate mysteries of Divine revelation, for our belief. And what human reason is not able to comprehend, divine faith can meekly and unquestioningly receive.

But what words are these- "God sent his own Son!" A person less exalted, less Divine, could not have accomplished what the divine law failed to do. And since an enactment which was a transcript of Deity, proved too feeble for the purpose, Deity itself undertakes the work. God's own eternal and essential Son embarks in the enterprise, and achieves it. What a Rock of salvation, saint of God, is this! Springing from the lowest depths of your humiliation, see how it towers above your curse- your sin- your condemnation! It is a Rock higher than you. Infinitely removed beyond the reach of condemnation is that soul whose faith is planted upon this Rock. How securely can he rest, and how sweetly can he sing, "In the time of trouble he shall hide me in His pavilion: in the secret of His tabernacle shall He hide me; He shall set me upon a rock. And now shall mine head be lifted up above mine enemies round about me."

"In the likeness of sinful flesh." These words are striking and significant, as placing before us two essential and glorious facts in the history of our Lord- facts interwoven with our holiest experience and most precious hopes. It first places in the clearest possible light the true humanity of the Son of God. It was not human nature in appearance that he took, as some have taught- this was the heretical doctrine of the ancient Docetae, but human nature in reality. There are other declarations of this truth equally as strong: "God sent forth his Son made of a woman." "The Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us." Our blessed Lord has ever been "a stone of stumbling and a rock of offence" to the ungodly world. Many are offended with him. His two natures have ever been impugned, opposed, and denied. Some have refused him the glory belonging to his Godhead, while others have attempted to undermine his manhood- thus making him, had it been in the power of his enemies, neither God nor man- a very nothing. But the truth still stands unimpeached and glorious- our Lord assumed real flesh. "My flesh is food indeed." It was, as the Apostle terms it, "the body of his flesh." "Wherefore, when he comes into the world, he says, Sacrifice and offering you would not, but a body have you prepared me." "Who his own self bore our sins in his own body on the tree." It was a perfectly organized body, having all the properties, affinities, and functions belonging to our own. Therefore he is styled "the man Christ Jesus." "Since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead." "He was made in the likeness of men." "The seed of the woman." "The seed of Abraham." "The seed of David." Such are the words which inscribe this great truth as with a sunbeam- our Lord's perfect human body and soul. The consolation, the sympathy, the strength, which spring from this truth, how great! Bone of our bone, and flesh of our flesh, made in all points like unto his brethren, O how suitable a Brother is he, born for our every adversity! Now can he, with a feeling of sympathy the most exquisite, be touched with my infirmity; for this nature which I drag about with me, feeble and bruised, jaded and crushed, was the very nature which he took into mysterious union with his Godhead- wore it here below, and wears it still in heaven.

But, secondly, with what care and skill does the Holy Spirit guard the perfect sinlessness of our Lord's humanity! Observe, it was not the reality of sinful flesh that the Son of God assumed, but its 'likeness' only. He took real flesh, but bearing the resemblance only of sinfulness. He was "made like unto his brethren." "Tempted like as we are, yet without sin." And so in the passage before us, "In the likeness of sinful flesh." The words suppose a resemblance to our sinful nature. And, oh! how close that resemblance was!- as like a sinner as one could be, who yet in deed and in truth was not one- "who knew no sin," but was "holy, harmless, undefiled, and separate from sinners." Man is a sinner; our blessed Lord was man- so truly man, that his enemies exclaimed, "We know this man is a sinner." They could not understand how one could be so really human, and yet be untainted with sin! And then, did there not cling to Jesus the infirmities of our fallen nature, which, though sinless in him, were not the less the effects of sin? He hungered- he thirsted- he wept he was wearied- he slept- he was afflicted- he sorrowed- he trembled- he suffered- he died. And as we trace these infirmities of our humanity floating upon the transparent surface of his pure life, how forcible do we feel the words- "Made in the likeness of sinful flesh"! And when we see him traduced as a sinner by man, and- standing beneath his people's transgressions- dealt with as a sinner by God; by man, denounced as "a glutton," "a wine-bibber," "a friend of publicans and sinners," an "impostor," a "deceiver," a "blasphemer" then arraigned, condemned, and executed as a criminal not worthy to live, as an accursed one- by God, charged with all the sins of the elect church, bruised and put to grief, and at last abandoned by him on the cross, then numbered with transgressors, and making his grave with the wicked in his death- oh! how like sinful flesh was the robe of lowliness and suffering which he wore! And yet, "he was without sin." It was the resemblance, not the reality. The human nature of the Son of God was as free from sin as the Deity it enshrined. He was the "Lamb of God without spot." The least taint of moral guilt- a shade of inherent corruption- would have proved fatal to his mission. One leak in the glorious Ark which contained the Church of God, had sunk it to the lowest depths. Oh! this is the glory of his work, and the solace of our hearts, that Christ our Savior "offered himself without spot unto God." And now we may plead his sinless oblation as the ground of our pardon, and the acceptance of our persons. "He has made him to be sin for us who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him." The Lord bless these truths to the comfort and edification of our souls.

"And for sin condemned sin in the flesh;" or, "by a sacrifice for sin." And what was that sacrifice? It was God's own Son- "who gave himself for us." "And when he had by himself purged our sins." "Christ also has loved us, and has given himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling savor." By this sacrifice he "condemned sin in the flesh." The word never implies simply to destroy, or remove. Consequently the present and entire destruction of sin in the believer was not the condemnation secured by the sacrifice of Christ. But in two senses we may understand the word. First, he bore the condemnation and punishment of sin, and thus forever secured our pardon. Secondly, and chiefly, he actually so condemned sin in his own material body, that it lost the power of condemning his spiritual body, the Church. So that neither sin, nor the consequence of sin, can ever lay the believer under condemnation. Thus, while sin condemned Jesus as the Surety, Jesus condemned sin as the Judge, assigning it to its own dark and changeless doom. That, therefore, which itself is condemned, cannot condemn. Thus it is that the last song the believer sings, is his sweetest and most triumphant- "O death! where is your sting?" Sin being condemned, pardoned, and forever put away, death, its consequent and penalty, is but a pleasing trance into which the believer falls, to awake up perfected in God's righteousness.

In conclusion, let us, in deep adoration of soul, admire God's illustrious method of meeting the impotence of the law. How suitable to us, how honoring to himself! Relinquishing all thought of salvation by the works of the law, let us eagerly and gratefully avail ourselves of God's plan of justification. Let our humble and believing hearts cordially embrace his Son. If the law is powerless to save, Christ is "mighty to save." If the law can but terrify and condemn, it is to drive us into Christ, that we might be justified by faith in him. In him there is a full, finished, and free salvation. We have but to believe, and be saved. We have but to look, and live. We have but to come, and be accepted. Disappointed of our hope in the law, and alarmed by its threatenings pealing in our ears louder than seven thunders, let us flee to Jesus, the "Hiding place from the wind, and the covert from the tempest." There is no condemnation in Christ Jesus. All is peace, all is rest, all is security there. The instant that a poor trembling sinner gets into Christ, he is safe to all eternity. Nor can he be assured of safety one moment outside of Christ. Repair, then, to the Savior. His declaration is- "Him that comes unto me I will in no wise cast out." None are rejected but those who bring a price in their hands. Salvation is by grace; and not to him that works, but to him that believes, the precious boon is given. The turpitude of your guilt, the number of your transgressions, the depth of your unworthiness, the extent of your poverty, the distance that you have wandered from God, are no valid objections, no insurmountable difficulties, to your being saved. Jesus saves sinners "to the uttermost,"- to the uttermost degree of guilt- to the uttermost limit of unworthiness- to the uttermost extent of time. And not only let us look to Christ for salvation, but also for strength. Is the law weak? "Christ is the power of God." He is prepared to perfect his strength in our weakness. And the felt conviction of that weakness will be the measure of our strength. Without him we can do nothing; but strong in his might, we can do all things. "In the Lord I have righteousness and strength." And "in him shall all the seed of Israel be justified, and shall glory."

How should this subject deepen our love! "God is love," and the expression of that love is the sending his own Son into the world, to achieve what the law, in its weakness, could not do. Was ever love like this? "God so loved." And was Jesus willing to engage in the embassy? Did he voluntarily clothe Himself in our rags, stoop to our poverty, consent to be arrested and thrown into prison for us? Was he made a curse that he might deliver us from the curse? Did judgment pass upon him that we might be saved from the wrath to come? O here is infinite, boundless love! Then let him have in return our love. It is the least that he can ask, or we can make. Let it be a hearty, cordial, obedient, increasing love. Alas! it is but a drop, when it should be an ocean. It is but a faint spark, when it should be a vehement flame. O how should our best affection flow out toward him who assumed, and still wears, our nature! What an attractive, winning object is the Incarnate God, the God-man Mediator! Fairer than the children of men, the chief among ten thousand, the altogether lovely One, he is the wonder and admiration, the love and song, of all heaven. O why should he not be equally so of all earth? Did the Son of God take up our rude and suffering nature, and shall we be sluggish to take up his lowly and despised cross, and follow hard after him? Forbid it, Lord! Forbid it, precious Savior! What humiliation, what abasement, can be too much for us, the sinful sons of men, when you, the sinless Son of God, did so abase and humble yourself! O let your love constrain us to stand firm to you, to your truth, and to your cause, when the world despises, and friends forsake, and relatives look cold, and all seem to leave and forsake us. And as you did condescend to be made in the likeness of our human and sinful nature, O conform us to the likeness of your Divine and holy nature. As you were a partaker with us, make us partakers with you. As you were made like unto us, in what was proper to man, make us like you, in what is proper to God. And as you did come down to our sinful and dim earth, lift us to your pure and bright heaven!

"The Unregenerate and the Regenerate Contrasted"

"For those who are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh; but those who are after the Spirit the things of the Spirit." Romans viii. 5.
"Those who live according to the sinful nature have their minds set on what that nature desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires." Romans 8:5

Two different classes are here presented to our view, in striking and solemn contrast. With regard to the first, a more accurate, and at the same time a more awful, portrait of the carnal state of man exists not in any language than this. He is described as living after the flesh. And lest it should be supposed, as by some it is, that a corrupt tree can bring forth good fruit, or, in other words, that holiness is the natural product of our unrenewed nature, it is added, who "mind the things of the flesh." But before we go more fully into the unfolding of this subject, we should remark, that the term "flesh" has various significations in God's word, often decidedly opposite to that which it bears in the passage before us. For example, it is sometimes used to denote a softened disposition of mind: "I will give you a heart of flesh." Again, it sets forth the tender and close union subsisting between Christ and his Church: "No man ever yet hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, even as the Lord the Church." A yet deeper and more sublime signification it assumes when used to describe the mysterious incarnation of the Son of God: "The Word was made flesh." But the sense in which the word is employed in the text under consideration, is totally different to any we have quoted. It designates the fallen and carnal state of the unrenewed man. He is after the flesh, and his whole life is in accordance with the dictates of the flesh. Our Lord thus describes it- "That which is born of the flesh is flesh." That is, it is nothing more than carnal and corrupt. It is originally corrupt, and corrupt it remains until it perishes. "When we were in the flesh, the motions of sin, which were by the law, did work in our members to bring forth fruit unto death." We are thus taken to the very root of all the depravity and crime which afflicts and degrades our common nature. It is not so much the outbreak of sin- the wretchedness and woe which, working upwards, floats upon the surface of society; that presents to a spiritual eye the most afflicting view of man's fallen condition, as the fact, that the root of all iniquity dwells in his nature; and that, when he hates God, and opposes his government, and violates his laws, and injures his fellow-creatures, it is not an accident of his nature, nor the effect of a surprisal into sin, like that of our first parents, as it is the working out of an original and natural principle; it is the development of an innate and deep corruption, coursing its way upward, as we have said, from the concealed depths of his nature to the surface of his life. And thus, though the ethics of a man be sound, and his life be in harmony with the morality of his creed, yet in the absence of the Spirit's regeneration, he is still emphatically "after the flesh:" he bears about with him an original principle of evil, whose existence links him to the flesh, the full development of which is only suppressed by the laws of society, a consciousness of right and wrong, a natural regard for his own well-being, and the overruling power of God.
But we shall, perhaps, form a more accurate idea of this affecting state, in the further consideration of its workings, upon the same principle by which we judge the species of a plant by its flower, or of a tree by its fruit. It is said, that "they who are of the flesh, do mind the things of the flesh." The idea is, that all the objects of attraction, the desires and pursuits of the carnal mind, are corrupt and worldly. The phrase, "do mind the things of the flesh," may express two ideas. First, and primarily, the exercise of the intellect; second, and by implication, the exercise of the affections. "Set your affection upon things above:" literally, set your mind. But what an awful charge thus alleged against unrenewed men! Nor is this charge unsustained by adequate proof. It is impossible, in the nature of things, that a corrupt mind could give its consideration to things opposed to itself. No nature can transcend its own powers. Each act must be in harmony with the character of the principle from where it emanates. A beast cannot act as a man, without participating in the human. A human being cannot act with the power of an angel, without partaking the nature of the angelic. How, then, can that which is after the flesh, act as that which is after the Spirit? In other words, how can a carnal mind put forth the actions of a holy mind, unless it first become holy? How can a man believe without possessing the principle of faith? or love, without the principle of love? "Israel is an empty vine, he brings forth fruit unto himself." (Hebrew, "equal to himself") that is, a fruit partaking of his own nature. Our Lord embodies the same idea in his peculiarly graphic language: "A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit." And then follows the solemn result: "Every tree that brings not forth good fruit, is hewn down and cast into the fire." We have thus most distinctly placed before us this solemn truth- that a fleshly or corrupt mind must act agreeably with its own nature; and so acting, must be supremely engrossed with the things of the flesh. This, too, must be the character of its religion. All its conceptions and ideas must be in harmony with its unrenewed nature. "The natural man receives not the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness unto him; neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned." The product of a fallen nature, the natural and spontaneous growth of a corrupt soil, the fruit must correspond with the character of the seed sown. The religious perceptions of such a mind must be crude and obscure, for they are the perceptions of a darkened understanding. The proffered homage of such a heart must be vain and dissembled, since it is the homage of a heart alienated from God. Such, too, must be the worship offered to that Being who is a Spirit, and who requires of those who worship him, that they worship him in spirit and in truth. Its ritual may be sound, its rites may be scriptural, its forms may be solemn, its offerings may be costly, it is still the sacrifice of the dead offered to a living God! It is the worship of those who are "walking according to the flesh." And with all the apparent thirstings of a carnal mind after a knowledge of God- and in some cases we know how deep that thirst may be- there is a starting off from, no more, there is a deadly opposition to, God the moment he approaches wearing the character revealed in his Word. Just as Adam, who ate the fruit in the vain conceit of increasing his knowledge, yet when God, the Object and the Fountain of knowledge, drew near in the pleasant Eden, at evening's cool, calm twilight, he fled the Divine presence, and hid himself amid it's bowers. Such only "know Christ after the flesh." They know him intellectually, historically, speculatively, notionally, and this is the extent of
their knowledge of God. They may designate him "our Savior," and profess no other way to heaven but by him; and yet, sad to affirm, all their conceptions of his glory, and all their views of his works, and all their protestations of attachment to his person, are those of one who, living in the flesh, "knows Christ only after the flesh."

"Do mind the things of the flesh." What expressive words! All their pursuits are fleshly. Those pursuits may be, in the world's view, noble, daring, refined- they may have a tendency to develop great mental powers, to call into exercise mighty energies, to elevate the taste, to soften and refine the feelings, and even, to a certain extent, advance the present well-being of society- yet is it but a "minding of the things of the flesh." Contemplate the enjoyments and pursuits of the carnal mind in what light you may- the most intellectual and elevated- they yet spring from the flesh, are bounded by the flesh, and with the flesh they perish. This is your character, if not born again of the Spirit. It is not necessary that you mind all the things of the flesh in order to constitute you a carnal man. It is enough to fasten this character upon you, that you have given yourself over to the indulgence or the pursuit even so far as one of these things. A sinner may not be a debauchee, and neither the one nor the other may be an aspiring politician. But whatever the reigning passion may be, if it has the effect of attaching you to some one object that is in the world, and which with the world will terminate and perish- then still your mind is in subjection to an idol, and the death of the carnally minded is your inheritance and your doom. Do not be deceived then, you men, who, engrossed with the cares, and observant of all the sobrieties of business, are not addicted to the influences of dissipation; nor you, who, heedless of wealth's accumulations, can mix an occasional generosity with the squanderings of intemperance and riot; nor you, who, alike exempted from sordid avarice or debasing sensuality, have yet, in pursuit of an ascendancy over the mind and the measures of your fellow men, made 'power' the reigning felicity of your existence; nor yet even you, who, without any settled aim after one or the other of these gratifications, fluctuate in giddy unconcern from one of the world's frivolities to another. None of you mind all the things of the flesh; yet each of you mind one or the other of these things, and that to the entire practical exclusion of the things of the Spirit from the preference of your habitual regards. We do not charge you with a devotion of heart to all these things in the world which are opposite to the love of the Father, any more than we charge you with idolatrously falling in obeisance to all the deities of a heathen polytheism. But still, if only one of these divinities be your God, this would be enough to constitute you an idolater, and to convict you of a sacrilegious disavowal of the King who is eternal and immutable. And so, your one earthly appetite, though free from the tyranny of all the others; your habit of ungodliness- though it be the only one that breaks out into visible expression in the history of your life- of itself renders you a carnal man; of itself drives you from the spiritual territory; of itself proves that you are still one of the children of this world; and that you have not passed from death unto life.

"But those who are after the Spirit the things of the Spirit." They who are after the Spirit undoubtedly are those who are the subjects of the Spirit's renewing grace. "That which is born of the Spirit is Spirit." Under his teaching and oh, who teaches like him?- they have renounced their own works of righteousness as dead works; feeling, to use the figurative language of the prophet, "the bed is shorter than a man can stretch himself in it, and the covering narrower than that he can wrap himself in it." They have broken their covenant with death, and have disannulled their agreement with hell, and fleeing out of all their "refuges of lies," they have betaken themselves to the Lord Jesus Christ, and have experienced him to be their "It wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption."
What a marvellous revolution is this, effecting a total moral change in the whole spiritual and intellectual man, yet without impairing a single mental faculty or power! The mind not unbalanced, is rather strengthened and regulated by the change. The affections, not alienated and contracted, are expanded and fixed upon their lawful object. The will has not lost a particle of its liberty, but is more free than ever, since, drawn by the Spirit, it now blends harmoniously with the Divine will. The whole man is identically the same individual- yet how transformed! The prodigal alien has become a penitent child; the slave, a freeman; the man dwelling among the tombs now sits at the Savior's feet, clothed, and in his right mind. Who but the Eternal Spirit could effect this wondrous revolution?
But more than this. Having dethroned the enemy, the Spirit now enthrones himself. Having swept and garnished the abode, he enters, and makes it his unchangeable dwelling. Thus living and reigning in the soul, believers are brought under the government of the Spirit. It may emphatically be said of them, that they "mind the things of the Spirit." The new and Divine nature within is exercised upon things congenial with itself. Confronted by the powerful phalanx of the flesh, with which he holds a severe and ceaseless warfare, the Christian is yet at times enabled to concentrate his attention upon the things of the Spirit. He walks with God in his temporal calling; he holds communion with heaven while yet the present life fetters him to earth; he has spiritual desires, and holy breathings, and successful contests, in the hottest battle with the law of his members. The one bent of his inclinations, the single aim of his mind, is to the "things of the Spirit." His nature being spiritual, so are his religious enjoyments. Does he sing?- it is with "spiritual songs." Does he pray?- he "prays in the Spirit." Does he call Jesus Lord?- it is "by the Spirit." Is he Christ's?- he "has the Spirit of Christ." Thus believers walk in the Spirit; they follow the dictates of the Spirit; they yield themselves to the teaching of the Spirit; and they bring forth in their due season "the fruits of the Spirit."
By this truth let us test the reality of our religious profession. In this light let us closely examine our Christian character and walk. What, reader, is the habitual and supreme bent of your mind? Is it that which is spiritual, or that which is carnal? Judge of your preparation for death, in the near view of its approaching solemnities. Decide upon your state for eternity, in the rapid progress of its deepening shadows. Ascertain the real state of your case for the judgment, in the certain arrival of its dread scrutiny. You have your mind either set upon the things of the flesh, or upon the things of the Spirit. You are either born again from above, or are groveling in things below. You are either sanctified, or you are unholy. You are for the Lord, or you are against him. You are either Satan's slave, or Christ's
freeman. Which? You inquire, "How may I know that I am of the Spirit?" We answer, by your producing the fruits of the Spirit. A broken heart for sin- a felt conviction of the hidden plague- a humble and a contrite spirit- an utter rejection of a human righteousness- a simple, believing reception of the Lord Jesus- and a breathing after Divine conformity, are evidences of a renewed and sanctified state. If these are yours in any degree, then you are of the Spirit.
But rest not here. Be exhorted to walk in the Spirit. Do not be satisfied with having the question decided in your favor- with just barely knowing that you have crossed the line that separates the regenerate from the unregenerate- death from life. Remain not where you are: go forward. Do not be content with a low standard. Compare not your Church with other Churches, nor yourself with other Christians; nor measure yourself by yourself. But fix your eye upon Christ; copy his example, imbibe his mind, and place yourself under the government of his Spirit. Strive to go forward! Endeavor to be always sowing to the Spirit. Be satisfied with the Lord's disposal of you. Study the divine art of contentment. Be convinced that what the Lord ordains is best. Covet but little of earthly good; and, as an old divine exhorts, "sail with a low gale." Lie low. The great secret of a holy and of a happy life is contained in a small compass- walking humbly with God. In all failures in duty, in all shortcomings in practice, in all transactions with God, and in all dealings with man- remembering the innumerable traces of imperfection and sin found upon all you do- deal frequently, closely, with the atoning blood. "Wash and be clean."

"Spiritual-mindedness"

"For to be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace."- Romans viii. 6.
"The mind of sinful man is death, but the mind controlled by the Spirit is life and peace;" Romans 8:6

It will not be disputed that the true test of excellence is its nearest approach to perfection. To nothing will this rule more strictly apply than to the Christian character. Essentially considered, there can be no difference between one believer and another. Both are equally the objects of God's love, and alike the subjects of his regenerating grace. Both stand on an equal footing of acceptance, and participate the same in the immunities which belong to the children of God. But it cannot be denied, nor must it be concealed, that there is a great and marked difference in the moral influence which one Christian exerts beyond another. In the measure of his grace- in the depth of his Christianity- in the vigor of his faith- in the luster of his holiness- in the glory he brings to God, and in the consequent happiness of which he is conscious. It may be truly said of the Church on earth, as of the Church in heaven, "one star differs from another." And to what is this variation to be traced? Undoubtedly to a difference in the tone of spiritual-mindedness. The one is the man of a low, the other of a high Christian standard. Drawing their life, light, and support from one center, they yet seem to move in widely distant orbits. The one seems nearer to the Sun than the other. And thus, standing in a closer proximity to the Fountain of all grace, he draws from its fulness the more largely, and dispenses the more freely. His humble walk with God, his close adherence to Christ, his following the Lord fully, imparts a charm to his piety, a brilliance to his example, and a potency to his influence, which place him in the highest rank of Christian men.
In the passage before us two characters are presented to our view: the carnal mind, with its awful consequence; the spiritual mind, with its holy and heavenly fruit. "To be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace."

"To be carnally minded is death." If there is one consideration which more than another gives us a vivid and impressive view of man's deep apostasy from original holiness, it is the fact, that not only the lower sentiments and feelings of his nature are utterly and awfully debased, but that the higher and nobler parts of his being– the rational, the intellectual, the moral- have felt the vibrations of the shock, and share alike in the common ruin. In the strong language of the apostle, he is "carnally-minded." Now, to be carnally minded, in the sense of the passage, implies a condition in which the whole soul is entirely engrossed with things correspondent to its fallen nature. This desperate state is not resolvable simply into a flaw of the understanding, or an occasional starting off of the heart from God, but into a deep and thorough carnalization of that which distinguishes him from the brute creation, and which links him in the closest resemblance to God- the MIND. The carnal mind thus describing and governing the whole man- all his thoughts and feelings, pursuits and pleasures, like the stream from the fountain, correspond with its nature. "Many walk of whom I have told you often, and now tell you even weeping (Paul had his tears of sympathy for poor unconverted sinners: how many have we?) that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ; whose end is destruction, whose God is their belly, and whose glory is in their shame, who mind earthly things." This is the broad seal affixed to every unregenerate individual- "who mind earthly things." Select the most intellectual, ennobling, and useful objects that ever gave development to genius, and birth to thought, or awoke the energies and enterprise of men, and, compared with his eternal interests, what contemptible puerilities do they appear! Survey the whole life of an unconverted man: how unworthy his rational being, and his deathless existence, is that life! "Are these men?" we are tempted to ask.
"See what low-browed bearing- what groveling pursuits, what contemptible enjoyments! The honors he wears, what baubles! The things he pursues, what shadows! The pleasures he indulges, what bubbles!" Again we ask, Are these men? Are they rational? are they sane? are they soon to die? are they on their way to eternity? do they really believe in a God- in a hereafter- in a judgment- in a hell?
And what is the awful consequence of this condition? It issues in death, present and eternal death. "To be carnally minded is death." The nature of the death here spoken of is defined by the tense. It is a present death. To be carnally minded is death- it is death now. To the life of God- the high spiritual life which every believer lives- the unregenerate are dead. Bring them to the test. Address them upon things congenial with their nature, they are all life and animation. Bring before them some subject with which their habitudes of thought are familiar, or with which their taste assimilates- let it be, for example, the progress of literature, or the discoveries of science, or the state of the funds, or the bearings of politics, a painting, an oratorio, or a book, and you have touched the spring which moves all the sympathies and powers the soul. Converse with the scholar of his Homer, with the philosopher of his Newton, with the poet of his muse, with the astronomer of his stars, with the banker of his bullion, with the merchant of his market, with the farmer of his cattle, with the sensualist of his pleasures, with the husband of his bride, with the mother of her first-born, and you have awakened the devotion and enthusiasm of the heart in favor of its fond and worshiped idol. To all this the carnal mind is alive. But alas! the end of these things is death. Change your theme. Meet him in the busy hum of business, or lonely plying his daily task, or amid the heat and excitement of his speculations and his pleasures, and speak to him of Jesus; breathe that name which fills the church below with its fragrance, and the church above with its music, and there is no echo; no responsive chord vibrates to your touch; it is as though you had told your story to a senseless automaton, or had chanted your music to the ear of a corpse. Death is there.
But this is not all. All? O no! it is but the preface, the prelude to that which is to come. Men are compelled in their calculations to look forward to death- but the remote consequences of death they ponder not. "After death the judgment." But this judgment they take not into their calculations. A simple fact may afford an impressive illustration of this phase of the unregenerate mind. A young man, whom he had known as a boy, came to an aged Professor of a distinguished continental University, with a face beaming with delight, and informed him that the long and fondly-cherished desire of his heart was at length fulfilled- his parents having given their consent to his studying the profession of the law. As the University presided over by his friend was a distinguished one, he had repaired to its law school, and was resolved to spare no labor or expense in getting through his studies as quickly and ably as possible. In this strain he continued for some time; and when he paused, the old man, who had been listening to him with great patience and kindness, gently said, "Well! and when you have finished your career of study, what do you mean to do then?" "Then I shall take my degree," answered the young man. "And then?" asked his venerable friend. "And then," continued the youth, "I shall have a number of difficult and knotty cases to manage: shall attract notice by my eloquence, and wit, and acuteness, and win a great reputation." "And then?" repeated the holy man. "And then!" replied the youth, "why then there cannot be a question- I shall be promoted to some high office in the state, and I shall become rich." "And then?" "And then," pursued the young lawyer, "then I shall live comfortably and honorably in wealth and respect, and look forward to a quiet and happy old age." "And then?" repeated the old man. "And then," said the youth, "and then- and then- and then I shall die." Here his venerable listener lifted up his voice, and again asked, with solemnity and emphasis– "And then?" Whereupon the aspiring student made no answer, but cast down his head, and in silence and thoughtfulness retired. This last "And then?" had pierced his heart like a sword- had darted like a flash of lightning into his soul, and he could not dislodge the impression. The result was, the entire change of his mind and course of his life. Abandoning the study of the law, he entered upon that of divinity, and expended the remainder of his days in the labors of a minister of Christ. O, it is the 'after consequences' that make death so terrible to the worldling. There exists a strong analogy between the present and future death of the unregenerate. The spiritual death of the sinner holds its gloomy reign in the empire of a soul, all whose intellectual and moral faculties and powers are instinct with life, are girt with strength, and glow with animation. There is a vivid impression made by external objects. There is a keen sense of animal enjoyment. There is a high relish of the sublime delights and lofty exhilarations of a virtuous heart and a cultivated mind. And still it is the empire of death. "Death reigns." Pass in imagination to the "second death," so vividly portrayed amid the splendors of the apocalypse. Neither is that terrible death an entire cessation of consciousness, of feeling, of sensibility. Far from it. Not a faculty of the lost mind is impaired; not a power of the soul is destroyed; not a feeling of the heart is blunted. No, all have acquired a development, and a strength, they never experienced before. Memory will summon back each past event with all the vividness of a present transaction. And passion will struggle intensely with its unsatisfied desire. And a burning sense of shame, of loss, and of suffering, will bear down the spirit to the fathomless depths of misery. Think not, O unregenerate man, that the "second death" is an unconscious slumber, or a mesmeric trance. O no! it is a living, an eternal death. There will be nothing to alleviate but the scathing, overwhelming conviction of the perfect equity of the sentence, the strict righteousness of the doom. God will say- "I created you for my glory. I placed you in that world to live for my praise. Where are the talents with which I created you- the gifts with which I endowed you- the rank with which I distinguished you- the substance with which I intrusted you- the influence with which I clothed you- the years which I lengthened out to you? You wicked and slothful servant! you have buried my gifts in the earth, and have lived to yourself- depart from me!" In view of a doom so tremendous and just, with what force and solemnity do the words fall upon the ear- "To be carnally minded is death!"

We now turn to a more pleasing theme. "But to be spiritually minded is life and peace." There will be no difficulty in determining the origin, and in detecting the evidences of this state. It springs from the life of God in the soul. Apart from this, there cannot possibly be any real spiritual- mindedness. True spirituality is the springing up of the living water of Christ in the renewed heart. It is the "bringing forth of fruit upward"- of a root of grace in the soul of the regenerate. There is much that bears the semblance of holiness, and which, with many, passes current as such, but which we are compelled to pronounce spurious and counterfeit. Such, for example, to a vast extent, is the apparent sanctity of the Romish Church. Far be it from us to decide thus positively upon every such case found in the most corrupt anti-Christian communion on earth. This would be to claim a power, and exercise a prerogative, which belong essentially and absolutely to God alone. That within the pale of the apostate church there have lived and died true and sincere men of God, cannot be denied. Such was the heavenly-minded Blaise Pascal, and his Port Royalist companions. Such, too, was Martin Boos, and others of
equal piety in the same communion. Does not the solemn call recognize this fact, "Come out of her, my people, that you do not be partakers of her sins, and that you receive not of her plagues?" And are we not told, that when the elect are made up, and shall "stand before the throne and before the Lamb," they shall be "a great multitude, which no man can number, of all nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues;" and that this shall be the anthem of all, "You were slain, and have redeemed us to God by your blood, out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation?" Thus from all communions, and from each fold, God will call out his hidden ones, who, amid much darkness, and error, and superstition, have groped their way to the cross; and who, sensible of the serpent's sting, have in simple faith looked alone for salvation to the crucified Savior; and in whose souls, beneath the mantle of superstition and error, there dwelt the dim but inextinguishable spark of a divine and heavenly light. Oh! how unspeakably great the mercy that, in a matter so momentous as our salvation, we deal with a God who searches the heart! Oh! cheering truth, that the Shepherd knows his sheep, in whatever fold they are found; and that the sheep know the Shepherd, however dim their perception of his grace and glory. "The foundation of God stands sure, having this seal, The Lord knows those who are his."
But we repeat the truth, that all real spiritual-mindedness is the offspring of a new and spiritual life in the soul. The state of which we speak is the effect of a cause, the consequent upon a certain condition of mind. Before a man can exercise any degree of true heavenliness, he must be heavenly. Before he can bring forth the fruits of holiness, he must be holy.
Dear reader, is this your condition? Have you the life of God in your soul? Have you passed from death unto life? Is the fruit you bear the result of your engrafting into Christ? You attend upon the service of the sanctuary; you visit the abodes of the wretched: you administer to the necessities of the poor; you are rigid in your duties, and zealous in your charities; but does it all spring from faith in Christ, and from love to God? Is it from life, or for life? Oh! remember, that the spiritual-mindedness which the Bible recognizes, of which God approves, has its root in the life of God in the soul!
But in what does spiritual-mindedness consist? It is the setting of the mind upon spiritual objects. The heart is fixed on God. The bent of the soul- its desires and breathings, are towards him. It is a firm, growing approximation of all the renewed faculties to spiritual and heavenly realities. God in Christ is the attraction of the heart. That the needle of the soul always thus steadily points to him we do not affirm; there are false attractions which lure the affections from God, and deaden the spirituality of the mind. To be carnally minded brings a kind of death even into the renewed soul; but this is not the reigning, predominant state. Let God remove that false attraction- let the Eternal Spirit apply with his own quickening power some precious truth to the heart, and the wayward, tremulous needle returns to its center; and the heart is again fixed on God, its exceeding joy. Oh, how holy and precious are these restorings!
Love to God is the governing motive of the spiritual mind. All desire of human admiration and applause pales before this high and holy principle of the soul. Its religion, its devotion, its zeal, its toils, its sacrifices, spring from love. Love prompts, love strengthens, love sweetens, love sanctifies all. This it is that expels from the heart the rival and false claimant of its affections, and welcomes and enthrones the true. It may, at times, like the pulse of the natural life, beat languidly, yet, unlike that pulse, it never ceases entirely to beat. The love of God in the soul never expires. Fed from the source from where it emanates, the holy fire, dim and dying as it may appear at times, never goes out. Have you this evidence of the spiritual mind, my reader? Does the love of Christ constrain you? It is the first and the chief grace of the Spirit; do you possess it? "Now abides faith, hope, and love, but the greatest of these is love." It is the main-spring, the motive power, of the spiritual mechanism of the soul- all its wheels revolve, and all its movements are governed by it. Is this the pure motive that actuates you in what you do for God? Or, do there enter into your service and your sacrifice, anything of self-seeking, of thirst for human approbation, of desire to make a fair show in the flesh, of aiming to make religion subserve your temporal interests? Oh, search your hearts, and see; sift your motives, and ascertain! Love to God- pure, unmixed, simple love- is the attribute of the spiritual mind; and, in proportion to the intensity of the power of love, as a motive, will be the elevated tone of your spirituality. Nor need there be any lack of this motive power. "God is love," and he is prepared to supply it to the mind's utmost capacity. We are straitened in ourselves, not in him. The ocean, on whose margin we doubtingly, timidly stand,
is infinite, boundless, fathomless. The Lord is willing to direct our hearts into its depths, but we hesitate and draw back, awed by its infinite vastness, or stumbling at its perfect freeness. But to attain to a high standard of heavenly-mindedness, we must have more of the love of God shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit, which he has given unto us. We must love Christ more.
It enters essentially and deeply into this state of spiritual- mindedness, that the heart be much with Jesus on the throne. "If you then are risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sits on the right hand of God. Set your affections (mind) on things above, not on things on the earth." To win heaven, the mind must become heavenly; and to be heavenly, it must habituate itself to heavenly things and heavenly pursuits. It is a law of our mental constitution, that the mind assimilates in its tone and habits of thought with the subject which most engrosses its study. Hence it its that we sometimes become men of one idea. Now the contemplation of divine and spiritual themes has a powerful tendency to spirituality and sanctify the mind. It seems impossible to breathe a heavenly atmosphere, and not be heavenly; to study holy things, and not be holy; to admire the image of Christ, and not resemble Christ; to have frequent communion with Jesus upon the throne, and not catch some stray beam of his glory. And apart from Christ nothing is really pleasant and satisfying to the heavenly mind. Without him, what a dreary, lonesome wilderness were this! But with Christ in the heart, and the heart resting in Christ– he in the center of our souls, and our affections and desires centering in him- the desert loses it solitude and its desolateness. To have the eye resting on Jesus– all our heart-springs in him- the spirit in frequent excursions where he dwells in light and glory- to lean upon him, and converse with him as though he were actually walking by our side, sitting at our board, associated with us in our callings- this, this is heavenly-mindedness. Such is the counter-attraction to the "things on the earth,"- the secularizing pursuits, the low-thoughted cares, the carnal enjoyments- which we so deeply need. And this powerful, counteracting influence which we possess is a realization of our resurrection with Christ, and his enthronement in glory.
Individual and close communion with Jesus, in the matter of confession of sin, and washing in the atoning blood, strongly marks the state of spiritual-mindedness. No Christian duty forms a surer test of the spiritual tone of the believer than this. The essence, the very life of spiritual-mindedness, is holiness; and the deepening of heart-holiness is the measure of our sanctity of life. Now, there can be no progress in holiness apart from a habit of frequent laying open of the heart in the acknowledgment of sin to Christ. The conscience only retains its tenderness and purity by a constant and immediate confession; and the heart can only maintain its felt peace with God as it is perpetually sprinkled with the blood of Jesus. The soul thus kept beneath the cross preserves its high tone of spirituality unimpaired in the midst of all the baneful influences by which it is surrounded. "To maintain a conscience void of offence, I am persuaded I ought to confess sin more. I think I ought to confess sin the moment I see it to be sin; whether in company, or in study, or even preaching, the soul ought to cast a glance of abhorrence at the sin. If I go on with duty, leaving sin unconfessed, I go on with a burdened conscience, and add sin to sin. I think I ought at certain times of the day, to confess solemnly the sins of the previous hours, and seek their complete remission. I feel when I have sinned an immediate reluctance to go to Christ. I am ashamed to go. I feel as if it would not do to go; as if it were making Christ the minister of sin, to go straight from the swine-trough to the best robe; and a thousand other excuses; but I am persuaded they are all lies direct from hell. John argues the opposite way- 'If any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father;' and a thousand other Scriptures are against it. I am sure there is neither peace, nor safety from deeper sin, but in going directly to the Lord Jesus Christ. This is God's way of peace and holiness. It is folly to the world and the beclouded heart, but it is the way." Such were the holy sentiments and lofty aspirations of an eminently spiritual mind (McCheyne); and if we follow him as he followed the precepts of Christ, we must transcribe, and make his experience our own. The holy sensitiveness of the soul that shrinks from the touch of sin, the acute susceptibility of the conscience at the slightest shade of guilt, will of necessity draw the spiritual mind frequently to the blood of Jesus. And herein lies the secret of a heavenly walk. Acquaint yourself with it, my reader, as the most precious secret of your life. He who lives in the habit of a prompt and minute acknowledgment of sin, with his eye reposing calmly, believingly, upon the crucified Redeemer, soars in spirit where the eagle's pinion ranges not. He walks in secret places with God. "He shall dwell on high: his place of defense shall be the munitions of rocks." "There is a path which no fowl knows, and which the vulture's eye has not seen"- "it is the new and living way," "the royal highway wherein the saints alone walk with God." "No lion shall be there, nor any ravenous beast shall go up therein: it shall not be found there; but the redeemed shall walk there." Sprinkled with the blood of the Incarnate God, how holy, how awful the place! Who can walk there, and not be spiritually-minded?
The possession of the Holy Spirit in the fulness of his grace contributes essentially to the constitution of the spiritual mind. The great antagonist of carnality is the Spirit. "If we walk in the Spirit, we shall not fulfil the lusts of the flesh." "Do not be drunk with wine, but be filled with the Spirit." As the Spirit of God, he is the Author of all that is spiritual. As the Spirit of holiness, he maintains and carries forward the work of sanctification in the soul. He it is who forms, and he it is who leads forward, the spiritual mind. The large possession of the Spirit! nothing can exceed the blessing. Without the Spirit of God, what is man? He is the mark of every fiery assault, the prey of every prowling foe- a magazine of corruption, around which a thousand sparks- sparks of his own kindling- fall. But possessing the Spirit, even in its most limited measure, what is man? A living soul- a holy being- a temple of God- an heir of glory. But suppose him possessing the Spirit in the plenitude of His grace, not partially, but "filled with the Spirit,"- what must be the invincibility of his might in the resistance of sin! what the potency of his shield in disarming the power of temptation! and what the eminence of his attainments in spiritual mindedness, as a child of God! While others are girding for the conflict, or are adjusting their armor, he is covering himself with glory on the battle-field. While others are training for the race, he has well-near reached the goal. Filled with the Spirit, he is filled with all the fruits of the Spirit. Faith is vigorous, hope is bright, love is fervent. He is mighty in the "Spirit of power, and of love, and of a sound mind." It was this possession of the Spirit in his fulness which gave to the Apostles, who until then were so timid and unbelieving, such irresistible boldness and power on the day of Pentecost. Some in their hearing exclaimed, "These men are full of new wine." But the secret was, "they were all filled with the Holy Spirit." And the hearts of the great mass to whom they preached the crucified Savior, bowed before the power of their preaching, "as the trees of the woods are moved with the wind." O seek to be filled with the Spirit! then will your thirstings for God be deeper- your breathings after holiness intenser- your communion with your Heavenly Father closer, and your faith in Jesus stronger. The indwelling of the Spirit is the root of all holiness; but the communication of the Spirit in the plenitude of His gracious, sanctifying, Christ-transforming influence, is the secret of an elevated tone of heavenly-mindedness. Would you repel some strong assault, or vanquish some powerful corruption, or throw off some clinging infirmity, and wander by the verdant banks and quiet waters of fellowship with the Father and with his Son Christ Jesus? O ask, and you shall receive, the fulness of the Spirit.

"To be spiritually-minded is life and peace." Such are the fruits of a plant so divine and heavenly. Spiritual-mindedness is "life." We fearlessly challenge every believer- What has been the effect in your soul of a low state of grace? What has been the effect of carnal indulgence- of allowed sin- of needless communion with the world- of conformity to its policy and its pleasures- of unruly temper- of a volatile disposition, yes, of any species of carnality whatever; has it not been "death?" When a process of spiritual relapse has been allowed to proceed stealthily and unchecked; when the world, and sin, and self have gained an ascendency, what has been the consequence?- "death!" The habit of prayer may not have been totally neglected, but there has been no communion with God- and so there has been death upon prayer. The Bible has not been entirely unread, but no light has beamed upon the sacred page- and so there has been death upon the Bible. The means of grace have not been utterly forsaken, but no grace has distilled from these channels- and so there has been death upon the means of grace. Thus a spiritual deathliness has crept over the soul, the effect and fruit of indulged and growing carnality. But "life" is the blessed effect of heavenly-mindedness. It is life springing from life, or rather the inner life in its outer actings. What spiritual mightiness, almost omnipotent, does he possess whose mind, and heart, and faculties are deeply immersed in the Spirit of Christ– closely allied to the divine and heavenly! As sin is weakness, so holiness is strength. As carnality impairs, so spirituality invigorates. The one deadens, the other vivifies. Close dealing with Essential Life increases the life of spirituality. Much communion with Jesus draws forth "life more abundantly." It is impossible to live a life of faith in the Son of God, constantly taking to his blood every sin, to his heart every care, to his sympathy every sorrow, to his grace every corruption, to his arm every burden, without being conscious of new life, of augmented power, of increased heavenliness. Inquire of the man of prayer, what is the effect in his soul of close, filial communion with God? Ask the reflective mind what is the effect upon his spirit of holy meditation? Ask the conscience much beneath the cross, what is the result of the constant sprinkling of the atoning blood? And, as with one voice, and with one utterance, each believer will answer- "LIFE!" O, there is an energizing influence in spirituality, a quickening of the spiritual life in heavenly-mindedness, which he only can understand, whose converse is much with things heavenly, much with God. There is life in prayer, life in the word, life in ordinances, life in the enjoyment of vital religion, which transmits the thrill of its deep pulsations through the whole soul. Nor life alone in these. But when the storm of adversity blows- when sore affliction comes- when the "noise of the water-spout" is heard, and the tossing waves and the foaming billows roll over the soul- when the shadow of death is settling upon all creature-good; then, even then, the spiritual mind panting after life exclaims, "Though I walk in the midst of trouble, You will revive me." "This is my comfort in my affliction: for Your word has quickened me." And what is all this but the pledge and the prelude of the glorious consummation and crown of all- the life that is to come, even life everlasting?
But not life alone; "peace" also is a fruit of spiritual-mindedness. What peace of conscience does that individual possess whose mind is stayed upon spiritual things! It is as much the reward as it is the effect of his cultivated heavenliness. The existence of this precious blessing, however, supposes the exposure of the spiritual mind to much that has a tendency to rule and disturb its equanimity and repose. The Christian is far from being entirely exempt from those chafings and disquietudes which seem inseparable from human life. To the brooding anxieties arising from external things- life's vicissitudes, mutations, and disappointments- there are added, what are peculiar to the child of God, the internal things that distract- the cloudings of guilt, the agitations of doubt, the corrodings of fear, the mourning of penitence, the discipline of love. But through all this there flows a river, the streams whereof make glad the city of God. Coursing its way along the windings of a soul- often presenting to the eye the moral scenery of precipice and valley, undulating and wild, and all enshrouded in gloom, this peace of God diffuses a calmness, serenity, and sunlight over the spirit, creating in the heart an emotion and a melody more like the repose of the upper sanctuary, and the chimings of the heavenly Sabbath, than the feelings and music of earth. It is the peace of the heavenly mind, the peace which Jesus procured, which God imparts, and which the Holy Spirit seals. A heavenly mind soars above a poor dying world, living not upon a creature's love, or smile- casting its daily need upon the heart of a kind Providence- anxious for nothing, but with supplication and thanksgiving making known its requests unto God- indifferent to the turmoil, and vexations, and chequered scenes of worldly life, and living in simple faith and holy pleasing on Christ- thus detached from earth, and moving heavenwards by the attractions of its placid coast, it realizes a peace which passes all understanding. And if this be the present of the heavenly mind, what will be the future of the mind in heaven? Heaven is the abode of perfect peace. There are no cloudings of guilt, no tossings of grief, no agitations of fear, no corrodings of anxiety there. "There the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest." It is the peace of perfect purity- it is the repose of complete satisfaction. It is not so much the entire absence of all sorrow, as it is the actual presence of all holiness, that constitutes the charm and the bliss of future glory. The season of sorrow is frequently converted into that of secret joy- Christ making our very griefs to sung. But the occasion of sin is always that of bitter grief; our backslidings often, like scorpions, entwined around our hearts. Were there even- as most assuredly there will not be- sadness in heaven, there might still be the accompaniment of happiness; but were there sin in heaven- the shadow of a shade of guilt- it would becloud and embitter all. Thus, then, as heaven is the abode of perfect peace, he who on earth has his conversation most in heaven, approximates in his feelings the nearest to the heavenly state. His "peace shall be as a river, and his righteousness as the waves of the sea." O that our hearts were more yielding to the sweet, and holy, and powerful attractions of the heavenly world! Then would our conversation be more in heaven.
In conclusion. How great and exalted the heavenly calling of the Christian! Aim to walk worthy of it. Debase it not by allying it with a carnal mind. Impair not your spiritual life by enchaining it to spiritual death. Let the friendships which you cultivate, and the relationships of life which you form, be heavenly in their nature, and eternal in their duration. Seek to please God in all things. Rest not where you are, even though you may have attained beyond your fellows. Let your standard of heavenly-mindedness be not that of the saints, but of Christ. Study not a copy, but the Original. High aims will secure high attainments. He is the most heavenly, and the happiest, who the most closely resembles his Divine Master. Be much in your closet. There is no progress in spiritual-mindedness apart from much prayer; prayer is its nourishment, and its element. But leave not your religion there; let it accompany you into the world. While careful not to carry your business into your religion- thus secularizing and degrading it- be careful to carry your religion into your business– high integrity, holy principle, godly fear- thus imparting an elevation and sanctity to all its concerns. Be the man of God wherever you are. Let these solemn words be held in vivid remembrance- "I have created you for my glory. I have formed you for my praise. You are my witnesses, says the Lord." Heavenly-mindedness can only be maintained by the strictest vigilance. It is a delicate and fragile flower, susceptible of every variation of the spiritual atmosphere. Guard against that which checks its growth. Many are not aware how much frivolity of spirit, light conversation, foolish jesting, witticisms at the expense of Scripture-sanctity, novel reading, carnal music, unfit the heart for communion with God, and lessen the tone of its spirituality. Close communion with mere nominal religious professors is particularly to be avoided. Much more injury to spiritual-mindedness accrues from intimate friendship with such, than from those who assert no pretensions to a religious character. With the one we are apt to be less on our guard than the other. Avoid the world's amusements: they will eat as a canker into the very core of your spirituality. "Do not be conformed to this world," is a prohibition. "Our conversation is in heaven," is an exhortation which should never be absent from the eye of a traveler to the heavenly city. And why should not our conversation be in heaven? Are not its attractions many
and powerful? It is a holy place, and it is the place of the holy. There are the city of the living God, and the heavenly Jerusalem, and an innumerable company of angels, and the general assembly and church of the firstborn, which are written in heaven, and God the Judge of all, and the spirits of just men made perfect, and Jesus the Mediator of the new covenant. How rich is heaven! And there we, too, will shortly be. Why, then, should not our conversation be there? It will be recollected that when the high priest entered within the veil, bearing in his hands the blood of atonement and the smoking censer, the eyes of the congregation, who stood outside, followed him to the entrance as the curtain parted, and then veiled him from their gaze. And many a thrilling heart and trembling hope followed him within that holy place, its fervent sympathies clustering around him while he presented the offerings, and made intercession for the people. And many a longing eye intently and fondly watched for his return, when, with uplifted hands, he would bless the waiting congregation. Our great High Priest has passed within the veil. As our Advocate he fills heaven's high chancery. He loves us- remembers us- sympathizes with us- intercedes for us, and wears our names on his breast-plate and his ephod. And soon he will return in person to bless, with the first resurrection-glory, all those who "love his appearing." Oh! shall not our hearts be more where our most precious treasure is, and where our holiest and fondest hopes center, and where we ourselves shall shortly be? "What manner of people ought we to be in all holy conversation and godliness," who are "looking for and hastening unto the Lord's coming?" "The very God of peace sanctify you wholly; and I pray God your whole spirit, and soul, and body, be preserved blameless unto the coming of the Lord Jesus." The Lord grant that you may increasingly experience, that "to be spiritually-minded is life and peace;" and that in order to attain to this blessed state, we must live upon the Lord Jesus- be filled with the Spirit- be often at God's confessional- and, taking up our cross daily, be pressing onward and upward, denying all ungodliness and worldly lusts, and living soberly, righteously, and godly in this present world; looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Savior Jesus Christ; who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works."

"The Enmity of the Carnal Mind"

"Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be." Romans viii. 7.
"the sinful mind is hostile to God. It does not submit to God's law, nor can it do so." Romans 8:7

Having spoken of carnal-mindedness, the Apostle naturally proceeds to describe the carnal mind itself; exhibiting its great distinctive feature- hostility to God as manifested in non-subjection to the Divine government. To each of these particulars let us in the present chapter direct our attention.
"The carnal mind is enmity against God." There is something appalling to our moral feelings in the bare announcement of the subject. The spectacle is an awful one in the extreme, of the finite armed in dead hostility to the Infinite- of a creature measuring his power with God- opposing his will to God's will- his way to God's way- his end to God's end. And yet how disproportionate are our profoundest feelings of horror and commiseration to the atrocious nature and the tremendous consequences of the crime! Enmity against God! the greatest and holiest, the best and most powerful, of beings and of friends! And why this enmity? Upon what, in the character of God, or in the nature of his government, is this sworn hostility grounded? Is it because he is essential love? perfectly holy? strictly righteous? infinitely wise and powerful? For which of these perfections does the sinner hate him? Is it because he gave his Son to die for man, laying him a bleeding sacrifice on the altar of justice for human transgression? Is it because the sun of his goodness shines upon every being, and that he opens his hand and supplies the need of every living thing? Is it because he exercises forbearance and long-suffering, and is slow to anger, and of great kindness? For which of these good works does the sinner hate him? And to what extent is this enmity displayed? It rests not short of the destruction of the Divine existence. Man is at war with the very being of God. Atheism is not so common a crime of our humanity as some suppose. Theism is the natural conviction of the human mind. The idea of a Supreme Being is consistent with man's existence. Where has there ever existed a people without a God? or a nation without a temple? Paganism, prostrate at the shrine of idolatry; and apostate Christendom, bathing the standard of the cross in the blood of the martyrs; and Formalism, solemnly strutting in the crimson and purple of its gorgeous rites– each owns its belief in the existence of a God. But what God? Plainly not the God of the Bible; but a deity of its imagination. But in the existence of absolute atheism we are slow to avow our belief.
From the idea of a Deity it is impossible for the human mind to escape. "The fool has said in his heart, No God;" that is, "I desire no God." He does not deny His existence; he does not say there is no God, but he desires no communion with Him. He may at times attempt to reason himself into a belief in the utter negation of a Deity; but in the still hour of night the truth flashes upon his mind with irresistible and overwhelming conviction- "There is a God! and I cannot overcome, I cannot escape him." Yes, the carnal mind is enmity with the being of God. Sin is destructive of all being. Man is a suicide- he has destroyed himself; a homicide- his influence destroys others; a deicide- he would, were it in his power, annihilate the very being of God. What a proof of this have we in the crucifixion of the Son of God! When God brought himself as near to man as Infinity could approach, he exclaimed, "This is the Heir; come, let us kill Him!" and then proceeded to consummate the crime by nailing him to the tree!
But if further evidence were needed of man's decided and deadly hostility, we have it in the sentiments and feelings he cherishes towards the Lord Jesus Christ: "He that hates me," says our Lord, "hates my Father also." How completely this declaration sweeps away all the fancied reverence and admiration for God which floats before the imagination of the carnal mind in its profound slumber! The God of whom he has thus been dreaming is not the God of revelation, but the god of his own creation. He is not the holy God whom the Bible makes known- of whom Jesus is the living and visible embodiment- but an imaginary being clothed with attributes, and administering a government harmonizing with the corrupt tastes and sinful propensities of his carnal mind. Away with your religion of nature, of sentiment, of poetry! All that you know of the music of God, is the Eolian breathing of the wind; all that you see of the glory of God, is the brilliance of the star; all that you understand of the eternity of God, is the expanse of the ocean; and of the omnipotence of God, is the fastness of the mountain and the rock. A disciple, not of Christ, but of Spinoza, your religion is sheer Pantheism, confounding with His material works the Maker and Governor of the universe. The god whom you profess to adore and worship is not the God manifested in Christ, whose justice and holiness, whose wisdom and truth, are blended and harmonized with grace and love in the cross of Calvary. Of what value is your fancied admiration of God's character, while yet hating, despising, and rejecting the Son, who is the "brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person"? Your heart is a stranger to holiness, and your mind to peace, while prostrate before a deity of your own imagination- a fictitious god. "Oh! give us some steady object for our minds to rest upon!" was a common exclamation in the prayers of the great and good Chalmers, in the days of his unregeneracy, when tossed amid the breakers of Mirabaud's pantheistic philosophy. Of this want, you, my reader, are perhaps deeply and painfully sensible. There is nothing in your creed; nothing in your vague, shadowy, unreal conception of Deity, to fix your thoughts, to soothe your spirit, to allay, your fears, to awaken your affections, and to inspire your hope. Your altar is reared, and your incense is offered, but it is to the "unknown god."

But what is the alleged ground of this hostility, of the carnal mind? The non-subjection of the mind to the government of God. "It is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be." The secret is now revealed. God is the moral governor of the universe. Oh! this is the real issue between him and the sinner. This constitutes the real secret of his alarming, inveterate hostility to the Divine Being. The question at issue is- Who shall govern- God or the sinner? The non-subjection of the carnal heart to God's law- its rebellion against the Divine government– clearly indicates the side of this question which the carnal mind takes. You may, my reader succeed in reasoning yourself into the belief that you admire, adore, and love God as your Creator and Benefactor, and only feel a repugnance, and manifest an opposition, to him as a Lawgiver. But this is impossible in fact, however poetic or specious it may be in theory. In a purely human government we admit that the person and the office of the judge may be separable. For example, an individual may be a personal friend of the sovereign, and yet an avowed opponent of his government. Doubtless, during the Commonwealth there were many who loved Cromwell for his piety, and admired him for his manliness, who yet condemned many of the measures of his government as harsh and despotic. But the moral government of God does not admit of this refined distinction. His nature and his office, his person and his throne, are one and inseparable. No individual can possibly be a friend to the being of God, who is not equally friendly to the government of God. Now the moral law is offensive to the carnal mind. And why? Because of the holiness of its nature, and the strictness of its requirements. It not only takes cognizance of external actions, but it touches the very springs of action, the motives that lie concealed in the human heart, and regulate the life. It demands supreme affection and universal obedience. To this the carnal mind demurs. If Jehovah will relax the rigor of his law, and abate the stringency of its requirements, and soften the sternness of its demands- if, in other words, God will lay aside his regal character, descend from his throne, forego his sovereignty, and lay aside his scepter- then the war is at an end; the controversy ceases; the rebel lays down his weapons. It clearly appears, then, that the whole ground of dispute between these two extremes of being resolves itself into the question- "Who shall reign, God or the sinner?" But will God yield his right to the throne? Never! Can he relax one iota of the strictness of
his law? Impossible! Heaven and earth shall pass away, but not one tittle of his law shall fail. If in any single case this could have been done, surely it would have been in that of his beloved Son. And yet, Jesus neither asked as a favor, nor accepted as a boon, the slightest abatement of the law he came to fulfil. He entered into no negotiation for the least compromise either of the stringency of the precept or the sternness of the penalty. It was the glory of the law that it demanded all from Christ, and it was the honor of Christ that he gave all the law demanded. Sinner! behold the true cause of your present hatred and hostility to God. You are not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be, because your mind is unregenerate. Your heart is unholy, and you dispute God's right to govern you.
There are some solemn conclusions to which we may arrive from this subject.
The utter impossibility of the sinner's admission into heaven with the carnal mind unchanged is most clear. Suppose an opposite ease. Imagine an unrenewed soul suddenly transported to heaven. In a moment it finds itself in the light, and holiness, and presence of God. What a scene of wonder, purity, and glory has burst upon its gaze! But, awful fact! horror of horrors! it is confronted face to face with its great enemy, the God it hated, loathed, and denied! Is it composed? Is it at home? Is it happy? Impossible! It enters the immediate presence of the Divine Being, its heart rankling with the virus of deadly hate, and its hand clutching the uplifted weapon. It carries its sworn malignity and its drawn sword to the very foot of the throne of the Eternal. "Take me out of here!" it exclaims; "this is not my heaven!" And then it departs "to its own place." But we are supposing an impossible case. For it is written of the heavenly city, "There shall in no way enter into it anything that defiles, neither whatever works abomination, or makes a lie; but those who are written in the Lamb's book of life." Listen to the declaration of the Great Teacher sent from God, "Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God." Do you ask what this new birth means? We reply, you must become a new creature in Christ Jesus. You must throw down your weapons before the Eternal God of heaven and earth. You must give up the quarrel. You must relinquish the controversy. You must cease to fight against God. You must submit to the law and government of Jehovah. Your will must bow to God's will. Your heart must beat in unison with God's heart. Your mind must harmonize with God's mind. Implacable hatred must give place to adoring love- deep ungodliness, to a nature breathing after holiness- stern opposition, to willing obedience- the creature, to the Creator- yourself, to God. O blissful moment! when the controversy ceases, and God and your soul are at agreement through Christ Jesus. When, dropping the long-raised weapon, you grasp his outstretched hand, and rush into his expanded arms, fall a lowly, believing penitent upon his loving bosom, take hold of his strength, and are at peace with him. O happy moment! No more hatred, no more enmity, no more opposition now! It is as though all heaven had come down and entered your soul- such joy, such peace, such love, such assurance, such hope do you experience! What music now floats from these words: "No condemnation in Christ Jesus." How blessed now to lean upon the breast which once you hated, and find it a pillow of love; to meet the glance which once you shunned, and find it the expression of forgiveness; to feel at home in the presence of him to whom once you said, "Depart from me, for I desire not the knowledge of your ways."
What an evidence of the reign of grace in the soul, when the mind fully acquiesces in the moral government of God! "The Lord God Omnipotent reigns," is the adoring anthem of every heart brought into subjection to the law of God. To the Christian how composing is the thought, that the government is upon Christ's shoulders, and that he sits upon the throne judging rightly. From hostility to the law of God, his heart is now brought to a joyful acquiescence in its precepts, and to a deep delight in its nature. "I delight in the law of God after the inward man." "O Lord!" he exclaims, "my holiness is in submission to your authority. My happiness flows from doing and suffering your will. I rejoice that the scepter is in your hands, and I desire that the thoughts of my mind, and the affections of my heart, may be brought into perfect obedience to yourself. Be my soul your kingdom, be my heart your throne, and let grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life."

"Pleasing God"

"So then those who are in the flesh cannot please God." Romans viii. 8.
"Those controlled by the sinful nature cannot please God." Romans 8:8

We have been contemplating, in the preceding expositions of this chapter, some of the various phases of the carnal mind. The Apostle now proceeds to a necessary consequence of the hostility of a mind governed by the flesh, and in rebellion against the law of God. "So then those who are in the flesh cannot please God." The doctrine thus set forth is, the utter impossibility of the unregenerate pleasing God. Having considered this primary truth, we shall then place in contrast with it the especial points in which the regenerate may be said to please God.
The utter impossibility of a carnal mind pleasing God springs from the necessity of the case. As the object of his displeasure, and as dwelling in a nature not only diametrically opposite to his own, in which lurks the latent virulence of a deep and implacable hatred, but every faculty and power of which is armed in the deadliest hostility to his government and being, it is impossible that it can please him. In whatever point of light you contemplate the unregenerate- taking the most intellectual and refined view, the utmost that can be said is, "He is in the flesh." We do not forget that there are degrees of carnality, even as there are degrees of spirituality; nevertheless, the law of God takes into account no degrees, recognizes no shades of difference, but regards all alike, unregenerate. The Bible solemnly and emphatically affirms, that a carnal mind cannot please a holy and righteous God. How could it possibly be otherwise? The apostle declares, "In me, that is in my flesh, dwells no good thing." What! no good thing? Nothing spiritually good? No, nothing. The purest ethics of the carnal mind are as the ointment of the apothecary which the fly has spoiled; and the most zealous and costly duties and sacrifices which it presents are but as 'splendid sins,' so long as that mind is yet under the dominion of the flesh. But these are only general statements of a most important truth; we pass to a few particulars. There being no personal acceptance of those who are in the flesh, consequently, whatever they do in the way of religious service cannot be accepted of God. First, the person, and then the gift, is God's order in the great method of our justification. We might refer to the narrative of Queen Esther's interview with the King Ahasuerus, and to Jacob's meeting with Esau, as illustrating this principle. It is most clear, that in both these instances- had Esther urged her suit in behalf of her nation without having awakened in the heart of the king a feeling of complacent regard towards her person- and had the offering of Jacob to his incensed brother preceded the presentation of himself, in either case there must have been a decided and mortifying, if not fatal result. Apply these illustrations to the believer. What imparts divine acceptance to his service? Why do his prayers ascend before God like fragrant incense
floating from a golden censer? Why does his lowliest offering of love cast into the Lord's treasury out-value the most splendid and affluent offerings of all the unconverted? Why is a sigh so full of meaning, and a tear so costly, and a desire so eloquent, and a heaven-lifted glance so expressive to God? Oh, it is because he is well pleased with his well-beloved Son, standing in whom the person of each believing sinner is fully accepted. We place this vital truth broadly before the unrenewed mind, and basing upon it the one important inquiry, we press its solemn consideration- How can you do that which is well-pleasing and acceptable to a holy God, while your person is to him an object of just, and holy, and utter abhorrence? While rejecting the Lord Jesus Christ, and refusing and despising the robe of his righteousness, with what complacency can God regard your meaningless modes of worship, your formal duties, and your heartless offerings? Will he not say, "Why do you keep parading through my courts with your worthless sacrifices? The incense you bring me is a stench in my nostrils! Your celebrations of the new moon and the Sabbath day, and your special days for fasting—even your most pious meetings—are all sinful and false. I want nothing more to do with them. I hate all your festivals and sacrifices. I cannot stand the sight of them! From now on, when you lift up your hands in prayer, I will refuse to look. Even though you offer many prayers, I will not listen." Isaiah 1:12-15. It was the robe of the elder brother that made Jacob's offering of venison savory and acceptable to Isaac. It is the righteousness of Christ, whose loveliness is upon us, which makes our every act of service and homage of love, an offering and a sacrifice to God of a sweet smelling savor.
The absence of faith in the unregenerate must render all the religious doings of the sinner equally displeasing to God. "For without faith it is impossible to please him." The first life we live is sense; the second is reason; the third, through the regenerating grace of the Spirit, is faith. And, until a man reaches this life he moves in an orbit unillumined by one ray from the sun of God's love. How can he please God whose whole existence is a direct denial of God? "Anyone who does not believe God has made him out to be a liar." God a liar! Astounding words! And yet to this awful conclusion unbelief comes. Your unbelief is a practical denial of his existence. Your unbelief is a practical denial of his sovereignty. You live as if there were no God! And, in your non-subjection to his law, you exclude him from the government of his own world. How can you, then, in your present course, do that which is pleasing to God? Oh, did you but truly, and in faith, grapple with that great foundation-truth of revealed religion, the being of God, believing that God is– did you but really believe in the existence of a hell- and did you but truly believe that God sent his beloved Son to save sinners from going down into that hell, you would not- no, you could not- live the life of practical atheism and ungodliness you now are living- a life of sin and of unbelief, of impenitence and worldliness; without God, without Christ, without hope in the world! Impossible! Faith is a quickening, elevating, sanctifying principle. A living faith produces living works. A divine faith purifies the heart. A heaven-descending faith works by love, endures as seeing Him who is invisible, and has respect unto the recompense of reward. "That which is not faith is sin." Apply this principle to all the religious duties of those who are still in the flesh, and by it test their real worth and acceptableness to God.
And what is the entire absence of love to God in the unregenerate but another confirmation of the same truth- God's displeasure against man, and man's utter inability to please him. The great constraining motive of the sacrifice with which God is pleased is love. Where this principle of love is not in operation there is lacking that which gives worth and aeceptableness to the act, however valuable and splendid that act may be. The divine moving-spring is absent; and all the works of the soul, if they move at all, are set in motion by a false action, and in a wrong direction. "Love is the fulfilling of the law." Without this heavenly affection there is no true obedience. A man may give "all his goods to feed the poor, and his body to be burned," yet destitute of love to God, his self-impoverishing charity, and his martyr zeal, avail him nothing. His religion is still but as "sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal."
What an affecting picture have we presented here of an individual living in deep, utter oblivion of God, burying his one talent- perhaps, his ten- in the earth- himself a cumberer of the ground! What, dear reader, has the past of your life been? Has it all been displeasing to God? What! not one act, not one service, not one sacrifice acceptable to, and glorifying of, him? Astonished, if not appalled by the charge, you perhaps reply, "Have I then done nothing really pleasing to my Creator? I have given my substance to extend the gospel, and my charity to feed the poor, and my labor to promote the general good; I have been punctual in the discharge of my religious duties, and upright and generous in my dealings with my fellows, has all this not been pleasing to God?" We ask, But have you given him your heart? Have you fled out of your own righteousness, and taken refuge beneath the righteousness of the incarnate God? Have not all these things of which you boast, and upon which you place a strong reliance, been but the working out a righteousness of your own, in the spirit of the vain-glorying, self-justifying Pharisee, who retired from the temple as he entered it- a sinner under condemnation? Oh, were your spirit to wing its way this night into the presence of God, you would awake to the awful consciousness of having lived in this world without a single act pleasing and acceptable to the holy, righteous Lord God! Oh, that the Eternal Spirit might lay this solemn truth upon your heart, and lead you to deep self-searching, to ascertain why this life- for every pulsation and for every act of which you must one day give an account to God- has hitherto been in opposition to the great end for which that God created and placed you here!
But this gloomy picture has its opposite- bright and beautiful. Reversed, it presents to our notice the character of those with whom God is pleased. They are a spiritual people, and God, who is a Spirit, must love and delight in that which harmonizes with his own nature. Faith may be feeble, and grace may be limited, and knowledge may be defective; yet, if there be just that strength of faith that travels to, and leans upon, the sacrifice of Jesus, and just that measure of love that constrains to a sincere, though imperfect, obedience, and just that extent of knowledge that knows Christ to be the Savior of a poor lost sinner, then, there is one who is pleasing to God. They are also an accepted people, and therefore their persons are pleasing to him. The delight of the Father in the person of his Son reveals to us the great secret of his marvellous delight in us. "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased." Blessed truth to those who see enough defilement and imperfection in their best doings to cover them with eternal confusion and shame! who, after the most spiritual performances, are constrained to repair in penitence and confession to Him who bears the iniquity of his people's holy things. Sweet truth to fall back upon in all the failures and flaws we are perpetually discerning in our works, in our motives, and our ends, blots not appearing upon the surface, but visible to the microscopic eye of faith, which sees material for self-condemnation where others, in their fond and blind affection, approve and applaud. If God, my Father, is well pleased in his Son, then is it a truth, strictly inferential, that he is well pleased in me whom he beholds in his Son. But not their persons only, their offerings also are equally pleasing to God. "I will accept you," (the person first,) "with your sweet savor," (the offering next). Their preceptive walk likewise pleases him. Is the obedience of the child, springing from love, a pleasing and acceptable offering to a parent's heart? Ah! how imperfectly are we aware of the beauty and fragrance there are to God in a single act of filial, holy obedience, the fruit and offering of a Divine and deathless affection.
But it is a universal pleasing of God which the Scriptures of truth prescribe and enforce. "That you might walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing, being fruitful in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God." As a minister of the Lord Jesus, see how the apostle felt the weight of this great precept- "For we speak as messengers who have been approved by God to be entrusted with the Good News. Our purpose is to please God, not people. He is the one who examines the motives of our hearts." 1 Thes. 2:4. Human opinion weighed lightly with him. What men thought of him as a preacher was a matter of very little importance; the grand point, the all-absorbing thought and one aim of his life was, so to preach as to please God. Oh, for the Christianity and spirit of Paul! Lord! vouchsafe it in a double measure to all who preach your great name. It is in this holy duty of aiming in all things to please God that we are sensible of such mighty power in prayer. "Whatever we ask, we receive of him, because we keep his commandments, and do those things that are pleasing in his sight." Prayer is a precious, priceless privilege. A present and potent weapon. All our blessings flow through its medium, and all our achievements we owe to its instrumentality. Whatever, then, adds to the power of prayer, should be hailed by us with gratitude, and employed with vigor. Would we be more mighty and prevalent in prayer? then let us in all things desire so to walk as to please our heavenly Father. "You come to the help of those who gladly do right, who remember your ways." Isaiah 64:5
But what are some of the footprints of this walk? How may we trace it? Unreserved obedience is an undoubted mark of being well-pleasing to God. An obedience that asks no abatement of the precept, but that follows the Lord fully in its observance, not from an enlightened judgment, but from a love- constrained heart- walking, as did the primitive saints, in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blamelessly- is indeed well pleasing to God. Oh, let there be no reserves in our obedience! Let us withhold from Christ no part of his purchased inheritance; but surrender all at his feet, whose heart's blood was the purchase-price of all. "Lord, however strait be the path, and painful the cross, and self-denying the precept, sincerely would I walk uprightly in all your ways, and fully follow you in all your commands, leaving the consequences of my simple and implicit obedience to your control. I can endure the hatred of the world, the alienation of friends, the coldness of relatives, and can take the spoiling of my earthly goods joyfully, if you, my Lord, sustain me with your grace, and cheer me with your presence, and solace me with your love."
Another footprint may be descried in the walk of faith by which the Christian journeys to his heavenly home. As unbelief is most dishonoring, so faith is most honoring to the Lord Jesus. What a revenue of praise accrues from it to his name! To repair with our anxiety, the moment it occurs, to his sufficiency; with our corruptions, the moment they are discovered, to his grace; with our sorrow, the moment it is felt, to his sympathy; with our wound, the moment it is inflicted, to his love; with our guilt, the moment it is detected, to his blood; oh! do you think not that this walk of faith is most pleasing to the Lord? Let us beware of that which impairs the simplicity of this our walk, and causes us to stumble or start aside. We must be cautious, in the varied circumstances of our history, of applying first to a human arm for support, or to a human bosom for sympathy. With this, the Lord cannot be well pleased. But let us not hesitate to bear them at once to the only appointed Source of all our supply: disclosing our needs to the full Savior, our wanderings to our Heavenly Father, our griefs and burdens to our Elder Brother and Friend; and in thus walking by faith, we shall have the divine assurance in our souls, our rejoicing this- the testimony of our conscience that we please the Lord.
To believing children how touching and forcible is this precept- "Children, obey your parents in all things: for this is well-pleasing unto the Lord." Not less so to Christian domestics- "Servants, be obedient to those who are your masters according to the flesh, with fear and trembling, in singleness of your heart, as unto Christ; not with eye-service, as men-pleasers; but as the servants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart; with good will doing service, as to the Lord, and not to men." Yes, to all who bear the Savior's name how solemn the exhortation- "Whether therefore you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God." Thus universal and binding is this sublime principle of action, which the gospel furnishes to all the followers of Christ. Oh, let us seek closely to resemble the two illustrious examples set before us in the Word, of this high and holy walk. The minor one- because purely human- of Enoch, who, "before his translation had this testimony, that he pleased God." The higher one- because the human was blended with the Divine- of Jesus, who could say, "I do always those things which please Him." Breathing from our heart on your behalf, beloved reader, the sublime and touching prayer of the Apostle, we conclude this chapter: "And now, may the God of peace, who brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, equip you with all you need for doing his will. May he produce in you, through the power of Jesus Christ, all that is pleasing to him. Jesus is the great Shepherd of the sheep by an everlasting covenant, signed with his blood. To him be glory forever and ever. Amen." Hebrews 13:20.

The Indwelling of the Spirit in the Regenerate

"You, however, are controlled not by the sinful nature but by the Spirit, if the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Christ." Romans 8:9

We have now arrived at those truths contained in this sublime chapter which have a more direct bearing on the experience of the children of God. Hitherto our topics have led us to address ourselves more especially to the unregenerate. Oh, that the solemn and searching delineations of unrenewed mind, of unsanctified affection, and of supreme devotion to self, gathered from the opening of the chapter, and pressed upon the reader's attention, may, by the power of the Holy Spirit, be received to the saving of the soul. Dismissing, then, the awful condition of the unconverted, the Apostle proceeds to address himself to the Christians at Rome, and at once plunges into the great mysteries and privileges, glories and hopes, of the believer's inner life. Two topics of thought invite our attention in this verse- The indwelling of the Spirit of God in the regenerate; and the great authenticating evidence of the fact- the possession of the Spirit of Christ. Let us discuss them in their order.

THE INDWELLING OF THE SPIRIT OF GOD IN THE REGENERATE

Scoffed at by the proud boaster of human reason, rejected by the cold formalist, and hated by the avowed enemy of practical godliness, as this doctrine is, it is yet a vital truth, and of marvellous interest to the child of God. It is, in fact, his life. We admit its profoundness, mysteriousness, and inexplicability; yet, apart from its individual, heartfelt experience, all religion, so called, is a counterfeit and a delusion.

The doctrine of the personal indwelling of the Spirit has been reduced, in the creed of some, to a mere poetical conception. Assimilation to the character and disposition of the Spirit in that which is amiable, sympathizing, and generous, has been made to take the place of an actual and personal residence of the Holy Spirit. And thus the indwelling of the Spirit of God in the soul of the regenerate- one of the fundamental verities of our faith- is narrowed down to the skeleton idea of a mere resemblance to spiritual grace and excellence. But in opposition to this dwarfish conception of a gigantic truth, how bold and explicit are the delineations and assertions of the Holy Scriptures. "Know you not that you are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?" "And because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts." Observe where the Spirit is said to dwell, not in the understanding, the fatal error of many- but in the heart. Most certainly he enlightens the understanding with the truth, but he does not rest there. He makes his way to, and takes up his abode in, the renewed and sanctified heart. There he sheds abroad the love of God. There he inspires the cry of "Abba, Father." And be that cry never so faint, it yet is the breathing of the indwelling Spirit, and meets a response in the heart of God. How affecting are Paul's words to Timothy: "That good thing which was committed unto you keep by the Holy Spirit which dwells in us." Timothy had no spiritual strength of his own. The Apostle therefore reminds him of a truth which, in his conscious weakness, was well calculated to cheer his heart, and encourage him to cultivate and use for Christ's glory the spiritual gift bestowed upon him, namely, the power of the indwelling Spirit. That self-same Spirit dwells in all true believers. Let it constrain us to stir up our spiritual gifts and graces– so prone to slumber and become inert- and employ them more devotedly for the Lord.

But what is THE GREAT EVIDENCE OF THE INDWELLING OF THE SPIRIT? Our possession of the Spirit of Christ. "If any man have not the Spirit of Christ he is none of his." Let us briefly direct our attention to this truth. It will be observed that the title is changed. In the former clause of the verse he is styled the "Spirit of God." In the latter clause, he is denominated the "Spirit of Christ." Why the Spirit of Christ? Because he proceeds from Christ, equally as of the Father. "Upon whom you shall see the Spirit descending, and remaining on him, the same is he who baptizes with the Holy Spirit," clearly recognizing a power on the part of Christ to send the Spirit. Our Lord, when alluding to the Holy Spirit, emphatically says, "Whom I will send unto you." What declaration could more clearly set forth the emanation of the Spirit from Christ, than this, thus justifying the title ascribed to him by the Apostle, as the "Spirit of Christ?" We are here supplied with a strong argument in favor of the Deity of the Spirit predicated upon the unity of the Father and the Son in the one Divine Spirit: the Holy Spirit, proceeding from, and wearing the title of both, must conclusively establish an essential unity of mind.

The reasonableness of such an evidence, authenticating the fact of the indwelling of the Spirit, is too obvious to question. An individual claiming to be Christ's, yet not possessing the Spirit of Christ, lacks the only irrefragable proof which establishes the validity of his claim, and thus his profession is falsified. But what is it to possess the Spirit of Christ?

The Spirit of Christ is the great convincer of sin. "He shall convince the world of sin." Have you thus received him? Has he discovered to you the moral leprosy of your nature, the exceeding sinfulness of sin? Do you know anything of the conflict of which the Apostle speaks in the preceding chapter of this Epistle- the law of the mind in battle with the law of the members? And has this discovery led you to self-condemnation, to self-renunciation, to lay your mouth in the dust before God? If this be so, then the Spirit of Christ is a Spirit of conviction in you, and by this you may know that you are Christ's.

The Spirit of Christ leads to Christ. He is to the sinner what John was to the Messiah- he goes before as the Forerunner of the Lord's salvation. He prepares the way, and heralds the coming of Jesus into the soul. This was one specific object for which he was sent, and which entered essentially into his mission- to lead men to Christ. Has he led you to Christ? Can you say, "Christ is made unto me wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption?" What do you think of Christ? Is his blood precious? Does his righteousness give you peace? Does his grace subdue your sins? Do you in sorrow travel to his sympathy, in weakness take hold of his strength, in perplexity seek his counsel, in all your steps acknowledge and wait for him? Is Christ thus all and in all to you? Then you have the Spirit of Christ. This we venture to assert for your encouragement. You may resort to Christ, and there may be no sensible apprehension, no realizing touch, no manifested presence; yet, if your heart goes out after Jesus, if your spirit travels alone to him- praying for his sympathy, panting for his grace, thirsting for his love, and you are led to say, "Lord, the desire of my heart is to your name, and to the remembrance of you. I seem not to see you, to touch you, to apprehend you; yet I come, and I find a heaven in coming; and for ten thousand worlds I dare not, I could not stay away"- then, dear reader, you have the Spirit of Christ, and are Christ's.

Not only does the Spirit lead to Christ, but he also conforms those thus led to the image of Christ. He guides us to Christ, not for consolation and instruction only, but also for assimilation. If we are humble, we have the Spirit of Christ- for he was humble. If we are meek, we have the Spirit of Christ- for he was meek. If we believe, we have the Spirit of Christ- for he lived a life of faith. If we love God, we have the Spirit of Christ- for he was the incarnation of love. If we are holy, we have the Spirit of Christ- for he was without sin. If we are obedient, meek, and self-denying in suffering, silent in provocation, submissive in chastisement, patient in tribulation, and rejoicing in hope, then have we the Spirit of Christ, for he was all this. Thus, the possession of this immense, this indispensable blessing, comprises two grand things- first, to become the subject of an actual and permanent indwelling of the Spirit; and, second, to be assimilated in character and disposition to the Savior. And while it is most certain that, if the first-mentioned blessing is attained, the second follows, yet it is to the second we are to look as the fruit and evidence of the first. The question, "Am I Christ's?" hinges upon the question, "Have I the Spirit of Christ?"

The subject lays the basis for the most solemn exhortation and appeal. As a temple of the Holy Spirit, yield yourself to his Divine and gracious power. Bend your ear to his softest whisper- your will to his gentlest sway- your heart to his holy and benevolent influence. In not hearkening to his voice, and in not yielding to his promptings, we have been great losers. Often has he incited to communion with God, and because the time was not seasonable, or the place not convenient, you stifled his persuasive voice, resisted his proffered aid, and thus slighted and grieved, he has retired. And lo! when you have risen to pray, God has covered himself as with a cloud that your prayer could not pass through. Oh, seek to have an ear attuned to his softest accents, and a heart constrained to an instant compliance with his mildest dictates. The greatest blessing we possess is the possession of the Spirit.

And Oh, to be Christ's- to be his gift, his purchase, his called saint, his lowly disciple- what an inestimable privilege! But how may we be quite sure that this privilege is ours? If we have the Spirit of Christ, we are in very deed Christians. It is the superscription of the King, the mark of the Shepherd, the Lord's impress of himself upon the heart. And how sanctifying this privilege! "Those who are Christ's have crucified the flesh with its affections and lusts." "Let those that have named the name of Christ depart from all iniquity." And if we are Christ's now, we shall be Christ's to all eternity. It is a union that cannot be dissolved. Every believer in Jesus is "sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise which is the pledge of our inheritance." And as we have the pledge of the inheritance, we shall as assuredly possess the inheritance itself.

Lastly, the Spirit of Christ is an active, benevolent Spirit. It bore the Savior, when he was in the flesh, from country to country, from city to city, from house to house, preaching his own gospel to lost man. "He went about doing good." If we have the Spirit of Christ we shall be prompted to a like Christian love and activity on behalf of those who possess not the gospel, or who, possessing it, slight and reject the mercy. The Spirit of Christ is essentially a missionary Spirit. It commenced its labor of love at Jerusalem, and from that its center, worked its way with augmenting sympathy and widening sphere until it embraced the world as the field of its labor. Ah! that we manifest so little of this Spirit, ought to lead us to deep searchings of heart, and stir us up to earnest prayer: "Lord, make me more earnest for the salvation of souls, for the advancement of your kingdom. Grant me this evidence of being yours- the possession of your Spirit, constraining me to a more simple and unreserved consecration of my talents, my substance, my rank, my influence, my time, myself, to the establishment of your truth, the advancement of your cause, and thus to the wider diffusion of your glory in the earth."

The Body Dead, but the Spirit Life

"But if Christ is in you, your body is dead because of sin, yet your spirit is alive because of righteousness." Romans 8:10

We are, in the first clause of this passage, conducted to another and more advanced stage in the spiritual life- the indwelling of Christ, and the great blessing which follows. There are some experimental truths in the Christian faith which, from their overpowering magnitude and sanctity, the timid mind is slow to recognize, and the heart to believe. Of such is the doctrine before us. And yet this truth- the indwelling of Christ- is interwoven with the very texture of the Bible. With what distinctness and emphasis it is declared- "Examine yourselves, whether you be in the faith; prove your own selves. Know you not your own selves, how that Jesus Christ is in you, except you be reprobates?" "He that eats my flesh, and drinks my blood, dwells in me, and I in him." "I in them." What single truth can be more clearly affirmed? That it has been but dimly perceived, and in some cases awfully perverted, is but to assert that to which every truth is exposed. Its greatest abuse has been that which affirmed that the indwelling of Christ is an incorporation, and not a union of Christ and the believer only. So that some, predicating their heresy of this doctrine, have affirmed, "I am Christ!" "I am the Holy Spirit!" and thus many have been deluded and drawn away. But the indwelling of Christ in the believer is no more an incorporate union than the land and the sea, or the light and the air, or the soul and the body are an incorporation, or are essentially the same, because they have a union of contact one with the other. And yet the truth for which we plead is a close, personal union. Christ is in the believer, just as the believer is in Christ. We cannot be said to be in the grace of Christ, but we are in Christ himself as the Head of his mystical body. So Christ is in us, not figuratively by his grace, but really by his Spirit. Now, that Christ should thus spiritually dwell in his saints is no wonder, since he received them as a gift, purchased them by his blood, won them by his grace, called them by his Spirit, and is now in heaven preparing for them an eternal mansion. That he should thus dwell in the hearts of all the regenerate, taking a personal, full, and irrevocable possession of them for himself, is perfectly congruous with all that he has done and still is doing for them.

We now approach a solemn fact asserted in this passage: "The body is dead because of sin." What body is referred to here? Certainly not, as some have supposed, the body of sin. Who can with truth affirm of it that it is dead? The individual who claims as his attainment a state of sinless perfection, an entire victory over the evil propensities and actings of his fallen nature, has yet to learn the alphabet of experimental Christianity. Pride is the baneful root, and a fall is often the fatal consequence of such an error. Oh no! the body of sin yet lives, and dies not but with death itself. We part not with innate and indwelling sin but with the parting breath of life, and then we part with it forever. But it is the natural body to which the Apostle refers. And what an affecting fact is this! Redeemed by the sacrifice, and inhabited by the Spirit of Christ, though it be, yet this material fabric, this body of our humiliation, tends to disease, decay, and death; and, sooner or later, wrapped in its shroud, must make its home in the grave, and mingle once more with its kindred dust. "The body is dead because of sin." Our redemption by Christ exempts us not from the conflict and the victory of the last enemy. We must confront the grim foe, must succumb to his dread power, and wear his pale conquests upon our brow. We must die- are dying men- because of sin. "Death has passed upon all men, for that all have sinned." And this law remains unrepealed, though Christ has delivered us from the curse. From this humiliating necessity of our nature, even the non-condemned find no avenue of escape; from this terrible conflict, no retreat. One event happens to the wicked and the righteous- they both leave the world by the same dismal process of dissolution. But the character of death is essentially changed; and herein lies the great difference. In the one case, death is armed with all its terrors; in the other, it is invested with all its charms- for death has an indescribable charm to the believer in Jesus. Christ did not die to exempt us from the process of death, but he died to exempt us from the sting of death. If, because of original and indwelling sin in the regenerate, they must taste of death; yet, because of pardoned sin in the regenerate, the "bitterness of death is past." If, because there exists a virus in the body, the body must dissolve; yet, because there exists an infallible antidote, the redeemed soul does not see death as it passes through the gloomy portal, and melts away into its own light, life, and immortality. How changed the character of death! If the body of the redeemed is under the sentence, and has within it the seeds of death, and must be destroyed, yet that death is to him the epoch of glory. It is then that the life within germinates and expands; it is then that he really begins to live. His death is the birthday of his immortality. Thus, in the inventory of the covenant, death ranks among the chief of its blessings, and becomes a covenant mercy. "Death is gain." "What!" exclaims the astonished believer, "death a blessing- a covenant blessing! I have been wont to contemplate it as my direst curse, to dread it as my greatest foe." Yes; if death is the sad necessity, it is also the precious privilege of our being. In the case of those who are in Christ Jesus, it is not the execution of a judicial sentence, but the realization of a covenant mercy. And as the Christian marks the symptoms of his approaching and inevitable dissolution- watching the slow but unmistakable advances of the fell destroyer- he can exclaim, as he realizes that there is now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus-
"Come, Death, shake hands;
I'll kiss your bands,
It is happiness for me to die.
What! do you think
That I will shrink?
I go to immortality."

"Because of sin." Ah! it is this truth whose dark shadow flits across the brightness of the Christian's condition. To what are all our ailments, calamities, and sorrows traceable, but to sin? And why do we die? "Because of sin." The immediate and proximate causes of death are but secondary agents. Had we not transgressed, we then had not died. Deathlessness would have been our natural and inalienable birthright. And were we more spiritually-minded than we are, while we looked onward with steady faith to a signal and glorious triumph over the King of Terrors, we would blend with the bright anticipation of the coming victory the humbling conviction that we have sinned, and that therefore the body is dead.

"But the Spirit is life because of righteousness." What are we to understand by the term spirit? Our reply will at once go to exclude the idea of the Holy Spirit. Of the Third Person of the blessed Trinity it cannot be of whom the Apostle speaks. The only remaining interpretation, then, is that which restricts its meaning to the spiritual and immortal part of the believer- the regenerated spirit of man, and not the regenerating Spirit of God. If, as we have shown, the first part of the antithesis must be understood of the material frame, the second part must be understood of the spiritual nature, body and soul being placed in direct contrast. The cheering declaration, then, of the Apostle is, that the spiritual and immortal part of our nature is recovered from the curse, renewed and quickened with a divine and heavenly life. If the body is dead because of sin, the spirit is life because of righteousness. The spirit is life- instinct with a new and deathless principle- because Christ is the righteousness of his people. On the broad basis of God's method of justification our spirit lives. In every point of view, Christ is identified with our spiritual life. We live a life of justification by Christ- a life of holiness from Christ- a life of faith in Christ and a life of immortality with Christ. Thus, in all its phases, "Christ is our life." O glorious truth! Welcome death- the spirit lives! Welcome the grave- the spirit is beyond it! Death! you can but touch the material fabric- the inner life towers above your reach, hidden with Christ in God. Grave! you can but imprison the body- the soul is at home with Jesus. I live, not because of any righteousness which I have wrought, but because Christ is my righteousness. I live on account of the Righteous One- I live in the Righteous One- and I shall live forever with the Righteous One. Thus is the spirit life because of righteousness. Oh, what a glorious immortality unveils to the eye of faith. If through the gloomy portals of death the spirit of the believer must pass, in its transit to eternity, life attends it, and life awaits it, and life crowns it. Animated with a deathless existence, clothed with the robe of a new-born immortality, it burst forth from its enthralment, and, smiling back upon death, speeds its way to glory, honor, and endless life. To this life let us look forward. From a life now experienced, let us live for a life so soon to be enjoyed. The body must die.

But what of that? the spirit is life. And the life-inspired spirit will come back again, re-enter and re-animate the slumbering dust- and now, remodeled and spiritualized it will be with Christ and all the saints in the new heaven and the new earth, wherein will dwell righteousness.

The Resurrection of Christ

'And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit, who lives in you." Romans 8:11

Having affirmed of the redeemed body that it was dead because of sin, the Apostle, as if anxious to rescue the saints from the humiliation of so affecting a truth, hastens to unveil the light which plays so brightly and cheeringly around each believer's tomb. He shows that light to spring from the fact of the resurrection of the Savior. This doctrine is the grand luminary of the Christian system- it touches and gilds with its brilliance each cardinal doctrine of our faith. If Christ has not been risen from the dead, then is that faith vain and lifeless; but if he is risen, then each truth becomes instinct with life; and hope, like the day-spring from on high, rises with light and glory upon the soul.

The credibility of this great fact is perhaps the first point to which the mind naturally directs its inquiry. But in the present instance the truth of the doctrine must be assumed rather than established. We are not writing for the sceptic, but for the believer. Not so much to convince as to confirm the mind. And yet, were we arguing the question with a disputant, we might pursue a simple line of reasoning, somewhat like this- That the body of our Lord left the tomb is a fact which even those who have attempted to invalidate the doctrine readily concede. The great question in dispute, then, is- Who removed it? Did the enemies of Christ? What would they have gained by that step? Would they not on the contrary have lost much? Would it not have weakened their declaration that he was an impostor, and have strengthened that of his apostles, that he was risen? Why did not the priests and rulers, who bribed the Roman soldiers to affirm that his disciples had first surreptitiously possessed themselves of the body, and then secreted it, prove their assertion to the satisfaction of all Jerusalem, and thus at once strike the death-blow at the infant religion, and overwhelm the apostles with infamy and scorn? With the power of search which they possessed, surely, this were a natural and an easy process. To have produced the still lifeless body of our Lord would have substantiated their assertion, and thus have set at rest a question, upon which interests of such moment hung, at once and forever. But what were the circumstances of our Lord's interment? They were all such as to strengthen the fact of his resurrection.

He was buried in a tomb hewn out of a rock. To have excavated that rock would have been a work of time, of immense difficulty, if not of utter impossibility. The exit of our Lord therefore from the tomb could only have been by the door through which he passed within it. And, as if to encircle the grave of the Savior with sentinels of unimpeachable veracity, the Holy Spirit informs us, that in the "place where he was crucified, there was a garden, and in the garden a new sepulcher, wherein was never man laid." Thus, then, if that sepulcher were emptied, none other than the body of Jesus had broken from its lone captivity. The substitution of another for the corpse of the Savior, was beyond the range of possibility. And who are the witnesses? A company of poor, unlearned, and timid fishermen- as unskilled in the art of falsehood and collusion, as they were in the lettered sciences of their age. They had nothing earthly to gain in testifying to the fact, but everything to lose. Instead of human applause, and honor, and wealth, they were rewarded with every species of obloquy, deprivation, and suffering. And yet, oppressed by poverty and persecution, and with the gloomy machinery of torture- the dungeon, the rack, and the cross staring them in the face, they traveled everywhere, testifying to the sceptic philosophers of Athens, as to the unlettered peasants of Rome, that Christ was risen from the dead. Nor were they men likely to be imposed upon. They were at first strangely incredulous of the fact itself. How slow of heart were they to welcome the testimony that their Lord was indeed alive. Retired from the sepulcher, where in love and sadness they had laid him, they met the holy women, who at the dawn of day had borne their aroma to the tomb, and returning, who proclaimed to the "eleven and to all the rest," that he was alive. Yet we are told, "their words seemed to them as idle tales." And when one of the witnesses to the credibility of the fact testified to Thomas, "We have seen the Lord," how was the testimony received? "Except I shall see in his hands the print of the nails," were the words of that disbelieving disciple, "and put my finger into the print of the nails, and thrust my hand into his side, I will not believe." Thus reluctant to receive the fact of his resurrection, is it possible that they could have been easily imposed upon by a fiction? We may, then, safely leave the credibility of this cardinal doctrine of our faith to its own evidence, and pass on to other and more experimental views of the glorious truth.

We may refer for a moment to the necessity that Jesus should rise again from the dead; and this will supply a collateral argument in favor of the truth of the doctrine. It was necessary that he should make good his own prediction, "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up." That some of his enemies rightly understood him to refer to the temple of his body is evident from their subsequent allusion to these words, "We remember that that deceiver said, while he was yet alive, After three days I will rise again." Our Lord thus fulfilled his own undeviating prediction. But the perfection of his mediatorial work also pleaded for its necessity. "He was delivered for our offences, and raised again for our justification." The Father's glory was clearly interwoven with the fact- his honor, faithfulness, and power. Thus it is said, "Therefore are we buried with him by baptism unto death; that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life."

But let us trace the effect of this truth in the believing soul, and this will supply us with no small evidence in favor of its credibility. For if the power of the fact is experienced, the fact itself must be certain. It is one thing to yield the assent of an informed understanding to a truth, and it is another to feel the influence of that truth in the heart. But what is it to sympathize with Christ's resurrection? It is to be a partaker of its quickening energy, to be sensible of its life-giving, life-elevating power. Oh, there is no single truth which embodies and conveys so much blessing to the believer as his Lord's resurrection. Trace its sanctifying tendency: "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to his abundant mercy has begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead." To be sensible of this amazing power in the soul is to be born again- to be raised from the grave of corruption- to live on earth a heavenly, a resurrection-life- to have the heart daily ascending in the sweet incense of love, and prayer, and praise, where its risen Treasure is. It possesses, too, a most comforting power. What but this sustained the disciples in the early struggles of Christianity, amid the storms of persecution which else had swept them from the earth? They felt that their Master was alive. They needed no external proof of the fact. They possessed in their souls God's witness. The truth authenticated itself. The three days of his entombment were to them days of sadness, desertion, and gloom. Their sun had set in darkness and in blood, and with it every ray of hope had vanished. All they loved, or cared to live for, had descended to the grave. They had now no arm to strengthen them in their weakness- no bosom to sympathize with them in sorrow- no eye to which they could unveil each hidden thought and struggling emotion.

But the resurrection of their Lord was the resurrection of all their buried joys. They now traveled to him as to a living Savior, conscious of a power new-born within them, the power of the Lord's resurrection. "Then were the disciples glad when they saw the Lord." But is this truth less vivifying and precious to us? Has it lost anything Of its vitality to quicken, or its power to soothe? Oh, no! truth is eternal and immutable. Years impair not its strength, circumstances change not its character. The same truths which distilled as dew from the lips of Moses; which awoke the seraphic lyre of David; which winged the heaven-soaring spirit of Isaiah; which inspired the manly eloquence of Paul; which floated in visions of sublimity before the eye of John; and which in all ages have fed, animated, and sanctified the people of God- guiding their counsels, soothing their sorrows, and animating their hopes- still are vital and potent in the chequered experiences of the saints, hastening to swell the cloud of witnesses to their divinity and their might. Of such is the doctrine of Christ's resurrection. Oh, what consolation flows to the church of God from the truth of a living Savior- a Savior alive to know and to heal our sorrows- to inspire and sanctify our joys- to sympathize with and supply our need! Alive to every cloud that shades the mind, to every cross that chafes the spirit, to every grief that saddens the heart, to every evil that threatens our safety, or perils our happiness! What power, too, do the promises of the gospel derive from this truth! When Jesus speaks by these promises, we feel that there is life and spirit in his word, for it is the spoken word of a living Savior. And when he invites us to himself for rest, and bids us look to his cross for peace, and asks us to deposit our burdens at his feet, and drink the words that flow from his lips, we feel a living influence stealing over the soul, inspiriting and soothing as that of which the trembling Evangelist was conscious, when the glorified Savior gently laid his right hand upon him, and said, "Fear not; I am the first and the last: I am he that lives, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive for evermore, Amen; and have the keys of hell and of death." Is Jesus alive? Then let what else die, our life, with all its supports, and consolations, and hopes, is secure in him. "Because I live, you shall live also." A living spring is he. Seasons vary, circumstances change, feelings fluctuate, friendships cool, friends die, but Christ is ever the same. He is that "Tree of Life," whose boughs overhang either side of the river, and which yields its fruit every month. Travel to it when we may, we find it fruitful. It may be winter with us, it is always summer with the Tree. Cold and dreary may be the region where we have come, all chilled and desolate, to the spot where it stands: in an instant it is as though we had emerged into a southern climate- its balmy air, its spicy breezes, and its warm sunlight, encircling us in their soft robes. Oh, the blessedness of dealing with a risen, a living Redeemer! We take our needs to him they are instantly supplied. We take our sins to him- they are immediately pardoned. We take our griefs to him they are in a moment assuaged. "Every month," ay, and each moment of every month, finds this Tree of Life proffering its ample foliage for our shade, and yielding its rich fruit for our refreshment. Such are some of the blessings which flow from the resurrection of Christ. The identity of this great fact with the resurrection of the saints we reserve for the next chapter; closing the present with the fervent prayer that the Eternal Spirit may give us a heartfelt possession of its power, enabling us to exclaim, with the unwavering faith and undimmed hope of the holy patriarch- "I know that my redeemer lives!"

The Resurrection of the Christian

"He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit, who lives in you." Romans 8:11

Identical with, and consequent upon, the resurrection of the Savior, is the resurrection not less divine, and scarcely less glorious- of the saints. Seeing that our Lord entered the grave as a public person, sustaining a representative character, when, therefore, he broke from its thraldom, he rose, the "first-fruits of those who slept." The Head of the Church alive, the resurrection-life of the Church became a fact, at once certain and glorious. Now, if the gospel be a myth- how charming the fiction! If untrue- how blissful the lie! With what sunlight joyousness does it gladden all the present, and with what effulgent hope does it gild all the future! Robbing us of this, what does Infidelity offer as its substitute? It proposes to soften our ills, and to soothe our sorrows, by annihilating our faith, and extinguishing our hope! But we believe, and are sure that Christ was no impostor, that Christianity is no fiction, that the Gospel is no lie; and, confirmed in our faith in the resurrection of the Savior, "why should it be thought a thing incredible that God should raise the dead?" Having contemplated the "first-fruits," now waving before the golden altar in heaven, let us take a perspective view of the coming harvest- the quickening of our mortal bodies by Christ's Spirit that dwells in us.

"Your mortal bodies"- words which at once define our present existence as one of suffering, and humiliation. And such verily it is. In asserting this fact, let it not be supposed that we deny that there is much dignity and grandeur connected with our material frame. We are fearfully and wonderfully made; a piece of mechanism displaying in each part and combination of the whole, the infinite wisdom, and elaborate skill, and boundless benevolence of the Divine Framer. And yet, from the most pleasing survey of this wondrous creature, man, we are compelled to revert to the sad truth, that our present existence is one of deep humiliation and certain decay. The language of Scripture in depicting this condition- a condition well calculated to lay human pride in the dust- is strong and emphatic. The Apostle characterizes our material frame as "this vile body," literally, "the body of our humiliation." And in his sublime and triumphant argument on the resurrection, he employs terms equally as descriptive of our present State: "When this corruption shall put on incorruption, and this mortal shall put on immortality." Thus is our physical structure, which we adorn with so much care, and which others so extravagantly admire, described as a "vile body," as "corruption," as "mortal." Ah! has the fact with many, perhaps, my reader, with you, become so common-place as to have changed its character, from one of the most affecting and humbling, to one the existence and contemplation of which awakens in the mind no deep and serious reflection? Have you grown so familiar with disease, and become so conversant with death- the inanimate clay, the shroud, the coffin, the hearse, the grave- those sad emblems of our mortality- as to feel sensible of no solemn emotions when the Holy Spirit brings the fact before the mind? Is it with, you a light matter to die? Ah! death is no trifle; and he will find it so who knows not Him who is the "Resurrection and the Life." But, display the stoic and act the philosopher as you may, give place to mirth, and hilarity, and thoughtlessness as you will- in all your vivacity, your pomp and power, you are mortal, and must die. "Dust you are, and unto dust shall you return." You shall "say to corruption, You are my father; and to the worm, You are my mother and my sister." To this humiliating end all are tending. And although some of our race move to the tomb in greater state and luxury than others, yet, "The grave is my house," is the affecting exclamation of all. There the rich and the poor meet together- Dives and Lazarus side by side. "There the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest." And yet how few feel the solemnity, and admit the force of this truth. How few pause to consider that this body which they now pamper with such studied luxuriance, and adorn with such refinement of taste, will before long need no clothing but the winding sheet, no house but the coffin, and no home but the grave! And that so changed will be the countenance, once lined with beauty and radiant with thought- and so decayed the body, once so graceful and athletic- that those who regarded it with the fondest love, and who worshiped it with the deepest devotion, will be the first to exclaim, "Bury my dead out of my sight." Oh, how dire the humiliation of our present existence! "The body is dead because of sin."

But there glows around the grave of the believer in Jesus the halo of a blessed hope. "He that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies." But for this animating and sustaining hope how starless and cheerless were his present existence. Strange as it may sound, that existence derives a character of peculiar sadness from the very circumstance of his Christianity. He is one to whom the Spirit has made known the inward plague. He is one whose frequent cry is, "O, wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?" He is one who conflicts with principalities and powers. He is one who is often placed in the fiery furnace of affliction. There is a secret in the history of every believer known only to God and his own soul. Oh, then, what a rayless, desolate path through this valley of tears were his, but for the hope of the resurrection- that hope which, like the stars of evening, shines the sweetest and the brightest when life seems the gloomiest and the darkest. No pomp or circumstance may attend him to the tomb, no marble monument may rear its chiseled form to record his virtues, to perpetuate his name, or mark the spot where his ashes repose. Those ashes the Ocean's cave may contain; his only tombstone the crested billows; his only requiem, chanted to the wild sea-bird, the solemn music of the waves as they dash and die upon the shore: but he sleeps in Jesus, and slumbering thus, his flesh rests in hope of a glorious resurrection and a blissful immortality. Oh, what a new and impressive character does Christianity give to the entire scene of the believer's departure out of this world to go unto the Father! To the eye of sense the outer door of the tomb appears hideous and forbidding. The deadly nightshade, and the overshadowing ivy, entwine darkly and thickly over its dismal arch; while the trail of the worm and the time-gathered mold upon its bars, deepen the air of its repulsiveness. But viewed by faith, how changed that tomb! As seen by its piercing eye, it is all radiant around, and all refulgent within. The Lamb of God has been there, touching and gilding all with life and glory. There rears the tree of life- there clusters the living vine- there flow the heavenly waters- there float the celestial breezes- there are redolent all the sweets of the upper paradise. And when the inner door opens upon heaven, what a scene of grandeur bursts upon the spirit's view! Glory, streaming from above, bathes it in its liquid beams, and lights its pathway to the skies. This is the tomb of a believer in Jesus. No; it is no longer a tomb- it is a triumphal arch, all radiant and garlanded, through which the spiritual conqueror, laden with the spoils of his last victory, passes, amid the acclaim of angels and the welcomings of sister spirits, to his crown and his rest.

But what will be the order of the believer's resurrection? Will it be anterior to, or contemporaneous with, the general resurrection of the dead? This is a question of the tenderest, holiest, interest. We believe that in this, as in each former part of his history, God will maintain the same difference he has ever put between the righteous and the wicked. The resurrection of the just is distinctly placed in Scripture in the foreground of the great and solemn scene. It is evidently made to take the precedence by a thousand years of the resurrection of the unjust. "The dead in Christ shall rise first." "Blessed and holy is he that has part in the first resurrection." Speaking of the ungodly, the Psalmist thus refers to the difference between them and the just at the resurrection: "Like sheep they are laid in the grave death shall feed on them; and the upright shall have dominion over them in the morning." Oh, what a scene of joy will that be when, emerging from the gloom and impurity of the grave, the dead in Christ shall find themselves bathing in the golden beams, and inhaling the heavenly odor, of the morning of the "first resurrection." No demon of darkness shall shade its glory with his raven wing. No wail of despair shall blend with its entrancing music; it will be as when this magnificent creation first burst into being, and all the morning stars sang together for joy. And as the Savior cleaves the air, descending in the clouds of heaven, and nearing the earth he had touched and consecrated with his blood, a shout will be heard, so melodious, that all the heavenly minstrelsy will suspend their harpings to listen in breathless silence to its strains- "Lo, this is our God: we have waited for him, and he will save us: this is the Lord; we have waited for him; we will be glad and rejoice in his salvation."

"By his Spirit that dwells in us." Such is the agency by which the resurrection of the saints will be effected. The indwelling of the Holy Spirit secures the reanimation of our slumbering dust, and supplies the power by which it will be accomplished. The resurrection of the redeemed body will be the resurrection of an entombed, not a lost- the reconstruction of a dilapidated, not a destroyed temple of the Holy Spirit. The same Spirit dwelling in us now, will dwell in us then. Quickening with his Divine energy our mortal body, he will remodel, reanimate, and re-enter his former abode, replenishing it with his glory through eternity. In this marvellous work of resuscitation each Person of the ever blessed Trinity will be engaged. The Father will welcome home, as from a long exile, his adopted family; the Son will openly espouse his ransomed bride; and the Spirit will rebuild and re-occupy his sacred temple. Then will the Prophet's prediction receive its fullest and sweetest accomplishment- "The Lord God in the midst of you is mighty; he will save, he will rejoice over you with joy; he will rest in his love, he will rejoice over you with singing."

"The Believer's Obligation to Mortify Sin"

"Therefore, brethren, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live after the flesh. For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die: but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live." Romans 8:12-13

"Therefore, brothers, we have an obligation--but it is not to the sinful nature, to live according to it. For if you live according to the sinful nature, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live," Romans 8:12-13

"So, dear Christian friends, you have no obligation whatsoever to do what your sinful nature urges you to do. For if you keep on following it, you will perish. But if through the power of the Holy Spirit you turn from it and its evil deeds, you will live." Romans 8:12-13

After the lucid statement which the Apostle had in earlier verses made of the doctrine of justification, it was but natural and proper that he should proceed to illustrate the close affinity to its cognate truth- sanctification. So far from the doctrine of completeness in Christ engendering a spirit of laxity in the believer, it is his aim to show that it was the parent of all true holiness; that instead of weakening the motive of sanctification, it rather strengthens it, binding those who are justified by the most solemn obligation to an entire mortification of all sin. "Therefore,"- is the conclusion to which his reasoning brings him, "Therefore, brethren, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live after the flesh." There are three distinct, yet consecutive points of truth in this passage– The solemn obligation of the children of God- The duty to which that obligation binds them- and The Divine agency by which that duty is discharged.

THE SOLEMN OBLIGATION OF THE CHILDREN OF GOD-
"We are debtors." That around a subject so momentous as this no obscurity might gather, tending to misguide the judgment, the Apostle most distinctly and emphatically affirms that the flesh has no valid claim whatever upon the believer; and that, consequently, he is under no obligation to yield compliance with its feigned exactions. We are debtors; but the flesh is not our creditor. What are its demands, that it is incumbent upon us to comply? Do we owe anything to sin, the parent of all our woe? Nothing. To Satan- who plotted our temptation and accomplished our downfall? Nothing. To the world- ensnaring, deceitful, and ruinous? Nothing. No; to these, the auxiliaries and allies of the flesh, we owe nothing but the deepest hatred, and the most determined opposition.
And yet the saints of God are "debtors." To whom? What debtors are they to the Father, for his electing love, for the covenant of grace, for his unspeakable gift, for having blessed us with all spiritual blessings in Christ Jesus! We but imperfectly estimate the debt of love, gratitude, and service which we owe to him whose mind the Eternal Son came to reveal, whose will he came to do, and whose heart he came to unveil. It was the Father who sent the Son. With him originated the wondrous expedient of our redemption. He it was who laid all our sins on Jesus. It was his sword of justice that smote the Shepherd, while his hand of love and protection was laid upon the little ones. We have too much supposed that the atonement of Jesus was intended to inspire the mercy, rather than to propitiate the justice of God; to awaken in his heart a love that did not previously exist. Thus we have overlooked the source from where originated our salvation, and have lost sight of the truth, that the mediation of Jesus was not the cause, but rather the effect of God's love to man. "Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and gave his Son to be a propitiation for our sins." Oh for the Spirit to understand, and for grace to feel, and for love to exemplify, our deep obligation to God for the everlasting love that gave his Son!
Equal debtors are we to the Son. He was the active agent in our redemption. He it was who undertook and accomplished all that our salvation required. He left no path untrodden, no portion of the curse unborne, no sin unatoned, no part of the law uncancelled- nothing for us in the matter of our salvation to do, but simply to believe, and be saved. Oh, to raise the eye to him- strong in faith, beaming with love, moist with contrition- and exclaim, "You have borne my sin, endured my curse, extinguished my hell, secured my heaven. Your spirit was wounded for me; your heart bled for me; your body was bruised for me; for me your soul was stricken for me, a sinner, the chief of sinners. I am your debtor- a debtor to your dying love, to your eternal, discriminating mercy. Surely, an eternity of love, of service, and of praise, can never repay you what I owe you, blessed Jesus." Oh, how deep the obligation we are under to Christ!
And not less indebted are we to the Holy Spirit. What do we not owe him of love and obedience, who awoke the first thrill of life in our soul; who showed to us our guilt, and sealed to us our pardon? What do we not owe him for leading us to Christ; for dwelling in our hearts; for his healing, sanctifying, comforting, and restoring grace; for his influence which no ingratitude has quenched; for his patience which no backsliding has exhausted; for his love which no sin has annihilated? Yes, we are the Spirit's lasting debtors. We owe him the intellect he has renewed, the heart he has sanctified, the body he inhabits- every breath of life he has inspired, and every pulse of love he has awakened. Thus are all real believers debtors to the Triune God. Debtors to the Father's everlasting love, to the Son's redeeming grace, and to the Spirit's quickening mercy. To the flesh we owe nothing but uncompromising hatred; to Jehovah we owe undivided and supreme affection.
Holiness, or the mortification of sin, is the obligation to which this indebtedness binds us. In a previous chapter of this work we explained the import of the phrase, "living after the flesh." We now consider its opposite condition, "mortifying the deeds of the body." It is marvellous how strangely the subject of mortification of sin in the godly has been mystified and misunderstood. Some have resolved it into a mere maceration or mortification of the body. Others have restricted it to the mere excision of outward sins. While yet others have represented it as consisting in the destruction of sin altogether in the believer. But none of these views convey any correct idea of the mortification spoken of in the passage under consideration. . What, then, is it to "mortify the deeds of the body?" True mortification has its foundation in the life of God in the soul. A spiritual, yes, a most spiritual work, it can only spring from a most spiritual principle. It is not a plant indigenous to our fallen nature. It cannot be in the principle of sin to mortify itself. Nature possesses neither the inclination, nor the power, by which so holy an achievement can be accomplished. A dead faith, a blind zeal, a superstitious devotion, may prompt severe austerities; but to lay the axe close to the root of indwelling evil, to marshal the forces against the principle of sin in the heart- thus besieging and carrying the very citadel itself; to keep the body under, and bring it into subjection, by a daily and a deadly conflict with its innate and desperately depraved propensities- is a work transcending the utmost reach of the most severe external austerities. It consists, too, in an annulling of the covenant with sin: "Have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness"- enter into no truce, make no agreement, form no union- "but rather reprove them." "Ephraim shall say, What have I to do any more with idols?" The resources of sin must be cut off- "Put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to fulfil the lusts thereof." Whatever tends to, and terminates in, the sinful gratification of the flesh, is to be relinquished, as frustrating the great aim of the Christian in the mortification of the deeds of the body. Mortification is aptly set forth as a crucifixion: "Those who are Christ's have crucified the flesh." Death by the cross is certain, yet lingering. Our blessed Lord was suspended upon the tree from nine in the morning until three in the afternoon. It was a slow, lingering torture, yet terminating in his giving up the spirit. Similar to this is the death of sin in the believer. It is progressive and protracted, yet certain in the issue. Nail after nail must pierce our corruptions, until the entire body of sin, each member thus transfixed, is crucified and slain.

Let us now contemplate the two-fold agency by which the work of mortification is accomplished.
"If you through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, you shall live." "If YOU." The believer is not a cipher in this work. It is a matter in which he must necessarily possess a deep and personal interest. How many and precious are the considerations that bind him to the duty! His usefulness, his happiness, his sunny hope of heaven, are included in it. The work of the Spirit is not, and never was designed to be, a substitute for the personal work of the believer. His influence, indispensable and sovereign though it is, does not release from human and individual responsibility. "Work out your own salvation," "Keep yourselves in the love of God," "Building up yourselves," are exhortations which emphatically and distinctly recognize the obligation of personal effort and human responsibility. The reasoning which bids me defer the work of battling with my heart's corruptions, of mortifying the deeds of the body, until the Spirit performs his part, argues an unhealthy Christianity, and betrays a kind of truce with sin, which must on no account for a moment be entertained. As under the law, the father was compelled to hurl the first missile at the profane child, so under the gospel- a milder and more beneficent economy though it be- the believer is to cast the first stone at his corruptions; he is to take the initiative in the great work of mortifying and slaying the cherished sin. "If you do mortify." Let us, then, be cautious of merging human responsibility in Divine influence; of exalting the one at the expense of the other; of cloaking the spirit of slothfulness and indolence beneath an apparently jealous regard for the honor of the Holy Spirit. How narrow is the way of truth! How many diverging paths there are, at each turning of which Satan stands, clothed as an angel of light, quoting Scripture with all the aptness and eloquence of an apostle! But God will never release us from the obligation of "striving against sin." "I keep under my body and bring it
into subjection," was Paul's noble declaration. Is no self-effort to be made to escape the gulf of habitual intoxication, by dashing the ensnaring beverage from the lips? Is no self-effort to be made to break away from the thraldom of a companionship, the influence of which is fast hurrying us to ruin and despair? Is no self-effort to be made to dethrone an unlawful habit, to resist a powerful temptation, to dissolve the spell that binds us to a dangerous enchantment, to unwind the chain that makes us the vassal and the slave of a wrong and imperious inclination? Oh, surely, God deals not with us as we deal with a piece of a machine- but as reasonable, moral, and accountable beings. "I drew you with the bands of a man." Mortification, therefore, is a work to which the believer must address himself, and that with prayerful and resolute earnestness.
And yet we must acknowledge that it infinitely transcends the mightiest puttings forth of creative power. "If you through the Spirit do mortify." This he does by making us more sensible of the existence of indwelling sin, by deepening our aspirations after holiness- by shedding abroad the love of God in the heart. But above all, the Spirit mortifies sin in the believer by unfoldings of the Lord Jesus. Leading us to the cross, he would show us that as Christ died for sin, so we must die to sin- and by the selfsame instrument too. One real, believing sight of the cross of Jesus!- oh, what a crucifying power has it! Paul, standing beneath its awful shadow, and gazing upon its Divine victim, exclaimed, "God forbid that I should glory except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world." Get near the Savior's cross, if you would accomplish anything in this great and necessary work of mortification. The Spirit effects it, but through the instrumentality of the Atonement. There must be a personal contact with Jesus. This only is it that draws forth his grace. When the poor woman, in the Gospel, touched the Savior, we are told that multitudes thronged him. And yet, in all that crowd that pressed upon his steps, one only extracted the healing virtue. Thus do multitudes follow Christ externally; they attend his courts, and approach his ordinances, and speak well of his name, who know nothing by faith of personal transaction with the Lord. They crowd his path, and strew their branches in his way, and chant their Hosannahs; but of how few can Christ say, "Somebody has touched me!" Oh, let us have more personal dealing with the Lord Jesus. He delights in this. It pleases, it glorifies him. He bids us come and disclose every personal feeling, and make known every need, and unveil every grief, and confide to his bosom each secret of our own. He loves us to bathe in his blood- to enfold ourselves in his righteousness- to draw from his grace- and to cast ourselves upon his boundless sympathy. The crowd cannot veil us from his eye. He sees the poor and contrite; he observes the trembling and the lowly; he meets the uplifted glance; he feels the thrill of the trembling, hesitating, yet believing touch. "Somebody has touched me." Who? Is it you, my reader?
Thus does the Spirit mortify sin in the believer. "But how may I know," is the anxious inquiry of many, "that sin is being mortified in me?" We reply- by a weakening of its power. When Christ subdues our iniquities, he does not eradicate them, but weakens the strength of their root. The principle of sin remains, but it is impaired. See it in the case of Peter. Before he fell, his besetting sin was self-confidence: "Though all should deny you, yet will I not." Behold him after his recovery- taking the low place at the feet of Jesus, and at the feet of the disciples too, meekly saying, "Lord, you know all things; you know that I love you." No more self-vaunting, no more self-confidence: his sin was mortified through the Spirit, and he became as another man. Thus often the very outbreak of our sins may become the occasion of their deeper discovery, and their more thorough subjection. Nor let us overlook the power of the truth by the instrumentality of which the Spirit mortifies sin in us: "Sanctify them through your truth." The truth as it is in Jesus, revealed more clearly to the mind, and impressed more deeply on the heart, transforms the soul into its own Divine and holy nature. Our spiritual and experimental acquaintance, therefore, with the truth- with Him who is Essential Truth- will be the measure of the Spirit's mortification of sin in our hearts. Is the Lord Jesus becoming increasingly precious to your soul? Are you growing in poverty of spirit, in a deeper sense of your vileness, and weakness, and unworthiness? Is pride more abased, and self more crucified, and God's glory more simply sought? Does the heart more quickly shrink from sin, and is the conscience more sensitive to the touch of guilt, and do confession and cleansing become a more frequent habit? Are you growing in more love to all the saints- to those who, though they adopt not your entire creed, yet love and serve your Lord and Master? If so, then you may be assured the Spirit is mortifying sin in you. But oh, look from everything to Christ. Look not within for sanctification; look for it from Christ. He is as much our "sanctification," as he is our "righteousness." Your evidences, your comfort, your hope, do not spring from your fruitfulness, your mortification, or anything within you; but solely and entirely from the Lord Jesus Christ. "Looking unto Jesus" by faith, is like removing the covering and opening the windows of a conservatory, to admit the sun, beneath whose light and warmth the flowers and fruits expand and mature. Withdraw the veil that conceals the Sun of Righteousness, and let him shine in upon your soul, and the mortification of all sin will follow, and the fruits of all holiness will abound.

"The Guidance of the Spirit"

"For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God." Romans 8:14

"because those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God." Romans 8:14

"For all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God." Romans 8:14

We are here presented with another and a beautiful view of the Spirit as the Leader of his people. Man is a traveler to the eternal world. Left to self-guidance, as a fallen creature, he possesses vast and uncontrollable powers of self-destruction. What is he without a guide in the wilderness? what is he without a pilot on the ocean? Some recognize no other spirit- invoke no other spirit- and are guided by no other spirit, than the spirit of the world. And what is the spirit of the world but the all-pervading and controlling power of the spirit of darkness, who is emphatically denominated the "god of this world?" Others are more manifestly guided by their own spirit, their unsanctified, unsubdued spirit, and thus, "like a city that is broken and without walls," they are exposed to the perpetual invasion
of every prowling evil. How evident is it, then, that threading his way to eternity along a path of difficulty and peril, man needs a Divine guide!
Such is the Guide of the Saints. They are "led by the Spirit." It is the office of Jehovah the Spirit in the covenant of redemption, after he has called a people out of the world, to place himself at their head, and undertake their future guidance. He knows the path to heaven. With all its intricacies and dangers he is acquainted- with the sunken rock, and the treacherous quicksand, and the concealed pit, and the subtle snare, he is familiar. He knows, too, the individual and ordained path of each celestial traveler. All that God has appointed in the everlasting covenant- all the windings, and intricacy, and straitness of the way he knows. All the future of our history is infinitely more vivid and transparent to his mind than is the past, already trodden, to our eye. It is utterly impossible, then, that he should mislead. And what is equally as essential to him as a guide, he knows his own work in the soul. All its light and shade, its depressions and its revivings, its assaults and victories, are vivid to his eye. Dwelling in that heart- his sacred temple- his chosen abode- he reads his own writing inscribed there; understands the meaning of every groan, interprets the language of every sigh, and marks the struggling of every holy desire; he knows where wisely to supply a check, or gently to administer a rebuke, or tenderly to whisper a promise, or sympathetically to soothe a sorrow, or effectually to aid an incipient resolve, or strengthen a wavering purpose, or confirm a fluctuating hope. But, in less general terms- what is it to be led by the Spirit?
The existence of spiritual life in those he leads is an essential point assumed. He does not undertake to lead a spiritual corpse, a soul dead in sins. Many are moved by the Spirit, who are not led by the Spirit. Was not Saul, the king of Israel, a solemn instance of this? And when it is said, "the Spirit of God departed from him," we see how, in an ordinary way, the Spirit may strive with a man's natural conscience, and powerfully work upon his feelings through the word, and even employ him as an agent in the accomplishment of his will, and yet never lead him one step effectually and savingly to Christ, and to heaven. There is, as in Ezekiel's vision of the bones, "a voice, and behold a shaking, and the bones come together, bone to his bone, but there is no breath in them." But there is spiritual life in those whom the Spirit leads. They thus become in a sense voluntary in the movement. They are not forced; it is not by compulsion they follow; they are led- persuasively, gently, willingly led. The leading of the Spirit, then, is his acting upon his own life in the soul.
It supposes, too, entire inability to lead themselves in those who are led by the Spirit: "I will lead the blind by a way they know not." And such are we. Unable to discern a single step before us, and incapable of taking that step even when discerned, we need the guidance of the Holy Spirit. What can we see of truth- what of providence- what of God's mind and will, of ourselves? Absolutely nothing. Oh, what unfoldings of ignorance, what exhibitions of weakness, have marked some of the wisest and mightiest of God's saints, when left to self-teaching and to self-guidance! Thus there is a strong and absolute necessity that wisdom, and strength, and grace, infinitely transcending our own, should go before us in our homeward journey.
The first step the Spirit takes in this great work is, to lead us away from ourselves- from all reliance on our Own righteousness, and from all dependence upon our native strength. But let us not suppose that this divorce from the principle of self entirely takes place when we are "married to another, even to Christ." It is the work of a life. Alas! Christ has at best but a portion of our affections. Our heart is divided. It is true there are moments- bright and blissful- when we sincerely and ardently desire the full, unreserved surrender. But the ensnaring power of some rival object soon discovers to us how partial and imperfect that surrender has been. This severing from ourselves from all our idols- is a perpetual, unceasing work of the Spirit. And who but this Divine Spirit could so lead us away from self, in all its forms, as to constrain us to trample all our own glory in the dust, and acknowledge with Paul that we are "less than the least of all saints?" But more than this. He leads from an opposite extreme of self- from a despairing view of our personal sinfulness. How often, when the eye has been intently bent within, gazing as it were upon the gloom and confusion of a moral chaos, the Spirit has gently and graciously led us from ourselves to another object, the sight of which has at once raised us from the region of despair! How many walk in painful and humiliating bondage from not having thus been sufficiently led out of themselves! Always contemplating their imperfect repentance, or their weak faith, or their little fruitfulness, they seem ever to be moving in a circle, and to know nothing of what it is to walk in a large place. Thus from sinful self, as from righteous self, the Spirit of God leads us.
To what does he lead? He leads us to Christ. To whom else would we, in our deep necessity, wish to be led? Now that we know something experimentally of Jesus, to whom would we go but to him? Having severed us in some degree from ourselves, he would bring us into a closer realization of our union with the Savior. "He shall glorify me, for he shall take of mine and show it unto you." And this promise is fulfilled when, in all our need, he leads us to Christ. Are we guilty?- the Spirit leads us to the blood of Jesus. Are we weary?- the Spirit leads us to abide in Jesus. Are we sorrowful?- the Spirit leads us to the sympathy of Jesus. Are we tempted?- the Spirit leads us to the protection of Jesus. Are we sad and desolate?- the Spirit leads us to the tender love of Jesus. Are we poor, empty, and helpless?- the Spirit leads us to the fulness of Jesus. And still it is to the Savior he conducts us. The Holy Spirit is our Comforter, but the holy Jesus is our comfort. And to Jesus- to his person, to his offices, and to his work, in life and in death, the Divine Guide ever leads us.
He leads us to truth. The promise of the Savior is, "He shall guide you into all truth." When professing Christians have been led into error, nothing is more certain than that they have not been led by the Spirit. Though many claim him as their Teacher, he disowns them as his disciples. As the "Spirit of truth" he can reveal nothing but truth; can teach nothing but truth; can lead to nothing but truth. All who have received the truth- who are walking in the truth- and who are growing in the truth- are brought under the guidance of the Spirit of truth. Tossed from opinion to opinion, agitated and perplexed by the conflicting views of men and the antagonist creeds of churches, are you anxiously inquiring, "What is truth?"- Commit yourself to the guidance of the Spirit. Cast yourself in faith upon the promise, and plead it at the feet of your Divine Teacher- "He shall guide you into all truth." He can harmonize apparent contradictions, he can reconcile alleged discrepancies, he can clear away overshadowing mists, and place each essential doctrine, and each enjoined precept, and each divine institution before your mind, clear, transparent, and effulgent as a noontide sunbeam. Oh, betake yourself, in your anxious, perilous search for the truth, to the simple guidance of the Spirit, and what the Greek philosopher, in transport at his discovery, shouted, you, with infinitely greater joy of heart and emphasis of meaning, shall echo, "I have found it! I have found it!"
He leads to all holiness. As the "Spirit of holiness," it is his aim to deepen the impress of the restored image of God in the soul, to increase our happiness by making us more holy, and to advance our holiness by making us more like God. Thus he leads to nothing but what is sanctifying. All the unfoldings he makes of Christ, all the views he unveils of God, all the deeper insight to truth which he imparts, all the rebukes he faithfully yet gently whispers, all the chambers of imagery in our hearts which he opens, and all the joy which he inspires, have this for their single object- the perfection of us in holiness. Christ is the source, the truth is the instrument, and the Spirit is the agent of our sanctification.
He leads to all comfort. Hence he is emphatically
denominated, "the Comforter." There is no sorrow of the believing heart of which he is ignorant, to which he is indifferent, or which his sympathy does not embrace, and his power cannot alleviate. The church in which he dwells, and whose journeyings he guides, is a tried church. Chosen in the furnace of affliction, allied to a suffering Head, its course on earth is traced by tears, and often by blood. Deeply it needs a Comforter. And who can compute the individual sorrows which may crowd the path of a single traveler to his sorrowless home? What a world of trial, and how varied, may be comprised within the history of a single saint! But if sorrows abound, consolation much more abounds, since the Comforter of the Church is the Holy Spirit. What a mighty provision, how infinite the largess, the God of all consolation has made in the covenant of grace for the sorrows of his people, in the appointment of the Third Person of the blessed Trinity to this office! What an importance it attaches to, and with what dignity it invests, and with what sanctity it hallows our every sorrow! If our heavenly Father sees proper in his unerring wisdom and goodness to send affliction, who would not welcome the message as a sacred and precious thing, thus to be soothed and sanctified? Yes, the Spirit leads the sorrowful to all comfort. He comforts by applying the promises- by leading to Christ- by bending the will in deep submission to God- and by unveiling to faith's far-seeing eye the glories of a sorrowless, tearless, sinless world. And oh, who can portray his exquisite character as a Comforter? With what promptness and tenderness he applies himself to the soothing of each grief- how patiently he instructs the ignorant- how gently he leads the burdened- how skillfully he heals the wounded- how timely he meets the necessitous- how soothingly he speaks to the mourner! When our heart is overwhelmed within us, through the depth and foam of the angry waters, he leads us to the Rock that is higher than we.
He leads to glory. There he matures the kingdom, and perfects the building, and completes the temple he commenced and occupied on earth. No power shall oppose, no difficulty shall obstruct, no contingency shall thwart the consummation of this his glorious purpose and design. Every, soul graced by his presence, every heart touched by his love, every body sanctified as his temple, he will lead to heaven. Of that heaven he is the pledge and the earnest. While Jesus is in heaven, preparing a place for his people, the Spirit is on earth, preparing his people for that place. The one is maturing glory for the Church, the other is maturing the Church for glory.

"They are the sons of God." Such are they who are led by the Spirit. All who are conscious of this Divine guidance have an indubitable evidence of their Divine sonship. It is a dignified and holy relationship. It implies an assimilation of nature with God. The Apostle speaks of some whom he denominates the "children of the devil," because of their Satanic nature. The regenerate are denominated the "sons of God," because they are "partakers of the Divine nature." Thus does one of the beatitudes express it "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children (Greek, sons) of God," because their nature assimilates with him who is the "God of peace." Again: "Love your enemies, bless those who curse you, pray for those who despitefully use you and persecute you, that you may be the children (sons) of God;"- like Him who makes his sun to shine upon the evil and the good. Now, are we sensible that in any measure we are under the guidance of the Spirit? Has he led us from ourselves to Christ through Christ to God? Do we hear his "still small voice?" Do we feel his gentle constraints, his gracions drawings, his soothing love? Then are we the sons of God. " For as many as are led by the Spirit, they are the sons of God."
In conclusion, receive, my beloved reader, a word of tender caution. Beware of being guided by any other than by the Spirit of God. The temptation is strong, and the tendency to yield to it equally so, of being biased in forming our theological views, and in modelling our Christian practice, by the profound research, the distinguished talents, the exalted piety, and admired example of men. But this must not be. It is inconsistent with the honor that belongs, and with the love that we owe to the Spirit. A human must necessarily be a fallible guide; against the influence, of whose doctrinal error, and practical mistakes, no extent of learning, or depth of spirituality, or eminence of position on their part, can ensure us. We are only safe, as we constantly and strictly follow our Divine and heavenly guide. Blessed and Eternal
Spirit! To your teaching would I bow my mind. To your love would I yield my heart. To your consolation would I carry my sorrows. To your government would I resign my entire soul. "You shall guide me by your counsel, and afterwards receive me to glory."

"The Spirit of Adoption"

"For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father." Romans 8:15

For you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you received the Spirit of sonship. And by him we cry, "Abba, Father." Romans 8:15

So you should not be like cowering, fearful slaves. You should behave instead like God's very own children, adopted into his family—calling him "Father, dear Father." Romans 8:15

It is most distinctly affirmed in this passage, that the children of God are emancipated from the spirit of bondage- the present and mournful condition of all the unregenerate. The question here arises, what is the spirit of bondage of which the Apostle speaks? It exhibits itself in various forms, yet, essentially, it is the same spirit. The world, for example, holds in cruel bondage all its devotees. It enslaves the intellect by its opinions, the heart by its pleasures, the imagination by its promises, the soul by its religion- leading it a willing captive, a victim garlanded for the sacrifice. They are described as "walking according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now works in the children of disobedience."
But it is the moral law- the spirit of bondage which genders fear- to which the passage particularly refers. Its commands are exceedingly broad, and the obedience upon which it insists unqualifiedly perfect; and yet, with all the breadth of the precept, and the rigidness of the requirement, it offers no helping hand. It shows a man his sin, but not his pardon. It teaches him his weakness, but tells him not where his great strength lies. It thunders in his ear his misery and condemnation, but whispers not a word of mercy and of hope. Emancipated, as the justified believer really is, from the condemning power of this law, yet, alas! how much of its bondage spirit does he still retain! How few of the sons of God realize the possession and largeness of their birthright! How few rise to the dimity and the privilege of their adoption! How few see their completeness in Christ Jesus, and read the sentence of their pardon written in the
heart's blood of Immanuel! How few walk in a large place, and by the sunny joyousness and lofty aspirations of their spirit, evidence that they have "not received the spirit of bondage again to fear!"

"But you have received the Spirit of adoption." The Spirit of adoption is the same as the Spirit of God. There are two essential features which identify him as such. The first is, he imparts the nature of the Father to all the children of the family. In this there is a wide difference between a human and a Divine adoption. Man can only confer his name and his inheritance upon the child he adopts. But in the adoption of God, to the name and inheritance of God is added the Divine nature imparted in regeneration; so that, in the words of our Lord, we become manifestly the "children of our Father who is in heaven." The second feature is- having begotten the nature of the Father, he then breathes the spirit of the child into the heart. He inspires a filial love. The love which glows in the believer's heart is the affection of a child to its parent. It is not a servile bondage, but a filial and free spirit. Oh, sweet and holy emotion! How tender and confiding, how clinging and childlike is it! Such ought to be our love to God. He is our Father- we are his children. Why should not our love to him be marked by more of the exquisite tenderness, and the unquestioning confidence, and the calm repose of a child reclining upon a parent's breast? A childlike fear of God is another inspiration of the Spirit of adoption. Love and fear are twin graces in the Christian character. The Spirit of God is the Author of both; and both dwell together and co-operate in the same renewed heart. It is not the dread of the servant, but the holy trembling of the child, of which we speak. It is a filial, loving, reverential fear. A childlike trust in God also springs from the Spirit
of adoption. The trust of a child is implicit, affectionate, and unquestioning. Upon whose counsel may he so safely rely, in whose affection may he so fully confide, upon whose fidelity may he so confidently trust, as a parent's? God is your Father, O child of a divine adoption, of a heavenly birth! Let your trust in him be the result of the relationship you sustain. It admits you to the closest intimacy, and invites you to the most perfect confidence. You have not a need, nor an anxiety, nor a grief which is not all his own. His adoption of your person- an act of his spontaneous and most free grace- pledged him to transfer all your individual interests to himself. To these we must add a filial obedience: "If you love me, keep my commandments." Obedience, whether to the Savior's precept, or to the Father's law, is the test of love; and love is the spring of obedience. "All that the Lord God has spoken to us will we do," is the language of that heart where the Spirit of adoption dwells. Such are some of the features of adoption.

"Whereby we cry, Abba, Father." The Apostle employs in the original two different languages. It may not be improper to infer, that in using both the Syriac and the Greek form- the one being familiar to the Jew, and the other to the Gentile- he would denote that both the Christian Jew and the believing Gentile were children of one family, and were. alike privileged to approach God as a Father. Christ, our peace, has broken down the middle wall of partition that was between them; and now, at the same mercy-seat, the Christian Jew and the believing Gentile, both one in Christ Jesus, meet, as rays of light converge and blend in one common center- at the feet of their reconciled Father. The expressions, too, set forth the peculiarity and intensity of the affection. Literally, "Abba, Father," signifies "My Father." No bond-servant was permitted thus to address the master of the family; it was a privilege peculiar and sacred to the child. And when our blessed Lord would teach his disciples to pray, he led them to the mercy-seat, and sealed these precious words upon their lips- "Our Father, who is in heaven." And after his resurrection, with increased emphasis and intensity did he give utterance to the same truth. Previously to his death his words were, "go to the Father." But when he came back from the grave, every truth he had before enunciated seemed quickened as with new life. How tender and touching were his words- "I ascend unto my Father, and to your Father; to my God, and to your God." No longer a bond-slave, but a son, oh, claim the dignity and privilege of your birthright! Approach God as your Father.

"Abba, Father!" How tender the relation! how intense the affection! what power it imparts to prayer! What may you not ask, and what can God refuse, with "Abba, Father" breathing in lowliness and love from your lips? Remember, it is an inalienable, unchangeable relation. Never, in any instance, or under any circumstance the most aggravated, does God forget it. He is as much our Father when he chastises, as when he approves; as much so when he frowns, as when he smiles; as much so when he brims the cup of adversity, as when he bids us drink the cup of salvation. Behold the touching display of it in his gracious restorings: "But when he was yet a great way off, his father saw him, and had compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck and kissed him." In all his wanderings, that father's love had never lost sight of his wayward child. It tracked him along all his windings, followed him to the very swine-trough, hovered around him even then, and waited and welcomed his return. We may doubt, and debase, and deny our divine relationship, yet God will never disown us as his children,
nor disinherit us as his heirs. We may cease to act as a child, he will never cease to love as a Father. To him, then, as to a Father at all times repair. "Have faith in God." Confide in his heart to love you; in his counsel to guide you; and in his power to sustain you. Cast from you the fetters that enthrall, and pray to be upheld by his free Spirit. "Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty."

The Spirit Testifying to the Believer's Adoption

"The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God's children." Romans 8:16

"For his Holy Spirit speaks to us deep in our hearts and tells us that we are God's children." Romans 8:16

Having affirmed the Divine relationship of the believer, the Apostle now proceeds to adduce the divine evidence of a truth so great. He assumes that the actual existence of the believer's sonship, may, to his own soul, at times be a matter of painful uncertainty. This leads him to unfold the agency of the Spirit in authenticating the fact, thus at once neutralizing in the mind all doubt, and allaying all fear. "The Spirit himself bearing witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God."

With regard to the first point; it is not strange that the fact of his adoption should meet with much misgiving in the Christian's mind, seeing that it is a truth so spiritual, flows from a source so concealed, and has its seat in the profound recesses of the soul. The very stupendousness of the relationship staggers our belief. To be fully assured of our divine adoption demands other than the testimony either of our own feelings, or the opinion of men. Our feelings sometimes excited and visionary- may mislead; the opinion of others- often fond and partial- may deceive us. The grand, the Divine, and only safe testimony is, "the Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit." There exists a strong combination of evil tending to shake the Christian's confidence in the belief of his sonship. Satan is ever on the watch to insinuate the doubt. He tried the experiment with our Lord. "If you are the Son of God." In no instance would it appear that he actually denied the truth of Christ's divine relationship; the utmost that his temerity permitted was the suggestion to the mind of a doubt, leaving it there to its own working. Our blessed Lord thus assailed, it is no marvel that his disciples should be exposed to a like assault. The world, too, presumes to call it in question. "Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God: therefore the world knows us not, because it knew him not." Ignorant of the Divine Original, how can it recognize the divine lineaments in the faint and imperfect copy? It has no vocabulary by which it can decipher the "new name written on the white stone." The sons of God are in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation, illumining it with their light, and preserving it by their grace, yet disguised from its knowledge, and hidden from its view. But the strongest doubts touching the validity of his adoption are those gendered in the believer's own mind. Oh, there is much there to generate and foster the painful misgiving. We have said that the very greatness of the favor, the stupendousness of the relationship, startles the mind, and staggers our faith. "What! to be a child of God! God my Father! Can I be the subject of a change so great, of a relationship so exalted? Who am I, O Lord God, and what is my house, that you should exalt me to be a king's son? Is this the manner of men, O Lord God?"

And, then, there crowd upon the believer's mind thoughts of his own sinfulness, and unworthiness of so distinguished a blessing. "Can it be? With such depravity of heart, such carnality of mind, such rebellion of will, such a propensity to evil each moment, and in everything such backslidings and flaws, does there yet exist within me a nature that links me with the Divine? It seems impossible!" And when to all this are added the varied dispensations of his Heavenly Father, often wearing a rough garb, assuming a somber aspect, threatening, and crushing; oh, it is no marvel that, staggered by a discipline so severe, the fact of God's love to him, and of his close and tender relation to God, should sometimes be a matter of painful doubt. That thus he should reason- "If his child, reposing in his heart, and sealed upon his arm, why is it thus? Would he not have spared me this heavy stroke? Would not this cup of suffering have passed my lips? Would he have asked me to slay my Isaac, to resign my Benjamin? All these things are against me." And thus are the children of God constantly tempted to question the fact of their adoption.

But the Lord has graciously and amply provided for this painful part of Christian experience in the Witness of the Spirit. The perfect competence of the Spirit is assumed. Who can reasonably question it? Is verity essential to a witness? Then is he most competent, for he is the "Spirit of truth." Essentially Divine, his testimony is to be received as of one whose truthfulness cannot be impeached. If he witnesses to us that we are born from above, and belong to the one family, then we may safely credit his testimony, and receive the comfort it imparts. Is it essential that he should know the fact whereof he affirms? Who so competent to authenticate the work of the Spirit in the heart as the Spirit himself? We, then, may safely confide in the truthful and intelligent testimony which the Spirit of God bears to our being the sons of God.

As to the great truth thus witnessed to by the Spirit, we are not to suppose that the testimony is intended to make the fact itself more sure; but simply to confirm our own minds in the comfortable assurance of it. Our actual adoption cannot be more certain than it is. It is secured to us by the predestinating love of God, and the everlasting covenant of grace; is confirmed by our union with the Lord Jesus, and is sealed by the Holy Spirit of promise. "Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will." But the testimony which the Spirit bears is designed to meet the phase of Christian experience just adverted to- the painful uncertainty to the children of God themselves, by which this truth is often enshrouded. It is not for the benefit of our fellow-creatures, still less for the satisfaction of God himself, but for the assurance and comfort of our own hearts, that the Spirit bears witness with our spirits that we are the children of God. The testimony is for the confirmation of our own faith, and the consolation of our own hearts.

But the question arises, What is the mode of his testimony? In attempting to supply an answer, we must acknowledge that we have no certain data to guide us. Sufficient light, however, beams from his work in general, to assist us in forming an intelligent and correct idea of his operations. How, then, may we suppose the Spirit witnesses with our spirit? Not by visions and voices; not by heats and fancies; nor by any direct inspiration, or new revelation of truth. Far different from this is the mode of his testimony. We may gather from the measure of light vouchsafed, that he first implants within the soul the germ of spiritual life, which beneath his culture produces the "fruits of love, joy, peace, patience, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance." From these we are left to draw the rational deduction of our adoption. If, for example, a child of God, with all lowliness of spirit, and after much prayerful inquiry, discover that, more or less, some of these effects of the Spirit's operation are developed in his experience, then it is no presumption in that individual, honestly and humbly to conclude that he is a child of God. This is the Spirit's witness, and he cannot gainsay it without wilful blindness, nor reject it without positive sin. The breathing of the renewed heart after holiness, supplies another illustration of the mode of the Spirit's testimony. The panting after Divine conformity is the Spirit's inspiration. Where, therefore, it exists, the deduction is, that the individual is a child of God. Thus, by begetting in us the Divine nature- by producing in us spiritual fruits- and by breathing in our souls a desire for holiness, the Spirit conducts us to the rational conclusion that we are born of God. By shedding abroad God's love in the soul by sprinkling the conscience with the atoning blood- by endearing the Savior to our hearts by leading us more simply to rest in his finished work, yes, to rest in himself- by creating and increasing love to the members of the one family, and fellowship with whatever is holy, and heavenly, and useful, he thus testifies to our divine relationship.

Nor would we pass by the harmony which subsists between the Bible and the experience of the sanctified heart, by which the Spirit witnesses that we are born of God. Whatever may be the mode of his testimony, it never contradicts the word of truth, but always is in perfect agreement with, and fully sustains it. As it is by the truth he quickens, and through the truth he sanctifies, so with the truth he witnesses. If our sentiments, and feelings, and actions are invariably and unequivocally opposed to God's revealed word, we may boast as we will of our divine relationship, we yet are self-deceived, and are "illegitimate children and not true sons." Is there in our lives a correspondence of Christian experience and revealed truth?

"I could not, without making my own doctrine outstrip my own experience, vouch for any other intimation of the Spirit of God, than that which he gives in the act of making the word of God clear unto you, and the state of your own heart clear unto you. From the one you draw what are its promises- from the other what are your own personal characteristics; and the application of the first to the second may conduct to a most legitimate argument, that you personally are one of the saved- and that not in tardy or elaborate argument either, but with an evidence quick and powerful as the light of intuition. By a single deposition of conscience, for example, I may know that I do indeed hunger and thirst after righteousness; and by a single glance with the eye of my understanding, I may recognize a Savior's truth, and a Savior's tenderness in the promise that all who do so shall be filled; and without the intervention of any lengthened process of reasoning, I may confidently give to the general announcement in the gospel such a specific application to myself, as to convey my own distinct and assured hope of a particular interest therein. Thus there is no whisper of the Spirit distinct from the testimony of the word. Thus there is no irradiation, but that whereby the mind is enabled to look reflexly and with rational discernment upon itself. And hence there is no conclusion, but what comes immediately and irresistibly out of promises which are clear to me, while they lie hidden in deepest obscurity from other men: and all this you will observe with the rapidity of thought by a flight of steps so few, as to be got over in an instant of time- by a train of considerations strictly logical, while the mind that enjoys and is impressed with all this light is not sensible of any logic- and yet withal by the Spirit of God, for it is he who has brought the word near, and given it weight and significancy to my understanding, and it is he who has manifested to me the thoughts and intents of my own heart, and evinced some personal characteristic within that is coincident with the promise without, and it is he who sustains me in the work of making a firm and confident application. In all this he utters no voice. The word of God made plain to my convictions, and his own work upon me made plain to my conscience- these are the vocables, and I do imagine the only vocables, by which he expresses himself; but enough to furnish any Christian with a reason of the hope that is in him, and better than articulation itself to solace and to satisfy the inquiring spirit of its relationship to the family of God." (Chalmers).

Nor is the comfort which the Spirit imparts the least evidence of our adoption. As our chastenings are marks of our sonship, equally so are our consolations. The kindly view the Spirit gives of our Father's dispensations- the meek submission of the will- the cordial acquiescence of the heart- and the entire surrender of the soul to God, which he creates, supplies us with indisputable ground for drawing a conclusion favorable to the reality of our being the children of God. There is a depth of sympathy and a degree of tenderness in God's comforts, which could only flow from the heart of a Father- that Father, God himself. "As a father pities his children, so the Lord pities those who fear him." Sweet to know that the correction and the consolation, the wounding and the healing, flow from the same heart- come from the same hand, and each bear a message of love, and a token of sonship. Is the God of all comfort sustaining, soothing, and quieting your oppressed, chafed, and sorrowful heart? Oh, it is the Spirit's witness to your adoption.

Bending to your grief, and associating himself with every circumstance of your sorrow, he seeks to seal on your softened heart the deeper, clearer impress of your filial interest in God's love. And oh, if this overwhelming bereavement- if this crushing stroke- if the bitterness and gloom of this hour be the occasion of the Spirit's gentle, gracious lifting you from the region of doubt and distress, as to your sonship, into the serene sunlight of your Father's love, so that you shall question, and doubt, and deny no more your acceptance in the Beloved, and your adoption into his family, will you not kiss the rod, and love the hand, and bless the heart that has smitten? One word in conclusion. Forget not that the inward seal of adoption is testified by the outward seal of sanctification, and that if the Spirit of Christ is in your heart, the fruits of the Spirit will be exhibited in your life. Then, thus meek, and gentle, and lowly, like the Savior; separated from the world, that you live not and joy not, as the world does- in the secret chamber of your soul you shall often hear the voice of God, saying, "I will be a Father unto you, and you shall be my sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty."

"The Christian's Joint Heirship"

"And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together." Romans 8:17

"Now if we are children, then we are heirs--heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory." Romans 8:17

"And since we are his children, we will share his treasures—for everything God gives to his Son, Christ, is ours, too. But if we are to share his glory, we must also share his suffering." Romans 8:17

It is a natural and graceful transition this from a consideration of the believer's relationship to God, and the nature of the evidence which makes it certain, to a consideration of his heirship, and the nature of the inheritance to which that relationship links him. "If children, then heirs." The first truth that demands our attention is a vast and comprehensive one- God himself the inheritance of his people. Not only are they begotten by God as his children, and by a sovereign act of his most free mercy, have become the heirs of an inheritance- but subjectively, they are made the heirs of himself. "Heirs of God." Not only are all things in the covenant theirs, but the God of the covenant is theirs. This is their greatest mercy. "I am your part and your inheritance," are his words addressed to all his spiritual Levites. Not only are they put in possession of all that God has- a boundless wealth; but they are in present possession of all that God is- an infinite Portion. And what an immense truth is this, "I will be their God, and they shall be my people!" Take out this truth from the covenant of grace, were it possible, and what remains? It is the chief wealth and the great glory of that covenant that God is our God. This it is that gives substance to its blessings, and security to its foundation. So long as faith can retain its hold upon the God of the covenant, as our God, it can repose with perfect security in expectation of the full bestowment of all the rest. Here lies our vast, infinite, and incomputable wealth. What constitutes the abject poverty of an ungodly man? His being without God in the world. His earthly possessions may be boundless; he may look out from the crystal windows of his castellated mansion upon a far-spreading and magnificent domain, and exclaim, "This is all my own" yet is he poor! and when death relaxes his grasp, and summons him to the account of his stewardship, he closes his eyes upon all his proud possessions, and his only portion, and that forever, is the "worm that never dies, and the fire that is never quenched." Be you, my reader, rich or poor, high or low in this world, without God, you are undone to all eternity! It is but of trivial moment whether you die in rags and lowliness, or go in ermine and pomp to the torments of the lost- those torments will be your changeless inheritance, living and dying without God, and without Christ, and without hope. But contrast this with the state of the poorest child of God. The universe is not only his- "for all things are yours"- but the God of the universe is his- "The Lord is my portion, says my soul, therefore will I hope in him." We have a deathless interest in every perfection of the Divine nature. Is it Wisdom? It counsels him. Is it Power? It shields him. Is it Love? It soothes him. Is it Mercy? It upholds him. Is it Truth? It cleaves to him. "As the mountains are round about Jerusalem, so the Lord is round about his people, from henceforth, even for evermore." What more can we ask than this? If God be ours, we possess the substance and the security of every other blessing. When the Lord appeared to Abraham, with what truth did he seek to win his confidence, and ask his obedience! "I am the Almighty God." And then follows the precept, "Walk before me and be perfect." And this is just the truth with which God would preface every blessing, and comfort us in all our tribulation. "They shall be my people, and I will be their God." He would bring us to an absolute trust in an absolute God. Winning us to an entire relinquishment of all expectation from any other source, he would allure us to his feet with the language of the Church breathing from our lips- "Behold we come unto you, for you are the Lord our God. Truly in vain is salvation hoped for from the hills, and from the multitude of mountains: truly in the Lord our God is the salvation of Israel." And again, "Asshur shall not save us, we will not ride upon horses; neither will we say any more to the work of our hands, You are our gods: for in you the fatherless finds mercy." Only in the Lord our God is our salvation- only in him does the orphan find the mercy that soothes, provides, and encompasses him as a shield. Nor the fatherless only: is he not equally the covenant God of the widow? "I am married unto you," says God. And again, "Your Maker is your husband (the Lord of hosts is his name)." And yet again, "Let your widows trust in me." Thus does he by words the most persuasive, and by imagery the most touching, seek to endear himself to us as our Portion. It is in the heart of our God to give us the chief and the best. Had there been a greater, and a better, and a sweeter, and a more satisfying portion than himself, then that portion had been ours. But since there is not, nor can be, a greater than he, the love, the everlasting, changeless love that he bears to us, constrains him to give himself as our God, our Portion, our All. And have we not experienced him to be God all-sufficient? Have we ever found a lack in him? May he not justly challenge us, and ask, "Have I been a wilderness unto Israel? a land of darkness? " Oh no! God is all-sufficient, and no arid wilderness, and no dreary land have we experienced him to be. There is in him an all-sufficiency of love to comfort us; an all-sufficiency of strength to uphold us; an all-sufficiency of power to protect us; an all-sufficiency of good to satisfy us; an all-sufficiency of wisdom to guide us; an all-sufficiency of glory to reward us; and an all-sufficiency of bliss to make us happy here, and happy to all eternity! "This God is our God forever and ever, and he will be our guide even unto death." "In your presence there is fulness of joy, and at your right hand there are pleasures for evermore." Such is the inheritance to which, as children of God, we are the heirs.

"Joint-heirs with Christ." This must be understood in a limited, though still in a very enlarged sense. In its highest meaning- touching the Essential Deity of our Lord- he is the Heir of all things. All worlds and all souls are his. All things were created by, and for him. Heaven is his throne, and
earth is his footstool. To participation in this heirship we cannot be admitted. Nor can there be any conjointure with Christ in the merit that purchased our redemption. Here again he is alone, no creature aiding the work, or dividing the glory. But, mediatorially, in consequence of the union subsisting between Christ and his people, they become heirs with him in all the privileges and hopes appertaining to
his kingdom. Our union to the Lord Jesus brings us into the possession of vast and untold blessings. On the basis of his atonement we build our claim. He merits all, and we possess all. All the immunities and glories of our present and eternal inheritance flow to us through Christ. "In whom also we have obtained an inheritance." "If a son, then an heir
of God through Christ." We cannot lay too great stress on this truth. We possess nothing- we receive nothing- we expect nothing but through Christ. All is given to us in consideration of a Righteousness which upholds and honors the Divine Government. Jesus is the meritorious Recipient, and we receive only through him. "If you be Christ's, then are you Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise." "Knowing that of the Lord you shall receive the reward of the inheritance." And yet again, alluding to our right to, and our possession of, our inheritance, the Apostle traces both to the atonement of the Son of God- "And for this cause he is the Mediator of the new testament, that by means of death, for the redemption of the transgressions that were under the first testament, they which are called might receive the promise of eternal inheritance." Thus it is alone through the "fitness" imparted by Christ, the merit he substitutes in our behalf, and the righteousness he imputes to us, that we become "partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light." Blessed Redeemer! to what dignity and honor, to what privilege and blessing, to what hope and glory our union with you has advanced us! We were fallen, and you have lifted us up; we were poor, and you have enriched us; we were naked, and you have clothed us; we were aliens, and you have made us children; we were bankrupts, and you have made us heirs; we lost all from fatal union with the first Adam; we receive all, and infinitely more, by our glorious union with you, the Second Adam. Oh for a heart to love you! Oh for grace to glorify you! Be increasingly precious to us, and may we be increasingly devoted to you!

But observe in what this joint-heirship consists- suffering, and glory.
"If so be that we suffer with him." It is first an heirship of suffering. "If so be," or, as it has been rendered, "Seeing that we suffer with him;" thus removing any seeming idea of suffering being a meritorious cause of glory. As Christ is the Head, and we the body, there is a fellowship of condition, a sympathy of suffering of the closest character. Most assuredly there is a sense in which we could have no actual participation in the sufferings of our Lord- the sense in which those sufferings were expiatory. But mystically, the church suffered with the Head. And having begun in suffering, suffering more or less, tracks our course to glory. "If any man will come after me," says Christ, "let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me." "If we be dead with him, we shall also live with him: if we suffer, we shall also reign with him." Suffering in inseparable from true godliness. "All that will live godly in Christ Jesus, shall suffer persecution." Thus our very union with Christ involves suffering with Christ. We are joint-heirs with the "Man of sorrows." We are united to a crucified Head. We cannot assert any valid claim to a union with Christ, and plead exemption from trial. Our fellowship with him in his sufferings is the seal of our heirship with him in his glory. Do you see a professed disciple of the Lord Jesus exempt from all sorrow- from that sorrow, we mean, peculiar to the chastened and disciplined sons of God? you see him lacking one of the strongest and most valid evidences of sonship. "For if you be without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then are you illegitimate children and not true sons." Suffering is the beaten path to heaven. A public avowal of adherence to Christ- allegiance to his authority- fidelity to his truth- separation from the world as a professed disciple of Jesus- will often entail suffering of a most humiliating and painful character.
But let us not overlook the alleviations. It is not, as in the case of our Lord, unmixed suffering- suffering borne alone. When he sorrowed in the garden, his disciples slept. When he was accused at Pilate's bar, one of them denied him. When suspended upon the cross, all of them forsook him. He was alone in suffering. But when we suffer, it is a suffering with Christ. In all our affliction he is afflicted. He suffers with us. There is an outflow of the purest, tenderest human sympathy. Our spirit is never oppressed, our heart is never sad, our love is never wounded, our principles are never assailed, our persons are never persecuted, but Christ is with us in the closest alliance. "Saul, Saul, why do you persecute ME?" With such a fellow-sufferer at our side, why should we fret and murmur and repine? "Unto us it is given in the behalf of Christ, not only to believe on him, but also to suffer for his sake." We must, if his true disciples, drink of the cup that he drank of, and be baptized with the baptism that he was baptized with; for "Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example that we should follow his steps." Oh, sweet words! "If so be that we suffer with him." Not as he suffered. Oh, no! there is no curse, no wrath, no hell in the cup of sorrow which we drink. All these ingredients composed his bitter draught. Yet he suffers with us, and permits our afflictions to be called the "afflictions of
Christ." He is with you on that bed of sickness; he is with you on that couch of languishing; he is with you in that darkened room; he kneels with you at that coffin; and he weeps with you by the side of that sepulcher. Oh, may it not reconcile us to all the suffering we have ever endured, or may yet be called to endure, to feel the perfect oneness, the presence, the sympathy, the succourings of such a Savior? Who would wish to shun the obloquy of his cross, the scorn of his name, the lowliness of his kingdom, the self-denial of his religion, allied in the tenderest sympathy at every step with this illustrious Martyr- this Prince of sufferers- this Brother born for adversity? Blessed school of heavenly training! By this afflictive process, oh, of what profounder teaching, what deeper purification have we become the favored subjects! It is good for us to have been afflicted. Now have we, like our Lord, learned obedience by the things which we have suffered; and like him, too, are being made perfect through suffering. The heart has been emptied of its self-confidence- the shrine has been despoiled of its idol- the affections that had been seduced from God, have returned to their rest- the ties that bound us to the vanities of a world, perishing in its very using, have become loosened- the engagements that absorbed our sympathies, and secularized our minds, have lost their fascination and their power- the beguiling and treacherous enjoyments that wove their spell around us, have grown tasteless and insipid- and thus, by all these blessed and hallowed results of our trial, the image of the earthy has become more entirely effaced, and the image of the heavenly more deeply engraven, and more distinctly legible.

"That we may be glorified together." As suffering precedes glory, so glory assuredly follows suffering. Thus was it with our Lord. "Ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and to enter into his glory?" The Apostle speaks of himself as a "witness of the sufferings of Christ, and also a partaker of the glory that shall be revealed." Our Lord is in glory. The head that once bowed in death, pale and bleeding, is now raised in life, encircled with a glory brighter than ten thousand suns. The humanity that was despised from the lowliness of its birth, that was mocked, and scourged, and spit upon, and slain, is now, from its indissoluble union with the Deity, exalted far above principalities and powers, glorified with the glory he had with the Father before the world was. Having purged our sins, he is set down on the right hand of the Majesty on high. To that glory which belongs to him as the Mediator of the Church, each suffering confessor of Christ shall be exalted- the body with the Head, and each part of that body with the whole. A joint-heirship of suffering, it is now a joint-heirship of glory: "We shall be glorified together with Christ." Still the oneness is manifest, and never so clearly seen as now. Glory bathes it in its light, and eternity impresses it with its seal. It is an undimmed and changeless glory. And Christ acknowledges their right to this oneness in glory. As they were not ashamed of him among men, he is not now ashamed of them among angels. As they linked themselves to his cross, he binds them to his throne. As they confessed him before the world, he now confesses them before his Father. "Glorified together." Wondrous words! Elevated to his side- leaning upon his bosom- gazing on his beauty- listening to his voice- entering into his joy- at home, and forever with the Lord. Now is answered in its fulness, the prayer mingled with tears, and breathed from the scene of his suffering below- "Father, I will that they also whom you have given me, be with me where I am; that they may behold my glory." Welcome the suffering, succeeded by such glory. Welcome the cross, followed by such a crown.
Let us learn to regard our present tutorage as preparatory to our future inheritance. "The heir as long as he is a child, differs nothing from a servant, though he be Lord of all; but is under tutors and governors until the time appointed of the father." Thus is it with us. But soon we shall attain our adulthood and come into possession of our estate. Before long we shall be done with governors and tutors, and need no more the lessons of the school, and the discipline of suffering. Oh, let us live in its near anticipation.
To the poor of Christ's flock how animating the prospect! "Has not God chosen the poor of this world, to be rich in faith, and heirs of the kingdom which he has promised to those who love him?" What though straitened resources, what though pinching poverty, what though absolute neediness, be your present allotment, lift up your heads with joy, for you have a joint-heirship with Christ in a kingdom which your Heavenly Father will give. Confide in its security. It is made sure to you by Divine oath- "Wherein God willing more abundantly to show unto the heirs of promise the immutability of his counsel, confirmed it by an oath." Thus inalienably is it secured. Death, which robs the earthly heir of his inheritance, puts you in possession of yours. Your estate comes not to you robed in mourning, for your Father never dies. No succession awaits you, for your inheritance is yours forever. "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to his abundant mercy has begotten us again unto a lively hope, by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fades not away, reserved in heaven for you, who are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation, ready to be revealed in the last time."

"Present Suffering Weighed with Future Glory"

"For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us." Romans 8:18

"I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us." Romans 8:18

"Yet what we suffer now is nothing compared to the glory he will give us later." Romans 8:18

How forcible are the words, and how powerful is the influence, of an experienced man of God! In listening to his testimony, we feel the deep conviction that he believes and therefore speaks; that he testifies, not from what others have described, but from what he has himself felt. Such is the testimony of Paul. Who, of mere men, could so well expatiate upon suffering- its varied forms, its appropriate soothings, and its hallowed results, as he? "I will show him how great things he shall suffer for my name's sake," were the words of the Savior as he predicted his future history, dating it from his miraculous conversion, to his glorious martyrdom. Having affirmed of the Christian's sufferings- that they were endured in alliance with the Savior, and would be succeeded by a glory again to be shared with him, the Apostle proceeds to contrast those sufferings with that glory, and concludes by summing up the vast disproportion of the one to the other- "I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us."

Dismissing any further minute reference to the sufferings of the believer, he contents himself, in the present instance, with simply alluding to their temporary existence. He characterizes them as the "sufferings of this present time." That the sufferings of the believer are bounded by the limits of the present state, is a truth replete with soothing to the Christian mind. Earth is the "house of our pilgrimage." The present life is the "time of our sojourning." "Here we have no continuing city." Alas! how we forget that we are but strangers and pilgrims on the earth; that we are journeying to our home, and will soon be there! And yet we would not pen a sentence tending to lessen the dignity and importance of our present existence, or calculated to engender a spirit of dissatisfaction and distrust with our present allotment. There is much folly, no, much infidelity in a remark common to many- "It will be all the same a hundred years hence." Not so. The relation of the present to the future is causal; it is a relation of the closest character, and of the most solemn results. Time is the infant of eternity. It is its commencement; and is, in a sense, its most momentous part. Shaded with grief, linked with suffering, and transient in its stay, yet all the future receives its complexion and its character from the present. The life that now is, casts its light or its shade upon the life that is to come. Eternity will be bright or gloomy, joyous or sad, happy or miserable, as time shall impart to it its complexion and its shape. Each individual of the human race is training for the future; and as a man sows so shall he reap. Will you, then, my reader, in view of this statement of truth, persist in believing that, regarding any given act of your life, when that life shall have passed away, with it will have passed all the accountability, and all the traces of that act; and that a century hence it will be as though it had not been? Away with the fatal fallacy! If it be true, as philosophers assert, that sounds once awakened, vibrate through eternity, what shall be said of the moral actions of a rational, responsible, and accountable being, but that they form links in an interminable chain, each quivering with indescribable agony, or thrilling with unspeakable pleasure through an endless existence!
And still the sufferings of the children of God are but the sufferings of the present time. That world where Satan's seat is, and overshadowed by his gloomy reign, must be a world of suffering. "Satan, where have you come from?" was the inquiry of God. "Then Satan answered the Lord and said, From going to and fro in the earth, and from walking up and down in it." The world where not a spot is found unscathed by the curse must be a world of suffering. The world where sin holds its universal empire, tainting every object, and beclouding every scene, must be a world of suffering. The world where the spirit is wounded, and the heart is broken, and reason is dethroned, and hope languishes, and the eye weeps, and the nerve trembles, and sickness wastes, and death reigns, must needs be a world of suffering. From none of these forms of woe does Christianity exempt its believers. But with this truth, on the other hand, it soothes and reconciles- they are the sufferings of the present time. They are but momentary, will soon be over- and forever. We live in a dying world- a world that is passing away. Time is short- is ever on the wing- and we are ever on the wing of time, borne each moment by its sweeping pinion nearer and still nearer our Father's house; of whose occupants it is said, "God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither, shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away." Oh, how gentle is the admonition- "Arise, and depart, for this is not your rest, it is polluted."

Then comes the glory- "The glory which shall be revealed in us." What word could more appropriately express the future condition of the saints? The world claims the title, but has no claim to the reality. What is the glory of science- of learning- of rank- of wealth, but a tinseled pageant, a meteor blazing for a moment, and then disappearing in eternal night? But the glory that awaits the suffering Christian, is a real, a substantial glory. At present it is veiled. The world sees it not; the believer only beholds it through faith's telescope. But the day of its full, unclouded revelation awaits us. It draws near. It will be a glory revealed in us. This truth may be startling to some. "What!" they exclaim, "a glory to be revealed in me? In me, who can scarcely reflect a solitary ray of light! In me, so dark, so sinful, living at so remote a distance from communion with the Father of lights? Can it be that in me this glory will be revealed?" Yes! So affirms the word of our God. If a child of the light, dwelling it may be, in the world's shade, and often called to walk in great darkness, you shall one day outshine the brightness of the firmament, and the stars forever and ever.

But in what respects will it be a glory revealed in us? It will be the glory of perfect knowledge. "Now we see through a glass darkly, but then face to face; now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known." Oh, what an orb of intellectual light will be each glorified mind! What capacity of understanding will it develop- what range of thought will it compass- what perfection of knowledge will it attain! How will all mysteries then be unraveled, and all problems then be solved, and all discrepancies then be reconciled; and every truth of God's revelation, and every event of God's providence, and every decision of God's government, stand out more transparent and resplendent than ten thousand suns! Do you, in your present search for spiritual knowledge, deplore the darkness of your mind, the feebleness of your memory- the energy of your mental faculties impaired, dimmed, and exhausted? Oh, rejoice in hope of the glory that is to be revealed in you, when all your intellectual powers will be renewed as the eagle's strength; developed, sanctified, and perfected, to a degree outvying the mightiest angel in heaven. Then shall we know God, and Christ, and truth, and providence, and ourselves, even as now we are known.
It will also be a glory in us of perfect holiness. The kingdom within us will then be complete. The good work of grace will then be perfected. It will be the consummation of holiness, the perfection of purity. No more sin! The conscience no more sullied- the thoughts no more defiled- the affections no more ensnared- but a glory of holiness, dazzling and resplendent, beyond an angel's, revealed in us. "It does not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that when he shall appear, we shall be like him."
The glory of perfect happiness will be the certain effect of perfect sanctity. The completeness of Christ is the completeness of moral purity. With reverence be it spoken, "God himself could not be a perfectly happy, were he not a perfectly holy Being." The radiance of the glorified countenance of the saints will be the reflection of holy thoughts and holy feelings glowing within. Joy, and peace, and full satifaction will beam in every feature, because every faculty, and feeling, and emotion of the soul will be in perfect unison with the will, and in perfect assimilation to the image of God. Who can paint the happiness of that world from where everything is banished that could sully its purity, disturb its harmony, and ruffle its repose? Where everything is included that comports with its sanctity, harmonizes with its grandeur, and heightens its bliss. Oh, yes! it will be a glory revealed in us. The glory of the Father's adoption- the glory of Christ's atonement- the glory of the Spirit's regeneration, radiating from a poor, fallen son of Adam- a sinner redeemed, renewed, and saved! And what is each present ray of heavenly light- and each thrill of Divine love- and each victory of indwelling grace- and each glimpse of the upper world, but the foreshadowings of the glory yet to be revealed in us?
Suffering and glory thus placed side by side, thus contrasted and weighed, to what conclusion does our Apostle arrive? "I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us." No, not worthy of a comparison! Do we measure their relative duration? Then, "our light affliction is but for a moment," while our glory is a "far more exceeding and eternal weight." Before long all suffering and sorrow will forever have passed away- a thing of history and of memory only- while glory will deepen and expand as eternity rolls on its endless ages. Do we compare them? What comparison has the weight of the cross, with the weight of the crown? Place in the scales the present "light affliction," and the future "exceeding and eternal weight of glory," which is the lightest? are they worthy to be compared? Oh, no! One second of glory will extinguish a lifetime of suffering. What were long years of toil, of sickness, of battle with poverty, and persecution, and sorrow in every form, and closing even with a martyr's death, compared with one draught of the river of pleasure at Christ's right hand- with one breath of Paradise- with one wave of heaven's glory- with one embrace of Jesus, with one sight of God?
Oh, what are the pangs of present separation, in comparison with the joy of future reunion? What the pinchings of poverty now, with the untold riches then? What the suffering, and gloom, and contempt of the present time, with the glory that is to be revealed in us? We can go no further. Tell us, you spirits of just men made perfect, if it be lawful, if it be possible- what the glory that awaits us is! Tell us what it is to be an unclothed spirit- to dwell in the bosom of Jesus to see God- to be perfectly holy- to be supremely happy! Wait, my soul! before long it will be all revealed!

"The Earnest Expectation of the Renewed Creature"

"For the earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God. For the creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him who hath subjected the same in hope, Because the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God." Romans 8:19-21

"The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed. For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God." Romans 8:19-21

"For all creation is waiting eagerly for that future day when God will reveal who his children really are. Against its will, everything on earth was subjected to God's curse. All creation anticipates the day when it will join God's children in glorious freedom from death and decay." Romans 8:19-21

We have now arrived at what has been regarded as, perhaps, the most remarkable and difficult passages in this chapter. It would answer no purpose, but to perplex the reader's mind, were we to quote the various, conflicting, and often extremely fanciful interpretations which they have received from critics of equal learning and piety. Rejecting at once the interpretations of the term "creature" which restrict it to the Gentile nations in opposition to the Jews- to unconverted men in distinction from the sons of God- to mankind in general- and lastly, to the irrational creation, we at once propose for the acceptance of the reader, as being to our own mind the most fair and correct meaning of the term, that interpretation which predicates it of the renewed creature- the Christian in his regenerate state. A slight examination of the connection in which the passages stand will, we think, justify and sustain this view. What appears to be the scope and design of the Apostle in the verses immediately preceding those under consideration? He had been addressing himself to suffering believers in Christ. His aim was to fortify their minds under trial by arraying before them the strong consolations of the Gospel, and by unveiling to their view the animating prospect of a certain and glorious deliverance- the "manifestation of the sons of God." To whom could all this correctly and appropriately apply, but to the renewed creature? Let it be considered, too, what the nature of this prospect is, for which the "creature" is represented as "waiting" in the posture of "earnest expectation." Is it not most spiritual, holy, and glorious? Does it not seem a lowering of the dignity, and a shading of the luster of that prospect, to represent either the animal creation, or the unregenerate mass of mankind, as waiting with outstretched neck, and panting desire, and earnest expectation, the period of its arrival? Of whom can all this be reasonably predicated but of the renewed creature? And thus is the believer frequently called. "If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature." "In Christ Jesus neither circumcision avails anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creature." It is, then, of the new man, "created in Christ Jesus," that we, without hesitation, interpret the term "creature," as employed in these remarkable verses. Read the passages once more with this rendering; and we think that both their meaning and their beauty will be instantly apparent. Having thus explained the sense in which we propose to use the term, let us now proceed to open the text.

The present state of the renewed creature is described as one of humiliation. "The creature was made subject to vanity." The vanity here referred to is opposed to the state of glory in anticipation, and therefore expresses the condition of corruption and trial in the midst of which the renewed creature dwells, and to the assaults of which it is incessantly exposed. The world through which the Christian is passing to his rest may be emphatically called a state of vanity. How perpetually and forcibly are we reminded of the King of Israel's exclamation, "Vanity of vanities, all is vanity and vexation of spirit." "Surely every man walks in a vain show." His origin, the earth; his birth, degenerate; his rank, a bauble; his wealth, but glittering dust; his pomp, an empty pageant; his beauty, a fading flower; his pursuits, an infant's play; his honors, vexations of spirit; his joys, fleeting as a cloud; his life, transient as a vapor; his final home, a grave. "Surely man in his best estate is altogether vanity." And what is his religion but vanity? His native holiness, a vain conceit; his natural light, Egyptian darkness; his human wisdom, egregious folly; his religions forms, and rites, and duties, "a vain show in the flesh;" his
most gorgeous righteousness, "filthy rags." In the impressive language of Scripture, of him it may be
said, "That man's religion is vain." Lord! what is man that you are mindful of him, or the son of man that you regard him? Truly, "vanity" is inscribed in legible characters on each created good. How, then, can the renewed creature escape its influence? He is "subject to vanity." Dazzled by its glare, captivated by its fascinations, ensnared by its promises, he is often the victim of its power. But it is not a voluntary subjection on the part of the renewed creature. "For the creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly." It is not with him a condition of choice. He loves it not, he prefers it not, he glories not in it. From it he would sincerely be freed
beyond it he would gladly soar. "For we who are in this tabernacle do groan, being burdened: not for that we would be unclothed, but clothed upon, that mortality might be swallowed up of life." His prayer is, "Turn away my eyes from beholding vanity; and quicken you me in your way." He pants for a holier and a happier state- a state more congenial with his renewed nature. Like the Israelites under the Egyptian bondage, he is a most unwilling servant, groaning beneath his galling yoke, and "sighing for the glorious liberty of the children of God." Ah, yes! God has given you another will, O renewed creature! and your present subjection to this poor, vain world, is an involuntary subjection of the divine nature within you. Why God should have subjected the renewed creature to vanity does not appear; we well know that he could have transferred us to heaven the moment that he renewed us on earth. But may we not infer that in sending his people into the world, after he had called them by his grace, and, in a sense, taken them out of it, that in subjecting them for so many years to this state of vanity, he has best consulted his own glory and their good? The school of their heavenly teaching, the scene of their earthly toil, and the theater of their spiritual conflict, they are kept in this world for a season; "made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him who has subjected the same in hope." Hearken to the words of their great Intercessor, when breathing forth his prayer for them on earth- "These are in the world, and I come to you. I pray not that you should take them out of the world, but that you should keep them from the evil. As you have sent me into the world, even so have I also sent them into the world." Not into the solitude of the desert- not into the calm, but selfish repose of the domestic circle- not into the hallowed but restricted fellowship of the church- but into the world- encircling them, for a season, by its vanity, and subjecting them to its trials. And what is their mission? That they should love the world? harmonize with the world? fraternize with the world? Oh, no! Not for this were they sent into it. An object more worthy of His wisdom who sends, and more in harmony with their high calling who are sent, is before them. They are sent into the world that their lives should be a constant, uncompromising, and solemn protest against its vanities and its sins. Mark again the words of Christ- "As you has sent me into the world, even so have I also sent them into the world." Christ was commissioned to testify of the world that the works thereof were evil. He came to labor for the world- to bless the world- to honor his Father in the world. And, oh, it was the glory of this world that the Son of God was sent into it- that he made it for a while the place of his temporary abode, and the scene of his stupendous redemption. It was the glory of the earth that he trod upon its turf. It was the glory of the ocean that he sailed upon its bosom. It was the glory of the sun that it beamed upon his head. It was the glory of the air that it fanned his brow. It was the glory of the waters that they quenched his thirst. It was the glory of the flowers that they perfumed his path. It was the glory of the sky that it spread above him its blue canopy. What planet has been so honored as this? What world so visited, so distinguished, so blest? Such is the Christian's pattern. Why has Christ placed you in the position you now occupy? Why are you begirt with so much folly, and trial, and danger? You are converted in the midst of the world- your family is in the world- your associates are in the world- your calling is in the world. Why is it so? Even that like your Lord and Master you might by your unworldly, unearthly, heavenly life testify of the world that the works thereof are evil, and only evil, and evil continually.

One more phrase completes this picture of our present humiliation: "The bondage of corruption." There is nothing in these words that disproves a declaration of the same Apostle in another place, "Sin shall not have dominion over you." And yet it must be admitted of the believer that he is under the "bondage of corruption." Who of the family of God is exempt? Imprisoned and fettered by the inherent corruption of his fallen nature, the renewed creature exclaims with the Apostle, "I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do--this I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it. So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God's law; but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?" Romans 7:15-24. It is the bondage of corruption, and yet the bondage of those whom Christ has made free, and to whom there is "now no condemnation."

But painful and humiliating as is the present condition of the renewed creature, it is yet one of earnest expectation and of hope: "Who has subjected the same in hope." From this state of vanity, and bondage of corruption, the believer is expecting and hoping to be delivered. His gesture is most expressive- it is that of earnest expectation. And are
we not in truth earnest expectants? Would we live always here? Could we be content that this state of vanity should be our condition forever? Ah, no! we expect a better and a holier state than this. With outstretched neck we are looking for the sunny coast towards which we are voyaging. With earnest expectation we are watching for the signs of his approach, who will restore all things: "Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God, and our Savior Jesus Christ." Hope, too, rises like the day-spring from on high in our souls. If we are in the bondage of corruption, we yet are "prisoners of hope." Not always shall we be thus fettered. Not forever shall we look out from the bars of our prison, and exclaim, "Why are his chariot wheels so long in coming?" Oh, no! hope, building upon the atoning work of Christ- hope, springing from his open grave- hope, beaming down from the throne in heaven, within whose veil as an anchor it is cast- "hope that makes not ashamed" sheds its luster upon all the future, clothing its landscape with verdure, and silvering it with beauty. Prisoner of hope! lift up your head and rejoice, for your redemption draws near. "Wherefore gird up the loins of your mind, be sober, and hope to the end for the grace that is to be brought unto you at the revelation of Jesus Christ."

The great consummation toward which this expectation and hope tends is the "manifestation of the sons of God." The sons of God are at present incognito. Unknown to the world, often veiled, in a great degree, to the brotherhood, and sometimes ignorant of their own divine relation, the Church of God is anything but a visible body. But it will not be always so. There is fast hastening a day of perfect manifestation. The sons of God shall be known. Their relationship will be manifest- their principles will be manifest- their glory will be manifest before the universe. Emerging from the obscurity of the wilderness into which she had been driven, throwing off the sackcloth in which she had so long prophesied, the Church of God, the adoption of the Father, will stand forth before an astonished and admiring world clothed in all the glories of the manifested sons of God. More than this- they will be manifested to themselves. Self-disguise will no longer prompt the trembling inquiry, "Am I a child of God?" That question will now be answered by a testimony to the fact, clear and convincing as the noontide light, before whose brightness every gloomy doubt and slavish fear will vanish as the morning grey, with all the objects looming in its mist, vanish before the uprising sun. For this the renewed creature is in the posture of earnest expectation. "We through the Spirit wait for the hope of righteousness by faith."
Connected with this blessed condition there is yet another not less so: "Because the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God." They are already in possession of a liberty most costly and precious. Is it no true liberty to stand before God accepted in the Beloved? Is it no liberty to draw near to him with all the confidence of a child reposing in the boundless affection of a loving father? Is it no liberty to travel day by day to Jesus, always finding him an open door of sympathy the most exquisite, of love the most tender, and of grace the most overflowing? Is it, in a word, no real liberty to be able to lay faith's hand upon the everlasting covenant, and exclaim, "There is now no condemnation?" Oh yes! This is the liberty with which Christ has made us free. But the glorious liberty of the children of God is yet to come. Glorious it will be because more manifest and complete. Including all the elements of our present freedom, it will embrace others not yet enjoyed. We shall be emancipated from the body of sin and of death. Every fetter of corruption will be broken, and every tie of sense will be dissolved. All sadness will be chased from our spirit, all sorrow from our heart, and all cloud from our mind. Delivered from all sin, and freed from all suffering, we shall wander through the many mansions of our Father's house, and tread the star-paved streets of the celestial city, and repose beneath the sylvan bowers of the upper Paradise, and drink of the waters, clear as crystal, that flow from beneath the throne- our pure, and blissful, and eternal home- exulting in the "glorious liberty of the children of God."
In conclusion- how striking and solemn is the contrast between the present and the future state of the believer and the unbeliever! Yours, too, unregenerate reader, is a state of vanity. But, alas! it is a most willing subjection, and the bondage of corruption which holds you is uncheered by one ray of hope of final deliverance. What a terrible and humiliating bondage, a willing slave to sin and Satan! All is vanity which you so eagerly pursue. "The Lord knows the thoughts of men that they are vanity." Were it possible for you to realize all the schemes of wealth, and distinction, and pleasure, and happiness which now float in gorgeous visions before your fevered imagination, still would your heart utter its mournful and bitter complaint, "All is vanity and vexation of spirit." Oh, turn from these vain shadows to Jesus, the substance of all true wealth, and happiness, and honor. That fluttering heart will never find repose until it rests in him. That craving soul will never be satisfied until it be satisfied with Christ. At his feet, then, cast yourself down, and with the tears of penitence, and the reliance of faith, and the expectation of hope, ask to be numbered among the adopted, who shall before long be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God.

A Suffering World in Sympathy with Suffering Man

For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now. Romans 8:22

We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. Romans 8:22

For we know that all creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. Romans 8:22

From the ruin of man, our Apostle naturally turns his consideration to the ruin in which the apostasy of man plunged the whole creation- animate and inanimate. If another link were needed to perfect the chain of evidence demonstrating the existence of the Divine curse for man's sin, this passage would seem to supply it. We read of no blight resting on the material world, of no suffering in the brute creation, prior to the period of Adam's transgression. The present is just the reverse of the original constitution of the world. When God made all things he pronounced them very good. We delight to look back and imagine what this world was when, like a newborn planet, it burst from the Fountain of Light, all clad with beauty, radiant with holiness, and eloquent with praise. The winds blew not rudely then- the verdure withered and died not then- the flowers drooped and faded not then. There were no tornadoes, no earthquakes, no volcanoes, no electric clouds. All the materials and elements of nature were harmless, and in harmony, because all were sinless. Innocence and happiness reigned over the irrational creation. The whole world was at rest, because man was at peace with God, at peace with his fellows, at peace with himself. There was nothing to darken, to hurt, or destroy in all God's holy mountain. Man was in "league with the stones of the field, and the beasts of the field were at peace with him." Oh, what a world of love, and what a picture of loveliness was our pure creation then! But what is it now?

"The whole creation groans and travails in pain." Speak we of the material world? What is our earth, but a globe of volcanic fire, smouldering in its center, ever and anon bursting forth and burying smiling villages and magnificent cities beneath its torrents of flame? What is the wind, but a fierce sirocco, bearing pestilence and death upon its sweeping wings? And what is the sea, but a vast cemetery, its mountain waves the crested monuments of the millions it has engulfed in its yawning abyss? Yes, what are earth, and air, and water, but agents of destruction, messengers of death to man, as if in vengeance for his sin? Speak we of the brute creation? How does it groan and travail in pain! To what suffering, what cruelty, what death is it subject! Yes, every creature that we meet, and every object we behold, supplies an evidence of man's fall, and bears the frown of God's curse. One loud, agonizing, and universal wail of mourning, lamentation, and woe bursts from the whole creation, as it groans and travails in pain, from the first moment of the apostasy until now.

Let us pause and contemplate this overpowering evidence of sin. Why is the ground cursed? Why is this once beautiful and fertile earth sown with briers and noxious weeds? so that, were the laborer to withdraw his hand, the richest and loveliest spot would be abandoned to the spontaneous and luxuriant growth of the deadly nightshade, and the poisonous nettle, and unpruned trees, and wild forests- the haunt of every savage beast, and the abode of man yet more savage. Why this ferocity and deadly enmity in the brute creation- tribe warring with tribe, and animal the prey and food of animal? Because of man's transgression. Oh, Sin, what have you done! Thus closely is a suffering world linked with suffering man. Thus the whole creation- material and animal- sympathizes with the weight of woe that crushes our race to the earth. When man fell, God cursed the ground, and cursed the brutes of the field, for man's sake; and now the whole creation groans and travails in pain until the time of the restitution of all things shall arrive.

It will not, we trust, be considered either inappropriate to, or beneath the dignity of our subject, if we, in this connection, point out the proper feeling of sympathy with which the sufferings of the brute creation should be regarded by man, the author of those sufferings. We have already adverted to the fact of the origin of all woe- man's sin. And yet, clear as this is, how fearfully is the suffering of inferior tribes, first occasioned by human transgression, aggravated and increased by human cruelty! It is impossible to open the eye without seeing the fact, or to contemplate it, when seen, without horror. The dominion and authority which God gave man over the beasts of the field contained no clause whatever giving him a right or power to subject them to the exercise of unnecessary suffering and barbarity. We find the terms of the original grant to be, "The fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth, and upon every fowl of the air, upon all that moves upon the earth, and upon all the fishes of the sea; into your hand are they delivered." But is not the authority over the irrational creature with which man is here invested, a restricted authority? Unquestionably. Is he warranted by the terms of the grant to exercise the plenitude of power thus given, arbitrarily, ferociously, inhumanely? Is it a liberty to use the brute creation as he pleases? By no means. It is the authority of man made in the similitude of Him who is love, extending over brute dependants, and not the authority of demons over their helpless victims. It is impossible, too, to contemplate the natural condition of the animal world- their susceptibility of pain, and their sense of kindness, gratefully and unmistakably shown, without tracing a strong resemblance to ourselves. "These poor animals," remarks an eloquent and benevolent writer, "just look and tremble, and give forth the very indications of suffering that we do. Theirs is the distinct cry of pain- theirs is the unequivocal physiognomy of pain- they put on the same aspect of terror on the demonstration of a menaced blow- they exhibit the same distortions of agony after the infliction of it.

The bruise, or the burn, or the fracture, or the deep incision, or the fierce encounter with one of equal or inferior strength, just affects them similarly to ourselves. Their blood circulates as ours- they have pulsations in various parts of the body like ours- they sicken and they grow feeble with age, and finally die just as we do- they possess the same feelings, and what exposes them to like suffering from another quarter, they possess the same instincts with our own species. The lioness robbed of her whelps, causes the wilderness to ring aloud with the proclamation of her wrongs; and the bird whose little household has been taken, fills and saddens all the grove with melodies of the deepest pathos. All this is palpable even to the general and unlearned eye; and when the physiologist lays open the recesses of their system by means of that scalpel under whose operation they just shrink and are convulsed as any living subject of our own species, there stands forth to view the same sentient apparatus, and furnished with the same conductors for the transmission of feeling to every minutest pore upon the surface. Theirs is unmixed and unmitigated pain- the agonies of martyrdom, without the alleviation of the hopes and the sentiments whereof they are incapable. When they lay them down to die, their only fellowship is with suffering; for in the prison-house of their bounded faculties, there can no relief be afforded of communion with other interests or other things. The attention does not lighten their distress, as it does that of man, by carrying off his spirit from that existing pungency and pressure which might else be overwhelming. There is but room in their mysterious economy for one inmate, and that is the absorbing sense of their own single and concentrated anguish. And so in that bed of torment, whereon the wounded animal lingers and expires, there is a depth and intensity of suffering, which the poor dumb animal itself cannot tell, and against which it can offer no remonstrance; an untold and unknown amount of wretchedness, of which no articulate voice gives utterance. But there is an eloquence in its silence, and the very shroud which disguises it, only serves to aggravate its horrors!" (Chalmers).

To say nothing of the spirit and the precepts of Christianity, where is the humanity that from sinister motives can overwork, or from a love of sport can wantonly and cruelly abuse the jaded and suffering, yet noble brute, placed in our power, contributing to our convenience, and over whom God has constituted us not the lord but the guardian- not the tormentor, but the friend? And who can think of the pastime of 'the pit', and the sports of the field, and the needless torture of the slaughter-house, without a cheek burning with indignation? But God, the infinitely great God, has a tender regard for the irrational part of his creation. He commands us to be their advocate against heartless cruelties: "Open your mouth for the dumb." And he will, hating nothing that he has created, make inquisition for blood; he will redress their wrongs, and visit their merciless taskmasters and inhuman oppressors with tokens of his just displeasure. How striking and touching is his tender regard for the inferior race as exhibited in his word!- "You shall not muzzle the ox when he treads out the corn." "You shall not see your brother's donkey or his ox fall down by the way, and hide yourself from them. You shall surely help them, to lift them up again." "You open your hand and supply the needs of every living thing." "He gives to the beast his food, and to the young ravens when they cry." The regard which we pay to the brute creation must always be considered a test of disposition and character. "A righteous man regards the life of his beast." No individual can be trusted for his humane feeling to his own species who is not humane in his feelings towards the inferior tribes. It is recorded, that when an ancient senate of the Areopagites were assembled in the open air, a small bird, to escape a larger one of prey, took refuge in the bosom of one of the senators, who, being of a cruel disposition, hurled it from him so rudely, that he killed it. On which the senate instantly banished him from their presence, declaring that he who was destitute of humanity, even to a helpless and confiding bird, was unworthy the honor of a seat in their body. An indulged propensity, of cruelty to insects, or larger animals, as Hogarth has finely illustrated, has often ended in the perpetration of crimes of the deepest dye. Those who have wantonly sported with life in inferior creatures, have come to sport with life in beings of a higher and nobler order. The author, then, as man is, of all the evil which affects the irrational world, let us learn to sympathize with its sufferings, and its travail; and thus lessen, and soothe, and hush, as far as God gives us influence and power, the curse we entailed, the pang we inflicted, and the sign we awoke.

Sad as is this picture of a suffering creation, dark and gloomy as is its coloring, it is not without its bright and cheering hues. Hope casts upon the somber canvas a strong and steady light. The Bible teaches that there is coming a day- oh, speed its dawning!- of millennial blessedness, when peace and repose shall be restored to this disordered world, and the groaning of the creation shall cease, its sighs be hushed, and its sufferings be terminated forever. When that period arrives we are told that the "In that day the wolf and the lamb will live together; the leopard and the goat will be at peace. Calves and yearlings will be safe among lions, and a little child will lead them all. The cattle will graze among bears. Cubs and calves will lie down together. And lions will eat grass as the livestock do. Babies will crawl safely among poisonous snakes. Yes, a little child will put its hand in a nest of deadly snakes and pull it out unharmed. Nothing will hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain. And as the waters fill the sea, so the earth will be filled with people who know the Lord." Isaiah 11:6-9. Then when the Restorer of all things shall come, there will be a "new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwells righteousness." Such is the beauteous light with which this dark picture is clothed. Let us pray for its coming, and instrumentally hasten its approach; remembering that the world is to be filled with the knowledge of the Lord through the sanctified agency of the church.

The First-fruits of the Spirit, a Pledge Of the Full Redemption

And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body. Romans 8:23

Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. Romans 8:23

And even we Christians, although we have the Holy Spirit within us as a foretaste of future glory, also groan to be released from pain and suffering. We, too, wait anxiously for that day when God will give us our full rights as his children, including the new bodies he has promised us. Romans 8:23

From his natural and impressive digression, the Apostle again returns to the renewed creature of whom he had previously been speaking. Having adverted to the suffering of the whole animate creation, he proceeds to show that this condition was not peculiar or solitary- that not only in the heart of the irrational creature, but even in the heart of the renewed Christian there were the intense throbbings of a woe, and the deep groanings of a burden, from which it sighed and hoped to be delivered. Let us take each section in its order, of this remarkable passage.

"Ourselves also, which have the first-fruits of the Spirit." It had been the earnest aim of the Apostle broadly and distinctly to draw the great line of demarcation between the state of nature and the state of grace. What distinctive feature more illustrative of the Christian character could he have selected than this. "Who have the first-fruits of the Spirit." The figurative allusion is to a familiar law of the Jewish economy. It will be recollected that, under the Levitical dispensation, the Lord commanded that the first-fruits, in the form of a single sheaf, should be sickled, and waved before him by the priest; and that this wave-offering was to be considered as constituting the herald or the pledge of a ripened and full harvest. And not only should it be an earnest and a pledge, but it should represent the nature and character of the fruit which, before long, in luxuriant abundance would crowd with its golden sheaves, and amid shouts of gladness, the swelling garner. When, therefore, it is said that believers in Jesus have the "first-fruits of the Spirit," the meaning clearly is, that they have such communications of the Spirit now, as are a pledge and foretaste of what they shall possess and enjoy in the great day of the coming glory. "In whom also after that you believed, you were sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise, which is the earnest of our inheritance, until the redemption of the purchased possession, unto the praise of his glory." We remark, in general terms, that if we are believers, then we are partakers of that grace which is the earnest of glory. Do we partake of the grace of life? It is the same life which beats in the souls of the glorified. In us its pulsations are faint and fluctuating; in them they are deep and unfluttering- yet the life is the same. And if we have the Spirit of life dwelling in us now, then have we the first-fruits of the life which is to come. Have we the Spirit of adoption? What is it but the earnest and the seal of our certain reception into our Father's house? The love to God which overflows our hearts, the yearnings of those hearts to be at home, are the first-fruits of our consummated and glorified sonship. Thus might we travel the entire circle of the Christian graces which go to form, sanctify, and adorn the Christian character, illustrating the truth, that each grace wrought by the Spirit in the heart on earth is the germ of glory in heaven, and that the perfection of glory will be the perfection of each grace. The present character and tutelage of the child of God are preparatory to a higher state of being- yes, it is an essential part of that being itself. Oh, it is a holy and inspiriting thought, that every development of grace, and every aspiration of holiness, and every victory of faith, and every achievement of prayer, and every gleam of joy in the soul here below, is the earnest-sheaf of the golden ears of happiness and glory garnered for the saints on high. "He that goes forth weeping, bearing precious seed, shall doubtless return again with joy, bringing his sheaves with him."

"Even we ourselves groan within ourselves." In these words the expectant of glory is represented as sympathizing, in a certain degree, with the general condition of present misery, and expectation of future good. But we must distinguish the emotion here described, from the somewhat kindred depression beneath which the whole creation is bowed. It is the groaning of those who have the "first-fruits of the Spirit"- consequently it is the emotion of a living soul. In the one case, the groaning is the throb and the throe of death; in the other case it is the evidence and the breathing of life.

To what causes may it be traced? We groan within ourselves on account of sin- its innate principle, and its practical outbreakings. Over what do our tears flow the bitterest and the fastest? The winged riches? The heart's treasure wrenched from our grasp by ruthless death, and which the cruel grave has hid from our view? Ah, no! but the sin which lays us in penitence and grief at the Savior's feet, with David's confession and prayer breathing from our lips- "Against you, you only, have I sinned, and done this evil in your sight." Oh, what a mercy to know that the "sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: that a broken and contrite heart he will not despise!"

There is also the groaning arising from external trial. Of this cup, which all alike drink, none quaff so deeply as those to whom are imparted the "first-fruits of the Spirit." The path of sorrow is the path to glory, and the "bread and the water of affliction" is the food of all the "prisoners of hope." But spring from what cause it may, this groaning of the servants of God confirms the affecting truth, that the believer possesses but the "first-fruits of the Spirit;" and that, consequently, his present condition, being one of but partial sanctification, must of necessity be one of but limited happiness. And yet we would not fail to remind the reader of the truth, that the deeper his sanctification the keener will be his sense of indwelling corruption, and the heavier his groaning because of it. So that, so long as he is still the tenant of a tabernacle of sin and death- an unwilling subject of vanity- and so long as he grows in grace, he will "groan being burdened," and will the more deeply sigh, and the more intensely long for the uncaging of his spirit, that frees him entirely forever from its oppressiveness and its thraldom.

But, oh, there is music in the groaning of those who have the "first-fruits of the Spirit!" The chain they wear is not the manacle of a slave of sin, shaking his galling fetters in deep and dark despair. The captivity that confines him, is not the subjection of a voluntary vassal of Satan, crouching beneath the burden, and trembling at the lash of a hard task master. Oh, no! it is the sensibility, the consciousness, the groaning of the Christian. It tells of the Spirit's indwelling. It betokens the hope of glory. Those inward heavings of the soul are the pantings of a life divine; those deep groanings of the heart are the muffled chimings of heaven. They are the indices of a nature which God will before long lift to its native home; they are the discordant notes of an anthem, which soon will fill heaven with its swelling and entrancing music.

"Waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of the body." The terms "adoption," "redemption," must here be taken in a restricted sense. Our present adoption into God's family is as perfect as God can make it. We shall not in reality be more the children of God in heaven than we are now. Dwell upon this truth, beloved. Press it in faith and gladness to your sighing, groaning heart. Is God's hand uplifted? Oh, tremble not! It is a Father's hand. Say not that it presses heavily upon you- it is the pressure of love. Oh, think not that there is one throb of affection less towards you in his heart. "Beloved, now are we the sons of God," and all the immunities and blessings of a present sonship are ours. Equally as complete is our redemption from all that can condemn. When Jesus exclaimed, "It is finished!" by one offering he perfected forever the salvation of his church. Then did he entirely roll away the curse from his people. Then did he hurl their sins into an infinite depth. Then did he complete the work the Father gave him to do. For the finishing of that work, thanks be to God, the saints do not "wait"!

And still, all believers are the expectants of an "adoption" to be confirmed, and of a "redemption" to be perfected. Their adoption now is concealed, their adoption then will be visible. Their present adoption is limited in its privileges- their future adoption will introduce them to all the riches of their inheritance and to all the splendors of their Father's house. For this unveiled, this manifest, this full adoption they are "waiting." And so, too, of "redemption." The ransom price is paid, but the body is not yet fully redeemed. It still is fettered, and cribbed, and cabined by a thousand clinging corruptions and infirmities. But the day of its complete redemption draws near. In virtue of its ransom it will spring from the dust, its last link of corruption entirely and forever dissolved. "But we are citizens of heaven, where the Lord Jesus Christ lives. And we are eagerly waiting for him to return as our Savior. He will take these weak mortal bodies of ours and change them into glorious bodies like his own." Philip. 3:20-21. Like unto Christ's glorious body! Oh, then, no deformity will mar its symmetry! no infirmity will impair its strength! no sickness, no faintings, no nervousness, no pangs of suffering or throes of death will ever assail and torment it more! For this "redemption of the body" the sons of God are waiting. Our heavenly Father has adopted it. Our divine Savior has redeemed it. The Holy Spirit, our Comforter, has sealed it. Oh, yes! The first-fruits of the "first resurrection" bloom on the grave of the holy

dead. Plant not above their heads the flowers that fade. There are flowers blooming there, plucked from the amaranthine bowers of immortality, and they will never die.

This page may arrest the eye of a sufferer, not soothed in his grief, or cheered in his loneliness by such prospects as these. There is coming a day when the irrational creation, of whom we have been speaking, will suffer no more. "The spirit of a beast goes downwards." But no such annihilation awaits suffering man. Oh, melancholy condition! Oh, dreary prospect! Suffering in this life, and suffering in the life to come! to pass from a fire that is temporary, to a fire that is eternal- from the agonies and throes of the first death, to the power and the pangs of the second! But there still is hope. Jesus died for sinners, and there is mercy even for the chief. Blessed suffering, hallowed sorrow, if now, in the agony of your grief, you are led to the Savior to learn, what in the sunny hour of prosperity and gladness you refused to learn- that God only can make you happy, and that God in Christ is prepared to make you happy. Oh, heaven-sent affliction! sweet messenger of love! beautiful in your somber robes, bearing to my soul a blessing so divine, so precious as this!

Have you the "first-fruits of the Spirit?" Guard them with tender, sleepless care. Nature in her richest domain yields no such fruits or flowers as these. Employ all the means and appliances within your reach to keep verdant and fruitful the sacred garden of your soul. Unveil it to the sun's light, to the gentle showers, and the soft gales of heaven. Let your incessant prayer be, "Awake, O north wind; and come, you south; blow upon my garden, that the spices thereof may flow out. Let my beloved come into his garden, and eat his pleasant fruits."

Oh, guard those precious "first-fruits!" Soon the glory they foreshadow will be revealed. The autumnal tints are deepening, the golden ears are ripening, the reaper's sickle is preparing, and before long we shall join in the song of the angels' harvest-home, "Grace, grace unto it!"

Saved by Hope

For we are saved by hope: but hope that is seen is not hope: for what a man seeth, why doth he yet hope for? But if we hope for that we see not, then do we with patience wait for it. Romans 8:24-25

For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what he already has? But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently. Romans 8:24-25

Now that we are saved, we eagerly look forward to this freedom. For if you already have something, you don't need to hope for it. But if we look forward to something we don't have yet, we must wait patiently and confidently. Romans 8:24-25

We have been contemplating the present state of the renewed creature as one rather of expectancy than of attainment- not of realization, but of hope. We have seen him in his lofty position, as he stands in Christ Jesus, towering above the storm and thundercloud of sin, the curse and condemnation, tinted with the first beams of opening day, and waving the first golden sheaves of the ripening harvest. The description and the argument now approach their climax. As if these trembling rays and these first-fruits might fail to assure the believing heart of the certain day, and the actual harvest, our Apostle, in yet strongest language, meets the misgiving, and quells the fear, by declaring that we are "saved by hope." Affirming this, he then proceeds tenderly to exhort the believer to a patient waiting its certain and full realization. There are, in these passages, some points of the deepest interest. May the Holy Spirit unfold and apply them!

"We are saved by hope." The phrase, as employed by the Apostle, does not imply the instrument by which we are saved, but the condition in which we are saved. The condition of the renewed creature is one of hope. Salvation by the atonement of Christ- faith, and not hope, being the instrument of its appropriation- is a complete and finished thing. We cannot give this truth a prominence too great, nor enforce it with an earnestness too intense. We cannot keep our eye too exclusively or too intently fixed on Jesus. All salvation is in him- all salvation proceeds from him- all salvation leads to him, and for the assurance and comfort of our salvation we are to repose believingly and entirely on him. Christ must be all. Christ the beginning- Christ the center- and Christ the end. Oh, blessed truth to you who sigh and mourn over the unveiled abominations that crowd and darken the chamber of imagery! Oh, sweet truth to you who are sensible of your poverty, and vileness, and insufficiency, and the ten thousand flaws and failures of which, perhaps, no one is cognizant but God and your own soul! Oh, to turn and rest in Christ- a full Christ- a loving Christ- a tender Christ, whose heart's love never chills, from whose eye darts no reproof, from whose lips breathes no sentence of condemnation! But as it regards the complete effects of this salvation in those who are saved, it is yet future. It is the "hope laid up for us in heaven." It would seem utterly incompatible with the present economy that the renewed creature should be in any other condition than one of hopeful expectation. The constitution towards which he tends, the holiness for which he looks, the bliss for which he pants, and the dignity to which he aspires, could not for a moment exist in the atmosphere by which he is here begirt. His state must of necessity be one of hope, and that hope must of necessity link us with the distant and mysterious future. The idea, "saved by hope," is illustrated by the effects of Christian hope. It is that divine emotion which buoys up the soul amid the conflicts, the trials, and the vicissitudes of the present life. So that we are cheered and sustained, or 'saved' from sinking amid the billows, by the 'hope' of certain deliverance and a complete redemption. "In hope of eternal life, which God that cannot lie, promised before the world began."

The Christian's state, then, is one of hope. Around this single subject how much of Scripture light gathers! A remarkable reference to it is found in these words of the Apostle, "Now the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that you may abound in hope, through the power of the Holy Spirit." Well might Tertullian exclaim in view of a passage so rich as this, "I adore the fulness of the Scriptures." God is here portrayed as the "God of hope." What a glorious title! The believer is then described as the subject of hope- what a blissful being! We are then exhorted to abound in hope- what a precious privilege! This magnificent bow spans the whole horizon of our splendid future. We do not yet realize our heaven but we hope for it. We do not yet see Jesus- but we hope to see him. We do not yet exult in our emancipation from corruption- but we hope to be free. We do not yet drink of the river of pleasure that is at God's right hand, nor bathe in the sea of glory that rolls around the throne- but we hope to do. "We hope for that we see not." But what is the character, and what the foundation of Christian hope?

It is emphatically a "good hope." In every point of view it sustains this scripture character. The hope of heaven fostered by an unrenewed mind is baseless and illusory. There exists not a single element of goodness in its nature. It is the conception of a mind at enmity against God. It is the delusion of a heart in covenant with death, and in agreement with hell. It is the inspiration of the wind. It is the night-vision that plays around the slumbering pillow. It is the meteor-light that flashes upon the tomb. It is the treacherous beacon that decoys the too confiding but deluded voyager to the rock-bound shore. Unscriptural, unreal, and baseless, it must eventually cover its possessor with shame and confusion of face. But not such is the believer's hope. Begotten with his second nature- the in-breathing of the Spirit of God- an element of the renewed mind, and based upon the atonement of the Savior, it must be essentially a good hope. Cleansed from moral impurity, not in the laver of baptism, but with the blood of Christ; justified, not by the ritual of Moses, but by the righteousness of the Incarnate God; sanctified, not by sacramental grace, falsely so called, but by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit- the believer's hope of heaven is as well founded as the throne of the Eternal. Moreover, it is "a good hope through grace." The first and the last lesson we learn in our Christian course is, that "by grace we are saved." Lord! do you require of me one thought of stainless purity, one throb of perfect love, one deed of unsullied holiness, upon which shall hinge my everlasting happiness? Then am I lost forever! But since you have provided a Righteousness that justifies me from all things, that frees me from all condemnation- and since this righteousness is your free, unpurchased gift, the bestowment of sovereign grace, I clasp to my trembling yet believing heart the joyous hope this truth inspires. It is a blessed hope. "Looking for that blessed hope." Its object is most blessed. The heaven it compasses is that blissful place where the holy ones who have fled from our embrace are reposing in the bosom of the Savior. They are the blessed dead. The day of their death was to them better than the day of their birth. The one was the introduction to all sorrow, the other is a translation to all joy. Blessed hope! the hope of being forever with the Lord. No more to grieve the Spirit that so often and so soothingly comforted our hearts; no more to wound the gentle bosom that so often pillowed our head. No more to journey in darkness, nor bend as a bruised reed before each blast of temptation. To be a pillar in the temple of God, to go no more out forever.

And what a sanctifying hope is it! This, to the spiritual mind, is its most acceptable and elevating feature. "Every man that has this hope in him purifies himself even as he is pure." It detaches from earth, and allures to heaven. Never does it glow more brightly in the soul, nor kindle around the path a luster more heavenly, than when it strengthens in the believer a growing conformity of character to that heaven towards which it expands its wings and soars.

It is, in a word, a sure hope. Shall the worm undermine it? shall the tempest shake it? shall the waters extinguish it? Never. It saves us. It keeps, preserves, and sustains us amid the perils and depressions of our earthly pilgrimage. And having borne in through the flood, it will not fail us when the last surge lands us upon the shore of eternity. "That by two immutable things, in which it was impossible for God to lie, we might have a strong consolation, who have fled for refuge to lay hold upon the hope set before us which hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast, and which enters into that within the veil, where the Forerunner has for us entered, even Jesus." "Therefore do we with patience wait for it." This is our true posture- a patient waiting its fruition. This grace is called the "patience of hope." "We through the Spirit wait for the hope of righteousness by faith." We wait the Bridegroom's coming. We wait the descent of the chariot. We wait the Father's summons to our home. We wait the Master's call to our rest. We wait the uncaging of the spirit, that it may fly. The desire to depart is ardent, but patient. The longing to be with Christ is deep, but submissive. For the full realization of a hope so sublime, so precious, and so sure, we can patiently wait. The theater of suffering is the school of patience: "And patience works experience, and experience hope;" and hope in the depth of the trial, and in the heat of the battle, looks forward to the joy of deliverance, and to the spoils of victory. It is well remarked by Calvin, that "God never calls his children to a triumph until lie has exercised them in the warfare of suffering." Thus all who shall eventually wear the palm, must now wield the sword. For the consummation of this hope, then, let us diligently labor, meekly suffer, and patiently wait. Living beneath the cross, looking unto Jesus, toiling for Jesus, testifying for Jesus, and cultivating conformity to Jesus, let us "be always ready to give a reason of the hope that is in us;" and be always ready to enter into the joy and fruition of that hope, the substance and security of which is- "Christ in you the hope of glory."

The Sympathy of the Spirit with the Infirmity of Prayer

"Likewise the Spirit also helps our infirmities: for we know not what we should pray for as we ought; but the Spirit itself makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered." Romans 8:26

In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express. Romans 8:26

And the Holy Spirit helps us in our distress. For we don't even know what we should pray for, nor how we should pray. But the Holy Spirit prays for us with groanings that cannot be expressed in words. Romans 8:26

The condition of the Church of God has ever been one of weakness and infirmity. Her brightest and palmiest days were the first and the earliest of her history. Yet no sooner were the saints of God gathered into Christian communities, and planted as churches in each province, and in every land, than the infirmity of the body began to appear, in the heresies, divisions, and parties which sprung up, while yet the Apostles lived to intercede for them with their prayers, and to teach and admonish them by their epistles. From that period until now, the history of the church of God has presented an unbroken chain of evidence to the truth of the same affecting fact. A body yet but partially renewed, a church but imperfectly sanctified, it must of necessity be so. But let us leave the consideration of the church as a society, and contemplate it in its individual relation. Each member of that church is the subject of infirmity. It were marvellous were it not so. We have seen that the present condition of the believer is a state of vanity. That it is one of hope rather than of realization. Binding in his bosom the green first fruits of glory, there yet cling to him a thousand grievous infirmities, the sighs of which, the foretastes of heaven cannot stifle. Encompassed with infirmities, weary and heavy laden, he journeys homeward, amid the fluctuations of hope and fear, joy and sorrow; sometimes foiled, then overcoming; often mourning, and anon praising; yet ever deeply conscious that the present home of his renewed and heavenly nature is a body of humiliation and death- constituting a perpetual and oppressive clog to the heaven-ascending tendency of his sanctified affections. But we need not extend our classification.

The infirmities of the believer are as varied as they are numerous. Some are weak in faith, and are always questioning their interest in Christ. Some, superficial in knowledge, and shallow in experience, and are ever exposed to the crudities of error, and to the assaults of temptation. Some are slow travelers in the divine life, and are always in the rear; while yet others are often ready to halt altogether. Then there are others who groan beneath the burden of bodily infirmity, exerting a morbid influence upon their spiritual experience. A nervous temperament- a state of perpetual depression and despondency- the constant corrodings of mental disquietude- physical ailment- imaginary forebodings- a facile yielding to temptation- petulance of spirit- unguardedness of speech- gloomy interpretations of providence- an eye that only views the dark hues of the cloud, the somber shadings of the picture. Ah! from this dismal catalogue how many, making their selection, may exclaim, "This is any infirmity!" But be that infirmity what it may, let it endear to our hearts the grace and sympathy of Him who for our sake was encompassed with infirmity, that he might have compassion upon those who are alike begirt. All the fulness of grace that is in Jesus is for that single infirmity over which you sigh.

But it is one specific infirmity of the Christian to which the passage restricts our attention- the infirmity of PRAYER. Of this, all the children of God in different degrees partake. A more holy and solemn engagement enlists not the thoughts, and feelings, and time of the believer, than the engagement of PRAYER. In proportion, then, to the spirituality of a duty will be its keen sense of the opposition it meets from either the mental or physical frailties which encompass the Christian.

The Apostle thus defines this infirmity- "We know not what we should pray for as we ought." How shall we describe it? With what feature shall we begin? There is first the difficulty which some feel in reference to the nature of prayer. Simple as prayer is, we see how even an apostle could be perplexed, for lie. includes himself in this general description of the saints. Three times did he urge a petition the granting of which would have proved a curse rather than a blessing. "What am I to pray for?" is the earnest inquiry of some. "Am I to limit my requests in petitioning for spiritual blessings, and may I include in my petitions blessings that are temporal?" "And what is real prayer?" is the yet more earnest question of another. "I fear mine is not true prayer. May I characterize by such a holy and significant term the cold effusions of my closet, the feeble ejaculations of the wayside, the wandering devotions of the sanctuary, the moanings of a spirit wounded, the sighs of a heart oppressed, the upward glancings of a mind beclouded, the breathings of a soul whose spiritual exercises are at times so opposite and contradictory? Is this prayer?"

And, then, there is the infirmity of the act of prayer. The vagrancy of thought- the coldness of affection the intrusion of low cares- the consciousness of unreal petitions, of unfelt confessions, of undesired desires, the felt oppressiveness of a distasteful task, rather than the felt luxury of a precious privilege- the slovenliness of the performance- the little solemnity of mind- all mark the infirmity which attaches to this transcendently spiritual employment.

Then as to the mode of prayer; this also is felt to be a source of painful embarrassment by some. There are many Christians who find it difficult, if not impossible to give expression to the heart's utterances, in what is termed free prayer. Compelled, through an infirmity they cannot conquer, to restrict themselves to a liturgical form of devotion, while others pour out their souls to God in unfettered breathings, in unrestricted communion, they are, at times, perplexed to know whether they are acquainted with the reality and power of true prayer. And thus many a saint of God, whose needs are not the less real, whose desires are not the less spiritual, and whose breathings are not the less fervent and divinely acceptable, may, through this his infirmity, be much cast down and discouraged. But who, whatever be his mode of prayer, is free from some clinging infirmity, interfering with the sanctity and power of this hallowed engagement? Who is not mournfully sensible, that of all his spiritual privileges, this, his highest, most sacred, and solemn, is the most encompassed with, and marred and fettered by, the deep corruptions of his fallen and depraved nature? That after all his rigid observance of the duty, his many devotional engagements, public and private, there should yet be so little felt nearness to God, so little confidential communion- in a word, so little real prayer. Oh, how much prayerless prayer do we have to mourn over! How little brokenness of heart; how little sense of sin; how faint a taking hold of the atoning blood; how imperfect a realization of God's relation to us as a Father; how little faith in his promise to hear, in his ability to aid, in his readiness to bless us! Such are some of the many infirmities associated with prayer.

But there is encouragement- let us contemplate it. "Likewise the Spirit also helps our infirmities." The word here rendered "helps," properly means to take part with. It implies, not merely sympathy, with, but a personal participation in our infirmity. The Spirit helps our infirmities by sharing them with us. Now take the general infirmities of the believer- infirmities which, unaided by another and a superior power, must crush and overwhelm- and trace the help thus afforded by the Spirit. We are taught to adore the love of the Father, from where each rill of mercy has its rise. We delight to dwell upon the love of the Son, through whose channel all redemption- blessing flows. And shall we overlook the love of the Holy Spirit? Shall we forget his affection, his grace, his succourings? Forbid it, eternal and blessed Spirit! Your, essential Deity- your personal subsistence- your tender love- your Divine power- your efficacious grace- your sovereign mercy- your infinite patience- your exquisite sympathy- all demand our

deepest love, and awake our loftiest praise. But how

is this sympathy of the Spirit expressed? Seeing the soul bound with an infirmity, all his compassion is awakened. Approaching, he takes hold of the burden. Constrained by a love which no thought can conceive, moved by a tenderness no tongue can describe, he advances, and places the power of his Godhead beneath the pressure- and thus he helps our infirmity. Do you doubt this? We summon you as a witness to its truth. Why are you not a ruin and a wreck? Why has not your infirmity long since dethroned reason, and annihilated faith, and extinguished hope, and clad all the future with the pall of despair? Why, have you ridden serene and secure upon the crest of the billow, smiling calmly upon the dark and yawning surges dashing and foaming around you? Why have you, when your heart has been overwhelmed, found relief in a sigh, in a tear, in an uplifted glance, in one thought of God? Oh, it has been because the Spirit, all silent and invisible, was near to you, sympathizing, helping, bearing your infirmities. Because around you the power of his Deity was placed. And when you have staggered, and turned pale, and have well near given up all for lost, resigning yourself to the broodings of despair, that Spirit has approached, all-loving and powerful, and helped, by sharing your infirmity. Some appropriate and precious promise has been sealed upon your heart- some clear and soothing view of Christ has been presented to your eye- some gentle whisper of love has breathed upon your ear- and you have been helped. The pressure has been lightened, the grief has been assuaged, the weakness has been strengthened, and you have risen superior to the infirmity that bowed you to the dust. Oh, it was the Spirit that helped you. Grieved, and wounded, and slighted a thousand times over though he has been, receiving at your hands the unkindest requital for the tenderest love, yet when your infirmity bowed you to the earth, and the sword entered your soul, he drew near, forgetting all your base ingratitude, and administered wine to your dejected spirit and oil to your bleeding wound, and placed beneath you the encircling arms of his everlasting love.

But we are yet to contemplate the aid afforded by the Spirit in the especial infirmity of prayer.

"We know not what we should pray for as we ought; but the Spirit itself makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered." The Holy Spirit is here represented in the character of a pleader, or advocate for the saints. To form a vivid conception of this truth, we have but to imagine an anxious and embarrassed client prosecuting some important suit, or, perchance, battling for his life in a court of justice. At his side stands his counselor, thoroughly acquainted with the nature of his case, and deeply versed in the bearings of the law. He is there to instruct the suppliant how to shape his course, with what arguments to support, with what pleas to urge, with what words to clothe his suit. Such is the advocacy and such the aid of the Spirit in the matter of prayer. We stand in the presence of the Lord- it may be to deprecate a deserved punishment, or to plead for a needed blessing. "We know not what we should pray for as we ought." How shall we order our cause before the Great Judge? With what feelings, with what language, with what arguments shall we unburden our heart, unveil our sorrow, confess our sin, and make known our request? How overcome the remembrance of past ingratitude, and the conviction of present guilt, and the pressure of deep neediness, and the overwhelming sense of the Divine Majesty? How wake the heart to feeling, how rouse the dull, sluggish emotions of the soul, how recall the truant affections, and how concentrate the mind upon the holy and awesome engagement? But our Counselor is there!

"The Spirit itself makes intercession for us." And how does he this? He indites the prayer. Think not that that spiritual petition which breathed from your lips and rose as an incense-cloud before the mercy-seat was other than the inditing of the Holy Spirit. He inspired that prayer, he created those desires, and he awoke those groanings. The form of your petition may have been ungraceful- your language simple, your sentences broken, your accents tremulous, yet was there an eloquence and a power in that prayer which reached the heart and moved the arm of God. It overcame the Angel of the Covenant. And whose eloquence and whose power was it? The interceding Spirit. He also teaches us what to pray for. Many and urgent as our needs are, we only accurately know them as the Spirit makes them known. Alas, what profound ignorance of ourselves must we cherish when we know not what we should ask God for as we ought! But the Spirit reveals our deep necessity, convinces us of our emptiness, poverty, and need, and teaches us what blessings to ask, what evils to deprecate, what mercies to implore. He sympathizes, too, with our infirmity in prayer, by portraying to our view the parental character of God. Sealing on our hearts a sense of adoption, he emboldens us to approach God with filial love and child-like confidence. He leads us to God as a Father. Nor must we overlook the skill with which the Spirit enables us to urge in our approaches to God the sinner's great plea- the atoning blood of Jesus. This is no small part of the divine aid we receive in our infirmity. Satan, the accuser of the saints, even follows the believer to the throne of grace to confront and confound him there. When Joshua stood before the Angel of the Lord, Satan stood at his right hand to resist him. But the Spirit, too, is there! He is there in the character and to discharge the office of the praying soul's Intercessor. He instructs the accused suppliant what arguments to use, what pleas to urge, and how to resist the devil. He strengthens the visual organ of the soul so that it clearly discerns the blood upon the mercy-seat within the veil, on which it fixes the eye in simple faith. Oh, it is the delight of the Spirit to take of the things of Jesus- his love, his work, his sympathy, his grace, his power- and show them to the soul prostrate in prayer before the throne of grace.

Thus does the Spirit "make intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered." These groanings are those of the believer, yet inspired by the Spirit. They are the inarticulate utterances of a heart overshadowed by the Holy Spirit. No language can adequately express them. They "cannot be uttered." It is the soul's hidden communion with God. No, it is possible that even to the petitioner himself these groanings present but vague and indefinite conceptions of the heart's deep desires, of the soul's yet deeper needs. He is conscious of a need, but he can scarcely define its nature, or suggest its supply. He is sensible of a lack, but what it is, or how it may be met, he is perplexed to know. He inwardly, deeply groans, but these emotions utter a language which even he cannot interpret. But there is One who can. Be that need, be that lack what it may, Christ knows it, Christ sympathizes with it, Christ meets it. He in whom dwelt all the fulness of the Godhead bodily, is prepared to supply all our need. There rises not a groan of the Spirit from the soul of a sinner, the meaning of which God cannot understand, and the prayer of which God will not answer. To the soul who breathes it, it may appear, as were many of the predictions of the ancient prophets, unintelligible and meaningless; yet, like those prophetic utterances, they have a sense and a language clear and articulate to Him who inspired them. Oh blessed, eloquent groanings in the heart of a poor sinner, which human words fail to utter! God hears them- Jesus understands them- the Spirit creates them- and not one shall be uttered in vain. Whether it be the groaning from a pressure of sin, or from a sense of desire, or from a conviction of need, or from the smiting hand of God himself, that groaning ascends to heaven, and bears to the throne of the Eternal, whose ear bends to the softest whisper, and hearkens to the gentlest sigh of his child, a confession, or a request, which shall not be unheard, unheeded, or forgotten.

In conclusion, overlook not the fitness of the Lord Jesus to meet all the infirmities of his people. There are two touching and expressive passages bearing on this point. "He himself took our infirmities, and bore our sicknesses." Wondrous view of the Incarnate God! That very infirmity; Christian reader, which now bows you to the earth, by reason of which you can in no wise lift up yourself, your Savior bore. Is it sin? is it sorrow? is it sickness? is it need? It bowed him to the dust, and brought the crimson drops to his brow. And is this no consolation? Does it not make your infirmity even pleasant, to remember that Jesus once bore it, and in sympathy bears it still? The other passage is- "We have not a high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities." Touched with my infirmity! What a thought! I reveal my grief to my friend. I discern the emotions of his soul, I mark the trembling lip, the sympathizing look, the moistened eye- my friend is touched with my sorrow. But oh, what is this sympathy- tender, soothing, grateful as it is- compared to the sympathy with which the great High Priest in heaven enters into my case, is moved with my grief, is touched with the feeling of my infirmity?

Let us learn more tenderly to sympathize with the infirmities of our brethren. "We that are strong ought to bear the infirmities of the weak, and not to please ourselves." Oh for more of this primitive Christianity! The infirmity of a Christian brother should, by a heartfelt sympathy, become in a measure our own. We ought to bear it. The rule of our conduct towards him should be the rule of our conduct towards our own selves. Who would feel bound or disposed to travel from house to house, proclaiming with trumpet tongue and with evident satisfaction his own weaknesses, failings, and infirmities? To God we may confess them, but no divine precept enjoins their confession to man. We unveil them to his eye, and he kindly and graciously veils them from all human eyes. Be this our spirit and our conduct towards a weak and erring brother. Let us rather part with our right hand than publish his infirmity to others, and thus wound the Head by an unkind and unholy exposure of the faults and frailties of a member of his body, and by so doing cause the enemies of Christ to blaspheme that worthy name by which we are called.

Honor and glorify the Spirit who thus so graciously and so kindly sympathizes with our infirmities. Pay to him divine worship, yield to him divine homage, and let your unreserved obedience to his commands, and your jealous regard for his honor, and your faithful hearkening to the gentle accents of his "still, small voice" manifest how deeply sensible you are of his love, his grace, and faithfulness in sympathizing with your sorrows, in supplying your need, and in making your burdens and infirmities all and entirely his own.

The Intercession of the Spirit in the Saints

And he that searcheth the hearts knoweth what is the mind of the Spirit, because he maketh intercession for the saints according to the will of God. Romans 8:27

And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with God's will. Romans 8:27

And the Father who knows all hearts knows what the Spirit is saying, for the Spirit pleads for us believers in harmony with God's own will. Romans 8:27

We are here presented with another and a deeper unfolding of the work of the Spirit in relation to prayer. Having shown to us in what way he aids the infirmity of this holy exercise, chiefly by imparting the spirit of grace and of supplication, the Apostle now reminds us how those inditings, thus originating with the Holy Spirit, are in perfect harmony with the will of God. The whole subject is based upon one of the most solemn views of the Divine Being presented in the Bible. Having contemplated this, we shall then proceed to open up the Spirit's work of intercession in the saints.

"He that searches the hearts." This is, and this only can be, the prerogative of God. It is not in the power of man or angel to look within the human heart. It is the awfully solemn prerogative of God only. Thus is the truth declared: "The Lord sees not as man sees; for man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord knows the heart." "The Lord searches all hearts, and understands all the imaginations of the thoughts." "The refining pot is for silver, and the furnace for gold: but the Lord tries the hearts." And what a solemn declaration of this truth is put forth by the prophet Jeremiah! "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it? I the Lord search the heart, I try the reins." With a most emphatic enunciation of this truth does the sacred canon of Scripture close: "And all the churches shall know that I am he who searches the reins and hearts and I will give unto every one of you according to your works." We find the same divine prerogative ascribed to the Lord Jesus, thus forming one of the strongest evidences of his essential Deity: "Then there arose a reasoning among those who of them should be greatest.

And Jesus, perceiving the thought of their heart, took a child, and set him by him." Again, "But Jesus did not commit himself unto them, because he knew all men. And needed not that any should testify of man; for he knew what was in man." How could Jesus perceive the thoughts of their heart, and how could he know what was in man- what thoughts were revolving, what schemes were planning, what intrigues were plotting in the deep recesses of the soul, were he not absolutely God? But solemn as is this view of the Divine character, the believing mind finds in it sweet and hallowed repose. What more consolatory truth, in some of the most trying positions of a child of God, than this- the Lord knows the heart? The world condemns, and the saints judge- but God knows the heart. And to those who have been led into deep discoveries of the heart's hidden evil, to whom have been made unveilings startling and distressing, how precious is this character of God- "he that searches the heart!" Is there a single recess of our hearts we would veil from his penetrating glance? Is there a corruption we would hide from his view? Is there an evil of which we would have him ignorant? Oh no! Mournful and humiliating as is the spectacle, we would throw open every door, and uplift every window, and invite and urge his scrutiny and inspection, making no concealments, and indulging in no reserves, and framing no excuses when dealing with the great Searcher of hearts- exclaiming, "Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts: and see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting."

And while the Lord is thus acquainted with the evil of our hearts, he most graciously conceals that evil from the eyes of others. He seems to say, by his benevolent conduct, "I see my child's infirmity"- then covering it with his hand, exclaims- "but no other eye shall see it but my own!" Oh, the touching tenderness, the loving-kindness of our God! Knowing, as he does, all the evil of our nature, he yet veils that evil from human eye, that others may not despise us as we often despise ourselves. Who but God could know it- who but God would conceal it? And how blessed, too, to remember that while God knows all the evil, he is as intimately acquainted with all the good that is in the hearts of his people! He knows all that his Spirit has implanted, that his grace has wrought. Oh, encouraging truth! That spark of love, faint and flickering- that pulsation of life, low and tremulous- that touch of faith, feeble and hesitating, that groan, that sigh, that low thought of self that leads a man to seek the shade, that self-abasement that places his mouth in the dust, oh, not one of these sacred emotions is unseen, unnoticed, by God! His eye ever rests with infinite complaisance and delight on his own image in the renewed soul. Listen to his language to David: "Forasmuch as it was in your heart to build a house for my name, you did well, in that it was in your heart."

"Knows what is the mind of the Spirit." It would appear by these words, that in prayer the great interpreter of the heart is the Spirit. And when it is declared that our Father in heaven knows what is the mind of the Spirit, it means that he is essentially acquainted with all the inditings and breathings of the Spirit in the heart. With what powerful and irresistible attractions does this truth invest the throne of grace! To remember that in prayer we draw near to that God who knows all the desires of the heart, which, though they be clothed with no diction, and are inarticulate in their accents, are yet known to, and understood by, him. Yes, before that thought is conceived, or that feeling is inspired, and when actually conceived and inspired, is, perhaps, to us confused, and indefinite, and meaningless, leaving nothing to repose in but the bare consciousness of sincere desire and real earnestness; yet he who knows what is the mind of the Spirit, understands it altogether. To him it has a voice, to him a language, and to him a meaning. He knows the mind of the Spirit in his saints. Oh, sweet encouragement to prayer! It is not your voice that speaks, but the Spirit's, when you draw near to God.

"Because he makes intercession for the saints according to the will of God." We are wont to read in the Bible of one Intercessor, and of one advocacy. "There is one Mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus." "If any man sin, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous." But the believer has two courts with which prayer has to do. In the court below, where prayer is offered, the Spirit is his Intercessor. In the court above, where prayer is presented, Jesus is his Intercessor. Then, what an honored, what a privileged man is the praying man!

On earth- the lower court- he has a Counselor instructing him for what he should pray, and how he should order his suit. In heaven- the higher court- he has an Advocate presenting to God each petition as it ascends, separating from it all that is ignorant, and sinful, and weak, and pleading for its gracious acceptance, and asking for its full bestowment. Here, then, is our vast encouragement in prayer. The inditings of the Spirit- the Intercessor on earth- are always in agreement with the mind of God. In prayer we need just such a Divine counselor. Is it temporal blessing that we crave? We need to be taught how to graduate our request to our necessity, and how to shape our necessity to our heavenly calling. Supplication for temporal good is, we think, limited. And this is the limit: "Having food and clothing, let us therewith be content." What child of God is warranted in asking worldly wealth, or distinction, or rank? And what child of God, in a healthy state of soul, would ask them? "But," says the Apostle, "my God shall supply all your needs, according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus."

Should God, in his providence, send either of these temporal things undesired, unasked, and unexpected, receive it as from him, and use it as to him. But with regard to spiritual blessings, our grant is illimitable, our requests may be boundless. Here we may leave the shore we have so long been hugging, and boldly launch out into the deep- even the depths of God's love, and of the Savior's grace. "Ask what you will," is the broad, unrestricted warrant. When we ask to be perfected in the love of God, we ask for that which is in accordance with the will of God- for "God is love." When we ask for an increase of faith, we ask for that which is in accordance with the will of God- for "without faith it is impossible to please him." When we ask for more divine conformity, we ask for that which is in harmony with God's will- for he has said, "Be holy, for I am holy." And when we ask for comfort, we plead for that which is in his heart to give- for he is the "God of all comfort." Oh, to possess a Divine counselor, dwelling in our hearts, who will never indite a wrong prayer, nor suggest a weak argument, nor mislead us in any one particular, in the solemn, the important, the holy engagement of prayer; who is acquainted with the purpose of God; who knows the mind of God; who understands the will of God; who reads the heart of God; yes, who is God himself. What encouragement is this, to more real prayer! Are you moved to pray? While you muse does the fire burn? Is your heart stirred up to ask of God some especial blessing for yourself, or for others? Are you afflicted? Oh, then, rise and pray- the Spirit prompts you- the Savior invites you- your heavenly Father waits to answer you.

With such an Intercessor in the court on earth- so divine, so loving, and so sympathizing; and with such an Intercessor in the court in heaven- so powerful, so eloquent, and so successful- "let us come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need."

All Things Working for Good

And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose. Romans 8:28

And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. Romans 8:28

And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them. Romans 8:28

What a glorious Being must our God be, who from the direst evil can educe the greatest good! Having, by an exercise of the most divine power, and by an act of the most stupendous grace, "turned the curse into a blessing," he is still in the exercise of the same divine and beneficent power, employed in overruling the daily consequences of man's original woe for the greater promotion of his present happiness. The interesting passage now about to engage our thought, seems an amplification of a truth the inspired writer had previously advanced- that, though this were the suffering state of the Church of God, yet was it a palmy state; for, from those very sufferings were extracted some of the richest blessings of the Christian- that, by the active combination of all the events of his history, there is working out a great and a present good. The leading point that arrests the eye in this remarkable verse is the beautiful portrait which it sketches of the believer's character. Let this be our first feature of contemplation.

"Those who love God." Surely it is no small mercy belonging to the Church of Christ, that, composed as it is of all people and tongues, its members "strangers scattered abroad," and its essential unity deeply obscured, and its spiritual beauty sadly disfigured by the numerous divisions which mar and weaken the body of Christ, there yet is an identity of character in all, by which they are not only known to God, but are recognized by each other as members of the one family- or "those who love God."

Love to God, then, is the grand distinctive feature of the true Christian. The reverse marks all the unregenerate. Harmonious as their nature, their creed, their church, may be, no love to God is their binding, assimilating feature, their broad distinctive character. But the saints are those who love God. Their creeds may differ in minor shades, their ecclesiastical relations may vary in outward forms- as rays of light, the remoter their distances from the center, the more widely they diverge from each other. Yet in this one particular there is an essential unity of character, and a perfect assimilation of spirit. They love one God and Father; and this truth- like those sundered rays of light returning to the sun, approximate to each other- forms the great assimilating principle by which all who hold the Head, and love the same Savior, are drawn to one center, and in which they all harmonize and unite. The regeneration through which they have passed has effected this great change. Once they were the children of wrath, even as others, at enmity with God. Ah! is not this a heart-affecting thought? But now they love him. The Spirit has supplanted the old principle of enmity by the new principle of love. They love him as revealed in Christ, and they love him for the gift of the Revealer- the visible image of the invisible God. Who, as he has surveyed the glory and realized the preciousness of the Savior, has not felt in his bosom the kindling of a fervent love to him who, when he had no greater gift, commended his love to us by the gift of his dear Son?

They love him, too, in his paternal character. Standing to them in so close and endearing a relation, they address him as a Father, they confide in him as a Father- they obey him as a Father. The Spirit of adoption takes captive their hearts, and they love God with a child's fervent, adoring, confiding affection. They love God, too, for all his conduct. It varies, but each variation awakens the deep and holy response of love. They love him for the wisdom, the faithfulness, the holiness of his procedure- for what he withholds, as for what he grants when he rebukes, as when he approves. For his frown, they know it to be a Father's frown; for his smile, they feel it to be a Father's smile. They love him for the rod that disciplines as for the scepter that governs- for the wound that bleeds, as for the balm that heals. There is nothing in God, and there is nothing from God, for which the saints do not love him. Of one truth- the source of this feeling- let us not lose sight: "We love him because he first loved us." Thus the motive of love to God as much springs from him, as the power to love him.

"Who are the called according to his purpose." Another characteristic of the children of God is this. The calling here referred to, is that inward, effectual calling of which the same apostle speaks in another place. "Among whom are you also the called of Jesus Christ: to all that be in Rome, beloved of God, called to be saints." Oh what a glorious vocation is this! To have heard the Holy Spirit's divine yet gentle voice in the deep recesses of the soul- to have felt the drawings of the Savior's love upon the heart- to have listened to a Father's persuasive assurance of a love that has forgotten all our enmity, forgiven all our rebellion, and that remembers only the kindness of our youth, and the love of our espousals- called to be saints, God's holy ones- called to be sons, the Father's adopted ones- Oh this were a vocation worthy indeed of God, and demanding in return our supremest, deepest affection!

The principle upon which this call proceeds is said to be, "according to his purpose." Thus it is a calling over which we have no control, either in originating or frustrating it, and therefore there is no ground of self-boasting. "In whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things after the counsel of his own will." It excludes all idea of merit on the part of the called. "Who has saved us, and called us with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began." Oh, yield your heart to the full belief and holy influence of thus truth. Does it clash with your creed?- then your creed is defective. Does it awaken the opposition of your heart?- then your heart is not right. Are you really among the "called of God?"- then ascribe it to his eternal purpose, and believe that you have no ground of boasting, in the possession of a favor so distinguished, but in the sovereign will and most free grace of the holy Lord God who has called you. Has this call reached you, my reader? Ministers have called you- the Gospel has called you- providences have called you- conscience has called you- but has the Spirit called you with an inward and effectual vocation? Have you been called, spiritually called, from darkness to light- from death to life- from sin to holiness- from the world to Christ- from self to God? Examine your heart and ascertain. Oh, it is a matter of the greatest consequence, that you know that you are truly converted, that you are called of God. Has the thrilling, life-inspiring music of that call sounded and reverberated through all the chambers of your soul?

We now come to consider the exalted privilege which appertains to this holy character of those who love God, and who are the called according to his purpose. "All things work together for good." The comprehensiveness of this privilege is boundless. "All things" under the righteous government of God must necessarily be a working out of good. "You are good, and do good." In him there is no evil, and consequently nothing can proceed from him that tends to evil. But lest the great scope of this subject should lead us from the point directly before us, we confine our illustration of this truth to the experience of the individual Christian. Here it is palpably clear and emphatically true that all that occurs in the Lord's government of his people conspires for, and works out, and results in, their highest happiness, their greatest good. The passage supposes something antagonistic to the well-being of the believer in God's conduct at times. He would appear to place himself in an attitude of hostility to those who love him, to stand in their path as with a drawn sword in his hand. And yet, to no single truth does the Church bear a stronger testimony than to this, that the darkest epochs of her history have ever been those from which her brightest luster has arisen; and that those very elements which wore an aspect so portentous and threatening, by a mutual and concurrent influence, under the guiding hand of God, have evolved purposes and plans, have developed thoughts and feelings, and have terminated in results and ends, all seeking and advancing the best welfare, the highest good, of the Church of Christ. But let us pass within the individual circle of the church. Shall we take the gloomiest and most painful circumstances in the history of the child of God?

The word declares that these identical circumstances, without a solitary exception, are all conspiring, and all working together, for his real and permanent good. As an illustration of this, take tribulation as the starting-point. Thus says the Apostle. "We rejoice in tribulation, knowing that tribulation works patience"- the grace that shines with such surpassing luster in the furnace; "and patience experience"- apart from which all religious profession is vain; "and experience hope"- the polestar of the believer voyaging homeward; "and hope makes not ashamed"- but confirms and realizes all that it expected. And yet, from where this flow of precious blessing- serene patience, vital experience, and beaming hope?- all flow from the somber cloud of tribulation! That tribulation was, perhaps, of the most mysterious character- of the most humiliating nature- of the most overpowering force- yet behold the blessings it flung from its dark bosom! Who with a finite prescience could have predicted, still less have commanded, that from a bud so bitter and unsightly, a flower so sweet and fair should have blown? that a cloud so dark and foreboding should have unbosomed a blessing so brilliant and so precious?

The Bible is rich in its illustrations of this principle of the Divine government. Take for example the case of Jacob. Heavy and lowering was the cloud now settling upon his tabernacle. Severe was the test, and fearful the trembling of his faith. His feet were almost gone. The sad recollection of his bereavement still hovered like clinging shadows around his memory; gaunt famine stared him in the face; and a messenger with tidings of yet heavier woe lingered upon the threshold of his door. And when those tidings broke upon his ear, how touching the expression of his grief! "You have deprived me of my children! Joseph has disappeared, Simeon is gone, and now you want to take Benjamin, too. Everything is going against me!" Genesis 42:36. But lo! the circumstances which to the dim eye of his faith wore a hue so somber, and an aspect so alarming, were at that moment developing and perfecting the events which were to smooth his passage to the grave, and shed around the evening of his life, the halo of a glorious and a cloudless sunset. All things were working together for his good!

Joseph, too, reviewing the past of his chequered and mysterious history, arrives at the same conclusion, and confirms the same truth. Seeking to tranquilize his self-condemning brothers, he says, "But as for you, you thought evil against me; but God meant it unto good, to bring to pass, as it is this day, to save many people alive." The envy of his brethren, his being sold as a slave, his imprisonment, were all working out God's purpose and plan of wisdom and love. And yet, who could have foreseen and predicted, that from those untoward events; the exaltation, power, and wealth of Joseph would spring? Yet all things were working together for good. Thus is it, too, in the history of the Lord's loving corrections. They are all the unfoldings of a design, parts of a perfect whole. From these dealings, sometimes so heart-crushing, what signal blessings flow! "You have chastised me, and I was chastised." And what was the result? It awoke from Ephraim this precious acknowledgment and prayer: "Surely after I was turned, I repented; and after I was instructed, I smote upon my thigh: I was ashamed, yes, even confounded, because I did bear the reproach of my youth." Oh, who can compute the good, the real, the permanent good that results from the trying dispensations of God?- from the corrections of a Father's love? The things that appear to militate against the believer, unfolding their heaven-sent mission, turn out rather for the furtherance of his best welfare and his highest interest.

But observe the unity of operation. They "work together," not singly and separately, but conjointly, as adjunct causes and mutual helps. Therefore it is that we often mark a plurality of trial in the calamity which befalls the Christian. Seldom does affliction come solitary and alone- the gentle wavelet upon the surface forebodes the agitation of the waters and is often the precursor of the mountain billow, and the billow in its turn is often the herald of the huge waterspout. Storm rises upon storm, cloud on cloud. One messenger of woe is quickly succeeded by another, burdened with tidings of yet heavier sorrow. Trace the wisdom, nor the wisdom only, but the love of your God, O child of suffering, in ordaining your path to heaven through "much tribulation," and in weaving around you many trials. Single and alone, the good they are charged to convey were but partially accomplished, and the evil they were designed to meet but imperfectly cured. It is the compounding of the ingredients in the recipe that constitutes its sanative power. Extract any one ingredient, and you impair the others and destroy the whole. We may not understand the chemistry of the process; we do not see how one element acts upon the properties of the others, nor how, by the combination of all, the cure is effected. Yet, confiding in the skill of the compounder, and submitting our reason to our faith, we take the remedy and receive the benefit. So, with the Divine dispensations, they work, but "work together." How assuredly would the curative process of trial be impaired, if but one of the several sent were lacking! How would the adjustment, harmony, and symmetry of God's arrangement be destroyed, if one dark dispensation were lacking of, perhaps, the many which hang upon our horizon! It is the combination of sound, the harmony of many, and often discordant notes, that constitute music. Oh, how imperfectly are we aware, not of the necessity of trial only, but of a plurality of trial, in order to wake from our lips the sweetest, loftiest anthem of praise and thanksgiving to God! Thus it is that the most deeply tried believers are the most skillful and the most melodious choristers in God's church. They sing the sweetest on earth, and they sing the loudest in heaven, who are passing through, and who have come out of, "great tribulation."

Then, Christian, count it all joy when you fall into diverse trials; do not be terrified if wave responds to wave- if cloud caps cloud- if storm rises on storm- if your Joseph has been taken, and now your Benjamin be demanded. The greater the accumulation of trial, the richer the freight it bears. Then it is that the interposition, the wisdom, and love of our God appear the most conspicuous and wonderful. Having delivered us out of six troubles, we see him hastening to our rescue in the seventh. Then it is, the experience of the sweet singer of Israel awakes an echo in our heart: "He sent from above, he took me, he drew me out of many waters." It has been well observed, "The mechanism of providence is made up of so many parts" as often to baffle the comprehension of man; yet all is clear to the eye and under the sovereign hand of Him who works it; and when we are lost in the bewilderments of a history that we cannot scan; when we are entangled among the mazes of a labyrinth that we cannot understand, it is well to be told that all is ordered, and that all works for good."

And let us not forget that it is a present working. It says not that all things have worked together for good, though this is most true. It says not that all things shall work together for good, though this is equally certain. But it says that all things do now work together for good. It is not a past, nor a future, but a present process. They are always working for good. The operation may be as invisible and noiseless as the leaven fermenting in the bread, and yet not less certain and effectual. The kingdom of God comes not into our souls with observation, nor does it grow in our souls with observation. And whether the good thus borne upon the raven-wing of trial, thus embosomed in the lowering cloud of some crushing providence, be immediate or remote, it matters little; sooner or later it will accomplish its benevolent and heaven-sent mission, and then trial will expand its dark pinions and fly away; and sorrow will roll up its somber drapery and disappear. The painful and inexplicable dispensations, which at the present moment may be thickening and deepening around your path, are but so many problems in God's government, which he is working out to their certain, satisfactory, and happy results.

Safely, then, may the Apostle rest his appeal with us: "We know that all things work together for good." We know it, because God has said it. We know it, because others have testified to it. Best of all, we know it, because we have experienced it ourselves. We can set our seal to the truth that all things under the government of an infinitely great, all-wise, righteous, and beneficent Lord God, both in the world, and in the church, and in the history of each member of the church, work together for good. What that good may be, the shape it may assume, the complexion it may wear, the end to which it may be subservient, we cannot tell. To our dim view it may appear an evil, but to God's far- seeing eye it is a positive good. His glory is secured by it, and, that end accomplished, we are sure it must be good. Oh, truth most divine! Oh, words most consolatory! How many whose eye traces this page, it may be whose tears bedew it, whose sighs breathe over it, whose prayers hallow it, may be wading in deep waters, may be drinking bitter cups, and are ready to exclaim- "All these things are against me!" Oh no, beloved of God, all these things are for you! "The Lord sits upon the flood." "The voice of the Lord is upon the waters." "He makes the clouds his chariot." Do not be, then, afraid! Christ restrains the flood upon whose heaving bosom he serenely sits. Christ controls the waters, whose sounding waves obey the mandate of his voice. Christ's cloudy chariot is paved with love. Then, fear not! Your Father grasps the helm of your storm tossed bark, and through cloud and tempest will steer it safely to the port of endless rest. "There is none like unto the God of Jeshurun, who rides upon the heavens in your help, and in his excellency on the sky. The Eternal God is your refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms."

Again learn instruction from analogy. All the beauty, and fragrance, and music of nature, spring from a union and blending of opposites. So is it in that kingdom which is within you. The beauty of holiness with which God adorns you- the perfume of grace which he flings around you- the melody of praise which he wakes from your lips- are the result of "all things" in your history conspiring, combining, and working together for your good.

"Love you your sorrow? Grief shall bring
Its own excuse in after years.
The rainbow- see how fair a thing
God has built up from tears!"

Oh, calmly stay your faith, then, on this divinely assured truth, that "all things work together for good to those who love God." Will it not be a good, if your present adversity results in the dethronement of some worshiped idol- in the endearing of Christ to your soul- in the closer conformity of your mind to God's image- in the purification of your heart in your more thorough fitness for heaven? Will it not be a real good if it terminate in a revival of God's work within you- in stirring you up to more prayer- in enlarging your heart to all that love the same Savior- in stimulating you to increased activity for the conversion of sinners, for the diffusion of the truth, and for the glory of God? Oh yes! good, real good, permanent good must result from all the Divine dispensations in your history. Bitter repentance shall end in the experienced sweetness of Christ's love. The festering wound shall but elicit the healing balm. The overpowering burden shall but bring you to the tranquil rest. The storm shall but quicken your footsteps to the Hiding place. The north wind and the south wind shall breathe together over your garden, and the spices shall flow out. In a little while- oh, how soon!- you shall pass away from earth to heaven, and in its clearer, serener light shall read the truth, often read with tears before, "All things work together for good to those who love God."

"Oh, what a load of struggle and distress
Falls off before the Cross! The Feverish care;
The wish that we were other than we are
The sick regrets; the yearnings numberless;
The thought, 'This might have been,' so apt to press
On the reluctant soul! even past despair,
Past sin itself- all- all is turned to fair,
Ay, to a scheme of ordered happiness,
So soon as we love God, or rather, know
That God loves us! Accepting the great pledge
Of His concern for all our wants and woe,
We cease to tremble upon danger's edge,
While varying troubles form and burst anew,
Safe in a Father's arms, we smile as infants do!"
(Townshend)

Divine Predestination

"For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the first born among many brethren"—Romans 8:29.

Guided by the latter clause of the preceding verse, we were led to advert to the settled purpose and plan of God as it related to the conversion of His people. The passage under present consideration carries forward the same argument another step, and shows that the doctrine thus clearly enunciated is not a crude and speculative dogma of the schools, which some suppose, but is a truth of distinct revelation, divine in its origin, experimental in its nature, and sanctifying and comforting in its effects. Let us, then, divesting our minds of all prejudice, address ourselves to its consideration, in prayerful reliance upon the teaching of the Spirit, and with the earnest simplicity of children desiring to come to a knowledge of the truth, and to stand complete in all the will of God.

"Whom he did foreknow." In this place the word "foreknow" assumes a particular and explicit meaning. In its wider and more general application it must be regarded as referring not simply to the divine prescience, but more especially to the divine prearrangement. For God to foreknow is, in the strict meaning of the phrase, for God to foreordain. There are no guesses, conjectures, or contingencies with God as to the future. Not only does He know all, but He has fixed, appointed, and ordered "all things after the counsel of his own will." In this view there exists not a creature, and there transpires not an event, which was not as real and palpable to the divine mind from eternity as it is at the present moment. Indeed, it would seem that there were no future with God. An eternal Being, there can be nothing prospective in His looking on all things. There must be an eternity of perception, and constitution, and presence; and the mightiest feature of His character—that which conveys to a finite mind the most vivid conception of His grandeur and greatness—is the simultaneousness of all succession, variety, and events to His eye. "He is of one mind; and who can turn him?"

But the word "foreknow," as it occurs in the text, adds to this yet another, a more definite, and, to the saints, a more precious signification. The foreknowledge here spoken of, it will be observed, is limited to a particular class of people who are said to be "conformed to the image of God's Son." Now this cannot, with truth, be predicated of all creatures. The term, therefore, assumes a particular and impressive signification. It includes the everlasting love of God to, and His most free choice of, His people, to be His special and peculiar treasure. We find some examples of this—"God has not cast away his people which he foreknew" (Rom. 11:2). Here the word is expressive of the two ideas of love and choice. Again, "Who verily was foreordained (Greek, foreknown) before the foundation of the world" (1 Pet. 1:20). "Him, being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God" (Acts 2:23). Clearly, then, we are justified in interpreting the phrase as expressive of God's special choice of, and His intelligent love to, His church—His own peculiar people. It is a foreknowledge of choice, of love, of eternal grace and faithfulness.

"He also did predestinate." This word admits of but one natural signification. Predestination, in its lowest sense, is understood to mean the exclusive agency of God in producing every event. But it includes more than this: it takes in God's pre-determinate appointment and fore-arrangement of a thing beforehand, according to His divine and supreme will. The Greek is so rendered—"For to do whatever your hand and your counsel determined before to be done" (Acts 4:28). Again, "Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will" (Eph. 1:5). It is here affirmed of God, that the same prearrangement and predetermination that men in general are agreed to ascribe to Him in the government of matter, extends equally, and with yet stronger force, to the concerns of His moral administration. It would seem impossible to form any correct idea of God, disassociated from the idea of predestination. As a divine wrote, "The sole basis of predestination is the practical belief that God is eternal and infinite in and over all. And the sole aim of its assertion should be, as the sole legitimate effect of that assertion is, to settle down the wavering and rebel soul from the vague, skeptical, and superstitious inapplicabilities of chance as to this world's history, unto the living, overwhelming, and humbling practicality of conviction, that, just because God sees all things, provides all things, and has power over all things, therefore man must act as if he believed this to be true. The first and the last conviction of every honest inquirer must be, that God is, and is Lord over all—and the whole of Scripture bears testimony to the fact of His infinitude."

And yet how marvelously difficult it is to win the mind to a full, unwavering acquiescence in a truth which, in a different application, is received with unquestioning readiness! And what is there in the application of this law of the divine government to the world of matter, which is not equally reasonable and fit in its application to the world of mind? If it is necessary and proper in the material, why should it not be equally, or more so, in the spiritual empire? If God is allowed the full exercise of a sovereignty in the one, why should He be excluded from an unlimited sovereignty in the other? Surely it were even more worthy of Him that He should prearrange, predetermine, and supremely rule in the concerns of a world over which His more dignified and glorious empire extends, than that in the inferior world of matter He should fix a constellation in the heavens, guide the gyrations of a bird in the air, direct the falling of an autumn leaf in the pathless desert, or convey the seed, borne upon the wind, to the spot where it should fall. Surely if no fortuitous ordering is admitted in the one case, on infinitely stronger grounds it should be excluded from the other. Upon no other basis could divine foreknowledge and providence take their stand than upon this. Disconnected from the will and purpose of God there could be nothing certain as to the future, and consequently there could be nothing certainly foreknown. And were not providence to regulate and control people, things, and events—every dispensation, in fact—by the same preconstructed plan, it would follow that God would be exposed to a thousand unforeseen contingencies, or else that He acts ignorantly or contrary to His will.

But it is not so much our province to establish the truth of this doctrine, and explain its reasonableness and the harmony of its relations, as to trace its sanctifying tendency and effect. Predestination must be a divine verity, since it stands essentially connected with our conformity to the divine image. "Predestinated to be conformed to the image of his Son." Addressing ourselves to this deeply interesting and important branch of our subject, let us first contemplate the believer's model.

"The image of his Son." No standard short of this will meet the case. How conspicuous appears the wisdom and how glorious the goodness of God in this—that in making us holy, the model or standard of that holiness should be Deity itself! God would make us holy, and in doing so He would make us like Himself.

But with what pen—dipped though it were in heaven's brightest hues—can we portray the image of Jesus? The perfection of our Lord was the perfection of holiness. His Deity, essential holiness—His humanity without sin, the impersonation of holiness, all that He was, said, and did, was as flashes of holiness emanating from the fountain of essential purity, and kindling their dazzling and undying radiance around each step He trod. How lowly, too, His character! How holy the thoughts He breathed, how pure the words He spoke, how humble the spirit He exemplified, how tender and sympathizing the outgoings of His compassion and love to man. He is "the chief among ten thousand, the altogether lovely."

Such is the believer's model. To this he is predestinated to be conformed. And is not this predestination in its highest form? Would it seem possible for God to have preordained us to a greater blessing, to have chosen us to a higher distinction? In choosing us in Christ before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy, He has advanced us to the loftiest degree of honor and happiness to which a creature can be promoted—assimilation to His own moral image. And this forms the highest ambition of the believer. To transcribe those beauteous lineaments which, in such perfect harmony and beautiful expression, blended and shone in the life of Jesus, is the great study of all His true disciples. But in what does this conformity consist?

The first feature is, a conformity of nature. And this is reciprocal. The Son of God, by an act of divine power, became human; the saints of God, by an act of sovereign grace, partake "of the divine nature," 2 Peter 1:4 says. This harmony of nature forms the basis of all conformity. Thus grafted into Christ, we grow up into Him in all holy resemblance. The meekness, the holiness, the patience, the self-denial, the zeal, the love, traceable in us—though faint and imperfect—are transfers of Christ's beauteous and faultless lineaments to our renewed soul. Thus the mind that was in Him is in some measure in us. And in our moral conflict, battling as we do with sin, Satan, and the world, we come to know a little of fellowship with His sufferings and conformity to His death.

We are here supplied with a test of Christian character. It is an anxious question with many professors of Christ, "How may I arrive at a correct conclusion that I am among the predestinated of God —that I am included in His purpose of grace and love—that I have a saving interest in the Lord's salvation?" The passage under consideration supplies the answer—conformity to the image of God's Son. Nothing short of this can justify the belief that we are saved. No evidence less strong can authenticate the fact of our predestination. The determination of God to save men is not so fixed as to save no matter what their character may be. Christ's work is a salvation from sin, not in sin. "According as he has chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy" (Eph. 1:4). In other words, that we should be conformed to the divine image. That we should be like Christ in His divine nature, in the purity of His human nature, in the humility He exemplified, in the self-denial He practiced, and in the heavenly life He lived. In a word, in all that this expressive sentence comprehends—"conformed to the image of his Son."

As we grow day by day more holy, more spiritually minded, more closely resembling Jesus, we are placing the truth of our predestination to eternal life in a clearer, stronger light, and consequently the fact of our salvation beyond a misgiving and a doubt. In view of this precious truth, what spiritual heart will not breathe the prayer, "O Lord! I cannot be satisfied merely to profess and call myself Yours. I want more of the power of vital religion in my soul. I pant for Your image. My deepest grief springs from the discovery of the little real resemblance which I bear to a model so peerless, so divine—that I exemplify so little of Your patience in suffering; Your meekness in opposition; Your forgiving spirit in injury; Your gentleness in reproving; Your firmness in temptation; Your singleness of eye in all that I do. Oh, transfer Yourself wholly to me. What were this world, yes, what were heaven itself, without You? A universe of creatures, the fondest, the holiest, could not be Your substitute to my yearning, longing soul, O Lord! Come, and occupy Your own place in my heart. Awaken it to Your love. Sweep its chords with Your gentle hand, and it shall breathe sweet music to Your dear name

I love You, Savior, for my soul craves joy!
I need You, without hope I cannot live!
I look for You; my nature pants to give
Its every power a rapture and employ;
And there are things which I would sincerely destroy
Within my bosom; things that make me grieve;
Sin, and her child, Distrust, that often weave
About my spirit darkness and annoy:
And none but You can these dissolve in light;
And so I long for You, as those who stay
In the deep waters long for dawning day!
Nor would I only have my being bright,
But peaceful, too; so ask You if I might
My head on Your dear bosom lean always.
—Townshend

"That he might be the firstborn among many brethren." The Son of God sustains to us the relation of the Elder Brother. He is emphatically the "Firstborn." In another place we read, "Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also likewise took part of the same." He is the "Brother born for adversity." Our relation to Him as our Brother is evidenced by our conformity to Him as our model. We have no valid claim to relationship which springs not from a resemblance to His image. The features may be indistinctly visible, yet one line of holiness, one true lineament, drawn upon the heart by the Holy Spirit, proves our fraternal relationship to Him, the "Firstborn."

And how large the brotherhood—"many brethren!" What the relative proportion of the church is to the world—how many will be saved—is a question speculative and profitless. But this we know, the number will be vast, countless. The one family of God is composed of "many brethren." They are not all of the same judgment in all matters, but they are all of the same spirit. The unity of the family of God is not ecclesiastical, nor geographical; it is spiritual and essential. It is the "unity of the Spirit." Begotten of one Father, in the nature of the Elder Brother, and through the regenerating grace of the one Spirit, all the saints of God constitute one church, one family, one brotherhood—essentially and indivisibly one. Nor is this relationship difficult to recognize.

Consider an illustration: Two brethren in the Lord of widely different sections of the church, and of much dissonance of sentiment on some points of truth, meet and converse together. With the Word of God in hand, each is surprised that the other does not read it as he reads it and interpret it as he interprets it. But they drop the points of difference and take up the points of agreement. They speak of Christ—the Christ who loves them both, and whom they both love. They talk of the one Master whom they serve; of their common labors, infirmities, trials, temptations, discouragements, failures, and successes. They talk of the heaven where they are journeying; of their Father's house, in which they will dwell together forever. They kneel in prayer; they cast themselves before the cross; the oil of gladness anoints them; their hearts are broken, their spirits are humbled, their souls are blended; they rise and feel more deeply and more strongly than ever that they both belong to the same family, are both of the "many brethren," of whom the Son of God is the "Firstborn," the Elder Brother. Oh, blessed unity! What perfect harmony of creed, what strict conformity of ritual, what sameness of denominational relation, is for a moment to be compared with this? Have you, my reader, this evidence that you belong to the "many brethren?"

It is our purpose to conclude by briefly showing how encouraging the doctrine of predestination is to the soul in sincere and earnest seeking of Christ, and by tracing some of the peculiar blessings which flow from it to the saints of God. There is a class of individuals, unhappily a large one, over whose spiritual feelings the doctrine of divine predestination would seem to have cast a deep and settled gloom. We refer to those who are apt to regard this truth with deep antipathy, if not with absolute horror, as constituting, in their view, one of the most formidable and insurmountable obstacles to their salvation. But the validity of this objection we by no means admit. There can be nothing in the Bible adverse to the salvation of a sinner. The doctrine of predestination is a revealed doctrine of the Bible; therefore, predestination cannot be opposed to the salvation of the sinner. So far from this being true, we don't hesitate most strongly and emphatically to affirm that we know of no doctrine of God's Word more replete with encouragement to the awakened, sin-burdened, Christ-seeking soul than this.

What stronger evidence can we have of our election of God than the Spirit's work in the heart? Are you really in earnest for the salvation of your soul? Do you feel the plague of sin? Are you sensible of the condemnation of the law? Do you come under the denomination of the "weary and heavy laden?" If so, then the fact that you are a subject of divine drawings—that you have a felt conviction of your sinfulness—and that you are seeking for a place of refuge, affords the strongest ground for believing that you are one of those whom God has predestinated to eternal life. The very work thus begun is the Spirit's first outline of the divine image upon your soul—that very image to which the saints are predestinated to be conformed.

But while we thus vindicate this doctrine as being inimical to the salvation of the anxious soul, we must, with all distinctness and earnestness declare that in this stage of your Christian course, you have primarily and mainly to do with another and a different doctrine. We refer to the doctrine of the atonement. If you could look into the book of the divine decrees, and read your name inscribed upon its pages, it would not impart the joy and peace which one believing view of Christ crucified will convey. It is not essential to your salvation that you believe in election; but it is essential to your salvation that you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. In your case, as an individual debating the momentous question, "how a sinner may be justified before God," your first business is with Christ, and Christ exclusively. You are to feel that you are a lost sinner, not that you are an elect saint. The doctrine which meets the present phase of your spiritual condition is not the doctrine of predestination, but the doctrine of an atoning Savior. The truth to which you are to give the first consideration, and the most simple and unquestioning credence is, that "Christ died for the ungodly," that He came into the world to save sinners, that He came to call, not the righteous, but sinners to repentance, that in all respects, in the great business of our salvation, He stands before us in the relation of a Savior, while we stand before Him in the character of a sinner.

The mental conflict into which you have been brought touching this doctrine, is but a subtle and dexterous stroke of the enemy to divert your thoughts from Christ. Your soul is at this moment in what may be termed a transitional state. A crisis in your history has been reached. How momentous the result! Shall we portray your present feelings? You are sensible of your sinfulness, are oppressed by its guilt, and are in dread of its condemnation. You have no peace of mind, no joy of heart, no hope of heaven. Life with you has lost its charm, society its attractions, and pleasure its sweetness. A somber hue paints every object, and insipidity marks every engagement. Where this marvellous revolution, this essential and wondrous change? We answer, it is the Spirit of God moving upon your soul. And what truth, do you think, meets the case? Predestination? Election? Oh, no! These are hidden links in the great chain of your salvation, upon which in your present state, you are not called to lay your hand in grasping that chain.

But there are other and intermediate links, visible, near, and within your reach. Take hold of them, and you are saved: "This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners." "God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in him should not perish, but have everlasting life." "The blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanses us from all sin." "Come unto me, all you that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." "Him that comes unto me I will in no wise cast out." "Whosoever will, let him take of the water of life freely." "Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus." "Ho, every one that thirsts, come you to the waters." "In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace." "By grace are you saved, through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God." "Wherefore he is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him." "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you shall be saved."

Grasp, in simple faith, each or any one of these golden links, and from that moment for you there is no condemnation. But what is the real difficulty? It is not predestination. Travel into the inmost recesses of your heart and ascertain. May there not be some defect in your actual conviction of sin? Were you thoroughly convinced of your lost and ruined condition as a sinner, would you cavil and demur at any one revealed doctrine of Scripture? Would this, of all doctrines, prove a real stumbling block in your way? Would the question of election give you a moment's serious thought? Would it interpose a true and valid objection to your coming to Christ to be saved by Him? Suppose, to illustrate the idea, you were roused from sleep in the dead hour of night by the approach of flames kindling fiercely around you. One avenue of escape presented itself. Would you pause for an instant upon its threshold to debate the question of your predestinated safety? Would you not at once decide the question in your favor, by an instant retreat from the devouring element, through the only door that proffered you deliverance? Most assuredly. To a matter so momentous as your salvation apply the same reasoning. Were it not folly, yes, insanity itself, to hesitate for a moment to consider whether you are predestinated to escape the wrath to come, when, if you do not escape, that wrath will assuredly overwhelm you? One refuge alone presents itself. One avenue only invites your escape. Let no other doctrine but faith in the Lord Jesus Christ occupy your thoughts at this juncture of your religious course. Diverging from this path, you will be plunged into a sea of perplexities, you know not how inextricable, which may land you, you know not where. For they who have

Reasoned high
Of providence, foreknowledge, will, and fate,
Fixed fate, freewill, foreknowledge absolute,
Have found no end in wandering mazes lost.

O let one object fix your eye and one theme fill your mind—Christ and His salvation. Absorbed in the contemplation and study of these two points, you may safely defer all further inquiry to another and a more advanced stage of your Christian course. Remember that the fact of your predestination, the certainty of your election, can only be inferred from your conversion. We must hold you firmly to this truth. It is the subtle and fatal reasoning of Satan, a species of atheistical fatalism, to argue, "If I am elected I shall be saved whether I am regenerated or not." The path to eternal woe is paved with arguments like this. Men have cajoled their souls with such vain excuses until they have found themselves beyond the region of hope!

But we must rise to the fountain by pursuing the stream. Conversion and not predestination, is the end of the chain we are to grasp. We must ascend from ourselves to God, and not descend from God to ourselves, in settling this great question. We must judge of God's objective purpose of love concerning us, by His subjective work of grace within us. One of the martyr Reformers has wisely remarked, "We need not go about to trouble ourselves with curious questions of the predestination of God; but let us rather endeavor ourselves that we may be in Christ. For, when we are in Him, then are we well: and then we may be sure that we are ordained to everlasting life. When you find these three things in your hearts, repentance, faith, and a desire to leave sin, then you may be sure your names are written in the book, and you may be sure also, that you are elected and predestinated to eternal life." Again he observes, "If you are desiring to know whether you are chosen to everlasting life, you may not begin with God, for God is too high, you can not comprehend Him. Begin with Christ, and learn to know Christ, and wherefore He came; namely, that He came to save sinners, and made Himself subject to the law, and a fulfiller of the law, to deliver us from the wrath and danger thereof. If you know Christ, then you may know further of your election." And illustrating his idea by his own personal experience, he says, "If I believe in Christ alone for salvation, I am certainly interested in Christ; and interested in Christ I could not be, if I were not chosen and elected of God."

In conclusion, we earnestly entreat you to lay aside all fruitless speculations, and to give yourself to prayer. Let reason bow to faith, and faith shut you up to Christ, and Christ be all in all to you. Once more we solemnly affirm that, conversion, and not predestination, is the doctrine with which, in your present state of inquiry, you have to do. Beware that you come not short of true conversion—a changed heart, and a renewed mind, so that you become "a new creature in Christ Jesus." And if as a poor lost sinner you repair to the Savior, all vile, guilty, unworthy, and weak as you are, He will receive you, and shelter you within the bosom that bled on the cross, to provide an atonement and an asylum for the very chief of sinners. Intermeddle not, therefore, with a state which you can only ascertain to be yours by the Spirit's work upon your heart. "Your election will be known by your interest in Christ; and your interest in Christ by the sanctification of the Spirit. Here is a chain of salvation; the beginning of it is from the Father; the dispensation of it through the Son; the application of it by the Spirit. In looking after the comfort of election, you must look inward to the work of the Spirit in your heart; then outward to the work of Christ on the cross; then upward to the heart of the Father in heaven." Oh, let your prayer be "God be merciful to me a sinner," until that prayer is answered in the assurance of full pardon sealed upon your conscience by the Holy Spirit. Thus knocking at mercy's door, the heart of God will fly open, and admit you to all the hidden treasures of its love.

We can but group some of the great blessings which flow from this truth to the saints of God. The doctrine of predestination is well calculated to confirm and strengthen the true believer in the fact and certainty of his salvation through Christ. Feeling, as he does, the plague of his own heart, experiencing the preciousness of the Savior, looking up through the cross to God as his Father, exulting in a hope that makes not ashamed, and remembering that God the Eternal Spirit only renews those who are chosen by God the Father, and are redeemed by God the Son, this doctrine is found to be most comforting and confirming to his faith. The faintest lineaments of resemblance to God, and the feeblest breathing of the Spirit of adoption he discovers in his soul, is to him an indisputable evidence of his predestination to divine sonship and holiness.

Another blessing accruing from the doctrine is the sweet and holy submission into which it brings the mind under all afflictive dispensations. Each step of his pilgrimage, and each incident of his history, the believer sees appointed in the everlasting covenant of grace. He recognizes the discipline of the covenant to be as much a part of the original plan as any positive mercy that it contains. That all the hairs of his head are numbered; that affliction springs not out of the earth, and therefore is not the result of accident or chance, but is in harmony with God's purposes of love; and, thus ordained and permitted, must work together for good.

Not the least blessing resulting from this truth (2 Thess. 2:13) is its tendency to promote personal godliness. The believer feels that God has "chosen us to salvation through sanctification and belief of the truth;" that He has "chosen us that we should be holy and without blame before him in love" (Eph. 1:4); that we are "his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God has before ordained that we should walk in them" (Eph. 2:10). Thus the believer desires to "give all diligence to make his calling and election sure," or undoubted, by walking in all the ordinances and commandments of the Lord blameless, and standing complete in all the will of God.

And what doctrine is more emptying, humbling, and therefore sanctifying, than this? It lays the axe at the root of all human boasting. In the light of this truth, the most holy believer sees that there is no difference between him and the vilest sinner that crawls the earth, but what the mere grace of God has made. Such are some of the many blessings flowing to the Christian from this truth. The radiance which it reflects upon the entire history of the child of God, and the calm repose which it diffuses over the mind in all the perplexing, painful, and mysterious events of that history, can only be understood by those whose hearts have fully received the doctrine of predestination. Whatever betides him; inexplicable in its character, enshrouded in the deepest gloom, as may be the circumstance; the believer in this truth can "stand still," and, calmly surveying the scene, exclaim: "This also comes forth from the Lord of Hosts, who is wonderful in counsel, and excellent in working. He who works all things after the counsel of His own will has done it, and I am satisfied that it is well done."

In conclusion, saints of God, have close relations and intimate dealings with your Elder Brother. Repose in Him your confidence, yield to Him your affections, consecrate to Him your service. He regards you with ineffable delight. With all your interests He is identified, and with all your sorrows He sympathizes. He may, like Joseph, at times speak roughly to His brethren, in the trying dispensations of His providence; yet, like Joseph, He veils beneath that apparent harshness a brother's deep and yearning love. Seek a closer resemblance to His image, to which, ever remember, you are predestinated to be conformed. In order to this, study His beauty, His precepts, His example, that with "open face, beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, you may be changed into the same image, from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord."

Effectual Calling

Moreover whom he did predestinate, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified. Romans 8:30

And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified. Romans 8:30

And having chosen them, he called them to come to him. And he gave them right standing with himself, and he promised them his glory. Romans 8:30

The truth of God must necessarily be a perfect whole, a chain of doctrines in which not a single link is lacking to connect together the different parts binding and weaving them into a beautiful and harmonious system. To a mind not thoroughly skilled in the deep things of God, this chain may appear broken and incomplete, because to such an individual there may appear truths which are either irreconcilable or are invisible altogether. But this apparent discrepancy and invisibility of truth forms no real evidence of an actual lack of continuity or harmony, any more than a chain thrown across the channel of a river would be regarded as broken and incomplete simply because some of its links were submerged beneath the stream, or its two extremes were invisible to the eye. A beautiful chain of truth is presented to our view in the present verse. The first and extreme link has already been examined. The second, a sequence from the first, is now to engage our attention; the effectual calling of those who are predestinated.

"Whom he predestinated, them he also CALLED." While we maintain that the calling here referred to is a particular and effectual vocation, we yet as strenuously maintain that there is an external call lying at the door of every individual who hears the Gospel. Recognizing human responsibility, the Gospel meets man as a sinful and accountable being. It lifts up its voice in silver tones, and exclaims, "Unto you, O men, I call; and my voice is to the sons of men." When our Lord returned from his grave, he enlarged the commission of his apostles, and placed the call of the Gospel upon a broader basis. "Go into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature." Thus to every creature the external call of the Gospel is to be addressed. Who will dare to limit and circumscribe what God has made as wide and boundless as man's moral necessity? "Many are called." Oh, it is a real and a solemn call, the call of the Gospel. He who hears it is brought beneath a responsibility the most tremendous. From its obligations nothing can ever release him. For every summons he has had to repent, to lay down his arms, to give up his enmity, to turn to the Lord, to believe in Christ, to escape from the wrath to come, he will be called to an account when all shall appear before the judgment seat of Christ. Dear reader, has the music of this call, breaking so sweetly and so solemnly upon your external ear, penetrated your soul, echoing through the chambers of your heart, and awaking a response of love, surrender, and obedience? Or- solemn conclusion!- or, are you wilfully turning from the sound "like the deaf adder that stops her ear; which will not hearken to the voice of charmers, charming ever so wisely?"

But the call here referred to is the especial call of the Gospel- the secret, effectual call which has found its way to the heart by the power of the Holy Spirit. The connection of these two truths- an especial people, and an especial call- is thus conclusively shown- "And that he might make known the riches of his glory in the vessels of mercy, which he had afore prepared unto glory, even us, whom he has called." "Who has saved us, and called us with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus, before the world began." "Those who are sanctified by God the Father, and preserved in Christ Jesus, and called." Honored Church! Happy people! Called to be saints. Oh, to have the Divine testimony that we are among them!

But from what, and into what, are the Lord's people called? The Apostle answers- "That you should show forth the praises of him who has called you out of darkness into his marvellous light." It is indeed "marvellous light;" and marvellous grace, that calls us out of a deeper than Egyptian darkness, to see and rejoice in the glory of God beaming in the face of Jesus Christ. We find it, too, a calling into liberty. "Brethren, you have been called unto liberty." Bond-slaves to sin and Satan, we become Christ's freemen, those whom his Spirit and truth have made free. It is also a call into fellowship. "God is faithful, by whom you were called unto the fellowship of his Son Jesus Christ our Lord;" -called into a oneness with Christ, privileged to open the heart to him in all the confidence and affection of a child, while in return he reveals the secret of the Lord to us.

And what are some of the attributes of this calling? It is holy. "Who has saved us, and called us with a holy calling." They who are the subjects of this call desire to be holy. Their direst evil is sin. It is, in their experience, not a silken chain, but a galling fetter, beneath whose weight they mourn, and from whose bondage they sigh to be delivered. It is a high and heavenly calling. "I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus." "Wherefore, holy brethren, partakers of the heavenly calling." How does this calling elevate a man- his principles, his character, his aims, his hopes! It is emphatically a "high vocation." So heavenly is it, too, it brings something of heaven into the soul. It imparts heavenly affections, heavenly joys, and heavenly aspirations. It leads to heaven. Could he look within the veil, each called saint would see a prepared mansion, a vacant throne, a jeweled crown, a robe, and a palm, all ready for the wearing and the waving, awaiting him in glory. Thus it is a call from heaven and to heaven. It is an irrevocable calling. "For God's gifts and his call can never be withdrawn." God has never for a moment repented that he chose, nor has the Savior repented that he redeemed, nor has the Spirit repented that he called, any of his people. Not all their wanderings, nor failures, nor unfruitfulness, has ever awakened one regret in the heart of God that he has called them to be saints. "I knew that you would deal treacherously." "He will visit their transgressions with his rod, and their iniquities with his stripes, but his loving-kindness he will not take from them, nor allow his faithfulness to fail." "Faithful is he that calls you."

Nor must we overlook the Divine sovereignty which appears so illustrious in this especial calling. All ground of human boasting is removed, and God has secured to himself, from eternity, the entire glory of his people's salvation. So conspicuously appears the sovereignty of God in this effectual calling, that all foundation of creature-glory is annihilated. And if it be asked by the disputers of this truth, why one is called and another is left? Why Jacob, and not Esau? Why David, and not Saul? Why Cornelius the Gentile, and not Tertullus the Jew? Why the poor beggars in the highway, and not the bidden guests? Why the woman who laved with her tears the Savior's feet, and not Simon, in whose house the grateful act was performed? The answer is, "He will have mercy upon whom he will have mercy." To this acquiescence in the sovereignty of the Divine Will our Lord was brought when he beheld the mysteries of the Gospel veiled from the wise of this world: "I thank you, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and the prudent, and have revealed them unto babes. Even so, Father, for so it seems good in your sight." To this precious truth let us bow; and if the efficacious grace of God has reached our hearts, let us ascribe its discriminating choice to the sovereign pleasure of that Divine and supreme Will, which rules among the armies of heaven, and among the inhabitants of earth, and to which no creature dare say, "What are you doing?"

But let us pass for a moment to a more experimental and practical view of this subject. The question has often been asked by the trembling lip, "How may I be assured of an interest in the eternal purpose and everlasting love of God? By what evidence may I conclude that I am one I whom he predestinated?" Listen to the words of the Apostle, addressed to the Thessalonian saints, "Knowing, brethren beloved, your election of God." But how did he know this? Had he read their names in the Lamb's book of Life? No! See how he solves the mystery: "For our Gospel came not unto you in word only, but also in power, and in the Holy Spirit, and in much assurance." By this he knew their election of God. And by a similar test you must bring the question to an issue. Has the Gospel come to your heart by the Holy Spirit? In other words, have you been called by the inward call? Have you fled as a poor sinner to Christ, and is he all your salvation and all your desire? Assume the truth of nothing, take nothing for granted as to your salvation, until thus is the case. We recur to a thought advanced in the preceding chapter, that it is with the fact of your open call, and not with the fact of your secret predestination, that you have mainly to do. It is this central and visible link in the chain that you must grasp. Secret things belong to God. The things revealed belong to us. You are assuming an attitude of the most appalling temerity in attempting to force your way into the secret counsels of the Most High, plunging into the fathomless depths of a past eternity, and intruding into those mysteries, veiled and unsearchable, upon whose awful threshold an angel's foot dare not tread. But oh, how near, how visible, how precious, the truth with which you have to do- God standing in the most impressive and winning attitude of a gracious, sin-pardoning God- inviting you, imploring you, all guilty, and burdened, and sorrowful as you are, to accept his mercy, to avail yourself of his forgiveness, to believe in his Son; and thus by grasping the outstretched hand, by heeding the earnest call, and accepting the gracious invitation, you may set forever at rest the question of your salvation. Oh, let the great, the all-absorbing question with you be, "What shall I do to be saved?" Postpone every other question, adjourn every other debate, until this is met and fairly settled, that you are the called of God. Take hold of the full and free invitations of the Gospel- and Christ, and salvation, and heaven are yours.

And for your encouragement we would say, that the feeblest puttings forth of grace in the soul are indisputable evidences of the inward and effectual call of the Spirit. If in the spring time I mark the gentle buddings of the costly plant, I rejoice, yet with trembling. The cold wind may blow and the hoar frost may light upon those buds, and so nip and kill those who they shall never burst into the beautiful and fragrant flower. But when I trace the buddings of grace in the heart of a poor sinner, when I observe the evidence of the Spirit's operation in the soul, I feel no misgiving, I cherish no fear, for I am assured that He who has begun the good work will carry it on and perfect it in glory. No worm shall kill its root, no frosts shall nip its leaf, no winds shall scatter its fruit, it shall never, never be destroyed. God will complete the work to which he puts his hand. Oh, precious truth, replete with encouragement to the sorrow-stricken, sin-burdened, Christ-seeking soul! Sweeter music is not heard in heaven than chimes in these words addressed to you- "Whoever comes to me I will never drive away."

Are we called? Then let us heed the earnest entreaty of the Apostle, "Therefore I, a prisoner for serving the Lord, beg you to lead a life worthy of your calling, for you have been called by God." Let the lowliest and the highest vocation of life be dignified and sanctified by the heavenly calling. Wherever you are, and in whatever engaged, forget not your high calling of God. You are called to be saints; called to a separation from the world; called to a holy, heavenly life; called to live for God, to labor for Christ; and soon will be called to be with the Lord forever!

Free Justification

Moreover whom he did predestinate, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified. Romans 8:30

And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified. Romans 8:30

And having chosen them, he called them to come to him. And he gave them right standing with himself, and he promised them his glory. Romans 8:30

Such is the third link in this golden chain of heavenly truth. Those whom God appoints unto salvation, he as certainly calls by his effectual grace; and those whom he thus calls by his Spirit, he as certainly justifies through his Son. As we are not composing a treatise on the doctrine of Justification, we must assume it as divinely revealed, restricting ourselves, in the present instance, to a simple and brief presentation of the truth, as it forms an essential step in the believer's progress from condemnation to glory. "Whom he called, them he also justified."

Of the necessity of justification, we need not speak at great length. If there is no condemnation where justification is attained, it follows that where there is not the condition of justification, the law must be left to take its full effect. But the very provision proves the necessity. Had it been possible for our fallen race to have recovered their former state of holiness and consequent Divine acceptance by an expedient of their own invention, do we think that God would have provided a way of justification so costly or so stupendous as that which the Gospel reveals? The utter incapacity of the sinner to justify himself, left the way open for the display of God's infinite wisdom, holiness, and grace. The theater was prepared for the development of his great and grand expedient of justifying the sinner, and yet remaining truly, unbendingly, and unimpeachably just. But not upon man's inability to justify himself rests alone the necessity of a Divine method of justification, but mainly upon the nature of God's moral government. As a holy God, he can only consistently pardon and justify upon the basis of a righteousness which fully sustains the purity of his nature, the majesty of his law, and the glory of his entire moral government. Here are the two extremes of being- the holy, condemning Lord God, and the unholy and condemned sinner. It is proposed that they should meet as upon an equal footing, and that perfect reconciliation and peace should eternally be established between them. But upon what basis? Without a mediating plan, how shall this be effected? God is under a most free necessity to maintain the dignity of his throne, the holiness of his nature, and the righteousness of his law. If he would justify the sinner upon the ground of mere mercy, apart from a full satisfaction to the Divine government, what would become of his justice and his holiness? and with what truth could it be affirmed that "he is of purer eyes than to behold evil, and cannot (not will not, but cannot) look on iniquity?" If, then, man is saved, if the sinner is justified, if the condemned is acquitted, it is most clear that it must be upon the basis of an atonement that should not compromise the righteousness of the Divine government, but should so harmonize all the attributes of God, so meet all the claims of justice and holiness and truth, as shall enable Mercy to walk upon the high battlements of his grace, waving her olive-branch of peace in view of a revolted and guilty world. Such an expedient has been devised, such a basis has been provided, such an atonement has been made. We now approach nearer to the subject before us.

The term is forensic- employed in judicial affairs, transacted in a court of judicature. We find an illustration of this in God's Word- "If there be a controversy between men, and they come into judgment, that the judge may judge them, then they shall justify the righteous, and condemn the wicked." It is clear from this passage that the word stands opposed to a state of condemnation, and in this sense it is employed in the text under consideration. To justify, in its proper and fullest sense, is to release from all condemnation. Now it is important that we do not mix up this doctrine, as the Church of Rome has done, with other and kindred doctrines. We must clearly distinguish it from that of sanctification. Closely connected as they are, they yet entirely differ. The one is a change of state, the other a change of condition. By the one we pass from guilt to righteousness, by the other we pass from sin to holiness. In justification we are brought near to God; in sanctification we are made like God. The one places in before him in a condition of non-condemnation; the other transforms us into his image. Yet the Church of Rome blends the two states together, and in her formularies teaches an imputed sanctification, just as the Bible teaches an imputed justification. It is to be distinguished, too, from pardon. Justification is a higher act. By the act of pardon we are saved from hell; but by the decree of justification, we are brought to heaven. The one discharges the soul from punishment; the other places in its hand a title-deed to glory. But the main question relates to the method of God's justification. And this is a point of vital moment. The Lord Jesus Christ is emphatically the justification of all the predestined and called people of God. "By him all that believe are justified from all things." "Being justified freely by his grace, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus." The antecedent step was to place himself in the exact position of his church. In order to do this, it was necessary that he should be made under the law; for as the Son of God, he was above the law, and could not therefore be amenable to its precept. But when he became the Son of man, it was as though the sovereign of a vast empire had relinquished his regal character for the condition of the subject. He, who was superior to all law, by his mysterious incarnation placed himself under the law. He who was the King of Glory, became by his advent the lowest of subjects. "When the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem those who were under the law." What a stoop was this! What a descending of the Son of God from the height of his glory! The King of kings, the Lord of lords, consenting to be brought under his own law, a subject to himself, the law-Giver becoming the law-Fulfiller. Having thus humbled himself, he was prepared, as the sacrificial Lamb, to take up and bear away the sins of his people. The prophecy that predicted that he should "bear their iniquities," and that he should "justify many," received in him its literal and fullest accomplishment. Thus upon Jesus were laid all the iniquities, and with the iniquities the entire curse, and added to the curse, the full penalty belonging to the Church of God. This personal and close contact with sin affected not his moral nature; for that was essentially sinless, and could receive no possible taint from his bearing our iniquity. He was accounted "accursed," even as was Israel's goat, when upon its head Aaron laid the sins of the people; but as that imputation of sin could not render the animal to whom it was transferred morally guilty, though by the law treated as such, so the bearing of sin by Christ could not for a single instant compromise his personal sanctity. With what distinctness has the Spirit revealed, and with what strictness has he guarded, the perfect sinlessness of the atoning Savior! "He has made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him." Oh, blessed declaration to those who not only see the sin that dwells in them, but who trace the defilement of sin in their holiest things, and who lean alone for pardon upon the sacrifice of the spotless Lamb of God! To them, how encouraging and consolatory the assurance that there is a sinless One who, coming between a holy God and their souls, is accepted in their stead, and in whom they are looked upon as righteous! And this is God's method of justification. By a change of place with the Church, Christ becomes the "Lord our Righteousness," and we are "made the righteousness of God in him."

There is the transfer of sin to the innocent, and in return, there is the transfer of righteousness to the guilty. In this method of justification no violence whatever is done to the moral government of God. So far from a shade obscuring its glory, that glory beams forth with an effulgence which must have remained forever veiled, but for the redemption of man by Christ. God never appears so like himself as when he sits in judgment upon the person of a sinner, and determines his standing before him upon the ground of that satisfaction to his law rendered by the Son of God in the room and stead of the guilty. Then does he appear infinitely holy, yet infinitely gracious; infinitely just, yet infinitely merciful. Love, as if it had long been panting for an outlet, now leaps forth and embraces the sinner; while justice, holiness, and truth gaze upon the wondrous spectacle with infinite complacence and delight. And shall we not pause and bestow a thought of admiration and gratitude upon him, who was constrained to stand in our place of degradation and woe, that we might stand in his place of righteousness and glory? What wondrous love! What stupendous grace! that he should have been willing to have taken upon him our sin, and curse, and woe. The exchange to him how humiliating! He could only raise us, by himself stooping. He could only emancipate us, by wearing our chain. He could only deliver us from death, by himself dying. He could only invest us with the spotless robe of his pure righteousness, by wrapping around himself the leprous mantle of our sin and curse. Oh, how precious ought he to be to every believing heart! What affection, what service, what sacrifice, what devotion, he deserves at our hands! Lord, incline my heart to yield itself supremely to you!

But in what way does this great blessing of justification become ours? In other words, what is the instrument by which the sinner is justified? The answer is at hand. "Being justified freely by his grace, through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus: whom God has set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood." Faith, and faith alone, makes this righteousness of God ours. "By him all that believe are justified." And why is it solely and exclusively by faith? The answer is again at hand "Therefore it is of faith, that it might be by grace." Were justification through any other medium than by believing, then the perfect freeness of the blessing would not be secured. The expressions are, "Justified freely by his grace;" that is, gratuitously- absolutely for nothing. Not only was God in no sense whatever bound to justify the sinner; but the sovereignty of his law, as well as the sovereignty of his love, alike demanded that, in extending to the sinner the greatest boon of his government, he should do so upon no other principle than as a perfect act of grace on the part of the Giver, and as a perfect gratuity on the part of the recipient having "nothing to pay." Therefore, whatever is associated with faith in the matter of the sinner's justification- whether it be Baptism, or any other rite, or any work or condition performed by the creature- renders the act entirely void and of none effect. The justification of the believing sinner is as free as the God of love and grace can make it.

Yet more: Faith is not only the instrument by which we receive a free grace justification, but it harmonizes the outward act of God with the inward feelings of the believing heart. Thus in justification the heart of the Justifier and the heart of the justified beat in the most perfect and holy unison. It is not a stupendous act on the part of God meeting no response on the part of man. Oh no! the believer's heart flows out in gratitude after God's heart, traveling towards him in the mightiness and majesty of its saving love; and thus both meet in Christ, the one Mediator between God and man. Here the believer is conscious of a vital union with his justifying Lord. He feels he is one with Christ. The righteousness wrought out, is by faith wrought in, and that faith is the uniting grace of a real, personal union between the justified soul, and a risen, living Savior. "He that is joined to the Lord is one Spirit." Oh close and blessed union! Justified by God, accepted in Christ, condemnation there cannot be. I stand in the Divine presence as Joshua stood before the Lord, or as the woman stood before the Savior, charged, accused, guilty; but I am in the presence of him who, though now he sits upon the throne as my Judge, once hung upon the cross as my Savior. And, investing me with his own spotless robe, he proceeds to pronounce the sentence- "No Condemnation!" "These things write I unto you that your joy may be full."

In conclusion, while this subject, as we thus see, lays the basis of the deepest joy, it is equally promotive of the highest holiness. Some have thought that a link were lacking in the chain of truth we are contemplating, because no specific mention is made of sanctification. But this is not really the case. The apostle does not deem it necessary to say that, he "whom God justifies he also sanctifies," simply because in the preceding verse he had already in the strongest manner affirmed that God's people were predestinated to be conformed to the image of his Son. And what were this but the very highest order of sanctification? No sinner can be pardoned and justified without the implantation in his soul by the Holy Spirit of the germ of holiness; so that the "path of the just is as the shining light, that shines more and more unto the perfect day." Fully and freely, and forever justified, Oh, how powerful the motive to yield ourselves unto God! "I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service."

We must learn to discriminate between our justified state, and the existence of indwelling sin. The one does not necessarily involve the present annihilation of the other. And by not clearly discerning the difference, many of God's people are exposed to great distress of mind. Let us, to illustrate the case, suppose an act of free pardon transmitted from the sovereign to a condemned criminal, slowly sinking beneath the ravages of a fatal disease. He passes out of his cell, delivered indeed from a humiliating and painful death, but bearing with him a hidden worm that feeds at the very root of the vital principle. Thus is it with the justified. They have "no condemnation" written as with beams of light upon their tranquil brow. Yet they bear about within their souls a moral disease, which shall not cease to work and distress until they lay down the body of sin and death, and wake up perfected in the likeness of their Lord.

"Eternal Glorification"

Moreover whom he did predestinate, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified. Romans 8:30

And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified. Romans 8:30

And having chosen them, he called them to come to him. And he gave them right standing with himself, and he promised them his glory. Romans 8:30

Such is the last in the regular sequence of truths which, in the unfolding of this verse, we have been contemplating. It would appear that there are two links in this marvellous chain, the purpose of God, and its final consummation; both so remote and invisible as to bring the mind to a calm, unquestioning belief in certain doctrines of God's Word which may more properly belong to the "deep things of God." But while the two extremes of this chain of truths must for the present be left invisibly locked in God's hand, we have endeavored to convince the perplexed and inquiring reader that there are certain intermediate and visible links upon which, if he lay hold, he shall be saved, though all the rest remains wrapped in the profoundest mystery- like its Divine Author, dwelling in lone and unapproachable grandeur. It is not essential to our salvation, that we lift the veil of that awful mystery, and penetrate the depths of a past predestination, and a future glory; but it is essential to our salvation that we are called of God, and that by God we are justified. We may arrive at heaven without fathoming the awful profound of the one extreme, and with but twilight views of the magnificence spreading over all the other; but we cannot get to heaven without the Spirit's grace, and Christ's righteousness. Grasp in faith, and receive into your heart, these two central and essential truths, and they will by and by lift you into a sunnier region, where all the rest will stand forth, clear and transparent, bathed in the noontide splendor of heaven's own glory.
Before we show in what the future glorification of the saints will consist, and trace the influence of this truth upon the present life, it may be proper to speak of the certainty of the fact, that he who justifies his people will also assuredly glorify them. Final and eternal glorification is the grand end and consummation of all God's purposes of love towards his Church; and we may therefore expect that this truth should be revealed in his word with a distinctness and clearness commensurate with its importance and greatness. Nor will this expectation be disappointed- for around no single fact of the Bible does there gather a larger accumulation of demonstrative evidence than that of the certain glorification of all who are "accepted in the Beloved."
We find some clear revealings of this truth in the Old Testament writings. To a comparatively obscure saint of God, yet honored to be the parent of one of Israel's mightiest prophets- the mother of Samuel- a striking view of the saint's future exaltation was given: "He raises up the poor out of the dust, and lifts up the beggar from the dunghill, to set them among princes, and to make them inherit the throne of glory." See how this same truth beamed in upon the troubled mind of Asaph, diffusing over his perplexed and perturbed spirit, the luster and serenity of a sunlight calmness: "If You shall guide me with your counsel, and afterwards receive me to glory." "Afterwards- when life's storms are over, and its perils are passed, and its voyage is closed, and its work is finished- after having done and suffered your holy will here on earth- you will receive me to glory." Passing by other unfoldings of the future glory of the saints in the Old Testament, let us glance at a few proofs found in the writings of the New Testament. The apostle, referring to his own experience, says, "I endure all things for the elect's sakes, that they may obtain the salvation which is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory." Thus clear is it, that the salvation secured to us by Christ is inseparable from future glory; so that he who is saved now, evidencing the truth of his salvation by his holy life, is saved forever- "Salvation in Christ Jesus, with eternal glory." We find, too, that future glory is connected with present calling. "That they which are called might receive the promise of eternal inheritance." Oh, what a high calling, then, is ours! Called to be saints now- and called to glory hereafter. Glory is also secured by our justification. "For if when we were enemies; we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life." But the inferential evidence of the certain glorification of the saints is not less conclusive. Their union with the Lord Jesus secures it. "Christ in you, the hope of glory." "When Christ who is our life shall appear, then shall we also appear with him in glory." Christ dwelling in us is our heaven below, and to dwell with Christ will be our heaven above. And thus our vital union to Christ, secures our eternal glorification with Christ. If Christ is emphatically our life, then we must be where our life is. This, too, was his prayer. "Father, I will that they also, whom you have given me, be with me where I am; that they may behold my glory." And what are the various tracings of the Spirit's work but the foreshadowings of the coming glory in the soul? "The Lord will give grace and glory." The two are inseparable. They are indeed essential parts of each other. Grace is the germ of glory, glory is the full-blown flower of grace. Grace is the first degree of glory- glory is the highest degree of grace. And what are the saints of God but the precious vessels of mercy afore prepared unto glory? Purified from all alloy, refined from all imperfection, those vessels of silver and gold are arranged, each in its appointed place, in the Father's house, filled to overflowing with its glory. The essential relation of grace and glory is one of the most animating and consolatory truths upon which the Christian mind can repose. Musing in mournful recollection of the loved ones who have gently broken from our embrace and disappeared within the parted veil, does the painful doubt at times cross the mind as to their safety? Do you wonder, as you yearn for a surer evidence, whether Christ was with them in the shadowy valley, and whether they are now with Christ in the regions of light and glory beyond it? See here the evidence. Did you discern the faintest dawn of heavenly light in the soul? Did you observe the tenderest buddings of grace in the heart? Did you mark any of the first fruits of the Spirit as exhibited in the life? Was it a hand that tremblingly touched the border, an eye that dimly beheld the cross, a heart that mourned, and wept, and loved at the Savior's feet? Then, sorrow not- they are safe in glory! The least measure of grace, the smallest degree of faith, will have brought them there. O yes! all whom God justifies, he glorifies. Once invested with the righteousness of Christ, they are robed for the wedding, and at the marriage-supper of the Lamb they shall most assuredly appear.
And now, what are some of the elements of the future and eternal glory of the saints? On this subject there has been much vain speculation; but there need not be, since the outline of heaven's happiness and employments is so distinctly drawn in the Word of God. To this outline let us briefly refer.
The expansion and perfection of the intellectual faculties will result in a consequent enlargement and perfection of knowledge. This is no inferior element of the future happiness of the redeemed. All that is gracious and sanctifying in the soul of the believer has its basis in a certain degree of spiritual knowledge. The mind is the medium through which the first communications of the Spirit are received. A knowledge of ourselves has led to a knowledge of Christ; and a knowledge of Christ has laid the foundation of all the joy, and peace, and hope, the soul has experienced. And as our spiritual knowledge increases- the mind becoming more and more informed in Divine truth- there is a corresponding and proportioned increase of the blessing which an experimental acquaintance with the truth yields. Now, if this be so here, what must it be in the glorified state? Think we not that it will greatly augment the happiness and deepen the glory of the saints in heaven, that in their enlarged mental capacity, in the fullest development of their intellectual powers, they shall be enabled to take a wider range of thought? That they shall compass a greater knowledge of God, and see infinitely more of the glory, and drink infinitely deeper of the love, of Christ, than the most exalted angel in heaven? What, if in the present school of God- often the school of deep trial- as we advance from truth to truth, knowing more of Jesus, and increasing in the knowledge of God, we grow more holy and more happy; our peace flowing like a river, and our righteousness as the waves of the sea; our confidence in God strengthening, and our affections entwining more fondly and closely around the Savior- What, we ask, will be the glory deepening around us when all the present obstructions and impediments to our advancement in spiritual knowledge are removed, and our intellectual faculties, then unclouded and unfettered, expand their long-folded wings, and sweep an infinite circle of knowledge- knowing even as we are known? If our progress in spiritual knowledge is an accession to our happiness here, what hereafter will be the happiness rushing into our glorified souls through the medium of an enlarged mind, vast as its range of thought, and pure and transparent as the atmosphere in which it floats? Do not deem it, then, O expectant of heaven, an inferior element of the glory that awaits you, that your intellectual enjoyment, perfect in its nature, shall ever be augmenting in its degree. "Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father."
But a still higher element will be, the perfect holiness of the glorified. The very utterance of the thought seems to awaken music in the soul. Seeing Christ as he is, and knowing him as we are known, we also shall be like him. Perfected in holiness! Oh, what a conception! what a thought! No more elements of evil working like leaven in the soul. No more traces and fetters of corruption. No more evil heart of unbelief, perpetually departing from God. No more desperate depravity. No more sin warring within, and no more temptation assailing from without. All is perfect holiness now! The outline of the Divine image is complete, for the believer has awakened in the finished likeness of his Lord. The spirit of the just man is made perfect. Oh, is there not enough in this anticipation to make us long to be there? What now shades your spirit, and embitters your joy, and suffuses your eyes with tears, and inflicts the keenest pang? Not adversity, nor sickness, nor changed affection, nor blighted hopes, nor the shaded landscape of life, nor the hollow falling of the earth as the grave closes from your view the heart's fond treasure. Oh, no, not these! It is the
sin that dwells in us! Extirpate all sin, and you have erased all sorrow. Complete the grace, and you have perfected the glory. You then have chased all sadness from the heart, and have dried all tears from the eye. That glory will be the glory of unsullied purity. Nothing of sin remains but its recollection; and that recollection but heightens our conception of the preciousness of the blood that shall have effaced every stain, and of the greatness and sovereignty of that grace which shall have brought us there. "Let the saints be joyful in glory," for their battle with sin is over. "These are they which follow the Lamb wherever he goes. These were redeemed from among men, being the first-fruits unto God and to the Lamb. And in their mouth was found no guile: for they are without fault before the throne of God." The absence of all evil will be another feature of the coming glory. Take the long catalogue of ills we suffer here- the cares that corrode, the anxieties that agitate, the sorrows that depress, the bereavements that wound, the diseases that waste, the temptations that assail- in a word, whatever pains a sensitive mind, or wounds a confiding spirit; the rudeness of some, the coldness of others, the unfaithfulness and heartlessness of yet more; and as you trace the sad list, think of glory as the place where not one shall enter. All, all are entirely and eternally absent. "God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the farmer things are passed away."
The presence of all good will take the place of the absence of all evil. And in the foreground of this picture of glory we place the full, unclouded vision of Jesus. Oh, this is the Sun that will bathe all other objects in its beams. We see him now through faith's telescope, and how lovely does he appear! Distant and dim as is the vision, yet so overpowering is its brightness as for a moment to eclipse every other object. How near he is brought to us, and how close we feel to him! Encircled and absorbed by his presence, all other beings seem an intrusion, and all other joys an impertinence. Reposing upon his bosom, how sweetly sounds his voice, and how winning his language, "Oh, my dove, you are in the clefts of the rock, in the secret places of the stairs let me see your countenance, let me hear your voice; for sweet is your voice, and your countenance is lovely." These are happy moments. But oh, how transient and how brief their stay! Some earthly vapor floats athwart our glass, and the bright and blissful vision is gone- veiled in clouds, it has disappeared from our view! But not lost is that vision. Not withdrawn is that Object. As stars that hide themselves awhile, then appear again in brighter, richer luster, so will return each view we have had of Christ. The eye that has once caught a view of the Savior shall never lose sight of him forever. Long and dreary nights may intervene; the vision may tarry as though it would never come again, yet those nights shall pass away, and that vision shall return and "we shall see him as he is." And oh, if the distant and fitful glimpses of the glorified Christ are now so ravishing, what will the ecstatic and overpowering effect of the full unclouded vision be, when we shall see him face to face!
With this unveiled sight of the glorified Redeemer, will be associated the certain reunion and perfected communion of all the glorified saints. We are far from placing this feature of glory in an obscure corner of our picture of heavenly happiness. A source of so much pure and hallowed enjoyment now, surely will not be lacking, nor be less limited hereafter. It is a high enjoyment of earth- that of sanctified relationships and sacred friendships. The communion of renewed intellect, the union of genial minds, and the fellowship of fond and sympathizing hearts, God sometimes kindly vouchsafes, to smooth and brighten our rough and darksome path to the grave. And yet even were this all lacking, Jesus were enough to illumine the gloom, and people the solitude of the desert we traverse. But death interposes and sunders these precious ties. And are they sundered forever? Oh, no! We shall meet again all from whom in faith and hope we parted- whom we loved in Jesus- and who in Jesus have fallen asleep. "For we believe that through the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ we shall be saved even as they." Heartbreaking as was the separation, it was not final, nor will it be long. The time-piece we wear reminds us at each second that the period of our reunion is nearing. Yes! we shall meet them again in closer, fonder, purer friendship. They wait and watch our coming. Think not that they forget us: that cannot be. Thinking of us, they love us still. The affection they cherished for us here, death did not chill; they bore that affection with them from the earthly to the heavenly home, and now, purified and expanded, it glows and clings with an intensity unknown, unfelt before. Heavenly thought is immortal. Holy love never dies. Meeting, we shall know them again; and knowing, we shall rush into their warm embrace, and sever from them never! "I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning those who are asleep, that you sorrow not, even as others who have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also who sleep in Jesus will God bring with him." Oh, what a soothing, sanctifying thought- what a heaven-attracting hope is this! Applied to the holy dead, how touching and how true the beautiful sentiments of the poet, himself now mingling with the beings of the spirit-land:
"Is it not sweet to think hereafter,
When the spirit leaves this sphere,
Love, with deathless wings, shall waft her
To those she long has mourned for here?
"Hearts from which 'twas death to sever;
Eyes, this world can never restore;
There, as warm, as bright as ever,
Shall meet us, and be lost no more!
"When wearily we wander, asking
Of earth and heaven, where are they,
Beneath whose smile we once lay basking,
Blest, and thinking bliss would stay?
"Hope still lifts her radiant finger,
Pointing to the eternal home,
Upon whose portal still they linger,
Looking back for us to come.
"Alas, alas! does hope deceive us
Shall friendship, love, shall all those ties
That bind a moment, and then leave us,
Be found again where nothing dies?
"Oh, if no other hope were given,
To keep our hearts from wrong or stain,
Who would not seek to reach a heaven,
Where all we love shall live again?"

We cannot consent to dismiss this contemplation of the coming glory, without an allusion to the Scripture teaching in reference to what has been termed the degrees of glory. It is but little that is said upon the subject, yet that little is interesting and instructive; and we should remember that no truth of God's mind, however obscurely revealed, ought to be overlooked. The Apostle thus figuratively advances the idea, "One star differs from another star in glory." But in what will this disproportion of glory consist? We cannot adopt the idea of some, that it will be according to the difference of gift; that the scale of heavenly happiness will be the measure of mental endowment; that Newton, the great philosopher, for example, with his gigantic intellect and vast resources, will necessarily be more richly replenished with glory than another of more limited acquirements and less mental capacity. This would resolve the happiness of the heavenly world mainly into the purely intellectual rather than the purely spiritual, of which we believe it to consist. If there are degrees of glory- and we see no reason to question the fact- we believe that those degrees will be graduated, not by the strength or capacity of the intellect, but according to the measure and standard of holiness which the believer attained in this life. If, as we have shown, glory is the perfection of grace, then it follows, that proportioned to the degree of grace here, will be the degree of glory hereafter. It must be borne in mind that God is not merely an intellectual, he is also a spiritual Being. As an intellectual Being, the unfallen angels, creatures of mightier intellect than we, must be supposed to form the most lofty conceptions of his greatness and grandeur. But will it be supposed that an angel's mind can form such a conception of the Divine glory, as the recovered, renewed, and sanctified soul of fallen man? Will not that mind that has been brought into closer contact, and union, and sympathy with the will, the heart, and the perfections of God, know more of God, drink in deeper views of the glory of God, than the mind of the angel who in his study of redemption could but bend over the Mercy Seat, his wings encircled, desiring to look within its awful mysteries? If the great and grand perfection of God be his holiness, then the more clearly I approximate to that holiness, the more deeply must I partake of the glory of God, and the higher must be my degree of glory. It is acquaintance with, and conformity to, God's moral, and not his intellectual being, that will constitute the highest source of our happiness in heaven. That our enlarged intellectual capacity will be a vast inlet to expanded views of God, we do not dispute; but it will be the conformity of our moral nature to his that will constitute and augment our perceptions of glory.
If it is not thus, that the spiritual and not the mental will form the standard of our happiness in the glorified state, how is it that the astronomer whose mind had been overwhelmed with the wisdom and grandeur of God in creation, could descend from his observatory with an oath upon his lips? Yet such is known to have been the fact. Imagine that mind suddenly transported to heaven, and placed in the immediate and glorified presence of that God whose works of nature it had been contemplating, and yet whose holy name it had profaned- if the argument be true that the amount of glory will be proportioned to the mental capacity of the glorified, then it follows that that 'undevout astronomer' would be more capable, even with an unrenewed intellect, of understanding and knowing God than the unlettered Christian, whose intellect was of the most dwarfish capacity, but who yet spiritually knew God and Jesus Christ whom he had sent. Were we asked to pass through the Church of God, and from its various communions select the individual whom we should regard as the richest heir of glory, whose degree of happiness would, perhaps, transcend that of the glorified philosopher, we should, it may be, find him the inmate of some obscure hut, dwelling amid lonely poverty, sickness, and neglect; and yet holding communion with God, so filial, so endearing, and so close, as to present to our eye his soul's uplifted and soaring pinions, "as the wings of a dove covered with silver, and her feathers with yellow gold." We would go to him whose heart thus breathing after holiness, whose spirit thus imbibing more and more of the mind of Christ, who in this lowly and suffering school was learning more deeply of God, and what God is, and who thus was gathering around him the beams of that glory whose unclouded visions were so soon to burst upon his view- and we would unhesitatingly point to him as the man whose degree of glory will be transcendently great- grace enriching and encircling him with more glory than gift. Do you, my reader, desire to be a star of the first magnitude and luster in heaven? then aim after a high degree of grace on earth. "There is not," says the Savior, "a greater than John the Baptist; notwithstanding, he that is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than John." The nearer your present walk with God, the nearer will be your future proximity to God. The closer your resemblance to Christ, the deeper your holiness, the more spiritual and heavenly-minded you become on earth, be assured of this, the higher and the more resplendent will be your glory in heaven. As the ungodly man is treasuring up wrath against the day of wrath, and is growing more and more fit for hell- so the godly man is laying up glory against the day of glory, and is growing more and more fit for heaven. We need not speculate and surmise about the future. Let the child of God be careful as to his degrees towards fitness for glory, and he may calmly and safely leave his degrees of glory to the period when that glory shall be revealed.
But we must not overlook, in this outline of the coming glory, the glorified body of the saints. The first resurrection will give back this 'vile body' so changed that it shall be "fashioned like unto Christ's glorious body." We have two examples of what this "glorious body" of our Lord is. The first was at his transfiguration, when the "fashion of his countenance was altered, and his face did shine as the sun, and his clothing was white as the light." The second was when he appeared to John, in Patmos, arrayed in such glory that the apostle says, "When I saw him I fell at his feet as dead." Fashioned like unto Christ's glorious body will be the glorified bodies of the saints. No deformity, no wrinkle, no defect whatever, shall mar its beauty. "It is sown in corruption; it is raised in incorruption: it is sown in dishonor; it is raised in glory: it is sown in weakness; it is raised in power: it is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. And as we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly." "We shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is."
What, in conclusion, ought to be the practical influence of this animating subject? Should it not, in the first place, urge us with all diligence to "make our calling and election sure?" With all affectionate earnestness, we would exhort the reader to seek to be assured of his standing in Christ. Are you called? Are you justified? Do you know that God loves you? Has the great change taken place? Have you, in a word, passed from death unto life? Do not postpone these questions to a dying bed. Answer them now.
And is not the anticipation of the coming glory most sanctifying? Ought it not to have so powerful an influence upon our minds as to lessen the value of the things that are seen and temporal, and enhance the value of those things which are unseen and eternal? We are at present in a state of children under tutors and governors. But before long we shall attain our full age, and shall, be put in possession of our inheritance. And because we are children, we are apt to think as children, and speak as children, and act as children- magnifying things that are really small, while diminishing those that are really great. Oh, how little, lowly, and despicable will, by and by, appear the things that now awaken so much thought, and create so much interest! Present sorrows and joys, hopes and disappointments, gains and losses- will all have passed away, leaving not a ripple upon the ocean they once agitated, nor a footprint upon the sands they once traversed. "Men forget what they were in their youth, or at best only partially remember it; it is hard even for those whose memories are strongest and liveliest to put themselves exactly into the same position in which they stood as boys; they can scarcely fancy that there was once a time when they cared so much for pleasures and troubles which now seem so trifling. And it may be, that if we rise hereafter to angels' stature; if wisdom be ours such as we dream not of; if being counted worthy to know God as he is, the poorness of all created pleasures shall be revealed to us, flashing upon our uncreated spirits like light- it may be that we shall then feel it as hard to fancy how we could have cared for what we now deem most important; how twenty years, more or less, taken from this span of our earthly life; how being parted for a few years, more or less, from those dear friends with whom we are now united forever- how this could have seemed of any importance to beings born for immortality. It is quite reasonable to suppose that the interests of manhood will hereafter appear to us just as insignificant, I ought rather to say ten thousand times more so, than the interests of our boyish years seem to us now." (Arnold). Why, then, allow our white garments to trail upon the earth? If glory is before us, and so near, why so slow in our advance to meet it? Why so little of its present possession in our souls? Why do we allow the "bright and Morning Star" to sink so often below the horizon of our faith? Why, my soul, so slow to arrive at heaven, with heaven so full in view? Oh, to press our pillow at night, composed to slumber with this sweet reflection "Lord, if I open my eyes no more upon the rising sun, I shall open them upon that risen sun that never sets- awaking in your likeness." Oh, to be looking for, and hastening unto, the coming of the Lord, that blessed hope, that glorious epiphany of the church, which shall complete, perfect, and consummate the glorification of the saints.
How should the prospect of certain glory stimulate us to individual exertion for Christ! What a motive to labor! With a whole eternity of rest, how little should we think of present toil and fatigue for the Savior! Shall we, then, be indolent in our Master's cause? Shall we, in selfishness, wrap our graces as a mantle around us, and indolently bury our talents in the earth? Shall we withhold our property from the Lord, complaining that the calls of Christian benevolence are so many, the demands so pressing, and the objects so numerous? Oh, no! It cannot, it must not be. Let us live for Christ- labor for Christ- suffer for Christ- and, if needs be, die for Christ- since we shall, before long and forever, be glorified with Christ. And who can paint that glory? "So much as moments are exceeded by eternity, and the sighing of a man by the joys of an angel, and a salutary frown by the light of God's countenance, a few frowns by the infinite and eternal hallelujahs, so much are the sorrows of the godly to be undervalued in respect of what is deposited for them in the treasures of eternity. Their sorrows can die; but so cannot their joys. And if the blessed martyrs and confessors were asked concerning their past sufferings and their present rest, and the joys of their certain expectation, you should hear them glory in nothing but in the mercies of God, and in the cross of the Lord Jesus. Every chain is a ray of light, and every prison is a palace, and every loss is the purchase of a kingdom, and every affront in the cause of God is an eternal honor, and every day of sorrow is a thousand years of comfort, multiplied with a never-ceasing numeration- days without nights, joys without sorrow, sanctity without sin, charity without stain, possession without fear, society without envyings, communication of joys without lessening; and they shall dwell in a blessed country, where an enemy never entered, and from where a friend never went away. " (Jeremy Taylor)

"God Is for Us"

What shall we then say to these things? If God be for us, who can be against us? Romans 8:31

What, then, shall we say in response to this? If God is for us, who can be against us? Romans 8:31

What can we say about such wonderful things as these? If God is for us, who can ever be against us? Romans 8:31

The Apostle had concluded the sublime argument which, with so much consecutiveness of reasoning, and power of language, he had been pursuing. And now he comes to the inference logically deducible from the whole. "What shall we say to these things? To what conclusion shall we arrive, touching the power of the gospel to support and console us in all our assaults and sufferings?" Then, proceeding to answer his own question, he resolves the blessed results of the entire argument into a single, animating, and comprehensive one- GOD IS FOR US! "If God be for us, who can be against us?" The question supposes the existence of a combined and powerful hostility to the Christian. Let this, briefly, be our first point of consideration.
To establish this fact, no lengthened proof is necessary. The Bible declares it- observation confirms it- and experience demonstrates it. There is, in fact, no possible form of evil- no machinations of the powers of darkness- not a single one of the noxious principles indigenous to our fallen nature, which is not in direct and deadly antagonism to the best interests of the child of God. The believer may be compared to an individual who has thrown off allegiance to his king, has disowned his country, and refuses obedience to its laws, yet continues to dwell in the land he has renounced, and close by the sovereign he has forsworn. The grace of God has called us out of the world; yet the providence of God has sent us into the world. We may, therefore, expect nothing but hostility from the god of this world, and hatred from the world itself. From these two sources, as from another, to which we may presently advert, strong opposition proceeds. There is much of mystery connected with the subject of satanic agency which we may never entirely comprehend. With a power and a ubiquity differing from Divine omnipotence and omnipresence in nothing but their reality, he sways a fearful scepter; and is everywhere, and at the same moment, accurately acquainted with every circumstance of our history, and, it would appear, with each hidden thought of the human heart. Satan is against us. All his force- all his wisdom- all his malice- all his subtlety and skill- and all his myrmidons, are exerted and marshaled in tremendous opposition to the interests of the child of God. Let the histories of David, and Job, and Joshua, and Paul, yes, of our Lord himself, testify to the truth of this. The world, too, is against us. It will never forgive the act by which we broke from its thraldom, renounced its sway, relinquished its pleasures, and resigned its friendship. Nor can it forget that the godly, self-denying, unearthly life of the Christian, is a constant and solemn rebuke of its worldliness, its irreligion, and its folly: "You are not of the world, therefore the world hates you." Sometimes veiling its opposition and concealing its malignity beneath smiles and flattery, it seeks to win back the votary it has lost. And when this effort proves unavailing, it changes its course, and, with venomed tongue, and sleepless zeal, and malignant hatred, seeks, by detraction and falsehood, to malign, and wound, and injure the sons of God. How touching the words of Jesus addressed to each disciple- "If the world hates you, you know that it hated me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love his own; but because you are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hates you." But there is yet another source of opposition to the Christian. We utter but a home truth and a self-evident one, when we add to these forms of hostility- that of our own hearts! And after all that we have said, our most powerful and treacherous foe is this one which we cherish in our bosom. Oh, yes! the sin that dwells in us- "a heart deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked"- the body of corruption and death which we bear about with us forms a source of opposition to our holiness and furtherance in the Divine life, as continuous and powerful, as it is humbling and distressing to our renewed nature. Truly, "we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places." With this mighty phalanx opposed to him, is it not a marvel that any child of God should ever maintain his stand, and at last arrive at heaven? But the wonder ceases when our eye lights upon these words, "If God be for us, who can be against us?"

To this great and consoling truth let us now direct our attention. We shall find, on examination, great prominence given to this fact- God on the side of the Christian- in his holy word. It was with this assurance that Jehovah calmed the fears and strengthened the faith of his servant Abraham. It was a period of intense anxiety with the patriarch. He had just achieved a signal victory in his battle with the kings, from whose power he had generously and valorously rescued his nephew, Lot. It was natural to expect that the nations whose armies he had defeated, and whose sovereigns he had slain, should collect their scattered forces, and, with renewed strength and a fresh onset, descend upon him with overwhelming force. Just at this juncture, when trouble was near, all anxious, and fearful, and trembling as he was, God appeared to his servant, and soothed him with these words- "Fear not, Abram: I am your shield, and your exceeding great reward." And all that God was to Abram he is to all those who have like precious faith with him. Christian, assailed and fearful! Jehovah is your "shield, and your exceeding great reward." Then, fear not! I ask not what your trouble is, what form of opposition assails you. I meet you- be your peril, be your trembling, be your anxiety, what it may- with this fact, "If God be for us, who can be against us?" And God is for you! Oh, but believe it, and all shall be perfect peace! His Divine shield is ever around you, and before you can be injured, that shield itself must be broken. This, too, was the truth with which God stayed the faith of Isaac. "And the Lord appeared unto him by night, and said, I am the God of Abraham your father: fear not, for I am with you." To the godly children of Christian, perhaps glorified parents, how peculiarly appropriate and precious are these words! It is an argument and a plea of no little power with God when a tried and needy Christian is led to pray, "You are the God of my parents, my father's God, faithful and loving. And since you did say to your servant, "I am the God of Abraham your father, fear not, I am emboldened in this time of necessity and fear to cast myself upon the same love, and faithfulness, power! Oh, turn unto me, and have mercy upon me; give your strength unto your servant, and save the son of your handmaid." God's dealings with the prophet Elisha afford another striking illustration of the same precious truth, that he is on the side of his people. Alarmed at the overshadowing forces of the Syrian hosts, the servant of the prophet exclaims, "Alas, my master! What shall we do?" And he answered, "Fear not: for those who be with us are more than those who be with them." Ah, yes! chariots of fire encircle every believer; and, best of all, the Lord is in his chariot, "riding upon the heavens in their help, and in his excellency on the sky." It was in view of this same truth that David encouraged himself. "The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The Lord is the strength of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?" And when God was about to send Jeremiah into his vineyard, what was the truth with which he strengthened his hesitating faith? "You therefore gird up your loins, and arise, and speak unto them all that I command you . . . . they shall fight against you, but they shall not prevail against you; for I am with you, says the Lord, to deliver you." And when Paul repaired to Corinth, and was met by much opposition and blasphemy in his mission of testifying to the Jews that Jesus was the Christ, it was with this same blessed assurance- God on the side of the Christian- that his faith was strengthened and his spirit comforted. "Then spoke the Lord to Paul in the night by a vision, Do not be afraid, but speak, and hold not your peace; for I am with you, and no man shall set on you to hurt you." It was the Lord Jesus, who, in all the tenderness of his love, thus appeared to soothe and animate his servant. And since he is the "same yesterday, today, and forever," he is prepared to comfort our trembling hearts with the same blessed assurance- "I am with you." And what were his last words to his Church, still vibrating on the ear, "Lo! I am with you aways; even unto the end!"
God must be on the side of his people, since he has, in an everlasting covenant, made himself over to be their God. In an especial manner, and in the highest degree, he is the God of his people. In the most comprehensive meaning of the words, he is for us. His love is for us- his perfections are for us- his covenant is for us- his government, extending over all the world, and his power over all flesh, is for us. There is nothing in God, nothing in his dealings, nothing in his providences, but what is on the side of his people. Enshrined in his heart, engraved on his hand, kept as the apple of his eye, God forms a mighty bulwark for his Church. "As the mountains are round about Jerusalem, so the Lord is round about his people from henceforth even forever." In Christ Jesus, holiness, justice, and truth, unite with mercy, grace, and love, in weaving an invincible shield around each believer. There is not a purpose of his mind, nor a feeling of his heart, nor an event of his providence, nor an act of his government, that is not pledged to the happiness, and security, and well-being of his people. What Joshua said to the children of Israel, trembling to encounter the giants of Anak, may be truly said to every believer in view of his foes, "The Lord is with us, fear them not."
Not the Father only, but the Son of God, is also on our side. Has he not amply proved it? Who, when there was no eye to pity, and no arm to save, undertook our cause, and embarked all his grace and glory in our salvation? Who slew our great Goliath, and rescued us from Pharaoh, discharged our debt, and released us from prison? Who extinguished the fires of our hell, and kindled the glories of our heaven? Who did all this by the sacrifice of himself? Oh, it was Jesus! Need we further proof that he is for us? Who appears on our behalf within the veil? Who sits for us as a priest upon his throne? Whose blood, first shed on Calvary, now sprinkles the Mercy Seat? Who pleads, and argues, and intercedes, and prays for us in the high court of heaven? Whose human sympathy flows down in one continuous stream from that abode of glory, blending with our every trial, and suffering, and sorrow? Who is ever near to thwart our foes, and to pluck our feet from the snare of the fowler? Oh, it is Christ! And there is not a moment of time, nor a circumstance of life, in which he does not show himself strong in behalf of his people.
And so of the Holy Spirit. Who quickened us when we were dead in trespasses and in sins? Who taught us when we were ignorant, enlightened us when we were dark, comforted us when we were distressed; and when wounded, and bleeding, and ready to die, led us, all oppressed with guilt and sorrow as we were, to Jesus? Who inspired the first pulsation of life, and lighted the first spark of love, and created the first ray of hope, in our soul, and dried the first tear of godly grief from our eye? Oh, it was the Eternal Spirit, and he, too, is for us. Survey the record of your own history, dear reader. What a chequered life yours, perhaps, has been! How dotted the map of your journeyings, how multi-colored the stones that have paved your path, how varied and blended the hues that compose the picture of your life! And yet, God constructed that map, and God laid those stones, and God pencilled and painted that picture. God went before you, and God is with you, and God is for you. He was in the dark cloud that enshrouded all with gloom, and he was in the sunshine that gilded all with beauty. "I will sing of mercy and of judgment: unto You, O Lord, will I sing." And who has carried forward the work of grace in our souls- checking our feet, restoring our wanderings, holding up our goings, raising us when we had fallen, and establishing our feet more firmly when men rose up against us? Who has healed all our diseases, and has filled our mouths with good things, so that our youth has been renewed like the eagle's? It was the Lord who was on our side, and not one good thing of all that he has promised has failed.
It may, then, well be asked, "Who can be against us?" With such a Father, such a Friend, and such a Comforter, who can urge a successful hostility to the saints of God? God himself cannot be against us, even when the clouds of his providence appear the most lowering, and his strokes are felt to be the most severe. "Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him." The law cannot be against him; for the Law-fulfiller has, by his obedience, magnified and made it honorable. Divine justice cannot be against us, for Jesus has, in our stead, met its demands, and his resurrection is a full discharge of all its claims. Nor sin, nor Satan, nor men, nor suffering, nor death, can be really or successfully against us- since the condemnation of sin is removed, and Satan is vanquished, and the ungodly are restrained, and suffering works for good, and the sting of death is taken away. "If God be for us, who can be against us?" With such a Being on our side, whom shall we fear? We will fear nothing but the disobedience that grieves, and the sin that offends him. Fearing this, we need fear nothing else. "God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore will not fear. Listen once more to his wondrous words- "You are my servant. I have called you, and not cast you away. Fear not; for I am with you: do not be dismayed; for I am your God: I will strengthen you; yes, I will help you; yes, I will uphold you with the right hand of my righteousness."
The subject, if most consolatory to the Christian, in its converse, a solemn one to the unregenerate. It is an awful thing not to have God for us. And if God is not for us, there is no neutral course: he must be against us. And God is against you, my unconverted reader. So long as you are in an unreconciled state, not only God, but every creature of God, is at war with you. The whole creation is an armory of destructive agencies to a soul out of Christ. All are messengers of death to a Christless sinner. Yes, God is against you! Mistake not the blessings of his providence for the smiles of his grace. The hand that prospers your worldly schemes, that drops its mercies so profusely around your path, yet holds its drawn sword of vengeance above your head. Not a night do you compose yourself to rest at peace with God through Christ Jesus. And are you prepared for the consequences? Have you thought of them and weighed them? Look at them now! When your sorrow comes- as come it will- God will mock; when your calamity approaches, he will laugh; when you stretch forth your hand, he will withdraw his, so long stretched out to you in vain. Who will then befriend you? Not an angel or a saint but will tune his harp to the holiness and the justice of your condemnation. Alas! there is no appeal from the decision of the Judge, there is no hiding place from his indignation, no cessation of his wrath. "It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God." And yet that God loves sinners, gave his Son to die for sinners, is willing to receive sinners, and is gracious, full of compassion, and ready to forgive sinners. Let the goodness of God, then, lead you to repentance.
Would we always have God for us? then let us aim to be for God. God deals with us his creatures by an equitable rule. "The ways of the Lord are equal." "If you walk contrary unto me, then will I walk contrary unto you." Is not God for you? Has he not always, since be manifested himself to you as your covenant God, been on your side? Has he ever been a wilderness to you, a land of darkness? Has he, in any instance, been unkind, unfriendly, unfaithful? Never. Then be for God- decidedly, wholly, uncompromisingly for God. Your heart for God, your talents for God, your rank for God, your property for God, your influence for God, your all for God- a holy, unreserved consecration to him, all whose love, all whose grace, all whose perfections, all whose heaven of glory is for you. "Yield yourselves unto God as those that are alive from the dead." Trembling Christian! God is on your side. And, "if God be for us, who can be against us?"

"The Gift of God's Son, the Guarantee of All Other Blessing"

He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things? Romans 8:32

He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all--how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? Romans 8:32

Since God did not spare even his own Son but gave him up for us all, won't God, who gave us Christ, also give us everything else? Romans 8:32

Each successive application which the Apostle makes of the great doctrine he had been so ably discussing, serves but more fully to unfold the glory and sweetness of the truth. We can scarcely light upon a passage in this brilliant and consolatory chapter, so rich and comprehensive as the present. Our admiration is divided between the vastness of the truth it contains, and the exquisite grace and appropriateness with which it is introduced. It was just the truth needed to give repose and enlargement to the mind, after threading its way through the mazes lucid, though profound- of God's predestinating purpose and plan. As if anticipating the cold, impassive view of God, which some might be disposed to cherish, Paul introduces a fact which would at once dispel the false conception, vindicate the Divine character, and exhibit it in all the glow and effulgence of its infinite benevolence and love. There can be nothing contracted or frigid in the disposition of that Being who, from the fathomless depths of his nature, gave so costly a proof of his love as his Son. He must be love, if this is the manifestation of love. You have, it may be, deemed him partial and cold- you have thought him distant and repelling- you have settled down with the crude and gloomy notion, that because your lot was unchangeably fixed, believe as you may, and act as you will, it is of little purpose; and thus all your thoughts and efforts after salvation have become impeded and paralyzed, and you have resigned yourself to sinful, sullen despair. But lo! a truth bursts upon your mind, developing a new idea, and presenting to your view a new portrait of God, thus changing the whole current of your thoughts and feelings respecting him. "He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all." "What a wondrous declaration!" you exclaim; "this surely is not that Being whom my conceptions pictured to my view so frigid, contracted, and arbitrary. He spared not his own Son! Is this true? Then, there is love in God; then, there is salvation in God; then, there is hope in God. I had thought him cold, unjust, and austere. But lo! he appears wearing the character of love- breathing the spirit of love- displaying the acts of love- and laying at my feet the most costly and precious boon of his love. O God, bow my heart before this unspeakable love of yours!"
"His own Son." We are here met with a great and glorious truth, the Sonship of our Lord. There may be much of mystery connected with it; nevertheless it is a revealed doctrine, and as such, we believe and are sure that it is true. With what clearness did Christ himself propound this doctrine to the caviling Jews! "Jesus answered them, My Father works hitherto, and I work. Therefore, the Jews sought the more to kill him, because he not only had broken the Sabbath, but said also that God was his Father, making himself equal with God." Now it must be borne in mind that this declaration of his Sonship involves also a declaration of equality in all respects with the Father. So the Jews evidently understood it. In a far different, because in a far higher and diviner sense, the Lord Jesus is declared to be the Son of God than believers, who are also denominated the "sons of God." The passage before us makes this distinction. "His own Son," a mode of expression peculiar to the essential relation of Christ to God. Just as a father would distinguish, by the same phraseology, his own son from the son he had adopted; so God distinguished his Eternal and Essential Son from his adopted sons. Christ is elsewhere called the "only-begotten Son of God," that is, the only one claiming so close an affinity with the Father. And can the essential equality of the Son with the Father be more distinctly declared than in the quotation which the apostle makes from one of the Messianic Psalms, and applies it, as it originally was, to the Eternal Son of God: "Unto which of the angels said he at any time, You are my Son, this day have I begotten you? And again, I will be to him a Father, and he shall be to me a Son? And again, when he brings in the first-begotten into the world, he said, And let all the angels of God worship him." And if all the angels of God are commanded to worship him, surely then our Lord spoke no blasphemy when he "made himself equal with God."
God "spared not his own Son." Expressive words! Knowing what redemption required justice, stern and inexorable, demanding full satisfaction- the law, rigid and unbending, demanding perfect obedience- he withheld not the only sacrifice that could meet the case. "He spared not his own Son." He did not relax anything of the requirement, nor abate anything of the suffering. Oh no! the utmost payment was exacted, and the last drop of the cup was drained. Had there been the least relaxing of the law's stringency, or the slightest curtailment of the law's penalty, then there had been no salvation for us. And all this was the unveiling of love. To spare his people, he spared not his Son.
"Delivered him up for us all." If any other expression were necessary to deepen our sense of the vastness of his love, we have it here. Who delivered up Jesus to die? Not Judas, for money; not Pilate, for fear; not the Jews, for envy- but the Father, for love! "Him being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, you have taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and slain." In this great transaction we lose sight of his betrayers, and his accusers, and his murderers, and we see only the Father travailing in the greatness of his love to his family. And to what was he delivered? To the hands of wicked men- God's "darling to the power of the dogs." To poverty and need, to contempt and infamy, to grief and sorrow, to unparalleled suffering, and a most ignominious death. "It pleased the Lord to bruise him, he has put him to grief." And for whom was he thus delivered up? "For us all" for the church purchased with his own blood. For all in that church he has an equal love, and for all he paid an equal price. Oh, deem not yourself- poor, unlettered, and afflicted as you may be- less an object of the Father's love, and less the purchase of the Savior's merits. Oh, blessed, comforting truth- "For us all!" For you, who are tempted to interpret your afflictions as signals of wrath, and your sins as seals of condemnation, and your poverty as marks of neglect, and your seasons of darkness as tokens of desertion, and your doubts and fears as evidences of a false hope and of self-deception; for you, dear saint of God, Jesus was delivered up.
And now let us consider this unspeakable gift of God as the guarantee of all other blessing. "How shall he not with him freely give us all things?" How beautiful and conclusive the reasoning of the Apostle! Arguing from the greater to the less, he proceeds to assure the believer of God's readiness freely to bestow all needful blessing. To this he stood pledged. The gift of his own Son, so freely and unreservedly bestowed, was the security and the channel of every other mercy. When God gave his Son, the reconciliation had not actually been effected, justice had received no satisfaction, and the broken law no repair. Thus, "God commended his love towards us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." If, then, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, will he freely give us all things. "All things!" How comprehensive the grant! "According as his Divine power has given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness." Holding the security in the hand of faith, you may repair to your Heavenly Father, and ask for all that you need. So to speak, God has bound himself to withhold no good thing from you. He is pledged, and from that pledge he will never recede, to grant you all you need. What is your demand? Is it the Spirit to seal, to sanctify, to comfort you? Then draw near and ask the gift. "For if you who are evil know how to give good things to your children, how much more shall your Heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him?" Is it pardon? Then ask it. He who provided the sacrifice for sin, will he not freely bestow the forgiveness of sin? Is it grace? Having given you the Reservoir of grace, is he not as willing and "able to make all grace abound toward you, that you, always having all sufficiency in all things, may abound to every good work?" Is it comfort? Having given you the "Consolation of Israel," will he not prove to you the "God of all comfort?" Is your necessity temporal? Are your circumstances adverse? Filled with forebodings of approaching difficulty, the cruse of oil and the barrel of meal dwindling, are you anxious and fearful? Take your temporal need to God. What! will he bestow the higher blessings of grace, and withhold the inferior ones of providence? Never! And can you press to your believing heart the priceless, precious, unspeakable gift of his Son, and yet cherish in that heart the gloomy, misgiving, thought of God's unwillingness and inability to supply all your need?
"Freely give." God's gifts are both rich and gratuitous. He always bestows more, never less, than we ask. It would seem as though he could not open his hand to a poor comer, but it overflowed with a bounty worthy of himself. Here are met all the objections to our coming which spring from our unworthiness, unfruitfulness, and unfaithfulness. Having nothing to pay, nothing in return is required. "Without money, and without price." Free as the sunlight- free as the balmy air- free as the mountain stream- free as the heart of God can make it, is every blessing which he bestows. "Since God did not spare even his own Son but gave him up for us all, won't God, who gave us Christ, also give us everything else?"

The Believer's Challenge

Who shall lay any thing to the charge of God's elect? It is God that justifieth. Romans 8:33

Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. Romans 8:33

Who dares accuse us whom God has chosen for his own? Will God? No! He is the one who has given us right standing with himself. Romans 8:33

The Apostle recurs again to the great proposition with which he started- no condemnation in Christ Jesus- the evidence of which had so richly accumulated in his course, as to justify this, the keynote of the triumph with which he conducts his brilliant argument to a close. It is impossible not to perceive that his spirit kindles with the inspiration of his theme, until from the pinnacle on which he now stood, he seems to have caught an expanded view, and to reflect the first beams, of that heaven of glory from which he had so lately descended.

"God's elect." It was important that the Apostle should distinctly specify who the people were against whom no accusation could justly be alleged. And what terms could he employ more expressive of their character and relation than this? It involves two ideas- God's choice, of a people beloved. The term occurs in other places. "But for the elect's sake these days shall be shortened." "According to the faith of God's elect." "Elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father." "His own elect." It is quite clear, then, that those on whose behalf this challenge is made, are a people who, like their Lord and Master, are "chosen of God and precious." Now, scriptural as this doctrine is, it cannot be concealed that many anxious minds have made it a stumbling-stone at the very threshold of their spiritual career. The great mistake has been the making the doctrine of election the starting-point of their conversion, rather than a point to be reached at a subsequent and distant part of their religious course. With God it doubtless is the starting-point, if we may suppose a beginning with him who has no beginning- but not with man. We have in a previous chapter shown that our calling of God by the Spirit is the premise, and that our election of God by his love is the conclusion. Thus reasoning, as logicians term it, a posteriori, without having looked into the mysterious volume of the Divine decrees, the Apostle, addressing the converted Thessalonians, could boldly say, "Knowing, brethren beloved, your election of God." And how did he know it? From their faith, their knowledge, their reception of the truth, and its transforming effects on their character. Adopt this mode of reasoning as yours, and you will no longer complain that the doctrine of election is a perplexing truth, casting its deep and gloomy shadow upon your path to the cross. In your spiritual voyage your calling by grace is like an isthmus standing between two eternities; the past, in which God has chosen his people; and the future, in which he will glorify, them. Reach this middle point and you are safe.

"It is God that justifies." We believe that by many this cardinal doctrine of God's justification is but imperfectly understood, and but indistinctly seen in its results. The lofty position of security in which it places the believer, the liberty, peace, and hope into which it brings him, are points dim and obscure in the spiritual vision of many. We also believe that much of the weak, sickly Christianity of numbers is traceable, in a great measure, to the crude and gloomy conceptions they form of God, produced by not clearly seeing the interest which he felt, and the initiatory part which he took, in the great matter of our justification. Let our faith but trace the act of our justification to God, and we have placed ourselves upon a vantage-ground of the boldest defiance to all our enemies. Survey the truth in this light for a moment. Against whom have you sinned? Adopting David's confession, you exclaim, "Against you, and you only have I sinned." Having sinned against God, from God, then, you looked for the condemnation. You had violated his law, and from the lips of the Lawgiver you waited the sentence. When, lo! he declares himself on your side. Descending, as from his tribunal, he comes and stands in your place, and avows himself your Justifier. "It is GOD that justifies." Upon you, a culprit, trembling at his bar, he throws his own righteousness, "which is unto all, and upon all those who believe;" and from that moment you are justified. Shall we, then, be indifferent to the part the Father took in the great question of our acceptance? Shall we cherish the shy and suspicious thought of God as if he looked coldly at us, and felt that, in pleading for his mercy, we were infringing upon his righteousness? Oh, no! Away with such thoughts of God! He it is who pronounces the act of your acquittal, and from his lips sound the glorious words, "No CONDEMNATION!" "It is God that justifies."

We are now prepared for the challenge based upon this truth. "Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect?" Who in heaven; who on earth; who in hell? God will not; sin cannot; Satan dare not. Who? If there be in this wide universe an accuser of those whom God has justified, let him appear. There is none! Every mouth is closed. "Who shall lay any thing to the charge of God's elect?" If there remain a sin unpardoned, a stain uneffaced, a precept unkept, by the Mediator of his church, let it appear. But there is none! The work of Christ is honorable and glorious. It is a finished work. And on the basis of this complete Atonement, God, while he remains just, is the justifier of him that believes. Oh, embrace this truth, you who, in bitterness of soul, are self-accused and self-condemned before God! Satan could accuse, and the world could accuse, and the saints could accuse, but more severe and true than all, is the self-accusation which lays your mouth in the dust, in the deepest, lowliest contrition. Yet, as a poor sinner, looking to Jesus, resting in Jesus, accepted in Jesus, who shall lay anything legally to your charge, since it is God- the God against whom you have sinned- who himself becomes your Justifier? May you not with all lowliness, yet with all holy boldness, challenge every foe, in the prophetic words of Christ himself- "He is near that justifies me: who will contend with me?"

This truth is an elevating, because a deeply sanctifying one. It exalts the principles, and these, in their turn, exalt the practice of the Christian. Oh! the thought, that it is God who justifies us at an expense to himself so vast, by a sacrifice to himself so precious, surely is sufficiently powerful to give the greatest intensity to our pantings, and fervency to our prayers, for conformity to the Divine image. Deep sorrows, and sore trials, and fiery temptations, we may have, and must have, if we ever enter the kingdom; but, what is sorrow, and what is trial, and what is temptation, if they work but in us the fruits of righteousness, fit us more perfectly for heaven, and waft us nearer to our eternal home? Press, in humble faith, this precious truth to your heart, for God has forgiven all, and has cancelled all, and has forgotten all, and is your God forever and ever.

"But in that coming day, no weapon turned against you will succeed. And everyone who tells lies in court will be brought to justice. These benefits are enjoyed by the servants of the Lord; their vindication will come from me. I, the Lord, have spoken!" Isaiah 54:17

The Believers Triumph

Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us. Romans 8:34

Who is he that condemns? Christ Jesus, who died--more than that, who was raised to life--is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. Romans 8:34

Who then will condemn us? Will Christ Jesus? No, for he is the one who died for us and was raised to life for us and is sitting at the place of highest honor next to God, pleading for us. Romans 8:34

We have remarked that the soul of the Apostle rose with the sublimity of his theme. It was impossible not to perceive, as we followed him in his masterly and conclusive argument, how his mighty mind kindled with fresh rapture, as each successive step conducted him towards its magnificent climax. It may truly be said to be the "mighty work of a mind acting in all the dignity of independent greatness, and fired and elevated by a principle no less commanding than the love of Jesus." He had thrown down the undaunted challenge, unaccepted, and now he breathes the final triumph- "Who is he that condemns?" Let us briefly follow him in the different parts of the mediatorial work of Christ, which he exhibits in the passage, as constituting the ground of the believer's triumph.

"It is Christ that died." Upon this fact we have somewhat descanted elsewhere, in explaining the doctrine of the believer's justification. The object of the writer in introducing it again, was to confirm the Christian's exemption from condemnation, on the broad basis of Christ's mediation. This event formed the first of all the subsequent steps in the working out of the great plan of the Church's redemption. To this, as its center, every line of truth converged. It was as a suffering Messiah, as an atoning High Priest, as a crucified Savior, as a Conqueror, returning from the battle-field with garments rolled in blood, that the Son of God was revealed to the eye of the Old Testament saints. They were taught by every type, and by every prophecy, to look to "the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world." Christ must die! Death had entered our world, and death- the death of the Prince of Life- only could expel it. This event formed the deepest valley of our Lord's humiliation. It was the dark background- the somber shading of the picture of his life, around which gathered the light and glory of all the subsequent parts of his history. But in what character did Christ die? Not as a Martyr, nor as a Model, but as a Substitute. His death was substitutionary. "God has not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us." This great truth, the Apostle, we find in another place, appropriating to himself. "The Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me." Here was the personal application of a general truth. And this is the privilege of faith. There breathes not a babe in Christ, who may not lay his hand upon this glorious truth- "Christ gave himself for me." Contemplate now, the conclusiveness of this reasoning for the non-condemnation of the believer. Since Christ bore our sins, and was condemned in our place; since by his expiatory death the claims of Divine justice are answered, and the holiness of the Divine law is maintained, who can condemn those for whom he died? Oh, what security is this for the believer in Jesus! Standing beneath the shadow of the cross, the weakest saint can confront his deadliest foe; and every accusation alleged, and every sentence of condemnation uttered, he can meet, by pointing to Him who died. In that one fact he sees the great debt cancelled, the entire curse removed, the grand indictment quashed- and "No condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus," are words written as in letters of living light upon the cross.

"Yes rather, that is risen again." This is the second part of the mediation of Christ, which the Apostle assigns as a reason why none can condemn the believer. It would seem by the word "rather" that we are taught to look upon this fact of our Lord's life as supplying a still stronger affirmation of the great truth he was establishing. A few observations may make this appear. The atoning work of Christ was in itself a finished work. It supplied all that the case demanded. Nothing could possibly add to its perfection. "I have finished the work which you gave me to do." But we lacked the proof. We required that evidence of the reality and acceptance of the Atonement which would render our faith in it a rational and intelligent act. The proof lay with him who was "pleased to bruise him and put him to grief." If God were satisfied, then the guilty, trembling sinner may confidently and safely repose on the work of the Savior. The fact of the resurrection was therefore essential to give reality to the Atonement, and hope to man. Had he not returned in triumph from the grave, the sanctity of his precepts, the sublimity of his teachings, the luster of his example, and the sympathies awakened by the story of his death, might have attracted, charmed, and subdued us, but all expectation of redemption by his blood would have been a mockery and a delusion. But, "This Jesus has God raised up." And grounded on this fact the believer's acquittal is complete. When he bowed his head and gave up the spirit, the sentence of condemnation was reversed; but when he burst the bonds of death, and appeared in the character of a Victor, the believer's justification was forever sealed. "For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, shall we be saved by his life." Here, then, lies the great security of the believer. "Delivered for our offences, he rose again for our justification." Planting his foot of faith upon the vacant tomb of his living Redeemer, the Christian can exclaim, "Who is he that condemns? it is Christ that died, yes rather, that is risen again." Oh, to feel the power of his resurrection in our souls! Oh, to rise with him in all the reality and glory of this his new-born life, our minds, our affections, our aspirations, our hopes all quickened, and ascending with our living Lord. "Because I live, you shall live also."

"Who is even at the right hand of God." The exaltation of Christ was a necessary part of his mediatorial work. It entered essentially into the further continuance of that work in heaven- the scene of the intercessory part of the High Priest's office. "The right hand of God" is a phrase expressive of power and dignity. "When he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high." "Who is gone into heaven, and is on the right hand of God; angels, and authorities, and powers, being made subject unto him." What stronger assurance has the believer that no impeachment against him can be successful, than this? His Savior, his Advocate, his best Friend, is at the right hand of the Father, advanced to the highest post of honor and power in heaven.

"There sits our Savior crowned with light,
Clothed in a body like our own."

All power and dominion are his. The revolutions of the planets, and the destinies of empires, his hand guides. The government is upon his shoulders; and for the well being, security, and triumph of his Church, power over all flesh, and dominion over all worlds, is placed in his hands. Who, then, can condemn? Jesus is at the right hand of God, and the principalities and powers of all worlds are subject to his authority. Fear not, therefore, O, believer! Your Head and Redeemer is alive to frustrate every purpose, to resist every plot, and to silence every tongue that would condemn you.

"Who also makes intercession for us." To what a beautiful climax does the Apostle conduct his argument! The exaltation of Jesus in heaven is associated with the dearest interests of his people on earth. Joseph was forgotten when Pharaoh lifted up the head of the chief butler. But our Lord, amid the honors and splendors to which God has highly exalted him, still remembers his brethren in bonds, and makes intercession for them. How expressive is the type of our Lord's present engagement on behalf of his people! "And he (Aaron) shall take a censer full of burning coals of fire from off the altar before the Lord, and his hands full of sweet incense beaten small, and bring it within the veil: and he shall put the incense upon the fire before the Lord, that the cloud of the incense may cover the mercy seat that is upon the testimony." The passing of Aaron into the holy of holies, was the shadowing forth of our Lord's entrance into

heaven. The blood sprinkled at the mercy seat was the presentation of the great Atonement within the veil. And the incense overshadowing with its fragrant cloud the mercy seat, thus touched with blood, was the figure of the ceaseless intercession of our Great High Priest in the Holiest. "For Christ is not entered into the holy places made with hands, which are the figures of the true: but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us." It is an individual, an anticipative, and a present intercession. It embraces all the personal needs of each believer, it precedes each temptation and each trial, and at the moment that the sympathy and the prayers of the Savior are the most called for, and are felt to be the most soothing, it bears the saint and his sorrow on its bosom before the throne. Just at a crisis of his history, at a juncture, perhaps, the most critical in his life; and when the heart, oppressed with its emotions, cannot breathe a prayer, Jesus is remembering him, sympathizing with him, and interceding for him. Oh, who can fully describe the blessings that flow through the intercession of the Son of God? The love, the sympathy, the forethought, the carefulness, the minute interest in all our concerns, are blessings beyond description. Tried, tempted believer! Jesus makes intercession for you. Your case is not unknown to him. Your sorrow is not hidden from him. Your name is on his heart. Your burden is on his shoulder; and because he not only has prayed for you, but prays for you now, your faith shall not fail. Your great accuser may stand at your right hand to condemn you, but your great Advocate stands at the right hand of God to plead for you. And greater is he that is for you, than all that are against you.

Behold the ground of the believer's triumph! What has he to fear? "Who is he that condemns?" The mediatorial work of Christ shuts every mouth, meets every accusation, and ignores every indictment that can be brought against those for whom he died, rose again, ascended up on high, and makes intercession. Oh, what a glorious triumph does Christ secure to the weakest saint who stands in faith upon this rock! "There is therefore now NO CONDEMNATION to those who are in Christ Jesus."

More than Conquerors

Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written, For thy sake we are killed all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter. Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us. Romans 8:35-37

Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written:
"For your sake we face death all day long;
we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered."
No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. Romans 8:35-37

Can anything ever separate us from Christ's love? Does it mean he no longer loves us if we have trouble or calamity, or are persecuted, or are hungry or cold or in danger or threatened with death? (Even the Scriptures say, "For your sake we are killed every day; we are being slaughtered like sheep.") No, despite all these things, overwhelming victory is ours through Christ, who loved us. Romans 8:35-37

The Apostle here enumerates certain things which, to the obscure eye of faith, and to the yet obscurer eye of sense, would appear to make against the best interests of the Christian, regarded either as evidences of a waning of Christ's love to him, or as calculated to produce such a result. He proposes an inquiry- the purport of which we reserve for the consideration of the closing chapter of this work- and then proceeds to give the reply. That reply sets the question entirely at rest. He argues that, so far from the things which he enumerates shaking the constancy of Christ's love, periling the safety of the Christian, or shading the luster of his renown, they but developed the Savior's affection to him more strongly, confirmed the fact of his security, and entwined fresh and more verdant laurels around his brow. "No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us."

We are first invited to contemplate the Christian in the character of a 'Conqueror.' The battle we have, at some length, already considered. We have seen it to consist of a moral conflict, with inward and outward enemies, all leagued in terrible force against the soul. To this is added- what, indeed, was most peculiar to the early Church- a war of external suffering, in which penury, persecution, and, martyrdom constituted the dark and essential elements. Now it will be instructive to observe in what way Christ provides for the holy warrior's passage through this fiery contest. It will be perceived that it is not by flight, but by battle; not by retreat, but by advance; not by shunning, but by facing the foe. The Captain of their salvation might have withdrawn his people from the field, and conducted them to heaven without the hazard of a conflict. But not so. He will lead them to glory, but it shall be by the path of glory. They shall carve their way to the crown by the achievements of the sword. They shall have privation, and distress, and suffering, of every kind; yet while beneath the pressure, and in the very heat of the battle, victory shall crown their arms, and a glorious triumph shall deepen the splendor of their victory. And what spiritual eye does not clearly see, that in conducting his people across the battle-field, the Lord wins to himself more renown than though he had led them to their eternal rest with entire exemption from conflict and distress? But in what sense are we conquerors? Just in that sense in which the Holy Spirit obtains the victory. It is not the believer himself who conquers; it is the Divine Spirit within the believer. No movement is seen, no tactics are observed, no war-cry is heard, and yet there is passing within the soul a more important battle, and there is secured a more brilliant victory, than ever the pen of the historian recorded. In the first place, there is the conquest of faith. Where do the annals of war present such a succession of victories so brilliant, achieved by a weapon so single and simple, as is recorded in the eleventh chapter of the Epistle to the Hebrews? And what was the grace that won those spiritual and glorious victories? It was the grace of faith! "This is the victory that overcomes the world, even your faith." Faith in the truth of God's word- faith in the veracity of God's character- faith in the might, and skill, and wisdom, of our Commander and Leader- faith eyeing the prize, gives the victory to the Christian combatant, and secures the glory to the Captain of his salvation. And then there is the triumph of patience. "That you do not be slothful, but followers of them who through faith and patience inherit the promises." "And so, after he had patiently endured, he obtained the promise." Oh, is it no real victory of the Holy Spirit in the believer, when beneath the pressure of great affliction, passing through a discipline the most painful and humiliating, the suffering Christian is enabled to cry, "Though he slay me yet will I trust in him?" "The cup which my Father has given me, shall I not drink it?" "Not my will but yours be done." Suffering child of God, "let patience have her perfect work, that you may be perfect and entire, lacking nothing." And, then, there is the conquest of joy. "And you became followers of us, and of the Lord, having received the word in much affliction, with joy of the Holy Spirit." "My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into diverse temptations," (or trials). Why is trial an occasion of joy? Because it is the triumph of the Holy Spirit in the soul. And does not Christ say, "You shall be sorrowful, but your sorrow shall be turned into joy?" And who but Jesus can turn our sorrow into joy? not only assuaging our griefs, alleviating our sufferings, and tempering the furnace-flame, but actually making our deepest, darkest sorrows, the occasion of the deepest gladness, praise, and thanksgiving. "You have turned my mourning into joyful dancing. You have taken away my clothes of mourning and clothed me with joy, that I might sing praises to you and not be silent. O Lord my God, I will give you thanks forever!" Oh, yes! it is a glorious victory of the Holy Spirit, the Comforter, in the soul, when it can enable the believer to adopt the words of the suffering Apostle, "I am filled with comfort, I am exceeding joyful in all our tribulation." Suffering reader! Jesus knows how to turn your sorrow into joy. Confide your grief to him, and he will cause it sweetly to sing.

"More than conquerors." The original word will admit a stronger rendering than our translators have allowed it. The same word is in another place rendered, "a far more and exceeding and eternal weight of glory." So that in the present instance it might be translated, "far more exceeding conquerors." The phrase seems to imply that it is more than a mere victory which the believer gains. A battle may be won at a great loss to the conqueror. A great leader may fall at the head of his troops. The flower of an army may be destroyed, and the best blood of a nation's pride may be shed. But the Christian conquers with no such loss. Nothing whatever essential to his well-being is periled. His armor, riveted upon his soul by the Holy Spirit, he cannot lose. His life, hid with Christ in God, cannot be endangered. His Leader and Commander, once dead, is alive and dies no more. Nothing valuable and precious shall he lose. There is not a grace in his soul but shall come out of the battle with sin, and Satan, and the world, purer and brighter for the conflict. The more thoroughly the Lord brings our graces into exercise, the more fully shall they be developed, and the more mightily shall they be invigorated. Not a grain of grace shall perish in the winnowing, not a particle of faith shall be consumed in the refining. Losing nothing, he gains everything! He returns from the battle laden with the spoils of a glorious victory- "more than a conqueror." All his resources are augmented by the result. His armor is brighter, his sword is keener, his courage is more dauntless, because of the conflict. Every grace of the Spirit is matured. Faith is strengthened- love is expanded- experience is deepened- knowledge is increased. He comes forth from the trial holier and more valorous than when he entered it. His weakness has taught him wherein his strength lies. His necessity has made him better acquainted with Christ's fulness. His peril has shown him who taught his hands to battle and his fingers to fight, and whose shield covered his head in the day of battle. He is "more than conqueror"- he is triumphant!

"Through him that loved us." Here is the great secret of our victory, the source of our triumph. Behold the mystery explained, how a weak, timid believer, often running from his own shadow, is yet "more than a conqueror" over his many and mighty foes. To Christ who loved him, who gave himself for him, who died in his stead, and lives to intercede on his behalf, the glory of the triumph is ascribed. And this is the song he chants, "Thanks be to God which gives us the victory through our Lord Jews Christ." Through the conquest which he himself obtained, through the grace which he imparts, through the strength which he inspires, through the intercession which he presents, in all our "tribulation, and distress, and persecution, and famine, and nakedness, and peril, and sword " we are "more than conquerors." Accounted though we are as "sheep for the slaughter," yet our Great Shepherd, Himself slain for the sheep, guides his flock, and has declared that no one shall pluck them out of his hand. We are more than conquerors through his grace who loved us in the very circumstances that threaten to overwhelm. Fear not, then, the darkest cloud, nor the proudest waves, nor the deepest needs- in these very things you shall, through Christ, prove triumphant. Nor shrink from the battle with the "last enemy." Death received a death-wound when Christ died. You face a conquered foe. He stands at your side a crownless king, and waving a broken scepter. Your death shall be another victory over the believer's last foe. Planting your foot of faith upon his prostrate neck, you shall spring into glory, more than a conqueror, through him that loved you. Thus passing to glory in triumph, you shall go to swell the ranks of the "noble army of martyrs"- those Christian heroes of whom it is recorded, "THEY OVERCAME HIM BY THE BLOOD Of THE LAMB."

"No Separation from Christ Jesus"

For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Romans 8:38-39

For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Romans 8:38-39

And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from his love. Death can't, and life can't. The angels can't, and the demons can't. Our fears for today, our worries about tomorrow, and even the powers of hell can't keep God's love away. Whether we are high above the sky or in the deepest ocean, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord. Romans 8:38-39

This sublime chapter having opened with a strong declaration of no condemnation in Christ Jesus, it was fit that it should close with a declaration equally strong, of no separation from Christ Jesus. In passing through its rich and precious contents, our feelings have resembled those of a tourist coursing his way over an extended and magnificent landscape of varied feature and of exquisite loveliness. We have surveyed the scenery of the Christian life, from almost every point of observation, and in all its variety of form, beauty of coloring, and harmony of design. And now, having reached the loftiest summit of Christian hope, with a rapid survey of the radiant and far-reaching prospect stretching out before the eye, we will conduct our reflections to a close. It is a delightful and animating theme with which the chapter terminates. The last object it presents to the eye is JESUS. The last accents that linger on the ear are of the love of JESUS. Jesus was the beginning, and Jesus is the ending- and Jesus, in his personal glory, in his mediatorial work, in his inexhaustible fulness, in the close and tender relations which he sustains to his people, forms the sum and substance of all that intervenes between these two extremes- no condemnation, and no separation. The central figure is Christ. He is the Magnet which attracts all the affections awakened by these great and glowing truths; and he is the object around which the truths themselves closely, exclusively, and indissolubly entwine. Christ is the Alpha and the Omega- the beginning and the end- yes, Christ is all and in all. Be he all in all to our hearts!
It is of great importance that we have a clear apprehension of the Apostle's leading idea in these concluding verses. He refers to a love from which there is no separation. Of whose love does he speak? The believer's love to Christ? On the contrary- it is Christ's love to the believer. And this view of the subject makes all the difference in its influence upon our minds. What true satisfaction and real consolation, at least how small its measure, can the believer derive from a contemplation of his love to Christ? It is true, when sensible of its glow, and conscious of its power, he cannot but rejoice in any evidence, the smallest, of the work of the Holy Spirit in his soul. Yet this is not the legitimate ground of his confidence, nor the proper source of his comfort. It is Christ's love to him! And this is just the truth the Christian mind needs for its repose. To whom did Paul originally address this letter? To the saints of the early and suffering age of the Christian Church. And this truth- Christ's love to his people- would be just the truth calculated to comfort, and strengthen, and animate them. To have declared that nothing should prevail to induce them to forsake Christ, would have been but poor consolation to individuals who had witnessed many a fearful apostasy from Christ in others, and who had often detected the working of the same principle in themselves. Calling to mind the strong asseveration of Peter, "Lord, though all should forsake you yet will I not," and remembering how their Master was denied by one, and betrayed by another, and forsaken by all his disciples, their hearts would fail them. But let the Apostle allure their minds from a contemplation of their love to Christ, to a contemplation of Christ's love to them, assuring them, upon the strongest grounds, that whatever sufferings they should endure, or by whatever temptations they should be assailed, nothing should prevail to sever them from their interest in the reality, sympathy, and constancy of that love, and he has at once brought them to the most perfect repose. The affection, then, of which the Apostle speaks, is the love of God which is in Christ Jesus.
The love of Christ! such is our precious theme! Of it can we ever weary? Its greatness can we ever know? Its plenitude can we fully contain? Never! Its depths cannot be fathomed, its dimensions cannot be measured. It passes knowledge. All that Jesus did for his Church was but the unfolding and expression of his love. Traveling to Bethlehem- I see love incarnate. Tracking his steps as he went about doing good- I see love laboring. Visiting the house of Bethany- I see love sympathizing. Standing by the grave of Lazarus- I see love weeping. Entering the gloomy precincts of Gethsemane- I see love sorrowing. Passing on to Calvary- I see love suffering, and bleeding, and expiring. The whole scene of his life is but an unfolding of the deep, and awesome, and precious mystery of redeeming love.
The love of the Father! Such, too, is our theme; and it is proper that with this truth the chapter should close. "The love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." The love of the Father is seen in giving us Christ, in choosing us in Christ, and in blessing us in him with all spiritual blessings. Indeed, the love of the Father is the fountain of all covenant and redemption mercy to the church. It is that river the streams whereof make glad the city of God. How anxious was Jesus to vindicate the love of the Father from all the suspicions and fears of his disciples! "I say not unto you, that I will ask the Father for you, for the Father Himself loves you." "God so loved the world that he gave his only-begotten Son." To this love we must trace all the blessings which flow to us through the channel of the cross. It is the love of God, exhibited, manifested, and seen in Christ Jesus. Christ being, not the originator, but the gift of his love; not the cause, but the exponent of it. Oh, to see a perfect equality in the Father's love with the Son's love! Then shall we be led to trace all his sweet mercies, and all his providential dealings, however trying, painful, and mysterious, to the heart of God; thus resolving all into that from where all alike flow- everlasting and unchangeable LOVE.
Now it is from this love there is no separation. "Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?" The Apostle had challenged accusation from every foe, and condemnation from every quarter; but no accuser rose, and no condemnation was pronounced. Standing on the broad basis of Christ's finished work, and of God's full justification, his head was now lifted up in triumph above all his enemies round about. But it is possible that though in the believer's heart there is no fear of impeachment, there yet may exist the latent one of separation. The aggregate dealings of God with his church, and his individual dealings with his saints, may at times present the appearance of an alienated affection, or a lessened sympathy. The age in which this epistle was penned, was fruitful of suffering to the church of God. And if any period or any circumstances of her history boded a severance of the bond which bound her to Christ, that was the period, and those were the circumstances. But with a confidence based upon the glorious truth on which he had been descanting- the security of the Church of God in Christ- and with a persuasion inspired by the closer realization of the glory about to burst upon her view- with the most dauntless courage he exclaims- "I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." Let us briefly glance at each of these things which may threaten, but which cannot succeed in separating us from the love of God, and from our union with Christ.
The passage commences with "death." That there is a separating power in death, is a truth too evident and too affecting to deny. It separates the soul from the body, and man from all the pursuits and attractions of earth. "His breath goes forth, in that very day his thoughts perish." All his thoughts of ambition- his thoughts of advancement- his thoughts of a vain and Pharisaical religion- all perish in that day. What a mournful sublimity is there in this vivid description of the separating power of death over the creature! What a separating power, too, has it, as felt in the chasms it creates in human relationships! Who has not lost a friend, a second self, by the ruthless hand of death? What bright home has not been darkened, what loving heart has not been saddened, by its visitations? It separates us from the husband of our youth- from the wife of our bosom- from the child of our affections- from the friend and companion of our earlier and riper years. It comes and breaks the link that bound us so fondly and so closely to the being, whose affection, sympathy, and communion seemed essential elements of our being, whose life we were wont to regard as a part of our very existence. But there is one thing from which death cannot separate us- the love of God which is in Christ Jesus, and all the blessings which that love bestows. Death separate us! No; death unites us the more closely to those blessings, by bringing us into their more full and permanent possession. Death imparts a realization and a permanence to all the splendid and holy anticipation of the Christian. The happiest moment of his life is its last. All the glory and blessing of his existence cluster and brighten around that solemn crisis of his being. Then it is he feels how precious the privilege, and how great the distinction of being a believer in Jesus. And the day that darkens his eye to all earthly scenes, opens it upon the untold, and unimaginable, and ever- increasing glories of eternity. It is the birth day of his immortality. Then, Christian, fear not death! It cannot separate you from the Father's love, nor can it, while it tears you from an earthly bosom, wrench you from Christ's. You shall have in death, it may be, a brighter, sweeter manifestation of his love than you ever experienced in life. Jesus, the Conqueror of death, will approach and place beneath you his almighty arms, and your head upon his loving bosom. Thus encircled and pillowed, you "shall not see death," but passing through its gloomy portal shall only realize that you had actually died, from the consciousness of the joy and glory into which death had ushered you.
"Nor life." The hope of life is meant. The Apostle wrote, as we have remarked, in a peculiarly suffering era of the church- an age of fiery persecution for the Gospel's sake. Under these circumstances, life was not unfrequently offered on condition of renouncing the Gospel, and denying the Savior. This was a strong temptation to apostasy. When in full view of the rack, the cross, the stake, life- precious life, with all its sweet attraction and fond ties- was offered, and which a simple renunciation of the cross, and a single embrace of the crucifix, would purchase back; to some, weak in faith, such a temptation might be well near irresistible. But it shall not succeed in separating the suffering Christian from the love of Christ. Nor shall anything connected with life- its trials, its vicissitudes, or its temptations- dissever us from God's affection. Thus both life and death shall but confirm us in the assurance of our inalienable interest in the love of God: "For whether we live, we live unto the Lord; and whether we die, we die unto the Lord; whether we live therefore, or die, we are the Lord's." "Nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers." Of course, not good angels, but evil spirits, are here meant. And these include, not demons merely, but all evil agencies- men of the world- human governments- civil powers- all that is hostile to the spiritual interests of Christ's truth and kingdom. Such are often found either powerful engines of spiritual persecutions themselves, or else by indifference and connivance, sympathizing with, and abetting the high-handed persecutor. But no human or superhuman power shall prevail to impair the interest of God's saints in his love. Have they in a single instance done so? Has God ever forsaken his people, when the Evil Spirit has stirred up ungodly men and despotic governments to rob them of their rights, to fetter their consciences, to imprison or to slay their people? No, never! Secure in his love, no floods of enmity, no sword of persecution, shall ever displace the church of Christ. The day of her triumph over all her enemies is fast speeding on. A splendid day will that be. Her home had often been the fastness of the rock- the solitude of the mountain- the depth of the cave- the midnight gloom of the dungeon. She had often prophesied in sackcloth and in blood; at one time avowing her faith from the rack, and at another confessing the name of Jesus from amid the flames. But the day of her triumph and glory draws near. Then shall her enemies come bending unto her, and shall lick the dust of her feet. Who shall lay anything then to her charge? Silenced, and condemned, all her foes shall retire to this terrible doom, leaving her enshrined in all the glory of the Church Triumphant.
"Things present." Things temporary and transient, be they sad or joyous, pleasant or painful. Indwelling sin, temporary trial, occasional temptations, the momentary suspensions of God's realized love- none of these, or any other things present, shall separate them from Christ.
"Things to come." What human foresight can predict the future of the earthly history of the child of God? What human hand can uplift the veil that conceals the events that shall yet transpire in his history before he reaches that perfect world where there will be no future, but one eternal present? Oh, what goodness hides it from our view! But be that future what it may, shady or sunny, stormy or serene, God will stand fast to his covenant with his Church, and Christ to his union with his people. Things to come, be they more terrible than things that are past, or that are now, shall not touch their interest in the Lord's love.
"Nor height." No elevation to which he may advance them, no height of rank, or wealth, or honor, or influence, or usefulness, shall peril their place in his love. Thus it was the Lord advanced Moses, and David, and Joseph, and Gideon; but in their elevation to worldly distinction, power, and affluence, they were kept walking humbly with God- and this was the secret of their safety. "The Lord God is my strength, and he will make my feet like hind's feet, and he will make me to walk upon high places.
"Nor depth." Oh, how deep those depths may be! From the loftiest height to the lowest depth of adversity, God can bring his servant, yet love him still with an unchanged and deathless affection. But no depth of soul-distress, no depth of poverty, or suffering, or humiliation, shall disturb the repose or peril the security of a believing soul in the love of God.
"Nor any other creature." If there be any other thing or being in the wide universe that wears a threatening or unkindly aspect towards the Christian, Divine power shall restrain its force, saying to the proud waves, "Thus far shall you come, and no farther." And thus all the billows, amid which the Ark has for ages been tossed, shall but bear it gently and triumphantly onward to the Mount of God. On that mount, beloved, where now are gathering all who have the Father's name written on their foreheads, we, too, through grace, shall stand eternally extolling the LAMB, through Him, who- because he died- there is for us NO CONDEMNATION from Divine justice- and through Him, who- because he lives, there is for US NO SEPARATION from Divine love.
"Oh, when my God, my glory, brings
His white and holy train
Unto those clear and living springs
Where comes no stain
"Where all is light, and flowers, and fruit,
And joy, and rest,
Make me among them, it is my suit!
The last one and the least."

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

NONE LIKE CHRIST

Table of Contents

Preface

1. No GLORY like His.

2. No BEAUTY like His.

3. No LOVE like His.

4. No SAVIOR like Him.

5. No TEACHER like Him.

6. No FRIEND like Him.

7. No SERVICE like His.

Preface

"How is your beloved better than others?"
Song of Solomon 5:9

The power of contrast is acknowledged by all. The poet studies it in the construction of his epic; the artist in the coloring of his picture; the logician in the arrangement of his argument; the lover of nature as his eye roves over the outspread landscape– all are conscious of the presence and power of this principle. The object of contrast is not to create the ideal, or to foster the fictitious; but to confirm the existence, and heighten the power and impression of the true. It is thus that the beautiful becomes more attractive, the grand more sublime, the good more excellent, and the object which awoke our admiration and inspired our regard, enthrones itself more firmly and supremely upon the soul.

The Word of God is replete with contrasts. In no volume is the effect more striking. How constantly, by an easy and graceful antithesis, the Holy Spirit places in contrast the vanity of idols, and the existence of God; the insignificance of man, and the greatness of Jehovah; the evanescence of things temporal, and the permanence of things eternal; the deformity of sin, and the beauty of holiness; the objects and attractions of earth, and the scenes and allurements of heaven; our waywardness and unworthiness, with God's mercy and love. With what power, beauty, and reality are the great things of God's word thus brought out!

In presenting to you, my reader, the Lord Jesus Christ, as worthy of your undivided affection, supreme confidence, and unreserved service, infinitely distancing and eclipsing all other beings and all other objects brought in competition with him, we purpose adopting this principle; assured that the result must be, with the accompanying blessing of the Holy Spirit, the supreme enthronement of Christ in your admiration, trust, and love, as the "chief among ten thousand, and the one altogether lovely one." Happy shall we be if the conviction of the truth is deepened in your soul, NONE LIKE CHRIST!

Nor could we engage your thoughts upon a subject more suitable to the new and solemn period of time upon which we have entered. You are about to add another deathless chapter to the momentous volume of your personal history. As yet its lines are untraced, its events unrecorded. What that history may be, you have no vision to guide your knowledge; nor, if you are wise and trusting, do you wish to know– calm and fixed in the assurance that it is all prearranged in the covenant that is "ordered in all things, and sure," and that, impenetrable as is the veil that conceals it from your eye, God will permit nothing to transpire but what he has shaped and tinted with just that form and hue that will the most perfectly harmonize and blend, and will the most surely promote, your greatest well-being with his highest glory.

"What is your beloved more than another beloved?" It is clear, from this interrogation, addressed to the Church of Christ, that other and rival beings, other and competing objects, were brought into comparison with Christ, asking, if not a superior, yet an equal share of homage and regard; and the Church is challenged to a vindication of the higher and superior attractions claimed for her beloved Lord. "What is your beloved more than another beloved?"

It is a humiliating fact, that there exists no object, the most trivial and contemptible, which the unrenewed mind will not place in competition with, and choose in preference to, and delight in to the exclusion of the Lord Jesus Christ! Take a brief and summary view of these claimants to man's regard– these rivals of Christ– and see how far they are worthy of a moment's consideration, when brought in contrast with the incarnate Son of God. Before we proceed, however, to particularize, let us premise that this is no new phase or development of our depraved humanity. Our world has ever been a Christ-rejecting world. From the moment the angels' song broke in music upon the plains of Bethlehem, the prediction of the Christ-exalting prophet, Isaiah, commenced its sad fulfillment– "he is despised and rejected of men."

With some individuals, SELF is the rival– self in some of its many forms. Self-righteousness, self-seeking, self-indulgence, self-worship is the acknowledged and enthroned god– the "beloved" object of the unrenewed mind's supreme affection and worship.

With others, the WORLD is preferred to Christ– its acquisitions, opinions, and pleasures. O treacherous world what myriads have you drawn within your insatiable vortex, "drowning men's souls in perdition!" Reader, are you preferring its gayeties, its riches, its honors, its religion to Christ? Pause on the threshold of this solemn period of time, and ask– "What, should I die this year, will the world I have chosen in preference to the Savior do for me when eternity stares me in the face?"

Others place the CREATURE in competition with Christ; the creature and not the Savior is their "beloved." But what a fearful crime are they chargeable with, "who worship and serve the creature more (or rather) than the Creator, who is blessed forever." The creature is the defaced, the spoiled image of God. To prefer this marred and ruined temple to the glorious Being who constructed it, is to place yourself upon a level with the idolatrous Persian, who in his blindness worships the sun as the image of the Deity.

But what superior excellence and attraction has an earthly beloved, that you should choose, love, and adore it in preference to the Heavenly One, who, as human, is "fairer than the children of men," and who, as divine, is "God over all, blessed for evermore"? God will not hold him guiltless who loves, worships, and serves the creature rather than the Creator. Thus, there is nothing earthly, base, and contemptible which the natural man will not place above God, and prefer to Christ. His estate, his rank, his talents, his reputation, his very person, is "made to sit in the temple of God, showing itself that it is God," receiving the incense of adoration and worship, which alone belongs to Jehovah.

Reader, whatever earthly object reigns supreme in your mind and affections, dethrones and supplants the Lord Jesus. It may be your daily calling, or some pleasure of memory, or some object of taste– music, sculpture, painting, literature, science– whatever the master-passion of your soul, the supreme, all-engrossing object of your life, it is your Christ, your Savior, your beloved, your all; and with this, your only portion and preparation, you are, in a little while, to confront the bar of God "Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also."

But we approach yet closer our subject, and proceed to unfold the preeminent place Christ occupies in the universe of life, beauty, and love– in the world of nature and of grace– showing that there is not, amid this vast assemblage of magnificent objects and glorious beings, one like Christ.

"None like Christ!" How familiar is this sentiment to the family of God. Sometimes it is the expression of gladsome joy, at others, breathed in sadness and in grief. When some beam of holy rapture has lighted up the soul, and the preciousness of the Savior is felt, then the tongue exclaims, "None like Christ!"– there is no joy like that which Jesus inspires! Or, when some scheme of human happiness is blighted, some cherished friendship chilled, some idol-god smitten from its shrine, some earthly spring dried, turning from the scene, spirit-wounded, heart-saddened, and disappointed, the soul has fled anew to Christ, its true attraction and rest, and with a depth of emotion and an emphasis of expression, the inspiration only of such a feeling, the believer has exclaimed– "Lord, there is none like yourself! I learn your transcendent worth, I experience your matchless love, I behold your unrivaled beauty, I feel your inimitable tenderness, gentleness, and sympathy in this hour when my spirit is overwhelmed within me, and my earthly treasures float a scattered wreck upon the surging waters through which I come to you!"

But follow us, dear reader, while, in a, few particulars, we attempt to justify the preeminence of the Savior, and establish your believing soul in the truth that "there is none like Christ!"

I. No GLORY like His.

We begin with the statement, that there is no glory like Christ's glory. The universe is full of glory, because it is full of God. But God designed that his Son should occupy a place among created intelligences equal to himself touching his divinity, and inferior to himself only as touching his humanity; and both, mysteriously combined, constituting him "the head of all principalities and powers;" and, "that all men should honor the Son, even as they honor the Father," of whose glory Christ is the effulgence, and of whose substance Christ is the exact impress. The deep gloom of earth was never illumined with such a light as when the Son of God descended from heaven; and the brightness of heaven never shone forth with such a luster as when he returned back from earth, invested with the sinless robe of our nature– the divine prophet– the atoning priest– the triumphant king. Marvel not that all the hierarchies of heaven bend low before that central throne on which sits the glorified Redeemer, and that at his feet the elders cast their crowns. Surely, it is the wonder and the glory and hallelujah of heaven, that divinity could stoop so low, and not be less divine; and that humanity could rise so high, and not be less human. Oh! there is no glory like Christ's glory.

Reader, can you, with the exulting Evangelist, exclaim– "We have seen his glory, the glory of the only-begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth." Judge of the sacred vision by its hallowed effects– "We all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the spirit of the Lord." This transforming, sanctifying influence of Christ's surpassing glory is real and palpable. One beam darting into your heart will pale the glory of the world, the glory of the creature, and the glory of self. And when this divine sun has risen resplendent on your soul– a child of darkness though you are– a worm of earth hiding in your obscurity and gloom– you may emerge from your cloistered solitude and woe, bask in its warmth, sun yourself in its effulgence, and exult that, as a pardoned sinner, a justified believer, an adopted child, all this glory of Christ's is yours– your robe of righteousness and your diadem of beauty– constituting you a king and a priest unto God.

Oh! rest not, beloved reader, until this divine light has come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon you. Then, and not until then, will you arise and shine in the beauty of holiness, a child of the light, shedding its luster all around you; and henceforth, whatever be the leadings of your Savior, or the dealings of your God, the way along which he conducts you, checkered, winding, lonely, will be that of the "just, which is as the shining light which shines more and more unto the perfect day."

II. No BEAUTY like His.

Another observation naturally results from this– there is no beauty like Christ's beauty. We might expect that such divine glory, if ever it tabernacled on earth– the world's resplendent Shekinah– would be enshrined in a temple in all respects worthy of its dignity. We therefore find language like this– "When he comes into the world he says, sacrifice and offering you do not desire, but a body have you prepared me." It was a body prepared by the Holy Spirit, of real, yet sinless flesh, in which the Son of God was to dwell. Hence we find the inspired artist, in portraying Christ's beauty as man, represents him as "fairer than the children of men– grace is poured into your lips." Himself the source and author of all beauty, his own beauty eclipses all. We love to trace the creations of his beauty, in the varied and endless forms of loveliness which still linger, adorning and enriching this fallen world. Those bright constellations– Christ created them; those burning suns– Christ kindled them; those snow-wreathed Alps, those cloud-capped hills– Christ raised them; those verdant valleys– Christ spread them; that blushing rose, that graceful lily, that exquisite fern, that curious sea-flower tossed upon the shore, that wayside violet that screens the dew-drop from the sun, that winding stream, that leafy grove– Christ formed and penciled it all– Christ clad that magnificent landscape with its robe of living green; scented the air with its fragrance; and hollowed out the depth of that expanding ocean dimpled with beauty by the gentle breeze, or dreadful in its grandeur when trod by the giant storm. Truly, "he has made everything beautiful in his time." Oh! I delight to see the incarnate God, who died to save, scattering from the opulence of his own boundless resources all this jewelry, making man's sinful home so rich, so lovely, so attractive.

But his own beauty, who can describe it? His person so lovely, his nature so holy, his heart so fond, his spirit so gentle, his look so winning, his voice so soothing. His whole character, life, and demeanor so inlaid and resplendent with every human, spiritual, and divine perfection– truly, it was no imaginative picture, and it was no mere oriental imagery with which the Church, in her just and lofty conception, described him as the "Chief among ten thousand, and the altogether lovely one."

But Christ's beauty is shared with all those who have union with him. Washed in his blood, robed with his righteousness, and adorned with his graces, each believer is lovely, through his loveliness put upon him. And there is more of wonder, because there is more of God, there is more of beauty, because there is more of Christ, in that poor sinner who clings in penitence, faith, and love to the cross, looking up to God as a pardoned child, and pulsating with a life derived from the indwelling spirit, than in all this vast creation, enameled and sparkling with endless forms of loveliness.

Reader, has Christ's beauty caught your eye, and penetrated your soul, transforming you– reflecting his image in your Christ-like principles, your Christ-like spirit, your Christ-like walk, your whole Christ-like life? Then, dim and imperfect as is the copy, before long it will be complete, when you "shall see the King in his beauty," and join the faultless throng who encircle the throne of God and the Lamb. Oh! then, be it your employment to contemplate, study, and reflect the beauty of Christ, for there is no beauty like his!

"It is a finished portrait!" exclaimed an accomplished infidel, as the character of Christ was delineated to his view. It is a finished portrait– examine it, transfer it to yourself, and beware how you allow a creature's beauty– a being of human loveliness and love– to veil or shade a scintillation of Christ's surpassing beauty from your eye.

III. No LOVE like His.

There is no love like the love of Christ. The association of contrast will aid us here. God, who is love, is the author of all human affection. Love is the creation of Deity, the descendant of heaven, the reflection of God; and he whose soul is the most replete with divine love is the most like God. Paralyzed though our humanity is by the fall, tainted as it is by sin, the human heart is still the home of love in some of its loftiest and purest forms. It is impossible to behold its creations without the profoundest reverence. Who can stand, for instance, in the presence of a mother's love and not be awed by its dignity, won by its power, and melted by its tenderness?

But there is a love which equals, a love which excels, a love which surpasses it– it is the love of Christ! Institute your contrast. Select from among the different relations of life, the nearest and dearest; choose from those relations the deepest, purest, truest love that ever warmed the human breast, prompting to generous and noble deeds, to tender and touching expressions, to costly and precious sacrifices; and place it side by side with the divine love that chose you, the love that ransomed you, the love that called you, the love that soothes you, the love whose eyelid never closes, whose accents never change, whose warmth never chills, whose hand is never withdrawn– "the love of Christ which passes knowledge" and it is the very antithesis of selfishness. The love of Christ stands out in the 'history of the love', as the divinest, the holiest, the strongest of all love– unequaled, unparalleled, unsurpassed. Oh! there is no love like Christ's love! Trace its features.

1. The love of Christ is a REVEALING love. It uplifts the veil from the heart of God, and shows how that heart loves me. I would have known nothing of the love of my Father in heaven, but for the love of my Savior on earth. And that penitent, believing soul that feels the softest, gentlest pulse of Christ's love throbbing in his breast, knows more of the heart of God, sees more of the glory of God, and understands more of the character of God, than were earth and sky and sea to collect all their wonders and lay them at his feet.

2. The love of Christ is a CONDESCENDING love. No other love ever stooped like Christ's love. Go to Bethlehem and behold its lowliness, and as you return, pause awhile at Gethsemane, and gaze upon its sorrow, then pursue your way to Calvary, and learn, in the ignominy, in the curse, in the gloom, in the desertion, in the tortures, in the crimson tide of that cross– how low Christ's love has stooped. And still it stoops! It bends to all your circumstances. You can be conscious of the becloudings of no guilt it will not cancel, of the pressure of no sin it will not lighten, of the chafings of no cross it will not heal, of the depths of no sorrow it will not reach, of the dreary loneliness of no path it will not illumine and cheer. Oh! is there a home on earth where the love of Christ most loves to dwell, where you will oftener find, yes, always meet it? It is the heart-broken, contrite, and humbled for sin!

3. The love of Christ is a SELF-SACRIFICING love. "Christ has loved us, and has given himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling savor." What a laborious life, what a suffering death was his, and all was but the out-paying, outpouring of his love. Every precept of the broken law he obeyed, every penalty of an exacting justice he endured. The path that conducted him from Bethlehem to Calvary wound its lonesome way through scenes of humiliation and insult, of trial and privation, the storm growing darker and darker, the thunder waxing louder and louder, and the lightning gleaming brighter and brighter, until its pivotal horrors gathered round the cross and crushed the Son of God! O marvelous love of Christ! what more could you do than you have done? To what lower depth of ignominy could you stoop? What darker sorrow could you endure? Where did another cross ever impale such a victim, or illustrate such love?

4. Nor is there any love so FORGIVING as Christ's love. Forgiveness of injury is an essential element of true affection. We cannot see how love can exist at the same moment and in the same breast with an unbending, unrelenting, unforgiving spirit. Real love is so unique and lofty a passion, so Godlike and divine in its nature and properties, we can not conceive of it but in alliance with every ennobling, elevating, and worthy sentiment. Selfishness, malignity, revenge, uncharitableness, and all evil speaking, are passions of our fallen and depraved humanity, so hateful and degrading, it would seem impossible that they should exist for an instant in the same atmosphere with true affection.

But a yet loftier form, a more sublime embodiment of love is presented to us in the love of God which is in Christ Jesus. God cannot love– we speak reverently– and not forgive. Those whom God loves, God pardons. That God regards every individual of the fallen race with a feeling of benevolence, is unquestionable; "for he makes his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust;" but those to whom the love of God extends his everlasting, his special, and his redeeming love– the gracious, the full, the eternal forgiveness of all sin likewise extends. God could not love a being and give that being over into the hands of a stern, avenging justice. Divine love will never lose the lowest and unworthiest object of its affections.

If, my reader, you feel conscious that you love God, though your affection be but as a smoldering ember, as a glimmering spark, be sure of this, that God first loved you; and loving, he has pardoned you; and pardoning, he will preserve you to his heavenly kingdom, that you may behold his glory, and enjoy his presence forever.

We repeat the remark, there is no love so forgiving as Christ's love. A human love may for an instant hesitate and falter; it may dwell upon the wrong inflicted, the injury done, the wound still bleeding; may, in its very muteness, speak in tones of inexpressible sadness, of confidence betrayed, of feelings lacerated, of friendship sported with, and the heart may find it difficult to take back the wrong-doer– the offender forgiven and the offense forgotten– to its embrace. But not so Jesus; he has canceled, obliterated, erased every shadow of a shade of his people's sins, and they shall come no more into remembrance. "Then Peter came to him, and said, Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? until seven times? Jesus said unto him– I say not unto you until seven times; but until seventy times seven."

Contrast this love, my reader– the forgiving disciple, the forgiving Savior– and then exclaim– "Who is a God like you, who pardons iniquity, and passes by the transgression of the remnant of his heritage? He retains not his anger forever, because he delights in mercy."

There is no love, too, so gentle, so patient, so enduring, as Christ's love. Again and again you have questioned it, wounded it, forsaken it; again and again you have returned to it with tears, confession, and humiliation, and have found it as unchilled and unchanged as his nature. It has borne with your doubts, has been silent beneath your murmurings, has veiled your infirmities, and has planted itself a thousand times over between you and your unseen and implacable foe. It has never declined with your fickleness, nor frozen with your coldness, nor upbraided you for your backslidings, but all the day long, tracking your wandering, winding way, it has hovered around you with a presence that has encircled you within its divine, all-enshrouding, and invincible shield. Truly, there is no love like Christ's!

Nor is there any love that so chimes with human grief as his. Born in sorrow, schooled in adversity, baptized in suffering, acquainted with grief in its every shape, it is just the love for which our sorrows pant. There is but one heart in this vast universe that can meet your case, O child of affliction! it is the divine, yet human heart of Christ. All other love and sympathy, the most intense and feeling, touches but the surface of our grief. Its trembling hand often irritates the wound it seeks to heal; or, perhaps, from the very intensity of its sympathy, catches the contagion of our grief, and sinks at our side helpless, hopeless, and despairing. Then it is the love of Christ approaches, touches us, and we are healed; speaks to us, and all is peace. "O unexampled love! Love nowhere to be found, less than divine."

How much of sacred meaning is contained in the prayer breathed by Paul on behalf of the Thessalonian saints– "The Lord direct your hearts into the love of God." The image is expressive. You have often, doubtless, trodden in pensive thought the sands which belt some expanded ocean, when the tide has ebbed, and have marked the undulating surface of reef and shallow that has traced and disfigured it. You have revisited the spot when that tide has rolled back in its majesty and fullness, and lo! not a vestige of the former scene appeared; every shallow is filled, every line of blemish is erased, and the blue waves toss their jocund heads as gracefully and musically as ever.

Such is the love of Christ! When this divine ocean recedes from your soul, you are filled with dismay at the spectacle that appears is one of emptiness, barrenness, and deformity. The love of Christ in the soul depressed, all is depressed. That ebbing tide has borne upon its receding wave the heart's last throb of gladness, and the soul's last gleam of hope, and nothing meets the eye but spiritual aridness and sin. Alarmed at the sad picture, you are roused to prayer, and you cry– "Restore unto me the joys of your salvation!" Your petition is accepted, and the response is heard, "I am returned to Jerusalem with mercies," and once more Christ's love flows back in gentle wavelets upon your soul, veiling every infirmity, and nothing but the sweetest melody breathes from your heaving bosom.

IV. No SAVIOR like Him.

There is no Savior like Christ. Sin is inventive; itself the greatest invention of all. It is Satan's infernal machine for destroying precious souls by the million! In nothing is his ingenuity and power more put forth than in constructing expedients of salvation other than the atoning sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ. But Jesus is the one and only Savior of men; "neither is there salvation in any other; for there is no other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved." It is the glory of Christ's salvation that it is perfectly adapted to every condition of our fallen and helpless humanity. Christianity is the only religion that fully recognizes the natural and utter depravity of our nature, and our consequent impotence to save ourselves. Jesus, therefore, is the Savior of sinners. He has undertaken to save us just as we are. He finds us a ruin, and recreates us; he finds us fallen, and raises us up; he finds us guilty, and he cleanses us; he finds us condemned, and he justifies us– all our salvation is in him. All the merit God requires, all the help man needs, all the grace and strength our salvation demands, dwells in infinite fullness in Christ.

My reader, your everlasting future of happiness or of woe depends upon your acceptance of Christ as your Savior! Compared with this, your vital union with the Lord Jesus– churches are nothing, sacraments are nothing, religious duties are nothing, rites and ceremonies are nothing– because Christ must be all in the momentous matter of your everlasting well-being. Nothing saves you but faith in Christ, and, possessing that faith, nothing shall condemn you. You may adopt the soundest creed, may join the most apostolic communion, and may observe the most rigid austerities, and yet not be a Christian. United by faith to Christ, you may be saved in any Church; separated from Christ, you can be saved in no Church; "for other foundation can no man lay than what is laid, which is Jesus Christ." What a Savior, then, is Christ!

That there should be to us lost sinners any Savior, is marvelous; but that there should be provided for us such a Savior as Christ is, so divine and human, so atoning and gracious, so able and willing, distances all thought, and is above all praise. None will he reject, who come to him. Oh! it is impossible to exaggerate this statement. All thought droops, all words fail in their attempt to show what a Savior Christ is to poor lost sinners. He saves to the uttermost. He saves from the lowest depth of ruin, from the loftiest height of guilt, from the farthest limit of sin, from the utmost verge of the yawning precipice, from the very mouth of hell! "Where sin has abounded, grace does much more abound."

If, abjuring all human merit, bewailing and deploring all sin, you accept as a free-grace bestowment, the salvation Christ wrought in his soul's travail on the cross, you shall be saved. If you stay away from Christ, your best righteousness will not preserve you from the eternal pains of hell. If you humbly and believingly come to Christ, your worst sins will not exclude you from the everlasting joys and blessedness of heaven. But it is of the utmost moment that you clearly recognize the only character and the sole ground on which Christ will save you. He will only save you "as a sinner", and on the ground of his finished work, his infinite merit, atoning blood, and righteousness. You must stand where the tax-collector stood; must kneel where the "woman who was a sinner" knelt; must feel with Saul of Tarsus, that you are the "chief of sinners," must look and appeal to him with the true penitence and simple faith of the dying malefactor, and you shall be saved!

Cling Closer to Him! Believer in Jesus! cling closer and closer to the Savior, for there is none like unto him! Let the life you live be a daily coming up out of self, into Christ. Place no limit to your transactions with Jesus. As yet you have but touched the edge of his ocean-fullness, you have but tasted that he is gracious, you have but crept beneath the hem of his ample robe. Oh! let this year be one of advance; your motto, "forward." The truth each day's history will but confirm you in is, "There is none like Christ." The more you trust to, and the more you draw from him, the deeper and sweeter will be your conviction and experience of this. It is a truth he intends you shall experimentally learn. He will have you prize, and love, and serve him above and beyond all others.

The process by which you reach this high and holy attainment may be trying, the path rugged and toilsome, the ascent steep and difficult; it may cost you many a severe pang, many a deep sigh, many a lonely tear, many a sad wrench; nevertheless, a clearer realization of this truth, "none like Christ, none so near, none so powerful, none so precious," will more than recompense for all. Christ, in the sufficiency of his love and grace, will come and fill the blank, and soothe the pain, and dry the tear, and you shall look up, and with more than a seraph's rapture exclaim– "Whom have I in heaven but you? and there is none upon earth that I desire beside you."

V. No TEACHER like Him.

There is no teacher like Christ. Upon this point we can venture but a single remark. The Anointed of God, it is his office to reveal to us the great things of the Gospel. We are truly and savingly taught only as we are taught by him. Thankful for human teachers, we yet must exclaim– "Who teaches like Christ?" With immediate access to our minds, and a quick avenue to our hearts, by one text, by one trial, and by one circumstance of our history, he can, in a moment, bring us into the experience of the deepest and most spiritual truth. Who teaches with the authority, or with the skill, or with the patience and gentleness of Christ? Become his student, beloved reader, enter as a disciple his school, and the Holy Spirit, whose office it is to glorify Christ, will lead you into all truth. Oh! that this may be a year of deeper, more spiritual teaching! Oh! that we may know more of our own nothingness and insufficiency, and more of Christ's fullness, loveliness, and love! Lord that which I know not, teach me, for who teaches to profit like yourself?

VI. No FRIEND like Him.

There is no Friend like Christ. Beloved, it is possible that having many friends, you need yet one. God has, perhaps, endowed you with a nature keenly susceptible, your heart expanding to the warm and genial influence of true friendship. There is in your breast the responsive power of love, yet yearning for its object. Or, perhaps, the cold blast of sorrow has swept over the garden of your confiding affections, and the finest feelings of your nature, torn from the support to which they clung, lie broken, wounded, and bleeding. You yearn for a friend, in the wisdom of whose counsel, in the depth of whose affection, in the delicacy of whose sympathy, in the patience of whose endurance you can implicitly and ever rely; and from whose presence nothing for a moment separates. That friend is Christ! "I call you not servants, but friends," is his gracious avowal of the relation. "He is a friend that sticks closer than a brother."

There is not a friend on earth who loves you with his affection, who compassionates you with his sympathy, or is so powerful, so faithful, so near to you as Christ. Human friends do, indeed, divide our cares and double our joys; but Jesus does more. He takes all our cares upon himself, absorbs all our sorrows in himself, and makes all his joy our own. Let this be a year of closer friendship with Christ! Confide in his love, avail yourself of his power, and abase yourself worthy of so precious a friend. Beware, in your dealings with him, of distrust, of shyness, of cooled affection. Place in him your unquestioning confidence, and give him your undivided heart. Let not the sad memories of past fickleness and failure fling their dark shadows on the future, but enter upon that future surrendering yourself afresh to Christ as your best Friend.

Oh! there is none like him. Leave him for a while, though you may, for others, you return to him again with a yet deeper conviction of his superiority, exclaiming– "I find no friend like Christ. No love soothes me, no smile gladdens me, no voice cheers me, no arm supports me as his!"

You are entering upon a year which must be one of human infirmity, toil, and trial. Remember your chief, your best, your only Friend took upon him all your human infirmities, is identified with all your desires, and is acquainted with all your lonely sorrows. Now that he is elevated to the loftiest reach of purity, to the highest degree of dignity and glory, and that that heart, once the abode of overshadowing grief, is all sunshine now, but fits him all the more exquisitely as the all-powerful, all-helpful, all-loving, all-tender, ever-present Friend and companion of your homeward path to God.

O Christ! you ever have been, you are, and you shall ever be my Friend! In adversity, I will hide beneath your sheltering wing; in sorrow, I will nestle within your loving bosom; in weakness, I will entwine around your upholding arm; in need, I will repair to your boundless resources; in sickness, in languor, and in suffering, I will enfold around me your all-divine, all-human, all-pervading, all-soothing sympathy–
"And when I die,
Receive me, I'll cry,
For, Lord, you have loved me,
I can not tell why."

VII. No SERVICE like His.

And what service can be placed in competition with the service of Christ? The profession of Christian discipleship involves a service. The Christian life must needs have scope for the unfolding of its powers, and a field for the employment of its energies. But for the activity of Christianity our religion would become paralyzed and be dwarfed. It is a wise and merciful arrangement of its Author, that for the vital forces– the muscle and nerve and life of our Christianity– there should be provided a sphere ample and appropriate for their full development and play.

The graces implanted in the soul– graces instinct with all the energy and power of the divine, before whose invincible might the fiercest assaults of the foe have been repelled, and the armies of the aliens put to flight– would become shriveled and collapsed, a moral atrophy seizing the whole soul, but for the service which summons them to action. Christ's kingdom supplies the appropriate and commanding sphere. The field of your exertion may be extended or circumscribed, just as God appoints. It may be the vast amphitheater encircled by a great crowd of witnesses, gazing intently and anxiously upon your wrestling with sin and your battle with error; or, it may be some shaded nook, secluded from every eye, unaided and uncheered by human sympathy. Perhaps the sacred enclosure of home, or the night-watches of a sick-room, or the self-denying task of instructing a crude and sluggish class in the simple elements of the Gospel– yet is it Christ's service which engages you, and as such, it is perfect freedom and exquisite delight.

And truly there is no service to be compared with it– so ennobling, so satisfying, so joy-inspiring– or that brings with it so much of present and rich reward. Servant of Christ! keep good heart! Listen to your Master's feet behind you, upholding and cheering you on. He will soon come and pay you your full wages– will wipe the sweat of toil from your brow, and wreathe it with an amaranthine crown of glory, honor, and immortality. Then comes the welcome and reward– "Well done, good and faithful servant, enter into the joy of your Lord."

With such a service, and such a recompense, who, with but a spark of the love of Christ in his heart, will not exclaim– "Here, Lord, am I, what will you have me to do?" I have but one life– you have bought it with your life-blood– may it be yours– yours wholly, forever yours."

Christian reader, be up and doing– why do you stand all the day idle? Go, work in your Lord's vineyard. With a significance more profound, and with an earnestness more intense than that with which the words were uttered by the Mohammedan chief, pointing his sword to earth and then up to heaven, would we say to you– "Here is the place of labor; there is the place of rest."

'Tis not for man to trifle; life is brief,
And sin is here;
Our age is but the falling of a leaf,
A dropping tear.
We have no time to sport away the hours;
All must be earnest in a world like ours.
Not many lives, but only one have we;
One, only one–
How sacred should that one life ever be–
That narrow span!
Day after day filled up with blessed toil,
Hour after hour still bringing in new spoil."

There is no friend like Christ! The truth upon which we have been endeavoring to concentrate your thoughts, and with which we would yet a few moments longer detain you, is one of great practical influence. It chimes with every event, circumstance, and situation of your life. Let your faith deal with it as a divine verity, as a practical reality, that in whatever position God places you, he intends, by his dealings in providence, and by his teaching in grace, to bring you into the deeper experience of this the most precious of all experimental and practical truths– "No one can meet my case like Christ."

Whatever, through this year, your position may be– and I will hypothetically place it– let faith reason thus– "I am in great adversity; why should I resort to the help of man, he may fail me– there is none like Christ. I am in profound grief, my heart is melted within me; why should I repair to the soothing of human sympathy, it may disappoint me– there is none like Christ. I am in a great strait; insurmountable difficulties, inextricable perplexities weave their network around my path, and I am at my wit's end; why should I betake myself to human counsel– it may mislead me– there is none like Christ. My future looks dark and lowering– disease undermining my health– my energies failing, and the duties, responsibilities, and labors for which I have taxed my utmost powers, all lie untouched and neglected, yet why should I despond– there is none like Christ. My temporal circumstances are narrowing, resources fail me, poverty, with its humiliating attendants, stares me in the face, yet why should I yield to unbelief– there is none lice Christ. My corruptions are strong, my temptations irresistible, my sins many, my doubts and fears weigh me down to the dust, yet why should I despair– there is none like Christ. I am approaching the solemn hour of death, heart and flesh are failing me, and the veil of eternity is slowly rising to my view, yet why should I fear, and tremble, and shrink back, I have committed my soul to my Savior, and– there is none like Christ."

And, oh! what a mercy that you have never found one that could for a moment take his place; that, separated, perhaps exiled from all others, you are enclosed to Christ alone, nor wish another being to share your confidence or divide your affection with him. It is possible that you have made the experiment. You have traveled the circle of creation's good, have sipped at many springs, have gathered many flowers, have sought repose in many an embowered spot, but all have failed. You have returned to your true rest, exclaiming– "None like Christ. I find no love so soothing as his, no friendship so true, so gentle as his, no communion like communion with him. Christ is my all and in all."

Does the world challenge– "What is your beloved more than another beloved?" Your answer is at hand– "My beloved bore my sins, opened in his heart a fountain in which I am washed whiter than snow. My beloved sustains my burdens, counsels my perplexities, heals my wounds, dries my tears, supplies my needs, bears with my infirmities, upholds my steps, and cheers my pathway to the tomb. My beloved will be with me in the valley of the shadow of death, and with his presence I shall fear no evil. My beloved has gone to prepare a place for me in the many-mansioned house of my Father, and will come again and receive me to himself, that where he is, I may be also. My beloved will walk with me in the gold-paved streets of the new Jerusalem, will lead me to fountains of living waters, and will wipe every tear from my eyes. This is my beloved, and this is my Friend!"

Therefore Stand Firm. And yet have we need of constant vigilance, lest we should not always and in everything give Christ the preeminence. The rival interests, and the antagonistic forces of the world and the flesh are in perpetual play. These demand that, with the prophet, we should "stand continually upon the watchtower in the daytime, and be set in our wards whole nights." Should you discover any encroachment of your worldly calling upon the claims Christ has to your time and service, any rival affections to the claims he has to your whole heart, any secret demur to the claims he has to your unreserved obedience; should you, in a word, detect the undue ascendency or influence of any one being or object whose presence and power tends to shade the beauty, lessen the attractions, weaken the supremacy, or share the throne of Christ in your soul– that being and that object must be relinquished at once and forever!

Oh! what competitor can stand side by side with Christ? No minister, or pastor, or church, or friend, or companion, can bear a moment's comparison with Jesus. Not one who can assist you, defend you, provide for you, or bear with you as Jesus, who when the snow-flakes of wintry adversity fall thick and fast, and its cold blast moans drearily around you, will not leave yet side, who will be first to enter the house of woe, across whose threshold the loved remains have just been borne, to speak words of comfort to your bereaved heart; who will sustain you in languor, bend over you in sickness, and when the last look, before the eye is fixed and glazed, and the last breath, before the lips are mute and immovable in death, shall come, will be with you, viewless and noiseless to the attendant watchers, sustaining your spirit in the parting hour, then bearing it in his own warm bosom to the home eternally made ready. Then cling and adhere to Christ, and in all things give him the preeminence.

"Enthrone the precious Savior in your heart,
Let all your homage unto him be paid;
Allow no idol to usurp in part
The glory due to him who all things made.
In thought, word, deed, your life to him be given,
You shall be blessed on earth, and saved in heaven."

Be Faithful to His Word. There is yet another caution I would venture to give in reference to some of the social and popular movements of the day, the tendency of which, without due vigilance on the part of the sincere and earnest friends of true religion, may be adverse to its best interests, fatally injurious to the individuals contemplated by these movements, and subversive of the supremacy of Christ and his truth. We hail with gratitude and hope all efforts to advance "social science" and intellectual improvement, provided those endeavors are sustained and sanctified by Christian principle. I am thoroughly convinced that true national advancement can only be successfully secured by the power of a living Christianity. All other modes of elevating the masses utterly fail of reaching them. It is impossible to close the eye to the fact that, after all the exertions of our literary and scientific institutions, our libraries, reading-rooms, and lectures, there teems outside and far beyond our efforts, a vast outlying population of living beings, dwelling in ignorance and neglect, each one of whom might give utterance to the exclamation– "No man has cared for my soul!"

By what agency are we to compass and by what means are we to instruct them? We at once answer, by the feet of the city and the rural missionary, and by the sole instrument of Christ's Gospel. But widely different from this is the object promoted by "social science" and its kindred associations. And what is the result? We are advancing in secular knowledge and science, but, at the same time, we are equally advancing in worldliness, luxury, and indulgence; in extravagance of dress, and modes of life that, in numerous cases, far overtop reasonable and legitimate income. The consequences must be serious! The history of nations is luminous in the testimony it bears to the fact that high perfection in art and science, in intellectual improvement, luxury, and indulgence, apart from the conservative influence of Christianity, has ever been the culminating point that has marked their decadence and dissolution. We have passed through one phase of our national history, and "hero-worship" is nearly giving place to the worship of "social science," secular knowledge, and intellectual advancement. I can not look but with the most painful apprehension and alarm upon the unchristianized condition toward which we are as a nation fast drifting. Compromise at home, and neutrality abroad, is gradually blotting Christianity from our national escutcheon. It seriously behooves the ministers of the Gospel, our devout statesmen and senators, to be fully awake. If we are to retain the position God has given us in the scale of nations, or to rise to a yet loftier altitude of moral greatness and power, it will not be by the means of social science, worldly knowledge, wealth, luxury, and refinement– but by the influence of a living, vitalizing Christianity alone!

The Bible and its religion must be paramount; Christ and his Gospel must have the preeminence. Reason and learning must stand at the bar of Revelation, reverence its precepts, adopt its principles, and obey its voice. The moment that finds this nation glorying in her strength, in her wisdom, in her wealth, in her prowess, in her social progress, and in her high civilization, will date the beginning of her decline, and foreshadow the certainty of her downfall as a great, religious people; and her last history, like that of Greece and Rome, will be written in mourning, lamentation, and woe. Let the apostles and promoters of social science and of secular knowledge solemnly beware how, in the advancement of their objects, they ignore our Bible and abjure our God!

Be Spiritually Minded. It is an important practical deduction from the subject of these pages, that if true godliness is anything to us, it surely must be everything. There is no principle God has more closely and universally calculated in the universe than 'harmony'. And it is this nice adjustment, this perfect balance, and exquisite symmetry, everywhere pervading his works, which proves the mind that planned and the power that executed to be one and the same– divine.

Now it is this same harmony, as exhibited in true godliness, which illustrates its beauty and augments its power. How much is true religion shorn of its strength by the lack of more spiritual-mindedness in its professors! The worldly amusements to which many addict themselves– the opera, the card-playing, the ball, the gay party, the novel-reading, the luxurious living, the extravagant customs in which multitudes of religious professors, church members and communicants indulge, are sad blots upon their avowed Christianity, and effectual hindrances to the advancement of religion in their own souls and in the world. Oh! that with us vital religion– the pure, simple, self-denying, unearthly religion of Christ– might be paramount; its holy influence permeating our whole being, and giving form and tint and direction to all our engagements and conduct.

Difficulties we shall, indeed, have to overcome in the world, and, perhaps, opposing influences in our own homes; nevertheless, if Christ sees that our hearts are set upon ruling our lives by his divine precept, "Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness," he will aid our holy strivings and give his grace that, in our principles, our spirit, and our conduct, yes, in all things and everywhere, Christ may have the preeminence.

My reader, what is your "beloved"? If it is not Christ, what is it? The world? the creature? wealth? self? Are these the objects you place in competition with the Redeemer, and prefer to a religious life, a happy death, and a glorious eternity? Oh! what will they avail you when Christ, the Savior you have slighted, despised, and neglected, cites you to his judgment bar? Without the experience of a real conversion, of the new birth, of a saving interest in Jesus, should you die this year, you are forever lost! Pause, solemnly pause, upon the threshold of a new period of your probation, and ask the Holy Spirit to enthrone the Savior upon your loving, believing heart, that henceforth Christ may be the first, Christ the chief, Christ preeminent; so that for you to live or die may truly and emphatically be CHRIST; and then Christ and you will be together through eternity!

There is None like Him. Such is the truth, child of God, your heavenly Father has given you to learn through this coming year– None like Christ! Could he bring you into the experience of a truth more needful, more sanctifying, or more precious? Impossible! Strive after a closer walk, a more childlike transfer of every care, anxiety, and need to your heavenly Father, and his beloved Son, your elder brother. "He cares for you." Do not overlook today, in your anxious thoughts about the morrow. Travel not out of the present into the future. The grace that supports, the love that comforts, the resources that supply today's need, will, with tomorrow's demand, be ready at your hand. Do justice to the solemn present, and live with the same calm reliance upon God, and looking to Jesus, as if there but one second of time intervening between you and your heavenly home. Make the prayer your own of one of the earliest missionaries of the Cross to Ireland– "May the strength of God pilot me this day, the power of God preserve me, the wisdom of God instruct me, the eye of God view me, the ear of God hear me, the hand of God protect me, the way of God direct me, the shield of God defend me. Christ be with me, Christ before me, Christ after me, Christ in me, Christ under me, Christ over me, Christ at my right, Christ at my left, Christ at this side, Christ at that side, Christ in the heart of each person whom I speak to, Christ in the mouth of each person who speaks to me, Christ in each eye which sees me, Christ in each ear which hears me. Salvation is the Lord's, salvation is Christ's. May your salvation, O Lord! be always with us." (Patrick's prayer on his going to preach before the King of Ireland)

Imitating the spirit, and adopting the petitions of this remarkable prayer, your daily, happy, and holy experience and testimony will be– "None but Christ, none like Christ."

"I'll not leave Jesus– never, never!
Ah! what can more precious be?
Rest, and joy, and light are ever
In his hand to give to me.
All things that can satisfy,
Having Jesus, these have I."

Love has bound me fast to him,
I am his, and he is mine;
Daily I for pardon ask him,
Answers he with peace divine.
On that rock my trust is laid,
And I rest beneath its shade.

Without Jesus, earth would weary,
Seem almost like hell to me;
But if Jesus I have near me,
Earth is almost heaven to me.
Am I hungry? He does give
Bread on which my soul does live.

Oh! how light upon my shoulder
Lies my cross, now grown so small.
For the Lord is my upholder,
Fits it to me, softens all.
Neither shall it always stay–
Patience! it will pass away!"

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

PISGAH VIEWS or,
THE NEGATIVE ASPECTS OF HEAVEN

Table of Contents

Preface

1. No More Curse

2. No More Night

3. No More Sea

4. No More Hunger and Thirst

5. No More Pain

6. No More Tears

7. No More Death

8. No Temple

Preface

Then Moses went to Mount Nebo from the plains of Moab and climbed PISGAH Peak, which is across from Jericho. And the Lord showed him the whole land, from Gilead as far as Dan; all the land of Naphtali; the land of Ephraim and Manasseh; all the land of Judah, extending to the Mediterranean Sea; the Negev; the Jordan Valley with Jericho--the city of palms--as far as Zoar. Then the Lord said to Moses, "This is the land I promised on oath to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and I told them I would give it to their descendants. I have now allowed you to see it, but you will not enter the land." Deut. 34:1-4

(God had declared that Moses would not enter Canaan, the Promised Land. But the Lord also promised that he would have a view of it, and showed him all that good land. Such a sight believers now have, through grace, of the bliss and glory of their future state. –Matthew Henry)

"Could we but climb where Moses stood,
And view the landscape o'er,
Not Jordan's streams, nor death's cold flood,
Should fright us from the shore."

The revealed descriptions of HEAVEN are, for the most part, of an obscure and 'negative' character. The negative style of delineation was probably adopted by the Holy Spirit as more fitted to convey to our minds intelligent and vivid ideas than those positive modes of existence of which the future blessedness of the saints really consists. Who can fail to recognize in this arrangement of the picture the hand of a Divine Artist? Throwing in the background of the canvas some of the darker shadows of the present life, the great and attractive objects of the future are thus made to stand out in more distinct form and in richer glow. By portraying to us what Heaven is NOT, we form a more correct and bright conception of what Heaven really is.

By a similar stroke of artistic skill--reversing the picture of our Lord's life of humiliation--we get a more true and realizing idea of His great glory and happiness in Heaven. To be told that He no more sorrows, nor weeps--is no more reviled and persecuted--no more hungers and thirsts--suffers and dies no more--unfolds to us more impressively the great and inconceivable blessedness into which He has entered! What a contrast to the life of lowliness and poverty, scorn and neglect, grief and woe, suffering and death, to which He subjected Himself all for the great love He bore us on earth! What Divine glory now crowns His head! What perfect joy fills His soul! What pure worship robes Him with its incense! What sublime songs of adoration roll in circling waves around His throne!

"'Tis past; the dark and dreary night!
And, Lord, we hail You now
Our Morning Star, without a cloud
Of sadness on Your brow.

"Your path on earth--the cross, the grave--
Your sorrows now are o'er,
And, oh, sweet thought!
Your eye shall weep,
Your heart shall break no more."

The design of this little work is to serve a twofold, soul-animating, purpose--as a STAFF, aiding faith's ascent of the glorious height of Pisgah; and then, from its summit--as a TELESCOPE, bringing nearer to its sanctifying and comforting view those sublime beauties and winning attractions of the "land which is very far off," and which, in our present imperfect state, are best understood and felt in their shadowy and negative forms. "Now we see through a glass darkly, but then face to face; now we know in part, then shall we know even as also we are known." Oh, sweet thought! soon we shall spring from the Pisgah of earth to the Mount Zion of Heaven, exchanging the dim glass of faith for the full, resplendent and eternal vision of its glory!--above, and eclipsing all--the beatific vision of "THE KING IN HIS BEAUTY."

"Out of your last home dark and cold,
You shall pass to a City whose streets are gold;
From the silence that falls upon sin and pain
To the deathless joys of the Angel's strain,
Out of the shadow into the sun,
The battle fought--the victory won!"

NO MORE CURSE

"And there shall be no more curse."--Rev. 20:3

The last song of Moses, the servant of God, on earth, was one of blended judgment and mercy. That he was not permitted by God to bring the Church in the wilderness into the Promised Land, to whose border he had so skillfully and faithfully conducted it, was a signal mark of the Divine displeasure of the sin of not honoring God--and this constituted the song of JUDGMENT. Leaving the plains of Moab, God gently led His servant up the highest mountain, from whose summit He directed him to survey the land of Canaan--its fertile valleys, and watered plains, and vine-clad hills, and sun-gilded peaks, unveiling their richness, beauty, and grandeur to his eye--and this constituted the song of MERCY. With this last look of earth--God thus confirming His servant's faith, and vindicating His own faithfulness--opened upon his astonished vision his first view of heaven! The distant and dim shadows of the earthly Canaan dissolved into the near and splendid realities of the Heavenly--the type lost in the antitype--when on Pisgah's height God 'kissed his soul away,' as a mother's caress fondly and softly lulls her infant to sleep.

"Sweet was the journey to the skies
The wondrous prophet tried;
'Climb up the mount,' says God, 'and die'--
The prophet climbed, and died.

"Softly his fainting head he lay
Upon his Savior's breast:
The Savior kissed his soul away,
And laid his flesh to rest."

Earth has still its "Nebos" and the Church of God its "Pisgahs," sacred and sunlit heights, scaling which, in faith, the believing soul often sees "the King in His beauty, and the land which is very far off." The experience of the Church still is, "He makes my feet like hinds' feet, and sets me upon my high places." Faith being a divine principle, its eye is spiritual and its sight far-reaching. The 'substance of things hoped for, and the evidence of things not seen,' it bounds beyond the narrow present, pierces the invisible future, and expatiating amid the wonders and wealth of the unseen world, returns, like the spies of Canaan, bearing the rich clusters it gathered from Heaven's vintage--the evidences and the pledges of the great and precious things God has laid up for those who love Him.

While yet upon the threshold of our subject, it may be instructive to note the starting-point of faith in its Pisgah ascents. The base of Mount Pisgah lay low in the plains of Moab, and from that base Moses ascended to the summit. Divine grace, which is glory begun on earth, finds us in the low estate of nature, 'dead in trespasses and sins'--at enmity against God--living after the flesh--'without God, and without Christ, and without hope in this world.' It is very useful, beloved, to recall to memory the days of our unregeneracy, when Christ went after us, found and brought us home to Himself. The apostle never forgot that, before divine mercy and free grace called him, he was a "blasphemer, and a persecutor, and injurious," yes, that of sinners he was the 'chief.' Oh! how these retrospects confirm the electing love, and exalt the free and sovereign grace of God, in the conversion of the soul! How they lay in the dust all man's glory, rearing upon its ruins the "kingdom of God which is righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit."

Now, it is from this low valley that we begin our heavenly ascent. None ever reach the summit of Pisgah who make not this their starting-point. What numbers set out upon a religious course without any real or thorough sight and conviction of their sinfulness! They make some eminence of their own uprearing the starting-point, rather than the valley of sin-acquaintance and self-abasement. Reversing God's order, they work from the summit, to the base, rather than from the base to the summit of the mount--from the circumference to the center, rather than from the center to the circumference of the circle. But at the cross of Jesus, beneath whose shadow sin is seen, confessed, and renounced, the soul commences its spiritual life, its heavenly ascent. There glory begins in the smallest amount and in the lowliest form of grace. The seed may be insignificant, but the tree will be great; the bud unpromising, but the flower lovely; the pulse infantile, but the growth gigantic.

The instant that the soul becomes a subject of grace, it becomes an heir of glory; and all its future course of sunshine and cloud, of tempest and calm, stable and chequered, is a gradual and certain progress towards the highest state of perfection in heaven. What the acorn is to the oak, and the child to the man, is present grace to future glory. In this present state, grace, though real and precious, must necessarily be limited and defective. Just as sweet spices, imported from southern climates, come to us not in their original purity and fragrance, so the graces of the Spirit, divine and heavenly though they are, are shorn of much of their beauty, and exhausted of much of their sweetness; but when we reach the land in which they grew, they will unfold a splendor, and breathe a fragrance, inspiring every soul with admiration and filling every mouth with praise.

And should the chill, agonizing question cross your mind touching a departed one with whose spirit your heart traveled as it passed within the veil--"Is the soul happy?" recall to remembrance the least measure of divine grace, the smallest degree of precious faith, the faintest spark of divine love, the feeblest throb of spiritual life in that soul--I would even take the lowest evidence of grace--love to the brethren--and the question of its safety is settled. Thus we may be assured of the glorified state of our friends by their having but "tasted that the Lord is gracious." Grace is glory militant; glory is grace triumphant; grace is glory begun; glory is grace perfected. Grace is the first degree of glory; glory is the highest degree of grace. Grace is glory in the bud; glory is grace in the full-blown flower. "The Lord God is a sun and shield--the Lord will give GRACE and GLORY."

The view of Canaan which God presented to His servant Moses was a negative one. It was Canaan robed in twilight shadows, rather than bathed in meridian sunlight. It would appear to his believing eye more what it was not, than what it really was. Now, it is with the negative views of the true, the heavenly Canaan that these pages especially deal. And in thus studying it in its negative aspects, faith reverses her glass, and learning what heaven is not, obtains a more vivid revelation of what heaven is.

God, for the most part, adopts the negative mode in His dealings with His people, rather than the positive. We see but negative views of His own personal majesty and glory. Thus He dealt with Moses. "And the Lord said, It shall come to pass, while my glory passes by, that I will put you in a cleft of the rock, and I will cover you with my hand while I pass by. And I will take away mine hand, and you shall see any BACK PARTS; but my face shall not be seen." God has a method and an end in all His works in creation. It may be but a lowly violet protected from the sun's heat by the diamond dewdrop--nevertheless there is a divine plan and purpose there. How much more conspicuous this principle in His kingdom of grace, in His dealings with the saints! He moves in the "thick darkness" but to appear all the more glorious as "clothed with light." He speaks from the "secret place of thunder," the "cloudy pillar," the "whirlwind," and the "storm," that, when they are past, the sky may appear all the serener, and in its brighter mirror may reflect more clearly the precious truth that, all things were working together for our good.

When the angel announced to the shepherds the best news earth ever heard, "they were very afraid;" and yet how soon their trembling fears gave place to the most ecstatic joy! And has it not been often so with us? The cloud has looked dark, the thunder has pealed, the lightning has flashed, but presently the beauteous rainbow has appeared sparkling upon its bosom, and all is sweet peace! Thus we are taught that, so to speak, God's dealings, for the most part, come to us mysteriously--His glory in its "back parts"--we see not face to face--and so we learn the lessons and revelations of His law as Hebrew students read their Bible backward, from the left to the right, traveling as from the end to the beginning. But oh! how blessed when, from some dark and crushing event of God's providence, we presently find ourselves reposing within the paternal arms of His love! In expatiating upon the NEGATIVE ATTRACTIONS OF HEAVEN, let us begin with the absence of the CURSE--"And there shall be no more CURSE."

A greater contrast can scarcely be found--a negative of heaven more expressive of its real and positive blessing. Sweep from the globe the mildew of this curse, hurl the evil spirit from humanity, and you have restored earth and man to their original beauty and stateliness. But our subject has a gospel and a spiritual teaching, and to this let us first direct our thoughts. In the present history and condition of God's saints, the original curse, as a penal and condemning law, is already and virtually repealed. There is an evangelical sense in which it may be said, "There is no more curse." This Christ has done. Thus we read--"Christ has redeemed us from the CURSE of the law, being made A CURSE for us; for it is written, CURSED is every one that hangs on a tree." This great evangelical passage sets the entire question at rest concerning the present relation of the curse in the history of God's saints. As Deity alone could pronounce the curse, so Deity alone could cancel it. As God alone could enact the law, so He alone could repeal it. Christ has cancelled the law of the curse on behalf of His Church, and Christ is GOD.

The gospel statement of this great and precious truth is simple and clear. The Son of God consented to be born of a woman, and thus to be made under the law as violated and broken by man. As such, He became answerable to the law, came under its precepts, assumed its curse, and endured its condemnation; and all this He did for the love He bore His Church. He honored every precept of the law, exhausted every atom of its curse, and endured to the utmost its condemnation, thus "magnifying the law, and making it honorable." And now, by this substitutionary offering, the curse is transferred from the Church to Christ, and righteousness is transferred from Christ to the Church--an exchange of place involving an exchange of condition--and, as a blessed result, all who believe in Jesus are in this present life delivered from the curse and condemnation of the law. "There is therefore now NO CONDEMNATION to those who are in Christ Jesus."

But Christ has not only repealed the curse as a condemnatory law, but He transforms even its effects into blessings. There are infirmity and toil, sorrow, suffering and death--all the fruit and effects of the curse--nevertheless, in the deepest sorrow, in the acutest suffering, in the most agonizing death of the saints of God, there is nothing of the bitterness and the sting and the condemnation of the curse; since Jesus, being made a curse for us, has by His marvelous grace transformed all these terrible effects of the curse into the costliest blessings. "Howbeit, our God turned the CURSE into a BLESSING."

O beloved! accept the discipline of trial and suffering, however dark its shadow or bitter its cup, as among the all things of the covenant of grace on which there rests not an atom of the curse, in which there glows not one spark of hell, but in which are embosomed some of the costliest, holiest blessings of your life. Pause, and silently adore, and faithfully follow, that loving, gracious Savior who for us was cast out as an accursed thing, that we might dwell forever in that blessed world of which it is said--"And there shall be no more CURSE." "Jesus also, that He might sanctify the people with His own blood, suffered outside the gate. Let us go forth therefore unto Him outside the camp, bearing His reproach."

Now of the New Jerusalem state of the Church--in the new heavens and the new earth–every element of the curse will be entirely absent. That the final and eternal abode of the risen and glorified saints will be material, and not spiritual, a place, and not a condition merely, admits, I think, of not a doubt. The Apostle Peter writes--"We, according to His promise, look for NEW HEAVENS and a NEW EARTH, wherein dwells righteousness." Such too was the glorious vision of the exiled Evangelist--"And I saw a NEW HEAVEN and a NEW EARTH, for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away." "I go to prepare a PLACE for you," said Jesus.

Now it will be an essential and distinctive element of the abode of the saints that, there shall be no more CURSE. There shall be no more divine--no more human--no more ecclesiastical curse. What a glorious world will that be, where the landscape will not be blighted, nor the inhabitants crushed beneath the oppression of the curse! The earth will no more bring forth thorns and thistles--man will no more gain his sustenance by the sweat of his brow--no Shimei shall curse God's anointed ones--no Vatican fulminate its decrees against God's Word--and no Pope shall thunder his anathemas against Christ's Church. "There shall be no more CURSE,"--man no more a curse to himself--no more a curse to others.

Thus let us ascend by faith Pisgah's height, and behold the good land which is afar off, and delight ourselves in the prospect of this glorious negative. Survey that promised country which gently woos you to its holy, peaceful coasts, where the flowers ever bloom, and the fruit ever grows, and the spring ever abides, and the landscape ever smiles, and man is ever blest--where every vestige of the curse is annihilated, and all is divine, perfect, and immortal. The dividing stream of Jordan is but narrow, and it is quickly passed. A step--a tear--a sigh, and the spirit is on the other side, realizing, as there it only can, the depth of meaning and the unutterable preciousness of those wondrous words--"AND THERE SHALL BE NO MORE CURSE."

"YOUR BLESSING IS UPON YOUR PEOPLE."

"We dwell this side of Jordan stream,
Yet often there comes a shining beam
Across from yonder shore;
While visions of a holy throng,
And sound of harp and seraph song
Seem gently wafted over.

"The other side! ah, there's the place
Where saints in joy past times retrace,
And think of trials gone.
The veil withdrawn--they clearly see
That all on earth had need to be
To bring them safely home.

"The other side! NO CURSE is there
So bright the robes those blest ones wear,
Made white in Jesus' blood;
No cry of grief, no voice of woe,
To mar the peace their spirits know--
Their constant peace with God.

"The other side! its shore so bright
Is radiant with the golden light
Of Zion's city fair;
And many dear ones gone before
Already tread the happy shore--
We seem to see them there.

"The other side! oh, cheering sight--
In cloudless, everlasting light,
For me a loved One waits;
O'er the stream He calls to me--
'Fear not, I your Guide to be,
Up to the pearly gates.'

"The other side! the other side!
Who would not brave the swelling tide
Of earthly toil and care,
To wake one day, when life is past,
Over the stream, at home at last,
With all the BLEST ones there?"

NO MORE NIGHT

"And there shall be no night there."--Rev. 20:3

To an ardent and undevout astronomer the total absence of night would scarcely convey an intelligent and attractive idea of the blessedness and glory of heaven. Enthroned within his towering observatory, he watches with intense interest the gradual fading of the golden beams of day into the gray twilight of evening; and the deepening of evening's shadows into the darker drapery of night; then, with his glass sweeping the skies studded with myriad stars and planets, he revels amid the countless worlds of grandeur now bursting upon his gaze, and which night alone unveils. Remind him that there will be no night in heaven for his favorite study; but that, if his faith has caught a glimpse of "Jesus, the bright and Morning Star," he will know more of astronomy in that wondrous transit than centuries of discovery on earth could have taught him. But, wedded to his science, and satisfied with studying merely the outside glories of heaven, in vain you seek to convince him that the absence of night will be the revelation of sublimities unimaginable, the presence of wonders inconceivable, the unveiling of glories indescribable, such as "eye has not seen nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man." But, interpreted in its spiritual and metaphorical sense, this remarkable negative of heaven suggests to the heir of glory some of his most entrancing and cherished anticipations. Let us first take the lowest.

There will be NO LITERAL NIGHT. This at once reminds us of the entire absence in heaven of all the weariness and jadedness--bodily and mental--inseparable from our present state. There is a limit to the exercise of our physical and intellectual powers, the laws of which will admit of no arbitrary infringement. If we urge the physical body beyond its proper bounds, paralysis of power follows; and perhaps the mental insanity of mind results. The government which regulates both cannot be outraged with impunity. Able writers on mental disease have clearly demonstrated that it is not so much the amount of brain-work which paralyzes power and shortens life, as the superadded element of anxiety. Were it possible for an individual whose brain is incessantly seething to throw off the noble yet undue anxiety for others--the result, often, of the lack of faith in God; or, the more selfish anxiety for his own literary fame--the effect too frequently of a morbid ambition, vanity, or envy--in all probability a premature corrosion of the brain would be averted, and usefulness and longevity greatly prolonged.

But how wise and beneficent this arrangement of God--the night season of SLEEP! How welcome and grateful to the exhausted student, the weary laborer, the suffering patient, is the advent of night, with its diadem of glory and enshrouding curtains, bringing with it the renewing power and soothing influence of sleep, restoring the balance of our over-wrought faculties, and raising us new creatures from our couch of repose! There is much in its philosophy and physiology, not to speak of its moral instruction, we have yet practically to learn concerning this sweet necessity of our nature, sleep--ignorance or willful neglect of which has been productive of much evil which might otherwise have been avoided. It is an established physiological fact that the human brain expands in all cases to an astonishing degree during the period of wakefulness, especially in those individuals whose powers of thought are concentrated upon abstruse and profound subjects of study; and the fact is equally demonstrable that, when recuperation is not equal to expenditure, imbecility, or insanity and self-destruction are often the certain and sad results. It follows that those who do most brain-work require a larger amount of recuperative power; or, in other words, the most sleep--which has been well defined life's manna, dropping from heaven to create us anew day by day. Such is the wise and beneficent arrangement God has made for our present condition.

But not bodily or mental alone are the blessings which the night season brings. It distills equally, yet more certain and refreshing, its spiritual dew. How appropriate is the night for holy thought and prayer! "I have remembered Your name, O Lord, in the night." "I remember You upon my bed, and meditate upon You in the night-watches." To some the night may be long and weary; but there are those who can testify that if there are tears, there are also songs in the night; if sleeplessness, there is also meditation; if there are night-watchings, there are also night-thoughts. Pillow-prayers and pillow-praises are among the most fragrant incense and sweetest music that float from earth to heaven. And he who is a stranger to their exercise is ignorant of one of the richest modes of communion with God, and of communion with heaven, practical to man on earth.

How appropriate, too, is the night season for death! All is now still. The world's busy hum has ceased--every object and every being is in repose--the laborer has retreated to his couch, and the bird to its nest--and silence, profound as the grave, reigns supreme. It is as though the pulse of universal life stood still.

"All things are hushed, as nature's self lay dead."

And now is the time for the Christian to die! All is as tranquil in that death-chamber as death itself. The soft footfall--the bated breath--the subdued whisper--the rustling of the angels' wings waiting to escort the spirit home, are the only sounds that break the hush of that still, solemn hour. What an appropriate time for the believer's departure! It is the soul's holy pause, before earth is exchanged for heaven. It is time standing for a moment still--the sun arrested in its course--waiting the solemn, the glorious advent of ETERNITY!

"How sweet this very hour to die!
To soar from earth, and find all fears
Lost in your light--Eternity!"

"Night is the time for rest:
How sweet, when labors close,
To gather round an aching breast
The curtain of repose,
Stretch the tired limbs, and lay the head
Upon our own delightful bed!

"Night is the time for dreams,
The gay romance of life,
When truth that is, and truth that seems,
Blend in fantastic strife.
Ah! visions less beguiling far
Than waking dreams by daylight are!

"Night is the time to weep;
To wet with unseen tears
Those graves of memory where sleep
The joys of other years;
Hopes that were angels in their birth,
But perished young, like things of earth!

"Night is the time to watch
On ocean's dark expanse,
To hail the Pleiades, or catch
The full moon's earliest glance,
That brings unto the home-sick mind
All we have loved and left behind.

"Night is the time for care;
Brooding on hours misspent,
To see the spectre of Despair
Come to our lonely tent;
Like Brutus 'midst his slumbering host
Startled by Caesar's stalwart spirit.

"Night is the time to muse;
Then from the eye the soul
Takes flight, and, with expanding views,
Beyond the starry pole
Observes athwart the abyss of night
The dawn of uncreated light.

"Night is the time to pray--
Our Savior oft' withdrew
To desert mountains far away--
So will His followers do;
Steal from the throng to haunts untrod,
And hold communion there with God.

"Night is the time for death;
When all around is peace,
Calmly to yield the weary breath,
From sin and suffering cease;
Think of heaven's bliss, and give the sign
To parting friends--such death be mine!"
--James Montgomery

But what a world and what a condition will that be in which the mind and the body of the glorified will be occupied with studies the most profound, with enjoyments the most ecstatic, and in a service the most incessant, yet never conscious of the slightest satiety, or sensible of a moment's weariness! Searcher of truth! student of science! laborer for Christ!--you who often mourn the limit of your powers, and the interruption of your inquiries, and the cessation of your toil which languor and sleepiness entail, begrudging the time which repose demands--oh! think how much is contained in that marvelous negative, "And there shall be NO NIGHT there!" With every intellectual faculty developed, and with every moral power sanctified, and with every material organ strengthened, and with every moment incessantly employed--new subjects of study presenting, new wonders of glory unveiling, new spheres of service opening; and with them the powers of the soul expanding to an inconceivable extent, and still expanding with every fresh theme of thought, and intensified with every fresh draught of knowledge--oh! what a blessing will the absence of night be!

Like Israel's Divine Watchman, who "neither slumbers nor sleeps," and who "faints not, neither is weary," we shall be girded with power that knows no limit. Study will not exhaust us, thought will not oppress us, activity will not weary us; and, like the four living creatures around the throne, who "rest not day nor night, saying, Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, who was and is, and is to come," we shall never fatigue in performing God's holy will, nor faint or tire in celebrating His high praises.

No night in heaven! Think of this, you sick and suffering saints, to whose over-wrought brain, to whose shattered nerves, to whose anguished hearts and restless pillow the refreshment and ease of sleep comes not. Oh! what a precious boon to you will a nightless heaven be! No slow, anxious, sleepless hours then--gazing at the shadows dancing upon the wall--watching the flickering flame of the dimly burning night-lamp--or listening to the heavy tread of night's guardian as he paces to and fro beneath your casement--intensely longing for the first streak of day "as those who watch for the morning."

Oh! what a perfection of heaven--to need no repose! Sleep! you have proved to me a kind and faithful friend; you have come at my need, and, as with an angel's wing, have fanned my fevered brow; and like the dew of Hermon have sweetly distilled upon my aching eyelids; and like the flood-waters have drowned in oblivion my cares, anxieties, and sorrows; and so, strengthened and refreshed by your kind and renewing influence, I have risen with the morning's light, and have gone forth to life's daily duties, service, and trials, as a "bridegroom coming out of his chamber, rejoicing as a strong man to run a race."

But, sweet sleep! I shall no more need you in heaven!--for there will be no night of fatigue, no night of suffering, no night of sorrow, no night of sleeplessness there. Until then, come, you angel of loveliness and love, and shroud my pillow with your soft, balmy wings; and when morning light breaks upon my eyelids, I will uplift my praises to Him who gives His beloved sleep!

"Come, sweet oblivion of all care,
And reign triumphant in my breast;
There's no alloy to comfort there,
And I need rest.
Soon as the morn steals on the night,
I'd have you flee away;
And I'd resume, with mind more light,
The duties of the day."

But let us study this negative attribute of heaven in its metaphorical teaching. There shall be NO INTELLECTUAL NIGHT in heaven. Intellectual night--as natural--is inseparable from our present existence--it would seem, indeed, a necessary part of our education for heaven. Darkness is the type of IGNORANCE. "The people who sat in darkness saw a great light." Ignorance is the rule, and knowledge the exception, of our present condition. It is rather what we do not know, than what we do know, that forms the distinctive feature of this life. There is a limit to our range of knowledge, even as there is a limit to our faculty of knowledge. "We know in part." "Now we see through a glass darkly." We admit that the subjects of human study are vast, and their range illimitable; but the faculty of grasping these subjects, and the power of compassing that range, are by sin paralyzed and cramped. The limit is not so much in the fields of study as in the power of traversing those fields. We know in part here, and in part only can we know.

Take, for example, our spiritual attainments. How limited is our knowledge of God, of Christ, of truth! How meager our experience of His grace; less than all is our knowledge of ourselves. In human knowledge we are but "children;" in divine knowledge, but "babes." Contrasted with the future development of the mind, the vast range of its research, and the sublime subjects of its study, our present grasp of intellect is infantile, and our present acquirements but rudimentary. And when the longest life of inquiry has closed, and its results are piled upon the shelves, or stored within the archives of earth's literary treasures, compared with the eternal day of intellectual life which awaits us--to quote the simile of Newton, the greatest philosopher that ever lived--we have but been gathering pebbles upon the shores of knowledge, the ocean of which still stretches out before us in all its fathomless and illimitable extent.

Yes, there will be no intellectual night in heaven. Problems in human science, the solution of which baffled us here--mysteries in divine truth, for the unravelment of which no thread was provided--the facts and prophecies and revelations of God's Word, which now are accepted as matters of faith rather than of reason--the character and government of God--the glory and work of Christ--the inexplicable agency of the Spirit in regeneration--will then be seen in light so transparent, and will be bathed in luster so divine, that a new-born babe, the moment it opens its eyes in glory, knows more of all these intellectual and sacred wonders, and grasps them with a stronger power of thought, than the profoundest philosopher or the most learned theologian on earth.

No overtasking the brain there--no crushing of the mind by the weight of thought, or bounding its range of intellectual research--no languor in thinking--no exhaustion in studying--no mental cloud-veil--for "there shall be no night there;" and when countless centuries of thought and study have passed, the mind will be as youthful and fresh, as vigorous and luminous, as at the moment when it first emerged from its night of intellectual darkness into the perfect and eternal day of intellectual light.

O blessed Land! when my mind, unclouded by sin, unwarped by prejudice, unimpaired by disease, will be commensurate with its unlimited range of thought, and its exhaustless subjects of study; where all the mysteries of knowledge will be unraveled, all its facts confirmed, and all its discrepancies harmonized! Depths which my line cannot now sound--truths which my reason cannot now compass--texts which my learning cannot now explain--contradictions which my ingenuity cannot now adjust--will in that world all stand forth bathed in the golden sunlight of perfect day, where not an infirmity will cramp the energy, nor a cloud shade the luster, nor a sin taint the sanctity of my intellectual powers; but where I shall be equal to the world of thought in which my soul shall expatiate, knowing even as I am known.

It is a blessed reflection, too, that, in a world of pure and perfect intellect, Christian doctrine--now impaired by the subtleties of human thought, obscured by the poverty of human language, entangled by the theories of human philosophy, and robed in the antiquated garments of bygone ages--will then stand out in all its native and sublime simplicity. The soul unclothed, the mind unshackled, wandering through amaranthine bowers, inhaling the life-inspiring odors of paradise, plucking fresh fruit from the tree of knowledge, sustained by nectar draughts of peace, gladness, and joy flowing from beneath and around the throne of God and the Lamb--oh! what a world of intellectual bliss and glory awaits us! What an ocean of research--the character and government of God! what a body of divinity--the person and work of Christ! what an gallery of mystery and wonder--the operation and grace of the Spirit! what themes of thought and subjects of study--the revelations and teachings of the Bible! "Now we see through a glass darkly, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then shall I know even as also I am known."

There will be no night of error in heaven. The perversion of divine truth is among the saddest results of the Fall. To twist truth into error, and to clothe error with the garb of truth, has ever been one of Satan's master and most successful efforts. The dreary but momentous inquiry of Pilate still trembles upon many an anxious lip, "What is truth?" The history of error is one of the saddest, as the most voluminous and instructive, the pen of man ever wrote. From the first moment of its introduction to the present hour, the conflict of truth and error, of human doctrine and divine teaching, has been as fierce and fiery as it has been incessant and prolonged.

Oh! how has the 'virgin form of Truth'--to quote the simile of Milton--been mutilated, dismembered, and scattered--a limb here, and a fragment yonder--until, to a superficial eye, she has 'no form or loveliness' that men should either recognize or desire her! With what damnable heresies, Christ-denying doctrines, and God despising practices have the inventors and 'apostles of error' sown and flooded the world!--propagating their schisms and their falsehoods often by the prison and the chain, the faggot and the sword. How has the teaching of the Bible been adulterated, the simplicity of Christ distorted, the Gospel of God caricatured by the ungodly and deceitful, who have erred from the faith, not knowing the Scriptures; substituting for divine doctrines human tradition; the teaching of men for the revelation of God--plunging countless immortal souls into endless perdition and despair!

In this connection let us remark that, all theological error, all false doctrine, and will-worship, have had their rise and origin in the ignoring of CHRIST as THE TRUTH. Here is the beginning of all doctrinal error. The moment a church or an individual moves off from CHRIST as the great central truth of the Bible, the anchor is slipped, the cable is broken; and the bark, loosed from its moorings and drifting towards the lee-shore of soul-destroying error, is wrecked and engulfed amid its rocks and surf. Hold firmly to CHRIST, my reader, if you would you stand fast in the faith, and be courageous in your combat with false doctrine like men. Do not depart from Him, your Center. Fasten the anchor of your faith firm upon the doctrine of His Deity, Atonement, and Mediatorship. Draw all truth from Christ, test all teaching by Christ, examine every spirit in the light of Christ; take no lower standard, submit to no inferior test, listen to no stranger voice, enter by no other door than--CHRIST.

All that is saving, satisfying, and comforting in this life--all that is bright, pure, and hopeful in the life that is to come, centers in, and flows from, the Lord Jesus Christ, "who of God is made unto us wisdom and righteousness, sanctification and redemption." Christ is essentially and emphatically "the Truth;" and to know Him is to compass all truth. Christ is essentially and emphatically "the Life;" and to possess Him is to have life eternal. "This is life eternal, that they might know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent."

If the 'apostles of error' have seduced you--if false doctrine has ensnared you--if papistical delusion or infidel sophistry has drawn you from 'the truth as it is in Jesus,'--if, searching sincerely and earnestly, but fruitlessly and despairingly, for the divine and precious jewel, you roam from mine to mine, anxiously inquiring, "What, and where, is truth?"--our exhortation to you is--Believe! simply and only believe, in the Lord Jesus Christ, and your inquiry will be met, your question answered; and, casting away your doubts, you shall exclaim, with a yet deeper significance and profounder emphasis than the Grecian philosopher, "I have found it! I have found it!"

But there will be no night of error in heaven. Blessed negative! All will be truth, and all will be true there! False doctrine will not assail the divine citadel of our religion; deceitful men will not sap the foundation of our faith; doubt and distrust will not shade the brightness of our hope. The decoy-lights of error will then be extinguished; the blinding mists of ignorance dispelled; the misconceptions of the superficial, and the prejudices of the bigot, will all be entirely and forever banished. The "BEAST, and those who had received his mark and worshiped his image," the "FALSE PROPHET and those who had been deceived by his miracles," will then be "cast alive into a lake of fire and brimstone"--for there will be no night of error in heaven.

There will be NO PROVIDENTIAL NIGHT in heaven. How dark, long, and weary is often this night with us here! In the present life our path is at times draped with gloomy, painful, and inexplicable clouds.

"God moves in a mysterious way
His wonders to perform."

So strange in shape, somber in hue, and crushing in effect, are often the events and circumstances of our personal history, we are stunned and appalled, paralyzed and awed at the 'thick darkness' in which our God moves, at the overshadowing cloud which He makes His chariot--wondering where the scene will end. What prophet will explain to us the handwriting upon the wall? Who will interpret the symbols of an event that has suddenly plunged us in a world of mystery?

God is speaking to us from the 'secret place of thunder'--His voice issues from out the cloudy pillar. He has nipped the bursting bud, plucked the lovely flower, broken the graceful sapling, uprooted the strong oak, sowing life's landscape with the snowflakes of winter, congealing all its flowing springs, and tincturing all its sweet rivers with the bitterness of Marah. Like Moses, we are awed into silence by these dreadful emblems of His majesty and power, and wrapping our faces in our mantle, bow our heads in reverence to the ground.

But the absence of night in heaven bids us look beyond the present scene of suffering and sorrow to that glorious world where shall be no drapery of dark and mysterious providences. In that light, pure and transparent as the atmosphere which encircles the throne of God, we shall read all the lessons of His love, interpret all the symbols of His providence, understand all the mysteries of His dealings.

Our education then complete--the last task done, the last lesson learned, the last discipline experienced--we shall emerge from the gloom of this night of providential dispensation into that world of glory upon whose noontide splendor no shadow shall ever fall, and upon whose landscape the sun shall never set. How wise will then appear all the way our covenant God led us, through the wilderness, across the desert, home to Himself! We shall then see that every dispensation was right, every stroke needed, every step an advance in our heavenly ascent, and that every cloud that veiled God's love was one of its truest and holiest expressions. And until this night of mystery passes, ushering in the perfect day whose sunny sky no providential clouds will ever darken, let us resolve all our Heavenly Father's dealings into infinite wisdom, rectitude, and goodness, fully assured that, "as for God, His work is perfect."

"We cannot see the twinings
In God's long cord of love;
We cannot trace the windings
By matchless wisdom wove.

"Even as a thread, when raveled,
Still holds the hidden end,
So love's mysterious windings
Around our footsteps blend.

"That cord can ne'er be broken,
'Tis held by God alone;
The Lord's seal is the token--
He knows, He keeps His own.

"And when the Father chastens,
His children's faith to prove,
The cord is held by Jesus--
The unseen end is--LOVE!

"Love, deep, divine, unsearchable,
Love is the binding cord;
And hid beneath the chastening
Twines round the saints of God."

There will be NO NIGHT OF PERIL. Of the New Jerusalem it is said, "And the gates of it shall not be shut at all by day, for there shall be no night there"--clearly implying the freedom of the favored citizens of that glorious city from the invasion of every foe. O you who are the subjects of cruel enmity and persecution, against whom lying tongues are leveled, and malicious shafts are flung; whose labors are misinterpreted, whose achievements are unrecorded, whose motives are misunderstood, and whose names are cast out as evil for Christ's sake! rejoice that through these jasper gates no foe of the saints shall ever pass, no barbed arrow of malignity shall ever fly, no peril to soul or body shall ever enter. "There the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest."

The moment you cross its threshold you breathe an atmosphere untainted by a breath of calumny, undisturbed by a sound of harshness, undimmed by a cloud of envy, jealousy, or revenge. Wide as is heaven's door--never shut at all by day--no persecutor, no reviler, no slanderer, no evil-speaker, no envenomed tongue, no avowed enemy, no anonymous assassin, no wily thief, no bloodthirsty murderer, shall enter.

Night has its terrors as its attractions, its alarms as its soothings, its disturbings as its repose, its sighs as its songs, its restless tossings, its troubled dreams, its fancied apparitions, its feverish pillow--even as it has its ambrosial dews, its pensive thoughts, its heavenly musings, its praises and its prayers. But in heaven "you shall not be afraid of the terror by night;" for the gates of the holy city shall be open all the day, "into which no foe shall ever enter, and from whence no friend shall ever depart."

There will be NO NIGHT OF SPIRITUAL DESERTION, DARKNESS, AND DESPONDENCY. All this is inseparable from our present condition, and forms a necessary part of the soul's education for heaven. If it was essential that the Divine Sun should pass through the terrible eclipse of the cross--and O my soul! what a night of nights was that! when Jesus cried from the depths of His soul's darkness and woe, "My God, my God, why have You forsaken Me?"

Much more essential is it to our holiness, obedience to the divine will, and fitness for heaven, that we should at times walk in darkness having no light, travel many dreary stages without the sensible presence of Christ, exclaiming, "The Lord has forsaken me! My God has forgotten me! Has He in anger shut up His tender mercies, and will He be favorable no more?" Not a star to guide, nor a ray to cheer the soul's perplexity and gloom! Beloved! Is this your present experience? Are there no sweet visits from Jesus, no fatherly manifestations of God, no light beaming from the Sun of your soul to cheer you on your way? Behold the path trodden by the flock, nor less by the Shepherd of the flock, leaving us an example that we should follow His steps.

The sun's eclipse is not its withdrawal, but the veiling only of its light. The spiritual gloom and mental depression now shrouding you is not the darkness of hell, nor the despondency of despair; it is the Lord's wise and gracious dealings, designed but to lead you into the experience of truth, to teach you lessons, and confer upon you blessings, known and learned only in the night season of soul-exercise. But all this is done away in heaven. Not a passing shadow crosses the sunshine of the spirit. With the corruptions of the body, will be entombed the infirmities of the soul. With every quiver and pang of the body laid at rest, will be every mental doubt and fear. Disencumbered of the vehicle which clogged its progress, repressed its aspirations, and shaded its hope, the soul will expand and expatiate in a world of ever-growing wonder, and ever-widening range, freed from every element that contributed to its night of gloom and woe.

Oh! the bliss of the glorified saints!--no longer tormented with doubts and fears, no more questioning their interest in Christ, their adoption by God, their hope of glory! The agonizing question, "Am I a Christian?" is now answered by the perfect realization of the fact. "Am I a child of God?" is now met by the beatific vision of His face. The distressing fear, "Have I union with the Savior?" is now lulled to rest upon His glorified bosom; and the trembling uncertainty of ever reaching heaven at last is lost in the blissful consciousness of being actually, safely and forever there!

No longer anxiously inquiring, "Have you seen Him whom my soul loves?" You will gaze upon His transcendent countenance outshining ten thousand suns, hear His loving voice sweeter than ten thousand harps, and bask in the rays of His presence as they sweep in circling glory around the throne before which you stand 'without a fault.' "In Your presence is fullness of joy, and at Your right hand there are pleasures for evermore." No more soul-despondency--mental cloud-veil--or heart-sorrow--for the night of gloom and disquietude will forever have passed. Oh! to think that I shall never lose the sensible presence of God--never lose sight of Jesus, my soul's Beloved--never grieve the Holy Spirit by whom I am comforted and sealed--and never more wander from the bosom which so often soothed me in grief, sheltered me in danger, and upon which I shall now forever recline!

The negative of night in heaven assures us of THE ABSENCE OF ALL THE LONELINESS AND SOLITUDE OF THE WILDERNESS which conducts us there. The Christian pilgrimage is in some of its stages, isolated and lonely. Created for communion, fitted for companionship, yearning and sighing for love, sympathy, and fellowship, the Christian is often as Joseph separated from his brethren–he travels a lonely path, and is like a pelican in the wilderness, a sparrow alone upon the house-top. This may be the way God is leading you, my reader. It is often with you a night of weeping because it is a night of loneliness. You eat your morsel alone. You sit and meditate and suffer in solitude, often longing for Christian society, sighing for the communion of saints, yearning for affection, sympathy, and fellowship; but it is your heavenly Father's appointment, and it must be right--it must be in love. This is the school, and this the discipline, of your training for the full, the perfect, the eternal fellowship of heaven. "They wandered in the wilderness in a SOLITARY way." But it was the right way to Canaan!

Such was a part of the suffering by which Christ, though a Son, learned the lesson of obedience--the school of solitude. Separated from His brethren, denied by one disciple, betrayed by another, forsaken by all--oh! how isolated and lonely was the path He trod, the life He lived. But was He all alone? Oh, no! Listen to His words: "And yet I am not alone, for my Father is with me." Does not your heart, lonely one, echo these words? You are not all alone. Lover and friend God has put far from you, and your acquaintance has gone into darkness; He has written you a widow--made you an orphan--removed the being whose life seemed essential to your own--and, like a green tree whose foliage the wintry blasts have scattered, and in whose leafless branches the birds sit and sorrowfully sing, your heart is smitten, and sad and lonely.

Oh! you will never know until you reach heaven how necessary this peculiar path was to your fitness for its fellowship. It was just the school your soul required--just the discipline your heart needed. But in heaven your dark, lonely night of weeping will give place to a bright and eternal morning of fellowship and joy. There we shall meet again all those who crossed the river a little while before us, then lining the shore to greet and welcome our arrival home.

In heaven there is no solitude or loneliness, no chilled affection or fickle friendships--no misunderstandings, woundings, or separations. This long, dreary, troubled night is passed, and the sun of the soul's affection and fellowship never sets. Wedded hearts are united by a bond which sin cannot taint, which infirmity cannot peril, and which neither poverty, adversity, nor death can impair or dissolve. Each glorified spirit, while retaining its personal identity, its loves and memories, will yet be so perfectly blended with the whole, and all so swallowed up in God, as to constitute one vast and endless unity, "distinct as the billows--one as the sea." Oh! let the thought soothe your loneliness, and the hope alleviate your solitude, that before long this dreary night will be one perfect sunlight and eternal day of fellowship and love!

In the LITERAL AND ETERNAL ABSENCE OF NIGHT in heaven, how magnificent the contrast! "There shall be no night there; and they need no candle, neither light of the sun, for the Lord God gives them light." As stars fade and disappear in the increasing beams of the rising sun, so the dim and partial light that irradiated and cheered our path on earth will all be lost in the glory of God which then will fill and illumine the heavenly temple. Oh! what must be the purity of that world, and the splendor of that day, of which God is the light and Christ the Sun thereof! There will then be no need of the faint 'sun' of human ministries, and of the dim 'candle' of church ordinances; for we shall be admitted to the beatific vision of the immediate manifestation of Deity, in the overwhelming effulgence of which all other lights expire. "They need no candle."

What do you think, child of AFFLICTION! of that world in which there shall be no night of sorrow? What do you think, child of LONELINESS! of that home in which there will be no night of solitude? What do you think, child of pining SICKNESS! of that place in which there will be no night of sleepless suffering? What do you think, MOURNING ONE! of that night in which there will be no night of weeping? Cheer up! The night is far spent--the day--the perfect, endless day of glory--is at hand, when "no longer will you need the sun or moon to give you light, for the Lord your God will be your everlasting light, and he will be your glory. The sun will never set; the moon will not go down. For the Lord will be your everlasting light. Your days of mourning will come to an end. All your people will be righteous. They will possess their land forever, for I will plant them there with my own hands in order to bring myself glory. I, the Lord, will bring it all to pass at the right time." Isaiah 60:19-22

Until that day in which we shall emerge from our present night of sin, ignorance, and sorrow, into a nightless world of glory, let us not forget that, long and dark though our present night season may be, we are, as believers in Jesus, not children of the night, but of the day. Putting off the works of darkness, let us put on the armor of light, and walk as children of light, illumining this dark, benighted world with the light and luster of true holiness.

It is not all night with the believer in this world. By God's light he walks through darkness; and standing where stood the apocalyptic angel in the sun, and thus drawing his light from Christ, he will "let his light so shine before men, that they may behold his good works, and glorify his Father who is in heaven." Let your light, beloved, be not a borrowed, but a solar light; take your religion, your creed, your profession, not indirectly from others, but directly and only from Christ. "Now are you light in the Lord, walk as children of the light." Following Christ, your Light, your feet shall not stumble, however dark and dreary your night of difficulty, need, and sorrow may be. "Walk in the light, as He is in the light," then shall your path be as "the shining light, shining more and more unto the perfect day."

"Walk in the light! and you shall know
That fellowship of love
His Spirit only can bestow
Who reigns in light above.

"Walk in the light! and sin, abhorred,
Shall never defile again;
The blood of Jesus Christ, our Lord,
Shall cleanse from every stain.

"Walk in the light! and you shall find
Your heart made truly His
Who dwells in cloudless light enshrined,
In whom no darkness is.

"Walk in the light! and you shall own
The darkness passed away,
Because that light is on you shone
In which is perfect day.

"Walk in the light! and you shall see
A path, though thorny, bright;
For God by grace shall dwell in thee,
And God Himself is Light"

NO MORE SEA

"And there shall be no more sea."--Rev. 21:1

The entire absence of sea as a distinctive feature of the New Jerusalem, would, equally with the absence of night, scarcely present an object of beauty and attraction to those who have been used to regard the grand old ocean, with its dark blue waves, its mountain billows, its creamy surf, and its coral reefs, as one of the most picturesque and sublime features of nature. And yet there can be no difficulty in assigning to this negative attraction of heaven its proper place and significance in the future home of the saints. It is clearly a marked and expressive feature of the new earth and the new heaven which will form the blessed and eternal abode of the holy city--the New Jerusalem--coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.

The sea covers three-fourths of the surface of the globe, and consequently, while contributing essentially and beneficently to the purposes of commerce, the beauty of the earth, and the health of the races, must yet to a great extent absorb a vast portion of the earth which otherwise might be devoted to the purposes of agriculture--thus furnishing food and sustenance for man. But the absence of the sea in that material world which will constitute the blessed and eternal abode of the glorified saints must have its special and profound significance. To its consideration let us address ourselves, regarding this magnificent and suggestive phenomenon of nature both in its emblematic and spiritual teaching.

What an evidence of the existence and creative power of God is the SEA! To Him its creation is ascribed. "And the gathering together of the waters called He SEAS." (Gen. 1:10) "The SEA is His! and He made it." (Ps. 95:5) Making it, He bounded it by a perpetual decree which it cannot pass. "He has compassed the waters with bounds;" (Job 26:10) "And said, Hitherto shall you come, but no further; and here shall your proud waves be stayed." (Job. 38:11) Thus let the atheist consider and learn that there is a GOD, who created the heavens, the earth, and the sea; and humbly and devoutly acknowledge "His eternal power and Godhead," blushing that he should for a moment have gazed upon this sublime phenomenon of nature, and then have lifted his atheistical brow to heaven, exclaiming in his heart, "There is no God!"

But to the believing and devout mind, recognizing, considering, and glorifying God in all His works, with what conviction and comfort does this emblem of the sea bring to his mind the great foundation-truth of all revealed religion--the being of God! And, as he studies its varied moods and phases, its endless forms of grandeur and beauty--now roused into billows by the giant storm, and now pencilled with dimples by the gentle zephyr--now an ocean of liquid diamonds sparkling in myriad sunbeams, and now a 'sea of glass,' upon which the victors might be supposed to stand having the harps of God--with what filial and devout emotion he exclaims, "My Father made it all!"

"The God that rules on high,
And thunders when He please,
That rides upon the stormy sky,
And manages the seas;
This dreadful God is ours--
Our Father and our Love:
He shall send down the heavenly powers
To carry us above."

What an emblem of the DIVINE ATTRIBUTES OF ETERNITY, MAJESTY, AND POWER is the sea! God's eternity who can grasp? His self-existence who can understand? His infinity who can measure? His thoughts who can count? His perfection who can fathom? Of all this greatness the sea is an expressive emblem. "He has measured the waters in the hollow of His hand, and meted out the heavens with a span, and comprehended the dust of the earth in a measure, and weighed the mountains in scales, and the hills in a balance. Behold the nations are as a drop of a bucket, and are counted as the small dust of the balance. Behold He takes up the islands as a very little thing." (Isa. 40:12, 15) Thus illustrating the divine attributes, to the devout Christian the grand old ocean presents an instructive and soothing emblem. You repair to it when all God's waves and billows are going over you, and are ready to sink in deep waters. His dealings are trying, His dispensations are dark, and His judgments are a great deep. And as you gaze upon the vast expanse of ocean spreading out before you, you exclaim, "He who made this great wide sea can send from above and take me and deliver me out of many waters. I will trust and not be afraid, even though troubles and trials come in upon me like a flood, and I sink where there is no standing. He who binds and controls the waves can bring me up again from the depths, hushing the tempest and stilling the billows of my soul into peace, even His own peace, which passes all understanding."

Man of God, tried and troubled! child of sorrow, daughter of grief, around whom the dark waves are surging--go and stand upon the sands that belt this grand old ocean, and learn that He who made it, who binds and controls it, can, from His infinite resources of power and goodness, supply all your need, bring you out of all trouble, and through the deep, dark waters lead you to the Rock that is higher than yourself. "The VOICE of the Lord is upon the waters,"--His voice of authority commanding them--His voice of power staying them--His voice of love calming them. "The Lord sits upon the flood." Enthroned in majesty and sovereignty, His scepter rules it, His word controls it, His love stills it. "The floods have lifted up, O Lord, the floods have lifted up their voice; the floods lift up their waves. The Lord on high is mightier than the noise of many waters, yes, than the mighty waves of the sea." Have faith in this great God, child of affliction and trouble, upon whom the water floods are falling; for He has promised, "When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overflow you." And that exceeding great and precious promise He will make good; for "He is faithful who promised." He may see fit, in order to display His own faithfulness and love, and to make you a partaker of His holiness, that you should pass through fire and water; but He will bring you into a wealthy place. (Ps. 61:12)

As an emblem of GOD'S LOVE, how expressive is the sea! "God is Love." Words of mighty import, the truth of which distances all thought, defies all imagery, exhausts all language! But what we cannot fully understand we yet may in some degree experience. God's love is, like His eternity, everlasting; like His nature, infinite; like His essence, divine; like His power, omnipotent; like His immortality, unchangeable. "God is love," and every divine perfection is a modification and embodiment of love. His love is wisdom planning; power redeeming; holiness obeying; mercy suffering, bleeding, dying to save sinners. Thus every attribute of His nature is but another and new form and expression of the love, the great love, with which He has loved us. All that that love has done--from the gift of its costliest, most precious treasure, to its last and latest expression as the spirit it ransomed and saved, wings its flight to heaven--is worthy of its greatness and its grandeur.

As every perfection of God is an embodiment of His love, so every part of His salvation is a reflection of His love: it is electing love, and so reflects His eternal purpose; it is discriminating love, and so reflects His sovereignty; it is saving love, and so reflects His mercy; it is free love, and so reflects His grace; it is unchangeable love, and so reflects His immutability.

True love, as a mere human passion, is never at a loss for modes and seasons of expression. It inspires every purpose, moulds every thought, prompts every action, pencils with beauty and bathes with perfume its every and lowliest offering, and never falters or wearies in sacrifice and service. But oh! what imagination can conceive, or thought can reach, or language describe, the Love of God to man?--the love of God, beloved, to you! Think how it chose you to salvation, laid all your sins upon Jesus--adopted--pardoned, justified, freely, fully--and forever SAVED you. Well may we exclaim, "Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us, and gave His Son to be a propitiation for our sins."

You grand and beautiful old ocean! upon whose brow time has impressed no wrinkles--flowing on in your majesty and power, in your soundless depths and boundless reach--washing with your waves every shore--whitened with every sail, and bearing upon your bosom earth's costliest treasures! you are to me the image and the emblem of the ocean of DIVINE LOVE--the Triune love of God the Father, of God the Son, and of God the Holy Spirit--full, limitless, free--restoring a heaven forfeited, and extinguishing a hell deserved. And, as I tread your pearly shore, muse upon your vast expanse, and listen to your sweet music murmuring at my feet, you shall raise my thoughts to Him who made you, fixed your bounds, pencilled your dimples, fanned your wavelets, controls your rage, and bids you do His pleasure.

Beloved! the Lord the Spirit direct your heart--your contrite heart, your sad heart, your lonely heart, your sinful heart--into the fathomless, boundless ocean of divine love, exclaiming, as you descend, "Oh! the breadth and length, the depth and height of my Savior's love! it passes knowledge, and yet it fills my soul with all the fullness of God."

There is yet one more view of God's love in Christ Jesus which the sea beautifully images--its perfect freeness. Who thinks of paying for the sea? Who dares fetter it, restricting and burdening it with a price? Such is God's love to us--it is a most free love. "I will love them FREELY." It is the full, free, spontaneous outflow of His grace to sinners, the unworthy, the needy, the poor. Away then with every thought of meriting, purchasing, working for God's pardoning love in Christ Jesus. The ocean's waves are not more unfettered, the mountain spring not more spontaneous, the winged winds not more free, than God's love to sinners, flowing through the cross of His dear Son. All the worth of angels and of saints could not deserve--and all the wealth of the universe could not purchase, one drop of this infinite ocean of God's love to man. The great gospel truth is--"By GRACE are you saved, through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God."

Come, then, to this vast sea of love, without money and without price; linger not upon its shore, waiting for some meritorious work, some good thing in yourself, some worthy preparation and fitness before you plunge into its fullness, and drown your sins and guilt, your sorrows and needs, your doubts and fears, in its free and fathomless depths. God enjoins no worthiness, Christ looks for no fitness, the gospel imposes no terms, love asks no price, in those who approach as humble, penitent, believing sinners, casting themselves upon the Savior, and accepting as the free gift of His grace God's pardoning love in Christ Jesus.

One thought more. Deal with God's love to you, and not with your love to God--with the fathomless depths of His love, and not with the empty shallows of yours. We shall never find Christian evidence, or derive spiritual comfort, or extract divine strength, from looking in upon ourselves--sitting and deploring the coldness of our affection to God, raking among the dead embers of our hearts for some faint spark of love to give us assurance and comfort, our sad lamentation still will be, "My leanness! my leanness." Oh! there is nothing but sin and darkness and death in our fleshly hearts. The Fall has robbed us of every particle of holiness; not a pulse of spiritual life beats there; not a spark of divine love glows there; not an atom of heavenly purity exists there. Why, then, seek streams from this dry well? Why expect purity from this foul source? Why search for flowers of grace and fruits of holiness in this sterile soil and uncultivated wilderness? In a word, why seek the living among the dead?

A greater saint than, perhaps, he who reads this page has declared, "I know that in me, that is, in my flesh, dwells no good thing." Turning aside, then, from all this corruption, darkness, and death, plunge just as you are into the infinite sea of God's love, and sink every sin and sorrow, doubt and fear, in its fathomless depths--depths of love "which the lamb may ford, and in which the elephant may swim."

Not less is the sea an emblem of THE GREAT ATONEMENT OF THE SON OF GOD. It is clearly to this truth, thus symbolized, that the prophet refers in those marvelous words, "You will cast all their sins into the depths of the sea." (Micah 7:19) The ATONING BLOOD of Christ is the sea into the depths of which all the sins of the Church are cast, which, if sought for, are never more to be found. "The blood of Christ!"--how often are these wonderful words upon our lips! yet how low our thoughts of its nature! how shallow our soundings of its depth! how cold our realizations of its preciousness! and how imperfect our experience of its power! To what shall we trace this essential defect in our personal religion? To one cause– that is, imperfect views of the exceeding sinfulness of sin. Low views of sin will ever engender low views of sin's great Atonement. Superficial apprehensions of the disease will beget superficial appreciation of the remedy. Oh! what must sin be, the removal of which required the blood-shedding of Incarnate Deity!

But how superficial and defective are the views of sin even of many of God's people! What willful blindness to its guilt, and vain excuses for its commission! What torpor of conscience, languid resistance, little confession, and infrequent laving of the feet in Christ's blood! What perversity of judgment and laxity of practice concerning particular things--the sanctity of the Sabbath--conformity to the world--light literature--doctrinal error--volatility of conversation--disregard of purity and truth! These are stains upon their professional garments, "spots upon their feasts of charity,"--clouds which dim the luster--and inconsistencies which weaken the power of their public testimony for Christ and His gospel, and are unworthy of them as becomes saints.

But these infirmities and defects touch not the great truth or efficacy of Christ's Atonement. Into that crimson sea God has cast all the sins of those who believe. Alas! how faintly do His people realize this truth; and, consequently, how little do they know of the peace and joy of a present salvation! "Behold, NOW are we the sons of God." "Your sins ARE forgiven you." "By grace you ARE saved." "Having FORGIVEN you all trespasses." "I write unto you, little children, because your sins ARE FORGIVEN." If, then, God has cast all your sins into the infinite depths of Christ's blood, why attempt to recall them? If God does not seek them, and if law and justice and judgment cannot find them, why should you be ever angling with the rod of unbelief, as if to bring them up again to the surface?

Oh! it is not so much dealing with your sins that will fill you with sin-loathing, penitence, and humility, as your dealing with the sin-atoning guilt-cleansing BLOOD that has put them all out of sight--its crimson waves closing over and entombing them forever! The great secret of peace and assurance is a heart sprinkled from an evil conscience with atoning blood, and thus purged from dead works, serving the living God. It is not dealing with a wound that promotes its healing, but with the balm. It is not poring over the wounded conscience, probing its depth, and lamenting its symptoms, that will cure and heal it; but, it is applying in faith the only true and infallible remedy prescribed in God's pharmacy--the sin-atoning Blood of Christ.

Only believe the grand truth that Jesus died for sinners--that He pardons the guiltiest--receives the vilest--saves the worst--welcomes the poorest; rejecting none who apply to Him for healing but those who bring a price in their hand with which to purchase it, and you shall be saved--yes, you are saved. Well may the apostle designate it "the PRECIOUS blood of Christ"--essentially, efficaciously precious--one drop of which is of more worth than the wealth of the universe. Oh! what will riches, or rank, or honors, or learning avail in a dying hour? One drop of Christ's blood applied by the Spirit, and received in faith at that solemn moment will be more precious and welcome than life's dearest treasures, or earth's richest diadem. Sin-laden, guilt-oppressed soul! plunge by faith into this atoning sea, and yours will be the "blessedness of the man whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered, and unto whom the Lord imputes not iniquity."

But, dropping this symbolical view of our subject, let us examine more closely the spiritual import of this NEGATIVE ATTRACTION of the New Jerusalem--"And there shall be no more SEA."

The first thought which the words naturally suggest is the absence in the new earth of all barriers to international communion and friendship; in other words, the perfect unity of the races. Such a union the sea now prevents. It is true the power of steam rapidly transports our people over its surface, and the power of electricity yet more rapidly flashes our thoughts along its bed; yet, with all these wonderful means of communion and facilities of friendship, the seas still interpose a wide and separating barrier. The advancement of "unity, peace, and concord among all nations,"--for ages the prayer of the Church, and the labor of the Christian--has presented but a faint and feeble illustration of the revealed truth, "He has made of ONE BLOOD all nations of men to dwell on the face of the earth."

Despite the spread of Christianity and the march of civilization, the triumph of commerce, the discoveries of science, and the efforts of philanthropy, men are still learning the art of war, and the nations are still delighting in its carnage. It is quite clear, then, that we are to look for a new era in the world's history, when this barrier to the communion of nations shall be removed, welding and molding into one great family of love and Christian brotherhood all peoples that dwell on the face of the earth.

That era will be inaugurated by the 'Coming of the Lord;' and then shall the "people beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning-hooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more." Oh! what a paradise will the new earth be when the languages and habits, the feuds and the hates, the jealousies and wars, which for so many centuries have separated nation from nation, turning the world into a very Aceldama, will no longer exist; for there shall be no sea to float the murderous pirate, the marauding privateer, or the invading armada. And its absence will be that unity, peace, and communion among nations for which Christians prayed and philanthropists labored; which prophets predicted, and of which poets mused; but which in its glory and blessedness will infinitely transcend all thought, imagination, and song. O happy land! when the nations of the earth will be ONE--one heart, one language, one King, around whose throne all will cluster, and at whose feet all will lay the tribute of their homage and their love!

Not the unity of nations only, will the absence of the sea promote; but what will prove far lovelier, holier, and spiritual--the unity of the Church of God. Independent of many causes which, in the present imperfect state of the Christian Church, prevent its union, and unhappily and widely divide it, the geography of the world--of which the sea constitutes so large an element--limits, if it does not render almost impossible, the inter-communion of the saints of the Most High scattered abroad.

But when we are reminded that in the New Jerusalem there will be "no more sea," a vision of the Church in her essential and perfect unity rises before the mind in all its peerless splendor. A perfect Church--unbroken in her unity--filled with the Spirit--fair as the moon, clear as the sun, and tremendous as a bannered army--will then descend out of heaven upon the new earth, in which will dwell righteousness. O blessed Savior! King immortal! hasten Your appearing, that with You may come Your ONE Church--her divine symmetry no more marred by theological creeds--her essential unity no more broken by human divisions--her spiritual beauty no more veiled by unlovely ritual--her moral strength no more impaired by unseemly strifes--her communion and communion no more interrupted by national distinctions, ecclesiastical separations, and geographical bounds--for "there shall be no more sea."

Then, and not until then, will the VISIBLE UNITY of the Church, of which prophets foretold and bards have sung; for which martyrs bled, saints labored, and the Savior died, be complete, and the glorious prayer of our great High Priest be fully answered--"That they all may be ONE; as You, Father, are in ME, and I in You, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that You have sent Me."

"One song employs all nations, and all cry,
'Worthy the Lamb! for He was slain for us.'
The dwellers in the valleys, and on the rocks
Shout to each other; and the mountain-tops
From distant mountains catch the flying joy;
Until, nation after nation taught the strain,
Earth rolls the rapturous hosanna round."

An idea related to the preceding one, and suggested by this negative attraction of heaven, is that, there will be NO INTERRUPTION OF PERSONAL COMMUNION with those we love in the New Jerusalem. The idea which the existence of the sea suggests is just the opposite of this. It is a separating element--it divides relatives and friends; tears asunder kindred minds and loving hearts--its dark and stormy billows separating for months, for years, perhaps forever! But oh! how sweet the thought of the certain reunion, the perfect recognition, the inseparable love, the changeless friendship, the personal communion of that holy and blissful world in which there shall be no more sea! How the thought softens our present grief, alleviates our present separation, makes the sweetness of life more sweet, and the bitterness of death less bitter!

The personal coming of the Lord, with all His saints, will be the gathering together unto Him, and to each other, of all that are scattered abroad. Who can conceive the blessedness, or paint the glory of that scene--that countless throng, that resplendent gathering, that holy, joyous meeting, greeting, and fellowship? The very prospect is enough to reconcile us to all the separations of earth--to the thought of a thousand seas rolling between us and the being we love. We shall soon and forever dwell where there is no more sea--and, therefore, no more separation! Once we have crossed the narrow isthmus that separates time from eternity, and have passed the little stream that divides earth from heaven, we sweep beyond all the sundering, separating limits of this world, and are identified with the Church of the First-born, "whose names are written in heaven."

Oh! the welcomes--the greetings--the songs that await us on that shore! The dead in Christ are safely housed with Him; and with Him are 'expecting' the advent of that glorious day when, at the bidding of Christ, the ransomed spirit will return to earth, re-tenant the body now rebuilt and refashioned like unto His glorious body--fair, beautiful, and vigorous--blooming with immortal youth--the fit abode of the pure, enraptured spirit which will then reanimate and re-enter it, every limb and organ, muscle and nerve, fitted to sustain, without weariness or decay, an 'eternal weight of glory.'

There will be no more SOUL-DISTRESS in the new earth--strikingly symbolized by the fact that there will be no more sea. How often is the believer brought into David's experience, and the yet deeper experience of David's Lord--"Save me, O God; for the waters are come unto my soul. I sink in deep mire, where there is no standing; I have come into deep waters, where the floods overflow me." (Ps. 69:1, 2) Soul-distress springing from a fallen nature--the power of sin--a corrupt and deceitful heart--fears within and conflicts without--the workings of unbelief, and the suggestions of the Evil One--the corrodings of guilt--the grieving the Spirit--the hidings of God--oh! these are waves and billows that enter into the believing soul.

While the tempest breaks below the vessel, she rides gallantly and securely on the mountain billow, laughs at the storm, defies the waves, and "walks the water like a thing of life." But, let a plank loosen, let the waves rush in and the vessel begin to sink, and then the brave mariners stagger like drunken men, and are at their wits' end. So is it with the believer. While the storms of outward adversity sweep over him he can trust and not be afraid; but, when the waters of spiritual conflict, fears, and unbelief come in unto His soul, then it is he cries, "Lord, save! I perish!" But all this will entirely and forever have vanished in the New Jerusalem abode of the saints, for there shall be no more sea of spiritual distress. The unbelieving doubt will be dislodged by unshaken confidence--the tormenting fear will give place to perfect repose--the shading cloud will dissolve into noontide splendor--the sweeping tempest will slumber into perfect repose, and the surging billows will subside into a peaceful and eternal calm.

"And not a wave of trouble roll
Across the tranquil breast."

But let not this calm, which will distinguish the blessedness of the saints in glory, be misunderstood. The absence of the sea in the future home of the blessed indicates the absence of a religious phase common alike to all God's people. We refer to those SEASONS OF SPIRITUAL DEADNESS AND TORPOR, of relapse and decay of religion in the soul, the sad and deplored experience, more or less, of the most gracious and eminent saints. The spiritual life is subject to the same changes and vicissitudes as the physical body. In nothing is the analogy stronger than in this. Who can read the remarkable experience of David, as recorded in the 119th Psalm, and not trace these variations and moods of which we speak--the diversity of feature which marks the personal religion of all the regenerate? How frequently he speaks of his "soul cleaving to the dust!" and then his prayer is, "Quicken me, O Lord, according unto Your word."

Are there no records in the diary of your daily life, my reader, corresponding with this? How frequently have you to mourn over the drooping of spiritual life, the decay of divine grace, the waning of your love, the weakness of your faith, the drowsiness and lethargy of your spirit, the faint hold which the realities and glories of eternity have upon your mind, the coldness and formality of your soul in prayer, the distance of your walk from God, and the half-heartedness with which you follow Jesus! But all this will be done away in heaven! If there will be no more the sweeping tempest of soul-distress, stirring it to its depths, there will also be no more the dead calm of soul-insensibility, lulling it to unsuspicion and danger. Oh, blessed thought! In heaven my love for God will never chill; my zeal in His service will never flag; my obedience to His word never falter; my assimilation to Christ never veiled; my soul never lulled into that carnal security, spiritual torpor, drowsiness, and death more to be dreaded than the storms and tempests, the searchings and probings that drive me in tears and confession closer to Christ. For--
"More the treacherous calm I dread
Than tempests bursting over my head."

The absence of the sea in heaven tells me that there will be no more AFFLICTION and no more TEMPTATION there. How like an overwhelming flood are sometimes God's disciplinary providences, and Satan's permitted yet curbed assaults! In reference to the one, we may quote the language of David, "Deep calls unto deep, at the noise of Your waterfalls; all Your waves and Your billows are gone over me." And in reference to the other, we may quote the words of the prophet, "When the enemy comes in like a flood, the Spirit of the Lord shall lift up a standard against him."

But we part forever with all this when we plant our feet on that shore unwashed by a wavelet of temptation and sorrow. Heaven is sorrowless because sinless--is free from temptation because free from corruption. Cheer up, O tried and tempted one! Soon shall you breast the last foaming billow, quench the last fiery dart, and exchange the troubled sea of sorrow for the crystal sea of glass, upon which you shall stand among the victors with harp all strung and tuned to the song of Moses and the Lamb.

"Courage, Christian! Though the way
Be both lone and dreary,
Jesus Christ, the Son of God,
Passed this way before thee.
See Him standing at the door
Of your home in glory;
He has made your title sure;
None can e'er defraud thee."

The sea will be closely associated with the solemn transactions of the last great day of the world's history. "And the SEA gave up the dead which were in it." The sea has its dead; its swelling bosom and its crested billows, are mounds and monuments of the myriads who have gone down into its liquid tomb. What a vast proportion of the race has the sea engulfed! As the scene of battle and the highway of commerce--as the road of the discoverer and the path of the tourist--what a sad and instructive volume is the history of the sea! When God lets loose His winds, it is here man feels his impotence. He has scaled the mountains and chained the lightning; curbing the sternest elements, he has compelled all nature to obey his behest; but the sea he cannot curb, the winds he cannot bind. Here he is passive and powerless.

How varied and how touching the victims over whom the dark blue sea rolls its waters! The gallant commander going down in the faithful discharge of his responsible and perilous trust--the last to die; the brave sailor dropping from the mast in the midnight gale; the merchant, bent on enterprise and wealth, sinking beneath the deep waters, all his busy thoughts at that very moment perishing; the invalid returning to his home, committed to the deep in sight of his native hills; the emigrant to a land of strangers in search of a new home, perishing amid the rocks and breakers of its very shores; the missionary of the cross bearing the tidings of salvation to the distant heathen, all his fond and holy thoughts of service, and plans of usefulness engulfed in the trackless deep. All these--and countless myriads more--will rise from the liquid tomb at the trumpet of the archangel for, "the SEA shall give up the dead who are in it."

And will there be no more sea in the New Jerusalem? Oh yes! one sea yet remains!--the sea of heavenly bliss--the ocean of God's love--into the fathomless depths of which the glorified saints will plunge--upon whose sparkling surface the happy spirit will sport and the joyous harpers will stand, their anthems of adoration and praise to God and the Lamb, rolling in swelling thunderings, and in circling symphonies, mightier than the voice of many waters, round earth's new creation. My soul! breast hopefully the waves, and plough manfully the billows of the stormy seas, across which you are voyaging to the heaven-land--for surely and safely Jesus will bring you to your desired haven.

"I am hastening homeward
To the land I love;
Would'st you bid me linger
From the realms above?
Soon I'll be with Jesus,
See Him face to face;
Then I'll sing the story,
Of His wondrous grace.

"In His presence standing,
I my voice shall raise,
In a sinless anthem
Of eternal praise;
Praise to Him who brought me
From darkness into light,
Put away transgression,
Clothed my soul in white.

"Here I have had sorrow,
There shall be no more--
Hushed is every WAVELET,
On yon glorious shore.
One by one they're gathering
Home from every land;
Soon I'll pass the desert--
Join their happy band.

"Why then should I murmur,
If the way be rough?
Jesus, He will guide me--
Is not that enough?
Then let clouds o'ershade me
Still I need not fear;
His strength shall sustain me,
His sweet voice shall cheer.

"Therefore I will hasten,
Homeward on my way,
Singing as I journey,
To the realms of day;
Ever shall my song be,
Through eternity,
Of His matchless glory,
And His love to me."--Geraldine Dening

NO MORE HUNGER AND THIRST

"They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more; neither shall the sun light on them, nor any heat. For the Lamb, who is in the midst of the throne, shall feed them, and shall lead them unto living fountains of waters."--Rev. 7:16, 17

There would seem to be, at the first blush of these words, an apparent contradiction of ideas and dissonance of meaning. There is the negative of hunger and thirst, and yet a positive provision supposing still their existence--the absence of desire, and yet the presence of rich and ample refreshment. Now, as God's word never contradicts itself, and as its apparent discrepancies are perfectly reconcilable--no, those very discrepancies often confirming its actual agreement, as opposite notes in music produce the sweetest harmony--we may suppose that there is an underlying truth in these words of a most interesting and instructive character, the intelligent reception of which, by the teaching of the Holy Spirit, will convey to us a vivid idea of that special attraction of heaven set forth in the negative--"They shall HUNGER no more, neither THIRST any more."

The whole passage is a splendid picture of the blessedness of those who had died in the Lord. They are first described by the vestments which they wear--"Who are these who are arrayed in WHITE ROBES?" They are a robed assembly, and their robes are white. The robe in which they are arrayed is the imputed righteousness of Christ, the "Lord our righteousness,"--"clothed upon" with "the righteousness of God which is unto all and upon all those who believe." Not a shred of their own righteousness composes that vestment, not a thread of their own unworthiness is woven with that robe. It is the righteousness of the incarnate God, wholly, entirely, and His alone. O my soul! praise and adore the Savior who has provided for you such a righteousness--a righteousness that has answered and honored every precept of God's law--in default of a single work or one particle of merit of your own, invested with which you do stand 'complete,' "accepted in the Beloved!"

How perfect must be the justification of the believing sinner!--how costly his attire!--how resplendent his glory! seeing that he stands in the "righteousness of GOD" Himself. "The righteousness of GOD, which is unto all and upon all those who believe." By no creature is this standing excelled; by none is it equaled--the sinner raised from the ash-heap of his vileness and pollution, is made to sit among the princes of heaven. The color of this robe is expressive. It is "white." White is the emblem of dignity and purity. When our Lord was transfigured on the Mount, "His face shone as the sun, and His clothing was WHITE as the light." The angel at the tomb--the first preacher of Christ's resurrection--was "clothed in clothing white as snow." The ancient kings and priests, and the Roman patricians, were robed in white, indicative of rank, purity, and rectitude. Thus are the glorified spirits arrayed. They form a part of that "glorious Church without spot or wrinkle or any such thing," which Christ will present to Himself and to the Father, in that day when "those who are wise shall shine as the brightness of the skies, and those who turn many unto righteousness as the stars forever and ever."

A similar vision of the saints in glory is presented in connection with the final nuptials of the Church, when the marriage of the Lamb will be celebrated, and she shall be presented to God "as a bride adorned for her husband." "Let us be glad and rejoice; and give honor to Him, for the marriage of the Lamb is come, and His wife has made herself ready. And to her was granted that she should be arrayed in fine linen, clean and WHITE, for the fine linen is the righteousness of saints." Have we on this wedding-garment? Divorced from our idols, and separated from our own righteousness, are we united by the Spirit, and through faith, to Christ? Have we a vital union with Christ the Head? Oh! let no uncertainty attach to this momentous matter. We are either in Christ, or out of Christ; one with Christ, or separated from Christ; for Christ, or against Christ; invested with His righteousness, or still clothed with the filthy garments of our own. The marriage-supper of the Lamb is fast speeding on! Oh! that when the King comes in to see the guests, that solemn and personal inspection may not discover us without having on the wedding-garment, which is the imputed righteousness of the King Himself! But, with Paul, may we be "found in Him, not having our own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith."

Cleansing is another distinctive feature: "And have WASHED their robes, and made them white in the BLOOD of the Lamb." They are not only justified, but they are also pardoned. A related truth with justification is pardon--essentially distinct, they are yet savingly one. Justification gives us a title to heaven; pardon, a fitness for its enjoyment--the one clothes us, the other cleanses us--by the one we pass out of the court of God's justice, freed from all condemnation; in virtue of the other we emerge from the prison of God's law, released from all debt. Justification, in its forensic sense, looks upon a believing sinner as though he had never broken the law; pardon, as though he had never incurred its guilt.

Now it was this twofold condition of the glorified saints which appeared in the vision of the Evangelist. They were washed in the blood of the Lamb--therefore they were before the throne of God. It was not their own blood that washed them--it was not their suffering of martyrdom that exalted them--they could only occupy that position as they were cleansed and robed--the blood and righteousness of the Savior constituting their one and only plea. Sin-burdened, guilt-oppressed soul! behold your present and future standing before God! No longer hesitate to plunge into the sea of Christ's blood, or to accept the offered robe of His righteousness. No merit of your own will afford you the slightest encouragement to come to Christ; and no demerit shall dare prohibit your coming. Though you were the most holy of fallen creatures that ever lived, though you were to sacrifice your first-born for your transgression, the fruit of your body for the sin of your soul, yes, give your own body to a martyr's flame, all would not avail to place you as a pardoned and justified sinner before the throne of God: you could only stand there on the footing of Christ's Atonement once finished for all time. "THEREFORE they are before the throne of God."

"Jesus! Your blood and righteousness
My beauty are, my glorious dress;
In flaming worlds, in these arrayed,
With joy shall I lift up my head."

Precious blood! glorious righteousness! you are my trust and hope now; and hereafter my plea, my boast, and my song forever and ever!

Another feature of the glorified saints is the discipline through which they came. "These are those who came out of great tribulation." Suffering was their school--trial their discipline--affliction their furnace. The path to heaven is the royal road of suffering. There the King Himself walked, learning, though a Son, obedience by the things which He suffered. Our blessed Lord foretold us of this: "In the world you shall have tribulation." And the apostles but echoed this truth when they reminded the early Christians that, "through much tribulation they were to enter the kingdom." In this crucible their principles were tested, in this furnace their grace was tried; and, like the three children of Israel, they lost nothing in the flames but the cords that bound them, emerging from the baptism of suffering with not even the smell of fire upon their garments.

Accept, then, beloved, the discipline of the Refiner as a necessary part of your heavenly training, and as assimilating you to the "noble army of martyrs" who have gone before you. And though the tongues of fire leap high, and the furnace blazes with heat, yet One like unto the Son of Man shall tread it at your side, and you shall come out of it with no trace of the fire upon your robes, except their deeper purity and richer luster.

These words may also admit of a pointed and remote allusion to the great tribulation which is to overtake God's Church during the terrible reign of the coming Antichrist. This future baptism of fire, more terrific in its nature and consuming in its effects than any that ever preceded it, will, for the elect's sake, be shortened; but from its searching flames the Church of God will emerge all the more resplendent, and her Head all the more triumphant. Every species of evil, and form of false doctrine, and mode of torture that ever existed, now embodied in this hydra-headed monster, will then be entirely and forever destroyed; and from out this fierce and fiery tribulation the saints of the Most High shall be delivered, "purified, and made white, and tried." From this rapid view of the character and heavenly position of the saints in the New Jerusalem, let us more closely consider this negative quality of their blessedness--"They shall HUNGER no more, neither THIRST any more, neither shall the sun light upon them, nor any heat."

Shall we take the lowest idea suggested by this negative of heaven--the total absence of all bodily hunger? In this lowly, but expressive sense, there shall be no more hunger or thirst. That the saints of God have often been exposed to famine--that many noble servants of Christ, and laborers in His vineyard, have perished by hunger and thirst, is a notable fact in the history of the Church of Christ. Of the Church in the wilderness it is recorded, "Hungry and thirsty, their soul fainted within them." Speaking of his deprivations for Christ, and those of his fellow-apostles, Paul could testify, "We both hunger and thirst, and are naked." And this suffering for Jesus he numbered among the highest lessons of his spiritual education--"I have learned, in whatever state I am, therewith to be content--in all things I am instructed to be HUNGRY, and to suffer NEED." Our blessed Lord will show this to have been a part of the discipline of His saints in that day when, before an assembled world, He will recognize the humble crust and the simple cup of cold water, given to a needy disciple in His name, as given to Himself. "I was HUNGRY, and you gave me food--I was THIRSTY, and you gave me drink." Who can read the early history of the Patagonian Mission, and not recall the touching fact of Gardner and his fellow-missionaries dying of starvation in their noble and self-sacrificing efforts to plant the standard of the cross on those heathen shores?

Now, keeping these facts in view, there is a peculiar charm in this impressive negative--the absence of all literal hunger and thirst in heaven. "They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more." We are here reminded that the risen bodies of the saints will not be material or corporal, but spiritual and immaterial. "It is sown a natural body, it is raised a SPIRITUAL body." What this "spiritual body" will be, we are left to conjecture. Enough that it will require no longer the material nourishment needful to sustain our present life, but will be sustained by nourishment suited to its nature and requirements--gathered, it may be, from 'the tree of life,' which, 'bearing twelve manner of fruits, and yielding her fruit every month,' is planted in the midst of the street, and on either side of the river. But this lower interpretation of the negative is not without its practical teaching. Let us not forget that many of the Lord's most holy saints--many among His hidden but brightest jewels, are, in this life, suffering, and even dying, because of bodily necessities.

Be it our holy mission to seek them out, and supply their need. "Deal your bread to the hungry," (Isa. 58:7)--recognizing Jesus in His needy saints. Thus shall we prove the reality of our faith, and the sincerity of our love. "If a brother or a sister be naked, and destitute of daily food, and one of you say unto them, Depart in peace, be warmed and filled; notwithstanding you give them not those things which are needful to the body, what does it profit?" (James 2:15, 16)

No, more. Not to the needs of the saints only are we to give of our abundance, but also to those who are not--yes, even to our enemies. "If your enemy is HUNGRY, feed him; if he THIRSTS, give him drink." Oh! how divine and heavenly is the religion of Christ! Where else, on the face of earth, will a religion be found which teaches us to love our enemies, and to do good to those that despitefully use us? But the gospel of Christ inculcates this, and the gospel is divine. Lord, impart to me its mold, and imbue me with its spirit.

Saint of God! often hard pressed for the necessaries of life, and, like the Shunamite widow, with "not anything in the house, except a cruise of oil," (2 Kings 4:2) do not think harshly of your God and Father--that thus He should deal with you. Your blessed Lord passed through this trial before you, for He ofttimes hungered and thirsted, and even had no where to lay His head. All is in love; and your present temporal need is but designed to prepare you for that blessed world, and to heighten its bliss, of which, in its literal sense, it is said, "And they shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more." Until the dawn of that blessed negative, trust the love, providence, and faithfulness of your covenant God, who has promised concerning His child, that, "bread shall be given him; his water shall be sure." (Isaiah 33:16) Recall the assuring words of Jesus, "Your Heavenly Father knows that you have need of these things."

This negative also teaches the absence of spiritual hunger and thirst in the New Jerusalem of the saints. At first sight this would seem to indicate the withdrawal of one of the most blessed conditions of our present Christianity--the spiritual appetite of the regenerate soul. Most true, indeed, is this, a blessed condition of the believer! What is it that unmistakably confirms the existence of our spiritual life, and evidences the fact of its healthy growth? Is it not the soul's appetite for food, its longing desire for its own spiritual nourishment, whereby it grows in grace and in the knowledge of God and of Christ? "Blessed are those who HUNGER and THIRST after righteousness," or, as the Greek expresses it, happy are they! Beloved! have we this evidence within us of real conversion, this attribute of healthy spiritual life--the soul's hunger and thirst after God, and righteousness, and heaven? Hence David's experience--why not ours?--"As the deer pants after the waterbrook, so pants my soul after You, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God."

Oh! to possess more of this vital religion--this spiritual life--this ascent of the living water welled within the soul, and springing up in communion with God, in fellowship with Christ, in aspirations after holiness, in longing desires for heaven--yes, springing up into eternal life. Such shall be supplied. "He satisfies the longing soul, and fills the hungry with goodness." "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled." Out of the fullness of Christ, from the granary of His word, and the streams flowing through the appointed channels of grace, the Lord will supply all its need. He has promised to "keep the souls of His saints alive in famine;" that is, when a scarcity of the bread and water of life exists--as, alas! in many places and pulpits of the land it often does--in the absence of a truly evangelical ministration of the word, and a spiritual and simple form of worship--the Lord will still feed and nourish the souls of His saints, keeping their grace and their graces alive amid the spiritual drought amid which they dwell. Oh! let us never forget what a full and present Christ we have to live upon; that, in the most destitute place, amid the most barren means--no rich pastures of the Gospel--no spiritual means of grace--no communion of the saints--isolated, lonely, and depressed--Christ is near to you, in all the plentitude of His grace, and tenderness of His love, and watchfulness of His eye, and sympathy of His nature; and your soul shall live, for He will "guide you continually, and satisfy your soul in drought, and make fat your bones; and you shall be like a watered garden, and like a spring of water whose waters fail not." (Isaiah 58:11)

But, in heaven, the soul's spiritual hunger and thirst will cease, simply because it will have passed beyond the region of necessity--all need swallowed up in supply, all destitution in plenty, all desire in complete satisfaction. "In Your presence is fullness of joy; at Your right hand there are pleasures forever more." "As for me, I will behold Your face in righteousness--I shall be satisfied when I awake, with Your likeness."

No more shall we need the holy Sabbath--hallowed and welcome as it now is--for there it will be one eternal Sabbath. No more shall we require the Supper of the Lord--needful and precious as it now--is for there we shall banquet at the marriage supper of the Lamb. No more demand a Christ-exalting ministry--much as we prize it now--for there we shall be in the blissful presence of Christ Himself, leaning upon His ineffable bosom, gazing upon His transcendent countenance, feasting upon His overflowing love, and basking in the unclouded beams of His glory.

"O happy souls! O glorious state
Of overflowing grace!
To dwell so near the Father's seat,
And see His loving face!

"Lord! I address Your heavenly throne;
Call me a child of Thine;
Send down the Spirit of Your Son,
To form my heart divine."

"Neither shall the sun light on them, nor any heat." The sun of affliction will never scorch--the fiery darts of Satan will no more be hurled--the heat of toil and labor will have passed--the fires of persecution will no longer burn--all this will entirely and eternally have passed.

"For the Lamb, who is in the midst of them, shall feed them, and shall lead them unto living fountains of waters." Christ's place in heaven will be, what it ever has been in the care of His Church and in the government of the world--central. He will, as the Lamb of God once slain, be "in the midst of the throne"--He shall occupy the central place in the universe. And still it will be His office to minister to His Church. He will feed them with the heavenly bread, and make them to drink of the new wine of the Father's kingdom--and will lead them, not to torpid and failing springs, but to "living fountains of water"--ever springing, ever ascending, ever increasing, at which the enlarged and enraptured soul will drink--drink deeply, drink incessantly, and drink forever. Heaven is a 'garden of fountains,' all its blessedness, all its fullness, all its beauty flowing then--as now it flows--from CHRIST the Lamb--occupying then--as He occupies now--the first and the last and the central place in His Church's salvation, adoration, and love--and so Christ will still be to His glorified saints through all eternity, what He was to them through all time--"ALL AND IN ALL!"

NO MORE PAIN

"Neither shall there be any more pain."--Rev. 21:4

It may, perhaps, be more difficult to define the nature of pain than to trace its origin--to analyze its subtle character than to describe its disquieting effects. Around both its nature and causes much obscurity exists not easy to dispel. But while the physiologist is in a perplexity, and the moralist in a mist, God's word steps in, and sets at rest all doubt and speculation by revealing the fact of its entire absence in that world of health and blessedness, which Christ won by His merits, and took possession of by His ascension on behalf of all His saints--the great distinctive features of which will be, the absence of all evil and the presence of all good. How many an eye, languid with suffering and dim with watching, will quicken into life and luster as it bends over this sweet, winning attraction of heaven--"Neither shall there be any more PAIN." To aid his meditations on this delightful negative of the coming glory, I invite my suffering reader to view it in the following points of light.

The absence of all PHYSICAL pain--viewing the subject literally--is the first illustration that will present itself to the mind. To how large a portion of the family of God is this 'negation of pain' unutterably significant and precious! Countless numbers know not a moment's cessation of bodily suffering. The exquisite net-work of nerve extending from the sensorium to the farthest extremity, transmits a sense of suffering to every part of the human frame. The most remote and insignificant member cannot suffer and all the members of the body, to a certain degree, not suffer with it.

To what numbers will this condition apply! How many saints of God, redeemed by the blood of Christ, temples of the Holy Spirit, for whom there awaits a glorious resurrection, and for whom is destined a spiritual body, are tossing upon beds of disease and agony, or are reclining upon couches of debility and restlessness, the nature and extent of whose tortures are known only to God and themselves! There are few afflictions of the Church of Christ which more touchingly appeal to our sympathy, or have a stronger claim upon our consideration and forbearance than this. We are but imperfectly aware, until our time comes to sicken and suffer, how much of irritability and depression, of nervous susceptibility and irritableness, which we are prompt to attribute to sinful infirmity, are to be traced to disease and suffering alone, pleading, in tones the most plaintive and tender, for our forbearance, sympathy, and soothing.

And, on the other hand, we are prone to forget the fact that, if disease and pain often distort the finest character, how much womanly fortitude and manly heroism, how much Christian patience and Christ-like submission, how much true nobleness and greatness, lie concealed beneath the veil of acute and violent suffering. In what a school is this to learn, and what a sphere in which to exercise, the "patience and gentleness of Christ!" Oh, if Christ's gentleness is ever conspicuous, and His sympathy ever displayed, methinks it is in the chamber where lies, in silent suffering, one for whom His own soul travailed in sorrow, and His own body writhed in anguish. Christ is there, never for a moment deserting that chamber. He is there, never for an instant leaving that couch. He is there, bending over that restless pillow in sleepless, unwearied love. As a Father, He is there, pitying His suffering child; as a Physician, He is there, ministering to His languid patient; as a Refiner, He is there, watching intently the purifying of His gold. "My heart and my flesh fails--but GOD is the strength of my heart and my portion forever."

But more than this. Our blessed Lord Himself personally passed through the discipline of bodily pain--the fiery path in which so many of His followers are treading. There is something unutterably sweet and soothing in this thought. If a mystery shrouds the fact of His actual and personal partaking of bodily disease--though we are told, "He bore our sicknesses"--a profound significance attaches to the fact of His actual and personal suffering of bodily pain. What! did that sacred head suffer no pain when the thorn-crown bound His brow? No pain!--when fainting and swooning He bore His rugged cross up the ascent of Calvary? No pain!--when, stretched from limb to limb upon the wood, they drove the iron through His hands and feet? No agony in the jolt!--when the cross fell into the earth prepared for its reception?

Oh, yes! physical suffering was an essential ingredient in the cup of woe, which, in meek submission to His Father's will, He drank to its lees. How thoroughly was He thus disciplined to sympathize with all His saints who scarcely know a moment's freedom from intense, indescribable pain! Sweet, consolatory thought! that, while I am unable to unveil, still less to describe, the hidden and deathly agonies through which I daily and nightly pass, I may moan it all in the ear, and sob it all upon the heart of Jesus, whose hand is upon each fluttering pulse, and His eye upon each quivering nerve. Thus was Christ personally trained in the school of physical pain to sympathize with all the suffering members of His Body, the Church.

A difference of opinion has existed among some Christians--influenced, perhaps, by a more scrupulous than intelligent conscience--how far it were expedient and lawful to employ any of those preventive and mitigatory agencies in the suffering of pain--especially that of maternity--which modern medical science has so nobly discovered and successfully applied. But we think that the objection will scarcely stand the test either of reason or of revelation. There exists not a stronger evidence of the beneficence of God than in the almost endless provision He has made for the amelioration and softening of the varied consequences and effects of man's sin. Our illustration shall be confined to the single one of suffering. It is a remarkable fact that for every poison in nature God has provided a corrective; that, side by side of every venomous plant grows its antidote. We think that the history of medical science establishes the fact. If this be incontrovertible, it follows that there can be no sin in the employment of those healing and mitigating agencies God has thus placed within our reach--demanding but the skill of the alchemist to compound, and the knowledge of the physician to administer--for the interception and palliation of bodily suffering. The case of our blessed Lord Himself would seem to confirm this view. We are told that, "when Jesus had RECEIVED the vinegar"--offered, doubtless, in mitigation of His suffering--"He said, It is finished!" With this illustrious example before us, let us accept, with faith and gratitude to Him who "delights in mercy," any agent He has compassionately provided for the prevention and soothing of bodily pain.

From this digression we return to our more immediate subject. Possessing "a spiritual body," we shall, in the resurrection, necessarily be done with the material, thus freed from all the physical infirmities which now clog and pinion the soul in its divine life and heavenly aspirations. The blest inhabitants of the world of health and youth will no more say, "I am sick." Disease will no more invade, nor fever consume, nor convulsions madden, nor nervousness agitate, nor suffering torture, for "there shall be no more pain." Think of this, you sick and suffering one, wasted, and weary, and worn! What an attraction has a painless heaven for you! Sin, the original and fruitful cause of all sickness and suffering, then entirely and forever annihilated, with it will vanish one of its dire effects--the throbs and throes and tortures of this body of corruption and death.

There will be no more MENTAL pain in heaven. Acute and indescribable as is physical suffering, there are few who will not admit that a far more keen and acute species of the agony to which sin has subjected us in this life, is the agony of the mind. Closely united as mind and matter are, the one constantly and powerfully acting and reacting upon the other, there yet are, indeed, occasions in which the mind asserts its independence of the body, and rises superior to the most fearful tortures to which either physical disease, or the Papal Inquisition ever subjected it. Many a sick and suffering saint of God has passed through a lingering martyrdom of pain with a brightness, and even joyousness, of spirit, which has filled the sick-chamber with radiance and song--so completely has the soul been raised by God's love and Christ's presence above the decay and torture of the suffering body.

But, regarding the subject more in its abstract light, we must admit that the most acute, crushing suffering is that of the mind. A mind diseased is a spectacle infinitely more touching than a body diseased. But apart from the more fearful picture of mental aberration--of reason unbalanced--and the intellect cloud-veiled--where is the mind not constantly subjected to pain from the cares of life the anxieties of business--misplaced confidence--alienated friendship--chilled affection--the unkindness, ingratitude, and woundings of others? But even where this does not exist, what acute mental suffering springs from the guilt of sin--from conscious failure--from remorse and self-condemnation, compared with which a Christian martyr's stake were a bed of roses, his sheet of flame a robe of down! In what did the anguish of Jesus mainly and the most acutely consist? Was it not soul-sorrow? To one cry of bodily agony--"I thirst!"--how many and how affecting were the exclamations of mental pain which broke from His lips!--"Now is my SOUL sorrowful, and what shall I say?" "My SOUL is sorrowful, even unto death." "My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me." "My God, my God, why have You forsaken me?"

And why all this soul-sorrow--this mental anguish of the Savior? Because He was bearing the sins, enduring the curse, suffering the penalty of His Church. Upon no other rational hypothesis can such mental agony be accounted for than that of an Atoning sacrifice. "He was wounded for our transgressions; He was bruised for our iniquities--the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all." "Who gave Himself for our sins." Oh, yes! Jesus is our Sin-Bearer. All your transgressions have met on the "Lamb of God," who took them up and bore them away into a land of forgetfulness, never to be found. Take the full comfort of this truth, my sin distressed reader! You have nothing more to do with your sins, as touching their condemnation, Jesus having "condemned sin in the flesh" by the condemnation of Himself. If God has put them all upon Jesus, and if Jesus has made an end of them by the sacrifice of Himself, having paid the utmost farthing of the great debt, surely not to accept this truth in faith, walking in the peaceful, joyful, holy influence thereof, is detrimental to our own soul and dishonoring to our God.

Oh, sweet and soothing thought that, Jesus, having been trained in the school of mental distress, can sympathize with the darkness, anguish, and despondency of the mind--administering the soothing and the healing it demands, as no other being, and no other physician skilled in the treatment of mental disease, can! Bear your case, beloved, to the Savior, who, from personal experience, can soothe, and, with His Divine power, will alleviate, the mental distress through which you are passing. He loves to expend His compassion and exert His skill on the human mind--the soul of man presenting the noblest and widest sphere for the display of His power, grace, and sympathy.

There will be no more SPIRITUAL pain. This may be regarded as akin to the mental, and yet it possesses a character, and springs from causes peculiar to itself. There may be much adversity in which the mind preserves its balance and retains its vigor, and even its brightness. If the negation of bodily suffering and deliverance from mental anxiety in heaven constitute attractions so winning, and are blessings so precious, what shall be said of the certain absence of all soul-adversity--no more corroding guilt, no more burdened conscience, no more unbelieving doubts, no more tormenting fears, no more spiritual darkness, no more hidings of God's countenance, or withdrawal of Christ's loving presence; no more Satanic assaults, worldly seductions, or creature allurements. Oh, don't you long, beloved, for the wings of a dove that you might escape from all these spiritual infirmities of earth, to this heavenly and blissful world where they shall never be?

The absence of all the painful DISCIPLINE of our present training for heaven must be included in this view of our subject. Who can fully describe the pain and suffering of God's afflictive dispensations, so necessary to our moral purification and fitness for glory? The fiery furnace, the heated crucible, the surging waters, the lowering clouds, "the windy storm and tempest," of the Divine dealings in providence--oh, how much do they contribute to the sufferings of this present time!

But let us not in our lamentations forget our praises; in our 'sowing of tears' lose sight of our 'reaping of joy.' Exempt from this species of pain, we would be exempt from a source of pleasure inconceivable; deprived of this ploughing and sowing of the soul, how blank we would look, when the time of harvest came, at the fruitless, barren fields from whence we expected to sickle the holy, happy results of the Divine chastisement, not joyous, but grievous now, but afterwards "yielding the peaceable fruits of righteousness to those who are exercised thereby!"

But, oh, how much better acquainted we become with God! how increasingly precious and attractive Christ is to our hearts, by the light and momentary afflictions of our present state! It is only in severe suffering we learn to spell His name as "the Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief." It is thus we have "FELLOWSHIP with Him in His sufferings," and are made partakers of His afflictions in the body. Need brings us into sympathy with His poverty; enticement, into sympathy with His temptations; bereavement, into sympathy with His tears; persecution, into sympathy with His assaults; the disappointment and woundings of the creature, into sympathy with the unfaithfulness and desertion of His disciples; the solitude of our path into sympathy with His isolated and lonely life, spent amid the dreariness of the desert, and the seclusion of the mountain; in a word, the daily battle with sin, into sympathy with the "agony and bloody sweat, the cross and passion," which His holy soul endured when He "put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself."

Oh, it is a grand and holy thing to have fellowship with Christ in His sufferings, a privilege and an honor to which the highest angel in heaven in vain might aspire! Among your present mercies count that the most costly and precious that draws you into closest communion with the suffering Head of the Church. But all this will have passed away when we become inhabitants of the New Jerusalem. The tempest will have spent its last force; the furnace will have kindled its last spark; the ocean will have heaved its last billow; the enemy will have hurled his last shaft, the moment we spring from earth to heaven!--for, "there shall be no more pain."

There will be no more pain of SEPARATION.

"Friend after friend departs,
Who has not lost a friend?
There is no union here of hearts,
That finds not here an end."

Such is a part of our present moral education; and how painful a part it is! The bonds of friendship--the ties of relationship--the cords of love--oh, with what a slight and uncertain hand we hold them! How they loosen and break and vanish one by one! The friend we loved as our own soul; the being that seemed essential to our existence; the oak we leaned against--the vine we entwined us with--the plant we trained--the flower we cherished--God has seen fit to remove; and the fires on the altar of the heart are gone out, and the world has become a desolate wilderness, and life a dreary winter. But oh! even from this bitter we may extract some sweet, and from these nettles we may gather the soft down. It is "well with the righteous" at all times; there is no circumstance in his history which may not supply him with material for thanksgiving and praise, for all springs from God's everlasting love. His sorrows, alike with his joys, are from the hands of the same Divine musician whose skillful and delicate touch awakes harmony from every string.

"His fine-toned heart, like the harp of the winds,
Answers in sweetness each breeze that sings;
And the storm of grief, and the breath of joy,
Draw nothing but music from its strings."

But the pain of separation is annihilated in Heaven! O entrancing thought! O fond attraction! O blissful hope! Kindred souls, loving hearts, congenial spirits are there forever. The pangs of separation are past; no more oceans sunder, and no more death separates. The blessed inhabitants of glory shall "go no more out;" "forever with the Lord," they are forever with each other, spending eternity in the holiest love, in the most elevated communion, and in the closest fellowship; mind in harmony with mind, spirit blending with spirit, and with voice attuned to voice; all uniting in the study and admiration, worship, and song of the LAMB who was slain, whose blood and righteousness will have brought them there.

This negative--in conclusion--is not without its suggestive and practical reflections. How sweet is the thought that, the pains which we here suffer are the pains which love alone inflicts! Not a stroke of God's rod lights upon us that is not a subdued echo of His love. Viewed in this light, how sweet is every pang we endure! The hand that inflicts it, is a Father's; the love that sends it, is a Redeemer's; the grace that soothes it, is the Comforter's! The TRIUNE GOD is thus concerned, beloved, in every pain you experience.

Another sweet reflection springs from the fact that, there is no curse in the pains our Heavenly Father in infinite wisdom and righteousness inflicts. Were it not so, oh how piercing and how bitter would they be! But Jesus, in bearing all our pains, and enduring all our sufferings, has so completely extracted every drop of the curse, has so entirely extinguished every spark of hell, that there is, in the most acute mental and bodily suffering, nothing but covenant blessing.

This last thought suggests another of most vital and solemn character--"the pains of hell." There is not a spectacle more sad and mournful than that of a soul passing from the temporal and temporary sufferings of this life, to the mental and interminable sufferings of the life that is to come. Such must inevitably be the case of all who die unconverted. There exists a kind of 'sentimental notion' in the minds of many individuals that, the long and painful sicknesses through which they pass in this life are of a meritorious and saving character; that, God will accept them as balancing the account of their souls; and that when they go hence they will pass from a bed of pain as those that have been purified by fire, and so fitted for the kingdom of which it is said--"there shall be no more pain."

A more unscriptural idea or fatal delusion never existed. No! there is no saving merit in mental suffering; no moral efficacy in bodily pain. Could there be concentrated in our individual self all the tortures, all the anguish, all the sufferings the human race ever endured--from the murdered Abel to the last victim of anti-christian persecution--it would not bring our soul to heaven. By the pangs, and sufferings and death of ONE VICTIM alone can Divine justice be propitiated, the wrath of God appeased, and the sinner saved. The sufferings of Christ were atoning--the sorrows of Christ were vicarious--the death of Christ was sacrificial. "Christ also has once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God."

There is sin in all human suffering--there was nothing but holiness in Christ's. There is demerit in all the pains we endure--there was infinite merit in His. There is hell-deserving in all the sorrows which afflict our humanity--there is heaven-winning in the soul-sorrow which afflicted His. Away, then, with the thought that there is anything of merit, anything of worthiness, anything of salvation in the mere endurance of sickness and pain. The rebellion of the will against God--the impatience of spirit under His hand--the questioning of His right, and wisdom, and goodness in sending so much pain--involve sin enough to sink the soul to endless woe.

That sickness and pain are often the means, in the sovereignty of the Holy Spirit, of bringing the soul to Christ, we gratefully admit. Oh! what multitudes in glory are singing the high praises of God, in remembrance of the languid couch, the suffering bed, the sleepless pillow, the long, wearisome sickness, by which they were brought to Jesus--the Lord's frequent method of calling in His "hidden ones," of finding His lost "jewels"--of drawing to Himself the people given Him of His Father. "All that the Father gives me shall come to me." Christ is at no loss for means of finding the lost one, of bringing home the wanderer. He knows where to seek them, how and when to draw them; and the sanctified sicknesses and sufferings of the body are often, in the sovereignty of His converting grace, the medicine, the health and salvation of the soul.

What future and endless suffering awaits the unconverted mind! Oh the thought is appalling of passing from the fire that is temporal, to the fire that is eternal! Such is the doom which awaits all who die in their sins. "For in the hand of the Lord there is a cup, and the wine is red; it is full of mixture; and He pours out of the same; but the dregs thereof, all the wicked of the earth shall wring them out and drink them." (Ps. 75:8) "These shall go away into everlasting punishment." (Matt. 25:46) "Who among us shall dwell with the devouring fire? Who among us shall dwell with everlasting burnings?" (Isa. 33:14)

Sinner! fly to Christ! Escape for your life. Flee from the wrath to come. There is but one Way by which you may come to God--but one Refuge in which you may hide--but one Door by which you may enter heaven--but one Name by which you must be saved--it is JESUS. "His name shall be called JESUS, for He shall SAVE!" O precious truth! O joyous announcement! O faithful saying, worthy, my reader, of your personal believing, and immediate acceptance, that Jesus receives and saves sinners; and will receive and save even YOU. "Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and you shall be saved."

Without anticipating a subsequent chapter, let me, in concluding the present one, remind the believing reader that, He who has soothed, mitigated and removed the pains of life, will not be lacking, in His succourings and consolations, in the pains of death. If ever His strength was perfected in weakness, and His grace found all-sufficient, it will be in that solemn, that trying hour. How we now shrink from the thought of dying! But,

"Why should we dread, and fear to die?
What timorous worms we mortals are!
Death is the gate of endless joy,
And yet we dread to enter there.

"The pains, the groans, and dying strife,
Fright our approaching souls away;
Still we shrink back again to life,
Fond of our prison and our clay."

But the death-pains of the body will all be abolished and forgotten in the sweet pleasure of dying in the Lord. Once death's illustrious Victim, now death's Divine Conqueror will be there; and it will be the joy, the poetry, and the song of death, to die clasped in the embrace and pillowed upon the bosom of JESUS.

"In the hour of pain and anguish,
In the hour when death draws near,
Allow not our hearts to languish,
Allow not our souls to fear.
And when mortal life is ended,
Bid us in your arms to rest,
Until, by angel-bands attended,
We awake among the blest!"

NO MORE TEARS

"God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more crying."--Rev. 21:4

It were more than mere affectation--it were a sin of no ordinary turpitude of guilt--to ignore, whatever the philosophical view we may take of humanity, its emotional element. Mysterious as our human organization is, yet more inexplicable would be its mystery, were either the physiologist, the philosopher, or the theologian to exclude from his study of man this essential and exquisite constituent of his nature. In molding us after His own likeness God has invested us with sensibility. Endowing us with mind, He has equally endowed us with a heart; creating us capable of reasoning, He has equally created us capable of feeling. The essence of God is sensibility. It is no where recorded in the inspired records that God is wisdom--though He is "the only wise God;" it is no where asserted that He is power--though "power belongs unto God;" neither is it anywhere recorded that He is immortality--though "He only has immortality;" but, it is declared that--"GOD IS LOVE"--in other words, that love is the essence of the Divine Being.

Now, it is from this infinite ocean of His nature, that God has distilled a portion into our original creation, investing us with sensibility, and thus making us like Himself--lovable and loving--objectively and subjectively, a reflection--faint and defaced indeed--of Himself. And as love is a quality more akin to feeling than to reflection--is more the gentle child of the heart than the athletic offspring of reason--it is no marvel that sensibility, like the flower of a yet unsinned Paradise, should unfold its bloom and breathe its fragrance along all the sylvan walks and avenues of life.

It is impossible for a thoughtful and spiritual mind to take this view of our nature and not admire the wisdom and beneficence of God in providing for the outlet and expression of our sensibility. Our humanity, thus invested with sensibility--often of the acutest character and profoundest depth--needed an outflow--the heart demanded a channel. Feeling must be as free as thought; the heart as unfettered as the mind. To restrain, or curb, or crush our sensibilities would prove as dangerous and fatal to our existence, as the suppressed and pent-up vapor to the strongest and most accomplished piece of mechanism. A mental explosion would inevitably follow.

Now God has mercifully anticipated, and wisely provided for this necessity of our nature. TEARS come to our relief! Tears are the expression of sensibility--the language of sorrow, the symbols of grief. Our emotions must and will speak, or the heart will burst from its shrine, and the mind reel from its throne. "Sorrow is a kind of rust of the soul, which every new idea contributes in its pangs to scour away. It is the putrefaction of stagnant life, and is remedied by exercise and motion." (Johnson) We have already remarked that, condensed and imprisoned air is explosive and dangerous. Infinitely more so is the pent-up, unexpressed sensibility of the soul. Grief and love, either self-concealed or crushed by others, have contributed more to fill our asylums than, perhaps, any other cause besides. Our emotions seek an outlet; our feelings demand an expression; love yearns to confide, and grief pines to repose. Suppress these emotions of the soul, conceal these feelings of the heart, shroud these thoughts of the mind, chill and petrify these sensibilities of our humanity, and you have gone far effectually to impair, if not entirely destroy, one of the noblest creations of God--a loving heart, a sensitive spirit, a refined and thoughtful mind.

"Give sorrow words; the grief that does not speak,
Whispers the over-fraught heart and bids it break."

What a divinely wise and beneficent provision then, are tears! What a safety-valve of the soul! What an outlet of the profoundest grief and of the intensest love, and what an inlet of the divinest joy and the sweetest repose!

The present life is a night of mourning--the world, a valley of tears--man, a weeper! A cry of woe proclaims our advent into its busy scenes, and groans attend our exit from them--while tears bedew the intervening passage from the cradle to the grave. But tears are not all symbols of woe, or expressions of suffering--unmusical and voiceless. They often come on a divine embassy and speak in the language of heaven. The blessings they scatter from their dewy wings are many and precious. Sanctified by grace, they soften our rugged nature, cool our fevered passions, recall our truant affections, and, detaching our minds from the things that are seen and temporal, they fix them more entirely upon the things that are unseen and eternal. Through their misty veil faith observes the "King in His beauty, and the land that is very far off."

With what a resplendent rainbow did the prisomed tear of Jesus arch the grave of Lazarus! "JESUS WEPT." O the love, the significance, the sympathy of those wondrous tears! And are not rainbows pencilled upon the dark clouds of our pilgrimage by the tears we shed on our way to heaven? Yes! They impel us to prayer; they endear Christ; they draw us to God; they lift us to heaven. What a power, too, do tears give us in dealing with souls! What an avenue they open to the most sinful and obdurate heart! Select the most guilty and hardened criminal that ever stood at the bar--manacled and doomed to die. Approach him in gentleness; address him in tones of sympathy and with words of kindness; recall the memories of the past--the home and innocence of childhood, a mother's fondness, and a father's care; speak of God's love to the wanderer, of the Savior's grace to sinners, and of the hope which the gospel unveils to the vilest of the race--and in a moment you have unlocked every ward of his heart, have touched every chord of his soul, and have found an avenue to every cloister of his innermost being. Oh! be encouraged in your work of winning souls by the tear that trembles in the sinner's eye! The moment you observe sensibility, the rainbow of hope appears!

But our subject leads our thoughts forward to the tearless world of which it is said, "And there shall be no more crying."

We need scarcely remark that this condition of the glorified includes the absence of LITERAL tears. Tears are a necessary and benevolent provision of our material bodies--we find a sweet relief in tears. But the body of the resurrection will be a 'spiritual body'--still the temple of the soul, but freed from all its present corporal infirmity and sin. We have no data by which to arrive at an intelligent and distinct idea of the "spiritual body;" but this much we know--it will not be a weeping body; there will, indeed, still be acute sensibility, profound feeling, deep emotion; but there will be no more tears. Tears, now so beneficent, so relieving, so hallowed, will then be done away; for we shall inhabit a spiritual body, fashioned like unto Christ's glorious body, whose eyes will weep no more.

There will be no more tears of PENITENCE in Heaven. The tears of contrition wept on earth are the most precious that bedew the eye. If God has a "bottle for our tears," methinks it is for these. There is no spiritual and gracious condition of the soul more marked, and honored, and blessed of God, than that of a broken and a contrite heart for sin. It would seem as if it were the spiritual state which the most closely assimilated the believing soul to Christ, whose heart sorrowed, and sobbed, and was broken for the sins of His people. "Sorrow has broken my heart." Can we doubt God's estimation of the tears of penitence, after reading Divine declarations so marvelous and touching as these? "Thus says the high and lofty One that inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy. I dwell in the high and holy place, with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite ones." (Isa. 57:15) "To this man will I look, even to him that is poor, and of a contrite spirit, and trembles at My word." (Isa. 66:2)

Precious in His sight are the tears of godly sorrow for sin--the fruit of His own Spirit's work in the soul. The power and skill of human genius in the construction of a finely-tuned instrument, is equaled, if not surpassed, by its perfect restoration when broken and destroyed. God made the human heart a pure reflection of His holiness and sweetly melodious with His praise--and in this we adore His creative power and love. But that God should take that heart destroyed by the fall and tainted by sin, repair its ruin, re-tune its strings, and awake it to the new song of salvation ten thousand times sweeter than the melody that first breathed from it in Paradise--how has He, as it were, surpassed Himself!

O holy, blessed tears, wept beneath the cross, or bathing Jesus' feet! It is the first dawn of grace in the soul; the earliest sign of spiritual life; the pledge of a tearless Heaven. To whose ears is the gospel of the grace of God a joyful sound? To whose heart is the blood of Jesus the most precious? Who has God the most near to Him, looking upon them with a loving eye, and touching them with a divine and healing hand? Oh, it is he whose heart is broken, whose spirit is contrite for sin. "The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and a contrite heart, O God, You will not despise."

And Oh, how cheering to the heart, and lovely to the eye of the gospel preacher, are the tears of spiritual sensibility glistening in the eyes of his hearers! As an evidence of the power of the Spirit with the word in the souls of the people, they are the priceless diamonds of his ministry, to him more valuable, precious, and sparkling than the famed Kohinoor itself! Such a scene would be more frequently witnessed were the Holy Spirit more recognized, honored, and sought in the ministry of the Word. Were there more weeping preachers, there would be more weeping hearers. Paul was not ashamed to remind the elders of Ephesus how he "had been with them at all seasons, serving the Lord . . . with many TEARS," and how he had "ceased not to warn every one day and night with TEARS." Addressing the Corinthian church, he could say, "I wrote unto you with many TEARS." And it was with the same deep and holy emotion that he addressed the Philippians, and said, "Many walk, of whom I have told you often, and now tell you WEEPING, that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ."

Oh, let us who deal with souls, who preach Christ and in view of eternity, not fail to steep the precious seed we sow in tears of the deepest sensibility. Where is there an office more worthy, a work more befitting, an end more in harmony with the tears of the deepest sympathy, than that of the Christian minister addressing himself to deathless and endangered souls speeding to the judgment-seat? The thought of one soul saved, the spectacle of one soul lost, were sufficient to inspire the highest joy, the deepest woe. Think only of the latter--a soul lost--lost to all eternity! "What, my brethren, if it be lawful to indulge such a thought, would be the funeral rites of a lost soul? Where shall we find the tears fit to be wept at such a spectacle? or could we realize the calamity in all its extent, what tokens of sympathy and concern would be deemed equal to the occasion? Would it suffice for the sun to veil his light and the moon her brightness; to cover the ocean with mourning and the heavens with sackcloth? or were the whole fabric of nature to become animated and vocal, would it be possible for her to utter a groan too deep, or a cry too piercing, to express the magnitude and extent of such a catastrophe?" (Robert Hall) How holy and precious, then, are the tears of penitence--tears wept on this side of eternity for sin felt--sin loathed--sin pardoned--sin forsaken.

"Why, O my soul, why weep thou?
Oh, say from whence arise
Those briny tears that often flow,
Those groans that pierce the skies?

"Is sin the cause of your complaint
Or the chastising rod?
Do you departed friends lament,
Or mourn an absent God?

"Lord, let me weep for naught but sin,
And after none but Thee!
And then I would--oh, that I might--
A constant weeper be!"

But in Heaven there will be no weeping penitents, because there will be no more sin to weep for. He who dried their tears on earth with a sense of His own pardoning love, will then wipe off all tears from all faces with its "fullness of joy."

There will be no tears of SUFFERING in Heaven. How universally and profusely do these tears now bedew the pillow! What multitudes weep for very pain! But in Heaven, where there will be no more disease, nor infirmity, nor suffering; those tears, often wept when no eye traces them but God's eye--in solitude and in the night season--are dried forever. Oh, think of this, you sick and suffering one! The last tear will soon fall from your eye, and you shall weep no more forever; for "there shall be no more dying."

There will be no more tears of AFFLICTION. These are often flowing and bitter. Our Father's discipline causes His children often sorely to cry. Yes, He corrects us that we may feel the force and hear the voice of the rod. An unfelt chastisement is an unsanctified chastisement. Its mission is thwarted, its blessing is lost. The Lord intends that we shall be sensible of His judgments, and talk with Him concerning them. He would have us so to feel the smarting of the rod that we may inquire, "Is there not a cause?"--and diligently searching, and surely finding it, humble ourselves under His mighty hand because of it, until He lifts us up. But oh--sweet thought!--the rod of paternal discipline will be laid aside in Heaven--treasured, it may be, in its archives, as was Aaron's rod that budded in the ark, and the tears of sorrow it unsealed be forever dried, for "there shall be no more crying."

There will be no more tears of BEREAVEMENT in Heaven. Who can analyze the tears--or portray the grief of bereaved sorrow? To part with those we love; to catch the last look; to hear the last farewell; to listen to the last breath of one dear to us as our own soul--Oh, the intensity, Oh, the anguish of that woe! But faith looks beyond these partings to the meetings! These sunderings of love's tie, of friendship's bond, to that tearless world, where the very death that separates us now, reunites us again with those "who die in the Lord." Be comforted, bereaved heart, if you are not sorrowing as those who have no hope. Jesus--who wept at the tomb--is not blind or indifferent to the tears you rain over that grassy mound. When you go to the grave to weep there, let faith look up to that bright world where there is no death-parting and no graves, but where the tears of bereavement are wiped away by God's own hand--for "there shall be no more crying."

There will be no more weeping for an ABSENT SAVIOR. Mary weeping at Christ's tomb in search of her lost Lord, is but the type of many disciples of Christ, who go mourning and weeping through cloudy and dark days, because they have not the sensible presence of, and the sweet communion with, Him their souls love. But what an evidence is this holy sensibility of a divinely-quickened soul, of a spiritually-intensified mind, of a Christ-loving heart! Oh, how blessed the condition--sad and desolate though for a time it may be--of a soul arising from its bed of sloth in quest of the Savior, whose withdrawn presence it feels and deplores. "By night on my bed I sought Him whom my soul loves--I sought Him, but I found Him not. I will rise now, and go about the city in the streets, and in the broad ways I will seek Him whom my soul loves--I sought Him, but I found Him not. The watchmen that go about the city found me--to whom I said, Did you saw Him whom my soul loves? It was but a little that I passed from them, and I found Him whom my soul loves." (Cant. 3:1-4)

Oh blessed seeking an absent Savior! Not a tear is lost which is wept after a withdrawn Christ. Do you think, Christ-seeking one, that Jesus is indifferent to the drawings and yearnings of your heart toward Him? Impossible! "Therefore will the Lord wait, that He may be gracious unto you; and therefore will He be exalted, that He may have mercy upon you--for the Lord is a God of judgment--blessed are all those who wait for Him. You shall weep no more--He will be very gracious unto you at the voice of your cry; when He shall hear it, He will answer you." (Isaiah 30:18,19) No poor soul ever really sought Christ that did not find Him. Mary sought Him sorrowing, sought Him weeping; and soon she found Him--Jesus manifesting Himself to her soul, comforting her sorrow, and drying her tears. But in Heaven we shall no more lose sight of Jesus; no more mourn His absence--for, "there shall be no more crying."

A few words in conclusion. Let us not place too great reliance upon the religion of emotion, a religion of mere sensibility. Religious feeling, deep and strong, may exist apart from real conversion. Tears may flow fast and warm from a vivid representation of Christ's sufferings, or from a glowing picture of Heaven's happiness, unaccompanied by a change of heart, a holy life, or a good hope of glory. It is recorded of Burns that he could never read the words upon which this chapter is based without tears. The touching view which it presents of the Divine tenderness, and the poetic picture it portrays of a tearless Heaven, stirred to its lowest depths the sensibility of one whose life was yet deformed and tainted by many a sad infirmity and sin.

Oh! rest not short of true conversion, a mind divinely instructed in the truth, and renewed spiritually by the Holy Spirit; a heart contrite, changed, and sanctified by grace; and a hope--a good hope through grace built believingly and entirely upon the blood and righteousness of Christ. While avoiding the two extremes--a religion of the intellect on the one hand, cold as moonlight--and a religion of feeling on the other, evaporating in mere sensibility--seek that both may be blended in your personal experience--the mind divinely and intelligently enlightened through the truth, and the heart spiritually quickened and sanctified by the Spirit; the religion of your soul thus possessing the true, grand, essential elements of reality--light and life.

Do not overlook the provision God has made for the tears of His saints. For the tears of penitence--there is the cleansing blood of Jesus; for the tears of adversity--there is the unchanging love of Jesus; for the tears of sorrow--there is the tender sympathy of Jesus; for the tears of suffering--there is the all-sufficient grace of Jesus; for the tears of solitude--there is the personal, ever-abiding, never-failing presence of Jesus. O precious tears, which like pearls of matchless beauty and priceless worth, have so rich and costly a setting! They are "Apples of gold in pictures of silver."

One thought more. It is God who alone can dry our tears. No power, no compassion, no love short of the Divine can wipe the tear from the weeping eye. How striking and beautiful the prophecy of this! "And the Lord God will wipe away tears from off all faces." (Isa. 25:8) And in the New Jerusalem state, how literally and fully is this accomplished--"And the Lord God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes." He who knows our sorrow, who has an ear for the voice of our weeping, can keep our eyes from tears; or, when they flow, can so staunch and dry them, as to turn our mourning into dancing, putting off our sackcloth and girding us with gladness. Thus we are taught that our sorrows are designed to make us better acquainted with God; to detach us from a too idolatrous reliance upon human sympathy and support; to sob our grief upon the bosom of Christ; and to seek that our tears may rise beyond mere feeling and sentiment, and become so instinct with Divine intelligence, life and holiness, as to impart greater robustness to our Christianity, reality to our religion, elevation and sanctity to our Christian principles and walk.

Let us learn to IMITATE THE DIVINE COMPASSION. Does the Lord God condescend to dry the mourner's tears? Be it our holy and benevolent mission to go and do likewise! O sacred privilege "to weep with those who weep," and from our own excess of affluence, or health, or grace, or joy, administer help and comfort to those that are in any need or sorrow--drying the orphan's tears, making the widow's heart to sing for joy; raising the fallen, restoring the wandering, pouring sunshine into the desolate home--in conformity to the example of Jesus, who gives us "beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, and the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness."

"If a pilgrim has been shaded
By a tree that I have nursed;
If a cup of clear, cold water
I have raised to lips athirst;
If I've planted one sweet flower
By an else too barren way;
If I've whispered in the midnight
One sweet word to tell of day;
If in one poor bleeding bosom
I a woe-swept chord have stilled;
If a dark and restless spirit
I with hope of heaven have filled;
If I've made for life's hard battle
One faint heart grow brave and strong,
Then, my God, I thank You, bless You,
For the precious gift of song."

He, to whom tears are sacred things, whose Christ-like mission it is to repair to the house of mourning, the bed of sickness, the couch of loneliness, and wipe the tear of sorrow--shall not lack a Diviner and holier hand to dry his, when the night of weeping comes, and lover and friend are far away, and there is none to soothe the sad and lonely heart but God. Oh, look through the mist of your tears, to that tearless world of which it is said--"The Lord God will wipe away tears from off all faces."

"Oh, for the robes of whiteness!
Oh, for the tearless eyes!
Oh, for the glorious brightness
Of the unclouded skies!
Oh, for the 'no more weeping',
Within the land of love--
The endless joy of keeping
The bridal feast above!
Oh, for the bliss of dying,
My risen Lord to meet!
Oh, for the rest of lying
Forever at His feet!
Oh, for the hour of seeing,
My Savior face to face!
The hope of ever being
In that sweet meeting-place.
Jesus, O King of glory
I soon shall dwell with Thee--
I soon shall sing the story
Of Your great love to me.
Meanwhile my thoughts shall enter
Even now before Your Throne,
That all my love may center
In You--and You alone."

"He will swallow up death in victory; and the Lord God will wipe away tears from off all faces."

NO MORE DEATH

"There shall be no more death."--Rev. 21:4

What a thrilling negative of Heaven is this! What a multitude of believing souls, held in the bondage of the fear of death, will bend over it with a deep and quickening pulse of joy and hope! The total annihilation of death--that solemn crisis of our being which we all so inevitably anticipate, yet so instinctively dread; which marks every individual as its victim, transforms every home into mourning, and the world itself into a vast cemetery; which severs the fondest ties, and extinguishes the brightest hopes; nips the fairest buds, withers the loveliest flowers, lays low the tall cedar and venerable oak--what heart does not exult at the thought?

But what is death? Abstractedly considered, it is the most calamitous and humiliating event of our history, filling the mind with awe, the heart with grief, and the future with dread. Milton portrays--as he only could--the supposed shock of Adam on his first sight of death. "But have I now seen death? Is this the way I must return to dust? O sight of horror, foul and ugly to behold, Horrid to think! how horrible to feel!"

But what, negatively, is death? It is not, as some vainly imagine, a deep sleep of the soul until the trumpet shall sound and the dead shall be raised at the last Great Day. So far from this, in the transit of the soul to the spirit-world, it undergoes not even a moment's suspension of its consciousness. If ever its intelligence is wakeful, its perception vivid, and its memory undimmed, it is at the very moment of its unrobing of mortality, the body--like the useless scaffolding of the edifice--falling in wreck and ruin from around it.

Still less is death the annihilation of the soul. Annihilation is a word not found in God's natural or moral vocabulary. Possessing no evidence of the annihilation of a single atom of matter, what reason have we to suppose that He will annihilate a single spark of mind? Is it conceivable that He should utterly destroy and entirely efface that immaterial, uncompounded part of our being--the thinking principle--which most assimilates us to His own nature? "The dust shall return unto the earth as it was--and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it"--and just as He gave it--pulsating with life, instinct with intelligence, crowned with immortality.

But, positively, what is Death? There is no more true and instructive point of light in which to view death than as a DIVINE ARRANGEMENT, "It is appointed unto men once to die." Upon no other hypothesis can we rationally account for death. Inquire of the anatomist and he will tell you that, there exists no physiological reason why men should not live to an interminable age; that, there is no natural necessity why the human machine should for a moment stop, or stop forever. Clearly, then, the dissolution of the body is the appointment of Him "with whom are the issues of death."

This brings us to the originating CAUSE of death. And to sin we must trace it. Sin--sin--SIN is the terrible, prolific cause of all our woe. "SIN entered into the world, and DEATH by sin." "The wages of SIN is DEATH." We die because we have sinned. Holy beings never die. The unfallen angels taste not of death because they have never sinned. Man fell; and in dying he died--the soul spiritually, the body naturally. Such is death. In a few summary words--it is sin's great conquest--Satan's chief-work--the brimming of sorrow--the triumph of corruption--the fulfillment of the curse--the sentence of God for the disobedience of man.

But our chief subject is the consideration of death as entirely annihilated in Heaven. In the New Jerusalem-state of the Church, death is known no more. Over the gate of the celestial city, within which countless beings pass--once Death's victims, now Death's victors--is written in letters of dazzling light and glory, "The last enemy enters not here! There shall be no more death!"

But before we carry forward our thoughts to this sweet attraction of Heaven, we should do injustice both to Jesus and our theme, did we not pause and dwell for a while upon the present relation of death to the believer in Christ. It is a remarkable fact that, death did not smite Adam, the first sinner; nor Cain, the first murderer; but Abel, the believing, and the righteous one. Thus, the first man that met death, overcame death--and the first soul that left earth, went to Heaven. Such was the foreshadowing of the gospel truth in the earliest age of the Church, upon which we may now for a moment dwell. The gospel confers upon the believer in Christ a present emancipation from the power and condemnation of death, an intelligent and spiritual apprehension of which will tend much to change essentially the whole aspect of the "king of terrors." Let us, then, bend our thoughts in the first place to a consideration of death as abolished by Christ in the present dispensation of the saints of God.

The great event in Christ's life was His death. This was the goal towards which He pressed, and for which He was so often in a strait until it was reached. He never for a moment lost sight of the decease which He should accomplish at Jerusalem, toward which His face seemed ever to turn. Calvary, with its physical phenomena--the trembling earth, the veiled sun, the darkened skies, the split rocks, the opening graves, the streaming blood, the bodily torture, the cry of woe; the Cross, with its more marvelous moral phenomena--the soul-sorrow, the mental darkness, the penitent thief, the shout of victory--all, all were vividly before Him every step He trod. Embarked as a voluntary sacrifice in the great work of the salvation of His elect, He never lost sight for a moment of Gethsemane or of Calvary--the one, the anticipated scene of His unknown sorrow, the other, of His unparalleled death.

Listen to His touching language--"I have meat to eat that you know not of. My food is to do the will of Him that sent Me, and to finish His work." "I have a baptism to be baptized with, and how am I straitened until it be accomplished!" This crisis He ever expected, and never sought to evade. From it there was no avenue, and in His heart no desire--to escape. Die He, or His church must die. But no! This could not be. He must die. Blessed truth, coming from the taunting lips of His foes--"He saved others; HIMSELF He cannot save"--He could not, because He would not, save Himself. Had He willed it, He could have wrenched every nail which fastened Him to the tree; but the cords of love which bound Him to His Church, He could not break! O the willingness, O the eagerness of Christ to suffer and die to save lost sinners! "And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto Me."

My reader, is your soul guilt-burdened, and sin-distressed? Are you debating the question whether Christ is able to save so great a sinner; or, if able, whether He is willing? Turn your believing eye to the cross; behold Him bleeding and dying upon the tree; and listen to His words--"Look unto Me, all you ends of the earth, and be saved; for I am God, and there is no other!" (Isa. 45:22) Trusting not in your own righteousness--every shred of which is defiled by sin--the whole garment a mass of filthy rags, (Isa. 64:6)-- a 'cobweb' (Isa. 59:4-6) a 'fig-leaf' (Gen. 3:7)--the covering 'too narrow' for a sinner to wrap himself in--trust only in Jesus, who has merit enough, and love enough, and grace enough to 'save' even you 'to the uttermost' extent of sin, and from the lowest depth of guilt.

The present spiritual immunity of the believer from death, turns upon the wonderful declaration of the Apostle--"who (Christ) has abolished death." Death is here spoken of as ABOLISHED. In what manner has Christ thus "abolished" death in the experience of His saints? In the first place, by repealing the law of death. Death is the natural and just penalty of a law broken. Now if a law be repealed, it is no longer in force, and consequently exists no longer in its pains and penalties. Christ, the Law-Giver, became, on behalf of His Church, the Law-Fulfiller. He was "born of a woman, made under the law, that He might redeem those who were under the law." His perfect obedience to the law relieves His people forever from its obligation, and, consequently, from its death-penalty. Christ has thus 'abolished death,' by abolishing the law of death on behalf of His Church.

Again, He has abolished death, not only by repealing the law of death, but by His own actual and penal death. He could only abrogate the law by dying. The majesty of the law must be upheld, and its righteousness vindicated, either in the persons of its subjects, or in that of a substitute. Christ, as the Surety and Mediator of His people, died in their stead and for their sins, thus honoring the law, and emancipating them from it as a penal enactment. Consequently, the whole character of death is changed as it regards all who believe in Jesus, and thus avail themselves of the benefits of His passion and death.

They must die; but oh, how transformed and modified the entire nature and aspect of their death! It ceases to be death. Losing its repulsiveness and terror, as it has lost its condemnation and sting, the departure of a saint of God becomes the very poetry of death--a falling asleep in Jesus. What a beautiful and soothing image! "And he fell ASLEEP." "Those who are ASLEEP." "Them also which SLEEP in Jesus will GOD bring with Him."

Thus has Christ "abolished death" in the experience of all His saints. Bearing their sins, He extracted the sting of death, which is sin--sin unatoned, sin unpardoned. Where sin is cancelled--atoned for by Christ's death, and washed away by His blood--the 'last enemy' may launch his dart, but--it is stingless! Thus, dying for us, Christ has so repealed the penalty of the law, that the whole character of death is changed--it being no more a penal curse, but, as we have shown, a soft and holy slumber. "Destroying him that had the power of death, that is, the devil," "Christ has delivered them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage." Such is the believer's present relation to death. And oh, how blessed! Through it we must pass--but what a shadow! The "king of terrors" must claim us as his subjects--but how broken his scepter! The "last enemy" must be met--but how conquered the foe, how pointless his dart! We must die, but it is only to languish into life; for, "blessed are the dead who die in the Lord."

But in Heaven "there shall be no more death." This will be literally the case. There will be no more natural death. The present dissolution of the body is essential to the perfect freedom and exaltation of the soul. Thus, the death of the believer becomes a covenant mercy, a sweet and holy privilege. It unbars his jail, and the prisoner is free; it opens the cage, and the bird wings its flight, singing as it soars, to heaven.

But the resurrection or spiritual body of the saints will be free from all the seeds of death. No sin will be there; and this will involve the absence of all the dread effects of sin--the inroad of infirmity, the wasting of sickness, the torture of pain, the throes, and convulsions, and sweat of death. O sweet attraction of Heaven! "The bitterness of death is passed," and we die no more forever!

The life we now derive from our union with Christ, possesses the germ of "everlasting life." What did Christ Himself say? "He that believes on the Son HAS everlasting life." (John 3:36) Faith in Christ puts us in possession of a present salvation; the believer is now saved--as entirely pardoned, as completely justified, and as fully adopted as he will be when he enters into glory. The spiritual life of the quickened soul on earth is the first pulse of the everlasting life in heaven. Grace below is the dawn of glory above. The believer has a foretaste of heaven, and possesses, though not to the same degree, yet in the same nature, the joys, happiness, and privileges of the "spirits of just men made perfect."

Who, with any scriptural reason, will dare question the certain and final salvation of each "vessel of mercy, before-prepared unto glory?" What an impeachment of every perfection of Jehovah to deny it! What dishonor done to the Savior--what disowning of the Spirit, to doubt it for a moment! But if we are grafted into Christ by the Holy Spirit, through a living faith, who shall separate us from His love? "Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? No, in all these things we are more than conquerors, through Him that loved us." Listen to the assertion of Christ Himself, concerning the present safety and final salvation of His own elect. "My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me. And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of My hand. My Father, who gave them to Me, is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them out of My Father's hand."

Let these decisive answers scatter to the winds every doubt and fear, and strengthen your confidence in Christ. Your grace may be weak, your faith slender, your love faint, your spiritual life feeble; nevertheless, "He who has begun a good work in you, will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ." It shall never be said of Jesus--"This man began to build, and was not able to finish." Hell shall never possess an heir of Heaven, nor Satan exult that he was stronger than Jesus. Hidden with Christ in God, He must perish, before your spiritual life can, thus indissolubly bound up with His. "He that seeks my life seeks your life," said King David unto Abiathar. "Because I live, you shall live also," said David's Prototype to His disciples.

The spiritual exercises of your soul, however trying, supply no arguments against its final and eternal safety. Your increasing self-acquaintance, and consequent feeling that you are growing more sinful rather than more holy--that you are going backward and not forward in the divine life--the growing sensitiveness of the conscience to the slightest touch and taint of sin--are scriptural evidences and most sure indices of the reality of your religion, of the advance of your soul in its higher life. Doubt not, then, O believer in Jesus! your final and eternal salvation. The dimmest sight of Jesus is a life-look; the stealthiest touch of His robe, is soul-healing; the feeblest spark of love to Him is a pledge of Heaven; and the faintest breathing after holiness is a jet of the 'living water,' welled in the soul, and 'springing up into everlasting life.'

Take these, the lowest marks of grace in the regenerate--glory is the goal towards which they aspire, and in which they will ultimately be absorbed. Not one of the sheep given by the Father to the Son shall perish; not a sinner redeemed by His blood shall be lost; not a child adopted by His grace shall be absent; not a jewel excavated from nature's mine by His grace shall be missing in that day when the Shepherd shall gather together His flock, and the Father shall bring home His family, and the Savior shall cluster around Him His redeemed--in that day when the King of Zion shall appear, His diadem studded, and His breastplate blazing, with the precious stones of His especial and particular treasure.--"They shall be Mine, says the Lord, in that day when I make up My jewels"--(margin) "my peculiar treasure." Oh, yes; all the ship's company shall reach the shore of Heaven at last; though with "some on boards, and some on broken pieces of the ship, it shall come to pass, that all shall escape safe to land." (Acts 27:44)

"Oh! could it ever come to pass
That Christ's own sheep might fall away,
My feeble, fickle soul, alas!
Would fall a thousand times a day:
But Jesus' love is firm and free,
Through time and to eternity.

"On this sure promise I depend,
In humble hope and strong desire
That He will love me to the end,
And keep in every flood and fire:
Will for me work, and in me too,
And guide and guard, and bring me through.

"No other stay have I beside;
If Christ can change, then I must fall:
Until then, I look to be supplied
With grace, with life, with love, with all.
Rich souls may glory in their store;
But I--that Jesus saves the poor!"

O blissful thought of the glorified saints!--I am no more to die! I have crossed Jordan's cold flood--I have passed the dark valley--I have fought my last fight--I have overcome my last enemy--my bonds are loosed, and I am free! O Death! you yourself are dead, and I live forever!--once your trembling, humiliated victim, now your triumphant glorified victor, trampling you beneath my feet! "There shall be no more death."

The absence of death in Heaven will be the cessation of all painful apprehension with regard to the departure of those we love. With what anxiety we often watch the slow, insidious progress of disease in those whose life is essential to our happiness--yes, which seems a necessary condition of our very existence! Oh! it is painful, it is agonizing, to mark the advance of the "last enemy," "like a resolute murderer steady to his purpose;" approaching near and yet more near with soft, but most sure, foot-fall--and our hearts die within us. But this bitter trial is not without its sweet alleviations; this dark cloud not unillumined with some bright sunshine. Is the sick one, one whom Jesus loves? Is the departing soul dying in the Lord? Listen to the language breathing from that couch--

"I'm fading slowly, slowly as the day
Fades into even, and the quiet night;
But, with the body's sinking and decay,
The spirit gathers new and holy light;
A brief, brief time, and I shall be at rest,
Forever sheltered in the Savior's breast."

But this will be done away in Heaven. The quick eye of love will detect no symptom of disease; the clinging heart will feel no apprehension of death. Gazing on the deathless forms of the glorified spirits, now clad in resurrection-robes, no fearful forebodings will haunt the mind that sickness will imperil or the grave hide from us the treasure of our heart; for "there shall be no more death." The bud bursting into flower--the blooming flower opening into beauty--the olive branches adorning our table--the graceful vine entwining our home--the venerable oak spreading its benignant and graceful shadow over all--will then defy the nipping frost, the withering blast, the sweeping scythe and the felling axe of death. Rachel shall no more weep for her children refusing to be comforted, because they are not. No more shall "the desire of our eyes," the wife of youth's wedded love, be removed with a stroke; no more will the heart be made desolate with a widow's lonely anguish; nor the white-haired father go forth uttering his wail of anguish, and weeping as he goes--"O my son Absalom, my son, my son Absalom! would God I had died for you, O Absalom, my son, my son!" With the utter abolition of death, these mournful and terrible results will entirely and forever have passed away.

But let us take a more SPIRITUAL view of this negative image of glory. There will be no more deadness of the Divine life of our soul. No truth is more certain than the deathless nature of the life of God in the soul of the regenerate. That life is as indestructible and imperishable as the Divine Source from whence it emanates. But, undoubted as is this fact, it is equally true that it may--through unmortified principle of sin, unwatchfulness of Christian walk, the restraining of prayer, the power of the world, the encroachments of the creature, the idolatry of self, the neglect of the means of grace--sink to a very low ebb. Spiritual torpor may steal over it, weakening its pulse, checking its growth, congealing its warm ascending aspirations after God, and Christ, and holiness, and heaven; thus diffusing over it the chill and insensibility of death, extorting the mournful lamentation--"O my leanness! My leanness! Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?" But, oh, blessed thought! there will be no coldness nor lukewarmness nor deadness of the soul in heaven! Praise to God will not then, as it often does now, freeze into icicles upon our lips. Love to Christ will not then, as it often does now, prove fickle, and frigid, and false. Oh! it is a blessed and holy thought, that there will be no ebb, no fluctuation, no chill, in the life of the glorified soul. Winter's frost and summer's heat, the congealing and the drought, will then give place to a spring of perennial bloom, and to a summer of eternal sunshine. Unbelief annihilated--carnality destroyed--selfishness effaced--sin will find no fuel for its flame, and death no material for its working. Oh, the rapturous prospect of inheriting "everlasting life!" subjected to the influence of no moral atmosphere--changeful, unkind, and fatal. This assurance of life, never impaired--of love, never chilled--of zeal, never drooping, of service, never tiring--of song, never ceasing--entirely revolutionizes and transforms our present condition of lamentation and sorrow, imparting dignity to lowliness, wealth to poverty, joy to grief, health to sickness, hope to despair--and converts our every deformity and unloveliness into a moral grace and beauty which angels might admire, but in vain may imitate.

Nor must we fail to enumerate, as an illustration of this negative of Heaven, the absence of all persecution, suffering, and death, the record of which supplies so large and so dark a chapter of the annals of God's Church. The history of the Church of Christ is the history of PERSECUTION--its most instructive and thrilling chapter that which records the faith and patience and sufferings of the "noble army of martyrs." It is to be feared that the martyrology of the Christian Church is but imperfectly studied. And yet, where does there exist, in the volume of her history, a more touching, illuminated, and impressive chapter than the annals of those who for the truth's sake, and for Christ's sake, loved not their lives unto the death? Nor has this part of her history yet closed. The certain and speedy coming of Antichrist, as the signs of the times unmistakably indicate, will be the advent of such a fiery persecution as she has never yet known. The Apostle thus foretells his coming--"Then shall that Wicked one be revealed, even him whose coming is after the working of Satan with all power, and signs, and lying wonders, and with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in those who perish." (2 Thes. 2:7-10)

The fearful persecutions consequent upon the reign of this Antichrist, are thus clearly foretold by our Lord--"There shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be. And except those days be shortened, there should no flesh be saved; but for the elect's sake those days shall be shortened." Already, to the spiritual and studious eye, the cloud, though no larger than a man's hand, is gathering over the horizon. The rapid increase, wide-spread diffusion, and menacing attitude of error and superstition--dogmatic and ceremonial--are indices of the approaching storm too significant to misinterpret, and too visible to overlook. Never was there such a union of a credulity that believes everything, with a scepticism that believes nothing, as at the present day. Infidelity and superstition are confederate--Pilate and Herod made friends--in impugning the integrity of Divine Revelation--and in setting up a worldly, popish ritual in the place of that pure, divine worship of God without which none can worship Him in spirit and in truth. The bitterness, the threatening and separation exhibited by those thus abandoned to a "strong delusion that they should believe a lie," clearly indicates, not the lack of the will, but of the power, to rekindle the flames of fierce persecution--more fierce and devouring than have in any age made havoc of God's Church. But, O sweet thought! In Heaven the absence of death will be the absence of all deadly persecution of the saints. The last spark will die, the last shaft will be thrown, the last accusation will be made--for there shall be no more death.

It is a significant and interesting declaration touching the existence of this negative character of the New Jerusalem that, upon the glorified spirits the SECOND DEATH will have no power. The absence of this terrible doom is thus graphically described--"Blessed and holy is he that has part in the first resurrection; on such the second death has no power but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with Him a thousand years." The "second death" will be a more terrible infliction of divine wrath than any that preceded it. But from this, all who share in the privilege and blessedness of the "First Resurrection" will be saved. Let it be--with the apostle--our aim to "know the power of Christ's resurrection" in our souls, and then, "if by any means we might attain unto the 'first resurrection' of the saints, for us the second death will be powerless."

There are, in reality, three deaths to which men are exposed--death moral, death natural, death eternal. Delivered by Christ from the power of the first, and from the condemnation of the second, we shall escape the bitter pangs and horrors of the third. But what, my reader, if we know nothing of having "passed from death unto life?" What, if we have not become "new creatures in Christ Jesus?" What, if we have not washed in His blood, and robed in His righteousness? What, if we live in our sins, and die in our sins, and stand before the bar of God with all their guilt upon us? Oh, then, upon us the "second death" will exert its tremendous, unmitigated, eternal power, and we shall, with all who do wickedly and die in rejection of Christ, "dwell with the devouring fire, with everlasting burnings," "where the worm" of an accusing conscience "dies not, and the fire" of divine wrath "is not quenched."

We know not what ETERNAL DEATH is--but we know some things respecting it. It is far away from heaven--those blissful plains where eternal joy dwells. It is far from hope--'hope that here comes to all.' It is the abode of all the abandoned and profane and vile--the collected guilt and wickedness of this world. It is a place where no sanctuary opens its doors and invites to heaven--where no Sabbath returns to bless the soul--where no message of mercy comes to the sinful and the sad. It is a world unblessed, like this, with the work of redemption. On no second Calvary is there a Redeemer offered for sin; and from no tomb does He rise to life to bless the sufferers with the offer, and to furnish the pledge of heaven. No Spirit strives there to reclaim the lost, and on no zephyr is the message of mercy borne, whispering peace. No God meets the desponding there with promises and hopes, and from no eye is the tear of remorse ever wiped away. There is no such Friend as Jesus; no word of mercy; no day-star of hope, no father, mother, daughter, pastor, angel to sympathize; no one to breathe for the lost the prayer for pardon; no great Intercessor to bear the cry for mercy up to the Throne of God.

It is death--lingering, long, interminable death--the dying sorrow prolonged from age to age; onward--onward toward eternity--ever lingering, never-ending! Lamb of God! Savior of sinners! I fly to You! put me in a cleft of the Rock--hide me in Your pierced side--shelter me beneath Your shadowing cross--wash me in Your blood, and invest me with Your righteousness. Bending from Your Throne in glory, throw around me the arms of Your love, and let me hear Your voice calling me Your child! Then, Lord Jesus! the first death will have for me no sting, and the second death no power.

A few DEDUCTIONS from this subject will close the chapter.

In anticipation of our departure out of this world, let its deal more closely with a living Christ than with a coming death. It is indeed a terrible event of our being--a solemn thing even to die in the Lord. But faith in Christ can raise us superior to the natural dread and moral fear of death, enabling us to contemplate our last end with dignity and composure, yes even with longing and hope. O precious truth! Jesus died and rose again, that we may "not see death." And when death comes, Jesus will come with it--yes, will come before it, anticipating its deadly shaft by the succourings of His grace, by the manifestations of His presence, and by the unveilings of the blessedness, glory, and song into which the departing soul is about to enter.

"Then, O believer! grapple with death and you shall get the first fall; but you shall rise again, and come off victorious at the last. You must go down to the grave; but though it be your long home, it shall not be your everlasting home. You will not hear the voice of your friends there; but you will hear the voice of Christ there. You may be carried there with mourning; but you shall come up with rejoicing. Your friends indeed will leave you, but your God will not. What God said to Jacob concerning his going down into Egypt, He says to you--Fear not to go down; I will go down with you; and I will surely bring you up again. O solid comfort! O glorious hope! wherefore comfort yourselves and one another with these words." (Boston)

"Death, the old Serpent's son!
You had a sting once like your father,
That carried hell and ever-burning fire.
But those black days are done;
Your foolish spite buried your sting,
In the profound and wide
Wound of a Savior's side.

And now you are become a tame and harmless thing--
A thing we dare not fear,
Since we hear
That our triumphant God, to punish thee,
For the affront you did Him on the tree,
Has snatched the keys of hell out of your hand,
And made you stand,
A porter at the gate of Life, your mortal enemy.
O You who are that gate, command that he
May, when we die,
And there fly,
Let us into the courts of heaven through Thee."

But when we contemplate death as the believer's door from earth to heaven, his passage out of grace into glory, bitter and devouring as is this foe, we can exclaim, with truth yet more significantly than Samson, "Out of the eater came forth meat, out of the strong came forth sweetness."

Could we catch the voice of the glorified one, over whose grave we rain our warm tears of grief, would not its utterances be like these?--"Would you know WHERE I am? I am at home in my Father's house, in the mansion prepared for me there. I am where I want to be, where I have long and often desired to be--no longer on a stormy sea, but in a safe and quiet harbor. My working time is done, I am resting; my sowing time is done, I am reaping; my joy is as the time of harvest. Would you know HOW it is with me? I am made perfect in holiness; grace is swallowed up in glory; the top-stone of the building is brought forth. Would you know WHAT I am doing? I see God; I see Him as He is, not as through a glass, darkly, but face to face; and the sight is transforming; it makes me like Him. I am in the sweet employment of my blessed Redeemer, my Head and Husband, whom my soul loved, and for whose sake I was willing to part with it all. I am here bathing myself at the spring-head of heavenly pleasures and joys unutterable; and, therefore, weep not for me. I am here keeping a perpetual Sabbath; what that is, judge by your short Sabbaths. I am here singing hallelujahs incessantly to Him who sits upon the throne; and rest not day or night from praising Him. Would you know what COMPANY I have? Blessed company, better than the best on earth--here are holy angels and the spirits of just men made perfect. I am seated with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of God, with blessed Paul and Peter, and James and John, and all the saints; and here I meet with many of my old acquaintance that I fasted and prayed with, who got here before me. And lastly, would you consider how LONG this to is continue? It is a garland that never withers; a crown of glory that fades not away; after millions of millions of ages it will be as fresh as it is now; and, therefore, weep not for me." (Matthew Henry)

At length the door is opened, and, free from pain and sin,
With joy and gladness on his head, the pilgrim enters in;
The Master bids him welcome, and on the Father's breast,
By loving arms enfolded, the weary is at rest.
The pilgrim staff is left behind--behind the sword, the shield;
The armor, dimmed and dented, on many a hard-fought field;
His now the shining palace, the garden of delight,
The psalm, the robe, the diadem, the glory ever bright.
The blessed angels round him, 'mid heaven's hallowed calm,
With harp and voice are lifting up the triumph of their psalm:
"All glory to the Holy One, the infinite I Am,
Whose grace redeems the fallen! Salvation to the Lamb!"

Another son of Adam's race, through Jesus' loving might,
Has crossed the waste, has reached the goal, has vanquished in the fight;
Hail, brother, hail! we welcome you! join in our sweet accord;
Lift up the burden of our song--Salvation to the Lord!
And now from out the glory, the living cloud of light,
The old familiar faces come beaming on his sight;
The early lost, the ever loved, the friends of long ago,
Companions of his conflicts and pilgrimage below.
They parted here in weakness, and suffering, and gloom;
They meet amid the freshness of heaven's immortal bloom;
Henceforth, in ever-enduring bliss to wander hand in hand,
Beside the living waters of the still and sinless land.
Oh, who can tell the rapture of those to whom 'tis given
Thus to renew the bonds of earth amid the bliss of heaven?
Thrice blessed be His Holy Name, who, for our fallen race,
Has purchased by His bitter pains such plenitude of grace.

In what way the spirits of the glorified are permitted--if at all--to minister to the saints on earth, is an inquiry often urged, but never satisfactorily answered. We have no "Thus says the Lord"--no revealed data--to guide us to a scriptural and rational conclusion in the matter. That they are employed in a service in Heaven, we think is perfectly clear; for we are told--"They SERVE Him day and night in His temple;" but that that service extends to earth we think it would be difficult to show, since it is hard to suppose that a spirit, not created like an angel's, could act but by and through material organs. Would not, too, a supposed service of the blessed saints on earth interfere with the authorised and revealed ministry of angels? But whether the spirits of just men made perfect are sent on embassies of mercy and grace to us or not--and it is not clear that they are--this much we do know, they are not unconscious of, nor indifferent to, the progress of Christ's kingdom and truth in the world; "they serve Him." Their sensibilities are all awake, and their powers all developed, and their time all employed in a way, doubtless, congenial with their nature, befitting their position, and glorifying to God. Let us be satisfied with the revealed ministry of angels, and, above and beyond all, with the higher ministry and presence of Christ, the Lord of angels, in the fulfillment of His precious and assuring promise, "Lo! I am with you aways!"

Does the dying eye of a saint of God, poised upon the wing for eternity, come upon this page? Departing one! fear not the foe--shrink not from dying--dread not the grave; Christ stands between you and death. Think of what awaits you! In a few moments of time, the world of glory and holiness, of love and song will burst upon you--and the first object that will meet your eye, fix your gaze, and ravish your heart will be--the glorified form of JESUS, bending upon you the most ineffable smile, and receiving you with the most loving welcome.

"That blessed interview, how sweet!
To fall transported at His feet,
Raised in His arms to view His face,
Through the full beamings of His grace!"

There are awaiting you millions of cherubim and seraphim, with harps all tuned to celebrate your arrival--the arches of heaven resounding with their song. Lining the heavenly shore in advance, outnumbering and outshining the angel choir, will be the glorified spirits of patriarchs and prophets, of apostles and martyrs, prepared to receive their sister spirit home. In front of all will be the loved ones you lost, but now will have found, the first to hail your advent to that blissful world, where, clasped in their embrace, death will sunder you no more forever! O the joyous meeting! O the loving welcome! O the sweet communion! O the heavenly banquet, and the "new," the ravishing, the never-ending "song," the HALLELUJAH CHORUS of the skies! Departing one! fix your eye only upon JESUS--and you "shall not see death."

"There is no death! O blessed Lord are holding
Our last worst enemy in endless chains;
And with Your powerful arm of love enfolding,
My soul fears not his terrors nor his pains.
The dreaded foe has lost his power to sting,
Not death can harm one sheltered by Your wing.

"What though death pierce my flesh?
Your own he wounded, Wounded for me!
Then blessed, blessed pain!
For in my ears, Your glorious word has sounded,
'The dead in Christ shall life eternal gain.'

"With You, dear Lord, I do not fear to die,
'Tis but ascending in You up on high;
To live, to reign with You, to leave You never
To see You, hear You, praise and love forever."

"O death, where is your sting? O grave, where is your victory?"

NO TEMPLE

"And I saw no temple therein; for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple thereof."--Rev. 21:22

A world without a temple, a heaven without a sanctuary, would, at first sight, appear an unfavorable image incongruous with its holy character, lacking in one of its grandest attributes and sweetest attractions. With the hallowed and precious memories of the services and delights of the earthly sanctuary clustering around us--the place, perchance, where we first heard "the joyful sound," experienced the first pulse of spiritual life, felt the first thrill of holy joy, and caught the first believing sight of Jesus. We find it difficult to picture to our minds a Heaven of which it is said--"I saw no temple therein." It sounds as if no Sabbath, no worship, no Redeemer, no God, were there! But let us not misinterpret this expressive negative of the New Jerusalem. Rather let us endeavor, by the Holy Spirit's aid, to evolve its deep and holy meaning, while we contemplate Heaven in its two aspects--as having NO Temple--and as being ALL Temple.

To guard against any misconception of this view of our subject, and thus clear our way to a proper understanding of its nature, let the following thoughts be carefully weighed. This absence of a Temple in Heaven by no means implies the absence of all worship, as constituting in part the happiness, and in part the employment, of the glorified spirits. It would seem clear, even from the partial revelations we possess of the blessedness of the glorified saints, that worship forms their most prominent, if not their only, function in Heaven. A door is opened in Heaven, and gazing within by faith, what do we see? We behold the "four and twenty elders fall down and WORSHIP Him that lives forever" What do we hear? The sweetest music that ever awoke the echoes of earth, fall upon our ear--"And they sang a NEW SONG, saying, with a loud voice, Worthy is the Lamb who was slain, to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honor, and blessing." Here is worship of the divinest, holiest, and sweetest character. Singing the "song of Moses, the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb," they are engaged in the highest devotion, and present the purest worship that ever bathed the throne of God with its incense-cloud. Oh, how faint, how poor, and how sinful, are our highest, holiest, and sweetest devotions here, compared with those inconceivable, pure, and sublime raptures which fill the souls of the glorified spirits in Heaven! Say not, then, that if Heaven is without a temple, it is therefore without worship! Does not your spirit pant, O you praiseful believer, to exchange earth's low worship for the lofty devotion, the perfect adoration, the swelling harmonies, of Heaven?

The existence of worship involves the presence and manifestation of the Divine Being. The worship of the glorified spirits is no blind unintelligent homage. To no unknown, unseen God is the homage of their souls offered. Heaven is replete with the unveilings of Deity, the manifestations of the Savior, the glory of the Godhead. Oh, the splendor of that beatific vision! WHO shall behold it? "The pure in heart shall SEE GOD." The tabernacle of God is now with men, and He will dwell with them, and they shall see His face, and they shall be His people.

What, then, are we to understand by the words--"And I saw no temple therein?" If there be a Divine object of worship, and a holy act of worship, and a devout assembly of worshipers, how is it that there is no temple? We answer--

There is no local or particular place of worship in Heaven. Christ did indeed say, "I go to prepare a PLACE for you;" but Heaven is a state as well as a place, and the Divine presence so fills its vast, its boundless space, that no one part can be regarded as more the temple of God than another. O sweet thought! Let me take the wings of the morning, and fly to the remotest sphere of Heaven; even there I shall be blessed with His presence, and robed with His glory, and bathed in the ocean of His love, who dwells in the high and lofty place, inhabiting eternity.

Is it not, in a sense, so now? Where does Divine providence lead me in which I am exiled from the Divine presence? Where may I wander in this lower world, and find no temple, and build no altar, for the worship and service of my God? What may be the sense of my solitude, the depth of my grief, the pressure of my need, the anguish of my spirit, the suffering of my body, and no throne of grace, no meeting-place be near, to which I may approach, and lose all my sorrow and my need in God? "Where shall I go from Your Spirit, or where shall I flee from Your presence? If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there shall Your hand lead me, and Your right hand shall hold me."

The evangelist saw no MATERIAL temple in Heaven. Such a spectacle would have been perfectly incongruous with the character of the place. A spiritual world, every physical and objective element in its worship must necessarily be absent. A material temple, with a service to a certain extent material and tangible, is a necessary accessory of earth. Jehovah recognized and illustrated this, when He commanded Solomon to build it, and furnished him with the plan--God Himself the Architect, and Moses the builder, of that stupendous and sacred edifice.

But what hallowed reminiscences and what precious memories are associated in our minds with the material sanctuary! If there is one spot upon earth more sacred and more dear than every other, it is the House of God, which often to us has proved the Gate of Heaven. With what fervor does the pious heart echo the words of the Psalmist, "How amiable are Your tabernacles, O Lord of Hosts! my soul longs, yes, even faints for the courts of the Lord; my heart and my flesh cries out for the living God. Yes, the sparrow has found an house, and the swallow a nest for herself, where she a may lay her young; even Your altars, O Lord of hosts, my King and my God. Blessed are those who dwell in Your House; they will be still praising You." "Lord, I have loved the habitation of Your House, and the place where Your honor dwells."

Spiritual, pure, and sublime as will be our worship in the heavenly sanctuary, vivid and grateful will be the memories of the services of the sanctuary on earth. "There it was," exclaims one, "I first heard of Jesus." It was there," says another, "I first saw the blood that cleansed me from my guilt, and brought peace to my burdened soul!" "There," testifies a third, "my imperfect knowledge of God was enlarged; my spiritual life was deepened; my failing faith was strengthened; and my love to the Savior was intensified and inflamed." "It was in God's House," is the language of yet another, "that I was comforted in deep sorrow, sustained in sore trial, strengthened in duty and service, and was taught to drink, with meek and cheerful submission, the cup which my Father gave me." And oh, how precious will be the memory of those soul-refreshing, heart-kindling, Christ-endearing seasons, when, clustering around the Supper of the Lord, we remembered the precious Person, and commemorated the atoning sacrifice, of Him whose Divine love dissolved our hearts, while the solemn symbols of His death moistened our lips! "And of Zion it shall be said, This and that man was BORN in her."

There is no HERETICAL temple in Heaven. That there should be such on earth, forms one of the darkest and most fatal facts in its history. The architecture may be perfect, the edifice imposing, its service attractive--soft music may float through its arches--fragrant incense perfume its air--gorgeous vestments dazzle the eye--and brilliant lights throw their luster over all--yet, if beneath its decorated roof, and along its Gothic walls, resound the echoes of false devotion; if the inspiration of the Bible is impugned, and the Godhead of the Savior denied, and the Sacrifice of the cross is ignored, and the regenerating grace of the Spirit is set aside, then the noxious upas-tree yields not fruit more poisonous, or casts not a shade more deadly, than the teaching and the influence of that temple, thus devoted to the promulgation of doctrines fatal to the salvation of man, and derogatory of the glory of God.

But, O blessed thought! in Heaven--no Pagan church, no infidel temple, no Romish mass-house, no heretical sanctuary, shall rear its dark head, or cast its gloomy shadow. All is truth, and all are truthful! There revelation is seen in its fullness, Christ's Deity adored in its grandeur, the Atonement acknowledged in its purity, and the holiness and music of the gospel--unshaded and unimpaired--is reflected from every spirit, and breathes from every harp.

There is no SECTARIAN temple in heaven. The existence of denominational sanctuaries on earth seems a natural and necessary part of the present imperfect state of the Church of God. Nothing, perhaps, more truly and strongly indicates its but partially sanctified condition, than the many unhappy divisions into which the Body of Christ is broken. "I am of Paul, and I of Apollos," is too much the shibboleth of those who yet belong to one Body--acknowledge one Head--are the temples of one Spirit, and bend the knee in worship before one God and Father of all--are traveling to one home, and hope to join through eternity in the one anthem--"Unto Him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in His own blood, and has made us kings and priests unto God, and His Father, to Him be glory and dominion forever and ever, Amen!"

Oh, if there is one attraction of Heaven sweeter than all others–except for the being forever with the Lord--methinks it is that of the perfect Church. There are no sects in Heaven--no rival Churches--no ecclesiastical divisions--no sacramental barriers--no exclusive orders--no spiritual caste, or clan, or party; nothing to create one jarring note in its finished harmony, or to distill one drop of bitter in its perfect love. With a prospect so enchanting, a hope so glorious, who will not strive to promote that spirit of love, unity, and fellowship in the Church on earth, which will receive its perfect consummation in the Church in Heaven? Oh, if a blush could crimson the cheek, or a tear moisten the eye of a glorified saint, methinks it would be the memory of the sectarian badge he narrowly wore on earth, and of the coldness, distrust, and alienation which he bore towards one whom God loved, and for whom the Savior died. How might shame and confusion of face cover us--not that we held our conscientious convictions firmly, but that we held them exclusively; not that we loved our own Branch of the Christian Church much, but that we did not love the whole Christian Church more.

There will be no IDOLATROUS temple in Heaven; "The idols He will utterly abolish." Evangelical missions to the heathen world--now the most noble sphere of the Christian Church--will then have accomplished their great, their Godlike work; the heathen will have been given to Christ for His inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for His possession. Until that long predicted, long prayed and looked for period arrive, be it our sweetest privilege, as it is our most imperative duty, to aid by our wealth, influence, and prayers, those Christian and evangelical enterprises, which are the glory of the Church, designed to impart vigor and swiftness to "the angel flying in the midst of Heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach unto those who dwell on the earth, and to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people."

In promoting the kingdom of Jesus in the world, we are effectually promoting the kingdom of Jesus in our souls. There is a present blessing and a reflex influence in what we do for God and for man. There is no waste in a service for Jesus. The ointment we pour upon His head--in our loving recognition of Him in His poor and suffering members--will diffuse its fragrance and awaken its song through eternity. Oh for more compassion for souls! Oh for more zeal for God, and self-denying service for Christ! What are we--what am I--doing for Him who has done so much for me? Are my intellectual powers sanctified to the vindication of His truth? Is my wealth consecrated to the advancement of His kingdom? Are my rank, influence, and time, all laid down at His feet? Have I humbly submitted my proud reason to revelation, and my faith to Christ--bowing down to Him as the Lord of my intellect, the Sovereign of my heart, and the Savior of my soul?

No unreasonable requirement is this, that my faith should accept what my reason cannot fathom; that my heart should believe what my understanding cannot grasp; that I should "become a fool that I may be wise," receiving the mysteries of God's word with the reverence, trust, and docility of a "little child." Such are the simple and immutable conditions propounded by the Great Teacher Himself. "Verily, I say unto you, whoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child, shall in no wise enter therein." (Luke 18:17) Upon no other terms can we be saved. It is divinely written, "The natural man receives not the things of the Spirit of God; for they are foolishness unto him; neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned." (1 Cor. 2:14)

But, submitting your mind to the Spirit's divine teaching--your heart to the power of Christ's grace--your whole being to the influence of God's love--lo! "He who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, will shine into your heart, to give you the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ." Thus, submitting your intellect to the gospel of God as a humble learner--believing in the Lord Jesus Christ as a penitent sinner--and loving God with the fervent and supreme affection of an obedient child, to you will unveil the mysteries of the kingdom of God's grace on earth, and before long, the full, unclouded splendor of those mysteries in the kingdom of His glory in heaven.

But, HEAVEN IS ALL TEMPLE--"for the Lord God and the Lamb are the temple thereof." A slight grammatical alteration may increase the force of this expression. In the original Greek, the verb is not in the plural; the "Lord God and the Lamb" constitute one and the same nominative singular; so that the words may be rendered, "Jehovah the Almighty God is its temple, and the Lamb." The New Jerusalem, unlike the Old--where but one house was reared expressly for divine worship, and to which the inhabitants alone repaired--will be all Temple--nothing but a temple--from every part of which--from its Divine center to its illimitable circumference--incense shall be offered unto His Name, and a pure offering.

Even now, the believer can realize God in Christ as His true Sanctuary--His Divine Temple everywhere. In the busiest mart or the deepest solitude--in the silent chamber of sickness and in the shadowed house of mourning--at eventide and at day-dawn--on the land and on the sea--at home and abroad, God in Christ is the accessible Sanctuary of His saints. There--at that moment and on that spot--the devout heart may breathe its holy aspirations, the sorrowful unveil its lonely grief, the needy make known its pressing wants, the erring confess its deepest guilt. "And there will I be unto you," says God, "as a little Sanctuary." "In all places where I record My name, I will come unto you and I will bless you." And where in the vast creation of God is His great and holy Name not recorded? To what object does the eye of man turn, or upon what spot does he plant his foot, and God's Name not appear in its own divine grandeur? It is engraved indelible on the granite rock--dazzles resplendent from the snowy mountain--smiles in beauty from the jutting cliff--towers in majesty in the hoary forest--thunders sublimely in the roaring cataract--whispers softly in the evening breeze--breathes from every flower and smiles in every sunbeam, 'You are near, O God! and all creation a sanctuary, and every object an altar where Your presence may be found, and Your great and glorious Name worshiped and adored!'

Deem not yourself deserted of your God, you lonely and desolate one! Separated from your brethren, like Joseph; exiled from your home, like John; rejected of man, like your Savior--yet you cannot be where your Heavenly Father bends not upon you His eye of love, where the arms of Jesus, your Elder Brother, do not encircle you, and where the "still small voice" of the Divine Comforter does not whisper words of peace to your spirit. God bows His ear to your softest prayer, Jesus interprets the language of your silent tear, the Holy Spirit hears your pensive sigh floating upon the viewless wind; and thus known to each Person of the ever-blessed Triune-God is the rough and shaded path along which, weary and footsore, you travel.

But let us take a closer view of this representation of Heaven as being all temple. We read--"And I saw no temple therein; for the Lord God Almighty, and the Lamb, are the temple thereof." The further thoughts which this glorious apocalyptic vision suggests are precious and animating. We are reminded, first, that there will be NO LOCALIZING OF THE HEAVENLY WORSHIP; that no particular part will be more consecrated for this purpose than another; because the whole will be one vast holy and sublime temple, since the Lord God will enlighten it, and the Lamb be the light thereof. Filled with His magnificent presence, illuminated with His dazzling glory, fragrant with the incense of His love, and resounding with the music of His praise, the spirits of the just made perfect will from every region fully and "continually behold His face, and serve Him day and night in His temple." Thus, all Heaven will be a temple, because all Heaven will be--GOD.

Another thought is, the FULL GLORY AND PRESENCE OF THE LAMB. The beauty and embellishment of this Divine Temple will be--JESUS. Through the temple of His glorified humanity--for anything that we know--the glory of God will still be seen. That the Son will, when the mystery of God is finished, surrender the Kingdom to the Father, that God may be all in all, is perfectly clear; but not so clear is the idea that, independently of the mediatorship of Christ, we shall continue to see and worship God. It is the opinion of the writer that the 'Humanity of Christ' will still be the medium of the divine presence and communication of the divine glory to the saints. But, be this as it may, we shall see God and live. Magnificent thought! Sublime prospect! If the divine presence in the earthly sanctuary is so precious and inspiriting, what will that presence be in the heavenly? O Lord! may our worship of You below resemble more closely our worship of You above--and since You will be our Temple in Heaven, be our Sanctuary on earth, that, when we tread Your courts, we may feel, "How fearsome is this place! this is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of Heaven."

"In time of service seal up both your eyes,
And send them to your heart--that spying sin
They may weep out the stains by them did rise;
Those doors being shut, all by the ear comes in.
Who marks in church-time other's symmetry
Makes all their beauty his deformity.

"Let vain or busy thoughts have there no part,
Bring not your plots, your plow, your pleasures there.
CHRIST purged His temple--so must you your heart.
All worldly thoughts are but thieves met together
To distract you. Look to your actions well,
For churches either are our heaven or hell."--George Herbert

But, oh! what a magnificent vision awaits us--the glory of the Lamb in the Heavenly Temple! Methinks the first sight on the soul's entrance into glory will be the enthroned Redeemer. All thought and admiration, all love and worship, all song and service, will center in Him. There are moments in our present imperfect state when we associate Heaven with the beloved being who has passed from our embrace within the veil, and we think only of the happy and endless reunion with the departed one--it is a pleasant and a lovely thought, and God would not rob us of it. But we leave all of earth on earth when we exchange earth for Heaven. The moment we pass within its gate of pearl we become perfectly heavenly. "As is the heavenly, such are they also that are heavenly." Not that we shall love these precious ones less, but we shall love Jesus more. Not that we shall not be filled with wonder at their perfect beauty, but we shall be yet more profoundly lost in wonder, admiration, and praise of Him whose beauty beautified all, eclipses all, and whose love, transcending all love, will have brought us there!

When the late Whately was on his dying bed, a clergyman sitting at his side and looking at an exquisite bouquet, inquired, "Does you think there will be flowers in Heaven?" "As to that I know nothing," replied the dying prelate; "but this I do know--JESUS will be there!" Yes, Jesus will be there! and that will be enough! Oh, how we shall admire--love--and adore Him! To do so now is our heaven upon earth; but to see Him as He is, to love as we then shall love, to worship as we then shall worship--oh, it will be the "Heaven of Heaven" to our souls!

"Dear Lord Jesus, keep me ever
In Your presence, near Your side;
Nothing my soul from You can sever,
In Your ways will I abide--
You the life are of my living,
And all strength and power of mine
I am still from You deriving
As the vine-branch from the vine.

"Could my state on earth be better
Than beneath His watchful care,
To whom I am daily debtor
For all blessings that I share?
Could my happiness be surer
Than in resting near my Lord?
Could the future be securer
Than He's made it by His Word?

"Is there any earthly master
Who, like Jesus, could or would
Rescue me from death's disaster
With his own most precious blood?
Should I not be His possession
When He gave His life for me?
His, by my own glad concession,
Now and through eternity?

"Yes, Lord Jesus, I will love Thee;
In my gladness, in my grief;
From Your service nothing move me;
I will serve You all my life--
Ever to Your voice replying,
Ready when death comes to me,
For the soul may welcome dying
Whose humble trust is fixed on Thee.

"Lord, be near, my soul to strengthen,
As my day on earth goes on,
Until the evening shadows lengthen
And the night is coming down:
Then, Your gracious hands extending,
In the fullness of Your love,
Whisper, 'Child, this life is ending,
Come and rest with me above."'--from the German

If the presence of Christ and the glory of God in the earthly sanctuary are so precious and glorious, oh, what will that world be which is all Temple, because it is all God! No longer the dawn of glory and the gate of Heaven, it will be the meridian of glory and Heaven itself, in unclouded splendor, fullness of joy and perfection of worship. The central Object will be JESUS--"Jesus in the midst." This has ever been the place of Jesus. He was the center of suffering on Mount Calvary--"Jesus in the midst;"--and He will be the center of glory on Mount Zion.--"In the midst of the throne stood a Lamb, as it had been slain." Every eye will be fixed upon Him--every heart will meet in Him--every song will be of Him--and at His feet every crown will be laid. My soul longs for the wings of a dove, that it might fly away and behold Jesus in His glory.

"O thrilling thought! that I shall be
With Him who shed His blood for me,
Where nothing from Him shall sever;
Where I with sainted hosts above,
Overshadowed by the Holy Dove,
Shall banquet on His boundless love,
And KNOW those words--'forever.'

O thrilling thought! to see Him shine,
For evermore to call Him mine,
With Heaven, ALL Heaven, before me!
To stand where angel myriads gaze,
Amid the illimitable blaze,
While He the Godhead full displays,
To all the sons of glory!"

A practical and solemn question will close these pages. Are we as temples of God through the Spirit, preparing for the Temple-worship of God in Heaven? The worship of Heaven begun in time, is prolonged through eternity. The hour is approaching when the questions of place and mode of worship will diminish into impressive insignificance weighed with the questions, "Am I born again? have I Christ in me, the hope of glory? is my hope of salvation wholly in His blood and righteousness? am I a true, holy, spiritual worshiper in the sanctuary below?" But if, on the contrary, we reverence not God's day, forsake His house, and exclaim of His service and worship, "What a weariness!" how can we, in the nature of things, be admitted to the society, the employments, and the worship of that world of which the Lord God and the Lamb are the temple thereof?

You are, perhaps, my reader, the Lord's prisoner--the "prisoner of hope." Suffering and infirmity prevent your attendance at the house of God--the place you long have loved and frequented--and you exclaim, with the Psalmist, "My soul longs, yes, even faints, for the courts of the Lord; my heart and my flesh cries out for the living God." Be still! the God who loves you is not restricted to places, or means, or forms; but as He has appointed you that couch of suffering, that bed of sickness, even there He will be to you as a little sanctuary. Bowing down to your weakness, He will catch the softest prayer, interpret the language of your silent tears, accept and answer the feeblest desires of your heart. Oh, what pure, fragrant, and acceptable worship may ascend to Him from your sick and lonely chamber--even the worship of a broken, Christ-loving, God-longing heart, to Him the most acceptable of all worship. The deprivation of a blessing may be to you a richer boon than the blessing itself.

Thus, beloved, is Jesus disciplining and preparing you for the higher, holier, sweeter worship of that world of which the Lord God and the Lamb are the temple thereof. Cheer up! soon you will weep the last tear, and sigh the last sigh, and sin and sorrow and suffer no more--gazing in admiration and love upon the King in His beauty, and reclining in the sweetest repose forever on His ineffable bosom.

Until then, let faith often climb Pisgah's sacred height, and survey the golden shore, and the sunny hills, and the fragrant fields, that lie across Jordan's river. Before long you will reach the margin and death will ferry you over; and you will "Come to Mount Zion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly and church of the First-Born, who are written in heaven, and to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect, and to Jesus the Mediator of the new covenant; to the glorious company of the apostles, the godly fellowship of the prophets, the noble army of martyrs, and you shall be--forever with the Lord."

"Row me over, row me over,
I would see the other side--
Hasten, boatman, quickly hasten,
Let me breast the rising tide.

"'Lady, hear the billows raging,
Listen to the driving storm;
Wait until the sea is calmer,
Wait until the coming morn.'

"Row me, boatman, row me over,
I will never fear the storm,
While the Dear One hails my coming--
See, oh, see His lovely form.

"'I see no one who waits your coming;
All is wild, and dark, and drear;
Hark! the waves are breaking wildly--
Lady, do you know no fear?'

"Fear! O boatman, name it never,
When it is the Lord's command;
He can calm the angry waters
With the waving of His hand.

"'I see no hand above the billows,
I see no form on yonder shore;
I will never trust the waters
Until the midnight storm is o'er.'

"Hark! a voice is sweetly calling,
Calling from the other side;
Hear you not its gentle accents
Floating over the swelling tide?

"'Tis the song of ocean, lady,
Listen to it never more;
Come to me upon the morrow--
When it calms I'll row you o'er.'

"Cannot wait until tomorrow--
He commands, I must obey;
Where He hails me is no morrow,
But unchanging, endless day.

"If you will not row me over,
Place the helm within His hand;
He will guide the frail bark over,
Over to the promised land.

"He's a true and faithful Pilot,
Ever ready at command;
Never a soul that trusted in Him
Failed to reach the gilded strand."--Baker.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

SOUL HEIGHTS and SOUL DEPTHS

Table of Contents

1. Soul Depths

2. Prayer Out of Soul Depths

3. Contrition and Confession

4. Forgiveness and Fear

5. Waiting and Watching

6. Watching for the Morning

7. Hoping in the Lord

8. Final and Full Redemption

9. Soul Heights

Soul Depths

"Out of the depths have I cried unto You, 0 Lord." — Psalm 130:1.

It is of little moment to our present exposition that we determine the precise occasion in David's history on which this Psalm was composed. Suffice, that it forms one of the richest and most tuneful of his poetical compositions, and unfolds one of the most spiritual and instructive chapters in his remarkable history. As such, it reflects the lights and shadows, the depths and heights of the Christian life, as more or less vividly portrayed in every believer's history. That there are these opposites of soul-exercise in the experience of all the spiritual seed of David, of all to whom belong his "sure mercies"— not excepting David's Lord— the history of the Church of God fully attests.
The Christian life is tortuous and chequered in its course. The royal path to glory is a divine mosaic paved with stones of diverse lines. Today, it is a depth almost soundless; tomorrow, a height almost scaleless. Now, a shadow drapes the picture, somber and rayless; then, a light illumines the camera, brilliant and gladsome. Here, the "song" is of mercy, sweet and entrancing; there, it is of judgement, sad and mournful. "When men are cast down, then you shall say, There is lifting up." But, a divine Hand, veiled and invisible to all but faith's eye, shapes and directs the whole; and, assured of this, the believing soul is trustful and calm.
"He led them about, He instructed them," was the history of the Church in the wilderness; and each stage was a school, each condition a blessing, each event a lesson learned, and a new beatitude experienced,— learned and experienced as in no other. Variety, rich and endless, is stamped upon all God's works and operations; not less is this seen in the circuitous path by which He is leading His people home to Himself. It is this ever-dissolving, ever shifting scenery of the Christian's life that unfolds new views of God's character, and brings him into a closer acquaintance with his own.
To the consideration, then, of these "depths" and "heights" of the Christian life, let us now devoutly and thoughtfully address ourselves. And may the Eternal Spirit unfold and apply His truth to the edification of the reader, and to the glory of His own name, for Christ Jesus' sake! "Out of the depths have I cried unto you, 0 Lord."
It may be proper to intimate in the commencement of our treatise, that the experience described in this, its opening chapter, must not be interpreted as that of an unregenerate soul. That there are "depths" of temporal adversity and mental distress, deep and dark, in the life of the unregenerate, is manifest; but, they are not the "depths" of God's people. It is recorded of the wicked who prosper in the world, that they have "no changes in their life," and "no bands in their death, and are not as other men." But the saints of God dwell among their own people, and walk in paths untrodden by the ungodly. The experience, then, which we are about to describe is peculiar to the saints.
However profound these 'depths,' they are not the depths of hell, draped with its mist of darkness, and lurid with its quenchless flames. There is in them no curse, nor wrath, nor condemnation. Sink as the gracious soul may, it ever finds the Rock of Ages beneath, upon which faith firmly and securely stands. Whatever may be the depressions of the believer, it is important to keep in mind his real standing before God. From this no chequered spiritual history can move him. There is not an angel in heaven so divinely related, so beauteously attired, or who stands so near and is so dear to God, as the accepted believer in Christ, though earth is still his abode, and a body of sin his dwelling.
A practical lesson grows out of this truth. Let it be your aim to know your present standing as in the sight of God. Upon so vital a question not the shadow of a doubt should rest. "We believe, and are sure." Faith brings assurance, and assurance is faith. The measure of our assured interest in Christ, will be the measure of our faith in Christ. This is the true definition of assurance, the nature of which is a question of much perplexity to sincere Christians. Assurance is not something audible, tangible, or visionary— a revelation to the mind, or a voice in the air. Assurance is believing. Faith is the cause, assurance is the effect. Assurance of personal salvation springs from looking to, and dealing only with Jesus. It comes not from believing that I am saved, but from believing that Christ is my Savior.
The object of my salvation is not my faith, but Christ. Faith is but the instrument by which I receive Christ as a sinner. As the eaglet acquires strength of vision by gazing upon the sun, until at length, when fledged, it expands its wings and soars to the orb of day,— so the eye of faith, by "looking unto Jesus" only, gradually becomes stronger; and in proportion to its clear and still clearer view of Christ, brings increased, sweet, and holy assurance to the soul.
One simple, believing sight of Christ will produce more light and peace and joy than a lifetime of looking within ourselves for evidences and signs of grace. All the sinner's merit, all his worthiness, beauty, and salvation, is centered in Christ, is from Christ, and Christ alone. And, by simply believing the great truth of the gospel, that Christ died for sinners— receiving Christ, not purchasing Him,— as God's "unspeakable gift" of free and sovereign grace, will awaken in the soul the assured and grateful acknowledgment, "He loved me, and gave Himself for me." But let us enumerate some of those soul-depths into which many of God's people are frequently plunged, in which grace sustains, and out of which love delivers them. "Out of the depths have I cried unto you, 0 Lord."
We place in the foreground of these "depths," as constituting, perhaps, the most common— soul-distress arising from the existence and power of indwelling sin in the regenerate. There is not a fact in the history of the saints more clearly taught or more constantly verified than this: that, while the Holy Spirit renews the soul, making it a new creature in Christ Jesus, He never entirely uproots and slays the principle and root of sin in the regenerate. The guilt of sin is cleansed by atoning blood, and the tyranny of sin is broken by the power of divine grace, and the condemnation of sin is cancelled by the free justification of Christ; nevertheless, the root, or principle of original sin remains deeply and firmly embedded in the soil, ever and anon springing up and yielding its baneful fruit, demanding unslumbering watchfulness and incessant mortification; and will so remain until death sets the spirit free.
The inhabitants of Canaan were allowed by God still to domicile in the land long after His chosen people had entered and possessed it. They were to contract no covenant with them, either by marriage or commerce; but, laid under tribute, they were to remain subject to a gradual process of extermination, contributing to, rather than taking from, the wealth and power of Israel's tribes. This is an impressive and instructive emblem of the regenerate! The old inhabitants still domicile in the new creature: original sin, individual corruption, and constitutional infirmity— surviving the triumphant advent of the converting grace of God— often challenging the forces of the Most High, and inflicting upon the soul many a deep and grievous wound.
Now, it is the existence of this fact that constitutes a source of so much soul-distress to the regenerate, bringing them into those "depths" familiar to the most gracious. When the Holy Spirit inserts the plough more deeply into the corrupt soil of the heart, turning up the fair surface, and revealing the hidden, deeply- seated, and but little-suspected, evil— the law of corruption for a moment stronger than the law of grace, the law of the flesh obtaining a temporary ascendancy over the law of the Spirit— then rises the dolorous lamentation out of the depths: "0 wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death? 0 Lord, out of the depths of my deep corruption I call unto You! My soul is plunged into great and sore troubles by reason of indwelling sin, whose name is 'legion'— pride, self-righteousness, carnality, covetousness, worldliness— working powerfully and deceitfully in my heart, and bringing my soul into great straits and fathomless depths of sorrow."
Beloved, when first you found the Savior, you imagined that the warfare had ceased, that the victory was won, and that, henceforth, your Christian course would be a continuous triumph over every foe, your path to heaven smooth and cloudless, until lost in perfect day! But your real growth in grace is the measure of your growing acquaintance with yourself. A deeper knowledge of your sinfulness, a more intimate acquaintance with the subterfuges of your own heart, has changed your paean of triumph into well-near a wail of despair; has hurled you as from the pinnacle to the base of the mount; and from the base, into a "depth" yet deeper you never supposed to exist, and out of which— the "slough of despond"— your cry of agony ascends to God.
But, deem not your case a solitary one; nor be surprised, as though some strange thing had happened unto you. Such "depths" have all the saints. All are taught in this school; all are brought into the region of their own heart, where their holiest and most experimental lessons are learned. Let not, then, the existence, sight, and conflict of the indwelling of sin plunge you in despair; rather, accept it as an unmistakable evidence of your possession of the divine nature, of the living water welled in your soul- the existence and warfare of which have but revealed to you the counter existence and antagonism of the latent and deep-seated evil of your heart.
But, not the indwelling of sin only, still more its outbreaking, describes another soul-depth of God's saints. What an evidence have we here of the truth just insisted upon— the indwelling power of sin in the regenerate! Truly, were there no indwelling root of sin, there would be no outgrowing fruit of sin. The mortification of sin in its principle, would be the mortification of sin in its practice. The death of sin in the heart of the Christian would, necessarily, be the death of sin in the life of the Christian. No fact more logical or self-evident. But where is the true believer who, as before a heart-trying God, can claim the entire uprooting of the indwelling principle of evil— who, unless awfully self-deceived, can in truth assert that he has arrived at such a degree of sanctification as to live a day, an hour, a moment, a sinless life?
How contrary would such vain boasting be to the recorded experience of the most matured believer- the most advanced and holy Christian! Listen to the language of David: "Wash me throughly from mine iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin. For I acknowledge my transgressions and my sin is ever before me." Listen to job: "I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes." Listen to Peter: "Depart from me; for I am a sinful man, O Lord." Listen to Paul: "Sinners; of whom I am chief." Who, with such examples before him, will profanely claim perfect freedom, not merely from the indwelling existence, but from the outbreaking effects of sin?
But who can fully describe the soul-sorrow; one of the profoundest depths of the regenerate occasioned by the consciousness of sinful departure from God? "And Peter went out, and wept bitterly." The penitence of Peter was a type of all true penitents, whose backslidings the foregoing acknowledgments recall to remembrance. And what a mercy that our Heavenly Father does not leave His wandering child to the hardening tendency and effect of his backslidings; but, sooner or later, His Spirit, by the word, or through some afflictive discipline of love, recalls the wanderer to His feet, with the confession and the prayer- "O Lord, pardon my iniquity; for it is great." "Heal me, O Lord, and I shall be healed." These confessions of sin what gracious soul does not echo? Surely every heart that knows its own plague will make them its own; and thus the Holy Spirit fashions our renewed hearts alike.
There are also "depths" of mental darkness and despondency into which gracious souls fall. Many a shaded and lonely stage of the Christian's pilgrimage lies in the way to heaven. Through many a dark, starless night the spiritual voyager ploughs the ocean to the desired haven where he would be. It is far more the province of faith to work and travel and sail in the dark than in the light, in the night season than the day. And thus, this essential and precious principle of the regenerate soul is put to a more crucial and certain test than when the path of the believer is decked with smiling flowers and radiant with unclouded sunshine. It is, "Faith in the dark, Pursuing its mark Through many sharp trials of love."
In the family of God there are not a few Christians of a morbidly religious tendency of mind, whose Christian career through life is seldom relieved and brightened by a solitary thrill of joy or ray of hope. While the reality of their conversion is undoubted by all but themselves, they seem to have settled down into a spiritual state of despondency and despair in which all evidence is ignored, all comfort refused, and all hope extinguished. In vain you unfold the gospel in all the fullness of its message, the freeness of its overtures, and the preciousness of its promises. They repel you with the reply that its provisions, invitations, and comforts are for others but not for them; that theirs is not the blessedness of those for whom these glad tidings are sent.
Tell them of God's great love in the gift of His Son of Christ saving sinners to the uttermost, rejecting none who come to Him; of the blood that has a sovereign efficacy in its cleansing from all sin; remind them that, when God begins a work of grace in the soul of a poor sinner, He never leaves it incomplete; that, although the sun in the firmament is often obscured by a cloud, yet all the while it shines as intensely brilliant as though not a shadow veiled its light; and that thus it is with the Sun of Righteousness and the child of the light walking in darkness; you but deal with a believer on whose brow the "agony of anxious helplessness" is stamped.
But until a power infinitely mightier than the human is exerted, morbid melancholy will still claim the victim as its own. Religious delusion is the great characteristic of souls in a state of morbid religiousness. But is there no remedy? Has not the gospel its appropriate instructions and helps for a soul thus overshadowed and depressed? Surely there are divine steps out of this "depth," might we but succeed in unveiling them to the desponding eye. Our true process will be to trace it to some of its more fruitful and proximate causes, the discovery and statement of which may suggest more than half its remedy. To this attempt let us address ourselves.
We do not hesitate placing in the foreground of causes producing spiritual despondency, one which, perhaps, is the most common, though the least suspected of all- the physical constitution and state of the afflicted one. In this case the physician who prescribes for the body, rather than he who ministers to the soul, may be the most appropriate and useful adviser. So intimately united are the two constituent parts of our organism- mind and body, there must necessarily be a continuous action and reaction of the one upon the other; and the peculiar condition in which both may be at that moment, must of necessity, exert a powerful and reciprocal influence.
Now, in numberless cases of morbid religious despondency the cause is purely physical. This may, perhaps, shock the piety of some, and not the less supply ground of attack upon religion on the part of others; nevertheless, the psychological fact remains the same. A disturbed and unhealthy condition of any one vital organ of the body, may so powerfully act upon the mind, and that in its turn upon the Soul, as to tinge the mental and moral perceptions, distort the most simple truths, embitter the sweetest consolations, and shade the brightest hopes and prospects of the soul.
Depressed child of God, suffering from this cause, be of good cheer! The Lord, who loves you- loves you not less when all is dark as when all is light- knows your frame, and remembers that you are dust. Your present mental cloud-veil does not, and cannot, extinguish the heavenly light within you, touch your spiritual life, or separate you from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus your Lord. The divine nature, of which you are, through grace, a partaker, rises as far above the condition of the body as the infinite rises above the finite. The spiritual life of your soul flows from, and is bound up with, the life of God in heaven.
And if there is any gentleness and sympathy in Christ (and who can doubt it?) which clusters with a deeper intensity around a child of His love, it is he who, suffering from physical disease, pain, and languor, is at the same moment battling, as an effect, with morbid religiousness and mental despondency; and these, in their turn, gendering spiritual doubts and distress touching the happiness of the present, and the hope of the future. Little think we with what tenderness and gentleness Jesus deals with the 'sick one whom He loves,' and what consideration and forbearance He exercises towards those who, through bodily infirmity and physical suffering, are plunged into depths of religious melancholia, bordering, it may be, on the very verge of despair and self-destruction! Jesus, who built your frame, remembers that you are dust;' and from no heart in the universe pulsating with love towards you, flows such intelligent compassion, such patience, forbearance, and tender sympathy as from Christ's.
But there are spiritual causes yet more potent- to which this morbid, self-condemning action of the mind may be traced. Let us glance at one or two of them. The substitution, for example, of the work of the Spirit in the soul, for the work of Christ for the soul, supplies a fruitful cause of religious doubt and despondency in many Christians. God, in the exercise of His grace, never intended that the sources of our Christian evidence and spiritual fertility should be within ourselves. It was His purpose to lodge our entire salvation in Christ; at the same time leaving undisturbed our individual responsibility and duty to "give all diligence to make our calling and election sure;" and thus "work out our own salvation with fear and trembling," encouraged by the assurance, that it is "God that works in us to will and to do of His good pleasure."
To look, then, within ourselves for spiritual light, joy, and hope, is just as unwise and vain as to put sound for substance, the sun reflected from the bosom of a lake, for the sun blazing in mid-heaven. It is to Christ obeying and suffering, bleeding and dying for us, that we are to look for our evidences, fruitfulness, and hope, and not to the work of the Holy Spirit wrought in our souls. Essential to our renewal and sanctification as is the work of the Spirit, He did not atone for us. He is not our Savior, nor His work our salvation, necessary and precious as is His office in the economy of Redemption.
Christ alone is our Redeemer, His righteousness our justification, His blood our pardon, His merits our standing before God; and it is looking to Him in faith, to His mediation, merits, and fullness, that we arrive at any degree of spiritual evidence, fruitfulness, and assurance. Turning within yourself for marks and signs of grace, and finding instead nothing but sin, and darkness, and change, how are you to become a firm believer and a joyful Christian? Looking to your experience, your fitful frames and feelings, and not by faith to Christ, the wind is not more capricious, nor the tide more changeful, than will be your peace and comfort, your holiness and hope.
But, try the experiment of looking away from yourself to Jesus. Pass by even the cross, the atonement, the gospel, and the sacrament, and rest not until you find yourself face to face, heart to heart, with a PERSONAL, living, loving SAVIOR, -the gracious words breathing in sweetest cadence from His lips- Oh listen to their music, you sin-disturbed, soul-desponding ones!– "Come unto ME, all you that labor and are heavy-laden, and I will give you REST." "Look unto ME, all the ends of the earth, and be saved: for I am God, and there is none else." "I am the door;" "I am the bread of life." In all these gracious invitations we hear the voice of a Personal- "I AM" -of a Personal Savior.
Cease, then, to deal with dogmas, feelings and experience, however elevated or depressed, and behold the Lamb of God, contemplate His Person, study His work, feast upon His word, revel in His fulness, bathe in the sea of His love, and let Him be all in all to your soul. Thus turning the eye from yourself and dealing only with the Person of Jesus, the cloud will uplift from your mind, "the winter will depart, and the flowers appear, the time of the singing of birds will come, and the voice of the turtle be heard in the land;" and your soul, thus bursting from its icy fetters, its wintry sterility and gloom, into the beauty and fragrance of its new spring-life of joy, will be "Like the sweet south wind, that breathes upon a bank of violets, Stealing and giving odors."
In how many cases this spiritual despondency may be traced to the idea, incessantly haunting the mind, of having committed the unpardonable sin, the sin against the Holy Spirit! But how groundless this fear! Apart from the probability, and we might in a qualified sense add, the impossibility, of the fact, the holy fear and trembling which the apprehension creates, is of itself a sufficient contradiction of such a thing. But, what was the sin against the Holy Spirit which Jesus denounced in terms so appalling? Clearly, it was that of ascribing to the agency of Satan the Divine power by which He wrought His wonderful miracles. "This fellow does not cast out devils but by Beelzebub, the prince of the devils." Then said Jesus, "All sins shall be forgiven to the sons of men ... But he that shall blaspheme against the Holy Spirit has never forgiveness, but is in danger of eternal damnation."
Such clearly was the sin against the Holy Spirit. Can it be yours, my reader? Impossible! You have never been tempted, or if tempted have never yielded to the temptation for a moment-loathing and rejecting it– of ascribing the Divine works of Christ to Satanic power! Oh no! Banish, then, from your mind the appalling thought, this groundless fear; and clasp in the arms of your faith and love afresh the gracious, sin-atoning, sin-forgiving Savior, who has never permitted you to fall into this 'depth of Satan,' and who will, with the temptation, give you grace, that you may be able to bear and victoriously to repel it.
Others of God's saints are often plunged into great depths of soul distress, occasioned by the doctrine of Election. Through the misrepresentations of some teachers, and their own crude notions of the doctrine, they extract bitterness from one of the sweetest and clearest truths of God's word. But, divine and precious as the doctrine of Election is, it is not a truth with which we have immediately to do in the great matter of personal salvation. Election belongs to God alone; it is His eternal and profound secret, with which we have nothing to do but unquestionably to believe. "Secret things belong to God;" and this is one of the most profoundly secret. The truth with which we have to do is our effectual calling; this made sure, the certainty of our election follows; our calling is the effect and consequence of our election. Hence the order in which the Holy Spirit, by the apostle, places these truths: "Be diligent to make your calling and election sure."
The first and lowest link in the chain of your salvation is your calling by the Spirit. Called by sovereign grace to see your sinfulness, to accept Christ; and evidencing the reality of your calling by a pure and holy life, you have made sure of the last and the highest link of the chain, and may calmly leave the fact of your eternal election to everlasting life with God, in whose hands it is alone and safely lodged. With the divine decrees, happily, you have nothing to do. You are not called to believe that you are one of the elect; but you are called to believe in Jesus Christ- that you are a poor, lost sinner, feeling your need of the Savior, looking only to His blood and righteousness as the ground of your pardon, justification, and final glory. Thus called by grace to be a saint of God, election will become to you one of the most encouraging, comforting, and sanctifying doctrines of the Bible.
Cease, then, to trouble your soul as to this divine and hidden truth, and deal directly and only with Christ. Then will your soul, ascending from this 'depth' of doubt and despondency in which too long you have lain, and rising into the region of light, joy and hope, will sing as you soar- "My soul is escaped as a bird out of the snare of the fowler: the snare is broken, and I am escaped." "Whom He did predestinate, them He also called: and whom He called, them He also justified: and whom He justified, them He also glorified."
The word of God speaks of the "depths of Satan" (Rev. 2:24). Some of these "depths" mark the experience of many of the saints. The members of Christ's body must, in a great degree, be conformed to their Head; and no chapter of our Lord's life is more instructive than that of His temptation in the wilderness. "Tempted in all points like as we are," He thus, during those forty days' and forty nights' conflict with the devil, was learning how to succor those who are tempted. There are "depths" in Satan's temptations of various degrees; some deeper and darker than others. Some of the Lord's people are tempted to doubt, and almost to deny, the work of grace in their soul; some are tempted to limit the power and willingness of Christ to save them; others are attacked in the very citadel of their faith, sorely tempted to deny the truth of God's word, the veracity of His character, and a future life beyond the grave. How many saints there are whose temptations lie within the circle of their families; others within the sphere of their calling in life; others in their service for Christ; and not a few within the very church of God itself!
There is no part of the Christian armor so invulnerable which Satan will not attempt to pierce, and no place so retired or engagement so holy where his "depths" are not concealed! Are you thus tempted, child of God? Have you fallen into some of these "depths of Satan"? "Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened unto you;" for, "there has no temptation taken you but what is common to man: but God is faithful, who will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that you may be able to bear it." The Lord will not leave you to perish in these wiles or to sink in these depths of Satan; but while in them will instruct you in truths, and teach you lessons, learned only in this fiery and trying school and, when spiritually and effectually learned, He will 'pull you out of the net,' and raise you above the 'depths,' more perfectly assimilated than ever to the image of your Lord, once tempted in all points like as you are; and who knows how to succor those who are thus tempted.
We must not omit the depths of affliction and trial into which, more or less profound, all the Lord's people are plunged. The language of David, and of David's Lord, is that of all the spiritual seed of David: "Deep calls unto deep at the noise of your waterspouts: all your waves and your billows are gone over me." Deep and billowy and dark are often the waters through which the saints wade to glory. "The Lord tries the righteous;" and He tries them because they are righteous, and to make them yet more righteous still. It was deep in the fathomless depths that Jonah learned the most precious of all truths: "Salvation is of the Lord." It was in the cave of Adullam- in the lion's den- in the noisome pit in the jail of Philippi- in the isle of Patmos- in the garden of Gethsemane; that David, and Daniel, and Jeremiah, and John, and Jesus, were brought into the richest teaching, holiest lessons, and most blessed experience of their lives.
And shall we, beloved, plead exemption from these depths of trial, tribulation, and sorrow? Ah no! what losers should we be were it so! Who would not follow in the footsteps of the flock? Above all, who would not walk in the footsteps of the Shepherd of the flock, who, though He were a Son, yet learned He obedience by the things which He suffered"? Look up, then, you sinking child of sorrow! Are you enquiring of the Lord, "Why am I thus tried, thus afflicted, thus chastened?" Listen to His answer: "As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten."
Reader, resolve all this discipline of trial and of sorrow through which your God is calling you to pass- the loss that has
lessened your resources, the bereavement that has broken your heart, the trial that has saddened your spirit, the temptation that has assailed your faith- into the everlasting and unchangeable love of your Father in heaven. "For whom the Lord loves He chastens, and scourges every son whom He receives." Therefore, "despise not you the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when you are rebuked of Him."
Out of the depths of affliction and sorrow the Lord will hear your cry, and from them will raise you. The promise will stand good to the end- the promise upon which many a soul, sinking in deep waters, has clung with faith's undying grasp: "When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overflow you: when you walk through the fire, you shall not be burned; neither shall the flame kindle upon you." Welcome, O welcome, the sanctified discipline of trial and sorrow that proves your conversion real, your title to heaven valid, and your hope in Jesus such as will not expire when the cold damps of death are gathering around it; but will become stronger and more luminous as the lamps of earth recede and fade, and those of heaven approach nearer and grow more bright. Lord, if your furnace thus refines and your knife thus prunes- rendering your "gold" more pure and your "branch" more fruitful
"Let me never choose or to live or die,
Bind or bruise, in your hands I lie."
Not anticipating the subject of the next chapter, we would close the present by reminding the believer thus exercised that, as sure as there are in the experience of the saints 'depths' of soul-trouble and conflict, depths of spiritual and mental despondency and despair, 'depths' of trial and sorrow, 'depths' of temptation and need- "a night and a day in the deep" -so there are deliverances; and in God's own time those deliverances will come. "Cast not away therefore your confidence, which has great recompense of reward."
Did the Lord ever leave His child to flounder and sink and perish in his 'depths'? Never! He invariably sends help from above, takes them in His arms, and gently draws them out of their 'many waters,' just as He lifted up Joseph from the deep pit, and Daniel from the lions' den, and Jeremiah from the loathsome dungeon. Cheer up then, you sinking, desponding one! Behold the bright stars that shine and sing above your head- those "exceeding great and precious promises" of God, "which are all yes and Amen in Christ Jesus;" and behold the "rainbow in the clouds" -the symbol and pledge of God's covenant faithfulness to make good those promises, and deliver you out of all trouble.
And, oh, what a glorious deliverance awaits the believer from out the depths of the grave on the morning of the first resurrection, when the trump of Jesus will wake all them who sleep in Him. "Awake and sing, you that dwell in dust: for your dew is as the dew of herbs, and the earth shall cast out the dead." Such is the resurrection-song which will float in its sweetest cadence over the grave- penetrating its deepest recesses, and waking its profoundest slumber- of all who departed this life in Christ's faith and fear.
In view of the believer's present deliverance from the body of sin, suffering and death, and in anticipation of his future deliverance from the pit of corruption, with a body molded like unto Christ's glorious body- no more sin, no more sickness, no more sorrow, no more death, no more separations- may we not join with the deepest gratitude of our hearts in the beautiful thanksgiving which we pronounce over the holy dead: "Almighty God, with whom do live the spirits of those who depart hence in the Lord, and with whom the souls of the faithful, after they are delivered from the burden of the flesh, are in joy and felicity: let it please You, of your gracious goodness, shortly to accomplish the number of Your elect, and to hasten Your kingdom; that we, with all those that are departed in the true faith of Your holy name, may have our perfect consummation and bliss, both in body and soul, in Your eternal and everlasting glory; through Jesus Christ our Lord."

Out of the depths I cry,
Oppressed with grief and sin;
O gracious Lord, draw nigh,
Complete Your work within.
O listen to Your suppliant's voice,
And let my broken bones rejoice.
'Out of the depths I cried,
Overwhelmed with wrath divine,'
Said Christ, when crucified
For guilty souls like mine:
His cries were heard-He died,
and rose Triumphant over all His foes.

Prayer Out of Soul Depths

"Out of the depths have I cried unto You, 0 Lord. Lord, hear my voice: let your ears be attentive to the voice of my supplications." Psalm 130:1-2.

Seasons of soul-depths are ever seasons of heart-prayer in the Christian's experience. At no period does the divine life of the regenerate so strongly and triumphantly vindicate its nature, and assert its reality and power, as then. This was the case under consideration. "Out of the depths have I cried unto you, O Lord." That must indeed be a "depth," a soundless depth of spiritual despondency, in which the soul is either debarred from prayer, or is so imprisoned, that it cannot send up its cries to God. But this was not the case of David. He gave himself immediately and unreservedly to prayer. "I cried unto you, O Lord."
What irrefragable evidence he affords of the existence of that spiritual life in the living soul which cannot die; of that faith in the believing soul which cannot be repressed; of that divine love in the loving soul which many waters cannot quench! Communion with God is the outbreathing of the quickened soul, and no distance can arrest, or condition stifle it.
"From the end of the earth will I cry unto you, when my heart is overwhelmed." Deep exercise of soul is often God's mode of rousing the slumbering spirit, and quickening the sluggish energy of prayer. Its potency and pre-eminence are only learned to any great extent when faith is tried, and the heart is overwhelmed, and the soul is plunged into great "depths." But, sink the soul as it may, the arrow of prayer, feathered with a divine promise, springing from the bow of faith, and winged by the power of the Spirit will overcome every obstacle, pierce every cloud, and fasten itself upon the throne of the Eternal God!
Was not this the experience of Jonah? "I cried by reason of my affliction unto the Lord, and He heard me; out of the belly of hell (his watery grave) cried I, and you heard me." But a greater than Jonah shall testify. Were there ever such fathomless soul depths as Christ's, when, as their Divine substitute, He bore their sins, endured their curse, and suffered the wrath of God on behalf of His people? "Save me, O God; for the waters are come in unto my soul. I sink in deep mire, where there is no standing." Behold, He prays! And as He advanced into the tornado of the curse, the storm thickening and darkening around Him- as He sank deeper and yet deeper into the mountain billows of divine wrath- the huge breakers surging and foaming around His holy soul- as He exhausted drop by drop 'the cup of trembling,' until the very lees touched His quivering lips, lo! "He Prayed More Earnestly!" The intensity of His prayer rose with the agony of His spirit; its earnestness gathered strength with the anguish of His soul. "Being in an agony He Prayed More Earnestly."
Sinking, suffering saint, learn the secret of your support! "He prayed more earnestly." "Who in the days of His flesh, when He offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears unto Him that was able to save Him from death, and was heard in that He feared." Go you and do likewise. Pray- pray- PRAY! Out of the depths of your difficulty, your need, your sorrow, cry mightily unto God. There is no 'depth' so profound, no darkness so dense, no need so pressing, or perplexity so great, but from it you may cry unto God, the Lord inclining His ear to the softest, faintest breathing of your soul. "For this shall every one that is godly pray unto you in a time when you may be found: surely in the floods of great waters they shall not come near unto him." Cries out of the depths of soul-distress have a peculiar eloquence and an irresistible success with God just as the plaintive wail of a sick and suffering child reaches and penetrates a parent's heart more quickly and more deeply than all others. It is a beautiful thought embodied in the Psalmist's prayer: "My soul hangs upon God. "
Look for a moment at the Object upon which the believing, sinking soul thus hangs. It is upon DEITY. The world around is hanging upon every object but God. Some are hanging upon self, some upon their wealth- some upon their intellectual powers-some upon their bodily strength- some upon their long life- some upon the creature- some upon their own righteousness; all are hanging upon some object below Christ and God. How frail and fatal the support! Soon the prop bends- the stirrup breaks- the fulcrum yields- the sands glide away- and great is the fall of him who suspended upon such created and fragile support his happiness in this life, and his hope of the life that is to come.
But, the believing soul, though a desponding and sinking soul, hangs upon GOD. Listen to the language of David: "O God, you are my God; early will I seek you: my soul thirsts for you, my flesh longs for you in a dry and thirsty land, where no water is." Again: "Whom have I in heaven but You? and there is none upon earth that I desire beside You." This is the support of every gracious soul; and he who hangs not upon this divine support, hangs upon air, hangs upon nothing.
Listen to Jehoshaphat's prayer in his distress, when the mighty hosts of the Ammonites came against him to battle. See how he hung upon God! "O our God, will you not judge them? for we have no might against this great company that comes against us; neither know we what to do: our eyes are upon You. " And the Lord delivered them into his hand that day, and all that he did was to stand still and see the salvation of the Lord. And thus was it with Asa. Oppressed by a powerful enemy, too strong for his scanty forces, he thus hung upon God in his extremity. "Lord, it is nothing with you to help, whether with many, or with those who have no power." And what a "nail in a sure place" is the Lord Jesus Christ, the true, spiritual Eliakim, upon whom the soul may hang its sins, and sorrows, and hope of glory. "I will fasten him," says the Father, "as a nail in a sure place. . . And they shall hang upon him all the glory of his father's house .... all the vessels."
Sin-burdened soul, sinking into depths of guilt and despair, come; and hang in faith upon this Divine, this most sure nail, and you shall be saved! Hang upon Him as a personal Savior! Hang upon His blood to cleanse, upon His righteousness to justify, upon His grace to subdue, upon His fullness to supply, upon His willingness and power to save you to the uttermost extent of your sin and guilt. Hang upon God upon His strength to deliver you, upon His wisdom to counsel you, upon His love to comfort you, upon His infinite resources to meet your every need; and your song shall be,
"Other refuge have I none,
HANGS my helpless soul ON YOU."
Oh give yourself to prayer! If words fail you- if by reason of the anguish of your spirit there is no outlet for your feelings but in the plaintive language of sighs and groans and tears -still uplift your soul to God in mental supplication and heart breathing, and your testimony shall be that of David: "The Lord has heard the voice of my weeping." "Lord, all my desire is before You; and my groaning is not hid from You." And thus, when by reason of the anguish of your spirit, the cloud-veil of your mind, and the infirmity of your body, you can neither think nor pray, let the reflection cheer you that Jesus is thinking of, and praying for, you. "When I cannot think of Jesus," said a sick one whom He loved, "Jesus is thinking of me." Happy thought!
It is a truth fraught with the richest comfort that, sink the tried and desponding soul as it may, it can never sink below the everlasting arms of God. God is frequently wont to permit His children to descend into great "depths" of spiritual and mental conflict, and even temporal need, that He might display His love and power in stooping to their necessity. "I was brought low, and He helped me." "Bow down your ear to me; deliver me speedily: be my strong rock, for a house of defense to save me."
We are but imperfectly aware how low the great God can bend to our case- how condescendingly Christ can stoop to our condition! We may be brought very low- our case sad and desperate: riches may flee; poverty may come upon us as an armed man; character may be assailed; children may try; friends may change; enemies may wound; death may bereave; and our soul be plunged as into fathomless depths. Nevertheless, sink deep as we may, we shall but sink more deeply into the embrace of Christ, 'the everlasting arms' still underneath us. "He sent from above, He took me; He drew me out of many waters." Oh we must descend into great depths of affliction, of trial, and of need, to fathom, in some measure, the soundless depths of God's love, of the Savior's fullness, of the Spirit's comfort!
And still our strong refuge is prayer- prayer in all depths. "Out of the depths have I cried unto You, O Lord." "From the end of the earth will I cry unto You, when my heart is overwhelmed." Oh, give yourself to prayer! No difficulty is too great, no trial too severe, to take to Jesus. If your sins and guilt appear to you a depth so abysmal that no line could fathom it, remember that God's mercy in Christ Jesus is infinite; that, if there are great depths in your sinfulness and unworthiness, there are infinitely greater depths in the sin-forgiving love of God, in the sin-atoning blood and sinner-justifying righteousness of the Redeemer.
Sunk though you are in sin, steeped in crime and guilt, countless and great your departures from God, your rejection of the Savior, your religious unbelief, stifled convictions, and scarred conscience; nevertheless, you have not sunk below the depths of God's love and of Christ's grace. The prodigal had wandered far from his father, he had sunk into great depths of poverty and degradation and need; yet, when he 'came to himself' he exclaimed, "I will arise and go to my father, and will say unto him, Father, I have sinned; and his father saw him a great way off, and had compassion, and ran, and embraced him." That Father is your heavenly Father, and waits to enfold you to His loving and forgiving heart!
Depth of mercy! can there be
Mercy still reserved for me?
Can my God His wrath forbear,
Me, the chief of sinners, spare?
I have long withstood His grace,
Long provoked Him to His face;
Would not hearken to His calls,
Grieved Him by a thousand falls.
JESUS, answer from above,
Is not all Your nature love?
Will You not the wrong forget?
Suffer me to kiss Your feet?
If I rightly read Your heart,
If You all compassion art,
Now Your ear in mercy bow,
Pardon and accept me now."
But, prayer is necessary, not only when in our depths, but to be preserved from them. And to prayer must be united sleepless vigilance. "Watch and pray," is our Lord's twofold injunction, given on the most impressive occasion and amid the most affecting circumstances of His life. The calling of a child of God is high and holy. It is all the more essential that he should walk carefully, watchfully, and prayerfully, lest his feet slide; and thus, losing his steadfastness in the faith and his close communion with God, he fall into "the depths of Satan," the seductions of the flesh, and the allurements of the world; and so plunging into 'depths' of doubt, darkness, and despondency.
The path of spiritual declension is an 'sloped plane', each step accelerating the rapidity of the soul's descent. It commences at the closet. The restraining of prayer- especially private devotion-
is the first stage in the decay and declension of the believer in the divine life. Soon will follow the fascination and power of the world; and when the world enters like a flood, Christ and prayer and eternal realities are swept before its impetuous torrent, then the gracious soul is stranded upon the bleak, rock-bound coast of bitter remorse and dark despair.
What an appalling picture does the inspired penman draw of the final condition of the unregenerate apostate from his profession of Christ and the faith! "It is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the good word of God, and the powers of the world to come, if they shall fall away, to renew them again unto repentance; seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put Him to an open shame." Whatever interpretation these awful declarations will admit- and to the truly regenerate they cannot by any ingenuity of criticism, or justness of exegesis, properly apply, since a true child of God, though he may sadly backslide, and be sorely chastened, cannot finally perish- they yet are words of solemn significance, well calculated to fill the soul of the Christian professor, and even the true believer, with holy trembling, rousing him to the imperious and difficult task of unswerving self-vigilance and unwearied prayer.
The present chapter speaks pointedly and solemnly to the unconverted reader. There is beyond this present life a "depth" awfully and significantly termed "the bottomless pit." It is the final and eternal doom of all who die out of Christ. It is immeasurable and soundless. No line of grace can fathom it, no arm of mercy can reach it, no voice of love ever wakes its echoes, and eternity alone will see the end of its woe. "These shall go away into everlasting punishment." "The wicked shall be turned into hell."
But, is there no escape from a final and eternal doom so appalling? Listen to the voice of divine love. "Save him from going down to the pit; I have found a ransom!" That ransom is the atoning blood of Jesus, and He the sinner's Ransomer. Escape for your life! Look not behind; but in faith hasten to Christ, the City of Refuge, and you shall be saved from the wrath that is to come! Oh, blessed thought! No poor awakened sinner ever betook himself to that Divine refuge and found the door closed against him. "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you shall be saved."
Soon the soul-desponding saint will ascend from the lowest depths of earth to the loftiest height of heaven. Long before the body springs from the dust, your soul, O believer, will have taken its place amid the blood-ransomed throng, clustering in shining ranks around the throne of God and the Lamb. And, reviewing all the way the Lord your God led you, through the wilderness and across the desert, you shall blend the old song of free grace with the new song of eternal glory, and exclaim,
"I waited patiently for the Lord; and he inclined unto me, and heard my cry. He brought me up also out of an horrible pit, out of the miry clay, and set my feet upon a rock, and established my goings. And he has put a new song in my mouth, even praise unto our God."
"PARDON, my Master, pardon for my weakness,Thus shrinking, fainting, beneath my Father's rod; Oh, grant to me Your pure and patient meekness! Sincerely would I say, 'No will but Yours, O God.'
"Even as a reed by the rough tempest shivered,
Trembling I bend before Your chastening breath,
And low within my heart faith's flame has quivered,
Until all seemed shadowed like the vale of death.
"I strive to walk the stormy wave, upheaving
Its angry might, but sink wherever I tread;
I know Your covenant sure, but scarce believing,
Still hangs upon my breast my aching head.

"Your promises like countless stars are shining:I see them not; for the clouds the heavens obscure!
I wrestle hard against each vain repining,And fear to murmur when I would endure.

"Come to my help, O Master! once in sorrow,
My more than brother, King of glory now;
Even in my tears a gleam of hope I borrow
From the deep scars around Your radiant brow.

"Come to my help, as once God's angels hastened
To cheer You in Your midnight agony;
O Lord of angels, by man's suffering chastened,
Forget not I am dust, infirmity.

"Come to me quickly, even as You have spoken
Your faithful word. Let me but hear Your voice;
Say You are with me, and the heart all broken
Again with holy gladness shall rejoice.

"Now round the 'bruised reed' Your grace enwreathing,
Upward to heaven once more I shall aspire;
Now on my darkened soul Your Spirit breathing,
Brightly shall flame again the failing fire.

"Walk You the wave with me, the tempest stilling;
Let me but feel the clasping of Your strength,
Your righteous strength, through all my pulses thrilling;
Nor shall I fear to reach the shore at length.

"Beam forth, O Morning Star, in mercy glorious,
With Your day-promise, from the troubled sky;
Hold forth the fadeless crown, and palm victorious,
You who have fought and won, to cheer my eye.

"What means that strain, sweeter than angels' singing?
Oh, can it be Your own responsive word,
Mysterious music on my senses ringing
'Fear not, you trembler; for your prayer is heard'?

Contrition and Confession

"If You, Lord, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who shall stand?" Psalm cxxx. 3.

It is said, and we believe with truth, that, to the eye of the miner, entombed deep in the heart of the earth, the heavens appear at noonday studded with myriads of the most brilliant planets, invisible at the same moment from the earth's surface. The phenomenon is easy of solution. It is night with the miner, in his depths; and the darkest night reveals wonders and splendors which the brightest day conceals. May not this simple fact furnish an apt illustration of our present subject? Some of the most glorious unfoldings of God's character and of Christ's beauty, of divine truth and lessons of the Christian life, are found in those 'soul-depths' we have been describing, not always experienced by believers who, for the most part, dwell but upon the surface of the divine life.
Not the least important is the subject of our present chapter- the holiness of God, and the contrition and confession of the believer. "If You, Lord, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who shall stand?" To the consideration of these points let us address ourselves, as the Holy Spirit shall aid us. The subject is solemn and important- the most solemn and important of all subjects. Right and deep views of sin lie at the root of correct and high views of God; and low thoughts of God inevitably engender low perceptions of sin.
Dr. Owen, in his instructive Exposition of this Psalm, though somewhat verbose, thus forcibly puts the matter: "The generality of men make light work of sin; and yet in nothing does it more appear what thoughts they have of God. He that has light thoughts of sin had never great thoughts of God. Indeed, men's underrating of sin arises merely from their contempt of God. All sin's concernments place its relation unto God. And as men's
conceptions are of God, so will they be of sin, which is an opposition to Him. This is the frame of the most of men; they know little of God, and are little troubled about anything that relates unto Him. God is not reverenced; sin is but a trifle; forgiveness a matter of nothing; whosoever will may have it for nothing. But shall the atheistical wickedness of the heart of man be called a discovery of forgiveness? Is not this to make God an idol? He who is not acquainted with God's holiness and purity, who knows not sin's deceit and sinfulness, knows nothing of forgiveness." The groundwork, then, of our present subject is, the essential holiness of God, upon which is based the soul's godly sorrow for sin. To these solemn points let us direct our devout attention.
The highest and most glorious perfection of God is His essential HOLINESS. He would cease to be God could He cease to be holy, holiness being, not an accident, but an intrinsic perfection of His Being. It is the uniting bond of all His other perfections, imparting existence, cohesion, and beauty to all. "The nature of God cannot rationally be conceived without it. Though the power of God be the first rational conclusion drawn from the light of His works and wisdom, the next from the order and connection of His works, purity must result from the beauty of His works. God cannot be deformed by evil who has made everything so beautiful in His time. The notion of a God cannot be entertained without separating from Him whatever is impure and bespotting, both in His essence and actions. Though we conceive Him infinite in majesty, infinite in essence, eternal in duration, mighty in power, and wise and immutable in His counsels, merciful in His proceedings with men, and whatever other perfections may dignify so sovereign a Being: yet if we conceive Him destitute of these excellent perfections, and imagine Him possessed with the least contagion of evil; we make Him but an infinite monster, and sully all these perfections we ascribed to Him before; we rather own Him a devil than a God. It is a less injury to Him to deny His Being than to deny the purity of it. The one makes Him no God, the other deformed, unholy, and detestable." (Charnock)
God is declared to be "glorious in holiness;" so holy that it is said "He cannot look upon sin;" that is, cannot look upon it but with infinite hatred and abhorrence. "You are of purer eyes than to behold evil, and can not look on iniquity." He swears by His holiness. "Once have I sworn by my holiness, that I will not lie unto David." "The Lord will swear by His holiness." Holiness, as we have remarked, is the luster and beauty of His Being. "How great is His beauty," because how perfect is His holiness! "Power is His arm; omniscience, His eye; mercy, His heart; eternity, His duration; HOLINESS, His BEAUTY." "The beauty of holiness."
Passing over the many exceptional proofs God has given of His hatred of sin, and His solemn determination to punish it- for example, the destruction of the old world by water, and that of the cities of the plain by fire; let us bend our thoughts to the most significant and appalling demonstration of His holiness the universe ever beheld, infinitely distancing and transcending every other- the sufferings and death of His only and beloved Son. The cross of Calvary exhibits God's hatred and punishment of sin in a way and to an extent which the annihilation of millions of worlds, swept from the face of the universe by the broom of His wrath, could never have done.
The Surety and Substitute of His elect Church; bearing her sins, and exhausting her curse- divine law and justice exacted from Him the utmost equivalent; the one, a perfect obedience, the other, the penalty of death. "Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many." "Who His own self bore our sins in His own body on the tree." "He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities." In all this we beheld a most awful display of God's hatred of sin. Finding the sins of the Church upon Christ as its Surety, Substitute, and Savior, the wrath of God was poured out upon Him without measure! To what other rational cause can we ascribe the profound emotion which these words describe: "My soul is sorrowful, even unto death." "And being in an agony .... He sweat great drops of blood, falling down to the ground." "My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me"? He had never transgressed. "Holy, harmless, and undefiled," He was free from every taint of sin.
Jesus had never broken God's law; but, on the contrary, "had done always those things which pleased Him." And yet, pure and obedient though He was, God finding the sins of His people laid upon His Son, emptied upon His holy soul all the vials of His wrath due to their transgressions. Go, my soul, to Calvary, and learn how holy God is, and what a monstrous thing sin is, and how imperiously, solemnly, and holily bound Jehovah is to punish it, either in the person of the sinner, or in the person of a Surety.
Could the personal sinlessness of Christ exempt Him from this terrible punishment? Could it in any measure lessen or mitigate the tremendous infliction of God the Father's wrath? Impossible! It was not Christ who was penally punished: it was the sins of His elect Church, which He voluntarily and fully bore, punished in Him. Never was the Son of God dearer to the Father than at the very moment that the sword of divine justice, flaming and flashing, pierced to its hilt His holy heart. But it was the wrath of God, not against His beloved Son, but against the sins which met on Him when presenting Himself on the cross as the substitutionary sacrifice and offering of His Church. He "gave Himself for us." What a new conception must angels have formed of the exceeding sinfulness of sin, when they beheld the flaming sword of justice quenched in the holy, loving bosom of Jesus! And in what a dazzling light does this fact place the marvellous love of God to sinners! Man's sin and God's love- the indescribable enormity of the one, and the immeasurable greatness of the other- are exhibited in the cross of Christ as nowhere else. Oh to learn experimentally these two great facts- sin's infinite hatefulness, and love's infinite holiness! The love of God in giving His Son to die; the love of Christ in dying; the essential turpitude and unmitigated enormity of SIN, which demanded a sacrifice so Divine, so holy, and so precious!
On the wings of faith uprising,
Jesus crucified I see;
While His love, my soul surprising,
Cries, 'I suffered all for thee.
Then, beneath the cross adoring,
Sin cloth like itself appear,
When the wounds of Christ exploring,
I can read my pardon there.
Angels here may gaze and wonder
What the God of love could mean,
When that heart was torn asunder,
Never once defiled with sin.
Nor this alone. In the cross of Christ we not only see the enormity of man's sin and the greatness of God's love, but in the Atonement there offered the believing soul beholds the entire cancelling of all his transgressions, the complete blotting out of the thick cloud of all his guilt. Viewed in this light, as a penitent believer, you have nothing, in the sense of propitiation, to do with your sins. The work of propitiation is all done by Christ your Surety. "Whom God has set forth to be a propitiation for our sins;" and when this was done, "there remains no more sacrifice for sins." Christ's one offering of Himself has forever perfected those who are sanctified. Cease, then, to look upon the great debt as though Jesus had not discharged it; upon the mighty bond; as though He had not cancelled it; upon your countless sins, as though His blood had not washed them all away.
You have nothing to do with your sins- past, present, or to come- but to mortify the root, to combat vigorously their ascendancy, and to wash constantly in the divine laver of Christ's atoning blood, confessing daily and hourly sins, with the hand of faith laid upon the head of the sacrificial Lamb thus walking as before God with a quickened, tender, purified conscience, desiring in all things to please Him.
"If You, Lord, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who shall stand?" CONTRITION is the first feeling in David's experience which these words indicate. It was in the "depths" that this most holy grace was inspired. The believer has need to be brought into a very close knowledge of himself to learn what true and deep contrition for sin is. The deepest humiliation, the warmest tears, the most broken and contrite spirit, are not often found in the 'high places' where the soul is privileged to walk. We must descend from the mount into the valley, and in the valley "lie low in a low place" yes, the lowest; to learn the meaning and force of David's prayer: "O Lord, pardon mine iniquity; for it is great;" and of Job's acknowledgment: "I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes."
Oh, what a volume of meaning do these words contain, as they apply to our individual selves: "If You, Lord, should mark iniquities," my iniquities- the depravity of my nature, the sinfulness of my heart, the unrighteousness of my most holy things- my thoughts and imaginations, my words and actions, my covetousness, worldliness, and carnality; my low aims, selfish motives, and by-ends; O Lord, how could I stand? In this light we must interpret David's contrite words; and thus interpreted, with what solemnity and self-application will they come home to every bosom in which throbs one pulse of spiritual life- in which glows one spark of divine love!
Cultivate, beloved, a holy contrition for sin. Subject your heart to the closest anatomy, your actions to the most searching analysis, your mental conceptions, motives, and words, to the most rigid and faithful scrutiny. This godly sorrow, and holy contrition, will preserve your heart pure and tender, your spirit lowly and watchful, your holy posture and place ever low beneath the cross.
An old divine thus appropriately discourses: "The merchant never allows a single day to elapse without taking an account of what he may have gained or lost in the course of it: let us do the same by our souls. Let not one evening pass over our heads without our examining how our spiritual account stands; let us enter into the inmost recesses of our heart, and ask ourselves, "In what have I offended God during the day? Have I indulged in idle conversation? Have I sinned by neglecting to perform my duties? Have I tried too hardly the patience of any of my debtors? Have I tried too hardly the patience of any of my brethren? Have I injured the reputation of any one by my words? When I have seemed to take part in holy things, has not my mind been occupied with the affairs of this world? When the concupiscence of the flesh has presented its dangerous poisons to me, have I not voluntarily inclined my lips towards the cup? And under whatever of these or other heads we may find ourselves on the debtor side, let us lament over our transgressions from our inmost souls, and labor to make up tomorrow what we may have lost today."
The effect of this holy scrutiny will be humble contrition, and that in its turn will be exceedingly bitter; nevertheless, the more bitter our repentance, the sweeter the fruit. It is said by naturalists that the bitterest flower yields the sweetest honey. Bitter in their bud, fruits gain sweetness as they advance to maturity; so it is with the exercises of penitence- they begin by being bitter, but they end by growing sweet.
Hence our dear Lord said, "Blessed are those who weep." What! are tears blessed? Is weeping sweet? Yes! Not the tears falling upon the coffin and the grave of loved ones of whom death has bereaved us; not the tears wept over ruined fortune, and lowered circumstances, and alienated friendship; but, blessed are they who weep over their sins, lament their backslidings, and mourn their spiritual lapses and wilful wanderings from the strait and narrow road to heaven, as beneath the shadow of the cross.
CONFESSION is another element of David's acknowledgment. "If You, Lord, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who shall stand?" These words involve a personal and humble acknowledgment of sin on the part of the psalmist. Confession of sin is a consequence of contrition for sin. No grace in the 'royal penitent' was more conspicuous than the grace of confession to God. "I acknowledged my sin unto You, and my iniquity have I not hid. I said, I will confess my transgressions unto the Lord." "I acknowledge my transgressions: and my sin is ever before me."
And here we touch upon a duty- no, a privilege- the most holy, spiritual, and sanctifying of the Christian life- confession of sin to God. What a significant and magnificent confession have we in these words: "If You, Lord, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who shall stand?" We cannot urge upon the reader a more spiritual, purifying, and comforting habit than this. It seems to involve every spiritual grace of the Christian character; an intelligent apprehension of sin, sincere repentance, deep humiliation, living faith, holy love, and a simple turning of the soul to Jesus.
Why is it that so many of God's saints travel all their days with their heads bowed like a bulrush? Why so few attain to the high standard of an assured interest in Christ? Why so many walk in the spirit of legal bondage, knowing little or nothing of their pardon, adoption, and acceptance? May it not, to a great degree, be traced to their lax habit of confession of sin to God? It is because they go day by day, and week by week, bearing along their lonely, dusty road, the burden of conscious sin and uncleansed guilt. Oh, the great secret of a pure, holy, and happy walk is in living close by God's confessional- is in going with the slightest aberration of the mind, with the faintest consciousness of guilt, and at once, with the eye upon the blood, unveiling and acknowledging it, without the slightest concealment or mental reservation, to God! So long as this holy privilege is neglected, guilt, like a corroding poison, an inflamed wound, a festering sore, eats as a canker into the very vitals of our peace and joy and hope.
This was David's testimony: "When I kept silence, my bones waxed old through my roaring all the day long. For day and night your hand was heavy upon me: my moisture is turned into the drought of summer. I acknowledged my sin unto You, and my iniquity have I not hid. I said, I will confess my transgressions unto the Lord; and You forgave the iniquity of my sin."
Do not suppose that, because contrition and confession were among the earliest exercises of your conversion, that there they ended. God forbid! They belong to each stage, and should trace every step of the Christian life. The close of that life is often marked by the deepest, holiest, and most evangelical sorrow for sin; the dying eye moistened with contrition's last and latest and most precious tear. What most endears the open Fountain? What leads us the most frequently and the most believingly to bathe in its ever-fresh, ever-flowing, ever-cleansing stream? What makes Jesus so precious? Oh, it is the daily, the constant habit of confession. We must ever remember that the Paschal Lamb was eaten with bitter herbs, and that those bitter herbs imparted a sweetness to the sacrificial offering. And thus it is that, the bitter herbs of repentance, blended with a holy confession of sin at the cross, imparts a higher estimation of the Atonement, an additional sweetness to the blood, and renders the Savior more precious to the heart. Oh the peace, the repose, the light, which springs from the confession of sin to God, no imagination can conceive or words express!
A simple personal incident may illustrate the idea. Sauntering on one occasion through the 'long-drawn aisles' of a Roman Catholic Cathedral, my eye was arrested by one of the numerous dreary-looking "confessionals" which invariably obtrude from the walls of those foreign edifices. While musing upon the object, a young female in modest attire approached, and, prostrating herself at the feet of the ghostly priest, placed her mouth close to his ear as he bent his head to receive her confession. In a short time she arose, and with a flushed countenance, a beaming eye, and an air of conscious relief, passed me quickly on her way. She had unveiled the sacred, and perhaps guilty, secrets of her
heart to the ear of the ghostly confessor, had received his "absolution," and retired from the church with the aspect of one from off whose soul a terrible weight of sin and terror had been removed. And, as in solemn reflection I gazed upon the melancholy spectacle, I thought If such the soul-peace, such the mental relief, which confession to a poor sinful mortal induces-false though it be; what must be the divine, what the true repose and comfort of a humble, penitential, and unreserved confession of sin to God, through Christ Jesus!
Christian do not carry the burden of your sin a single step further; the moment the consciousness of guilt and departure from God oppresses you, however apparently slight it may appear- a thought, a look, a passion, a word, an act- repair immediately to the feet of Jesus, disclose it without the slightest mental reservation, and, by a renewed application of atoning blood, seek its immediate and entire removal. Thus penitentially confessing and divinely absolved, you shall uprise from the feet of the great High Priest, exclaiming, with a lightened conscience and a praiseful heart, "I acknowledged my sin unto You, and my iniquity have I not hid. I said, I will confess my transgressions unto the Lord; and You forgave the iniquity of my sin."
"If You, Lord, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who shall stand?" The false and fatal idea of the ungodly is, that God does not "mark" -that is, does not notice or record "iniquity" -forgetting the solemn declarations of His own word: "The ways of man are before the eyes of the Lord, and He ponders all his goings." "The eyes of the Lord are in every place, beholding the evil and the good." Oh that these weighty declarations may sink deep into our hearts! The most holy saint of God needs them.
If the Lord should mark, ponder, chasten the iniquity of our most holy things- the double motive, the self-seeking end, the sinful infirmity, which attaches to our best and holiest doings, who of us could stand in His presence? All that we do for God, and for Christ, and for our fellows, is deformed and tainted by human infirmity and sin. A close scrutiny and analysis of our most saintly act would discover the leprosy of iniquity deeply hidden beneath its apparent loveliness and sanctity. How humbling, yet how true! We have need to weep over our tears, to repent of our
repentances, to confess our confessions; and, when our most fervent prayer has been breathed, and our most self-denying act has been performed, and our most liberal offering has been presented, and our most powerful sermon has been preached, and our sweetest anthem has poured forth its music, we have need to repair to the "blood that cleanses from ALL sin," even the sins of our most holy things!
How instructive and impressive the type! "You shall make a plate of pure gold, and grave upon it, like the engravings of a signet, HOLINESS TO THE LORD.... And it shall be upon Aaron's forehead, that Aaron may bear the iniquity of the holy things, which the children of Israel shall hallow in all their holy gifts; and it shall be always upon his forehead, that they may be accepted before the Lord." Thus has Christ, our true Aaron, made a full Atonement for the "iniquity of our holy things;" and the mitre is always upon His head, that our persons and our offerings may be ever accepted before the Lord.
This brings us to the answer which the Gospel supplies to the searching, solemn question: "If You, Lord, should mark iniquity, who shall stand?" The Gospel reveals Christ as the Great Sin-Bearer of the sinner, and this is the answer of faith to the solemn, searching challenge. We can do nothing in the way of penitence, confession, and forgiveness until we see all our sins and iniquities- both those of our unconverted, and those of our converted life- laid upon Jesus. We must see Him "wounded for our transgressions, and bruised for our iniquities." We must see Him who knew no sin made a sin-offering for us; our sins put upon Christ, and, in return, His righteousness put upon us; Christ and the sinner thus changing places, the One assuming the sin, and the other receiving the righteousness. "For He has made Him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him." And now, when the question returns with personal force, "Should God mark my iniquities, how can I stand?" let faith, resting upon the divine word, answer, "Jesus is my Substitute: Jesus stood in my place: Jesus bore my sins: Jesus did all, suffered all, and paid all in my stead, and here I rest." Oh, yes, the believing sinner, robed with the righteousness of Christ, stands now before the holy Lord God, freely and completely justified from all things; and will stand in the great day of the Lord without spot or wrinkle, when the heavens and the earth are fleeing before His face, and when the wicked are calling upon the rocks and the mountains to fall upon them, and hide them from the wrath of the Lamb; for the great day of His wrath will have come, and who shall be able to stand?"When from the dust of death I rise to take my mansion in the skies, Even then shall this be all my plea, Jesus has lived and died for me." Bold shall I stand in that great day; For who aught to my charge shall lay? While through Your blood absolved I am from sin's tremendous curse and shame."

Forgiveness and Fear

"But there is forgiveness with You, that You may be feared." Psalm 130:4.

The exercise of pardon is the exclusive and the highest prerogative of the crown, the richest and most brilliant gem in the diadem of an earthly Sovereign. This applies to God. It is no marvel, then, that He-the sin-pardoning God, should have guarded this, His divine right and most gracious act, with a jealousy so great, and have linked it with conditions so solemn. "Who is a God like unto You, that pardons iniquity?" "There is forgiveness with You."

As pardon is God's most divine and gracious act, it follows, then, that we could know nothing of it but by revelation. No light of nature could disclose it, no effort of reason could discover it. It could not possibly be known by the research of man, and it must be exclusively revealed by the mercy of God. That God had the power of pardoning none could doubt; that power being supremely lodged in His hand, in whom the legislative, judicial, and executive authority of the universe met. But from what oracle in nature could we expect the announcement that God would exercise His prerogative of pardoning, and exercise it by a mode and with conditions the most stupendous and marvelous, such as could never have entered into the mind of angels or men to have conceived? All nature would be dumb. God, then, must be the Revealer of His power, will, and mode of pardoning. And how gloriously and clearly has He done it!

Recall the scene that appeared to Moses in the mount. "And the Lord descended in the cloud, and stood with him there, and proclaimed the name of the Lord. The Lord God, merciful and gracious, patient, and abundant in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, FORGIVING iniquity, transgression, and sin." Thus on the mount Sinai, amid its thunder, and fire, and smoke-emblems of His majesty and holiness- God revealed His character and purpose as a sin forgiving God.

We turn to mount Calvary, and amid its darkness and trembling- the sun draped in sackcloth, the earth quaking, the rocks rending- tokens of His grace and love- we learn the wonderful mode of His pardoning. "Who is a God like unto You, that PARDONS iniquity?" "There is FORGIVENESS with You." How priceless and precious to us should be that inspired volume which reveals this glorious fact, that there is forgiveness with God! How gratefully should we receive it, how firmly believe it, how valiantly defend it, and how zealously and generously diffuse it, sending it forth, borne upon the crest of every wave, and upon the wings of every wind, to the remotest limits of the earth. "The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations."

Aided by the power of contrast, we purpose, in the further unfolding of this subject, to place side by side man's forgiveness and God's; in other words, forgiveness as exercised by a human government, and forgiveness as exercised by a Divine government. Take the first point of contrast which forgiveness involves- honor to the law broken, and security to the government offended. The considerations which induce a human executive to pardon are totally different from those which move the Divine-and here God and man stand in marked and diametrical opposition one to the other. How great the contrast!

There is nothing in the pardon of a human government to sustain the majesty of law, and to meet the claims of equity. No attempt is made to harmonize the claims of righteousness with the pleadings of mercy; to reconcile the act of pardon with the demands of holiness. No atonement is made, no satisfaction is offered, no penalty is executed; the law is dishonored, justice is outraged, and the government from where the act emanates is weakened, and its authority lowered in the eyes of the nation; in a word, the criminal is pardoned, and the crime is condoned!

Contrast this with the Divine pardon of sin. God rests His plan of forgiveness upon a basis which magnifies the law, whose violation He pardons; which executes the sentence, while He remits the penalty; which strengthens the government and lends luster to its administration, while He spares the sinner who has ignored its authority and rebelled against its commands. God thus takes the matter of 'satisfaction of justice' in His own hands- assumes the responsibility, arranges the preliminaries, and bears the entire cost of the plan- a cost which the infinite resources of Deity alone could meet. It will at once be seen that the great problem of His moral government which He engaged to solve -and He solved it was, the harmony of the respective claims of justice and mercy, of pardon and holiness, the dignity of the offended government with the forgiveness of the offender. To adjust these conflicting interests, and to harmonize their jarring attributes, was the great work in which Deity embarked- a work in all respects worthy of God. Through the Incarnation of the Son of God, by the preceptive obedience of His life, and by the atoning sufferings of His death, He so completely magnified the Divine Law, and so fully satisfied Divine justice, as rendered it righteous and honorable on the part of God to pardon, justify, and save the vilest sinners. Thus clearly the Apostle puts this great truth: "In whom [Christ] we have redemption through His blood, the FORGIVENESS of sins, according to the riches of His grace." "For as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so by the OBEDIENCE of one shall many be made righteous." And now, the chief of sinners may approach boldly the throne of grace and obtain mercy, since he has not only mercy to appeal to, but the merits of Christ to plead. Justice is satisfied, while pardon is extended, and God's character suffers no dishonor; and His government no injury in forgiving and justifying the most unworthy. We plead a sacrifice all the more acceptable because it is another's; we bring a righteousness all the more worthy because not our own. If God should fail to accept us- and most justly might He refuse- yet He will not fail to accept Christ, who obeyed and suffered, died and rose again, in our stead; and all the more because it is His own plan and provision for pardoning and saving the very chief of sinners.

And what human government pardons the criminal at so vast a cost and so great a sacrifice to Himself as God does? The process is facile and quick. It is but a word, a signature, and the criminal is pardoned, and his life is spared. But, at what a cost and by what a sacrifice does God pardon the guilt of sin and justify the person of the sinner! He "spared not His own Son, but gave Him up for us all." "God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life." How vast the cost! How immeasurable the sacrifice! "Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us, and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins." It cost God the surrender of His own dear Son, sent into the world poor, despised, and insulted, and at last to endure on the cross the indescribable tortures of a condemned malefactor, the ignominious death of a Roman slave. "Who is a God like unto You?"

But at what a cost to Jesus Himself was our forgiveness procured! Oh, what human thought can conceive, what moral arithmetic compute it? It distances all imagination, defies all research. The stoop of His Deity to humanity- His assumption of our nature in its lowest form of poverty and lowliness; free from all moral taint, yet subjected to all physical evil; sinless, yet bearing sin; innocent, yet suffering as guilty; His Divine soul swimming in the ocean of infinite blessedness, His human soul bowed to the lowest dust in woe, "sorrowful even unto death." In a word, it cost Him the sacrifice of Himself- His last drop of blood, His last breath of life- to purchase for us the Divine forgiveness, which remits entirely all our sins, and cancels to the utmost and forever all our guilt. "You are bought with a price"-a price which Heaven alone could find, which Deity alone could pay. Oh the love the redeeming, dying love of Christ, which passes knowledge!

"What shall we pay the Eternal Son,
That left the Heavens of His abode,
And to this wretched earth came down,
To bring us wanderers back to God?

"It cost Him death to save our lives;
To buy our souls, it cost His own;
And all the unknown joys He gives
Were bought with agonies unknown.

"Our everlasting love is due
To Him who ransomed sinners lost,
And pitied rebels when He knew
The vast expense His love would cost."

Take another point of contrast- the moral effect of a human and Divine forgiveness. In nothing is the weakness of a human pardon more conspicuous than in this. The moral reformation of our criminals has long been a problem baffling the most astute philosopher and the most benevolent philanthropist. It is true that the modern 'Reformatory' is an institution resulting from an attempt to supply a solution of the perplexing problem; but the plan, which as yet contemplates but the juvenile portion of our criminal population, is still an experiment: the great mass of our released criminals remain unreached. In most cases the guilt-steeped and hardened criminal is pardoned, only to relapse more deeply into crime; is released, but to go forth with one hand bearing aloft the rescript of his pardon, and with the other repeating, under more aggravated circumstances, and in a form more appalling, the identical crime which the Sovereign had but just graciously remitted. Pardon has, in most cases, not only failed to weaken the force of his depravity, to reform his vicious life, and secure his loyal obedience, but has proved a stimulus to a bolder conception and a more awful commission of crime. We now turn to the Divine forgiveness of the sinner. In no case has God ever been disappointed in the moral effects of pardon in the sinners pardoned. To extend the full and free remission of sin to the soul is at once certainly and forever to receive that soul's willing and loving obedience to His law. The slave of sin has become His loving servant, and the rebel against His authority His obedient child. Never has God regretted the extension of His forgiveness to the vilest sinner. Not only has the grace of pardon conquered him, but the sweet, holy source of pardon has supplied him with motives to believe the most touching and irresistible. The softening, melting, sanctifying influence of the cross has dissolved the corrosive power of sin-so to speak-in the heart, which now beats more freely and throbs more intensely with life and love to God, to Christ and holiness. The grace of pardon has been attended not only with an emancipating, but also with subduing effect; it not only has cancelled the guilt, but it has conquered the power of sin; it has not only deposed, but it has slain the tyrant. With an eye moist with tears and beaming with love, the pardoned soul gazes upon the cross of Jesus, and exclaims, "How can I do this great wickedness and sin against such suffering, such forgiveness, such love?" "He will subdue our iniquities." "Who is a God like unto You?" Another and most important point of contrast, refers to the character of the sins and the number of sinners to whom the forgiveness of God extends. There is, and necessarily must be, a limit to the extension of pardon by the human sovereign, both as to the nature of the crime and the number of the criminals. The prerogative of mercy among men is extended with fear. There are some violations of the law so aggravated and enormous, some criminals of so desperate and incorrigible a character, that not only would justice be palpably outraged, but a serious injury would be inflicted upon the community, by the extension of mercy to such. A selection from a number of criminals is made, and the degree of mercy is graduated to the nature and guilt of the crime. Not so is it with the Divine government. God promises pardon to every sinner, and for every sin, but this only on condition of sincere repentance, humble acknowledgment, and true faith in Christ Jesus. 'All manner of sin shall be forgiven unto men." For this marvellous, boundless display of His forgiving mercy He has made ample provision in the Person and work of His only and beloved Son. The Atonement of the Incarnate God, the righteous obedience of His life, and the sacrificial nature of His death, have not only made a way for the outflow of His mercy to the chief of sinners, but have rendered it infinitely just and holy on the part of God to pardon iniquity, transgression, and sin of the deepest hue of guilt, and more countless in number than the stars. "Come now, and let us reason together, says the Lord: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool." Again, what earthly sovereign ever pardoned the criminal at such an expense to himself as God does? What would be thought of a proposal issuing from the Government that the Queen of the realm, in order to extend her royal clemency to the greatest felon that ever stood at the bar, should take one of her offspring-perhaps her only son whom she loved- and sacrifice him as a substitute to the majesty of the law, and as a satisfaction to the requirements of justice? Would not a proposal so unparalleled, so unheard of and astounding, awake throughout the nation the deepest and loudest echoes of execration and dismay? Would not the nation a thousand times prefer that the criminal should go free, and that law and justice be trodden in the dust, rather than that the royal mercy should be extended on such terms, and be bought at such a price? And yet God- the sin-pardoning, sinner-saving God, has done all this! The language of inspiration can alone justify this stupendous truth. Listen to the astounding declaration! "God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life." "Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us, and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins." "Christ died for the ungodly." "He spared not His own Son, but gave Him up for us all." What more can we add? Is not this enough to vindicate the character of God, to set forth His great love, and to assure the vilest sinner that "there is forgiveness with God" for every degree of sin and for every contrite sinner- for every species of crime and for every penitent criminal?

Yet another point of contrast. What would be the nation's thought of the goodness and grace of the sovereign who, to the royal act of pardon, should bestow upon the criminal the noblest relation and the richest estate? And yet the sin-forgiving God does all this to the sinner whom He fully and freely pardons. He not only pardons, but justifies; not only justifies, but adopts, and with adoption confers upon His child "an inheritance incorruptible, undefiled, and that fades not away." "When the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth His Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons. And because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father." Such is the divine relation, and such the heaven of glory, to which the forgiveness of God raises. If sin is pardoned, if the soul is justified, we stand in a relation to God nearer than angels, and shall occupy a mansion and a throne in heaven to which Gabriel himself might in vain aspire. "Who is a God like unto You, that pardons?"

But there remains a clause in this verse of the psalm pregnant with the deepest and holiest instruction: "There is forgiveness with You, that You may be FEARED." How can this be? exclaims the unreflecting mind. Fear, the fruit and effect of pardon! It is an incongruity- a paradox! And yet such is the word of God, and as such we believe and accept it. How, then, are we to interpret the clause? A holy, filial, loving fear of God is ever the effect of His full and free forgiveness of sin; it is the natural, spontaneous and blessed result. All fear, if apart from a sense of pardoned sin, is legal, servile, and slavish; it is not the fear of a forgiven sinner, of a pardoned child. The pardoned soul sees in the grace of the act, such a display of God's holiness and hatred of sin, such an unfolding of His grace and love, as at once inspires a holy, reverential, and child-like fear of offending Him. Never did the believing soul see sin's exceeding sinfulness, love's amazing greatness, and grace's fulness and freeness, as when first it saw and felt it in a sense of God's pardon. Oh, there is no human act which has such a tendency to melt, subdue, and win the whole being as that of forgiveness, be it judicial or parental, human or Divine. A heart that has become hardened in crime and steeped in sin, whom no reasoning could convince and no discipline could subdue, has at length been melted by mercy, conquered by forgiveness, and enchained by love. I quote an illustration of this truth. A soldier was brought before his commanding officer for a misdemeanor frequently committed and as frequently punished. He had been tried, flogged, and imprisoned; but, imperative and stern as military discipline is, all to no purpose. He was an old and incorrigible offender, whom no threats could dismay, and no infliction reform. As the officer was about to repeat his punishment, the sergeant stepped forward, and, apologizing for the liberty he took, said, "Sir, there is one thing which has never been done with him yet." "What is that?" enquired the officer. "He has never been forgiven." Surprised at the suggestion, and yet struck with its force, the officer meditated for a moment, then ordered the culprit before him. "What have you to say to the charge?" "Nothing, sir, only I am sorry for what I have done." "Well, we have decided to inflict no punishment on this occasion, but to try what forgiveness will do." The criminal, struck dumb with astonishment, burst into tears, and sobbed like a child. And what was the effect? From that moment he was another and a changed man. No longer the inveterate and hardened offender- a plague to his regiment and a dishonor to the service he became one of the most well-behaved and orderly men that ever wore the uniform or bore the standard of his sovereign. Forgiven, he became loyal and obedient: respect for military rule, and the fear of dishonoring the service and degrading himself, henceforth became to him a law and a shield. A similar incident in the life of Dr. Doddridge illustrates the same truth. Believing that there were extenuating circumstances in the case of a condemned criminal awaiting execution in Northampton Jail, Dr. Doddridge waited upon George III, and petitioned for his life. It was granted. Hastening back to his cell, he read the king's order of reprieve. The pardoned criminal rose, fell at his feet, and, clasping his person, exclaimed, "Oh, Sir! I am your servant, your slave for life! For you have purchased every drop of my blood." And shall a human forgiveness thus conquer, thus win, and thus inspire the fear of offending? O Lord, "there is forgiveness with You; for You have cast all my sins behind Your back, that I may serve You with reverence and godly fear all the days of my life, and henceforth to be Your servant, Your child forever!" Oh what a corrective of sin, what a motive to fear, what an incentive to obedience is God's forgiveness! "There is FORGIVENESS with You, that You may be FEARED." That which gives us the clearest, deepest, and most solemn view and conviction of God's holiness and love, inspires the most effectually a holy, filial, loving fear to offend Him. And where shall we find such an awful display of His holiness, and such overpowering demonstration of His love, as in the cross of Christ? Men do not fear God because they have no view of His holiness, no sense of His mercy, and no experience of His love. But God's forgiveness of sin furnishes the believer with the most convincing argument and with the most persuasive motive to live a pure, a holy, and a godly life. "The grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men, teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world; looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Savior Jesus Christ."

Some suggestive reflections grow out of this subject.

Let no penitent soul despair of God's forgiveness. "There is forgiveness with Him" for the vilest sinner, and pardon for the greatest sin. Listen to the divine exhortation and the promise: "Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the Lord, and He will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for He will abundantly pardon." See how reasonable and easy the conditions of the divine forgiveness! No, these conditions are privileges. What are they? To repent of your sins, to forsake your evil ways, to relinquish your rebellious 'thoughts' of God, your unbelieving 'thoughts' of Christ, your infidel 'thoughts' of Christianity, your skeptical 'thoughts' of the Bible, and to return to the Lord, and accept as the free gift of His grace His abundant pardon, and henceforth to do that which makes angels happy- love and serve Him! Do you not pronounce these conditions of the highest boon God can bestow or you receive, reasonable and righteous? Why then should you not be pardoned? Is there any difficulty but that which you yourself create? Is there any necessity why you should be lost, but that which your own persisted impenitence and unbelief render absolute? You allege that you cannot keep the law- Christ has kept it! That you cannot meet the claims of justice- Christ has answered them! That your sins are red like crimson, and countless as the stars- "the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us from ALL sin." That you have no merit, and no worthiness with which to come before the Lord- "Ho, every one that thirsts, come to the waters, and he that has no money; come, buy, and eat; yes, come, buy wine and milk without money and without price." Then why will you die? How unnecessary, we repeat, that you should be lost! The violated law does not require it, incensed justice does not demand it, rejected mercy does not will it, and God, the great, the holy Lord God, has said, "As I live, says the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked; but that the wicked turn from his way and live; turn, turn from your evil ways; for why will you die?" PARDON, or PUNISHMENT? Choose! "WHO IS A GOD LIKE UNTO YOU, THAT PARDONS INIQUITY, TRANSGRESSION, AND SIN?"

Thus much for Divine forgiveness. But is there not a great practical precept based upon the doctrine of God's forgiveness of man, teaching and enforcing the duty and the privilege of man's forgiveness of his fellow-man? Most assuredly! "Be imitators of God as dear children" is the apostolic exhortation, and in no feature or act of God may we more closely resemble Him than in the full and frank forgiveness of injury and wrong, real or imaginary, inflicted by our fellows. There are few divine precepts around which there clusters so rich an accumulation of argument and exhortation, enforced by motives and appeals more solemn and pungent than that of human forgiveness- man's forgiveness of man. How pointed and impressive our Lord's own words: "If you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you: but if you forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses." Who can read these words and not tremble at the thought of harboring in the heart an unforgiving spirit? And, then, touching the limit of human forgiveness, how emphatic the command of Christ: "Then came Peter to Him, and said, Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? until seven times? Jesus said unto him, I say not unto you, Until seven times: but, Until seventy times seven." And then follows the Savior's illustration of the royal forgiveness of the servant, in contrast with that same servant's unforgiving conduct towards his fellow-servant, concluding with these remarks: "So likewise shall my Heavenly Father do also unto you, if you from your hearts forgive not every one his brother their trespasses." We admit that, apart from divine grace, the last and hardest work of man is to forgive and forget a wrong, a wound, an injury inflicted by another; but, as it has been well observed, "He that cannot forgive others breaks the bridge over which he must pass himself; for every man has need to be forgiven."

Not less pointed is the teaching of the epistles on this precept of forgiveness. "Be kind one to another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake has forgiven you. Be you therefore followers (imitators) of God, as dear children." Again, "Put on therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, affections of mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, long-suffering; forbearing one another, and forgiving one another, if any man have a quarrel against any: even as Christ forgave you, so also do you."

What need we more? Who can have felt the power and have tasted the sweetness of God's forgiving love, the "ten thousand talents" all forgiven, and then go his way and refuse to forgive the one hundred pence" owing him from his fellow-servant? It is in vain for you to expect, it is impudent for you to ask, of God forgiveness on your own behalf, if you refuse to exercise this forgiving temper with respect to others. There is an old English proverb by which even the Christian may be instructed, "Forgiveness and a smile are the best revenge." Forgiveness of an injury is the odor which flowers breathe when trampled upon; and a sweeter fragrance- more akin to the divine- nowhere exhales.

But the truest definition of forgiveness is the inspired one: "Overcome evil with good." And that this divine precept is designed as much to regulate our bearing towards unbelievers as believers is conclusive from the context: "Avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath.... Therefore if your enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him drink: for in so doing you shall heap coals of fire on his head." That there is a lamentable defect in the religion of many professors touching this divine precept of forgiveness of injury affords no slight evidence of the general unpractical character of the Christianity of the day. The deficiency of love among God's people, and of true hearty Christian union and co-operation in the Lord's work among members of different Christian communions, goes far to invalidate the claim which many assert to the discipleship of Christ. If a disciple of the loving, forgiving Savior, we have a right to enquire, "Where is your badge?" and if the response be, "What badge?" we reply in the words of the Lord Himself: "By this shall all men know that you are my disciples, if you have love one to another." With these words chiming on the ear, let us cease to cherish in our hearts an unforgiving, uncharitable, unforgetful spirit towards any who, intentionally or unwittingly, may have wronged and wounded us; confiding our character and vindication to Him of whom it is said, "Commit your way unto the Lord; trust also in Him; and He shall bring it to pass. And He shall bring forth your righteousness as the light, and your Judgment as the noonday." "Our Father who is in heaven; forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us." The grace of Christ and the prayer of faith will enable us to obtain this glorious and holy victory over ourselves.

Let your daily litany be: "From envy, hatred, and malice, and all uncharitableness, good Lord, deliver us."

WAITING AND WATCHING

"I wait for the Lord, my soul does wait, and in his word do I hope."
Psalm 130:5.

As the richest veins and the purest springs are found in the lowest strata of the earth, so in his profoundest soul-depths the believer often discovers the most precious truths, and is brought into the experience of the costliest blessings of the divine life. His deepest soul-excavations yield him the richest ore. We explore the treasures of God's word, and we unseal the springs of Christian experience, when, like David, we cry out of depths, or with Jonah, as from the 'fish's belly.' What thoughtful, spiritual mind can doubt this fact as it traces each verse of this remarkable psalm? A new vein of divine truth is opened, and a new spring of Christian experience is unsealed, in the passage we have now to consider faith's waiting and resting in soul depths. "I wait for the Lord, my soul does wait, and in His word do I hope." Mark the object, and then the ground, of David's waiting and resting posture. His sinking soul is as 'a weaned child,' and in that state has found a resting-place.

Mark, the OBJECT of David's waiting. "I wait for the Lord." Preparatory to this, David has learned two essential things in the depths- his sinfulness, and God's forgiveness. Having tasted the exceeding bitterness of the one, and the indescribable sweetness of the other, he is brought into a state of the most blissful repose; waiting for, and resting upon, his covenant God and Father. We know nothing of divine forgiveness until we are brought to the knowledge and confession of our personal sinfulness. Acquaintance with our own heart leads to an acquaintance with God's heart; a conviction that we are lost by sin, results in a conviction that we are saved by Christ. There are many religionists- religious in their own way- who are entire strangers to the wounding, and consequently are entire strangers to the healing: knowing nothing of the moral disease, they have experienced nothing of the spiritual remedy. It was not until the serpent-stung Israelite was conscious of the deadly virus flowing through his veins that he raised his eye, and rested it upon the brazen serpent uplifted in the wilderness, looking upon which he was healed. Nor is it until the Holy Spirit convinces of Satan's venomous sting, and of sin's fatal poison flowing throughout his whole being, that the soul-'ready to perish' looks in faith to Jesus, and is saved. But, we turn to this instructive verse. For whom does the Psalmist wait? "I wait for the Lord." How entirely is David divorced from the human, and how closely united to the Divine! We are so earthly that we gravitate to the earth- are "of the earth earthy;" we are so human that we cling to humanity, and make flesh our arm. And no little discipline is often required- the furnace seven times heated, and the knife of a two edge temper- before we are refined of the one and are pruned of the other. David had now found his true standing. He had fallen into great soul-straits, but, as we have shown, not below God. "The bright and Morning star" still shone resplendent above Him, and on it he fixed his believing eye. We cannot too frequently reiterate the truth, that it is impossible that a gracious soul can sink below God. There is that divine principle in him which utterly forbids it. When water ceases to seek its level, and light to flow back to the sun; when sparks fail to fly upwards, and the thirsty gazelle pants not for the water-brook, then may the living water in the soul cease to rise to the Source from where it came, and then may the divine love in the heart fail to flow back to the Heart from which it sprang.

But, again we ask, For whom did David wait? Higher he could not rise- lower would have plunged him in a yet profounder depth of soul dejection. Shall we put the question negatively? He did not wait for man. Long, wearisome and disappointing had been his waiting, had the creature been the object. "Cursed is the man that trusts in man, and that makes flesh his arm." How constantly we are drawing down upon us this dire curse! We build upon the creature, hang upon it, wait for it, until we wring the last drop from it as from a sponge, and nothing is left but emptiness and aridity. Oh, if but half the time we have spent in waiting on, and in waiting for, man-and at last finding him but a wounding reed and a broken cistern- had been spent in waiting upon and for the Lord, how much more successful and how much happier we should have been! But, sweet and holy the lesson taught us by David's example: "I wait for the Lord." Beyond this, as we have remarked, the soul cannot ascend; and to this Divine height every believer may rise. Nor is the flight of faith long or wearisome. The Lord is near to His people; "a very present help in time of trouble." David found it so: "You are near, O Lord." And so the Apostle: "The Lord is at hand." It is this consciousness of the Lord's nearness to us which disarms us of fear, strengthens us for service, and inspires us- howsoever deeply tried and assailed- with the boldness and strength of a lion! You have, perhaps, in a time of pressing need, of deep anxiety, or of earthly expectation, been waiting for weeks or months upon man. And still you wait, and hope deferred has made you sick at heart. Turn your eye from the creature to the Creator, from man to God, from false and powerless friends to your Heavenly, all-mighty, all-sufficient Father, and you shall not be ashamed of your trust. "My soul, wait you only upon God; for my expectation is from Him." "The Lord is my Portion, says my soul: therefore will I hope in Him." Is it sweet to lean upon one we love, hanging upon his arm for support, and reclining upon his bosom for sympathy? On whose wisdom we can unhesitatingly rely, in whose love we can confidently repose? Transfer this thought to God! How unutterable the blessedness, how vast the privilege, and how happy the result, of waiting upon Him who stands to us in the relation of our Father and Redeemer; our Brother and Friend; waiting the movement of His pillar of cloud; waiting the supply of His inexhaustible providence; waiting the comfort of His unchanging love; waiting for the fulfilment of the word of promise upon which He has caused our soul to hope! "My soul waits on the Lord." There does not exist a more privileged and holy condition of the soul than that of being entirely cast upon God. When the created arm fails to sustain, and the human heart to love, when earthly props give way, and affection and sympathy have fled their last asylum, when the barrel of meal is well near exhausted, and the cruse of oil distills its last drop-oh then to exclaim, "My soul, wait you only upon God; for my expectation is from Him" -this is a privilege indeed, a privilege eclipsing all others! If the Lord permits us a measure of creature support and sympathy- and this He sometimes does- it is in gracious condescension to the weakness of our faith and the craving of our constitutional temperament. Thus He dealt with the doubting Thomas. "Reach hither your finger, and behold my hands; and reach hither your hand, and thrust it into my side: and be not faithless, but believing." Sense was thus summoned to the aid of faith, and so helps it to believe. "Lord, help my unbelief." But the highest reach, and most God-glorifying act of faith is that expressed in David's words- "I wait for the Lord." Oh count it the richest experience of the divine life when, thus weaned and divorced from creature help, you are brought to wait only on the Lord, exclaiming,-"Now I have no prop, no supply, no sympathy, no comfort, but that which I find in Jehovah. I am shut up to Infinity alone: my help comes from the Lord." Passing from this rapid view of the Divine Object of David's waiting posture, let us look at the posture itself "I wait for the Lord, my soul does wait." We pronounce this a most blessed posture of the believer. It runs counter to everything that is natural, and, therefore, it is all the more a supernatural grace of the gracious soul.

In the first place, it is the posture of faith. It is a believing posture of the soul. The faith of the unbeliever- if faith it may be called- hangs upon air. He that builds below God builds upon shadows. Reposing his happiness and his hope upon his intellect, his health, his family, his life, he builds it upon the 'baseless fabric of a vision.' God never intended that the creature should find its happiness outside of Himself. "My people have committed two evils: they have forsaken Me, the Fountain of living waters, and have hewn out cisterns broken cisterns, that could hold no water." But here is the gracious soul hanging in faith upon God in Christ Jesus- upon the veracity of God to fulfil His promise upon the power of God to help him in difficulty- upon the wisdom of God to counsel him in perplexity-upon the love of God to shield him in danger upon the Omniscience of God to guide him with His eye-and upon the Omnipresence of God to cheer him with His presence, at all times and in all places, his Sun and his Shield. Oh have faith in God! The moment the soul can believingly repose upon Him, it ceases to be the sport of every wind and wave of circumstance and doubt, and drops its anchor on the firm and immovable bedrock of DIVINITY. It is also a prayerful posture. To wait for the Lord is not the languid waiting of indolence and indifference. This would be practical infidelity, the presumption of unbelief. The soul waiting for God is the soul waiting upon God. "They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength." The Lord often shuts us up to this waiting for His interposition on our behalf, that He might keep us waiting and watching at the foot of His cross- in earnest, believing, importunate prayer. Oh, it is the waiting for the Lord that keeps the soul waiting upon the Lord! We learn the sustaining, as well as the prevailing, power of prayer when brought into this holy posture in our soul-depths. Accept that as a most needful discipline that brings you into a prayerful waiting for the Lord. There is so much in daily life to stifle the spirit and hinder the exercise of prayer, so much that interposes itself between God and the soul; that the trial, the disappointment, the pressure, the "tarrying of the vision," becomes a powerful and precious help to the soul that is shut up to the taking hold upon God alone. "Be anxious for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God. And the peace of God, which passes all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus." How instructive and precious are these words! There is first, the Prohibition- "Be anxious for nothing," anxious only to please God, and casting all other care upon Him. There is secondly, a Precept- "In every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God." Give yourself to prayer, take hold on God, and with supplication blend the incense of grateful, prayerful thanksgiving. There is thirdly, the Promise- "And the peace of God, which passes all understanding, shall keep your hearts." How rich and how comforting! Walk in the prohibition, obey the precept, and God will fulfil the promise! All this is involved in David's soul-posture– I wait for the Lord, my soul does wait."It is also the posture of a patient waiting for the Lord. "I waited patiently for the Lord, and He heard my cry." There is not a more God-honoring grace of the Christian character than patience- a patient waiting on and for the Lord. Impatient of God's delays which we must ever remember are not God's denials- we cast about for means and ways of deliverance other than those in strict harmony with God's word and in simple confidence in His power. An impatient spirit kept Moses out of Canaan. An impatient act, an impatient word, what evil has it wrought!

But, to wait for the Lord and upon the Lord- His time of answer, His way of deliverance, His source of supply unburdens the mind of a thousand corroding anxieties, dislodges from the heart countless trembling fears, and preserves the feet from rushing into worldly, carnal expedients of relief, which would but plunge the soul into yet lower depths of difficulty and distress. Oh, cultivate this holy posture of a patient waiting for, and upon, the Lord! It is that Christian grace, the fruit of the Spirit, which will enable you to bear with dignity, calmness, and submission the afflictive dealings of your Heavenly Father, the rebuke of the world, and the wounding of the saints. In patience you will possess your soul, in patience you will suffer, and in patience you will do God's infinitely wise, holy, and approving will. It will strengthen you also in your work for the Lord. "By patient continuance in well-doing," you will "seek for glory, honor, and immortality, and eternal life." "Rest in the Lord, and wait patiently for Him." And whether buffeted for your wrong-doing, or for well-doing, you take it patiently, this is acceptable to God. Lord, endow us with this Christ-like grace of patience- patiently waiting the time and the way of Your interposition; patiently waiting you say to our soul, "I am Your salvation." "It is good that a man should both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the Lord."

It is the posture of rest. A soul-waiting for the Lord, is a soul-resting in the Lord. Waiting and resting! Wearied with traversing in vain the wide circle of human refuges- coming to the end of all your own wisdom, strength, and resources your uneasy, jaded spirit is brought into this resting posture of waiting on, and waiting for, the Lord; and thus folds its drooping wings upon the very bosom of God. Oh how real and instant the rest found in Jesus! Way-worn and footsore, toilworn and garment-stained, battered with many a tempest and buffeted with many a wave, burdened, sinking, fainting, you have come to Jesus, and with the beloved disciple reclined your head upon His bosom; and, lo! in a moment the wind ceased, the billows slept, all was perfect peace and unruffled repose, and there was a great calm; and then, with the wondering mariners, you exclaim: "What kind of man is this, that even the winds and the sea obey Him!" Oh, there is no rest for the burdened, no peace for the anxious, no joy for the desponding, but faith in a divine, personal, and gracious Savior. Reposing in Him, however profound the depths of the soul, dark the clouds that drape it,

or surging the waters that overwhelm it, all is sunshine and serenity within. No external circumstances touch the under current of divine peace, which flows on in silvery sweetness, calm, unruffled, undisturbed. "When He gives quietness, who then can make trouble?" "The voice of the Lord is upon the waters," full of majesty, power, and tenderness, commanding, curbing, stilling them. "You will keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on You, because he trusts in You." For what, beloved, are you waiting on the Lord? Are you waiting for the application of pardoning grace? No poor soul ever waited for God's absolution and waited in vain. If the Lord the Spirit has given you an insight of the evil of your nature, of the sinfulness of your heart, and a consequent contrition and sorrow, you are nearer to the joy of His salvation than ever Hagar was to the well of water flowing at her side. The Lord open your eye of faith to see it! O Lord, say unto my soul, I am your salvation! Are you waiting the answer to prayer? You shall not wait in vain. As soon will He cease to be God as cease to hear and answer the prayers of His saints. Prayer has an appointed time; though it tarry, wait for it. God's time is always the best and most opportune. He is never one moment too soon, nor one moment too late; never before, and never behind His time. "The vision is yet for an appointed time, but at the end it shall speak, and not lie: though it tarry, wait for it; because it will surely come, it will not tarry." Pray on, you seeking one; pray on, you child of sorrow; and if your petition is not immediately granted, learn that its tarrying is not its refusal, but meant only to test your sincerity, intensify your earnestness, invigorate your faith, and glorify your God.

Perhaps, in deep affliction and sorrow, you are waiting and watching for the "Consolation of Israel." Be it so. As sure as He came- though in infantile form- to the holy watchers in the temple, so sure will He come to you; and when, like the aged Simeon, you clasp Him in joy to your heart, with him you will be ready to exclaim, "Now, Lord, let You Your servant depart in peace!" Only wait until the crucible has melted, and the furnace has refined, and the rod has blossomed; only wait until affliction has accomplished its purpose, and sorrow has fulfilled its mission; and then Jesus, the "Consolation of Israel," will heal what He has made sore, and bind up what He has wounded, pouring into your desolate, bleeding heart the oil and the wine of His sympathy and love. We reach the ground of the Psalmist's waiting upon the Lord: "And in His word do I hope." Here is the only sure basis of faith and hope of the gracious soul, sinking in its profound and fathomless depths. God's word is the only plank to which faith clings, and clinging to which, will float the tempest-tossed, wave-buffeted soul safe to the shore. It is in God's word, and not man's, the believing soul hopes. Forever His word is settled in Heaven! Heaven and earth shall pass away, but not one word of God shall fail. God's word is truth. "All the promises of God are yes and Amen in Christ Jesus." The believing, sinking soul trusts in nothing human, in nothing visionary, when it trusts in the revealed word of God. All other foundations are but as the shifting, treacherous sand. All expectation is visionary and delusive but that which draws its inspiration from, and rears the structure of its hope upon, the eternal, unchangeable word of the living God. God's revealed word is a divine, immortal rock, building upon and hoping in which, the soul shall before long spring from its lowest depth to its loftiest height, chanting its "new song before the throne of God and the Lamb."

Oh! whatever else fails you, cling to God's word. Part with all yes, with life itself- rather than part with it. "Cast not away your confidence which has great recompense of reward."

"This Book, this holy Book, on every line
Marked with the seal of high Divinity;
On every leaf bedewed with drops of love
Divine, and with the eternal heraldry
And signature of God Almighty stamped
From first to last; this ray of sacred light,
This lamp from off the everlasting throne,
Mercy took down, and in the night of Time
Stood, casting on the dark her gracious bow;
And evermore beseeching men with tears
And earnest sighs to read, believe, and live."

Watching for the Morning

"My soul waits for the Lord more than those who watch for the morning: I say, more than those who watch for the Morning." -Psalm 30:6.

Having dilated upon the waiting posture of the Psalmist's soul, we now approach the consideration of its profound intensity. "My soul waits for the Lord more than those who watch for the morning: I say, more than those who watch for the morning." The image is exquisitely poetical, as it is singularly expressive. The natural morning is, perhaps, the most beautiful, and to many the most welcome, part of the day. To the languid and weary invalid it is especially and indescribably so. The night, it may be, has been long and dreary; sleep has fled the pillow, pain has tortured the limb, and the whole network of nerves quivers with indescribable suffering. But yet more distressing than this: the mind, in close sympathy with the body, still more acute has been the mental restlessness and disquietude of the night watches. It is an acknowledged phenomenon that, every material object and spiritual conception assumes a more distorted form and a darker hue at night than at any other season. The circumstances of life, the events of providence, the discipline of God, all borrow from its gloom and solitude their shape and complexion.

The physical and the mental thus in the closest and most painful sympathy, oh, how the invalid, weary and exhausted, longs for the morning! How welcome the first trembling streak of light- the first soft blush of day! And when the night-lamp (the moon) expires, and the morning dawns bright and cheering, how exquisitely lovely and welcome its advent! The air laden with a thousand odors, the flowers sparkling as with countless diamonds, all nature robed in virgin beauty, and vocal with the lark's morning hymn of praise, the whole scene presents a picture which the imagination may conceive, but which the pencil and the pen fail to portray. For the advent of this scene the sick one, weary and faint, longs and watches. "Those who watch for the morning."

Passing from this sketch of the natural morning, we are prepared to contemplate the spiritual morning of the soul. There are various spiritual mornings in the history of the Church of God, collectively and individually, on which it may be profitable briefly to meditate. The First Advent of our Divine Lord was the most significant and momentous morning of all that succeeded. What a fact in the history of the world when the "Bright and Morning Star" first appeared, heralding the rising of the "Sun of Righteousness." Up to that moment the moral world was wrapped in the profoundest Egyptian darkness. And yet, at no former or even later period of its history had philosophy, science, and art attained to so pre-eminent a standard of perfection.

Let the history of Greece and of Rome testify. Sensible of the profound degradation of the people, the appalling ignorance and vice into which the most classic and civilized nations were plunged, men arose fired with the intense desire to dispel the one and to reform the other. They speculated, philosophized, and moralized. Science developed its mysteries, are unveiled its splendors, philosophy discoursed, eloquence thundered, and poetry sang, but all to no effect. The multitude remained sunk in stolid ignorance, pagan superstition, and degrading sin. "The world by wisdom knew not God." It was at this crisis, when the wisest of the world's philosophers- Socrates and Plato for example- acknowledged that, as the state of the people then was, there was no human means of reforming them; sighing for a revelation, they expressed a hope, and even an expectation, that God would at some future time make such a discovery of Himself, and such a revelation of His will, as would dispel the cloud of darkness in which they were involved.

It was at this juncture, when the night of the world was the darkest, lo! the Sun of Righteousness arose with healing in His wings! Oh, what a glorious morning was this! Then was the magnificent prediction concerning Him fulfilled- "And He shall be as the light of the morning, when the sun rises, even a morning without clouds." "And there were in the same country shepherds WATCHING FOR THE MORNING abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flocks by night. And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were very afraid. And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord." Then was heard the angels' advent anthem which broke in the sweetest music over the plains of Bethlehem- "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will to men."

Let us in faith often go to Bethlehem, and muse upon that wonderful thing that has come to pass- "The Ancient of days" becoming an infant of days! "God manifest in the flesh." May this advent-morning of joy dawn upon us! May this "day-spring from on high" visit our souls, translating us from darkness into light, from the children of the night into the children of the day!

And what is the new creation in conversion but the dawn of morning to the soul? The greatest change in individual character, the most momentous event in its history, is, the advent of the day of grace in the soul. The creation of myriads of worlds is nothing in comparison. God created the universe out of nothing; but in conversion God has to uncreate before He creates the soul anew- to pull down before He builds up, to kill before He makes alive. Until this auspicious era dawns, until this day of grace breaks, all is spiritual darkness; the night of sin, of ignorance, and of enmity against God supremely reigns. The eyes of the understanding are closed, the veil is on the heart, and the whole soul is wrapped in a pall of more than Egyptian darkness. But, the new creation's morning comes. He who at creation's dawn said, "Let there be light" -and light was, -in the new creation speaks the word, "Let there be light," -and light is. Jesus Christ, the Sun of Righteousness, rises upon the soul, scatters the clouds of spiritual ignorance, sin, and unbelief; and, lo! the day dawns, and the brightest morning that ever broke upon the soul fills it with the joy and radiance of a new creation. "If any man be in Christ Jesus, he is a new creature (new creation): old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new." With the solemn, startling fact confronting us- "Except a man be BORN AGAIN, he cannot see the kingdom of God," how essential and momentous does this morning of grace in the soul appear!

And when to this positive condition we contrast the negative that, baptism is not conversion; and that, the Lord's Supper is not conversion; and that, a reformation of life is not conversion; that, an intellectual acquaintance with the truth is not conversion; that, works of beneficence and deeds of charity are not conversion- that, with all this the night of spiritual darkness may still envelop the soul, unbroken and unillumined by a solitary ray of spiritual, quickening, saving light with what overpowering solemnity do the Savior's words fall upon the ear- "Marvel not that I said unto you, YOU MUST BE BORN AGAIN." "It is the Spirit that quickens; the flesh profits nothing." "So is every one that is born of the Spirit."

But, oh- we repeat- how bright and blessed this day-dawn of grace! If the sunrise in creation is a scene of surpassing loveliness, its beauty and splendor pale before the glory of the new creation in the soul. Its advent may be faint and gradual. For the most part- except in seasons of especial outpouring of the Spirit, when, as it were, a nation is born in a day- conversion begins from the most incipient stage, and by slow and almost imperceptible degrees advances to maturity.

The analogy of nature suggests this idea. It is said that, the darkest period of night is that which borders the closest on the break of day. May not this phenomenon furnish an illustration of our thought? How often does conversion transpire at a time when the subject appears the farthest from the day of grace, and yet, perhaps, in reality the nearest! The cup of iniquity is brimmed and running over; the unhappy servant of sin has reached the end of the tether; Satan, the Pharaoh of this world, has demanded of his oppressed and down-trodden slave, the full toll of bricks without the straw- in other words, some task of heinous iniquity, for the performance of which both the physical and mental powers are in capacitated. Sin has exhausted its powers of invention; iniquity has reached its height of guilt; the world can offer no new attractions of folly; infidelity has achieved its boldest stroke; and the unhappy victim, abandoning all hope of amendment, has made 'a covenant with death, and with hell is at agreement.'

It is then that Jesus of Nazareth passes by. It is then the darkest hour of the moral night that the first ray of the Divine Sun breaks upon the soul. Some startling providence, or some impressive sermon, some personal appeal, or some spirit-stirring volume- perhaps a page of God's own word-has roused the soul from its deep sleep of death, and starting from its unconsciousness and its dreams, wakes to behold the dawn of a new day, a new life, a new creation, a new world! O blissful moment when Jesus thus enters the soul, scattering all the clouds of ignorance and sin, of atheism and unbelief, of self-righteousness and worldly folly; and, creating for Himself a new orbit, henceforth fills and floods its entire being with the life and radiance of his grace, glory, and love.

At creation's dawn the "morning stars sang together for joy;" but sweeter far the music of angels when the 'new creation,' emerging from its chaos of darkness and death, floats into being, instinct with life, glowing with beauty, and melodious with song- God's holiest, greatest, and most sublime work!

"That was a time of wondrous love,
When Christ my Lord was passing by;
He felt His tender pity move,
And brought His great salvation near.

"Guilty, and self-condemned, I stood,
Nor thought His mercy was so near;
When He my stubborn heart subdued,
And planted all His graces there.

"My eyes were sealed, the shades of night
Over all my mental powers were drawn;
He spoke the word, 'Let there be light!'
And straight the day began to dawn."

Perhaps, my reader, you are anxiously watching for this bright morning of grace? The night of your soul has been long and dreary. Sick of sin, of self, and of the world, you sigh, and long and look for the dawn of a new existence, a higher life, another world in which you may no longer live for self, but for God; no more for time, but for eternity. Oh welcome this longing, this watching, this looking, as heralding the daybreak of grace to your soul! The first light of morning is very soft, the first blush of day very faint. So, ofttimes, is it with the day-spring from on high in the soul. And yet, faint and trembling as is the first ray of spiritual light, it yet is as really, as essentially day, as when shining in its noontide splendor.

The most imperfect consciousness of sin, the first serious thought- a sigh, a tear, a desire, an upward glance of the eye- are harbingers of the dawn of that "shining light" in the regenerate soul "which shines more and more unto the perfect day." Wait on, watch on, you Christ-longing, Christ-seeking soul! for you shall not watch and wait in vain. The Savior's promise is- "Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and you shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you."

Every weeping Christ-seeker shall be a rejoicing Christ-finder; for, 'the Lord has not said to the seeking seed of Jacob, Seek my face in vain.' Pray on, and watch on, until Jesus manifests Himself to your soul, and the Sun of Righteousness has risen upon you with healing in His wings.

And then, there is a more advanced stage of the Christian life the watching for the morning in the night-season of afflictive dispensation. Every child of God has his night of sorrow and of tears. The mournful experience of the Psalmist is often reproduced in that of many of the Lord's people. "I am weary with my groaning; all the night make I my bed to swim; I water my couch with my tears." "My sore ran in the night, and ceased not: my soul refused to be comforted." "With my soul have I desired You in the night." "I meditate on You in the night watches."

Who among all God's saints are exempt from this long, dreary night of weeping? The Lord of saints Himself was not. His whole life- from the moment of His birth in the stable, to the hour of His death upon the cross- was one unbroken night of weeping.

"From Bethlehem's Inn to Calvary's Cross,
Affliction marked His road,
And many a weary step He took
To bring us back to God."

"Born of a woman, and made under the law," our Divine Lord, the moment His infant feet pressed our earth, came under the curse, began His work of obedience, and wove the first thread of that seamless, stainless Robe of Righteousness for the full and free justification of His believing people; which, when completed, He dyed in the purple stream of His own heart's blood upon the cross. "He was a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief."

Beloved, you are, perhaps, now in a measure assimilated to your suffering Lord. It is with you a night of grief and solitude, of weeping and watching. God has smitten you. The hand of the Almighty is upon you. What is the cup your Father has given you to drink? Have riches fled? has health faded? have friends changed? has death bereaved? Are earthly hopes blighted? worldly expectations disappointed? human schemes frustrated? Is your path shaded? your life lonely? your actions misunderstood? your motives misconstrued? your work unrewarded? your sensibilities wounded? your spirit crushed? Be it so. Jesus passed through all this before you, and you are but treading the lonely, tearful path He trod; and now, like Him, you are "one that watches for the morning."

Oh how you long for the first ray of light, for the first dawn of day- the morning of joy that will assuredly succeed your night of weeping! Nor shall you watch in vain! Such is the divine promise in which you are permitted and invited to hope. "Weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning." That was a long, dark night of weeping with the dear disciples tossed upon the broken waters of the lake. "It was the fourth watch of the night, and Jesus had not come." But, just when the tempest was the strongest, and the billows were the highest, and the night was the darkest, lo! the form of Jesus was seen in the grey twilight, walking upon the surging billows, and approaching the tempest-tossed vessel; and they cried out for fear, mistaking Him for a ghostly spirit. And then was heard His own familiar and loved voice rising above the tempest,"Be not afraid; it is I," and then in a moment dawned upon them the "morning of joy," and they fell in transport and adoration at His feet.

Thus, beloved, will it be with you. You are whole nights in your watchtower looking for some ray of hope, some means of deliverance, some source of supply, some drop of comfort, some avenue of escape from a present and a crushing trial. You shall not watch in vain. It is recorded of Wellington when on the field of Waterloo, as the battle waged hard, and affairs assumed a critical and threatening aspect, he was heard to exclaim, "Would it were night, or that Blucher had come!" Reversing the time, you, in the heat of the conflict with suffering and trial, with temptations and tears, often exclaim, "Would that it were morning, and that my Savior had appeared!" And so it will be! The Lord will not leave you comfortless. It shall not be all night, all sorrow, all tears. Wait on the Lord, and wait for the Lord, 'as one that watches for the morning.' Joy will succeed your sorrow, laughter your tears, and your long and dreary night will dissolve into the splendor of perfect and endless day. "Men see not the bright light which is in the clouds: but the wind passes, and cleanses them."

Then there is the morning that precedes the night of spiritual and mental darkness. How many a child of the day is walking as in the night; and how truly is he "as they that watches for the morning." Painful as this soul-depth is, the discipline is needful to its growth and maturity. How imperfectly, if at all, should we sympathize with Christ in His soul-desertion on the cross, were we entirely exempt from this discipline of soul-darkness, through which all the children of the light and of the day are called, more or less, to pass.

Tempted in all points like as we, yet without sin, we must touch the Savior at all points of His life. There must, to a degree, be assimilation, coincidence, conformity of the Body with the Head. As in the darkest night the stars glow with softer effulgence, so in the gloomiest days of adversity, temptation, and sorrow, the saints of God- the stars of His right hand- shine all the more- chastened and resplendent in those graces of faith, patience, and love, which, perhaps, are never reflected in such perfection, or are seen to such advantage as when his sky is draped with its darkest hues.

Child of the day, walking in darkness, anxiously watching for the light, be of good cheer! The morning dawns, the day breaks, there is a bright light in your cloud, and soon the darkness will have passed, and you shall ever more walk in the light of God's countenance, the joy of Christ's person, and the comfort of the Holy Spirit.

"Give to the winds your fears;
Hope, and be undismayed;
God hears your sighs, and counts your tears;
God shall lift up your head.

"Through waves, and clouds, and storms
He gently clears your way;
Wait His time- your darkest night
Shall end in brightest day."

But, the believer, from the lowest depths of his experience, waits and watches for a brighter morning, more glorious and enduring far than yet has broken upon this dark and sinful world. The night-season of death is, to the believer in Jesus, the day-dawn of life: the lowest degree of grace, the germ and the pledge of the highest degree of glory. Death is not really death to him who has life in Christ; it is but the shadow- the substance Jesus met and overcame when He died upon the cross. "Who has abolished death, and has brought life and immortality to light by the gospel." And yet, how the faithful shrink, awed by the thought of death, and appalled by the act of dying!

It was a beautiful experience of the pious sister of Gregory of Nazianzus, when dying. Faintly pronouncing the words of David, "I will lay me down in peace," she fell asleep, safe in the arms of Jesus. What wonders at that moment burst upon her sainted sense! First, and beyond all, the sight of her glorified Lord. The welcome of sister spirits, the melody of rejoicing saints, the anthems of holy angels, the bright seraphic host, the purer, more perfect, and transcendent splendor of the exalted Trinity. The last taint of impurity effaced, the last groan of suffering hushed, the last sigh of sorrow stilled, the last tear of grief wept, the last fear of death quelled. Freed from ignorance and error, anxiety and folly, carnality and worldliness, not a cloud now shades, or a wavelet ruffles, the brightness and serenity of her glorified spirit.

No longer looking forward to death as a sturdy and relentless foe, she looks back upon it as the Israelites upon the pursuing Egyptians, lifeless upon the shore; and thus rises and swells her song of victory- "Sing you to the Lord, for He has triumphed gloriously; the horse and his rider has He thrown into the sea." Lord, let me die a death as calmly! my last end as peacefully and hopefully as hers! But, it is not with the night of death- a soft sleep though it be- but with the sun-rise of life, the day-dawn of glory, that we have to deal.

"And is this Heaven? and am I there?" will be the first exclamation of wonder and ecstasy bursting from every new inhabitant the moment it enters! For this morning of glory the believing soul ardently, hopefully watches. How many are nearing its coasts! how many have reached its border! how many are passing it now! Sick and suffering saint of God, don't you long to be there? Are you not ready to say to every object and being that would detain you on these plains of sin and pain and sorrow, in the words of the Divine Angel to the wrestling patriarch, "Let me go, for the day breaks"?

"Only waiting til the shadows
Are a little longer grown;
Only waiting until the glimmer
Of the day's last beam is flown;
Until the night of earth is faded
From the heart, once full of day;
Until the stars of heaven are breaking
Through the twilight, soft and gray.

"Only waiting til the reapers
Have the last sheaf gathered home;
For the summer-time is faded,
And the autumn winds have come.
Quickly, reapers! gather quickly
The last ripe hours of my heart;
For the bloom of life is withered,
And I hasten to depart.

"Only waiting til the angels
Open wide the mystic gate,
At whose feet I long have lingered,
Weary, poor, and desolate.
Even now I hear their footsteps
And their voices far away;
If they call me, I am waiting
Only waiting to obey.

"Only waiting til the shadows
Are a little longer grown;
Only waiting until the glimmer
Of the day's last beam is flown;
Then, from out the gathering darkness,
Holy, deathless stars shall rise,
By whose light my soul shall gladly
Tread its pathway to the skies!"

But, we wait the morning of the Resurrection! The saints of God are called the "children of the resurrection." "If by any means they might attain unto the resurrection of the dead" in Christ, and share with them the splendor and the bliss of that bright morning, they willingly relinquish the worldling's portion- his honors, pursuits, and pleasures to "have part in the First Resurrection, upon whom the second death shall have no power." Do not the generality of the saints deal too imperfectly with the two great Resurrections- the Resurrection of Christ, as sealing and confirming the completeness of His atoning work; and the Resurrection of His saints, as 'having their perfect consummation and bliss, both in body and soul, in Christ's eternal and everlasting glory'?

And yet, what truths more divine, what facts more certain, what hopes more precious, than these? Realizing "the power of Christ's Resurrection" in your soul, you will die to sin and live to righteousness, daily ascending more and more into a higher region of the Christian life. Oh, marvelous the life-quickening into deeper holiness that flows from faith's daily apprehension of "the power of Christ's Resurrection!" It must be so. If the believer is dead with Christ, he is also risen with Christ; and if risen with Christ, he possesses the most potent and precious motive to set his mind, not on things on the earth, but "above, where Christ sits on the right hand of God."

Scarcely less influential is the contemplation of his own Resurrection to eternal life, when the trumpet of the Archangel shall sound, and the dead in Christ shall rise first. For this 'morning of joy,' succeeding our 'night of weeping,' let us be as "they that watch for the morning," Standing whole nights in our watch-tower, longing for the first dawn of that bright and blissful day.

The Coming of the Lord- the brightest and most glorious morning of all- supplies a last and magnificent illustration of our present subject. Truly, we have, in our reflections, 'kept the best wine until now.' The Second Coming of Christ is the pivot upon which all the future glory and blessedness of the saints turn. "If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable." But the personal and "glorious appearing of the great God our Savior" unveils to faith's eye that "blessed hope," for which we wait and long and watch- even the coming of "the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ: who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto His glorious body, according to the working whereby He is able even to subdue all things unto Himself."

Nor shall the Bride wait long the coming of the Bridegroom. "The night is far spent, the day is at hand." All things and all events in the Church and the world point to His near approach. Am I reminded that certain great epochs of time are to transpire, and events in history are to take place, before the blessed hope is realized? Conceded! But, is it necessary that long centuries must roll round before that time and those events arrive? What says the Scriptures touching the events that will precede and herald the coming of the Lord? "He will finish the work, and cut it short in righteousness: because a short work will the Lord make upon the earth."

Are you calculating the time for the accomplishment of these events- the 'bud and foliage of the fig-tree' -by your own line of measurement? "Beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day." Oh, yes He will 'cut short the work in righteousness.' "A nation shall be born in a day." In one night the 'fig-tree' will burst into bud and blossom, and fill the world with its fragrance and its fruit. The Jews will return the remnant according to the election of grace will be converted. The Euphrates will be dried- the time of the Gentiles will come; Antichrist will rise and fall- and then shall appear the Son of Man in the clouds of heaven, and with Him all His saints. "For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also who sleep in Jesus will God bring with Him."

Then will burst upon the long dreary night of this groaning, travailing creation, the light and splendor and music of the Resurrection morn! "The dead in Christ shall rise first: then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord. Wherefore comfort one another with these words."

The soul and body, now once more and forever re-united, shall enter glory, and become an inhabitant of that land of which it is said, "And there shall be no night there:" no night of ignorance, no night of suffering, no night of sorrow, and best and brightest of all-no night of SIN, but one perfectly holy and endless day! "Watchman, what of the night? Watchman, what of the night? The watchman said, The MORNING comes." You bright and glorious morning! speed your advent! Dawn upon this dark and sinful world! The saints wait and sigh, pray and watch for Your appearing. "COME, LORD JESUS, COME QUICKLY!"

"Oh, glorious will that gathering be,
From every clime, of every race,
When hearts long lonely then shall see
Him, and each other, face to face!"

Hoping in the Lord

"Let Israel hope in the Lord: for with the Lord there is mercy, and with Him is plenteous redemption." -Psalm 130:7.

To what a sacred 'height' does the soul of the Psalmist now rise! Mounting as with eagle wing, he soars above all cloud and storm, and stands, with the Apocalyptic angel, in the very center of the sun; springing from the lowest "depths," and planting his foot on the topmost height of faith's ladder, he summons the whole Israel of God to imitate his ascent and participate his joy. "Let Israel hope in the Lord: for with the Lord there is mercy, and with Him is plenteous redemption."

Such is the privilege, and such may be the experience of all the saints. They, who in their soul-depths are found prayerfully and believingly waiting on the Lord; shall assuredly be found "hoping in the Lord." Prayer strengthens faith, and faith begets hope, and hope, lifting the soul superior to all circumstances of trial and despondency, folds its golden pinions upon the very bosom of God. "Those who wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint." "I wait for the Lord, my soul does wait, and in His word do I hope." "Let Israel hope in the Lord." These words suggest three interesting and instructive points of reflection the object, the character, and the encouragement of the Christian's hope. May the Holy Spirit guide and bless our meditation thereon!

We have upon the threshold of our subject a sharply defined line of essential difference between the believer and the unbeliever, the converted and the unconverted, the Church and the world, touching the object of hope. The unconverted are described by the inspired penman as "having no hope," Appalling description! Interpreting it but in its relation to the present world, can the imagination, in its boldest flight, picture a condition more pitiable and appalling than that of entire hopelessness? Divest man of hope, and you have plunged him in the darkest, deepest abyss of despair.

Take from the sufferer the hope of relief, from the sick the hope of life, from the exile the hope of return, from the captive the hope of release, from the condemned the hope of reprieve, and you have quenched the last spark of life, have dashed from the lips the last drop of comfort, shading the entire scenery of existence with the heaviest clouds of despair and woe. It is hope- the first true offspring of reason, the recognition of purer intelligence- that rocks the cradle of suffering infancy, paints its golden tinge upon the dismal cell of the prisoner, lulls to balmy repose the couch of languor, sits proudly upon the warrior's crest, and visits alike, faithfully and kindly, the poor man's hut as the rich man's palace.

"What is hope? The beauteous sun,
Which colors all it shines upon!
The beacon of life's dreary sea,
The star of immortality!
Fountain of feeling, young and warm,
A day-beam bursting through the storm!
A tune of melody, whose birth
Is, oh, too sweet, too pure for earth!
A blossom of that radiant tree
Whose fruit the angels only see!
A beauty and a charm, whose power
Is seen, enjoyed, confessed each hour!
A picture of that world to come,
When earth and ocean meet
The last overwhelming doom!"

But what is all human hope, as to its nature and object, but a phantom and a dream as the foam on the crest of the billow, the shadow on the mountain's brow- unsubstantial and fleeting? Yet, how does the soul cling to it! How do men, looking only to the things that are seen and temporal, cling to human hopes, pursuing a bubble, building upon a shadow, grasping the wind! How unreal, unsatisfying, and evanescent the hope that rests in the creature, that is built on the world, that clings to wealth and honor and life! All for a while looks true and bright- hope investing the present and painting the future with its most gorgeous and attractive hues. But, adversity comes, and reverse comes, and sickness comes, and death comes, and eternity comes, and then the sky is darkened, and the flowers droop, and the music is hushed, and all human hopes one by one grow dim and expire as the day fades into evening, and the evening deepens into night. Oh the folly of building the hope of happiness below God, out of Christ, and this side of Heaven! Chase no longer the phantom, the dream, the shadow of human hope, of earth-born good; but, acquaint your self with God, seek Christ, and fix your thoughts, your affections, your whole being, upon the world of stern and solemn reality towards which time is rapidly speeding you. "This is life eternal, that they might know You the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom You have sent."

We now turn to the Christian's hope- the only true, substantial, and living hope of the soul. How truly and impressively the passage under consideration defines this hope. "Let Israel hope in the Lord" -not in the creature, not in himself, not in his own righteousness- but, "let him HOPE IN THE LORD."

There is everything in God to inspire and encourage hope. Oh, it is a marvelous truth- a truth, had it not been divinely revealed, the mind could not have discovered, nor the heart have believed it that, the soul of man, lost in sin, might again hope in God! But examine the foundation of this hope, and all wonder ceases. Christ is the Foundation, the Object, and the End of the believing sinner's hope. "The Lord Jesus Christ, who is our hope." There is but one divinely revealed and assured hope of heaven, and it centers wholly and exclusively in the Savior of sinners. The Atonement of Christ touches the soul, and meets its case at every point. There could be no hope of the sinner's pardon and justification consistently with Divine Justice, Holiness, and Truth apart from the obedience, death, and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ.

The remission of the sin and the justification of the sinner, in the exercise of mere Mercy, would have subverted the authority of the Divine Law, and have prostrated the honor and dignity of the Divine Government. It follows then, as strictly logical as it is soundly scriptural, that a hope of eternal happiness, reposing upon the abstract attribute of Mercy, must prove fallacious and fatal, since, based, upon the principle of one Divine perfection, exhibited and exercised at the expense, compromise, and destruction of all the others; this necessarily involving the undeifying of the Being and the overthrow of the moral Government of God.

In pardoning the sin, and in justifying the sinner, the penalty incurred and the obedience demanded must be met. The law must be honored, justice satisfied, holiness secured, and the righteousness, dignity, and glory of the moral Government of God displayed and magnified in the eyes of the whole universe. Let an ingenuous and thoughtful mind pause and enquire how could God exhibit His infinite abhorrence of sin, and vindicate the holiness of the law; how exact the stern penalty incurred by the one, and meet the unbending requirements of the other- by saving the sinner on the sole basis of Mercy alone? Impossible!

But, behold the plan! The Son of God, by His sinless obedience, has met all the precepts of the Law, magnifying and making it honorable, -the Law Giver thus becoming the Law Fulfiller, and by His sacrificial death has answered all the demands of justice, satisfying its every claim, and paying every farthing of the debt; and now the glory of God appears infinitely greater in the salvation of one sinner than it could have appeared in the eternal destruction of every being of the human race!

Oh what imagination can fully conceive, or language adequately describe, the glory which accrues to God from the Atonement and Sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ, who is our hope! Countless worlds, plunged eternally into hell, could never have so exhibited God's holiness and justice and truth, or have presented such a perfect display of His glory before angels, men, and devils, as the sacrifice of His beloved Son upon the cross of Calvary. "I have glorified You on the earth: I have finished the work which You gave me to do."

Behold your true and only hope of heaven! You are, perhaps, bowed to the earth under the sight and conviction of your sinfulness; you have come to the end of all your own doings, perfection, and merit; you are on the brink of despair! Look up! there is hope now! "Christ died for the ungodly." "This Man receives sinners." "He who comes to me I will in no wise cast out." "Christ is the end of the Law for righteousness to every one that believes." "And when they had nothing to pay He frankly forgave them both." "The blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin." "By grace are you saved."

With such a cluster of gospel and precious announcements, extending to the most sinful and necessitous, who need despair? who will not hope? Innumerable as your sins are, aggravated as is your guilt, bankrupt of all merit and fitness and claim but that which your character and case as the chief of sinners supplies- you yet may hope in Christ. "Let Israel hope in the Lord," though Israel's name be "of sinners the chief." The only room found for despair beneath the cross is in the case of him who approaches with an unhumbled spirit, an unbroken heart, pleading some worthiness of his own, and with a price in his hand dreaming that salvation may be purchased with the base coin of human merit, religious doings, and creature worthiness.

But no! the character is portrayed, the terms are prescribed, upon the ground of which the 'great salvation' provided by the Father, finished by the Son, and applied by the Spirit, becomes our present, gratuitous, and inalienable possession. "The whole need not a physician; but they that are sick. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance." "Him that comes to me I will in no wise cast out." Hope, then, in Christ Jesus! Hope in His love to receive you; hope in His blood to cleanse you; hope in His righteousness to justify you; hope in His free and boundless grace to accept and save you "just as you are." "Let me not be ashamed of my hope." "Let Israel hope in the Lord."

God is revealed as "the God of hope." An expressive and precious title this! It infinitely surpasses the picture of hope as thus exquisitely painted by a noble poet:
"The rainbow to the storms of life,
The evening beam that smiles the clouds away,
And tints the morrow with prophetic ray."

But what is the most exquisite conception of hope compared with the hope thus portrayed by an inspired pen: "The God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that you may abound in hope, through the power of the Holy Spirit"? On the groundwork of the Atonement of the Son of God, the Father becomes "the God of hope" to all who abjure every other hope, and hope only in Him.

There is no circumstance in which we may be placed, no condition in which we may be involved, no lack or danger or impossibility draping our path with dark and lowering clouds of dark despair, but the soul may yet fix its hope in God. How sweet and assuring is the hope of a child in a parent's love, care, and protection! Such a Father is ours! We may hope in His forgiveness, to cancel our greatest sins; in His wisdom, to guide our most intricate perplexity; in His power, to raise up from the lowest depth; in His love, to soothe our profoundest grief; in His resources, to supply our every need; and in His faithfulness, to make good the word of promise upon which He has caused our souls to hope.

Our folly, yes, our sin, is in building our hope in something other than God. No marvel that our creature cistern- the loveliest should break, mocking and intensifying the thirst it promised to slake. No marvel that our staff- the strongest- should break beneath us, piercing the hand that leant upon it too trustfully and too fondly. Oh, what is the lesson God is daily teaching us, which yet we are so reluctant to learn, but this the folly and the sin of confiding too implicitly in the shadow of creature good, earthly possessions, and human hopes; still more, in self-wisdom, power, and government?

But, let your condition be ever so extreme- human friendship disappointing you, earthly supplies failing you, human sympathy refused you, and dark despair enthroned grimly and coldly upon your heart- there yet is hope in God! The Lord has withered this fleshly arm, and dried up that creature spring, and blown upon this worldly hope, that you might be shut up to Him alone. Never was He so near as at this moment, when human help is far; never so loving, and compassionate, as now, when human love has failed!

"The Lord is at hand. Be anxious for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known unto God." "For with the Lord there is mercy." What an encouragement have we here to hope in God! There is mercy- infinite mercy, pardoning mercy, justifying mercy, sanctifying mercy, helping mercy- in Him in whom you hope. The Lord "delights in mercy;" and because there is mercy with Him, the child of God, though often brought very low in circumstances and position, may yet hope for succor, comfort, and deliverance. You may not find mercy in the creature, still less in your own self; for, self-reflection, self-reproach, and self-abhorrence, in the remembrance of your sins and backslidings, may place you beyond the region of hope; but, because in Him there is mercy- infinitely precious, overflowing mercy you may 'hope against hope' that God in Christ will never leave you, nor forsake you.

Thus, the encouragement you have to hope in God, when all other hope has expired, springs from that mercy in His nature which has been truly described as His 'darling attribute;' for, "He delights in mercy." "Behold, the eye of the Lord is upon those who fear Him, upon those who hope in His mercy." "Let Your mercy, O Lord, be upon us, according as we hope in You. "

"And with Him is plenteous redemption:" another and a yet more assured ground of hope in the Lord. Redemption is the one and sole foundation of the sinner's hope of heaven. Every ray of hope expired, until re-kindled by Christ, who by His obedience and death "opened the kingdom of heaven to all believers." Amid the agonies of Jesus and the convulsions of nature, hope sat smiling upon the cross; and from out the thunder of the Law and the lightning of justice- the earth quaking, the rocks rending, the sun darkening her sweetest, softest music was heard- "It is finished!" More resplendent still will be her arch, and sweeter still her voice, when, amid the "wreck of matter and the crush of worlds," the "ransomed of the Lord shall return, and come to Zion with songs and everlasting joy upon their heads;" and the "New Jerusalem" will be seen "coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband." Then will the believer's hope of glory- often obscured, often doubted, yet never entirely relinquished- blaze forth in its unclouded, full-orbed splendor, crowned with glory, honor, and immortality.

"Eternal Hope! when yonder spheres sublime
Pealed their first notes to sound the march of Time,
Your joyous youth began-but not to fade,
When all the sister planets have decayed;
When, wrapped in fire, the realms of ether glow,
And heaven's last thunder shakes the world below,
You, undismayed, shall over the ruins smile,
And light your torch at Nature's funeral-pile."

The believer is "saved by hope." Not that hope is the cause of salvation, but the means of its enjoyment; not salvation, but its end. The regenerate soul is a divine orb of hope circling around its great Center- "the Lord Jesus Christ, who is our hope" -from which it springs, whose glory it reflects, and whose praise it chaunts. A hope of glory which thus has Christ for its foundation, Heaven as its end, must be a "good hope through grace," the possession of which will never make ashamed, but which, like a fine setting sun, will grow larger and brighter, until lost in the fullness and splendor of eternal fruition.

It is "plenteous redemption." All that emanates from God must necessarily be a reflection of Himself. Flowing from the infinity of His nature, it must partake, in some degree, of the plenitude of His Being. Now, no work of God confirms this fact and illustrates this truth as His master work of man's Redemption. In it God unsealed all the resources of His Divinity. By no other means could He have accomplished it. Every atom- so to speak- of Divinity, every perfection of His nature, was employed in working out the plan of human salvation. Had one attribute stood aloof, had one perfection been wanting, the entire scheme would have fallen to the ground. The creation and destruction of myriads of worlds would not, and could not, have supplied such an evidence of His Being, or have made such a display of His glory, as the Redemption of the Church by the sacrifice of His Son. Upon this glorious truth is predicated the blessed announcement that, "with Him is plenteous redemption."

Behold the ground of your hope! Have you been taught by the Holy Spirit your sinfulness and sin? Have you had such an insight into the plague of your heart as to bring you well-near to the verge of despair? Does your guilt appear so heinous as to place you beyond the pale of God's Church and the reach of His salvation? Listen to the declaration- "Let Israel hope in the Lord: for ... with Him is plenteous redemption." Disbelieve it not- reject it not for a moment. When the number of your sins and the turpitude of your guilt exceed the virtue of the blood, and out-distance the grace of Christ, and exhaust the plenitude of God's redemption, then, and not until then, may you abandon yourself to the iron grasp of despair.

Oh, yes! there is with God "plenteous redemption." What case can it not meet? What sin can it not cancel? What sinner can it not save? "Where sin has abounded, grace does much more abound." Where sin has prostrated, grace much more uplifts; where sin has destroyed, grace much more repairs; where sin is victorious, grace is triumphant; where sin has usurped the throne, much more does "grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life."

Sin-burdened soul, there is plenteous redemption for you! "Bread enough in your Father's house, and to spare." "The blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from ALL sin." Could the plenteousness of His redemption be affirmed in words more touching, or in terms more assuring? "Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the Lord, and He will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for He will ABUNDANTLY PARDON." "You, Lord, are good, and ready to FORGIVE; and PLENTEOUS in mercy unto all those who call upon You." See, then, that, in the stupendous matter of your salvation you do not limit that which in its efficacy Christ has made illimitable; that you append no conditions to that which God has made unconditional; that you attempt not to purchase by fancied worthiness of your own that which the infinite merit of Jesus has made unpurchasable and most free.

A few practical deductions will close this chapter. It follows from the preceding exposition that it is of the utmost importance, of vital moment, that we make sure of the nature and foundation of our hope. There are false hopes of heaven, as there are false hopes of earth. It was a most holy prayer of the Psalmist, which every believer should, in a daily examination of his real state before God, breathe- "Let me not be ashamed of my hope." Oh, what multitudes are cherishing a spurious hope of heaven! building their hope, not upon the Rock Christ Jesus, but upon the quicksand of their own righteousness! Look well, my reader, to the nature and foundation of your hope for the future! In settling the question of its reality, assume nothing as true which has not God's word for its ground and its proof.

It is written: "Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God." It is written: "If any man be in Christ Jesus, he is a new creature." It is written: "Without holiness no man shall see the Lord." It is written: "He that believes not shall be damned." Heaven and earth shall pass away, with all their greatness and grandeur, but God's word shall never pass away! Look, then, well to your hope after death. See that it is built upon Christ alone- a Divine Redeemer, a Personal Christ, a sin-atoning Savior-Christ, the Alpha and Omega, the First and the Last, yes, the all and in all of your hope of glory. May the language of the Christian poet embody and express the true foundation of your hope of heaven:
"My hope is built on nothing less
Than Jesus' blood and righteousness;
I dare not trust the sweetest frame,
But wholly lean on Jesus' name.
On Christ, the solid Rock, I stand:
All other ground is sinking sand.

"When darkness seems to hide His face,
I rest on His unchanging grace;
In every high and stormy gale
My anchor holds within the veil.
On Christ, the solid Rock, I stand:
All other ground is sinking sand.

"His oath, the covenant and blood,
Support me in the whelming flood;
When all around my soul gives way,
He then is all my hope and stay.
On CHRIST, the solid ROCK, I stand:
All other ground is sinking sand."

An equally natural, and scarcely less important, deduction from the subject of this chapter, is the necessity of guarding prayerfully and vigilantly against every subtle influence tending to impair the vigor and shade the luster of our hope of heaven. We can but present in a summary form some of the more prevalent and potent influences contributing to this mournful result. The world- its friendships and pursuits, its recreation and religion- is a powerful and ever sleepless foe. Against it we must be on our guard, would we have the lamp of hope burn brightly in the soul. Sin, superficially viewed and lightly committed, unrepented of and unforsaken, will weaken the strongest and shade the brightest hope of the soul. The neglect of public and private means of grace living at a distance from the fountain of atoning blood- the feet daily unwashed, and the conscience unpurified- tampering with error, and listening to false doctrine- the perusal of a light, fictitious, worldly literature- the novels of the day- will certainly and seriously compromise the stability, enjoyment, and brightness of this precious grace of the Spirit.

Oh, guard with sacred jealousy and sleepless watchfulness this holy, heavenly light "the God of hope" has kindled within your soul, more vigilantly than the vestal virgin, her lamp; or the priest, the temple light of God's house. "Every man that has this hope in Him (Christ) purifies himself, even as He is pure." And "in hope of eternal life, which God, that cannot lie, promised before the world began," see that you "present your body a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service." The God of hope grant that, by the avoidance of these evils, and the cultivation of these means, your hope of heaven, like the sun kissing the horizon, may grow larger and more brilliant, until it sets in the glory and splendor of perfect and endless day! Then, "your sun shall no more go down; neither shall your moon withdraw itself, for the LORD shall be your everlasting light, and the days of your mourning shall be ended."

"The hope that is laid up for you in heaven" -how comforting, sustaining, and sanctifying! Your path to its full realization will, in many of its stages, be thorny and shaded, trying and lonely. If there is a royal road to heaven, it is that traveled by the King Himself, impurpled with His blood, vocal with His groans, and hallowed with His strong crying and tears. Along this road we are traveling. And how blessed and assured the hope! It is the hope of dwelling forever in our Father's home! Over its threshold sickness shall no more pass, spreading its mantle of suffering, languor, and decay! Bereavement shall never enter- with its shadow, bitterness, and separation! Sin shall not intrude- tainting, wounding, beclouding! Affliction, trial, and pain shall be utterly and forever unknown, no more wringing the heart with anguish, and mantling the soul with woe. Perfectly holy, the soul will be supremely happy, forever with kindred spirits, "AND FOREVER WITH THE LORD."

Let nothing move you from this hope. Let not prosperity or adversity, the creature or the world, induce you for a moment to relinquish your hold- shaded and feeble though your hope of heaven, through Jesus, may be. It may be but a ray- the faintest scintillation- nevertheless, "hold fast the profession of our faith without wavering." "Cast not away therefore your confidence, which has great recompense of reward."

Has the last sickness come? Is death approaching- heart and flesh failing, Jordan's waves murmuring at your feet? Oh, cling only and firmly to Christ! Look not so much to your hope as to Him who is your hope! The realization may be feeble and fluctuating, the prospect of heaven misty and dim; nevertheless, "Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever." Your hope may wane, its pendulum may oscillate as between earth and heaven, but its Object and its End are as fixed, immovable, and stable as the throne of the Eternal. "Which hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast, and which enters into that within the veil; where the Forerunner is for us entered, even Jesus."

How soothing to the sad hour of bereavement is the hope of a certain reunion and individual recognition of the loved ones who have a little while preceded us to glory! If in heaven we are not to know and not to love those whom on earth we knew and loved, with whom we took sweet counsel and traveled many a weary stage of our journey, then one essential element of heaven's happiness would be lacking, which even earth, with all its sin and sorrow, affords. "I must confess," says the holy Baxter, "as the experience of my soul, that the expectation of loving my friend in heaven powerfully kindles my love to them while on earth. If I thought I should never know, and consequently never love them after this life, I should remember them with temporal things, and love them as such; but I now delightfully commune with my pious friends, in a firm persuasion that I shall commune with them forever; and I take comfort in those that are dead or absent, believing that I shall shortly meet them in heaven, and love them with a heavenly love." They are there waiting and looking for our coming!

Fight on, toil on, hope on, you soldier of Christ, you laborer for Jesus, you tried and suffering one! Soon you shall put off your travel-stained garments, unclasp your dust-covered sandals, lay down your pilgrim-staff; and, attired in glory-robes, enter the palace, and feast your eyes upon the beauty of the King forever. "The golden palace of my God,

Towering above the clouds, I see;
Beyond the cherubs' bright abode,
Higher than angels' thoughts can be!
How can I in those courts appear
Without a wedding garment on?
Conduct me, You Life-Giver, there;
Conduct me to Your glorious throne!
And clothe me with Your robes of light,
And lead me through sin's darkest night."

Final and Full Redemption

"And He shall redeem Israel from all his iniquities." -Psalm 130:8.

What a graceful and appropriate conclusion of this comprehensive and instructive Psalm! Like the sun, it dawns veiled in cloud, it sets bathed in splendor; it opens with soul-depth, it closes with soul-height. Redemption from all iniquity! It baffles the most descriptive language, and distances the highest measurement. The most vivid imagination faints in conceiving it, the most glowing image fails in portraying it, and faith droops her wing in the bold attempt to scale its summit. "He shall redeem Israel from all his iniquities." The verse is a word-painting of man restored, and of Paradise regained- a condition infinitely transcending the holiness and beauty of their original and pristine creation. Iniquity is more than forgiven- it is utterly effaced and eternally forgotten. The soul is more than saved- it is justified, adopted, and glorified.

Thus, by the wonderful redemption wrought by Christ, we gain infinitely more than we lose. Man, clad in the righteousness of God, shines with a luster- and Paradise, closed against all "that defiles, and works abomination, or makes a lie," blooms with a beauty never possessed before sin tainted the one, or the curse blighted the other. Redemption, final and full, is the theme of our present chapter. "He shall redeem Israel from all his iniquities."

In unfolding this subject, our starting point must be the central truth- Israel's Divine Redeemer. The Person of Christ is the center of Christianity. Remove this, and the whole system is destroyed. He is the Foundation; destroy this, and the entire fabric falls. All the doctrines and precepts, all the promises and hopes of the gospel and of the believer, converge towards Him as their common center, and revolve around Him as their life giving Sun.

There never was a period in Eternity in which the Redeemer of men did not occupy His original and essential place as God. The Second Person of the Trinity, His throne has ever been the central one of Heaven; and His present original and essential glory as God, constituted Him the central Sun of all beings and of all worlds, upholding the universe by His arm, ruling it by His will, and shaping its history by His providence. But, passing by the central position and power of the Redeemer in the empire of Creation and Providence, let us concentrate our thoughts upon the yet more appropriate and essential illustration of this thought- His central position in the kingdom of grace. Here we behold Him in His proper place, and in His full orbed glory. It will be instructive to trace His appointment as the Redeemer of His Church to the hands of the Father.

Our Lord's was not a self appointed office. Most voluntary as its assumption was, He assumed not one line of action independent of the Father. This, indeed, could not possibly have been; since, essentially one in nature, they were essentially and indivisibly one in purpose and mind, in will and heart. It would have been as impossible that the Father could have acted independently of the Son, or the Son to have acted independently of the Father, as for one mind to conceive two opposite purposes, or one will two contrary volitions. Hence our Lord affirmed, "I and my Father are ONE." "My Father works hitherto, and I work." "Verily, verily, I say unto you, The Son can do nothing of Himself, but what He sees the Father do: for what things soever He does, these also does the Son likewise." "I can of mine own self do nothing: as I hear, I judge: and my judgement is just; because I seek not mine own will but the will of the Father which has sent me." "He that has seen me, has seen the Father."

What a glorious view does this unfold of the equality of the love of the Father and of the Son in the redemption of Israel from all iniquity! The plan of Redemption was the united conception and scheme of the Godhead, and originated in the Divine love of the ever-blessed Three in One. "God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son." The misapprehension of many- and a more unscriptural and dishonoring one could not exist is, that the Redemption of Christ was the inspiration and origin of the love of the Father! In other words, that the Atonement was the cause, and not the effect, of God's love; that, Christ died to purchase and procure the love of the Father; and not- which is the only scriptural and logical view of the subject- that, the death of Christ was the consequence, and not the cause- the effect, and not the origin of God's love. In view of this stupendous mystery of love and grace, may we not pause, and exclaim, "Thanks be unto God for His unspeakable Gift"?

Oh, it is a sweet reflection, that, when I lay my head upon the bosom of Jesus, I feel the throbbings of my Father's heart; that, when I bend my ear to the words of Jesus, I listen to the sound of my Father's voice, of which my Savior's is the gentle and gracious echo. "He that has seen me, has seen the Father." Let the truth encourage you, that in confiding your soul in faith to the hands of Christ you are assured of God's acceptance, since in dying upon the cross, and in receiving sinners, He acts in perfect harmony and concert with the purpose and mind, the will and heart of God.

The personal fitness of the Redeemer for the redemption of Israel is so palpable, and rests on so scriptural a basis, as to admit of not a moment's argument or doubt. It consisted essentially of the union of the two natures of Christ- the Divine and the Human. This union of the Infinite and the finite was indispensable. They could not have accomplished the work alone and apart from each other. The Divine was essential to the efficacy of Christ's death, the Human equally as essential to the death itself. As essential Divinity could not die, neither could mere Humanity atone. Hence, "the great mystery of godliness, God manifest in the flesh." Herein lies the Redeemer's main fitness for the office thus divinely invested and thus voluntarily assumed. His Human nature- as free from the taint of sin as His Divine enabled Him to give a perfect obedience to law and a full satisfaction to justice. His Divine nature- absolutely and essentially Divine stamped His righteousness with such divine perfection, and His blood with such sovereign efficacy, as enabled Him to redeem, now and forever, the Israel of God from all iniquity. A not less essential element of fitness in Israel's Redeemer was the love- the great, the unparalleled love- which constrained Him to embark in the work of our Redemption.

Were I asked to mention the most prominent perfection in the marvellous scheme of our salvation, I would unhesitatingly cite that of Divine love. It was not that the law was honored, and that justice was satisfied, and that the debt was paid, that invested our Redemption with a glory so resplendent; it was the great love of God in devising, and the equal love of Christ in executing, and the divine love of the Spirit in applying, the wondrous expedient of our salvation. LOVE outsteps every other perfection, love eclipses every other attribute; love is the most gorgeous and resplendent tint in the "Bow round about the throne," -the Bow of the covenant-salvation uniting and blending in their sweetest and most beauteous harmony, all the perfections of God, -the perfection of DIVINE LOVE the most conspicuous and resplendent of all.

"Christ also has loved us, and has given Himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling savor." Fall prostrate before this stupendous, this marvellous, this unheard of love, and yield to it the supreme faith and homage of your entire being. Doubt not its reality, limit not its vastness, question not its freeness; but, believe it, accept it, live it- and you shall be saved.

From this rapid view of Israel's Redeemer let us briefly advert to Israel's Redemption. Redemption! it is the most significant and precious word in God's vocabulary. We shall, if saved, be spelling out that word, and yet never fully grasp its meaning, through all eternity. Studying, yet never entirely learning its meaning; extracting, yet never exhausting its sweetness; gazing upon its effulgence, yet never wholly absorbing its glory; chanting its song, yet never ending its praise!

And what is this Redemption? Our passage leaves us in no doubt. It is a "redemption from all iniquity." No other redemption could have met our case; redemption from mere affliction and sorrow, from sickness and suffering, from anxiety and care, would still have left us the degraded servant of sin and the willing slave of Satan, bound and fettered by the chain of the most galling bondage, and delivered over to the most appalling woe. But, Christ's redemption is from the cause of all affliction, suffering, and death- it is our "redemption from all iniquity." "He shall redeem Israel from all iniquity." Let us briefly look at this stupendous truth in two or three of its more essential points.

It is a redemption from the curse of sin. The entire removal of the curse by Christ is a point very much underrated and overlooked by the believer. The Divine blessing, in its fullest sense- His redemptive blessing- could not be upon us did one atom of the curse still remain unrepealed. But, our Divine and gracious Redeemer hurled the entire incubus from His Church when, 'born of a woman and made under the law,' He was "made a curse for us." Marvellous truth! The Son of God accursed for man's sin, looked upon and dealt with as the accursed one; cast out of Jerusalem as too accursed to die within its holy precincts! "Jesus also, that He might sanctify the people with His own blood, suffered outside the gate." What then is the blessed deduction from this truth? That, the cup of the divine curse being thus exhausted by our Divine Redeemer- not a drop lingering upon the brim- there remains nothing but the Divine blessing. The curse of the law is removed from the person and works, from the afflictions and sufferings, of the believer; and, henceforth, nothing but the Divinest BLESSING rests upon all that he is, and upon all that he does, and upon all that he endures; whatever the cross he bears, the suffering he endures, or the cup he drinks.

"Your blessing is upon Your people." His blessing is upon your person, for it is "accepted in the Beloved;" upon your labors, for they are "not in vain in the Lord;" upon your trials, afflictions, and sorrows, "For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, works for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory." Oh, what a soul-height is this, out of our depths of darkness and woe!

Christ's work is also a redemption from the guilt of sin. Sin's guilt is a fearful incubus, bowing the soul to the dust. No temporal calamity can be compared with it, no physical suffering equal it. It shades every scene of beauty, embitters every cup of joy, disturbs the harmony of every song of gladness, is "the worm that never dies" of the lost in hell. But, the Redemption of Christ exempts us from this canker-worm, releases us from this crushing weight. His righteousness repealed the curse of the law, His Atonement cancels the guilt of sin. If the sacrifices of the law sanctified to the purifying of the flesh, "how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the Eternal Spirit offered Himself with out spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?"

Thus, it is the blood of Christ that purifies the conscience, effacing its guilt; and healing its wound. And when a fresh sense of guilt is contracted- as fresh acts of sin assuredly will; the secret of daily purification and walking in communion with God will be found in an immediate renewed application to the blood of the Atonement, the conscience afresh sprinkled from every trace and vestige of sin's guilt. We cannot press this habit of constant washing too earnestly upon the reader. The tense in which the apostle places the blood before us teaches and enforces this habit: "The blood of Jesus Christ His Son CLEANSES us from all sin." It is in the present tense. Our blessed Lord, whose blood was on the eve of being shed, refers to this continuous application of the blood in that memorable conversation with Peter. Recognizing his past cleansing- "he that is washed'-Jesus strenuously insists upon a present one, the laving of the feet, of which His own condescending act at that moment was so impressively symbolic and significant. This may have suggested the apostle's exhortation, long after he had learned it from Jesus- "to whom COMING, as unto a living stone" -now coming, always coming to Jesus, as the Rock of our salvation, as the strength and support of our daily life. Oh, upon what a holy soul-height this continuous living upon Christ will keep us, raised above the world, above trials, above temptation, above self, preserving the mirror of the conscience unclouded, and unsullied by a breath!

The subduing of the power of sin in the believer, is not less a result of Christ's Redemption. To pardon the commission and to cancel the guilt of sin, and yet leave its reign undisputed and its scepter unbroken, would but neutralize all the happier effects of Christ's atoning work. Sin is a powerful tyrant. Long after its overthrow it still exists in the regenerate a dethroned, uncrowned despot; its sting extracted and its venom destroyed, but still retaining sufficient power to wound and distress the soul. Despoiled of its empire, like the Canaanites of old, it is yet domiciled in the land, making perpetual invasions and assaults on the camp of Israel; demanding on their part sleepless vigilance and perpetual conflict. Thus, the work of sin-mortification and world-crucifixion must go on, that, by a gradual process of defeat and extermination, the spiritual Canaanites, like the typical ones of old, are driven out "little by little," until the last enemy is destroyed, and the victorious paean of triumph floats sweetly from the lip of the conqueror- "Thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ."

Now, for this gradual subduing of indwelling sin, the Redemption of Christ graciously and effectually provides. The promise that, "sin shall not have dominion over us," that, it shall never again recover its throne and sway, as before- its scepter over the soul broken; it rests upon the provision Redemption has made for this blessed result. That Redemption involves all supplies of grace from Christ, the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, the sanctifying influence of the truth, the power of prayer, and the hallowed results of God's afflictive dispensations. All these appliances God employs to promote our sanctification, and to make us holy, as He is holy.

A blessed height of the soul is that when the believer can look down upon his old sins and habits, lying mortally wounded at his feet, dying daily to their power and reign. Oh, there is no real happiness this side of heaven apart from personal holiness! God Himself could not be perfectly happy were He not perfectly holy. And just in proportion as we approximate to His supreme holiness, we approximate to His supreme happiness. How thankful should we be, amid all our depths of adversity, tribulation, and sorrow, that there are sacred heights on the earth where we may walk with God in sweet fellowship, in divine assimilation, and in filial love, -our souls arrayed in "the beauty of holiness."

My soul! let your one and supreme aim be, a loftier standard of personal holiness, a more exalted soul-height of unreserved consecration to God- the ear, the hand, the foot, as of old, sanctified with atoning blood, thus consecrating your members to the Lord: the ear, attentively listening to the voice of His word; the hand, diligently employed in His service; the foot, swift to run the race that is set before us- "looking unto Jesus." Thus, "the grace of God .... teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world," will have in us its perfect work, lacking nothing. Lord, what is lacking in my grace, supply; what is weak in my faith, strengthen; what is low in my Christian life, raise; what is languid and ready to die, quicken and revive, that I may stand complete in all the will of God.

It only remains that we include in this catalogue of redemptive blessings, the believer's exemption from sin's condemnation. Sin has a condemning power. "He that believes not is condemned already." But our blessed Lord Jesus Christ was condemned for sin, and condemned sin, on the cross. The sins of His elect were arraigned, tried, condemned, and executed, when He cried, "It is finished." Hence the glorious declaration with which the Apostle opens that remarkably rich and magnificent chapter in his epistle to the Romans: "There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus." The salvation of Christ redeems Israel from all legal condemnation. The world may condemn, the saints may condemn, conscience may condemn, but God never! "He that believes on Him is not condemned. " Well may we exclaim, in the adoring language of the Apostle, "Thanks be unto God for His unspeakable gift!"

But the saints' full and final Redemption is yet to come. The passage evidently bears this prospective interpretation: "He shall redeem Israel from all iniquity." We have seen in the course of this chapter, that, while salvation involves a release from the guilt, despotism, and condemnation of sin, it does not provide an amnesty in the present perpetual conflict with its indwelling existence and power. Sin will remain in the regenerate to the last of life. But a full redemption awaits the believer. It is most true, that, the moment the Christian is released from the body, he is in a state of perfect holiness as it regards the soul; but the full redemption of the body is yet to come. The Apostle, in the epistle to the Romans just quoted, thus puts it: "And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the FIRST FRUITS of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body." The time is coming when we shall no longer be chained to a corrupt body, a living corpse, tainted with sin, mortified with corruption, assailed by disease, suffering, and death. A glorious resurrection awaits us- a full redemption from the power of the grave. "O death, I will be your plagues; O grave, I will be your destruction!"

But, before we enlarge more fully upon this redemption of the body from corruption, it may be wise to signalize the great and august event, although already alluded to, in connection with which it will transpire. This perfect redemption of the believer awaits the Second Coming of the Lord. "For the Lord Himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord." It is towards this blessed hope that faith turns its longing eye. Looking beyond our partial emancipation at death, it fixes its earnest and unfaltering gaze upon a coming Redeemer.

We know that death- terrific as the spectacle is to some- is a merciful deliverance of the believer from all the ills of the soul; for, absent from the body, the soul is instantly present with the Lord. This emancipation, however, is but partial. The body- as much redeemed by Christ's precious blood as the soul, is still locked in the rigid embrace of death, and is still the corrupt prisoner of the grave, pending the Advent of Him who is the "Resurrection and the Life." But, when this glorious Epiphany arrives- when the Son of Man shall appear in the clouds of heaven, encircled by all "the spirits of just men made perfect" -then, the full redemption will transpire: and the soul, now re-united to the body, will ascend into a higher region of glory and blessedness, even the Third Heaven, where Jehovah dwells, waiting the arrival of the New Heaven and the New Earth, down upon which the whole Church will descend, "prepared as a bride adorned for her husband."

We must keep distinctly in mind the connection of the coming of the Lord and the resurrection of the saints. These two events perfectly synchronize. They are inseparable. "Our citizenship is in heaven, from where we look for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall change our vile body (the body of our humiliation) that it may be fashioned like unto His glorious body." And here the pen falters in its attempt to describe the beauty, the glory of that risen body. It will be "a spiritual body," that is, a body free from the taint and grossness of the flesh, and yet material; with the same organs of sense, the same active limbs, capable of the same physical and intelligent communion with its fellows as now, yet free from all that now mars and interrupts that communion. No physical deformity will mar its symmetry; no existence of sin will taint its purity; no ravages of disease will torture its limbs; and no assault of death will imperil its existence. Oh, what an epoch that will be in the history of the redeemed, when from the hill, the valley, and the sea- from the venerable churchyard and the picturesque cemetery, -the 'dead in Christ' shall come forth, all resplendent with the glory, and hymning the new song of the resurrection morn! Let us comfort one another with this prospect!

One practical thought before we close this chapter. Be it our earnest desire to 'attain unto this resurrection of the holy dead' by an increasing knowledge of Christ and 'the power of His resurrection.' And if we are thus risen with Christ mystically, let us rise with Christ spiritually, by setting our affections more earnestly upon the things that are above, where Christ sits at the right hand of God. Then, 'when Christ, who is our life, shall appear, we also shall appear with Him in glory- and so be forever with the Lord!

Soul Heights

"The Lord is my strength, and He will make my feet like hinds' feet, and He will make me to walk upon my high places." -Habakkuk 3:19.

"O my dove, that art in the clefts of the rock, in the secret places of the stairs, show me your face, let me hear your voice; for your voice is sweet and your face is lovely." Song of Solomon 2:14

These words, though not taken from our Psalm, are yet in such close harmony with its teaching, and suggest so befitting and graceful a close of its exposition, that we venture to append them, as sustaining and crowning the leading truths of this volume. They speak of HEIGHTS- of "high places" belonging to the believer, upon which God makes His saints to walk as with the hind's swift and sure foot. "He will make my feet like hinds' feet, and He will make me to walk upon my high places."
The only true elevation of man is that of the soul, and the only individual who really knows anything of soul elevation is he whose standing before God is in Christ Jesus. "In Your righteousness shall they be exalted." It is not always in the 'depths' with the Christian. He who is invariably so, reflects but imperfectly the true nature, and brings great dishonor upon the divine character, of Christ's holy gospel. Our blessed Lord describes His people as "lights to the world." But with many of His disciples, alas! how dimly does their light burn! Were the world to take its notion of the religion of Jesus from their illustration of its character and spirit, what injustice would be done both to that religion and its Divine Author!
The true element of the gospel is holy joy. It is emphatically the "joyful sound." "Behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord." It possesses the elements of all joy. It reveals Jesus, the Savior of the lost; it proclaims a Salvation for the chief of sinners, full, finished, free; it leads to a Fountain open for cleansing the uncleanness of all sin; it unfolds a righteousness without a seam, a stain, or a flaw, for the full and free justification of the ungodly; it supplies the most powerful motive to all holiness; while it unseals the deepest, sweetest springs of all consolation and comfort to the broken heart and the wounded spirit. Surely, there are no soul-depths here, except the depths of divine love, the depths of holy joy, the depths of strong consolation!
But, what are some of these "high places" of the Church of God upon which He makes His people to walk? "He will make me to walk upon my high places."
Need we place in the foreground, the high place of Conversion, upon which all that are saved are made to walk? It is the first and leading step to each ascent of the believer. In what a low place does the soul of man walk until it reaches the 'high place' of converting grace! The highest life of an unregenerate man is, in a spiritual sense, but a low life; it is in the 'depths' of sin and selfishness, of enmity against God, and of ruin against his own being. Take the most intellectual pursuit, the most refined enjoyment- be it science, or art, or music- viewed as bounded only by the present life, as ending in self, having no relation to the higher interests of the soul, the claims of eternity, and the glory of God- how low the life! In the strong language of inspiration, "He feeds on ashes" - "feeds on wind."
Is this life worthy of a rational, responsible, immortal being? Is it worthy of one soon to confront death, judgement, and eternity? soon to appear at Christ's bar, to give an account of a stewardship of intellect, and of rank, and of wealth, and of time, and of influence, the most responsible and solemn ever entrusted to mortal hands? Is this the life you are living, my reader? is this the mere existence in which you vegetate? Rise to a higher life, a nobler purpose, a more glorious end! Don't you know that, "we must all appear before the judgement seat of Christ, to give account of the deeds done in the body"? That "every one must give account of himself to God"?
But conversion reverses this sad picture. When the soul is 'born again,' it emerges from its lower life, and ascends into a new, a divine, a heavenly life- a life from God, and for God; a life in Christ, and by Christ, and with Christ; a life best described by the language of one who lived it fully, lived it nobly, lived it until crowned with a martyr's diadem- "For Me to Live Is Christ."
Oh, upon what a 'high place' does the soul born from above now walk! Truly, it is a new birth, a re-creation! Old things have passed away, and God's Spirit has made all things in that life new. How revolutionized the whole soul! It has awakened as from a dream, a trance, a death, and finds itself in a new world of thought and feeling, of life, holiness, and love. It never really lived until now. Oh the blessedness of now truly living, and of living for God! The feeling of his soul finds its truest exponent in language of the apostle: "None of us lives to himself, and no man dies to himself. For whether we live, we live unto the Lord; and whether we die, we die unto the Lord: whether we live, therefore, or die, we are the Lord's."
God makes His people's feet like hinds' feet, to walk in the high places of His love. Who can describe the sacredness and preciousness of this walk? "God is love," and to enjoy God's love, and to dwell in God's love, is to walk upon the highest place on earth, and in the closest proximity to heaven. The love of God shed abroad in the heart by the Holy Spirit, is to dwell in God and God in us. How elevating this walk! How it lifts us above the dark clouds of trial and sorrow that float beneath, into a high and luminous atmosphere, in which we can read, in the light of His love, all our Heavenly Father's dealings with us below.
There it is we read and understand the wondrous words- "Whom the Lord loves He chastens." "Whom I love I rebuke and chasten." It is impossible to interpret the dark and mysterious dispensations of God's providence accurately but in the light of His love; and when thus seen and interpreted, we can, as with the hind's feet, walk firmly and safely upon the craggy and perilous places of adversity and trial, affliction and sorrow, each step luminous with His presence and vocal with His praise. "Every cloud that veils love, itself is love."
Oh, be not satisfied with walking in low shaded places- with but a faint and cold experience of God's love in your hearts; but climb in faith these high places, breathe their atmosphere, and bask in their warmth, comprehending with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height of God's love in Christ Jesus, which passes knowledge, that you might be filled with all the fulness of God.
There are high places in Christ Jesus where God's saints, as with the hind's springing and cheerful foot, are made to walk. "I am the way," was the significant and gracious declaration of Jesus. In this "Way" the "new and living Way," which leads into the holiest, all God's saints walk; and thus walking as with the hind's confiding and gladsome step, they are "raised up together, and made to sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus." Yes, "heavenly places!" Such, is a sense of full pardon through His sin-atoning blood; such, is a sense of complete acceptance through His soul justifying righteousness; such, is the supply of His all-sufficient grace drawn from Himself, the infinite and inexhaustible Reservoir; such, too, the streams of sympathy and gentleness flowing from His human and compassionate nature, along all our pathway of suffering and sorrow.
Oh, these are indeed 'high places' in the Christian's travel through the wilderness and across the desert home to his Father in heaven! There is room for you, my reader, here. Do not walk at a distance from these 'high places,' viewing them from afar; but draw near, ascend, plant your feet on the 'stairs' (Song 2:14), the 'secret' of which you will thus learn, and with the hind's strong and firm foot ascend step by step until you reach the summit, and, pour forth your anthem of love and praise- "My soul does magnify the Lord, and my spirit has rejoiced in God my Savior."
And what true saint of God has not pressed, as with the hind's foot, the 'high places' of communion with God? "There is a path which no fowl knows, and which the vulture's eye has not seen." And there are paths, doubtless, untrodden even by the hind's venturous foot. But, here is a 'high place' where all the children of God travel, some with bolder and firmer foot than others; yet all leave their traces here. All are men and women of prayer; all have "entered into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way, which He has consecrated for us, through the veil, that is to say, His flesh;" all walk with God on these 'high places' of communion.
PRAYER raises the believer into the highest and holiest atmosphere. It would be impossible to reach a moral altitude of the soul loftier, purer, and brighter than this. The 'stairs' which, from the lowest depth, lead up to this hallowed height, are trodden and worn by the feet of many a Christian pilgrim, climbing with his burden and need, with his supplication and thanksgiving, to the mercy-seat. Well rewarded is he for his holy toil! Who has climbed these sacred 'stairs,' laden with sin, weary with care, pressed with neediness, crushed with sorrow, but has walked on these 'high places' with the hind's foot of strength and boldness, exclaiming with the Apostle, "Truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ."
Arise from your 'depths,' and give yourself to prayer! Uplift your eyes, dim with tears though they be, and gaze upon those sunny heights of divine communion towering above and smiling down upon you, and inviting your ascent. There sits your Father! there ministers your Intercessor! there rises the cloud of incense, prepared to perfume and secure the acceptance of your every petition- all encouraging you to plant your trembling foot upon the sacred 'stairs,' and "draw near with a true heart, and in full assurance of faith."
With such powerful attractions, and with such divine encouragements, alas! how we "restrain prayer before God!" How unbelievably, I had almost said, atheistically, we limit the power and goodness and veracity of God as the Answerer of Prayer! Alike ungrateful for the benefits we have received, and indifferent towards those we are still in expectation of, we neglect prayer, the only medium through which we can prove our gratitude to God.
"Who is it that has spread out the earth beneath our feet, opened paths to human industry across the waters, and hung the brilliant vault of the heavens above our heads? Who is it that directs my paths with the torch which enlightens me during the day? Who is it that makes the fountains spring up in the depths of the valleys? Who has dug out for our rivers the beds in which they are enclosed; has made the animal creation subservient to our necessities; has organized this vile dust; has given it at once life and intelligence; has engraved upon this handful of earth, of which I am composed, the resemblance of Divinity? and also, after this glorious image has been obscured and defaced by sin, who is it that has re-established it in its pristine beauty? MY FATHER!" (Gregory)
And yet we limit His power, distrust His faithfulness, and question His love, in hearing and answering PRAYER! Ascend, then, this sacred mount; walk with God upon these high places; cheered and strengthened by the words of Jesus: "Verily, verily, I say unto you, Whatever you shall ask the Father in my name, He will give it you..... Ask, and you shall receive, that your joy may be full."
And are there no high places of holy joy, of sweet repose and heavenly communion, where the saints may walk even in the midst of affliction and sorrow? Most assuredly there are. There are "high places" even in the valley, where God causes some of His sweetest springs to flow. Trials are steps heaven-ward; sorrows steps God-ward, in the experience of the saints. "When men are cast down, then you shall say, There is lifting up." The 'secret of the stairs' -God's hiding-place of His saints has often revealed the secret of His providence; and the mystery of His providence, thus made known, has in its turn unfolded the deeper mystery of His love.
Oh, it is often so, that the believer has never known how deeply God loves him, how truly a child of God he was, and how tender and faithful his Father's love, until God has afflicted him. Then he sees love, and nothing but love, in the calamity that has impoverished, in the disease that has wasted, in the bereavement that has crushed, in the fickleness that has changed. Love is the best interpreter of love, as its truest inspiration. The moment tried and sifted faith disentangles itself of second causes, and rests in God, that moment the bitter and unlovely bulb bursts into the sweet and beauteous flower, laden with the dew and bathed in the sunshine of heaven. It is thus that, sanctified sorrows yield to the believer the richest fruit; and that in the valley he drinks from sweeter springs than flow from the mountain's top!
Doubtless, the hind of the mountain often springs from rock to rock, from crag to crag, footsore and weary; the very feeling of pain and weakness rendering its bounds more cautious and its hold more sure. Thus does the believer walk in deep and sore trial. Wounded in heart, weary in spirit, and weakened in trial, he walks upon his high places of difficulty and danger warily, humbly, prayerfully. He is in the valley, and yet upon the mount: chastened and humbled under God's hand, he yet is in closer communion with his Father, more conscious of the sweet presence of his Savior, than when he trod the high places of worldly prosperity, and basked in the sunshine of creature good.
But, it is not always, and we write this for the comfort of God's tempted ones- that the saints of God accept this discipline of trial without murmur and rebellion. They too often lose sight of the wisdom that appoints, and the faithfulness that sends the trial, and the immense good to themselves it was designed to accomplish. Thus they refuse to walk in high places of fellowship with their Heavenly Father, beneath whose loving corrections they lie. As an old divine remarks, "The physician attacks the disease, and not the patient; his object is to cure him whom he causes to suffer. It is thus that God, whose mercy is infinite, chastises us only to bring us into the way of salvation, or to confirm our course in it. You are not angry with your physician when he applies the cautery or the knife to your gangrened limb; on the contrary, you can scarcely find language adequate to the expression of your gratitude; you keep repeating that he has saved your life by preventing the disease from spreading, and you pay him liberally for his attentions. Yet you murmur against the Lord, who wounds only for our good; and you are unwilling to acknowledge that the afflictions with which He visits us are the only means capable of restoring health to our souls, or of securing the continuance of it when it is restored to us."
Expect, then, the happiest results from this curative process of your Divine Physician. The prescription may be unpalatable, and the excision painful; nevertheless, the richest blessing to you and the highest glory to God will be the happy and hallowed result! "Every branch in me that bears not fruit He takes away, and every branch that bears fruit, He prunes, that it may bring forth more fruit." In this light, view you your present sickness, suffering, and sorrow. The medicine is prescribed by Jesus, the knife is in a Father's hand, and your song shall be-"He has done all things well."
"Heart, poor heart! while thus you are bleeding,
Faint and anguished is your needing,
Mercy for your life is pleading,
Dews of Pity round you shine;
And as Mercy, grace conferring,
Leads forth to Light the erring,
Hope your laden depths is stirring
With the might of Faith Divine
Griefs are gifts from Mercy's shrine,
You shall chaunt Amens for Thine."
Remember that the hinds' feet are to ascend. Learn this truth, that God has given you powerful elements of soul-ascension. You have feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace. You have wings of faith that can out-distance the eagle in its flight. Be not content, then, with a low standard of personal religion; with walking, where you may climb; with skimming the surface, when you may soar to the sun.
Ascend from your depths of darkness and doubt, of coldness and unbelief, and walk in your 'high places' of filial fellowship with God, of active service for Christ, of earnest self-denying labor for the conversion of sinners, of close communion with Eternal realities. "Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away. O my dove, that are in the clefts of the rock, in the secret Places of the stairs, let me see your countenance, let me hear your voice; for sweet is your voice, and your countenance is lovely."
Blessed are they who hide them in "the clefts of the Rock" -the wounds of Jesus; yet more blessed they who, in "the secret places of the stairs," are learning to ascend into a higher, purer, and sunnier region of spiritual life, entire consecration, and unclouded hope. Until death uncage your spirit, and your unclasped, uplifted wings bear you home to God, be much in the 'clefts of the rock,' in the 'secret of the stairs,' and with hinds' feet walking on the high places of God. Then shall the promise be fulfilled in your experience- "He shall dwell on high (margin, heights, or high places): his place of defense shall be the munitions of rocks: bread shall be given him; his waters shall be sure."
Lord, I would sincerely bend my ear to Your sweet, all-persuasive voice- "ARISE, MY LOVE, MY FAIR ONE, AND COME AWAY."

"Oh, I am heavy laden! Faith's eye is growing dim;
I wander on in darkness, groping in vain for Him;
For Him whom my soul loveth, for Him who died to be
A sacrifice for sinners, a Fount of life to me.
"Sweet dove of downy plumage, I pray you bid me hide
In clefted rocky shadows, close to Your wounded side!
Your voice of silver sweetness, Your face of beauty rare,
I seek in secret places the- 'secret of the stair.'
"I hear them! hear the sweet words, He whispereth to me
His words of loving welcome, forgiveness full and free.
Once more His face appeareth, in answer to my prayers,
And thus in joy I learn it, that 'secret of the stairs.'
"That precious, precious secret- He writes it deep within
Of peace and joy abounding, and victory over sin;
But in the inner temple, where burns the altar flame,
In word of light is graven, His new, His wondrous name.
"The 'stairs' were painful climbing, when first my weary feet
Essayed, untried, to mount them, an unknown God to meet;
But now His arm is round me, and light and free as air,
I mount with wing unwearied, and reach the topmost 'stair.'
"O Lord of life unending, of daily life the key,
Be food, and drink, and manna, and living grace to me!
Walk with me all my journey, be round me everywhere;
But give Your conscious presence, in 'secret on the stair.'
"For life is ever cloud-land, and only they who know
Your guiding eye can follow, where You would have them go.
One secret of the staircase, appears a beacon star
To shine upon Your pilgrims, to guide them from afar.
"And fierce and sharp the battle, which those who would engage
To be Your crested warriors, for life and death must wage;
But armor of God's forging, which every conqueror wears,
Is stored in secret places, the 'secret of the stairs.'
"When sorrow's chilling fingers, turn hearts and memories cold,
When sad remembrance lingers, on voices loved of old,
Lo, on the 'stairs' there sits, all white in angel sheen,
Pale Resignation singing sweet, hymns our sobs between.
"A storehouse overflowing, with choicest heavenly things,
From which the dear Lord daily, His priceless mercy brings;
A sheltered nook where comes; nor doubt, nor fear, nor care,
Earth knows no safer hiding, than that behind the 'stair.'
"Dead world, there is a secret, known only unto me,
A sweet and thrilling secret- I cannot tell it thee;
But if you too would learn it, would catch it unawares,
Go, seek as I have sought it, 'in places of the stairs.'
"O Dove! my Dove I know You! I see Your lovely face,
I hear Your honeyed accents; of truth, and love, and grace;
The smile of peace You give; is fair, exceeding fair;
This is the choicest 'secret' that lingers on the 'stair.'
"No more I walk in darkness, no more my footsteps stray;
The Rock whose cooling shadow, falls over all my way,
Is full of clefts for hiding, and secrets of the stair,
And rest is mine, and glory; the Lord is with me there!
"Here hiding safe forever, within this sacred shade,
Nor sin, nor death, nor torment; can bid me be afraid;
For I have learned the 'secret'; sought long with tears and prayers,
A present help Christ dwells in, the 'places of the stairs.'
(Mary Winslow)

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

THE FOOT OF THE CROSS

Table of Contents

Preface

1. Nearness to the Cross

2. A Sight of Sin and a Sight of Jesus

3. Faith at the Foot of the Cross

4. Love at the Foot of the Cross

5. Prayer at the Foot of the Cross

6. Forgiveness of Sin at the Foot of the Cross

7. The Conviction of Truth Beneath the Cross

8. A Life-look at the Foot of the Cross

9. Bearing the Cross

10. The Solitude of the Cross

11. The Believer Crucified

12. The Repose of the Cross

13. The Cross of Christ the Christian's Weapon

14. Christ Crucified the Center of Christian Union

PREFACE

The 'foot of the Cross' is a sacred "household word" in the family of God– rich in the Divine truths and precious in the Christian experience it is employed to express. Adopting this familiar but emphatic phrase, the author has sought in these pages to expound and illustrate, in a few instances, its tender and solemn significance. He has aimed to show how all vital, saving truth centers in, and all sanctifying and comforting blessing springs from, the Cross of Christ. The discussion of this comprehensive and sublime theme, in the present instance, is limited and faulty- as the most elaborate and finished human exposition of such a theme must necessarily be. It is but here and there he has plucked a cluster of fruit bending from this Tree of Life, or has gathered a flower, blooming in beauty and breathing in fragrance, beneath its hallowed shade. Still, if his imperfect labor shall have attracted some truth-perplexed mind, some sin-burdened conscience, some sorrow-stricken heart, some hope-despairing soul to the 'foot of the cross,' there to experience the precious blessing sought, he will not regret having presented to the Church of God even this partial and imperfect discussion of a theme which the combined intellect of heaven could not fully unfold, nor the study and contemplation of eternity utterly exhaust- the Cross of Our Lord Jesus Christ!

Reader! study these pages with fervent prayer to the Holy Spirit that He, through this dim medium, might unveil to you, in some degree, the glory of Christ's finished work, guide your trembling steps to the foot of the cross, give you simple faith in the Crucified, and thus bring you into a state of Perfect Peace with God through Christ.

"It is finished! -but what mortal dare
In that triumph hope to share?
Savior, to Your cross I flee;
Say, It is finished! and for me.

"Then will I sing, The cross! the cross!
And count all other gain but loss;
I'll sing the cross, and to Your tree
Cling evermore, blessed Calvary!

To the benediction of the Triune Jehovah this little volume is prayerfully commended.

Nearness to the Cross

"Near the cross of Jesus stood his mother, his mother's sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene." John 19:25

It was a mournful yet an unspeakably precious and enviable spot around which now clustered these holy watchers! They had been to our Lord as ministering spirits in many an hour of weariness and need. With true feminine delicacy, they had followed Him, silently and meekly, in the distance, approaching His person but to receive from Him a blessing or to bestow upon Him a charity. Their love was not ostentatious, nor were their attentions officious and wearying. Gentle, yet softening as the dew- silent, yet cheering as the sunbeam, they hovered around His lone and dreary path, shedding upon it the luster and the soothing of their holy sympathy, and in seasons of sinking necessity and exhausting toil, "ministering to Him of their substance." And now that His disciples, pledged and sworn to a friendship and faithfulness unto death, had, in the dark hour of His woe, one by one all forsaken Him, these holy women drew near and took their position as sentinels at the cross, watching the descending sun of His life, as, amid suffering, darkness, and blood, it set in death. But a deeper love and a higher life than nature owns had brought them here. Christ had wrought wonders of grace for these women. They were lost, and He had found them; sinners, and He had saved them. Their sins He was now bearing, their curse He was now exhausting, their penalty of suffering He was now enduring. For them were these agonies, this soul-sorrow, this blood-shedding, and this death. And now that He was afflicted of God, tortured of man, deserted by friends, insulted by foes, lo! amid the darkness and the earthquake, the insults and the imprecations, "there stood by the cross of Jesus; His mother, and His mother's sister, Mary the wife of Cleophas, and Mary Magdalene." Honored women! envied spot! But how suggestive in its spiritual instruction is this scene! To its study let us devoutly turn.

Although eighteen hundred years have elapsed since that scene occurred, the believer in Jesus still spiritually lives it over. The cross of Christ is still the central object of attraction to the Church of God. Around it in faith and love a countless throng daily, hourly gather of Christ-believing, Christ-loving souls, finding cleansing in its blood, extracting joy from its sorrow, deriving life from its death, and beholding the brightness of glory blended with the darkness of shame.

But is this the true spiritual position and posture of every believer in Jesus? Are all the professed disciples of the Savior seeking and cultivating the religion that is drawn only from, and is cherished only by, close communion with the cross of Christ? Are we walking with God in a sense of pardoned sin, of personal acceptance, of filial communion, of holy obedience, of unreserved consecration beneath the cross? Do we delight to be here? Do we resort there that grace might be replenished, that the fruits of the Spirit might be nourished, that backslidings might be healed, that the conscience might be cleansed? Is the cross of Jesus our confessional, our laver, our crucifixion, and our boast? These are searching, solemn questions! Persuaded, as we are, that the foot of the cross is the nearest spot to Heaven, that Heaven's choicest blessings are found only there; that, beneath its warm sunshine the holy fruit of the Spirit ripens, and that under its sacred shade the sweetest repose is
found; that, never is the believing soul so near to God, in such intimate fellowship with Christ, more really under the direct teaching of the Holy Spirit, as when there, we would sincerely employ every scriptural argument and put forth every persuasive motive to allure the reader to this hallowed spot, assured that, once he finds himself in believing, loving adoration at the foot of Christ's cross, he has found himself at the focus of all divine glory, and at the confluence of all spiritual blessing.

A few words of explanation in the outset. The foot of the cross! What do we mean by the words? Literally, the cross was an ancient instrument of torture among the Romans, to which only those were subjected who were considered by the state as the greatest and most ignominious malefactors. To be crucified was considered a mark of ineffable infamy and disgrace, and its death one of lingering and indescribable agony. Such was the nature, character, and instrument of our Lord's death! Jesus of Nazareth was crucified upon a tree. The Son of God, suspended between two malefactors, died the accursed death of the cross, voluntarily enduring its torture, and uncomplainingly submitting to its infamy- to such suffering and abasement could incarnate love stoop! Hence the frequent expression of the Bible, "The cross of Christ."

Symbolically, the cross of Christ represents the doctrine of the cross, and is an expression equivalent to the atonement of the Son of God, by which we, who were once at variance with God, rebels against His being, government, and truth, are now reconciled, brought into a state of at-one-ment with Jehovah. Thus, "we who some time were afar off, are made near by the blood of Christ."

But, spiritually, we understand by the expression the believer's close realization of the moral power of the cross, his fellowship with Christ in His sufferings, and the believing, lowly posture of the soul at the spot where concentrate the blessings of grace here, and where bloom the first fruits of glory hereafter.

The spiritually depressed state of the soul which this position meets, is more serious and prevalent than is generally suspected by the saints of God. There is no part of the circumference of divine truth or of Christian experience so remote from Christ the center, at which the believer may not at some period of his course find himself in his unsuspected wanderings. The planet revolving round the sun, the needle pointing to the pole, have not a stronger tendency to oscillate from the center of attraction, than the renewed soul to recede to a remote distance from Jesus. Nearness to the cross! -alas! it is the exception and not the rule. Standing by the cross! -it is the privileged position of the few and not the many. The world, in some one, or all, of its many forms of power- the creature, in its unsuspected yet insinuating influence- unbelief, in its latent yet ever-potent force- sin, in its indwelling and ever-working sway, allures the soul from the cross. And so the Christian disciple, unconscious of the spiritual declension of his heart from Christ, finds himself moving in a distant orbit, cold, and dreary, far remote from the warm, genial influence of the Sun beneath whose divine beams he was wont so joyously to bask in the days of his "first love." "And Peter followed Him afar off." And in that distant walk, that orbit far removed from the Divine Center, that starting off to the utmost limit of departure, he had become a wandering and a blasted star forever- as he was an eclipsed constellation for the moment- but for the power of God that kept him, and the Savior's love that interceded for him, and the divine grace that restored him. That distance of walk led to his denial of his Lord. To what deep declension must the work of the Holy Spirit in his soul have sunk to have issued in an event in his spiritual history so appalling, and in a crime against his Savior so great! There is no security, as there is no enjoyment, of the believer in the distance of his soul from the cross. We tread enchanted ground when we walk where the sanctifying power of the cross is not recognized and felt. Jesus is not known, His cross is not recognized, His love is not felt in the walks of worldly gaiety and in the haunts of carnal pleasure. These things are divided from the cross by a wide and ever-separating gulf. You cannot, my reader, mingle with the world and maintain at the same time spiritual nearness to the cross. The cross is the crucifier of the world, the death of sin. Beneath its awful shadow, brought to its sacred foot, the world's glory pales, sin's power is paralyzed, and Satan, the arch-tempter, recoiling from its brightness and writhing beneath its death-bruise, relinquishes his victim, and retires, defeated and dishonored, to his own place.

The inquiry naturally arises in this part of our subject, What are some of THE EVIDENCES OF NEARNESS TO THE CROSS? In other words, What are the true tests by which the believer may ascertain the spiritual position of his soul? Without anticipating subsequent parts of this volume, let a few words suffice to meet this inquiry.

The first we quote is, ardent love to Jesus. The cross, rugged and gory, heavy and offensive, possesses no beauty or attraction apart from Him who was nailed to its wood. That which makes Calvary the most hallowed spot to the believer, and the cross the most attractive spectacle on earth, is the wonderful Being who there poured out His soul unto death, a self-consumed victim amid the fires of His own love. "Zeal for your house will consume me." Associated with a Redeemer so divine, with a salvation so stupendous, with sufferings so unparalleled, with a death so atoning, with a heaven so glorious, with a fact so strange- the Sinless condemned, that the guilty might go free; the Blessed bearing the curse, that the accursed might bear the blessing; the Living dying, that the dead might live; the Glorious covered with shame, that the abased might be covered with glory; Christ enduring our hell, that we might enjoy His heaven- blended, we say, with transfers so strange and with blessings so precious, it is not surprising the warm and supreme attachment of the believer to Him who died upon the cross. Here, then, is a true test of your soul's nearness to the cross. Love to Jesus will sweetly attract and powerfully detain you there, in devout, adoring contemplation. To him who has no love to Christ, the cross of Christ has no attraction. A heart chilled in its affection to the Savior will wander away in quest of objects more congenial with its carnal taste. A trifle, a shadow, anything the most childish and insignificant, will win and gratify a heart upon whose affections Christ has no hold. Oh, it is astonishing what straws men will gather, and what phantoms they will chase, when the soul's center is not the cross of Jesus!

What, beloved, is the state of your heart's love to Christ? Turn not from the inquiry, shrink not from the scrutiny. The fervor of its love will be the measure of your soul's nearness to the cross. Love to Christ will bring you into frequent and close fellowship with Him in suffering; and with a heart often sequestered from the world, and cloistered amid the hallowed gloom of Gethsemane- at home with Christ in suffering- the position of your soul will be that of the holy Mary's, standing by the cross of Jesus.

Attachment to the doctrines of the cross may be regarded as a test of the believer's spiritual nearness to the Crucified. A lessening of love to the person of Jesus will invariably be followed by a lessening of love to the truth as it is in Jesus. Christ is the truth. The truth and Christ are one and indivisible. There can be no real, certainly no healthy, vigorous love to the person of Christ where there exists a latent laxity of opinion respecting the gospel of Christ. Christ and His gospel stand or fall, rise or sink together. "In vain you love Me," might the Savior say, "while you undervalue my words. My doctrine is divine, and he that rejects my words rejects Me." What, then, is your attachment to the gospel of Christ? Is it increasingly precious to your soul, sanctifying to your heart, influential in your life? Would you bid high for the truth of Jesus at any cost of personal ease and worldly advantage, and sell it not for earth's richest gem?

Do you increasingly love it because it searches, rebukes, abases you, and yet strengthens, comforts, and sanctifies you? Do you feel a growing love for those doctrines that are especially identical with, that spring from, that are found beneath, and that lead the soul to, the cross of Jesus? Thus may you test the proximity of your soul to the Crucified. Christ precious to you, oh, how precious will be the truth He taught! Purer than the purest silver, richer than the richest gold, sweeter than the sweetest honey, lovelier than the fairest gem, will be to you those doctrines, precepts, and promises which your Lord and Savior embodied in His teachings, and enjoined upon your simple faith, your fervent love, your holy walk, your zealous dissemination, and, if need be, your testimony at the martyr's stake. The doctrine of the substitutionary offering, the expiatory suffering, the atoning blood, the imputed righteousness of Christ, all based upon, and deriving their virtue, their power, and their efficacy from, the divine dignity and spotless holiness of His person, will be entwined with your increasing love and unswerving faith.

The precepts which enjoin your bearing Christ's cross, your confession of His name, your self-denying service in His cause, your crucifixion to the world, and your simple, unreserved obedience to His commands, will be to you His easy yoke and His lightsome burden. Test, then, your spiritual nearness to the cross by your ardent attachment to the doctrines of the cross. "If any man will do His will, He shall know of the doctrine." "O how I love your law! It is my meditation all the day." "How sweet are your words unto my taste! yes, sweeter than honey to my mouth." "Your words were found, and I did eat them; and your word was unto me the joy and rejoicing of my heart."

Loyalty to Christ is another evidence of nearness to the cross. Disloyalty to the Savior and His truth creates an immeasurable distance between Christ and the soul. Any, the slightest, compromise with error, with the world, with sin, with the enemies of the cross, is disloyalty to the Headship, the Crown, the Person, and the Gospel of the Son of God. No proof is more unmistakable of a receding from the cross, of a distance of the heart from Jesus, then infidelity to His person, government, and truth. Peter compromised his loyalty to Christ when he followed his Master 'afar off.' He disowned and denied Jesus, forswore and renounced allegiance to his Savior, when he followed Him at a distance to the hall of judgment, and then took his place among His enemies. Let but your love to Jesus wane, your faith in His Word relax, your attachment to His cause lessen, your interest in His people decline, and you are fast becoming a disloyal subject of that Sovereign whose person you professed to love, whose truth you affirmed to believe, whose cause you swore to defend, whose fortunes and whose kingdom you avowed to follow and promote until death. Oh, be loyal to Christ! -to the glory of His person, to the divinity of His truth, to the interests of His Church, to the rights of His crown, to the honor of His name! "Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's."

Fidelity to God will not render you less, but all the more, faithful to man. You will not be less fitted for the relations and duties of the life that now is, but all the more competent, because daily advancing in fitness for the life that is to come. Let stern, uncompromising fidelity to Christ, then, evidence the closeness of your fellowship with Him in His sufferings. Keep that impressive spectacle ever in view- the dying of the Lord Jesus in your stead- and the foe that would tamper with your loyalty to the Savior will be disarmed of his power, and, like unto the noble army of martyrs, you will "overcome him by the blood of the Lamb."

We will supply but another test of your close communion with the Crucified- the spiritual barometer of the soul. Nothing will more satisfactorily indicate your exact position in relation to the cross than the state of your spiritual life. The divine life in the soul flourishes or decays, is vigorous or sickly, in exact proportion to its proximity to the cross of Jesus. As Christ is our life, so our life must be sustained by Christ. If your Christianity is healthy; your breathings after God and holiness and heaven deep and fervent; your love to Jesus constant and intense; and you are aiming to walk after the simplicity of Christ, bringing every thought into obedience to Him, then you may safely infer that you stand spiritually, where stood literally the holy women- close by the cross of Jesus. Here alone spiritual religion flourishes. Here only the believing soul is as a well-watered garden. If, as the naturalist tells us, beneath the Upas tree all natural life expires, it may with more significance be affirmed that beneath the cross of Jesus all spiritual life lives.

"There stood by the cross of Jesus- His mother." Significant and touching words! -replete with teaching and with tenderness. Who can portray that scene? who describe the love of that Son- the sorrow of that mother? Such a Son! Such a mother! The love of Jesus was now illustrating its greatness by the vastness of its achievement- the salvation of His Church; and its tenderness in that gentle look of affection which He bent upon the woman who stood by His cross in all the depth and constancy of a mother's love.

But we turn from a scene which distances all human description, to you, my reader. It is possible that your present position bears some resemblance to this. You may be watching by the couch of a suffering, dying one, whom you deeply, tenderly love- perchance, love as a parent, yes, as a mother only can. Take your place with Mary- by the
cross of Jesus. There meet and blend suffering and love, sorrow and sympathy. Standing in faith by the cross, you are near the suffering Savior, the loving Son, the sympathizing Brother born for your present grief. Jesus, in the depth and tenderness of His love, is at this moment all that He was when, in soul-travail, He cast that ineffable look of filial love and sympathy upon His anguished mother. He can enter into your circumstances, understand your grief, sustain and soothe your spirit as one only can who has partaken of the cup of woe which now trembles in your hand. Drink that cup submissive to His will, for He drank deeply of it before you, and has left the fragrance of His sympathy upon its brim. Your sorrow is not new to Christ.

He can embosom Himself in a parent's grief as no other being could. He knows a mother's heart, compassionates a mother's sorrow. You may be sorrowing for a child, perhaps over his folly, his waywardness, his sin; or, you are watching by your child's couch of weakness, or the bed of suffering, or the pillow of death. Oh, is there a place more appropriate for you as a smitten parent, a mourning mother, a spirit overwhelmed with anguish, hope and fear alternately struggling in your breast, watching the languor which you cannot rouse, the sufferings you cannot relieve, the disease you cannot avert, the advancing foe you cannot arrest, the approaching wrench you cannot avert. Is there a spot where your spirit will be more calmed, your heart more comforted, your will more subdued, your soul more strengthened, your mind more sweetly responsive to the words of Jesus, "Your will be done," than beneath the cross? Close to it stand, believing, loving, clinging, until this calamity be overpast.

There grace will be given you to bear this crushing trial, strength to pass through this weary watching, love to sustain this bitter anguish, sympathy to soften and to soothe this hour of sad and final parting. Mourning, sorrowing mother! Jesus invites you to His sheltering, soothing cross, "Come, my people, enter into your chambers, and shut your doors about you; hide yourself, as it were, for a little moment." There is nothing but love and sympathy and repose for the mourning, anguished spirit prostrate beneath the cross of Jesus. Its divine light is on you, its sacred shadow is over you, its invincible shield is around you. There Jesus speaks- "It is I; do not be afraid. I, who know a son's suffering and a mother's anguish. I, who control the winds and the waves, who stills the tempest and calm the sea. I, who have promised that my grace shall be sufficient, and that my strength shall be perfected in weakness. Approach my cross, shelter near my wounded side, get within my bleeding heart- there is love and there is room and there is rest for you there."

"Tossed with rough winds, and faint with fear,
Above the tempest, soft and clear,
What still small accents greet my ear!
It is I; do not be afraid!
"It is I who led your steps aright;
It is I who gave your blind eyes sight;
It is I, your Lord, your Life, your Light.
It is I; do not be afraid!
"These raging winds, this surging sea,
Bear not a breath of wrath to thee;
That storm has all been spent on Me.
It is I; do not be afraid!
"This bitter cup fear not to drink;
I know it well- oh! do not shrink;
I tasted it over Kedron's brink.
It is I; do not be afraid!
"My eyes are watching by your bed,
My arms are underneath your head,
My blessing is around you shed.
It is I; do not be afraid!
"When on the other side your feet
Shall rest mid thousand welcomes sweet.
One well-known voice your heart shall greet!
It is I; do not be afraid!
"From out of the dazzling majesty,
Gently he'll lay His hand on thee,
Whispering, 'Beloved, do you love me?'
It is I; do not be afraid!"

Once more heed the exhortation- stand close to the cross of Jesus! It is the most accessible and precious spot this side of heaven- the most solemn and awesome one this side of eternity. It is the focus of divine love, sympathy, and power. Stand by it in suffering, in persecution, in temptation. Standby it in the brightness of prosperity and in the gloom of adversity. Shrink not from its offence, humiliation, and woe. Defend it when scorned, despised, and denied. Stand up for Jesus and the gospel of Jesus. Oh, whatever you do, or whatever you endure, be loyal to Christ's cross. Go to it in trouble, repair to it in weakness, cling to it in danger, hide beneath it when the wintry storm rushes fiercely over you. Near to the cross, you are near a Father's heart, a Savior's side. You seem to enter the gate of heaven, to stand beneath the vestibule of glory. You "come unto Mount Zion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly and church of the firstborn, which are written in heaven, and to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect, and to Jesus the Mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling."

Nothing but a believing proximity to the cross of Jesus brings the soul into a present fellowship with these gospel, precious, and transcendent blessings. Again, I reiterate the fact, that nothing but love will welcome your approach to the cross of Jesus- love that pardons all your sins, flows over all your unworthiness, heals all your wounds, soothes all your sorrows, and will shelter you within its blessed pavilion until earth is changed for heaven, and you lay down the warrior's sword for the victor's palm, and spring from the foot of the cross to the foot of the throne- "forever with the Lord."

"Sweet the moments, rich in blessing,
Which before the cross I spend,
Life, and health, and peace possessing,
From the sinner's dying Friend.
"Here I'll sit forever viewing
Mercy's streams, in streams of blood;
Precious drops! my soul bedewing,
Plead and claim my peace with God.
"Truly blessed is this station,
Low before His cross to lie;
While I see divine compassion
Floating in His languid eye,
"Here it is I find my heaven,
While upon the cross I gaze
Love I much? I've more forgiven;
I'm a miracle of grace.
"Love and grief my heart dividing,
With my tears His feet I'll bathe,
Constant still in faith abiding;
Life deriving from His death.
"May I still enjoy this feeling,
In all need to Jesus go;
Prove His blood each day more healing,
And Himself more fully know."

A Sight of Sin and a Sight of Jesus

"They shall look upon Me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn." -Zech. 12:10

We can only properly deal with sin as, at the same moment, we personally and closely deal with Jesus. A spiritual sight of the one object, apart from a believing sight of the other, will plunge the soul into the deepest despair. A sight of atoning blood must accompany the sight of our guilt. Seen and dealt with alone, dissociated from the Savior, it is the darkest and most appalling object that can engage human study. But God has graciously and marvelously met the case. The instrument that exhibits sin in its greatest blackness at the same moment exhibits it in its fullest pardon. A sight of sin and a sight of Jesus, as presented in the cross, is found in no other spot in the universe. Nowhere not upon earth, where its ravages are vividly and fearfully traced- not in hell, where its punishment is fully and eternally endured- is sin seen as in the light of Christ's cross. God's hatred of its nature and infliction of its penalty, as exhibited in the soul-sorrow, and bodily suffering of His beloved Son, is a demonstration unsurpassed, yes, unparalleled. Oh, how great the love of God to provide such a mirror in which to see at the same moment the enormity of sin and the completeness of its forgiveness- the Ethiopian blackness of its guilt- and the snow-white purity of its cleansing. There was but one Being in the universe who concentrated upon Himself so much sin- yet, "He knew no sin" -and in whom met so much punishment of sin, as Jesus, the Sinbearer of His Church. What defective views and realizations have we of this truth! How shallow our sounding of its infinite depths, how faint our experience of its preciousness and power! And yet it is all and everything to us in the momentous matter of our comfort, holiness, and hope. If Jesus did not bear my transgression and curse; He did nothing for me, and I am yet in my sins. If He did, then the load is gone, the burden is annihilated, all transferred to Him, and by Him borne into eternal oblivion. I am no longer my own sin and burden bearer; my sins were all laid on Jesus, not by my hand, but by the hand of God. Since, then, Jesus has cared for my sins, my only care should be first to realize their full pardon, and then to walk so holily as not to recommit those sins which Christ bore, and for which He sorrowed in Gethsemane, bled and expired on the tree, and so crucify the Son of God afresh. Deeply interesting to the believing, spiritual mind is the theme of our present chapter. To have a sight of sin and a sight of Jesus at the same moment constitutes one of the holiest and richest pages in the history of a child of God. There are many of the Lord's people who see sin, but who do not see Jesus at the same moment- who do not look at their sins through the medium of the cross. To look at sin through the divine holiness, as reflected in the divine law, is to look and despair, to look and die! But to look at sin through Christ- to see it in the blood that cleanses it, in the righteousness that covers it, in the love that pardons it fully, freely, and forever; oh, this is to look and hope, to look and live! One eye upon sin, and one eye upon sin's atonement, will enable the soul to walk humbly and filially with God. One eye looking at self and one eye looking at Christ will so regulate the experience of the soul, so accurately adjust its moral compass, as to preserve the balance between presumption and despair; leading to a humble, holy, watchful walk as it regards sin on the one hand, and to an assured, happy, hopeful sense of pardon, acceptance, and glory on the other. No fact in Christian experience is more certain than this, that sin is never properly seen until Christ is known; and that Christ is never fully known, until sin is seen in its existence, guilt, and power. It is a sense of our vileness, guiltiness, and condemnation that takes us to Christ; and when we see Christ, and accept Christ, and enter into believing rest in Christ, we then have the deepest conviction of the greatness, the exceeding sinfulness of sin, and at the same moment the most assured conviction of our full and eternal deliverance from its guilt, tyranny, and condemnation. This harmony of tint- the blending of light and shade- sin and Christ- forms one of the loveliest and most impressive pictures of the many which illustrate the history of the Christian's life.

We have remarked in the preceding pages that it is only beneath the influence of Christ's cross that the graces of the Spirit in the soul of the believer find their truest and richest culture. We purpose to confirm and illustrate this truth by citing, as examples, two or three of the more distinctive graces commencing with the grace of CONTRITION. We admit that true repentance, essential to true conversion, may exist in its incipient and early stage apart from any clear, evangelical view of the cross, from any clear acceptance of Christ. Yet, as it advances and matures- for it is that divine grace that attends the child of God to his latest moment- it grows less legal and more evangelical, flows less from the harshness of the law and more from the tenderness of the gospel, less from dealing with Moses and more from looking to Christ, is less associated with the dread of hell and more entwined with the hope of heaven. Oh, there is no contrition for sin so real, so soothing, so tender, or so holy as that which is produced by a sight of the Crucified- looking at Him whom those sins once so deeply pierced. Such is the subject which will now engage the reader's devout meditation. The incident which we cite as sustaining this theory, and as illustrating this truth, doubtless, in its more remote and prophetical interpretation, refers to the final restoration of the Jews, their acceptance of Christ, their Messiah, with weeping and mourning and confession. "They shall look upon Me whom they have pierced, and shall mourn." But the fact is precisely the same, and the truth strictly analogous, that a believing sight of the crucified Redeemer- the faith of God's elect being identical in its effects, whether it be in a Jew or a Gentile- breaks the heart for sin, produces tender, holy contrition of spirit. That we are fully justified in pressing this striking prophecy into our argument, and quoting it as receiving a present and spiritual fulfilment, the words of the evangelist conclusively show. Alluding to the crucifixion of our Lord, John says, "These things were done that the scripture should be fulfilled, A bone of Him shall not be broken. And, again, another scripture says, They shall look on Him whom they pierced." Thus clear is it that this splendid prediction, destined to receive in the conversion of the Jews a glorious accomplishment, possesses a present and a gospel application. Blessed are they who are its witnesses.

We have observed that repentance in its earliest form is, for the most part, legal in its origin and slavish in its nature- springing mainly from a view of the divine law, its spirituality, extent, and threatening. A clear apprehension of the divine holiness, the solemn thought of hell, the dread of condemnation- the law thus doing its own office in the soul- often reproduces the memorable inquiry of the convicted and alarmed jailer, "What must I do to be saved?" Observe, "What Must I Do? " But if repentance begins with the law, it invariably ends with the gospel. If its first and most imperfect impulse is derived from Sinai, its latest, sweetest, deepest throb is inspired by Calvary. If the poor sinner enters the sacred portal of salvation by the north gate, he emerges from the south, and finds himself wandering through the sylvan bowers of a new creation, himself a new creature in Christ Jesus. If, in a word, his first acquaintance is with Moses- the type of the law- it is but to introduce him to the acquaintance of Christ, (of whom Moses spoke,) the substance, the sweetness, the fulness of the gospel. Thus in the first dawn of repentance in the soul there may be but little, if any, of a clear apprehension of the cross of Jesus.

There is a looking at self, and at sin, and at death, and at hell, but no looking to the Crucified One, who has delivered us from it all. We repeat this statement for the encouragement of those whose sorrow for sin has not reached a more advanced and gospel stage. Although there may be much legality, slavish fear, and dread of condemnation mixed with your present feelings, yet it is not for all that the less real, nor is it less the work of the Holy Spirit. If you are truly convinced of sin, led to see the plague of your own heart, and to lay your mouth in the dust before God, a supernatural power has wrought this supernatural work in your soul, and saints and angels have beheld your repentance with acclaim. Would that every eye that traces these pages were moistened with a like sorrow for sin! How many a faithful yet discouraged minister would rejoice, how many a Christian and long-praying parent would retire to his chamber, his heart thrilling with gladness and his lips eloquent with praise! "Who is this that engages his heart to approach unto me? says the Lord." "To this man will I look, even to him that is poor and of a contrite spirit, and that trembles at my word."

Here, then, let me pause and inquire, Have you been brought to true and deep repentance for sin? It is the first stage of that true conversion, that spiritual change of heart, without which you cannot be saved. Every glorified saint in heaven was once a mourning sinner on earth. Each happy spirit before the throne was once a penitent suppliant beneath the cross. Are you preparing to take your place among this happy, this countless throng? We reiterate the truth, that, without true and godly repentance for sin before God, you have no scriptural, valid evidence that you are saved! I ask not whether Sinai or Calvary, the law or the gospel, has awakened it- whether it flows from a terrifying sight of hell, or a loving view of Jesus. All I ask is- Has your heart been broken and your spirit become contrite before God? Examine yourself, prove your own self by God's word, for it is your life! Repentance towards God precedes faith in our Lord Jesus Christ; and while both are separate and distinct graces of the Spirit, both are indispensable to, and are blended with, the salvation of the soul.

But our object is to present the great work of contrition in a higher form, in its more evangelical character, as experienced beneath the cross, as flowing from a believing, realizing view of Jesus the Crucified. And oh, how eminently calculated is the spectacle of Christ on the cross to produce this holy emotion!

The object of sight is JESUS. "They shall look upon ME." It is the most lovely, winning, wondrous object upon which the intelligent eye ever rested. There is nothing in it terrifying or repelling, nothing to raise a thought or impart an emotion anything other than the most tender, holy and subdued. Trace the points of attraction which meet in Jesus, and marvel not that when the eye roams over them, the heart is irresistibly won, the soul is instantly dissolved, and the believer prostrates himself at the foot of the cross in the profoundest sense of his vileness before God. All loveliness, all excellence, all glory meet and center in Jesus the Crucified. He is the most wonderful, as He is the most beauteous and attractive being in the universe. All the infinite perfection of absolute Deity, all the finite excellence of impeccable humanity, concentrate in Christ. God has created beauty for man, and in man a taste for the beautiful. Every object, as it originally emanated from God, was molded and tinted with some resemblance to His own infinite perfection. "How great is His beauty!" must have been the exclamation which chimed through the bowers and glens of paradise, from the adoring lips of the unsinned and sinless creature man. There is no sin in a love of the beautiful. The sin is in not seeing and loving God in it. The taste to appreciate it, the capacity to enjoy it, the heart to love and adore God in it, belonged to our original creation. The perfection of beauty himself, man was born into a world stored and studded with the beautiful. There was a fitness between the house and the tenant- harmony between creation and its lord; and the most exquisite music, in strains angels might imitate, ascended to Him who "made everything beautiful in his season." But the destroyer came, the disturber entered, and the beauty and the joy were marred. And yet creation still is lovely- lovely in its varied seasons, in its countless forms, in its moral teaching. The spring, when earth throws off its frosted incrustations, and bursts into new-born life, bloom, and perfume, is beautiful- telling us of the resurrection of the just, when the saints, gently awakened from their sleep, shall spring into rejuvenescent glory, and shall walk the earth in eternal youth, light, and love. Summer, when the glowing sun dresses the fields and the gardens with variegated splendor, and the valleys are covered over with corn, and the pastures are clothed with flocks, and the little hills rejoice on every side, is beautiful- reminding us of a fruitful, maturing Christianity beneath the rich, warm influence of the Sun of Righteousness. Autumn, clad in mellowed radiance, uprearing its horns of plenty, and garnering its golden sheaves amid the joyous song of "harvest home," is beautiful- reminding us of the saints of God ripening in grace, and grace preparing for glory. Winter, with its winding-sheet of snow and its ice-bound streams, as though earth were enshrouded for the tomb, is beautiful- reminding us that down to hoary hairs, God will be with His people, and that the head covered with the frosts of time, yet encircled with the crown of righteousness, will soon cease its weariness and its aching in the silent grave. The flowers, earth's stars, are beautiful- telling us in language all their own that God created them for no practical purpose other than to please and charm us. The sky, dyed in the purest azure- the image of heaven's purity; the ocean, illimitable and sublime- the emblem of God's eternity and power; the sun, traveling in the greatness of its strength on wings of light- the glorious symbol of Jesus; the moon, walking in her silver attire- the expressive figure of the Christ of God; the planets, revolving round the sun in their harmony- reminding the believer of his divine and glorious Center- the nearness, power, and attraction of Jesus- all these things He has made beautiful. But seen with the Christian eye, all is beautiful, and all testifies of God. The clouds floating in endless forms of loveliness and tint- the snowy alps that pierce them- the lakes that mirror them from their glassy bosom- the sylvan glen, the shady grove, the pensive dale, the meandering river, the purling stream, the birds of gorgeous plumage and of heavenly song- all, all is beautiful, "and only man is vile." And yet for man this beautiful earth was made, and for his sustenance and enjoyment she pours forth from her bosom her hidden and inexhaustible stores of health and loveliness.
"For me kind Nature wakes her genial power,
Suckles each herb, and spreads out every flower!
Annual for me, the grape, the rose, renew
The juice nectareous, and the balmy dew;
For me, the mine a thousand treasures brings;
For me, health gushes from a thousand springs." (Pope)

But higher forms of beauty engage our thoughts- the beauty of holiness as embodied in Jesus. The gospel dispensation introduces us to a new world of loveliness, and a new Being of love, wonder, and admiration, surpassing in His perfection all that earth in its pristine glory ever beheld- the Incarnate Son of God. Does love inspire, does loveliness win, do we stand in speechless awe before the image of the great, the good, the beautiful? Behold the Lamb of God- "fairer than the children of men, the chief among ten thousand, the altogether lovely one."
"The loveliest, sweetest, dearest One
That eyes have seen, or angels known."

What marvellous power does the spiritual beholding of Christ in His moral beauty possess to produce in the believing heart the tender, holy sentiment of contrition! In what spiritual light can we contemplate ourselves, our righteousness and our unrighteousness? What view can we take of sin- the sin of our holy and of our unholy things, when seen in contrast with the holiness, the beauty, and the perfection of Christ- what but the most humiliating, heart-subduing, and self-abasing? Could we for a moment regard sin with indifference, could we in any one act look upon ourselves with complacency, were we more conversant with the purity, and more enamored with the loveliness, and more deeply imbued with the love of Jesus? Would not our experience be that of the evangelical Isaiah, "Woe is me! for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts."

Let us study more closely the Lord Jesus! It is only as by faith we see His spiritual beauty that our own pales; it is only as discoveries of His holiness are made to us by the Spirit that we cry, "Unclean! unclean!" and lay our mouth in the dust. Oh, there is nothing like a clear apprehension of the Lord Jesus to empty, humble, and prostrate us at His feet! The region of the cross is too bright not to see our sinfulness, too pure not to loathe it, and too divine not to be assured of its pardon. One beam from that focus of light, oh how excellent, nourishing, and sanctifying! One glimpse of that cross, oh how replete with life, bliss, and hope inconceivable, inexpressible! Who that has felt its magnetic power, its magic influence beneath the corrodings of guilt, the shadings of sorrow, the assaults of Satan, the
weariness of the world, the accusations of self, will not testify that nearness to the cross of Jesus is nearness to the source of perfect confidence, assured peace, and unruffled quietness? This, then; is the light in which we must view sin- every sin- all sin- even the light of the Savior's glory as it gathers round His cross. And contemplating it in this light, we shall see sin as it really is- divested of its disguise, disentangled from its sophistry, dissevered from its causes; and thus seeing it in its own native and naked deformity, the heart will dissolve into deep, holy, tender contrition beneath the cross of Jesus.

But not only does a sight of Christ's beauty, but the spectacle of His sufferings contributes essentially to promote holy contrition for sin. We see suffering in the cross of Jesus in its unparalleled form. As a sufferer, Christ stood alone; like the light in which Jehovah dwells, His sufferings were unapproached and unapproachable. "He was a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief," as no man ever was. What He endured when He exclaimed, "Now is my soul sorrowful, even unto death;" -what was the bitterness of that cup of which the cry of His humanity went up to heaven, that it should pass His lips untouched, but which yet He drank and drained- what was involved in that exclamation, "My God, my God, why bast you forsaken me?" -we shall never fully know. Enough that He traveled the whole compass of sorrow, and touched each point. "Behold and see if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow, with which the Lord has afflicted me in the day of His fierce anger."

Can we, then, approach the cross, stand before this marvellous, unequaled spectacle of suffering love, and remember that all this was on our behalf? -for us, the sin bearing; for us, the soul sorrow; for us, the bodily anguish; for us, the thorn-crown, the bloody sweat, the cross, the death- and not feel a holy contrition for those sins which crucified the Lord of life and glory? We feel a sense of pity for the individual who can behold human suffering with unmoved sensibility. Can we view the sickly pallor; the tremulous lip, the care-shaded brow, the tear-bedewed eye, the manly form which sorrow has bowed, or the gentle one which bereavement has mantled with its symbol of woe, unmoved? Turn to the cross of our suffering Lord. With what emotion other than the profoundest grief, with what feeling other than the deepest shame, with what thoughts other than the most self-abasing, can we sit down and watch Him there! What! no penitence, no self-humiliation, no sin-loathing, no sorrow for having wounded Jesus! The universe, as if conscious of its curse for man's sin, is in sympathy with the suffering Savior dying for man's sin. The sun is veiling, the heavens are mourning, the earth is trembling, the rocks are rending, the graves are opening, all in sympathy with a spectacle such as earth never saw and such as the universe is convulsed in seeing. And yet, how marvelously, how criminally insensible, impenitent, and cold we are! -we whose sins He was then bearing, whose curse He was then exhausting, whose death-penalty He was then suffering, who in that hour of atonement was covering our hell that He might unveil to us His heaven. Surely if sin is ever seen in its true light, if it is loathed, crucified, and forsaken, it is at the foot of Christ's cross. It is here alone it can be truly studied. We must know Christ crucified before we shall know sin crucified. To gauge in any degree the depth of our iniquities, we must in some measure gauge the depths of Christ's suffering.

There must be close, personal dealings with the cross. This may reveal the secret of the crude, imperfect views of sin which you so mournfully deplore, and the consequent absence of all spiritual vitality, joy, and hope in the soul. You have been studying sin and your own sinfulness in the light of the present feverish uneasiness and restlessness which it produces, and of the alarming consequences which it entails; and all the while you have found your feelings grow more callous, your conscience more seared, and your future painted in deeper, darker hues, and sin still maintaining its undisputed, unimpaired supremacy. But, approach the cross! Turn from the power, the tyranny, and the corrodings of sin, and view the wondrous provision the God of love has made for its pardon and its conquest. Concentrate your believing gaze upon Jesus suffering, Jesus dying for sin. Go and stand by the cross of Christ. One uplifted glance, one believing look, one dim sight of the pierced Savior- wounded, bleeding, dying for your iniquities- will revolutionize all your views and feelings respecting sin. It will appear to you as a new created thing. Its blackness, its turpitude, its results will stand out in such magnitude and color, and, at the same time, its atonement will appear so suitable, its redemption so costly, its pardon so complete, the purple flood which tides over all, and drowns all and every transgression so effectual, and He who provided it all and accomplished it all, so divine, glorious, and precious as to prostrate your soul before the cross, dissolved in penitence and love. Oh, there are no affections like those which spring from a view of Jesus crucified! No tears so precious, no feelings so true, no contrition so intense and tender as gushes from the hidden springs of the soul, touched and unsealed by the heart's believing communion with the suffering Savior!
"Law and judgment do but harden,
All the time they work alone;
But a sense of blood-bought pardon
Soon dissolves the heart of stone."

Yes! if there is anything that can dissolve that heart of stone it is Christ's atoning blood. You have been around the mount that burns with fire, draped with blackness and darkness and tempest, but your heart has felt no softening. You have traversed the round of legal duty, have been strict in every religious engagement, have been conscientious in the fulfilment of every relative obligation, and yet your soul has felt no peace. In all this you have not found Jesus. You have sought Him in splendid temples, in gorgeous worship, in costly sacrifices, in excited crowds, in the pious circles of rank and wealth and influence, and still you have not found Jesus. But at length, by some power, invisible and inexplicable, gently and persuasively moving upon your mind, you have been led into another, more shaded and sequestered path- you have sought Jesus at the cross, in poverty and desertion, in humiliation and sorrow, in suffering, blood, and death, and lo! you have found just the Savior that you needed, the peace you craved, the joy for which you longed, the hope for which you sighed; and now, beneath the cross of Jesus, you are prostrate, a rebel won, a soul penitent, a sinner saved! Oh, one moment's believing, close contact with the cross will do more to break the heart for sin, deepen the conviction of its exceeding sinfulness, and disenthrall the soul from all its bondage and its fears, bringing it into a sense of pardon and acceptance and assured hope, than a lifetime of the most rigid legal duties that ever riveted their iron chain upon the soul.

But it is the spectacle, not so much of Christ's personal beauty and suffering, as of His suffering love, that most deeply moves the heart! The picture of love sacrificing itself, courting death itself in its most terrific form, for an object unworthy of its affection, would seem sufficient to melt the marble to sensibility. The sight of mere suffering has a tendency in some minds rather to petrify than to soften the feelings, so entirely has sin impaired the finest and noblest parts of our nature. But when in faith we look upon Him whom by our sins we have pierced, we behold, not suffering only, but suffering love- love the divinest and most ancient, love the most tender and strong, love the most self-sacrificing the dying love of Jesus! Nothing provides a clue to the marvels of Christ's history but love. Love was the inciting cause of all, the moving spring of all, the rational solution of all the wondrous events that traced the life of our blessed Lord. Oh, how He loved! The love of Christ! -it passes knowledge. Lying at the cross where Incarnate Love was transfixed, where it sorrowed, bled, and died, the soul dissolves into tenderness and contrition. He who writes the history of the cross, writes the history of love- the only record of love that shall be preserved in the archives of eternity. This is the love upon which the pierced Savior invites us to look. To look at the Incarnate God is to look upon Incarnate Love.

Bring your soul, my reader, beneath the focus of the cross, and you have concentrated upon it the burning rays of incarnate love- and self-abasement, holy penitence, and sweet affection will be the blessed result. Who can stand unmoved before the sight and look and words of love- that love sacrificing itself for us? Such is the love of Jesus! Often as its history has been traced, its story told, its pains and sorrows and death portrayed, yet, when shed abroad afresh in our hearts by the Holy Spirit, when we approach the cross and attain a clearer view of its reality, a deeper sense of its depth and tenderness, a more vivid realization of its marvellous sacrifice, a more spiritual apprehension of the wondrous redemption it has wrought, the full salvation it has finished, the free pardon, the perfect peace, and the unspeakable joy it inspires, the hell it has sealed and the heaven it has opened, oh, can we look upon Him whom our sins, past, present and future so deeply pierced, and not mourn?

We thus reach an important part of our subject- the LOOKING upon Him whom we have pierced. "They shall look upon Me." There must be a believing, spiritual apprehension of Christ, or sin cannot properly be seen, or seen only to plunge the observer into the depths of despair. The mere presentation of the cross to the natural eye will awaken no emotion, other than natural ones. That which is natural can only produce what is natural. Nature can never rise above itself- it invariably finds its own level. Thus, in a contemplation of the sufferings of Christ, there may in minds of deep natural sensibility, be emotion, the spectacle may affect the observer to tears- but it is nature only. Those who are accustomed to foreign travel may often have stood amid the deep religious gloom of the gorgeous cathedral, and have observed the ghostly form of the pious devotee of papal superstition slowly and solemnly gliding along its shaded cloisters, and then falling prostrate before the picture of a dead Christ, in apparently the profoundest emotion. Beyond this the 'religion of feeling' cannot go.

My reader, beware of mistaking nature for grace; the emotions of a stirred sensibility, for the tears of a broken and a contrite heart. The eye that looks upon Christ, and upon sin through Christ, is the eye of faith, that marvellous telescope of the renewed soul which beholds the invisible, sees the unseen, peers into eternity, and makes future things present realities. This it is that dissolves the heart into holy, tender contrition. Such a sight of Him whom we have pierced will smite the rock, and the streams of godly grief will flow. One simple, believing, close look at the cross will more quickly and effectually subdue the heart for sin, give a deeper sight of its sinfulness, and inspire the soul with a stronger confidence in the forgiving love of God, than all the thunders that rolled and the lightnings that flashed around the brow of Sinai.

You who have some legal apprehension of sin, who see your depravity, feel your condemnation, dread the judgment- you who have been laboring for acceptance with God, oh receive the message of the gospel! -look believingly to the cross, gaze upon Him whom your sins pierced, and you shall realize the marvellous effects in your soul of one believing look of faith, one drop of atoning blood, one beam of forgiving love, transforming the sepulchral darkness of your soul into the meridian light of God's salvation. Oh most significant words- "They shall look upon ME!" They shall turn from Moses, and from the law, and from their sacrifices, and from all their sins and transgressions, and one object shall attract and fix their believing gaze- "ME whom they have pierced."

The EFFECT of this believing look at sin through Christ, and at Christ as putting away sin by the sacrifice of Himself, we are yet to consider. Our remarks must be brief. We read, "And they shall mourn for Him, as one that mourns for his only son, and shall be in bitterness for Him, as one that is in bitterness for his first-born." The following are some of the distinctive features of that deep contrition for sin which springs from a view of this glorious sacrifice. It is evangelical in its nature, as opposed to the legal. It is an emotion in alliance with the gospel and not the law. It is from Christ- it is produced by Christ- it is full of Christ. It is a flower that blooms beneath the cross. A sight of atoning blood- a sense of pardoned sin- the streams of dying love as they flow from the cross gliding into the soul; in a word, a full, clear, simple sight of Jesus as saving sinners, sinners the vilest, sinners the oldest, sinners the chief, sinners who have not one plea springing from themselves but the greatness and the number and the turpitude of their transgressions- will fill the soul with gospel mourning.

It is holy in its nature, in opposition to the sorrow of the world. It is emphatically and preeminently godly sorrow. The most holy posture of the soul is at the foot of the cross. There all the feelings and thoughts which possess it, are produced by, and are in sympathy with, the most extraordinary display of holiness the intelligent creation ever beheld- the Son of God dying for our sins! Holy, then, is the nature and holy the fruits of that contrition for sin which dissolves the heart before the spectacle of Jesus crucified. Never is sin more vividly seen, or so deeply felt, never is self so profoundly loathed, or so entirely forsaken, as when the believing soul is enshrined within the pierced side of Christ.
"Then beneath the cross adoring,
Sin does like itself appear;
When the wounds of Christ exploring,
I can read my pardon there."

It is intense. The deepest feeling of which the human soul is capable is experienced beneath the cross of Christ. Our Lord has selected from the world of imagery the most expressive and touching simile to illustrate this- a parent's grief for his first-born! To behold the heir of the family and the inheritor of the estate, the tall cedar, the strong and beautiful staff, smitten to the earth, borne to an early tomb, is sorrow intense indeed! Is there a sorrow that surpasses it in intensity? There is! Deep and keener far that sorrow which overwhelms the soul prostrate in view of Jesus upon the cross. The one sorrow touches but the natural, the other stirs to the lowest depth the spiritual affections of the soul. In the one, the religious element has no place, in the other, there is the deepest sense of sin against the holy Lord God. How conclusive of this the Scripture specimens of godly sorrow for sin. "Wash me throughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin. For I acknowledge my transgressions: and my sin is ever before me. Against you, you only, have I sinned, and done this evil in your sight. Hide your face from my sins, and blot out all my iniquities. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and a contrite heart, O God, you will not despise." "Pardon my iniquity, O Lord, for it is great." Trace the remarkable workings of this intense godly sorrow in the repentant Corinthians. "Behold this self-same thing, that you sorrowed after a godly sort, what carefulness it wrought in you, yes, what cleansing of yourselves, yes, what indignation, yes, what fear, yes, what vehement desire, yes, what zeal, yes, what revenge!" Truly, "they shall mourn and be in bitterness, as one that mourns for his first-born."

It is the harbinger of joy. The sight of sin and the sight of Christ at the same moment constitutes an element of the deepest, purest joy. The tears of godly sorrow are the seeds of holy joy. He that goes forth weeping, bearing this precious seed, shall doubtless return again with joy. Weeping beneath the cross may endure for a night, but the joy of the Lord will assuredly dawn with the dawn of morning. The gloom that drapes the soul, weeping at the cross, shall dissolve into light, unclouded and serene. The joy of knowing that God is reconciled in Christ Jesus, that sin is pardoned, that peace is possessed, that heaven is secure, oh, it is a "joy unspeakable and full of glory." Henceforth, O believer, the cross shall, like the glorious sun, illumine your path through this region of sin and sorrow with its growing luster, until it lead you up to the realms of perfect day.

O God! to life's last and latest hour let me be a weeper at the cross! Precious Savior! in view of my sins and my sinfulness- in view of the awful solemnities of eternity, what can I do but cling to Your cross? And when death, of whom You, O Christ, are the plague, dissolves the silver cord and sets my spirit free, take me to the place where Your own soft hand shall wipe my tears, and turn my present and momentary sorrow for sin into the future and eternal joy of perfect holiness! Lord, for that blissful hour my longing spirit pants!

"When shall I be at rest? my trembling heart
Grows weary of its burden, sickening still
With hope deferred. Oh! that it were Your will
To loose my bonds, and take me where You are.
"When shall I be at rest? my eyes grow dim
With straining through the gloom, I scarce can see
The way-marks that my Savior made for me;
Oh, that it were morn, and I were safe with Him.
"When shall I be at rest? Hand over hand
I grasp, and climb an ever steeper hill,
A rougher path. Oh! that it were Your will
My tired feet might tread the Promised Land.
"Oh that I were at rest! a thousand fears
Come thronging over me lest I fail at last.
Oh that I were safe, all toil and danger past,
And Your own hand might wipe away my tears.
"Oh that I were at rest, like some I love,
Whose last fond looks drew half my life away;
Seeming to plead that either they might stay
With me on earth, or I with them above.
"But why these murmurs? You did never shrink
From any toil or weariness for me,
Not even from that last deep agony;
Shall I beneath my little trials sink?
"No, Lord, for whom I am indeed at rest.
One taste of that deep bliss will quite efface
The sternest memories of my earthly race,
Save but to swell the sense of being blest.
"Then lay on me whatever cross I need
To bring me there. I know You can not be
Unkind, unfaithful, or untrue to me!
Shall I not toil for You, when You for me did bleed."

Faith at the Foot of the Cross

"God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood." Romans 3:25

"Whom God has set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood." Romans 3:25

"For God sent Jesus to take the punishment for our sins and to satisfy God's anger against us. We are made right with God when we believe that Jesus shed his blood, sacrificing his life for us." Romans 3:25

If there be a grace of the Christian, a divine principle wrought in the heart by the power of the Spirit of God, that has its source in Christ, is by Christ sustained and strengthened, it is the grace, the principle of faith. The faith of God's elect- the faith that justifies, sanctifies, and saves- is pre-eminently a divine plant, having its root and nourishment in a crucified Savior. And all professed faith that is not thus engrafted upon the cross of Christ, that has not Christ Jesus for its author, sustainer, and finisher, is a spurious, dead, notional faith, that never will, because it never can, bring its possessor within the realms of glory.

In the further prosecution of our subject, illustrating the graces of the Christian, as clustered around and engrafted upon the cross of Christ, we bend our thoughts to the consideration of this precious grace, the faith of the true believer, showing that it has directly and exclusively to do with a crucified Redeemer. "Whom God has set forth to be a propitiation through faith in His blood."

The first view which will engage briefly our attention is the OBJECT OF FAITH'S TRUST- CHRIST JESUS OUR PROPITIATION. The very idea of faith, which, in other words, is simple trust or credence, implies an object in every respect worthy of its confidence. There are things in nature and beings in the world in which we repose confidence only to be betrayed. We cherish human hopes but to see them crushed and die; worldly expectations but to prove the illusory phantoms of imagination. But in the great matter of our salvation it is of infinite moment that the object in which our souls trust for a blessed futurity should be worthy of our implicit and solemn confidence. If, when the shadows of eternity are darkening around you, it be found that the object upon which your faith has been reposing- perchance your legal obedience or your religious duties- betrays you at a moment when more than ever you will need the peace and joy and hope which true faith in Jesus inspires, what a fearful discovery to find that you have placed confidence for salvation in an object which, when most you needed its supports and succourings, woefully and utterly fails you! We hasten, then, to place before you, my reader, the one exclusive object on which saving faith exclusively reposes- it is Christ Jesus our propitiation.

Now, with regard to this PROPITIATION, there are three points of light in which we would briefly present it. The first is the idea of satisfaction. Christ Jesus, our propitiation, has given a satisfaction to the claims, demands, and requirements of God's moral government, upon the divine basis of which the most hell-deserving sinner, repenting and believing, may be eternally saved. Need we argue the necessity of such a propitiation? There must be a satisfaction made to the righteous government of God, because we have sinned against Him. We have cast off God. We have rebelled against Him. We have trampled upon the glory of His name. We have done outrage to His love and rendered ourselves obnoxious to His righteous displeasure. Now, before God can take a step in restoring us to His divine favor, and in reinstating us among His people, there must be such an equivalent satisfaction made to His moral government, as shall vindicate His righteousness, satisfy His justice, illustrate and guard His holiness.

There are two ways by which many endeavor either to avoid the force of this truth, or entirely to ignore it. The first is, by denying any necessity of a satisfaction to God's government, in order that a sinner may be saved. The individual who wraps himself up in the attribute of Divine mercy at the expense of every other perfection of God, denies this truth, that God's justice demands satisfaction, that His moral government requires a vindication before He could be merciful or gracious to the sinner. He, in effect, says, "I expect to be saved without this satisfaction of which you speak."

Then, there are others who deny this truth by presenting a satisfaction of their own. All who have not simple faith in the propitiation of the Lord Jesus Christ are endeavoring to provide a satisfaction of human invention. "They, being ignorant of God's righteousness, and going about to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God." The Papal Church is fruitful of these human satisfactions, nor are they lacking outside its pale.

But we come to the great truth that the Lord Jesus Christ is our propitiation; in other words, He is our satisfaction. Oh, what a marvellous and precious truth is this! Christ has given all the satisfaction that the divine government required. He has vindicated God's honor, has satisfied His justice, and has upheld His truth by the offering of Himself in our stead, by the shedding of His most precious blood for our sins, by bringing in a new and everlasting righteousness for our justification; and now, on the ground of his satisfaction, God can be propitious, pardoning our sin and accepting our person. "I am perfectly satisfied," says Justice. "I demand no more," responds the Law. And thus, through the one offering of Christ as our satisfaction, God is glorified and the sinner is saved.

The second idea suggested in the doctrine of Christ our propitiation is covering. Literally, it means the covering of the mercy-seat, from above which God would hold converse with His people. Now, Christ is our propitiation. In other words, he is our covering. He covers our transgressions and hides our sins from the eye of God's justice and the eye of His law. Christ's imputed righteousness, which is "unto all and upon all those who believe," thus becomes the clothing, or the covering of the saints. ''Blessed is the man whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sin is covered."

Another idea involved in propitiation is reconciliation. Christ has reconciled us unto God by His blood. He has brought us into a state of friendship with Jehovah, into a state of oneness with the Father. The atonement, as we have intimated, literally means at-a-one-ment. The work of Christ annihilates the enmity and brings us into a state of peace with the righteous and Holy One. Mistake not this reconciliation, beloved. Some seem to suppose that Christ's sacrifice procured the love of God- that the Father loved us because the Son died for us- yes, died to inspire that love? But this is an egregious fallacy. What Christ did was to remove the obstruction in the way of God's love. There were insuperable obstructions- obstructions which all the angels in heaven never could remove. Christ undertook their removal. The everlasting love of God towards His Church panted to be free, struggled for an outlet. Christ came into the world to open a channel through which it might flow down freely to poor sinners. He honored and magnified the law by His obedience, gave to justice its full requirement, by His sufferings vindicated the righteousness of God's government, and so divine love gushed forth to man. Thus, Christ stood in the breach, spanned the mighty gulf between God and the soul, bridged the chasm with the cross, and now, through His pierced and bleeding heart, God's everlasting love flows uninterruptedly, freely, to poor, guilty sinners; and those who accept in faith his propitiation; are in a state of reconciliation with God. Oh, blessed reconciliation!

Reconciliation in any form is delightsome. To see disturbed friendship restored, alienated affections won back, a rebellious child replaced in a parent's love, is a spectacle that moves to its depths the most callous sensibility. But oh, transcendent spectacle that moves all heaven- God and man at peace through Christ Jesus! "All things are of God, who has reconciled us to Himself by Jesus Christ." "And you, that were once alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now has He reconciled in the body of His flesh through death, to present you holy and unblameable and unreprovable in His sight." All now is peace between God and the Christ-believing sinner. The enmity is removed, the controversy has ceased, harmony is restored, friendship exists, and God and man once more are reconciled and at peace.

Now, this satisfaction which Christ has made to God, is faith's confidence. Is it, my reader, the ground upon which your professed faith reposes, or is it some phantom of your own? Are you building your hope of heaven upon the divine atonement of which we have been treating, or upon an obedience wrought by yourself? I ask you as one having upon you the sentence of death, as an accountable being, a being possessed of a solemn immortality, where is your professed faith resting in reference to the salvation of your soul? If it is not resting on Christ's righteousness as the covering of your soul, you are not in a state of reconciliation with God through Christ Jesus, and it will go hard with you when summoned to meet your God. You will appear before Him without the wedding-garment.

We are now conducted to the consideration of THE MATERIAL OF FAITH'S NOURISHMENT. Here the great truth of faith's vital nourishment is brought out- the atoning blood of Christ. "Through faith in His blood." Now, in what sense is atoning blood the support and sustenance of that faith which sanctifies and saves the soul?

In the first place, faith is nourished by accepting all the blessings which flow from Christ's atoning blood- the blessings which result from the sacrifice of Christ are many, vast, and glorious. The pardon of all your sins- complete and free justification- adoption into the family of God- peace and friendship with God- hope that makes not ashamed- filial fellowship and communion with the Invisible- holy motives, added to filial obedience- submission to God's will in all His various dispensations- these untold blessings flow to us through the channel of the atoning blood of Christ. That blood of Christ, beloved, was so divine in its efficacy, a thing so transcendently precious to God, so unspeakably costly, that it freely purchased and eternally secured every blessing that we can be the recipients of in this vale of tears. Now we return again to the truth, that our faith is fed and nourished by its simple, unquestioning reception of all the blessings which flow to the believer through the atoning blood of Christ. Do not put away from you any of these blessings. Be careful how you reason, "I put in a plea for this blessing, or a plea for that, but I dare not put in a plea for all." What is this but robbing your own soul? Oh, trifle not with the atoning blood of Christ! It has secured all the blessings of the new covenant, and you have an individual inalienable right to all the costly blessings of that covenant. And if your simple faith will receive all the good things which the blood of Christ has purchased and secured, you crown faith with its brightest diadem. The moment you begin to hesitate and question your title to any of these blessings, the divine principle of faith becomes impaired; but when it lays its hand upon the Magna Charta of redemption, when it takes the whole string of precious pearls and says, "They are each and all mine;" when it lays its hand upon the everlasting covenant, and fully believes that all its fulness is yours, and that you are Christ's, you will find that, as your faith grasps these precious truths, it will strengthen and grow with the grasp.

Faith is also nourished by the vitalizing influence of the atoning blood of Christ. Your faith has a spiritual and deathless vitality. According to the physical law of our material structure, the life is in the blood. What a grand truth does this illustrate in regard to the essential power of the atoning blood of Christ! My reader, our souls' spiritual vitality is in the blood of Jesus. One drop of that precious blood applied by the Holy Spirit to the soul of a poor, penitent sinner, vitalizes that soul with spiritual life. Now, your faith, dealing closely and habitually with the blood of Christ, realizing its personal application, accepting the blessings it has purchased and sealed, you will find that, as it thus deals with the cross it will be nourished, strengthened, and fruitful- its root being fed and kept alive by the atonement of the crucified Savior.

Faith is nourished, too, by the changeless efficacy of the atoning blood of Christ. The blood of Christ has a perpetual and deathless efficacy. In nature there are some remedial things which in time lose their curative influence in disease; and so the physician is perpetually compelled to change his recipe. My reader, it is the glory of a child of God that the atoning blood of Jesus is that divine remedy that never loses its efficacy; its virtues never decay, its sovereign power never changes. Come to this sacred recipe when and how you may, you shall find that faith, simply dealing with it, brings peace and assurance, comfort and hope, to the heart. Come to that blood with fresh accumulations of guilt, new failures, new surprisals, new falls, yet mourning over and confessing your sin, with your mouth in the dust, you shall find that, washing in it, His blood is as powerful, as healing, as precious as ever- and thus the blood nourishes and strengthens faith.

Dear reader, the blood shall never lose its sovereign, sanctifying and saving virtue. In heaven, at this very moment, it is pleading for the saints. The grand argument of our Great High Priest in glory is the blood He shed on earth. "By His own blood He entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us." As an Intercessor, He could only enter heaven with blood- that blood His own. Through no other door, and with no other plea, can we follow Him to glory. While the atoning blood of Jesus is pleading for us in heaven, we must plead it upon earth. The plea is one and the same- the plea of the Advocate and the plea of the client, the Savior and the sinner- the blood of Jesus. Having liberty to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, hesitate not to draw near and claim all the costly and precious things His blood has fully purchased, and His grace freely bestows.

We will only add that faith is fed and strengthened by constant exercise with the blood of Jesus. You will find this in your experience unmistakably the case. If you hesitate in repairing constantly to the blood, if you walk remote from the fountain, and for days, and weeks, and months trifle with a guilt-stained conscience, sin unconfessed at the foot of the cross, the heart unquieted by a present application of the blood, you will inevitably find your faith become weaker and weaker, until at length you shall begin to doubt whether you have any real faith in Christ at all. And we would earnestly, solemnly inquire if, while you are without the enjoyment of peace with God, and a comfortable assurance that your sins are pardoned, and that your person is accepted in the Beloved, may it not be traced to this as the primary cause- your remote distance from the blood? You have not been washing constantly in the fountain, and consequently you have lost its immediate and hallowed effect. But, returning to the blood perpetually, bathing in the cleansing fount constantly, your faith will become stronger and stronger, your peace will flow like a river, and your righteousness as the waves of the sea. Thus the more you deal with the blood of Christ, the stronger will be your faith in, and the closer your communion with, the Crucified One.

We have to advert, before we close this chapter, to THE DIVINE WARRANT FOR THE CONFIDENCE OF FAITH. "Whom God has set forth to be a propitiation through faith in His blood." If GOD has devised and revealed the plan of saving sinners, we may be well satisfied that it meets all the requirements of His own glory, and is in all respects suitable for us. "Whom God has set forth." This, beloved, is your divine warrant.

In the first place, this divine expedient of propitiation meets all the requirements of God's own glory. God has declared, in effect, that He has confided the interests both of His glory and His Church with Christ- that Jesus having fully atoned for sin in His own person, God is now prepared to be propitious, merciful, and gracious to all who believe in His name. Consequently, you have, my reader, no reason for one moment to suppose that, if you venture your soul, guilty and sinful as it is, upon the Lord Jesus Christ, that you are contravening God's glory. Oh, no! it will be to God's greatest honor and glory that you do now believe the record He has given of His Son; and that, believing that record, you accept the free grace and salvation which is in Christ Jesus, and walk holily and happily as one, all whose sins are pardoned, and whose person is fully accepted through Jesus Christ the Beloved.

This divine warrant also sets forth God's love. What is the grand perfection of God that shines the most resplendent in the redemption of man? It is not justice, awful though it is; not holiness, beautiful though it is; not truth, immutable though it is. What, then, is it? Oh, it is love! If there is one perfection that shines out more luminously and transcendently than another, it is this. "Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us, and gave His Son to be a propitiation for our sins." Read these words thoughtfully and devoutly. Do they affirm- "In this was manifested the justice of God, that He gave His only-begotten Son?" or, "In this was manifested the righteousness of God, in that He made him a propitiation for our sins?" or, "In this was manifested the wrath of God, in that He punished Christ for our transgressions?" Oh, no! but, "in this was manifested the LOVE of God." Here, beloved, is the warrant for your faith to believe in the Lord Jesus, for your trusting in Him, for committing your immortal interests into His hands, and for rolling the burden of your guilt upon the Savior. God loved you, and gave His Son to die for you, and you have his warrant now to believe in the Lord Jesus that you may be saved. With such a divine warrant to accept Christ, will you, can you hesitate? The Holy Spirit having convinced you of sin, may He open your eye to see it all laid by God upon Christ, and then enable you to believe in the Lord Jesus, to the salvation of your soul.

Then, there is the Word of God as the warrant for your simple faith in the propitiation of Christ. His own Word has declared that, "Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners." The promises and invitations with which the gospel so richly and freely abounds, are your warrant to come to Jesus; and God will never countervail His blessed Word. Heaven and earth shall pass away, but not one promise of pardoning mercy to a poor sinner shall fail. Oh, come to Jesus, then, on the credit of His Word.

But if you still hesitate and demur, if you desire to believe in the Lord Jesus, yet fear a repulse, I repeat the encouragements to you- first, your simple faith will glorify God; secondly, you have the warrant of God's love to recline upon Christ, and thus you possess the invitations and promises of Christ himself. Can you, then, hesitate believing in the Lord Jesus Christ?

"Through faith in His blood." Again, and yet more emphatically and solemnly, we reiterate this truth- faith, in the matter of the soul's salvation, deals directly and solely with Christ's blood. Not only in the first and earliest stage of our salvation, but in every subsequent one- in our progressive sanctification, in our growing peace, in our deepening joy, in our endurance of trial, in our conflict with the foe, and in our advancing fitness for heaven- it is still directly and only with the blood that faith has to deal. Nothing else, not the holiest, the most essential, the most useful duties and engagements of our holy religion, can be a substitute for the blood. "What! not my devout study of the Bible? not my holy converse with God? not a spiritual ministry, refreshing ordinances, the communion of the saints, the self-denying service, in all of which I find so much that is congenial with, and helpful to, the life of God in my soul?" No, my reader, emphatically, no! The faith of your soul, if it be a principle wrought by the Holy Spirit, will no more find perfect repose in any of these substitutes than the needle of the compass pointing to the south pole. Nothing, nothing but the Blood of Jesus. Not the ministry, though it were the most Christ-exalting; not the Word, though it unveiled its richest treasures; not the throne of grace, though its sacrifice rose to heaven in purest, sweetest fragrance; not Christian usefulness, though it won its thousands to the Savior, and made the wilderness to bloom and blossom like the rose- Oh, no! the blood, the blood of Christ alone is the object to which real faith travels, on which it rests, and from which it draws the sense of pardon and acceptance with God, peace of conscience, purity of heart, and deep, intense breathings after divine conformity.

And now comes the climax of the whole- this blood of Jesus cleanses from ALL Sin. "What," you exclaim, "from all sin? From heart sins? from presumptuous sin? from conscience sin? from mental sin? from lip sins? sins after conversion, after communion, after confession, after forgiveness? sins against light, and conviction, and truth?" Yes, my reader, from ALL Sin! It is written, yes, it is written!- "the blood of Jesus Christ, his son, cleanses us from all sin." Who will dare alter, or modify, or limit, or dispute this divine declaration? Let him do so at the peril of

his soul! It is the blood that cleanses. No part of our adorable Lord but His blood! Not His gospel, not His teaching, not His example, but His blood. It is the blood that made the atonement, and it is the atonement that provides for the pardon of sin- and thus it is to the blood of Jesus alone that the true faith of the sin-burdened conscience travels. Come in faith, then, to the blood of Christ. "Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool"- for "the BLOOD of Jesus Christ, his Son, cleanses from ALL Sin." Once more we repeat the words- "Through Faith in His Blood."

"Faith is a very simple thing,
Though little understood;
It frees the soul from death's dread sting,
By resting in the blood.

"It looks not on the things around,
Nor on the things within;
It takes its flight to scenes above,
Beyond the sphere of sin.

"It sees upon the throne of God,
A Victim that was slain;
It rests its all on his shed blood,
And says, I'm born again.

"Faith is not what we feel or see,
It is a simple trust
In what the God of love has said
Of Jesus as 'the Just.'

"The Perfect One that died for me,
Upon His Father's throne,
Presents our names before our God,
And pleads himself alone.

"What Jesus is, and that alone,
Is faith's delightful plea;
It never deals with sinful self,
Nor righteous self in me.

"It tells me I am counted 'dead'
By God in His own Word!
It tells me I am born again
in Christ, my risen Lord.

"In that He died, He died to sin;
in that he lives- to God;
Then I am dead to nature's hopes,
And justified through blood.

"If He is free, then I am free,
From all unrighteousness;
If He is just, then I am just,
He is my righteousness.

"What lack I more to perfect bliss
A body like His own
Will perfect me for greater joys
Than angels round the throne."

We have thus given a brief outline of this precious subject- faith fed and nourished beneath the cross. But little remains for us to add save a few words of exhortation and encouragement.

If Christ is the root of faith, then see that by its continuous exercise in Christ this divine grace of the Spirit is kept vigorous and fruitful. It is humble only as it sits at the foot of the cross; it is mighty only as it entwines around the stem of the cross; it is fruitful only as it draws its life from the sacrifice of the cross; it is victorious only as it overcomes by the blood of the cross. It is nourished by the blood of Christ, it is sustained by the grace of Christ, it is shielded by the intercession of Christ, it is crowned by the diadem of Christ. "Through faith in His blood." What marvellous words are these! Angels' chimes breathe no melody so sweet. They speak of an infinite depth of mercy, of a fathomless sea of love, of a boundless ocean of grace, of pardon for the vilest, of cleansing for the guiltiest, and a full and free blotting out of all sin. Faith in Christ's blood! -it will conduct us into the very holiest. Faith in Christ's blood! -it will throw open every chamber of God's heart. Oh, have faith in Christ's blood, it will unbind the heavy burden from your shoulder, it will break the galling yoke from your neck, it will speak peace to your troubled conscience, joy to your sad heart, will turn your mourning into dancing, and the gloom and depression of despair into the sunshine and exuberance of hope.

Run with your weak and tempted faith to the foot of the cross. Is it tried? Is it sifted as wheat? Are its efforts of resistance languid? Is its vision of Christ dim? of the good land which is very far off misty and obscure? Oh, take it just as it is to Christ's cross, and the blood that streams from it, and the life that springs from it, and the light that beams from it, and the peace and joy and hope that flow from it, will strengthen, energize, and elevate this precious grace of your soul, and you shall be "strong in faith, giving glory to God."

See the instrument by which faith battles and conquers- the cross of Jesus. Let us go forth with any other weapon to meet the vaunting foe, be it the Goliath that defies the armies of the living God, or the little maid in Pilate's hall, defeat and shame are certain. But faith battling beneath the cross, battling with the cross, shall foil and triumph over all its foes. "They overcame by the blood of the Lamb." Oh, then, let your faith deal much with Christ's wounds. Read your pardon there, see your peace there, behold your shelter and safety there. Christ's wounds invite you to their asylum, speak peace to you on earth, and plead for you in heaven. Only let your faith rest at the Savior's cross, and life shall be to you a continuous pleasant song of praise to Jesus; death shall swell the music in the lone and shaded valley; and heaven shall take up and prolong its joyous strains through eternity.

"The cross! my hope, my boast, my theme,
There's music in the very word;
Compared to it, how worthless seem
All earthly thoughts, and how absurd
The thoughts and aims of men appear
To those to whom the cross is dear.

"The cross! the cross! mysterious tree,
On which the Savior breathed His last;
You wondrous cross, I look to Thee!
The bitterness of death is past;
The sense of guilt so keen before,
So terrible- is felt no more.

"The cross! the cross! how safe he is
Who trusts in it, and it alone;
The promise and the blessing his,
It is better than a royal throne.
A throne, what is it but a toy,
Compared to what the saints enjoy?

"The cross! the cross! Tis shame I know;
It may be death- I love it still!
The cross be mine, come weal, come woe,
From it can come no real ill;
It is fraught with blessing rich and free,
And he who has them, blest is he." -Kelly.

Love at the Foot of the Cross

"Do you love Me?" He said, "Lord, You know all things; You know that I love You." John 21:17

There is no place where the believer's love to Christ receives a diviner inspiration, a stronger and more healthful impulse, than at the cross of Jesus. The cross of Calvary is the altar of divine love- it is love in its most sublime, most touching and impressive form. No perfection of God is so conspicuous, precious, and transcendent in the redemption of man as love. "God is love," are words emblazoned upon the cross in letters of living light. It is true there was an awesome manifestation of justice, and a solemn display of holiness,
and a stern vindication of truth, and an overwhelming demonstration of power in the cross of Jesus; but divine love outshone and eclipsed them all. The cross of Jesus is love's portrait, love's exponent, love's sacrifice- the place where this divine plant of heaven in the believer's soul takes its deepest root, unveils its richest beauty, and breathes its sweetest fragrance. Having studied the graces of penitence and faith at the cross of Jesus, let us view in the same hallowed light the kindred grace of love.

Love to Christ is both the essence and the evidence of our Christianity; we thus become, as believers in Jesus, a reflection- faint, indeed!- of the essential nature of God. "God is love, and he that dwells in love dwells in God, and God in him." There is not a truer or more powerful test of our religion than love. The fulfilling of the law and obedience to the gospel are resolvable into the same principle- the principle of love. "Love is the fulfilling of the law." "If you love me, keep my commandments." Such was the test to which our Lord subjected the attachment and fidelity of Peter. "Do you love me?" Detaching him from every other object, the Savior presented Himself as the one, sole absorbing object of His disciple's love. "Do you love ME?" Here was the divine magnet and its attraction. Never did our Lord propound an question more expressive and touching; and never did a disciple return an answer more responsive and precious. "Lord, you know all things; you know that I love you." Beloved, the question and the answer equally concern us. To every professed follower the Savior addresses the same question. Does the reply of Peter find a response in our heart? Is it the echo of our feelings? Let us in faith approach the foot of the cross, and beneath its solemn light have close dealings with Jesus and with our own hearts touching this vital matter- our LOVE to the Savior. To this test let us bring our affections, by it let us try our religion. Let us realize that Christ is addressing us individually- is addressing you, is addressing me- with, "Do you love me?" What answer are we prepared to return? Let me endeavor to aid you, beloved reader, in this momentous inquiry by placing before you, first–

THE OBJECT OF LOVE. "Do you love ME?" We admire and adore the wisdom of our Lord in giving this mold to the question- in presenting HIMSELF as the one engrossing object of love. He knew what was in man- how idolatrous was the human heart- how easily the needle of its love was disturbed by some other and less true attraction- how far an individual could go in the expression of a feeling that bore a strong resemblance of true love to Himself, but which, when tested, would be found false, and if cherished, would prove fatal! He therefore fixes the eye upon Himself. It is quite possible to admire and feel an interest in that which has some relation to Christ apart from love to the person of Christ. We may feel a regard for the minister who preaches Christ, for the edifice which echoes with the name of Christ, for the plans which make Christ known, and yet be destitute of love to Christ! President Edwards, in his masterly work on the "Affections," has clearly and solemnly demonstrated this. A diviner pen has yet more clearly and solemnly taught us that we may, "speak with tongues, have the gift of prophecy, understand all mysteries and all knowledge, have the faith that removes mountains, bestow all our goods to feed the poor, and give our body to be burned," and yet have no love to God or Christ!

The world has its objects of love, various and many- objects suited to each order of mind and standard of taste. The object of one is learning, of another science, of another ambition, with yet another it is the sordid accumulation of wealth. Thus might we traverse the whole circle and show you that every man has his idol; and that if God and Christ constitute not the supreme object, his heart, burning incense to some 'created object' which he substitutes for the
God who created him, has never felt the attraction of divine love.

We come now to the consideration of the OBJECT of the believer's love. Christ invests the subject with no perplexity. He leaves nothing for our speculation, but clearly declares who is the true object of the believer's love. It is HIMSELF. What are some of the features in Christ constituting Himself as the object of the supreme, divine, and absorbing love of the believer? He is an object of love inasmuch as He is the great Revealer of God. Here the theology of some is defective, the views of others dim and low. They regard Christ as a wonderful being, of vast power, of ineffable love, of transcendent excellence, and tender sympathy, and this awakens their admiration and even inspires their love, but there they rest. But we dare not rest here. We must see more than this. We must see the Lord Jesus as the great MANIFESTATION of the Father, the embodiment of all the perfections and attributes of Jehovah. We must see Him as the exponent of the Father's love, or we cannot rest in Him with perfect satisfaction. How could we find repose in Him for our agitated spirits, and yet cherish the dark suspicion that God did not look upon us with complacency, that there were perfections in God that were hostile to us; thoughts in the heart of God not reconciled to us? But the moment faith grasps the truth, "in resting in the love of Christ, I rest in the love of the Father; in finding a home in the bosom of the smitten One, I find a home in the bosom of Him who smote; and now I can travel as on the wings of light, up to the very heart of God, and feel in it the most perfect repose.

Sophistry and unbelief may urge me to cast away my confidence, but nothing can displace it, nothing can take from me the blessed assurance that, in resting in the atoning Savior, I am at peace with God himself. We ask you, then, if, as the great Revealer, He is not worthy of your supreme affection? You love the sun, for throwing his beams of light so gloriously over the face of nature. What enkindles that landscape with such beauty? What gives to the gems of the mine their luster, and to the flowers of the field their perfume and their tint? It is the glowing sun. How much more should we love Jesus, the Sun of Righteousness, for showing us the Father, for revealing to us the glory of God; for blending all His perfections in their reconciliation and harmony. "He that has seen ME has seen the Father."

Equally is Christ an object of love for His own wondrous person. We love Him because He is GOD. We feel we are guilty of no act of idolatry when we bend the knee to Jesus, and offer Him worship and honor equal to the Father. We love to crown Him Lord of all, to trace His every display of power, and word of wisdom, and thought of love, to His veiled Deity. We love to feel that Deity atoned for us; we rejoice to know that Deity undertook, what humanity alone never could have accomplished, the full and eternal redemption of our souls. We love Him, too, for his HUMANITY- the humanity that was as real as ours, that was upheld by the indwelling Deity, that traveled to the cross, and hung and bled and died there. Oh yes! we love Him for all this. Who can contemplate Christ as the Eternal Son of God, exchanging the Father's bosom for the rude embrace of the cross to work out our salvation, and not feel "truly He is the object of my soul's supreme love."

We love Him, too, for His own work's sake, for what He has accomplished. Having voluntarily offered Himself a sacrifice for sin, He stood in our very place, entered into our prison-house, was bound with our fetters, assumed our debt, making Himself responsible to law and justice on our behalf. Ought He not to be the object of supreme affection? Is it not a wonder of wonders how we can contemplate His marvellous stoop, His atoning work for us, His self-sacrifice, and yet feel so little kindlings of love in return?

Nor must we overlook that which, perhaps, we are more prone to forget than anything else- we love Him, or ought to love Him, for His disciplinary dealings with us. This may be a hard truth for some to receive, who, with dark clouds draping their domestic hearth, toiling along flinty and dreary paths, borne down by care and anxiety and grief, are led to question the love of God in His dealings, and to inquire, "Can He love me and deal with me thus?" My reader, there is not a single event in your history, or shadow on your path, or crook in your lot, that is not the fruit of the love of Jesus to you? Does He love your person? Has He pardoned and accepted you? Then, no more question His love in His afflictive, chastening conduct. He is dealing with you in your present trials with that very same love that constrained Him to die for you upon the cross. But the Lord tries the love of His people. Nothing is more clearly revealed in God's Word than the truth that, "the Lord tries the righteous." It is not for Himself that He tries them, blessed be His name! "The foundation of God stands sure, having this seal, the Lord knows those that are His;" and if the Lord knows you as one of His own, pardoned and justified, adopted and saved, He knows all your circumstances, there being nothing in your personal history of which the Lord who chose, because He loved you, has not a special cognisance. It is not for Himself that He proves His people, that He puts the precious ore into the crucible, tests and refines it. Oh, no! Delightful thought! you sheep of the fold, whom the world knows not, whom the saints do not know, who scarcely know yourselves, delightful thought! "I know my sheep," I bear them on my arm and on the palms of my hands; I know their names, I wrote them in the book of life; I knew them in the dark and cloudy day, when my Spirit went after them; I know my superscription, my image, my work in their souls. Blessed thought! Lord, comfort us with it, make us glad with the sweet assurance, "I know my sheep."

And yet, He tries them, He brings to the test every grace of the Spirit in the soul. But especially He tries the grace of love. He tries it by the test of our obedience. "If you love me"- what will follow?- "keep my commandments." Your obedience as my disciple is the proof of your attachment, the expression of your love to me." Is there a command of our Lord and Master irksome or distasteful to a true disciple of Jesus who feels his heart glow with love to the Savior? Not one! What would we think of the love of a child who would run in the face of parental authority, and yet protest that he loved that parent with an unfaltering attachment? Beloved, prompt, unquestioning obedience to any known command of your Lord and Master is a test of love to Him.

He tries our love, too, by service. Love to Christ will constrain the disciple to consecrate himself to the service of Christ. His is the love, not only of an obedient child, but of a faithful, dutiful servant; feeling that there are periods in his Christian life when he places his position as a servant even in advance of his dignity as a son. Thus we find the apostles commencing their epistles, "James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ;" "Paul and Timothy, the servants of Jesus Christ;" "Simon Peter, a servant and an apostle of Jesus Christ." Thus they placed their service in precedence of their apostleship, because they felt that a willing service for Jesus was a stronger proof of then love. If the Lord saw fit to place you in a position most obscure, or to assign to you a service the most menial, not calculated to catch the eye or win the applause, but rather the disregard and the rebuff of your fellows, it would be one of the sweetest tests of the reality of your love to Him. When Morrison, the Chinese missionary- the man of God who first gave the Bible to China in its vernacular- offered himself to the directors of the London Missionary Society as a missionary to the heathen, his appearance was so uncultivated and unpromising, that, hesitating to accept him as a candidate, they inquired if he was willing to go simply as an assistant in one of the missionary schools? "Gentlemen," was young Morrison's noble reply, "while the temple of Christ is building, I am willing to be a hewer of wood or a drawer of water." In a moment they decided that a man who so loved his Savior, who was willing to undertake any service for Christ, was the fittest for the higher office of a missionary to the heathen. They accepted him as a missionary, and the result proved that they were not mistaken in their judgment. If, beloved, you love Christ, you will be willing to undertake any service your Lord and Master may appoint you. Love will make drudgery for Jesus pleasant and welcome.

Christ tries our love, again, by the test of suffering. "To you it is given on the behalf of Christ, not only to believe on Him, but also to suffer for His sake." We know these are not days of great persecution for Christ's sake- alas! they are to come- yet we know there is a moral martyrdom which many a disciple of Christ has to pass through who would bear the cross after Jesus.

The Lord sometimes tries our love by physical suffering. Many a child of God may be now tossing on a bed of pain, languor, and restlessness. Jesus has sent this sickness, designed but to prove the reality of love in its endurance. Love to Jesus will sweeten every cup He mingles. It will give repose to restlessness, alleviation to pain, and make all our bed in sickness. Thus, whenever the Lord sees fit to place you in a position of suffering, be sure it is but to try the reality of your love.

He tries it also by the test of principle. When our own interests clash with Christ's, and we are led to say, "Lord, though the temptation is enticing, I dare not yield for my right hand. I love your honor too well to do that which would compromise my integrity as a man of God, and dishonor Your great and precious name." This is the test of principle, and the evidence and triumph of love.

THE APPEAL the believer is able to make to the Lord for the sincerity of his attachment demands our next attention. "Lord, you know all things; you know that I love you." Here was first an acknowledgment of the Deity of Christ. Who can "know all things " but God? Have you, my reader, a latent doubt touching the Deity of Christ? In the solitude of your chamber weigh this argument, examine this evidence, and see if it is not irrefutable and conclusive- that He must be essentially Divine who knows all things? All present and future events, all the hidden springs of action, all the concealed thoughts of the heart, all, all are known to Him who will one day occupy, clad in robes of majesty, the great white throne, unveiling every heart, and sitting in righteous judgment upon the actions of every life. He, then, who is to judge mankind in the last day must needs be essentially divine, must needs be God. We turn to His present knowledge of our love. Oh, what an entrancing thought! to be able to appeal to our Lord's Deity in proof of our love, and to say, "Lord, you know all things; you know that I love you." Have you not this conviction of the reality, if not the depth, of your love to Jesus? Dare you deny that you love Him? What! could you live without Jesus? Could you suffer without Jesus? Could you fence with the foe, vanquish and slay him, without Jesus? Could you do anything without Christ? do you feel no thrill of holy affection pulsating within your breast? What! do you not love His people, and love His truth, and love His service, because you love His person? Do you not say, "Lord, I dare not boast of the strength or constancy of my love to You; it ebbs and flows like the ocean's tide, yet, one thing I know- I do love you!" Then, deny not your love to the Savior, lest you wound His heart and grieve that Holy Spirit of love, by whose inspiration it was enkindled within your breast.

Having presented an outline of this subject, we return to the truth with which we commenced, and with which we close the chapter- love's place of nourishment and growth is the foot of the Cross. Where should our Christ-loving hearts repose but where Christ's loving heart bled? Our hearts should feel no magnet so powerful as the cross of Jesus, no attraction like the Crucified One. Look at this precious truth in two or three particulars.

The cross of Jesus inspires our love. It would seem impossible to be brought by the Holy Spirit to the foot of the cross, and not feel the inspiration of love. If love begets love, surely a believing apprehension of the amazing, the unparalleled love of Jesus, bending His look of forgiveness upon us from the cross, will thaw our icy hearts into the warmest glow of affection. Behold the source of your love to God! "We love Him because He first loved us." No throb of love had dilated our hearts had not God first touched them with His own. Believe in the love of God, believe that Jesus loves you, and you shall be sensible of a new-born affection glowing within your breast. You are not called to believe in your love to God, but in God's love to you! Do not argue, "I cannot love God! I have striven to my uttermost to do so, but have failed in all my endeavors, until in despair I have abandoned the thought and relinquished the attempt." Be it so- no effort of your own can strike a spark of love to God from your heart. Nor does God demand the task at your hands. All that He requires of you is faith in His love, as embodied and expressed in Jesus Christ to poor sinners. The new and living way He has opened to His reconciled heart, the ample promise He has made to save you, the willingness He has shown to pardon and accept you, the love, the astonishing, the marvellous love, He has exhibited in giving you His beloved Son to die in your stead, are cords by which He would draw your loving heart to Himself. Oh, will not this suffice? Have faith in God's love. Believe that Jesus loves you, and your heart shall glow with a love in return which will bear it on in a willing obedience and unreserved surrender, in faithful service and patient suffering, enwrapped, consumed amid the flames of its own heaven-inspired and heaven-ascending affection.

The cross of Jesus rekindles and restores our waning love. No grace of the Spirit is so sensitive to the influence of a chilling spiritual atmosphere as the grace of love. No divine principle of the soul sooner droops than it. "The love of many waxes cold," is not the lament of one age of the Church only, it is her lament now. What are some of the producing causes? The influence of the world will chill it; the encroachments of temporal engagements upon the study of God's Word, the devout transactions of the closet, the ordinances of the sanctuary, will chill it; the society of half-hearted Christians- cold, worldly, light professors- will chill it; unfitting levity of spirit, trifling with sin, carnal pursuits, will chill it; an idolatrous love of the creature will chill it; fretting against the Lord, murmuring at His dealings, rebellion against His authority and chastenings, will chill it. Alas! how much there is to produce deep and sad declension in the love of our hearts to the Lord, and how soon its warm, flowing current chills and congeals! Oh that our hearts should so soon grow cold in their affections towards Him whose love to us is ever so warm, who ransomed us from hell with His own heart's blood! Let shame and confusion of face cover us. Let deep humiliation, tender, holy contrition, prostrate us beneath the cross, that we should for one moment gaze coldly upon so divine and gracious, so lovely and precious a Redeemer. But here is the remedy- the foot of the cross! Bringing there our chilled affections, our cold hearts, we rekindle the dying flame at this altar of love, and again, and with more touching earnestness and deeper sincerity, we exclaim, "Lord, you know all things, you know that I love you!"

It is at the cross of Jesus we shall prove more intensely the constraining power of Christ's love in our hearts. The great impelling motive of our holy obedience to Christ, and of all faithful service for Christ, is love. God would have our hearts moved towards Him by the same divine impulse that moved His heart towards us. "Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us, and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins." This is to be the principle of our unreserved surrender to God- "The love of Christ constrains us." Desire we, then, to feel the all-commanding, all-persuasive, all-impelling power of love? Let us go to the foot of the cross and receive its inspiration there. Allow no motive to influence you lower than this. See that love to self, love to the creature, love for some fond idol is absorbed and lost in love to Christ. Yield your heart to the gentle yet irresistible force of love enkindled at the cross of Jesus. Love, there begotten, will give completeness to your obedience, cheerfulness to your service, sweetness to your cross. It will impart dignity to the most menial service, and pleasantness to the most toilsome drudgery for Christ. It will enable you to bow your head silently to the stroke that has laid you low- to drink uncomplainingly the cup from which perhaps now you shrink- resolutely to sever that tie that binds you to some absorbing idol and displaces your Lord- to relinquish, or take up, that which involves the honor and glory of Him who loved you unto death. Sit down, then, close at the foot of the cross- for there is nothing but love there- and love to Christ will attain the ascendency; and, borne upon the bosom of its gentle, irresistible tide, obedience, service, and suffering for your Lord will be on earth your ambition, your joy and crown.

In conclusion. Do not be satisfied with vain and fruitless lamentations over the littleness and coldness of your love to Christ. Your love to the Savior will never be nourished by feeding upon itself. It has no power of self-inspiration. Argument will not intensify it, reasoning will not increase it, lamentation will not quicken it. Love can only be enkindled at the altar of love. Look directly at the love of Jesus- get a more believing apprehension of His great love to you- leave the shallows of your own love, and descend into the depths of His love- light the torch of your affections at the flame which glows upon Calvary; and you then shall no more doubt the existence or lament the chill of your love to God in Christ, but, with a depth of feeling and a power of emphasis unknown before, you shall awaken the sweet echoes of heaven with your exclamation, "Lord, you know that I love you!"

It is only at the cross of Jesus that your heart will be perfected in love. And less than this is unworthy your aim. "We have known and believe the love that God has to us. God is love; and he that dwells in love, dwells in God, and God in him. Herein is our love made perfect." Thus perfected in love, knowing and believing of a truth that God loves you, the slavish fear that has produced so much torment will be cast out, and the sunshine of love will fill your whole soul with its divine radiance. And oh, how many beauteous rainbows will then pencil the dark, watery clouds of your earthly pilgrimage! You will see nothing but love in your trials, nothing but love in your sorrows, nothing but love in your losses, nothing but love in all your Father's dealings- for love's rainbow, arching and encircling all the children of God, bends its smile on you.

Remember the cross of Jesus is the place where we learn to love one another! Do we discover in our hearts any decrease of love to the saints? Do we detect a lack of charity, forbearance, forgiveness, fellowship, and communion towards God's people? Do we find sectarianism separating us, bigotry contracting us, misunderstanding alienating us, jealousy chilling us, misrepresentation prejudicing us, selfishness collapsing us? In a moment, without hesitation or debate, let us repair to the foot of Christ's cross, and before that marvellous spectacle of disinterested self-sacrifice, and bleeding, dying love, let the blush of shame crimson our cheek that we should ever look coldly upon, or speak uncharitably of, a brother or a sister enfolded in the arms that love extends, ransomed by the blood that love has shed! Beneath the cross of Jesus our shibboleths are lost in the music of love, our exclusiveness is enlarged in the expansion of love, our coldness, alienation, and distrust are dissolved and consumed in the heat of love- the love of Christ filling our hearts with affection to Himself, fills them with affection to His people. Prostrate before that cross, and reading your pardon there; surveying the price with which your ransom was secured, contemplating your deep obligation to the great love with which God has loved you, weighing what you owe as a debtor to the mercy that tides over all your transgressions; what sentiment other than love, forgiveness, and sympathy can you cherish for the saints who, though they may have wronged and wounded you, who, though they belong not to your communion, and differ from your creed, yet love the same Savior whom you love, and cling to the same cross that saves and shelters you?

Keep in constant remembrance the love of Jesus. "We will remember Your love," (Song Sol. i. 4.) Avail yourself of every occasion of trial, and sorrow, and temptation, and need to recall it to memory. Do not neglect the ordinance He has especially appointed to keep us in remembrance of Himself. "Do this in remembrance of ME." Remember all that His love has done and is doing for you now. Remember it in prosperity, to keep you humble; remember it in adversity, to keep you from desponding; remember it in loneliness, to sweeten your solitude; remember it in the night-watches, to raise your song; remember it in service, to animate and strengthen you; remember it in sickness and in death, and it will bear you home to that pure and bright world where, having learned to sing Christ's love at the cross, you will now chant its praise eternally before the throne!

"Oh! let me all forget but Thee,
And Your deep love, my Savior God!
Let every fond remembrance flee,
But that which points me to Your blood.
"The fleet- the false- the fading dreams
Of earthly joys, forever past!
Which came and went like sunny beams,
Too bright- too beautiful to last.
"Oh! let them all forgotten be,
And You alone possess my heart,
For I have all that life can be,
If You Yourself to me impart.
"Who from the dazzling realms of light,
Where hosts of angels owned Your sway,
To bring me there, bore Sin's dark blight,
And lowly came-a Child of clay!
"Who in my lost and rebel state,
Forgetting You- asleep in sin,
Raised me from death!- oh, love how great
That I might life eternal win.
"That as a gem set in Your crown,
I through Your grace might ever shine
Oh! when I bow before Your throne,
I'll think upon this love of thine.
"Yes, when I join the holy throng;
I'll think of all Your love to me,
And swell the sweet, the joyous song,
In telling what I owe to Thee!
"I'll think upon Your dealings here,
How I was kept from hour to hour;
How You did chase each trembling fear,
And saved me from the Tempter's power.
"I'll think of days of sorrow too,
When midst their darkness You did smile,
And changed earth's sad and sable hue
To holy light, for me the while.
"When piercing thorns pained my heart,
And I had none my grief to share,
I'll think how You did heal the smart,
And calmed the grief that rankled there.
"Remember You! and all Your love-
Changeless, when I too often have changed;
Oh! memory, never let it remove,
Until faith is into sight exchanged.
"Lord, so would I remember Thee,
That, by Your love constrained to live
Apart from earth, the world might see
That heart and life to You I give.
"And while eternal ages roll,
Your love shall be my ceaseless song;
You who have saved my guilty soul,
Praises to You alone belong.
"Who is there, Lord, on earth below,
That I would with Your love compare?
And when above Your saints I know,
I'll love You still supremely there."

Prayer at the Foot of the Cross

"Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way opened for us through the curtain, that is, his body, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near to God with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water." Hebrews 10:19-22

"And so, dear friends, we can boldly enter heaven's Most Holy Place because of the blood of Jesus. This is the new, life-giving way that Christ has opened up for us through the sacred curtain, by means of his death for us.

And since we have a great High Priest who rules over God's people, let us go right into the presence of God, with true hearts fully trusting him. For our evil consciences have been sprinkled with Christ's blood to make us clean, and our bodies have been washed with pure water." Hebrews 10:19-22

If there is one exercise of the believing soul which more than another finds its appropriate place at the cross, it is communion with God. Prayer is God's ordained channel of making known our requests to Him, and of communicating His blessings to us in response to those requests. It is that holy engagement by which God and man are brought into the closest and holiest transaction. He who enters into the Holiest must be employed in the holiest exercise of the soul. This is prayer, real prayer- entering into the Holiest and standing in the immediate presence of the Holy One. Nor this alone. It is not a silent, awe-struck posture of the soul. Pavilioned within that holy place, prostrate in the presence of God, the believer is in sweet, holy, filial communion and fellowship with the invisible God- that God standing to him in the relation of a Father. Wondrous privilege of the believer! What can surpass, yes, what can equal it? The privilege of drawing near to God, of penetrating within the Holiest, of pouring out the heart in confession, supplication, and praise- oh, it distances in its solemnity and its preciousness every other privilege and enjoyment of the renewed soul. But the sacred and solemn topic which will more immediately engage our present thoughts is, the relation of prayer to the sacrifice of Jesus; in other words, communion with God at the cross. We shall contemplate in their order- the place into which the believer enters- the door through which be enters- and the liberty and encouragement he has to enter into the Holiest by the blood of Jesus.

THE PLACE INTO WHICH THE BELIEVER ENTERS.

We have, in the outset of the subject, the most sublime and solemn idea of access to God, of fellowship with the Invisible, found in the Bible. It is nothing less, it could be nothing greater, than entering into the Holiest. The typical reference will be familiar to the Bible reader. It points us to the inner shrine of the tabernacle, "the holy of holies," the place of the Shechinah glory, representing the visible glory of the invisible God, where the awful presence of the Holy One was felt, and into which the high priest alone entered once in the year. We have here a shadowing forth the true nature of prayer- of access to God; it is communion with the Invisible, which the believer experiences, and is privileged with, under the new and more gospel economy. When we approach God in prayer, in the fullest and most gospel sense, we enter into the Holiest. And yet, how few individuals there are, professing to be believers in Christ, who penetrate into this sacred place- who realize that, when they approach God in prayer, they are actually in the presence of the Most Holy!

Now, look at the illustration of real prayer suggested to us by this "entering into the Holiest." In the first place, we have presented to us the holiness of the act itself. By faith we penetrate into the inner shrine; and nothing gives us a more vivid and impressive view of the solemnity of prayer, of the awesome holiness of access to God, as this. What really is prayer? It is standing before the holy Lord God! It is "dust and ashes" entering into the presence of the Infinite! It is a poor, sinful, hell-deserving sinner in audience with the Righteous One! It is the finite, in its fallen, infirm, and necessitous condition, holding fellowship with the Infinite! Can you conceive of an engagement, can you imagine an employment of the soul more solemn, more holy than this?

Yet, beloved, what superficial views do most of us have of the sanctity that attaches itself to prayer! Oh, with what little solemnity we rush into the presence of the Holy One, as the horse into the battle, unprepared, reckless, and inconsiderate! What little composure of mind, what slight preparation of the heart, what imperfect calling off the thoughts and affections from the trifles of this world, is there in us when we rise and draw near to God! And yet those angels in heaven that stand in His presence, hearkening to the voice of His word, ever poised on the wing to obey His mandate, to do His will, never engage in a service more holy, never approach God so near, so filial, as when you, a sinful, needy, yet believing sinner, approach the throne of grace, standing in the Holy of holies, and in the presence of the Holiest of Beings!

The second idea suggested is, that of the DIVINE PRESENCE which encircles the believer in prayer. When a child of God approaches his Heavenly Father in devotion, he is supposed to turn his back upon all other beings, and to realize that he is in the presence of the Lord of hosts, the King of glory; that he is encircled by the Divine perfections. The true, simple definition of prayer is, fellowship with God; the consciousness that God is present with us. It is to feel that you are with God, and that God is with you; that you are breathing forth the utterances of a humble, penitent, contrite heart, and the deep- felt necessities of your soul; and that God's ear is listening to your voice, bowed down to your feeblest utterance.

What a mockery were you to go to the Queen of these realms with a petition which involved your most precious interests, and were to be satisfied with occupying an 'waiting-room' of the palace in which the sovereign was not seen, her voice not heard, the royal presence not felt! Would you be satisfied by thus going and returning without an audience, and thus without having accomplished the object of your mission? Apply the illustration! Prayer is entering with our requests "into the Holiest," where the Lord of heaven and earth occupies His throne, to hear and answer our petitions. It is a believing apprehension that He is there; it is a realization of His solemn yet precious presence, the consciousness of being encompassed by the God of love. Oh, do not be satisfied with any prayer except this- "You, God, see me. You, my Father, are near me. I am breathing the atmosphere of Your holy, loving presence! I am conscious that I am in audience with the Invisible One, and that I stand in the presence of the great Searcher of Hearts."

The third idea is, the close proximity of the Holiest on earth with the Holiest in heaven. Communion with God now, is preparatory to communion with Him hereafter. Fellowship with God in time, is the commencement of an communion perpetuated through eternity. No believing soul that ever held fellowship with God on earth, that ever penetrated into the Holiest, and there felt the spell of the Divine presence, shall be banished from that heaven of glory where communion with God shall be perfected and eternalized. If you have walked with God along these dark lanes below, you shall walk with God the golden streets of the New Jerusalem. The broken, stammering accents of prayer here shall be perfected in your communion and communion with God hereafter. Prayer links man with God, the present with the future, heaven with earth, the Holiest now with the Holiest to come. And when your soul is conscious, "You are near, O Lord! I feel Your presence, I know Your voice," your experience is like unto that of the patriarch, and you exclaim, "How dreadful is this place! This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven."

We are now conducted to THE DOOR by which we enter into the holiest. You will observe, my reader, that it is twofold- by the death and by the life of Jesus- that we enter into the Holiest in prayer. It is by blood-shedding- the death of Jesus; and it is a "living way " -the resurrection-life of Jesus. Let us see how these two views of Christ harmonize, and are indissolubly entwined with your access to God.

First, there is the cross of Christ- "by the blood of Jesus" -the blood He shed when He died upon the cross possessing all the dignity and efficacy of His Godhead- "by the blood of Jesus." Now, in what sense, beloved, do we "enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus?" In other words, what is the connection of the cross with prayer? In the first place, the blood of Jesus removes sin from us in the sight of God. We could not enter into the Holiest unless there were the removal of the great interposing barrier which sin presents. How could we, as sinners, unwashed by blood, presume to enter into the Holiest? It would be like the moth rushing into the candle-light. "Our God is a consuming fire," and it is an awful thing to rush uncleansed, unsanctified, into His presence. Beloved, the blood of Jesus removes this barrier, annihilates this obstruction, by taking away our sins, by blotting out our transgressions; and so washed, we enter into the Holiest! Oh, you who have a humble hope in Christ, whose only foundation is the sacrifice He has offered, behold here the great difficulty, the grand impediment to your access to God totally annihilated! The blood of Jesus Christ has accomplished it. And now, between God the holy and you the sinful there is no impediment, no obstruction, no barrier. Nothing shall obstruct your coming to God as a pardoned sinner, and holding the closest, sweetest, holiest communion with Him, because the blood of Jesus Christ has washed away your sin, has blotted out your guilt, and removed the only obstruction to your closest communion with God.

"The blood of Jesus," too, gives us access to God by purifying the conscience. What is it that prevents the approach of many into the Holiest? It is the guilt of unremoved sin upon the conscience. When a man of God has sin upon his conscience- sin unconfessed and uncleansed; he then knows but little what it is to enter into the Holiest. But let him take a fresh hold of the sacrifice of Jesus, let him bring the conscience beneath the cross of the Crucified, let him wash in the fountain, look by faith anew to the blood, and that which intercepted and blocked his approach is removed; and with a heart sprinkled with the blood, he draws near to God, and holds communion with the Invisible. This my reader, is the grand secret of nearness to God and of communion with Him by prayer, bathing the conscience in the fountain; getting, as it were into the very wounds of Christ. And, strong as may be your conscious unworthiness, great as may be your backsliding, you shall realize that the blood purifying the conscience has brought you into fellowship with God.

There is still one more view. The blood of Jesus supplies us with the merit that gives us access and boldness to enter into the Holiest. We have no other merit but that supplied by an atoning Savior. The blood of Jesus has secured our access. It merits the acceptance of our persons, it merits the success of our petitions, and it merits and receives the Divine response to our prayers. The only merit you have, on the ground of which you can approach God in prayer, is the divine merit which the blood of Jesus Christ supplies; having no other, and conscious that you deserve nothing but the Divine anger, you throw yourself upon "the blood of Jesus," and your faith possesses all the merit that constitutes the ground of your access to God.

To this I would add, the blood of Jesus supplies you with your plea and argument. When you approach God, a thousand arguments may arise in opposition to your approach, a thousand difficulties interpose themselves in the way of your access. In view of the sad memories that crowd around you, your sins and shortcomings, infirmities and imperfections, like so many haunting spectres staring you in the face and defying your approach, the moment your faith can take hold of the blood of Jesus, instantly, like the accusers of the poor woman who stood in the presence of the Lord, all go out, and you are left alone with God! The blood of Christ has answered and removed all the arguments, and with that one plea- the blood of the spotless Lamb of God, the blood that cleanses from all sin, the blood that has sprinkled the mercy-seat, the blood that intercedes for you within the veil- you approach the throne of grace, and in a moment, guilty and vile though you are, you find yourself standing in the presence of the Holy One! Oh, how precious should that blood be to us! Is there one blessing we ought to prize above every other, I hesitate not to say it is the blood of Jesus! Does this page address a poor trembling one, lingering on the sacred threshold of the most holy place, not daring to enter or lift up so much as his eyes unto heaven? Let me remind you of the efficacy of the blood of Jesus; it is sufficient to cleanse you from all sin. Pleaded by faith, it ushers you into the presence of God, secures your pardon, will bring peace to your sin-disturbed conscience, and give you a loving approach and access to God as your reconciled Father.

Then there is THE LIFE OF JESUS, associated with prayer "by a new and LIVING way." We approach God, beloved, under a new dispensation when we approach through the mediatorial work of the Lord Jesus. "New," as it is opposed to the works of the Law; "new," because revealed in the glorious gospel of the grace of God with greater distinctness and vividness; "new," because it possesses a deathless freshness. Come to God, when, where, and with what you may, yet coming by Christ, approaching through the Crucified One, you tread the "new and living way."

Another idea suggested by this expression is, we approach God by a LIVING Savior, we come to God through Him who is "alive for evermore," who is at the right hand of the Father, who also makes intercession for us. Yes, He has passed into the heavens, personally to appear in the presence of God for us. And now Christ is interceding for us before the golden throne in heaven- a living Christ-sympathizing, with our needs, difficulties, and fears; a living Christ, imparting vitality to our soul, power to our prayers, and life to our fellowship and communion; a living Christ, bearing us upon His heart, and so entwining all our personal interests with His never-failing intercessions. Thus it is by the death of Christ on the one hand, and by His life on the other, that we are saved. "He was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our justification." "For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son; much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by His life." With these two arguments- Christ's atoning death and Christ's resurrection life- who dare obstruct your coming to God? Who shall interpose an obstacle to your access into the Holiest? Shall sin, with its deepest crimson? shall Satan, with his countless accusations? shall the world, with all its specious arguments? shall unbelief, with its presumptuous suggestions? shall any one or all of these dare to say, "Stand back!" when the death of Christ, on the one hand, and the life of Christ, on the other, open wide the door into the presence of God, and sweetly allure us in- where we lose all our burdens, sorrows, and needs, while leaning in hallowed communion upon the very bosom of Ineffable Love?

It would be an essential defect in this imperfect outline of the medium of prayer- the atonement and intercession of the Great High Priest- did we omit in this place to introduce briefly the part which the Holy Spirit, the Third Person of the ever-blessed Trinity, takes in this holy and sublime engagement. The Spirit is as essentially and as closely associated with true prayer as is the Father the Object, and the Son the Medium, of worship. All true prayer is the Holy Spirit's inspiration and help. "Likewise the Spirit also helps our infirmities: for we know not what we should pray for as we ought; but the Spirit himself makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered." Oh, then, recognize and honor the Spirit in prayer! He is a divine Object of prayer- worship Him! He is the gracious Author of prayer- invoke Him! He is a loving Answerer of prayer- wait for Him! Exalt and honor and vindicate the Holy Spirit, and your mind will be more heavenly, your prayers more spiritual, your hopes more bright, your whole life more deeply sanctified and sanctifying. Blessed with the fulness of the Spirit, you shall be a blessing to others through the anointing of the Spirit; and upon your tomb shall be the epitaph, "Those who be wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament; and those who turn many to righteousness as the stars forever and ever."

"O Holy Spirit! now descend on me
As showers of rain upon the thirsty ground;
Cause me to flourish as a spreading tree;
May all Your precious fruits in me be found.

"Be my 'teacher' -to my soul reveal
The length, breadth, depth, and height of Jesus' love;
And on my soul Your blest instructions seal;
Raising my thoughts and heart to things above.

"Be my 'comforter ' -when I'm distressed
Oh gently soothe my sorrows, calm my grief,
Help me to find upon my Savior's breast,
In every hour of trial, sure relief.

"Be my 'guide' into 'all truth' divine;
Give me increasing knowledge of my God;
Show me the glories that in Jesus shine,
And make my heart the place of His abode.

"Be my 'intercessor' -teach me how
To pray according to God's holy will;
Cause me with deep and strong desire to glow,
And my whole soul with heavenly longings fill.

"Be my 'earnest' of eternal rest,
And 'witness' with me I am God's own child,
With His unchanging love and favor blest,
By Jesus' blood be fully reconciled.

Be my 'sanctifier' -dwell within,
And purify and cleanse my every thought,
Subdue the power of each besetting sin,
And be my will to sweet submission brought.

"Be my 'quickener ' -in me revive
Each drooping grace, so prone to fade and die;
Help me on Jesus day by day to live,
And loosen more and more each earthly tie.

"Blest SPIRIT! I would yield myself to Thee,
Do for me more than I can ask or think;
Let me Your holy habitation be,
And daily deeper from Your fulness drink.

The third point is the LIBERTY with which the believer enters by the blood of Jesus into the Divine presence. "Having therefore, brethren, boldness" -or, as the margin renders it, "LIBERTY to enter into the holiest." Liberty is a precious pearl. What will a man not give or imperil for his liberty? -liberty of body, liberty of action, the yet higher liberty of the soul! But what is all this compared to the liberty of drawing hear to God as our Father? of looking up into His face as a reconciled God, conscious of filial relation to Him, great and holy though He be? -the privilege of calling Him Abba, Father, of reposing our heaviest burdens

on His arm, of pouring our plaintive utterances of sorrow into His listening ear? Yes, my reader, there is no liberty like this! And this holy liberty is yours.

Now, what are some of the blessings to which this privilege introduces us? First, there is the liberty of prayer, which the cross of Christ gives. It gives us warrant of approach to the mercy-seat. It dissolves the legal chain that too often would bind us. It removes the servility of spirit with which we too much approach our Heavenly Father. The cross of Jesus does all this, and so it gives us liberty to draw near to God. Who can truly prostrate himself at the foot of the cross, except in the spirit of a penitent child, who through the blood of that cross- the new and living way- looks up to God as a sin-forgiving Father?

Then there is the liberty in prayer which the cross of Christ inspires. We can have no liberty in prayer but as we entwine our petitions around the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. Let us but see the cross to be the medium through which our prayers rise acceptably to God- the glorious mystic ladder upon which our spirit ascends into the presence of the Holy One- and we feel ourselves disenthralled from the chains that bind us; and, upheld by God's free grace and the spirit of adoption, we enter into the presence of Jehovah, and feel ourselves at home with God.

Then there is the liberty procured by prayer. Beloved, prayer emancipates us from Satan's assaults, unbinds the chain of guilt, and bursts the fetters of unbelief. There is no spiritual exercise of the believing mind which so completely emancipates the soul from its bondage as communion with God beneath the cross of Jesus. Be your fetters what they may- enthralled by your fears and doubts, by difficult and trying circumstances, by sins and temptations, by the world's potent spell- only give yourself to prayer, only approach the foot of the cross in earnest supplication, and you are free! Such is the 'boldness' of a man of prayer, asking and pleading and wrestling in Christ's name and with Christ's blood.

"Boldness" in prayer suggests the idea of heroism. A praying man is a hero. He is clothed with a coat of armor, grasps an invincible shield, wields a two-edged sword. He only is a true hero who knows what it is to obtain the mastery over indwelling corruption, victory over every besetting sin; foils Satan, overcomes the world, and fights his way to God through a host of spiritual foes. That man is a hero in the noblest sense who has boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus.

We approach now the EXHORTATION AND THE ENCOURAGEMENT TO PRAYER. "Let us draw near with a true heart, in full assurance of faith." "Let us draw near," that is, let us recede from the distance and the shyness, the coldness and the formality, which have too much prevailed to restrain prayer within us, and let us take a closer position by the cross, and so draw near unto God. Oh, how much closer in our communion with God we may walk than even Noah and Enoch! They approached by the blood of bulls and of goats- we, by the blood of God's slain Son! Then draw near, saint of the Most High, and keep no longer at a distance. Your God invites you, the golden scepter invites you, the blood upon the mercy-seat invites you, the Great Intercessor in heaven invites you! Oh, avail yourself, without hesitation, of the costliest, the holiest and most soothing privilege this side of glory- that of close, confidential, child-like communion with God. Allow no conscious unfitness, no sad memories of the past or depressing circumstances of the present, no seasons of unbelief or suggestions of Satan, to keep your soul at a distance from God. With the cross of Jesus, streaming with His precious blood, confronting you- with the Great High Priest before the throne of heaven- with an indwelling Spirit inciting you to prayer and aiding your infirmities- with a pressure of guilt which confession to God alone can lighten, of needs which supplications to your heavenly Father alone can relieve, of sorrow which prayer to Jesus alone can soothe- will you yield to a moment's hesitation in arising and drawing near to God with a true heart and in full assurance of faith? Oh, how precious is prayer beneath the cross! -there, where God and the sinner meet- there, where He has opened His heart and we may open ours- there, where the voice of Christ's blood silences every voice of accusation and sin- there, where no utterances are heard but those of mercy, no sounds but those of love, no sign is seen but His encircling bow! Oh the blessedness of falling beneath the sacred, solemn shadow of that cross, and losing ourselves in God! Draw near, then, you weary ones, you tried ones, you tempted ones, you needy ones, you backsliding ones, draw near! "Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need." "In everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known unto God."

But if, my unconverted reader, you live and die a stranger to prayer, you live a life of wretchedness, and you will die a hopeless death, and will enter unprepared upon an awful eternity; and of you it will be said, as you go down to the shades of endless woe, "This is the man who never drew near to God." What can the world do for you, O you careless ones, when you come to die? Its pleasures, its possessions, its honors, its delights, what will they avail you when you lay your head upon a dying pillow? It is an awfully solemn thing to die without an interest in the merits and intercession of Christ! To die without having entered into the holiest here- what is it but to be exiled forever from the Holiest hereafter?

Child of God! approach the throne of grace. "Is any among you afflicted? let him pray." "He that comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him." "Whatever you shall ask in My name that will I do."

"Oh, what a privilege is prayer!
It calms the careworn breast;
It flies from earth to heaven
It makes the wretched blest.

"Prayer- mighty prayer has power
To reach the Eternal Throne;
While there, to claim Almighty aid,
And make it all our own.

"The weakest saint may thus overcome
The strongest of his foes;
He prays- His God a wall of fire
Around the suppliant throws.

"He prays- and all his enemies
Away like smoke are driven;
He prays- and to the fainting one
Jehovah's strength is given!

"Whatever his wrongs, whatever his needs,
He pours them forth in prayer!
And, soon as uttered, they have reached
His loving Father's ear.

"Is sin the burden that he feels,
While struggling to be free?
Helpless, he prays- but grace divine
Gives him the victory.

"Is holiness the prize he seeks?
He can obtain it there;
For nothing is impossible
To wrestling faith and prayer.

"The Spirit teaches him to plead
The merits of the Lamb;
And feeblest prayer acceptance gains
When perfumed with His name.

Prayer, ushered by that precious One,
Enters the court above;
Where shining hosts the answers bear
On rapid wings of love.

"Prayer is the weary heart's desire.
The sure relief of care;
It is to plead with God his word,
And find deliverance there.

"Prayer is to whisper every wish
To Him who can fulfil;
A beggar coming to a King,
To ask whatever he will.

"Prayer is not airy eloquence
Of word and phrase high wrought,
With mind still groveling here below:
Prayer is the heart's deep thought."

Forgiveness of Sin at the Foot of the Cross

Jesus said, "Father, forgive them." Luke 23:34

The only question worthy a moment's serious thought is, "Am I pardoned? Are my sins forgiven?" The chief controversy between God and man is touching sin; if sin is pardoned- pardoned in a way that upholds the honor of God's moral government- the controversy ceases, and God and the sinner are in a state of perfect friendship. Now, it is the cross of Christ which alone exhibits at one view this truth in its fullest light. Oh, what marvels of love, what wonders of mercy, what prodigies of power meet in the cross of Jesus! -all illustrating the infinite riches of God's grace, the exceeding greatness of His pardoning mercy to sinners. In attempting, in the process of our discussion, to unfold the forgiveness of sin, we lead the reader at once to the place where that forgiveness was procured, where it is spoken and experienced. There is no forgiveness of sin but what was procured by, and there is none but what is found at, the cross of Jesus. It is a remarkable fact, that the only Divine prerogative exercised by Christ upon the cross- the only blessing of grace entwined with His dying accents- was the forgiveness of sin. "Then said Jesus, Father, forgive them." Never did this Divine prerogative appear so illustrious; never did its exercise appear so gracious, never did its objects appear so unworthy, as now! May the Divine Spirit aid and hallow our meditation on a theme so momentous and entrancing- the forgiveness of sin found beneath the cross of Jesus. Let us take the present instance as illustrating the pardon of all who repent and believe in the Lord Jesus Christ.

The points which suggest themselves for our study are- the clients, the Advocate, the prayer, and the response.

THE CLIENTS.

On whose behalf was this prayer of the dying Savior addressed? Who were the individuals in whose interest He was breathing, in the midst of His unknown agonies, His indescribable tortures, oblivious of Himself, this petition to God? Around that cross there clustered a class of men, types of our own common humanity, and specimens of our fallen nature. In the first place, we remark, they were sinners. In that crowd of malignant foes surging beneath the cross there was not found one righteous, godly man. They

were sinners. "What then? are we better than they? No, in no wise: for we have before proved both Jews and Gentiles, that they are all under sin; As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one: There is none that understand, there is none that seeks after God. They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that does good, no, not one. Their throat is an open sepulcher; with their tongues they have used deceit; the poison of asps is under their lips: Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness: Their feet are swift to shed blood: Destruction and misery are in their ways: And the way of peace have they not known: There is no fear of God before their eyes." Romans 3:9-18 Awful portrait!

But here is our consolation and hope. Sinners though we are, it does not exclude us from the salvation which is in Christ, because it is for sinners. Our moral wretchedness does not place us outside the pale of mercy, since mercy is for the miserable. It does not put us beyond the reach of Divine grace, since grace is for those who are bankrupt of all righteousness. If you will but prove to me, my reader, that you are a sinner, (and the proof is easy,) with some spiritual sight and sense and consciousness of the fact, then I will prove that you are among the number for whom Christ prayed. Convince us that you are of sinners the chief, then we will show that you are within the range of the Savior's grace. What Cain-mark is there upon your brow which excludes you from the free pardon of your sins procured by the precious blood of Christ? Who dare to say that you were not included in the blessed number on whose behalf Christ was now, amid His unknown agonies, breathing this prayer to heaven? Only be divinely convinced that you are a sinner, and not a righteous person; that you feel yourself to be guilty and undeserving, and then we will point you to One through whom alone you can be saved- saved now, saved freely, and saved forever.

Not only were they sinners by nature, but there was a peculiar stigma, a deep turpitude of guilt attaching to their character and their crime. They were sworn foes of Christ, openly, avowedly, and to the death. And such, too, are we! Not born again of the Spirit, not called by the sovereign grace of God, whatever may be our outward morality, our form of Christian worship, our punctilious attendance upon ordinances, we are sinners; we have not passed from death unto life, have not been renewed in the spirit of our mind, and must be reckoned among the rejectors of the Lord Jesus, and classed with those who crucified the Son of God, and put Him to an open shame.

They were not only the sworn foes of Christ, but a deeper dye attached to each- they were the veritable crucifiers of the Lord of life and glory. In other words, they were Christ's murderers. Their hands entwined the crown of thorns, and placed it on His brow; their hands plunged the nails through His sacred body; and now, gory with His blood, they mocked His dying agonies on the cross. Are we by nature less guilty than they? Not one whit! So long as we persist in a life of sin, we virtually indorse the crimes of these slayers of the Lord, and practically arrange ourselves among His very murderers. With what force and solemnity is this fact brought home to the child of God when grace renews his heart! Who then appears to his view the true, the real murderer of Jesus? Himself, perchance, the chief! Seeing his sins all laid upon Jesus, tracing his pardon to the atoning death of the Savior, the fact comes home to him with overpowering solemnity, "My sins murdered the Lord of life and glory! It was I who virtually entwined the thorn-crown, who drove the nail, and who pointed the spear!"

"'Twas you, my sins, my cruel sins-
His chief tormentors were;
Each of my crimes became a nail,
And unbelief the spear.

"'Twas you that drew that vengeance down
Upon His guiltless head
Break, break my heart, O burst my eyes,
And let my sorrows bleed.

"Strike, mighty Grace, my flinty soul,
Until melting waters flow,
And deep repentance drown my eyes
In undissembled woe!

Such were the clients on whose behalf the dying Savior now prayed. They needed forgiveness. And so do we- oh, how deeply! We are sinners, and as such imperatively need Divine forgiveness. We have precious, deathless interests at stake. We appear in the court of Divine justice indicted with the crime of condemning to death the Son of God. By our impenitence and unbelief, by our hatred and rejection of the Son of God, by our perverted course of sin and rebellion, we justify the men who originally and literally imbued their hands in His precious blood. We ask, is there a being in the universe that stands more in need of the forgiveness of sin than you? And unless your sins are pardoned, your crimes cancelled by the blood His murderers shed, you will stand before His bar side by side with those whose cry rent the air, "Crucify Him, crucify Him!" Ah, perhaps, many who then washed in the fountain their own hands opened, will witness against you in that day!

Consider THE PLEADING ADVOCATE. And who is now pleading for them with His Father? It was the suffering Savior, the dying Christ- it was the very Being whose sacred body they were tormenting, the very individual in whose face they were casting their cruel taunts- "If you be the Son of God save yourself." "Come down from the cross, and we will believe you." " He saved others, himself he cannot save."

A marvellous and precious page in our Lord's official relation to His people unfolds to the eye here- the relation He sustains to them as the ADVOCATE. "If any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous." He had, previously to ascending that cross, poured out His heart in a sublime intercessory prayer on behalf of His one and entire Church. His present appearance as an Advocate portrays Him in a new and novel light- praying on behalf of sinners, those sinners His crucifiers. Who, with this striking and impressive fact before him, dares assert that we have no spiritual concern with the unconverted? that it is impious to regard them as interested in the Savior's death? that they are to have no interest in our sacred sympathies and efforts, in our warnings, entreaties, and prayers?

The solemn scene of Calvary goes to disprove conclusions so directly opposed to the entire genius of the gospel. Christ loved sinners, warned sinners, prayed for sinners, died for sinners. And he who wraps himself in his theological creed and religious selfishness, and affects to look with cold indifference upon the conversion of souls, treads a path in which he will follow not a single footprint of the Savior! Oh to have more of the sympathy and compassion of Him who rained tears of lamentation over Jerusalem!

Two or three points, illustrating the nature of Christ's advocacy, invite our attention. The first is, His filial relation to God. "Father," said the dying Savior. Mark the confidence which, in that awful hour, existed between the Son of God and the Father. Though the Father was veiling the light of His countenance, was withholding the manifestations of His love, abandoning Him to the power of His enemies, who, like dogs of war, were let loose upon His 'darling' one, yet Jesus never lost sight of the truth that God was still His Father. Impressive and precious the lesson taught us here. Forget not, chastened and afflicted child of God, when the cup of trembling is in your hand, and you fear to press it to your lip; when, visited with affiictive dispensations, He veils the light of His countenance, and leaves you to tread alone and dreary path, that He is your Father still! And that, be the cloud never so dark, the chastening never so severe, it is your privilege to cleave to Him as your Father, and to nestle your weary, sorrow-stricken soul in the parental bosom of that loving, gracious God.

Then, observe the bar at which Christ the Advocate pleaded. Jesus was now affixed to the cross. From amid the darkest shadows of His closing life, impaled upon the accursed tree, stretched upon the rack in inconceivable agonies, dying the painful, lingering death of crucifixion, He yet sent up His prayer to God for the forgiveness of His enemies. The altar at which He stood, the bar from which He pleaded, was the

cross all streaming with His blood! It was the spot most appropriate for such an Advocate pleading for such clients. He could not have made advocacy at any other bar than the bar of Calvary. He could not have stood in any other court than that of Divine justice. What a truth beams forth from this! Beloved, it was the cross that laid the basis of our Lord's advocacy. The precious mercies He implores for you are all asked and secured on the basis of His expiatory sacrifice, on the ground of His sufferings and death for sinners. This it is which invests with such authority, and imparts such power, tenderness, and efficacy to His intercession- the glory brought to the moral government of God by His sacrificial death. "Father, I will that those whom you have given me may have their crimes effaced, their sins pardoned, their souls saved. That those for whom I have poured out my atoning blood, may behold my glory." Oh, is it within the range of possibility that such an Advocate, sending up to heaven such a prayer, and from such a bar, can fail in securing the blessings He asks? Never! This is just the plea of our Advocate in glory. The ground of His present intercession in heaven, is the perfection of His atoning work on earth. "By His own blood He entered once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us."

No longer pleading at the bar of His blood- impurpled cross on earth, He pleads before the golden throne in heaven- but the hands He uplifts are scarred, and the argument He employs is the death to which those scars testify. The ground of His intercession for us before the throne is the sacrifice He offered for us upon the cross when He offered up Himself.

There is another view of the Advocate inexpressibly touching. We refer to the fact of His love, the deep love He had for His clients. It is true they were enemies, but He loved them; they were sinners, yet He loved them; they were murderers, still He loved them notwithstanding all. From where that prayer, do you think, my reader? From what fathomless depth in the heart of Jesus did that petition rise? What was the power that impelled it heavenward? What were the wings that bore it to God? Oh, it was love, and nothing but love! He loved them, and the expression and the embodiment of His love was the prayer, "Father, forgive them!" Beloved, what a marvellous, unparalleled love is the love of our Jesus! The scene around that cross was such that we do not wonder that no artist's pencil has

ever succeeded in its delineation. It would seem as if our fallen humanity had concentrated its deepest, darkest elements of depravity upon that hallowed spot. But there was that which flowed over it all. Oh, it was the love of Christ! that love which has heights and depths, lengths and breadths, which surpass all measurement. His love seemed to veil the dark crime of His crucifiers. Forgetting His insufferable agonies of body, the more insufferable agonies of His soul, in the ineffable depths of His love He prays, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." Believer in Jesus, as you stand before this marvellous spectacle, relinquish all your doubts and misgivings as to the reality and vastness of Christ's love to you. Descend into this infinite sea, and exclaim, "Oh the depths of that love that floods over all my transgressions, drowning all my sins, so that not one shall ever be found!" If such is the love of Christ to His enemies, what must His love be to His friends! Love is bearing you in its heart in heaven- love is interceding for you in glory- love asks that your faith may not fail, that your enemies may not triumph, that all the blessings of the upper and the nether springs may be yours-love pleads the causes of your soul.

But what was THE BLESSING for which Christ pleaded? It was FORGIVENESS. "Father, forgive." And what a blessing! It is the highest exercise of the Divine prerogative, and the richest gift of Divine grace- the forgiveness of sin! Such is the state of all the Lord's people. According to the tenor of the New Covenant- the covenant of grace- God says, "I will put My laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts: and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more." Oh, what an oblivion of sin is this- the Divine forgetfulness! What! are His people's sins so fully pardoned, so entirely forgiven, so completely annihilated, as to pass forever from the Divine remembrance? Will He legally remember them no more? So says God, and so we believe. Seek earnestly the Holy Spirit's, witness to this in your conscience. Believe it without a single reservation. If God laid your sins upon Christ, then they are all taken off from you, charged to Him, punished

and condemned in His person."Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect?" Not sin- for God, for Christ's sake, has forgiven us all trespasses. Oh, walk in the sense of pardon; it will dissolve your heart in penitence, fill you with joy, and yet with shame, self-abhorrence, and sin-hatred, when you know that God is pacified toward you for all that you have done. When is the heart of the poor criminal the most deeply touched and dissolved? Is it when he stands beneath the awful beam? Oh, no! it is when he reads his pardon and acquittal! Then it is he weeps! Seek a like emotion, springing from a like cause. Get a sense of pardoned sin, and you will walk softly with God.

To whom was the appeal of Christ on behalf of these sinners made? To the sin-forgiving God- God, who had declared Himself "ready to pardon," who had revealed Himself as one with whom there was forgiveness; a God, who had from eternity provided a channel for the down-flow of His love through a Savior; who, uniting the Divine with the human. Could by one offering- the offering of Himself- render it righteous in God, and in view of His intelligent universe, to exercise the highest Divine prerogative towards the guiltiest of the human race. Oh, we are but little aware how the pardoning grace of God pants to gush forth towards every humble, contrite, guilt-confessing soul! What in the human breast is the sweetest sentiment- revenge or forgiveness? You do not hesitate. Transfer the thought to God. Forgiveness with Him is so delightsome a feeling- a sentiment so consonant with His loving, gracious, beneficent nature- we are told, that while judgment is His strange work, "He delights in mercy." Since, then, the full equivalent which Christ has made to the claims of His moral government renders it honorable and glorious in God to pardon sin, we are fully prepared to receive the next illustration of the Divine forgiveness which this marvellous prayer of Christ upon the cross presents- namely, That the forgiveness of God is for the greatest crimes, extending to the chief of sinners. If, as we have observed, all the elements of moral evil were concentrated around the cross, it would seem as if God so permitted it that He might more impressively illustrate the exceeding riches of His grace- that, "where sin abounded, grace should much more abound."

Penitent soul! behold the encouragement you have that, though your sins are never so enormous or aggravated, you may bring them to the cross, throw down the burden at its feet, look by faith to the Crucified, wash in the blood that flowed from His pierced side, and taste the sweetness of God's forgiving love. "Come now, and let us reason together, says the Lord, Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool." Standing beneath Christ's cross, and in its light reading this Divine declaration- will you- can you hesitate to believe that, though the vilest of the vile, there yet is forgiveness with God for you, yes, even for you?

We now pass on to consider THE DIVINE ANSWER to the Savior's prayer. This brings us to the memorable day of Pentecost. Upon that great day of the Jewish festival the heavens were opened, and the Spirit descended "like a mighty rushing wind," and beneath His Divine influence three thousand souls were convinced of sin, believed in Jesus, and were saved. Among these were the murderers of the Lord. Listen to the words of Peter: "Him, being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God you have taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and slain. . . . Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly, that God has made that same Jesus, whom you have crucified, both Lord and Christ. Now when they heard this they were pricked in their heart, and said unto Peter, and to the rest of the apostles, Men and brethren, what shall we do?" And what did they do? They repented, they believed, they washed in the blood their own hands had shed, they accepted Christ, and they were saved. "And the same day there were added unto them the about three thousand souls." Thus was the Savior's prayer answered- "Father forgive them."

That prayer has been answered ever since, is being answered now, and will continue to be answered until the last elect child of mercy has been gathered to Him who breathed it, and who now beholds from the throne with infinite satisfaction its accomplishment. Penitent soul! that prayer flings from the cross its arms of love around you. It embraces you in its ever living, ever prevalent intercession. In view of all your past and present sins- sins unmentionable and immeasurable- sins aggravated and exceeding- the Savior of sinners prays, "Father, forgive!" The prayer that rose from the summit of Calvary fills the courts of heaven- and you, a poor, penitent, mourning soul, are included in its earnest, touching, successful petition. Never had the Holy Spirit produced this conviction of sin, wrought this godly sorrow in your heart, were not your name upon the heart of Jesus when He sent up that marvellous prayer from the cross. Oh, what encouragement this to look above the Alpine heights of your transgressions, piercing the very skies, to that yet higher mount bathed in the radiance of forgiving love, where your glorious Advocate with the Father asks and obtains the full and free forgiveness of all your transgressions.

This prayer of Jesus meets the case of all conscious, penitent, backsliding disciples. On the strength of this plea of Christ, return to the Lord, taking with you words of confession and feelings of penitence, and say, "Take away all iniquity, and receive us graciously." The foot of the cross is the wanderer's place of return. There can be no real retracing our steps, no true restoration of pardon and peace and hope, that the bones we have broken may rejoice, until we find ourselves there. Then will our wanderings be arrested, our backslidings be healed. Then will we hear the words- oh, what music floats from the cross of Jesus!- "I will heal their backslidings, I will love them freely: for My anger is turned away from him."

And what shall be the conclusion of the whole matter? Once more we repeat, "If any man sin, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous." Beneath the cross the pardon of sin is found. Come to it, you sin-burdened; approach it, you guilt-distressed; return to it, you backsliding penitents! Nothing but forgiveness- full and free and changeless- will you find at the foot of the Savior's cross. Weep there, mourn there, confess there- there lay down your sins, renounce and forsake them forever, and you shall hear the words of peace, "Your sins are FORGIVEN you, go and sin no more!"

"Father, I bring this worthless child to You,
To claim Your pardon once; yet once again
Receive him at my hands- for he is Mine.
He is a worthless child; he owns his guilt.
Look not on him- he cannot bear Your glance.
Look on Me; his vileness I will hide.
He pleads not for himself- he dares not plead
His cause is Mine- I am his Advocate.
By each pure drop of blood I shed for him,
By all the sorrows engraved on My soul,
By every wound I bear, I claim it due.
Father Divine! I cannot have him lost,
He is a worthless soul, but he is Mine.
Sin has destroyed him: sin has died in Me
Death has pursued him; I have conquered death
Satan has bound him; Satan is my slave.
My Father! hear him now- not him, but Me.
I would not have him lost for all the worlds
You for Your glory have ordained and made,
Because he is a poor and contrite child,
And all his every hope on Me reclines.
I know My children, and I know him Mine.
By all the tears he weeps upon My bosom,
By his full heart that beats against Mine
I know him by his sighings and his prayers,
By his deep trusting love which clings to Me.
I could not bear to see him cast away,
Weak as he is, the weakest of My flock
The one that grieves Me most, that loves Me least
I measure not My love by his returns;
And though the stripes I send to speed him home
Drive him, upon the instant, from My breast,
Still he is Mine. I drew him from the world.
He has no right, no home but in My love.
Though earth and hell against his soul conspire,
I shield him- keep him- save him- we are one."

"O sinner! what an Advocate have you!
Methinks I see Him lead the culprit in,
Poor, sorrowing, shamed, all tremulous with fear,
Prostrate behind his Lord, weak, self-condemned.
Clad with his Savior's spotless Righteousness,
Himself to hide, and hear the Father's words!
My Son! his cause is Yours, and Yours is Mine
Take up Your poor lost one- HE IS FORGIVEN."

The Conviction of Truth Beneath the Cross

When the centurion and those with him who were guarding Jesus saw the earthquake and all that had happened, they were terrified, and exclaimed, "Truly he was the Son of God!" Matthew 27:54

Among the great blessings found beneath the cross of Christ, to which the attention of the reader has been directed, we know of none exceeding in its importance the conviction of Divine truth which is brought to the mind of the humble, believing student of the Bible. The cross, as we have reminded you, is the central fact of God's moral universe. All Divine truth meets in Christ's cross. All glory beams from Christ's cross. All spiritual blessings distill from Christ's cross. It is at its feet that the studious, earnest mind receives the most luminous, comprehensive, and glorious revelations and views of the Divine Being; and from thence he draws the sweetest and richest blessings to his soul.

The subject of our present meditation is- the Divine instruction, the perception and conviction of truth, received by the humble, spiritual disciple who carries his spiritual ignorance, perplexities, and doubts to the foot of Christ's cross, for solution. The words we have quoted will at once suggest to the mind this train of thought. While all around the cross were reviling the Savior, indulging their scepticism and their hate, here was a lonely group, bending with pensive sadness at its foot; and, as the strange phenomena were transpiring- the earth trembling, the sun darkening, the rocks rending, and the graves opening- there darted the conviction of truth into the mind of the wondering centurion; and, overwhelmed by its convincing and irresistible force, the exclamation bursts from his astonished soul, "Truly this was the Son of God!"

The grand error of many earnest inquirers is, they mistake the place, the position, and the spirit in which Divine truth is really learned. They will go in quest of truth to every quarter but the legitimate one. They will be the followers of every teacher but the Divine One. They will be the earnest students of every book, but the Book of God. They see not that the true skill of a spiritual learner is to unlearn; that the true posture of a Christian disciple is with his mouth in the dust before God; that, while natural theology will unveil many a glorious attribute of Jehovah, while the physical world will present many a grand view of the Divine power and goodness, yet that moral truth, spiritual, gospel, soul-saving truth, can only be found in the cross, and can only be truly, experimentally learned in the believing, humble spirit of a true disciple, sitting where the devout centurion sat; with him gazing upon the spectacle that filled his mind with light, his soul with astonishment, when, under the conviction of truth, he exclaimed, "Truly this was the Son of God!"

Let us proceed to quote some of those great, vital truths of Revelation which are only properly learned at the foot of Christ's cross.

I begin with the first revealed truth, the Being of God. Not that other evidences of this truth are lacking. The creation is one vast volume of evidence to the being of God. We hesitate not to aver that no man shall stand acquitted at the bar of God of the crime of having denied His existence from a lack of evidence. He may never have heard of a God, or of His revelation to man; upon his ear may never have chimed the glad tidings of the gospel; he may never have heard of the cross of Calvary, with all its wonders; yet, we hesitate not to affirm that the granite rocks, the cloud-capped mountains, the flowery valley, the starry heavens, the burning sun, and the natural intuitiveness of the human soul, constitute one vast library of evidence, all testifying to the being of a God; and that man, chargeable with the awful crime of atheism, who dares to deny His existence, with such demonstrative and overwhelming evidences of His eternal power and Godhead, will be without excuse. But where do we find such demonstrations of the being of a God as are exhibited on the cross of Calvary? Where has God revealed Himself as here? Where has He demonstrated the solemn fact of His being, of His Divine perfection, as He has done on that accursed tree to which His own hand bound His beloved Son, in order that He might not only harmonize in redemption His infinite perfections, but demonstrate that those perfections were the perfections of an eternal, self-existent, and righteous Being? Study, then, devoutly, believingly the cross, and be no longer an atheist!

The character of God is exhibited, and learned only by the spiritual and believing student, at the cross of Christ. There the Divine character, or, in other words, there God is exhibited in His completeness, His perfect symmetry. We learn something of God's character in other departments of His magnificent and extensive operations. We trace a penciling of God's goodness here, we behold a demonstration of His power there, a magnificent illustration of His wisdom yonder; and thus, as we traverse the circuit of the world, we gather something of what God's character is in these partial developments and unfoldings. But we need the full, complete, focal portrait and representation of His character. Where shall we find it? Where but in the cross of Christ? There, my reader, God stands before you complete-not an attribute of His nature, not a perfection of His being, not a trait of His character but is embodied, expressed, and unveiled; and the man who bends before that cross as a humble, believing student; one spiritual, believing glance will discover more of God's character in its glory, perfection, and harmony, than did he absorb the entire volume of creation's evidence.

The grand truth concerning God's relation to us as a reconciled God and Father, is nowhere learned but in the cross of Christ. Nowhere can we find anything of what the heart of God is, what His pardoning mercy to us is, what His thoughts of peace to us are as sinners, but as we learn it all in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. We may travel the circuit of creation, and behold His marvellous and glorious works and goodness, which, as with a lavish hand, He has scattered all around, but we find no relief to the anxious yearnings of our bosom oppressed with a sense of sin. We ask the sun- How may I obtain light to this my spiritually darkened understanding? and not a beam floating from that glorious orb responds! We ask the rocks- How may my heart, cold and insensible as marble, dissolve into penitence and love? and they are silent! We ask the winds- How may the life-giving breath enter my heart, and I become a living soul, living henceforth to, God? and not a zephyr answers! We ask the mountain stream and the ocean's waves- How may my sins be washed away, and not the shadow of a stain remain? and all are silent as the sea of death! No oracle in nature meets the momentous inquiry, "What must I do to be saved? " Oppressed with guilt, crushed beneath a load of sin, conscience lashing us as with scorpion-sting, hell staring us in the face, we wend our mournful footsteps to Calvary, and stand beneath the cross of the incarnate God. We gaze upon His wounds, look at His flowing blood, hide within His pierced side, and embracing in faith the doctrine of the cross- Christ dying for the ungodly, suffering the Just for the unjust- in a moment the great question is answered, the burden of guilt is removed, and we learn how God in the suffering Son of His love can be pacified towards us. There we read God's love, and in embracing the crucified Savior, we feel we are embraced in the arms of our reconciled Father. Oh, you who are wandering in quest of an answer to the anxious inquiry, "How may I know that God is reconciled to me, the vilest rebel that ever trod the earth? How may I know that my innumerable sins are pardoned, that my soul is saved, that God regards me propitiously, and looks upon me in forgiving mercy?" Go to Calvary, travel to the cross, gaze in faith upon that wonderful spectacle- the spectacle of Christ suffering and dying, the Holy for the unholy, that He might bring you to God, and your questions shall be answered in the peace and joy of assured forgiveness.

Another doctrine especially learned beneath the cross of Christ is the doctrine of His Essential Deity. We believe that nowhere is there such a demonstration of the Deity of the Son of God, as is found in the cross. Our Lord never appeared more really man than when in indescribable soul-agony, and in unparalleled bodily suffering, He traveled through those lingering hours of pain on that accursed tree. And yet, never did the deity of Christ appear more evident than when the sun of His humanity was setting in darkness and in blood; never were there such demonstrations of His Godhead, such seals to the doctrine of His divinity, as when, suspended upon that cross, He bowed His head and died. If, my reader, there lurks within your breast the slightest suspicion of His Godhead, and you desire your faith in this cardinal doctrine of salvation confirmed, fall at the foot of the cross, sit and gaze upon that wondrous scene, mark those astounding prodigies of nature which transpired at the moment that Christ expired! and we ask, if your mind is sensible to conviction, and you are really anxious to know the truth as it is in Jesus, whether the exclamation of your soul will not be an echo of the convinced centurion, ''Truly this is the Son of God!"

Observe, again, it is only in the cross of Christ that the essential, saving doctrine of our faith- the atonement is seen, learned, and received. A man may be a student of the most able treatise ever penned by human hand on the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, and yet close the book with a very vague, imperfect conception of the marvellous truth, or with a very faint conviction of its reality. But let him travel to the cross, become a lowly student there, a humble, earnest, believing inquirer after truth, and he shall not leave that awful spot without an overwhelming conviction of the fact, that those sufferings were expiatory, that that death was sacrificial, and that the mystery of the whole scene can only be explained, the problem of the Sinless suffering as the sinful only solved, by the doctrine of an expiatory offering; that all those mental and bodily sufferings were in consequence of His bearing our sin and curse; that His death, thus voluntarily and freely offered, was a satisfaction to the justice of Jehovah, and designed to unite and harmonize all the moral attributes of God in the salvation of man. Go my reader, in faith and lowliness to the cross, study its Victim, dwell upon its unparalleled scenes, and you will rise with the firm conviction that Christ died, not as a hero, nor as a philosopher, nor as an example of virtue and fortitude, but to redeem and save lost and ruined man.

Nowhere, except here, can the doctrine of the atonement be learned; nowhere but beneath the cross can it be received into the believing heart; nowhere but upon Calvary can these marvellous predictions of prophecy be understood- "He was wounded ['tormented,' marg.] for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement of our peace was upon Him, and with His stripes we are healed." "The Lord has laid on Him the iniquities of us all." "Christ also has loved us, and has given Himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling savor." Approach, then, in faith the foot of the cross; in its light read, by its spectacle interpret, those marvellous passages, and see if your conviction of the great truth will not be as deep and devout as that of the centurion, "Truly, Christ died for the ungodly!" Thus accept the atonement, thus believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and you shall be saved!

And have we a stronger proof and illustration of the doctrine of the Trinity than is found beneath the cross of Calvary? The moment an inquiring mind after that truth is led to receive the doctrine of the cross in simple faith, which is, the doctrine of the Atonement made on our behalf by the death of Christ, it finds no difficulty in accepting the doctrine of three distinct People in the one Godhead. No individual can fully understand the doctrine of the Trinity who rejects Christ's Atonement. The light that beams from thence invests with radiance every other revealed truth. Where the light of the cross is not, the light of reason is as Egyptian darkness. Nature is wrapped in midnight gloom, unenlightened by one ray that flows from the cross of Calvary. But let an inquirer for truth stand at this focal point, let him place himself beneath the beams of the Divine glory concentrated in the crucified Savior, and he will find no difficulty in embracing every doctrine of God's revealed Word. Here is the grand mistake men make, in not commencing their study of God's Word, their inquiries after the truths of revelation, at the cross of Jesus. Do you think that the sceptics of the day would be found, in this advanced age of Biblical research, questioning the truth of the Bible, ignoring the Divine inspiration of the Scriptures, and, with effete weapons borrowed from the dusty arsenals of error, whose edge had long since been turned, attacking the integrity of the Pentateuch, involving in its fall the destruction of the entire fabric of truth, had they made the cross of Christ the starting point of their investigations, the foundation of their inquiries? Alas! men, for the most part, commence at the farthest circumference of truth, and endeavor to work their way to the center; thus reversing God's order, which is to commence at the center and so reach the circumference. Now, with regard to the profoundly mysterious doctrine of a Triune God, we admit that the mode of the divine existence transcends the power of human reason to explain; and yet, no revealed doctrine of the Bible is more consonant with reason than it. And he who will receive the Atonement of the cross as a little child, as a humble disciple at the feet of Jesus, shall know of this doctrine whether it be of God, or whether we speak it of ourselves. In the light streaming from Calvary he will read and understand these remarkable words, "For through Him [Christ crucified] we both [Jew and Gentile] have access, by one Spirit, unto the Father." Could the doctrine of the three Divine People, in their essential unity and official relations, be more luminous?

The way of salvation is only clearly seen in the light of the cross. All the mystery and complexity and crudeness which, in the view of many, gathers around the way by which a sinner is saved, is the result of studying redemption from every stand-point but the correct one- the cross of Jesus. If an individual looks at salvation through his favorite creed, or church, or early education, it will, in all probability, receive a complexion unfavorable to a simple, lucid, believing apprehension of the way by which God saves the sinner. But let him approach the cross as a sinner, as a learner, as a penitent believer, divesting himself of all ecclesiastical, traditional, and educational trammels and prejudices, and receive the simple yet sublime truth, "In due time, when we were without strength, Christ died for the ungodly," and he is saved! Salvation can be conveyed by no church or minister; its nature must be studied through no ecclesiastical or priestly medium. Passing by every other object, we must pause not in our search for the priceless, precious treasure until we confront the naked cross, and stand in the immediate presence of the crucified Nazarene. The spectacle may be appalling, the posture humiliating; nevertheless, while all self-righteousness, all human merit, all pride of intellect, all hatred and opposition to the truth pales and expires in the pure effulgence of the cross. On the other hand, full salvation is found- the blood that effaces the guilt of sin, the righteousness that justifies the person of the sinner, the peace that tranquillizes the troubled conscience, the hope that expels the demon of despair, the heaven that supplants our hell- in a believing reception of the doctrine of Christ crucified, in the humble position of the soul studying at the foot of Christ's cross. Come, then, you perplexed searchers for truth- come, you anxious inquirers after salvation- come, you weary and heavy laden- come, you sin and sorrow-stricken, come, you self-destroyed and bankrupt- come, you who have resisted evidence and stifled conviction, who have effaced impressions and quenched hopes, approach the cross of Jesus, believe, and be saved!

We may add, and it is a solemn conclusion, that at the cross of Christ the justice of God, in the final condemnation of the impenitent, is fully exhibited. Hell itself, with all its untold and inconceivable woe, exhibits no such expression of God's holiness, justice, and power as confront us in the sufferings and death of the Son of God! Finding the sins of the Church charged to Christ, their Surety, Divine justice drew its sword and slew Him. Bearing the curse of His people, the holiness of God extracted from Him the death-penalty they had incurred. What is the true, the solemn, the awful conclusion? It is this- If the pure, the sinless, the innocent Son of God endured the Divine wrath due for His people's sins, what must be the certain and the righteous doom of those who die in their sins, unsheltered by the Atonement of the cross from the wrath that is to come? Sin found charged to the account of the Savior was the cause of His death. Sin found upon and charted to the account of the sinner, when his soul goes hence, will expose him to just and eternal punishment. From this logical but appalling inference there is no avenue of escape. If your sins are pardoned by Christ, then you are saved; but if you die impenitent and unbelieving, then must you endure the inevitable and equitable condemnation of those sins. Despising a Savior so divine, scorning a sacrifice so complete, and neglecting a salvation so great, how shall you, how can you, escape? "There remains no more sacrifice for sins, but a certain fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation, which shall devour the adversaries. O man! O woman! I put it to your conscience, I appeal to your judgment, if God will not be righteous, His throne guiltless, His justice, holiness, and truth awfully severe, yet eternally glorified, in condemning to endless woe the soul who wilfully rejects Jesus Christ, His beloved Son? Spurn and thrust from you the life-boat which a God of love has launched upon the dark, surging waters of the curse, for the rescue and salvation of poor lost sinners buffeting amid its billows, and you sink into the yawning gulf of the bottomless pit, the author and the architect of your own just and everlasting destruction- a moral suicide! He who said, "He that believes shall be saved," also said, "And he that believes not shall be damned."

We gather from the subject of this chapter, HOW IRRESISTIBLY FORCIBLE AND CONVINCING IS DIVINE TRUTH! Confronted by Essential Truth, around whom were accumulating the witnesses of His Divinity- creation in sympathy with the death of her Creator- the centurion, before perhaps a sceptic and a scorner, now exclaims, "TRULY this was the Son of God!" We hesitate not to affirm that an individual, be his ignorance, scepticism, and prejudice what it may, who will take his lowly place at the cross, study the gospel in its light, shall find no difficulty in accepting all its essential, precious, and sublime truths. In what way?

In the first place, there will be the reconciliation of his mind to all that is mysterious in Divine truth. He will not cavil at a doctrine, or reject a truth, or disbelieve a fact, because it transcends the grasp of his intellect. He will not ask for mathematical demonstration in proof of moral truth, but, accepting the greater mystery of godliness- "God manifest in the flesh"- he accepts all other mysteries in it- the faith that embraces the Savior equally embracing the salvation. Thus, when the humble and believing heart receives Christ Jesus the Lord, it receives the whole truth, because it receives Him who is essentially and emphatically "the truth; " and then, all the scepticism, perplexity, and opposition which previously enshrouded the mind in its investigation of revealed truth disappears as the gray mists of the morning which wreath the mountain's brow dissolve into sunshine before the ascending orb of day. "Truly this was the Son of God!"

Again, receiving into your heart Christ crucified, there will be a moral molding of the life to the gospel of Jesus. The conviction produced by Divine truth is not simply intellectual, it also emotional; while it enlightens the judgement. It penetrates and sanctifies the heart. It was one of our Lord's petitions in His sublime intercessory prayer, "Sanctify them through the truth." The "truth which is after godliness," thus insinuating itself into the heart, becomes an element of holiness; and thus those who receive Christ crucified are emphatically numbered among "the pure in heart, who shall see God."

The intensifying of our love to God will follow. One of the effects of a spiritual conviction and a believing reception of the truth as it is in Jesus is love. No embers will enkindle upon the altar of the human heart such a fire and flame of divine love as those which we take from off the altar of the cross. Do you want, my reader, a "burning heart?" Take your heart, all dark and icy as it is, and bring it in contact with the cross of Calvary, and while you are musing upon its stupendous spectacle of love, the fire will burn and your lips will praise. Our love to God and to Christ and to the saints will be proportioned to our walks in Gethsemane and our visits to Calvary. " The Lord direct your hearts into the love of God!"

Lastly, there will be the happiness and comfort of a full assurance. There is no assurance like that which is found in close proximity to the cross of Jesus. Oh, with what of earthly good would not many a child of God part to be fully persuaded of a personal interest in Christ! But why should there be a moment's doubt? Approach the cross, look in simple faith to Christ, the Crucified, accept Jesus as the Savior, believe in Him as a sinner, learn of Him as a disciple, follow and glorify Him as a saint, and the conviction will be as true, and the joy will be as thrilling, and the hope will be as bright, and the exclamation will be as loud as the centurion's. "Truly, Lord, I am your servant, your child, your disciple! bought with blood! and henceforth, whether I live, I live unto the Lord; and whether I die, I die unto the Lord; whether I live or die, I am the Lord's!"

A Life-look at the Foot of the Cross

"Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life." John 3:14-15

It was a prominent and beautiful feature in our Lord's ministrations, that He never expended a single moment in disputation upon the mere outworks of Christianity. His whole life intent upon saving man, not a second of that life was spent in discussing ecclesiastical questions, sacraments, and forms. They never came within the scope of His ministrations save as positive institutions, and gospel commands. And when, through the subtlety of Satan and of error, men sought, by speculative questions, to divert His mind from His grand purpose- for example, inquiring, "Are there few that be saved? "-with a skill and adroitness peculiar to Himself, the heavenly Teacher, He instantly concentrated their thoughts upon the great essential and personal matters of their salvation, and exclaimed, "Strive to enter in at the strait gate." The narrative before us is a striking instance of this. There came to Him a ruler of the synagogue under the veil of night, evidently with a mind under deep religious excitement. Our Lord did not give a direct answer to the admission of His divine authority as a Teacher, but instantly brought to bear upon the mind of the inquirer the great question of his regeneration, and pressed him with that most momentous of all momentous truths, "Unless a man be born again, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God." Confronted, in communicating this doctrine, by apparent obtuseness of mind and hardness of heart in Nicodemus, the Savior cites a fact in the history of his own nation which would be familiar to his mind, and which would at once illustrate the truth. To Nicodemus's inquiry, "How can these things be?" our Lord instantly recalls to his memory the fact of Moses lifting up the serpent in the wilderness, and by that well-known and impressive incident He sought to elucidate to the mind of the Jew the divinely appointed way by which a poor, serpent-stung sinner could be healed, justified, and eternally saved. The subject is replete with gospel truth, yes, it is the very marrow of the gospel itself. May the Spirit of truth be our Teacher!

We will, in the discussion of the subject, consider the points of coincidence between the emblem, and the gospel truth it is designed to illustrate and teach. "Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life."

We commence with THE SERPENT'S STING. We need not remind the reader that in this particular the parallel is complete. The sting of this fiery serpent was venomous. The virus, instantly it was produced; insinuated itself into the system, and certain and almost immediate death was the consequence. With the speculative question touching the origin of sin we have nothing to do. I believe it to be one of Satan's subtleties for withdrawing attention from the actual existence, sinfulness, and fatality of sin itself, the progress of which, if not arrested, terminates in all the bitter pangs and miserable horrors of the "second death." The natural fascination of the serpent is proverbial. The moral fascination of sin is yet more so. Its spell binds men's souls in its serpent coil; and if Satan can but succeed in entangling men's minds with the question, "Why was sin introduced into the world?" he has succeeded in diverting their thoughts front the solemn and momentous fact of their personal fall and actual apostasy from God. Beware of attempting to be wiser than the Bible, wiser than the God of the Bible. You have to do, not with the question, why sin was permitted, or where its mysterious origin? The matter you have to do with is, the momentous one of your personal sting by the great serpent the devil; and that if that sting is not extracted, its moral venom arrested, the deep wound healed, then the blackness of despair will brood around your deathless soul forever. O sin, it is a terrible thing! It has left no part of the physical, moral, and intellectual nature of man untouched. Man is originally a sinner. "Behold, I was shaped in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me." In sin he lives, in sin he grows up, in sin he dies, if God's grace is not interposed, if Christ's salvation is not received, welcomed, and believed in. The saints of God feel it. Ask them what wrings the bitterest tear from their eye and the deepest sigh from their hearts? All will acknowledge, "It is sin that dwells in me. Rid me of this, restore to me my original purity, make me perfectly holy, and you make me perfectly happy. It is not the loss of property, nor the sadness of bereavement, that shades and furrows my brow; it is that I feel rankling within my breast the virus of sin, prompting and inciting my wicked heart of unbelief to depart from my God."

We must not here overlook the utter failure of Moses to cure that wound. Stretching far around the camp lay these bitten, dying Israelites. Moses had no power to meet the case. What a gospel truth is illustrated here! There are many sensible of the poison of sin in their hearts, convicted of sin by the Spirit of God, who yet are looking to the law for justification, to their works instead of their believing; going to Moses instead of Jesus; attempting to transform the instrument of condemnation and death into an instrument of justification and life; merging the gospel into the law. But no healing, my reader, will you find here! Were you to give all your goods to feed the poor, and your body to be burned, the law of God could never give you healing; you must come away from Mount Sinai, before which Moses quaked and trembled, and you must travel to Mount Calvary, where the Incarnate God offers pardon and whispers peace to every humble penitent.

A second point of coincidence is found in THE INSTRUMENT OF HEALING. The first question is, With whom did this mode of healing originate? Was it with the wisdom and benevolence of Moses, or was it with the wisdom and benevolence of God? Was it human or divine? natural or revealed? There cannot be a moment's reasonable doubt. The whole expedient, so simple and unique, so improbable yet effective, carries with it the evidence of its own divine origin. It was of God! Such a method of healing, such a mode of rescue from death of the entire camp of Israel could never have been the conception of a human mind. It transcends the loftiest thought of Moses. We here combat an important error common to many pious people, that the atonement of Christ originated the love of God to man, rather than that the love of God originated the atonement of Christ. The atonement was the effect of a cause, and that

cause was the everlasting love of God to His Church. It is a perfect satire upon Christianity to represent the death of Jesus as the procuring cause of God's love to man, as if that could be love in God which was not essential and spontaneous. Had not God first loved us, and had not that love embodied itself in the gift of His beloved Son, there had been no expedient by which He could, with honor to Himself, have justified the sinner and remain infinitely holy and just. Listen to that familiar passage, familiar as a household word, yet, we fear, falling like an icicle on the heart of many, "God so loved the world "- Oh, that monosyllable "so" - eternity will be occupied with its depth- "God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life." Here you see the origin of the atonement- namely, the everlasting love of the Father. Human philosophy, in its happiest discoveries, could never have devised an expedient which should unite the two extremes of being- God, the Holy One, and man, the sinner- brought into a state of friendship and love. To God, then, we ascribe the scheme of redemption, the uplifting of the crucified Savior, as the only means by which the sinner, dying from the sting of the serpent, could be saved.

Another point of coincidence was, THE APPARENT INADEQUACY OF THE MEANS TO THE END. To the eye of a passing observer, the lifting up of that cold, lifeless serpent would seem like a mockery. What relation could there possibly be, sense would have reasoned, to the case of the Israelites? So does the salvation of God appear in the eye of this world. "To the Jews a stumbling-block, and to the Greeks foolishness." The redemption of man was achieved by the unparalleled humiliation of the Son of God; and that brazen serpent- not of gold or of silver- was the expressive and appropriate symbol of the humble and lowly appearance of Jesus, by whose work man should be raised from the dunghill of his fall, to a throne in glory. The Son of God humbled Himself, and became obedient unto death. Let the atonement of the Son of God be our study- it will heighten and ennoble our views of the glory from where He stooped to save. The Son of God humbled Himself to our nature, robed Himself with suffering humanity, endured our curse, bore our sin, and paid to justice the penalty of our transgressions. And, as to the eye of the bitten Israelite, that brazen serpent had no form or loveliness, and yet was the instrument of his life, so did it set forth this great truth, that the highest life and deepest glory of the Church springs from the humiliation of the Son of God; and from those depths of poverty and lowliness and sorrow to which He sank, our noblest life and richest hope springs.

Look, too, at THE SIMPLICITY OF THE REMEDY. It was but a pole, upon the summit of which stood the form of a serpent. There were many splendid and costly pieces of temple furniture, but God selected the most simple and least ornamental and costly instrument to effect the mighty

cure. All this was purposely significant of the simplicity of the gospel. Another illustration of the simplicity of God's plan of saving suggests itself in the case of Naaman the leper. When commanded by the prophet to go and dip himself three times in Jordan, he was angry, and exclaimed, in the pride of his heart and in the consciousness of an imaginary insult, "Are not Abana and Pharpar, rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel? May I not wash in them, and be clean?" He stumbled at the simplicity of God's cure. But he lived to know that God's mode of dealing with man is designed to humble human pride, that no flesh should glory in His presence; and that to obey Him is better than earthly sacrifice, and is the secret of all blessing. Such is the simplicity of salvation! It is but to believe and be saved. A simple look, an empty palm outstretched, a trembling hand touching the border, one drop of atoning blood applied by the Spirit, and the moral virus is arrested, the wound is healed, the sinner lives, the soul is saved! No great thing, O man, is required of you. No self-torture, no, long pilgrimage, no wasting hunger, no costly self-sacrifice. Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, wash in the blood of the slain Lamb, look to the uplifted cross, and a nobler life than you did forfeit in Eden will flow back to your soul, and bear you to an endless life of glory.

A third point of resemblance- THE REMEDY WAS PERFECT. Nothing was to be added to it. So complete, that anything of human device supplementing this God's means of life would but have neutralized its influence and rendered it of none effect. Solemn is the truth illustrated here! So perfect is the atonement of the Son of God, so complete the work of Christ, the law so fully honored, justice so completely satisfied, and the glory of God so fully vindicated, that that holy Lord God, who sees flaw and imperfection and spot in everything else, says to a poor, believing soul, stung by that old serpent the devil, yet robed in the righteousness of Jesus, "You are all fair, my love. I see no spot in you." Hold fast, beloved, to the perfection of God's remedy of saving sinners. Be jealous of everything that would dare seek to supplement it. What a lesson to God's ministers is this! When Moses lifted up the serpent on that pole, he lifted up nothing else with it. Away with baptisms, and sacraments, and apostolic succession, and strifes about orders and polity, forms and ceremonies- let them not be once named in the same breath that bids the dying sinner look to the Crucified and live! Talk to a poor sin-distressed soul about baptism, ritualism, and the sacrament, and churches, and religious duties, and you are a cruel mocker of his woe. Put all these things in the shadows, and tell him of Jesus only, of His love and grace to poor sinners, of His willingness and ability to save to the uttermost, of the blood that cleanses, and of the righteousness that clothes, and of the Spirit that anoints, and that all this is the gift of free grace without a single work of human merit, and you have brought him glad tidings of great joy. Angels' chimes not half so sweet as the melody with which you fill that soul. "We preach Christ crucified," is the echo of every true minister of Christ. Beware, then, of mixing up anything with your salvation. I care not how sacred it may be, if you place it side by side with the Savior, if you exalt the Church and its ordinances above Christ and His cross, or even to a level with Him, you rob your soul of joy, peace, hope, and fatally mislead the souls of others. Look to Jesus only. Look away from your baptism, and your church, and your own doings, to Jesus only! I would risk the eternal happiness of my own soul upon the assertion that that look of faith will take you to heaven. "Receiving the end of your faith, even the salvation of your soul."

Another point of resemblance is- the serpent was LIFTED ON A POLE. Some have interpreted it of the gospel. I adopt the interpretation. The gospel is a revelation of Jesus the Crucified. It uplifts Christ. It is full of Jesus, all about Jesus,

and nothing but Jesus. And whenever and by whomsoever the gospel is truly, simply, and lovingly preached, then Christ crucified is uplifted. The gospel is thus the divinely appointed instrument of making Jesus known, of uplifting Christ, of pointing the sinner to the Lamb of God. O glorious gospel of the blessed God! your form is divine, your voice is music, your breath redolent of heaven! You are fairer than all the systems of men, for words of free, pardoning grace flow from your lips!

But we reach a vital point. WHAT WAS THE ACTION? It was to LOOK. Nothing less, nothing more. It was simply to raise the languid eye, perchance dimming with death, and rest it on the object; and, distant and shadowy as was the glimpse, that glimpse instantly rolled back the cold chill of death, roused the sinking pulse, and brought back life to the dying patient. Oh, what a glorious truth is this! It is but in faith to look away from our wound to Jesus, and, looking, we are healed. We speak to you who are always poring over your wound. You argue that you are so vile; we believe it; but this we tell you, poring over the depth and blueness and aggravation of the wound will never bring you healing. You must look to Jesus. Bring your soul to His blood, and, so coming, what shall be the result? Oh, most blessed! "Whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but shall have everlasting life;" the result will be, you are saved. You have two situations before you- life and death, heaven and hell. Perish you must, if you do not look in faith alone to Christ for salvation. Perish you will, if you turn your back upon the Son of God, and apply to your wounds the remedies of human invention, and refuse the remedy a God of love has provided and revealed in the cross of His well-beloved Son. "Behold the Lamb of God." "Look unto me, all you ends of the earth, and be you saved." "Looking unto Jesus." Such is the unity of God's Word in its revelations of this great and precious truth- look and live, look and be saved. Approach the cross, raise those eyes which smite the ground, and rest them, swimming with tears, and dim with unbelief though they are, upon Jesus the Crucified, and everlasting life shall be yours.

And WHERE DID THIS GREAT EVENT TRANSPIRE? In, the WILDERNESS. What is this world to us who feel the pangs of sin, but who yet have believed in Jesus? It is a wilderness! But oh, we have found grace in the wilderness of our own hearts and in the wilderness of this world, in finding a

Savior full of grace. The Lord, my reader, may be leading you into the emptiness, poverty, and dreariness of yourself, of the creature, and of the world; that, amid its nothingness, you may find Jesus. To this end God often deals thus with

the children of men. When He has removed the creature you loved, blighted the health you prided in, scattered the wealth you boasted of, and has brought you very low, in that desolate wilderness state you have found Jesus.

Overlook not the privilege which these Israelites had of a RENEWED APPLICATION TO THE BRAZEN SERPENT. If they were again stung, they were privileged again to look, and again they were healed. It is the privilege of the child of God to be constantly looking to Christ. In every fresh assault of temptation, in every fresh surprisal of sin, if, in penitence and faith, he repairs to Jesus he shall know what David's experience was- "The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not lack; He restores my soul." Look again, O believer, if you are wounded by Satan or wounded by sin, wounded by the world or wounded by the saints, and you shall feel that the blood of Jesus has still power to give you peace, and the sympathy of Christ sufficient to give you comfort!

And HOW GRACIOUS WAS THE REMEDY! Did they ask for it? Did they merit it? Not a petition rose from their lips, not an act deserving such an interposition had they done! Such is our salvation!" By grace are you saved." "It is of faith, that it might be by grace." Embrace this precious truth, that your salvation is "without money and without price," that "whoever will may come and take of the water of life freely," and you shall be saved. The brazen serpent could convey but one benefit, but we have in the Lord Jesus all fulness of blessing. Not only have we the salvation of the soul, but comfort and solace, guidance and wisdom, does Jesus vouchsafe for all who live by faith upon Him, the Son of God. You have not a difficulty, nor a sorrow, nor a need which you may not take to Christ. Live upon Jesus, "in whom it has pleased the Father all fulness shall dwell."

Once more- the Israelite, thus healed, at last died; but THE BELIEVING SINNER, ONCE HEALED AND SAVED, NEVER DIES! Jesus says, "Whoever lives and believes in me shall never die." Saved, his soul shall wing its way to eternal glory the moment it has shaken off this mortal coil, the instant it has disengaged itself from the frail tabernacle of sin, suffering, and death, and shall mount with pinions swifter than eagles, to be at rest forever. This would I say for the comfort of some who may bend over this page- Do you feel your days are numbered? The inroad of disease, the approach of mortality, the shadows of eternity gathering around you? Lo! I bring you a message from God. Look to Jesus Christ, and when you depart hence, you shall sleep in Him, and you shall not die the death that is eternal. It may be late- the eleventh hour of life- yet not too late. Your view of Jesus may be dim, still, if you look in simple faith, that look will save your soul. Saints of God! live for the glory of Him who bought you with His precious blood! Looking unto Jesus, run the race set before you, and pause not until you exchange the telescope of faith for the beatific vision of Jesus in glory.

"Look unto Me, and be saved
From all your depths of sin,
From every crimson stain without,
And strongest power within.

"Look unto Me, and be saved
From all your earthly care;
Alike I grasp eternity,
And number every hair.

"Look unto Me, for I am God
To Me belongs all power,
At once to give eternal life,
And guide each passing hour.

"Look unto Me, and be saved
From every doubt and fear;
Your warfare is accomplished,
Your path to glory clear.

"Look unto Me- 'tis no great deed,
A humble look to cast;
This is enough- the power that saves
Is Mine, from first to last.

"Look unto Me while life endures,
I give each fleeting breath;
Look unto Me when death is near,
I hold the keys of death.

"Look unto Me, for I am God;
Whatever to Me is given,
Whatever committed to My care
Is safe for earth or heaven."

Bearing the Cross

"And He, bearing His cross, went forth to a place called Golgotha." John 19:17

There is no incident in our Lord's passion which, to a heart quickened with spiritual sensibility, is more replete with holy instruction, or more deeply, tenderly touching than this- Christ bearing to Calvary the cross upon which He was to suffer. It unveils such a profound abasement, and yet such a depth of love- it portrays a stoop of the Majesty of heaven to earth's lowest degradation- so marvelous, and yet, is the measurement of grace, so vast, the fact stands out, amid the many marvels of our Lord's death, one of the most touching and significant of all. To compel the criminal to bear the wood upon which he was to be impaled, was one of the severest elements of degradation in the Roman punishment of crucifixion. To this our Lord was subjected, "And He, bearing His cross, went forth." Little did they dream, as they bound the fatal wood upon His shoulder, by whose power that tree was made to grow, and from whom the beings who bore Him to the death drew their existence. So completely was Jesus bent upon saving sinners by the sacrifice of Himself, He created the tree upon which He was to die, and nurtured from infancy the men who were to nail Him to the accursed wood. Oh the depth of Jesus's love to sinners! Lord! the universe in its accumulation presents no love like Yours! Your love, eternal as Your being, saw from everlasting the cross of Calvary, and yet You did not falter in Your purpose, nor modify Your plan of saving lost sinners by the sacrifice of Yourself. You saved others, Yourself You would not save!

Our present subject, while it presents one of the most affecting portraits of our Lord, equally delineates what should be the portrait of His disciple bearing the cross after Jesus. We proceed to guide the reader's thoughts first, to the study of the Divine Original, and then, to the consideration of the human copy.

THE DIVINE ORIGINAL.

The burden borne by our Lord on this memorable occasion was the literal, actual cross upon which He was to agonize and die. What a touching proof have we here of His literal and actual humanity! The bearing of that cross upon His chafed shoulders, His weariness and fainting beneath its weight, proved Him to be (sin always excepted) very man of very man, bone of our bone, and flesh of our flesh. Replete with consolation is this fact to the burdened believer. Perhaps Jesus has laid upon you some cross- it may be the shame and the loss of His own; your heart is sad, your spirits sink, you stagger and swoon beneath the burden. But study this touching incident in your Lord's life, and receive the instruction and accept the soothing it affords. Your Lord knew what it was to droop beneath the cross, and do you think that He has no regard, no compassion, no sympathy with you at this moment, as, weary, exhausted, and faint, you bear the load God has laid upon you, carry the cross Christ has imposed, toiling on in obedience, suffering, and service?

We have already adverted to the humiliating aspect which this fact in our Lord's history presents. It is too significant to pass superficially over. Every view of our Lord's humiliation is a view of His love. The greatest indignity, as we have remarked, in the death of the Roman malefactor, was to compel him to carry the gibbet to the place of execution. To this degradation did Jesus voluntarily subject Himself. "He humbled Himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross." But why this degradation? That He might illustrate the depth of His love, and teach His followers that in all the humiliation they pass through in confessing His name and bearing His cross, He enfolds them in the robe of His sympathy, and sustains them by the arm of His grace. If such the humiliation to which our Lord cheerfully submitted, and such the springs of sympathy which gush from His compassionate nature, who would shrink from the shame and the loss of bearing the cross after Jesus? What assuring words has He spoken! "Whoever confesses me before men, him will I confess before my Father which is in heaven." But we pass to the more spiritual and gospel truth involved in the incident of Christ bearing His cross.

IT WAS THE SYMBOL OF A HEAVIER BURDEN THAT HE BORE- THE BURDEN OF HIS CHURCH'S SINS. But for sin there had been no cross. When our blessed Lord traveled to Calvary, weary and faint beneath the cross, there was a sorrow in His heart, a moral crucifixion of the soul, greater and severer far than this- the sorrow and the weight which the transfer of all His people's transgressions to Him, as their Substitute and Surety, involved. Listen to His touching language- "My soul is sorrowful, even unto death." What was the cause of that grief from which He would not escape? The bearing of sin! Nothing but sin supplies a solution of the mystery of His deep, unparalleled soul-sorrow. The sorrow had not been His by experience- had not the sin been His by imputation. Thus our Lord endured, not the punishment only, but the actual sins of His people. What injustice would there be in punishing the innocent for the guilty, had not the innocent party stood in the place of the guilty party. This our Lord did. Substitution is the great doctrine of the gospel- the substitution of the innocent for the guilty. "He was made sin for us who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him." Behold then, beloved, your sins laid by transfer upon Jesus. The teaching of the Bible is not, as some suppose, that we lay our sins upon Christ- that were a difficult, an impossible act, but the teaching is, that Jehovah laid our sins upon Him. "The Lord [JEHOVAH] has laid upon Him the iniquity of us all." The Father did this in His everlasting love, from all eternity. In the eternal purpose of the Triune God the sins of the elect were laid upon Jesus, and He undertook to bear and die for them. If God the Father had not laid our sins upon God the Son, no power of ours had ever prevailed to effect the task. In accomplishing our reconciliation, Christ acted for God on the one part, and for man on the other. And if God had not consented that His people's transgressions should all meet upon Christ, actually binding upon the sacrificial victim with His own hands the burden, there had been no reconciliation. Hence our salvation, with all the blessings that flow from it- Jehovah the Father laying upon Jehovah the Son His Church's sins.

And now your faith has to do with an accomplished fact, and not with an impossible task. It is to accept the truth that God Himself laid your sins upon the soul of Jesus, as Aaron the priest took all the transgressions of all the children of Israel and laid them upon the head of the goat, and then sent him away into the wilderness. "And Aaron shall lay both his hands upon the head of the live goat, and confess over him all the iniquities of the children of Israel, and all their transgressions and all their sins, putting them [the actual iniquities and transgressions] upon the head of the goat, and shall send him away by the hand of a fit man into the wilderness. And the goat shall bear upon him all their iniquities into a land not in habited." (Margin, a land of separation.) You have, perhaps, under an enlightened and spiritual sense of sin- distressed and despairing- for months endeavored to uplift the crushing weight and lay it upon Christ, and every effort has failed. Let me gently lead you to the foot of the Savior's cross. Behold in faith the sinless, spotless Lamb of God as having already borne that weight, as having suffered for those sins, as having died for those transgressions, and accept the precious truth that it was God's eternal love that laid them all on Jesus, and that nothing is left for you to do but to believe in Jesus, that He saves to the uttermost all that come unto God by Him.

Thus, as we have remarked, you have, in the momentous matter of your soul's salvation, to accept an attested fact, and not to propose a hopeless task. Your soul-distress for sin, your spiritual consciousness of guilt, is to impel you, just as you are, to the cross, there to look and believe and be saved. If you lose sight of the truth that God laid your sins upon Christ, you lose sight of the love of God towards you; and, losing sight of the love of God, you lose sight of the fountain from where flows all your springs of peace and joy and hope. The comfort which this view of Christ's bearing sin imparts, distances all measurement. If God has laid your sins upon the Son of His love, you may rest assured that He will never lay them a second time upon you; since, if Christ has borne them and atoned for them to Divine justice, they never again can be found. What, then, are you to take to Jesus? For what are you to repair to the foot of His cross? You are to take to Jesus the conviction of sin; the spiritual, enlightened confession of your guilt- that terrible and crushing burden that weighs you to the earth- you are to take to Him your sense of condemnation, your dread of death, your fearful apprehension of eternal wrath. Brought by the Holy Spirit to see and feel your condemnation under the law, you are to repair to the cross and behold Jesus "made a curse for us," and see your sins all laid upon Him, condemned in Him, pardoned through Him, and by Him cast into eternal oblivion.

While all Christendom admits the fact that Christ died upon the cross, how widely different the interpretation of that fact? We accept the only scriptural and rational one which supplies a solution of the mystery, "Christ died for the ungodly." "Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners." "Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many." "Who His own self bear our sins in His own body on the tree." Can any truth be presented more forcibly, or in a light more luminous, than the doctrine which these touching words convey- the sacrificial nature of our Lord's death? Hold fast this essential doctrine of your faith- it is for your life. There is no present spiritual life, and there can be no future eternal life, apart from a humble, believing reception of the atonement Of the Son of God. God will not save the sinner at the expense of His honor, or exercise mercy at the sacrifice of justice. The atonement of the Son of God so harmonizes His perfections, as to render it easy, honorable, and illustrious on the part of God to embrace in His love, extend His mercy, and exercise His grace towards the greatest sinner. Were He to save the sinner on the basis of mercy without an equivalent to His moral government, it would be an outrage on justice, and a dishonor to holiness, and a violation of truth. But the atoning work of the Son of God- the God-man, Christ Jesus- meets the whole case- it honors the Holiest and it saves the vilest. "Neither is there salvation in any other; for there is no other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved."

And how resplendent does the love of Jesus appear from beneath this dark cloud of His profound humiliation. The marvellous fact of His bearing His own cross can only be understood in the light of LOVE. It was, in fact, LOVE bearing the instrument of its own torture and death. The cross of Jesus is the symbol, the badge, the expression of Divine love. It is love's manner and escutcheon. Love died to save, confronting death in its most painful and degrading form. God the Father so loved that He gave His Son- God the Son so loved that He gave Himself- and God the Spirit so loves that He takes of the things of Jesus and shows them

to us. Love, and love only, supplies the solution of all that Jehovah has done from everlasting in the covenant of redemption. Behold, then, your Savior bearing His cross, trembling and fainting the place of suffering, and doubt not His love to you. Has He laid upon you a burden beneath whose pressure your tender spirit faints? His love bore a far heavier one for you; and will sustain you while you learn the lesson and reap the blessing of this discipline. Would you know the heart of Jesus? Track His footsteps as, bearing His own cross for you, weary and mournful, He traveled to the sepulchral gloom of Golgotha.

Many are THE BLESSINGS which flow from this touching incident of our Lord's passion. We mention a few. Confirming, as it does, the fact of our Lord's nature as a man, it equally illustrates His human sympathy. Sinking from weariness, faint from exhaustion, and ready to succumb beneath the burden that you bear, let the thought of Christ's sympathy soothe and sustain you. No other being can sympathize with your present position- the mental depression, the bodily infirmity, the spiritual despondency- as Christ. His bearing the burden of His cross schooled Him for this identical path you now tread. It may be tortuous in its windings, cross-like in its shape, traced by tears, shaded by gloom, nevertheless the discipline of your Lord, when He went forth bearing His cross, has prepared Him for this your present path. Take your cross to the foot of His, and the spectacle of His suffering love will make your affliction light and momentary; and you shall declare with the Psalmist, "I had fainted unless I had believed to see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living."

Few lessons gleaned from this incident in our Lord's life are more practical and precious to the believer than the assimilation into which it brings him with Christ. How frequently, in His conversations with His disciples, did the phrase occur- "taking the cross." For example- "He that takes not his cross, and follows not after Me, is not worthy of Me." "If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me." An illustration of this high, spiritual privilege of the disciple of Christ is touchingly presented in the instance of Simon the Cyrenean, of whom it is recorded, "him they compelled to bear His cross."

What is it to bear Christ's cross? It involves three ideas. The first is, the public confession of Christ crucified before the world. It is due to our Lord, if we are really His disciples, that the world should know it. There are many who are not Christ's true disciples, who yet presumptuously assume and wear His badge. And there are not a few who are His true disciples, but who are only secretly so. "Joseph of Arimathea, being a disciple of Jesus, but secretly." But the religion of Jesus imposes an open, public, and avowed profession of His name and truth before men. Christ was not crucified in secret, but openly in the sight of heaven and earth; and His true disciples, not ashamed of Him and His cross, of His truth and of His people, but coming out of the world, separating themselves from its worldliness and its religion, are openly, manfully, and meekly to take up His cross and follow Him; not ashamed to own themselves the disciples of that Savior whose life was poverty, whose kingdom was not of this world, whose first apostles were fishermen, and whose death was that of a Roman slave upon the cross. Oh, then, if you love Jesus, confess Him where His person is despised, His gospel hated, His name reviled; and count it your highest distinction on earth, like Simon, . to "bear the cross after Jesus."

Another idea involved is, a willing and cheerful endurance of whatever sufferings, afflictions, and trials our Lord may see fit, in His infinite wisdom and love, to lay upon us in the profession of His name and the service of His kingdom and truth. The religion of Jesus involves the bearing of a cross. We should keep in mind the sentiment of Augustine, "My Love was crucified." All service, therefore, for Him whom our souls love imposes a cross, demands a self-denying spirit, the abnegation of our own will, and the doing and the suffering of our Lord's. And oh, how pleasant a thing it is to make any sacrifice- if we dare dignify our poor service by such a term- for Him who sacrificed Himself for us! Love to Jesus- love enkindled at the altar of His own- will impart lowliness to the loftiest service, and dignity to the most common things done in His name.

The third idea is that of crucifixion of sin. "Those who are Christ's have crucified the flesh." "I am crucified with Christ." The sacrificial death of our Lord upon the cross not only obtained for us reconciliation with God, but it supplied a personal and effectual motive for the mortification of sin and the subjugation of the powers and passions of the soul to the supremacy of Jesus. And he who, by the power of the cross, thus crucifies sin, may appropriate to himself spiritually the language which Paul employed literally- "Always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus." "I have in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus." As Owen observes, "Nothing but the death of Christ for us, will be the death of sin in us." In bearing thus the cross of Jesus, the believer dies unto sin and lives unto holiness. It is a dying daily, or daily crucifixion. And never can the child of God look simply to the cross, beholding His sins all nailed there, without associating the crucifixion of Jesus for his sins with the crucifixion of his sins. In the solemn light of that cross he reads, "Who gave Himself for us, that He might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto Himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works." "Who gave Himself for our sins, that He might deliver us from this present evil world, according to the will of God our Father."

Thus may we be found, like our Lord and Master, bearing the cross, though the path lead us to the solitude, the suffering, and the sorrow of Golgotha. It will not be that we bear this precious load alone, nor bear it long. Christ carries with us its heaviest end, and in a little while we shall lay it down for the "rest that remains for the people of God."

The Solitude of the Cross

He said unto them, "I have food to eat that you know nothing about." John 4:32

The cross of Christ, like the light of God, stands in its own awesome and sublime solitude. Viewed in this aspect, it appears in perfect sympathy with a peculiar stage of Christian experience. His was a lonesome way. No foot had left an imprint upon its path; no echoes answering to His grief had ever broken its deep solitude; the cup He drained no other lips had ever pressed. From Bethlehem to Calvary, from Calvary to Olivet, from Olivet to heaven, He traveled in loneliness. He was thronged, and yet alone. He had many friends, yet lacked one. This but added keenness to His sense of desolateness. There is no solitude so painful or profound as that which is experienced in a crowd. To feel, amid the hum of a thousand voices, not one chimes lovingly on our ear- to feel, amid the beatings of a thousand hearts, not one throbs in sympathy with our own- to feel, amid the bright and happy homes of earth, the head has no where to lie- this, this is desolateness indeed! Such was the path trodden by our Lord! It is true there were hearts that loved Him, sympathy that soothed Him, kindness that relieved Him, and yet withal He could say, with an emphasis of meaning deep and mournful, "I have food to eat which you know not of." I have a mission to perform, a work to finish, suffering to endure, a path to tread, unapproached and unapproachable by angel or man. Viewed in this light, the cross of Jesus is in full sympathy with a peculiarity of the believer's experience- Christian solitude. The life of God in the soul is a concealed life. Its seat, its principle, its actings, all are profoundly veiled. This being so, the path of the believer must necessarily partake much of this page of our Lord's life. Next to his Lord, he is the only being who can say of his service and suffering, "I have food to eat which you know not of." Let us study these remarkable words of our Lord, first in reference to Himself, and then as they bear upon Christian experience.

THE SOLITUDE OF JESUS.

We could scarcely have expected any other path more appropriate to Christ than the one which this passage indicates. Any other would have been incongruous with the character, the mission, and the life of Jesus. He was a Divine Sun revolving in an orbit peculiarly His own, an orbit so vast that Deity alone could fill it. The path He took was too elevated for any to walk beside Him- His object, His sorrow, His joy too unique for a stranger to intermeddle with. The human nature of Christ was keenly sensitive. Naturally of a pensive mind, He loved retirement, courted solitude, sought the quietude of the desert, that there He might converse alone with God. With the nature of the work which He came to accomplish neither men nor angels could sympathize or aid. Deity, united with a sinless humanity; absolute God, yet in union with perfect man, He alone could accomplish it. No creature could share the curse, divide the burden, or tread a step with Him the wine-press of woe. Ah, no! with the accomplishment and the honor of our salvation man had nothing to do. It is the work of the God-man alone, and stands, in its own transcendent glory, the unaided achievement of the Incarnate God. While yet none ever lived so solitary a life as did our Lord, it yet was not a selfish, unloving life. Never did one live so entirely for others as He did. "He went about doing good." He loved the solitary glen, but He loved man more; and to heal and soothe and bless man He would often exchange the calm, sequestered shade of the mountain, for the noise and the strife of the crowded city. And yet, amid the turmoil and engagements of public life, His spirit was often as lonely and desolate as though He trod the profound solitudes of the desert. He had food to eat of which none knew but Himself.

Then there was loneliness around the character of Christ. It was never fully known even by His beloved disciples, so constantly in His presence, sharing His love and admitted to His confidence. His words were misunderstood, His actions misinterpreted, a false complexion often put upon the most simple and transparent doings. And why this? Because He moved in an orbit unknown to all but God!

Equally lonely were the sorrows and sufferings of our Lord. The cross, in this respect, stood alone. There was no sharing of the cup which He drank, no dividing the sufferings which He endured, no partnership in the work which He finished. The scripture was fulfilled to the letter which said of Him, "I have trodden the wine-press alone, and of the people there was none with me." Not only did He endure in lonely, uncomplaining silence, the petty trials and annoyances of daily life, (for to whom could He repair with the woundings of His sensitive, loving spirit?) but the deeper anguish His soul endured in working out the redemption of His Church. Truly might He say to His disciples, "I have food to eat which you know not of." This explains to us the one purpose of our Lord's life. His food and His drink was to do the will of His Father, and to finish the work given Him to do. For this He lived and labored, for this He suffered, bled, and died. It was His food- the sustenance of His life. He only lived as He lived to accomplish this sublime end- the glory of God in the salvation of man. What a solemn lesson does this teach us! Does our life have an adequate object? Are we doing or enduring the will of God? Is the object for which we live, in which we employ our talents, expend our time, use our influence, devote our worldly substance, worthy of life's present obligations and future award? Oh, beware of a blank life! What, reader, is your food and your drink? Is anything done for Jesus? anything for the glory of God? anything for the well being of your fellows? Remember that for all your abilities, God holds you accountable, and that before long death will cite you to his bar! Child of God! be up and doing. Say to the world, its enchantments, pleasures, and repose, "I have food to eat of which you know nothing. My food is to live for God." Christ's cross of suffering pledges us to a life of labor for Him. Service for Jesus is to be our daily food. There must be no pause, no succumbing to difficulty, no fainting beneath opposition. Life is a real, a solemn thing, too closely linked to a momentous future to be trifled with. Again, we ask, what is your object in life? Are you living for your Lord and for your fellow men? Do you carry within you a Christ-loving, man-loving heart, seeking the glory of God in the good of all with whom you come in contact, aiming to set a precious gem in the diadem of your Lord? Is it Christ for us to live, and do we feel as if life only were precious as we offer to Him all we hold most dear and valuable? Is it an object of our life to advance Divine truth, to enlarge Christ's kingdom, to bring our fellow sinners to partake of His Divine redemption? Let us who hope through grace we are purchased with His blood, are saved by His resurrection, find our rest in toil, our joy in suffering, our food in service for Christ.

"The captive's oar may pause upon the galley,
The soldier sleep beneath his plumed crest,
And peace may fold her wings over hill and valley,
But you, O Christian, must not take your rest."

Oh, no! who would wish for rest here in Christ's service, with an eternity of repose before him? His love constraining us, labor for Him is delectable, service for Him perfect freedom, His yoke easy, His burden light. Let the inquiry be, "Lord, what would you have me to do?" Thus honestly looking up to Him, the sphere of labor in which He would have you engage will be made plain, "And to every man his work." Seek by prayer to know what the Master has assigned to you, and keep busy until He comes. And as you toil, perchance in pensive loneliness, uncomplaining suffering unnoticed, and unknown, cast your eye earthward and exclaim, "This is the place of labor;" -then raise your eye heavenward and exclaim, "Yonder is the place of rest!"

THE SOLITUDE OF HIS PEOPLE.

In instituting a resemblance between the solitariness of our Lord's life and that of His people, we plead not for a religion of asceticism. The religion of Christ partakes nothing of this element. It is contemplative, but not monastic; sympathetic, but not sentimental; veiled, but not invisible; studious, but not inactive. And yet the solitariness of Christ's cross, the hidden manna which sustained His brief but laborious life, finds a counterpart, in some faint degree, in the life of His disciples. The true Church of God is not a visible but an invisible body. What is termed the "outward and visible church," describes not the people of whom the apostle says, "The world knows us not." Take for example the nature of the Divine life in the believer- the life of God in the soul of man! The expression is emphatic- "Your life is hidden." Not only is it invisible to the world- except in its outward actions, and these are often misunderstood and misinterpreted- but very much so to the saints also. It is often but dimly perceived, and we are slow to recognize it. It is of all things the most deeply veiled- its existence and aspirations, its depressions, defeats, and victories, are known only to Him in whom that life emphatically lives and moves and has its being. And, then, touching its advance- it is in the solitude of the Cross that it derives its strongest impulse, and exhibits its mightiest development. It is a divine plant which only grows beneath this sacred shadow. If we would advance in grace we must recede frequently from the sun's heat of this world, and dwell amid the solemn shadows of Gethsemane and the deeper solitude of Calvary. Viewless as the wind, silent as the dew, is that influence which the most vitalizes and promotes our real sanctification. Oh, how blessed to sit there, with myriads like ourselves, silently growing in heavenliness near that marvellous Center- frail and feeble tendrils entwining around the stem of that glorious Tree of Life. Let us often heed the invitation of our Lord, "Come with me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest." -gently led by His outstretched hand to the solitude of His Cross.

Some of the most potent, vitalizing agencies of nature are the most gentle and unseen. The moral analogy is perfect, the greatest growth of the believing soul is from a spiritual influence the most deeply hidden. Retirement for heart-communion, for the scrutiny of actions and words incapable of a faithful investigation amid the excitement which called them into being, for the calm study of God's word, and for confidential transactions with God Himself, seems essential to our heavenly-growth.

"Far from the world, O Lord, I flee,
From strife and tumult far;
From scenes where Satan wages still
His most successful war.

"The calm retreat, the silent shade,
With prayer and praise agree,
And scenes of Your sweet bounty made
For those who follow Thee.

"There, if Your Spirit touch the soul,
And grace her calm abode,
Oh, with what peace, and joy, and love,
She communes with her God!"

Most soothing is this view of Christ's life to those who, by the providence of God, are much isolated from others. Is it God's will concerning you, that in the midst of friends you should feel friendless; that amid the activities of life your spiritual life should be solitary; and that, like David, you should often feel as a sparrow alone upon the house-top? This is just the discipline your Heavenly Father sees the most needful. You are now treading the path your Master trod; you have closer communion with the isolation of your blessed Lord. And are you really alone in this solitude? Impossible! Isolated you may be from man, you are all the nearer to Christ. The less we have of the creature, the more we have of God. We do not undervalue, in speaking thus, the sweetness and the solace- for which our intellectual and social being often craves- of human companionship and sympathy. Jesus Himself asked it, and the disciple must not be above his Lord. It were pure pretense to regard ourselves as totally independent of its influence. This were to ignore one of the sweetest, holiest privileges of our Christianity, "the communion of saints." But, if our Father ordains for our feet a path of much solitude, we may depend upon a deeper teaching of the Spirit, and a more personal experience of the blessings which flow from a closer contact with the Cross.

Truly have all such believers food to eat which others know but little of. And while many are feeding upon mere excitement, these are eating of the hidden manna. Christ is with you then. He who brought you into the experience of this solitude, is present to sanctify and sweeten it. Losing Him amid the crowd and excitement of the city, you have found Him in the calm solitude of the desert. His voice, drowned in the loud roar of the world's merriment, is heard in the sacred stillness of prayer. You have gone, perhaps, unblest with a vision of your Beloved from the exciting

worship of the public sanctuary- its dazzling eloquence, and its entrancing music- to the hallowed solitude of the closet; and amid its awful stillness Jesus has drawn near, and in the calm repose of your spirit you have heard the still, small voice of His love. You toiled for Him in the activities of His vineyard, but you communed with Him amid the solitude of His cross.

We have been pleading, most imperfectly, in these pages for more of that spiritual retirement- for frequent and close communion with God- which distinguished primitive Christianity, and was a marked character of the early Christians. We believe that the religious character of the age demands it, and that a religion permeated with such an element will be found one of the most effectual correctives to the evils of that 'religion of activity', which is so prevalently the religion of the day. We see no reason why the two should be divorced. Our Lord was a singular example of the union of both. He felt infinitely more deeply the need of activity than any of His disciples possibly could. He had come to bless mankind, and the world lying in wickedness rose before His view in all its vast solemnity, and He gave Himself to the work of its redemption. And yet we read of Him, that, "in the morning, rising up a great while before day, He went and departed into a solitary place, and there prayed." Thus "while He went about doing good," His food and His drink doing the will of His Father, He yet found time, by early rising, to retreat to a solitary place to hold communion with His God. We too much forget that the vast machinery of Christian effort which the Church of God has erected, can only be put and kept in operation by the motive power of prayer. Nor do we hesitate the opinion, that were there more of a reflective, prayerful Christianity, there would be less of a speculative, theatrical Christianity than exists in the present day. There might, indeed, be fewer separate organizations- often aiming at the same object- but there would in their place be more united and concentrated

effort, with more efficient, laborious, and real, palpable fruit. The Church of God needs to depend less upon human agency and more upon the presence and power of the Holy Spirit. This power is called into action by the irresistible might of prayer. It is a great mistake to suppose that they are the most efficient who are always out in the world and in a constant state of bustle and excitement. Christians are apt to gauge their usefulness, and calculate the success of their plans by the numbers engaged in carrying them forward, and the degree of excitement attending their operations. How often do they measure God's blessing by the amount of money contributed towards their prosecution! But this is a delusion! The humblest Christian in his closet may be more powerful than the greatest organization. "See yon mighty vessel ploughing the ocean, dashing the spray in clouds around its resistless prow; hear the thundering roar of its machinery, the rush of that leviathan- he who governs it at will and directs its course through the stormy, trackless deep, and controls its hidden forces, is, in that retired spot upon deck, the quietest being in the ship; it is he who has his eye fixed upon the compass, and his hand upon the helm." (Gigar).

Such is the power of the man of closet prayer! The gospel of Christ, like a gallant ship ploughing its way through foaming billows and beneath tempest-swept skies, receives its mightiest impulse from the power of believing prayer. That paralyzed saint- that sick one couched for months upon a bed of suffering- that retiring believer walking in secret with God, may be more instrumental in furthering the Lord's kingdom in the world by the mighty wrestling of prayer- grasping thus with a steady but powerful hand the helm of the Divine ark, and guiding her over the shoals and through the storm- than the most powerful visible agency employed. We have already observed that the most potent and fruitful agencies of nature are the most unseen and quiet. The analogy holds good in the more illustrious kingdom of grace. The influences and agencies which are the most powerful, efficient, and productive in diffusing the gospel, stemming vice, removing ignorance, and bringing sinners to Christ, are those which deal much in secret with God, and are perhaps less attractive in man's eye, but are more honorable in His.

In conclusion. Let us imitate our Lord. His food was to do the will of His Father. Let us labor for the food that endures unto eternal life. We may eat our meal alone, mingled with tears, in paths sequestered from human notice, aid, and sympathy- food which the saint and the worldling may know nothing of- nevertheless, our God is with us; and encircled by the hallowed solitude of Christ's cross, we are pavilioned with Christ Himself.

"And do you seem forsaken,
Poor weary one of woe?
Are all your loved ones taken
Your fairest hopes below?

"Are you a lone one waging
The bitter war of life?
While sore temptations raging,
More dreadful make the strife.

"Oh! hapless, helpless lone one,
Just turn your eyes above,
Then on His Love depending,
To One who won't abandon-
To One of boundless love.

"To Him who watches over you,
While passing through the fire;
Who bore it all before you,
And sees your heart's desire.

"To Him, the Lord of glory,
Who knows your feeble frame;
However sad your story,
Oh! trust you in His Name.

"The Eternal God won't fail you,
However dark the storm;
Though fearful foes assail you,
Your strength shall be His Arm.

"Tell Him your soul's deep sorrow,
Tell Him your griefs alone;
Whatever ills may harrow,
Spread all before His throne.

"He'll give you strength, you weak one,
And take you to His breast;
Will be your all, you lone one,
He gives the weary rest.

"And soon, life's struggles ending,
Will take you to His home;
Then on His love depending
Fear not, whatever may come."

The Believer Crucified

"May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world." Galatians 6:14

A brief allusion to this subject was made in the preceding chapter. We propose to present it more fully as the topic of the present one. It must ever be an attractive and sanctifying theme to the true believer, seeing that God has implanted in his heart the love of holiness; and that holiness involves a spiritual crucifixion, and that that crucifixion is alone effected by the moral power of Christ's cross. This will explain, in some measure, the ground of the apostle's exultation and boast- "I glory in the cross!" It would seem
to some a strange object to boast of, to glory in. It was a gibbet, it was ignominious in the eyes of men, it crucified his Lord and Master; and yet it was his boast, his glory, and his triumph. All other glory faded before it. The glory of His birth, the glory of His ancestry, the glory of His intellectual attainments, the glory of His ritualism, the glory of His own righteousness, all, all paled before the luster of Christ's cross. He assumes, as it were, the solemnity of an oath. "May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ." The cross of Christ was in his view the grand consummation of all preceding dispensations of God to men- it was the meritorious procuring cause of all spiritual blessings to our fallen race- it was the scene of Christ's splendid victories over all His enemies and ours- it was the most powerful incentive to all evangelical holiness- it was the instrument which was to subjugate the world to the supremacy of Jesus- it was the source of all true peace, joy, and hope- it was the tree beneath whose shadow all sin expired, all grace lived- it was the spot at whose foot bloomed the loveliest flowers, sparkled the purest springs, and grew the sweetest fruit that made glad the city of God.

We marvel not, then, that, whether he stood amid the classic scenes of Greece, or the imperial grandeur of Rome, encircled by its sages, its poets, and its statesmen, Paul should exclaim, "I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ; for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believes." "The Jews require a sign and the Greeks seek after wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified." "God forbid that I should glory except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ." But it is to one aspect of this subject we wish, in the present chapter, to restrict the attention of the reader- the believer's moral crucifixion by the cross, "By whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world."

Our blessed Lord illustrated this great spiritual principle in His personal history. He could accomplish man's redemption in no other way than by crucifixion. He must die, and die the death of the cross. Apart from His death, His gospel, divine as was its nature and holy as were its doctrines; His religion, heavenly as was its origin and sublime its principles; His miracles, supernatural as were their nature and convincing their testimony, could not renew, purify, and save the soul. The central cross of Calvary stands alone in its moral power-the death of sin, the life of holiness. Nothing does man know, and nothing can he know, of the dethronement in his soul of enmity to God and the reign of love, of the crucifixion of sin and the life of holiness, until faith has bound his heart to Christ's cross. Then, and then alone, the glorious and triumphant language of Paul will awaken its echoes in every cloister of his heart, "God forbid that I should boast except in the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ, by whom I am crucified unto the world, and the world unto me." We are about to illustrate this truth by the experimental Christianity of the true believer, showing that there is no true mortification of sin, no real death of its principle in the heart by the power of moral persuasion, or the lodgment of the truth in the intellect, or even by the conviction and enlightenment of the conscience; but, by the moral influence the cross of Christ introduced into the heart by the Spirit of holiness. The subject presents itself in two leading points of light– the instrument of the believer's moral crucifixion; and the twofold crucifixion of which the cross is the instrument- the believer to the world, and the world to the believer.

THE INSTRUMENT OF A BELIEVER'S CRUCIFIXION is the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. What a volume of meaning is there in these few words, "The cross of the Lord Jesus Christ!" What light and glory beam around it! Of what prodigies of grace is it the instrument, of what glorious truths is it the symbol, of what mighty, magic power is it the source! Around it gathers all the light of the Old Testament economy. It explains every symbol, it substantiates every
shadow, it solves every mystery, it fulfils every type, it confirms every prophecy of that dispensation which had eternally remained unmeaning and inexplicable but for the death of the Son of God upon the cross.

Not the past only, but all future splendor, gathers around the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. It assures us of the ultimate reign of the Savior, tells of the reward which shall spring from His sufferings; and while its one arm points to the divine counsels of eternity past, with the other it points to the future triumph and glory of Christ's kingdom in the eternity to come. Such is the lowly yet sublime, the weak yet mighty instrument by which the sinner is saved and God eternally glorified.

But let us turn from the cross to THE CRUCIFIED. And who is He? It is the sinless, spotless Lamb of God. We emphasize this because the perfection and efficacy of our Lord's atonement depends upon the perfect sinlessness of His nature. If He had not been sinless we must have taken His place of suffering, as He, the righteous One, was capable of taking ours. We must have endured the wrath, the condemnation, the woe, which were concentrated on Him. And yet sin was there, suffering was there, hell was there. Solemn thought! All this lay upon the holy soul of the Sin-bearer- for as such our Lord was crucified upon the accursed tree. "Who His own self bear our sins in His own body on the tree."

The cross of our Lord Jesus Christ! What a holy thrill these words produce in the heart of those who love the Savior! How significant their meaning, how precious their influence! The subject they illustrate is vastly comprehensive. We have in a preceding chapter dwelt upon the cross as the instrument of our Lord's deepest ignominy. He died the death of a bond slave. It was enjoined in the Levitical economy that when a servant bound himself to his master his ear should be bored to the door as a token and seal of his servitude. When our Lord was transfixed to the cross, He was fastened there as a bondslave. To this the Messianic Psalm refers "My ears have you opened;" margin, 'dug'. Our blessed Lord bound Himself as the servant of the Father to save His Church, and this service involved the nailing of Him to the tree. But there are other points of light in which we would desire to place before the pious reader the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.

We may regard it as unveiling the character of God. Nowhere is the Divine character so presented as in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. There the cloud-veil is withdrawn, there the Divine portrait is uncovered, and we learn what God is as we could learn from no other source. All other manifestations of the Deity astound, appall, and overwhelm us. Apart from the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, there is no portrait of the Divine character which presents God in His full-orbed majesty, nothing which quells our fears, wins our confidence, inspires our love. Do we contemplate His power? -we tremble. Do we contemplate His truth? -we are awed. Do we contemplate His holiness? -we are overwhelmed. Do we contemplate His justice?-we despair. Poor religionist of nature! gathering all your knowledge of God from mountains and rocks, from oceans and suns and stars, will this meet your case as a fallen being, as a sinner, as a rebel against Jehovah? Will this answer the momentous inquiry, "What must I do to be saved?" Will this tell you of sin pardoned, your person accepted, your soul redeemed? Will an acquaintance with God, derived from such an impartial source, from such an imperfect volume as the book of nature, enable you to confront death with composure, and eternity with hope? Never, never! But, behold God's character completely, gloriously unveiled in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. There all His perfections are displayed in their most perfect and beauteous harmony. Justice, holiness, truth, mercy, wisdom, grace, and love all are there united- and united to save! No jarring, no collision, no compromise. "Mercy and truth are met together; righteousness and peace have kissed each other. Approach the cross, then, and study in its holy light the just, yet sin-pardoning character of God. Behold, how He stands before you divested of not a single perfection, but all blended and embodied in one" God is love!"

Again, we may study the cross of Jesus as a grand manifestation of the Three people in the Godhead. There is no such unfolding of that deeply mysterious, yet truly scriptural doctrine of the Trinity as here. We have before referred to this. Here is the Son of God suffering, here is the Father slaying the Son, and here is the Holy Spirit making His atoning; death effectual in its application to the soul. Where do we find such a visible display of the unity of the three people in the one Godhead as is presented in the cross of Calvary? Think not lightly, my dear reader, of this glorious doctrine, the doctrine of the Trinity. Our salvation involves its full acceptance, its firm belief. It may be to our reason an unfathomable mystery. Were it not so, we might hesitate to accept it as Divine. But come and learn to bow your reason to revelation, your faith to the cross, and receive, as a little child, the doctrine, which teaches you that God is light and that God is love, and that both are engaged to bring the soul to heaven. He, then, who receives the cross into his believing heart, as the Holy Spirit reveals it, has found the clue to all the mysteries of redemption. Above all, he has solved that most stupendous of all stupendous mysteries- the love of this Triune God, in saving lost, rebellious man. "God is love " -and this truth appears, transparent as the sun bursting through an electric cloud, as it shines out in resplendent glory from beneath the cross of Jesus.

But what a hiding place is the cross of Christ! This presents it in another and most precious light. Ah, you can tell who have fled to its shelter in the storm. It was sin's deep conviction in the soul that brought you there. It was guilt upon the conscience that drove you there. It was the swift footstep of the avenger of blood that hastened you there. It was the fear of death, the dread of judgment, the terror of hell, that impelled you there. All other refuge failed you, until at last you found the one place of safety, the appointed city of refuge, the only shelter beneath which the curse could not touch you, the avenger of blood could not arrest you- it was the cross of the Son of God. Oh, what a refuge have you found it to be! When affliction has overtaken you, and sorrow has overwhelmed you, and temptation has assailed you, testify what a delightsome shelter you have found the cross of Christ to be. It has been to you like an oasis in the wilderness, the shadow of a great rock in a weary land- just the spot where, worn and faint, your spirit has found perfect safety and repose.

We reach now THE TWOFOLD CRUCIFIXION OF WHICH THE CROSS OF JESUS IS THE INSTRUMENT. Marvellous and irresistible is the power of the cross. It has subdued many a rebellious will, has broken many a marble heart, has laid low many a vaunting foe. It has overcome and triumphed when all other instruments have failed. It has transformed the lion-heart of man into the lamb-like heart of Christ. And when lifted up in its own naked simplicity and inimitable grandeur, it has won and attracted millions to its faith, admiration, and love. And by the preaching of the cross alone shall this vast empire at length be subdued to the supremacy and reign of Jesus. Reader, has it subdued and won your heart to Jesus?

But I am to illustrate the power of the cross by a reference to its effects in the soul of the regenerate. The apostle presents THE WORLD to us as the great antagonist of the believer; and a powerful foe it is. I do not say it is the only one, or that it is the greatest one, but it is a powerful, subtle, and never slumbering one. Our Lord felt it so. The world was His antagonist. What did He say? "Be of good cheer, I have overcome the world." If the world had not been His foe He had not overcome it. The world was in league against the Son of God. It confronted Him wherever He went. Every step He took brought Him in collision with the powers of this world. But He overcame it.

The world is our enemy, beloved. We are passing through it to glory. Our Christianity does not bid us go out of it. It is a false view of the religion of Jesus that teaches us to leave the world entirely and become a hermit, to relinquish our lawful calling and isolate ourselves from the position of influence and duty and service which God in His providence has assigned us. God could, at the first moment of conversion, take the believer to heaven. But why does He leave him in the world? For many and obvious reasons. Among these, that the world might be the theater of his conflicts, and the school of his graces, and the sphere of his testimony for God. The believer needs the world as a school, as the world needs the believer as a light. How much may a child of God learn in it, and how much is the world blessed by his holy influence! But what is the moral position of the world to the believer? Is it friendly? Far from it! it is antagonistic. It is impossible that the world should love our religion, or help us heavenward, since it crucified our Lord. We live separated from it, are witnessing against it, testifying of it, that its works are evil. Do all who profess the religion and name of Jesus so regard it? Alas! ensnared by its specious appearance, and won by its religious pretensions, they are wont to view it as a friend- its fair speech, its kind offices, its soft, insinuating address, its offered hand to advance the kingdom of Christ by its patronage and liberality, blinding and seducing them into a friendship and confederacy. But the word of God is most clear and decided on this point. It teaches us that the world is the enemy of God, and is therefore opposed to the Christian. But there is nothing in it in sympathy with the religion of the soul, nothing favorable to its state of holiness. How clear and comprehensive its statements on this subject: "Know you not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? Whoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God." "Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eye, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world."

But the apostle speaks of a CRUCIFIXION TO THE WORLD by the cross of Christ. His argument is, that the cross, lodged in the heart by the Holy Spirit, and faith constantly looking at, and dealing with it, the world becomes to him as a dead thing- a thing that is crucified. "The cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which I am crucified unto the world and the world unto me." Has the cross lost anything of its power? Eighteen hundred years have passed since it uplifted the Son of God, and yet it is as attractive and potent at this hour as when wet with the blood of the Crucified. When our faith deals closely with the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, can we love the world? can we form a covenant with it? can we drink its pleasures? can we sun ourselves in its smiles? When we solemnly view our Savior suspended there amid the ribaldry, the taunts, the insults, the blasphemies of that very world which woos us to its embrace, can we make it our friend? Can a fond parent caress the sword of the assassin which in cold blood slew his beloved child? All this is impossible. Here is the test of our real position- our crucifixion to the world, and the world's crucifixion to us. Beloved reader, with the spiritual power of the cross in your heart, the world will become to you as a dead thing. The sentence of death will be written upon its principles, its policy, its pleasures, its religion. You will pass through it as through a cemetery- the place of death. Is this world crucified to you? Is it, again we ask, as a dead thing? Has it lost its charm, its power, its in
fluence over you? Has the cross of Jesus broken the spell and set you free? Only then is the believer crucified to the world.

What a marvellous power does this cross of Jesus possess! It changes the Christian's entire judgment of the world. Looking at it through the cross, his opinion is totally revolutionized. He sees it as it really is- a sinful, empty, vain thing. He learns its iniquity, in that it crucified the Lord of life and glory. His expectations from the world, his love to the world, are changed. He has found another object of love, the Savior whom the world cast out and slew, and his love to the world is destroyed by that power which alone could destroy it- the crucifying power of the cross. We are dealing with a great truth, my reader. Let us inquire for what purpose did Jesus Christ thus give Himself to die? Was it not that we might be spiritually crucified with Him? How beautifully the apostle brings out this truth, "Who gave Himself for us, that He might deliver us from this present evil world, according to the will of God and our Savior." And what was the apostle's experience? "I am crucified with Christ." Oh, how holy and sublime his decision; "Christ shall be magnified in my body, whether it be by life or by death. For me to live is Christ." And what was John's exhortation? "Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him." "This is the victory which overcomes the world, even our faith." And what is the weapon by which faith combats with and overcomes the world? What but the cross of Jesus?
It is the cross which eclipses, in the view of the true believer, the glory and attraction of every other object. Just as the natural eye, gazing for a while upon the sun, is blinded for the moment, by its overpowering effulgence, to all other objects; so to the believer, wont to concentrate his mind upon the glory of the crucified Savior, studying closely the wonders of grace and love and truth meeting in the cross, the world with all its attraction fades into the full darkness of an eclipse.

Does not your experience, believer, testify to this? When has your heart been most weaned from its idols, withdrawn from
the world, crucified to the flesh? Has it not been when bending beneath the cross, the splendor, bursting from beneath the cloud of humiliation, darkness, and woe which enshrouded it, has risen like a new created sun upon your soul- Jesus crucified filling the entire vision?
"Sweet the moments, rich in blessing,
Which before the cross I spend,
Life and health and peace possessing,
From the sinner's dying Friend.
"Truly blessed is this station,
Low before the cross to lie;
While I see Divine compassion
Floating in His languid eye.
"Here I'll sit forever viewing
Mercy's streams in streams of blood;
Precious drops! my soul bedewing,
Plead and claim my peace with God."

A crucifixion involves SUFFERING. We dare not speak of this separation from the world as though it were to nature an easy and delectable thing. There must of necessity be sadness, pain, and loss. There will, in some cases, be the wrenching of many a fond tie, the relinquishment of many a loved bond, the abandonment of many a fleshly enjoyment, and the extinguishment of many an earthly hope. There will be the chilled affection, the estranged friendship, the cold reserve, the alienated confidence, and, perhaps, the sacrifice of worldly interests. But be it so. Your Lord and Master forewarned you of this. "Think not that I have come to send peace on earth; I came not to send peace, but a sword. For I have come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. And a man's foes shall be they of his own household. He that loves father and mother more than me, is not worthy of me; and he that loves son or daughter more than me, is not worthy of me. And he that takes not his cross, and follows after me, is not worthy of me."

But, oh, the gain of such a sacrifice! Are not Christ and His cross infinitely better than the world and its love? What can compensate for Christ as your portion, your Friend, your Redeemer? Welcome suffering, welcome separation, welcome loss, with such a treasure in your possession as Jesus. Listen once more to His words: "Every one that has forsaken houses, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for my name's sake, shall receive a hundred-fold, and shall inherit everlasting life." Yes, the sacrifice- if sacrifice it be- must be made. The right hand must be parted with, and the right eye plucked out. You must dare to be singular, isolated, and separated from your brethren according to the flesh. Nature must yield its claims to grace, sense to faith, earth to heaven, the creature to God. You will be misunderstood, misrepresented, and maligned. Natural affection will be congealed, confiding friendship withdrawn, earthly supplies cease- nevertheless, one sight of the cross, one smile of Jesus, one moment's enjoyment of God's love, one glimpse of glory will outweigh it all! "Therefore, come out front among them, and be separate, says the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you, and will be a Father unto you, and you shall be my sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty." "May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world."

The Repose of the Cross

"Now there was leaning on Jesus' bosom one of his disciples, whom Jesus loved." John 13:23

There is but one place in this fallen world where perfect repose is found. It is where God rested in the harmony of His perfections, and where Jesus rested in the completion of His work- the cross of Calvary. The world is peopled with a race which has lost its spiritual center- God! and, so displaced, is as the troubled sea, ever moving, ever restless. All are inquiring for some good, all in search of some repose- they cannot tell what, and cannot tell where. The schism in the soul which God's departure created is a schism still, and will remain so until He returns, re-enters, and makes it once more His abode. And so long as that void remains unoccupied and unfilled by God, restlessness and dissatisfaction will be man's heritage and woe. Man, ever since his fall, has been building his happiness and his hope below God; and he who builds his present and his future being below God, builds upon the sliding, sinking sands, which must, eventually, involve the fabric they sustain in irremediable and woeful ruin. "And great was the fall of it."

But there is within this circle a smaller one, composed of individuals brought, by the gracious influence of the Spirit, to an enlightened, spiritual consciousness and conviction of sin and condemnation; and who, sighing for that rest which the world, itself a troubled sea, can never give, are, with but dim perceptions of the truth, with vague ideas of salvation, and still dimmer views of Jesus, searching for it where it never can be found. To them this chapter of our work is devoted. Its object will be to show where the true rest for the sin-distressed, sorrow-stricken, weary soul is found-even in the cross of Christ. We cite a touching and expressive incident in the history of John as illustrating this. It is true, it transpired before our Lord's passion; nevertheless, His death was virtually an accomplished fact, for He could say, in His memorable intercessory prayer, "Father, I have finished the work which you gave me to do;" and in thus presenting the portrait of the beloved disciple- a picture inimitable in its beauty, and touching in its pathos- we present figuratively the portrait of a weary and sad, yet confiding and loving disciple, seeking and finding his perfect repose on the bosom of his Divine and loving Lord. The two points which arrest our devout study are the expressive attitude, and the perfect rest.

There is in the posture of this disciple an implied weariness, which speaks to us volumes. We portray a large class of our species. We hold up a glass in which every individual of the human race may see himself reflected. We speak advisedly when we limit our picture to the earth's inhabitants. The angels in heaven are not weary, and therefore need no rest. Their only burden is the burden of doing God's will, and this is to them as the wings of a dove. Nor do the glorified spirits of heaven need repose. They have cast off the burden of the body of sin and death, and, emancipated from all ill, delivered from the bondage of the flesh, weeping and sighing and sorrowing no more, "they rest from their labors," and the only burden they feel is the burden of God's love. Who would wish to recall them to earth's sin and woe and weariness? What love so selfish as to disturb that unruffled peace, mar that deep joy, taint that perfect purity, becloud that bright sunshine, to which their happy spirits have fled?

But we return to the world, so full of weary ones. First, there is social weariness. We cannot move in human society without experiencing those woundings and slights and disappointments which contribute so much to the weariness of our spirit. Then there is what may be termed the political weariness of our race- the oppression of tyrants, the crushing cruelty of despots, the bonds and imprisonments, the tortures and bloodshed of human governments. It is impossible to cast our eye over the continent of Europe and not feel convinced that there exist, apart from the restlessness common to our humanity, masses crushed beneath political bondage and despotism. Life to them is a burden from which they pant to be delivered. Again, there is a religious weariness to which many nations are subjected. Look at the crushing burden of heathenism, with all its vile and degraded rites; Mohammedanism, with its oppressive ceremonies; Popery, with its galling, senseless mummery. Contemplate millions of our race wearing the oppressive chains of ignorance and superstition, ground down by religious thraldom, ceremonies, and rites, and say if there exists not a large portion of our race groaning beneath the weight which false religion everywhere imposes, and from which many sigh to be delivered.

Need I quote the myriads of the world's weary ones? The world is like an ever-troubled sea- all who cleave its restless waters, more or less, partake of its restlessness. "There are many who say, Who will show us any good?" They travel from continent to continent, from spring to spring, from flower to flower, and then comes the deep, deep sigh, and the mournful exclamation, "Vanity of vanities, all is vanity!" Oh what restless beings are earth's sons and daughters! "The wicked are like the troubled sea, that cannot rest."

But are the Lord's own people totally exempt? Is there no weariness, no restlessness among them? Far from it! It is the existence and the consciousness of this which brings them to the only repose found on earth- the repose of the cross. We turn to the Church of God. We would first refer to the physical weariness and suffering of which numbers of God's people are the subjects. This may at first sight seem insignificant; and yet they who have traced the
close relation of the mental with the spiritual, and the spiritual with the physical, in Christian experience, will give this part of our subject a prominent place in their study. God does not overlook the bodily infirmities of His saints. He "knows our frame;" He "remembers that we are dust." And, when spiritual despondency is occasioned by mental depression, and mental depression by physical disease; He who constructed our frame can trace to their subtle and mysterious influences the spiritual infirmities of His saints.

Not less conspicuous or painful is the legal weariness of those who are striving for gospel rest by an earnest and sincere, but mistaken and fruitless attempt at the obedience which the law imposes, but which Christ alone can give. Oh the sad, sickening feeling of the soul disappointed a thousand times over in its strivings after perfect obedience! The hopelessness of the task no tongue but inspiration can adequately portray. "By the deeds of the law shall no flesh living be justified." "Work, work!" is the cry of the soul longing for salvation; and as each duty is followed by yet more disastrous failure, and each round of legal observance followed by disappointment yet more bitter, the heart sickens and dies.

But let us speak of a class more limited, as it is more blessed. We refer to those who are burdened with a spiritual conviction and sense of their sinfulness. Talk of the burden of political oppression! talk of the burden of religious ceremonial! talk of the burden of a suffering body! The burden of burdens is the burden of sin! When the Divine Spirit removes the moral cataract from the soul's eye, uplifts the veil from the heart, and all that looked so lovely and so fair and so commendable now appears nothing but sin and darkness, and loathsome, then comes the true soul- weariness- just the weariness Jesus delights to meet! But one word of encouragement. Are you sensible of your sinfulness? Are your sins weighing down your spirit to the dust? Is there the felt burden you cannot carry? Then, we reply, there is spiritual sensibility; and spiritual sensibility is the evidence of spiritual life, and spiritual life is the breathing of the Holy Spirit in your soul. Lay the heaviest weight upon a dead body, and it is insensible of the pressure; pierce it, and it feels not the wound. From where does spiritual feeling spring? From where but from spiritual life in the soul. Thus, then, may your faith gather down from the thistle, extract honey from the gall, and glean food from the eater! These spiritual exercises, through which, as a sin-convinced soul, you are passing- sad and mournful and despairing- are among the most conclusive and hopeful evidences that God has breathed into your dead soul the breath of life. Saint of God, you need not to be reminded of this. In many a stage of past experience, in many an hour of weariness and rest, of depression and hope, you have learned this truth- that none know the plague of their own hearts, none see their sinfulness, and seeing deplore it, and, deploring, seek unto Christ for rest, but those who are the happy subjects of the Holy Spirit's quickening grace. You have been instructed, therefore, to accept a broken and a contrite heart as one of the Spirit's most precious gifts, and God's most acceptable sacrifices. Such is the spiritual state of the soul expressed by the attitude of John. It is one of weariness and need, of weakness and sorrow. In a word, it includes whatever condition of life, mental and spiritual exercise, through which the child of God may pass, who, like the beloved disciple, lays down his weary head upon the Savior's bosom.

This conducts us to THE DISCIPLE'S POSTURE.
And who was that disciple? Emphatically described as, "the disciple whom Jesus loved." Jesus loves all His disciples, and all alike; though John, from a closer assimilation of the human copy to the Divine Original, seemed an especial favorite of our Lord, winning to himself the distinctive and honored appellation of the "the beloved disciple." But such are all the disciples of Jesus. All alike share in His love. There may be degrees of manifested love, but no degrees of love itself. The small vessel and the large vessel may partake of different quantities, but the same love supplies and fills them both. Bind, then, this precious truth to your believing heart, and accept the comfort, the assurance it gives- that you are a disciple whom Jesus loves. Do you ask, How does He love me? He has chosen you- He died for you- He bore your sins- He has called you by His grace- He keeps you by His power- He comforts you with His love- He has gone to prepare a place for you in heaven- and by all His present leadings and dealings and teachings, through adversity and temptation and sorrow, He is preparing you for this prepared place. Oh, then, doubt that the sun shines, that the earth moves, that seasons revolve, that you yourself exist, but, in view of blessings and achievements like these, doubt not that Jesus loves you! If love derives its inspiration from itself- if affection begets affection- then, your simple, unquestioning belief in the marvellous and free love which the Lord Jesus bears you, will enkindle in your breast, in return, love to the Lord Jesus.

Nothing more tends to damp and chill and check our responsive affection to Christ, and consequently to render our obedience and service defective, than the latent suspicion in our hearts of the Savior's love to us. Cruel unbelief! to suggest a thought so dark, a suspicion so cold, a doubt so Christ-dishonoring! Where on earth or in heaven, where within this illimitable universe, will you find a being who loves you like Jesus? Oh, challenge every being whose eye has beamed love, whose lips have breathed love, whose hands have conferred love, and see if there be love like unto the love with which Christ has loved you! Summon the peopled universe to listen to its story, and exclaim, "Come and hear, all you that fear God, and I will declare what he
has done for my soul."

"What You have done, my God, for me,
Is more than I can tell;
This world had closed my heart to Thee,
But You did break the spell.
"I cannot tell one-half Your love,
Which daily, Lord, I See;
Countless Your tender mercies prove,
Wondrous Your love, to me.
"But I would tell to all around
That Jesus died for me;
That when in sin's dark bondage bound,
He set my spirit free.
"Yes, I would tell how His pure love
Unchanging does remain;
And how He pleads for me above,
In His most precious name.
"Would tell how, in my heaviest grief,
He calms my soul to rest;
How He can give that heart relief
Which leans upon His breast.
"Would tell, how in life's loneliest hour,
When every joy below
Seemed withered like the fading flower,
He soothed me in my woe.
"Would tell, how in perplexing care
He turns my thoughts above;
And makes me see that He is there,
Appointing all in love.
"Would tell, when weary often with sin,
And pressed beneath the load,
He, by His Spirit's voice within,
Points to my peace with God.
"Lord, I would tell- how loudly tell
There is no love like Thine!
You ever will do all things well,
You Mighty One, Divine."

Upon WHOM did the beloved disciple lean? He leaned upon a personal Savior. He reposed on the bosom of the incarnate God. The truth here taught to us is of marvellous moment. We can only deal, in the great matter of salvation, and in the minor matters of everyday life, with a personal Savior- and a personal Friend. The world is too replete with the unrealistic, to meet the real needs of our humanity. All is shadowy, except our present being, our sin, and our woe. These are solemn realities! We have personal needs- we crave a personal sympathy. We have personal yearnings- we crave a personal love. The "great mystery of godliness, God manifested in the flesh," just meets our case- is just the provision a God of love has made. We need repose; we cannot find it in a dogma, in a principle, in a mere fact- we find it in a person- the person of the Son of God. It is from ourselves, we wish to be detached from. Our happiness and repose are found, not in or from ourselves, but, extraneous
to ourselves- only in Christ. As the solar beam is absorbed in the sun, and the dew-drop is lost in the ocean, so, with all his sin and woe, his neediness and weariness, the believer sinks into Christ, and is absorbed in the infinite plenitude of His power, in the fulness of His grace, and in the boundless ocean of His sympathy and love. Not more truly did the gentle and loving John lean upon the yet more gentle and loving Savior, than by faith do we, with all our mental and spiritual thoughts, and feelings and needs.

Here, in the cross of Christ, or rather in the Christ of the cross, perfect rest is found for every species of weariness of which the believing soul may be the subject. Here is rest from the galling yoke of sin- for the power of the cross
breaks it. Here is rest front the dreadful guilt of sin- for the blood of the cross cleanses it. Here is rest from the condemnation of sin- for the death of the cross has slain it. Here is rest from the obedience of the law- for the work of the cross supplies it. Here is rest from the sting of death- for the death of the cross extracts it. Here is rest from the dread of hell- for the love of the cross has closed it. And here is rest from the chafing of sorrow- for the sorrow of the cross soothes it.

It was in the cross of Christ that the Divine perfections found repose. Until that cross was reared, and the Divine Victim impaled upon its wood, there was no rest or harmony in the attributes of God concerning the salvation of the sinner. But when the Son of God was affixed to the accursed tree, and gave Himself up as "an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling savor, "then, "mercy and truth met together, righteousness and peace kissed each other;" and so God rested in His love when He rested in the cross of the Son of His love. There must we rest, beloved of God, leaning upon Jesus the crucified; and so the sin-pardoning God and the sin-forgiven soul meet in affection, friendship, and fellowship in the same Divine and glorious center- the "Lamb of God, that takes away the sin of the world."

Come, then, sin-distressed, self-weary, world-wounded, sorrow-smitten soul, and lay down your weary spirit upon the bosom of the Savior. There is room enough and love enough and sympathy enough for you. The heart of Jesus is as capacious as the infinitude of His being. There can be nothing in your case- take the most gloomy, despairing view of it you may- which interposes a real objection to your rest in Christ. The cross, while it unveils the soul's repose, supplies both its merit and its plea. Jesus provides all, is all, and is in all. We have nothing to do but to receive out of His fulness grace upon grace- grace to answer all the present demands of grace- grace commensurate with all the past communications of grace- and grace to meet all the future requirements of grace. Yet again and again we repeat the Savior's gracious invitation- unconditional and unlimited- and, oh! heaven's belfry breathes not a sweeter chime- "Come unto Me, All You That Labor and Are Heavy Laden, and I Will Give You Rest." Accept the invitation- it is for you. "In returning and rest shall you be saved; in quietness and confidence shall be your strength."

"My Savior, You halt offered rest,
Oh! give it, then, to me;
The rest of ceasing from myself,
To find my all in Thee.
"This cruel self, oh! how it strives
And works within my breast,
To come between You and my soul,
And keep me back from rest.
"How many subtle forms it takes
Of seeming verity,
As if it were not safe to rest
And venture all on Thee.
"And yet it was no little price
That bought this rest for me;
'Twas purchased at the mighty cost
Of Jesus' agony.
"I only enter on the rest,
Obtained by labors done;
I only claim the victory
By Him so dearly won.
"And, Lord, I seek a holy rest,
A victory over sin;
I seek that You alone should reign
Over all, without, within.
"In quietness, then, and confidence,
Savior, my strength shall be;
And, 'Take me, for I cannot come,'
Is still my cry to Thee.
"In Your strong hand I lay me down,
So shall the work be done;
For who can work so wondrously
As an Almighty One?
"Work on then, Lord, until on my soul
Eternal light shall break;
And in Your likeness perfected,
I, 'satisfied,' shall wake.'

This subject will at once meet the inquiries of the earnest searcher for truth. All truth essential to our eternal well being is embodied and presented in the cross of Christ. He who was crucified upon it was Essential Truth- gospel truth- divine, saving, sanctifying truth. Let there be but a believing sight of the cross, a spiritual perception of its doctrine, a simple, unquestioning, child-like reception of its God-like scheme- salvation by its Divine expiation, heaven by its one sacrifice- and every theological difficulty will be met; and out of the chaos of the mind- tortured with doubt, enshrouded with gloom, agitated with fear, perplexed with difficulty- will arise a divine system of truth, a perfect scheme of salvation, a sure hope of heaven, reasonable and harmonious, as suitable to man's necessity, as honorable to God's government.

Approach, then, you who are earnestly asking, "What is truth?" and find your answer at the cross. Take your place, a lowly disciple, at its foot, and listen to the soothing words uttered amid its dying agonies, its streaming blood, its deepening gloom, its supernatural wonders," I Am the Truth," -repent, believe, and be saved!

Once more we invite to this rest, the spirit of the weary- weary with sin, weary with sorrow, weary with the creature, weary with self. Imitate the beloved disciple, and recline your head upon Christ. It is the attitude of confidence, it
is the expression of love. Come and bury your heart in the heart of Christ. Repose in Him your profoundest secret, unveil to Him your deepest grief. He has revealed to you the secret of His covenant- reciprocate this marvellous act of His friendship- tell Him all, trust Him with all, draw upon Him for all. Not more dear to Christ was the disciple who nestled in His bosom than are you. Precious and lowly as was his attitude when he literally bowed his head on Christ, your repose of faith upon Christ is a yet more precious and honoring act. Blessed as was John, more blest are you. "Jesus says unto Thomas, because you have seen me, you have believed: blessed are those who have not seen, and yet have believed."

Let this be your believing posture when partaking of the communion of the Lord's Supper. It was at the Supper the beloved disciple leaned on Christ; "who also leaned upon His breast at supper." What a befitting season does this Feast of love and fellowship present to rest in Jesus, reposing every thought, feeling, and want- every trial, temptation, and sin- in His heart. The Lord's Supper brings us closely beneath the shadow of the cross, in the immediate presence of the Crucified. It is a source of especial inter-communion between Christ and His people. If the weary, languid head ever truly reposed upon the loving bosom of the Lord, surely it is at the festival that commemorates His love. Hasten to disclose all to Him, and be eager to receive all from Him. The hallowed hour is short, the holy season brief- waste not its favored moments in vagrant thoughts, in wandering affections, or in listless gaze; but concentrate all on Christ, who, at this precious moment, concentrates His whole heart upon you. While the King sits at the table, present and urge your petition. "Ask what you will, and it shall be granted unto you."

Above and beyond all, seek closer manifestations to your soul of "the King in His beauty," for your eyes shall then see Him. He presides at the feast to grant especial discoveries of His loveliness and love. And there is no window of His
grace in which He more delights to reveal Himself to His saints than in the uplifted window of this expressive and precious ordinance.
"Happy the ones that eat this bread,
And doubly blest was he
That gently bowed his loving head,
And leaned it, Lord, on Thee.
"By faith the same delights we taste
As that great favorite did;
And sit and lean on Jesus' breast,
And take the heavenly bread."

And where, in sickness and in death, can we, would we lay our head but on the bosom of Christ? We carry the cross with us in the embrace of our faith to life's last, closing hour. On the cross death was conquered for us, and with the cross we shall conquer death in us, and like our Lord, in dying, live; and by death, overcome death. Oh, the sweet, the perfect repose found in the cross of Jesus on a sick and dying bed! The cross has made the bed of suffering a bed of roses, and the pillow of death a pillow of down, and the gate of the sepulcher the door of heaven! And if ever the aching, restless, languid head of the saint of God finds repose, it will be when heart and flesh are failing, Jesus approaches, unveils His bosom, and soothes our departing soul to perfect rest in His ineffable love.

I heard the voice of Jesus say,
"Come unto me and rest;
Lay down, you weary one, lay down
Your head upon my breast."
I came to Jesus as I was,
Weary and worn and sad,
I found in him a resting place,
And he has made me glad.

I heard the voice of Jesus say,
"Behold, I freely give
The living water; thirsty one,
Stoop down and drink, and live."
I came to Jesus, and I drank
Of that life-giving stream;
My thirst was quenched, my soul revived,
And now I live in him.

I heard the voice of Jesus say,
"I am this dark world's Light;
Look unto me, your morn shall rise,
And all your day be bright."
I looked to Jesus, and I found
In him my Star, my Sun;
And in that light of life I'll walk,
Until traveling days are done. (Bonar)

The Cross of Christ the Christian's Weapon

"They overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony; they did not love their lives so much as to shrink from death." Rev. 12:11

What an impressive illustration is presented in these words of another equally inspired and instructive declaration of the Bible- "God has chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God has chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty; and base things of the world, and things which are despised, has God chosen." That 'foolish thing,' that 'weak thing,' that 'base thing,' that 'despised thing,' in the world's estimation, which God has chosen as the instrument of saving His elect Church, of conquering the enmity against Him in of the human heart, of extending His kingdom in the earth, and of ultimately subjugating this revolted empire to His supremacy is the cross of Christ. This weak, this rude, this ignominious and despised instrument- the preaching of Christ on the cross- is destined to overthrow sin's empire in the soul, wrench the scepter from the grasp of the god of this world, overturn all false religions, and subjugate the empire of the world to Christ's glorious reign.

But we must limit our discussion of this entrancing theme to the case of the individual believer. The words, which primarily refer to the "noble army of martyrs," involve a principle which will apply with equal force to any age of Christianity, and every form of spiritual opposition to which the Church of God collectively and individually may be exposed.

The Christian life is a moral conflict, the Christian a spiritual combatant. To no single fact did our Lord give greater prominence than this "I came not to send peace on earth, but a sword;" indicating thereby that the heavenly and spiritual religion He descended to introduce, while it was designed to bless and save the world, was essentially antagonistic to its principles and its spirit; and that all who professed His 'unearthly religion' would awaken hostility from every quarter, and array against themselves the most sacred and endeared relations of life, so that "a man's foes should be those of his own house."

But the great truth before us is, THE WEAPON OF OUR HOLY WAR. It is not of man's forging, of earth's temper, of carnal might- it is of God's providing, heavenly and divine; and although in the eyes of men simple and lowly, it is all-mighty, all-conquering, and irresistible- the weapon of Christ's cross. "They overcame him by the blood of the Lamb." The subject is one of the profoundest interest, inconceivably important and precious. The weapon that is to conquer the world for Christ, is to conquer the world of evil in our hearts; and, wielded by the arm of faith, is to vanquish and overcome all the spiritual opposition by which our path to heaven is intercepted. We are to overcome, as the martyrs overcame, by the blood of the Lamb. Heavenly and invincible is this weapon. No foe can cope with it, no opposition resist it, no confederacy overcome it. The blood of Jesus, as an offensive and defensive weapon, is all-powerful and irresistible in our holy war, feeble though the arm may be that wields it.

But it is proper that we should in the outset briefly notice a few of these forms of OPPOSITION, in the experience of the believer, which this invincible weapon especially meets and overcomes. And should I not, my reader, specify the exact form of opposition with which in your personal experience you conflict, permit me yet to remind you that, whatever may be the foe with whom you wage this holy war- within or without- whatever the obstacle to your advance in the divine life, faith, looking to the blood of Jesus, wielding the cross of Christ, drawing its supplies from the resources of Christ, will enroll you among those who overcome by the blood of the Lamb!

In the Christian conflict we are engaged, first, with the forces of error. The Church of God is composed of all who hold and love the truth. Truth is everything to the man of God. With not one iota of God's revealed truth can he part, not one doctrine or command can he regard with indifference or relinquish without a struggle. By these divine and precious truths his soul has been quickened, sanctified, and comforted. Wherever the Church of God meets with any form of spurious Christianity, or with those who deny any one of the essential tenets of our faith, it meets a foe; and, if we are loyal to Christ, if true soldiers of the cross, it behooves us to buckle on the whole armor of God, to take the sword of the Spirit, and act valiantly for the truth, "earnestly contending for the faith once delivered to the saints."

Our second foe is the world. In every age of the Church the world has been one of its most subtle and ensnaring enemies. In a variety of forms it seeks to throw the spell of its fascination around the saints of God by its many disguises, its specious arguments, its lawful engagements, its aims to draw from the simplicity of Christ. No little skill in this holy war is required to explode the sophistry and resist the blandishments of this ungodly world. How many religious professors are conquered by its reasonings, won by its friendships, vanquished by its pleasures, swallowed up by its temptations! Like Demas, they forsake Christ for the love of an ungodly world. And yet the world is the sworn foe of the

Church of God. It crucified its Head, and would crucify its members. The more closely His followers follow Him, the more unearthly their religion, the more decidedly and deadly will the world regard itself their foe. We have more to fear from the smiles of the world than its frowns, more from its bewitching charms than its contemptuous sneer, more from its specious promises than its disdainful irony. The persecution of the world has never really injured the spiritual life of any Christian professor, but the caresses of the world have slain its thousands.

Then, then is the Christian's great foe- the god of this world. And yet how invisible his form, how noiseless his tread, how subtle his temptations, how unsuspected his approach, how artful and successful his designs! He is "the accuser of the brethren," "the prince of the power of the air," "the god of this world," "the spirit that now works in the children of disobedience." Such are his titles, and if they mean anything, they are significant of much. Such is the foe we daily, hourly confront.

Sin in the world, and sin in the Church, and sin in the individual believer, must be classed among our strongest antagonistic foes. We can not take a step without coming in contact with sin. The privacy of our closet is not exempt- sin is still there in our sinful hearts. What a solemn thought it is for the child of God, that the Divine standard of Christian holiness, the Scripture measure of Christian consecration, so far transcends his highest attainments! We are compelled to own that we are but partly renewed. We scarcely deserve the name of saints, so perpetually is sin marring all we do for Christ. Filled with shame, and at times tempted to give up the conflict and yield to the foe, we place our mouth in the dust before God, "O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?"

In addition to all this must be quoted the discipline of trial. Trials are, what the word implies, tests of character and Christianity. What a severe conflict when the afflictive providences of our God are seized upon by Satan and sin as an occasion for stirring up the corruptions of the heart, and of rousing the latent rebellion of the will against God. And yet, O Lord our God, by this You teach us! By this painful discipline, by these humiliating circumstances, do You instruct us in the art of warring against sin, to be better soldiers of the cross, more mighty and successful in the holy war. There is no experience like the endurance of trial. The man of God best adapted to lead the van of Christ's army, who should take front rank in the conflict with the world, the flesh, and the devil, is he who has been instructed by trials, who has endured a great fight of afflictions. The valiant and successful soldier of the cross is he who has been taught and trained in God's school of sorrow. The most eminently holy saints have been the most victorious saints; and the most victorious saints in the great fight of faith have ever been the most deeply tried saints. Eminent affliction is essential to eminent holiness, to completeness of Christian character. No believer's Christianity is fully tested until it passes through this crucible. The activities of religion bring into play a part only of our religious character; affliction is needful to develop and exercise the passive graces of the Spirit- both essential to form the character of the Christian warrior.

But we must now consider THE WEAPON used by Christians in this great and holy conflict. Of all those Christians who laid down their lives for Jesus in the early Church, none obtained the victory but by THE BLOOD OF THE LAMB! In this holy war, the Christian is ever portrayed as a victor, so certain, so sure, so triumphant is the issue. "Overcome!" Mark that word! A most encouraging truth this for you who may now be in the heat of this spiritual conflict! Well might you tremble at the skill and strength and subtlety of your foe, but for this assured truth that, having put on Christ's armor, you are engaged in a conflict, you are prosecuting a war, of the victorious result of which there is no more doubt than that Christ Jesus is your Leader. Often foiled and wounded in the strife, you yet follow victorious legions, led by a triumphant Captain.

It is by the blood of Jesus we overcome error. Religious error is plausible, reasoning, and subtle. It is seldom presented but in connection with some portion of truth; and to eliminate that small portion of truth from the mass of error in which it is embedded, often demands no little art in this holy war. But no form or onslaught of false doctrine can withstand the power of Christ's cross. Our wisdom, when confronted by the many specious and subtle forms of false doctrine, is not so much to argue and reason, to unveil the sophistry and expose the hollowness of the error, as to confront it with the Divine doctrine of the cross. Truth and error can never coalesce. They may be mixed, but they cannot co-mingle. No two opposite elements in chemistry are so irreconcilable. Truth may float upon the surface of error, as oil upon the water, but no act of sacred alchemy can unite them. "Hereby know we the spirit of truth and the spirit of error." See, then, the weapon by which you may dissolve the enchantment and repel the assault of error. Bring every doctrine, principle, and practice which men would foist upon you to the light of the cross and to the test of the Bible. "To the law and to the testimony: if they speak

not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them." Seek by the Spirit's teaching to be so rooted and grounded in the doctrines of which the cross of Christ is the center and symbol, as to prove invulnerable to the shafts of error, feathered though they may be by all the charms of human learning and philosophy, poetry and eloquence.

It is by the cross we obtain the victory over sin. The instrument by which sin was condemned, and through whose channel its pardon flows to us, is the only effectual instrument of its crucifixion in us. A believing, experimental apprehension of the death of Christ is death to the ruling, reigning power of sin in the regenerate. The sense of its pardoned guilt, the conviction of its annihilated condemnation, begets in the soul a loathing of its nature, a shrinking from its commission, and arms us with rebellion against its supremacy and power. "There is forgiveness with you, that you may be feared." The language of the Church is: "I have washed my feet, how shall I defile them?" That of the apostle is equally significant of this truth: "I am crucified with Christ." Take, then, beloved reader, the existence of indwelling sin in your heart- its easy besetting forms, its ever-wakeful, ever-working power- to the cross of Jesus; and as the Holy Spirit unveils and reveals it to your soul, seeing Jesus crucified for your sins and by your sins, that fresh discovery, that renewed sight of the cross of Calvary, will enable you to mortify the deeds of the body, and to present it a holy and a living sacrifice to God.

The power of atoning blood to subdue our iniquities is not less than its efficacy in pardoning them. In either case, we can only effectually deal with sin as we deal with Him who was slain for sin. Jesus the crucified is as much our sanctification as He is our redemption. The Spirit's sprinkling of the blood that has pardoned all, cleansed all, cancelled all our sins, intensifies the motive and energizes the soul to repel its attacks, and to rest not from the conflict until the nail has been driven home which fastens every lust to the cross of Jesus. Oh, what motive, what power, in the great, the essential work of personal holiness does the cross of Jesus supply! How should we hate sin, battle with sin, resist and overcome it, who have a personal and saving interest in the great and solemn transactions of Calvary! If the spot where the blood of the victim fell was so sacred, if the temple furniture touched by sacrificial blood was so holy, oh, what words can depict the solemn consecration to God of that soul washed in the atoning blood of God's beloved Son! Lord, if he that is washed in Your blood is clean every whit, wash me! not my feet only, but also my hands and my head, that my obedience may be more unreserved, my service more complete, my mind more deeply sanctified- each part of my being purified, sanctified, and dedicated by Your blood.

Faith, wielding the invincible weapon of the cross, skillfully repels and effectually vanquishes the attacks of Satan. The only weapon in the believer's armory which Satan most dreads, is the cross of Christ. He can glibly quote Scripture, and so press into his own deceitful purpose a weapon of divine temper; but the cross of Calvary he dreads. Well does he remember the words, spoken by the Eternal One while yet a measure of the bloom and the fragrance of paradise rested upon the bowers and glens of Eden, "I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed; He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel." The great battle of Satan is not so much with the Body as with the Head; not so much with the Church as with the Savior of the Church. Upon Christ all his virulence concentrates, around Him all his opposition gathers. To wound Christ through His members is one of his master strategic arts. But how is the believer to meet and overcome this arch-foe of his soul, this deceiver and accuser of the brethren? Simply and only by the blood of the Lamb. Skillful and mighty to wield the weapons of the cross, no onslaught of the foe, however fierce; no dart taken from his quiver, however flaming; no snare of fowler, however concealed; no gleam of the serpent's eye, however soft and fascinating, shall overcome the weakest saint. The devil hates the cross, fears the cross, is cowed and impotent before the cross of Jesus; in which he beholds the instrument of his past ignominious defeat, and the sign and the pledge of his future and final overthrow. Satan-tempted soul! fly to the foot of the cross. Satan dare not bring a railing accusation against you there. Faith reading its pardon and acquittal, realizing that "there is now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus," can confront and boldly challenge this subtle, sleepless foe of his soul, "Who are you that accuses and condemns me? My sins are all forgiven, my guilt all cancelled, my debt all paid by Jesus, my Divine Surety, on that cross which to you is death, but to me is life." Thus, beloved, shall you be numbered among those who overcame by the blood of the Lamb.

And this, too, is the victory that overcomes the world. The world is Satan's seat, his empire, his throne. No marvel, then, that it becomes one of his most powerful, and, alas! too successful instruments of drawing the saints from Jesus. We have already, in this work, indicated some of the forms of worldly temptation by which believers are assailed. It will suffice if, in the present chapter, we simply refer to the weapon by which these temptations are successfully repelled. The weapon is the cross upon which the world crucified Christ. This was the spiritual equipment of Paul, this the invincible sword by which he triumphed. "God forbid that I should glory save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified to me, and I unto the world." Clad with this armor, wielding this weapon, we too must conquer. Study the world in the light of Christ's cross, and how will it look? Survey it from this elevated and impressive stand-point, and what is its appearance? In no other light can you regard it than as the crucifier of your Lord. It was the world that slew Jesus. He came to save it, and in return for love so marvellous, so self-sacrificing, it maligned and despised Him, rejected and crucified Him, because He testified of it that its works were evil. And still it is His implacable, unslumbering foe- ever seeking to bruise the Head through the members. Oh, think not that the world which entwined the thorn-crown around His brow, will sun you with its smile. Let, then, your dealings with this ungodly world be a constant battle, and the cross of Jesus, wielded in faith and by prayer, your victorious weapon. The cross must separate you from the pleasures, the religion, and the spirit of the world. It is utterly impossible that you can love the cross and love the world too. Faith in the cross, and confederacy with the enemies of the cross, are totally irreconcilable. We cannot carry Christ's cross upon our shoulder and the world in our hand at the same time. We cannot be truly crucified by the one and yet live to the other. Either Christ's cross will be to us the death of the world, or the world will be to us the death of Christ's cross. But, oh, what an honor is it to be crucified with Christ to this ungodly world! to bear its burning shame, to be subjected to its offence, to endure the pain of its moral crucifixion. As the holy Rutherford beautifully remarks, "The cross of Christ is the sweetest burden that ever I bore; it is such a burden as wings are to a bird, or as sails to a ship, to carry me forward to my desired haven. To be crucified to the world is not so highly accounted by us as it should be. How heavenly a thing it is to be deaf to, and dead to, this world's sweetest music! It is little the world can take from me, and as little can it give me."

The cross of Christ, too, is the only effectual weapon of the Christian ministry. It is a great, a supernatural work, the work of dethroning Satan in the heart, and subjecting it to Christ. "Who is sufficient for these things? " By no instrument can a work so mighty, so divine, be accomplished, but by the instrument with which Jesus triumphed- the cross of Calvary. "We preach Christ crucified" -literally, Christ on the cross- was the simple but sublime declaration of the chief of the apostles. "The preaching of the cross is to those who perish foolishness; but unto us which believe it is the power of God." "The Jews require a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom: but we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumbling-block, and unto the Greeks foolishness; but unto those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God." And how significant yet touching the words of the Crucified Himself: "And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me." Such is the doctrine the revealed Word of God teaches, such the truth the Holy Spirit owns, such the weapon the minister of the cross wields, and such its marvellous power and result. Are you a Christian minister? Beloved brother, behold your divine, invincible weapon! The Cross of Christ! Preach Christ, and Christ only! Lift Him up higher and higher, exalt Him more and more, and you shall not have mournfully to exclaim, "Who has believed our report? and to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed?" The Holy Spirit will the most honor that ministry that the most honors Christ's cross. He who preaches the Church and not Christ, who puts ordinances in the place of the atoning blood, or who veils the cross by human learning and philosophy and the traditions of men- the power and the wisdom of this world, which is weakness and foolishness with God; stands in a position of terrible responsibility, is accumulating a fearful amount of guilt, and is laying up a solemn and awful account of his stewardship unto God. But preach Christ crucified, and the results, for which you are not responsible, you can safely leave to them unto whom alone they belong. No other preaching will meet the case of our hearers. No other theme will the Holy Spirit bless to the conversion of sinners, and to the instruction, comfort, and sanctification of the saints. All other preaching- preaching which has not Christ crucified for its beginning, its center, and its end, is solemn trifling with souls and with eternity- a splendid impertinence, a burlesque of the gospel, a dishonor to God, the murder of souls, whose blood, staining our garments, God will require at our hands. Oh, whatever you do, preach CHRIST! Preach Him in His Godhead- preach Him in His manhood- preach Him as the Revealer of the Father- preach Him in His finished work- preach Him in His personal beauty- preach Him in His love, grace, and sympathy- preach Him as the all in all of the soul bound to His judgment-seat- preach Him scripturally and intelligently, lovingly and winningly; in the pulpit, out of the pulpit, living and dying, oh, raise high the cross of Christ!

"Woe to the men who tear away the cross
Sole prop and pillar of a sinking world.
If its foundation by unhallowed hands
Be undermined, what, what can give support?
But hush, my fears! it rests not on the sand;
The raging waves that dash against its base
Sink harmless, after foaming out their shame.
It is when the cross is preached, and only then,
That from the pulpit a mysterious power
Goes forth to renovate the moral man.
He that without it wields
The sacred sword, at best in mock display,
A useless weapon flourishes in its sheath,
None feel its edge-none fear it." -Wilcox.

Christ Crucified the Center of Christian Union

"You are all one in Christ Jesus." -Gal. 3:28.

The unfolding of our subject approaches its close. Imperfect as the discussion manifestly is- as imperfect, indeed, must be the most elaborate unfolding of such a theme- it would be yet more- marked in the omission of the topic which in the present chapter will engage the reader's attention- Christ crucified the center of Christian union, and of holy fellowship to all true believers of God's one Church. Our subject is in perfect and beautiful harmony with one of the most touching petitions in the intercessory prayer of Jesus when on earth. "That they all may be one; as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be one in us; that the world may believe that you have sent me." This clearly was the great truth which the apostle seeks to illustrate. "You are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus. For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ, have put on Christ. There [that is, in Christ] is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus." His argument is- the Lord Jesus is the Center, and in Him all national, ecclesiastical, and religious differences subsisting in the one Church of God are merged and lost, as rays in the sun, as rivers in the ocean- and Christ is all and in all. The union of the Lord's people is a subject dear to His heart, closely connected with His glory, and inseparable from their own holiness, happiness, and usefulness. May the Divine Spirit aid and bless the presentation of this delightful truth, while we consider the center- the unity- the blessings and the obligations which result therefrom.

THE CENTER of Christian union is the center of Christianity- Christ Crucified. Destroy the focus of any system, and the system itself is destroyed. Remove the center, and you have broken up that which held the whole in cohesion and unity. For example- taking our illustration from Divine truth- deny the Deity of Christ, and you deny the Atonement of Christ, for the two cardinal articles of our faith stand or fall together. The sacrifice of Christ, as a vindication of God's moral government, and as the only expedient of the soul's salvation, reposes wholly upon the Essential Godhead of His person. If Christ is not God, He is not a Savior. A mere human savior could not bring a sinner to heaven. Destroy, then, the Atonement, ignore the sacrificial death of Christ, and you have destroyed and rejected the only foundation upon which a lost soul can build his hope of glory.

Now, a great and essential doctrine is placed before you here. All believers are ONE in Christ Jesus. They have a vital union with Jesus Himself. This is a higher truth than that which affirms that they know Him, love Him, and have faith in Him; that they put their trust alone in His blood and righteousness, and have confessed Him before men. All these are precious truths- God make them yet more precious to our hearts. But, the grand truth, the source of all the rest, is this- I, as a believer in Christ, am in Him eternally, in Him spiritually, in Him indissolubly, in Him vitally. And because I am thus one with Christ Jesus I know Him- knowing Him, I love Him- loving Him, I obey Him- and obeying Him, I find my heaven begun on earth. All these living, precious springs have their origin in this grand truth- "I am one with Christ the Lord."

As long as a man is out of Christ Jesus, he is in a most awful and perilous condition. We ask not what ecclesiastical form of government he may prefer; or what his creed is. If he has no spiritual union with the Lord Jesus Christ, he is in an unsaved and imminently perilous state. Do you inquire who are out of Christ? I answer,and God grant that you may apply the statement to your own conscience- if you have never repented of your sins- if your heart has never been broken by the blessed Spirit- if you have never placed your mouth in the dust, and cried, God be merciful to me a sinner! -you are out of Christ. All unbelievers are out of Christ. And who are unbelievers? Perchance you are thinking of the bold, unblushing infidel; the man who denies the inspiration of the Scriptures, and laughs to scorn the divine revelations of the Holy Spirit. Little do you think that you, in your 'practical' rejection of the Lord Jesus, may be virtually that infidel, that unbeliever! If, in faith, you have not received Jesus, though He has been standing knocking at the door of your heart until His locks are wet with the dew of the morning; you are that unbeliever, that infidel; and as an unbeliever, rejecting the Lord Jesus Christ, you have no union with Christ- you are out of Christ! Poor Pharisee! wrapping around you the wretched figment of your own righteousness, looking at your own works, trusting in your religious duties, going about to establish a righteousness of your own, never having been brought to know your condemnation under the law, never having been brought to see that all your virtues are but splendid sins, that all upon which you do pride and plume yourself is in God's sight obnoxious and loathsome- you are out of Christ!

And you, poor religious formalist! who has put on Christ outwardly- perhaps has gone to His table, and yet are holding an empty lamp of Christian profession, destitute of one particle of saving grace- with all your splendid profession, your outward zeal, and religious formality, you have no oneness with Christ! And how shall I describe to you the awful condition in which this state of separation from Christ places you? To be out of Christ is to be exposed to the condemnation of the law; to be out of Christ is to have

no hiding-place, no Savior, no Redeemer; to be out of Christ is to be unsheltered from the wrath to come. It is to live a godless life, and to die a hopeless death! Think of the antediluvians! Perhaps many of them assisted to construct the ark, while they yet laughed to scorn the warnings and entreaties of the righteous man of God. But when the ark was complete, and the chosen vessels of mercy had entered it, and God had shut them in, the heaven was darkened, the lightning flashed, the thunder pealed, the waters descended, the floods came and swept them all away, and they were lost, because they were not in the ark! Yearning for your conversion, we warn you of the wrath to come, and tell you that, unless you have a spiritual union with the Lord Jesus, unless you are enclosed in Christ, you have no refuge from the storm, no hiding-place from the wind, no covert from the tempest of the wrath of the holy and the just Lord God!

But now we turn to the converse of this truth- a far more precious and delightful theme. All believers are in Christ Jesus, loved in Him, and eternally elected in Him. Deem not this a dry doctrinal truth, having in it no sanctifying influence. We believe it to be one of the most Christ-exalting, God-glorifying, soul-sanctifying truths that a minister of Christ could possibly bring before you. Trace up all the precious springs of grace and love to the fountain-head from where they flow- God's eternal love to, and choice of, you in Christ Jesus your covenant Head. Let your faith and love thus follow these precious springs of grace until they bring you to the fountain- God's everlasting love to you in Christ Jesus your Lord. It is delightful to think how God treasured up from eternity in this very act of His own love all spiritual blessings in Christ Jesus our Head. When God called you by His free and sovereign grace, He called you in Christ, and to Christ. You could not resist the blessed call, because it was the effectual call of the Holy Spirit which brought you to see your worthlessness and vileness. The great office of the Spirit is to glorify the Lord Jesus Christ, and in nothing does He more glorify Christ than in calling a poor sinner away from his own righteousness, his religious formality, to accept Christ Jesus the Lord as all his righteousness and all his salvation.

There is included, too, this great and precious truth- acceptance and justification in Christ Jesus. What is justification? It is our union with Christ Jesus. If we are in a state of acceptance- in a justified state- standing before God in a state of completeness- it is because we are one in Christ Jesus. "Christ is made of God unto us wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption." If we stand before the Holy One pardoned and justified, it is because Jesus has washed us in His precious blood, and has invested us with His imputed righteousness. Some of my readers may have been for months looking at their own selves. Would you know a true believer's experience? Then may the Lord take your eyes away from your sinful self, and your righteous self, and empty self, and give you to see that in Christ Jesus, washed in His blood, clothed in His righteousness, you have passed into a present state of full forgiveness and complete acceptance, and God rests in His love and rejoices over you with singing. There is for you now no condemnation.

Again, this being in Christ involves our preservation. The child of God is kept not by any power of his own. If God were to leave us to our own keeping, before we reposed our head upon our pillow we would fall to the breaking of our bones and the destruction of our peace. Child of God, God is teaching you every day the great truth, "KEPT by the power of God, through faith unto salvation." "Preserved in Christ," through all the long years of our rebellion, impenitence, and unbelief; and since we have been brought to know Christ, still each moment kept by the power of God unto eternal salvation.

And when the solemn hour comes, as come it will, that shall terminate this brief existence and summon you into the invisible world, oh, what a delightful truth will it then be to lay your dying head upon- "I am in Christ Jesus. I am a dying man in a living Savior. Why need I fear to die? Why need I shrink from the separation of the spirit from the body? Why need I tremble to enter upon a world unknown?" Oh, to die in Christ is but to languish into life. You who have been for years trembling in the anticipation of death, all your lifetime subject to its bondage, cast to the winds all your doubts and fears. When you die, you will die in the Lord- in a spiritual union with the Lord, from which neither death nor life shall separate you, and so you shall be forever with the Lord.

And then comes the consummation- in Christ now, and with Christ hereafter! We hardly know whether we are right in unveiling the solemn sacredness of a dying room, and yet we find it hard to resist quoting a striking and impressive remark recently made by a suffering and dying prelate, Archbishop Wheately. He had made the science of botany a study; and when a clergy man pointed to some beautiful flowers by his bed, asking him if he thought there were flowers in heaven, the reply of the dying saint was, "I cannot tell; I suppose that we shall find when we get to heaven a total reverse of many of our previous notions of what it is; but this I know, as I get nearer to it, the heaven of heavens to me is, to be with Christ." Oh, it is a heaven in itself to be with Christ, to fall at His feet, to be raised in His arms, to repose on His loving breast. If you are in Christ now, however feeble your grasp, or dull your perception of Christ, or fluctuating your hope of being with Christ may be, the feeblest faith that takes hold of Christ, the dimmest eye that sees Christ now, insures your being forever with Christ when He shall send His chariot to waft you to Himself.

THE UNITY.

But we pass from this consideration of the oneness of all believers with Christ to the consequent UNITY OF ALL BELIEVERS WITH EACH OTHER. The unity of the Church of Christ does not spring out of anything in that Church, but out of the oneness of that Church in Christ. Unity pervades all God's works and operations- unity, not uniformity. We find a marvellous richness of diversity in all the creations of God. Study, my reader, this diversity in God's operations. If we address anyone who has doubts touching the fundamental doctrine of revealed religion, the being of a God, we ask him to take up that one evidence, the vast diversity of God's operations, unfolding the infinite affluence of God's mind, heart, wisdom, and power; and see if it will not bring him to the logical conclusion that this vast wealth, this infinite diversity, must spring from an Infinite Being. And yet, there is unity- unity of design, of purpose, of action, all springing from the unity of His being. "Hear, O Israel, the Lord your God is one Lord."

We see this unity that pervades God's works and operations, marvelously exhibited in the essential oneness of His Church. God has but one Church. "My beloved is one." Many sections, but one Church; many apartments, but one house; many stones, but one temple; many tents, but one camp; many flocks, but one fold. There is unity and there is diversity. The family of God is essentially one, and yet constituted into different households.

Now, we would remind you, in the first place, that the unity of the Church of God grows out of the unity of all believers in Christ the one Head. All true believers hold Christ the one Head of the Church. There may be diversities of judgment touching minor points in the interpretation of God's Word, but all believers in Christ hold the headship of Christ. The apostle speaks of some spurious religionists as not "holding the Head;" but all true believers hold Christ to be the Head of the Church- the Head of her vitality, of her strength, of her power, of her glory. Does not this, then, place before us, in a most striking point of view, the essential oneness of the Church of God?

Then, again, the essential unity of the Church consists in the indwelling of the same Spirit. Every believer is a temple of the Holy Spirit. All believers in Christ, then, are essentially one. The same Divine Spirit who brought you to see your lost condition and led you to Jesus, who is carrying on the work of grace in your heart, leading you on higher and higher, to a state of fitness for heaven, is the same Spirit who dwells alike in all God's people; and this recognition of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in every converted soul ought to draw us closer and closer in fellowship and love to the brethren. If I stand aloof from a brother- if I withhold my fellowship- refuse to co-operate with him in the work of the Lord Jesus- to refuse to admit him to my communion, because he does not belong to my section of the Christian Church- I grieve, wound, and dishonor that same Divine Spirit that dwells in my soul, I bring a leanness into my own spirit, I quench, in a great measure, the gracious influence of that Spirit in my own heart. Lay to heart this thought. Turn it into prayer. We believe through the power of the Spirit it will annihilate all the jealousy, envy, coldness, and distance that so much separates us from our brother in Christ.

And what a glorious view of the essential unity of the Church does salvation present to the eye! Look at the one Church of God. On what platform does it stand? What is its foundation? Where do all believers look for pardon, for acceptance, for sanctifying grace? Where do they wash day by day the constant contractions of guilt? Where do they look for present peace and future hope? Are they not all hanging on Christ? Are they not all clinging to Christ? Do they not all wash in the blood of Christ? Do not all put on the one righteousness of Christ? Are they not all living on Christ as their sanctification? Surely this were enough to place in the background, all those ecclesiastical systems that sever and sunder us from our brethren, and unite them in Christian union and fellowship. This were enough to make us say, "The minor points on which we differ are of no importance in comparison, and they shall not be allowed to sunder us in love, in sympathy, in labor. But the grand essential points on which we are agreed, shall be a bond of union and fellowship from this time forth and for evermore."

And how much is there in the circumstances of a child of God to unfold the essential unity of the Church of God! We have the same trials, afflictions, temptations; we tread oftentimes the same dreary, lonely, toilsome path. Oh, how much is there in God's providential dealings with us in our trials, our sorrows, our temptations, to knit the saints of God more closely to their Head!

THE OBLIGATIONS.

In conclusion, let us remark that there grows out of this great and precious truth some solemn obligations and precious blessings. First, with regard to obligations set forth in the Scriptures. If we are in Christ, and Christ is the center of our union, then we are bound to recognize the unity of God's Church. We are to hail a brother in Christ as a brother wherever we find him. We are to recognize his Christianity, his relation to the family of God, his faith in the Savior. We are to recognize him- whatever his ecclesiastical position may be- as no longer a stranger and alien, but a fellow-citizen of the saints and of the household of God. Recognizing this, we ought to express it. I think that this was the meaning of the petition our dear Lord breathed to heaven. He did not ask the Father that His Church might be one; it was one. He did not pray that they might be more one with each another; they were essentially so. But, what the Great High Priest asked of God was, that this unity, this oneness, might be manifested, that this union might be visible, that the world, beholding it, might believe in the divinity of His person and His mission. The world is a keen observer of the Church of God. The world cares not one iota how much we differ on points of church government, or of doctrine, but the world looks at the Church of God, in its union. It expects to find oneness, brotherly love, sympathy, co-operation. Therefore we earnestly implore you first, to recognize the unity of all God's dear saints with one another, and then manfully and unhesitatingly to express and illustrate it.

Added to this, we would earnestly implore you, as another obligation springing from this truth, to promote and remove the stumbling-blocks out of the way of Christian union. It may occasion you some self-denial. You may have a cross to

take up in doing this. You may lose the confidence, the affection, the friendship of some. But it is worth a sacrifice to remove a stone out of the way of the glorious work of Christian union. Oh, what were the chilled affection and weakened confidence of a fellow-Christian compared with the promotion of brotherly love and Christian union among all God's dear saints! To heal the divisions in the rent robe of our blessed Emmanuel, to draw brother to brother, minister to minister, church to church, oh, think of the glory, honor, and praise that will accrue by that act of yours to the blessed name of our wondrous, glorious Emmanuel! And when you place your dying head upon your pillow, and are about to stand in the presence of Jesus, do you do you think will for a moment regret having made some sacrifice of feeling, friendship, or affection, in order to draw closer and closer the bonds that unite the members of the one elect, redeemed, and saved Church of God?

THE BLESSINGS.

We advert for a moment to the blessings that will accrue from your recognition and manifestation of this great and glorious truth- the essential unity of the Church. Let me remind you that your happiness will be promoted by it. You cannot be happy so long as you stand aloof from a Christian church, a minister, or a brother, because he utters not your shibboleth, kneels not at your altar, because his form of worship or of church government assimilates not to your own. No! you cannot be happy. But, oh, the sacred delight of realizing our oneness! We have augmented our happiness in drawing around us closer the cords of love in a brother's heart- in having secured his confidence, inspired his

love, and acquired an interest in his prayers. Oh, the happiness of soaring above denominational differences, and breathing the purer, holier, serener atmosphere that floats around the cross of Calvary, where all ecclesiastical and denominational distinctions are entirely lost.

And not only your happiness but your holiness will be promoted by your recognition of brotherly love. It is not a holy and healthful state of mind to stand aloof from a church, a minister, or a private Christian, because they belong not to our own section of the Christian Church; but it is a holy and healthful state to be walking in love with all who love Christ, rising above these outer forms of separation, and recognizing only our common salvation, our common Lord, our union to our glorious and blessed Head. Do you want to be more holy, more happy, more useful? Do you want to assimilate more closely to the image of your Lord and Master? Then, extend your arms of love, sympathy, and companionship, and embrace, as He embraces, irrespective of party or ecclesiastical distinction, or form of worship, all those who own the one living and glorious Head.

We will only add that usefulness is another blessing that springs from the recognition and manifestation of Christian union. Beloved, we are useful for Christ, not so much as we stand apart in our individual, isolated condition; as in combination- combination of judgment, of heart, of purpose. This promotes our usefulness. Do you want to be useful in Christ's Church? Do you want to augment your practical influence in the service of your Master? Then, we beseech you, co-operate with all the Lord's people in advancing the kingdom of Christ, in circulating God's holy Word, in distributing religious tracts, in promoting Christian missions. Co-operate with every church organization in His blessed work. Link and unite yourselves with them, and you will augment vastly that usefulness in the service of Christ, to which, we trust, the Lord by His grace has called you.

We have adverted to the solemn hour of our departure, when, standing in a near view of the eternal world, we look back upon the past. Oh, then, how low, pitiful, and contemptible will appear all the little divisions that sundered us from God's dear saints, when we are about to stand in the presence of the Holy One, and spring into the fellowship of the "general assembly and Church of the First-born which are written in heaven, and to the spirits of just men made perfect." God has seen fit to take to the Church above, some of the earliest and most devoted friends of Christian union. Do you think that in heaven they repent of having crossed the threshold- of having overlooked their ecclesiastical walls- and of having united in sympathy and co-operation with God's dear saints? Oh, no! The Church of God on earth and in heaven is but one Church; and we believe that the glory and happiness of our friends in heaven is immensely increased in the recollection of having when on earth, done something to promote brotherly love and union in the Church of Christ.

Oh, let us live more in vivid realization of that solemn hour that shall transfer the Church on earth, freed from all its imperfections and deficiencies, to the Church of the glorified in heaven, where we shall be perfectly and eternally one!

"One army of the living God,
At His command we bow;
Part of the host have crossed the flood,
And part are crossing now.

"The Church triumphant in Your love,
Their mighty joys we know;
They sing the Lamb in hymns above,
And we in hymns below."

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

THE FULLNESS OF CHRIST

Table of Contents

1. Go to Jesus

2. Christ's Knowledge of His People

3. A Full Christ for Empty Sinners

4. A Good Man's Misinterpretation of a Dark Providence

5. Christ Revealing Himself to His People

6. Christ Our Brother

7. The Glory of Christ in Heaven

8. The Christians Journey

9. Christian Love

10. A Living Christ the Life of the Christian

11. The Satisfaction and Anticipation of Faith

12. The Christian's Devout Acknowledgment of God

13. A Sight of Jesus in Death

14. Christ's Presentation of His Church to God

15. The Aged Christian

Go to Jesus or,
The Famished Egyptians Sent to Joseph for Bread

When all Egypt began to feel the famine, the people cried to Pharaoh for food. Then Pharaoh told all the Egyptians, "Go to Joseph and do what he tells you." Genesis 41:55

The Word of God is as a garden of fruit and flowers- luscious with the sweetness, penciled with the beauty, and fragrant with the perfume of Christ. All its shadows, types, and prophecies, all its doctrines, precepts, and promises testify of Him. Search the Scriptures in whatever part, or view them from whatever stand-point you may, of Christ they speak, and to Christ they lead. The star of the east pendent over the lowly manger of Bethlehem pointed not more truly, conducted not more surely the wise men to the spot where the infant Savior lay, than does this "more sure word of prophecy, which is as a light that shines in a dark place," lead the mind inquiring for truth, the sinner in search of the Savior, the disciple in quest of his Lord, to Christ, the way, the truth, the life. Let us, dear reader, often walk within this Divine enclosure, this sacred garden, where the north wind and the south wind blows- the law humbling and condemning, the gospel comforting and saving- and eat the pleasant fruits, and inhale the perfume of Sharon's Rose. Committing ourselves to the teaching of God's Word, we are about to search for Christ among patriarchal shadows.

JOSEPH, by general consent, and fitted to be, in the most essential incidents of his history, a personal and remarkable type of the Lord Jesus Christ. It is true we have no express declaration of this in Scripture; nevertheless, if the history of Joseph, as recorded by Moses in Genesis, be compared with the history of the Lord Jesus Christ, as recorded by the evangelists in the gospels, the analogy will be found complete. Indeed, it would seem impossible to take the most cursory survey of his eventful and chequered life, and not see the Lord Jesus foreshadowed in each circumstance as it passes in review before the spiritual and reflective mind.

In this patriarchal study of Christ, we are also necessarily led to study important things in relation to the Church of Christ. It is a beautiful and consolatory arrangent that we cannot study the person and work of Christ- His Headship, beauty, and salvation- without at the same time being enchanted into a into a study of the history, the relation, privileges, and glory of the Church of God. All that Jesus did in His mediatorial character, He did as a representative person. He represented God, on the one hand, and He represented His Church, on the other.

Oh, how faintly do the saints of God realize the position of dignity, exaltation, wealth, and power, to which they are raised in virtue of their union with the Lord Jesus! In consequence of this federal, close, and inseparable union, believers are crucified with Christ, are raised with Christ, ascend with Christ, will come with Christ, and with Christ will reign in glory, wherever the seat of His govermnent may be, as "kings and priests unto God" forever!

The hallowed and soothing influence of this truth upon the mind must be of the happiest character. Realize that Christ and you are one- closely, tenderly, indissolubly one- and this reciprocity of affection, this identity of interests, this ever-present source of all supply, will unclasp many a burden, quell many a fear, tinge with golden light many a dark cloud, and constrain you by love to run the way of your Lord's commands with a cheerful, unquestioning, unreserved obedience.

To the spiritual contemplation of Christ, as shadowed forth in this chapter of patriarchal history, let us now humbly and devoutly bend our thoughts. May the Divine Spirit, the Revealer and Interpreter of Christ and His truth, impart to our minds that anointing which gives to the type its meaning, to the shadow its substance, to the prophecy its solution, that our meditations on the present theme may be scriptural and sober, spiritual and sanctifying- abasing self, exalting Christ, to the glory of God the Father!

To reach the present important period of the patriarch's history, we necessarily pass by unnoticed many striking and instructive events, tracing his transition from suffering and humiliation, to that dignity and aggrandizment which we make our starting-point in the present series of subjects. Some of those events, however, not essentially relevant to the gospel truths we are about to illustrate, will incidentally appear in the process of our discussion, and will be interwoven with these shadows of Christ and His Church.

We commence, then, at an epoch of Joseph's history which finds him exalted to the prime-minister of Pharaoh's kingdom, the governor of all Egypt, the greatest man in the land, second only to the Pharaoh himself; to whose custody and administration were confided the goverment and treasures of the kingdom. "And Pharaoh said unto Joseph, Forasmuch as God has showed you all this, there is none so discreet and wise as you are: you shall be over my house, and according to your word shall all my people be ruled: only in the throne will I be greater than you. And Pharaoh said unto Joseph, See, I have set you over all the land of Egypt."

Having said thus much, let us again remind the reader what our specific object is in bringing before him these typical shadows. It is not our intention so much to unfold the history of the patriarch, as to illustrate the Lord Jesus Christ in the relation in which He stands to His Church, to unveil His glory, beauty, and fulness, to define the close bond of union that unites to Him all His brethren, and to bring you into a more personal realization of what Christ is to you, and of what you are to Christ. The points for our meditation in the present chapter are- the FAMINE; the CRY FOR BREAD, and the COMMAND, "Go to Joseph."

The land of Egypt was now smitten with a grievous and wide-spread famine. The seven years of plenty had expired. The people having lived upon the old stock of corn until their resources were wholly exhausted, their granaries were emptied, their supplies consumed, a gnawing and crushing famine had succeeded. All this came to pass exactly and literally as Joseph had predicted; for Joseph was a man of God, and spoke as the Spirit of God moved him. It was by the Spirit of God that he interpreted the dreams of Pharaoh; and, consequently, as he spoke by the inspiration of the Spirit, so all that he said literally came to pass.

Allow us to throw in one remark here. Let your faith in, and your reverence for, the Divine inspiration of the Scriptures of truth become firmer and deeper; for, be assured, "holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit," and all that they have said, both of mercy and judgment, shall literally and surely come to pass!

We turn now from this event of national history, to contemplate the spiritual gospel instruction with which it is so deeply and richly fraught. A greater famine, than that which now prevailed in Egypt is raging throughout this fallen and apostate world! The years of spiritual plenty in which the world in its original state of righteousness, rectitude, and holiness, enjoyed every blessing that God could give, or man experience, have passed away. Man lived upon his own righteousness, stood in his own holiness, walked in fellowship with Jehovah, up to the moment that he broke from his allegiance to God, and became a fugitive from the garden of Eden. They were years of richness, of abundance, of plenty, to our race.

What imagination can depict, what thought conceive, what tongue describe the blessedness, the fulness of all blessing which our nature experienced and enjoyed during those years when righteousness, holiness, and peace reigned supreme and paramount in this now sinful and accursed world of ours! But those years of plenty have passed away forever; and the years of spiritual famine have succeeded. Study what age of the world you may, travel into what climate you may, look into the face of what human being you may, and there confronts you a moral famine, a spiritual destitution of the soul- every man exhibiting in his life, the existence of a raging, gnawing destitution, which no created object can supply.

The whole scheme of our salvation, the redemption of man by the Lord Jesus Christ, the revelation of the "glorious gospel of the blessed God," all the provisions that God has made in the Son of His love, are based on the one momentous fact- that our nature, spiritual and intellectual, is a famished, starving, destitute nature, there being nothing in the vast storehouse, the universal granary of the world's goods, that can meet and satisfy a single need or craving of the human soul.

Why this air of restlessness which pervades our nature? Why this look of dissatisfaction imprinted on every countenance? Why those deep furrows on every brow? Why this universal cry of our humanity, "Who will show us any good?" What! can you find no good in this vast universe that God has formed? Ah, no! Man finds all created good to be but a broken cistern. He hews out cistern after cistern, sets on foot enterprise after enterprise, devises new plans for happiness, each one more promising than the other, and still his soul is filled with one vast, aching void- the heart restless, the spirit anxious, the mind dissatisfied; and so our poor, famished, craving, destitute nature travels round the circle of all created blessing, and terminates the journey by reiterating the plaintive cry, "Who will show us any good?"

We pass from this part of the subject to consider- the cry for bread. "And when all the land of Egypt was famished, the people cried to Pharaoh for bread." In the first place, listen to the appeal- "The people cried to Pharaoh." Here was something like sensibility, life, a deep, intense conviction of the prevailing famine. It is not merely the existence of the fact, but the deep-felt, agonizing conviction of the fact. They not only knew that they were starving, that their granaries were empty, that their resources were entirely exhausted, but they were a people who rose as one man, under the crushing weight of their necessity, and made their appeal. They felt the biting famine, were conscious of the gnawing hunger, that the wolf was feeding at their vitals, and they rose as one people and uttered their cry, "Give us bread."

Look at the spiritual teaching of this. There is a universal existence in our race of a need- that need is happiness; a need for something that will meet the intense yearning, and craving of our spiritual, moral, and intellectual being. Some seek it in the gay world, some in the sensual world, others in the intellectual world, others more in the political world, and there are not a few who are seeking it in what is termed conventionally the religious world.

These have little or no taste for the world's gaieties, less for intellectual pursuits, and still less ambition to climb the steep of human distinction and carve their name on some lofty column; but they seek to meet the yearning, the panting, and the craving of their nature in a religion of their own; and religious duties, religious engagements, religious excitement, and religious rites and ceremonies, are eagerly sought and sedulously cultivated, with a view of meeting this moral craving for that which will give repose and satisfaction to the soul.

But we pass from these to another class, more circumscribed, but decidedly more spiritual and blessed. We refer to those from whom the cry for bread issues under the teaching, quickening influence of God the Eternal Spirit. The hungering and thirsting after righteousness, after holiness, after Christ, after God, which marks a gracious soul, is not the breathing of the unregenerate, unawakened, and carnal mind. Ah, no! The blessed and Eternal Spirit is the author of all spiritual feelings, convictions, desires, and breathings in the quickened and renewed man. Are you breathing after Christ? Are you hungering for Christ, the bread of life? Are you thirsting for Christ, the well-spring of life? Is your soul panting for God in a dry and thirsty land where there is no water? Then, beloved, you are the subject of spiritual thirst and spiritual hunger, wrought in your soul by the Holy Spirit.

It is the Spirit convincing you of your lost, self-ruined and undone condition. It is the Spirit opening your eyes to see your sinfulness, vileness, and nothingness. It is the Spirit showing you the entire loss of all your original righteousness, and bringing you to see that you are a poor, starving, famishing sinner, lying at the feet of Jesus, realizing that none but Jesus can meet your case. Oh, we beseech you, keep your eye on the fine line of distinction between a soul only thirsting for natural good and for worldly happiness, and a soul spiritually hungering and thirsting for Christ.

If, my dear reader, you were at one time seeking to satisfy this craving of your spiritual nature in religious rites, ceremonies, and duties, going to your sacraments, to your church, to your district, and returning to your chamber still with the crushing weight of sin, still with the gnawing hunger, no peace with God, no sense of pardon, no clear view of your interest in Christ, no star of hope twinkling in the dark clouds overshadowing you, no consciousness of adoption; but now if the blessed Spirit has opened your eyes to see that your own works and doings will avail you nothing, and has brought you, empty and sinful, to the Savior's feet, craving the bread that comes from God, thankful even for the crumbs that fall from His table, then we wish you joy of your new-born feelings!

It may be but a sigh, but a tear, but a desire bursting from your full, penitent heart; nevertheless, the Spirit is its author and will be its finisher. It came from God, to God it will rise, and in God it will terminate and eternally rest. Thus much for the cry.

Now, for a moment, let us advert to the object that cry. What was the cry for? There was but one thing that could meet the needs of the nation. Offer them the most precious jewels, domains the most extensive, tell them of rank the highest, of wealth countless as the sands, they would turn from you and say, "Cruel mockers are you of our misery! We are starving, we are famishing, we are hungry; give us bread, or we die!"

Now, what is the one grand requirement of the soul? What will meet this deep, intense craving? Is it wealth? It has been tried to its utmost, and found lacking. Ask the millionaire, and he will tell you the toil of obtaining it, the risk of investing it, the fear of losing it, and the thought of leaving it, robs him of all comfort in the possession of it, and that thus riches are utterly incompetent to make their possessor happy. Is it the world? Ah, no! It has been searched and ransacked through and through, and can scarcely afford a single new source of pleasure or enjoyment. One could sometimes smile, were the spectacle not too awful, at the puerile, childish expedients to which the worldling resorts to meet this intense craving of the mind. See the bubbles be blows, the baubles he chases, the straws he gathers, while the Son of God holds out a jeweled crown to the aspirant for true glory, honor, and immortality.

Will the creature supply it? Ask him who has found the noblest, the dearest that earth ever afforded, if that angel of intellect and beauty, before whom the soul burns the incense of adoration, has filled this deep and aching void. What a hallucination, what a fantasy, what a mockery is all this!- the mirage of the desert not more deceptive. In the striking and solemn language of the prophet- "It shall even be as when an hungry man dreams, and, behold, he eats; but he awakens, and his soul is empty: or as when a thirsty man dreams, and behold, he drinks; but he awakens, and, behold, he is faint, and his soul has remains parched."

We ask again, what will meet the craving of the soul? Bread, and bread only! We might learn much instruction from this fact in our efforts to evangelize the world. Why all this discussion about Education? Will Education meet the craving of the soul of man? Why all this excitement about Social Science? Will Social Science meet the moral famine of our nature? How do our legislators, our philosophers, our political economists, and many of the moral reformers, lose sight of this great truth!

The soul of man needs the Gospel, and nothing but the gospel of Christ will meet its spiritual and deep necessities- nothing but the Gospel will uplift, ennoble, sanctify, and save our fallen, famishing, and crushed race. The world is asking for bread, and in giving it education, and science, and moral reform, while withholding the Gospel of Christ, we are offering it a stone! Oh, keep the eye firmly fixed on this truth, and you will be wiser than the wisest of the worldly wise, a more profound philosopher than the most learned, that nothing short of the glorious Gospel of the blessed God will regenerate, sanctify, and save the soul of man.

How impressively and emphatically did our Lord embody this truth in the great commission with which He clothed His apostles, before He left the scene of His toil and suffering,- "Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature!" As though He had said, "The world is famishing-man is perishing; I give to you the bread of life- go forth and distribute it fully and freely to every creature under heaven. The extent of man's neediness and misery shall be the only limit to your mission."

But let us circumscribe this train of thought. What is the one specific cry of a truly spiritually regenerated and awakened soul? Is it not for JESUS, the bread of life? Most assuredly! Go to the sinner bowed beneath the weight of the law, to the man awakened to a conviction of his sinful and lost condition, who has been brought to know the nothingness of his own righteousness, and ask him, 'What will make you happy?' Bid him go to his religious duties, to his sacraments, to his church, to his minister. Oh, how bitter will be his reproof- "I asked you, as a starving man, for bread, and you give me husks. I need Christ- I need to know that my sins are pardoned- that my transgressions are blotted out- that I am an accepted, forgiven child of God. And nothing short of this will meet my case. I have tried every other expedient, have come to the end of all my own doings, and I perish with hunger. I have been feeding upon ashes. I have sought to meet the cravings of my spirit with the chaff. I have been drinking in the wind. Give me Christ, or I die! None but Christ! None but Christ! Place me upon a pinnacle, and give me the world. I survey from thence, still, without Christ I am undone- I starve- I perish! Lord, I fall at Your feet. You only have the bread of eternal life. Here will I lie, here will I cling; and if I perish in my hunger, it shall be asking You, imploring You, crying to You for bread!"

Oh, thank God if the blessed Spirit has brought you to see the difference between the bread of life and the husks with which man would seek to meet your spiritual craving! Fall on your knees, and thank God if you have been taught that none but Christ - a crucified, atoning, and full Savior- a Savior whose blood blots out the deepest stain of guilt, and whose flowing robe of righteousness justifies the believing soul from all sin- can meet your soul's necessity!

That Jesus is the bread of the spiritual soul, how clear and impressive is His own teaching "And Jesus said unto them, I am the bread of life: he that comes to me shall never hunger; and he that believes on me shall never thirst." "I am the living bread which came down from heaven; if any man eat of this bread, he shall live forever; and the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world." "Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except you eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, you have no life in you." "He that eats my flesh and drinks my blood, dwells in me and I in him." "He that eats of this bread shall live forever." Shall we not exclaim, in view of this marvelous statement, "Lord, evermore give us this bread!"

But let us view this general truth in some of its particulars. Bread is composed of a variety of constituent parts. There are various views of Christ, each one precious to those who know and love Him. And in the sovereignty of the Spirit one view of the Lord Jesus may be unfolded and applied with more fullness and power than another. Perhaps it is a sense of pardoned sin that you need. Jesus Christ is that pardon; His blood, His precious blood speaks pardon; one drop applied to your conscience will seal a sense of full forgiveness. "In whom we have redemption through His blood, even the forgiveness of sins." Perhaps it is a sense of peace with God you desire; the righteousness of Christ imputed to you will impart that peace. "Being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ." Perhaps it is to know that you are vitally united to Christ; faith in Christ will give you this union. Thus it all resolves itself into one grand truth, Jesus Christ, "whose flesh is food indeed, and whose blood is drink indeed."

And if the spirit of God has given you a hungering and thirsting after Christ, then it is your privilege to receive, as the free gift of God's grace, the Lord Jesus Christ as the "living bread which came down from heaven." A most important truth is shadowed forth here, which we must prominently and distinctly place before you. You will observe that there was no direct response from Pharaoh to the cry of the Egyptians for bread. They appealed to him for bread, but he sent them to Joseph. "And Pharaoh said unto all the Egyptians, Go to Joseph."

And why this? Because all the corn of Egypt was placed in the hands of Joseph, and Joseph was the man he delighted to exalt and to honor. He would teach them, too, that such was the order and administration of his government- all appeals to him must be through his prime minister, the governor and treasurer of the kingdom; and that what Joseph said and did had the royal authority and sanction. Words fail to set forth the importance and the preciousness of the gospel truth here shadowed forth.

The Lord Jesus is the "One Mediator between God and man." All the treasures of grace are placed in His hands; and He is the administrator of the everlasting covenant. "No man comes unto the Father but by me." "I am the door." "By Him we both have access by one Spirit unto the Father." What can be more clear than this truth, that we can have no dealings in the way of salvation, and grace, and communion with the Father, but through the Son? It is in the righteousness of Christ we have acceptance with God. It is by the blood of Christ we draw near to God. It is in the name of Christ we offer our requests to the Father; and the bestowment of all the precious blessings, the daily bread, the continuous supply of every need, shall be in and through the Lord Jesus Christ, "that all men should honor the Son, even as they honor the Father."

This is a truth which may meet the tried, perplexed experience of some of our readers. How many there are who go to the Father for pardon, acceptance, and peace, and for all the blessings of daily life, without a recognition of the mediatorial character, relation, and fulness of the Lord Jesus Christ! Look once more at the shadow. These famished Egyptians passed by Joseph; they did not recognize the prime minister; they did not see that Joseph had all the granaries, all the corn of Egypt under his seal and in his hands. They went directly to Pharaoh, and met with no response.

This may just touch the spiritual state and position of your soul. You are wondering why for years you have been seeking, reading, and praying and doing, and yet have not advanced a single step in your spiritual course, not a single beam of God's love has penetrated your soul- no sweet peace flows like a river in your heart, no joy thrills your spirit; and you have no sense of reconciliation, adoption, and acceptance with the Beloved. And yet for weeks, and months, and years, you have been traveling to God, not recognizing that the Lord Jesus Christ is the true, the spiritual Joseph of the Church; and that it is in His hands all fulness of blessing is deposited.

"Go to Joseph." "Go to my Son," says the Father. "You petition for bread- you sue for pardon- you ask for reconciliation- you hunger and thirst for grace- go to my Son! I have laid help upon one that is mighty. I have exalted Him among His brethren, and will honor and magnify Him. He was humbled and slain, and now He is exalted and crowned. He died, and rose again, and lives to be the administrator of all the blessings of My covenant. Go to Him; and whatever you ask in His name, I will grant it."

Thus speaks the Father to you in this type. And thus our Lord confirms the truth- "Whatever you shall ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son: if you shall ask anything in my name, I will do it." "Verily, verily, whatever you shall ask the Father in my name, he will give it to you. Hitherto you have asked nothing in my name: ask and you shall receive, that your joy may be full."

See why you have asked, and have not received, you have not gone in the name of Jesus- you have not pleaded His merits- you have not honored His name- you have not gone to the Father with that one argument, that single plea that never fails- the atoning blood of Immanuel. "You have asked, and have not received, because you have asked amiss."

We are thus instructed, not by the type only, but by the words of our Lord himself, that prayer is to be equally addressed to the Son as to the Father. No believer should have a moment's hesitation, or a single doubt on this subject. Admit His Deity, and you admit His claim to Divine worship. Acknowledge His Headship of the Church, and you admit His administration in the government of the Church. Allow Him to be the one Depositary of His people's grace, and you are forced to allow that petition for supplies of that grace must be preferred directly and personally to Him. Hesitate not, then, to address your confessions of sin, your pleadings for pardon, your petitions for grace, your breathings for sympathy, your praises and adoration to the Lord Jesus Christ, even as you address them to the Father.

And if it be your last, your latest, your expiring breath, let it be in the words of the dying Stephen, "Lord Jesus, receive my spirit!" Thus honoring Him, He will honor you. Then GO TO JESUS, and approach the Father through Jesus, and you shall have all your needs supplied, for there is corn in Egypt, bread enough and to spare, and you need not die. But oh, if you die, let it be in the very act of going to Jesus! Rouse to this work of shutting yourself up entirely to Christ. Let not sins, nor backslidings, nor poverty, nor unbelief, keep you away from Jesus. Say with the poet,

"I'll go to Jesus, though my sin
Has like a mountain rose;
I know His courts, I'll enter in,
Whatever may oppose."

"I'll to the gracious King approach,
whose scepter pardon gives,
Perhaps He will command my touch,
And then the suppliant lives."

"Perhaps He will admit my plea,
Perhaps will hear my prayer;
But if I perish, I will pray,
And perish only there."

There is another gospel truth shadowed forth in this part of our type. In anticipation of the seven years' gnawing, grinding, crushing famine, Pharaoh had laid up in the granaries of Egypt an ample supply of bread for the people. Was there ever a more precious truth illustrated than this? God, from eternity, has provided in the Son of His love, in the covenant of redemption, and in His eternal purposes, a full redemption, a free salvation for our poor famished, starving souls. Do not think not that Redemption was an afterthought of God; that Salvation was a subsequent idea of the Divine mind. Ah, no! Never was there a greater fallacy in theology than this.

God, from all eternity, knew that man would fall; foresaw the apostasy of our race, and provided for the event. In the counsels of eternity, God prepared and devised the great scheme of our salvation; laid up in the heavenly granary the bread that would meet the necessities of our famished nature, in original, unfailing, inexhaustible stores of pardoning, sanctifying, justifying, comforting grace- all treasured, provided in anticipation of the fall, the ruin, the famine of our poor sinful world. "Him, being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, you have taken, and with wicked hands have crucified and slain."

Beloved, the rivulet is sweet, the stream is sweeter, but the fountain from where both flow is sweeter than all. Let us follow the rivulet to the stream, the stream to the fountain. "I have loved you with an everlasting love, therefore with loving-kindness have I drawn you." What an additional element of sweetness will it give to that bread of life, how much more sparkling and refreshing will be the stream of the water of life, if you will blend it in your thoughts with God's everlasting love and purposes of mercy towards you! "Oh, how great is Your goodness which You have laid up for those who fear You!" Thus, all the covenant blessings of redemption and grace are anticipative- anticipative of the circumstances, the needs, and the appeals of the Lord's people.

We may, therefore, believe that no new exigence shall arise, no new affliction overtake us, no new event occur, which is not anticipated and provided for in the fulness of Christ, and in the supplies of the covenant of grace. Leave, then, your future confidingly, calmly, hopefully. For all that future your heavenly Father has provided in and through Jesus. When the seven years' plenty have expired, and the seven years' famine commence, you shall find the Lord Jesus to be God's Treasurer and Almoner, "in whom it pleased the Father that all fulness should dwell," and your every need shall be amply and freely supplied. Let us, then, exultingly, gratefully exclaim, "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ, according as He has chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world." Yes! before an atom of matter was formed, or a foundation-stone of this mighty fabric was laid, before a star shone in the heavens, or a ray of light trembled on the chaotic darkness, grace and glory were laid up for us in Christ Jesus.

Observe another gospel truth strikingly illustrated. Old as their supplies of corn were, they would, to the famished recipients, be as the blessings of a new harvest. Such are our gospel supplies. Ancient as the years of God, are the blessings of grace, yet to our daily life of faith they are as new blessings. Jesus is the "mediator of the new covenant." "This is my blood of the new testament." "If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature." "Who has made us able ministers of the new testament." God would thus teach us that we must come to Jesus for new, for daily supplies- daily grace for daily corruption- daily strength for daily service- daily sympathy for daily sorrow- daily support for daily trial- daily food for daily hunger.

"To whom coming." "Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today, and forever." Go to Jesus, then, with each new circumstance and event and demand as it arises. Jesus, our "Tree of Life," bears fruit every month, and every day of the month, and every hour of the day. He has taught you to pray, "Give us this day our daily bread," and He promises, "Open your mouth wide and I will fill it." Let, then, the life you live in the flesh, begirt by daily, hourly infirmities, trials, and sorrows, be a daily drawing of new blessings from your Divine granary. Whatever your craving, you will find in Jesus a corresponding supply. You have no sin His blood cannot cleanse- no grief His sympathy will not soothe- no infirmity His grace will not help- no perplexity His wisdom will not guide- no lack His sufficiency will not supply.

"Grace taught my wandering feet
To tread the heavenly road;
And new supplies each hour I meet,
While pressing on to God."

In all this we trace the will and purpose of God in the exaltation and honor to which He has advanced His Son Jesus Christ. The shadowing forth of this truth in the case of Joseph is most instructive. "And Pharaoh took off his ring from his hand, and put it upon Joseph's hand, and arrayed him in vestures of fine linen, and put a gold chain about his neck; and he made him to ride in the second chariot which he had; and they cried before him, Bow the knee." Behold the shadowing of 'our gospel Joseph'! What do we read? "Therefore God also has highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name: that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth; and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is LORD, to the glory of God the Father."

Reader, have you bowed the knee to Jesus? have you bowed the heart in adoration, faith, and love? Bow to Him you must, either in this world, or in the world to come- in time, or in eternity. To Christ all judgment is committed by the Father, "that all men should honor the Son, even as they honor the Father." "They will reverence my Son." Do you reverence Him? Are you exalting Him- crowning Him- serving Him? God will not hold him guiltless who dishonors His Son Jesus Christ- denying His Godhead, rejecting His atonement, refusing to love, serve, and glorify Him. Oh, bow your heart and lend your knee to Jesus! Place the diadem of Divine royalty upon His kingly brow, and worship Him in His priestly office, and He will make you a king and a priest unto God when He appears in glory!

"Go to Joseph." In their gospel significance, what words of fulness, solemnity, and hope are these! Interpreted in their spiritual import, they chime upon the ear more sweetly than an angel's harp, and more solemnly than the blast of the archangel's trumpet, "GO TO JESUS!" My reader, deem not these brief words of no interest to you. Words more momentous, more significant, more precious, were never uttered. It is a question of life or death. Go to Jesus you must, or you are lost! Your solemn future of happiness or of woe, of heaven or hell, is suspended upon your compliance or non-compliance with this invitation.

In some of its essential features your spiritual condition is portrayed by the case of the prodigal who took his journey into a far country, and when he had spent all, found himself in beggary and need amid a mighty famine; but encouraged by the recollection that there was bread enough in his father's house to spare, he arose and went to his father. It is for your life that we now urge you with all the earnestness and solemnity we can command, Go to Jesus. Nothing whatever must be allowed to intercept your coming; no reasoning must dissuade, no difficulty must daunt, no condition must discourage you. To Christ you must come, or perish! It is Christ- or Satan. Christ- or condemnation. Christ- or hell. The whole matter, more important to you than the interests of ten million empires, is narrowed to the finest point, the smallest compass- go to Jesus, or perish in the famine, with all the bitter pangs of the second and eternal death. Go, then, to Jesus- go at once, go as you are, go through a crowd of difficulties, opposition, and discouragements; go with your sins countless as the sands which belt the ocean, or the stars which bestud the firmament- sins of scarlet and of crimson hue; go with all the sad memories of the past crowding upon you; your caviling at Divine truth, your rebellion against God, your aggravated violations of His law, your ungodly deeds which you have ungodly committed, the hard speeches which you have spoken, even though you have plucked the crown from the Savior's head, trailing it in the dust, even- oh, crime of crimes! -even though you have scornfully trampled His atoning blood beneath your feet- even though you have made a covenant with hell, and with death are at an agreement; yet, in the face of all, in spite of all, notwithstanding all, with trumpet-tongue, the astounding, the marvellous, the gracious words peal forth upon your ear- GO To JESUS!

Yes! to Jesus you may go! God is prepared to be reconciled to you in Christ, and He sends you to His Son for the merits, the worthiness, and the plea with which you may propitiate His justice, be restored to His favor, be adopted, accepted, and saved. And to make this momentous fact of your restoration doubly sure, you have both the efficacy of Christ's work- and the assurance of Christ's promise- annihilating, if you stand at His bar condemned, every excuse- "the blood of Jesus Christ his son cleanses us from all sin." "Him that comes unto me, I will never cast out." Arise, then, and go. Be this your plea "Blessed Savior! I come, I come to You as I am; I come vile, I come, empty, I come as a bankrupt and a beggar, to receive as the gift of Your free grace the blessings of Your salvation."

"Encouraged by Your word of promise to the poor,
Behold a beggar, Lord, waits at Your mercies' door;
No hand, no heart, O Lord, but Thine,
Can help and pity needs like mine."

Believer in Jesus, regard not this act of going to Jesus as only primary and initiatory- once done, done forever. Oh, no! it is a continuous act all through the Christian's life. The life of faith is a constant coming to Jesus for daily, hourly, and fresh supplies. "To whom COMING," -mark the tense- coming now! coming at this moment, and continuously coming. Let every circumstance and event, every trial, sorrow, and need, be an echo of the gracious life-inspiring words- "Go to Joseph!" Go to Jesus, confessing sin; go, unveiling grief; go, telling need; go, breathing love, desire, and hope. You are still in the land of famine and of need. But your heavenly Father would remind you that He has anticipated and provided for all your requirements, for all your history, for your daily demands, in Him whom He has made Head over all things to the Church, the fullness of Him that fills all in all.

Take the hard or the broken heart, take the cold or the glowing heart, take your barrenness or your fruitfulness, take the sunbeam of prosperity or the cloud-veil of adversity, take the joy, the sorrow, take all- to Jesus; let Him participate in all, keep you in all, sympathize with all, for Jesus is your Brother, raised up to befriend, support, and preserve you in your time of need.

"What He says to you, do." Implicit obedience to Christ's commands is as much enjoined by our heavenly Father, as it is the dictate of gratitude and the prompting of affection. "This is his commandment, that we should believe on the name of his Son Jesus Christ, and that we should love one another, as he gave us commandment," Obedience to Christ is the evidence of discipleship and the test of love. "If you love me, keep my commandments." And when our adorable Lord and Master, our King and Head in Zion, pledged to the apostles, and through them to all who should afterwards believe in Him, His presence to the end of time, He linked the precious promise with the obligation of obedience, "Teaching them to observe all things whatever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you aways, even unto the end of the world."

Let this, then, be your daily prayer- "Lord, what will You have me to do? I would bear Your yoke, and carry Your burden, and bind Your cross to my heart, and follow You, blessed Lamb of God, wherever You go." Whatever, then, Christ says to you, do. He bids you believe in Him; He commands you to obey Him; He invites you to come to Him; He asks you to confess His name before the world; to take up your cross and follow Him.

All this, and whatever more He bids you, you must do, as a loving, obedient disciple. There must be no debate, no demur. It's not for a soldier to question his commander's orders, nor for a child to debate his father's commands. "You are my friends, if you do whatever I command you." Let obedience to Christ in everything be the distinctive badge of your discipleship. His grace will sustain you, His counsel guide you, His presence will cheer you, His smile will reward you, and you shall know from heart-experience, that "in keeping His commands there is great reward."

"What He says to you, do." Saved by Jehovah's love from this wide-spread, this fearful famine- nourished by Jesus, the bread of life, God's unspeakable gift- and made to know both your hunger and its supply, by the Eternal Spirit- oh, to the Triune God be henceforth- your intellect, your wealth, your rank, your time, your life- wholly and forever consecrated.

"Father, Son, and Holy Spirit,
One in Three, and Three in One.
As by the celestial host,
Let Your will on earth be done;
Praise by all to You be given,
Glorious Lord of earth and heaven!"

"Vilest of the sinful race,
Lo, I answer to Your call;
Meanest vessel of Your grace,
Grace divinely free for all;
Lo! I come to do Your will,
All Your counsel to fulfill."

"If so poor a worm as I
May to Your great glory live,
All my actions sanctify,
All my words and thoughts receive;
Claim me for Your service, claim
All I have, and all I am."

"Take my soul and body's powers;
Take my memory, mind, and will;
All my goods, and all my hours,
All I know, and all I feel;
All I think, or speak, or do;
Take my heart, but make it new!"

"Now, my God, Your own I am,
Now I give You back Your own;
Freedom, friends, and health, and fame,
Consecrate to You alone
Yours I live, thrice happy I!
Happier still, if Yours I die!"

"Father, Son, and holy Spirit,
One in Three, and Three in One,
As by the celestial host,
Let Your will on earth be done;
Praise be all to You be given,
Glorious Lord of earth and heaven!"

Christ's Knowledge of His People- Their Ignorance of Him

"And Joseph knew his brethren, but they did not know him." Genesis 42:8

A more precious truth, or a sublimer idea our Lord Jesus Christ never uttered when on earth than in those words of His intercessory prayer addressed to the Father- "This is life eternal, that they might know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent." It was our true Joseph beseeching His Father and our Father that this revelation of God and of Christ, in the knowledge of whom consisted their eternal happiness, might be fully disclosed to His brethren. Until this revelation is made, until this knowledge is attained, the range of thought and inquiry has been limited to objects which derive their sole interest and importance from a world passing away, and destined, before long, to be involved in the final conflagration of all things. What are a man's intellectual achievements worth, even though he "understood all mysteries and all knowledge," if yet he knows not spiritually, experimentally, and savingly, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom he has sent? Such a one would deem the words of the apostle, himself no mean authority- extravagant and hyperbolical- "Yes, doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the Excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord."
Added to which is his ardent aspiration- breathing from a mind already furnished as few were, with the precious spoils of this divine knowledge- "That I may know Him" -know Him more in the power of His risen life-giving, life-sustaining, and life-securing life. It is to this train of thought we are led by the interesting and instructive period in Joseph's history which we have now reached. There are before us two opposites- knowledge and ignorance- knowledge on the part of Joseph, ignorance on the part of Joseph's brethren. "And Joseph knew his brethren, but they did not know him."
How full of Christ, and how replete with instruction to the saints of God is this incident! Oh, may the Holy Spirit be our teacher and revealer, opening to our understandings and applying to our hearts these scriptures of truth which so manifestly and decidedly testify of Jesus! The two points for consideration are, JOSEPH AS DISGUISED TO HIS BRETHREN and THE RECOGNITION OF HIS BRETHREN BY JOSEPH, illustrating a vital, spiritual, and precious truth- CHRIST'S KNOWLEDGE Or HIS PEOPLE.
"They knew not him." There was, doubtless, much to account for this ignorance on their part. Joseph was now exalted to the government of Egypt. Twenty-two years had passed since they last saw him, then a young lad, a beardless youth, a slave sold to the Egyptians. He was now full-grown, had arrived at maturity, was arrayed in courtly, costly apparel, speaking to them in the language and with the air of an Egyptian prince. All this tended to throw a profound veil over the person of Joseph, and to disguise from them the fact that they were, unconsciously to themselves, in the immediate presence of their long dead but now living brother.
The spiritual reader, in whose mind thoughts of Jesus are pre-eminent, will in a moment recognize the Lord here. The disciples, the Lord's brethren, knew not their Lord immediately after His resurrection. So changed was He in those three days- His countenance so altered, His whole appearance so transformed, invested as with a resurrection glory so great- when He appeared in their presence and spoke to them, they failed to recognize Him- they knew not that it was Jesus. Mary at the sepulcher, the two disciples journeying to Emmaus, the gathered Church in the upper room, were all alike unconscious that their once crucified but now risen Lord was in converse with them.
Oh, what must be His changed appearance now! How glorious! Wearing still the same body He wore on earth- perchance still associated with the imagery of the sacrificial death He endured- the print of the nails, the gash of the spear, "looking like a lamb that had been slain;" yet so transformed, so glorified, so glorious, that, but for His own manifestation and unveiling, none who knew Him in the days of His humiliation and sorrow, would know Him again.
But oh, bright and joyous prospect! We shall know Him- we shall see Him as He is, and we shall be like Him, for He "shall change our vile body" (the body of our humiliation) "that it may be fashioned like unto His glorious body." Dear Lord, we thank You for what we see and know of You now; and are looking for that blessed hope, Your glorious appearing, when the window will be uplifted, and the veil be withdrawn, and You will stand before us our true Joseph, raised from humiliation the deepest, to glory, honor, majesty, and power the most exalted and resplendent.
But the point of analogy which now arrests our attention is more solemn and instructive- the spiritual ignorance of the Lord Jesus Christ which marks, for the most part, the brethren of the Lord. This is exhibited, in the first place, in the natural, unregenerate state of the Lord's hidden people. What knowledge have we naturally and in our unenlightened state of Jesus? It is true, He may be our Brother in an everlasting covenant, our Savior to be revealed and made known to us in the sovereignty and effectual calling of His grace; but, while we are in that natural and unregenerate state, we are totally and profoundly ignorant of the Lord Jesus.
The condition of the Jews is an instance of this: "He came to his own, and his own received him not." He was their long-promised, long-looked-for Messiah, their Redeemer, their King; but when He came, wearing a human disguise, a poor man, a man of grief, they knew Him not, and, knowing Him not, they scornfully, utterly rejected Him. The apostle John alludes to the same state when He says, "The world knows us not, even as it knew Him not." This is the condition of every unconverted, unrenewed reader of this book- ignorance of Jesus Christ, and, in consequence of this ignorance, the rejection of the Son of God, which I hesitate not to say constitutes the sin of sins, the crime of crimes! Our Lord says, "This is the condemnation, that light has come into the world, but men love darkness rather than light, because their deeds are evil." He is the Light, and Him they reject!
Another truth is illustrated here. Observe the disguise which Joseph wore. He revealed himself, or stood before his brethren in the character, not of their brother, but as the governor of Egypt, in his legal, executive character as the prime minister of the land. And why is it, beloved, that we who are spiritually enlightened, who are taught by the Holy Spirit, and who may have had some favored discoveries of Christ to our souls, how is it that we do not know more of Christ? Is it not because we deal with Christ too much in the spirit of legality? We do not sufficiently see Christ to be our Brother, our own Brother, our living Brother- bone of our bone, and flesh of our flesh.
Is there not too much of a Jewish faith in our professed Christian faith? Do we not too much deal with Christ as a Law-giver, rather than as a Law-fulfiller? Is there not too much in our going to Christ of a bondage spirit? Do we not often come to Jesus for bread, for the spiritual blessing for which we are longing, too little as our own Brother, our next of kin, our Goal, our Joseph, and too much as if He were the governor, the prime minister of Egypt?
Oh that the Lord may vouchsafe to us more of a gospel faith! May He give us to see that Jesus Christ is the "end of the law" for righteousness to every one that believes; and that it is our privilege to bear our needs, our sorrows, our trials to Jesus as our Brother, and not as clothed with a character and sustaining a relation that fills the mind with awe, inspires a bondage spirit, and arrests that free and full communion that ought ever to mark the approach of a sin-pardoned, accepted believer into the presence of Jesus.
Take another point of analogy- the speech of Joseph to his brethren. "He spoke roughly to them." "Joseph saw his brethren, and he knew them, but made himself strange unto them." My reader, you can testify how often this has been your spiritual experience. What a page is here, corresponding with our Christian and spiritual exercise of soul! Is not the voice of Jesus oftentimes rough, as it were, in the ears of His brethren? Does He not often make Himself strange to us in His conduct and dealings. And when He uplifts the rod and smites -when He draws the dark cloud over life's sunny landscape- when, by His providence, He seems to muffle the loving, tender tones of His voice, and speaks roughly to us, filling us with alarm, and dread, and apprehension- oh, does He not then wear a disguise which seems to veil from us the clear and tender relation in which He stands to us as His brethren? And yet beneath this roughness of speech and strangeness of manner, there dwells and beats in the bosom of Christ a Brother's tender, sympathizing, loving heart.
But not only does He speak roughly, and make Himself strange to them, but He sends them to prison, He puts them in ward three days. "You shall be kept in prison, that your words may be proved, whether there be any truth in you. And he put them all together into ward three days." But what had they to fear? It was Joseph's prison, he was their jailor, their keeper, and they were in good custody. How often has the Lord Jesus Christ, in the spiritual exercises of our soul, dealt thus with us. He has brought us into a strait place, He has sent us into a solitary place; He has permitted us to recede into a legal, bondage frame of spirit; and our prayer has been that of David- "Bring my soul out of prison, that I may praise Your name."
Oh, beloved, thank God if you are Christ's prisoner! Better, far better, be the prisoner of Jesus than of Satan; better to be sent into Christ's ward than into the devil's. What though at times your Joseph, your Jesus, your Brother, to try your faith, to test your sincerity, to deepen His work; in your heart, to make you better acquainted with the nature of the bondage spirit, puts you into a narrow place, a strait place- oh, it is but ultimately to bring you into greater largeness of soul, to prepare you to walk more in the holy liberty of adoption- it is but to sweeten, to intensify His own love, and to intensify in your heart a longing, panting, and thirsting after the free Spirit of an adopted child.
And, let me add, in that prison-house into which your Lord and Savior permits you to enter, how many a lesson have you learned, how many a precious truth have you been brought into the experience of, how many a sweet spring of comfort has been unsealed to your spirit, which, humanly speaking, you would otherwise never have known. Then, be not cast clown and discouraged if your Joseph, to prove you and teach you, sends you for a while into His prison. Many a man of God has had to thank Him for the prison-house, for the sickroom, for a suffering, sleepless bed. "The Lord has set apart him that is godly for himself;" and God the Lord often sets him apart from his daily calling in life, from his family, from the Church, puts him in ward that he may turn over the page of conscience, clear his evidences, examine his own heart, look more closely into the heart of Christ; and if he can but realize, "it is my Joseph who has put me here, and this is the prison-house of Him that loves me," he will bow with submission to the Savior's will, and say, "Your will, not mine be done."
There is another point very instructive. I refer to the trying of Joseph's brethren. "You are spies that have come to see the nakedness of the land." Among your greatest blessings you have to thank Christ for, are those that try the reality of your religion, test the genuineness of your faith, and prove the sincerity of your love. The process may be humbling and painful in the extreme; to be taken for a false man, when you profess to be true; for a spy, when you deem yourself a brother; to have your religion called in question, your love doubted, your faith put to the severest test, flung like wheat into the sieve, or cast like gold into the crucible- this is a trying, humiliating process!
Nevertheless, in the catalogue of your spiritual blessings, you may place this high up in the list as one of the choicest and costliest. Thank God for that which tests the reality of your religion, which separates the wheat from the chaff, the gold from the foil, which brings your faith into exercise, proves the strength of your confidence in God, and the extent of your knowledge of Christ; which brings out your Christian principles in bold relief, emerging from the trying process with a purer faith, a deeper love, and a brighter hope. Then you will not quarrel with God, nor chide your Elder Brother for having dealt with you as a spy, and not a brother beloved of God.
But there is another striking and solemn view of the subject upon which we would lay great stress. Joseph spoke through the medium of an interpreter. Thus we read: "And they did not know that Joseph understood them; for he spoke unto them by an interpreter." And who is the interpreter of Christ and of His words but the Divine and Eternal Spirit? His is the office, as taught us by Christ himself, to make known and reveal Him. Thus Christ testifies- "but the Comforter, who is the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, that I have said into you." Again, "He shall testify of Me." "He shall glorify me; for he shall receive of mine, and shall show it unto you."
Behold our true Interpreter! We know nothing spiritually, understandingly, of Divine truth, and of Him whom that truth reveals, and who is Himself "the truth," but as the Holy Spirit interprets it to us. The words of Christ are enigmas, the language of Christ is a foreign tongue, the revelations and mysteries of Christ unintelligible and inexplicable, and Christ himself unknown, unseen, until the Holy Spirit becomes our Teacher. The Interpreter of the Bible is He who wrote the Bible- Himself the Author of the Bible.
Men, professed theologians, who are bringing to the elucidation, interpretation, and study of revelation, the light of reason, the aids of philosophy, the results of learning, the discoveries of science, the means and appliances of human thought, utterly and avowedly abjuring the necessity and the illumination of the Holy Spirit as the sole Interpreter of the Scriptures of truth, will not only have to take up the lamentation of old- "We grope for the wall like the blind, and we grope as if we had no eyes: we stumble at noon-day as in the night," -but will be found to have done contempt to the Spirit of truth, and, abandoned to their wilful and judicial darkness, will be left to believe a lie!
But, beloved, you have not so learned Christ, if so be that you have been taught the truth as it is in Jesus. To you the Holy Spirit has made known the Savior. He has uplifted the veil from your heart, has purged the film from the eye of your understanding, and has revealed the Son of God in you. He it is who has given you to see all merit, all worthiness, all righteousness, all salvation in Jesus; and, removing the covering of this Divine Ark- the Scriptures of truth- has discovered to you JESUS in all His glory, fulness, loveliness, and love.
Yes, the Spirit is Christ's interpreter. All that is obscure in His teaching, profound in His doctrine, discrepant in His revelations, unintelligible in His words, mysterious, strange, and painful in His dealings, the Eternal Spirit stands, as between Christ and the lowly disciple, prepared to unfold, explain, and reconcile all. Oh, seek more earnestly and prayerfully than ever the teaching of the Holy Spirit in the study and understanding of the Scriptures, especially those parts which more particularly testify of Christ; and ask the Spirit to make known Christ more clearly and fully to your soul. Beseech Him to unfold to you the finished work- the complete salvation of Christ; to apply the atoning blood to your conscience, and to testify, by His inward witness, to your personal interest in His love, obedience, and death.
"Blessed and Eternal Spirit! Divine Interpreter of Christ! Revealer of Jesus- lead me into all truth concerning Him. Reveal His glory, unveil His beauty, disclose His love, interpret His language, and unfold and apply His truths to my soul, until I stand in His glorified presence, and know Him even as I am known!"
Not only must the interpretation of the gospel be divine, but equally so must be the interpretation of the Divine dealings with us. God alone can elucidate and explain the mysteries of His providential dispensations. If we attempt to unveil and interpret them, guided by no other light than that which emanates from ourselves, we shall inevitably be involved in a labyrinth of perplexity and doubt. But waiting patiently on the Lord, trusting also in Him, He will bring it to pass, and interpret the dark symbols of a Providence whose wheel within wheel must ever baffle and confound the most sagacious and far-seeing mind of man.
Are the ways of God with you a great deep? Is He enshrouding your path with mystery? Does He in His transactions make Himself strange? Are your expectations blighted, your plans crossed, your purposes baffled, and, on these broken waters, do the fragments of wrecked and disappointed hopes float around you? Be still! and know that He is God! Before long He will break the silence, and all shall be explained, and this shall be your joyous cry, "He has done all things well!"
"Blind unbelief is sure to err,
And scan His work in vain;
God is His own interpreter,
And He will make it plain."
We are now conducted to the second part of the subject- Joseph's knowledge of his brethren: "And Joseph knew his brethren." Of this fact there could be no doubt: we need not, therefore, occupy any time in proving it. He had outgrown their recollection, but they had not outgrown his. We are not informed by what indices Joseph recognized them. Perhaps it was- and I think this the most probable solution of the mystery- by a direct Divine communication to his mind. He was but a stripling when last he saw them. They had advanced in life, perhaps were bald and gray-headed. Yet Joseph knew them; God doubtless gave him a direct revelation that these were his brethren, for we read- "And Pharaoh said unto his servants, Can we find such a man as this is, a man in whom the Spirit of God is?" It was by the illumination of the Spirit that Joseph interpreted the visions of the king, and, doubtless, by the same Spirit he knew his brethren.
We pass from Joseph and his brethren to our true Joseph and His spiritual brethren, unfolding one of the most blessed, precious, and sanctifying truths that can possibly be opened up and applied to you by the blessed Interpreter, the Spirit of Christ- CHRIST'S KNOWLEDGE OF HIS PEOPLE. Let this one truth be engraven on your heart- Christ's full, personal, minute knowledge of you, and you have found the secret of all happiness in adversity, joy in sorrow, succor and support when heart and flesh fail you. Jesus knows His brethren.
Let me first remind you that Christ's knowledge of His brethren is an eternal knowledge. It is not a knowledge arrived at in time, attained since they had a being. The knowledge of Christ is an eternal knowledge of His Church. He knew them when they were chosen in Him before the foundation of the world. He knew them when the Father gave them to Him to be His peculiar treasure. He knew them wen they were intrusted to His hands to be redeemed, ransomed, and saved. He knew them when He wrote their names in His book of life. He knew them in the everlasting counsels of eternity, when He loved them with an everlasting love.
What a precious, sanctifying truth is this! Oh, do not rest in the streams, sweet as they are, but follow them up to the source where they flow. It is the everlasting love of God to His Church, the everlasting knowledge which Christ has of His brethren, which gives sweetness, reality, and substance to all the covenant blessings which flow into the soul of a child of God.
A few remark further- Christ knows His brethren in their unregeneracy, worldliness, and sin. Were not this the case, how could He ever find them? Where would He go to look for His hidden jewels? How could He direct His message of salvation to their souls if He did not know them in the great mass of fallen creatures? -if He did He not know them in the rags and ruin and famine of our nature? But the Lord Jesus Christ knows His brethren, "walking after the course of this world, the children of wrath even as others."
He knows them in their rebellion, in their fall, in their sinfulness, and in their self-righteousness. He knows where they are, what they are, and who they are. Oh! what a solemn truth is this! How it throws memory back on the past, and explains many a mystery in our unregenerate history hitherto inexplicable. You can think of periods when your life seemed to hang by a hair- of circumstances which brought you to the very confines of eternity. Ah, why were you preserved? What was it that guarded you, rescued you, brought you back?
It was Jesus's knowledge of you in your darkness, unregeneracy, and rebellion! It was Jesus having His eye on you, His hand over you, the yearning of His heart towards you! It was He that kept your feet from falling, your soul from destruction, your life from the grave. It was He that followed you along all your dark, winding way, never losing sight of you for a moment, nor withdrawing His hand until the appointed, the blissful moment arrived, when He called you by His grace. "Preserved in Christ Jesus, and called."
"That was a time of wondrous love,
when Christ, my Lord, was passing by;
He felt His tender pity move,
And brought His great salvation nigh."
"Guilty and self-condemned I stood,
Nor thought His mercy was so near,
when He my stubborn heart subdued,
And planted all His graces there."
"When on the verge of endless pain,
He gently whispered, 'I am thine;'
I lost my fears, and dropped my chain,
And felt a transport all divine."
We go further, and remind you of Christ's knowledge of His brethren in deep spiritual necessity, famine, and need. Oh, this is a blessed view of Christ's recognition of us- His acquaintance with our true spiritual condition. Jesus knows that we have not a righteousness with which we can present ourselves before God- that we have nothing good in our flesh, that we have been brought to the end of our own strength, merit, and righteousness. "He remembers us in our low estate, for His mercy endures forever." "I am poor and needy, yet the Lord thinks upon me."
And what an especial knowledge Jesus has of us when, by the Holy Spirit, and under the deep conviction and consciousness of this necessity, poverty, and famine, we are led to arise and go to Him, traveling in our emptiness to His fulness, and in our necessity to His supply, and in our famine to Him the Bread of Life. Ah, do not think that the Lord Jesus Christ is not cognizant of your soul's necessity, whatever it may be. If the Eternal Spirit is breaking up the fallow ground of your heart, and showing you its plague and emptiness- if He is creating in you a spiritual hungering and thirsting after righteousness, showing you more and more that your soul can live only by the bread that comes down from heaven, it is a sweet, blessed thought that Jesus knows those deep gracious exercises of soul.
Oh, you have not a desire after Christ, faint though it is, your heart goes not out after Christ, longs for Christ, and rests in Christ, but Christ knows it, and rejoices in it with exceeding great joy. And is it not a delightful thought that Christ is cognizant of the work of His own Spirit in the soul? You may not at times be able to discern that work yourself; so concealed is it by infirmity, unbelief, and the mists that exhale from inbred sin and corruption; nevertheless, here is a truth worth untold gold- Jesus knows His own work, recognizes His own image, and calls us His brethren. The saints may not know it, your dearest friend may not know it, you may not know it yourself, enough that Jesus knows it; He sees the flickering spark which nothing can extinguish, traces the lineaments of His own image which nothing shall efface, and interprets as none other can, the language of our groans, tears, and desires.
It is also a blessed thought that, Jesus knows His brethren individually. Christ does not, as we too frequently ourselves do, lose sight of our individuality. We too imperfectly deal with Jesus personally. We too little bring our individual sorrows, needs, and circumstances to Christ. And yet what a comforting truth is this, and not comforting only, but deeply sanctifying- Christ knows me personally, has my name on His heart, has my position in His mind, has my circumstances in His eye, is acquainted with my individual state in society, with my trials, temptations, sorrows, and wants. Such is His individual and discriminating knowledge, He knows me as if I were the only brother He owns and acknowledges on earth. Sweet truth is this! If you retire to your chamber to brood in solitude and silence over your lonely griefs, perhaps, with the sad thought, "no one knows me, no one sympathizes with me, no one is acquainted with my case, I am like a sparrow alone on the house-top, I pray, and sigh, and groan in lonely places, and no man cares for my soul," oh, beloved, there is One who knows you, knows your name, your position, your griefs, your temptations, your loneliness, who says, "I know their sorrows," it is Jesus, your Joseph, your brother.
"The foundation of God stands fast, having this seal, the Lord knows those who are his." Well may we with surprise inquire with Nathaniel, "How do You know you me?" Are you acquainted with such a poor, sinful worm as I? Do you, Lord, care for me; think of me; love me? Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is like Yourself, Divine. Let me remark, too, that our highest source of comfort lies, not in our knowledge of Christ, but in Christ's knowledge of us.
There stood Joseph's brethren; they were as safe, as tenderly, kindly cared for, had awakened as profound an interest in the heart of Joseph, as at the moment when his disguise fell, and he stood before them revealed and manifested as their brother. Let this comfort you, my reader; if there are times when Christ conceals Himself from you, when God is a hidden God; if there are periods when, as with Mary at the sepulcher, a veil so conceals Him, that you do not know Him to be your risen Lord; if, like the disciples, you are tossed upon the dark waters, and Christ comes walking on the sea, and you mistake Him for a ghost, and cry out for fear; nevertheless, here is your comfort, your safety, and your hope- Jesus knows you, is acquainted with you, has His unslumbering eye upon you, and you can be in no circumstance of sorrow, of peril, of darkness, and of need, in which Christ shall not know and recognize you as His brother, and most dearly beloved.
You, then, who are walking in darkness, who are tossed upon the stormy waves of adversity, who do not see Christ in the mist, oh, take this comfort to your heart- "I may not see Jesus in this storm, He may wear a disguise, speak roughly to me by His providence, make Himself strange to me by His conduct, nevertheless, my faith grasps this precious truth- "I know my sheep," and it is enough. "Enough, Lord, that you know me."
This is a peculiarly consolatory truth in view of a trial to which the saints of God are often much and painfully exposed- the ignorance of them, their principles, actions, and motives on the part of their fellow-believers. In consequence of this we are often exposed to much misjudgment and unkind censure. Our Lord drank of this very cup. His brethren did not know Him, and even His disciples misunderstood Him. Let this comfort you in the misjudgings and misinterpretations, the reproofs, and rebukes of men, especially those of your fellow disciples. "Lord, it is enough that You have said, I know my sheep, and that You know me. You know the principles that govern me, the motives that influence me, the end that I seek in this act, and I can calmly, safely leave the inspection of my heart to Your eye, and the issue of this step to Your judgement and decision." Thus you will rise superior to the human opinion of an honest, upright, conscientious cause, and will be enabled to say with the magnanimous apostle, "With me it is a very small thing that I should be judged of you, or of man's judgment; yes, I judge not my own self." Blessed Lord, YOU know me, and it suffices!
We venture upon yet another truth. These brethren of Joseph were standing as petitioners in his presence without the least conviction of their relationship. There was reverence to his authority, faith in his ability, and repose in his willingness; but not one feeling of confidence or of comfort inspired by the assurance that he was their brother. This fact illustrates a remarkable feature of the believer's experience. We often go to Jesus, live upon His sufficiency, and exercise faith in His kindly feelings towards us, without the comfort and joy of a full assurance that He is ours.
Nevertheless, He is ours, and we have still a measure of faith that binds us to Him, and that faith, though it be like the unseen anchor dropped into the ocean, keeps the soul firm and stable, and nothing shall separate it from Christ. Then, though you may not have the full assurance of faith, of hope, and of love, yet cast not away your confidence, which has great recompense of reward;" but in your darkness, depression, and loneliness, keep a firm grasp on this truth," I am empty, Jesus is full; in my poverty and ignorance I throw myself on Him by faith; and although I have but a dim perception of Him as my Brother, still, though He put me in ward, yes, though He slay me, yet will I love and trust in Him."
We would not repress your ardor after full assurance of your interest in Christ; yet, for the sake of the feeble in grace, we would remark that it is not essential to your salvation, nor is it your warrant to go to Jesus. You may still be Christ's, and in simple faith be living upon His fulness, yet lack the clearer, fuller, and more assured manifestation of Himself to your soul- the sealing of the Spirit. But, since this degree of knowledge is attainable, and its attainment will contribute materially to your spiritual enjoyment and personal holiness, we would earnestly plead with you to seek it.
Assurance may not be essential to your salvation, but it is essential to your happy, holy walk; and to the confidence expressed in these words of the great apostle the feeblest child of God may arrive- "I know in whom I have believed, and am persuaded He is able to keep that which I have committed unto Him against that day." And what is assurance? It is nothing more nor less than faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. And the fulness of assurance is in the same ratio with the fulness of our faith in the Son of God. In the smallest degree of faith there is the germ of assurance, and assurance develops and deepens, strengthens and brightens, as faith becomes rooted and grounded in Christ.
The poor man in the Gospel who could only say with tears, "Lord, I believe, help my unbelief," had as really the germ of assurance in his heart as Paul, who could say, so unequivocally, "I know whom I have believed." Poor soul! have you but touched the hem- but seen the cross distant and dim- but ventured, tremblingly, hesitatingly upon Jesus? Can you say, "Lord, I believe in the midst of my much unbelief; I believe that you are able to save me, though I have such misgivings as to your willingness?"
Dear heart, cheer up! you shall never be lost! Jesus has spoken it, and it is enough. He says, "He who comes unto me,"- no qualifications, no limitations, as to the amount of guilt, or the multitude of sins, or the degree of faith- simply, "he who comes;" -take Christ at His word; come to Him as you are, and He will in no wise discourage or reject you.
Meditate much upon Christ. You will find this habit an effectual antidote to those vain, carnal, earthly thoughts, which, alas, obtrude themselves so frequently and so powerfully upon the believing mind. Let the mind be preoccupied and solely with Jesus, and the world and the creature and sin will find no play. Oh, it is a sweet theme of meditation, Jesus! You are in mental converse with One who has access to the innermost recess of your soul, the most sacred cloister of your heart; who is in communion with the most delicate shade of thought, with the finest tone of feeling, and who knows you, can understand you, and feel for you as no other being in the universe can.
Do not deem this mental meditation unattainable, this spiritual concentration of the soul on Christ in meditation so high that you cannot attain unto it. What others have experienced you may experience. Cultivate this devout meditation upon Christ. Meditate upon His person, study His work, muse upon His love. Endeavor to blend Him with your thoughts, to entwine Him with your affections, to associate Him with your daily life of service and of suffering. Such an effort to think of Christ will soon bring down to your soul the dear Object of your thoughts, for He regards them who only think upon His name; and while you are musing upon His person, the fire of His love will burn within your heart, and your tongue will give utterance to such precious sentiments and feelings as are contained in this experience of an eminent divine, recorded above a century ago, "The thoughts of Christ are become exceedingly frequent with me; I meditate on His glorious Person, as the eternal and the incarnate Son of God: and I behold the infinite God as coming to me, and meeting with me in this blessed meditation. I fly to Him on multitudes of occasions every day, and am impatient if many minutes have passed without some recourse to Him. Every now and then I rebuke myself for having been so long without any thoughts of my Savior; how can I bear to keep at such a distance from Him? I then look up to Him, and say- Oh, my Savior, draw near unto me! Oh, come to dwell in my soul, and help me to cherish some thoughts wherein I shall enjoy You; and upon this I set myself to think of what He has done, is doing, and what He will do, for me: I find the subject inexhaustible; and after I have been thus employed in the day, I fall asleep at night in the midst of some meditation on the glory of my Savior; so I fall asleep in Jesus, and when I awake in the night, I do on my bed I seek Him whom my soul loves. On awaking, the desires of my soul still carry me to Him who was last in my thoughts when I fell asleep." (John Cotton)
Let the thought of Christ's knowledge of us be an ever-present, ever-abiding remembrance. When darkness or sorrow veils Him from our view, still let us cling to the truth that He knows us; and when sin would tempt, and the world seduce, and the creature ensnare, and some false attraction would disturb the central fixedness of our heart on Christ, oh, let the solemn truth that Jesus knows us then instantly break the spell, dissolve the enchantment, and win back the soul to its allegiance and love.

"A Full Christ for Empty Sinners" or "The Sacks Filled with Corn"

"Then Joseph commanded to fill their sacks with corn, and to restore every man's money into his sack, and to give them provision for the way: and thus did he unto them." Genesis 42:25

How close to the fountain of their supply did these famishing brethren of Joseph now stand; yet how unconscious that he was their brother! Ignorant of this fact, they were awe-struck by his commanding presence, and were filled with fear and trembling by the authority and tone with which he spoke to them. It is thus with us. How often do we appear in the presence of God as these brethren in the presence of Joseph! He is our Father, and Jesus is our Brother, and all the fulness of Deity, and all the treasures of the covenant of grace are His. Yet, this fact of Divine relationship, so much concealed by the veil of unbelief, fettered by a legal spirit, and misinterpreting the providences of our God, we too frequently present ourselves in His presence- in communion, in supplication, in service- with the trembling of a servant, and wearing the manacles of a slave.
And yet, what is the true spirit and posture of a child of God, of a brother of Christ? It is this, "You have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but you have received the spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father. The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God." Oh, if, in the case of these brethren, the veil had been but uplifted, and the astounding fact had burst upon them in all its startling truthfulness, "I am Joseph, your brother," what a revolution had taken place in their feelings- their confidence restored, their fears quelled, their hopes inspired, and overwhelmed with emotion, they would have fallen at His feet, bathing them with tears of contrition, gratitude, and love.
In all this, do we trace nothing analogous to some of the holiest and sweetest experiences of our soul? In the prosecution of our subject, we have arrived at a most spiritually instructive part of the narrative- the ample supply meted out by Joseph in response to the pressing needs and appeal of his brethren. The points which will illustrate the great gospel truths, we pray the Eternal Spirit to unfold and apply, are simply these: THE SUPPLY- THE RESTORED MONEY- THE PROVISION FOR THE JOURNEY.
Let us turn our attention, in the first place, to THE SUPPLY- "Then Joseph commanded to fill their sacks with corn." It was for corn they had gone down into Egypt, impelled by the grievous and sore famine which raged throughout their land, and corn they found and obtained. Now, to a spiritual mind viewing this part of the narrative in its gospel light, how full, instructive, and precious it is. Keep in view the fact, that Christ is our Brother, that as our Brother He is at the head, yes, that He is the Head, of all spiritual blessings, and you will be provided with a key to the gospel interpretation of this part of the story, so striking and instructive in its teaching.
Now, the first remark under this head of supply is this, It was sheer necessity, urgent, pressing need, that brought these brethren into the presence of Joseph. Does any other motive, or principle, or errand bring us to Christ? Will a sinner in his unrenewed state ever go to the Savior not under the pressure of necessity? Will a soul ever betake itself to Christ without the conviction of its deep, spiritual need of Christ? Never! With all the sweet, powerful attraction of the Lord Jesus Christ- His love, loveliness, and grace- so completely depraved and dead is our nature, it is utterly insensible to the power of this great magnet, and will never repair to Christ until the Holy Spirit, awakening a conviction of sin, creates in it the pressure of need.
Here learn what is the first stage of real conversion, my reader- it is the spiritual, enlightened conviction, sense and sight of our lost and perishing condition as sinners. None value a crucified, atoning Christ but the sick, the poor, the empty, the helpless; those who know the plague of their own hearts, feel their condemnation by the law, and are driven out of every refuge, and from every hope but that which meets them in these wondrous words, "This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners."
Have you thus been brought under sin's conviction by the Spirit? And will not this illustrate a humbling page of your own advanced history, saint of the most High? So weak is your faith, so languid your love, so worldly your spirit, at so great a distance, ofttimes, do you find yourself from Jesus, that but for pressure, but for a feeling of necessity, but for a conviction of some need, alas, with all the attraction of Christ, His beauty, His love, His graciousness, how seldom would you betake yourself to Jesus! Sorrow brings you to Him, perplexity brings you to Him, exhausted resources bring you to Him. Your heavenly Father, in the infinite wisdom and righteousness of His dealings, lays His hand upon you, and, under the heavy pressure of that hand, you arise and come to Jesus, and then learn the lesson of the rod in the necessity, the conviction of want, the pressure of trial and sorrow which has won back your truant heart into the blessed presence of your Lord.
Secondly, What was it they brought to Joseph? They brought vessels- empty vessels. How many of these empty sacks, or of what size, is of but little moment, nor would it have been a matter of any moment to Joseph if they had brought all the sacks in Canaan-since his resources and his benevolence would have filled them. Enough for our present illustration that they brought empty sacks.
What is the state, the moral, spiritual state of the soul that is spiritually brought to Christ, and that savingly receives Christ? Ah, we little know the process that soul has to pass through, the discipline it undergoes before it is fit to come to Christ, or before Christ is fit for that soul. One word, profoundly significant, expresses that condition- EMPTINESS! And this annihilates all those fancied and fanciful ideas which thousands entertain of some self-sufficiency, some previous moral fitness in their souls before they come to Jesus; that, before they avail themselves of His salvation, they must place themselves in a kind of salvable state, that is, that they must partially save themselves before they come to the Savior to be saved!
But one word- oh, that the Spirit of God may write it on our hearts! -expresses the condition in which Christ expects a sinner to come to Him- EMPTINESS! And whether the soul is conscious of this emptiness or not, it is there! Spiritual blindness to the fearful fact does not invalidate its existence. The soul of man in its natural condition is empty of all holiness, of all righteousness, of all goodness, of all strength, of all love. It is a vast moral void, into which were you to empty the universe of created good, would remain a void still. As well might you attempt to extinguish the fires of Vesuvius by casting into its crater a drop of water, as to extinguish the burning cravings of the human soul with any good but GOD. God only can satisfy the soul of man; and happiness is a stranger to the human heart until it finds its way back to Him. "The Lord is my portion, says my soul, therefore will I hope in Him."
But although we assert that there is this vast spiritual emptiness in the soul, deem it not paradoxical when we remind you that there is yet much of what that soul must be emptied before it is prepared to receive out of Christ's fulness. The soul of man is full to overflowing with self-righteousness, with rebellion against God, with the love of sin, and the reigning power of all iniquity. It is brimmed and overflowing with all the elements of destruction, which, if left to work their own results, will infallibly plunge the soul into the chambers of eternal darkness and despair. The idol self must fall, your own righteousness must be renounced, there must be the deep spiritual conviction of the plague of your own heart; you must feel that you are under the condemnation of the law, and that you have not one claim to God's mercy, nor one plea springing from yourself whereby He should accept and save you.
Here let me pause and ask you, Have you thus been emptied? Or are you still filled to engorgement with self, and with the world, with sin, and with your own conceit, there being no room in your heart for the Savior? Dear reader, the lowly stable where the Incarnate God made His advent to our world images the spiritual state of that heart into which He enters, and with Him His "kingdom of righteousness, joy, and peace in the Holy Spirit."
It is only a heart deeply, spiritually conscious of its poverty, lowliness, and uncleanness, and emptied and humbled thereby in the dust, that opens its doors to receive and welcome Him who came "not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance," to "die for the ungodly," to "preach good tidings unto the meek, to bind up the broken hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, to give the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness." Oh, if your heart is lowly, empty and penitent, Jesus will make His gracious advent into it, and dwell there forever!
With regard to the process of emptying, if any work ever proved itself Divine it is this. Not all the eloquence, the philosophy, the learning, the moral persuasion, of man or angel can produce it. The soul can attach itself to what is vile, can absorb into itself what is unholy, and can yield to what is contrary to God's truth, but it has not the moral power of an infant's strength to expel one solitary evil, to free itself from one dominant sin.
My reader, it is the power of God alone that empties a man, that makes him clearly to see the imperfection of his own righteousness, his ignorance of truth, of God, and of Christ. It is the work of the Holy and Eternal Spirit to show to the poor sinner that all his righteousness is as filthy rags, that he has no spiritual strength, and not one pulse of love to God throbbing in his bosom. Oh, it is a power as great, as mighty, and as Divine as that which spoke this universe into being-which said, "Let there be light, and there was light,"-which alone can empty your soul of all its darkness, its rebellion, its ignorance, its love, homage of self, and bring you to the cross of Christ, to the feet of Jesus as a poor, empty beggar.
The means by which God the blessed Spirit accomplishes this great work are various. To begin with the minor ones: it is often by trial, adversity, and sorrow, that God opens a man's eyes to see the emptiness of himself and of all created things. Travel through the Church of God, and ask, What was it that first led you to Jesus? What first awoke spiritual, solemn, serious, and devout reflection in your mind? What first embittered and beclouded to you the sweet, sparkling streams and rivulets of created good?
The answer of thousands would be- God blighted my lovely flower, felled my stately cedar, laid low my heart's choicest treasure, blew on the accumulated earnings of many years, laid me on a sick and suffering bed. And thus was I brought to Jesus. Sorrow impelled me, the storms drove me, adversity led me to Him as the hiding-place from the wind, and the covert from the tempest. I sought the creature's sufficiency, the world's vanity, my own emptiness. He drew me with His love to seek and find all I needed in Himself. And now I can bless and praise Him blighting all, for blasting all, for ruining all, since it was but to make my soul His kingdom, my heart His home, my body His temple, and Himself more precious than countless worlds -my all and in all.
"In days when health and joy were mine,
And cloudless seemed my morning's shine,
I thought each bliss would still remain,
Nor knew how precious Christ was then.
But soon was dimmed my early light,
And sickness came with withering blight;
I turned to passed delights in vain,
But only Christ seemed precious then.
When sorrow sent her searching dart,
To probe and prove my erring heart,
Fainting beneath the bitter pain,
I felt that Christ was precious then.
And when before my startled eyes,
Sins past, and scarcely mourned, arise;
In vain my tears would cleanse the stain,
My Savior You are precious then.
And oh, when trembling near the tomb,
My spirit dreads the approaching gloom,
Then let the Cross my soul sustain,
And bid me think You are precious then."
But the grand, the chief instrument of spiritual emptying, is the truth of God. The Holy Spirit, bringing home the truth with light and power to the sinner's heart, shows him the emptiness and sinfulness and darkness that are there. There is nothing so illuminating, so quickening, as the truth of God. "The entrance of Your word gives light; it gives understanding unto the simple." "The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul: the testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple: the statutes of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart: the commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes."
There is no light, no candle like that of the Lord's word, no truth like that of God's truth, when the Holy Spirit holds it up as a mirror, showing to a man his self-righteousness, ignorance, depravity, and worldliness. There is a Divine power going forth with God's word which all the opposition of the heart within, all the darkness that shades the mind, all the usurping power of evil dwelling in the soul cannot possibly resist. It is indeed and in truth "the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God." "Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God."
Now this instrument of spiritual quickening, sanctification, and comfort God will honor. He has magnified His word above His name, and will have us magnify it too. He is jealous of the purity, honor, and glory of His revealed word. Heaven and earth shall pass away, but the word of God lives and abides forever. Reader, has God's word come to your soul with a life-giving, soul-emptying power? and is it sweeter to you than honey, and more precious than much fine gold?
Let us now advert to the replenishing of these empty sacks, "Then Joseph commanded to fill their sacks with corn." Observe from whom the supply of corn came, -it was from Joseph. A more vital, important, and precious gospel- truth could not be illustrated than this. Let us dwell upon it- the FULNESS of our Lord Jesus Christ.
We select, as the groundwork of our statement, the remarkable words of the apostle, "It pleased the Father, that in him should ALL FULNESS dwell." More precious, or more pregnant words are not to be found in the Bible than these. Of whom does the apostle speak as the Depositary of this fulness? "In Him,"- the Son of God, our Lord and Savior, it pleased the Father that all fulness should dwell. This fulness is not deposited in angels or in men, but in Him who, in the preceding passage, is spoken of as "the image of God," "the firstborn of every creature," in Him, "by whom were all things created that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible," as "before all things, and by whom all things consist," as "the head of the body, the church," as "the beginning, the first-born from the dead; that in all things He might have the preeminence."
In Him, this Divine, this wonderful Being, ALL FULNESS dwells. In whom could all the fulness of the Godhead- all the mediatorial fulness of the Church dwell, but in the Son of God! But take the "fulness" particularly spoken of in this passage, the mediatorial fulness of Christ; and in whom, other than a being essentially God, could all fulness of merit, all fulness of righteousness, all fulness of grace, all fulness of pardon, all fulness of sanctification, all fulness of wisdom, all fulness of love, all fulness of sympathy, all fulness of compassion, in a word, all fulness of all supply, possibly dwell?
But all this fulness dwells in Christ! And who can comprehend this fulness? What plumb-line can fathom, or what scale can measure the height, the depth, the length, the breadth, of this fulness of salvation for sinners- the inexhaustible stores; the vast supplies, the incalculable abundance from which countless myriads have drawn, are drawing still, and yet the sacred treasure, the precious fulness, remains unexhausted by a drop, unsunk by a hair's-breadth? Infinity alone can give us its dimensions and sound its depths.
In Christ, essentially, there is all "fulness of the Godhead bodily;" and in Christ communicatively there is all the fulness which it pleased the Father should dwell in Him. The one He possesses in virtue of His absolute Deity- He being essentially one with the Father; the other He possesses in virtue of His covenant relation to the Church- He being her Mediator, Head, and Redeemer. It is in the light of the latter we are more especially to interpret the fulness which it pleased the Father should dwell in Christ. It is, distinctly and emphatically, a mediatorial fulness.
The same thing is spoken of by the evangelist John, "Of His fulness have we all received, and grace for grace." Behold, then, our true Joseph! It was the good pleasure, the sovereign will, the gracious purpose of the Father, that all the treasures of His love, all the riches of His grace, all the fulness of the covenant should be placed in the hands of Christ, to be dispensed by Him according to the collective and individual necessities of His Church.
And in what does this fulness consist? A fulness of dignity to atone, a fulness of life to quicken, a fulness of righteousness to justify, a fulness of virtue to pardon, a fulness of grace to sanctify, a fulness of power to preserve, a fulness of compassion and sympathy to comfort, and a fulness of salvation to save poor sinners to the uttermost; in a word, ALL FULNESS; a fulness commensurate with need of every kind, with trial of every form, with sorrow of every depth, with sin of every name, with guilt of every hue, yes, with every conceivable and possible necessity in which the children of God may be placed; fulness of grace here, and fulness of glory hereafter; a fulness which the Church on earth will live upon; and boast of until time be no more; a fulness which will be the delight and glory of the Church in heaven to behold, until eternity shall end. In whom could all this fulness be enthroned? In a mere creature? Preposterous thought!
Now, as from Joseph these empty vessels of his brethren were replenished, so from Christ, and from Christ alone, our spiritual supplies are to come. The Church of God has but one Spiritual Head, the sinner but one divine Savior. God has not distributed the treasures of His grace, or delegated spiritual authority and power in its communication to others, but has deposited all grace, and all power, and all glory solely and only in His Son.
No Church, no minister, no ecclesiastical body has one particle of this grace in its power to bestow. The sole possession and power of spiritual interpretation, of God's Word is delegated to no Church under heaven. The authority and the power to absolve from sin, and to communicate the grace of pardon to the soul belongs to no priesthood on the face of the earth. The fulness of merit, and of grace, and of power necessary to the salvation of one sinner, is exclusively in the Lord Jesus Christ.
His Church has no legislative, no administrative power whatever to rule, and govern, and supply- all, all is invested in her one Divine, spiritual, glorious Head- the Lord Jesus Christ. And don't we find all we need in Him? What is the demand? Is it the pardon of sin? "In whom we have redemption through His blood, even the forgiveness of sin." Is it righteousness to justify? "We are made the righteousness of God in Him." Is it spiritual life? "I have come that you might have life, and that you might have it more abundantly." Is it grace to subdue the power of sin? "My grace is sufficient for you." Is it compassion and sympathy in times of trouble, in seasons of sorrow? "We have not a High Priest who cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities." Oh, what is the need which shall not find in our full Christ its own commensurate supply?
And what will our true Joseph give us? With what will He replenish the exhausted vessel? It was corn, real food, with which Joseph filled the empty sacks of his brethren. Our Lord Jesus gives His brethren "the true bread from heaven." There is no mockery, no delusion in His gifts. We shall receive nothing at His hands but what will enrich, strengthen, and advance our soul's well-being. It may come in a disguised form- a rebuke, a reproof, a warning, a lesson difficult to learn, a cross heavy to bear; it may empty us from vessel to vessel, may fill us with shame and self-abhorrence, may lay us low in the dust, nevertheless, it is the true bread He gives us, and just in that form which our soul's necessities required?
"He fed them with manna in the wilderness that He might humble them." The truth of God is humbling, the grace of Christ is self-abasing; and the soul that is the most emptied of self, self-dependence, self-seeking, self-will, who walks the nearest and the most softly with God, gathers the most abundantly of this divine, this heavenly, this precious manna. Oh, there is nothing so promotive of our soul's abasement, so humbling to self, as living by faith, poverty, and nothingness, upon the fulness and sufficiency of a crucified and present Christ.
The gospel is humbling, faith is humbling, grace is humbling- the place, the circumstances in which we are found, are humbling; and He feeds us with this manna in the world's waste howling wilderness that He might humble us.
Oh, blessed discipline this! "You shall remember all the way which the Lord your God led you these forty years in the wilderness to humble you." "And He humbled you, and allowed you to hunger, and fed you with manna, which you knew not, neither did your fathers know; that He might make you know that man does not live by bread only, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of the Lord does man live."
As Christ is taken into our hearts by faith, He becomes a part of our moral nature, an integrated element of our spiritual being. Consequently we grow Christ-like, or rather, Christ grows in us. We become more holy, more meek, more gentle, more humble; in a word, the image of our Lord is more developed in us, and we grow less man-like and more God-like; and the quietness of our spirit, and the courtesy of our demeanor, and the lowliness of our minds, and the gentle, winning sweetness of our whole carriage and speech are but the image and reflection of Christ.
In view, then, of this statement of Christ's fulness let me exhort you to bring your needs, your sins, your trials, your case, whatever its character, to Christ. He will not send you back to a creature-power, or to human compassion for that which will replenish and solace you, but will unlock the hidden treasures, the full fount of His own resources, sympathy, and compassion, and pour it like a tide into your soul, and your heart shall abound with joy. Come when, or where, or how you may, He will cast into your emptiness, nothing but His own infinite and unwasting fulness- nothing but Himself! And then, with Mary, you shall exclaim- "My soul does magnify the Lord, and my spirit has rejoiced in God my Savior. He has filled the hungry with good things; and the rich He has sent empty away."
Ah! none are sent away from Christ, except the rich, the full, the self-sufficient. But the empty, the poor, the hungry, the penniless are filled out of His fulness of grace and dismissed, rejoicing in Christ Jesus, having no confidence in the flesh, and magnifying His great name.
But to proceed to the second point, THE RESTORED MONEY- "And Joseph commanded to fill their sacks with corn, and to restore every man's money in his sack." You will observe, my reader, in the first place that, they brought with them this money. They had no conception that corn could be obtained without it, and took care, doubtless, to supply themselves with the current coin of the realm; and with this came down into Egypt, and presented themselves in the presence of Joseph.
What a deep-rooted principle of our nature does this illustrate- the principle that would purchase the salvation of the soul, that brings the price of human merit in its hand, and with this rushes into the presence of the Savior! Self-righteousness is as natural, as innate a principle of our fallen, sinful nature, as any principle within us! No, more so, it is the strongest and most powerful. The very first idea of a conscience-roused, a soul-awakened sinner, is to bring a price in his hand to Christ- something that will merit the Savior's regard- that will commend the case to Christ's notice- something that will be a kind of return for, or an acknowledgment of, the boon thus asked- something that will be a barter between Christ and the sinner- some previous fitness, previous self-preparation; in a word, money in the empty sack.
Oh, how few of us, when first we came to Christ, came entirely without money! But this principle must be up-torn, root and branch. This part of our subject may just meet the spiritual condition of some of my readers. Why are you not rejoicing in Christ Jesus? Why have you not found Him whom you have been so long seeking? Why are you not happy in a sense of pardoned sin? Why are you not knowing your adoption into the family of God? You have been seeking Jesus for years, why have you not found Him? Because, perhaps, unconscious to yourselves, you have been waiting to find some money, some feeling or condition with which you can come to Christ with a degree of dignity and self-respect; not to receive the boon He has to confer as a sinner, as a beggar, not to receive the good He has to bestow as a poor mendicant, or as a starving man receiving bread- but as a purchaser, and not as a receiver, as a claimant, and not a recipient, as a thing merited and not a gratuity bestowed.
But all this, as I have said, must be torn up root and branch before Christ will pour His fulness into your soul. What says the Scriptures?- "Ho, every one that thirsts, come you to the waters, and he that has no money: come, buy and eat; yes, come, buy wine and milk without money, and without price." "Being justified FREELY by His grace, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus." "For by grace are you saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God not of works, lest any man should boast." "It is of faith that it might be of grace." "Whoever will, let him take the water of life FREELY." "And when they had nothing to pay, he frankly forgave them both."
Thus it is written as with diamond, that salvation is of free grace; that we are justified and pardoned without any works of righteousness, or human merit of our own; that none are rejected by Christ who come empty and poor. He only is spurned who brings his money with his sack; his coin in his hand with which to purchase that which is unpurchasable; his price with which to purchase that which is above all price- the bread of life -the fulness of Christ's salvation.
Take another spiritual truth here illustrated. Joseph returned the money, commanding it to be replaced in the sacks' mouths. It is the glory of God that He is not only a prayer-answering, but also a prayer-exceeding God. We never go to Christ with the most enlarged desires, supplicating the greatest blessings, but He gives us more than we ask. You have gone with limited requests, circumscribed petitions, and stinted desires, but so full is Christ, so large is His heart, He has given you far beyond all that you asked or thought. Blessed, precious encouragement this to go to Jesus with our utter emptiness, to arise and give ourselves to importunate prayer. What encouragement is this to draw near to God and ask what we will; to make known to Him our needs, great and pressing as they are.
So full, so gracious, and so loving is our spiritual Joseph, He will never give us less, but always infinitely more than we ask at His hands. Well may we- and who should louder swell the note? - unite in the glowing doxology, "Now unto Him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us, unto Him be glory in the Church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end. Amen."
Joseph gave his brethren, too, provision for the way. How like a brother this! Not only did he fill their sacks with corn and replace their money, but he also gave them an extra provision for their personal necessities, until they arrived at home. How thoughtful and how kind was this of Joseph! These brethren had injured him. Yet he forgives all, forgets all, and returns them a blessing for their wrong. Now that they are in distress and need, the ocean of his love rolls over all the past, and hides and obliterates it forever. What a type of Jesus! Though we have sinned against Him, crucified Him, wronged Him a thousand times over, yet He loves us still. Hear Him in His dying agonies praying for His murderers, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." Sinner! will not your rebellion, your unbelief, your impenitence give way before this matchless love? Bow the knee, bend the heart, and crown Him with your faith, your love, your life!
But take another truth here shadowed forth. Where were these brethren traveling? what was the end of their journey? They were journeying homeward, home to their father's house. If, believer in Jesus, we are the children of God, we, too, are journeying toward home- home to our Father's house. Through this world of famine, of sin, of suffering, and sorrow, we are journeying to the family home! Sweet thought, could we but realize it!
O believer, cherish amid all the weariness and roughness, the toil and battle, the privation and disappointment, the suffering and sorrow of this life, the sweet, the holy, the soothing reflection, "it is my way home; it is my path to my Father's house. I am going home to be with God and with Christ forever! This sickness, languor, and decay- is but opening wider the door through which the light and glory of heaven beams in upon my soul, and by which I shall, before long, pass to my ineffable and eternal rest above!"
Study your pilgrimage in this light, and it will chase many a shadow from your brow, pour sunshine into many a dark nook of your heart, and smooth many a rough stage of your journey. Every step, be it in darkness or light, grief or joy, is bringing you nearer, and still nearer, to the bright, blissful, happy home Christ has gone to prepare for you!
Then mark, there is provision for this journey. Do you think that your blessed Lord has left you to take this journey at your own cost? relying upon your own resources? Do you think that He will not meet all its necessities, sustain all its trials, anticipating every incident and circumstance of that journey? O beloved, we little know Christ if we do not receive this truth in all its fulness. When you lift your head from your pillow in the morning, let this be the first thought to occupy your mind- "for all this day's history, my covenant Head, my Joseph, my Savior has provided. Then, I will bring to Him the needs that press, the perplexities that embarrass, the anxieties that chafe, the disappointments that grieve, the temptations that assail, the sins that wound me. I will bring my fears, my infirmities, my griefs, yes, every circumstance as it occurs to Jesus, and I will draw from His fulness of grace, sympathy, and strength, by prayer and faith, provision for this day's travel home to my Father's house."
Keep this truth constantly in view- a full Christ for an empty sinner. With no other will He have dealings; the rich He will send away empty, the poor He will send away full. The only sinner whom He rejects is he who comes with a price. His salvation is for the lost- His blood is for the guilty- His grace is for the poor. Come now- come as you are- come though you have been a thousand times before; yours shall be all the blessing- His all the praise.
"A fulness resides in Jesus our Head,
And ever abides to answer our need;
The Father's good pleasure has laid up in store,
A plentiful treasure to give to the poor.
"Whatever be our wants, we need not to fear,
Our numerous complaints His mercy will hear;
His fulness shall yield us abundant supplies,
His power shall shield us when dangers arise.
"Whatever distress awaits us below,
Such plentiful grace will Jesus bestow
As still shall support us, and silence our fear,
For nothing can hurt us while Jesus is near.
"When troubles attend, or danger, or strife,
His love will defend and guard us through life;
And when we are fainting, and ready to die
Whatever is lacking His hand will supply."

"A Good Man's Misinterpretation of a Dark Providence"
or "Jacob's Lament"

Jacob exclaimed, "You have deprived me of my children! Joseph has disappeared, Simeon is gone, and now you want to take Benjamin, too. All these things are against me!" Genesis 42:36

The deep, long shadows of life's evening were now gathering and darkening around the close of Jacob's course- but deeper, darker still were the shadows of God's providence. His sun, whose race had been so long and so prosperous, was now setting- but setting, oh, how gloomily! It would seem as if the residuum of life's cup of sorrow were reserved for life's close. And thus it pleases our heavenly Father ofttimes that a believer's deepest affliction, his heaviest woes, shall come upon him at the moment that he is about to bid farewell to them forever: as if his Father would make heaven all the sweeter by imparting an added bitterness to earth. All the brighter, by accumulating around its last stage the darkest dispensations. All the more a perfect rest, by letting loose the wildest storms as the vessel enters the port. Thus was it with the patriarch.
And as he contemplated the cloud, he could think of nothing but a speedy grave to which his gray hairs would descend with sorrow. And yet, how different the reality of the whole scene to the aspect which it wore to his dim and darkened vision! In those clouds of woe he could see no silver light. Those mystic symbols of God's providence he could not decipher; the handwriting upon the wall he could not interpret. The only conclusion to which he could come was- all these things are against me!
In nothing is a child of God wider from the mark, more truly at sea, drifting away among the breakers of doubt and uncertainty, than when, unaided by the Spirit, he attempts to interpret the strange, trying, inexplicable procedure of God. Thus it was with Jacob. We propose, in the further prosecution of this subject, reviewing some of those DARK PROVIDENCES now accumulating around the patriarch; his MISINTERPRETATION of their import; and the TRUE SOLUTION of the whole.
Affliction seldom comes alone. A single, solitary trial is but half the recipe designed by our heavenly Physician to effect the cure. God seldom works by units in the unfolding and perfecting of His gracious purposes of love and mercy towards us. There is a combination, a plurality of trials, all uniting, aiding, and assisting each other in working out the great, the grand, the holy result. David's experience is the experience of all God's people- "He sent from above, He took me, He drew me out of many waters." Thus was it with good old Jacob: many waves were surging around him- but his covenant God drew him out of all.
Let us look at these dark providences in their order. His first sorrow was that of bereavement. The shadow of death was upon his home. "Joseph is not." To him Joseph was virtually dead. The supposed circumstances of his end were of so painful a character as greatly to aggravate the affliction of his loss; and long and sorely had the patriarch mourned his rude and early death, doubtless treasuring, as a sad and only relic of his slaughtered child, the bloodstained coat of many colors which he wore, woven by his mother's hand. This, the saddest of all sorrows, still lingered in the good old man's heart, shading its brightest and latest joys.
How few of us are exempt from this sorrow! Who has not accompanied far into the shaded valley, loved ones of the heart? It pleases God sometimes to visit us with this calamity under circumstances peculiarly and unspeakably aggravating and distressing. We are born to die. The treasured ones around us have within them the seeds, and upon them the sentence, of death. The brilliant eye, the roseate cheek, the vermilion lip, the tall, graceful form shooting up, as in a night, like a cedar, are often to a skillful and discerning glance but as flowers blooming for the tomb.
Our home-circles, with all the powerful barriers which affection and influence can cast around them- guarded as by angel-sentinels of love- are not proof against the entrance of the "king of terrors." Youth cannot resist him- beauty cannot awe him- wealth cannot bribe him- eloquence cannot persuade him- learning cannot confound him- skill cannot baffle him- tears cannot move him- religion cannot evade his icy touch. To all this his uplifted dart is inexorable. He takes the prince from the throne, the ruler from the state, the orator from the senate, the judge from the bench, the minister from the pulpit, the head from the family, the light from the home, the babe from its mother's arms. None, none are spared.
What mean those echoes of the muffled bell still lingering on the ear? What mean these broken circles- this vacant chair- those unread books- those portraits on the wall- this treasured locket- this unworn apparel? Oh, how sad, how touching their mute, expressive eloquence! They remind us of the departed- they tell of the spirit-land where they have fled, where they will return not again until time be no more.
And often does our heavenly Father see fit to take the dearest and the fairest first. Precious thought! If He plucks the ripe and leaves the green; transplants the tree of righteousness to a sunnier sky, and leaves the barren tree for time and culture, perchance for fruit.
But what is this sad visitation of bereavement but one of the appointed dispensations of our heavenly Father, sent in unerring wisdom, righteousness, and love? It is in the covenant of grace, and must therefore be included in the schedule of the believer's charter of blessings. "All things are yours- death"-be it our own, or be it that of one nestling in our bosom, sheltered beneath our wing- it yet is a covenant mercy. Christ has changed both its character and its name; and death to the believer is now a covenant privilege and a peaceful sleep. Is our Joseph no more? God Himself has done it- has done it righteously. Sleeps he in Jesus? Then he sleeps sweetly, and shall do well- for "those who sleep in Jesus will God bring with him."
Yes! they are not lost, nor lost to us, who die in Christ. With Him they are now, with Him they will come again, and with Him will ever be. Even at this present we seem to be nearer to them, and in converse holier and closer, sweeter and dearer, as faith deals closely with the invisible, than when they were on earth. "God calls our loved ones, but we lose not wholly what He has given. They live on earth in thought and deed as truly as in heaven." We owe them much! They have taught us how to die; and by their death we are learning how to live. They have lessened and loosened our ties to earth, and have increased and strengthened our ties to heaven. And now that they are gone, heaven is nearer and dearer, and is to our conception more than ever a reality and a place.
Oh yes! we are their debtors! Well are we repaid for our anxious, weary watchings, tears and parting. They have, by sanctifying grace, made room in our hearts for Jesus, have brought God more fully into our souls, have made earth less sweet, death less bitter, Christ more precious, and heaven more winning.
Another dark cloud resting on the home of the patriarch was separation. "Simeon is not." Simeon was still alive, but far removed from the eyes of his father. He had been detained in Egypt by Joseph as a hostage, as a pledge and covenant of the return to him again of his brethren. This was an added drop of bitterness to the full cup of the aged saint. Another link was broken, another tie severed of domestic happiness, a new sorrow blending with the many now shading the parental heart. Are we entirely exempt from this peculiar form of trial- separation from those we love, whose presence and companionship seemed necessary to our happiness, yes, essential to our very being?
Ah no! Who, in this life of vicissitude, this world of change, has not felt it? It is part of the moral discipline- the discipline of the affections- the fitness for heaven- through which our God sees fit we should pass. He loans us the blessing of human companionship a while- the loving heart, the kindred mind, the responding spirit, the sympathizing nature- to cheer, and soothe, and help us on our way: then removes it. The noblest specimens of our nature have been sensible of this sorrow.
Listen to the elder Edwards- a man whose colossal intellect might be thought to have absorbed every drop of sensibility, and yet he possessed a nature as exquisitely tender as a woman's- "My heart is heavy at the remembrance of all the miles that lie between us. Oh, I can scarcely believe that you are so distant from me. We are parted, and every parting is a form of death, as every reunion is a type of heaven." He seems to have caught the poet's idea, "To die and part is less evil; but to part and live, there- there's the torment." Listen to the words of the Psalmist- "Lover and friend have you put far from me, and my acquaintance into darkness."
Yes! the tie that bound us, as we thought, too closely and too fondly ever to be broken, to a loved minister, a faithful friend, a fond relative, our Father dissolves, but to instruct us not to set our hearts inordinately upon any place or being on earth, and to remind us that if He separates us from friends- from the society, the counsel, and the soothing of those who had lessened life's sorrow and had increased its joy by affection and sympathy- it is but that He himself should enter and enshrine Him in the vacant recess, and be all in all.
The Lord Jesus sometimes holds our blessings as hostages. They are not entirely and forever removed from us, but are reserved to Himself for a while, as pledges of our unswerving confidence, filial obedience, and supreme love- that we will perform the vows and fulfil the promises we made when His hand was upon us. If this be the sorrow you are called to experience, dear reader, be still and know that He is God; yes, that He is your own God, and that whatever may be the painful, distant, and prolonged separation from the creature, there shall be no separation from Himself- His love, care, and sympathy.
And God would have us remember, too, that all present separation, whether by the distance of place, or the bereavement of death, from the holy objects of our affections, is but temporary and for a little while; that, in heaven, in our Father's house, we shall find them all again, and with them spend eternity. Blessed separation from the human, that brings our soul into this high experience of the Psalmist in his fellowship with the divine, "Whom have I in heaven but You? and there is none on earth that I desire beside You."
Another dark providence around this aged man of God was- the sorrow of surrender. "And you will take Benjamin away." This was a peculiarly keen and poignant grief to the heart of Jacob. Benjamin, the child of his old age, his fondling, the youngest, the sunbeam, doubtless, of his house, was to leave him; he was to part with this the last, the dearest, and most precious treasure. My reader, our heavenly Father often asks of us a like surrender, to prove the strength of our obedience, the sincerity of our affection, the reality of our faith- to test whether or not He were the supreme object of our homage, adoration, and love.
To surrender the youngest, the loveliest, and the dearest is often asked by God. The Lord sees fit to enter the domestic circle, and separate from it its light and its charm. And whether the removal be by death, or by the changeful scenes of life, to surrender our Benjamin is often a trial hard to bear. Be it so. Our blessings are not ours, they are His. He has a right to extinguish this sunshine of our home- to remove this charm and sweetener of life, this treasure which seemed to shed around the winter grey of old age the light and warmth of the spring-tide of youth!
Let us not, then, sorrow and repine; God never asks us to yield anything that seems necessary to our happiness and essential to our being, but, as we would remind you again, He asks His own. Your Benjamin is His; and if He enters your domestic enclosure and breaks the stem of some beauteous flower, it was His plant, and He had a right at any moment, and under any circumstances, to remove it to another and a distant place on earth, or to transfer it to the richer garden and the brighter skies of heaven.
But, superadded to these, there was one more cloud that gathered around Jacob's house. The famine was raging in the land. A man of wealth and of large possessions, he was still, with his beloved ones, dying of hunger. "The famine raged sore in the land." Yes, beloved, God may see fit, in His dealings with His people, to add to the sorrow of bereavement, to the grief of separation, and to the pain of surrender, impoverished circumstances, narrowed income, exhausted supplies.
God ofttimes deals with His people as if His heart were callous, His mind displeased, as if He were cold and indifferent to their temporal comforts and necessities. Be it so. He may see fit to reduce you in life, to blow upon garnered resources, to send a biting famine, as it were, to your home. It is but a page in your history corresponding with the experience of the most eminent of His people. The Lord would thus teach us that this life is not our portion, worldly wealth not our treasure, created good not our God.
Thus some of the saints are called to endure this reverse of fortune, this trial of poverty in extreme old age. The affluence of youth, the wealth of riper years has melted away, and poverty and hoary hairs have come together. But this has its blessings. God intends by this to confirm His love and faithfulness to His people. "Even down to old age I will carry you." When has God ever failed His people? When has He ever forsaken His saints in the decline of life? Straitened circumstances may come- sickness may come- dependence may come- the wintry blast may blow- the snow-flakes fall thick and fast- but GOD will come too, and His love and providence will turn winter into spring, and spring into summer, and summer into the ripe, golden fruit of autumn; "for He has said, I will never leave you nor forsake you."
Now, all these dark clouds, thus draping around the aged patriarch, were well calculated to fill his soul with distrust and trembling, to lead to an adverse interpretation of the infinite wisdom and righteousness and goodness of his covenant God. Let us then turn our attention to this. "All these things are against me." What affecting, yet what significant words are these! And recollect that they are the words of a man of God; one with whom God had had very close transactions, with whom He had, as it were, talked face to face. Yet behold him, after all the long and deep experience of the divine dealings, a mere child, reduced to the lowest condition in his religion, his faith staggering, his feet sliding and almost gone, his past experience abandoning him, succumbing to trying circumstances, misspelling mystic symbols, writing hard and bitter things both against God and himself. It was a good man misinterpreting a dark providence. He was reading his spiritual Hebrew from left to right, rather than- as Hebrew properly is read- from right to left. Properly to understand God's dispensations, they must often thus be read backward, and not forward. They must be studied in their results- must be viewed in the light of their ends- in the purposes which they are designed to accomplish.
Faith must look rather at the end, than at the beginning, of a dark providence. Beloved, we are but little acquainted with our own selves if we do not find much in our Christian and personal history that corresponds with this. Therefore, forgetting for the moment the case of the patriarch, let me state when it is, and how it is, that the child of God, tried and afflicted by the dispensations of his heavenly Father, is led to misread, misspell, and misinterpret these dispensations, and come to the conclusion, the wrong and erroneous conclusion, that because he cannot penetrate the darkness, unravel the mystery, and solve the problem, therefore God and His dispensations are against him.
In the first place, when spiritual exercises, when the dark dispensations of God's providence are viewed simply and only with the eye of sense, it will invariably lead us to a misconception, a misunderstanding, and a misinterpretation of His dealings with us. It is utterly impossible for you thus to look at a dark cloud, a paralyzing event, a crushing calamity, an unfortunate circumstance in your history, and not feel that it is a foe coming to despoil you of happiness; that it is a frown of your God; that it is an electric cloud sur-charged with some element of destruction.
But, beloved, this is not the eye with which we are to look at God's dealings. The moment faith made its home in our hearts, that moment God gave us a new eye, a divine organ of vision; we professed to have ceased to deal with God and His dispensations as men of the world, as men of sense who looked at things only through the spectacles of carnal reason; we then professed to become believers in Christ, to commence the life of faith, to walk by faith, to fight by faith, and by faith ever to look at and deal with the visible, as with the invisible; by faith spelling the dark letters, and interpreting the mystic symbols of God's providences, and by faith resting in the firm conviction and assurance, that though clouds and darkness were round about Him, righteousness, faithfulness, and love, are about us, pointing, ordaining, and guiding every step of our feet homeward.
Looked at with the eye of sense and the eye of faith, the aspect of God's providences will be essentially dissimilar. If with the eye of sense, they will appear dark and overwhelming, and you shall come to the conclusion that all is against you, conspiring to destroy your happiness and well-being. But looked at with the eye of faith- faith's farseeing vision- the picture changes, and those very events, circumstances, and incidents in your history that looked so somber and threatening, are all disguised blessings, veiled mercies, elements under the control and government of God, all combining for your greatest good and His highest glory.
Cease, then, to view your dark shadows, your trying dispensations, your overwhelming afflictions with the eye of sense, and look at them more simply, directly, and constantly with the eye of faith. "I would have fainted unless I had believed I would see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living."
Again; when God is judged by His dealings rather than by His sayings, by what He does rather than by what He is, the child of God will invariably be involved in doubt and perplexity, and come to the conclusion that God's dealings with him, clothed with the drapery of woe, and uttering the voice of the stranger, are making against him. My beloved ones, God will not be judged by His saints according to His dealings; He will be judged by them according to His words. If you judge of God's character, of His love, His purposes, and the intents of His heart towards you, by His conduct, rather than by what He is in Himself, marvel not that you come to this conclusion, "all these things are against me."
But let us thank God that we have this high principle of interpretation of what He does- namely, His revealed and written Word- His promises sustaining, tempering, interpreting His providences. The Lord's government of His saints is like a dissolving panorama. Scene after scene, picture after picture, each one differing from the other, passes before the eye. Some are tinted brightly, others are shaded darkly; some portray battles lost, others battles won. Yes! what is life but a daily succession of dissolving views? But what is God, He whose pencil tints and whose hand moves the picture? He is immutable, unchangeable, and eternal. He may change the lesson, vary the discipline, diversify His dealings, but He will never change in His love, falter in His faithfulness, or falsify His word. Life shall change- others shall change- most of all, we shall ourselves change; but our covenant God and Father never changes.
And it is by what He has written, and what He is, that He will have us judge of Him, and not by what He does. Doing this, you will not come to the incorrect and depressing conclusion, that all these changing, dissolving scenes of life, which form a perfect whole, are working against you, but you will be still and calm in the conviction that the power that controls and moves it all is the hand of a wise, loving, and gracious Father. It is here, beloved, our invested interests are so safe. In all life's chequered, variable history, we have to deal with a Father!
Is our barque amid the breakers? Our Father is at the helm. Does the sword's point press our heart? A Father's hand holds it. Is the cup brimmed and bitter? A Father's love has mingled it. Has the bright and hopeful picture of yesterday dissolved into the somber and despairing one of today? A Father is behind the scene, ordering and controlling all things after the counsel of His own will. Thus, be your daily life what it may, it is just what He makes it. If our nest be pierced with a thorn, He has planted it; if it be soft with down, he has lined it. God makes people, and places, and scenes exactly what they are to us, and with this assurance we may calmly receive all at His hands as sent in love.
One more reason accounting for this strange misinterpretation of God's providences on the part of His people. When we forget that, in reality, nothing can possibly be against the child of God, we shall be plunged in a sea of doubt and perplexity. When you lose sight of the fact that nothing can really touch the interests, imperil the well-being, or affect the everlasting safety of a child of God, you are as a cork tossed upon the ocean. What a grand truth is this to keep hold of! "It is well with the righteous." "The blessing of the Lord is upon his people." "There is no enchantment against Israel, and no divination against Jacob."
Man may curse; but God blesses. Let God's dispensation be ever so dark, painful, and afflicting, it is utterly impossible that anything can be against the best interests of a believer in Christ. If there is one being in the universe that is tenderly loved, daily cared for, prayerfully guarded, vigilantly watched over, and that, moment by moment, whose personal interests are bound up in the heart of God, and on whose everlasting safety He has pledged the honor of His name- it is the child of God, the believer in Christ, he for whom the Savior spilt His precious blood, and whom the Holy Spirit has made His temple.
"If God be for us, who can be against us?" Every being, and everything that is great, holy, and powerful, is on the side of the Triune Jehovah- angels- the spirits of just men made perfect- all the holy on earth- the Church above and the Church below- are all in league and in sympathy with God's elect. Why, then, should we yield to despondency and fear, or believe that anything can really be against us? Oh, it is only when unbelief and sense survey the scene that we extract from God's way with us material for misgiving, despondency, and despair. Environed by His perfections, yes, encircled by God Himself, it is, it must be well with the saints forever, and nothing shall prevail against them.
Having thus portrayed a few of the dark providences which ofttimes shade the Christian's path, tracing the misconstruction of these Divine dispensations to some of their causes, we now proceed to vindicate the character and glory of God in His conduct of His saints. What, in fact, was the true interpretation of all those trials now accumulating around the last days of the patriarch? The very reverse of that to which in unbelief and ignorance he arrived! All those things were working for him and in his favor.
Each event was a link in a chain of blessing, each cloud embosomed a mercy, each symbol was the token of love. The error into which the good man fell was that into which we are constantly, in like circumstances, gliding- the error of a rash and hasty interpretation of Divine providence. We seek to unravel what is explicable only to God- to sound what He only can fathom, and to anticipate, rather than quietly, patiently wait the unraveling of His thoughts, purposes, and end. We distrust God, and suppose it possible that He could have one hard thought, one unkind feeling towards His people. Impatient of mystery and delay, unsubmissive to the law of restraint, so divinely imposed, we wish to break the hedge with which our God has shut us in, to burst through the web of circumstances which infinite wisdom and love has drawn around us; and in so doing, thwarted, lacerated, and wounded, we find ourselves involved in difficulties and exposed to perils from which a love that knows no chill, a patience that knows no weariness, a wisdom that nothing can baffle and a power with which nothing can cope, alone can rescue us. Oh, the patience and goodness of our God! Had we not Him to deal with, no creature in the universe could bear with our rebellion and folly for an hour!
Before we take a wider scope of this subject, let us trace the illustration afforded by the case of Jacob. Where was Joseph whom he supposed was not? He was alive, and exalted to great power, distinction, and wealth. His supposed death was a dark sorrow, yet that sorrow was but preparing the way for a bright sunset of Jacob's life. Out of that death life was to spring- out of that cloud light was to flow- the event that appeared to curtail so much domestic joy and hope was just the one that would prove the salvation of his house. It was not against him, it was for him!
And where was Simeon? He, too, was one of the links in this unbroken chain of mysterious providences. Detained in Egypt as a hostage, he was, in fact, but a pledge and security of the glad tidings and the good things which were about to chime upon the ear, and unveil to the eye of the perplexed and sorrowing patriarch. Beloved, the very blessings which the Lord takes from us are but pledges and foreshadows of yet greater and costlier ones! God seems to say, "Surrender this mercy, and I will replace it with a better. Yield in obedience this ono blessing, and I will return it sevenfold. Lend me your Simeon, and I will return him again to you, and Joseph with him."
Thus it is that God buries our treasures but to raise them again to life, clad in deathless bloom, more precious, beauteous, and fragrant than ever. "Except a grain of wheat fall into the ground and dies, it abides alone: but if it dies it brings forth much fruit." Tremble not, then, when God veils your creature-treasures from your sight- it is but to fasten your eye more exclusively upon Himself; and when the trembling needle oscillates back to its center, when the wayward, foolish, idolatrous heart, smitten; sad, and lonesome, yet disciplined and sanctified, returns again to its "first love," God ofttimes re-inspires its earth-born joy, and restores its creature-blessing.
And what of the famine? Sore and grievous as it was, even it was a link in this golden chain of wondrous providences. It was trying to the heart of Jacob- a large landholder, the possessor of great estates, yet famishing for bread- to behold his family and dependents reduced to such a calamity. Don't we learn something from this? While God can keep alive the soul of His saints in famine, He can cause the worldly to starve in the midst of plenty. The words of inspiration testify, "In the fulness of his sufficiency he shall be in straits."
Many a man has great power, large possessions, beautiful domains, and every blessing that earth can supply, and yet his soul famishes for good, his heart pines for joy, his mind searches in vain for peace- he is poor in his wealth, and starves amid his plenty. Nothing but the love of God can satisfy the soul of man- none but God Himself can make him truly happy. My reader, acquaint yourself with Him, and be at peace; cease chasing the bubble, catching at the straw, eating ashes and feeding upon the wind of worldly creature-good. Never will you be satisfied. Oh, listen to the voice of Jesus! "Why spend money on what is not bread, and your labor on what does not satisfy Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good, and your soul will delight in the richest of fare."
But what of the scarceness in Jacob's house? It was evolving God's thoughts of peace and purposes of love. The very famine was sowing the seeds of harvest- the crushing need was creating a full supply. It was providing wealth, honor, and food for Jacob's family. But for the famine- we speak after the manner of men- would Jacob ever have heard that Joseph was yet alive? Would life's close have been amid such golden sheaves of plenty? Would its autumnal sunset have been so serene and glowing? Thus, then, each of these painful events transpiring in the closing history of the aged patriarch was working out God's hidden love in the experience of His beloved child.
A few words of exhortation in conclusion. Thank God for the hedge. He planted it- He encircled you with it, and for your highest well-being present and future. A truer word Satan never uttered than that which he spoke to God of Job, "Have you not made an hedge about him, and about his house, and about all that he has on every side?" When God thus hedges a man, the gates of hell shall never prevail against him; nor can Satan touch him without God's permission. But there are often providential hedges in one's path, which, at the first blush, seem to wear an aspect militating against us. But be still. When God plants a hedge around us, we have as much reason to thank Him as when He breaks it down- as much when He closes, as when He opens, our path. That thorn-bush is but interposed between you and some impending, unseen, unsuspected evil from which God would shield you.
Oh, little do we suspect how much one evil is sent to prevent another and a greater! When our purposes are frustrated, our plans reversed, our hopes disappointed; or, when some sudden, distressing calamity overtakes us, then we begin to exclaim, "This is against me." Oh, could we see, as our Father does, the end from the beginning, could we unravel that mysterious web, decipher the meaning of that unlooked-for trial, unfold the blessing veiled and shaded in that somber cloud- in a word, could we see from what calamity we were saved, from what temptation we were shielded, from what sin we had been kept, from what fatal injury to our happiness and usefulness we have been preserved, we should bless God for the hedge, nor think the discipline too severe, or the mode too painful by which hopes, now crushed, would spring again into brighter bloom, in sweeter and undying fragrance. "Light is sown for the righteous; and gladness for the upright in heart."
Be cautious, then, of coming to rash hasty conclusions as to God's dealings. "I said in my haste," says David. It is the dictate of true wisdom and of sound faith, patiently to wait until God explains His own providences. This He will do in His good time. "God is His own interpreter, and He will make it plain." Tried, afflicted child of God! be not hasty in your conclusion that God does not love you, that Christ cares not for you, acid that all those untoward, painful, and inexplicable events in your history are confederate against your well being, and are evidences against your conversion, your adoption, your saving interest in Christ.
Satan will strive hard to lead your reasoning to such a conclusion. Was not Jacob loved of God? Yes, God affirms it- "Jacob I have loved." And does He not call Himself- "the God of Jacob?" And yet, who was ever more sharply tried by God than he? Upon whose path to heaven did larger, darker shadows gather? Tried by undutiful children- tried by mournful bereavement- tried by painful separation- tried by crushing poverty, and yet, the beloved of God! "Whom the Lord loves He chastens, and scourges every son whom He receives. If you endure chastening, God deals with you as with sons; for what son is he whom the Father chastens not?" "Those whom I love, I rebuke and chasten."
Accept, then, these afflictive dealings of your heavenly Father as evidences of your belonging to the seed-royal of Christ, as seals of your adoption, as parts of the discipline by which the Lord is promoting your sanctification and preparing yon for glory. Read in this hallowed, soothing light of God's love, you will not conclude that all these things are against you, but rather will exclaim- "He has done all things well."
We learn from this subject that God sometimes removes a blessing but to return it to us again. He never intends to curtail our real happiness. He loves His people too well for that. We know but imperfectly the greatness of God's love to us. It is infinite- how should we fully know it? And yet this should be our constant prayer, especially when His dealings are trying to faith, "Lord, show me how You love me. Lead my heart into Your love. Let me, with all my cares and sorrows, infirmities and sins, sink into the soundless depths of this vast sea."
He asked of Abraham the surrender of Isaac, He took from Jacob first Joseph, and then Simeon, and lastly Benjamin, but He kindly restored them all again, all the sweeter, all the dearer, all the more hallowed and precious from their temporary removal. Relinquish, then, without a murmur or a misgiving what the Lord asks, dear though it be as the heart's tenderest fibre.
From the grave in which God entombs it, it shall, at His bidding, leap again into life, more beauteous, more sacred, and more precious than ever. And the discipline of the heart, the deepening of God's work in your soul, the weanedness, the prayerfulness, the lowliness, the endearing of Christ which the removal of the blessing has induced, will be an infinite compensation for its painful and temporary withdrawment. Joseph was but a mere stripling, poor and despised, when God removed him from Jacob; he was full-grown, the governor of all Egypt, wealthy and honored, when God gave him back!
"Saints, at your heavenly Father's word,
Give up your comforts to the Lord;
He shall return what you resign,
Or grant you blessings more divine."
And what is the conclusion of the whole? It shall be in the words of God, and not of man, "All Things Work Together for Good to Those Who Love God, to Those Who Are the Called According to His Purpose." Blessed Lord! be Your dispensations bright or cloudy, mysterious or plain, on this Divine truth I can live, upon it I can die, and it shall be my study and praise through eternity!
Courage, brother! yes, take courage,
In life's battle dare to fight;
Though the strife may seem unequal,
Trust in God, and do the right.
Stand up boldly- never falter;
Stand up, though you stand alone;
God will nerve your arm for warfare,
He will make His strength your own
Is your heart well-near to fainting?
Seems the future hopeless, drear?
Is there none to ease your burden
None to whisper words of cheer?
Courage, you are not forgotten
Learn dark doubts aside to fling
God would teach your heart the lesson,
Sweetest joys from sorrows spring.
Fierce may be the outward conflict,
Fiercer still the strife within;
But how sweet the resting, brother,
When we stand "complete in Him!"
Weary heart, then, take fresh courage,
Sins, and fears, and self despite;
Look above! with faith unshaken,
Trust in God, and do the right!

"Christ Revealing Himself to His People"
or "Joseph Making Himself Known to His Brethren"

Then Joseph could no longer control himself before all his attendants, and he cried out, "Have everyone leave my presence!" So there was no one with Joseph when he made himself known to his brothers. And he wept so loudly that the Egyptians heard him, and Pharaoh's household heard about it. Genesis 45:1-2

We have now reached the denouement of this interesting and persuasive story. The veil is uplifted, the disguise is removed, and Joseph stands before his brethren manifested and made known. The whole scene is inimitably beautiful and richly instructive, such as neither the pen of the poet, the pencil of the painter, nor the tongue of the orator can adequately depict. Talk of human fiction! Scripture history is infinitely more fascinating and marvellous; added to which is the irresistible power and charm of revealed and confirmed truth. Reserving for the next chapter of our work the relation in which Joseph manifested himself, in the present we have to do only with the manifestation. This one particular is sufficiently suggestive of most precious truth, touching Christ and His brethren, to engage our study. Upon JESUS, the central object of our story, we must keep the eye undividedly and intently fixed; for, wonderful and exciting as the story itself is, its charm and its teaching were as nothing if we see not JESUS in it. The most suggestive points for our meditation are- THE PRIVACY- THE MANIFESTATION- THE EMOTION.
Then Joseph could no longer control himself before all his attendants, and he cried out, "Have everyone leave my presence!" So there was no one with Joseph when he made himself known to his brothers. Genesis 45:1-2
The occasion was eventful and solemn; there were entwined with it memories too sacred, feelings and emotions too tender, for any other to share with themselves. He resolved, therefore, that it should be veiled with the profoundest secrecy. There was, too, remarkable delicacy of feeling on the part of Joseph in this arrangement. He considered his brethren- the thoughts and feelings that would overwhelm them at the astounding discovery that he was their very brother whom they had injured. The memory of their sin and wrong rushing back upon their minds with overpowering force, might so fill them with shame and confusion of face as to expose them to the rude stare and reproach of the Egyptians. From this humiliation, the kind and considerate brother would sincerely screen them.
Added to this, Joseph was now about to divest himself of his official dignity, and to exchange the distant, stern address of the governor of Egypt for the unreserved, familiar, and affectionate communion of the brother, and no eye shall gaze upon the spectacle except their own. "And there stood no man with him, while Joseph made himself known unto his brethren."
It was an occasion and a joy with which a stranger should not intermeddle, and with which another could not sympathize. We pass to its spiritual and gospel teaching. Do you see in this, my reader, a remarkable page of your own spiritual history? Are not your thoughts at once thrown back upon some of the most sacred and solemn periods of your experience, when, separated and alone, not a human eye seeing, not a human ear hearing, there has been a gracious manifestation to you of God in Christ, the most personal, touching, and overwhelming?
The Church of God is hidden and invisible. Her divine life, her spiritual conflicts, her joys and sorrows, are, for the most part, concealed from the rude gaze of an ungodly world; and that which transpires between the child of God and his Father in heaven, between Jesus and His brethren, is cognizant only to Him whose most confiding, solemn, and gracious interviews are reserved for hours and places of the profoundest privacy.
Let us advert to two or three periods of our spiritual history illustrating this. There is, in the first place, God's separation of His people from all others in election. God's people are a "remnant according to the election of grace." His Church is truly and emphatically an elected body. They are a people taken out of the world according to His eternal purpose and everlasting covenant, designated and set apart as His especial and peculiar people. This truth flashes from the page of God's Word as with electric light. Thus we read, "God at the first did visit the Gentiles to take out of them a people for His name." "He has chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world." "Knowing, brethren beloved, your election of God." "All that the Father gives to Me shall come to Me." "You are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a peculiar people." What need we of further testimony?
Here is the first and most ancient separation of God's people, invisible and unknown; no angel, no creature present when that choice was made, when that covenant was entered into, when that Church was chosen. It was a secret eternally, solemnly veiled in the infinite depths of Jehovah's mind. He alone was cognizant of it who dwelt in the bosom of the Father. "Secret things belong to God." How worthy of Him this eternal act of sovereign grace and love, "who works all things after the counsel of His own will," and "who gives no account of any of His matters!"
In nothing does He appear more like Himself- more completely and gloriously the eternal, independent, holy, sovereign Lord God. Receive in faith this truth, because it is revealed- adore it; because it is living- love it; because it entwines the holiness and comfort of the saints with the glory and praise of God.
Then, there is the separation of God's people in their spiritual and effectual calling by the Holy Spirit. Real conversion is a secret and separating work. It separates a man from himself, from the covenant of works, from the world, and often from his family. It touches and dissolves the ties which in unregeneracy so closely and so fondly bound him to earth's sinful associations. Where divine and sovereign grace thus enters the heart, oh what a division, what a separation transpires, in the experience of that individual, from all the antecedents which at one period of his history formed the charm, the sweetness, the very sun of human existence!
Who can describe the awful privacy of that transaction, when the worshiped idol 'self', the cherished righteousness, the adored object of creature-affection was laid at Jesus' feet, and Jesus and the soul were left alone in the discovery of a relation, and in the manifestation of a love such as heaven must have looked down to see! My dear reader, has your professed religion thus separated you? Has the great divorce taken place? Have you been separated from the self-righteous world? from the gay world? from the ungodly world? from the intellectual world? disenthralled from that form of worldly fascination and power by whose spell you were held a willing captive? If so, then the snare is broken and you are escaped. Divine and sovereign grace has exerted upon you its mightiest power, and conferred upon you its richest boon!
This is true conversion- a separation from self-righteousness; from the dominion of sin; from the captivity of Satan and all other that is false. O solemn stillness, O holy privacy of that moment when this great change takes place- this grand secret is disclosed- this wondrous discovery is made! Truly does our true Joseph cause every man, every object, and every feeling to retire from the scene, when, by the Spirit's quickening and His converting grace, He draws the soul in love to Himself, and reveals the secret of the covenant. It is an occasion too holy, too sacred and solemn, for any other to be present save Christ and the Soul.
The providential, not less than the gracious, dealings of God often bring us into this experience of isolation. When the Lord intends to reveal His ways, and to make us better acquainted with Himself and with our own selves in these ways, there is that in His dealings which seems to sequester us from all but Himself. He removes us from the crowd- from the busy hum of men- from the whirl and excitement of daily life; and, bidding all retire, there is no creature present while He talks with us.
Ah! there is a silence in that bereavement, a solitude in that sickness, a secret in that adversity, a mystery in that event, known only to Christ and the soul. There is heart-searching, and conscience-probing, and sin-revealing, and divine discoveries, veiled from every intelligence but the believer and God. And when the hand of our Father is thus laid upon us, the stricken deer seeks not more instinctively the lonely glen to nurse its wound in solitude, than does our heart prompt us to retreat from our fellows and seek the cloister of a sacred privacy, to think and feel and act alone with God.
And what an unfolding is there here of the tender, delicate consideration of Jesus! With His solemn rebukes, His deep heart-searchings, His gracious discoveries, no one shall be cognizant except Himself. Our secret sins, which He places in the light of His own countenance, He kindly veils from every other. What deep instruction may we receive from this! How considerate we should be of the case, how careful of the feelings, and how jealous of the reputation of the Lord's brethren and ours! Our Joseph will never needlessly and unfeelingly expose us to the rude gaze, the changed affection, the lessened esteem and confidence of others; but, veiling our infirmities, failures, and sins from the world and the saints, will deal with them in the solemn privacy of our own souls. So let us deal with our brethren!
But it is in the act of private communion with God that the believer and Christ are the most truly and solemnly alone. Then, if ever, every being and object retires, and Jesus draws near and holds the soul in the spell of a fellowship and joy with which the stranger intermedles not. Such was the communion of the patriarch at Peniel. He was alone. The curtain of night draped the scene from every eye; all sound was hushed into silence but the voice of prayer. Jacob and the Angel of the Covenant were the sole actors in that scene. Then it was Christ made Himself known, conferred a spiritual knighthood upon the holy auditor, and retiring, left him a conqueror and blest.
Beloved, our greatest strength in prayer is, when we wrestle alone with the Strong One. Our thoughts, and feelings, and sympathies, are shared by others when with others we draw near to God. But do you, O son of Jacob, aspire to his dignity and blessing? Then cause every one to go out when you would hold your most sacred season with Christ. O blessed hour, when Christ and the heart meet in holy, confiding, loving fellowship! There dwells not in that bosom a sin, in its depths of sensibility a sorrow, in its clinging affections a rival, in its intense yearnings a desire, in its fervent breathings a petition, in its bright sunshine a cloud, which may not at that moment find pardon, sympathy, and repose in converse with Jesus.
Oh, cultivate these seasons of privacy, these moments of separation for communion with God! Christ Himself needed and sought them. How frequently did He leave the busy world, and the thronging multitude, and the presence of His disciples, to meditate in pensive loneliness on the sea-shore, or to pour forth His midnight supplications amid the mountain's solitude! If He, the Strong One, the Sinless One, felt the need of retirement for thought, and prayer, and self-communion, how much deeper our need, whose nature is so fallen, whose heart is so sinful, whose path is so thickly paved with temptations to evil, and so deeply shaded with the storm-clouds of sorrow!
Oh, see that your hours of converse with Jesus are not rudely invaded! Go at morning's dawn, at mid-day's turmoil, at evening's shade, yes, in the still hour of night, when sad thoughts encircle, and tears bedew your pillow, and, dismissing the world and the creature, draw near to the Mighty One, the Compassionate One, the All-seeing One, and tell the Savior all! Oh, cultivate sacred retirement! It is as essential to the nourishment of your piety, the increase of your spirituality, the comfort of your soul as the morning's sunbeam and the evening's dew to earth's fertility.
The richest fruit and flower of truth grow beneath the cross, the purest springs of grace flow in the hidden, shaded walk with God. There you can confess sin, and unveil grief, and breathe needs, and make known trials, seek and obtain renewed supplies of pardon and strength, peace and comfort, as nowhere else. And realize how beautifully and wisely God has harmonized the time and place of separation from all others, with the especial season of communion with Himself.
"The calm retreat, the silent shade,
With prayer and praise agree,
And seem by Your sweet bounty made
For those who follow Thee."
"Then, if Your Spirit touch the soul,
And grace her mean abode,
Oh, with what peace, and joy, and love,
She communes with her God!"
"There, like the nightingale, she pours
Her solitary lays;
Nor asks a witness to her song,
Nor sighs for human praise."
Joseph, having commanded every man to retire, then makes himself known. This conducts us to THE MANIFESTATION of Joseph to his brethren. "Joseph made himself known unto his brethren." What must have been the varied thoughts, the conflicting emotions of Joseph's brethren, and of Joseph himself, when they found themselves face to face alone! In the minds of the conscious brethren what solemn awe, what memories of sin, what forebodings of evil, what strange reflections and fears now crowd! In Joseph's heart, what concealed emotion, what smothered feelings, what loving, tender thoughts and purposes were revolving! Is there nothing corresponding with this in the divine and gracious manifestations of Christ to the believing soul?
How impressive the thoughts and feelings of the believer when he finds himself alone in the Divine presence! What sad memories of sinful departure, of wilful backsliding, of unfaithfulness and unkindness to Christ, crowd the mind! What trembling, and fears, and self-abasement fill the heart! The remembrance at that moment of wrong, and injury, and unkindness to a Being so good, to a Savior so gracious, to a Friend so loving, to a Father so tender and faithful, overwhelm the soul with awe, humiliation, and dread.
But oh, what a contrast does the Lord himself present! In the heart of Jesus, what love, what compassion, what yearning tenderness, and in the mind of God, what thoughts and purposes of peace dwell, panting, as it were, for the expression and the outflow!
But let our thoughts for a moment dwell more exclusively upon this single element of experimental religion- the Divine manifestation to the believing soul. It is the very essence of a holy, happy religion. A Christianity without it is but the name, the profession, the resemblance. A man of God is a living soul; a believer in Christ is in vital union with his Head; he is a temple of the Holy Spirit. All this involves close dealing and communion with the Divine. With such an individual, thus quickened with divine and spiritual life, there must of necessity be much transaction with God, with the spiritual and invisible.
Water ascends not more naturally to its level, than does the grace of God, welled within a gracious soul, rise in communion and aspiration and praise to Him from whom it came. It is no hallucination, nothing visionary and ideal, that a child of God may so walk with God, a believer in Christ so commune with Christ, as to realize on earth a converse with the divine, and the invisible, and the spiritual, but one remove from the pure and perfected fellowship of heaven itself. The man of God is as conscious of having God's ear open to him, God's countenance beaming upon him, God's heart responding to him, as a loving child is who stands in the parental presence, and wakes from a father's lips words of response and love. I cannot illustrate a feature of real vital religion of greater moment than this.
And I am all the more earnest in enforcing it, seeing there are so many religionists who are satisfied with their round of religious duties, unaccompanied and unsanctified with a moment's consciousness of the Lord's manifestation to their souls. Ask them if they know from personal experience the import of these gracious words of Christ, "We will come and manifest ourselves to you," and how unmeaning and blank their look!
Let me remark that the first and most memorable discovery of Christ to the soul is in its earliest stage of grace. What pen can portray, or tongue describe, the experience of that moment when Jesus first stands revealed to the believing Soul; when words of pardon are first spoken, and a sense of acceptance is first realized, and the love of God is first felt! If the reader can recall that hour when Jesus stood before him, the veil uplifted, the disguise removed, all manifested and revealed in surpassing loveliness and love, your Savior, your Lord and Sovereign, then, methinks, he can recall a period in his existence upon which memory will feast with delight, lasting as the duration of eternity. Oh, heaven alone can supply a joy comparable with the joy of that hour!
Does this page meet the eye of a Christ-seeking, Christ-longing soul? My beloved reader, the Lord Jesus waits to be gracious to you. He is prepared to throw off the disguise, to rend in twain the wail, to lay aside the appearance which may have filled your mind with awe and your heart with fear, and to reveal Himself as bearing your sin, as exhausting your curse, as delivering you from condemnation, and as reconciling you to God by His blood. Oh, He is ready to burst through the dark clouds with which your sin and guilt and unbelief have invested Him, and to stand before your trembling spirit in His true relation, full of grace, overflowing with love, uttering assurances of a forgiveness that will leave not the shadow of a sin uneffaced, of a righteousness that places you in a present acceptance, and insures you a future glory.
Only believe! give full credence to the assurances of His gospel. That gospel tells you that He came into the world to save sinners; that He came to call not the righteous but sinners to repentance; that He died for the ungodly; that He casts out none who come to God by Him; that He saves to the uttermost; that pardon and justification, adoption and salvation, are the gifts of His grace. Only believe these simple yet wondrous statements, and the result will be a true and settled joy unspeakable and full of glory.
Oh, what a blessed realization of Jesus to your soul will there be the moment doubt yields to confidence, fear gives place to love, despair merges into hope, and guilt and condemnation are supplanted by pardon, peace, and assurance forever! All these precious streams will flow like gentle wavelets into your soul the moment you embrace in childlike faith the Savior.
Then there is the Divine manifestation to the believing soul, after a season of spiritual gloom, depression, and despondency. It pleases God to discipline and instruct the believer by darkness as by light. Indeed, the one is as essential to the progress of our Christianity as the other. Astronomical science achieves its most glorious discoveries when earth's beauties, clad in evening's shadows, fade upon the view. Infinitely greater and more glorious are the spiritual discoveries of God, of Christ, of truth, and his own heart, made by the child of light when walking in darkness. He learns in the shade what he did not in the sunshine.
The storm has tested the strength of his barque; the lee-shore has proved the firmness of his anchor; the darkness of a starless night has increased his confidence in the correctness of his compass. In this season of spiritual gloom, of severe soul-exercise, what lessons the believer learns of God's love, power, and faithfulness; how confirmed is his faith in the truth of God's Word; what experimental discoveries he makes of the love, the fulness, the sympathy of Jesus; and how more thoroughly schooled does he become in, perhaps, the most difficult, as the most humiliating, of all knowledge- the knowledge of himself! "Such honor have all the saints."
O beloved, there is no event or circumstance of your life, however simple or inexplicable, profound in its gloom or dazzling in its brightness, pleasing or painful, by which God does not intend to instruct and bless you. He taught David as much in the cave of Adullam as He ever did upon the throne of Israel. He taught Joseph as a prisoner in his dungeon what he ever learned as the governor of all Egypt. Deem not, then, days and nights of spiritual adversity, trial, and storm, through which you course your way, blank and unfruitful periods in your history. Oh, no! Christ is in all, and by all He is but deepening His work of grace in your heart, promoting the divine life in your soul, and training you for heaven.
But these seasons of spiritual depression and gloom in the believer's experience are but temporary. There follows the season of Divine manifestation, when Christ, the Sun, breaks through the dark clouds, and all is light and joy again. "He restores my soul." "The Lord will command His loving-kindness in the day, and in the night His song shall be with me." Our Joseph removes the momentary obscuration, the cloud-veil that He wore, and stands before us our Joseph still. Oh, can you not testify to such blessed seasons in your experience, when the Lord has, after a night of weeping, caused the morning of joy to dawn; when, after a long and dreary road, you have emerged into a large and wealthy place, bathed with the sunshine of His love?
These are blessed manifestations of Jesus. And but for the hidings, the withdrawings, the suspensions of His sensible presence and love, how little should we know of the sustaining power of faith in darkness, and of the enhanced sweetness and pleasantness of the light when the darkness is past! All this is to endear Jesus to our soul, to make us better acquainted with our true Joseph. We learn as much what He is by His disguises as by His manifestations, by His hidings as His revealings. In both He is our immutable Christ.
If it is now a time of darkness with your soul, hope in God, for you shall yet praise Him. Jesus will not always speak to you in a reserved and rough tone, to test your faith and prove your love and make the manifestation all the sweeter. Wait but the Lord's time, and though for a little moment He has hid His face from you, yet with great mercies He will appear again.
"Encompassed with clouds of distress,
Just ready all hope to resign,
I pant for the light of Your face,
And fear it will never be mine."
"Disheartened with waiting so long,
I sink at Your feet with my load;
All plaintive I pour out my song,
And stretch forth my hands unto God."
"Shine; Lord! and my terror shall cease;
The blood of atonement apply;
And lead me to Jesus for peace
The Rock that is higher than I"
"Almighty to rescue You are;
Your grace is my shield and my tower;
Come, succor and gladden my heart
Let this he the day of Your power."
Nor must we fail to quote afflictive seasons in the believer's history, as occasions of especial manifestation of Jesus to the soul. Affliction is a separating process. The Lord, by these dispensations of trial and sorrow, draws us aside into solitary places, and there converses with us. And when dark adversity or sore affliction has thus withdrawn us from man, or, perhaps, has impelled man from us, and we are left alone, we are surprised to find how near we are to Christ, or, rather, how near Christ has brought Himself to us.
It is only in the sorrows and trials of human life that real friendship is fully tested. A friend who loves us, clings to us, acknowledges and aids us at all times, is a friend indeed. That Friend of friends is JESUS. We have but to be in trial, in sorrow, in need, to realize that Christ is standing at our door asking admittance to our grief. The storm has borne Him on its wing, the clouds have provided Him a chariot, death has brought Him in its wake. Where a suffering, sorrowing, needy servant of God is, there is Jesus.
The season of sickness is a touching illustration of the especial manifestation of Christ to His people. I cite this instance, as it is one, more or less, the experience of many of God's people; and sooner or later will be the experience of all. A sick-room is often the audience-chamber of Christ- the King's private room where He meets His saints alone. Thus sequestered from all- the world excluded, the creature shut out, business suspended- lo! Christ has entered; and, oh, what solemn transactions, what gracious communion, what Divine manifestations, what interchanged affections, then transpire between Christ and the soul.
The sick-room was necessary for the separation, the separation was needed for the manifestation, and the manifestation for the health and comfort of the soul.
And thus a dispensation which the man of God thought a calamity so adverse and a cloud so threatening, has but developed God's purpose of mercy, wisdom, and love, in the closer communion into which it has brought the heart with Christ. So that the season of sickness and suffering- a sleepless pillow and a couch of weakness- has been irradiated and soothed with gleams of heaven, with the presence of Jesus and the smiles of God.
Exiled from the privileges of the public worship of God, severed from those means of grace and useful employments in which your soul has been wont to delight, deem not yourself, sick one! the inhabitant of a dry land, or as an exile whom no one loves, for whom no one cares. Oh, no! Your sick and suffering couch God may place near by the vestibule of heaven, yes, within the very precincts of the coming glory- such may be the divine manifestations to your soul. Angels sent from above minister to you, happy spirits encircle you, the odors of paradise float around you, the breezes of heaven fan you, the eye of God watches over you, and the manifested presence of Jesus strengthens you to bear the exile with cheerfulness, the languor with patience, and the suffering with a heart that meekly exclaims, "As my Father wills."
Thus, beloved, adversity, whatever its form- be it the loss of property, the decay of health, the bereavement of friends- has been the door through which Christ has entered, bent on a loving, gracious discovery of Himself to your soul. He has constructed the furnace, kindled the fire, controls the heat only to melt and then to mold, to purge and then to purify and refine your soul, that you may have less of sin and more of holiness, less of the creature and more of Christ, less of self and more of God, less of earth and more of Heaven.
"Pain's furnace-heat within me quivers,
God's breath upon the flame does blow:
And all my heart in anguish shivers
And trembles at the fiery glow
And yet I whisper: As God will!
And in His hottest fire hold still."
"He comes, and lays my heart, all heated,
On the hard anvil, minded so,
Into His own fair shape to beat it
With His great hammer, blow on blow:
And yet I whisper: As God will!
And at His heaviest blows hold still."
"He takes my softened heart and beats it;
The sparks fly off at every blow;
He turns it over and over and heats it,
And lets it cool, and makes it glow
And yet I whisper: As God will!
And in His mighty hand hold still."
"Why should I murmur? for the sorrow
Thus only longer-lived would be;
Its end may come, and will tomorrow,
When God has done His work in me,
So I say trusting: As God will!
And, trusting to the end, hold still."
"He kindles, for my profit purely,
Affliction's glowing, fiery brand;
And all His heaviest blows are surely
Inflicted by a Master hand
So I say praising: As God will!
And hope in Him, and suffer still." (Julius Sturm)
Nor must we overlook the gracious manifestations of Christ's restoring grace and changeless love after seasons of spiritual and penitential backsliding. Such was the look of Jesus to the fallen Peter. Such the language of God to His repentant Ephraim: "I have surely heard Ephraim bemoaning himself.... Therefore my affections are troubled for him; I will surely have mercy upon him, says the Lord."
Oh, what a mercy that the Lord curbs our waywardness, checks our wanderings, restores and heals our backslidings; and when in contrition we lie at His feet bemoaning our departures, confessing our sins, covered with shame and confusion at our base, unkind, ungrateful requital of love so deep, mercy so great, grace so free, how blessed then the manifestations of His restoring mercy, His healing grace, His unchanged and forgiving affection! We marvel not that the gentle word, the expressive look of Christ, breaks the heart with contrition, and dissolves it into love.
But the most gracious, manifest, and sustaining revealings of Christ to His brethren are reserved for the lone, shaded valley of death. What can meet that solemn period but faith in Christ? Who can so tread it with us as that its loneliness shall create no depression, its gloom no obscurity, its appearance no terror, its dart no sting, its remote consequences no fear- but Jesus?
When death confronts a believer, he confronts Christ in that believer, and meets his Spoiler and his Foe. And so near is Jesus, so absorbingly conscious is the departing soul of His presence, it sees not death, but Him only who is the Conqueror of death, the Resurrection and the Life, and so it fears no evil, and passes over to the other side, its song of victory, in dying cadence, fading in the distance.
Fear not, then, the coming hour! You shall not be deserted nor desolate; separated from others, you will be all the more engaged with Christ. That solemn crisis will find Him at your side; and although sad recollections of chilled affections, of unfaithful services, of an uneven walk, it may be, a wound inflicted upon the bosom that now pillows your languid head; may crowd upon the memory, yet, oblivious of it all, and forgiving it all, Christ is there to give you dying, God-glorifying grace for the hour and article of death.
Dismissing the revelation of Joseph to his brethren, we nest approach THE SENSIBILITY he displayed on the occasion: "And he wept aloud." The long pent-up feelings of his heart now found vent in that intense audible mode peculiar to oriental grief. Emotions he had struggled to conceal now threw off their guise, and he wept. These were marvellous tears of Joseph! Who gave him that sensibility? who kindled these feelings? who unsealed these tears?- He of whom it is written, "Jesus wept."
Ah, beloved, if such was the sensibility of Joseph, a man of like infirmities, selfishness, and sin, with ourselves- what must be the sensibility, what the sympathy, and what the tears of Christ? The love, the tenderness, the sympathy, those tears thus expressed in the presence of his brethren, were welled there by his glorious, gracious Antitype- they were but distillings from the nature and spirit of Christ. It is a beautiful shadowing forth this of the hidden love and sympathy of the Savior- hidden and unknown until our circumstances elicit and reveal it.
Did the heart of Joseph overflow? Did the sight, the need, and the affliction of his brethren unseal the fountain of sensibility? Do you think that when you stand in the presence of Christ He will feel and exhibit less kindness, sympathy, and love? Oh, no! His nature is so identical with your own, there is not a shade of sorrow, nor a form of temptation, nor a peculiarity of need to which the sensibility and sympathy of His heart is not toned.
A weeping Joseph! it is a touching spectacle, and I envy not the feelings of the individual who can read the story without emotion. A weeping Savior! it is a sublime study, and I envy the pencil that can livingly portray, and the loftiness and delicacy of that perception that can vividly realize its image, its tenderness, and its grandeur. Yet more deeply do I covet the feelings of that saint who, with a heart of leaden grief, with mental beclouding and depression, its stricken and bleeding affections wandering through the vacant and desolate cloisters of the soul whose beloved occupants death has removed, can believingly, calmly, silently sink into the depths of this boundless sea of Christ's human sensibility, and realize the all-sufficiency of His sustaining grace, and the exquisite soothing of His sympathizing love. "Jesus wept "-words we can never weary of repeating, and which will continue to fall sweet as heaven's music on the ear until He wipes the last tear away.
But if of human sorrow there is one with which the sensibility of our true Joseph is the most closely and tenderly entwined, it is the sorrow which the inroads of death produce- the grief which the departure into eternity of loved ones leaves in its long, lingering shadow, and anguish in the heart. This is a loss which we feel only One can meet; it were irreparable but for Christ. We may part with health, but by skill, kindness, and care, win back again the boon. We may part with wealth, but by patient and self-denying industry retrieve our loss. We may part with endeared and sacred places, but by new friendships, scenes, and associations, experience a sweet and soothing mitigation of the sorrow.
But no skill of science, no efforts of kindness, no voice of love can redeem from the grave, or win back from eternity, the beloved spirits that have left us. They are gone beyond our recall. The treasure of our heart- the light of our home- the companion of our pilgrimage- the charm and sweetness of life has departed, leaving a grief Christ only can soothe, a shadow He only can illumine, a vacancy He only can fill. There is but one Being in the wide, wide world, but one in the boundless universe, who can occupy that lone and desolate niche.
Our dearest Lord was disciplined by this very sorrow of parting, that He might be able to succor and soothe this grief of ours. Oh, sweet sorrow, which none but Christ can soothe! Oh, sacred loss, which none but Christ can supply! It needs be often that the tenderest fibre of our affections should be severed, the most sacred cloister of our hearts should be emptied, the fondest idol of our souls displaced, that we might learn the reality and power of Christ's sympathy in parting.
Who can supply a parent's care, fill a child's place, be more than husband, brother, friend, minister, but Jesus? Then let the swelling billow of your bereavement but cast you more completely upon Him- the Rock that is higher than you. If this be the fruit, a rich and golden harvest will your faith have sickled from this sowing of tears. Weep on! and weep not only at the feet, but on the very bosom of Christ, that your sorrow may all the more partake His sympathy. Wish not to recall the absent one- that were selfish sorrow- rather seek greater nearness to the Lord, a deeper sanctification of the heart, a more full, unreserved surrender to God. Let Christ be more precious to you now than ever; and all the future of your path be cheered by His presence, and all the future of your pilgrimage be consecrated to His glory.
"Oh! weep, sad heart!
The loved, the lovely, from this earth have flown;
The beautiful have left you all alone
Autumn its dead leaves over their graves has strown."
"Oh! weep, sad heart!
The Savior wept for you, and bore the smart
Of your deep grief in His own bleeding heart
You may not sit alone, and mourn apart."
"Then weep a while;
You'll miss the cheerful voices in their mirth,
That brightened many a lonely path on earth.
Ah! gentle ones, you have a heavenly birth."
"Weep not for these,
They've passed from this tempestuous land of ours
Into a clime of endless love and flowers,
Crowned with immortal bliss in heavenly bowers"
"Then dry your tears!
Sheltered so kindly in the Savior's breast
You would not call your loved ones from that breast.
Oh! with the angels leave them, pure and blest
Weep not, sad heart."
In conclusion, allow me to exhort you to cultivate seasons of holy privacy. Beware of losing yourself in a crowd of religious purposes, and in the turmoil of religious doings. You may be "religious overmuch!" Allowing things and engagements professedly religious, and for a religious purpose, to become too encroaching and absorbing, you may leave no time for private prayer, for closet transactions, for personal heart converse with God. Many an individual has lost his Christian evidences, his spiritual joy, his assured hope, in the pious activities, the religious excitement, the mere outworkings and paraphernalia of Christianity.
But receive this truth in the love that offers it- Your soul cannot advance in the Divine life, you cannot be a lively, joyful, happy Christian, you cannot learn to look at death with calmness and at eternity with confidence, unless you cultivate those seasons which find you closeted with Christ. These seasons form the most powerful aids to religious progress. It is then we understand more of the mind and insinuate more deeply into the heart of our Lord.
We read that when Jesus took His disciples apart from all others into a desert place, He then explained to them the parables which, amid the din and excitement of the populace, they could but imperfectly understand. Ah, beloved, Christ our Teacher explains and expounds many an obscure saying in His Word, many an abstruse parable in His providence, and many a profound problem in our history, upon a couch of suffering, upon a sleepless pillow, in the house of adversity, in the season of bereavement, and even on a bed of death. The shadows reveal marvels and beauties of a landscape which the dazzling rays of the sun darken with their excessive brightness.
The sequestered walks of life, shaded and retired, impart an air of reality and solemnity to life, which the sunshine of prosperity, bathing the scene is bright effulgence, veils from view. Oh, what rapid scholars we become in the school of adversity! How we dive into the mind, and nestle in the heart of Jesus then! What a new revelation does the ancient Book of God become to us! How much of our own mysterious being is unveiled, and of our past inexplicable history is explained, when the heart, isolated from the world, withdrawn from the creature, at rest from itself, is in repose with God. And as we emerge from the sacred cloister which has been to us a Bethel and a Peniel, we exclaim, "Blessed is the man whom You chasten, O Lord, and teach out of Your love. O Lord, by these things men live, and in all these things is the life of the spirit."
Be watchful, then, lest the attractions of the world, the anxieties of life, even the exacting and absorbing influence of religious external engagements invade the sanctity, encroach upon the solitude of your hidden walk with God. Be jealous of every object and of every being that would give Christ one pulse less of your heart, one thought less of your mind, one moment less of your life. In all things give Him the pre-eminence. Bind the first and last sheaf of the harvest upon His altar- lay the first-fruits, and the gleanings of the vintage at His feet- give Him the earliest and the latest- and entwine Him with your first and last thoughts of love.
He who has declared, "I am the First and the Last," demands and deserves the first and the last of the life purchased by His blood: youth in its bloom, age in its golden fruit; yes, life in each stage of its onward and endless being.
"My God, I would not coldly offer Thee
The withered hue of feeling's flower,
The fragment of a passing hour,
Gifts which have nothing cost to me.
But, looking down into my heart,
Whatever treasure it has hidden deep,
Whatever talent it would strive to keep,
With these, to You, O God, I part.
I should not dare to bring affections blighted
By the rude blasts of worldliness and pride,
Nor lay a worn-out heart the earth bad slighted
Upon the altar of the Crucified.
But in Life's dewy hours, when hope is on the wing,
My love, myself, my all, to You I bring."

"Christ Our Brother" or "Joseph Making Himself Known to His Brethren as Their Brother, and Comforting Them"

Joseph said to his brothers, "I am Joseph! Is my father still living?" But his brothers were not able to answer him, because they were terrified at his presence.
Then Joseph said to his brothers, "Come close to me." When they had done so, he said, "I am your brother Joseph, the one you sold into Egypt! And now, do not be distressed and do not be angry with yourselves for selling me here, because it was to save lives that God sent me ahead of you. Genesis 45:3-5

A more full and perfect discovery of Joseph yet awaited his brethren- a discovery of the name and relation which he bore to the men now awestruck and discomforted by his presence. It was not enough that he should reveal himself as no stranger. He would do more than this. He would give an emphasis to his name, and an unmistakable affirmation of his relation: "I am JOSEPH- your BROTHER." No announcement less distinct, emphatic, and thrilling than this would have disarmed their fears, inspired their confidence, and revived their love. In one moment they were placed in an attitude of the most perfect repose.

Beloved, partial views of Christ but partially meet the spiritual requirements of the believer. The moral feelings, as the spiritual necessities, of the soul are many, varied, and complicated. There is but one Being possessing the skill, the delicacy, the resources, or the power to meet them. The inventor of a curious and complicated mechanism alone can understand its working, feed and control its movements. No one knows, no one understands, and no one can keep in motion the wondrous mechanism of the believing soul but Him who created it. We must have then a full Christ, and must know Him fully- know Him in His Divinity and humanity- know Him in His atoning sacrifice- know Him in His finished work- know Him in the infinite sufficiency of His grace- and know Him in all the relations He sustains to us in the covenant of redemption, if would we stand in the Divine presence with the filial confidence, the perfect peace, the assured hope, inspired by a spiritual and experimental knowledge of God, and Jesus Christ whom He has sent.

The subject of the present chapter presents the Lord Jesus in two delightful aspects- the NAME He bears, and the RELATION He sustains to His people. These are suggested by the words- "I am JOSEPH, your BROTHER." The reader will mark that Joseph drops his Egyptian and assumes his Hebrew name. He does not say, "I am Zaphnath-paaneah," the name by which he was distinguished in Egypt; but, "I am Joseph," the name by which lie was known in Canaan. Beloved, what is the name by which our spiritual Joseph the most delights to reveal Himself to, and to be recognized by, His brethren? Is it not JESUS? His birth and His mission were both announced by the celestial visitant in mysterious relation to this expressive and precious name, "You shall call His name JESUS, for He shall save His people from their sins."

Here allow me to pause and remark that you will often obtain a clue to a more perfect understanding of the Scriptures of truth by studying the significance of the proper names of Scripture. The names conferred by Divine authority are always intended either to commemorate a historical event, to illustrate a Scripture fact, or to express a revealed truth. Two instances from the Old and the New Testaments are in point. The Angel of the Covenant, after the long night of wrestling and before the day began to dawn, thus spoke to the holy wrestler: "What is your name? And he said, Jacob. And he said, Your name shall be called no more Jacob, but Israel, [that is, a prince of God.] for as a prince have you power with God and with men, and have prevailed." How significant and sacred this new name of the patriarch!

Turning to the New Testament, we read that, after Peter had made his noble confession of the Godhead of Jesus, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God!" Jesus answered and said unto him, "You are Peter, [a stone,] and upon this rock [His own Divine person] I will build my church." The significance of the apostle's name illustrated the nature of His confession, and the confession embodied the Foundation of Christ's Church. Now, if this be the case with regard to His disciples, how much more true and impressive as it regards the Lord himself! Thus, "You shall call His name Jesus,"- the Hebrew signification of which is, THE SAVIOR, JESUS, and then it is added, as an explication of the title, "for He shall save His people from their sins." It will at once appear that the name of JESUS was intended by the Holy Spirit to be profoundly and impressively significant. The whole of salvation, the entire gospel, is contained in this one Name.

An individual may know intellectually but little of the Bible- he may be unable to decipher its symbols, scarcely able to read its syllables. He may but imperfectly have studied systematic theology, or not have studied it at all; he may be unlearned in the geography, the chronology, the geology, the philosophy, and the poetry of the Bible, and yet, if the Holy Spirit has revealed to his soul the Name of Jesus, and he has been enabled to study the deep significance, to feel the marvellous power, and to taste the unutterable sweetness of that "Name which is above every name," he has penetrated into the essence of revealed truth, he has found the marrow of the gospel, he understands the way of salvation better, and knows more of God, and of Christ, and of the Bible, and of spiritual peace and Christian hope, than many a man who has studied the Bible intellectually, theoretically, and speculatively, but has never broken that box of precious ointment- the name of JESUS.

The Bible reader will recall to mind that notable instance in the conversion of Saul of Tarsus of our Lord's manifestation of His name : to the question of the amazed persecutor, "Who are you, Lord?" the answer was- "I am Jesus." What must have been the electric power with which that word fell upon the ear of Saul! Dwell for a moment, my reader, upon the precious significance of this Name. What a body of divinity, what a mine of truth does it contain! It designates the office and work of Christ as the Savior of His brethren. Joseph was a temporal savior. He was the instrument, in the hands of God, of rescuing his father's house from the terrible calamity of death by starvation. The office of our spiritual Joseph, though in a higher sense, is the same. This is signified by His title: "He shall be called JESUS, because He shall SAVE His people from their sins."

This is just the office and the mission which our condition demanded, and in the execution of which He becomes so endeared to those who are saved. We are lost, self-destroyed, destitute, originally and practically, of every particle of holiness and righteousness, without strength, utterly impotent to save ourselves. Under the sentence of eternal death, shut up to the condemnation of the law, the carnal mind at enmity, and the will armed in rebellion against God, the heart hating holiness and loving sin, inclined and powerful to all that is evil, disinclined and impotent to all that is good. With a hopeless deathbed, and an eternal hell confronting us, truly we needed a Savior!

And just such a Savior is Jesus. How precious, then, the declaration, "He shall SAVE His people from their sins!" This was the high mission on which He was sent from the court of heaven- a mission of benevolence worthy of Him who is essential and infinite Love. For this He made His advent to our world, lived a life of poverty and toil, and endured a death of humiliation and suffering, all to save its poor lost sinners. What wondrous words are these we have already quoted, and which are worthy of endless reiteration: "He shall save His people from their sins." This is just what we needed- to be saved from our sins, from their guilt, their power, their condemnation. This Jesus does.

It may be instructive to the mind and establishing to the faith of the reader to trace the mode by which Jesus accomplishes this marvellous and blessed work. The views of salvation, as held by many, are sadly crude and obscure, and in many cases scripturally and essentially wrong. Seeing it is a matter of vital and momentous interest, the most important and solemn study that can engage human thought, and that an fundamental error here is fatal to the eternal safety of the soul, let us approach its study with all seriousness of mind, and expound it with simplicity and godly sincerity.

How, then, does Jesus save us from our sins? He saves us, first, meritoriously by His obedience. The obedience of Christ to the precepts of the law repaired, honored, and magnified it; and that sinless, perfect obedience to its every precept is, and becomes when imputed to those who believe, our righteousness or justification before God. And thus the glorious title well befits Him- "This is the name by which He shall be called, THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS." "As by the disobedience of one many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous." Thus Christ's merits become, by imputation, our merits. By a perfect obedience to the law, He merited our justification; and having no merits of our own, His merit is made over to us, and God justifies, or acquits, or counts us worthy in and through the infinite and imputed merits of Jesus. This, in a few words, explains the doctrine of our justification.

Hold fast, my reader, the doctrine of imputed righteousness received by faith. Truly the Church stands or falls, and the sinner is saved or lost by it. If saved, how truly blessed and secure is the state into which our justification places us! The believing soul is clothed with Christ's righteousness- yes, is made "the righteousness of God in Him;" consequently, there rests not on the justified soul, as such, the shadow of condemnation, or spot or wrinkle of sin or unrighteousness. Believe this to be the state into which your justification by faith places you, and sweet will be the peace, deep the joy, and bright the hope you will experience. More than this: it will inspire and intensify your longings and endeavors after holiness. You will desire and aim after deeper sanctification, and your highest, noblest ambition will be to please God in all things, to walk worthy of your high calling, daily to wear Christ's yoke, to bear His burden, "having your fruit unto holiness, and the end everlasting life."

Jesus also saves us from our sins virtually by His atoning sacrifice and death. As the obedience of Christ honored the Divine law, so equally did the death of Christ satisfy Divine justice. The one is our righteousness, the other is our pardon. The vicarious sacrifice of the Messiah was the full belief of the Old Testament saints; hence the Levitical sacrifices, all shadowing forth the Great Sacrifice to be offered by the "Seed of the woman who was to bruise the serpent's head." Hence, too, the concurrent prophetical testimony of Scripture. Isaiah prophesied of Jesus as "wounded for our transgressions, as bruised for our iniquities." Daniel foretold of Jesus as "cut off, but not for Himself." And this agrees with the uniform testimony of apostles- "He was made sin for us, who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him;" "He was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our justification." "Christ died for us."

What a broad foundation has Jesus thus laid for the salvation of sinners in His atonement! By it all the Divine attributes are harmonized, and the moral government of God is glorified, and thus it becomes Him who is infinitely righteous as He is essentially love, to people and adorn heaven with the vilest sinners, redeemed from earth. On this basis, the sacrifice of Jesus, God and the sinner stand side by side- God pardoning, the sinner pardoned; and this the divine act of His most free and sovereign grace.

And when we remember from what Jesus saves us, oh, how glorious and gracious does this salvation appear! It is from our sins- saved from which, we are saved from the parent, and the greatest, of all evil. By bearing sin- its load, its curse, its penalty, He saves from sin. His obedience saves us from the condemnation of sin, His blood saves us from the guilt of sin, His grace saves us from the power of sin, His intercession saves us from the temptations and assaults of sin. This is just the salvation we needed, and anything less than this would have left us still shut up to a just and endless condemnation.

We do not pray- it would neither be wise nor holy in us so to do- to be saved from discipline, from the hallowed results of sanctified trial, from the winnowing process of temptation, from the daily cross which, in pain and weariness, we bear after Jesus. But we do ask Jesus to save us from the dominion, the power, and the guilt of sin. Oh, when we ask this, we ask for that which is not only in accordance with His will to grant, but which was the great end of His death to accomplish, and of His intercession to secure.

And if the Lord seals this on your conscience by the application of the blood, you may calmly and safely leave all the rest in His hands. He will save you from as much adversity as will be for your good, and will not allow a stroke to settle upon you, or an element to mingle with life's cup of sweet, more bitter than is essential to your well-being. But from all your sins- sins past, present, and to come- His most precious blood will cleanse you, His finished salvation will save you.

Do not allow the fact of indwelling sin, or the conviction of its daily outbreak to veil this truth from your eye, or to rob you of its precious comfort. The full, free, and entire forgiveness of our sins does not insure the utter extermination of sin, although it does constrain us, by the most persuasive, holy, and powerful of all motives, to seek its mortification and death. Still, its existence and struggle will remain until the Christian warrior shall fight his last battle and achieve his last victory, and exchange his sword for a palm, and his cross for a crown.

Jesus also saves us from our sins vitally by His Spirit. The office of the Spirit, as a Quickener of spiritual life, is an essential and precious provision in the economy of redemption. Apart from an arrangement which should secure the spiritual renewal and renovation of the soul, and give a vital and virtual application of the work of Christ to the heart, we do not hesitate to say that the Atonement of Calvary, with all its costliness and glory, would have availed us nothing! Added to our guilt, which needed pardon, and to our condemnation, which demanded justification, both of which the blood and righteousness of Christ supply, we possess a soul so entirely inoperative and dead to all spiritual life and holiness, so insensible to all that is heavenly, so impotent to all that is good, so totally "dead in trespasses and sins," as to demand a Divine power to renew its nature, regenerate its faculties, and quicken it with a new and spiritual life.

Oh, how utterly fallen, low totally depraved, how entirely void of spiritual holiness, strength, and love are we! Talk of our nature being in a salvable state- preposterous idea! "When we were without strength, in due time Christ died for the un godly." "There dwells in our flesh no good thing." "There is none righteous, no, not one." If there is any, the least, moral power, or inclination, or light innate in the soul, by which we can assist the work of our recovery, then Christ becomes a 'helper' only, and not a Savior, and the Holy Spirit is simply a secondary and subordinate Agent, aiding a mind already spiritually enlightened, a will already rightly disposed, a heart already pulsating with love, and yearning with desire toward God! See to what a 'reduction to absurdity' the theory of innate moral ability in the natural and unrenewed man conducts the reasoner.

But the case is fully met by the office and work of the holy Spirit. Oh, it is a wonderful and glorious provision this of our salvation! "It is the SPIRIT who quickens; the flesh profits nothing." It is the Spirit who enlightens: "The things of God knows no man, but the Spirit of God." It is the Spirit who convinces of sin, "He shall convince the world of sin." It is the Spirit who reveals Jesus: "He [the Spirit of truth] shall glorify me: for he shall receive of mine, and shall show it unto you." It is the Spirit who sanctifies: "Being sanctified by the Holy Spirit." It is the Spirit who authenticates our new nature, and witnesses our adoption: "The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are the children of God." It is the Spirit who comforts us: "I will ask, and He shall give you another Comforter, that He may abide with you forever; even the Spirit of truth." Thus might we traverse the entire circle of the holy Spirit's operations, describing an indispensable part of our salvation, and exhibiting the divinity and personality, the love and power of the Holy Spirit in our recovery equally with the rather and the Son.

Jesus saves us from our sins fully by His power. Never was power exerted in a way so glorious as this- power to save. God has power to destroy, and will fearfully exhibit that power in the great day of His wrath, in the everlasting punishment of the ungodly. But Christ came into the world, not to destroy men's lives, but to save them. His power, the power of Deity, is exerted in salvation. No power short of this could possibly save us from our sins. The power of sin over the soul could only be met and vanquished by the superior power of Christ over sin. He alone had strength to bear sin by imputation, to efface sin by His blood, to pardon sin by His grace, and to convince of sin by His Spirit. "Wherefore He is able to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by Him."

What a warrant and encouragement is this for you to come penitentially to Christ with all your sins- the greatest, most aggravated, and innumerable- sins original, sins actual- sins against light, knowledge, and conviction- sins wilful, sins ignorant- sins before, and sins after conversion. Jesus is able to save you from them all! "Yes," you reply, "I doubt not His ability, seeing He who created all things must be divine and illimitable in power. But is He as willing to save me as He is able." Question it not! Listen to the confirmation of this precious fact: "Lord, if you will, you can make me clean. Jesus said unto him, I WILL, be clean." Here is a proof that Christ's willingness to save is as equal and as prompt as His power to save. Yes! His will is in harmony with His power, and goes every step with it in the salvation of a poor sinner from his sins. He is willing, He is able! Doubt no more.

Jesus saves us from our sins freely by His grace. Were this not so, were our salvation uttered with conditions and contingencies, were the efficient cause our willingness, or our faith, or our worthiness- were there anything in us required to supply the turning-point, then salvation would never be given, and heaven would never be our home. But, bankrupt of all worthiness, having nothing to pay, cast wholly upon the mercy of God in Christ, to save or to condemn us as He willed, lo! Jesus undertakes to save us from our sins by an act of His most free grace, cancels our great debt, supplying our merit, imparting His worthiness, and, without money or price, fee or reward, receiving, and accepting, and saving us just as we are. 'Being justified freely by His grace, through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus." "And when they had nothing to pay, he frankly forgave them both."

Hesitate not, then, to approach the Savior. What though you are bankrupt and beggared of all goodness, what though you have not a holy thought, or a spiritual impulse, or a gracious desire, or a solitary good action with which to conciliate Divine justice, or claim Divine mercy. Yet, seeing God asks no merit, requires no worthiness other than what Jesus supplies, seeing that He is well-pleased in Him, and is prepared to pardon, and justify, and adopt, and accept you in and through Christ, demur not to believe, hesitate not to come, and be fully and freely saved from all your sins. "By grace are you saved."

Beloved, His name is JESUS; and this blessed name is the pledge that He will save you. Are you burdened, crushed beneath the weight of your transgressions? Are you debating, questioning, doubting, whether Jesus will save such a sinner as you? Oh, take hold of His name in simple faith, and you shall be saved! He saves meritoriously, He saves vitally, He saves powerfully, He saves willingly, He saves gratuitously, He saves to the uttermost, and will reject none that come to Him. His arm is as strong as His heart is loving. And if you will approach Him as a poor, burdened, worthless sinner, and cast yourself at His feet; oh, not so brightly beamed the eye of Joseph upon his brethren whom he was about to redeem from famine, not so tenderly did his affections yearn over them as, trembling and astonished, they stood in his presence, than will the Lord Jesus delight in and rejoice over you while He reveals to your soul His precious name: "I am JESUS, your Savior, your Redeemer, your Lord."

"Precious Jesus! Your name is to my soul as ointment poured forth; therefore do I love You. In adversity, it is my sheltering tower of strength into which I run, and am safe. In moments of conscious guilt, I fly to it, and it removes my fears, and gives me peace. In the hour of temptation, I breathe it, and the foe retires, and I leave the fight victorious. I breathe it in prayer, and my petition prevails. In sorrow, when my heart is overwhelmed within me, it distills inexpressible soothing, and I am comforted. The power of Your name is mighty. It illumines my darkest, and cheers my loneliest hours. It subdues my rebellious will, silences my murmuring heart, and wins all my soul to love. It strengthens me in service, animates me in duty, stimulates me to obedience, and raises my affections to God and to heaven. In life, in death, in eternity, I will wear Your name on my heart, chant it in my song, and prolong its endless praise!"

The deathless, magic power of Jesus' name, when all other names on earth have lost their charm, or have faded from memory, has often been illustrated. The touching instance of the pious Bishop Berridge may be familiar to the reader. When on his death-bed, he did not know any of his friends or relatives. A minister, with whom he had been well acquainted, visited him, and when conducted into his room, he said, "Bishop Berridge, do you know me?" "Who are you," said the Bishop. Being told who the minister was, he said that he did not know him. Another friend came, who had been equally well known, and questioned him in a similar manner- "Do you know me, Bishop Berridge?" "Who are you?" said he. Being told it was one of his intimate friends, he said he did not know him. His wife then came to his bedside, and asked him if he knew her. "Who are you?" said he. Being told she was his wife, he said he did not know her. "Well," said one of them, " Bishop Berridge, do you know the Lord Jesus Christ?" "Jesus Christ!" said he, reviving as if the name had produced on him the influence of a charm; "oh yes! I have known Him these forty years. Precious Savior, he is my only hope!"

"There is a name I love to hear,
I love to speak its worth;
It sounds like music in my ear,
The sweetest name on earth."
"It tells me of a Savior's love,
Who died to set me free;
It tells me of His precious blood,
The sinner's perfect plea."
"It tells me of a Father's smile
Beaming upon His child;
It cheers me through this 'little while,'
Through desert, waste, and wild."
"It tells of One whose loving heart
Can feel my deepest woe;
Who in my sorrow bears a part
That none can bear below."
"It bids my trembling soul rejoice;
It dries each rising tear;
It tells me, in a still small voice,
To trust and never fear."
"Jesus! the name I love so well,
The name I love to hear!
No saint on earth its worth can tell,
No heart conceive how dear!"
"This name shall shed its fragrance still
along this thorny road,
Shall sweetly smooth the rugged hill
That leads me up to God."
"And there, with all the blood-bought throng,
From sin and sorrow free,
I'll sing the new eternal song;
Of Jesus love to me."

From the name of Jesus, let us pass to consider the relation which He sustains to us as our BROTHER. "I am Joseph your brother." With what astounding, yet subduing power must this announcement have fallen upon their ears? "What! is this great man, this mighty man, Joseph? Is this governor of all Egypt our brother? Can it be?" Incredulity must have been the first feeling of their mind, this ripening into confidence, and confidence deepening into love.

Beloved reader, not less surprising nor less true and touching is the announcement of the gospel, that the Son of God, the Lord of heaven and earth, sustains to His Church the close and tender relation of a BROTHER. In His address to His disciples when on earth, He recognized this fraternal bond- "Go, tell my brethren;" "Behold my brethren!" "My brethren are those who hear the word of God and do it." "Inasmuch as you have done it to the least of these my brethren." Such is the relation Jesus would have us recognize. It is a more close, sympathizing, and holy relation than earth's dearest and tenderest. Look at His dignity as such.

He is the Elder Brother of His Church, "The first-born among many brethren." The law of primogeniture (birthright) was especially instituted by God in the time of the Jewish Church, and its wisdom and equity in all future ages has ever been acknowledged. Modern jurisprudence has never been able to improve upon it; and our own English law has, with certain modifications adapted to the age of the world and the changed face of society, engrafted it upon its code as one of the profoundest and healthiest enactments. Not only did this law of primogeniture entitle the elder brother to a double portion of the paternal estate and a large degree of power, it also invested him with the office of domestic priest of the family.

It was, doubtless, the remembrance of all this that added such keenness to the remorse, and such pungency to the sorrow of Esau, when he awoke to a conviction of his sin, infatuation, and loss, in bartering on terms so easy, and for a motive so frivolous, the sacred and precious inheritance of the birthright. "Afterward, when he would have inherited the blessing, he was rejected: for he found no place of repentance, though he sought it carefully with tears." As our Elder Brother, Jesus possesses, in a higher, holier sense, all the privileges and power of the "first-born among many brethren." The paternal inheritance is His illimitable power is His- the priestly office is His- the Divine and heavenly birthright is His, in all its fulness of grace, and in all its perfection of glory- and in this His brethren share. He, retains all the privileges and power of the heavenly birthright, that He may lavish its blessings upon them.

Still closer has He brought Himself to us as our Brother by the assumption of our veritable nature. We could not claim as our brother an angel, or the inhabitant of any other world, if such there be. He who asks our relationship, bespeaks our confidence, and inspires our love, must be linked with our humanity, must wear our nature, must be bone of our bone, and flesh of our flesh. Such was Jesus. It was this fact which flashed upon the minds of the brethren of Joseph with such bewildering power: they were conscious they were in the presence of a brother who felt as they felt, wept as they wept, loved as they loved, and the first touch of nature made them feel they were kin. "Forasmuch as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, He also Himself likewise took part of the same; wherefore in all things it behooved Him to be like His brethren."

How near to its does this cardinal truth of our holy religion bring the Son of God! How human is His love, His compassion, and sympathy! Is there a brother on earth to whom we can repair with the same assurance of a quick and a full response to the appeal of humanity, as to Jesus ? That brother has infirmities and burdens, sorrows, anxieties, and needs of his own, so weighty, keen, and absorbing, that though there throbs within his bosom a brother's kindly heart, it is too much to ask him to make our necessities and our griefs all his own. But not so Jesus! We resort to Him in difficulty, we fly to Him in temptation, we repair to Him in sorrow, we betake ourselves to Him in need, and, lo! we find Him as accessible, as prompt, and as interested in our personal case, as though there poured into His ear no other appeal, or were laid on His heart no other grief, and upon His shoulder no other burden than our own!

"MY BROTHER!" -how sweet the relation! how thrilling the recognition! The moment faith realizes it, the heart, stunned with surprise, or wild with grief, or sorrowing with despair, is in perfect repose. Beloved, think that all the dignity, the power, the honor, the wealth of the Elder Brother of the Father's one family is centered in JESUS; and that the influence of this extends, in all its enriching, ennobling, soothing power, to the youngest, the lowliest, the least of the Father's house- perchance to you!

The dignity conferred upon us by this fraternal relation of Jesus, and the nearness into which it brings our nature, laden and shaded with need and sadness, to God, is a marvellous and tender illustration of its preciousness. Is Jesus our Brother? Then God is our Father; for He is the Son of the Father, eternally and well-beloved. No angel in heaven is clad with such dignity, is invested with such glory, moves in an orbit so near the center as Christ's brethren now glorified, and as will be our privilege when our true Joseph sends for us to be with Him.

Amid the world's ignorance and unkindness, the scorn with which it derides our saintship, the malignity with which it plots our downfall, the fetters with which it would enslave, the dungeons in which it would immure, or the fires with which it would consume us, let this truth sustain and cheer us: the most glorious, and powerful, and loving Being in the universe stands to us in the relation of our BROTHER! What have we, then, to fear?

"Jesus, who passed the angels by,
Assumed our flesh to bleed and die;
And still He makes it His abode,
As man, He fills the throne of God."
"Our nearest Friend and BROTHER now
Is He to whom the angels bow;
They join with us to praise His name,
But we the nearest interest claim."
"Though now ascended up on high,
He bends on earth a BROTHER'S eye;
Partaker of the human name,
H knows the frailty of our frame."

A striking and touching feature in this stage of the narrative arrests our attention, which will be found to illustrate a precious part of the believer's experience. Awed by the presence of Joseph, their minds oppressed with doubt and trembling, his brethren stood at a distance from his person. Their position betrayed fear and distrust, for they were terrified at his presence. Joseph, perceiving their position and their feelings, instantly and tenderly spoke to them in language winning and assuring: "And Joseph said unto his brethren, Come near to me, I beg you. And they came near."

Beloved, it is the will of Jesus that His brethren, His saints, His beloved people, disarmed of all legal bondage and servile fear, should be very close to Him, sitting at His feet, sheltered at His side, leaning on His bosom. He will allow no distance of place, no circumstance of trial, or of temptation, or of backsliding, to separate between Him and the brethren. The relationship is too close, the redemption is too great, the salvation is too precious to allow any degree of distrust, servility, or congealed affection on their part towards Him.

"We who were sometime afar off, are brought near by the blood of Christ." United to Him by the Spirit, engrafted upon Him by a reciprocated nature- on His part by the assumption of the human, on ours by the impartation of the Divine- what opposites could be more closely united, what extremes could more perfectly meet, what being could be more closely and indissolubly one than Christ and His brethren? Imagine, then, how keenly sensitive must He be to any show of distrust, shyness, or distance on the part of His brethren towards Him! He is jealous of our love, our confidence, and our companionship. And seeing that at an expenditure so costly, by a sacrifice so great, and by love so transcendent, He has bridged the gulf, annihilated the distance, and broken down every barrier between Himself and His Church, He would work in those who faith, and enkindle in those who affection, that shall draw them into the greatest nearness to Himself.

The language of Jesus to you is, "Come near to me, my disciple. Why this distance, these fears? Come near to me, shelter beneath my side, nestle in my heart, take hold of my strength, commune with me. I am Jesus your Brother." Oh, let nearness to Jesus be the distinctive feature of your religion! "He is always near to you- invisible, indeed, His person, and noiseless His tread- yet still, oh how near! "You are near, O Lord." And He would have you perfected in that love which reassures the timid mind, composes to rest the fluttering heart, disenthralls the bondage spirit, and establishes the soul in the firm, unwavering conviction that the interests of His brethren are identical with His own- that the ephod is still upon His shoulder, and the breastplate is still upon his heart, the symbol and the pledge that His strength and sympathy are ours.

Seeing, then, that His blood is your plea, His invitation your warrant, and His love your attraction, draw near to Him by prayer in perplexity, and He will guide you; in assault, and He will shield you; in adversity, and He will shelter you; in necessity, and he will supply you; in conscious departure, and He will heal your backslidings, and restore to you the joy of His salvation. Oh, nothing dishonors Jesus more than our distrust of faith! Nothing wounds Him more than our fickleness of love. He cannot, He will not, allow distance to interpose between Him and His brethren- wronged Him though they may have clone to the utmost. They are too precious to Him to allow the slightest degree of confidence and love to be lost between their. He will not only- as we shall see in the process of this work- have them near to Him in heaven, but they shall cultivate the most loving intimacy, the most perfect confidence, the closest fellowship with Him on earth.

And, if need be- if His beauty will not attract them, if His glory will not charm them, if His love will not win them, if the prospect of being with Him forever will not allure them, He commissions the loving correction, the gentle chastisement, to effect what milder and more persuasive means failed to accomplish- their greater nearness to Himself. Be jealous, watchful, and prayerful, then, lest the world in its fascination, the creature in its fondness, life's battle in its fierceness, means of grace neglected, affection allowed to congeal; should, separately or combined, create a distance between Christ and your soul.

Let every incident and circumstance in the daily walk of your life- be it exalting or depressing, a test of principle, a trial of faith, an appeal of love- but bring you nearer to the Lord; that, less like Peter, who "followed Jesus afar off," and more like Caleb, who followed the Lord fully," you may tread the dusty, lonely paths of your earthly pilgrimage your heart sequestered from earth, your spirit in close converse with Jesus in heaven.

But there was deep emotion on this occasion of Joseph's revelation of himself to his brethren, which he skillfully and tenderly met. They were evidently troubled and discomforted in their minds by the sad memories which the presence of Joseph awoke. Joseph's quick eye saw their mental conflict; he seemed to read every thought of their mind, and to touch every pulse of their heart. He threw himself, as it were, within their very bosoms. And if ever there were an illustration of the truth that "a brother is born for adversity," it was this. Mark how he sought to comfort them: "I am Joseph your brother, whom you sold into Egypt. Now therefore be not grieved, nor angry with yourselves, that you sold me here: for God sent me before you to preserve life. For these two years has the famine been in the land: and yet there are five years, in the which there shall not be a harvest. And God sent me before you to preserve you a posterity in the earth, and to save your lives by a great deliverance."

How delicately, tenderly, and effectually did Joseph now comfort his brethren! He sought first to disarm them of the weapons of self-accusation with which their hearts were so deeply wounded. "Be not grieved, nor angry with yourselves." Our blessed Lord alone can disarm us of our self-accusations. But for the words of comfort that He speaks, the faith that enables us to look from within ourselves and from all our wilful acts of sin, and the evils which our own doings have brought upon us, we should not only be grieved, and angry with ourselves, but, overwhelmed with self-abhorrence and abasement in the remembrance of our vileness, we should never more lift up our head.

Oh, there is no reproach so bitter, no accusation so keen, as that which our own conscience and heart inflict- none so true, or that lays us more deeply in the dust before God! Remorse for his sin, and despair of its forgiveness, would have led to self-destruction the Philippian jailor but for the words of Paul. Are you filled with remorse, self-reproach, and anger, at the remembrance of all the sin and neglect, rebellion and wrong Jesus has received at your hands? Hear Him say to you- "Be not grieved, nor angry with yourself; I can forgive all, cancel all, forget all. I do not condemn you; go, and sin no more."

Blessed are they who, in the spirit of self-abasement, abhor and condemn themselves; they shall never be abhorred and condemned of God. Christ will not trample upon a poor sinner who tramples upon himself, and will never accuse one who at His feet is filled with self-accusation. The Lord will never take part with His people against themselves. Oppressed with self-reproach, abhorring themselves in dust and in ashes, He will draw near to them with words of kindness, soothing, and love: "Be not grieved, nor angry with yourself; I have pardoned all, and will no more remember your sins." Oh, it is utterly impossible for Christ to speak harshly, unsympathizingly, or condemnatory to a humble, penitent, contrite soul, standing in His presence filled with trembling and self-condemnation.

But what is the great panacea of a wounded conscience, terrible and true in its self-impeachment, keen and galling in its self-reproach? The BLOOD of Jesus! Nothing short of the blood of sprinkling can reach the conscience. This alone cleanses, heals, comforts, pacifies. The sin-distressed, sin-accusing conscience, brought into believing contact with atoning blood, is in one moment at rest from sin, at rest from itself, at rest in Christ. The apostle's argument is, "How much more shall the blood of Christ, who, through the Eternal Spirit, offered Himself without spot unto God, purge your conscience?"

And then, based upon this truth, he thus exhorts, "Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience. Oh, we cannot press this truth- the blood of Jesus and the sinner's conscience- too earnestly! What thousands are wandering, Cain-like, over the earth, bemoaning their transgressions, burdened with a sin-distressed, sin-accusing conscience, filled with self-reproach and horror of the coming judgment, who see not that the only remedy is, the atoning blood of Jesus; one drop of which so divine and sovereign is its efficacy- will allay the storm, remove the guilt, and diffuse over it a heavenly serenity and a divine sunshine!

And mark how gracefully and skillfully Joseph leads them away from all second causes to the purpose and end of God in the marvellous events of his personal history- events in which they had acted so sad and signal a part. "GOD sent me before you to preserve life, to preserve you a posterity in the earth, and to save your lives by a great deliverance. So now it was not you that sent me here, but GOD." Such is the light in which we must study our redemption by Christ. Looking beyond the disciple who betrayed Him, the judge who convicted Him, the Jews who slew Him, we must trace up all to the eternal purpose and sovereign will of Jehovah.

Thus Peter reasoned, while charging home upon the murderers the crime of His death: "Him, being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, you have taken and by wicked hands have crucified and slain." Thus, too, must we, in all the afflictive, trying, and mysterious events of life, rise above immediate and second causes, and trace them up to Him who "works all things after the counsel of His own will." There is no anchorage for the tempest-tossed soul but here. The anchor must be cast within the veil. Combating with second causes, looking only at the natural antecedents of an event, calamitous and overwhelming, striving to understand its rationale by a scrutiny of human and proximate reasons, we shall but render more dark the event we seek to elucidate, and more entangled and perplexed the mystery we endeavor to unravel.

Beloved and afflicted child of God, cease from reflecting upon yourself for a calamity you could not prevent, from indulging in vain regrets at an event you could not control. It was not you who commanded, nor you who could have prevented it; it was GOD. Be still, and know that He is God. Oh, the moment that your faith can rest in Him, referring to His eternal decree and good pleasure, His righteous and wise government the event enshrouded in such gloom, and entailing such anguish, you cease from a battle in which no victory is won, no laurels gained, and your heart is at rest in God! "God Himself has done it;" and, "shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?"

It is thus Jesus would comfort His brethren in all their self-reproaches, in the multitude of their thoughts within them, in the tremblings and forebodings which conscious sin produces. Truly is He the "Brother born for adversity" -His brethren's adversities, the sad; conflicting thoughts of whose mind He alone can read, the deeply-seated sorrow of whose heart He alone can reach. If such the skill and tenderness of Joseph to his brethren, Oh, what must Christ's be to His brethren?

How spiritually instructive, too, the fact that Joseph was raised up of God for the especial salvation of his family. How clearly he states this- "God sent me before you to preserve your posterity in the earth, and to save your lives by a great deliverance." What were all the families of Egypt compared with this one? For them Joseph was preserved alive- for them he was exalted in the land- for them all the corn in Egypt was placed in his hands- and for their sakes, indirectly, all the families of Egypt were blest.

The first truth illustrated is, that Christ was raised up by God for the especial salvation of His Church, to save it by a great deliverance. That the Atonement of the Son of God is an indirect blessing to the world admits not of a doubt. In this view its benevolent and beneficial influence is universal; for, but for the death and sacrifice of the Son of God, the world would not stand, nor human society exist as it does for a moment. In this sense we are to interpret the words of the apostle, "Who is the Savior of all men, especially of those who believe."

But, for the Church of God alone, the chosen of God, the gift to Christ of the Father, His especial treasure, everlastingly loved and eternally elected, did the Son of God die upon the cross. On their behalf obedience was given to the law, satisfaction was offered to justice, the righteousness of God's government was upheld- its honor and dignity vindicated and maintained- "the Church of God which He has purchased with His own blood." Is God unrighteous in this? Who are you that replies against Him?- a worm- a moth- a vapor- sinful dust and ashes daring to impugn the holiness, the equity, the wisdom, the goodness of Jehovah! Believer in Christ! for you our true Joseph was raised up- for you the food in Egypt was provided to keep your soul alive in famine, and to save it everlastingly- by a great and glorious deliverance.

Make your calling sure, and you can safely leave your election in His hands to whom alone secret things belong. Election is not the truth which you are either to settle or to sound. Jehovah has already settled it, and there are depths in it you cannot fathom. But you can and may understand what it is to be called by grace, to feel yourself a poor, lost sinner, to trample your own righteousness beneath your feet, and to come believingly to the blood and righteousness of Jesus, and accept it as all your desire, all your salvation, and all your hope. Taking hold of this the lowest link in the chain of God's salvation- your calling by grace- you will by and by rise to the highest- your election of God; and when your faith grasps this- your election of God- your soul will be filled with adoration, wonder, love, and praise.

Let us close with the glorious declaration, " Ho, everyone that thirsts, come to the waters, and he that has no money; come, buy, and eat; yes, come, buy wine and milk without money and without price." Come to Jesus and He will not cast you out. Come just as you are- come without demur- come today- come now!

"With all your sins against your God,
All your sins against His laws,
All your sins against His blood,
All your sins against His cause
Sins as boundless as the sea!
And hide them in Gethsemane!"

"All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and whoever comes to Me I will never drive away." John 6:37

"The Glory of Christ in Heaven"
or "Joseph's Exaltation in Egypt"

"Hurry, return to my father and tell him, 'This is what your son Joseph says: God has made me master over all the land of Egypt. Come down to me right away! You will live in the land of Goshen so you can be near me with all your children and grandchildren, your flocks and herds, and all that you have. I will take care of you there, for there are still five years of famine ahead of us. Otherwise you and your household will come to utter poverty.' "
Then Joseph said, "You can see for yourselves, and so can my brother Benjamin, that I really am Joseph! Tell my father how I am honored here in Egypt. Tell him about everything you have seen, and bring him to me quickly." Genesis 45:9-13

The reflective reader of this narrative will not fail to have remarked the sagacious wisdom and true delicacy of Joseph, in adopting a gradual rather than a premature development of his entrancing story. Nothing could have been more consummate in skill, exquisite in taste, or perfect in execution. It was not by a sudden and immediate revelation that all the links in the chain of events tracing his marvellous history were uplifted from the sea of mystery which submerged them, and made to pass before his brethren. A disclosure so unpremeditated and abrupt would have failed in awaking those reflections, producing those impressions, and securing that moral discipline in his brethren which he, once their victim, now their deliverer and teacher, sought to accomplish. Their minds stunned by surprise, and their feelings petrified with fear- the incidents of the past, crowding upon their memory with startling vividness, and the just consequences of their conduct in ghastly horror flitting before their eye- the details, too, of the history so astounding and touching, would have conspired to disarm them of all mental power of examining and weighing the facts and evidences of the case, and thus they would have been incapable of recognizing his person, and of accepting his statement. They might have ignored the story as a myth, and have denounced the man as an impostor.

The Christian student of his Bible will trace a striking analogy in this to a peculiarity in the mode of our Lord's instruction of His disciples. His revelations were then, as His teaching is, for the most part, now, gradual and progressive. In His personal instructions He seldom declared His Messiahship, or revealed His truth instantaneously. A few select instances alone occurred, as rare as they were striking, when, to illustrate the greatness and condescension of His grace, He, as in a moment, uplifted the veil; and declared His Messiahship, and, by a sudden flash of light, filled the mind with truth, and the heart with love.

How much of Christ, of His glory and kingdom, did the penitent malefactor learn in that hour of lingering agony on the cross! Ah! no marvel! he was so near the Divine Sun of Truth and Righteousness and Love, as to bathe his soul in the full beams of its setting glory! But our Lord's instruction of His disciples, generally, was elementary and gradual. In the words of the evangelist, "He spoke the word to them as they were able to hear it." He saw that their minds were not prepared to receive instantaneously, and in its perfect revelation, all that He had to teach them; therefore, by a process which graduated the new and marvellous truths He inculcated to their opening understanding, and by which one doctrine of the gospel evolved another, He gently instructed them in the fact of His Messiahship, in the nature of His kingdom, and in the truths, principles, and precepts of His religion.

Such is still the mode of our Lord's teaching. The seal of divine truth gradually is broken, and its light, like the day-dawn, deepening in effulgence to its meridian glory, slowly, yet steadily advances, until, from the babe in knowledge, we reach the stature of the fulness of Christ. Pause, admire and adore the wisdom, gentleness, and skill of Jesus here. He remembers how unlike all other truth is Divine revelation; that, while there is much that transcends the loftiest grasp of the human understanding to comprehend, it yet demands the fullest belief of the heart.

Remembering, then, the infinite vastness of truth, and the dwarfed faculties of the human mind, the dulness of the understanding to perceive, and the slowness of the heart to believe the great things of His Word, He teaches with a skill, a patience, and a gentleness which has no parallel, and which renders His truth so glorious, His discipline so welcome, Himself so precious to those who become His humble and willing disciples. "Lord, in Your school let me be taught- at Your feet would I sit- the lessons of Your love and the truths of Your word let me humbly, believingly, and fully receive, for who teaches like You?"

We reach another stage in Joseph's history, and glorious is its shadow of Christ and His Church- the EXALTATION and GLORY to which he was advanced in Egypt "Hurry, return to my father and tell him, 'This is what your son Joseph says: God has made me master over all the land of Egypt.... And you shall tell my father of all my glory in Egypt.'" This was no vain boast, no exaggerated description of Joseph's condition; it was an accomplished fact that Joseph was all that he now portrayed himself to be, and the announcement of his exaltation and glory was to calm their minds and command their confidence, confirm their faith and inspire their hopes.

We see a marvellous display of tact, wisdom, and goodness, in placing the fact of his exaltation, dignity, and power in the very foreground of his story. But for this, how could he have reassured their timid minds, have quelled their rising fears, and have established them in the truth which it was his great object to impress? Had he simply told them the story of his abasement, describing his poverty, delineating the perils, temptations, and sorrows through which he had passed, he would not have quelled a single fear, or have inspired one ray of hope. But when he laid before them his personal dignity, his unmistakable glory and power, the fact became palpable, inspiriting, and confirming to their minds that he was in very deed Joseph, their brother.

But, beloved, a greater than Joseph is here. To Him let me now direct your believing eyes. It is our dear Lord's purpose that His Church should have scriptural, spiritual, and enlarged views of what He is, what His possessions are, and what is the extent of His power. And I do not hesitate to say that scriptural, stable views of the dignity of Christ's person, of the glory of our Emmanuel, of what His wealth is, of what His power is, form the very foundation of our faith in Him. I receive the salvation of Christ, I rest in the atonement of Christ, I accept the promises of Christ, I believe in the coming of Christ, just in proportion as my faith believes that He is actually all that His revealed word describes Him to be.

If my views of the glory of Christ are defective, if my faith in the illimitable power of Christ is contracted, there will be a consequent and corresponding feebleness in the realization I have of Christ. But let my faith firmly grasp the truth that He is what He declares Himself to be- that all this honor, all this glory, all this dignity, all this power belong to Him- then, without hesitation and doubt, I can draw from His fulness, receive His assurances, and look forward with confidence to the blessed day when Christ who is my life shall appear, and I shall appear also with Him in glory.

Let us, then, for a moment, turn our attention to two views of Christ illustrated by this part of Joseph's history. And, first, how did Joseph reach this elevation, the announcement of which he now makes to his brethren, and through them to his father? He reached that glory, dignity, and power along the gloomy, rugged path of the deepest abasement and sorrow. Look at the abasement of Christ, the humiliation through which He passed to His present glory. The mediatorial exaltation and glory to which our Lord has arrived in heaven, was reached only by a pathway never before trodden by human feet- the profoundest abasement, humiliation, and grief. I verily believe that the saints of God do meditate too little on the humiliation of Christ. The humiliation of Christ involved all that would have involved us but for His voluntary suretyship.

The bearing of sin, the exhausting of the curse, the endurance of every form of indignity, the wrath of Jehovah, the sorrow of His soul, the agonies of the cross, the assaults of hell, the conquest of death- all met in the humiliation and abasement of Jesus. But it is necessary for our high appreciation of what Christ has done for us, and of the glory to which He himself has arrived, that we linger much in the valley of His humiliation. Our views of His glory, our conception of His exaltation, our faith in His love, will be graduated by the spiritual, deep, vivid conceptions we have of what He passed through to save us. Oh, then, I do beseech you, beloved, do not slightly scan, superficially study the path of gloom and sorrow, abasement and temptation, your Lord and Savior trod, to deliver you therefrom.

Remember, our dear Lord Jesus was a bond servant; think what that means. He was tempted, oh, how fearfully, by the Evil One of this ungodly world. He was traduced, belied, slandered, and imprisoned. But what picture of humiliation can your imagination paint, or tongue describe, that the Lord Jesus did not pass through to bring us to glory? Link with this view of Christ's abasement the disciplinary process through which every follower of Christ must, in some degree, pass to reach the glory that awaits him. There must be the emptying, the humbling, the abasing of our natural pride, the subjection of our rebellious will, the prostration of all our fond conceit of personal goodness and righteousness before we know what the true glory is.

Have you trod this valley of abasement? Has the pride of your heart been humbled? the rebellion of your will subdued? the opposition of your nature to God and His holy law vanquished and overcome? Oh, has the Spirit of God emptied you, taught you your sinfulness, nothingness, and led you to God's pardoning mercy, and Christ's justifying righteousness, through the deep, dark valley of soul humiliation and abasement? No man can spring to the apex of God's glory but from the base of his own natural vileness, emptiness, and poverty; and when God brings him low, lays him in the dust, empties him from vessel to vessel, oh, it is the sure and certain prelude to an uplifting, an exalting, and glory infinitely beyond all conception!

Job strikingly says, "When men are cast down, then You shall say, There is lifting up." Mark that in your personal history. When the Lord by some overwhelming providence, some humiliating and trying circumstance in your history, casts you down, infer not that all these things are against you; it is the very process God is taking to lift you up; and as the darkest period of the night ushers in the dawn of day, so the gloomiest stage of the believer's life is often that which precedes the bursting upon him of the sun of God's goodness, mercy, and love, in all its effulgence. It was through this process of humiliation that Jesus passed to the glories of which now I will speak. What expressive words are these, "You shall tell my father of all my glory in Egypt!" But a greater glory than Joseph's is here- the glory, the eternal glory, of our blessed Jesus; of which glory, if you have a vital union with Christ, you are now, and shall be more completely hereafter, the sharer.

Beloved, for a moment, let us dwell on this glory of our Jesus. He has now forever passed the valley of humiliation. For Him there is no more soul-sorrow, or mental gloom, no more sighing or tears, no more human insult or Satanic assault; He has passed beyond the reach of His humiliation. And where is He? Let faith plume her pinions and endeavor to reach His blest abode. For a moment contemplate the place and scene of this glory; it is heaven, heaven itself. The apostle in his beautiful argument in the Hebrews, illustrating the superiority of Christ's priesthood, is anxious to enforce this truth on the minds of his readers, that Christ had entered "into heaven itself," into the highest heaven, the paradise of God, the place where Jehovah Himself dwells. "For Christ is not entered into the holy places made with hands, which are the figures of the true; but into heaven itself." There Jesus has entered.

The scene of His glory is where the Father resides, where holy angels congregate, where the spirits of just men made perfect dwell, where all is perfect purity, and perfect love, and perfect light, and perfect glory. There is no danger, I apprehend, of trespassing on the region of fancy, in our most glowing anticipation of heaven. It will infinitely transcend the most poetic, the most sublime, the most transcendently glowing pictures the mind has ever conceived. We should make ourselves more familiar with the nature, employments, and glory of heaven, since we are, through grace, traveling there, and shall soon be there. We should know something of the home we are to occupy, the society with which we shall mingle, and the scene in which we shall be employed. Oh, could our thoughts and affections travel there more frequently, fervently, and hopefully, methinks we should come back to earth realizing what poor, contemptible things those are who constantly seek to veil faith's eye to our future, to limit the scope of our minds, and chain us down to these inferior objects so soon and forever to be relinquished! Yes, the place, the theater of Christ's exaltation and glory is heaven, the heaven of heavens; there is His throne, there are His saints who have gone to glory, and there soon we all shall be.

In connection with this scene of His glory, contemplate His position of dignity. He is at the right hand of God. Great stress is laid on this in the Bible. "Having purged our sins, He is forever set down on the right hand of God." Do not think that this description of Christ's position in heaven is given without especial and deep significance. There is nothing revealed in the Bible, especially relating to our Lord, that is not of infinite moment, and worthy of the profoundest study. Why are we expressly told that the Lord and Savior sat down at the right hand of God the Father? That we might realize the resources of grace and power we have in heaven, and that this is the dignity and glory for which we should be constantly training, and to which we should be constantly aspiring.

We participate, in virtue of our covenant relation, in all the dignity, glory, and wealth of Christ. As He is exalted, so are we. As He is honored, so are we. As He is at the right hand of the Majesty on high, so, virtually, are we. Oh, beloved, Christ and His saints are one. The Bridegroom has raised the Bride to His highest rank, wealth, and power. All things are ours, because we are Christ's. Think of this when the world hates, maligns, and persecutes you. Think of this in your poverty, obscurity, and earthly lowliness. Think of this when the world ridicules your saintship, and the saints themselves either question or disown it because you see not as they see, and accept not what they accept. Think that you are identified with Christ in His exaltation and glory. Remember that the Premier of Heaven, the Governor, not of all Egypt, but of the Universe, is your Head, your Redeemer, your Brother; that He wears your nature still; and that though He now dwells in glory resplendent, encircled by celestial spirits hymning His high praise, yet He has a human heart, a human sympathy; and that there beams from His eye not one glance of love less tender, that there breathes from His lips not one sword of sympathy less soothing; and that all the power He possesses, and the scepter He sways, and the resources He commands are possessed, and exerted over all flesh, that He might give you eternal life.

And what is He doing there? How is He occupied? He is incessantly pleading on your behalf, interceding for your well-being with a love that never falters, with uplifted hands that never weary, bending upon you a glance infinitely more tender and wakeful than the mother watching her sick and suffering babe. "He ever lives to make intercession for us."

In addition to this, we must think of "the riches of His glory," or, His glorious riches. Were all the treasures and wealth of Egypt at the command of Joseph? Could he not only fill the empty sacks of his brethren with the food they needed, but also with gold and silver? Could he give them more than they required, or even asked, because his possessions were so vast, his generosity as boundless as his affluence?

Forget not the mediatorial possessions of our glorified Christ, the illimitable extent of His wealth, the inexhaustibleness of His resources. The Head of creation- all creation's wealth is His. The Head of the Church- all the Church's fulness is His. The Elder Brother of His Father's family- all worlds constitute His estate. "The earth is the Lord's, and the fulness thereof." All the riches of wisdom, all the riches of grace, all the riches of love, all the riches of glory are in Christ's hands, held by Him for behalf of His brethren. God has raised Him up for us, to keep us alive in famine. Why need we be cast down when the cruise of oil and the barrel of meal fails, seeing Jesus can either remove the poverty or supply the necessity? When there is no food, He can take away our hunger, or meet the hunger with an ample supply. He can either avert a necessity, or provide for it when it arises. He can prevent a famine of any one good in our experience, or when the famine comes, unlock the granary of His boundless wealth, and fill our sacks, not with corn only, but also with silver and gold, always giving us more- never less- than we either asked or expected.

Jesus delights to show us how rich we are in Him- that all things are ours because His is ours, and we are His. Oh, why, then, should we permit our faith to succumb to trying circumstances, as though our Jesus was not alive, having all the treasures of the everlasting covenant, all the fulness of the Godhead, all the resources of the universe in His keeping, and at His disposal? Look at the starry sky- Jesus strewed it with its jewelry. Look at that enchanting landscape- Jesus enameled it with its loveliness. Look at that cloud-capped mountain- Jesus reared it. Look at that beauteous lily- Jesus painted it. Look at that soaring bird- Jesus feeds it. He, with whom is all this strength and beauty, is your Brother. Are not you- loved and chosen from all eternity, ransomed with His blood, inhabited by His Spirit, His own brother- better and dearer than these? Why, then, these fears? why this distrust? Arise and open your sack's mouth, and see what is there- food for earth's pilgrimage, and gold and silver for heaven's blessedness; GRACE and GLORY are given you.

Take heart, then, and exercise simple faith in this great and precious truth, and it will relieve you from many a perplexity and feeling of despondency by which you may be assailed. Try and realize, "I have but to go to Jesus to ask for my present requirements; He has all temporal and spiritual wealth at His disposal, and holds it as the Mediator of the Church." Do you think that if you come to Him with your burden of sin, with the dark veil of sorrow on your spirit, with the crushing weight of earthly care on your mind, and humbly bend the knee before His mercy-seat, and ask Him who is exalted at the right hand of all power, authority, and glory, that He will refuse you? Then He must cease to be your Brother, must vacate His seat in heaven, renounce His authority, and change from what He is!

But while He is there, and until He appears again, all He requires of you is to bring to His fulness your emptiness, to His sympathy your grief, to His unerring wisdom your embarrassment, and to His sheltering wing your temptations and trials. All He asks is that you Honor Him by recognizing His exaltation, glory, and authority, and by spreading your case before Him in the humble confidence of a child. Listen to His words- "I am the Lord God that brought you up out of the land of Egypt; open your mouth wide, and I will fill it."

There is another feature in this part of our narrative which strikingly and beautifully illustrates the ruling providence of God in human history. How beautifully Joseph brings out this truth- "God has made me lord of all Egypt!" Beloved, God is in history- in every man's history- is in your history. He is in every event, and circumstance, and incident of life. Whatever that history be, God arranged it, shaped it, and tinted it. Is it dark? He pencilled it, with its somber hues. Is it bright? He has thrown upon the canvas those beauteous colors. Are they blended? He mingled and harmonized them. Recognize and acknowledge, adore, love, trust, and glorify Him for all, and in all. "Acknowledge the Lord in all your ways." Beware of that practical atheism which excludes God from His own world- which excludes Him from your individual history. He is not only in national and social, but He is as much in personal events of life, shaping, guiding, overruling each and all.

But there is a vital and spiritual truth taught us here. I refer to the union of the Father with Christ in the grand redemption of the Church, as illustrated by those words of Joseph to his brethren, "God has made me lord of all Egypt." There was a perfect concurrence of the Father's will, and mind, and heart, with the work, abasement, and glory of Jesus. It was by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of the Father that Jesus was delivered unto death. The Father bruised Him, put Him to grief; it was by the power of the Father that He was raised from the dead; and as the reward of faithful service, of an accomplished mission, He was exalted by the Father at His own right hand, far above principalities and powers. Thus there was a perfect unity of mind and heart between the Father and the Son in the great work Christ has accomplished; and consequently the exalted and endeared views you have of Jesus should be associated with like views of God; every high conception you have of the love and glory of the Son, ought equally to be a high conception of the love and glory of the Father.

Never forget, beloved, that every step the Lord Jesus Christ took- from the moment He left the Divine bosom of ineffable love, to the moment He re-ascended from Tabor's mount back to His heavenly home, the Father went with Him. Therein we trace the love, the grace, the glory of our Heavenly Father, and can read in a new light, and interpret with increased meaning and brightness, our Lord's own precious words, "He that has seen Me has seen the Father."

But we reach in the second point of the narrative the JOYOUS MESSAGE which Joseph transmits to his aged father. What was this? "Hurry and go up to my father, and say unto him, Thus says your son Joseph, God has made me lord of all Egypt; come down unto me, tarry not, and you shall dwell in the land of Goshen, and you shall be near unto me, . . . . and there will I nourish you." Goshen was that part of the land of Egypt that lay the nearest to Canaan; it was a fat land, a land of plenty and of peace; it was the best of the land to which Joseph intended that his father and his brethren should emigrate. He would not give them the worst; he had it in his power to give them the best, and the best they should have.

The Lord Jesus, our Brother, is prepared to give us, His dear people, the best inheritance it is in His power to bestow. He gives us the best in this life of spiritual blessing, and the best of glory in the life that is to come. It is a good land, the true Goshen, into which the Lord Jesus Christ brings His brethren. Shall I cite the "glorious Gospel of the blessed God," beloved, as illustrating this? Oh, what a feast of fat things, what a banquet costly and rich, plentiful and free, is the gospel of Christ! In bringing you into experience of the gospel, into what a spiritual Goshen does the Lord bring you! Consider the glorious doctrines of grace- full pardon -free justification- adoption- sanctification. Consider, too, the Divine precepts of the gospel, regulating, controlling, sanctifying our walk and conversation in this life.

Consider the exceeding great and precious promises of the gospel, soothing, cheering, comforting us in this vale of tears. Truly it is into a good and rich land we are led when by the Eternal Spirit we are led into a heartfelt acquaintance with the riches and fulness of the gospel. There is no spiritual need of the soul which the provisions of the gospel of Jesus do not meet. For our wounds it is a balm; for our fears it is a cordial; for our battles it is an armor; for our soul's hunger and thirst it is manna from heaven and water from the Rock. "O Lord, we bless You for the gospel! It is a feast of fat things, a mine of inexhaustible wealth, a spring of all consolation, a good and pleasant land, bathed in the sunshine and laden with the fruit of eternal summer."

And then, O beloved, into what a rich, spiritual Goshen Jesus brings us when He brings us into experimental acquaintance with Himself! Oh, to know Jesus; to have the least degree of spiritual- a heartfelt acquaintance with Christ- a full Christ, a present Christ, a compassionate Christ, a powerful Christ- is what an angel's tongue never can unfold! Our own silence is, perhaps, the most eloquent expression of our feelings. I believe that the deepest views of this truth, and the most intense throbbings of the divine life within us, are those which the tongue can but feebly utter. They are too sacred, vast, and glorious, to be idly and lightly spoken of.

But, beloved, we would have you know into what a land of spiritual wealth, plenty, and peace you are brought when in the least degree you are enabled to realize what Christ is to you. Do you, amid life's trials and earth's cares, consider the possessions you have in Jesus- What a Savior, what a Kinsman! what a Brother! what a Friend! what an Advocate, what a Counselor! what a loving heart loves you, what a sleepless eye watches over you, what a full hand supplies you!

Remember, too, what a God and Father God is to you; what a present help in every time of need. Realize this in your sorrows, difficulties, and perplexities, and then you will be enabled to say, "What are you, O great mountain? before my glorious Zerubbabel you shall become a plain; for my Savior, my Joseph, is at the right hand of the Father, having all authority, wealth, and power."

Nor must I fail to remind you into what a land of Goshen Christ our Brother soon will bring you, when He shall have delivered you from out of this Egypt, this iron furnace, this land of toil and bondage, service and sorrow. In a little while He will send the chariot, all laden and furnished for the journey, and with it a celestial convoy to bear your spirit home. Yes, believer, there awaits you in heaven the best inheritance- "incorruptible, undefiled, and that fades not away." The best of our Goshen is on high. We dwell here but in its suburbs, the outskirts of glory; we wait with patience, yet with ardent longing, our full return from present exile- for our present spiritual Goshen is still in Egypt- and our abundant entrance into that glory and blessedness, the first-fruits of whose vintage, faith often gathers and presses into our cup as the pledge and token of the fulness of joy that is at God's right hand, and of the pleasures that are evermore.

Pilgrim of Zion! child of weariness and sorrow! cheer up! a few more milestones passed, a few more stages traveled, a few more battles fought, and Jesus will say to you, "Come up here," and then you shall exchange the earthly for the heavenly Goshen. You will no longer dwell within its borders and eat of its fruit by hard labor, but shall inherit the kingdom prepared for you from before the foundation of the world- and be at home with God.

One feature more yet awaits our study- Joseph's FILIAL LOVE: "You shall dwell in the land of Goshen, and you shall be near unto me. . . . . And there will I nourish you." Such were the words of Joseph addressed to his aged father. What a beautiful and touching picture of filial affection and piety! Here was the least of his father's house raised up by God to be the savior of his brethren, and that father's benefactor in his old age. Let us who have parents- aged parents- learn a lesson here. Be very tender and gentle towards them. Reverence their gray hairs. It will be but a little while that the privilege and honor will be given of comforting and soothing their trembling descent to the tomb. Let your filial piety and love deepen and intensify as their sun declines. Be as patient and gentle towards the infirmities of their age, as they were towards the frivolities of your youth. Rock gently the cradle of their decrepitude, and give them the best it is in your power to bestow; and God will bless you for it when they are gathered to their fathers. Who can tell but that God has spared your life and raised you up for this special office and mission of filial piety and love!

Study these two promises in their spiritual import: "You shall be near unto me, and there will I nourish you." Beloved, the Lord Jesus intends that His brethren- His Father's house shall be near unto Him in heaven. His satisfaction of soul will not be complete until He clusters around Him in glory all for whom that soul travailed in suffering on earth. Nothing shall separate Him from His people. Not a jewel from His crown, not a lamb from the fold, shall be missing then. If you have the weakest throb of spiritual life, the faintest spark of Divine love in your soul now, Jesus, who inspired that life and kindled that love, will send for you to glory, "and so shall you be forever with the Lord."

The second promise is- "And there will I nourish you." The nourishment of heaven! oh, what is it? It is to drink of the pure river of the water of life, clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb. It is to eat of the fruit of the tree of life in the midst of the paradise of God, yielding its fruit every month. It is to behold Christ in His glory, to enjoy God forever, to be perfected in purity, and to swim in the ocean of infinite and eternal blessedness. There Jesus will nourish you, dear saints of God; and there shall be no more exile; no more sorrow, no more neediness, no more parting, no more sickness, no more death, and no more sin. You will be luxuriating forever amid the glories and plenitude of the new Jerusalem!

"Oh yes, we shall behold the day
When Zion's children shall return;
Our sorrows then shall flee away,
And we shall never, never mourn."
"The hope that such a day will come
Makes even the captive's portion sweet;
Though now we're distant far from home,
In glory soon we all shall meet."

"The Christians Journey"
or, "The Patriarchs Emigration to Egypt"

When the news reached Pharaoh's palace that Joseph's brothers had come, Pharaoh and all his officials were pleased. Pharaoh said to Joseph, "Tell your brothers, 'Do this: Load your animals and return to the land of Canaan, and bring your father and your families back to me. I will give you the best of the land of Egypt and you can enjoy the fat of the land.'
"You are also directed to tell them, 'Do this: Take some carts from Egypt for your children and your wives, and get your father and come. Never mind about your belongings, because the best of all Egypt will be yours.' "
So the sons of Israel did this. Joseph gave them carts, as Pharaoh had commanded, and he also gave them provisions for their journey. To each of them he gave new clothing, but to Benjamin he gave three hundred shekels of silver and five sets of clothes. And this is what he sent to his father: ten donkeys loaded with the best things of Egypt, and ten female donkeys loaded with grain and bread and other provisions for his journey. Genesis 45:16-23

This is not the first occasion, as the reader will have noticed, that the patriarch Jacob, the father of Joseph, is introduced in the narrative. We have seen him, amid accumulating and deepening sorrows, bend like a mighty oak before the storm, in bitterness and anguish of soul exclaiming, "All these things are against me!" It is in another and a happier point of light we view him now- summoned to go down into Egypt to see and embrace the son whose supposed death he had so long and so sorely deplored.

Beloved, there is a bright light in every dark cloud of the Christian's pilgrimage from earth to glory. It is not all gloom and dreariness- simple, unmingled, and unmitigated woe. The path is variegated, the stones which pave it are of many colors, the mosaic so exquisite in its combination and form as none but a Divine hand could have laid. Thus was it with Jacob, and thus is it with all the "sons of Jacob." If the Lord breaks up our earthly resting-place, as the eagle stirs up her nest, it is but to lead us by a way we knew not, into a deeper experience of His love, a closer acquaintance with Himself, and a more perfect fitness in grace and holiness for heaven. Thus was it with the patriarch whose history we are now to consider. The three points in this stage of the narrative illustrating Christ and His people are- the JOURNEY, the PROVISION for the journey, and the COMMAND.

What a new and unexpected chapter in Jacob's history was this! At an advanced period of life, at a time when its sun seemed touching the horizon, when, as one would suppose, all his thoughts and arrangements and feelings would cluster around the last, the final, the most solemn stage of his pilgrimage, lo! he is summoned by the providence of God to leave his country, relinquish his home, and set out upon a long, tedious, and perilous journey. We must suppose, too, that there would be much in this step that was trying to his faith; much that would depress, grieve, and sadden him. It was no light matter for Jacob to abandon this sacred and beloved spot, with all its fond, hallowed associations, and, at his time of life, undertake this long and tiresome journey.

But, beloved, we know not what God may call us to, just at the very time we are supposing that life's weary pilgrimage is about to terminate. Well, be it so; God will not summon you at the close of life, at a period, perchance, when you are sighing for repose, longing for perfect quietude, to any service, mission, or trial, in which He has not purposes of love, and thoughts of peace to accomplish in your history and experience, and for which He will not prove "the Almighty God "- God all-sufficient.

What is our Christian course but a journey? Jacob's was from Canaan into Egypt, but the Christian's is from Egypt into Canaan; and this makes all the difference. God, by His sovereign grace, has brought us out of our moral Egypt, delivered us from the iron furnace, the tyranny of Satan, the bond-service of sin, in which by nature we are involved. By a mighty and strong arm, He has rescued us, and set our face fully towards Canaan, into which blessed land He will ultimately and certainly bring us.

The time of setting out on this spiritual journey differs. Some enter upon it early in life. Blessed, thrice blessed, are they who, through grace, turn their back on this world, its pleasures, its vanities, its joys, its seductions, its sins, and set out on the Christian journey; who in the season of youth are led to taste that earth's sweets are bitter, that all the world's promises are false, and that there is nothing in its most attractive joys that can satisfy the craving of the soul; who, by the blessed Spirit, have been led to see the depravity of their nature, the plague of their heart, the utter worthlessness of their own righteousness, and have gone to the altar of consecration, and dedicated the first, and the best, and the sweetest of their life to God, "Choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season; esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt!"

Others set out on this great journey heavenward later in life. They are called in middle age, immersed, though they are, in life's cares and avocations; yet we do find that, by Divine and sovereign grace, the Lord can, in spite of all the worldliness, turmoil, and excitement by which they are surrounded, seek them out, and bring them to see the utter emptiness and insufficiency of their worldly pursuits to make them truly happy.

Others are led to enter on this new and blessed course in old age. After many long years of unregeneracy, of living to self, to the world, and to sin, electing love and sovereign grace has sought and found its object. Just as the sun of human life was near its setting, the man of seventy or eighty winters has taken the first step towards Zion, setting out on that journey which, though commenced at the eleventh hour, will end in eternal glory. Oh the infinite patience of God! Yet all whom the Father has given to Christ in an everlasting covenant shall come to Him! Long years of rebellion, hoary hairs stained with many a sin, a heart petrified with long-persisted impenitence, unbelief, and worldliness, shall not rob Jesus of one of His crown jewels. He will search them out and bring them home, though the object of His love and the subject of His grace be the "sinner of a hundred years old." He can make a father in sin, a babe in Christ.

Then, beloved, what a view does this present to us of our pathway homeward! It is not through a paradise of beauty that we are traveling to heaven, but it is through a "waste howling wilderness." God found us in it, and through it He leads us home to Himself, and He will make us to know, by daily experience, that the world is but a desert. Not one sentence would I utter calculated to convey a false or gloomy idea of the religion of Christ. I believe that no individual knows what true happiness or real joy is until he knows Christ; and that no individual really enjoys God's temporal blessings, the beauties of creation, the marvellous works of His hands, until his spiritual eye has been opened; and then that new-created soul sees more glory in the works of God, more beauty in nature, more wonder in the marvellous operations of God's hands, than the most profound philosopher with the film of spiritual darkness still on his mental eye. The man who has not an eye, a spiritual eye, to see the beauties of revelation, the glory of Christ, and the kingdom of God, has a veil on his soul, and cannot trace, admire, and adore the wisdom and power, goodness and beauty of God, even in nature.

And yet, beloved, our God will make us see daily that the world through which we are passing is but a waste howling wilderness, a land of drought and peril, in which often the weary pilgrim longs for the wings of a dove that he may fly away and be at rest. It is a wearisome and perilous journey, and the soul of God's children is often discouraged because of the way. Oh, how often are you cast down by reason of the difficulties and straitness of the path. You find every path a strait and narrow one! The path of truth is strait; the path of Christian obedience is difficult; the path of Christian duty is ofttimes intricate and perplexing; the path of your domestic duties is often a very trying-one.

I pity the professed Christian pilgrim who does not find the world a desert, the path a narrow and strait one, and who is not led day by day to learn it out from deep experience that he is coming up out of a wilderness, yet leaning on his Beloved. Be suspicious of yourself, examine your own heart in the light of God's Word if you find the Christian way to be an easy one, if you find the path to be a smooth one, if you find the world smiling on you, cheering you onward, seeking your fellowship, courting your society; suspect the real state of your own heart, and look well to your way; for, be assured of this, the more a man grows in grace and advances in the path of glory, the more will he learn that the world is a desert, the worldling a trifler, the way is perplexing; his own utter weakness and insufficiency, and that the resources of strength, wisdom, and grace which God has provided for him are all laid up in the Lord Jesus Christ.

Another view of this part of the subject. Although the journey of Jacob was a long, wearisome, and perchance a perilous one, yet there was much to look forward to at its termination. The thought of meeting Joseph, of feeling the warm embrace of his son, the prospect of exchanging a land smitten with famine for a land luxuriating in plenty, must have flung many a gleam of sunshine on that dreary road, irradiating it with hope, and cheering it with the melody of song. Beloved; look to the end of the Christian journey. Look not at the roughness of the way; be not swallowed up with its difficulties; do not despond because of its privations. Oh, look to the end of the journey, especially you aged saints. There is a glorious life at the termination of the Christian course; there is "hope in your end:" it is the hope of being with Jesus; it is the prospect of seeing your beloved Lord; it is the glorious anticipation of feeling the embrace of His love; it is the blessed hope, the glorious hope, the certain hope, that when you have crossed the desert, and made the last stage of your journey, you will be forever with the Lord.

Oh, let the prospect, then, cheer and strengthen you! You will be less desponding, less depressed and discouraged by reason of the way, if you dwell more on its glorious, blessed, and sublime termination. Soon you will emerge from an arid desert into a beautiful garden, from a wilderness of storm into a paradise of beauty, from a land of scarceness and famine into a land of luxuriant richness and eternal sunshine. "For the Lord your God brings you into a good land, a land of brooks of water, of fountains and depths that spring out of valleys and hills; a land of wheat, and barley, and vines, and fig-trees, and pomegranates; a land of olive oil, and honey; a land wherein you shall eat bread without scarceness, you shall not lack anything in it."

Observe, now, the PROVISION which Joseph made for this journey of his father and brethren. Let us just take two or three of the prominent points illustrative of the spiritual truths we wish to place before you. You will observe, in the first place, that Pharaoh commands Joseph to send conveyances for his father and his household from Canaan to Egypt. "Take wagons out of the land of Egypt. . . . . And Joseph gave them wagons, according to the commandment of Pharaoh." These were conveyances by which his father and his household were to be conducted in safety and comfort in their transit from Canaan into Egypt.

Beloved, God has provided every conveyance for the journey of the soul from earth to heaven; He has anticipated all its exigencies, and has supplied all the spiritual helps by which we cross this desert world, and arrive safe in glory. Do not, I beseech you, overlook this wondrous unfolding of God's love to, and His care for, His Church. He has not left us to our own resources. In other words, He has not unkindly left us to find our way homeward by our own ingenuity or self-sustaining power. He has provided for the safe, the certain journey of your soul out of this Egypt, across this waste howling wilderness, into the celestial Canaan which the Lord has promised.

Shall I remind you, in the first place, what a divine help, what a powerful conveyance is HIS OWN WORD? God has given you this blessed Book to be the chart, the guide of your soul, passing to eternity. We do not need the light, the wisdom, the teaching of man to conduct us through the darkness, perils, and temptations of our course. Let us be diligent students of God's revealed Word, become more conversant with its glorious contents, dive deeper into its divine instructions, and we shall not then need the crude, diluted views of truth which emanate from human pens, perchance ofttimes bewildering, misguiding, and alluring us by teaching fatal to our spiritual advance, holiness, and comfort.

Oh, that God might make us better acquainted with this precious truth, that the BIBLE, His revealed Word, is our divinely-provided and complete guide to heaven! He that has the truths of this Book written on his heart, inwrought in his soul's experience, shall not miss the way. The Holy Spirit his teacher, he shall not err in the path of holiness, nor be left to his own blind understanding, nor be tossed about "by the sleight of men and cunning craftiness by which they lie in wait to deceive;" but, committing himself to the light, teaching, and guidance of this inspired volume, he will find that his spiritual Joseph has supplied him with a safe conveyance from earth to heaven in the blessed instructions, doctrines, precepts, and promises of God's own revealed Word.

THE MINISTRY OF THE GOSPEL is another divinely-appointed conveyance for our souls' advance homeward. The Christian ministry is an ordained institution of Christ. It is appointed for the instruction of the Church of God in truth, righteousness, and holiness, and for the calling in of God's people; and he who would wilfully and knowingly ignore this institution of God, would ignore any ordinance or doctrine of the Bible, and would take from the Church in her homeward march one of her most powerful auxiliaries and aids. We read, "And he gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers; for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ."

Oh, yes, beloved, I need not appeal to your experience how often you have had occasion to thank God for a living, Christ-exalting, holy ministry; how often you have praised Him for the instruction conveyed to your mind, the consolation distilled into your heart, the sunshine reflected on your dark and gloomy way, through this divinely-appointed channel and blessed agency. And thus the Christian ministry, originating with God, given to the Church by her great Head, has proved one of the divine conveyances for the spiritual transit of the believer across the desert into the glorious Canaan to which God has promised to bring His people.

Evince your gratitude for its appointment, and show your estimate of its value, by sustaining it with your fervent, believing prayers; remembering that your progress in spiritual knowledge and grace will be in the same ratio with that of your minister. He can only instruct and aid you as he himself is taught and enriched of God. Therefore, let both him and his ministry be the constant burden of your prayers. Remember that "a praying people makes a preaching minister." And, oh, how deeply does he need your most fervent and continuous intercessions! He has infirmities and temptations, trials and sorrows, which, perhaps, the deep sanctity of his office veils well-near from every eye. Because he preaches so gloriously of the love of Christ, we think that his own love is never chilled. Because he expatiates so earnestly on the mighty power of faith, we deem that his own is never tried. Because he pours forth such strong consolations, we imagine that his own heart is a stranger to sorrow. Ah! he treads a path of which his flock but little know. For them he is tempted, for them he is tried, for them he is comforted: yes, for their sakes and his own, he is often accounted as a sheep for the slaughter- prepared to sacrifice health, wealth, ease, fame, in a word, his own self, might he present them as his joy and crown in the day of the Lord. Pray, then, for your minister!

And let me add, what a divinely-appointed and blessed conveyance is THE CHURCH of God itself! This may seem a paradox, but it is true. The Church can help the Church, saint can help saint, brother can help brother; and this is one of the wise arrangements of Christ. He has not appointed angels to support, and teach, and strengthen, and sympathize with His saints; but fellow-saints, fellow-believers, fellow-sinners ransomed by grace. Now, the Church is a most powerful agent for the advancement of its members. When the saints of God are walking closely with their heavenly Father, are living in near communion with eternity, and are living under much of the anointing of the Holy Spirit, oh, what powerful helpers are they of the saints; and how often God strengthens, supports, and comforts one weak, timid, desponding, sorrowing brother, by the strength, the grace, the sympathy of another!

Never forget, beloved, what a help you may be to some poor weary traveler across this sandy desert, often desponding and cast down by the weariness of the way- how much, by kindness and sympathy, you may comfort, sustain, and soothe him, and thus smooth and speed him heavenward. The Church of God is to be nourished by the Church of God. Every joint is to supply some ministry for the whole body, every member is to sympathize with the other members, each contributing to the vigor, healthfulness, and advancement of the whole; so that there is not a member of the body, the lowest, the weakest and most insignificant, who may not, and does not, contribute something to the upholding, the strengthening, and the advancement of the Church of God in its transit from this desert home to heaven. "Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will in all things grow up into him who is the Head, that is, Christ. From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work."

And yet another and a powerful conveyance to heaven is the THRONE OF GRACE. Nothing so advances, I had almost said wafts, the soul towards heaven as prayer. Praise is a mighty help, and when we are full of real praise, we approximate nearer to what our employment in heaven will be than when in prayer. But, nevertheless, prayer is the more appropriate engagement of the Church on earth; and when this divine breath expands its sails, our bark is borne rapidly and safely forward to the celestial haven. Poor, weak, timid brother! God has given you the conveyance of a throne of grace; make great use of it. Often get into this heavenly chariot, with all your burdens, and cares, and griefs, and see how swiftly and gently it will waft your sour towards God. Your prayers will come up to his holy habitation, even into heaven. Your true Joseph has sent it to uplift your mind, your heart, your soul often to Himself; and, ascending in this conveyance, your breathings will touch the throne. The Lord waits to be gracious; and you have but to plead the name of Jesus, to enter into the holiest by His blood, and you will have power with God, and shall prevail.

Oh, what a mighty strengthener and uplifter of the soul is prayer! "As the naturally weak ivy, which, if it had no support, would only grovel on the earth, by adhering to some neighboring tree or building, or entwining itself about it, thus grows and flourishes, and rises higher and higher, and the more the winds blow and the tempest beats against it, the closer it adheres, and the nearer it clings, and the faster its fibres embrace that which supports it, and it remains uninjured; so the Christian, naturally weak, by prayer connects himself with the Almighty, and the more dangers and difficulties beset him, the more closely they unite him to his God; he reaches towards, and bears upon, and clings to, the throne of grace, and is strengthened with divine strength."

We come to the PROVISION for the way; it is stated in the 23d verse what that provision was, "To each of them he gave new clothing, but to Benjamin he gave three hundred shekels of silver and five sets of clothes. And this is what he sent to his father: ten donkeys loaded with the best things of Egypt, and ten female donkeys loaded with grain and bread and other provisions for his journey." It was very considerate and kind of Joseph to make this ample provision for the temporal necessities and needs of the whole house.

Is our Joseph less thoughtful, less careful and considerate? Oh, no! Christ has provided for every step of our journey home to His glorified self. You shall not find a difficulty in your path, a peril in your way, there shall not spring up a new need, trial, or affliction, but God will have provided for it in the fulness of his dear Son, and in the supplies of His everlasting covenant of grace. Oh, how should this cheer, strengthen, and animate us; how should it keep you calm, cheerful, and trustful! Leave your future all with Christ, who has anticipated it all.

Suppose tomorrow you meet some new exigency, confront some new trial, face some new foe; be it so- you will find that your Joseph has gone before you in it all. When trouble comes, the grace will come that sustains it; when perplexity comes, the counsel will come that guides it; when grief comes, the soothing will come that allays it. You will find, beloved, that Christ has gone before you; that He has provided an ample supply for all the spiritual exigencies that may spring up at each step of your journey.

Once more would I remind you of the "good things" which God has provided for the maintenance of His Church in her travel through the wilderness- for the sustenance of each individual saint. Well may we exclaim with the Psalmist, "Oh, how great is your goodness which you have laid up for those who fear you!" All the wealth of the eternal covenant of grace is ours- all the fulness that is in Christ Jesus is ours- all the treasures of the everlasting gospel are ours -all the promises of God are ours. These are our "provisions for the way"- "laden with corn and bread and meat."

Why, then, should we faint, despond, or despair? Shall we in our daily march, in our conflict with new trials, new temptations, new exigencies, succumb to our circumstances, when faith, looking at its inexhaustible resources, may confront them without a fear? "My God shall supply all your needs according to his riches in glory," (or, His glorious riches,) "by Christ Jesus." There is bread in our Father's house, and to spare- plenty of corn in Egypt- all strength, all restraining grace, all constraining love, all human sympathy, and all divine power in our Immanuel, God ever with us, our exalted, enthroned, and glorified Joseph. He who is leading us to heaven will bring us there at His own charge and beneath His own convoy.

But Joseph not only supplied maintenance, but also clothing. This illustrates a very precious and glorious spiritual provision of Christ. Joseph was a liberal man, and he devised liberal things; a wealthy man, and he gave affluently; he was a prince, and he provided in a princely way. Our true Joseph supplies ample clothing for the souls of His saints in their homeward journey; He has provided not one clothing only, but varied raiments; and it is well for us to know what they are, that we may put them on and wear them. The first He has provided is the robe of righteousness, which covers, beautifies, and fully justifies the saints of the Most High; that glorious and perfect righteousness in which we stand forever accepted, and in which, were we to die at this moment, we should appear before God, not only "unblameable" (that is not a good translation, for we are blamable, but unblamed) "and unreproveable" (or, unreproved) "in His sight," there being against us nothing whatever which the law, justice, or sin can possibly allege.

Now, this is the righteousness that exonerates you if you believe. Christ has provided it, the Spirit invests you with it, faith receives it, and God justifies you through it. "It is God who justifies." Realizing your investiture in this divine clothing, you may pursue your journey through life with the peace of God ruling in your heart, and the hope of glory shedding a bright halo around its close. No doubt or fear respecting the future need disturb your mind while your faith can enfold itself in the "righteousness of Christ, which is unto all and upon all those who believe." Justified by faith in Christ, you shall surely enter heaven, and be found in Him, "the Lord our Righteousness."

There is another garment provided by our glorious Joseph. Christ freely supplies, not only the robe of righteousness, but the garment of sanctification. Christ himself is our sanctification. As Christ, by the Spirit grows in us, and we become conformed to the image of Christ, He becomes our sanctification. We grow holy only as we approximate to the nature, the spirit, and image of Christ. This is true holiness, and nothing else is. Holiness does not consists in fastings, in prayers, in religious duties, rites, and ceremonies. How many there are in the present day who are religiously and rigidly observing all these external things, dreaming of holiness and fitness for heaven, without one particle of real sanctification! What a fearful and fatal delusion! Your sanctification, beloved, is Christ- Christ growing in you, "who of God is made unto us wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption."

This is the holy clothing Christ has provided for your journey homeward. You have to battle with indwelling sin, and to conflict with outward temptation. But never forget that you are to live upon Christ as much for your sanctification as for your justification; that His grace is pledged to subdue your iniquities, to arm you in the conflict, to give you skill in the holy fight, and the final victory over all your enemies; and in proportion as Christ grows in you, you will grow in a true hatred of sin, in a deepening love of holiness, and thus in real, gospel sanctification.

In addition to the robe of righteousness, and the garment of sanctification, with which the believer is invested, there are the adornments of the Spirit, the ornaments of the Christian character, the divine graces which ever accompany the righteousness of the saints, evidencing and illustrating their high and holy relationship to God. Lovely spectacle! A sinner clothed with the righteousness of Christ, all glorious within through the renewing of the Holy Spirit, and in his external and visible walk exhibiting, in their beautiful combination, the different graces and fruits of the Spirit. Well may the believer exclaim, "I will greatly rejoice in the Lord, my soul shall be joyful in my God; for he has clothed me with the garments of salvation, he has covered me with the robe of righteousness as a bridegroom decks himself with ornaments, and as a bride adorns herself with jewels."

Are these sacred graces of the Spirit exhibited in our life, beloved? Is our religion lovely? is our Christian life thus adorned? Are we walking in the Spirit, and not fulfilling the lusts of the flesh? Is Christ's robe of righteousness girdled around us by the Spirit's graces, thus walking with Jesus in white, and in the joy and comfort of the Holy Spirit? Oh, you temples of God through the Spirit, how holily, and softly, and warily should you walk! A temple of the Holy Spirit!- heaven has not a more sacred and God-loved structure! Yet how shall we preserve it from defilement, or cleanse it when defiled, but by a constant application of the "blood of sprinkling?"

Indwelling sin there must be, outward sin there will be; but the Fountain is open, and in it we must daily wash. His blood alone will keep the conscience clean, the mind peaceful, and the heart in close, filial communion with God.

We thus reach the COMMAND of Joseph to his brethren- "Never mind about your belongings, because the best of all Egypt will be yours." This command was imperative. They were not to allow their eye to spare any of the earthly possessions they were now relinquishing. Nor were they to repine or regret that they were abandoning their country, homestead, and property, since the land where they were emigrating, with all its wealth and abundance, was theirs. The injunction was wise. To have burdened themselves with the things they were leaving would but have increased their anxieties and care- have retarded their progress and prolonged their journey. One thought was to shed its sunshine upon their way- the thought of seeing Joseph, and of perfect immunity from neediness and toil amid the abundance and repose of Egypt.

Beloved, how deep the spiritual teaching here! How holy and unearthly the precept it enjoins upon heaven's emigrant! We are passing through this world to glory. And the command of our Lord is, that we be constantly forgetting the things that are seen and temporal, nor regard the world, its possessions and attractions, in the anticipation of the world of glory that is before us. Our Jesus says, "Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth. Take no thought for your life, what you shall eat, or what you shall drink; nor yet for your body, what you shall put on." The follower of Christ is to consider earth's wealth and glory, this world's pleasures and politics, as nothing to him; and constantly detaching himself from the things that are earthly and temporal, he is to be pressing forward to things heavenly and eternal.

How many a child of God, who should be growing in grace and advancing in heavenliness, is constantly clogging his feet with earth's clay, weaving around him the net and the mesh of earthly, carnal, sensual engagements, thus impeding his spiritual progress! How can he grow in grace and heavenly mindedness if this be so? It is utterly impossible. You must become more dead to earth, more crucified to the world, and realize more the power of Christ's resurrection in your soul. This is the apostolic exhortation, "If you then are risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sits at the right hand of God. Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth. For you are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God." "Put to death therefore your members which are upon the earth."

Your true Joseph, your blessed Jesus, says to you emphatically, "Regard not your earthly possessions, your belongings, your worldly advantage; regret not the loss and sacrifice of home, friends, and property, that you make for your attachment to me, my service, and my cause; count it all as vanity and dross; gird up your mind to endure my shame, to share my reproach, yes, to deny all ungodliness, to come out of the world and be my cross-bearing disciples. I have laid up for you treasure in heaven, infinite wealth, an inheritance that is incorruptible, riches that perish not, joys that glut not, a crown of glory that fades not away. Count the world as loss, all created good as dross, and the creature itself as vanity, for the glory, and honor, and immortality that will soon be yours."

Thus would our blessed Lord teach, cheer, and animate us in our heavenly journey, by bidding us cease from needless earthly care, and cultivate the spirit, the mind, and the hopes of pilgrims traveling to the celestial city! Consonant with this is the whole tenor of God's Word. How impressive and emphatic its exhortations! "Depart, depart, go out from thence, touch no unclean thing; go out of the midst of her; you be clean that bear the vessels of the Lord." "Let us go forth therefore unto Him outside the camp, bearing His reproach." "Let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which does so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus." God give us grace to lay to heart these exhortations to heavenly mindedness! We are but crossing a desert land on our way home to Christ. He has promised that our bread and our water shall be sure, and that we shall lack no good thing. Upon Him, then, let us cast our care, anxious for nothing except how we may so walk as to please Him in all things.

This life of faith, by which thus we become dead to the world, will soon conduct us to the last stage of our homeward journey. He who was with us in all its preceding stages, will be with us in this its last and closing, its most solemn and eventful one. Think not, O weary, trembling pilgrim, that He will abandon you then to resources of your own. Oh no! Jesus has provided for the hour and details of His people's departure. He will send with the conveyance that is to bear you home to glory, grace, strength, and hope for the solemn transit. Christ will be with you then; and, Christ with you, all will be well- seeing JESUS, you "shall not see death."

"When my last hour is close at hand.
My last sad journey taken,
Do you, Lord Jesus, by me stand,
Let me not be forsaken.
O Lord! my spirit I resign
Into Your loving hands divine,
It is safe within Your keeping."
"Countless as sands upon the shore,
My sins may then appal me;
Yet, though my conscience vex me sore,
Despair shall not enthrall me,
For, as I draw my latest breath,
I'll think, Lord Jesus, upon Your death,
And there find consolation."
"Limb of your body, Lord, am I,
This makes me joyful-hearted;
In death's dark gloom and misery,
From You I am not parted.
And when I die, I die to Thee,
Eternal Life was won for me
By Your last hour of anguish."
"I shall not in the grave remain,
Since You death's bonds have severed;
By hope with You to rise again,
From fear of death delivered,
I'll come to You, wherever You are,
Live with You, never from You part;
Therefore to die is rapture."
"And so to Jesus Christ I'll go,
My longing arms extending;
So fall asleep in slumber deep,
Slumber that knows no ending;
Until Jesus Christ, God's only Son,
Opens the gates of bliss- leads on
To heaven, to life eternal!" (Nicholas Hermann)

"Christian Love" Or, "Joseph's Exhortation to Unity"

So he sent his brothers off, and as they left, he called after them, "Don't quarrel along the way!" Genesis 45:24

Such was the appropriate charge with which Joseph dismissed his brethren on their return to their father, bearing with them the evidences of his greatness, and the expressions of his love. He well knew the necessity for such an exhortation to unity as this. He remembered that the elements of evil which led to his own abduction from his father's family, with all its dire, yet strangely overruled results, still dwelt in their nature; and that although time and adversity may have subdued and softened that evil, yet, nevertheless, its root still was there, and that without a caution on his part, and strict vigilance on theirs, in all probability before they reached their home, the smouldering embers would break forth again in envy, strife, and division, and sad and disastrous might be the consequences.

Holy and important is the spiritual instruction here conveyed! That the children of God are not exempt from the necessity of a similar charge, is clear from the many and constant exhortations to brotherly love and Christian union with which the Word of God abounds. Perhaps there is no precept of which we need to be more perpetually reminded, and to whose violation and neglect we are more constantly exposed than this one- the precept of Christian love. A striking confirmation of the tendency of the Lord's brethren to "quarrel along the way," occurs as early as the history of the apostles. It took place between Paul and Barnabas, and arose from a difference of opinion as to the expediency of being accompanied in their apostolic visitation of the churches by Mark. Barnabas, influenced, perhaps, by his relationship to Mark, who was his nephew, proposed it, but "Paul thought it not good to take him with them." This dissonance of judgment led to a separation of these apostles the one from the other, and is thus narrated- "And the contention was so sharp between them, that they departed asunder one from the other." And so they quarreled along the way!

Another instance, so gently chided and skillfully improved by our Lord, implicated the whole college of apostles. Thus Mark records it: "And he came to Capernaum, and, being in the house, he asked them, What was it that you disputed among yourselves by the way? But they held their peace: for by the way they had disputed among themselves who should be the greatest." And thus they quarreled along the way! We learn that our nature, even in its renewed state, is still carnal, and exhibits the same marks of innate corruption, and needs the same holy exhortations of God's word that the Church of God ever did. Dismissing the original application of this exhortation to brotherly unity, we propose to ground upon it a few observations enforcing the holy and much-needed precept of Christian love among the brethren of Christ. For who that is spiritually and intelligently acquainted with the Church of God is not solemnly convinced of the necessity of a higher and holier standard of Christian union and love among the members of the body of Christ, the children of the one family of God, than at present exists?

Beloved, "God is love." And Jesus Christ was the incarnation of love to our world. He was love living, speaking, acting, toiling among men. His birth was the nativity of love; His sermons, the words of love; His miracles, the wonders of love; His tears, the meltings of love; His crucifixion, the agonies of love; His resurrection, the triumph of love. All that He did, and said, and commanded, was the embodiment and the expression of Divine love. In the further prosecution of this delightful subject, we shall consider the nature of Christian love- its features- and the exhortation to its culture.

Now with regard to the NATURE of Christian love- in what does it consist? It differs essentially from all other feelings embraced under the general term love. The natural affection of families, the friendship which has its foundation in assimilation of mind and taste, the feeling of benevolence which prompts us to acts of kindness to our fellows, and that denominational or party feeling cherished by those who profess the same ecclesiastical polity and adopt the same mode of worship, all differ essentially from the love which unites the one Church of Jesus Christ. All these modifications of love may exist, real, intense, warm, and yet true Christian love may have no place in the soul. There may be the warmest natural affection, the profoundest feelings of benevolence, the most zealous party attachment, and yet the individual may be utterly destitute of the divine and sacred affection of which we speak. In what, then, consists this Christian love, thus standing apart so distinctly from every other form and modification of love?

Surely there must be something unique, peculiar, and lofty to invest it with this marked and lovely character! For a few moments look at the origin, and this will illustrate the nature, of that Christian love, which finds its home in every regenerate, Christ-loving heart. In the first place, I would remark that it has its origin in our new nature. When we are born again of the Spirit, divine love is born in us. There is with the advent of the divine nature, the advent of divine love. The nature of God is love; and if we become partakers of the divine nature, we necessarily become partakers of the love that dwells in God. The heavenly birth and divine love are coexistent properties in our spiritual regeneration. I emphatically repeat that, a partaker of the divine nature, I am necessarily a partaker of divine love.

Then, again, it has its origin in the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in the heart. Every child of God is a temple of the Holy Spirit, consequently there is in him the very inspiration of divine, spiritual love. "The fruit of the Spirit is love." If you have the Holy Spirit dwelling in you, making you His temple, there dwells in you the principle of love- a love that emanates from God, that entwines itself with all who are God's, and that ascends again in holy affections to God. The indwelling of the Spirit is the indwelling of love in your heart; and this it is that should make us prompt to recognize a saint wherever we find him, be his nation, his complexion, his dialect, or the section of the Church to which he belongs, what it may. If I see in him unmistakable marks of the Spirit of God; if I see, clustering in his life and conversation, the fruits of the Spirit, and yet I refuse to recognize him as a Christian brother, to receive him as a child of God, to have fellowship with him as one of the sacred brotherhood, I deny and grieve and wound the self-same Spirit dwelling in me.

Again, we may understand the nature, and trace the origin of this divine principle of love, if we remember that it is the grand moral feature that assimilates the whole family of God. It is, if I may so express myself, the family likeness. Nothing more strikingly brings out the unity of the divine nature in all God's people, the indwelling of the same Spirit thus establishing their membership with the family of God, than the feature of love. Let me see in a Christian man real love, true spiritual affection, affection flowing towards me because I am a brother in Christ- love recognizing my discipleship, my saintship, my sonship- I see in that brother the family likeness, the image of the Father, and the image of all the brethren. Yes, beloved, in a few words, the love of which we speak is a divine, unearthly, spiritual principle. It is not of the flesh fleshly, it is not born with us; it proves its origin and nature by the divine and spiritual fruits which it brings forth. It is from God, it ascends to God, and all its operations are godlike and divine. He who discovers in his heart no other evidence of his filial relation to God, of his discipleship to Christ, of his membership with the one brotherhood, than the existence of this divine, holy principle of love, has sufficient warrant to put in a humble claim to be a disciple of Christ, a child of God, and an heir of glory. "By this shall all men know that you are my disciples, by the love you have one towards another." "By this we know we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren."

The day may come when you may thank God for this one and simple evidence of your salvation. All other evidence of your membership with Christ, and of your adoption into the family of God, may be, not extinguished, but beclouded; and one remains, and one only, to shed its luster, like the lone star of evening, upon your dying pillow- love to the brethren, love to the holy ones because they are holy, love to the saints because they are saints. Beloved, with that one evidence you may tread the valley of the shadow of death, fearing no evil, and you shall have an abundant entrance into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

Having thus briefly explained its nature, let us for a few moments specify some of the GROUNDS on which Christian love should be exhibited. There occur analogies in the narrative which will be our guide. On what grounds may we suppose Joseph exhorts his brethren not to quarrel along the way, on their return home to their father? Would he not naturally remind them, in the first place, that they were the children, the sons of one father, and being so, there existed a strong bond of union between them? Most assuredly he would. Beloved, the Church of God acknowledges one God and Father: "One God and Father of all." One Father loves all- has predestinated all to the adoption of children- has given all alike His beloved Son- embraced all alike in His one heart- and lends His ear alike to all clustering around His mercy-seat and addressing Him as, "Our Father who are in heaven."

Find the sons of God where you may, belonging to what religious section of the Church they may, kneel with them in prayer, bend with them before the one mercy-seat, and you will be at no loss to ascertain who is their Father. Oh, there is nothing so convincing of the essential unity of God's family, or which constitutes so beautiful and touching a manifestation of that unity, as the clustering together of the Lord's people from their various communions around God's throne of grace. It is the most true, sacred, and sublime visible exhibition of the unity of the Church of God found on this side of glory- the unity of worship- the unity of prayer.

Listen to the language of each- of all: "Our Father who is in heaven." In this sublime utterance who can fail to see the three essential elements of union- the PARENTAGE of God- the BROTHERHOOD of the saints- the HOME of the Church: FATHER- OUR Father- in HEAVEN! Oh, see how the renewed nature of man travels back to the Fatherhood of God! See how man travels in fraternal affection towards the Brotherhood of man! See how the child of God seeks the Home from which he has wandered- the point of his departure- the place of his return. And when they assemble at their Father's feet, confessing like sins, deploring like infirmities, breathing like sorrows, unveiling like needs, and supplicating like mercy, oh, how true, beautiful, and holy appears the essential unity of the family of God!
"The saints in prayer appear as one,
In word, and deed, and mind,
White with the Father and the Son
Sweet fellowship they find."

Would not Joseph also remind those who, thus belonging to one father, they were brethren? What are all the saints of God but brethren in the Lord Jesus Christ? "You are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus." "One is your Master, and all you are brethren." The Church of God is one holy brotherhood. Every child of God, be the depth of his experience, or the strength of his faith, or the measure of his attainments what it may, stands in fraternal relation to the one brotherhood of which Jesus is the First-born. Beloved, wherever you thus meet with a child of God, a believer in Christ, one who acknowledges his relation to Jesus, you meet a brother in Christ, and in giving to him a fraternal recognition, you but recognize and exhibit your own personal union with the sacred brotherhood.

This is the only real fraternity. Sin has broken up the human family. By detaching our nature from its Center, it has detached it from itself. The human race has nothing of its original brotherhood remaining but the name, and even this finds often an unwilling recognition. The hate of races and the caste of society are proverbial. As if our common Father had not "made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth," race disowns race, and class denounces class, and caste scorns caste. "The Celt swears vengeance against the Saxon; the Slavonic cannot fraternize with the German stock. The dim repositories of the past are ransacked for missiles and watchwords, that may serve as firebrands to rekindle the old hereditary feuds of alien and rival lineages. The Italian thinks himself scarce a creature of the same blood and of the same God with the Austrian. Now the gospel goes forth as the great, the peaceful, but unappeasable revolutionist; but its watchword is a fraternity broad as humanity. And when men learn to feel these ties and claims of brotherhood, the needy and the lowly are soothed and elevated; the savage puts on dignity, and the bondsman hope; and the woman glides from the prison where barbarism had immured her. So, on the other hand, the mighty, and the intelligent, and the rich, thus instructed, forget their transient and skin-deep distinctions of caste and culture; and feel, in the view of a common sin, and salvation, and judgment-seat, the sense of stewardship casting out the odious spirit of self-gratification. Literal equality, no change in man's power can bring about. There would remain, on the day after an equal distribution of all goods and lands to all earth's inhabitants, the eternal and irremovable distinctions of sex and age, and mental talent and bodily endowment. You might as well propose to equalize the whole body of the man into an eye, clear but defenseless, or into a cheek, earless and eyeless and browless, as to make the body politic, in all its members and all its circumstances, one. But give the feeling of true Christian fraternity; and, while each member retains its individuality and its distinct offices, and its fitting peculiarities, the good of one member would become the good of all. The hand would toil in the light of the guiding eye; and the eye travel in the strength of the adventurous and patient foot." (W.R. Williams)

But the religion of Jesus wins back our divided and hating race to its original brotherhood. It has been remarked that "One touch of nature makes the whole world kin." But one touch of grace does more. It unites the kin into Christian brotherhood, it introduces it into the family of God. This is the only true, sacred, and permanent fraternity; the republican and the democrat, the peer and the peasant, the sovereign and the subject, the bond and the free, are in Christ Jesus one sacred brotherhood, bound in filial relation to God, and, in virtue of this union, in fraternal relation to each other.

Another uniting element is our union with, and the reception of all our blessings from, the Lord Jesus Christ. Here is a strong basis of union, a holy bond of love and sympathy. These brethren of Joseph were returning to Canaan, all richly laden with wealth through the kindness of Joseph. They were all alike furnished with provision, with clothing, and every comfort necessary for the journey. Thus they had a common bond of sympathy and union in the blessings all richly and freely received alike from Joseph. What gospel teaching is here!

Are we not all of us, as saints of God, dependent upon Jesus? are not all of us hanging upon Jesus? do we not all receive from Jesus? The blood that cleanses us, the righteousness that justifies us, the grace that sanctifies us, the sympathy that comforts us, the hope that cheers us- is it not all derived from the fulness that is in Christ? Are not all clinging to that one dear Savior, depending on His finished work, and all drawing from His infinite resources? Oh, yes! Where do the saints of God the most frequently meet? Is it not at the feet of Jesus? Modes of worship may sunder us outwardly. A Liturgy may divide in form those who in heart draw near to the same God and Father. But here we all in spirit meet. The fountain from where we draw our stores of strength and grace, comfort, joy, and peace, attracts and unites us at the Savior's feet.

This ought to draw closer together in affection and sympathy the scattered, divided members of Christ's body, since they are all living on Jesus, drawing from Jesus, and alike indebted to Jesus. Thus, if through prejudice or preference, ecclesiastical polity or modes of religious worship sunder the saints of God from each other, here is that which attracts them to one spot, and binds them in one holy fellowship- a full Christ to whom all repair, and from whom all alike receive supplies, and who loves and blesses all alike. Journeying to one heavenly home, wearing the same robe of righteousness, clad in the same garments of salvation, sustained and nourished by the same spiritual supplies, should not these considerations raise us superior to sectarianism, prejudice, and harsh judgment? What have we that we have not received? Why should one brother boast against or judge another? "Of his fulness have all we received;" and all alike living upon Christ's fulness, nourished by His grace, kept by His power, soothed by His love, fed by His hand, guided by His counsel, and bound together in the same heart of God, supplies us with one of the strongest and most persuasive motives why we should love one another, and see that we do not "quarrel along the way."

I thus anticipate another ground of Christian love- our individual membership with the one body of Christ. It is a beautiful illustration of the Church, the human body. Perfect in itself, it yet has different members; one organization, yet several parts. How masterly does the apostle work out this illustration, bringing us to the conclusion that one part cannot dispense with another; that no member can say to another member, "I have no need of you;" -all are useful and sympathetic in the body. So in the Church of Christ: it is essentially one spiritual corporate Body. Every believer in Christ is a member of that Body, and the Church of God is not perfect without that member. And thus members of Christ's body are members one of another. "For as the body is one, and has many members, and all the members of that one body, being many, are one body: so also is Christ. For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether we be bond or free; and have been all made to drink into one Spirit."

And here let me remark, what a bond of union is found in the existence of the same trials and temptations! Infirmities and necessities are common to all the children of God. This is a touching, tender argument for Christian love and sympathy in the one Church of Christ. Are not our trials ofttimes the same? our temptations and infirmities, our adversities and sorrows? Have we not, too, the same spiritual exercises, the same mental operations? are we not perpetually exhibiting the same stumblings, falls, and backslidings? Oh, how ought this to knit and unite more closely together the saints of God! In view of this truth, how should ecclesiastical distinctions vanish and disappear!

What! has my brother of the Establishment, has my Nonconformist brother the same temptations and corruptions to combat with as I? Is he conscious of the same frailties, infirmities, and suffering? Does he walk in the same spiritual darkness, despondency, and distress? Then do I not see that which should draw my heart to him, which should make me forget external distinctions and separations, and which should rouse my sympathy, prayer, and love, and prompt me to go to him and endeavor to distill comfort into his sorrowful spirit; to speak a word of consolation to his grieved heart, a divine promise to his distressed mind? What are the things that sunder me, externally, compared with this touching, tender bond of union, that ought to unite in closer sympathy the living, spiritual members of the Church of God?

Would not Joseph, too, in exhorting his brethren not quarrel along the way, remind them that they were journeying towards one home and to one father? What a sweet thought is this, that the Church of God is on its way to one blessed, glorious inheritance! The family of God are all traveling to one loving Father. In a little while, these dear saints of God, who now, through infirmity, and often under the temptation of the wicked one, contend and wrangle for their external differences, minor and petty in comparison with the great and momentous one in which they substantially agree, will meet together in a better land, in a better home, in their Father's house. Oh, if shame could crimson the cheek, if tears could gush from the eye in heaven, it would be in the recollection that on earth we allowed these non-essential things to create heart-burnings, rivalries, jealousies, divisions, hard thoughts, speeches, and actions, before the world; thus wounding our blessed Savior, impeding His cause, injuring His truth, and crucifying Him afresh!

Beloved, the saints of God are journeying towards one promised land, going home to one eternal inheritance, traveling to one heavenly Father; and this alone, did no other argument or bond of union exist, should knit and blend in love, sympathy, kindness, and prayer, the different members of the ONE body of Christ, the ONE family of God. "The ransomed of the Lord shall return and come to Zion with songs and everlasting joy upon their heads; they shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away." With the prospect of a termination of the journey so glorious, and with the assurance that then every parti-colored standard will be lost in the blaze of light, and every jarring note, in the song of heaven, let us cultivate the union that will then exist, and by love, service, and worship on earth, antedate and anticipate the bliss of glory.
"Lord, may our union form a part
Of that thrice-happy whole,
Derive its pulse from You the Heart,
Its life from You the Soul."

We propose, in the further prosecution of this subject, to present a few FEATURES characteristic of Christian love. And the first we adduce is, its unsectarian character. Christian love is essentially so. It may indeed cherish a warmer glow, and exhibit greater confidence and freeness of expression in that Christian communion where its fellowship, from a more perfect harmony of sentiment, is recognized; nevertheless, it is essentially unsectarian, since it embraces all who love Christ and walk in His commandments, and is as expansive as the length and breadth of the Church universal. If I only love a Christian brother because he belongs to my branch of the Christian Church, or holds my distinctive principles, my love in this case is sectarian, and not Christian. If I love him merely because he is a Conformist, or because he is a Nonconformist, because he holds believers' baptism, or because he holds infant baptism, this is not a genuine, spiritual, divine love, but a love of party, a love of denomination, a love of self.

I must love my brother because he is a brother in the Lord. I must love him because he is a saint of God. I must love him because I see in him the image of my Father, the Spirit of my Savior; and if I thus see in him the Divine image, hear him speak in the language of Canaan, and trace in him the likeness of a loving, lowly, unearthly Christ; my affection leaps over the walls of ecclesiastical separation, and embraces him as a brother in Christ. Beloved, the only love that truly authenticates your discipleship to Christ, and your adoption into the family of God, is undenominational and unsectarian.

It is not called upon to give up what God's Word enjoins, or conscience feels to be right. It does not say to a brother, "I will believe what you believe, because I love you;" but it says, "I cannot be all that you are; but, because I see in you the image of my Father and the Spirit of my Savior, I love you. Though I cannot see eye to eye with you in all things, though my judgment differs from yours in some; yet, tracing in you the indwelling of the divine nature, the anointing of the Holy Spirit, the likeness of Christ, I love and recognize you as a brother beloved of God."

It was a noble remark of Wesley- "Is your heart right with God? If it is, give me your hand. I do not mean, 'Be of my opinion;' you need not. Neither do I mean, 'I will be of your opinion;' I cannot. Let all opinions alone; only give me your hand." Oh! it is a tragic thing to stand aloof from a holy man of God because he is not in all things of our own opinion! Such a violation of the first law of Christianity does despite to the Spirit of grace, the Spirit of love, the Spirit of God, and either proves our own utter destitution of the Spirit, or must result in the withdrawment of His sensible presence, and a consequent spiritual leanness, darkness, and desertion of soul.

Another feature of Christian love is its studied avoidance of all cause of offence. True brotherly love will not needlessly offend a brother; it will endeavor to steer a course that will prevent those occasions of painful, unhappy collision, that so much stir up the natural corruption of the human heart. One of the sweet characteristics of real spiritual love is, that it endeavors so to deport itself as not needlessly to wound and grieve a brother; it will not go out of its way to speak unkindly of or to misjudge a Christian. It will endeavor to refrain from injuring and giving offence, avoiding those things which tend to stir up what is carnal in a Christian brother's heart.

We are reminded in God's Word that offences, through misunderstanding and infirmity, will come; there will be those collisions of judgment or of action in the Church of God which frequently call forth hasty expressions, injured and angered feelings; a spirit is shown, and words are spoken, that may leave a long and fretting wound. But true love will ever stand ready to forgive the offence, when the offence is repented and deplored. It will not cherish malice, hatred, and revenge in the heart, but, God-like, it is ever ready to forgive, even to the "seventy times seven." Our Lord's injunction respecting giving offence is explicit and clear- "Whoever shall offend one of these little ones who believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea." "Woe to that man by whom the offence comes."

Oh, if this divine precept had a deeper lodgment in the hearts of Christ's brethren, how much charity, gentleness and forbearance would be exhibited- how tender would they be of each other's feelings- how jealous of each other's reputation- how kind in word and action- how careful lest even a momentary wound might be inflicted, regarding the least disciple of Christ as dear to Him as the apple of the eye!

Another and most lovely essential feature of Christian love is that of forgiveness. Flowing from the forgiving love of God, it partakes of the nature where it springs. Christian love approaches the nearest of all the graces of the Spirit in the regenerate soul to the divine nature. God is love, and love is of God, and he that loves the holy because they are holy, and who forgives the wrong done by friend or foe, approaches the nearest in imitation of God. Nothing seems more to becloud or even to invalidate our Christian character, to annihilate all evidence of our being a child of God, as cherishing a malicious, unrelenting, unforgiving spirit. How can we go to God and say, "And forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us,'' while we are cherishing in our hearts an unforgiving feeling towards a brother who has grieved, wounded, or offended us?

What if God took you at your word when bending at His throne offering this prayer? Terrible thought! Condemnation, just and eternal wrath, unmitigated and endless- the banishment of the outer darkness until the last mite were paid, would be your most fearful and righteous doom! But go and forgive your brother; tell him that, yourself forgiven of God the ten thousand offences, you forgive him the one; that love only is in your heart toward him; and that forgiving all, you forget all. Then go and offer your prayer to your Heavenly Father for His forgiveness!

One of the loveliest, most precious unfoldings of God's love towards us is that He has pardoned all our sins, has forgiven us all our transgressions, and having blotted them all out, will remember them no more forever. "Be imitators of God as dear children," and ever keep in view the divine precept teaching the forgiving of offences- "Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamor, and evil-speaking, be put away from you, with all malice: and be kind one to another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake has forgiven you." Instead of sitting down and brooding over an injustice and a wronged, wounded sensibility, or slighted affection, until the imagination has augmented the injury from a molehill into a mountain, the little rivulet that one step of love might have crossed into an impassable gulf, see if there has been any real cause of offence, any intended injury; and if there dwells in the offender the spirit of Christ, and in you, the offended one, the love of God, both will be prepared, on a mutual understanding, the one to confess the fault and the other as ready to forgive it. Oh, let the dying prayer of Jesus ever linger in our ear amid the assaults of enemies and the woundings of friends- "Father, FORGIVE them!"

Forbearance is another feature of true Christian love. "Forbearing one another in love." This feeling is frequently called into exercise. How constantly we are under the necessity of bearing with one another's failings, frailties, and actions! All do not think and feel and act alike. If we really loved, as we ought, in the spirit of kind, Christian forbearance, we should make all allowance for each other's different modes of thought and peculiar frailties, constitutional infirmities and tendencies. It may demand peculiar and no little degree of grace to bear with our brother's constitutional temperament and weaknesses, his uncouthness of manner, his disposition to look at the dark side of the picture, his crotchets and fault-finding spirit, and other infirmities which inspire our dislike if not disgust; nevertheless, if I love as my Lord and Master loves me and loves my brother, I ought to forbear in love; not to censure or condemn, but casting over him the mantle of charity, cherish that "love which is patient and is kind."

It is another operation of brotherly love that it avoids rash judgements and harsh interpretations. True love is not judicial, it is fraternal. It avoids the judgment-seat. How tempted we often are to sit in judgment on a brother's actions, motives, and opinions; just as if we possessed the divine attribute of reading his heart, and fathoming the secret principles and motives that influence him. If we love that brother as we ought, we should avoid those judgments, which almost invariably bring us to rash and wrong conclusions, censuring and condemning when, had we a perfect knowledge of his heart, we would probably admire and approve. Rather let us ever aim to put a kind and charitable construction upon actions, the circumstances and motives of which, we are profoundly ignorant.

Nor must I forget to remind you that sympathy is a striking characteristic and feature of Christian and brotherly love. It will prompt us to compassion and kindness towards brethren and sisters who are in distress, trial, and suffering; it will make us willing to bear one another's burdens, to weep with those who weep, and rejoice with those that rejoice; it will constrain us to do all we can to soothe, soften, and ameliorate, and shed the sunshine of gladness on the gloomy path of some tried, lonely child of God.

Faithfulness is another of its essential characteristics. It does not shrink from tender, loving, yet wise and holy admonition. It is faithful to conscience, to God's Word, to Christ's honor, and to the brethren. "Faithful are the wounds of a friend." To be thus faithful-to show our love by our fidelity--to rebuke, reprove, and exhort; not allowing sin or error in a Christian brother, but, in the meek, lowly, gentle, yet firm, faithful spirit of the Master, to warn and rebuke- oh, this is love indeed! In nothing do we require more tenderness, lowliness, and love; and in the discharge of no duty is Jesus more prepared to give us all the wisdom, grace, and love demanded. Never let us rebuke or reprove a loving brother until we first repair to Jesus, and get our hearts replenished with His love.

In conclusion, how needed and forcible the exhortation, "See that don't quarrel along the way." How like the words of our Lord Jesus to the disciples, "A new commandment I give unto you, that you love one another." Let us aim to walk in this divine, Christ-like precept. Let our conduct, our communion, our whole spirit and carriage, be influenced and governed by love. Let us show how superior is Christian unity and love to denominational distinctions, ecclesiastical polity, and outward forms. Let us not fall out with other Christians by the way because we differ in judgment on some minor points, or worship God in different ways. Let us not renounce or denounce a Christian brother, who loves the same Savior, is of the same Father, is engaged in the same holy fight, because he wears a different uniform, belongs to a different battalion, or lays his offering of love upon another altar than our own. This would be grieving to the Spirit and dishonoring to the Captain of our salvation.

"Shall I ask the brave soldier, that fights at my side
The cause of mankind, if our creeds do agree?
Shall I give up the friend I have valued and tried,
If he kneels not before the same altar with me?"

No! if his creed is essentially correct, if his life is divinely holy, if his altar is sprinkled with the blood of Christ's atonement, and if, in the spirit of adoption, that altar is inscribed to the One Father in heaven, and he bends, and loves, and worships there as a humble believer in the Savior, as a loving child of God, as a true soldier of the Cross, then I must ignore my own Christianity and deny my Lord if I refuse to hail him as a beloved brother, or to join him in the holy strife of reducing the kingdoms of this world to the reign and supremacy of Christ.

Cultivating Christian and brotherly love, we shall antedate and anticipate the happiness and employment of heaven, where love reigns in every breast. There, in those pure and blissful regions, where the God of love dwells, and the Savior of love is enthroned, and the Spirit of love breathes, there are no strifes or dissensions, no jarrings or discords. The music is of love, the songs are of love, and all hearts beat in unison with love; the tree of life that bends over the river of joy, and the bowers of bliss, fanned by spicy breezes, all are vocal with the melody and embalmed in the fragrance of LOVE.

"Love is the golden chain that binds the happy souls above, And he's an heir of heaven who finds his bosom glow with love."

"This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers." 1 John 3:16

"Don't quarrel along the way!"

A Living Christ the Life of the Christian
or, "Joseph Alive"

And they left Egypt and returned to their father, Jacob, in the land of Canaan. "Joseph is still alive!" they told him. "And he is ruler over all the land of Egypt!" Jacob was stunned at the news—he couldn't believe it. But when they had given him Joseph's messages, and when he saw the wagons loaded with the food sent by Joseph, his spirit revived. Genesis 45:25-27

There is not to the Christian, and to the Christian philosopher, a more interesting and instructive study than the varied spiritual and mental exercises of the renewed soul. Nothing takes so deep and powerful a hold upon the intellect, or penetrates so deeply the heart's hidden springs of feeling, as the grace of God in the soul of man. We hesitate not to say that man is an inexplicable mystery apart from revealed and vital religion. He is more than a material, or even intellectual being. He possesses, in addition to this, a moral nature, and as a moral being he must be studied, if his nature, history, and destiny are to be understood.

He may be a subject of inquiry ethnologically, physiologically, and intellectually- that is, in relation to his species, his material and rational organism; but until he is studied as a spiritual being, the wonders and powers of his complicated and glorious nature are still deeply veiled in their lonely grandeur from the eye, and man remains the profoundest mystery of the intelligent creation.

But Christianity places man in a new point of light, and constitutes him altogether a new object of study. The secret of this is in possession of the Christian student. It is this- The soul of man has been brought into vital contact with God, the great and holy Lord God, and this solves the mystery. Instinct with spiritual life, a partaker of the divine nature, a temple of the Holy Spirit, in a word, an entire new creature, he unfolds and exhibits powers of mind, and sensibilities of soul, a grandeur and sublimity of being, which the religion of Jesus and the grace of God alone could unveil, develop, and call into play.

The present incident of our narrative has suggested this train of thought. The joyous tidings are brought to Jacob that Joseph is really alive. He is overpowered by the information. The first announcement staggers his faith, and his heart dies within him. As doubt gives place to conviction, and conviction deepens into assurance, the spirit of Jacob revives, and he braces himself to meet the occasion. What a rich and instructive page in the believer's experience does this incident unfold! The fact that Christ is alive, the conflicting feelings which that fact produces, the varied emotions- unbelief and its reaction, the swooning and the reviving- are points of profound interest. May the Holy Spirit be our Teacher. I take them in their order- the TIDINGS- the FAINTING- the REVIVING.

With regard to the TIDINGS, there appears to have been three things involved in it of a most interesting and touching character- First, that Joseph was alive; second, that being alive, be was exalted to great dignity and power; and third, that, though thus exalted, he still remembered with affection and regarded with kindness his father's house. We shall pursue briefly these three points as illustrating some of the most vital, precious, sanctifying truths ever uttered in the ears of the believer in Jesus.

The first fact which this joyous intelligence conveyed to the aged patriarch was, that Joseph was alive: "Joseph is still alive!" The image of his death- a death which to his mind had been attended with circumstances of such brutality- still flung its dark shadow on the spirit of Jacob; but in a moment, like an electric flash, the information is brought to him that his son, long lost, and, to his mind, long dead, was alive- actually living- and that he was now confronted by the witnesses of the astounding and thrilling truth. Beloved, what is the grand central truth of the gospel, the fact around which all its other facts revolve, and from which all other truths derive their vitality? Is it not that Jesus, our true Joseph, is alive?

Alas! we have to do in our present condition so much with death- death within, death without, death all around us, and the grim tyrant, with uplifted dart, standing at the very termination of our pilgrimage- how soothing and delightful it is for a child of God to turn from its contemplation, and find himself dealing with life! And what is the grand, quickening truth of the Bible- the great and precious fact which transmits its vitality to every part? It is a living Savior- a living Christ- a living Intercessor- in a word, that Jesus lives. When the first builders of the glorious temple of truth went forth to build the sacred fabric, like master workmen they laid the broad basis of the edifice in the glorious announcement, in the indisputable fact, that Jesus was alive. Could they but make good and demonstrate this one fact, the whole fabric of Christianity stood firm on a rock which no power could overthrow. We therefore find that the grand truth upon which the early preachers of Christianity everywhere dwelt was, not the death of Christ, marvellous and precious as that fact was, but, the resurrection of Christ, the confirmation and groundwork of His death. It was not so much that Christ was crucified, as that He was risen, that they testified; and for their testimony to this truth they were willing to endure scorn and ridicule, contempt and persecution, no, a martyr's death. Thus we read, "One of these men which have accompanied with us all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us . . . must be ordained to be a witness with us of his resurrection." "And with great power gave the apostles witness of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus." "Jesus, who was dead, whom Paul affirmed to be alive."

In these touching words does Paul refer to the persecutions he endured for this truth: "Persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed; always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body." The daily persecution was the dying of the Lord Jesus; the daily succor and support was the manifestation of the life of the Lord Jesus. The very scars of the Lord Jesus which they bore were so many evidences that Christ was alive. Had not Christ risen from the dead, they had then been exempt from the hatred and persecution of the Sanhedrin, all whose power had been exerted to disprove and invalidate this one fact of Christianity, and this central doctrine of their preaching. But every epithet of scorn with which they were denounced, and every form of persecution through which they passed, but confirmed the fact that Jesus was alive. It was not likely that, simpleminded and feeble men as they were, they would be willing to endure all they did in testifying to what they knew to be false. No man will heroically sacrifice his life, or endure a moral martyrdom in support of a known lie; but when conscious that he is testifying to a truth, that he is witnessing to and ratifying a fact, if he be a man of integrity, honesty, and courage, he will be ready to seal his testimony with a martyr's death. Thus did the apostles- so important and precious to their heart was the truth that Jesus was alive.

And is the doctrine less sweet, precious, and blessed to us? Ah, no! Rob me of the truth that Jesus lives, take from me the great fact that Christ is alive at the right hand of God, and oh, you have thrown the pall of eternal death over all the bright hopes of my soul. But let my faith realize that Jesus lives, and that I live in Jesus, that I have a life from Jesus, that my eternal life is bound up with Jesus, that a living Christ supports and sustains me moment by moment, and that because Jesus lives I shall live also, and you have given me a talisman of hope that will bear me cheerfully onward through all the changing scenes and sufferings of life, painting its brilliant bow upon each dark cloud of my earthly pilgrimage; you have, in a word, thrown open to me the very portal of heaven. Let but this precious truth, by the power of the Spirit, be brought home to your heart when it is low, struggling with sin, fighting with temptation, battling with the world, when difficulties, trials, and depressions weave their web around your path- let but the blessed Spirit testify to your soul that Jesus lives, and lives to sustain you, to pray for you; to deliver you, and in a moment you are conscious of a new-born energy, you float in calmness and security upon the crest of the highest billow.

The touching incident of a little child sitting in the lap of its widowed, weeping mother, and looking up earnestly into her face, asked, "Mamma, is Jesus dead?" will be familiar to the reader. Gentle chiding! precious soothing from a babe's lips! Yes! God can teach and comfort us by a little child, if this be but the truth brought home in simple, touching earnestness to our sorrow-stricken heart. Jesus is not dead, but lives to bind up the broken heart, to dry the tear, and supply the needs of His saints- to cause the widow's heart to leap for joy, and to befriend, and guide, and comfort the orphan.

What though some human hopes are fled, what though some earthly friends are gone, what though some cherished joys are withered, Jesus lives, and you shall live through all life's trials, and through all eternity's glories- your life forever entwined with Christ in God.

But Joseph was not only alive, he was also exalted to great dignity, power, and wealth. He might have been alive, but still the slave for which his brethren sold him. He might indeed have been alive, but in great poverty, lowliness, and obscurity. So far from this being the case, he was not only alive, but he was advanced to be the chief man of the realm, second only to the king upon the throne. This fact must have imparted additional confidence and solace to the mind of the aged patriarch. Is it less a joyous, less a satisfying, less a precious fact to you to know that Jesus Christ has- as we have shown in the preceding chapter- passed through all the dark stages of His abasement and suffering, and is now enshrined in the glory which He had with the Father before the world was, with the added glory of mediatorial supremacy and government, sitting at the right hand of the Father, holding the scepter of universal empire, all powers and principalities subject to Him, and "waiting until His enemies be made His footstool?"

Oh, we ask, is it not a glorious and precious announcement to the Church that her Savior not only lives, but that He fills the central throne in heaven, that all beings bend before His majesty, and that He has power over all flesh? Is it not a precious truth to you that Jesus, once "a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief," once spit upon, insulted, tempted, crucified, is now exalted a Prince and a Savior, the triumphant Head of the Church, and is preparing to appear again in His glorified kingdom? Yes! it is a precious truth, that "Him has God highly exalted," and that in that exaltation and glory you who believe shall share.

There is another feature in this announcement that must have been precious, I had almost said, the most precious, because it was the most touching: it was, not only that Joseph was alive, and that he was exalted to great dignity, power, and wealth, but that he loved his father and that he remembered his brethren still, that he had purposes and thoughts of kindness and mercy towards those who his heart yearned to unfold. Beloved, not only is Jesus alive, not only is He exalted to great dignity, clothed with boundless power, and is possessed of endless wealth- all of which He exercises on your behalf- but He loves you, has purposes of mercy, and thoughts of peace, and feelings of compassion towards you, thinks of you, prays for you, is perpetually guarding your person and consulting your highest interests, until He sends His chariot to bear you home to Himself. "I go to prepare a place for you....I will come again to receive you unto myself; that where I am, there you may be also." "I have prayed for you, that your faith fail not." Realize this precious truth, and it will shed many a bright gleam on your dreary way, and uplift your thoughts, affections, and hopes, from earth to heaven.

Let us now observe the effect of these tidings on Jacob's heart. How was the first information of this gladsome announcement received by the patriarch? Jacob's heart fainted through unbelief. The tidings seemed too great and joyous to be true. "And Jacob's heart fainted, for he believed them not." What an impressive and instructive illustration of that unbelief which marks our Christian course in some of its circumstances and stages in life- unbelief awakened by the very vastness, the very preciousness, the very joyousness of the truths of the gospel, of the words, the invitations, and promises of Jesus. In common language, it seems "too good to be true," too vast for faith to credit, too overpowering for the mind to grasp, too precious for the heart to receive.

Beloved, it is astonishing how faith and unbelief operate here. How diverse and opposite are their actings! For example, faith always looks at the bright side of a dark picture; unbelief always looks at the dark side of a bright picture. Unbelief often discards a fact because it is too vast and precious to believe; but faith can extract ofttimes from a dispensation that is gloomy and threatening, the sweetest joy and the brightest hope. Faith can transform a curse into a blessing; while unbelief will often turn a blessing into a curse. Do we not find something like this in our spiritual experience- unbelief not giving full, unquestioning, prompt credence to the revelation of God's Word, especially the announcements respecting a living Christ?

We might cite a Scripture instance of this. You are aware that when the first announcement was made to the Church of the resurrection of Christ, they could not believe, actually did not credit, the fact that the Lord was really alive, because of the overpowering joy which the tidings produced. And even when the fact that He was risen from the dead was confirmed by His actual and personal appearance among them, they still doubted! "And while they still did not believe it because of joy and amazement, he asked them, 'Do you have anything here to eat?'" Mark the significant words, "they still did not believe it because of joy and amazement."

We now turn to our own Christian experience, as illustrating a few of the exercises of unbelief. In the first place, we cite the fact, the faint hold we have of the truth that Jesus is alive at the right hand of God, bearing our name on His heart, our burden on His shoulder, and with uplifted and pierced hands making intercession for us in heaven. Does not the working of unbelief often rob you of the power, the preciousness, and influence of this truth- that Jesus is alive? Is not your faith's grasp of it often weak, wavering, unrealizing? Oh! had we a stronger faith in the fact that Jesus is actually alive, we should not be so often and so deeply cast down as we are- succumbing to fears within, and to conflicts without, to the dark and trying providences which shade and sadden our path. We would not believe that some day our enemy would prevail, that we would at last come short of heaven. We would never inquire, "Who will roll us away the stone?" or, "Who will supply a table in the wilderness?" No! the reason why our hands droop and our knees tremble in this glorious and spiritual life is because our faith has such a vague, uncertain, tremulous grasp of this gospel, vital truth- a risen, living, loving, and interceding Christ. Oh, we are but half believers in what the Bible says of Jesus, and in what Jesus himself says.

Then, with regard to the Promises of God, see how our faith is constantly at fault. The promises of God are the divine affirmations and pledges of His faithfulness and love to His saints. These "exceeding great and precious promises" are God's promissory notes- to speak commercially- which He has given us, assuring us that if we plead and present these promissory notes in faith and prayer, He will acknowledge, honor, and make them good. And yet, such is the working of unbelief, that our hearts faint within us under new trials and reverses, although we have these precious promises of God to rely upon and to plead- all pledging the unchanging love, the covenant faithfulness, and the infinite power of God on our behalf; as if He had not said, "For the mountains shall depart, and the hills be removed: but my kindness shall not depart from you, neither shall the covenant of my peace be removed, says the Lord that has mercy on you." May we not, in view of this feeble, fluctuating faith which we have in the promises of God, and in the God of the promises, repeat the statement we have just made, that we do but half believe what we profess fully to believe!

How faint and dim, too, is our faith's realization of the eternal glory that awaits as! How little do we live on that precious truth- the certain salvation of every believer in Jesus, and the eternal glorification of every child of God? Did we more vividly realize it, we should be less desponding and discouraged by reason of the difficulties we meet, the inbred sins we combat, our own shortcomings, and Satan's constant suggestions. Did our faith more firmly believe that the Lord's flock, "the flock of the slaughter," shall never be plucked from the Shepherd's hand, that not one of them shall perish, that the weakest believer and the lowliest saint of God, the soul that has but touched in faith the border of the Saviors robe, shall finally and certainly be brought to glory, would it not enable us to enter more fully into the experience of the apostle, "Our light affliction, which is but for a moment, works for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory?"

I will only refer to what ought to humble us very much, the weakness of our faith in the great and glorious fact of a coming Lord. Oh, how little does our faith deal with the glorious truth of the second personal advent of our Lord Jesus Christ! Beloved, the promise of a coming Savior has ever been the hope of God's Church. It was the hope of the Church of old. They saw His star in the dim, distant vista of time, believed and rejoiced. "Your father Abraham saw My day, and was glad." Faith in a promised and coming Messiah sustained them in persecution, bore them through trials, tuned their harps, inspired their prophecies, and shed the faint beams of the Sun of Righteousness upon their departing hours. The coming Christ, the glorious appearing of the Lord, is still the pole-star of the saints of God, who are described as "looking for that BLESSED HOPE, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Savior Jesus Christ."

My reader, if you are a believer in Jesus, you will be one of the blissful throng who will cluster around the descending form of the Son of God, when He comes in the clouds of heaven "to be admired by His saints, and to be adored in all those who believe." He is coming to raise us from corruption, to perfect us in His own likeness, to reunite us to those who sleep in Him, to give us the victory over all our enemies, and to associate us with His glorious and eternal reign. "Therefore, comfort one another with these words." Embrace this hope with stronger faith, and you will realize one of the most soothing, animating, sanctifying doctrines of revelation. "I will come again and receive you to myself." Sweet words! "Come, Lord Jesus, come quickly," be your heart's response. Prophets sung of it, evangelists portrayed it, apostles wrote of it; let your faith embrace it, living and dying in the blessed hope of the personal advent of the Lord to consummate the glory and bliss of His saints. "Believe in the Lord your God, so shall you be established; believe His prophets, so shall you prosper."

We now reach the last part of the subject of the present chapter- the reviving of Jacob's faith. The depression of the aged patriarch was but momentary. There is just this difference between a regenerate and an unregenerate man -the unbelief of the unregenerate man is continuous, that of the child of God is but momentary. He may be greatly depressed because of unbelief, his heart sorrowing within him; but such is the divine nature, the indestructible energy of real faith, it ever emerges from the darkest cloud, floats upon the highest billow, and comes out of the battle bearing in its hand the spoils and the laurels of victory. See it illustrated in the history of Jacob; the depression was but momentary. Now came the uplifting, the revival of his drooping faith. What was it that roused its pulse, and restored him, as it were, to life? The first thing was, "they told him all the words of Joseph;" and these words were the first inspiration of his depressed and dejected spirit.

Beloved, what is it that truly and effectually revives the drooping faith, and uplifts the disconsolate spirit of the child of God- rolls off the melancholy that crushed his mind, and disperses the dark cloud that hung over his soul? Oh, it is the words of Jesus! Are there any words to you like His? When Christ comes and speaks a promise, and says to you, "Be not depressed, My grace is sufficient for you; be not cast down, My strength is made perfect in weakness; be not disconsolate, I will come again and receive you to myself." Oh, what words so reviving, so quickening, and so cheering to the child of God as these words of Jesus? And when the Eternal Spirit brings the very words, statements, promises, and assurances of Jesus, unfolds them to the eye, whispers them to the ear, reveals them to the mind, engraves them on the heart, I ask you whether it has not been like an inspiration direct from heaven? Has it not been like a cordial to your fainting spirit? Has it not infused new life into your soul?

See how the angels at the tomb revived and cheered the drooping hearts of those holy women, who came with their spices early to the sepulcher, by the words of Jesus! "And it came to pass, as they were much perplexed, behold, two men stood by them in shining garments: and as they were afraid, and bowed down their faces to the earth, they said unto them, Why seek you the living among the dead? He is not here, but is risen: remember how he spoke unto you when he was yet in Galilee, saying, The Son of man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men, and be crucified, and the third day rise again. And they remembered his words."

And thus it is the Holy Spirit the Comforter revives and cheers the fainting hearts of God's people, by bringing to their remembrance and speaking to their hearts the very words of comfort and promise and guidance which Jesus himself has spoken. "But the Comforter," says Christ, "who is the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatever I have said unto you." No words like those of Jesus for the nourishment of faith, for the quieting of conscience, for the guidance of our perplexities, and the reassuring of our confidence and hope. That one saying of Jesus is worth untold worlds, "He who comes unto me I will in never cast out." Oh, cling to the revealed words of Christ, and esteem them more precious than gold, and sweeter than honey.

But we trace the reviving of the patriarch's faith to another cause, the power of evidence: "And when he saw the wagons which Joseph had sent to carry him, the spirit of Jacob their father revived." Now, here was clearly the acting of faith, aided by the operation of sight. Seeing the wagons that Joseph had sent to carry him to Egypt, laden as they were with provision for the journey, there was evidence clear and unmistakable on which his drooping faith could rest. Here mark the condescension of the Lord to the weak and fainting faith of His disciples. I do not for a moment ignore the idea that the Lord may at times revive the heart of the drooping believer by sight as well as by faith, or, in other words, that faith is aided by sight. Were this idea rejected, we must ignore the institution of the Lord's Supper itself, for most assuredly, our faith in the death and atoning sacrifice of Jesus is essentially aided by these visible and expressive symbols.

And was it not so with Gideon? He was summoned to a great work, but his faith staggered, and he asked God for some evidence that He was true in what He promised, and God gave it him. He asked that the fleece might be saturated with the dew of heaven, and God granted his request. Still his faith staggered, and he asked another evidence of His faithfulness, that the fleece might be all night on the earth and remain dry, and in the morning it was so; and thus God strengthened his faith by the evidence of sight.

We select a case in point from the New Testament- that of the unbelieving disciple, Thomas. He would not believe the evidence of the disciples that Jesus was alive. "Unless I see in his hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the print of the nails, and thrust my hand into his side, I will not believe." Jesus knew it. Presenting Himself in the midst of His assembled disciples, He singled out Thomas from the group, and said, "Thomas, reach here your finger, and behold my hands; and reach here your hand, and thrust it into my side: and be not faithless, but believing." As if He had said, "I will stoop to your weak faith, and will give you the evidence of sight; you shall see, and handle, and know that I am indeed your risen, living Lord.''

Oh, the condescension of Jesus to weak faith! And when the eye of faith is dim, Christ will come and give you some sensible token or evidence that He is yours, that His word of promise, on which He has caused your soul to hope, shall be made good. God will have you look to your mercies, to your blessings, to all His dealings with your life, in order that your faith in Him may be revived and strengthened. He will have you throw back a glance on the past of your journey, trace all His providential interpositions on your behalf, and remember the time when your heart was sorrowful, and how He comforted it; when your mind was desponding; and how He sustained it; when your path was dreary, and how cheered it; when your needs were pressing, and how He supplied them; and when the cloud was dark, and your trouble threatened and your foe was ready to devour you, how He appeared for your help and deliverance.

Yes, God will have you look at these witnesses that He is faithful to His promises and faithful to His saints. Listen to the Psalmist- "I would have fainted, unless I had believed to SEE the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. Wait on the Lord: be of good courage, and he shall strengthen your heart, wait, I say, on the Lord." Thus may our soul be found in holy waiting upon, and waiting for the Lord! The wagons laden with tokens and pledges of heaven have come. "Christ is risen the first fruits of those who sleep." "And not only they, but ourselves . . . . have the first-fruits of the Spirit." Let us look at the promises and the providences and the unspeakable Gift of God, and our faith, so ready to fail, and our spirit, so prone to faint, will be strengthened and revived, and we shall be preparing to take our last stage home to God. "Faint, yet pursuing," will be our motto, until faith is turned into sight, and we wake up in glory perfected in His likeness, satisfied with all the way by which the Lord our God conducted us there.

The Satisfaction and Anticipation of Faith
Or, "The Patriarchs Contentment and Resolve"

And Israel said, "It is enough! My son Joseph is still alive. I will go and see him before I die." Genesis 45:28

If ever a plant was known by its flower, or a tree by its fruit, it is the principle of faith implanted in the heart of man by the Spirit of God. We considered in the last chapter the swooning of faith through the excessive joy produced by the tidings that Joseph was yet alive. We then glanced at the revival of that drooping faith by the visible, tangible evidence of the fact. "When he saw the wagons, the spirit of Jacob their father revived." His faith was, as it were, turned into sight, and this brought his mind into perfect contentment and repose. We are, in the present chapter, to meditate on a marvellous result of that revived faith- perhaps one of the most striking and instructive illustrations of this divine principle in the soul. What was it? And Israel said, "It is enough! My son Joseph is still alive. I will go and see him before I die." This marks the highest point of faith, the loveliest, and most fragrant fruit borne on that divine plant- contentment and repose, amid all the dealings of God. There are two points to which we would direct the reader's attention- the PERFECT SATISFACTION, and the ANTICIPATED DEPARTURE.

The PERFECT SATISFACTION. And Israel said, "It is enough." There is but one class of our race from whose lips, in truth and emphasis, this sentiment could breathe, and that is the renewed and sanctified man. Take the other and probably the largest portion of our species, and where will you find language corresponding with this, indicating the perfect repose and full satisfaction of the soul? Is not the cry of our unregenerate humanity that of the horse leech, "Give, give, give." Is there not, as we have shown in the former part of this volume, a restlessness, marking every individual we meet, the language of which is, if properly interpreted, "Who will show us any good?" No, our nature will never arrive at anything like perfect satisfaction until it finds its way back to God, drinks its happiness and draws its bliss from Him. Then it will adopt the language of the patriarch, "It is enough. I have obtained the chief good; I have found the jewel for which I have excavated earth's mine; I have plucked the flower that never dies, and have partaken of the fruit that never gluts, have drunk of the stream that has quenched my desire, and I shall thirst no more."

But these are only general observations; let us descend to a few particulars. What is implied in this language of the patriarch, "It is enough?" As I have already hinted, it expresses the feeling of full satisfaction: "It is enough." Israel was now satisfied with all the government of God, satisfied with all that had transpired, satisfied with the present, and, as we shall show you presently, fully satisfied with regard to the future. Beloved, does not this feeling of full satisfaction find its corresponding experience in the bosom of every child of God? Most assuredly! The soul that has found God in Christ, that has been brought to rest in Jesus, that has tasted what is divine, spiritual, and heavenly, has in it an element, a feeling of perfect satisfaction.

Are you not satisfied with the Lord's gracious dealings with your soul, in choosing you to be His from all eternity? in directing all your course during your unconverted years? in effectually calling you by His sovereign grace to a knowledge of Himself? Are you not satisfied to rest your salvation on the one offering, the one atonement, the one sacrifice of the Lord Jesus? Are you not willing to accept Christ's righteousness as your justification, Christ's merit as your pardon, and Christ's work as the sole ground of your everlasting hope? Ah, Yes! I anticipate your reply: "Heavenly Father with such a Savior, with such a salvation, I am satisfied! It is enough, I want no more. I abjure my own righteousness, I cast from me my own merits, I utterly renounce my own works. I am satisfied to be saved as a, poor, empty, self-condemned sinner, by faith in the atonement of Your dear Son, and go to heaven clad in no other robe, saved by no other merits, washed in no other fountain, than that which my Lord and Savior has graciously provided; and with Your salvation, from its beginning in eternity past to its consummation in eternity to come, blessed Lord, I am satisfied; it is enough!"

In connection with this feeling is the believer's perfect satisfaction with all the conduct of God's providence. During the process that God is providentially dealing with His people, there is often much that seems to ruffle the surface of the soul, disturbing its repose with a wavelet here, a billow there, and the swelling yonder. His providential dealings are sometimes so inexplicable, painful, and dark, that for a moment the child of God is, as it were, unbalanced. He begins to think that all these circumstances and events are about to militate against his best interests; and there cannot be, while that is transpiring, the feeling of perfect satisfaction. But let him calmly wait and trustfully hope until God himself interprets these mystic symbols, gives him light on what now is so shaded, perfects the thing concerning him, and then, as he takes a retrospect on the past, he will say, "Lord, it is enough; I am perfectly satisfied with all Your dealings with me. I thought that stroke severe, I felt that burden crushing; I trembled as I entered into that cloud; my unbelieving heart murmured; but now, my God, my Father, in clearer light I can see it was a divine plan, a complete whole, a discipline of love, and my soul bows to the perfect rectitude of Your government, and my heart exclaims, It is enough, You have done all things well."

But, oh! the blessed period awaits us when we shall, with deeper emphasis of meaning, and more prolonged melody of song, exclaim, "It is enough; I shall be satisfied when I awake in Your likeness." The full, the perfect satisfaction is reserved when we enter glory, and look back on all the past, and see how wise, how loving, how holy, was the whole arrangement of God's gracious and providential dealings with us. "I shall be satisfied" fully, forever satisfied- and exclaim, "It is enough!"

"Enough, my gracious Lord,
Let faith triumphant cry;
My heart can on this promise live,
Can on this promise die."

But these words are not only the expression of satisfaction, but they are the reasoning and conclusion of faith. It is faith traveling through dark and trying dispensations, and arriving at this its blessed goal- "It is enough." Whatever may be the trials and temptations of our faith, whatever the assaults made upon it by the subtle foe of God's people, whatever its depressions and becloudings, its soundings and strugglings, the ultimate conclusion to which the true believer arrives is this, "Lord, it is enough! I am perfectly content with the process You have taken to separate my faith from its foil, to purify it from its dross, though it has been as by fire. It is enough!" Does this page address one whose faith is severely assailed, painfully tried, perhaps deeply depressed? Let me remind you that whatever may be the present battle, temptation, or despondency of this principle, the issue will be triumphant. The language of Israel breathing from your lips will proclaim your victory, "It is enough. Every trial of my life has, been more precious than gold; and now that the storm is passed, and I can calmly view all the way You have led me, my heart in the depth of its satisfaction exclaims, It is enough!"

Nor must I omit to add that these words of the patriarch express praiseful gratitude. The soul of Israel was now touched with the true spirit of praise, in the review of all the past of God's conduct. The harp, so long silent on the willows, plucked from thence, now breathed the softest and sweetest strains of thanksgiving and praise to Him to whom all praise is due. He seems to be brought into similar experience with David, who, after tracing the gracious dealings of God with him, exclaimed, "Return unto your rest, O my soul; for the Lord has dealt bountifully with you!" Such was the spirit, if not the language, of Israel: "It is enough, my soul. My past history, painful, chequered, and somber though it has been, rude and thorny though my way, yet the Lord has dealt bountifully with me. He has kept me alive in famine, He has brought up as from the grave my long lost child, He has clothed with sunshine life's closing evening; and now, return unto your rest, O my soul; for the Lord has dealt bountifully with you!" Such, my reader, will be your language, whatever may be the path along which God is conducting you, or whatever may be the landscape of life now unfolding to your eye. Yes; you shall at last be brought to this blessed conclusion, "The Lord my God has dealt liberally and bountifully with me; return unto your rest, O my soul! It is enough."

We reach the second point- the ANTICIPATED DEPARTURE: "I will go and see him before I die." It is quite clear that thoughts of life's close, anticipations of the termination of his long pilgrimage, occupied the mind of Israel. It was natural that it should be so. And yet we sometimes meet with examples of extreme old age, associated, too, with a religious profession, in which there is such an absence of the idea of death, such a faint conception of the nearness of eternity, as presents one of the most affecting and solemn spectacles in human life.

We scarcely can conceive of a more melancholy sight than old age, not only without religion, but without any serious thought of death! With the last enemy almost at the door- with eternity about to burst upon the soul in all its dread reality, its personal scrutiny, its solemn judgment, its final and changeless destiny- and yet to trace the indifference, the worldliness, the covetousness, the scheming, that marks so many standing on the brink of the grave, its very earth crumbling beneath their feet, is a phenomenon in the history of our race over which angels might weep. But not so was it with the aged patriarch. He realized that he was an old man, that life's taper-light was almost extinguished, and he seemed to hear the music of Jordan's waves as they murmured in sweet cadence at his feet. He felt that the time of his departure was at hand; and, in the solemn realization of the fact, he girded himself to meet life's last mission at the bidding of God. "Joseph my son is yet alive- I will go and see him before I die."

An impressive event is referred to in those words, "I die!" Whether uttered by youth, by middle age, or by hoary hairs, they are words of solemn import- "I DIE!" Oh, it is an overwhelming thought, that through that portal our spirit must pass. Through that shaded valley, along that gloomy pathway to eternity, you must travel. Are you prepared, my reader, to die? Have you solemn thoughts of death? Are you taking it into the account? Are you so numbering your days, fast-fleeting and few, as to apply your heart to heavenly wisdom?

"I die." Oh, interpret the solemn words, view the impressive truth in the light of the gospel, in the exercise of faith in Jesus, and the whole character of death is changed, the whole scene is transformed. "I do not die," exclaims the believer; "I only sleep in Jesus. I do not die, I languish into life. Mine will be a departure, a translation, a soft slumber in which there are no fitful, fevered dreams. Absent from the body, I shall in one moment be present and forever with the Lord."

But what made the thought of death so pleasant, its prospect so cheerful, its coming so hopeful to the aged saint? It was the sight of Joseph! "Joseph is yet alive: I will go and see him before I die." The living Christ- on reposes, as Israel's eye rested on his living son Joseph, is the grand preparation for death. No individual can meet death with dignity, composure, and hope, but as by faith he sees Christ and Christ is in him. We need no other preparation for death but a living faith in a living Savior. Here is your true and only preparation for death, my reader- Christ in you the hope of glory. As we shall recur to this thought in a subsequent part of this work, we will be content now simply and briefly to remind you who are all your life subject to bondage through fear of death, that when death comes, a living Christ will come with it; therefore, do not die a thousand deaths in anticipating one. Leave your departure to Him who is the "Resurrection and the Life," who will accompany the "king of terrors," the white robed messenger; and as the earthly house is being dissolved, beam after beam removed, pin after pin loosened, a living Christ in you will lift you, in calmness, grandeur, and dignity, above the wreck and ruin of your mortality, and you shall sing,

"Jesus can make a dying bed
Feel soft as downy pillows are,
While on His breast I lean my head,
And breathe my soul out sweetly there."

This suggests our last remark. A living Christ, clung to by faith, will fill the soul with longing desires to depart and be with Jesus. You will say, "Jesus is alive, I will go and see Him, and be with Him forever." Oh, beloved, nothing will make you so long to break from the body of sin and death, to sever even the fondest, sweetest, dearest ties of nature, as having your faith firmly rooted and grounded in the doctrine of a living Christ! It will intensify your desire to depart and be with Jesus. What made Jacob so willing to leave Canaan? Was not his estate there? Was not his pleasant homestead there? Were not all the sweet, fond, sacred associations of birth, of family, and of friendship there? Yes; but Joseph in Egypt pt eclipsed it all, and he exclaimed, "Joseph my son is yet alive: I will go and see him before I die."

With this I close. Get more of a living Christ in your believing heart, and your heart more deeply enshrined in heaven with Jesus, and then, sweet and fond and precious as are earth's attractions now, you will pant to sunder from them all, and fly away and be forever with the Lord.

The Christian's Devout Acknowledgment of God
Or, "The Patriarch's Solemn Sacrifice"

So Israel set out with all that was his, and when he reached Beersheba, he offered sacrifices to the God of his father Isaac. And God spoke to Israel in a vision at night and said, "Jacob! Jacob!" "Here I am," he replied.
"I am God, the God of your father," he said. "Do not be afraid to go down to Egypt, for I will make you into a great nation there. I will go down to Egypt with you, and I will surely bring you back again. And Joseph's own hand will close your eyes." Genesis 46:1-4

It is a holy precept, coupled with a divine promise, precious and priceless above rubies to those who have tested its value- "In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct your paths." Here is the eye directed to the true pole-star of the believing soul- Jehovah. No light other than that which beams from this source can safely conduct him a solitary step. All other light is but the spark of a man's own kindling, in which he shall lie down in sorrow. But how simple and clear the divine rule, "Acknowledge the Lord in all your ways." Set Him before you, that He may be the one object you have in view. Take not a step without seeking His guidance, consulting His will, studying His glory. Consider that He is ever present with you, shaping your course, guiding your steps, and acquainted with all your ways. If His providences are adverse, bow to His sovereignty, be still, and know that He is God. If prosperous, be humble, be praiseful, and ascribe to Him all the honor.

Thus walking in the precept, He will fulfill the promise- "He shall direct your paths." Those paths, whatever they may be, will be just what He makes them. In things temporal and spiritual, He will order all and provide all- will keep your feet from sliding in the smooth path, and from wounding and weariness in the rough.

Such was the spirit and the conduct of the patriarch. Passing into a new epoch of his history, entering upon the last and most solemn stage of life's march, he would commence as he must close it- alone with God. It was, indeed, a new and untraveled path. He had not passed this way before. It was pre-eminently one of faith. True to the God he loved, the religion he had professed, the life of faith he had lived, and the habits of communion he had maintained, before he fully embarks upon the journey, he rears an altar to the God of his father and his own God, and offers upon it a holy and solemn sacrifice. How much we may learn of Christ and His Church in this impressive incident of the patriarch's life! May the Holy Spirit be our Teacher while we meditate upon the SACRIFICE- the VISION- the PROMISE.

"So Israel set out with all that was his, and when he reached Beersheba, he offered sacrifices to the God of his father Isaac." Here was that which marked unmistakably the child of God, the man of prayer, the man who felt that he had to deal with God in all the places and circumstances of his eventful life. He arrives at Beersheba- a sacred and memorable spot in its historic associations, for it was here his father Isaac had once reared an altar and offered sacrifice to Jehovah. It is most refreshing and instructive to mark the elevated sanctity of mind in which this sacrifice originated. God had emptied him from vessel to vessel. He had commanded wave upon wave to surge over him, cloud upon cloud to shade his pilgrimage, until at last his home was broken up, all its hallowed associations buried, as it were, in oblivion; and at his advanced period of life, he was summoned to take a long journey into a strange land.

And yet, though God had thus dealt with him so strangely, mysteriously, shall I say, painfully? -there seemed not one hard thought of God in his mind, not one rebellious feeling in his heart, nothing which betrayed a spirit of opposition and resentment, which, if interpreted, would seem to say, "You have taken from me blessing after blessing; You have rooted up my resting-place, have visited me with bereavement and with famine, and are now, in old age, leading me into a strange land, and I do well to be angry." Ah, no! the very reverse of this was his holy state of mind. On the threshold of his journey, he rears an altar, and offers upon it sacrifice to the Lord God of Jacob- a sacrifice expressive of a perfect justification of Jehovah in all His dealings, and his full satisfaction with all the way God had led him.

But look for a moment at the import of this sacrifice which Israel offered to God in view of his contemplated journey. In the first place, this sacrifice was a recognition of God as the God of his pious ancestors, and especially the God of his father. The words of the narrative are expressive, "And offered sacrifice unto the God of his father Isaac." Here was Jacob recognizing the fact that Jehovah had been the covenant God of his forefathers. Beloved, God would have His people ever remember what He has been in years gone by to their pious ancestors. It is good to recount, and gratefully to acknowledge, what He was to those who have gone before us, that we may learn to put our trust in God, and embalm in our memories and hearts His providential and gracious dealings in their history.

But especially is it proper and profitable to remember Him as the God of our godly parents. "Your own friend, and your father's friend, forsake not." Who was your father's, your mother's friend? Who but the covenant God and Father of all the families of Israel? Is there no blessing to be found, no strengthening of our faith, no comfort in our sorrow, no heart-cheer in our depression, to remember what God was to those so near and dear to us, but who are now with Him in glory; to remember His faithfulness, to call to mind His providential interpositions, how they called upon Him and He answered, how He supplied their needs, how He supported them in adversity, how He lavished upon them tokens of His grace and love? Oh, yes, there is a blessing in the hallowed rebembrance; and insensible is that individual to the loving-kindness of the Lord who can retrace the history of His dealings with a godly parent and feel, no melting of heart, and no strong emotion of gratitude; who with his sacrifices and offerings to God entwines no filial memories, hallowed, grateful, praiseful.

But Jacob did not forget his father Isaac, nor his father's God. The God of his father was equally his God. All that God was to Isaac, Jacob felt He was to him. There were precious promises, and rich benedictions, and glorious covenants made with his father Isaac, handed down to him, on which his faith could take hold and plead with God as sacred heirlooms and precious legacies bequeathed from the holy sire to the son. It is a delightful thought, beloved, that the same covenant of grace to which our pious parents clung, in which they rested, belongs to us. We who believe in Jesus have the same interest in that covenant that they had, the same covenant God, the same covenant Redeemer.

Oh, is it not encouraging to remember that we are now reaping from their prayers, their wrestlings, their faith in God, a golden harvest of blessing? Oh, endeavor to realize that the God of your fathers is your God too, and that all He was to them in making good His covenant, in fulfilling His promises, in answering their prayers, He is now to you, the child of many a father's holy wrestlings, of many a mother's weeping and prayers. "O Lord, truly I am your servant, and the son of your handmaid; you have loosed my bonds." Yes, God delights in us when we go to His mercy-seat and praisefully remember His faithfulness and loving-kindness to those loved ones who a little while have gone before us to heaven.

This sacrifice which Jacob offered also marked his personal habit of communion with God. He walked with God in holy converse; he was a man of prayer, a man who lived as beholding the Invisible. He recognized the Lord God of heaven to be his God, and it was his privilege and delight, as it was his obligation and duty, to hold communion and converse with the Lord God of heaven. And in addressing himself to this journey we find him first addressing himself to prayer. There is not, beloved, a stronger characteristic of the real man of God, the true believer in Christ, than that he is a man of prayer. Let him be in what circumstances he may, in what part of the world he may, in what troubles, temptations, trials he may, he will always have an altar, and on that altar he will always lay a sacrifice of praise, prayer, and thanksgiving to God.

Prayer with us ought to be an element so natural, communion with God a privilege so familiar, that wherever we are, in whatever society we are thrown, or in whatever circumstances we are placed, there should be this altar and the sacrifice to God. Oh, be assured of this, that the professing Christian who can leave his closet altar, his family altar, his social altar, his public altar at home when he travels abroad, or who can postpone his sacrifice of prayer and praise to a more convenient season, knows but little, if anything, of what it is to walk like Enoch and Noah and Israel with God. But a man of God is a man of prayer, a man of converse with God, in any place or circumstance or society. O beloved, let this mark you: be men of God and men of prayer, wherever His providence may place you- at home, on a journey, abroad.

Forget not that, like Jacob, it is your privilege to build an altar to the sacrifice of prayer and praise, and maintain close, uninterrupted converse with God.

But above, and more expressive, than all, doubtless, there was in the sacrifice that Israel offered the foreshadowing of the great sacrifice of the Son of God. We have no doubt whatever that the patriarch's faith looked down the long vista of future ages, and in the sacrifice which he then offered up on the altar that he reared at Beersbeba, his believing heart rose above the sacrifice- beheld and rested in a crucified Savior. And this would impart a character, a fragrance, a solemnity pre-eminently significant and holy to the sacrifice he then offered to the God of his father. There can be no doubt that the patriarchal faith rested in Christ at that moment. The words of Jesus with regard to Abraham are significant of this, "Abraham saw my day, and was glad." Now, if Abraham by faith saw Christ's day, Jacob, who was still nearer its glorious dawn than he, must by faith have caught a yet brighter vision of Him; and the sacrifice he now presented would be a solemn profession of his faith in the diviner sacrifice which the Son of God would offer for his sins on the distant altar of Calvary. Thus was Jesus crucified the substance of all the sacrifices both of the Levitical and of the patriarchal saints. Oh, how delightful to find Him who is "the chief among ten thousand," the joy of the saints on earth, the song of the redeemed in heaven, living and speaking and shining amid these twilight shadows, the object of faith and love to the saints who by faith saw His day and were glad!

Oh, let all your sacrifices be associated in faith and praise with the one atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ! Let us remember that that which gives perfume to our prayers and melody to our praises, which presents our consecrated person to God with divine acceptance and delight, is the one offering and sacrifice of Jesus. And if the patriarchal saints saw in the dimness of their faith, amid almost darkness, the sacrifice of Christ, embraced it, and died in its blessed hope, how much more clear should be our views, and simple our faith, and intense our love, and deeper our holiness, who live amid the meridian light and effulgence of a dispensation whose distinctive history and signal glory is that Christ has come, and that He has died for our offences, and is risen again for our justification! May this glorious sacrifice become daily more precious to our hearts and sanctifying to our lives!

Thus much for the sacrifice that Jacob offered in anticipation of this journey. Learn from it one practical truth: embark in no enterprise in life, enter on no stage in your pilgrimage, address yourself to no new epoch in your history, without first rearing an altar, and acknowledging the Lord God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob, as your God. The divine injunction with which this chapter of our work opens stands like a beacon-light amid the rocks and shoals and breakers of life, illumining the voyager's perilous pathway to eternity. It contains both a precept and a promise- the precept of divine acknowledgment, and the promise of divine guidance. Obey the one- God will fulfil the other. Oh, begin your day, your enterprise, your service, your journey with an altar and a sacrifice. Acknowledge the Lord! And offer the sacrifice of faith; of love; and of praise. Then may you with confidence trust the Lord to guide, shield, and prosper you. This God of Israel will be your God forever and ever, and He will be your guide even unto death.

Having thus considered the state of mind with which the patriarch addresses himself to his journey, let us now study the HEAVENLY VISION with which he was favored. After he had built an altar, and offered up sacrifice to the God of his father, to! the heavens opened, and a glorious vision burst upon his view- "And God spoke unto Israel in the visions of the night, and said, Jacob, Jacob. And he said, Here am I. And he said, I am God, the God of your father: fear not to go down into Egypt." Each particular of this divine response to the patriarch's solemn act of worship is replete with deep spiritual truth. It would seem as if this must have transpired, as though it would have been impossible that there should have been no immediate response from God to an act of devotion, of gratitude, of praise, and faith so marked and precious as this.

God did not lose a moment in acknowledging the sacrifice and petition of His servant. The altar had scarcely been reared, the incense of the sacrifice had scarcely ascended, when, lo! a heavenly vision bursts on the soul of the worshiping patriarch. Now, there is much that is spiritually instructive in this heavenly vision, to which for a moment we will turn our thoughts. The first thing that strikes us is the close and intimate nearness into which Israel was brought to God. Jehovah and the patriarch stood face to face. There could not have been the shadow of a doubt on his mind that he was now in solemn audience with God- the God of his father Isaac, and his God. O privileged saint of the Most High! to be so near the Infinite Fountain of light, life, and love. Honored man of God! to be favored with a vision of the Divine glory and power such as angels might have coveted. But is not God as near to His people now? Most assuredly! What does the Lord himself say? "He that loves me shall be loved by my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him." "My Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him."

Oh, we live at too great a distance from God! We forget how close, filial, and precious may be the communion of the believer with the Invisible One. I speak not of visions like those of Jacob or of Paul, bursting with splendor on my eye- I ask not to hear audibly the awful voice of God- but, with the blood of atonement in my hand, I can penetrate the mysterious veil, and enter into the holiest, and talk with God and commune with Him as really- as closely- and as blessedly as when Jacob uplifted his eye and saw heaven open, and God talking with him from His glorious throne.

The way into God's presence is more fully opened by the sacrifice and blood of Jesus than it ever was, even when by vision or dream or voice God spoke to His saints of old. The blood of Christ is so powerful, the atonement of the Son of God is so glorious, the intercession of Christ at the right hand of the Father is so prevailing, and faith is so much more far-seeing an eye than that of sense, that a man of God coming into His presence by the blood of the everlasting covenant may enjoy fellowship and converse with God more close, more filial, more real and holy, than that which marked Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Seek, oh, seek it, then. Be not content with standing in the outer courts, when the blood gives you admission into the holiest. "Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way, which He has consecrated for us, through the veil, that is to say, His flesh; and having an high priest over the house of God; let us draw near."

And mark the time of this divine vision. It would seem as if God almost invariably selected the night-season of their experience for the marvelous manifestations of Himself to His people. Night-visions of God were familiar to Jacob. How vividly would he remember the memorable night when, a fugitive from the vengeance of Esau, and an exile from his home, there appeared to him in his sleep the vision of the ladder, God speaking to him from above it in words of comfort and promise! Would he not, even in that early part of his eventful life, behold in this ladder an impressive symbol of the incarnate Son of God, the Mediator between heaven and earth, on the mystic rounds of which his faith would ascend to God reconciled in Christ?

Yet more vivid and hallowed would be the remembrance of the long night at Peniel, when the Divine Angel, with whom he wrestled and whom he overcame, knighted him as a prince of God, mighty and prevalent in prayer. A third time God appears to His servant in the night, by an extraordinary and gracious vision, at a most important crisis of his history, as if the Lord would close the patriarch's earthly pilgrimage, as He had commenced it, with those glorious and consolatory manifestations of Himself, so timely and so precious to the heart in seasons of sorrow and despondency.

There is much to us that is precious and soothing in this thought. When our mental and spiritual exercises are with us as though it were night; when our path is shaded; when soul-depression and heart-crushing sorrow, loneliness and dreariness, drape the landscape of life; in this night season when most need a word of comfort and a ray of light, the most need some assurance of His faithfulness and love- lo! the gracious vision transpires, and a blessed manifestation takes place, and God in Christ draws near, reveals Himself, or speaks a promise, and so gives a song in the night.

Such was the season it which the Psalmist strengthened himself in the Lord his God. How affecting his language, "I remembered you, O God, and I groaned; I mused, and my spirit grew faint. You kept my eyes from closing; I was too troubled to speak. I thought about the former days, the years of long ago; I remembered my songs in the night."

Yes, the sweetest songs that ever flowed from pilgrims' lips are those of the night. The Lord Jesus knows your night sorrow, loneliness, and widowhood; and He will come at that season and graciously manifest Himself to your soul, and you shall know what it is to meditate on your bed in the night-watches, and your meditation of Him shall be sweet.

Then mark the divine call: "And God spoke to Israel and said, Jacob, Jacob!" There is something very beautiful and touching in the truth that God has an especial knowledge of the personal names, places, and circumstances of His people. "The foundation of God stands sure, having this seal, The Lord knows those who are His." He knows you personally, your position, your individual infirmities, trials, and needs. The names of His people are engraved on the palms of His hands, and are worn upon His heart. Is it not a delightful thought? Do not overlook God's personal transactions with you. Do not lose yourself in the crowd of saints, for your God and Father does not. The child of God, pursuing, perchance, a path which isolates him from his fellow-pilgrims, is as profoundly dear and precious to God as if he were the only being He loved and cared for in the universe. Try and realize that your personal circumstances, your individual needs and heart-sorrows, God takes cognisance of, cares for, and feels an interest in. And often, if the ear of faith is but wakeful to His voice, you will hear Him as if calling you by name, and addressing Himself to you with all the yearning tenderness and loving familiarity of a gracious father to his child.

Now, mark the immediate response of Israel: "And he said, Here am I" God spoke, Jacob answered; God called, Jacob responded. Are we as ready to hear and to respond to God's voice when He speaks to us in instruction, in doctrine, in precept, in rebuke, as in comfort, in guidance? Verily, I fear not. How often has God spoken once, yes, twice, and we have not heard! Oh to have an ear wakeful to the still small voice of His Spirit dwelling in us- an ear so hearkening, so exquisitely harmonized to His voice, that though it may speak in the subdued tones of some overwhelming trial, or in the gentle accents of love, we may hear it! "My sheep hear my voice."

Another instructive feature in Jacob's reply was his willingness to do whatever God enjoined. The promptness with which he responds indicates the willingness of his mind to obey. Let us cultivate, beloved, a willingness to obey the voice of the Lord our God. "Here am I, Lord; what will You have me to do? Speak, for Your servant hears. I stand ready to go where You bid, to stay where You require, to do what You command, to yield what You ask, to suffer what You send; I am Your servant, Your child; Your will is my will, Your pleasure my pleasure." O holy, blessed state of mind! Cultivate it in the spirit of prayer and dependence upon the all-sufficient grace of Christ.

We now reach the DIVINE ASSURANCE. "Do not be afraid to go down to Egypt, for I will make you into a great nation there. I will go down to Egypt with you, and I will surely bring you back again. And Joseph's own hand will close your eyes." If ever the kindness and love of God towards His dear saint was manifest and palpable, it is now. Let us gaze upon the picture until our soul melts into love and admiration before it. Here was His aged servant in a new position, begirt with strange and trying circumstances. God appears at the very juncture to succor, support, and assure him of an interest in His faithfulness and love.

Consider the twofold acknowledgment: First, "I am God." Could Jehovah place before him a higher trust of faith than this? Only let God speak that word to your heart, my beloved, and however low that heart may be, however deeply immersed in sorrow, adversity, and trial, your faith stands upon the Rock that is higher than you, and higher than the highest billow through which you wade. The truth with which Jehovah here met the position of His servant is that with which He would meet yours- His own all-sufficiency. Is He not constantly challenging you, "Is anything too hard for me, says the Lord God?" Now, take the loftiest mountain that casts its deep, long shadow on your path, or the weightiest stone that seals the grave of some buried blessing, bring it in contact with the infinite sufficiency of God, and, lo! the mountain falls and the stone is rolled away! Oh we deal too little with the power, the infinite sufficiency of our God! Lord, increase my faith in it! Let me not limit You, Holy One of Israel! Oh, then, let your faith realize that God is your God in Christ, your Father, your Friend, your God all-sufficient, and you shall laugh at impossibilities, you shall overcome all those impediments that seemed to intercept the blessing for which you have long prayed and looked.

The second assurance of God was still more calculated to strengthen the mind of His servant in the anticipation of what was before him: "I am the God of your father." What touching words are these! Perhaps you are ready to ask, "What connection had this with Isaac? His was a past and bygone victory." True, but though dead, he yet spoke. The interests of Isaac and of Jacob were closely entwined. The promises God had made to Isaac, the prayers Isaac had offered, were now to be fulfilled and answered in Jacob's experience. We have much to do with God's dealings with our pious parents. Their personal and bygone history is a part of our own. They still live in us their children; their good name is entrusted to our keeping; their honor is confided to our hands- it is in our power to preserve undimmed the luster of their lives, and to preserve, embalmed in our holy walk, the fragrance of their memories unimpaired.

Under what responsibility, then, are we placed, and by what solemn obligations are we bound, in consequence of God's dealings with our parents! When God would comfort us, when He would strengthen our drooping faith, and cheer our depressed and desolate heart, is it nothing that He says to us, "Fear not, be not dismayed, my child; I was your father's Father, your mother's God. All that I was to them, will I be to you." Is there nothing for faith to take hold of here? How touchingly does David recognize this truth in his dying charge to his son- his successor to the throne. "And you, Solomon my son, know the God of your father, and serve him with a perfect heart, and with a willing mind: for the Lord searches all hearts and understands all the imaginations of the thoughts; but if you forsake him, he will cast you off forever."

These words of God to His servant were well calculated to allay all his trembling and timidity: "Fear not to go down into Egypt; I will go down with you into Egypt." Just the timely assurance that he needed. And thus, beloved, does our God seek to prepare us for duty, for trial, for service, by prefacing every new chapter in our history with divine assurances of His faithfulness, power, and love.

"Fear not." What a favorite expression was this of Jesus when He tabernacled in the flesh! How often He breathed it in the ears of His timid disciples! "Fear not, it is I." And still He speaks it to you- this same Jesus! Lord, speak these soothing, assuring words to my trembling heart, and my soul shall be quiet and trustful as a weaned child!

"The billows swell, the winds are high,
Clouds overcast my wintry sky;
Out of the depths to You I call;
My fears are great, my strength is small."

"O Lord, the pilot's part perform,
And guide and guard me through the storm;
Defend me from each threatening ill;
Control the waves; say, Peace, be still!"

"Amid the roaring of the sea,
My soul still hangs her hope on Thee;
Your constant love, Your faithful care,
Is all that saves me from despair."

Having thus allayed his fears by the assurance that His presence should accompany his emigration into Egypt, God then gives him a threefold promise: "I will there make you a great nation; I will surely bring you up again; Joseph shall put his hand upon your eyes;" -all of which God literally and faithfully performed. God increased his seed in Egypt greatly; Joseph closed his eyes in death; his bones were borne back to Canaan and interred in Machpelah, and, after four hundred years, his posterity were brought up out of Egypt back to Canaan with a great and glorious deliverance.

Thus, and this shall be the closing lesson of the chapter, however low God may bring His people, though it be as into Egyptian exile, bondage, servitude, He will yet lead them out of this earthly Egypt up to the heavenly Canaan, into which no "Pharaoh" shall ever enter, and from which no "son of Jacob" shall ever depart. And when the time arrives that you shall be gathered to your fathers, Jesus, your true Joseph, will come, and closing your eyes in death, will gently lay His right hand upon you, saying, "Fear not; I am the first and the last: I am he that lives, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive for evermore, Amen; and have the keys of hell and of death."

A Sight of Jesus in Death
or, "Jacob Sees Joseph and Desires to Die"

Joseph prepared his chariot and traveled to Goshen to meet his father. As soon as Joseph arrived, he embraced his father and wept on his shoulder for a long time. Then Jacob said to Joseph, "Now let me die, for I have seen you with my own eyes and know you are still alive." Genesis 46:29-30

And still our chief and entrancing theme is Christ and His people. And as the twilight shades of this exquisite page of patriarchal history grow more attenuated and luminous, our portrait assumes more distinctness of outline, beauty of form, glow and warmth of tint. We reach in the present stage of the story its most heart-felt and suggestive chapter- the meeting of the aged patriarch and his long-lost but recovered son, with the emotion it awakened and the desire it inspired. Each of these points- the MEETING, the EMOTION, and the DESIRE will be found highly illustrative of one of the most interesting stages of the Christian's spiritual experience.

The MEETING is that of Joseph and his father's house. The chief figure of the group is the aged sire. They had been sundered widely and long. The victim of a cruel imposture, for years he had nursed his loss in lonely grief, and was now approaching that goal of a good man's life, where "the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest." But his sun shall not set enshrouded in gloom and sorrow. Happier scenes and brighter hours are in reserve. A resurrection as from the dead awaits him. Crushed and long-buried hopes are about to bloom into life again, scattering flowers of brightness and perfume on his few remaining steps to the tomb.

Pause at this stage of the narrative, and receive the comforting instruction the God of Jacob would send you. The world is full of the divine idea of a resurrection. Nothing entirely perishes- nothing is wholly annihilated. Nature teaches it, as the earth throws off her wintry robe, and arrays herself in the vernal life and beauty of spring. Providence teaches it, as it wins back to us blessings we had for a while lost- health restored, wealth recovered, friends found again. Grace teaches it in the comforting and sublime hope of the gospel, that "As in Adam all die, so in Christ shall all be made alive." Take the consolation of this truth. You are, perchance, mourning the fading of manly vigor, or the loss of earthly substance, or the removal of some object of deep love whom God has taken from you either by the stroke of death, the estrangements of life, or the vicissitudes of time- some being of your heart in whom you had garnered up its best affections and fondest hopes.

Oh! deem not your blessing irrevocably lost- entombed never to rise again. Ah, no! bright angels watch that grave, celestial sentinels guard that treasure. And when God shall have taught you, and you shall have learned, the blessed and precious lessons He designed to convey by the discipline, He will utter His majestic, all-commanding, all life-giving voice, "Come forth!" and you shall clasp once more the long-lost, long-buried mercy. Oh! let not the words again escape our lips, "All these things are against me!" Precious Jesus! I would enjoy You in all my blessings, and merge all my blessings in You. If You are my Life, my Portion, my All, then my interests for time and for eternity are safe.

Let us, then, contemplate the spiritual instruction which the meeting with Joseph conveys. How illustrative is this of the first meeting between Christ and the believing soul, when He comes in the chariot of His converting grace! If, in the life of the believer, there is an epoch traced by its solemn momentousness- an event never fading from his memory- a picture upon which he will gaze with deeper wonder throughout eternity- it is that which marks his first espousals to Jesus, that period of his life when Christ met him by the mighty power of His effectual grace, drew him to His feet, and there revealed Himself to him as his Savior. I am now but faintly portraying one of the most entrancing periods of your history.

Can you look back to the time when the Savior brought you to Himself- when His effectual grace called you- when the Divine Spirit quickened you, convinced you of sin and the condemnation you were under by the law- when Christ met you, manifested Himself to you, revealed His great salvation, awoke your heart to joy, inspired hope, and gave you to know that your sins were pardoned, and that your person was accepted? I ask, can you review that period of your personal history, and feel no deep and hallowed emotion? Whatever, then, may be the shadows that have since intervened, whatever may have been the misgivings, doubts, and fears through which you have passed, I do earnestly beseech you to carry back your thoughts to that blessed hour when Christ took you just as you were to be His disciple, and you took Christ just as He is to be your Savior, entering into a covenant with Him, and in that solemn hour you became His. O blessed espousals, when the soul, in the joy of its first love, can exclaim, " I am my Beloved's, and my Beloved is mine!"

This meeting illustrates, too, the interviews between Christ and His brethren- those gracious and especial manifestations known only by the Church. It is a distinctive feature of the Christian religion, that it involves the manifestation of the Divine presence. A religion that is lacking in this, as one of its distinctive elements, is at best a dubious religion. It is an essential attribute of the religion of a true believer, that he realizes gracious interviews with Jesus; that he knows what it is to walk in personal converse with God; that at times he basks in the sunshine of God's countenance. His religion is a religion of fellowship with the Father, of communion with the Son. He knows from personal experience what it is for Christ, his Joseph, to ride in the chariot of His love, filling his heart with holy surprise, joy, and delight. Oh! you require no tongue or pen of man to portray to you the blessedness of those interviews, or to describe the happiness of those meetings, when, like Amminadab, your soul is borne by faith and hope heavenward.

Blessed are you who are favored with these gracious visitations and precious manifestations, and who, with the surprise and gratitude of the disciples of old, exclaim, "Lord, how is it that You manifest Yourself unto us?" Oh! be not satisfied with a Christless profession of Christianity! Be not content with holding up the empty lamp of religious profession. Seek to obtain from Christ especial manifestations of Himself to you. See that this is an essential element of your religion: that you have frequent interviews with your Lord, gracious discoveries of His beauty and love, so that you may know what it is for your true Joseph often to make ready His chariot, and come to meet you, and grant you to feel His warm and loving embrace.

And is there nothing in this meeting of Joseph and his house to remind you of your solemn end, that most gracious and halcyon hour of your life when Jesus will male ready His chariot and come to bear you home to be with Himself forever? Death is not death to you who believe in Jesus. It has lost its name with its character. It is not death to die to him who has a living Christ enshrined in his soul. The mode of our transit to eternity is by a chariot- the chariot of Jesus; for, when the hour of our departure comes, it is Christ who will come for you, and not death- Christ, and not the king of terrors. It will be the true Joseph, conducting hence His brethren and His Father's house.

Why, then, turn pale, and tremble, when you think of death? Why do you shrink from the final dissolution? Why are you all your life time in bondage to its fears? Oh! fear not. Beloved, when the hour of your departure comes, you will find Jesus in His chariot of love, waiting beside your dying bed, and in that chariot He will bear you to glory. He will give you in that solemn hour of departure such longings and partings to be gone, such views of the coming bliss as shall make you exclaim, "Why do the wheels of His chariot tarry? Why does He not come to take my soul to be with His blessed self?" I beseech you then, dishonor not Him who has conquered death for you; grieve not His loving heart who is your resurrection and your life, by dwelling so much on death, forgetting in these sad musings Him who is your life, and who has conquered and triumphed over death for you. Oh! what will be the bliss, the glory of that moment, when Christ's chariot stands at your door, waiting to waft you home to be with Him forever!

But there is in this simple and affecting interview between Joseph and his family a chapter in the final history of Christ's kinsmen after the flesh, to which I must for a moment direct the reader's attention. A spiritual and intelligent mind will not find it difficult to trace a striking analogy here between the history of Joseph and his brethren, and the history of Christ and the Jewish nation. A very great glory is deepening for the Jew, a "life from the dead" awaits that ancient and extraordinary nation. It will be in striking harmony with the history of Joseph. They will be a people who had sold their Brother into bondage; who had scorned, despised, and rejected Him; who, in consequence of that act, had been brought into a condition of famine, a state of moral destitution, suffering, and need. but lo! the tidings reach those who their Messiah has actually come that He is appointed Ruler and Judge of the earth. What will be the astonishment of the whole house of Israel- the brethren of Christ after the flesh, when the astounding fact is announced, when surmise deepens into conviction, and conviction matures into certainty, that He whom their fathers slew, whom for centuries they had scorned and rejected, is really alive! Oh, what will be their wonder, grief, and joy!

Methinks I see the hoary-headed Israelite just on the verge of eternity receiving the information that his Messiah has actually come, and is alive; and when he beholds the "wagons and provisions" which Messiah has sent to bring home to Himself His scattered brethren- in the preaching of the gospel, in the multiplication of Christian missionaries, in the wondrous movement of His providence on the mind of his nation, and in the outpouring of the Spirit of grace and supplication- how will the conviction and glory of the fact fasten upon and overwhelm his mind?

What, too, will be the mingled emotions of the whole Jewish nation, the gladness and sorrow of the people of Israel, when they thus shall rush into the embrace of their long looked for Messiah- shall "look upon Him whom they have pierced, and shall mourn?" And mark, this feature will distinctly characterize the final restoration of the Jews: it will not be the Jew seeking the Messiah- it will be the Messiah first seeking the Jew, just as Joseph first recognized his brethren, and revealed himself to them. Famine, indeed, will have prepared them for Jesus. The pressure of spiritual need and destitution will impel them to the Savior; but when they are brought into that state to receive Christ, Christ will then manifest Himself to them as their Messiah.

And all this will illustrate the grace, mercy, and love of Jesus, who, notwithstanding all the wrong that He received from His brethren- their hands imbrued in His blood, sold into slavery, and at last crucified- yet notwithstanding these wrongs and injuries, all is fully, freely forgiven, and He condescends to uplift the veil and manifest Himself to them as their long-lost Messiah.

Nor must I fail to refer to the promised and expectant day when Christ shall make ready the chariot of His glory and come the second time to meet His Church. I think no intelligent, spiritual mind can study the signs of the times, the state of the world, and not feel an overwhelming conviction that Jesus is already preparing the chariot of His second advent. All the events in the present history of the world indicate that the coming of the Lord draws near, yes, that He is at hand, and that to those who look for Him He will soon appear "without sin unto salvation." Those who are waiting for the redemption that shall be accomplished in the spiritual Jerusalem, who, with outstretched necks, are looking and longing for His appearing, shall be the foremost among the gladsome ones who will lift up their heads and say,"My redemption draws near."

I would ask the unconverted reader of this page- Where will you be when the Savior shall thus come in the chariot of His glory and receive the Church to Himself? Oh, remember, if He has not come to you riding ill the chariot of "His converting saving grace, you will be found among multitude Who shall wail with inconceivable grief in that awful hour, and will cry to the rocks and to the mountains to fall on them and hide them from the wrath of the Lamb. "Behold, He comes with clouds; and every eve shall see Him, and they also which pierced Him: and all people of the earth shall wail because of Him. Even so, Amen." God grant that when your eye beholds Him, your heart, like that of Joseph's brethren, may bound with gladness, transport, and hope!

The second point for consideration is the EMOTION expressed. Joseph wept on the bosom of his father. "And he fell on his neck, and wept on his neck a good while." We have had occasion, in the process of this story, to remark upon the deep sensibility of Joseph's nature. God evidently fitted him, both by nature and grace, for the high mission he was to discharge. He had passed through a much chequered history, yet no adversity, no vicissitude, no sorrow had annihilated, or even had impaired, the fine sensibilities of his nature. In this particular he was an eminent type of the Lord Jesus Christ. We doubt not that Joseph was the most loving, tender, and sympathizing of all his father's house; that his was a heart of deeper sensibility, and his nature one of more exquisite tenderness, love, sympathy, than all the rest combined. Thus God fitted him for the high and peculiar position he was to occupy in the history of his family.

Our Jesus, the Elder Brother, centers in Himself infinitely more than all the tender love and sympathy found in His whole Church. It was necessary that by every possible human sensibility He should be qualified to be the gracious, sympathizing Head of a suffering body; and no truth is brought out in the history of Joseph more luminously, or exquisitely touching and beautiful, as portraying the Lord Jesus Christ, than the deep sensibility of Joseph's nature.

But as we have touched upon this subject in previous parts of this volume, and have discussed it at length in a separate treatise, we content ourselves with this passing reference, and hasten to conduct the reader to a consideration of the DESIRE of the patriarch- "Now let me die, since I have seen your face, because you are yet alive." What a touching part of our picture is this! Methinks I see the aged patriarch clasping his beloved Joseph to his bosom, and with uplifted eyes exclaiming, "I have now no more attraction to earth, nothing more to bind me here; my cup of bliss is full; let me die, for I have seen your face, and ain satisfied."

Such is the influence of a believing sight of Jesus upon the soul. The sight of Christ weans from the creature, detaches from earth, disarms the mind of its fearful apprehension of dissolution, and inspires it with ardent longings to depart. It is not wrong to wish to die if that wish is prompted by weariness with sin, a panting for perfect holiness, and a longing desire to be with Jesus. This was the experience of Paul, "Having a desire to depart and to be with Christ, which is far better." Cherish this desire meekly, patiently, prayerfully, yet ardently, as a holy thing nestling in your bosom. It will tend to smooth the rugged way, to cheer the lonesome way, to illumine the darksome way- the desire and the expectation of soon seeing Jesus. It will render you prayerful and watchful- will preserve your heart from settling down in creature comforts, building its nest below God and heaven- and will keep it in expectation of the blissful moment when Jesus shall beckon the spirit home.

What a spiritually instructive picture this! Death had no terror for Jacob. Not a fear disturbed his serenity; not a cloud dimmed his hope; not a vapor veiled his prospect. Such will be the experience of the departing Christian. When the hour actually comes- when heart and flesh are failing- when the damp sweat of death is upon the brow, and the glazed eye is fixing, and the pulse is sinking, and eternity is opening to the soul- the utterance faintly breathed from those pale lips will be, "Let me go, for the day breaks. Let me die, for I have Christ in my arms, the hope of glory."

Thus was it with good old Simeon, as he clasped the infant Savior in his arms "Now, Lord, let You Your servant depart in peace, for my eyes have seen Your salvation." And thus, too, was it with the proto-martyr, Stephen. What was it that gave to his death a fascination so great? What imparted to him such tranquillity and composure amid the storm of stones, the shouts of his infuriated murderers, and the agonies of his mangled body? We read, "he, being full of the Holy Spirit, looked steadfastly into heaven, and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing on the right hand of God, and said, Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of man standing on the right hand of God!" And with this vision of Jesus streaming in glory around his departing spirit, he laid his bleeding brow on the bosom of his Lord, and gently fell asleep. "Let me die the death of the righteous, and let my last end be like his."

"Jesus, the vision of Your face
Has overpowering charms;
Scarce shall I feel deaths cold embrace,
If Christ be in my arms."

Christ's Presentation of His Church to God
Or, "Joseph's Introduction of His Brethren to Pharaoh"

So Joseph went to see Pharaoh and said, "My father and my brothers are here from Canaan. They came with all their flocks and herds and possessions, and they are now in the land of Goshen." Joseph took five of his brothers with him and presented them to Pharaoh. Pharaoh asked them, "What is your occupation?" And they replied, "We are shepherds like our ancestors. We have come to live here in Egypt, for there is no pasture for our flocks in Canaan. The famine is very severe there. We request permission to live in the land of Goshen." And Pharaoh said to Joseph, "Now that your family has joined you here, choose any place you like for them to live. Give them the best land of Egypt—the land of Goshen will be fine. And if any of them have special skills, put them in charge of my livestock, too." Genesis 47:1-6

We reach, in the course of this interesting narrative, so replete with shadowings of Christ and His brethren, a new phase in Joseph's history. Hitherto a veil of comparative secrecy appears to have concealed both his personal and domestic history from the knowledge of Pharaoh. A new era commences with the introduction of his father and his brethren, little knowing what might be the nature of the reception on the part of the king of Egypt. We thus reach a most interesting and striking illustration of Christ and His people- the future withdrawment of the veil of secrecy which had hitherto concealed His Church, and her visible appearance and final presentation to the Father.

The Church in her present state is not a visible Church, as Romanism teaches. She is an invisible body; her visibility yet awaits revealment, and the time is corning when the Lord Jesus Christ will gather together His scattered and hidden people from the four winds of heaven into one united, undivided body, and will present them to His Father, and then shall her visibility and glory be revealed. This is the truth which we propose in the present chapter to illustrate. The three points contained in the narrative are, the PRESENTATION; the DWELLING-PLACE; and the EMPLOYMENT.

First, we have the PRESENTATION by Joseph of his brethren to Pharaoh. In no previous incident of his history does he assume an attitude so commanding, so noble, so truly great, as when he stands before the king of Egypt, encircled by his brethren, and presents them as his father's house to the king. Does this picture of filial and fraternal affection move you to sensibility and admiration, my reader? Is there something touching, something grand, in the spectacle of this man, once a despised, injured, long-lost brother, but now elevated to such a position of dignity and power as to present his household with honor and favor to Pharaoh?

Transfer your thoughts for a moment to another and yet more glorious spectacle, which will be exhibited when the Lord Jesus Christ shall gather together His elect from the four winds of heaven, and shall present them unto God. Methinks He will then appear before celestial intelligences, yes, before the eves of the universe, in an attitude of dignity, power, and glory such as He never before occupied. Look at this truth in two or three points of light, for it is an inconceivably precious and glorious prospect to the believer- the day when the veil of secrecy will be withdrawn, and the Church, no longer hidden and despised, but emerging from her obscurity and humiliation, shall be presented a glorious Church before the Father.

There are two presentations of the Church by Christ. There is a present presentation of the Church by Christ to God. Christ is in heaven the Representative of His people. He has entered heaven; has passed within the veil as the Forerunner of His Church; He is now there presenting us every moment to God. He presents our persons with acceptance in His righteousness; He presents our petitions, praises, and offerings with acceptance through His merits. There is not a moment that you are not represented and presented in heaven. Christ represents your persons, and thus there is not a moment in which you do not stand complete and accepted before God. Christ presents your sacrifices, and thus there breathes not from your lips an utterance of prayer or an ascription of praise that ascends not to God with acceptance, presented by the Great High Priest and Intercessor within the veil. Oh, do not lose sight of this precious truth, so replete with present comfort and encouragement!

Doubtless you are often led to inquire with yourself, "Is it possible that I, who see so much defilement and imperfection within, so much infirmity and frailty in all I do for God, can be an object of His delight? Can this stammering prayer, this imperfect ascription of praise; possibly find acceptance with the Holy One?" Beloved, there is not a moment in which Christ is not representing you in heaven, presenting your person with acceptance in His righteousness, and your lowliest, feeblest offerings with fragrance, loveliness, and acceptance to God.

But there is another presentation by Christ- a future- and a more complete, visible, and glorious one. It is that blessed presentation which the apostle in various passages speaks of: "And you, who were once alienated, and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now has He reconciled in the body of His flesh through death, to present you holy, and unblameable, [unblamed,] and unreproveable, [unreproved,] in His sight." Again: "Christ loved the church, and gave Himself for it; that He might sanctity and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word; that He might present it to Himself a glorious church." Once more: "Now unto Him who is able to keep you from falling, and to present you faultless before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy."

We need not multiply these proofs, for it is quite clear from God's Word that there is to be a future presentation of the whole Church by Christ Jesus unto the Father. And on what grounds will Christ thus present us to God? In the first place, He will present His Church to God as His own chosen and loved people. He will present them to the Father as His own peculiar treasure. The Church of God was given to Christ to be redeemed. When Christ will present His Church to the Father, He will be able to say, "Here are those whom You have given me; not one of them is lost. Here is Your cabinet of precious jewels for whose recovery I went down into that world; I have brought them home to You." Oh, what a presentation will that be, when the elect of God, eternally loved by the Father, shall by the Son be brought home and presented to Him- a glorious Church!

He will also present them as the fruit, the precious fruit, of His obedience and death; as those on whose behalf He obeyed the law, for whose sins He suffered, bled, and died upon the cross. He shall present them as the ''travail of His soul," as the reward of His sufferings, as the glorious harvest of that seed of blood which He sowed. What an appropriate crown and consummation will this be of His mediatorial work! Not one for whom He died will then be missing.

There will also remarkably appear in this perfect presentation the power of Christ in preserving His Church. Oh, what a crown of glory will Christ have in that day when He presents His people, whom He not only redeemed and bought with His precious blood, but kept by His power! We need as much the power of Christ to keep us, and finally to preserve us to eternal life, as we need the atonement of Christ to save us. What a glory will there be in this presentation in that clay when His power shall appear conspicuous in having kept His Church, preserved His people, and upheld them through all their sufferings, temptations, and backslidings!

With the combined power of Satan, of sin, and of the world to thwart Him, yet He brought them through, and shall present them, a perfect and complete Church, to God. He will be able to say, "Here am I, and the Church You gave me: Satan strove hard to pluck them from my hand; the world sought hard to engulf them in its vortex; their indwelling sin sought hard to consume them; but here they are! I have kept them by my omnipotence, I have watched them with my sleepless eye of love, I have guarded them moment by moment, and not one of them is lost." Let this truth comfort you who are ofttimes led to fear lest, after all, you should fail to arrive at heaven. Forget not that He who had the power to redeem has also the power to keep you; and He will keep unto the end all those for whom He travailed in His agony and death upon the cross.

View this presentation of His Church to God in the light of a recompense and reward. The crown of Jesus, for all He has done, will be the Church He has redeemed by His blood. He is to wear many crowns on that day, but the brightest and the choicest will be the diadem of His Church- and a glorious diadem will that Church be. What a reward for all He has endured will it be to present His ransomed to God, all washed from every stain; not a spot, nor wrinkle, nor any such thing marring their perfect and peerless beauty. "You shall also be a crown of glory in the hand of the Lord, and a royal diadem in the hand of your God." May we, my reader, be jewels in that crown. Oh! the joy that Christ will feel at that moment! This will be the highest elevation of the joy that was set before Him- the joy, first of ransoming, and then the joy of presenting His ransomed to His Father! May we form a part of that assembly, and participate in that joy!

Observe, too, there was not only the presentation with acceptance to Pharaoh, but there was also his appointing to them a PLACE or ABODE in the best portion of the land: "And Pharaoh spoke unto Joseph, . . . In the BEST of the land make your father and brethren to dwell; in the land of Goshen let them dwell." Beloved, what is heaven? what is the final glory of the saints? Is it not the best place, the richest inheritance provided by the Father for the people ransomed and brought home to glory by His Son. Our Lord reminded His disciples of this. When the two brethren sought a place, the one on His right hand, and the other on His left, in His kingdom, He thus met their blindly-offered petition: "To sit on my right hand and on my left, is not mine to give, but it shall be given to them for whom it is prepared of my Father." It is our Father in heaven who appoints the place where the Church shall finally repose. Heaven is a place designated by God, chosen and consecrated by Him for the Church redeemed by the precious blood of His dear Son.

And when we enter there, it will not be as intruders in an unknown and unvisited place, but we shall enter as children welcomed to a Father's home. It will be the best that God can give us! He has ever bestowed upon us, who deserved the least, the best in His power to bestow- the best Savior, the best robe, the best banquet, the best inheritance. In the new heaven and the new earth there will be nothing more to taint, nothing more to sully, nothing more to embitter, nothing more to wound; no serpent to beguile, no Eve to ensnare, no spoiler to destroy, no sin to defile, no adversity to sadden, no misunderstanding to alienate, no tongue to defame, no suspicion to chill, no tear, nor sickness, nor death, nor parting. It will be the best part of the pure, radiant, glorified universe which God will assign to His people.

But Joseph's brethren were not to dwell in Egypt in inglorious indolence. "And if any of them have special skills, put them in charge of my livestock, too." Thus spoke Pharaoh. Beloved, heaven is not a place or scene of inactivity. God never made man to be idle. Even in his paradisaical state, He sent him into the garden to keep it. So that labor is coequal with man's state of innocence. And will heaven be a place of inglorious repose? Never! One of the most inviting anticipations to a renewed mind is, that it will be a place of enlarged faculties, of perfected powers. But will these perfected faculties and powers find in that sphere of perfection an appropriate range of employment? Oh yes! In heaven there is full and incessant employment for all the glorified. They serve God day and night in His temple. We know not exactly what that employment is; we know that they are constantly praising God, beholding Christ, contemplating the Divine glory, and studying the mysteries of God's government.

For anything that we know, they may be messengers of God to distant spheres; for anything that we know, they may be permitted, invisibly to us, to revisit our world on some High behest of Jehovah. Be this as it may, we believe that when we shall enter on our glorified state, and our mental faculties and spiritual powers are fully developed and perfected, we shall be fully and eternally employed in a service that will be for the honor and glory of God.

And now, my reader, what will be your presentation in that solemn day? Have you a well-grounded hope that you will form part of that blessed throng whom Christ will present to His Father, all washed in His blood, and clothed with His righteousness? Have you the witness of the Spirit that you are accepted in the Beloved- that you have already been presented in a justified state to God? Have you truly repented of sin, and do you sincerely believe in the Lord Jesus Christ? If not, what will bey our true and solemn position in that day? It will be banishment, eternal banishment from God, from Christ, and from heaven. If you are not found among the blessed ones of whom Christ will say, "Here am I and the children, the ransomed ones, whom You have given Me," you must be found among those to whom He will say, "Depart, you cursed, into everlasting fire!"

Saints of the Most High! let the prospect cheer, sanctify, and comfort you, that it will not be long that you are to labor and battle here on earth. It is but a little while that you are to occupy your present sphere of conflict, of trial, and of sorrow. The time is coming; oh, how fast it speeds! When the Lord Jesus Christ will bring you home to heaven, and will present you a part of His glorious Church to His Father! Oh, then, then, will come the reward of grace which Christ will give to all those who have confessed Him here on earth- who have witnessed for His truth, endured suffering on His behalf, and have proved faithful unto death. The Lord grant that in that day we may be found among the presented ones, to whom He will say, "Come, you blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world!"

"He will present our souls,
Unblemished and complete,
Before the glory of His face,
With joy divinely great."

"Then all the chosen seed
Shall meet around the throne,
Shall bless the conduct of His grace,
And make His wonders known."

"The Aged Christian" or, "Jacob's Pilgrimage"

Then Joseph brought his father Jacob in and presented him before Pharaoh. After Jacob blessed Pharaoh, Pharaoh asked him, "How old are you?"
And Jacob said to Pharaoh, "The years of my pilgrimage are a hundred and thirty. My years have been few and difficult, and they do not equal the years of the pilgrimage of my fathers." Genesis 47:7-9

What a magnificent study does this group present for the pencil of the spiritual painter! Here is a powerful monarch, an aged pilgrim, and an affectionate son; and from the history and character of each, ample material might be gathered well calculated richly to furnish our minds with the most impressive and instructive lessons and facts in relation to our present and future state of being. But it is more especially around the central object of this picture- the aged patriarch Jacob- that the peculiar interest gathers. There are three or four suggestive features in the portrait; may the Spirit of truth make our meditation of them instructive and sanctifying!

The first is the PILGRIMAGE of the patriarch. The aged saint selects one of the most striking figures with which to depict his own and all life- "the years of my pilgrimage." He stands before the king of Egypt in the character of a pilgrim. His life, if we examine it with care, will be found literally and strikingly to have exemplified this idea. He seemed to have no permanent resting. His life was migratory. God saw fit to lead His servant about in the wilderness, thus perfecting his character as a Christian pilgrim. He first dwelt in Canaan, from thence he removed to Padan-aram, and again he returned to Canaan. For some time he dwelt in Succoth, and then at Shechem, and after that at Hebron; and now in his old age, when we might suppose perfect repose would be vouchsafed to the aged saint, we find him, under God's especial direction, emigrating into Egypt; and from thence, as you will see by the sequel of his history, his remains were carried back again, and at last found their final resting-place in Canaan, the place from where he first set out.

Thus God is constantly teaching His saints that this cosmos is not their rest- that the world is but an inn, and life a journey to another and a distant environment. It is recorded of the ancient worthies that "they confessed they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth;" they were not ashamed to acknowledge that this was their character. Let us now see how this character applies to all believers, and ascertain if in any feature it corresponds with us.

What are some of the elements, or rather characteristics of the Christian pilgrimage? In the first place, there is this characteristic- the Christian pilgrim is not at home here in this world. A pilgrim is never supposed to be so; he is traveling to a distant place. If ever this characteristic finds a truthful application, it is in the life of the child of God. He is not at home in this world; he does not feel so, and he is day by day made to realize that he is a stranger here, and that he experiences the heart of a stranger. Is this characteristic of the Christian pilgrimage ours? Oh, do we feel that earth is but a lodge, a sojourn as for a night? If so, then give grateful utterance to the sentiment: "My heart is a stranger here; I feel myself homeless in this world; my witness is above, my abode is on high; and if God sees fit to plant the thorn in my earthly nest, that my life should in this respect be felt to be that of a pilgrim, I will praise Him for the discipline into which it brings me, for the deepening conviction it imparts to my soul that my home is in heaven."

Another feature or characteristic of the Christian pilgrim is indifference to present objects, scenes, and events. A traveler, passing through a strange city to another and distant place, feels but little or no interest in the affairs of that city, its local administration, and its party strifes. There is an emphatic and solemn sense in which we as Christians ought to be indifferent to what is transpiring around us. We say 'a sense'. We do not think that God would have His people pass blindfolded through life, abjuring their intelligent and observant faculties, taking no note of His administrative government of the world. A true child of God cannot be totally indifferent to the mode by which his heavenly Father conducts His providential government. God's providence is the handmaid of His grace; and events in the divine administration of the world which often confound the statesman, baffle the diplomatist, and revolutionize the nations of the earth, are but the awful footsteps of Jehovah preparing tile way for the advancement and consolidation of His kingdom.

Our Lord, in His gentle rebuke of His disciples for not studying the "signs of the times," recognized the duty of all His followers to make themselves intelligent, interested, and prayerful students of His dealings with individuals, with families, and with nations. Beyond this we are to be Christian pilgrims, feeling no more interest or regard for these things than as though they were not. Ah, many a Christian professor merges his religion in his politics, loses the spirituality of his heavenly, in the deadening influence of his earthly calling. Beware, as a Christian man, of the politics of the world; beware of a too absorbing interest in worldly scenes; beware, oh, beware, of having the affections, thoughts, and powers of your soul swept onward by the tide of political, commercial, and scientific excitement, which drowns so many souls in perdition. As a believer in Jesus, you are a pilgrim on earth; and a denizen of heaven you are the citizen of a better, that is, a heavenly country.

Another characteristic of the Christian's pilgrimage is the life of faith that he lives. This is an essential element of the Christian pilgrimage- a life of faith in God. It is a blessed life to live. Some of our sweetest moments are those in which we trace the blessing bestowed immediately to God's hand and to God's heart, when it comes to us, so detached from what is human, and from what is the result of our own planning, scheming, forethought, and anticipation, as compels the grateful acknowledgment- "This is from my Father's love; in this I trace my Father's hand; it comes to me in answer to prayer, and as the fruit of filial, believing trust in God." If, then, we are true to our confession, the life we live must be one of faith, day by day, on the fulness of Christ, on the life of the Spirit, on a Father's care, protection, and counsel. O sweet and blessed life! it is the most God-honoring, Christ-crowning, holy life the Christian pilgrim can live. It is the happiest life too. What a pressure of anxious care it uplifts from the mind, what fears it removes, what confidence it inspires, and what peace it imparts!

A pilgrim's life must also, in a great measure, be a life of privation and vicissitude, a chequered and changeful life. It must be one of trial and disappointment. He has often a thorny path to tread, dreary, desolate, and lonely. Were it otherwise, it would be lacking in much that renders a Christian pilgrim's life blessed and enviable- a life above the ordinary beings around him. To prevent him from sliding, God often makes the believer's path flinty; to allure him into closer communion with Himself, He makes it solitary; to bring him into the deeper experience of His love and sympathy, He makes it trying and sorrowful. Thus the Christian pilgrim's path homeward is just what his heavenly Father makes it- a truth well calculated to bring us into perfect and cheerful contentedness with all God's ways.

But let us not paint the Christian pilgrim's path in hues too somber. It is not all loneliness and straitness; it is not all darkness and sorrow. Oh, no! We partake in our earthly pilgrimage ofttimes of the luscious grapes of Canaan. We often have in faith the first-fruits of glory. David speaks of music in his pilgrimage: "Your statutes have been my songs in the house of my pilgrimage." The Christian can sing in the ways of the Lord- traveling to Zion with the songs of Zion floating from his lips. Oh! it is a slander upon the gospel of Jesus to suppose that it inculcates a religion of gloom and despondency, a religion rayless, cheerless, joyless.

Even in the deepest and most painful soul-exercises of the believer, there is more of real happiness than in all the world combined. One would rather have the tears of the Christian than the smiles of the worldling, the mourning of the saint than the laughter of the sinner. To sing in the Lord's ways- His trying ways, His disappointing ways, His darksome ways, His chastening ways- to sing in the ways of His truth, and obedience, and love- oh, there is infinitely more sweetness and melody in those songs which wake their echoes along the Christian pilgrim's lonely, tearful, weary path, than ever breathes from the world's harp of gladness and of song. To sing of a precious Savior, of a full Christ, of a Father's dealings, of a coming glory, of an eternal heaven; oh! who will say that the Christian pilgrim is not a joyous, happy man?

Our Christian pilgrimage, too, has its especial supports, succourings, consolations. The Lord does not leave us to tread this pilgrimage at our own cost, relying upon our own resources. Ah, no! you do not take a step in your homeward march but you are surrounded by the presence of your Savior. Jesus is with you; He knows all your sorrows, He sees all your battlings, your misgivings, your infirmities, trials, and needs. Jesus is with you in the pilgrimage, and you cannot be alone.

Nor would we forget to remind you that the Christian pilgrimage has a glorious termination. We must keep this fully in view. We seek a city that is to come; we are not journeying to any uncertain, imaginary place. We are going to our heavenly mansion; we are traveling to the celestial city; we are wending cur way to our glorious inheritance, and in a little while- O solemn thought! God give us to realize it!- it will burst upon its in its glory, blessed, indescribable, inconceivable glory, and we shall exchange an earthly yet Christian pilgrimage, for the heavenly and eternal rest that awaits the people of God- the end of our pilgrimage!

Now, observe the CHARACTER of this pilgrimage as depicted by the patriarch- it is emphatic and striking: "And Jacob said, Few and evil have the days of the years of my pilgrimage been." This is its character- "few and evil." Here is a good man's estimate of life. You will only obtain such an estimate from a child of God. It is only a Christian man, a believer in Jesus, one who lives as seeing Him who is invisible, that can form a proper estimate of life. How impressive are these words! Let us consider them for a moment.

First, the duration of our Christian pilgrimage- "Few have the days of the years of my life been." He does not compute his life by years, but by days. At the longest, they are but few. Ask the most aged saint, as he throws back a glance on the past, if that retrospect does not appear to be like a little speck in the horizon of his existence. At the longest, our days are but few. Compare the days of our years with the thoughts, the plans, the enterprises appertaining to our present existence. How full of thought, of enterprise, of plan is human life! How much the mind is contemplating, how much the hands are expecting to achieve! And yet, compared with what we actually accomplish, and with what we leave unfinished, how brief is our present existence!

Look at those teeming thoughts in the busy brain of man! Look at those extensive schemes he is meditating! Look at those vast enterprises He has embarked in! Why, those thoughts, those schemes, those enterprises, were they to be actually achieved and completed, would require the years of Methuselah! How contemptible, then, as to its duration, does the present life appear in contrast with the teeming, enterprising thoughts of man! His days are but few. "He gives up his life, and in that very day his thoughts perish." All his worldly thoughts, all his ambitious thoughts, all his miserly thoughts, all his selfish thoughts, all his sinful and self-righteous thoughts perish in that day when God extinguishes his candle.

But the most impressive point of light in which we can view the brief duration of human existence is in its relation to the soul's preparation for eternity. The work of salvation is a mighty- the mightiest work, wrought in man. When we think, then, of the great work that is to be accomplished for eternity, the salvation of the soul, the preparation for a state of being that is fixed and eternal- when we remember how much is to be done in the soul before it is fit for heaven- when we think how much is to be crowded into the few days of this short and fleeting life- the soul quickened- sins pardoned- the person justified- the heart sanctified- God loved- Christ accepted; Oh, it is truly but a few days that man has to prepare for an endless eternity!

My reader, are you neglecting the great salvation? Are you postponing to another and more convenient season the work of repentance? I tell you that the one work of saving your soul is the work of a life! You have no time to lose. Your hours are fleeting, your days are numbered- the sands of time are flowing fast. Onward, then, in this great work, and do not rest until you have "made your calling and election sure." Remember that salvation is of God, and that the essential work is all finished and perfected by Christ; that the work to be wrought in you by the power of the Holy Spirit is the necessary work of repentance towards God and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ- the new, divine, and heavenly birth, apart from which there can be no place for you in the new heavens and the new earth. Christ must make all things new- the heavens new- the earth new- man new- every thing, every object, and every creature shall be in harmony with the new-born creation which the coming of the Lord will usher in.

But not only are our days "few," they are "evil." "Few and evil have the days of the years of my pilgrimage been." This is the solemn conviction and testimony of a man of God- of a man who knew his own heart, who as he threw back his glance on his one hundred and thirty years, could trace nothing in them all that he could speak of as being righteous and holy and good. If we take the interpretation of the word simply as referring to trials, adversities, and sorrows, what an instructive life, in that point of light, was the life of the good old patriarch! His life seemed one continuous trial, one series of vicissitudes, calamities, and sorrows. Look at him, a fugitive from the parental home while yet a youth; look at him fleeing from the wrath of his incensed brother; think of his fourteen years of labor in Laban's house; think of his crushing, domestic affliction in Shechem. Then came the supposed death of his son Joseph, then the biting famine- and then the series of trials growing out of that famine. Ah! Well might he say, "Few and evil have the days of the years of my pilgrimage been; my life has been a life chequered and changeful and sad. Few and evil have my days been."

But this, more or less, is a picture of the Christian, find him where you may. It is through much tribulation he is to enter the kingdom. Trial is the allotment of the believer here. It is his Father's will, it is the portion of Christ's pilgrims, that affliction should trace their road hence to the eternal blessed city. Has God thus led you, beloved, or is He thus leading you now? Oh, be not discouraged or cast down! The Lord is not dealing strangely with you, but as He deals with all His saints in all ages of the world; therefore do not write hard and bitter things against yourself, and infer that you cannot be a child of God, a Christian pilgrim, one whom God loves, because the Lord afflicts you and permits you to be tempted in many stages of your Christian journey.

But, oh, what veiled blessings are these "evils!" Exempted from them, you would be exempt from the choicest lessons of the Christian school, from the most fruitful seasons of spiritual growth, from the most authentic seals of divine adoption, from some of the most tender, winning, precious unfoldings of Jesus. Oh, they are not "evil" in the sense of a judicial correction, for there is no curse, no wrath, no frown in a believer's afflictions- they are covenant blessings wearing a disciplinary garb.

But was there no allusion in these words of Jacob to the sins that had traced all his chequered history- to the outbreak of spiritual evil dwelling in his heart- to his ten thousand times ten thousand backslidings, declensions, and stumblings? Do you think that he did not remember how often he had erred from God, like a wandering sheep, sinning against Him who loved him so? Do you think he did not remember how much ingratitude, unbelief, and disobedience, failure and flaw, had traced the whole of his pilgrimage, from the moment that, by fraud and falsehood, he had obtained the birthright, down to the moment when, in unbelief and despondency, he pronounced against God's dealings, and exclaimed, "All these things are against me!"

Oh yes! this would be his testimony to the heathen king of Egypt: "I am but a poor sinner. My life, as a man that professedly feared God, has been shaded and defiled, tinted and tainted, with many a sinful blot, departure, and fall. I have been a disobedient, wayward, foolish child, murmuring, rebellious, and restless beneath the yoke, and many a sad memory now lays me in the dust of self-abasement before my covenant God. "Behold, I am vile, and abhor myself in dust and in ashes. Few and evil have the days of my pilgrimage been."

Such will be our humiliating acknowledgment when life's pilgrimage draws near its close. "Unclean, unclean, evil and sinful have been the days of my life. I enter heaven with the publican's petition- 'God be merciful to me a sinner.' I rest now my hopes of acceptance with the Holy One, not upon a long life, a useful life, an active life, a religious life; for all, all is stained, and sullied, and darkened with sins countless as the sands, sins as scarlet and as crimson; but I rest in the spotless righteousness, in the atoning blood, in the one sacrifice, of my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. This is all my salvation, all my desire, and all my plea- the blood of Jesus has washed them all away."

"How old are you?" A solemn question to ask ourselves. How old are you in nature? how old in grace? how old in sin? Sit down and ask yourself the question. Let there be a solemn pause between time and eternity- the busy whirl of life and its final account. Oh, drive not your worldly pursuits, and gains, and pleasures into the last stages of life! Set apart from it a season of self-examination, solemn reflection, of faithful dealing with your soul. Let your petition to God be, "Oh, spare me, that I may recover strength, before I go hence and be no more!" Let not the solemn summons to eternity surprise you. Let it not find you immersed in the cares and pursuits and gains of this world. Look well to your religion; look well to your foundation; look well to your hope! Aged pilgrim! how old are you? Nearing the end of the journey? Entering upon its last, its closing stage? Have you reached the verdant, sunlit slopes of Jordan's bank? Do its waves murmur at your feet? Do you see 'Sweet fields beyond the swelling flood?'

Oh, rejoice that you are so near the end of sin and sorrow, so near the end of the weary pilgrimage, so near to heaven, to Christ, to the spirits of just men made perfect.
"Shudder not to cross the stream;
Venture all your trust in Him;
Not one object of His care
Ever suffered shipwreck there."

"And Jacob blessed Pharaoh." It is a touching, an exquisitely beautiful feature this in our picture- Jacob blessing the king. Pharaoh had never been so blessed of man before! Here was a great saint blessing a great monarch. This was no empty compliment, fawning, flattering act of the aged man of God. The blessing of Jacob was a real blessing, there cannot be a doubt. The blessing of a man of God is one of the sweetest blessings God gives us. The prayers of a man of God, the best wishes of a believer in Jesus, are not to be despised. Jacob was a man of prayer- a man mighty in prayer. He wrestled all night with the Angel of the Covenant, and he was a successful petitioner with God. Now, for the king of Egypt to have had his prayers and his blessing, oh! all the riches of his kingdom were as nothing in comparison!

If God lays you on the heart of a Christian man, if God gives you a place in his prayers, his sympathies, his Christian desires, count that, my reader, among your most precious treasures. The intercessions of a godly man, the blessing of a man of prayer, of an aged pilgrim, of a departing father, of a dying mother, oh, treasure them up in the deepest cell of your memory, in the warmest nook of your heart, as among life's sweetest, holiest, costliest privileges. But, above all, seek the blessing of the God of Jacob, for the God of Jacob is yours, and it is infinitely better to have the blessing of the God of Jacob than even the blessing of Jacob himself. "I will bless you, and you shall be a blessing." This is the divine order -first, blessed of God, and then a blessing to man.

Aged saint! the God of Jacob is your covenant God! And what was Jacob's testimony of God? "The God who fed me all my life long unto this day, the Angel which redeemed me from all evil." And still His promise and His presence are with you, your rod and your staff in old age, the strength of your heart and your portion forever, when your flesh and your heart fail. Does your trembling faith still cry, "Cast me not off in the time of old age; forsake me not when my strength fails?" Again the divine promise responds, "Hearken unto me, O house of Jacob; . . . . even to your old age I am He; and even to hoary hair will I carry you."

Enclosed within such Almighty arms, borne upon such a Divine bosom, you have nothing to fear, and nothing to do, but in faith, hope, and calmness, to exclaim to the loved ones clustering around your dying bed, "Behold, I die! but God shall be with you." Ah! who could fill the vacant place your departure hence will create but God himself? He has promised to fill it, and will fulfil His promise. "Leave your fatherless children, I will preserve them alive; and let your widows trust in me."

Dying pilgrim! your Joseph is with you! Your Jesus is at your side! His blood has washed away all your sins. "I have blotted out, as a thick cloud, your transgressions, and as a cloud your sins." Salvation is finished- the great debt is paid- the covenant of grace is unchangeable- and Jesus is gone before to give you an abundant entrance and a loving welcome into the everlasting kingdom. And now, you have but calmly and patiently to wait until Jesus gently closes your eyes in death, and unseals them again in heaven's glory, bliss, and immortality. "In Your presence is fulness of joy, at Your right hand there are pleasures for evermore." "Absent from the body- present with the Lord."
"Absent from flesh! O blissful thought!
What unknown joys this moment brings
Freed from the mischiefs sin has wrought,
From pains and fears, and all their springs."
"Absent from flesh! illustrious day!
Surprising scene! triumphant stroke
That rends the prison of my clay,
And I can feel my fetters broke."
"Absent from flesh! then rise my soul
Where feet or wings could never climb,
Beyond the heavens, where planets roll,
Measuring the cares and joys of time."
"I go where God and glory shine,
His presence makes eternal day;
My all that's mortal I resign,
For angels wait and point my way."

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

PERSONAL DECLENSION & REVIVAL
OF RELIGION IN THE SOUL

Table of Contents

Preface

Chapter 1: Incipient Declension

Chapter 2: Declension in Love

Chapter 3: Declension in Faith

Chapter 4: Declension in Prayer

Chapter 5: Declension in Connection with Doctrinal Error

Chapter 6: On Grieving the Spirit

Chapter 7: The Fruitless and the Fruitful Professor

Chapter 8: The Lord, the Restorer of His People

Chapter 9: The Lord, the Keeper of His People

Preface

That the subject on which this humble volume treats is vastly solemn, and deeply searching, every true believer in Jesus must acknowledge. The existing necessity for such a work has long impressed itself upon the Author's mind. While other and abler writers are employing their pens, either in defending the outposts of Christianity, or in arousing a slumbering church to an increased intensity of personal and combined action in the great work of Christian benevolence, he has felt that it might but be instrumental, in ever so humble a way, of occasionally withdrawing the eye of the believer from the dazzling and almost bewildering movements around him, and fixing it upon the state of HIS OWN PERSONAL RELIGION, he would be rendering the Christian church a service, not the less needed and important in her present elevated and excited position.

It must be admitted, that the character and the tendencies of the age are not favorable to deep and mature reflection upon the hidden, spiritual life of the soul. Whirled along as the church of God is, in her brilliant path of benevolent enterprise, - deeply engaged in concerting and in carrying out new and far-reaching plans of aggression upon the dominion of sin, - and compelled in one hand to hold the spiritual sword in defense of the faith which, with the other, she is up-building, - but few energies are left, and but little time is afforded, for close, faithful, and frequent dealing with the personal and spiritual state of grace in the soul; which, in consequence of thus being overlooked and uncultivated, may fall into a state of the deepest and most painful declension. "They made me keeper of the vineyards, but my own vineyard have I not kept." (Song 1:6)

It is, then, the humble design of the writer in the present work, for a while to withdraw the mind from the consideration of the mere externals of Christianity, and to aid the believer in answering the solemn and searching inquiry, - "What is the present spiritual state of my soul before God?" In the following pages he is exhorted to forget the Christian profession he sustains, the party badge he wears, and the distinctive name by which he is known among men, - to turn aside for a brief hour from all religious duties, engagements, and excitement, and to look this question fully and fairly in the face.

With human wisdom and eloquence the Author has not seen fit to load and adorn his work: the subject presented itself to his mind in too solemn and dreadful an aspect for this. The ground he traversed he felt to be so holy, that he had need to put off the shoes from his feet, and to lay aside everything that was not in strict harmony with the spiritual character of his theme. That the traces of human imperfection may be found on every page, no one can be more conscious than the Author, - no one more deeply humbled. Indeed, so affecting to his own mind has been the conviction of the feeble manner in which the subject is treated, that but for a deep sense of its vast importance, and the demand that exists for its discussion in almost any shape, he would more than once have withdrawn his book from the press. May the Spirit of God accompany its perusal with power and unction, and to Him, as unto the Father and the Son, shall be ascribed the glory!

Chapter 1: Incipient Declension

"The backslider in heart." (Proverbs 14:14)

If there is one consideration more humbling than another to a spiritually-minded believer, it is, that, after all God has done for him, - after all the rich displays of his grace, the patience and tenderness of his instructions, the repeated discipline of his covenant, the tokens of love received, and the lessons of experience learned, there should still exist in the heart a principle, the tendency of which is to secret, perpetual, and alarming departure from God. Truly, there is in this solemn fact, that which might well lead to the deepest self-abasement before Him.

If, in the present early stage of our inquiry into this subject, we might be permitted to assign a cause for the growing power which this latent, subtle principle is allowed to exert in the soul, we would refer to the believer's constant forgetfulness of the truth, that there is no essential element in divine grace that can secure it from the deepest declension; that, if left to its self-sustaining energy, such are the hostile influences by which it is surrounded, such the severe assaults to which it is exposed, and such the feeble resistance it is capable of exerting, there is not a moment - splendid though its former victories may have been - in which the incipient and secret progress of declension may not have commenced and be going forward in the soul! There is a proneness in us to deify the graces of the Spirit. We often think of faith and love, and their kindred graces, as though they were essentially omnipotent; forgetting that though they undoubtedly are divine in their origin, spiritual in their nature, and sanctifying in their effects, they yet are sustained by no self-supporting power, but by constant communications of life and nourishment from Jesus; that, the moment of their being left to their inherent strength, is the moment of their certain declension and decay.

We must here, however, guard a precious and important truth; that is, the indestructible nature of true grace. Divine grace in the soul can never really die; true faith can never utterly and finally fail. We are speaking now but of their decay. A flower may droop, and yet live: a plant may be sickly, and yet not die. In the lowest stage of spiritual declension, in the feeblest state of grace, there is a life that never dies. In the midst of all his startings aside, the ebb and the flow, the wandering and the restoring, the believer in Jesus is "kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation." He cannot utterly fall; he cannot finally be lost. The immutability of God keeps him, - the covenant of grace keeps him, - the finished work of Jesus keeps him, - the indwelling of the Spirit keeps him, and keeps him to eternal glory. We say, then, true grace is indestructible grace; it can never die. But it may decay; and to the consideration of this solemn and important subject, the reader's serious attention is now invited. We propose to exhibit the subject of Personal Declension of Religion in the Soul in some of its varied and prominent forms and phases, and to direct to those means which God has ordained and blessed to its restoration and revival.

Believing, as we do, that no child of God ever recedes into a state of inward declension and outward backsliding, but by slow and gradual steps; and believing, too, that a process of spiritual decay may be going forward within the secret recesses of the soul, and not a suspicion or a fear be awakened in the mind of the believer; we feel it of the deepest moment that this state should first be brought to view in its incipient and concealed form. May the Lord the Spirit fill the writer's and the reader's mind with light, the heart with lowliness, and raise and fix the eye of faith simply and solely upon Jesus, as we proceed in the unfolding of a theme so purely spiritual and so deeply heart-searching!

We commence with a brief exposition of a doctrine which must be regarded as forming the groundwork of our subject; that is, THE LIFE OF GOD IN THE SOUL OF MAN. The believer in Jesus is a partaker of the divine nature (2 Pet 1:4). He is "born of the Spirit;" Christ dwells in him by faith; and this constitutes his new and spiritual life. A single but emphatic expression of the apostle's, unfolds the doctrine and confirms the fact, "Christ in you (Col 1:27)." It is not so much that the believer lives, as that Christ lives in him. Thus the apostle expresses it: "I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ lives in me." Do we look at the history of Paul as illustrative of the doctrine? Behold the grand secret of his extraordinary life. He lived unreservedly for Christ; and the spring of it was, Christ lived spiritually in him. This it was that rendered him so profound in wisdom, rich in knowledge, bold in preaching, undaunted in zeal, unwearied in toil, patient in suffering, and successful in labor; - Christ lived in him. And this forms the high and holy life of every child of God; - "Christ who is our life." To him, as the covenant head and mediator of his people, it was given to have life in himself, that he might give eternal life to as many as the Father had given him. Christ possesses this life (John 5:26); Christ communicates it (John 5:25); Christ sustains it (John 6:57); and Christ crowns it with eternal glory (John 17:24).

A peculiar characteristic of the life of God in the soul, is, that it is concealed. "Your life is hid with Christ in God." It is a hidden life. Its nature, its source, its actings, its supports are veiled from the observation of men. "The world knows us not." It knew not Jesus when he dwelt in the flesh, else it would not have crucified the Lord of life and glory. Is it any wonder that it knows him not, dwelling, still deeper veiled, in the hearts of his members? It crucified Christ in his own person, it has crucified him in the persons of his saints, and, if power were given, would so crucify him yet again. And yet there is that in the divine life of the believer, which awakens the wonderment of a Christ-rejecting world. That the believer should be unknown, and yet well known; should die, and yet live; should be chastened, and yet not killed; sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; poor, yet making many rich; having nothing, and yet possessing all things, is indeed an enigma - a paradox to a carnal mind. Yes, there are moments when the believer is a mystery to himself. How the divine life in his soul is sustained in the midst of so much that enfeebles, kept alive surrounded by so much that deadens, the glimmering spark not extinguished, though obscured, amid the billows! To drop all figure, - how his soul advances when most opposed, soars when most burdened, rejoices when most afflicted, and sings the sweetest and the loudest, when the cross presses the heaviest, and the thorn pierces the deepest, may well cause him to exclaim, "I am a wonder to others, but a greater wonder to myself!" But, if the nature and the supports of the divine life in the soul are hid, not so are its effects, and these prove its existence and reality. The world has its keen, detecting eye upon the believer. It marks well his every step, it ponders narrowly his every going, it investigates and analyses closely his secret motives. No flaw, no deviation, no compromise, escapes its notice or its censure: it expects, and it has a right to expect, perfect harmony of principle and practice; it rebukes, and it has a right to rebuke, any marked discrepancy between the two. We say, then, that the effects of the life of God in the soul of the believer are observed by an ungodly world. There is that in the honest upright walk of a child of God, which arrests the attention and awakens the surprise of men, who, while they hate and despise, cannot but admire and marvel at it.

Yet another characteristic of the divine life in the soul, is its security. "Your life is hid with Christ in God." There, nothing can touch it: no power can destroy it. It is "hid with Christ," the beloved Son of the Father, the delight, the glory, the richest and most precious treasure of Jehovah: still more, it is "hid with Christ in God," in the hand, in the heart, in the all-sufficiency, yes, in the eternity of God. Oh the perfect security of the spiritual life of the believer! No power on earth or in hell can move it. It may be stormed by Satan, assaulted by corruption, scorned by men, and even in the moment of unbelief and in the hour of deep trial its existence doubted by the believer himself; yet there it is, deep lodged in the eternity of God, bound up in the heart and with the existence of Jehovah, and no foe can destroy it. "As soon," says Charnock, "might Satan pull God out of heaven, undermine the security of Christ, and tear him from the bosom of the Father, as deprive the believer of his spiritual life, or destroy that principle of grace which God has implanted in him." But a greater than Charnock has declared, "I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand (Jn 10:28)." Let the sheep and the lambs of the "little flock" rejoice that the Shepherd lives, and that because he lives they shall live also. But we now pass to the consideration of the DECLENSION of this life in the soul.

By a state of incipient declension, we mean that decay of spiritual life and grace in the believer which marks its earliest and more concealed stage. It is latent and hidden, and therefore the least suspected and the more dangerous. The painful process of spiritual disease may be advanced in the soul so secretly, so silently, and so unobservedly, that the subject of it may have lost much ground, may have parted with many graces and much vigor, and may have been beguiled into an alarming state of spiritual barrenness and decay, before even a suspicion of his real condition has been awakened in his bosom. Like Samson, he may awaken out of his sleep, and say, "I will go out as at other times before, and shake myself. And he wished not that the Lord was departed from him (Judges 16.20)." Or he may resemble Ephraim, of whom it is recorded, "Strangers have devoured his strength, and he knows it not; yes, grey hairs are here and there upon him, yet he knows it not (Hos 7:9)." This is the state of the soul we are now to examine, - a state that has to do, not with the outward observation of men, but more especially and immediately with a holy and heart-searching God. In looking into the state of a backslider in heart, we may, in the first place, show what an incipient state of declension does not necessarily involve.

And first; it does not involve any alteration in the essential character of divine grace, but is a secret decay of the health, vigor, and exercise of that grace in the soul. As in the animal frame, the heart loses nothing of its natural function, when, through disease, it sends but a faint and languid pulsation through the system; so in the spiritual constitution of the believer, divine grace may be sickly, feeble, and inoperative, and yet retain its character and its properties. The pulse may beat faintly, but still it beats; the seen may not be fruitful, but it "lives and abides forever;" the divine nature may be languid, but it can never assimilate or coalesce with any other, and must always retain its divinity untainted and unchanged. And yet, without changing its nature, divine grace may decline to an alarming extent in its power and exercise. It may be sickly, drooping, and ready to die; it may become so enfeebled through its decay, as to present an ineffectual resistance to the inroads of strong corruption; so low, that the enemy may ride rough-shod over it at his will; so inoperative and yielding, that sloth, worldliness, pride, carnality, and their kindred vices, may obtain an easy and unresisted conquest.

This decay of grace may be advancing, too, without any marked decline in the spiritual perception of the judgment, as to the beauty and fitness of spiritual truth. The loss of spiritual enjoyment, not of a spiritual perception of the loveliness and harmony of the truth, shall be the symptom that betrays the true condition of the soul. The judgment shall lose none of its light, but the heart much of its fervor; the truths of revelation, especially the doctrines of grace, shall occupy the same prominent position as to their value and beauty, and yet the influence of these truths may be scarcely felt. The Word of God shall be assented to; but as the instrument of sanctification, of abasement, of nourishment, the believer may be an almost utter stranger to it; yes, he must necessarily be so, while this process of secret declension is going forward in his soul.

This incipient state of declension may not involve any lowering of the standard of holiness; and yet there shall be no ascending of the heart, no reaching forth of the mind towards a practical conformity to that standard. The judgment shall acknowledge the divine law, as embodied in the life of Christ, to be the rule of the believer's walk; and yet to so low and feeble a state may vital godliness have declined in the soul, there shall be no panting after conformity to Christ, no breathing after holiness, no "resistance unto blood, striving against sin." Oh, it is an alarming condition for a Christian man, when the heart contradicts the judgment, and the life belies the profession! - when there is more knowledge of the truth than experience of its power, - more light in the understanding than grace in the affections, - more pretension in the profession than holiness and spirituality in the walk! And yet to this sad and melancholy state it is possible for a Christian professor to be reduced. How should it lead the man of empty notions, of mere creeds, of lofty pretension, of cold and lifeless orthodoxy, to pause, search his heart, examine his conscience, and ascertain the true state of his soul before God!

Once more: This state of secret departure from God may exist in connection with an outward and rigid observation of the means of grace; and yet there shall be no spiritual use of, or enjoyment in, the means. And this, it may be, is the great lullaby of his soul. Rocked to sleep by a merely formal religion, the believer is beguiled into the delusion that his heart is right, and his soul prosperous in the sight of God. Even more than this, - a declining believer may have sunk so deeply into a state of formality, as to substitute the outward and the public means of grace for a close and secret walk with God. He may have taken up his abode in the outer courts of the temple; he may dwell in the mere porch of the sanctuary. Frequent or even occasional retirement consecrated to meditation, self-examination, the reading of God's Word, and secret prayer, may yield to an outward, bustling form of godliness. Public and committee meetings - religious societies - business and professional engagements - wearing a religious aspect, and even important in their subordinate places, may thrust out God from the soul, and exclude Christ from the heart. And that a believer should be satisfied to "live at this poor dying rate," content to dwell amid the din and the bustle of the outworks, is one of the most palpable and alarming symptoms of the decline of the life of God in his soul. But let us group some of the more positive marks of an incipient and hidden state of spiritual declension.

When a professing man can proceed with his accustomed religious duties, strictly, regularly, formally, and yet experience no enjoyment of God in them, no filial nearness, no brokenness and tenderness, and no consciousness of sweet return, he may suspect that his soul is in a state of secret and incipient backsliding from God. Satisfying and feeding his soul - if feeding it may be called - with a lifeless form; what stronger symptom needs he of his real state? A healthy, growing state of religion in the soul demands more for its nourishment and support than this. A believer panting for God, hungering and thirsting after righteousness, grace thriving, the heart deeply engaged in spiritual duties, lively, prayerful, humble, and tender, ascending in its frame and desires, - a state marked by these features cannot be tied down to a lifeless, spiritless form of religious duties. These were but husks to a healthy state of the life of God in the soul. It wants more. It will hunger and thirst, and this spiritual longing must be met. And nothing can satisfy and satiate it but living upon Christ, the bread and the water of life. "I am the bread of life." "If any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink." "My flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed." The professing man that goes all his days without this nourishment, thus starving his soul, may well exclaim, "My leanness, my leanness!" Oh, how solemn to such are the words of our Lord, "Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except you eat the flesh of the Son of Man, and drink his blood, you have no life in you (Jn 6:53)."

Again: When a professing man can read his Bible with no spiritual taste, or when he searches it, not with a sincere desire to know the mind of the Spirit in order to a holy and obedient walk, but with a merely curious, or literary taste and aim, it is a sure evidence that his soul is making but a retrograde movement in real spirituality. Nothing perhaps more strongly indicates the tone of a believer's spirituality, than the light in which the Scriptures are regarded by him. They may be read, and yet read as any other book, without the deep and solemn conviction that "all scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness; that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works (2 Tim 3:16,17)." They may be read without a spiritual relish, without being turned into prayer, without treasuring up in the heart and reducing to daily practice its holy precepts, its precious promises, its sweet consolations, its faithful warnings, its affectionate admonitions, its tender rebukes. And thus read, how can a believer expect to derive that "profit" from the Scriptures which they were intended, and are so calculated to convey?

When a professing Christian can pray, and yet acknowledge that he has no nearness to the throne, no touching of the scepter, no fellowship with God, - calls him "Father," without the sense of adoption, - confesses sin in a general way, without any looking up to God through the cross, - has no consciousness of possessing the ear and the heart of God, the evidence is undoubted of a declining state of religion in the soul. And when too, he can find no sweetness in a spiritual ministry, - when he is restless and dissatisfied under a searching and practical unfolding of truth, - when the doctrines are preferred to the precepts, the promises to the commands, the consolations to the admonitions of the gospel, incipient declension is marked.

When the believer has but few dealings with Christ - his blood but seldom traveled to, - his fullness but little lived upon, - his love and glory scarcely mentioned, the symptoms of declension in the soul are palpable. Perhaps nothing forms a more certain criterion of the state of the soul than this. We would be willing to test a man's religion, both as to its nature and its growth, by his reply to the question, "What think you of Christ?" Does his blood daily moisten the root of your profession? Is his righteousness that which exalts you out of and above yourself, and daily gives you free and near access to God? Is the sweetness of his love much in your heart, and the fragrance of his name much on your lips? Are your corruptions daily carried to his grace, your guilt to his blood, your trials to his heart? In a word, is Jesus the substance of your life, the source of your sanctification, the one glorious object on which your eye is ever resting, the mark towards which you are ever pressing? Be not offended, reader, if we remark, that a professing man may talk well of Christ, and may do homage to his name, and build up his cause, and promote his kingdom, and yet rest short of having Christ in his heart, the hope of glory. It is not the talking about religion, or ministers, or churches, nor an outward zeal for their prosperity, that either constitutes or indicates a truly spiritual man. And yet how much of this in our day passes current for the life of God in the soul? Oh that among God's dear saints there were less talking of ministers, and more of Jesus; less of sermons, and more of the power of the truth in their souls; less of "I am of Paul," and "I of Apollos," and more of "I am of Christ."

An uncharitable walk towards other Christians, marks a low state of grace in the soul. The more entirely the heart is occupied with the love of Christ, the less room there will be for uncharitableness towards his saints. It is because there is so little love to Jesus, that there is so little towards his followers. In proportion as the mind becomes spiritual, it rises above party distinctions and names, - it resigns its narrow and exclusive views, casts away its prejudices against other sections of the one church, and embraces in the yearnings of its Christian sympathy all who "love the Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity." In advocating a wider platform of Christian love, we would by no means "sell the truth," or compromise principles, or immolate conscience upon the altar of an infidel liberalism. But that for which we plead, is, more of that Christian love, tender-heartedness, kindness, charity which allows the right of private judgment, respects a conscientious maintenance of truth, and concedes to others the same privilege it claims for itself. Differing as many of the saints of God necessarily do in judgment, does the same necessity exist wherefore they shall be alienated in affection? We think, far from it. There is common ground on which all Christians who hold the Head can stand. There are truths which can assimilate all our minds, and blend all our hearts. Why then should we stand aloof from the one body and exclaim, "The temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord are we?" Why should we refuse to recognize the Father's image in the children's face, and treat them as aliens in person, in spirit, and in language, because they see not eye to eye with us, in all our interpretations of God's word? Why should not "all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamor, and evil speaking, be put away, with all malice?" and why should we not be "kind one to another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake has forgiven us," seeing that the church is but one, the family but one, that true believers are all "one in Christ Jesus?" This will be so where there is a deepening spirituality. And its absence marks a decay of grace, a waning of the life of God in the soul.

We have thus endeavored to bring to view some of the prominent characteristics of a state of incipient declension of the life of God in the believer. It will be seen that we have referred to those only which mark the hidden departure of the heart from God; - that state that is so concealed, so veiled from the eye, and wearing so fair an exterior, that all suspicion of its existence is lulled to rest, and the soul is soothed with the delusion that all is well with it. Dear reader, is this your state? Has this book thus far detected in you any secret declension, and concealed departure, any heart backsliding? Has it proved to you - the Spirit of God speaking by it - that your soul is in an unhealthy state, the Divine life within you is drooping? Turn not from the discovery, painful though it be. Look at it fully, honestly. It is no step towards the recovery of a sickly state, to disguise the worst symptoms of that state from the eye. The mark of true wisdom and skill is, to ascertain the worst of the disease, to probe the depth of the wound. And although such a course may be painful to the patient, it is essential to his thorough recovery. Beloved reader, it is important that you should know the exact state of your soul before God. And if you are sincere in that petition which has often breathed from your lip, "Search me, O God, and know my heart; try me, and know my thoughts; and see if there be any wicked way in me;" you will thank him for any gentle and faithful admonition that sets you upon the great work of self-examination. "It is fit," says Dr. Owen, "that professors of all sorts should be reminded of these things; for we may see not a few of them under visible decays, without any sincere endeavors after a recovery, who yet please themselves that the root of the matter is in them. It is so, if love of the world, conformity unto it, negligence in holy duties, and coldness in spiritual love, be an evidence of such decays. But let none deceive their own souls; wherever there is a saving principle of grace, it will be thriving and growing unto the end. And if it fall under obstructions, and thereby into decays for a season, it will give no rest or quietness unto the soul wherein it is, but will labor continually for a recovery. Peace in a spiritually-decaying condition, is a soul-ruining security; better be under terror on the account of surprisal into some sin, than be in peace under evident decays of spiritual life."

Some of the marked characteristics of the state of heart declension which we have been considering, are so strikingly set forth in the case of the church, as described by the Holy Spirit in the fifth chapter of the Song of Solomon, that we would direct the serious attention of the reader to it in connection with this part of our work.

In the 2nd verse, the church acknowledges her drowsy, yet not entirely insensible condition: "I sleep, but my heart wakes." Here was the existence of the Divine life in the soul, and yet that life was on the decline. She knew that she had fallen into a careless and slumbering state, that the work of grace in her soul was decaying, that the spirit of slumber had come over her; but the awful feature was, she was content to be so. She heard her Beloved knock; but so enamored was she with her state of drowsiness, she gave no heed to it - she opened not to him. "I sleep, but my heart wakes: it is the voice of my Beloved that knocks, saying, Open to me, my sister, my love, my dove, mu undefiled; for my head is filled with dew, and my locks with the drops of the night." Thus addressed, her duty would have been instantly to have aroused herself from her sleep, and admitted her Lord. A believer may fall into a drowsy state of soul, not so profound as to be entirely lost to the voice of his Beloved speaking by conscience, by the word, and by providences: and yet so far may his grace have decayed, so cold may his love have grown, and so hardening may have been his declension, he shall be content that this should be his state. O, alarming symptom of soul declension, when the indulgence of sloth and self is preferred to a visit from Jesus!

Then observe that, when she did arise, Christ had withdrawn himself. "I opened to my Beloved, but my Beloved had withdrawn himself, and was gone: my soul failed when he spoke; I sought him, but I could not find him; I called him, but he gave me no answer (verse 6)." Weary with waiting so long, grieved at the discovery he made of her deep declension, and wounded by her cold repulse, he withdrew his sensible, loving presence, and left her to the consequences of her sad departure. The Lord never withdraws himself from his people willingly: he is never actuated by an arbitrary impulse of his will. Such is his delight in his people, such his love towards them, and such the joy he derives from their fellowship, that he would walk with them all the day long, and sun them with the unclouded light of his countenance. But when he hides himself for a little moment, he is driven from their embrace by their lukewarmness of heart, and unkind resistance of his love. Possessing a tender heart himself, the slightest indifference discoverable in his child wounds it: an ocean of love himself, the least lukewarmness in the love of his people causes him to withdraw. And yet this momentary withdrawment is not a judicial, but a fatherly, loving correction, to bring them to a knowledge and confession of their state: "I will go and return to my place, until they acknowledge their offence, and seek my face; in their affliction they will seek me early (Hos 5:15)."

It is worthy of remark, that she receded into this state of declension immediately after a peculiar manifestation of Christ's love to her soul. We find her thus inviting her Beloved: "Awake, O north wind, and come, you south; blow upon my garden, that the spices may flow out. Let my Beloved come into his garden, and eat his pleasant fruits." He graciously accepts the invitation: "I am come into my garden, my sister, my spouse. I have gathered my myrrh with my spice; I have eaten my honeycomb with my honey; I have drunk my wine with my milk. Eat, O friends; drink, yes, drink abundantly, O beloved." Thus was her declension preceded by near and peculiar communion with her Lord. And how many of the Lord's people can testify to the same solemn truth, that some of their saddest departures have immediately followed seasons of the most endeared and holy fellowship with their God and Father! It is after such periods that the believer is most exposed to a spirit of self-complacency. Without a great vigilance over the heart, self takes the glory and the praise of the gracious visit of love Jesus has made to the soul, and looks within for some secret cause of the mercy. When the Lord imparts a blessing, we need especial grace to keep us from falling through that very blessing. The case of the disciples affords a memorable illustration of this thought. The occasion on which the circumstance transpired to which we are about to refer, was a most solemn and affecting one; it was the scene that immediately preceded the crucifixion of Jesus. Luke thus records it: "And he took bread, and gave thanks, and broke it, and gave unto them, saying, This is my body which is given for you: this do in remembrance of me. Likewise also the cup after supper, saying, This cup is the new testament in my blood, which is shed for you (Luke 22:19,20)." What moment could have been more holy than this? what occasion more solemn and sacred? Here were the disciples holding fellowship with their adorable Immanuel in the awful mystery of his sufferings! But immediately after the close of this hallowed service, what do we read? - "There was also a strife among them, which should be accounted the greatest (verse 24)." Here were the worst exhibitions of fallen nature, - passion, hatred, envy, rankling in the heart, at a moment when the elements of their Savior's dying love were yet upon their lips! Oh, what does this instructive lesson teach us! - trust not in frames and feelings, pray without ceasing, and particularly "watch unto prayer" immediately after seasons of peculiar nearness to God, or especial mercies received at his hands. "Special spiritual enjoyments," wisely remarks Traill, "are dangerous, and render a man very needy of the helping grace of God. They expose to special temptations, are apt to give rise to special corruptions, such as spiritual pride, contentedness with a present good condition, dullness of desire after a better state. If the Lord grant singular communications of himself, know that it is a season of special need of grace to guide them well. They would return more frequently, and would spring higher and last longer if they were better improved. The greater the blessing be, the greater is the difficulty of guiding it well' and the more difficult the work, the greater our need of the grace of God; and the more frequent and fervent should our applications be to the throne of grace for that needful, helpful grace."

Yet once more: Mark the hardening tendency of repeated declension in her case. In chap. iii. I, she manifests some desire for Christ, though her posture indicated a slothful spirit: "By night on my bed I sought him whom my soul loves." Immediately after, Christ knocks, but she had sunk so deep in slumber that she arose not to admit him. Trace the steps, and mark the deadening nature of soul declension. She first places herself in the posture of sloth, and soon is heard to say, "I sleep." Why is it that so many who appear to be seeking Christ, rest short of him? It is not difficult in most cases to ascertain the true cause. It is this - they seek him in a slumbering posture - on their beds. Their desires are so languid, their frame of spirit so dead, their hearts so cold, that their very manner of seeking him seems to give an air of insincerity to their desires, and would seem to plead for a denial of their requests. Ponder again her confession: - Oh, is it not the confession of many? - "By night on my bed I sought him whom my soul loves: I sought him, but I found him not." And the reason why she found him not, was her slothful posture, and her drowsy spirit in seeking him! Guard against a slothful seeking of Jesus. With such a frame, disappointment will inevitably ensue. But seek him with all your heart, with all your desire, with the whole bent of your soul. Seek him as your chief, your only good. Seek him as that which can supply the absence of all other good, without whom nothing is good. Seek him as that blessing that can turn every bitter cup into sweetness, every dark cloud into brightness, every cross into a mercy; that can bring bread out of the eater, and honey out of the rock. Oh what a portion has that soul that has Jesus for its portion! "The Lord is my portion, says my soul, therefore will I hope in him." But he must be sought with all the vigor of the soul, with all the intensity of desire, and with all perseverance of purpose, if he would be found. And well is he worth this labor of search. He is that pearl that will repay a diligent seeking. He will plentifully reward every sincere, humble comer. Not a want but he will supply, not a wound but he will heal, not a sorrow but he will soothe, not a sin but he will pardon, not a corruption but he will subdue. But seek him with full purpose of soul, and he shall be found. "When you said, Seek you my face, my heart said unto you, Your face, Lord, will I seek (Ps 27:8)." "The soul of the slugged desires, and has nothing; but the soul of the diligent shall be made fat (Prov 13:4)."

There is yet one more remarkable feature in the state of the church we have been considering, too instructive to pass by unnoticed; - we allude to the persuasion she felt, that though the Divine life in her soul was at a low ebb, still, Christ was hers, and she was Christ's. "I sleep, but my heart wakes; it is the voice of my Beloved that knocks." In the worst frame that can affect a true child of God, there is always some indication that the Divine life in the soul is not quite extinguished. In its greatest decay, there is yet some symptom of life. In the darkest hour, there is that in the nature of true grace, which emits some scintillation of its essential glory; in its greatest defeat, that which asserts its divinity. Just as a king, though deposed from his throne and driven into exile, can never entirely divest himself of the dignity of his regal character; so real grace, though often severely tried, sharply assailed, and sometimes momentarily defeated, can never sink its character, nor relinquish its sovereignty. Mark the proof of this in the case of the apostle Paul: "Now then it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwells in me. For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do. Now if I do that I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwells in me (Rom 7:17,19,20)." And so the church expresses it, "I sleep, but my heart wakes." In her most drowsy, slothful state, she could not forget that she was still her Beloved's, and that her Beloved was hers. Glorious nature, and blessed triumph of the life of God in the soul of man!

We now come to the consideration of the REVIVAL of this Divine life in the soul of the believer. From what has been already advanced it will be perceived that we are far from considering this a hopeless state. For a declining believer to settle down under the conviction that such a state is irrecoverable; that because he has taken the first step in departure from God, he must necessarily take the second, is to afford the most alarming evidence of a state of soul declension. But so far from this, we state it distinctly and emphatically, that whatever be the departure of a backsliding child of God, it is recoverable: not a step has he lost but may be retraced; not a grace has decayed but may be restored; not a joy has fled but may be won back. Alas! for us, when the day comes that shall close up every avenue to the return of a backsliding soul! that tells us that the Father no longer welcomes home the prodigal; that the blood of Jesus no longer heals a wounded spirit; that the Holy Spirit no longer restores the lost joys of God's salvation! But we desire now to show, that for every poor, self-condemned, heart-broken, returning soul, there is a lingering affection in the heart of the Father, a welcome in the blood of Jesus, and therefore every encouragement to arise and come to God.

The first direction which we would give in the way of recovery is, acquaint yourself thoroughly with the real state of your soul as before God. As the first step in conversion was to know yourself to be a lost, helpless, condemned sinner; so now, in your re-conversion to God, you must know the exact state of your soul. Be honest with yourself; let there be a thorough, faithful examination of your spiritual condition; let all disguise be removed, the eye withdrawn from the opinion of men, and the soul shut in with God in a close scrutiny of its worst state. Your minister, your church, your friend, may know nothing of the secret state of your soul; they may not even suspect any hidden decline of grace, any incipient backsliding of heart from God. To their partial eye, the surface may be fair to look upon; to them your spiritual state may present the aspect of prosperity and fruitfulness; but the solemn question is between God that judges not as man judges - by the outward appearance only - but who judges the heart. "I, the Lord, search the heart." The "backslider in heart" may deceive himself, he may deceive others, but God he cannot deceive. Seek then to know the real condition of your soul. Search and see what graces of the Spirit have declined, what fruits of the Spirit have decayed. My reader, this is a solemn and a great work we have set you upon, but it is necessary to your recovery. We would bring you into the court of your own bosom, to examine fairly and strictly the spiritual state of your soul. It is a solemn process! The witnesses summoned to testify are many; - conscience is a witness - how often it has been silenced; the word is a witness - how sadly it has been neglected; the throne of grace is a witness - how frequently it has been slighted; Christ is a witness - how much he has been undervalued; the Holy Spirit is a witness - how deeply he has been grieved; God is a witness - how greatly he has been robbed. All these testify against the soul of a backslider in heart, and yet all plead for its return!

The second step is, to discover and bring to light the cause of the soul's declension. "Is there not a cause?" Search and see what has fallen as a blight upon your soul, what is feeding at the root of your Christianity. The apostle Paul, skillful to detect, and faithful to reprove, any declension in the faith or laxity in the practice of the early churches, discovered in that of Galatia a departure from the purity of the truth, and a consequent carelessness in their walk. Grieved at the discovery, he addressed to them an affectionate and faithful epistle, expressive of his astonishment and pain, and proposing a solemn and searching inquiry. "I marvel," he writes, "that you are so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ. How, after that you have known God, or rather are known of God, how turn you again to the weak and beggarly elements? I am afraid of you, lest I have bestowed upon you labor in vain. Where is the blessedness you spoke of? I stand in doubt of you. You did run well; who did hinder you? This persuasion comes not of him that calls you." To the reader, conscious, as he hangs over this page, of secret declension in his soul, we propose the same searching and tender inquiry. You did run well; who did hinder you? - what stumbling-block has fallen in your way? - what has impeded your onward course? - what has enfeebled your faith, chilled your love, drawn your heart from Jesus, and lured you back to the weak and beggarly elements of a poor world? You set out fair; for a time you ran well; your zeal, and love, and humility, gave promise of a useful life, of a glorious race, and of a successful competition for the prize; but something has hindered. What is it? Is it the world, creature love, covetousness, ambition, presumptuous sin, unmortified corruption, the old leaven unpurged? Search it out. Rest not until it be discovered. Your declension is secret, perhaps the cause is secret, some spiritual duty secretly neglected, or some known sin secretly indulged. Search it out, and bring it to light. It must be a cause adequate to the production of effects so serious. You are not as you once were. Your soul has lost ground; the Divine life has declined; the fruit of the Spirit has withered; the heart has lost its softness, the conscience its tenderness, the mind its seclusion, the throne of grace its sweetness, the cross of Jesus its attraction. Oh, how sad and melancholy the change that has passed over you! And have you not the consciousness of it in your soul? Where is the blessedness you spoke of? where is the sunlight countenance of a reconciled Father? where are the rich moments spent before the cross? the hallowed scenes of communion in the closet, shut in with God? Where is the voice of the turtledove, the singing of birds, the green pastures where you did feed, the still waters on whose banks you did repose? Is it all gone? Is it winter with your soul? Ah! yes; your soul is made to feel that it is an evil and a bitter thing to depart from the living God. But yet there is hope.

The next step in the work of personal revival, is, to take the cause of the soul's declension immediately to the throne of grace, and lay it before the Lord. There must be no parleying with it, no compromise, no concealment: there must be a full and unreserved disclosure before God, without anything of palliation or disguise. Let your sin be confessed in all its guilt, aggravation, and consequences. This is just what God loves - an open, ingenuous confession of sin. Searching and knowing, though he does, all hearts, he yet delights in the honest and minute acknowledgment of sin from his backsliding child. Language cannot be too humiliating, the detail cannot be too minute. Mark the stress he has laid upon this duty, and the blessing he has annexed to it. Thus he spoke to the children of Israel, that wandering, backsliding, rebellious people: "If they confess their iniquity, and the iniquity of their fathers, with their trespass which they trespassed against me, and that they have walked contrary unto me; and that I also have walked contrary unto them, and have brought them into the land of their enemies; if then their uncircumcised hearts be humbled, and they then accept of the punishment of their iniquity; then will I remember my covenant with Jacob, and also my covenant with Isaac, and also my covenant with Abraham will I remember; and I will remember the land (Lev 26:40-42)." Truly may we exclaim, "Who is a God like unto you, that pardons iniquity, and passes by the transgression of the remnant of his heritage! he retains not his anger forever, because he delights in mercy." This, too, was the blessed experience of David, God's dear yet often backsliding child: "I acknowledged my sin unto you, and mine iniquity have I not hid. I said, I will confess my transgressions unto the Lord: and you forgave the iniquity of my sin (Ps 32:5)." And how did the heart of God melt with pity and compassion when he heard the audible relentings of his Ephraim! "I have heard Ephraim bemoaning himself thus: You has chastised me, and I was chastised, as a bullock unaccustomed to the yoke: turn you me, and I shall be turned; for you are the Lord my God." And what was the answer of God! "Is Ephraim my dear son? is he a pleasant child? for since I spoke against him, I do earnestly remember him still; therefore my affections are troubled for him: I will surely have mercy upon him, says the Lord (Jer 31:18,20)." Nor is the promise of pardon annexed to confession of sin, unfolded with less clearness and consolatoriness in the New Testament writings. "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness (1 Jn 1:9)." How full, then, the blessing, how rich the consolation connected with an honest, heart-broken confession of sin? How easy and how simple, too, this method of return to God! "Only acknowledge your iniquity (Jer 3:13)." It is but a confession of sin over the head of Jesus, the great sacrifice for sin. O, what is this that God says? "Only acknowledge your iniquity!" Is this all he requires of his poor wandering child? This is all! "Then," May the poor soul exclaim, "Lord, I come to you. I am a backslider, a wanderer, a prodigal. I have strayed from you like a lost sheep. My love has waxed cold, my steps have slackened in the path of holy obedience; my mind has yielded to the corrupting, deadening influence of the world, and my affections have wandered in quest of other and earthly objects of delight. But, behold, I come unto you. Do you invite me? Do you stretch out your hand? Do you bid me approach you? Do you say, 'Only acknowledge your iniquity?' Then, Lord, I come; in the name of your dear Son, I come; 'restore unto me the joy of your salvation.'" Thus confessing sin over the head of Jesus, until the heart has nothing more to confess but the sin of its confession - for, beloved reader, our very confession of sin needs to be confessed over, our very tears to be prayed over, so defaced with sin is all that we do - the soul, thus emptied and unburdened, is prepared to receive anew the seal of a Father's forgiving love.

The true posture of a returning soul is beautifully presented to view in the prophecy of Hosea 14:1,2: "O Israel, return unto the Lord your God; for you have fallen by your iniquity. Take with you words, and turn to the Lord: say unto him, Take away all iniquity, and receive us graciously: so will we render you the sacrifices of our lips." Here are conviction, godly sorrow, humiliation, and confession, the essential elements of a true return to God. Conviction of the true state of the declining soul; godly sorrow resulting from the discovery; humiliation, deep and sincere, on account of it; and a full and unreserved confession of it before God. O blessed evidences! O lovely posture of a restored soul!

Essentially connected with the discovery and the confession, there must be the entire mortification and abandonment of the cause of the soul's secret declension. Apart from this, there can be no true revival of the work of Divine grace in the heart. The true spiritual mortification of indwelling sin, and the entire forsaking of the known cause, whatever it is found to be, of the heart's declension, constitute the true elements of a believer's restoration to the joys of God's salvation. And when we speak of the mortification of sin, let not the nature of this sacred work be misunderstood. It has been in the case of many, why may it not in yours? There may exist all the surface-marks of mortification, and still the heart remain a stranger to the work. An awakening sermon, an alarming providence, or a startling truth, may for a moment arrest and agitate the backsliding soul. There may be an opening of the eyelid, a convulsive movement of the spiritual frame, which, to a superficial observer, may wear the appearance of a real return to consciousness, of a true waking up to new life and vigor of the slumbering soul, and yet these may be but the transient and fitful impulses of a sickly and a drowsy spirit. The means of grace, too, may be returned to - the secret declension felt, deplored and acknowledged, but the hidden cause remaining unmortified and unremoved, all appearance of recovery quickly and painfully subsides. It was but a transient, momentary shock, and all was still; the heavy eyelid but feebly opened, and closed again; the "goodness" that promised so fair, was but as the morning cloud and the early dew. And the reason is found in the fact, that there was no true mortification of sin. And so I may repair to a plant withering and drooping in my garden; I may employ every external means for its revival; I may loosen the earth about it, water, and place it in the warm sunbeam; but if the while I had not discovered and removed the hidden cause of its decay - if I had not know that a worm was secretly feeding at the root, and, in ignorance of this, had proceeded with my surface-work of restoration, what marvel, though the morning sunbeam, and the evening dew, and the loosened earth, had produced a momentary freshness and life, that yet my plant had ceased to exist, had withered and died? Thus may it be with a declining believer. The external means of revival may be sedulously employed, means of grace diligently used and even multiplied, but all to no real and permanent effect, while a worm secretly feeds at the root; and until the hidden cause of decay be mortified, removed, and utterly extirpated, the surface revival does but end in a profounder sleep, and a more fearful deception of the soul. Again, and yet again would we repeat it - there cannot possibly be any true, spiritual, and abiding revival of grace in a believer, while secret sin remains undiscovered and unmortified in the heart. True and spiritual mortification of sin is not a surface-work: it consists not merely in pruning the dead tendrils that hang here and there upon the branch; it is not the lopping off of outward sins, and an external observance of spiritual duties; it includes essentially far more than this: it is a laying the axe at the root of sin in the believer; it aims at nothing less than the complete subjection of the principle of sin; and until this is effectually done, there can be no true return of the heart to God. Christian reader, what is the cause of your soul's secret declension? What is it that at this moment feeds upon the precious plant of grace, destroying its vigor, its beauty, and its fruitfulness? Is it an inordinate attachment to the creature? mortify it; - the love of self? mortify it; the love of the world? mortify it; - some sinful habit secretly indulged? mortify it. It must be mortified, root as well as branch, if you would experience a thorough return to God. Dear though it be, as a right hand, or as a right eye, it yet it comes between your soul and God, if it crucifies Christ in you, if it weakens faith, enfeebles grace, destroys the spirituality of the soul, rendering it barren and unfruitful, rest not short of its utter mortification.

Nor must this great work be undertaken in your own strength. It is pre-eminently the result of God the Holy Spirit working in, and blessing the self-efforts of the believer: "If you through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, you shall live (Rom 8:13)." Here is a recognition of the believer's own exertions, in connection with the power of the Holy Spirit: "If you" (believers, you saints of God) "through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body," etc. It is the work of the believer himself, but the power is of the Spirit of God. Take, then, your discovered sin to the Spirit: that Spirit, bringing the cross of Jesus, with a killing, crucifying power, into your soul, giving you such a view of a Savior suffering for sin, as it may be you never had before, will in a moment lay your enemy slain at your feet. O yield not to despair, distressed soul! Are you longing for a gracious revival of God's work within you? - are you mourning in secret over your heart-declension? - have you searched and discovered the hidden cause of your decay? - and is your real desire for its mortification? Then look up, and hear the consolatory words of your Lord: "I am the Lord that heals you (Ex 15:26)." The Lord is your healer; his love can restore you; his blood can heal you; his grace can subdue your sin. "Take with you words, and turn to the Lord; say unto him, Take away all iniquity, and receive us graciously:" and the Lord will answer, "I will heal their backslidings, I will love them freely; for mine anger is turned away from him."

Endeavor to enrich and enlarge your mind with more spiritual apprehensions of the personal glory, love, and fullness of Christ. All soul-declension arises from the admission of things into the mind contrary to the nature of indwelling grace. The world, - its pleasures, its vanities, its cares, its varied temptations, - these enter the mind, disguised in the shape often of lawful undertakings and duties, and draw off the mind from God, and the affections from Christ. These, too, weaken and deaden faith and love, and every grace of the indwelling Spirit: they are the "foxes that spoil the vines, for our vines have tender grapes (Song 2:15)." The world is a most hurtful snare to the child of God. It is impossible that he can maintain a close and holy walk with God, live as a pilgrim and a sojourner, wage a constant and successful warfare against his many spiritual foes, and at the same time open his heart to admit the greatest foe to grace - the love of the world. But when the mind is pre-occupied by Christ, filled with contemplations of his glory and grace and love, no room is left for the entrance of external allurements: the world is shut out, and the creature is hut out, and the fascinations of sin are shut out; and the soul holds a constant and undisturbed fellowship with God, while it is enabled to maintain a more vigorous resistance to every external attack of the enemy. And O, how blessed is the soul's communion, thus shut in with Jesus! "Behold, I stand at the door and knock: if any man hear my voice and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me." "I would come in," says the dear Lamb of God, "and dwell in you, and take up my abode with you, and sup with you, and you with me." This is true fellowship! And O, sweet response of his own Spirit in the heart, when the believing soul exclaims, - "When you said, Seek you my face; my heart said unto you, Your face, Lord, will I seek!" "Enter, you precious Jesus; I want none but You; I desire no company, and would hear no voice but your; I will have fellowship with none but you, - let me sup with you: yes, give me your own flesh to eat, and your own blood to drink." Ah! dear Christian reader, it is because we have so little to do with Jesus - we admit him so seldom and so reluctantly to our hearts - we have so few dealings with him - travel so seldom to his blood and righteousness, and live so little upon his fullness, that we are compelled so often to exclaim, - "My leanness, my leanness!" But, if we be "risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sits on the right hand of God;" let us seek to know Christ more, to have more spiritual and enlarged comprehensions of his glory, to drink deeper into his love, to imbibe more of his Spirit, and conform more closely to his example.

But that which forms the great secret of all personal revival is yet to be disclosed; we allude to a fresh baptism of the Holy Spirit. This a declining soul needs more than all beside. Possessing this in a large degree, he possesses every spiritual blessing: it includes, and is the pledge of every other. Our dear Lord sought to impress this, his last consoling doctrine, upon the drooping minds of his disciples: his bodily presence in their midst, he taught them, was not to be compared with the spiritual and permanent dwelling of the Spirit among them. The descent of the Holy Spirit was to bring all things that he had taught them to their remembrance; it was to perfect them in their knowledge of the supreme glory of his person, the infinite perfection of his work, the nature and spirituality of his kingdom, and its ultimate and certain triumphs in the earth. The descent of the Spirit, too, was to mature them in personal holiness, and more eminently fit them for their arduous and successful labor in his cause, by deepening their spirituality, enriching them with more grace, and enlarging them with more love. And fully did the baptism of the Holy Spirit, on the day of Pentecost, accomplish all this: the apostles emerged from his influence, like men who had passed through a state of re-conversion.

And this is the state, dear reader, you must pass through, would you experience a revival of God's work in your soul: you must be reconverted, and that through a fresh baptism of the Holy Spirit. Nothing short of this will quicken your dying graces, and melt your frozen love; nothing save this will arrest your secret declension, and restore your backsliding heart. You must be baptized afresh with the Spirit; that Spirit whom you have so often and so deeply wounded, grieved, slighted and quenched, must enter you anew, and seal, and sanctify, and reconvert you. O arise, and pray, and agonize for the outpouring of the Spirit upon your soul; give up your lifeless religion, your form without the power, your prayer without communion, your confessions without brokenness, your zeal without love. And O, what numerous and precious promises cluster in God's word, all inviting you to seek this blessing! "He shall come down like rain upon the mown grass; as showers that water the earth (Ps 72:6)." "I will heal their backslidings, I will love them freely; for mine anger is turned away from him. I will be as the dew unto Israel: he shall grow as the lily, and cast forth his roots as Lebanon. His branches shall spread, and his beauty shall be as the olive-tree, and his smell as Lebanon. Those who dwell under his shadow shall return; they shall revive as the corn, and grow as the vine: the scent thereof shall be as the wine of Lebanon (Hos 14:4-7)." "Come, let us return unto the Lord; for he has torn, and he will heal us; he has smitten, and he will bind us up. After two days he will revive us, in the third day he will raise us up, and we shall live in his sight. Then shall we know, if we follow on to know the Lord: his going forth is prepared as the morning; and he shall come unto us as the rain, as the latter and former rain unto the earth (Hos 6:1-3)." Seek, then, above and beyond all other blessings, the renewed baptism of the Holy Spirit. "Be filled with the Spirit;" seek it earnestly, - seek it under the deep conviction of your absolute need of it, - seek it perseveringly, - seek it believingly. God has promised, "I will pour out my Spirit upon you;" and, asking it in the name of Jesus, you shall receive.

One word more: Be not surprised if the Lord should place you in circumstances of deep trial, in order to recover you from your soul-declension: the Lord often adapts the peculiarity of the discipline to that of the case. Is it secret declension? He may send some secret rebuke, some secret cross, some hidden chastisement; no one has discovered your concealed declension, and no one discovers your concealed correction. The declension was between God and your soul, so also it may be is the rebuke; the backsliding was of the heart, so also is the chastisement. But if the sanctified trial works the recovery of your soul, the restoration to Christ of your wavering heart, the revival of his entire work within you, you shall adore him for the discipline; and with David, extolling the dealings of a covenant God and Father, shall exclaim, - "Before I was afflicted I went astray, but now have I kept your word. It is good for me that I have been afflicted, that I might learn your statutes!"

Lastly: Set out afresh for God and heaven, as though you had never started in the way before. Commence at the beginning; go as a sinner to Jesus; seek the quickening, healing, sanctifying influence of the Spirit; and let this be your prayer, presented, and urged until answered, at the footstool of mercy: "O Lord, revive your work! Quicken me, O Lord! Restore unto me the joy of your salvation!" In answer to your petition, "He shall come down like rain upon the mown grass, as showers that water the earth;" and your song shall be that of the church, "My Beloved spoke, and said unto me, Rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away. For lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone. The flowers appear on the earth, the time of the singing of birds is come, and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land. The fig-tree puts forth her green figs, and the vines with the tender grape give a good smell. Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away."

Chapter 2: Declension in LOVE

"The love of many shall wax cold." (Matthew 24:12)

Having described the hidden and incipient declension of the believer, we propose in the present and succeeding chapters, to trace this melancholy state in some of its more advanced stages, as it is seen in the langour and decay of the graces of the Spirit in the soul. It is no longer the concealed, but developed, character of spiritual and personal declension that we are now to consider. Its type is more marked, and its symptoms more palpable and visible to the eye. It has arrived at such a stage as to render concealment impossible. Just as in the physical frame, a slight sinking in the heart's pulsation, even though the seat of disease is invisible, may be traced in the external symptoms that ensue; so, in the spiritual man, when there is a secret unhealthiness of the soul, the effects are so marked in their character as to leave no doubt of its existence. The man may not himself be sensible of his backsliding state; he may wrap himself up in the fearful deception that all is well, close his eyes voluntarily against his real state, disguise from himself the rapidly advancing disease, crying "peace, peace," and putting far off the evil day; but with a spiritual and advancing believer, one whose eye is keen to detect an unfavorable symptom, and whose touch is skillful to mark a sickly pulse, the case is involved in no mystery.

In tracing the declension of some of the essential and prominent graces of the Spirit, we commence with the grace of LOVE, it constituting the spring-head of all the kindred graces. The spiritual state of the soul, and the vigor and promptness of its obedience, will correspond with the state and tone of the believer's affections toward God. If decay, coldness, declension, exist here, it is felt and traced throughout the entire obedience of the new man. Every grace of the Spirit feels it; every call to duty feels it; and every throb of the spiritual pulse will but betray the secret and certain declension of Divine love in the soul. Let the Christian reader, then, imagine what must be the spiritual unhealthiness of the believer, what his outward and visible declensions from God, when love, the spring of all spiritual duties, ceases to exert a vigorous influence, and when, as the heart of experimental godliness, it transmits but sickly and sluggish streams of life throughout the spiritual system. Let us, before we proceed to the immediate discussion of the main subject before us, present a brief and scriptural view of the necessity, nature, and operation of Divine love in the soul.

Love to God is spoken of in his word, as forming the primary and grand requirement of the Divine law. Thus is the truth declared, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the first and great commandment (Mt 22:37,38)." Now, it was both infinitely wise and good in God, thus to present himself the proper and lawful object of love. We say it was wise, because, had he placed the object of supreme affection lower than himself, it had been to have elevated an inferior object above himself. For whatever other object than God is loved with a sole and supreme affection, it is a deifying of that object, so that it, as God, sits in the temple of God, showing itself that it is God. It was good, because a lesser object of affection could never have met the desires and aspirations of an immortal mind. God has so constituted man, implanting in him such a capacity for happiness, and such boundless and immortal desires for its possession, as can find their full enjoyment only in infinity itself. He never designed that the intelligent and immortal creature should sip its bliss at a lower fountain than himself. Then it was infinitely wise and good in God, that he should have presented himself as the sole object of supreme love and worship to his intelligent creatures. His wisdom saw the necessity of having one center of supreme and adoring affection, and one object of supreme and spiritual worship to angels and to men. His goodness suggested that that center and that that object should be himself, the perfection of infinite excellence, the fountain of infinite good. That, as from him went forth all the streams of life to all creatures, it was but reasonable and just that to him should return, and in him should center, all the streams of love and obedience of all intelligent and immortal creatures: that, as he was the most intelligent, wise, glorious, and beneficent object in the universe, it was meet that the first, strongest, and purest love of the creature should soar towards, and find its resting-place in him.

Love to God, then, forms the grand requirement, and fundamental precept of the Divine law. It is binding upon all intelligent beings. From it no consideration can release the creature. No plea of inability, no claim of inferior objects, no opposition of rival interest, can lessen the obligation of every creature that has breath to "love the Lord his God with all his heart, and with all his soul, and with all his mind." It grows out of the relation of the creature to God, as his Creator, Moral Governor, and Preserver; and as being in himself the only object of infinite excellence, wisdom, holiness, majesty, and grace. This obligation, too, to love God with supreme affection, is binding upon the creature irrespective of any advantage which may result to him from so loving God. It is most true that God has benevolently connected supreme happiness with supreme love, and has threatened supreme misery, where supreme affection is withheld; yet, independent of any blessing that may accrue to the creature from its love to God, the infinite excellence of the Divine nature, and the eternal relation in which he stands to the intelligent universe, render it irreversibly obligatory on every creature to love him with a supreme, paramount, holy, and unreserved affection.

Love, too, is the great influential principle of the Gospel. The religion of Jesus is pre-eminently a religion of motive: it excludes every compulsory principle; it arrays before the mind certain great and powerful motives with which it enlists the understanding, the will, and the affections, in the active service of Christ. Now the law of Christianity is not the law of coercion, but of love. This is the grand lever, the great influential motive, - "the love of Christ constrains us." This was the apostle's declaration, and his governing motive; and the constraining love of Christ is to be the governing motive, the influential principle of every believer. Apart from the constraining influence of Christ's love in the heart, there cannot possibly be a willing, prompt, and holy obedience to his commandments. A conviction of duty and the influence of fear may sometimes urge forward the soul, but love alone can prompt to a loving and holy obedience; and all obedience that springs from an inferior motive is not the obedience that the gospel of Jesus inculcates. The relation in which the believer stands to God, under the new covenant dispensation, is not that of a slave to his master, but of a child to its father. "And because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father (Gal 4:6)." "The Spirit itself bears witness with our spirit, that we are children of God (Rom 8:16)." "Wherefore you are no more a servant (a slave), but a son (Gal 4:7)." With this new and spiritual relation, we look for a new and spiritual motive, and we find it in that single but comprehensive word - LOVE. And thus our Lord declared it: "If you love me, keep my commandments (Jn 14:15)." "If a man love me, he will keep my words; and he who loves me not, keeps not my sayings (Jn 14:23,24)." It is then only where this love is shed abroad in the heart by the Holy Spirit, that we may expect to find the fruit of obedience. Swayed by this Divine principle, the believer labors not for life, but from life: not for acceptance, but from acceptance. A holy, self-denying, cross-bearing life, is not the drudgery of a slave, but the filial, loving obedience of a child: it springs from love to the person, and gratitude for the work of Jesus; and is the blessed effect of the spirit of adoption in the heart.

It must be acknowledged, too, that this motive is the most holy and influential of all motives of obedience. Love, flowing from the heart of Jesus into the heart of a poor, believing sinner, expelling selfishness, melting coldness, conquering sinfulness, and drawing that heart up in a simple and unreserved surrender, is, of all principles of action, the most powerful and sanctifying. Under the constraining influence of this principle, how easy becomes every cross for Jesus! - how light every burden, how pleasant every yoke! Duties become privileges - difficulties vanish - fears are quelled - shame is humbled - delay is rebuked; and, all on flame for Jesus, the pardoned, justified, adopted child exclaims, "Here, Lord, am I, a living sacrifice; your for your, and your for eternity!"

Love is that principle that expels all legal fear from the heart. "There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear has torment. He who fears is not made perfect in love (1 Jn 4:18)." Who has felt it will deny that "fear has torment?" The legal fear of death, of judgment, and of condemnation, - the fear engendered by a slavish view of the Lord's commandments, - a defective view of the believer's relation to God, - imperfect conceptions of the finished work of Christ, - unsettled apprehensions of the great fact of acceptance, - yielding to the power of unbelief, - the retaining of guilt upon the conscience, or the influence of any concealed sin, will fill the heart with the torment of fear. Some of the most eminent of God's people have thus been afflicted: this was Job's experience, - "I am afraid of all my sorrows." "Even when I remember, I am afraid, and trembling takes hold on my flesh." "When I consider him, I am afraid of him." So also David, - "What time I am afraid, I will trust in you." "My flesh trembles for fear of you; I am afraid of your judgments." But "perfect love casts out fear:" he who fears is not perfected in the love of Christ. The design and tendency of the love of Jesus shed abroad in the heart, is to lift the soul out of all its "bondage through fear of death" and its ultimate consequences, and soothe it to rest on the glorious declaration, triumphing in which many have gone to glory, "There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus." See the blessed spring from whence flows a believer's victory over all bondage-fear - from Jesus: not from his experience of the truth, not from evidence of his acceptance and adoption, not from the work of the Spirit in his heart, blessed as it is, but from out of, and away from, himself, even from Jesus. The blood and righteousness of Christ, based upon the infinite dignity and glory of his person, and wrought into the experience of the believer by the Holy Spirit, expel from the heart all fear of death and judgment, and fill it with perfect peace. O you of fearful heart! why these anxious doubts, why these tormenting fears, why this shrinking from the thought of death, why these distant, hard, and unkind thoughts of God? Why this prison-house, - why this chain? You are not perfected in the love of Jesus, for "perfect love casts out fear;" you are not perfected in that great truth, that Jesus is mighty to save, that he died for a poor sinner, that his death was a perfect satisfaction to Divine justice; and that without a single meritorious work of your own, just as you are, poor, empty, vile, worthless, unworthy, you are welcome to the rich provision of sovereign grace and dying love. The simple belief of this will perfect your heart in love; and perfected in love, every bondage-fear will vanish away. O seek to be perfected in Christ's love! It is a fathomless ocean. Why then should you not descend into it? Approach, for it is free; drink, for it is deep; launch into it, for it is broad. "The Lord direct your heart into the love of God."

Love is that grace of the Spirit that brings faith into active exercise; "faith which works by love (Gal 5:6)," and faith thus brought into exercise, brings every spiritual blessing into the soul. A believer stands by faith (Rom 11:20); he walks by faith (2 Cor 5:7); he overcomes by faith (1 Jn 5:4); he lives by faith (Gal 2:20). Love is therefore a laboring grace; "God is not unrighteous to forget your work and labor of love, which you have showed towards his name (Heb 11:10)." There is nothing indolent in the nature of true love; it is not an inert, sluggish principle: where it dwells in the heart in a healthy and vigorous state, it constrains the believer to live not to himself, but unto Him who loved and gave himself for him; it awakes the soul to watchfulness, sets it upon the work of frequent self-examination, influences it to prayer, daily walking in the precepts, acts of kindness, benevolence, and charity, all springing from love to God, and flowing in a channel of love to man.

The Holy Spirit distinguishes love as a part of the Christian armor: "Let us, who are of the day, be sober, putting on the bosom-plate of faith and love (1 Thess 5:8)." Without ardent and increasing love to God, the believer is but poorly armed against his numerous spiritual and ever-aggressive foes: but what a bosom-plate and helmet is this in the day of battle! Who can overcome a child of God whose heart is overflowing with Divine love? what enemy can prevail against him thus armed? There is something so shielding in its influence, so repelling to the spirit of enmity and darkness, so obnoxious to sin, that he only is fit for the conflict who is well clad in the bosom-plate of love. He may be, and he is, in himself, nothing but weakness; his foes many and mighty; hemmed in on every side by his spiritual Philistines; and yet, his heart soaring to God in love, longing for his presence, panting for his precepts, desiring above and beyond all other blessings, Divine conformity! O with what a panoply is he clothed! No weapon formed against him shall prosper: every "fiery dart of the adversary" shall be quenched, and he shall "come off more than a conqueror through him who has loved him."

In a word, love is immortal; it is that grace of the Spirit that will never die. This is not so with all the kindred graces; the period will come when they will no more be needed. The day is not far distant, when faith will be turned to sight, and hope will be lost in full fruition, but love will never die; it will live on, and expand the heart, and tune the lip, and inspire the song, through the unceasing ages of eternity. "Whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away;" but love never fails; it is an eternal spring, welled in the bosom of Deity; heaven will be its dwelling-place, God its source, the glorified spirit its subject, and eternity its duration.

For one moment let the Christian reader call to mind the period and the circumstances of his first espousals to Jesus. If there ever was a blissful period of your life, - if a spot of verdure in the remembrance of the past, on which the sunlight ever rests, - was it not the time, and is it not the place, where your heart first expanded with the love of Jesus? You have, it may be, trod many a thorny path since then; you have traveled many a weary step of your pilgrimage - have buffeted many storms, have waded through many deep afflictions, and fought many severe battles, - but all have well-near faded from your memory; but the hour and the events of your "first love," - these you never have forgotten, you never can forget. O ever to be loved, ever to be remembered with deep songs of joy, with adoring gratitude to free and sovereign grace, the period when the chains of your bondage were broken, - when your fettered soul broke from its thraldom, and sprang into the liberty of the sons of God, - when light discovered your darkness, and that darkness rolled away before its increasing luster, - when the Spirit wounded you, then healed that wound with the precious balm of Gilead, - when he gave you sorrow, then soothed that sorrow by a view of the crucified Lamb of God, - when faith took hold of Jesus and brought the blessed assurance into the soul, "I am my beloved's, and my beloved is mine;" and when Jesus whispered, - O how tender was his voice! - "Your sins, which were many, are all forgiven; go in peace." Blissful moment! How fresh is the whole transaction to your mind: the sanctuary where you did worship, - the minister whom you did hear, - the people with whom you did associate, - the spot where you did lose your burden, and where light, and love, and joy, broke in upon your soul, - the saints who rejoiced over you, and the happy converts who clustered around you, mingling their joys and their songs with your; and the man of God who introduced you within the pale, and to the ordinances and the privileges of the Church of Christ, - all, all is now before you with a vividness and a freshness as though it had bust just transpired. O that the Lord should ever have reason to prefer the charge, "you have left your first love!" And yet to the consideration of this melancholy state of a professing soul we have now to turn. May the Spirit of truth and of love be our guide and teacher!

The subject now before us for reflection, is the humbling and affecting truth, that the grace of love in a child of God may greatly and sadly decline. We speak, let it be remembered, not of the destruction of the principle, but of the decline of its power. This spiritual and influential truth cannot be too frequently nor too strongly insisted upon, - that through faith and love, and hope, and zeal, and their kindred graces, may greatly decline in their vigor, fervor, and real growth; yet that they may entirely fail even in their greatest decay, or severest trial, the Word of God assures us can never be. To believe the opposite of this, is to deny their Divine origin, their spiritual and immortal character, and to impeach the wisdom, power, and faithfulness of God. Not a grain of wheat can ever be lost in the sifting, not a particle of the pure gold in the refining. Let us now be understood as unfolding in this chapter the declension of love in its vital actings in the soul, and in its influential character upon the outward, holy walk of a child of God.

In looking into God's Word, we find this to have been the solemn charge which he brought against his ancient professing people: "Thus says the Lord, I remember you, the kindness of your youth, the love of your espousals, when you went after me in the wilderness, in a land that was not sown." Then follows the charge of declension in their love: "Thus says the Lord, What iniquity have your fathers found in me, that they are gone far from me, and have walked after vanity, and are become vain?" "O generation, see you the word of the Lord. Have I been a wilderness unto Israel? a land of darkness? Wherefore say my people, We are lords; we will come no more unto you? Can a maid forget her ornaments, or a bride her attire? yet my people have forgotten me days without number (Jer 2:2,5,31)." And to the same state, as forming an evidence of approaching desolations, our dear Lord refers, when He says, "And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold (Mt 24:12)." And against the church of Ephesus the same charge is thus preferred: "Nevertheless I have somewhat against you, because you have left your first love (Rev 2:4)." The following may be considered as forming some of the marked characteristics of the decay and declension of this principle.

When God becomes less an object of fervent desire, holy delight, and frequent contemplation, we may suspect a declension of Divine love in the soul. Our spiritual views of God, and our spiritual and constant delight in him, will be materially affected by the state of our spiritual love. If there is coldness in the affections, if the mind grows earthly, carnal, and selfish, dark and gloomy shadows will gather round the character and the glory of God. He will become less an object of supreme attachment, unmingled delight, adoring contemplation, and filial trust. The moment the supreme love of Adam to God declined, - the instant that it swerved from its proper and lawful center, he shunned converse with God, and sought to embower himself from the presence of the Divine glory. Conscious of a change in his affections, - sensible of a divided heart, of subjection to a rival interest, - and knowing that God was no longer the object of his supreme love, nor the fountain of his pure delight, nor the blessed and only source of his bliss, - he rushed from his presence as from an object of terror, and sought concealment in Eden's bowers. That God whose presence was once so glorious, whose converse was so holy, whose voice was so sweet, became as a strange God to the rebellious and conscience-stricken creature, and, "absence from you is best," was written in dark letters upon his guilty brow.

And whence this difference? Was God less glorious in himself? was he less holy, less loving, less faithful, or less the fountain of supreme bliss? Far from it. God has undergone no change. It is the perfection of a perfect Being that he is unchangeable; that he can never act contrary to his own nature, but must ever be, in all that he does, in harmony with himself. The change was in the creature. Adam had left his first love, had transferred his affections to another and an inferior object; and conscious that he had ceased to love God, he would gladly have veiled himself from his presence, and have excluded himself from his communion. It is even so in the experience of a believer, conscious of declension in his love to God. There is a hiding from his presence; there are misty views of his character, misinterpretations of his dealings, and a lessening of holy desire for him: but where the heart is right in its affections, warm in its love, fixed in its desires, God is glorious in his perfections, and communion with him the highest bliss on earth. This was David's experience, - "O God, you are my God; early will I seek you: my soul thirsts for you, my flesh longs for you in a dry and thirsty land where no water is; to see your power and your glory, so as I have seen you in the sanctuary. Because your loving-kindness is better than life, my lips shall praise you (Ps 63:1-3)."

Not only in the declension of Divine love in the soul, does God become lass an object of adoring contemplation and desire, but there is less filial approach to Him. The sweet confidence and simple trust of the child is lost; the soul no longer rushes into his bosom with all the lowly yet fond yearnings of an adopted son, but lingers at a distance; or, if it attempts to approach, does so with the trembling and the restraint of a slave. The tender, loving, child-like spirit, that marked the walk of the believer in the days of his espousals, when no object was so glorious to him as God, no being so loved as his heavenly Father, no spot so sacred as the throne of communion, no theme so sweet as his free grace adoption, has in a great degree departed; and distrust, and legal fears, and bondage of spirit, have succeeded it. All these sad effects may be traced to the declension of filial love in the soul of the believer towards God.

Hard thoughts of God in his dispensations, may be regarded as another undeniable symptom. The mark of a vigorous love to God is when the soul justifies God in all his wise and gracious dealings with it; rebels not, murmurs not, repines not, but meekly and silently acquiesces in the dispensation, be it never so trying. Divine love in the heart, deepening and expanding towards that God from whence it springs, will, in the hour of trial, exclaim, "My God has smitten me, but he is my God still, faithful and loving. My father has chastened me sore, but he is my Father still, tender and kind. This trying dispensation originated in love, it speaks with the voice of love, it bears with it the message of love, and is sent to draw my heart closer and yet closer to the God of love, from whom it came." Dear reader, are you one of the Lord's afflicted ones? Happy are you if this is the holy and blessed result of his dealings with you. Happy if you heard the voice of love in the rod, winning your lone and sorrowful heart to the God from whom it came. But when love to God has declined, the reverse of this is the state of a tried and afflicted believer.

When there is but little inclination for communion with God, and the throne of grace is sought as a duty rather than a privilege, and, consequently, but little fellowship is experienced, a stronger evidence we need not of a declension of love in the soul. The more any object is to us a source of sweet delight and contemplation, the more strongly do we desire its presence, and the more restless are we in its absence. The friend we love we want constantly at our side; the spirit goes out in longings for communion with him, - his presence sweetens, his absence embitters, every other joy. Precisely true is this of God. He who knows God, who, with faith's eye, has discovered some of his glory, and by the power of the Spirit has felt something of his love, will not be at a loss to distinguish between God's sensible presence and absence in the soul. Some professing people walk so much without communion, without fellowship, without daily filial and close communion with God; they are so immersed in the cares, and so lost in the fogs and mists of the world; the fine edge of their spiritual affection is so blunted, and their love so frozen by contact with worldly influences and occupations, - and no less so, with cold, formal professors, - that the Sun of righteousness may cease to shine upon their soul, and they not know it! God may cease to visit them, and his absence not be felt! He may cease to speak, and the stillness of his voice not awaken an emotion of alarm! Yes, a more strange thing would happen to them, if the Lord were suddenly to break in upon their soul, with a visit of love, than were he to leave them for weeks and months without any token of his presence. Reader, are you a professing child of God? Content not yourself to live thus; it is a poor, lifeless existence, unworthy of your profession, unworthy of Him whose name you do bear, and unworthy of the glorious destiny towards which you are looking. Thus may a believer test the character of his love: he, in whose heart Divine affection deepens, increases, and expands, finds God an object of increasing delight and desire, and communion with him the most costly privilege on earth: he cannot live in the neglect of constant, secret, and close fellowship with his God, his best and most faithful Friend.

When there is a less tender walk with God, we may be at no loss to ascertain the state of our love. What do we mean by a tender walk? When a believer walks in holy circumspection, in uprightness, integrity, close vigilance, and prayerfulness, before God, he then walks softly: "I shall go softly all my years (Is 38:15)." When with filial tenderness, he trembles to offend his Father, his God, his best Friend, - when he increasingly delights himself in the precepts and commandments of the Lord, - when he would rather pluck from himself the right eye, and sever the right hand, than willfully and knowingly offend God, and grieve the Spirit; then his walk is tender and soft and close with God. And what constrains a believer to this glorious life, this holy, hidden walk, but the love of God shed abroad in his heart? Imagine, then, what dangers must throng the path, what temptations must beset the soul, in whom the precious and influential grace of love is in a state of declension and decay!

Need we add, when Christ is less glorious to the eye, and less precious to the heart, Divine love in the soul of a believer must be on the wane? it cannot be otherwise. Our views of Jesus must be materially affected by the state of our affections towards him. Where there is but little dealing with the atoning blood, leaning upon the righteousness, drawing from the fullness, and bearing daily the cross of Christ, the love of a believer waxes cold. We would judge the depth of a man's Christianity, by his reply to the question, "'What think you of Christ?' Is he lived to, is he lived upon? is his name your delight, his cross your boast, his work your resting place?" This will be your blessed experience, if the pulse of Divine love beats strong in your bosom for Christ.

A decay of love to the saints of God, is a strong evidence of a decay of love to God himself. If we love God with a sincere and deepening affection, we must love his image wherever we find it. It is true, the picture may be but an imperfect copy, the outline may be but faintly drawn; there may be shades we cannot approve of; yet, recognizing in the work the hand of the Spirit, and in the outline some resemblance to Him whom our souls admire and love, we must feel a drawing out of our holiest affections towards the object; we shall not pause before the surrender is made, to inquire to what section of the church of Christ he belongs, what name he bears, or what the color of his uniform; but, discovering the man of God, the meek and lowly follower of Jesus, our heart and our hand are freely offered. O what a passport to our hearts is the image of Jesus in a child of God! Do we trace Christ in the principles that guide him, in the motives that govern him, in the spirit, in the very looks of the man? - we feel that we must take him to our bosom for Jesus' sake. O, it marks the decay of love to God in the soul, when the heart beats faintly, and the eye looks coldly, towards any dear saint of God, because he belongs not to our party, and wears not our badge; when bigotry, narrow-minded selfishness, warps the mind, congeals the current of love, and almost unchristianises a believer. The word of God is solemn and decisive on this point: "If a man say, I love God, and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who loves not his brother whom he has seen, how can he love God whom he has not seen? And this commandment have we from him, that he who loves God, love his brother also (1 Jn 4:20,21)." "By this," says Jesus, "shall all men know that you are my disciples, if you love one another." If we love not the visible resemblance, how can we love the invisible Archetype?

When love to God declines, with it will decline an interest in the advancement and prosperity of his cause: the one invariably follows the other. We do not say that outward zeal may not continue long after a process of concealed declension has advanced in the soul, and secret duties have become neglected - this is the lamentable case with many; but a true, spiritual, and lively interest in the increase of Christ's kingdom, in the diffusion of his truth, the deepening of holiness in the church, the conversion of sinners, will invariably decline with the declension of love to God. And when we mark a member of a church maintaining his external union, and yet hanging as a dead and fruitless branch upon the vine, doing nothing to advance the cause of God and truth, withholding his money, his prayers, his personal attendance on the means of grace, and rather opposing than cheering on the active portion of the body, we are ready to ask, "How dwells the love of God in him?"

The declension of love may be traced to many CAUSES: we can enumerate but a few; let the following be seriously pondered. Worldly encroachment is a fruitful cause; no two affections can be more opposite and antagonistic than love to God and love to the world: it is impossible that they can both exist with equal force in the same bosom; the one or the other must be supreme, - they cannot occupy the same throne. If a Divine affection is regent, then the world is excluded; but if an earthly affection, a groveling and increasing love to the world governs - God is shut out: the one must give place to the other. Love to God will expel love to the world; love to the world will deaden the soul's love to God. "No man can serve two masters": it is impossible to love God and the world, to serve him and mammon. Here is a most fertile cause of declension in Divine love; guard against it as you would fortify yourself against your greatest foe. It is a vortex that has engulfed millions of souls; multitudes of professing Christians have been drawn into its eddy, and have gone down into its gulf. This enemy of your soul will steal upon you by silent and insidious encroachment. It has its disguises many. It will present itself masked in a proper regard for business, in a diligence in lawful callings, a prudent yielding to domestic claims, and will even quote scriptural precept and example, and assume the form of an angel of light; but suspect it, guard against it. Remember what is recorded by the apostle of a primitive professor: "Demas has forsaken me, having loved this present world." Be not a modern Demas: "Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world; if any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him." No Christian man can maintain his spirituality unimpaired, his love uninjured, his robe unspotted, his walk irreproachable, who secretly admits the world to his heart. How can he exemplify the life of a pilgrim and a sojourner; how can his heart rise in a constant flame of love to God? What attraction can the throne of grace have, what zest in spiritual duties, what delight in the communion of saints, while his heart goes out after covetousness, and worldly ambition, love of place, and human applause are the rival passions of his soul? Let it, then, be solemnly remembered, that an inordinate, uncrucified attachment to the world, must be parted with, if the precious grace of love to God is to enthrone itself in the affections of the believer.

An idolatrous and unsanctified attachment to the creature, has again and again crucified love to Christ in the heart. Upon the same principle that no man can love the world and God with a supreme and kindred affection, so no man can give to Christ and the creature the same intensity of regard. And yet, how often has the creature stolen the heart from its lawful Sovereign! That heart that was once so simply and so supremely the Lord's, - those affections that clung to him with such purity and power of grasp, have now been transferred to another and inferior object: the piece of clay that God had given but to deepen the obligation and heighten the soul's love to himself, has been molded into an idol, before which the heart pours its daily incense; the flower that he has caused to spring forth, but to endear his own beauty and make his own name more fragrant, has supplanted the "Rose of Sharon" in the bosom. Oh! is it thus that we abuse our mercies? is it thus that we convert our blessings into poisons? that we allow the things that were sent to endear the heart of our God, and to make the cross, through which they came, more precious, to allure our affections from their holy and blessed center? Fools that we are, to love the creature more than the Creator! Dear reader, why has God been disciplining you as, it may be, he has? why has he removed your idols, crumbled into dust your piece of clay, and blown witheringly upon your beauteous flower? - why? because he hates idolatry; and idolatry is essentially the same, whether it be offered to a lifeless, shapeless stock, or to a spirit of intellect and beauty. And what speaks his voice in every stream that he dries, in every plant that he blows upon, and in every disappointment he writes upon the creature? - "My son, give me your heart. I want your love, your pure and supreme affection; I want to be the one and only object of your delight. I gave my Son for you - his life for your; I sent my Spirit to quicken, to renew, to seal, and to possess you for myself: all this I did, that I might have your heart. To possess myself of this, I have smitten your gourds, removed your idols, broken your earthly dependences, and have sought to detach your affections from the creature, that they may rise, undivided and unfettered, and entwine around one who loves you with an undying love."

Again; interpreting God's covenant dealings in the light of judgments rather than the fruits of love, will tend greatly to deaden the soul's affections towards God. Hard and harsh thoughts of God will be the effect of wrong interpretations of his dealings: if for one moment we remove the eye from off the heart of God in the hour and depth of our trial, we are prepared to give heed to every dark suggestion of the adversary; that moment we look at the dispensation with a different mind, and to God with an altered affection; we view the chastisement as the effect of displeasure, and the covenant God that sent it, as unkind, unloving, and severe. But let faith's eagle-eye pierce the clouds and darkness that surround the throne, and behold the heart of God is still love, all love, and nothing but love, to his afflicted, bereaved, and sorrow-stricken child, and in a moment every murmur will be hushed, every rebellious feeling will be still, and every unkind thought will lay in the dust; and, "He has done all things well, - in love and faithfulness has he afflicted me," will be the only sounds uttered by the lips. If, then, beloved, you would have your heart always fixed on God, its affections flowing in one unbroken current towards him, interpret every dispensation that he sends in the light of his love; never suffer yourself to be betrayed into the belief, that any other feeling prompts the discipline; give not place to the suggestion for one moment, - banish it from the threshold of your mind, the moment it seeks an entrance. And let this be the reflection that hushes and soothes you to repose, even as an infant upon its mother's bosom: "My God is love! my Father is unchangeable tenderness and truth! he has done it, and it is well done."

Let us now turn to the consideration of the revival of this waning grace in the child of God; but before any especial means of revival are suggested or adopted, let the believer seek to know the exact state of his love to God. A knowledge of himself, is the first step in the return of every soul to God. In conversion, it was self-knowledge - a knowledge of ourselves as utterly lost - that led us to Jesus; thus did the Eternal Spirit teach, and thus he led us to the great and finished work of the Son of God. Before, then, you fall upon any means of revival, ascertain the exact state of your love, and what has caused its declension; shrink not from the examination, - hide not from the discovery. And should the humiliating truth force itself upon you, - "I am not as I once was; my soul has lost ground, - my spirituality of mind has decayed; - I have lost the fervor of my first love - have slackened in the heavenly race; Jesus is not as he once was, the joy of my day, the song of my night; - and my walk with God is no longer so tender, loving, and filial as it was," - then honestly and humbly confess it before God. To be humbled as we should be, we must know ourselves; there must be no disguising of our true condition from ourselves, nor from God: the wound must be probed, the disease must be known, and its most aggravated symptoms brought to view. Ascertain, then, the true state of your affection towards God; bring your love to him, to the touchstone of truth; see how far it has declined, and thus you will be prepared for the second step in the work of revival, which is, to -

Trace out and crucify the cause of your declension in love. Where love declines, there must be a cause; and when ascertained, it must be immediately removed. Love to God is a tender flower; it is a sensitive plant, soon and easily crushed; perpetual vigilance is needed to preserve it in a healthy, growing state. The world's heat will wither it, the coldness of formal profession will often nip it: a thousand influences, all foreign to its nature and hostile to its growth, are leagued against it; the soil in which it is placed is not genial to it. "In the flesh there dwells no good thing;" whatever of holiness is in the believer, whatever breathing after Divine conformity, whatever soaring of the affections towards God, is from God himself, and is there as the result of sovereign grace. "That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit." What sleepless vigilance, then, and what perpetual culture are needed, to preserve the bloom and the fragrance, and to nourish the growth of this celestial plant! Search out and remove the cause of the declension and decay of this precious grace of the Spirit; rest not until it is discovered and brought to light. Should it prove to be the world, come out from it. and be you separate, and touch not the unclean thing; or the power of indwelling sin, seek its immediate crucifixion by the cross of Jesus. Does the creature steal your heart from Christ, and deaden your love to God? - resign it at God's bidding; he asks the surrender of your heart, and has promised to be better to you than all creature love. All the tenderness, the fond affection, the acute sympathy, the true fidelity, that you ever did find or enjoy in the creature, dwells in God, your covenant God and Father, in an infinite degree. He makes the creature all it is to you: that fond smile which your fellow-believer beamed upon you, was but a ray from his countenance; that expression of love was but a drop from his heart; that tenderness and sympathy was a part of his nature. Then, possessing God in Christ, you can desire no more, - you can have no more: if he asks the surrender of the creature, cheerfully resign it; and let God be all in all to you. This suggests a second direction:

Draw largely from the fount of love in God. All love to God in the soul is the result of his love to us; it is begotten in the heart by his Spirit, - "We love him, because he first loved us:" he took the first step, and made the first advance, - "He first loved us." O heart-melting truth! The love of God to us when yet we were sinners, who can unfold it? what mortal tongue can describe it? Before we had any being, and when er were enemies, he sent his Son to die for us; and when we were far off by wicked works, he sent his Spirit to bring us to him in the cloudy and dark day. All his dealings with us since then - his patience, restoring mercies, tender, loving, faithful care, yes, the very strokes of his rod, have but unfolded the depths of his love towards his people: this is the love we desire you to be filled with. "The Lord direct your hearts into the love of God." Draw largely from this river; why should you deny yourselves? There is enough love in God to overflow the hearts of all his saints through all eternity; then why not be filled? "The LORD direct your hearts into the love of God;" stand not upon the brink of the fountain, linger not upon the margin of this river, - enter into it - plunge into it; it is for you, - poor, worthless, unworthy, vile as you feel yourself to be, - this river of love is yet for you! Seek to be filled with it, that you may know the love of Christ which passes knowledge, and that your heart in return may ascend in a flame of love to God.

Deal much and closely with a crucified Savior. Here is the grand secret of a constant ascending of the affections to God. If you do find it difficult to comprehend the love of God towards you, read it in the cross of his dear Son. "In this was manifested the love of God towards us, because that God sent his only-begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him. Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins (1 Jn 4:9,10)." Dwell upon this amazing fact; drink into this precious truth; muse upon it, ponder it, search into it, pray over it, until your heart is melted down, and broken, and overwhelmed with God's wondrous love to you, in the gift of Jesus. O how will this rekindle the flame that is ready to die in your bosom! how it will draw you up in a holy and unreserved surrender of Body, soul, and spirit! Do not forget, then, to deal much with Jesus. Whenever you detect a waning of love, a reluctance to take up the daily cross, a shrinking from the precept, go immediately to Calvary; go simply and directly to Jesus; get your heart warmed with ardent love by contemplating him upon the cross, and soon will the frosts that gather round it melt away, the congealed current shall begin to flow, and the "chariots of Amminadab" shall bear your soul away to communion and fellowship with God.

Do not fail to honor the Holy Spirit in this great work of revival. The work is all his; beware of taking it out of his hands. The means we have suggested for the revival of this waning grace of love, can only be rendered effectual as the Spirit works in you, and works with you. Pray much for his anointings; go to him as the Glorifier of Christ, as the Comforter, the Sealer, the Witness, the Earnest of his people: it is he who will apply the atoning blood, - it is he who will revive your drooping graces, - it is he who will fan to a flame your waning love, by unfolding the cross, and directing your heart into the love of God. Take not your eye off the love of the Spirit; his love is equal with the Father's and the Son's love. Honor him in his love, let it encourage you to draw largely from his influences, and to be "filled with the Spirit."

Lastly: remember that though your love has waxed cold, the love of your God and Father towards you has undergone no diminishing: not the shadow of a change has it known. Although he has hated your declension, has rebuked your wandering, yet his love he has not withdrawn from you. What an encouragement to return to him again! Not one moment has God turned his back upon you, though you have turned your back upon him times without number: his face has always been towards you; and it would have shone upon you with all its melting power, but for the clouds which your own waywardness and sinfulness have caused to obscure and hide from you its blessed light. Retrace your steps and return again to God. Though you have been a poor wanderer and has left your first love, - though your affections have strayed from the Lord, and your heart has gone after other lovers, still God is gracious and ready to pardon you; he will welcome you back again for the sake of Jesus, his beloved Son in whom he is well pleased, for this is his own blessed declaration, - "If his children forsake my law, and walk not in my judgments; if they break my statutes, and keep not my commandments; then I will visit their transgressions with a rod, and their iniquity with stripes. Nevertheless, mo loving-kindness will I not utterly take from him, nor suffer my faithfulness to fail (Ps 89:30-33)."

Chapter 3: Declension in FAITH

"Lord, increase our faith." (Luke 15:5)

Each grace of the Spirit must be considered by the believer as forming an essential element of his Christian character, and, as such, inconceivably costly and precious. He may not be sensible of possessing them all in the same degree: for as we only know the extent of our mental or physical powers, as circumstances develop them, so a believer knows not what graces of the Spirit he may possess, until the dealings of a covenant God call them into holy and active exercise. Thus do infinite wisdom and goodness unfold themselves in all the transactions of God with his people. Not arbitrarily, nor wantonly, nor unnecessarily does the heavenly Father deal with his child; - every stroke of the rod is but the muffled voice of love; every billow bears on its bosom, and every tempest on its wing, some new and rich blessing from the better land. O that we should ever breathe a sigh, or utter a murmur at God's covenant dealings, or for one moment mistake their holy and wise design and tendency!

If, then, every grace of the Spirit be thus indispensable and costly, the declension and decay of that grace in the believer must attract the especial notice of God, and involve solemn and serious consequences. Any part of God's great and gracious work of grace in the soul that is suffered to decay, seems like a reflection upon God himself; there is a dishonoring of him in it to a degree of which the believer is but little aware. What, next to his Son, is most glorious, and costly, and precious in God's sight? Is it the world? - no, he sees no glory in that. Is it the heavens? - no, they are not clean in his sight, and he charges his angels with folly: what is it, then? - it is his kingdom in his saints, his renewing, adopting, sanctifying grace in his people. Next to his Son, nothing is so glorious and costly; he sees, compared with this, no real beauty in anything besides; here his profoundest thoughts dwell, here his fondest love rests; to commence, carry forward and perfect this, all his arrangements in the vast provinces of nature, providence, and grace, are rendered subservient. Let us imagine, then, what must be the mind of God in view of a decaying, declining state of grace in the soul, and what the peculiar method which he adopts to resuscitate and recover it. Having considered personal declension in two of its stages, we have arrived at another equally solemn and important, - the declension of the grace of faith. We shall adopt the same plan in discussing it; and proceed, in the outset, to unfold the scriptural nature and properties of this Christian grace.

Few subjects within the vast range of Christian theology have been more frequently discussed, and yet, perhaps, so little understood, as that of faith. Nor is it to be wondered at, that men who approach its investigation without strict regard to the simple teaching of God's word, and entire dependence upon the illumination of the Spirit, should find difficulty and even obscurity investing a subject so purely spiritual. Nor is Satan slothful in his attempts to obscure the minds of men in their researches into this great subject. Faith is that grace against which the attacks of Satan are more directly and constantly directed than almost any other. Not ignorant of its spiritual nature and essential importance; and knowing the great glory its exercise brings to God, the subtle and sleepless foe of the believer employs every are to mystify its simplicity, and neutralize its efforts. It is not surprising, then, that opinions upon a subject so important should often be conflicting, and that views of its nature should often be obscure.

And yet scriptural and spiritual views of faith form the very basis of experimental godliness. Faith, being the starting point of experimental religion, an error here must prove fatal to every succeeding step. It is of no real moment how beautiful that religious structure is, or how perfect its symmetry, and magnificent its arches, and lofty its turrets, if it is based upon an unsound faith. No system of religion, no doctrinal creed, no profession of Christianity, if it cannot bear the test of God's word, and is not found to answer that test, is of any real value. All mere religion of the intellect, and of the imagination, and of taste - and these only are popular with the world - resting upon an unscriptural and defective faith, are but splendid chimeras; they disappoint in periods of sorrow, they deceive in the hour of death, and they involve the soul in interminable woe in the world to come. It is, then, of the most solemn moment, that, in professing religion, a man should see that he starts with true faith. If a merchant, in balancing his books, commences with an error in his calculations, is it surprising that that error should extend throughout his account, and bring him to a wrong conclusion? Or, if a traveler, journeying towards his home, selects from the many roads that branch out before him, a wrong one, would it be any marvel if he should never arrive at it? Apply these simple illustrations to the subject before us. Man has a long and a solemn account to settle with God; he is a debtor to a large amount; he owes God a perfect obedience to his law, and has "nothing to pay." Yet another character: he is a traveler to eternity, and every step is conducting him towards the close of a brief but responsible probation. Now, if in his religion he commences with unsound, unwarrantable, unscriptural views of any essential doctrine of salvation, the error with which he commenced must affect his entire religion; and unless his steps are retraced, and the error discovered and corrected, the end must prove fatal to his eternal happiness. He who pens this page feels it of the most solemn importance, that this chapter should present a scriptural view of the nature, properties, and tendency of this essential part of the great plan of salvation. May the Spirit now be our teacher, and the word of God our text-book!

It may be proper to state, that the authors of systems of divinity have generally classified the subject of faith. They speak of speculative faith, - of historical faith, - practical faith, - saving faith, - realizing faith. But as these distinctions serve only to mystify the subject and perplex the mind, and frequently lead to great errors, we set them aside, preferring and adopting the simple nomenclature of the inspired word, which can never perplex or mislead the humble disciple of Jesus.

The Holy Spirit speaks of but "one faith (Eph 4:5)," and that faith the "faith of God's elect (Tit 1:1)." And still the question recurs, What is faith? Briefly and simply, it is that act of the understanding and the heart by which a repenting sinner - a sinner under the mighty operation of the Eternal Spirit, convicting him of sin, and working in him true contrition - closes in with God's free proclamation of pardon through a crucified Savior: he believes, he receives, he welcomes the promise of eternal life through the Lord Jesus Christ, and thus "sets to his seal that God is true." We speak of the understanding as included in this act, because the advocates of evangelical truth have been accused of advancing doctrines which render nugatory all mental operation, and which make religion to consist in mere feeling. This witness is not true. We maintain that every faculty of the human mind is brought out in its full power, in the great work of heart-religion; that the Holy Spirit, working repentance and faith in man, does more to develop the intellectual faculties, than all human teaching beside. Have we not seen individuals, who, before conversion, gave no evidence of any than the most ordinary powers of mind, become, through the illumination of the Spirit by the revealed word, strong and commanding in intellect! Powers of reasoning, hitherto hidden were developed; and fountains of thought, hitherto sealed up, were opened; old things passed away, and all things became new. We repeat, then, it is the tendency of true religion to develop and strengthen the human intellect, and to give intensity and acuteness to all its faculties. No mind is so powerful as a renewed and sanctified mind.

Faith, then, has to do with the understanding and the heart. A man must know his lost and ruined condition before he will accept of Christ; and how can he know this, without a spiritually-enlightened mind? What a surprising change now passes over the man! He is brought, by the mighty power of the Holy Spirit, to a knowledge of himself; one beam of light, one touch of the Spirit, has altered all his views of himself, has placed him in a new aspect; all his thoughts, his affections, his desires, are diverted into another and an opposite channel; his fond views of his own righteousness have fled like a dream; his high thoughts are humbled, his lofty looks are brought low, and, as a broken-hearted sinner, he takes his place in the dust before God. O wondrous, O blessed change! to see the Pharisee take the place, and to hear him utter the cry, of the Tax-collector, - "God be merciful to me a sinner!" - to hear him exclaim, "I am lost, self-ruined, deserving eternal wrath; and of sinners, the vilest and the chief!" And now the work and exercise of faith commences; the same blessed Spirit that convinced of sin, presents to the soul a Savior crucified for the lost, - unfolds a salvation full and free for the most worthless, - reveals a fountain that "cleanses from all sin," and holds up to view a righteousness that "justifies from all things." And all that he sets the poor convinced sinner upon doing to avail himself of this, is simply to believe. To the momentous question, "What shall I do to be saved?" this is the only reply, - "Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and you shall be saved." The anxious soul eagerly exclaims, - "Have I then nothing to do but to believe? - have I no great work to accomplish? - no price to bring, no worthiness to plead? - may I come just as I am, without merit, without self-preparation, without money, with all my vileness and nothingness?" Still the reply is, "Only believe:" "Then, Lord, I do believe," exclaims the soul in a transport of joy, "help you my unbelief!" This, reader, is faith; faith, that wondrous grace, that mighty act of which you have heard so much, upon which so many volumes have been written, and so many sermons have been preached; it is the simple rolling of a wounded, bleeding heart, upon a wounded, bleeding Savior; it is the simple reception of the amazing truth, that Jesus died for the ungodly - died for sinners - died for the poor, the vile, the bankrupt; that he invites and welcomes to his bosom all poor, convinced, heavy-laden sinners. The heart, believing this wondrous announcement, going out of all other dependencies and resting only in this, - receiving it, welcoming it, rejoicing in it, in a moment, all, is peace. Do not forget, then reader, the simple definition of faith, - it is but to believe with all the heart that Jesus died for sinners; and the full belief of this one fact will bring peace to the most anxious and sin-troubled soul.

"Having begun in the Spirit," the believer is not to be "made perfect in the flesh;" having commenced his Divine life in faith, in faith he is to walk every step of his journey homewards. The entire spiritual life of a child of God is a life of faith, - God has so ordained it: and to bring him into the full and blessed experience of it, is the end of all his parental dealings with him. The moment a poor sinner has touched the hem of Christ's garment, feeble though this act of faith be, it is yet the commencement of this high and holy life; even from that moment, the believing soul professes to have done with a life of sense - with second causes, and to have entered upon a glorious life of faith on Christ. It is no forced application to him of the apostle's declaration: "I am crucified with Christ; nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God." Let us briefly unfold some peculiar points of blessedness in this life.

There is its security: a believer stands by faith, - "You stands by faith (Rom 11:20)." Why is it that you have been kept to the present moment? You have seen many a tall cedar bowed to the earth; many who did appear to "run well," but who, in the hour of temptation, when worldly power, and wealth, and distinction increased, made shipwreck of their fancied faith, and fell into diverse lusts and snares which drowned their souls. Why have you been kept? your vessel weathering the storm, your feet yet upon the rock? Because "you stands by faith," - the "faith of God's elect" has kept you; and though you are deeply conscious of many and great departures, - sins, it may be, which if known to an ungodly, ignorant world, would bring upon you the laugh of scorn, - yet you have never been left quite to unhinge your soul from Jesus; you have discovered your sins, and mourned over and confessed them, and sought their forgiveness through a fresh application of the atoning blood, - and still, "you stands by faith." Ah! if faith had not kept you, where would you now have been? where would that temptation have driven you? into what consequences would that sin have involved you? But O, that brokenness, that contrition, that mourning, that going afresh to the open fountain, does prove that there was that in you which would not let you quite depart! The cedar may have been bowed to the earth, but it has risen again; the vessel may have been tossed in the tempest, and even may have been worsted by the storm, yet it has found its port: the "faith of God's elect" has kept you. "Be not high-minded, but fear." Your own vigilance, and power, and wisdom, had been but poor safeguards, but for the indwelling of that faith that can never die.

There is, too, the peculiar blessedness of the life of faith: "We walk by faith, not by sight (2 Cor 5:7)." This walk of faith takes in all the minute circumstances of every day's history; a walking every step by faith: a looking above trials, above necessities, above perplexities, above improbabilities and impossibilities, above all second causes; and, in the face of difficulties and discouragements, going forward, leaning upon God. If the Lord were to roll the Red Sea before us, and marshal the Egyptians behind us, and thus, hemming us in on every side, should yet bid us advance, it would be the duty and privilege of faith instantly to obey, - believing, that, before our feet touched the water, God, in our extremity, would divide the sea, and take us dry-shod over it. This is the only holy and happy life of a believer; if he for a moment leaves this path, and attempts to walk by sight, difficulties will throng around him, troubles will multiply, the smallest trials will become heavy crosses, temptations to depart from the simple and upright walk will increase in number and power, the heart will sicken at disappointment, the Spirit will be grieved, and God will be dishonored. Let this precious truth ever be before the mind, - "We walk by faith, not by sight."

Faith is an essential part of the spiritual armor: "Above all, taking the shield of faith, with which you shall be able to quench the fiery darts of the wicked (Eph 6:16)." Faith is also spoken of as the believer's bosom-plate: "But let us, who are of the day, be sober, putting on the bosom-plate of faith (1 Thess 5:8)." There is not a moment, even the holiest, but we are exposed to the "fiery darts" of the adversary. The onset, too, is often at a moment when we least suspect its approach; seasons of peculiar nearness to God, of hallowed enjoyment, - "for we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places (marg. "heavenly places")," - are frequently selected as the occasion of attack. But, clad in this armor, - the shield and the bosom-plate of faith, - no weapon formed against us shall prosper; the "fiery dart" shall be quenched, and the enemy shall be put to flight. Faith in a crucified, living Head, - faith eyeing future glory, the crown glittering, and the palm waving in its view, is the faith that overcomes and triumphs. Faith dealing constantly and simply with Jesus, - flying to his atoning blood, drawing from his fullness, and at all times and under all circumstances looking unto him, will ever bring a conflicting soul off more than conqueror: "This is the victory that overcomes the world, even our faith. Who is he who overcomes the world, but he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?"

Faith is a purifying grace: "Purifying their hearts by faith (Acts 15:9)," "Sanctified by faith that is in me (26:18)." It is a principle holy in its nature and tendency; he is most holy who has most faith; he who has least faith is most exposed to the assaults of his inbred corruptions. If there is in any child of God a desire for Divine conformity, for more of the spirit of Christ, more weanedness, and crucifixion, and daily dying, this should be his ceaseless prayer, - "Lord, increase my faith." Faith in Jesus checks the power of sin, slays the hidden corruption, and enables the believer to "endure as seeing him who is invisible."

This, too, is the grace that smooths the rugged way, lightens the daily burden, "glorifies God in the fire;" is "the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen;" rests upon God's word because he has said it; and keeps the soul, through all its conflicts and trials, safe unto eternal glory: "Kept by the power of God, through faith, unto salvation." But we have mainly to do with the declension of this precious grace.

We have already remarked, that there is nothing essentially omnipotent in any single grace of the Spirit; to suppose this, would be to deify that grace: that, although regeneration is a spiritual work, and all the graces implanted in the soul are the product of the Spirit, and must necessarily be in their nature spiritual and indestructible, yet they may so decline in their power, become so enfeebled and impaired in their vigor and tendency, as to be classed among the "things that are ready to die." It is pre-eminently so with faith; perhaps there is no part of the Spirit's work more constantly and severely assailed, and consequently more exposed to declension, than this. Shall we look at the examples in God's word? We cite the case of Abraham, the father of the faithful; beholding him, at God's command, binding his son upon the altar, and raising the knife for the sacrifice, we unhesitatingly exclaim, - "Surely never was faith like this! Here is faith of a giant character; faith, whose sinews no trial can ever relax, whose luster no temptation can ever dim." And yet, tracing the history of the patriarch still further, we find that very giant faith now trembling, and yielding under a trial far less acute and severe; he, who could surrender the life of his promised son - that son, through whose lineal descent Jesus was to come - into the hands of God, could not entrust that same God with his own. We look at Job: in the commencement of his deep trial we find him justifying God; messenger follows messenger with tidings of yet deeper woe, but not a murmur is breathed; and as the cup, now full to the brim, is placed to his lips, how sweetly sounds the voice of holy resignation, - "The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord;" "In all this did not Job sin with his lips:" and yet the very faith, which thus bowed in meekness to the rod, so declined, as to lead him to curse the day of his birth! We see David, whose faith could at one time lead him out to battle with Goliath, now fleeing from a shadow, and exclaiming, - "I shall one day perish by the hand of Saul!" And mark how the energy of Peter's faith declined, who at one period could walk boldly upon the tempestuous sea, and yet at another could deny his Lord, panic-struck at the voice of a little maid. Who will say that the faith of the holiest man of God may not at one time greatly and sadly decline?

But we need not travel out of ourselves for the evidence and the illustration of the affecting truth we are upon: let every believer turn in upon himself. What, reader, is the real state of your faith? is it as lively, vigorous, and active, as it was when you first believed? Has it undergone no declension? Is the Object of faith as glorious in your eye as he then was? Are you not now looking at second causes in God's dealings with you, instead of lifting your eye and fixing it on him alone? What is your faith in prayer? - do you come boldly to the throne of grace, asking, nothing doubting? Do you take all your trials, your wants, your infirmities, to God! What is your realization of eternal things, - is faith here in constant, holy exercise? Are you living as a pilgrim and a sojourner, "choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God," than float along on the summer-sea of this world's enjoyments? What is the crucifying power of your faith? - does it deaden you to sin, and wean you from the world, and constrain you to walk humbly with God and near to Jesus? And when the Lord brings the cross, and says, "Bear this for me," does your faith promptly and cheerfully acquiesce, "any cross, any suffering, any sacrifice for you, dear Lord?" Thus may you try the nature and the degree of your faith; bring it to the touchstone of God's truth, and ascertain what its character is, and how far it has suffered declension. Permit us to adduce a few causes to which a feeble and declining faith may frequently be traced.

When a believer's visits to his closet grow less frequent and spiritual, faith will assuredly decline. Prayer is the channel that supplies faith with its nourishment and vigor. As well might we cut off all the rills and streams which flow down the mountain's side, and expect that the valleys beneath will present their enameled and verdant aspect, as to close up the channel of prayer, and then look for a healthy, vigorous, and growing faith. There is a beautiful connection between faith and prayer, - their influence is reciprocal: constant and ardent prayer strengthens faith, and faith, brought into exercise, stimulates to prayer. A praying man will be a believing man, and a man of faith will be a man of prayer. Mary Queen of Scotland is said to have expressed a greater dread of the prayers of John Knox the Reformer, than of all the armies leagued against her. But what infused such power into the prayers of Knox, rendering them "terrible as an army with banners?" - it was his mighty faith; and his mighty faith rendered him mighty in prayer. Here, then, we have one cause, and a most fruitful one, of the weak and powerless faith of many professors: they live at a distance from God, and the consequence is, faith receives no nourishment; there is but little going to Jesus, but little dealing with his blood, but little drawing from his fullness; forgetting that, as he is the Author, so is he the Sustainer of faith, and that the soul only lives, as it lives "by the faith of the Son of God." Reader, is your faith in a feeble, sickly, declining state? Look well to your closet: see if you can not trace the cause there. What is your accustomed habit of prayer? How much time of twelve hours is spent with God? What! do your business, your family, your worldly engagements, consume all your time? What! but little time for prayer? - but few stolen moments for God? - no hours redeemed from secular pursuits, and devoted to holy communion and filial fellowship with your Father in secret? It is well near all consumed upon yourself, in worldly care, confusion, and excitement? Wonder not that your faith is feeble, drooping, and ready to die: the greatest wonder is, that you are not quite dead: that the feeble, flickering spark is not entirely extinguished. Rouse you from your fearful slumber! Your situation, drowsy professor, is perilous in the extreme; you are sleeping on enchanted ground; your shield and your bosom-plate lying unbuckled at your side, and all your enemies gathering in fearful numbers around you! - a return to prayer is your only safety.

Dealing much with a life of sense, is a most influential cause of declension in faith. If we desire to see our way every step of our homeward path, we must abandon the more difficult, though more blessed ascent of faith; it is impossible to walk by sight and by faith at the same time; the two paths run in opposite directions. If the Lord were to reveal the why and the wherefore of all his dealings; if we were only to advance as we saw the spot on which we were to place our foot, or only to go out as we knew the place where we were going, it were then no longer a life of faith that we lived, but of sight. We should have exchanged the life which glorifies, for the life which dishonors God. When God, about to deliver the Israelites from the power of Pharaoh, commanded them to advance, it was before he revealed the way by which he was about to rescue them. The Red Sea rolled its deep and frowning waves at their feet; they saw not a spot of dry ground on which they could tread; and yet, this was the command to Moses, - "Speak unto the children of Israel that they go forward." They were to "walk by faith, not by sight." It had been no exercise of faith in God, no confidence in his promise, no resting in his faithfulness, and no "magnifying of his word above all his name," had they halted until the waters cleaved asunder, and a dry passage opened to their view. But like the patriarchs, they "staggered not at the promise, of God through unbelief; but were strong in faith, giving glory to God." Have little to do with sense, if you would have much to do with faith. Expect not always to see the way. God may call you to go into a place, not making known to you where you go; but it is your duty, like Abraham, to obey. All that you ever have to do is go forward, leaving all consequences and results to God: it is enough for you that the Lord by this providence says, "Go forward!" This is all you may hear; it is your duty instantly to respond, "Lord, I go at your bidding; bid me come to you, though it be upon the stormy water."

Faith unexercised in dark and afflictive providences, leads greatly to its declension. The exercise of faith strengthens, as the neglect of exercise weakens it. It is the constant play of the arm that brings out its muscular power in all its fullness; were that arm allowed to hang by our side, still and motionless, how soon would its sinews contract, and its energy waste away! So it is with faith, the right arm of a believer's strength; the more it is exercised, the mightier it becomes; neglect to use it, allow it to remain inert and inoperative, and the effect will be a withering up of its power. Now when gloomy providences, and sharp trials and temptations, thicken around a poor believing soul, then is it the time for faith to put on its strength, and come forth to the battle. God never places his child in any difficulties, or throws upon him any cross, but it is a call to exercise faith; and if the opportunity of its exercise passes away without improvement, the effect will be, a weakening of the principle, and a feeble putting forth of its power in the succeeding trial. Do not forget, that the more faith is brought into play, the more it increases; the more it is exercised, the stronger it becomes; the reverse of this is frequently the cause of its sad declension.

The habitual, or even the occasional, doubtful apprehension indulged in of his interest in Christ, will tend materially to the enfeebling and decay of a believer's faith: no cause can be more certain in its effects than this. If it be true, as we have shown, that the exercise of faith develops its strength, it is equally true, that the perpetual indulgence of doubtful apprehensions of pardon and acceptance, must necessarily eat as a cankerworm at the root of faith. Every misgiving felt, every doubt cherished, ever fear yielded to, every dark providence brooded over, tends to unhinge the soul from God, and dims its near and loving view of Jesus. To doubt the love, the wisdom, and the faithfulness of God; to doubt the perfection of the work of Christ; to doubt the operation of the Spirit on the heart, - what can tend more to the weakening and decay of this precious and costly grace? Every time the soul sinks under the pressure of a doubt of its interest in Christ, the effect must be a weakening of the soul's view of the glory, perfection, and all-sufficiency of Christ's work. But imperfectly may the doubting Christian be aware what dishonor is done to Jesus, what reflection is cast upon his great work, by every unbelieving fear he cherishes. It is a secret wounding of Jesus, however the soul may shrink from such an inference; it is a lowering, an undervaluing of Christ's obedience and death, - that glorious work of salvation with which the Father has declared himself well pleased, - that work with which Divine justice has confessed itself satisfied, - that work on the basis of which every poor, convinced sinner is saved, and on the ground of which millions of redeemed and glorified spirits are now bowing around the throne, - that work, we say, is dishonored, undervalued, and slighted by every doubt and fear secretly harbored, or openly expressed by a child of God. The moment a believer looks at his unworthiness more than at the righteousness of Christ, - supposes that there is not a sufficiency of merit in Jesus to supply the absence of all merit in himself before God, what is it but a setting up his sinfulness and unworthiness above the infinite worth, fullness, and sufficiency of Christ's atonement and righteousness? There is much spurious humility among many of the dear saints of God. It is thought by some, that to be always doubting one's pardon and acceptance, is the evidence of a lowly spirit. It is, allow us to say, the mark of the very opposite of a lowly and humble mind. That is true humility that credits the testimony of God, - that believes because he has spoken it, - that rests in the blood, and righteousness, and all-sufficiency of Jesus, because he has declared that "whoever believes in him shall be saved." This is genuine lowliness, - the blessed product of the Eternal Spirit. To go to Jesus just as I am, a poor, lost, helpless sinner, - to go without previous preparation, - to go glorying in my weakness, infirmity, and poverty, that the free grace and sovereign pleasure, and infinite merit of Christ, may be seen in my full pardon, justification, and eternal glory. There is more of unmortified pride, of self-righteousness, of that principle that would make God a debtor to the creature, in the refusal of a soul fully to accept of Jesus, than is suspected. There is more real, profound humility in a simple, believing venture upon Christ, as a ruined sinner, taking him as all its righteousness, all its pardon, all its glory, than it is possible for any mortal mind to fathom. Doubt is ever the offspring of pride: humility is ever the handmaid of faith.

Nor must we forbear to specify, as among the most fruitful causes of a declension of faith, the power of unsubdued sin in the heart: nothing, perhaps, more secretly and effectually militates against the vigor of a life of faith than this. Faith, as we have seen, is a holy, indwelling principle; it has its root in the renewed, sanctified heart; and its growth and fruitful-ness depend much upon the progressive richness of the soil in which it is embedded: if the noxious weeds of the natural soil are allowed to grow and occupy the heart, and gain the ascendancy, this celestial plant will necessarily droop and decay. In order to form some conception of the utter incongruity of a life of faith with the existence and power of un-mortified sin in the heart, we have but to imagine the case of a believer living in the practice of unsubdued sin. What is the real power of faith in him? where is its strength? where are its glorious achievements? where the trophies it has won in the field of battle ?

We look for the fruit of faith, - the lowly, humble, contrite spirit - the tender conscience - the traveling daily to the atoning blood - the living upon the grace that is in Christ Jesus - the carrying out of Christian principle - crucifixion to the world - patient submission to a life of suffering - meek resignation to a Father's discipline - a living as beholding Him who is invisible - a constant and vivid realization of eternal realities, - we look for these fruits of faith; but we find them not. And why ? because there is the worm of unmortified sin feeding at the root; and until that is slain, faith will always be sickly, unfruitful, and "ready to die." "Therefore, brethren, we are debtors, not to the flesh to live after the flesh. For if you live after the flesh, you shall die; but if you through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, you shall live."

A looking off of Christ will tend greatly to the weakening and unfruitfulness of faith. It is said, that the eagle's eye becomes strong through the early discipline of the parent; placed in such a position when young, as to fix the gaze intently upon the sun, the power of vision gradually becomes so great, as to enable it in time to look at its meridian splendor without uneasiness, and to observe the remotest object without difficulty. The same spiritual discipline strengthens the eye of faith; the eye grows vigorous by looking much at the Sun of righteousness. The more constantly it gazes upon Jesus, the stronger it grows; and the stronger it grows, the more glory it discovers in him, the more beauty in his person, and perfection in his work. Thus strengthened, it can see things that are afar off, - the promises of a covenant-keeping God, the hope of eternal life, the crown of glory - these it can look upon and almost touch: "Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." And of the Old Testament worthies it is recorded by the same Spirit: " These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth." O precious, costly grace of the Eternal Spirit! who would not possess you? who would not mortify everything that would wound, enfeeble, and cause you to decay in the soul ?

It only remains for us to show in what way the Holy Spirit revives, strengthens, and increases the declining grace of faith. And this he does, in the first place, by discovering to the believer the cause of its declension, and setting him upon, and strengthening him in, the work of its removal. The Spirit leads the declining believer to the spiritual duty of self-examination. When any grace of the Spirit is in a sickly and declining state, an effect so painful must originate in a cause that needs to be searched out: the great difficulty in a backsliding soul, is, to bring it to the spiritual and needed duty of self-scrutiny: There is something so humiliating, so foreign to the natural inclination of the heart, and withal, to which the very declension of the soul is so strongly opposed, that it requires no little putting forth of the Spirit's grace, to bring the believer honestly and fully into it. Just as the merchant, conscious of the embarrassed state of his affairs, shrinks from a thorough investigation of his books, so does the conscious backslider turn from the honest examination of his wandering heart. But as the cure of any disease, or the correction of any evil, depends upon the knowledge of its cause, so does the revival of a declining believer closely connect itself with the discovery and removal of that which led to his declension. Declining believer, what is the cause of your weak faith ? Why is this lovely, precious, and fruitful flower drooping, and ready to die? What has dimmed the eye, and paralyzed the hand, and enfeebled the walk of faith? Perhaps it is the neglect of prayer: you have lived, it may be, days, and weeks, and months, without communion with God; there have been no constant and precious visits to your closet; no wrestling with God; no fellowship with your Father. Marvel not, beloved, that your faith languishes, droops, and fades. The greater marvel is, that you have any faith at all; that it is not quite dead, plucked up by the root; and but for the mighty power of God, and the constant intercession of Jesus at his right hand, it would long since have ceased to be. But what will revive it ? - An immediate return to prayer; revisit your closet; rebuild the broken altar; rekindle the expiring flame; seek your forsaken God. O how can faith be revived, and how can it grow, in the neglect of daily, secret, and wrestling prayer with God? The Eternal Spirit laying this upon your heart, showing you your awful neglect, and breathing into you afresh the spirit of grace and supplication, will impart a new and blessed impulse to faith.

Perhaps you have been misinterpreting the Lord's providential dealings with you; you have been indulging in unbelieving, unkind, unfilial views of your trials, bereavements, and disappointments; you have said, " Can I be a child, yet be afflicted thus? can he love me, yet deal with me so?" O that thought! O that surmise! Could you have looked into the heart of your God when he sent that trial, caused that bereavement, blew upon that flower, and blasted that fair design, you would never have murmured more: so much love, so much tenderness, so much faithfulness, so much wisdom would you have seen as to have laid your mouth silent in the dust before him. Wonder not that, indulging in such misgivings, interpreting the covenant dealings of a God of love in such a light, your faith has received a wound. Nothing perhaps more tends to unhinge the soul from God, engender distrust, hard thoughts, and rebellious feelings, than thus to doubt his loving-kindness and faithfulness in the discipline he is pleased to send. But faith, looking through the dark cloud, rising on the mountain wave, and anchoring itself on the Divine veracity, and the unchangeable love of God, is sure to strengthen and increase by every storm that beats upon it.

Is it the enchantment of the world that has seized upon your faith? has it stolen upon you, beguiled you, caught you with its glitter, fascinated you with its siren song, overwhelmed you with its crushing cares?—Come out from it, and be separate; resign its hollow friendship, its temporizing policy, its carnal enjoyments, its fleshly wisdom, its sinful conformity. All these becloud the vision, and enfeeble the grasp of faith. The world, and the love of it, and conformity to it, may please and assist the life of sense, but it is opposed to, and will retard, the life of faith. Not more opposed in their natures are the flesh and the Spirit, darkness and light, sin and holiness, than are a vigorous life of faith and a sinful love of the world. Professor of the Gospel! guard against the world; it is your great bane: watch against conformity to it in your dress, in your mode of living, in the education of your children, in the principles, and motives, and policy, that govern you. We would say to every professing Christian, be a non-conformist here; separate yourselves from the world, - that world that crucified your Lord and Master, and would crucify his faith that is in you; touch not the unclean thing, for, "you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that you should show forth the praises of him who has called you out of darkness into his marvelous light." Would you be " strong in faith, giving glory to God?" - then yield obedience to the voice which, with an unearthly tongue, exclaims to every professing child of God, " be not conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect will of God!"

Is it unmortified sin that feeds at the root of faith ? Bring it to the cross of Christ, - condemn it there, nail it there, and leave it not until you are enabled to exclaim, " Thanks be unto God, who always causes me to triumph through Christ Jesus!"

Is it the indulgence of unbelieving and dishonoring fears touching your interest in Christ? Yield them, and let the wind scatter them; there is no ground for the doubts and unbelief of a child of God; there may be much in himself to cast him down, but nothing in the truth which he professes to believe; there is nothing in the subject-matter of faith, nothing in Christ, nothing in the work of Christ, nothing in the word of God, calculated to beget a doubt or a fear in the heart of a poor sinner. On the contrary, everything to inspire confidence, strengthen faith, and encourage hope. Does his sin plead loud for his condemnation? - the voice of Immanuel's blood pleads louder for his pardon; does his own righteousness condemn ? - the righteousness of Christ acquits. Thus there is nothing in Christ to engender an unbelieving doubt in a poor convinced sinner. Himself he may doubt, - he may doubt his ability to save himself, - he may doubt his power to better his condition, to make himself more worthy and acceptable, but never let him doubt that Christ is all that a poor, lost, convinced sinner wants. Let him not doubt that Jesus is the Friend of sinners, the Savior of sinners, and that he was never known to cast out one who in lowliness and brokenness of heart, sought his compassionate grace. O seek, reader, more simple views of Jesus; clearer views of his great and finished work; take every doubt as it is suggested, every fear as it rises, to him; and remember that whatever of vileness you discover in yourself that has a tendency to lay you low, there is everything in Jesus calculated to lift you from the ash-heap, and place you among the princes. Discovering to the backsliding believer these points, - making known to him which it is that causes the declension of his faith, the Eternal Spirit of God takes the first step in the great and precious work of revival.

A further step by which the Holy Spirit revives the decaying faith of the believer is, by leading him to rest more simply on the faithfulness of God. What a restorative to drooping faith are these declarations of the Divine word, which represent God as infinitely unchangeable and faithful: " I am the Lord, I change not": " Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning ": " I will betroth you unto me in faithfulness " : " Righteousness shall be the belt of his loins, and faithfulness the belt of his thoughts ": " Nor will I suffer my faithfulness to fail": " Great is your faithfulness": " Faithful is he who promised!" And then to remember, that the unbelief of the believer never affects the faithfulness of God! " If we believe not, yet he abides faithful; he cannot deny himself." This is the only true and secure anchorage-ground for a poor soul, tossed amid the waves of doubt and perplexity; - to know that God cannot alter his word, - that it is impossible that he should lie, that were he to deviate from his infinite perfection, he would cease to be a perfect Being, and consequently would cease to be God: to know, too, that he is faithful in the midst of the unfaithfulness and perpetual startings aside of his child, - faithful in the depth of the deepest affliction, - faithful when earthly hopes wither, and human cisterns are broken, and when the soul is led to exclaim, "His faithfulness has failed!" O what a spring to a tried and drooping faith, is this view which God himself has given of his own glorious and perfect character! It is no small triumph of faith to walk with God, when all is darkness with the soul, and there is no light; to feel amid the roaring of the waves that still he is faithful; that though he slay, yet the soul can trust him; that though he were to take all else away, he would never remove himself from his people. O glorious triumph of faith! " Who is among you that fears the Lord, that obeys the voice of his servant, that walks in darkness, and has no light? let him trust in the name of the Lord, and stay upon his God."

It will tend much to the revival of a tried and drooping faith to remember, that when the Lord is about to impart any peculiar mercy, there is always a travail of faith for that mercy. Some of the choicest mercies of the covenant brought into the experience of the believer, come by a travail of faith: it may be a tedious and painful process; faith may be long and sharply tried, yet the blessing it will bring forth will more than repay for all the weeping, and suffering, and crying, it has occasioned. Be not surprised, then, at any severe trial of faith; be sure that when it is thus tried, God is about to bring your soul into the possession of some great, and perhaps, hitherto unexperienced mercy. It may be a travail of faith for spiritual blessing; and the result may be a deepening of the work in your heart, increase of spirituality, more weanedness from creature-trust, and more child-like leaning upon the Lord; more simple, close, and sanctifying knowledge of the Lord Jesus. Or, it may be a travail of faith for temporal mercy, for the supply of some want, the rescue from some embarrassment, the deliverance out of some peculiar and trying difficulty; but, whatever the character of the trial of faith be, the issue is always certain and glorious. The Lord may bring his child into difficult and strait paths, he may hedge him about with thorns so that he cannot get out, but it is only to draw the soul more simply to repose in himself; that, in the extremity, when no creature would or could help, when refuge failed and no man cared for his soul, that then faith should go out and rest itself in Him who never disowns his own work, but always honors the feeblest exhibition, and turns his ear to the faintest cry. " Out of the depths have I cried unto you, O Lord. Lord, hear my voice: let your ears be attentive to the voice of my supplication." " In my distress I called upon the Lord, and cried unto my God: he heard my voice out of his temple, and my cry came before him, even into his ears." "O magnify the Lord with me, and let us exalt his name together. I sought the Lord, and he heard me, and delivered me from all my fears." " This poor man cried, and the Lord heard him; and saved him out of all his troubles." Here was the severe travail of faith, and here we see the blessed result. Thus true is God's word, which declares that "weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning." " He who goes forth and weeps, bearing precious seed, shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him."

But more, - the trial of faith is a test of its degree. We know not what faith we possess, until the Lord calls it into exercise; we may be greatly deceived as to its nature and degree; to walk upon the stormy water, may be thought by us an easy thing; to witness for Christ, no hard matter: but the Lord brings our faith to the test. He bids us come to him upon the water, and then we begin to sink; he suffers us to be assailed by our enemies, and we shrink from the cross; he puts our faith to the trial, and then we learn how little we possess.

The trial of faith is also a test of its character; it is the furnace that tries the ore, of what kind it is: it may be brass, or iron, or clay, or perhaps precious gold; but the crucible will test it. There is much that passes for real faith, which is no faith; there is much spurious, counterfeit metal; it is the trial that brings out its real character. The true character of Judas was not known until his covetousness was tempted; Simon Magus was not discovered to possess a spurious faith, until he thought to purchase the gift of God with money; Demas did not forsake the apostle, until the world drew him away. Thus solemnly has our Lord unfolded this truth, - "He who received the seed into stony places, the same is he who hears the word, and anon with joy receives it; yet has he not root in himself, but endures for a while: for when tribulation or persecution arises because of the word, by-and-by he is offended. He also that received seed among the thorns is he who hears the word; and the care of this world, and the deceitfulness of riches, choke the word, and he becomes unfruitful." But true faith stands the trial; where there is a real work of grace in the heart, no tribulation, or persecution, or power of this world, will ever be able to expel it thence: but if all is chaff, the wind will scatter it: if all is but dross and tinsel, the fire will consume it. Let the humble and tried believer, then, thank God for every test that brings out the real character of his faith, and proves it to be " the faith of God's elect." God will try his own work in the gracious soul; every grace of his own Spirit he will at one time or another place in the crucible; but never will he remove his eye from off it; he will " sit as a refiner," and watch that not a grain of the precious metal is consumed; he will be with his child in all and every affliction; not for one moment will he leave him. Let gratitude rather than murmuring, joy rather than sorrow, attend every test which a loving and faithful Father brings to his own gracious work, - " that the trial of your faith being much more precious than of gold that perishes, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise, and honor, and glory, at the appearing of Jesus Christ."

Be careful of not making a Savior of faith. There is a danger - and it cannot be too vigilantly guarded against - of substituting the work of the Spirit for the work of Christ; this mistake it is that leads so many of God's saints to look within, instead of without, themselves for the evidences of their calling and acceptance; and thus, too, so many are kept all their spiritual course walking in a state of bondage and fear, the great question never fully and fairly settled, or, in other words, never quite sure of their sonship. The work of Christ is a great and finished work; it is so glorious that it can admit of no comparison, so complete that it can allow of no addition, and so essential that it can give place to no substitution. Precious as is the work of the Holy Spirit in the heart, and essential as it is to the salvation of the soul, yet he who places it where the work of Jesus ought only to be, deranges the order of the covenant, closes up the legitimate source of evidence, and will assuredly bring distress and uncertainty into his soul. " Righteousness, peace, and joy," are the fruit of a full belief in the Lord Jesus Christ; and he who looks for them away from the cross, will meet with disappointment: but they are found in Jesus. He who looks away from himself, from his vileness, guiltiness, emptiness, and poverty, fully and believingly unto Jesus, shall know what the forgiveness of sin is, and shall experience the love of God shed abroad in his heart.

If, then, your faith is feeble and tried, be not cast down; faith does not save you. Though it be an instrument of salvation, and as such, is of vast importance, it is but the instrument; the finished work of Immanuel is the ground of your salvation, yes, it is your salvation itself. Then make not a Savior of your faith; despise it not if it is feeble, exult not in it if it is strong, trample not on it if it is small, deify it not if it is great; such are the extremes to which every believer is exposed. If your faith is feeble and sharply tried, it is no evidence that you are not a believer; but the evidence of your acceptance in the Beloved, is to arise from Jesus alone; then let your constant motto be, "looking unto Jesus"; looking to him just as you are; looking unto him when faith is feeble; looking unto him when faith is tried; looking unto him when faith is declining, yes, looking unto him when you fear you have no faith. Look up, tried and tempted soul! Jesus is the Author, the Sustainer, and he will become the Finisher of your faith. All you want is in him. One glimpse, dim though it be, of his cross, - one touch, trembling though it be, of his garment, - will lift you from your lowest depths, lighten your heaviest burden, gild your darkest prospect, and when you arrive at Jordan's brink, will bear you safely through its swellings, and land you on the sunny and verdant shores of Canaan. Let this be your prayer, urged unceasingly at the throne of grace until it is answered - "Lord, increase my faith "; and then, with holy Paul, you too shall be enabled with humble assurance to exclaim, " I know in whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day!"

Chapter 4: Declension in PRAYER

"You restrain prayer before God." (Job 15:4)

Were we to select a single characteristic of personal declension more marked than another, we should feel no hesitation in adopting the decay of the spirit of prayer as that feature. As prayer is the first evidence of spiritual life in the soul, and its growth in spirituality and vigor marks the healthy and advancing state of that life, so the declension of prayer in its spirit, exercise, and enjoyment, is strongly indicative of the decay of real grace in a child of God. We address ourselves to the unfolding of this subject under the solemn conviction, that it is of more general application to professing believers that upon first reflection some would, perhaps, be ready to admit; and that it involves more serious consequences to the spiritual interests of the soul, than any branch of personal declension we have yet considered.

In opening to the reader the nature of true prayer, - which seems proper before we consider its declension, - we remark, there are many solemn and affecting things connected with it, which present it as a subject of vast importance. What is prayer? It is the communion of the spiritual life in the soul of man with its Divine Author; it is a breathing back the Divine life into the bosom of God from whence it came; it is holy, spiritual, humble converse with God. ' That was a beautiful remark of a converted heathen, - " I open my Bible, and God talks with me; I close my Bible, and then I talk with God." Striking definition of true prayer! It is a talking with God as a child talks with his father, as a friend converses with his friend: " And the Lord talked with Moses." Let it be remembered, then, that true prayer is the aspiration of a renewed soul towards God; it is the breathing of the Divine life, sometimes in the accents of sorrow, sometimes as the expression of want, and always as the acknowledgment of dependence; it is the looking up of a renewed, afflicted, necessitous, and dependent child to its own loving Father, in all the consciousness of utter weakness, and in all the sweetness of filial trust.

Who is the object of prayer? Jehovah, the Lord of heaven and earth; to him, as the Three in One, does true prayer only address itself. He only has an ear to hear our tale of sorrow, an arm that can support in time of need, and a heart that can sympathize with our deep necessity. The high and lofty One that inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy, who is the Creator and Governor of all worlds, who bears up the pillars of the universe, to whom all the powers in heaven, in earth, and in hell, are subject, he is the glorious Object to whom we address ourselves in prayer.

Not less amazing is the medium of prayer; what is it? Not a creature, dependent as ourselves; but the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, equal in might, majesty, and dominion with the Father, and yet the Elder Brother, the Slain Lamb, the Mediator and Surety, the High Priest of his people. Prayer finds acceptance within the veil, only as it is presented in the name of Jesus. The voice that speaks there, in behalf of the lowly suppliant, is the voice of Immanuel's blood; this is the " new and living way," this is the plea that prevails, - this is the argument that moves Omnipotence itself. He who pleads the blood of Jesus in prayer, may have ten thousand tongues all pleading against him, but " the blood of Jesus speaks better things," and drowns their every voice. O precious, costly medium of prayer

Marvelous, too, is the Author of prayer; who is he ? The apostle informs us: " Likewise the Spirit also helps our infirmities; for we know not what we should pray for as we ought; but the Spirit itself makes intercession for us, with groanings which cannot be uttered." Thus it is the Holy Spirit who begets the desire, indites the petition, and breathes it forth in prayer through Christ to God. What a sublime exercise, then, is prayer! The outgoing of the Divine life in the soul is its nature, - Jehovah its object, - the Lord Jesus its medium, - and the Holy Spirit its author. Thus, the blessed Trinity in Unity is engaged in the great work of a sinner's approach unto God.

Touching the absolute necessity of prayer need we enlarge? And yet it must be admitted, that the believer requires constant exhortation to the exercise of this duty. Do we want any stronger evidence of the perpetual tendency to spiritual declension than this, - that the child of God requires repeated stimulus to the sweet and precious privilege of communion with his heavenly Father? - that he needs to be urged by the strongest arguments and the most persuasive motives to avail himself of the most costly and glorious privilege this side of glory? Does it not seem like pleading with a man to live? - reminding him that he must breath if he would maintain life ? Without the exercise of prayer, we tell a child of God, he cannot live; that this is the drawing in of the Divine life, and the breathing of it forth again; that the spiritual nature requires constant supplies of spiritual nourishment; and that the only evidence of its healthy existence is, its constant rising towards God. We tell him, cease to pray, and all your grace withers, all your vigor decays, and all your comfort dies.

But observe how prayer, as a duty, is enjoined in God's word: "Call upon me in the day of trouble, I will deliver you, and you shall glorify me." Psalm 1. 15. As though the Lord had said, " Call upon me when all is dark, when all is against you; I speak not now of the day of prosperity, of the sunny hour, when your soul prospers, when your business prospers, when all things go smooth with you, and the sky above you is cloudless, and the sea beneath you is unruffled; but call upon me in the day of trouble, the day of want, the day of adversity, the day of disappointment and of rebuke, the day when friends forsake and the world frowns upon you, the day of broken cisterns and withered gourds. - Call upon me in the day of trouble, and I will deliver you." Observe, too, how our dear Lord enjoined this precious duty upon his disciples: " You, when you pray, enter into your closet, and, when you have shut your door, pray to your Father which is in secret." Matt. vi. 6. And observe how he also encouraged it: " Verily, verily, I say unto you, whatever you shall ask the Father in my name, he will give it you." John xvi. 23. In harmony with this, is the sweet exhortation of the apostle: " Be careful for nothing; but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God." Phil. iv. 6. And what a striking unfolding of the true nature of prayer does the same writer give us in Eph. vi. 18: " Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for all saints." The apostle James bears the same testimony: " If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that gives to all men liberally, and upbraids not, and it shall be given him."

But we take higher ground than this; we urge the exercise of prayer, not merely as a solemn duty to be observed, but also as a precious privilege to be enjoyed. Happy is that believer, when duties come to be viewed as privileges. What! is it no privilege to have a door of access ever open to God? Is it no privilege when the burden crushes, to cast it upon One who has promised to sustain? When the corruptions of an unsanctified nature are strong, and temptations thicken, is prayer no privilege then ? And when perplexed to know the path of duty, and longing to walk complete in all the will of God, and, as a child, fearing to offend a loving Father, is it then no privilege to have a throne of grace, an open door of hope? When the world is slowly stealing upon the heart, or when that heart is wounded through the unkindness of friends, or is bleeding under severe bereavement, is it then no privilege to go and tell Jesus? Say, you poor, you needy, you tried, you tempted souls I say, if prayer is not the most precious, balmy and costly privilege this side heaven.

And yet, how much infidelity still lingers in the heart of a renewed soul, touching this solemn duty and immense privilege ! That is infidelity that takes a believer in the hour of his need first to the arm of flesh, rather than in prayer to God. To go to the creature first, is to " go down into Egypt" for help, - a sin which God has signalized with his severest displeasure.

But true prayer may greatly decline; and to the consideration of this point, in connection with the means of its revival, we now proceed to direct the serious attention of the reader.

Prayer is the spiritual pulse of the renewed soul; its beat indicates the healthy or unhealthy state of the believer. Just as the physician would decide upon the health of the body from the action of the pulse, so would we decide upon the spiritual health of the soul before God, by the estimation in which prayer is held by the believer. If the soul is in a spiritually healthy, growing state, prayer will be vigorous, lively, spiritual, and constant; if, on the contrary, an incipient process of declension is going forward in the soul - if the heart is wandering, and love waxes cold, and faith is decaying, the spirit and the habit of prayer will immediately betray it.

In the first place, we remark, that the spirit of prayer may decline in the believer, and he may not at once be sensible of it. The form and the habit of prayer may for a while continue, the domestic altar sustained, and even the closet occasionally visited; - but the spirit of prayer has evaporated, and all is coldness and dullness, the very torpor and frigidity of death! But of what real worth is the habit of prayer apart from the spirit of prayer? just what this planet would be without the sun, or the body without the living, animating, breathing soul, - what but a cold, lifeless form? Yes; and a believer may be beguiled into this lamentable state, and not a suspicion of its existence be awakened; he may observe his accustomed habit, and use his empty form, and not suspect that all is cold and breathless as death itself. O it is not the rigidly-observed form that God looks at; nor is it great volubility, and eloquent fluency, and rich sentiment, and splendid imagery, and rounded periods, that God regards: far from this. A man may not be able to give expression to his deep emotion in prayer, his thoughts may find no vehicle of utterance, language may entirely fail him; or, if he attempts the audible expression of his wants, there may be much that offends a refined taste, and that grates harshly upon a musical ear, and yet the spirit of prayer may glow in his bosom, - and this - the true language of prayer - finds its way to the ear and to the heart of God. Now it is manifest from observation, as it is from God's word, that the spirit of prayer may depart from a soul, and the gift of prayer and its form may remain. The form may be found easy, - words, and even thought, may flow freely, and yet, no warmth, no life, no spirituality, no power, no unction, attend the prayer; and this may long continue the state of a professing man. O guard against it, reader; look well to the state of your soul; examine your prayers; see that you have not substituted the cold form for the glowing spirit, the mere body for the soul. Real prayer is the breathing of God's own Spirit in the heart; have you this? It is communion and fellowship with God; know you what this is ? It is brokenness, contrition, confession, and that often springing from an overwhelming sense of his goodness and his love shed abroad in the heart; is this your experience? Again we repeat it, look well to your prayers; test them, not by the natural or acquired gift which you may possess, - this is nothing with God; in answer to all your forms, he may say, " I hear no prayer. To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto me, when you come to appear before me? who has required this at your hands to tread my courts? Bring no more vain oblations; incense is an abomination unto me. Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul hates; they are a trouble unto me, I am weary to bear them. And when you spread forth your hands, I will hide mine eyes from you: yes, when you make many prayers, I will not hear"; but test them by the real communion you have with God, - the returns they make to your soul.

There is yet another state in which the habit of prayer does not even survive the declension of the spirit of prayer. There may be instances, in which, as we have just shown, the form may be rigidly sustained long after true prayer has departed from the soul; there may be too much light in the conscience, and too much strength in the force of habit, and something, too, in the appearance of the thing, that will not allow of a total abandonment of this. But, in most cases of actual backsliding, the habit declines with the spirit; the latter having gone, the former becomes insipid and tedious, and is at last thrown off as a thing irksome and painful to the mind. And yet even the relinquishment of the form is not always a sudden act: Satan is too subtle, and the heart too deceitful, to allow of this; there must be steps in the decline. The sudden breaking off from the accustomed habit of prayer might awaken alarm, and surprise, and thoughtfulness: "Has it come to this?" would be the exclamation of the startled soul. " Am I so far gone, as to abandon even my customary habit of prayer?" Such a pause and such an inquiry might possibly lead to self-examination, contrition, and a return: but the declension is gradual. The first habit that is relinquished with the declension of the spirit of prayer, is that of closet prayer: this is the first exercise that loses its sweetness, and becomes tedious and insipid, because it is the most spiritual of all devotional exercises, and has most to do with the secret communion of the soul with God. And who can portray the loss? No more hallowed visits to the closet; no more turning aside from business, from care, and from the world, to be shut in with God; no more precious, heart-melting, spirit-humbling, heaven-reviving seasons of communion and fellowship with the Father who hears in secret; no more sweet visits of love from Jesus, nor breathing of the heart's sorrows and wants into his secret ear; - the closet is abandoned, and with it all pleasant, holy, and happy walk with God!

The relinquishment of ejaculatory prayer then follows. That holy habit of a growing Christian, which, while in the world, and diligently engaged in its lawful calling, yet keeps him soaring above it; which sustains the wheels of the soul in easy and constant motion, preserves it in a holy, heavenly frame; fortifies it against the surprisals of the adversary, and strengthens it in every inward or outward conflict, - ejaculatory prayer, the " prayer without ceasing," is given up; and all seems a blank between the soul and God!

Family prayer is, perhaps, the next devotional habit that is abandoned. That " border which keeps the web of daily life from unraveling "; that exercise which throws so hallowing an influence around the domestic circle, - cementing the hearts, awakening and concentrating the sympathies, fortifying the mind, and softening the cares and trials of each loved member, is now yielded: the family Bible, so regularly brought out, spread open, read, and expounded, is now laid aside; the altar around which clustered in devout and reverential silence the lowly group, and from which ascended the morning and the evening sacrifice, is thrown down; for he who officiated at its holy shrine, has declined in the spirit of prayer, and the effects of his declension are felt and traced by every member, and through every department of the domestic circle; the patriarch no more returns to bless his household!

Social prayer is now relinquished without a sigh. That service that was once found so refreshing and exhilarating at the close of the day's cares; and which, amid its fatigues, anxieties, and disappointments, was so fondly anticipated and ardently longed for, comes and passes away unheeded and unregretted. The hour of prayer arrives, we look at the vacant place and we inquire, " where is he?" - away, amid the world's turmoil and ardent in its pursuit: " where is he ?" - gone, perhaps, to some scene of carnal amusement, folly, and sin; and he, who, when the season of social communion returned, was present to cheer and encourage with his prayers and exhortations the souls of the devout assembly, is now away " sowing to the flesh," and giving to the " things that are temporal," the time and the energies that belong to the " things that are eternal." This is the man in whom the spirit of prayer has declined! From one step of declension he has proceeded to another, until his soul has become, as to all grace and spirituality and love, like the barren heath of the desert, without a spot of verdure to cheer and enliven it. But there are yet other consequences of the soul's declension in the spirit and habit of prayer too solemn and serious to overlook: they are the following:-

A distant walk from God will super-induce distant thoughts of God, and this is no light matter. If the simple axiom be true, that the more intimate we become with any object, the better we are prepared to judge of its nature and properties, we may apply it with peculiar appropriateness to our acquaintance with God. The encouraging invitation of his word, is, " Acquaint now yourself with God, and be at peace." Now, it is this acquaintance with God that brings us into the knowledge of his character as a holy, loving, and faithful God; and it is this knowledge of his character that begets love and confidence in the soul towards him. The more we know of God, the more we love him: the more we try him, the more we confide in him. Let the spiritual reader, then conceive what dire effects must result from a distant walk from God. The farther the soul gets from him, the more imperfect must be its knowledge of him. When he appears in his corrective dealings, how will those dealings be interpreted in the distant walk of the soul? As of a covenant God? as of a loving Father? No, far from it. They will receive a harsh and unkind interpretation, and this will neutralize their effect: for in order to reap the proper fruit of the Lord's dealings with the soul, it is necessary that they should be viewed in the light of his faithfulness and love. The moment they are otherwise interpreted, the soul starts off from God, and wraps itself up in gloomy and repulsive views of his character, and government, and dealings. But this will assuredly follow from a distant walk. O guard against declension in prayer: let there be no distance between God and your soul.

A change in the sweetness and enjoyment of spiritual duties, may be regarded as another and painful effect of a declension in this holy exercise: they will become less desired, and more irksome and insipid: will be regarded less as a privilege, more as a burden and a task. What is the spiritual duty? Is it meditation? The mind is not attuned to this. It demands a spiritual mind, one richly anointed of the Holy Spirit, and accustomed to close communion with God, rightly and profitably to enjoy it. Is it the communion of saints? This soon becomes irksome and insipid. The company of God's humble, broken-hearted people hungering and thirsting for holiness, and seeking crucifixion to the world; the word of God their study, the love of Christ their theme, and Divine conformity their aim, soon loses its attraction to a professing man walking at a distance from God. Yes, we might enumerate all the spiritual duties familiar to the child of God; and not one will be found to possess attraction or sweetness to that soul passing through a process of declension in prayer. Why is it, reader, that meditation, and the research of God's word, and holy communion with his saints, and praise, are privileges dry and tasteless to your soul? You can turn from them with loathing. Any engagements but these, - the calls of business, worldly company, the perusal of a novel, will satisfy you! Where are you? How have you declined! It was not once so. O how precious in the first love of your espousals were the moments of holy abstraction! - now eagerly sought, and richly enjoyed, was the communion of saints! - how sweet a privilege was praise, and how sacred a duty was prayer! Is it all gone? Is it all winter with you now? No verdant spot, no green pasture, no still waters? O return again to prayer! Your sad distance from God is the secret of your soul's leanness. The withering of the spirit of prayer has withered your grace, and with it all spiritual enjoyment of the means.

A falling off in the external deportment of the believer, is a necessary and often a certain consequence of a declension of the spirit and habit of prayer. The lowliness, self-oblivion, softness of walk, and exemplary regard for the honor and glory of God, of the prayerful man, are often succeeded by loftiness of spirit and of mien, self-confidence, a readiness to sit in judgment upon the conduct and infirmities of others, a cold indifference to the increase of the kingdom of Christ and the conversion of sinners, and a carelessness hi the outward deportment of the prayerless man. All backsliding has its commencement in the declension of prayer: it may date its beginning at the throne of grace. The restraining of prayer before God was the first step in departure; and the first step taken, and not immediately retraced, was quickly succeeded by others. The path of a backslider from God is always downward : the descent is easy and rapid: the velocity of the soul's departure increases with its progress; and when a professing man evinces an inclination and an evidence of spiritual declension, there are not wanting influences ready to assist him on in his departure. Satan, the subtle and sleepless foe of the soul, is prepared with a thousand enticements to smooth the downward path; the world appears with some new attraction; sin tastes less bitter, and appears less "exceeding sinful"; objects of sense become familiar, are looked at, admired, then embraced: and now the soul, but for preserving and restraining grace, has taken a farewell forever of God. Reader, do you tremble at the possibility of ever becoming a backslider? do you fear a fall ? do you dread the thought of wounding Jesus? then, restrain not prayer before God; vigilantly guard against the first symptom of declension in this holy exercise, or if that symptom has already appeared, haste you to the dear Physician, who alone has power to arrest its progress, and heal your soul.

An accumulation of daily crosses, seldom fails to follow declension in prayer. The constant exercise of prayer makes light every burden, and smooths every rugged step of a child of God: it is this only that keeps down his trials; not that he is ever exempt from them, - no, it is " through much tribulation that he is to enter the kingdom "; - he is a disciple of the cross, his religion is that of the cross, he is a follower of Him who died upon the cross, and entire exemption from the cross he never expects until he passes to the possession of the crown. But he may pray down his crosses: prayer will lessen their number, and will mitigate their severity. The man whose walk is far from God, whose frame is cold, and worldly, and careless, if he be a true child of the covenant, one of the Lord's family, he may expect crosses and trials to increase upon every step he advances towards the kingdom. Ah! little do many of the tried, afflicted, and constantly disappointed believers think, how closely related are these very trials, and afflictions, and disappointments, to their restraining of prayer before God: every step seems attended with some new cross, - every scheme is blasted by some adverse wind, - every effort is foiled, - disappointment follows disappointment, wave attends upon wave, - nothing they attempt prospers, all they enter upon fails, - and everything seems against them. O! could we pass behind the scene, what should we discover? - & deserted throne of grace! Were we to divulge the secret, and place it in the form of a charge against the believer, what would it be? - "YOU HAVE RESTRAINED PRAYER BEFORE GOD!!" The scheme was framed without prayer, the enterprise was entered upon without prayer; the effort was made without prayer; - God has blown upon it, and all has come to nothing. No marvel; God was not consulted, - the Lord was not acknowledged, his permission was not asked, his wisdom was not sought, his blessing was not craved; and so he blew upon it all! The precious injunction is, - " Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not unto your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct your paths." Where this is honored, there is the Divine blessing; where it is slighted, there is the Divine displeasure.

But we need not enlarge; the evils resulting from a declension of prayer are sufficiently obvious. We have shown that the secret of a happy life, and the spring of a holy one, are in a close walk with God; that if a child of God restrains prayer, he opens the door for the departure of every grace, and to the admission of every sin: when these statements have been seriously and prayerfully pondered, let the reader follow us to the consideration of those means which the Lord has appointed and owned, for the revival of the spirit and exercise of prayer in the believer.

The believer should correctly ascertain the true character of his prayers. Are they lively and spiritual? are they the exercises of the heart, or of the understanding merely? Are they the breathings of the indwelling Spirit, or the cold observance of a form without the power? Is it communion and fellowship? Is it the filial approach of a child, rushing with confidence and affection into the bosom of a Father, and sheltering itself there in every hour of need? It should be remembered by every professing man, that there is a great difference between prayer and praying; we mean, between the formal observance of the duty, and the spiritual character of the performance. All prayer is not communion; and here a man may be greatly and awfully deceived; he may repeat his visits to the throne of grace, and go and come without having exhaled a single breath of spiritual prayer; there may be no respiration in the soul; all is formal, cold, and lifeless. This, then, is the first step to a revival of true prayer in the soul. Examine the character of your devotions; are they such as will stand the test of God's word? will they compare with the holy breathings of David, and Job, and Solomon, and the New Testament saints? are they the breathings forth of the life of God within you? are they ever accompanied with filial broken-ness, lowliness of spirit, and humble and contrite confession of sin? See well to your prayers! be not content with halfhearted devotions; be not satisfied with cold, dull, formal petitions. Take care that your family prayers degenerate not Into this, - there is danger here; see that the flame bums brightly, and rises high on that sacred altar, - that your breathings to God are such as to carry conviction to the minds of your children, your domestics, and your friends, that the duty in which they are engaged is the most spiritual, holy, and solemn of all engagements; they will form their view of prayer by your performance of it at the domestic altar. Be cautious that you beget not in them a disgust for the exercise. If their minds are unregenerate, great wisdom and deep spirituality are needed to guard against this. Let them see that you attach a great and solemn importance to the duty; be not hurried in its performance; let it take precedence of all other engagements; nothing should crowd upon it, and thus curtail the time sacred to it alone. If possible, it should always precede the morning and evening's meal; the mind is thus hallowed with solemn thought, and is better fitted for the varied engagements that follow. It has been found a beneficial practice, too, to supply each member of the domestic circle with a Bible, each in succession reading a verse of the chapter, or else following the individual conducting the devotional exercise. This will prevent the roving eye, and will check distraction of thought, by concentrating the mind upon the portion that is read. An occasional comment, explaining a term, or elucidating a truth, or reconciling an apparent discrepancy, will often impart increased interest and profit to the service. Should there be no godly father at the head of the family, let not the Christian mother shrink from the discharge of this engagement: the word of God is on her side - the grace of Christ Jesus is on her side - God himself is on her side; let her erect the family altar in the fear of God, and in the strength of Jesus, - around it let her gather her children and her domestics, and let her be the priestess that offers up the morning and the evening sacrifice: it is her solemn duty, - and for the discharge of every duty, the Lord has promised to impart all-sufficient grace. 2 Cor. xii. 9.

A further step in the revival of true prayer is, to become more thoroughly acquainted with our many and varied necessities. It is the knowledge of his need that gives true eloquence to the petition of the beggar: a sense of destitution, of absolute want, of actual starvation, imparts energy to his plea, and perseverance in its attainment. His language is, " I must have bread, or I die." This is just what we want the child of God to feel. What is he but a pensioner on God's daily bounty? - what resources has he within himself? - none whatever; and what is he without God ? - poor indeed. Now, in proportion as he becomes acquainted with his real case, his utter destitution, he will besiege the throne of grace, and take no denial. He must know his wants, he must know what grace he is deficient in, what easy besetting sin clings to him, what infirmities encompass him, what portion of the Spirit's work is declining in his soul, where he is the weakest and the most exposed to the attacks of the enemy, and what yet he lacks to perfect him in all the will of God; let him examine himself honestly, and know his real condition. This will endear the throne of grace, will stir up the slumbering spirit of prayer, will supply him with errands to God, and give argument, energy, and perseverance to his suit. It was his deep and pressing sense of need, that imparted such boldness and power to the wrestlings of Jacob: " I will not let you go, except you bless me "; and the Lord said, " Your name shall be called no more Jacob, but Israel; for as a prince have you power with God and with men, and have prevailed." Thus imitate the patriarch; begin the day with thinking over what you may possibly need before its close; whether any cross is anticipated, or any temptation is apprehended, or any danger to which you may be exposed; and then go and wrestle for the needed and the promised grace. O it is a great mercy to have an errand that sends us to God; and when we remember what a full heart of love he has, what a readiness to hear, what promptness in all his answers, what entering into the minutest circumstance of a believer's history, - how it chides the reluctance and rebukes the unbelief that we perpetually manifest in availing ourselves of this most costly, holy, and precious of all our privileges!

There should be the searching out and the removal of that which hinders prayer. Many things weaken true prayer: unsubdued sin - unrepented sin - unpardoned sin, we mean the secret sense of it upon the conscience - worldly-mindedness - light and trifling conversation, vain disputations, much and frequent communion either with unconverted individuals or cold and formal professors; all these combined, or any single one, will, if suffered to prevail, unfit the mind for converse with God, and cause a decay of the spirit of prayer in the soul. Regard that as injurious which touches the devotional frame of your mind; which abridges the hour of prayer, and removes the fine edge of its holy enjoyment.

But that for which we most earnestly plead, and which will tend more than all beside to the revival of true prayer in the believer, is, a more enlarged communication of the Holy Spirit's gracious influence. Here lies the grand source and secret of all true, spiritual, believing, persevering, and prevailing prayer; it is the lack of this that is the cause of the dulness, and formality, and reluctance, that so frequently mark the exercise. The saints of God honor not sufficiently the Spirit in this important part of his work; they too much lose sight of the truth, that of all true prayer he is the Author and the Sustainer; and the consequence is, and ever will be, self-sufficiency and cold formality in the discharge, and ultimate neglect of the duty altogether. But, let the promise be pleaded, " I will pour upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the Spirit of grace and of supplication "; let the Holy Spirit be acknowledged as the Author, and constantly sought as the Sustainer of this holy exercise; let the saint of God feel that he knows not what he should pray for as he ought, that the Spirit itself makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered, and that God knows the mind of the Spirit, because he makes intercession for the saints according to his will; and what an impulse will this give to prayer! what new life will it impart, what mighty energy, what unction, and what power with God! Seek, then, with all your blessings, this, the richest and the pledge of all, the baptism of the Spirit; rest not short of it; you are nothing as a professing man without it; your religion is lifeless, your devotion is formal, your spirit is unctionless; you have no moral power with God or with man, apart from the baptism of the Holy Spirit; seek it, wrestle for it, agonize for it, as transcendently more precious than every other mercy. Submerged in his quickening and reviving influences, what a different Christian will you be! how differently will you pray, how differently will you live, and how differently will you die! Is the spirit of prayer languishing? is its exercise becoming irksome? is closet devotion abandoned? is the duty in any form becoming a task? - O rouse you to the seeking of the baptism of the Spirit! this alone will stay the progress of your declension, this will revive the true spirit of prayer within you, and this will give to its exercise sweetness, pleasantness, and power. God has promised the bestowment of the blessing, and he will never disappoint the soul that seeks it.

The outpouring of the Spirit of prayer, too, is needed to give frequency, and life, and directness, to our petitions on behalf of the church and the world. The word of God is explicit on this point. Thus for all classes and conditions of men: "I exhort, therefore, that first of all, supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks, be made for all men; for kings, and for all that are in authority; that we may live a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty. For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior." i Tim. ii. 1-3. And thus, too, for the church of Christ: " Pray for the peace of Jerusalem: they shall prosper that love you." Psalm cxxii. 6. Intercessory prayer one for the other is urged: " Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another, that you may be healed. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much." James v. 16. And also for the ministers of the Gospel: "Brethren, pray for us." Heb. xiii. 18. These are solemn injunctions: who can read them without a secret consciousness of having slighted or overlooked them? But what is to give intensity, and power, and fixedness, and prevalency, to our prayers for the church of Christ, and in behalf of a world still under the dominion and supremacy of sin, but a large effusion of the Spirit of prayer? Contracted will be our sympathies, selfish our desires, and cold and general our petitions, if not baptized in the Spirit of prayer. The Holy Spirit, descending as on the day of Pentecost, filling, overwhelming, and saturating us with his influence, O how will the pressing necessities of the church and the moral claims of the world then rise before us in all their eloquent pleadings! We will close the present chapter with a few remarks of a practical tendency.

In all true prayer, great stress should be laid on the blood of Jesus. Perhaps no evidence distinguishes a declension in the power and spirituality of prayer more strongly than an overlooking of this. Where the atoning blood is kept out of view; not recognized, not pleaded, not wrestled with, not made the grand plea, there is a deficiency of power in prayer. Words are nothing, fluency of expression nothing, niceties of language and brilliancy of thought nothing, and even apparent fervor nothing, where the blood of Christ, - the new and living way of access to God, the grand plea that moves Omnipotence, that gives admission within the holy of holies, - is slighted, undervalued, and not made the groundwork of every petition. Oh, how much is this overlooked in our prayers, - how is the atoning blood of Immanuel slighted! how little mention we hear of it in the sanctuary, in the pulpit, in the social circle; whereas it is this that makes prayer what it is with God! All prayer is acceptable with God, and only so, as it comes up perfumed with the blood of Christ; all prayer is answered as it urges the blood of Christ as its plea: it is the blood of Christ that satisfies justice, and meets all the demands of the law against us; it is the blood of Christ that purchases and brings down every blessing into the soul; it is the blood of Christ that sues for the fulfillment of his last will and testament, every precious legacy of which comes to us solely on account of his death. This it is, too, that gives us boldness at the throne of grace, - " Having boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus." How can a poor sinner dare approach without this? how can he look up, how can he ask, how can he present himself before a holy God, but as he brings in the hand of faith the precious blood of Jesus? Out of Christ, God can hold no communication with us; all communion is suspended, every avenue of approach is closed, all blessing is withheld. God has crowned his dearly beloved Son, and he will have us crown him too; and never do we place a brighter crown upon his blessed head, than when we plead his finished righteousness as the ground of our acceptance, and his atoning blood as our great argument for the bestowment of all blessing with God. If, then, dear reader, you feel yourself to be a poor, vile, unholy sinner; if a backslider, whose feet have wandered from the Lord, in whose soul the spirit of prayer has declined, and yet still feel some secret longing to return, and dare not, because so vile, so unholy, so backsliding; yet you may return, " having boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus." Come, for the blood of Christ pleads; return, for the blood of Christ gives you a welcome : " If any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous."

Do not forget that the season of trial and of bereavement is often the sanctified occasion of a revival of prayer in the soul. The Lord has marked your wanderings: he has had his eye upon the declension of your soul. That voice, always so pleasant to his ear, has ceased to call upon him: and now he would recover you; he would hear that voice again. And how will he effect it? He causes you to "pass under the rod," sends some sore trial, lays on you some weighty cross, brings trouble and sorrow into your soul, and then you cry unto him, and do besiege the mercy-seat. O how eagerly is God sought, how attractive and how precious does the throne of grace become, when the soul is thus led into deep waters of trial! No longer silent, no longer dumb, the believer calls upon God, pleads with "strong crying and tears," wrestles and agonizes, and thus the slumbering spirit of prayer is stirred up and revived in the soul. O sweet affliction, O precious discipline, that brings back the wandering soul to a closer and a holier walk with God!

Again we exhort the believer, guard against the least declension in prayer; let the first unfavorable symptom that appears alarm you; go to the Lord in your worst frames; stay not from him until you get a good one. Satan's grand argument to keep a soul from prayer, is - " Go not with that cold and insensible frame; go not with that hard and sinful heart; stay until you are more fit to approach God." And listening to this specious reasoning, many poor, distressed, burdened, longing souls have been kept from the throne of grace, and consequently from all comfort and consolation. But the Gospel says, - "Go in your very worst frames"; Christ says, - "Come just as you are": and every promise and every example but encourages the soul to repair to the cross whatever be its frame or condition.

Chapter 5: Declension in Connection with DOCTRINAL ERROR

"Sanctify them through your truth." (John 17:17)

God has been graciously pleased to appoint his church the great conservator of his truth, and his truth the especial medium of sanctification to his church; there is a close and beautiful relation between the two. The church may be compared to the golden lamp which contains the sacred oil, which, in its turn, feeds the flame of its light and holiness. The church is to guard with a jealous and vigilant eye the purity of the truth, while the truth is to beautify and sanctify the ark which preserves it; compare i Tim. iii. 15; John xvii. 17. Thus there is a close relation, and a reciprocal influence constantly existing and exerted, between the church of Christ and the truth of God.

To this thought add yet another: every individual believer in Jesus is himself a subject, and therefore a witness, of the truth; he has been quickened, called, renewed, and partially sanctified through the instrumentality of God's revealed truth: " Of his own will begat he us with the word of truth." James i. 18. "For the truth's sake which dwells in us." 2 John 2. " You are my witnesses, says the Lord." Here is unfolded one of the most solemn and affecting truths touching the character and individual responsibility of a child of God. He is a subject of truth, he is a repository of the truth, and he is a witness for the truth; yes, he is the only living witness to the truth which God has on earth. The world he lives in is a dark, polluted, God-blaspheming, Christ-denying, truth-despising world. The saints who have been called out of it according to his eternal purpose and love, and by his sovereign, distinguishing, and free grace, are the only lights and the only salt in the midst of this moral darkness and corruption. Here and there a light glimmers, irradiating the gloomy sphere in which it moves; here and there a spot of verdure appears, relieving the arid and barren desolation by which it is surrounded. These are the saints of the Most High, the witnesses of the Divine character, the omnipotent power, and the holy tendency of God's blessed truth. Let the saints of God, then, solemnly weigh this affecting fact, that though the written word and the accompanying Spirit are God's witnesses in the world, yet they are the only living exemplifications of the power of the truth, and, as such, are earnestly exhorted to be " blameless and harmless, the sons of God without rebuke, in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation, among whom you shine as lights in the world." Phil. ii. 15.

The first point on which it is our duty to touch in opening the subject of this chapter, is the holy tendency of Divine truth, or the intimate relation between truth and holiness. There are two admitted axioms in every department of human science, which will apply with equal force to the matter before us; - that is, that an effect cannot exist without a cause, and that a cause does not operate without the use of means. Let these admitted propositions form the basis of our reasoning upon this important subject. God has designed the sanctification of his people; he has appointed his truth as the great instrument of effecting their sanctification; and in order to accomplish this, he has declared, that his truth must dwell in the heart in the same richness, fullness, and purity with which it is revealed in his word.

In sustaining our proposition, that the truths of the Gospel are the grand means which God employs for the sanctification of his people, let us be distinctly understood in the outset, as disclaiming all belief in the mere power of the truth itself to produce holiness. This is one of the grand errors of modern divinity from which we unhesitatingly dissent, and which we sternly repudiate. The mere presentation of truth to the un-renewed mind, either in the form of threatening, or promise, or motive, can never produce any saving or sanctifying effect. The soul of man in its unrenewed state, is represented as spiritually dead; insensible to all holy, spiritual motion. Now upon such a mind, what impression is to be produced by the mere holding up of truth before its eye? What life, what emotion, what effect will be accomplished? As well might we spread out the pictured canvas before the glazed eye of a corpse, and expect that by the beauty of the design, and the brilliancy of the coloring, and the genius of the execution, we would animate the body with life, and heave the bosom with emotion, and cause the eye to swim with delight, as to look for similar moral effects to result from the mere holding up to view Divine truth before a carnal mind, " dead in trespasses and sins." And yet there are those who maintain the doctrine, that Divine truth, unaccompanied by any extraneous power, can effect all these wonders! Against such a theory we would simply place one passage from the sacred Word: " Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God."

But the power of the truth for which we plead, is that which results from the attending energy and demonstration of the Holy Spirit. The sacred Word, inspired though it be, ii but a dead letter, unclothed with the life-giving power of the Holy Spirit. Awful as are the truths it unfolds, solemn as are the revelations it discloses, touching as are the scenes it portrays, and persuasive as are the motives it supplies, yet, when left to its own unaided operation, Divine truth is utterly impotent to the production of spiritual life, love, and holiness in the soul of man. Its influence must necessarily be passive, possessing as it does no actual power of its own, and depending upon a Divine influence extraneous from itself, to render its teaching efficacious. The three thousand who were converted on the day of Pentecost, were doubtless awakened under one sermon, and some would declare it was the power of the truth which wrought those wonders of grace. With this we perfectly agree, only adding, that it was truth in the mighty hand of God which pierced them to the heart, and wrung from them the cry, " Men and brethren, what shall we do?" The Eternal Spirit was the efficient cause, and the preached truth but the instrument employed, to produce the effect; but for his accompanying and effectual power, they would, as multitudes do now, have turned their backs upon the sermon of Peter, though it was full of Christ crucified, deriding the truth, and rejecting the Savior of whom it spoke. But it pleased God, in the sovereignty of his will, to call them by his grace, and this he did by the effectual, omnipotent power of the Holy Spirit, through the instrumentality of a preached gospel.

Thus, then, we plead for a personal experimental acquaintance with, and reception of, the truth, before it can produce anything like holiness in the soul. That it has found an entrance to the judgment merely, will not do; advancing not further, - arresting not the will, touching not the heart, renewing not the whole soul, - it can never erect the empire of holiness in man; the reign of sanctification cannot have commenced. The mental eye may be clear, the moral eye closed; the mind all light, the heart all dark; the creed orthodox, and the whole life at variance with the creed. Such is the discordant effect of Divine truth, simply settled in the human understanding, unaccompanied by the power of the Holy Spirit in the heart. But let a man receive the truth in his heart by the power of God himself; let it enter there, disarming and dethroning the strong man; let Jesus enter, and the Holy Spirit take possession, renewing, sealing, and sanctifying the soul; and then we may look for the " fruits of holiness which are unto eternal life."

Now that it is the natural tendency of Divine truth thus received into the heart, to produce holiness, a moment's reference to the word of God will show. The design of the whole plan of redemption, was to secure the highest holiness and happiness of the creature; and when the gospel comes with the power of God unto the salvation of the soul, this end is pre-eminently secured. The renewed man is a pardoned man; the pardoned man becomes a holy man; and the holy man is a happy man. Look, then, at God's word, and trace the tendency of every doctrine, precept, promise, and threatening, and mark the holy influence of each. To select, for example, a few of the distinguishing doctrines of grace. Take the doctrine of God's everlasting love to his people, as seen in their election to eternal life. How holy is the tendency of this truth! "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ: according as he has chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love." Eph. i. 3,4. Let not my reader turn from this glorious doctrine, because he may find it irreconcilable with others that he may hold, or because the mists of prejudice may long have veiled it from his mind; it is a revealed doctrine, and therefore to be fully received; it is a holy doctrine, and therefore to be ardently loved. Received in the heart by the teaching of the Holy Spirit, it lays the pride of man in the dust, knocks from beneath the soul all ground for self-glorying, and expands the mind with the most exalted views of the glory, grace, and love of Jehovah. He who receives the doctrine of electing love in his heart by the power of the Spirit, bears about with him the material of a holy walk; its tendency is to humble, abase, and sanctify the man.

Thus holy, too, is the revealed doctrine of God's free, sovereign, and distinguishing grace. The tendency of this truth is most sanctifying: for a man to feel that God alone has made him to differ from another - that what he has he has received - that by the free, distinguishing grace of God, he is what he is, - is a truth, when experienced in the heart, surely of the most holy influence. How it lays the axe at the root of self! how it stains the pride of human glory, and hushes the whispers of vain boasting! It lays the renewed sinner, where he ought ever to lie, in the dust; and places the crown, where it alone ought to shine, bright and glorious, upon the head of sovereign mercy. " Lord, why me ? I was far from you by wicked works; I was the least of my Father's house, and of all, the most unworthy and unlikely object of your love: and yet your mercy sought me, - your grace selected me out of all the rest, and made me a miracle of its omnipotent power. Lord, to what can I refer this, but to your mere mercy, your sovereign and free grace, entirely apart from all worth or worthiness that you did see in me? Take, therefore, my body, soul, and spirit, and let them be, in time and through eternity, a holy temple to your glory." Thus "the grace of God, that brings salvation, has appeared to all men, teaching us, that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present evil world." And so might we pass on through all the kindred doctrines of grace, were it necessary, showing that the sanctification of the believer is their great end and tendency.

All the precepts, too, are on the side of holiness. " If you love me, keep my commandments"; "Love not the world, nor the things of the world "; " Come out of the world, and be you separate, and touch not the unclean thing "; " Watch and pray "; " Pray without ceasing "; " Love as brethren "; " Be you holy, for I am holy "; " God has not called us unto uncleanness, but unto holiness "; " That you might walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing, being fruitful in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God." Holy precepts! May the Eternal Spirit engrave them deep upon our hearts!

Not less sanctifying in their tendency are those "exceeding great and precious promises " which the word of truth contains. " Having, therefore, these promises, dearly beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God."

Equally holy is the tendency of the Divine threatenings. " The day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up. Seeing, then, that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought you to be in all holy conversation and godliness! Nevertheless we, according to his promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwells righteousness. Wherefore, beloved, seeing that you look for such things, be diligent that you may be found of him in peace, without spot, and blameless." Thus holy and sanctifying are the nature and the effect of Divine truth. It is in its nature and properties most holy; it comes from a holy God; and whenever and wherever it is received in the heart, as the good and incorruptible seed of the kingdom, it produces that which is in accordance with its own nature, - holiness. As is the tree, so are the fruits; as is the cause, so are the effects. It brings down and lays low the high thoughts of man, by revealing to him the character of God; it convinces him of his deep guilt and awful condemnation, by exhibiting the Divine law; it unfolds to him God's hatred of sin, his justice in punishing and his mercy in pardoning it, by unfolding to his view the cross of Christ; and taking entire possession of the soul, it implants new principles, supplies new motives, gives a new end, begets new joys, and inspires new hopes, - in a word, diffuses itself through the whole moral man, changes it into the same image, and transforms it into " an habitation of God through the Spirit."

Now it will require no labored or lengthened discussion to show, that the nature and tendency of error must be opposite to that of truth; for it is impossible that two things so different in their natures should be capable of producing the same effects. If the nature and the tendency of truth are to promote holiness, it must be the nature and tendency of error to promote unholiness: if the one tends to humble the pride of man, to diminish him in his own eyes, to correct the evils of his fallen nature, to break the power of corruption, and to introduce him into the holy liberty of the child of God, - for " if the truth makes him free, then is he free indeed," - surely the other tends to foster his proud conceit of himself, to beget a lofty view of his own gifts and attainments, to lessen his views of sin's exceeding sinfulness, and, lowering the motive and weakening the power of holiness, gives the unchecked rein to all the corrupt propensities of a fallen nature.

It is the tendency of false doctrine to divert the mind that cherishes it into a wrong channel: it leads the soul away from God. As truth experimentally received draws the heart to God, so error cherished in the mind leads the heart from God. It imparts distorted views of the Divine character, gives low conceptions of the Divine law, beclouds the finished work of Christ, weakens the power of moral obligation, and, from step to step, leads the soul entirely, and, if grace do not interfere, forever, from God.

That the connection between spiritual and personal declension and false doctrine is close and inseparable, and the results always the most painful and disastrous, cannot be questioned. The moment a private Christian, or a public teacher, or an associated body, becomes infected with false doctrine, departs from the word of God, and sets up doctrines, and commandments, and ordinances, at variance with the revealed word, that moment finds him or them deteriorating in spirituality and declining in holiness; and from a career of spiritual prosperity, perhaps the most unexampled, relapsing into a state of formality, deadness, and unfruitfulness, from which nothing seems fully and permanently to recover them.

Select an individual believer, a minister, or the case of a church, which has departed from the "faith once delivered unto the saints," and has relinquished some of the fundamental doctrines of the Gospel, and how marked and painful are the results!

Take, for example, the case of an individual believer. Has he abandoned the ancient landmark of truth? Has he lost a reverence for its character, a sense of its value, a relish for its sweetness ? Trace the sad effects in his uneven walk, his careless spirit, his low-toned spirituality, his hardened conscience, his insensible heart, his neglect of means - in a word, the apparent withering up of all his grace. What a change has passed over the man! what a distant spirit now marks him whose walk was once so close with God! what exhibitions of self in him who was once so humble and so retiring, whose carriage did seem to speak the inward consciousness of the soul " less than the least of all saints!" what a turning of the back upon the means of grace by him to whom they were once so highly prized, so eagerly sought, so richly enjoyed, amid which he walked as through green pastures, and by the side of still waters! what unkindness, what haughty bearing, what frigid distance, now marks his conduct towards the saints of God, once so dear to his heart, his chosen and beloved companions, with whom he desired to live and to die! He has departed from the faith, and these are some of the dire effects!

Take the still more affecting case of a professed minister of the Gospel. Has any change taken place in his views of the Christian system? has he relinquished any fundamental doctrine of the Gospel? has he abandoned any essential element of revealed truth? Perhaps he has given up the Godhead of Christ, the sacrificial character of his death; or, it may be, he denies the Deity and Personality of the Spirit; or else his views touching the obligation of the believer to holiness have undergone a painful alteration. But, whatever be the error he has imbibed, whether doctrinal or preceptive, a fearful blight has in consequence fallen upon the man. How changed the spiritual frame of his mind! - no more zeal, tenderness, or solemnity marks him. How altered the character of his ministry! - no more power, earnestness, or spirituality, clothes it. How different its results! - no more conversions, and no more edification, comfort, and establishing of the saints, follow it. How differently he prays, - no more unction, life, and power breathe in his petitions. He has imbibed error, he has turned his back upon God's truth, and God has turned his back upon him.

We might go on to trace the same or similar effects, showing the close connection between false doctrine and spiritual declension, in the history of a church which has departed from the purity of the faith; but sufficient has been advanced, we believe, to illustrate the awful consequences of tampering with God's word, and of relinquishing our hold upon a single truth which he has revealed for the sanctification and salvation of the soul.

The inquiry appropriately suggests itself here, - how far may the prevailing deficiency in spirituality be traced to the influence of lax views of Divine truth among professedly orthodox Christians, and to the existence of alarming errors, which, like a flood, threaten to sweep away the ancient landmarks of Gospel truth? That such a dearth of spirituality does exist, - traced in the pulpit, on the platform, from the press, and in the social communion of Christians, cannot be doubted: the only question is, To what are we to refer it as a cause? We unhesitatingly reply, To a defective theology, to false doctrine, to low and lax views of God's revealed truth. Declension in spirituality has ever followed a departure from the purity of the faith. Look at the reformed churches on the continent of Europe; they departed from the pure doctrines of the Reformation, and what and where are they now? Scattered, many of them, to the winds, - torn up by the roots; while those that remain have sunk into a state of the deepest declension, abandoned to the withering influence of an infidel neology, and a mystic transcendentalism. It is true, the sun of the Reformation appears in some parts of the land of Calvin and Luther to be emerging from its long and deep obscuration, inspiring hopes of the revival of a more pure and spiritual Christianity. And to what are these favorable symptoms to be traced, save to a return of some of the churches and pastors to the pure doctrines of the Reformation? - doctrines which Luther boldly preached, on which Calvin powerfully wrote, and for which Latimer, Ridley, and Cranmer went fearlessly to the stake. It is much to be feared, that if the reformed churches of England and of America return not soon to a purer and a more spiritual theology, they will smite upon the rocks on which the continental churches have so sadly made shipwreck of faith. To descend to particulars:

Is there not in the present day a criminal keeping back by some, and a painful undervaluing by others, of the scriptural and holy doctrines of grace? - The doctrines which unfold the eternity of God's love to his people - the sovereignty of his grace in their election - the effectual power of the Spirit in their calling - the free justification of their persons through the imputed righteousness of Christ, and the entire putting away of their sins by his atoning blood - the solemn obligation to " live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present evil world," and the certainty of their final glorification in the world to come, - are not these Divinely-revealed truths, at the present moment, and by the great mass of Christian professors and preachers, excluded from our pulpits and exiled from our land? are they not considered mean and unfashionable? and, having lost their savor with the many, are they not cast out and trodden under foot of men? We verily and solemnly believe that it is so. By some they are professedly received, but criminally held back; by others they are professedly preached, but with such timidity and obscurity, as to render them of none effect: and by the many they are disbelieved altogether, and therefore openly and boldly denied! And yet, these are the doctrines which shine so luminously in every page of the apostle's writings, - these are the doctrines which formed the grand themes of Christ's ministration, - and these are the doctrines, to the preaching of which by the reformers, we owe all the civil and religious liberty which, as a nation, we now possess. We hesitate not, then, to say that, along with the denial or the undervaluing of these doctrines of grace, there will go forth an influence that will wither the spirituality and obstruct the prosperity of the churches of our land. It is true, an outward appearance of fruitfulness may follow the exhibition of opposite and conflicting doctrines, - crowds may flock to their standard, and multitudes seem converted by their influence, - but soon these delusive appearances are seen to pass away. The time of trial and of sifting comes, and then it is found - when, alas! too late to close the floodgate against the overwhelming evils which the preaching of error has produced - that the truth, and the truth only, in the hands of the Eternal Spirit of God, can really enlighten the dark mind, regenerate the lifeless soul, and subdue and sanctify the rebellious heart: it is then discovered, that the true prosperity of a church, its stability, its spirituality, its vigor, and its holy influence, are essentially, and therefore inseparably, connected with a fearless and holy maintenance of the doctrines of grace; that where they are denied, or held back, or in any way obscured, there may indeed exist the form of godliness, but the power - the glorious, Divine, and sanctifying power - is wanting. The preaching of false doctrine may build up a church composed of "wood, hay, stubble," but the preaching of truth alone can rear a church composed of "gold, silver, precious stones." And the day is approaching, when " every man's work shall be made manifest; for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire; and the fire shall try every man's work of what sort it is." i Cor. iii. 13.

Do we long, and pray, and labor for a true revival of the Lord's work? - What is more calculated to bring down the Holy Spirit of God upon us in all the plenitude of his awakening influence, - arousing the careless, convincing the impenitent and unbelieving of sin, annihilating the self-righteousness, prostrating the high thoughts, and slaying the pride of the human heart, - than a clear, pointed, and faithful exhibition of God's own revealed truth? Has not the great experiment been tried, and the question set at rest? - It has. President Edwards, in his Narrative of Surprising Conversions, bears this testimony: - "I think I have found," says he, "that no discourses have been more remarkably blessed than those in which the doctrine of God's absolute sovereignty with regard to the salvation of sinners, and his just liberty with regard to his answering the prayers, or succeeding the pains of mere natural men, continuing such, have been insisted on. I never found so much immediate saving fruit, in any measure, of any discourses I have offered to my congregation, as some from those words, ' That every mouth may be stopped Rom. iii. 19; endeavoring from thence to show, that it would be just with God forever to reject and cast off mere natural men."

And to go still further back in search of a stronger testimony; what was the great revival at Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost the result of, but a faithful exhibition of the truth, brought to bear upon the consciences and the hearts of three thousand rebellious sinners, by the bold apostle Peter? The doctrines he then proclaimed, were the now despised and slighted doctrines of grace; the truths he then thundered forth, were the most humbling to human pride, and the most offensive to the natural heart, and yet the most calculated, in the hands of the Eternal Spirit, to awaken the deepest emotion, and to produce the most anxious inquiry:- "Him, being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, you have taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and slain." " Now, when they heard this, they were pierced in their heart, and said unto Peter and the rest of the apostles. Men and brethren, what shall we do?" This was the result of a simple preaching of the truth, - a faithful exhibition of the doctrines of grace. The stout-hearted Jews listened with awe: the men who had witnessed the awful scene of Calvary without emotion, now quailed, trembled, turned pale, and smote on their breasts, in all the anguish of a deep, pungent conviction of sin. How soon did their proud natures bend, their hard hearts melt; the strong fortress of their prejudices yield before the simplicity and the majesty of the truth! It was the naked " sword of the Spirit" which Peter wielded, and this, at one blow, smote to the earth three thousand of the most hopeless, impenitent sinners; it was a crucified Savior that he held up, which, by the power of the Holy Spirit, wrought the wonders of the day of Pentecost. " Is not my word," says God, " like as a fire, and like a hammer that breaks the rock in pieces?" " Your arrows are sharp in the hearts of the king's enemies, whereby the people fall under you." Is it unreasonable, then, to expect, that the same Spirit will honor with similar tokens of his power, the preaching of the same truths in our day ? " Thus says the Lord, Stand you in the ways and see, and ask for the old paths, where is the good way, and walk therein, and you shall find rest for your souls." Jer. vi. 16.

We would also inquire, is there not in the present day a sad declension in the setting forth of the Lord Jesus Christ? Have we not cause to sound the note of alarm touching this most important point? We verily and solemnly believe that the pulpits of our land are awfully guilty here; that the modern preaching of the Gospel is not formed on the model of the apostles', which was - Christ crucified: " I determined not to know (or to make known) anything among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified." Is not Jesus kept in the background ? Is not his cross hidden, and much of his glory veiled, as if ashamed to bring him fully forward? Are the glory, the majesty, and the beauty of his Divine and human nature, his wondrous person, clearly set forth ? Are the nature, necessity, and perfection of his great work, fully and fearlessly unfolded? Are his precious blood, his imputed righteousness, his mediatorial fullness, his exaltation and intercession at the right hand of God, truths prominently exhibited and fervently preached? On the contrary, are not human knowledge, and splendid talents, and brilliant eloquence, and moral suasion, greatly substituted for the preaching of the cross? That there should be a sad declension of vital piety, of real spirituality, and of active exertion, where Christ is not fully preached, is not to be wondered at. The cross of Jesus is the very soul of Christianity; all is death where Jesus is not. Grace decays, piety languishes, and formality takes the place of the power of the Gospel, where the person and the work of Christ are slighted, undervalued, or denied. How we should pray that the Lord Jesus Christ, the Lamb slain, who is "worthy to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honor, and glory, and blessing," should be more fully and simply preached through the length and breadth of our land; that the church and the pulpit should more manifestly crown him Lord of all!

Once more: Is not the doctrine of the Holy Spirit held slightly? Is he not denied in his person, dishonored in his work, wounded and grieved in his influence ? Is there not a more marked dependence on creature power than upon the power of the Spirit? Do not sermons, and books, and reports sadly forget to recognize and honor him as the grand source of all blessing? Are his power, grace, and love, in the great work of conversion, distinctly acknowledged and duly honored? That there should be no precious gales of grace, no revival of the Lord's work, no true spiritual prosperity where the Holy Spirit is not glorified, we cannot marvel. All must be cold, formal, and lifeless - that church a stagnant pool, and that ministry a powerless instrument, where the Spirit of God is slighted, wounded, or absolutely denied.

In closing, let us remark, that, living as we do in a day of abounding error, it solemnly behooves those who believe the truth, fearlessly to maintain it. Let there be no compromise, no barter of the truth; buy it at any sacrifice of human opinion, sell it at no price whatever. " Buy the truth, and sell it not." Stand up a witness of the truth, humbly, boldly, and in the strength of the Lord, wherever his providence may place you. O consider the honor of being permitted to testify to the truth as it is in Jesus! You may be a lone, a solitary witness, yet fear not; he who is " the truth " itself says to you, as he did to the church in Philadelphia, - "You have a little strength, and have kept my word, and have not denied my name. Because you have kept the word of my patience, I also will keep you from the hour of temptation, which shall come upon all the world, to try them that dwell upon the earth. Behold, I come quickly; hold that fast which you have, that no man take your crown." Rev. iii. 10, 11

Let those who hold the truth, be careful to maintain good works, and so walk in all the holiness of the truth they profess; let them see that by no carelessness of deportment, by no want of integrity, by no neglect of the means of grace, by no exhibitions of unholy temper, by no worldly conformity, yes, by no inconsistency whatever, they bring a slur upon the holy doctrines they avowedly maintain and love; let them not be satisfied with maintaining a string of doctrines, unaccompanied with their sanctifying power: but let them see that with the truth in their judgments, they possess grace in the heart, and unspotted holiness in the life. " Then said Jesus to those Jews which believed on him, If you continue in my word, then are you my disciples indeed; and you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." John viii 31, 32.

Chapter 6: On Grieving the Spirit

"Grieve not the Holy Spirit of God." (Ephesians 4:30)

This subject stands in close and solemn relation to the spiritual and personal declension of the believer: his decay in grace necessarily and painfully involves it. Of all that has been wrought in the believer in the way of conviction, repentance, faith, joy, holiness, etc., the blessed and Eternal Spirit is the sole Author. Great and glorious is his work: yes, but for it, the redemption accomplished by our Lord Jesus Christ, as to any saving effects, would have availed nothing. The "Sun of righteousness" might have risen upon the world in all his peerless splendor; but until the mental eye had been opened by the Holy Spirit, not a beam had found its way into the dark chambers of the understanding and the heart. The Gospel "supper" might have been prepared, the Lamb slain, and the invitation issued; but without a supernatural power working upon the will, the desires, and the affections of man, all would have "made light of it, and have gone their ways, one to his farm, another to his merchandise." "It is expedient for you that I go away," said Jesus, "for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I depart, I will send him unto you. And when he is come, he will reprove the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment." Our views of the work of the Spirit cannot be too spiritual, nor can our estimate of its value be too high. The great danger to which we are exposed, is, not in overrating, but in undervaluing the office-work of the Spirit; not in thinking too high, but in thinking too low of it: and that anything tends more to wound, grieve, and chase from us his sensible presence, than a known and permitted declension of his work, we cannot imagine. This is the solemn and important point, to which the consideration of the reader is now to be directed.

The phrases, "vexing the Spirit," "grieving the Spirit," " quenching the Spirit," " resisting the Spirit," &c., though metaphorical, are nevertheless highly significant and solemn in their meaning. Grief is not a passion in the Holy Spirit, as it is in us, any more than "anger," " wrath," " revenge," are unholy emotions in God, though ascribed to him. In condescension to our weakness, these expressions are employed to set forth God's extreme hatred of sin, and the holy sensitiveness of the Eternal Spirit to any neglect, undervaluing, or declension of his most gracious work and influence in the soul. Properly, the Spirit cannot be grieved, cannot be quenched, cannot be resisted; because he is not a creature, though a person. To believe the contrary, would be to invest the Holy Spirit of God with such attributes as would be incompatible with his Divine glory and infinite perfections, - such as belong only to a weak, sinful, finite creature. But, metaphorically, to " grieve the Spirit" is to disregard his voice, oppose his influence, and slight his kind, loving, and tender nature; and thus cause a withdrawment from the soul - in some cases temporary, in others eternal - of his presence, influence, and blessing. In the case of the regenerate, the withdrawment of the Spirit on being grieved, is for a season only; in that of the finally impenitent and unbelieving, the hushing of his voice, speaking to them in conscience, in providence, and in his word, is the giving of them up for ever. But these are points that will appear in a more advanced elucidation of our subject. Let our attention now be directed to the way in which the Holy of God may be grieved, and then to the consideration of some of the certain and mournful consequences.

I am supposed to address myself to those who admit, in its unlimited meaning, the scriptural doctrine of the Divine Personality of the Holy Spirit: else it might be proper to show, that a denial of this truth involves an absolute denial of the Spirit, - his personal glory and official work, - and charges home upon the conscience of the rejecter, a sin of the most malignant character, and of the most fatal tendency. It surely needs not the reasoning of a moment to prove that any existing doubt, any latent suspicion, as to the Spirit's right to Divine homage, must involve the sin of grieving the Spirit in the highest degree. Let the spiritual coldness, sterility, lethargy, which are the legitimate and certain results, prove the truth of what we affirm. The moment a man entertains views of the Spirit derogatory from his personal dignity, that moment he seems like one abandoned of the Spirit to the fearful and ruinous consequences of his sin: his spirituality withers, his grace decays, the spirit of devotion languishes, and at length expires. If he ministers in the pastoral office, all power and unction in his ministrations evaporate; or if he moves in a private walk, all zeal, and ardor, and devotedness in the cause of Christ become stagnant, and the curse and the reproach of barrenness fall like a blight upon the once fertile and flourishing soul. These dire effects may be traced to low views of the personal dignity and official work of the Holy Spirit. But I now particularly address myself to those Christians who acknowledge the deity of the Spirit, and his distinct personality in the Godhead, and who humbly hope they are the subjects of his renewing grace, and thus are acquainted with the power and glory of his work. That even such may sadly grieve the Holy Spirit of God, and in consequence be great spiritual losers, we think the following considerations, deduced from the inspired word, will clearly show.

We commence with that which bears most directly upon the subject of the present volume, the declension of the Spirit's work of grace in the soul of a child of God. What can grieve the Spirit more than this ? It is a dreadful slight cast upon the most glorious and stupendous production of his power: nowhere has he erected a temple so glorious, and nowhere has he put forth energy so mighty, and in nothing has he imprinted so deeply the outline of his own holy character, as in the work of grace which he has commenced, and carries on in the heart of man. Now, to witness any decay, declension, or languor in this work; to mark the loss of vigor, healthfulness, or fruitfulness, in any single grace; to see those whose souls he had quickened, whose minds he had illumined, whose affections he had detached from earthly things and centered in God, who did seem to " run well" and promised much fruit, and " an abundant entrance into the everlasting kingdom," now slacken their pace, grow weary of the way, fold their arms again in slumber, grow earthly, sensual, and groveling; the temple neglected, its gates unwatched, and other guests admitted; holy motives losing their power, love ceasing to constrain, spiritual things no longer attracting, delighting, and satisfying the soul, - oh! can we imagine the loving, faithful, tender heart of the Spirit more sensibly touched with grief by anything than this ? Well might he exclaim, "What could I have done more for my vineyard than I have done ? Why, then, when I looked for grapes, did it bring forth wild grapes ?" " O Ephraim, what shall I do unto you? O Judah, what shall I do unto you ? for your goodness is as a morning cloud, and as the early dew it goes away."

Of all spiritual states, lukewarmness is most abhorrent to God, and grieving to the Holy Spirit. " I know your works, that you are neither cold nor hot: I would you were cold or hot. So then because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue you out of my mouth." Thus has God declared his utter detestation of this state. And yet, who contemplates it in this awful light; who pauses to examine himself, to ascertain what real progress his soul is making, - what grace is enfeebled, - what part of the Spirit's work is decayed, - what spot of his soul is barren and unfruitful, and how far he is secretly and effectually grieving the Holy Spirit, by a known, allowed, and cherished state of spiritual declension? If, after all his skill, it must be affecting to the architect to witness the decay of his building; if so to the parent, after his costly expenditure of means in education, to witness the fond hopes he cherished of his child blasted, how infinitely more is the Spirit affected and grieved to behold the temple he has erected at such a cost, f ailing to decay; the soul he had taught with such care and solicitude, receding into a state of coldness and formality in its spiritual duties and affections! "The heart of the Spirit," beautifully remarks Dr. Owen, " is infinitely more tender towards us, than that of the most affectionate parent can be towards an only child. And when he with cost and care has nourished and brought us up into some growth and progress in spiritual affections, wherein all his concerns in us do lie, for us to grow cold, dull, earthly-minded, to cleave unto the pleasures and lusts of this world, how is he grieved, how is he provoked!" See, then, that your spiritual state is such as occasions joy rather than grief to the Holy Spirit of God. Nothing can fill his loving heart with greater and more holy delight, than to witness the deepening character and expanding influence of his own work in the believer. To behold the glimmering light which he created, " shining more and more," - the gentle plant emitting its fragrance and putting forth its fruit, - the well-spring in the heart rising heavenward, Godwards, - such a picture must be grateful to the Spirit. If the enthroned Redeemer looks down with satisfaction upon the travail of his soul in the calling in of his redeemed, equally joyous must it be to the Eternal Spirit, to behold the widening of his kingdom in the saints, - the maturing of the soul for the inheritance and the companionship of " just men made perfect." To mark a growing conformity to the image of Christ - holiness expanding its root - each grace in active exercise - every weight cast aside - every sin mortified, and the whole body, soul, and spirit, a rising temple to God, must indeed fill all heaven with joy. Christian reader, see well to your state, that the Holy Spirit of God is not grieved at any known and cherished declension of his work in your soul.

The Spirit is grieved by a denial, or undervaluing of his gracious work in the heart. It is a circumstance worthy of remark, and important in the instruction which it conveys, that, among all the examples of deep humility, self-abasement, consciousness and confession of sin recorded of the saints in the word, not one appears to afford an instance of a denial or undervaluing of the Spirit's work in the heart. Keen as appears to have been the sense of unworthiness felt by Jacob, David, Job, Isaiah, Peter, Paul, and others; deep as was their conviction, and humiliating as were their confessions of sin's exceeding sinfulness, not one expression seems to betray a denial of the work of the Holy Spirit in their souls: they felt, and mourned, and wept, and confessed as men called of God, pardoned, justified, adopted, not as men who had never tasted that the Lord was gracious, and who therefore were utter strangers to the operation of the Spirit upon their hearts: they acknowledged their sinfulness and their backslidings as converted men, always ready and forward to crown the Spirit in his work. But what can grieve the tender, loving heart of the Spirit more deeply than a denial of his work in the soul? And yet there is a perpetual tendency to this, in the unbelieving doubts, legal fears, and gloomy forebodings which those saints yield to, who, at every discovery of the sin that dwells in them, resign themselves to the painful conviction, that they have been given over of God to believe a lie! To such we would earnestly say. Grieve not thus the Holy Spirit of God. Deep self-abasement, the consciousness of utter worthlessness, need not necessarily involve a denial of indwelling grace in the heart; yes, this blessed state is perfectly consistent with the most elevated hope of eternal life. He who can confess himself the " chief of sinners " and " the least of saints," is most likely to acknowledge, " I know in whom I have believed," - "He has loved me, and given himself for me." What! is it all fabulous that you have believed? is it all a delusion that you have experienced? have you been grasping at a shadow, believing a lie, and fighting as one that beats the air? are you willing to yield your hope and cast away your confidence? What! have you never known the plague of your own heart, the sweetness of godly sorrow at the foot of the cross? have you never felt your heart beat one throb of love to Jesus? has his dear name never broken in sweet cadence on your ear? are you willing to admit that all the grief you have felt, and all the joy you have experienced, and all the blessed anticipations you have known, were but as a " cunningly devised fable," a device of the wicked one, a moral hallucination of the mind? O grieve not thus the Holy Spirit of God! deny not, undervalue not, his blessed work within you! What if you have been led into deeper discoveries of your fallen nature, your unworthiness, vileness, insufficiency, declensions, and backsliding from God, we ask, Whose work is this? whose, but that same blessed, loving Spirit whom thus you are wounding, quenching, grieving, denying? On this point the writer feels acutely; when he remembers how many whose eye may trace this page, are in this very state, - not merely writing hard and bitter things against themselves, but also against the blessed, loving, faithful Spirit of God, - calling grace nature, denying his work in them, and, in a sense most painful to his tender heart, " speaking words against the Holy Spirit" he cannot but feel. There is much spurious humility among many saints of God, and this is one of its common forms. It is not pride gratefully to acknowledge what great things the Lord has done for us, - it is pride that refuses to acknowledge them; it is not true humility to doubt, and underrate, until it becomes easy to deny altogether the work of the Holy Spirit within us, - it is true humility and lowliness to confess his work, bear testimony to his operation, and ascribe to him all the power, praise, and glory. See then, dear reader, that you cherish not this false humility, which is but another name for deep, unmortified pride of heart; remember that as Satan may transform himself into an angel of light, so may his agencies assume the disguise of the most holy and lovely graces; thus pride, one of his master agents of evil in the heart, may appear in the shape of the profoundest humility. And I would have you bear in mind, too, that though the work of the Spirit in your heart may, to your imperfect knowledge and dim eye, be feeble - the outline scarcely visible amid so much indwelling sin - the spark almost hid amid so much abounding corruption, yet, to the Spirit" s eye, that work appears in all its distinctness and glory. "The Lord knows them that are his." This declaration will apply with equal truth to the knowledge which the Holy Spirit has of his own work in the believer; his eye is upon the gentlest buddings of indwelling grace the faintest spark of love - the softest whisper of holy desire - the most feeble yearnings of the heart towards Jesus, - all, all is known to, and loved by, the Spirit; it is his own work, and strange should he not recognize it. Suffer this consideration to have its proper weight in hushing those murmurings, and soothing those fears, and neutralizing those doubts that so deeply grieve the Holy Spirit of God: yield yourself up unto him; humbly acknowledge what he has done in you; follow the little light he has given you, call into constant and active exercise the small degree of grace and faith which he has imparted, and seek " with all prayer and supplication " an enlarged degree of his holy, anointing, sanctifying, and sealing influence.

A substitution of his own work in the soul for the atoning and finished work of Jesus, greatly grieves the Holy Spirit of God. One essential and important office of the Spirit is to glorify Christ: " He (the Spirit) shall glorify me," said Jesus; " He shall testify of me "; "He shall take of mine, and shall show it unto you." This being his work in reference to Christ, it must be, of course, the great delight of the Spirit ever and at all times to lift up Jesus and glorify him. And how does the Spirit most glorify Christ, but by exalting his atoning work, - giving to it the pre-eminence, the importance, and the glory it demands, - leading the sinner, whom he has first convinced of sin, to accept of Jesus as a willing, an all-sufficient Savior, - to cast away all trust in self, all reliance upon a covenant of works, which is but a covenant of death, and thus going entirely out of himself, to take up his rest in the blood and righteousness of Immanuel, the God-man Mediator. Oh, what sweet, holy delight must it be to the Spirit of God, when a poor sinner in all his conscious nothingness is led to build upon Jesus, the "tried stone, the precious corner-stone, the sure foundation!"

Let the reader, then, imagine how grieving it must be to the Spirit, when there is any resting in his work in the soul, either for acceptance, or for comfort, or for peace, or for strength, or even for evidence of a state of grace, and not solely and entirely in the atoning work which Jesus has wrought out for the redemption of sinners. The work of the Spirit and the work of Christ, though they form parts of one glorious whole, are yet distinct, and to be distinguished in the economy of grace, and in the salvation of a sinner. It is the work of Jesus alone, his perfect obedience to the broken law of God, and his sacrificial death as a satisfaction of Divine justice, that form the ground of a sinner's acceptance with God, - the source of his pardon, justification, and peace. The work of the Spirit is, not to atone, but to reveal the atonement; not to obey, but to make known the obedience; not to pardon and justify, but to bring the convinced, awakened, penitent soul to receive the pardon and embrace the justification already provided in the work of Jesus. Now, if there is any substitution of the Spirit's work for Christ's work, - any undue, unauthorized leaning upon the work within, instead of the work without, the believer, there is a dishonor done to Christ, and a consequent grieving of the Holy Spirit of God. It cannot be pleasing to the Spirit to find himself a substitute for Christ; and yet this is the sin which so many are constantly falling into. If I look to convictions of sin within me, to any motion of the indwelling Spirit, to any part of his work, as the legitimate source of healing, of comfort, or of evidence, I turn my back upon Christ, I remove my eye from the cross, and slight his great atoning work; I make a Christ of the Spirit! I make a Savior of the Holy Spirit! I convert his work into an atoning work, and draw the evidence and the consolation of my pardon and acceptance from what he has done, and not from what Jesus has done! O, is not this, again we ask, dishonoring to Christ, and grieving to the Holy Spirit of God? Do not think that we undervalue the Spirit's work: great and precious is it. Viewed as a Quickener, John vi. 63 - as an Indweller, 1 Cor. vi. 19 - as a Sanctifier, 2 Thess. ii. 13 - as a Sealer, Eph. 1. 13 - as a Witness, 1 John v. 10 - as a Comforter, John xiv. 26 - as the Author of Prayer, Rom. viii. 26, - his person cannot be too ardently loved, nor can his work be too highly prized: but the love we bear him, and the honor we give him, must not be at the expense of the honor and glory and love due to the Lord Jesus Christ, whom it is his office and his delight to glorify. The crown of redemption must be placed upon the head of Jesus; he alone is worthy to wear it, - he alone has a right to wear it. "You have redeemed us by your blood," is the song they sing in glory, and " You shall wear the crown," should be the song echoed back from the redeemed on earth. See, then, that you grieve not the Spirit, either by misplacing or by undervaluing the atoning work of Jesus. His blood, applied by the Spirit, pardons; his righteousness, received by faith, justifies you; and " the peace of God which passes all understanding," is the certain and blessed fruit of both. The constant evidence of a pardoned and justified state, must spring from a constant dealing with, and looking to, the Lord Jesus; it is " in his light that we are to see light"; he is the Sun that shines upon the work within us. The eye of the soul withdrawn from his cross, and fixed in intense gaze upon itself, will soon be lost amid shadows and gloom. Inward joys may be lived upon, until the spring of joy ceases to flow; evidences may be looked to, until they melt away into darkness. What, under these circumstances, is the poor, distressed, alarmed soul to do, but to fly afresh to the cross? Where is it to look, but again unto Jesus? What is to speak a sense of pardon, but the atoning blood; and what is to assure of " perfect peace," but the justifying righteousness of the Son of God ? O that there were a more simple and direct looking out of, and away from, self, to the atoning Savior! Then would the precept be sweet, then would obedience be easy, then would the cross be light, and then, too, would peace flow as a river, and righteousness roll in as the waves of the sea.

And yet, there is a sense in which the Spirit's own work may be so slighted, as deeply to grieve his heart. There is a proneness to extreme points even in the child of God: he may either overrate, or he may underrate a thing; he may place an unwarrantable dependence upon that which, at another period, he may be found painfully and sinfully to slight. Thus, in reference to the afflictions of the believer, the word of God exhorts him on the one hand not to despise them, and tenderly admonishes him on the other hand not to faint under them. Heb. xii. 5. We may either think too much or too little of God's covenant chastenings. What need of the teachings of the Spirit every moment of one's life! how important to be found constantly distrusting and leaning off of self, and trusting to, and leaning upon Jesus! The prayer of a child of God should unceasingly be, that the Lord would keep him from himself; that the posture of his mind might be low at the feet of Jesus, each moment learning of, and living to him. But how may the Spirit's work be slighted by the believer? In various ways.

He may cherish an imperfect consciousness of the indwelling of the Spirit in his heart. To show any indifference to the presence of a guest, to manifest any want of marked and proper attention, is a slight of no ordinary nature: in this sense may the Holy Spirit of God be grieved. For the Holy Spirit effectually to call, renew, sanctify, and take possession of the soul - make it his temple, his permanent dwelling-place; and yet, for that soul to entertain inadequate views of this great truth, forget who is dwelling with and in him, slight his heavenly guest, and go out and come in, and live and act as if he were not a temple of the Holy Spirit, - what can be more dishonoring to the Blessed and Eternal Spirit! Oh that this momentous truth should even for a single moment be lost sight of by the believer! That he should be the dwelling-place of the Most High, the ' High and Lofty One that inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy,' the residence of the Holy Spirit, and yet entertain a feeling or a thought not in perfect harmony with so great a fact, does indeed show the necessity of the apostolic admonition, ' Grieve not the Holy Spirit of God.'

When, too, his still small voice is unheeded, and his gentle constraints are not yielded to, there is a slight put upon his work of a very grievous nature. The abiding Indweller of the saint of God, the Spirit, is perpetually speaking to, admonishing, leading, drawing, and constraining the soul; his great work there is to teach, to sanctify, to shield, to check, and to comfort the believer. Every holy shrinking from sin, every firm resistance of its power, every victory achieved over its motions, every aspiration after holiness, and every feeble desire to walk in the way of filial obedience to, and sweet communion with God, is the fruit of the indwelling Spirit in the heart. How grieving, then, to that Spirit, when this loving voice of his, and these gentle constraints of his, are overlooked, stifled, disregarded, and slighted by the soul he so tenderly loves, and so faithfully watches over! Grieve not thus the Holy Spirit of God. In all his dealings with you, he seeks but your real good; he aims to deepen his own work in your hearts; he seeks but to promote your holiness, and to mature your soul for the joys and the companionship of the saints in light. Yet more; he desires your true happiness, - he would draw you off from carnal things, he would allure you from objects of sense and sin, and open to you springs of higher and purer enjoyment, and lead you into fairer and greener pastures: this would he do, by unfolding to you what you possess in Jesus, in the covenant of grace, and in a covenant God. Let your ear, then, be open to the gentle voice of the Spirit, and follow promptly and implicitly his secret and gentle leadings.

Inconsistency in the Christian profession must be highly grieving to the Holy Spirit of God. To mark a want of harmony between the professed principles and the habit of life in one avowedly his temple; to trace a love of the world, a panting for its fame, a grasping for its wealth, an adoption of its policy, a conforming to its maxims, its pursuits, its pleasures, and its religion, cannot fail to wound the sacred guest, the indwelling Spirit. And yet this worldly spirit, this painful inconsistency of avowed Christian principle, how many professors does it mark! What numbers there are professing and calling themselves Christians, the disciples of the Lord, the followers of the meek and lowly Lamb of God, who think lightly of putting on gay, worldly attire, - of frequenting balls, of moving in the dance, of joining in carnal music, - of attending plays, and reading novels and romances, - all of which are at variance with the Christian character, are violations of the Christian rule, are dishonoring to the name of Christ, and are deeply grieving to the Holy Spirit of God. You are professedly a temple to the Holy Spirit. What! shall you adorn that temple with earthly splendor, after the fashion of this world? What says the Holy Spirit by his servant? - " In like manner also, that women adorn themselves in modest apparel, with shamefacedness and sobriety; not with braided hair, or gold, or pearls, or costly array; but (which be-comes women professing godliness) with good works." i Tim. ii. 9, 10. Again, - " Whose adorning let it not be that outward adorning of plaiting the hair, and of wearing of gold, or of putting on of apparel; but let it be the hidden man of the heart, in that which is not corruptible, even the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit, which is in the sight of God of great price. For after this manner in the old time the holy women also, who trusted in God, adorned themselves." i Peter iii. 3-5. Do, then, the extravagance, the costliness, the worldliness, the studied attention to taste, that mark the outward adornment of so many professing Christians, comport with the spirit and the precept of the Gospel; rather, are they not such indulgences as the Gospel clearly interdicts, and on which Christianity severely frowns ?

Again: Shall the believer, the professed temple of the Holy Spirit, be found mingling with the world, taking pleasure in its amusements, courting its society, working upon its principles, and adopting its policy ? Ought this to be the line of conduct pursued by a professing Christian? Is this the way to illustrate the holy power of the truth, to recommend the Gospel of Jesus Christ, to rebuke the sin, and folly, and rebellion of the world, and to win it over to the obedience of the faith? Assuredly not!

And how can the Divine life in the soul be fed and sustained from such a source ? What nourishment does it derive from the light and frothy readings of the day, - from the pages of a sickly romance, a frivolous novel, a tale of fiction ? What food can the unhallowed, unsanctified imagination of men, prepare for the strengthening, supporting, and expanding of this Divine principle in the soul ? Surely none.

And what a fitness for prayer, for communion with God, for the reading of his sacred word, can a believer find in the giddy dance, in carnal song, in the immoral novel? What preparation of mind do these pursuits afford for approaching to God, for the proper discharge of Christian duties, for sober reflection, for the hour of death, and for the day of judgment? Oh! the awful inconsistencies that mark the profession of some, who can find a near and an easy path from the sanctuary, the communion table, and the closet, to the evening party, the ball-room, the mazy dance, the empty novel, the very heart of a gay and giddy world! Is this true Christianity? is this like Christ? is it after his command, his precept, and his example ? Judge you.

But what is the line of duty marked out for the walk of a professing believer? It is as clear in the word of God, as the meridian sun. Thus is it laid down: " Be not conformed to this world: but be you transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect will of God." Rom. xii. 2. "Come out from among them, and be you separate, says the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you, and will be a Father unto you, and you shall be my sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty." 2 Cor. vi. 17, 18. "Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eye, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world." i John ii. 15, 16. " You adulterers and adulteresses, know you not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? whoever therefore will be a friend of the world, is the enemy of God." James iv. 4. " Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father, is this - to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world." i, 27. Thus implicitly and clearly is the line of Christian duty, in reference to a believer's connection with the world, laid down by the Holy Spirit; he cannot depart from it without grieving the Spirit, wounding his own soul, and compromising his Christian profession.

Grieve not, then, the Holy Spirit of God by any known inconsistency of conduct, any sinful conformity to the world, any inordinate pursuit of its wealth, its honors, its pleasures, its friendships, and its great things. Pray against the sin of covetousness, that canker-worm that feeds at the root of so many souls; pray against a love of dress, that sin that diverts the mind of so many professors from the simplicity of Christ, and takes the eye off from the true adornment; - pray against a thirst for light and trifling reading, that strange and sinful inconsistency of so many, the certain tendency of which is, to starve the life of God in the soul, to engender a distaste for spiritual nourishment, for the word of God, for holy meditation, and for Divine communion and fellowship; - yes, pray against the spirit of worldly, sinful conformity in everything, that the Holy Spirit be not grieved, and that Christ be not dishonored and crucified afresh in and through you. It is to be feared that much of the professed Christianity of the day is of a compromising character. The spirit that marks so many is, " What will you give me, and I will deliver him unto you?" There is a betraying of Christ before the world - a bartering of Christianity for its good opinion, its places of honor, and influence, and emolument. The world, the flesh, and Satan, are ever on the alert to frame a bargain with a Christian professor for his religion. "What will you give me in return?" is the eager inquiry of many. Oh, awful state! oh, fearful deception! oh, fatal delusion! Reader! are you a professing Christian? Then guard against the least compromise of your principles, the least betrayal of Jesus, the first step in an inconsistency of walk: above all, pray and watch against a worldly Christianity, a Christianity that wears a fair exterior, so far as it is composed of attendance upon sanctuary services, and sacraments, and religious institutions, but which excludes from it the cross of the meek and lowly Lamb of God, - a Christianity which loves the world and the things of the world, " makes a fair show in the flesh," speaks well of Christ, and yet betrays him with a kiss.

But let not this be the model of your religion. You are not of the world, even as Christ was not of the world; if the world hate you, it hated him also before it hated you: if you were of the world, the world would love you. Marvel not at this! Do not expect more from the world than your Master received. The world that crowned your Lord with thorns, will never, if you " live godly in Christ Jesus," crown you with garlands: the world that crucified him, will never, if you are his consistent disciple, enthrone you. The world is the sworn enemy of your Savior, let it not be your friend. No! come out of it, and be you separate. Let your whole life be a solemn rebuke of it: let your integrity rebuke its want of principle, - your sobriety rebuke its frivolousness, - your upright sincerity rebuke its heartlessness, - your crucifixion to it rebuke its emptiness, folly, and sinfulness, - let your dress, your spirit, your whole conversation evince what a splendid nothing is all its pomp, and glory, and pretension: so shall you resemble your Lord and Master, - he who loved you unto the death, whose glory was in his humiliation, whose path was humble, lowly, and obscure, and whose death was the ignominious and accursed death of the cross: thus, too, you shall resemble his beloved apostle, who, taking his place by the cross, and looking down upon the world from the holy elevation where he stood, could exclaim, "God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world."

The Spirit may be grieved by a slight put upon the means of grace: these are his channels for the conveyance of his covenant blessings into the soul. He works not by miracles now, but by instrumentalities, by various agencies and means: he communicates his blessing and transmits his voice through the word, the ministry, the mercy-seat, and various other channels which he has graciously provided for the spiritual nourishment of the Divine life in the soul. Slight them not, undervalue them not, neglect them not. Look not for his blessing, nor expect to hear his voice, save as you are found walking in his own appointed way; you will grieve him, and cause him to withdraw his sensible presence, if any mean of grace is wilfully undervalued and neglected by you. These are the green pastures, where the shepherd causes his flock to rest at noon; these are the "still waters," where he leads their souls: and if the back is turned slightingly upon them, leanness and barrenness, coldness and death, must ensue. "Those who wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run and not be weary, and they shall walk and not faint."

In a word; the Spirit is grieved by any deviation from the strict and holy walk of a child of God - by any sense of guilt retained upon the conscience - any sin unconfessed, unrepented, and unforsaken - any known defilement of the temple he inhabits - any slight put upon Jesus - any neglect of the atoning blood - any light and trifling deportment - any uncharitable walk towards other Christians - any taking of the judgment-seat against them - all these must be grieving to the Holy Spirit of God.

Chapter 7: The Fruitless and the Fruitful Professor

"Every branch in me that bears not fruit, he takes away; and every branch that bears fruit, he purges it, that it may bring forth more fruit." (John 15:2)

If there were any one feature in our Lord's ministrations more peculiarly impressive than another, it was the discriminating character that marked them. No one, on hearing him, could retire without the deep conviction that he was the man whose moral image Jesus had been drawing, and in such true and vivid resemblance, as to compel him to acknowledge the faithfulness of the portrait. There was no personality, no harshness, no unnecessary keenness in his reproof, no exaggeration of coloring, nothing overdrawn; but such a simple, faithful, scriptural dealing with human conscience, as either compelled his hearers to submit to his authority, and rank themselves among his followers, or to retire, silenced, self-accused, and self-condemned. Thus it is recorded at the conclusion of one of his discourses, - " And when the chief priests and Pharisees had heard his parables, they perceived that he spoke of them." Matt. xxi. 45; and on another occasion we read, as the result of one of his peculiar and emphatic modes of teaching, - " And they which heard it, being convicted by their own conscience, went out one by one, beginning at the eldest, even unto the last." John viii. 9.

In the parable of the vine and the branch, we have, perhaps, one of the most striking specimens of our Lord's analytical style of instruction. He who formed the heart, and knew, in consequence of its apostasy, how deeply it was tainted with evil, was not ignorant how far a man could go in an outward profession of his name, and yet live and die destitute of regenerating grace. In the parable, therefore, to which we have alluded, he goes into a faithful and searching discrimination of character, lays bare the evil to which men were exposed, warns them of the danger of self-deception, distinguishes between the true and the false professor, and describes, in striking and affecting terms, the final state of both: "I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman. Every branch in me that bears not fruit he takes away: and every branch that bears fruit, he purges it, that it may bring forth more fruit." In these words of our dear Lord, we have first, a solemn description of a fruitless professor; he then directs us to the pruning of the fruitful branch, and he assigns a reason why he prunes it - " that it may bring forth more fruit." Let us, in the present chapter, take the description of the fruitless professor as the basis of our first reflections.

That there can exist such a state as a fruitless professor of the Gospel, is, perhaps, one of the most indubitable evidences of the deep degeneracy of the human heart, and its natural tendency to self-deception, that exists. " The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked ": and here is the proof, if all other were wanting, that an individual may approach so near in his external resemblance to a child of God, may look so like a believer in Jesus, may appear to be united to him, and still remain among the dead. Of all states this side of eternity, this is the most awful: and yet it is to be feared, if we are to judge of the tree by its fruits, and not by its leaves, that this is the state of thousands at the present moment. How important, may we not pause to remark, that the ministers of the Gospel - those who stand between the living and the dead - should model their ministry, as closely as they can, after their blessed Lord's; that they should be careful how they preach - that their preaching should be discriminating without being harsh, pointed without being personal, searching without being caustic; that no hearer should go away from beneath their ministrations, without a faithful delineation of his own character, the voice sounding in his conscience, and following him amid all his windings and his wanderings, " You are the man."

An expression of our Lord's may need a moment's explanation: he speaks of the fruitless branch as united to himself, - " Every branch in me that bears not fruit." We are not to understand this of a vital union, a spiritual grafting into Christ; the analogy of truth is opposed to such an interpretation. The word of God invariably maintains the influential character of a living faith, - that it is ever productive of the fruits of holiness, - that a union to Christ will always result in a living to God: to suppose, therefore, that a dead and fruitless branch could be vitally in Christ, is to suppose that the word of God was against itself, which it can never be. But we are to understand our Lord as referring to an external union, to an outward profession only. There is such a thing as being externally in Christ; in him by an avowal of attachment to his cross, by a profession of his name, by adherence to his cause, by an apparent zeal for his glory: all this may exist, and in thousands does exist, without one particle of real, spiritual, life-deriving union to Christ. We may repair to a nursery, and may lop off a branch from a dead tree, and simply tie it to a living tree, and to all appearance it may resemble a true vital graft. A casual observer may be deceived; but time proves its false appearance: we come and look for fruit, the natural result of true grafting, and we find nothing save a lifeless, sapless, barren branch, externally united to the living tree. Look at such a professor! Where is the fruit? where is the real severing from the wild olive-tree? where is the great separation between himself and his own righteousness? where is the breaking up of the fallow ground of a hard, corrupt, stony heart? where is the humble, lowly, contrite spirit? where is the self-loathing, self-abhorrence, self-accusing, self-condemnation? Hear we the cry, " God be merciful to me a sinner?" Mark we the low posture in the dust, the smiting upon the bosom, the standing afar off, the eye not lifted even towards the dwelling-place of a holy God? Where, too, is a living faith in Christ, a living upon Christ, and a living to Christ? Where is conformity to the Divine image? Where the fruits of holiness increasing and abounding? What of the spirit, the meekness, the lowliness, the gentleness, the sanctity of Jesus, do we discover? What self-denial, bearing of the cross, crucifixion to sin, deadness to the world, and living for eternity, do we trace? Alas! alas! we have mistaken the external profession for a vital, spiritual union to Christ! And is it any marvel, that when we came seeking fruit from such a branch, we should have found none?

But look at the profession of our day. If to put on the Lord Jesus by an outward avowal of his religion, - if to profess and call themselves Christians, - if to bow the knee at the mention of his name, - if to partake of the outward symbols of his body and his blood, - if to speak well of Jesus, - assent and consent to his doctrine, approve of his Gospel, follow his ministers, crowd his temple, contribute liberally to his cause, - if these constitute the sole and essential elements of real spiritual union to Christ, then may we not exclaim, - "The millennium has broken upon us in noontide splendor!" We speak of no single sect, we speak of all religious sects, for among all are to be found the lifeless, fruitless professor. Was it not so in the days of our Lord, and during the searching ministry of his apostles? Discriminating in his preaching as he was, and vigilant as they were in their oversight of the flock, false professors abounded in their time, and even rose to places of distinction in the church. Look at the case of Simon Magus; he was but a fruitless professor; concerning whom it is recorded, that he had " neither part nor lot in the matter - that his heart was not right in the sight of God - that he was in the gall of bitterness, and in the bond of iniquity." Look at the case of Demas; he was but a fruitless professor. " Demas has forsaken me," writes the apostle, "having loved this present world." And look at that eminent and awful instance of a mere external union to Christ - a fruitless profession of his name - Judas Iscariot; in reference to whom, Jesus prays to his Father, "those that you gave me I have kept, and none of them is lost, but the son of perdition." And to those whose union to himself was but external, and where life was fruitless, our Lord alludes in these solemn words, " Strive to enter in at the strait gate: for many, I say unto you, will seek to enter in, and shall not be able. When once the master of the house is risen up, and has shut the door, and you begin to stand without, and to knock at the door, saying, Lord, Lord, open to us; and he shall answer and say unto you, I know you not whence you are. Then shall you begin to say, We have eaten and drunk in your presence, and you have taught in our streets. But he shall say, I tell you, I know you not whence you are; depart from me, all you workers of iniquity. There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth, when you shall see Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, and all the prophets, in the kingdom of God, and you yourselves thrust out." Luke xiii. 24-28. If possible, in yet more awful terms does the word of God unfold the final doom of the Christless, fruitless professor. " Every tree which brings not forth good fruit, is hewn down and cast into the fire." " Whose fan is in his hand, and he will thoroughly purge his floor, and gather his wheat into his garner; but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire." Matt. iii. 10,12.

But it is not often the case that the fruitless professor clings even to his bare profession, until his doom arrives. There are many, who, long before the awful note of approaching judgment falls on their ear, throw off the outward garb, and stand forth in their true character. Our Lord seems to intimate this in various parts of his word; especially in his explanation of the parable of the sower, does he refer to it in clear and affecting terms, - "Those by the way side are those who hear; then comes the devil, and takes away the word out of their hearts, lest they should believe it and be saved. They on the rock are they, which, when they hear, receive the word with joy; and these have no root, which for a while believe, and in time of temptation fall away. And that which fell among thorns are they, which, when they have heard, go forth, and are choked with cares and riches and pleasures of this life, and bring no fruit to perfection." Luke viii. 12-14. These are they whom the spiritual Husbandman "takes away." The season of temptation, the time of persecution, the accumulation of worldly cares, the increase and glitter of riches, are periods and occasions that place a man's religion in the crucible, that bring it to the test. The bare professor cannot stand it. The wind sweeps over the tree, and all its leaves are scattered. The fire kindles around the ore, and proves it to be base metal. But let us not be misunderstood. We dare not affirm of all mere profession of the Gospel, that its false character soon discovers itself. There are thousands who make mammon their trust, "whose god is their belly, whose glory is their shame, who mind earthly things "; and whose " end," if they are not brought to true repentance, will be " destruction ": who yet, in the midst of it all, rigidly maintain the form of godliness, and who would regard it as the greatest offence, were their Christianity for a moment doubted. Oh, the heart is deep and treacherous as the sea; and they who trust it will be fearfully and eternally ruined! A man may be a lover of pleasure, and a lover of the world, and a lover of sin, - his heart may go after covetousness, and his mind may be immersed in worldly cares, and all the while be a rigid formalist, and a proud Pharisee, and a noisy disputant, and even suffer persecution for conscience' sake, rather than yield a principle bearing upon some lesser matter of the law. But we would now turn the reader's attention to the PRUNING OF THE FRUITFUL BRANCH.

Our dear Lord's words are deep and rich in meaning: " Every branch that bears fruit, he purges it." Here is life, here is true union; it is a fruitful branch, deriving its fruitful-ness from its vital union to the Lord Jesus Christ. It will be observed, that this fruit-bearing branch is in Christ; grafted upon him, united to him, and dwelling in him, as the branch is one with the vine. The union of the believer with Jesus, and the consequent fruitfulness, is a glorious truth: the Holy Spirit, in his word, has laid great stress upon it. It is spoken of as a being in Christ: " Every branch in me "; " If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature"; " So we, being many, are one body in Christ"; " Those who are fallen asleep in Christ." But in what sense are we to understand this being " in Christ" ? We have shown how a fruitless professor may be externally united to Christ, there being no Divine life in the soul, no true faith, and consequently no spiritual fruitfulness: he is " dead while he lives." But to be in Christ truly, spiritually, vitally, is more than this; it is to be in that eternal covenant of grace made with Christ, as the Surety and Mediator of his people; one of the number spoken of as the Lord's " peculiar treasure," - " For the Lord has chosen Jacob unto himself, and Israel for his peculiar treasure," Psalm cxxxv. 4; and concerning whom the Holy Spirit declares that they are elected in Christ, - " Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly things in Christ: according as he has chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love." Eph. i. 3, 4. To be " in Christ" truly, is to stand accepted in his righteousness, to be justified by him freely from all things; it is to be brought to the knowledge of our own vileness, insufficiency, and guilt; to be made to cast aside all self-dependence, that is, all works of human merit, and to come as the thief on the cross came, without any allowed confidence in anything of self, but as a poor, helpless, ruined, condemned sinner, all whose hope of pardon and acceptance is through the free mercy of God in Christ Jesus. To be " in Christ," is to be the subject of a living, holy, influential principle of faith; it is to be brought into the blessed state thus described by the apostle as his own: " I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me." Gal. ii. 20. To be " in Christ," is to be one with him; it is to be a member of his mystical body, of which he is the spiritual head; and the head and the members are one. It is to have Christ dwelling in the heart: " Christ in you the hope of glory " - " Know you not that Christ dwells in you, except you be reprobates?" - "I in them." Yes, it is to dwell in the heart of Christ; it is to rest there in the very pavilion of his love, to dwell there every moment, to be sheltered there from all evil, and to be soothed there under all sorrow. Oh blessed state of being "in Christ!" Who would not experience it? who would not enjoy it? " There is therefore now no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit." Rom. viii. 1.

These are the living branches, united to the true Vine, which bear fruit. From their union to the living Vine their fruit comes: " From me is your fruit found "; " As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine, no more can you, except you abide in me." And oh what precious fruit does such a living branch bear! the broken heart - the contrite spirit - the mourning over sin - the low, abasing, humbling views of self - the venturing by faith on a full, mighty, willing Savior - the going out of self, and resting in his all-atoning work and all-satisfying righteousness. This is followed by a progressive advance in all holiness and godliness, the fruits of faith which are by Jesus Christ, abounding in the life, and proving the reality of the wondrous change, - the close walk with God, - the submission of the will in all things to his, - the conformity of the life to the example of Jesus, - the "power of his resurrection" felt - the "fellowship of his sufferings " known - and " conformity to his death " marking the entire man. Phil. iii. 10.

These are some of the fruits of a truly regenerate soul. The Holy Spirit testifies, that the "fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness, and righteousness, and truth"; and still more minutely as consisting of " love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance."

Now observe, it is the fruitful branch only that the Husbandman prunes: "every branch that bears fruit, he purges it." If it be asked - why ? the answer is, because it is only the fruitful branch that bears the pruning. He prunes it, because it is fruitful, because it has life from, and union with, the Vine. This purging, or pruning of the fruitful believer by the Lord, is the trial of his own work. The very discipline which a covenant God employs with his child, proves the existence and reality of grace in the soul. It is not the lifeless branch that he prunes, it is not the spurious ore that he puts in the furnace. When he takes his child in hand to deal with him, it is with a view of drawing forth the grace which he has first implanted in the soul. The very trial of faith supposes the existence of faith; and the trial of any one grace of the Spirit, supposes the previous indwelling of that grace in the believer. No man goes to a dry well to draw water from it; no man goes to a bank in which he has made no previous deposit, to draw money from it. When God, - the spiritual Husbandman of the church, - comes into his garden, and walks amid the " trees of righteousness," and in his sovereignty marks one here and another there for discipline, for pruning, whom does he select for this blessed purpose, but the trees which he has himself planted? Jesus, the Vine, has declared, that "every plant which his heavenly Father has not planted, shall be rooted up." And have we not often seen the solemn fulfillment of this threatening in the case of graceless professors? - the first blast of temptation has carried them away, root and branch. God, perhaps, has brought them into deep trial; the storm of adversity has fallen upon them; death has snatched away the " desire of their eyes with a stroke"; riches have taken wings and flown away; character has been assailed; temptations have overtaken them; and what has been their end? We look for their religion, - it has fled away like the chaff of the threshing-floor before the sweeping hurricane; their profession, - it is all gone; their prayers, - they have evaporated into empty air. The solemn " place of the holy " that knew them, knows them no more. And so it will prove with every plant that our heavenly Father has not planted; and so with all the wood, hay, and stubble, built upon an outward acknowledgment and profession of Christ. And oh their end! 'For if after they have escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge (not an experimental or saving knowledge is here meant) of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled therein, and overcome, the latter end is worse with them than the beginning. For it had been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than, after they have known it, to turn from the holy commandment delivered unto them. But it is happened unto them according to the true proverb, " The dog is turned to his own vomit again; and the sow that was washed to her wallowing in the mire."' 2 Pet. ii. 20-22.

But the true child of the covenant, the Lord tries; the living, fruitful branch, the Husbandman prunes. There is that in every believer, yes, the most eminent child of God, - eminent for his holy and close walk, - that needs pruning. We cannot always see the necessity of the discipline; we wonder, often, why such a believer is so constantly, and, in a sense, so severely dealt with. We look at his godly conversation in all things; we mark his holy deportment, his consistent walk, his lowly spirit, his spiritual gifts and graces, his devotedness and zeal in the cause of the Lord, and we exclaim, " Lord, make me like him, as he is like you!" And when we see the cedar in Lebanon bend before the sweeping tempest - when we mark how the man of God becomes the subject of the most overwhelming afflictions, how wave follows wave, and messenger after messenger comes with tidings of evil still more bitter than the last, - when we see this mercy blasted, that comfort removed, - here a check, and there a disappointment, and he whom we gazed upon as one in whom the Lord had deposited great grace, and favored with peculiar nearness and conformity to himself, thus deeply afflicted, - we marvel that the dear Husbandman should prune him as he does. But what says the Husbandman? - " I, the Lord, search the heart." Here is the secret revealed; the hidden evil of that holy man of God we could not discover. The powerful corruptions that dwelt in his heart, - which he, in a degree, knew, and mourned over and confessed daily before the Lord, - were concealed from our eye; and while we were judging from outward appearance, - and, it may be, judging correctly too, for by their fruits we are to know the true and the false professors, - the Lord was probing and searching the heart, and for the subjugation of the evil that he discovered there, was thus disciplining, and pruning, and purging his beloved child.

Dear reader, if you are experimentally acquainted with the truth as it is in Jesus, if you are a living branch of the true Vine, it will be nothing new for you to be informed, that the Canaanites still dwell in the land. You will recollect, that when the children of Israel took possession of Canaan, although they conquered its inhabitants, and took supreme possession and government of the country, yet the former occupants of the soil they could not entirely dispossess. The circumstance is thus recorded: " The children of Manasseh could not drive out the inhabitants of those cities; but the Canaanites would dwell in that land." Josh xvii. 12. Now what these Canaanites, these heathenish idolaters, were to the children of Israel, the natural corruptions of the heart are to the called children of God. After all that Divine and sovereign mercy has done for the soul, - though the inhabitants of the land have been conquered, and the heart has yielded to the power of omnipotent grace, and the "strong man armed " has been deposed, and Jesus has taken the throne, - yet the Canaanites will dwell in the land, and we cannot expel them thence. These are the natural corruptions of our fallen nature, the evils of a heart that is but partially renewed, the heathenish lusts, and passions, and infirmities that formerly were the sole occupants of the soil, and still dwell there, and which we shall never, in the present state, entirely dispossess. But what did the children of Israel do to these Canaanites, whom they could not drive out of the cities, but who would dwell in the land? We read in the 13th verse: "Yet it came to pass, when the children of Israel were waxing strong, that they put the Canaanites to tribute: but did not utterly drive them out." Now this is what the children of God must do with the spiritual Canaanites that yet dwell in the renewed heart: they cannot be driven out, but they may be put to tribute; they cannot be entirely extirpated, yet they may be brought into complete subjection, and even made to contribute to the spiritual advance of the soul, and to the glory of God. Yes, even these very indwelling and powerful Canaanites, these strong corruptions that war and fight in the renewed soul, may be made subservient to the spiritual benefit of a child of God. Will it not be so, if they lead him to put no confidence in himself, to draw largely from the fullness of grace in Jesus, to repair often to the throne of mercy, to deal much and closely with the atoning blood, to cultivate a watchful, prayerful, tender spirit and daily and hourly to rejoice in Christ Jesus, having no confidence in the flesh? And yet all this may be the result, when the believer has waxen strong in the Divine life, and has learned to put his indwelling corruptions to tribute, though he may not utterly expel them from his bosom. Thus " God turned the curse of Balaam into a blessing," Neh. xiii. 2; and thus, too, may the renewed soul, - often led to exclaim, " O wretched man that I am ? who shall deliver me from the body of this death?" - through a supply of the Spirit of Christ Jesus, and becoming more thoroughly versed in the are of the holy war, be able to turn the risings of his indwelling sins into occasions of more holy and humble walk with God. Happy believer, the tendency and real effect of whose indwelling infirmities of the flesh and the spirit are, to school the soul in the knowledge of its own nothingness, to constrain it to a soft and lowly walk, and to endear the blood, the mercy-seat, and the holy of holies, into which the most burdened, distressed, and humble soul may at all times enter!

This pruning does not destroy or weaken the power of the Divine life in the soul. We may go to a tree of the forest, and prune it of every branch, yes, we may level it to the earth; and yet, - the principle of life still remaining, - the genial showers, and the warm sunshine, will cause it again to spring forth and bud, blossom and bear fruit. The Divine life in the soul of man is indestructible, - it cannot perish; the seed that grace has implanted in the heart is incorruptible, - it cannot be corrupted. So far from trials, and conflicts, and storms, and tempests, impairing the principle of holiness in the soul, they do but deepen and strengthen it, and tend greatly to its growth. We look at Job; who of mere man was ever more keenly tried, or more closely pruned than he? - and yet, so far from destroying, or even weakening, the Divine life within him, the severe discipline of the covenant through which he passed, did but deepen and expand the root, bringing forth in richer clusters the blessed fruits of holiness. Think you, dear reader, the Divine life in his soul had undergone any change for the worse, when, as the result of God's covenant dealings with him, as the effects of the severe pruning of the fruitful branch, he exclaimed, - " I have heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now mine eye sees you: wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes?" No: the pruning of the fruitful branch impairs not, but rather strengthens and renders more fruitful the principle of holiness in the soul, as we now proceed to show. The pruning of the fruitful branch, our Lord declares, is with the view of its increased fruitfulness; " Every branch that bears fruit, he purges it, that it may bring forth more fruit."

It is the will of God that his people should be a fruitful people. " This is the will of God, even your sanctification," - the sanctification of a believer including all fruitfulness. He will bring out his own work in the heart of his child; he will show that where grace dwells, it is productive of good fruit: and never does he take his child in hand with a view of dealing with him according to the tenor of the covenant of grace, but that dealing results in a greater degree of spiritual fruitfulness. Now, when the Lord afflicts, and the Holy Spirit sanctifies the affliction of the believer, are not these among the costly fruit of that discipline? In the first place, self has become more hateful. This, God declared, should be the result of his dealings with his ancient people Israel, for their idolatry, - " They shall loathe themselves for the evils which they have committed in all their abominations." And again, - "Then shall you remember your ways, and all your doings wherein you have been defiled: and you shall loathe yourselves in your own sight, for all your evils that you have committed," And when the Divine compassion was drawn forth, this is described as having been the state of his beloved people, - "None eye pitied you, to do any of these unto you, to have compassion upon you; but you were cast out in the open field to the loathing of your person." And this is no small fruit, the result of God's covenant dealings with the soul: it is one of the useless branches which he prunes away. To loathe self on account of its sinfulness, to mortify it in all its forms, and to bring it entirely into subjection to the Spirit of holiness, is indeed no small triumph of Divine grace in the soul, and no mean effect of the sanctified use of the Lord's dispensations. That must ever be considered a costly mean that accomplishes this blessed end. This unmortified self in the believer, is one of the most deadly enemies of his soul; it shows itself in a thousand ways, and wearing a thousand disguises. It is often difficult to detect the under-current working of the principle; for, frequently, where suspicion of its existence is most lulled to rest, there is it most rife and powerful. Self-confidence as in Peter, self-boasting as in Hezekiah, self-righteousness as in Job, self-deception as in Balaam, - in how many numberless ways may this hateful, ruinous principle discover itself! and how much " deceivableness of unrighteousness " is in it - is only fully known to him who solemnly declares, " I, the Lord, search the heart." Beloved reader, in your heart and in mine, the principle of this sin exists; and who can search it out, and root it out, but the Lord the Spirit? " If we through the Spirit mortify the deeds of the body, we shall live." Is your covenant God and Father dealing with you now?. Pray that this may be one blessed result, the abasement of self within you, the discovering of it to you in all its modifications and deformity, and its entire subjection to the cross of Jesus. Blessed pruning, if the tendency and the effect are, to lay you in the dust before the Lord, to cause you to loathe yourself, and to go softly and lowlily all your days!

Another holy tendency of the pruning of the fruitful branch, is, to endear the Lord Jesus in his person, work, and offices. Jesus, the " Branch," the " Plant of Renown," grows only upon the living and the pruned heart. There are many professors in whose hearts there is not room for Christ: the world, unmortified sin, take up all the space, occupy all the affections; and while his name is outwardly professed, His cross is inwardly despised. Oh, what emptying, what humbling, what pruning, are necessary, in order to make room for the lowly Lamb of God in the heart of a poor believing sinner! And for years after the first reception of Jesus, is this emptying and pruning needed. If it were not so, would our dear Lord discipline as he does? Would he sever this and that limb; would he cut off this and that dependence; would he take us off of creature trust, and that sometimes in the most painful way? Oh no! by these means he seeks to establish himself in our affections, - he would have our whole hearts, he would make us fruitful. And when thus unhinged from earthly trust, when emptied of confidence in self, when pruned of earthly comforts, - oh how unutterably precious does Jesus become! Then do we see him to be just the Jesus that we want, just the Savior that we need: we find in him all that we ever found in the creature, and infinitely more - wisdom, strength, tenderness, and sympathy, surpassing all that men or angels ever felt, or could possibly feel, for us. Then it is, his blood and righteousness are endeared; then we fly to his fullness of all grace; and then the tender, bleeding branch takes a firmer hold on its stem, and henceforth looks only to it for all its vigor, its nourishment, and its fruit. " As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine, no more can you, except you abide in me." Ah! beloved reader, if you are his child, he will cause you to know it, and will endear himself to you as such. And this is seldom done, save in the way of severe pruning. Shrink not from it, then. All the good that the Lord ever takes from you, he returns ten thousand-fold more in giving himself. If you can say, "the Lord is my portion," then what more do you, can you want? And remember, too, the Lord will prune you of nothing that was for your real good. He is the Judge of what is best for you, not yourself: he will sever the useless tendrils only, the small branches that consume the sap, that absorb the nourishment, and are productive of unfruitfulness. We are but imperfect judges of what tends best to our spiritual or temporal benefit. That which we may deem absolutely essential to both, the Lord in his wisdom and love may see proper to remove; and as frequently, that for the removal of which we had often besought the Lord, he may see fit to retain. Thrice Paul prayed for the removal of his infirmity, and thrice the Lord denied his request: but the denial was accompanied by a promise, calculated to soothe into sweet acquiescence every feeling of the apostle - " My grace," said the Lord, " is sufficient for you." Let it ever be remembered by the tried believer, that supporting grace, in the season of trial, is a greater mercy than the removal of the trial itself. The Lord Jesus did seem to say to his servant, " I see not that it would be for your good to grant your prayer, but I will enable you to bear the infirmity without a murmur: I will so support you, so manifest my strength in your weakness, my all-sufficiency in your nothingness, that you shall not desire its removal." " Lord," he might have replied, " this is all that I desire. If you in your wisdom and love do see fit still to prune me, I am in your hands to do with me as seems good in your sight. The continuance of the trial will but prove the strength of your grace, and the tenderness and sympathy of your heart." After this, we hear no more of Paul's thorn in the flesh: the grace of his Lord, doubtless, proved all-sufficient for him.

There are one or two points of caution and encouragement upon which we would touch before closing the chapter.

Let the believer beware, how be despises what little fruitfulness the Lord the Spirit may have given him: there is danger of this. Many who read this chapter, may close it with deep mourning over their barrenness; they may think their fruit nothing but leaves, their religion nothing but profession. But stay, dear reader: it is a mercy for you to know that the Lord does not regard your estimate of a fruitful state; else, were the Lord to judge and condemn us as we do ourselves, were he to despise his own work as we too frequently do, it would indeed go hard with us. But he does not: that which we have often thought unworthy of his notice, he has looked down upon with the fondest complacency and delight. And when at the close of a sermon, or the reading of a book, or on retiring from the throne of grace, we have hung our heads, and blushed to lift our faces towards him, exclaiming, - " Lord, I am vile; look not on me, for I am black," he has beheld the fruit of his own Spirit, costly, fragrant, and precious in his sight. See, then, that you despise not what the Lord has wrought for you. Any desire of the heart for Christ, any secret brokenness, any godly sorrow over indwelling sin, any feeble going out of self and leaning on Jesus, is the gracious work of the Holy Spirit in the soul, and must not be undervalued or unacknowledged. A truly humble view of self, is one of the most precious fruits of the Spirit: it indicates more real fruitfulness, perhaps, than any other state of mind. That ear of corn which is the most full of grain, hangs the lowest; that bough which is the most heavily laden with fruit, bends the nearest to the ground. It is no unequivocal mark of great spiritual fruitfulness in a believer, when tenderness of conscience, contrition of spirit, low thoughts of self, and high thoughts of Jesus, mark the state of his soul. "Who has despised the day of small things?" - not Jesus.

But, dear reader, rest not here; blessed as it is to know your barrenness, and to mourn over it, it is still more blessed to press forward towards a deeper and more spiritual acquaintance with Christ, the source of all real fruitfulness. Too many rest in a mere deploring of their barrenness; they will ingenuously acknowledge their state, freely confess it before God, and yet meet them when you will, this is always their posture, and this their confession. One seems to mark in them no advance, no striving after higher attainments, the crucifixion of known infirmities, the mortification of easy besetting sins, the surrender of that which feeds as a worm upon the root of their religion. There seems just life and consciousness enough to detect the secret declension of the soul, but not enough to arrest its progress.

But, reader, that this should not be your case, seek an increasing knowledge of Christ; be assured of this, - here lies the grand secret of a growing, fruit-bearing Christian. " As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can you, except you abide in me." There is a perpetual proneness to seek our fruitfulness from anything save a close, spiritual, and constant dealing with the cross of Jesus: but as well might we expect the earth to clothe itself with verdure, or the tree to blossom, and the blossom ripen into fruit, without the sun's genial warmth, as to look for fruitfulness in a regenerate soul, without a constant dealing with the Lord Jesus Christ; for, just what the sun is to the kingdom of nature, Jesus the Sun of righteousness is to the kingdom of grace, - the blessed source of all its verdure, fragrance, and fruitfulness. Then, let all your expectations be centered here. No real good can come to you, no healing to your spirit, no fruitfulness to your soul, from a perpetual living upon convictions of sin, legal fears, or transient joys: the Divine life can derive no nourishment from these. But live upon the atoning blood of Jesus. Here is the fatness of your soul found; this it is that heals the wound, wins the heart, and hushes to repose every fear of condemnation; this it is that enables a poor sinner to look full at God, feeling that justice, holiness, truth, and every Divine perfection are on his side. It is the blood of Jesus, applied by the Spirit, that moistens each fiber of the root of holiness in the soul, and is productive of its fruitfulness; this it is that sends the warm current of life through every part of the regenerate man, quickening the pulse of love, and imparting a healthy and vigorous power to every act of obedience. And when the spiritual seasons change, - for it is not always spring-time with the soul of a child of God, - when the summer's sun withers, or the autumnal blast scatters the leaves, and winter's fiercer storm beats upon the smitten bough, the blood and righteousness of Christ, lived upon, loved, and cherished, will yet sustain the Divine life in the soul, and in due season the spring blossom and the summer fruit shall again appear, proving that the Divine life of a believer is " hid with Christ in God." Then shall it be said of you, as was said of the church by her Beloved: " The winter is past, and the rain is over and gone; the flowers appear on the earth, the time of the singing of birds is come, and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land. The fig-tree puts forth her green figs, and the vines with the tender grape give a good smell. Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away." Sol. Song ii. 11-13. Then let your heart respond, " Awake, O north wind, and come, you south, blow upon my garden, that the spices thereof may flow out." Thus shall you be " filled with the fruits of righteousness, which are by Jesus Christ, unto the glory and praise of God."

Afflicted believer, do not forget that it is the fruitful branch only that the Lord prunes: "Whom the Lord loves, he chastens ": and again, he declares, " Whom I love, I rebuke and chasten." Then, thank him for the pruning; bless him for the sanctified trial that weans you from earthly things, that deadens your heart to every rival of Christ, and that imparts an upward spring to faith, hope, and love. Not one unkind thought is there in the heart of the God that now chastens you. True, he may have severed from you branch after branch, he may cut off all your earthly springs, he may lead you down into the deep valley of abasement; yet still is he love, and nothing but love. Could you look into his heart, not a spring would be found dwelling, nor a pulse beating there that would not speak of love to you at this very moment. All that he seeks with regard to yourself, is your increased fruitfulness; and to promote your real sanctification, is to promote your real happiness. In all God's dealings with his covenant people, he seeks their greatest good, their highest happiness, and in nothing more manifestly than in this does he show the intense love which dwells in his heart towards them.

Frequently call to mind our Lord's words: " Herein is my Father glorified, that you bear much fruit, so shall you be (manifestly) my disciples." This "much fruit" is often found mostly in those with whom the Lord mostly deals. He has created his people for his own glory, and this he will secure to himself in their abundant fruitfulness. This is why the most illustrious saints have ever been the most deeply tried, severely pruned: their great fruitfulness sprang from their great afflictions. And yet, beloved, the Lord deals with his saints according to his holy sovereignty; not by one line, or in one path, does he always conduct them. Is God smiling upon you? does the summer sun shine? is your sea smooth and flowing ? does the " south wind " blow upon you ? See, then, that you walk humbly with God; " Be not high-minded, but fear." If God in his providence has elevated you a little in the world, you have need to besiege his throne for great grace to keep your spirit low in the dust before him. Do your fellows admire your talents, extol your gifts, applaud your works, and court your society? Oh how closely and softly and humbly ought you now to walk with God! That breath of adulation that lighted upon you, will prove a blight upon your graces, if you go not upon your knees before God; that flattering word which fell upon your ear, will prove as the fly in the apothecary's ointment to your soul, if you get not closer down at the foot of the cross. Let every circumstance and state take you there; whether the north wind or the south wind blows, whether the dark cloud of adversity gathers over you, or the sunshine of prosperity beams upon you - still let your posture ever be low before the Savior's cross; nothing can harm you there. See that the season of outward prosperity is the season of your soul's fruitfulness; see that every mercy takes you to God; convert every new blessing into a fresh motive for living not unto yourself, but unto Him from whom the blessing came.

And if you are constrained to take your worst frames to Christ, your sins as they rise, your weakness as you are conscious of it, your corruptions as they discover themselves, even so shall you be a fruitful branch of the true Vine. In the very act of going, just as he is, to Christ, the believer brings forth fruit. For what marks the frame of the soul thus traveling up to the cross, but self-distrust, self-abasement, deep conceptions of its own nothingness, high views of Christ's sufficiency? And is not this precious and costly fruit? I know of none more so.

And let the fruitful believer anticipate the approaching period of his translation to a more genial and healthy soil. In heaven, the home of the saints, there will be nothing to blight the flower of grace; no frosts of winter, no burning heat of summer, no crushing storms, no sweeping tempests; the former things will all have passed away, and a new heaven and a new earth, in which dwells righteousness, shall have succeeded them. Happy hour of this release! Here he is a " lily among thorns "; there he will be a tree of righteousness, on which the storm will never rise, on which the sun will never set.

"Oh what a garden will be seen,
When all the flowers of grace
Appear in everlasting green,
Before the Planter's face!

"No more exposed to burning skies,
Or winter's piercing cold;
What never-dying sweet will rise
From every op'ning fold!

"No want of sun or showers above,
To make the flowers decline;
Fountains of life and beams of love,
Forever spring and shine.

"No more they need the quickening air,
Or gently rising dew!
Unspeakable their beauties are,
And yet forever new.

"Christ is their shade, and Christ their sun;
Among them walks the King:
Whose presence is eternal noon,
His smile eternal spring."

Chapter 8: The Lord, the RESTORER of His People

"He restores my soul." (Psalm 23:3)

Throughout the discussion of our subject, we have endeavored to keep distinctly and prominently before the mind of the reader, the indestructible nature of the Divine life in the soul, the stability of the covenant of grace, and the unchangeableness of God's love towards his people. The proper unfolding of our theme demanded more than a bare recognition of these glorious Gospel truths: apart from them, upon what an uncertain tenure would the final salvation of the believer rest! When we are led to consider the uncertainty of the creature, - when we take the history of a child of God, compressed within the short period of a single day, - mark what flaws, what imperfections, what fickleness, what startings aside, what dereliction in principle, what flaws in practice, what errors in judgment, and what wanderings of heart, make up that brief history, - how are we led to thank God for the stability of the covenant! that covenant which provides for the full redemption of all believers, - which from eternity secures the effectual calling, the perfect keeping, and the certain salvation of every chosen vessel of mercy. With what distinctness and sweetness is this truth thus unfolded by God himself: " If his children forsake my law, and walk not in my judgments; if they break my statutes, and keep not my commandments; then will I visit their transgression with the rod, and their iniquity with stripes. Nevertheless, my loving-kindness will I not utterly take from him, nor suffer my faithfulness to fail: my covenant will I not break, nor alter the thing that is gone out of my lips." Psalm lxxxix. 30-34.

It will be seen, that two most solemn and affecting truths are recognized in this passage, - the backslidings of a child of the covenant, and the certainty of his restoration. It is more especially with the latter truth that we have to do in the present chapter.

Of the necessity that exists for the restorings of the Lord, we need not here say much, the preceding pages having gone at some length into this point; and yet it forms the basis of our present subject, and is too important to be dismissed with a simple allusion. That there exists a necessity for the Divine restorings, who can doubt, that remembers that the Divine life of a believer has its residence in a heart but partially renewed and sanctified? In the case of Adam before he fell, this was not so; there was nothing in his heart opposed to the life of God within him. The mind, the will, the affections, yes, the whole soul, were one glorious orb of perfect light and holiness: not a shadow dimmed its luster, not a speck marred its beauty. Every faculty of the mind, every bias of the will, every emotion of the heart, every breathing of desire, were in agreement with its nature, and were favorable to its growth.

But not so is it now. Adam fell, and in his fall transmitted to his posterity a nature totally corrupt in every part; and although Divine and sovereign grace has undertaken to renew that nature, and does so in part, yet it is but in part renewed and restored to its original glory. The Divine life has its dwelling-place in a fallen, fleshly nature. One sentence of the apostle's explains and confirms this truth, - " The life which I now live in the flesh," Gal. ii. 20: the Divine life which he lived, was in the flesh. It was encompassed by all the corruptions, weaknesses, infirmities, and assaults of the flesh; there was not a moment that it was not exposed to assaults from within; there was not a natural faculty of the mind, or throb of the heart, that was favorable to its prosperity, but all were contrary to its nature, and hostile to its advance. Let every believer remember, that the Divine life which he lives, he lives in the flesh; and that there exists not a day that he stands not in need of the restorings of the Lord.

Connect with this the many external influences which are hostile to the Divine life in the soul. As there is nothing internal that is favorable to a state of grace, so there is nothing external that assists it forward. It has its many and violent enemies: Satan is ever on the watch to assault it, - the world is ever presenting itself in some new form of fascination and power to weaken it, - a thousand temptations are perpetually striving to ensnare it; thus its internal and external enemies are leagued against it. Is it, then, any wonder that faith should sometimes tremble, that grace should sometimes decline, and that the pulse of the Divine life should often beat faintly and feebly ?

The saints in every age have felt and lamented this. Hence the prayer of David, which is the prayer of all true believers: " Hold you me up, and I shall be safe "; implying the greatest weakness in himself, and his perpetual exposure to the greatest falls; " Hold you me up, for only as I am upheld by you, am I safe." Again he prays: " Keep back your servant also from presumptuous sins; let them not have dominion over me"; implying that a believer left to the tendencies of his fallen nature, might become a prey to the worst sins: " Keep back your servant also from presumptuous sins." In addressing himself to the converted Hebrews, the apostle seizes the occasion thus to exhort them: "Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God." " In departing," - implying a constant tendency to depart from God. And what does God himself say of his people ? " My people are bent to backsliding from me." And again, " Why is this people of Jerusalem slidden back by a perpetual backsliding?" Yes, it is a perpetual proneness to declension. The sun rises but to set, the clock is wound up but to run down; and not more natural is it for them thus to obey the laws that govern them, than for the heart of a child of God to follow the promptings of its corrupt and wayward nature.

This leads us to touch upon the principle of all departure from God. We look at a believer's lax practice, we mourn and weep over it, and we do well; we trace our own, and still deeper shame and confusion of face cover us: but we forget that the cause of our bitterest sorrow and humiliation should be, the concealed principle of evil from whence springs this unholy practice. How few among the called of God, are found confessing and mourning over the sin of their nature - the impure fountain from whence flows the stream, the unmortified root from whence originates the branch, and from which both are fed and nourished! This is what God looks at, - the sin of our fallen, unsanctified nature, - and this is what we should look at, and mourn over. Indeed, true mortification of sin consists in a knowledge of our sinful nature, and its subjection to the power of Divine grace. The reason why so few believers " through the Spirit mortify the deeds of the body," is, a forgetfulness that the work has to do first and mainly with the root of sin in the soul: " Make the tree good, and the fruit will also be good "; purify the fountain, and the stream will be pure. Oh, were there a deeper acquaintance with the hidden iniquity of our fallen nature, - a more thorough learning out of the truth, - that " in our flesh there dwells no good thing," - a more heartfelt humiliation on account of it, and more frequent confession of it before God, - how much higher than they now are would be the attainments in holiness of many believers!

There is, then, in every child of God, the innate principle of departure. Notwithstanding the wonders of grace God has wrought for the soul, - though he has elected, called, renewed, washed and clothed the believer; yet if he did not check and rein him in, he would depart, and that forever! - this unsanctified, unmortified principle would bear him away. Is there not in this aspect of our theme something truly heart-breaking? - the subject of a kind and benevolent government, and yet to be always rebelling against the Sovereign; dwelling under a kind and loving Father's roof, and yet to be perpetually grieving him, and departing from him; to have received so many costly proofs of his love, and yet rendering the most ungrateful returns, - oh, it is enough to sink the soul in the deepest self-abasement before God! Reader, what has the Lord been to you? Come, witness for him; has he ever been a wilderness to you, a dry and barren land? - has there been anything in his dealings, in his conduct, in his way with you, wherefore you should have turned your back upon him? - has there been any harshness in his rebukes, any unkind severity in his corrections, anything judicial and vindictive in his dealings? No, on the contrary, has he not been a fruitful garden, a pleasant land, a fountain of living waters to you? Has he not blended kindness with all his rebukes, tenderness with all his chastisements, love with all his dealings, and has not his gentleness made you great? Then why have you departed from him? What is there in God that you should leave him, what in Jesus that you should wound him, what in the blessed Spirit that you should grieve him? Is not the cause of all your departure, declension, unkindness, unfruitfulness, in yourself, and in yourself alone? But if this has been your conduct towards God, not so has been his conduct towards you. This brings us to the consideration of his restoring mercy.

The first point we would look at is, the love of the Lord Jesus in restoring a wandering believer. Nothing but the most infinite, tender, unchanging love, could prompt Him to such an act. There is so much of black ingratitude, so much of deep turpitude in the sin of a believer's departure from the Lord, that but for the nature of Christ's love, there could be no possible hope of his return. Now this costly love of Christ is principally seen in his taking the first step in the restoring of the soul: the first advance is on the part of the Lord. This is too important a truth to be lightly touched upon. There is no more self-recovery after, than there is before, conversion; it is entirely the Lord's work. The same state of mind, the same principle that led to the first step in declension from God, leads on to each successive one: until, but for restraining and restoring grace, the soul would take an everlasting farewell of God. But mark the expression of David, - " He restores my soul." Who? He of whom he speaks in the first verse as his Shepherd, - " The Lord is my Shepherd." It is the Shepherd that takes the first step in the recovery of the wandering sheep. If there is one aspect in the view of this subject more touching than another, it is this, - that such should be the tender, unchanging love of Jesus towards his wandering child, he should take the first step in restoring him. Shall an offended, insulted Sovereign make the first move towards conciliating a rebellious people? - that Sovereign is Jesus: shall an outraged Father seek his wandering child, and restore him to his affections and his house? - that Father is God. Oh what love is that which leads Jesus in search of his wandering child: love that will not let him quite depart: love that yearns after him, and seeks after him, and follows after him through all his devious way, his intricate wanderings, and far-off departures; love that no unkindness has been able to cool, no forgetfulness has been able to weaken, no distance has been able to destroy!

Not less conspicuous is the power of Jesus in the restoring of the soul: "He restores my soul," - he, the Omnipotent Shepherd. We want Omnipotence to bring us back when we have wandered; nothing less can accomplish it. We want the same power that converted, to re-convert; the power that created, to re-create us. This power Jesus possesses. It was essential to the full salvation of his church that he should have it; therefore, when praying to his Father, he says, " As you have given him power over all flesh," - why this power? - " that he should give eternal life to as many as you have given him." It was necessary that he should have power over all flesh, yes, over all the powers leagued against the church, that he should bring to glory all that were given to him in the covenant of grace.

Now this power is gloriously exerted in the restoring of the soul. Jesus works in the believer, in order to his recovery. He breaks down the hard heart, arrests the soul in its onward progress of departure, places upon it some powerful check, lays it low, humbles, abases it, and then draws from it the blessed acknowledgment, " Behold, I am vile; but, he restores my soul."

There is infinite wisdom, too, in the Lord's restorings. This perfection of Jesus is clearly revealed here: in the way he adopts to restore, we see it. That he should make, as he frequently does, our very afflictions the means of restoration to our souls, unfolds the profound depth of his wisdom. This was David's prayer, - " Quicken me according to your judgments ": and this was his testimony, - " Before I was afflicted I went astray, but now have I kept your word"; - "Though I walk in the midst of trouble, you will revive me." The season of trial is not infrequently the sanctified season of revival. Who that has passed through the furnace has not found it so? Then the declension of the soul has been discovered, - then the hidden cause of that declension has been brought to light, - then the spirit has bowed in contrition before the Lord, - then grace has been stirred up in the heart, and a new sweetness has been given to prayer, and a new impulse to faith, and a new radiance to hope, and from the flame the gold and the silver have emerged, purified of their tin and dross. But for the production of effects like these, why the many peculiar and heavy afflictions that we sometimes see overtaking the child of God? Do not think that our heavenly Father takes pleasure in chastening us; do not think that it delights him to behold the writhings, the throes, and the anguish of a wounded spirit; do not think that he loves to see our tears, and hear our sighs and our groans under the pressure of keen and crushing trial. No: he is a tender, loving father; so tender and so loving, that not one stroke, nor one cross, nor one trial more does he lay upon us, than is absolutely needful for our good; - not a single ingredient does he put in our bitter cup, that is not essential to the perfection of the remedy. It is for our profit that he chastens, not for his pleasure; and that often to rouse us from our spiritual sleep, to recover us from our deep declension, and to impart new vigor, healthiness, and growth, to his own life in the soul.

Nor must we overlook the gentleness of the Lord's restoring. We have a beautiful exhibition of this in the recovery of the stray sheep, as set forth by Jesus himself: " What man of you, having an hundred sheep, if he lose one of them, does not leave the ninety and nine in the wilderness, and go after that which is lost, until he find it? And when he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders, rejoicing." Luke xv. 4, 5. Here is the gentleness of the shepherd, - " he lays it on his shoulders." Too feeble itself to walk, too exhausted in its wanderings to return, the gentle shepherd having sought and found it, " lays it on his shoulders, rejoicing." Touching picture of the Savior's gentleness in restoring a backsliding soul! What but infinite gentleness is seen in the restoring of Peter? It was but a look; - not a word fell from the lips of the Savior - not an unkind rebuke, not a harsh upbraiding word did he breathe; yet that look - what artist's pencil has ever been able to imitate it; - that look so full of love, so full of gentleness, so full of forgiveness, did seem to say," I am going to die for you, Peter - all this and more I suffer for you; will you, can you deny me?" - that look, so touching, so melting, so eloquent, and so forgiving, reached the heart of the backsliding apostle, melted it, broke it, and sent him from the judgment-hall weeping bitterly. There was no expression in the look which Jesus bent upon Peter, but love. Let this truth be fixed in the heart of every backsliding believer. The Lord restores the soul gently. The moment he discovers to it its sin, he conveys some token of his pardoning mercy: the balm is applied the moment the wound is given, the remedy is at hand the moment the distemper is discovered. There is a tenderness, an unutterable tenderness, in the heart and hand, in the mercy and the method of the Lord's recovery of his child, which only he can feel. See it in the case of David. How did God bring his sin to remembrance? By the chastising rod? by heavy judgment? by severe expressions of displeasure? No; none of these were his messengers: but he sent a kind, tender, faithful prophet, to discover to him his awful backsliding; and the astounding words, " You are the man," had scarcely died away upon his ear, before he pours in this healing balm, "The Lord also has put away your sin; you shall not die." Oh, what gentleness, what tenderness, are thus shown in the Lord's restorings of his wandering child! From whom could this have been expected but from him whose nature and whose name is love, - from, whom, but him who could thus speak to his backsliding Ephraim: " Is Ephraim my dear son? is he a pleasant child? for since I spoke against him I do earnestly remember him still; therefore my affections are troubled for him: I will surely have mercy upon him, says the Lord." This is an outgushing of tenderness towards a poor, returning, backsliding soul, which could only have had its dwelling-place in the heart of Jehovah.

But we have yet to speak of the way of a poor backslider's return to the Lord. May the Spirit impart wisdom and unction in unfolding this most important point! First, as touching the spirit with which he should return.

Looking at the case of the backsliding church of Ephesus, we find the nature of her sin, and the mode of her recovery, thus set forth: " I have somewhat against you, because you have left your first love. Remember, therefore, from whence you are fallen, and repent and do the first works." The first exhortation addressed to her was, "Remember, therefore, from whence you are fallen." She was first called to solemn reflection upon her former state of prosperity.

Let the backsliding believer be brought to this first step, " Remember from whence you are fallen "; - revert to your past history, your former spiritual state; - remember your first sorrow for sin, the first joy of its pardon; - remember the spring-tide of your first love - how precious Jesus was, how glorious was his person, how sweet was his cross, how fragrant was his name, how rich was his grace; - remember how dear to you was the throne of grace, how frequently you resorted to it, regarding it of all spots on earth the most blessed; - remember how, under the anointings of adopting love, you walked with God as with a Father - how filial, how close, how holy was your communion with him; - remember the seasons of refreshing in the sanctuary, in the social meeting, in the closet, how your soul did seem to dwell on the sunny sides of glory, and you longed for the wings of a dove that you might fly to your Lord: - remember how, publicly and before many witnesses, you put off sin and put on Christ, and turning your back upon the world, took your place among the followers of the Lamb; - remember how holy, and circumspect, and spotless was your walk, how tender was your conscience, how guileless was your spirit, how humble and lowly your whole deportment. But what and where are you now? O remember from whence you are fallen! Think from what a high profession, from what an elevated walk, from what holy employments, from what hallowed joys, from what sweet delights, and from what pleasant ways have you declined? May you not truly inquire with the sweet poet of Olney,-

"Where is the blessedness I knew
When first I saw the Lord?
Where is the soul-refreshing view
Of Jesus and his word?

"What peaceful hours I once enjoyed!
How sweet their memory still;
But they have left an aching void,
The world can never fill.

"Return, O holy Dove, return,
Sweet messenger of rest!
I hate the sins that made you mourn,
And drove you from my bosom."

In the exhortation given to the backsliding church at Ephesus, there is yet another instruction equally applicable to the case of all wanderers from the Lord: "Repent and do the first works." How can a departing soul return without repentance? by what other avenue can the prodigal reach his Father's heart? Repentance implies the existence and conviction of sin. Ah! is it no sin, beloved reader, to have turned your back upon God? is it no sin to have lost your first love, to have backslidden from Jesus, to have transferred your affections from him to the world, or to the creature, or to yourself ? is it no sin to go no more with the Shepherd, and to follow no more the footsteps of the flock, and to feed no more in the green pastures, or repose by the side of the still waters? O yes! it is a sin of peculiar magnitude; it is a sin against God in the character of a loving Father, against Jesus in the character of a tender Redeemer, against the Holy Spirit in the character of a faithful Indweller and a Sanctifier; it is a sin against the most precious experience of his grace, against the most melting exhibitions of his love, and against the most tender proofs of his covenant faithfulness.

Repent, then, of this your sin. Think how you have wounded Jesus afresh, and repent; think how you have requited your father's love, and repent; think how you have grieved the Spirit, and repent. Humble yourself in dust and ashes before the cross, and, through that cross, look up again to your forgiving God and Father. The sweet promise is, "They shall look upon him whom they have pierced, and shall mourn for him as one mourns for his only son." This leads us to touch upon one more point of vast moment in the way of a soul's return to God. It is this:

All real return of a backsliding soul is through Jesus. Jesus is God's great Door of approach to his throne. No other entrance will conduct us to the golden scepter; no other will bring us into the holy of holies. Thus has the Holy Spirit unfolded this truth: "Having, therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way, which he has consecrated for us through the veil, that is to say, his flesh; and having an High Priest over the house of God; let us draw near." O blessed Door of return for a poor, backsliding, heart-broken believer! - a crucified Savior, in whom God is well pleased, and for whose sake he can receive the sinner, and put away his sin, can welcome the backslider, and heal his backsliding.

Nor must we overlook the gracious work of the Spirit in the restoring of a backsliding soul; but for him, not a step in the way of return would be taken on the part of the believer. The first solemn reflection, the first wistful glance of the eye towards the Father's home, the first sigh that heaves the heart, the first tear that starts from the fountain of grief, the first step bent towards a forsaken God, is the effect of his blessed operation, of his unchangeable love, and covenant faithfulness. What debtors are we to the blessed and Eternal Spirit! What reverential views should we entertain of his person, and what tender thoughts should we cherish of his work!

The encouragements to return to the Lord are many and great: in the first place, we have the gracious invitations of God himself. How numerous and touching are these! Where is the heart, deeply conscious of its backsliding, that can resist the power of language like this: Go, and proclaim these words towards the north, and say, Return, you backsliding Israel, says the Lord; and I will not cause mine anger to fall upon you: for I am merciful, says the Lord, and will not keep anger forever." Jer. iii. 12. Here is a warrant for your return - God's own free invitation! You want no more. What if Satan discourages, what if your sins plead against you, what if guilt and unbelief and shame combine to impede your way, if God says, " Return!" - that is sufficient for you. You do want no more; if he is willing to receive you back, to pardon your sins, to forget your base ingratitude, to heal your backslidings, and restore your soul, you have the broad warrant to return, in the face of all opposition and discouragement. Yet again the cheering invitation runs, - "Only acknowledge your iniquity that you have transgressed against the Lord your God." - "Turn, O backsliding children, says the Lord, for I am married unto you." " Return, you backsliding children, and I will heal your backslidings." " I will heal their backsliding, I will love them freely: for mine anger is turned away from him." Jer. iii.; Hosea xiv.

The character of God is such as encourages the return of a backsliding soul. In the invitations he has given, he urges them upon the ground of what he is: "Return, you backsliding Israel, says the Lord; and I will not cause mine anger to fall upon you: for I am merciful, says the Lord." O touching, soul-subduing, heart-melting argument, - "Return unto me, for I am merciful!" Merciful to receive you, merciful to pardon you, merciful to heal you. O the boundless mercy of God in Christ towards a soul returning from its wanderings! Will not this draw you? Again; "I have blotted out as a thick cloud your transgressions, and as a cloud your sins; return unto me, for I have redeemed you." "Return, for I have blotted out your transgressions: return, for I have put away your sins: return, for I have redeemed you. The work is already done, - the pardon has already gone forth, - the backsliding has already been forgiven; then linger not, but return, for I have redeemed you." Here, on the broad basis of the Lord's free and full pardon, the wandering soul is urged to return. Truly may the apostle say, " If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness."

Thus is the character of God, as a merciful, sin-pardoning God, held out in the word as a motive and an encouragement to return. This is just the view of God, which, as a back sliding soul, you want. In yourself you see everything to discourage, everything to forbid your return: and even on awakening to a sense of your departure, your first thoughts of God are such as to repel you from his presence; you are ready to say, " I have wilfully departed from the Lord: I have gone after other lovers; I have hewn out other cisterns; now the Lord has given me up in his displeasure, and has forsaken me forever in his wrath." But God comes forth, and vindicates his own gracious character, unfolds his own love, and in accents most encouraging and persuasive, addresses himself to his wandering child, and says, "Return, you backsliding Israel, for I am merciful."

In the parable of the prodigal son, we have the character of God towards a returning soul truly and beautifully drawn. The single point we would now advert to is, the posture of the father on the approach of his child. What was that posture? - the most expressive of undiminished love, of yearning tenderness, of eagerness to welcome his return. Thus is it described: " And when he was a great way of, his father saw him, and had compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him." All this is God to you, dear returning soul! He is on the eager watch for your first movement towards him; he is looking as with outstretched neck for the first sign of your soul's return, for the first sound of your footsteps, for the first relentings of your heart: yes, even more than this, or this were nothing, he sends his own Spirit to work that return in your soul, to break your heart, to rouse your slumbering spirit, to draw you, win you to his arms. This is your God, - the God whom you have forsaken, from whose ways you have declined, but who, in the very depth of your declension, and in the very extremity of your departure, has never withdrawn his eye of love one moment from you.

Nor must we overlook the grand source of encouragement to a returning soul, - that which springs from the cross of Christ. But for a crucified Savior, there could be no possible return to God; in no other way could he consistently with the holiness and rectitude of the Divine government, with what he owes to himself as a just and holy God, receive a poor wandering, returning sinner. Mere repentance and humiliation for, and confession of, sin, could entitle the soul to no act of pardon. The obedience and death of the Lord Jesus laid the foundation, and opened the way for the exercise of this great and sovereign act of grace. The cross of Jesus displays the most awful exhibition of God's hatred of sin, and at the same time the most august manifestation of his readiness to pardon it. Pardon, full and free, is written out in every drop of blood that is seen, is proclaimed in every groan that is heard, and shines in the very prodigy of mercy that closes the solemn scene upon the cross. O blessed door of return, open and never shut, to the wanderer from God! how glorious, how free, how accessible! Here the sinful, the vile, the guilty, the unworthy, the poor, the penniless, may come. Here, too, the weary spirit may bring its burden, the broken spirit its sorrow, the guilty spirit its sin, the backsliding spirit its wandering. All are welcome here. The death of Jesus was the opening and the emptying of the full heart of God; it was the outgushing of that ocean of infinite mercy, that heaved and panted and longed for an outlet; it was God showing how he could love a poor, guilty sinner. What more could he have done than this? what stronger proof, what richer gift, what costlier boon, could he have given in attestation of that love? Now it is the simple belief of this, that brings the tide of joy down into the soul. It is faith's view of this that dissolves the adamant, rends asunder the flinty rock, smites down the pyramid of self-righteousness, lays the rebellious will in the dust, and enfolds the repenting, believing soul in the very arms of free, rich, and sovereign love. Here, too, the believer is led to trace the sin of his backsliding in its darkest lines, and to mourn over it with his bitterest tears, -

"Then beneath the cross adoring,
Sin does like itself appear;
When the wounds of Christ exploring,
I can read my pardon there."

If the Lord has restored your soul, dear reader, remember why he has done it, - to make you hate your sins. He hates them, and he will make you to hate them too: and this he does by pardoning them, by sprinkling the atoning blood upon the conscience, and by restoring unto you the joys of his salvation. And never is sin so sincerely hated, never is it so deeply deplored, so bitterly mourned over, and so utterly forsaken, as when he speaks to the heart, and says, " Your sins are forgiven you, go in peace." As though he did say, "I have blotted out your transgressions, I have healed your backslidings, I have restored your soul;' that you may remember and be confounded, and never open your mouth any more because of your shame, when I am pacified toward you for all that you have done, says the Lord God.'" Ezek. xvi. 63.

Remember that, just where the departure commenced, there should commence the return. Did it begin at the closet? - then at the closet let your restoration commence. Return to secret, closet prayer; build up the ruined altar, - rekindle the expiring flame, let that holy sanctuary once more witness to your confessions, your humiliations, your strong crying and tears, and your close, filial, and hallowed communion with God. O blessed moment that sees you there again, even though it be to smite in anguish on your bosom, and to cover yourself with sackcloth and ashes before the Lord!

And do not overlook, in this great business of restoration, the intercession of Jesus, the High Priest, at the right hand of God. If your heavenly Father has restored your soul, not only has he done it from the spring of his own unchangeable love, but that which has prevailed with him was the power of the sweet incense of the Redeemer's blood before the mercy-seat. Moment by moment does this fragrant cloud go up, bearing as it ascends all the circumstances of all the Israel of God. There is not only the blood already sprinkled on the mercy-seat, which has satisfied Divine justice, but there is the constant pleading of the blood by Jesus, the Priest, before the throne. O precious thought, O comforting, encouraging truth, for a soul retreading its steps back to God! Of its own it has nothing to plead but its folly, its ingratitude, its wretchedness, and its sin; but faith can lay its trembling hand upon this blessed truth, - faith can observe Jesus clothed in his priestly garments standing between the soul and God, spreading forth his hands, and pleading on behalf of the returning believer the merits of his own precious obedience and death. And thus encouraged, he may draw near and touch the scepter: " If any man sin, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous." " Christ is not entered into the holy places made with hands, which are the figures of the true; but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us." Heb. ix. 24.

In view of all these precious encouragements, persuasive motives, and earnest expostulations, will you, dear backsliding soul, still refuse to return? I entreat you, I implore you, I beseech you, to arise and go to your Father, and say unto him, " Father, I have sinned against heaven and in your sight." By all that is tender and forgiving in that Father's heart, - by all that is melting, persuasive, and precious in the work of Jesus, - by his agony and bloody sweat, by his cross and passion, by his death, burial, and resurrection, I beseech you to return! By the honor of that holy religion you have wounded, by all the hopes of glory you have indulged in, by all that is sacred and precious in the memory of the past, and by all that is solemn and real in the prospect of the future, I implore you to return! By the faithful promises of God, by the tender yearnings of Jesus, by the gentle drawings of the Spirit, by all that you will experience in the joy and peace and assurance of a restored soul, by the glory of God, by the honor of Christ, by the nearness of death and the solemnity of the judgment, I entreat, I implore, I beseech you, wanderer, prodigal, to return!

"Return, O wanderer, return!
And seek an injured Father's face;
Those warm desires that in you burn,
Were kindled by reclaiming grace.

"Return, O wanderer, return!
Your Savior bids your spirit live;
Go to his bleeding side, and learn
How freely Jesus can forgive.

"Return, O wanderer, return!
Regain your lost, lamented rest;
Jehovah's melting affections yearn
To clasp his Ephraim to his breast."

Chapter 9: The Lord, the KEEPER of His People

"The Lord is Your Keeper." (Psalm 121:5)

How frequently, clearly, and solemnly does the Holy Spirit unfold this great truth in his word, that salvation is entirely in and of God, irrespective of all worth, worthiness, or power of the creature; and that as the salvation of his covenant people is supremely and solely his own work, so in every respect it is infinitely worthy of himself. God can do nothing but what harmonizes with his own illimitable greatness: he can never act below himself. All the productions of his creative power in nature, all the events of his directive wisdom in providence, bear the impress, from the smallest to the greatest, of his "eternal power and Godhead." But in salvation, it is supremely and pre-eminently so. Here, the whole Deity shines: here, the entire Godhead is seen; here, Jehovah emerges from the veiled pavilion of his greatness and glory, and by one stupendous exercise of power, and by one august act of grace, and by one ineffable display of love - before which all other revelations of his glory seem to fade away and well-near disappear - walks abroad among men in his full-orbed majesty: "And I heard a great voice out of heaven, saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them and be their God." This glorious "tabernacle" that is "with men," what less is it than the manifestation of Jesus in our own nature - God manifest in the flesh? Truly may we say, "His glory is great in our salvation." Is he the only-wise God? - his salvation must needs be the most profound result of that wisdom. Is he most holy? - his salvation must be holy. Is he just? - his salvation must be just. Is he gracious? - so must be his salvation. It bears the imprint of every attribute; it embodies in its nature the manifestation of every perfection. No other conception of his wisdom, no other product of his power, no other revelation of his greatness, gives any adequate conception of God, but the cross of his beloved Son. "It is here that he appears under the new and unequaled aspect of the God of our salvation; and hence that he desires a renewal of praise, not only for his excellent greatness, or his marvelous works, but for what he is in his inherent and illimitable goodness, and for what he imparts in the fruitions of his love. The very thought of such a discovery, is itself a new creation. It is the product of inspiration, not of mortal intelligence: it could proceed only from him by whom it is to be substantiated and accomplished; it constitutes its own evidence, it authenticates itself. Divinity is not more its object than its essence: incommunicable majesty is impressed on every feature, and diffused over all its form. Well may it be said of such a system, even as of Him who is its author, that herein God is manifested in the flesh, beheld in his express image and his uncreated brightness."

Now this salvation, thus so completely and entirely out of the creature, in God, takes in all the circumstances of a child of God. It is not only a salvation from wrath to come - that were an immeasurable act of grace - but it is a present salvation, anticipating and providing for every exigency of the life that now is, including deliverance from all evil, help in all trouble, comfort in all sorrow, the supply of all want, and through all conflicts, assaults, and difficulties, perfect safety and final triumph. But the single point with which we now have to do, is, the present and certain security of the believer, provided for in the covenant of grace, made sure in Jesus the covenant head, and revealed in this glorious covenant plan of salvation. We have, in the preceding chapter, been considering the inherent tendency and the constant liability of a child of God to departure from God; we now would look up to the Holy Spirit to unfold to us this great and consoling truth, that in the midst of all their weakness, waywardness, and tendency to wander, the Lord is the keeper of his people, and that they whom he keeps are well and eternally kept. "The Lord is your keeper."

We cannot rightly discuss our subject, without laying its foundation in the perfect weakness of the believer himself. If this were not so, - if there were anything of self-power in the believer, any ability to keep himself, - if he were not weakness, all weakness, and nothing but weakness, - then the Lord could not in truth be said to be the keeper of his people. This truth, we repeat, is the ground-work of our subject, and of it the believer needs to be perpetually put in remembrance. The principle of self-confidence is the natural product of the human heart: the great characteristic of our apostate race, is, a desire to live, and think, and act, independently of God. What is the great citadel, to the overthrow of which Divine grace first directs its power? what is the first step it takes in the subjection of the sinner to God? what, but the breaking down of this lofty, towering, independent conceit of himself, so natural to man, and so abhorrent to God? Now, let it be remembered, that Divine and sovereign grace undertakes not the extraction of the root of this depraved principle from the heart of its subjects. The root remains to the very close of life's pilgrimage: though in a measure weakened, subdued, mortified, still it remains; demanding the most rigid watchfulness, connected with ceaseless prayer, lest it should spring upward, to the destruction of his soul's prosperity, the grieving of the Spirit, and the dishonoring of God. O how much the tender, faithful discipline of a covenant God may have the subjection and mortification of this hateful principle for its blessed end, who can tell? We shall never fully know until we reach our Father's house, where the dark and, to us, mysterious dealings of that loving Father with us here below, shall unfold themselves in light and glory, elevating the soul in love and praise!

That no mere creature, angelic or human, can keep itself, is a truth fairly written out in the word of God, and illustrated by some of the most solemn and affecting examples. In the history of the fallen angels, God has revealed and confirmed this truth. If any creature could have kept itself from falling, why not a pure angelic spirit? All that the creature could possess in itself favorable to its security, they had; God created them in perfect uprightness and holiness; they were bound by a law implanted in their nature, - the same as the law of nature inscribed on Adam's heart, and which in substance corresponds with the moral law, - they were bound, we say, by this law to love God supremely, to obey him implicitly, to serve him devotedly and everlastingly. No power could release them from this obligation; nor did they want the moral capacity to obey it. The bent of their wills, the bias of their minds, the desire of their affections, were all towards it. And yet they fell! Why? Because God left them to the freedom of their wills, which were mutable; and that instant they were left to themselves, they fell as lightning from heaven. " I beheld," said Christ, "Satan as lightning fall from heaven." If it had been possible for created power to have sustained itself, here was the glorious theater for the display of that power. Their natures were holy, the God whom they served was holy, the place they inhabited was holy, their companions were holy, their employments were holy, and yet they fell! Again we ask why? - because no creature ever has or ever can, by any innate, inherent strength or power of his own, keep himself; that moment God leaves him to himself, that moment he falls.

Look at Adam: he too was created in perfect holiness; not a taint of sin originally in his nature; not a cloud darkened his mind; not the least bias of his will, or a single inclination of his heart, but centered in God: and yet, he fell from his original holiness. And why? Because he could not keep himself: God left him to his natural and moral ability, which in the creature is natural and moral weakness, he left him to his own free-will, he left him to his own innate power, and the sad consequence was, he instantly fell, and in him, as their federal head, fell the whole human race. Adam was poor in himself, - he was a pensioner upon the free bounty of the God of heaven; even when he reposed amid the beauty and luxuriance of paradise, and trod the earth as the monarch of a new and a glorious world, every object of which paid him homage and submitted to his will, even then was he, as all creatures necessarily must be, poor in himself, and hung as a weak dependent creature upon the God that created him. And the moment that God withdrew his sustaining power, that moment Adam tore the crown of creature glory from his head, and trampled it into atoms in the dust!

Look at the histories of some of the most eminent of God's saints. What affecting confirmation do they afford to the most important truth we are now upon, that the creature left to itself is perfect weakness! If the angels in their purity, if Adam in his state of innocence, fell in consequence of being left in the sovereign will of God to their own keeping, what may we expect from a fallen, sinful, imperfect creature, even though renewed? Do we look into God's blessed word, and read what is there declared, touching the power of a renewed creature to keep itself? How affecting, and at the same time conclusive these declarations are: "Having no might"; "Without strength"; "Weak through the flesh"; "Out of weakness were made strong." Could language more forcibly set forth the utter weakness of a child of God ? And what are the figures employed to impress upon the mind the same truth? They are most expressive; the believer is represented as a "lamb among wolves," - as a dove ready to be fastened upon by the vulture, - as a "lily among thorns," - as "a bruised reed," - as "smoking flax," - as a feeble branch hanging upon the vine. And what are their own acknowledgments? "The Lord is the strength of my life"; "The Lord is my shepherd"; "Hold you me up, and I shall be safe"; "Keep back your servant also from presumptuous sins"; "Hold up my goings in your paths, that my footsteps slip not"; "We had the sentence of death in ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves"; "Yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me"; "By the grace of God I am what I am." And what are the examples? To select but a few from among many: look at the intemperance of Noah, the unbelief of Abraham, the adultery and murder of David, the idolatry of Solomon, the self-righteousness of Job, the impatience of Moses, the self-confidence, and trimming, temporizing policy of Peter. Solemn are these lessons of the creature's nothingness; affecting these examples of his perfect weakness!

But why speak of others? Let the reader, if he is a professing child of God, pause and survey the past of his own life. What marks of perfect weakness may he discover; what evidences of his own fickleness, folly, immature judgment, may he trace; what outbreakings of deep iniquity; what disclosures of hidden corruption; what startling symptoms of the most awful departure and apostasy from God, does the review present! And this, too, let it be remembered, is the history of a believer in Jesus, a renewed child of God, a partaker of the Divine nature, an expectant of eternal glory! Holy and blessed are they who, as they read and lay aside this book, shall relinquish all their fond conceit of self-power, and of self-keeping, and shall pray, and cease not to pray, "Lord, hold you me up, and I shall be safe!" "Let him that thinks he stands, take heed lest he fall."

But the Lord will cause his people to know their perfect weakness and insufficiency to keep themselves, and that, too, not notionally, not theoretically, nor from what they hear, or from what they read, but from their own deep personal experience of the truth: yes, he is perpetually causing them to learn it. I do not allude merely to that blessed period when the Holy Spirit first lays his axe at the fabric of their self-righteousness, - truly they first learn it then, - but it is a truth they become growingly acquainted with; it is a lesson they are made daily to learn; and he becomes the most perfectly schooled in it, who watches most narrowly his own heart, is most observant of his own way, and deals most constantly and simply with the cross of Jesus. With regard to the way which the Lord adopts to bring them into the knowledge of it, it is various. Sometimes it is by bringing them into great straits and difficulties, hedging up their path with thorns, or paving it with flints. Sometimes it is in deep adversity after great prosperity, as in the case of Job, stripped of all, and laid in dust and ashes, in order to be brought to the conviction and the confession of deep and utter vileness. Sometimes it is in circumstances of absolute prosperity, when he gives the heart its desire, but sends leanness into the soul. O how does this teach a godly man his own utter nothingness! Sometimes it is by permitting the messenger of Satan to buffet, - sending and perpetuating some heavy, lingering, lacerating cross. Sometimes by the removal of some beloved prop on which we too fondly and securely leaned, - putting a worm at the root of our pleasant out-spreading gourd, drying up our refreshing spring, or leading us down deep into the valley of self-abasement and humiliation. But the great school in which we learn this painful, yet needed and wholesome lesson, is, in the body of sin which we daily bear about with us. It was here Paul learned his lesson, as the seventh chapter of his letter to the church at Rome shows, and for which epistle the saints of God will ever have reason to praise and adore the blessed and Eternal Spirit: "I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwells no good thing: for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not. For the good that I would I do not; but the evil which I would not, that I do. Now if I do that I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwells in me. O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?" In this school and in this way, did the great apostle of the Gentiles learn that the most holy, deeply taught, useful, privileged, and even inspired saint of God, was in himself nothing but the most perfect weakness of sin. Be not you cast down, dear reader, if the Lord the Spirit is teaching you the same lesson in the same way; if he is now ploughing up the hidden evil, breaking up the fallow ground, discovering to you more of the evil principle of your heart, the iniquity of your fallen nature, and that, too, it may be, at a time of deep trial, of heavy, heart-breaking affliction. Ah! you are ready to exclaim, "All these things are against me: ' I was at ease, but he has broken me asunder; he has also taken me by my neck, and shaken me to pieces, and set me up for his mark. His archers compass me round about; he cleaves my thoughts asunder, and does not spare; he pours out my gall upon the ground. He breaks me with breach upon breach, he runs upon me like a giant.' Job xvi. 12-14. Am I a child of God ? Can I be a subject of grace, and at the same time be the subject of so much hidden evil, and of such deep, overwhelming trial? Is this the way he deals with his people?" -

"I asked the Lord that I might grow
In faith, and love, and every grace,
Might more of his salvation know,
And seek more earnestly his face.

"Twas he who taught me thus to pray,
And he, I trust, has answered prayer;
But it has been in such a way
As almost drove me to despair.

"I hoped that in some favored hour.
At once he'd answer my request.
And by his love's constraining power.
Subdue my sins, and give me rest.

"Instead of this, he made me feel
The hidden evils of my heart;
And let the angry powers of hell
Assault my soul in every part.

"Yes, more; with his own hand he seemed
Intent to aggravate my woe:
Crossed all the fair designs I schemed.
Blasted my gourds, and laid me low.

"'Lord, why is this?' I trembling cried,
'Will you pursue your worm to death?'
"Tis in this way,' the Lord replied,
'I answer prayer for grace and faith.

"'These inward trials I employ,
'From self and pride to set you free,
'And break your schemes of earthly joy,
'That you may seek your all in me.'"

Yes, dear believer, you are not solitary nor alone: for along this path, all the covenant people of God are traveling to their better and brighter home. Here they become acquainted with their own weakness, their perpetual liability to fall; here they renounce their former thoughts of self-power and of self-keeping; and here, too, they learn more of Jesus as their strength, their all-sufficient keeper, more of him as their "wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption." Cheer up, then, for the Lord your God is leading you on by a safe and a right way to bring you to a city of rest.

But, the Lord is the keeper of his people. To the consideration of this point, let us direct our remaining meditations. If what we have advanced touching the perfect helplessness, the proneness to constant departure of the child of God, be true, surely it needs no argument to show, that the believer stands in need of just such a keeper as God is. If he cannot keep himself, no mere creature can keep him - none but God in Christ.

Our blessed Lord has himself declared this truth. Mark the double security of the believer in his and his Father's hands: "My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me: and I give unto them eternal life: and they shall never perish, neither shall any pluck them out of my hand. My Father, which gave them me, is greater than all; and none is able to pluck them out of my Father's hand. I and my Father are one." John x. 27-30. Here they are declared to be his own chosen peculiar people, his sheep; given to him of his Father, and perfectly safe in the hands of both. Listen to the breathing of his soul on behalf of his people: "And now I am no more in the world, but these are in the world, and I come to you. Holy Father, keep through your own name those whom you have given me, that they may be one as we are. While I was with them in the world, I kept them in your name; those that you gave me I have kept."

That the Lord Jesus is able to keep his people from falling, is a view of our subject worthy of especial and grateful consideration. This is the ground-work of our faith, - that Christ has power to keep, through all time and to all eternity, the people entrusted to his care. They are his portion, his bride, his jewels; they were committed to him of his Father, and therefore he is responsible for their present and eternal salvation. Let us see how he is in all respects fitted for this great undertaking.

As God, Christ is able to keep his people. When Jehovah made promise of any blessing to his ancient people, with a view of confirming their faith in his ability to perform what he had promised, he was accustomed to append to his name Almighty, "the Lord that created the heaven and the earth": so that, however great and stupendous, and seemingly impossible, might appear the thing promised, He who '"created heaven and earth" was able to perform it. Now this very perfection of God, this work that stamps his omnipotence, and which answers all question and silences all doubts as to his "eternal power and Godhead," belongs and is ascribed to Christ the Keeper of his people. Thus, - "By him (Christ) were all things created that are in heaven and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him and for him: and he is before all things, and by him all things consist." Col. i. 16, 17. Not less strikingly is the same exercise of omnipotent power applied to Christ in the epistle to the Hebrews, - "Who being the brightness of his [Father's] glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high." Ch. i. 3. In this passage, Jesus is invested with a creative and a sustaining power, - attributes that can be predicated only of God. Here lies, then, the great ability of Christ, as the Keeper of his covenant people. The same perfection which qualified him as the covenant head and surety of his people; the same almighty strength which enabled him to work out their salvation, to bear the burden and the curse of their sins, enables him to preserve them while "dead in trespasses and in sins," and to keep them after they have been called and renewed by the operation of the Holy Spirit. As God, then, he is able to keep his saints from falling.

But, as God-man Mediator, he is also able to keep his people. As the covenant Head and preserver of his church, "it pleased the Father that in him should all fullness dwell." The Father knew what his beloved family would need. He knew what corruptions would threaten them, what temptations would beguile them, what foes would assail them, what infirmities would encompass them, and what trials would depress them; therefore it pleased him, it was his own good and gracious pleasure, that in his Son, the mediator of his beloved people, should all fullness dwell; - a fullness of merit, a fullness of pardon, a fullness of righteousness, a fullness of grace, wisdom, and strength, commensurate with the varied, multiplied, and diversified circumstances of his family. It is "all fullness." "Full," as Owen beautifully remarks, "to a sufficiency for every end of grace; full for practice, to be an example to men and angels as to obedience; full to a certainty of uninterrupted communion with God; full to a readiness of giving supply to others; full to suit him to all the occasions and necessities of the souls of men; full to a glory not unbecoming a subsistence in the person of the Son of God; full to a perfect victory in trials over all temptations; full to an exact correspondence to the whole law, every righteous and holy law of God; full to the utmost capacity of a limited, created, finite nature; full to the greatest beauty and glory of a living temple of God; full to the full pleasure and delight of the soul of his Father; full to an everlasting monument of the glory of God, in giving such inconceivable excellencies to the Son of man." As the Mediator, then, of his people, he keeps them in perfect safety by night and by day. No man, no power, can pluck them out of his hands; he has undertaken their full salvation. To die for their sins, and to rise again for their justification, and yet not to provide for their security while traveling through a world of sin and temptation, - to leave them to their own guardianship, an unprotected prey to their own hearts' corruptions, the machinations of Satan, and the power of worldly entanglement, - would have been but a partial salvation of his people. Opposed by a threefold enemy, - Satan and the world in league with their own imperfectly renewed and sanctified hearts, that treacherous foe dwelling within the camp, ever ready to betray the soul into the hands of its enemies, - how could a poor, weak child of God bear up and bosom this powerful phalanx? But he who was mighty to save, is mighty to keep; in him provision is made for all the trying, intricate, perilous circumstances in which the believer may be placed. Grace is laid up for the subjection of every inbred corruption, - an armor is provided for every assault of the foe, - wisdom, strength, consolation, sympathy, kindness, - all, all that a poor believing sinner can possibly require, is richly stored in Jesus, the covenant Head of all the fullness of God to his people.

But how is the child of God to avail himself of this provision? The simple but glorious life of faith exhibits itself here. It is by faith in Christ the soul is made strong in battle; this is the channel through which the fullness of Jesus comes to the believer. By faith he travels up to this rich and ample supply; by faith he takes his nothingness to Christ's all-sufficiency; by faith he takes his unworthiness to Christ's infinite merit; by faith he takes his weakness to Christ's strength, his folly to Christ's wisdom; his fearful heart, his timid spirit, his nervous frame, his doubtful mind, his beclouded evidences, his rebellious will, his painful cross, his peculiar case of whatever nature it may be, in the way of believing, in the exercise of simple faith, he goes with it to Jesus, and as an empty vessel hangs himself upon that "nail fastened in a sure place," the glorious Eliakim on whom is hung "all the glory of his Father's house, the offspring and the issue, all vessels of small quantity; from the vessels of cups, even to all the vessels of flagons." Isaiah xxii. 24. Thus may the weakest believer, the most severely assailed, the most deeply tried, the most painfully tempted, lay his Goliath dead at his feet, by a simple faith's-dealing with the fullness that is in Christ Jesus. O how mighty is the believer, who, in deep distrust of his own power, casting off from him all spirit of self-dependence, looks simply and fully at Jesus, and goes not forth to meet his enemy, only as he is "strong in the strength that is in Christ."

But what is the great evil of which the true saints of God most stand in jeopardy, and which their timid, fearful hearts most dread? Is it not secret and outward backsliding from God, after conversion? Surely it is, as the experience of every honest, upright, God-fearing man will testify. It is his consolation then to know, that Jesus is "able to keep him from falling"; "Unto him that is able to keep you from falling." Jude 24. This is the most overwhelming evil that stares the believer in the face. Some, but imperfectly taught in the word, are dreading awful apostasy from the faith here, and final condemnation from the presence of God hereafter, - believing that though Christ has made full satisfaction for their sins to Divine justice, has cancelled the mighty debt, has imputed to them his righteousness, has blotted out their iniquities, has called, renewed, sanctified, and taken full possession of them by his Spirit, and has ascended up on high, to plead their cause with the Father; that yet, after all this stupendous exercise of power, and this matchless display of free grace, they may be left to utter apostasy from God, and be finally and eternally lost. If there is one doctrine more awful in its nature, distressing in its consequences, and directly opposed to the glory of God and the honor of Christ, than another, methinks it is this.

Others, again, more clearly taught by the Spirit, are heard to say, "I believe in the stability of the covenant, in the un-changeableness of God's love, and in the faithfulness of my heavenly Father, but I fear lest some day, under some sharp temptation, some burst of indwelling sin, when the enemy shall come in as a flood, I shall fall, to the wounding of my peace, to the shame of my brethren, and to the dishonoring of Christ." Dear believer, truly you would fall, were he to leave you to your own keeping for one moment; but Jesus is able to keep you from falling. Read the promises, believe them, rest upon them. Concerning his redeemed church, what does he say? "I, the Lord, do keep it; I will water it every moment, lest any hurt it; I will keep it night and day." Isa. xxvii. 3. "The Lord upholds the righteous." Psalm xxxvii. 17. "The righteous shall hold on his way, and he that has clean hands shall be stronger and stronger." Job xvii. 9. " They go from strength to strength; every one of them in Zion appears before God." Psalm Ixxxiv. 7. "Those who trust in the Lord shall be as mount Zion, which cannot be removed, but abides forever. As the mountains are round about Jerusalem, so the Lord is round about his people, from henceforth, even for ever." Psalm cxxv. i, 2. "Kept by the power of God, through faith, unto salvation." i Pet. i. 5. "I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence comes my help. My help comes from the Lord, which made heaven and earth. He will not suffer your foot to be moved; he who keeps you will not slumber. Behold, he who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep. The Lord is your keeper." Psalm cxxi. 1-5.

A simple glance at these passages will present to the believer's eye, a threefold cord, by which he is kept from falling. In the first place, God the Father keeps him, - " kept by the power of God"; the power that created and upholds the world, keeps the believer. The eternal purpose, love, and grace of the Father keeps him: this is the first cord.

Again, God the Son keeps him: "My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me; and I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand." The covenant engagements, the perfect obedience, the atoning death of Immanuel, keeps the believer: this is the second cord.

Yet again, God the Holy Spirit keeps him: "When the enemy shall come in like a flood, the Spirit of the Lord shall lift up a standard against him " (marg. shall put him to flight). The effectual calling, the personal indwelling, the tender love, the covenant faithfulness, and the omnipotent power of the Eternal Spirit, keep the believer: this is the third cord. And "a threefold cord is not quickly broken." Eccles. iv. 12. Exceeding great and precious promises! Well may we sing with the poet -

"More happy, but not more secure.
The glorified spirits in heaven."

But with these promises of the triune God to keep his people from falling, he has wisely and graciously connected the diligent, prayerful use of all the means which he has appointed for this end. The believer is nowhere in the Bible spoken of, or addressed, as a lifeless machine, a mere automaton; but as one "alive unto God," Rom. vi. 11, - as "created in Christ Jesus," Eph. ii. 10, - as a "partaker of the Divine nature," 2 Pet. i. 4. As such he is commanded to "work out his own salvation with fear and trembling," Phil. ii. 12, - to "give diligence to make his calling and election sure," 2 Pet. i. 10, - to "watch and pray, lest he enter into temptation," Matt. xxvi. 41: and the apostle Jude thus affectionately and earnestly exhorts the saints to whom he addressed his brief epistle, "But you, beloved, building up yourselves on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life," 20, 21. Thus does God throw a measure of the responsibility of his own standing upon the believer himself, that he might not be slothful, unwatchful, and prayerless, but be ever sensible of his solemn obligations to "deny ungodliness and worldly lusts, and to live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world," remembering that he is "not his own, but is bought with a price."

Let the reader guard against the slightest abuse of any of the great truths discussed in this work, especially the one insisted upon in this chapter. If the power of God is the efficient cause of the eternal security of the believer, yet, as auxiliaries which God has appointed, and by which he instrumentally works, the believer is to use diligently all holy means of keeping himself from failing; as a temple of the Holy Spirit, as the subject of the Divine life, as a pardoned, justified man, he is called to labor perseveringly, to pray ceaselessly, and to watch vigilantly. He is not to run wilfully into temptation, to expose himself needlessly to the power of the enemy, to surround himself with unholy and hostile influences, and then take refuge in the truth, that the Lord will keep him from falling. God forbid! This were most awfully to abuse the "doctrine that is after godliness," to "hold the truth in unrighteousness"; and to make "Christ the minister of sin." Dear reader, watch and pray against this!

And lastly: Let the cheering prospect of that glory unto which you are kept, stimulate you to all diligent perseverance in holy duty, and constrain you to all patient endurance of suffering. In all your conflicts with indwelling sin, under the pressure of all outward trial, let this precious truth comfort you, - that your heavenly Father has "begotten you again unto a lively hope, by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled, and that fades not away, reserved in heaven for you who are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation"; that soon - O how soon! - all that now loads the heart with care, and wrings it with sorrow - all that dims the eye with tears, and renders the day anxious and the night sleepless, will be as though it had never been. Emerging from the entanglement, the dreariness, the solitude, the loneliness, and the temptations of the wilderness, you shall enter upon your everlasting rest, your unfading inheritance, where there is no sorrow, no declension, no sin; where there is no sunset, no twilight, no evening shades, no midnight darkness, but all is one perfect, cloudless, eternal day - for Jesus is the joy, the light, and the glory thereof.

"Now unto him who is able to keep you from falling, and to present you faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy, to the only wise God our Savior, be glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and forever." Amen.

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THE HOLY SPIRIT, An Experimental and Practical View

Table of Contents

1. The Soul Before Conversion

2. The Soul After Conversion

3. The Believer a Temple

4. The Necessity and the Nature of True Holiness

5. The Believer an Epistle

6. Jesus the True God, and His Work All-sufficient

7. The Believer Drawing near to God

8. The Broken Heart Bound Up

"The Spirit a Quickener" or "The Soul Before Conversion"

It is the spirit that quickens; the flesh profits nothing. John 6:63

The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing. John 6:63

It is the Spirit who gives eternal life. Human effort accomplishes nothing. John 6:63

Having laid the foundation of the Holy Spirit's work in His Personal Dignity, it will now be an easy and a more delightful (because less controversial) task to raise the superstructure. Commencing from such a foundation- the GODHEAD Of the Spirit- what dignity and glory attach to His various offices and operations, as contained in the covenant of redemption, and as unfolded in the work of grace upon the heart! How important that we should enter upon its discussion deeply impressed with the spirituality of our theme, with its essential relation to the eternal happiness of the soul, and with fervent prayer for His own Divine illumination! It will be perceived that, in unfolding His work, we commence with the Spirit's first gracious and Divine act- the breathing of spiritual life in the soul. This must be regarded as an operation preceding all others. The Spirit's work as a Quickener must ever precede His work as a Sanctifier and a Comforter. If we look for Him in any of His offices before we have received Him as the Author of Divine life in the soul, we reverse His own order and cover ourselves with disappointment. We enter upon the discussion of this subject the more readily and, we trust, prayerfully, from the conviction that the modern views of the doctrine of regeneration, as held and preached by many, are not only widely different from the old standards of doctrinal truth, but, which is more serious and deeply to be deplored, are such as the Word of God clearly and distinctly disowns, and upon which there rests the darkness of its frown. Regeneration, as taught by many in the present day, differs widely from the doctrine as preached in the days of the apostles and reformers. In their writings and discourses the basis was deeply and broadly laid in the original and total depravity of man; this doctrine is now by many greatly modified, if not absolutely denied. In the days of primitive Christianity, the utter helplessness of the creature, and the absolute and indispensable necessity of the Holy Spirit's influences in the regeneration of the soul, were distinctly and rigidly enforced; sentiments the reverse of these, subversive of the Scripture doctrine of regeneration, and destructive of the best interests of the soul, are now zealously and widely promulgated. Surely this is a cause of deep humiliation before God; may He restore to His ministers and people a pure language, and graciously revive the precious, soul-humbling, Christ-honoring truths, once the safeguard and the glory of our land. We propose in this and the following chapter to present a simple and scriptural delineation of the doctrine of regeneration, the office of the Holy Spirit in its production, and some of the holy effects as traced in the life of a believer. May there descend on the reader the anointing of the Holy One, and may the truth empty, sanctify and comfort the heart.
Regeneration is a work standing alone and distinct from all the other operations of the Divine Spirit. It is to be carefully distinguished from conversion, adoption, justification and sanctification, and yet must be regarded as forming the basis and the spring-head of them all. For instance, there can be no conversion without a principle of life in the soul, for conversion is the exercise of a spiritual power implanted in man. There can be no sense of adoption apart from a renewed nature, for adoption confers the privilege only, not the nature, of sons. There can be no comforting sense of acceptance in the Beloved until the mind has passed from death unto life, nor can there be the smallest advance in a conformity of the will and of the affections to the image of God while there is lacking in the soul the very root of holiness. Faith is a purifying grace, but faith is only found in the heart "created anew in Christ Jesus." There must necessarily be the spiritual renewal of the whole man, before the soul can pass into an adopted, justified and sanctified state. Reader, ponder seriously this solemn truth. It will probably aid us in arriving at a clearer and more accurate knowledge of the true nature of regeneration, or the new birth, if we briefly look at the subject first from a negative point of view.
Notice first of all that regeneration is not an act of grace conferred upon an individual in the external rite or ordinance of baptism. An error so untenable on scriptural grounds and so fatal to the spiritual interests of the soul, we could scarcely believe would find an advocate professing to be taught of the Spirit, in this gospel-illumined age. And yet from the pulpit and from the press, both professing to be the guardians of evangelical truth, this doctrine is zealously propagated; thousands receive it as a Divinely revealed truth, and live and die in the fatal delusion. Oh, did every professed minister of Christ but study the third chapter of John's Gospel, with earnest prayer for the teaching of the Spirit, before he attempted to expound to others the way of salvation, how soon would the heresy of baptismal regeneration be expelled from our pulpits, and banished from the land! Let us endeavor to pour the light of Divine truth upon this dark and fatal error.
We observe that the application of water in any mode, as a sacramental rite, is utterly impotent in the production of this mighty change in man. It cannot impart spiritual life to a soul "dead in trespasses and sins." The following are some of the strong and emphatic expressions which the Word of God employs in describing the new birth: "Born again" "born of the Spirit" "quickened by the Spirit" "created anew in Christ Jesus" "made alive" "new creature." Claims that the external application of water, even as a sacred rite, could effect the great change implied in these phrases, are utterly incredible to a spiritual and reflecting mind.
To regard the ordinance of baptism as a vehicle by which the Spirit of God operates on the heart is equally unscriptural and dangerous. As a means of grace, it cannot be relied upon. If regeneration has not transpired in the soul before the act of baptism, we are nowhere in the Scriptures of truth authorised to believe that mere submission to the external ceremony confers spiritual life upon the subject. The ordinances both of baptism and the Lord's supper are to be considered, as far as they relate to the receiver, merely as sources of spiritual nourishment and comfort to the grace already implanted in the soul, through the omnipotent and effectual operation of the Spirit of God. The one may more properly be regarded as a witness to the grace that is there; the other, as a Divinely instituted source of nourishment to that grace. If it is not so; if this setting aside the two ordinances of Christ's church as causes of spiritual life is not scriptural and proper, then it must follow that all who have submitted to these external institutions are actually regenerated; and so, in reference to the departure into eternity of the avowed unbeliever, on the ground that baptismal regeneration be true, death is to him the birth-day of a glorious immortality! If this is not a most awful inference, properly and legitimately drawn from the error we have stated, we know not what is. The advocate of baptismal regeneration cannot evade it. It is a fair, legitimate and logical conclusion deduced from his own premises. If all those who have ever been baptized were, in the act, made the subjects of renewing grace, then thousands are now shut up in the regions of hopeless despair who ought not to be there. They were baptized and yet they lived in open rebellion against God and died, as the record of many testifies, with the "terrors of the Lord" already in their consciences. And, if baptism is a rite essential to salvation, it must follow that vast numbers are now in glory, who, never having submitted to that institution, are admitted there on other grounds than the mere observance of an external ceremony. We cite from among many, the case of the thief upon the cross, as illustrating our idea. There is no record of his having received Christian baptism, either in the early part of his life, for he was a pagan, or at the period of his death. And yet, here is presented to us the amazing spectacle of a heathen malefactor, passing from spiritual death unto spiritual life at the very extremity of his ignominious existence; and, without having washed in the laver of baptism, going from the cross to receive a kingdom and a crown. If water baptism be essential to salvation, let the advocate of the doctrine explain to us the nature and the cause of this remarkable conversion and this triumphant death.
Reader, your baptism, whether received in infancy or in riper years, will avail you nothing if you are not a new creature. You may be baptized, and yet be lost; you may not be baptized, and yet be saved. "In Christ Jesus, neither circumcision avails any thing, nor uncircumcision" (and the same is true of baptism), "but a new creature." Gal. 6. 15. Your baptism infused into you no principle of life; it conferred upon you no saving grace. You must be born again of the Spirit, be washed in the blood of Christ and be clothed in His righteousness before you can enter the kingdom of grace on earth, or be admitted within the kingdom of glory in heaven.
Again, an outward reformation of habit does not constitute the spiritual change under investigation. The influence of education, early moral instruction, attendance upon an evangelical ministry, combined with the moral restraints of society, will go far in effecting an outward reformation of human character. There may be much unfolding itself which bears strong resemblance to the sweet flower of Divine grace - gentleness- kindness- amiability; there may be the heart that pours forth its deep sympathies over the picture of human suffering- the tear that falls upon the pallid cheek of sickness- the arm that is nerved to shield the oppressed- the hand that is extended to relieve the widow and the fatherless; and yet "repentance toward God, and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ" (the spring of all true holiness and goodness) may be strangers to that bosom. In others, there may be the excision of outward sins, the giving up of sinful habits long indulged in, even a love of virtue, an approval of things that are excellent, and a diligent observance of the means of grace, marking the character and deportment; and all the while, the heart, self-deceived, may know nothing of the renewing, transforming, humbling power of God the Holy Spirit. Regeneration is a mighty and a deep work. It does not rest upon the surface. It has to do with the deep, hidden principle of evil in the heart of man. It allows nothing for the tender and kindly instincts of our fallen nature. It does not destroy or weaken them in the wonderful process through which the mind passes at the period of its renewal, but rather invests them with a new character and directs them into another and a holier channel; yet in the effecting of this mighty moral revolution they take no part, and can lay claim to none of the glory.
This chapter may possibly arrest the attention of the rigid moralist, who, up to the present, has been enveloping himself in the thick and silken foldings of a self-complacent and self-righteous spirit, not for a moment suspecting the existence of a deep taint of ungodliness within, which, in the eye of a holy and a heart-searching God, mars all his moral virtues, and renders of none effect all his moral duties. Reader, may the Lord the Spirit in His infinite mercy bring you out of this awful state of self-deception; and, as one step towards it, He warns you in His word to trust to no view of yourself presented by the false mirror of your own heart. That "heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked." Do not trust in it, it is treacherous; expect nothing truly good from it, it is a depth of undiscovered depravity. Is this harsh language? Are these sentiments revolting to you? I speak but the truth of God when I say that your heart, in its present unrenewed state, is your worst enemy. Does it speak soothingly? It speaks but to flatter. Does the surface look fair and pleasant to the eye? Beneath is every thing that defiles, and that works abomination. O the awful picture your renewed heart would present to your view were the Holy Spirit now to put in the plough of conviction, break up the hard and fallow ground, and bring to the surface the hidden evil that is there. How would you shudder at the discovery, and shrink away from the sight!
Again, shall we add, after the exceptions we have made, that an outward profession of the Gospel may exist, and yet the heart be a stranger to this spiritual process? And yet the age we live in demands a distinct avowal of this. If in the days of our Lord and of His faithful and vigilant apostles- the days when a public profession of attachment to Christ was to mark a man for the cross and the stake- if in their days and under these circumstances there were found those who could take refuge in a mere outward profession, is it astonishing that now, when it costs a man nothing to profess Christ, but rather adds to his worldly influence and emolument, thousands should run upon this quicksand and make shipwreck of their souls? Oh, it is no marvel. Our blessed Lord foresaw and forewarned men of this evil. Let His words- searching and solemn as though now uttered from the judgment-seat sink down into our ears: "Not every one that says unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that does the will of my Father which is in heaven. Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in your name? and in your name have cast out devils? and in your name have done many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, you that work iniquity." Matt. 7. 21-23.
Yet we would go farther than this. In reviewing the negative evidences of regeneration, it is of the utmost importance that we do not overlook that close approximation to this work, which in numberless cases may take place, but which when brought to the test of God's Word proves but an awful deception. Few, but those who have been taught of the Spirit and who have accustomed themselves to analyze closely the evidences of true conversion, are aware how far an individual may go, not merely in an outward reformation of character and in an external union to Christ, but in a strong resemblance to the positive and manifest evidences of the new birth, without the actual possession of a single one. If there is one aspect in which our subject may be viewed as more solemn than another, it is this. May the eternal Spirit lead us into deep self-examination and prayer, while examining these FALSE EVIDENCES OF REGENERATION.
We have observed that there may be in an individual's frame of mind and outward conduct, much that bears a strong affinity and resemblance to many of the positive evidences of the new birth, without a single step towards that state having been taken. There may be, as regards the state of mind, a deep and clear knowledge of Divine truth, a strongly enlightened judgment, and a sound and scriptural creed. There may be a strong attachment to, and a zealous maintenance of, some of the distinguishing doctrines of grace- even a desire to hear of Christ, and an ability to judge between sound and unsound preaching- and all the while the heart may be encased in the hardness of impenitence and unbelief, a stranger to the regenerating influence of the Spirit of God. Do not misinterpret our meaning. We are not saying anything against a true spiritual and experimental acquaintance with Divine truth. We do not forget that there can be no faith in Christ without some knowledge of Christ. The very existence of faith in the heart implies the existence of, and an acquaintance with, the object of faith- the Lord Jesus. We are not against an enlarged possession of Divine knowledge. It would be well for the Church of Christ, and would greatly promote her stability and real spirituality, were the standard of Divine knowledge more elevated in her midst. It would screen her from much of the unsound theology and false philosophy, which, at this moment, threaten her purity and her peace. It cannot with perfect truth be said, as far as an elevated and spiritual taste and thirst for experimental truth are concerned, that "wisdom and knowledge are the stability of our times." Much of the prevalent religion is characterized by "itching ears," 2 Tim. 4. 3; habit of "change," Prov. 24. 21; "unstableness," 2 Pet. 3. 16; affected by "every wind of doctrine," Eph. 4. 14; and which, in its influence, is "barren and unfruitful," 2 Pet. 1. 8. Were there a more diligent and prayerful study of God's word, a more regular and constant attendance upon a stated ministry (if that ministry be found productive of spiritual benefit), connected with frequent seasons of retirement consecrated to meditation, self-examination and secret prayer, there would be less of that superficial Christianity which marks the many in this day of high and universal profession. We need more depth of knowledge, more spirituality, more experience, more of the life and power of true godliness; in a word, more of the anointing and sanctifying influences of the Holy Spirit in the church.
But in the exception that we make, we refer to a knowledge of biblical truth that is not saving in its effects, is not influential in its character, and which has its place in the judgment only. Here the truth may be assented to, approved of, and even ably and successfully vindicated, while the soul, the seat of life; the will, the instrument of holiness; and the heart, the home of love, are all unrenewed by the Holy Spirit. You cannot be too distinctly nor too earnestly informed that there is a great difference in divine knowledge. There is a knowledge of the truth, in the attainment of which a man may labor diligently, and in the possession of which he may look like a believer, but which may not come under that designation of a knowledge of Christ, in allusion to which our dear Lord in His memorable prayer uses these words, "This is life eternal, that they might know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent." John 17. 3. The fatal error to which you are exposed is- O that you may have escaped it!- the substitution of knowledge of Divine truth in the judgment for the quickening grace of God in the heart. It is surprising how far an outwardly moral individual may go in Divine attainments- spiritual knowledge- eminent gifts- and even great usefulness, and yet retain the carnal mind, the rebellious will, the unhumbled and unbroken heart. If the volume of divine truth had not informed us of this, and supplied us with some striking and solemn cases in proof, we should be perpetually beguiled into the belief that a head filled with rational, speculative, theoretical truth must necessarily be connected with some degree of divine grace in the affections. But not so. Balaam's knowledge of Divine things was deep; he could ask counsel of God and prophesy of Christ, but where is the undoubted evidence that he "knew the grace of God in truth"? Saul prophesied, had "another spirit" given him, and asked counsel of God; but Saul's heart was unchanged by the Holy Spirit. Herod sent for John, and "heard him gladly, and did many things," and yet his heart and his life were strangers to holiness. Addressing the Pharisees, the apostle employs this striking language, "Behold, you are called a Jew, and rest in the law, and make your boast of God, and know his will, and approve the things that are more excellent, being instructed out of the law": and yet deep hypocrisy was their crying sin. O let no man be so deceived as to substitute knowledge for grace. Better that his knowledge of the truth should be limited to its mere elements, its first principles, and yet with it be enabled to say, "Behold, I am vile, but He has loved me and given himself for me," than to possess "all knowledge," and live and die destitute of the renewing grace of God upon the heart.
Still farther may an individual go in an approximation to the evidences of true godliness, and yet remain unregenerate. He may possess eminent spiritual gifts- fluency of expression in prayer- great exhortatory powers- eloquence in preaching- clear discrimination in spiritual subjects- the discerning of spirits- the gift of speaking and of interpreting of tongues; yet continue a graceless soul, retaining the "carnal mind" and the "heart of stone." What, we ask, is the most instructive and solemn page in the history of the Corinthian church? That which teaches us that great gifts may exist in union with great impiety; in other words, that gifts are not graces, that an individual, or a community of individuals, may possess the gifts that edify, and at the same time be destitute of the grace that humbles and sanctifies. On the other hand, how frequently is the union found to exist of feeble natural and acquired gifts with great grace, deep spirituality, and even extensive usefulness! The tongue has stammered in prayer; thought, deep welled in the mind, has found no adequate utterance; feelings, burning in the heart, no outlet; a glowing and spiritually-chastened imagination, no conductor; and yet in the man's secret life, there has been the holy and close walk of a patriarch, and in his public one, the self-consuming zeal of an apostle. God has revealed to him the secret of His love; Christ has opened to him the treasures of His grace; and the Holy Spirit has sealed him to the day of redemption. Well might an eminent prelate exclaim, as he surveyed a spectacle like this- "The poor illiterate world attain to heaven, while we, with all our learning, fall into hell."
One step farther would we go. There may be strong light and conviction of sin in the conscience (Heb. 6. 4)- deep distress of soul in the near prospect of death and eternity (Acts 24. 25)- this succeeded by solemn vows, purposes and resolutions (Exod. 9. 27, 28)- and this by a species of joy (Matt. 13. 20)- connected with an external mortification of sin (Acts 8. 12, 13)- and yet the mighty and spiritual process of regeneration may not even have commenced in the soul. Far be it from us to say that the Spirit of God may not employ these as means of conversion- He may, He often does; yet they may exist alone and apart from any connection with a work of grace. We are aware that, in showing what regeneration is not, we have assumed high and solemn ground, and have advanced statements which, if supported by the Scriptures of truth (and we have endeavored to fortify every position by the Word of God), will break up the lying refuges, undermine the spurious hopes, explode the false evidences, and rip apart the specious covering of many now dwelling in the outer courts of Christianity and making a "fair show" of religion "in the flesh." Gal. 6. 12. But the vast importance of the subject and its vital relation to the eternal happiness of the soul demanded from us a close investigation of the false evidences of this great work.

We now proceed to VIEW POSITIVELY THE NATURE OF REGENERATION. Need we enlarge upon the moral state of the soul which is the reverse of true regeneration? It may be helpful to glance briefly at it. It is described in God's Word in dark colors, and by gloomy images. The heart is spoken of as depraved- the understanding as darkened- the will as perverted- the affections as estranged. Look at the description of the heart in its natural state. Jer. 17. 9: "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked." Matt. 15. 19: "For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies." Awful picture of the natural heart!- the picture of all yet in an unrenewed state. There may not be the overt act of sin, the actual commission, the outbreaking of the evil- but the evil is there, deeply imbedded and hidden there, and only restrained by the power of God. Read again, Eccles. 8. 11: "Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil." Eccles. 9. 3: "The heart of the sons of men is full of evil, and madness is in their heart while they live." Can language present the natural state of the heart in more affecting and awful terms? Here it is represented as "fully set to do evil" "full of evil and madness" "deceitful" "desperately wicked." The surface may be fair to the eye- there may be kindness, affection, benevolence dwelling there; but beneath that surface is deep, deep ungodliness. No love to God there- no affection for Jesus there- no thirst for holiness there- no crucifixion of sin and self there; and until the Holy Spirit enters and creates all things new, all things will remain as they were, under the unbroken dominion and tyranny of sin.
The understanding is dark. Eph. 4. 18: "Having the understanding darkened." Hence there can be no true knowledge of God and of Christ; no proper acquaintance with His word, His law, His commands; no just realization of eternity, no proper estimate of time. All is spiritual darkness in the soul.
The will is perverted. It is in opposition to God and holiness. It has no bias towards spiritual and heavenly things. Its natural bent and disposition is to evil; evil only, and evil continually.
But there is more. There is positive enmity in the natural man to God. Rom. 8. 7: "The carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be." This is a strong expression; the apostle states that the carnal mind is not only alienated from God, averse to Him, but is actual enmity. Had he represented the carnal mind as an enemy to God, that would have sounded startling; but when he describes it as "enmity" itself, we have the most vivid and awful idea of man's state by nature. An enemy may be reconciled, but enmity cannot. The ground of this enmity the apostle states to be "the law of God." "It is not subject to the law of God." The enmity of the carnal heart is against God as the moral Governor of the universe. Let not the reader, especially if there be the honest conviction in his conscience of the existence of the carnal mind, overlook this important fact. There is danger of turning aside from the true cause of man's enmity to God. We repeat then, all are enemies to God who do not submit to His kingly authority. Men may imagine they admire and love God under other characters, but hate Him as a Lawgiver. But this cannot be. If God is not loved, adored and obeyed as a Lawgiver, He cannot, without denying Himself and throwing contempt upon His own law, recognize the supposed love and adoration of any of His creatures. Supreme dominion is essential to His character, and to be properly and truly loved He must be loved as a King. Among men, the person and the office may be separable. A man may be the personal friend of the king, and yet an enemy to his government. As a man, he may be loved; as a magistrate, he may be hated. We can imagine that many who lived in the days of the Commonwealth were sincerely attached to the person of Oliver Cromwell, but disapproved of his government, and condemned as unjustifiable his usurpation of authority and power. But not so in reference to God, the moral Governor of the world. His nature and His office, His attributes and His government are inseparable: and no one can possibly be a friend to God who hates His government and refuses obedience to His law.
Now "the carnal mind is enmity against God" because of His moral government. The question is, "who shall reign, God or the sinner?" This is the only ground of controversy. Decide this question in favor of the sinner, and so far as it relates to him, the controversy ceases. Only let God drop the reins of His government- let Him descend from His throne, lay aside His scepter, give up His law- and the enmity of the carnal mind ceases. Man would revel in His goodness, admire His wisdom, and adore His power. But God can as soon cease to be, as give up His right to dominion. He must assert His claim to the throne. He is bound to maintain the dignity, shield the purity and support the honor of His law; and sooner can heaven and earth pass away than one jot or one tittle of that law fail. This the carnal mind cannot bear, "for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be.
Enmity against God, O awful thought! Enmity to the best of beings, the dearest of friends! Enmity to Him whose nature and whose name is love!- who is holy, yes, holiness itself- good, yes, goodness itself- true, yes, truth itself! Enmity to Him, out of whom nothing is good, nothing holy, nothing true; who is the Fountain from where all the streams flow, the Sun from which all the rays emanate. Enmity to Him, who gave His Son to die for sinners! "For God so loved the world, that he gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life." "God commends His love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." Yes, to die for His enemies. "When we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son." Enmity to Jesus who thus died; who flew on wings of love to the rescue and the redemption of fallen man; who took the place, bore the sins, endured the curse; all this for rebel man; who gave His life, His obedience, all He could give- Himself; all this for the poor, the vile, the worthless; who suffered, bled and died- was not this enough? Could He have done more? The law said, "it is enough "; justice said, " I am satisfied "; all this- and who can estimate it? all this for sinners, for rebels, for enemies! Son of God, is it for this they hate You, despise You, reject You? Oh, the enmity of the carnal mind!
If possible, the Word of God gives a yet more awful description of the unrenewed state of man. It is represented under the image of death. The natural condition of the soul is moral death. Thus is it described. Eph. 2. 1: "Dead in trespasses and sins"; and verse 5: "When we were dead in
Sins." Col. 2. 13: "You being dead in your sins." "Through the offence of one, many are dead." This is his awful state- spiritually, legally and (if the quickening power of the eternal Spirit of God does not interpose) judicially dead. 'Insensibility to all spiritual things' marks the unrenewed mind. To things that are 'carnal', it is all feeling, all sensitiveness, all life. Here all its natural faculties are in full vigor and play. The understanding, the will, the affections find ample range for their carnal propensities, powerful incentives to their indulgence, and revel and exult and expatiate amid the world of sensual delight- limited it is confessed- that opens to their view. O yes, all is life here. The mind can think, reason, compare and arrange; the will can select, and the affections pour forth their tender yearnings- and still the pall of spiritual death covers the soul!
What are the symptoms? Is insensibility a mark of death? Then it is here. No spiritual sensation- no feeling- no emotion; all is stagnant, quiet and motionless as the river of death. True, the natural conscience may for a moment be aroused, and the agitated and alarmed soul may exhibit some signs of feeling- and so will a corpse under the influence of galvanic power- the eye may roll, and the lip may move, and every feature in the countenance assume the expression of life, but it is a corpse still. We speak to the soul dead in trespasses and sins; we employ the language of terror, we preach the law; we unfold its authority, its purity, its demands; we announce its curse, its threatening, its fearful doom. We speak of a holy God, a sin-seeing, sin-hating, sin-avenging God; we uncover hell and reveal its darkness, its quenchless flame, its undying worm, the smoke of its eternal torments; we look- but not a bosom heaves, not an eye weeps, not a lip quivers, not a feature wears the aspect of terror- all, all is still, cold and motionless; death is there!
We change our theme. We speak in the language of persuasive tenderness. We preach the Gospel. We proclaim its divinity, its design, its fulness, its freeness, the mercy it promises, the blessings it breathes, the glory it unfolds. We lift up Jesus, as loving sinners, dying for sinners, receiving sinners, saving sinners. We unveil heaven, and bring to view its light, its holiness, its cloudless day, its eternal sunshine, its deep songs of joy, its never-dying, ever-growing bliss; we look- but not a heart throbs, not an eye glistens, not a lip praises, not a countenance beams with delight- all, all is quiet, cold, and silent- for death is there! Awful picture of the unrenewed man!
Does the absence of breath- the vital principle of life- denote a state of death? Then it is here. Prayer is the vital energy of a quickened soul, the spiritual breath of one "born from above." It is the first symptom of spiritual sensibility- the first and strongest evidence that "the Spirit that quickens" has entered the soul, breathing over the whole man the "breath of life." The pulse may at first beat but faintly, even as the first gentle heaving of an infant's bosom; still it is not less the product of the Spirit, the breath of God. "Behold he prays" is the announcement that sends gladness through the church of Christ on earth, and kindles joy among the angels of God in heaven. God the Father hastens to welcome the returning and resuscitated soul, and exclaims, "This my son was dead, and is alive again." It will follow then that the absence of prayer marks the soul yet "dead in sins." What evidence can be more convincing? It is a symptom that cannot mislead. The praying soul is a quickened soul. The prayerless soul is a lifeless soul. The individual that has never truly prayed has never known what one throb of spiritual life is. He may content himself with the external form- he may kneel in the outer court of the tabernacle, and, as the holy Leighton expresses it, "breathe his tune and air of words," and yet continue an utter stranger to true prayer.
Are you such a one? Let the voice of tender affection now lead you to a serious consideration of your real state. Do not mistake the outward form of prayer for the inward spirit of prayer. The soul may be dead, with all the appearance of life. But where there is true prayer, there is real life; for prayer is the ascending of the Divine life to God from whom it came. It came from God, and returns to Him again. As the river flows towards the ocean, or as the infant turns to its mother, the author of its existence and the source of its nourishment, as the "well of water" in a renewed soul "springing up" rises heavenwards- so a soul born of God turns to God, its Author, its Sustainer, its Keeper.

But it is proper that we detain the reader no longer from a consideration of the real nature of the spiritual change. It is the reverse of what we have, with some minuteness and at some length, been describing. The Word of God shall be the speaker here.
IT IS A PASSING FROM DEATH UNTO LIFE. John 5. 24: "Verily, verily, he that hears my word, and believes on him that sent me, has everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life." Col. 2. 13 "And you, being dead in your sins, and the uncircumcision of your flesh, has he quickened." 1 John 3. 14: "We know that we have passed from death unto life."
IT IS A NEW CREATURE. 2 Cor. 5. 17: "Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new." Gal. 6. 15: "For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision avails anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creature."
IT IS A DIVINE NATURE. 2 Pet. 1. 4: "Partakers of the Divine nature." Heb. 12. 10: "Partakers of his holiness."
A NEW BIRTH. John 3. 3: "Except a man be born again (marg. from above) he cannot see the kingdom of God." John 1. 13: "Who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God." 1 Pet. 1. 23: "Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the Word of God, which lives and abides forever."
A TURNING FROM DARKNESS TO LIGHT. 1 Pet. 2. 9: "But you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a peculiar people; that you should show forth the praises of him who has called you out of darkness into his marvellous light."
A CHANGE FROM ENMITY TO LOVE. Col. 1. 21: "And you, who were once alienated, and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now has he reconciled." 1 John 4. 19:
"We love him." Rom. 5. 5: "The love of God is shed abroad in our hearts."
A RESTORATION OF THE DIVINE IMAGE. Col. 3. 10: "And have put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him." Rom. 8. 29: "For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son." 1 John 2. 29: "If you know that he is righteous, you know that every one that does righteousness is born of him."
Thus clearly and emphatically does the Word of God speak when unfolding the nature of true regeneration. Reserving for the next chapter the consideration of the Author and the evidences of this work, we close the present one by holding up more distinctly and prominently to view A FEW OF THE BROAD LINEAMENTS OF THE NEW CREATURE.
The Holy Spirit testifies that "if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature." This testimony is true. For first, he loves and worships a new God. The natural man is a god to himself, and he has many other gods as well. Whether it be self-righteousness, self-gratification, the world, wealth, family, in whatever form it appears, "other lords have dominion over him," to the exclusion of the one true and living God. The nature of the human mind is such that it must love and worship some object supremely. In his state of innocence, Jehovah was the one and supreme object of the creature's love and adoration. Seduced from that state of simple and supreme affection by the tempter's promise that, if they ate of the fruit of the tree forbidden of God, "they should be as gods," in one moment they threw off their allegiance to Jehovah, renounced him as the object of their supreme love, the center of their holiest affections, and became gods to themselves. The temple was ruined, the altar was thrown down, the pure flame was extinguished, God departed and "other lords" entered and took possession of the soul. But what a change does grace produce! It repairs the temple, rebuilds the altar, rekindles the flame and brings God back to man! God in Christ is now the supreme object of his love, his adoration and his worship. The idol self has been cast down, self-righteousness renounced, self-exaltation crucified. The "strong man armed" has entered, cast out the usurper, and, "creating all things new," has resumed his rightful supremacy. The affections, released from their false deity and renewed by the Spirit, now turn to and take up their rest in God. God in Christ! how glorious does He now appear! Truly it is a new God the soul is brought to know and love. Never did it see in Him such beauty, such excellence, such blessedness as it now sees. All other glory fades and dies before the surpassing glory of His character, His attributes, His government, and His law. God in Christ is viewed as reconciled now; enmity ceases; hatred has passed away; opposition throws down its weapons; hard thoughts of His law, and rebellious thoughts of His government, subside; love kindles in the soul and, in one precious Christ the one Mediator, God and the sinner meet, embrace and blend. Truly they become one. God says, "You are mine." The soul responds, "You are my God- other lords have had dominion over me, but henceforth, You only will I serve, You only will I love. My soul follows hard after you; your right hand upholds me. One thing have I desired of the Lord, that will I seek after, that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord, and to inquire in his temple."
God in Christ is his Father now. "I will arise, and go unto my Father," is the first motion of a renewed soul. "Father, I have sinned against You," is the first confession rising from the broken heart. The Father hastens to meet and embrace His child, and clasping him to His bosom exclaims, "This My son was dead, and is alive again." Reconciled, he now looks up to Him truly as his Father. "And because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father." "You shall call me, My Father; and shall not turn away from me." Jer. 3. 19. Does God speak?
it is the voice of a Father he hears. Does God chasten and rebuke? it is from his Father, he feels. Are his hopes disappointed, his plans crossed, his cisterns broken, his gourds withered? "My Father has done it all," he exclaims. Blessed Spirit of adoption! sweet pledge and evidence are You of the new creature.
God in Christ is now the object of confidence and trust. Trust in a reconciled God and Father was no mark and portion of his unrenewed state. It was then trust in self, in its imagined wisdom, strength and goodness. It was then trust in the arm of flesh; in second causes. Now the soul trusts in God, trusts Him at all times and under all circumstances, trusts Him in the darkest hour, under the gloomiest dispensation, trusts Him when His providences look dark and lowering, and God seems to hide Himself; it even trusts Him "though He slay." Now "though the fig tree should not blossom, and there be no fruit in the vines; the labor of the olive fail, and the fields yield no food; though the flocks be cut off from the fold, and there be no herd in the stall, he will rejoice in the Lord, and joy in the God of his salvation." Oh, how safe he feels in God's hands and under His government now! His soul, his body, his family, his business and his cares are completely surrendered, and God is all in all. Reader, this is to be born again.
Second, the regenerate soul possesses and acknowledges a new Savior. How glorious, suitable and precious is Jesus to him now! Not so formerly. Then he had his saviors, his "refuges of lies," his many fatal confidences. Jesus was to him as "a root out of a dry ground, having no form nor loveliness." It may be that he denied His deity, rejected His atonement, scorned His grace and slighted His pardon and His love. Christ is all to him now. He adores Him as the "mighty God, the everlasting Father, the Prince of peace"; as "God over all, blessed forever"; as "God manifest in the flesh"; as stooping to the nature of man, becoming bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh; as offering Himself up as the "propitiation for our sins"; as dying, "the just for the unjust." His righteousness is glorious as "justifying from all things"; His blood is precious as "cleansing from all sin"; His fulness of grace is valued as "supplying all need." Oh, how surpassingly glorious, inimitably lovely and unutterably precious is Jesus to a renewed soul!
Truly a new Savior! "Other lords" he has renounced; "refuges of lies" he has turned his back upon; "false Christs" he no longer follows. He has found another and a better Savior- Jesus, the mighty God, the Redeemer of sinners; the "end of the law for righteousness to every one that believes." All is 'new' to his recovered sight; a new world of glory has floated before his mind. Jesus the Lamb is the light and glory thereof. Never did he suppose there was such beauty in His person, such love in His heart, such perfection in His work, such power and such willingness to save. That blood which was trampled under foot is now precious. That righteousness which was scorned is now glorious. That name which was reviled is now as music to the soul, even "a name that is above every name."
Jesus is his only Savior. Not an allowed confidence has he out of Christ. The covenant of "dead works" he has renounced. The Spirit, having brought him out of and away from it, has led him into the covenant of grace, the substance and stability and glory of which is Jesus. On the broad basis of Immanuel's finished, atoning work he rests his whole soul; and the more he presses the foundation, the more he leans upon the "corner-stone," the stronger and the more able to sustain him does he find it. True, he feels a self-righteous principle closely adhering to him all his journey through the wilderness. When he prays, it is there; when he speaks, it is there; when he labors, it is there; when he reflects, it is there: he detects it when suspicion of its existence would be most at rest. But in the sober moments of his judgment, when prostrate beneath the cross and looking up to God through Jesus, this principle is searched out, abhorred, confessed and mourned over; and with the eye of faith upon a suffering Savior the language of his expanding heart is,
"Other refuge have I none,
Hangs my helpless soul on You."

Third, new and enlarged views of the Holy Spirit mark a regenerate mind. Having received the Holy Spirit as a Quickener, he feels the need of Him now as a Teacher, a Sanctifier, a Comforter and a Sealer. As a Teacher, discovering to him more of the hidden evil of the heart, more knowledge of God, of His word and of His Son. As a Sanctifier, carrying forward the work of grace in the soul, impressing more deeply on the heart the Divine image, and bringing every thought and feeling and word into sweet, holy and filial obedience to the law of Jesus. As a Comforter, leading him in the hour of his deep trial to Christ; comforting, by unfolding the sympathy and tenderness of Jesus, and the exceeding preciousness and peculiar fitness of the many promises with which the word of truth abounds for the consolation of the Lord's afflicted. As a Sealer, impressing upon his heart the sense of pardon, acceptance, and adoption; and Himself entering, as the "pledge of the inheritance, until the redemption of the purchased possession." Oh, what exalted views does he now have of the blessed and eternal Spirit- of His personal glory, His work, His offices, His influences, His love, tenderness, and faithfulness! The ear is open to the softest whisper of His voice; the heart expands to the gentlest impression of His sealing, sanctifying influence. Remembering that he is "a temple of the Holy Spirit," he desires so to walk- humbly, softly, watchfully and prayerfully. Avoiding every thing that would "grieve the Spirit," resigning every known sin that would dishonor and cause Him to withdraw; the one single aim of his life is to walk so as to please God, that "God in all things may be glorified."

Fourth, a new spring of action is a distinguished feature of the renewed man which must not be overlooked. Every unconverted man has his rule of action; or, in other words, some great governing principle, which is his rule and standard in all that he does. The controlling principle of an unrenewed mind is SELF. His rule is to adopt such a course, and to do such things, as either gratify or elevate himself. Beyond this narrow circle he never moves. Other and more spiritual motives he is a stranger to. But quickened by the Spirit, "born of God," "created anew in Christ Jesus," the will of God is now his rule of action, the glory of God his aim, and the love of Christ his constraining motive. "The expulsive power of a new affection" has found a home and a dwelling place in his heart; and when his own will comes into competition with God's will, under the holy sway of this "new affection"- the love of Christ- self is renounced, yes swallowed up in God, and God in Christ is all in all.

Fifth, it would be an imperfect enumeration of some of the strong features of the new creature did we omit to notice the growing nature and tendency of the vital principle of grace thus implanted in the heart of the regenerate. Nothing more strikingly and truly proves the reality, we would say the divinity, of the work within, than the growing energy and holy tendency that ever accompany it. It is the property of that which has life in itself, to increase- to multiply itself. The seed cast into the earth will germinate. Presently will appear the tender sprout; this will advance to the young sapling, and this in time to the gigantic tree with its overshadowing branches and richly laden with fruit. Obeying the law of its nature, it aspires to that perfection which be longs to it. It must grow. Nothing can prevent it but such a wound as will injure the vital principle, or the cutting of it down entirely. The life of God in the soul of man contains the principle of growth. He that is not advancing- adding grace to grace, strength to strength; fruitful in every good word and work; increasing in the knowledge of God, of his own heart, of the preciousness, fulness and all-sufficiency of Jesus; and in Divine conformity "growing up into Christ in all things"- has great reason to suspect the absence of the Divine life in his soul. There may be much that suggests a resemblance to the new birth; there may be the portrait finely executed, the marble statue exquisitely chiseled, but there is not the living man, "the new creature." We can expect no increase of perfection in a finished picture or in a piece of statuary; that which has not life in it cannot grow. This is self-evident.
An individual may look like a believer, and even die, with a false peace, like the righteous, and all the while retain his dwelling among the tombs. But the spirit we are now considering is that of a man truly "born again." Phil. 3. 12-14: "Not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect: but I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus. Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark." O holy resolve of a regenerate man! Here is the springing up of the well of living water in the heart. Here is the turning of the soul to God. See how the fountain rises! See how the flame ascends! It is the mighty energy of God the Holy Spirit drawing the soul upward, heavenward, Godwards.
Let not the Christian reader close this chapter with a burdened heart. Let no dear child of God "write hard and bitter things against himself" as he reads this last sentence. Let him not come to any hasty, unbelieving, doubting and God-dishonoring conclusions. What are you to yourself? worthless- vile- empty? What is Jesus to you? precious lovely- all your salvation and all your desire? What is sin to you? the most hateful thing in the world? And what is holiness? the most lovely, the most longed for? What is the throne of grace to you? the most attractive spot? And the cross? the sweetest resting-place in the universe? What is God to you? your God and Father- the spring of all your joys- the fountain-head of all your bliss- the center where your affections meet? Is it so? Then you are born again- then you are a child of God- then you shall never die eternally. Cheer up, precious soul! the day of your redemption draws near. Those low views of yourself- that brokenness, that inward mourning, that secret confession, that longing for more spirituality, more grace, more devotedness and more love does but prove the existence, reality and growth of God's work within you. God the Holy Spirit is there, and these are but the fruits and evidences of His indwelling. Look up, then, reader, and let the thought cheer you- that soul never perished that felt itself to be vile, and Jesus to be precious!

Thus have we endeavored to unfold some of the prominent and essential attributes of the great work of regeneration. The next chapter will exhibit the Author of the work, and a more experimental and practical view of its nature and tendency. And may the anointing of the Holy Spirit rest upon the reader while perusing it.

"The Soul after Conversion"

That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. John 3:6

Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. John 3:6

Humans can reproduce only human life, but the Holy Spirit gives new life from heaven. John 3:6

No truth shines with clearer luster in the Divine word than that salvation, from first to last, is of God. It is convincingly and beautifully shown to be the work of the glorious Trinity in unity: each person of the Godhead occupying a distinct and peculiar office, and yet all engaged upon, and, as it were coalescing in this mighty undertaking. The Father is represented as giving His elect in covenant engagement to His Son, John 17. 2. The Son is represented as assuming in eternity the office of Surety, and in the "fulness of time" appearing in human form, and suffering for their sins upon the cross, Rom. 8. 3. The Holy Spirit is represented as convincing of sin, working faith in the heart, and leading to the atoning blood, John 16. 8. Thus is salvation shown to be the entire work of the Triune God, distinct in office, yet one in purpose. We have now more immediately to do with that department in the stupendous plan which is ascribed especially and peculiarly to God the eternal Spirit.
We have already viewed the sinner in the various phases of his unconverted state. How awful did that state appear! The understanding, the will, the affections were all dark, perverted and alienated from God, with enmity and death marking every unconverted man. We have seen this state reversed; the temple restored, and God dwelling again with men; the heart brought back to its lawful Sovereign, and clinging to Him with all the grasp of its renewed affections; darkness succeeded by light, enmity by love, ingratitude by praise- and the whole soul turning with the rapidity and certainty of the magnetic needle to God, the center of its high and holy attraction. To whose power are we to attribute this marvellous change? To the sinner himself? That cannot be; for the very principle that led to the first step in departure from God, and which still urges him on in every successive one, supplies him with no adequate power or motive to return. To the mere exercise of some other human agency? That is equally impossible; for in the whole empire of created intelligence God has nowhere delegated such power and authority to a single individual. We must look for the secret of this spiritual change outside of the creature, away from men and angels, and seek it in God the eternal Spirit. God looks within Himself for the power, and He finds it there, even in His own omnipotent Spirit. This is the great and spiritual truth we are now to consider: regeneration, the sole and special work of the Holy Spirit.
The doctrine that assigns to human power an efficient part in the new birth is based upon the supposition that there is in man an inherent principle, the natural bias of which is to holiness; and that, because God has created him a rational being, endowed with a will, understanding, conscience, affections and other intellectual and moral properties, therefore the simple, unaided, voluntary exercise of these powers- a simple choosing of that which the conscience and the understanding point out to be good in view of certain motives presented to the mind- is all that is required to bring the soul into the possession of the Divine nature. With all meekness and affection, yet uncompromising regard for the glory of God, would we expose, on scriptural grounds alone, the fallacy and the dangerous tendency of this hypothesis.
Begging the reader to bear in mind that which in the previous chapter has been advanced touching the actual state of the natural man, we would earnestly call his attention to the following passages. John 3. 6: "That which is born of the flesh is flesh." It is, morally, nothing but flesh. It is carnal, corrupt, depraved, sinful and has no discernment or perception whatever of spiritual things. This is the sense in which the term flesh, as opposed to spirit, is to be interpreted in God's Word. It signifies the corruption of nature. Gal. 5. 17 "For the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other." Again, Rom. 8. 5-8: "For those who are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh; but those who are after the Spirit the things of the Spirit. For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace. Because the carnal mind is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be. So then those who are in the flesh cannot please God." What further proof do we need of the natural sinfulness and impotence of man? And yet the powerful testimony borne to this by God's Word is by no means exhausted.
Do we speak of his mind? Eph. 4. 18: "Having the under
standing darkened." Of his knowledge? 1 Cor. 2. 14: "The natural man receives not the things of the Spirit of God; for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them,
because they are spiritually discerned." Of his heart? Eccles. 9. 3: "The heart of the sons of men is full of evil." Of
his love to God? Rom. 8. 7: "Enmity." Of his ability to
believe? John 12. 39: " They could not believe." Of his power to acknowledge Christ? I Cor. 12. 3: "No man can say that Jesus is the Lord, but by the Holy Spirit." Thus minute, clear and solemn is the testimony of the Holy Spirit Himself, touching the real amount of human power brought to bear upon the production of spiritual life in the soul of man.
So far from cooperating with the Spirit in the new creation, the natural man presents every resistance and opposition to it. There is not only a passive aversion but an active resistance to the work. The stream of man's natural inclinations, as we have fully proved from the Scriptures of truth, runs counter to all holiness. A strong and steady current has set in against God, and all that God loves. The pride of reason, the perverseness of the will, the enmity of the mind, the heart's love of sin, all are up in arms against the entrance of the Holy Spirit. Satan, the great enemy of God and man, has been too long in quiet and undisturbed possession of the soul to resign his dominion without a strong and a fearful struggle to maintain it. When the Spirit of God knocks at the door of the heart, every ally is summoned by the "strong man armed" to "resist" the Spirit, and bar and bolt each avenue to His entrance. All is alarm, agitation and commotion within. There is a danger of being dispossessed, and every argument and persuasion and contrivance must be resorted to, in order to retain the long undisputed throne. The world is summoned to throw out its most enticing bait- ambition, wealth, literary and political distinction, pleasure in her thousand forms of fascination and power- all are made to pass, as in review, before the mind. The flesh exerts its power- the love of sin is appealed to, affection for some long- cherished lust, some long- indulged habit, some " fond amusement," some darling taste- these, inspired with new vigor, are summoned to the rescue. Thus Satan, the world, and the flesh, are opposed to the Father, the Son, and the Spirit, in the great work of spiritual regeneration. Oh let no individual be so deceived as to believe that when God the eternal Spirit enters the soul, He finds the temple swept and garnished, and prepared for His reception- that, without the exercise of His own omnipotent and irresistible power, the heart bounds to welcome Him, and reason bows submissively to His government, and the will yields 'an instant and humble compliance. O no! If He that is in the regenerate were not greater and more powerful than he that is in the world, such is the enmity of the heart to God, such the strong power and love of sin, such the supreme control which Satan exerts over the whole empire of man, God would be forever shut out, and the soul forever lost.
But see how clearly regeneration is proved to be the work of the Spirit. A few quotations from His own Word will set the question at rest. Examine the following. "Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God." "It is the Spirit that quickens, the flesh profits nothing." "That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit." "Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Spirit." Other passages show the power exerted in regeneration to be infinite. God says, "A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you a heart of flesh." The same power that called the material creation from nothing into existence, effects the new and spiritual creation. "God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, has shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ." The same power that raised up Jesus from the dead- "And what is the exceeding greatness of his power to us who believe, according to the working of his mighty power, which he wrought in Christ, when he raised him from the dead." We need not multiply proof. God has written it as with a sunbeam, that "we are His workmanship," and that the eternal Spirit is the mighty Agent.

We now proceed to show in what MANNER the blessed Spirit commences, carries forward and sustains this great work in the soul.
First, the commencement of spiritual life is sudden. We are far from confining the Spirit to a certain prescribed order in this or any other part of His work. He is a Sovereign, as we shall presently show, and therefore works according to His own will. But there are some methods He more frequently adopts than others. We would not say that all aspects of conversion is a sudden work. There is a knowledge of sin, conviction of its guilt, repentance before God on account of it; these are frequently slow and gradual in their advance. But the first communication of Divine light and life to the soul is always sudden- sudden and instantaneous as was the creation of natural light. "God said, Let there be light, and there was light." It was but a word, and in an instant chaos rolled away, and every object and scene in nature was bathed in light and glory. Sudden as was the communication of life to Lazarus- "Jesus cried with a loud voice, Lazarus, come forth!" It was but a word, and in an instant "he that was dead came forth, bound hand and foot with grave-clothes." So is it in the first communication of Divine light and life to the soul. The eternal Spirit says, "Let there be light," and in a moment there is light. He speaks again, "Come forth," and "in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, the dead are raised incorruptible, and are changed."
Striking illustrations of the suddenness of the Spirit's operation are afforded in the cases of Saul of Tarsus, and of the thief upon the cross. How sudden was the communication of light and life to their souls! It was no long and previous process of spiritual illumination- it was the result of no lengthened chain of reasoning- no labored argumentation. In a moment, and under circumstances most unfavorable to the change- as we should think- certainly at a period when the rebellion of the heart rose the most fiercely against God, "a light from heaven, above the brightness of the sun," poured its transforming radiance into the mind of the enraged persecutor; and a voice conveying life into the soul reached the conscience of the dying thief. Both were translated from darkness into light, "in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye."
How many who read this page may say, "Thus was it with me! God the eternal Spirit arrested me when my heart's deep rebellion was most up in arms against Him. It was a sudden and a short work, but it was mighty and effectual. It was unexpected and rapid, but deep and thorough. In a moment the hidden evil was brought to view- the deep and dark fountain broken up- all my iniquities passed before me, and all my 'secret sins seemed placed in the light of God's countenance.' My soul sank down in deep mire- yes, hell opened its mouth to receive me."
Do not overlook this wise and gracious method of the blessed Spirit's operation in regeneration. It is instantaneous. The means may have been simple- perhaps it was the loss of a friend- an alarming illness- a word of reproof or admonition dropped from a parent or a companion- the singing of a hymn- the hearing of a sermon- or some text of Scripture winged with His power to the conscience; in the twinkling of an eye, the soul "dead in trespasses and sins" was "quickened," and translated into "newness of life." O blessed work of the blessed and eternal Spirit! O mighty operation! O inscrutable wisdom! What a change has now passed over the whole man! Overshadowed by the Holy Spirit, that which is begotten in the soul is the Divine life, a holy, influential, never-dying principle. Truly he is a new creature, "old things passing away, and all things becoming new."
For this change let it not be supposed that there is, in the subject, any previous preparation. (The author is not affirming that the Holy Spirit has no dealings with a sinner prior to regeneration but that the sinner does nothing to prepare himself for this saving act of God.) There can be no preparation for light or life. What preparation was there in chaos? What preparation was there in the cold clay limbs of Lazarus? What in Paul? What in the dying thief? The work of regeneration is supremely the work of the Spirit. The means may be employed, and are to be employed, in accordance with the Divine purpose, yet are they not to be deified. They are but means, "profiting nothing" without the power of God the Holy Spirit. Regeneration is His work, and not man's.
We have remarked that the first implantation of the Divine life in the soul is sudden. We would however observe that the advance of that work is in most cases gradual. Let this be an encouragement to any who are writing hard and bitter things against themselves in consequence of their little progress. The growth of Divine knowledge in the soul is often slow- the work of much time and of protracted discipline. Look at the eleven disciples- what slow, tardy scholars were they, even though taught immediately from the lips of Jesus; and "who teaches like him?" They drank their knowledge from the very Fountain. They received their light directly from the Sun itself. And yet, with all these superior advantages- the personal ministry, instructions, miracles, and example of our dear Lord, how slow of understanding were they to comprehend, and how "slow of heart to believe," all that He so laboriously, clearly, and patiently taught them!
Yes, the advance of the soul in the Divine life- its knowledge of sin, of the hidden evil, the heart's deep treachery, intricate windings, Satan's subtlety, the glory of the Gospel, the preciousness of Christ, and its own interest in the great salvation- is not the work of a day, nor of a year, but of many days, perhaps many years of deep ploughing, long and often painful discipline, of "windy storm and tempest."
But this life in the soul is not less real, nor less Divine, because its growth is slow and gradual; it may be small and feeble in its degree, yet in its nature it is the life that never dies. The figures and illustrations employed by the Holy Spirit to set forth the character and advance of His own work in the soul, are frequently such as convey the idea of feebleness. Thus, Isa. 40. 11: "He shall feed his flock like a shepherd: he shall gather the lambs with his arm, and carry them in his bosom, and shall gently lead those that are with young." Can language more strikingly and more touchingly unfold the feebleness and often burdened state of God's dear saints? Again, ch. 42. 3: "A bruised reed shall he not break, and the smoking flax shall he not quench." Had it been described as a "reed" only, that had been deeply expressive of its weakness; but a "bruised reed," seems to unfold the very lowest degree of feebleness. Had this gracious work been compared to "flax" merely, we would have thought it small indeed; but "smoking flax" seems to represent it as "ready to die." And still both are the product of the eternal Spirit; never shall the "bruised reed" be quite broken, nor the "smoking flax" be quite extinguished; the Lord will tenderly bind up and strengthen the one, and will carefully watch over and nourish the other. How many of the Lord's beloved ones, the children of godly parents brought up in the ways of God, are at a loss in reviewing the map of their pilgrimage, to remember the starting point of their spiritual life! They well know that they left the city of destruction, that by a strong and a mighty arm they were brought out of Egypt; but so gently, so imperceptibly, so softly and so gradually were they led- "first a thought, then a desire, then a prayer"- that they could no more discover when the first dawning of Divine life took place in their soul than they could tell the instant when natural light first broke upon chaos. Still it is real. It is no fancy that he has inherited an evil principle in the heart; it is no fancy that that principle has been subdued by grace. It is no fancy that he was once a child of darkness; it is no fancy that he is now a child of light. He may mourn in secret over his little advance, his tardy progress, his weak faith, his small grace, his strong corruption, his many infirmities, his startings aside like "a deceitful bow," yet he can say, "though I am the 'chief of sinners,' and the 'least of all saints'; though I see within so much to abase me, and without, so much to mourn over, yet this 'one thing I know, that, whereas I was blind, now I see.' I see that which I never saw before- a hatefulness in sin and a beauty in holiness; I see a vileness and emptiness in myself, and a preciousness and fulness in Jesus." Do not forget then, reader, that feeble grace is yet real grace. If the soul but "hungers and thirsts," if it "touches but the hem," it shall be saved.
We must also point out the sovereignty of the Spirit's operations in the production of this work. There is a sovereignty in all the works and dealings of God. If it be asked what God's own definition of His sovereignty is, we refer the inquirer to His words. "I will have mercy upon whom I will have mercy." Here is the Sovereign! How like Himself he speaks! He carries forward His gracious purposes of infinite wisdom, and love- chooses or rejects- reveals or withholds, "working all things after the counsel of his own will," "giving no account," either to angels or to men, "of any of his matters." Now, notice the unfolding of sovereignty in the operations of the blessed Spirit. Thus did Christ declare it. John 3. 8: "The wind blows where it wills, and you hear the sound thereof, but can not tell where it comes, and where it goes: so is every one that is born of the Spirit." Here is His sovereignty. Mark how striking is the figure. The wind bids defiance to man's governing power. It is as irresistible in its influence as it is mighty in its strength.
We cannot command it nor can we control it. It is alike out
of our power to summon as it is to soothe it. It comes, we know not whence, it goes, we know not whither. "So is every one that is born of the Spirit." We do not say that the Spirit is not resisted- He is resisted, strongly and perseveringly. But He is not overpowered. All the enmity and carnality of the heart rises in direct opposition to Him; but when bent upon a mission of love, when in accordance with the eternal purpose He comes to save, not all the powers on earth or in hell can effectually resist Him. Like the mighty wind, He bears down all opposition, sweeps away every barrier, overcomes every difficulty, and the sinner, "made willing in the day of His power," is brought to the feet of Jesus, there meekly and gratefully to sit, "clothed and in his right mind." His power, who can withstand? Whether He speaks in the "still small voice" of tender, persuasive love, or whether He comes in the "mighty rushing wind" of deep and overwhelming conviction, His influence is unquenchable, His power is irresistible. He "effectually works" in those who believe.
But His operation is as sovereign as it is mighty. He comes to whom He will; He comes when He will; He comes in the mode He will. We cannot bring Him by an effort of our own will, nor can we by an effort of our will compel Him to depart. He blows where He wills; we hear the sound, we see the effects; but how He works, why He works, and why in a particular way He works, He does not reveal to mortals. Even so, O blessed and eternal Spirit, for so it seems good in Your sight.
We will not expand this part of the subject by citing the numerous examples of this truth which abound in the Scriptures of truth. The reader may refer to them at his leisure, if they do not spontaneously recur to his recollection at this moment. We would merely now urge him to examine the cases of Jacob and Esau- the publican and Pharisee- Saul of Tarsus, and the men who journeyed with him- the two thieves upon the cross, and see if the sovereignty of the Divine choice and the operation of the eternal Spirit are not written out in their histories as with a sunbeam.
Is the reader a child of God? Then we will not confine him to the word of Divine truth. We summon him as a witness to the sovereignty of the blessed Spirit's operation. "You are my witnesses," says God. Who and what made you to
differ? You have been taken out of your family, your kindred, your friends, your companions. From this circle it may be that you alone have been selected, called, and made a child
of grace, an heir of glory. The others, where are they? Still dead in trespasses and sins. Where are they? Living in the world and to the world, lovers of pleasure, lovers of self, lovers of sin, hating God, rejecting Christ, and warring against the Spirit speaking to them in the Word, through providences, and by the conscience. Where are they? Bursting through every restraint, and bending their footsteps down to the doom of the lost. Where are they? Gone, many of them, into eternity- past the confines of mercy, "in hell lifting up their eyes, being in torments." And what are you? A sinner saved by grace, a sinner chosen and called, pardoned and justified, washed and clothed, adopted and sanctified, brought to the foot of the cross, constrained to welcome Jesus, to take up the cross and to follow Him. O the electing love of God! O the distinguishing grace of Jesus! O the sovereign operation of the eternal Spirit! "Who are you, O man, that replies against God?" Bow down to the sovereignty of His will; silently wonder and adore Him who says, "Be still, and know that I am God."
Has my reader hitherto found this doctrine a "hard saying"? Has he been prone to object to it and pass it by? I would, with all meekness and affection, urge him seriously, candidly and prayerfully to examine it by the light of the Divine Word. Let him not object to it, lest he be found to "fight against God"; let him not pass it by, lest he "grieve the Spirit," and rob his own soul of an inestimable blessing. O precious truth! It stains the pride of human merit- it lays the axe at the root of self- it humbles and abases- it empties and lays "low in a low place," and ascribes all the praise, honor and glory, might, majesty and dominion of the new creation in the soul, to the Triune God.
Intimately connected with the sovereignty, is the free grace of the Spirit's operation. No worthiness of the creature allures Him to the sinner's breast. What worthiness can be supposed to exist; what merit can there be in an adjudged criminal, an outlawed rebel, a poor insolvent, one whose mind is enmity, whose heart is swelling with treason against God, His government, and His Son, one who owes ten thousand talents, and has "nothing to pay"? None whatever. And that the eternal Spirit should enter the heart of such a one- convincing of sin- subduing the hatred- breaking down the rebellion- leading to Jesus, and sealing pardon and peace upon the conscience- oh! what but free grace- unmerited mercy- sovereign love, could thus have constrained Him? And as He exercises His sovereignty in conversion, let none suppose that that which decides Him in the selection of His subject is anything more worthy, or more lowly, which He may discover in one more than in another. O no! He often selects the poorest, the vilest, the most depraved and fallen, as if utterly to explode all idea of human merit, and to reflect in its richest luster the free grace of His heart. Behold then, the grace of the blessed Spirit's operation; He comes, He knocks, He unbars, He enters, and creates all things new, irrespective of any merit of the creature, if merit that may be called which is so wretched and poor that language fails adequately to describe it. O the riches of His grace! How it is magnified- how it is illustrated- how it shines in the calling of a poor sinner! "Lord, what did You see in me," exclaims the convinced soul, "that moved You with compassion, that drew You to my breast, and that constrained You to make me Your temple? Nothing on my part, but poverty, wretchedness, and misery- on Your part, nothing but love, sovereignty, and unmerited favor." Reader, do not turn from this glorious feature of the blessed Spirit's operation- it glorifies God, while it humbles man- it exalts Jesus on the ruins of the creature. Poor in spirit! blessed are you! You are rich in your poverty- you are exalted in your lowliness. All the love that is in God- all the grace that is in Jesus- and all the tenderness that is in the Spirit, all, all is for you. Lift up your head then, and let your heart sing for gladness. Though poor, though nothing, though despised, though worthless in your own eyes- ah! and worthless in the eyes of the vaunting Pharisee- yet, for you, Jehovah pours out all the treasures of His grace- gives His well-beloved Son, and sends His blessed Spirit. "All things are yours," you poor in spirit, you broken in heart- "all things are yours"- how vast the compass of your blessings! "All things are yours, for you are Christ's, and Christ is God's." Oh, could you know how dear you are to the heart of God- could you know with what tenderness Jesus yearns over you- how the blessed Spirit delights to make you His dwelling-place, you would rejoice in that you are made low. "For thus says the high and lofty One that inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy; I dwell in the high and holy place, with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite ones." (Isa. 57. I5.)
The operation of the Spirit is effectual. As we have necessarily touched upon this feature in former parts of the chapter, especially in the preceding sentences, it seems to demand a less extended unfolding here. Still, it presents an important and glorious aspect of the Spirit's work, upon which we cannot reflect without clearer, more elevated and sanctifying views of His operations in the work of regeneration. The reader will not need to be reminded that the great change which takes place in the soul at regeneration is frequently termed by the Holy Spirit, in various parts of His Word, a calling. A reference to a few passages will prove it. Gal. 1. 15: Paul speaks of his being "called by grace." Rom. 8. 28: The saints of God are spoken of as the "called according to his purpose." I Pet. 2. 9: "Called out of darkness." Rom. 8. 30: "Whom he did predestinate, them he also called." Jude 1: "Preserved in Jesus Christ, and called." 2 Tim. 1. 9 "Who has called us with a holy calling." Heb. 3. 1: "Partakers of the heavenly calling." 2 Pet. 2. 10: "Make your calling and election sure." Thus is it clear that he who is raised from the dead, brought out of darkness, and born again is called. The blessed Agent by whom he is called is the eternal Spirit. "It is the Spirit that quickens," and calls. The point with which we have now especially to deal is the effectual nature of His calling.
There is an external and also an internal call of the Spirit. The external call is thus alluded to. Prov. 1. 24: "I have
called, and you refused." Matt. 22. 14: "Many are called, but few are chosen." This outward call of the Spirit is made in various ways: in the Word, in the glorious proclamation of the gospel, through the providences of God- those of mercy and those of judgment- the warnings of ministers, the admonitions of friends, and, not less powerful, the awakening of the natural conscience. By these means does the Holy Spirit "call sinners to repentance." In this sense, every man who hears the gospel, who is encircled with the means of grace, and who bears about with him a secret but ever-faithful monitor, is called by the Spirit. The existence of this call places the sinner in an attitude of fearful responsibility; and the rejection of this call exposes him to a still more fearful doom. God has never poured out His wrath upon man without first extending the olive-branch of peace. Mercy has invariably preceded judgment. "I have called, and you have refused." "All day long I have stretched forth my hands." "Behold, I stand at the door, and knock." He reasons, He argues, He expostulates with the sinner. "Come, let us reason together," is His invitation. "Bring your strong arguments." He instructs, warns and invites; He places before the mind the most solemn considerations, urged by duty and interest; He presses His own claims and appeals to the individual interests of the soul, but all seems ineffectual. Oh, what a view does this give us of the patience of God towards the rebellious! That He should stretch out His hand to a sinner- that, instead of wrath, there should be mercy- instead of cursing, there should be blessing- that, instead of instant punishment, there should be the patience and forbearance that invites, allures and "reasons." Oh,
who is a God like unto our God? "I have called, and you refused; I have stretched out my hand, and no man regarded."
But, there is the special, direct and effectual call of the Spirit, in the elect of God, without which all other calling is in vain God says, "I will put my Spirit within them." Christ says, "The hour is coming, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God; and those who hear shall live." And in the following passages reference is made to the
effectual operation of God the Spirit. Eph. 3. 7. "Whereof I was made a minister, according to the gift of the grace of God given unto me by the effectual working of his power." 1 Thess. 2. 13: "The word of God which effectually works in you that believe." Thus, through the instrumentality of the truth, the Spirit is represented as effectually working in the soul. When He called before, there was no inward, supernatural, secret power accompanying the call to the conscience. Now there is an energy put forth with the call which awakens the conscience, breaks the heart, convinces the judgment, opens the eye of the soul and pours a new and an alarming sound upon the hitherto deaf ear. Notice the blessed effects. The scales fall from the eyes, the veil is torn from the mind, the deep fountains of evil in the heart are broken up, the sinner sees himself lost and undone- without pardon, without a righteousness, without acceptance, without a God, without a Savior, without a hope! Awful condition! "What shall I do to be saved?" is his cry: "I am a wretch undone! I look within me, all is dark and vile; I look around me, everything seems but the image of my woe; I look above me, I see only an angry God: whichever way I look, there is hell! And were He now to send me there, just and right would He be." But blessed be God, no poor soul that ever uttered such language, prompted by such feelings, ever died in despair. That faithful Spirit who begins the good work, effectually carries it on and completes it. Presently, He leads him to the cross of Jesus- unveils to his eye of glimmering faith, a suffering, wounded, bleeding, dying Savior- and yet a Savior with stretched-out arms! That Savior speaks- oh, did ever music sound so melodious? "All this I do for you- this cross for you- these sufferings for you- this blood for you- these stretched-out arms for you. Come unto Me, all you that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest- him that comes to Me, I will in no way cast out- look unto Me, and be saved- only believe. Are you lost? I can save you. Are you guilty? I can cleanse you. Are you poor? I can enrich you. Have you
sunk to the depths? I can raise you. Are you naked? I can clothe you. Have you nothing to bring with you- no price,
no money, no goodness, no merit? I can and will take you to Myself, just as you are; poor, naked, penniless, worthless, for such I came to seek, such I came to call, for such I came to die." "Lord, I believe," exclaims the poor, convinced soul,
"help my unbelief. You are just the Savior that I need. I needed one that could and would save me with all my vileness, with all my rags, with all my poverty- I needed one that would save me fully, save me freely, save me as an act of mere unmerited, undeserved grace- I have found Him whom my soul loves- and will be His through time, and His through eternity." Thus effectually does the blessed Spirit call a sinner, by His special, direct and supernatural power, out of darkness into marvellous light. "I will work," says God, "and who shall let it?" (marg. turn it back).
This great work the Holy Spirit sustains in the soul. As he is the Author, so he is the Supporter. He breathed the spiritual life, and He keeps, and nourishes, and watches over it. Let it not be supposed that there is anything in this life that could keep itself. There is no principle in Divine grace that can keep this life from decline and decay. If it is not watched over, nourished, sustained, and revived perpetually by the same omnipotent power that implanted it there, it is liable to constant decline. What experienced child of God has not felt this? Where is the believer who has not been made, solemnly and painfully, to learn it? That there is not a grace of the Spirit in him, but that grace needs, at times, greatly invigorating; not a particle of faith, but it needs strengthening; not a lesson, but he needs to re-learn; not a precept, but requires to be re-written upon his heart. Now this is the work of our ever-watchful, ever-loving, ever-faithful Spirit. He watches over, with a sleepless, loving eye, the work He has wrought in the soul. Not a moment but He has His eye upon it. By night and by day, in summer and in winter, when it decays and when it revives, He is there, its Guardian and its Protector, its Author and its Finisher.
And how does He nourish it? Spiritually. As the life is spiritual, so the support is spiritual. 1 Pet. 2. 2: "As newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the word, that you may
grow thereby." 1 Tim. 4. 6: "Nourished up in the words of faith and of good doctrine." How does He nourish it? By leading the soul to Jesus, the substance of all spiritual truth. By unfolding His fulness of all grace, strength and sanctification. By leading constantly to His blood and righteousness. By teaching the believer the sweet lesson of living outside of himself, his convictions, his enjoyments, his fruitfulness; upon Christ, and Christ alone. What is there in a child of God, in his best estate, that can supply adequate nourishment and support for this principle of Divine life? He has no resources within himself. He cannot live upon evidences; how soon they are clouded! He cannot grow upon spiritual enjoyments; how soon they are gone! He cannot find nourishment in any part of the work of the Spirit within him, precious and glorious as that work is. Christ is the "true bread" that sustains the life of God in the soul of man. Jesus said, "I am the living bread which came down from heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live forever." Again, "As the living Father has sent me, and I live by the Father: so he that eats me, even he shall live by me." The renewed soul only lives, as it lives on Jesus; it only advances, grows, and "brings forth much fruit," as it draws its vigor, its nourishment, its support and fruitfulness simply and entirely from Christ. These again are His words, "Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can you, except you abide in me." Reader, it may be that for a long time you have been looking to yourself for spiritual nourishment, for strength, for comfort and for fruitfulness. And the more you have looked within yourself, the more emptiness, poverty and barrenness you have discovered. And now the blessed Spirit, the nourisher as He is the author of the life within you, may give you such a new and enlarged view of Jesus as you have never had before. It may be that He will unfold to your soul such a fulness in Him- strength for your weakness, wisdom for your folly, grace for every corruption, tenderness and sympathy for every trial- as will bring you out of your bondage, introduce you into a "large room," and cause you to exclaim, "Thanks be unto God for his unspeakable gift!" Thus does the Spirit nourish and sustain the work He has wrought in the soul. He leads to Jesus.
I must not omit to notice the use of sanctified trial as one means frequently made, by the Spirit, subservient to this great end. In order to stir up His own grace within us, the Lord often places us under some heavy affliction. Did He not thus deal with his servant job, and with a host more of the Old Testament saints? Messenger upon messenger arrives, and billow upon billow rolls, but bearing the precious tidings- though they may speak roughly, as Joseph did to his brethren- of God's love to our souls, that our Brother lives, that Joseph is alive and loves us still, that there is plenty of food in Egypt, and that all we need do is simply to come and partake of it. What new life the news infuses into us! What new energy! What an impulse, what a new spring to hope,
faith, joy and wondering gratitude! Blessed result when our afflictions are thus sanctified, when they arouse our souls, when they impart new energy to prayer, new vigor to faith, a new spring to hope, a new thirst for holiness, and a new motive and encouragement to trust in God. We can then truly say, "It has been good for me that I have been afflicted." Do not despise then, tried and afflicted soul, the chastenings of the Lord. He may now be about to communicate some of the most costly blessings of your life. Who can tell what mercies now await you, what covenant favors are in reserve, what new views of truth, what enlarged views of Christ, what an abiding sense of His love, what advances in holiness your covenant God and Father may, through this painful yet needed discipline, be on the eve of making you the happy partaker of? Then look up and say, "I will trust him, and not be afraid. Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him." In this way does the Spirit often stir up, strengthen and invigorate the Divine life in the soul by sanctifying the discipline of the covenant.

Although the limits assigned to this chapter have already been exceeded, we cannot properly close it without a brief exposition of some of the EFFECTS OR FRUITS OF REGENERATION as manifest in the spirit and life of a believer. We have incidentally touched upon some of them as we have passed along, yet there remains a few essential and prominent marks to be considered.
The first evidence we would mention is holiness. This appears to be the order of the Holy Spirit. 1 John 3. 9: "Whoever is born of God does not commit sin; for his seed remains in him: and he cannot sin, because he is born of God." This is a solemn and important point. None more so. When we think how Satan can counterfeit God's work; when we remember how much false, spurious Christianity there is in the world, yes, even in the professing world, we cannot but feel peculiar solemnity here. But God has stamped His own work with His own seal, and a mind taught of the Spirit cannot fail to recognize it.
Let us repeat the passage: "Whoever is born of God does not commit sin; for his seed remains in him: and he cannot sin, because he is born of God." These words have received two interpretations, which we believe are equally true. The more general one is that he who is born of God does not willingly sin. Having "put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness," he cannot sin with the full consent and concurrence of the will. He hates it, he fights against it, he resists it. But, it may be inquired, is not all sin an act of the will? We reply, not the renewed will. The apostle speaks of two wills in a believer, or rather, the same will under two opposite influences. "When I want to do good, I don't. And when I try not to do wrong, I do it anyway. But if I am doing what I don't want to do, I am not really the one doing it; the sin within me is doing it." Romans 7:19-20. Few will question that Paul here speaks of himself as a regenerate man. And yet he refers to two antagonistic principles dwelling in him; one is on the side of holiness, the other on the side of sin. "What I hate, that I do." No man can possibly hate sin, unless he is "born of the Spirit." "The fear of the Lord is to hate evil." And still he says, "what I hate"- the sin that is so abhorrent to me, "that I do." Is there volition in the act? True philosophy demands that we reply, "Yes." Every sin must be voluntary; if not so, it cannot be sin. Is there the concurrence and consent of the renewed will in the act? True grace demands that we reply, "No." "For what I hate"- there is the mark of the regenerate man, "that do I"- there is the act of the will under the influence of indwelling sin.
But, there is another and a stronger interpretation of which the passage is susceptible. It is this. He that is born of God, as such does not sin at all; there is in him a regenerate soul, an indwelling, living principle of grace and holiness, whose
natural and constant bias is to holiness. "He (the new man)
cannot sin, because he is born of God." "He cannot sin."
Why? "Because his seed remains in him." And what is
that seed? 1 Peter 1. 23, "incorruptible"- being born again, "not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible." In accordance with Christ's own words, "That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit." It is spiritual, holy, "from above," "the Divine nature"- it "CANNOT sin, because it is born of God."
Here then is the great evidence of regeneration. Let not the reader mistake it. Aware how tender the conscience of a dear child of God often is- how acutely alive to every view of truth that appears condemnatory, how prone to self-accusation, thinking hard and bitter things, calling that nature which is grace, extracting sometimes from the very consolations of God's word, material for self-condemnation- We would here tenderly caution the Christian reader against a misinterpretation of what we have advanced in the preceding sections. We are far from asserting that sin does not still exist in the regenerate. Paul himself speaks in Rom. 7. 20 of the "sin that dwells in me." The entire testimony of God's Word and the histories of all the saints recorded in its pages go to confirm the doctrine that indwelling sin remains in a believer. The Lord has wisely, we must acknowledge, so ordained it that sin should yet remain in His people to the very last step of their journey. And for this he has graciously provided His word as a storehouse of promises, consolations, cautions, rebukes, admonitions, all referring to the indwelling sin of a believer. The covenant of grace- all its sanctifying, strengthening, invigorating and animating provision- all was designed for this very state. The gift of Jesus- all His fulness of grace, wisdom, strength, and sympathy, His death, resurrection, ascension and advocacy- all this was given with a special view to the pardon and subjection of sin in a child of God. Perfect holiness, entire sinlessness, is a state not attainable in this life. He who has settled down with the conviction that he has arrived at such a stage, has great reason to suspect the soundness, or at least the depth of his real knowledge of himself. He, indeed, must be but imperfectly acquainted with his own heart who dreams of perfect sanctification on this side of glory. With all meekness and tenderness, we would earnestly exhort such an individual to review his position well, to bring his heart to the touchstone of God's Word, to pray over the seventh chapter of the epistle to the Romans, and to ascertain if there are not periods when the experience of an inspired apostle, once "caught up to the third heaven," will not apply to him- "I am carnal, sold under sin"- the "sin that dwells in me." The writings and the preaching of men, mistaken views of truth- yes, I would add, even what was once a sincere and ardent desire for sanctification- any one of these, or all combined, may have led to the adoption of such a notion as sinless perfection, the nature and tendency of which is to engender a spirit of human pride, self-trust and self-complacency; to throw the mind off its guard, and the heart off its prayerful vigilance, and thus render the man an easy prey to that subtle and ever-prowling enemy, of whose "devices" (and this is not the least one) no believer should be "ignorant."
O yes, sin, often deep and powerful, dwells in a child of God. It is the source of his greatest grief, the cause of his acutest sorrow. Remove this, and sorrow in the main would be a stranger to his breast. Go and ask that weary, dejected, weeping believer the cause of his broken spirit, his sad countenance, his tears. "Is it," you inquire, "that you are poor in this world?" "No." "Is it that you are friendless?"
"No." "Is it that worldly prosperity does not shine upon you- your plans are blasted- your circumstances are trying- your prospects are dark?" "No." "What is it then that grieves your spirit, clouds your countenance, and that causes those clasped hands and uplifted eye?" "It is sin," the soul replies, "that dwells in me; sin is my burden, sin is my sorrow, sin is my grief, sin is my confession, sin is my humiliation before my Father and God; rid me of this, and the outward pressure would scarcely be felt." Truly does the apostle say- and let the declaration never be read apart from its accompanying promise- "If we say we have no sin, we are only fooling ourselves and refusing to accept the truth. But if we confess our sins to him, he is faithful and just to forgive us and to cleanse us from every wrong. If we claim we have not sinned, we are calling God a liar and showing that his word has no place in our hearts. My dear children, I am writing this to you so that you will not sin. But if you do sin, there is someone to plead for you before the Father. He is Jesus Christ, the one who pleases God completely." 1 John 1:8-2:1
Again, we beg the reader to note this great evidence of regeneration: "Whoever is born of God does not commit sin." He does not commit it with the total, absolute, and complete assent and concurrence of the renewed will. He does not give himself over to sin "with greediness." "He would do good." He hates sin. Grace reigns, not sin. Sin dwells in him, but does not govern; it has power, but does not rule; it torments, but does not reign with a continued, unbroken supremacy. His experience accords with the promise, "sin shall not have dominion over you." It may for a moment triumph, as it did in David, in Peter, and in a host of other eminently holy men; yet still the promise is verified- as we see in the restorings of the blessed Spirit in their spirit and conduct, in their humblings and confessions, and holy and upright walk with God in after years- "sin shall not have dominion over you." Reader, have you ever been made aware of the plague of sin within you? What do you know of warfare in the soul, of "the flesh lusting against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh"? Your honest reply will decide the great question whether or not you are born of God.
Secondly, there is a positive mark of regeneration. 1 John 2. 29: "Every one that does righteousness is born of him." Negative holiness, the abstaining from outward sins, does not always describe a regenerate soul. Associated with this there must be positive evidence. "Every one that does righteousness is born of him." Where there is life, there is action, motion and energy. The life of a regenerate man is a life of the highest activity. The principles that influence him are Divine and heavenly; their tendency is to holy action. The more we resemble Christ "in righteousness and true holiness," the stronger the evidence to ourselves and to others that we are born again. We possess professedly and, if not self-deceived, actually the life of Christ. That life is holy in its tendency and vigorous in its acting. The renewed soul longs for holiness. He pants for Divine conformity. He does not rest in the mere longing; he arises and labors for the blessing; he "works out his salvation with fear and trembling." He prayerfully and diligently uses the means the Lord of sanctification has given him for the attainment of holiness; he is active in his pursuit of the blessing. He does not resemble the sluggard, who rests in mere desire. "The soul of the sluggard desires, and has nothing." But he resembles the "diligent soul," of whom it is said, "Blessed is the man that hears me, watching daily at my gates, waiting at the posts of my doors." He seeks the blessing. He seeks it diligently, perseveringly. He "watches daily at the gates," he "waits at the posts of the doors." If he does not find it in one way, he seeks it in another. Should one door of grace be closed, he turns to another- for grace has many doors of blessing. If the ministry conveys no nourishment, he seeks it in a more retired walk. Perhaps he turns to the communion of saints, but he may find no refreshing here- for God sometimes makes his people a "dry tree." Disappointed in this channel, he turns to the revealed Word. This he finds a sealed book; no promise meets his case, no consolation speaks from its sacred page. Driven from this "door," he flies to the throne of grace. (Precious pavilion! ever verdant spot of a tempest-tossed, wearied spirit!) But alas! a cloud overshadows the mercy-seat, this last sanctuary of his soul; not the cloud of the Shekinah- the visible glory of the Lord- but the dark cloud of guilt and unbelief. Just ready all hope to resign, he goes out into the "highways and hedges" of sin and wretchedness. He enters a hovel, goes down into the cellar, or climbs up to the garret, the gloomy abode of some child of sickness, sorrow and need. He inquires for the Sabbath school child, or delivers a tract, or drops a word of reproof, rebuke, exhortation, comfort, or prayer; and while like his Divine Master he is going about doing good, the Lord the Spirit meets him with a blessing, the Sun of righteousness breaks in upon his soul, every cloud is gone, and he looks up to God's serene countenance and calls Him "Abba, Father!" Thus is he made to experience the blessedness of the man that hears God, watching daily at his gates.
Thirdly, victory over the world may be specified as another and a strongly marked feature of a regenerate man. 1 John 5. 4: "Whoever is born of God overcomes the world." How does victory over the world mark one born of God? It proves it in this way. That which overcomes the world must be superhuman, of almighty power. It cannot be anything of the world, nor can it be of the flesh; for the flesh has no power over the flesh, and the world will never oppose itself. The flesh loves itself, and the world is too fond of power, quietly and unresistingly to yield its dominion. What then is that which overcomes the world? John goes on to reply, "And this is the victory that overcomes the world, even our faith." Faith then is the conquering grace; this it is that gives the victory; this it is that crushes this tremendous foe. And what is faith but the "gift of God," and the work of the eternal Spirit in the soul? So that he who possesses that faith which is of the operation of the Spirit is "born of God"; and "whatever is born of God overcomes the world," and the instrument by which he overcomes the world is faith. "Who is he that overcomes the world, but he that believes that Jesus is the Son of God?"
And how does faith overcome the world? By leading the believer to the cross of Jesus. True faith deals with its great object, Jesus. It goes to Him in the conflict, it goes to Him when hard pressed, it goes to Him in its weakness, it goes to Him in deep distress; on Him it leans, and through Him it always obtains the victory. Of the martyrs it is recorded that they "overcame through the blood of the Lamb," and Paul employs similar language in describing his victory: "God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world." It is faith in Christ that gives us the victory. How could a feeble saint, with no strength or wisdom in himself, overcome so powerful and subtle an enemy as this without supernatural aid? He never could. Look at the world! There are its ten thousand temptations, its temptations of pleasure, its temptations of ambition, its temptations of wealth, its false religion, its temporising policy, its hollow friendship, its empty show, its gay deceptions, its ten thousand arts to ensnare, beguile, allure and charm. Oh, how could one poor weak believer ever crush this fearful, powerful foe but as he is "strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus"? The cross of Christ gives him he victory. Christ has already conquered the world, and faith in His blood will enable the feeblest soul to exclaim, while the enemy lies subdued at his feet, "Thanks be unto God, who always causes me to triumph in Christ."
Reader, have you obtained the victory over the world, or has the world obtained the victory over you? One of the two is certain; either you are warring against it, or you are its passive and resistless victim; either you are "born of God," and "have overcome the world," or you are yet unregenerate, and the world has overcome you. On whose side is the victory? Perhaps you profess faith in the Lord Jesus, yet love the world, and conform to its maxims, its policy, its principles, its fashions, its dress, its amusements, even its very religion- for it has its hollow forms of religion. Is it so? Then hear what the Word of the Lord says to you. "Stop loving this evil world and all that it offers you, for when you love the world, you show that you do not have the love of the Father in you." 1 John 2:15. A solemn declaration for you, you who profess faith in Christ, and who are still lovers of the world! You cannot love God, and love the world at the same time. Do not be deceived! The outward garb will not save you. The mere name, the empty lamp- these will avail you nothing when you come to die. If the world has never been ejected from your heart, if you have never been crucified to it, then the love of God is not there; if the love of God is absent, then you are a stranger to the new birth.
There is another and a peculiar snare of the world to which the saints of God are exposed; and because many have fallen into it, and not a few have in consequence greatly embittered their happiness, retarded their holiness and dishonored God, we would briefly, and in this connection, touch upon it with all tenderness and affection. We allude to the formation of matrimonial alliances between the saints of God and the unregenerate world. The Word of God is against a union so unholy and so productive of evil as this. Not a precept authorises it, not a precedent encourages it, not a promise sanctions it, not a blessing hallows it! Indeed, so far is God from authorising it, that He expressly forbids it. Thus, 2 Cor. 6. 14-18: "Do not be unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship has righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion has light with darkness? and what concord has Christ with Belial? or what part has he that believes with an infidel? And what agreement has the temple of God with idols? for you are the temple of the living God; as God has said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. Wherefore come out from among them, and be you separate, says the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you, and will be a Father unto you, and you shall be my sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty." How strong the command, how conclusive the argument, and how persuasive and touching the appeal! Could it be more so? The command is- that a believer not be yoked with an unbeliever. The argument is- he is a temple of God. The appeal is- God will be a Father to such, and they shall be His children, who walk obediently to this command. There are many solemn considerations which seem to urge this precept upon the believer. A child of God is not his own. He does not belong to himself. "You are not your own." His soul and body are redeemed by the precious blood of Christ, and therefore he is Christ's. He must not, he cannot, dispose of himself. He belongs to the Lord, and has no authority to give away either soul or body. O that this solemn fact could be written upon every believer's heart, "You are not your own. You are bought with a price, therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God's." May the eternal Spirit now engrave it deeply and indelibly there! But more than this, if this were not enough to urge the command upon a believer, his body is the "temple of the living God"! How solemn and weighty is this consideration! And shall he take "the temple of God," and unite it with one who is a stranger to His grace, to His love, to His Son? with one whose "mind is enmity against God," and whose heart beats not one throb of love to Jesus? God forbid! "Know you not," says James, "that the friendship of the world is enmity with God?" Then for a believer to form with an unbeliever an alliance so close and so lasting as this, involving interests so important and so precious, is to enter into a league with an enemy of God. It is to covenant, and that for life, with a despiser of the Lord Jesus!
It is no extenuation of this breach of God's command that the Lord has frequently, in the exercise of His sovereign grace, made the believing party instrumental to the conversion of the unbelieving party. He can, and often does, bring good out of evil, order out of confusion, "making the wrath of man to praise him," and causing events that were designed to thwart His purposes to be the very means of promoting them. But this is no encouragement to sin; and when sin is committed, this is but poor consolation. And to enter into a compact of the nature we are deprecating, with a conscience quieted and soothed with the reflection that "the wife may save the husband, or the husband may save the wife," is presumption of the highest kind, a presumption which God may punish with a disappointment as bitter as it is overwhelming. Let no dear child of God be allured into an alliance so unholy, by a consideration so specious as this. Many have fallen into the snare, and have covered themselves with shame and confusion.
To the believer himself, forming an alliance so contrary to the express injunction of God's Word, the evils arising from it are many and grievous. To say nothing of the lack of what must ever be considered essential to the mutual happiness of the union- oneness of mind, harmony of sentiment, congruity of spirit- there are lacking the higher elements of happiness- the mutual faith of each other in Christ, the communion of redeemed spirits, the holy communion of renewed minds, the unutterable sweetness of talking of Jesus by the way, and as "heirs together of the grace of life," the joy of looking forward to the reunion of the glorified beyond the grave. It is, from the very nature of things, impossible that these elements of happiness should exist in the relation we are considering. The individuals thus united are inhabitants of different countries; one is an "alien from the commonwealth of Israel, a stranger and a foreigner," the other is a "fellow-citizen with the saints, and of the household of God"; they speak different languages, are traveling opposite roads, and are journeying towards different countries. Surely we may ask, What real union and communion can exist here?
But more than this. There are not merely negative evils, but positive evils resulting from such a connection. The influences that are perpetually exerting their power are hostile to all growth in grace, to any advance in sanctification and to an upright and holy walk with God. The temptations to inconsistency of Christian conduct are many, perpetual and alarming. The constant influence of worldly conversation, worldly example and worldly pursuits weakens by slow but certain degrees the spiritual life of the soul, impairs the taste for (and lessens the enjoyment in) spiritual duties, unfits the mind for communion with God, and opens the door for an almost endless train of departures. We do not claim that all these evils are realized; but we do say that the believer who so shapes his course is fearfully exposed to them; and that he has not been, or may not be, overcome of them is of the mere grace of God. The evils themselves are the necessary sequences of his departure from God's Word; and that he is preserved from the direst of them is only of the covenant mercies of that God, who, in the midst of all their temptations, is alone able to keep His people from falling.
A child of God, passing through this valley of tears, requires all the spiritual assistance he can meet with to urge him on his way. All the strength, the comfort, the encouragement, and all the support it is possible for him to obtain from any and every quarter, he needs to call into full exercise, in order to bear up against the many and peculiar difficulties that throng his path, and would keep him from advancing. Infirmities within and impediments without, inward corruptions and outward trials, the strugglings of sin and the assaults of Satan, all conspire to cast him down, and often to extort from him David's exclamation, "My soul cleaves to the dust." At such a period, how strengthening, how supporting, how encouraging and how animating the communion and soothings of a kindred spirit- a spirit one with himself! If it be true- and most true it is- that "as iron sharpens iron, so does the countenance of a man his friend," to a much greater degree, and in a more endearing sense, is this reciprocity experienced in the high and endearing relation we are considering. The godly husband and the godly wife are true helpmeets to each other. They belong to the same family, speak the same sweet language, are traveling the same happy road, and are journeying to the same blissful home. For a child of God, then, to unite himself to one who can be of no assistance to him in his journey, but rather a hindrance- who, when he speaks of conflicts, cannot understand them; of burdens, cannot lighten them; of perplexities, cannot guide them; of trials, cannot share them; of sorrows, cannot soothe them; and of joys and hopes, cannot participate in them- is indeed to mark out for himself a lonely and a desolate path, which may know no termination of its trial until it conducts him to the grave. To the Christian reader who may already have taken the step, we would say, with much affection, guard vigilantly against its hurtful consequences. Necessary as they are, they may, in a degree, be greatly mitigated. Draw largely from the grace that is in Christ Jesus, treasured up for all the circumstances and the necessities of His people. Be doubly prayerful, watchful, and humble; let your whole deportment be marked by the fear of God, a jealous regard for His honor, and a beautiful harmony with the high "vocation with which you are called"- and may God overrule the event to His glory and your real good.
To others we would say, guard against this needless and unscriptural entanglement with the world. Marry "only in the Lord." "In all your ways acknowledge him." Let His Word be your guide, His fear your rule, His glory your aim, and He will direct your paths through life, sustain you in death and conduct you safely to His heavenly kingdom.
As we review the subject of this chapter, many important considerations suggest themselves, which in closing can be allowed but a brief and passing notice. The first is, how high
the obligation to live to God! Are we born again? Can we think of the "horrible pit, the miry clay," the "valley of bones," the "rock where we were hewn," and then remember, that if we are born again, we have in our souls at this moment the buddings of eternal life? Oh, can we think of this, and not desire an unreserved surrender of all we are and all we have to God? Christian! watch over your principles, your daily walk, your communion with the world, and see that the evidences of the new birth signalise every action of your life. The world is a close observer. Narrowly and vigilantly are you watched. It weighs your actions, scrutinizes your motives, sifts your principles, and ponders all your steps, waiting for your halting. Disappoint it! Live out your religion, carry out your principles; they are designed not merely for the Sabbath, but for the week; not merely to be exhibited in the place and at the hour of prayer, and in social Christian communion, but they are to be carried into your haunts of business, into your shop, your counting-house, your study, your profession. You are to exhibit them, not in a spirit of ostentation, but in "lowliness of mind" in all your communion with a world lying in wickedness. To be born again! Oh, it is a mighty work! Let the evidences of its reality in you be such as shall compel the gainsayer to admire the work, though he may hate the change. Oh, be in spirit- in temper- in life- like Jesus.
Have not even you, who may be tried and afflicted, much to make you praise God? Born again! How light are your afflictions when compared with this! Take the scales and
weigh the two. Place in one your every sorrow. Is it domestic?- place it there. Is it personal- a nervous frame, a feeble constitution, trying circumstances?- place it there. Are friends unfaithful, are saints unkind, does the world frown?- place it all there. Then in the other put your hidden life, your sense of pardon and your hope of heaven; these outweigh them all. "For I reckon," says Paul, "that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us."
Unconverted reader, what solemn truth does this subject address to you! You must have perceived that the Word of God sets before you a new mold into which you must be cast. It professes to work a great change in you, in the hands of the eternal Spirit, not of opinions only, but of your nature, of your heart. Is this done? Do not turn away from the question; do not lightly pass it by- your all depends upon
the answer to it. Eternity hangs upon the issue. I ask not what you hold, what you know, or what you profess, but what you are. Are you born again? Are you a new creature? Do not say, "peace, peace, when there is no peace." You may persuade yourself, or be persuaded by others, that regeneration is all enthusiasm, a delusion and a lie, and yet,
"This fearful truth will still remain,
The sinner must be born again,
Or sink to endless woe."

"The Indwelling of the Spirit" or "The Believer a Temple"

What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? 1 Cor. 6:19

Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; 1 Cor. 6:19

Or don't you know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, who lives in you and was given to you by God? You do not belong to yourself, 1 Cor. 6:19

That the religion of our adorable Immanuel is a reality- no airy fiction, as is the Mohammedan, and no "cunningly devised fable," as is the Romish- many, conclusive and precious are the evidences. There is however, to the true believer, one evidence which, apart from, and superior to all others, affixes the seal of credibility; this is the conviction of its truth arising from the indwelling of the Spirit in the heart. There is in this great truth, something so palpable, so undoubted and so self-evident, that no sophistry of man, no ingenuity of Satan and no knowledge of the deep evil of our fallen nature can weaken or overthrow it. It is God Himself, as it were, taking the witness-stand and, setting aside all other testimony, challenging everything that would reduce His own work to a mere non-entity and exclaiming, "Who is he that condemns?" Clad in the armor of this evidence, the feeblest disciple of Jesus takes higher ground in vindication of the truth of the Gospel than the acutest reasoner who is destitute of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. It is true that the conviction arising from this source of evidence is the strongest and most convincing to his own mind; yet there is, in the simplicity, the honesty and the boldness with which his belief is declared, that which carries a powerful conviction to the minds of others. He may be challenged by the sceptic, there may be objections which he cannot meet, arguments which he cannot answer, difficulties which he cannot explain and sophisms which he cannot unravel; and yet the "witness within himself" shall throw such vigor into his reasoning and tenderness into his spirit, and shall invest his whole demeanor with an air of sincerity so touching that his accusers shall be compelled to pay him the tribute once awarded to his Lord, "he speaks as one having authority." He believes and has experienced what he declares, and thus God has given him a "mouth and wisdom, which all his adversaries shall not be able to gainsay nor resist."
But let it not be supposed that we regard the indwelling of the Spirit in the believer as presenting merely, or even mainly, an evidence in favor of the truth of the Gospel. This undoubtedly demands a distinct and grateful recognition. But we must not rest here. We are to take a more enlarged view of the glory of God, as unfolded in this most holy and blessed doctrine- His glory as secured to Him in the comfort, holiness and filial walk of the believer who is conscious that he is a temple of the Holy Spirit. We feel the subject to be one of great and solemn importance. Its vastness is almost overpowering. The bare thought that the "high and lofty One, inhabiting eternity, whose name is Holy," should dwell with man, yes, in him- that He should take out of the fallen race of His creatures a people whose hearts should be so renewed and sanctified as to form a dwelling-place of the Holy Spirit- that this heavenly visitant should take up His abode there in all His regenerating, sanctifying, sealing and comforting influences- the bare thought of this seems almost too illimitable and glorious for a poor finite mind to grasp! And yet, reader, the consolation flowing from this subject is so great, and the motives to holiness drawn from it so persuasive, and God so glorified by it, that we feel constrained to place it in the foreground of this treatise. May He Himself draw near, unfold His own truth to our minds, and sanctify us through its holy influence!

The first thought that presents itself to the mind as we look into this great subject is that suggested by the passage placed at the head of this chapter: "Know you not that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit which is in you?" The great idea here conveyed is that THE BELIEVER IS A TEMPLE, THE RESIDENT OF THAT TEMPLE BEING GOD THE HOLY SPIRIT. With the converted Corinthians, to whom these words were addressed, the figure would be at once striking and significant; the magnificent city in which they dwelt abounded with gorgeous temples erected to the honor of supposed deities, at whose idolatrous and superstitious rites they had frequently attended in the days of their ignorance. Drawing their minds away from the service of idols (while at the same time using the concept of a heathen temple as an illustration of his fine idea) the apostle, by an easy and a beautiful transition of thought, leads them to consider themselves as temples in an eminent and holy sense- formed, consecrated and adorned for the indwelling of God the Holy Spirit. There is a depth of important and spiritual truth in this idea which we desire to unfold, as the Divine Teacher shall Himself "anoint us with that anointing which teaches us of all things."
In contemplating the believer as a temple of the Holy Spirit, it is natural and proper to consider the condition of the soul previous to the entrance of the Spirit of God. Man, in his original constitution, was a glorious temple. Two facts will prove it. First, he was like God in his moral image; and second, God dwelt in him. He was in every respect worthy of such a resident. He was the holy temple of a holy God. Not a flaw was there. The entire man was holy. There was perfect knowledge in the judgment, perfect holiness in the will, and perfect love in the heart. "Holiness to the Lord," was the inscription written on every window and every door, yes, on every part of this temple. A beautiful structure was man in his original state! Well did the mighty Architect, as He gazed upon His work, pronounce it "very good"!
But behold what sin has done! Man has lost his original
resemblance to God. It is true that he still retains his spiritual, intelligent and immortal nature, these he can never lose. But as for his moral likeness to God in knowledge, purity, justice, truth and benignity, these glorious lineaments are blotted from his soul, and darkness, impurity, desolation and death reign there. With the obliteration of moral resemblance, the soul has lost all love to God. More than this; there is not only the absence of love but, as we have shown in a former chapter, there is positive enmity. "The carnal mind is enmity against God," that enmity showing itself in a thousand ways, principally in its seeking to dethrone God. From his affections he has dethroned Him. To eject Him from the throne of His moral government in the universe is the great and constant
aim of the carnal mind. If this is not so, why this perpetual war against God- against His being, His law, His will, His
supreme authority to govern and reign? Why this refusal to
acknowledge and obey Him? "Who is the Lord God, that I should obey him?" Oh, there is no mystery in the case! Man has revolted from God and, having thrown off all allegiance to Him as his Sovereign, he seeks to be a God to himself. Self is to him what Jehovah once was- the object of supreme delight. Having cast out God, he moves in a circle of which he himself is the center- all he does is from self, and for self. From this all the lines diverge, and to this they all again return.
It needs not the argument or the illustration of a moment to show that such being the moral destitution of man, God has ceased to dwell in him. The temple polluted, defaced and destroyed, the Divine Resident has gone, and the heart, once so sweet a home of Deity, is now the dwelling-place of all sin. Another occupant has taken possession of the ruin; and, like ancient Babylon, it has become the den of every ravenous beast, a habitation of dragons and the impure abode of every foul, malignant passion. Reader, it is as impossible that God can make your heart His dwelling-place, while every thought and feeling and passion is up in arms against Him, as it would be for Christ to dwell with Belial, or light to commingle with darkness. You must be renewed in the spirit of your mind. You must be born again.
But it was God's eternal and gracious purpose to restore this temple. Satan had despoiled His work, sin had marred His image; but both usurpers He would eject, and the ruin of both He would repair. Oh, what mercy, infinite, eternal and free, was this that set Him upon a work so glorious! What could have moved Him but His own love, what could have contrived the plan but His own wisdom, and what could have executed it but His own power? In the restoration of this temple, man was no auxiliary. He could be none. His destruction was his own, his recovery was God's. He ruined himself; that ruin he could not himself repair. The work of restoration is a greater achievement of Divine power than was the work of creation. To repair the temple when ruined was more glorious than to create it. In one day He made man; He was four thousand years in redeeming man. It cost Him nothing to create a soul; it cost Him His dear Son to save it. And who can estimate that cost? He met with no opposition in creating man; in re-creating him, Satan, the world, even man himself, is against Him.
We have said that it was God's gracious and eternal purpose to restore this ruined temple. The first step which He took in accomplishing this great work was His assumption of our nature, as though He Himself would be the model from which the new temples should be formed. This was one of the profoundest acts of God's wisdom, one of the greatest demonstrations of His love. "The Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us " (marg. tabernacled among us). His human body, the temple; his Godhead, the indwelling Deity. Was ever a temple so glorious as this? "Immanuel, God with us." "God manifest in the flesh." O awful mystery! what imagination can conceive, what mind can fathom it? We can but stand upon the shore of this vast ocean of wisdom and love, and exclaim, "O the depth!" "Great is the mystery of godliness, God was manifest in the flesh." This was the first step towards His work of replenishing the earth with spiritual temples, to be filled now and eternally with the Divine presence and glory. The entire success and glory of His undertaking rested here. This was the foundation of the structure. He could only obey the law, as He was "made of a woman"; He could only "redeem those who were under the law," as He was God in our nature. The absolute necessity, then, of His Godhead will instantly appear. Had the basis of the great work He was about to achieve been laid in any other doctrine, anything inferior, less holy, less dignified; had the foundation been laid in mere creature excellence, however exalted that excellence might be, there could have been neither strength, permanency, nor glory in the temple. It would have fallen before the first storm of temptation, and fearful would have been its destruction. God well knew at what cost the work of redemption would be achieved. He knew what His violated law demanded, what His inflexible justice required, and through what costly channel His love must flow; therefore "He laid help upon one that was mighty" - "mighty to save." And what was the secret of His might? His absolute deity. Take a lower view than this, and you reduce the work of Christ to nothing; you tear the soul from the body, pluck the sun from the firmament, wrench the keystone from the arch and the foundation from the building. But look at His work through His Godhead, and oh, how vast, how costly, how glorious does it appear; what a basis for a poor sinner to build upon; what a resting-place for the weary soul; what faith, hope, and assurance does it inspire; how perfect the obedience, how infinitely efficacious the blood, and how prevailing the intercession- all derived from the Godhead of Jesus. Glorious temple were You, blessed Son of God!
But this temple was to be destroyed. Jesus must die! This was the second step in the accomplishment of the great work. Thus did he announce the fact to the obtuse and incredulous Jews: "Jesus answered and said unto them, Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up." "He spoke of the temple of his body." His death was as necessary to the satisfaction of justice, as His life of obedience had been to the fulfilling of the law. As the Substitute of His people, He must yield up His life; as the Surety of the covenant, He must completely surrender Himself into the hands of Divine justice; as the Testator of His own will, there must of necessity be His death, otherwise the testament would have been of no force at all while He lived. There was no possible avenue for His escape, even had He sought it. He or His people must die. He must taste the bitterness of the death that was temporal, or His elect must have tasted of the bitterness of the death that was eternal. O yes, Jesus wished to die. Never for one moment did He really shrink from the combat. He well knew the conditions upon which He had entered into a covenant engagement on behalf of His people. He knew that the price of their pardon was His own blood, that His death was their life, and that His gloomy path through the grave was their bright passage to eternal glory. Knowing all this, and with the awful scene of Calvary full in view- the cross, the sufferings of the body, the deathly sorrow of the soul- He yet panted for the arrival of the moment that was to finish the work His Father had given Him to do. How ready was Jesus thus to die? Where this eagerness? It sprang from His great love to sinners. Oh, this was it! We must go down to the secret depth of His love, if we would solve the mystery of His willingness to die. "God commends his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." Thus was the "temple of His body" destroyed, that "through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is the devil, and deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage." See, reader, the source of your free pardon, the ground of your humble trust, the secret of your "strong consolation." It is all involved in the death of Jesus. You cannot ask too much, you cannot expect too much, you cannot repose too much at the foot of the cross. All is mercy here- all is love - all is peace. Sin cannot condemn, Satan cannot tempt, the world cannot allure, conscience cannot accuse; "there is no condemnation" to a poor soul that shelters itself beneath the cross of Jesus. Here every dark cloud withdraws, and all is sunny; here every tear is dried, but that of joy; and every voice is hushed, but that of praise.
But a third step in the accomplishment of this stupendous design was the resurrection of Christ. This formed an essential and glorious part of His work, in preparing a way for the personal and permanent residence of the Holy Spirit. "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up again." Great stress is laid upon this doctrine in the Word. And the child of God may be but imperfectly aware what an essential pillar it is to his hope, and how sanctifying and comforting the blessings are that spring from a full belief in it. The resurrection of Jesus is the great seal to the character and perfection of His work. Indeed, without this Divine attestation His work would never have effected our salvation. His perfect keeping of the law and His suffering unto death were but parts of the vast plan, and, taken separately and distinctly, were not capable of perfecting the salvation of the church. The apostle so reasons. "And if Christ was not raised, then all our preaching is useless, and your trust in God is useless. And we apostles would all be lying about God, for we have said that God raised Christ from the grave, but that can't be true if there is no resurrection of the dead. If there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ has not been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, then your faith is useless, and you are still under condemnation for your sins. In that case, all who have died believing in Christ have perished!" 1 Cor. 15:14-18. A moment's reflection will justify the conclusions which the apostle deduces from the supposition that Christ had not risen.
Our dear Lord endured the "curse of the law"; a part of that curse was death- death legal, death temporal, death eternal. He was "made a curse for us," and died. So long as He remained imprisoned in the grave, "death had dominion over him." We would have looked in vain to His obedience and sufferings for the proof of the all-sufficiency and acceptableness of His satisfaction, as long as the iron scepter of the king of terrors held Him in subjection. O what a momentous period were the three days that intervened between the giving up the spirit upon the cross, and the bursting of the tomb! The salvation of the whole church hung upon it. All who had already "fallen asleep" in Him, and all whom it was the purpose of God yet to call, were deeply interested in this one fact. But on the third day the destroyed temple was raised again; death had no more dominion over Him, its sting was extracted, its scepter was broken, the curse was rolled away, and the redemption of the church was complete. "He was delivered for our offences, and rose again for our justification."
Let the Christian reader fully believe this one truth, that Jesus is alive again, and it will afford to his soul greater confirmation of the veracity of God's character, of the truth of His Word, and of the perfection and all-sufficiency of Christ's work, than all other truths beside. Is Jesus alive at the right hand of God? Then the debt is paid, and justice is satisfied. Is Jesus alive at the right hand of God? Then the Father is well pleased in the work of His Son, and He "rests in His love, and rejoices over His church with singing." Is Jesus alive? Then every promise shall be fulfilled, and all the blessings of the everlasting covenant shall be freely bestowed, and I, a poor worthless sinner, yet resting upon His atoning work, shall live also. May the Holy Spirit lead you into the full belief- the belief of the heart as well as of the judgment- of this glorious truth. It is the keystone of the temple. Press it as you will, the more you lean upon it, the stronger you will find it; the more you rest upon it, the firmer will grow your hope. Only receive it in simple faith, Jesus is alive- alive for you; all you need in this valley of tears is here; all your temporal mercies are secured to you here; all your spiritual blessings are laid up for you here. Such is the great charter, such are the immense, untold blessings it contains, that, come how you will, come when you will, and "ask what you will, it shall be granted you of the Father," because Jesus is at His right hand. Well may we take up the dauntless challenge of the apostle, "Who is he that condemns? It is Christ that died; yes rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us." Your salvation is complete, your heaven secure, and all victory, happiness and glory bound up in this one great fact. Then may we not again exclaim with Peter, "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to his abundant mercy has begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead."
Thus have we briefly traced the successive steps which God took to prepare the way for the permanent indwelling of the Spirit in the believer. Through the incarnation, obedience, death, and resurrection of Christ, a way was opened by which God could again dwell with man, could resume His abode in the very temple that sin had destroyed, and show forth the riches and glory of His grace far more illustriously than when this temple stood in its original perfection and grandeur. Here was the foundation of every successive temple that grace was about to raise. "Thus says the Lord God, Behold, I lay in Zion for a foundation a stone, a tried stone, a precious corner stone, a sure foundation." "Other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ." On the dignity of His person, finished righteousness, perfect atonement, all-sufficient grace and inviolable faithfulness, believers, "as living stones, are built up a spiritual house." (1 Pet. 4. 5), for the everlasting indwelling of God the Holy Spirit.
In passing now more specifically to the consideration of the indwelling of the Spirit, we proceed to adduce the testimony He Himself has borne to the doctrine. In the following passages the truth is unfolded. Looking into the Old Testament, shadowy as the period was in which that part of the inspired Word was written, we yet find clear intimation of the doctrine before us. Ezek. 36. 27: "And I will put my Spirit within you." Ezek. 37. 14: " And I shall put my Spirit in you, and you shall live." In the New Testament the doctrine opens upon our view with increasing power and brightness. Our Lord's own words are familiar. John 14. 16, 17: "And I will ask the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you forever; even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it sees him not, neither knows him: but you know him, for he dwells with you, and shall be in you." Rom. 8. 9: "But you are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwells in you." Ver. 11: "But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you," etc. 1 Cor. 3. 16: "Know you not that you are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?" 1 Cor. 6. 19: "What? know you not that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you?" 2 Cor. 6. 16: "And what agreement has the temple of God with idols? for you are the temple of the living God; as God has said, I will dwell in them," etc. Eph. 2. 22: "In whom you also are built together for an habitation of God through the Spirit." We will not multiply quotations; it is sufficiently clear that the indwelling of the Spirit is a revealed doctrine of Scripture. We proceed to develop it.
When does the Holy Spirit enter a soul? We reply, at the moment of its regeneration. This is His first gracious act. Previous to this, all is dark, desolate and dead, as we have in other places fully shown. What pen is adequate to describe the moral desolation, the fearful dilapidation of the soul of man, before the Spirit enters, bringing in His train, life, light and order? One brief sentence of Divine truth will more correctly and vividly describe it than the most elaborate human production. "Sensual, having not the Spirit." But the Spirit enters. He comes, in accordance with the eternal purpose, in harmony with the covenant of grace, borne on the wings of His own love, and traveling in the greatness of His own strength. What a triumphal entry, when He takes possession of the temple, already purchased by the Savior's blood! At His approach, darkness, enmity, pollution and death retire, and are succeeded by light, love, holiness and life. It is true that He meets with fierce opposition from within, for "the strong man armed keeps his palace," and "his goods are in peace"; but "a stronger than he comes," and puts to flight all opposition, bends the will, subdues the enmity, dissolves the heart and implants the sweet response, "Come in, blessed of the Lord, why do you stand outside? Enter, and take full possession for Yourself. Long have I closed my heart against You, too long have I resisted all Your importunities. But now You have conquered and prevailed; come in, blessed Spirit, and seal me for Your own." O blissful moment, when the Spirit enters, convincing of sin, breaking the heart with godly sorrow, laying the soul low in the dust in the spirit of self-abasement and self-condemnation before God, then leading it to the atoning blood of Jesus and speaking pardon and peace to the conscience.
The Spirit dwells in the believer as a manifestation of the Divine glory. The temple that Solomon built was one of great magnificence and splendor. But it was an earthly glory; and although He who "dwells not in temples made with hands" condescended to reveal Himself in it, yet it possessed no glory in comparison with the glory that was to exist in the new spiritual temple which the Holy Spirit was to erect and inhabit. Speaking of the legal dispensation, with which the temple prepared by David and built by Solomon was designed to harmonize, the apostle argues that it possessed no glory in comparison with the Gospel economy. And why? Because there was less of the Spirit in the former than in the present dispensation. It was the enlarged manifestation of the Spirit, especially His indwelling of the saints, which constituted the peculiar and far-surpassing glory of the new economy. "How shall not (says he) the ministration of the Spirit be rather glorious? For if the ministration of condemnation be glory, much more does the ministration of righteousness exceed in glory. For even that which was made glorious had no glory in this respect, by reason of the glory that excels."
The superior glory of the new dispensation then is that it is more spiritual; there is a more enlarged and rich effusion of the quickening, sanctifying and sealing influences of the Holy Spirit; there is more of Christ, more of the holy liberty of adoption, a more simple, spiritual and child-like approach to God. But especially does the indwelling of the Spirit in the saints form a distinguished feature of the new economy. Here is an especial manifestation of the Divine glory. That the Spirit should, on the broad basis of Immanuel's finished atoning work, call a poor sinner by grace, regenerate, sanctify and then take possession of him forever, dwell in him, witness in him, work in him and make him fit for the inheritance of the saints in light- this is a marvellous display of the Divine glory. The electing love, infinite wisdom and omnipotent power of God are glorified; the atoning work, all-sufficient grace and unspeakable compassion of Jesus are glorified, the irresistible power, infinite patience and efficacious work of the Spirit are glorified in the soul that becomes "a habitation of God through the Spirit." We even dare assert that the conversion of a soul, the sustaining of the work wrought in that soul, the keeping of the believer through a long life of holy, upright and close walk with God, and the bringing of him safe to eternal happiness, are greater displays of the mighty power of God and more glorify Him than the creation of ten thousand worlds like ours.
The Spirit dwells in the believer as the ever-living Spirit of all grace and comfort. All that is really holy and gracious in a child of God is found in the work of the indwelling Spirit. All the holy breathings and desires of the soul, all the longings for God and for conformity to His will and image, all that is lovely and like Jesus in the saint, are the result of this gracious act of the eternal Spirit. The Lord Jesus Himself would direct us to this truth. John 4.14: "Whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life." That this well of water is the indwelling of the Spirit, seems clear from the loth verse: "Jesus answered and said unto her, If you knew the gift of God," etc.; that "gift of God" was the Holy Spirit, alluded to again still more emphatically in ch. 7. 38, 39: "He that believes on me, as the scripture has said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water. (But this spoke he of the Spirit, which those who believe on him should receive: for the Holy Spirit was not yet given; because that Jesus was not yet glorified.")
Here is a gracious truth. The Spirit in every believer is a deep and living well of all spiritual blessings. He dwells in the soul "not like a stagnant pool, but like an ever-living fountain that flows at all seasons of the year, in heat and cold, and in all external circumstances of weather, whether foul or fair, wet or dry." Nature could not produce that which the indwelling Spirit accomplishes in the saints of God. The hungering and the thirsting for righteousness, the rising of the heart in filial love to God, the sweet submission to His sovereign will, the longing for more knowledge of Christ, the constant struggling with the law of sin, the mourning over the indwelling principle of sin; all this is above and far beyond nature. It is the fruit, the precious fruit, of the indwelling spirit.
It may be, reader, that your heart is often anxious to know in what way you may distinguish between nature and grace, how you may clearly discern between that which is legal and that which is spiritual, between that which is the work of man, and that which is the work of God. In this way you may trace the vast difference- that which at first came from God, returns to God again. It rises to the source where it descended. Divine grace in a sinner's heart is a springing well- "a well of water springing up into eternal life." Did nature ever teach a soul the plague of its own heart? Never! Did nature ever lay the soul in the dust before God, mourning and weeping over sin? Never! Did nature ever inspire the soul with pantings for God and thirstings for holiness? Never! And did it ever endear the throne of grace, and make precious to the soul the atoning blood, the justifying righteousness of Jesus? Never! never! All this as much transcends the power of nature as the creating of a world. Is this your real state, reader? O look up! "Flesh and blood" did not reveal it to you- but the eternal God has revealed it and that by the indwelling of His own blessed Spirit in your heart.
We must not overlook His indwelling as a Spirit of holiness. This is His great and crowning work in a believer. It is in vain that we look for Him as a Witness, or as a Spirit of comfort, if we slight Him as a Sanctifier. Although we have assigned a distinct chapter to the subject of the sanctification of the Spirit, we would yet briefly allude to it in connection with His indwelling of the saints. The work of holiness forms a great and glorious part of His operation as the Indweller of His people. He has come to restore, not only order, but purity to the temple. He has come to restore the reign of holiness, to set up the law of God in the soul, to unfold its precepts, and to write them upon the heart, and, shedding abroad the love of Christ, under its gentle but powerful constraint to lead the believer to "run the way of God's commandments." He is pre-eminently a "Spirit of holiness" in the believer. For a more full unfolding of the manner in which the Spirit carries forward the work of holiness in the soul, the reader is referred to the chapter on that subject.
Nor must it be forgotten that He dwells in the believer as an abiding Spirit. It is a permanent indwelling. Our dear Lord laid especial stress upon this feature. When on the eve of leaving His disciples to return to His throne, He promised them "another Comforter," whose spiritual presence should more than make up for the loss of His bodily presence. And lest there should be any painful apprehensions as to the time of His dwelling with them, He assures those who the Spirit should abide with them forever. "And I will ask the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you forever." Do not overlook this truth. Let no spiritual darkness, no workings of unbelief, no sense of indwelling sin, rob you of the comfort and consolation which a believing view of it will impart. There may be periods when you are not sensible of the indwelling of the Spirit. Clouds and darkness may be around this doctrine; there may be severe trials, gloomy providences, foreboding fears, the way rough and intricate, the sky dark and wintry, faith small, unbelief powerful, and your soul, from its low depths, led to exclaim, "All these things are against me. Will the Lord cast off forever? and will he be favorable no more? Is his mercy clean gone forever? does his promise fail for evermore? Has God forgotten to be gracious? has he in anger shut up his tender mercies?" Oh do not forget that even then, dejected saint of God, then when all is dark within and all is desolate without, then the Holy Spirit, the Sanctifier and the Comforter and the Glorifier of Jesus, dwells in you, and shall be with you forever. True, you may be assailed by powerful corruptions, the "consolations of God few and small" with you, and your prayer like David's, "Cast me not away from your presence, and take not your Holy Spirit from me"; yet He, the blessed Indweller, is there, and His still, small and soothing voice shall soon be heard amid the roaring of the tempest, hushing it to a peaceful calm. He shall "abide with you forever." No wanderings, no neglect, no unkindness, no unworthiness, no unfaithfulness shall ever force Him from your bosom. He may withdraw His sensible presence; He may withhold His comforting influence; He may be so grieved by a careless walk as to suspend for a while His witnessing and sanctifying power, permitting indwelling corruptions for a moment to triumph; but He restores the soul; He brings it back again; He breaks the heart, then binds it up; wounds, then heals it, fills it with godly grief, then tunes it with thanksgiving and the voice of melody. "For a small moment have I forsaken you; but with great mercies will I gather you." "He restores my soul."
I can present, in this chapter, a mere outline of the remaining operations of the Spirit as the Indweller of the saints. I regret this the less because some of those parts of His work are more fully discussed in the chapters especially assigned to them in this treatise.
As a Spirit of adoption He dwells in the believer. Gal 4. 6 "And because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father."
As a Witness He is there. Rom. 8. 16: "The Spirit itself bears witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God."
As an earnest and pledge of future glory He is there. Eph. 1. 13, 14: "In whom also after that you believed, you were sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise, which is the earnest of our inheritance," etc.
As a Teacher He is there. John 14. 26: "The Comforter, which is the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my
name, he shall teach you all things." "He shall guide you into all truth."
As a Remembrancer He is there. Verse 26: "He shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance."
As a Glorifier of Jesus He is there. John 16, 14: "He shall glorify me: for he shall receive of mine, and shall show it unto you."
All these gracious operations works that one and self-same Spirit, dwelling in the hearts of all believers.
In reviewing this subject, the following important reflections suggest themselves to us.
How amazing the grace of God that makes the heart of a poor sinner His dwelling-place! O what grace is this! How it prostrates all high thoughts of self, how it brings down the lofty look, and lays the soul where it should ever lie, "low in
a low place." "Will God in very deed dwell with man?" "I will dwell in them," says God, "and will walk in them."
Let us not forget that it is the humble broken heart that forms the true temple of the Holy Spirit. He only dwells here. And here He does dwell. It may be a temple despised by man, but God prepares and chooses it for His abode. The proud and haughty spirit of self-righteous man may overlook it as valueless; the tear that falls in silence, the sigh that is breathed in secret, the heart that mourns over sin may be thought little of by the passer by, but with God it is of "great price." He has a bottle for that tear, a record for that sigh, and that mourning is music in His ear. "The high and lofty one who inhabits eternity, the Holy One, says this: "I live in that high and holy place with those whose spirits are contrite and humble. I refresh the humble and give new courage to those with repentant hearts." Isaiah 57:15. Perhaps your cry is, "Come, blessed and eternal Spirit, into my heart; make it a temple, now and forever, for Your abode worthless though the offering be, yet it is all I have to present You; enter, with all Your humbling, sanctifying, sealing and comforting influences, and take full possession for Yourself."
O blessed cry! O sweet fruit of that loving, faithful Spirit, who already has entered (unknown and unsuspected, it may be, by you) and has planted there this desire, the sure and certain pledge of future glory! Be assured, precious soul, that this cry, feeble as it is, is an evidence of the indwelling of the Spirit. It is the first gentle springing up of the living fountain within you, and it shall continue to spring up even unto eternal life. Cherish it as you would your greatest blessing. Pray that it may be increased and strengthened more and more, and closely watch against the slightest thing which would tend to enfeeble it.
How holy should the temple of the Spirit be! Reader, are you a temple of God the Holy Spirit? Then dedicate yourself unreservedly to God. You are not your own. Your body, your spirit, your family, substance, time, talents, influence, all, all belong to God. He dwells in you- lives in you- rules in you, and calls you His dwelling-place. "Don't you know that you yourselves are God's temple and that God's Spirit lives in you?" Then what a separation should there be between you and the world that lies in wickedness! How should you guard against every unnecessary entanglement with it; how cautious and prayerful, lest, by contracting an unholy alliance with it in any form or degree, you should defile the temple of God, "whose temple you are!" Oh, what heavenly wisdom, holy circumspection and ceaseless prayer do you need that you may walk with unspotted garments- that no rival should enter your heart- that no lofty views of self, no spirit of worldly conformity, no temporising policy, no known sin, no creature idolatry should enter there- that, like the heavenly temple, nothing that defiles, neither whatever works abomination, should be cherished or entertained in the abode and in the presence of the Holy Spirit; for "what agreement has the temple of God with idols? for you are the temple of the living God; as God has said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people."
Reader, whose temple are you? Solemn question! Does
God or Satan dwell in you? Christ or Belial? Light or dark ness? Either the one or the other has, at this moment, possession of you. You cannot serve two contrary masters; you cannot entertain two opposite guests. You are living either for God or for Satan. You are traveling either to heaven or to hell. Which? On your bended knees before God, decide; and may the Lord the Spirit renew you by His grace, and if renewed, make you "a vessel unto honor, sanctified and fit for the Master's use, and prepared unto every good work."

"The Sanctification of the Spirit" or
"The Necessity and the Nature of True Holiness"

"Through sanctification of the Spirit." 2 Thess. 2, 13.

We have already briefly intimated that one most important feature in the work of the indwelling Spirit is the sanctification of the believer. What was merely glanced at in the preceding chapter will now, by the assistance of that same Teacher who has promised to guide into all spiritual truth, be more fully unfolded. While yet upon the threshold of our subject, let it be premised that there is an order, as well as a harmony, in the operations of the Spirit, which it is highly important should be observed. An ignorance or an oversight of this has led to great and fatal perversions of the Gospel, especially that part which relates to the doctrine now under discussion. All the self-righteousness of the Pharisee, and all the self-devotion of the deluded disciple of the papal superstition, have their origin here. Now the order of the Spirit is this: regeneration of the heart first, then its sanctification. Reverse this, and we derange every part of His work and, as far as our individual benefit extends, render it entirely useless. Sanctification is not the first and immediate duty of an unrenewed person. Indeed, it is utterly impossible that it should be so. Sanctification has its commencement and its daily growth in a principle of life implanted in the soul by the eternal Spirit; and to look for holiness in an individual still dead in sins is to look for fruit where no seed was sown, for the actings of life where no vital principle exists. It is to expect, in the language of our Lord, to "gather grapes from thorns, and figs from thistles." The first and imperative duty of an unrenewed man is to prostrate himself in deep abasement and true repentance before God. The lofty look must be brought low, and the rebellious will must be humbled; in the posture of one overwhelmed with a sense of guilt, he must look by faith to a crucified Savior, and draw from Him life, pardon and acceptance. It is most solemnly true that "without holiness no man shall see the Lord"; yet all attempts towards the attainment of holiness before repentance toward God and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ will but disappoint the soul that looks for it.
This work of renewal done, sanctification is a comparatively easy and a delightful task. Motives and exhortations to a life of holiness now find a ready response in the heart,
already the temple of the Holy Spirit. The "incorruptible seed" sown there, germinates into the plant, and blossoms
and ripens into the fruits of holiness. The well of "living water" created there springs up and pours forth its stream of life and purity, adorning and fertilising the garden of the
Lord. Let us then be careful not to disturb the arrangement, and reverse the order of the blessed Spirit in His work. From lack of such care, great errors have arisen, and souls have gone into eternity fearfully and fatally deceived. Especially cautious should they be in this matter who are appointed to the office of spiritual instruction, to whose care immortal souls are entrusted, lest, in a matter involving interests so precious and so lasting, anyone listening to their teaching should pass into eternity ignorant of the one and true method of salvation.
Let the reader prayerfully follow us while we endeavor to unfold the necessity of sanctification in the believer, its gospel nature, and the means employed by the Spirit in its production.
There exists an absolute and solemn NECESSITY for sanctification in a child of God. To remind the reader of this may at first sight appear a needless work, so self-evident, and so immediate an effect of regeneration by the Spirit does it seem. And yet the advanced believer, much more the sincere inquirer after a more perfect knowledge of the will of God, needs to be perpetually reminded of the solemn necessity, for his own happiness and his Father's glory, of a daily growth in all holiness. And as the believer is, after regeneration, an active agent in the furtherance of this great work, and as there is a perpetual proneness, through the many infirmities of the flesh, to settle down in a state of ease and sloth in it, the importance of being reminded of this necessity will immediately appear.
The first ground on which this necessity rests is the holiness of God. The nature of the God whose temple he is pleads for the sanctification of the believer. We have to do with a holy God who, from the very necessity and purity of His being, can have no fellowship with sin. He must hate, He must abhor it. A stronger plea for the sanctification of the child of God can nowhere be found. Let us for a moment trace this argument as it runs like a golden thread through every part of God's Word. We see its commencement in the Old Testament. Levit. 11. 44, 45: "For I am the Lord your God you shall therefore sanctify yourselves, and you shall be holy; for I am holy . . . I am the Lord that brings you up out of the land of Egypt, to be your God: you shall therefore be holy, for I am holy." Levit. 19. 2: "Speak unto all the congregation of the children of Israel, and say unto them, You shall be holy: for I the Lord your God am holy."
And that these commandments and this standard may not seem to belong exclusively to the Old Testament saints, the apostle Peter embodies them, as of equal force and solemnity, in his writings to the saints of the New Testament. 1 Peter 1. 15, 16: "But as he who has called you is holy, so be holy in all manner of conversation: because it is written, Be holy, for I am holy." If this motive to sanctification came clothed with such solemnity and power, and was so felt by the Jewish church, what should be its authority and influence with the church as it now exists! The increased power and solemnity of this motive is drawn from the more resplendent exhibition of God's holiness in the cross of Christ. The saints of the Old Testament were not favored with such a development of the Divine purity as an argument to sanctification. But we possess it; so that if we continue in sin after we have believed, we are "without excuse," and God is "clear when He judges." The cross is God's grand demonstration of His holiness. Here has He, as it were, unveiled His great perfections, and shown what a sin-hating, holiness-loving God He is. What! Could He not pass by His dear Son? Did He give Him up to the "shame and the spitting"? Why did He not withhold his "darling from the power of the dog"? Did justice sheath its sword in the heart of Jesus? Did it smite the Shepherd? And why all this? The answer comes from Calvary, "I, the Lord, am a holy God." And then follows the precept- O how touching!- "Be holy, for I am holy." See how the justice of God (and what is the justice of God but His holiness in exercise?) revealed itself as a "consuming fire" on Calvary. Our dear Lord was "a whole burned offering" for His people; and the fire that descended and consumed the sacrifice was the holiness of God in active and fearful exercise. Here then springs the solemn necessity for sanctification in the believer. The God he loves is holy, his Father is holy- and He has written out that holiness in awful letters in the cross of His well-beloved Son, "Be holy, for I am holy." We must study God in Christ. There we see His holiness, justice, wisdom, grace, truth, love and mercy, all unfolded in their richest glory and most benevolent exercise.
The necessity for sanctification also springs from the work of Christ. The Lord Jesus became incarnate, and died as much for the sanctification as for the pardon and justification of His church; as much for her deliverance from the indwelling power of sin as from the condemnatory power of sin. His work would have been but partial and incomplete if no provision had been made for the holiness of the believer. But He came not only to blot out sin but to rend asunder its chain, not only to remove its curse but to break its scepter. The believer in Jesus may be but imperfectly aware how closely associated his sanctification is with the obedience and death of Christ. Indeed the very death of Christ for sin outside of him, is the death of sin inside of him; no inroads are made upon the dominion of indwelling sin, no conquests obtained, no flesh crucified, no besetting sin laid aside, but only as the believer hangs daily upon the cross. Observe how the Holy Spirit connects the two- the death of Christ and the holiness of the believer: thus in John 17. 19: "And for their sakes," says Jesus, "I sanctify myself, that they also might be sanctified through the truth." As their High-priest to atone and purify, He set Himself apart as a holy sacrifice to the Lord God for the church's sake. "For their sakes I sanctify myself"- or set myself apart. Oh, what a motive to holiness is this, saint of God! Can you resist it? Yet again the connection is un folded. Tit. 2. 14: "Who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works." Eph. 5. 25, 26: "Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it; that he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word." Thus clearly does the Holy Spirit unfold the close and beautiful relationship between the death of Christ and the death of sin.
The covenant of grace enforces the sanctification of the believer. "It is the eternal and immutable purpose of God," observes Dr. John Owen, "that all who are His in a peculiar manner, all whom He designs to bring unto blessedness in the everlasting enjoyment of Himself, shall, antecedently there unto, be made holy." For the security and attainment of this, all provision has been made in the everlasting covenant of grace. The very election of the believer to eternal life provides for and secures his holiness. There could not possibly be any holiness without election, because election provides the means of its attainment. Thus clearly does the Spirit of truth unfold it. 2 Thess. 2. 13: "We are bound to give thanks aways to God for you, brethren beloved of the Lord, because God has from the beginning chosen you to salvation through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth." Again, Eph. 1. 4: "According as he has chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love." Let this be clearly understood. On the ground of no foreseen holiness in the creature, did God thus purpose to save him; but seeing the indispensable necessity of sanctification in order to eternal glory- the impossibility of the one without the other- He chose us in Christ "that we should be holy."
Let not the Christian reader turn away from, or treat lightly, this precious revealed truth of God's Word- an election of a people unto holiness here, and glory hereafter. The prejudice of education, early modes of thought, a preconceived system, and most of all the neglect of a close and prayerful investigation of God's Word for himself, may lead to the rejection of the doctrine. But he who first objects to it, and then renounces it, without a thorough and prayerful sifting of its scriptural claims to belief, stands on solemn ground, and his attitude may have fearful consequences. What God has revealed, "that call not you common." What He has commanded, do not turn from, lest you be found to have turned from God Himself. Why it has pleased the Lord to choose a people in this way, it is not our province to inquire, nor, we believe, would it be for our happiness to know. We do not attempt to explain the doctrine, much less to account for it. We simply and, we trust, scripturally state it, leaving God to vindicate and bless it. He is the best defender and apologist of His own sacred truth. "Secret things belong unto the Lord our God: but those things which are revealed belong unto us and to our children for ever, that we may do all the words of this law." (Dent. 29. 29.) The secret thing in the doctrine of election is why God has done it; the thing which is revealed is that He has done it. Let us not then seek to be wise above what is written, though it is our duty, as an acute writer has remarked, to be wise up to what is written, leaving the more perfect knowledge of the things that are now seen as "through a glass darkly," to that period of perfect illumination when we shall "know, even as we are known." But thus much we know, that it is the eternal purpose of God, revealed and provided for in the covenant of grace, that all who are chosen, called, and justified, shall, with a view to their being glorified, be "partakers of His holiness." Heaven is a holy place, its inhabitants are a holy people, and He whose glory fills the temple is a holy God. Behold then the provision God has made for the sanctification of the believer in the everlasting covenant of grace. The foundation is laid in the death of Christ, it commences in the effectual calling of the Spirit and, by all the precious assurances of grace, wisdom and strength provided in the covenant, it is carried forward to a glorious completion.
We would only specify, as one more consideration pleading for the sanctification of the believer, his own personal happiness. Holiness is necessary to the comfort of the believer, as it is an essential element of his Christian character. Sanctification is a part of the new creation. Although not the first step the soul takes into the new world of holiness, it yet immediately follows. Regeneration is the commencement of the reign of holiness, or (to change the figure) the planting of the germ, which time and the Lord's covenant dealings cause to take deep root and to put forth its lovely and fragrant flower. In proportion as the sanctification of a believer advances, his real happiness advances with it. Holiness brings its own peculiar and high enjoyment. It is from heaven, and conveys into the heart the happiness of heaven; so that he who is most holy has most of the material of heaven in his soul. O how loudly does the happiness of a child of God plead for his holiness! As his soul approximates to the likeness of God, his circumstances, trying as they may be, cannot remove the fine edge of his inward and concealed enjoyments. Indeed, sanctified by the indwelling Spirit, trials only heighten those enjoyments, and are found the most effective helps to the maturing of holiness in his soul.
These are some of the grounds on which the necessity of sanctification is enforced in the Divine Word. It will now be proper to unfold its gospel NATURE.
What is true sanctification? The question is vastly more important than would at first sight appear. Unscriptural views of sanctification have been found to exist, not only among the unregenerate, but even in the church of Christ. Yet every dear child of God who honestly desires to follow the Lord fully and to live as a temple of the Holy Spirit, deeply feels the necessity of the Spirit's teaching in a matter so personal and so momentous as this. How much do we who now write and they who read need, while contemplating this subject, the anointings of the Holy One and the eye that looks at the blood that cleanses from all sin!
Sanctification has been defined as "the work of the Holy Spirit whereby we are renewed in the whole man after the image of God, and are enabled more and more to die unto sin and live unto righteousness." Briefly and emphatically, it is a progressive conformity of the whole man to the Divine nature. Under the Levitical dispensation the term sanctified had a peculiar meaning. People and things were said to be sanctified which were separated, set apart and offered to God. Thus the furniture of the temple was pronounced holy, or sanctified; the ark, the altar, all the utensils of the temple and the vestments of the priest were regarded as sanctified, because set apart and dedicated to God. For the same reason, people were said to be sanctified who were solemnly consecrated to the service.
The dispensation of ritual having passed away, the word, by an easy and natural accommodation, has assumed a more comprehensive and evangelical meaning; and is now employed to set forth the advance of the believer in a conformity of heart to the will and image of God. In explaining the nature of sanctification, we would first of all establish from the Scripture the spirituality of the Divine law. There is a sense, as we have elsewhere shown, in which the believer is dead to the law. His union to Christ has delivered him from the law as a covenant of works. "You have died to the law by the body of Christ; that you should be married to another, even to him that is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto God." Again, "Now we are delivered from the law, that being dead (marg. being dead to that) wherein we were held; that we should serve in newness of spirit, and not in the oldness of the letter." (Rom. 7. 4, 6.) This then is the deadness to which the apostle refers. It is a release from the law as a ground of acceptance. The believer is "accepted in the Beloved"- pardoned, justified, and sanctified in Christ. He is married to Christ- is one with Christ. As such he is delivered from the law, under whose condemnation he once rested: being dead to that wherein he was held, it can no longer assert its claims, or exact obedience as the condition of life. It can no longer threaten or condemn. Shut up in the faith of Jesus, and receiving pardon and justification through Him, he is beyond the power of the law as a covenant of life, and is screened from its vengeance as a source of condemnation. No single truth has the Holy Spirit more clearly written out than this. He has shown, too, that it forms the basis of sanctification in the justified believer. His release from a covenant of works and his translation into the covenant of grace, his deliverance from the law and his union to Christ, form the ground of all holy liberty, filial obedience and spiritual fruitfulness. Those who are under the law are under the curse- but "there is no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus"- therefore the believer in Christ is not under the law.
But we come to the sense in which they "that are in Christ Jesus" have yet to do with the law. Released from it as a covenant of life, it yet remains obligatory as a rule of obedience to Christ. If we suppose that the law has lost all authority and use- to be entirely abrogated- we must suppose that the relation of God to His creatures as their moral Governor has also ceased- that, having laid aside all rule of obedience, He has with it abdicated the throne of the universe, and that man has ceased to be the subject of a moral government. But, far from this, the law of God remains in all its dignity, purity and force. The believer in Christ is released from it as a ground of acceptance, but not as a standard of holiness. Is it true that Christ is the standard and pattern of a believer's holiness? Undoubtedly. Then we argue that the moral law was the standard of Christ's holiness; therefore it must necessarily be the standard of the believer's. The whole life of Jesus was a conformity to the purity of the Divine law which was His standard of holiness and His pattern of obedience; therefore in following the example of Christ we are being conformed to the purity of the law "in newness of spirit, and not in the oldness of the letter."
Sanctification, then, is a growing conformity to the spirituality of the Divine law. The sincere believer acknowledges "that the law is holy, and the commandment holy, and just, and good"; he knows "that the law is spiritual." He therefore "delights in the law of God after the inward man." Does his faith in Jesus "make void the law"? "God forbid." Instead, his faith "establishes the law," reflects its spirituality, maintains its purity, vindicates its holiness and glorifies its Divine Author. The closer then the resemblance of the believer to the spirituality of the law of God in his life, his temper, and habit of his mind, his principles, his daily walk in the world and out of the world, among the saints or as surrounded by the ungodly, the more thoroughly is the work of sanctification advancing in his soul.
In all this there is a more simple surrender of the will to God. The holy Robert Leighton has remarked that to say from the heart "Your will be done " constitutes the very essence of sanctification. There is much truth in this, more than perhaps strikes the mind at the first view. Before conversion, the will- the governing principle of the soul- is the seat of all opposition to God. It rises against God, His government, His law, His providence, His grace, His Son; to all that appertains to God, the unrenewed will of man is hostile. Here lies the depth of man's unholiness. The will is against God; and so long as it refuses to obey Him, the creature must remain unholy. Now it needs no lengthy argument to show that when the will, as renewed by the Holy Spirit, is made to submit to God, the holiness of the believer must be in proportion to the degree of its submission. There could not be perfect holiness in heaven, were there the slightest preponderance of the will of the creature towards itself. The angels and " the spirits of just men made perfect" are supremely holy because their
wills are supremely swallowed up in the will of God. "Your
will be done on earth, even as it is in heaven." The will of God is supremely obeyed in heaven, and in this consist the holiness and the felicity of its glorious inhabitants.
Now in exact proportion as God's will "is done on earth" by the believer, he drinks from the pure fountain of holiness; and as he is enabled by the grace of Christ in all things to look up to God with filial love and to say, "Not my will, O
my Father, but Yours be done," he attains the very essence of sanctification. Let us trace out this subject. It is God's revealed will that His child should be holy- "this is the will of God, even your sanctification." When the will of the believer rises and blends itself with God's will here, and in the spirit of sonship responds, "Lord, is it your will that I should be holy? Then make me so in body, in soul and in spirit. Subdue all my corruptions, break the power of my lusts; bring every thought, affection, word and look into sweet obedience to Yourself; rule in the midst of Your enemies"- how truly does the work of sanctification advance in the soul!
It is the revealed will of God that His child should maintain a walk in all things pleasing to Him: "that you might walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing, being fruitful in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God." When the believer's will fully acquiesces in this, and the heart is drawn out in earnest and agonizing prayer for an upright walk, worthy of his high calling and of the Lord by whom he is called, for more fruitfulness in every good work, and for an increase of faith, love and knowledge of God, who will not say that such a soul is rapidly growing in sanctification?
It is the revealed will of God that the believer should walk as an obedient child: " O that you had hearkened to my commandments! then had your peace been as a river, and your righteousness as the waves of the sea." And, when these are the responsive breathings of his soul: " I love your commandments above gold, yes, above fine gold; therefore I esteem all your precepts concerning all things to be right; and I hate every false way. I will run the way of your commandments, when you shall enlarge my heart "- such a soul is maturing in holiness, and is becoming fitted " for the inheritance of the saints in light."'
It is the revealed will of God that His child should meekly and silently bow to His chastening hand: "My son, despise not the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when you are rebuked by him." And when the tried and afflicted believer "hears the rod, and He who has appointed it," and with a humble and filial acquiescence, justifies the wisdom and the love and even the tenderness that sent it- surely such a soul is a rich partaker of God's holiness. In all these particulars, there is a surrender of the will to God, and consequently an approximation to the holiness of His nature. The point we are now considering is one of great importance. It involves as much your holy and happy walk as it does the glory of God. We put the simple questions- can there be any advance of sanctification in the soul when the will is running counter to the Divine will?- and can that believer walk happily when there is a constant opposition in his mind to all the dealings
of his God and Father? O no! Holiness and happiness are closely allied; and both are the offspring of a humble, filial,
and complete surrender of the will in all things to God. Such an attainment in holiness is not soon or easily gained. Far from it. In many, it is the work of years; in all, of painful
discipline. It is not on the high mount of joy, but in the low valley of humiliation, that this precious and holy surrender is learned. It is not in the summer day- when all things smile and wear a sunny aspect- then it were easy to say, "Your will be done"; but when a cloudy and a wintry sky looks down upon you, when the chill blast of adversity blows, when health fails, when friends die, when wealth departs, when the heart's fondest endearments are yielded, when the Isaac is called for, when the world turns its back- when all is gone and you are like a tree of the desert, over which the tempest has swept, stripping it of every branch- when you are brought so low that it would seem to you that you could not be any lower- then to look up with filial love and exclaim, "My Father, Your will be done!" Oh, this is holiness, this is happiness indeed.
It may be that God, your God and Father, is dealing in this way with you now. Has he taken from you health? Has he asked for the surrender of your Isaac? Have riches taken to themselves wings? Does the world frown? Ah! little do you realize how God is now about to unfold to you the depths of His love, and to cause your will sweetly, and filially, and entirely to flow into His. Let me repeat the observation- a higher degree of sanctification there cannot be than a will entirely swallowed up in God's. Earnestly pray for it, diligently seek it. Be jealous of the slightest opposition of your mind, watch against the least rebellion of the will, wrestle for an entire surrender- to be where, and to be what, your covenant God and Father would have you; and so shall you be made a partaker of His holiness.
Furthermore, sanctification includes a growing resemblance to the likeness of Christ. How beautifully and explicitly has
the Holy Spirit unfolded this in His Word! This was the exhortation of our dear Lord, "Learn of me, for I am meek and lowly in heart"; and throughout the writings of His apostles the same truth is exhibited: "Whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son." Rom. 8. 29. "Speaking the truth in love, may grow up into him in all things, which is the head, even Christ." Eph. 4. 15.
Here is the glorious pattern of a child of God. Sanctification is a conformity to the image and the example of Christ. The more the believer is growing like Jesus, the more he is growing in holiness. And on the contrary, the less resemblance there is to Christ in his principles, in the habit of his mind, in his spirit, temper, daily walk, in every action and in every look, the less is he advancing in the great work of holiness. O how many who profess His dear name, and who are expecting to be with Him forever, never pause to consider what resemblance they bear to Him now! Were they to deal faithfully with conscience in the much-neglected duty of self-examination, were they to bring themselves to this great standard- how far below it would they be found to have come! How much in their principles, in their governing motives, in their temper, spirit, and daily conduct, how much in their walk in the world, in their deportment in the church, and in their more concealed conduct in their families, would be discovered that was unlike Christ! How much that was "from beneath," how little that was "from above"- how much of the "image of the earthy," how little of the "image of the heavenly"! But, look at the image of our dear Lord- how lowly, how holy it is! Look at His poverty of spirit, lowliness of heart, humility of deportment, tenderness, gentleness, forgiveness of injuries, self-denial, prayerfulness, zeal for His Father's glory, yearnings for the salvation of men. O to be like Jesus!- to grow up into Him in all things! This is to "walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing"; this is to realize "the will of God, even our sanctification." Let it not then be forgotten that an advancing believer is one growing in a resemblance and conformity to the image and example of Christ.
We must include, though in general terms, as involved in the growing sanctification of the believer, an increasingly tender conscience, a soft and gentle walk, deepening views of sin, looking at it more directly in the light of the cross, mourning over, confessing, hating, and crucifying it there. Nor must we omit a more complete investiture of the Christian with the graces of the Spirit; the active graces- faith, love, zeal, self-denial; the passive graces- meekness, patience, gentleness, peace. There are some, and not a few cases, in which all of these features distinguish a believer advancing in sanctification.
Having thus briefly considered the nature of sanctification, we now proceed to the main design of this chapter which was to show THE AGENCY OF THE HOLY SPIRIT in its production.
The work of sanctification is pre-eminently the product of the Spirit. He is the great Sanctifier of the soul. We have shown that the implantation of the germ of holiness in regeneration is of Him. For let it ever be borne in mind that a renewed soul has within it the "incorruptible seed" of holiness. Although its growth in many instances may be slow and scarcely perceptible, although during a long period of his journey the believer may be the subject of strong corruptions and clinging infirmities, which, in a degree, act like frosts upon the tender scion, checking its advance to maturity- yet the seed is there. Indwelling sin cannot destroy it, the frosts cannot kill it, it is "incorruptible" and therefore cannot be corrupted. In process of time, under the tender and faithful culture of the eternal Spirit, it shall deepen and expand its roots, and put forth its branches and its boughs, and then shall appear the fruit, "first the blade, then the ear, after that the full corn in the ear". It will vary in its degree of fruitfulness among the saints, in "some thirty, some sixty, some an hundredfold," but in all it will be of the same nature and the product of the same Spirit.
It has been the constant effort of Satan to divert men from the great point we are now considering. In two ways has he proved successful. First, in setting them upon the work of mortification of sin before regeneration; and second, in setting them upon the same work after conversion, in their own strength. With regard to the first, we have shown at some length that sanctification is not the work of an unbeliever; that, although it is solemnly true that "without holiness no man shall see the Lord," yet the attainment of holiness is an utter impossibility so long as the heart remains a stranger to the regenerating operations of the Holy Spirit. Repentance and faith are the first necessities in order of time for an unconverted man. With regard to the second effort of Satan to deceive the soul, it is equally ruinous to all true mortification of sin. No child of God can accomplish this mighty work in his own strength. Here lies the secret, be assured, of all our failure and disappointment in the work. Forgetting that he who would prove victorious in this warfare must first learn the lesson of his own weakness and insufficiency, and, thus schooled, must go forth in the "strength that is in Christ Jesus," and in the "power of His might," taking the shield of faith, and the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit- forgetting this important truth, we march to the overthrow of our giant corruptions in our own fancied wisdom and power; and the result always has been, and with the same means ever will be, our complete discomfiture. Oh! when shall we learn that we are nothing- that we have "no might"- and that our feeblest enemy will triumph if his overthrow be attempted in our own insufficiency?
The Holy Spirit is the efficient cause of all holiness in the believer. If we look into the prophecy of Ezekiel, we find clear intimations of the promise of the Spirit to this effect. There God unfolds what may be regarded as the foundation of all sanctification- the removal of the stony heart and the implanting of a new spirit. Ezek. 11.19: "I will give them one heart, and I will put a new spirit within you." Ezek. 36. 26: "A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you." Let us see the doctrine as more clearly unfolded in the writings of the apostles. Rom. 8. 9: "You are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his. And if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin; but the Spirit is life because of righteousness." 1 Cor. 6. 11: "And such were some of you:, but you are washed, but you are sanctified, but you are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God." 2 Thess. 2. 13: "But we are bound to give thanks always to God for you, brethren beloved of the Lord, because God has from the beginning chosen you to salvation through sanctification of the Spirit, and belief of the truth." 1 Pet. 1. 2: "Elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through sanctification of the Spirit." We are far from excluding the Father and the Son from any part in this great work- we believe they are deeply interested in it, as the Divine Word shows in Jude 1: "Those who are sanctified by God the Father." 1 Cor. 1. 2: "Those who are sanctified in Christ Jesus." But the Holy Spirit is the special and immediate Agent to whom the work of sanctifying the believer is assigned.
Let us now attempt to show IN WHAT WAY HE SANCTIFIES THE BELIEVER. First, by leading to a deeper acquaintance with the existence and power of indwelling sin. Perhaps the first impression of the reader is, how can this be? How does the breaking up of the deep fountain of inbred sin lead to the quieting of its dark and turbulent waves? But the Holy Spirit works in a way contrary to the dictates of our poor reason- in a way often that we never should have conceived, and by methods we should never have selected. This is one method of His operation in subduing our iniquities, and in making us partakers of the Divine holiness. The knowledge of indwelling sin, its existence and power, is often exceedingly defective at conversion, and this ignorance may continue for years after. We just see sin enough to alarm the conscience, awaken conviction and take us to Christ. As a thing against God, we hate it, mourn over it and seek its pardon through the atoning blood. This is followed by a sweet and lively sense of its blotting out and a growing desire after Divine conformity. But, oh, the unknown depths of sin!- these we have never explored. What infinite wisdom and love are seen in hiding these depths at first from our knowledge! Were the Lord fully to have revealed the hidden evils of the heart at the period when grace was yet in the bud, and faith was feeble, and our views of the Lord Jesus dim, and the "new creature" yet in its infancy, deep and dark despair must have gathered around the soul. With perhaps just knowledge enough of Christ to go to Him as a Savior, with just faith enough to touch the hem of His garment, the eternal Spirit first disclosed to us the existence and the guilt of sin; a full disclosure might have shut us up in hopeless despair. As believers it is sweet to remember the tender love of God in our espousals, to trace the gentleness of His first dealings with us in conversion, and to bear in mind that what He was then, He is at this moment.
But trace the work of the Spirit in the days after our experience. He comes, in accordance with the design of the covenant of grace, to sanctify, having called and quickened us. He is about to enlarge the "kingdom of God within" us, to stamp more deeply and bring out more vividly and broadly on the soul the varied lineaments of the Divine image. He is about to purify the temple more thoroughly, to take a fresh possession for God, to expel every rival that, by slow and imperceptible degrees, may have insinuated itself there; in a word, He is about to sanctify us. And how does He commence the work? By leading us into the chamber of imagery, by disclosing the depths of indwelling sin. Sin whose existence we had never imagined, He shows to have its principal dwelling in the heart. Iniquity that we had never thought of, He reveals as lurking in secret ambush within. O what darkness, what evil, and what baneful principles are found to have existed for so long, where we thought all was light, holiness and rectitude! We start, we shudder, and we shrink away, aghast at the discovery. "What! " says the alarmed soul, does all this evil dwell in me? Have I carried about with me for so long these sinful desires? Have I dwelling in me the seeds of such deep and dark depravity? Wonder of wonders is it, that the flood has not long since carried me away- that these deep evils have not broken out, to the wounding of my peace, and to the dishonoring of my God and Savior." Thus made acquainted with his own heart, almost a stranger to him before, the Holy Spirit awakens in his soul an ardent desire for holiness. In view of such a discovery, where can he fly but to the throne of grace? There, then, he goes weeping, mourning, confessing- and his prayer is, "Lord, subdue these evils of my heart- I am overwhelmed with astonishment. I lie down in shame, and my confusion covers me, that I should have harbored so long these treacherous foes against You, God of holiness and love. Save me, O God; for the waters are come in unto my soul. I sink in deep mire, where there is no standing: I am come into deep waters, where the floods overflow me. 'Search me, O God, and know my heart; try me, and know my thoughts; and see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting." Now the Spirit deepens and strengthens this desire for sanctification; the believer is set upon earnestly seeking holiness of heart; he sees such an iniquity in sin as he never saw before, and seeing it, he abhors it, and abhorring it, he takes it to the Spirit of holiness, that He might overcome and subdue it. Thus, in leading the believer into a deeper acquaintance with the existence and power of indwelling sin, does the blessed Spirit sanctify the soul, by making it the occasion of stirring up its desires for holiness. So do not be cast down at the discovery of the hidden evil of your heart. Sweet is the evidence it affords to the fact that the Holy Spirit is working there. Whatever be the sin that is brought to light- pride, deceit, carnality, inordinate affection, evil thoughts, unbelief, impatience, whatever it be- He is revealing it to you, not unnecessarily to wound and grieve you- O no, he is a loving and a gentle Spirit- but to beget this desire in your heart, "Lord, conform me to Your image- make me holy as You are holy."
Another process by which the Spirit sanctifies, is by deepening and strengthening the Divine life in the soul. There is, in every believer, a spiritual life. This life is from God. He is therefore said to be a "partaker of the Divine nature." This new and Divine life is, from its very nature, holy, and therefore opposed to the flesh. The flesh and the Spirit are ever hostile the one to the other, "for the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other." Paul, referring to his own experience, corroborates this statement. "I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members." Now the advance of the believer in true sanctification is just in proportion to the state of the Divine life within him. If it be low and declining, feeble and drooping, then the flesh gains the ascendancy and the root of sin is strengthened. If, on the contrary, the life of God in the soul is deepening and expanding, healthy and vigorous; if the "kingdom of God within," which is the new creation, is filling up every avenue of the mind, extending its conquests, and bringing every thought and affection into captivity to Christ; then the great work of sanctification is advancing, and "the law of the mind" is prevailing against "the law of sin."
There is an idea; fatal to all true sanctification of sin, which some believers, especially those who are young in experience, are prone to entertain, that nothing is to be done in the soul after a man has believed, that the work of conversion having taken place, all is accomplished. So far from this being the case, he has but just entered upon the work of sanctification, just started in the race, just buckled on the armor. The conflict can hardly be said to have begun in conversion; and therefore to rest indolently with the idea that the soul has nothing more to do than to accept of Christ as his salvation- that there are no corruptions to subdue, no sinful habits to cut off, no long-existing and deeply-embedded sins to mortify, root and branch, and no high and yet higher degrees in holiness to attain- is to form a most contracted view of the Christian life, such a view as, if persisted in, must necessarily prove detrimental to the spiritual advance of the believer.
The work of sanctification is a great and a daily work. It commences at the very moment of our translation into the kingdom of Christ on earth, and does not cease until the moment of our translation into the kingdom of God in heaven. The notion, so fondly cherished by some, of perfect sinlessness here, is as fatal to true sanctification as it is contrary to God's Word. They know but little of their own heart, who do not know, that sin (to borrow the language of John Owen), "not only still abides in us, but is still acting, still laboring to bring forth the deeds of the flesh." They know little who do not know that in their "flesh there dwells no good thing," that "that which is born of the flesh is flesh," and will retain its fleshly nature and propensities to the very last. Let us not exult "as though we had already attained, or were already perfect"; let us not be "ignorant of Satan's devices," one of which is to build us up in the belief that, in the present life, a man may cease from the work of mortification. The Lord keep the reader from cherishing so erroneous an idea. The work of sanctification is the work of a man's life. "When sin lets us alone (as has been remarked) we may let sin alone." But when is the day, indeed, when is the hour, that sin does not strive for the mastery, and in which the believer can say that he has completely slain his enemy? He may, "through the Spirit, mortify the deeds of the body," and if he does, "he shall live"; but as the heart is the natural and luxuriant soil of every noxious weed of sin, and as another springs up as soon as one is cut down, indeed as the same root appears again above the surface with new life and vigor, it requires a ceaseless care and vigilance, a perpetual mortification of sin in the body, until we throw off this cumbrous clay and go where sin is known no more.
In this way does the Spirit deepen the holiness of the child of God. He strengthens the Divine life within him; He invigorates the principle of holiness; waters, and revives, and expands the germ; infuses new life into His own blessed work; gives a new spring to faith, a new impulse to obedience, enlarges the heart with the love of Christ, and excites such a thirsting for holiness as none but God Himself can satisfy.
We would not omit to notice the influence of sanctified afflictions, which, through the eternal Spirit, are a powerful means of sanctification to the soul. "It is good for me that I have been afflicted," has been the exclamation and the testimony of many of the Lord's covenant and tried people. It is often difficult at the time to justify the wisdom and the goodness of God in His dealings with His saints. David found it so, when he saw with envy the prosperity of the wicked. Job found it so, when in the hour and depth of his afflictions, he exclaimed, "You are become cruel to me: with your strong hand you oppose yourself against me." Jeremiah found it so, when in his affliction he said, "He has hedged me about, that I cannot get out: he has made my chain heavy." And yet where is the furnace-tried, tempest-tossed believer that has not had to say, "In very faithfulness has he afflicted me"? During the pressure of the trial, at the moment when the storm was the heaviest, he may have thought, "all these things are against me"; but soon he has been led to justify the wisdom, and the love, and the faithfulness, and the tenderness of his covenant God and Father in His dealings, and to sing, in sweeter notes than ever,
"It is my happiness below
Not to live without the cross,
But the Savior's power to know,
Sanctifying every loss." (Cowper.)
The furnace is a needed process of sanctification. If not, why has God so ordered it? If not, why is it that so many of
His people are "chosen in the furnace of affliction"? Why do
all, more or less, pass through it? The furnace is needed. It is needed to "purify the sons of Levi, and purge them as gold and silver, that they may offer unto the Lord an offering in righteousness." It is needed to consume the dross and the tin which adhere so closely to the precious ore, to burn up the chaff that mingles with the precious grain, to purify the heart, to refine the affections, to chasten the soul, to wean it from a poor, empty world, to draw it from the creature, and to center it in God. O the blessed effects of this sanctified process! Who can fully unfold them? That must be blessed indeed which makes sin more exceedingly sinful, which weans and draws away from earth, which endears Jesus and His precious blood and righteousness, and which makes the soul a "partaker of His holiness." This is the blessed tendency of the sanctified discipline of the covenant. In this way does the Holy Spirit often sanctify the child of God.
Are you a child of affliction? Ah! how many whose eye falls on this question shall say, "I am the man that has seen affliction!" So too was your Lord and Master, and so too have been the most holy and eminent of His disciples. Then "think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened unto you; but rejoice, inasmuch as you are partakers of Christ's sufferings; that, when his glory shall be revealed, you may be glad also with exceeding joy." This is the path along which all the Lord's covenant people are led, and in this path, thorny though it be, they pluck some of their choicest flowers, and find some of their sweetest fruits. I am not addressing myself to those who are strangers to sanctified sorrow, whose voyage so far has been over a smooth and summer sea, whose heart's affections have never been sundered, whose budding hopes have never been blighted, whose spring blossoms have never fallen just when the fruit was beginning to appear, or whose sturdy oaks around which they fondly and closely clung have never been stricken at their side; to such I speak a mystery when I speak of the peculiar and costly blessings of sanctified affliction. It is not so with the experienced child of God, the "man that has seen affliction by the rod of His wrath." He is a witness to the truth of what I say. From this mine, he will tell you, he has dug his richest ore. In this field he has found his sweetest fruit. The knowledge of God to which he has here attained- His tender, loving and wise dealings with His people, His glorious character and perfections, His unchangeable love and faithfulness; the knowledge of Christ- His all-sufficiency and fulness, His sympathy and love; the knowledge of himself- his poverty, vileness and unworthiness: O where, and in what other school, could these high attainments have been made but in the low valley of humiliation, and beneath the discipline of the covenant of grace? Thus does the Spirit sanctify the soul through the medium of God's afflictive dispensations; thus they deepen the work of grace in the heart awaken the soul from its spiritual drowsiness- empty, humble, and lay it low- thus they lead to prayer, to self-examination, and afresh to the atoning blood; in this way, and by these means, the believer advances in holiness "through sanctification of the Spirit."
Again, it is by simple, close, and searching views of the cross of Christ that the Spirit most effectually sanctifies the believer. This is the true and great method of gospel sanctification. Here lies the secret of all real holiness, and, may I not add, of all real happiness? For if we separate happiness from holiness, we separate that which, in the covenant of grace, God has wisely and indissolubly united. The experience of the true believer must testify to this. We are only happy as we are holy- as the body of sin is daily crucified, as the power of the indwelling principle of sin is weakened, and as the outward deportment more beautifully and closely corresponds to the example of Jesus. Let us not then look for a happy life apart from a holy one. Trials we may have; indeed if we are the Lord's covenant ones, we shall have them, for He Himself has said, "in the world you shall have tribulation"; disappointments we may meet with- broken cisterns, thorny roads, wintry skies; but if we are walking in fellowship with God, walking in the light, growing up into Christ in all things, the Spirit of adoption dwelling in us, and leading to a filial and unreserved surrender- oh, there is happiness unspeakable, even though in the very depth of outward trial. A holy life is a happy life. This is God's order, it is His appointment, and therefore must be wise and good.
The Spirit especially and effectually sanctifies by unfolding the cross of Jesus. We desire to enlarge upon this point, not only because He Himself presents it in His Word as one of vast importance, but from the sober conviction of our judgment that there is no great advance in holiness without a growing knowledge of Christ, as the sanctification of the believer. A reference to God's Word, will place this truth in its proper light. Matt. 1. 21: "And you shall call his name Jesus: for he shall save his people from their sins." Not only shall He save them from the guilt and condemnation of sin, but also from the indwelling power or reign of sin, so that "sin shall not have dominion over" them. We shall presently show more fully how, in His sacerdotal office, He accomplishes this.
Again, 1 Cor. 1. 2: "Unto the church of God which is at Corinth, to them that are sanctified in Christ Jesus." But the most striking allusion to this important truth is found in the 30th verse, where the Lord Jesus is especially spoken of as made of God the sanctification of His people: "But of him are you in Christ Jesus, who is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption." Now it is essential to a right reception of the subject that we should know in what points of view Christ is made our sanctification; so that believing in Him and receiving Him as such, we may "grow up into Him in all things."
In the first place, the atoning work of Christ lays the foundation of sanctification. He opens a way by which God, so to speak, can deal with the soul in the great business of its holiness. Only upon the broad basis of His law honored, His holiness secured, and His justice satisfied, can God, in the way of mercy, have communication with the sinner. Here we see the great glory of Jesus as the God-Man Mediator. His atoning work opens a channel through which God, without compromising a single perfection of His nature, can communicate the saving and sanctifying power of His grace to the soul. The obedience and blood-shedding of our adorable Lord, are ever, in the Divine Word, connected with the sanctification of the church. A few examples will suffice to show this.
Speaking of the legal, but imperfect sanctification by the sacrifices under the law, the apostle supplies an argument in favor of the superior sanctification by the blood of Christ. Heb. 9. 13, 14: "For if the blood of bulls and of goats, and
the ashes of an heifer sprinkling the unclean, sanctifies to the purifying of the flesh, how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?"
Again, in Rom. 6. 3- 6, the following phrases occur "Planted in the likeness of his death" "our old man crucified with him" "the body of sin destroyed" "that henceforth we should not serve sin." Let the reader also consult the following passages: Rom. 5. 9; 1 Pet. 3. 18; Col. 1. 14; Heb. 2. 14, 15; 1 John 4. 10. Thus does the atoning blood of Jesus lay the foundation of all future degrees of sanctification. The cross of Christ is, so to speak, the starting point of the soul in this glorious career of holiness, and the goal to which it again returns. By it, the body of sin is wounded, and wounded fatally; from it, pardon, and peace, and holiness flow; and through it, the soul daily rises to God in a holy surrender of itself to His service. Let no man dream of true mortification of sin, of real sanctification of heart, who does not deal constantly, closely and believingly with the atoning
blood of Jesus. The Holy Spirit brings the cross into the soul
and lays it upon the heart to be the death of sin. "I am crucified with Christ." "That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death." "I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus"- and see how the cross lifted him above the world and deadened him to it- "God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world." Thus did Paul breathe after and attain unto holiness.
The intercession of our Lord Jesus pleads for and secures the sanctification of the believer. In this sense it may be said that He is "made of God unto us sanctification." The Christian reader may be but imperfectly aware how closely connected is every spiritual grace and blessing that he receives with the advocacy of Jesus at the right hand of God. (The Lord increase our faith in this great and sanctifying truth!) While yet upon earth, our dear Lord commenced that work of intercession for the sanctification of the church, which He ascended up on high more fully to carry on. This was the burden of His prayer, and it forms, as John Owen observes, "the blessed spring of our holiness"- "Sanctify them through your truth." And not only would He leave it, as it were, as a model of the intercession of His exalted priesthood, but, for our encouragement, He would provide an evidence of its success. To Peter, about to pass through a severe temptation, He says, "I have prayed for you, that your faith fail not." Nor did his faith fail. It was sifted, it was severely shaken, it was powerfully tried, but it failed not; not a particle of the pure gold was lost in the refining, not a grain of the pure,wheat in the sifting: and why?- because Jesus had interceded, and His intercession was all-prevailing. O the vast and costly blessings that flow into the soul from the intercession of Christ! Never shall we know the full extent of this, until we pass within the veil. We shall then know the secret of our spiritual life- of all our supports, consolations and victories; why it was that the spark in the ocean was not quite extinguished, why the vessel in the storm and amid the breakers did not quite become a wreck; why, when temptations assailed, and crosses pressed, and afflictions overwhelmed, and unbelief prevailed, that our faith still did not fail, and our bark was not driven from its moorings, and that "out of the depths" we were enabled to cry, "Thanks be unto God, who always causes us to triumph in Christ." The secret will then disclose itself- the intercession of Jesus our great High Priest.
How sweet and consoling to the believer is this view of our exalted Emmanuel in the hour of bereavement, when confined to his chamber of solitude, or languishing upon his bed of "pining sickness." Too deeply absorbed in sorrow, it may be, to give utterance to his anguished spirit in prayer- his bodily frame so weakened by disease, and racked by pain, as to render the mind unfit for close and connected spiritual thought- O how sweet is then the intercession of Jesus; how sweet to know that, in the hour of the soul's extremity when human sympathy and power are exhausted, "Jesus has entered into heaven, now to appear in the presence of God" for His suffering child. And when all utterance has failed on earth; when the heart is broken and the lips are sealed, then to look up and see our elder Brother, the Brother born for our adversity, the exalted High Priest waving the golden censer before the throne, while the cloud of His atoning merit goes up before the mercy-seat, bearing as it ascends, the person, the name, the circumstances and the needs of the sufferer below- precious gospel, that opens to the eye of faith so sweet a prospect as this! When you cannot think of Him, afflicted soul, He is thinking of you; when you cannot pray to Him, He is praying for you, for "He ever lives to make intercession."
But our Lord Jesus is the sanctification of the believer in still another and blessed sense. View Him as the Head of all mediatorial fulness to His people. "It pleased the Father that in him should all fulness dwell." "And of his fulness have all we received, and grace for grace." Here is sanctification for the believer who is mourning over the existence and power of indwelling sin, feeling it to be his greatest burden and the cause of his deepest sorrow. In the growing discovery of the hidden evil- each successive view, it may be, deeper and darker than the former- where is he to look but unto Jesus? Where can he fly, but to His cross? Hemmed in on every side by a host of spiritual Philistines, no avenue of escape presenting itself, the eternal Spirit leads the soul to a simple view of Jesus, opens to him the vast treasury of His grace, and the free welcome to all comers. And what does he find in that fulness? All that he needs to pardon sin, to hide deformity, to overcome unbelief, and break the power of strong corruption; he finds that there is enough in Christ to make him holy, that, in simply taking his sins to Jesus, they are pardoned; in taking his strong infirmities, they are subdued; in taking his needs, they are supplied; in a word, he finds Christ to be his "wisdom and righteousness, sanctification and redemption."

We close this chapter with a few remarks in the way of caution, direction and encouragement in this great work.
Do not mistake the nature of true sanctification. It is an internal and radical work. It has its seat in the heart. A mere external mortification of sinful habits does not come up to the standard of gospel sanctification. True, this is included
in real holiness, yet it may exist without a holy heart. A man may cut off outward sins, and leave the principle of all sin yet remaining in its unsubdued power. We may visit a forest, and level a tall cedar to the earth; yet, if we leave the root deeply embedded in the soil, the vital principle yet remaining in all its vigor, what marvel if, in course of time, that root shall again shoot forth, and branch out as before? True sanctification is a daily mortification of the root of sin in the heart- the continual destruction of the principle. The Word of God bears us out in this; Gal. 5. 24: "And those who are Christ's have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts." Rom. 6. 6: "Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin." Do not rest short of this. Would you be holy as God is holy, and happy as the saints in glory are happy?- then must you reach after this and rest not until you attain it.
Again we would urge- seek high attainments in holiness. Do not be satisfied with a low measure of grace, with a stunted religion, with just enough Christianity to admit you into heaven. O how many are thus content, satisfied to leave the great question of their acceptance to be decided in another world, and not in this, resting upon some slight evidence, in itself faint and equivocal, perhaps a former experience, some impressions or sensations or transient joys long since passed away; and thus they are content to live, and thus content to die. You should not be satisfied with anything short of a present Christ, received, enjoyed and lived upon. Forget the things that are behind, reach forth unto higher attainments in sanctification, seek to have the daily witness, daily communion with God; and for your own sake, for the sake of others, and for Christ's sake, "give all diligence to make your calling and election sure."
Beware of self-dependence in this work. Remember the words that Jesus once spoke to His disciples, and now speaks to you, "Without me you can do nothing." Self-trust, self-complacency, self-boasting, all must be crucified; and, strong only in the strength that is in Christ Jesus, must the believer gird himself to the work. Our wisdom is to go in our weakness and folly to Jesus. In this lies the great secret of our victory: "When I am weak, then am I strong." "My grace is sufficient for you." "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me."
Do not forget that the truth of God is the great instrument of sanctification. "Sanctify them through your truth: your word is truth." There is that in the truth of God, which, when brought into the soul by the power of the Holy Spirit, always sanctifies. It is holy truth; it unfolds a holy God, reveals a holy law, exhibits a holy sacrifice, and enforces by the most holy motives the sanctity of the most holy precepts. In proportion as the renewed mind is brought into a close and constant contact with God's truth, it grows nearer to its spirit. Let then "the word of Christ dwell richly in you in all wisdom" and spiritual understanding. Be close, diligent and prayerful students of the Word of God. Do not separate the doctrine from the precept, nor the precept from the promise; every part is essential to the sanctification of the believer; to secure this great end, the doctrine, the precept and the promise must be alike received, and brought into active, holy exercise.
Deal much and closely with the atoning blood of Jesus. There is no victory over the indwelling power of sin, and there is no pardon for the guilt of sin, but as the soul deals with the blood of Christ. The great object of our dear Lord's death was to destroy the works of the devil. Sin is the great work of Satan. To overcome this, to break its power, subdue its dominion, repair its ruins and release from its condemnation, the blessed Son of God suffered the ignominious death of the cross. All that bitter agony which He endured, all that mental suffering, the sorrow of His soul in the garden, the sufferings of His body on the cross- all was for sin. "He gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works." Tit. 2. 14. "He gave himself for the church, that he might sanctify and cleanse it and that he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that it should be holy and without blemish." Eph. 5. 25- 27. See, then, the close and beautiful connection between the death of Christ and the death of sin. All true sanctification comes through the cross! Reader, seek it there. The cross brought into your soul by the eternal Spirit, will be the death of your sins. Go to the cross- oh, go to the cross of Jesus. In simplicity of faith, go; with the strong corruption, go; with the burden of guilt, go; go to the cross! You will find nothing but love there, nothing but welcome there, nothing but purity there. The precious blood of Jesus "cleanses from all sin." And while you are kept low beneath the cross, your enemy dares not approach you, sin shall not have dominion over you, nor shall Satan your accuser condemn you.
Deal much and closely with the fulness of grace that is in Jesus. All this grace in Christ is for the sanctification of the believer. "It pleased the Father that in Him should all fulness dwell," for the necessities of His people; and what necessities so great and urgent as those which spring from indwelling sin? Take the corruption, whatever be its nature, directly and simply to Jesus: the very act of taking it to Him weakens its power; indeed it is half way to victory. The blessed state of mind- the holy impulse that leads you to your secret place, there to fall prostrate before the Lord in lowliness of spirit, brokenness of heart and humble confession of sin, with the hand of faith on the head of Jesus, the atoning Sacrifice is a mighty achievement of the indwelling Spirit over the power of indwelling sin. Learn to take the guilt as it comes, and the corruption as it rises, directly and simply to Jesus. Do not allow the guilt of sin to remain long upon the conscience. The moment there is the slightest consciousness of a wound received, take it to the blood of Christ. The moment a mist dims the eye of faith, so that you cannot see clearly the smile of your Father's countenance, take it that instant to the blood of atonement. Let there be no distance between God and your soul. Sin separates. But sin immediately confessed, mourned over and forsaken, brings God and the soul together in sweet, close and holy fellowship. O the oneness of God and the believer in a sin-pardoning Christ! Who can know it? Only one who has experienced it. To cherish, then, the abiding sense of this holy, loving oneness, the believer (to use the figure of the tabernacle) must wash daily in the brazen laver that is outside- then, entering in within the veil, he may "draw near" the mercy-seat and ask what he will of Him who dwells between the cherubim. "Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way, which he has consecrated for us, through the veil, that is to say, his flesh; and having a high priest over the house of God; let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water." Heb. 10. 19-22.
Thank God for the smallest victory gained. Praise Him for any evidence that sin has not entire dominion. Every fresh triumph achieved over some strong and besetting weakness is a glorious battle won. No victory that ever flushed the cheek of an Alexander or a Caesar can be compared with his, who, in the grace that is in Christ Jesus, overcomes a single corruption. If "he that rules his spirit is better than he that takes a city," then he who masters one corruption of his nature has more real glory than the greatest earthly conqueror that ever lived. O how God is glorified, how Jesus is honored and how the Spirit is magnified in the slaying of one spiritual enemy at the foot of the cross! Cheer up, precious soul! You have every encouragement to persevere in the great business of sanctification. True, it is a hard fight; true, it is a severe and painful contest, but the victory is yours! The "Captain of your salvation" has fought and conquered for you, and now sits upon His throne of glory, cheering you on, and supplying you with all needed strength for the warfare in which you are engaged. Then "fight the good fight of faith," "act like men," "be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus," for you shall at length "overcome through the blood of the Lamb" and be "more than conquerors through Him that has loved us." Here, beneath the cross, would I breathe for you the desire and the prayer once offered by the apostle of the Gentiles in behalf of the church of the Thessalonians, "And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly; and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ." Amen and Amen.

"The Sealing of the Spirit" or "The Believer an Epistle"

Ye are our epistle written in our hearts, known and read of all men: 2 Cor. 3:2

You yourselves are our letter, written on our hearts, known and read by everybody. 2 Cor. 3:2

But the only letter of recommendation we need is you yourselves! Your lives are a letter written in our hearts, and everyone can read it and recognize our good work among you. 2 Cor. 3:2

In whom ye also trusted, after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation: in whom also after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that holy Spirit of promise, Ephes. 1:13

And you also were included in Christ when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. Having believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, Ephes. 1:13

And now you also have heard the truth, the Good News that God saves you. And when you believed in Christ, he identified you as his own by giving you the Holy Spirit, whom he promised long ago. Ephes. 1:13

What an inestimable gift is God the Holy Spirit, and how vast is His work! Each successive step we take in unfolding it does but more deeply convince us of this. New rays of light are reflected, new aspects of importance present themselves, and new features of interest and beauty are brought to view, as we pursue our research into this essential and important department of Divine truth. The more thoroughly and prayerfully we are led to investigate the operations of the Spirit upon the soul, especially if we watch closely His work in our own hearts, the more powerfully will the conviction press itself upon the mind that all real advance in Divine knowledge, in righteousness, joy and peace, is inseparably connected with His indwelling and sanctifying power. In the previous chapter, we endeavored to unfold this. We have seen Him as the Author and Finisher of holiness in the soul- beginning the great work, carrying it forward, strengthening it when feeble, reviving it when drooping, and thus preparing the believer for the "inheritance of the saints in light." Closely connected with this part of His work is His sealing operation. As various opinions have been held regarding the nature of the Spirit's sealing, as it is a subject of a highly spiritual and practical tendency and (to an inquirer after a more perfect knowledge of the truth) of much importance, we enter upon the discussion of the subject the more readily, and, we trust, with earnest prayer for Divine assistance in unfolding it.

THE NATURE OF THE SEALING OF THE SPIRIT
What do we understand by the sealing of the Spirit? What does the Word of God teach upon the subject? There are various passages in which the same figure is employed, but which do not convey the idea we ascribe to His present operation. For example, there is a sealing spoken of in 2 Tim. 2. 19: "Nevertheless the foundation of God stands sure, having this seal, The Lord knows those who are his." We think it clear that the seal here alluded to has respect to the Father's sealing His people in election with the seal of His foreknowledge, which, of course, is an operation anterior to the existence of faith in the soul, and is within Himself, and not upon them. It is, so to speak, His secret designation of His people, known especially and only to Himself.
There is also a sealing spoken of in the Song of Solomon 8. 6: "Set me as a seal upon your heart, as a seal upon your arm: for love is strong as death." It is equally clear that this cannot refer to the work of the Spirit, but must refer to Christ's strong and unchangeable love to His people. They are set as a seal upon His heart, the dwelling-place of love; and upon His arm, the instrument of power; unchangeable love and omnipotent power are pledged to their eternal security. As a seal set upon His heart and worn upon His arm, they are precious to, and valued by, Him.
Nor are we to interpret the sealing under consideration to mean the extraordinary gifts of the Spirit; for it is a remarkable fact, already alluded to- and it speaks solemnly to those who are forming a higher estimate of gifts than of graces- that the Corinthian church, the most distinguished for its possession of the gifts of the Spirit, was at the same time most remarkable for its lack of the sanctifying graces of the Spirit. It was the most gifted, but at the same time the least holy community gathered and planted by the apostles.
The question still recurs- what are we to understand by the sealing of the Spirit? It is that act of the Holy Spirit by which the work of grace is deepened in the heart of the believer, so that he has an increasing and abiding conviction of his acceptance in Jesus, and his adoption into the family of God. It is a clearer and more undoubted manifestation of Christ to the soul, a larger degree of the sanctifying, witnessing and anointing influences of the Holy Spirit, evidencing itself in a growing holiness of character. Let us not be misunderstood. We are not speaking of some peculiar and sudden impulse on the mind, of some immediate suggestion or revelation to the soul, some vision of the night, or voice in the air. No! we speak of a growth in a knowledge of Christ, in sanctification of heart, in holiness of life, in an increasing and abiding moral certainty of the believer's "calling and election." "In whom also after you believed, you were sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise." The Holy Spirit is both the seal and the sealer; even as Jesus was both the sacrifice and the priest. He deepens the work of grace in the heart; He witnesses to the believer that he is born of God; He seals the soul to the day of redemption, and by His indwelling and anointing influences enables him to say, "I know whom I have believed- He has loved me and given Himself for me."

THE MANNER OF THE SEALING OF THE SPIRIT
With this brief and simple definition of the nature of the sealing of the Spirit, we proceed to unfold the manner in which it is effected.
It is sometimes a sudden work of the Spirit. A soul may be so deeply sealed in conversion, may receive such a vivid impression of Divine grace, such an enlarged communication of the Divine Spirit, as it never afterwards loses. It is sealed "unto the day of redemption"; and that too, in the most simple way. In the hearing of a single sermon, the reading of a single chapter of God's Word, some promise brought with the power of the Holy Spirit and sealed upon the heart, in a moment the soul is brought into the full assurance of understanding and of faith. Take, for example, that one precious promise which the Spirit has sealed, never to be effaced, upon many a poor sinner's softened heart: "him that comes unto Me I will in no wise cast out." O what a sealing is this! God speaking to a poor, distressed, and disconsolate soul, assuring it of a cordial welcome and of a free pardon- that though no tongue can express its vileness and poverty, and no imagination conceive its deep sorrow, yet, coming to Jesus just as it is, it shall in no wise be cast out! Is not this an impression of the seal in the hands of the great Sealer, which is unto the day of redemption?
Sometimes it takes place as the Holy Spirit unfolds to the anxious soul the great truth that Christ is the Savior of a sinner. You have been long waiting for some offering, some gift, some price with which to come; long lingering on the margin of the fountain, waiting for some preparation to enter- in other words (for it amounts to this), waiting to feel less vile, less unworthy, in order that you may be more welcome. And now, the blessed Spirit opens to your mind that great and precious truth, that "Christ died for the ungodly," that He is the mighty and the willing Savior of a sinner; that no gift, no price, is asked; no previous fitness or self-preparation is necessary; that the more vile and unworthy, the more fit and the more welcome. O what an impression of the seal is this upon a wounded heart! When the glorious announcement is brought home to the soul- a full and free pardon for a poor sinner- the blood of Jesus cleansing from sin- is it any marvel that no change of time or circumstance can obliterate the impression or the remembrance of that moment from the mind? It was a sealing of pardon upon a heart which God had made soft, and which was the sure prelude to, indeed the beginning of, eternal glory.
But in most cases the sealing of the Spirit is a more gradual work. It is a work of time. The soul is placed in the school of deep experience and is led on step by step, stage by stage. The knowledge of self and of Christ increases, deeper views of indwelling sin are discovered, the heart's treachery is more acutely felt, the devices of Satan are better known, the mystery of God's gracious and providential dealings with His children is more clearly unfolded and better understood. And all this, it may be, is arrived at through a process- the deep, painful, yet sanctified discipline of the covenant- so that years may elapse before a child of the covenant attains to the full sealing of the Spirit. And yet, blessed be God, the work of regeneration is so perfect in itself, the blotting out of all a believer's sins so complete, and his justification so entire, that a saint of God dying in the first stages of the Divine life is safe forever. May we not refer to the thief upon the cross as an example illustrating and confirming this?
There are, then, degrees, or progressive stages of the Spirit's sealing. The first impression is made in regeneration. This is often faint, and in numerous cases, scarcely perceptible. Especially is it so in ordinary conversions. We mean by ordinary conversions those that occur under the common influences of the Spirit, in the use of the stated means of grace. Where the Holy Spirit descends in an especial and extraordinary manner (as the history of the American churches and, more recently, of many in our own land testifies that He sometimes does), conversions assume a more marked character and type. They are clearer, more perceptible, and undoubted. The work is of a deeper kind, views of sin are more pungent, the law-work of the soul more thorough, and, when the soul emerges from its gloomy night of conviction into the glorious light of pardon, it seems more like the "perfect day" of God's forgiveness. There is, in a work of grace transpiring during an especial outpouring of the Holy Spirit, a deeper impression of the seal of the Spirit upon the heart, a clearer and more manifest sense of pardon and acceptance, than in the normal conversions of ordinary times. Nor is this difficult to account for. There is a greater and richer manifestation of the Holy Spirit. This is the grand secret. He gives more of Himself. He imparts more of His anointing influences; and the larger the degree we possess ok the quickening, sanctifying influences of the Spirit, the more in proportion do we know of His sealing operation. How this thought should awaken the desire, and impart power and fervency to the prayer, for a more enlarged communication of the Holy Spirit! Ceaseless should be the cry, "Lord, fill me with the Spirit!" But, as we have remarked, in conversions occurring under the more ordinary instrumentalities, the first impression of the seal of the Spirit is often but little beneath the surface. The work of grace is feeble. It may be compared to the faint outline of a picture: the design is there, the idea of the artist is seen, but the fulness of its parts, the coloring, the light and shade, are lacking to the perfection of the whole. It may be compared, also, to the first streak of morning light, before it deepens into "perfect day," or to the gentle rising of the rivulet, before it widens into the "broad river." Its beginnings are feeble, and yet real. The light is not less light because it is but a faint and struggling ray, nor is the rivulet less a rivulet because its issues are feeble and almost unseen. Grace loses nothing of the greatness and glory of its character in the smallness of its degree. An infant loses nothing of its identity with its species because it is not a "perfect man," nor does the father disown it as his child because it is the smallest and the feeblest of his family. O no! feeble grace is still Divine grace; and he who touches but the hem, is as much saved, and shall be as surely glorified, as he whose faith removes the mountain and casts it into the sea. The first impression is as much the work of the Spirit as any deeper one in after years. Let not the weak believer overlook or undervalue what God has done for him. That feeble light, that little strength, that faint and flickering ray, that touching but the hem- oh, it is the blessed product of God the eternal Spirit. Nature never taught you your sinfulness, your worthlessness, your vileness, your nothingness; "flesh and blood " never revealed to you the absolute necessity of a better righteousness than your own, nor led you to Jesus, as your "wisdom and righteousness, sanctification and redemption." Then "give glory to the Lord your God" for what He has done. Praise, O praise Him for the work He has wrought in you. Tell to others the wonders of His love, His grace and His power. Confess his name before angels and men. Be very diligent in seeking large and yet larger supplies of that "river that makes glad the city of God." "In whom also, after that you believed, you were sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise."
But a yet deeper impression of the seal is made, when the believer is led more fully into the realization of his sonship, when he attains to the blessed sense of the "adoption of children." Although it is most true that the moment a sinner believes in Jesus, he becomes actually an "heir of God, and a joint heir with Christ," and enters into the family as an adopted child, yet the clear and undoubted sense of this vast mercy may not be sealed upon his heart until later years. He may long have walked without the sweet sense of God's adopting love in his heart; the frame of his spirit and the language of his soul in prayer may have been more akin to that of the "son of the bond-woman" than the "son of the free-woman." He may have known but little of the "free spirit," the spirit of an adopted child, and may seldom have gone to God as a kind, loving, tender and faithful Father. But now the Divine Sealer- the eternal Spirit of God- enters afresh, and impresses deeply upon his soul the unutterably sweet and abiding sense of his adoption. O what an impression is then left upon his heart, when all his legal fears are calmed, when all his slavish moanings are hushed, when all his bondage spirit is gone, and when under the drawings of filial love, he approaches the throne of grace and cries, "My Father!" And his Father responds, "My child!" "You shall call me, My Father, and shall not turn away from me." Jer. 3. 19. "In whom also, after that you believed, you were sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise."
In the process of sanctified affliction, the soul often receives a fresh and a deep impress of the seal of the Spirit. The furnace works wonders for a believer. O that he should ever wish to be exempt from it! Indeed, it may be remarked that real grace is inseparable from a state of trial. Where there is real faith, the Lord will try it. Where there is the true ore, the Refiner will prove it in the furnace. There is not a grace of the Spirit but, more or less, and at one time or another, Jesus tries that grace. "The Lord tries the righteous." He tries their principles, tries their graces, tries their obedience, proves His own work, brings out the new man in all its muscular fulness, develops the nature and character of His work and shows it to be His mighty product, and in all respects worthy of Himself. Much, then, as we would wish at times, exemption from a state of trial, anxious for the more smooth and easy path, yet, if we are really born of God, and His grace has truly made us one of His family, like them we have been "chosen in the furnace of affliction," and with them in the furnace we are brought into the possession of some of the most costly blessings of our lives.
Real grace, then, is tried grace. And note how, in the process of its trial, the blessed and eternal Spirit more deeply seals the believer. The hour of affliction is the hour of softening. Job bore this testimony: "He makes my heart soft." The hardness of the heart yields, the callousness of the spirit gives way, the affections become tender, conscience is more susceptible. It is the season of holy abstraction, meditation and prayer, of withdrawal from the world and from creature delights, while the soul is more closely shut in with God. The heart, now emptied, humbled and softened, is prepared for the seal of the Spirit; and what an impression is then made, what discoveries of God's love to the soul, what enlarged views of the personal glory of Christ, of the infinite perfection of His work, of the preciousness of the atoning sacrifice, of the hatefulness of sin, and of the beauty of holiness! His own personal interest in this great work of Christ is made more clear and certain to his soul. The Spirit bears fresh witness to his acceptance, and seals him anew with the adopting love of God. It was the psalmist's wisdom to acknowledge, "It is good for me that I have been afflicted." Let it not then be forgotten that an afflicting time is often a sealing time.
We would remark in this connection that the sealing of the Spirit does not always imply a rejoicing state. It is not necessarily accompanied by great spiritual joy. While we cannot forget that it is the believer's privilege to be "always rejoicing," "rejoicing evermore," and that a state of spiritual joy is as much a holy as it is a happy state, yet we cannot suppose that the "sealed " are always in possession of this "fruit of the Spirit." It is perhaps more a state of rest in God, a state of holy quietude and peace, which, in many cases, seldom rises to that of joy. There is an unclouded hope, a firm and unshaken resting on the finished work, a humble reliance on the stability of the covenant and on the immutability of God's love, which is never moved even when there is no sensible enjoyment and when comfort seems to die. It is a state corresponding to that which David thus expresses, "Although my house do not be so with God; yet he has made with me an everlasting covenant, ordered in all things, and sure: for this is all my salvation, and all my desire, although he make it not to grow." Perhaps it is more akin to job's frame of soul when he exclaimed, "Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him." A sense of comfort may be withdrawn, joy may be absent, the Sun of righteousness casting but a faint twilight over the soul, and yet, such is the power of faith grasping the cross of Christ, such is the firm resting of the soul upon the stability of the covenant, upon what God is, and upon what He has promised, that, without one note of joy, or one ray of light, the believer can yet say, "I know whom I have believed." And why, we ask, this strong and vigorous reliance? Why this buoying up of the soul in the absence of sensible comfort? We reply that it is because that soul has attained unto the sealing of the Spirit. This forms the great secret.
This conducts us to another reflection. The believer will never lose the sealing of the Spirit. The impression of God's pardoning love made upon the heart by the Holy Spirit is never entirely effaced. We do not say that there are no moments when the "consolations of God are small" with the believer, when he shall have no severe "fightings within and fears without," when the experience of the church shall be his, "I opened to my beloved: but my beloved had withdrawn himself, and was gone: my soul failed when he spoke: I sought him, but I could not find him; I called him, but he gave me no answer"- all this he may experience, and still not lose the sealing of the Spirit. In the midst of it all, even in the lowest depth, there shall be the abiding conviction of an interest in God's love which sustains, animates and comforts. It will be seen, by reverting to the state of the church alluded to above, that although there was the consciousness of her Beloved's withdrawal- though He was gone, and she sought Him but could not find Him, called Him but He gave her no answer- yet not for one moment did she lose the impression that He still was her Beloved. Here was the glorious triumph of faith in the hour when all was loneliness, desolation and joylessness. Here was the sealing of the Spirit which never left her, even
though her "Beloved had gone." And while not a beam of His beauty glanced upon her soul, nor a note of His voice fell upon her ear, she still could look up and exclaim, "I am
my Beloved's, and my Beloved is mine." O mighty power of faith that can anchor the soul firm on Jesus in the darkest
and wildest tempest! And this, reader, is indeed the sealing
of the Spirit. It is the Holy Spirit so deeply impressing on the heart a sense of pardoning love, so firmly establishing it in the faithfulness of God, in the finished work of Christ, in the stability of the covenant, and in the soul's adoption into the one family, that in the gloomiest hour, and under the most trying dispensation, there is that which keeps the soul steady to its center- Jehovah Jesus. And even should his sun go down behind a mist, he has the sustaining assurance that it will rise upon another world, in peerless, cloudless splendor. O yes! the sealing of the Spirit is a permanent, abiding impression. It is "unto the day of redemption"- the day when there shall be no more conflict, no more darkness, no more sin. It is not to the day of pardon, for he cannot be more entirely pardoned than he is; it is not to the day of acceptance, for he cannot be more fully accepted than now. No, it is to the glorious "day of redemption," the day of complete emancipation longed for by the sons of God, and even sighed for by the "whole creation": "and not only they, but ourselves also, which have the first-fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body." O shout for joy, you who are sealed of the Lord! Tried and afflicted, tossed with tempest, and not comforted, you who find the world to be but a wilderness, a valley of tears- the path rougher and rougher, narrower and narrower- lift up your heads with joy; the hour of "your redemption draws near," and the "days of your mourning shall be ended." And this is your security: a faithful covenant-keeping God, "who has also sealed us, and given the earnest of the Spirit in our hearts."
In closing this chapter, we would remark in the first place that it is the duty and the privilege of every believer diligently and prayerfully to seek the sealing of the Spirit. He rests short of his great privilege if he slights or undervalues this blessing. Do not be satisfied with the impression which you received in conversion. In other words, do not rest content with a past experience. Many are satisfied with a mere hope that they once passed from death unto life, and with this feeble and (in many cases) doubtful evidence, they are content to pass all their days and to go down to the grave. Ah, reader, if you are really converted, and your soul is in a healthy, growing, spiritual state, you will want more than this. And especially, too, if you are led into deeper self-knowledge, into a more intimate acquaintance with the roughness of the rough way and the straitness of the strait path, you will want a present Christ to lean upon and to live upon. Past experience will not do for you, but only as it confirms your soul in the faithfulness of God. "Forgetting those things that are behind," you will seek a present pardon, a present sense of acceptance; and the daily question, as you near your eternal home, will be, "How do I now stand with God? Is Jesus precious to my soul now? Is He my daily food? What do I experience of daily visits from and to Him? Do I more and more see my own vileness, emptiness and poverty, and His righteousness, grace and fulness? And should the summons come now, am I ready to depart and to be with Christ?" As you value a happy and a holy walk, as you would be jealous for the honor and glory of the Lord, as you wish to be the "salt of the earth," the "light of the world," and to be a savor of Christ in every place- O seek the sealing of the Spirit. Do not rest short of it, reach after it, press towards it- it is your duty. O that the duty may be your privilege: then shall you exclaim with an unfaltering tongue, "Abba, Father;" "my Lord and my God!"
Again, I remark, this blessing is only found in the way of God's appointment. He has ordained that prayer should be the great channel through which His covenant blessings should flow into the soul. If it is your anxious desire to attain to this blessing, I would quote for your direction a remark of that eminent servant of Christ, Dr. Thomas Goodwin: "Be sure of this," says he, "that, before God ever communicates any good to a soul, He puts that soul in a state of holiness to
receive it." To confirm and illustrate this thought, let me ask- what was the state of the apostles when the Holy Spirit descended upon them in His witnessing, anointing and sealing influences? It is described in these words- "these all continued with one accord in prayer and supplication, with the women, and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with his brethren." Acts 1. 14. What is the important lesson thus taught us? That God would have His child in a waiting, seeking, supplicating posture; and in this holy state prepared to receive the high attainment we plead for. Do you earnestly desire the sealing of the Spirit? "Ask, and you shall receive; seek, and you shall find." As surely as you petition for it- sincerely, humbly, believingly, seeking it in the name of Jesus- through the Cross of Christ, you shall have it. The Lord the Spirit is ready to impart it to you. It is the fresh gift of His love, without respect to any worth or worthiness on the part of the soul that receives it. It is a gift of grace for the poor, the dependent, the unworthy, those who are little in their own eyes, and little in the eyes of others; and if this is your conscious state, then is it for you. And O, the blessed results! Who can describe them? Sealed! How will all your legal fears and unbelieving doubts in a moment vanish away; your soul, so long fettered and imprisoned, shall now go free; the cross you have so long looked at, not daring to bow your shoulder to it, shall now be taken up with a cheerful mind; Christ's yoke, so long resisted, will now be easy, and His burden, so long refused, will now be light; and, with a heart enlarged with the love of Jesus, you will "run the way of His commandments," esteeming His precepts better than life. Prayer, importunate prayer, will bring the blessing we plead for into your soul. Seek it with your whole heart, seek it diligently, perseveringly. Seek it by day and by night, seek it in all the means of grace, in every way of God's appointment; especially seek it in the name of Jesus, as the purchased blessing of His atoning blood. "Ask what you will in My name," are His own encouraging words, "and it shall be granted unto you." Then ask for the sealing of the Spirit. Ask nothing less; more you do not need. Feel that you have not "attained" until you possess it, that you have not "apprehended that for which also you are apprehended of Christ Jesus" until you have "received the Holy Spirit" as a Sealer.
It is, and has long been, the solemn conviction of the writer, that much of the spiritual darkness- the lack of spiritual consolation, the stunted piety, the harassing doubts and fears, the imperfect apprehensions of Jesus, the feeble faith, the sickly drooping state of the soul, the uncertainty of their full acceptance in Christ which mark so many of the professing people of God in this our day- may be traced to the absence of a deep sealing of the Spirit. Resting satisfied with the faint impression in conversion, with the dim views they then had of Christ, and the feeble apprehension of their acceptance and adoption, is it any marvel that all their life-time they should be in bondage, through slavish doubts and fears? Fears that they should never attain to the "stature of perfect men in Christ Jesus," that they should never rise to the humble boldness, the unwavering confidence, the blest assurance and the holy dignity of the sons of God? O no! They rest short of this blessing. They stay at the door of the ark; they remain upon the border of the goodly land, and not entering fully in, they experience the effects which we have described. But the richest ore lies buried the deepest; the sweetest fruit is on the higher branches, the strongest light is near the sun. In other words, if we desire more knowledge of Christ, of our full pardon and complete acceptance, if we desire the earnest of our inheritance, and even now would taste the "grapes of Eshcol," we must be "reaching forth unto those things that are before." We must "press toward the mark," and not rest until our rest is found in a clear, unclouded, immovable and holy assurance of our being in Christ; and this is only experienced in the sealing of the Spirit. Again, we say, with all the earnestness which a growing sense of the vastness of the blessing inspires, seek to be sealed of the Spirit. Seek the "earnest of the Spirit "; seek to be "filled with the Spirit"; seek the "anointing of the Spirit"; seek the "Spirit of adoption." Do not say that it is too immense a blessing, too high an attainment for one so small, so feeble, so obscure, so unworthy as you. O do not thus malign the grace of God. All His blessings are the bestowments of grace; and grace means free favor to the most unworthy. Anyone who reads this page may, under the blessed sealing of the Spirit, look up through Jesus to God as a Father. Low views of self, deep consciousness of vileness, poverty of state or of spirit, are no objections with God, but rather strong arguments that prevail with Him to give you the blessing. Only ask, only believe, only persevere, and you shall obtain it. It is in the heart of the Spirit to seal "unto the day of redemption all who believe in Jesus. May it be in the heart of the reader to desire the blessing, seeing that it is so freely and richly offered.
Reader, whose superscription do you bear? It may be your reply is- "I want Christ; I secretly long for Him; I desire Him above all beside." Is it so? Then take courage, and go to Jesus. Go to Him simply, go to Him unhesitatingly, go to Him immediately. That desire is from Him, let it lead you to Him. That secret longing is the work of the Spirit; and having begotten it there, do you think that He will not honor it and welcome you when you come? Try Him. Bring Him to the touch-stone of His own truth. "Prove me now herewith" is His gracious invitation. Take His promise, "Him that comes unto Me I will in no wise cast out"; plead it in wrestlings at the mercy-seat, and see if He will not "open the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it." Go to Him just as you are. If you cannot take to Him a pure heart, take an impure one; if you cannot take to Him a broken heart, take a whole one; if you cannot take to Him a soft heart, take a hard one; only go to Him. The very act of going will be blessed to you. And oh, such is the strength of His love, such is His yearning compassion and melting tenderness of heart for poor sinners, such is His ability and willingness to save, that He will no more cast you out than deny His own existence. "Precious Lord Jesus! set us as a seal upon Your heart, and by Your Spirit, seal Yourself upon our hearts; and give us, unworthy though we are, a place among "those who are sealed.

"Jesus the True God, and His Work All-sufficient"
or "The Witness of the Spirit"

He that believeth on the Son of God hath the witness in himself. 1 John 5:10

Anyone who believes in the Son of God has this testimony in his heart. 1 John 5:10

All who believe in the Son of God know that this is true. 1 John 5:10

The Spirit witnesses to the atoning work of Jesus in His priestly office. We have already seen that the foundation of the work of Christ is the Godhead of His nature. It is important that the eye be kept immovably fixed upon this, as we survey the atoning work of our Lord. Every step we take in developing that work introduces us to new wonders as we keep the glory of the person of Christ in view. The transcendent efficacy of the sacrifice arose from the infinite dignity of the Priest. The priests under the law could impart no personal efficacy or glory to their sacrificial offerings. Their sacrifices were only available for the atonement of transgression, as they were offered up in obedience to the command of God. But the sacrifice which Christ presented derived all its efficacy and glory from His person. It is this doctrine that attaches such importance to the death of Jesus and that throws such surpassing glory around His obedience. The blood of the Lord Jesus "cleanses us from all sin" because it is the blood of the God-Man; the righteousness of the Lord Jesus "justifies us from all things" because it is the "righteousness of God." From this arises the costliness of the sacrifice which Jesus presented to God.
It was also an entire sacrifice. It was Himself He offered. "Walk in love, as Christ also has loved us, and has given Himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet smelling savor." Eph. 5. 2. It was Himself He offered up. More He could not give, less would not have sufficed. He gave Himself- all that He possessed in heaven, and all that belonged to Him on earth, He gave in behalf of His people. His life of obedience, His death of suffering, He gave as "an offering and a sacrifice to God." It was an entire surrender. It was a voluntary offering. "He gave Himself." It was not by compulsion or by constraint that He surrendered Himself into the hands of Divine justice; he did not go as a reluctant victim to the altar, they did not drag Him to the cross. He went voluntarily. It is true that there existed a solemn necessity that Jesus should die in behalf of His people. It grew out of His covenant engagement with the Father. Into that engagement He voluntarily entered. His own ineffable love constrained Him. But after the compact had been made, the covenant of redemption ratified, and the bond given to justice, there was a necessity resting upon Jesus compelling Him to finish the work. His word, His honor, His truth, His glory, all were pledged to the entire fulfilment of His suretyship. He had freely given Himself into the power of justice; He was therefore, on His taking upon Him the form of a servant, under obligations to satisfy all its claims; He was legally bound to obey all of its commands.
And yet it was a voluntary surrender of Himself as a sacrifice for His people. It was a willing offering. If there was a necessity, and we have shown that there was, it grew out of His own voluntary love to His church. It was, so to speak, a voluntary necessity. See how this blessed view of the death of Jesus is sustained by the Divine Word. "He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth: he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he opens not his mouth." Isaiah 53. 7. His own declaration confirms the truth. "Therefore does my Father love me, because I lay down my life, that I might take it again. No man takes it from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again." John 10. 17, 18.
Nor was it a voluntariness founded on ignorance. He well knew what the covenant of redemption involved and what stern justice demanded. The entire scene of His humiliation was before Him, in all its dark and somber hues- the manger, the blood-thirsty king, the scorn and reproach of His countrymen, the unbelief of His own kinsmen, the mental agony of Gethsemane, the bloody sweat, the bitter cup, the waywardness of His disciples, the betrayal of one, the denial of another, the forsaking of all; the mock trial, the purple robe, the crown of thorns, the infuriated cry, "Away with him, away with him, crucify him, crucify him"; the heavy cross, the painful crucifixion, the cruel taunts, the vinegar and the gall, the hidings of His Father's countenance, the concentrated horrors of the curse, the last cry of anguish, the bowing of the head, the giving up the spirit- all, all was before the omniscient mind of the Son of God, with a vividness equal to its reality, when He exclaimed, "Save him from going down to the pit; I have found a ransom." And yet He willingly rushed to the rescue of ruined man. He voluntarily (though He knew the price of pardon was His blood) gave Himself up thus to the bitter, bitter agony. And did He regret that He had undertaken the work? Never! It is said that it repented God that He had made man, but in no instance is it recorded that it repented Jesus that He had redeemed man. Not an action, not a word, not a look betrayed an emotion like this. Every step He took from Bethlehem to Calvary did but unfold the willingness of Jesus to die. "I have a baptism to be baptized with, and how am I straitened until it be accomplished!"
Oh, how amazing was the love of Jesus! This, this was the secret why He loved not His own life unto the death. He loved sinners too well. He loved us better than Himself. With all our sinfulness, guilt, wretchedness and poverty, He yet loved us so much as to give Himself an offering and sacrifice unto God for us. Here was the spring head where flowed these streams of mercy. This was the gushing fountain that was opened when He died. And when they taunted Him, and said, "If you be the King of the Jews, save yourself," O what a reply did His silence give: "I came not to save myself, but my people. I hang here, not for My own sins, but for theirs. I could save myself, but I came to give My life a ransom for many." They thought the nails alone kept Him to the cross; He knew it was His own love that fastened Him there. Behold, reader, the strength of Immanuel's love. Come, fall prostrate, adore and worship Him. O what love was His! O the depth! Do not be content merely to stand upon the shore of this ocean: enter into it, drink deeply from it. It is for you, if you are truly feeling your nothingness, your poverty and your vileness; this ocean is for you! It is not for angels, it is for men. It is not for the righteous, but for sinners. Then drink to the full from the love of Jesus. Do not be satisfied with small supplies. Take a large vessel to the fountain. The larger the demand, the larger the supply. The more needy, the more welcome. The more vile, the more fit to come. Then plunge into this ocean, and count all things else but loss for Jesus, and sing, as you do so-
The cross! the cross! oh that's my gain,
Because on that, the Lamb was slain;
'Twas there my Lord was crucified,
'Twas there my Savior for me died.
What wondrous cause could move Your heart
To take on You my curse and smart?
Well knowing that my soul would be
So cold, so negligent to Thee!
The cause was love, I sink with shame
Before my sacred Jesus's name;
That You should bleed and slaughtered be,
Because, because You lovest me. (Clare Taylor.)
We have yet to show in what way the Spirit witnesses to the atoning work of Jesus. He does so by leading the guilty, condemned and broken-hearted sinner to rest on Jesus alone for salvation. In this way He testifies of Christ. He first convinces the soul of sin, bringing the holy law of God with a condemning, slaying power into the conscience; then, having wounded and laid low, He leads the soul to Jesus as an all-sufficient Savior. He opens the understanding to comprehend, and the heart to welcome, His own recorded testimonies of that all-sufficiency, and the readiness of the Lord Jesus Christ to save the vilest of the vile. He leads to the fountain of Immanuel's precious blood, plunges the guilty sinner beneath its cleansing stream, and then raises him to newness of life- "washed, sanctified, justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God." And this is the testimony: "As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up: that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life. For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have everlasting life." John 3. 14-16. "All that the Father gives me shall come to me; and him that comes to me I will in no wise cast out." John 6. 37. "He that believes ... shall be saved." Mark 16. 16. "Wherefore he is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him." Heb. 7. 25. What a witness is this to the power and readiness of Christ to save! And this is the testimony of the Holy Spirit to the blessed Son of God. But He does more than this. He brings home the record with power to the soul. He Writes the testimony on the heart. He converts the believing soul itself into a witness that "Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners."
And what a gospel is this for a poor sinner! "There is not," says an old divine, "an ill word in it against a poor sinner stripped of his self-righteousness." It speaks of pardon, of acceptance, of peace, of full redemption here, and unspeakable glory hereafter. It proclaims a Savior to the lost; a Redeemer to the captive; a Surety to the insolvent; a Physician to the sick; a Friend to the needy; an Advocate to the criminal- all that a self-ruined, sin-accused, law-condemned, justice-threatened, broken-hearted sinner needs, this "glorious gospel of the blessed God" provides. It reveals to the self-ruined sinner, One in whom is his help, Hos. 13. 9. To the sin-accused, One who can take away all sin, 1 John 1. 7. To the law-condemned, One who saves from all condemnation, Rom. 8. 1. To the justice-threatened, One who is a hiding place from the wind, and a covert from the tempest, Isa. 32. 2. To the broken-hearted, One who binds up, and heals, Isa. 61. 1. That One is Jesus. O name ever dear, ever sweet, ever precious, ever fragrant, ever healing to the "poor in spirit"!
The blessed Spirit witnesses to the all-sufficiency of Christ, for all the needs of His people. He testifies that "it pleased the Father that in him should all fulness dwell." He takes of the things of Christ, and shows them to the believer. Perhaps this is His greatest witness to a child of God in reference to Jesus. And why? because the highest act by which a believing soul glorifies Christ is a life of daily faith upon Him. There is a vast difference between an acknowledgment of Christ in the judgment, a bowing of the knee to Him outwardly, and a real, experimental, daily living upon Him. The very essence of experimental religion is living upon Christ daily as a poor, empty sinner. We live in a day of easy and splendid profession, a day in which the many can speak well of Christ and "profess and call themselves Christians." But all is not gold; there is much tinsel, much that is only dross, much that is counterfeit. And while many a man has been applauded for his money, admired for his philanthropy, worshiped for his talent and followed for his eloquence, God has said, "I see no lowliness of spirit, no brokenness of heart, no humbling views of self; I hear no voice of prayer, no acknowledgment of My power; I behold no crowning of My Son, no honoring of Me with the glory." And while many a man has been as the scum and the offscouring of all things; despised for his feeble gifts, his poor talents, his humble sphere; looked down upon by the great and the wise and the haughty; the " high and lofty One who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy," has said, "I see a broken heart, I see a lowly mind, I see the work of My Spirit, I see the image of My Son, I dwell with him that is of a humble and contrite spirit." O yes! a poor believer, going to Jesus in all his emptiness and weakness; going to Him, leaning on His blood and righteousness, going to Him in the face of all opposition, pleading His worth and worthiness; going with all his sins, with all his infirmities, with all his backslidings, with all his wants, has more real glory in it than all the glory of all worlds collected in one blazing focus. What a witness, then, is this which the eternal Spirit bears to Jesus l He assures the believer that all he can possibly want is treasured up in Christ, that he has no cross but Christ can bear it, no sorrow but Christ can alleviate it, no corruption but Christ can subdue it, no guilt but Christ can remove it, no sin but Christ can pardon it, no want but Christ can supply it. Lift up your heads, you who are poor, needy and disconsolate! Lift up your heads, and rejoice that Christ is ALL to you, all you need in this valley of tears, all you need in the deepest sorrow, all you need under the heaviest affliction, all you need in sickness, all you will need in the hour of death and in the day of judgment. Indeed, Christ is in all too. He is in all your salvation, He is in all your mercies, He is in all your trials. He is in all your consolations and in all your afflictions. What more can you want? What more do you desire? A Father who
loves you as the apple of His eye! A full Savior to whom to go, moment by moment! A blessed indwelling, sanctifying, comforting Spirit to reveal all to you, and to give you Himself as the "earnest of your inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, unto the praise of his glory"! "Happy is that people that is in such a case: yes, happy is that people, whose God is the Lord."
Another and an important witness which the eternal Spirit bears for Christ is when He impresses upon the believer the image of Christ. It is the peculiar work of the Spirit to glorify Christ; and this He does in various blessed ways, but perhaps in none more strikingly than in drawing out the likeness of Christ upon the soul. He glorifies Christ in the believer. He witnesses to the power of the grace of Christ in its influence upon the principles, the temper, the daily walk and the whole life of a man of God. The image of Christ- what is it? In one word, it is HOLINESS. Jesus was the holiness of the law embodied. He was a living commentary on the majesty and purity of the Divine law. The life He lived, the doctrines He proclaimed, the precepts He enjoined, the announcements He made, the revelations He disclosed; all, all were the very inspiration of holiness. Holiness was the vital air He breathed. Although in a world of impurity, all of whose influences were hostile to a life of holiness, He yet moved amid the mass of corruption, not only untouched and untainted, but reflecting so vividly the luster of His own purity, as to compel the forms of evil that everywhere flitted athwart His path either to acknowledge His holiness and submit to His authority or to shrink away in their native darkness. And this is the image the Holy Spirit seems to draw, though it be but an outline of the lineaments, upon the believing soul. What a testimony He bears for Christ, when He causes the image of Jesus to be reflected from every faculty of the soul, to beam in every glance of the eye, to speak in every word of the tongue, and to invest with its beauty every action of the life! O that every child of God might more deeply and solemnly feel that he is to be a witness for Jesus! A witness for a cross-bearing Savior, a witness to the spotless purity of His life, the lowliness of His mind, His deep humility, self-denial, self-annihilation, consuming zeal for God's glory, and yearning compassion for the salvation of souls, a witness to the sanctifying tendency of His truth, the holiness of His commands, the purifying influence of His precepts, the elevating power of His example. It may not be that all these Divine characteristics center in one person, or that all these lovely features are reflected in a single character. All believers are not alike eminent for the same peculiar and exalted graces of the Spirit. It was not so in the early and palmy days of the Gospel, when Jesus Himself was known in the flesh, and the Holy Spirit descended in an extraordinary degree of sanctifying influence upon the church. It would therefore be unwise to expect it now. And yet we have a right to look for one or more of the moral features of our dear Lord's character in His people: some resemblance to His image; something that marks the man of God; some lowliness of mind, gentleness of temper, humility of deportment, charity, patience in the endurance of affliction, meekness in the suffering of persecution, forgiveness of injuries, returning good for evil, blessing for cursing- in a word, some portion of "the fruit of the Spirit" which is "love, joy, peace, patience, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance." If one or more of these are not "in us and abound, so that they make us that we shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ," and in a resemblance to His likeness, we have great reason to doubt whether we have ever "known the grace of God in truth." That is indeed a melancholy profession in which can be traced nothing that identifies the man with Jesus; nothing in his principles, his motives, his tone of mind, his spirit, his very looks, that reminds one of Christ, that draws the heart to Him, that makes the name of Immanuel fragrant and that lifts the soul in ardent desires to be like Him too. This is the influence which a believer exerts who bears about with him a resemblance to his Lord and Master. A holy man is a blessing wherever he may go. He is a savor of Christ in every place. It is a mercy to be brought in contact with him. We extract a blessing from him. We get, it may be, a drop of oil from his vessel, or a single ray from his heart. And although it is more blessed to possess the solar beam, to ascend to the "fountain of light," yet a reflected warmth in this wintry world is too valuable and blessed to be lightly esteemed. Would that the saints of God who may have drawn largely upon the fulness of Christ, who have been made to possess some peculiar manifestations of His loving kindness, some special revivings of His Spirit, were more ready to pass on the same blessing to others. A believer is not his own, nor is he to live to himself. And when the Lord imparts a gift or a grace to any one member, it is for the edification and comfort of the whole body. "Come and hear, all you that fear God, and I will declare what he has done for my soul" is an invitation that has often refreshed the spirit, revived the heart, kindled the love and "strengthened the things that remained that were ready to die," in the saints of God. Thus is the Spirit a Witness for Christ in His people by conforming them to His image.
(The history of American revivals presents a striking and beautiful illustration of this fact. The author can testify, from personal observation- and experience, that some of the most gracious and remarkable outpourings of the Spirit with which that honored land has been favored, have resulted from the simple testimony to a special reviving of the Lord's work in his own soul, borne by some individual member of the church, moving, it may be, in a humble and limited sphere of influence. God has honored his testimony. His narrative has awakened interest, his zeal has rebuked indolence, his fervor has excited to prayer, his tears and pleadings have moved to exertion; and thus an impulse has been created which has gone on strengthening and expanding until it has embraced and blessed an entire community. It was but as a small pebble cast into the stagnant water: yet the circle included a family, it widened, until it embraced a church, and still it grew wider, until an entire village, or town, felt the power of the Spirit, and every house became vocal with "thanksgiving and the voice melody.")
It would only be presenting a limited view of the Spirit's work as a witness if we confined His work in this character to the testimony He bears for Christ. He is not only a witness for Christ, but He witnesses to the saints of God. This is clear from His own sacred word, "He that believes on the Son of God has the witness in himself." "Hereby know we that we dwell in him, and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit." "Who has also sealed us, and given the earnest of the Spirit in our hearts." But the most direct allusion to this truth is this: "The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God." Rom. 8. 16. Let us present a brief outline of this subject; beyond this, we cannot venture.
The doctrine of an assured belief of the pardon of sin, of acceptance in Christ and of adoption into the family of God, has been, and still is, regarded by many as an attainment never to be expected in the present life; and when it is expressed, it is viewed with a suspicion unfavorable to the character of the work. But this is contrary to the Divine word, and to the actual experience of millions, who have lived and died in the full assurance of hope. The doctrine of assurance is a doctrine of undoubted revelation, implied and expressed. That it is enforced as a state of mind essential to the salvation of the believer, we cannot admit; but that it is insisted upon as essential to his comfortable and holy walk, and as greatly involving the glory of God, we must strenuously maintain. Otherwise why do we have these marked references to the doctrine? In Col. 2. 1, 2, Paul expresses "great conflict" for the saints, that their "hearts might be comforted, being knit together in love, and unto all riches of the full assurance of understanding." In the epistle to the Hebrews, the writer says, "We desire that every one of you do show the same diligence to the full assurance of hope, unto the end." And he exhorts them, "Let us draw near with a true heart, in full assurance of faith." And to crown all, the apostle Peter thus earnestly exhorts his readers, "Wherefore the rather, brethren, give diligence to make your calling and election SURE." No further proof from the sacred Word is required to authenticate the doctrine. It is written as with a sunbeam that "the Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God." Let us present a brief explanation of these words.
Three important things are involved in them, first, the Witness; second that with which He witnesses; and lastly, the great truth to which He witnesses.

First, THE WITNESS. "The Spirit Himself bears witness." The great business of making known to a poor sinner his acquittal in the high court of heaven and his adoption into the King's family is entrusted to no inferior agent. No angel is commissioned to bear the tidings, no mortal man may disclose the secret. None but God the Holy Spirit Himself! "The Spirit Himself!" He that rests short of this testimony, wrongs his own soul. See that you rely on no witness to your "calling and election" but this. Human testimony is feeble here. Your minister, your friend, schooled as they may be in the evidences of experimental godliness, cannot assure your spirit that you are "born of God." God the eternal Spirit alone can do this. He alone is competent, He alone can fathom the "deep things of God," He alone can rightly discern between His own work and its counterfeit, between grace and nature, He alone can make known the secret of the Lord to those who fear Him. All other testimony to your sonship is uncertain, and may fearfully and fatally deceive. "It is the Spirit that bears witness, because the Spirit is truth." Again and yet again would we solemnly repeat it; take nothing for granted touching your personal interest in Christ; do not rest satisfied with the testimony of your own spirit, or with that of the holiest saint on earth; seek nothing short of "the Spirit Himself." This alone will do for a dying hour.
The second thing to be observed in the declaration is, THAT WITH WHICH THE SPIRIT WITNESSES- "the Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit." It is a personal testimony, not borne to others, but to ourselves, "with our spirit." The adoption of the believer into the family of God is so great a privilege, involving blessings so immense, for beings so sinful and in all respects unworthy, that, if their heavenly Father did not assure them by His own immediate testimony of its truth, no other witness would suffice to remove their doubts, quiet their fears and satisfy them as to their real sonship. The eternal Spirit of God descends and enters their hearts as a witness to their adoption. He first renews our spirit, applies the atoning blood to the conscience, works faith in the heart, enlightens the understanding, and thus prepares the believing soul for the revelation and assurance of this great and glorious truth- his adoption into the family of God. As it is "with our spirit" the Holy Spirit witnesses, it is necessary that, in order to perfect agreement and harmony, he who has the witness within himself should first be a repenting and believing sinner. He who says that he has this witness, but who still remains "dead in sins"- a stranger to faith in the Lord Jesus, to the renewings of the Holy Spirit, in a word, who is not born of God- is wrapping himself up in an awful deception. The witness we plead for, is the holy testimony, in concurrence with a holy gospel, by a holy Spirit, to a holy man, and concerning a holy truth. There can be no discrepancy, no lack of harmony between the witness of the Spirit and the Word of God. He witnesses according to, and in agreement with, the truth. Vague and fanciful impressions, visions and voices, received and rested upon as evidences of salvation are fearful delusions. Nothing is to be viewed as an evidence of our Divine sonship which does not square and harmonize with the revealed Word of God. We must have a "thus says the Lord" for every step we take in believing that we are the children of God. Let it be remembered, then, that the Spirit bears His testimony to believers. His first step is to work repentance and faith in the heart; then follows the sealing and witnessing operation: "In whom also after that you believed, you were sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise."
The last aspect is the great truth to which He testifies, namely "that we are the children of God." The Spirit is
emphatically spoken of as a Spirit of adoption. "For you have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but you have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father." Rom. 8. 25. And again, "And because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father." Gal. 4. 6. Now it is the peculiar office of the Spirit to witness to the adoption of the believer. Look at the blessed fact to which He testifies- not that we are the enemies, the aliens, the strangers, the slaves, but that we are "the CHILDREN of God." High and holy privilege!
"The children of God"! Chosen from all eternity- "having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will," all their iniquities laid on Jesus their blessed Surety, justified by the "Lord our righteousness," called by the effectual operation of the eternal Spirit, inhabited, sanctified and sealed by God the Holy Spirit. O exalted state! O holy privilege! O happy people! Pressing on, it may be, through strong corruptions, deep trials, clinging infirmities, fiery temptations, sore discouragements, dark providences and often the hidings of a Father's countenance- and yet "the children of God" now, and soon to be glorified hereafter.
Reader, in closing, let me ask you, have you the witness of the Spirit? Has He convinced you of sin by the law? Has He made you acquainted with your guilt and pollution? Is it written upon your conscience as solemnly and as undoubtedly as it is written in the Bible, that you are guilty and condemned, lost and undone, and must finally and awfully perish, without Christ? Have you sought a secret place for humiliation and confession and supplication before God, the eternal and holy God, the Sovereign of all worlds, the judge of the living and dead, at whose tribunal you soon must stand? Ah, solemn, searching questions! You may evade them, you may frame some vain excuse, you may wait for "a more convenient season," you may even seek to stifle the seriousness and the thoughtfulness which these questions have occasioned, by another and a deeper plunge into the world; but they will follow you there, and will be heard amid the din of business and the loud laugh of pleasure. They will follow you to your dying bed, and they will be heard there, amid the gloom and the silence and the terror of that hour. They will follow you up to the judgment-seat, and will be heard there amid the gatherings and the tremendous disclosures of that scene. They will follow you down to the abode of the lost, and will be heard there, amid the "weeping, and the wailing, and the gnashing of teeth." Sinner! from an enlightened, but guilty and accusing conscience, you can never escape. It will be the "worm that never dies"! From the wrath of God you can then find no shelter. It will be the "fire that never shall be quenched." Again we earnestly inquire- have you the witness of the Spirit? Has He testified to you of Jesus, of His renewing grace, pardoning love, sin-cleansing blood, justifying righteousness and full redemption? Have you joy and peace in believing?
To the child of God we would say, covet earnestly the witness of the Spirit. Do not be cast down, nor cherish rash and hasty conclusions as to your adoption, if you do not possess it so fully and clearly as others. The holiest believer may walk for many days without the sun. Read the record of the experiences of David and of Job and of Jeremiah, and of the last moments of our dear and adorable Immanuel, and mark what shadows at times fell upon their souls, how a sense of comfort failed them, how joys fled, and they mourned an absent God. But were they the less dear to the heart of Jehovah? Were they the less His beloved children because they were thus tried? No! God forbid! Still, we plead for the full enjoyment of the witness of the Spirit. It is the high privilege of the children of God- let no one rob them of it to look up to God, and humbly yet unceasingly cry, "Abba, Father!"

"The Believer Drawing near to God"
or
"The Spirit the Author of Prayer"

Likewise the Spirit also helps our infirmities: for we know not what we should pray for as we ought: but the Spirit itself makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. Romans 8:26

In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express. Romans 8:26

And the Holy Spirit helps us in our distress. For we don't even know what we should pray for, nor how we should pray. But the Holy Spirit prays for us with groanings that cannot be expressed in words. Romans 8:26

That God should have erected in this lower world a throne of grace, a mercy-seat, around which may gather, in clustering and welcome multitudes, the helpless, the burdened, the friendless, the vile, the guilty, the deeply necessitous- that no poor comer, be his poverty ever so great, his burden ever so heavy, or his case ever so desperate, should meet with a refusal of a hearing or a welcome, does greatly develop and magnify the riches of His grace, His wisdom and His love to sinners. What a God our God must be, thus to have appointed a meeting-place, an audience chamber for those upon whom all other doors are closed!
More wonderful still is it that He should have appointed Jesus the door of approach to that throne, should have given His only begotten and well-beloved Son to be the "new and living way" of access; thus removing all obstruction in the way of the soul's coming, both on the part of Himself, and on the part of the sinner, that the door should be a crucified Savior- the wounds of the Son of God- that through blood (and that blood the blood of the incarnate Deity) the guilty should approach. Wonder, O heavens, and be astonished, O earth!
Shall we say even more than this? For there is a yet lower depth in this love and condescension of God- His sending of His Spirit into the heart, the Author of prayer, putting the petition into words, breathing in the soul, implanting the desire, convincing of the existing necessity, unfolding the character of God, working faith in the heart and drawing it up to God through Jesus, all of which seems the very perfection of His wisdom, benevolence and grace.
It must be acknowledged by the spiritual mind that all true prayer is of the leading of the Spirit- that He is the Author of all real approach of the soul to God. And yet how perpetually we need to be reminded of this! Prayer is one of the most spiritual employments that can possibly engage the mind. It is that holy act of the soul which brings it immediately in contact with a holy God. It has more directly to do with the "high and lofty One" than any other exercise. It is that state of mind, too, that most deeply acknowledges its dependence on God. Prayer is the expression of need, the desire of destitution, the acknowledgment of poverty, the language of dependence, the breathing of a soul that has nothing in
itself, but hangs on God for all it needs. It must therefore be
a highly spiritual and holy exercise. But this will appear still more so if we consider that true prayer is the breathing of the life of God in the soul of man. It is the Spirit dwelling and breathing in him. It is the new nature pouring out its vital principle, and that into the ear of the God where it came from. It is the cry of the feeble child turning to the Father it loves, and in all its conscious weakness, dependence and need, pouring out the yearnings of its full heart into the bosom where dwells nothing but love. In a word, it is God and the creature meeting and blending in one act of blessed, holy and eternal fellowship.
Now, that on a subject so spiritual and involving so deeply the happiness and the holiness of a child of God, the believer should at times be greatly and seriously harassed and tempted, as much by the weaknesses of his nature as by the influence of Satan, is not to be wondered at. We desire therefore, before going into the consideration of the Spirit's operation in this holy exercise, to glance at some of those peculiar INFIRMITIES which so frequently and so painfully lessen the habit, and weaken the power, and keep back the answer of prayer. May the Spirit now teach us!
There is a state of mind often enfeebling to the exercise of prayer, arising from the difficulty of forming proper views of the spiritual nature of the Divine Object of prayer. Through the weakness of our nature, the spirituality of God has been felt by some to be a stumbling-block in the approach of the soul. "God is a Spirit" is the solemn announcement that meets them at the very threshold, and so completely overawes and abashes the mind as to congeal every current of thought and of feeling, and well-near to crush the soul with its inconceivability. Nor is this surprising. Prayer is the approach of finity to Infinity; and although it is the communing of spirit with Spirit, yet it is the finite communing with the Infinite, and that through the organs of sense. Is it any marvel, then, that at periods a believer should be baffled in his endeavor to form some just conception of the Divine existence, some faint idea of the nature of that God to whom his soul addresses itself; and, failing in the attempt, should turn away in sadness, sorrow and despair? The remedy for this state of mind we believe is at hand. It is simple and scriptural. To enlarge our thoughts with any adequate idea of the nature and the appearance of the Divine Spirit is an utter impossibility. He that attempts it, and thinks he has succeeded, lives in the region of fancy and opposes himself to the revelation of God Himself, which expressly declares, "No man has seen God at any time." "Who alone has immortality, dwelling in the light which no man can approach unto; whom no man has seen, nor can see." 1 Tim. 6. 16. This being then admitted, as it must be by all reflective minds, the question arises, "How am I to view God? what idea am I to form of His existence in approaching Him in prayer?" In reply, two things are necessary in getting proper thoughts of God as the Object of prayer. First, that the mind should resign all its attempts to comprehend the mode of the Divine existence, and should concentrate all its powers upon the contemplation of the character of the Divine existence. In what relation God stands to the creature, not in what way he exists in Himself, is the point with which we have to do in approaching Him. Let the mind be wrapped in devout contemplations of His holiness, benevolence, love, truth, wisdom, justice, and there will be no room for vain and fruitless imaginations respecting the fathomless and inconceivable mode of His existence.
The second thing necessary is that the mind should view God in Christ. If it is baffled and perplexed, as it surely will be, in its attempts to unravel the spiritual nature of God, let it seek a resting-place in the "incarnate mystery." This was one part of the gracious design of God in assuming human nature. It was to bring, so to speak, the Infinite in a direct angle with the finite, so that the two lines should not merely run parallel, but that the two extremes of being should meet. It was to embody His essential and surpassing glories in such a way as to present an object which man could contemplate without fear, worship without distraction, and look upon and not die. The Lord Jesus Christ is "the image of the invisible God," "the brightness of his glory, the express image of his person." "He that has seen Me" (His own declaration) "has seen the Father." Wondrous stoop of the great God! In all approach to God, then, in prayer, as in every other kindred exercise, let the eye of faith be fixed upon Him who fills the middle seat upon the throne- the Day's-Man- the Mediator- the incarnate Son of God. How quieting to the mind of a praying soul is this view of God! What a mildness invests the throne of grace, and what an easy access to it presents itself, when the eye of faith can behold "the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ"! And if the mind be embarrassed in its attempts to conceive an idea of His spiritual nature, it can soothe itself to repose in a believing view of the glorified humanity of Jesus, "God manifest in the flesh." To this resting-place He Himself invites the soul- "I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man comes unto the Father, but by Me." And thus too He calmed the fears of His exiled servant who, when the splendor of His glorified humanity broke upon his view, fell prostrate to the earth: "And when I saw him," says John, "I fell at his feet as dead. And he laid his right hand upon me, saying unto me, Fear not; I am the first, and the last: I am he that lives, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive forevermore, Amen; and have the keys of hell and of death."
Another infirmity which often impedes the free course of prayer, is the manifest lack of wisdom that may mark the petition of a child of God. For example, when Paul prayed for the removal of the thorn in the flesh, he asked that of God which betrayed a lack of wisdom in his petition. Who would have suspected this in the apostle of the Gentiles? But the Lord knew best what was for the good of His dear servant, and saw that, on account of the special revelations that were given him in his visit to glory, the discipline of the covenant was needed to keep him low in the dust. When His child petitioned three times for the removal of the thorn in the flesh, he for a moment overlooked, because of the painful nature of the discipline, its needed influence to keep him "walking humbly with God." So that we see even an inspired apostle may ask those things of God which He may see fit to refuse. We may frequently expect some trial, something to keep us low before God, after a season of peculiar nearness to Him or some other manifestation of his loving-kindness to our souls. There is a proneness to rest in self-complacency after close communion with God, and the gentle hand of our Father is needed to shield us from ourselves. It was so with Paul; why may it not be with us? We may be assured of this, however, that in withholding the thing we ask of Him, He will grant us a perfect equivalent. The Lord saw fit to deny the request of the apostle, but He granted him an equivalent, indeed more than an equivalent to that which He denied him He gave him His all-supporting grace. "My grace is sufficient for you." Have you asked many times for the removal of some secret, heavy, painful cross? Perhaps you are still urging your request; and yet the Lord does not seem to answer you. And why? because the request may not be in itself wise. Were he now to remove that cross, He might, in taking away the cross, close up a channel of mercy which you would never cease to regret. O what secret and immense blessing may that painful cross be the means of conveying into your soul! Is it health you have often petitioned for? And is the request denied you? It is wisdom that denies. It is love too, tender unchangeable love to your soul, that refuses a petition which a wise and gracious God knows, if granted, would not be for your real good and His glory. Do you not think that there is love and tenderness enough in the heart of Jesus to grant you what you desire, and ten thousand times more, if He saw that it would promote your true holiness and happiness? Could He resist that request, that desire, that sigh, that tear and that beseeching look, if infinite wisdom did not guide Him in all His dealings with your soul? O no! But He gives you an equivalent to the denied request. He gives you Himself. Can He give you more? His grace sustains you, His arm supports you, His love soothes you, His Spirit comforts you; and your chamber of solitude, though it may not be the scene of health and buoyancy and joyousness, may yet be the secret place where a covenant God and Father pours His grace into your soul, and where Jesus meets you with the choicest unfoldings of His love. Could He not, would He not, heal you in a moment, if it would be for your good? Then ask for a submissive spirit, a will swallowed up in God your Father's. It may be that when the lesson of secret and filial submission has been learned, so that health is only desired as a means of glorifying God, He may put forth His healing power and grant you your request. But do not forget the Lord best knows what will most promote His own glory. You may have thought that health of body would better enable you to glorify Him. He may think that the chamber of solitude and the bed of languishing are most productive of glory to His name. The patience, resignation, meek submission and child-like acquiescence which His blessed Spirit through this means works in your soul, may more glorify Him than all the active graces that ever were brought into exercise.
A believer may urge a request that is in itself wrong. The mother of Zebedee's children did so, when she asked the Lord that her two sons might sit, the one on His right hand, and the other on the left, in His kingdom, Matt. 20. 20, 21. Who does not notice the self that appears in this petition? And although it was a mother's love that prompted it, and, as such, presents a beautiful and touching picture, yet it teaches us that a parent, betrayed by his love for his child, may ask that of God which is really wrong in itself. He may ask worldly distinction, honor, influence, wealth for his child (which a godly parent should never do), and this may be a wrong request, which God in His infinite wisdom and love withholds. Such was the petition of the mother, which our Lord saw fit to deny. Her views of the kingdom of Christ were those of earthly glory. To see her children sharing in that glory was her high ambition, which Jesus promptly but gently rebuked. Let a Christian mother ask for spiritual blessings for her children, and whatever else is needful the Lord will grant. Let converting, sanctifying and restraining grace be the constant petition presented at the footstool of mercy, and then she cannot ask too much, or press her suit too frequently or too fervently.
To allude to another illustration of our remark- It was wrong of Job to ask the Lord that he might die. "Oh that I might have my request!" (are his words) "and that God would grant me the thing that I long for! Even that it would please God to destroy me; that he would let loose his hand,
and cut me off." Job 6. 8, 9. It was an unwise and sinful petition, which the Lord in great mercy and wisdom denied
him. Truly "we know not what we should pray for as we
ought." What a mercy that there is One who knows!
A child of God may ask for a wise and good thing in a wrong way. There may be no faith in asking. There may be a wrong attitude of mind: no sense of God's freeness in bestowing, no filial approach, no going as a child, as one pardoned and "accepted in the Beloved," as one dear to the heart of God. There may be no honoring of the Father in Himself, no honoring of Him in the Son, no honoring of the blessed Spirit. There may be no resting upon the cross, no pleading of the atoning blood, no washing in the fountain, no humble, grateful recognition of the "new and living way" of access. There may be a lack of humility in the mind, of brokenness in the spirit, of sincerity in the heart, of reverence
in the manner and of sobriety in the words. There may be no confession of sin, no acknowledgment of past mercies and no faith in the promised blessing. Oh, how much there may be in the prayer of a dear child of God that operates as a blight upon his request, that seems to close the ear and the heart of God! But oh, to go to Him with filial confidence, with sweet faith, with love flowing from a broken heart; to go to Him as the people of His choice, dear to Him as the apple of His eye, as those who are viewed each moment in His Son who would, for the love He bears us, undeify Himself, if that would be for our real good, and His own glory. Did He not once empty Himself of His glory, did He not become poor, did He not humble himself, did He not take upon Him human nature- all for the love He bore His people? That was approaching so near, in appearance, the cessation of Deity, that, as we gaze upon the spectacle, we wonder what another step might have produced! We might well think that He could not have gone further without ceasing to be God. Behold the broad basis, then, upon which a child of God may approach Him in prayer. His love, O how immense! it is past finding out!
Yet again, a believer may present a right petition in a right way, and yet he may not wait for the Lord to answer in His own time. The believer may appoint a time, and if the Lord does not answer within that period, he turns away, resigning all expectation of an answer. There is such a thing as waiting for the Lord. "It is good that a man should both hope
and quietly wait for the salvation of the Lord." Lam. 3. 26. And the apostle alludes to, and enjoins the same holy patience, when he speaks to the Ephesians of "praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and watching thereunto with all perseverance." A believer may present his request, may have some degree of nearness in urging it, may press it with fervency, and yet, forgetting the hoping, quiet, waiting patience which ought invariably to mark a praying soul, he may lose the blessing he has sought. There is such a thing as "waiting upon the Lord." O how long have we made Him wait for us! For years, it may be, we kept Him knocking and standing and waiting at the door of our hearts, until His own Spirit took the work in His own hands and unlocked the heart and the Savior entered. The Lord would now often have us wait His time in answering prayer. And, if the vision tarry, let us still wait, hope and expect. Let the delay stimulate hope, and increase desire, and exercise faith, and multiply petitions at the mercy-seat. The answer will come when the Lord sees best.
Lastly, a believer may lose the answer to his prayer by dictating to the Lord the mode as well as the time of answering. The Lord has His own mode of blessing His people. We may prescribe the way the Lord should answer, but He may send the blessing to us through an opposite channel, in a way we never thought of and would never have selected. Sovereignty sits ruling upon the throne, and in no aspect is its exercise more manifestly seen than in selecting the way and the means by which the prayers of the saints of God are answered. Do not dictate to the Lord. If you ask a blessing through a certain channel or in a prescribed way, let it be with the deepest humility of mind and with perfect submission of the will to God. Be satisfied to receive the blessing in any way which a good and covenant God may appoint. Be assured that it will be in the way that will most glorify God Himself, and secure to you the greatest amount of blessing.
Many and endearing are the characters or offices ascribed to the Spirit in the Word, but none are found more sweet or appropriate by a child of God than that which He fills as the Intercessor for His saints. We have already remarked that all true prayer is put into words by the Spirit. He is the Author of prayer in the soul. A brief reference to the Divine testimony will clearly substantiate this. "Likewise the Spirit also helps our infirmities: for we know not what we should pray for as we ought: but the Spirit Himself makes intercession for us, with groanings which cannot be uttered. And he that searches the hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because he makes intercession for the saints according to the will of God." Rom. 8. 26, 27. "For through him we both have access by one Spirit unto the Father." Eph. 2. 18. "Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit." Eph. 6. 18. "But you, beloved, building up yourselves on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit." Jude 20. And our dear Lord encouraged His disciples in view of their approaching persecutions, with the same truth- "It is not you that speak, but the Spirit of your Father which speaks in you."
The consideration of two or three points will sufficiently unfold His work as THE AUTHOR OF PRAYER in the believer.
First, it is the Spirit who leads the soul to an acquaintance with its needs. Such is the fallen condition of the soul and such is its poverty, ignorance and infirmity that it does not know its real weakness and deep necessity until taught it by the Holy Spirit. This is even so after conversion. A dear child of God (and it is awfully true, without any qualification, of an unrenewed man) may fall into the state of the Laodicean church, to whom it was said, "Because you say, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing: and know not that you are wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked." Rev. 3. 17. A believer may not know his real condition, his absolute need. There may be a secret declension in his soul, the enfeebling and decay of some spiritual grace, the slow but effective inroad of some spiritual enemy, the cherishing (like Achan) of some forbidden thing, the feeding of some worm at the root of his holiness- and all the while he may remain ignorant of the solemn fact. And how is he to know it unless someone teaches him? And who is that teacher but the Spirit? As He first convicted of sin, so in each successive stage of the believer's experience He convicts of the daily need, the spiritual necessity, the growing infirmity, the increasing power of sin and the deepening poverty. Do not overlook this important part of His work. To go to the throne of grace, we must have something to go for, some errand to take us there, some sin to confess, some guilt to mourn over, some need to supply, some infirmity to make known and (we must not leave this out) some blessing to acknowledge. How is all this to be brought about but by the blessed Spirit? O what an unspeakable mercy to have One who knows us altogether, and who can make us acquainted with ourselves! It is a far advanced step in grace when we know our real undisguised condition. A man may lose a grace, and may travel far and not be aware of his loss. The world has come in and filled up the space. Some carnal joy or pursuit has occupied the mind, engrossed the affections and the thoughts; and the soul has not been conscious of the loss it has sustained. Thus have many lost the sense of adoption, pardon and acceptance. The graces of faith, love and humility have become enfeebled until the description of Ephraim may truly and painfully apply to them- "Ephraim, he has mixed himself among the people; Ephraim is a cake not turned. Strangers have devoured his strength, and he knows it not; yes, grey hairs are here and there upon him, yet he knows it not." Hos. 7. 8, 9. But the blessed Spirit at length reveals to the soul its loss, convinces it of its departure, makes known its real condition, and in this way leads it to the throne of grace. Cherish high views of the work of the Spirit. To have one near at hand, indeed in you, as He is; to detect so faithfully and lovingly as He does, the waning grace, the feeble pulse, the spiritual decay; to awaken the conscience, arouse godly sorrow, and draw out the heart in confession, is to possess one of the most valuable blessings. Honor the blessed Spirit, praise Him for his work, extol His faithfulness and love, and treat Him as your tenderest, dearest Friend.
He stirs up the slumbering spirit of prayer. This is either perpetually declining, or exposed to declension in the believer. And it needs as perpetual a supply of grace from the Author of prayer to keep it in vigor, as to restore it when it has declined. "And I will pour upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the Spirit of grace and of supplications." Zech. 12. 10.
He teaches the believer to plead the atoning blood of Christ. He puts this great and prevailing argument in his mouth; and when sin seems a mountain, and unbelief would suppress the aspiration, and a deep consciousness of unworthiness would cause the soul to "stand afar off," He opens to his view this precious encouraging truth- the prevalency of the blood of Jesus with God on behalf of His people. In a moment the mountain is leveled, unbelief is checked, and the soul, unfettered and unrestrained, draws near to God, yes, rushes into the bosom of its Father. What a view does this give us of the love of the Spirit as the Author of prayer! Who has not experienced it, who is not a stranger to the blessed exercise of communion with God? How often has guilt caused the head to hang down, and a sense of utter vileness and worthlessness covered the soul with shame! Even the sense of destitution has kept back the believer, just as the penury, the wretched covering and the loathsomeness of the poor beggar have kept him from the door! Then does the blessed Spirit, in the plenitude of His grace and tenderness, unfold Jesus to the soul as being all that it needs to give it full, free and near access to God. He removes the eye from self, and fixes and fastens it upon the blood that pleads louder for mercy than all his sins can plead for condemnation; He brings, too, the righteousness near, which so clothes and covers the soul as to fit it to appear in the presence of the King of kings, not merely with acceptance but with delight. Beholding him thus washed and clothed, God rests in His love and rejoices over him with singing.
Nor must we overlook the understanding which exists between God the Father and the Spirit. "And he that searches the hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because he makes intercession for the saints according to the will of God." There is a perfect agreement or understanding between the Father and the interceding Spirit. First, the Father, the Searcher of hearts, knows the mind of the Spirit. He understands the desire and the meaning of the Spirit in the souls of the saints. He understands the "groanings which cannot be uttered." He can interpret their sighs; He can read the meaning of their very desires. And when feeling has been too deep for utterance, and thought too intense for expression, and the soul could but groan out its needs and desires, then has God understood the mind of the Spirit. O the inconceivable preciousness of a throne of grace! To have a God to go to, who knows the mind of the Spirit, a God who can interpret the groan and read the language of desire; to have promise upon promise inviting the soul to draw hear- how precious this is! When from the fulness of the heart the mouth has been dumb, and from the poverty of language thought could not be expressed, then God, who searches the hearts and knows what is the mind of the Spirit, has said, "Never before did you, My child, pray to Me as you did then; never before was your voice so sweet, so powerful, so persuasive; never before were you so eloquent as when My Spirit made intercession for you with groanings which you could not utter." It was, perhaps, your last resource. Refuge failed you, no man cared for your soul. Friends failed you, feelings failed you, all forsook you and fled, and in your extremity you went to God- and He did not fail you. You found the throne of grace accessible; you saw a God of grace upon it, and the sweet incense of the Redeemer's precious merits going up; and you drew near, sighing and groaning and breathing out your needs, and said, "It is good for me to draw near to God." Yes! "He knows the mind of the Spirit." The secret desire for Jesus, the longing for Divine conformity, the hidden mourning over the existence and power of indwelling sin, the feeblest rising of the heart to God, the first sign of the humble and contrite spirit- all are known to God. "He searches the heart, and he knows the mind of the Spirit." O let this encourage you, when you feel you cannot pray by reason of the weakness of the flesh, or the depth of your feeling; if the Spirit is interceding in you, your heavenly Father knows the mind of the Spirit, and not a sigh or a groan can escape His notice.
There is yet another vital principle connected with the perfect agreement of the Father and the Spirit in this important matter of prayer, it is that the Spirit "makes intercession for the saints according to the will of God." Whatever the Spirit may say, the believer can be assured that it is according to God's will. The worldly desires which sometimes take possession of a child of God must not be included in this. He may sometimes be left to ask God for worldly distinction, influence and wealth, and for places of temporal honor and aggrandizement, as the mother of Zebedee's children did. But who will dare assert that, in presenting such petitions, he is asking for those things which are "according to the will of God"? No believer, if he is in a truly spiritual frame, thirsting for God, crucifying the world, and living as a stranger and a pilgrim here; can go to the throne of grace and plead for these. It would be a carnal petition for carnal things, and there must be a dearth of spirituality in the soul that can urge it.
But, in spiritual things, how vastly different is it! When we draw near to God, and ask for more love, more zeal, an increase of faith, a reviving of God's work within us, more resemblance to Christ, the subjection of some enemy, the mortification of some evil, the subduing of some iniquity, the pardon of some guilt, more of the spirit of adoption, the sprinkling of the atoning blood, the sweet sense of acceptance, we know and are assured that we ask for those things which are according to the will of God, and which it is in the heart of God fully and freely to bestow. There need be no backwardness here, there need be no restraint here, there may be no misgiving here. When the believer is pleading for such blessings and spreading out such needs before the Lord, he may with "boldness enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus." He may draw near to God, not standing afar off, but, in the spirit of a child, drawing near to God. He may come with large requests, large desires, hopeful expectation. He may open his mouth wide, because he asks those things which it is glorifying to God to give, which glorify Him when given, and which we know from His own Word it is according to His blessed will to bestow. O the unspeakable encouragement of going to God with a request which we feel assured it is in His heart, and according to His will, freely to grant!
Do not forget that it is the throne of grace to which you come in prayer. It is a THRONE, because God is a Sovereign. He will ever have the suppliant recognize this perfection of His nature. He hears and answers as a Sovereign. He hears whom He will, and answers what and when He will. There must be no dictation to God, no refusing to bow to His sovereignty, no rebelling against His will. If the answer be delayed, or God should seem to withhold it altogether, remember that "He gives no account of any of his matters," and that He has a right to answer or not to answer, as seems good in His sight. Glorious perfection of God, shining from the mercy-seat!
But it is also a throne of GRACE. And why? Because a God of grace sits upon it, and the scepter of grace is held out from it, and all the favors bestowed there are the blessings of grace. God has many thrones. There is the throne of creation, and the throne of providence, and the throne of justice, and the throne of redemption; but this is the throne of grace. Just the throne we need! We are the poor, the needy, the helpless, the vile, the sinful, the unworthy. We have nothing to bring but our deep wretchedness and poverty, nothing but our complaints, our miseries, our crosses, our groanings, our sighs and tears. But it is the throne of grace. For just such is it erected. It is set up in a world of woe, in the midst of the wilderness, in the very land of the enemy, in the valley of tears. It is a God of grace who sits upon it, and all the blessings He dispenses from it are the gifts of grace. Pardon, justification, adoption, peace, comfort, light, direction- all, all is of grace. No worth or worthiness in the creature extracts these blessings; no price he may bring purchases them; no tears or complainings or misery move the heart of God to compassion
- all is of grace. God is so full of compassion, and love, and mercy, He does not need to be moved to pour it forth. It gushes from His heart as from a full and overflowing fountain, and flows into the bosom of the poor, the lowly, the humble and the contrite, enriching, comforting and sanctifying their souls. Therefore whatever your case, you may come. If it is
a throne of grace (as indeed it is) then why not come? Why, stand a long way off? If the poor, the penniless, the disconsolate and the guilty are welcome here, if this throne is crowded by such- why make yourself an exception? Why not come too? What is your case, what is your sorrow, what is your burden? Ah! perhaps you can disclose it to no
earthly ear. You can tell it to God only. Then take it to Him. Let me tell you for your encouragement that God has His secret audience chamber, where He will meet you alone, and where no eye shall see you and no ear shall hear you but
192 THE SPIRIT THE AUTHOR OF PRAYER
His, where you may open all your heart, and reveal your real case, and pour all your secrets into His ear. Precious encouragement! It comes from those lips into which grace was poured: "You, when you pray, enter into your closet, and when you have shut your door, pray to your Father which is in secret; and your Father which sees in secret, shall reward you openly." Then, armed with this promise, go to the throne of grace. Whether the need is temporal or spiritual, take it there. God loves your secrets. He delights in your confidence and will honor the soul that thus honors Him.
Remember, the throne of grace is near at hand. You have not to travel far to reach it; there is no lengthy and painful journey, no wearisome and mortifying pilgrimage. It is near at hand. Lying down or rising up, going out or coming in, in the streets or in the house, in public or in private, in the chamber or in the sanctuary, God is everywhere; and where He is, there is a prayer-hearing and a prayer-answering God. In a moment, in the greatest emergency, you may lift up your heart to the Lord, and in a moment your cry shall be heard and your request shall be granted. "And it shall come to pass, that before they call, I will answer: and while they are yet speaking, I will hear." "The eyes of the Lord are upon the righteous, and his ears are open unto their cry. The righteous cry, and the Lord hears, and delivers them out of all their troubles. The Lord is near unto those who are of a broken heart; and saves such as be of a contrite spirit." Psalm. 34. 15, 17, 18. Remember that the throne of grace is everywhere. On the land and on the sea, at home or abroad, in the publicity of business or in the privacy of retirement, "the eyes of the Lord are upon the righteous, and his ears are open unto their cry." Wherever a believer goes, he carries about with him the intercession of the Spirit below, and he has the consolation of knowing that he has the intercession of Jesus above.
Do not stay away from the throne of grace because of an unfavorable state of mind. If God is ready to receive you just as you are, if no questions are asked, and no examination is instituted, and no exceptions are made on account of the badness of the state, then count it a great blessing to be able to go to God even when you feel at your worst. To keep
away from the throne of grace because of unfitness and unpreparedness to approach it, is to alter its character from a throne of grace to a throne of merit. If the Lord's ears are only open to the cry of the righteous when they seek Him in a certain good and acceptable state of mind, then He hears them because of their state of mind, and not because He is a God of grace. But He can never alter His character or change the foundation of His throne. It is the mercy-seat; the throne of grace; and not for any attitude either good or bad in the suppliant does He bow His ear, but for His own mercy's sake. Do not yield then to this device of your adversary to keep you from prayer. It is the privilege of a poor soul to go to Jesus at his worst, to go in darkness, to go in weak faith, to go when everything says "stay away," to go in the face of opposition, to hope against hope, to go in the consciousness of having walked at a distance, to press through the crowd to the throne of grace, to take the hard, the cold, the reluctant heart and lay it before the Lord. O what a triumph this is of the power and the grace of the blessed Spirit in a poor believer! What is your state? Are you weak in prayer? Are you tried in prayer? And yet is there anything at all of real need, of real desire in your heart? Is this so? Then draw near to God. Your state of mind will not be more favorable tomorrow than it is today. You will not be more acceptable or welcome at any future period than you are at this moment. Give yourself to prayer. Supposing your state is the worst that can be, your frame of mind the most unfavorable, your cross the heaviest, your corruption the strongest, your heart the hardest; still go to the throne of grace, and opening your case to the Lord with groanings that cannot be uttered, you shall adopt the song of David, who could say in the worst state, and in most pressing times, "But I give myself unto prayer " "O magnify the Lord with me, and let us exalt his name together. I sought the Lord, and he heard me, and delivered me from all my fears. They looked unto him, and were lightened; and their faces were not ashamed. This poor man cried, and the Lord heard him, and saved him out of all his troubles." Psalm. 34. 3-6.
The throne of grace is for the needy. It is always a time
of need with a child of God. "Without me," says Jesus, "you can do nothing." There is not a moment when, if he knows his real state, he is not in need of something. What a blessing then is the throne of grace! It is for the needy. It is for those who are in need, those to whom all other doors are closed, with whom all other resources have failed, who have nowhere else to look, nowhere else to fly. To such is the throne of grace always open. Is it a time of trial with you? then it is a time of need. Take your trial, whatever it be, simply to God. Do not brood over it. This will not make it sweeter or more easy to be borne, but taking it to Jesus will. The very act of taking it will lighten it, and casting it upon
His tenderness and sympathy will make it sweet. Is it a time of spiritual darkness with you? Then it is a time of need. Take your darkness to the throne of grace, and "in His light " who sits upon it, you "shall see light." Is it a time of
adverse providences? Then it is a time of need. And where can you go for guidance, for direction, for counsel and for light upon the intricacies of the way, but to the God of grace?
Is it a time of temporal distress with you? Then it is a time of need. Take your temporal cares and necessities to the Lord, for He who is the God of grace is also the God of providence. "Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need."
Thank the Lord for every errand that takes you to the throne of grace. Whatever that be which sends you to prayer, count it one of your choice blessings. It may be a heavy cross, a painful trial, a pressing need; it may be a disappointment, a cold look, an unkind expression; yet, if it leads you to prayer, regard it as a mercy sent from God to your soul. Thank God for an errand to Him. It may be that you have not felt like praying for yourself. You have not been conscious of any special sense of being drawn to the throne for your own soul, but you have gone on behalf of another. The burden, the trial, the affliction or the immediate need of some member of God's family has pressed upon you, and you have taken his case to the Lord; you have borne him in your arms to the throne of grace, and, while interceding for your brother, the Lord has met you, and blessed your own soul. Perhaps you have gone and prayed for the church, for the peace of Jerusalem, for the prosperity of Zion, that the Lord would build up her waste places, and make her a joy and a praise in the whole earth. Perhaps it has been to pray for your minister, that the Lord would teach him more deeply and experimentally, and anoint him more fully with the rich anointing and unction of the Holy Spirit. Perhaps it has been to pray for Christian missions and for hard-working and self-denying missionaries, that the Lord would make them eminently successful in spreading the knowledge of a precious Savior, and in calling in His people. And thus, while you have been besieging the throne of grace for others, and pouring out your heart before the Lord, the Lord Himself has drawn near to your own soul and you have been made to experience the blessing that ever goes with and rewards intercessory prayer. Then let every event, every circumstance, every providence be a voice urging you to prayer. If you have no needs, others have; take them to the Lord. If you are borne down by no cross, smitten by no affliction, or suffering from no need, others are; go and plead for them with your heavenly Father, and the petitions you send up to the mercy-seat on their behalf may return into your own soul laden with rich covenant blessings. Turn everything into an occasion for prayer. Whether it is a dark providence or a bright one, let it take you to God. Make the falls, the weaknesses and the declensions of others grounds
for prayer. Thus, and thus only, can you expect to grow in grace, and grace to grow in you.
Above all, cultivate the habit of secret prayer. No other prayer can take its place. There are confessions that can be made, desires that can be expressed, sins that can be lamented, and needs that can be disclosed only in the secret place, shut in with God. He that confines himself to the altar of the sanctuary, the family, or the social circle, will find leanness come into his soul. It must necessarily be (the very nature of the case proves it) that there are states of mind which the believer can unfold to none but God, sins that can only be acknowledged in His presence, and needs that can only be poured into His ear. What a loser, then, is that professing Christian who lives in the daily and habitual neglect of secret prayer! It is the close and secret walk with God that marks the true and advancing believer. It is in that walk, and that only, that fresh grace, strength and love are poured into the soul. It is in secret communion with God that the believer becomes girded for the conflict, strengthened for the hour of trial, and prepared for the joys of heaven.
Let it be remembered that one essential and important part of the Spirit's work as the Author of prayer is to unfold Jesus as the medium of prayer. There is no access to God but through Jesus. If there is no honoring of Christ in His person, blood, righteousness and intercession in prayer, we can expect no answer to prayer. The great encouragement to draw near to God, is Jesus at the right hand of God. Jesus is the door. Coming through Him, the poorest, the vilest and the most abject may approach the throne of grace, and ask what he will. The glorious Advocate is on the throne to present the petition and urge its acceptance, and plead for its answer on the basis of His own infinite and atoning merits. Come then, you who are poor; come, you who are disconsolate; come, you who are tried and afflicted; come, you who are wounded; come, you who are needy; come and be made welcome at the mercy-seat; for Jesus waits to present your petition and plead your cause. Ask nothing in your own name, but ask everything in the name of Jesus; "ask and you shall receive, that your joy may be full." The Father may reject you, but His Son He cannot reject. "Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way, which he has consecrated for us, through the veil, that is to say, his flesh; and having a High priest over the house of God, let us draw near." Draw near, then, seeking soul, with boldness; not the boldness of a presumptuous, self-righteous man, but that of one chosen, called, pardoned and justified. Draw near with the lowly boldness of a child, with the humble confidence of a son. You are dear to your Father. Your voice is sweet to Him. You are precious to Him because you have been accepted in His Beloved. You cannot come too boldly, you cannot come too frequently, you cannot come with too large requests. You are coming to a King; that King is your Father; that Father sees you in His beloved Son. Do not hang back. Do not stand afar off. He now holds out the golden scepter and says, "Come near, what is your request? Come with your temporal need. Come with your spiritual need. Ask what you will, it shall be granted you. I have an open hand and a large heart." Is this your desire- "Lord, I need more grace to glorify You. I need more simplicity of mind, singleness of eye. I need a more holy, upright, honest walk. I need more meekness, patience, lowliness, submission. I want to know more of Jesus, to see more of His glory, to feel more of His preciousness and to live more simply upon His fulness. I want more of the sanctifying, sealing, witnessing and anointing influences of the Spirit?" Blessed, holy desires! It is the Spirit making intercession in you according to the will of God; and as you enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, the Lord will fulfil the desires of your heart.
Watch diligently against the least declension in the spirit of prayer. If there be declension here, there will also be declension in every part and department of the work of the Spirit in your soul. It is prayer that keeps every grace of the Spirit in active, holy and healthy exercise. It is the stream, so to speak, that supplies refreshing vigor and nourishment to all the plants of grace. It is true that the fountain-head of all spiritual life and "grace to help in time of need," is Christ; "for it pleased the Father that in him should all fulness dwell." And Paul's encouragement to the Philippians was, "My God shall supply all your needs, according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus." But the channel through which all grace comes is prayer- ardent, wrestling, importunate, believing prayer. Allow this channel to be dry, permit any object to narrow or close it up, and the effect will be a withering and a decay of the life of God in the soul. Every plant will droop, every flower will fade and lose its fragrance, and the state of the soul will no longer resemble that of the church thus so beautifully described: "You are like a private garden, my treasure, my bride! You are like a spring that no one else can drink from, a fountain of my own. You are like a lovely orchard bearing precious fruit, with the rarest of perfumes: nard and saffron, calamus and cinnamon, myrrh and aloes, perfume from every incense tree, and every other lovely spice. You are a garden fountain, a well of living water, as refreshing as the streams from the Lebanon mountains." "Awake, north wind! Come, south wind! Blow on my garden and waft its lovely perfume to my lover. Let him come into his garden and eat its choicest fruits." Song 4:12-16. This is the true and glowing picture of a believing soul in which the spirit of prayer is flourishing and vigorous. Reverse this, and how melancholy would it appear! And yet that would be the exact state of every prayerless professing Christian. Guard, then, against the slightest decline of prayer in the soul. If prayer family prayer, social prayer, most of all, secret prayer is declining with you, no further evidence is needed of your being in a backsliding state of mind. There may not yet have been the outward departure, but you are on the way to it, and nothing but a return to prayer will save you. Oh, what alarm, what fearfulness and trembling, should this thought produce in a child of God, "I am on my way to an awful departure from God! Such is the state of my soul at this moment, such my present state of mind, such the loss of my spirituality, such the hold which the world has upon my affections, there is no length in sin to which I may not now go, there is no iniquity which I may not now commit. The breakers are full in view, and my poor weak vessel is heading for and rapidly nearing them!" What can shield you from the commission of that sin, what can keep you from wounding Jesus afresh, what can preserve you from sinking and making shipwreck of your faith, but an immediate and fervent return to prayer? Prayer is your only safety. Prayer for grace to help in your time of need. Prayer for reviving grace, for quickening, restraining, sanctifying grace. Prayer to be kept from falling- to be held up in the slippery paths. Prayer for the lowly mind, for the contrite spirit, for the broken heart, for the careful, close and humble walk with God.
Do you ask what are some of the symptoms of a decline of the spirit of prayer? We reply that the decay of any one grace of the Spirit in the soul- faith, love, zeal, patience, meekness, temperance, lowliness- marks the low and feeble pulse of prayer in a believer. There may not be a decay of all the graces at once, and because of this the believer
may be greatly deceived. Outward zeal may continue long after other more hidden and spiritual graces have withered; and because this remains, the soul is deceived as to its real state before God. A secret and a fearful process of spiritual declension may be going forward in the soul, while for a time there may be nothing outward to mark it. There are many evidences, known only to the individual himself, by which the declining spirit of prayer may be detected. A distaste for the Word of God, for a spiritual and searching ministry, for communion with spiritual minds, for holy thought and meditation; all, and many more which cannot be unknown to the backsliding soul, indicate a neglected throne of grace.
Are you a prayerless professing Christian? Oh, what is all
your profession worth if you are a prayerless soul? What is your zeal, your church membership, your talking well and loud, your gifts, your reputation as a 'live' Christian, while you are dead to the true spirit and life of prayer, living in awful neglect of family prayer, social prayer and secret prayer? All your profession of godliness: your outward zeal, your splendid gifts, all is but a "fair show in the flesh," an empty name, while you live in neglect of prayer. Prayer is
the breathing of the life of God in the soul. It is the pulse of the renewed man. It is the turning of the soul to God. Where this is missing, the great evidence of the actual existence of life is missing too.
This may catch the eye of someone who has never yet truly prayed; who all his life so far has neglected the throne of grace. What an awful condition! What a sad sight! Your
life, reader, has been a prayerless life. It has been a life devoted to self, to sin, to rebellion against God, to impenitence and unbelief, to hardness of heart, and contempt of God's Word, to a neglect of the great salvation, to a despising of Christ, to a pursuit of happiness in a poor, dying, present evil world. Not a breath of prayer has ever risen from your soul to God. Not one pulse of love has ever beaten in your breast for Jesus. You have lived as a lover of self, a lover of the world, a lover of sin, a lover of wealth, pleasure and ambition, rather than as a lover of God. And why are you at this moment out of hell? You have long been preparing for it. Your character for years has been molding for the society and the sufferings of the lost. Why are you not there now, calling for a drop of water to cool that parched tongue which never once called in earnest supplication upon God? It is of the Lord's mercies that you are not consumed. And because His patience has borne with you so long, you are yet within the region of hope. "What do you mean, O sleeper? arise, and call upon God." The wrath of God here, and its fearful outpouring hereafter, rests upon the soul that does not come to the throne of grace. The hell of an unpraying man is a fearful hell. To go from the means of grace, from the ordinances of religion, from a preached Gospel, from a praying family, to the judgment-seat, an unpraying, unrepenting, unbelieving soul, is to go to a special hell. The untaught, unenlightened and unwarned heathen, does not go to the hell of that soul that dies surrounded by the means of saving grace, rejecting the Lord Jesus Christ, and a stranger to prayer. "Think how much more terrible the punishment will be for those," who have heard of the throne of grace only to slight it; of Jesus only to despise him; of the Gospel only to reject it; of God's love, patience and grace only to trample it under his feet? "It shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom in the day of judgment" than for that soul. "And now about these enemies of mine who didn't want me to be their king—bring them in and execute them right here in my presence." "Who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power." "Depart from
me, you cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels." "And I saw a great white throne, and I saw the one who was sitting on it. The earth and sky fled from his presence, but they found no place to hide. I saw the dead, both great and small, standing before God's throne. And the books were opened, including the Book of Life. And the dead were judged according to the things written in the books, according to what they had done. The sea gave up the dead in it, and death and the grave gave up the dead in them. They were all judged according to their deeds. And death and the grave were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death—the lake of fire. And anyone whose name was not found recorded in the Book of Life was thrown into the lake of fire." Rev. 20:11-15. This will be the doom and the portion of an unpraying soul! Remember, reader, that without prayer in your family, your family is cursed; that without prayer in your business, your business is cursed, that without prayer for your own soul, the curse of God rests upon you. If you have not time for prayer, then seek time, find time, make time. You must pray, or be lost! You must pray, or be eternally condemned! You must pray, or sink down over whelmed with the wrath of God forever and forever! Seek time, find time, make time for prayer. Abstract it from business, take it from pleasure, even steal it from sleep. You must pray, or go to an awful, a special hell. A sorer punishment than all others will be yours, if you die a prayerless soul!
Are you conscious of the slightest movement of your heart towards God? Cherish it as your most valuable mercy. It is the first gentle breathing of the blessed Spirit in your soul. It is the first pulse of spiritual life. It may be feeble; it may be only a desire, a misgiving, a solemn thought, a feeling after God; a cry, "God be merciful to me a sinner!" Oh, it is the life-giving Spirit overshadowing you; let it lead you to the mercy-seat. O precious longing after God! O blessed and gentle drawing of the Spirit! Let it lead you at once to the throne of grace. Go there and spread your case before the Lord. Confess your sins, acknowledge your iniquity, humble yourself at His feet, and for Jesus' sake God will receive you graciously, pardon you freely and seal you as His child.
Lastly, pray expectantly, diligently and perseveringly. Expect an answer to your prayer, a promise to your request, a compliance with your suit. Be as much assured that God will answer, as that you have asked or that He has promised. Ask in faith; only believe; watch daily at the gates for the answer; look for it at any moment, and through any providence; do not expect it in your own way, but in the Lord's; do not be astonished if He should answer your prayer in the very opposite way that you had anticipated and (it may be) dictated. With this view, watch every providence, even the smallest. You do not know when the answer may come, at what time, or in what way. Therefore watch. The Lord may answer in a great and strong wind, in an earthquake, in a fire, or in a still small voice; therefore watch every providence to know which will be the voice of God to you. Do not pray as if you asked for or expected a refusal. God delights in your holy fervency, your humble boldness and your persevering importunity. "The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much." Pray submissively, expect hopefully, watch vigilantly, and wait patiently.
Behold, then, the throne of grace! Was ever spot so verdant and so sunny? Was ever resting-place so sacred and so
sweet? Could God Himself invest it with a richer or greater attraction? Behold it yet again. It is the throne of grace. There are dispensed all the blessings of sovereign grace- pardon, justification, adoption, sanctification, and all that connects the present state of the believer with eternal glory. There is dispensed grace itself- grace to guide, to support, to comfort and to help in time of need. There sits the God of grace, proclaiming Himself "the Lord God, merciful and gracious, long-suffering, and abundant in goodness and truth; keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity, transgression and sin." There is extended the scepter of grace, welcoming the sons and daughters of need, the weary and the heavy laden, the guilty, the broken in heart, the poor, the friendless, the bereaved. There stands Jesus the High priest and Mediator, full of grace and truth, waving to and fro his golden censer, from which pours forth the fragrant incense of His atoning merits, wreathing in one offering as it ascends the name, the needs and the prayer of the lowly worshiper. And there, too, is the Spirit of grace, breathing in the soul, making known the need, putting the petition into words, and making intercession for the saints according to the will of God. Behold, then, the throne of grace, and draw near! You are welcome. Come with your cross, come with your infirmity, come with your guilt, come with your need, come with your wounded spirit, come with your broken heart, come and welcome to the throne of grace! Come without price, come without worthiness, come without preparation, come without fitness, come in a bad state of mind, come with a hard heart, come and welcome to the throne of grace! God, your Father, makes you welcome. Jesus, your Advocate, makes you welcome. The Spirit, the Author of prayer, makes you welcome. All the happy and the blessed who cluster around it make you welcome. The spirits of just men made perfect in glory make you welcome. The ministering spirits sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation make you welcome. All the holy below, and all the holy above, all, all make you, poor trembling soul, welcome, thrice welcome, to the throne of grace!

The Broken Heart Bound Up
or The Spirit a Comforter

"The Comforter, who is the Holy Spirit." John 14. 26.

In several parts of this work, we have had occasion to touch upon the sanctifying tendency of the discipline of the covenant. We have been led to trace the goodness, and to justify the wisdom of God, and to mark some of the blessed results in His appointing the suffering state to be the special allotment of His children. But there is one important view of the subject yet reserved. It is this: That in no one aspect does the happy tendency and indispensable necessity of that discipline more manifestly appear, than in the fact that through this channel the believer is brought into communion with, and into the enjoyment of, the tenderness and sympathy of the Spirit. The wisdom, the faithfulness and the power of the Spirit, the soul has been brought to acknowledge and experience in conversion; but to know the Spirit as a Comforter, to experience His tenderness and sympathy, His kindness and gentleness, we must be placed in those special circumstances that call it into exercise. In a word, we must know what sorrow is, to know what comfort is; to know what true comfort is, we must receive it from the blessed and eternal Spirit, the Comforter of the church.
The God and Father of His people foreknew all their circumstances. He knew that He had chosen them in the furnace of affliction, that this was the particular path along which they should all walk. As He foreknew, so He also fore-arranged for all those circumstances. In the eternal purposes of His wisdom, grace and love, He went before His church, planning its history, allotting its path and providing for every possible position in which it could be placed; so that we cannot imagine an exigency, a trial, a difficulty or a conflict which is not amply provided for in the covenant of grace. Such is the wisdom and the goodness of God towards His covenant family!
The great provision for the suffering state of the believer is the Holy Spirit, the special, personal and abiding Comforter of the church. It was to this truth our dear Lord directed the sorrowing hearts of His disciples, when on the eve of His return to glory. He was about to withdraw from them His bodily presence. His mission on earth was fulfilled, His work was done, and He was about to return to His Father and to their Father, to His God and to their God. The prospect of separation absorbed them in grief. Thus did Jesus speak of it, and thus, too, he consoled them: "But now I go my way to him that sent me; and none of you asks me, Where are you going? But because I have said these things unto you, sorrow has filled your heart. Nevertheless I tell you the truth; it is expedient for you that I go away: for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I depart
I will send him unto you." Note the circumstances of the disciples; it was a season of deep sorrow. Then observe how Jesus mitigated that sorrow, and chased away the dark cloud of their grief- by the promise of the Spirit as a Comforter- assuring those who the presence and abiding of the Spirit as a Comforter would more than recompense the
loss of His bodily presence. What the Spirit then was to the sorrowing disciples, He has been in every successive age, is at the present moment, and will continue to be to the end of time- the personal and abiding Comforter of the afflicted family of God. May He now sanctify and comfort our hearts, by leading us into the consideration of this great and most precious doctrine.
In the sacred Word great stress is laid upon the subject of comfort. It is clearly God's revealed will that His people should be comforted. The fulness of Christ, the exceeding great and precious promises of the Word, the covenant of grace and all the dealings of God are closely related to the comfort and consolation of the saints. A brief reference to the Divine Word will convince us of this. This is the very character God Himself bears, and this is the blessed work He accomplishes. Thus, "Blessed be God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies, and the God of all comfort; who comforts us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort those who are in any trouble by the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted of God." Similarly we have those striking words in Isaiah, "Comfort, comfort my people, says your God." This was God's command to the prophet. It was His declared will that His people should be comforted, even though they dwelt in Jerusalem, the city which had shed the blood of the prophets, and more than that, which was later to witness the crucifixion of the Lord of life and glory. What an unfolding does this give us of Him who is the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our tribulation, and that, too, in every place!
The comforting of the saints is one important purpose of the Scriptures. "Whatever things were written aforetime were written for our learning, that we through patience and comfort of the Scriptures might have hope." And thus the exhortation runs- "Comfort the feeble minded." "Wherefore comfort yourselves together, and edify one an other, even as also you do." "Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air; and so shall we ever be with the Lord. Wherefore comfort one another with these words." Thus has the Holy Spirit testified to this subject. Thus it is clear that it is the will of God and in His heart that His people should be comforted.
The necessity of comfort springs from the existence of sorrow in some one or more of its varied and multiplied forms. For each and every kind of sorrow the blessed Spirit is the Comforter; but as He comforts in various ways according to the nature of the sorrow, we would select a few of the prominent sources of grief, common alike to all the Lord's people, and show how He binds up, heals and comforts.
With regard to the spiritual sorrows of a child of God, those peculiar to a believer in Jesus, we believe that a revelation of Jesus is the great source of comfort to which the Spirit leads the soul. He comforts all the spiritual grief of a believer, dries up all his spiritual tears, by testifying of Christ, and that according to the peculiar feature of the case. Our Lord told His sorrowing disciples this: "But when the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, he shall testify of me." Notice that He was to comfort their hearts by testifying of Jesus. Here is the true source of comfort. What higher comfort do we need? What more can we have? This is enough to heal every wound, to dry up every tear, to assuage every grief, to lighten every cross, to fringe with brightness every dark cloud, and to make the roughest place smooth- that a believing soul has Jesus. Having Jesus, what has a believer?
He has the entire blotting out of all his sins. Is not this a comfort? Tell us what can give comfort to a child of God apart from this. If this fail, where can he look? Will you tell him of the world, of its many schemes of enjoyment, of its plans for the accumulation of wealth, of its domestic happiness? Wretched sources of comfort to an awakened soul! Poor empty channels to a man made acquainted with the inward plague of sin! That which he needs to know is, the sure payment of the ten thousand talents, the entire cancelling of the bond held against him by stern justice, the complete blotting out, as a thick cloud, of all his iniquity. Until this great fact is made sure and certain to his conscience, all other comfort is but as a dream of boyhood, a shadow that vanishes, a vapor that melts away. But the Holy Spirit comforts the believer by leading him to this blessed truth- the full pardon of sin. This is the great controversy which Satan has with the believer. To bring him to doubt the pardon of sin, to unhinge the mind from this great fact, is the constant effort of this arch-enemy. And when unbelief is powerful, and inbred sin is powerful, and outward trials are many and sore, and, in the midst of it all, the single eye is removed from Christ, then is the hour of Satan to charge home upon the conscience of the believer all the iniquity he ever committed. And how does the blessed Spirit comfort at that moment? By unfolding the greatness, perfection and efficacy of the one offering by which Jesus has forever blotted out the sins of His people, and perfected those who are sanctified. O what comfort does this truth speak to a fearful, troubled, anxious believer, when (the Spirit working faith in his heart) he can look up and see all his sins laid upon Jesus in the solemn hour of atonement, and no condemnation remaining! However poor and worthless you may feel yourself to be, this truth is still for you. O rise to it, welcome it, embrace it, do not think that it is too costly for one so unworthy. It comes from the heart of Jesus, and cannot be more free. "Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered."
Having Jesus, what has the believer more? He possesses a righteousness in which God views him complete and accepted, from the beginning of the year to the end of the year. Is it not a comfort to stand "complete in Him," in the midst of many and conscious imperfections, infirmities, flaws and proneness to wander? What a comfort for the sorrowing and trembling heart to turn and take up its rest in this truth, that "he that believes is justified from all things," and stands accepted in the Beloved, to the praise of the glory of Divine grace. God beholds him in Jesus without a spot, because He beholds His Son in whom He is well pleased, and viewing the believing soul in Him, can say, "You are all beautiful, my love; there is no spot in you!" The blessed Comforter unfolds this truth to the troubled soul, bringing it to take up its rest in it. And as the believer realizes his full acceptance in the righteousness of Christ, and rejoices in the truth, he weeps as he never wept and mourns as he never mourned, over the perpetual bias of his heart to wander from a God that has so loved him. The very comfort poured into his soul from this truth lays him in the dust, and draws out the heart in ardent longings for holiness.
And what a Comforter is the Spirit in seasons of temptation! Few of the children of God are ignorant of Satan's devices. Few are exempt from the "fiery darts" of the adversary. Our Lord Himself was not. Many, varied and great are Satan's temptations. They are often those which touch the very vitals of the gospel, which attempt to undermine the believer's faith in the fundamentals of Christianity, and which affect his own personal interest in the covenant of grace. Satan is the sworn enemy of the believer. He is his constant, unwearied foe. There is a subtlety, a malignity, which is not present with other enemies of the soul. The Holy Spirit, in Rev. 2. 24, speaks of the "depths of Satan." There are "depths" in his malice, in his subtlety, in his sagacity, which many of the beloved of the Lord are made in some degree to plumb. The Lord may allow them to go down into those "depths," just to convince them that there are depths in His wisdom, love, power and grace which can out-fathom the "depths of Satan."
But what are some of the devices of the wicked one? What are some of his fiery darts? Sometimes he fills the mind of the believer with the most blasphemous and atheistical thoughts, threatening the utter destruction of his peace and confidence. Sometimes he takes advantage of periods of weakness and trial and perplexity to stir up the corruptions of his nature, bringing the soul back as into captivity to the law of sin and death. Sometimes he suggests unbelieving doubts respecting his adoption, beguiling him into the belief that his professed conversion is all a delusion, that his religion is all hypocrisy, and that what he had thought was the work of grace is only the work of nature. But by far the greatest and most general controversy which Satan has with the saint of God, is to lead him to doubt the ability and the willingness of Christ to save a poor sinner. If the anchor of his soul is removed from this truth, he is driven out upon a rough sea of doubt and anguish, and is at the mercy of every wind of doctrine and of every billow of unbelief that may assail his storm-tossed bark. But in the midst of it all, where flows the comfort and the victory of the tempted believer? From the promise which assures him that "when the enemy shall come in like a flood, the Spirit of the Lord shall lift up a standard against him." And what is the standard which the Spirit, the Comforter, lifts up to stem this flood? A dying, risen, ascended, exalted and ever-living Savior. This is the standard that strikes terror into the foe; this is the gate that shuts out the flood. So the disciples proved. This is their testimony: "And the seventy returned again with joy, saying, Lord, even the devils are subject unto us through your name." Immanuel is that name which puts to flight every spiritual foe. And the Comforter, who is the Holy Spirit, leads the tempted soul to this name, to shelter itself beneath it, to plead it with God, and to battle with it against the enemy. Are you a mark against which the fiery darts of the devil are leveled? Are you strongly tempted? Do not be astonished as though some strange thing had happened unto you. The holiest of God's saints have suffered as you are now suffering; indeed even your blessed Lord your Master, your Pattern, your Example, and He in whose name you shall be more than conqueror- was once assailed as you are, and by the same enemy. And let the reflection console you, that temptations only leave the traces of guilt upon the conscience, and are only regarded as sins by God, as they are yielded to. The mere suggestion of the adversary, the mere presentation of a temptation, is no sin, so long as (in the strength that is in Christ Jesus) the believer firmly and resolutely resists it. "Resist the devil, and he will flee from you." "Above all, take the shield of faith, with which you shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked one." Jesus has already fought and conquered for you. He well knew what the conflict with Satan was. And He remembers too what it is. Lift up your head, tempted soul! You shall obtain the victory. The Seed of the woman has bruised the serpent's head, has crushed him so that he can never obtain supremacy over you again. He may harass, annoy and distress you, but pluck you from the hollow of the hand that was pierced for you he never can.
But in seasons of deep trial and affliction, the Spirit specially shows Himself the Comforter of His people. It was under circumstances of peculiar and keen trial that Jesus promised the Spirit as a Comforter. Nor is He confined to any peculiar trial. Whatever is a cause of depression to the believer, whatever grieves his heart, wounds his spirit or casts him down, is a trial. If it is only a cold look from eyes that once shone with love, it is still a trial. If it is only an unkind word from the tongue that once flowed with affection, it is still a trial; and in proportion to the heart's tenderness the keenness of the trial is felt.
Many of the saints of God tend to forget the appointed path of believers through the world. They forget that that path is to be one of tribulation; that far from being a smooth, a flowery and an easy path, it is rough, thorny and difficult. The believer often expects all his heaven on earth. He forgets that whatever spiritual enjoyment there may be here, related in its nature to the joys of the glorified, and of this he cannot expect too much- the present is only the wilderness state of the church. The life that now is is only that of a pilgrimage and a journey. Kind was our Lord's admonition "In the world you shall have tribulation"; and equally so that of the apostle, "we must through much tribulation enter into the kingdom." Affliction, in some of its many and varied forms is the lot of all the Lord's people. If we do not have it, we lack an evidence of our true sonship, for the Father "scourges every son whom He receives." But whatever the trial or affliction is, the Spirit is the Comforter.
Now, how does He comfort the afflicted soul? He unfolds the love of his God and Father in the trial. He shows the believer that his sorrow, so far from being the result of anger, is the fruit of love; that it comes from the heart of God, sent to draw the soul nearer to Himself, and to unfold the depths of His own grace and tenderness; that "whom He loves He rebukes." And oh, how immense the comfort that flows into a wounded spirit when love- deep, unchangeable, covenant love- is seen in the hand that has stricken; when the affliction is traced to the covenant, and through the covenant to the heart of a covenant God!
He comforts by revealing the purpose for which the affliction is sent. He convinces the believer that the discipline, though painful, was yet needed; that the world was, perhaps, making inroads upon the soul, or earthly love was shutting out Jesus; some indulged sin was perhaps crucifying Him afresh, or some known spiritual duty was neglected. The Comforter opens the believer's ears to hear the voice of the rod, and Him who has appointed it. He begins to see why the Lord has smitten, why He has caused His rough wind and His east wind to blow, why He has blasted, why He has wounded. And now the Achan is discovered, cast out, and stoned. The heart, disciplined, returns from its wanderings and, wounded, bleeding, suffering, seeks more fondly than ever a wounded, bleeding, suffering Savior. Who can fully estimate the comfort which flows from the sanctified discipline of the covenant when the purpose for which the trial was sent is accomplished? Accomplished, it may be, in the discovery of some departure, or in the removal of an obstruction to the growth of grace, of some object that obscured the glory of Jesus, and that suspended His visits of love to the soul. "Blessed discipline," he may exclaim, "that has produced so much good; gentle chastisement that has corrected so much evil; sweet medicine that has produced so much health!"
But it is in unfolding the tenderness and sympathy of Jesus that the Spirit most effectually restores comfort to the tried, tempted and afflicted soul. He testifies of Christ especially in the sympathy of His manhood. There can be no question that, in His assumption of our nature, Jesus had in view, as one important end, a closer affinity with the suffering state of His people with a view to their more immediate comfort and support. The great object of His incarnation, we are well assured, was obedience to the law in its precept, and the suffering of its penalty. But connected with, and resulting from this, is the channel that is thus open for the outflowings of that tenderness and sympathy of which the saints of God so constantly stand in need, and as constantly receive. Jesus is the "brother born for adversity" "it behooved him to be made like unto his brethren, that he might be a merciful and faithful High priest" "in that he himself has suffered, being tempted, he is able to support those who are tempted" "we have not a High priest who cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities, but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin."
Here is the true and blessed source of comfort in the hour and the circumstance of sorrow. The Lord's people are a tried people, Jesus was a tried Savior. The Lord's people are an afflicted people; Jesus drank deeply of affliction's bitter cup. The Lord's people are a sorrowing family; Jesus was a "man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief." He brought Himself down on to a level with the circumstances of His people. He completely identified Himself with them. However, we are not to suppose that in every peculiarity of trial there is an identity with our dear Lord. There are trials growing out of peculiar circumstances and relations in life to which he was a stranger. But Jesus took upon Himself pure humanity in its suffering form and was deeply acquainted with sorrow as sorrow- and from these two circumstances He became fitted in all points to support, to sustain and to sympathize with His afflicted, sorrowing people, whatever the cause of that affliction or sorrow was. It is enough for us that He was "bone of our bone, and flesh of our flesh." It is enough for us that His heart was composed of all the tenderness and sympathy and gentleness of our nature, and that, too, freed from everything growing out of the infirmity of sin that could weaken, impair and blunt the sensibilities. It is enough for us that sorrow was no stranger to His heart, that affliction had deeply furrowed His soul, and that grief had left its traces upon every line of His countenance. What more do we require? What more can we ask? Our nature? He took it. Our sicknesses? He bore them. Our sorrows? He felt them. Our crosses? He carried them. Our sins? He pardoned them. He went before His suffering people, trod out the path and left his footprint, and now invites them to walk in no way, to sustain no sorrow, to bear no burden and to drink no cup in which He has not Himself gone before. It is enough for Him that you are a child of grief, that sorrow is the bitter cup that you are drinking. He asks no more. A chord is in a moment touched in His heart, which vibrates to that chord touched in yours, whether its note be a pleasing or a mournful one. For let it be ever remembered that Jesus has as much sympathy for the joys as He has for the sorrows of His people. He rejoices with those that rejoice and He weeps with those that weep. But how does Jesus sympathize? Not in the sense in which some may suppose, that when we weep He actually weeps, and that when we suffer He actually suffers. This may once have been so, but we no more know Christ in the flesh, as He was once known. Ah! there was a period when "Jesus wept"! There was a period when His heart wrung with anguish, and when His body agonized in pain. That period is no more. However there still is a sense (and an important one) in which Jesus feels sympathy. When the believer suffers, the tenderness of Jesus is drawn forth. His sustaining strength, sanctifying grace and comforting love are all unfolded in the experience of His child while passing through the furnace. The Son of God is with him in the flames. Jesus of Nazareth is walking with him on the billows. He has the heart of Christ. And this is sympathy- this is fellowship- this is to be one with Christ Jesus.
What is your sorrow? Has the hand of death smitten? Is
the beloved one removed? Has the desire of your eyes been taken away with a stroke? But who has done it? Jesus has done it. Death was only His messenger. Your Jesus has done it. The Lord has taken away. And what has He removed? Your wife? Ah, Jesus has all the tenderness that your wife ever had. Hers was only a drop from the ocean that is in
His heart. Is it your husband? Jesus is better to you than
ten husbands. Is it your parent, your child, your friend, your
all of earthly bliss? Is the cistern broken? Is the earthen
vessel dashed to pieces? Are all your streams dry? Jesus is still enough. He has not taken Himself from you, and never, never will. Take your bereaved, stricken and bleeding heart to Him, and rest it upon His, once bereaved, stricken and bleeding, too; for He knows how to bind up the broken heart, to heal the wounded spirit and to comfort those that mourn.
What is your sorrow? Has health failed you? Has property forsaken you? Have friends turned against you? Are you tried in your circumstances? Perplexed in your path? Are providences thickening and darkening around you? Are you anticipating seasons of approaching trial? Are you walking in darkness, having no light? Simply go to Jesus. He is an ever open door. A tender, loving faithful friend, ever near. He is a brother born for your adversity. His grace and sympathy are sufficient for you. The life you are called to live is that of faith; that of sense, you have done with. You are now to walk by faith and not by sight. This, then, is the great secret of a life of faith- to hang upon Jesus daily, to go to Him in every trial, to cast upon Him every burden, to take the infirmity, the corruption, the cross as it arises, simply and immediately to Jesus. You are to set Christ before you as your Example to imitate; as your Fountain to wash in; as your Foundation to build upon; as your Fulness to draw from; as your tender, loving and confiding Brother and Friend, to go to at all times and under all circumstances. To do this daily, constitutes the life of faith. O to be enabled with Paul to say, "I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ lives in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me." O holy, happy life! O unearthly, heavenly life! The life Jesus Himself lived when below, the life all the patriarchs and prophets and apostles and martyrs and the spirits of just men made perfect once lived, and the life every true-born child of God is called and privileged to live, while yet a stranger and pilgrim on the earth!
There are three important aspects in which a believer should never fail to view his present lot. The first is to remember that the present is, by the appointment of God, the afflicted state of the believer. It is God's ordained, revealed will that His covenant children should be here in an afflicted condition. When called by grace, they should never take into their account any other state. They become the disciples of the religion of the cross; they become the followers of a crucified Lord; they put on a yoke, and assume a burden. They must, then, expect the cross inward and the cross outward. To escape it, is impossible. To pass to glory without it, is to go by another way than God's ordering, and, in the end, to fail of arriving there. The gate is strait, and the way is narrow, which leads to life, and a man must become nothing if he would enter and be saved, Matt. 7.14. He must deny himself. He must become a fool that he may be wise, 1 Cor. 3. 18. He must receive the sentence of death in himself, that he should not trust in himself, 2 Cor. 1. 9. The wise man must cease to glory- in his wisdom, the mighty man must cease to glory in his might, the rich man must cease to glory in his riches. Their only ground of glory in themselves must be their insufficiency, infirmity, poverty and weakness; and their only ground of glory out of themselves must be that "God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have everlasting life." The believer in Jesus, then, must not forget that if the path he treads is rough and thorny, if the sky is wintry and the storm is severe, and if the cross he bears is heavy, that this is the road to heaven. He is only in the wilderness; why should he expect more than belongs to the wilderness state? He is on a journey; why should he look for more than a traveler's fare? He is far from home; why should he murmur and complain that he has not all the rest, the comfort and the luxuries of his Father's house? If your covenant God and Father has allotted to you poverty, be satisfied that it should
be your state; indeed, rejoice in it. If bitter adversity, if deep affliction, if the daily and the heavy cross, still do not breathe one murmur, do not shed one tear, do not heave one sigh, but rather rejoice that you are led into the path that Jesus Himself walked in, that you "go forth by the footsteps of the flock," and that you are counted worthy thus to be one in circumstance with Christ and His people.
The second aspect in which the suffering believer should view his present lot is that a state of humiliation or casting down is invariably followed by a state of exaltation or lifting up. The Lord empties before He fills. He makes room for Himself, for His love and for His grace. He dethrones the rival, casts down the idol and claims to occupy the temple, filled and radiant with His own ineffable glory. Thus does He bring the soul into great straits, lays it low, but only to school and discipline it for richer mercies, higher service and greater glory. Be sure of this, that when the Lord is about to favor you with some great and peculiar blessing, he may prepare you for it by some great and peculiar trial. If He is about to advance you to some honor, He may first lay you low that He may exalt you. If He is about to place you in a sphere of great and distinguished usefulness, he may first place you in His school, that you may know how to teach others. If He is about to bring forth your righteousness as the noon-day, He may cause it to pass under a cloud, that, emerging from its momentary obscuration, it may shine with richer and more enduring luster. Thus does He deal with all His people.
Thus He dealt with Joseph. Intending to elevate him to great distinction and influence, He first cast him into a dungeon, and that, too, in the very land in which he was so soon to be the gaze and the astonishment of all men. Thus, too, he dealt with David and Job; and thus did God deal with his own Son, whom He advanced to His own right hand from the lowest state of humiliation and suffering. "It is the way of God to work by contraries, to turn the greatest evil into the greatest good. To grant great good after great evil, is one thing, and to turn great evils into the greatest good, that is another, and yet that is God's way. The greatest good that God intends for His people, many times He works it out of the greatest evil; the greatest light is brought out of the greatest darkness."
The third aspect is to regard the present suffering as only preparatory to future glory. This will greatly mitigate the sorrow, reconcile the heart to the trial and tend materially to secure the important purpose for which it was sent. The life of a believer is only a disciplining for heaven. All the covenant dealings of his God and Father, are only to make him a partaker of His holiness here, and thus to prepare him to be a partaker of His glory hereafter. Here he is only being trained for a high position in heaven. He is only preparing for a more holy and (for all we know) a more active and essential service in the upper world. So every infirmity overcome, every sin subdued, every weight laid aside and every step advanced in holiness only strengthens and matures the life of grace below, until it is fitted for, and terminates in, the life of glory above. Let the suffering believer then see that he emerges from every trial of the furnace with some dross consumed, some iniquity purged and with a deeper impress of the blessed Spirit's seal of love, holiness and adoption on his heart. Let him see that he has made some advance towards the state of the glorified; that he is more perfected in love and sanctification- the two great elements of heaven; and that therefore he is becoming fit for the inheritance of the saints in light. "Every branch that bears fruit, he purges it, that it may bring forth more fruit." Blessed and holy tendency of all the afflictive dispensations of a covenant God and Father towards a dear and covenant child!
But there is a sorrow, even keener and deeper than this, in which the Spirit the Comforter is seen directly and manifestly to work. It is the sorrow of a heart broken on account of sin. A wounded conscience, a humble and contrite spirit, a broken heart- who can adequately describe? Though he may have experienced it, yet no mortal can fully unfold it, as no mortal can alone heal and comfort it. It is the deep and wonderful work of God the Holy Spirit; and he who approaches a spirit wounded by sin, either to describe the state, or to attempt its healing, has need of much wisdom, tenderness and sympathy. This part of our work addresses itself especially to the poor in spirit, to the humble and the contrite, to the wounded conscience, to the broken heart; let it then be read, as it is written, in the spirit of prayer, that the Comforter (who is the Holy Spirit) may take the work into His own hands, and heal where He has wounded and bind up where He has broken.
Shall we attempt a faint description of your feelings? Allow one who has walked to some degree the path you are now treading, and who is prepared to sympathize with every tear and sigh that comes from a convinced and wounded conscience, with all tenderness and humility to draw aside the veil which conceals the deep and conflicting emotions that now agitate your heart, with a view to leading you to Jesus, whose voice alone can hush the tempest, and say to the waves of conviction and guilt, "Peace, be still."
You feel yourself to be the very chief of sinners. You seem to stand out from the great mass a lone and solitary being, more vile, polluted, guilty and lost than all the rest. Your sentiments in reference to yourself, to the world, to sin, to God and to Christ, have undergone a rapid, total and surprising change. Yourself, you see to be guilty and condemned; the world, you feel to be a worthless portion, a cheat and a lie; sin, you see to be the blackest and most hateful of all things; God, you regard in a light of holiness, justice and truth, as you never did before; and Christ, as possessing an interest entirely new and overpowering. Your views in relation to the law of God are reversed. You now see it to be immaculately holy, strictly just and infinitely wise. Your best attempts to obey its precepts you now see are not only utterly powerless, but in themselves are so polluted by sin, that you cannot look at them without the deepest self-loathing. The justice of God shines with a glory unseen and unknown before. You feel that, in now bringing the condemnatory sentence of the law into your conscience, He is strictly holy, and were He now to send you to eternal woe, He would be strictly just. But ah! what seems to form the greatest burden? What is that which is more bitter to you than wormwood or gall? Oh, it is the thought that you should ever have lifted your arm of rebellion against so good, so holy, so just a God as He is. That you should ever have cherished one treasonable thought, or harbored one unkind feeling. That your whole life, thus far, should have been spent in bitter hostility to Him, His law, His Son, His people, and that yet, in the midst of it, yes, all day long, He has stretched out His hand to you, and you did not regard it! O the guilt that rests upon your conscience! O the burden that presses your soul! O the sorrow that wrings your heart! O the pang that wounds your spirit! Is there a posture of humility more lowly than all others? You would assume it. Is there a place in the dust more humiliating than all others? You would lie in it. Now you are looking wistfully around for a refuge, a resting place, a balm, a quietness for the conflict in your soul. Is this your real state?
Are these your true feelings? Then the Lord is blessing you!
"Blessing, do you say?" Yes! Those tears are a blessing! Those convictions are a blessing! Those humbling, lowly views are a blessing! That broken heart, that contrite spirit, that awakened, convicted and wounded conscience, despite all its guilt, is a blessing! Why? because the Spirit that convicts men of sin, of righteousness and of judgment has entered your soul and worked this change in you. He has opened your eyes to see yourself lost and wretched. He has broken the spell which the world has woven around you. He has dissolved the enchantment, unveiled the delusion and made you feel the powers of the world to come. Then you have received a blessing.
But "is there no balm in Gilead? is there no physician there?" There is! The Physician is Jesus, the balm is His own most precious blood. He binds up the broken heart, He heals the wounded spirit. See how the Holy Spirit testifies to this, and how He comforts by the testimony: "The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is upon me, because the Lord has appointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to comfort the brokenhearted and to announce that captives will be released and prisoners will be freed. He has sent me to tell those who mourn that the time of the Lord's favor has come, and with it, the day of God's anger against their enemies. To all who mourn in Israel, he will give beauty for ashes, joy instead of mourning, praise instead of despair." Isaiah 61:1-3.
And if the reader will compare this precious announcement with Luke 4 from the 16th verse, he will find our Lord quoting it, and declaring that it was then fulfilled in Himself. "This day," says He, "is this scripture fulfilled in your ears."
Jesus is the binder-up of a broken heart. All the skill, all the efficacy, all the tenderness and acute sympathy needed for the office, meet and center in Him in their highest degree. Here then you can bring your wounded heart. Bring it simply to Jesus. One touch of His hand will heal the wound. One whisper of His voice will hush the tempest. One drop
of His blood will remove the guilt. Nothing but applying to Him in faith will do for your soul now. Your case is beyond
the skill of all other physicians. Your wound is too deep for
all other remedies. It is a question of life and death, heaven or hell. It is an emergency, a crisis, a turning point with you. Oh, how solemn, how eventful is this moment! Eternity seems suspended upon it. All the intelligences of the universe, good spirits and bad, seem to be gazing upon it with intense interest. Decide the question by closing immediately with Jesus. Submit to God. All things are ready. The blood is shed, the righteousness is finished, the feast is prepared, God stands ready to pardon, indeed He advances to meet you, His returning child, to fall upon your neck and embrace you with the assurance of His full and free forgiveness.
Do not let the simplicity of the remedy keep you back. Many stumble at this. It is only a look of faith: "Look unto me, and be saved." It is only a touch, even though with a paralyzed hand: "And as many as touched Him were made whole." It is only believing the broad declaration that "Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners." You are not called to believe that He came to save you; but that He saves sinners. Then if you inquire, "But will He save me? How do I know that if I come I shall meet a welcome?" Our reply is, only test Him. Do not settle down with the conviction that you are too far gone, too vile, too guilty, too unworthy, until you have gone and tried Him. You do not know how you wound Him, how you dishonor Him, and grieve the Spirit, by yielding to a doubt, even a shadow of a doubt, as to the willingness and the ability of Jesus to save you, until you have gone to Him believingly and put His readiness and His skill to the test.
Do not let the freeness of the remedy keep you away. This, too, is a stumbling-block to many. Its very freeness holds them back. But it is "without money, and without price." The simple meaning of this is that no worthiness on the part of the applicant, no merit of the creature, no tears, no convictions, no faith, is the ground on which the healing is bestowed. O no! It is all of grace- all of God's free gift, irrespective of any worth or worthiness in man. Your warrant to come to Christ is your very sinfulness. The reason why you go to Him is that your heart is broken, and that only He can bind it up, your spirit is wounded, and only He can heal it; your conscience is burdened, and only He can lighten it; your soul is lost, and only He can save it. And that is all you need to recommend you. It is enough for Christ that you are covered with guilt; that you have no plea that springs from yourself; that you have no money to bring in your hand, but have spent your all upon physicians and are no better; that you have wasted your substance in riotous living and are now insolvent; and that you really feel a drawing towards Him, a longing for Him. You ask, you seek, you crave, you earnestly implore His compassion- that is enough for Him. His heart yearns, His love is moved, His hand is stretched out. Come and welcome to Jesus, come.
Let this thought keep you from despair: your present convictions, being the work of the blessed Spirit, must end in your full conversion to God. The Lord never leaves His work unfinished. He never wounds except to heal. He never convicts of sin except to lead the soul into the pardon and peace of the Gospel. Do not think that He has brought you thus far, to leave you and abandon you; that He has excited emotions only to smother them, and has awakened hopes only to disappoint. Oh no! The first tear of godly sorrow you shed was a link in the golden chain of eternal glory. The first sigh you heaved from your broken heart was a pulse of that life that shall never end. May you be encouraged to go on (like the author of Psalm 138) by the thought that the Lord will perfect that which concerns you; He will conduct you out of the dark storm into the serene sunlight of His precious love. Only we would remind you that He chooses His own way and time. Do not be impatient. Press hard after Him- seek Him in His word, seek Him at the throne of grace, seek Him diligently but seek Him with a patient, submissive and childlike spirit. It is as certain that you will find Him as it is that He is now exalted upon His throne, "a Prince and a Savior, to give repentance to Israel, and forgiveness of sins."
A word in conclusion. The Spirit comforts the believer by revealing the nearness of the coming glory. Heaven is near at hand. It is only a step out of a poor, sinful, sorrow- stricken world into the rest that remains for the people of God. It is only a moment, the twinkling of an eye- and we are absent from the body and present with the Lord. Then will the days of our mourning be ended, then sin will grieve no more, affliction will wound no more, sorrow will depress no more, and God will hide Himself no more. There will be the absence of all evil, and the presence of all good; and they who have come out of great tribulation, and have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb, shall take their stand before the throne of God, and shall "serve him day and night in his Temple. And he who sits on the throne will live among them and shelter them. They will never again be hungry or thirsty, and they will be fully protected from the scorching noontime heat. For the Lamb who stands in front of the throne will be their Shepherd. He will lead them to the springs of life-giving water. And God will wipe away all their tears." Rev. 7:15-17. Wherefore, beloved in the Lord, let us comfort one another with these words and with this prospect.

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THE INNER LIFE

Table of Contents

Preface

1. The Nature and Manifestations of the Inner Life

2. Gray Hairs

3. Wells Without Water

4. The Unsavory Salt

5. David in the Dust, Breathing after God

6. The Broken and Contrite Heart

7. The Fresh Oil

8. The Influence of Sanctified Trial upon the Inner Life

9. The Resurrection in its Relation to the Christian

10. Heaven, the Consummation of the Inner Life

Preface

It was the dying observation- penned the day preceding her departure- of one of the most amiable and intellectual of her sex (Jane Taylor)- "Did you know what thoughts I have now, you would see as I do, that the whole business of life is preparation for death." In contrast with this weighty sentiment of the dying Christian, we place the solemn testimony of the dying worldling- "I have all my days," said he," been getting ready to live, and now I must die!" What an affecting declaration is this! And how true of the great mass of our fellow immortals- all planning, and toiling, and preparing to live- yet how few preparing to die! To place before such the subject of real life, and to awaken in their minds a consideration of its nature, and a sense of its solemnities, is one design of the following pages.

But they address themselves more especially, and at length, to a smaller, though by no means a limited class- the religious professors of the day. The subject of his work suggested itself to the author's mind during a visit to the metropolis. His close communion, at that time, with what is called the 'religious world,' forced upon his mind the painful conviction, that while religious profession was greatly on the increase- and never more so in the higher classes of society than at the present- vital godliness was in proportion on the decline; that while- to speak commercially- the quantity of religion was increasing, its quality was deteriorating. The vast number whose Christian profession was avowed- whose religious character was recognized- whose theological creed was sound- whose conversation was pious- whose sacred observances were rigid- whose benevolence was applauded- whose zeal was admired- who prided themselves upon their eloquent preacher, and their favorite religious author; but who yet were living in the world, and living as the world, and living to the world- deeply and painfully saddened him. The question frequently arose in his mind- "Where is the salt? Where are the really living souls? Where are those who know what true conversion is? Who are following Christ, and are living for God? Where are the possessors of the true spiritual life?" Alas! the world has become so like the Church, and the Church so closely resembles the world; the one so religious, and the other so carnal; an unskilled eye may be deceived in searching for the essential points of difference. Nor this alone. Even among those in whose souls it would be wrong, no, impossible, to deny the existence of spiritual life, how few are found who really seem for themselves to know it!

On his return to his flock, the author- in his usual extemporary mode of address- unburdened his mind from the pulpit. The result, in a calmly written and greatly amplified form, is now, with lowliness and prayer, presented to the public. Deeply sensible as he is of the many imperfections of his performance, he yet does not regret its undertaking. The hours of holy, tranquil thought stolen from the pillow, abstracted from the attractions of the domestic circle, and the engagements of a pleasant pastorate-and devoted to the preparation of this work, have been to his own mind inexpressibly soothing and solemn: may a kindred influence- tenfold in its measure- rest upon the spirit of the reader!

The object of this simple treatise- as its title sufficiently intimates- is to unfold the nature, the relapse, and the recovery of the spiritual life of the believer. The work may with propriety- and with God's blessing, may with profit- be placed in the hands of the unconverted, to whom much of its contents are particularly and earnestly addressed. It chiefly, however, appeals to the conscience of the 'religious professor', and is designed to meet the general character of the prevailing Christianity of the day. But the experienced and matured Christian is not overlooked in the discussion of the subject. The temptations- the conflicts- the trials, and the various fluctuations of feeling, through which he passes in his difficult but blessed way to his heavenly rest, together with his encouragements, consolations, and hopes, pass under review in these pages. To the prayers of the living soul the work is commended- to the blessing of the Holy Spirit of life it is committed- to the glory of the Triune God it is dedicated. And should He condescend to own it, to the quickening of any dead soul- to the reviving of spiritual life in any believer- to the confirmation of any wavering, or to the comfort of any tried child of God- to Him shall be all the praise. Amen.

The Nature and Manifestations of the Inner Life

"I live; yet not I, but Christ lives in me." -Gal. 2:20.

It is impossible for a truly spiritual mind to resist the conviction, or close the eye to the fact, that inward vital godliness by no means keeps pace with the profession of Christianity which almost universally prevails. A more alarming sign could scarcely appear in the moral history of the world. If the prevalence of a nominal Christianity be one of the predicted and distinct characteristics of the approaching consummation of all things- if it is to be regarded as the precursor of overwhelming judgments, and as immediately ushering in the coming of the Son of man, then who can contemplate the religious formalism which so generally exists among professing Christians without a feeling of sadness, and the excitement of alarm? Were we duly affected by the spectacle which we see around us, of multitudes substituting signs for things, symbols for realities, an external profession of Christ for the indwelling of Christ, the mere semblance of life for life itself, how should we, sympathizing with man, and jealous for the Lord, sigh and cry, as those who have God's mark upon their foreheads.

It seems but proper that, in a work called forth by this alarming state of the professing Church, and designed to lay open that state in some of its scriptural and figurative delineations, we should commence with a consideration of the nature, properties, and actions, of the spiritual, or inner life, of the quickened soul. It is a self-evident truth, that the absence of spiritual life is but the existence of spiritual death. There is no link that unites the two conditions. A soul is either living or dead. The artificial representation of life is no more real life than a painted sun is the real sun, or than a corpse under powerful galvanic shocks is a living body. The reader will therefore at once perceive that, in entering upon an inquiry into this state of religious formalism, it is of the greatest moment that we have a clear and distinct idea of that inward, deep, spiritual life, apart from which, with all his intellectual light, orthodox creed, and religious profession, a man is "dead in trespasses and in sins." I know of no words which more distinctly and beautifully bring out this subject than those of the apostle, in referring to his own experience- "I live; yet not I, but Christ lives in me."

The first great truth which the passage suggests is, that EVERY TRUE BELIEVER IN THE LORD JESUS IS THE SUBJECT OF AN INWARD, SPIRITUAL LIFE- "I live." It is altogether a new and supernatural existence. The old and the natural state, as we have just affirmed, is a state of death. Death! it is a solemn word! Dead! it is an awful state! And yet how difficult to bring a man to a real belief and conviction of this his condition! And why ? because he is dead. No argument, no reasoning, no persuasion, however profound or affecting, can convince a corpse that it is lifeless.

The dissolution of the body is not the destruction of the soul. The perishing of the material is not the annihilation of the immaterial. Death is not the end of our being; no, it is not even an interruption of it. It is an event that befalls a man at a certain point of his existence, but it is a change of place and circumstance only, involving the suspension of his immortality- no, not for a moment. How infinitely more momentous, solemn, and appalling, then, is that spiritual state of man which links his future destiny to all the certain horrors of the second death! O that this might be a quickening truth, startling, an arousing reflection to the unconverted reader! What grand impertinences, what, mere non-entities, do all other considerations appear in contrast with this! You may lose and recover again everything else, but your soul. This, once lost, is irrecoverably and forever lost. And have you never paused and reflected upon the probability of your losing it? You are at this moment the subject of spiritual death; in the strong language of the Savior you are condemned already; and the last enemy, with the funeral pall of your soul in his hands, stands prepared to enshroud you within its dark folds, at the word of Him "in whom you live, and move, and have your being." Does not this affect you, alarm you, arouse you? Spirit of God! who but yourself can quicken the soul? Who can convince of danger, convict of sin, and lead to Christ, but You? Speak but the word, and there shall be light. Touch but the soul, and it shall awaken. "Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they may live."

But, with regard to the great truth before us, we again remark, that every truly gracious man is a living soul. He is in the possession of an inner, spiritual life. He can appropriate to himself the words of the apostle- "I live." The first important characteristic of this spiritual life is its engrafting upon a state of death. The words of the apostle will explain our meaning, "For I through the law am dead to the law, that I might live unto God," "I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live." Addressing the believing Colossians, he says, "You are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God." The simple meaning of these declarations is- the living soul is dead to the law of God as an instrument of life, and to its works as a ground of salvation. It is dead, too, to the curse and tyranny of the law, and consequently to its power of condemning. To all this, the soul made alive by Christ, is dead with Christ. Thus is it most clear that a man, dead already, though he originally is, in trespasses and in sins, must morally die before he can spiritually live. The crucifixion with Christ must precede the living with Christ. He must die to all schemes and hopes of salvation in or by himself, before he can fully receive into his heart Christ as the life of his soul. This spiritual mystery, this divine paradox, the natural man cannot understand or receive; he only can, who is "born of the Spirit."

Then let me ask and press upon you the personal and searching question, has the law of God been brought into your conscience with that enlightening, convincing, and condemning power, as first to startle you from your spiritual slumber, and then to sever you from all hope or expectation of salvation in yourself? If so, then will you know of a truth what it is, first, to die before you live. Dying to the law, dying to self, you will receive him into your heart who so blessedly declared, "I have come that you might have life, and that you might have it more abundantly." Thus is the life of God in the soul engrafted upon a state of death. "I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live."

The second view of this inner, spiritual life is, its supernatural character. It is above nature, and therefore all the power of nature cannot inspire it. Nature, we admit, can go far in imitating some of its characteristics, but nature cannot create the essential property or principle of this life. Nature can produce a semblance of faith, as in the case of Simon Magus; of repentance, as in the case of Judas; of hearing the word with joy, as in the case of Herod; it can even appear to taste the heavenly gift, and feel the powers of the world to come all this, and much more, can nature do, and yet be nature still. Here its power stops. There is that which it cannot do. It cannot counterfeit the indwelling of Christ in the sinner's soul. It cannot enable a man to say, "I live, and Christ lives in me." This infinitely transcends its mightiest power. Spiritual life, then, springs not from nature, and is therefore produced by no natural cause or means. It is from God. He it is who calls this new creation into being, who pencils its wonders, who enkindles its glories, and who breathes over it the breath of life. It is God's life in man's soul.

Thus the true Christian is one who can adopt the expressive and emphatic language of Paul, "I live." Amplifying the words, he can exclaim, "I live- as a quickened soul. I live- as a regenerate soul. I live- as a pardoned sinner. I live- as a justified sinner. I live- as an adopted child. I live- as an heir of glory. I live, and I never lived before! My whole existence until now has been but as a blank. I never truly, really lived, until I died! I lived, if life it may be called, to the world, to sin, to the creature, to myself; but I never lived by Christ, and I never lived to God."

O tremendous truth! O solemn thought! for a soul to pass away into eternity without having answered the great end of its creation- without having ever really lived! With what feelings, with what emotions, with what plea, will it meet the God who created it? "I created you," that God will say, "for myself, for my glory. I endowed you with gifts, and ennobled you with faculties, and clothed you with powers second only to my own. I sent you into the world to expend those gifts, and to employ those faculties, and to exert those powers, for my glory, and with a view to the enjoyment of me forever. But you buried those gifts, you abused those faculties, you wasted those powers, and you lived to yourself and not unto me; and now to yourself, and in everlasting banishment from my presence, you shall continue to live through eternity."

Come from the four winds, O breath of the living God, and breathe upon the dead, that they may live! Avert from the reader so dire a doom, so fearful a catastrophe! And permit none, whose eye lights upon this solemn page, any longer to live to themselves, but from this moment and forever, gracious Savior! may they live for you- their solemn determination and their sublime motto this- For me to live is Christ.

But we are now conducted to a great and a most precious truth- THE INDWELLING OF CHRIST IN THE HEART AS CONSTITUTING THE SPIRITUAL LIFE OF THE BELIEVER. "I live; yet not I, but Christ lives in me." It is not so much that the believer lives, as that Christ lives in the believer. I in them. The Lord Jesus is essential life. Were it not for this, the doctrine of indwelling life would be but a dream. With what authority of tone, and with what sublimity of language, has he affirmed this idea, "I am the resurrection and the life: he that believes in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live." Can thought be more grand, or words be more intelligible? " With You is the fountain of life."

Couple together these two passages, and what demonstrative proof do they afford to the doctrine of the essential Deity of the Savior. How could he be the Resurrection and the Life, and in what sense the Fountain of Life, but as he was essentially God? No comparison can be instituted between finite being, however exalted, and Infinite. It has been truly said, that all finite beings are infinitely more destitute of life than they are possessed of it; and this will be the case forever. Standing by the grave that entombs the soul dead in sin, Essential Life exclaims- "I AM the Resurrection and the Life- Come forth!" and in a moment the soul is quickened, and rises to newness of life. What but Deity could accomplish this? Take off your shoes from your feet, for you stand upon holy ground! Jesus is the True God, and Essential Life. The smallest seed, the most loathsome insect, the lowest creature on earth, and the mightiest angel, and the brightest saint in heaven, draw their life from Christ. All life- vegetable, animal, rational, spiritual- emanates from him, the Fountain of Life to all creatures. What a mighty and glorious Being, then, is the Son of God, the ceaseless energy of whose essence prevents each moment, every thing that has life from being destroyed, and from accomplishing its own destruction! Who would not believe in, who would not love, who would not serve such a Being? Who would not crown him Lord of all? The spiritual life, then, of the believer is the life of Christ, or rather, "Christ who is our life" in the soul. The Scripture proof of this is overwhelming. "I in them," are words declarative of this truth by the Savior himself. Again, the apostle thus exhorts- "Examine yourselves, whether you be in the faith; prove your own selves. Know you not your own selves, how that Jesus Christ is in you, except you be reprobates?"

Alas! how is this precept overlooked! How few are they who rightly and honestly examine themselves! They can examine others, and speak of others, and hear for others, and judge of others; but themselves they examine not, and judge not, and condemn not. To the neglect of this precept may be traced, as one of its most fruitful causes, the relapse of the inner life of the Christian. Deterioration, and eventually destruction and ruin, must follow in the steps of wilful and protracted neglect, be the object of that neglect what it may. The vineyard must become unfruitful, and the garden must lose its beauty, and the machinery must stand still, and the enterprise must fail of success, and the health must decline, if toilsome and incessant watchfulness and care has not its eye awake to every symptom of feebleness, and to every sign of decay.

If the merchantman examine not his accounts, and if the husbandman examine not his field, and if the nobleman examine not his estate, and if the physician examine not his patient, what sagacity is needed to foresee, as the natural and inevitable result; confusion, ruin, and death? How infinitely more true is this of the soul! The lack of frequent, fearless, and thorough searching into the exact state of the heart, into the real condition of the soul, is before God, in the great matter of the inner life, reveals the grand secret of many a solemn case of declension, shipwreck, and apostasy. Therefore, the apostle earnestly exhorts, Examine yourselves; as if he would say, "Do not take the state of your soul for granted. Do not be deceived by the too fond and partial opinion of others. Judge not yourselves by a human and a false standard, but examine yourselves, prove your own selves by the word; and rest not short of Christ dwelling in your hearts- your present life and your hope of glory."

But HOW DOES CHRIST DWELL IN THE BELIEVER? -a most important question this. An ignorance with regard to the mode of Christ's indwelling at one time opened the door for the introduction into the Church of one of the most fanatical errors that ever assailed its purity. We allude to the heresy of the personal, corporeal indwelling of Christ in the believer, which, being believed and asserted by many, they set themselves up as being themselves Christ, and thereby rushed into innumerable extravagant, blasphemous, and deadly sins. Thus has Satan ever sought to engraft the deadly nightshade of error, upon the life-giving Rose of Sharon, rendering the most spiritual and sanctifying truths of God's word subservient to the basest and most unholy purposes. But by what mode does the Lord Jesus dwell in the truly regenerate? We answer- by his Spirit. Thus it is a spiritual and not a personal or corporeal indwelling of Christ. The Scripture testimony is most full and decisive on this point. "Know you not that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit." "If Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin; but the Spirit is life because of righteousness. But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwells in you." And that this inhabitation of Christ by the Spirit is not the indwelling of a mere grace of the Spirit, but the Spirit himself, is equally clear from another passage- "Hope makes not ashamed, because the love of God (Here is a grace of the Spirit) is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit which he has given us" -(here is the possession of the Spirit himself). This is the fountain of all the spiritual grace dwelling in the soul of the truly regenerate, and at times so blessedly flowing forth in refreshing and sanctifying streams. "He that believes on me, as the scripture has said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water. But this spoke he of the Spirit." Thus, then, is it most clear that by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, Christ has his dwelling in the hearts of all true believers.

Christian reader, what a solemn truth is this! What an unfolding of true Christianity! What a view of real, vital, saving religion, does this truth present! How do all religious rites, and forms, and ceremonies, dwindle into insignificance, before this all-important, all-essential, all-commanding doctrine of the inhabitation of Christ in the soul by the Holy Spirit of God! Apart from the experience of this truth, every other is a false religion.

But there is one view of our subject too interesting and important to be overlooked. "Christ lives in me," says the apostle. It is a living Christ dwelling in a living soul. It implies permanency. The religion of some is a religion of the moment. Like the gourd of the prophet, it appears in a night, and it withers in a night. It is the religion of impulse and of feeling. It comes by fits and starts. It is convulsive and periodical. It is easily assumed, and as easily laid aside. But here is the grand characteristic of a truly converted man. Christ lives in him, and lives in him never to die. He has entered his heart, never to retire. He has enthroned himself, never to abdicate. And although the fact of his permanent indwelling may not always appear with equal clearness and certainty to the mind of the believer himself, nevertheless Christ is really there by his Spirit. It is his home, his dwelling-place, his kingdom. He lives there, to maintain his government, to sway his scepter, and to enforce, by the mild constraint of his love, obedience to his laws. He lives there, to guard and nourish his own work- shielding it when it is assailed, strengthening it when it is feeble, reviving it when it droops, restoring it when it decays; thus protecting the "lily among the thorns," preserving the spark in the ocean, and keeping, amid opposing influences, the life of God that it die not. Truly is the believer in Jesus a living soul; and all are dead who cannot say, "Christ LIVES in me."

But let us briefly contemplate some of THE CHARACTERISTICS OF THE INNER SPIRITUAL LIFE OF THE SOUL, as more fully illustrating its character, and as supplying evidences by which we may test the question of its personal possession. The first characteristic which we notice is its self-renouncing tendency. "I live, YET NOT I." The life of Christ and the life of self cannot co-exist in the same heart. If the one lives, the other dies. The sentence of death is written upon a man's self when the Spirit of Christ enters his heart and quickens his soul with the life of God. "I live," he exclaims, "yet NOT I." What a striking and beautiful example of this have we in the life and labors of the Apostle Paul. Does he speak of his ministry? -what a renunciation of self appears! Lost in the greatness and grandeur of his theme, he exclaims- "We preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord." Again- "Unto me, who am less than the least of all saints, is this grace given, that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ." Does he refer to his office? -what self-crucifixion! "I magnify my office." In what way? Was it by vaunting proclamations of its grandeur and legitimacy, its Divine institution, or its solemn functions? Did he challenge for it- "otherwise than as it was connected with miraculous endowments, the unquestioning and instant submission of men's hearts and consciences, as to an oracle that must not be disputed- or their subserviency in the conduct of life, as to a law that was death to disobey? Did he ever exalt its possessors to a height of unintelligible and mystical sacredness, above the condition of humanity and the common feelings and infirmities of nature, which might demand the prostration of others at their feet, as if separated from them by an impassable, though invisible chasm- an abyss which it was sacrilege to traverse even in imagination, and which still divided the priest, the bishop, or the pastor, from the man?

Never! But he magnified his office, by diminishing himself and exalting his Master. He was nothing -ay, and even his office itself was comparatively nothing- that "Christ might be all and in all." Does he speak of his gifts and labors? what absence of self! "I am the least of the apostles, that am not meet to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. But, by the grace of God, I am what I am; and his grace, which was bestowed upon me, was not in vain, but I labored more abundantly than they all: yet, not I, but the grace of God which was with me." Such was the religion of Paul. His Christianity was a self-denying, self-crucifying, self-renouncing Christianity. "I live, yet not I. I labored more abundantly than they all, yet not I" O what self-denying spirit was his!

"But where," asks somewhat quaintly a writer of olden time, -and how appropriate the inquiry to our own! -where is this self-denying power of heart now to be found among us? how does this I, this same self, creep into all our speeches, and into all our doings! If it please the Lord to use a minister in his service, what an I-ing is there! I converted such a man, and I comforted such a man; and it was my prescription, and it was my receipt, and I did it. And if a Christian do but pray, or perform a duty, Thus and thus I said, and these words I spoke! did not I tell you so? I told you what would come to pass. O what an I-ing is there among the people! How does this I and self creep into all our speeches, and into all our doings!" -Bridge

But every truly spiritual man is a self-renouncing man. In the discipline of his own heart, beneath the cross of Jesus, and in the school of trial and temptation, he has been taught in some degree, that if he lives, it is not he that lives, but that it is Christ who lives in him. Upon all his own righteousness, his duties, and doings, he tramples as to the great matter of justification; while, as fruits of the Spirit, as evidences of faith, as pulsations of the inner spiritual life, as, in a word, tending to authenticate and advance his sanctification, he desires to be "careful to maintain good works," that God in all things might be glorified.

This thought suggests another of much importance. We should be always careful to distinguish between the denial of self and the denial of the life of God within us. The most entire renunciation of ourselves, the most humiliating acknowledgment of our personal unworthiness, may comport with the strongest assurance and profession of Christ living in us. Self-denial does not necessarily involve grace-denial. It is the profoundest act of humility in a Christian man to acknowledge the grace of God in his soul. Never is there so real a crucifixion, never so entire a renunciation of self as when the heart, in its lowly but deep and grateful throbbings, acknowledges its indebtedness to sovereign grace, and in the fervor of its adoring love, summons the whole Church to listen to its recital of the great things God has done for it- "Come, all you that fear the Lord, and I will tell you what he has done for my soul." O yes! it is a self-denying life. Listen to Job- "I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes." Listen to Isaiah- "Woe is me! for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips: for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts." Listen to the penitent publican- "God be merciful to me a sinner!" Listen again to Paul- "I live, yet not I." Thus does a sense of sin, and a believing sight of Christ, lay the soul low before God in self-renunciation and self-abhorrence.

Judge your spiritual condition, dear reader, by this characteristic of the inner life. Is it yours? Has there been this renunciation of your sinful self, and of your righteous self? Has the Spirit of God emptied you? has the grace of God humbled you? has the life of God crucified you? Are you as one in whom Christ lives, walking humbly with God? O, it is the essence of vital godliness, it is the very life of true religion. If Christ is living in you, you are a humble soul. Pride never existed in the heart of Christ. His whole life was one act of the profoundest self-abasement. In the truest and in the fullest sense of the emphatic declaration, "he humbled himself." It is impossible, then, that he who was thus "meek and lowly in heart" can dwell in one whom "pride compasses as a chain." "I live, yet not I," are two states of the renewed soul as inseparable as any cause and effect.

A humble and a self-denying Christ dwells only with a humble and a self-denying soul. If your gifts inflate you, if your position exalts you, if your usefulness engenders pride, if the honor and distinction which God or man have placed upon you have turned you aside from the simplicity of your walk, and set you upon the work of self-seeking, self-advancing, so that you are not meek and gentle, child-like and Christ-like in spirit, be sure of this- you are either not a partaker of the life of Christ, or else that life is at a low ebb in your soul. Which of the two, do you think, is your real state?

And have the self-denying, the self-renouncing, no reward? O yes! their reward is great. They are such as the King delights to Honor. When John the Baptist declared, "He must increase, but I must decrease," and on another occasion, "Whose shoe-latchet I am not worthy to unloose," Christ pronounced him "the greatest born of women." When the centurion sent to say, "Lord, I am not worthy that you should come under my roof," our Lord places this crown upon his faith, "I tell you I have not found so great faith, no not in Israel." When the publican exclaimed, "God be merciful to me a sinner!" he descended from the temple justified, rather than the self-vaunting Pharisee. Yes, "when men are cast down then there is lifting up."

There is a present reward of grace to the humble. Christ exalts them. "Humble yourselves under the hand of the Lord, and he will exalt you in due time." And what tongue can describe the inward peace, satisfaction, and contentment of that soul in whom this self-denying life of Christ dwells! Such an one has a continual feast. He may be deeply tried, sorely tempted, heavily afflicted, severely chastened, but his meek and submissive spirit exclaims, "It is the Lord, let him do as seems good in his sight."

Another characteristic of this life is- It is a Christ-honoring, Christ-advancing life. A self-denying life, proceeding from a gospel principle, must be a Christ-exalting life. The Lord Jesus can only erect and carry forward his kingdom in the soul upon the ruins of self and as this kingdom of grace is perpetual in its growth, so the demolition of self is a work of gradual advancement. "He must increase," says the lowly-molded Baptist. As the inner life grows, Christ grows more lovely to the eye, more precious to the heart. His blood is more valued, his righteousness is more relied on, his grace is more lived upon, his cross is more gloried in, his yoke is more cheerfully borne, his commands are more implicitly obeyed. In all things Christ is advanced, and the soul by all means advances in its knowledge of, and in its resemblance to, Christ. Reader, is Christ advanced by you? Is his kingdom widened, is his truth disseminated, is his fame spread, is his person exalted, is his honor vindicated, is his glory promoted by the life which you are living? O name not the name of Christ if it do not be to perfume the air with its fragrance, and to fill the earth with its renown.

We must group the remaining characteristics of the inner life. It is a conflicting life. It always wears the harness, and is ever clothed with the armor. Opposed by indwelling sin, assailed by Satan, and impeded by the world, every step in advance is only secured by a battle fought and a victory achieved.

It is a holy life- springing from the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, it must necessarily be so. All its actings are holy, all its breathings are holy, all its fruits are holy; and without holiness no man has this life, or can be an inheritor of that life to come, of which this is the seedling and the germ, the foretaste and the pledge. "The water that I shall give him," says Christ, alluding to the spiritual life, "shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life."

Need I add that happiness, progression, and deathlessness, are equally its characteristics? Happiness is but a phantom and a name, where Christ dwells not in the heart. Progression is but an advance towards eternal woe, where the love of God is not in the soul. And death is an eternal, lingering despair, the soul and body ever dying, yet never ceasing to exist- where the Spirit of life has not quickened the inner man, creating all things new.

Such, reader, is the life, the inner, spiritual, and deathless life, the relapse and recovery of which, the pages that follow will unfold. No imagination can fully depict, nor language adequately describe, the importance of this life, the grandeur of its nature and destiny, and the necessity of its progression and its manifestations. Reader, the world without you teems with sentient existence. All is life, activity, and progress. There is vegetable life, and animal life, and rational life. The flower that scents the air with its perfume, the insect that renders it vocal with its music, and man who fills and beautifies the earth with monuments of his greatness and creative genius, testify to the possession of a life of amazing power, activity, and progression. To this may be added a species of moral life, maintained by many, developed and embodied in religious forms, observances, and sacrifices. But there is a life as infinitely superior to all these as the life of him whose mind conceived the towering pyramid, is to that of the little insect that flutters its brief hour in the sunbeam and then vanishes forever. It is THE LIFE OF GOD IN THE SOUL OF MAN. Deep planted in the center of his spiritual nature, lodged within the hidden recesses of his deathless mind, diffusing its mysterious but all-pervading and renovating influence through the judgment, the will, the affections, and linking his being with a future of glory, "which eye has not seen, nor ear heard, neither has entered into the heart of man to conceive;" the world rushes on, and knows not its existence, and sees not its glories, and heeds not its joy- so deeply veiled from human eye, ay, and so far removed from human power, is the inner spiritual life "hidden with Christ in God."

Reader, there is a religion towering as far above your religion of merit, and of works, and of forms, as the heavens are above the earth, even as the spiritual life of God is above the sensual life of man. It is the religion of a renewed mind, of a renovated heart, of a conquered will, of a soul- all whose sanctified faculties are consecrated to the glory of God here, and are destined to the enjoyment of God hereafter. Illustrious as may be your position in the Church, luminous as may be your profession of Christianity, splendid as your gifts, and rich as your endowments, and costly as your offerings, and apostolic as your zeal, and unwearied as your labors may be, bear with me while with all solemnity I remind you, that you still may live, and toil, and die, a stranger to the inner life. Deeper and loftier and more momentous than all these is the great truth upon which we are expatiating- "Christ Lives in Me." Its foundation is in the soul, its summit is in heaven.

I enunciate to you a great mystery- the mystery of Christ and his Church, of the soul of man and the life of God- both spiritually and indissolubly one. Have you thus "passed from death unto life?" Has the great transformation taken place? Has the destroyer, intrenched within, in all the plenitude of undisputed power, been dispossessed? Have the avenues of the heart, closed and barred against the admission of Christ, been thrown open? Has the fearful alienation, and the withering curse, and the deep guilt, which portrays to you God as an enemy, and which arms all the powers of your soul against him as his foe, been revealed, felt, and deplored? Has the captive spirit been disenthralled, the prey taken from the mighty, the power of the destroyer broken, and the soul awakened from its deep slumber to listen to its Creator speaking in tones of mercy, and in thoughts of love? Has light, emanating from the abodes of glory- invisible to others- dawned upon the midnight of your spiritual desolation? has a voice, speaking from the throne of heaven- unheard by others- startled your spirit in its deep trance, and dispelled its floating dreams? has a hand, mighty and unseen, riven the chain, thrown open the dungeon, and led you forth to liberty and joy, to life and immortality? In a word- and this is the sum and consummation of all- has another and a Diviner life, a new and a superior nature, descending from God, and begotten within you by the Spirit, and unfolding to your view a heaven of brightness, full of purity and fragrance and song, been communicated to your soul, thus creating you a new creature, and constituting you an "heir of God, and a joint heir with Christ Jesus?" If so, then you may adopt the language of Paul, and exultingly exclaim, "I live, yet not I, but Christ lives in me." O deem not this a vain thing, for it is your life!

But I will suppose your honest reply to these searching interrogatives decides the case against your claims to a possession of spiritual life; then let me beseech you, with a knowledge of this alarming fact, rest not where you are. What is your natural life but a vapor that is soon dissolved, a dream that vanishes away? And what are your present pursuits but things unworthy of your rational existence, and inappropriate to your approaching destiny? O what egregious folly, O what moral insanity, to merge all consideration of your future existence in the present brief space graciously allotted you for its study and its preparation! You are all life, all nerve, all animation, all ardor, all activity, all excitement, all hope, to whatever is noble, and intellectual, and refined, and enterprising, of earth; but all death, all insensibility, all indifferent, all languor, all hopeless, to every thought and feeling and consideration of the great things that relate to your state beyond the grave. Is this wise, is this rational, is this sane?

Your studies of literature, your pleasures of taste, your pursuit of gain, your toil of ambition- those splendid impertinence, those cruel mockeries, those heartless soul-murderers of the present time; stifle in your heart all feeling, and annihilate in your mind all thought that you are an accountable steward, a moral agent, a deathless being; and that soon, yes, in one moment, your soul may be in eternity- standing agitated, trembling and speechless, before the tribunal of God! Yearning for your salvation, let me with the tenderest affection and the deepest solemnity plead with you for your life. Reflect for a moment what your present careless, unbelieving and impenitent state really is. It is nothing less than to challenge the vengeance of the Most High God, to defy his power, to disdain his clemency, to refuse his compassion, to reject his pardon, to insult his majesty, and to expose yourself to the fierceness of his eternal wrath. It is to be without the regeneration of his Spirit, to have no part in the propitiation of his Son, to have all your sins uncancelled, and to stand before the throne of eternal justice, a culprit and a criminal, upon whom the righteous judgment of God must pronounce and execute its withering sentence of an unchanging destiny, and an inexorable doom.

Where, then, can you flee to hide from the dark storm that gathers over you, from the thick clouds, and treasured-up lightning, and embosomed bolt, and desolating winds that wait but the signal of God's uplifted hand to rush forth upon you in all their unchecked, unmitigated fury? Where can you flee? You have "made a covenant with death, and are at an agreement with hell." You are fascinated with the world, and are enamored with yourself, and are satisfied to have no other portion. You reject the Rock of Ages, refuse the sheltering pavilion of the Savior's cross, and despise the offers of his grace, where, then, when the tempest leaps forth in all its maddening fury, will you flee?

Yet how calmly you tread upon the very brink of ruin, how sportively you sail along the very edge of the vortex, how content and happy to course your way to the bar of a holy and a just God, through a world of disease and casualty and death, without one anxious thought to obtain deliverance, or one earnest struggle to escape your doom! Listen to a fact of recent occurrence, for the truth of which, in all its awful particulars, my personal knowledge of the parties can safely vouch. The conversation of a group of gentlemen, after dinner, turned upon the doctrine of a future state. Each one gave his opinion. It came to the turn of an elderly gentleman, a man of high legal attainments, of considerable wealth, and general esteem. He remarked that, "as it regarded himself, this life was good enough for him; that he desired no better, and would be willing to enter into an agreement to live in this world forever." The words had scarcely passed his lips when his hand relaxed its hold upon the glass it was grasping, his countenance changed, his head drooped, and he was borne insensible to a sofa. Restoratives were used, and every effort made that skill could devise; but life was extinct- his spirit had fled to the God who gave it! Reader, I leave this appalling fact to make its own impression. May that impression be deep, permanent, and saving!

But I turn to the living. I address those in whose souls are the deep, holy, deathless throbbings of an inner, spiritual life. Blissful day, Christian reader, that witnessed your resurrection from the grave of sin to walk in newness of life! Happy hour when you left your soul's shroud in the tomb, exchanging it for the robe of a glorious deathlessness, when your enmity was conquered, and your hostility was subdued, and you were led in willing and joyous captivity, amid the triumphs of your Lord, to the altar where he bled- self-consecrated to his service. O memorable moment, when Jesus, by the resistless but gentle power of his grace, broke down every barrier, entered your heart, and planted there the germ of a life as Divine, as holy, and as immortal as his own! Ever keep in mind your deep indebtedness to sovereign grace, your solemn obligation to Divine love, and the touching motives that urge you to "walk worthy of the vocation with which you are called."

Welcome all the dealings of God, whatever the character of those dealings may be, designed as they are but to animate, to nourish, and to carry forward this precious life in your soul. The north wind of sharp trial, and the south wind of covenant mercy, are made to breathe their blended gales over this beautiful garden, that the fruits and flowers of holiness may abound- that the actings of a living faith and love and hope may evidence to yourself, to the Church, and to the world, that you are indeed "risen with Christ," a partaker of his new resurrection-life.

It is perhaps a question of deep anxiety with you- "Oh, that I knew I were in reality a possessor of this inner spiritual life! My heart is so hard, my affections are so cold, my spirit is so sluggish, in everything that is spiritual, holy, and divine." Permit me to ask you- Can a stone feel its hardness, or a corpse its insensibility? Impossible! You affirm that you feel your hardness, and that you are sensible of your coldness. From where does this spring but from life? Could you weep, or mourn, or deplore, were the spiritual state of your soul that of absolute death! Again I say, Impossible! But rest not here- go to Jesus. What you really need is a fresh view of, a renewed application to, the Lord Jesus Christ. Sit not brooding over your mournful condition, in fruitless lamentation, but rise, and go to Jesus. Take to him the stone-like heart, the corpse-like soul. Tell him that you want to feel more, and to weep more, and to love more, and to pray more, and to live more. Go, and pour out your heart, with all its tremblings, and doubts, and fears, and needs, upon the bleeding, loving bosom of your Lord, until from that bosom, life more abundant has darted its quickening energy, vibrating and thrilling through your whole soul. "I have come," says Jesus, "that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly."

You are, perhaps, a severely tried, a sorely tempted, a deeply afflicted believer. But cheer up! You have Christ living in you, and why should you yield to despondency or to fear? Christ will never vacate his throne, nor relinquish his dwelling. You have a suffering Christ, a humbled Christ, a crucified Christ, a dying Christ, a risen Christ, a living Christ, a triumphant Christ, a glorified Christ, a full Christ, dwelling in you by his Spirit. Yes! and you have, too, a human Christ, a feeling Christ, a sympathizing Christ, a tender, loving, gentle Christ, spiritually and eternally reposing in your heart- why, then, should you fear the pressure of any need, or the assault of any foe, or the issue of any trial, since such a Christ is in you? "Fear not!" They are his own familiar and blessed words- "It is I, do not be afraid." You cannot lack for any good, since you have the fountain of all good dwelling in you. You cannot be finally overcome of any spiritual evil, since you have the Conqueror of sin and Satan and the world enthroned upon your affections. Your life- the inner, divine and spiritual life- can never die, since Christ, essential life, lives and abides in you. Like him, and for him, you may be opposed, but like him and by him you shall triumph. The persecution which you meet, and the trials which you endure, and the difficulties with which you cope, shall but further your well being, by bringing you into a closer communion with Jesus, and by introducing you more fully into the enviable state of the apostles- "Always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body. For which cause we faint not: but though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day. For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, works for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory." Soon the portals of glory will expand their gates, and receive you into the beatific life- the life which is eternal.

You are, perhaps, mourning the loss of those who sleep in Jesus, or you are the occupant of a sick chamber, or, ecstatic thought!- it may be you are poised upon the wing for heaven, waiting only the signal for your upward flight. Whether it be the sorrow of bereavement, or the languishing bed of sickness, or the immediate prospect of eternity, how appropriate, and animating, and soothing, the contemplation of the life which is before you! How exceeding great and precious are the promises which refer to the security and assured enjoyment of that life: "My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me; and I give unto them eternal life: and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. My Father, who gave them to me, is greater than all: and no one is able to pluck them out of my Father's hand." Listen to his words of indescribable sweetness and overwhelming grandeur, breathed over the grave of one whom he loved: "I am the resurrection and the life; he that believes in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live; and whoever believes in me shall never die." "Enough, dear Lord," may you exclaim. "You have spoken words of soothing and of hope to this bleeding, sorrowing heart of mine, and I am comforted. You have dried my tears, bound up my wounds, and calmed my spirit, healing, and hushing it to rest upon your own gentle, loving bosom- once stricken with a sorrow infinitely deeper, and keener, and bitterer than mine."

Are you, my reader, a searcher of this life? Are you breathing for it, panting after it, seeking it? Then, be it known to you, that he who inspired that desire is himself the Life for which you seek. That heaving of your heart, that yearning of your spirit, that 'feeling after God, if haply you may find him,' is the first gentle pulsation of a life that shall never die. Feeble and fluctuating, faint and fluttering, as its throbbings may be, it is yet the life of God, the life of Christ, the life of glory in your soul. It is the seedling, the germ of an immortal flower. It is the sunshine dawn of an eternal day. The announcement with which we meet your case- and it is the only one that can meet it- is, "this man receives sinners." O joyful tidings! O blessed words! Yes, he receives sinners- the vilest, the lowest, the most despised! It was for this he relinquished the abodes of heavenly purity and bliss, to mingle amid the sinful and humiliating scenes of earth. For this he abandoned his Father's bosom, for a cross. For this he lived and labored, suffered and died. "He receives sinners!" He receives them, of every name and condition- of every stature, and character, and climate. There is no limit to his ability to pardon, as there is none to the sufficiency of his atonement, or to the melting pity of his heart. Flee, then, to Jesus the crucified. To him repair with your sins, as scarlet and as crimson, and his blood will wash you whiter than snow. What though they may be as clouds for darkness, or as the sand on the sea-shore for multitude- his grace can take them all away. Come with the accusations and tortures of a guilty conscience, come with the sorrow and relentings of a broken heart, come with the grief of the backslider, and with the confession of the prodigal- Jesus still meets you with the hope-inspiring words- "Him that comes unto me, I will in no wise cast out." Then, "return unto the Lord, and he will have mercy upon you; and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon."

Such, reader, in conclusion, is the nature, and such the manifestations of the inner spiritual life, whose relapse and recovery, whose declensions and revivings, we are about to consider. Alas! that a life so heavenly and divine, so holy and so happy, should ever fluctuate and change- should ever droop and decay. Alas! that in its onward progress to the paradise of God, it should have its autumn and its winter- the seared leaf and the congealed current- and not be always clothed with the perpetual verdure of spring, and be ever laden with the ripe fruit of summer. But such is the fallen nature in which it dwells, and such the hostile influences by which it is surrounded and assailed, the utmost vigilance is demanded to maintain the heavenly spark alive and glowing in the soul.

Before, beloved reader, we pass to a more minute examination of our important subject, together let us solemnly "bow our knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ," praying "that he would grant us, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man; that Christ may dwell in our hearts by faith: that we, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height; and to know the love of Christ, which passes knowledge, that we might be filled with all the fulness of God. "Now glory be to God! By his mighty power at work within us, he is able to accomplish infinitely more than we would ever dare to ask or hope. May he be given glory in the church and in Christ Jesus forever and ever through endless ages. Amen." Ephes. 3:20-21.

Gray Hairs

(The Inner Life in its Gradual and Imperceptible Relapse)

"Strangers have devoured his strength, and he knows it not; yes, gray hairs are here and there upon him, yet he knows it not." -Hosea 7:9.

Such is the graphic and mournful description of that peculiar state of backsliding which must be regarded as the most dangerous and alarming, because the most insidious and concealed, of all processes of spiritual relapse from God. It is not a surprisal into sin, a sudden fall before the power of a strong temptation, a stolen march of the enemy upon the tardy steps of the celestial traveler- a man overtaken by a fault- but it is the slow, gradual, yet certain relapse of the inner life, lulling all suspicion of its existence, and veiling itself from the most searching eye. Having its original in the Jewish Church, it will not yet be difficult to point out the strong resemblance of this spiritual portrait to a large portion of the Christian Church in the present day- professors of religion, office-bearers, sentinels upon the outposts of the camp, workmen upon the scaffolding of the building, in whose souls this species of spiritual decline, and decay of the Divine life may be proceeding, like the footfall of death, stealthy and unsuspected; or like the progress of age, gradual and unobserved. "Ephraim has mixed himself among the people; Ephraim is a cake not turned. Strangers have devoured his strength, and he knows it not; yes, gray hairs are here and there upon him, yet he knows it not."

Deeply and solemnly impressed with this consideration, we propose to spread before the Christian professor several distinct views of this state of spiritual relapse, each one unveiling a new symptom, and presenting a new phase of the disease. Having in the preceding chapter explained the nature of the inner life of the believer, and glanced at its tendency to decay, we now proceed with a more minute analysis of our subject. May the Holy Spirit be our teacher! May we be kept from unprofitable speculation, and from all trifling with a case so desperate, and with a theme so momentous! May an unction from the Holy One impart a searching, personal, and sanctifying application of the truth to our hearts!

The first idea which the passage suggests is that of spiritual loss. "Strangers have devoured his strength." The existence of real strength in the soul is here supposed. All spiritual declension in the true believer necessarily implies the actual possession of grace. We must not lose sight of this truth. Never, in the lowest condition of the believer, does Christ deny his own work in the soul. "You have a little strength," are his heart-melting words to the backsliding Church in Sardis. O what a gracious, patient Savior is ours! But there is a real loss affirmed. It may be proper to inquire what are some of these strangers that devour the spiritual strength of the believer?

The world may be quoted as a prominent and formidable one. The world is a strange thing to a child of God. It is but his temporary dwelling, not his home; the inn at which he tarries for a night, not his abiding place; his path, rough and perilous, to his Father's house. It is a strange world to one who is born of God. Its principles are strange, its policy is strange, its maxims are strange its pleasures are strange, its religion is strange, its entire genius and inhabitants are strange to him whose citizenship is of heaven, and whose treasure and heart are there. He sojourns in it, he passes through it only as a stranger and pilgrim. And yet- melancholy truth!- this stranger devours the spiritual strength of many a Christian professor! The power which the ungodly world still maintains over the renewed mind, and the influence which it exerts in modifying and deteriorating the religion of many professing Christians, is of an appalling character.

I am solemnly convinced that the world, in its relation to the religion of the day, is the giant snare and the crying evil of our times. It is not the world in one form only, but the world in its many shapes, its numerous forms of fascination and power, which gives it so amazing and subtle an influence over the Christian Church. Were the onset of the world from one quarter only, familiarity with its mode of attack, and experience gathered from its past assaults, might place the Christian upon his guard. But, like the impersonation of vice, portrayed by Solomon, its "ways are moveable, and cannot be known." There is no shape it cannot assume, no garb it will not wear, no plea it may not urge, no concession it is not prepared to yield, thus to obtain the ascendancy over the Christian's mind.

Alas! the infidel expediency of the day, and the compromising character of the prevailing religious profession, present but little obstruction, and offer but faint resistance to its rapid and alarming encroachments. There is everything in the easy Christianity of the times to court, and but little to discourage, the advances of the world upon the Church- impairing its strength, crippling its efforts, and shading its luster. The facile compliance with its solicitations, the inordinate attachment to its principles, the sinful conformity to its customs, the humiliating participation in its pleasures, form the grand secret of the dwarfish religion of so many who ought to have arrived at the "stature of perfect men in Christ Jesus." This strange world has devoured their spiritual strength, and thus the life of God in their souls is stunted in its growth, and they are but infants when they ought to be men; dwarfs when they should be giants in knowledge, in grace, and in holiness.

The policy of the world; the gay enjoyments of the world; the self indulgence of the world; the soaring ambition of the world; the vain glory of the world; the sinful alliances of the world; the covetous, grasping desires of the world; the love of vain show and fondness for dress; and the easy religion of the world; are the fearful and fatal snares into which many professing Christians are drawn. The ball; the gay party; the concert; the novel; the whist; the drama; O how do these things devour the little strength that some seem to possess; to what small dimensions do they contract their Christianity; how do they wither and shrivel up their religion, reducing their spiritual power of resistance to an infant's weakness!

Professor of religion! can you cross the broad separating line between the Church and the world, can you transact business with it for a day, or participate in its pleasures for an hour, and come forth with the locks of your spiritual strength as thick and flowing as before? Impossible! You have suffered a real loss; and you cannot but be sensible of it. There is an exhaustion in the soul, a wound in the conscience, a deadness in the spirit, a vagrancy of thought, an indolence and listlessness of mind, with feelings which partake more of earth and less of heaven, which unfit you for communion with God, incapacitate you for any spiritual duties whatever, and leave you, like Samson despoiled of his glory, the victim and the sport of the uncircumcised Philistines. "Are you also become weak as we are? are you become like unto us?" is the exclamation of the world that has thus cruelly robbed you of your vigor, and now exultingly taunts you with your loss.

O! it is "for this cause many are weak and sickly, and many sleep." I repeat it with earnestness and in bitterness of soul- the world- the WORLD is the deadly foe, and worldliness is the crying sin of the Church of God. This is the great hindrance to the success of the Christian ministry, and the growth in grace of many who are "called to be saints." You profess to have separated yourselves from the world, to not be of the world, and by the cross of Jesus to be dead to the world; and yet how opposite and falsifying is your practice! You mix up with the world, you float down the stream with the world, you woo and embrace the world; and but for the enrolment of your name upon the records of the Church, and your punctilious appearance at the communion table of the Lord, we should scarcely suspect that you were a follower of him who solemnly and emphatically declared, "My kingdom is not of this world."

But, take warning! Upon this rock numbers who once walked outwardly with Jesus, have made shipwreck of faith, and walk with him no more. One of the most heart-affecting sentences the apostle ever penned was the record of such a case: "Demas has forsaken me, having loved this present world." He was a professed Christian, was baptized as a believer, and was the companion and associate of the apostle. But he loved the world, and loving the world he forsook the apostle; and forsaking the apostle he forsook Christ; and forsaking Christ he forsook the way of holiness, the way of happiness, the way of heaven. And where is he now! No mention is made of his restoration. No record is left of his return as a penitent to the cross. All that we know of his melancholy history is a solemn warning to professors to
shun the world, and to beware of worldliness, as the foe and the bane of their religion.

O, listen to the faithful yet tender pleadings of the Spirit- "Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed in the spirit of your mind. Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world. And the world passes away." Listen to the words which warn you against contracting unholy alliances, either in the way of business or of marriage, with the people of the world- "Don't you know you that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? whoever therefore will be a friend of the world, is the enemy of God. Do not be unequally yoked together with unbelievers; therefore come out from among them, and be separate, says the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you, and will be a Father unto you, and you shall be my sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty." Christian professors! can you resist these touching appeals? Will you not retire from their perusal, resolved, that "by the grace that is in Christ Jesus, "from henceforth you will "keep yourselves unspotted from the world?"

Again, with increased earnestness we beseech you, love not the world- imitate not the world- go not needlessly into the world! It is a cruel, treacherous, soul-destroying world. It crucified your Lord, and seeks nothing less than your eternal destruction. Come out of it, and let your unearthly principles, and holy enjoyments, and heavenly mindedness, and simplicity of walk, integrity and uprightness in all your transactions with the world, be a witness against it for God, for Christ, and for eternity. Labor for its good, pray for it, be kind and gentle to it, and, if need be, suffer for it; but let your daily motto be- the mark of Christ upon your forehead- "God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world."

The unsubdued power of indwelling sin must be regarded as occasioning the Christian severe spiritual loss. Even where there is the absence of that outward worldly conformity of which we have been speaking, there may yet
be the prevalency of unmortified corruption in the heart, secretly and silently, but effectually undermining the fabric of the soul's strength. Alas! how effectually does this 'stranger' devour the vigor of our faith, the fervor of our love, the power of our prayers, the simplicity of our confidence in God. In how many sad instances of secret declension, of outward backsliding, and of avowed apostasy from God, may the evil be traced to this cause! Sin dwells in the heart of the most deeply sanctified, is ever at work in the most eminent Christian; and it has been truly remarked, that the best of saints have need to be warned against the worst of sins. Where there is not, then, a perpetual battle with this hidden foe, a constant mortification through the Spirit of this deep-seated, veiled corruption, the most dire and mournful consequences must ensue. Hence the agitation of doubts and fears, the drooping wing of faith, the powerlessness of the promises, the unanswered prayers, the plague in the camp, the ship in the storm- the Achan and the Jonah. Nothing enfeebles a Christian man like this. No 'stranger' devours his strength more voraciously and effectually. It closes the heart to the fruitful reception of the word, and shuts up heaven to the dew and the rain of the Spirit's grace. The idol of the soul still occupies its niche, and is enthroned upon its pedestal; and so long as it is not deposed and removed, the Spirit retires, God ceases to answer prayer, and there is no profitable trading between the soul and heaven, and no refreshment flowing through the channel of means and ordinances. These are solemn words; "Son of man, these men have set up their idols in their hearts, and put the stumbling-block of their iniquity before their faces; should I be inquired of at all by them? Therefore speak unto them, and say unto them, Thus says the Lord God, Every man of the house of Israel that sets up his idols in his heart, and puts the stumbling-block of his iniquity before his face, and comes to the prophet, I the Lord will answer him that comes, according to the multitude of his idols." "If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me." "Strangers have devoured his strength."

But in what does this mortification of sin consist? We reply, in nothing less than the drying up of its fountain, the destruction of its root. The great evil and power of sin lies in the sin of our nature, the body of death which we bear about with us. And herein consists true mortification- the slaying of the principle from where all sin proceeds; the subduing of the original corruption, the strength of which weakens the actings of grace, by impairing the principle of grace. O, then, be earnest in seeking this attainment! Do not be content to arrest the stream while the fountain runs; nor to sever the branches while the root remains. But going to the source of the evil, descending to the depth of the corruption, begin the holy work where the potency of sin mainly lies.

What is your predominant sin? -lay the axe at its root. Seek its death and destruction, or it will be death and destruction to you, as long as it prevails. It must bring a deathliness into the life of God within you, and prove the ruin of your peace and joy and happiness. "Therefore, brethren, we are debtors, not to the flesh to live after the flesh. For if you live after the flesh, you shall die; but if you through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, you shall live." O, then, take this 'stranger' which seeks to devour your strength, to the cross of Jesus, and transfix it there; and as it dies, your soul shall live. Nothing but the cross of Jesus will prove its death, and your life. "I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live." There must be the crucifixion before the life. Christ's death for sin must be our death unto sin.

No more outward mortification, no fastings, nor self-inflictions, nor painful austerities, will ever weaken the principle or mortify the root of sin. Nothing but faith in the atoning blood of the Son of God can effectually meet the case. Far be it from me to speak indifferently of that aid to the mortification of indwelling sin which God's word encourages. I would not lightly esteem, as auxiliary to faith in the atonement, the diligent reading of the word- frequent meditation upon its truths- seasons of retirement from others, and from surrounding objects- private communion with God- self-examination- self-judging, and honest, minute confession of sin. Nor would I overlook the immense blessing which often flows from deep affliction, from painful, bitter trial, traced in the deeper mortification of sin in the temper, spirit, and life of the true believer.

But in this great and solemn work our constant motto must be, "Looking unto Jesus." Without the eye of faith upon the cross, apart from the efficacy of the atoning blood, and the power of the grace that is in Jesus, there can be no effectual progress in the real work of sanctification. One sight of a crucified Savior imparted by the Holy Spirit will more effectually weaken the power of indwelling sin than all other means combined. O the might of the cross! O the virtue of the blood! O the power of the grace of Jesus to crucify, cleanse, and subdue our iniquities! Allow not this 'stranger,' then, any longer to devour your strength, seeing Jesus can enable you to oppose it, and will crown your sincere and persevering opposition with a certain and glorious victory. "He will subdue our iniquities."

Spiritual decay is another idea suggested by the expressive figure of the passage- "Gray hairs are here and there upon him." These 'GRAY HAIRS' are decided 'evidences of backsliding'. And what are some of them? What are a few of the more marked SYMPTOMS OF SPIRITUAL DECAY in the soul? A lessened appreciation of Jesus is a clear and affecting evidence of spiritual relapse. Once he was, in your estimation, "the chief among ten thousand." He was
the sovereign of your hearts. 'His name was as ointment poured forth.' He was to you as the "apple tree of the woods." You "sat down under his shadow with great delight, and his fruit was sweet to your taste." His cross attracted you, his love constrained you, his voice charmed you, his person was all your admiration, and his work all your boast. O how precious was Jesus to you then! You never thought his yoke irksome, nor his burden heavy, nor his cross painful. No time spent with him was deemed lost; no sacrifice made for him was counted costly; no labor for him was wearisome; no shame, or ignominy, or suffering for his sake, was worthy of a thought. The secret of all was- you loved the Savior with a deep and intense affection. But the 'gray hair' has appeared! Jesus is less precious to you now. Reverse the picture, just drawn of your former self, and you have the faithful portrait of your soul's present state! Your love has waxed cold, the ardor of your affection has waned, your heart is divided, other objects have displaced the Savior; and if you follow him at all, it is like Peter, "a great way off." Is not this real decay? "Gray hairs are here and thereupon him."

Another symptom is, neglected prayer. I will not say that the habit of prayer is entirely relinquished; but the spirit and fervor of prayer seem greatly to have evaporated. The time was when communion with God was the element in which you lived. You could more conveniently live without your daily food, and even pass your nights without sleep, than live without prayer, or compose yourself to rest without converse with God. That was registered as a lost day which found you holding no filial communion with your Heavenly Father-spending no blissful moments with Jesus. O happy days! How precious their memory! How sanctifying their recollection! Then, your walk was with God- your "fellowship truly was with the Father and his Son Jesus Christ." You were wont to take every thing to the throne of grace. As your needs came, you told your Father; and as your sorrow was felt, you laid it upon Jesus. You walked with God in everything, in the most minute circumstances in your history. And O what an opening was there of the heart of God to you at the mercy-seat! More truly, and how much more fully, was God wont to realize to you the promise to Moses- "There I will meet with you, and I will commune with you from above the mercy-seat." But the 'gray hair' is seen- sad symptom of decay in prayer. As to frequency and power, earnestness and success-as to any real communion, any filial, confidential opening of the heart to God, there is a palpable and melancholy failing off. Weak in prayer, you have no longer power with the Angel of the Covenant to prevail. Is not this decay? "Gray hairs are here and there upon him."

The neglect of confession is an undoubted symptom of a state of soul backsliding from God. Perhaps there is not one more strongly indicative of the true decay of grace in the heart than this. When the habit of a contrite acknowledgment of sin is cherished, when a daily confession over the head of the atoning Sacrifice is made, and the blood is thus constantly sprinkled upon the conscience, the soul maintains, even in its advance to the "stature of the perfect man," all the vigor and beauty of youthful piety. There is a freshness and verdure which distinguish the soul in close proximity to the 'open Fountain'. But the "gray hair" betrays a change in this holy habit. It is now almost entirely neglected; or, if not quite abandoned, is yet performed in so careless and partial a manner, as to rob it of all its power, and neutralize all its efficacy. Your acknowledgment of sin is so general and heartless, blended with so imperfect a view of the turpitude of the sin confessed, with so feeble a sense of holy, humble contrition- in a word, the true spirit and posture of confession are so entirely absent, as to deprive the whole performance of its character, and to render it of none effect. This was not always the state of your soul. In times that are past, the least sin gave you distress, the slightest speck upon the conscience made you uneasy, and you could not rest until you had told it to the Lord, and had sought and found a renewed application of the peace-speaking blood. Surely this is a manifest decay of grace in your soul. "Gray hairs are here and there upon him."

A slighting of the means of grace, and the ordinances of God's house, is not the least mark of a state of heart-backsliding. How 'green' were these 'pastures' once to your soul! How you hailed the arrival of the hour that took you to them! How you delighted to walk and feed in them! To have neglected the assembling of the saints- to have refused to meet them for praise and prayer- as, alas! the manner of some is- to have turned your back upon the house of God, upon the ministry of the word, upon the ordinance of the Lord's supper, upon the hour of gathered prayer, would have filled your heart with inexpressible pain. But, ah! you can do so now without an emotion! Your place is often vacant in the sanctuary- at the Lord's table- and when others meet to promote the kingdom of Christ; and yet your absence creates in your heart no sense of loss, and awakens in your conscience no alarm nor sorrow. The preached word, when you are in attendance, does not profit you. You have lost your relish for a Christ-exalting, soul-awakening, soul-winning, soul-searching, soul-loving ministry, and can only tolerate that service which intones its lullaby to your drowsy spirit, or deepens the slumber in which you are profoundly locked.

To this we must add your sad lack of sympathy for the salvation of others. Ah! what can more truly betray the real condition of your own soul than your cruel, criminal apathy, in view of the multitudes perishing around you without the 'vision,' each one raising that wail of agony, as it passes away- "No man cared for my soul!" These are some of the "gray hairs" which indicate a weakening and decay of the kingdom of God within the soul.

But there is one feature of this state of backsliding brought out by the prophet which we must not overlook. I allude to the ignorance and insensibility which mark it. "Strangers have devoured his strength, and he knows it not; yes, gray hairs are here and there upon him, yet he knows it not." It is by slow and imperceptible degrees that time steals upon us. Old age never surprises a man. We are not young today, and old tomorrow. Today, reveling in all the life, elasticity, and buoyancy of youth- and tomorrow, suffering from all the melancholy effects of senility. But we grow old by degrees: "Gray hairs are here and there upon us, and we know it not." Thus is it with the progress of spiritual declension. A Christian professor may lose the power and freshness of grace in his soul, and for a time not be sensible of his loss. This I consider to be the most alarming symptom of his case. For a man to be going further and further from God, losing ground every moment, the 'gray hairs' thickening around him while he continues insensible to his condition- supposing that all is prosperous with his soul, when all is the very reverse- is alarming in the extreme. The case of Samson, already alluded to, fully illustrates this trait. While in a state of slumber we read that his wife Delilah, "called for a man, and she caused him to shave off the seven locks of his head; and she began to afflict him, and his strength went from him. And she said, The Philistines are upon you, Samson. And he awoke out of his sleep, and said, I will go out as at other times before, and shake myself. And he did not know that the Lord was departed from him." How soon the strong man had become weak! Strangers had devoured his strength, and he knew it not! Thus is it with many a Christian professor. Asleep upon the lap of some sinful self-indulgence, his enemies come upon him and severed the locks in which his might lay- and he knows not that the Lord has departed from him.

You are ignorant, too, of the great extent of your backsliding from God. You are not aware how far you have gone, what a fearful breach has been made between God and your soul; what a distance has come between Jesus and your spirit. You are not sensible how many steps you will have to retrace before you recover what you once so blissfully possessed- the presence of God, the witness of the Spirit, the consciousness of your being a pardoned sinner, an adopted child.

There is, too, an alarming unconcern as to your state. It becomes a matter of very little importance to you, whether God sees in you a growing conformity to his image, or a growing conformity to the world. You have been robbed of the locks of your strength, and either you do not know it, or are coldly indifferent to it.

But let us, in closing, briefly trace this melancholy state to some of its CAUSES, that we may be better able to point out its appropriate remedy. The first cause undoubtedly is, the unguarded state of your soul. A merchant or a tradesman accustomed to neglect his accounts through the year must be prepared to find himself at its close in a state of embarrassment and uncertainty as to his actual position- his affairs bordering perhaps on a state of insolvency. A Christian living in the daily neglect of self-examination must not marvel if, at a certain period of his religious course, he finds himself trembling upon the brink of gloomy despondency, his evidences gone, his hope obscured, and all the past of his Christian profession appearing to his view as a fearful delusion. But here let me suggest the cure. Examine before God the real state of your soul. Ascertain where you have lost ground. Retrace your way. Look honestly and fairly at your condition. Do not be appalled at it. Discouraging and repelling as it may appear, look it fully in the face, and lay it open before God exactly as it is, in the spirit and language of the Psalmist, "Search me, O God, and know my heart; try me, and know my thoughts; and see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting."

I quote the grieving of the Spirit of God as a most fruitful cause of your present state of spiritual relapse. We have yet much to learn of our entire dependence upon the Holy Spirit, and of our eternal obligation to him for all the blessings of which he is the author and the conveyancer. What themes for grateful contemplation to the spiritual mind are the love of the Spirit- the faithfulness of the Spirit- the tenderness of the Spirit- the grace of the Spirit- the patience of the Spirit! And yet, in the long catalogue of the believer's backslidings, not the least is, his grieving this Holy Spirit of God. To this must be traced that barrenness and unfruitfulness, that premature decay, those spiritual relapses, which impart a death-like, skeleton appearance, to the Christianity of so many of its professors. Their worldliness grieves him- their sinful indulgences grieve him- their light, frothy conversation grieves him- their inattention to his 'still small voice,' and their forgetfulness of all his kindnesses grieves him- and suspending, but not wholly withdrawing, his gracious influence, their souls become like Mount Gilboa, upon which no dew rested. But there is a remedy. Seek that Spirit whom you have driven from your presence; implore his return, beseech him for Jesus' sake to revisit you, to breathe his reviving influence as of old upon your soul, "that the spices thereof may flow out," and that your "beloved may come into his garden, and eat his pleasant fruits." Then will return the happy days of former years, the sweet seasons of your early history, and you shall "sing as in the days of your youth, and as in the day when you came up out of the land of Egypt."
"Return, O holy Dove, return,
Sweet messenger of rest;
I hate the sins that made you mourn,
And drove you from my breast."

Distance from the cross has contributed greatly to your present state of spiritual relapse. Retiring from beneath its shelter and its shade, you have left the region of safety, light, and peace, and, wandering over the mountains of sin, worldliness, and unbelief, have lost yourself amid their darkness, solitude, and gloom. Finding in your backslidings no 'green pastures,' nor refreshing spring, nor shadowing rock, nor sweet repose, you have been almost ready to lie down, weary, faint, and bewildered. Turning away from the cross of Jesus, you have lost the view you once had of a sin-pardoning, reconciled Father; and judging of him now by his providences and not by his promises, and contemplating him through the gloomy medium of a conscience unsprinkled with the blood of Christ, you are disposed to impeach the wisdom, the faithfulness, and the love, of all his conduct towards you. But listen to the remedy. Yield yourself afresh to the attractions of the cross. Return, return to it again. No burning Cherubim nor flaming sword guards its avenue. The atoning blood, there shed, has opened the way of the sinner's approach, and the interceding High Priest in heaven keeps it open for every repentant prodigal. Return to the true cross. Come and sit down beneath its grateful shade. Poor, weary wanderer! there is life and power, peace and repose, for you still in the cross of Christ. Mercy speaks from it, God smiles in it, Jesus stands by it, and the Holy Spirit, hovering above it, is prepared to reveal it to you afresh, in all its healing, restoring power.

And is it thus that 'strangers' have devoured your strength, and that 'gray hairs are here and there' upon you? Do not despair of a better state. How powerful and persuasive the motives to your return to God which we have arrayed before you! The Father holding out his hand- Jesus alluring you- the Holy Spirit bending over you- and your vacant seat at the gospel-feast, so long deserted, still inviting your return. Say not, O wandering child, O mourning penitent, "My way is hidden from the Lord." No! His eye has been upon you in all your waywardness and wanderings; and now, in the tender character and with the quenchless, deathless love of a Father, he is on the watch for your return. Will he upbraid that loss of spiritual strength? Will he despise those thin, gray hairs? O no! "He gives power to the faint; and to those who have no might he increases strength. Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall; but those who wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; they shall walk, and not faint."

Wells Without Water

"The Inner Life Contrasted with its Counterfeit"

"These are wells without water." 2 Peter 2:7.

It is one of the ever-working schemes and master strokes of the prince of darkness- and too successful is his exploit- to annihilate in the view of man, the essential difference which God's holy word draws between the mere external profession of Christianity, and its internal and vital possession. And yet, while we concede that in every true disciple of Jesus these two extremes meet- the possession and the profession of Christ- at the same time we must remark that, existing apart and alone, heaven and earth, midnight darkness and meridian light, life and death itself, are not more essentially distinct from each other than they. To break down this broad, unbending line of separation, and thus to reduce the life-possessing and life-imparting religion of Jesus to a religion of mere sentiment, or of feeling, or of form- in other words, to the religion of death- is Satan's grand and too successful scheme. It would be, perhaps, difficult to say from which field he has reaped a more appalling harvest of souls- that of a nominal religious profession, or that of a profane and avowed ungodliness. We speak not lightly, but it is our solemn conviction, that more souls have gone down to the regions of despair reposing in their baptismal vows, and sacramental grace, and works of human righteousness, than those who made no profession of religion whatever, except the religion of the infidel, the atheist, or the world. It is to this large and solemn class the apostle applies the searching words selected as the basis of our present remarks "These are wells without water." The passage suggests two distinct and important topics of consideration: the character of the true believer, or what the real Christian possesses; the character of the false Christian, or what the mere professor does not possess.

The figure of "wells without water" is not only one of frequent occurrence in the word of God, but in its reverse interpretation it is highly expressive of the gracious character, and holy, dispensing influence of the true believer in the Lord Jesus. Reverse the awfully significant meaning in which it is used by the apostle, and you have the exact portrait of a truly Christian man. The 'well without water', supposes the existence of the 'well with water'. And as the well without water is descriptive of the false Christian, so the well with water is descriptive of the true- and it is of him we are first to speak.

THE REAL BELIEVER in Jesus is a gracious man. He is a 'living soul.' He is the partaker of a new and a Divine nature, and is the depository of a heavenly and a precious treasure. In exhibiting him under the figure of the 'well with water', we are naturally led to trace the source of his supply. The well may contain, but it does not originate the supply. It holds the water, but it cannot create the water. It is dependent upon a foreign and a hidden source. From a depth which no line can fathom, and which no skill can explore, the precious fluid rushes forth, sparkling and bounding in the joyousness of its own independent and mysterious existence. It is thus with Christianity and the Christian. There is not a well of salvation in the gospel, nor a spring of life in the believer, which is not dependent for its supply upon a source extraneous from itself. The Lord Jesus Christ is that Source. He is the well-head of all salvation and of all grace. The well with water is the well that has its source in him, "of whose fulness all we have received, and grace for grace."

God, the Fountain of life, light, and grace, has ordained that the Lord Jesus Christ, his own beloved Son, should be the well-spring, the one source of supply from where all the salvation of the sinner, all the sanctity of the saint, and all the grace and truth of the Church, collectively and individually, should be derived. "It pleased the Father that in him should all fulness dwell." What a glorious declaration is this! How should our hearts leap for joy, and our souls thrill with gladness at its very sound! All the "fulness of the Godhead bodily;" all the fulness of the Church graciously; all the fulness of the sinner savingly; all the fulness of the Christian sanctifyingly; in a word, all that a poor, fallen, tried son of Adam needs, until he reaches heaven itself, where this fulness has come- is, by God's eternal love and wisdom, treasured up in the "Second Adam, the Lord from heaven."

From Jesus the well derives its water. In the description which we have of the creation of the world, there is a distinction observed between the "waters which were under the firmament and the waters which were above the firmament." In the new creation not less striking and observable is this difference. The water above, is the "pure river of the water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God," and gathered together in one mighty confluence in Jesus; and by him brought down to earth and deposited in all true believers, who thus become wells with water; and so, by the dispensing influence of their grace and holiness, "water the whole face of the ground." Thus the "waters are divided from the waters"- the water in the Fountain above, from the water in the well below.

But this truth will be unfolded more fully in the consideration of THE WELL ITSELF. The Christian, figuratively speaking, is this well, deriving, as we have seen, his supply from that hidden Spring to whom he is closely united. There is, first, the interesting fact upon which a preceding chapter has fully expatiated, and therefore to which we need but simply now refer- the indwelling of Christ in the soul. Christ himself enunciates the truth- "I in them." Observe, these are not the words of the apostle, whose ardent mind and glowing imagination might be supposed to exaggerate a truth beyond its proper limits; but they are words of Jesus himself- of him who is the Truth, and who therefore cannot lie. "I in them." Christ dwelling in the soul forms the inner life of that soul. The experience of this blessing stands connected with the lowest degree of grace, and with the feeblest faith; the lamb of the flock, the soul that has but touched the hem of the Savior's garment, prostrate as a penitent at the feet of the true Aaron- in each and in all alike, Christ dwells. He has a throne in that heart, a temple in that body, a dwelling in that soul, and thus, as by a kind of second incarnation, God is manifest in the flesh; in Christ's manifestation in the believer. Truly is he a well with water, who has "Christ in him the hope of glory."

In addition to this is, the indwelling of God's grace in the soul. Grace is a thing foreign to the natural state of man. His possession of grace is not concurrent with his birth, nor can it be his by right of hereditary law. No parent, however holy, can transmit a particle of saving grace to his posterity. The law of primogeniture, or the privilege of the birthright, is set aside in the kingdom of grace, whose subjects are "born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God." But see how this mystery is cleared up in the conversation which Jesus held with the Samaritan woman, as he sat wearied upon the mouth of Jacob's well "Jesus answered and said unto her, If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that says to you, Give me to drink, you would have asked of him, and he would have given you living water." This is the grace of which we speak, and this the source from where it flows into the hearts of all the truly regenerate. It is in you, Christian reader, "a well of water," a springing well, mounting upward and ascending to the source from where it rises. God looks upon you, not as a dry well, but as a springing well- his own renewing, adopting, sanctifying grace, flowing into your heart- and thus ascending to Him from whom it proceeds, in holy desires, and spiritual aspirations, and divine actings- the living water seeking its level, and rising to its source. Blessed words- "Springing up into everlasting life!" As the first blush of morning is a part of the day, so the least dawn of grace in the soul is a portion of heaven. The well below, is the spring of grace- the well above, is the fountain of glory.

Yet a third blessing of the renewed state is the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. Thus says the apostle; "don't you know that you are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?" He would seem to say- "If you do not know it, you ought to know it as one professing godliness." O what a celestial well- though in himself a poor earthen vessel, a broken cistern- is that regenerate man who has the Holy Spirit reigning in him, living in him- never to abdicate his throne, never to forsake his sanctuary, never to vacate his dwelling; never, by all the corruptions that are there, by all the slightings, and piercings, and woundings which he receives, forced to retire from the temple he has constructed, beautified, and made his own!

In view of these statements, who will, then, deny that all believers in Jesus are wells with water? What an exalted character, and what an enviable man, is the true Christian! All the resources of the Triune God unite to replenish this earthen vessel. No angel in heaven contains a treasure half so costly and so precious as that poor believing sinner, who, getting near to the Savior's feet, and bathing them with tears of penitence and love, can look up and exclaim, "Whom have I in heaven but you? and there is none upon earth that I desire beside you."

But we must not overlook an interesting thought suggested by the figure of the text. I allude to the dispensing influence of the well. What is the proper design of a well? Certainly it is not constructed for itself. It is designed to disperse abroad its fulness, and to communicate the blessing it contains. Unless the water of a well finds an outlet, it becomes of necessity stagnant and inert; and instead of being a well giving out and spreading abroad its sparkling streams, it is a still, lifeless reservoir, yielding nothing, and consequently receiving nothing. Striking emblem of the Christian! The knowledge and the grace that God has given you, though for yourself primarily, are not for yourself exclusively. God, in making you a well of living water- in other words, a possessor of Divine grace- designed to disperse abroad the streams; so that through the consistency of your walk, the holiness of your life, and the personal activity of your grace in the cause of God and of truth, it might find an outlet for the benefit of others.

What a well of spiritual knowledge is the true believer! To him it is given to know the mysteries of the kingdom, while from others they are hidden. Where may we look for an understanding of the revealed mind of God but to him? Who knows the secret of the Lord, and to whom does he show his covenant, but to those who fear him? Having 'an unction from the Holy One,' he knows all things. He knows something of that mystery, which no philosophy of man can teach him- the plague of his own heart. He knows something, too, of the value of Christ- his person, his work,
his glory, his fulness, his tenderness, his sympathy, his preciousness. He knows something of the character and dealings of God- as a holy God, as a sin-forgiving God, as a just God, and yet who blots out sin and remembers it no more forever. He knows, in some measure, what the intricacies of the Christian way are; what the narrowness of the narrow path is; what are the difficulties of walking with God; what are the conflicts, the trials, the tribulations of the Christian life- and the stream flows abroad.

What a well of holiness is the true believer! The Spirit of holiness inhabiting him, despite the corrupt sediment of his fallen nature, he contains and dispenses abroad that stream of holy influence which carries with it a blessing wherever it flows. Where do we look for true holiness except in the soul born again of the Spirit? A holy man is earth's greatest blessing, is the world's richest ornament and shield.

What a well of compassion is the real Christian! He it is who, taught the priceless value of his own eternal happiness, has affections of compassion for the souls of others involved in like ruin with himself. " O that my head were waters, and my eyes a fountain of tears!" says Jeremiah. "Rivers of waters run down my eyes because they keep not your law!" exclaims David. These men were mourning wells- and God has distinguished such. "Set a mark upon the foreheads of the men that sigh and cry for all the abominations that be done." The Lord Jesus, the great mourner, who wept, not for himself, but for others, has his bottle for the tears of these wells of pity and compassion; whose sympathies, and prayers, and exertions, flow forth for the conversion of sinners, for the salvation of souls.

Wells of charity, too, are they. Where shall we look for the Divine cement, the true bond, which unites the heart of man to man, but in the one Church of God? Who is the true peacemaker, the diligent sower of peace, the zealous promoter of love, charity, and good-will among men, but he in whose heart the love of God finds a home? Who has such sincere pity for the poor, whose hand is more ready to relieve their necessities- than he who himself is a conscious partaker of the benevolence of God? Such, reader, are some of the characteristics of true Christians- the wells with water- dispensing wells.

There is yet another essential feature of a gracious state suggested by the figure, which we must not overlook. These wells with water are perpetually receiving as well as dispensing. Indeed, they can only dispense to others what is dispensed to them. We have intimated that believers are but wells. All their springs are in God. Listen to the acknowledgment: "As the deer pants after the water brooks, so pants my soul after you, O God! My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. O God, you are my God! early will I seek you; my soul thirsts for you, my flesh longs for you in a dry and thirsty land where no water is." And then comes the Divine answer: "When the poor and needy seek water, and there is none, and their tongue fails for thirst, I the Lord will hear them, I the God of Israel will not forsake them. I will open rivers in high places, and fountains in the midst of the valleys: I will make the wilderness a pool of water, and the dry land springs of water." And then follows the response of the soul thirsting after righteousness: "Lord, give me this water, that I thirst not."

Thus does the gracious soul derive all its grace from Christ, "who of God is made unto him wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption." He stands by to replenish the well as its resources are exhausted. When the water is low, he raises it; as it gives out, he pours in; and the more liberally it imparts, the more bountifully it receives. "The liberal soul devises liberal things, and by liberal things shall he stand." "There is one who scatters, and yet increases." Who has ever become poor for God? Who has given freely that has not in return received freely? Who has ever laid himself out for the Lord, consecrating his substance, his influence, his time, his talents, that has not experienced a welling up in his own soul of the hidden spring, more than replacing all that he has dispensed? The grace that has been employed, the faith that has been exercised, the wealth that has been consecrated, the influence that has been exerted, the reproach that has been endured, the suffering that has been experienced, the health that has been expended, the loss that has been sustained for Christ; Christ has more than recompensed even in the present time-state. "Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness"-is the precept- "and all these things shall be added unto you"-is the promise; and He who enjoins the precept, will make good the promise.
Such, then, are some of the characteristics of true Christians.

The reverse of all this we now proceed to consider, in an analysis of THE CHARACTER OF THE FALSE CHRISTIAN- THE GRACELESS PROFESSOR- THE SELF-DECEIVED. "These are wells without water."

Let it be distinctly observed that they are spoken of as wells; that is, they are professors of religion. They have the "form of godliness." They have all the external appearance of real grace and sanctity. Judging of them by their church, or by their minister, or by their creed, or by their party zeal, or even by their knowledge, we should at once rank them, and perhaps rank them high, with the true possessors of grace. So strong are some of the features of resemblance, that it needs the most skillful eye to detect the difference. Looking, not at the external construction of the well- the beautiful and costly materials of which it is composed- but looking within the well, we soon discover that it is a well without water. Again we remark, that, forming our judgment of them by their church membership, their correct orthodoxy, their showy Christianity, many would be deceived as to their real state, beguiled into the belief that they were truly converted. But when judged of by God's word- alas, how awful the deficiency! Thus far may you go, professors of religion, and yet rest short of the reality. You may be baptized, may partake of the Lord's Supper, may be enrolled upon the records of the Church, be thought a Christian, be respected as a Christian, be confided in as a Christian, and yet His searching glance 'whose eyes are as a flame of fire,' discovers in you nothing but a well without water, a soul without grace- religious profession without religious principle.

Thus have we shown that a godless professor, a false Christian, is but A DRY WELL. There is no inhabitation of the Spirit, no indwelling of Christ, no possession of Divine grace. No tears of repentance have ever moistened the eyes. There are no wellings up from the heart of holy aspirations after God, of loving desires after Jesus. There are no indications of the plague known, of the burden felt, or of the conflict experienced. No echoing of the apostle's language, "Wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?" There are no breathings after holiness, no longings after Divine conformity, no desires to depart and be with Christ, no anointing of the Spirit. With all the light that is in his judgment, and his observance of days, and months, and seasons, he is but a dry well- a well without water. He possesses not the inner life.

Contemplate this affecting character in yet another point of light- the influence which a mere religious professor exerts. A well with out water! -what a miserable privation! The weary traveler after much endurance of thirst and suffering sees in the distance the inviting well. Rejoicing in the discovery, he quickens his pace, and lo! he finds it indeed a well, but a dry well- a well without water! His expectation is turned into disappointment, his joy into sorrow; and like the Savior who came hungry to the fig tree and found upon it no fruit, and retiring, breathed upon it his withering curse; so departs the traveler from the well which has so cruelly mocked his raging thirst.

Thus is it with a mere professor- an empty, graceless professor of religion. We go to him, hoping for a little lift in our journey homeward; we go, seeking for some sweet consolation in our deep trial, for counsel in our perplexity, for sympathy with our sorrow, for the communion of saints- but alas! there is no response, no echo, no vibrating chord- nothing in union with what we feel: the well is dry, and not one drop can we extract from it. Oh, is it not one of the bitterest reflections that can fasten upon your mind, that, perhaps, many a poor thirsty soul has repaired to you for instruction, for sympathy, for strength, and finding you a stranger to the mysteries of the Divine life, to the trials, the conflicts, and the joys of the Christian, has turned away in bitter disappointment, even as the weary traveler, parched with thirst, turns from the well without water. It is a solemn thing to be mistaken for a real believer, to be looked up to as a true Christian, and yet to prove destitute of the knowledge and grace of Christ! -to awaken hope, and to raise expectation, and to create an interest, and to inspire confidence, and when the test is made, when the trial comes, to prove but a graceless soul- deceived and deceiving!

And yet what numbers there are of such! We speak of Jesus-there is no echo. We introduce the subject of all subjects- the most interesting and momentous- the subject of heart religion- there is no response. We go into the detail of Christian experience, the warfare, the sorrows, the joys, the trials, the burdens, the progress, the hope of the Christian, but we speak a language that they understand not. "These are wells without water." No ingenuity can elicit, no possible effort can extract, one drop of the living water. "We play the flute for them, but they do not dance; we sing a dirge for them, but they do not weep."

Turning now to THE TRUE CHRISTIAN, in view of this sadly affecting character we have been attempting to portray, let me remark upon the deep humility which ought to distinguish him as a real professor of the grace of Christ Jesus. What are you in yourself but the mere well? The grace which you possess is a communicated grace. We have this precious treasure in earthen vessels. All that is really holy and gracious in us, springs not from our fallen nature, but, like "every good and perfect gift, comes down from the Father of Lights." It is the spontaneous outflowing of the heart of God- the free, unmerited bestowment of his sovereign mercy. Then what meekness of heart, what profound humility of mind, ought to mark you! What a prostration of every form of self- self-confidence, self-seeking, self-boasting, that arrogant view of our attainments and doings, which mars the Christianity of so many- should there be, as reasonably becomes those who have nothing but what they have received, and whom free and sovereign grace alone has distinguished from others!

How precious ought Jesus to be to us, who has condescended to pour this heavenly treasure into our hearts, and to undertake its constant supply! In what way can we best prove our sense of his goodness, but by drawing largely from the Fountain, and by glorifying him in what we receive? Truly "the well is deep" from where we draw this living water! Our resources are inexhaustible, because they are infinite. Nor can we come too frequently, nor draw too largely. "Spring up, O well of grace and love, into our hearts! Let not our waters be shallow nor sluggish. O for more depth of indwelling grace! O for more fervor of holy love! O for richer supplies from the fulness of Christ! O for a gracious revival in our souls! 'Come down,' blessed Jesus, 'as rain upon the mown grass!' Breathe, O south wind of the Spirit, upon the garden of our souls, that the spices may flow out! Truly the well is deep, from where we have this living water; but faith can reach it, and in proportion to the strength of our faith, and the directness and simplicity with which it deals with Christ, will be the plenitude of our supply. "Drink, yes, drink abundantly, O beloved," is our Lord's gracious invitation to his Church.

Nor let us fail to learn the secret of receiving much from Christ- the free dispensing abroad of what we have already received. Be assured of this, that he will receive the most from God who does the most for God. "The diligent soul shall be made fat. He becomes poor that deals with a slack hand: but the hand of the diligent makes rich. There is one who scatters, and yet increases." This is God's law, and he will never repeal it; his promise, and he will ever, and in all cases, make it good. Go forth, believer in Christ, and let your beams of light irradiate; let your streams of grace be dispersed abroad; live for God, suffer for Christ, witness for the truth, and labor for man. Be such a depositary of this living and life-giving treasure, that others, less favored than yourself; instructed, guided, and strengthened by your wisdom, experience, and grace, may proceed on their way, glorifying God for the grace given to you. O to have the word of God dwelling in us so richly, and our hearts so intensely glowing with the love of Christ, as to be ever ready to open our lips for God- a well always full, and running over.

This, then, is the secret of augmenting our supplies of grace, even by scattering them- of replenishing our resources, even by exhausting them. Who, we repeat the question, has ever become impoverished by giving and laborings for God? Where lives the Christian steward whose fidelity to his Master's interests has compromised the welfare of his own? Where is the Christian man who, with cheerful munificence, has consecrated his intellectual wealth or his temporal wealth to advance the truth and kingdom of Jesus, whom Christ has not reimbursed a thousand fold? Where is the believer in Jesus who has endured reproach and suffering, patiently and silently, for conscience' sake, for truth's sake, for Christ's sake, who has not infinitely gained in the rest which he has found in God? Where is the active Christian, who, zealously laborings to dispense abroad the life-giving waters, has not felt, in the solemn retirement and calm repose of his closet, when pouring out his sorrow into the bosom of his Savior, or in holding close and holy communion with his God, the springing up into his soul of a hidden well of peace, and joy, and love, which has more than restored the energies he has exhausted, and recompensed him for the sacrifice which he has made?

God meets his people in all their works of faith, and labors of love. They are never alone. He meets them in the path of duty and of trial- both in doing and in suffering his will. He meets them, when embarrassed, with counsel; he meets them, when assailed, with protection; he meets them, when exhausted, with strength; he meets them, when faint, with cordials. If we take up Christ's cross upon our shoulder, Christ will take both us and our cross up in his arms. If we bow down our neck to his yoke and bend low our back to his burden, we shall find our rest in both. "You meet him that rejoices and works righteousness; those that remember you in your ways."

"How may I know that I am a well with water?" may be the anxious inquiry of many as they come to the conclusion of this subject. "O that I were quite sure that I was more than a mere professor!" But why ask the question? why be in doubt? Never was so momentous a matter more easily and speedily settled. "He that believes in the Son of God has the witness in himself." Thus, from yourself you need not travel in order to ascertain your true spiritual condition. No one can be a substitute in this great matter for yourself. It is a thing which has too close and personal a relation to you as an individual, to admit of a transfer of its obligations to another. You must feel for yourself- you must experience for yourself- you must have the witness for yourself- and you must decide for yourself alone. I repeat the solemn words- "He that believes in the Son of God, has the witness in himself." And again says the same apostle, "Let every man prove his own work, and then shall he rejoice in himself alone, and not in another."

Thus may you come to a right and safe decision in a question involving interests as solemn and as deathless as eternity. Seek this inward witness. Witnessing to what? -that your heart has been convinced of sin- that you have renounced your own righteousness- that you have fled to the Lord Jesus Christ- and that your soul is breathing after personal holiness. Do not, I beseech you, rest short of this. Here I must hold you. All your reasonings, and objections, and cavilings, and hair-splittings, and subtleties, and sophistries- they are but sparks of your own kindling, in the midst of which you will lie down and die, and die the horrors of the second death, if you are not fully awake to your real condition before God. Give them all up, I implore you. Do not be concerned about others; let your first and chief concern be about yourself. You have no time, just now, to analyze the motives, or sift the principles, or search into the character, or mark the foibles, and detect the inconsistencies of other Christian professors.

Every moment to you is more priceless and precious than all the gems of India; yes, one second of time saved, is of more value to you than a whole eternity lost! Once you shoot across the dark gulf of death, and land on the other side without the inner life- you may then trifle with your existence, and sport with your soul, and laugh at death and hell, and recriminate and reproach others, and brave your doubts, and invent your objections, and frame your excuses, and speculate, and refine, and analyze in theology, and play the fool, as you like- for "there remains no more sacrifice for sins, but a certain fearful looking for (an eternal anticipation) of judgment and fiery indignation, which shall devour the adversaries." But you cannot afford to act so now. Your precious soul is in danger, your future happiness is in peril, you are in the hands of an angry God, and you are, in fact, fast coming to the close of your probation. To act the fool and to assume the lunatic now, would be more than a mere semblance of the melancholy and awful reality. O come, then, to Christ- I bid you, invite you, implore you to come to Christ. He will answer all your questions, resolve all your doubts, remove all your difficulties, meet all your objections, and quiet all your fears. Only come to Christ. To this one alternative, to this last resort, I would shut you up.

From this I cannot release you. You must come to Christ, or you are lost. He is all, and he has all, and he will freely give you all that you need. One drop of his blood falling upon your conscience, one beam of his love darting in upon your soul, one stream of his grace flowing into your heart, will make all right within; and the morning, when the sun rises in splendor, will not look more radiant, and the lark when it mounts heavenward bathed in its beams, will not sing more sweetly, than you when Jesus thus enters your soul, filling it with sunshine and music. Accept the invitation, "He who comes unto me, I will in no wise cast out" -and you are saved.

"Just as I am, without one plea,
But that your blood was shed for me,
And that you bid me come to thee,
O Lamb of God, I come!"
"Just as I am, and waiting not
To rid my soul of one dark blot,
To you, whose blood can cleanse each spot,
O Lamb of God, I come!"
"Just as I am, though tossed about
With many a conflict, many a doubt,
With fears within and wars without
O Lamb of God I come!"
"Just as I am, poor, wretched, blind;
Sight, riches, healing of the mind,
Yes, all I need, in you to find
O Lamb of God, I come!"
"Just as I am, you will receive,
Will welcome, pardon, cleanse, relieve,
Because your promise I believe
O Lamb of God, I come."
"Just as I am, your love unknown
Has broken every barrier down;
Now, to be yours, yes, yours alone
O Lamb of God, I come!"

We may anticipate another anxious enquiry. "What course am I to adopt when the water is low, when the well is dry, when no effort avails to bring the living fluid to the surface? -in other words, when I find a spiritual drought and deadness in my soul, and cannot feel, nor weep, nor sigh, nor desire? -when to read and meditate, to hear and pray, seem an irksome task? -when I cannot see the Savior's beauty, nor feel him precious, nor labor as zealously, nor suffer as patiently for him as I would desire?" The answer is at hand- Look again to Jesus. This is the only remedy that can meet your case. Search the Bible through, inquire of all the ministers who have ever lived, and still the answer would be- LOOK AGAIN TO JESUS. Go direct to Christ- he is the Fountainhead, he is the living Well. True, the well is deep- for its fulness is infinite- but faith, be it of the smallest capacity, can with joy draw sufficient to quench your thirst, and make your soul as a garden which the streams have refreshed and made to "rejoice and blossom as the rose."

The Infinite and Eternal Well is near to you! Like Hagar you are within its reach. May the Holy Spirit open your eyes to see that while all emptiness exists in you, all fulness dwells in Jesus- that, however low may be the living waters in the well of your heart, there is a fathomless depth in the heart of Christ- of love unchangeable, of all-sufficient grace, of immutable truth, of salvation from all sin and trial and sorrow, commensurate with your need, and vast as his own infinity. Never can your grace be too low, nor your frame too depressed, nor your path too perplexing, nor your sorrow too keen, nor your sin too great, nor your condition too extreme for Christ, because he is both Divine and human: thus uniting the nature that can relieve, with the nature that can sympathize. "Son of God! Son of man! how wondrous and glorious are You!" Weeping in lonely sorrow, and pining in sickening need, you may, like the banished wife of Abraham, be looking wistfully around you for support and relief. See! that relief and support are near! Rise- that relief is at hand! Christ is with you, Christ is near you, Christ is in you a Fountain of living water. Cease your sadness, dry your tears, arise! and "with joy draw water out of this Well of salvation."

Be very honest and diligent in ascertaining the cause of your soul's dryness. The correct knowledge of this is necessary to its removal; and its removal is essential to the effectual recovery of the inner life from its sad relapse. Is it indulged sin? Is it the neglect of private prayer? Is it the forsaking of the means of grace? Is it worldliness, carnality, unwatchfulness? Anyone of these would so grieve the Spirit of God within you, as to dry up the spirituality of your soul. Do not be beguiled with the belief that the real recovery has taken place, simply because that, conscious of your state, in common-place, meaningless regrets, you acknowledge and deplore it. "The sluggard desires, and has nothing." Observe, he has his desires, but nothing more, because with them he is satisfied. There is no effectual rousing from his sleep, no earnest attempts are made to shake off the spirit of slumber, no resolute putting away of the narcotic which
produced and which protracts it. There is no drawing near to God, no looking to Christ, no seeking of the Spirit, no thorough mortification of sin, no coming out of the world, no pressing forward. It is the mere desire of the sluggard,
and nothing more. Let not this be your state.

Receive with gladness any awakening to a consciousness of your spiritual relapse, and cherish with prayer any real desire for a better state; but do not rest here. Seek earnestly, importunately, believingly, until you possess more abundantly life from Christ. Seek a gracious revival of the inner life- the life of God in your soul. Seek a clearer manifestation of Christ, a renewed baptism of the Spirit, a more undoubted evidence of your conversion, a surer, brighter hope of heaven. Thus seeking, you will find it; and finding it, your "peace will flow like a river, and your righteousness as the waves of the sea."

O the joy of a revived state of the inner life of God! It is the joy of spring, which follows the gloom and chill of winter. It is the joy of the sunlight, after a cloudy and dark day. Jesus, walking in the midst of the grace which his own Spirit has thus revived, gently addresses the soul: "Rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away. For, lo! the winter is past, the rain is over and gone; the flowers appear on the earth; the time of the singing of birds has come, and the voice of the turtle-dove is heard in the land; the fig-tree puts forth her green figs, and the vines with the tender grapes give a good smell. Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away."

Give all diligence in the use of the means of grace, if you desire a flourishing state of soul. They are the Divinely appointed channels of conveyance from the Fountain. They are the tributary streams from the Great Ocean. You cannot possibly maintain a healthy, vigorous state of the inner life, without them. You cannot neglect, with impunity, private prayer, meditation, and self-examination; or public ordinances- the ministry of the Word, the services of the sanctuary, the assemblies of the saints. A slight thrown upon these must entail a severe loss to your soul. Some professors can go from Sabbath to Sabbath, plunged in worldliness, or eager in the pursuit of gain, in total neglect of the prayer-meeting, or of the weekly Bible lecture- those needed rests and hallowed pauses in the way- as if there were no such appointments. These are among the things which weaken the hands, and discourage the heart, and hinder the usefulness of the faithful pastor.

But a more painful calamity even than this, is the dryness, deadness, and barrenness which this neglect brings into their own souls. It would seem as if this were the punishment of their sin. They turn their backs upon God, and God turns his back upon them. They neglect to make the pool, and he withholds the rain that fills it. But, Christian professor, this must not be! The wells must be dug, the water must be searched for. We are told that "Isaac's servants dug in the valley, and found there a well of springing water" -or, as the margin renders it- "a well of living water." And he is pronounced a blessed man "who, passing through the valley of Baca, makes it a well; the rain also fills the pools." It is in this way of diligent, prayerful waiting upon the means, that "he goes from strength to strength, until he appears before God." O, dig for this precious water! Search, O search, for this living grace! Make the pool, and trust the faithfulness and loving-kindness of God to fill it with "the early and the latter rain."

No man shall wait upon the Lord in vain. "Those who wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength." They who plough deeply the fallow ground, and in its furrows sow the precious seed, shall not lack the Holy Spirit's descending influence, in silent dew by night, and in copious showers by day, to quicken and to fructify it. Only honor the God of grace in all the means of grace, and God will honor you by imparting to you all grace through the means. "The diligent soul shall be made fat." Return, O return to the forsaken Christ, to the neglected sanctuary, to the despised means, and you shall then no longer have reason to exclaim, "My leanness! my leanness!"

What a truly appalling character it has been the endeavor of these pages to portray- an empty, graceless professor of Christ! Reader, is this your state? Examine yourself, prove your own self, and ascertain truly if you have "Christ in you the hope of glory." Satisfy not yourself with external ceremonies, with the observance of days, of matins, and vespers, and frequent communions- with almsgiving and charities. Are you a well with water? This, this is the great and momentous question which, in the near prospect of death, and of the judgment that follows death, it behooves you to decide. Is Christ dwelling in your heart by his Spirit? Is your religion more than a mere outward profession? O, it is an awful thing to go into eternity with your Bible, and your Psalm-book, or your Prayer-book in your hand, but without Christ living in your soul; with the elements of the Savior's love melting upon your lips, but without the experience of the Savior's love glowing in your heart; to go reposing in false dependence upon Church privileges, and to have come short of the only true foundation upon which the sinner can build his hope of heaven- the sliding sand substituted for the Eternal Rock.

How exactly has the Lord Jesus met such a case! In one of his striking parabolical discourses, he has furnished us with a description of certain people who in the day of judgment will be found to have put in the plea of Church union, and Church ordinances, and Church privileges, as justifying their claim to admission into heaven; but who will be rejected on that very ground, to their shame and everlasting contempt. Listen to his description; "When once the Master of the house is risen up, and has shut to the door, and you begin to stand outside, and to knock at the door, 'saying, Lord, Lord, open unto us; and he shall answer and say unto you, I don't know you. Then shall you begin to say, We have eaten and drunk in your presence, and you have taught in our streets. But he shall say, I tell you, I don't know you; depart from me, all you workers of iniquity."

And who, my reader, are these? Do not be deceived! They are not the profane, and the profligate, and the neglecter of means, and the despiser of ordinances; far otherwise. They are professors of religion, nominal Christians- "almost Christians;" individuals who had been baptized, who frequented the house of God, who were regular in their attendance upon ordinances, and who believed that, by their zealous labors, and their amiable qualities, and their charities and good-will to men, they would at last be saved. But, alas! they are deceived. With all this outward profession, they were unregenerated by the Spirit, were uncircumcised in heart, were unjustified by Christ, and had never become "a habitation of God through the Spirit." Baptism could not regenerate them, the Lord's Supper could not sanctify them, their own works could not justify them; and when with confidence they went up to the very gate of heaven, and knocked for admission, lo! they were met with the stern rebuke, "I don't know you: depart from me, all you workers of iniquity." O beware, we beseech you, of those public teachers who tell you that you were regenerated in baptism, and that the Lord's Supper is the instrument of maintaining you in that state of salvation into which, as they teach, baptism introduced you. Give not place to such false instructors, such blind guides, such perverters of the truth, such soul-destroyers; no, not for one moment. Let not their eloquence entice you, let not their reasoning ensnare you, let not their show of sanctity beguile you. You have interests at stake too dear and precious to peril on such terms as these.

I leave these solemn, searching considerations to your prayerful reflection, passing on to another figurative representation of the Inner Life- in its relapse and recovery.

The Unsavory Salt

"The Inner Life in its Relapsed Influence"

"You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness (savor), how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled by men." Matthew 5:13

The more deeply the subject now engaging our attention- the spiritual life, its decay and recovery- unfolds itself to the mind, the more irresistible and overwhelming must be the conviction of its measureless importance and solemnity. All other considerations, in comparison, having their relation to the present, however important, interesting, and absorbing for the moment, dwindle into insignificance. The personal interests of an individual must, to that individual, be of greater moment and more precious than all other interests. It is a law of nature that we should love ourselves; and it is the law of revelation that we should love our neighbor as ourselves; thus, the word of God, while recognizing the law of self-love, divests it at the same time of its selfishness. Nowhere does this law find such proper and ample scope for its exercise, and in nothing is it more affectingly and strongly appealed to, than in the matter of personal salvation. "For what is a man advantaged, if he gain the whole world, and lose himself, or be cast away?"

The law of self-preservation, the law of his being, is here addressed in its most solemn relation- its relation to eternity. To this eternity we are hastening. We are passing from shadows to realities- from things that are seen and temporal, to things that are unseen and eternal. The inevitable and awful crisis is near, when all that now awakens so much interest, and creates so much excitement, and absorbs so much time, will be as the arrow winged through the air- leaving no impression and no trace. One moment's personal, actual contact with eternity, one drop of the cold moisture of death trembling upon the brow, one dim glimpse within the parting veil of the invisible world, will
dissipate the false, and invest with its true character everything that is real.

We are as much convinced of the truth, as we are conscious of the solemnity of the fact, that if the mind is not then beclouded, and the conscience is not then seared, and the heart is not then abandoned by God to the wedded idol, and the whole soul is not given over to judicial impenitence and unbelief- if indeed there be any spiritual sensibility, or the faintest apprehension of the awfulness of the position- the one question of that tremendous moment will be- "Is my soul in a prepared state to meet God? Am I safe for eternity?"

And yet will it be considered discrepant with this statement to affirm of individuals in general, that men die much as they have lived? It would seem to be the cherished delusion of many, that a kind of spiritual transformation transpires in death; that because death itself is a change of relation, around which gather new sensations, new feelings, new thoughts, new solemnities, new prospects, that therefore the soul passes through a kind of spiritual preparedness to meet its approaching destiny. But such is not the case. The character which time has for years been shaping, it yields to the demands of eternity in the precise mold in which it was formed. Death hands over the soul to the scrutiny and the decisions of the judgment, exactly as life relinquished it. The 'king of terrors' has received no commission and possesses no power to effect a spiritual change in the transit of the spirit to the God who gave it. Its office is to unlock the cell, and conduct the prisoner into court. It can furnish no plea, it can suggest no argument, it can correct no error, it can whisper no hope, to the pale and trembling being on his way to the bar. The jailer must present the criminal to the Judge, precisely as the officer delivered him to the jailer- with all the marks and evidences of criminality and guilt clinging to him as at the moment of arrest.

The supposition of multitudes seems to be, just what we have stated, that when the strange and mysterious, but unmistakable signs of death, are stealing upon them- when the summons to appear before the Judge admits of not a doubt, and allows of no delay, that then what has been held as truth, and now, in the mighty illumination of an unveiling eternity, is found to be error, may be with ease abandoned; and that, however negligent they who have lived all their lifetime without God, may have been of religion, while the last day appeared distant- and however careless they who had made a Christian profession, may have been of the ground of their confidence, and the reason of their hope, under an indefinite expectation of appearing in the presence of God- yet now that the footfall of death is heard approaching, and the invisible world becomes visible through the opening chinks of the earthly house of their tabernacle, they will be enabled to summon all the remainder of strength, and with the utmost strenuousness turn their undivided attention to the business of saving the soul.

But is it really so? Is not the whole course of experience against a supposition so false as this? Do not men die mostly as they have lived? The infidel dies in infidelity, the profligate dies in profligacy, the atheist dies in atheism, the careless die in indifference, and the formalist dies in formality. There are exceptions to this, undoubtedly, but the exceptions confirm rather than disprove the general fact, that men die as they lived. "He that is unjust, let him be unjust still; and he which is filthy, let him be filthy still; and he that is righteous, let him be righteous still; and he that is holy, let him be holy still. And, behold, I come quickly; and my reward is with me, to give to every man according as his work shall be."

In view, then, of this solemn statement, deeply affecting it must be to the Christian professor- we now turn to the great subject immediately before us. If it be thus that our death will derive much of its character and complexion from the present tenor of our life- that in proportion to the lack of spirituality and the undue influence which the world has had upon the mind- to the habitual distance of the walk with God, and the gradual separation from us of those holy, sanctifying influences which go to form the matured, influential, and useful Christian- will be the lack of that bright evidence, and full assured hope in death, which will give to the departing soul an "abundant entrance into the everlasting kingdom," -then, of what great moment is it that every individual professing godliness, should know the exact state of his soul before God! We have endeavored to aid you in this examination by stating the nature of the inner spiritual life, by exhibiting some of the indications and evidences of a state of relapse, and then by portraying the character of the sincere and the false professor of religion.

The decay of Christian influence, under the figure of the unsavory salt, is a topic which seems naturally to follow. The words which suggest the state are taken from one of our Lord's graphic and awakening discourses, in which, with a skill he only was master of, he so dissects and individualizes human character and responsibility, in their relations to the high and paramount claims of God and eternity, as to turn the eye of each believer within upon himself. Addressing professing Christians, he says, "You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness (savor), how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled by men." The world- the salt- the unsavory salt, are the topics which these words suggest.

THE WORLD.
Our first remark bears upon THE WORLD AS CONSTITUTING THE PARTICULAR SPHERE OF THE CHRISTIAN'S INFLUENCE. "You are the salt of the earth." We bestow but little observation, it is feared, upon the spiritual state of the world at large, and upon that portion in particular where our influence is the most concentrated and felt. It is true we admire its beauty, can paint its scenery, are absorbed in its history, are excited by its antiquities, and are astonished by its wonders- but in its momentous relation to eternity, O how little interest does it awaken! I am not about to descant upon the unsatisfying nature of the world, nor upon its passing away. Your own experience of what the world really is- of how much it promises and of how little it performs- will compile a better volume for your study than that which any human pen could compose.

But I refer you to its deep, universal ungodliness. I speak of it as a world full of moral pollution, of anarchy, and of rebellion against God. A world crowded with all the present consequences of sin, poverty and suffering, disease and death. Who can read its statistics of crime, or glance at the journals which chronicle its daily history, and not feel the full force of the truth, that Satan is the supreme god of this world, and that "the whole world lies in wickedness" -literally, 'in the wicked one.' But how insensible are we of this! How faintly and imperfectly do we realize it! How little affected by the hatred- the bloodshed- the intemperance- the debauchery- the fraud- the grinding oppression- the gross injustice- the suffering- the misery- the death- which confront us at every step, and lift their wail of agony and cry of vengeance to heaven! How few of us sigh and cry for all these abominations that are done!

Nor yet of this alone, awful as it is. Equally insensible are we of the existence and progress of error in the world- truth-denying, God-dishonoring, Christ-supplanting, and soul-destroying error. We know and believe that no fallen child of Adam can be saved apart from the knowledge and experience of Divine and revealed truth- that the truth is the instrument of his renewal, and of his sanctification. Believing, then, that men are saved only by the truth, and are made holy only through the truth, how little concerned and alarmed are we by the fearful inroads of doctrinal errors, and popish practices, tending to mislead, and imperil the best interests of the multitudes, to whose blind understanding and sin-loving hearts, the error that rocks the cradle of their soul's deep slumber, is ever more welcome than the truth that disturbs their carnal security, and arouses them from their false repose, by portraying their present sinfulness, and testifying of the " judgment to come."

Such is the world in which Christ has placed his Church as the sphere of its influence, as the theater of its grace, and as the school of its graces. Such is the world of which all sincere believers in Jesus are declared by him to be, individually and collectively, "the salt of the earth."
We now proceed to illustrate and apply this interesting and important truth.

The metaphor of 'salt', from its frequent use in the word of God, has come to be a holy and expressive one. In the sacrifices offered under the Levitical law, God commanded the use of salt; "And every oblation of your meat-offering shall you season with salt; neither shall you allow the salt of the covenant of your God to be lacking from your meat-offering: with all your offerings you shall offer salt." Salt was used in this relation as a symbol of holy sincerity in their service, and as expressive of communion in their worship. We find, too, that God employs salt as an emblem of his everlasting covenant: "All the heave-offerings of the holy things, which the children of Israel offer unto the Lord, have I given you, and your sons and your daughters with you, by a statute forever: it is a covenant of salt forever before the Lord unto you and to your seed with you." When the prophet Elisha was desired to purify the waters of the corrupt fountain of Jericho, he cast salt into them, saying, "Thus says the Lord, I have healed these waters; there shall not be from thence any more death or barren land. So the waters were healed."

But it is under the gospel dispensation we find the richest and most expressive meaning of the figure. When our Lord reminds his people that they are "the salt of the earth," he describes the gracious state of all real believers. The grace of God is that "salt," apart from which all is moral corruption and spiritual decay. Where Divine grace exists not, there is nothing to stunt the growth, or to check the progress, or to restrain the power of the soul's depravity. The fountain pours out its streams of corruption and death, bidding defiance to all human efforts either to purify or restrain. Education cannot, public sentiment cannot, human law cannot, moral persuasion cannot, self-love cannot; all these instruments fail in the attempt. There is going on in the soul a process of moral decay, which, if not averted by grace, must terminate in the intolerable and interminable pangs of the second death- the soul departing into eternity, one mass of moral corruption.

What a spectacle for the eye of a holy God to behold! With all his natural loveliness and amiable instincts- admired, lauded, caressed by man- the being is yet an object of the Divine loathing and abhorrence. If God loves himself, if he delights in his own holiness, he must hate sin, while yet enduring with all patience the sinner, not willing that he should perish. But let one grain of the salt of God's grace fall into this corrupt fountain, and there is deposited a counteracting and transforming element, which at once commences a healing, purifying, and saving process. And, what parental restraint, and the long years of study, and human law, had failed to do, one hour's deep repentance of sin, one believing glance at a crucified Savior, one moment's realization of the love of God, have effectually accomplished.

O the intrinsic preciousness, the priceless value, the sovereign efficacy of this Divine salt- God's converting, sanctifying grace! Effecting a lodgement in the most debased and corrupt heart, it revolutionizes the whole soul, changing its principles, purifying its affections, ennobling its sentiments, and assimilating it to the Divine holiness. Be assured of this, my reader, that nothing short of the grace of God can renew and sanctify your nature, and fit you for the abodes of infinite holiness and bliss. You must become a subject of grace, before you can become an heir of glory.

Thus all true believers in Jesus, from their gracious character, are denominated the "salt of the earth." And why so? Because all that is Divine, and holy, and sanctifying, and precious, exists in them, and in them only. It is found in that nature which the Holy Spirit has renewed, in that heart which Divine grace has changed, in that soul humbled in the dust before God for sin, and now, in the exercise of faith which he has given, reposing on the atoning work of Jesus, exclaiming,
"Other refuge have I none,
Hangs my helpless soul on you."

There, where God's love is felt- there, where the Holy Spirit is possessed- there, where the Savior's atonement is received, and his image is reflected- there is found the precious "salt of the earth." The world does not know it, and even the lowly grace may be veiled from the eye of the church- few mark the silent tear, or see the deep prostration of the spirit before the Lord, or are cognizant of its hidden joy, or measure the extent of the holy influence, noiselessly, yet effectually exerted; but God, looking from his throne of glory through the ranks of pure intelligences that encircle him, beholds it; and in that humble mind, and in that believing heart, he sees the Divine and precious 'salt,' which beautifies, sanctifies, and preserves the world. He sees true holiness nowhere else; he recognizes his own moral image in no other. The Christian is emphatically, "the salt of the earth."

THE SAVORY SALT.
But here a view of the subject presents itself of a deeply interesting character. We allude to the moral and spiritual influence of the Christian as it is exerted. This undoubtedly was the leading thought in the mind of our Lord when he employed the metaphor in its application to his people, "You are the salt of the earth." But in describing this influence, where shall I commence, and where shall I terminate? I can easier place my hand upon its commencement than upon its termination, because it never terminates! Christian influence begins with the first grain of grace, the first throb of life, the first beam of light, the first tear of godly sorrow, the first glance of faith- but its impressions and its results are as lasting as eternity. Solemn thought! The holy, gracious influence of a good man, stretches far away into the invisible world.

But consider his present influence; his sphere, be it what it may, is just what God has made it, but in that sphere, be it limited or boundless, he is God's salt, designed to preserve and to transform, by the holy influence which he exerts, the community in which he dwells. What a blessing is that Christian! Be the relation what it may which binds him to society- a husband, a wife, a parent, a child, a brother, a sister, a friend- he is the salt of the circle in which he moves. That little spark which glows in his bosom, may light the steps of some benighted wanderer to eternity; that measure of grace, diffusing its fragrance through his soul, may cheer and invigorate some tried and drooping spirit; that degree of spiritual knowledge which he possesses, may confirm some waverer, or guide some anxious and perplexed seeker after truth. The holy and commanding influence which God has given him, may, with its power, awe and subdue the mightiest agent of evil; or with its smile, cheer and encourage the weakest and lowliest effort of good. Blessed of God, he is a blessing to man.

Of course it is understood that we are now speaking of the salt that has not lost its savor- the savory salt; we are describing the character and influence of a spiritually-minded Christian- of the influence exerted by one in whom the inner life is in a healthy, vigorous, active state. Such a believer is an incalculable blessing in any sphere in which he may move- he is truly "the salt of the earth:" there is a savoriness about him which reveals his inward grace; his example is savory, his prayers are savory, his conversation is savory; we feel, when we converse with him, that he has the Divine salt in his soul, that we are in the presence of a true Christian, that we are holding communion with one who is wont to hold communion with God, one who dwells near the cross, who lives beneath the anointing, who walks humbly with God, who lives as "beholding Him who is invisible."

There is that in him which bespeaks the gracious man- there is an echo to your voice, a response to your thought, a vibration to your touch, which rebounds upon your own soul with thrilling effect. You feel yourself, as it were, salted afresh by the salt that is in your brother; you have caught the contagion of his holiness- his example has rebuked you, his zeal has quickened you, his love has melted you, his faith has invigorated you, his grace has refreshed you, his smile has gilded the dark cloud that perhaps hung around your spirit, his word has fallen balmy and healing upon your sorrowing, bleeding heart- and the secret of all is, he is "a sweet savor of Christ " to your soul.

The same interpretation of the figure will equally apply to the church of God in its collective capacity. As the conservator of the truth, what a blessing is the Church to the world- the only depository of this Divine and precious treasure- the sole living, practical exhibition of it upon earth- the only Divinely appointed and proper agent for its propagation throughout the world! How solemn and responsible her position, how commanding and far-reaching her influence! The counteracting agent of error is, undoubtedly, its opposite- TRUTH. And who possesses the truth, and who experiences the truth, and who loves the truth, and who guards and disseminates the truth, but the "Church of God, the pillar and ground of the truth?"

And what a preservative of the world has been the truth of God, thus defended and diffused by the influence of the Christian Church! What but the truth, as held and maintained by the different sections of the Church of Christ, has arrested those fearful errors, the inroads of which have already worked such disasters in the world, and the unchecked progress of which must have proved its total destruction? Systems rose, flourished, and fell; schools existed, influenced, and died. Infidelity, popery, semi-popery, anti-Christian, Christ-denying errors, have in their turns, and in different ages, had their day; but the truth, for whose overthrow and destruction they all leagued, confederated, combined, and labored; still lives, and lives to bless and save its enemies.

When false doctrine has come in like a flood, the Spirit of the Lord has lifted up the standard of the gospel, and rolled it back. The pulpit and the press- those powerful agents in the hands of the Church of God- have scattered and broad-cast the salt of truth, and those precious grains have counteracted the influence and stayed the progress of schisms and of errors. What but the salt of truth cast into the fountain of public opinion, by the labors of the Christian Church, has on many occasions so purified and changed its character, that on great questions deeply involving the welfare of individuals, of communities, and of nations- it has sent abroad an influence so healthy, vigorous, and commanding, as to effect a complete revolution in the decisions of cabinets and in the histories of states?

THE UNSAVORY SALT.
But we proceed to speak of the decay of the inner life, as manifest in the impaired vigor of Christian influence, figuratively set forth by "the salt that has lost its savor," and its consequent unprofitableness. The indestructibility of the divine life in the soul of man, the imperishable nature of real grace, is a truth so deeply involving the holiness and happiness of the Christian- and what is of still greater moment- the glory of God, that we would place it in the foreground of the statement we are about to advance. In the most searching investigation we would make into the state of religion in the soul, we would never forget that where there exists real grace, that grace is as imperishable as the God who implanted it; that where true faith has led your trembling footsteps to Jesus, to receive him as all your salvation, that faith is as deathless as its Author.

But with this broad and emphatic statement of a great and holy truth, we must proceed to justify the affecting declaration of the Savior's words, that the salt may lose its savor! In what sense will this apply to the inner, spiritual life of the believer? Most clearly and indisputably in the sense of a declining state of grace, and of its consequent loss of vigorous influence. The first symptom of this state which appears, may be a change which the individual detects in his own soul as to his actual, personal enjoyment of religion. Propose to him the question- With all your observance of external religious duties and activities, what amount of spiritual enjoyment have you of vital religion in your soul? In other words, What real power does the spiritual life within you possess? Have you a heartfelt realization of the actuality and heavenliness of the divine things embodied in your creed, and avowed in your Christian profession? Do spiritual truths have that holy savor and sweetness to your taste which indicate a healthy state of soul? Do you know habitually what close, filial, and confidential communion with God is? -the purifying power of confession? -the frequent sprinkling of the atoning blood? -the meek, submissive temper of mind in trials sent by God, or under provocation received from man?

Were he to reply to these close, searching interrogations, as a man honest with himself and to his God, he would perhaps unhesitatingly answer- "Alas! the salt has lost its savor! There was a period when all this was the happy experience of my soul. There was then a savor in the very name of Jesus- but it is gone! There was a reality in divine truth- but it is gone! There was an attraction in the throne of grace- but it is gone! There was a bright ascending flame upon the altar of my heart, of love to Jesus, of communion with God- but it is gone! I once walked filially with my heavenly Father; I felt the power of godliness in my soul; I knew what heart-religion was, what secret, closet religion was- but alas! the salt has lost its savor!"

Trace another symptom of this 'unsavory religion' in the deterioration through which his graces have passed. His love has lost its fervor, his faith its vigor, his zeal its fire, his spirit its lowliness, his carriage and deportment its gentleness and simplicity. There seems not a grace of the Holy Spirit in his soul to have escaped the blighting influence which has swept over him- not one that has not lost something of its heavenly savor.

The feeble, if not the injurious influence which his religion exerts upon others is not the least marked and affecting evidence of the decay of spiritual life in his soul. His Christianity is of so sickly and doubtful a character, it produces no favorable impression. The world, keen-eyed, eager to discern the mote in the eye, and ever ready to detect the slightest discrepancy of principle and practice- knows him to be a professor of religion, and that is all of his Christianity that it does know. It is aware that he has passed through the solemn ritual of a Christian profession, that he is enrolled among the saints, and mingles in their hallowed services; but such are the glaring inconsistencies of his Christian walk, such is his worldliness, his lust of power, his thirst for wealth, his love of pleasure, the lightness of his spirit, his religion has become a proverb and a by-word among the immoral and profane, and produces no more winning, sanctifying effect upon others, than the salt that has lost its savor.

What is the church holier for his union with her? What is the world better for his religion? What moral darkness does he illumine? What evil does he correct? What misery does he alleviate? What raging vice does he check? What healthy impetus in the career of spiritual progress does his Christian profession give to society? Alas! in all these things he is but as the salt that has lost its savor. Melancholy spectacle! -to witness a professing man, who seemed for a time to run well, and whose Christian example was powerful and commanding, now faltering and pausing in his course, waning and deteriorating in his influence, his religion becoming tasteless and insipid. Yet such is the individual whose affecting character is portrayed by the expressive figure of the Savior.

But a solemn question is proposed- "How can it be made salty again?" In other words, how can such a relapsed state of the spiritual life be recovered? The question of the Savior would seem to imply an utter impossibility in the thing; and we admit that at first sight it would so appear. The case is indeed a trying and a desperate one. Spiritual relapse is easy; but spiritual recovery is difficult. It is easier, we all know, to imbibe a disease, than to counteract and arrest it- to plunge into difficulties than to escape from them. It is thus with the concerns of the soul. A case of 'conversion' would seem to demand less power than a case of 're-conversion'- to enkindle love in a rebel's heart, than to re-kindle it in the heart of a child- to bring a poor sinner to ground his arms, and prostrate himself a penitent suppliant before the cross, than to reclaim a wanderer to the feet of the Savior he had forsaken. Truths, motives, arguments, pleas, once so effective, have now lost their attraction and their power; and pride, shame, and hardness of heart, seem to have gained the ascendancy. The ashes of extinguished affection smother in the heart every fresh spark which each effort to bring back has re-kindled. "How can it be made salty again?"

But THE RECOVERY is not impossible, and the case, therefore, is not hopeless. The salt may again be salted; the inner life may be revived; the waning strength may be restored; and the salt of grace, now apparently worthless and lost, may yet again be recovered, and prove as sweet and savory as before. Let it be observed, that Jesus speaks of the salt being re-salted. Impossible as this may be to man, with God it is possible. By infusing a new life into the renewed nature, a fresh impartation of grace to the heart; by rekindling the smouldering embers in the soul; and thus by putting his hand again to the entire work of resuscitating, restoring, and reviving the whole inner man, the salt, re-salted, may regain its former sweetness and power.

The means by which this great and gracious recovery may be effected, are such as his wisdom will suggest and his sovereignty will adopt. But of this we may rest assured- all will be under the direction of unchangeable love. Whether it may be by the gentle gales of the Spirit, or by the severe tempest of trial, is but of little moment in comparison of the happy and glorious result. If the salt that has lost its savor be but re-salted, the mysterious process by which it is effected we will calmly and submissively leave in his hands. "This also comes forth from the Lord of hosts, who is wonderful in counsel, and excellent in working."

We would suggest, in concluding this chapter, the Savior's injunction as supplying an effectual check to this tendency to relapsed influence in the spiritual life- "Have salt in yourselves." Adding to this the apostle's exhortation- "Let your speech be aways with grace, seasoned with salt." Repair constantly to Christ, where a sufficiency of grace for each day, and for each circumstance of each day, will keep your soul supplied and nourished; so that while restraining and upholding, sanctifying and comforting grace is abundantly vouchsafed for yourself, the influence of that same grace will make you a far-reaching and an untold blessing to others.

David in the Dust, Breathing after God

"The Re-quickening of the Inner Life"

"My soul cleaves unto the dust; quicken me according to your word." -Psalm 119:25.

We have more than once in this work adverted to the indestructible nature of true grace, the deathlessness of God's life in man's soul. But we may associate with this truth another idea. Not only cannot the spiritual life be destroyed- but it cannot even, for any great length of time, be depressed. Such is its divine elasticity- so to speak- such its vital energy, whatever the superincumbent weight sinking it to the earth, whatever the fetters that would confine it to the dust- it succeeds eventually in throwing off its pressure, in bursting its bonds, and in soaring again to its native skies. Thus in the lowest spiritual frame of the child of God, though cleaving even to the dust, there is a divine, ascending power in the soul, which ever lifts it in holy breathings and aspirations after God. Not merely is the principle of spiritual life secured, but its power cannot be destroyed.

How striking the confirmation of this truth afforded by the experience of David- two or three features of whose spiritual history we propose, in the present and succeeding chapters, to review, as illustrative of a relapsed and recovered state of the inner life. We can scarcely imagine a lower depth of sorrow and humiliation to a heavenly mind than that set forth by the words, "My soul cleaves to the dust," -prostrated, groveling in the very earth. And yet, behold the indestructible principle of grace! -his soul mounts heavenward, in the holiest and most spiritual breathings that ever rose from human lips- "Quicken me according to your word." May the Spirit of God now be our teacher, and impart to each reader a personal application of his truth, while from these instructive and striking words we consider the RE-QUICKENING OF THE INNER LIFE OF THE
SOUL.

We must not, however, entirely overlook DAVID'S PAINFUL AND HUMILIATING POSTURE AND CONFESSION- "My soul cleaves to the dust." There is a profound signification in this sentence. Were we to restrict its meaning to the unconverted state of man, what words, or what image, could more forcibly and vividly describe and portray that fearful condition? No principle is more true and palpable than that the center of the soul's moral gravity is earth. It originally was heaven: "God made man upright." The center of his soul's repose was God. Standing erect in conscious innocence, his countenance, the index of his soul, was elevated, beholding the countenance of his Father and his God.
"While other creatures towards the earth look down,
God gave to man a front sublime, and raised
His noble view to scope the starry heavens."
But falling from that elevation, his soul wandering away from God, earth then became the center of its gravitation. All his moral and intellectual tendencies are now downward and earthly. It is an awful view to take of a rational and immortal being, and yet from its truthfulness we dare not shrink. "The first man is of the earth, earthy." He is described as "minding earthly things." Earth is the center to which all the faculties and powers of his soul tend, the point where all his schemes terminate, the boundary by which all his desires and expectations are limited. This little planet of ours circumscribes all the powers and tendencies, tastes and pursuits, of his rational and deathless mind. Select the most intellectual pursuits, the most refined enjoyments, the most reasonable schemes that ever awoke a thought or inspired a feeling in the natural man, and the utmost we can say of it is- It is of the earth, earthy. His soul cleaves to the dust; his mind clings to, and grovels upon, the earth. There is nothing of God in his thoughts, of Christ in his affections, or of eternity in his plans. There is no looking beyond this little speck of matter, which, like the insect crawling upon its leaf, seems all the universe to him. As that insect knows nothing of, and cares nothing for, a world teeming with life beyond its microscopic boundary, so the carnal mind- alas that an irrational creature should be our comparison! -groveling upon the ground, sees not what a world, thinks not what a universe, stretches far away beyond it, of which it soon itself is to be an inhabitant.

For this flight of the soul to eternity, for this its solemn appearing in the presence of God- its scrutiny, its judgment, and its destiny- is there any adequate care, or thought, or preparation? None whatever! Everything else is cared for, prepared for, and thought of, except the soul's departure to the other world. Is not this folly? is it not madness? is it not a crime of the deepest dye? "Earthly, sensual, devilish," he cleaves to the dust. All his enterprises, pleasures, aggrandizements- magnificent, refined, noble as they are-
spring from the dust, are restricted to the dust, and with the dust they perish forever. What an awful, yet unexaggerated description, is this of the natural man! Reader, if not a subject of the converting grace of God, you are the original of this dark, gloomy, repulsive picture!

But the words upon which we are now commenting are those of a living, heaven-born, heaven-breathing, and heaven-destined soul. They admit us into one of the secrets of the inner and divine life, with which, alas! we are, the most of us, but too familiar. Shall we attempt an analysis of this peculiar state of spiritual mind, of which David's language is so expressive? It presents a mournful acknowledgment of the influence of an evil nature. David deeply felt this. Flesh in the child of God is as really flesh as in the child of Satan. The old man, the Adamic nature,
is precisely the same that it always was. Regeneration does not transform 'flesh' into 'spirit'. It proposes not to eradicate and expel the deep-seated root of our degenerate nature; but it imparts another and a supernatural nature- it implants a new and an antagonistic principle. This new nature is divine; this new principle is holy; and thus the believer becomes the subject of two natures, and his soul a battle-field, upon which a perpetual conflict is going on between the law of the members and the law of the mind; often resulting in his temporary captivity to the law of sin which is in his members. Thus every spiritual mind is painfully conscious of the earthly tendency of his evil nature, and that from the flesh he can derive no sympathy or help, but rather everything that discourages, encumbers, and retards his spirit in its breathings and strugglings after holiness. His "soul cleaves to the dust."

A mournful sense of the seductive power of earthly things enters deeply into this state of mind. As we bear about with us, in every step, an earthly nature, it is not surprising that its affinities and sympathies should be earthly; that earthly objects should possess a magnetic influence, perpetually attracting to themselves whatever was congenial with their own nature in the soul of the renewed man. Our homeward path lies through a captivating and ensnaring world. The world, chameleon-like, can assume any color, and Proteus-like, any shape, suitable to its purpose, and answerable to its end. There is not a mind, a conscience, or a taste, to which it cannot accommodate itself. For the gross, it has sensual pleasures; for the refined, it has polished enjoyments; for the thoughtful, it has intellectual delights; for the enterprising, it has bold, magnificent schemes. The child of God feels this engrossing power; he is conscious of this seductive influence. Worldly applause- who is entirely proof against its power? Human adulation- who can resist its incense? Creature power- who is free from its captivation? Love of worldly ease and respectability, influence and position; a liking to glide smoothly along the sunny tide of the world's good opinion- who is clad in a coat of armor so impervious as to resist these attacks? Have not the mightiest fallen before them? Such are some only of the many ensnaring influences which weave themselves around the path of the celestial traveler, often extorting from him the humiliating acknowledgment- "My soul cleaves to the dust."

In this category we may include things which, though they are in themselves of a lawful nature, are yet of an earthly tendency, deteriorative of the life of God in the soul. What heavenly mind is not sadly sensible of this? Our ever-foremost, sleepless, subtle foe, stands by and says, "This is lawful, and you may freely and unrestrictedly indulge in it." But another and a solemn voice is heard issuing from the sacred oracle of truth, "All things are lawful for me, but all things are not expedient." And yet, how often are we forced to learn the lesson, that lawful things may, in their wrong indulgence and influence, become unlawful, through the spiritual leanness which they engender in the soul! Oh, it is a narrow path which conducts us back to paradise! But our Lord and Master made it so; he himself has trodden it, "leaving us an example that we should follow his steps;" and he, too, is sufficient for its narrowness. Yes; such is the gravitating tendency to earth of the carnal nature within us, we are ever prone and ever ready, at each bland smile of the world, and at each verdant, sunny spot of the wilderness, to retire into the circle of self-complaisance and self-indulgence, and take up our rest where, from the polluted and unsatisfying nature of all earthly things, real rest can never be found. Thus may even lawful affections, and lawful enjoyments, and lawful pursuits and pleasures, wring the confession from the lips of a heavenly-minded man- "My soul cleaves unto the dust."

But there is sometimes a casting down to the dust which springs immediately from the mighty hand of God himself. The Lord occasionally brings his people very low. He may lay upon them heavy trial, sore affliction, causing them to 'be low in a low place.' This is often done to take off the rough edge of their too free indulgences, to humble them in the midst of their too fond enjoyments; and thus to prove their grace, and to exercise their graces, God brings them down even to the dust. Because we cannot keep our hearts low, therefore God makes our condition low.

Such, reader, was the low estate of David when he exclaimed, "My soul cleaves to the dust!" Ah! how many whose eye scans this page may take up and breathe his words! You feel a deadness, a dulness, and an earthliness, in enjoyments, and duties, and privileges, in which your whole soul should be all life, all fervor, all love. You are low where you ought to be elevated; you grovel where you ought to soar; you cleave to the earth where you ought to be embracing the heavens. Your thoughts are low; your affections are low; your feelings are low; your spirits are low; and you seem almost ready to question the existence of the life of God in your soul. But even in this sad and depressed state, may there not be something cheering, encouraging, hopeful?

There was evidently in David's- "My soul cleaves unto the dust; quicken me." This was the cheering, encouraging, hopeful feature in the psalmist's case- his breathing after the re-quickening of the Divine life of his soul. Here was that which marked him a man of God. It was a living man complaining of his deadness, and breathing after more life. It was a heaven-born soul lamenting its earthliness, and panting after more of heaven. It was a spiritual man mourning over his carnality, and praying for more spirituality. It is not the prayer of one conscious of the low state of his soul, and yet satisfied with that state. Perhaps no expression is more familiar to the ear, and no acknowledgment is more frequently on the lips of religious professors, than this. And yet, where is the accompanying effort to rise above it? Where is the putting on of the armor? Where is the conflict? Where is the effort to emerge from the dust, to break away from the enthralment, and soar into a higher and purer region?

Alas! many from whose lips smoothly glides the humiliating confession, still embrace the dust, and seem to love the dust, and never stretch their pinions to rise above it. But let us study closely this lesson of David's experience, that while deep lamentation filled his heart, and an honest confession breathed from his lips, there was also a breathing, a panting of soul, after a higher and a better state. He seemed to say- "Lord, I am prostrate, but I long to rise; I am fettered, but I struggle to be free; my soul cleaves to the dust, but, quicken me!" Similar to this was the state of the Church so graphically depicted by Solomon in his Song- "I sleep, but my heart wakes."

But what does the petition, thus breathed, imply? What does the blessing, thus craved, involve? First, a restoration of soul from past backslidings. Let the spiritual believer but take the history of a single week as the gauge of the general tenor of his life, and what a lesson does it read to him of the downward, earthly tendency of his soul! Yes, in one short week how have the wheels lessened in their revolutions- how has the timepiece of his soul lost its power- how have the chords of his heart be come unstrung! But his prayer is for Divine quickening. What a petition! and what a blessing! "Quicken me." Blessed is that soul that can echo these words. The Lord quickens the longing souls of his people. "He restores my soul," is the testimony not of David only. What do we rank among our most prized mercies? -what do we count our sweetest joys? -what constitutes our most hallowed seasons? Are they not the fresh gales of grace from heaven, blowing softly over our souls? and "lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone; the flowers appear on the earth; the time of the singing of birds is come, and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land; the fig-tree puts forth her green figs, and the vines with the tender grapes give a good smell." What a spring-time of soul is it then! It is a 'little reviving' from the Lord- a quickening of the soul in its dead, wintry state.

This prayer also implies what, alas! is so needful in many, a re-conversion of soul. It is a putting of the Lord's hand a second time to the work of grace in the heart. "When you are converted," said our Lord to Peter, "strengthen your brethren." What! had not Peter already been converted? Most truly. But although a regenerate man, he had so relapsed in grace as to need a re-conversion. Our Lord's meaning, then, obviously is, "When you are restored, recovered, re-quickened, then strengthen your brethren." How many religious professors stand in need of a fresh baptism of the Holy Spirit! You, perhaps, my reader, are one. Where is the spiritual vigor you once displayed? where the spiritual joy you once possessed? where the unclouded hope you once indulged? where the humble walk with God you once maintained? where the fragrance that once breathed around you? Alas! your soul cleaves to the dust; and you need the reconverting grace, the renewed baptism of the Spirit. "Quicken me!" is your prayer.

A clearer manifestation of Divine life in the soul is not the least blessing contained in this prayer for quickening. How little realization enters into the religion of many! There is the full credence of the judgment to the truth; a conversing about religion, the ministry, and the church. But where is felt the realizing power, the earth-fading, heaven-attracting power, of vital godliness in the soul? Dear reader, the hour that will bring your religious profession, your religious creed, your religious notions, to the test, is at hand; and the great question in that awful moment will be, "Am I fit to die? -have I in my soul the life of God? -am I born of the Spirit? -have I a living Christ in my now failing, dying heart?"

But what a prayer is this in view of a scene and a scrutiny so solemn: "Quicken me! Lord, quicken your work in my soul, and strengthen that which you have wrought in me. The love that congeals, the faith that trembles, the hope that fluctuates, the joy that droops; may you inspire with new life, new energy, new power! It is of little moment what others think of me; Lord, you know my soul cleaves to the dust. There is in my heart more of earth than of heaven; more of self than of Christ; more of the creature than of God. You know me in secret- how my grace wanes, how my affections chill, how seldom my closet is visited, how much my Bible is neglected, how insipid to my taste the means of grace, and how irksome and vapid are all spiritual duties and privileges. Lord, stir up yourself to the revivifying of my soul; quicken, O quicken you me in your ways. Enlarge my heart, that I may run the way of your commandments."

THE ARGUMENT with which this holy petition is urged is most powerful and prevalent- "According to your word." According to the promise of the word, and the instrumentality of the word. Both are engaged to quicken the soul. The promise is most precious: "I will heal their backslidings, I will love them freely; for my anger is turned away from him. I will be as the dew unto Israel: he shall grow as the lily, and cast forth his roots as Lebanon. Those who dwell under his shadow shall return; they shall revive as the corn, and grow as the vine." This precious promise to quicken and revive you, to shed the dews of his grace upon your soul, thus moistening and nourishing the roots and stems, and fruits of the new and heavenly life within you, God stands ready to fulfil in your holy and happy experience: "I will be as the dew unto Israel." Christ is our dew- the dew of his love, the dew of his grace, the dew of his Spirit, is prepared- silent and unseen, but effectual and vivifying- to fall upon the renewed powers of your nature-reviving the work of God in your soul.

But by the instrumentality of the word, the Lord quickens the soul. The word of Christ is "spirit and life;" therefore it is a quickening word. "This is my comfort in my affliction; for your word has quickened me." Again, "I will never forget your precepts; for with them you have quickened me." Therefore did Jesus pray to his Father in behalf of his Church, "Sanctify them through your truth." Thus does the word quicken.

We are here constrained to suggest an inquiry- May not the prevalent decay of spiritual life in the church of God- the low standard of spirituality, the alarming growth of soul-destroying error- the startling discovery which some modern teachers appear to have stumbled upon, that doctrines which the church of Christ has ever received as revealed truth, which councils have authorised, and which creeds have embodied, and which the sanctified intellects of master spirits- the Anakims and the Shamgars of polemic divinity and divine philosophy of past ages- have contended for and maintained, are not found in the Bible, but are the visionary dogma of a bygone age- we say, may not these prevalent evils be mainly attributable to the contempt thrown upon the word of God?

We verily and solemnly believe it to be so. We need to be constantly reminded that the great regenerator and emancipator of the world is the Bible- that nothing short of this will disturb the spiritual death which universally prevails, and that nothing short of this will free the human mind from the shackles of error and superstition which enslave at this moment nearly two-thirds of the human race. This "Sword of the Spirit," -like that of Goliath, "there is none like it" -has overcome popery and infidelity, and, unimpaired by the conflict, it is ready to overcome them yet again. Give me the circulation of the Bible, and with this mighty engine I will overthrow the tyranny of Antichrist, and establish the fair and original form of Christianity. O that in this day of sad departure from the word of God, we may rally round the Bible in closer and more united phalanx! Firm in the belief of its divinity, strong in the conviction of its potency, may we go forth in the great conflict of truth and error, wielding no weapon but the "Sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God." In all our spiritual relapses, too, may the word of the Lord quicken us: may it, like a mighty lever, raise our soul from the dust to which it so much cleaves!

And what will be some of the EFFECTS of a revived, re-quickened state of the inner life? Oh, many and blessed! Then will follow a clearer perception of Divine truth, the meaning and beauty of which, now so much obscured by reason of the dust which adheres to the soul, will appear in clearer and richer luster. The public means of grace will be seen to be Divinely appointed and indispensably needful. Vain excuse for their neglect will be laid aside, and the Sabbath and the week-day services will find you at your "well," waiting for Him who stands by it, to draw the water and give you to drink. Private duties will be sought more eagerly, and will be found more precious. The dust will be swept from your Bible, and the smouldering embers be rekindled upon your altar, and you will be found "watching daily at the Lord's gates, waiting at the posts of his door."

The seal of adoption more deeply impressed upon your heart, you will have a more vivid sense of your sonship, and "Abba, Father," will oftener breathe from your lips. Tribulation and suffering- the cup which your Heavenly Father may give you to drink- will then be received without a question, and be drunk without a murmur. Your spiritual influence, now so greatly impaired, will then, in the exhibition of a more healthy profession of Christianity, of a more holy and consistent example, be felt, acknowledged, and honored. These are but a mere tithe of the blessings which will result from your re-quickening.

We may here meet a question which has often been asked by those who are conscious of a relapsed state of soul. "Am I still to be found in spiritual duties and enjoyments while sensible of a backsliding state of heart from God?" To this we reply- The warrant of a Christian's duty is not the measure of his grace, but the command of his God. If this be so- and we have no reason to question its truth- then be your state of soul low as it may, you are bound to meet all those obligations and to discharge all those duties which a profession of Christ enjoins, irrespective of the spiritual and mental fluctuations to which the soul is always exposed.

Unless you are aware of his design, Satan will here attain a great advantage over you. Assuming the form of an angel of light, and with angelic gentleness and plausibility, he will suggest that your frame of soul is too torpid and lifeless and dull to draw near to God. That your affections are too frigid, your love too congealed, your heart too carnal, your mind too groveling, your pursuits too earthly, your backslidings too great, your neglects too many to take to Christ. He will hold up to view the folly and the hypocrisy and the inconsistency of being found in the employment and use of holy and spiritual duties, while your soul thus cleaves to the dust. But listen not to his false suggestions, and heed not his sophistical reasoning, no not for a moment. It is only in the way of waiting upon God that you will be recovered from the lapsed state of your soul. In the way of meditation, of confession, of tears, of prayer, you may yet rise from the dust, and with bolder pinion, and richer plumage, and sweeter song, soar to the gate of heaven, and return again, scattering around you its blessings, and reflecting its glory. Oh! go to Jesus, then, however low and discouraging your spiritual state may be, and relax not a single mean of grace.

Allow a CLOSING EXHORTATION. Beware how you clog yourself needlessly with the dust; there is no necessity why you should cling to it. It is most true, that in the dust of self-abasement you cannot lie too deeply. "I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes," says the repentant Job. "He puts his mouth in the dust; if so be there may be hope," says the weeping Jeremiah. But the dust of earthly pursuits and pleasures are not suited to you as a heaven-born soul. The dust is the serpent's food, not the bread of a renewed mind. You were born again- not to dig into the earth with the mole, but to soar to the heavens with the eagle. Your God is in heaven, your Savior is in heaven, the glorified saints are in heaven; and in faith, and in hope, and in conversation, you should be in heaven also.

Then do not clog yourself needlessly with dust. Do not be in haste to be rich. Do not be anxious after great worldly enterprises, magnificent schemes, with a view merely of accumulating wealth. "Those who will be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful lusts, which drown men in destruction and perdition." Be content with God's disposal of you, and with his allotment
to you. Walking uprightly and in his fear, you shall lack no good thing. "He will never leave you, nor forsake you, so that you may boldly say, The Lord is my helper." Let the world, and worldly things, sit lightly upon you. Its smiles and its frowns, its caresses and its woundings, are but for a moment- and then all will forever have fled.

"Now let me say this, dear brothers and sisters: The time that remains is very short, so husbands should not let marriage be their major concern. Happiness or sadness or wealth should not keep anyone from doing God's work. Those in frequent contact with the things of the world should make good use of them without becoming attached to them, for this world and all it contains will pass away." Arise, then, and shake yourself from the dust, and put on your beautiful garments, and array yourself in your costly ornaments- the righteousness of the incarnate God, and the graces of the sanctifying Spirit. Thus quickened and revived, thus rising from the dust to which your soul has so long been cleaving, O how sweetly will you sing as heavenward you soar! "I will greatly rejoice in the Lord, my soul shall be joyful in my God: for he has clothed me with the garments of salvation, he has covered me with the robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom decks himself with ornaments, and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels."

Go to Jesus just as you are. Take your deadness to Christ- take your barrenness to Christ- take your decay to Christ- take to Christ your frame of mind just as it is. Jesus stands between you and God, prepared to present to God every sigh, and groan, and desire, and tear, and request; and to convey from God every blessing, covenant, blood-purchased blessing, which it is possible for him to give, or needful for you to receive. Exult in the prospect of soon reaching heaven, where there are no frosts to congeal, where there is no blight to wither, and where no earthly tendencies will ever weigh down to the dust the life of God in your soul.

The Broken and Contrite Heart

"The Penitence and Prayer of the Inner Life"

"The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: a broken and a contrite heart, O God, you will not despise." -Psalm 51:17.

It has been the lowly but the earnest attempt of the preceding pages to stir up the grace of God in the living, believing soul. There is not a moment in the history of the child of God- even those moments that would appear the most favorable to the progress of the Divine life- but there is a tendency in that grace to descend. We have seen how affluent the Word of God is in its metaphorical elucidation of this important subject. And if the figure of 'gray hairs' -of 'wells without water' -of the 'salt that has lost its savor,' can at all depict this melancholy condition of the soul's spiritual deterioration, then is the sad portrait presented to our view in its most vivid coloring, as drawn by the hand of a Divine master.

Although we might have dwelt much longer on this part of our general subject- for we have by no means exhausted all the metaphors of the Bible illustrative of a relapsed state of the spiritual life- but anxious to apply to the disease we have been probing- we hope with not too rude a hand- the Divine balm which the Great Healer has mercifully provided, we leave at this stage of our work the consideration of the relapse, and pass on to that of the recovery- praying, that if to the mind of the reader there is any real discovery of the low state of his soul, if any true and powerful concern as to that state, if any secret contrition, any lowly repentance, and any breathing after a better and a revived condition of the inner life, the words of the royal penitent, which we are about to open up, may fall upon his wounded spirit like balsam from the bleeding tree- with an influence soothing, cheering, and healing.

How sweet and expressive are the words- "The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: a broken and a contrite heart, O God, you will not despise!" In further prosecution of our design, let us direct our attention to this broken heart, as unfolding the certain evidence of a recovered state of spiritual relapse- and then, to God's especial regard for it, as constituting the great encouragement to our return.

THE BROKEN HEART.
The subject enters deeply into the very soul of real, vital religion. All other religion that excludes as its basis the state of mind portrayed in these words, is as the shell without the pearl, the body without the spirit. It has ever been a leading and favorite scheme of Satan to persuade men to substitute the 'religion of man' for the 'religion of God'. The religion of man has assumed various forms and modifications, always accommodating itself to the peculiar age and history of the world. Sometimes it has been the religion of intellect- and men have prostrated themselves before the goddess of reason. Sometimes it has been the religion of creeds- and men have prided themselves upon the bulwarks of a well-balanced and accurate orthodoxy. At other times it has been the religion of the ascetic and the recluse- and men have fled from the dwellings, of the living, and have entombed themselves in caves and dungeons of the earth. Yet again, it has been the religion of forms and ceremonies- and men have strutted forth in the fancied apparel of superior sanctity. And thus we might proceed almost ad infinitum. All these are human religions, invented by Satan, and palmed upon the world as the religion of God.

We have observed tat the religion of man- be its form what it may- has ever kept at the remotest distance from the spiritual; every thing that brought the mind in contact with truth, and the conscience and the heart into close converse with itself and with God, it has studiously and carefully avoided- and thus it has evaded that state and condition of the moral man which constitutes the very soul of the religion of God- "the broken and contrite heart."

There is a sense in which the history of the world is the history of broken hearts. Were the epitaph of many over whose graves- those "mountain-peaks of a new and distant world" we thoughtlessly pass, faithfully inscribed upon the marble tablet that rears above them so proudly its beautifully chiseled form, it would be this- "Died of a Broken Heart." Worldly adversity, blighted hope, the iron heel of oppression, or the keen tongue of slander, crushed the sensitive spirit, and it fled where the rude winds blow not, and "where the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest." Passing beyond the limit of time, we visit in imagination the gloomy precincts of the lost, and lo! we find that the abodes of the finally impenitent are crowded with weeping, mourning, despairing souls. Yes! there are broken hearts there- and there are tears there- and there is repentance there, such as the betrayer of his Lord felt, before he "went to his own place," -but, alas! it is the "sorrow of the world, which works death."

In all this worldly grief, there enters nothing of that element which gives its character and complexion to the sorrow of David- the broken and contrite heart, the sacrifice of God which he despises not. A man may weep, and a lost soul may despair, from the consequences of sin; but in that sorrow and in that despair there shall be no real heartfelt grief for sin itself, as a thing against a holy and a righteous God. But we are now to contemplate, not the broken spirit merely, but the contrite heart also- the sorrow of sincere repentance and deep contrition springing up in the soul for sin- its exceeding sinfulness and abomination in the sight of God.

The state which we have now in contemplation defines the first stage in conversion. The repentance which is enkindled in the heart at the commencement of the Divine life, may be legal and tending to bondage; nevertheless it is a spiritual, godly sorrow for sin, and is 'unto life.' The newly awakened and aroused sinner may at first see nothing of Christ, he may see nothing of the blood of atonement, and of God's great method of reconciliation with him, he may know nothing of faith in Jesus as the way of peace to his soul- yet, he is a true and sincere spiritual penitent. The tear of holy grief is in his eye- ah! we forget not with what ease some can weep; there are those the fountain of whose sensibility lies near the surface- an arousing discourse, an affecting book, a thrilling story, will quickly moisten the eye,but still we must acknowledge that the religion of Jesus is the religion of sensibility; that there is no godly repentance without feeling, and no spiritual contrition apart from deep emotion.

Yes! the tear of holy grief is in his eye; and if ever it is manly to weep, surely it is now, when for the first time the soul that had long resisted every appeal to its moral consciousness, is now smitten to the dust, the heart of adamant broken, and the lofty spirit laid low before the cross of Jesus. O it is a holy and a lovely spectacle, upon which angels, and the Lord of angels himself, must look with ineffable delight. Reader, have you reached this the primary stage in the great change of conversion? Have you taken this the first step in the soul's travel towards heaven? It is the knowledge of the disease which precedes the application to the remedy; it is the consciousness of the wound which brings you into contact with the Healer and the healing. O who, once having experienced the truth, would wish to escape this painful and humiliating process? who would refuse to drink the wormwood and the gall, if only along this path he could reach the sunlight spot where the smiles of a sin-pardoning God fall in focal glory and power? Who would not bare his bosom to the stroke, when the hand that plucks the dart and heals the wound, is the hand through whose palm the rough nail was driven- "wounded for our transgressions, bruised for our iniquities?" Who would not endure the uneasiness of sin, but to feel the rest that Jesus gives to the weary? and who would not experience the mourning for transgression, but to know the comfort which flows from the loving heart of Christ?

Again the question is put- has the Spirit of God revealed to you the inward plague, has he brought you just as you are to Jesus, to take your stand upon the doctrine of his unmerited, unpurchased mercy- asking for pardon as a beggar, praying for your discharge as a bankrupt, and beseeching him to take you as a homeless wanderer into the refuge of his loving and parental heart?

THE DIVINE RESTORING.
But the state of holy contrition which we are describing marks also a more advanced stage in the experience of the spiritual man; a stage which defines one of the most interesting periods of the Christian's life- the Divine restoring. David was a backslider. Deeply and grievously had he departed from God. But he was a restored backslider, and, in the portion we are now considering, we have the unfoldings of his sorrow-stricken, penitent, and broken heart, forming, perhaps, to some who read this page, the sweetest portion of God's word. But of the truth of this we are quite assured, that in proportion as we are brought into the condition of godly sorrow for sin, deep humiliation for our backslidings from God, our relapses, and declensions in grace, there is no portion of the sacred word that will so truly express the deep emotions of our hearts, no language so fitted to clothe the feelings of our souls, as this psalm of the royal penitent: "Have mercy upon me, O God, according to your loving-kindness: according unto the multitude of your tender mercies blot out my transgressions. Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin. For I acknowledge my transgressions: and my sin is ever before me. Against you, you only, have I sinned, and done this evil in your sight: that you might be justified when you speak, and be clear when you judge."

Thus upon the altar of God he lays the sacrifice of a broken heart, and seems to exclaim, "Wretch that I am to have forsaken such a God, to have left such a Father, Savior and Friend. Has he ever been unto me a wilderness, a barren land? Never! Have I ever found him a broken cistern? Never! Has he ever proved to me unkind, unfaithful, untrue? Never! What! did not God satisfy me, had not Jesus enough for me, did not a throne of grace make me happy, that I should have turned my back upon such a God, should have forsaken such a bosom as Christ's, and slighted the spot where my heavenly Father had been so often wont to meet and commune with me? Lord! great has been my departure, grievous my sin, and now most bitter is my sorrow; here at your feet, upon your altar, red with the blood of your own sin-atoning sacrifice, I lay my poor, broken, contrite heart, and beseech you to accept and heal it."
"Behold, I fall before your face;
My only refuge is your grace.
No outward forms can make me clean,
The leprosy lies deep within."

Such is the holy contrition which the Spirit of God works in the heart of the restored believer. Such is the recovery of the soul from its spiritual and mournful relapse. Brought beneath the cross and in the sight of the crucified Savior, the heart is broken, the spirit is melted, the eye weeps, the tongue confesses, the bones that were broken rejoice, and the contrite child is once more clasped in his Father's forgiving, reconciled embrace. "He restores my soul," is his grateful and adoring exclamation. O what a glorious God is ours, and what vile wretches are we!

But there is one declaration of the royal penitent which enunciates a most precious truth- the Lord's especial regard for the broken and the contrite heart. "A broken and a contrite heart, O God, you will not despise." There are those by whom it is despised. Satan despises it- though he trembles at it. The world despises it- though it stands in awe of it. The Pharisee despises it- though he attempts its counterfeit. But there is one who despises it not. "YOU will not despise it," exclaims this penitent child, with his eye upon the loving heart of his God and Father. But why does God not only not despise it, but delights in and accepts it? Because he sees in it a holy and a fragrant sacrifice. It is a sacrifice, because it is offered to God, and not to man.

It is an oblation laid upon his altar. Moses never presented such an oblation- Aaron never offered such a sacrifice in all the gifts which he offered, in all the victims which he slew. And while some have cast their rich and splendid gifts into the treasury, or have laid them ostentatiously upon the altar of Christian benevolence, God has stood by the spot to which some poor penitent has brought his broken heart for sin, the incense of which has gone up before Him as a most precious and fragrant sacrifice. Upon that oblation, upon that gift, his eye has been fixed, as if one object, and one only, had arrested and absorbed his gaze- it was a poor, broken heart that lay bleeding and quivering upon His altar.

It is a sacrifice, too, offered upon the basis of the atoning sacrifice of his dear Son- the only sacrifice that satisfies Divine justice- and this makes it precious to God. So infinitely glorious is the atonement of Jesus, so divine, so complete, and so honoring to every claim of his moral government, that he accepts each sacrifice of prayer, of praise, of penitence, and of personal consecration, laid in faith by the side and upon that one infinite Sacrifice for sin.

He recognizes in it, too, the work of his own Spirit. When the Spirit of God moved upon the face of unformed nature, and a new world sprang into life, light, and beauty, he pronounced it very good. But what must be his estimate of that new creation which his Spirit has wrought in the soul, whose moral chaos he has reduced to life, light, and order! If God so delighted in the material and the perishable creation, how deep and ineffable must be his delight in the spiritual and the imperishable creation! If such his satisfaction at a new-born world, destined so soon to be marred by sin, and smitten by the curse, and consumed by the flames- what do you think must be his satisfaction in beholding a world springing from its ruins, whose purity sin shall never deface, whose loveliness no curse shall ever blight, and whose duration shall survive in ever-growing and imperishable beauty and grandeur the destruction of all worlds!

But in what way does God evince his satisfaction with, and his delight in, the broken and contrite heart? We answer- first, by the manifestation of his power in healing it. There are two portions of God's word in which this truth is strikingly brought out. "He heals the broken in heart, and binds up their wounds." The office of Jesus as a Divine healer is with signal beauty set forth- "The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me; because the Lord has anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek; he has sent me to bind up the broken-hearted." Never did a physician more delight to display his skill, or exercise the benevolent feelings of his nature in the alleviation of suffering, than does Jesus in his work of binding up, soothing and healing the heart broken for sin, by speaking a sense of pardon, and applying to it the balsam of his own most precious blood. But our Lord not only heals the contrite heart, but as if heaven had not sufficient attraction as his dwelling-place, he comes down to earth and makes that heart his abode: "Thus says the Lord, To this man will I look, even to him that is poor and of a contrite spirit, and trembles at my word." And again, "Thus says the high and lofty One that inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy, I dwell in the high and holy place, with him also who is of a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite ones."

What, dear, humble penitent, could give you such a view of the interest which Christ takes in your case- the delight with which he contemplates your contrition, and the welcome and the blessing which he is prepared to bestow upon you, on your casting yourself down at his feet, no, in throwing yourself in his very arms, wide expanded to receive you, than this fact, that he waits to make that sorrow-stricken heart of yours his chief and loved abode- reviving it, healing it, and enshrining himself forever within its renewed and sanctified affections.

Thus we have attempted to describe the twofold process by which the lapsed state of the inner life is arrested and restored- this process, as we have shown, consisting in the knowledge which the believer entertains of the real state of the spiritual life in his soul, and then in the godly sorrow, the holy contrition, which that discovery produces. What more shall we say? One thing only. Be your state what it may, seek, cherish, and cultivate constantly and habitually, a broken heart for sin. Think not that it is a work which once done is to be done no more. Deem it not a primary stage in your spiritual journey, which once reached, never again occurs in your celestial progress. O no! As in the natural life we enter the world weeping and leave it weeping, so in the spiritual life- we begin it in tears of godly sorrow for sin, and we terminate it in tears of godly sorrow for sin- passing away to that blessed state of sinlessness where God will wipe away all tears from our eyes.

The indwelling of all evil- the polluting nature of the world along which we journey- our constant exposure to temptations of every kind- the many occasions on which we yield to those temptations- the perpetual developments of sin unseen, unknown, even unsuspected by others- the defilement which attaches itself to all that we put our hands to, even the most spiritual and holy and heavenly- the consciousness of what a holy God must every moment see in us- all, all these considerations should lead us to cherish that spirit of lowliness and contrition, self-abhorrence and self-renunciation, inward mortification and outward humility of deportment, which belong to, and which truly prove the existence of, the life of God in our souls.

And what, too, prompts a constant traveling to the atoning blood- what endears the Savior who shed that blood? What is it that makes his flesh food indeed, and his blood drink
indeed? What is it that keeps the conscience tender and clean? What enables the believer to walk with God as a dear child? O it is the secret contrition of the lowly spirit, springing from a view of the cross of Jesus, and through the cross leading to the heart of God.

Your religion, dear reader, is a vain religion, if there enters not into it the essential element of a broken and a contrite heart for sin. With Job you may have heard of Jesus, "with the hearing of the ear," but not with him, have "abhorred yourself, and repented in dust and in ashes." Oh! with all your gettings, get, I beseech you, a broken heart for sin. God can have no transactions with you in the great matter of your soul's salvation, but as he sees you prostrate at his feet in repentance, humiliation, and confession. He will only deal with you for the stupendous blessings of pardon, justification, and adoption, in the character and posture of a broken-hearted sinner, urging your suit through the mediation of a broken-hearted Savior. He can negotiate only on those terms which justify and magnify the stupendous sacrifice of his only-begotten and well-beloved Son.

If, then, you value your eternal interests, if you cherish any proper regard for the final happiness of your soul- if you wish to escape the wrath to come- the undying worm, the quenchless flame, the unutterable, interminable torments of the lost- if you shrink from the risk, the almost certain risk, involved in the circumstances of your final sickness, and a dying hour- then repent, repent sincerely, repent deeply, repent evangelically, repent- NOW! For, "God NOW commands all men everywhere to REPENT, because he has appointed a day in which he will judge the world in righteousness."

Backsliding Christian! Do you feel within your heart the kindlings of godly sorrow? Are you mourning over your wandering, loathing the sin that drew you from Christ, that grieved his Spirit, and wounded your own peace? Are you longing to feed again in the green pastures of the flock, and by the side of the Shepherd of the flock, assured once more that you are a true sheep, belonging to the one fold, known by, and precious to, the heart of Him who laid down his life for the sheep? Then approach the altar of Calvary, and upon it lay the sacrifice of a broken and a contrite heart, and your God will accept it. The door of your return stands open- the pierced heart of Jesus. The golden scepter that bids you approach is extended- the outstretched hand of a pacified Father. The banquet is ready, and the minstrels are tuning their harps to celebrate the return from your wanderings to your Father's heart and home, with the gladness of feasting, and with the voice of thanksgiving and of melody!

"Return, O wanderer, return!
And seek an injured Father's face;
Those warm desires that in you burn
Were kindled by recovering grace.
"Return, O wanderer, return!
Your Savior bids your spirit live;
Go to his bleeding side, and learn
How freely Jesus can forgive.
"Return, O wanderer, return!
Regain your lost lamented rest;
Jehovah's melting affections yearn
To clasp his Ephraim to his breast."

The Fresh Oil

"The Renewed Anointing of the Inner Life"

"I shall be anointed with fresh oil." -Psalm 92:10.

David, the evidence of whose spiritual restoration we have just been contemplating, in the deep, lowly contrition of his penitent heart- presents to our view, in the present subject, another and a deeply interesting phase of the recovered life of God in the soul. As a personal type of Christ, he, like his Divine and glorious Prototype, was an anointed "priest upon his throne." Upon his head the holy oil had been poured, setting him apart as king of Israel; and, as one of the "royal priesthood," he shared in that divine and holy anointing, by which all the "kings and priests of God" are consecrated, and of which they all alike partake.

But was this single act of anointing sufficient for David? No, conscious of the perpetual tendency of the grace within to decay, sensible of those spiritual relapses to which the inner life is ever exposed, he felt the necessity, and earnestly sought the application, of the renewed anointing, by which alone he could be "strengthened with all might in the inner man." Nothing could more clearly betray the present state of David's soul than the words, the precious meaning of which we propose endeavoring to unfold- "I shall be anointed with fresh oil." There is an evident consciousness of loss, a sense of deterioration, a conviction of relapse. The fragrance and the power of the former anointing were felt in a measure to have gone; and, painfully alive to the loss, the anointed of the Lord breathes the deep desire for, and expresses the full expectation of, the renewed anointing of the Holy Spirit in the inner life of his soul. The subject must be deeply interesting to the true Christian. Let us consider the anointing- the decay of the anointing- and the renewal of the anointing.

THE ANOINTING-
"The Lord's anointed" is the expressive and appropriate designation of all the Lord's people. This anointing it is that marks them as a "chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a peculiar people." It is the Lord's peculiar mark upon them, which distinguishes and designates them as his own. All who are strangers to this anointing are strangers to the grace of God, and the calling of the Holy Spirit. There may be much spiritual light in the judgment, and even an open profession of religion before the world, added to which there shall be something of Jehu's "zeal for the Lord;" and yet that anointing of the Holy Spirit be still lacking, apart from which all intellectual illumination, and outward profession, and party zeal, pass for nothing with a heart-searching God.

As the proper signification of the endeared name 'Christ', is 'anointed', so the true signification of the honored appellation 'Christian', points us to the anointing, of which all who have union with Christ personally share. I believe the remark to be as solemn as it is true, that eternity will only fully unfold the amount of evil that has sprung from calling those Christians who call themselves Christians, without any valid title to the high, holy, and distinguished appellation. How imperfectly are men in general aware of the deep, the awful, the spiritual import of the term! They think not, they know not, that a Christian is one who partakes, in his renewing, sanctifying grace, of that same Divine Holy Spirit with which Christ was anointed of the Father for his great work.

Our first inquiry relates to THE ANOINTING OIL ITSELF. What is its nature? Of what is it composed? Truly it is most costly, precious, and fragrant. Let the type explain: "Then the Lord said to Moses, Collect choice spices—12 1/2 pounds of pure myrrh, 6 1/4 pounds each of cinnamon and of sweet cane, 12 1/2 pounds of cassia, and one gallon of olive oil. Blend these ingredients into a holy anointing oil." Exodus 30:22-25. Then observe the use to which Moses was to appropriate this anointing oil: "Use this oil also to anoint Aaron and his sons, sanctifying them so they can minister before me as priests. And say to the people of Israel, This will always be my holy anointing oil." Exodus 30:30-31. Another reference to this anointing oil occurs in a deeply interesting connection. We allude to this same anointing of Aaron, the nature of which is used to symbolize the beauty and fragrance of brotherly love: "Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity! It is like the precious ointment upon the head, that ran down upon the beard, even Aaron's beard, that went down to the skirts of his garment," Psalm 133:1, 2. Thus valuable and cheering is the communion of saints! and they who partake the most richly of the anointing of Christ's Spirit in their hearts, feel the most deeply, and exemplify the most fully, on all occasions, sweet and holy love to all who bear the image of the Father, and who breathe the spirit of the Savior, whatever be their creed or name. O let it not be forgotten, that one of the strongest evidences of our personal possession of this anointing, one of the most indubitable marks of our union to the kingdom of priests, is, our love to the brethren! How valuable and costly must true Christian unity be, when it is compared by the Holy Spirit to the precious unguent poured over the person of God's High Priest. "By this shall all men know," says our spiritual Aaron, "that you are my disciples, because you have love one to another."

But the type sets forth the anointing oil, or, in other words, the true spiritual anointing of every believer in Jesus, in three of its essential features. Its costliness. It is costly oil, be cause it is Divine. The Holy Spirit renews, sanctifies, and inhabits the believer as a Divine person. It is not the common light of nature, nor the ordinary teaching of man, nor the moral persuasion of truth, which has made him what he is- an experimental Christian; all his real grace, his true teaching, flows from the Divine Spirit. His light is divine, his renewing is divine, his comfort is divine, his sanctification is divine, and must, therefore, be essentially most costly. Oh, there is more real value in one ray of the Spirit's light, beaming in upon a man's soul, than in all the teaching which books can ever impart! The Divine Spirit, loosing the seals of the written Word, and unfolding to him the mysteries of the kingdom, the glories of Christ's person, the perfection of Christ's work, the fulness of Christ's grace, the revealed mind and will of God, has in it more worth and glory than all the teaching the schools ever imparted. This oil is costly, then, because it is Divine.

What shall we say of its preciousness? How precious the grace of the Holy Spirit, what tongue is sufficiently gifted to describe? How precious is his indwelling- an ever-ascending, heaven-panting, God-thirsting, Christ-desiring Spirit! How precious are all the revelations he makes of Christ! How precious are the consolations he brings, the promises he seals, the teachings he imparts; all the emotions he awakens, the breathings he inspires, and the affections he creates; how precious are those graces in the soul of which he is the Author- the faith that leads to a precious Savior, the love that rises to a gracious God, and the holy affections which flow forth to all the saints!

And how shall we speak of its fragrance? No art of the apothecary can imitate it. One drop of this holy oil, falling
upon the soul, breathes around it a perfume like that of heaven. There is a fragrance in the man's spirit, in his conversation, in his example, in his very look, that speaks of the holy anointing: "The ointment of the right hand betrays him." There is a savor of Christ, a heavenliness of temper, a kind of divinity of soul, which mark him as belonging to the "royal priesthood." One drop of this costly, precious anointing oil, fills the whole house with its perfume. There is a peace in that abode, a light in that dwelling, an order, and regularity, and affection in that family, which distinguish it as the residence of a royal priest. And travel where he may, sojourn with whom he will, that anointed believer carries the conviction to the heart, and awakens the exclamation from the lip, "By this I know that you are a man of God, for the anointing of the Holy One is upon you." Thus fragrant is this anointing oil.

But THROUGH WHAT CHANNEL DOES THIS ANOINTING COME? Only through the union of the believer to Christ, the Anointed One. All the saving operations of the Spirit upon the mind are connected with Jesus. If he convinces of sin, it is to lead to the blood of Jesus; if he reveals the corruptions of the heart, it is to lead to the grace of Jesus; if he teaches the soul's ignorance, it is to conduct it to the feet of Jesus- thus all his operations in the soul are associated with Jesus. Now, in conducting this holy anointing into the soul, he brings it through the channel of our union with the Anointed Head. By making us one with Christ, he makes us partakers of the anointing of Christ. And truly is the weakest, lowliest believer, one with this anointed Savior. His fitness, as the Anointed of God, to impart of the plenitude of his anointing to all the members of his body, is a truth clearly and beautifully set forth. Thus is he revealed as the Anointed Head of the Church, the great High Priest of the royal priesthood: "You love righteousness and hate wickedness; therefore God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness above your fellows." "The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me, because the Lord has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners." In the Acts of the Apostles, a distinct reference is made to this truth; "How God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit, and with power." It was this anointing that was upon Christ that led the Church of old to exclaim, in the fervor of her love, "Because of the fragrance of your good ointments, your name is as perfume poured forth; therefore do the virgins love you." Song Sol. 1:3. His human soul, filled with the measureless influence of the Divine Spirit, the fulness of the Godhead dwelling in him bodily, he became the true Aaron, of whose anointing all the priests were alike to partake. One, then, with Jesus, through the channel of his union to the Head, the lowest member is anointed with this precious oil.

The effects of this anointing are what might be expected from a cause so glorious. It beauties the soul. It is that anointing spoken of by the Psalmist: "And oil to make his face to shine." Therefore is it called the "beauties of holiness." How does a man's face shine- how is his countenance lighted up- when the joy of the Lord is his strength, when the Spirit of adoption is in his soul, when the love of God is shed abroad in his heart!

It gladdens, too. Therefore it is called the "oil of joy," and "the oil of gladness." It causes the heart to sing in its deep sorrows, imparts the "garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness," and fills the soul with the glory of that "kingdom which consists not in foods and in drinks, but in righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit."

Another effect springing from this anointing is the deep teaching it imparts: "But you have an anointing from the Holy One, and all of you know the truth." "As for you, the anointing you received from him remains in you, and you do not need anyone to teach you. But as his anointing teaches you about all things and as that anointing is real, not counterfeit--just as it has taught you, remain in him." Such are some of the effects of this holy anointing. It beautifies, gladdens, and teaches.

THE DECAY OF THE ANOINTING-
And is there a possibility of the decay of this anointing? May its power lessen, and its fragrance evaporate? We fear the possibility of this melancholy change is but too true. That the true priesthood of the Lord can entirely lose this Divine anointing, we do not for one moment assert. Never more will God withdraw his Spirit, where he has once implanted the precious gift. We speak it solemnly for the glory of God, we utter it confidently for the comfort of the weak-minded, those who are of a fearful heart- that when once God has poured this anointing upon a soul, that soul shall never utterly and forever lose it. To every foe that seeks its destruction, to all the hostile influences opposed to its well-being, God will utter his solemn words of warning: "Do my anointed no harm." Yes, there is that in the very anointing itself that forms a shield around the royal priest.

But, sad truth- there is not a stronger evidence of the lessening of a man's grace, of the declension of the inner life, of the backsliding of his heart, of the spiritual leanness of his soul, than is found in the decay of this anointing. It may lose its freshness, shed no fragrance, impart no power, and scarcely be discernible in the character and tone of the believer's piety. How may we trace this melancholy state-this evaporation of the anointing oil? Variously: in the matter of real, close transaction with God- where there is the decay of the Divine anointing, there is but little dealing between God and the soul, the walk is distant- the spirit is shy; searching of heart, and confession of sin, and dealing with the blood, are things laid aside for a more convenient season. The lack of real power in prayer betrays the loss; perhaps in nothing is it more evident. The habit of prayer may not be suspended; the form of prayer is still observed; but there is no life, nor power, nor unction in prayer; no taking of heaven with holy violence; no wrestling with the Angel of the Covenant; no taking hold of God's strength; no grasping the promise of God, or leaning upon God in the promise; no real faith to believe that God will perform what he has engaged to do.

And why? Because there is a decay of the anointing, and with it a decay of the spirit and power of prayer. We listen to his voice in supplication, but we feel his loss in our own soul. There is nothing in his prayer that breaks our heart, that embitters sin, that leads us to Christ, that lifts our soul from the dust into the sweet sunshine of communion with God; and we are forced to trace it to the lack of that Divine and holy oil which makes the face to shine, and which, in its reflected luster, throws a radiance over the countenance of others.

In Christian fellowship, too, we are sensible of the lack. The little sparks that we strike, fall upon no kindling material. In vain we endeavor to light up his soul; dampness, coldness, and deathliness seem to extinguish every effort. We can extract nothing that imparts an elevation to our own, perhaps, depressed minds. There is no savor in his salt, no water in his well, no rays of warmth radiating from his soul; but a dryness, a deadness, a deteriorating influence, of which every spiritual mind brought in contact with him is sensible. We speak to him of Jesus, but the echo is faint; we talk of the blessedness of holding communion with God, and we advance the sentiment that the throne of grace is the sweetest, loveliest, holiest spot on earth- but there is no cordial response. Indeed, there is nothing that lifts us up, but everything, rather, that depresses and that sinks us. We are painfully conscious that we have spent an hour in the society of one whose communion has occasioned us a serious loss. We feel as if we had been in the company of an iceberg, the influence of which has sunk the spiritual thermometer of our souls well near to its lowest point. And what is the cause? Our brother has lost the power and freshness of the anointing oil in his soul.

In another, this decay may be traced in his low views of Christ, with the invariable accompaniment of high thoughts of himself. He has low views of the personal glory of the Savior, the sight of which ought to fill his soul with adoring transport. He has depreciating views of the atoning blood of the Savior, the thought of which should fill his mouth with the highest praise. He seldom contemplates that glory; he rarely travels to that blood; and the mournful consequence is, his little love to Christ. And what is the cause? His distance from the Anointed One. He has left the feet of the true Aaron, like Peter, and has mixed himself up with the world, like Ephraim; and so has lost the Christ-endearing, Christ-exalting, self-abasing influence of the Divine anointing.

In yet others it may be traced in an uncertain state of mind as to their personal acceptance. Inquire what they know of the Spirit's witness- of a well-founded hope of heaven- of the joy of pardoned sin? Nothing! Lacking that inward anointing which enlightens, confirms, and strengthens the soul in the joyous consciousness of its acceptance, they seem to dwell forever in the region of doubt and uncertainty, of agitation and fear, as to their personal salvation.

What are some of the CAUSES to the operation of which we are to trace an effect so sad? Many are THE DETERIORATING INFLUENCES to which the anointing of the Christian is exposed. The influence of the world is injurious. There are few who can have much transaction with it, even in a lawful way, and not be conscious of real spiritual loss. But few Christians can bear up against it. There are but few Thorntons, we fear, in the commercial world- men who build their sacred oratories by the side of their banking and their counting-houses- and who, from the world's turmoil, are wont to retire and hold communion with God. Anointed Christian, the world in which you live, through which you journey, is the great foe to that sacred anointing that is upon you! Therefore would we say- beware of it! Give it no advantage over you; mix not unnecessarily with it; float not down with its tide; do not be eager for its wealth. Grind not the faces of the poor; oppress not the needy; withhold not from the hireling his wages. Conform not to its pleasures; countenance not its public amusements. Bear not the sacred unction into the world's light, earthly, polluted, God-disowning, and Christ-dishonoring atmosphere. The opera, and the semi-theatrical oratorio- even though the passion and the agonies of the Divine Messiah are set to the gamut-and the ballroom, are not appropriate places for him upon whose head the sacred anointing oil has been shed.

To this power of the world, may be added those unfavorable influences arising from unmortified sin, from known neglects of duty, and from communion with cold, lifeless professors of religion- all of which tend to absorb the sacred fluid.

THE RENEWAL OF THE ANOINTING-
But let us turn to a more pleasing theme- the renewal of this Divine anointing: "I shall be anointed with fresh oil." That David felt conscious of the evaporation of the oil, there can be no question. But with this conviction he was not content to remain. He panted for more life; he longed for more quickening; he lifted up his soul for the renewed anointing
"I shall be anointed with fresh oil." That the Lord re-anoints his people, who can doubt? Alas for them, if He did not! The ample provision which he has made for the exigence proves it. There is more of the precious oil in the sacred Vessel! O blessed, holy, comforting truth to those who, mournfully conscious of their loss, are earnestly desirous for their recovery. In the Lord Jesus Christ all fulness of anointing dwells. "With him is the residue of the Spirit." He is prepared to impart more grace to those who have lost grace, or, who to their present state desire to add an increase.

In the renewed quickening of the Spirit, the re-anointing is received. "Quicken me! " was the reiterated prayer of David. What! was he not already a quickened soul? Undoubtedly. Yet, feeling the need of a renewed quickening, he earnestly importunes for it: "Quicken me in your truth, through your judgments, by your precepts: only quicken me- for this my soul pants." And while the world was asking, "Who will show us any good?" the fervent breathing of this anointed priest of God was, "Quicken me, O Lord, for your name's sake." O seek this renewed quickening!

New supplies of grace from Christ are implied in this fresh anointing. New grace- to subdue new corruptions, perpetually rising to the surface; to meet new temptations, through the ever-shifting ways of the subtle enemy; to overcome new difficulties, perpetually occurring in the path to heaven; and to bear up under new trials, ever transpiring in a world of tribulation.

The renewed joys and comforts of the Holy Spirit are also found in the fresh anointing. The joys which had evaporated, are replaced by others; the peace which had been interrupted, flows back again; consolations which had fled, are restored; and confidence in God, which seemed shaken, is once more established in the soul.

In view of a blessing so needed and so precious, is it necessary that, in closing this chapter, we exhort the spiritual reader that he set himself earnestly, believingly, expectingly, to be re-anointed with fresh oil? And yet there are some who need to be stirred up to this their great privilege. To them we would say- Do not be content with the old anointing. It is essential to a more holy and happy life, it is essential to a peaceful and cloudless death, that you seek to be anointed with fresh oil. Do not be satisfied with past experiences. You may at one time have possessed the clear witness of the Spirit; you may have enjoyed the love of God in your heart; you may have lived so near to Christ, as to have found "Wisdom's ways, ways of pleasantness, and her paths, paths of peace," but the old anointing ceases to afford you now the high delight which you once experienced. Seek, then, the fresh anointing of the Spirit. Seek to have a new revelation of Christ to your soul. Seek the renewed application of his precious blood to your conscience. O seek the fresh oil! There is a fresh supply in Christ; a fresh supply in the Spirit; a fresh supply in the heart of God; a fresh supply in the covenant of grace. Jesus is prepared to pour it upon your soul more abundantly. The Holy Spirit is prepared to lead you to the source where this costly treasure dwells. A vessel of clay though you are- your capacity small, your unworthiness great- yet is the Triune God ready to recognize your exalted dignity and rank as a king and a priest, by shedding more copiously than ever the oil of gladness upon your head.

Let aged Christians, especially, look to the state of their souls, and seek this renewed anointing. In nearing the end of their journey, in looking into their graves, and beyond them, to the meeting with their God and Savior, they will need to be anointed with fresh oil. One drop- O how will it insinuate itself through the whole inner life, diffusing energy and might! -the soul thus renewing its strength, and composing its ruffled pinions for its heavenly flight. Come, pilgrim of many a weary stage! Come, soldier of many a hard-fought battle! Come, voyager of many a storm and tempest, and sit down at the Savior's feet, and receive of the fresh oil! Come, gather up the trailing garments, shake off the gathered dust from your sandals, wipe the sweat from your brow, and rest awhile upon the bosom of your Lord, while with fresh oil he anoints you for your burial. Is it not time for you to give up this poor world's pursuit, and lay aside, in some measure, its needless anxiety and cares, and allow a holy pause, a solemn calm, to intervene- before you unclasp your helmet, lay down your staff, and are gathered to your fathers?

As ministers of Christ, as stewards of the great mysteries of the gospel, let us not be satisfied without this renewed anointing. We stand perpetually in need, beloved, of the FRESH oil. The power we are incessantly exhausting, the grace we are constantly using, the multiform duties, the numerous labors in which we are continually engaging, demand that we keep our eye intently fixed upon the state of our own anointing. The past application of the holy oil will not meet our present exigencies. We need an ever-overshadowing, ever-teaching, ever-anointing Spirit. Going to our work relying upon former communications of grace, upon old stores of knowledge- the present teaching and anointing of the Holy Spirit unsought- that work must of necessity be performed in a cold and insipid, in a perfunctory and powerless manner, to the great detriment of the truths we preach, of the souls we instruct, and of the Master we serve. In the absence of the fresh anointing, we shall be tempted, either to substitute old performances for new, or else to serve the sanctuary with unbeaten oil. In order to come before our people with new treasures, or to exhibit truths, already known and familiar, with such unction and vigor as will impart to their presentation all the freshness and power of newly-discovered revelations, we must be anointed with fresh oil.

Why is it that we sow so much, and reap so little? Why, after our studious preparation, and exhausting toil, there is so little real power in our preaching, and from that preaching so little immediate result? Why is it that our words, instead of burning upon our lips, and thrown like glowing embers into the bosoms of our hearers, enkindling holy fires, alas! do but drop like icicles, congealing before they reach a solitary heart? Is it not, verily, because we lack the fresh oil? Necessary as is education- valuable as is learning- useful auxiliaries as are all the treasures we can draw from science- enriching as is intellect- and entrancing as is eloquence, these alone constitute not the able minister of the New Testament. Other and far more important requisites are needed to compose and perfect this high and holy character. Without the anointing of the Holy Spirit, what spiritually enlightening, sanctifying, saving power has the most erudite, and eloquent, and convincing ministry? None whatever! O how greatly we overlook this!

Why is it deemed almost a crime to declare fully and broadly the distinguishing doctrines of grace? Why is it that the preaching of other days- the clear, bold enunciation of the great fundamental truths of the gospel- would be sufficient to imperil the popularity of almost any minister in some of the high places of the Christian Church? The answer is- the formation of a distaste for such preaching, by a ministry, in many instances, possessing much intellectual power, but lacking the power of the Holy Spirit. It is to be feared that much of the ministry of the day is creating a taste and forming a character sadly opposed to preaching thoroughly evangelical, deeply spiritual, and possessing, in a large degree, the anointing of the Spirit of God. We do not hesitate to affirm of the generality of the preaching of our times, that it is too intellectual and recondite. Men are aiming to throw off magnificent sermons, the result of the most exhausting mental toil. Hence the constant rotation in the Christian ministry, the perpetual change in the pastoral relation. It is utterly impossible that any physical or mental constitution, the most robust, can long endure such close study, such severe thinking, such incessant application, such overtasked powers, without either an utter prostration, or else seeking repose in another and a new sphere of labor, where old material is made to supply the place of fresh. That there are some holy and honorable exceptions to this statement, both within and outside of the Established Church, we rejoice to believe- men of God who preach not themselves, but with beautiful simplicity, and holy fervor, and fresh anointing, preach Jesus in all his personal glories, and in all the fulness and perfection of his atoning work- men who do not shun to declare the whole counsel of God- upon them we depend as the conservators of the truth, and to them we look as the spiritual regenerators of the prevailing style of pulpit labor.

We would venture upon one more exhortation. Remember your priesthood- it comes through a royal line, and it proceeds from the Anointed One. Let the thought be ever present with you, "I am a king! I am a priest! I bear about me the anointing of the Lord!" The abiding, solemn reflection, the awful consciousness of the fact, will arm you against those influences which tend to wither the life of your soul. You will especially watch and pray against whatever is known to be injurious to your anointing, to produce a dryness and deadness in your spirit.

See well to the character of your reading. Avoid the writings that drain the sweet, holy oil from your soul. Can you peruse a chapter of a novel, or a light romance, or a tale of fiction, and not be conscious of violence, in some measure, done to this Divine anointing? Impossible! Beware, then, of the drying, absorbing tendency and effects of worldly literature.

Guard, too, against the influence of worldly associations- the deadening, carnalizing influence of the society of the ungodly. We bid you not separate yourself entirely from them, for this were to go out of the world. The gospel of Jesus is not reclusive nor selfish. The religion of Christ is not the religion of convents, and monasteries, and hermit's cells. It bids, and it constrains, a Christian to love the souls of men, to live for the world's good, to labor for the world's blessing, to purify it with his grace, and to illumine it with his Christianity. But, we beseech you, avoid its intimacies, its friendships, its alliances, and a needless exposure to its society, if you would keep fresh upon your soul the sweet holy oil.

If, then, upon an honest examination of the circle in which you move, of the profession you have assumed, of the business you pursue, of the pleasures you indulge, of the connections you are forming, of the friendships you are cultivating, you discover that which is injurious to the life of God in your soul, which despoils you of the fragrance of your grace, which impairs your spiritual power, and lessens your usefulness in the church and in the world- beneath the cross, and under the renewed anointing of the Holy Spirit, abandon it at once and forever. Surrendering it heartily, solemnly, for Christ's sake, you shall suffer no loss but the loss of that which robbed you of the costliest, sweetest, holiest blessing this side the sunny land of heaven.

Loss! O no! You shall be a rich gainer. He in whose name you did it- whose love constrained you, whose grace strengthened you, whose glory guided you, whose eye watched you, whose smile beamed upon you, and whose ministering spirits, invisibly but closely, clustered around you, will pour a tide of blessing so rich into your soul, as shall compel you, in wondering, adoring gratitude and praise to exclaim- "You anoint my head with oil; my cup runs over."

The Influence of Sanctified Trial upon the Inner Life

"Though I walk in the midst of trouble, you will revive me." Psalm 138:7.

Partial and imperfect as the present endeavor to lay before the Christian Church some views of spiritual life must be considered, a more marked deficiency, and one of still greater moment, would exist, were we to allow an occasional allusion only to a period in the believer's history, which, of all others, has frequently proved most favorable to the matured advancement of the indwelling life- the period of sanctified trial. It would not be difficult, were the correctness of the fact disputed, to, summon a cloud of witnesses to testify, that seasons of trouble have invariably proved, in the experience of the spiritual mind, seasons of soul-quickening; that times of Divine chastening have ever been times of heart-recovery; and that, consequently, we may regard the hour of affliction as bearing upon its somber wings, concealed indeed beneath their dark plumage, some of the golden blessings of the Christian life. The raven carrying food to the languid prophet, and the lion yielding honey to the mighty Samson, are symbols of the mode which God sometimes adopts of transmitting nourishment and reviving to the inner life of his people. Truly in their case it may be said- and the enigma admits of easy solution "Out of the eater came forth meat, and out of the strong came forth sweetness."

We have been studying in the preceding pages several illustrations of spiritual life, gleaned from the experience of David. Deeply instructive as each must have been, we cannot regard them as surpassed in tender, touching, and holy interest, by that one upon which we how propose to fix the attention of the spiritual reader- David in deep trouble, yet assured of Divine reviving; "Though I walk in the midst of trouble, you will revive me." And yet how difficult it often is to win an assent to the truth taught in these words; to bring the sentiment they contain to a practical bearing upon the judgment and feelings of the tried Christian, while yet in the midst of the furnace! How hard, especially under the first stunning effects of his affliction, to reason him into the belief that those very circumstances which are now weaving their web of difficulty around his path, may yet possess a power and a buoyancy so great, as to lift his soul from the region of coldness, despondency, and gloom, into that of life, light, and joy. Nor should this slowness to admit a statement so apparently contradictory surprise us. Affliction wears neither a pleasant nor a promising aspect. Frowning and foreboding, there is at first view something before which the stoutest heart quails, and from which the sternest spirit shrinks- whose tincture of wormwood and gall, the lips would sincerely allow to pass, untasted and untouched. And although that darkening cloud embosoms a heaven-sent message, and although that rod, dotted with buds and blossoms, is prepared to burst into fruit and beauty, and although the "Man of sorrows " left the perfume of his own lips lingering upon the brim of that cup, we would yet willingly forego the experience of the blessing which it conveys, to escape the present pain of the discipline which it enjoins. But let us turn our attention to the deeply instructive and precious truth before us- the relation which sanctified trial has to the reviving of the inner life of the soul.

Contemplate the Psalmist's circumstances "Walking in the midst of trouble." It was no new and untrodden path along which he was pursuing his way to God. The footprint sometimes stained with blood, always moistened with tears-of many a suffering pilgrim might be described in that way, from the time that Abel, the earliest martyr, laid the first bleeding brow that ever reposed upon the bosom of Jesus. And yet how often does trial overtake the believer, as 'though some strange thing had happened to him!' That at the peculiar nature of an affliction a Christian man should be startled and alarmed, would create no surprise; but that he should be startled at the trial itself, as if he alone- the only one of the family- were exempted from the discipline of the covenant, and had no interest in the Savior's declaration, "In the world you shall have tribulation" -might well astonish us.
But David's experience is that of many of the spiritual seed of David. His words seem to imply continuous trial: "I walk in the midst of trouble." With how many travelers to the celestial city it is thus! They seem never to be without trial. They know no cessation, they obtain no repose, they experience no rest. The foam of one mountain billow has scarcely broken and died upon the shore, before another follows in its wake; "Deep calls unto deep." Is it the trial of sickness? -the darkened chamber, scarcely ever illumined with one cheering ray of light- the bed of suffering, seldom offering one moment's real repose- the couch of weariness, rarely left, are vivid pictures of trial, drawn from real life, needing no coloring of the fancy to heighten or exaggerate. Is it domestic trial? -what scenes of incessant chafings, and anxieties, and turmoils, and sources of bitterness, do some families present; trouble seems never to absent itself from the little circle. Yes, it is through a series of trials that many of Christ's followers are called to travel. The loss of earthly substance may be followed by the decay of health, and this succeeded, perhaps, by that which, of all afflictions, the most deeply pierces and lacerates the heart, and for a season covers every scene with the dark pall of woe- the desolation of death. Thus the believer ever journeys along a path paved with sorrow, and hemmed in by trial. Well, be it so! We do not speak of it complainingly. God forbid! We arraign not the wisdom, nor doubt the mercy, nor impeach the truth of Him who has drawn every line of that path, who has paved every step of that way, and who knows its history from the end to the beginning. Why should our heart fret against the Lord? Why should we weary at the way? It is the ordained way- it is the right way- it is the Lord's way; and it is the way to a city of habitation, where the soul and body- the companions of the weary pilgrimage- will together sweetly and eternally rest. Then all trouble ceases- then all conflict terminates. Emerging from the gloom and labyrinth of the wilderness, the released spirit finds itself at home, the inhabitant of a world of which it is said- "God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain, for the former things are passed away."

But the spiritual troubles which encompass the Christian walk are the deepest and the severest of all his trials. What in comparison are others? Our Lord keenly felt this when he uttered that affecting exclamation: "Now is my soul troubled; and what shall I say? Shall I say, Father, save me from this hour? But for this cause came I unto this hour." What to him- galling and agonizing as they were- what to him the smiting, and the scourging, and the spitting, and the excruciating torture, compared with the sword which was now entering his soul- the mental conflict and spiritual sorrow which, in the hour of atonement, amazed, staggered, and overwhelmed him? Listen again to his affecting cry: "My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death." Then, withdrawing himself from his disciples- for the human sympathy upon which he had relied in anticipation of the hour of suffering failed him now- retiring from man, he flung himself upon the bosom of God, and kneeling down, he prayed, "O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me!" Such, my soul, was the conflict which your Savior endured for you!

Partakers of Christ's sufferings, all true believers are in a measure acquainted with some of those soul troubles which thus overwhelmed the Son of God. The suspensions of Divine consolation- the hidings of God's countenance- the assaults of Satan- the contact and conflict with sin- are bitter ingredients in that cup of spiritual sorrow of which they are sometimes called deeply to drink. But the subject more immediately before us is, the influence of all sanctified trial upon the life of God in the soul- "Though I walk in the midst of trouble, you will revive me."

That there was a consciousness in David's mind of spiritual relapse is clearly evident. It would appear that in the process of trial through which he was now passing, the discovery of this relapse was made. O what a detector of the secret state of our souls does the season of trial often prove! We are not aware of our impaired strength, of our weak faith, of our powerless grace- how feeble our hold on Christ is; how legal our views of the gospel are; how beclouded our minds may be; how partial our acquaintance with God is- until we are led into the path of trouble. The season of prosperity veils the real state of our souls from our view. No Christian can form an accurate estimate of his spiritual condition who has not been brought into a state of trial. We faint in the day of adversity, because we then find- what, perhaps, was not even suspected in the day of prosperity- that our strength is small.

But seasons of trial are emphatically what the word expresses- they try the work in the souls of the righteous. The inner life derives immense advantage from them. The deeper discovery that is then made of the evil of the heart is not the least important result: "Foolishness is bound in the heart of a child; but the rod of correction shall drive it far from him." What folly still dwells in the hearts of the wise- bound up and half concealed- who can tell? Who would have suspected such developments in the life of Abraham, of David, of Solomon, of Peter? And so is it with all who yet are the possessors of that wisdom which will guide their souls to eternal glory. Folly is bound up in their hearts; but the sanctified rod of correction reveals it, and the discovery proves one of the costliest blessings in the experience of the disciplined child. Listen to the language of Moses, addressed to the children of Israel- "You shall remember all the way which the Lord your God led you these forty years in the wilderness, to humble you, and to prove you, to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep his commandments or not." And O, what a discovery that forty years' marching and countermarching in the wilderness was to them of the pride, and impatience, and unbelief, and ingratitude, and distrust, that were bound up in their heart! And yet, though all this evil was deep-seated in their nature, they knew it not, and suspected it not, until trial brought it to the surface. Thus, beloved, is it with us. The latent evil is brought to light. God leaves us to try what is in our heart, and this may be the first step in the reviving of his gracious work in our souls. O let us not, then, shrink from the probing, nor startle at its discovery, if it but lead us nearer to holiness, nearer to Christ, nearer to God, nearer to heaven!

The time of trouble is often, too, a time of remembrance, and so becomes a time of reviving. Past backslidings- unthought of, unsuspected, and unconfessed- are recalled to memory, in the season that God is dealing with us. David had forgotten his transgression, and the brethren of Joseph their sin, until trouble summoned it back to memory. Times of trial are searching times, remembering times. Then it is we turn in upon ourselves, and "bethink ourselves in the land where we are carried captive;" and then with David we exclaim, "I thought on my ways, and turned my feet unto your testimonies." And thus it is that the Lord revives us in trouble.

By bringing us into a closer acquaintance with the word, trial stimulates the inner life. We flee to the word for counsel or for comfort, and the word proves a quickening word. Divine correction not only teaches, but it stimulates our relish for the spiritual parts of God's truth. In times of prosperity we are tempted to neglect the word. The world abates the keenness of the soul's appetite. We taste no sweetness in its promises, and cannot receive its admonitions and rebukes. "The full soul loaths a honeycomb, but to the hungry soul every bitter thing is sweet." Replenished with created good, and surfeited with earthly comfort, the soul, in its pride and self-sufficiency, loathes the Divine honey of God's word. But when the Lord removes the creature, and embitters the world- both proving cisterns that can hold no water- then how precious becomes the word of Jesus!- not its doctrines and its consolations only, but even its deepest searchings and its severest rebukes- that which lays us the lowest in the dust of shame and self-abhorrence- are then sweet as the honey and the honeycomb to our renewed taste. Then in truth we exclaim- "How sweet are your words to my taste! yes, sweeter than honey to my mouth!"

And from where flows our true comfort in the hour of deep heart-sorrow? David, in his trouble, shall answer: "This is my comfort in my affliction, for your word has quickened me." O how many a deeply-tried Christian has set his seal to this truth! What is the comfort sought by the worldling in his affliction? Alas! he seeks to drown his sorrow by plunging yet deeper into that which has created it. He goes to the world for his comfort- that world that has already deceived him, betrayed him, and stung and wounded him more keenly and deeply than the adder. The creature is his idol, money is his god, and pleasure his only resource.

But turn to the man of God. What was the Psalmist's comfort in his sorrow? Was it the lightness of his affliction? was it the love of Jonathan? was it the soothing tenderness and sympathy of the saints? Ah no! -it was none of these. It was the spiritual quickening his soul received through the truth of God! This healed his sorrow-stricken heart; this poured a tide of richer comfort into his deeply afflicted soul than the sweetest human balm, or even the entire removal of his trial, could have done. O favored soul, who, when in deep and dark waters- when passing through the fiery furnace- are led to desire spiritual quickening above all other comforts beside- sweetly testifying, "This is my comfort in my affliction, your word has quickened me." That word, unfolding to us Jesus, leading us to Jesus, and transforming us into the image of Jesus, proves a reviving word in the hour of trial: "I should have perished in my affliction, unless your law had been my delight."

The grace that is brought into exercise in the particular season of affliction, must necessarily tend greatly to promote the revival of the inner life. In a time of prosperity, grace is apt from stagnation, to become feeble and torpid. And yet, were the believer but keenly alive to the perils of his path, he would feel as deeply the necessity of especial grace to hold him up in the smooth as in the rough way. "Hold me up in your paths," was a prayer replete with holy, heavenly wisdom. Thus walking in the very ways of God, the believer requires the sustaining power of God. And yet how sadly does grace often decay, and the inner life go back, in the time when all things smile, and the path is smooth. A spiritual paralysis seems to steal over the whole spiritual man. But blessed is he who, learning this truth, in the midst of his most active and spiritual and holy duties- when laying himself out the most for God, and treading with all uprightness in the Lord's path- is led to distrust his own wisdom, strength and truthfulness, and breathe the prayer, "Hold up my goings in your paths, that my footsteps slip not."

And yet how liable is grace to decay, and the inner life to lose ground, when all things smile upon a path smooth and unruffled! But God sends affliction, and the grace that lay concealed is brought to view, and the grace that remained dormant is summoned to arms; the whole soul is awakened, energized and inspired as with new life. "The trial of faith works patience." Thus one tried grace stirs up another grace, until all the links in the golden chain feel the electric influence and are set in motion. O blessed trouble, that so stirs up the life of God in the soul as to make each grace of the Spirit a "new sharp threshing instrument having teeth;" a weapon re-cast, and newly furbished in the furnace, and so coming forth with keener edge and more polished blade, to "fight the good fight of faith," with mightier power and success.

But the influence of sanctified affliction upon the inner life is, perhaps, the most evident and powerful in the revival of the spirit of prayer. Truly, in reference to this happy result, may the believer exclaim, "Though I walk in the midst of trouble, you will revive me." Nothing more effectually quickens us to communion with God than the trial that flows from his love, and is sanctified by his Spirit. Strange that to this, the highest, holiest, and sweetest privilege prepared for the Christian, he is often the most indifferent, and in its observance his feelings are the most chilled and sluggish. What an evidence- one more melancholy there cannot be- of the spiritual deadness of the soul by nature, that even after it is quickened with a life that brings it into union with the life of God, after the Spirit of God has entered and made his abode there, ever dwelling and reigning and working in it, there should still remain so much deadness to that which is spiritual, especially the most spiritual of all duties and the most precious of all privileges- communion with God!

But in the time of trouble we stir ourselves up to calling upon God; we awake to the conviction- perhaps it is as new and as novel as though it were for the first time felt- we awake to the conviction that we are in possession of a mighty instrument, which when exerted brings all heaven, and the God of heaven, into our soul. We wake as from a dream; and just at the identical moment when all creature assistance droops, and all earthly resources fail, and leave us like a dismantled wreck drifting upon the billows, we discover that we are furnished with a power of relief mightier than the mightiest angel's- a power which, when exerted, (we speak it with reverence,) overcomes, like the wrestling patriarch, Omnipotence itself- the power of PRAYER!

And what is prayer but God's power in the soul of a poor, feeble worm of the dust, over Himself? It was no human might of Abraham which enabled him to wrestle with, and prevail with, the Angel of the covenant: it was the power of the Holy Spirit in his soul; and when the Divine Angel yielded, he yielded but to himself, and so God had all the glory- and shall have, of all that he has wrought for us, and of all that we have wrought by him, through eternity.

It is in the time of trouble, then, that we learn to pray with new power. We become more thoroughly acquainted with the Divine nature and the omnipotent energy of prayer. We learn what our resources, as the true sons of Israel, are. Many are then led to pray, who never prayed before. "Lord, in trouble have they visited you, they poured out a prayer when your chastening was upon them." Then it is the proud spirit yields; the knee that never bent before, bends now, and the terrified soul cries out unto Him whose chastening is upon it.

The slumbering Christian, too, is awakened to call upon God. Then it is he finds at what a distance he had been living from God. Then he discovers his true position- the real state of his soul, touching prayer. Thus aroused, like the slumbering prophet, by a voice, and startled by a rebuke issuing from a quarter he would least have suspected- "What are you doing, O sleeper? arise and call upon your God!" -he awakes, and finds himself in a storm threatening instant destruction. To what does he then betake himself? David shall answer: "I give myself unto prayer." And oh, how eloquent is then the voice of the wrestling believer! Never did the fugitive prophet "pray unto the Lord his God" as when walking in the midst of trouble. "I cried by reason of my affliction unto the Lord, and he heard me; out of the belly of hell cried I, and you heard my voice. When my soul fainted within me, I remembered the Lord: and my prayer came in unto you, into your holy temple." In this way the Lord revives the spirit of prayer within us.

And oh, what words can describe the blessedness of prayer in trial! -the preciousness of the privilege of having a God to go to, a Father to flee to in trouble! To bring you more deeply and personally into the experience of this, dear tried Christian, the Lord your God is dealing with you now. Oh, beloved, betake yourself unto prayer! You shall indeed find it the outlet of all sorrow, and the inlet of all joy. Welcome the trouble that thus revives you. Receive with meekness of spirit, yes with gladness of heart, the discipline, however humbling, that throws you upon God- yes, that severs you from all creatures, and that shuts you up to Him alone. That discipline, painful as it is, springs from love. In love that trouble is sent, in love that cross is permitted, in love that cup is given, in love that rod is used- it is to set you upon the work of prayer. What are these frowns of your Father, what these hidings of your Savior, what these withholdings of the Spirit, but to allure you within the holiest, there to find the throne of grace? "I will go," says the Lord, "and return to my place until they acknowledge their offence, and seek my face; in their affliction they will seek me early." Hosea 5:15.

And what, too, the chastening beneath which your tender, sensitive spirit is now smarting, but to bring you into Ephraim's state of revived prayer- "I have surely heard Ephraim bemoaning himself thus; You have chastised me, and I was chastised as a bullock unaccustomed to the yoke; turn me, and I shall be turned; for you are the Lord my God," Jer. 31:18. Then, beloved, "despise not the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when you are rebuked of him," for he only seeks to draw you closer within his bosom. Give your troubled spirit unto prayer. Yield it to the reposing, soothing influence, of communion with God. Withhold not from your bleeding wound this healing balsam, rob not your sick heart of this precious panacea. Give yourself unto prayer. You hold in your hands a power which God cannot resist. Approaching him in the name of Jesus, you may embosom your tried and weary spirit in the very heart of Jehovah. Take the praying saints of old for your example and encouragement, "Moses and Aaron among his priests, and Samuel among those who call upon his name; they called upon the Lord, and he answered them. He spoke unto them in the cloudy pillar." The Lord who "makes the clouds his chariots," is prepared to speak to you in love from your 'cloudy pillar.'

"O wondrous power of faithful prayer!
What tongue can tell the Almighty grace?
God's hands or bound or open are,
As Moses or Elijah prays;
Let Moses in the Spirit groan,
And God cries out- Let me alone!
"Let me alone, that all my wrath
May rise the wicked to consume!
While justice hears your praying faith,
It cannot seal the sinner's doom:
My Son is in my servant's prayer,
And Jesus forces me to spare."

Are you, beloved, walking in the midst of trouble? Think not that you are alone. May your eye of faith be "anointed with fresh eye-salve," to see One walking side by side with you, the same who walked with the three children through the fiery furnace: "whose form is like the Son of God." Yes! Jesus is with you in your trial. Christ is with you in your trouble. The path, however difficult, is not so narrow that your Lord cannot tread it with you, side by side. Your way is not so intricate that he cannot enable you to thread your steps through the labyrinth. There is room enough for you and Christ to walk together. He is with you: though like the two disciples journeying, in mournful communion one with the other, to Emmaus, your eyes may be so closed that you see him not, yet is he journeying with you along that sad and mournful, that lone and pensive path. Christ is in your adversity- Christ is in your cross- Christ is in your dilemma- Christ is in your suffering- Christ is in your persecution-Christ is in your sickness- yes, Christ is at your side every step you take, and he will conduct you safely to your Father's house. Though you walk in the midst of trouble, he will revive you.

The Resurrection of Christ in its Relation to the Inner Life of the Christian

"That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection." Phil. 3:10.

The real value of any truth to a child of God is the conscious power of that truth in his own soul. The Bible is designed to be an experimental and a practical book. It deals not in abstract truth, in mere theoretical teaching, but in revelations intended by its Divine Author to address themselves to the judgment, thus finding an inlet to the conscience and the heart, and becoming a leaven of holiness in the soul, diffusing its influence through the entire moral and intellectual man. We repeat the observation, that any one truth is valuable to the Christian in proportion to his personal and experimental acquaintance with its nature and, effects. And here it is impossible to resist the solemn remark- how far an individual may go in an intellectual subscription to, and a theoretical reception of, vital and essential truth, and yet be utterly ignorant of its renewing and sanctifying power in his soul!

It is another characteristic of the true believer in Jesus, that he places no limit to his knowledge and experience of Divine truth. Take the apostle, whose words are now under consideration, for an example of this. Did he not already know something of Christ? Assuredly! And yet he panted to know more- "That I may know him." Had he not already felt in his soul- and in no common degree, too the power of the Lord's resurrection? Undoubtedly! And yet behold how he desires to know more: "That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection." Thus placing no bound to the extent of his knowledge of Christ, and his experience of the truth, but defining for himself a scope worthy the objects of his study, and placing his eager and fixed gaze upon the loftiest standard of Christian attainment, he forgot the things that were behind, and pressed forward to those things which were before, never regarding himself as having attained, so long as the goal was yet unreached, and the "mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus" was still before him. O that there were more of this Christianity in the Church of God! Everything in creation and providence is advancing to its given point of perfection; why should the believer alone be stationary? -why should he, possessing already the germ of a perfection so glorious, and destined to a development so great, be content with a dwarfish stature, rather than the "stature of a perfect man in Christ Jesus?" O Lord, stir us up to greater advances in the Divine life!

The resurrection of Christ is a vital doctrine of Christianity. It sustains an essential relation to the spiritual life of the believer. Viewing it in connection with the union of Christ and his people, the two facts become identical- standing in the relation of cause and effect. Our Lord, in his great atoning work, acted in a public, or representative character. He represented in his person the whole elect of God, who virtually were in him each step that he took in working out their redemption. In his resurrection from the grave this was preeminently so. The Head could not be resuscitated apart from the Body. Christ could not rise without the Church. To have left the Church, which he represented, and in whose place and behalf he acted, still in the grave, would have been, to say nothing of the impossibility of such a thing, her eternal destruction. Thus, then, the new, or the resurrection life of Christ, and the inner, or spiritual life of the believer, are one and indivisible. Now, when the resurrection of the Head is spiritually realized, when it is fully received into the heart by faith, it becomes a quickening, energizing, sanctifying truth to each member of his body. It transmits a power to the inmost soul, felt in all the actings and manifestations of the spiritual life; "That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection." Blessed are they who feel, and who feel daily, that they are indeed "risen with Christ," and who find every new perception of this great truth to act like a mighty lever to their souls- lifting them above this "present evil world" -a world passing away. I propose in the present chapter to adduce a few observations upon the authenticity of this great doctrine, and then proceed to illustrate its relation to the inner life of the believer.

How truly has the "Stone which the builders rejected become the head stone of the corner!" The single doctrine upon the truth of which Christianity rests; and which, for the same reason, is, of all the truths of the Bible, the most impugned and rejected by the unbeliever, is the doctrine of Christ's resurrection. Both the Jew and the infidel have sagacity enough to perceive that, if this fact be proved, all is proved that appertains to Christianity. The great question of the divinity of our holy religion is at once and forever set at rest. Christ is then declared to be the true Messiah, and Christianity the true religion. But come we to the argument. Quietly and reverently his disciples composed his mangled limbs, and laid them to rest in the new-made sepulcher. Up to this touching and eventful moment the chain of evidence had been powerful and complete. Event had succeeded event, and miracle had followed miracle- each one fulfilling some new prediction, and supplying some still more convincing demonstration of his Messiahship. But suppose that at this crisis the chain were broken! Suppose the last link were lacking to complete the mighty proofs of his divinity! What if he had not come back again to life- death and the grave prolonging beyond the predicted moment their boasted victory? Who does not see that the whole case would have fallen to the ground- that the entire testimony would have been overthrown- that the great volume of prophecy would have proved a fiction- the hopes of past ages a dream- salvation a stupendous lie- redemption a splendid delusion- and Christ the prince of impostors? But eternal love and omnipotent power were pledged for the certain and glorious issue.

Were we disputing with an objector, we should probably pursue a line of argument somewhat like this- The great question is, Was the tomb of Christ emptied or not? If it was, what became of its sacred deposit- the body of Jesus? The first and leading point is conceded by all- namely, that the grave was vacated. Then, what became of the body? Was it retained by the Jews? Then let them produce it, and the question is fairly and forever set at rest, and decided in their favor. Was it true, as affirmed by his enemies, that his disciples, who but three days before clustered a feeble

weeping band around that tomb, had, in the quietude of night, and in the face of a Roman guard, armed to the teeth, and wakeful to every breath, sacrilegiously invaded its sanctity, and robbed it of its precious treasure? Still the act would not have aided their cause, while it must have furthered the design of the Jews. But mark the perfect agreement of the witnesses who testified that he was risen from the dead. Five hundred of them declare and affirm that Christ was alive. They were all examined, and cross-examined apart, and still nothing could shake their testimony that he was alive. And where did they publish the fact? Did they travel to some remote place, where the evidence could not be examined, and where they might succeed in palming their story upon the ignorance and credulity of strangers? No! but in Jerusalem- in the synagogues- upon the very spot where he had asserted his Messiahship, foretold his death, and predicted his resurrection, they affirmed that he was alive. And when did they publish the doctrine? Did they wait until the epoch of his resurrection had passed, and the circumstance of its novelty and interest had subsided?

No; but from the moment that the celestial sentinels, who still lingered within the tomb, announced that he was not there, but was risen- pointing to the vacant spot where he had lain, as an affirmation of the truth- they went forth and published the fact; and while the whole city was in a tempest of excitement, and the eyes of his enemies were still sparkling with rage, and the storm that had laid low the Savior threatened to crush his followers, they fearlessly and boldly affirmed everywhere that Jesus was alive. Is it likely, we ask, that these men, timid and unlearned as they were, and confronted, too, with the sternest tribunal of the world, could have invented such an imposture, or if so, could have succeeded in winning such multitudes over to its belief? We think it impossible.

The circumstances of the Savior's resurrection were in harmony with its lonely and solemn grandeur. No human witness was privileged to behold it. The mysterious re-union of the human soul with the body of Christ was an illustrious event, upon which no mortal eye was permitted to gaze. There is a moral grandeur of surpassing character in the resurrection of Christ unseen. The fact is not an object with which sense has to do so much as faith. And that no human eye was permitted to witness the stupendous event, doubtless was designed to teach man that it was with the spiritual and not with the fleshly apprehension of this truth that he had especially to do. What eye but that of faith could see the illustrious Conqueror come forth, binding, with adamantine chains, hell, death, and the grave? What principle but the spiritual and mighty principle of faith could enter into the revealed mind of God, sympathize with the design of the Savior, and interpret the sublime mystery of this stupendous event? It was proper, therefore, no it was worthy of God and in harmony with the character and the design of the resurrection of our Lord, that a veil should conceal its actual accomplishment from the eye of his Church, and that the great evidence they should have of the truth of the fact should be, the power of his resurrection felt and experienced in their souls. O yes! the only power of the Savior's resurrection which we desire to know is that which comes to us through the energy of an all-seeing, all-conquering, all-believing faith. O give me this, rather than to have witnessed with these eyes the celestial attendants clustering around the tomb- the rolling away of the stone that was upon the sepulcher- the breaking of the seal- and the emerging form of the Son of God, bearing in his hands the emblems and the tokens of his victory. The spiritual so infinitely transcends the carnal- the eye of faith is so much more glorious than the eye of sense, that our Lord himself has sanctified and sealed it with his own precious blessing- "Jesus with unto him, Thomas, because you have seen me you have believed: blessed are those who have not seen, and yet have believed." Blessed Jesus! in faith would I then follow you each step of your journey through this vale of tears- in faith would I visit the manger, the cross, and the tomb- for you have pronounced him blessed above all, who, though he sees not, yet believes in you. Lord, I believe, help you mine unbelief.

Perhaps no circumstance connected with the resurrection of Christ conveys to the mind a clearer idea of its bearings upon the happiness of the Church than the part which the Divine Father is represented as having taken in the

illustrious event. His having committed himself to the fact, at once stamps it with all its saving interest. Thus is it ascribed to him- "Whom God has raised" - "Like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father" - "If the Spirit of him who raised up Jesus from the dead." By this act of raising up his Son from the grave, the Father manifested his infinite delight in, and his full acceptance of, the sacrifice of Christ, as a finished and satisfactory expiation for the sins of his people. So long as Jesus remained in the grave, there was lacking the evidence of the acceptance of his death- the great seal of heaven, the signature of God, was needed to authenticate the fact. But when the Father released the Surety from the dominion of death, he annihilated, by that act, all legal claim against his Church, declaring the ransom accepted and the debt cancelled. "He was taken from prison," -as the prisoner of justice- and the prisoner of death- and the prisoner of the grave: the Father, in the exercise of his glorious power, opens the prison door and delivers the illustrious captive- and by that door through which he emerges again to life, enters the full justification of his whole Church -for it is written: "He was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our justification." Such is the doctrine, whose relation to the inner life is so essential, interesting, and influential, as to be worthy of our especial and deepest consideration.

A more important truth- where all are of infinite significance to the happiness of man- is not found in the word of God. As it forms the keystone to the mighty arch of Christianity- essential therefore to the stability and beauty of the whole fabric- so it constitutes the groundwork of spiritual life upon the basis of which the Holy Spirit of God quickens the souls of all who are the "called according to his purpose." The relation of the Lord's resurrection to the life of his people springs from the union which subsists between them. The Lord Jesus acted not, as we have just intimated, in his private or individual capacity, in any step which he took in the accomplishment of our salvation. He lived and labored, died and rose again, as a public man, and standing in a federal relation to the Church. He needed not to obey for himself, for he was holy. He needed not to die for himself, for he had no sin to atone. He needed not to rise from the dead for himself, for he was Essential Life. But when he lived and died, rose and revived again, he acted in behalf of, and in union with, a people who were one and indivisible with himself. Hence the influence of the great truth of Christ's resurrection upon the state of the inner life. It was a knowledge of this truth which awoke the ardent desire of the Apostle's soul, "That I may know him and the power of his resurrection."

Trace this power as it first appears in the spiritual resurrection of the child of God. The Apostle Paul, in behalf of the Ephesian saints, prays that, "the eyes of their understanding being enlightened, they may know what is the exceeding greatness of his power to us who believe, which he wrought in Christ when he raised him from the dead." Thus the same resurrection power which brought back to life again the Head of the Church, is exerted in effecting the spiritual resurrection of the Church itself. The true believer is already risen. He was once dead in sin, and entombed in the grave of his iniquities. But a power- the same which awoke the death-slumber of Lazarus, has darted from the tomb of Jesus, and has quickened him to a new and a deathless life. Oh, were we more directly to trace the mighty energy of the Eternal Spirit in our souls, raising us from the region of death, to life and immortality, to that stupendous fact of redemption- the resurrection of Christ from the dead- how would it exalt our views of its importance, and fill our souls with its glory! What must be the power of our Lord's resurrection, that can even now awake the profoundest sleep of spiritual death! When the Spirit of God puts forth his own grace to raise a soul from the grave of sin, oh, forget not it is in virtue of a risen, living Savior. Despair not of the spiritual life of any, though they may have laid in the grave so long as well near to have quenched all hope of their conversion, since Christ has risen from the dead, and is alive, to give life in answer to the prayer of faith: "The Second Adam is a quickening Spirit."

The power which the resurrection of Christ possesses in opening up to view the doctrine of Divine reconciliation is great. The moment faith can look up to God through the medium of a risen Christ, all its views of his character

instantly become kind and soothing. How beautifully the Apostle associates the two blessings: "The God of peace, that brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus!" He is now truly the 'God of peace'- the pacified God, the reconciled Father; and the evidence of it is, his raising up his dear Son from the grave. Thus what a bright view does this truth unfold to us of God! When we retire within ourselves we see much to engender dark views of, and distrustful feelings towards, him. But when faith travels to the grave of Jesus, and we see it empty, we have such an overwhelming evidence of the perfect reconciliation of God, of his thoughts of peace towards us, that instantly faith triumphs, and all our gloomy, trembling apprehensions of his character vanish and disappear. He is the "God of peace," because Jesus is a risen Savior. And in proportion as you lay hold by faith of the resurrection-life of Christ, you will have that pillar to sustain you upon which rests the whole fabric of salvation. The peace of God will fill your heart, as you know from experience the power of the Lord's resurrection in your soul. The power of Christ's resurrection, in fact, lies in a sense of pardoned sin, in our apprehension of complete justification, in the living hope of eternal glory. Jesus saves to the uttermost all that come unto God by him, because he is a risen and a living Savior, and ever lives to make intercession in behalf of all his people. O deal believingly with a risen Christ!

But I wish to lay before the Christian reader an illustration of the practical power which this great and precious truth exerts in the healthy actings of the inner life. It quickens and strengthens the Divine life against the influence of worldly things. Of the earthward tendency of our hearts

we are, alas! but too conscious. We need an antagonistic principle, something to counteract the ever-working influence of an ungodly world. Where shall we meet with it? We answer, in the power of Christ's resurrection, felt, realized, and experienced in the soul. How beautifully and forcibly does the apostle place this truth before us; "If you, then, be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sits on the right hand of God. Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth." This is the argument of Paul- "You are a risen people, risen in union with Christ. If this be so, then seek after heavenly-mindedness, setting your affections on things above." What a heaven-attracting power, then, has this glorious truth! What is Christ? he is alive. Where is Christ? he is in heaven, at the right hand of God, as my Head, my Representative, my Forerunner, my Treasure, my all. Then, let me rise! Shall not my affections soar to their best Beloved? Shall not my heart be where its treasure is? Shall I set my mind upon things on the earth, when my Lord rose out of the earth, and ascended above the earth, and bids me rise and follow him in faith, in spirit, and in love, until he calls me to come away to him entirely, that I might be ever with him, and behold his glory? If I am indeed risen with Christ, then let me evidence it by my increasing spiritual-mindedness. Christ, who is my life, its in heaven, why should I needlessly be buried in the earth? Why allow, as I appear to do- that there is an object upon earth whose claims to my love are paramount, whose beauty to my eye is greater, whose, attraction to my soul is stronger than my risen, ascended, and gloried Lord? Is there upon earth one who loves me as Jesus loves me? Is there one who has done for me what Jesus has done? Is there one who is doing for me now what Jesus is doing? Is there one who is to me such a friend, such a brother, such a counselor, as Jesus? No, not one! Then why should not my thoughts be more with him? Why should not my heart cling closer to him? Why this vagrancy of mind, this truancy of affection, this wandering of desire; why this forgetfulness, coldness, and cleaving to earth; when my Lord is risen, and I am professedly risen with him? O to feel more sensibly, more deeply, more constantly, the power of his resurrection! Lord! I detect my heart settling down on creature things; objects of sense and sin. My business is a snare; my domestic blessings are a snare; my friendships are a snare; my position is a snare; the too fond opinion which others entertain of me, is a snare; my grace, my gifts, my usefulness, through the corruption of my heart, are snares. Lord, place beneath my soul the mighty lever of your resurrection, and lift me towards yourself! O let me feel the earth-severing, the heaven-attracting power of your resurrection-life! Having been buried with you by baptism into death, sincerely would I now rise with you, like as you were raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, that I might walk with you in newness of life, until I reach you in the realms of glory.

But not only is this a quickening, it is also a most COMFORTING truth; and thus there is a power which is felt in the very consolation which it conveys. What a blessed declaration is that- "Where Christ sits at the right hand of God!" The words are inexpressibly sweet- "sitting at the right hand of God." Having finished his work, having made an end of sin; having brought in an everlasting righteousness, having risen from the grave, having ascended up on high, he has sat down at the right hand of God, reposing in the full satisfaction, glory, and expectancy of his redeeming work. And for what object is he there seated? Why is he thus presented to the eye of faith? That the Church of God might have visibly and constantly before its view- a risen, living Christ. O how constantly is the Lord teaching us that there is but one Being who can meet our case, and but one Object on which our soul's affections ought to be supremely placed- even a risen Savior. We have temptations various, trials the world knows nothing of, crosses of which those who know and love us the most, never suspect- for often the heart's acutest sorrow is the least discoverable upon the surface.

But here is our great mercy- Christ is alive. What if we are unknown, tried, tempted, and sad, we yet have a risen Savior to go to; who, as Rutherford says, "sighs when I sigh, mourns when I mourn, and when I look up he rejoices." How can I lack for sympathy when I have a risen Christ? How can I feel alone and sad, when I have the society and the soothing of a living and an ever-present Jesus- a Jesus who loves me, who knows all my circumstances, all my feelings, and has his finger upon my every pulse- who sees all my tears, hears all my sighs, and records all my thoughts- who, go to him when I will, and with what I will, will never say to nee no, nor bid me depart unblest- who is risen, exalted, and has sat down at the right hand of his Father and my Father, his God and my God, to administer to me all the blessings of the everlasting covenant, and to mete out, as I need them, all the riches of his grace, and the supplies of his salvation? Why, then, should I despond at any circumstance, why despair at any emergency, or sink beneath any trial, when I have a risen, a living Christ to go to? "When we are enabled to look at things above, to set our affections upon them, remembering that Christ is sitting at the right hand of God, that he has blotted out sin and made an end of it; and when his precious blood is sprinkled on our hearts, we can then say with ardent desire, 'Lord God, give me every grace, make me like yourself, make me conformed in body, soul, and Spirit to you, dead to the world and alive to you, thirsting for you and loving you supremely, willing to do and suffer your will, so that at last I may be able to finish my course with joy, and that which the Lord has committed unto me.' It is a sweet, and quiet, land happy posture of soul, to look at Christ sitting at the sight hand, of God, and to know that he is there with the breastplate upon his heart, and with the ephod upon his shoulder, interceding every moment for each individual member of his body. O the amazing power of the Lord's resurrection! O the preciousness of the fruit that springs from it! "Communion with our heavenly Father, near walking with God, a life of faith in Christ, living on high, living not only on Christ's fulness but on Christ himself; not only on what he has, but on what he is, in his Godhead, in his humanity, in the tenderness of his heart as well as the fulness of his salvation; living in the blessed anticipation of glory, and honor, and immortality; rising in the morning and saying, This day, and every day, I would consecrate to my God," -these are some of the fadeless flowers and precious fruits that grow around the grave of Jesus, when faith, listening to the voice that issues from the vacant sepulcher, "He is not here, but is risen" -looks up and beholds him alive, "seated at the right hand of the Majesty on high." Then, O then, it exclaims in a transport of joy, "Whom have I in heaven but you? and there is none upon earth that I desire beside you," you risen, living, and glorious Redeemer!

"You are my all- to you I flee;
Take me, oh, take me to your keeping!
Make me your branch, your husbandry;
Be yours the seed-time, yours the reaping.
For what on earth but tells your power?
And what but makes your love its theme?
I read it in the vernal shower,
it cheers me in the summer beam:

"It glows while memory lingers yet,
Over hours a mother's love beguiled;
For ah! a mother may forget,
But you will not forget your child.
I had a friend- nor false his love,
But him on earth no more I see:
Oh, you unchanging Friend above,
What is an earthly friend to Thee?
Give me no bright behest of care,
No groveling boon of envied sod;
No hopes that lead but to despair;
Ease, honors, wealth, are not my God.

"Nor anything in heaven; for, angels, say,
And saints escaped earth's guilt and sadness,
What makes your everlasting day?
What tunes your heart to joy and gladness?
"Oh, there is nothing in yon bright sky,
Worthy this worthless heart to own;
On earth there's nothing; friends, creatures, fly;
I pant, my Lord, for you alone."

But a signal and glorious illustration of the power of our Lord's resurrection is yet to appear- the first resurrection and glory of all the saints. "Now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the first-fruits of those who slept." All who in this and in other places are described as sleeping, are the saints of God; the ungodly die, but the righteous only sleep. This distinction the Holy Spirit observes. Now Jesus, in his resurrection, is the first-fruit of those who slept; that is, in virtue and in consequence of his resurrection from the grave, all who sleep in him shall have a part in "the first resurrection." This period will distinguish the saints from the ungodly. It is distinctly affirmed by the inspired apostle, that "the dead in Christ shall rise first," while "we who are alive and remain, shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air." Now to this prior, or, first resurrection, there are some pointed and remarkable allusions. Our Lord distinctly refers to it in the words, "They who shall be accounted worthy to obtain that world and the resurrection from the dead." It was to this first resurrection the apostle Paul was anxious to arrive- "If by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead." To this, too, the saints and martyrs of the Old Testament looked as the crown of their sufferings, and the recompense of their reward. "Others were tortured, not accepting deliverance, that they might obtain a better resurrection." And this is the resurrection- and the only one-which God has pronounced blessed. "Blessed and holy is he that has part in the first resurrection; of such, the second death has no power, but they shall be priests' of God and of Christ, and shall reign with him a thousand years." How important that we should give to the prophetical events with which the resurrection of the saints stands connected, and which, indeed, are but preparatory to the ushering in of that great event, our most profound and prayerful consideration and study!

There is so much scriptural clearness and power in the following excellent remarks of an unknown, but evidently a deeply taught and spiritual writer, that I am induced to quote them in connection with our present interesting and important subject. "It is desirable for us to know, what are the peculiar glories and advantages of the first resurrection; and also at what time we may expect it to take place. It is to the first resurrection saints, that the promise is made of reigning with Christ, and partaking with him of his millennial glory, and it shall be the privilege of those who are alive, when the event happens, to be 'clothed upon,' and not 'unclothed'; that is, to be given glorified bodies, without having seen death and corruption; and to escape those pre-millennial troubles, which, in the great day of the Lord, will come on the earth. We read that the living saints are caught up to meet the Lord in the air. This must be for some purpose. They would not be caught up to descend again immediately; and accordingly, we find repeated promises of their being thus kept in safety from the destruction of the earth, as Noah from the flood, and Lot from Sodom. At the close of the pre-millennial troubles, when, at the battle of Armageddon, our Lord descends, his feet stand upon the Mount of Olives, and he completes the destruction of his enemies- 'he brings his saints with him,' including those who had been caught up alive previously. 'A man' had been their hiding place from the wind, their covert from the tempest. From what portion of the final troubles we know not, or how long they had been hid; but we know that Noah and Lot escaped entirely. And Peter says that from these types it is manifest, that the Lord knows how to deliver the godly out of temptations (trials). Our Savior refers to the same events, saying, 'Even thus shall it be in the day when the Son of man is revealed.' For until the day Noah entered the ark, the world went on as usual; and the 'same day that Lot went out of Sodom, it rained fire and brimstone.' Paul also declares, people are to be saying, 'Peace and safety,' just before the sudden destruction or, day of the Lord's revealing, when his saints are taken. It is from this sudden destruction Christ teaches us to pray that we may escape, and that when these things shall come to pass, we may be able to stand before him. Habakkuk hoped to 'rest in the day of trouble,' and Zephaniah says, 'It may be we shall be hid in the day of the Lord's anger.' We read, 'Come, my people, enter into your chambers, and shut your doors about you; hide yourself as it were for a little moment, until the indignation be overpast. For, behold, the Lord comes out of his place to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity: the earth also shall disclose her blood, and shall no more cover her slain.' The Prophets and Psalms abound with promises of this safety from trouble, which are only partially fulfilled if we take them metaphorically, since believers are more in trouble than other men; but will be literally fulfilled when the time arrives. Seeing, then, that a literal safety is promised during a time of trouble, such as 'never was,' -and that things are prepared for those who escape, such as 'could not have entered into the heart of man,' had they not been revealed by the Spirit- no wonder that John says, 'Those who have this hope, purify themselves.' No wonder Peter says, 'Seeing you look for such things, be diligent that you may be found of him in peace, without spot'; for if not, we lose all the glory of the new heavens and the new earth. No wonder that the whole creation groans, waiting for the redemption of the body, and that the earnest expectation of the creature waits for this manifestation of the sons of God. Then, when the merciful men are taken from the evil to come, and 'the godly men cease,' 'then shall you return, and discern between the righteous and the wicked.' For it is expressly said, that when one is taken, another is left- while the one who loves his Lord's appearing, and expects it, shall meet him in the air, (as naturally as an eagle is attracted by a body,) the other is left, because of unbelief, to go through the time of the desolation of the earth.

"We next consider when these things may be; and if it should appear only probable that they may be at hand, we shall find sufficient cause for watchfulness. People in general suppose that they will not take place until our Lord descends to the earth at the end of the troubles; and as many events must happen first, namely, the restoration of the Jews, the battle of Armageddon, &c., they have a snare in their hearts to put off daily expectation. But let those who desire to be partakers of a 'better resurrection,' observe, that the re-establishment of the Jews in Jerusalem, marks the time when the church will have been removed.

"By comparing Matt. xxiv. with Luke xxi., we see that 'the tribulation' began with the dispersion of the tribe of Judah, and ends with it; and that afterwards, 'immediately after,' are the signs in sun, moon, and stars; or that period of trouble commences from which the Church is saved. This is the period mentioned by Daniel, as the last end of the indignation to the Jewish nation, and which they will have to go through, with the exception of that remnant 'according to the election of grace,' which, having been converted to the faith of Jesus, will be raptured with the Church. This last end of indignation is the time of the final development and overthrow of antichrist, and does not begin until the 'times of the Gentiles' are over; which times are commensurate with the treading down of Jerusalem. Thus, at the re-establishment of Judah, the Lord must have gathered his people out of all nations; have made up the number of his elect; and have secured them from the judgments coming on the earth.

"From hence we may perceive how very near that appearing of our Lord may be, which will either begin our blessedness or leave us to be partakers of the destruction which comes upon the earth. The Jews are now in a remarkable state of excitement, and expecting an immediate restoration. Nothing seems to be more likely than their speedy re-establishment in their own land. If, then, their restoration be near, the Lord's appearing to meet his saints must be near also.

"The sign which the Papacy affords, is one of the most striking and conclusive. Its destruction takes place during the final troubles, and after the dispersion of the Jews is over; for in Daniel we read, 'When he shall have accomplished to scatter the power of the holy people, all these things shall be finished.' Turning to Rev. 10:7, we see written, that at the sounding of the seventh trumpet, and pouring out of the seventh vial, the mystery of God shall be finished. The seventh trumpet includes the seventh vial; and when this vial is poured out, we read, 'There

came a great voice, saying, It is done.' Just before this vial it is written, 'Behold, I come as a thief.' The midnight cry is made, and then the great earthquake takes place, in which Babylon is destroyed by a sudden and unexpected destruction.

"Let us now observe, that at the French Revolution, when, the 126O years being over, the seventh trumpet began to sound, the Papacy was, according to the prophecy, hated, and made desolate; or, as Daniel expresses it, the judgment sat, and they took away her dominion, 'to consume and to destroy unto the end.' "Her state, at the end, we find from Rev. xviii., to be one of exultation; for having risen again from depression, she cries, 'I sit a queen! and am no widow, and shall see no sorrow;' alluding to her late widowhood and sorrow, from which she now believes herself to be delivered. But what follows? Her sudden and eternal destruction! In one hour is she made desolate; with violence is she thrown down, and is never to be found again. Universal lamentation succeeds; all on earth lament over her; for the Church, having been previously translated, praises God in heaven for the judgment, 'Much people in heaven said, Alleluia!' "We certainly have abundant evidence that Popery is now on the very brink of the destruction denounced; but it is clear that this cannot take place before the restoration of the Jews and the rapture of the Church- may we, then, lift up our heads, for our redemption draws near! The 14th of Rev. affords such corroborative evidence, it must not be omitted. We have in this chapter the cry of three missionary angels in our own time, after the termination of the 126O years. First an angel preaches the everlasting gospel (ver. 6); and never did prophecy meet with more complete fulfilment. It will be enough to state, that the Bible Society alone has circulated fifteen million Bibles; and ten million have been circulated by foreign Bible Societies. Of these societies, there are now more than 7OOO; and of these, nearly 4OOO are in Great Britain. The number of versions of the Holy Scriptures is 159. The Tract Society has since its institution (at the time of the angel's flight) circulated three hundred and seventy billion publications; and its works are published in eighty-eight different languages. These two societies alone show in what manner the prophecy has been accomplished; and if we take the most superficial glance at the work of other missionary societies during this period, we shall find the evidence overwhelming.

The second angel declares the corruptions and impending fall of the Papacy; and the third angel warns men against worshiping the Beast, and receiving his mark. What do we see? -the people of the Lord everywhere obeying the voice, and coming out of the Papacy. In France, whole communities renouncing the faith of Rome; and at this moment 800 converts in Ireland, suffering persecution and starvation, rather than receive the mark of the Beast. Then immediately follows the blessedness of the raptured church. From henceforth will they be blessed, by having their glorified bodies, and receiving the reward of their works. The destruction of the Papacy succeeds. This is symbolized by a harvest of the earth. In Jer. li. 33, where the type, or literal Babylon, is spoken of, we read, 'The daughter of Babylon is like a threshing floor, it is time to thresh her; yet a little while, and the tune of her harvest shall come. And when the dried harvest of the anti-type (Rome) shall have been reaped, the vintage takes place, or that final battle of Armageddon, in which the Lord appears personally, and treads down his enemies.

"Let us also observe that the cry, 'Behold, the bridegroom comes,' has been long and universally raised. This is a most remarkable sign, and sufficiently convincing that midnight was come when it began. The cry has been raised before at different periods, but never so widely, or combined with those other signs for which we are commanded to watch. For now is the gospel preached as a witness in all lands.

Now is Jerusalem no longer despised, but sought out, and the Lord's servants take pleasure in her stones, and favor the dust thereof,' Psalm. cii. 13, 14. Now, many run to and fro, and knowledge is increased. Now, we see that word of Paul fulfilled to the very letter, 'A form of godliness, denying the power thereof,' which was to characterize the last of the latter days.

"Now, also, the prophetic dates clearly point to the present moment; and now is there universal peace, while wars and commotions are confessedly looked for, by those who discern the political signs of the times. These men see that a great crisis is at hand; they see that the world cannot go on in its present state, and they announce the coming storm! and does not the eye of faith perceive the same, with greater certainty and assurance? are the children of this world always to be wiser than the children of light? shall they wake, and the Church sleep? Oh, let not the day overtake us as a thief! let not the cry be unheeded, 'Behold, He comes!' but let us prepare for His appearing.

"What will be the nature of that appearing, we know not; but it is distinct from our Lord's standing on the earth, at the end of the troubles. He has himself told us that we need not fear mistaking it. Whatever the appearance may be, it will be universally seen, and the saints will be immediately caught up. And remember, 'When once the master of the house is risen up, and has shut the door,' it will be too late to prepare for this event- either you will be found ready or unready- either you will be taken, or left; and the Lord has said, if we will not watch, we shall not know the hour when the Son of man comes upon us. But if we keep the word of his patience, he will keep us 'from the hour of temptation, which shall come upon all the world, to try those who dwell. upon the earth."

In view of such glorious predictions- living in times so momentous- encircled by events so spirit-stirring- by signs so significant- and in the anticipation of a glory so resplendent and of a rapture so great, who would not desire, and pray, and labor to have "part in the first resurrection?" Would you, my reader? Then seek to know in your soul the power of Christ's resurrection! And, if sensible of this power, quickening you with the inner life- raising you above sin, above the world, above the bondage of the law, above self, above all earthly, carnal attractions- then labor on, and toil on, and fight on, and suffer on a while longer- for soon you shall spring from the dust, and bathing your quickened spiritual body in the beams of the resurrection morn, you shall unite with all the risen saints in singing, "O death, where is your sting? O grave, where is your victory?"

Heaven, the Consummation of the Inner Life

"Giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in the kingdom of light." Col. 1:12

It is necessary that we should now conduct our subject to a close. What more appropriate and pleasing termination of a theme so heavenly than a brief contemplation of the heaven itself, to whose ultimate perfection the inner life of the Christian is tending- of which it is the germ and the pledge- and in whose deathless splendors it will soon be enshrined! The spiritual life which God has breathed into our souls will never rest until it reaches its full and perfect development. It is now but in its embryo state. Deep as are its pulsations, powerful as are its actings, mighty as are its achievements, holy as are its breathings, it is yet but in its infancy, compared with that state of perfection to which it is destined to arrive. The most complete impress of the Divine image upon the renewed soul of man in this present world, is but an outline of the picture. The highest state of sanctification to which the believer can arrive here, is but the first dawn of day, contrasted with the "far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory," which will burst upon him in a world of perfect holiness. Heaven will complete the work which sovereign grace has begun upon earth. Heaven is the consummation of the spiritual life of the believer. We have selected, as an illustration of this thought, the deeply interesting words addressed by the apostle to the Colossian saints: "Giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in the kingdom of light." There are in this passage some points of the deepest significance, all bearing a close relation to the great subject which, in the preceding pages, has been occupying our attention.

Our first inquiry relates to THE 'FITNESS' OR 'QUALIFICATIONS' FOR HEAVEN here spoken of. And with regard to this point, let me observe, it forms the very basis of our subject- the groundwork of the whole. There are those, perhaps, who would make the consideration of heaven their starting-point; but of what real value are mere notions of heaven? Magnificent, poetic, and even accurate, though they may be, yet if a man has no scriptural, no real fitness for heaven, his notion of it is but the dream of a Mohammedan- the vision of a Turkish paradise; it is not that bright, that holy, that Divine conception of heaven, which a mind, renewed by the Spirit, and sanctified by grace, forms. It is an earthly picture of heaven, conceived by an earthly mind.

In what, then, consists this 'fitness' for heaven, to which the apostle refers? Need I say, that it excludes all idea of any personal, natural, or original fitness in the sinner himself? -the destructive doctrine of the Popish church, and may I not add, the wretched figment of many who falsely call themselves Protestants! The only spiritual fitness there is in the natural man- do not be alarmed, my reader- is a fitness for hell! There are already in the natural man the elements of hell, even as there are in the spiritual man the elements of heaven. The smouldering embers of eternal destruction are there, a fitness only for the 'abodes where, in regions of darkness and woe, the sinner is banished forever from God. And before man can have a spiritual fitness for heaven, he must pass through a spiritual change, assimilating him to the nature of heaven. "Enter not into judgment with Your servant, for in Your sight shall no man living be justified."

Our first observation, then, with regard to this 'fitness,' refers to the renewal of the Holy Spirit, through which the believer passes. Heaven is the abode of a renewed people; it is a holy place, and the home of the holy; and before the sinner can have any real fitness for heaven, any well-grounded hope of glory, he must be a partaker of a nature harmonizing with the purity, and corresponding with the enjoyments, of heaven. Heaven would be no heaven to a carnal mind, to an unsanctified heart. Were it possible to translate an unconverted individual from this world to the abodes of eternal glory, overwhelmed with the effulgence of the place, and having no fellowship of feeling with the purity of its enjoyments, and the blessedness of its society, he would exclaim- "Take me away from here! It is not the place for me. I have no sympathy with it. I have no fitness for it. I have no pleasure in it." Solemn thought!

Here let me remind the reader of those searching words of God's Holy Spirit, in the fifth chapter of the Epistle to the Ephesians, where the apostle says, in the fifth verse- "You can be sure that no immoral, impure, or greedy person will inherit the Kingdom of Christ and of God. For a greedy person is really an idolater who worships the things of this world." In the twenty-first chapter of the book of the Revelation, and the twenty-seventh verse- "Nothing evil will be allowed to enter—no one who practices shameful idolatry and dishonesty—but only those whose names are written in the Lamb's Book of Life." And what were the words of the Savior to Nicodemus? In the third chapter of the Gospel by John, and the third verse, we have them: "Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God." These are Divine and awful verities. Reader! You must be born again of the Spirit, or heaven will be to you a distant, an unknown, and unapproachable region. You must "be renewed in the spirit of your mind," and become "a new creature in Christ Jesus;" -or, be it known unto you, heaven will never be your eternal dwelling-place.

This 'fitness,' then, to which the apostle refers, implies a spiritual change in the inward man, the begetting of an inner life. The Christian is a renewed creature- he is a partaker of the Divine nature: he has sympathies, affections, and desires imparted to him by the Spirit, which assimilate him to the happiness and purity of heaven. It is impossible but that he must be there. He possesses a nature unfit for earth, and congenial only with heaven. He is the subject of a spiritual life that came from, and now ascends to, heaven. All its aspirations are heavenly- all its breathings are heavenly- all its longings are heavenly- and thus it is perpetually soaring towards that world of glory from where it came, and for which God is preparing it. So that it would seem utterly impossible but that a renewed man must be in heaven, since he is the partaker of a nature fitted only for the regions of eternal purity and bliss.

The second step in this preparation, or fitness for heaven, introduces to us the work of Jesus- the great atoning, finished work of the Son of God. And here we are referred to the fitness of title which the believer possesses to this "inheritance." And what is his title, beloved? What is it that gives the Christian a valid deed, a right of possession to eternal glory? It is his justification by faith through the imputed righteousness of Christ. This is the only valid title to eternal glory which God will admit- the righteousness of His dear Son, imputed to him that believes. Here is the grand fitness of a poor, lost, polluted, undone sinner- the fitness that springs from the spotless righteousness of the Lord Jesus, "who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption." "He has made Him to be sin for us who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him."

Behold, then, beloved, the high vantage-ground on which a saint of God stands, with regard to his hope of heaven. He stands 'outside' of his own righteousness, in the righteousness of another. He stands accepted in the Accepted One, he stands justified in the Justified One, and justified, too, by God, the great Justifier. As we spoke of the necessity of the new birth- of the spiritual renewal of the mind, as supplying a spiritual change necessary for the enjoyment of heaven, so we speak of the necessity of an interest in this justifying righteousness, as supplying a spiritual title necessary for the possession of heaven; and we say to every man who has not fled out of the ruin of his own righteousness, and taken up his rest in the righteousness of Christ, that he has no valid title to glory. If the great divorce has not taken place- the separation of himself from himself- and if he has not been brought to the grand trust of a poor sinner- the righteousness of the incarnate God- then, all his 'hope of heaven' is as unsubstantial as a dream- a vision that passes away.

We must connect with this statement the atoning blood which cleanses us from all sin the blood which purifies- the blood which washes -the blood in which are drowned all the believer's iniquities- the blood which has cancelled all his transgressions, and which presents him before God, washed whiter than virgin snow.

Nor must we overlook, in this consideration of the fitness for heaven, the adoption of the believer. God having made him His son, has adopted him as His child, has taken him into His family, so that he becomes "an heir of God, and a joint-heir with Christ;" and standing in this filial relation to God he has a fitness for the Father's house, which belongs only to the children of adoption.

And what, let me ask- as entering very essentially into this fitness for glory- what is the great end of all God's afflictive dealings with his people? For what purpose is the Lord's furnace in Zion, and his fire in Jerusalem? It is to purify, and sanctify, and 'fit' the believer for "the inheritance of the saints in light." All your heaven-blessed trials, all your sanctified temptations, all the covenant transactions of God with you, beloved, in the way of afflictive providences, are designed but to 'fit' you more thoroughly for "the inheritance of the saints in light." All the disentwining of your affections from around creatures and created things, all the disappointments you meet with- the cisterns He breaks, and the beautiful gourds He withers- yes, all the steps of God with you, beloved, are but to detach you from earth, and earthly things; and thus the more perfectly to 'fit' you for "the inheritance of the saints in light." In this point of view, who would not welcome the severest chastisement? who would not drink willingly the bitterest cup? who would not take joyfully the spoiling of all that is dear and fond? who would not be willing to have the fetter unbound, the chain snapped, the bond severed, that gives liberty to his struggling and ascending spirit, and brings him, in a state of holy fitness, nearer and still nearer heaven?

The second inquiry relates to THE INHERITANCE ITSELF, for which this 'fitness' is given- "the inheritance of the saints in the kingdom of light." Our first remark refers to heaven as an "inheritance;" under this figure it is here presented to the mind. Nor is this the only passage in which the same similitude occurs. In the first of Ephesians, and the eleventh verse, we read, "In whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestined according to the purpose of Him who works all things after the counsel of his own will." In the ninth chapter of the Epistle to the Hebrews, and the fifteenth verse- "And for this cause He is the Mediator of the New Testament, that by means of death, for the redemption of the transgressions which were under the first testimony, they which are called might receive the promise of eternal inheritance." In the first epistle of Peter, the first chapter and the fourth verse, we have a striking unfolding of our inheritance: "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to his abundant mercy has begotten us again unto a lively (or a living) hope, by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fades not away, reserved in heaven for you who are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation, ready to be revealed in the last day." And if we will turn to the first chapter of Ephesians, and the thirteenth verse, it will be observed we have a pledge or an earnest of this inheritance: "In whom, also, after you believed, you were sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise, which is the earnest of our inheritance, unto the redemption of the purchased possession, to the praise of his glory."

And if it be inquired what the saints of God do thus inherit? the answer will be found in the twenty-first chapter of the Revelation by John, and the seventh verse; "He who overcomes shall inherit all things, and I will be his God, and he shall be My son." How vast, how illimitable, then, the inheritance of the saints- inheriting "all things!" It is a beautiful idea of heaven; it is a lovely picture, on which the eye of faith delights to dwell. The 'earthly heir' looks at his inheritance, surveys it, walks through it, luxuriates amid its beauties, and anticipates its full possession. The 'heir of glory' has his inheritance too. It is heaven he looks to it, he longs for it, and soon the Savior will come in personal glory, and institute him into its full and eternal possession. But observe whose is this inheritance. It is the "inheritance of the saints." And who are "the saints?" Ask the world, and it will answer, "They are the fanatics, the enthusiasts, the deluded of society." Ask others, and they reply, "The baptized- all who have been baptized are saints." And ask many who profess not to be of the world, and who laugh to scorn the dogmas of the Papacy, and the semi-Popish doctrines of the Tractarian, and even they are at a loss for a better answer. But who are "the saints," beloved? They are the Lord's people- the Lord's holy ones of every name,

and from every fold. They form the whole election of grace; the chosen, ransomed, called people of God, be their outward name among men what it may- whether they belong to your section of the Church or to mine- all who are sanctified by God the Father- all who have been washed in the blood of the Lamb- all who are renewed by the Holy Spirit- all who are partakers of the inner life- all who have "the white stone," and "the new name" in that white stone- all who are living holy, godly lives- all belong to the family of the "saints." Is it yet asked, Who are the "saints?" They are God's sanctified ones, in whom dwells the Holy Spirit, and by whose grace the Lord is, day by day, step by step, carrying on that blessed kingdom of grace in their hearts which will soon fit them for the full possession of eternal glory.

You may think it, my reader, a light matter to be a "saint "- an epithet of scorn by an ungodly world; but, oh! let me tell you, the day will come when you would gladly lick the very dust of the saints' feet- gladly take hold of the skirts of their garments, as they ascend up into everlasting glory. But as you loathed them, and scorned them, and persecuted them, and separated yourselves from them when upon earth- so, when they enter the abodes of bliss, you will be separated from them, banished into everlasting woe, to mingle and to herd throughout eternity with those with whose unrenewed natures, and carnal minds, and earthly pursuits, you now sympathize and assimilate. Awful thought!

But observe, they are "the saints in light." Shall we refer this to their character? They are indeed "the children of the light, and of the day." They have "passed from death unto life," and "from darkness into marvellous light." The light of the Spirit is in them- the light of truth is in them- the light of holiness is in them. They, and they alone, possess real light; all others are in darkness- the darkness of death. With all a man's deep, erudite, beautiful philosophy, his pure ethics, his splendid attainments in human science- yet, apart from the indwelling of the Spirit of grace, the indwelling of Jesus, "the Sun of Righteousness," he is the "child of the night and of darkness." But the "child of the day" is the true believer in Jesus, who has been " translated out of darkness into his marvellous light," by the powerful act of his sovereign mercy. What a beautiful image of the true Christian is 'light'. The child of the light! "The saints in light!" Walking in the light of a Father's reconciled face- walking in the light that beams from the cross of Jesus- walking in the light of an indwelling, teaching, sanctifying Spirit- walking in that bright, luminous path, which "shines more and more unto the perfect day."

Or shall we refer this description of the glorified saints to their present place of abode? Emphatically and truly, they axe "the saints in light." They are in heaven, the abode of Him who is "Light," essential light, in whom is "no darkness at all," "dwelling in light which no man has seen, nor can see." They are in the abodes of perfect purity, of which light is the expressive symbol; they are in the regions of perfect knowledge, of which light is the magnificent metaphor; they are in heaven, the place of perfect light, in which is no more darkness. How beautifully is this description of heaven placed before us in the holy Word! Thus in the sixtieth chapter of Isaiah, and nineteenth verse- oh, what words are these! "The sun shall be no more your light by day, neither for brightness shall the moon give light unto you; but the Lord shall be unto you an everlasting light, and your God your glory. Your sun shall no more go down, neither shall your moon withdraw itself; for the Lord shall be your everlasting light, and the days of your mourning shall be ended." "The inheritance of the saints in light!"

We find the same beautiful figure, setting forth heaven, in the twenty-second chapter of Revelation, the fifth verse; "And there shall be no night there; and they need no candle, neither light of the sun, for the Lord God gives them light, and they shall reign forever and ever." And if we refer back to the twenty-first chapter and the twenty-third verse, we read- "And the city had no need of the sun, neither of the moon to shine in it, for the glory of God did light it, and the Lamb is the light thereof. And the nations of those who are saved shall walk in the light of it; and the kings of the earth do bring their glory and honor into it. And the gates of it shall not be shut at all by day; for there shall be no night there." The glorified saints are "the saints in light." No more veilings of the Father's countenance- no more "walking in darkness, having no light" -no more mourning over Divine desertions, the suspensions of the Father's experienced love- no more tears to dim the eye- no more clouds of unbelief to darken the mind- no more mental despondency to enshroud the spirit- they leave the gloom, and the mist, and the fog, and the darkness of ignorance, error, and pollution behind them, and they flee to the regions of light, to "the inheritance of the saints," of which "the Lamb is the light thereof."

But it will be observed, that these glorified saints are said to be "partakers of the inheritance." "Who has made us fit to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light." There is something very emphatic in the word. We are "partakers" of it now, in Christ our Head. In consequence of our union to Christ, the exalted Head of the church, we are at present "partakers" of this inheritance. We have the first dawnings of it in our soul; the foretaste and the antepast- and, what is best of all, the indwelling of the Spirit, who is the pledge of its possession. Beloved, we warn you against the doctrine held by some, which teaches, that after passing through the great changes which we have just specified, and while standing upon the very borders of heaven, the believer may miss the goal and never enter "the inheritance of the saints in light;" that he may be a partaker of the renewing, sanctifying grace of the Spirit, and stand accepted in the righteousness of Christ, and yet, after all, may fall away and be lost forever! We speak of this- not to wound the feelings of those who hold it- whom we would love- but to warn you against a doctrine so contrary to God's Word. We speak of it to the glory of God and of his truth, which teaches us that we have the pledge of that inheritance in the indwelling of the Spirit; and if we have the "earnest" of the inheritance in the possession of the Spirit, we must, and shall assuredly, have the inheritance itself.

"Partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light "- "partakers" with all the saints of God- "partakers " with the whole family of the elect- "partakers" with all the children of adoption- "partakers" with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, with David, and Solomon, and with all who have gone before us, with all who have entered heaven a little in advance; and partakers with all the "ransomed of the Lord, who shall yet come to Zion with everlasting songs upon their head, obtaining joy and gladness, their sorrow and their sighing fleeing away!" Oh, who would not be a "partaker of the inheritance of the saints in light?" Reader, if you are a humble possessor of the inner life, you shall be a happy partaker of this glorious inheritance- the life which is to come.

A few words only, upon THE PRECEPT based upon this subject. "Giving thanks unto the Father, who has made us fit to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light." Beautiful is the order of the Holy Spirit here. Observe to whom this grateful acknowledgment is made, "unto the Father." Then the sweet truth stands revealed- luminous in its own celestial light- that heaven is a Father's gift. And oh, how sweet, to trace all our mercies to a Father's love, to a parent's heart- to look to Jesus, whose righteousness gives us a title- to look to the Holy Spirit, whose sanctifying grace gives us a fitness, as the precious gifts of a Father's love; then to rise through these up to the Father himself, and trace the gift of heaven- the consummation of the inner life- to the heart of the First Person of the glorious Trinity. Who, after reading this passage, will any longer rest entirely and exclusively in Jesus- precious as he is? Who will not, through Jesus as the Mediator, rise to the Father, and trace up all the blessings of redemption, and all his hope of glory, to the part which the Father took in the great and wondrous work? Oh, how unutterably blessed is it to see the Father engaged, equally with the Son and the Spirit, in preparing for us, and in preparing us for, "the inheritance of the saints in light!" "Giving thanks unto the Father." Upon what grounds, beloved? Oh! it was the Father who provided the Savior, his beloved Son. It is from the Father that the Spirit emanates who renews and sanctifies. It is the Father who has prepared the inheritance, and who, by his upholding power, will at last bring us safely there. All thanks, then, all adoration and praise unto the Father, "who has made us fit to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light."

In closing, let me affectionately ask you, my reader- in what does your fitness for heaven consist? Put not the question from you- transfer it not to another; let it come home to your own conscience- for in a little while your destiny will be fixed- eternally, irrevocably fixed; and one half-second of hell's torment will fill your soul with remorse, terror, and unavailing regret, that in the land of hope, and in the day of grace, you turned your back upon both, refused the mercy of God in Christ, rejected his dear Son, and died in your sins. In what does your fitness for heaven, then, consist? If it is only the fitness of a 'mere profession'- if it is but the fitness of a 'mere notional reception of truth'- if it is the fitness merely of an external waiting upon the sanctuary, the public means of grace, it is a fitness not for heaven, but for banishment from heaven! Are you born-again of the Spirit of God? Have you fled to the Lord Jesus Christ for salvation? Have you the "earnest," the pledge of heaven, in the indwelling of the Holy Spirit of God- in the life of God in your soul? Have you the first sheaf of the harvest bound up in your bosom? Have you been sealed by God's Spirit as an heir of glory?

To God's saints I would say- cultivate a habitual, a growing fitness for heaven. Do not be satisfied with past attainments, with your present measure of grace and standard of holiness; but, beloved, since heaven is a holy place, cultivate holiness- a habitual growing fitness for "the inheritance of the saints in light." Be advancing, be progressing, be pressing onwards; "putting on the whole armor of God," "casting aside the weight that so easily besets you," the garment that trails upon the earth, and pressing onward and heavenward, until you reach the confines of bliss, and enter within the portals of glory!

And I would say- look upon all the Lord's covenant dealings with you as but preparatory to your approaching emancipation from all sin, suffering, and sorrow. Welcome your trials; they are sent by your Father. Welcome the stroke of his rod- it is a parent smiting. Welcome, oh! welcome, beloved, whatever detaches you from earth, and wings your spirit heavenward. Oh! welcome the furnace that consumes the dross and the tin, and brings out the precious gold and silver, to reflect in your soul, even now, the dawnings of "the inheritance of the saints in light." Oh! be submissive, meek, and quiet, under God's chastening and afflicting hand, and receive all his dispensations as only tending to 'fit' you more perfectly for "the inheritance of the saints in light."

Let this subject cheer and comfort the bereaved of the Lord, from whose hearts have fled the loved and sanctified ones of earth, to the eternal heaven. Oh! how full of consolation to the bereaved heart is this subject! Where have the departed fled, who sleep in Jesus? They have but exchanged the region of darkness and shadow, for the regions of light and glory. They have gone from the scene of impurity, defilement, and sin, to the place of perfect holiness, complete sanctification, and of eternal love. Then dry your tears- then press the consolations of the Gospel to your sorrowing heart, and look up with that eye of faith that pierces and penetrates the dark clouds that intervene between there and you, and behold them now "partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light."

And oh! yourselves anticipate the blessed moment, when the Savior shall send, not an enemy, but a friend- for such is death to the Christian- to open the cage that imprisons your spirit, and let you escape to the abodes of eternal glory. Oh! anticipate, and by anticipating, be preparing, day by day, for its realization; anticipate the happy moment which releases you from "the body of sin and death," and ushers you into the full and eternal blaze of "the inheritance of the saints in light."

Such is heaven, and such is the consummation of the Inner Life. As that life descended from God, so to God it shall ultimately and finally return. It shall never, never die. Not a spark shall be quenched, nor shall a pulse cease to beat- not a thought that it has conceived, nor a desire it has cherished, nor a prayer it has breathed, nor a work it has accomplished, nor a victory it has won, shall die; all, all shall survive in ever-verdant, ever-growing; ever-enduring glory. The babe in grace shall be there! The young man, strong in overcoming the wicked one, shall be there! The father, matured in experience, and laden with the golden fruits of age, shall be there! All, all shall reach heaven at last- the end and the consummation of the life of God in their souls. Oh, to have this heaven in our hearts now! Heaven is love- the place of love- the perfection of love. And what is God's love in our hearts but the foretaste of heaven- the prelibation of heaven- the first-gatherings of the vintage- the pledge and earnest of all that is to come?

"Oh, hidden love of God, whose height,
Whose depth unfathomed, no man knows;
I see from far your beauteous light,
And I sigh for your repose:
My heart is pained, nor can it be
At rest, until it find rest in thee.

"It is mercy all, that you have brought
My mind to seek her peace in thee!
Yet while I seek, and find you not,
No peace my wandering soul shall see.
Oh, when shall all my wanderings end,
And all my steps to Jesus tend?

"Is there a thing beneath the sun
That strives with you my heart to share?
Oh! take it thence, and reign alone,
The Lord of every motion there!
Then shall my heart from earth be free,
When it has found repose in thee.

"O hide this 'self' from me, that I
No more, but Christ in me, may live;
My vile affections crucify,
Nor let one darling lust survive.
In all things nothing may I see,
Nothing desire or seek, but thee.

"O Lord, your sovereign aid impart,
To save me from low-thoughted care;
Chase this self-will through all my heart,
Through all its latent mazes there.
Make me your duteous child, that I
Ceaseless may Abba, Father, cry.

"Each moment draw from earth away
My heart, that lowly waits your call;
Speak to my inmost soul, and say,
I am your Love, your God, your all!
To feel your power, to hear your voice,
To taste your love, be all my choice."

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

THE LORD'S PRAYER,Its Spirit and its Teaching.

Table of Contents

1. The Filial Spirit of the Lord's Prayer

2. The Brotherly Spirit of the Lord's Prayer

3. The Celestial Spirit of the Lord's Prayer

4. The Reverential Spirit of the Lord's Prayer

5. The Submissive Spirit of the Lord's Prayer

6. The Dependent Spirit of the Lord's Prayer

7. The Penitential Spirit of the Lord's Prayer

8. The Forgiving Spirit of the Lord's Prayer

9. The Watchful Spirit of the Lord's Prayer

10. The Devotional Spirit of the Lord's Prayer

11. The Adoring Spirit of the Lord's Prayer

The FILIAL Spirit of the Lords Prayer.

"Our Father." Matthew 6:9.

When our Lord Jesus sealed this Divinely Paternal Name upon the lips of His disciples, He was, as their Authorised Teacher, instructing them in the holy art of prayer. He alone was competent to the task. Himself the Object, as, mediatorially, the Medium of prayer, He was in every way fitted to lead them, in the spirit of filial worship, within the veil into the Holiest. In complying with their request, "Lord, teach us to pray," His first lesson, obviously, was to unfold the Paternal relationship in which God stood to them. This was a lost truth to our sinning and sinful race. In forfeiting his own sonship, man had forfeited the Fatherhood of God. In demanding his portion of the patrimony, and then turning his back upon his Father, he became an orphan and a fugitive upon the earth, the parental image as completely effaced from his soul, as the consciousness of his sonship was from his heart.

Such was the great truth our Lord presented to His disciples in instructing them to approach God in prayer. From no other teacher could they learn that God was their Father by adopting grace; and from no other source could they receive the Spirit whereby they should approach Him in filial love. Christ only could restore this lost truth, and supply the broken link which once united God and man in parental love and in filial worship. Thus the doctrine of the Fatherhood of God in its relation to His Church is a doctrine of Divine revelation. It made its advent amid the holy scenes of Bethlehem; was uttered in sobs of woe in Gethsemane; was written in atoning blood on Calvary; and was ratified amid the resurrection splendors which encircled the tomb in Joseph's garden.

We seek not, in thus vindicating the Divine revelation of this doctrine, to lessen the force of the fact that the relation of God to man as a Father by CREATION was a truth recognized by the pagan world. Paul, in his memorable address to the Athenians, quoting from one of their Gentile poets, attests this fact. "In Him we live and move and have our being, as certain of your own poets have said, For we are His offspring." Thus the human race may trace its ancestry to Eden, and its origin to "the Father of spirits."

But the Lord Jesus presented the Parental relation of God in a newer light, encircled with a diviner luster, associated with holier obligations, and blended with a more transcendent glory--as the covenant God and Father of His people by electing love, most free and sovereign grace. And if, as we wander over earth's beauties, descend its valleys and climb its steeps, luxuriating amid the wonders and glories of God's creative power, we exultingly exclaim, "My Father made them all!" what must be the height of our admiration, what the depth of our love, as we stand before the cross of Jesus and exclaim, "In You I see my Father's image, in You I behold my Father's love!"

We are as yet but upon the threshold of our great subject. Let it be distinctly kept in view that our main design in the present chapter is to unfold the filial spirit of worship which the Lord's Prayer inculcates. In a formula of devotion enjoined by Christ Himself, and as appertaining to the new Christian dispensation, we could reasonably expect nothing less. Moses has retired, the legal economy has passed, the bond-servant is freed, the shadows are gone, the veil of the temple is rent in twain, for Christ is come, and we now enter into the Holiest, and approach the Holy One with "Abba, Father" breathing from our filial lips.

But we have yet to learn in what way the Lord Jesus has made known to us the Father. To the revelation of Christ we are alone indebted for our spiritual and saving knowledge of Him in this relation. This truth is not a dogma of Christianity, it is Christianity itself. The gospel is an unveiling of the Divine glory, because it is a revelation of the Divine Savior. "For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, has shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ." Such is the great truth which we now proceed to unfold. HOW DOES CHRIST REVEAL TO US THE FATHER?

In the first place, Christ confirms the fact of God's Paternity. I have remarked that we have no clear, demonstrative evidence in nature of the Fatherhood of God in its spiritual and gracious relation to His people. Creation's testimony to His eternal power and Godhead is universal and conclusive, leaving the atheist without excuse.

"The lowest pin in nature's frame
Marks out some letter of His name;
Across the earth, around the sky,
There's not a spot, or depth or height,
Where the Creator has not trod,
And left the footsteps of a God."

But beyond its testimony to this truth, all nature is silent. Not one syllable does it breathe of adopting love, of pardoning grace, of reconciliation between God and man. The sun in its brightness reflects it not; the ocean in its fullness embodies it not; the wind in its majesty thunders it not; the rivulet in its music murmurs it not; the flower in its fragrance breathes it not; the rock in its fastness images it not. Creation in its endless forms of sublimity, beauty, and tenderness, fails to answer the most touching, the most momentous of all inquiries, "How may I know and approach God as my reconciled Father?"

Nor this alone. While Creation was silent on a theme so vital and transcendent, HUMAN PHILOSOPHY was equally mute. "The world by wisdom knew not God." At Athens, "the eye of all Greece," where philosophy sat enthroned in imperial splendor, issuing her lessons in authoritative tones and with matchless eloquence, they reared an altar "to the unknown God." Truly did our Great High Priest, in His intercessory prayer, testify, "O righteous Father, the world has not known you." But what Creation could not reveal or Philosophy discover, the Lord Jesus Christ has made known to us. How clear and emphatic His declaration, "All things are delivered unto me by my Father--and no man knows who the Son is but the Father; and who the Father is but the Son, and he to whom the Son will reveal Him."

It follows from these words that Jesus is God, and that, as the Divine Mediator, He is the Revealer of the Father. What further testimony to this great truth need we? Taking us by the hand, He gently leads us to God and bids us call Him--"Father!" This, O believer, is your filial and precious privilege! Nothing shall rob you of your birthright. You may have been a foolish and a sinful child; you may be poor and needy, little and despicable, deeming yourself unworthy to be called a son; nevertheless, the mercy-seat is your Father's meeting-place; and every atoning drop that sprinkles it, and every golden beam that bathes it, and every accent of love that breathes from it, bids and encourages your approach to God, and cry, "My Father!"

Christ was also the personal and visible representation of the Father. Instead of leaving us to deal with an impersonal being, an infinite abstraction, the Lord Jesus reveals to us the God, of whose glory He is the brightness, and of whose person He is the image. How explicit is the statement. "God has in these last days spoken unto us by His Son . . . who being the brightness of His glory and the express image of His person." "The brightness of His glory"--all other reflections being but shadows of God. "The express image of His person"--that is, of the same substance as the Father. Thus the Son is the visible image of the invisible God; so that he who by faith has seen the Son, has in the Son's likeness seen the Father.

Has God thus been revealed to you, my reader? Have you seen Him in Jesus? Have you recognized His parental relation? Are you conscious that He is at peace with you through the atonement of His Son? Have you clasped Him in your filial affections, exclaiming, in the deep tenderness of filial love, "You are my Father, God!" Give your soul no rest until it rests in this truth, so divinely revealed by the Holy Spirit. "The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are the children of God."

Christ also reveals the Parental character of God. He might have testified to God's parental relationship, leaving us in ignorance of His parental character. He might have presented to us a portrait of God's image arrayed in the infinite attributes of His being, leaving us to imagine what His will towards us was--and what the feelings of His heart. Wandering through a foreign gallery of art, I gazed with speechless wonder upon the pictures of the illustrious dead which bestud its walls--ancient masterpieces of the human fine arts. But nothing could I gather from their portraits, gazing down upon me in silent grandeur, of the intellectual or moral elements which formed their living characters, or of the events which contributed to their deathless renown.

But not thus with this Divine-human Portrait. We behold in the Lord Jesus a perfect unveiling of the character of the Father, as we recognize the express image of His person. How clearly did Christ teach this truth. "I am in my Father, and my Father in me. From henceforth you know Him and have seen Him. He that has seen me has seen the Father." Thus, what no angel could have made known, what no eye could have discovered, what no human heart could have conceived, what no pencil could have portrayed, and what no tongue could have described, the Lord Jesus Christ has fully made known to us--the character of God as a Father.

Listen to His declaration once more, "He that has seen me has seen the Father." As though He had said, "All the glory in me which entrances you, all the beauty in me which attracts you, all the truths from me which instruct you, all the love in me which wins you, all the grace in me which sanctifies you, all the sympathy in me which soothes you, all my miracles of power and acts of mercy which command your homage, enkindle your gratitude, and inspire your praise, are the true, the perfect reflection of Him from whose bosom I descended to make Him known to you as your Father. He that has seen me has seen my Father also."

What a gentle rebuke of all our crude thoughts, dim conceptions, low views, and rebellious feelings concerning God! What injustice have we done Him! What ingratitude have we shown Him! How have we misunderstood His character, misinterpreted His dealings, distrusted His wisdom, and misread His heart! Does Jesus, who is the glory of all that is Divine, the perfection of all that is human, the brightness of all that is holy, the manifestation of all that is loving, tender, and compassionate; who is the object of my highest adoration and the deepest love, represent the character, as He does the person of the Father? Is the Father all that Christ is? Henceforth I will no more distrust Him, misinterpret Him, or entertain one hard thought of His conduct, or one unkind suspicion of His love.

Such be your reflection, my reader, as you stand before this marvelous, this finished portrait of the Father. Be it your profoundest, your constant study. Be not satisfied with an occasional visit, with a distant view, or with a superficial acquaintance. All that is spiritually revealed or savingly known of the Father is embodied in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. Let Christ be your one, your chief, your constant and absorbing study. At first His beauty may not attract you, His glory may not dazzle you, His love may not win you. But persevere. Each prayerful desire, each believing look, each loving visit will make Him better known, more supremely admired, and deeply loved who, among ten thousand loved ones, is the chief, and who, among ten thousand lovely ones, is the altogether lovely One.

What one of the most classical writers on the fine arts--so eloquently said of the Apollo Belvedere, when endeavoring to deepen the admiration of those students who would become eminent in art, I would say, with the profoundest reverence, of the portrait of the Father as presented in the Lord Jesus Christ, "Go and study it. And if you see no peculiar beauty to captivate you, go again. And if still you discover nothing, go again and again and again until you feel it; for be assured it is there." Precious truth! How it elevates and enlarges my views of the Father! How it unfolds His character, unveils His glory, and endears His conduct.

To see my Father's smile reflected in the smile of my Savior; to behold His glory beaming in the face of Jesus; to hear His voice in the echoes of Christ's love; to trace His compassion, tenderness, and sympathy in the very words and works and tears of the Great High Priest, even when the discipline of the parental rod is the most severe, this is heaven upon earth. What a wonderful person is the Savior of men! Bursting forth, as a hidden sun, we behold in the glorious life and peerless character of Jesus the living portrait of that infinitely great and Divine Being whom we are invited to approach and call--"Our Father."

Christ also revealed the parental heart of God. He who from eternity dwelt in the bosom of the Father could alone make known the love of God. Our Lord might have revealed the mind, the thoughts, the will of the Father, leaving His heart still, and forever, enshrouded with a deep and impenetrable veil. But He made His illustrious advent to our earth not so much to reveal the mind as to unveil the heart of God--less to expound the majesty and purpose of His will than to disclose the existence and depth of His love. Who but the Son of God had authority and power to utter a truth concerning the Father so great and marvelous as this--"God so loved the world that He gave His only-begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him might not perish, but have everlasting life."

How fully did the Lord Jesus here draw aside the veil and show us the heart of the Father, pulsating with a love infinite as His nature and eternal as His being. "God so loved"--the most sublime thought, the tenderest words, the greatest fact lips ever uttered. Truly, "Never a man spoke like this man." Conducting us into the most hidden recess of the Father's bosom by the "new and living way," every step of which unfolded the eternal grace which planned it, He leads us into the very center of God's heart, and bids us call Him "Father."

And lest we should exclusively rest in Jesus the Divine gift, to the exclusion of God the Divine Giver; or suppose that the Father's love was purchased and procured, and not an essential and spontaneous affection, He distinctly and emphatically declares, "The Father Himself loves you." How jealous was the Son of God of the Father's love to His Church. Not one ray of that love would He shade, not one stream would He divert, that He might enhance and aggrandize His own. Well did He know--for He had felt its eternal throbbings--that the love of the Father was not the effect, but was the moving cause of His sacrifice; that He died, not that His Father might love, but because He has loved, and "so loved that He gave His only-begotten Son."

Behold the great truth which the Lord Jesus would teach you! He would elevate and enlarge your thought of the Father's love, remove your distrust, dissolve your coldness, quell your fears, and awaken in your whole soul a responsive affection. "The Father Himself loves you"--loves you with an individual and special affection--as much, as fully yours, as if for you only, you exclusively, its deep pulsations throbbed. He has loved you unto the death of His Son. Upon Him He laid your sins; of Him He exacted your penalty; into His cup He pressed all the bitterness of your death and all the ingredients of your condemnation. Disbelieve not, distrust not, wound not His love. Doubt the love of the mother who bore you, distrust the love of her who wedded you, question the love of the friend enshrined within your breast--but oh, doubt not the love of your Father in heaven, who surrendered His only and well-beloved Son unto the death for you!

There may be stages in the Christian pilgrimage in which the existence of God's love may be obscured; afflictive dispensations in which its tenderness may be questioned; trials of your faith where its faithfulness may seem to fail--nevertheless, His heart loves you in sending all, loves you passing through all, and will love you to the end of all the chequered events, the changing scenes--the sunshine and the cloud, of life's pathway to heaven.

Having thus revealed the parental relationship and character of God, our blessed Lord proceeds to inculcate the filial spirit becoming His disciples in their approach to this their heavenly Father. "When you pray, say, 'Our Father, which art in heaven.'" With such a Father as the Object of prayer, any spirit other than the most filial, confiding, and loving in our approach to the mercy-seat, would seem as dishonoring to God as unjust to ourselves. The true spirit of a child of God in prayer is childlike. The proper approach to God is filial. Any other than this springs from some defective view of the parental character of God, or from a legal, servile state of the soul.

Christ illustrated in His own personal history the same filial spirit with which He so earnestly sought to imbue the minds of His disciples. His own Sonship was a truth never absent from His mind. How early in His life did this appear. To the anxious inquiry of His earthly parents how striking and touching His reply, "Know you not that I must be about my Father's business?" From the moment when, standing in the temple surrounded by the masters of the law, He announced His divine Sonship, to His life's last hour, He maintained, through all its scenes of labor, sorrow, and suffering, the same filial love, confidence, and demeanor. How touching and instructive His words, uttered in soul-agony and tears--"Not my will, O my Father, but yours be done." Thus has our Lord set us an example of filial approach to the throne of grace; of childlike communion with God; echoing but the breathing of His own heart when He taught us to say, "Our Father, which art in heaven."

"Father!" It is the language of the believing heart. As the adoption of His people is the highest act of God's grace, so the filial response of His children to that adoption is the highest act of our faith. Could faith on its strongest pinion soar higher than the Fatherhood of God? Oh, it is a marvelous fact, a stupendous truth, that God should be our Father! Higher than this the soul cannot rise. Love then reaches its deepest yearnings. Only realize this fact, that God is your Father, and it explains every chapter of your history, every event of your life, every sentiment, feeling, and desire of your soul. All that is omnipotent in strength, all that is profound in wisdom, all that is tender in sympathy, all that is rich in infinite plenitude, is bound up in the endearing epithet--"Father." That Father is yours! You were His child from eternity! Stupendous thought! His love to you, His choice of you, His purpose to adopt, His plan to redeem, sanctify, and bring you to glory, were concurrent with His being! They are eternal acts of His grace.

This is not language too presumptuous, too bold, for faith. After such eternal love, such an act of mercy, such a condescension of grace, to approach God in prayer with the trembling of doubt upon the lips, with the fetters of the slave upon the soul, with distrust, suspicion, and coldness in the heart, were of the darkest hue. If God calls me His child, ingrate that I am not to respond, "My Father!" Are you a parent? Does your child doubt his relation to you as such? What would you think of it if he did? The deep, underlying principle of all his love, reverence, and obedience is the full confidence he has in you as his parent. Have like precious faith in your heavenly Father. Let your faith be thus filial, childlike, and firm. Believe that all He does is for the best; that your highest interests are all in His hands, and in His hands are all so secure. Lock your hand in His, as your little one links its hand with yours, willing to be led, unquestioning, confiding, meekly, just where your Father leads. If God declares, "I am a Father to Israel," it is the deepest humility of faith to respond, "My Father, God!"

"Father!" It is the language of filial love. How sweet the voice of love as it pronounces the name of Father! What tenderness in its tones, what significance in its language, what a world of meaning in the one title it breathes! It would seem as if every, and the deepest, spring of sensibility in the soul were unsealed the moment love breathed to heaven that Name. This is what our Father looks for in our filial approach to Him through Jesus. "My son, give me your heart." Himself love--essential love--paternal love--unchanging love--He asks for love in return. And what is the love He asks, the love which He himself inspires and accepts? It is the filial affection of the loving child.

There may be love in a slave towards his owner, love in a servant towards his master; but the love of the child toward its parent distances and transcends all love. Let your love to God be filial--the expression of adoption--the sentiment of an obedient child! This will impart sweetness to your Father's commands, will expel all reserves from your disobedience, and invest your service for Him with the most perfect freedom. "I will run the way of Your commandments, when You shall enlarge my heart." Filial love alone expands the heart to the utmost limit of God's commands. And when the precept, the command, the discipline are traced to the authority, and to the love, and to the hand of a Father, the filial heart bows in the most profound, cheerful, and holy acquiescence.

God asks the love that casts out all slavish fear. He wants you to love Him intensely as a Parent. Securing this, He has secured your most perfect confidence, your most holy obedience, and your most unreserved surrender as a child. Look less at the depth, the great undertaking, the costly sacrifice of your love; than at its filial, obedient character. A son may be deeply conscious of his affection for his parent, while yet incapable of demonstrating as he would wish its reality and depth. You, also, may feel that you love God as your Father, obey Him as His child, and yet have no power to embody that love in worthy and brilliant expression.

Still you love Him. You love Him in poverty, you love Him in sickness, you love Him in suffering, you love Him in chastening, you love Him in rebuke. And in that sleepless night, and on that bed of pain, and from that chamber of solitude and sorrow, the fragrant incense of your filial love ascends to Him in solemn prayer and praise, while you cry, "My Father, it is Your hand that chastens, and it is well!"

It is the language of the spirit of adoption in prayer. It is in direct fellowship with God that the filial spirit of the Lord's Prayer is the most seen. True prayer is filial. It is not so much the supplication of the petitioner, as the communion of the child--a beloved child in the closest, sweetest fellowship with a loving Father. "You have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but you have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father." If ever this Divine Spirit breathes His quickening, emancipating, and enlarging grace, it is when the believing soul is in audience with God.

The real test of our Divine sonship is--communion with our Heavenly Father. We may read of adoption, and speak of adoption, and desire to act from a sense of adoption; but it is at the mercy-seat, when the soul is wrapped in communion with the Invisible, that the believer fully realizes the blessedness of fellowship, the closeness of communion, the solemn consciousness of soul-nearness to the Heavenly Parent.

It is then no matter of doubt. We could as easily question the reality of our own existence, as doubt the fact that God was our Father. There is no engagement of the believer so self-evidencing as communion with God. The act is so unearthly, the inspiration is so divine, the emotion is so holy, the feeling so ecstatic of a soul in filial fellowship with the Infinite, that it reaches the highest elevation of assurance which it is possible to gain this side of glory. It seems but one step from that sacred height of spiritual fellowship and holy rapture, and the soul is in heaven, expatiating amid the wonders of the upper world.

Cultivate a filial approach to God in prayer. Do not, yielding to a false idea, deem it humility to doubt your sonship. The profoundest lowliness is to acknowledge, and the deepest holiness is to experience the Fatherhood of God. Draw near to God as your Father, and commune with Him as His child. You may then open wide your mouth in prayer, supplication, and confession. You complain of smallness, lifelessness, and reluctance in devotion. You cannot trace the glow of love, the strength of desire, the sweetness of communion, in your approaches to the throne of grace of which others speak. May not the cause be found in the imperfect realization of your adoption, in the faint conception you have of the Parental relation of God to you, in the little filial affection and confidence which marks your approach to the throne of grace?

Remember that true prayer is nothing less than the warm, confidential communion of a believing child with God. Wrestle with the Holy Spirit for this inestimable blessing. Give Him no rest until, baptizing you afresh in the cloud and in the sea of His quickening grace, He imparts to you the clearer witness and seal of your divine and inalienable sonship, enabling you to exclaim with an emphasis of meaning and tone of sweetness unexperienced before--"My Father!"

"Descend, immortal Dove,
Spread Your kind wings abroad;
And, wrapped in flames of holy love,
Bear all my soul to God.

"Behold, my heart expands
To catch the heavenly fire;
It longs to feel the gentle hands,
And groans with strong desire.

"Your love, my God, appears,
And brings salvation down;
My cordial through this vale of tears,
In paradise my crown."

The filial spirit which breathes through the prayer taught His disciples by our Lord is not less exhibited in times of trial, than in seasons of communion. Times of parental correction are often times of blessed realization of our adoption. The rod is sent, among other holy purposes, especially for this. It awakens the slumbering affections of the soul. Then the chastened child cries out to God. The spirit of prayer, so long stagnant, is stirred up. The heart so cold and torpid is set upon seeking the Lord. The chastening is seen as belonging to a child and as coming from a Father. May this be the hallowed and happy issue of your present trial! Look at it as parental. Your Father's heart prepared, and His hand presents the bitter cup. His wisdom, love, and righteousness ordained and arranged the whole. Even more than this. What is the heart of God towards you as His chastened and sorrowing child? The words of inspiration alone can supply the answer. "Like as a Father pities his children, so the Lord pities those who fear Him. For He knows our frame; He remembers that we are dust." Tender relation! touching image! A father's pity! This is our God. This is your Father. He has corrected you, but not in anger. He has brought you low, but He has not given you over unto death. He has removed some blessings, but He has not taken all. He has blown upon some flowers of your heart, but others--perhaps lovelier and more precious--still live and bloom to delight you with their beauty, and to gladden you with their fragrance. The pleasant gourd which covered and refreshed you is withered and gone; but He who made it to grow, and then removed it, spreads over you the undying foliage of His love; and the sun shall not smite you by day, nor the moon by night, for "upon all your glory there shall be a defense."

The BROTHERLY Spirit of the Lord's Prayer

"Our Father." Matthew 6:6

The Lord Jesus having presented the Paternal character of God, and the consequent filial spirit of His children, naturally blends with it the fraternal relationship which the children of God sustain to each other. He could not separate the Fatherhood from the Brotherhood. The existence of the one relationship necessarily involved the existence of the other. If I am a child of God, I am a brother to all God's children. In returning to God as my Heavenly Father, I do not turn my back upon my spiritual kindred. In earnestly seeking to be well assured of my adoption, I do not sink the social relationship in the personal relationship of my religion; and in putting in a humble title to a filial union with God, isolate myself in affection, sympathy, and fellowship from a fraternal union with the whole household of faith.

In this light prayer is never exclusive and selfish. I am indeed privileged--and oh, how great and precious that privilege is!--to call God "My Father;" but I must never forget that Jesus taught me to say, in concert with the one family, "OUR Father." And that when I enter into my closet it is my privilege, as my duty, to bear before my Father, not my personal sins and sorrows only, but those also of the holy brotherhood to which, by a divine affiliation, I belong.

The UNITY of His Church was a truth dear to the heart of Christ. As the hour of His mysterious sufferings darkened, this truth dilated before His mind and occupied a more distinct and prominent place in His discourse. Foreseeing the divisions of sect and the differences of judgment and the alienation of affection which would spring up in His Church after His ascension to glory--defacing its beauty and impairing its strength--standing as beneath the shadow of His cross, He prostrates Himself at the feet of His Father, and binding the whole brotherhood around His heart, He prays, "That they all may be one, as You, Father, are in me, and I in You, that they all may be one in us; that the world may believe that You have sent me."

This sublime petition of the Great Intercessor is being partially answered now in every act of brotherly love, in every recognition of fraternal relation, in every lowly, loving effort to manifest and promote the visible unity of the Church. Upon all such shall belong the blessing of the "peacemakers!" But the full, the perfect accomplishment of this desire of the Savior's soul awaits the day of His second coming. Not until then will the world fully believe in His Divine Messiahship and mission, for not until then will the whole Church appear in its visible unity.

The Lord's Prayer pre-eminently breathes a UNIVERSAL spirit. The inspiration of the Spirit of love, taught us by Him who is the Incarnation of love, and clustering us as one family around the feet of Him who is "Love," it would he marvelous did it not teach us to love as brethren. The fraternal affection is cognate to the filial. If I love my God who begat me, I must love, from the very necessity of the case, all others who are begotten by God. If my affection for God be truly filial, my affection for the children of God will be truly fraternal. My return to God as my Father is the impulse and measure of my return to man as my brother.

The prodigal in the Gospel, when he severed the tie that bound him to his father, by the same act of selfish exile, severed the tie that bound him to his brother. "Give me the portion of goods that falls to me." Thus man's revolt from God, was man's alienation from man. Hence the sinful hatred of nations, the strife of parties, the jealousies, the feuds, the injustice, and the wrong which have armed nation against nation, church against church, man against man, and have made this once fair and beauteous world a very Aceldama. All springs from one cause--man became the enemy of God, and so became the foe of his race.

But the Lord Jesus came to gather together His people of all nations and tongues around one mercy-seat, teaching them to say--"OUR Father;" thus uniting in the one "household of faith" Jew and Gentile, male and female, bond and free--all one in Christ, and all one with each other. Let us now proceed to illustrate the universal spirit of this beautiful formula.

The foundation truth is--the one Father of us ALL. I speak now only of the election of grace--the family of God. We who through grace believe, have not many, but one Father. "Have we not all one Father?" By one and the same act of predestinating grace God has adopted all His children. "Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, wherein He has made us accepted in the beloved." Still more emphatically does the apostle state this truth in another place--"For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, of whom the whole family in earth and in heaven is named."

Magnificent truth! The whole family of God one, and as one, clustering at the feet of their one Father!--the Church on earth and the Church in heaven. How real and how near is heaven! The ties that bind some hearts to the saints above, are closer and holier than the ties that bind us to the saints below. This may be explained on the principle that we admire and love, and feel closer fellowship with, that which is perfect. Do you not feel that the saints of God who are the most holy, who in their spirit and walk the most closely resemble Jesus, attract to them your warmest love and sympathy? Thus it is that the saints now made perfect, whom once we knew, by whose side we traveled, whom we accompanied to the river of death, and saw pass over and disappear within the veil of heaven; but who, because they are beautiful in holiness, perfected in love, resplendent with glory, seem to hold our hearts in the spell of a stronger, holier love and fellowship.

Sweet thought is it, also, that nothing but the rivulet of death sunders us from their fullest and eternal communion. There is but a step between you and them. How close are they to us even now! Heaven is nearer to us than earth!--nearer than India, than China, than Australia, than the Crimea. And the more heavenly we grow, and the closer our connection with the unseen, the nearer shall we feel to the "family in heaven." Let us endure as seeing the invisible!

But to go forth in silent converse with the saints in glory, need I separate myself from the communion of the saints on earth? Assuredly not! The tie is one and the same, with this difference only, that its association with heaven, its perfect freedom from all taint of sin and from all trace of infirmity, imparts to it a tenderness and invests it with a sanctity and solemnity which no tie on earth possesses. But prayer is the great cement of the saints below. There is not an engagement so uniting, so healing, so hallowing as prayer. In this holy atmosphere nothing can live but the pure, the holy, the loving. Sectarianism vanishes, bigotry expires, coldness dissolves, wounds are healed; and the saints, clustering together around the feet of the one God and Father of all, realize their spiritual unity, exhibit their indivisible oneness, and present a spectacle of holy love such as earth, with all its boasted alliances never saw, and such as heaven, from amid its perfect harmony, looks down to see.

Oh, were there a deeper and more universal spirit of united prayer pervading Christ's Church, it would tide over those sectarian differences and party jealousies which so much deface its loveliness, impair its power, and shade its luster; and flowing with the effulgence which encircles the throne of grace, she would go forth, luminous and invincible, to subdue and bless the world, "fair as the moon, clear as the sun, and dreadful as an army with banners."

What a family-uniting truth, then, is this--OUR Father. The very breathing of the word seems to diminish the magnitude of those minor differences that separate the children of God; while its influence upon the heart draws forth the sweetest charity and the deepest love towards all who bow their knees with us in prayer, and say--"OUR Father!" Again, I ask, should not the one Fatherhood of "the adoption of grace" be more distinctly recognized, and constitute a more uniting truth among the true children of God? To know that whatever partition separates, or polity divides, or forms distinguish the saints; the moment persecution is awakened, or affliction befalls the Church, all arise and give themselves to prayer; and, traveling to one mercy-seat--converging as lines to a common center--find that, after all, they are children of one family, brethren one of another, and that into the ears of one Father all pour the breathings of their hearts.

Surely this divine, sanctifying, cementing truth, attended with the anointing of the Holy Spirit, must promote more visible union among the saints of the most high God. Let us study it more closely, get it in-wrought in our hearts, realize fully our personal adoption, learn to call God "Father" with a less faltering tongue, then will our hearts be drawn forth with a deeper fraternal affection towards all who worship in spirit and in truth the same Father, and whom that Father recognizes as His.

Alas! the reason why we stand aloof from God's children so much, is because we love the Father so little! Did we, under a clearer sense of our adoption of God, with a deeper conviction of the debt we owed Him for this signal bestowment of His grace, walk in closer converse with God, the things which separate us from the family of God--the differences of ecclesiastical polity, of modes of worship, the hard speeches, the slights, the woundings, the misunderstandings which engender so much suspicion, coldness, and alienation among the saints--would be buried and lost sight of as the rugged rocks disappear beneath the flowing tide. Love--love to the one Father--would prompt us to throw the mantle of love over the one brotherhood, veiling every feature but, "the Father's image in the children's face."

The equality of love with which the Father regards alike all the family, supplies another strong tie of affection in the Christian brotherhood. There may be different manifestations of God's love, but, I imagine, no degrees. He must regard with an equal affection all whom He has everlastingly chosen. As the ground of our election of God is love--love, like His being, without beginning--so in one heart of love, which can admit of no grades in the infinitude of its affection, is bound the one family of God.

In this one family of our Father there are those who exhibit different degrees of love to God, as different shades of resemblance to His image--still they are brethren, and as such it is both our duty and our privilege to recognize and love them. Should not this truth--the equality of the Father's love to His family--place us all on equal footing as children of God? Why should we not love, even though we differ? Why should we not unite, even though we are separated? Why should we not bear each other's burdens, and sympathize with each other's trials, and aid each other's efforts, and bow together at the footstool of the same Father, even though we are laboring for Him in sundered departments of the one house? If our love to the Father is genuine, our love to the offspring of that Father will be true. Love to the one will be the measure, as the evidence, of our love to the other.

Oh, for more love! Were I asked what the first great need of the Church was, I should unhesitatingly reply--love. And what the second--love. And what the third--love. I marvel not that our Lord added a "new commandment," as it were, to the decalogue--"That you love one another, even as I have loved you." Love would veil infirmities; love would seal the law of kindness upon the lip; love would rebuke slander, reprove falsehood, and suppress every thought, feeling, and word that would dishonor the Father through the child; wound the Savior through the disciple; grieve the Master through the servant.

Realizing our personal interest in God's love, and remembering that He loves alike all the children of His family, with what holy guardedness should we respect the feelings, and shield the reputation, and promote the happiness of all the sons and daughters of God! Oh, how can I look coldly upon him on whom God smiles? How dare I disown one whom Christ accepts? Where is the evidence of my own sonship if I unite not in heart and voice with my brother in saying, "OUR Father, who art in heaven?"--and while I breathe the filial words, feel not a brother's love glowing in my heart?

And have we not one and the same Elder Brother--the Lord Jesus Christ? What a uniting truth is this! He is "the first-born among many brethren"--the Elder Brother of the Christian brotherhood. How often, and with what tenderness of tone and expressiveness of meaning, did these words fall from His lips--"My brethren!" And how ready He ever was to acknowledge the one Father of Himself and His brethren; thus taking His place at the head of the family as the First-Born of the many sons whom the Father is bringing to glory.

Through the one mediation, then, of this our Elder Brother, we all approach "OUR Father in heaven." We plead alike His personal merits; we present alike His atoning blood; we breathe alike His endearing name; we appear before our Father clad in the garment of the Elder Brother, in whom, and for whose sake, the Father smiles pleased alike upon all. Here we stand side by side on an equality with each other. No national hate, no political creed, no ecclesiastical distinction, no social caste, nor learning, nor rank, nor wealth should be allowed for one moment to interpose a barrier to Christian recognition, fellowship, and service between those who, washed in the blood and robed in the righteousness of the Elder Brother, are members of Him, "of whom the whole Church in heaven and earth is named."

Christ our Brother! how close and endearing the relationship! How sweet to travel to Him as to a brother, calling His Father our Father, His God our God! A Brother, though divine, made flesh like unto His brethren! A Brother, the heir of all things, and making us, His brethren, co-heirs with Himself! A brother born for His brethren's adversity! Contemplate Christ as such. Go to Him as such. Deal with Him as such. At all times and in all places are you welcome.

You may go to an earthly brother in the day of your calamity, and find, in his lack of sympathy or his inability to help, that, "better is a neighbor that is near than he." But never, never shall you go to Jesus in adversity and not find in Him all the sympathy and support that you need--yes, sticking closer than a brother.

You may, also, find it harder to restore to your reconciled affection a Christian brother whom you have offended than to win a strong city. But if you grieve and wound your Elder Brother, and go to His feet and confess your sin, and sob your grief upon His bosom, you will find Him prepared, graciously, lovingly, and fully, to be reconciled--forgiving the offender and remembering the offence no more forever.

Oh, let us cultivate frequent and intimate transactions with Jesus our Elder Brother. Treat Him not as a stranger. Have confidence in His love, trust His faithfulness, rely upon His power, embosom yourself in His sympathy. Alas! how little we deal directly and personally with Jesus! He would have us entwine Him with our every affection, blend Him with our every thought, associate Him with every transaction, bring to Him every need, confess to Him every sin, and repose upon His heart every sorrow. Should not this truth constrain us to "love as brethren;" and to seek on all occasions to manifest the essential unity of the brotherhood before a God-hating, a Christ-rejecting world?

And does not the same Spirit of Adoption dwell alike in all the children of God? Most assuredly, if they are indeed His children. It is by this same Holy Spirit that each one cries, "Abba, Father," when he approaches the mercy-seat. "For through Him we both have access by one Spirit unto the Father." He it is who seals the uniting word upon our lips--"Our Father," and so binds us all in one fraternal chain of holy brotherhood. Refusing, then, to recognize a professing disciple of Jesus as a brother because he belongs not to my sect, and kneels not at my altar, and sees not eye to eye with me in all things, I grieve the one indwelling Spirit, wound the Savior in the house of His friends, bring barrenness into my soul, and go far to ignore my own fraternal relation to the family of God.

But behold the true catholic spirit which the Lord's Prayer breathes--"OUR Father." And in whomsoever that spirit truly dwells, and whoever breathes that prayer from his heart, is bound, as with the solemnity of an oath, to "love the brotherhood." For, brethren, to kneel before the throne and say, "Our Father," and then go forth and in angry polemics, and heated strifes about questions which admit of perfect freedom of judgment, and which after all may resolve themselves into mere human opinion, and "bite and devour one another," until well-near "consumed by one another," is a spectacle which might bedew an angel's eye with tears, as in reality it clothes a demon's tongue with exultation.

Yes, beloved, God is "our Father." He enshrines us all in one parental heart, accepts us all in His beloved Son, seals us all with one Spirit of adoption--cares for us all, provides for us all, protects us all, sympathizes with us all alike. And who are you, and who am I, that we should denounce and despise one of these whom God our Father claims as His child?

And what a brotherly-uniting truth is this, that our Father is bringing us all to one parental and eternal home. A part of the family is already there--"the family in heaven." Those who once shared our earthly home, sat with us at the family table, clustered with us around the domestic hearth, and who departed in the faith of Jesus, are not lost--they are housed in the Home of the Father in heaven, and are gathered around the Lamb, basking in the sunshine of His ineffable glory. What a soothing thought is this! how sanctifying, how uniting!

BEREAVED ONE! sorrow not as those who have no hope--raise your eyes from the shrouded remains, the sepulchered dust of the holy dead, up to the cloudless world of glory, purity, and bliss into which they have entered--and think of them only as there! They are not here, they are there--in heaven! They have ascended where no sin taints, nor sorrow grieves, nor unkindness wounds, nor sickness wastes, nor death separates. The sun shall not smite them by day nor the moon by night. No faithless friendships, nor lying tongue, nor throbbing brow, nor aching heart, nor weary frame affects them now. They mourn no more indwelling sin, they struggle no more with ungodly men, they battle no more with the prowling tempter; they have fought the last fight, have gotten the victory, have removed the armor, and have exchanged the shield for the palm, and the sword for the crown--and are forever with the Lord.

What a uniting link is this in the family of God on earth! What holy love, what powerful attraction, what tender sympathy, what united prayer, what mutual comfort, should the thought of the present state of our friends in heaven inspire those who have similar bereavements, kindred sorrows, like consolations, the same hopes, and are hastening to join them on high! How closely should these things draw the holy brotherhood together! Why should we not, though of different communions, break through the fence and leap over the wall of separation, and pour out our sorrowing hearts together in mutual fellowship at the feet of our Father in heaven?

Could these happy spirits, who have fled from the 'religious divisions and strifes of the Church on earth', bend from their thrones and speak, with what holy earnestness, with what glowing love, with what celestial and touching eloquence would they exclaim--"Your different forms of church polity and worship are merely human; your essential faith and heavenly hopes are divine! Oh, love as brethren! We now see the folly of our divisions, the sin of our contentions, the iniquity of our jealousies, strifes, and alienations. Here there are no different communions, no separating walls, no exclusive altars--nothing to impair the power, or shade the luster, or disturb the music of that love which now knits every heart in the closest fellowship, and blends every voice in the sweetest song. We are now with Christ! In the effulgence of His glory, all is absorbed and annihilated that once created a cloud, or inspired a jarring note. His love so overflows our souls that we are transformed into love, we are all love, and nothing but love one toward another. All our thoughts and feelings, worship and service, so center in Christ, that, forgetting earth's divisions and strifes, or, remembering them but to deepen our humility and heighten our song, we now feel, as we never felt before, how human, how trivial, how insignificant were the things which once separated us--and how divine, how real, how lasting are those which now unite us in a fellowship as holy, as close, and as eternal as the unity of the God we adore."

Let us endeavor to approximate, in some measure, to the sentiments and feelings of the glorified saints. Let us realize in some degree what that love in heaven is, that unifies the most fierce polemics and the widest sectarians, who once wrote and spoke and strove with each other so fiercely and so bitterly, each for his own communion, now to meet in the embrace of a love that buries all the past of earth's infirmities in its infinite depths and its eternal flow. Oh, in the light of one close view of eternity, in the experience of one moment's realization of heaven, how unimportant and childish the contentions as to "whose doctrines are the most valid, or whose church polity is the most apostolic!"

Our Father, who art in heaven! look down upon Your one family! and so fill it with Your love, that, casting out all selfishness, coldness, and alienation, all may meet at Your feet, and love as brethren, and worship You as the one God and Father of all.

The topic discussed in this chapter belongs essentially to practical Christianity. The unity of the Christian Church, the oneness of the family of God, is not a cold, abstract truth--it is vital, warm, sanctifying. Am I one of God's children? Do I acknowledge as my brethren--of every nation and tongue and sect--all who, through the Person, and by the Sacrifice of Jesus Christ, approach God as their Father? Then how precious and sacred to my heart should be the character, the reputation, and the happiness of my brother, thus recognized and thus loved! Would I allow the tainted tongue of slander, the cruel breath of malice, the floating rumor of falsehood to rest upon a brother or a sister bound to me by the fond tie of nature, but with a solemn and indignant protest? Would I not shield them as myself?

How much nearer and dearer to me should be the Christian character, and the individual peace of a child of God, a brother or a sister in Christ Jesus! Refraining myself from all evil speaking and evil thinking--all that would shade His fame, impair His influence, and wound His feelings--with what wakeful jealousy and holy indignation should I rebuke the foul slanderer, silence the tongue of falsehood, and defend the character and reputation of my brother as I would the sacred and endeared name of my blessed Lord!

How pointed and holy the divine precepts touching the duty of saint with saint! "Speak not evil one of another, brethren. He that speaks evil of his brother, and judges his brother, speaks evil of the law, and judges the law." "Love as brethren, be pitiful, be courteous; not rendering evil for evil, or railing for railing; but contrariwise blessing." "Walk in love, as Christ also has loved us." "Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamor, and evil-speaking, be put away from you, with all malice; and be kind one to another, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake has forgiven you." "Let brotherly love continue."

Were these divine and holy precepts more conscientiously and strictly observed, were they entwined more closely with the communion of saint with saint, and of the saints with the world in daily life, how much evil would be prevented, how much alienation of affection would be averted, how many Christian brethren, now sundered in communion and fellowship by misrepresentations, evil-speaking, and mischief-making, would be united in the sweetest communion and in the holiest service for Christ! Oh, to remember that every shaft hurled at a brother's fair name pierces him through the heart of Jesus! "He that touches you, touches the apple of mine eye."

"Must I my brother keep,
And share his pains and toil;
And weep with those that weep,
And smile with those that smile;
And act to each a brother's part,
And feel his sorrows in my heart?

"Must I his burden bear
As though it were my own,
And do as I would care
Should to myself be done;
And faithful to his interests prove,
And as my neighbor love?

"Must I reprove his sin,
Must I partake his grief,
And kindly enter in
And minister relief;
The naked clothe, the hungry feed,
And love him not in word, but deed?

"Then, Jesus, at Your feet
A student let me be,
And learn as it is meet
My duty, Lord, of Thee;
For You did come on mercy's plan,
And all Your life was love to man.

"Oh, make me as You art,
Your Spirit, Lord, bestow;
The kind and gentle heart
That feels another's woe,
That thus I may be like my Head,
And in my Savior's footsteps tread."

How uniting and hallowing is this truth in its influence upon the family institution! Each domestic circle, trained in the fear and love of God, morning and evening touchingly illustrates this fraternal bond in its approaches to the mercy-seat. At the feet of one heavenly Father all cluster when bending at the family altar. Whatever selfishness may have divided their interests, whatever dissensions may have disturbed their unanimity, whatever differences of judgment may for the moment have rippled the tranquil surface of domestic life--here all meet as one, and with one heart and with one voice uplift their prayer to God and say, "Our Father, which art in heaven." How touching the scene! how holy the bond! how tender, sacred, and uniting the thoughts, the sympathies, and the love which now beat responsive in each bosom, and diffuse peace and repose over each mind!

Should not this truth--the one Fatherhood of our God--sanctify and endear the various ties of the domestic circle, preventing those jealousies, discords, and divided interests which too frequently invade the sanctuary and embitter the happiness of the home circle. Let this truth have its full weight in promoting family love and domestic concord; in strengthening and hallowing the parental, the filial, and the fraternal relations; and all pious families will then be centers of spiritual influence, healthful and far-reaching in their extent, beauteous types of the Father's house into which all the children of God will before long be gathered.

And as we approach eternity, and realize more the heavenly glory, do we not feel a closer drawing towards all who love the Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity and truth? Standing once by the dying bed of a child of God, he stretched forth his emaciated hand, cold and clammy with the moisture of death, and, grasping mine, exclaimed, "The nearer I get to heaven, the dearer to my heart are the Lord's people of every branch of His one family." Such, also, was the testimony, a few days before his death, of an eminent professor of an American university--"The longer I live the more dearly do I prize being a Christian, and the more signally unimportant seem to me the differences by which true Christians are separated from each other." How sweetly these dying testimonies to the unity of the Church of Christ chime with the dying prayer of Christ Himself for His universal Church, "That they all may be ONE."

"The last note of this divine strain breathes love and union, and sweetly closes the most fervent production of any spirit that has ever tabernacled in the flesh. Let us catch with loving ear this music of His dying voice, as it rises and swells with the ecstasy of gratitude and hope; trembles with anxiety for His 'little flock' in the midst of an angry world, and sinks away in a joyful cadence of eternal glory, love, and blessedness, in which hover images of peace and union between Himself, His disciples, and His Father in the everlasting home of heaven."

Into that home we shall soon enter. And could then a blush crimson our cheek, or a tear bedew our eye, or a pang pierce our heart, how deep would be our shame, how intense our grief, how inexpressible our agony, that, in our pilgrimage to its mansions of love, we should ever have felt unkindly, have thought unkindly, have spoken unkindly, have acted unkindly towards one who, with us, bent his knees and bowed his heart at the mercy-seat, and prayed--"OUR Father, who are in heaven."

"Oh then the glory and the bliss,
When all that pained and seemed amiss
Shall melt with earth and sin away;
When saints beneath their Savior's eye,
Filled with each other's company,
Shall spend in love the eternal day."

The CELESTIAL Spirit of the Lord's Prayer.

"Our Father, which art in heaven." Matthew 6:9

There are three points of view in which the invocation of the Lord's Prayer may be considered. I have already considered the first two--the PATERNAL and the BROTHERLY. It remains that we consider the third one--the CELESTIAL. "Our Father, which art in heaven." It was to heaven, where God is, and from whence He came, that Christ sought to uplift the hearts of His disciples. The earthward tendency of the renewed mind, even amid the solemn engagement of prayer, He, from whom no thought of the heart is concealed, perfectly knew. Who among the most spiritually-minded has not complained of the undevoutness of heart, the vagrancy of mind, the foolish imaginations, and probably skeptical thoughts which so often obtrude upon the believer when he would sincerely enter his closet and shut the door about him and be alone with God? At the very moment when, unclasping and uplifting the pinions of his soul, he would sincerely rise in faith and love and fellowship, he finds himself encompassed and assailed by a legion of mundane, atheistical, graceless thoughts and affections, which fetter the soul, stifle its aspirations, distract its meditations, and arrest its flight.

What an impediment, also, to real, spiritual prayer does the believer find in the tendency of his mind to lose sight of God's Dwelling. True, solemnly true, God's presence is everywhere; yet, while earth is His footstool, heaven is His dwelling-place. And where He is, there would He have the heart and mind of His supplicating child travel and repose. Hence the emphatic declaration of our Lord--"Our Father, which art in HEAVEN." Let this be the truth which now engages our study.

In ascribing location to God--in portraying heaven as His dwelling--we must not forget, as I have just remarked, one of the most solemn and, to the Christian mind, most sanctifying and consolatory truths, that there is not a place nor a spot in the vast universe where God is not. His presence pervades all space, engirdles the globe, brightens the bowers of heaven, darkens the caverns of hell. Who can hide himself from God? What mountain can cover, what rock conceal, what darkness veil the soul from His sight? "Where shall I go from Your Spirit? or where shall I flee from Your presence?" Saint of God! can you not in truth exclaim, "Lord! where would I flee from Your presence? Flee from Your presence! it is my heaven below, and it is all the heaven I expect or wish for above! If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea; even there shall Your hand lead me, and Your right hand shall hold me." Child of God! take the divine consolation of this truth. Where can you be where Christ will not be with you? Are you anticipating a new and untried stage of life? Are you about to relinquish the ties of home, perhaps of country, for a distant climate, to be exiled amid strangers, to battle with a new position of toil, temptation, and peril? Oh, let your child--like faith now grasp this great and precious truth, which shall be for your stay, strength, and comfort in all places where God conducts you--"Even there shall Your hand lead me, and Your right hand hold me." The promise is, "My presence shall go with you, and I will give you rest." Go, then, beloved, leaning upon this divine staff, and it shall be well with you for time and for eternity. Other staffs, the beautiful and strong, may break; other props, the near and loved, may fail; but your covenant God in Christ will never leave nor forsake you. Go, then, where He leads you; pitch your tent in India or in China, in Australia, or in America, within that tent He will dwell, above and around it He will spread the wings of His power and love; and in all your engagements and difficulties, loneliness and want, temptations and sorrows you shall be enabled to exclaim, "Nevertheless I am continually with you--You have held me by my right hand. You shall guide me with Your counsel, and afterward receive me to glory. Whom have I in heaven but You? and there is none upon earth that I desire beside You."

And yet our Father has His FIXED and appropriate dwelling-place. The Scriptures of truth represent heaven as His abode. At the dedication of the temple, Solomon uses this language, "But will God indeed dwell on earth? behold, the heaven, and heaven of heavens, cannot contain You." And we have the prayer of the prophet Isaiah confirming this truth--"Look down from heaven, and behold from the habitation of Your holiness and of Your glory." And to crown these statements we have the declaration of Jehovah himself--"Heaven is My throne, and earth is My footstool."

We must suppose, then, that the highest heavens--sometimes called the "heaven of heavens," and "the third heaven"--is the place of God's dwelling. The "third heaven," into which the apostle in his rapture ascended, is a remarkable expression. The Jews were used to speak of the lower world, the middle world, and the supreme world. The lower heaven includes the aerial world immediately over us--the clouds and the atmosphere. The central heaven embraces the skies above it--the sun, the moon, and the stars. The supreme or third heaven is the highest of all, the supposed seat of the Divine Majesty, the region where God dwells, where Christ, seated at the right hand of the Father, conducts His intercessory work, and where the glorified saints are gathered--whose wonders Paul saw, whose music he heard, whose joy he felt but who, on returning to earth, was forbidden by God to communicate what he had seen and heard and felt of the invisible world.

Surely if God had permitted any knowledge to be conveyed to man of the place and condition of the departed spirits; if communion had been allowed between the dead and the living, we might suppose that this occasion would have demonstrated the fact. And yet the veil was not uplifted, and the silence of the apostle's lips was unbroken. Not one of the countless millions who have been received up into heaven have ever been permitted to revisit earth with communications concerning its glories. So fixed is the law, so settled the principle that has ever, on this point, regulated the Divine conduct. It would seem as if God would anticipate and confound the daring imposture of Mohammed, and of every other pseudo-prophet, and forever demonstrate the essential difference between true and false inspiration; causing to stand out in bold relief the dignified silence of the great apostle of the Gentiles, in contrast with the contemptible puerilities of the profane prophet of Mecca.

The inquiry which, doubtless, arises in many minds WHY Paul was forbidden to make known what he had seen in heaven, may be more speculative than profitable to pursue. My own conviction, however, is, that God would allow nothing to transpire calculated to lessen the dignity, sufficiency, and importance of His written Word in the eyes of men. A revelation other than that which, by Divine Inspiration, He had already given, would he most assuredly attended with this inevitable result. "But surely," you reply, "to have known more of heaven, more of the glories of paradise, more of what awaits the righteous, would have been useful in solving the doubts, confirming the faith, animating the hope, and soothing the trials, affliction, and sorrow of the saints on their way through much darkness and tribulation, to the celestial world."

Not so! Let God be the judge. If the present divine revelations of the heavenly world sometimes dazzle and confound us, how should we, in this imperfect state, be able to compass a fuller and more overpowering discovery? And if the doubt will sometimes arise, though the revelations are divine, what would be our unbelief of revelations predicated only upon the human? Enough, also, is made known of heaven to give us a clear and intelligent idea of its negative and its positive bliss. It suffices us to be assured that sin is annihilated, that tears are dried, that disease is banished, that pain is unfelt, that death is destroyed, that parting is unknown, that rest is enjoyed, and that peace, fellowship, and love reign universally and forever. In addition to these 'negative aspects' of heaven, there are the 'positive elements' of bliss.

With Jesus, forever beholding His glory. Blessed with the "glorious company of the apostles, the goodly fellowship of the prophets, the noble army of martyrs," encircled by time "spirits of just men made perfect," and reunited to all that we loved on earth and parted in death in the hope of eternal life. Is not this enough to support us in trial, to soothe us in sorrow, to animate us in duty, and to fortify us against temptation and sin? Will not this suffice to endure suffering patiently, to hear the cross cheerfully, and to mitigate the grief of parting; remembering that, "our light affliction which is but for a moment, works for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory?"

Once more, in anticipation of the eternal heaven, this everlasting rest, our Father would have us live a life of FAITH. The sight, the fullness is to come; until then we are to take God at His word, believe all that He has revealed and promised, and live and die as did the worthies of old, of whom it is written, that, "not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them, confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth."

Soon heaven will be entirely revealed and fully known. Before the sun, which ascended upon us in rosy beams in the morning, shall set in a flood of gold and purple at night, we may fall asleep in Jesus, and wake up amid heaven's unclouded and eternal splendor. Ecstatic thought! entrancing prospect! Absent from flesh, forever with the Lord! What! shall I soon see Jesus? Will the great, the solemn, the glorious mystery which so long absorbed my affections, awakened my desires, engaged my earnest thoughts, and occupied my dearest study, be all explained? Will the grand secret be soon revealed? Oh, for the pinions of the dove, that I might fly into His presence, fall at His feet, wake my harp to His praise, and repose in that ineffable bosom on which I have so often sobbed my griefs, and which once sobbed and bled for me.

"Why should I shrink at pain or woe,
Or feel at death, dismay?
I've Canaan's goodly land in view,
And realms of endless day.

"Apostles, martyrs, prophets there
Around my Savior stand;
And soon my friends in Christ beloved
Will join the glorious band.

"Jerusalem! my happy home!
My soul still pants for thee;
When shall my labor have an end
In joy, and peace, and thee!"

How appropriate, then, the third or the supreme heaven as the dwelling-place of Jehovah. Let me briefly illustrate this thought.

Heaven is a GLORIOUS place--the place of glory. The glory of God, indeed, is everywhere. There is no place in the universe unreached, nor spot unillumined, by its splendor. The constellations reflect it, the earth exhibits it, man illustrates it. "The earth is full of His glory." But heaven is especially the place of glory, because it is God's dwelling. The palace of the Sovereign of earth and heaven should be worthy of the Divine Majesty that occupies it. But what heaven can contain God? What palace can, in its magnificence and dimensions, be commensurate with the glory and greatness of the eternal, the uncreated One?

How profound was this conviction and how reverential the feeling in the mind of Solomon at the dedication of the temple he built for God "Will God in very deed dwell on the earth? behold, the heaven and heaven of heavens cannot contain You; how much less this house that I have built for You?" Where, then, on earth shall we travel for the temple worthy of the Deity? Shall we repair to the Gothic cathedral, to the ancient abbey, to the costly sanctuary raised by human hands? Most true, all who worship God within these sacred structures "in spirit and in truth" shall find Him there, shall feel His presence, hear His word, and receive His blessing.

But God has a more befitting, a more sacred, and a more Divine temple upon earth than this--it is the heart of the humble, and the soul of the contrite. His own words can alone convey this marvelous truth. Had He not spoken it, who would have believed it? and because He has spoken it, who will dare deny it? "Thus says the Lord, The heaven is my throne and the earth is my footstool. Where is the house that you build unto me, and where is the place of my rest? For all these things has my hand made, and all these things have been, says the Lord; but to this man will I look, even to him that is poor and of a contrite spirit, and who trembles at my word."

A truth more marvelous, words more precious, an assurance more comforting, cannot be found in God's revelation. While heaven, the third heaven, the heaven of heavens, cannot contain Him, He finds a home and raises a temple for Himself within the heart of a poor sinner, who, lying in the dust, penitent, contrite, humble, confesses and deplores his sins. Is your heart this temple, my reader? Is mine? Vital and solemn question! Its answer, as in the sight of the Searcher of hearts, decides our conversion, sets to rest the fact of our being the temple of God through the Spirit. And is it so that, with Job you exclaim, "I have heard of You with the hearing of the ear--but now my eye sees You. Therefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes"? Is it so that, with David you exclaim, "I acknowledge my transgressions--and my sin is ever before me. Against You, You only, have I sinned, and done this evil in Your sight?" Is it so that, with the tax-collector you smite upon your breast and exclaim, "God be merciful to me a sinner?"

Oh, divine and blessed evidence, that "the high and the holy One who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy," also dwells within the compass of your heart, and finds there His beloved and sacred and eternal dwelling. Thus fragrant to God is the "sacrifice of a broken and a contrite heart;" thus precious is the humble and the penitent mind; thus glorious in His eye is the temple of the soul draped and shrouded with the emblems of holy, spiritual mourning, lamentation, and woe for sin. Lord! make my heart Your home--my body Your temple!

Our Father dwells in heaven, also, because it is a HOLY place. "Thus says the high and lofty One who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy, I dwell in the high and holy place." Essential Holiness can alone dwell in a holy atmosphere. Sin can never enter the abode of God. In the heaven of heavens, where Jehovah dwells, iniquity has no existence, there in no way enters anything that defiles. Every thought, and word, and feeling, and aspiration there is in harmony with divine and infinite purity.

Is not this the chief perfection, the strong attraction of heaven to you, beloved, that there you will be SINLESS as Christ is sinless, HOLY as God is holy? What is this fond anticipation of your heart, but an offshoot of that divine and holy nature into which you are begotten of God? A stronger evidence of your conversion does not exist than this hunger and thirst of your soul after holiness, this longing desire, this joyous expectation of perfect freedom from the taint and thraldom of sin. There is nothing in the flesh in sympathy with Divine purity; for, "in me, that is, in my flesh, dwells no good thing." If, then, you find, amid much that is contradictory, much that would negate the validity of such a state--a real, earnest, though often feeble and fluctuating desire after conformity to God's holiness, a true loathing of sin, a sincere and prayerful resistance of its promptings and its power, you may, with all assurance, write yourself as a humble child of God, a true disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ.

The breathing after sanctification is sanctification. The thirst for holiness is holiness, just as the vital heaving of the lungs is life. Oh, may the Holy Spirit increase this desire, strengthen this breathing of the new nature within us! May we be content with nothing short of an intense and supreme panting of the soul after God! There is the very element of heaven--heaven in its first fruits, its early dawn, its pledge--in the real earnest, though often thwarted effort, of the renewed soul after the holiness that is perfect in heaven.

This state of mind may be attended, yes, even be produced, by deeper discoveries of the depravity and corruption within; you may appear to yourself to be more unholy, to be at a further remove from sanctification than ever; nevertheless, hold fast your confidence, for the Holy Spirit is employing this deeper ploughing for your deeper sanctification, for your more matured fitness for the holiness of glory. Yes; heaven, with all its favored blessings, its sweet attractions, its sparkling glories, its treasured ties inviting us to its pleasant coast, would be no heaven to a saint of God were he doomed still to wear the chains of corruption, still to trail along its starry pavement and through its sylvan borders, this wretched "body of sin and of death."

But, oh, entrancing thought! the moment my spirit rends the last fetter, and crosses the threshold of glory, it floats in an atmosphere congenial with its heavenly nature, breathes the air of its native climate, and is as complete in holiness--the state often sighed, and wept, and prayed for--as God is complete. Let this assurance nerve your arm in the conflict with sin, let this prospect animate you in your strivings after sanctification, and let the end of all God's corrective discipline reconcile you to the cup your Father gave you, even to make you a partaker of His holiness!

Our Father dwells in heaven, as the abode of perfect HAPPINESS. God is perfectly happy because He is perfectly holy. The two states are inseparable; holiness and happiness are correlative terms, they are kindred truths. Sanctification is the essential element of peace, joy, and assurance. God--I speak it reverentially--can only restore fallen man to happiness by restoring him to holiness. Sin and happiness are more antagonistic and irreconcilable, in the experience of the believer, than any elements in nature of opposite qualities. By some ingenious process of science, the alchemist may so change the properties of opposite elements, as to effect either amalgamation or fusion; but God, infinite as is His nature, vast and exhaustless as are His resources, possesses no secret by which He can unite and harmonize, in the salvation of man, sin and holiness; no moral process by which He can make the sinner happy, peaceful, hopeful, and still leave him the vassal of Satan and the slave of concupiscence.

Christ came to destroy the works of the devil, both in the world and in the soul of man. God's plan, therefore, in the restoration of man to happiness, is not to reconcile the two opposite and antagonistic forces of sin and holiness, but to dethrone and destroy sin, and upon its ruins, raise the fabric of righteousness, the temple of the Holy Spirit, to the eternal praise of the glory of His grace. This He does in the conversion of the soul, by which the children of adoption become partakers of the Divine nature; and through the sanctification of the Spirit; and the hallowed discipline of affliction, by which they become more and more partakers of their Father's image.

But God is happy. He would have remained so, infinitely, independently, supremely happy, had He never created an intelligent being to whom He would display, and with whom He would share it. He might have remained in His own solitary grandeur, ineffably, supremely happy, in the eternal contemplation of His own glory, dwelling in light, which no man has seen or can see. And even after His creation of intelligent beings, He might have hurled every angel from heaven, and have swept every creature from the earth, and not a drop had diminished the fullness, nor a cloud had shaded the luster of His own essential felicity.

It is true that the redemption of His Church has made such a revelation of Himself as will command the admiration, homage, and love of countless millions of intelligent beings throughout eternity; but, since it was God's happiness to save man--and infinity can neither be lessened or increased--the salvation of the Church has not made God more happy than He was from everlasting. To this happiness our Father who is in heaven admits His children. Having given them Himself to be their Father, He intends that they shall share the happiness of which He is the infinite ocean and the illimitable supply.

What a provision He has made for our participation of this happiness through Christ! He is the sole medium, the divinely-appointed channel. "There is one Mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus." All the outflow of God's love, all the distillings of His compassion, all the sunbeams of His happiness, come to us through Jesus. And, oh, what a happiness to know Jesus, to possess Jesus, to stand in Jesus, to commune with Jesus, and to possess the blessed hope of coming with Jesus in the clouds of heaven when He shall appear in His glory! Is not this happiness?

You may pass through deep trial; be the subject of constant suffering; eat the bread and drink the water of affliction; feel lonely, desolate, and forlorn; nevertheless, if Christ is yours, your Savior, your Friend, your Brother, your Portion, and you are looking forward to the prospect of being with, and of enjoying Him forever, no bird within its cage can sing more sweetly than your imprisoned heart its note of happiness, its psalm of praise. Possessing Christ as your portion, with His boundless, pure, inexhaustible resources; changeless love; deep, tender compassion; as all your own, you may boldly challenge every foe, and confidently confront every difficulty and trial in the language of the patriarch, "When He gives quietness, who then can make trouble?"

Heaven, then, as the home of the Father, defines the home, final and eternal, of the family. Home! what marvelous magic is in that word! Home! what magic power does that thought possess! Home! around what spot do our holiest associations, our fondest memories cluster? To what shrine do our warmest affections travel--across oceans, and mountains, and deserts, and continents--is it not the home and the hearth of our childhood? Home! it is the circle of the purest affections, the core of essential happiness, the hive in which the sweetest sweets of life are found. It is youth's temple, manhood's shrine, the sanctuary of age, the archive of the past, and the ark of the future.

The human heart has many dwelling-places, but only one home. No exile can efface its memories, no distance can dissever its ties; no prosperity can eclipse its luster, no crime, no shame, no suffering, can tear its portraits from the picture-gallery of the soul. Perhaps the most true and touching illustration of this feeling is, when we are for the first time, and it may be forever, leaving home. We were never so sensible of our home attachment as at that moment. The simplest object, the most trifling association, enchains us to the spot–

"We do not know how much we love,
Until we come to leave;
An aged tree, a common flower,
Are things o'er which we grieve.
We linger while we turn away,
We cling while we depart;
And memories, unmasked until then,
Come crowding round the heart.
Let what will lure us on our way,
Farewell's a bitter word to say."

"I know of no passage in classical literature," says an eloquent writer, "more beautiful or affecting than that where Xenophon describes the effect produced on the remnant of the ten thousand Greeks, when, after passing through dangers without number, they at length ascended a sacred mountain, and from its peak and summit caught sight of the sea. Dashing their shields with a hymn of joy, they rushed tumultuously forward. Some wept with the fullness of their delicious pleasure, others laughed, and more fell on their knees and blessed that broad ocean. Across its blue waters, like floating sea-birds, the memorials of their happy homes came and fanned their weary souls. All the perils they had encountered, all the companions they had lost, all the miseries they had endured, were in an instant forgotten, and nothing was with them but the gentle phantoms of past and future joys. O home, magical spell, all-powerful home! how strong must have been your influences when your faintest memory could cause these hungered heroes of a thousand fights to weep like tearful women! With the cooling freshness of a desert fountain, with the sweet fragrance of a flower found in winter, you came across the great waters to these wandering men, and beneath the peaceful shadow of your wings their souls found rest!"

Graphic and glowing as is this picture of the magic influence of home upon the returning exile, it pales before the believer's eye as he catches, from some Pisgah height, a view of the New Jerusalem, the happy home where he is forever to dwell--its walls of jasper, its gates of pearl, its sunlight dome, its golden streets, its crystal waters, its tree of life, its central throne, the Lamb seated thereon, its countless multitude of holy, happy beings, all united in adoration of the Lamb who was slain. And when the soul has actually crossed the flood, and planted its foot, weary and sore, upon the golden sands, what its ecstasy, what its transport to find itself in heaven at last! Heaven was the starting-point of our race, and heaven will be the final home of its ransomed portion.

The exquisite story of the younger brother who exchanged his home for exile, poverty, and need; but who, in penitence and faith, with confession and supplication, returned to its sacred shelter and met a father's welcome, is the true position of redeemed humanity. The sinner saved by grace, the wanderer restored by love, retraces his steps back to God, and home to the heaven from whence he originally departed. Heaven is the family home of all the children of God. It is the Father's home. There, day by day, hour by hour, the Father is bringing His sons and daughters--the adoption of grace. He Himself is there, and where should the children be but with the Father?

Not one of that REDEEMED family shall be absent from the domestic circle. The white-haired parent, whose sun had run a long and holy course and then set in a flood of golden light--is there! The youth of manliness and beauty, the flower and hope of the family, whose sun went down while it was yet day--is there! The child of prattle and of song, the sunbeam and the cherub of the house, whose brightness and music death has in a moment darkened and hushed--is there! The infant of a day, just opening its languid eyes upon the world of sin, then closing them, as if saddened by the scene it beheld--is there! Yes, enriched and domesticated by the countless number of the family who have departed with 'FAITH in Jesus', heaven is daily growing more enchanting and endeared to faith's far-seeing eye as the Father's house.

And is not OUR RECORD on high? "Rather rejoice," said Christ to His disciples when they reported to Him the subjection of demons to their power--"rather rejoice that your names are written in heaven." Oh, what a remarkable and precious mercy to have a name written in heaven! Better, infinitely better, to have it enrolled there than emblazoned on the page of historic fame, engraved in brass, sculptured in marble, or set in diamonds upon a mother's heart! But ALL the names of the family of God are written in the Lamb's Book of Life, and written there from the foundation of the world. Rejoice in this!

You ask, "How may I know it?" The Lord has not left you without evidence. Is the name of Jesus engraved upon your heart? Has the Holy Spirit shown to you in measure, the evil of your heart, and brought you to see its darkness, its vileness, and its treachery? Has the discovery led to a renunciation of your own righteousness, to an abandonment of all hope based upon the law, to a believing, simple, loving acceptance of the Lord Jesus? Have you been led by the Spirit as a poor, empty sinner to the blood and righteousness of the Redeemer, looking only to Jesus, trusting only in Jesus, clinging only to Jesus as the limpet clings to the rock, as the shipwrecked mariner clings to the plank, as the dying man clings to the last hope of life? Are you combating with sin, hating the garment spotted by the flesh, striving after and, in some degree, attaining unto holiness?

Then, be you assured that your name is written in heaven. If the Spirit of Christ has written the name of Christ, and pencilled the image of Christ, however faintly traced and dimly seen, upon your softened, believing, loving heart, doubt not the fact that your name is enrolled in glory on the pages of that volume in which divine love wrote it from eternity, and from which Christ our Captain will pronounce it when the great muster-roll is read in the last great day. Oh, mercy of mercies, to have a name written in heaven! Lord! write Your own precious name upon my heart, and I will sing aloud of Your righteousness all the day long!

Heaven, also, is the residence of Jesus, the Elder Brother, and must therefore be the final home of all His brethren. How often, and with what emphasis of meaning, did Jesus associate Himself with His brethren in glory. "That where I am, there you may be also." "Father, I will that they also whom You have given me be with me where I am, that they might behold my glory." "With Christ,"--"present with the Lord,"--"forever with the Lord," were modes of expression by which Jesus and the sacred writers instructed and comforted the saints in the prospect of their departure.

The return of Christ to heaven, His entrance within the veil, was as the Representative of His Church, as the First Born of His brethren. When He had found the "pearl of great price,"--His Church--for the discovery and rescue of which He purchased the "field"--in this sense, and in this sense only, becoming the Savior of the world--He returned in triumph to heaven, claiming and possessing it as the just reward of His sufferings, and as the fittest cabinet of the ransomed and priceless jewel.

From Christ his Elder Brother not one of the brethren--the lowest and unworthiest--shall be separated. The family would be broken, the home circle would be incomplete, were a place vacant at the banquet which shall celebrate the return of every wanderer home to God. Oh, the rejoicing, oh, the merriment when all shall safely arrive at heaven! What blissful reunions, what joyful recognitions, what fond greetings, what mutual congratulations, what entrancing music will resound through the bowers, and reverberate through the high arches of heaven, when the whole family on earth and in heaven shall meet in glory!

Is not this prospect worth living for, worth dying for? Is it not worth the struggle with sin, the battle with the world, the endurance of suffering, the light affliction, the cross, the moral, even the physical martyrdom which the gospel of Jesus involves? Yes! Christ our Elder Brother took the veritable nature of His brethren, wore it in poverty, suffering, and humiliation on earth; and then bore it to heaven as the first-fruits of that redeemed nature to be gathered home by the angel reapers at His coming. How did Joseph's soul yearn to have his brethren with him in Egypt, that they might see his greatness and be nourished at his side! Listen to the language of Joseph's spiritual Prototype. "Father, I will that they also whom You have given me be with me where I am, that they might behold my glory." What yearning of soul is here! what breathing of love! what power of will! That petition shall be answered!

Until then how incessantly and intently is the Elder Brother occupied in our behalf. Every moment, every thought, every affection is engaged upon, and entwined with, our present and future well-being. For us Christ is praying, for us He is governing, for us He is waiting, and with us He is sympathizing until His brethren are complete, and the last and least--the Benjamin of the family--is brought home to see His greatness, to share His glory, and to celebrate His praise.

Who, with any true, experimental knowledge of Him, would not love with the intensest affection of his heart, serve with every power of his ransomed being, make any sacrifice, and die, if need be, a martyr's death for such a Brother? Are we wearing His nature, as He still wears ours? Are we growing more divine, as He is changelessly human? Are we not ashamed of Him, as He is not ashamed of us? Are we living a Christ-imitating, a Christ-exalting life, even as He once lived a man-abased, yet a man-saving life?

I can only further remark, that the expression, "Our Father, which are in heaven," clearly describes heaven to be the only befitting abode of the saints in glory. Earth is not the proper realm for the holy ones. This world is indeed a school for the culture of our Christian graces, and a sphere for the exercise of Christian service, but here we have no abiding place. The moment a sinner is by grace transformed into a child of God he becomes a stranger here, an alien and a pilgrim. Heaven, henceforth, is the goal, the aspiration, the home of his spirit. God has provided and furnished a heavenly abode for the heavenly mind--a pure dwelling for the "pure in heart," a beauteous world for the beautiful in holiness. For this He is daily preparing you. All His providential dealings, and gracious operations; all your mental and spiritual exercises--every tempest, every furnace, every temptation--God is employing to prepare YOU for the prepared place. Accept every stroke of His rod, every discipline of His hand, as bent on this mission of love. Blend every trial, every affliction, every rebuke of your Father with a sweet, sunny thought of heaven.

SUFFERING and GLORY are united in golden links in the history of the saints. Peter speaks of himself as a "witness of the sufferings of Christ, and also a partaker of the glory which shall be revealed." And again, "If we suffer with Him, we shall also reign with Him." Look, then, beyond the dark waters and the leaden skies which lie between you and the holy, peaceful coasts of glory; and let faith's eye often peer within the door opened in heaven, and behold the place where your weary spirit, before long, will fold its drooping wing, smooth its ruffled plumage, lie down and rest upon the ineffable bosom of your glorified Lord. There they have arrived, and there they repose, who have out-sped us in the race, have reached the goal, and anticipate our coming. We mourn them not as lost, but as saved; not as far-sundered from us, but as nearer now than ever; not as wearing the sin-tainted and disfigured robe of the flesh, enfolded with the belt of suffering; but as clad with the holy, beautiful vestments of the Father's house, the glory-robe of heaven, all encircling and worshiping the Lamb that was slain.

"Thus heaven is gathering, one by one, in its capacious breast,
All that is pure and permanent, the beautiful and blest;
The family is scattered yet, though of one home and heart,
Part militant, in earthly gloom, in heavenly glory part.
But who can speak the rapture when the circle is complete,
And all the children, sundered now, before their Father meet?
One fold, one Shepherd, one employ, one everlasting home,
'Lo, I come quickly.' Even so, amen, Lord Jesus, come!"

This view of the celestial spirit of the Lord's Prayer is suggestive of many PRACTICAL LESSONS. We are instructed in the first place to look up in prayer. The proper attitude of the mind in approaching God is a heaven-bent attitude. The whole soul should be in the ascent. When we draw near to our heavenly Father we must remember that, He is in heaven. Earth with its cares and ties, its sins and sorrows, must be left below. For the time being we professedly have exchanged, in our mental and spiritual flight, the terrestrial for the celestial--the communion of the saints who are on earth, for the higher communion of our Father who is in heaven. How consonant with this the experience of the psalmist! "My voice shall you hear in the morning, O Lord; in the morning will I direct my prayer unto you, and will look UP."

Alas! how little is there in our experience of this looking up to God in trial, in trouble, in sin. We look down, we look to the right hand and to the left, and there is none to help, none to deliver, and we despond and despair. It is just because our eyes are earthward and not heavenward, man-ward and not Godwards. What a tendency, also, is there to look within ourselves, and not from ourselves, through Jesus, up to our Father who is in heaven! We look at the darkness, at the vileness, at the barrenness, at the deadness of our hearts--absorbed in the profound contemplation of our own poverty, vileness, and unworthiness--rather than up to the loving, gracious, forgiving, paternal heart of God.

But our whole Christian course must be a looking up. The more we look to God, and the less to our own selves and to man, the holier and the happier shall we be. The memorable intercessory prayer of our Great High Priest when on earth is thus introduced, "And Jesus lifted UP his eyes unto heaven, and said, Father." Such, also, has been the attitude of the Lord's people in all ages. "My eyes," says David, "are ever toward the Lord." Thus, also, prayed Jehoshaphat, "O our God, will you not judge them? for we have no might against this great company that comes against us; neither know we what to do--but our eyes are upon you." Then again the psalmist, "Unto You lift I UP mine eyes, O You that dwell in the heavens. Behold, as the eyes of servants look into the hand of their masters, and as the eye of a maiden into the hand of her mistress, so our eyes wait upon the Lord our God until that he have mercy upon us."

Look up, then, tried believer! Look up, then, tempted saint! Look up, then, suffering child! Your help comes from where your trouble came--from above. Affliction springs not out of the ground, but is a Heaven-sent discipline; and from hence comes the divine strength that will sustain, and the grace that will sanctify, and the love that will soothe. Oh, look up! Look up to Jesus, your Elder Brother, now appearing in the presence of God for you. Look up to the sun shining behind the clouds, to the rock towering above the billows; to Jesus, the Author, the Sustainer, the Finisher, and who, holding out the diadem, waits to be the Crowner, of your faith.

Another lesson we are taught by the celestial spirit of the Lord's Prayer is, to seek heavenly blessings. Our Father is in heaven. Nothing but heavenly blessings should satisfy our desires. Earth's choicest, are poor; its sweetest, unsatisfying; its loveliest, fading; its fondest, passing away. If born again, God has given you a spiritual nature, which will be content only with spiritual things. The nutriment which nourishes the divine nature must be divine; the good which satisfies the heavenly nature must be heavenly. Our Father is in heaven, where our heart's treasure is, and from heaven our dearest blessings flow. "If you then are risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sits at the right hand of God." Oh, let us be earnest after heavenly blessings! Deeply do we need them! The needs of the soul are infinitely greater, and more important than those of the body. Yet, how we pamper and gratify the body, and how we starve and neglect the soul. How eager our pursuit of the earthly!--how languid our desires for the heavenly!--as though the body, so soon to return to its original dust, were of greater moment than the soul, which never ceases to exist.

Great is our need of heavenly blessings. We need more love to God, more conformity to Christ, more of the anointing of the Spirit; a fuller assurance of our conversion, and a higher enjoyment of a present salvation. We need more personal, heart-religion; more spiritual life; a walking in closer fellowship with the unseen and the eternal; and a more filial and confidential converse with God. Since, then, our Father is in heaven, prepared to send down from above every good and perfect gift; and since Christ, our Elder Brother, is at His right hand, prepared to endorse every petition, and to urge every request, let us look up through the blood of Christ, and importune God for that grace, and strength, and help, which will promote our heavenliness, and fit us all the more perfectly for heaven itself.

What, my reader, is the real state of your soul? What is your hope for the future? Which the destiny that awaits you--heaven or hell? In the one or the other you must spend your eternity. Nothing will be admitted into heaven but the heavenly, the holy, the pure. None enter its holy gate but those who have washed in the Lamb's blood, and are robed in the vestment of His righteousness. None enter there but those who love God, and have union with Christ, and are the temples of the Holy Spirit. Oh, decide the question now! Heaven and Hell begin upon earth. So real is their commencement, so unmistakable their evidence, every individual may arrive at a moral certainty as to which of the two he is speeding his way.

Think of the joys of heaven, of the sorrows of hell! Think of the eternal glory, of the endless woe! Happy with Christ and the saints forever, or forever the companion and the associate of demons and the damned! Throw down the weapons of your enmity against God, repent and believe in Jesus, and henceforth you will become a child of the heavenly parent; your conversation in heaven; shedding around you the reflected purity and luster of that world of holiness and glory in which the Father dwells, and into which, before long, will be gathered and assembled, in domesticated union and eternal fellowship, the one family of God.

Children of the kingdom! repose, amid the weariness of your pilgrimage, upon the slopes of glory! Soon heaven will be reached--soon its golden spires, and cloudless dome, and towering turrets will burst upon your view--soon the portal will appear, and the pearl gate will open upon its golden hinges to admit you to an innumerable company of angels, and to the spirits of just men made perfect, and to Jesus the Mediator, and to God the Judge of all. Your path through death's lonely valley will be all light, shining with increasing effulgence unto the perfect day. It was a strangely-beautiful remark of a child, when asked how his little sister, who had lately died, went up to heaven, replied, "She put her foot upon the sun, and went up." Thus will ascend to glory every child of the light. Perhaps the spirit, in its celestial flight, will make the sun in the natural skies a stepping-stone, from which it will spring into higher regions of glory. But, beyond all doubt, it will stand upon, and be clothed with, the divine "Sun of Righteousness," borne upon whose wings, and radiant with whose luster, it will float away into the world of light and song, of bliss and immortality--and so shall it be forever with the Lord!

"What is a scene of glory? I would say,
A Christian standing on the verge of heaven,
One foot on earth, another on the sun,
Standing sublime on Pisgah's lofty mount,
Spreading his wings, and ready for his flight;
Leaving earth's dim and shadowy things behind,
Catching already on his heaven-bound soul
The beams of that bright land to which he goes.
Done with the world, its sorrows, and its cares,
Its empty joys, and vain delusive hopes.
Done with the world, its sufferings, and its sins,
Its follies, and its frailties, and its fears.
Done with the world, and entering upon heaven,
With all its bright realities unseen
By mortal eye, full opening to the gaze
Of faith, so soon to be matured in sight.

"The sight of Jesus bursting on the eye,
The songs of angels floating on his ear;
The palm of victory, the spotless robe,
The crown of glory, and the golden harp,
Unfolding to the eyes, that close on earth
To open on the glorious things of heaven.
Around him waving the celestial wings
Of the angelic band, that waits to bear
His parting spirit to its heavenly home.
This is a scene of glory, in whose light
The brightest scenes of earth grow dim and fade;
The beams of this world's glory cease to shine,
E'en as the morning sun puts out the stars."

The REVERENTIAL Spirit of the Lord's Prayer.

"Hallowed be Your Name. " Matthew 6:9

Paternal as the Name of God is, it yet is HOLY. Instructing us in the most intimate and confiding communion possible for man to hold with God--the communion of a child--our Lord yet sought to invest it with the profoundest reverence of the saint. In teaching us that God was our Father, He would also remind us that, "holy and reverend is His name." That, while our access to Him may be filial and trustful, it must also be holy and reverential--hallowing the name we address as Father.

Who could teach us this truth as Christ taught it? He only could read the dreadful syllables of that divine name. It was essentially in Him. He had come from heaven with robes from which flowed the luster of holiness. Back to the confines of that heaven He would lead us, by teaching us that it was the metropolis of our Father, and the great center of purity. He knew how God's name was hallowed there. With what solemn strains it breathed from the harps of glorified saints! and with what trembling awe it dwelt upon the lips of Seraphim and Cherubim, as they cry, "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts!" He had come down to make it as hallowed on earth as in heaven. Disarming our sinful mind of its natural dread of God, by teaching us to approach Him as our Father; and lest, through the depravity which taints and deforms all our holy things, there should arise a feeling or sentiment derogatory of the divine honor, our Lord touches as with a living ember from the altar of heaven's worship the lips of His disciples, and bids them say, "Hallowed be Your name." Thus did He unite in the act of prayer, reverence and love--reverence disarming love of undue familiarity, and love divesting reverence of servile awe. "Hallowed be Your name."

This petition may be considered as taking precedence in the Lord's Prayer, as it most properly should; since all other things must resolve themselves into the manifestation of the divine glory. The disciples are thus taught to pray that Jehovah's name might be hallowed. In other words, that His name might be glorified. It was worthy of the Great Teacher who had come to reveal His Father's glory, to place in the foreground of the blessings petitioned by the Church, the glorifying of God, as the first and the last great end we were to seek. As all things, all beings, and all events spring from the glory of God, so all terminate in His glory. It is a solemn truth that, saved or lost, all intelligent beings were made for God, and all shall result in the hallowing of His great and majestic name.

The NAME OF GOD is a word of dreadful and significant import. It is nothing less than GOD HIMSELF. It is frequently employed to signify His being, sometimes His authority, and at other times His word and worship; but always resolves itself in God Himself. The grand view here presented of God is--His holiness. Whatever perfections compose His name, those perfections are holy, and are to be hallowed and held in reverence by all His creatures. We are not, therefore, surprised to find with what solemnity of manner and emphasis of language God has revealed and guarded the sanctity of His name.

"Speak unto Aaron and to his sons, that they profane not my holy name in those things which they hallow unto me, says the Lord." What an impressive illustration of the holiness of God is this! Here we are taught, that so holy is the Name of God--so holy is God Himself-that even in the very act, and at the very moment, of hallowing, we may unwittingly profane it! This the children of Israel might do by eating, while ceremoniously unclean, the offerings which the priests had sanctified. And the priests themselves, who bore the vessels of the sanctuary and presented the offerings of the people, might be ceremoniously unclean, and so defile, by their unhallowed touch, the vessel and the sacrifice. So truly and solemnly has Jehovah declared, "I will be sanctified in those who come near me, and before all the people I will be glorified."

Is there no danger of our falling into a like sin? May we not wave before God a censer flaming with "strange fire," or present a sacrifice which our unwashed hands have tainted and marred? May we not offer to Him "the blind, and the lame, and the diseased?"--the dregs and drivellings of our talents, our property, and our time--offerings we would shrink from presenting to man--unholy sacrifices presented to the holy, and dead sacrifices to the living Lord God? "You have despised my name by offering defiled sacrifices on my altar. You defile them by saying the altar of the Lord deserves no respect. When you give blind animals as sacrifices, isn't that wrong? And isn't it wrong to offer animals that are crippled and diseased? Try giving gifts like that to your governor, and see how pleased he is!" says the Lord Almighty." Malachi 1:7-8

How pertinent and impressive the charge addressed by God to the ministers of Christ's gospel, and to all employed in His service, "Be holy, you that bear the vessels of the Lord!" Who can listen to these words of deep, solemn import--remembering the imperfections that have traced, the iniquities that have tainted, and the failures that have attended much that we have done for the Lord--the errors of judgment, the duplicity of heart, the self-seeking and man-pleasing; the languor of love, the lukewarmness of zeal, the admixture of unbelief; the unholy motive and idolatrous end which have attached to all our professedly holy doings; how little we have been influenced by love to Christ and actuated by glory to God--who, I ask, can review all this, and not place his mouth in the dust in the solemn consciousness of having polluted and profaned God's holy name? What a heart-searching consideration this for both ministers and people!

In most holy engagements, in most spiritual services, in most close communion, in most costly offerings--what need of vigilance, and self-examination, and prayer, lest we profane rather than hallow--insult rather than honor the Name of the Most High God! And when all is done--when, from the holy altar of our God we retire to the solemn sanctuary of our chamber--what need have we to prostrate ourselves before Him in confession, and repair to the blood-sprinkling of that great and merciful High Priest who has made an Atonement for His people, as well for their holy as for their unholy things!

How strongly is this truth shadowed forth in the type of Aaron and the children of Israel. Speaking of the medallion of pure gold put upon the forefront of Aaron's mitre, upon which was engraved "Holiness to the Lord," this was the divine instruction, "Aaron will wear it on his forehead, thus bearing the guilt connected with any iniquity of the holy things of the people of Israel. He must always wear it so the Lord will accept the people." Solemnly instructive truth! The Lord Jesus Christ, our true Aaron, has in His own person made atonement for the "iniquity of the holy things" of His saints; and now in glory, upon that head once crowned with thorns, that "head so full of bruises," is still wearing the mitre which insures the purification from all taint, and the divine acceptance of our persons and offerings as holy sacrifices unto the most holy Lord God.

It is a most instructive view of the subject of this chapter to mark the profound sanctity in which God regards His own name--which is nothing less than a holy regard of Himself. He is said to be jealous of it. "Thus says the Lord God, I will be jealous for my holy name." Jealous of its divinity, jealous of its sanctity, jealous of its honor. Jealousy in the fallen creature is an infirmity and a sin; but jealousy in the holy Lord God is a divine and holy perfection. Think of this, you who despise that name, you who forget it, you who refuse to acknowledge it, you who lightly regard and profanely use it--remember that God is jealous of its honor, and will by no means clear the guilty who trample it beneath their unhallowed feet. "I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God."

See, also, the MOTIVE-POWER with God which His great name supplies. "Thus says the Lord God, I do not this for your sake, O house of Israel, but for my holy name's sake." For the credit, for the glory of His holy name He does it. What will He not do for His name's sake? From what difficulty will He not deliver you, from what temptation save you, from what need rescue you, and what good thing withhold if we but plead in believing prayer the honor, the glory of His great and holy name? See how Joshua pleaded it--"And what will You do with Your great name?"

Such, also, is the power belonging to the NAME OF JESUS! Most imperfectly are we acquainted with its preciousness on earth, its prevalence in heaven. What suppliant will not the Father accept, what supplication will He not grant, presented in the name of Christ? What sinner will He not receive, and what sin will He not pardon, for the sake of that name which is above every name, the incense of which fills heaven with its fragrance? Jesus says, "Whatever you shall ask of the Father in my name, He will give it to you."

How divinely and touchingly, also, has God associated His name with the lowliest grace in the soul. "Thus says the lofty One who inhabits eternity, whose name is holy, I dwell in the high and holy place, with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit." Never did a soul shelter itself beneath the majestic name of God with a warrant more divine, or with a welcome more cordial, than he who approaches it in a penitent, contrite, and humble spirit. Never was its holy and solemn shield thrown around a sinner so completely and so lovingly as him. O Lord! withhold what gifts, refuse what blessing, or take away what good You may, grant me graciously the contrite and humble spirit, overshadowed by the love, the sanctity, and the power of Your paternal name!

And see how God notices the hallowing of His name by His people. Speaking of Levi, God says, "The purpose of my covenant with the Levites was to bring life and peace, and this is what I gave them. This called for reverence from them, and they greatly revered me and stood in awe of my name." Malachi 2:5. Who that understands in any degree the solemn import, and realizes the divine holiness of God's name, will not fear and reverence it? But is this hallowing of God's name a sentiment deep and practical even among some who would startle at the charge of profaning it? Are we not often betrayed into the use of it thoughtlessly, irreverently, and needlessly? And may not in our ordinary, and even our religious phraseology sometimes be traced a degree of profanity, unintentional and unsuspected by ourselves, yet not the less chargeable with the sin of taking God's name in vain? What exclamations of surprise more common to many individuals than these--"God bless me!"--"My God!"--"Good God!"--"Good gracious!"--"A Godsend!"--"God knows!"--"Good heavens!"--all phraseology irreverent and undevout, infringing closely upon the third command of the divine decalogue, "You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain; for the Lord will not hold him guiltless that takes His name in vain."

And will not this remark apply with equal appropriateness and force to the heedless and flippant manner in which the National Anthem of England is frequently quoted and sung? Do we not too frequently forget that this patriotic and spirit--stirring composition, unsurpassed for its sublimity and pathos, is a solemn prayer addressed to Heaven? that it is a nation's invocation to the Most High God, on behalf of its earthly sovereign, blended with that majestic Name which breathes in trembling awe from the lips of Seraphim and Cherubim? With what profound reverence, then, should it be ever quoted, and with what devout feeling should it be ever sung! When referring to it in ordinary conversation, would it not be more reverential to quote it as the "National Anthem," rather than be betrayed into a flippant and irreverent mention of that Divine Being with whose great name the prayer is associated? That subject's heart is the most loving and loyal to an earthly sovereign which enshrines the profoundest sentiment of affection and reverence for the Divine. From his heart of hearts will every true Christian in the realm send up to heaven his devout and fervent prayer in its widest compass of meaning, "God save the Queen!"

Examples of the solemn reverence in which God's name has been held by individuals and nations are not lacking. It is recorded of Locke, the great logician, that he never used the name of God without uncovering his head. And it is well known to those who have traveled in Turkey, that a Muslim will never tread upon a piece of paper lest perhaps the Divine Name should be imprinted upon it. A diviner philosophy than Locke's, and a purer faith than the Mohammedan's, teaches us reverentially to fear and devoutly to use the name of God Most High.

Under this head, the reverence for which I plead, constrains me to place all species of LEVITY on sacred subjects. Nothing more quickly or truly indicates an irreverent and undevout mind than this. The individual that can provoke a smile, or indulge in a cleverness, or shape a witticism at the expense of what is divine and sacred, is undevout indeed. He who can treat a light manner any religious subject, who can speak lightly of prayer, turn the Bible into a jest-book, and intersperse secular conversation with religious phraseology or Scripture language in sport, may well pause in heart-searching thought, before he breathe to Heaven the solemn petition--"Hallowed be Your name." Will the great God hold such an irreverent and profane mind guiltless?

Let me proceed to show IN WHAT WAY GOD HAS HIMSELF HALLOWED HIS OWN NAME. From the earliest revelation of His will, God has been intent upon this great matter--the vindication of the holiness and supremacy of His great name. His entire work of creation has been to make His name--which is Himself--known and renowned in the earth. All nature testifies to its existence, illustrates its power, and reflects its glory.

Bold unblushing atheist! you are rebuked and confounded by the heavens above you and by the earth beneath you. Creation, in its countless wonders and beauties, witnesses for its Maker and hymns His praise; while you, His intelligent and deathless creature, in the depravity of your heart do boldly declare, "There is no God!" or, in the deeper depravity of your life exclaim, "No God for me!" How will you tremble in the last dreadful day! As these heavens are rolled up in a scroll, and the elements melt with fervent heat, and the earth passes away, they will do homage to the power and the fiat of their Creator; while you will stand at His dread bar convicted, sentenced, and condemned for the crime of having sought to efface His being, His name, His glory from the universe.

Believer in Christ! read the name of God in the works and wonders of creation! Your Father in heaven made them all, your Redeemer molded them all, the sanctifying Spirit quickened them all, and all testify to the power and wisdom and goodness of Him who permits you in filial love to call Him--"Father!"

God has hallowed His name in His revealed Word. I have already fortified this statement by quotations from inspired truth. It has been shown with what distinctness of revelation, and solemnity of manner, God has unveiled and guarded the holiness and greatness of His name. "You have magnified Your Word above Your name." That is, God has put a greater glory upon His Word because that Word is a clearer revelation of Himself, than He has upon any other manifestation of His name. Creation confounds atheism; but revelation, a clearer manifestation of God, resolves conjecture into certainty, and doubt into assurance. So that the revealed Word of God is a greater magnifying of His name than any other illustration of its divinity. This, clearly, is the meaning of the passage, "You have magnified Your Word above Your name"--that is, above every other manifestation of Your name.

To deny, then, the truth of the Bible, to throw suspicion upon its integrity, or to tamper in any degree, or with any part of revealed truth, is an act of profanity against Jehovah, the guilt of which is only paralleled by its punishment. Either the Bible is true, or it is not true. Either it is wholly inspired, or it is not at all inspired. "It is the Bible, or it is no Bible." To suppose that God, all whose works are finished and complete, would communicate an imperfect revelation of His mind and will to man; that He would construct and preserve, through all ages of the world and through all the changes of time, a book partly divine and partly human, partly apocryphal and partly gospel, in which falsehood and truth were closely and strangely intermixed, is to suppose that the only work He has left imperfect, is His master-work of all--that which was intended to be the most complete and finished revelation of Himself; and thus to weaken all our convictions of God's perfection, and to falsify all our belief of His goodness.

The modern assaults of skepticism upon the Bible have called forth a host of able and ardent defenders of its truth. I am, however, not a little apprehensive that even in the defense of the Bible some of its honest and zealous champions may not have started theories of inspiration as perplexing to the minds of the unlearned friends of the Bible, as involving unguarded and undesigned concessions to its foes. But, setting aside these various hypotheses--what inspiration is, and what it is not--how far the plenary, the dynamical, the human element extends--the humble believer will take his stand upon the divine averment, which no reasoning has yet been able to overthrow, that, "All scripture is given by inspiration of God;" that, "holy men of old spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit;" and thus he will receive the Bible as divine, as the truth of God, as the whole truth of God, and as nothing but the truth of God.

This may be thought a short and easy method of disposing of the whole question, but we believe it to be a perfectly logical and safe one. There is no middle ground with regard to inspiration. It admits of no compromise, allows of no classification, submits to no analysis. The Bible is WHOLLY divine, or it is not divine at all. It is not enough to say that it contains the word of God; it IS the Word of God. To affirm that this part is inspired, and that the other is not; to teach that this book or chapter or verse is of man, and the rest is of God, is a solemn, a perilous trifling with that Book which Jehovah has exalted above all His name. If God smote the men of Bethshemesh, because that, with profane eye, they peered into the ark, do you think that He will hold him guiltless who denies the truth, impugns the integrity, or tampers with the sanctity of the divine ark of His revealed Word?

But even, where the truth of the Bible is fully received, may there not exist on some occasions a tendency to deal lightly with God's Word, closely approximating a profane handling of its contents? In this light must be regarded all flippant quotations of Scripture, all attempts to perpetrate a pun, or to give utterance to jest or witticism, at the expense of the dignity and sanctity of God's holy Volume. Not such was David's spirit. His language was, "My heart stands in awe of Your word." Princes were banded against him, but he heeded not their persecutions nor stood in awe of their power. But he had a high regard, and holy reverence, and a devout affection for God's Word. He stood in awe of it--in awe of its divinity, of its revelations, of its holiness, of Him whose word it was! How low must be the spiritual state of that religious professor, how irreverent the mind, how earthly the heart, that can deal lightly with the Bible, that can treat it as a common book, as the record of men, and not, as it is in truth, the Word of God! What says the Divine Author of the Scriptures? "To that man will I look, even unto him who is of a humble and a contrite spirit, and who trembles at my word." It is a distinctive mark of the truly regenerate mind that it stands in awe of God's Word. "I would advise you all that come to the reading or hearing of this book, which is the Word of God, the most precious jewel and most holy relic that remains upon earth, that you bring with you the fear of God, and that you do it with all due reverence, and use your knowledge thereof, not to vain--glory of frivolous disputation, but to the honor of God, increase of virtue, and edification both of yourselves and others." Oh that the Word of God may be increasingly precious to our souls! All other writings in comparison are diluted and insipid, and fail to meet our case. The knowledge of sin sweetens it, the season of affliction explains it, the time of adversity endears it, the voice of the rod enforces it, the mercy, loving--kindness, and faithfulness of the Lord confirm our faith in its truth, while the assaults of its foes and the treachery of its friends but make it all the more precious to our hearts. "How sweet are your words unto my taste! yes, sweeter than honey to my mouth!" "Your word is very pure, therefore your servant loves it."

"Lord, I have made Your word my choice,
My lasting heritage;
These shall my warmest powers rejoice,
My warmest thoughts engage.

"I'll read the histories of Your love,
And keep Your laws in sight,
While through Your promises I roam
With ever fresh delight.

"Tis a broad land of wealth unknown,
Where springs of life arise
Seeds of immortal bliss are sown,
And hidden glory lies.

"The best relief that mourners have,
It makes our sorrows blest;
Our fairest hopes beyond the grave,
And our eternal rest."

But nowhere has God so hallowed His great and holy Name as in the LORD JESUS CHRIST. In the words addressed by Jehovah to the children of Israel, in reference to the Angel who guided their journeyings, there is a remarkable shadowing forth of this truth. Thus we read--"Behold, I send my Angel before you, to keep you in the way, and to bring you into the place which I have prepared. Beware of Him, and obey His voice, provoke Him not; for He will not pardon your transgressions--for My name is in Him," (Exod. 23:20-21.) Of whom does God here speak, but of the Lord Jesus Christ, the uncreated Angel--the Angel of God's presence, who was with the Israelites at the receiving of the law in Mount Sinai--who saved and redeemed them, and carried them all the days of old, and against whom they rebelled, and whom they tempted in the wilderness.

That this Angel was no less a being than Christ, is manifest. He alone, as God, possessed the prerogative of pardoning sin, the exercise or the withholding of which this Angel possessed. It would be absurd to say that He would not pardon, were not the power held in His hands, of exercising this divine prerogative. Thus, then, this Angel whom the Israelites were to follow and obey, was none other than Christ. Now, God's Name was in Christ--His divine Name--His paternal Name--His pardoning Name--His gracious Name--His Name of "Love." It is in the light of this truth, that we understand the words of our intercessory High Priest's memorable prayer when on earth, "I have manifested Your name unto the men whom You gave Me out of the world. I have declared unto them Your name."

Nowhere has God made His Name so conspicuous, glorious, and precious as in Jesus. It is true, I breathe its fragrance in the scented air, see its beauty in the vernal landscape, adore its wisdom in the heavens above me; but I am conscious of its power, and taste its love, and behold its glory alone in Christ. I behold it in nature, but I feel it in Jesus. It is only by faith in Jesus I properly read the Name of God. The works of creation, multiform and beautiful, are but the syllables of God's Name--His Name abbreviated. But in the person and work of the Lord Jesus, His Name is written in full, and with His own hand--Jehovah-Jesus.

Our Lord's whole life was a continuous sanctifying of His Father's Name. Everywhere, and in every act, He acknowledged its divinity, upheld its authority, vindicated its sanctity, magnified and illustrated its greatness. God's Name was in Him--and the solemn consciousness of being the sacred depository of so great, holy, and awesome a treasure--invested with the beauty and perfumed with the fragrance of holiness, every thought, word, and act of His life. His obedience to God's holy law, His zeal for His Father's honor, His jealousy of His Father's glory, His full redemption of the Church, entrusted to His hands by God, was a living comment on the petition He daily taught, "Hallowed be Your Name."

Reader, beware of Him, and obey Him, for God's great and holy Name is in Him! You approach not a mere creature, you deal not with a finite being in your transactions with the Lord Jesus Christ. Beware of Him! It is not a human Name you profane, it is not a created being you deny, it is not a subordinate authority you denounce, when you deny His Deity, reject His Atonement, and trample His truth and claims to your love, faith and obedience, in the dust. You tear the robe of dignity from an infinite being; you pluck the crown of royalty from a kingly brow; you trample in the dust the sacrificial work of a Divine Redeemer. Oh, beware of His anger, beware of His power, lest, at last, you be numbered among those who will hide themselves in the dens and in the rocks of the mountains, and exclaim, "Fall on us and hide us from the face of Him that sits on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb, for the great day of His wrath is come, and who shall be able to stand?"

But you who are hidden in this Rock need not dread that day; for the Name of Jehovah Jesus will then be your strong tower, into which you shall run and be safe. Upon the Rock, and within the Rock, you need not fear that it will fall upon you and grind you to powder. You have contemplated God's great Name as it flashed in the lightning and reverberated in the thunder of Mount SINAI, and you have been petrified with fear. Approach Mount CALVARY, and read God's Name, written in crimson letters upon the cross, and you will dissolve into love. Believe in Christ, and the "peace of God, which passes all understanding," will diffuse its divine serenity through your soul. You have not come unto the mount that burns with fire, nor unto blackness, and darkness, and tempest; but you have come to Jesus, the Mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling, and grace will hide you there while His judgments pass you by.

God hallows His Name in HIS DEALINGS WITH HIS SAINTS. In some of those dealings clouds and darkness may veil the brightness and tenderness of His name. "Verily, you are a God that hides yourself." Nevertheless, profoundly dark and inexplicably mysterious as His way often is with His people, His gracious Name of "Father," remains unchanged and unchangeable. His very Name is a pledge of covenant faithfulness, "The Lord will not forsake His people, for His great Name's sake." He might find ample reason to justify His abandonment of them in their own inconstancy and unfaithfulness, rebellions and backslidings; but because of His own name He will never cast them off. That name binds Him to the fulfillment of every covenant promise, to the protection of His Church in all her history; to His presence with His people in all their sufferings, trials and needs.

So great, so holy, so sacred to Jesus is it, that for His honor and glory He will never leave nor forsake His people. Plead this truth in believing prayer when His providences appear to contravene His promises; when He hides Himself, and you cannot perceive Him; when His frowns veil His smiles; when the waters come in upon your soul, and you cry, "Lord! save me--I am perishing." Then cling to this divine, this potent name; for its holiness, its faithfulness, its honor, pledge Him never to forsake you. "The Name of the Lord is a strong tower; the righteous runs into it, and is safe."

Speak we of God's dealings in the forgiveness of His people's sin? Again, His Name is hallowed--"I, even I, am He that blots out your transgressions for my own sake." In other words, for His Name's sake, which stands for His whole being. Thus may the saints, burdened with guilt, stricken with sorrow for sin, approach God with holy boldness, suing out their renewed forgiveness, since, not for their sakes, but for His own sake--for His great Name's sake--God will blot out their sins, and will remember their transgressions no more.

Speak we of the dreary path the children of the light often tread? Still is God's Name hallowed by their trust in it. "Who is among you that fears the Lord, that obeys the voice of his servant, that walks in darkness, and has no light? let him trust in the Name of the Lord, and stay upon his God." What a strong staff to lean upon--what a sure lamp to trust to in one's dreary way, is the Name of Jehovah! expressive of every divine perfection, and filling the soul with ineffable delight.

But the question now occurs, How is God's name to be hallowed? Before, however, we supply the answer, let there be a deep and solemn conviction of the fact, that our Father's great and holy Name is everywhere dishonored. The sin of profanity is one of the great social evils of society. The irreverent and undevout use of God's awesome Name confronts us everywhere, and on all occasions. It may truly be said that, "because of swearing the land mourns." What place is entirely exempt from the existence and guilt of this sin? In the pulpit, occupied by the prophet who prophesies lies in God's Name--His Name is profaned. In the sanctuary, where heartless prayer, and vain repetitions, and ritualistic forms take the place of pure, spiritual, and holy worship--God's Name is profaned. By the press, in much of the popular literature of the day--the story, the narrative, the song--God's Name is profaned. On the boards of the theater, in the orchestra of the opera, in the "tuneful choir" of the sacred oratorio, in which divine worship is mimicked, and the majestic Name of the Divine Object of worship is undevoutly, and even defiantly used--God's Name is profaned. In the witness box, where stands the man who calls the God of truth and justice to sanction his deception and perjury--God's Name is profaned. In the desecration of His holy day--the Sunday newspaper, the Sabbath-train, the selling and the buying, the casting of accounts, the writing of letters, the making of calls, the forsaking of God's sanctuary, and lightly regarding the ministry of His word--God's Name is profaned. In view of these willful and flagrant breaches of His law, may not God, in truth, exclaim--"My Name continually, every day, is blasphemed!" How should the children of God sigh and cry for this great sin! But we turn to a brighter view of the subject.

HOW MAY THE CHILDREN OF GOD HONOR AND HALLOW THEIR FATHER'S NAME? That we cannot make it more holy is obvious; and yet we may hallow it. First, by a deepening sense of its holiness. We cannot grow in a knowledge of God without growing in a conviction of His holiness. And it is no small attainment in our spiritual training for heaven. Superficial views of the divine holiness irresistibly lead to superficial views of sin. What an exceeding sinful thing does sin appear when placed in the searching light of God's infinite holiness! "You have set our iniquities before You, our secret sins in the light of Your countenance."--"The light of Your countenance!" Terrible mirror! seen through this divine medium, how real, how dark those hidden sins of the heart appear, of which no being but God is cognizant! Faithful glass! reflected from its divine lens--the infinitely holy perfections of Jehovah--we startle at that, the sin of which we had not seen, the very existence of which we had not suspected. And but for the cleansing of Christ's blood, and the shelter of His arms, where could we fly? Thus we hallow our Father's Name by a growing sight of its infinite purity, and by a deepening hatred and abhorrence of our sin.

This deep conviction of its holiness will constrain us to guard its sanctity with the most jealous vigilance. How fearful and widespread is the sin of profanity! Do not multitudes, many professing and calling themselves Christians, "blaspheme that worthy Name by which you are called?" Are we duly affected by this fact? Do we stand up in vindication of God's honor? With what filial affection and wakeful jealousy a loving, dutiful child will shield the honor of his father, and vindicate the purity of his mother's name--that name bequeathed to them in death--an unsullied and precious legacy. Could such a child listen, but with burning indignation, and with almost murderous resentment, to the slander and the insult which envy and revenge, falsely and maliciously, should cast upon a memory so sacred and so dear? And shall the name of an inferior and erring parent be more sacredly reverenced and vigilantly guarded than the worthy Name by which we are called--the Name of our Father in heaven?

Let us see that we be ever faithful to God, loyal to Christ, by vindicating our Father's honor, by meekly yet firmly rebuking the swearer and checking the profane. Remind them that God will not regard as venial lapses the unhallowed intermixture with our conversation and our literature His Name, in that day when He shall arraign the world He once made and will then judge. You profane ones! you guard with the most jealous and sleepless care the integrity and the honor of your own sinful, paltry name, while in your story and your jest, your falsehood and your frivolous talk, you profane and dishonor the dread Name of the Father in heaven--the holy Lord God Almighty. How shall you escape the damnation of hell?

We may hallow God's Name by bringing it into the daily exercise of faith. It is our Father's Name, carved in the humanity of His Son. In the daily walk and battle of faith, we are to make constant use of it. The knowledge of it is to deepen our reverence, inspire our love, encourage our trust, comfort our hearts, and embolden our supplications at the throne of grace. We are constantly, and in everything, with godly fear and filial confidence, to deal with the Name of our Father in heaven. "Those who know Your Name will put their trust in You." "Do for me, O God, for Your Name's sake." "For Your Name's sake, pardon my iniquity, for it is great." "Quicken me, O Lord, for Your Name's sake." "Unite my heart to fear Your Name." "For Your Name's sake, lead me and guide me." "I have remembered Your Name in the night." "Bring my soul out of prison, that I might praise Your Name." "Your Name [Jesus] is as ointment poured forth." Thus do the children of God hallow their Father's Name by running into it, pleading it, casting themselves upon it in all times of trial and difficulty and need. By pureness, by faith, by sincere love, ever remembering that God's divine and holy Name is in us, we are to move amid the darkness and the taint of the world as a living, flaming censer, shedding around us the light, and wafting above us the sweet odor, of our sanctity--so hallowing God's great Name.

By a meek, submissive spirit, under the discipline of our Father's correcting hand, we hallow His Name. So long as there is any collision of our will with His; so long as we cherish the secret feeling of rebellion and hostility to His dealings, we cease to sanctify it. I believe that the highest honoring of God's Name, on the part of the children of His adopting grace and love is, in saying from the heart, "Your will, not mine, be done." Suffering child of God! afflicted saint of the Most High! in what a favorable position are you now placed for magnifying and hallowing your Father's great Name! Oh, what luster the meek and humble, quiet and silent yielding of your spirit to Him may shed upon its paternal holiness! How may you glorify God in these fires! How may you magnify Christ's Name before the world, endear it to the saints, and glorify it in the eyes of angels, by meekly bowing your head in the storm, exclaiming, "The cup which my Father has given me, shall I not drink it?"

And, most surely, we hallow it by a full, implicit, believing trust in the Name, and person, and work of Jesus. There can be no proper hallowing of God's Name, while there is any slighting of the Lord Jesus Christ. The Father will have us honor the Son, the most beloved of His heart, even as we honor Him. "He that honors not the Son, honors not the Father, who has sent Him." We cannot entertain too exalted views of the Lord Jesus. Our great danger is, the reverse of this. In honoring the Son, we hallow the Name of the Father. To Jesus we are to repair, as to the great Depositary of the Father's fullness--divine and mediatorial. "In Him dwelt all the fullness of the godhead bodily"--Essentially. "It pleased the Father that in Him all fullness should dwell"-- Mediatorially. Now, we glorify God by living a life of faith upon this supply, by drawing largely from this fullness, by heavy drafts upon this infinite sufficiency of merit and grace and strength and love.

Every sin you take to Christ's blood--every corruption you take to His grace--every need you take to His supply--every sorrow you take to His heart--every burden you hang upon His arm--you impart a deeper emphasis to this sublime petition, "Hallowed be Your Name."

How endeared to our heart should the Savior be, since the Father's Name is revealed and glorified through Him, and by us in Him! We must ever keep in mind the grand central truth of the Bible, that Christ is the great Revealer of God. All other religion but this is sentimental and unsaving. It is not seeing the glory of God in the panorama of nature that will save, but seeing the "glory of God in the face of Jesus." It is not even seeing God through Christ, but it is seeing God in Christ, "God manifest in the flesh." By creation, I know that there is a God; but in the God-man, the man Christ Jesus, I see what God is--how holy, how gracious, how merciful, how compassionate, how loving! How near does this bring God to us, and us to God, and by a medium that links Him in sympathy with all that I am as human; while it unites me in grace and glory with all that He is as Divine! We see what the life of the believer should be--a daily magnifying the Name of the Lord Jesus; for in doing we hallow the Name of our Father in heaven.

It is a solemn thought that the Name of Christ is in every child of God. Our character is more sacred, our position more responsible, our dignity more exalted than the angels' in heaven. We are temples of God, through Christ and by the Spirit. How closely entwined, then, should the Lord Jesus be with our every thought, and feeling, and act! How should we hallow His illustrious and precious Name, by conformity to His precepts, obedience to His commandments, consecration to His service. Christ should be associated with all we are, with all we have, and with all we do. For us to live should be Christ. The oneness of Christ and the believer admits of no divided interests. Christ has taken us into union with His person, identifying us with all the blessings of His grace, and with all the glories of His kingdom.

We should, therefore, be jealous and watchful lest any object, or creature, or self-seeking, should insinuate itself between Christ and our unreserved dedication. If Christ maintains intact this undivided supremacy in our souls, all other objects will subordinate themselves to Him, and He will be all in all. Our talents, our property, our rank, our time, our whole being, will be the spontaneous offering of love laid at His feet; and the "name of our Lord Jesus Christ will be glorified in us, and we in Him," and so God's great Name will be hallowed.

Nor will it terminate here. There awaits every disciple and confessor of Christ, the reward of grace. At the glorious appearing of our Lord, the imperfect service we did for His cause--the little suffering we endured for His Name--the short period we bore His cross, will brighten into a crown of life, and deepen into a sea of joy, and bloom into a paradise of glory, and expand into an eternity of bliss. "Unto you who fear My Name shall the Sun of righteousness arise with healing in His wings."

It is a truth as inevitably certain as it is overwhelmingly solemn, that God's great Name will be hallowed by all beings, either in mercy or in vengeance. It must be so! Not the shadow of a shade will rest upon the divine glory of that majestic, that holy Name. The love it expresses, the holiness it contains, the justice it embodies, the power it wields, will be displayed either in the salvation or in the condemnation of every being of the human race. It will be glorified in its mercy or in its justice, by every saint in paradise, and by every sinner in Tophet. The voluptuous Dives, sitting in state and feasting on his good things; and the ulcerated Lazarus, pining in poverty at his gate, fed with the crumbs that fell from his table, will wake the echoes of that Name through eternity--the one in groans of despair piercing the dark regions of hell, the other in anthems of praise, floating in sweetest music over the sunlight plains of heaven. JUSTICE or MERCY must be the doom, and will be the theme of all.

What, my reader, will yours be? Deem it not difficult to decide. Emigrants to a foreign land know to what port they are bound. The voyagers to eternity may know, to an appropriate certainty, where they are going. Heaven and Hell commence on earth. Are you among those who do not hallow God's Name? Responding to this petition, it may be, in the heartless devotions of each Sabbath, do you yet, in the transactions of daily life, regard it with indifference, or in social communion breathe it with profanity? Do you think that that tongue which has taken His great and holy Name in vain; that those lips which impurity has defiled, and oaths have blistered, can unite in the holy music of heaven? Impossible! There remains but one doom for the profane--he goes "to his own place!" Decide scripturally, decide solemnly, decide now. Heaven or Hell await the issue!

The SUBMISSIVE Spirit of the Lord's Prayer.

"Your will be done on earth as it is done in heaven." Matthew 6:10

This remarkable petition in the Lord's Prayer admits of a twofold application. In its first and more limited view, it may be regarded as expressing the meek submission of the child of God under the trying discipline of his heavenly Father. In its second and more comprehensive view, it supplies a key to the preceding petition, with which it stands closely linked, and explains to us what is meant by the coming of God's kingdom--even His will done on earth as it is done in heaven. "Your kingdom come, Your will be done on earth even as it is done in heaven." I propose in the present chapter to present both of these views of the prayer.

Whose will is this? "Your will"--the will of God. The will in man is the determining faculty of the soul. All his thoughts, words, and actions--all that he resolves, undertakes, and executes--is a volition, or act of the will. There is no higher natural law of the man. In God this is infinitely and pre-eminently so. The Divine will is the supreme moving law of the universe. We speak, and properly so, of the 'laws of nature.' As Montesquieu in his masterly work on the Spirit of Laws has remarked, "All beings have their laws; the Deity His laws, the material world its laws, the intelligences superior to man their laws, the animals their laws, man his laws." But this idea of the universality and plurality of law resolves itself into the existence of one all-governing, all-commanding supreme law. What are the laws of nature but the law of God? Hooker has judiciously remarked, "Of law, no less can be said than that her seat is the bosom of God, her voice the harmony of the world; all things in heaven and earth do her homage, the very least as feeling her care, the greatest as not exempted from her power; both angels and men and creatures, of what condition soever, though each in different spheres and manner, yet all with uniform consent admiring her as the mother of their peace and joy."

What does the teaching of this memorable passage resolve itself into but the sublime truth that law, which is the great bond of the universe, finds its origin in the bosom of God, in the existence and exercise of that one divine and supreme Will whose volitions go forth from their great center in every possible direction, like rays from the sun, embracing, harmonizing, and controlling every form and modification of being, whether intelligent or unintelligent. Even nations not favored with the light of revelation have maintained the doctrine of a Supreme Power, which, if forgotten in prosperity, they have ever sought to propitiate in the day of sorrow. A vague, indistinct, though not less real idea has penetrated the savage mind that a Deity is ever present regarding the virtuous as objects of favor, and the vicious as objects of displeasure.

But to the mind enlightened by the revelation of God's Word, conjecture gives place to certainty; and the believing heart is upheld and solaced with the thought that God is on the throne of the universe, ordering all things, all events, and all beings "after the counsel of His own will;" that, while His paternal eye superintends the minutest actions and events pertaining to ourselves, His all-ruling Will embraces the countless varieties of existence--"And fills, and bounds, connects and equals all!"

Let us look at God's will in two or three of its essential properties.

God's will is UNIVERSAL--in other words, it is supreme in its dominion. There can of necessity be but one all-ruling, all-controlling will in the universe. That will is God's. Be it His secret will--which is the rule of His own conduct; or, His revealed will--which is the rule of our conduct; be it His approving will--which we should ever consult; or His permitting will--to which we should ever bow, His will is the universal law of the universe, extending its sovereign scepter over all worlds, all beings, and all events.

How consolatory and assuring this truth to the Christian mind! To know that the world is under the government of law, that that law is the supreme Will of God, and that the mediatorial office of the Lord Jesus Christ clothes Him with "power over all flesh." In view of this truth, the believing mind can look calmly, confidently, even hopefully upon the conflict of thought and the agitation of feeling, the opposition of error and the threatening of persecution amid whose troubled waters the Ark of God is tossing. Satan may plot, error may boast, the heathen may rage, and the people imagine a vain thing; the kings of the earth may set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together against the Lord and against His anointed, saying, let us break their bonds asunder; nevertheless He that sits in the heavens reigns supremely, and will make all potentates and all events subservient to the advancement and final triumph of His kingdom.

God's will is HOLY. The will of an essentially holy Being, it must of necessity be so. God can will nothing that is not in perfect harmony with His own nature. I need scarcely, therefore, remark that God cannot be the author of sin--if a conception so monstrous could even find a moment's lodgement in the reader's mind. God's will is holy in all its volitions, holy in all its rule, holy in all its results. Whatever God wills, must terminate in the display and vindication of His holiness. The righteousness of the Divine government is the brightest crown-jewel in the diadem of God. There must, necessarily, be events in His administration, the result either of His permitting or of His approving will, which, at the time, may seem to contradict the rectitude of His rule.

But the moment the believing mind can repose upon the truth of God's holiness, that moment its perplexities are at rest; and although all is enshrined in mystery, and the events terminate in results which seem adverse to his best interests and God's glory, he can exclaim, "But You are holy, O You who inhabits the praises of Israel." Beloved, the day may come when this view of the holiness of the Divine will shall rise before you with all the freshness of a newly revealed truth. The cup trembling in your hand--the knife raised to slay the beloved Isaac--a view of the perfect righteousness of the Divine will at that moment may be just the truth which will strengthen your heart and nerve your arm to drink the cup, and to make the sacrifice God bids you, in meek submission to His will.

The will of God is WISE. If the rectitude of God's government cannot be honestly impeached, equally unimpeachable is its wisdom. The apparent discrepancy, the alleged contradictions in the administration of God's providential government--the events in the history of the world and of the Church, and in our own individual life--which apparently contradict the notion of a directing Power of infinite forethought and knowledge, and which clash painfully with our idea of an All-wise Hand guiding the movements of the vast and complicated machine--touch not, in the slightest degree, the perfect wisdom which superintends it all.

Could we see an event as God sees it, from the end to the beginning, what to us seemed an entangled mass of thread would prove a perfect garment; and what appeared a strange mingling of colors would prove a beautiful mosaic; and what fell upon our ear as the most discordant sounds would swell into the most exquisite harmonies--so perfect are the ways of God with the children of men. Contemplate in this light your present position.

The event is mysterious and paralyzing, the calamity dark and crushing. You walk round and round it in search of some clue that will unravel the mystery, of some ray that will relieve the gloom, of one drop of sweet that will mitigate the bitter. But this is mere human reasoning. Now let grace step in and do its work. Let faith grapple with this providence, and its whole character is changed. Faith is a marvelously transforming principle. It presents every object through a different medium, and places it in a different light. It transmutes the basest metal into the purest gold, extracts the sweetest honey from the bitterest flower, finds food in the eater, pencils with silver light and fringes with golden rays the darkest cloud; impoverishes to enrich, and exhausts to replenish. Let faith have its perfect work, lacking nothing, in the present dealing of God with you.

You must now look, not at the providence, but at the promise of God. Nor must you deal exclusively with the promise of God, but with the God of the promise. The promises derive all their value and preciousness from the veracity, the immutability, and the power of God to make them good. Has God said it, and will He not perform? You have to do with God, with His all-sufficiency. The inquiry of unbelief is, "How shall Jacob arise, for he is small?" The answer of faith is, "He shall arise, because God is great."

We look too little at the immensity, the all-sufficiency, the infinity of God. The more faith deals with the power of God, the more powerful will faith become. It grows into the greatness of its Object. Dealing with the great God, itself becomes great, just as the intellectual faculty expands to the dimensions of the science it grasps, and as the taste becomes molded and elevated to the standard of art it studies. He that would attain to true greatness in any department must study the highest and the purest model. No individual will ever rise in science or in art, in poetry or eloquence, superior to the standard he has chosen.

But where is there a realm in which real greatness finds its fullest development and growth as the religion of Jesus? Religion expands the mind, refines the feelings, elevates the taste, cultivates the faculties and powers of the soul as nothing else does or can do. The reason is obvious. The subjects of thought and feeling are divine and holy, infinitely great and pure. The soul rises to the vastness of its theme. Never had Bacon or Newton reached the height of intellectual greatness and fame which they attained, had the one limited the range of his faculties to the study of philosophy, and the other to the study of science. The contemplation and study of religion molded their greatness and stamped their immortality.

Would we, then, be mighty in the principle, and great in the achievements of faith, it must have direct, and even frequent, transactions with God. In proportion to our acquaintance with God will be the intimacy of our dealings with Him. The walk with God of many is so cold, their confidence in Him so feeble, their fellowship with Him so unfilial, their love to Him so superficial, because they know Him so slightly, are acquainted with Him so imperfectly, and deal with Him so seldom in the minor events, the little trials, needs and cares of every day life. "Acquaint now yourself with Him, and be at peace."

The will of God is SUPREME. Be it His secret will, or be it His revealed will, its supremacy is acknowledged. In heaven, in earth, in hell, in all places, over all beings, and in all events, the scepter of the Divine will stretches its illimitable and supreme sovereignty. It is the paramount law of the universe. Every other will is subordinate to, and is controlled by, the will of Jehovah. Let those think of this and tremble who, erecting their little sovereignties, and setting up their puny wills in defiance of, and in opposition to, the supreme sovereignty of the universe, are seeking to be a law to themselves. The spectacle which you present to the eye of sinless intelligence is as appalling as your sin is monstrous. It was the opposition of man's will to God's which plunged the world in rebellion, crime, and woe. The insane and unequal conflict has been raging ever since, is raging now, keeping this world in a state of continued treason and rebellion against the government of Jehovah, and will continue so to keep it, until God's will is done on earth as it is done in heaven.

The position, then, in which this statement places the unrenewed will is that of direct collision with God. This is in perfect concurrence with God's Word, "The carnal mind is enmity against God, for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be." Similar to this are the words of the same apostle--"You has He quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins; wherein in time past you walked according to the course of this world . . . fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind," (margin--the lusts of the flesh.) And what a solemn picture is that, "led captive by Satan at his will!" Dreadful thought! Captive to Satan's will! Here, then, are three wills which the unconverted obey--their own will, the will of the flesh, and the will of Satan--bound by this threefold cord, they are led captive.

But, on your part, let the personal conflict cease. Cease to oppose God's will, speaking to you in His word, striving with you by His Spirit, and dealing with you in His providence, lest, haply, you be found to fight against Him to your total and eternal defeat. Seek, oh seek importunately, the aid of the Spirit to bend the iron sinew of your will in deep submission, patience, and love at His feet--made willing, in the day of His power, to yield a loving obedience, an unreserved surrender to the Lord to be His servant, His child forever. Oh, blissful moment when the conflict ceases, when the truce is proclaimed, and peace transpires between God and your soul! "O Lord, though You were angry with me, Your anger is turned away, and You comfort me."

But, if the supremacy of God's will is a terror to those who are living in rebellion against its rule, how replete with assurance and comfort it is to those who have 'kissed the Son,' and are in a state of peace with God through Him? Amid the upheavings of the State, and the conflicts of the Church, how soothing to think that God sits upon the throne, judging righteously! The believer can look calmly, confidently, hopefully upon the stormy waters, with the firm persuasion that Christ controls them, and that all shall be overruled to the best interests of His people. While Christ reigns, let the earth tremble and the saints rejoice. Infidelity may increase and blaspheme; the man of sin may speak proud things, and vaunt itself; Christian love may wane, and Protestant zeal may flag; foes within the Church may confederate with foes without; there may be treachery in the camp, and treason in the invading hosts; nevertheless, Jesus is ruling in the Church and over the world; the government of both is upon His shoulder, and the keys of hell and of death are in His belt; He that sits in the heavens will laugh, the Lord shall have in derision all the abettors of infidelity and popery--Herod and Pilate made friends, and united their forces to the overthrow of Jesus and His truth. It is a most consolatory assurance to the saints of God that our Lord's mediatorial supremacy includes "power over all flesh, that He might give eternal life to as many as the Father has given Him."

There are three things contained in this petition that God's will might be done. The disciple is taught thus to ask that the will of God might be done on earth in the fulfillment of duty--in the endurance of trial--and in the universal prevalence of holiness.

With regard to the fulfillment of duty, there can be no real walking in God's precepts while the will is unreconciled to God through Christ. Evangelical obedience is a willing obedience, the will brought under the supernatural and loving constraint of the Spirit. If we are not doing the will of God by holy walking in His precepts, there is a fatal collision of our will with the Divine will. Enmity must be dislodged from our will, thus disarming it of its hostility to God, before we can either spiritually understand or become "doers of the word." How distinctly our Lord puts this truth--"My teaching is not mine, but His that sent me. If any man will DO His will, he shall know of the teaching whether it be of God, or whether I speak of myself."

Harmony, therefore, of will is essential to spiritual light. We are in the true position to understand revealed truth when we are walking in holy obedience to God. Just as we see more perfectly the properties and beauties of natural objects standing in the sunlight, so the truth, the harmony, and the beauty of the gospel of Christ are only distinctly discerned as the heart is right with God. Sin beclouds the understanding, holiness enlightens it; sin warps the affections, holiness expands them; sin deadens the conscience, holiness quickens it. A man of mere speculative, rational knowledge, who theoretically receives, but practically denies, the holiness of the truth; who is not a humble, sincere believer in the Lord Jesus Christ--to believe fully in whom is the will of God--cannot know, experimentally and spiritually, whether God's word is divine. But he who does God's will, who leans not to his own understanding, but is taught of the Holy Spirit, he shall know, by the truth effectually working in him, whether it is of God or of man.

Let all who are in search of divine truth examine themselves, and ascertain whether they are doing God's will; whether they have believed the record God has given concerning His Son; whether they have accepted Christ as God's unspeakable gift of love; whether they have "submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God." So long as the Lord Jesus is not received, loved, and honored, even as the Father, the mind is not in a position to know of the teaching, or to pursue the inquiry, "What is truth?" The truth is Christ--"I am the truth,"--and he who has got hold of Christ holds in his hand the golden key at whose touch the whole arcade of truth will fly open. Thus, he who lives upon Christ as his sanctification, stands complete in all the will of God.

God's will is likewise done on earth--in the believer's patient endurance of trial. Submission to God is the spirit inculcated by the Lord's Prayer. In the Christian life there is as much the enduring, as the doing, of God's will; the passive, as the active obedience of the believing mind to the will of God. Perhaps, more of the Lord's people are schooled in the discipline of the will to the passive than to the active part of the Christian life--in suffering than in doing. In ACTIVE SERVICE for the Lord there may be a greater indulgence of our will than we have any suspicion of. The sphere may be pleasant, the work agreeable, the success cheering, the applause flattering, and so our own imperfectly sanctified will is gratified.

But the PASSIVE school of God places the believer in a different position, and brings his will under a different discipline. Suffering is not desirable, nor affliction pleasant, nor sorrow welcome; so that when God is pleased to send either, there is necessarily a more direct and powerful subjugation of the will of the believer to the will of God. This may, perhaps, explain the reason why more Christians graduate for heaven in the school of adversity than any other.

This, also, invests with light that apparently dark and inexplicable part in our Lord's personal history--His learning in suffering. Was He not perfect, apart from sorrow? Was He not complete, irrespective of suffering? The apostle shall reply. "Though He were a Son, yet learned He obedience by the things which He suffered." "It became Him for whom are all things, and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons unto glory, to make the Captain of their salvation perfect through suffering." Link, then, two truths in Christ's personal experience--suffering, and the learning the lesson of obedience--and He is presented to your study in two of the most consolatory and instructive points of His history. He was a pupil in the school of suffering. There was not a moment in His career which was not a moment of graduated suffering, since, from the moment He touched earth's horizon commenced His work of suretyship. If it was in the school of affliction He was to learn, then His learning commenced at the manger of Bethlehem. He was to work out the profoundest problem in the moral government of the universe--the harmony of God's attributes in the pardon of man's sin. It was the problem of His life. All was new to Him. The difficulties of redemption, the evil of sin, the bitterness of the cross, the lesson of obedience, the tremendousness of suffering, the discipline of will, were the parts of His mediatorial work in which He was to be perfected, and perfected only in the path of suffering. I speak of His humanity now. And if the humanity of the Son of God were, in the strictest sense, our own humanity, in all but its sinfulness, then we must believe that, like ours, it was progressive--as progressive in its intellectual and moral, as in its corporeal powers. To this law it was inevitably and unquestionably subjected. "And Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man."

As God, He was essentially holy, and there could not be any addition to His holiness. But as man--unless we suppose that His humanity was dissimilar to our own, which would be to loosen the great foundation-stone of our faith, and overthrow His Atonement--He grew in holiness; that is, His holiness, perfect in itself, developed and increased with His years, investing His life with a deepening sanctity and a growing luster, until it culminated at the cross.

Jesus, then, was a learner. "He learned obedience." And the great lesson He learned, daily, hourly learned, was the doing and the enduring of His Father's will. As His sufferings advanced, the magnitude of the task expanded before His view. With the darkening of the storm, the lesson grew more difficult. Just as the faggots, piled around the Christian martyr, become more and more ignited, and the devouring flames leap higher and higher, and enfold closer and closer the suffering victim--the lesson of endurance, fortitude, and meek submission becomes more difficult, more painful--so was it with our blessed Lord. While suffering taught Him how much He was to endure, it also taught Him how difficult it was to endure. And it was not until He had passed through the severest ordeal that He completely learned the lesson of submission to the will of God. Bethlehem prepared Him for Gethsemane, and Gethsemane prepared Him for Calvary. It was in the garden that the most fearful struggle was endured, the agonizing conflict was passed, and the victory was achieved. "Your will be done," uttered in sobs of grief, swelled into the paean of triumph shouted from the cross, "It is finished!"

In this same school of suffering our will is chastened and sanctified. All His saints are thus taught of God. Of Aaron it is said, "And Aaron held his peace." Listen to Eli--"It is the Lord; let Him do what seems Him good." Listen to Job--"Shall we receive good at the hand of the Lord, and not evil?" "The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away, blessed be the name of the Lord." And in this school God is, perhaps, now disciplining yours. In no other could the holy lesson be learned; in no other position could the surrender be made.

"He who knew what human hearts would prove,
How slow to learn the dictates of His love;
Called for a cloud to darken all their years,
And said, Go spend them in the valley of tears."

But this lesson of surrendered will to God, is not learned in one or two trials. As it is the holiest, so it is the hardest lesson in our heavenly education. The child, in process of weaning, is not more fretful and resistant than the believer often in process of divorce from himself. To surrender the dearest, to relinquish the sweetest, to forego the pleasantest for God, is a heavenly ascent of the soul--steep, rugged, and painful. But, weary and footsore, the panting pilgrim at length reaches the summit, bathed in the divinest sunlight, and falling prostrate at the feet of His Heavenly Father, exclaims, "Not as I will, but as You will."

Be not discouraged, child of God, if your progress is slow in reaching this high Christian attainment of submission. Your blessed Lord Himself did not fully attain to it until He had thrice prayed. We often overlook the plurality of trial in God's chastening of our will. A single affliction seldom accomplishes its mission. The arrival of one is frequently the herald of another yet more heavy and sad. But this is our comfort that, "all things work together for good to those who love God;" and your present plurality of trial is among the all things of God's everlasting covenant of grace. Do not think that He will forsake you. It is the discipline of a Father's love. Will He not "stay His rough wind in the day of His east wind?" "Happy is the man whom God corrects--therefore despise not the chastening of the Almighty; for He makes sore and binds up. He wounds, and His hands make whole. He shall deliver you in six troubles; yes, in seven there shall no evil touch you."

May you not, then, be happy? If God is for you--and you are pavilioned within His perfections--who or what can hurt you? Though a host of foes or of trials should encamp against you, yet in this may your faith repose, that, the Triune Jehovah, Israel's God, encircles you as a wall of fire. Oh, what a God is He with whom the believer has to do! You have to do with the God of the Bible, the God of Christ, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob--the God of redemption, the covenant God of a chosen, loved, and redeemed people.

How faintly we deal with God as He really is! We rob Him of His infinity, and think of Him as finite. We divest Him of His divine perfections, and clothe Him with mere human attributes. We think Him such an one as ourselves. Oh to rise to the greatness of God--the greatness of His power, the vastness of His love, the infinitude of His resources! We limit the Holy One of Israel, we doubt the ability, the willingness, the grace of Christ to save us; we think the Spirit of the Lord confined; and thus, bringing Jehovah down to our poor size instead of rising to His immeasurable greatness, we are dwarfs where we should be giants in grace; we cleave to the dust when we should soar to the sun; we carry our own burdens and nurse our own sorrows, when we should transfer them all in faith to Him who loves us. Uplift, then, your song, though it rises from the valley and echoes through a strange land.

"Is God for me? I fear not, though all against me rise;
When I call on Christ my Savior, the host of evil flies;
My Friend, the Lord Almighty, and He who loves me, God,
What enemy shall harm me, though coming as a flood?
I know it, I believe it, I say it fearlessly,
That God, the highest, mightiest, forever loves me;
At all times, in all places, He stands at my side,
He rules the battle fury, the tempest, and the tide.

"A Rock that stands forever, is Christ my righteousness,
And there I stand unfearing, in everlasting bliss;
No earthly thing is needful, to this my life from heaven,
And nothing of love is worthy, save that which Christ has given;
Christ, all my praise and glory, my light most sweet and fair,
The ship wherein He saileth, is sinkless everywhere.
In Him I dare be joyful, as a hero in the war;
The judgment of the sinner, affrighteth me no more.

"There is no condemnation, there is no hell for me,
The torment and the fire, my eye shall never see;
For me there is no sentence, for me death has no sting,
Because the Lord, who loves me, shall shield me with His wing.
Above my soul's dark waters, His Spirit hovers still,
He guards me from all sorrows, from terror, and from ill;
In me He works and blesses, the life-seed He has sown,
From Him I learn the 'Abba,' that prayer of faith alone.

"And if in lonely places, a fearful child I shrink,
He prays the prayers within me, I cannot ask or think--
The deep unspoken language, known only to that love,
Who fathoms the heart's mystery, from the throne of light above.
His Spirit to my spirit, sweet words of comfort saith,
How God the weak one strengthens, who leans on Him in faith,
How He has built a city--of love, and light, and song,
Where the eye at last beholdeth, what the heart has loved so long.

"And there is my inheritance, my kingly palace, home;
The leaf may fall and perish, not less the spring will come;
Like wind and rain of winter, our earthly sighs and tears,
Until the golden summer dawneth, of the endless year of years.
The world may pass and perish, You, God, will not remove,
No hatred of all devils, can part me from Your love;
No hungering nor thirsting, no poverty nor care,
No wrath of mighty princes, can reach my shelter there.

"No angel and no heaven--no throne, nor power, nor might;
No love, no tribulation--no danger, fear, nor fight;
No height, no depth, no creature--that has been or can be,
Can drive me from Your bosom, can sever me from Thee.
My heart in joy upleapeth, grief cannot linger there,
She sings high in glory, amid the sunshine fair:
The sun that shines upon me, is Jesus and His love,
The fountain of my singing, is deep in heaven above."

One experience of this remarkable petition yet remains to be considered. "Your will be done on earth as it is done in heaven." The question arises, "How is God's will done in heaven?" We briefly reply--God's will is done in heaven HARMONIOUSLY. There lives not a being in heaven whose will is not in the sweetest accord with the will of God. The will of God is done in heaven by all celestial intelligences, because it is His will. This is the loftiest motive that can sway a created mind--no motive lower than this should sway ours. The conviction that we are doing or suffering God's will should be enough to annihilate every objection and silence every murmur.

The will of God is done in heaven CHEERFULLY. "Bless the Lord, you His angels that excel in strength, hearkening to the voice of His word." They hearken that they might do. Such should be our obedience--a cordial, cheerful doing and enduring; as the apostle expresses it, "Doing the will of God from the heart." How touchingly did our Lord illustrate this cheerful obedience to God! "I delight to do Your will, O my God." And, in another place, "I seek not mine own will, but the will of Him that sent me." So let our submission to God be--a cheerful, happy submission.

God's will is done in heaven PROMPTLY. There is not a moment's pause of sullen hesitation or questioning delay. Every angel poised upon his white pinion, every seraph with his hand upon his golden harp, every glorified spirit with the well-prepared anthem upon the lip, stands ready to obey God's command. So let His will be done by us--without reasoning or demur, without attempting to penetrate the mystery or define the outcome. It may demand the costliest sacrifice, impose the heaviest cross, involve the severest self-denial--nevertheless, would we imitate on earth the will of God as done in heaven? then let us not ask the reason why, but promptly and cheerfully obey, satisfied that it is the holy, wise, and righteous will of our heavenly Father.

The blessings that flow from PERFECT acquiescence with the will of God are innumerable. It secures our happiness. The great secret of all quietness and contentedness of mind under all circumstances, is in the resignation of our own will to God's will. The moment there arises in the breast the least hostility to what God does, or enjoins, there is unhappiness. The harp is unstrung, and harshness and discord is the result.

There is safety, also, in resignation to God's will. Never is the child of God so safe as when doing and suffering the will of God. Danger and destruction lie in the path of self-will. As much should we deprecate self-will's rule and shrink from asserting its pre-eminence, as we would be insane standing upon the brink of an Alpine precipice, with the ice and the snow melting and crumbling beneath our feet. But, oh, the perfect safety in doing and enduring God's will! mysterious, painful, humbling though it be.

There is heavenly blessing, also, in the soul that does God's will. In proportion to our assimilation to the perfection of God's will as done in heaven, is our approach to the happiness of heaven itself. We sit as in the heavenlies while harmony exists between God's mind and ours. No position of the soul brings us into such close and holy relation to God as when our will sweetly dissolves into His. The soul, with all its present and eternal interests, is now confidently and cheerfully surrendered to Him. No dread of rocks, and of shoals, in the homeward voyage. Our Father pilots the barque, and perfect confidence garrisons the soul. With a divine hand upon the helm, love expanding the sails, and hope sitting serenely upon the prow, the heaven-bound vessel careers her pathway through sunlight and through storm; and so He brings us to our desired heaven.

One word shall sum up all that we would further say upon this part of the subject--the cheerful doing and the patient suffering of our Father's will resolves itself into perfect satisfaction with all that He does. It is the daily lesson of life, the secret of our growth in grace, the essence of our personal holiness. "This is the will of God, even your sanctification." "And be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable will of God."

"May Your will be done!" This is the most solemn prayer it is possible for man to breathe. Unconverted reader, are you aware what this petition involves? Are you prepared for the answer? God's will is that you should be holy--are you ready to give up your pride, your avarice, your lusts, your worldliness, your secret sins? God's will is that uprightness and integrity should mark all our doings--are you willing to have your ledger examined, your accounts scrutinized, your bills taxed, and your commercial transactions placed in the light of day? God's will is that we should love Him with a simple, single, and supreme affection--are you willing that He should enter the garden of your soul, and gather this lily, and pluck that rose, and mow down that daisy, and break the stem of that beautiful and stately plant, that henceforth He might possess your heart? God's will is that you should believe in and accept His beloved Son as your only Savior, your righteousness, redemption, and hope--are you willing to cast overboard your self-righteousness, to part with your religion of duties, and rites, and forms, and receive Christ as a poor, empty sinner, trusting only in His blood and righteousness?

No! perhaps you are not prepared for any part of this sacrifice! And yet, morning and evening, you pray, "may Your will be done!" Oh, it is the most solemn, fearful prayer lips ever uttered! When next you breathe it, add yet another--"Lord, renew me by Your Spirit, strengthen, sanctify me by Your grace, that in doing and in suffering I may stand complete in all Your holy will."

The UNIVERSALITY of God's will done on earth, will be the universality of the reign of holiness. The millennial age of the world, which is to be ushered in by the Coming of the Lord in person, and with great glory, will be the dawn of an era of righteousness, peace, and happiness, such as creation has not witnessed since its primeval state. In that day, when "the Lord's feet shall stand upon the mount of Olives which is before Jerusalem," when "the Lord shall be King over all the earth . . . and His name one," "in that day shall there be upon the bells of the horses--holiness unto the Lord; and the pots in the Lord's house shall be like the bowls before the altar. Yes, every pot in Jerusalem and in Judah shall be--holiness unto the Lord of hosts--and all those who sacrifice shall come and take of them, and cook in them--and in that day there shall be no more the Canaanite in the house of the Lord of hosts." Then will the prayer--for centuries the burden of the Church--be fulfilled, and in the new earth and the new heaven, in which righteousness supremely reigns, God's will shall be done. O my Father, God!

"Let Your will, not mine, be done;
Let my will and Yours be one."

The DEPENDENT Spirit of the Lord's Prayer.

"Give us this day our daily bread." Matthew 6:11

A created being must, of necessity, be a dependent being. The constitution of his nature involves this as its condition. There is but One who is independent, because there is but One who is self-existent. God owes His being to no other and higher power than Himself. He stands alone--alone the eternal, self-existent, independent Jehovah. Of no other being can this be said. There is not an angel in heaven who is not as much dependent upon God for every breath he draws, as the insect sporting its momentary existence in the sunbeam.

The fall of man has presented an impressive illustration of this truth. Dependent upon God in his pristine state of holiness, he is infinitely more so since bankrupt of all original righteousness and strength. His condition of utter feebleness and reliance upon a power other and infinitely above his own, finds no parallel in the history of creation. Not an being expatiating amid the glories of the upper world, not a tribe cleaving the blue vault of heaven, or traversing the deep paths of the sea, or roaming the wide circuit of the earth, hangs upon God for its existence and sustenance in a condition so feeble, helpless, and dependent, as the fallen creature man. But the regenerate man alone feels and recognizes this truth. He alone is conscious of this fact. He has been taught by the Spirit that he is "without strength," and that when he was without strength, Christ died for him.

Man is self-destroyed. He is a moral homicide, a self-murderer. "O Israel, you have destroyed yourself!" This is the first lesson the renewed creature learns. He learns that he is sinful, and a sinner before God. That he has no righteousness, no goodness, no worthiness, no strength; that he stands in God's bankruptcy court, owing ten thousand talents, and having nothing to pay. Oh, blessed truth this to learn under the teaching of the Holy Spirit--our poverty, emptiness, impotence, and nothingness!

But this is not all. As there is no creature so conscious of his weakness, so there is none so conscious of his strength as the renewed man. Taught his dependence, he has also been taught upon whom he is to depend. Instructed in the knowledge of his weakness, by the same Spirit he has been instructed wherein his great strength lies.

Hitherto the petitions taught us by our Lord in this, the disciples' incomparable prayer, have borne exclusive reference to the adoration, glory, and empire we ascribe to God. In this order we trace the infinite wisdom of our Great Teacher, who, in a subsequent part of His sermon on the mount, instructs us to "seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and that all things else should be added to us." God first--His being, His glory, His empire. Man second--his prayers, his needs, his supplies; that thus God in Christ might in all things have the pre-eminence. We now turn to the petition itself--"Give us this day our daily bread."

There are four kingdoms--as we have seen in a preceding chapter--over which the sovereignty of God extends--the kingdoms of nature and providence, of grace and glory. These are not separate and independent sovereignties, but are parts of one perfect whole--divisions of one great empire, God's scepter ruling alike over each and all. We may confirm and illustrate the unity of God's empire, by the spiritual conversion of His people. In their first, or abnormal state, they are found in the kingdom of nature, knowing nothing more of God than is learned in, and presenting nothing more to God than is culled from, the natural world.

Their religion is that of Cain--the religion of nature, the religion of fruit and flower. The ripened grape and the fragrant bouquet are all the sacrifice they present. "And Cain brought of the fruits of the ground an offering unto the Lord." In this offering there was no recognition of God's spiritual being, and no acknowledgment of his own sinfulness. "Abel also brought of the firstlings of his flock, and of the fat thereof. And the Lord had respect unto Abel and his offering--but unto Cain and to his offering He had no respect." The difference between these offerings was essential, and it was this. The offering of Cain was that of the natural man; the offering of Abel was that of the renewed man. The one was without an atonement for sin; the other was atonement itself. The one was a recognition of God's goodness; the other was an acknowledgment of God's holiness. The one honored God in His natural, the other in His moral perfections. The one embodied the self-righteousness and language of the Pharisee, the other the penitence and confession of the tax-collector. Look well to your religion, my reader! is it that of Cain, or of Abel?

But, bent upon His purpose of love, God leads His people from the kingdom of nature into the kingdom of providence. Here they become the subjects of His wonderful works with the children of men. Perhaps, by the decay of health, perhaps by the loss of property, perhaps by the sorrow of bereavement, or by adversity in some of its countless forms, God at length brings them into the kingdom of grace. Taught in this kingdom their sinfulness, emptiness, and poverty; led to believe in the Lord Jesus, and to accept Him as all their salvation and all their desire; instructed, tried, tempted, sanctified, they are, at length, transferred from the kingdom of grace into the kingdom of glory, where they live and reign with Christ forever. Thus, the four kingdoms constitute one grand monarchy, of which Jehovah is the great King. Now, it is in the kingdom of grace that this petition finds its most fervent and most emphatic utterance.

We now turn to THE PETITION ITSELF. "Give us this day our daily bread." How rich and comprehensive the meaning of this simple and brief prayer! How it expresses the need of all classes and conditions of men! How worthy the wisdom and the benevolence of Him who taught it! It adapts itself alike to the simplicity of the child, and to the wisdom of the sage; to the guilt of the sinner, and to the spiritual aspirations of the saint! All, of every age, and climate, and state alike, find a vehicle of utterance for their needs in this single and sublime petition, "Give us this day our daily bread!"

The first consideration is, the SOURCE of the supply. Jesus, having first taught us that God was our Father--then to approach Him in the spirit of adoption as children--now instructs us to look up to Him for the supply of our needs; it being the province of a parent to provide for the necessities of his children. In this sense God is the universal Parent of the race. As all life emanates from God, so all life is sustained by God. "The eyes of all wait upon You; and You give them their food in due season. You open Your hand, and satisfy the desire of every living thing." "He gives to the beast his food, and to the young ravens which cry." Wonderful Parent! bountiful Benefactor! Every living thing attracts Your notice, and receives its supply at Your hand. From the tiny insect traversing the rose leaf, up to the highest form of animal life, all draw their sustenance from You. All receive from Your bounty their daily bread. But how much more the children of Your electing love and converting grace! The very existence of God as our Father involves the certain supply of all our needs. Assured that we are His children--confirmed and sealed by the Holy Spirit--it were the veriest unbelief to doubt for a moment the truth that all our necessities will be met by His outstretched, full, and overflowing hand.

Oh, get this assurance that God is your Father, and then faith may grasp the pledge which this fact involves, that He will supply your daily need. How earnest and loving was Jesus in seeking to emancipate the minds of His disciples from all anxious, earthly care, by expounding to them the care of their Father in heaven.

"Your heavenly Father knows that you have need of all these things." Inexpressibly tender, soothing words! With what music do they fall upon the ear of the distressed, tried, care-oppressed child of God! "Your heavenly Father knows." Each dissected word in this consolatory passage embodies a distinct and precious thought. "Your heavenly Father,"--it is a Father's knowledge, a Father's care, a Father's wealth. With such a Father, what want can He not, will He not supply?

Again, "Your heavenly Father!" Yours by adopting love, yours by free grace, yours in a changeless covenant, yours individually, inalienably, and forever yours--as if you were His only child!

Again, "Your heavenly Father knows"--knows your person, your name, your relation; knows your circumstances, your straitened position, your tried faith, your assailed integrity, your tempted spirit, your sad and drooping heart. He knows it all with the knowledge of a loving Parent.

Yet again--"Your heavenly Father knows that you have need"--your necessity; every requirement that exists, every demand that is made, every emergency that presses upon you, He knows. It is not what you desire, or think needful, but what you really and truly require, He recognizes and provides for. This was the apostle's limit on behalf of the saints, "My God shall supply all your needs;" not your imaginary or your luxurious desires, but what you necessarily and absolutely need.

Once more--"Your heavenly Father knows that you have need of all these things." What things? food and clothing, things expedient for you; the temporal requirements of this present life. "Godliness has the promise of the life that now is." With this divine, this full assurance, breathing so kindly from the lips of Jesus, how should every doubt be removed, and every fear be allayed as to the present and ample supply of our temporal needs! What a gentle, loving, yet searching rebuke of our unbelieving distrust of God!

He who opens His hand and supplies the needs of every living thing, will He close that hand to you? He who hears the ravens when they cry, will He be deaf to you? He who guides the sparrow to the spot where the tiny seed awaits its morning's meal, will He not provide for you? O you of little faith! wherefore do you doubt? Look round upon this wide, this rich, this fruitful world--it is all your Father's domain. The cattle browsing upon its hills--the golden corn waving in its fields--the capacious granaries clustering around its homesteads--the precious gems embedded within its mines--all, all is yours, because all is His. Truly we have a wealthy Parent, the Proprietor of the universe; "for the earth is the Lord's, and the fullness thereof." And He preserves its existence, fertilizes and blesses it for the provision of the many sons He is bringing home to glory.

Let us not, then, yield to despondency or sink in despair when the barrel of meal and the cruse of oil are well-near exhausted. God often permits our stores to come almost to their end before He interposes His supply, that we may all the more distinctly trace His love and gratefully acknowledge His hand. It is through many sharp trials that faith has to travel before it brings glory to God. The spirit of dependence is the essence of faith. Faith would remain a concealed, undeveloped, and unshapen grace, with no form, nor beauty, nor power, but for the severe tests, the stern discipline of service and of suffering to which our God often subjects it.

We can speak fluently and boastfully of our trust in God, so long as sense traces the way and eyes the supplies, and leans upon a creature prop. But oh, when all this fails us; when resources are drying, and supplies are lessening, and props are breaking, and poverty, difficulty, and entanglement stare us in the face, and we are brought to our wits' end, then we discover how slender is our hold upon God, how doubtful our trust in His word, how feeble and dwarfish our faith. And yet, small in degree as is that faith, it is priceless and imperishable. It may be sharply tried, severely winnowed, brought to its lowest ebb, its last resource; yet, such is its heavenly ascendancy, from the lowest depths it will shoot its arrows straight into heaven, send up its cry direct unto God, exclaiming, "Though He slays me, yet will I trust in Him."

Precious faith! that can support when nature sinks; can call God Father when He smites; can comprehend a smile from a frown; can discover some rays of light in the darkest cloud; empties the heart of sadness and care, and fills it with joy, confidence, and hope. The faith of God's elect, in some of its actings in the soul, resembles the feeble tendril. Following the instinct of its divine nature, faith climbs the wall of the exceeding great and precious promise, clasps in its arms the "tree of life," and so gradually ascending into the fullness of Christ, and bathing its towering head in the calm sunshine of God's love, it smiles at the tempest and defies the storm.

Thus are we directed by the petition to look to our heavenly Father for the supply of our daily temporal necessities. This He does in various ways; and it is pleasant to trace His hand in all. He grants strength of body, resoluteness of will, and perseverance of effort in toil--and so gives us our daily bread. He clears and sustains our mental faculties, counsels our perplexities, and preserves us from, or extricates us out of, the difficulties of our path--and so gives us our daily bread. He suggests our undertakings, prospers our enterprises, blesses the work of our hands--and so gives us our daily bread. He knows our need, anticipates our deficiencies, and times His supply to our necessities--and so gives us our daily bread. He unveils hidden sources of wealth, raises up improbable and unexpected agencies, opens the hand and inclines the heart of kindness, affection, and sympathy--and so gives us our daily bread. Thus does our heavenly Father; and by the wonder-working of His providence, often most astounding and unlooked for, feeds and clothes us.

Promising that our basket and our store shall not diminish, that our bread and our water shall not fail, day by day He spreads a table for us in the wilderness, raining down the bread that sustains us with the morning's light and with the evening's shade. Could the simple annals of God's tried and straitened saints be written, what numberless instances of His providential care might be cited! scarcely less striking and touching than the most remarkable penned by the sacred historian. The cases of the prophet Elijah, of the widow of Sarepta, of the disciples for whom Jesus provided the morning's meal after their night of fruitless toil, of the multitudes whom, from the scanty supply, He more than fed in the wilderness, would all, in some one essential feature, seem to live over again.

You, who, when temporal circumstances are distressed, whose barrel of meal and cruse of oil are brought very low, whose minds' anxieties are corroding, whose hearts' fears are sinking, to whose eyes poverty and dependence appear in terrible form--turn this petition into the prayer of faith, and send it up to your heavenly Father, who knows your need, and whose love, faithfulness, and power are pledged to meet it. "For He has said, I will never leave you nor forsake you. So that we may boldly say, The Lord is my Helper, and I will not fear."

But we must present this petition in its spiritual teaching. That our Lord included this as its chief burden there cannot be a doubt. How familiar, significant, and precious His own words bearing on this truth, and supplying the most full and impressive comment on the petition--"I am the bread of life." "I am the living bread which came down from heaven--if any man eats of this bread, he shall live forever--and the bread that I will give him is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world." No truth stands out from the page of God's word more gloriously than this. Jesus is our life; and in this the figure He condescendingly employs--like all the types, similitudes, and emblems which set forth the Lord Jesus Christ--falls below the spiritual truth it was intended to illustrate. Natural bread does not impart life, it only nourishes and sustains it. But Jesus, as the Bread of Life, gives life; he that eats of Him lives. "I have come that they might have and that they might have it more abundantly." This "Bread" possesses both divine life and mediatorial life, and both are essential to the salvation of the soul. Oh, who can ever tell what our Lord passed through in order to become available as the life of His people! "Grain must be bruised (or ground) to make bread." How affectingly true was this of Jesus, as the living bread of His Church! In every sense and from every quarter He was bruised. "It pleased the Father to bruise Him, He has put Him to grief." He was bruised by Satan and by man--He was bruised by sin and by sinners--He was bruised by friends and by foes.

Who can describe the terrible process through which the fine wheat from heaven passed before we could eat by faith of this bread and live! What clue have we to this mystery of mysteries, what solution of this profoundest of problems--Christ's sufferings--Himself sinless and innocent--but that which the theory of a substitutionary sacrifice supplies? "Christ has loved us, and has given Himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice unto God for a sweet smelling savor." This explains it all. His death was expiatory. It was for sin. "Who His own self bore our sins in His own body on the tree." "When He had by Himself purged our sins." "He is the propitiation for our sins." "The blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin." Hold fast this foundation doctrine of Christianity! It is more than this--it is Christianity itself. It is the life-blood of our religion, it is the life of our souls. Contend for it unto the death. Maintain your belief of the Atonement at any cost; sell it at none. It admits of no dilution, of no reservation, of no compromise.

Received fully, and believed simply, and lived holily, the end, in this world, of your faith, will be a happy, hopeful death, and in the world to come life everlasting. As a mortal soon to die, as a responsible being soon to give an account, as a sinner soon to appear before God, as an immortal linked with an endless destiny, the atonement of the Son of God is everything to you. It cannot be questioned, denied, ignored, but at the peril of interests more precious, and of an eternity more solemn than the universe!

You inquire, perhaps, in view of this impressive and emphatic statement, HOW may I obtain an interest in the atonement of Christ? Your question is of infinite importance. No profound reasoning or elaborate disquisition is necessary to its answer, as no labored process or weary pilgrimage is required for its attainment. God has made FAITH the receptive grace of salvation. The gospel terms are--not him that works, nor him that runs, nor him that deserves--but, "him that believes." The whole edifice of your salvation rests upon the simple reception in faith of a personal Savior. The words of that Savior are, "Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believes on me has everlasting life." With this agrees the teaching of His apostle, "Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and you shall be saved." What terms could be more simple, what mode of bringing you into the full reception of salvation, with its priceless, countless blessings of peace, joy, hope, more appropriate?

But even at this, perhaps, you stumble! The very simplicity of God's mode of bringing you into the experience of the costliest gift in His power to bestow, is your bar to its possession. But let a wise and holy witness testify--"Sin gives you the first title to the Friend of sinners; a simple, naked faith the second. Do not puzzle yourself about contrition, faithfulness, love, joy, power over sin, and a thousand such things which the white devil will persuade you that you must bring to Christ. He will receive you gladly with the greatest mountain of sin; and the smallest grain of faith at Christ's feet will remove that mountain. At the peril of your soul, desire at present not peace nor joy, nor puzzle yourself even about love; only desire that that blessed Man may be your Bridegroom, and that you may firmly believe that He is so, because He has given you His flesh and blood upon the cross. You have nothing to do with sin and self, although they will have much to do with you. Your business is with Jesus--with His free, unmerited love, with His glorious promises. Strongly expect nothing from your own heart but unbelief, hardness, and backsliding, and when you find them there be not shaken nor distressed; rather rejoice that you are to live by faith on the faithful heart of Christ, and cast not away your confidence, which has great recompense of reward."

"Faith is not what we feel or see;
It is a simple trust
On what the God of love has said
Of Jesus--of the 'Just.'

"What Jesus is, and that alone,
Is faith's delightful plea;
It never deals with sinful self,
Or righteousness in me.

"It tells me I am counted dead
By God in His own word;
It tells me I am 'born again'
In Christ my risen Lord.

"If He is free, then I am free
From all unrighteousness:
If He is just, then I am just;
He is my Righteousness."

Behold, then, this "living Bread"--giving life, sustaining life, and crowning life with the diadem of life eternal. It has in it all the ingredients of spiritual life--the pardon of sin, peace of mind, joy of heart, holiness of walk, and hope beyond. There is everything that your soul needs in Jesus. Make an inventory of your needs--add up the sum total, sign it with "poverty," "bankruptcy," "sinner the chief," "hell-deserving," and take it to Jesus, and from His full, overflowing, free-flowing abundance of all grace He will meet your need, honor your draft, and dismiss you from His presence your heart thrilling with joy unspeakable and full of glory!

"GIVE US." God's blessings are GIFTS. Divine, priceless, and precious they are beyond all purchase. They have indeed been purchased, but the purchase-price was not that of man's finding, but of God's--even the price of Christ's most precious blood. We come not, then, to God with the petition, "Sell us," but, "Give us." Out of Your overflowing heart, from Your infinite sufficiency and most free favor, give us the blessings of Your providence and grace. "I come, Lord, with an outstretched hand, with an empty palm, stricken with hunger, famished and ready to die. I have heard that there is bread enough in my Father's house and to spare. Lo! I come, not worthy to be called Your son, asking but the portion of a slave. Give me this day my daily bread."

Oh, what a charm, what a sweetness does the FREENESS of grace impart to the blessings bestowed upon us by God! All who cluster around His table and eat of this bread appear there as the pensioners of His most free grace. They are invited as a sovereign asks his guests to receive the hospitality of his princely home. What an affront would it be to that sovereign to offer to pay for the banquet to which he had graciously invited you! A greater affront cannot be offered to the free grace and love of God than to imagine that He will sell His favors, that He requires you to pay for your admittance into His kingdom of grace and glory. True, solemnly true, He expects a return, and a large return too, but it is such a return of love and thankfulness, of obedience and service, as His own Spirit working in our hearts enables us to make. Thus, when grace finds us God's beggars, it leaves us His debtors, laying us under the obligation--oh, sweet and holy bond!--of yielding ourselves, body, soul, and spirit, an unreserved surrender.

"THIS DAY"--"day by day." God will have us live upon His bounty by the day. We have no inherent, independent resources, no reserved and treasured supplies. The manna rained down by God around Israel's camp was a striking type of this truth. It was the Lord's Prayer of the Old Testament saints. In it they were taught to ask and to expect from God their daily bread. It was a morning and an evening supply. They were commanded to lay up nothing for the morrow. If they disobeyed this injunction, the manna decomposed and was unfit for use. There was no surplus, no waste, nothing superfluous. "As it is written, He that had gathered much had nothing over; and he that had gathered little had no lack."

What a divine lesson was Israel here taught! And what a gospel, spiritual truth it teaches us! We are here taught the great mystery of a life of daily faith. And oh, what may be the need, what the history of one single day! What its demands, its pressures, its trials. One short day may give its mold and complexion to a man's endless being. What events, what changes, what disappointments, what sorrows, what new and startling pictures in life's ever-shifting panorama may revolve! The sun which in the morning rose so gorgeously may at evening set in darkness and in storm.

But oh, how precious is this truth--God is prepared in response to our morning's prayer, to give us all that the day shall need. In anticipation of its daily toil, its mental anxiety, its physical demands, its trials of affection, its tests of principle, its endurance of suffering, its experience of grief, its losses, its crosses, its partings, you may perhaps enter upon it as the disciples entered into the cloud on Mount Tabor, with fear and trembling. But behold your promise! "Give us this day our daily bread." You thus begin your day with looking up. You commence it with God. Before you enter upon the day's battle of life, you repair to the Strong One for strength, to the Divine Counselor for wisdom, to the full Savior for grace, to your Heavenly Father for the day's supply--and with your vessel thus filled from the infinite source of all blessing, you go forth from your chamber as a strong man to run a race--fed, nourished, invigorated, with the daily bread God has so kindly and so profusely snowed around your camp.

Thus will God have us live a life of daily faith upon His bounty. If we would live amid the daily conflict of the flesh a life of holy victory, we must live a life of daily faith upon Jesus, a life of daily waiting upon God. "THIS day, my Father! The supplies of yesterday are exhausted; those of tomorrow I leave with You--give me this day all that its circumstances may demand. Give me the clearness of judgment, the soundness of decision, the resoluteness of will, the integrity of principle, the uprightness of heart, the moral courage, the Christ-like meekness, the holy love, the watchfulness and prayerfulness, the integrity and consistency, its yet unshaped history may require. I know not to what temptations I shall be exposed, by what foes I shall be assailed, through what trials I shall pass; what clouds will shade, what sorrows will embitter, what circumstances will wound my spirit. Lord, give me grace, strength, love, guidance, faith; give me this day my daily bread."

What a holy, happy life is this! It removes all care from the mind but the present, and for that present the believer hangs upon a Father's care. In this we trace a beautiful and perfect harmony of the Old and the New Testaments. The promise to the Old Testament saints was, "As your days, so shall your strength be." The prayer taught the New Testament saints is, "Give us this day our daily bread." And so we learn that God is the Author of both the Old and the New Testaments; and these two divine witnesses unite in testifying to His love, bounty, and faithfulness to His people.

Thus begin and continue your day with God. Its history, as I have reminded you, is all undeveloped, uncertain, and untraced. You cannot foresee one step, be certain one circumstance, or control one event. Let your prayer be--"Give me, Lord, all supplies for this day. I may have trials--trials of my judgment, trials of my affections, trials of conscience, trials of my principles, trials from those I most tenderly love--Lord, be with me. Guide me with Your counsel, hold up my steps that they slide not, and, in the multitude of my thoughts within me, let Your comforts delight my soul."

And mark the UNSELFISHNESS and SYMPATHY of this petition. It is not "give me," but "give US." There is a largeness of heart, a breadth of supplication here worthy of Him at whose feet we learn the prayer. Christ had come to bless the race. Self was its idol, and selfishness its sin. He had come to dethrone the one and to annihilate the other. By the "expulsive power of a new affection"--the love of God in the heart of man--He sought to unlock the affections, unseal the sympathies, and expand the powers of the soul; and by reinstating man in his filial relation to God, to reinstate him in his fraternal relation to his brother. Thus are we taught by Jesus to cast from us all selfishness in prayer, and in asking of our Heavenly Father--the one Father of His people by grace, and the one Parent of the race by creation--daily bread for ourselves, to ask also daily bread for others. Give US--the rich and the poor, the saint and the sinner, he who owns and he who tills the land--give us our daily bread.

Drinking into the spirit of this petition, we shall resolve with Job not to "keep my bread to myself, not sharing it with the fatherless." A yet higher example of generous sympathy will influence us--the example of Christ himself. Followed into the desert by the populace, eager to hear His words and to see His works, they were three days with out food. His disciples would have dismissed the multitude to their homes famishing and fainting by the way. Not so the Lord. Himself often hungry for the very bread He so generously provided for others, He resolved upon meeting the present need. Taking in His hands the scanty supply, He sought His Father's blessing, then broke and distributed, and by the exercise of His own divine power, so multiplied the few and increased the little, as satisfied to the full the needs of "about three thousand men, besides women and children."

Who will say that our Lord was indifferent to the temporal necessities of man? That, because His first and chief mission was to bring down the bread of heaven to a fallen, sinful world, He would be slow to make an equal provision for the body; that body which, by the renewing of the Holy Spirit, was to become the sacred temple of God through the Spirit! The practical lesson, then, we learn from this memorable and instructive incident of our Lord's life is--to remember the poor. It is God's will that "the poor shall never cease out of the land." They are His special clients. "He shall judge the poor of the people." "He shall stand at the right hand of the poor to save him from those who condemn his soul." Poor and dependent Himself; it was among this class of society Jesus the most frequently mingled, and to whom He more especially addressed His ministry of grace, and among whom, for the most part, He wrought His miracles of power. The common people heard Him gladly, and to the poor the gospel was preached.

Imitating our Lord, we shall not deem the poor and the needy--especially those of the "household of faith"--beneath our regard, or beyond the pale of our sympathy and support. Blessed ourselves with daily bread, we should share our loaf with our less amply supplied and more necessitous brother, and in this way be instrumental in answering the petition sent up to his Father--"Give me day by day my daily bread." Oh, it is a high honor and a precious privilege to be God's dispenser to the poor! Has He given us more than our daily bread? It is that we might give of our surplus to others! The excess of our supply is to augment another's deficiency. Not the crumbs that fall from our table, but of its abundance, are we to give. "There is one that scatters, and yet increases; there is one that withholds, and it tends to poverty." The manna we selfishly refuse, or niggardly dole, or covetously hoard, shall breed its own devouring worm and emit a reeking smell. This suggests another and an important thought.

Let us not suppose that the question of the supply of the poor and the needy is a national, ecclesiastical, or class question. It is purely a Christian and humane one. The pauper of every climate and religion and grade is a 'brother' and a 'neighbor,' asking and claiming our recognition, sympathy, and aid. How nobly did our American brethren illustrate this fact, during the recent Irish famine, when they opened their granaries and despatched their ships freighted with corn to a people suffering from the blight of their crops, three thousand miles distant from their shores! All honor to a great nation true to the instincts of humanity, noble in character and illustrious in religion! Few questions of political economy have proved of a graver and more perplexing cast, and have tasked and tested to the same extent the power and skill of a nation's statesmanship, than the mode of meeting the necessities of the poor.

Pauperism exists in every land; but England has nothing to be ashamed of in the mode by which it has been met. The Christianity of the nation--its religion and its Protestantism--has nobly grappled with the "Bread Question," generously originating and wisely directing its supplies. The contrast of pauperism, as it both exists and is met in Protestant and in Papal countries, is so forcibly put by an American divine--an original and eloquent thinker--that I am tempted to quote his remarks in extenso. "Pauperism," he writes, "must be, and should be fed; but who? Catholicism taunts Protestantism with the pauperism of England, as if it were chargeable on the rejection of the Roman faith. But in answer to this, it is sufficient to say that the pauperism of British countries is found mainly in the class who are not church-goers. Those who have become degraded with sin, and skeptic, who keep no Sabbath, and read no Bible, and never enter the sanctuary, are the chief burdens on the poor fund in Protestant England. Those who visit the Sabbath-school, and the chapel or the church, both in the mining and manufacturing districts, are less grievously and less often the victims of poverty. But in Catholic countries it is the church-going--those who haunt the porch, and the altar, and the confessional, and keep the church-holidays, that are the most shameless and importunate in their mendicancy. The poor of the Protestant countries are by their religion kept mainly from the worst woes and vices of the pauperism around them, which preys mainly on the rejecters or neglecters of their religion. But the poor of Catholic countries are made such and kept such by their faith; by its festivals, fostering idleness; by the mendicancy of many of its religious orders of friars, and by its confiscation of large portions of the nation's soil and the nation's resources in the support of monastic establishments, which consume, but do not produce. Again, the pauperism of Protestant England is not either as deep or deplorable as that of Catholic Ireland; nor that of the Protestant cantons in Switzerland like that of Catholic Savoy. We say this but in passing, and in reply to an unjust impeachment which the Roman Catholic often brings. But wherever population has become dense, and labor difficult to be obtained, pauperism has grown into a formidable evil. It is in many lands the great question of the times. The gaunt and hollow-eyed class of the 'Wants' are confronting the more sleek but the less numerous and the feebler house of the 'Haves.' Shall the sinewy grasp of famine's bony hand be laid on the pampered throat of luxury, and a violent social revolution assay the right for a time the dread inequality? We believe that to the lands which honor not or scorn the gospel, there are few enemies which they have more cause to fear than this famishing multitude--fierce, unrestrained, and illiterate--a Lazarus without a gospel and without a God, turning wolf-like in the blindness of its misery and its brute strength on a Dives without conscience and without mercy. The poor must be relieved, but not in indolence. That gospel which is so eminently a message for the poor, yet declares that if any man will not work neither shall he eat. Society must not overlook her destitute children, but she must not nurse and fatten them in sloth! If, on the other hand, she undertakes to supply and direct all their labor, she would restrain rather than foster enterprise and industry. If she compels work, she must have despotic powers to extort it. If she resolutely clings to free institutions and reject despotism, she must forego the compulsory requirement of the labor; and then is it charity to bestow the unearned pay, and while the sluggard folds his arms to thrust donated food between his teeth? We do not see in association or social revolution, or in any system of mere political legislation, the full remedy of this. The gospel must come in, and by its influence on personal conscience and on individual character, teach the POOR self-respect, diligence, economy, and contentment; and require of the RICH sympathy, compassion, and bounty for their more necessitous brethren. Christ is needed, not only as an Interpreter and a Arbitrator between man and God; He is needed also in the daily business of the world as a Arbitrator between the several classes of society that now eye each other askance--each endeavoring to abridge its own duties and exaggerating its demands upon the class opposed to itself. And ought the WEALTHY to forget ever the bonds of sympathy that bind them, amid their opulence and in their lavish houses and their elegant leisure, to the multitudes around? Are they wealthy? The poor man aided in building, storing, and sailing their ships, and in rearing and guarding their sumptuous abodes. The poor man takes, to protect their slumbers, the watchman's weary beat and the fireman's noble risks. Every grain of sugar and every lock of cotton that passes through their warehouses is the fruit of the labor of some other of mankind--their kindred, and their duty to whom they may not justly disavow. The purple and fine linen passed through the poor man's hands at the loom and the vat; and not an ornament or a comfort decks or gladdens them on their persons or in their houses on which the horny palm of penury has not at some time wearily rested. In one apartment there have met the toils of the coal miners of Northumberland and of the potters of Staffordshire. Upon one and the same table are grouped the offerings of the Mexican mines and of the British cutler, of the Scottish weaver and the Irish cottar, of the tea-gatherer of 'far Cathay' and of the whale-fisher of their own Nantucket. 'We are members one of another.' We cannot forget it with impunity. If each member of the great brotherhood of the nations were to come and claim back his contributions to our daily comforts, how poor and forlorn would we be left! Our common Father would not have us overlook it, in the benefits it has brought and in the bonds which it imposes. We owe much to our fellows, and we owe more to Him. To Him, the wealthiest capitalist who rules the exchanges of a nation owes as much of hourly obligation for life, and food, and health, and competence, as did Elijah the prophet, in the severe famine when God was feeding him by daily miracle at the brooks, and ravens were his purveyors, or in the house of the widow of Sarepta. Now, one mode of acknowledging gratefully our indebtedness to God is by the fraternal acknowledgment of obligation to our brethren, whom, as His pensioners, He transfers to our care. The RICH, then, are not entitled to be profuse and wasteful, and thus to empty the granaries, as it were, of many coming years and of many needy households in selfish rioting and prodigality. We do not call for the enactment of 'luxury laws', but we suppose Christianity to require of its individual disciples that 'their moderation should be known to all men.'"

Remarks fraught with such practical wisdom, and from the pen of a foreign writer, whose European travel betrays so much shrewd and impartial observation, strongly commend themselves to the study of every Christian, of every Christian statesman and political economist. Christianity alone supplies the true solution of the problem of how pauperism to be met. It alone throws upon the canvas the different shades into which pauperism resolves itself--the pauperism that is the result of indolence and selfish waste; or that which is engendered by a spurious and superstitious religious system; or that which is the natural offspring of unwise political legislation; or, yet more, that which is produced, in the providence of God, by social and national calamity.

While the gospel thus clearly defines pauperism, it as clearly instructs us how to meet it. It teaches the lesson of prudence, frugality, and economy, and it inculcates the precepts of self-denial, sympathy, and benevolence. It bridges the chasm between the rich and the poor, moulds the race into kin, and by its regenerating influence unites the kin into a family, and teaches us that he is my neighbor and he my brother who, wounded, in suffering, or in poverty, needs my sympathy and asks my aid.

Cheerful CONTENTMENT with God's measured supplies, is taught us by this petition. How uniform is the teaching of the Bible on this point of Christian duty! It nowhere promises excessiveness, or encourages peevish discontent with God's restricted supply. Not what we wish, not what we ask, but what we need, is insured to us. While God is infinitely rich and boundless in His resources, and often profuse and luxurious in His supplies, this is not the rule, but the exception, of His dealings with men, and especially with the saints. The promise is, "Your bread and water shall be sure." The precept is, "Be content with such things as you have." The limit is, "God shall supply all you need." The exhortation is, "Having food and clothing, therewith to be content." The desire is, "Neither poverty nor riches." The prayer is, "Give me this day my daily bread."

Such was the lowly fare of Him who came to work out our redemption from eternal woe. He often hungered, yet supplied others with bread; thirsted, yet gave others drink; wearied, yet gave others rest; sorrowed, yet gave others joy. Oh, what a self-abjuring, self-sacrificing, man-loving life was Christ's! Not a breath of murmur, not a syllable of discontent, not a word of impatience ever passed His lips. Contentment was enthroned upon His brow, meekness was reflected in His countenance, love beamed in His eye, kindness, gentleness, and compassion breathed in His every word. What was carnal enjoyment, the dainty table, the soft couch, the luxurious clothing, the splendid home, the exquisite music, to Him whose kingdom was not of this world?--who came to live a life of poverty--to toil as a impoverished carpenter--to be wickedly entreated, maligned, and traduced; and then, to close His career, condemned as a felon and crucified as a slave--all for love to man! With such an example of moderation, contentment, and patience; with such a model of unearthliness, unworldliness, and heavenliness; with such a crucifixion to the world ever before us--when "the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life," would allure is from the simplicity that is in Christ Jesus--what true disciple of the Savior is not content with the needful and the moderate provision which a faithful and a loving Father is pledged daily to supply?

Confronted by this truth, shall we allow any allurement of the world, any temptation to wealth, or any proffer of daily sustenance to overcome our loyalty to conscience, to Christ, and to God? Shall we be tempted to profane the Sabbath, to embark in an enterprise injurious to our fellow-creatures--to take a step unjust and dishonest, selfish and questionable, to gain our livelihood, to win our daily bread? God forbid! Better, far better, eat your molded crust, and slake your morning and evening thirst at the pure spring, and so make your daily meal, than to luxuriate and fatten upon the "wages of sin." Is God your Father?--trust Him. Was He the God of your parent?--trust Him. "I have been young, and now am old; yet have I not seen the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging bread."

See through WHAT CHANNEL all our blessings, temporal or spiritual, flow--the divinely appointed channel of prayer. "Ask, and you shall receive." "If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to those who ask Him?" And how corresponding and encouraging the apostle's exhortation, "Be anxious for nothing; but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known unto God." That need is enriching, that sorrow is joyful, that burden is uplifting, that care is lightsome, that trial is precious, that discovery of indwelling evil is sanctifying, that leads us to the throne of grace, that shuts us up to God in prayer. Oh, for what intent a Father's smiting, a Father's rebuke, a Father's rod, a Father's blessing, but to open our heart in prayer, and to unseal our lips in praise! "Let me hear Your voice; for sweet is Your voice, and Your countenance is lovely." In this loving, holy light, interpret all the dealings of your Father God.

Be earnest and covetous in your seeking after the "Bread of life." Here lay no restraint upon your desires, put no limit to your requests. "Open your mouth wide, and I will fill it." You cannot approach with a basket too large, with a vessel too empty, with a frequency too often, nor with a request too importunate. God has given you Christ. This divine loaf, prepared by God in heaven, has come down to earth, of which you are invited to partake, freely, abundantly, daily, and live. All that Christ is--all that Christ has done--and all that Christ is now doing--is yours. Every pulse of His heart beats for you; every drop of His shed-blood was for you; every grain of His treasured grace is for you; every breath of His intercession in heaven is for you--all is yours; for you are Christ's, and Christ is God's. Day by day is the life of faith you are to live upon Jesus. It is DAILY bread. Jesus for each and for every day. Jesus for each day's needs--Jesus for each day's trials--Jesus for each day's sins--Jesus for life--Jesus for death--Jesus forever!

The PENITENTIAL Spirit of the Lord's Prayer.

"Forgive us our sins." Matthew 6:12

Prayer for divine forgiveness, springing from penitence for conscious sin, is the burden of this petition taught us by our Lord. It is proposed to consider both of these states in the present chapter. We, of course, begin with the essential grace of REPENTANCE, seeing that this is God's order in conversion. Contrition for an offence must precede the pardon of an offence. In social life, in the family government, in the Church, and in the State this is an acknowledged and invariable law. The debtor would be incapable of appreciating the clemency which cancelled the debt, so long as he denied either the existence or the justice of the claim. Unconscious of the obligation, he would be insensible to the grace that remitted it.

In a higher and more impressive sense does this hold good between the sinner and God. The forgiveness of sin is too divine and costly a pearl to cast before swine. In other words, God holds this His own and sole prerogative at too high a rate to exercise it in behalf of a sinner blind to, and the willing slave of, his sins. Repentance is in His eye so divine and gracious a work, the humble and contrite heart so spiritual and precious a sacrifice, that to this man, and to him alone, will He condescend to look with an eye of forgiving love and complacent delight; and upon him and him only will He bestow the costliest blessing that He can give or we receive--the pardon of sin. Can we for a moment suppose that God will bind this precious jewel upon a brow that has never bowed before Him in penitence, confession, and prayer? Will He confer so costly a blessing upon a soul incapable of knowing its worth or of tasting its sweetness, and not even asking or desiring its bestowment? Assuredly not! God will never pour the grace of His pardoning mercy and love but into the vessel of a broken heart.

But the prayer, "Forgive," is the breathing of a penitent soul. It expresses the conviction and is an acknowledgment of sin. It is a prayer that could only arise from a heart sorely conscious of its misery and plague. It is the language of a self-arraigned, self-convicted soul. Standing at the bar of its own conscience, and trying itself, as if in anticipation of the great judgment, and passing the sentence of self-condemnation, it appeals to God the Judge of all--"Forgive!"

And yet it is also the prayer of a forgiven soul. Forgiveness is a past, present, and future act of sovereign grace. This prayer, as it is the first and earliest, so is it the latest and last breathing of a pardoned and gracious man. All through the divine life--as we shall presently show--there is a daily renewal of pardon, a constant application of atoning blood to the quickened conscience. And prayer may ascend to our Heavenly Father for forgiveness with a firm faith in His precious assurance--"I have pardoned"--until prayer for pardon shall terminate in its eternal praise.

Let us now direct our attention to the petition--"Forgive us our sins."

There is a close and beautiful connection--the links of which are so delicate as to be visible only to the spiritual eye--between the present and the preceding petition. The prayer for daily bread finds its best exposition in the prayer for daily forgiveness. The true, the heavenly bread has in it this divine and precious element, and it is no bread to me apart from it. What is mere bread to a man under the sentence of death, but the bread of condemnation? You who are still under the law, dead in trespasses and sins; you who have no righteousness but your own works, no Savior but yourself; you whose heaven is earth, whose God is your belly, whose possessions are beautiful parks, and pleasant pictures, and costly jewels, and domestic comforts, and luxurious enjoyments, and gay delights--so long as you are unconverted and under the condemnation of God's holy law, you but eat the bread of the convict who tomorrow is roused to his last meal before he is led forth to die. Dreadful state! the daily bread you coldly ask, yet munificently receive, is the bread of death, not the bread of life! There is in it no ingredient of God's forgiveness of sin, no sweetness of Christ's love to the sinner, no foretaste of a heaven of glory, no nourishment for a soul that is to live forever--it perishes, and, inevitably and eternally, you perish with it! And yet you exist on, and dream on, and trifle on, profoundly unconscious of your perilous condition, totally insensible to the dread world to which you hasten.

We now turn to the petition before us. It portrays God as a Creditor, man as the debtor, and the attitude of the soul as that of a humble penitent suing for the forgiveness of the debt. Before you proceed or read further, will you, my reader, pause upon the threshold of the subject, and lift up your heart in silent prayer to the Holy Spirit for His enlightening, quickening grace, that the great and vital truths about to be unfolded may be the power of God unto your salvation, and, if saved, for your more abundant sanctification, comfort, and fitness for glory.

Man is God's debtor in a thousand ways. We commence with his being. He made us, and not we ourselves. As "none can keep alive his own soul," it follows that not having the power to preserve life, no creature has power to give life--so that we are neither self-created nor self-preserved. God made us. It is a proper and beautiful acknowledgment of the Episcopal service, "We thank You for our creation." Will any intelligent individual assert that he is under no obligation to God for his bodily existence, his intellectual faculties, his moral powers, his soul capable of such high enjoyment now, and, if saved, destined to a happiness inconceivably great and eternal hereafter? This is a debt. We owe all we are to Him who has said, "I have created him for my glory." We are not self-proprietors, we belong not to ourselves, we are not our own. We may not employ our members, nor use our faculties, as we desire. Our physical, intellectual, and moral nature belongs to God. Made originally in His image, it was made exclusively for His glory.

The inventor of a curious piece of mechanism must of necessity be its sole proprietor. The mechanism has no natural and inalienable right to itself, simply because it displays such inventive genius and possesses such marvelous action. The argument of Locke is as logically sound as it is theologically correct--that, God has a right to His workmanship. It is His own. He made us at His will, and at His will He can destroy us. Admit that man has property in himself, and you must admit that his responsibility to God ceases. The moment he ceases to be a dependent being, he ceases to be a responsible being. He then becomes--dreadful conclusion!--a deity to himself. To himself he is alone accountable how he uses the members of his body, how he employs the faculties of his mind, how he lays out the powers of his soul, how he disposes of his earthly substance. A god to himself he owns no other allegiance, acknowledges no other authority, recognizes no other right to rule and to possess him than his own!

But no sophistical reasoning, no fine-drawn infidelity, can contravene the fact or release him from the truth that, the creature must be the absolute and sole property of the Creator; that this involves his responsibility; and that as a responsible being "every one of us must give account of himself to God." Such is the natural debt you owe to God, my reader. You owe to Him as your Maker every member of your body, every faculty of your mind, every power of your soul. To Him you must give account of your body, how you have used it; of your talents, how you have employed them; of your soul, how you have cared for it; of your rank, wealth, influence, time, how you have laid out all for God. Do you acknowledge the debt? Do you recognize the claim by a holy, cheerful, unreserved surrender? God has power to assert His claim, and He will assert it for time and for eternity.

But we are God's MORAL debtors. The existence of a moral government implies the existence of moral law; and the existence of law implies the existence of moral obligation on the part of the subjects of that government. Every human being is a subject of God's moral government, and is under the most solemn obligation--an obligation enforced by rewards and punishments the most holy and inflexible--to obey. God, as the Great Ruler of the universe, has a right to prescribe rules of action to His creatures, and to connect those rules with promises and threatenings. Let it be borne in mind that His enactings are not simply commands, but in the strictest and highest sense, laws. Commands and laws are two different things. It is true that every law involves a command, but every command does not involve a law. A command must be rightful in order to be a law, and not merely rightful, but he who issues the command must have authority so to do, and those to whom the command is given must be bound to obey; on these conditions only does a command become a law. Hence we learn what sin is. Sin is a deviation from the law of God. In the language of jurists this would simply be called a crime, but in the language of Scripture it is called sin. "Sin is the transgression of the law."

We come now to the subject of man's obedience to God. It is illustrated by the idea of the payment of a debt. The stern, unbending language of the law is, "Pay me that you owe." From this demand there is no release. The claim must be met, the obligation cancelled, or the penalty endured, either in the person of the actual debtor, or in the person of an equivalent surety equal to the justice and extent of the demand. It is here the mediatorial scheme presents itself. In default of man's obedience--his original violation of God's law, and, as a consequence, his utter inability to keep one single precept--the Son of God came into the world, was born of a woman, and was made under the law; and by His perfect obedience He became the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believes. How divine is the gospel plan! With whom but with God could it have originated? What mind could have conceived, what heart devised, what power have executed the salvation of man but His? The entire scheme is so befitting and marvelous.

It meets all the requirements of God's government, and all the necessities of man's condition. On the part of His elect people the Lord Jesus has paid this great debt of obedience. He obeyed in their stead and as their substitute, and His obedience--the obedience of the God-man Mediator--becomes virtually the righteousness in which they stand delivered from condemnation and accepted of God. "By the obedience of one many (a number which no man can compute) are made righteous." Take hold in simple faith of this righteousness, my reader, and you are fully, freely, and forever justified. In other words, take hold of Christ, who is the "Lord our Righteousness," for, "by Him all who believe are justified from all things." Through no other door can you enter heaven but this.

We owe SUPREME LOVE to God. The terms of the law are clear and explicit--"You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the first and great commandment." The law requires us to love God with all the powers and faculties of our being--the will, the understanding, the affections. This love must be paramount to all objects whatever they may be--simply, singly, supremely. In man's innocence this law was implicitly obeyed, his state of original and perfect holiness rendering him as capable of, as he was happy in, so doing. His fall, however, has rendered him utterly unable to perform it. So far from loving God with all his soul, he has no true love to God whatever, but sad, dreadful hatred to God and to everything that belongs to Him. "The carnal mind is enmity against God." The use of the abstract term 'enmity', instead of the concrete enemy, in this passage, is remarkably striking and solemn. In our description of character we always make choice of the latter. We say of a person that he is friendly, not friendship; that he is lovely, not love. But this mode of speaking would not do justice to the present case.

Man is not only an enemy to God, but he is enmity itself against God. Hatred to God is not a mere quality or attribute of man, something which exists in him; it is his very nature, it is himself. We owe, then, to God this debt of supreme love. It is the law of His moral government that we give to Him--the Supreme Good-- the supreme affection of our soul, of which He is worthy. Were there a being higher than God--we recoil instinctively from the bare supposition--then it would be an unrighteous law that challenged for God our single and supreme love. But since the Lord our God is one Lord, and that He is the eternal, self-existent Jehovah, the Creator of heaven and earth, man's divine Maker, and the moral Governor of the universe, it is a most righteous law that demands from the creatures He has made their single, undivided, supreme affection.

No inability to render this single affection releases us from the duty. The obligation is still the same--irrevocable, irrefragable, eternal. Do you love God, my reader? I drop the cold expression which presents your obligation as a duty. I speak of it rather as a precious privilege--the highest privilege belonging to man--Is God the chief object of your supreme affection? Inquire of your conscience, examine your heart, look into your life, and ask yourself the solemn question--Do I love God? Have I returned to Him the affection His law requires, His nature demands, my being justly owes? What traces are there in my conduct, what evidences in my life, of love to Christ? Do I exhibit any of the marks of genuine affection to my Maker, Preserver, and Benefactor? Have I believed in Christ, have I accepted God's plan of salvation, am I regulating my life by His word, am I warring with sin and striving after holiness? If I do not love God with all my soul, then whom do I love? And if I die with this debt of love uncancelled, what awaits me except the prison from whence there is no release until I shall have paid the uttermost farthing.

But how sacred is this obligation, how precious this privilege to a child of God! Love to God is the sweetest debt you pay. What are your happiest moments? Are they not when, floating upon the wings of affection, your soul mounts towards the Fountain of life, the center and source of love, and you find yourself approaching nearer and still nearer the ineffable glory of God?

And here again the Lord Jesus Christ, as the great paymaster of His people, graciously appears. In default of their ever reaching this standard of perfect love to God required by the law, Jesus presents Himself on their behalf. He came, as I have just shown, to keep every precept of the law in their place--and this the chief one of all--for "love is the first and great commandment," and, "love is the fulfilling of the law." He loved God with a perfect love. He loved Him with all His heart, and with all His mind, and with all His soul; and so, as the substitute and surety of His elect Church, He honored and magnified the law in this its highest and chief requirement.

How delightful to study the whole life of Jesus as the life of love--love to God and love to man! Love explains the great mystery of His marvelous incarnation. Love admits us to the secret of His life of unreserved devotion to man. Love explains the marvel of His unparalleled sufferings and His ignominious death. Love elucidates the great truth of the gospel--the Innocent One suffering for the guilty, the Just One for the unjust. I ask philosophy, I challenge every system and religion invented by man, to explain this mystery of substitution in the moral government of Jehovah--the holy Son of God suffering and dying in man's stead--and all is silence! There is no solution, there is no clue but His love--His own divine and eternal love supplies it.

Oh, yes! all His life was love--love to His Father, love to His commands, love to His honor, love to His truth, love to His person, love to man, love to sinners the vilest, to rebels the greatest, to enemies the bitterest, to His murderers the fiercest--love which constrained Him to lay down His sacred life, to give Himself an expiatory offering and an atoning sacrifice unto God for man's salvation. This one single, magic word--love--is the great principle of all that is most stupendous, mysterious, and sublime in our religion. This reveals the Mind where all originated, and unveils the bosom where all centered. The grand secret of heaven is now made known!

And yet it is the substitution of one mystery for another. If love explains His mission and defines His work, what shall explain His love itself? Truly, "the love of Christ passes knowledge." But in the embrace of this mystery I am willing forever to dwell. Conscious that His almighty arms are around me, I ask, I desire no more than the assurance that "He has loved me, and has given Himself for me." I fall before Him in the dust, I kiss the border of His robe, I bathe His feet with tears, until at length, weighed down with the weight of such amazing love, my cup running over, my soul filled to its utmost capacity of emotion, I exclaim, "I am sick with love. Turn away Your eyes from me, for They have overcome me. Withhold Your hand, or take me up into Your presence, where there is fullness of joy; and raise me to Your right hand, where there are pleasures for evermore."

Thus what a debtor is the child of God! Ask the believer in Jesus for what he is indebted, how much he owes! He replies, "I am indebted more than I can ever pay. I owe my happy being to God, my ransomed soul to Christ, my new-born life to the Holy Spirit. I owe my body, soul, and spirit to my Savior, for He purchased all with His own most precious blood, saved me from death, ransomed me from condemnation, rescued me from hell. I am a debtor to sovereign grace, but for which I would never have come as a poor sinner to the feet of Jesus, but would have lived and died and had been eternally lost in my sins. I am daily, hourly, a debtor to the restraints of divine grace, to the constraints of divine love, to the consolations of divine sympathy, and to that divine power which keeps me from falling and preserves me unto His heavenly kingdom."

Such is the grateful acknowledgment of every child of God, of every sinner saved by grace. Beloved, evidence your indebtedness by your cheerful obedience, your holy walk, your unreserved surrender. If you love Him, keep His commandments. If you would confess Him, bear His cross. If you would imitate Him, die to sin and to the world. If you would glorify Him, "present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your most reasonable service."

"Lord, when my thoughts delighted rove
Amid the wonders of Your love,
Your sight revives my drooping heart,
And bids invading fears depart.

"Guilty and weak, to You I fly,
On Your atoning blood rely;
And on Your righteousness depend,
My Lord, my Savior, and my Friend.

"Be all my heart, be all my days,
Devoted to Your single praise
And let my glad obedience prove,
How much I owe, how much I love."

But what is the import of this petition--"Forgive us our sins?" Let us examine it. It at once confronts us with the sin-forgiving God. It presents Him to our view exercising one of the most divine and glorious prerogatives of His nature, the prerogative of pardoning sin. Against whom is sin committed? Against God. Then in whose hands alone is the prerogative and power of pardon lodged? In His against whom the sin is committed. This single and simple argument overthrows entirely the Popish figment of priestly absolution--that is, the confession of sin to, and the exercise of forgiveness by, MAN. Such a doctrine resolves the whole matter of salvation into mere human agency. In the Romanistic scheme, the power of the priest is everything. He is a confessing priest, a forgiving priest, a sacrificing priest, and, I may add, a ruling, despotic priest. Man is everything, and Christ is virtually nothing.

But this petition, taught us by our Lord, brings us through the true Priesthood into the presence of the only sin-pardoning Being in the universe. Pardon is ingrained with God, and it being the most godly exercise of His divine sovereignty, He delegates it to no other. It is His divine right, His exclusive property, and He has fenced and vindicated it with the most holy and jealous care. See how early in the history of the race God stepped forward, as it were, invested with this divine and magnificent robe. "The Lord passed by Moses, and proclaimed, The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, patience, and abundant in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity, and transgression, and sin."

Here we have the very marrow of the gospel at the very commencement of the Bible. Indeed, what is the Bible, the whole Bible, but a record of the "glorious gospel of the blessed God?" It is a gradual development of God's plan of salvation by the revelation of Jesus Christ. We have in the prophet Micah another remarkable unfolding of God's sin-forgiving character--"Who is a God like unto you, who pardons iniquity, transgression, and sin." And why does He pardon? It is written, "Because He delights in mercy." When God is spoken of in His word as delighting in any one especial perfection of His nature--for He must delight in all--we have the most transcendent view of the greatness, the glory, and the preciousness of that perfection. Now, God is said to "delight in mercy." It is a natural, essential perfection of His being. It is the spring from whence pardon flows through Christ's atoning blood; and pardon is the channel through which streams of peace, and joy, and hope flow into the soul. Every spiritual blessing comes through the door of forgiven sin.

We reach, then, a most precious and encouraging view of this subject--the DELIGHT with which God exercises this divine prerogative of pardon. Oh, how low are our thoughts of the readiness with which He meets the penitent sinner with the sentence of forgiveness! Listen to those words of sweetest music breathing from Isaiah's harp--"Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts, and let him return unto the Lord; for He will have mercy upon him, and to our God; for He will abundantly pardon." What says Nehemiah? "You are a God ready to pardon." Such is God's character. Such is the Being with whom we have alone to do in the great and momentous matter of our sins. MERCY is the brightest jewel in the diadem of God; and mercy rejoices against judgment. In this respect the government of God and the government of man essentially differ. In the Divine Government, mercy is central and justice incidental, In the human government, justice is central and mercy incidental. God, in His dealings with the sinner, works from the center of love to the circumference of justice; man, in his dealings with man, works from the center of justice to the circumference of mercy. Thus God ends where man begins. Not until love, as it were, has exhausted all its resources; not until mercy has uttered her last and latest appeal to the sinner to repent and return, does justice step forward to arrest the criminal and hail him to judgment.

Can we, then, hesitate to throw ourselves at the feet of His pardoning mercy who has said, "Come, now, and let us reason together, says the Lord; though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow, though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool." Who shall prohibit you when God invites your approach? who shall say 'no', when He has said 'yes'? Who shall affirm that your sins are too enormous, your iniquities too aggravated, your transgressions too many, to be forgiven? Bring the great, the measureless, the long-standing and accumulated debt, and in penitence and faith, cast it down at the footstool of mercy, and see if God will not be true to His word--"If we confess our sins, He is able and just to forgive us our sins."

The order in which the Holy Spirit in this passage places the precept and the doctrine, is worthy of remark. First, the confession of sin; second, the forgiveness of sin. God has laid great stress in His word upon the confession of sin. How touching His language addressed to His backsliding people, whose backslidings were of a most aggravated character--than which none could have been of deeper guilt, seeing that they had committed the sin of idolatry!--"Only acknowledge your iniquity." This was all that He required at their hands. "Only acknowledge." Poor penitent soul, bending in tears and self-reproaches over this page, read these words again and again, and yet again, until they have scattered all your dark, repelling thoughts of this sin-forgiving God, winning you to His feet as His restored and pacified child--"only acknowledge your iniquity."

"What! Lord! after all that I have done, after my base returns, my repeated wanderings, my aggravated transgressions, my complicated iniquity, my sins against conviction, light, and love; do you still stretch out your hand to me, a poor, wretched wanderer as I am? Do you go forth to meet, to welcome, to pardon me? Do you watch the first kindling of penitence, the first tear of contrition, the first word of confession--'Father, I have sinned!' Lord, I fall at Your feet, since You say, 'Only acknowledge your iniquity,' the greatest of sinners. Your power has drawn me, Your love has subdued me, Your grace has conquered me!" Such was the royal penitent's experience "I said I will confess my transgressions unto the Lord, and You forgave the iniquity of my sin." My beloved reader, God only writes the sentence of forgiveness upon a contrite, sin-confessing heart.

The confession of sin, to be real and acceptable to Him, must not be in the abstract, but minute and in detail. There is a great and fatal danger of merging what are falsely termed "little sins" into great ones; of allowing the major to absorb the minor. We overlook, in our confessions to God, the sins of the heart, the thoughts, the imagination, and the tongue. We do not take into account the sins of indolence, extravagance, wasted time, lost opportunities, neglected privileges; worldliness of dress, of living, and of recreation; covetousness, baseness, selfishness, uncharitableness, malice, slander, unkind and false insinuations. These are sins which exist to a great enormity, and yet seldom enter into our confessions, or lay our mouths in the dust before God. "Oh," as a holy man of God has said, "there is nothing more heartless than some of those general confessions that come from the lips of man." Such, then, is the nature of that confession of sin, which He to whom alone confession is to be made, and with whom exclusively belongs the prerogative of pardon, demands. The Lord lay it closely upon our hearts!

The remaining portion of this chapter must be devoted to a yet untouched, but important part of our subject--the DAILY APPLICATION FOR DIVINE FORGIVENESS.

With regard to this point, there occurs a most remarkable and instructive, yet much misunderstood passage, in the exquisitely touching narrative of Christ's act of washing the disciples' feet. The words are these--"A person who has bathed all over does not need to wash, except for the feet, to be entirely clean." The proposal of our Lord to wash the feet of His disciples, although in perfect harmony with every previous act of His holy life, was perfectly unique and startling to the high-minded, impulsive apostle Peter. Recoiling from a proposal so menial and condescending on the part of his Master, he exclaims, "You shall never wash my feet!" He had yet to learn the lesson that, "to obey was better than sacrifice." Such, in effect, was the teaching of his Lord when He uttered the significant words, "If I wash you not, you have no part with me."

Startled by this solemn warning, and with an impetuosity characteristic of this disciple, he rushes to an opposite extreme, and exclaims, "Lord, not my feet only, but also my hands and my head." Thus difficult is simple obedience--self-will, refusing, on the one hand, what Christ demands, and demanding, on the other hand, what Christ does not offer. It was this dialogue between the Lord and the disciple that elicited the declaration, to which once more I call the reader's attention, "A person who has bathed all over does not need to wash, except for the feet, to be entirely clean."

Our Lord, in the first place, refers to the great washing, as a thing past and done; not to the washing of baptism, whether received in the unconsciousness of infancy or with the intelligence of faith, but the washing of atoning blood, even His own blood, shed for the cleansing "of sin and uncleanness." The true believer has already passed through this washing; he is now and entirely washed; he is now and fully pardoned; his is the condition of a present, a complete, and irrevocable forgiveness. How emphatic the terms used by the Lord--"A person who has bathed all over!" Corresponding with this, how decided the language of the apostle, who will not be suspected of any trimming in a truth so vital and precious as this--"Such were some of you, but you are washed."

Mistake not, my reader, as some have done, the present and perfect washing here referred to. There are preachers and writers who speak boldly of "holy baptism," of the "laver of baptism," of "baptismal purity," as if there existed in God's word an idea, or the phraseology expressive of the idea, so derogatory of the work of the Holy Spirit, and so fatally imperiling the deathless interests of souls. Woe be to us if we either add to, or take from, what is written in God's word! The terrible threatening with which the sacred canon closes, at once affirms the completeness, and fences the integrity of the Bible while it solemnly warns us of the crime of denying the one and of tampering with the other.

But the only baptism referred to in these remarkable words of the Lord Jesus is, the 'Baptism of His own blood'. Thus interpreted, how significant and precious the truth, "A person who has bathed all over." The atoning blood of the Savior, the "precious blood of Christ, as of a Lamb without blemish and without spot," is the divine, the only laver in which the penitent and believing soul is now washed, entirely washed, forever washed, from ALL sin. "By one offering He has perfected forever those who are sanctified." This is the first, the great and indispensable washing--"Without the shedding of blood there is no remission." Unwashed, uncleansed in His blood through faith, our sins are yet unpardoned, our guilt is yet uncleansed, our debt is yet unremitted.

But if we, on the other hand, have by faith approached His blood, have plunged into this open Fountain, have bathed in this divine laver, and have thus been baptized in blood, our present and high position is that of a sinner all whose sins are forgiven, all whose guilt is cleansed, and whose person appears before God washed whiter than snow. Seek, my reader, to ascertain your true standing, your real position as before God. Remember, no altar but the cross, no sacrifice but Christ, no laver but His blood, can avail to snatch you from endless condemnation, to save you from the worm that never dies, from the fire that is never quenched.

And yet a great truth is enfolded in the condescending act of our Lord when He "took a basin of water, and washed His disciples' feet." What was the moral significance of this lowly act? what the evangelical interpretation of this expressive symbol? Most clearly and undoubtedly Christ taught us the necessity of daily repentance, washing, and forgiveness. The "feet" are those parts of the body which are the most exposed to the dust and defilement of earth. The head may teem with lofty thoughts, the heart pulsate with pure affections, the hands overflow with generous actions, the eye roam amid countless beauties, and the whole soul live in an ecstasy of delight, while the feet trod and accumulate the dust from whence we sprang and to which we return. Does there exist, then, no necessity, palpable and impressive, of daily washing? What, in eastern climates, is a literal and indispensable act--the constant laving of the sandaled feet--in the divine life is a spiritual and not less necessary one.

The Christian's weary travel is through the dusty lanes, and defiling paths, and across the sandy desert of a world "lying in the wicked one." And whether he be engaged in recreation, in business, in social communion, or in duty, although the soul is washed, and is entirely clean, the feet still need continuous washing in the "water and the blood" which issued from the Savior's pierced side. If it be true, as an eminent divine has remarked, that "the devil lets no saint of God reach heaven with unsoiled feet," it is equally and yet more divinely true that Christ came into the world to "destroy the works of the devil," and this among them, by providing for the believer's daily repentance and remission of sin.

With this petition, then, and "having boldness (or liberty) to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus," let us, day by day, "draw near with a true heart, in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water," breathing in our heavenly Father's ear the petition taught us by His Son, "Forgive us our trespasses. Forgive my daily failures, negligences, and carelessness of my religious life. The omissions of duty--the shortcomings of practice--the waste of time--lost opportunities--the neglect of my Bible and my closet--the excuses for sin--the parleying with the tempter--the self-seeking--the subtle shades of evil blending with my commercial, professional, sacred calling. Forgive all my eruptions of temper--my evil speaking--the wounds I have inflicted, the injuries I have done--the stiflings of conscience, and the grieving of the Holy Spirit. Pardon my iniquities, O Lord, for they are many and great."

And in this daily washing of the feet, may there not be a pointed reference to the constant application of the sanctifying influence of the Holy Spirit?--"the body washed with pure water." This was strikingly shadowed forth in the type of the laver placed by God's command between the congregation and the altar, which was to be filled with water, in which those who approached the altar were first to wash. "And he set the laver between the tent of the congregation and the altar, and put water there, to wash withal. And Moses and Aaron, and his sons, washed their hands and their feet thereat--when they went into the tent of the congregation, and when they came near unto the altar, they washed; as the Lord commanded Moses."

They had already worshiped at the "altar of burnt-offering by the door of the tabernacle," and had "offered upon it the burnt-offering and the meat-offering." But now, penetrating into the tabernacle, and coming near the altar of incense, they were intercepted by the laver filled with water, which stood between the tent and the altar, in which they must wash their hands and their feet--not the whole body--before they came near unto the altar. Did not this signify that, not only does the believer need Christ's blood of atonement, but also the sanctifying grace of the Holy Spirit in its daily application to the feet--the earth-soiled, earth-wounded, earth-weary feet--of his homeward travel?

Thus are we taught our daily need of the Holy Spirit, not only to guide and comfort us, but what should be still more deeply the yearning of our heart, that He might sanctify us. As the Spirit of holiness, He makes us holy; as the Sanctifier, He promotes our progressive sanctification. This He does by developing the divine nature within us, by curbing our strong propensities to evil, and by leading us continually to the blood of atonement. And when our Lord filled the basin with water, and washed the disciples' feet, by that lowly yet significant act He seemed to say, "He that is washed in my blood is clean from the guilt and condemnation of sin every whit, yet needs afterwards the daily sanctifying grace of my Spirit." Thus constantly approaching the altar of sacrifice and the laver of purification, Enoch-like, we shall "walk with God." Living in perpetual sunlight, our path to glory will be one of progressive luster, even that of the just, which shines more and more unto the perfect day.

There is an UNSELFISHNESS in this petition, as taught us by Christ, which we have need to learn. "Forgive US OUR sins." We are to be concerned on account of, to mourn for, and to confess penitentially, the sins of others. And although no individual can repent and believe, be pardoned and accepted on behalf of another, yet, while we are commanded "not to be partakers of other men's sins," at the same time, like Nehemiah and Daniel, we are to confess the sins of our families, of the Church, and of the nation, and humble ourselves before God because of them, and to intercede for His pardoning mercy. Did not Moses, throw himself in the breach, and more than once, by his intercessory supplications, avert the Divine judgments from the children of Israel? "Pardon, I beseech You, the iniquities of this people, according unto the greatness of Your mercy." "And the Lord said, I have pardoned according unto your word." How earnest and touching the prayer! how quick and gracious the response! Such, also, is the teaching of the apostles--"I exhort that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks be made for all men." Pardoned ourselves, let us wave before God our censer of intercession for the pardon of others--our parents, our children, our kindred, our friends--while the jubilee sound of sins forgiven through Christ still rolls its echoes round a world needing God's forgiveness.

"When this passing world is done,
When has sunk yon glaring sun,
When we stand with Christ in glory,
Looking o'er life's finished story,
Then, Lord, shall I fully know--
Not until then--how much I owe.

"When I hear the wicked call
On the rocks and hills to fall,
When I see them start and shrink
On the fiery deluge brink,
Then, Lord, shall I fully know--
Not until then--how much I owe.

"When I stand before the throne,
Dressed in beauty not my own,
When I see You as You are,
Love You with unsinning heart,
Then, Lord, shall I fully know--
Not until then--how much I owe.

"When the praise of heaven I hear,
Loud as thunders on the ear,
Loud as many waters' noise,
Sweet as harp's melodious voice,
Then, Lord, shall I fully know--
Not until then--how much I owe.

"Even on earth, as through a glass,
Darkly let Your glory pass,
Make forgiveness feel so sweet,
Make Your Spirit's help so meet,
Even on earth, Lord, make me know
Something of how much I owe.

"Often I walk beneath the cloud,
Dark as midnight's gloomy shroud;
But, when fear is at its height,
Jesus comes, and all is light;
Blessed Jesus! bid me show
Doubting saints how much I owe.

"When in flowery paths I tread,
Often by sin I'm captive led;
Often I fall--but still arise--
The Spirit comes, the Tempter flies;
Blessed Spirit! bid me show
Weary sinners all I owe.

"Often the sights of sorrow reign--
Weeping, sickness, sighing, pain;
But a night Your anger burns,
Morning comes, and joy returns;
God of comfort! bid me show
To Your poor how much I owe."

The FORGIVING Spirit of the Lord's Prayer.

"just as we have forgiven those who have sinned against us." Matthew 6:12

To forgive, it has been remarked, is divine. If the forgiveness of sin is the sole prerogative of God, the highest and most gracious gift of heaven, then, man's forgiveness of the wrong done him by his fellow bears a close resemblance to the divine. It was only by God that this precept of forgiveness of injury could be revealed, and it is only beneath the cross of the incarnate God it can be properly learned. It is in the region of our own forgiveness by God, that we learn the Christian precept of our forgiveness of others. As believers in the Lord Jesus, we stand before men discharged bankrupts. Passing out of God's court of justice, released from a debt of "ten thousand talents," we, perhaps, confront upon its threshold a fellow-servant owing us a "hundred pence." The line of conduct towards our debtor is obvious and imperative. A pardoned sinner, all whose transgressions against Jehovah are fully and eternally forgiven, the great debt wholly cancelled, my duty to my fellow-sinner is written as with a sunbeam. Instead of grasping him by the throat, exclaiming, "Pay me what you owe me!" I am to deal with him as my Lord has dealt with me--fully releasing him from the claim. Forgiven, I am to forgive. How can I justly, or with any degree of assurance, put in a claim to be forgiven myself of God, while cherishing in my heart the spirit of unforgiveness towards man? This is Christian logic, Christian precept, yes, it is Christianity itself. Such is the spirit of the petition we now consider.

That there exists a great and wide necessity for the exercise of this godlike precept of forgiveness is obvious. Our Lord forewarned us of it when He said, "It must be that offences will come." The present admixture of good and evil, the imperfect state of the Church, the existence of so much that is totally unrenewed in the unbeliever, and of so much that is but partially renewed in the believer, presents a wide field for the exercise of this divine grace. In the various Christian communions, in the domestic circles, in the social communion of life--among fellow-Christians, friends, relations, and neighbors--these sad sins between man and man are constantly occurring; misunderstandings arise, offences are given, injuries are inflicted, breaches are made, hearts are alienated, friendships are forfeited, demanding a perpetual recurrence to the divine precept, "Forgive us our sins, just as we have forgiven those who have sinned against us."

Such a state of things is one of the most lamentable occurrences of life. One-half of its beclouding and its bitterness, arises from the existence of this element of evil. What perpetual sweetness, what undimmed sunshine would there be in many a domestic home, in many a social circle, in many a Christian community, were there more union of heart, concord of judgment, outflow of sympathy and love! To cite but one illustration of this--the FAMILY circle. How many families are there which, like the sweet apple, has a worm feeding and fattening at its core! The domestic is the most important, as it is the sweetest, earthly constitution. And yet, where you expect to find love on its loftiest throne, charity in its sweetest flow, confidence in its firmest hold, sympathy in its tenderest exercise, we often find nothing but weakened ties, alienated affections, divided interests, and even anger, animosity, and litigation. No spectacle presents our humanity in a more painful and humiliating aspect. To see brothers, dandled on the same paternal knee, nourished at the breast of the same fond mother, divided in their tastes, dissonant in judgment, alienated in affection, and even confronting each other in hostility; to see sisters possessed of the pure sentiments, the tender sensibilities, the deep love and gentleness of their sex, regarding each other with coldness of affection, unsympathizing manner, living in secret irritation of mind, if not in open ill-will and animosity, presents a spectacle at which strangers are shocked, and over which angels might weep. Surely in such a sphere the Christian grace of forgiveness finds its proper and its noblest exercise!

Now it is clear from this petition taught us by the Savior, that God's forgiveness of us is to be the rule and the measure of our forgiveness of others. We cannot for a moment suppose that there exists anything like equality with, but simply conformity to, God's forgiveness. Still less does our forgiveness of man involve any meritorious plea why God should forgive us. Nor does this exercise of forgiveness suppose the existence of insensibility to injury. Never was Jesus so sensible of the injustice and the wrong done Him by man than when impaled upon the tree for man He prayed, "Father, forgive them!" "It is the glory of a man to pass over a transgression"--that glory beamed around the dying head of Jesus when from the cross He breathed this prayer. And yet, as I have remarked, God's forgiveness of us is to be the rule of our forgiveness of others. No rule less divine, no model less godlike, is to govern and guide us in this Christian duty. Our forgiveness of an offending yet repentant brother may not be equal, yet it must be like, God's forgiveness of our offences. How, then, does God forgive?

God forgives us IMMEDIATELY--so ought we to forgive those who have trespassed against us. "You are a God ready to forgive." Is there any demur, any, the least, hesitation on the part of God in remitting the sins of the penitent, in canceling the debt of the contrite sinner? None whatever! Listen to the language of David, already quoted, "I said I will confess my transgressions unto the Lord; and You forgave." Not a moment's hesitation! The royal penitent but acknowledged his sin, and immediately the sin-forgiving God pardoned it. Moses prayed, "Pardon, I beseech you, the iniquity of this people." "And the Lord said, I have pardoned." As if God had anticipated His servant's request. To cite once more the case of David. In the matter of Uriah the Hittite, how did God deal with him? By the same messenger who told him of his sin God sent the message of His forgiveness. "And David said unto Nathan, I have sinned against the Lord. And Nathan said unto David, The Lord also has put away your sin; you shall not die." Not a moment's agonizing suspense intervened between the indictment and the pardon.

And shall we not deal thus with our fellow-men? Shall we demur, hesitate, and debate in our minds the question of forgiveness, and then go to God and ask Him to forgive us as we forgive others? Hesitate to forgive a brother, and then, if you can, ask God so to pardon you. Remember God forgives at once!

God forgives FULLY--so must we forgive our fellows. A partial forgiveness of sin would be no real forgiveness to us whatever. Were the ten thousand talents, but one, all paid, and that one were left for us to pay, we would be forever exiles from the land of the blest. All the demands of the law of God must be met, and the full penalty of justice must be endured either by ourselves or by our Surety, if ever we are saved. In default of our utter inability to meet these claims, the Lord Jesus, on behalf of His Church has, "by one offering perfected forever those who are sanctified." On the cross the Son of God paid the bond, and at the grave the Father ratified it. "He was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our justification." And now Jesus saves to the uttermost all that come unto God by Him. Nothing stands between the greatest sinner and his full and eternal salvation. Believing in the Lord Jesus, he passes out of the court of Divine justice not simply protected from arrest, but fully, honorably, eternally discharged, Christ having done all.

Believer in Jesus! realize this to be your present standing before God. Your great concern is, not with your sins, but with the Atonement that has put them away; not with the debt, but with your obligation to Him who paid it. Oh, see into what a blessed state the atoning blood of Christ places you! It has put away your sins from God--oh, how far!--but it has brought you near to God--oh, how near! "Now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off are made near by the blood of Christ." Such must be our forgiveness! It must be like God's--full, complete, unreserved. How can we repair to the throne of grace, and pray, "Forgive me my sins as I forgive those who have sinned against me," while we have refused an offending brother or sister a full, frank, honest forgiveness? The offence must be entirely forgiven, the debt wholly cancelled, if we would deal with our fellow-servant as his Master and ours has dealt with us.

God's forgiveness of us is a HEARTY forgiveness--so must be ours--sincere, cordial, hearty. Oh, there is no coldness, nothing begrudged, in God's pardon of our sins. It is, as I have said, with all His heart. And remember that the heart of God is infinite! What, then, must be the sincerity, the love, the cordiality with which our heavenly Father has forgiven us all sin! Let this whole--heartedness be seen in the forgiveness which we extend to a sinning brother. Let him see that our hand is not outstretched reluctantly, half-way only; but that, with our heart in our hand, we extend to him a like forgiveness God has extended to us--the forgiveness of the heart!

God FORGETS, as well as forgives, our sins. So entirely are the sins of His people effaced that, speaking after the manner of men, God says, "I will remember them no more forever." And again He says, "I have blotted out your transgressions as a cloud, and your iniquities as a thick cloud." Blotted from the book of His justice, and of His law, and of His remembrance. This same truth comforted Hezekiah, "You have cast all my sins behind Your back." How like our God is this--magnificent, stupendous, divine! Can God forget? He cannot. And yet so entirely has He cancelled out our debt; at so infinite a distance has He cast our transgressions, they are to Him as things out of mind, buried in the fathomless depths of Divine oblivion.

I think that this truth supplies an argument in favor of another--that THE SINS OF THE BELIEVER WILL NOT BE JUDGED IN THE LAST DAY, as the sins of the ungodly. The saints will already have been judged and condemned in the person of Jesus their Great Surety, and in Him punished to the utmost extent of the demands of Divine Justice; their sins, therefore, will have been sunk into the fathomless depths of the sea of His blood, never more to come into remembrance. "You will cast all their sins into the depths of the sea." I cannot but conclude, therefore, that the trial of the saints in the great assize will be nominal rather than actual; that they will be appear--not for trial, but for discharge; not for judgement, but for acquittal. Remember that their Substitute will be the Judge! What a shadow upon His own finished work would be the same judicial process of the saints as that through which the ungodly must finally and inevitably pass! The great debt of the Church once paid will not a second time be brought into court.

Such should be the spirit of our forgiveness, which is the spirit inculcated by our Lord in His prayer taught the disciples. But, universal as is the belief and adoption of this prayer, is the forgiving spirit which it breathes equally so? Alas! that it should not be! "I can forgive, but I cannot forget," is too frequently the haughty and sullen language of an offended brother. But what does this rankling of the offence in the heart, this hoarding of the injury in the mind betray, but that, though you have professedly forgiven the wrong, you have secretly embalmed its memory! Is this like God? Will you in this spirit repair to the mercy seat, and ask God to forgive you as you forgive others? No; you dare not. All the while that your mind broods over the wrong done you by a fellow-sinner, you are harboring "hatred, malice, and all uncharitableness;" and with this leaven of evil fomenting in your heart, with this fretting leprosy of sin tainting your prayers in the closet, at the domestic altar, and in the public sanctuary, you daily pray, "Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us."

Oh, be like God-generous and magnanimous--forgiving and forgetting. Such is the teaching, and such was the example of Him whose disciple you profess to be. "I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who despitefully use you, and persecute you; that you may be the children of your Father which is in heaven."

With regard to THE SINS THEMSELVES, the schedule is an extended one--for offences must come--"in many things we all offend." To what extent we are to include the FINANCIAL debt which a brother may honestly have incurred at our hands, must be left to God and the conscience. At the same time, if the obligation presses upon my brother, and he, through no fault of his own, is unable to meet it, and the thought of its existence and of his own powerlessness to cancel it occasions him misery and distress, shall not the love of God, shall not our obligation to Him who became our Surety constrain us to say, "The financial debt my fellow-servant owes me, and which to him is a running sore, shall be buried in oblivion. My Father has freely and fully forgiven me all my sins; I as freely and fully forgive my brother this." God grant that in this matter these terrible words may never vibrate on our ear–"O you wicked servant, I forgave you all that great debt, because you desired me; should you not then have had compassion on your fellow-servant, even as I had pity on you?" Look at this question in the tender light of the cross; look at it in the solemn light of eternity--and then act!

But the sins more specially referred to by our Lord are those MORAL offences, injuries, and wrongs inflicted by man upon man, by brother against brother, which prevail in our present but imperfectly-sanctified state; and which God wisely and graciously overrules for the exercise of that grace of forgiveness which, both in its letter and in its spirit, the Divine Father enjoins and the Divine Savior illustrated. Oh what pain, what deep, lasting injury, may be inflicted by an unkind word, an unkind look, an unkind action; by a wrong judgment, a misinterpretation, an unjust suspicion, a malicious and false report; by violated confidence, by evil-speaking, idle gossip, and harsh insinuation--how much may spring out of all this affecting the peace, reputation, and usefulness of a child of God!

What a field for the exercise of forgiveness, that Christian act of which it has been remarked, "It requires more grace to forgive an injury than it does to suffer martyrdom." A man requires less grace to endure the hardest toil, to carry the heaviest cross, and to submit to the severest suffering, than to hold out his hand to an offending brother and say, "I freely and fully forgive." The greatest display of grace in God is in the pardon of sin; the greatest exercise of grace in man is to forgive and forget an injury. But this grace Jesus can and is engaged to give.

But nothing more strongly invalidates the fact of our own forgiveness by God, than an unforgiving spirit towards man. Upon no scriptural warrant whatever can we put in the claim of filial relation to God, no valid evidence can we adduce that we are partakers of divine grace while under the influence of a lack of forgiveness. We may imagine we are pardoned, may speak of our spiritual raptures, and boast of our Christian experience; we may frequent the Lord's table, and respond loudly to the Lord's Prayer, but all the while we are woefully cajoled by Satan, are fatally deceived by our own hearts, and are passing to eternity with a lie in our right hand. We have asked of God in solemn prayer to be forgiven as we forgive. What if He should take us at our word?--"You wicked and unmerciful servant, I will!" might justly be His indignant and withering reply.

No Christian precept did our Lord enforce with greater minuteness and solemnity than that of forgiveness of our enemies. Thus He speaks concerning this duty--"If you forgive men their sins, your Heavenly Father will also forgive you; but if you forgive not men their sins, neither will your Father forgive your sins." "Forgive, and you shall be forgiven." Equally explicit is His instruction respecting the FREQUENCY of our forgiveness. Peter, recognizing the duty, inquires, "Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? until seven times?" This was the utmost limit of the disciple! But Jesus, putting a definite for an indefinite number, "says unto him, I say not unto you until seven times, but until seventy times seven." Such are the forgivenesses of our God! "Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts--and let him return unto the Lord, and he will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for he will abundantly [margin, multiply] pardon."

How often, my reader, has your God forgiven you? Suppose He had dealt with you as you in your heart have dealt with your brother, or, perhaps, in reality are dealing with him now--limiting His forgiveness of sin to the seven offences--perhaps to the one! Where and what would you now be? But, countless as the sands that belt the ocean have your sins against God been! And yet, the ocean of His love has again and again tided over them all, and still it flows, day by day, hour by hour, moment by moment. Where your sins have multiplied, exceeded and abounded--His rich, free pardoning grace has much more abounded. Oh, if your Lord should deal with you as you now may be dealing with a fellow-servant--and why may He not?--you would be cast into prison, and by no means come out until you had paid the uttermost farthing.

Closely connected, also, is the overcoming of enmity and the exercise of forgiveness, with our WORSHIP. We cannot worship God with a clean and true heart, with an approving conscience, or with a service acceptable to Him while an unforgiving spirit towards an offending brother is rankling within us. How pointed and impressive the injunction of Christ. "Leave you your gifts before [not upon] the altar, and go your way; first be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift." With what freedom or hope of response can we penetrate within the Holy of Holies and commune with that God whose sweet, delightsome property is mercifully to forgive, while there is a secret reserve in our hearts of ill will and unforgiveness towards an offending brother? Can you honestly comply with the exhortation, "You people, pour out your heart before Him," while some deeply-shaded cloister of that heart you cannot pour out before God--you dare not place in the light of His countenance? How solemn are the words, "If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me."

But be honest! Look at the matter, however distasteful and painful it may be, fairly, fully in the face. Has any relation, Christian brother or sister, offended, injured, wounded you? Have you been evil spoken of? Has unkind defamation rested upon you? Have you been unjustly suspected, wrongfully accused, coldly slighted, cruelly slandered and spoken against? Are there any with whom you are not upon good and friendly terms? Do you meet in society, pass each other in the street, worship in the same sanctuary, and approach the same sacred table of the Lord's Supper without friendly recognition, or Christian communion? In a word, associating, worshiping, and even assembling at the Holy Communion, as total strangers? Yes, what is infinitely more offensive to God, meeting as bitter and unreconciled enemies! What a scandal to Christianity! what a dishonor to Christ! what a tainted spot upon your love feasts! what a lamentable spectacle to the eyes of the world!

And must this painful state of things exist? Is there no kind and skillful hand that will seek to cauterize and heal the fretting wound? Perhaps the offer of mediation is made. Some mutual friend undertakes the holy yet self-denying office. But you decline! Your injury, resentment, and pride are too deep, persistent, and unbending even to listen to the proposal; or, if the attempt is made, the concessions you demand are too imperious and humiliating, and so all effort to effect a reconciliation and restore peace falls to the ground, and you are left to a judicial spirit of revenge, malice and unforgiveness accompanying you to the grave, and upward to the judgment-seat.

But this lamentable state of things need not and must not continue. In His Name who, when we were sinners, loved us; who, when we were enemies, died for us; who, when we were rebels, overcame our evil by His grace, truth, and love--I beseech you, before the sun shall go down upon your wrath, seek out the brother or the sister whom you have offended, or who has offended you, and hold out your hand of reconciliation. If he is in the wrong wait not for his acknowledgment--God did not wait for you!--but make the first advance; and if that advance is repelled, make it again and yet again, for in so doing you shall heap coals of fire on his head which may melt down his proud, unrelenting spirit into contrition, forgiveness, and love.

Or if you are in the wrong, go at once and honestly and frankly acknowledge the wrong, and seek the forgiveness and reconciliation of the brother you have injured. Having done this--then bend together, the offended and the offender, before the mercy-seat, and together pray--"Father, forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us." Happy reconciliation! Blissful moment! How many a heart thrills with joy, how many a home is radiant as with a new-created sun at the touching spectacle. The alienation of years is reconciled. The congealed affection of long dreary winters of discontent is melted. Misunderstandings are explained, differences are adjusted, acknowledgments are interchanged; relatives long estranged, families long divided, friends long alienated meet once more beneath the same roof; within the same sanctuary, and around the same sacramental table, and joy pulsates through every heart, and music, like a whisper from the celestial choir, breathes from every soul. Methinks I see the white-haired father, the venerable mother, the aged minister who had long prayed for the arrival of this hour, clasp the hands in thanksgiving, and exclaim, "Now, Lord, let you your servant depart in peace, for my eyes have seen your salvation!"

Reader, it may be in your power to create a scene like this! By the pardoning mercy of God towards you, by the redeeming love of Him who died for you, by the dove-like peace of Him who dwells in you, by your hope of forgiveness at the last great day, I beseech you, I implore you, yes, in the name of Christ I command you, to lose not a moment in securing its accomplishment. The blessing of the peace-maker will then come upon you, and a faint reflection of the joy that brightened the Savior's heart when He reconciled us to God will brighten your heart, and gild the clouds that cast their shadows upon your homeward path.

But God the Holy Spirit, the Author of peace and lover of concord, shall speak--"Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamor, and evil-speaking, be put away from you, with all malice--and be kind one to another, tender hearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake has forgiven you." Whenever any may have sought to injure your fair name, to lower your influence, to impair your usefulness--wilfully, wickedly, slanderously--imitate Jesus, and render not evil for evil, and when reviled revile not again. Revenge not yourself, but commit the matter to God, and by a silent spirit and a holy life live down the venomous slander. Your good may be evil spoken of, and your evil may be magnified and exaggerated--nevertheless, by a meek and quiet spirit, by a consistent walk, and by well-doing, you may put to silence the strife of lying tongues and the ignorance of foolish men, and thus glorify your Father who is in heaven.

"Should envious tongues some malice frame,
To soil and tarnish your good name,
Grow not disheartened, 'twas the lot
Of Christ, and saints exempt are not.
Rail not in answer, but be calm,
For silence yields a rapid balm.
Live it down!

"Far better thus, yourself alone
To suffer, than with friend bemoan
The trouble that is all your own.
Live it down!

"What though men evil call your good,
So Christ Himself was misunderstood--
Was nailed upon a cross of wood;
And now shall you for lesser pain
Your inmost soul forever stain,
By rendering evil back again?
Live it down!

"Oh! if you hope to be forgiven,
Love your foes, the bitterest even,
And love to you shall flow from heaven.
And when shall come the poisoned lie,
Swift from the bow of calumny,
If you would turn it harmless by,
And make the venomed falsehood die,
Live it down!"

Do not take revenge, my friends, but leave room for God's wrath, for it is written: "It is mine to avenge; I will repay," says the Lord. On the contrary: "If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head." Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.
Romans 12:19-21

The WATCHFUL Spirit of the Lord's Prayer.

"Lead us not into temptation." Matthew 6:13

This solemn petition--perhaps the most solemn one of the whole prayer--would appear a natural and impressive consequence of the preceding one for forgiveness. In the contemplation of that petition, the mind was necessarily led into a deep and grave consideration of sin in its various forms, and of the confession of sin in its minute detail, and of the forgiveness of sin in its daily renewal.

Passing from that theme, it would seem as if the next utterance of the wakeful, tremulous heart would be, "Lord, lead me not into temptation. If such is sin; if such the sore penitence to which its commission leads, and such the humiliating acknowledgment in which it results, and such the costly pardon--the price of blood--which its guilt demands, Lord, keep me, fence me, surround me; that, having been washed every whit clean, I may tread no path, be placed in no position whereby I may be exposed to the power of temptations which I cannot evade, whose strength I cannot resist, and thus relapse from my high and holy walk with You. You have given me absolution from sin, but no indulgence to sin. I would be as free from the tyranny as from the condemnation of sin, and would find my most precious, powerful, and persuasive motive to seek after the attainment of holiness in Your full, and free, and most loving forgiveness. Having washed my feet, how shall I defile them!"

The present scene of the Christian is a scene of temptation. One is almost led to inquire, 'When has it not been?' Even in the paradisiacal age of the world and history of the Church it was so. Who would have thought of temptation lurking in the leafy bowers, and of the serpent's trail along the sylvan walks of Eden? And yet thus it was. Strange to say, that dark deluge of evil which for centuries has rolled its angry billows over the earth, bearing myriads on its bosom to the ocean of a forfeited and dreadful eternity, had its rise in a yet unsinning paradise. Behold our primal parents! Stately trees of righteousness, beauteous plants of paradise! Yet the enemy came in like a flood, and swept them before its powerful and resistless force. Thus there never has been a scene of our humanity, or an era in the history of the world, in which the people of God have been exempt from temptation.

But much more is this the case now. How should it, in the nature of things, be otherwise? MAN is a fallen being. He is, by nature, one unmitigated mass of sin, there dwelling in the flesh no good thing. The WORLD, with all its landscape beauty, its mountain grandeur, its Alpine sublimity, its countless forms of loveliness, is a sin-tainted, curse-blighted world. More than this, it is Satan's empire--where he holds his seat, rules, and reigns by God's permission, over myriads of the human race, until Christ shall come to overthrow his sovereignty, and will make all things new.

Such is the solemn truth which underlies the whole remedial scheme of the gospel of the blessed God. But do our legislators, our philosophers, our educationists, and even some of the ministers of religion, clearly see, fully recognize, and broadly enunciate these facts--that man is totally fallen, and the world wholly corrupt? No, to a great degree, the legislation, and the education, and the preaching of the day is a solemn ignoring of these truths. But not so those who are enlightened by the truth and the Spirit of God. The wonder to them is, not that man is so sinful, but that, by the grace of God, he should become so holy. Not that the world is so evil, but that, by the restraints of God's power, it should be so good. Such is the scene through which the believer passes to heaven. His road homewards is across the enemy's country; his path to glory winds its way through a world lying in the wicked one. Is it any marvel that the present state of the Christian should be of universal and incessant temptation? But let us particularize.

The word "temptation" sometimes signifies TRIAL. God's people are a tried people. Trial is that process by which the Christian is tested--his religion, his principles, his hope, are brought to the proof. It is in this sense we first regard the process to which the believer is subjected, more immediately by GOD HIMSELF. In Genesis 22 we read, "God tested Abraham." In the Epistle to the Hebrews we find the significance of the word, "By faith Abraham, when he was tried." And again, "Blessed is the man who perseveres under trial, because when he has stood the test." Now, in this important sense, God may be said to TRY His people. He sometimes, as in the case of Job, unchains, as it were, the enemy for a little while, permitting him to come in like a flood, to worry and annoy the believer.

And, again, God may permit inbred corruptions to have a measured and momentary power over the believer, and then sin seems, for the time, to be in the ascendant.

Once more, God may allow His child to pass through a great fight of affliction, for "the Lord tries the righteous," and by this process subject him to great and severe temptation. But all this springs from the depths of His infinite wisdom and love!

TWO OBJECTS He thus seeks to accomplish. The first is the unfolding of His own character in the eyes of His people. God remembers that, even at best, how limited is our knowledge of Him; but how much smaller the measurement that is not gauged by the test of trial. We know Him revealedly in His Word; we know Him symbolically by His providence; but it is in the school of His direct and personal dealings with us, and of our direct and personal dealings with Him, that His character is the most experimentally unfolded, His perfections are the most distinctly made known, and His glory passes before our eye. To this end God tries us. "Show me now Your ways, that I may know You."

Thus, in all our temptations and trials, we trace His wisdom in ordaining, His sovereignty in permitting, His power in controlling, His faithfulness in directing, and His love in soothing us. And Jesus, the tried Stone, becomes better known, and more intensely endeared, in one fiery temptation, in one severe trial, than, perhaps, in all the passing events of our history combined.

The second object God would compass is, our personal benefit. Our personal religion advances in the same ratio with our spiritual and experimental acquaintance with God in Christ Jesus. By the process of temptation or trial to which He subjects us, we know ourselves better, are more deeply instructed in the knowledge of the word, are emptied, humbled, proved; are taught our own weakness, learn wherein our great strength lies, and that, upheld only by the power of God, we are kept from falling and are preserved unto His kingdom and glory.

By this process, also, the work of moral purification advances--the alloy is consumed, the vile is eliminated from the precious, and the believer emerges from the season of temptation--tried, purified, and made white. "Take away the dross from the silver, and there shall come forth a vessel for the finer." Placed in the furnace, it may be, in the mass, shapeless and unlovely, such the wondrous transformation, it comes forth a vessel divinely molded, symmetrically formed, exquisitely pencilled--a vessel of honor fit for the Master's use.

Thus are we to interpret God's more immediate hand in the temptations or trials of His saints. But there are other sources of temptation to which the saints are exposed.

There are the temptations that arise from the power of SATAN. It is astounding what opposite and what false views men entertain of the devil. There are ill-informed and timid religionists who almost deify him, by ascribing to him the attributes of omniscience and omnipresence which belong alone to God. Then there are those who, in this Sadducean age, go far to deny his very existence, or who, if admitting that there is a devil, divest him of his power and wrest from him his influence. Oh, it is a solemn thing to trifle with the Evil One, either by exalting his attributes, or by ignoring his existence. But he is the great tempter and accuser of the brethren. Our first parents fell like stately cedars before his arm, and we, the offspring of a fallen father, who, like the tinder, are ready to ignite with every spark that is struck, are not exempt from his fiery darts.

No more, if our merciful High Priest was in all points tempted like as we from this very source, who are we to expect exemption from his assaults? Be not, then, dismayed at the skeptical doubts he insinuates, at the bold blasphemies he suggests, at the profane and impure thoughts he engenders, or at any mode by which he assails the foundation of your faith, and tempts you to give up Christ and cast away your confidence. There is not a moment that he is not plotting your downfall, but there is not a moment that Christ is not upholding you on earth and interceding for you in heaven.

Then there is the believer's temptation from the WORLD. We must pass through it, for there is no escape. It is the empire of the Evil One, and it is the empire of evil. It is essentially and emphatically an evil world, all its works evil, and nothing but evil. The ungodliness of the world is appalling. Whether we view it in its savage or its civilized state, in its refined or its gross forms of society, "we know that the whole world lies in wickedness," or, in the wicked one. Thus from every quarter is the world a snare and a temptation to the God's children. Awed by its frowns we may be dissuaded from taking up Christ's cross, seduced by its smiles we may be persuaded to lay it down. Our very circumstances in life may expose us to peculiar temptation. Affluence may ensnare us into wasteful extravagance and worldly living; poverty may tempt us to depart from strict uprightness and integrity; a moderate position may tempt us to better ourselves by wild and ruinous speculation.

And then there is the worldliness of the world--how powerful and ever-present a snare is this to the child of God. "Demas has forsaken me, having loved this present world," is the sad record of many a religious professor once standing so high, but now swept away and no more walking with Jesus, by the resistless current of the world's gaieties, the world's enterprises, and even the world's religion.

But what a scene of temptation is there WITHIN THE CHRISTIAN. It is here--perhaps a foe, a spy, or a traitor within the citadel--his greatest danger lies. From this there is no escape. "The sin that dwells in us" is that lurking spy, the wicked heart throbbing within our breast, "deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked," is that concealed traitor. From this, I reiterate, there is no escape. Go where we may, plunge into the pathless desert, escape to the mountain solitudes, hide in the caves of the earth, buried in a monastery, imprisoned in a nunnery, immured in a hermit's cell, still the traitor lurks within, prepared, at any moment, to open the gate and admit the besieging foe.

In the eloquent words of a writer already quoted, "In no scene of earth, in no condition, are we exempt from the incursions of temptation. If we flee to the desert, and avoid the sight of our fellow-creatures' face, we bear there the fiend within; we cannot bar out the indwelling devil. The gratings of the monastery cannot exclude the wings of the fallen seraph, nor solitude sanctify the unregenerate heart. In the garden or the grove, the palace or the hermitage, the crowded city or the howling wilderness, SIN tracks us and SELF haunts us. If the poor are tempted to envy and dishonesty; the rich, as Agur testified, are equally endangered by pride and luxury. If the man of ten talents is puffed up with self-confidence and arrogant impiety, the man of one talent is prone to bury slothfully the portion entrusted to him in the earth, and then to quarrel with its Holy Giver. The great adversary has in every scene his snares, and varies his baits for every age and variety of condition and character. Each man and child has his besetting sin. The rash and the cautious, the young and the old, the crude and the educated, the visitant of the sanctuary and the open neglecter of it, the profane and the devout, the lover of solitude and the lover of society--all have their snares. Satan can misquote Scripture and misinterpret providence, and preach presumption or despair, heresy or superstition, or infidelity, as he finds best. He can assume the sage, the sophist, or the buffoon, the religionist or the statesman at will. He spares not spiritual greatness. Paul was buffeted. The most eminent of God's saints, of the Old Testament and the New--Noah, Abraham, David, Hezekiah, and the apostles, have suffered by him. He spares not the season of highest spiritual profiting. Before you rise from your knees, his suggestions crowd the devout heart. Before the sanctuary is left, his emissaries, as birds of the air, glean away the scattered seeds of truth from the memory. When our Lord Himself had been, at His baptism, proved from heaven as the Son of God, He was led away by the Spirit in the wilderness to be tempted. And how often does some fiery dart pound on the Christian's armor, just after some season of richest communion with his God. Descend from the mount of revelation with Moses, and at its foot is an idolatrous camp dancing around a golden calf. Come down with entranced apostles from the Mount of Transfiguration; and the world whom there you encounter, are a grief to the Holy One by their unbelieving cavils. As John Newton pithily said--'It is the man bringing his dividend from the bank door who has most cause to dread the pilferer's hand.'

Yes, temptation spared not Christ Himself. Even His mother and brethren tempted Him, when the one would prescribe to Him the season and scene of putting forth His veiled godhead at the marriage-feast of Cana of Galilee; and when the other would have hurried the hour of His going up to the temple at Jerusalem. Disciples tempted Him when they cried, 'Never, Lord! This shall never happen to you!', to His predictions of His mediatorial sufferings; and quarreled about the division of seats in His kingdom. The multitude tempted Him when they would be received as the disciples, not of His truth, but of His loaves, and were eager to force upon the 'Antagonist of all carnalism in religion' a carnal crown, and a carnal throne, and a carnal policy. The lawyer and the Pharisees tempted Him with questions as to the tribute-money for Caesar, and as to the weightiest matters of the law, and as to the sanctity of the Sabbath and the temple; and the Sadducee continued the work on another side with cavils as to the resurrection and the law of divorce. Satan buffeted Him at the introduction of His public ministry; and, as we gather from the prophetic Psalms, at the close of Christ's earthly course renewed his assaults by the most ferocious onset, when 'the bulls of Bashan and the dogs' of hell bellowed and howled against the meek and Atoning Lamb. Describing His own career, and bidding farewell to His little flock, He called them those who 'had continued with Him in His temptations;' as if all the pathway which they had trodden at His side had led through a field strewn with snares and pitfalls at every step. And besides all these, the temptations which Scripture has expressly indicated, how constant and severe must have been the pressure of temptation, not explicitly described by the New Testament, against which His human nature must have been necessarily called to struggle in controlling the exhibition at times of the indwelling Godhead. Had we been vested with Divine Sovereignty and Lordship over twelve legions of angels, could our human endurance have brooked, like His, the injustice and cowardice of Roman praetors and the insolence of Jewish kinglings, whose faces a glance of His Divine eye could have moldered into ashes? Had we His omniscience, could we have locked it down and kept it under restraint from exposing in open day the hidden enormities of the hypocritical foes that confronted and pursued Him along all His meek and beneficent way? Had we the resources of the wide universe at our command, could we have brooked the crown of thorns, the mock scepter of reed, the society of malefactors, and the cross, with all its agony and all its ignominy? O spiritual Joseph of Your Church! the archers sorely grieved You, and from every quiver and with every bow shot at You, that You might in all points be tempted like your brethren, and teach them how to meet and endure temptation. Every arrow that pierces us left its point and its venom in You; and falls at our feet quenched and harmless. Yet we fly to You in this time of our temptation, for sympathy and support, and ask that every 'fiery dart' may impel us closer beneath Your sheltering wing, that we may know You more, and love You better, and learn of You to support those who are tempted."

Turn we now to THE PETITION ITSELF, "Lead us not into temptation." Two remarks seem necessary to its clearer understanding. The first is, that entire exemption of the believer from temptation would be entire exemption from some of the greatest blessings of his life. This, therefore, cannot be included in the prayer. Had Abraham been exempted from the trial of offering up his son Isaac, there would have been lacking that illustrious exhibition of his faith, which in all future ages has been, and to all future ages will be, the instruction and comfort of the faithful. Had Hezekiah been exempt from the temptation of display and pride, when he paraded his treasures and his wealth before the ambassadors of Babylon, what a loss had been that record of his spiritual history! Had Peter been exempt from the temptation to deny his Lord, it would seem as if the Bible had been incomplete without that wondrous page which records the Savior's anticipatory intercession on behalf of His devil-tempted disciple--"Satan has desired to have you, that he might sift you as wheat; but I have prayed for you; that your faith fail not." Had Paul been exempt from the "thorn in the flesh, the messenger of Satan to buffet him," what a loss to the Church of Christ had been the marvelous declaration which that temptation of the apostle elicited from the Savior, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my strength is made perfect in weakness."

And, most of all, had our blessed Lord been exempt from the temptation in the wilderness--His forty days and forty nights' conflict with Satan--what chapter of the Bible could have supplied that precious truth--"We have not a High Priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin?" And were WE, beloved, entirely excluded from this same fiery ordeal of temptation, what a dead-letter, what a sealed book, would much of God's own Word be in our experience. We cannot, therefore, suppose that this petition is a prayer for exemption from what all the saints of God, and the Son of God Himself, have more or less passed through. This would be, as I have remarked, to exempt us from some of the deepest instruction and holiest blessings of our spiritual history.

Our second remark is that, we are not to infer from the petition that God can solicit men to evil. This seems to require no argument; and yet the Holy Spirit has met the idea--"Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted by God; for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempts he any man." And yet the dark, the malignant thought, has found a lodgment in many a guilty breast--"If God had not placed me in this position, I would not have fallen into this sin." No! is the solemn and indignant reply--but every man is tempted when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed. "Now, when lust has conceived, it brings forth sin; and sin, when it is finished, brings forth death." Oh it is a solemn thing--an act of daring brazenness, fearfully augmenting our guilt--to charge God with the responsibility of our sin! What is this but to make Him the Author of sin?

But the petition is a prayer that God would, by His providence, keep His child out of the way of temptation. "My Father, consign me to no place in which I may be tempted to sin against You, to dishonor the Name of Jesus, to grieve the Holy Spirit, and to bring discredit upon my Christian profession." We can suppose a young believer just entering upon public life, bending before the mercy-seat, and sending up this petition to Heaven, "My Father, I am about to detach myself from the hallowed restraints of the parental roof, from the guardianship of those who, from infancy and childhood, have watched over me with an eye of love that has never slumbered or wearied--may You be the Guide of my youth, and allow me to embark upon no career of life which will expose me to peculiar and overpowering temptations. I am deficient in experience, limited in wisdom, feeble in strength, pliable and irresolute, soon and easily led astray. My Father, lead me not into temptation. Let me not dwell in Potiphar's house, nor pitch my tent towards Sodom, nor flee into Zoar, nor sit with the servants in the palace of the high priest, nor heed any price for the betrayal of my Lord. Allow me not to be tempted above that I am able to bear. My Father, lead me not into temptation. The prayer of Your servant Jabez would I make my own–'Oh that you would bless me indeed, and enlarge my coast, and that Your hand might be with me, and that You would keep me from evil, that it may not grieve me!'"

Oh, what a solemn, wise, and holy prayer is this! Is it yours, my young reader? Is it the exponent of the thoughts, and feelings, and desires now rising within your soul? Then God, even your Father in heaven, will answer it, as He did the prayer of Jabez, and, by His providence, so dispose of you as that you shall not be exposed to the temptation you thus so holily and earnestly deprecate; or, if exposed, will sustain you under it.

It is a prayer, also, that God would either weaken the power, or remove entirely all existing temptation. The temptation is a formidable one. It assails you, perhaps, in the most vulnerable and least-defended part of your nature. It presents itself in its most fascinating and irresistible form. You are conscious of its power. It is just the thing which your imagination has often pictured, and which your heart has often craved. It holds you like a charmed bird within its serpent-like spell, and you feel but little inclination, still less power, to break it and escape. And yet, alive to your danger, trembling and lowly, you bend before the Mercy-Seat, and lift up your prayer--"My Father, I am a weak, helpless child, safe only as I am out of the way of temptation, or sheltered beneath Your outspread wing. You know my present assault, and how impotent I am to resist it. Weaken its force, or give me grace to overcome it, or remove it entirely from my path. Lead me not into temptation."

It is a petition, also, that God would not withdraw His restraining check from the believer. It is said of Hezekiah, that "God left him to his own heart." How often, for the moment, has this been the sad history of some of the most eminent saints--as eminent for the greatness of their sin as for the greatness of their grace. Lot, dwelling in Zoar--David, walking upon the roof of his house--Solomon, in his years of mellowed experience and wisdom--Peter, sitting among the servants of the high priest's court--Cranmer signing an renouncement of his faith--were all left to know what was in their heart, and a host more of illustrious saints, whose histories present a solemn comment upon the apostolic exhortation, "Let him that thinks he stands take heed lest he fall."

But each and all were the subjects of restoring grace, emerging from the fiery ordeal through which they passed, sadder but wiser and holier men. When, then, you pray, "Lead me not into temptation," you ask of God to withdraw not those divine restraints, to remove not those salutary checks by which, as in the case of David, you may be kept from falling into a snare. "I kept you," says God, "from sinning against me." So may God keep us!

And does not this petition involve a prayer to be preserved from the great tempter? Not only preservation from the evil that is in the world, but preservation from the Evil One of the world, should be our daily prayer. With the galling consciousness of having lost his prey, with all the fiendish malignity of a foiled foe, with his ancient inveterate hate of the Christ of God, Satan traverses the earth bent upon the destruction of the saint. It is not with the dead but the living soul he more especially has to do. The dead, well he knows, are floating silently and surely down with the stream that sweeps them on to the dread gulf where they are borne. Marvel not, then, that you should be a selected object of his assault, distinguished, I had almost said, by the especial envy and malignity of his attack. These very fiery darts hurled so fiercely at your soul, these strong temptations by which your faith, integrity, and hope are assailed, but evidence the life of God within you. Do you suppose for a moment that he would waste his ammunition upon a spiritually dead sinner? that he would suggest to a victim, still chained and pinioned by his resistless power, the imaginary crime of having committed the sin against the Holy Spirit? that his transgressions were too many and his guilt of too deep a hue to come within the scope and power of divine forgiveness? Would he, the Evil One, place his mouth to the ear of a soul dead in trespasses and in sins, and with the softest whisper breathe into it those blasphemous thoughts, those infidel doubts, those sinful suggestions, those promptings to presumption and despair, of which Bunyan and Cowper and Newton were once the victims, and of which a cloud of witnesses in God's Church still are? No; it is only the lambs he frightens, the sheep he worries, the children of God whose downfall he plots. Let us, then, in our daily prayer, "Lead us not into temptation," include yet this needed petition, "and keep me from the power of the tempter." You approach One who has been tempted by this same foe, than whom none in the Church of the tempted could enter so intelligently and feelingly into your case.

"O You! the sinner's only Friend,
On You alone my hopes depend,
That You will guard me to the end,
My Savior!

"I do not weep that joys are fled,
Or those so fondly loved are dead;
For greater griefs my tears are shed,
My Savior!

"The Accuser seems so constant near,
And almost drives me to despair,
That ne'er again Your voice I'll hear,
My Savior!

"He taunts me with my sins, dear Lord,
And tempts me sore to doubt Your word,
That not for me was shed Your blood,
My Savior!

"Oh, come, You Holy, Heavenly Dove,
Fill my lone heart with Your pure love,
And let me rise to joys above,
My Savior!

"Then shall I walk in peace with God,
Nor fear to tread the thorny road,
But kiss the hand that bears the rod,
My Savior."

Some PRACTICAL AND SOLEMN CONCLUSIONS naturally flow from the important subject of the present chapter. While praying not to be led into temptation, we should be watchful against voluntarily running into it. There is such a thing as tempting the tempter. Although we can be in no position entirely exempt from his assaults, we yet may incautiously and needlessly expose ourselves to some powerful onslaught of the foe. Thus it was with Peter. Where should he have been when his Divine Master was under arrest? Side by side with Him at the bar of the high priest. "But Peter stood at the door outside." He had already paved the path of his downfall by "following Christ afar off." And when he stood and warmed himself with the servants and officers of the court--the congregated enemies of his Lord--it is not surprising that before a very mild assault--a little maid charging him with the crime of being Christ's disciple--he fell as a star from its orbit. What a beacon light for us!

If we needlessly go into the world, if we sinfully sit among the foes of the Redeemer, and associate with the scoffers at religion--if we cross the boundary between the Church and the world and fraternize with the assailants of the truth, the condemners of revelation, the avowed foes of the Bible--if we are found in association with the Antichrist of Rationalism, or the Antichrist of Ritualism, or the Antichrist of Formalism, thus presumptuously venturing within the enemies' lines, what marvel if we find ourselves looked upon as deserters by the loyal, or are arrested as prisoners of war by the enemy! While, then, praying not to be led into temptation, we have need to be upon our watch-tower, lest we be surprised by the besieger at the gate. "Sin lies at the door" ready to spring in the moment it is incautiously unlocked or too widely opened.

Mark the unselfishness of the petition, "Lead US not into temptation." If I am a true child of God, I am to embrace in my intercession each member of the brotherhood exposed, like myself, to temptation. I am to regard the holiness and happiness of my brother, as second only to my own. No, seeing that by our incorporation into the same body of Christ, we are members one of another, his preservation from temptation, his upholding in temptation, his deliverance out of temptation, should be a matter of as deep concern to me as my own. Seeing that, perhaps, in consequence of his talents, his popularity, his elevated and responsible position, he is a more conspicuous target for the Archer--standing, it may be, as upon a lofty pinnacle of the temple--how fervent and earnest should be my prayerful intercession in his behalf.

To this end ought we to send up our petition for missionaries and ministers, for pastors and evangelists, for directors, secretaries, and treasurers to whose fidelity are entrusted the momentous and precious interests of Christ's truth and kingdom. Is there not a grave defect in our practical religion touching this matter? Is there not too little consideration of the responsibility of these servants of our Lord, too little sympathy with their dangers and their trials, and too little intercessory prayer for their divine upholding, begirt and assailed as they are by many peculiar and strong temptations? If Moses needed, and Paul craved, and Christ leaned upon the prayers and the sympathy of the saints, how much more these our brethren!

And in whose Name is this petition, as, indeed, the whole prayer, to be offered but the Name of Him who taught it--Himself the Tempted One. There is not a view of the subject of this chapter so instructive and soothing as the life of temptation to which our Lord Himself was exposed. I say the life of temptation, for from the moment that His feet touched the horizon of our planet, to the moment that He sprang from earth into heaven, His whole course was one continuous battle with temptation, in some of its many forms, and from some of its countless sources. His mother tempted Him on the occasion of His first miracle at Cana to a rash unveiling of His deity. His brethren tempted him on the one hand to avoid His sufferings, while His disciples on the other hand tempted Him to forego them altogether. The excited populace would have forced upon Him a crown, while the subtle lawyer would have entrapped Him into an act of disloyalty to Caesar. The ritualistic Pharisee tempted Him touching the weightier matters of the law, while the infidel Sadducee assailed Him with cavils at the mystery of the resurrection. To this must be added the incessant and fierce buffetings of Satan, from the period that, baffled in the encounter, "he left Him for a season" in the wilderness, until his last onslaught in Gethsemane and his final defeat on the cross. O crowned and adorable Victor! all these temptations endured in Your person were for me, that You might be "touched with the feeling of my infirmities, and be in all points tempted like as I am, and yet without sin." Tempted believer! to the sympathy and the support, to the grace and protection of this tempted Savior resort. "He knows what sore temptations mean, for He has felt the same."

You will not find in the whole Church of God, even among those who have most fiercely struggled with the arch-tempter, one who can so clearly understand you, so tenderly sympathize with you, and so effectually shield you as Jesus. He taught you the petition, "Lead us not into temptation." He counsels you to watch and pray lest you enter into temptation. He anticipates your temptation by intercession, that your faith should not fail. And when the temptation actually comes, He enfolds you within the robe of His sympathy, and encircles you with the shield of His might, for "in that He Himself has suffered, being tempted, He is able to support those who are tempted."

If such the fiery ordeal, and such the difficult salvation of the righteous, who are "scarcely saved," how fearful, how fatal your condition who still are entangled within the coils of the serpent, led captive by him at his will! Unregenerated by God's Spirit, unconverted by His grace, your whole life is one scene, one series, one act of temptation. Error tempts you, and you fall. Ritualism tempts you, and you yield. The world tempts you, and you are seduced. Wealth tempts you, and you are ensnared. Sin tempts you, and you comply. But what will the end of these things be? Oh, too fearful to contemplate, too terrific to describe. An eternal hell! Forever with the tempter! Reaping the wages of sin, and receiving the due and the just reward of your unrighteous deeds. "Who among us shall dwell with the devouring fire? who among us shall dwell with ever lasting burnings?" All, all who have denied the truth, who have hated God, who have neglected salvation; who have rejected the Savior, and who have lived and died the followers of the world, the slaves of lust, the servants of sin, and the vassals of Satan--there, these are as fuel seasoning for the last and the unquenchable fire. But yet there is hope! You are within its region and hope's grasp. Repent, and be converted! The Ark is still open, the life-boat floats at your side, the City of Refuge is within your reach, a loving, beseeching Savior invites you to the asylum of His wounds, to hide you there from the wrath that is to come!

The DEVOTIONAL Spirit of the Lord's Prayer.

"But deliver us from evil." Matthew 6:13

The spirit of the Lord's Prayer is essentially and pre-eminently devout. It is the soul and essence of true prayer. Were this more solemnly and profoundly felt, there would be less cold neglect of the prayer on the one hand, and less superstitious idolatry of it on the other. Its graceless use by some individuals may evaporate, so to speak, its living power, as to leave nothing but the dry residuum of a lifeless form, as offensive to the spiritual nature of God, as it is deadening to the spiritual religion of the worshiper. Nevertheless, those who pray this prayer, who find it an appropriate and living embodiment of the heart's utterances, are deeply conscious of its high, devotional, and spirit-elevating character; to such it is, as I have remarked, the soul and essence of prayer.

It should be remembered that the words of this Prayer flowed from His lips in whom the Spirit dwelt without measure; that they were taught us by Him who, as the Divine Mediator between God and the soul, undertook both to present and answer our petitions; that they embody the great verities of our faith, and express the deepest need of the living soul--who can question, then, the devotional spirit of the Prayer, or, what should be the devout state of mind of him who breathes it?

But, perhaps, the truth most dear to the devout heart illustrated by these words is--the preciousness and power of prayer. The mention of this privilege can never be too frequent, nor can either its importance be too exaggerated, or its enforcement be too earnest. The prayer of faith is power with God--we might almost say, the only power that man has with Heaven. It is this simple yet mighty weapon in the hands of the weakest saint, the obscurest believer, which--we write it reverently--overcomes God. Thus did the angel of the covenant address the holy wrestler--"Your name shall be called no more Jacob, but Israel--for as a prince have you power with God and with men, and have prevailed."

In thus yielding to the power of prayer, Jehovah yields to Himself. It is His own power which He implants in the soul, that overcomes Him. Prayer is the breathing of the Spirit, it is the life of God in men, it is the divine nature in communion with the human. "Prayer, like Jonathan's chariot, returns not empty. Never was faithful prayer lost at sea. No merchant trades with such certainty as the praying saint. Some prayers, indeed, have a longer voyage than others; but then they return with the richer lading at last." Oh, the power with Jehovah of simple, childlike, believing prayer! That single word "Father!" lisped by a child, or uttered by a stammerer, exceeds the eloquence of the most persuasive oratory. It leaps into heaven, and draws back its richest treasures. "My prayer returned into my own bosom."

Man in audience with God is the most sublime moral spectacle on earth. Angelic students bending from their thrones gaze with holy awe upon, and gather deep instruction from, the hallowed scene. The believing hand, touching thus the divine electric wire, in a moment each petition, need, and sorrow is laid upon the heart of God. No two friends dwelling at the most remote distance from each other are so instantaneously and closely brought into mental contact by this highway of thought, as the believing soul is into the divine presence by prayer. In the twinkling of an eye the believer is in possession of the ear and heart of God.

So simple too is prayer. We but ask, and we receive. We but seek, and we find. We but knock, and it is opened to us. We present the name of Jesus, plead the blood of Jesus, enlist the advocacy of Jesus, and our suit is granted. Thus are we taught that it is not the eloquence of prayer that prevails with God, but the grace of prayer. Man may applaud the beauty of the one, but God yields to the power of the other. As Bunyan pithily puts it, "It is better to have a heart without words, than words without a heart." And since it is to the heart alone that God looks, let not your lack of words, your stammering speech, your defective eloquence, discourage you from pouring out your soul before Him.

Nor let your heart, because it is cold, and sinful, and sad, deter you from prayer. You must give yourself to prayer, be your temporal condition, your spiritual frame what it may. None can help you but God. None can intercede for you but His Son. None can sympathize with you but Jesus. Then arise and approach the Mercy-seat. The blood of atonement is upon it. The God of all grace and comfort, the God of peace and of hope, holds His court, and waits to accept and answer prayer. Hesitate, then, not to enter, since the blood of Jesus admits you within the holiest.

The burden of the prayer we are considering is deliverance from evil. In its widest application, but less articulated utterance, it is the voice of humanity, the cry of the race. Conscious of the oppression of the curse, and of the working of evil, yet with no intelligent idea or spiritual perception of the cause, men everywhere cry, "Who will show us any good?" in other words, who will deliver us from all evil? And what is the cause--the one, primal, unrepealed cause--of all the evil beneath which our common nature is bowed, and from which it sighs to be delivered? What but the sinfulness of man, the original and universal corruption, of our race. And yet, how is this truth diluted, controverted, denied--not merely by moral reformers, by earnest educationists, and by political economists, but even by men religious in creed, and teachers of religion by profession, who scoff at and reject as wild and visionary the doctrine of man's original and total depravity.

But, the whole structure of the Bible, the entire scheme of Redemption, the cross of Calvary standing in its own solitary grandeur, the regenerating work of the Holy Spirit in the hearts of thousands, demonstrate the great fact that, man has sinned, and that in consequence, "human life is but one long conflict with suffering anticipated, or one prolonged contact with suffering endured." But let us regard this petition as the prayer of the penitent and devout Christian, "Deliver us from evil." From what evil, my reader?

You pray to be delivered from the evil of--SIN. This is the greatest evil. Emancipated from this, you are disenthralled from all evil, for sin is the prolific parent of all. It is your heaviest burden, your bitterest grief. The liberty with which Christ makes His people free is the only liberty that can free from this galling chain. But from whence this cry?--from the knowledge of the plague of your own heart. And from whence this knowledge?--from the teaching of God's Holy Spirit. Knowing their existence, conscious of their indwelling within your heart, you long to be delivered from the evil passions, the carnal lusts, the worldly affections, the idolatrous attachments, the sordid cares that enchain and fetter you, and to float into a higher and holier region, as upon the snowy wing of an unfallen angel; or upon the yet loftier wing of the spirits of just men made perfect, who, in virtue of the blood of Christ and the robing of His righteousness, soar higher and approach nearer the throne of God than the loftiest angel in heaven. There is a present deliverance from the evil of sin in the experience of every believer. Christ has delivered us from the guilt, the tyranny, and the condemnation of sin. Oh, what a real, present, and glorious deliverance is this! "Christ has delivered us from the curse of the law?" "He has put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself." "The blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us from all sin." These marvelous declarations clearly indicate a present deliverance from the evil of sin, so far as relates to its guilt and dominion. The believing conviction of this enters essentially into our growing sanctity of life, and our consequent peace and joy. And yet the spirit sighs for more. So long as sin exists within us, though its guilt be cleansed and its scepter is broken, we cannot rest. So long as one foot of territory is occupied by the foe--so long as a single "Canaanite" yet dwells in the land, we, cannot, we dare not, lay down our arms--we must fight to the hilt, and fight to the last. Thus we cry, "Deliver us from the evil of sin. Lord, subdue its power, cleanse its guilt, weaken its assault, and let not any iniquity have dominion over me."

Is this the breathing of your heart, my reader? Rejoice, then, that the "Spirit of holiness" has His temple within you. Nothing but a moral evil savor, exhales from a nature totally unregenerate and corrupt--its taste may be refined, its conceptions poetical, its thoughts intellectual, nevertheless, these are but the flowers which wreath and garnish the gangrene corpse. The sweet fragrance of holiness, the heavenly perfume of righteousness, can only breathe from a holy and a heavenly nature implanted in the soul by God the Holy Spirit. Are you mournfully conscious or indwelling sin? Do you loathe it, battle with it, and pant for the annihilation of the last link that binds you to corruption? Do you hunger and thirst for righteousness, sigh for purity, long for holiness? Oh, the sweet spices which filled the sacred temple with their cloud of fragrance, never emitted so rich perfume as that which breathes from your soul, wafted up to heaven in sighs and prayers for conformity to the divine holiness! What evidence more assuring of your being a partaker of the divine nature than this?

Again, you pray to be delivered from the evil of THE WORLD. With this the intercessory prayer of Jesus is in the closest sympathy. "I pray not that You should take them out of the world, but that You should keep them from the evil." Our Christianity is not to exile us from the world. The religion of Jesus is not that of the hermit. Asceticism is not an element of the gospel of Christ. Christ did not ask of the Father our translation to the kingdom of glory immediately upon our calling into the kingdom of grace. The rule of the gospel is this--"Let every man abide in the same calling wherein he is called." This apostolic rule may admit of some qualification, without in the least degree contravening its authority or questioning its wisdom. For example, the grace of God may convert an individual pursuing an occupation--as in the case of the eminent John Newton, when engaged in the slave-trading--essentially irreligious and immorally wrong. The immediate abandonment of such a calling admits of not a moment's hesitation.

How many a man of God, also, is now an earnest and useful preacher of the gospel of peace, at whose side once dangled the sword of war! How many an able and faithful minister of Christ is now pleading in the pulpit powerfully for God, who once pleaded eloquently at the bar for man--the advocate, perhaps, of a cause in direct and painfully excruciating antagonism to his judgment, conscience, and feelings! These men may, therefore, relinquish their position, not because either the military or legal profession--once adorned with the names of Colonel Gardiner and Judge Hale--is essentially or necessarily incompatible with a Christian profession and with Christian usefulness; but simply because they felt that divine grace had developed in them powers and had conferred upon them gifts pointing to a more congenial, as to a more extended sphere of service for God.

But, a man is to abide in his rank, or wealth, or occupation, provided he can as well glorify God. His Christianity does not teach, nor his Christian profession require, that he should lay down his rank, remove from his social position, relinquish his wealth, and level himself to a grade other than that in which the providence of God placed and in which the grace of God found him. In all these things he is to live to God. If his rank gives him influence, if his affluence provides him with means, if his talents arm him with power, if his social or ecclesiastical position opens to him an extended and important sphere of usefulness, let him remain what and where he is, writing "Holiness to the Lord" upon all.

But for what did our Lord pray on behalf of His people? He prayed that, keeping His people for a while in the world, as the school of their grace and the scene of their conflict, God would preserve them from its evil. All is evil here! He who made, and sustains, and governs the world, has pronounced both it and its works to be evil--their nature evil. Sin has disorganized and tainted everything that was originally good, perfect, and pure. Nature is less lovely, because it is accursed; the air is less vital, because it is tainted; the springs are less healthful, because they are poisoned; the flowers are less fragrant, because they are blighted. Every object in nature teaches that man is fallen, that sin reigns, and that, because of sin, the curse has smitten and blighted all.

But it was moral evil our Lord more especially deprecated in the name of His people. He did not pray that they might be exempt from the afflictions and trials, from the reproaches and persecutions, or even the temptations of the world--but from the moral evil that is in it--the corruption that is in the world through lust--its religion and its friendship, its ungodly principles and its sinful practices. Knowing the danger they were in, and their inability to keep themselves; before He left the world in the midst of whose fires He was about to leave them, He bears them in the arms of His intercession, and lays them upon the bosom of God. "Keep them from the evil."

The world--its employments, its pleasures, its gaieties, its friendships--has nothing that is holy, nothing that is in sympathy with the life of God in our souls, nothing that can aid our growth in holiness, and speed us on our heaven-bound way. Quite the contrary. The more we have to do with this evil world, the more we seek to please it, to conciliate it by concession, to win it by compromise, to serve it by sacrifice, the more deeply shall we be sadly conscious of its evil, and its taint, and its sting. Pass through the world as a stranger, having as little to do with it as possible. From its malice and its slanders you cannot expect to be exempt. It will attempt to do you all the injury in its power. It is evil--and it will speak only evil. It is evil--and it will imagine only evil. It is evil--and it will invent only evil. It is evil--and it will do only evil.

The holier you live, the more distinguished a mark will you be for the venom of the world. Jesus was perfectly holy, yet never was one so traduced and maligned, so slandered, wounded, and ill-treated by the world as He. "If any man will live godly in Christ Jesus, he shall suffer persecution." But heed it not. Fear the world's smiles rather than its frowns; its caresses than its revilings; its eulogy than its slander; its commendation than its condemnation. Let us aim to live holily, to walk humbly with God, and to deal justly and kindly with men, and we may confidently leave our personal and dearest interests in the Lord's hands.

Ever bear in mind one great end of Christ's death was, our death to the world. "Who gave Himself for our sins, that He might deliver us from this present evil world." How great the evil, since to rescue us from its power, it demanded an expedient so great, a sacrifice so costly and precious! Thus in the light of the cross we learn what an evil world this is, that nothing less than the sacrifice of God's beloved Son could weaken its power or emancipate us from its thraldom.

When invited to go into the world, when tempted to imitate the world, when falsely accused by the world, turn and look at Jesus, and in the holy, tender, solemn light of that magnificent scene--Jesus upon the cross--commune with your own heart, interrogate your conscience, and inquire if your appearance at the theater, the opera, the oratorio--if your presence in the ball-room, at the card-table, or the race-course--if your perusal of works of unholy fiction or of religious error, are in harmony with the sacred and solemn profession you have made of discipleship of Him whose Church and religion, whose gospel and followers are not of this world, but who "gave Himself for our sins, that he might deliver us from this present evil world," that we should be a "holy nation, a peculiar people, a royal priesthood."

Thus, our hearts sequestered in Gethsemane, and our souls in frequent communion at the cross, we shall be crucified to the world and the world to us. This is the victory that overcomes the world, even the faith that deals with the unseen, walks with the invisible God, loves an unseen Savior, and takes frequent excursions into the eternal world, returning, as the believing spies from Canaan, laden with its precious fruit. It is this fellowship with unearthly and eternal realities that enables us to live above the world, and to live down the world, alike unseduced by its blandishments and its smiles, as indifferent to its judgment and its frowns.

You ask to be delivered from evil MEN. There are few wiser or more needed petitions than this. Evil men are agents in the hands of the Evil One for accomplishing his evil designs. Our Lord would not commit Himself to the hands of men, "because He knew what was in man." David prayed, "Deliver me, O Lord, from the evil man." And the Apostles ask the prayers of the Thessalonians that they might be "delivered from unreasonable and wicked men." On another occasion Paul warns the saints to "beware of men." And in the same words Jesus uttered precisely the same caution, "Beware of men."

How divinely inspired the desire of the royal penitent, "Let us fall into the hands of the Lord; for His mercies are great--and let me not fall into the hand of man!" The knowledge of what the fallen creature is in its worst estate, and of what the renewed creature is in its best, will, in all circumstances prompt the wise and holy desire that we may rather be at God's disposal than at man's. We cannot, indeed, be indifferent to the divine instruction, the spiritual refreshment, the holy consolation, the soothing sympathy we have derived through a human channel. Nevertheless, it is infinitely better to lie in the hands of a correcting God, than to repose upon the bosom of a caressing saint. The frowns of our heavenly Father have more of love in them than the smiles of His most loving child.

Again, we repeat--we thank God for all that He has made the saints to us; and yet who will say that his expectations have ever been fully realized? Who has not, in some instances, found their love fickle, their promises capricious, their opinions often harsh, and their judgment always fallible? But this is, perhaps, more our fault than theirs. We have expected too much from the creature, more than any creature could possibly give, or we ourselves possessed. We reposed a while beneath our pleasant gourd, and in a night it perished. We nursed our bosom-flower, and in an hour it died. We leaned upon the strong and beautiful staff, and in a moment it broke. We came to the crystal stream that had so often refreshed us, and, lo! it was dried! Alas, we drained of all its sweets the sponge of creature good, and it became at last aridness itself!

But it is more from the evil that is in the UNGODLY that we should pray to be kept. If our Lord shrank from committing Himself into their hands, what greater need have we to pray with David, "Deliver me, O Lord ,from the evil man--preserve me from the violent man; which imagine mischiefs in their hearts. Keep me, O Lord, from the hands of the wicked!" Oh to be kept--divinely kept--from the wickedness, the maliciousness, the deceitfulness, the depths of concealed evil dwelling in the ungodly! Pray that you may not fall into their power. "Alexander the coppersmith did me much harm," was the lamentation of an inspired apostle.

Thus yet more earnestly may we pray to be delivered from the evil of false religionists, of deceived and deceiving Christian professors. More are they to be dreaded, avoided, and prayed against than even the openly profane and ungodly. Religious hypocrisy is a far more potent element of evil, is a more baneful and noxious weed in society, than the avowed irreligion, the undisguised worldliness, the unblushing impiety of those who make no pretensions to godliness, and who, if they are unholy and profane, possess at least this merit, that they are sincere. Less to be dreaded and shunned are they than the honeyed religious deceiver, and the varnished Christ-professing hypocrite! What a wise and holy request of the apostles, "Brethren, pray for us, . . . that we may be delivered from unreasonable and wicked men--for all men have not faith!" Let this be our daily prayer for ourselves, for the saints, and especially for Christ's ministers.

We have already, in the preceding pages, referred to the temptations of the EVIL ONE. We may be pardoned for again returning to the subject in connection with the present petition, seeing how much satanic power has to do with the saints of God, and yet how imperfectly the subject is understood. Satan is the prince of this world, and the sworn and eternal foe of Christ and of the Church. Wounded, and writhing in the anguish of his mortal bruise, he is yet, until Christ shall come, the reigning sovereign of a fallen world, against whose plots we have need to be watchful, and from whose power we must pray to be delivered. He is everywhere, without being omnipresent--knows every being, without possessing omniscience--is powerful, without omnipotence. As one of the reformers quaintly remarked, Satan is a diligent prelate, always at work in his diocese; a sovereign, ruling vigilantly his kingdom; a foe, whose malice never sleeps; a roaring lion, going about seeking whom he may devour. Let us, then, pray to be delivered from this Evil One, "lest Satan should get an advantage of us, for we are not ignorant of his devices." It is essential to our foiling of this our great adversary that we should not be so. It is the lack of a more intelligent acquaintance with his mode of warfare that often leads to our momentary defeat.

One of his favorite devices, we too often forget, is, to select as the object of his toils the most gracious and useful saints. He is too crafty a pirate, as Cowper remarks, to attack an empty vessel, but seeks to waylay those vessels chiefly which are richly laden. "When the coat of a saint is cleanest, the devil is most anxious to roll him in the mire." It is a remarkable fact in the history of Christ that the two most eventful periods of His life--His baptism, which commenced His public life, and His passion, which closed it--were those in which He encountered the fiercest assaults of the devil. From this circumstance we are instructed to seek a large measure of grace when called to occupy some more prominent part in the Christian Church; and to be, with the prophet, whole nights in our watch-tower when engaged in some eminent service for God. If he wounded Peter, and buffeted Paul, and shot at our Lord, let those to whom, by the consent of their brethren, some distinguished and important mission in the interests of God and of truth is confided, take heed lest through a like assault, but unfortified by a like grace, they fall. The secret of our safety in so elevated and perilous a position is, in looking up, keeping the eye single and fixed upon God, and the heart, tremulous and anxious, reposing upon Christ.

But even the obscure position, the shaded path of a child of God, is no exemption from the shafts of Satan. He will find out the Lord's "hidden one;" and shoot at them secretly. One of his most common weapons is, the suggestion that their sins are so many and so great as to exceed the pardoning mercy of God in Christ Jesus. The quiver of Satan is full of arrows of this temper. But this base insinuation proves its origin. To represent a believer's sins before conversion, and his relapses in grace after conversion, as too great for the restoring grace of the covenant, the atoning blood of Jesus, the subduing power of the Spirit, is the most daring fiction ever perpetrated by the "father of lies."

But are you assailed, my reader, by this fiery dart? Are you filled with dismay at the greatness, the number, and the aggravation of your sins? and are you tempted to limit the provision God has made for their present and full remission? Oh, weigh this vile suggestion of the enemy, endorsed, perhaps, by your own cruel unbelief; with that precious and magnificent declaration of God's Word, which, to the last hour of time, will be as fresh and potent as when it first flowed from the pen of inspiration, "The blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin," and you will quench the dart and put to flight the foe.

There is no divine truth before which Satan more trembles, or the believing hold of which more effectually neutralizes every doubt and stifles every fear arising from conscious guilt, as the atoning blood. The moment faith apprehends the blood, we are brought into peace with God, the tempest ceases, and there is a great calm. Guilt-bowed, sin-distressed soul! this blood fully meets your case. Take hold of it by faith, for it is yours. I emphatically and confidently repeat--yours. The Holy Spirit's gracious work in your soul is the divine warrant for believing that this blood was shed for you. All whose sins the Son bore, the Father draws, the Spirit convicts of sin, and the blood cleanses from sin. Receive, then, the comfort and peace a believing apprehension of Christ's blood will give you. Why hesitate? If this blood has satisfied divine justice, it may well satisfy your conscience. If Jehovah is well pleased with it, surely you may be. If God has accepted it, why should there be any hesitation or demur on your part?

And remember how closely connected is this blood with a fruitful profession of Christ. If this blood is at the root of your religion, you will be "like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that brings forth his fruit in his season." Daily sprinkled upon your conscience, constantly moistening the root of your Christian profession, your obedience to God will be unreserved, your service for Christ will be perfect freedom, your endurance of the trial, whatever its shape, will be meek and cheerful, your carriage under your Father's discipline will be quiet and submissive, your converse with man will be holy, and your walk with God will be humble. If this blood be daily apprehended by faith, you will be as perfectly conscious of safety as the Israelite when the blood of the paschal lamb was upon his door, and as Rahab when the scarlet line floated from her window.

Oh for more exalted views of atoning blood! Is it not a humbling reflection that, with all our religious profession, we know so little of that blood in which our dearest, holiest interests are involved--that blood that ought to make our daily life a bright sunbeam and a pleasant psalm? And should it not be a cause of deep shame to us as ministers of Christ that, with all our preaching, we have presented so imperfectly, have lifted up so obscurely, have unfolded with such timid, almost criminal, reserve the atonement of the Son of God? And yet, what is our ministry without it, but a sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal?

Such is the holy and much-needed petition Jesus has taught us to present. Let it be our daily prayer. Oh, to what evil may one day expose us!--the evil of our own hearts--the evil in the hearts of others--the evil attaching to our professional and business life--the evil, in a word, that lies in ambush along every path we tread. Who can deliver us but He who is acquainted with all our ways, who knows our down-sitting and our uprising, and our thoughts and dangers afar off. "Lord! You have been my deliverer times without number. When my feet had almost gone, when the clouds were lowering, and the sky was wintry, and the winds moaned like a funereal knell, when trouble was near, and evil threatened, then You have delivered! And I will testify to Your faithfulness, and sing of Your love, and extol Your power, that others may take heart and learn to put their trust in You, the Great Deliverer!"

But our final and full deliverance speeds on. The day of our death will be the day of our life--the day that binds our limbs with his icy fetters will be our perfect freedom from all evil. Then we who have often cried, "Who shall deliver me from this body of death?" will, by death, be delivered from the last fetter of sin, and the last vestige of corruption, and the last shade of sorrow. Shrink not, then, O Christian, from dying! If, "in the midst of life we are in death," enclosed in Jesus, in the midst of death we are in life! Let the solemn summons come when or where it may, absent from the body, in a moment we shall be present with the Lord. And when the Lord comes in personal majesty and glory to raise and glorify His saints, then we who sleep in Jesus, "waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of the body," shall spring into perfect liberty, exclaiming, "O grave! where is your victory?"

"Absent from flesh! O blissful thought!
What unknown joys this moment brings!
Freed from the mischief sin has brought,
From pains, and fears, and all their springs.

"Absent from flesh! illustrious day!
Surprising scene! triumphant stroke
That rends the prison of my clay;
And I can feel my fetters broke.

"Absent from flesh! then rise, my soul,
Where feet nor wings could never climb,
Beyond the heaven, where planets roll;
Measuring the cares and joys of time."

"The Lord is faithful, who shall establish you, and keep you from all evil. The Lord shall deliver me from every evil work, and will preserve me unto His heavenly kingdom--to Him be glory forever and ever. Amen."

The ADORING Spirit of the Lord's Prayer.

"For Yours is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever and ever. Amen." Matthew 6:13

What a truly sublime and appropriate close of this marvelous prayer! It ends, as it began, with God. It begins with His parental, and ends with His regal relationship. It opens by teaching us to love Him as a Father, it closes by teaching us to adore Him as a King. Leighton remarks that prayer moves as in a circle, always conducting us back to the point from whence we set out--"the GLORY of that God to whom we pray, and who is the God that hears prayer." We may with equal fitness illustrate prayer by the magnificent rainbow which appeared in the apocalyptic vision of John round about the throne. One end of this divine and resplendent arch--the rainbow of prayer--rests upon the earth, where in childlike love we cry, "Abba, Father" then, vaulting into the skies, it spans the throne of the Eternal, and, descending again to earth, meets once more at the spot where the suppliant breathings of the child are exchanged for the adoring homage of the subject--"Yours is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory!" Within this sacred arc is embraced the personal history of each child of God. Blended with its sacred tints is every petition of the believing soul, from the first sob of penitential grief--"God be merciful to me a sinner"--to the last note of joyous triumph--"Victory through our Lord Jesus Christ!"

Believer in Jesus! live as under this divine crescent. Go where you may, it encircles you. From the lowest depth of your soul's need it springs into heaven, sweeps past the lowering clouds, touches the golden altar where Christ our High Priest appears in the presence of God for us, and returns freighted with blessing. No prayer of faith, wafted to heaven in the name of Jesus, shall fail of a response. Let your believing eye rest where God's complaisant eye reposes, upon the rainbow of prayer. The rays of the Sun of Righteousness reflected through the tears of a humble, sin-burdened suppliant, will paint this symbol upon the cloudiest sky, filling the heart with hope that when God beholds it, He will answer, forgive, and bless.

It may be proper in the outset to remark, lest we should be thought indifferent to the fact, that a few Greek copies do not contain this last clause of the Lord's Prayer, and that some critics have noticed its omission by Luke. We see no just reason, however, to question its integrity. Found as it is in the Syriac copy, the most ancient version of the New Testament--standing as it does in close harmony with the very first petition of the prayer--and maintaining a strict analogy with the whole tenor of God's Word, we feel no difficulty in accepting it as genuine. Then, with regard to its omission by the evangelist Luke, as Dr. Williams very forcibly puts it--our Lord was often used, in recording the same thing, to avoid an exact repetition of Himself, and frequently, in reproducing a parable or a saying, presented it in a somewhat disjointed or fragmentary form. And, in addition to this, when He communicated the prayer to Matthew, His audience was chiefly composed of an indiscriminate mass of hearers, many of whom were totally ignorant of divine truth, while others were armed with prejudice and hostility both to Him and His mission. On the other hand, when reiterating the same formulary in the hearing of Luke, He was more immediately surrounded by His disciples, who would, by their subsequent teaching on the mediatorial work of Jesus, be able to supply any apparent vacuity or break in the prayer. On these grounds, then, and on others which it may not be necessary to mention, we give an unhesitating and unqualified assent to the accuracy of the passage, accepting it as a genuine clause of the prayer. Let us now briefly examine its teaching.

"Yours is the KINGDOM." To WHOM could these words be properly addressed, but to Jehovah? All other kings are but mimics of Him, and all other kingdoms but shadows of His. They exist and reign by God's will, and as instruments for the accomplishment of His purpose--the setting up of His kingdom of righteousness and truth in the earth. And when earthly monarchs vaunt themselves of their power, and give not God the glory, He knows how to abase them.

What a solemn illustration of this is presented in the history of Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon! Listen to the narrative--"At the end of twelve months he walked in the palace of the kingdom of Babylon. The king spoke, and said, Is not this great Babylon, that I have built for the house of the kingdom by the might of my power, and for the honor of my majesty? While the word was in the king's mouth, there fell a voice from heaven, saying, O king Nebuchadnezzar, to you it is spoken--The kingdom is departed from you." But oh, unutterably blessed the truth God taught him by the overthrow and humiliation to which he was subjected--just the truth this page seeks to unfold. "At the end of the days I Nebuchadnezzar lifted up my eyes unto heaven, and my understanding returned unto me, and I blessed the Most High, and I praised and honored Him that lives forever, whose dominion is an everlasting dominion, and His kingdom is from generation to generation." Seven years of mental derangement, of dethronement from his kingdom, and of eating grass with the beasts of the field, were needed to abase the pride of this haughty and vain-glorious monarch, and to teach him that the sovereignties of the earth belonged to God, who puts down one and raises up another; and to discipline and fit him for re-establishment in his kingdom more firmly and amid more glory and power than ever.

Is God dealing in a similar way, my reader, with you? Lifted up by your position, and boastful of your gifts and achievements, you have not given God the glory. He has, perhaps, drawn a momentary cloud-shade over your mental powers, or has incapacitated you physically for the trust confided to your hands, and, like the deposed monarch, He has removed you from place and power into a school to you, the most humiliating and painful. But, be still, and know that He is God. A bright light shines in this dark cloud. God's thoughts towards you are thoughts of peace, and not of evil. Humble yourself under His mighty hand, and He will exalt you in due time. Yield not to despondency, still less to distrust and despair. God will not forsake you, nor Christ cease to pray that your mind be preserved, and that your tried and sifted faith may not fail. All these emptyings and ploughings are but to prepare you for larger blessings and greater fruitfulness. Thus was it with the king of Babylon, and thus will it be with you. "At the same time my reason returned unto me; and for the glory of my kingdom, my honor and brightness returned unto me; and my counselors and my lords sought unto me; and I was established in my kingdom, and excellent majesty was added unto me. Now I Nebuchadnezzar praise and extol and honor the King of heaven, all whose works are truth, and his ways judgment--and those that walk in pride he is able to abase." Cheer up, then, O afflicted saint of God! happier days and brighter scenes await you.

"Your is the kingdom" of NATURE. "The earth is the Lord's, and the fullness thereof." This beautiful world, beautiful in its very ruin, belongs to God, and is the theater upon which Christ is carrying forward His designs with regard to the salvation and gathering together of His redeemed Church. The Christian mind delights to recognize this magnificent and important world as belonging to God. He created it, ordained its laws, appointed its seasons, sustains its existence, and supplies its sources of fertility. He rides upon the wind, flashes the lightning, rolls the thunder, controls the storm, and makes the clouds His chariot. "Yours, O Lord, is this beautiful kingdom and its government; seed-time and harvest, summer and winter, the drought and the deluge, the heat and the cold come at Your command, and are Your servants doing Your will, and accomplishing Your purpose. All nature illustrates Your power, exhibits Your goodness, evidences Your wisdom, reflects Your beauty, is fragrant with Your breath, and shows forth Your glory. Oh, give me grace to see You in every flower that blooms, in every star that shines; in the golden beams of the sun, in the silver rays of the moon, and in the gentle gale that wafts to us the fragrance of a thousand sweets. Through all the varieties, beauties, and grandeur of this Your creation, may my heart ascend in adoring love to You, the wonderful, the bountiful Creator of all."

"Yours is the kingdom" of PROVIDENCE. This world is not--a kingdom without a throne--a throne without a sovereign--or a sovereign without a scepter. By no blind accident are the affairs of this planet governed. God is in the history of the world--its past, its present, and its yet unshapen future. The statesman and the politician may not recognize this fact; but it is so. And did the Christian mind more distinctly see it, how much more instructive would history be; what new light would the passing events of each day throw upon the inspired page.

The Bible and history are closely linked. The Bible foretells history, predicts its events, and shapes its outline. History accumulates its evidence around the Bible, affirms its divinity, fulfils its predictions, and authenticates its truth. No Christian should study either past or present history but with God's Word in his hands. This is the chart, this the map, this the lamp by which he shall be able, spiritually and intelligently, to study God's providential government of the world in connection with the increase and final destiny of His Church. God preserves and governs the world for the Church. For her sake the world exists and is ruled, the "pearl of great price" is quarried in the world; and having purchased the field for the sake of the pearl, Christ is carrying on its government, working His own mine, with a view to the gathering together unto Himself a people "prepared beforehand unto glory."

Yours, then, O Lord, is this kingdom of providence. Your hand is moving and controlling all events and circumstances, national and social, public and private; giving birth, and shape, and tint to those phenomena in the history of nations, and to those affairs in the history of individuals, which to human perception are often enshrouded in mystery so dreadful and profound. Let this view of God's providential reign hush all murmurings at our lot, making us content with such things as we have, assured that He will never leave us nor forsake us. Let it bow our soul in meek submission to His sovereign will, in view of those painful and inexplicable events which sometimes cast the darkest shade upon our sunniest landscape, and dash from our lips their sweetest cup of joy. Let it incite our gratitude for the blessings loaned us so long, though now removed, and for the blessings which still remain to soothe, and gladden, and cheer us onward. Let it strengthen our faith, in the Divine assurance that our daily bread shall be given us, our path shielded amid engirdling evil, and our soul, guided by His counsel and kept by His power, eventually and safely conducted home to glory. Yes, Lord, the kingdom of providence is Yours, and I would see Your hand, and trace Your wisdom, and taste Your goodness in all the shaping and tinting of my whole history. I would deal alone with You in all the lights and shadows of my daily life. Those lights and shadows are of Your penciling, O Lord. If joy thrills my heart, it is of Your inspiration; if sorrow breaks it, it is of Your sending. Teach me that I have, in all things, to do only with You. Preserve me from seeking to please man at the expense of Your glory. Pleasing the creature never entered, Jesus, into Your life. And yet Your whole life was labor, and suffering, and love for man--seeking not Your own glory, and pleasing not Yourself but the Father who sent You.

"Yours is the kingdom" of GRACE. This is Christ's highest kingdom in the world; and for the setting up and completion of this kingdom, both the kingdom of nature and of providence exist and are subservient. This kingdom, as we have shown in a preceding part of our work, is both internal and external. There is the kingdom of grace in the soul of the believer--"the kingdom of God is within you"--and there is the kingdom of grace in the world, "the Church of God, which is the pillar and ground of the truth." This kingdom is the Lord's. It is His kingdom of grace--He is the King of grace; His reign is the reign of grace; His people are the subjects of grace; His throne is the throne of grace; and the benedictions which He so lavishly and so freely bestows, are the blessings of grace. Thus, "by grace are you saved." Precious truth! the chimes of heaven fall not more sweetly on the ear of the glorified saints than do these words--"Saved by grace,"--on the ear of a sinner taught by the Spirit his vileness, poverty, and helplessness. Not by human works, not by self-doing, not by creature merit, but by God's sovereign, unpurchased, unmerited, most free grace, is the sinner saved. This is the truth that empties, humbles, and abases the soul in the dust!

We enter, for the most part, this kingdom of grace through the "north gate," with a deep conviction of sin, and dreadful apprehension of wrath. But we are led out by the "south gate" into the pleasant garden of God's free, forgiving love, to pluck the fruit of peace, and joy, and hope, and to recline upon the sunny slopes and by the side of the quiet waters of that River that makes glad the Church of God. Let nothing, then, dare deter or prohibit your coming to Christ. Come with an empty hand, come with a dry vessel, come with filthy rags; come just as you are--for your salvation is the gift of free grace. There is not a round in the ladder that lifts you from earth to heaven--from the first, down in your dark dungeon, to the highest, bathed in the sunshine of glory--but is of grace. And as you mount higher and higher, your song will grow sweeter and louder--"Grace, Grace, GRACE!"

Be not afraid of little grace. It is not the quantity, but the reality of grace, that sanctifies and saves. Nor let us be dismayed if indwelling grace is sometimes, through indwelling sin, much dimmed, impaired, and obscured. As the fruits we receive from a southern climate partake not of the freshness, and the sweetness, and the fragrance of their original perfection, so our graces during this present life must necessarily be defective, and will remain so until we reach that heaven of glory from whence they came, and where they grow; and then we shall eat of the tree of life bending over on either side of the river--our grace full, our graces perfect, and the anthem of grace floating in the sweetest music from the soul.

If then, this kingdom of grace is the Lord's, recognize His right to rule and reign singly and supremely in your soul. He may dislodge the idols that divide, and overthrow the rivals that usurp His possession and sovereignty. The kingdom is Christ's--let Christ reign alone. Rebel not against the mode He adopts to preserve you entirely for Himself. Murmur not at His dealings. Repine not under His dispensations. You are Christ's--Christ is your King--your soul is His empire--your heart is His throne--you are His subject--"From all your filthiness, and from all your idols, will I cleanse you." This sometimes is done by the spirit of fire and of burning. Nevertheless, if He did not love you, were not His gracious kingdom within you, He would not take the pains He does to cast out from it everything that would taint its purity, shade its luster, and impede its growth. "Lord, the kingdom within my soul is Your own; Yours let my heart be, Yours my obedience, Yours my service; Yours my life--all, all Your own."

But this adoring acknowledgment of God's regal glory includes a yet future and yet wider kingdom. "Yours is the kingdom" of GLORY. This kingdom yet to be set up, while it will include the kingdom of nature, of providence, and of grace, will yet be a kingdom distinct from, and independent of, them all. It will be the fulfillment, the consummation, the crown of each. It will include all the beauties of the first; it will explain all the mysteries of the second; and it will perfect all the glory of the third. This is the kingdom of which the prophet Daniel thus writes--"And in the days of these kings, [the ten kings or kingdoms into which the Roman empire is divided, symbolized by the ten tribes,] shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom, which shall never be destroyed; and the kingdom shall not be left to other people, [as the Babylonian monarchy was to the Medes, and as the Persian monarchy was to the Greeks, and the Grecian monarchy was to the Romans; it shall be left to the saints of the Most High;] but it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand forever." Again--"And the kingdom and dominion, and the greatness of the kingdom under the whole heaven, shall be given to the people of the saints of the Most High, whose kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and all dominions shall serve and obey him."

To this end we pray, "Your kingdom come." And what will be the sign and the period of its coming? The apostle Paul tells us, "I charge you therefore before God, and the Lord Jesus, who shall judge the living and the dead at His appearing and His kingdom." Thus it is clear that the Second Advent of Christ, and the coming of His kingdom of glory, harmonize as to character, and synchronize as to time, and will, in fact, be identical and contemporaneous. The Lord Jesus Christ will come as the King of Glory, and then will transpire those magnificent events already referred to in a preceding chapter of this work--the overthrow of Antichrist, the resurrection of the saints, the ingathering of the Jews, and the final and most blessed of all, the creation of a new heaven and a new earth--the fit and eternal dwelling place of the now gathered and glorified Church. Then will ascend from a multitude which no man can number, and with a shout such as never reverberated through the universe before, "Yours is the kingdom!"

"And the POWER." God is a Great King, and His power is commensurate with His greatness. It is infinite, "Twice have I heard this, that power belongs unto God." All the power of the creature is derived. He receives it from God, he holds it by permission of God, and employs it under the restraint of God. The power of an earthly sovereign is lodged in his subjects. He may have power to command, but he has no power to enforce obedience. His power to exact compliance with his will rests with the affections and the loyalty of his people. But God possesses a power essentially His own. He has power not only to make laws, but to exact compliance; not only to issue commands, but to enforce obedience. "Your people shall be willing"--willing to love, willing to do, willing to come--"in the day of Your power."

His is the power of conversion. His power breaks the chain, dislodges the enmity, and erects the kingdom of grace within the soul. His power guards and carries forward the work thus begun. His power keeps the feet of His saints, preserves them from falling, and brings them unto His heavenly kingdom. "Yours is the power." All this power, saint of God, is on your side. All power on earth and in heaven belongs to our Immanuel. There is no foe from whom He cannot defend you; not a difficulty from which He cannot deliver you; not a need from which He cannot relieve you; not a sin which He cannot subdue in you; not a good which be cannot bestow upon you. Yours is the power!

All power is essentially and mediatorially Christ's. Is anything, then, too hard for Him? "You have given Him power over all flesh, that He should give eternal life to as many as You have given Him." This power, O believer, is pledged to bring you safely to glory. No one shall wrest you from its grasp, none shall ever pluck you from Christ's hands. "All power on earth and in heaven is mine." Come, O you timid dove, and shelter beneath the wing of Jesus' power. Come, O weak believer, and learn that He perfects His strength in weakness. Come, O child of God who have no might, and learn that to such He increases strength. Yours, O Lord, is the power! In You have I righteousness and strength. Yours is the power to dethrone every form of Antichrist, to remove out of the way every impediment to the progress of Your kingdom and the triumph of Your truth. Yours the power to overthrow error, to foil Satan, to crush Your foes, to defend Your gospel, and to conduct Your Church to a final and triumphant victory over all her enemies.

This is one of the greatest and most sanctifying lessons in our education for heaven--the power of God. And this lesson is only learned in connection with yet another--our own utter weakness. We become experimentally acquainted with both at one and the same time, in one and the same school of temptation, trial, suffering, and service. Oh, it is a grand thing to know when we are weak! All secret declensions of soul, all outward backslidings from God, may be traced to an ignorance of this. If he thought his bow weak, would the archer trust to it? If he thought his boat fragile, would the mariner go to sea in it? If he thought his foundation insecure, would the architect build upon it? Trace David's, and Solomon's, and Peter's fall to its cause, and you will find that it was overrated strength, unconscious weakness--a forsaking of God's power, and a reliance upon their own fancied strength.

But is our weakness a disadvantage to us? By no means; it is all in our favor. Should it discourage us? Not at all; it should cheer and animate. When the vessel is empty, it will receive more of the ocean. When we have come to the extreme of our weakness, we approximate the nearest to Almighty power. God's power is never exercised but in alliance with man's weakness. Thus the apostle could reason, paradoxical though it may be--"When I am weak, then am I strong." God sometimes withholds assisting strength, that He may exhibit supporting strength in upholding weak grace. He allows the believer, as it were, to go to the end of his tether before He comes to his rescue. His strength shall be perfected in weakness. Thus, oh how strong the almightiness of weakness! When I am weak, then am I strong--strong as David when he slew the lion, destroyed the bear, laid the vaunting Goliath in the dust.

"It may be you are a poor, trembling soul--your faith weak, and your assaults from Satan strong; your corruptions great, and your strength little; so that, in your opinion, they rather gain ground on your grace; yes, now and then you are apt to dread that you shall one day be cast as a wreck on the devil's shore. And yet to this day your grace lives. You are still longing, panting, desiring, wishing, and groaning after God. Is it not worth while to turn and see this strange sight?--A broken ship, with masts and hull ripped and torn through a tempestuous sea--not tempestuous only, but thickly-set with armadas of sins, afflictions, doubts, and temptations, brought safely into God's harbor. To see a poor candle in the face of the boisterous winds, and liable to the frequent dashes of quenching waves, yet not blown out! In a word, to see a weak stripling in grace held up in God's arms until all enemies are under His feet. This is the Lord's doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes."

Thus does our conscious weakness serve us well. It weans us from self; it endears to us Christ; it allies us with God; and it schools us experimentally in the knowledge of that blessed doxology, "Yours is the power!" Yours the power, Lord, by reason of which Your poor, bruised reed is not broken--Your faint, smoking flax is not quenched--Your feeble, trembling child is enabled to hold on His way through many sharp trials of faith, and many sore thrusts of Satan, and many sad sins and failures, and many infirmities, tribulations, and sufferings--"faint, yet pursuing," with the certainty of arriving in glory at last. Will You plead against me with Your great power? No--but You will put strength in me. Your power is all on my side. It is pledged to perfect itself in my weakness; in waiting upon You, to renew my strength; out of weakness, to make me strong; to keep me through faith unto salvation, and to present me faultless before the presence of Your glory with exceeding joy. Yours, Lord, is all this power.

"Yours is the GLORY." Power and glory are essential properties of God. They are attributes of earthly sovereigns; but are divine and infinite perfections of Jehovah. He is "clothed with majesty and strength." The great end of all that God does, is His own glory. All things, and all events, terminate in Himself. "He has made all things for Himself"--that is, all things were created by Him and for Him, and all shall contribute to His supreme and endless praise. It has ever been the confederate effort of Satan and fallen man to thwart God in this His purpose; in other words, to rob Him of His glory. By impeaching His veracity and questioning His goodness, Satan accomplished the fall of our first parents in a yet perfect Eden. The moment the Divine glory was invaded and shrouded, the creature was seduced from his love and allegiance to God. Since that fatal moment--fatal, indeed, to the eternal happiness of myriads of the race--it has been man's way, having learned his lesson from an apostate father, to rob God of the glory justly due to His great and holy Name from every part of His vast empire.

The Pantheist robs Him of His glory in nature by deifying it. The Atheist robs Him of the glory of His being by a denial of His providence. The Rationalist robs Him of the glory of His revelation by the homage of reason. The Ritualist robs Him of the glory of His worship by superstitious ceremonial. Such is the fearful sacrilege of which fallen man is guilty, than which we can conceive of no crime of greater magnitude, or one which more strongly evidences man's deep depravity and total alienation from God. Are we giving God the glory that belongs to Him? Are we ascribing to Him the supreme, undivided glory of our talents, and usefulness, of our wealth, rank, and influence? Do we ascribe the glory of our salvation to His electing love, His sovereign mercy, His free grace? And is our daily life as a sweet cloud of incense, ever ascending to the honor and praise of Him who, in the exercise of His unmerited mercy and discriminating love, has called us out of darkness into His marvelous light? Can we honestly say, "For me to live is Christ?"

Oh, give Christ the glory, all the glory, the unrestrained, the most free, willing ascription of glory, for all that He is, and for all that He has done. Yours, O Son of God, is the glory! To Your everlasting love, to Your precious blood, to Your justifying righteousness, to the power that holds me up moment by moment, and to Your grace, pledged to preserve me unto Your heavenly kingdom, I ascribe the praise, honor, and glory most justly Yours. Oh, give God in Christ the glory! Take not one note from the anthem of His praise, separate not one beam from the sun of His renown--lay all at His feet, exclaiming, "You are worthy!"

But richer far will be the glory that will accrue to God from the SALVATION of His Church. The "many crowns" which deck the Savior's brow when He appears the second time, will pale before the splendor of the diadem of Redemption. Redemption will be the crown of crowns. This was the master-work of Deity. In it He embarked His whole resources, His entire being. To take out of this fallen world a people for His praise; to redeem them by the sacrifice of His Son; to regenerate them by His Spirit, and to preserve them by His grace, and finally to bring them to glory, the wonder and admiration of principalities and powers, will constitute a source of glory, honor, and praise, lasting as His throne, endless as His being.

The redeemed and glorified Church will be the grand Censer of the restored world, from which will ascend a cloud of adoration, praise, and glory, encircling the throne, and filling the universe through eternity. Oh, we have but the faintest conception of the glory that will arise to the Triune Jehovah from the scenes of Bethlehem, and Gethsemane, and Calvary, and the new tomb in the garden, in which was never man laid, save the God-man, the Resurrection and the Life. Thus will redemption, from first to last, fill heaven with glory, and replenish eternity with song. His, also, will then be the glory of that universal kingdom of whose dominion, and government, and honor there shall be no end. All empires shall then resign their sovereignties into His hands, and all kings shall lay down their crowns at His feet, and all scepters shall be broken before Him, and God in Christ shall be all in all.

"Our song employs all nations, and all cry,
'Worthy the Lamb! for He was slain for us;'
The dwellers in the vales and on the rock;
Shout to each other, and the mountain tops
From distant mountains catch the flying joy;
Until, nation after nation, taught the strain,
Earth rolls the rapturous hosannas round."

Could this work more gracefully close than with the words which, in his spiritual exposition of the Lord's Prayer, Leighton, of seraphic piety, has woven into impressive petitions which every devout reader of these pages will make his own--"Good reason we should desire earnestly the sanctifying of Your name, and the coming of Your kingdom, and obedience to Your will, seeing these are so peculiarly due to you, namely, kingdom, and power, and glory. And seeing You are so great and rich a King, may we not crave with confidence at Your hands all needful good things to be bestowed on us, and that all evil may be averted from us; that we may find You gracious to us, both in giving and forgiving; and as in forgiving us the guiltiness of sin, so, in freeing us from the power of sin, and preserving us from the power of our spiritual enemies that would draw us into sin. We are under Your royal protection, we are Your subjects, yes, Your children. You are our King and Father, so that Your honor is engaged for our defense. Whatever sum our sins amount to, they are not too great for such a King to forgive; they cannot rise above Your royal goodness; and whatever be our enemies, all their force is not above Your scepter--though they be strong, too strong for us, yet You are much too strong for them; for power is Yours. And this we know, that all the good You do to us will bring back glory to Your name; and it is that we most desire, and that which is Your due; the glory is Yours."

"FOREVER." Significant and solemn words! "Forever!" We are born to live forever. Immortality is our birthright. Sin has forfeited, but grace restores its endless bliss. Blissful word to you who through grace believe in Jesus, who are looking for the coming of the Lord, and anticipate the privileges and the glories of the New Jerusalem. "So shall you be with the Lord forever."

But what, O sinner, will be your "forever?" What, O you unconverted man and woman, will be your endless future? Alas, dying as you live, yours will be a "forever" of woe! The fires of Tophet--forever! The gnawings of the worm--forever! The shrieks of agony and the groans of despair--forever! The society of demons and the companionship of the condemned--forever! The wrath of God--forever and ever! No cessation of being, no eternal sleep, no annihilation of existence will be the condition of those who die in their sins, die unconverted, die out of Christ. What a boon would annihilation be to such! But it is not theirs. You recoil from death now--you will seek it then! You fence, you foil, you keep at bay the "last enemy" now. Then you will beseech and implore him to come--but he comes not. "And in those days shall men seek death and shall not find it; and shall desire to die, and death shall flee from them."

Heaven and hell are alike eternal. "These shall go away into everlasting punishment; but the righteous into life eternal." Reader! what will your "forever" be?--a forever of hell, or a forever of heaven! There yet is hope! "Christ died for the ungodly." "It is a faithful saying, and worthy of acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners." He receives all, and casts out none who come to Him. His mission authorizes Him to save sinners. His work engages Him to save sinners. His love constrains Him to save sinners. His power enables Him to save sinners. His grace pledges Him to save freely and to the uttermost all who come unto God by Him. Lose not a moment in coming to Christ. Come away from your sins, from your self-righteousness, from your ritualism, from your formalism, from your infidelity, from your worldliness, from your carnality, from your empty profession, your soul-deception, your false hope, from the foundation of sand upon which your solemn and interminable future of happiness is built. From all this before long you will "go away"--but where? Escape from it now, and run to Jesus--the City of Refuge, the Hiding Place from the wind, the Covert from the storm, the Savior from the wrath that is to come, lest your lamentation through eternity should be--"I am not saved!--not saved--NOT SAVED!"

"Where can a sinner flee?
Who, oh who, will rescue me?
Dreading my deserved sentence,
Weeping tears of deep repentance!
Yawning grave! I fear to die,
Such burdens on my conscience lie.

"Hark! I hear the Savior say,
'I can take your guilt away;
I have bled that men might live,
Full salvation I can give!
I will help you, soul distrest,
Come unto Me--I'll give you rest!'

"Almighty Lord! I know Your voice,
In You believing I rejoice,
My Prophet, Priest, and King!
Now I can sing of joys on high;
O grave, where is your victory?
O death, where is your sting?"

"AMEN." Thus closes a Prayer which for its simplicity and sublimity, its spirit and comprehensiveness, is unequaled. The word "Amen" is of Hebrew origin. It was of frequent use among the Jews, and was afterwards imported into the Christian Church and engrafted on its more simple and spiritual worship. It signifies that which is itself true, which the mind accepts in faith, and for which the heart expresses its ardent desire, assured hope, and firm belief that all shall be fulfilled. To all the revealed doctrines, to all the holy precepts, to all the precious promises, to all the animating hopes, to all the devout petitions, and to the doxology of praise, thanksgiving, and glory contained in this sublime Prayer, taught us by the Lord, let us breathe our believing, solemn, and lasting--"Amen!" "Blessing, and honor, and glory, and power be unto Him who sits upon the throne, and unto the Lamb forever and ever. And the four living creatures said, Amen. And the four and twenty elders fell down and worshiped Him that lives forever and ever."

"Abba Father! high in glory
Is Your everlasting seat,
Where ten thousand hallelujahs
Wake their music at your feet;
Let Your pilgrim sons and daughters
Catch the echo--and repeat.

"While we sojourn still in Mesech
On the barren mountain side,
Let 'Your kingdom come' within us,
Sit You at the helm and guide,
Until by every tongue and people
Jesus shall be glorified.

"Should You lay Your hand upon us,
Bringing clouds across our sun,
And our 'pleasant' household 'pictures'
Fade in darkness--one by one;
Take Your dove into Your bosom
There to weep--'Your will be done.'

"Day by day give to scatter
Manna on the desert floor,
'Give us food convenient for us,'
From Your never-failing store,
And with Christ, the bread of heaven,
Satisfy us evermore.

"Lord, with You there is forgiveness,
Mercy nestles 'neath Your wing,
Drop the precious 'balm of Gilead'
On our burning bosom-sting,
Send us forth to show our brother
Mercy is a pleasant thing.

"From the byways of temptation
Keep us, Savior, lest we stray,
Oh, preserve us from the evil
Ever lurking round our way.
Let our path grow clearer, brighter,
Until it end in 'perfect day.'

"Hallelujah! power and glory
And dominion be to Thee!
Even here we strike the key-note
Of our song of Jubilee–
'Unto him who loved and washed us'
Be the praise eternally!"

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

THE MAN OF GOD
"Spiritual Religion Explained and Enforced"

Table of Contents

Preface

1. The Man of God

2. Spiritual Life

3. The Sinking Disciple, the Rescuing Savior

4. Christ's Gracious Words

5. Learning of Jesus

6. The Mute Sufferer

7. The Believer's Consecration to Christ

8. Christ's Consecration to the Believer

9. Not Comfortless

10. The Man of God Sifted

11. Christ Our Joy

12. Sin Confessed and Forsaken

13. The Man of God under Reproach

14. Religious Progression

15. Good and Evil Alike From God

16. Spiritual Sight

17. Readiness for the Lord's Coming

18. The Man of God Divinely Prospered

19. Integrity and Uprightness

20. The Departure of the Man of God

PREFACE

"That the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works." 2 Tim. 3:17

It is a generally admitted truth, that in proportion to the length of any element, is its danger of losing in depth what it gains in space. This axiom in physics may equally apply to religion. In proportion to the prevalence of a profession of Christianity may be, in the same ratio, its shallowness and superficiality. While, therefore, we hail with gladness and hope every new impulse given to the cause of evangelization, and the corresponding interest awakened in the popular mind, we yet rejoice with trembling. We pause, and inquire- What will be the actual gain to vital religion from all this? When the attraction of novelty ceases, and the excitement of impassioned appeals evaporates, and the glow of what is simply and only natural and sympathetic, subsides, how much of the residuum that remains vital, spiritual, and permanent? This is a question of grave and solemn import. A false profession of religion, a spurious conversion, an invalid title to heaven, is of all fallacies and delusions the most momentous and fatal!

The following pages are an attempt to supply a corrective to this evil. They by no means propose to cover the entire ground. They rather seek to portray the man of God in some of the essential and prominent features of his holy character, and to trace a few of the stages of his Christian experience; making the Lord Jesus Christ- the Divine Man- the central object of the picture. Brevity in the unfolding of each subject has been studied, with the view of introducing, into so limited a work, as great and rich a variety of topic as possible. To the blessing of the Triune God, and to the prayers of the man of God, this small volume is devoutly commended. (April 1863)

The Man of God

Then the woman said to Elijah, "Now I know that you are a man of God and that the word of the Lord from your mouth is the truth." 1 Kings 17:24

It is admitted by all conversant with Christian evidence that the internal proofs of tithe truth of Christianity surpass all others. This is undoubtedly so as to the evidence of experience. An individual may not be able thoroughly to understand either the external or the internal evidences of Christianity, but let him have the evidence of personal experience and he is convinced. No reasoning can overthrow, no sophistry can weaken, no assertions can remove it. A man that has the experience of the truth in his heart is armed with a mighty weapon with which to confront and confound his foes.

We do not say that there will not arise occasional mental difficulties and spiritual despondencies, casting a momentary cloud-veil upon the luster of his hope. But this we affirm, and affirm it fearlessly, that as it is impossible to admit the sun within a room and then sanely question its light, so is it impossible for Christ to take up His abode in the heart of a poor sinner unattended by clear and demonstrable evidence. Nor is this evidence confined to himself; others are compelled to acknowledge that he is a man of God, that he has "passed from death unto life that his Christianity is more than a symbol, that it is a fact; more than a resemblance, that it is a reality. Such is the truth we are about to demonstrate.

The narrative which suggests it will be familiar. The prophet Elijah enters the abode of mourning. The heir and hope of the house was a corpse- the young child lay dead. And the prophet, prompted by the instinct of humanity, as of gratitude for the hospitalities of that home, cried to God for the resuscitation of the child. And the Lord answered the prophet: "And the soul of the child came unto him again, and he revived." In view of prayer so prevalent, and of a divine answer so immediate, the gladsome mother exclaimed, "Now by this I know that you are a man of God, and that the word of the Lord in your mouth is truth."

This touching incident in the life of the prophet is highly suggestive. The truth we propose to illustrate by it is- the visibility of Christian evidence, as authenticating divine grace in the soul of man. A Christian should be known as such by every act of his life. He should be as a city set upon a hill; a lighthouse planted on a rock-bound coast, whose light is as luminous and unmistakable as its influence is welcome and salutary. His principles, his practice, his spirit, his whole carriage and life should be such as to inspire the exclamation, "By this I know that you are a man of God."

Let me first direct the reader's attention to the dignity of the Christian character- the Man of God. The world has its men of mark. There is the man of intellect, and he is known as such. The world looks upon him as a learned man, admires him as a man of culture. We may here venture the remark, that one of the popular sins of the age is the deifying of human intellect. It is an age of the worship of Reason. And one of the natural and fatal results is the bold, unblushing exaltation of human philosophy over revealed truth.

There is, too, the man of rank. It is true it is an empty title that he wears, still he has a right to wear it, for God gave it to him. His Christianity- if he is a Christian- does not demand its surrender. He should use his coronet for God, and remain in the calling wherein grace has called him. There is the man of wealth. Money is, perhaps, his god, and there are not lacking those who worship the man as the impersonation of the deity. We do not assert that wealth is in itself a crime- it is the abuse of wealth that is the sin. To love it, hoarding it on the one hand penurously, or squandering it on the other prodigally, are both abuses wealth, and both are an abomination in the sight of God.

Then there is the man of taste and pleasure. Music, painting, sculpture, sensual delights, are the absorbing objects of his pursuit; and the world admires and cheers him on, for the world loves its own. Thus the world has its men of mark, its men of distinction whom it delights to honor.

But the Church has its men of distinction too. They are styled, "men of God." Who and what is a man of God? The world cannot match him- we challenge it, and say, "Bring out your man of intellect, measure him with the renewed mind, the intellect taught and disciplined by God the Spirit, trained in God's school, on whose faculties the light of heaven has shone- he is in comparison but a dwarf! Bring forth your man of rank, the coronet glittering upon his brow, the ermine gracefully enfolding his form- compare that rank with the rank of a believer in Christ, with one who can claim a filial relationship to God, calling Him "Father" -with one
who belongs to the blood-royal of Him who is "King of kings and Lord of lords," who belongs to the Royal Priesthood, and his earthly order, his human titles, pale into impressive insignificance. Bring out your men of pleasure- what are their highest, purest delights, contrasted with the joys, delights, and pleasures of the child of God? The pleasure of the one is but a "name, a mock, a sham; the joys and delights of the other are real, substantial, satisfying.

But these are general remarks only; it may be proper that we attempt to show, who the man of God is- what are the essential elements, the great attributes of his character. In the first place, a man of God is a partaker of God's nature. It is this that ennobles and exalts him, and gives him a character so distinctive, a dignity so lofty. He possesses another nature than his own. It is not of earthborn royalty, nor is it of angel-birth, it is nothing less, it could be nothing more, than the nature of God himself!

God's essential nature is, of course, incommunicable. But the believer is, through grace, and in virtue of His spiritual regeneration, made a partaker of the divine nature. He is born of God, begotten of God- a holy principle is implanted in his heart, and he is thereby united to God in a nature in which he towers above the highest angel in heaven, enshrined in deathless glory. Thus he becomes a man of God. The divine image is restored, the lost link is found, the filial relation is discovered, and man once more walks with God in all the renewed faculties of his soul in the sweetest, closest fellowship.

He is also a man of God by divine adoption. God has taken him into His family, and made him His child and His heir. "Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God!" That he does not always clearly discern his adoption, does not invalidate in the slightest degree the fact that he is so. Nor are the chastenings of God to be interpreted as signs militating against the divine relation. He may not always have the direct witness of the Spirit, and he may often pass under the discipline of the rod; and yet, for all that, be a child of God still. No, the very chastening is a sign and seal of his adoption. "If you endure chastening, God deals with you as with sons; for what son is he whom the Father does not chasten?"

Acceptance of Christ's salvation enters essentially into this character of a "man of God." It is astounding how far the unrenewed man will go in high admiration and approval of God, and yet be at variance with His Son. There is, there can be, no real love to, or spiritual relation with God, apart from a believing reception in the heart of His dear Son Christ Jesus. A man may respect and admire, adore and worship God, and yet hate, despise, and reject God's beloved Son. But what did Jesus say? "He that hates me hates my Father also." Thus, there can be no real love to God in our loftiest, most sublime conception of His loving character and works, when the heart is closed and barred in its deep, intense hatred of Jesus. A true man of God, then, is one who loves the Savior, believes in the Savior, has received the Savior in his heart, and has accepted His blood and righteousness as his one sole ground of justification here, and hope of glory hereafter. Oh, how precious is Jesus to a true "man of God!" How he prizes the 'unspeakable gift', and loves the Divine Giver!

In view of the statements thus far made, may we not indulge in a holy soliloquy something like this?- "If I am a partaker of the divine nature- if the Spirit of God has renewed my mind, God has made me- once an enemy and an alien, a child and an heir of glory. Oh, the dignity to which I am exalted, the glory to which I am chosen! God has 'set apart him who is godly for Himself,' and I am so set apart as His peculiar treasure! I am one upon whom God has set His heart- has taken out of the world to be His witness, to reflect His image, and to be a monument throughout eternity of His electing love, sovereign grace; and mighty power to save."

What an unfolding is here of the love of God! Who can tell how God loves "the man of God?" Does God love His own image? Then He loves it wherever He sees it. It may be, so to speak, but faintly engraved, imperfectly carved, obscurely and feebly exhibited; yet He loves it, be it the spiritual lisp of a child, the silent tear of a mourner, the gentle sighing of a contrite spirit, the tremulous touch of the believing hand, the filial uplifting of the eye- yes, wherever God sees His own holiness reflected, around that being His deepest affections cluster. Oh, how dear is that soul to God! "He who touches it, touches the apple of His eye."

What are some of the evidences which authenticate the character of "the man of God?" "By this I know that you are a man of God." Let it be remarked that it is a thing known. It is a fact which cannot be contradicted, a character which cannot be concealed. And God, too, will have it known, and will make it known. He will not have His mighty work concealed in the darkness and confusion of a moral chaos. When He created the world, He said, "Let there be light," that His work might be seen. So when He spiritually re-creates the soul, He bathes it in light, that His work and His power may be manifested. Now what are some of the evidences?

The first adduced is, the work of grace in his heart. By this we know he is a "man of God." This is God's own seal- His Divine attestation that he is "a man of God." He is taught- and this is his first step- by God the Spirit his own sinfulness; he is made to know the plague of his heart. There is the first evidence. A man once brought to see his sinfulness, in a moment prostrates in the dust all the lofty ideas of human merit, self-salvation, of legal obedience- the Babel of his own righteousness topples and falls. Blessed state! Oh, do not substitute any other! Think not of the healing until you know the wounding. What do you know of sin, indwelling sin, your own sin? "Sin is the transgression of the law," and you are that transgressor! And until you know the sin of your heart, you know nothing of true Christianity. I speak not now merely of sin formally acknowledged, of sin slightly felt, of sin felt but loved, confessed but cherished; but of sin mourned over beneath the cross, sin hated, sin separated from, fastened to the cross, crucified and slain.

This work of grace in the heart also includes what we have already adverted to- a reception of Jesus. He has been brought to the great rest to which God brings all his sons- a rest in Jesus Christ. Oh, at what a vast expense has God provided this rest for a weary soul, this Savior for the lost! Where will you final such spiritual repose as this? Christ is a divine rest, perfect rest from the works, the curse, and the condemnation of the law, from the guilt, the accusations, and the tyranny of sin! Oh, what a Savior is Jesus! Not the Savior of the saint, but of the sinner; not the Savior of the righteous, but of the guilty; who saves us just as we are- lost, guilty, helpless; fully and freely. Here, then, is an unmistakable mark of a man of God. He has no other rest but Christ, acknowledges no other salvation but Christ's, stands in no other righteousness but Christ's. Christ is his all and in all.

The growth of this work in the heart authenticates his Christian character. To behold the seed bringing forth fruit, the kingdom of grace in the heart enlarging, the man of God growing in a divine knowledge of God, in a deeper knowledge of his own heart, pressing after higher degrees in personal holiness, higher rounds in his heavenly ascent- oh, this marks him to be a man of God! Do you see one thus battling with inbred sin- thus foiling the foe, breaking the spell, overcoming all opposition to his spiritual course? Then you see a man of God.

But there is another general evidence- the reflection of that grace in the life. If there was any truth on which our Lord laid especial stress in His teaching, it was the holy life of the believer. The imagery He constantly employed taught and illustrated this truth that His followers were everywhere to be known as such, His disciples to be recognized as such. How striking are His words! "You are the salt of the earth;" as if there were nothing savory in the world but what is found in the man of God. Again, "You are the light of the world. A city that is set upon a hill." Then comes the exhortation, "Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father who is in heaven."

With this harmonizes the apostolic teaching- "That you may be blameless and harmless, the sons of God in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom shine you as lights in the world." Solemn words! Oh, the dignity of the Christian character! The believer is to shine- as a lighthouse- for that is the original idea- throwing its beams over the dark, stormy billows, guiding the watery pathway of some storm-tossed voyager. Every man of God is so to let his light so shine that others, bound to eternity, and, perhaps, exposed to many a peril, may find the true haven of eternal rest.

And what are some of these brilliant rays by which the divine grace of the soul is reflected? Take that most eminent one- a walk regulated by the fear of God. It is a distinctive mark of the ungodly that the fear of God is not before their eyes. But to see a man of God walking in this fear, saying, with Nehemiah, "So I did not do so, because of the fear of the Lord," is to trace one of the most essential and authentic evidences of his high and holy relationship. Nothing stamps him to be a man of God like it. Walking softly, circumspectly, with a tender, blood-sprinkled conscience, shaping his course so as to please God in all things, setting the Lord aways before him; here we have the Divine evidence of a man of God. "By this I know that you are a man of God."

Another ray of this light is the reflected image of Jesus- the meek, lowly, gentle Savior. His conversation is Christ-like, his spirit is Christ-like, all his actions savor of the religion, the spirit, and the example of Jesus. Look at him as a tried man. See him as one called to endure losses and crosses for Christ. Oh, how much is there in the sanctified spirit and deportment of a tried believer that reflects the character of a gracious man, that marks him indeed a man of God. When God chastens and corrects, instead of repining, rebelling, and fretting against the Lord, the man of God is mute under the rod, submissive and resigned to the will of his heavenly Father. He will plead, "I was dumb; I opened not my mouth, because You did it." Oh, there is nothing in his whole Christianity that more marks him a man of God than his spirit and carriage when passing under the hand of God. By this meek, gentle submission of spirit under God's most heavy chastisement, "I know that you are a man of God."

See another reflected ray in his separation from the world, standing out a solemn witness against its ungodliness and worldliness. His principles, his joys, his consolations, all the very opposites of the world that lies in wickedness. He dare not tread where they tread. He dare not do as they do. He has upon his brow the impress of God's image- not marked in baptism- away, away with that fiction!- but his Father's name written upon his forehead, his adoption and regeneration and calling visible, as the noontide light, in his whole demeanor. "By this I know than you are a man of God."

A few instructions and exhortations growing out of the subject will close this chapter. Let it not be supposed that the continuous and constant maintenance of this character is an easy thing; that it requires on our part no thought, vigilance, and anxiety. It is not an easy matter to keep the garment white and unsullied, the hands clean, the heart pure, passing through this ungodly, polluted, and polluting world.

In the first place, be exhorted to get a proper sense of the dignity of your character. Remember, by a most solemn and sacred profession, you are "a man of God." You have a relation and a dignity to maintain; interests confided to your keeping, an honor intrusted to your hands, to which angels cannot aspire. You will be essentially and mightily aided in this, by walking in a sense of your adoption. Get the clear witness of the Spirit that you have "passed from death unto life;" then the thought will never be absent from you- "I am a Christian, a man of God, a follower of Christ; an heir of glory; a royal priest. So let me order my conversation that I do not compromise my dignity as a Christian, or dishonor my Father as His child."

To this must be added prayerful vigilance. That is, watchfulness and prayer combined. The separation of these two precepts will neutralize them both. They must, to be influential and successful, be united. We must watch and pray; pray and watch. Satan knows our weakness, our most frail and exposed part, and there will he marshal his hosts. Keep within the chamber of prayer; and when you go forth to the scene of battle, keep your heart with all diligence, for there the first spiritual declension in the divine life begins.

Above all, live on Christ's upholding grace- on Christ's inexhaustible fulness: "Without me you can do nothing." In Christ, God has laid up for you all strength, all sufficiency, all grace. In your weakness connect yourself to God's omnipotence; in your poverty, avail yourself of Christ's wealth. Draw largely from His grace, that you may be enabled, wherever you go, to extort, even from the scornful lip of infidelity itself, the exclamation, "By this I know that you are a man of God." Oh, receive the exhortation! Be a man of God wherever you are. As a man of rank, be the man of God- using that rank and the influence it gives to advance the glory of your Lord and Master. As a man of wealth, be the man of God- writing "holiness to the Lord" on all the worldly substance He has loaned you, and, with a large and benevolent heart, with an eye single to God's glory, counting it your highest honor to consecrate your property to Him.

As a professional man, be the man of God- adorning and hallowing your profession by your stern and unbending Christianity. As a man of business, be the man of God- conducting your worldly calling, not upon the infidel principles of the world, but, as a Christian man, upon the divine and unearthly principles of the gospel. As the head of a family, as a parent, as an employer, as a guardian, as a domestic, be the man of God; let your example before your children, your dependents, your servants, your employers, elicit the honored testimony, "By this I know that you are a man of God."

So let our light shine before men, that they may glorify our Father in us; so let us live, and so may we die, that our pathway may be trailed with light so luminous, undimmed, and deepening in its brightness and splendor, that when our sun sets it may go down in an unclouded effulgence- the glorious and holy sunset of "A MAN OF GOD."

Spiritual Life

"You are dead, and your life is hidden with Christ in God." -Col. 3:3

It must be the desire of every child of God to stand complete in all the will of God. His aim is, not only that his justification may be complete in Christ, but that his sanctification may be ever tending towards perfectness. He desires not only that he might have an external righteousness to present him without spot to God, but also that the inward righteousness of the Holy Spirit might abound in him. If he places not before him the highest standard of holiness, his soul is in a sickly state. It was the end and aim of the apostle to build up a spiritual house; How high is the standard here placed before us! Christ enthroned at the right hand of God- there our affections are to center, and nothing lower than this. There are three points of consideration in this wondrous subject: the believer as DEAD; as POSSESSING LIFE; and as having that LIFE "HID WITH CHRIST IN GOD."

My dear reader, how can we close, our eyes to the solemn fact that spiritual death meets us at every turn? The world is one vast charnel house- a universal cemetery, well-near every dwelling represents a tomb, well-near every individual a corpse. This the Word of God most clearly affirms: "You has He quickened who were dead in trespasses and sins." This is not a figure of speech, nor a flower of rhetoric, but it is the declaration of a solemn fact- the description of a real state. The natural world is in a state of spiritual death. Our Lord alludes to this- A disciple came to hint and said, "Lord, allow me first to go and bury my father." What does Jesus say? "Let the dead bury their dead." That is, let those who are unconverted, or spiritually dead, perform that which is in harmony with their own nature.

In John 6 our Lord refers to this truth, "Except you eat the flesh of the Son of man, you have no life in you." Does the natural man eat the flesh of the Son of man? Does the world live on Christ? No, the natural mind hates that which is spiritual. It lives on the pleasures and pursuits of the world. It is a stranger to the blood and flesh of Christ, consequently there is no spiritual life in it. Oh, what an awful state is that of every unconverted man and woman who ponders this page! Those who live in pleasure are dead while they live. Sometimes your natural conscience seems alarmed, but the world comes in- your business, your family, your pleasures enter, and everything that did seem to have the semblance of life vanishes. You are dead to prayer, dead to faith, dead to love, dead to a life of holiness, and, your present death is but the prelude to that death that never, never dies.

But in a far different sense is the believer here spoken of as one DEAD. He is quickened that he may die. He dies that he may live. He is brought to life that he may know what death is. A man knows nothing of this spiritual death until he is brought to life. This is a unexplainable mystery to the carnal mind. See how the apostle states this truth: "For I was alive without the law once: but when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died. For sin, taking occasion by the commandment, deceived me, and by it slew me." The law, brought into his conscience by the power of the Holy Spirit, came with a slaying power.

To what did he die? To all the fond and wretched conceits of salvation by the law. In this sense the believer in Christ is dead. He dies to all his former hopes of acceptance with God by a righteousness of his own. It is a grand idea thrown out by the Holy Spirit, the believer's death with Christ. "I am crucified with Christ." Clear, then, is this truth, that the believer is mystically dead with Christ.

In what sense is the believer in Christ dead to sin? Is he dead to the indwelling of sin? Far from it, for the apostle speaks of "the sin that dwells in me." He is dead to the love of sin, to the reigning power of sin, to the condemnatory sentence of sin. Sin has no longer its former dominion over him. Though it dwells in him, he is so dead to it, that it no longer reigns over him with unsubdued and unbroken tyranny.

The believer is also dead to the world- "crucified unto the world." What a word is that! It ought to be ever before us! It is not necessary that the believer should go out of the world to be crucified to it. For a man to be in the world, filling up his station in life in which God's providence has placed, and God's grace finds him, yet to be crucified to it, to have his affections set on Christ, to be diligent in his lawful business, yet to have his treasure in heaven, and then to desire to have his affections soar and center, even in Him who is on the right hand of God- this it is to be crucified to the world.

But the believer is ALIVE. "Your life." It is spiritual life. It is a life from God: "You has He quickened." Who can quicken a poor, dead soul but God? O wretched doctrine, that makes man's will the turning-point of his divine life! God breathes it into the soul, and man becomes a spiritually living soul. The divine life is a new, spiritual, and deathless life. It is nothing less than the life of God. Guard this precious truth. If you do live, it is because God said, "Let there be life." This life, thus from God, is in and through Christ Jesus. He is set forth as having this life deposited in Him mediatorially for all His members. "For as the Father has life in Himself; so has He given to the Son to have life in Himself." Not for Himself, but for His people, (1 John iv. 9.)

No truth in God's Word shines out more clearly than this, that Christ is the life of the believer. We do not so much live by Christ, or through Christ, as that Christ lives in us "Christ in you the hope of glory." This life that comes from God, through Christ, is breathed into our souls by the blessed Spirit. "It is the Spirit that quickens." Mark this feature in the spiritual life of the believer. It is "YOUR life." It is their precious and priceless gift. It is theirs now. They have the germ in their hearts of that life that shall never die. Ask the carnal man, What is your life? "It is even a vapor which, appears for a little time, and then vanishes away." Oh, to think that your life is but a vapor soon gone!

But what is the believer's life? Poor, heartbroken sinner, hanging on Jesus your Life, moment by moment, your life springs from God himself; and because its source and its nature are divine, it shall survive the wreck of your frail humanity, and shall live on forever. It may be you are a poor, tried believer, hastening to the grave; but look at this spiritual life- it is as indestructible as God. You can say safely, "I have Christ dwelling in my heart, my portion and my all; and though my natural life is but a vapor which vanishes away, I have a life with Christ immortal as its Sire."

But we turn to the concealed character of this life. It is a HIDDEN life. The seat of this life is hidden. It is in the soul of man. It comes not with observation. It is invisible and intangible. It has its lodgment in the hidden, profound depths of the soul. Its existence and its workings are sealed from human eye. Is it any marvel, then, that his life is a concealed one? What does the Lord say of the hidden glory of the Church? "The King's daughter is all glorious within." Hers is not an external and visible glory. That mere external glory is left for those who call themselves followers of Christ, but who, in the doctrine and precepts and spirit of His gospel, deny Him.

But the true glory of the Church consists in nothing external. It is a hidden, concealed glory; therefore the world does not, and cannot, see it. What can the world see of union with Christ, of regeneration, adoption, love, joy, and peace? It does not know God, and is not competent, therefore, to know and judge of His saints. The apostle beautifully states this- "The world knows us not, because it knew Him not."

And how much, too, is the life of God hid from the believer himself. Its existence, its evidences, and its workings are often obscure; but yet blessed are they who know what it is to sit in judgment upon themselves. But, veiled to us, it often is clear and manifest to others. They see it in the lowly spirit, in the tender conscience, and in the growing hatred of sin. Believers are trees of righteousness; and the analogy here is striking. I go into my garden, I mark the growth of the tree; but I see not the secret of its growth- it is hidden. How like this are hidden all the vital actings and supports of this heavenly life.

This should caution us how we sit in judgment upon the Christianity of our fellow-saints. We do not know how that little spark is kept alive: the inward conflict, the struggling, the mourning over sin, how hidden! But who keeps it alive? Who nourishes that hidden root? Christ, by His hidden manna, feeds it; and faith, traveling daily to the fountain, and living on His inexhaustible fulness, is the secret of its support.

Mark its twofold security. It is "hid with Christ." Our Christ is a hidden Christ. The world sees Him not, but the believer by faith sees Him. "Whom, having not seen, we love." Christ is not hidden from the child of God. Seeing Him, He is admired and adored, He is loved and followed. It is bound up in the very existence of Christ himself. He is the Head, we are the body; and are thus essentially and inseparably one. As the Head lives, so lives the body. Christ Himself says- "Because I live, you shall live also." Thus most truly is this life "hidden with Christ in God." "I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish. My Father, who gave them me, is greater than all." I and my Father are one."

The subject thus briefly unfolded suggests some important reflections. In the first place, it brings us to the touchstone of truth. You are my reader, either dead or alive. Which is your state? What do you know of this hidden life? Test your real condition by this truth. For eternity decide it. It is of little moment what 'man' thinks of you. Are you alive, or are you dead? What are your pursuits? They shall testify. Can you say, "For me to live is Christ." Mistake not the evidence of this life. The tendency of this life is upward, heavenward. Is it thus with your affections, thoughts, and hopes?

This life, too, will find its level. What is its level? Nothing short of God himself. It comes from God, it rises to God. Can you say- "God, the Searcher of hearts, knows that the aim and tendency and desire of my soul is to Himself?" What a quiet yet solemn reproof is the nature of this life to the religious worldling! You are professedly dead. How then can you mix up with that to which you profess to be crucified by Christ? How can you be worldly, loving the world, and imitating the world, while partaking of a life that is essentially and forever heavenly?

Do not forget the great truth, that, though dead, yet you live. You are justified in expecting great and especial quickenings of this life in all seasons of trial. This was David's prayer: "I am afflicted very much; quicken me according to Your word." He did not make his affliction an excuse for his slothfulness or spiritual deadness. Affliction ought to be no lullaby to your soul. Our prayer in trial ought to be, "Now, Lord, quicken me. Though I walk in the midst of trouble, You will revive me."

Seasons of sanctified trial are seasons of revival. See, then, tried believer, see that your afflictions and troubles are seasons in which the life of God receives a new impulse in your soul. Let your desire be that your soul may be quickened afresh. Be it your desire- "I want to know more of the power of this life in my soul. I desire to walk closer with You, my Lord- nearer to You, my Savior."

I close with this remark- You can not give a stronger evidence that you are a partaker of this spiritual, hidden life, than that, in all God's dealings with you, the great importunate desire and prayer of your soul is, "Quicken me." This is the upward tendency of the life of God in your soul. Thus it mounts higher and higher, until it loses itself in God. And God becomes its perfect joy, and eternity its endless duration. "The water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life."

The Sinking Disciple, the Rescuing Savior

And beginning to sink, he cried, saying, "Lord, save me!" And immediately Jesus stretched forth his hand and caught him." -Matthew 14:30-31.

There are few instances recorded in the Bible more strikingly illustrative, of the deep soul exercises of the believer, and the interposition of Christ's compassion and power in those exercises, than that which the present chapter seeks to improve. It was at the bidding of Christ, Peter threw himself upon the water to come to Him. It was by the power of Christ, he was upheld many steps in his miraculous walk. It was by the permission of Christ that sight was allowed to triumph over faith. And it was by the divine and gracious interposition of Christ, that, at the moment the victory seemed complete, the faltering, trembling, sinking disciple rose above the proud waters that went over him, and found refuge and salvation in the arms of his Divine Lord.

The whole incident is replete, with, the deepest spiritual instruction to the man of God. First, consider the circumstances in which this disciple is placed. He was "beginning to sink." Let us illustrate by this some of the spiritual depths and entanglements into which gracious souls are often placed, and which, because they are so little understood, beget, trembling and distrust, wrong notions of the character of God and of Christ, and thereby rob the believer of immense blessings, and God of much glory.

That these soul-exercises are common to the most eminent saints is clear from David's experience: "Out of the depths have I cried unto you, O Lord." "Bring my soul out of prison, that I may praise your name." To what may we trace some of these depths, these sinkings, these imprisonments of soul, to which, more or less, the most gracious are exposed?

There is, for instance, the suspended sense of God's love in the heart. The experience of God's love by the believer is twofold. There are extraordinary manifestations of the love of God to his soul, as almost to compel him in rapture to exclaim, with the holy Payson, "Lord, withhold now Your hand, for I cannot endure more." Such manifestations are rare. We look upon them as a kind of cordial tasted only at broken intervals; else, were they constant, the believer would, in a measure, necessarily be unfitted for the daily duties of life.

The second experience of God's love we may term the ordinary manifestation- continued and abiding, from having the eye fixed upon Jesus, whose love enables him to bear up against the difficulties in his path with composure, to rise beyond the daily cares and anxieties of life, and to separate himself, as a man of God, from the snares of the world and the attractions of the creature, which otherwise would absorb too much of his affection and his thoughts.

What sinkings of soul, too, are felt, when the sensible presence of God is suspended for a time when, in consequence, a whole host of corruptions struggle for the mastery: old and strong infirmities, over which he had thought he had long since gained the victory; and, like David, is ready to exclaim, "Remember not the sins of my youth!" These infirmities, weaknesses, and frailties, are permitted again to appear, accompanied, it may be, by a sense of God's wrath on the soul. And, added to this, a deep, overwhelming conviction of his uneven carriage before God.

When, upon self examination, in the calm, quiet hour of the closet, shut out from the world and from the flattery of friends, oh, how deep have been the convictions sometimes of the countless imperfections, the 'little fruit' that is seen after so much profession, the unkind requitals of all the Lord's goodness, the base returns which we have yielded back to God for mercies countless as the sands! What baseness, what vileness, what wretchedness! Oh, how the soul often sinks into these spiritual depths!

We will only add, the dark and distressing providences, the mysterious dispensations of God's government, almost bringing His own people to their wit's end; when their plan is thwarted, and their hope is disappointed, and our heavenly Father seems to be angry- oh, these are times when the man of God sinks, and cries, "Lord, I perish."

Here let us pause and propose the question to the unconverted reader- If judgment thus begins at the house of God, what must be your condition, whose lives are a constant sinking in the dark waves, having no rock to cling to, no bright hope to sustain you, whose whole life is downward, downward, until the final waves engulf you! Day after day, and month after month, you are satisfied to live without God, and without Christ, and without hope. Ponder, oh! ponder your condition; and before the last billow closes over your grave of eternal woe, send to heaven the cry, "Lord, save me, or I perish!"

We now turn to the prayer of the sinking disciple, "Lord, save me!" How illustrative is this of the Christian's experience. Where does the believer go when corruptions are strong, when sin is powerful, when providences are dark, and God hides His countenance from him for a season, but to Jesus? There is that in the renewed soul which cannot be destroyed, which not all the power of indwelling sin, nor the seductions of the world, nor the machinations of Satan, can stand against. As the magnetic needle, when disturbed, will yet tremulously retrace its steps; so the saint of God will turn to Jesus, notwithstanding the storms above and the billows beneath him- the false attractions of sense, or the deep discoveries of sin.

Let us for a moment analyze this petition of the disciple, and thus trace some of the characteristics of true prayer. Mark its earnestness. God often places His people in great emergencies, to rouse them from their lethargy, to test the sincerity, earnestness, and importunity of their supplications at a throne of grace. Why is it that there are so few answers to your prayers? Because you are so cold, so faulty in your desires for the "sure mercies of David." You think the faintest whisper will do. Your prayers are restrained before God; so God sends waves of tribulation upon you, and then prayer becomes urgent, and you seek, as it were, to take heaven by storm, and then you get the blessing.

Because there are no wrestlings in prayer, and so much indolence, the inordinate encroachments of the world and the creature absorbing your feelings and thoughts, God sends upon you, it may be, some heavy stroke- some fearful wave surges over you, for God loves you too well to allow you to walk at a distance from Him. He may permit you, for a time, to have your own way, until you fancy you can walk the waters of trial and sorrow in your own strength. But eventually He will cause you to exclaim, "Lord, I sink; without You I can do nothing." Oh, whatever way God takes to stir you up to earnestness of prayer, receive it meekly, thankfully, joyfully.

There was also faith in Peter's prayer. Perhaps your circumstances may be such that no human being can fully sympathize with you. What do you do? You turn to Jesus as He who alone can meet your case. You exclaim- "Every step I take, I get deeper into trouble; my fears are heightened, my courage fails me." Well, be it so. In all your strugglings, faith still clings to Jesus. "Save me, Lord," is the cry of simple faith and what does this involve? The desire for salvation: The world has its attractions, joys, and delights, but one thing only the spiritually-awakened sinner thinks of, and that is, "How may I be saved?" Is it then for salvation you long and pray, my reader? Ah, every other blessing sinks into insignificance in comparison with this momentous question- "What must I do to be saved?"

Has this earnest cry been awakened in your heart? Do you feel yourself sinking beneath the dark waves of sin, and guilt, and woe? Then lose not a moment in uttering this cry of faith to Him who is ready to save. "You shall weep no more: He will be very gracious unto you at the voice of your cry; when He shall hear it, He will answer you."

Another striking feature of this prayer was its directness to Jesus. Do not say that Christ is to be ignored as an object of prayer; that prayer is only to be addressed to the Father. Here is a direct refutation of a notion so unscriptural, of an error so God-dishonoring. Peter prayed to Christ, addressed his appeal to the Savior; and so may, and so must you! You need to be saved from sin, from guilt, from hell, from the waves of adversity and sorrow, from the snares, the evils and the power of the world; from your corruptions and infirmities. To whom can you more appropriately address your petitions than to Jesus, the Savior. Look and cry to Christ as the sinking disciple did, for He is able to save to the uttermost all who appeal to His compassion, His grace, and His power.

Let us now mark THE SAVIOR'S RESPONSE: "And immediately Jesus stretched forth His hand, and caught him." It was immediate. The cry had scarcely been uttered when the hand of the Savior was outstretched. Oh, what a Savior is Jesus! How ready is He to respond, how prepared is He to sympathize, how mighty is He to deliver! The interposition was timed to the moment of danger and alarm. Thus the Lord reserves the resources of His grace, compassion, and help to our time of need. When the billows swell, when the trouble comes, when the need presses, when the sorrow overwhelms; then, when the timid, fearful disciple begins to sink, the Lord interposes, blending His tender chiding with His gracious deliverance: "Jesus caught him, and said unto him, O you of little faith, why did you doubt?"

Such, my reader, is the savior now! He is just as near to you, just as loving, just as powerful, just as ready as when He snatched Peter from the waves, quelled his fears, and brought him through the billows in safety to the shore. Did God ever permit a child of His love to sink? Oh no! The waters of tribulation may roar and be troubled, the mountains of human support may shake with the swelling thereof; nevertheless, "God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble therefore will we not fear."

Tribulation, conflict, and trial, go to make up much of the life of the Christian. But then it is he must look to the promises for his comfort, and take the precepts as his guide. Sinking times should be praying, trusting times; and when the heart is overwhelmed and bowed down with sorrow, yet pray on, and trust on, and so praying and so trusting, not a wave of sorrow can engulf you. But you will be led through the surges unto the Rock that is higher than you. See how near Jesus is. He is a very present help- near, when you cannot trace Him and at your side when you cannot perceive Him.

And finally, at the hour of death, when the billows of Jordan swell around you, when heart and flesh fail, trust the faithful Promiser- a present Christ will bear you through, and bring you out into a wealthy place. "In Your presence is fulness of joy; at Your right hand there are pleasures for evermore."

"Why those fears? behold, it is Jesus
Holds the helm and guides the ship;
Spread the sails, and catch the breezes
Sent to waft us through the deep,
To the regions
Where the mourners cease to weep."

"Though the shore we hope to land on
Only by report is known,
Yet we freely all abandon,
Led by that report alone;
And with Jesus
Through the trackless deep move on."

"Led by that, we brave the ocean;
Led by that, the storms defy;
Calm amid tumultuous motion,
Knowing that the Lord is nigh,
Waves obey Him,
And the storms before Him fly."

"Rendered safe by His protection,
We shall pass the watery waste;
Trusting to His wise protection,
We shall gain the port at last;
And with wonder,
Think on toils and dangers past."

"Oh! what pleasures there await us!
There the tempests cease to roar:
There it is that those who hate us
Can molest our peace no more
Trouble ceases,
On that tranquil, happy shore." -Kelly

Christ's Gracious Words

"All who were there spoke well of him and were amazed by the gracious words that fell from his lips." Luke 4:22

"And all bore him witness, and wondered at the gracious words which proceeded out of his mouth." -Luke 4:22

It was one of the grand and peculiar characteristics of our Lord's preaching, that He Himself was the great theme. Without entrenching upon His Father's glory, or arrogating to Himself an honor not His own, He could embody in His teachings all the truth of which He himself was the subject. As He came down from heaven to reveal heaven, as He came from the bosom of His Father to unveil that bosom, as He was one with the Father, it was impossible that He could faithfully and fully proclaim His gospel unless He Himself were its one grand and holy theme. The passage at the head of this chapter presents to us a view of the subject, character, and glory of the Lord's preaching. Indeed, it was most glorious for it was a proclamation of grace to fallen, sinful man. It is a testimony wrung from the lips of His unwilling witnesses, from individuals who had no sympathy with the grand theme of His mission, who rejected His person and His preaching, because of the humiliating character of both; yet they stood amazed at the words with which that ministry was unfolded.

The first truth that the passage suggests to us is that the Lord Jesus is one into whose lips God's grace is poured; and the second is the gracious words that proceeded out of those lips. In Psalm 45 we have this truth beautifully exhibited: "My heart is inditing a good matter [the matter is always good where Christ is the substance,] my tongue is the pen of a ready writer. You are fairer than the children of men; grace is poured into your lips." You who have a spiritual eye to discern spiritual things will find another striking unfolding of this truth in Cant. 5:13,16: "His cheeks are as a bed of spices his lips like lilies, dropping sweet smelling myrrh; His mouth is most sweet." It is a description by the Church of the superlative excellence and preciousness of her Lord. This is one of the marked excellences His anointed lips. The great truth here set forth is the plenitude of grace poured into the humanity of our adorable Lord not into His lips merely.

Alas! how many of us have cause to mourn over the shallowness of our grace, it going no deeper than the lip yet of how many professors it may be said, "they have no grace even in their lips; their lips utter no words of grace." We speak not of volubility, for little confidence do we place in much talking and in long prayers. It is an easy matter for a man to talk fluently of divine things, and yet live a most unholy life. We know that the deepest water is the most quiet, and the brook that is the most shallow is the most noisy. The grace that is welled the deepest in a man's heart will be exhibited in the most humble walk with God. He will talk like a man deeply feeling the power of the truths of which he speaks. As Hart quaintly expresses it, "not loud talkers, but, lowly walkers." Blessed is the man in whose lips grace is poured, who can talk of Christ, the King in His beauty- who can testify he has felt God's love in his heart- that there is grace in Christ to break the strongest corruption, consolation in Christ to lift the soul above its sorrow- that there is that in Jesus that can make a man happy in the midst of the wreck of all created good!

The grace that was poured into the lips of Christ welled up from the depths of His manhood. There was a blessed necessity that our Lord should be endowed with all grace. He stood as the Head of His Church. Adam was originally its head and all the grace of the Church was deposited in him. - But the grace was deposited in a mere creature; that creature, left to itself, fell; and when it fell, the beautiful vessel in which the sacred treasure was deposited was destroyed, and the Church became a bankrupt and necessitous Church. In order to her recovery, it was necessary there should be another vessel of grace into which the grace of the Church should be deposited. Where would God look for that vessel? He would not look for it in angels, for they were but creatures, and God had tested the creature; and why may not angels fall, as they had already fallen? Where would He then look for the vessel? He saw one dwelling in His bosom. His own beloved Son, one co-equal with Himself, essential with Himself; and in that Son He deposited the grace of the Church. He made Him the Vessel in which He placed it, and from which every vessel of mercy shall be fully and eternally replenished. Now, that part of our Savior's complex nature into which this grace was deposited was His humanity. It could not possibly be His deity. The Spirit without measure was poured upon Christ; and as man, He was made the depositary of this rich grace, yet all derived from His Godhead- the fountain, where it flowed.

We proceed now to consider the gracious words that proceeded out of those lips. It will be difficult to imagine any other than gracious words flowing from Christ, whose heart was the overflowing fountain of grace and love. Our Lord was the great Prophet of His Church. A greater than He never appeared, to whom His hearers bore witness, "Never a man spoke like this man." What, for example, are His doctrines but doctrines of grace? Our Lord was a doctrinal preacher. He made doctrine the basis of precept, and precept the basis of promise. It is the foundation of all truth. Did He propound the everlasting love of the Father? Did He set forth the great doctrine, the election of grace? Did He exhibit the sovereignty of God's mercy? Did He unfold the perpetuity of God's covenant? They were all exhibited as doctrines that laid man's pride in the dust, and exalted the grace and mercy of God. There is not a doctrine in Christ's ministry that does not tend to abase the creature.

We know that these doctrines are by some abused, awfully abused- nevertheless, the abuse of a doctrine is no valid argument against the truth or holiness of a doctrine. But we know there are those who do use them to the glory of God's name, and can bear this testimony, "I never saw my heart so sinful, I never was so weaned from self-confidence, as when these glorious doctrines of grace were opened up to my mind by the power of the blessed Spirit, and I saw that God's everlasting love, God's choice of me, the effectual calling of the Spirit, sprang from the fathomless depths of His most full and sovereign grace."

And was not this free, unconditional grace the charm of Christ's preaching? Did He not reiterate the glorious truth, "You have destroyed yourself, but in Me is your help." Was not His one blessed theme, the announcement of God's matchless love and pardoning grace to the vilest sinner, drawn by the Spirit to avail himself of the divine and precious boon?

The promises that fell from His lips, were they not gracious Words? Were they not such as met the circumstances of man's deep necessity as a sinner, based upon the free mercy of God in Christ? Oh, if the promise of a Savior's blood had waited until it saw in its recipient some virtue, some merit, then that promise of sin-forgiving grace would have never saluted our ear. But they are promises of free, rich grace; and it is a humiliating reflection, had God dealt with us after our dealings with Him, He would have withdrawn every promise of grace which now cheers and sustains our pilgrimage.

What, too, are the invitations of Christ but gracious words? Truly, "His lips are like lilies." When He invites the weary and the burdened to come to Him for rest; when He stretches out His gracious hand to the vilest sinner, to the man who has lifted his arm against God; when He heals the broken heart, lifts up the dejected spirit, and with the skillful tongue of the learned, speaks a word in season to him that is weary; are they not gracious words? The invitation that bids me to throw down the weapons of my rebellion before the cross, and meet the embrace of a reconciled Father- is not that gracious? The invitation that bids me come and slake my soul's deep thirst at the well-spring of free salvation- is not that gracious? The invitation that bids me reason the matter with God, and tells me that "though my sins be as scarlet, they shall be white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool"- is not that gracious? The invitation that bids me lay my deepest sorrows on His heart, and my heaviest burdens on His arm; is not that gracious? O beloved! the words of Jesus are full of grace and there is nothing in the gospel of Christ that wakes one harsh note upon the ear of a poor, sin-burdened, guilt-distressed soul.

There may be an allusion here to the manner of our Lord's teaching- He spoke gracefully. There was that in His mode of stating the gospel like Himself. There was nothing harsh or severe in His unfoldings of truth. He spoke like one who had authority. "I am the light of the world," "I am the way, the truth, and the life," "I am the bread of life," "I am the good Shepherd," "I have come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly," "You call me Master and Lord; you say well, for so I am." With what authority He preached, with what boldness He enunciated His own gospel! And it is no small comfort to a child of God to know that He has authority to announce salvation, to declare the mind of God, and that, if we believe His testimony, and cast ourselves upon His word, we shall be saved. There is no view of the Lord's ministry more blessed than this. With what dignity and skill did He speak! His enemies sought to entangle Him in His conversations. Did they ever succeed? No, did He not foil them with their own weapons, and send them away abashed at their folly?

Let us for a few moments trace the different effects which the words of Christ have upon some. In all cases it is not the same. This unfolds an instructive feature- that the same gospel some times produces almost opposite effects. In some, the emotion of wonder is produced. It was so with regard to the hearers in the present instance. There they rested. What was it prevented a deeper impression upon their minds? We have it in the question they asked- "Is not this Joseph's son?" They knew Him from early life, knew His parents and His avocation, and they stumbled at the external lowliness of the great Prophet of the Church. May we not detect the workings of similar feelings in the minds of men in the present day?

Why do men ignore Christianity? Why do they reject the Savior? They are confounded at the philosophy, and are amazed at the depth of thought there is in Christianity! They are lost in admiration at its morality, and are enchanted with its purity and sublimity; and yet they reject the salvation and refuse the Savior, and rest in the mere emotion of wonder; and thus the truth of Christ produces no permanent and saving impression. Their condition is graphically described in Ezekiel, "They come unto you as the people come, and they sit before you as my people, and they hear your words, but they will not do them: for with their mouth they show much love, but their heart goes after their covetousness. And, lo, you are unto them as a very lovely song of one that has a pleasant voice, and can play well on an instrument: for they hear your words, but they do them not." Eloquence attracts them, intellect delights them, gracefulness charms them, and they go away but to hug more closely the chain that binds them to the service of sin and Satan, to live ungodly, and to die hopelessly.

My reader, is it possible to evade the solemn conviction that there will be summoned up at the last day a record of all these means of grace- the sermons you have heard, these pages that you read- as witnesses against you before God's tribunal? See how far you may go, and yet stop short of doing the will of God. Do not be deceived! Is your judgment informed? -it is not religion. Is your taste pleased? -it is not religion. Is your imagination feasted? -it is not religion. True religion is to break the thraldom of sin and Satan. Religion constrains us to walk humbly with God, to live for an eternal world, to receive Christ as the Savior and Redeemer, laying our own righteousness beneath the cross as vile and worthless, and stretching out the hand of faith for the righteousness of God's dear Son.

With others, it is the emotion of gratitude, love, and praise. They heard the gracious words of the gospel, and they were just the words they needed. They came as poor bankrupts, with the pressure of guilt upon their hearts, with the great inquiry, "How may I be just with God?" The Savior met them, bade them bathe in the fountain of His precious blood, cast from them their own righteousness, and rest in His finished work, yes, to rest in Himself; and they were saved!

So, my reader, may you be found hanging upon the lips of the Savior, into which grace was poured, and from which words of grace abundantly flow. And may the Spirit of all grace enable you not to stop at admiration, but pass on to acceptance, imitation, and obedience, that Christ Jesus may be formed in your heart the hope of glory! Oh, do these pages speak to one heart-broken sinner? It is their mission to tell you that the Lord Jesus has not in His lips one harsh expression for your ear. He invites you to receive salvation. He bids you come and sit down at His feet, and hear the gracious words that flow from His anointed lips. Precious Son of God! at Your feet we will sit, on Your lips we will hang- You alone shall be our Teacher, our Prophet, Priest, and King.

"Encouraged by Your word
Of promise to the poor,
Behold a beggar, Lord,
Waits at Your mercy's door
No hand, no heart, O Lord, but Thine,
Can help or pity wants like mine."

"The beggar's usual plea,
Relief from men to gain,
If offered unto Thee,
I know You would disdain;
And pleas which move Your gracious ear
Are such as men would scorn to hear."

"I have no right to say,
That though I now am poor,
Yet once there was a day
When I possessed more
You know that from my very birth
I've been the poorest wretch on earth."

"Nor can I dare profess,
As beggars often do,
Though great is my distress,
My faults have been but few
If You should leave my soul to starve,
It would be well what I deserve."

"It was folly to pretend
I never begged before,
Or if You now befriend,
I'll trouble You no more
You often have relieved my pain,
And often I must come again."

"Though crumbs are much too good
For such a dog as I,
No less than children's food
My soul can satisfy.
Oh, do not frown and bid me go!
I must have all You can bestow."

"Nor can I willing be
Your bounty to conceal
From others, who, like me,
Their needs and hunger feel.
I'll tell them of Your mercy's store,
And try to send a thousand more."

"Your thoughts, You only Wise!
Our thoughts and ways transcend,
Far as the arched skies
Above the earth extend
Such pleas as mine men would not bear
But God receives a beggar's prayer."

Learning of Jesus

"Learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and you shall find rest for your souls." Matthew 9:29

Our blessed Lord, the Prophet come from God, differed in this particular from all other teachers- He designed that His disciples and followers should not only believe in His person, embrace and follow His doctrine, but that they should be assimilated to His image. He came not merely to inform the judgment with truth, but, penetrating into the innermost recesses of the soul, He sought to transform His disciples into His own moral nature, so that He presented Himself to His people as the Model they were to imitate, as the Teacher from whom they were to learn.

Such are the truths embodied in these beautiful words of our blessed Lord, in considering which, as we trust the Holy Spirit will teach us, we shall direct the reader's attention, to the PORTRAIT of Christ; the EXHORTATION of Christ; the PROMISE of Christ.

Our Lord Jesus alone could draw His own moral portrait. His own person was so mysterious, His name so wonderful, His character so lofty; there was such a blending of the two extremes of being in their highest perfection, the absolute God and the perfect man, that it would have been utterly impossible for any finite mind to portray Him in original perfection. Christ alone could reveal Himself. As no one knows the Father, but Christ the Son, so no one knows the Son, or has an understanding of the character of Christ, or can trace the fine delicate shades of the portrait, but those to whom Christ himself reveals it. Now here is our blessed Lord portraying His own character, drawing His own image. It was no vain pride, no self-conceit in Jesus, when he thus portrayed Himself.

We deem it one of the profoundest acts of humility in the saints of God gratefully to acknowledge the grace which God gives them. It is false humility to conceal any measure of grace which Jesus has vouchsafed; and to deny any part of the work of the Lord Jesus in our soul. Oh, beware, in the deepest confessions of your unworthiness, of abjuring the grace of God in you. If the Lord has given you the smallest degree of knowledge, the least measure of faith, and the weakest portion of love, acknowledge it, to the praise and glory of His sovereign grace who has made you what you are.

Let us, then, contemplate this portrait of the Lord Jesus, "I am meek and lowly in heart." We trace it in the first great condescension when He assumed our nature. What an unfolding was this of the lowliness and meekness of Jesus! For we must ever bear in mind that it was not a finite being descending to a lower scale in the finite. Were an angel to become human, it would be but a finite being coming down in the scale of the finite. And where would be the profound stoop, the marvellous condescension and humility? But here was the Infinite stooping to the finite! Here was the Divine assuming the human, between which there existed no comparison! You may weigh one finite thing with another. There is some comparison between a grain of sand and an Egyptian pyramid. But there is no comparison between the finite and the Infinite, so vast and immeasurable is the difference.

Now mark the great condescension of Jesus. Though He was Infinite, He stooped to the finite. Though He was "God over all blessed forevermore," He became "bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh." Contemplate in some of its features this exhibition of the lowliness and meekness of Him who though He was in the form of God, and thought it no robbery to be equal with God, yet assumed our nature and became man. Study His filial reverence to His earthly parents- it forms one of the loveliest traits of His human character. He placed Himself under parental law, recognized parental authority, and was subject to His parents in all things. What an example for the young! Christ honored His parents- imitate Him in this, and He will honor you.

Look at His baptism. It was an astonishing exhibition of His condescension and lowliness. One marvels not, when He appeared on the banks of the Jordan, and asked the rite of baptism at the hands of the evangelist, that John should have said, "I have need to be baptized by You, and do You come to me? Allow it to be so now," said the lowly, condescending Jesus; "for thus it is necessary to fulfil all righteousness." Then, descending into the stream, He was baptized, illustrating His precept by His own act, thus leaving us an example that we should follow in His steps.

Then travel to His cross; see Him emerge from the gate of Jerusalem bearing the wood upon His shoulders- see Him travel with it to the hill of Calvary; there behold Him like a sheep, dumb before His shearers, so He opened not His mouth. See Him resigning Himself into the hands of His murderers, offering no resistance, breathing no reply, threatening no vengeance, but, like a lamb led to the slaughter, meekly bowing His blessed head to the stroke, with no words breathing from His lips but forgiveness to His enemies.

Trace the Savior's whole carriage while on earth- meekness and lowliness marked every act. Look at His deportment with His disciples- washing their feet, administering to their necessities, looking after their comfort, bearing with their infirmities, and in a thousand nameless ways blending the dignity of the God with the condescension, tenderness, and lowliness of the man. Well might He say, "Learn of me; for I am meek and lowly of heart." "Behold the Lamb of God,"- the God-man enduring all this without a murmur, "who, when He was reviled, reviled not again."

Trace the same character of Christ in all His dealings with a poor, tried, sin-burdened, heartbroken sinner. Is there anything in the spirit of Christ, or in the conduct of Christ, with a soul who feels his poverty and emptiness, contrary to this character of condescension, meekness, and lowliness? No! my reader, no! If there is one who, if we may use the expression, draws out this character more than another, it is that poor soul who, bowed beneath its burden of sin, sues for pardon and mercy at His feet.

I see the smoking flax- the bruised reed; not a spark visible in the one, no strength apparently in the other. It is the image of that weak faith, that little grace, that bruised and bowed spirit with which the Savior delights to come in contact. "A bruised reed He shall not break, and smoking flax He shall not quench." Oh, no! His love, grace, and power will mend the one and fan the other.

What shall I say of His dealing with a poor afflicted believer? Ah, we little know what the sympathy of Jesus is for His sorrowing ones; what His compassion is for His afflicted ones; what His condescension is for those who, are treading the steps He trod- the path of suffering, of trial and adversity; that leads to the kingdom. Can He look coldly at our case? Can He deal harshly and unsympathisingly with our sorrow? Can He sport with our grief and trifle with our woe? Utterly impossible! Are you afflicted? Are you in sorrow? Are you tempted? Are you in poverty? Think of the kindness, the gentleness, and sympathy of Jesus; hear Him say, "Learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and you shall find rest unto your souls. My heart is the home of meekness and lowliness, kindness, sympathy, and love. I am prepared to embosom myself in your grief, and make it all My own."

Now, observe, appended to this character and portrait is AN EXHORTATION, "learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart." "Learn of me." We are to come to Jesus as learners. There are two characters in which our Lord is represented to us in this exhortation. First, He appears as a Teacher. "Learn of me- sit at my feet- become my disciple." The only authoritative Teacher in the Church of God, the only true Prophet, is the Lord Jesus Christ. Why is it there is so much error in the Church of God? Why is there is so much darkness and crudeness in the books we read, and in the sermons we hear? Why is it that we see so much ignorance and obscurity in setting forth the truth of God? It is because men will not sit at the feet of Jesus and learn of Him. Men would rather learn of their fellow men than of the God-man; they prefer human writings to the Divine- the school of man, to the school of God. And this is one reason why there is so much false doctrine, the teaching that causes to err, both from the pulpit and from the press. We may be carried away by great learning, brilliant genius, and apparently profound piety; but if we place ourselves at the feet of Jesus as a lowly disciple, and there receive our views of truth, we shall then understand those profound mysteries of God's revealed Word, which are hidden from the worldly wise and prudent, but revealed to those who become learners of Christ.

Secondly, Our Lord also would have, us learn of Him as our Pattern and Model. "Learn of me, for I am meek and lowly in heart, " that is, "Imitate me, resemble me, learn to be like me." Jesus was a living epistle of His own gospel- the impersonal embodiment of His own truth. There is not a doctrine He expounded, or a precept He enjoined, that He did not exemplify in His own life. Learn of Him in His submission to the Divine will. Oh, what perfect blending of the will of Christ with the will of God! Not more perfectly blended are the hues of the rainbow than was the will of Jesus with the will of God. Come, learn submission to the Divine will.

Do you find it hard to bow to that will at this moment? Perhaps the bitter cup trembles in your hand. Perhaps a dark cloud overshadows you. Perhaps the path in which by the providence of God you are called to walk, is rough. Perhaps the surrender you are called to make is painful. Perhaps you feel your will in painful antagonism to God's will. There is a controversy between God and you; you cannot drink that bitter cup, you cannot enter into that dark cloud, you cannot tread that thorny path, you cannot take up that heavy cross, you cannot make that sad surrender. The cup is too bitter, the cloud too dark, and the road too rough. Come, sit at His feet, and learn a lesson of submission to the Divine authority, and to the Father's will. Hear your Lord and Master say, "The cup which my Father has given me, shall I not drink it?" "O my Father, if this cup may not pass away from me unless I drink it, may Your will be done."

Look, too, at His patient endurance of suffering! Are you a sufferer, suffering from God, or suffering from the world? Or, it may be, suffering from your fellow-saints; for of all the sufferings the saints of God endure from man, the deepest wounds, the heaviest trials, alas! are often from our fellow-believers. Even like our blessed Master, no hand smote Him so heavily, He felt no sorrow so severely, as that which came from the disciples whom he loved.

But, beloved, learn of Jesus. Learn patient endurance under suffering. Learn to receive it with meekness, silence, and lowliness. Learn to breathe a blessing for a curse, and to give a look of love for a frown of anger. Learn from Him- when reviled, to revile not again. Imitate Him in His meekness and lowliness, in His carriage and deportment, as He traveled through this world, in all the acts of kindness He performed, the words He spoke, and the whole spirit He exemplified. See how holy, and condescending, and humble He was. Imbibe His temper and spirit, remembering that pride, malice, and revenge, are improper in the disciple of the meek and lowly Jesus. Learn of Christ, who was meek and lowly in heart.

Beloved, the great thing is to have the heart right in the sight of God. God looks at the heart. Men may mistake sometimes, and suppose such a one is harsh, and unsympathizing, and proud, and all the while God may see within a heart that will at any moment stoop to the lowliest and most menial service for Christ's sake. It is the heart that God looks at. Others may misinterpret the state of your heart, and may misconstrue your words and actions; but if the Lord sees that yours is a humble and condescending heart; a heart which, if need be, would prompt you to go to the obscurest saint of God and discharge lowly offices of kindness and love for Christ's sake; such a heart and such conduct is acceptable in the sight of God. Many a man may appear to be humble and meek, but in heart there may be pride and covetousness- a spirit of which God has said, "I cannot bear with." Lord, search my heart!

I desire for you, my reader, and for you, O my soul, to walk worthy of the vocation with which you are called; to act, to live, to speak, as under the all-observing eye of the heart-searching God. Then you can endure meekly man's erroneous interpretation; and with dignity, blended with the profoundest humility of soul, can act independently of your fellow's opinion, presenting your heart to God's inspection, and saying, "Lord, my heart is not proud, nor my eyes lofty, neither do I exercise myself in matters too high for me." "Search me, O God, and know my heart; prove me and know my ways, and see if there be any evil way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting." "Oh, learn of me," says the Savior, "for I am meek and lowly in heart."

Then comes the gracious promise- the blessed repose found only in sitting at Jesus' feet as learners and imitators: "And you shall find rest for your souls." What an expressive word is this! Beloved, have you found this rest? How few are there who know it by experience! This is a restless world. Where is real rest to be found? Only by sitting at the feet of Jesus, and learning of Him. Look at the mental rest a man finds, who gives up his own reason, and, as a pupil, repairs to the feet of Jesus for instruction. The moment a man goes to the feet of Christ, and submits his judgment to the judgment of Christ, he finds mental rest. The moment he receives the truths of the gospel from Christ, he finds repose.

He has, perhaps, been tossed on the sea of speculation and false doctrine; driven from teacher to teacher, from book to book, from church to church, from school to school, knowing not what mental rest is. He finds human opinions conflicting, and knows not where to search for the truth. But giving up his research, and sitting as a little child at the feet of Jesus, with the prayer breathing from his heart, "Lord, what I know not, teach me; I am ignorant, instruct me; I am in darkness, illumine me; I am but as a child in knowledge, give me understanding. I give myself up to Your teaching; I cast myself upon Your instruction; be my Teacher and my Prophet;" soon he will receive that divine illumination, and that mental rest which is experienced only in a child-like reception of the truths of the gospel from the lips and at the feet of Jesus.

There is rest, too, for the soul in the atoning work of Jesus: rest from sense of guilt, from fear of condemnation, and from the terrors of the law. Perfect rest does that soul find that comes to Jesus' feet, and receives in childlike faith the atonement He has made for the chief of sinners.

Rest of heart, too, does he find who takes his place at the feet of Jesus in the spirit of obedience to Christ. "Take my yoke upon you," says the Savior, "and learn of me." Take my commands, take my precepts, take my cross, take my example, and bow your neck to my yoke- the yoke of my truth, the yoke of my precept, the yoke of my commands, the yoke of my example, the yoke of my love. And in wearing it, you shall find rest unto your soul.

This rest is found only in obedience to Christ's command. Many a saint of God sees some especial and positive command of Jesus; but, because the yoke is irksome and requires some little sacrifice, he shrinks from it and finds no rest. Ah, my reader, if you see a positive command or precept of Jesus to be obligatory upon you as a professed disciple, your heart will be restless and agitated until you bow with obedience, meekness an d lowliness, to the command, "Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me." "If you love Me keep my commandments."

Oh, what a privileged place is this to which Jesus invites you! It is at His blessed feet! Favored spot! The feet that trod many a weary mile for you! The feet that were transfixed to the cross for you! Take all your sorrows, all your trials, all your sins there- your schemes frustrated, your cisterns broken, your heart's loneliness, your dark providences, the deep problems in your Father's dealings- study and solve them in Christ's school, at Christ's feet. Be willing to learn, whatever the school in which Your Lord and Savior may see best to place you in. Oh, study to be Christ-like in your spirit, deportment, and actions.

Ask yourself in all that you do, "Is this Christlike?" Did He ever expose the infirmity of a brother, or of a sister? Did He ever trample in the dust any individual, be he foe or friend? "Lord, at Your feet a learner would I be, a disciple, a little child. Teach me; fashion me into Your own lovely image, for I would transcribe the lineaments of Your perfect character to myself, that when others see me, they may take knowledge of me that I have been with Jesus, and have learned of Him."

The Mute Sufferer

"He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth." Isaiah 53:7

There is a state of soul-quietness which is the peculiar privilege of the saints of the Most High, and which, in fact, can only be experienced by those who are in a state of friendship with God. Yet notwithstanding this, in a world of turmoil, and even in the excitement of what is termed the religious world, there is great danger of impairing, if not losing, this precious and holy state. We therefore desire, in this chapter of our work, to strengthen your faith; by placing before you the Lord Jesus Christ, as illustrating and exemplifying in His own conduct; amid circumstances the most trying and painful, that state of quietness of soul, of mute submission to the will of God, which it is the high privilege of the believer to possess and imitate.

We shall never so value, or so deeply feel the force of any single precept as when we see it embodied in the example of Jesus Christ, as the personal illustration of all the precepts which are to be exemplified in the Christian's life. Just as no motive or action can be properly seen or studied but in the light of the cross, so no principle of conduct can be evangelical and potent but as drawn from the teaching and life of Emmanuel. "He was oppressed, and He was afflicted, yet He opened not His mouth." This wonderful passage leads us to study Christ's burden- soul-depression, and the mute deportment He exhibited.

Such an extraordinary state of soul-distress must have its adequate cause. Upon what principle are we to account for the oppression of the Son of God? What shall give us anything like a reasonable clue to it? "He was oppressed." The word "oppressed" is sometimes employed in the sense of exaction. It is used when tribute is claimed; when a debt is enforced, the payment of which is exacted. Now what was exacted of Christ? What claim is enforced? When Divine Justice traveled to the cross of Calvary, she found the Son of God, suspended there in the character of a Substitute. He suffered as standing in the place of His Church, as the substitute of His people. When an individual affixes his name to a bond in commercial transactions, he becomes responsible for the payment of that bond. It is as though he had exchanged places with the original signer of the document. He becomes legally bound to honor that bond whenever exaction shall be made.

Precisely in the same light the Son of God stood as the Surety of His Church. By a divine act of love, He placed Himself in her condition, and undertook to discharge all that great debt which she owed to the moral government of God. In a word, Christ became the Substitute of His people, took the place of the fallen sinner, and undertook to discharge the stupendous claim, for the payment of which he had signed the bond in the eternal counsel of the Triune Jehovah. And now, what is the nature of the burden which Jesus bare? He was standing beneath the sins of His people: He was bearing the transgressions and iniquities of His elect. He was paying the bond to which He had affixed His name. In a word, He was cancelling the great debt.

He was discharging the tremendous obligation which His people lay under to the justice and holiness of God. The payment of that debt was exacted of Him because He became the Sinbearer of His people. Hence, we have the meaning of those prophetic words of Christ "Then I restored that which I took not away." What was it that Christ restored which He did not take away? Oh, it was the glory of God's government, the honor of God's law, the perfection of the Divine precept, the great debt to the moral government of Jehovah! Christ, by His obedience to the law, and by His paying the penalty to justice, restored to the divine government of God, the glory and honor which He took not away. And oh, what a glorious and perfect restoration was that which the sinless Son of God gave, standing as the Surety and Head of His Church! Now, this is the doctrine of the text.

But what is the comfort and consolation which this doctrine is so calculated to bring to our souls? It is the richest in its nature that the gospel can give, and without which all other comfort and consolation is but an empty name. If all our sins were laid upon Christ our Surety, then 'they were taken off' from us; and consequently, sin shall never bring into condemnation the believer in Jesus, for whom He was thus oppressed and afflicted.

We now pass to a consideration of the soul-depression which the Son of God endured beneath this burden. All sin brings its consequent sorrow. Sin is a violation of the law of God; and so obnoxious is it to the holy God, that, as we cannot cast the smallest pebble into a tranquil lake without disturbing its repose, so we cannot in the slightest degree run counter to God's law without dishonoring God and compromising the peace of our own soul. Now, from this passage we may argue- What must have been the soul-sorrow of the Son of God when He stood, as the Surety and Substitute, beneath the weight of all the sins and transgressions of His people?

My reader, what is it that darkens the spirit? What is it that gives the bitterest ingredient to the cup of sorrow? Is it not your daily conflict with sin? And yet your sins are pardoned; they are blotted out, and forever cancelled. We should do injustice to you, and a still greater wrong and dishonor to Christ, were we to conceal or shade the fact in our deepest distress for sin, that we have to deal with sin, the commission of which is forgiven, the guilt of which is cleansed, the curse and condemnation of which are entirely and forever removed.

But what must have been the soul-distress and oppression of Jesus when there were made to meet upon Him the accumulated sins of the whole family of God? Truly might it be said, "He was oppressed, and He was afflicted." This, then, was the cause of Christ's sorrow He was oppressed. And who can tell what deep mental and heart oppression the Savior endured while passing through that scene of trial? Oh, what is our oppression compared with the oppression of the Savior's holy soul, when paying the penalty of our transgressions and sins? Divine Justice was exacting from Him the utmost farthing of the great debt.

But He was afflicted too. Yes, His whole life was a life of affliction. Every step He trod, from the lowly manger to the ignominious cross, was marked by affliction. He was "a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief." He was born to trial and conflict. It is well for us that it was so. Who could enter into our oppression but the Lord! Our Savior in His distress, knowing there was no creature that could help Him, cries up God. And to whom could you flee in your oppression, to whom could you repair in your affliction, if not unto Him whose spirit, whose heart, was so afflicted? O you sons and daughters of sorrow, affliction, and trial; press the comfort and consolation of this truth to your hearts- Jesus Christ was oppressed and afflicted, and He knows how to enter into all your oppressions, your mental and spiritual dejection and sorrow. The gloom that often broods around your soul, the nervousness which often unhinges your whole frame, the affliction that embitters your cup of sweets, He passed through, that He might be able to support us. He was oppressed, and He was afflicted, that He might know how to sympathize with the afflictions of His suffering family.

We would now direct your thoughts to the deportment of our blessed Lord while passing through this season of oppression and affliction. "He was oppressed, and He was afflicted, yet He opened not His mouth." Here is a great truth for us to consider, an important lesson for us to learn, and a bright example for us to study: "He opened not His mouth." There was a deathlike silence, a mute, yet not a sullen, submission of the soul beneath the sorrow He was enduring. Not a word was spoken; not a sentence was uttered; not a whisper was heard. "He was oppressed, and He was afflicted, yet He opened not His mouth."

And now, may the Spirit of God enable us to understand something of the deep spiritual significance of these words, "Yet He opened not His mouth." In the first place, our suffering Messiah, our afflicted Surety, did not impeach the justice of God in the soul-discipline through which He was passing. There was no arraignment at His bar of the righteousness of the judgment. He saw it to be equitable, just, and holy. He seemed to say, "Why should I complain of this bitter cup? Why should I murmur at this terrible affliction? I became a Surety for my Church. I gave myself up as a Substitute. It is an equitable obligation to which I bound myself; and I have not a word to utter impeaching the righteousness of my Father in the trial through which I am passing."

And is God less just in His dealings with you, my reader? Is there anything in His conduct that can give you cause to impeach the Divine equity? What, will you dispute the holiness and integrity of the Judge of all the earth when He blows upon your beautiful flower, when he cuts down your tall cedar, or when He wounds you in the most sensitive part of your nature? Is God unrighteous, unjust, unholy, in any of His dealings with you? "Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?" Bitter may be the cup you are called to drink, dark the cloud that flings its shadow upon your path, and most beloved the "Isaac" of your heart you are compelled to surrender; yet, you may exclaim with David, "I was dumb; I opened not my mouth, because You did it. You are too wise to err, too good to be unkind, too righteous, too just, too holy, to do wrong."

He did not open his mouth to impugn the goodness and love of God. He felt it was the conduct of Him who is essential goodness and essential love; therefore, He did not question these perfections of His heavenly Father. And shall you, shall I impugn the goodness of God when He sees fit to chasten and afflict? What? is He less kind, is He less good, when He touches your health, when He blows upon your enterprises, when He scatters your riches, bereaves your heart, places you in circumstances that are trying to bear, and deprives you of mercies which once you enjoyed? Is He less good, and kind and loving then?

Oh, forget not that it is said of your Lord and Savior, "He opened not His mouth." He did not question the goodness and love of His Father though He was oppressed. Oh no; God your Father is not less kind, is not less good, or less loving, even when you may be oppressed and afflicted. If you would be like Christ, you must be dumb and open not your mouth- a mute and patient sufferer.

Christ did not murmur at the affliction that lay upon Him. Not a word of rebellion or of fretfulness breathed from His lips. No thoughts were in His mind which, if uttered, would say, I could have arranged this more wisely and justly. I could have formed, and fashioned this or that with more skill and ingenuity than He has done it. If it had been left to my own choice, I would have selected for myself a better position than this" Oh no; "He opened not His mouth." He uttered not a murmur; no unhallowed fretting broke from His sealed lips. Oh, learn, you saints of God, to be like Jesus, repining and murmuring not when the hand of God is heavy upon you. Be still, and know that He is God.

Again, when He was falsely accused, maligned, insulted, and traduced; spat upon, scourged, and degraded; yet "He opened not His mouth" to threaten and denounce. There was no complaining, no threatening, no returning evil for evil. "When He was reviled, He reviled not again." Learn, oh you who suffer from the world, who endure reproach and ignominy for Christ's sake- learn to suffer all that God sees fit; willing, if need be, that your actions and motives shall be misunderstood and misinterpreted by others; willing to confide your character into the hands of Jesus, your Surety.

When man falsely accuses you, when the world maligns you, oh, learn to be quiet beneath it all; leave it with Him who judges righteously, and who has left you an "example" of meekness, patient endurance, and silence under accusation, and bids you, "follow His steps." He opened not His mouth. to vindicate His own innocence; He was falsely accused and slandered by malignant foes, though He was holy, harmless, undefiled, and, separate from sinners. But He opened not His mouth in self-vindication. He committed Himself to Him who judges righteously.

What a lesson do we learn here! If you act from right principles, and your character is approved of God, you need not be anxious to vindicate it before men. Leave it with the Lord. Your Counselor and Advocate is Jesus Christ. "Commit your way unto the Lord; trust also in Him, and He shall bring it to pass. And He shall bring forth your righteousness as the light, and your judgment as the noonday."

There may be occasions when, to rebut a false accusation, and to vindicate our integrity and uprightness, we may meekly assert and establish our innocence. But this need not transgress the spirit of Jesus, who, "when He suffered, He threatened not, but committed Himself to Him who judges righteously." It were best not to take our cause out of Christ's hands into our own. In spiritual, as in worldly litigation, it were wise not to be our own counselor, but to remember that the believer has an "Advocate with the Father, Jesus-Christ the righteous," a powerful and ever-successful Pleader.

I would remind you, in concluding the chapter, that this quietness of spirit under all circumstances produces a peaceful, happy mind. A quiet mind is a happy and peaceful one- a mind firmly stayed upon God under all those circumstances which are calculated to produce mental disquietude and distress. Such a believer feels that God is doing right whatever He does. His mind is kept in perfect peace, being stayed upon God. It is calm, tranquil, peaceful, whatever the stormy billows that ruffle and agitate life's surface.

A state of mute submission is also a most instructive state to the mind. I believe we learn more in a state of quietness than in a state of excitement. God may teach you in the quiet more deeply than in the turmoil and bustle. Look at Jesus in His teaching of His disciples. He propounded to them some great and precious parables which He would explain and unfold as they were able to bear it. How did He this? Was it amid the din and confused noise of the world? No; He took them apart from the multitude, and in the quietness and repose of the desert, he expounded to them the deep mysteries of the kingdom of God. "And when they were ALONE, He explained to them the parables."

Then, shrink not from the privacy of the closet, from the quietude of the sick chamber, or from the stillness of some remote scene; where, perchance, you may be deprived of the privileges of the house of God. Shrink not from solitude and retirement. God has put you there to teach you what He would not teach you amid the noise and tumult of the world. He has led you to close searchings of heart, to a more attentive and a more prayerful reading of His blessed Word, and more deeply into the secret of His covenant, and taught you more experimentally and perfectly, the all-important truths of the gospel of Christ.

Oh then, cultivate still more this quietness, this muteness of soul in suffering. We live in an age of action rather than of thought; of external excitement rather than of calm, meditative retirement. There may be much self-denying labor for others, while yet leanness may steal into your own soul, and the love of God wane within your heart. Study to be quiet, and cultivate communion and close communion with God, and commune with your own heart and be still.

Oh, cultivate the habit of self-examination! Look well into the state of your own soul. Sitting in lowliness and quietness at the Savior's feet, let your silence be a profound meditation upon your own heart as upon His; and let your mouth be sealed with perfect submission under the dealings of your heavenly Father, feeling that all those dealings are right, and all in love. Then, oh! then you will know in some degree what that repose and quietness of soul is which the Savior felt when oppressed and afflicted for your sins. "Yet He opened not His mouth."

"Be still, my soul! Jehovah loves thee;
Fret not, nor murmur at your weary lot;
Though dark and lone your journey seems to be,
Be sure that you are never by Him forgot.
He ever loves; then trust Him, trust Him still,
Let all your care be this- the doing of His will."
"Your hand in His, like fondest, happiest child,
Place you, nor draw it for a moment thence;
Walk with Him, a Father reconciled,
Until in His own good time He call you hence;
Walk with Him now, so shall your way be bright,
And all your soul be filled with His most glorious light"
"He comes with His reward; it is just at hand;
He comes in glory to His promised throne;
My soul rejoice before long your feet shall stand
Within the city of the Blessed One
Your perils past, your heritage secure,
Your tears all wiped away, your joy forever sure"

The Believer's Consecration to Christ

'But first gave their own selves to the Lord." -2 Cor. 8:5

It is not only the design, but it is the effect of the gospel of Christ in the heart of man to diffuse itself. Implanting a new principle of love, and subjugating the renewed powers of the soul to the glory of God, the believer from that moment ceases to be his own. If our professed religion has not done this, it has done but little for us. There was this great distinguishing characteristic in the religion of these Corinthians, notwithstanding the many defects of some, and the unholy walk of others, for, though the most gifted, they were the least sanctified of all the apostolic churches; it is recorded that, before they gave themselves to one another in church-fellowship, "they first gave themselves to the Lord."

Let us consider this ACT of consecration to Christ- the MOTIVES which urge it- and some of the BLESSINGS which are its holy result. A casual survey of the world will convince any reflecting mind, that the great mass devote and lend themselves to any and every thing but to Christ. The world consecrates itself to itself, to mammon, to the creature, to ambition, to pleasure. Each individual weaves a garland for himself, that fades even while the hand entwines it on the brow. Such is the nature and such the end of all worldly honor! What an awful world! How ought we to look upon it with a tearful eye, with a compassionate, prayerful mind! Although beyond our power, except instrumentally, to convert, yet ought we not to regard it with that spiritual sensibility with which the Savior wept over Jerusalem?

But there are those who devote themselves to a higher and nobler object. We are to speak, in this chapter, of a few who are consecrated to the Lord- "They first gave their own selves." I must assume, and rightly too, that the subjects of this holy consecration have received Jesus as made unto them of God "wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption." Upon this foundation they dedicate their lives by an act of unreserved consecration unto the Lord. Mark what they consecrate- "their own selves." An individual may give a portion of his property, and a measure of his time, and yet withhold that from God which alone is acceptable- himself. Will God accept any other offering while the sacrifice of the heart is withheld? Impossible! "My son, give me your heart."

"God is love," and God has attached an importance and prominence to love that He has not done to anything else. "You shall LOVE the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your mind, and with all your soul, and with all your strength." This is God's first and great commandment. A man may stud the land with synagogues, and yet retain a heart of deadly and unsubdued enmity against God. But this is not the case with the true Christian; he has brought himself to the Lord. "Lord, this is all that I can do- I cast my own self on You. Splendid gifts I have none, gold and silver I have none; but I have a heart to love you; and now, Lord, I take that heart, just as it is, and I consecrate it to You."

Beloved reader, this is the sacrifice- this the homage of a true Christian. This is what God looks at, even the consecration of a man's self. Oh, lay that heart on His altar just as it is! It may be a broken heart; it may be a bleeding heart; a heart still conscious of infirmity and sin; yet you cannot lay a more precious or acceptable offering upon God's altar. "The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: a broken and a contrite heart, O God, you will not despise." Oh, what a lovely spectacle is it to behold a young believer just emerging from the world, and traveling to Calvary with a trembling yet decided step, and there consecrating himself to the Lord to be no longer is own, but Christ's. He consecrates his soul to the Lord, that the Lord may sanctify and mold it to His own image. He consecrates himself to Christ, that Christ may instruct, counsel, and guide him; and thus, by that act of consecration, he acknowledges and crowns Christ as his Prophet, Priest, and King.

Observe the priority of this consecration: "They first gave themselves to the Lord." What right has an individual to dispose of himself to any one before he gives himself to the Lord? My dear reader, your first act must be a personal, voluntary, and solemn dedication to the Savior. With what justice can you unite yourself, either to an individual or to the Church of God, before you have given yourself personally to Jesus?

Glance, now, at some of the motives which should move us to this self-consecration to the Lord. Christ will not receive a reluctant, an unwilling heart. It must, be a voluntary and loving surrender- a heart wrought upon by grace, and constrained by love. The right of priority which Christ has, weighs powerfully upon a renewed heart- "All souls are mine." Ah! it is a solemn thought, my unconverted reader, that God has a right of proprietorship in you, a and will not forego that right for any individual in the universe. He has a right to your faculties, to your property, to your influence, to all you possess, and to all you are; nor will He release you from your obligation to glorify Him through all eternity. But oh, with what holy delight does a believing soul recognize the obligation- "Lord, I acknowledge Your right; I yield to it obedience, and henceforth I dedicate myself to You."

There is the feeling, too, of gratitude to Christ prompting the soul. When the believer considers what Christ has done for him- how the Savior went after him in the wilderness- drew him. to Himself- took all his sins- wept, suffered, and died for him; when he remembers what a fulness God has provided for him in Christ- "all fulness;"- when he thinks of all the glory He has laid up in heaven for him, his heart exclaims, "Lord, I am bound by the greatest obligations, the deepest gratitude, to dedicate myself to You."

But the greatest motive of all is, the love of Christ shed abroad in his heart. "The love of Christ constrains us," said the apostle; and the love of Christ forms the great, all-persuasive motive for a believer to yield himself to the Lord. Touched by the Savior's pardoning love- were it through fire or through water- he exclaims, "Lord, I will follow You wherever You lead- to service, to suffering, to death, if need be, for You have bought me with Your blood." " Here, Lord, I give myself away It is all that I can do." And if, my reader, these motives have been brought to bear, in any degree, upon your heart by the Holy Spirit, you can no longer refrain from giving yourself to Christ.

Trace some of the blessings which flow from this consecration to Christ. The first we quote is rest. The heart of the Christian, which has so long been a truant, wandering heart, at length finds rest, consequent upon this act of self-dedication to the Lord. After giving itself to God, the heart experiences a repose, a peace found nowhere else. Oh, the sweet repose the spirit is conscious of when it feels that the great question of possession is decided, and decided in favor of Jesus! It is a rest which must be felt to be understood. That peace passes all understanding- the peace of knowing that now Christ possesses His own, that I no longer live to myself. It might have been at the cost of plucking out the right eye, the severing of the right band; but oh, the peace it has brought! Now, Christ is loved supremely, and the heart is at rest from itself because at rest in Jesus.

Another blessing is safety. Speak of safety! There is no safety but that which is found in Christ. The individual who is consecrated to the Lord is safe. He has taken Christ as his counselor to guide him- as his shield to cover him- as his hiding-place to shelter him- as the Captain of his salvation to fight for him. Not a being in the universe so secure as he! He has become a subject of that kingdom which can never be moved.

In conclusion, let me ask, my reader, to whom are you consecrated? Think not that you occupy a position of neutrality. You are either consecrated to the Lord or you are antagonistic to the Lord. "He that is not with me is against me." Then, to whom have you consecrated your youth? your manhood? your hoary hairs? To whom have you consecrated yourself? Let the question haunt you until it has received a solemn and firm decision. But oh, let that decision be on the right side! "Henceforth I am the Lord's." The Lord loves an early consecration- a youthful consecration. He loves the young, the firstling of the flock. Let the young, then, ponder the question, "To whom shall I consecrate myself? to the creature or to Christ?" Descend, blessed Spirit, upon, the young, and constrain them to give themselves first to the Savior and then to His Church! Let the Christian give his whole heart to the Savior.

Are you so consecrated, saints of God? Then remember that all your concerns are the Lord's concerns. They more deeply concern Him than you. You have consecrated yourself to the Lord, and the Lord has accepted the offering, and has promised to take care of you, and at last will bring you to your eternal home. May we be enabled henceforth to renounce all our idol-rivals, and yield the throne supremely to Jesus. "For what agreement has the temple of God with idols? for you are the temple of the living God."

The vows of God are upon you. God give you grace to fulfil them! You have given yourself to the Lord; let nothing influence you to draw back. Oh, press onward! Christ's grace is sufficient for you. When tempted to stray, it will keep you; when you fall, it will raise you up; when weary and faint, it will restore and revive you. Distrust, yourself, abide in Christ; and if His chastening cleanses you from your idols, it will be but to reign Himself without a rival in your heart.

Christ's Consecration to the Believer

"The Son of God, who loved me, and gave Himself for me." -Gal. 2:20

In the preceding chapter we directed the reader to the subject of self-consecration to Christ, enforcing this duty by the example of the early Christians, who "first gave their own selves to the Lord." We pass, in the present chapter, to a higher contemplation than this- the consecration of Christ to the believer. "The Son, of God, who loved me, and GAVE HIMSELF for me." The first thought is, the love of the Son of God: "who loved me."

The love of any being, human or angelic, possesses a value which those who feel its magic power cannot resist. In proportion to the station of the individual, is our estimate of the condescension and greatness of his love. We are now to consider the affection, not of a mere created heart, but of the heart of a Divine Being, flowing in all its redundancy into our finite, sinful heart. The Being here represented to us is "the Son of God." He loved us. He could have no motive for loving us but what He found within Himself, seeing nothing in man but wretchedness and guilt. If, therefore, the Lord set His heart upon man, He must find the motive, not in the creature, but in Himself. Such, then; is the love of God. He loved man because He set His heart upon man.

But how shall we adequately describe this love? The love of Christ is a divine affection. It is the love of Him who is essential love- of Him who is the infinite Fountain of all love, the love that dwells in every heart. From this one fact we may infer, that it is an everlasting love. We must travel back to the beginning for this love of Christ to His Church, if, indeed, a beginning it had. It is an everlasting love: "I have loved you with an everlasting love." It is also a free, unpurchased love; a love flowing spontaneously from the heart of God- spontaneous in its act, and unconditional in its bestowment. Oh, how will this truth lighten and cheer the believer's dying hour! Then will the everlasting love of God, and the free grace of Christ, neutralize every doubt, quell every fear, and float the spirit on a sea of sunshine to glory.

If the Son of God loves us, it follows that the Father loves us. There are some who look so exclusively at the love of the Son as to overlook the love of the Father. Precious as is the love of our Savior, we must not rest in that, but pass on to the equal love of the Father. Oh, how it expands, how it exalts, how it ennobles our conception of this love to behold in every action that the Savior performed but the reflection of the love of the Father who gave His Son to die for us. The love of God to the Church is a love worthy of Himself. Beloved, when God metes out His love to His people, He metes out an affection which has no bound. Man is a dependent and limited being. No creature can give out of itself without expending and soon exhausting itself. The very love with which we love has a limit. But not so the love of God.

Consider, now, the evidence of the love of Christ to His Church. The evidence is, "He gave Himself." What greater proof of His love could He give than this? "Who gave Himself for our sins, that He might deliver us from this present evil world, according to the will of God and our Father." Also, "Even as the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give His life a ransom for many." "Who gave Himself for us, that He might redeem us." A climax to this, "Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave Himself for it."

"Gave Himself!" Look for a moment at the immensity of the gift. What did our Lord give? Rather, what did He not give? He gave the merit of His obedience; and on the broad basis of that merit, the vilest sinner, believing in Christ, may draw near to God with boldness. Why is it that so many, whose Christianity we cannot question, are yet ever living in the region of doubt and fear? It is because they do not see that the Son of God has given His merit for their sins. Here is that which just meets our case, and which answers every objection. The righteousness that He wrought was not for His, but for our justification- a righteousness for our guilty soul. He gave, then, His merit. He gave His life. He gave His death.

That death was not for Himself. He gave His LIFE for you, and His DEATH for you. "He was bruised for our iniquities." He died that agonizing, that ignominious death, for you, O believing soul! Child of God, there is a place in heaven for you- a vacant seat- a mansion, which will remain until you rise to glory, and occupy it forever. That crown of glory none shall wear- that palm of victory none shall wave- that mansion of repose none shall occupy but you! Oh, was ever love like this! Herein, beloved, is love, and only here, that the Son of God gave Himself for us- to cancel our curse, to bear our sins.

But not only this, He gave Himself as our Brother born for adversity, as a Counselor, as a Guide, yes, as all that a poor, tried, tempted, needy saint requires on his way to heaven.

Then follows the believer's personal assurance of this great and blessed truth: "The Son of God, who loved ME, and gave Himself for ME." Here the apostle seems to forget the Church of God, and to think only for the moment of himself. "The Son of God, who loved ME, and gave Himself for ME." Saving faith converts a general, into a personal and particular truth. It firmly believes the general fact, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners; and that belief imparts the assurance of a personal interest in the fact. I do not say that assurance is essential to our Salvation. But I do say that it is essential to a holy life and a happy death. If you earnestly desire both these, seek this assurance, and seek until you find it.

And now, in view of this most blessed theme, ought there not to be a renewed consecration of ourselves to Him who gave Himself for us? Shall we not, beloved, at the foot of the cross, yield ourselves afresh, to God? Saints! Priests of Christ! Are you so consecrating yourselves to the Lord? Are you writing "holiness to the Lord " on all you are and on all you have? I repeat the question, "To whom have you surrendered yourself?" If to Christ, then to Christ be your life devoted- living or dying, let it be Christ's. With the noble, magnanimous apostle let us exclaim, "FOR ME TO LIVE IS CHRIST, AND TO DIE IS GAIN."

Not Comfortless

"I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you." John 14:18

When Jesus spoke these words, the hearts of His disciples were filled with sadness. The anticipation of His departure from them flung a cold, dark shadow over all their future. What was the world to them now that their Lord and Friend was about to leave it? They were conscious of the grief and desolateness of orphans. They felt themselves alone; but how timely and how tenderly He had met their case: "I will not leave you comfortless "- orphans. With a heart like His, how could it be otherwise? His withdrawment was the occasion of their sorrow- could meet that sorrow but Himself? And how opportunely and effectively He came to their help! Will our Lord impose upon us a cross- lay upon us a burden- inflict a sorrow, and then leave us unsustained by His grace, unsoothed by His sympathy, uncheered by His love? Never! "I will come to you" is His precious declaration.

There are periods in the Christian life when comfort is especially needed; for these circumstances the Lord reserves His cordials. Thus, if Christ appears more loving and sympathizing at one time than another, it is not that there is any increase in His heart's tenderness, but simply a more timely and full unfolding of it. If, therefore, there should be any lengthened supension of the comforts of the Holy Spirit, let us not infer that the heart of Jesus is chilled in its affection. He best knows our need and how to meet it. Like a skillful and watchful physician, He adapts the remedy to the case. We may imagine we needed a word of comfort, when we needed a word of rebuke; a promise, when we required a warning; a check, when we looked for an impulse.

We are best in the Lord's hands, assured that He will administer no stimulant or corrective, no discipline, be it humbling or exalting, but it will be just that which the state of our soul demands. If we need reproof, He will send it; if comfort, He will impart it; if instruction or guidance, there shall be no delay and no lack on His part. Oh, to enter more deeply into the Lord's love to His people.

We now turn to this sorrow of His disciples, which, He so timely and tenderly sought to comfort, and in which we shall find much analogous to our own. Their grief and despondency arose from the fact of Christ's withdrawment from them. They prized His presence too well to part with it without regret. What is the darkest shadow upon the heart of a believer in Jesus? Is it not the eclipse of the Sun of Righteousness in his soul- the withdrawment of the sensible presence of his Beloved? If we know what it is to lean upon Him, rest in Him, converse with Him, to walk in the light as He is in the light, it is utterly impossible that even its momentary suspension should not leave its shadow.

My reader, the greatest good, this side of glory, is the sense of the presence of Jesus. What, then, must its withdrawment be to the believer but an occasion of the deepest sorrow? Sometimes that sorrow is rendered more acute from the recollection of the cause of Christ's withdrawment: His Beloved was forced away. His ingratitude and backslidings caused Him to withdraw; and this fact imparts intensity to the grief of a child of God. "Had it not been for my waywardness, He had not left me comfortless. My soul! it was your sin, your coldness, your neglect, which drove the Savior from your arms; and this is the bitterest ingredient in my cup of sorrow."

Perhaps the grief arises from the actual sense of the loss. He feels as if life were bereft of its sweetest, holiest charm. To this is added the fear, the haunting fear, that the Lord will not return to him again- that there will be no more such bright hours, no more sunny days- that now his Beloved, grieved and wounded, has taken His farewell, to return no more forever.

But now remark how graciously the Lord Jesus has anticipated, and how blessedly He has provided for this sorrow. The Lord will not leave His children orphans- that is, comfortless. A state of temporal orphanage is desolate- infinitely more a state of spiritual orphanage. "I will not leave you orphans. You shall not be lone and desolate, unshielded and comfortless. I know the shadow on your path, the sorrow of your heart, and I will, before I go hence, make provision for its need. I will not leave you comfortless."

And how does Christ meet this case? By teaching us to look up to God as our Father. He has put the words into your lips, "OUR FATHER, who is in heaven." Oh, remember, that when the consciousness of your desolate and lonely path fills you with gloom and despondency, it is your highest, sweetest privilege to draw near to God as to your heavenly Parent, and lean upon His heart as upon the heart of a loving Father; for God has not left you orphans. "Because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father." "Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God." Oh, this is our highest comfort- our filial relation to God, and to His parental relation to us. If, then, He is your Father, honor Him by going to Him as a loving, trustful child for all the supplies you need.

For one moment let us refer to the crowning promise of the text, "I will come to you." Observe, the great comfort with which Jesus sought to solace them was, His certain and personal return. "I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you." See how the Lord adapts His comfort to our sorrow. These disciples were mourning His absence from them. He assured them of His return. Oh, there is a beautiful and touching delicacy in Christ's comfort! He knows how to comfort.

Observe, again, the promise, "I will come to you." What a glorious light upon their gloomy path was this! "I will come to you." And does He not now come to us, beloved? Oh yes. He hastens to His people- comes to them in their sorrow. "For a small moment have I forsaken you; but with great mercies will I gather you." He returns to His wandering children, and heals their backslidings. He comes and dispels the clouds, and once more the sun shines upon their path. I may speak to some who have no light. My reader, Christ will not leave you comfortless; He will come to you. The light shall return, and the darkness withdraw.

But there is a reference in this promise to the Lord's Second Coming. "The coming of the Lord draws near." Personal and visible, He will appear the second time without sin unto salvation. It is but a little while and His glorious Advent will transpire. God is, by His providence, preparing the way of the Second Coming of the Lord. All the signs indicate its near approach. Oh, may we be found looking for, and hastening unto His coming.

In conclusion, receive the exhortation- let Jesus Christ be all in all to You! Oh, let nothing keep you from Christ and His comforts! Let no creature, or church, or ordinance, veil Him from your eye. Press through all to Christ! Cleave to Him, for He alone can cheer, guide, sanctify, and comfort you. Draw all your supplies from Christ, and press the precious promise to your heart, "I will not leave you comfortless; I will come to you."

The Man of God Sifted

"For, lo, I will command, and I will sift the house of Israel among all nations, like as corn is sifted in a sieve, yet shall not the least grain fall upon the earth." -Amos 9:9

God's Church has ever been a separate and scattered people. The apostle Peter recognizes this in the dedication of his First Epistle, "To the strangers scattered abroad." And yet, separated and dispersed though they are, like the Jews, they have never lost their peculiar and distinctive character. The "holy seed," mingled though it has with the world, growing up side by side with the tares, has ever maintained its essentially divine and holy character- uncorrupted and incorruptible- the precious seed of God's own right-hand planting. More than this, they have never been dispersed beyond the eye and the heart of the Lord their God. We may trace this truth in the history of nations. When God is about to bring some signal judgment upon an ungodly people; it has invariably been accompanied with an especial provision made on behalf of His elect. The subject we are about to consider is a remarkable illustration of this.

God was about to visit the Jewish nation by a process severely searching. And yet, the words which announce the judgment bring with it the mercy. While He sifts, He spares- while He searches, He protects. "Lo, I will command, and I will sift the house of Israel among all nations, like as corn is sifted in a sieve, yet shall not the least grain fall upon the earth." In considering this subject, the points for our study are- THE PRECIOUS SEED- THE SIFTING- and THE SECURITY.

THE PRECIOUS SEED-
There are various reasons why this figure should be employed to designate God's one Church, divided though it may be, into separate and distinct branches. It is not the least one, that God will put a marked difference spiritually between the Israelites and the Egyptians. It is the grand effort of Satan to counterfeit what is good, and blend it with evil. There is a striking passage bearing upon this in Isaiah 5:20, "Woe unto those who call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!" There is that principle in our fallen and corrupt nature that is perpetually calling good evil, and evil good. Ah! it is a solemn thought, and it should cause us to tremble how we decide any point of doctrine or practice whatever for which we have not a "Thus says the Lord." But the Lord has put an essential and palpable difference between the Israelites and the Egyptians- the Church and the world. We have to do in this matter not with ministers, but with God; not with churches, but with the judgment-seat of Christ; and the moment is coming- oh, how fast it speeds!- when we shall have to test our creed, test our principles, test our Church, by God's unerring Word.

The figure, also, sets forth the beauty and excellence of the Church of God. By nature it is as others. There is a sinnership as well as a saintship in the character and history, of every believer. God forbid that we should merge the one in the other! We would never forget, in the highest view the Spirit of God gives us of our saintship, no, nor even when "Abba, Father" is but lisped by our lip, the horrible pit from which sovereign grace has taken us. From the highest pinnacle in heaven we shall look down, and remember that we were once "children of wrath, even as others." But the Church of God is His especial treasure: "You only have I known of all the nations of the earth."

But the figure also illustrates the preciousness of the believer. No language can adequately set this forth. A precious Jesus has died for them- precious blood purchased them- a glorious righteousness covers them- the Holy Spirit dwells in them- and the mark of God is upon them. Who can compute the value of a soul that has upon it the blood of God's dear Son? Who can portray the beauty and holiness of a soul that stands before God complete in the righteousness of Christ, and enshrines God, the Holy Spirit? Truly they are the precious seed of the Lord.

The figure is also expressive of their fruitfulness. The chaff is not fruitful; it is only the true grain that has in it the germ of fruitfulness. We look for no spiritual fertility in an ungodly man. We do not expect to see the graces of the Spirit engrafted on a dead stock. We go to the living branch, to the soul that has union with Jesus, for the fruit of the Spirit. There alone will you find holy contrition, lovely lowliness, precious faith, divine love, high principles. There alone can we trace the evidence of that Divine grace that changes the heart, and imparts a new and a heavenly nature.

THE SIFTING-
But observe, God sifts His people like corn. We need scarcely remark upon the necessity of this process, it seems so palpable and self-evident. Take the holiest man of God for illustration. There is such a mixture of contradiction in him, that he needs to be winnowed. It has been remarked, "The best of saints are exposed to the worst of sins." Look at Job. Study his character, and then his sifting. "And the Lord said unto Satan, Have you considered my servant Job, that there is none like him in the earth, a perfect and an upright man, one that fears God, and shuns evil." What a precious grain of wheat was here! yet, see how God put that grain of wheat into the sieve!

Who could have thought there would have been so much self-righteousness in Job, such hard thoughts of God? Who could have thought there had been so much chaff mixed with the wheat? But God sifts His wheat. The first great sifting is when the Holy Spirit separates a man from himself- when He dissolves his covenant with the law, and shows him the worthlessness of his own righteousness. The first step in conversion is not separation from the world, but from 'self'. We may carry our own righteousness into the loneliest desert. A man may separate himself from others, and may never be separated from himself. So long as we stand in our self-righteousness we are an offence to God. I do not hesitate to say, that a self-righteous man, a man going about to establish a righteousness of his own in opposition to the righteousness of Christ, is, with all his works, with all his charities, a greater offence to God than the poor outcast whose life is one mass of sin. A self-righteous man denies the holiness of Jehovah, turns his back upon the great work of God's dear Son, and expects to get to heaven on the basis of a human righteousness. But the Holy Spirit sifts a man, as corn is sifted; uproots his love of self, his trusting in good works, and lays the soul prostrate at the feet of Jesus.

See how the apostle was thus separated from himself: "What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ--the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith." My reader, have you been so separated from a righteousness to which you are so closely wedded by nature, but from which, if saved, you must be entirely divorced by grace?

With regard to the methods which the Lord adopts in this sifting process, we would first mention the Word. Oh, how searching and sifting is the Word of God! Who has not found it so? How it detects the latent principle of evil in the heart! The Word of God shows a man what he is- it rebukes, searches, and sifts him. Blessed is that man who knows what the siftings of God's Word are; who is willing to have his principles and conduct tried by it, and whose ardent desire is, "Lord, sanctify me through Your truth."

Sanctified trial is another mode. Ah, what a mighty fan is this with which God winnows His people! He leads them about, sends cross providences, dark dispensations, thwarted designs, blasted hopes, and the precious grain is driven about, wondering what will be the issue. Messenger follows messenger; bearing tidings of woe still more lamentable than the former, and the poor afflicted believer stands appalled, and marvels what the Lord means by all this trial and sifting. But oh, what a blessed result!

Seasons of trial are searching, sifting, and separating seasons. God designs by that trial not to wound you; oh, no! there is too much love in His heart to put you to needless pain; but to separate the precious wheat from the refuse- to scatter the chaff that has mingled with the divine grain, concealing and deteriorating it. Yes, many a child of God living much in the region of the world, and often, perhaps, yielding to its temptations, has been placed by God in this sieve. We have gone and wept when we ought to have rejoiced with him. He has come out, oh what a different character! What a higher tone it has given to his spirituality. How dead he seems to the world! He acts, and speaks, and prays like another man. Why? God has sifted him! The chaff has been separated, the storm has scattered it, and the image of God has been brought out in all its true beauty and power.

Satan's temptations, too, may also be spoken of as a sifting process. Christ said to Peter, "Satan has desired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat." Oh, what a sifting process did he pass through! And if grace had not been in him, what would have become of Peter when thrice he denied his Lord? But oh, how the chaff vanished! What a different man was he after that sifting process! We do not say these are pleasant seasons; but we do say, blessed is the man that is tempted! We do not hear of Satan desiring to sift Judas; but he seizes upon the precious grain. There was something to sift in Peter; there was nothing to sift in Judas. If we speak to any who are the marks of Satan's fiery darts, let us meet you with this consolation- it is only the true wheat Satan seeks to sift. Notwithstanding all this, not one grain shall perish. It is just the truth we need.

THE SECURITY-
After the great searching, there comes the declaration that allays all our alarm, and fills us with joy and gladness, "Yet shall not the least grain fall upon the earth." Not a particle of the work of God in the soul thus sifted shall perish. It is utterly impossible it should be so. It cost God too much. Peter lost not one grain when his faith was sifted: "I have prayed for you, that your faith fail not;" and you can answer; when God has carried you through dark and deep waters, have you lost anything worth retaining? You may have lost your worldliness and self-confidence; but was that worth retaining? Has Christ ever become less dear to you? Has the throne of grace become less attractive to you? Has the onward path of holiness been less dear to you? Have the saints of God become less lovely to you? Has the Word of God become less sweet to your taste? Oh no! not one grain has fallen to the earth of that Divine grace the Holy Spirit has planted in your soul.

What secured it? They are the beloved of God, and He keeps them; they are the redeemed of Christ, and He secures them to eternal glory. The indwelling of the Spirit secures them. He has taken possession of them forever; and Satan and sin can no more destroy them than they can destroy the being of Jehovah. You may deem this strong language, my reader; but it is strong truth. The day is coming that will sift our Christianity, our religion, and our principles; and woe be to that man that is not held by this threefold power, which alone can keep the believer in the time of trial that is coming upon this world!

The great question arises, What am I? You may have a religion; so has the Pagan. You may have your forms of religion; so has the Papist. You may have your lamp of profession; so had the five foolish virgins. But if God were now to put you into His sieve and test you by His Word, by His law, by His gospel, do you think there would be any precious grain left? Anything that would smooth your last illness, disarm death of its sting, and rob the grave of its terrors? Do you think there would be anything left but the chaff? Oh, search your heart, dear reader! Put the question honestly to your conscience, "What is sin to me? What is God's dear Son to me?" Try yourselves by Jesus. Oh, if you are nothing but chaff, your religion nothing but chaff, your hope nothing but chaff, what will be the solemn issue?

To God's saints would we say- do not shrink from the Lord's siftings. It is but the precious seed the Lord tries. "Search me, O Lord, and try me. I want to be honest and real. I desire whatever is not like Christ to be consumed."

Oh, what a volume of meaning is contained in that word "yet." "Yet shall not the least grain fall upon the earth"- not a particle shall perish; but it shall be preserved and treasured up, and every grain will the Lord place in His garner in the world of everlasting glory. God grant, dear reader, that this may be our happy experience!

Christ Our Joy

"You have sorrow now, but I will see you again; then you will rejoice, and no one can rob you of that joy." John 16:22

In a preceding chapter of this work we adverted to the removal of Christ from His disciples as constituting a cause of deepest sorrow. We purpose, in the present chapter, to speak more fully of the joy with which our blessed Lord sought to counterbalance that grief. It is couched in the promise, "I will see you again." And yet, in the first gush of their sorrow, how entirely they overlooked the blessings enshrouded in this dark cloud! On His return to the Father His whole priesthood, as an Intercessor, depended. His great work of advocacy, the baptism of the Holy Spirit, and all the untold blessings which should accrue to the Church from the abiding indwelling of the Holy Spirit, were suspended upon this one fact in our Lord's history- His retirement from His Church on earth, and His reunion with the Church in heaven.

Thus, dear reader, is it with us. The cloud which shades us, the event which seems the most painful, is often that which, in its issue, is productive of the greatest blessing. But observe how our Lord sought to adapt Himself to the circumstances of His Church: "You have sorrow now, but I will see you again; then you will rejoice, and no one can rob you of that joy." Let us take each particular as it lies before us.

It was no ordinary sorrow which now pressed upon their hearts. Filled as the world was with sorrow at that moment- many eyes weeping, many spirits crushed to the earth- no sorrow could be compared with that which now bowed the hearts of this little band of disciples. What a poor, desolate wilderness did the world now appear to them. Their sun was retiring, and their hearts, like flowers which close when the light withdraws, were draped in shadows. Thus is it with saints of God who are in the habit to sun themselves with the presence of Jesus, and to have their hearts filled with that joy and gladness which flows only and entirely from Him.

When Jesus retires, the heart is closed, and no other joy can inspire and open it. Beloved, this is not unusual. What is Jesus to a spiritually enlightened, believing sinner? He is all in all. Earth would be nothing to him but for Jesus. And what would heaven be without Jesus? Christ is the sun of heaven, the glory of heaven, the bliss of heaven, the heaven of heaven. Oh, could we now part the veil- it will soon rise- what a spectacle would burst upon our view! One object, glorious and exalted, alone fixes the gaze, and myriads of happy spirits encircle Him, as satellites clustering around the sun. Every eye is fixed upon Him- every heart loves Him, and He is the theme of every song that floats from their lips. Is Jesus less dear, less precious to the saints of God on earth? Oh no! He stands to us in the relation of the Consolation of Israel, the Brother, the Friend, the Redeemer, the Intercessor. We cannot dispense with a single office that Jesus fills. We cannot part with one view the Holy Spirit gives us of His fitness and excellence. Jesus is all that we want.

Is it, then, unusual that, when Christ's absence is felt, there should be sorrow? Dear saints of God, this is a test of your Christianity. There are many who can talk well of Christ, and who can repeat Scripture fluently; and yet with all this they may pass days, weeks, months, and years, and know nothing of what that sorrow is which flows from the conscious absence of Jesus. Do you ask why? Simply because they do not know what the presence of Jesus is. Satisfied with an enlightened understanding, with an external ordinance, with an orthodox creed, and knowing not what it was to hold communion and fellowship with Christ, they do not know what that sorrow is that springs from His absence. Consequently, time rolls on and they are utter strangers to this joy of the Lord.

There is one feature we must not overlook- our Lord's notice of their sorrow. Was He indifferent to it? Did He close His heart to it? When did He ever do so? Dear saints of God, the Man of sorrows cannot be indifferent to the sorrows of man. The Prince of sufferers cannot turn away from the sufferings of His people. Jesus knows His people's sorrow. He is acquainted with their grief. He has, so to speak, a bottle for their tears, and a book for their sighs. What! does He preserve them? So precious are they, that they cannot be lost, so dear are they, that they cannot be unobserved. Ah, beloved! Jesus knows our sorrow. Do you think that He is indifferent to you, you weepers at the tomb of an absent Savior- you earnest seekers after Christ, who watch for Him more eagerly and ardently than the weary sufferer watches through the slow hours of his sleepless night for the first break of day?

There is yet another feature exceedingly sweet. Jesus speaks of their sorrow as being a present sorrow. "You now have sorrow." Oh yes! the sorrow of the saint of God, be it what it may, is but a present sorrow. It will soon pass away. Everything here is present. The world is a present evil world- mutability is written upon it all. Its fashions change, its pleasures change, the lusts of the world pass away, its glory fades; yes, and the sorrow of the tried believer is but a present sorrow, and will soon dissolve into happiness and glory forever.

Now, observe the blessed truth by which our Lord promises them a return of joy. "I will see you again." There is a sense in which Jesus never loses sight of His people. We have lost sight of Him times without number; but we have never been out of His eye- no, not a moment: "He withdraws not His eye from the righteous." And in speaking of His vineyard, the Church, it is said, His eye is upon it from the beginning of the year to the end of the year.

But here is a reference to the restored presence of Jesus in order to the restored joy of His disciples. How truly did our Lord fulfil this promise in His resurrection, "I will see you again!" He did see them again after His resurrection, and was with them forty days. What a joyous period was that! "Then were the disciples glad when they saw the Lord." Can we possibly conceive what the joy of the disciples was when they saw their Lord return back from the grave? For three days their joy was entombed, but it was buried only to rise again with increased intensity. Has the Lord ever taken a blessing that He has not more than restored? When the disciples saw His mangled and lifeless body lowered into than tomb, and the stone rolled upon it, they might have thought that in that tomb was buried all their joy forever. But when Jesus rose again, their joy rose with Him; and that joy was a richer, deeper joy than they ever knew before.

O beloved! have we not experienced a joy kindred to this when our absent Savior has drawn near, and once more manifested Himself to us? Oh, how the lost joy has come back again, richer, deeper, and sweeter than before! The very absence of the Savior has but made His presence all the sweeter. Yes, "I will see you again" is still the watchword of the Lord's people. "For a small moment have I forsaken you, but with great mercies will I gather you. In a little wrath I hid my face from you for a moment; but with everlasting kindness will I have mercy on you, says the Lord, your Redeemer." "Thus says the Lord, I am returned to Jerusalem with mercies." Oh, what a truth! I am returned to Jerusalem- with what? with vengeance, because Jerusalem rejected Me, and crucified Me? Oh no! "I am returned to Jerusalem with mercies." Lift up your head, poor mourner, sorrowing bitterly that you have so grieved your Lord that He has suspended His presence. Look up with this precious promise, "I am returned to Jerusalem with mercies."

But this promise of our Lord is yet to receive a fuller and sublimer fulfilment. We look for His Second Coming. The words, "I will see you again," include His glorious Epiphany, when this same Jesus will personally appear in the clouds of heaven, accompanied by the saints who are dead, and to translate the saints who are living. Thus is this glorious truth stated: "Brothers, we do not want you to be ignorant about those who fall asleep, or to grieve like the rest of men, who have no hope. We believe that Jesus died and rose again and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him. According to the Lord's own word, we tell you that we who are still alive, who are left till the coming of the Lord, will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever."

O animating, O holy, O precious truth! O bright and cheering prospect of the coming of our blessed Lord and Savior to see us! Then, indeed, our heart shall rejoice. If the present imperfect view of Jesus fills us with such joy and gladness, oh, what will be the ecstasy of joy when we shall see Him in the clouds of heaven, and exclaim, "Lo, this is my Redeemer: I have waited for Him; I will be glad and rejoice in Him! "

Now observe the permanence of this joy. "And your joy no man takes from you." How transient was the joy of the chief priests and scribes, who vainly thought that when they had slain the Prince of Life they had completely triumphed over the young religion! But oh, how short-lived was their exultation! Jesus came back to life, and, by His resurrection, confirmed and established the faith of His disciples, and no man could take their joy from them.

Our Lord seems to suppose here that the joy of His people would be imperilled; and so it is. Satan would rob us of it if he could. Perpetually is the devil suggesting such thoughts of Christ, of God, and of His word, as would greatly dampen, if not entirely destroy our joy. So would evil men. But so real and permanent is the joy the Lord gives the believer, that neither Satanic suggestion, nor the persecutions of evil men, can possibly take it away. If it were possible to separate us from Christ- for He is our Joy- then were it possible to rob us of this spiritual blessing. But who shall separate the believer from the love of Christ? Your joy "no man [Greek, no power] takes from you."

But have you lost the sensible experience of the joy of the Lord through the prevalence of unbelief, or unevenness of walk? Return to Jesus with David's prayer, "Restore unto me the joy of Your salvation." What does Jesus say? "I will see you again." And you shall see Jesus again with a freshly-anointed eye of faith; and, looking off from yourself to Him, your joy shall be full, and that joy no power shall take from you.

Sin Confessed and Forsaken

Then I acknowledged my sin to you and did not cover up my iniquity. I said, "I will confess my transgressions to the Lord"– and you forgave the guilt of my sin. Psalm 32:5

The great controversy which God has with man is that which concerns His own holiness. God is essentially holy, and He has exhibited and shielded His holiness at the expense of His heart's dearest treasure- the sacrifice of His beloved Son, upon whom He laid the iniquities of His people. The great end of all His dealings with His saints is to bring them into the deeper experience of this truth- to know, to confess, and to forsake sin: "By this therefore shall the iniquity of Jacob be purged; and this is all the fruit to take away his sin." And this is the blessed end of His chastenings, even for "our profit, that we might be made partakers of His holiness."

But there is a beautiful connection here which we wish in this chapter to illustrate- the relation of confession and forgiveness of sin: "I said, I will confess, and You forgave." A subject entering more deeply into spiritual religion does not invite our attention than this. You will observe that a heartfelt acknowledgment of sin to God is closely connected with His full, free, and immediate remission of that sin. Men endeavor to sever these two by substituting a general and spurious acknowledgment of sin, and so cherish a general and spurious notion of the pardon of sin. But what God has thus joined He will never disannul. He will bring it home to the consciences of His own people, that a true, heartfelt acknowledgment of sin shall ever be connected with a clear sense of the full forgiveness of that sin. We consider the subject in its three particulars: penitence- confession- forgiveness.

PENITENCE-
Language could not be stronger in expressing the deep conviction of sin as employed in this passage. David seems to exhaust the vocabulary of words: "my sin" "my iniquity" "my transgression" and, as if to crown it, "the iniquity of my sin." Here was no floating upon the surface of sin. Here was no attempt at that refining away of sin by those nice distinctions which some minds are prepared to make. Here was no scanning the sin of others, which the great mass are so ready to do, to the blinding and hindering of their own.

Mark this, my reader, that man who is most ready to uncover the sin of another, is the most ready to conceal his own. The Pharisee had many stones to cast at the poor trembling woman whom they dragged into Christ's presence, but not one to cast at themselves! But when Jesus turned the light in upon their own consciences, in a moment they were silent, and went out one by one and left the guilty accuse in the presence of the Righteous and Saving One.

The great mass of men know nothing of sin. It is appalling to think that the great and the only controversy God has with men, men are ignorant of. What is that controversy? It is sin. Why famine? why pestilence? why war? The answer is sin. If He touches you in your property, in your family, or in your person, it is because of sin, and the fruit of it all is to bring you to know and to acknowledge how exceedingly sinful you are in His sight. And you have lost the great end He had in all His dealings with you if they result not in the prostration of your whole soul before God under a sense of your vileness. For what was the law of God revealed? To demonstrate His holiness "By the law is the knowledge of sin." What is the end of the gospel? To reflect His holiness still more gloriously. Bright as is the mirror of the law, the gospel is still brighter, in which we see how infinitely, gloriously holy is the Lord God. Take the sacrifice of His Son- there is the most glorious unfolding of man's sinfulness and God's holiness. When He took that sinless Lamb, that impeccable Savior, bound Him upon the altar of justice, and consumed Him with the fire of His wrath- oh, it was to demonstrate to this guilty world that He was a God of spotless holiness, and man was a hell-deserving sinner, and could not be saved but as the innocent suffered for the guilty!

But now let us turn to the case of David. Oh, what music God brought out from his sorrowful soul! It is delightful to see what a personal matter David made of it. My sin- my iniquity- my transgression- the iniquity of my sin. Our sins cannot be charged to another, except only, in simple faith, to Him who bore them as our Divine Surety. The sinner is accountable to God for his own transgressions, and shall be finally dealt with- saved or condemned- upon his own individual responsibility. This is one sign of true repentance- for a man to see his sin to be his own, and to be brought to lay his mouth in the dust before God, and to acknowledge it, and say, "My sin."

Let us now turn to the penitential acknowledgment of David of his sin to the Lord. He confessed his sin: "I said, I will confess my transgressions unto the Lord." The frequent mention by the Holy Spirit of this Christian duty, the relation in which it stands to the glory of God, and the immense blessings of which it is the channel, mark it as a matter of the greatest moment. Yet, even in the Church of God, we know of no spiritual duty upon the surface of which Christians more rest, more set aside and overlook, than this one- the confession of sin to God.

We cannot but mark the hesitancy of David's mind, and consequent anguish of his soul, before he was brought to this acknowledgment: "When I kept silence, my bones waxed old through my roaring all the day long. For day and night Your hand was heavy upon me: my moisture is turned into the drought of summer."

"When I kept silence,"- when he hid his sin, and refused to acknowledge it, then did all the anguish of his soul come in like a flood. Do not overlook this feature. It may be a word of comfort to some who scan this page. He was brought to this acknowledgment with great reluctance and hesitancy; it was not until God, as it were, placed him upon a rack. If you are wise and thoughtful to learn, you will see a volume of most blessed truth in this.

But he was now brought to acknowledge his sin. Oh, how forcible his language! It sets forth the character of his sin: "I acknowledge my sin; mine iniquity have I not hid: I will confess my transgression;" as if he would exhaust all language in setting forth the deep sense he had of the blessedness of unveiling his heart before God in confession of sin. He did not conceal his sin, as did Achan; he did not deny it, as did Ananias and Sapphira; he did not extenuate it, as did Adam; but he frankly, fully, and freely acknowledged it. We have a striking reference to Adam's attempted concealment of his sin in Job 31:33. Job is speaking of his frank acknowledgment of sin; he says, "If I covered any transgressions as Adam, by hiding my iniquity in my bosom." Now, the whole posterity of Adam just do as he did: they wrap up their sins in their bosom- a sure evidence that they belong to him. Beloved, sin creates a shyness of God. Why did Adam wrap up his sin? He was afraid of God- he shrunk from God's presence and eye. Oh yes! there is a tendency to this in every child of God. When guilt is on the conscience, he loses the filial nearness he once had, and, as it were, hides himself from God, and does not fully confess to God his sin.

In explaining what true confession of sin is, I would remark, that the confession of many is no confession at all. Do you ask me why? Because it is not a minute, honest, frank acknowledgment of sin to God. What does God say? "Blessed is the man in whose spirit there is no deceit." Here, observe, deceit is spoken of in connection with the acknowledgment of transgression. How much deceit there may be in many of us in confession of sin to God, He only knows. We cannot but think there was some latent guile in Moses' confession to God in Exodus 4. God bid him go to Egypt. Moses excuses himself: "Lord, I am not eloquent; but I am slow of speech, and of a slow tongue." This was his excuse. But God knew there was something that he had not honestly, fully confessed. What was it? God tells him, "Go, return to Egypt, for all the men are dead which sought your life." Here was the secret wherefore he hesitated to go. It was unbelieving fear- an unmanly trembling for his life. God will have no reserves in our confessions to Him of sin. He will have us open all our hearts to Him in the same confidence with which He has opened His.

But overlook not this truth, for it is of great moment- one individual may take up the confession of another, and yet be a total stranger to true confession. It was a law, under the Levitical economy, that if a man touched only the waters of purification in which another had been cleansed, he was unclean. Now, just what the waters of purification were, is the confession of sin. A man may adopt another's confession of sin, quote his language, and counterfeit his spirit, and yet be utterly unacquainted with a genuine sense and acknowledgment of sin before God. I may breathe the publican's prayer, the briefest, yet the most comprehensive of all prayers; but if I have not his prostration of spirit, his profound sense of vileness, his sincere penitence, what does it avail me? On the contrary, is there not a fearful augmentation of guilt, an enormous increase of iniquity, in adopting a form of confession while destitute of real brokenness of heart?

Having endeavored to lay before the reader in what true confession of sin consists, let me place before him, in two or three points of light, the true posture of CONFESSION. We find it in Lev. 16:2I "And Aaron shall lay both his hands upon the head of the live goat, and confess over him all the iniquities of the children of Israel, and all their transgressions in all their sins, putting them upon the head of the goat, and shall send him away by the hand of a fit man into the wilderness." Behold the posture! the hands laid upon the head of the live goat, and so confessing sin. The gospel of this is glorious! What is the true posture for confessing your sin but laying your hand of faith upon Christ him self? It is beneath the cross of the Incarnate God that true confession is made- with the eye of faith upon the great oblation for that very transgression which we honestly and penitentially confess.

That is a striking passage in Hos. 14:1: "O Israel, return unto the Lord; for you have fallen by your iniquity." How shall I return? comes the question from the heart. The answer is, "Take with you words." What words? Oh, take with you the words of God himself. Tell Him He has given His Son to die for sinners; tell Him there is pardon for the vilest in the blood of the Savior; and remind Him of His promises of forgiveness to the humble and the penitential soul.

Beloved, great are the blessings which spring from confession of sin. Would you know the believer who has the most tender conscience, who most earnestly desires to walk uprightly, closely, holily with God? I would unhesitatingly point you to him who is much at God's confessional; who has his hand much upon the head of the Lamb; who is much where the purple stream flows; in other words, who is much in the confession of sin. He is the most searching, self-examining man; his conscience is the most tender, his enjoyment is the richest.

Oh, it is utterly impossible for a child of God to be found much in the confession of sin- of what are called little sins- and not walk with a tender, honest conscience. Oh, there are no little sins! If there were a little God, if there were a little Savior, if there were a little hell, there would be little sins! There are no little sins with God. But for a child of God to confess what are called little sins- sins which some consider as no sins, transgressions which are overlooked as the violation of human laws only, but which involve principles hostile to his own soul and to God's glory- he is the one who knows what the happy walk is.

FORGIVENESS-
This brings us to the comfort which David felt in connection with, the confession of his sins. How expressive are his words: "I said, I will confess my transgressions unto the Lord; and You FORGAVE the iniquity of my sin." Ah! had he not so long kept silence, but come at once to the confession of sin, he would not have known the deep anguish he experienced. In asserting the relation which exists between the confession of sin and its pardon, let me not be misunderstood. The confession of sin is not the cause of its pardon- the moving cause is God's free, unmerited grace; it is the blood of Jesus. God pardons from the fulness of His mercy, and on the ground of the Savior's sacrifice.

But the confession of sin is the channel by which God speaks comfort to the soul. There are several examples in which this is strikingly illustrated. "And David said unto Nathan, I have sinned against the Lord"- there was the acknowledgment. "And Nathan said unto David, The Lord also has put away your sin"- there was the forgiveness. That, too, is a striking passage- "I have declared my ways, and You heard me." I declared my ways- I confessed my sin; my ways have been crooked, but I declared them, and You heard me. Oh, what a God thus to bow down His ears to such an acknowledgment!

Those are precious words in John's epistle, "If we CONFESS our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins." Believer in Christ! this is one of the most precious truths that could engage your thoughts- the connection between the honest and heartfelt acknowledgment of sin, and God's full and free forgiveness written upon the conscience. When was it the father rose to welcome home his child? was it not when he said, "I will arise, and go to my father, and will say to him, I have sinned?" The moment the father heard the echo of his voice, he went out, and advanced to meet and welcome back his child. If you want to know the sense of pardoned sin in your conscience, you must know what the honest and sincere confession of that sin is beneath the cross.

In closing, let me remark, that it is possible this subject may address itself to those who are living in a mere formal confession of sin. Do not over look our reference to the waters of purification. Beware of mere cold, premeditated forms of confession! Multitudes use them without any enlightened sense, with no real or true acknowledgment of sin. Do not be deceived. You may read Daniel's confession over and over again without Daniel's repentance. You may repeat the publican's prayer a thousand times, and know nothing experimentally of the publican's real confession.

Have you really felt your sins to be a burden? Have you truly felt the plague of your heart? If so, you will not rest in a mere form of acknowledgment, but will find thoughts, and feelings, and words welling up from the lowest depths of your soul, to express to the Lord that you feel yourself to be a poor, hell-deserving sinner; casting yourself upon the mercy of God in Christ Jesus.

This subject, also, may address itself to many who are entire strangers to all confession of sin whatever- who have never really bent the knee before God in prayer and contrition for sin. But oh, living and dying without a real conviction and confession of sin before God, hell must be your portion! There is no escaping this awful conclusion. No man enters heaven who has not found, beneath the cross, the ear of a sin-pardoning God; who has not laid his hand of faith on the head of the atoning Lamb, acknowledging his guilt, and accepting in faith the blood that effaces it.

To God's saints would I say, In all your sins and conscious departures be beforehand with Satan. Do you ask what I mean? Satan is the great accuser of the brethren; and if you do not accuse yourself, Satan will accuse you, and you know what his accusations are! Go and accuse yourself before God; give your adversary no opportunity, but, anticipating his indictment, go and confess your sins before the Lord; and oh, you shall know what it is to meet the glance of a sin-pardoning Father, and shall know the "blessedness of the man whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered."

To this thought we would add a kindred one: By this confession of sin you will disarm God of His judgments; for, "if we judge ourselves," says the apostle, "we shall not be judged." If you do take the judgment-seat against yourself, you shall stay His chastening hand; for all His corrections are to this end, that you may see and acknowledge yourself to be a sinner. What was the end of all Job's trials? It was found in one brief expression: "I am vile; wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes." But if you are found confessing sin, not wrapping it up in your heart, but going to the slain Lamb, traveling to the blood of atonement, and, as a child, opening all your heart to God, God will stay His chastening hand, and, instead of covering you with the dark cloud of His anger, He will sun you with the radiant smile of His love.

Then I acknowledged my sin to you and did not cover up my iniquity. I said, "I will confess my transgressions to the Lord"– and you forgave the guilt of my sin.

"ONLY ACKNOWLEDGE YOUR INIQUITY." Jer. 3:13.

The Man of God under Reproach

Many there be which say of my soul, There is no help for him in God. Selah. But thou, O Lord, art a shield for me; my glory, and the lifter up of mine head. Psalm 3:2-3

Many are saying of me, "God will not deliver him." But you are a shield around me, O Lord; you bestow glory on me and lift up my head. Psalm 3:2-3

So many are saying, "God will never rescue him!" But you, O Lord, are a shield around me, my glory, and the one who lifts my head high. Psalm 3:2-3

Here was a man of God in circumstances of, perhaps, one of the keenest trials that could touch the heart. What was David's position when he breathed out his soul thus to God? He was a fugitive from his throne, a wanderer from his kindred- the son of his heart, his idolized Absalom, plotting treason against the kingdom, and thirsting to imbrue his hands in his parent's blood. Leagued in this plot were his confidential counselors and bosom friends; while the feeling of the populace seemed to favor this treachery of his son. But in the midst of it all his faith triumphed, as faith, if it be the faith of God's elect, though it be tried as with fire, always will triumph.

We are now about to contemplate, perhaps, one of the most instructive pages in the remarkable history of this man of God. The subject seems to present itself in two points of view: THE PAINFUL REPROACH with which the enemies of David sought to afflict his soil: "Many there be which say of my soul, There is no help for him in God;" and THE POSTURE OF HIS SOUL BENEATH THAT REPROACH: "But you, O Lord, are my shield, my glory, and the lifter up of mine head."

It was A PAINFUL AND MALICIOUS REPROACH with which his friends thus taunted the tried and troubled soul of this man of God. In their view his case was forlorn and desperate. They saw his son plotting the downfall of his kingdom, and seeking to walk over the murdered body of his own father to the throne. They saw the huge billows of trouble rolling over the soul of the king of Israel and, to their short-sighted view, he had no avenue for escape. But, what was to David's heart a sword piercing yet deeper than all, was the declaration that God was his enemy; that even the heart of infinite love was closed against him, and the arm of infinite power too short to reach his case.

To assail his throne, to touch his person, were as nothing to David compared with limiting the love and restraining the power of his own covenant God. This was the bitterest element in the cup which now touched his lips; this the keenest thrust with which they pierced his heart: "There is no help for you in God."

Now, is the case of David a solitary one? Does he stand alone, beloved, in this remarkable feature of Christian experience? Ah no! it is but a type, more or less vivid, of the experience of every man of God; of all who are partakers of the Divine life, and who share in the sure mercies of David. Where is the path trodden by a believer in Jesus that has never been trodden before? If, my reader, the footprint of no fellow traveler to glory is seen, there is yet a deeper and a broader footprint. It is not the footprint of the sheep, but of the Shepherd of the sheep. And it will be found recorded in Matt. 27:42, 43. Christ was now hanging upon the cross, suffering in your stead; and His enemies thus taunted Him, "He saved others, Himself He cannot save. He trusted in God, let Hint deliver Him."

Behold the footprint of Jesus! If we see not David, we can see David's Lord tracing the very path along which He leads His own chosen and beloved flock. There hung the Son of God in the weakness and desertion of His human nature- His enemies taunting Him- betrayed by one disciple, denied by another, forsaken by all. But far beyond this, the darkest cloud of all was the veiling of His Father's countenance, the hiding of His Father's smile; and now, in the depth of His soul's agony, they cast the taunt into His pale and quivering face. Oh, beloved, how deeply instructive to our soul is this part of our subject! Oh that, while we meditate, there may be the inward power of God the blessed Spirit, going with the truth, writing it upon our hearts! But turn we again to God's saints.

Under what circumstances are we sometimes exposed to this malicious taunt of our enemies? It is a common suggestion of Satan to poor sin burdened, Christ-seeking souls, that there is no salvation in Christ for them, though there may be for others. Doubtless, some who ponder this page can bear testimony to this truth, that such was just their case when they first set out in the Divine life. This was just their temptation and their stumbling block. "I know He saved others; I know He saved Saul of Tarsus; but will He save me? I know there is salvation in Christ for poor sinners; but will Jesus save me? My case seems so peculiar- is there salvation in Christ for such an one as I, who have stifled so many convictions, resisted so many warnings, and disregarded so many invitations?"

Where did these thoughts come from? Oh, they came from your greatest enemy, who seeks to retain you in his power, and to close up your path to the cross. Taking advantage, too, of the Divine chastisements, how often does Satan represent God as hostile to the believer! He corrects us, and we thank Him that He does, for there would be lacking one of the strongest evidences of your sonship were you exempt from the discipline of the family. Thus, next to the inward witness of the Spirit, we may place the parental discipline of our God. But Satan, taking advantage of the sorrow of the trial, suggests "See how He tries you! What! Is this like a God of infinite love and wisdom? Is this like a Father?" And how ready is unbelief to second these malicious reproaches and accusations of Satan! How prompt our unbelieving heart to suggest the inquiry, "Can God- will God help one now?" Ah, how often have we echoed Satan's cruel taunt, "There is no help for you, my soul, in God."

But we turn to the answer. And in doing so mark, in the outset, a most instructive fact in the experience of David under this smarting reproach. Oh, it is worthy of your profoundest study. What is the fact? He appeals to God. Where else could he flee? There was no help for him in man. The crystal cistern of created help was now flowing fast away, and was well-near dried. But he approaches God. With one breath he falsifies their accusation. They told him, "There was no help for him in God." His soul turns to that very God they denounce, and he exclaims, "You, O Lord, are my shield, my glory, and the lifter up of my head."

Saints of God! I have remarked that this part of his experience is worthy of your profoundest study. To see David at the very moment when his unbelief might have succumbed to the assertion of his enemies, moving towards, and appealing to that very Jehovah whom his friends were reviling- oh, it is a most instructive and consolatory spectacle!

Now, observe WHAT GOD REALLY IS TO HIS PEOPLE and oh may the Spirit lead us into this truth! Notwithstanding the malicious taunts of your enemies, what, my reader, is God really to His people? Just what He was to David: "You, O Lord; are my shield, my glory, and the lifter up of my head." Take that one piece of the Christian's armor- the shield: What a Divine protection is here! GOD is our shield. All the perfections of Jehovah encircle the child of God. The very heart of Jehovah encloses and encircles him. The arrow must first pierce the heart of God before it reaches the man of God.

And what a shield is the Lord Jesus! See how blessedly He revealed Himself to His trembling servant "Fear not, Abram, I am your shield." And who was this? It was Jesus- that same Jesus who appeared to the banished apostle in the Isle of Patmos, and said, "Fear not; I am He that lives and was dead, and ant alive forevermore." Oh, what a shield is Jesus! He has shielded us from the curse of the law- from the vengeance of justice- from the power of sin- and from the very pit of hell.

What more? "You are my glory." What is the true glory of the believer? Not rank, nor distinction, nor wealth, nor influence, nor gifts. Oh no! The glory of the believer is that he has God for his Father, Christ for his Elder Brother, and stands in the righteousness of the Savior, and all his boast and glory is in the Lord Jesus. But not only this, but His people desire to live for His glory. It is the highest ambition of the child of God to walk so as to fear, and to live so as to honor Him. Is the Lord our glory? Are we living for Him? Is it our glory to lay ourselves out for Him? Then, "My soul shall make her boast in the Lord."

What more do the saints need? Is it deliverance? They have it- "The lifter up of my head." See how God lifted up David's. It hung with shame for Absalom. The man of valor, who had slain Goliath was now fleeing from his child, but God lifted him up. Oh, how low the head of the believer is laid at times, who can tell? Self-shame casts it down; the taunts of our enemies cast it down; sorrow, feeding like a canker-worm at the heart, casts it down; and that head seems as though it would never rise again! But God lifts it up, and bathes it in the sunshine of joy and gladness.

Dear reader, thank God for all these assaults of your enemies. They come not by chance, but are permitted by Him who loves you. Why are they permitted? To impel you within your refuge. Oh, then, take your every temptation, your every false suggestion, your every trial, and let it be an argument and a plea why you should go to God; and do not forget to meet all the accusations of your enemy with God's Word.

Do your enemies say, "There is no help for you in God? " God says there is help. Listen to the declarations of this: "Happy are you, O Israel: who is like unto you, O people saved by the Lord, the SHIELD of your HELP, and the sword of your excellency! And your enemies shall be found liars unto you." David proved them to be liars; Satan is a liar- unbelief is a liar- all are liars who say, "There is no help for you in God." You will not forget the sheet anchor of Luther: "God is our refuge and strength, a very present HELP in trouble." But you shall have the words of God himself: "Fear not; for I am with you, do not be dismayed; for I am your God I will strengthen you; yes, I will HELP you; yes; I will uphold you with the right hand of my righteousness."

But suppose your enemy should say, "Yes, God is the help of His people when He brings them to trouble; but when they bring themselves into trouble by their own sin and folly, He leaves them" -meet them with God's own word: "O Israel, you have destroyed yourself; but in me is your HELP." Yes, there is help for you, poor believer, in Jesus. Come now to the Savior; take your burden to His Divine arm, your guilt to His precious blood, and see if there is not help in Christ for your poor, trembling, anxious soul. Oh, put your trust, saints of God, in your own covenant-God, for God will honor those who trust in Him, and will prove all your enemies to be liars; while He stands by and declares there is help for you in Himself, and so prove Himself to be a God of truth.

Religious Progression

"Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus." Philip. 3:13-14

"No, dear friends, I am still not all I should be, but I am focusing all my energies on this one thing: Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead, I strain to reach the end of the race and receive the prize for which God, through Christ Jesus, is calling us up to heaven." Philip. 3:13-14

We have in these words a practical comment upon a truth which often engages the anxious study of the man of God- namely, the difficulty of salvation: "The righteous scarcely are saved." If any man might indolently have presumed upon the certainty of his salvation, it was Paul. So remarkable and miraculous were the attendant circumstances of his conversion, they could scarcely have left the shadow of a doubt upon his mind as to the reality of his salvation. Yet, conscious as he must have been that he had passed from death unto life, assured as he was that all who thus had passed from death unto life should enter glory, behold the noble spirit of this heavenly-minded man of God: "Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus." In expounding these words, let us consider THE DIGNITY- THE GOAL- THE PRIZE of the man of God.

THE DIGNITY-
THE DIGNITY OF THE CHRISTIAN CHARACTER is beautifully placed before us in this one phrase, "the high calling of God." Under this denomination "the called of God," 'the whole family' are brought, sooner or later. In their Adamic nature they are "children of wrath, even as others." In Adam, they are dead, under the curse, exposed to eternal wrath; but sooner or later, by the mighty power of God the Spirit, are they brought out of that state, and are classified as a called people.

I might remark that, in a large and a very solemn sense, every man who hears the gospel is an outwardly called individual. From this truth there is no escape. No refining in theology, no plausible creed can demolish it. We should withhold from you the whole counsel of God, and be justly chargeable with blood-guiltiness, did we hold back the truth that every man and woman sitting under the sound of the gospel is, by that gospel, a called individual, and for the refusal or rejection of that call is accountable to God. We learn in Luke's Gospel, that the invitation to the great supper was sent out to all- the image of the glorious gospel which the Lord, in His holy mountain, had prepared for all people." "Many are called, but few are chosen."

Yes, my reader, nothing can release you from the solemn obligation, the awful responsibility of hearing the gospel. Your inability does not release you, your blindness of mind, your hardness of heart, do not excuse you no, if you are found rejecting this gospel, turning a deaf ear to the charmer's voice, trampling upon the glorious invitations of a free-grace salvation, your present excuse will but augment your future woe; and from the throne of eternal justice, where you must give an account of all the sermons you have heard, the awful voice will speak, "I CALLED, and you refused; I stretched out any hand, and no man regarded; but you have set at nothing all my counsel, and would have none of any reproof. I also will laugh at your calamity, I will mock when your fear comes." Oh, better never to have seen the light of day, or to have felt one throb of life, than to go down to everlasting punishment, having heard of Christ but to despise Him; having heard the gospel but to refuse its acceptance!

But in an especial sense the saints of God are a called people. To one or two passages, in which the Holy Spirit brings out this truth so strikingly, we must beg the reader's attention. "We know," (oh yes, not because others have testified of it, but because we have felt it ourselves,) "We know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the CALLED according to His purpose." Observe, "Whom He did predestinate, them He also CALLED." We dare not break that chain, we dare not sever these links.
That, too, is a striking passage in Jude, "Jude, the servant of Jesus Christ, to those who are sanctified by God the Father; and preserved in Jesus Christ, and CALLED." The apostle Peter, that dear apostle, at whose feet we would oftener sit than at any other, because he could teach us what others could not, in consequence of his fall and recovery, thus exhorts the saints; "Wherefore the rather, brethren, give diligence to make your CALLING and election sure" make it evident. Again, "Among whom are you also the CALLED of Jesus Christ," "CALLED to be saints." What truth can be clearer than this, that the saints of God are a CALLED people.

It is the way God brings His banished ones to Himself. In the first Adam they are far off, "The promise is unto you, and to your children, and to all that are afar off, even to as many as the Lord our God shall CALL." Oh, how far from God were some of us when that effectual and blessed call of the Spirit reached our ears! Yet, far off though we were, we heard that call, and by God's grace we obeyed it.

But look at the character of the believer's calling. Truly, it is a high calling. It is so because it is a divine and heavenly calling. It is not the calling of man, but the calling of God. It is not a calling to earthly dignity, it is a calling to a heavenly state- "the high calling of God," "called of God" -and the apostle thus addresses the saints: "Wherefore, holy brethren, partakers of the heavenly calling." Who but GOD could call us? We heard the outward call of the ministry, and resisted it; we heard the external call of the gospel, and we closed our ears against it; we heard the call of Providence, and we hardened our hearts against its voice; but there came a divine and heavenly call- it came from God-I t came from heaven- it reached our hearts, and it awoke the response, "Speak, Lord, for Your servant hears."

Whose voice but His can call the dead from the grave? Whose voice but His can call Ephraim away from his idols? Whose voice but His can call the worldling from his worldliness? Whose voice but His can call the covetous man from his covetousness? Whose voice but His can call the rebel to ground his weapons, and become reconciled to God? It was asked of old, "Who has heard the voice of God and lived?"

Oh yes; it is a heavenly calling- there is nothing of earth in it. It is heavenly in its origin, heavenly in its nature, heavenly in all its tendencies. The affections are heavenly, the desires are heavenly, the heart is heavenly; it came from heaven, and it lifts to heaven. To what a holy relation is the believer called! Is it no honor or dignity to be called a saint? What is a saint? Take the world's definition- a fanatic, an enthusiast, all that is contemptible and ignoble in intellect! But to be called a saint is to have a place among God's holy ones; it is to be a partaker of the divine nature, to be a transcript of God's holiness.

Oh, the high dignity of being a saint! of having implanted in the soul that germ of holiness that will expand until every thought of the mind, and every affection of the soul, shall be perfected in God's holiness! And what a high calling is our adoption to the relationship of children! To be called a child of God- taken into His family, and admitted to all the privileges of sons and of daughters, is the noblest relation to which the soul can be admitted.

The privileges belonging to this high calling stamp its greatness. Is it no high privilege to be in a state of agreement with God?- to have the smile of your Father ever beaming down upon you? What a privilege, too, is access to God! Does God condescend to call you His child, and Himself your Father, and yet banish you from all communion? Impossible! We may live inferior to our high calling, but God never loses sight of it. He has provided for our communion, and bids us draw near. Oh, is it no privilege to take all our cares and our sorrows to our Father? to pour out our needs to Him who loves us? Esteem it, my reader, the sweetest, holiest privilege of the man of God this side heaven.

THE GOAL-
Let us proceed to show that the Lord Jesus Christ is the "mark" or goal towards which the believer should be pressing. Observe the state after which this man of God aimed. He strove after a loftier, holier advancement in this high and heavenly calling. See his self-renunciation "I count not myself to have apprehended." How different from the estimation which all his brethren had of him! They thought him a giant, he knew himself to be a dwarf; they regarded him as the chief of the apostles, he knew himself to be "less than the least of all saints."

Learn to estimate lightly, in a sense, by the laudatory and kind opinion of man. Let it have no unholy or elevating effect upon your mind; but, when others commend you, go and lay your mouth in the dust before God. Oh, what an evidence of a man of God is this self-renunciation! No man can advance in this high calling who has not this for his starting-post. God raises us from the valley. He lifts us from the dust. God never confers any especial honor or grace upon His children but He first lays them low. If God is so dealing with you now, expect an especial blessing "Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended." O Lord, give us this crucifixion of self!

Then observe the intensity of his soul, "This one thing I do." It was the only thing really important in his estimation- before it everything else gave way. "This one thing I do." And what was that one thing? It was advancement in his high calling- to become a holier saint, a closer imitator of Christ. All other things compared with this seemed less than nothing; and this one thing awoke the profoundest intensity of his ardent soul. Oh, were this with us the one thing, there would be less infliction of the rod, less chastening, less trial, less wounding and disappointment in the absence and failure of all others!

Observe, too, his oblivion of the past: "forgetting those things that are behind." What things? His sins? Oh no! these he never forgot. His days of unregeneracy, when he thirsted for the blood of the saints? No! this he ever remembered with the deepest self-abasement. The mercies of the Lord that strewed his path? No! not one faded from his memory. What, then, would he forget? His past spiritual attainments; these he would not rest in. He seemed to say, "I will forget my past attainments- attainments in knowledge and in grace; they shall not be the limit of my spiritual progression: I will press forward as one that has not apprehended, as he who had made no attainment whatever in the Divine life." This was the point after which his mighty soul panted.

How many Christians imagine that they have gone the length and breadth of the good land, because they have just tasted the milk and the honey, they imagine they have quaffed all the fulness God has provided? How much there is of which we, as yet, know but a little! How much we need a deeper knowledge of God- of the riches there are in Christ Jesus- of the giving up of some fond idol that has taken the place of Jesus! Forgetting the victories already won, and pressing on to still more brilliant achievements in the Christian warfare, to still profounder and loftier attainments in this high and heavenly calling, should be the one thing we do.

"I press toward the mark." The allusion is to him who, in the Grecian games, had his eye fixed upon the goal. His eye was not upon the prize, but upon the mark; the prize was beyond it, and so he pressed on in the race. What is the "mark" of the believer? What but the Lord Jesus Christ. Looking unto Jesus, he runs the race set before him. The original here is most expressive. The Greek conveys the idea of enlargement or scope. The Lord Jesus Christ is the scope where the believer ranges. He is the scope of both the Old and New Testament. Both point to Jesus. He is the substance and glory of both. He is the scope of the law, for He is its end; He is the scope of the gospel, for He is its substance; He is the scope of the Christian graces, for they all spring from union to Him; He is the scope of the promises, for they are all yes and amen in Him.

The apostle had his eye on Jesus. He looked to Jesus while he ran: "I press toward the mark- Jesus my mark- my scope. Let us "run the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus." How could we run without looking to Jesus, our mark? What real advance can we make looking to ourselves? But looking only to Christ, as bearing us on His heart before His Father in heaven, the most tried and the weakest child of God can press onward in the race, and attain to lofty degrees of perfection in this high and heavenly calling.

This looking to the "mark " also implies an ardent desire for a close resemblance to Christ. Who can study Christ and not be, in some measure, like Him? What perfects the student in his art? A close study of his model. So our looking to Christ will, perhaps imperceptibly to ourselves, assimilate us to His image, and others beholding us will take knowledge that we have been with Christ, and learned of Him.

The encouragement is great. The prize is beyond the mark. First Jesus- then the prize. No crown without the cross; no heaven without the atonement. If you are looking for the prize, and not to the mark of the prize, you will never reach it. There is no path to the incorruptible crown but by Jesus. Bearing His cross, and denying yourselves, you shall know what it is to wear the incorruptible crown, "which the Lord, the righteous Judge, shall give you at that day."

In conclusion, what a solemn question, agitating many hearts- "How may I know that I am called? It was an affliction that first brought me to think of my soul. God laid His hand upon the dear one of my heart; or, He touched my property; or, He touched my health. This was His voice." Well, be it so. Will you doubt your Divine calling because He called you in the storm and in the tempest? God has "other servants " whom He sends out when His gospel is resisted. He has touched you where you feel the keenest; laid you upon a bed of sickness, or "enclosed you within the house of mourning, and there you have heard His voice."

But I am still afraid I am not one of God's called ones? " Is Jesus precious to your heart? Do you mourn for sin? Ah, my reader, those tears are godly tears. The Spirit has broken up that fountain of feeling, and you weep. Is it your desire and aim to be a more holy child of God- to be a more Christ-like follower of the Lamb? Oh, then, you are one of the called ones. That which is in you came from heaven, and to heaven it ascends; it came from God, and to God it leads. It marks you to be a new creature in Christ Jesus.

But, I would say, rest not in the region of doubt and uncertainty; seek advancement in the Divine life. Do not limit yourself; forget past attainments, and press onward, fixing your eye upon Christ, your Mark, your Leader, your Pattern, your Scope; and then the glorious prize shall be yours. Walk worthy of the high vocation where with you are called, you saints of God! Lay aside whatever is contrary to its heavenliness. "Walk worthy, of the Lord unto all pleasing, being fruitful in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God," and soon the prize will be yours!

Methinks I see it prepared to encircle the brow of some who have almost reached it. Methinks I see the gemmed crown glistening before the eye of those who are ready to exclaim, "The time of my departure is at hand. I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith: henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, shall give me at that day." Yes, the prize awaits you, saint of God! And you who overcome shall sit down with the Savior on His throne, wearing that starry diadem, even as He overcame, and is sat down upon His throne.

Good and Evil Alike From God

"Shall we receive good at the hands of the Lord, and shall we not receive evil?" -Job 2:10

Many religious speculatists have endeavored to represent Job as a fictitious character. But those who know anything spiritually of the truth of God in their hearts, well know that his experience so singularly corresponds with their own, that, if they accept his as mere fiction, they must denounce their own as such. If we believe the profound, spiritual, and instructive truths that compose his remarkable history to be mere figments of the imagination, illustrative of anything else than the path along which God leads all His saints in the wilderness to glory, then we must believe that all we have experienced, assimilating with his story, to be the mere hallucinations of a wild imagination. No, my reader, Job was a man of God- a man after God's own heart; and all the dealings of God with him were designed to teach the Church of God some of its most spiritual and blessed lessons to the remotest age of the world.

From his peculiar history we have selected but a very small portion, yet containing a truth such as could only be gleaned from a direct revelation from God Himself. May the Spirit of truth give us, if but in the merest outline, a heartfelt experience of its holy instruction and comfort.

This striking declaration of Job involves a great truth, that, in the experience of the man of God, both good and evil flow from the same Divine Source; and that if we receive at God's hand good, shall we not cheerfully accept, as from the same hand, those trying, afflictive dispensations which are not the less tokens of His love, and work out the good which their somber character conceals?

"Shall we receive good at the hands of the Lord, and shall we receive evil?" The words begin, where every child of God ought, when he takes up his pen to record the darkest periods of his history- with THE GOODNESS OF GOD. Some have scales only for trials; some dip their pencil only in dark colors. They are eloquent and fluent while describing God's trying dispensations; but ask them about their mercies, the bright lights in their picture, the verdant, flowery carpeting of their landscape- and, alas! they are dumb.

In speaking of the goodness of God, we can find no parallel. It is so peculiar, so like itself, we are at a loss for comparison; all imagery, symbol, and type seem to vanish the moment we attempt to unfold the Divine goodness. We sometimes compare it to a fountain- that fountain may dry, but the fountain of God's goodness never dries. We contrast it with the sun- that sun has no light of its own, it draws every beam from God Himself, the Fountain of light- but the goodness of God is essential and eternal. Oh, how does all imagery fade into utter insignificance when we attempt to unfold what God is! Yet, we may speak of that- and what is sweeter than all, we may experience that- to which we can find no comparison, the goodness of God.

The world is the recipient of God's goodness. Oh, it is an affecting thought, a solemn truth- this ungodly world is at this moment sunning itself in the beams of God's goodness, yet throwing back in His face nothing but blasphemy, infidelity, and sin. Does this truth find an application to your heart, my reader? Does it, like a mirror, reflect your moral image? Are you like that rock, warmed with beams and moist with dew, yet yielding no fruit? Are you like the sand that belts the ocean, washed with its waves, yet exhibiting no verdure? -and still the sun concentrates its beams upon that rock, and still the sand is washed by the ocean; and notwithstanding all the base returns you make, God's goodness fills your cup, guards your person, provides for your needs, while He receives nothing in return but ingratitude, indifference, and sin; no, a practical denial of God Himself.

But it is especially of the believer we are now to speak, as receiving good at the hand of God. What a declaration is this! O beloved, who can unfold to you what is contained in these words, "We receive good at the hand of God?" Shall we attempt to assist you in considering this truth? In giving Himself to be the covenant God of His people, God gives them an infinite ocean of goodness. Faith lays her hand upon God, and says, "This God is my God;" and looking prospectively to the bright termination of life, faith adds, "and He will be my Guide, even unto death." Oh, how little do the best of us know what we possess in possessing GOD! Oh, has not the thought expanded your heart while treading your weary way, "This God is my God what can I desire more?"

Yes; and do not forget that God first gives His people the best and greatest. Why? To teach us that if He has given us Himself the greater, what else is there that He will withhold? This is an encouraging thought to the depressed spirit. If our faith can lay hold upon this truth- God Himself is mine, then faith argues, "What else is there that He will not give me?" Do you know this from experience? Does your heart glow with it? Is it the great lever that lifts you above your trials, above your needs? "God is my soul's portion, both now and forever. I enjoy Him now, and I know that my present enjoyment is the certain prelude of my being forever with Him." Dear reader, this one truth is the substance of all blessing -God in Christ is our God. "We receive good at the hand of God," so that, be our necessities what they may, the resources of God are adequate to them all.

In having received Jesus, what good have we received! Jesus is a received good. Deem not this an unimportant truth. It lies at the very root of all your happiness. If salvation is not of grace, then it is not ours. If Jesus is a gift, I receive Him as such. I receive Him as a good at the hands of God. And oh, what a good do I receive in receiving Jesus!- in whom it has pleased the Father that all fulness should dwell- Jesus, my Redeemer, who has ransomed my soul, in whom the Father has deposited all good! What possible good can there be that I have not in Christ?

Our great sin, at least one of then, is in limiting Jesus, limiting His power, limiting His love, and limiting His graces. If I look at my sorrow and say it is too deep for Christ's sympathy, I limit Him. If I look at my giant corruptions and say, they are too great for the grace of Jesus to subdue, I limit Him. If I think my difficulty in life too insurmountable for the power of Christ, then I limit Him. But if, in simple faith, I see that, in receiving Jesus as a gift, I receive all good in Him, then am I enabled to rise superior to all my circumstances, traveling to one whom God has made Head over all things to His Church. You that know His preciousness to your hearts, testify that you have found all good in Christ; testify what peace you have experienced in the sprinkling of His blood upon your conscience, and what assured hope, springing from a sense of completeness through His righteousness.

And what a good is bestowed upon us in the gift and indwelling of the Holy Spirit! "The Holy Spirit, who He has given unto us." To know that He has made our hearts His home, our bodies His temple, dwelling there amid a thousand daily slights and woundings, yet never weary, never impatient, never withdrawn- still teaching, still comforting, still sanctifying, still witnessing. Oh, what arithmetician can compute the good which we have received at God's hand? Beloved, taste and see that the Lord is good, good to us temporally, good spiritually, good eternally!

But we are to trace THE EVIL we receive to the same Source as the good: "Shall we not receive evil?" Job was receiving evil at that moment. The evil alluded to here must be interpreted not of moral evil- because God cannot be the author of sin. But it is that evil referred to Amos 3:6: "Shall there be evil in the city, and the Lord has not done it?"- that natural evil of which we are perpetually the subjects.

Unmingled good is not the portion even of the saints of God. We have no doubt as to which weighs down the scale, for good infinitely transcends the evil; but it is mingled. Unmingled good is reserved for heaven. There, all is pure unmixed bliss, deepening as the ocean flows on through eternity. But here the good and the evil in our history are wisely and happily combined: "Shall we receive good at the hands of God, and shall we not receive evil?" The origin and the source of all the disciplinary dealings of the believer are unfolded. They are not as from accident, but are from God.

Here is a truth which ought at once to raise us above all the trying circumstances of our history. What! does the wormwood flow from the same hand that gives me the honey? What! did that dark cloud, which hung over my soul, issue from the Fountain that gives me light? Did the stroke that smote me so severely come from the heart that gave me Jesus? Yes, the good and the evil alike flow from the same Divine and precious Source, even your covenant-God. Oh, it is a blessed truth to see all flowing from God. The same hand that wounds me, binding up my wound; the same hand that casts me down, lifting me up; the same covenant-God that enshrouds Himself in some dark design, tells me He is mine at the same moment.

But the question seems to place itself in this form, "Shall we not expect evil?" I do not mean that we are to be always living in gloomy anticipation of trial. Many of God's saints live in that unhappy, and, I would add, unholy mood- always anticipating evil. Yet there is a sense in which we should expect it. Should it take us by surprise? We may be so absorbed in God's goodness as not to expect there will be the counterbalancing of evil. Shall we not be unprepared for it when it comes? Shall we only have a cup for the good, and not for the evil?

Shall we doubt the wisdom of God, shall we impeach the truth of God, shall we suspect the love of God when the evil comes? Shall we think that every perfection of God is embodied in the good, and the evil is to set forth and unfold no part of God's character and administrative government? Shall our faith lose its hold upon God as the Fountain of goodness, the moment He sees fit to remove the good and send the evil? God forbid!

See what it is that makes even the evil God sends to be good- because He sends it. And when does it really become good to us? It is when God so sanctifies it that it works good in us. When God employs it to correct and remove our sins, oh, what good have we then found it! When it makes us more like God in His holiness; when it creates a void which God Himself fills; when the spirit of prayer is roused, and Jesus, the sympathizing Brother, becomes more precious to our souls, oh, what good is then educed from our evil! And for this negative good we praise Him.

Let us learn from this subject to welcome all our Father's varied dealings, be they couched in good or evil. All are good. The curse removed, and sin cancelled by Jesus, there is no real evil even in the most afflictive dispensation of our God. Accept, then, your sorrow, receive your trial, welcome your affliction as a good- enveloped, hidden, and invisible now; but afterwards to shine forth as the sun, when the storm-cloud that draped it melts into light and beauty. "Not my will, O my Father, but yours be done."
Before long, our good will be unmixed and unmingled. No sin will embitter our happiness, no sorrow will becloud our joy. Our "sun shall no more go down, neither shall the moon withdraw itself: for the Lord shall be an everlasting light, and the days of our mourning shall be ended."

Spiritual Sight

"What do you want me to do for you?" Jesus asked him. The blind man said, "Lord, I want to see." "Go," said Jesus, "your faith has healed you." Immediately he received his sight and followed Jesus along the road. Mark 10:51-52

Spiritual blindness, as a consequence of the fall, has smitten the entire human race. Not that they are conscious of it. A spiritually blind man does not know his blindness. He imagines he sees- declares that he sees, and denounces you as ignorant if you affirm the contrary. And yet he is blind. "And Jesus said, For judgment I am come into the world, that they who see not might see, and that they who see [who imagine they see] might be made blind"- be blinded to their own righteousness. And when this spiritual sight is restored, then comes the knowledge of former blindness: "This one thing I know, that, whereas I was blind, now I see." A consciousness of former blindness is an evidence of present sight. Here is one of the unmistakable marks of a "man of God"- he is one who sees.

Let us first contemplate CHRIST'S COMPASSIONATE INQUIRY, "What do you want Me to do for you?" That our Lord was perfectly acquainted with the case of this poor man none can doubt. He did not, therefore, propose the inquiry from any ignorance on His part. Is there not something in this fact deeply instructive and encouraging- that the case of the petitioner was minutely, perfectly known to the Son of God? Have you a need, my Christian reader, that Jesus does not know? Have you a trial that has not first tried His heart? Are you battling with a corruption of which He is not sensible? Methinks there is something in this individual and perfect knowledge of our case that is vastly encouraging. I draw near to Christ with the thought, "He knows what is in man, for He created him, and He is acquainted with all the circumstances of my individual case." Sweet thought! Place the crown on His Godhead, for were He not absolutely God you would know nothing of the sweetness of this truth.

But the question arises, Why this inquiry? One or two answers will suffice. Although Christ knows all His creature's needs, He often appears not to know them until made known to Him in prayer. So costly and precious is prayer in His sight! He is often mute until His people speak. True prayer is the breathing of the Divine life in the soul of man. It is but of little moment what the wording is; it may be simple, hesitating, and ungrammatical to a human ear- yet it is the voice of God's blessed Spirit, and is eloquent with Him, and prevails. I would be far from undervaluing a stated ritual where infirmity pleads for it, but in all prayer let us see that we do not straiten the Spirit: "Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty."

Beloved, the Lord will hear His people's cry, be the mode of its presentation what it may. Believing prayer is all powerful with God. Prayer is the utterance of poverty- the cry of need. See what it was wrung the cry from David's lips, "The sorrows of death compassed me, and the pains of hell got hold upon me: I found trouble and sorrow. Then I called upon the Lord; O Lord, I beseech you, deliver no soul." The Lord laid the pressure upon David, trouble and sorrow, and then he cried. Blessed trouble, hallowed sorrow, that stirs us up to take hold upon God! Little, often, do we envision what intent the Lord permits a need or sends a trial. "Let me hear your voice, for sweet is your voice," is the message from God of your trouble.

The case of Jonah is another instance worthy of your devout consideration: "I cried, by reason of my affliction, unto the Lord, and he heard me." My reader, if you will honestly examine your walk with God, I think you will discover this marked feature, that, until God has placed upon you some pressure, has touched you where you feel the keenest, your voice has been too much as a strange voice to God.

Another reason for Christ's inquiry: He would call especial notice to the compassion and power He was about to display in the case of the petitioner. It is thus the Lord awakens expectation. His work shall not be done in a corner, that all men may behold His wonders, and glorify God. Going to God on the basis of the atonement, the blood in the hand of faith, every chamber of God's heart will open, and all the treasures of His wisdom and grace will be at our command. But, before He unlocks the treasury, He will bring us into David's experience, "My expectation is from Him." He will cause us to make known our need, that in Him might be our expectation.

You will mark, too, the speciality of His request. It was not a general one. We too much deal with generalities in prayer. We often lose a particular request in a multitude of general ones. We generalize too much in prayer, asking many blessings, and yet not feeling the deep conviction of the need of any one in particulars. But learn instruction from this petitioner. The Creator of all worlds was before him; a blank card, as it were, was placed in his hand- "What do you want me to do for you?" He might have filled that card with innumerable petitions; but no! he felt the need of one, and that one swallowed up all others.

What if the Lord had offered him wealth, rank, estate? he would have exclaimed: "Lord, this is not what I need, and what I crave at Your hand; it is, that I might receive my sight. I am blind, open my eyes that I may see." My dear reader, what is it that we all need, but spiritual sight? When the Holy Spirit convinces a sinner of sin, he needs Jesus. What will you place before a poor inquirer asking for salvation but Jesus? His plaintive, earnest cry is, "I want Jesus- I want to see my interest in Christ- my adoption in the family of God. I want to see God in Christ as my reconciled God and Father." This experience and this cry tests the reality of a man's spiritual conviction. When the Holy Spirit creates in the soul a desire for salvation, the cry is, "Give me Christ, or I die!''

And what is the desire of the more advanced believer? Is it not that he might see more of Jesus, more of the hatefulness of sin? He desires to see more glory in Christ's person, more tenderness in His heart, more efficacy in His blood. His prayer is, "Open my eyes, let the scales fall from them; anoint them with fresh eye-salve, that I may see more clearly God, and Christ, and truth."

Now mark THE PERFECT CURE. In the first place, Jesus recognizes and crowns his faith. What spiritual mind is not struck with the marvellous power of this poor man's faith? Observe how emphatically he acknowledges Christ's divine Messiahship: "Jesus Son of David," "Lord," "Jehovah." The multitude contemptuously styled Him, "Jesus of Nazareth;" but this man, enlightened by a ray from the throne of God, his spiritual eye already opened, he places the diadem upon His deity, and crowns Him "Lord of all."

You will then mark the working of His faith. He doubted not the willingness of Christ. What does the Lord Jesus require on the part of the petitioner? Is it gift? is it sacrifice? is it penance? Oh no! All He asks is, "do you believe that I am able to do this? Do you believe that I am willing to grant this? Only, believe either in my power or my love." My reader, what is your request? Come, nothing doubting; let but your faith, though with trembling hand, crown Christ's willingness and power, and you shall have to the uttermost all that you need and all that you ask.

The grant was instantaneous: "Immediately he received his sight." Why should there be delay? Why postpone the cure? He had touched the spring of Christ's heart, and he was instantly cured. Oh, happy Bartimeus! What a Being of power and of glory bursts upon your gaze! On whom but the compassionate Savior does your new-born vision rest? So is it when the Eternal Spirit opens the eye of the soul to see spiritual things- the first object the believing sinner sees is Jesus! The scale falls, the veil is uplifted, and JESUS stands before the enraptured soul- the loveliest, the dearest Being in the universe! My reader, have you so seen Jesus? Has Christ been revealed to you?

Then mark the grateful acknowledgment. Jesus said unto him, "Go your way: I have granted you your request, I have poured the light of day upon your eye, and you see." "No," exclaims the grateful man, "not my way, Lord, but Yours. Love and gratitude constrain me to follow You wherever You go. You are my all to You would I cling. Let we go where You go, let me dwell where You dwell, and let me be with You, and that forever." See how powerful is the drawing of Divine love! Having received his petition, does he return to find the garment he had cast away? No, he seems to say, "I have found a better garment, the righteousness that completely justifies me: I do not need the robe that impeded my coming to the Savior- it was the emblem of my poverty and blindness, I have obtained one the emblem of my new-born state, and henceforth I will walk with Jesus in white, for He has clothed me with the garment of salvation, He has covered me with the robe of righteousness."

My reader, are you so following Jesus in the way- His way? Have you cast from you the filthy garments, and are you clothed with change of clothing? Place no confidence in your baptism, in keeping your religious days, in your sacraments. See, oh see, that you have the root of the matter in you. It is a narrow way, though a way of holy liberty; and as sure as you are found walking this narrow way, just as sure will it conduct you to everlasting glory, where you shall exchange the humiliation and burden of the cross, for the deathless splendor of the crown.

May the Holy Spirit bless this His oven truth! May He bring you to see how empty the world is, how sinful your heart is, how worthless your own righteousness is! And seeing Jesus to be "made of God unto you wisdom; righteousness, sanctification, and redemption," may you henceforth follow Him in the way, until you arrive where He is- in heaven's eternal glory!

Readiness for the Lord's Coming

And the foolish said unto the wise, Give us of your oil; for
our lamps are gone out.—MATTHEW 25:8.

The fall of man has not utterly annihilated all that was originally
lovely in our nature. Among the instincts of our humanity which
still exert a powerful influence within us is the abhorrence which
we feel of what is false and fraudulent. A forged cheque, a counterfeit
will, a false deed, awakens in our minds a feeling of abhorrence; an
instinct of honor and integrity rises up in opposition to the fraud. But
there is something yet more appalling in the thought of a man obtaining
his religion by fraud—stealing his religion—coming into the possession
of what he terms a religion, not properly, nor justly, nor truly.
Now there is this remarkable feature in the Word of God, that while
all its delineations and descriptions carry us back to remote ages, yet
they vividly and indelibly depict characters that exist at the present
moment. They present our nature possessing the same features, the same
principles, which it ever did. Here we have a description of a certain
class of individuals that were possessors of religion; but when the grand
moment arrived which tested its reality, it was found that they possessed
none—and that, following the instincts of their fallen humanity,
they thought of borrowing their hope, their plea for entrance into heaven,
from others.
Now it is the solemn conviction of our minds that this constitutes a
large class in the present day; that there are numbers who have professed
Christ, but who have taken their religion on hearsay; who have it, so to
speak, second hand; who have not themselves passed from death unto
life; have not become regenerated by the Spirit; have not become personally
acquainted with the Lord Jesus; and who have not, in the lamp
of their religious profession, one particle of that sacred oil, that divine
grace; which will be found to burn, and to burn brightly, and to burn
forever, when the summons shall come to call them hence.
Our prayer, dearly beloved, is, that the truth of God which we are
about to illustrate to you may be heart searching; that we may unfold it
with all earnestness and fidelity; that you may be led to ascertain whether
your religion is a heartfelt and experimental religion; whether your hope
is a scriptural and well founded hope; or whether you are not now in
the state of the virgins who said, "Give us of your oil, for our lamps are
gone out." I wish to direct your attention to— CHRIST'S SOLEMN
SURPRISE—MAN'S BORROWED LIGHT—and, THE SOUL'S ETERNAL DARKNESS.

CHRIST'S SOLEMN SURPRISE
The text evidently refers to a surprise on the part of Jesus Christ; and we
wish to illustrate this striking fact, by reference to two or three stages of
the Christian's experience. There are many cases in the believer's history
when Christ, as it were, takes him by surprise. Take, for example, conversion.
Real conversion is a surprise of Christ. Who among us—probably
there are but few, if any, who reverting to their conversion, can say
that it was preceded by any very striking indication that the Lord Jesus
was about to bring them to Himself. In the majority of cases, conversion
is a work of surprise; it is preceded by nothing that indicates the
approach of such a moral revolution of the soul. In most instances it is
rapid, as was the case of Saul of Tarsus on his way to Damascus. Christ
surprised him on his way.
Was it not so with you, my reader? Did not Jesus surprise you, when
first your heart was touched? when first your conscience was roused,
when first your spirit was humbled? when first your will was bent to the
will of God? Was not that a gracious surprise, when Jesus drew near,
dried your tears, and bound up your broken heart? O yes, we must
testify that that was a gracious surprise, when Jesus, in the sovereignty
of His grace, approached and spoke peace to our hearts, light to our
minds, enkindled joy and gladness within.
There are gracious surprises of Christ in the experience of the believer
in subsequent stages of his history, when Christ draws near, and
manifests Himself to his soul. And I trust, beloved, that you are not a
stranger to these. Oh, let not your religion be a religion unmarked by the
gracious manifestations of Christ! What a gracious surprise was it when
Christ joined the two disciples on their journey to Emmaus! Their hearts
were filled with grief and gloom; they were ruminating on scenes which
had just been transacted at Jerusalem; and as in sadness they were wending
their way, Jesus drew near, and walked and talked with them. They
found His company so pleasant, so sweet, that when they reached their
homes they constrained Him that He should abide with them. Ah, how
often, believer, when sad and lonely, Jesus has drawn near and spoken
to you!
What a gracious surprise of the Lord Jesus was it when Mary met
Him at the tomb! While looking for her absent Lord, her heart bursting
with grief, Jesus drew near, and manifested Himself. We might illustrate
this blessed truth by many such examples, all concurring to show
that the child of God is privileged to look for these blessed manifestations,
these gracious surprisals. Let none for a moment suppose that
there might not be that same close communion between Christ and our
hearts now that there was of old.
Then there comes a solemn time when the man of God experiences
surprise in death—that solemn moment when the Lord Jesus sends for
His dear servant, and bids him come home. I suppose that, let Death
come when he may, he takes us by surprise. There may be previous
premonition, there may be the slow decay, the gradual taking down of
the earthly tabernacle—the pain, the fever, the convulsion, all indicating
that life is ebbing—yet when death comes to a man, with a slow,
stealthy footstep, unseen, unheard, it surprises him. Oh, see that he
does not surprise you in your sins, in your rebellion against God! Better
never to have been born than to have been surprised by death in enmity
against Jehovah.
But death to the believer is the surprise of Christ. It is Christ that
comes for him—death's victim, and yet death's conqueror. Oh, what a
gracious surprise of Christ, then, will that be, when your Savior stands
by your dying bed, speaks words of comfort to your heart, lights up
hope in your soul, strengthens you by His grace, and assures you that in
treading that lonely valley, He is by your side. Believer, are you fettered
by the thoughts of death? Learn to look at it as the blessed moment
when Christ will come down to His garden, pluck the fair flower, and,
placing it in His bosom, bear it to His paradise on high.
Then comes the great and solemn event, the closing drama in the
world's history. The Lord Jesus Christ is to come again—the Bridegroom
is to appear, and publicly espouse His beloved Church. It is written
that Jesus Christ shall presently cleave the heavens and appear again,
surrounded by all those who sleep in Him. I speak not of this event
with a view of unfolding the details of that day. With regard to the
mode of Christ's coming, there may be diversity of opinion; but that
Christ will come publicly to espouse His beloved Church is a fact which,
I suppose, those who differ as to the mode of His appearing are all
united in. And what a glorious, what a sublime, what an awesome fact
is this! Christ is to appear personally; the very Person that was impaled
on Calvary's cross will be seen cleaving the clouds of heaven. "Every eye
shall see Him." The eyes that are now fixed upon this page will look on
the face of the coming Savior—the coming Judge. Every individual shall
stand around the great white throne, in the center of which sits the
Lamb of God. What a sublime fact is that!
Do you make the subject of the coming of the Lord one of meditation,
and prayer, and hope? Or, are you found dismissing it from your
mind—perchance from your creed? To us who have gone to the burial
place, and laid our departed ones there, in hope that they slept with
Jesus, that their disembodied spirits were nestling in the bosom of the
Lamb, how precious is this truth! You who weep, and weep in hope that
the coming of Christ will restore them to you again, you shall behold
them in glory, shall rush into their warm embrace, and gaze once more
on the loved ones from whom you parted on Jordan's bank.
Oh, treasure in your believing heart this blessed hope, and when
next you go and shed the tears of sacred memory over the turf that
covers them, blend with your grief the fond thought, that Jesus will
come again in person; and that those who sleep in Him, He will bring
with Him. Comfort your bereaved hearts with these words.

MAN'S BORROWED LIGHT
And, then, when the Lord Jesus Christ shall thus appear, we are told
that the human race will be divided into two classes—represented by
the five wise and the five foolish virgins. Let us for a few moments look
at one of these classes. We are all agreed as to the "wise virgins." They
are the true sons of God; they are sincere believers in Christ; they are
those who have been wise unto salvation; who have been truly born
again of the Spirit; who have seen the worthlessness of their own righteousness,
and have accepted the righteousness of Christ. In a word,
they are those who have not only confessed Christ, and loved Christ in
the world, but they have received into their hearts the grace of God,
which has renewed them, sanctified, and kept them to the end. These
are the "wise."
They are the "foolish" who had in their hands the lamp of the Christian
professor, without the golden oil of Divine grace; who, when the
hour came that brought their hope to the test, found themselves deficient:
"And the foolish said unto the wise, Give us of your oil; for our
lamps are gone out." A religious professor may have much apparent
spiritual life and intelligence—he may be well acquainted with the
Bible—he may be well up in the evidences of Christianity— his intellect
may be illumined—his judgment informed with regard to truth,
and yet may be found to have—borrowed his religion from another.
He has derived it from the reading of religious books, or from the
fellowship of Christians: He has a taste for religious literature, and his
mind is interested and elevated, and yet an hour may come which shall
prove that that man borrowed his spiritual light and knowledge—derived
it, not from the direct teaching and enlightening of the Word and
Spirit of God, but from another's lamp! He can master the most subtle
points of truth, he can explain difficulties, harmonize discrepancies,
silence skepticism—and yet he does not know this truth experimentally,
"I am a lost sinner, and Christ is a gracious and loving Savior."
He has received his spiritual knowledge from others, and not from
the experimental teaching of God the Holy Spirit. Beware that you
have not your religion from books, from sermons, from fellowship with
others. Search yourself, and see whether the Divine Spirit has instructed
you– whether Christ has been formed in your heart—the hope of glory.
"And the foolish said unto the wise, Give us of your oil"—give us of
your experimental communion with the Savior—"for our lamps are
gone out." The light which is only in the intellect, the truth which only
informs the judgment, is like the expiring lamp that fails when its bright
shining luster is most needed in the dark valley of the shadow of death.
Oh, how many a man can speak of Christian experience fluently—
can quote the language of pious Christians—seems to have traveled the
various stages of the believer's life—takes his place at the Table of the
Lord; but when the hour of trial comes, it will be found that that man
has transferred to himself the Christian experience of others, and has
been building himself up with the spurious hope that he was experimentally
acquainted with Christ; whereas the awful discovery bursts
upon him—that he never experienced in his own heart those spiritual
exercises of which he could so glibly speak. Oh, it is an appalling thought,
my reader, how far a man may go in acquaintance with Christian experience,
and yet be destitute of one particle of vital religion!
Now we reach a very solemn conclusion—"Our lamps are gone out,"
or, as the marginal reading is, "our lamps are going out." Just at the
moment, the solemn crisis of Jesus' coming, they found their lamp
began to wane, and its light to expire. The light of intelligence, the light
of sacraments, the light of a religious profession; began to grow dim,
until the last spark went out. "Our lamps are going out." This often
transpires before death. In the day of dark adversity, the day which tries
a man, brings him into trouble, touches him, perhaps; in his health,
perhaps in his property, or yet more deeply touches him in the feelings
of his nature—takes from him a lovely child, a beloved wife, a dear
parent, and the man, thus smarting under the rod of God, disputes His
right to take away his health or property—to come into his garden and
pluck that blooming flower, and break that beauteous stem; his heart
rises in rebellion; and in the dark hour of adversity his lamp fails and
goes out, and the man finds that his religion was not a religion for the
stern, solemn hour of affliction.
Many a man's lamp, too, goes out in the hour of temptation. It did
well for him when no temptations beset him; but when they present
themselves, he finds his religious principles and hope to fail. The past
few years have presented many examples of men who stood high in
religious profession, but who have come into contact with erroneous
doctrine, false worship, and the temptations to fraud, and the lamp
which burned so brightly has been extinguished; proving that their light
was not derived from real conversion, from a heartfelt experience of the
truth as it is in Jesus.
But if a man's hope proves itself spurious, a borrowed thing only, it
will most assuredly prove so when life is fast ebbing, and death comes in
its wake. A deathbed is a great and solemn test of our religious profession
and hope. We are fast speeding to that point. In a little while it will
not be what the Church thinks of you; or what the world thinks of you.
The great question will be, "Am I in Christ?" In that hour— that precious
hour to the child of God—how delightful to have the reality, and
not a mere profession; then the light that burned, perhaps, so dimly and
obscurely in your religious life, so faintly indeed that few were attracted
by its beauty, then will that light blaze up and brighten with increased
luster; and the grace that renewed you, the grace that kept you, the grace
that followed you to the last stage of life will then be your happy experience
in strengthening and supporting you, when heart and flesh are
failing.
Learn from this subject that if there are multitudes that have borrowed
their religion, this but proves the genuineness of the religion of
others. There are those, and multitudes too, who, thanks be to God,
possess the reality, therefore let not the skeptic, let not the libeler fling
in the face of God's saints the cruel taunt of the irregularities that mark
the life of some professors. Remember that if there are some who walk
in the light of others, this but proves that others have the real light; so
that you gain nothing by holding up the religious inconsistencies of
those who profess the Savior.
We derive from this subject a most important and instructive inference,
that there is no such thing in the Christian Church as works of
supererogation. It is the doctrine of a false Church, the Church of Rome,
that a man may have grace enough for himself and a little to spare for
another. Our subject teaches that the Church of God is scarcely saved,
is just saved, and that no believer has any measure of grace over and
above what he needs for himself, in order to impart it to others, be they
ever so dear.
In conclusion, see that your light is not borrowed; let it not be a reflected
but a solar light; not taken from hearsay, but a light beaming
down from Jesus, streaming from His cross. And let it be a serious matter
with you, not how you are judged by human opinion, but that you
are walking with Jesus, and that your light is burning brighter and
brighter.

THE SOUL'S ETERNAL DARKNESS
One word more. Jesus waits to pour this precious oil of saving grace
abundantly into your heart. He welcomes all. Come, then, you who
feel your need; approach in your emptiness and poverty, there is grace
enough in Christ for you, fulness of renewing grace, fulness of sanctifying
grace, fulness of preserving grace, and of that grace that will keep
your hearts loyal to Jesus, and bring you at last to glory.
Believer in Jesus! keep well trimmed, brightly burning, and uplifted
high, the lamp of a true, holy, undimmed profession of Christ. He,
whose appearing you love, will anoint you with fresh oil day by day. We
have need of watchfulness, lest the supplies slack and the light grow
dim. Our Lord has set you upon this holy work of watchfulness: "What
I say unto you, I say unto all, WATCH." Watch against the world, it is
seductive; watch against the creature, it is ensnaring; watch against Satan,
he is subtle; watch even against lawful things, they may be unnecessary;
watch against your own heart; for it is more sinful, treacherous,
and dangerous than all.
Look for the first signal and sign of His approach, who has said,
"Behold, I come quickly!" O precious thought! O blessed hope! The
certain, speedy coming of our Lord. He comes to end our sorrows, to
annihilate the last remains of sin, to reunite us with the saints in glory,
and to have us with Himself forever. "He that has this hope in him
purifies himself, even as He is pure." Walk only in the light of Jesus.
Live not upon the grace, or faith, or strength of another. Let your grace,
or your faith, or your love be ever so small, yet, if it be but real, if it be
but true, it will land you in glory. It may be but as the "smoking flax,"
yet there is the divine spark there, and it shall never be extinguished;
while the graceless lamp of Christian profession, which blazed before
men, will expire in eternal darkness when the Lord comes. Oh to be a
real, humble follower of Christ! Lord, let our love be divine, our grace
real, our profession true, our hope a good hope, a living hope, shining
more and more unto the perfect day!

The Man of God Divinely Prospered

"The keeper of the prison paid no attention to anything that was under Joseph's care; because the Lord was with Joseph, and whatever he did, the Lord made it to prosper." Genesis 39:23

If ever God was in human history, it was that of Joseph. Perhaps in no inspired record of the saints does there appear so little of man; and so much of God, as in his whole career, from its obscure and lowly commencement to its exalted and honorable close, was a continuous comment upon the words which introduce this chapter of our work, "Lord was with him, and whatever he did, the Lord made it to prosper." Let us meditate briefly upon these two particulars- THE LORD'S PRESENCE WITH THIS MAN OF GOD, and ITS CONSEQUENT INFLUENCE UPON HIS DESTINY.

THE LORD'S PRESENCE WITH JOSEPH-
A more privileged state it is impossible to conceive- the Lord with His people. Less than the reality and the consciousness of this will not suffice the true man of God. It was, doubtless, the assurance of this that bore up the patriarch throughout his chequered and eventful history. And here we may observe, in passing, that no reflective, ingenuous mind can trace his history, and rise from its study with the conviction that that history is a cunningly-devised fable- the whole a fiction and a myth.

"The Lord was with Joseph," and this was the secret of his marvellous life. The Lord was with him, protecting his life when that life had been virtually sacrificed by his brethren; the Lord was with him when sold as a slave to the Egyptian merchants; the Lord was with him, preserving him amid temptation in Potiphar's house; the Lord was with him, cheering the loneliness of his prison; the Lord was with him as the interpreter of Pharaoh's vision; the Lord was with him in each step of his subsequent career- his sun and his shield, and his exceeding great reward.

Beloved, is the Lord really less with His people now? Oh no! Look at this truth for a moment in a few particulars. The Lord is with His saints, ordaining and shaping their every step. The man of God advances in no uncertain, unprepared path in life. His whole career, from his cradle to his grave, is a divinely-constructed map, prepared in the eternal mind, purpose, and counsel of Jehovah. Nothing is left to contingency. There is no crook in his lot, no divergence in his path, no event that bends, or shades, or burdens it- but the Lord is in it- ordering, arranging, and controlling all. It is, in truth, not his way, but the Lord's way by which he is led. "Show me now YOUR way," is the prayer of the man of God.

The Lord is with His people in temptation. Were we exempt from this part of our heavenly discipline, we should be exempt from one of the most touching illustrations of the Divine presence, power, and love. In nothing do we more exhibit our powerlessness than in this. The mightiest saints have succumbed before the weakest foe when left by God to learn, by sad experience, their self-impotence. Nothing but the power of God can keep a man of God after he has been made a new creature in Christ Jesus. "Kept by the power of God," is written, as upon the forehead, of every upheld, holy, consistent man of God. The Lord is with us in temptation, subduing its heat, lessening its power, quenching its darts, and delivering us out of its fiery ordeal; restraining, overruling, blessing. "The Lord knows how to deliver the godly out of temptation." Fear not, then, O man of God, the quiver and the dart; both are under the control of Jesus, the once tempted One.

The Lord is with His people in adversity. Exempt from this, we should be equally exempted from a page in our history forming one of the most luminous in its record of Divine love and sympathy and support. The inheritance of the saints in this life is that of adversity- their inheritance in the life that is to come that of endless bliss.

The worldling has all his 'heaven' in this world. He has nothing to anticipate but a "fearful looking for of fiery indignation," which will devour the Lord's adversaries. My unconverted reader, your future is "written in mourning, lamentation, and woe." Your home will be hell; your 'god' will be Satan; your companions will be lost spirits; your "forever" an immortality of woe, of suffering, and of banishment from God, "where the worm never dies, and the flame is never quenched."

But affliction is the present lot of the saints. Beyond the present it never reaches. It distills no moisture, casts no shade, infuses no bitter in the future bliss of the glorified. It is a present thing, momentary, passing forever away. But there is this accompanying soothing, sanctifying truth- the Lord is with His people in adversity. And to be assured of this, to know it from personal and blest experience, is worth all the tribulation through which we have to pass in entering the kingdom of eternal glory.

If the presence of a friend in sorrow is so sweetening, if the silent sympathy in adversity of one we love is so soothing, oh, it is the ideal of bliss on earth, the consciousness that, when the cloud of woe is darkling over us, and the waves of tribulation are swelling around us, and the waters are coming in upon the soul, the Lord is with us, to comfort, support, and deliver us. "When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overflow you. When you walk through the fire, you shall not be burned; neither shall the flame kindle upon you." Sweet affliction! precious trial! that, like the surging billow, uplifts the soul, and casts it upon the Rock that is higher than us!

Oh, is there any circumstance, or stage, or place in which the Lord is not as truly with His saints as He was with Joseph? He is with us to counsel our perplexities, to guide our feet, to supply our need, to deliver us from the power of our enemies, to keep us from all evil, and to bring us home to glory. Oh, to be assured that the Lord is with us, we will not fear what man can do unto us. Precious presence of the Lord. It is a shield of adamant, a garden of delights, a tower of strength, a portion of heaven come down to earth. What is heaven- the heaven of heaven? Is it not the full, the perfect, the unclouded presence of the Lord? And what is the Lord's visible presence with us here, but the pledge, the foretaste of heaven- what but heaven and earth kissing each other? It is thus the man of God becomes familiar with the country to which he is journeying, with the home in which he will forever dwell, with the companions with whom he will eternally associate, and with the glorious Lord, whose presence will constitute his highest heaven!

Oh, what a profound significance of meaning is in these words, "The Lord was with Joseph." To have Jehovah with us is to be encircled by every divine perfection, to be encompassed by a wall of fire which no foe can penetrate, to dwell in the munition of rocks, our bread and our water sure, to have ever at our side a flowing spring in drought, the shadow of a great rock in the heat, a table in the wilderness, the divine cloud and fire safely conducting our journey homeward.

"Such honor have all the saints." Child of God! though less signally and manifestly, yet not less really or blessedly, is God with you in all your history. Let faith deal with this truth in all its battles and its trials. You may seem and feel at times alone. The sun may withdraw itself, and the stars of night may be draped in cloud, and dark, and dreary, and lonesome may be your way; nevertheless, let faith, whose most brilliant achievements are when it is the most opposed to sense, grapple with thus truth. "I am kept, guided, watched over, encircled by the Unseen God. The Lord is with me, and I will endure as seeing Him who is invisible."

We now turn again to Joseph. We marvel not that, after this declaration of the Divine presence encompassing him, it should be added, "whatever he did, the Lord made it to prosper." And it was truly and literally so: everything he touched seemed transmuted into gold; everything he undertook was conducted to a successful issue; all his thoughts and enterprises were crowned with the Divine favor and blessing.

"Whatever he did, the Lord made it to prosper." We learn from this, the only source of true prosperity- the Lord's blessing. Promotion comes not from the east nor from the west; in vain we rise up early, sit up late, and eat the bread of carefulness; futile and fruitless will be all our schemes, and plans, and toil, if God does not make it to prosper. He alone can lift up our ways when they are depressed, make straight our path when encompassed with difficulties, pluck our feet from the net which entangles them, and conduct to a successful and honorable issue all your thoughts, enterprises, and labors.

Take the prosperity of Joseph as a type and pledge of your own. Acknowledge the Lord in all your ways as He did; let God's fear rule you as it ruled him; be afraid only of sin, and shrink only from compromising Christ's crown, and dishonoring Christ's name; and the Lord will be with you, and that which you do, He will make it to prosper. He will exalt you to wealth, distinction, and usefulness in this life; and in the life to come, to honor, immortality, and glory!

"Father! for pleasant paths on earth
My spirit yearneth not;
For loving kindred's clasping hands,
And home, I ask You not.
I would forego all anxious thought,
And cast on You my care,
Content to see Your love in all
To trace You everywhere."
"Teach me to listen for Your voice,
When the world's storm howls loud;
Help me to look for light from You
Beneath the darkest cloud.
To feel Your hand the tempest rules,
That You can hear and save,
That You have set a bound unto
The wildest, stormiest wave."
"The tempest yet was never so loud
To drown the soul's faint cry;
Nor cloud so dark to hide Your child
From Your all-seeing eye.
Lighten mine eyes, that I may read
Each page of life to me
And from each passing hour receive
A message, Lord, from Thee."
"Lead me to seek, with patient prayer,
Your counsel for my stay,
And look to You to guide my steps
In Your appointed way.
With glad and grateful heart accept
The work Your wisdom wills,
And bless the hand that but in love
The cup of sorrow fills."
"Seeking what path You'd have for me
What heart to cheer or bless,
Even as I would ask of Thee
For comfort in distress;
Content to share in other's joy;
And if this may not be,
Still happy that my chequered lot
Was chosen, Lord, by Thee." -Anna Shipton.

Integrity and Uprightness

"Let integrity and uprightness preserve me; for I wait on You." Psalm 25:2I.

"May integrity and uprightness protect me, because my hope is in you." Psalm 25:21

A stronger characteristic of a true man of God than that which this prayer of David involves can scarcely exist. Its absence in many who bear this honored name must forcibly strike every careful observer of the age. It is impossible to survey attentively the world, without perceiving how much is transpiring that is utterly destitute of the holy, elevated principles prayed for and aimed after in this touching petition of the psalmist. Speak of the crime as mildly and as gently as you may- call it error of judgment, breach of confidence, the temptation of wealth, self-interest, an eye to the main chance, worldly policy- the Word of God classes all instances of defalcation, embezzlement, violated trust, dishonest dealing, simulation, and false returns under one denomination- THEFT; the reverse of that "integrity and uprightness " which should govern the minutest transaction, secular and religious, of the man of God.

The solemn law of the Decalogue, "you shall not steal" thunders its tones in the ears of every violator of the precept, whether he rob man or God. In endeavoring to meet this alarming and growing evil of the age- DISHONESTY- by an exposition and enforcement of the prayer of David, we shall, at the outset, take the higher ground of dishonesty towards God. To this the prophet Malachi refers in these remarkable words to the Jews, "You have robbed God." Startled by the charge, they inquire, "How have we robbed Him?" The prophet replies, "In tithes and offerings."

Let us proceed to examine and apply this subject, both in its divine and human relationships. Wherein do we rob God? God has a claim upon our entire being: "All souls are mine." The surrender of affection to Him as the first and greatest Being in the universe, as our Creator, Benefactor, and Preserver, must be paramount and supreme. "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the first and great commandment." When this undivided and supreme love to God is withheld- when the creature's affection is alienated from Him, and surrendered to another and an inferior being- the creature loved, rather than the Creator- there is a robbing of God. My reader, do you so love God? Are you dealing honestly with Him in your affections? Is God the supreme Sovereign of your heart? No love less than this will He accept. We repeat, when we give our affections to the world, to the creature, to self, positively and supremely- stopping short of entire self-consecration, we withhold from God His just due, and are chargeable before Him with the crime of spiritual robbery.

Again, God has the prior claim to our talents; and when the varied faculties and powers with which He has endowed us, and which were furnished for His glory, are not renewed by His Spirit, and devoted to His service, but are employed in the promotion of our self-interest; sensual gratification, perchance, as weapons of direct hostility to His being, His government, and His truth, we stand in His presence chargeable with the crime of robbing God. Oh, how great the responsibility, how solemn the account, how tremendous the doom of those whose intellectual powers mold the thoughts and influence the passions of others, but mold and influence them only for evil.

If the productions of which we are the authors- and which, while we live, exerted a baneful influence upon the popular mind, and, when we are dead, survive to perpetuate that influence yet more extended and disastrous in generations to come- are such as to pervert the great end of their creation, then, as rational and intellectual beings, we dishonor God by withholding from Him the glory of our consecrated talents and endowments. While to be a benefactor of mind is the highest privilege God can confer, to be a perverter and destroyer of mind is the deepest of crimes, and involves the direst of punishments. Let Christians pray for those who mold the thoughts and opinions of the popular mind, that the power they exert may be healthful, ennobling, and saving.

And are there not many who rob God by withholding from Him the consecration of their temporal substance? There will never be a deep conviction of the criminality of this sin until men everywhere learn that they are not proprietors, but stewards only of what they possess. "You are not your own" is a precept equally applicable to property as to person. Our Lord's parable of the talents was designed, among other lessons, to teach this, its chief and practical one, that, whether it be the one talent or the ten, the Divine Lord is the Giver of both, and holds each individual responsible, as a steward, for the manner in which he has disposed of his talents.

The possession of property involves a fearful responsibility- a responsibility which must be measured by the amount of wealth possessed. It may, perhaps, be difficult accurately to determine, from the teaching of the New Testament scriptures, the exact amount of income each individual should devote to Christian and benevolent purposes; nor is this absolutely necessary. The Christ-loving disciple will be a law to himself in this matter. He will not grudgingly and carefully graduate his benevolence by any financial law, however clearly defined, which he may find in the Scriptures; he will rather consecrate his entire wealth, be it much or little, as not his own but the Lord's; and while he "honors the Lord with the first fruit of all his increase," he will not limit his charity to this, but will consider it his privilege, as an honest and prudential course would dictate, to give the utmost elasticity to a law which claims all we are, and all we have, for Christ. Oh, let us be careful that we do not rob God by withholding from Him our worldly substance.

Again, we may rob God of His own by a misuse of time. Time is a solemn and priceless gift, and involves a responsibility and an account of a most tremendous character. It is the preface to eternity- brief, it is true, yet, as the preface indicates the character of the volume, so the present is the foreshadowing in each one's history of the future. Time is a feather falling from the pinion of eternity, as it sweeps on in its boundless, endless course, hurrying us with rapid flight to that eternity from where it came. What sin, what madness, then, to abuse a privilege so solemn- to misuse a blessing so precious. To employ it in vain pleasures and frivolous pursuits- to use it in senseless puerilities, sinful engagements- to devote it too absorbingly even to literary and elegant pursuits- the studies of the antiquarian, the researches of the historian, the fascination of art, to discoveries of science- may verge upon the crime of robbing God of one of His most costly loans.

All these absorbing engagements are limited to the present, and have no essential relation to the soul's certain and solemn future. Oh, you killers of time! How will the ghost of your murdered hours haunt and upbraid you through the interminable centuries of eternity! Oh, what would you not then give for one hour of that precious period of your existence which now you waste and fritter and destroy in vain, useless, and sinful trifles, chimeras, and shadows. Remember, you rob God when your TIME is not consecrated to His glory. Ponder well the inspired precept, "Redeeming the time, because the days are evil." Consider, the apostolic exhortation "Brethren, the time is short."

God is robbed by us when we attempt to supplant Him in the work and in the glory of our salvation. The salvation of man is pre-eminently the work of God. "Salvation is of God"- devised, achieved, and bestowed by Him. Redemption is a divine act, undertaken and accomplished by Incarnate Deity. Had not Christ our Savior been essentially and absolutely God, He could not have offered an atonement to the moral government of Jehovah, blending the honor and glory of God with the full, free salvation of the guiltiest of the human race.

Essentially connected with man's salvation is God's glory. To no work was the Divine honor solemnly committed, in no enterprise was it so fully embarked as in saving lost man. God, therefore, is jealous of His glory in man's salvation, not a particle of which will He gave to another. If, then, we attempt to uprear the Babel of our own righteousness in unbelief and scorn, rejecting the righteousness of Christ; if we seek the way of life other than that which God has opened to us through the crucified Savior, thus climbing up some other way into heaven, we then are found robbers of God! We rob Him of the glory which belongs alone to Him; we rob Him of the work which He only can achieve; we rob Him of the honor which only is His most righteous due; and we rob our own souls of their eternal glory.

And then there are others who commit robbery by stealing their religion: We have spoken, in a preceding chapter, of a borrowed religion, we refer now to a stolen one. God seems to refer to this species of religious theft in these remarkable words, addressed to the prophets of old, "Therefore, behold, I am against the prophets, says the Lord, who STEAL my words every one from his neighbor," (Jer. xxiii. 30.) How easily, and yet how unsuspectingly may we be guilty of this sin. You have, perchance, a godly parent, a pious husband, wife, or child, and, imperceptibly to yourself, you become familiar with their Christian vocabulary, learn their tones, and acquire the habit of speaking their words. You become, in some measure, by association, molded into their habits, assimilated to their religious usages, and thus are beguiled into a religious phraseology and demeanor not your own,
learned, if not secretively obtained, from those with whom we associate. In all this you have never felt yourself a lost sinner, guilty, condemned, and ready to perish. You have learned nothing of the plague of your own heart, nothing of the need, the worth, and the preciousness of the Savior; you are traveling to death and eternity in a false disguise, having a name to live while yet you are dead. "Do not be deceived, for God is not mocked."

And may not even the Lord's own people verge closely upon this sin of robbing God? If there is any withholding from God His just return of praise, thanksgiving, and devotion; if, beguiled by self-seeking, self-pleasing, self-trust, we give Him not all the honor and glory which is His most righteous due; if we retain the property, the talents, the service, which belong not to ourselves but to Christ- then are we guilty of withholding from God a part of His purchased possession. And in what other light must we view the unsteady, even unholy walk of any child of God, but this?

In every act of unbelief, in every wilful departure, in every instance of self-pleasing, we take from the Lord the glory belonging to His great and holy name. If we refuse to bring into His house our tithes and offerings of faith, and love, and prayer, and service- if we only make Him to serve with our sins, departures, and backslidings- then may our God justly and indignantly say to us, "YOU HAVE ROBBED ME." Dear Lord! deliver us from this sin!

We now turn to the particular sin which David deprecates, and against which he prays: "Let integrity and uprightness preserve me." It is a many-headed monster sin. It exhibits itself unmistakably in the crime of the public defaulter- in the fraudulent trustee- in the dishonest seller- in the shrewd purchaser- in the artful borrower- in the usurious lender- in the deceptive quality of the manufacturer- in the false measurement and weight of the retailer. But why enumerate?

It is a sin of so Protean a form, that it often rears its hideous head where the most skillful eye would least expect to behold it. So subtle and insinuating, so disguised and plausible a sin is it, that the best of men need the most wakeful vigilance and prayer lest they become ensnared into its commission! "Let him that thinks he stands, take heed lest he fall." Let all who are entrusted with public or indivdual confidence, to whose hands the funds of charity, or the property of the widow and the orphan, are confided, be doubly watchful against the sinful promptings of their own hearts, the snares of irresponsible power and of possessed wealth.

"Better is a little with righteousness, than great revenues without right." Of such a one- the defaulter, the defrauder, the man of ill-gotten wealth- inspiration says "He has swallowed down riches, and he shall vomit them up again God shall cast them out of his belly." Around the widow and the orphan God has thrown an especial shield. Woe to those who oppress the one or defraud the other! "A Father of the fatherless, and a Judge of the widow, is God in His holy habitation."

In conclusion- study the prayer of the true man of God, anxious to keep his garments unsullied amid a thousand snares, "Let integrity and uprightness preserve me." Let all beware of the sin of covetousness- it has drowned many souls in perdition. Whether it be Achan's wedge of gold, Naboth's vineyard, Ananias and Sapphira's withheld possession, the sin is essentially the same- the sin of COVETOUSNESS- which ranks in the catalogue with sin's darkest crimes.

If that giant in grace, David, the king of Israel; needed to pray for integrity and uprightness in all his transactions, how much deeper is our need! He prayed like a man of God, conscious of his weakness, who trembled lest he should fall, and who felt that nothing short of a Divine hand could hold him up. "Covetousness and truce-breaking "- one of the signs of the last days- is a fretting sore, not only in the body politic, but in the professing Church of God.

The sin of dishonesty derives not its character, its turpitude, or measurement from the object defrauded, or the amount of the fraud- the principle is the same whether the party robbed be a parent or a bank, the amount of the fraud large or small. Human jurisprudence may, and perhaps justly, allow of shades of guilt, and award degrees of punishment in acts of peculation, deception, and fraud; but in the sight of God every violation of His commandment of the Decalogue, "You shall not steal," involves a guilt and a punishment; if penitence is not felt, and forgiveness is not awarded, alike the same.

But there is forgiveness for the penitent. The only instance recorded in Scripture of forgiveness at the last and latest hour is that of a penitent thief. See him contrite, confessing, praying See him turn his dying eye to the crucified Savior! Listen to his acknowledgment and his petition. Behold him washing in the Fountain that flowed warm and cleansing at his side. Reader! have you been guilty of a like crime? Has the Holy Spirit wrought in you contrition and self-abasement, ingenuous confession and desire of restitution? Behold the Lamb of God! Bathe in the purple stream; and thus washed, thus cleansed, thus forgiven, go, and sin no more!

Lord! "give me neither poverty nor riches; feed me with food convenient for me, lest I be full, and deny You, and say, Who is the Lord? or lest I be poor, and steal; and take the name of my God in vain."

The Departure of the Man of God

"And Israel said unto Joseph; Behold, I die; but God shall be with you, and bring you again unto the land of your fathers." Genesis 48:21

We have followed the man of God through some of the most instructive stages of his spiritual course. The last, most important, and solemn one yet awaits our study- his departure to his heavenly rest. We instance the death of Jacob as affording an appropriate and impressive picture of this event. He was a man of God, pre-eminent for his piety, remarkable in his history, and not the less so for the circumstances and manner of his death. So honored was he among saints, that Jehovah condescended to associate his name with His own, and to designate Himself as especially the "God of Jacob."

In all the prominent events of his long and chequered life, the patriarch had the closest dealings with God. And there are, perhaps, but few recorded narratives in which we have so much of God as in the narrative of Jacob's life. Oh, it is blessed and instructive to see Jehovah thus dwelling with men- conversing with men- admitting them to His confidence, and lavishing upon them His love. If thus so close was the intimacy of the saints with God under the old and typical dispensation of the Church- if this was the manner of their walk, the closeness of their communion, how much more filial and confiding should be our fellowship with the Father, who approach Him through the blood and righteousness of Christ! With a new and a living way, so divine, so accessible, so simple- with the blood of Christ in our hand- with the Person of Christ interceding at the right hand of God in heaven- with the name of Christ ever privileged to present as the plea of every petition, and the pledge of every blessing, oh, marvel of marvels, that our walk with God is so distant, our approach so servile, our transactions so few and so distant! But we now turn to the deathbed of the man of God. "And Israel said unto Joseph, Behold, I die; but God shall be with you, and bring you again unto the land of your fathers."

Let us, in the first place, direct our thoughts, devout and solemn, to this picture of the dying patriarch: "And Israel said unto Joseph, Behold, I die." He was nearing that goal of life to which the whole human family are traveling, and at which we must all eventually and inevitably arrive. Some reach it by a short and rapid stage. Early in life their spirits are summoned to eternity; and while it is yet day, their sun goes down. Others reach it in the meridian of life. Immersed in its cares and anxieties, its busy thoughts and enterprises, in a moment they reach the goal, and in that very day their thoughts perish. Others, like the aged patriarch around whose dying bed in imagination we are now gathered, reach it with hoary hairs bowed down under the weight of many long years, they at last arrive at the appointed goal, and the weary wheels of life stand still.

There is a time to die- a time foreordained, fixed, and appointed in each man's individual history. "Man dies and wastes away; man gives up the spirit, and where is he?" We all strangely imagine, that when weave gone hence, a great change will pass over the present scene of life- that the history of the world will change, that the engagements and the pursuits of men will slacken, or terminate altogether. No, my reader, no! When we leave this world, the tide of life will roll on as it rolls on now. The world will fulfil its appointed destiny- man will be as eager in the toil for wealth, and in the chase of honor, and in the pursuit of pleasure, as now. Battles will be fought and won, empires will rise and fall, and all things will go on as now they do, while we are slumbering beneath the sweet clods of the valley.

"The storm that waves the wintry sky
No more disturbs our calm repose,
Than summer evening's latest sigh,
That shuts the rose."

And now let us turn our thoughts to some of the peculiar features in the last scene of the aged patriarch, gathering from those who instruction, comfort, and hope, which, in anticipation of our own departure, may be strengthening and consolatory. The first feature that arrests our attention is, his calm, quiet dignity in death. "And one told Jacob, Behold, your son Joseph comes unto you; and he strengthened himself, and sat upon the bed." He was at that moment in dying circumstances- life was fast ebbing- its weary wheels revolved slower and slower; but when they brought to him the intelligence that Joseph was on his way to pay his last tribute of filial reverence and love, lo; the dying saint acquires new strength, and sits upon his bed.

It is a picture of quiet, holy dignity worthy of the occasion. Oh, if there be true quietness, real dignity, holy sublimity, it is in the departure of the dying believer. With what a new character does death appear invested? In what a new point of light is it viewed? What dignity, composure, and hope clothe that solemn crisis of our being! In the case of a man of God, we may truly say that no act of his life is like that of his departure. For a dying saint to sit erect in his bed, gather up his remaining strength to testify to the supports, to the succourings, and the hopes of that hour, presents a picture of dignity and repose which has no parallel in the history of man!

Observe his dying testimony "God, who fed me all my life long unto this day, the Angel which redeemed me from all evil." What a glorious dying testimony is this! From whose lips but those of a man of God could it breathe? Who could bear such a testimony for God but one who was acquainted with God, who had had during life, close dealings with God. And now that he was about to yield back his spirit to the God who gave it, with his latest breath he testifies to the Divine faithfulness and love, compassion and mercy, which had encompassed him through life.

Be assured of this, that the testimony of a departing saint for God, and his witness for Christ, is the most honoring, as it is the most solemn, of his whole life. And do not for a moment doubt, that, when life's close approaches, grace will be given you to testify to the faithfulness and loving-kindness of your covenant-God, and to the goodness, and graciousness, and tenderness of Jesus, the Angel who redeemed you from all evil. Oh, what an honor conferred upon a dying saint, thus intelligently, calmly, and believing, to confirm the truth of the Bible, in the witness he is enabled then to bear to God's faithful, unchanging love, and to the Divine grace and mighty power of Jesus, the "angel of the covenant," in redeeming the soul and body from all evil.

There is another beautiful feature in this departure which, in its spiritual and gospel import, is truly precious to those who believe. What was it that shed a luster so bright around his dying pillow- which tended so much to smooth and calm his spirit's transit to eternity- which imparted to that death so much elasticity and vigor? It was the presence of Joseph! Joseph was with him, and the sweet assurance that his beloved and faithful son was there to cheer his heart, and to administer to his comfort, to receive his dying blessing, and to assure him of the fulfilment of his latest requests, must have imparted a peculiar soothing and repose to his departing hour. Turn to the gospel viewpoint of this.

To have Christ, the true Joseph, with us when we die- to have the consciousness that the Savior treads with us the valley side by side- to have the Conqueror of death smoothing the dying pillow, quelling every fear, removing every doubt, dissipating every cloud, oh, this will not be dying! Death is no death to a man of God conscious of the Savior's presence. Why should you for a moment doubt that this will be your case? We have now our dreary stages in life-seasons in which we seem not to realize the presence of Christ; but we believe that when one of His precious jewels is about to be gathered into glory, that when one of His ransomed ones is about to go hence, that there is a peculiar manifestation, an especial visitation of the Lord Jesus Christ in that solemn hour; and that no believer in Jesus, not one redeemed with His precious blood, shall pass through that solemn, that awful moment, shall tread that dreary valley, unsustained, uncheered, unconsoled by the voice and smile and presence of the Savior.

My unconverted reader, do not, I beseech you, think of death. Do not anticipate the solemn hour without the certain conviction that you will have Christ with you then. You must have Christ with you now- you must have faith in Jesus now- you must realize union with Him now, order to anticipate with calmness, confidence, and hope that you will have His sustaining an soothing presence then. Oh, postpone not the seeking of Jesus to the solemn moment of the spirit's departure into eternity! Seek to know Christ, and to have union with Christ now; and you may be quite sure that when you die, the Savior will be with you.

And there is something very touching and beautiful in one of the patriarch's dying sayings. He pauses in the blessing he was breathing on his children, and gives utterance to this aspiration and exclamation of his soul: "I have waited for Your salvation, O Lord." Beloved, what will be the spirit's aspiration, and the heart's longing and breathing, when we come to die? Will not this be the sum and substance of all, "I have waited for Your salvation, O Lord I have long looked for this hour; I have anticipated this solemn period of my release from corruption and death; I have panted and thirsted for this full salvation from indwelling sin, from the taint and infirmity of the flesh, and from all the sorrows and trials of this present life; I have waited for Your salvation, O Lord."

Oh, to have a soul waiting for Christ, in the attitude and posture of one looking for and expecting the coming of the Lord. What a holy attitude is this! And should not this be the posture of our soul day by day, "Lord, I am waiting for Your summons, for my full redemption, for my complete salvation, for Your coming to receive Your servant to Yourself?" Oh, cultivate that blessed, holy state of mind, of waiting for God's salvation. When your soul is about to go hence, may the Lord grant that, with like confidence, assurance, and hope, you may be enabled to say with the departing patriarch, "I have waited for Your salvation, O Lord, and now it is come!"

There is something deeply instructive and beautifully touching in the directions the dying patriarch gave with regard to his burial: "And he charged them, and said unto them, I am about to be gathered unto my people: bury me with my fathers." With some individuals it is a matter of but little moment where their own dust, or that of those they love; reposes. But when we remember that the body of the believer is a temple of the Holy Spirit- that the body is as much redeemed by Christ as the soul- that the 'mortal' is as precious to the Savior as the immortal- that it shall be raised again, every particle- that it shall be restored, vivified, and retenanted by the spirit that once made it its home, we feel a sympathy with the desire of the believer that his ransomed dust should slumber with the sleeping dead in Christ. But if we bear in mind that Jacob's soul yearned for Canaan- that the thought of being buried in a heathen land was distasteful, painful, gloomy to his departing spirit- that he was looking forward, in fact, to the goal, the promised land, in that solemn hour, it gives additional force to his dying request, "Bury me with my fathers."

When we depart hence, and the thought of our interment crosses the mind, let it be associated with the blessed anticipation that our body shall rise again in the "first resurrection," and occupy the promised land, the heavenly Canaan. Oh yes, we love to cherish the sacred thought of sleeping among the holy dead! It is a delightful charming reflection, that we shall He side by side with departed Christian heroes; and that when the archangel's trump shall awake the slumbering dust, we shall join the morning song of the first resurrection.

There were two predictions of the dying patriarch worthy of our study. The first one is remarkable and instructive, beautiful and soothing. He sought to comfort Joseph, in the anticipation of his departure, by the assurance, that though he died, God would be with him: "Behold, I die, but God will be with you." Enough? He could desire no more. And may not every departing man of God employ the same language? See how wonderfully it applies to the Church of God. The Church of God is constantly called to mourn the departure of her ministers, her strong and distinguished pillars, her warm and zealous friends and supporters. And when thus a useful minister of Christ dies, when a prominent standard-bearer in the army of Christ falls, and when a strong pillar of the Church is removed by death, our hearts begin to fear and tremble, and we inquire, "Who will, or can, supply his place in the Church of God? Who will uplift that standard and wave it before the foe? Who will be able to carry on that important enterprise thus suddenly arrested? Who will fill this gap, battle for this principle, witness for this truth?"

The answer is-"god will be with you." "Enough, blessed Lord," we exclaim. "You take away ministers, remove earnest and zealous agents, and stern, strong pillars of the Church; but You live still, and will never leave Your Church destitute." Let this always comfort us when we hear of the removal by death of God's servants, the pillars of the Church, the witnesses of the truth, God will be with His Church, will guide His Church, will protect His Church, will lead her on from battle to battle, and from victory to victory, never leaving nor forsaking her in all times of trial, desertion, and bereavement." I die; but God will be with you."

And how replete with comfort and consolation is this assurance in the season of domestic bereavement! How the heart often trembles even in the anticipation of the departure of the head of the family. What can meet that solemn hour, and that irreparable exigency, but an assurance like this? Though God may remove the heads of our families, or its more prominent and useful members, He will still remain, the God of all the families of Israel, the widow's God, and the Father of the fatherless. "I die; but God will be with you."

May we who are parents, and whose spirits are ofttimes shaded and saddened with the thought, "What will become of my family when God calls me home? how will they battle with life? how escape its snares, and temptations? who will be their friend and guardian?" Take hold by faith of this precious truth, "Our covenant-God will guide, counsel, and shield them; be their Friend, Provider, and Father." "I die; but God shall be with you."

With what dignity and composure may the dying parent bequeath this precious legacy to his family weeping around him, "I, your parent, protector, counselor, and friend, am about to die; but my God, my own covenant-God, will be your God, your Father, your Friend; and to that covenant-God, who has led me all my journey through, and to the Angel of the covenant who has redeemed my soul from all evil, I now believingly, confidently, commit you." This is one of the blessings of faith in Christ- this is one of the glorious attributes of Christianity- this is one of the marvelous features of true religion. Oh, take hold of the covenant, Christian patent; often comfort your heart with this precious truth; it will uplift that leaden load that presses you to the earth, in anticipation of your departure from the loved ones of earth. God will be with them, and this involves every blessing.

This consolatory truth will apply equally to the death of friends. How often are we filled with sadness and fear when we think what a vacancy the death of such and such a one would produce, what a void in human life would be created, what a spring would be dried! These are common occurrences- how are we to meet them? By taking hold of God, and in no other way. There is not another being in the universe, who can supply this vacancy but God in Christ. And if our faith will but take hold of the covenant-promise of the covenant-God, we may with confidence and calmness anticipate these vacancies, these sad changes, when God sees fit in His providence to make them.

We must dwell for a moment on the second prediction of the dying patriarch: "And bring you again into the land of your fathers." Now, here we see a striking illustration of the power of real faith. The dying patriarch looked down through the vista of years to the deliverance of Israel out of the land of Egypt; and though it was foreshadowed years before the prediction would be accomplished, yet his faith clung to it, looked forward to it, rested in it, that God would appear on behalf of the Israelites, and bring them out of Egypt, through the wilderness, into Canaan. And God did it. And what is the spiritual import of that prediction? Most blessed!

God will bring His whole Church out of this Egypt, this iron furnace, this land that is strange to us, this place of exile, into the good, the promised land above. Yes, faith can look forward to that blessed hour, that glorious day, when He will deliver His Church from her present Egyptian exile and bondage, and bring her home to heaven. We no equally apply this precious truth to our pious relatives and friends who survive us. Oh, is it not a reflection sweet and soothing to one whom death sunders from godly children, pious relatives and friends, "I die; I am about to be removed from you, but God will bring you into the land of your fathers, and we shall meet all again in heaven. We shall re-assemble in glory before long; the separation is temporary, and but for a little while, and then comes the blessed and eternal re-union, and we meet to part no more.

Do not deem this a mere poetical thought, fanciful and ideal. It is an element of revealed religion, the hope of the gospel of Christ. The religion of Jesus is the only religion that assures us of the future, and unseals to us, in some measure, what that future will be. This prospect is an element of Christian hope- it springs from faith in Christ- that, though death sunder for a while the tie that links to the loved and precious ones who go to be with Jesus, in due time the Lord will bring them all again into the good land, the celestial Canaan, where the fruit, the flower, the sunshine are eternal, and the parting is no more.

The doctrine of the believer's resurrection also gleams forth here. We deal too little with the blessed resurrection of the saints. It is a delightful thought that the ransomed body shall be raised in glory a spiritual body, perfect in holiness, radiant in beauty, made like unto Christ's glorious body. What a halo does this prospect impart to the gloom, of the grave, that God will gather together the scattered dust of the holy dead, and will bring it home to the fatherland. And should it be God's will that your ashes slumber not where you would desire they should- it may be in the ocean's cave, or on some distant shore- the Lord, who has watched over these ashes with unslumbering eye, will raise them again in glory, honor, and immortality. Oh, may we die the death of the righteous, and may our last end be like his!

"So fades a summer cloud away;
So sinks the gale when storms are o'er;
So gently shuts the eye of day,
So dies the wave along the shore."

Life's duty done, as sinks the clay,
Light from its load the spirit flies,
While heaven and earth combine to say,
How blessed the RIGHTEOUS when he dies!"

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

THE MINISTRY OF HOME or "Brief Expository Lectures on Divine Truth"

Table of Contents

1. The Christian Family

2. The Desire to See Jesus

3. The Heart Opened

4. The Lord's Time of Love

5. Christ Not Hidden

6. The Woman That Left Her Waterpot

7. The Power of the Tongue

8. The Gift of Suffering

9. The Bereaved Home

10. The Influence of Companionship

11. Gracious Surprisals

12. Beginning the Year with Jesus

13. Christ's Law of Christian Beneficence

14. Spiritual Diligence

15. Fragments Gathered

16. The Punishment of the Wicked

17. The New Song of Heaven

18. The Church of God a Garden

19. The Fragrance of Christ's Name

20. The Burden Cast upon God

The Christian Family

Joshua 24:15. "As for ME and my house, we will serve the Lord."

The image of this impressive passage is taken from the highest form of human society- the family constitution. There exists not, among earthly institutions, a diviner, holier, or more beauteous one than the domestic. It was among the earliest, as among the wisest and most beneficent, creations of God; and, when it has been preserved in its integrity- pure, honored, and sanctified -it has proved a well-spring of individual happiness, social progress, and national prosperity, of the loftiest character.

The human race- sinful and divided as it is- has never entirely lost its family instincts and domestic yearnings. Separated from its Divine Creator, and, consequently, separated from itself, mankind still crave and strive after unity. To meet this want and to satisfy this desire, men have devised and employed various expedients. The sword has been drunk with blood; Commerce has spread its canvas upon every sea; Ecclesiasticism has employed its engine of power; but all attempts to accomplish a unity of the race into one great family, under one supreme human will and head, have proved signal and complete failures. Thus the experiment has been tried without effect, upon a grand and costly scale.

But what was impossible for man has proved possible with God. The Lord Jesus has done what no chivalry, or commerce, or ecclesiasticism could do. By His incarnation He taught the doctrine of a common humanity; a humanity shared alike by the subject as by the Sovereign, by the unlearned as by the philosopher, by the slave as by the master- the human race "made of one blood to dwell on all the face of the earth" and by His death upon the cross, He moulds all who believe in Him into one holy brotherhood, constituting the ONE FAMILY of God. Now, of this essentially one family of God, the domestic institution is a beautiful and perfect type. It is from this institution the passage which I have selected, as suggesting the thoughts of the present introduction, derives its expressive image.

Joshua was the head of a household. He was an eminent servant of God. As such, he was one of the most distinguished personal types of the Lord Jesus Christ found in the Old Testament. On the death of Moses he was appointed to lead the sacred tribes into the promised land. Although the great legislator of Israel had brought them up out of Egypt, and had led them through the wilderness to the borders of Canaan, he was not permitted to complete the work he had undertaken, but was compelled to relinquish into the hands of Joshua the honor of settling the tribes of Israel in the promised land. It is, perhaps, in this part of his remarkable history that his typical relation to the Lord Jesus Christ first appears. Moses could only lead the children of Israel to the border of Canaan; but Joshua led them into Canaan, and settled them in the good land.

Thus did the Lord Jesus Christ accomplish for us what the law, of which Moses was the type, could not do. The law convinces of sin, but is totally inadequate to justify or save ; and, therefore, could never effect our entrance into heaven, and make us possessors of the inheritance which we lost in the first Adam, but which we regain in Christ the Second Adam. Thus, "Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believes." Thus, too, we are taught that, "by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified:" that, as the sacred tribes looked to Joshua to conduct them into Canaan, and not to Moses, so we as sinners are to look in faith to Jesus, and not to the law, to bring us to heaven.

The law is a mirror to reflect our sinfulness, and not a laver to cleanse our guilt. Looking into this holy and perfect law, we see our true image as sinners- but, washing in the atoning blood of Jesus, we are cleansed from all sin. Joshua, therefore, signifies Jesus, because he temporally saved the children of Israel by conducting them fully into Canaan; and so it was said of our blessed Savior, "His name shall be called JESUS, for He shall SAVE His People from their sins."

But, in addition to his civil relation to the Church of God, Joshua filled the sacred office of a Christian minister; he was, as it were, a priest over his own house, and hence it was a pious house. It was here, amid its hallowed influences, doubtless, that his personal piety was nourished, his religious character was nurtured, and his spirit was trained and encouraged to undertake and achieve great things for God and for His Church.

He lived in degenerate times- amid much laxity of morals and religious declension, against which he was enabled, by the grace of God, to oppose a powerful and decided resistance. The children of Israel were proud, vacillating, and rebellious. To them he addressed the solemn, searching words, "You cannot serve the Lord, for He is a holy God; He is a jealous God; He will not forgive your transgressions nor your sins. Put away the strange gods which are among you, and incline your hearts unto the Lord God of Israel." And then appealing to his own personal and solemn decision, he gave utterance to the noble sentiment of our text. Whatever religious declension might exist within the church, however the people of the land should pervert their ways, decline from the fear of the Most High, forsake His ordinances, and set up strange gods in their dwellings, and be so corrupt as to destroy their households, there yet can be one home consecrated to God, one sanctuary within which true piety should find a retreat- one safe asylum for real religion, one altar upon which should glow the fire of faith and virtue, of devotion and love to God.

"As for Me and My House, We Will Serve the Lord." He had vowed to the Lord, that both he and his family should be on the Lord's side, and from that vow he would not go back. He could not rule the State nor command the Church to the extent that he wished; but he could be the minister of God, and an apostle of Jesus Christ in his own home -among his own kindred; and he was resolved that, personally and relatively, both he and his house should serve the Lord. If all the tribes of Israel had determined to leave God- if all the families of these separate tribes had determined to forsake the sanctuary and abjure the worship of the Most High, yet this pious parent's heart was fixed, his mind was determined; he would dare to be singular, and to stand alone, though the thousands who had cast off the fear of Jehovah should bend upon him their contemptuous frown. "As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord." Holy and magnanimous resolve!

Let us first contemplate the sphere of Joshua's religion: it was his HOME. Next to the Church of God, the most sacred enclosure, and the most important and precious institution, is the domestic. Home is a hallowed and endeared spot. No earthly association can be so important or interesting as a family. Here exist the closest relations, here flow the warmest affections, and here are experienced the tenderest sympathies. It is here the painter finds the most touching subject for his pencil; and the poet the sweetest inspiration of his song. Whatever loneliness reigns in other communities, or clouds shade other spots, there is always companionship and sunshine here.

But this is not all that constitutes a happy home. Although the family connection may be viewed as the only sanctuary of earthly bliss, we cannot blind our eyes to the fact that sin has invaded its sanctity, poisoning its joys, marring its loveliness, and shading its brightness. There may, it is true, be much that is amiable and attractive where nothing exists but the natural affections, clothed in their native simplicity, and regulated by refined education; but, apart from home piety, severed from the Christian graces shedding their heavenly influence over the family circle, all this loveliness of nature fades into the cold light of an inanimate picture, the color is brilliant, and the figures expressive, but the whole lacks life!

The body is fair and symmetrical, but the soul- the living image of God- is absent. I have referred to the importance of the family institution: it cannot be exaggerated. It is here that human life begins, and often closes, its earthly pilgrimage; here it is trained for this world, and disciplined for the world that is to come; here the seeds of thought are sown, and the young ideas are taught to shoot; here the germs of those principles are implanted that are to regulate all the future of our being; here the boy is trained to be the man; and the bud of feminine virtue and loveliness, beneath the warm sunlight of a parent's eye, blooms into the full-blown flower of the future woman.

Here, too, is the cradle of greatness. From this sacred ark, the Pulpit and the Bench, the Senate, the University, and the National Service draw the great men by whom their ranks are replenished and enriched. But, transcending in importance is the truth that, the family is the nursery of the family of God- the earthly home is the school of the home of heaven. Within the domestic garden God is training His trees of righteousness- the plants and flowers of paradise. There are, perhaps, few of God's children who are not able to trace some of their earliest and deepest serious thoughts and religious impressions, the formation of sacred tastes and habits, which, in subsequent life, exerted so happy a control, to the influence and ministry of a Christian home. It was home instruction that sowed the seed, home influence that promoted its growth, and home example that gave to the bud its existence, to the flower its perfection, and to the tree its shape.

The relation of the Christian family to the Christian Church is of the closest and most solemn nature. It is both the type and the nursery of the Church. The Church rises out of the family, to which it is strikingly and beautifully analogous. Thus Christian parents are the nursing-fathers and the nursing-mothers of the Church. I do not know of a more touching and impressive argument for the cultivation of "piety at home,"than this. Let every pious family keep this thought prominently before it- We are contributing to the up building of that glorious Church of God, which He has purchased with His own blood; from our sacred enclosure she is transferring to her own our sons and daughters- destined, in their turn, to supply an endless succession of the "holy seed" to the Church of our "Lord Jesus Christ, of whom, the whole family in heaven and earth is named."

Here is an argument for family religion, and a plea for the ministry of home, cogent and irresistible! Honored and happy parents, who live to see the precious seed of truth and piety you sowed in early years- perchance with "strong crying and tears "-now yielding so rich a harvest. Your sons as plants, grown up in their youth; and your daughters as corner-stones, polished after the similitude of a palace. Such will ever be the fruit of the ministry of home.

Viewed in this point of light, what sacred spots, what centers of influence, what sources of power, and what founts of happiness are Christian homes! They may be humble and obscure; often embittered with domestic affliction and darkened with the clouds of adversity, the pressure of poverty, the anxiety of sickness, the shadow of bereavement may seldom be absent; and yet they are Christian homes, and therefore happy homes! Christian love unites the members, God's fear rules their hearts, His Word is the light in the dwelling, and the peace which Jesus gives shades with its balmy wing the sacred circle.

"Better than gold is a Christian home,
Where all the fireside charities come
The shrine of love, the haven of life,
Hallowed by mother, or sister, or wife.

However humble the home may be,
Or tried with sorrow by heaven's decree
The blessings, that never were bought or sold,
And center there, are better than gold."

Nor must we entirely overlook the moral relation of the Christian family to the State: it is close and vital. As families compose the fabric of the State, so the State derives its character and stability from the moral and religious character of those families. The Commonwealth will be what its domestic institution makes it. When society cease to be molded into families, and families cease to be sanctified by religion, "Ichabod " may be written upon the State- for its glory and its stability will have departed!

The family constitution is a vast moral power, and may be employed as an engine for good or for evil to an incalculable extent. Compare the moral and religious condition of England and Scotland with Spain and France; then, institute an inquiry into the domestic economy of each, and it will not be difficult to arrive at the cause of so vast a moral difference between nations, in other respects equally great and noble. In France and in Spain the family enclosure is invaded by a foreign foe, styled the Director, or Spiritual Guide; and the family hearth has ceased to be the corner-stone of God's own domestic institution, and both the temple of home and the edifice of religion are eaten at the very core, and sapped at the very base by "the canker-worm of many a gentle heart." But both of England and Scotland, as of other Protestant countries, it may be said of this sheltering vine- the family constitution- as was beautifully said of the Jewish Church of old- "You prepared room before it, and did cause it to take deep root, and it filled the land. The hills were covered with the shadow of it, and the boughs thereof were like the goodly cedars. She sent out her boughs unto the sea, and her branches unto the river."

I return to the thought- Christian families constitute the nursery of the Christian Church, and the Christian Church constitutes the conservator of the State. A nation in which the Domestic Economy is lightly estimated, or whose families are destitute of religion- in which no domestic altar is reared, where God's Word is discarded, and household instruction is neglected, and family government is prostrated- will, in spite of fervent preaching, and popular education, and costly philanthropy, naturally and inevitably lead to bad government, a dissolute people, the prevalence of social wrong, religious paralysis, and moral death.

On the other hand, let society be built up into families; let those families be organized upon, and be regulated by, the principles of God's Word; let the head be a king, a priest, and a prophet in its midst; let parental authority be maintained, and filial obedience be observed; in a word, let them be homes in which God is feared; Christ is confessed, the Sabbath is hallowed, and piety is nurtured, and we shall behold the reverse of the sad picture I have sketched- a sound Commonwealth, a healthy Government; a peaceful community, advancing religion, a prosperous Church, and a happy country.

Of what moment, then, that our domestic constitution should be molded by vital godliness- that family government should be based upon the precepts of the Bible- that home-life should be sanctified by the spirit of holiness, and that our households should be sanctuaries of God: parents, children, servants, all forming the Church in the house. "Blessed is every one that fears the Lord; that walks in His ways. For you shall eat the labor of your hands: happy shall you be, and it shall be well with you. Your wife shall be as a fruitful vine by the sides of your house: your children like olive plants round about your table. Behold, that thus shall the man be blessed that fears the Lord. The Lord shall bless you out of Zion: and you shall see the good of Jerusalem all the days of your life. Yes, you shall see your children's children, and peace upon Israel." Such was the sphere of Joshua's religion.

Let us now look at his religion itself. It began with himself. "As for me." The parent is the head of the family- its sovereignty of authority and government. A father's position is one of immense power and responsibility. How important that he should be a man of God- a priest in his own house! Here the ministry of home has its seat. Home piety seldom rises above the parental standard; like father, like children. It was a noble testimony to Abraham's paternal piety which Jehovah bore, when He said of him- "I know that he will command his children, and his household after him, and they shall keep the way of the Lord."

Of what infinite moment, then, that the father of a family should be a Christian man- that his influence should be sanctified, and his example sanctifying; that his religion should be the religion of the Bible, which is the religion of Jesus; and that his domestic life should be a "burning and a shining light," shedding its softening, hallowing influence upon all the relations, and duties, and members of home.

Not less important is the domestic position of the mother. A mother's influence is proverbial; it cannot be too highly valued, nor too warmly appreciated. She is the central power of home. She may not be called the head of the family, but its heart she certainly is. To her hands the interests of the family are chiefly confided; on her the happiness of home mainly depends. She it is who supplies the Church with its brightest ornaments, the pulpit with its holiest ministers, the state with its strongest pillars. She shapes the destiny of future generations; and if she is a holy woman- a praying mother, trusting in God, and faithful to her mission- there is not a strong and a brave man battling with the world, guiding the state, or toiling for the Church, who is not, like Anteeus, all the stronger, the braver, and the happier, by the power of her influence, the music of her voice, and the memory of her love.

Of what moment, then, that the mother should be a godly, Christ-loving, praying woman! A child left to itself," says Solomon, "brings its mother to shame." Why the mother, and not the father? Because the early mental and spiritual training of that child- the development and mold of its character were more especially confided to its mother's hands; she becomes, as it were, responsible for its future course. The man is what the child was; and the child is what a mother's teaching, prayers, and example make it.

The history of a pious mother's influence is one of the most instructive and interesting the Church historian ever compiled. In addition to the sacred history of Moses and Samuel, of John the Baptist and Timothy, we might refer to at least a majority of the twelve Apostles of Jesus as the offspring of holy women; who, though moving in the humbler ranks of life, possessed the patent of a higher nobility than man could confer, in that they belonged to the devout women of old who waited in the temple for the "Consolation of Israel." They were holy women, therefore they were praying mothers; and it is utterly impossible that the prayers and early pious instruction of a Christian mother can be entirely lost.

Let one or two examples suffice: A weak and sickly infant was once launched into life. He was the last of a family of twenty children. So frail and helpless seemed this little boy that he was laid aside as one that was dead. A mother's quick eye, however, detected signs of animation, and her warm bosom roused the sinking pulse, and her sleepless care won back the life doomed to destruction. He grew up a sickly child, of feeble constitution and pulmonary tendencies. And yet that little sickly, consumptive boy was the embryo of a great and holy man. Hidden in that fragile frame were germs of great intellectual power, -one of the noblest, loveliest, and most commanding spirits that ever animated our humanity. Sitting upon her lap, his pious mother was wont to interest and instruct her frail sickly child from the china Dutch tiles which ornamented the chimney-piece of her humble room, upon which were rudely yet truthfully traced various Scripture histories. Thus, when he could read, the mind of her pupil was well stored with a large amount of Scripture knowledge, both of the Old and the New Testaments. Referring to this interesting fact when grown to be a great and good man, he says- "The wise and pious reflections which she made upon these stories were the means of enforcing such good impressions on my heart as never were worn out." Such was the basis upon which in after years rose one of the noblest Christian characters, and such the nucleus around which were gathered those holy principles and lovely thoughts, and yet lovelier disposition, which through forty years of suffering life shed their holy light and influence upon countless other minds. And as long as the Church on earth lasts, and vital godliness is admired, and religious truth influences, Doddridge's "Rise and Progress of Religion in the Soul," will never die.

And when you consult the Biblical Commentary, and sing the Spiritual Hymns, and trace the progress of experimental religion as they flowed from the pen of Philip Doddridge, pause, and bless the memory of that mother whose hands sowed the precious seed which in after years yielded so golden, so great a harvest- and yields it still!

One of the most interesting annals of the Christian Church would be a compilation illustrating the power and success of a mother's prayers. Recently a young sailor, the son of pious parents, left his boarding-house in one of our large cities, bent on a sinful excursion. On his way he passed a mission station, where a religious service was being held. Attracted by the sound of music, but doubtless influenced by the Spirit of God upon his heart, he was induced to enter. The truth which he then heard was brought home with a quickening and converting power to his soul; and he went to sea again a new creature in Christ Jesus. On his return voyage, he found, on his arrival, a letter awaiting him at the Post Office: it was from his mother, announcing the heavy tidings of his father's death. She informed him that on her retiring from his grave she bowed at the throne of grace in a special and importunate prayer for the conversion of her absent child. On comparing dates, the sailor-boy discovered that that earnest prayer was ascending to God from the stricken heart of his widowed mother at the very time that he was so strangely led to the mission service, and from thence went to sea with a new song of salvation in his mouth. Well may this converted sailor ask, as with deep emotion he related the circumstance of his conversion, "Can any one doubt the efficacy of prayer?"

Christian mothers! your child may be far away from the sheltering home, voyaging on the stormy sea, or dwelling in some distant climate beyond your voice. But he is still within the reach of the mightiest power a mother can wield- the power of prayer! And although you cannot throw around him your maternal arms to shield him from the evil of the world, you can invest him with your wrestling believing petitions, and secure on his behalf the Arm which encircles the globe, and is mighty to save. Oh that the Church of God may be filled with such praying mothers!

But the religion of home, though it naturally begins with the head- the united head of the family is not to remain there. Joshua would not serve the Lord alone. His noble resolution embraced all his belongings. "Me and my house." He was not content with his own personal religion and devotedness. He was not satisfied to go to heaven himself, indifferent to, and unaccompanied by, those who stood to him in so close, tender, and responsible a relation as children and domestics. If he had ceased to be a leader, he had not ceased to be a parent. Nor did he merge his personal in his official duties, and in serving as a minister the Church of God, forget that he was a minister to the Church in his own house.

It is sadly to be deplored that many of Christ's ministering servants, and also many private heads of families, are so completely engrossed by the public, and absorbed by official and professional engagements, as to leave almost entirely neglected, or but slovenly performed, the ministry of home. "He made me keeper of the vineyards; but my own vineyard have I not kept," may well be the lamentation of many officially connected with the Church of God.

But what an illustrious example of supreme devotedness to God in all the relations of life, domestic and official, have we before us! No office-bearer in the Church was, ever called to a higher post, to more exacting duties, or to a weightier responsibility than Joshua! And yet this was his noble resolve- "As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord!" Official engagements were not allowed to override individual responsibility; nor were the claims of the Church permitted to set aside those of the family. The interests of the tribes of Israel did not interfere with those of his household, nor the reponsibilities which attached to his official relation to the Church of God, crucify the obligations and duties which bound him to the home of his heart. Weary from the public duties appertaining to the sacred tribes, like David, after settling the restore dark, he "returned to bless his household."

And not to bless them only, but to be blessed, to experience within its sacred bosom the soothing and repose found only there, amid the anxieties, chafings, and jadedness of official and public life. What an ark of wealth- what a haven of safety- what a pillow of rest is a Christian home, whose the motto is- "We will serve the Lord!"

The whole subject resolves itself into a conclusion pregnant with the most weighty and solemn thought that real religion- the religion of Christ- is the true conservative principle- the only true safeguard- of a home. It was the astute remark of an eminent divine of a former age, "A family without religion is like a house without a roof, exposed to every storm." And of another who, at a later period, when referring to the advantage of family prayer, speaks of it as, "The border which keeps the web of daily life from unraveling." Can the Christian mind picture to itself a spectacle more melancholy than that of a family without vital religion?- the circle being wholly for this world, without any consideration of the world to come. It is devoted intently and supremely to the pursuits and pleasures, to the gaieties and enjoyments of this life; it has no thought beyond the gratification of its own selfishness. Time is devoted to dress and fashion, to the ball, the theater, the opera, and the gratification of sense.

Its tastes may be refined, its manners polished, its mind cultivated and intelligent; there are not lacking affection, sympathy, assimilation of tastes, concord, and mutual well-pleasing: but it is a "home without a roof," -it is entirely destitute of the hallowing, softening, ennobling influence of religion. God is not feared, Christ is not confessed, the saints are not recognized by the members of that family; the Gospel of Jesus is scorned, the name of God profaned, and the subject of religion tabooed as distasteful, or banished as a bore.

Am I drawing a too highly colored picture? Then, take a family decidedly of the world, yet with some semblance of religion. Prayers may be read, the house of God frequented, the Sacrament observed- and this is all! With this outward form of godliness there is no world-crucifying, sin-mortifying power. The one is still in the ascendant, and the other maintains the mastery; and, with all its sacred profession and form, it is still a family without religion- a family without God!

Contemplate the future- the eternal future of that family! One by one passes away into eternity; the silver-haired sire, the venerable mother, the manly son, the beautiful daughter- each and all without a saving interest in Christ, without the converting grace of the Spirit, without a good hope of heaven: and all to meet again in the world of woe, to deplore their folly, and to rue in endless suffering and mutual reproach their fatal choice. O there is something in the thought too appalling for the mind to dwell upon- a whole family passing unprepared into eternity! -lost, forever lost!

Truly, a family destitute of vital religion has no covering amid the pitiless, pelting storms of this world's adversities, and no shelter from the eternal storm of Divine wrath in the world that is to come. But it is not too late earnestly and prayerfully to seek family religion. Fairly and in good faith try the experiment. Enthrone God supremely upon the domestic altar; make Him the center of your family- to whom your first and last thoughts shall converge, from whom your chief happiness shall flow, and in whom all your highest and noblest actions shall end. Seek the converting power of the Holy Spirit, the sanctifying grace of Christ Jesus. Put away from you the strange household gods you worship- an infidel and frivolous literature, immodest works of art- the card playing- the private theatricals- the licentious dance- with everything inconsistent with a Christian home- a home regulated and sanctified by the holy, unearthly, unworldly religion of Jesus; and let this be the all-governing principle of your home, "As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord."

Listen to the invitation of God- "Come, you and all your house into the Ark." Let not any neglect, as Christian parents, of the religious duties of home- any indifference to the moral and spiritual welfare of our children and servants, any too fond parental indulgence or allowance of wilful filial disobedience, any sanction given to Sabbath desecration, or neglect of Bible study, or ignoring of the family altar- give countenance or weight to the popular, I had almost said vulgar, notion that the children of ministers of the Gospel, and those of Christian parents, are the worst trained in Christian knowledge, and the most lax in the religious principles, precepts, and duties of life- in a word, are the most irreligious children of society! The accusation I believe to be wrong in theory and unfounded in fact. Nevertheless, let not this shadow rest upon our domestic escutcheon through our too great absorption in public life, to an exclusion of the claims and power of the ministry of home.

"We will serve the Lord!" This is the noblest end of life- may this be this our aim! What Christian parent longs not that this should be the distinctive feature of his house? Of what infinite moment that you should be a truly converted parent, loving God, and serving the Lord Jesus Christ ! O consider your parental responsibility, the force of your teaching, the power of your example, the influence of your whole life in molding the future destiny of your household. Let not your children have reason to curse your memory; but, rather, when the clods of the valley press lightly upon you, may they rise up and call you blessed!

As a Christian parent, then, you have every encouragement to persevere in carrying out the noble resolution, "As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord." The promise is to you and to your children- and oh what a promise it is- "I will be a God unto you, and to your seed after you." Plead that great and precious promise in faith, and God will make it good, and shower upon your domestic circle such blessings as He only can bestow- such as shall cheer and hallow your dwelling now, and enrich you and yours hereafter. Happy home! when Christianity is the all-ruling, all-pervading power. All is harmony and peace within its sacred enclosure. Animated by one and the same holy religion of Jesus, and traveling the same road to Zion, the members of such a family take sweet council together, and are helpers of each other's joy. The natural asperities of temper are softened, discordant feelings and interests are harmonized, coldness and selfishness are banished, and the domestic circle becomes an emblem of heaven.

Into that heaven all shall finally enter, and eternally meet! Think not that this holy circle, where Christ's cementing love was felt, and by whom God was worshiped with the beauty of holiness, are, when they go hence, forever lost to each other. Oh no! that pious family shall meet again, to go no more out forever; but to enjoy, with cherubim and seraphim and with the spirits of just men made perfect, unmingled happiness, perennial joy, and immortal glory! Thrice blessed family! You made the happy choice, and formed the noble resolution that you would serve the Lord. Yours was the wisdom not to set your affections upon the riches, the honors, or the pleasures which endure but for a moment, but on things eternal- on God, on Christ, on holiness, on heaven. You preferred affliction with the people of God, to the pleasures of sin for a season. You chose the despised LAMB as your pattern. You followed His steps, bore His cross, did His service; and He sustained you in every trial, soothed you in grief, was with you in death, and has now planted your feet triumphantly on Mount Zion. Such is the golden, everlasting fruit of the Ministry of Home!

"Father of all! Your care we bless,
Which crowns our families with peace;
From You they spring, and by Your hand
They have been and are still sustained.

To God, most worthy to be praised,
Be our domestic altar raised;
Who, Lord of heaven, scorns not to dwell
With saints in their obscurest cell.

To You may each united house
Morning and night present its vows;
Our servants there, and rising race,
Are taught Your precepts and Your grace.

Oh, may each future age proclaim
The honor of Your glorious name;
While, pleased and thankful, we remove
To join the family above.

The Desire to See Jesus

"Sir, we would see Jesus." John 12:21

Those who originally made this deeply interesting request were Grecian proselytes to the Jewish religion. Nurtured as they had been, amid the abominations of their national idolatry, they yet had received sufficient light to form some estimate of the Hebrew religion, and their hearts cordially embraced it. Now, however, they hear of another religion other than the Jewish, and of another Teacher other than Moses. His fame had reached their ears. They heard that He was filling all Jerusalem with the excitement of His doctrine and with the wonder of His works. They were told that He taught as one having authority, and not as the scribes. That He opened the ears of the deaf to the sweet sounds of melody; that He poured the golden light of day upon the sightless eyeball; that, at a single word, the paralytic cast from him his crutch, and leaped as a deer; that the tongue which had never articulated an intelligent sound, at His touch poured forth its sweetest praise; that diseases which had long existed -baffling all human skill, and wasting all earthly substance- fled at His command; and that even the dead- shrouded and entombed for days- at His voice rose from their graves, and lived again in all the vigor and freshness of youth.
Hearing of these wonderful works, these proselytes embarked upon a journey to Jerusalem to verify their truth, and yet more, to see the wonderful Being who had wrought them. Finding two of Christ's disciples, they presented their request, "We would see Jesus." The result is not recorded. But of this we may be assured that, if their inquiry was spiritual and not carnal- if their search for Jesus was earnest and not speculative, the promises were fulfilled in their experience: "They who seek Me shall find me. Ask and you shall receive; seek and you shall find; knock and it shall be opened unto you. He has not said to the seeking seed of Jacob, Seek My face in vain." Doubtless they found Jesus, and henceforth followed Him.
From this suggestive incident let us turn to ourselves. Is there nothing in the interesting inquiry of these Greeks- nothing in the object of their search spiritually instructive to our minds? Nothing to awaken a yet deeper and holier echo in our hearts: "We would see Jesus "? Oh yes, there is much! May the Holy Spirit aid and bless us while I endeavor to present the Object of sight- then show what are some of the states of mind to which this important inquiry will apply- concluding with a reference to the hallowed and practical effect of a spiritual and believing sight of Jesus. O holy and eternal Spirit! Author of spiritual life, from whom all light and truth emanate, take not only of the things of Jesus and show them unto us, but reveal to us JESUS Himself as a personal Savior- that, with a spiritual eye we may see Him, and seeing, may admire Him; and admiring, may love Him; and loving, may follow, serve, and honor Him all the days of our life.
The Object of sight is JESUS. He is the most wonderful as He is the most glorious Being in the universe. He is the Essential Son of the Father, co-equal and co-eternal; of the same Divine essence as the Father, the Maker of all worlds and the Creator of all beings; "Who is the image of the invisible God, the first-born of every creature. For by Him were all things created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by Him, and for Him, and He is before all things, and by Him all things exist."
It is Jesus who died for sinners on the cross, rose from the dead for our justification, and ascended up on high and sat down at the right hand of God, from where He will come again to receive His Church, and to judge the world in righteousness. Angels worship Him, saints love Him, devils fear Him, the world despises and rejects Him; but to those who believe, He is precious- the "chief among ten thousand and the altogether lovely One;" and "to those who look for Him will He appear the second time without sin unto salvation." Such, in a few words, is the Object of the sinner's spiritual sight. No other saving object is presented to us in the Gospel- it is JESUS Only. It is JESUS the divinest, the greatest, the most glorious and lovely Being in the universe. There is but one Friend of sinners, but one Savior of the lost, but one Star of Bethlehem-it is JESUS. God has concentrated all glory and grace and beauty in Christ. Look to Him and you are saved; look from Him and you are lost!
"We would see Jesus." And first, this is the inquiry of the penitent soul. So soon as the Holy Spirit convinces a man of sin, opens the chamber of imagery, makes known the plague, and reveals the original and deep depravity of the heart- sins exceeding the hue of scarlet, and outnumbering the sands of the sea-shore, -there is at once a newly discovered need in the soul -a strange and deeply felt need, such as nothing seen within or found without can meet. And what is that necessity? It is the deeply, intensely felt need of a Savior. Jesus is now the desire of the soul; Jesus, and nothing less and nothing more. Awakened to a conviction of its ruined, self-destroyed, and lost condition, the desire and yearnings of the heart now go forth after one object- Jesus, the Savior and Friend of poor sinners.
His language is, "I would see Jesus; I would see Him as my sin-bearer; I would see Him suffering, dying, and as rising again in my stead as my surety and substitute. I would see Him as discharging all my great debt to Law and Justice; as making my peace with God; as cleansing me in His blood, and as clothing me with His righteousness; thus bringing me into a state of present salvation, peace, and hope." If such is the true desire of your soul, my reader, the Gospel just meets your case. It is the mirror that reflects the person of Jesus; it is the frame that contains the likeness of Jesus; it is the setting that encloses the beauty, and luster, and glory of Jesus- this priceless, precious jewel.
Penitent soul! weeping over your sins, bemoaning your transgressions, lying in the dust before God- self-abased, self-abhorred -look up and see Jesus bending over you in all the gracious compassion of His heart, speaking in accents of the tenderest love, "The Spirit of the Lord God is upon Me; because the Lord has anointed Me to preach good tidings unto the meek; He has sent Me to bind up the broken-hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those that are bound, to appoint unto those who mourn in Zion, to give unto them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness." Look unto Me. Behold My hands and My feet, pierced by and for your sins: believe and be saved.
"We would see Jesus " is the inquiry of the believing soul. Christ once seen by faith becomes an object of ever growing desire. The believing soul is never satisfied with the sight it has had of Jesus. The Apostle Paul saw Jesus as none of the others had seen Him; and yet this was still his great desire, "that I may know Him." Thus the desires of the renewed soul after Christ are unlimited and insatiable, and will never be satisfied until it beholds Him in glory; nor even then! Eternity will be occupied with Jesus; in contemplating His person, in admiring His beauty, in beholding His glory, in studying His work, and in sweetly chanting his high praise. But the Christ-loving soul wants to realize more of Jesus now- more of His love and loveliness; more of His grace and graciousness; more of the fitness and completeness of His sacrifice; more of His manifested presence and sacred communion. There does not exist a stronger evidence of our union with Christ, and of our interest in His salvation than this one ardent desire of the soul after Him. Our views and thoughts and aspirations concerning Jesus constitute the true test of the spiritual state of our souls!
Wrong apprehensions of the person of Jesus, and false principles in relation to the atoning sacrifice of Jesus are fatal to our everlasting well being. There is but one way to heaven- if we walk not in that way we cannot reach heaven. There is but one Door of salvation- if we enter not into that Door we cannot be saved. If I set out for a given point, and diverge into a road that conducts me to an opposite one, it is no marvel that, mistaking, either through ignorance or wilful blindness, my way, I never reach my intended destination.
We are all traveling- solemn thought!- to eternity, and thousands hope to reach heaven who have never taken a step in the right road! They have never been convinced of sin, have never felt their need of Christ, have never seen their lost and undone condition as sinners, have never been divested of their self-righteousness; in a word, have never fled to Jesus with the agonizing cry, "Lord, save or I perish! God be merciful to me a sinner!" Is it any marvel that all such miss eternal happiness at last? that, when they have finished their solemn and eventful journey, instead of finding themselves in heaven, they find themselves in hell- the dread and interminable abode of all who walked not in the narrow way that leads unto life, but along the broad way that leads unto destruction.
Jesus said, "I am the Way;" and all who are walking in this Way by faith- however feeble that faith, and trembling the footsteps, and slow the progress- shall yet reach heaven at last; shall tread its golden streets, and breathe its fragrant air; shall eat its precious fruit, and drink its crystal waters; and, with an assembly which no man can number, out of every tongue and nation and people, shall sing forever the praises of the Lamb!
Let this, then, evidence the reality of your conversion, and the healthfulness of your growing state; namely, your longings after Christ, your deepening desire to see more of Jesus, to have more real transaction with Him by faith, closer fellowship with Him, and to exalt Him more warmly and supremely upon the throne of your love.
And such, too, is the burden of the tried and afflicted soul. "We would see Jesus." How partially is Jesus experimentally known by the believing soul whose path lies not through trial and tribulation. There must of necessity be much of His official history, much of His personal character, much of His varied relations to His people, veiled from the heart not acquainted with suffering and sorrow. Jesus was a Sufferer- a Man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief. To know Him intimately and experimentally as such, to have fellowship with Him in suffering, and to be made conformable to His death, we must be, as He was, made perfect through suffering." Though He were a Son, yet He learned obedience by the things which He suffered."
Now it is thus- tried, tempted, chastened we feel an earnest, pining desire to see Jesus. We want to see Him ordaining the trial; we want to see Him shaping the affliction; we want to see Him in the tribulation- we want Him to be treading the fiery furnace at our side. Thus, like Joseph, we become "fruitful in the land of our affliction." Many lovely flowers, many clusters of precious fruit grow upon the rude, rough stem of affliction: and none more beauteous or costly than this- the closer acquaintance into which it brings the soul with Jesus. None but a sight of the Savior meets our desires now.
Sickness has rendered insipid the sweetness of the world; bereavement has draped the sunlight of life; adversity has scattered, as with wintry blast, the flower and foliage of domestic happiness, and the heart is withered like grass, and existence seems as shrouded for the tomb. One desire yet lives amid the torn affections, one hope yet blossoms amid the blighted desolation, one blessing yet survives the wreck of earthly joys- it is the heart's, single, holy, and intense prayer- "I would see Jesus!" Welcome blest affliction, that has led to a result so hallowed! thrice blessed sorrow in which the heart, torn and bleeding, the spirit shaded and sad, turns, pining and pensive, to Him who has smitten! It is your privilege to see Jesus in your present calamity. It comes not alone; it looks dark and angry; it is felt to be heavy and crushing; but Jesus is seated in the cloud-chariot, Jesus holds the helm of the sinking bark; Jesus is in the center of the burning bush, and you are safe. Much of your succor and comfort will distill from the realized truth that Christ, invisible, yet not less real, is in your present sorrow- for He is not only all to His people, but He is in all their individual history.
He is in every beam that enlightens, in every cloud that shades, in every incident that embitters, in every circumstance that gives a new bend and tint to their life. And if this affliction but result in your closer intimacy with Jesus, in making His love, sufficiency, and compassion better known by you, you will reap the fruit of it through time, and praise Him for it through eternity.
The sincere and devout communicant approaches the Lord's table with this language breathing from the heart- "I would see Jesus." For what other purpose was the Lord's Supper instituted, but that through this window of grace we might behold the Lord Himself? It is essential to right partaking that we should have Scriptural and spiritual views of the ordinance. The Lord's Supper is but a sign and a symbol. It possesses, intrinsically, no spiritual efficacy; it conveys, communicatively, no sacramental grace; it neither imparts spiritual life nor sustains it; it neither sanctifies nor saves. It is but the sacred memorial of a dying Savior, the precious memento of a loving Friend, the expressive picture of a suffering Christ, which we are to cherish, observe, and study in remembrance of Him until He comes again.
As such, the Lord's Supper is a precious means of grace, a sacred channel of sweet refreshment and strength, endearing to us Jesus, cherishing in our hearts the expectation of His second appearing. Let us, then, approach the Lord's Supper with this one sentiment and prayer breathing from our hearts, "I would see Jesus." I would see Him, by faith, standing in the open window of this ordinance, bending upon me His eye of love through the lattice, awaking the response of faith in my heart, "He has loved me, and has given Him self for me."
How blessed and enrapturing is this sight of Jesus! It is Jesus in His most endearing form, His most winning attitude, His most expressive image. Behold Him by faith in the bread, as giving His flesh for your nourishment; behold Him by faith in the cup, as shedding His blood for your sins. Approach this banquet desiring only to see Jesus; if He is not there, presiding at His own table, it is a blank and meaningless ceremony. But Jesus is there to welcome and commune with His saints. And if you humbly and believingly approach with the request, "I would see Jesus in this ordinance, I would see Him in His beauty, I would see Him as my Beloved, I would see Him as my Sacrifice, I would see Him as saying to me, 'What is your request? Ask, and I will grant it you,' -the elevated experience of your soul shall be, "While the King sits at His table, my spikenard sends forth the smell thereof."
A poor, half-witted boy, who had evidently manifested a tendency towards religious and devotional feelings, asked permission to partake of the Holy Communion with other members of the congregation. The clergyman demurred for some time, under the impression of his mind being incapable of a right understanding of the sacred ordinance. But observing the extreme earnestness of the poor boy, at last gave consent. He was much affected, and all the way home from church was heard to exclaim, " Oh! I have seen the pretty man." This referred to his seeing the Lord Jesus, whom he had approached in the sacrament. He kept repeating the words, and went with them on his lips to rest for the night. Not appearing at the usual hour for breakfast, when they went to his bedside they found him dead! The excitement had been too much- mind and body had given way- and the half-idiot of earth awoke to the glories and bliss of his Redeemer's presence.
"I love the windows of Your grace
Through which my Lord is seen;
And long to meet my Savior's face
Without a glass between.
"O that the happy hour was come
To change my faith to sight;
I shall behold my Lord at home
In a diviner light.
"Haste, my Beloved! and remove
These interposing days;
Then shall my passions all be love
And all my powers be praise."

"We would see Jesus," is' the language of the dying Christian. Faith in Jesus changes the entire character and appearance of death. Jesus is our life. Entering the soul by the Spirit, Jesus breathes into it the breath of spiritual life, and so the believer becomes in the highest sense a living soul. Having dislodged spiritual death from the soul, Jesus then changes the character of the death of the body; and thus the departure of the believer out of this life is not so much a death, as it is a sweet, calm, peaceful sleep. Death in its most appalling aspect, its bitterness and sting, retires from the scene, and one object alone is visible it is JESUS the Life. Thus, the believer lives in death. Death, mortally wounded by Christ when He died, now itself expires- while his victim, whose mortal existence it has terminated, springs into glory, honor, immortality, and eternal life!
Fear not, then, O believer, the hour of your approaching departure: by faith you shall not see death. "Whoever believes in My words shall not see death." Shall not see it! What, then, shall he see? Upon whom will those eyes, now glazing and darkening with the film of death, fix their exclusive, their last and latest gaze? Upon JESUS, once Death's illustrious Victim, now Death's triumphant Conqueror! Who can look calmly upon death now, and hopefully upon him when he actually uplifts his dart to strike us down, but as he sees Jesus? Upon what a lovely, what a loving, what a powerful object does the departing saint fix his dying gaze! Jesus, the chief among ten thousand; Jesus, full of grace, and overflowing with love; Jesus, assuring us that whosoever lives and believes in Him shall never die; Jesus, showing us in His hands, and feet, and side, the tokens of His love and the evidences of our pardon. Jesus bidding us fear not, and standing ready to receive our departing spirit. Such is the object of spiritual sight.
Let us now briefly advert to the sanctifying influence of this spiritual and blessed view of Jesus upon the believing mind. First, it is a soul-elevating sight: it is the sight of God in Jesus. Jesus came into this world as much to reveal God as to save man. He assured Thomas, "He that has seen Me has seen the Father." And the Apostle says, "God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, has shined on our hearts, to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ." What more divine, more elevating sight than this- God manifest in Jesus! The saints in heaven may behold this wondrous spectacle bathed in richer glory, with clearer views; but not less real nor less precious is it to the believing saints on earth.
Jesus said, "No man knows the Father but the Son, and he to whom the Son will reveal Him." In Jesus we see God pardoning sin, and accepting the sinner. We see God pacified towards us, for all that we have done, and bending upon us the eye of a forgiving, reconciled Father. O what a soul-elevating spectacle is this! It raises us above the guilt of sin, the fear of death, the dread of condemnation- above sorrow and trial, suffering and persecution; it inspires us with a superiority to all present ill, fills the soul with the anticipation of all future good, and lifts it into the region, and bathes it in the atmosphere of another and a holier world!
O study this spectacle of God revealed in Jesus- seen in Jesus, near to you in Jesus- if you would, you would live a hidden and an elevated life. The loftiest, the most intellectual and sublime contemplation of earthly things will but attract you earthward; but the spiritual, prayerful, believing study of this Divine wonder- God in Jesus adopting, pardoning, justifying sinners; adopting, pardoning, saving you; will attract you, raise you, wing you heavenward; and so dwelling in the region and atmosphere of heaven your mind, affections, and desires will grow heavenly.
The sight of Jesus is a soul-satisfying spectacle. The penitent soul is satisfied, for it sees in Jesus a free pardon of sin; the condemned soul is satisfied, for it receives in Jesus a free justification; the believing soul is satisfied, for it discovers in Jesus a fountain of all grace; the tried, tempted, sorrowful soul is satisfied, for it experiences in Jesus all consolation, sympathy and love. O, what an all-satisfying Portion is Jesus! He satisfies every holy desire, for He realizes it; He satisfies every craving need, for He supplies it; He satisfies every sore grief, for He soothes it; He satisfies the deepest yearnings, the highest aspirations, the most sublime hopes of the renewed soul, for all these center and end in Him!
Are you inquiring, "Who will show me any good?" Have you distilled from every flower, and sipped from every spring, and drawn upon every resource, and still feel dissatisfied with the world, with the creature, yet more with yourself? Behold, in Jesus an all-satisfying Friend! One believing sight of Him, one taste of His graciousness, one beam of His love, one word falling from His lips will wake in the lowest depths of your soul an exclamation responsive to the magnificent language of the Psalmist- "Whom have I in heaven but You? and there is none on earth that I desire beside You."
"From pole to pole let others roam,
And search in vain for bliss;
My soul is satisfied at home,
The Lord my Portion is.
"His person fixes all my love,
His Word removes my fear;
And while He pleads for me above
His arm preserves me here.
"His Word of promise is my food,
His Spirit is my guide
Thus daily is my strength renewed,
And all my needs supplied."

The sight of Jesus is veiling: it hides other objects from the eye. Take an illustration of this from nature. Go forth and gaze for a while upon the sun in its noonday splendor. Then direct your eyes again to earth, and let them rest upon the lovely landscape, or upon the yet lovelier forms of human beauty which pass before you. Can you see them? Has not the greater effulgence of the sun blinded you, in a measure, to all other objects? Thus is it with a spiritual sight of Jesus, the Sun of Righteousness; it veils the objects of earth, of sense, and sin from the soul. Jesus blinds us to their beauty, attraction, and power! The more we see of the Divine glory, of the human beauty, of the sacrificial worth, of the Lord Jesus, the less we shall see of our own glory, of the world's attraction, and of creature excellence. Jesus veils the eye of the soul to it all.
What Abraham was to Sarah, Jesus is to us. "Behold," said Abimelech, "He is to you a Covering of the Eye unto all that are with you." The Lord Jesus is a covering of our spiritual eye to all those objects of sense which else might attract and seduce us from Him, thus eclipsing His beauty and shading His love. O let Jesus be a covering of the eye to self in all its hideous forms, to the world in all its bland attractions, to the creature in all its powerful fascination. The more we see of Him, the less we shall desire others. The higher and the brighter the sun ascends and shines, the remoter will become and the paler will grow the constellations that revolve around it. So all earthly objects disappear and pale when Jesus, the Sun of Righteousness, rises upon the soul with healing in His beams. The terrestrial gives place to the celestial, self to Christ, the creature to God.
This spectacle of Jesus is also soul-assimilating in its influence. It is impossible to love Jesus ardently, to behold Him spiritually, and to study Him closely, and not be molded, in some degree, into His lovely likeness! "We grow like what we admire, and we become one with what we love." In the yet more striking and impressive language of inspiration- "Beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, we are changed into the same image, from glory to glory, even as by the spirit of the Lord." The student of art must first absorb in his own soul the wonders, beauties, and perfections of his model before he can transfer them to his copy. It is not the physical but the mental eye, not the external but the internal sight of the breathing marble of Canova, or of the speaking canvas of Vandyke, that transfixes its beauties upon the soul. The student of art must first make himself, by close and persevering study, master of his model. He must, as it were, incorporate it into himself, imbibing its beauties, its wonders, and its perfections into his own mental and spiritual perceptions, so that his picture shall become less a copy than a reproduction of the original, almost an original work of art itself- the result of his individual and high conception. Thus is it with our study of, and assimilation to, Christ.
We must have union with Christ; Christ must dwell in us by the Spirit; He must, as it were, be a part of our life, as we are partakers of His. And so beholding Jesus we are spiritually changed into the same image and grow Christlike. Is this one ambition our aim? -is it our experience? Are we in the different relations of the family, in the discharge of our duties as parents and children, as brothers, sisters, and domestics- seeking to be copies of Jesus- reproductions, as it were, of the spirit, and mind, and life of the Savior? O what a holy, happy family and household will that be if each individual member becomes a picture, a living picture, of Jesus, -enriching, sanctifying and adorning the very walls!
Amid the many responsibilities and duties, the trials and temptations of home-life, there is no minister of truth, of counsel, and consolation like Jesus. The ministry of home, unlike all other ministries, is of a more individual, and practical character. Like a finished portrait pendent on the walls, each individual in the room imagines it gazing upon himself, so the Lord fixes His eye upon each member of the family circle, and says- "Be imitators of God; be Christlike; be pure and holy, loving and kind; be gentle and sympathizing; be upright and generous."
Blessed home whose minister and model is JESUS! Of all whose members, thus taught and molded, -men everywhere shall take knowledge that they have been with Jesus, and have learned of Him. Has the Gospel of Jesus made your temper milder, your heart purer, your life holier? Has it softened your churlishness, subdued your moroseness, sweetened your disposition, rendering you more attractable, admired, and loved? Has it converted your penuriousness into liberality, your pride into humility, your selfishness into disinterestedness, your love of ease and sloth into active service for the Lord? Has it Christianized your home, consecrating you its minister, and you who are members, as members of the household of faith? O remember that the Gospel of Jesus has done but little for us if it has not done this!
Seeing Jesus is a heart-comforting sight. The heart is the habitation of sorrow, and it is here the springs of comfort flow. The words of Jesus are, "Let not your HEART be troubled." Jesus, who is acquainted with the sorrows of our hearts, pities and knows how to soothe them. There is not a being in the universe who has such access to our heart as Christ. He loves to come and enshrine Himself in its lonely and deeply veiled grief. And if our sorrow results in a more intimate fellowship with Him; if, through our dimming tears, we yet see Him as more lovely, just as the sun shines with variegated tints through the shower; we shall then praise Him for the sorrow which rendered Him more beauteous to our eye and more precious to our heart.
O what comfort, what strong consolation flows from a sight of Jesus in the depth of His love, and in the tenderness of His sympathy! To see Him making the dark cloud into which we tremblingly enter His chariot of love; to see Him in all our affliction afflicted; to see Him walking at our side and making our heart to burn within us, while sad and pensive we journey homewards- this is comfort indeed. Look not, then, at the storm, but at Him who makes it His wings; not upon waves, but upon Him who controls them; not at your trials, afflictions, and needs, but at Him who, though His way is hidden from you now, knows the way that you take, and, when He has tried you, will bring you forth as gold.
Seeing Jesus will intensify the desire of your soul to be with Him. This should be the goal of our spirit, the one desire of the soul, the daily prayer of the heart- to be with Jesus! It was so with the holy Paul: "Having a desire to depart and be with Christ." The more he saw of Jesus, the more ardently He longed to be with Him. And if the spectacle, as beheld by faith, is now so transforming and so ravishing; if His beauty is now so eclipsing and His glory so overpowering, what, O believer, will be the sweet, the enrapturing vision of Jesus in glory, when you shall see Him as He is! Does not the present sight, though distant and dim, often compel you to exclaim, "The voice of my Beloved! behold He comes leaping upon the mountains, skipping upon the hills. Until the day breaks, and the shadows flee away, turn, my Beloved, and be like a roe or young deer upon the mountains of division." Come Lord Jesus, come quickly! So live and serve, so suffer and wait until you hear the voice of Jesus saying to you, "Come up higher."
My unconverted reader, have you no desire to see Jesus? Do you know nothing of this spiritual sight? O turn not away from it in indifference and disdain. The time is fast coming when you must see Him. You will see Him when your soul is summoned hence to stand before His bar. You will see Him when He comes in the clouds of heaven to hold His grand assize. "Behold He comes in the clouds; and every eye shall see Him." O may you by faith see Him now presented as a Savior, before you behold Him coming as your Judge, lest you take up the lamentation of Balaam, "I shall see Him, but not now; I shall behold Him, but not near!"
Believer in Jesus! Your eyes shall soon see the King in His beauty, and you shall lift up your heads with joy, and exclaim, "This is our God, we have waited for Him; this is our God, we will be glad and rejoice in His salvation." O how glorious, how ravishing, how transporting will the sight be! Then shall you meet all those from whom you parted in the faith of Christ and in the hope of His Gospel. Then shall you be clothed with your glorified body, "and God shall wipe away all tears from your eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away." Lamb of God! I would see You now, and feast my eyes upon You throughout eternity! Amen.

The Heart Opened

"Whose heart the Lord opened." Acts 16:14

Such is conversion! Multitudes it is to be feared remain in an unrenewed state from not knowing what real conversion is. Mistaking its nature they come short of its experience, and so perish in their sins. They are not aware that an error on this vital point that, substituting false conversion for true- will prove as fatal to the soul as poison, taken through ignorance, will to the body. Of what infinite moment is it, then, that we clearly understand what it is to be converted. For this purpose I have selected as an illustration, and for your serious study, a case in point. It is that of Lydia, "whose heart the Lord opened." But little is known of her history; but that little involves all of importance that we need know- that she was truly converted to Christ.

It is comparatively of little moment whether in this life we have a history or not, if we possess but an assured hope of an interest in the happiness of the life that is to come. We may be little and unknown, until divine grace draws us forth from our obscurity and numbers us among the children of God, the disciples of Jesus, the precious jewels which the Lord will own as His in the day that He makes them up. It is conversion alone that truly immortalizes us. The rank, the learning, the wealth, the honors of this life disappear, and the very names and memories of those who possessed them may perish; but, the righteous are had in everlasting remembrance, while, as we are told, "the name of the wicked shall rot."

Thus did divine grace attach a history and interest to the name and character of Lydia, which will fill all future time with their instruction and fragrance, and eternity with their praise. She being dead yet speaks by her genuine conversion and holy life, to all whose hearts the same Lord, who is rich in mercy unto all that call upon Him, may, in like manner, open. Lift up your silent prayer for the teaching and blessing of the Holy Spirit while we consider the case of Lydia, as illustrating the heart spiritually closed- the heart divinely opened- and the evidences of the great and blessed change.

And, in the first place, let us view the heart as in its natural state- spiritually closed. Such was Lydia's before the Lord opened it; and such, in truth, is ours. When Adam fell from the righteousness in which he was created, the whole race he represented fell in him. God was ejected from the heart as from a holy, beautiful temple, and the door was instantly closed. We are born, therefore; with hearts shut against God- hearts which enclose all that is morally evil, and which shut out all that is spiritually good. Born with a heart at enmity against God! Ponder that awful fact, my reader! It is the most appalling truth in the history of man. May the Holy Spirit aid and bless us while we state a few of those barriers which close the heart against Jesus; in other words- what are some of the powerful impediments to the conversion of the soul to God.

First and foremost is sin. It was the fearful shock of sin which at the first closed the heart against God, and it is the unsubdued power of sin which keeps it closed. There is not in this wide universe a thing so evil, so desperately evil, as the heart of man. All the evil, all the crime, all the suffering which rolls its dark flood through the world has its rise in the human heart! Listen to what God says of our heart, by the mouth of the prophet Jeremiah- "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?" There are many deceitful things in the world- the sea is deceitful, the wind is deceitful, Satan is deceitful, man is deceitful; but the subtlety, the deceitfulness of the unrenewed heart exceeds them all- it is "deceitful above ALL things."

And there are many wicked things in the world- wicked men, wicked works, wicked ways; but the natural heart is "DESPERATELY wicked." Can language be stronger? But, if it be possible, the testimony of Christ even exceeds this dark description. Listen to His words- "For from within, out of a person's heart, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, wickedness, deceit, eagerness for lustful pleasure, envy, slander, pride, and foolishness. All these vile things come from within; they are what defile you and make you unacceptable to God."

Appalling picture! Such is your heart and mine by nature, and such it remains until grace renews and sanctifies it. Is it any marvel, then, that while these sinful principles, these germs of all evil remain unsubdued, unsanctified, the heart should be closed and barred to all that is holy and good? Lord! dethrone the tyrant sin from my heart, and set up Your kingdom of grace within my soul! Then shall "grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life."

Unbelief is another barrier of the heart. We have no natural faith in Christ. Faith is a divine, supernatural principle- a plant of the heavenly paradise. We may believe historically in Jesus, and yield the assent of our judgment to the truth of His Gospel, without one grain of the "faith of God's elect,"- the faith that purifies the heart and saves the soul. Do not, therefore, suppose that, because you are not an atheist, denying God- an infidel, rejecting the Bible, a scorner, neglecting the Sabbath and the sanctuary, you are, therefore, a true believer in the Lord Jesus. Do we not read that, "the devils believe and tremble"? What, then, is your faith more than theirs if it has not brought you as a lost sinner to the Savior? If it has not divested you of your own meritoriousness, and clothed you with the righteousness of Jesus which alone justifies the soul with God? Yes, the great barrier to your conversion is unbelief. This, as an iron bar, closes and fastens your heart against a loving, appealing Savior. You do not believe in the Lord Jesus with your heart, and without this you cannot be saved, but must perish eternally. Who can break down this iron bar of unbelief but God Himself?

The absence of love to God is a powerful barrier of the human heart. "The carnal mind is ENMITY against God." It opens, like the morning flower, to a creature affection; it closes, like that flower at evening, to a divine. It expands gladly to receive the costly gift, but it shuts in sullen hostility to the gracious and generous Giver. And yet, what says the commandment? "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might." Have you made the slightest approach towards obedience to this Divine law? Is there one spark of love in your heart to God? -one pulse of affection in your soul to Christ? Oh what a strong bolt of the heart to the entrance of Jesus is its natural and unmitigated enmity! its love of sin, its hatred of God; its adoration of self, and its rejection of Christ. Lord I supplant my enmity with love!

The world, too, has immense power in closing the heart to the converting grace of God. The world in the heart corresponds in its nature, and spirit; and power with the world without. In some one or more of its many forms- its covetousness, or its pleasures, or its honors, or its friendships, or even its false religion- the world maintains its hold and supremacy, and bars the heart to the influence and power of godliness. Oh what a mighty opposition in the unrenewed has the grace of God to overcome when it brings its divine and irresistible force to bear upon the love and power of the world enthroned upon the human heart!

Such are some of the impediments to conversion; such a few of the barriers by which the natural heart is closed against God and against His Son Jesus Christ. My reader, are they yours? The momentous question now arises- Can these impediments ever be removed? Can these barriers be thrown down, and the door of the heart be opened to admit and welcome the Savior?

All praise to our God, I answer, Yes! For we read of one, "whose heart the Lord opened." And now, we inquire, How did the Lord open Lydia's heart? First, her heart was opened to hear the Word of the Lord. In the language of Bunyan, the "ear-gate" was first assailed. "Faith comes by HEARING." There are many individuals who refuse even outwardly to listen to the message, God sends to them. Like the deaf adder, sinners stop their ears to the voice of the charmer, charm he ever so wisely, lest they should hear with their ears and be converted and be saved.

But the Lord also opened her spiritual ear- the ear of the soul. How strikingly was this illustrated by Jesus when He spoke the word, "Ephatha, be opened!" and straightway the ears of the deaf man were opened. The spiritual ear is unstopped to hear the voice of Jesus. The sweetest music to which mortal ever listened now chimes upon the soul. How entrancing its tone! How ravishing its sound! It speaks of pardoning love, of saving grace; of peace with God through Christ; and of Christ's willingness and ability to save to the uttermost the chief of sinners. It is the voice of free grace, proclaiming the full forgiveness of sin and the complete justification of the soul, on the ground of God's free and unpurchased mercy- that, "whosoever will let him drink of the water of life freely." Lord! open the ear of my soul to hear this joyful sound, of a finished, full, and free salvation! "Say unto my soul, I am your salvation."

Lydia's heart was opened by true contrition for sin. Impenitence, doubtless, had long rendered her heart cold and callous. She was ignorant of the deep-seated depravity that dwelt there, and knew not how great an evil was sin in the sight of the holy Lord God. But now the Lord had touched her heart, and lo! its icy fetters were dissolved, its rocky hardness was softened, the fount of sensibility was unsealed, and streams of holy penitence, of godly sorrow for sin, flowed at the Savior's feet.

Is there, my reader, a spectacle that inspires an angel's joy? Is there a temple on earth in which the High and the Holy One delights to dwell? Is there a sacrifice brought to the altar of God and laid down upon that One Sacrifice Jesus has offered, more fragrant, costly, and acceptable to Him than any other that man can offer? It is a broken and a contrite heart! Listen to the declaration of God: "To this man will I look, even to him that is poor and of a contrite spirit, and that trembles at My word."

My reader, has your heart been so uncovered as to reveal to you its plague? Have you so seen and felt its deep depravity, its hidden corruption, its enmity to God, and its rejection of Christ, as to force from you the anxious cry- "God be merciful to me a sinner!" Repent and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out. And for your encouragement let me remind you of the marvellous and most precious truth- "Him has God exalted at His right hand to be a Prince and a Savior, to give repentance to Israel, and remission of sins."

The Lord opened Lydia's heart to love. Hitherto she had loved sin, and the world, and herself. Her affections were concentrated upon any and every false object rather than upon the right and lawful one. But now new springs of feeling were unlocked in her heart. She loved the Lord Jesus. Never had she truly loved until now. Her affections- hitherto carnal, earthly, selfish- had now found a new Object, and now flowed in a new channel, unsealing to her a fount of joy, and gladness, and bliss, which filled to its utmost capacity her whole soul.

But what marvellous key had thus opened her heart? It was the love that Jesus bore her. This key can unlock the wards of your heart, my reader, and open every chamber to a new-born affection. Hitherto sin may have closed it- guilt may have hardened it- worldliness and indifference may have rendered it cold and callous; it has repelled the exhortations of the minister, the pleadings of a father, the tears of a mother, the warnings of solemn and startling judgments; but now one beam of God's love, one touch of Christ's hand, one word spoken by the Spirit, and your heart flies open, expands, and dissolves into a new-born and holy affection for that Savior, who has so long been knocking for admittance until His locks are wet with the dew of the morning.

Let us draw a few practical and solemn conclusions from this important subject.

I. We learn that conversion is the work of God. "Whose heart THE LORD opened." Regeneration, or the new birth, is not of ourselves, nor of others, but of God. "Who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God." Again, we are told, It is the Spirit that quickens; the flesh profits nothing." Thus the great transformation, through which we must pass before we can enter heaven, is not a human, but a Divine work; not a natural, but a supernatural change. No heart voluntarily and spontaneously opens to admit the Savior to its love. We possess no self-power to accomplish this.

Try the experiment, my reader. Say to your heart- "Submit to the supremacy of truth! Bow to the scepter of Christ! Open to the love of God! Idols of my soul, be gone! And yield the throne to Jesus!" In vain you cry: there is no response! All is locked in the profound slumber of spiritual death. As well might you repair to the picturesque cemetery, and bid the sleeping dead listen to the soft tones of the harp breathing over their graves, as to wake your own heart to the voice of Jesus!

What said Christ?- "No man can come unto me, unless the Father who has sent me draw him." What an evidence of the deep depravity of your nature, and of the power of sin, and of the utter alienation of your heart from God! -all of which fearfully enhances your responsibility while living, and will terribly augment your condemnation if finally lost. Place no reliance, then, upon pious parentage, religious education, or Christian rites and rituals; but ask the Lord to open your heart by His grace. Commune with your own heart on this vital matter, examine yourself, prove your own self by the Word of God, and ascertain whether you are quickened by the Spirit, are born of God, and have passed from death unto life; whether, in a word, the Lord has opened your heart to attend to the things which make for your everlasting peace.

Lydia gave scriptural evidence of the reality of her conversion to God, by a public profession of her faith in, and her love to, the Lord Jesus Christ. We read that "she was baptized." This was her loving act of obedience to Christ and her public union with the Church. Christ's command is, "He that believes and is baptized shall be saved." And we read of the early Christians- "And many of the Corinthians hearing believed, and were baptized. They that gladly received His word were baptized." "They were baptized, both men and women." And when Jesus was baptized of John in Jordan, He said, speaking of Himself in mystical union with His disciples- "Thus it becomes us to fulfill all righteousness."

Such was the command and the pattern of Christ, and such the prompt and loving obedience of His disciples. If we love Him, so let us obey His commands, imitate His example, and walk in the footsteps of the flock. Thus shall we emblecise our mystical union with Christ, both in His death and resurrection.

"Know you not that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ, were baptized into His death? Therefore we are buried with Him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life." Thus publicly to confess Christ before the world, is but our reasonable service after the great things He has done for us. His solemn words are- "Whosoever therefore shall confess Me before men, him will I confess also before My Father who is in heaven." It is both our duty and privilege to "join ourselves to the disciples," as did the early Christians. No true disciple of Christ would wish to go to heaven in disguise. He desires to wear the badge of Christian discipleship, to acknowledge his Lord and own his Captain. We must not be disciples of Jesus secretly- through fear, or cowardice, or compromise.

We must witness a good profession before many witnesses, be the light of the world and the salt of the earth, everywhere, and on all suitable occasions, testifying to the power of divine grace, increasing the praise of Jesus, and promoting the glory of God. Nor are we to be alone in this solemn dedication to God. We read of Lydia that "she was baptized, and her household." Her motto henceforth was, "As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord." We are told but little of her household. It is, however, I think, clear, from the last verse of the chapter from which our text is selected, that they were believers. "And they went out of the prison, and entered into the house of Lydia : and when they had seen the BRETHREN they comforted them and departed."

These, doubtless, were brethren in the Lord. But, whether this be so or not, what pious parent, himself a consecrated servant of the Lord Jesus, desires and prays not that his children should also believe and be saved? If, for the most part, they are of tender years, they have the especial invitation of Jesus, "allow the little children to come unto Me, and forbid them not, for of such is the kingdom of heaven." Early piety, or the conversion of children is, I fear, too much overlooked by many Christians and ministers.

Especially should it be the aim of the ministry of home. That ministry is especially designed to compass, as the object of its holy and saving influence, the domestic household, that they all may become, through grace, members of "the household of faith," -training here for the Lord's service, and hereafter for the enjoyment of God forever. Oh what greater happiness can thrill a Christian parent's heart than to see his children walking in the truth, their hearts early expanding to the power of the Savior's love?

We can offer them no protection, can ensure them no safeguard like early piety. Religion- heartfelt, experimental religion- is their only real safety. To be brought to Christ, by Him to be received, and then to grow up as plants in the courts of the Lord, enriching the world with the fruit, and filling the Church with the blossom and fragrance of their early and growing piety, oh, this is a certain and hallowed result of the believing prayers and earnest ministry of home! For this let every Christian parent send up to heaven the prayer of faith. For this let him believingly hope and patiently wait; and though you go forth watering with tears the precious seed you sow, yet shall you return with joy, binding the golden sheaves to your grateful, praiseful bosom!

Dear little child! listening to this page with an attentive ear, with a thoughtful mind, and with a throbbing heart, you wonder if there is a message from God to you. You bend your ear to catch a sentence or a word in which you are personally interested. I have a message from God to you, dear child! It is this- "I love those who love Me; and those that seek He early shall find Me." What a precious message is this! -it is a message of God's love to little children. "I love them," says the Lord.

And did not the Savior, when He was on earth, exhibit this love when He invited little children to come to Him; when He rebuked the disciples for keeping them back; and when He placed a little child in their midst, and bade them imitate it, and then put His hands upon them and blest them- thus fulfilling the beautiful prophecy concerning Himself- "He shall gather the lambs with His arms, and carry them in His bosom." Dear child, come to this Savior! You are not too young to know and love Him- you are not too young to feel the joy of being saved, as you are not too young to die. Samuel was called of the Lord while yet young. He was given to his mother, in answer to prayer, therefore he was called Samuel, which means, "Asked of God."

In early life he was, like Jesus, found in the temple, and there the Lord called him, and he answered, "Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening." You too, my dear child, may hear the call of God, may respond to the invitation of Jesus. Oh that He may effectually call you by His Spirit now, and that your little, loving heart may exclaim- "Speak, Lord, for your servant hears."

Oh seek the Lord early: remember your Creator in the days of your youth. Say unto God- "My Father, be the Guide of my youth." Jesus invites you to come to the protection of His arms, to the pavilion of His heart. He asks you to flee to Him as your Savior and to make Him your Friend. He will not despise your weak faith, your feeble love, your little knowledge. He will not refuse to save you, because though young in years you may be old in sin. His precious blood can wash you purer than the lily; yes, whiter than the snow. Go in prayer, and ask Christ to give you His holy Spirit, and beseech God to adopt you into His family and make you His child.

Then O how holy and happy, useful and safe will all your future life be! As you advance in years- like the holy child, Jesus- you will "increase in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man." And when you die, Jesus will take you to dwell with Himself forever. Christian parents! seek this for your children- seek it prayerfully, seek it earnestly, seek it perseveringly, for God will be inquired of to do it.

Gracious Lord, our children see!
By Your mercy we are free
But shall these, alas! remain
Subjects still of Satan's reign?
Israel's young ones, when of old
Pharaoh threatened to withhold;
Then Your messenger said, "No
Let the children also go.

When the angel of the Lord,
Drawing forth his dreadful sword,
Slew, with an avenging hand,
All the first-born of the land;
Then Your people's doors he passed,
Where the bloody sign, was placed
Hear us now, upon our knees,
Plead the blood of Christ for these.

Lord, we tremble- for we know
How the fierce, malicious foe,
Wheeling round his watchful flight,
Keeps them ever in his sight.
Spread Your pinions, King of kings,
Hide them safe beneath Your wings;
Lest the ravenous bird of prey
Stoop, and bear the brood away.

The Lord's Time of Love

"Your time was the time of love." Ezekiel 16:8

The Prophet in this chapter employs the figure of an Israelitish woman, to illustrate the deliverance of the Jewish nation from its Egyptian bondage and its final settlement in the promised land. There is, however, something more spiritual and far more important than this. It is, doubtless, intended to shadow forth the emancipation of the soul, by Divine and sovereign grace, from the bondage of sin and Satan into the glorious liberty of the children of God- the liberty with which Christ makes His people free- and their final and assured entrance into the heavenly kingdom- the Canaan of bliss which Jesus has gone to prepare for His saints.
The time when the deliverance was effected is termed " the time of love." It was the fixed and appointed time, ordained by God, when the people of Israel were brought out of Egypt; and their time of cruel bondage, when they sighed and cried for deliverance by reason of their cruel task-masters, is described as God's time of love toward them in their deliverance. All this is strikingly and beautifully descriptive of the conversion of the sinner.
There is a set time for the gracious calling of God's people, who are described as being "called according to His purpose;" and when that moment or period arrives, all God's providential arrangements are made to converge towards its accomplishment- all conspire to bring it about; and this is emphatically and spiritually termed, "the time of love."
God's love towards His people is, indeed, as we shall presently show, eternal; eternal as His being: a love before all time; nevertheless, the time of its first manifestation towards them is the time of conversion, the time when they are brought up out of the horrible pit of unregeneracy, are plucked as brands from the burning, are quickened with spiritual life, and are graciously brought to realize their state of pardon and acceptance with God. Such is the elevating subject which is now to engage our thoughts.
I have already discoursed to you of the heart opened by the Holy Spirit in conversion; and then, of Jesus as the great Object which the heart, thus opened, desires earnestly to see. Let us now direct our thoughts to the Divine love where these and all other blessings of grace flow. The present subject suggests two distinct parts for our consideration- the love of God to us in Christ Jesus, and its timely and gracious manifestation. "Your time was the time of love."
Our first and chief subject is The Love of God Towards His People. It is the most sublime thought, the most precious theme that could possibly engage the study of angels or men. Angels have not such an interest in God's love as man, and, therefore, have no such experience of its power. God loved not unsinning angels as He loved sinful man- His elect Church fallen in Adam. In this the sovereignty and grace of His love appear in their most conspicuous and engaging light. And yet the love of God to man is the subject of their profound study. "Which things the angels desire to look into."
In contemplating some of the features of the great love with which God has loved us, we naturally, in the outset, seek to trace this infinite ocean to its source. This conducts to that great perfection of God- His eternity. The love of God is eternal. Love is not so much an attribute as it is the very essence of God- "God is love." In language the most touching God thus addresses His Church- "I have loved you with an Everlasting Love, and therefore with loving kindness I have drawn you." Eternal Love planned the scheme of our salvation; eternal Love wrote our names in the Lamb's Book of Life, Eternal Love appointed the time and the circumstance of our conversion; and Eternal Love will keep us safely, will guide us skillfully, and will afterwards bring us to glory. High let our voice ascend to its praise; and let our holy obedience testify the deep gratitude of our hearts for the amazing love with which God loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses and in sins.
The deepest homage we can pay this love, and the most grateful return we can make, is to accept it as the ruling principle of life. Let ours be a life of love- love to God and love to man. Love constraining us to filial obedience to God, to cheerful service for Christ, and to acts of self-denial for our fellow-creatures. In this we shall be followers and imitators of God as His children; for all the acts of our God- the cloud that shades, as the sunbeam that brightens our path, the discipline that embitters, as the mercy that sweeten our cup- flow from His everlasting and unchanging love.
It is another interesting feature of God's love that it is a divinely revealed affection. Fallen man could never have discovered the truth that God still loved him. He can make great discoveries in the geological structure of the earth, and in the planetary system, in science and in art; but left to his own powers, he could never have found out the great and wondrous fact that, "God is love." We could never have known His will but for the record God has given us of it: the Bible alone teaches us this.
Where else do we read such precious declarations as these: "In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him;" "God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten son, that whosoever believes in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life." And, then, where should we look for that marvellous declaration of God, but in His own Word, which we find in the first epistle of John "God Is Love"?
What an evidence we have here of the truth of the Bible! That Book must be divinely inspired, must be God's Book, which could reveal to us the fact that God loved us! But there is yet another revelation of this love, and another evidence of the truth of God's Word. I refer to our personal experience -the love of God shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit given unto us. Do not let any of us rest content with reading the declaration of God's great love to sinners in Christ Jesus in the letter of the Word only; but let us prayerfully and earnestly seek to have the witness within, that God is love.
All other religion is "a vain religion." True religion consists in love to God influencing and sanctifying the whole life; nothing can be its substitute- not an orthodox creed, nor an enlightened understanding, nor great gifts, nor denominational zeal, nor beautiful worship, nor costly benevolence, nor the highest religious profession, nor the warmest natural affections can take the place of love to God.
All this is pleasant and acceptable to God in its proper place, when it is the fruit of love to Him; but it may exist apart from love, and then it is a sacrifice in which He can take no delight: "Love is heaven, and heaven is love;" but it is love to God in Christ Jesus which makes it so.
We reach another feature of Divine love- its self-sacrifice. The love of the Lord Jesus to us- which is essentially the love of the Father- constrained Him to make the great sacrifice of Himself for our sins. God's gift of His beloved Son, and the willing personal surrender of the Son to die the atoning death of the cross for sinners, are instances of love's sacrifice which must ever stand alone, unsurpassed and unequaled in the history of love. The grand display of God's love to us, then, was in parting with Jesus, in finding for us a Savior so great, in sacrificing a Son so precious to save us. "He that spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him freely give us all things?"
What blessing, then, do you desire, what petition do you present, what request do you make which the love of God is not prepared to grant? Reason from the greater to the lesser. If God has so loved you as to give you Jesus, do you think that if you desire the renewed forgiveness of your sins, or the assured evidence of your interest in His salvation, or council to guide, or strength to support, or deliverance from any present or anticipated evil, or the supply of any pressing need, that His heart will, or possibly can, refuse you? Oh no! Venture upon His love; remind Him of what it has already done; tell Him it is your warrant to approach, that it emboldens you to ask not greater but other blessings at His hand who, having given you Jesus, has promised with Jesus to give you all things.
And what self-sacrificing love is Christ's! "Christ has loved us and given Himself for us." The whole history of Christ would be an unaccountable mystery but for the explanation which His love supplies. How otherwise could we account for the mystery of His incarnation?- "God manifest in the flesh,"- for the mystery of His sinless obedience, for the mystery of His soul-sorrow in Gethsemane, for the mystery of His sufferings and death upon the cross, for the mystery of His triumphant resurrection from the grave and His glorious ascension up into heaven- could we not resolve it all into the great LOVE with which He loved us?
All this was love's sacrifice to save our souls- love sacrificing itself! In view of this amazing love of Christ, can you hesitate to come to Him just as you are, to be saved? Will you doubt His willingness or His ability to save you to the uttermost, if you but accept His gracious invitation in simple unquestioning faith? His invitation is- "Come unto Me;" His promise is, "Him that comes unto Me I'll never cast out."
The love of God is a most free love. Even human love is unpurchasable: no wealth can procure its possession, as no wealth can compensate for its lack. How much more unpurchasable must Divine love be! The love of God in Christ Jesus towards sinners must be spontaneous and free, since it never could be procured by man's merit: we had forfeited all holiness, and goodness, and, therefore, had "nothing to pay." No declaration is more welcome, no truth more precious to the sin awakened heart than that it is "by GRACE we are saved, through faith,, and that not of ourselves; it is the gift of God." No words more welcome to the soul thirsting after Christ than the invitation, "Whosoever will, let him drink of the water of life FREELY."
Is not this like Jesus? Is it not worthy of God, that when sin had rendered us bankrupt of all righteousness, when we had nothing of our own to plead, but poverty and misery and unworthiness; a salvation should have been provided without our own works, irrespective of our own merit, and proclaimed to us as ours "without money and without price"?
Come, then, poor sin-burdened, guilt-oppressed soul! come you who have spent all your substance upon physicians of no value, and are nothing better but rather have grown worse, come and drink from the infinite fountain of the Savior's priceless love! -drink freely and abundantly.
For, "the Free Gift is of many offences;" and, "where sin bath abounded, grace much more abound." "Eat, O friends, and drink; yea, drink abundantly, O beloved." "And when they had NOTHING TO PAY, He frankly forgave them both." But the Lord has His time of manifesting this love to us. The text thus expresses it- "Your time was the time of love." Although, as we have shown, the love of God to His people is an everlasting love- a love from all past eternity- yet it is revealed to us at times, and often at special times, in our history. Every individual may recall to memory some period in his life of marked and solemn interest; but none so sacred and momentous to the believer as that in which he was first made to experience God's love. There are marked epochs in his history- sacred memorials in his homeward travel- lofty Ebenezers studding his wilderness pathway, upon which memory will love to linger when times and seasons are lost in eternity.
Let us briefly glance at some of those times in which the love of God to us is the most conspicuous. The time of our unregeneracy is the time of the Lord's love. It is a remarkable expression of Jude's, "Preserved in Christ Jesus;" that is, preserved by the love of God in Christ Jesus, through the many long years of our unrenewed condition, sin, and rebellion against God. The whole passage is remarkable for its richness and beauty. "Those who are sanctified by God the Father," -that is, set apart by the purpose and love of God to be a distinct and peculiar people; "and preserved in Christ Jesus," -that is, chosen in Christ, and placed in His hands, and in Him secretly preserved from present death and from future condemnation, amid all the perils of our natural and unconverted state; "and called," -that is, by the Spirit and grace of God, especially and effectually called out of darkness into light, out of self into Christ- "called to be saints."
Now this was a marked time of the Lord's love- His secret and hidden love. Oh how marvellous the love of God to us, as traced through those years in which we walked according to the course of this world, fulfilling the lusts of the flesh and of the mind, in which we lived without God and without hope in the world. Let the thought that God loved us when we hated Him- that His thoughts of us were peace, when ours of Him were rebellion- lay our mouth in the dust before Him, and enkindle a fresh flame of affection on the altar of our hearts.
The time of the soul's conversion is the time of the Lord's love. How impressive His language in its spiritual application to this end! "When I passed by you, and saw you polluted in Chine own blood [margin -trodden under foot], I said unto you when you were in your blood, Live! yes, I said unto you when you were in your blood, Live! When I passed by (not as by accident- nothing in God's dealings with the children of men is according to what the world terms chance), when I passed by according to my purpose of eternal love, knowing who and what and where you were, I saw you in your blood- not with an angered, but with a pitying eye- an eye of Divine love and infinite compassion. In your blood- wounded, weltering, polluted, wallowing in sin- I said unto you, Live! I spoke, and in a moment your soul became quickened with new and spiritual life."
Such, my reader, is real conversion. O what a golden precious time of love is this! The time when Jesus approached us in all the greatness of His love, in all the compassion of His nature, and in all the freeness of His grace, and brought us to Himself! Then it was He washed away our filthiness in His most precious blood, and we were cleansed from our sin. Then it was He threw around our naked soul the robe of His righteousness, and we were justified from all things. Then it was we burst our chains, and sprang into the liberty of Christ's free men. Then it was we passed out of present condemnation into no condemnation, and sent up a shout of joy, thanksgiving, and praise, with which the arch of heaven rang.
Oh, if there is one period of our history of more thrilling interest than another, if there is one spot in the landscape of life upon which the sun of memory never sets- it is that of our calling by sovereign grace, of our passing from death unto life, of our espousal to Jesus, of the Lord's time of revealed love to our souls, when He drew us to Himself, and said- "You are mine!" Other spots are draped with shadows deep and shrouding; other scenes have faded one by one from memory; but our conversion to Christ marks an epoch of our history, and forms an event of our life, the luster of which no shadow will ever dim, and the recollection of which no hand will ever efface. O marvellous love of Jesus! -eternity shall resound with its praise! Love which loved us in our sins, loved us in our rebellion, loved us in our distance from God, and drew us so gently yet so powerfully, so lovingly yet so effectually to His feet, and pronounced us His!
Lord! through many changes have I passed, and many scenes have I witnessed, and many tokens of Your goodness and faithfulness have I received since then, but Your love to me, whose grace sought and found and brought me to Yourself, will be the evergreen of my life, and my undying joy through eternity.
"That was a time of wondrous love
When Christ, my Lord, was passing by;
He felt His tender pity move,
And brought His great salvation near.
"Guilty and self-condemned I stood,
Nor thought His mercy was so near;
When He my stubborn heart subdued,
And planted all His graces there.
"When, on the verge of endless pain,
He gently whispered, 'I am thine'
I lost my fears, and dropped my chain,
And felt 'a transport all divine'."
Often, my Christian reader, dwell upon this first act of God's love to you. The time of your public espousals to Christ and the Church- when standing as before the altar of consecration, you openly avowed, "I am my Beloved's, and my Beloved is mine," then gave your whole being to Him- truly was a time of love, the most solemn and memorable of your life. Oh sacred hour, when those two hearts- Christ's and yours openly united in a covenant which death itself could not disannul, and vowed eternal love and fealty! Never, never can you forget that moment; never, never can you ignore that act.
When the world would win you back, and sin would tempt you to compromise, and the love which then glowed so brightly within the breast would wax cold, then let your thoughts recall the memory of that solemn and tender scene upon which so great a cloud of witnesses fixed their eager gaze, and leave all the allurements that would tempt you from Christ, and exclaim,
"Jesus, I my cross have taken,
All to leave and follow Thee;
Naked, poor, despised, forsaken,
You from hence my all shall be
Perish every fond ambition,
All I've sought, or hoped, or known,
Yet how rich is my condition,
God and heaven are still my own."
Affliction times, times of trial and sorrow- are times of love in the experience of the saints. Never has the Lord been nearer to us than then. Can we not testify from happy experience that the dark cloud was pencilled with gold- that the bitter cup was sweetened with Honey- that the chamber of suffering, and the couch of languor, and the house of mourning have, through the visits, the sympathy, and the grace of Jesus, been to us scenes and occasions of inexpressible love?
Thus is it now, and thus it ever will be. You are, perhaps, the child of sorrow, the subject of affliction. Your faith is tempted, or your affections are tried, or your character is assailed, or your heart lies bleeding upon the green turf that covers all that once made it so happy, that lent to the world its attraction and to life its charm. Look up! O child of grief! Your time of sorrow, your time of temptation, your time of bereavement is the Lord's time of love to you.
In love "He Himself has done it!" In love He will succor and soothe you; in love He will sustain and sanctify you; and when the rod shall have blossomed, and the affliction shall have been fruitful, and the purposes of love are accomplished, then the Lord will bring you forth as gold, and you shall testify- My time of bereaved sorrow, my time of correcting grief, was His time of unutterable love!
A word to two classes of my readers. Unconverted sinner! the present is the time of God's love in Christ Jesus. The time of the preaching of the Gospel, the time of holy Sabbaths, the time of religious opportunities is the Lord's time of love for souls. Oh that you were awakened to know the time of your visitation, and to flee to Christ while it is today, and to call upon God while He is near. You may be seized with unexpected illness, or may be suddenly summoned into eternity. O terrible thought! to be arrested by a disease fatal to all religious thought and feeling; to be surprised by death in a state of unpreparedness to meet God. Fly to Jesus! He waits to be gracious! escape for your life, for "now is the accepted time; now is the day of salvation."
Be cautious, saint of God, of attempting to antedate the events of your future history. The times and seasons are under the control of your heavenly Father; and when the time shall come- the time of adversity, of suffering, of death- with it will come the love that keeps you, the grace that sustains you, the sympathy that soothes you, and the power that will safely conduct you out of it all, "tried, purified, and made white," to the glory and praise of Him that loves you.
"My times are in Your hands;" let this be the calm conclusion of your simple, trustful, hopeful faith, leaving all with Jesus. Be it your only solicitude and aim, by patient continuance in well doing, and by a meek, quiet, and submissive spirit in suffering, to glorify God in the day of visitation.
"Give to the winds your fears,
Hope, and be undismayed
God hears your sighs and counts your tears,
God shall lift up your head.
"Through waves, and clouds, and storms
He gently clears your way
Wait on His time- the darkest night
Shall end in brightest day."

Christ Not Hidden

"But He could not be hidden." Mark 7:24

Christ's popularity was in the ascendant when the incident occurred which introduces to us these remarkable words. Delighted with His wonderful and beneficent works, the people sought by force to make Him a King. But that the Scripture concerning Him might be fulfilled- "His voice shall not be heard in the streets" (that is, no popular commotion or excitement shall attend His steps)- He retires into the country round about Tyre and Sidon, and seeks concealment in a private dwelling: "but He could not be hid."

A Canaanite woman who had a suffering child, with a depth and perseverance of love which only a mother knows, tracked His steps and found Him in His retreat. Our Lord, at first, though she had discovered Him, veils from her His pity and power. "Jesus said unto her, Let the children first be filled: for it is not right to take the children's bread, and to cast it to the dogs. And she answered and said unto Him, Yes, Lord: yet the dogs under the table eat of the children's crumbs. And He said unto her, For this saying go your way; the devil is gone out of your daughter."

Such is the touching narrative which suggests and illustrates the interesting subject which is now to engage our thoughts, namely, the impossibility of Jesus concealing Himself from those who are set upon an earnest and persevering search for Him. And yet there is a part of Christian experience which would seem at times to contradict this truth. There may be events in God's providence and stages of the believer's travail in which there is, for the time, the hiding of Christ, as it were, from their view. This is the dark background of our delightful picture which, with a view of enhancing its brighter aspect, it may be profitable for a moment to look at.

But before doing this, let us briefly take a more extended and solemn view of the subject, and remark that Christ is a hidden object to the unregenerate. The world knows not Jesus: He is a stranger in the land. In Him is the prophecy of Isaiah fulfilled, He is "as a root out of the dry ground: He has no form, nor loveliness; and when we shall see Him, there is no beauty that we should desire Him." Ignorance veils their understanding, sin closes their hearts, guilt darkens their conscience. And although Christ is lifted up before them in the preaching of the Gospel, until the veil is removed from their hearts they see Him not: so awfully verified in them are the words of the Apostle- "If our Gospel is hid, it is hid to those who are lost; in whom the god of this world has blinded the minds of those who believe not, lest the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ should shine unto them."

Earnestly pray, my reader, that this appalling picture may find no resemblance in you! If still unconverted, it most assuredly and solemnly does. Christ is hidden to your spiritual eye; other objects conceal Him; self-righteousness veils Him; the world hides Him; the creature obscures Him. And thus Jesus, the only Being essential for you to know, and worthy of your sight and deserving of your love- in whose hands your eternal destiny is lodged, who can raise you to heaven or sink to hell- is deeply, darkly hidden from your view.

Christ, too, is hidden from the mere religious professor. How many there are holding the oil less lamp of Christian profession, to whom the rebuke of Christ, addressed to one of His disciples of old, will apply, "Have I been so long a time with you, and yet have you not known Me?" Christ has been with you O nominal professor, in the ministry of the Word, in the institutions of His Church, in the examples of His saints, and in the dealings of His providence; and yet you have not spiritually, experimentally, and practically known Him.

He is still, as to any vital saving knowledge, a hidden Christ to you. Awake up from your religion of form, get the oil of converting, quickening grace into your heart, for the Bridegroom is speedily coming and you must go forth to meet Him. Oh terrible meeting, if it be found that until that solemn moment Jesus had been, through all the long years of your religious profession, but a hidden Savior!

In the ministry of how many who profess to preach Him is Christ hidden! I utter the sentiment not in a uncharitable spirit- more in pity than in anger when I assert that all who preach religious duties in the place of faith- all who overlay Christ with the flowers of human philosophy and learning- all who pluck the crown of Deity from His brow, and who either preach His Atonement with reserve, or keep it back altogether- all who heed the popular cry, "Prophecy not unto us right things, speak unto us smooth things, prophecy deceits,"- all who thus, in their ministry, veil the Lord Jesus Christ from the longing eye of His saints, forcing from them the bitter lamentation, "They have taken away my Lord, and I know not where they have laid Him," -must rank with those who preach a hidden Christ, entombing Him as in a sepulcher, and rolling a great stone at its mouth.

For all such preachers of a "false Christ," let your earnest prayer ascend to God, that the Savior may be discovered to them. And let your fervent prayer also ascend for those who faithfully aim to preach Christ crucified- that they, by His gift of grace, may exalt Him higher and yet higher. O, that there were less criticizing of the ministry and more prayer for the minister! then would our profiting appear unto many.

But we reach now our main subject- an interesting page of Christian experience. The saints of God often have to complain of the visible withdrawal of the Lord's presence. The language of God addressed to His Church in the prophecy of Isaiah seems to intimate this- "For a small moment have I forsaken you; but with great mercies will I gather you. In a little wrath I hid my face from you for a moment; but with everlasting kindness will I have mercy on you, says the LORD your Redeemer." Such, too, was the complaint of the Church of old- "By night on my bed I sought Him whom my soul loves: I sought Him, but I found Him not. I opened to my Beloved; but my Beloved had withdrawn Himself, and was gone: my soul failed when He spoke: I sought Him, but I could not find Him; I called Him, but He made me no answer."

Such a dreary path in the Christian pilgrimage he is often called to tread. Jesus is for a while hidden to the longing eye. Like the holy women at the tomb, they seek Him, but He is not there. Like the sad and pensive disciples journeying to Emmaus, they were kept from recognizing him, and He is veiled from their sight. He is, as it were, a hidden Christ. Is this your present experience, my Christian reader? Be not cast down. All the saints, more or less, have left their footprints along this path. Even Jesus Himself has trodden it.

One of the darkest and most terrible pages of His history was His desertion upon the cross- was the hiding from Him of His Father. Listen to the cry, "My God! My God! why have you forsaken Me?" O how completely was Christ one with His people in all the stages of their homeward travel!

And this may be the path you are now treading dreary and lonesome. Jesus is to you as a hidden Savior. Sin may have forced His momentary withdrawal, unbelief may veil Him from your vision, or deep sorrow dim your eye. But be of good cheer! His hiding is but for a moment. He will return again, and restore to you the joys of His salvation, and you shall once more walk in the light of the Lord.

This conducts us to our second thought- the impossibility that Christ should be really hid. "But He could not be hid." In what respects is this true? His essential glory cannot be hid. Veiled, indeed, was His Godhead in flesh: yet even this was but partial. There were occasions in His history when through the veil of His humanity the rays of His deity burst forth with convincing and overpowering effulgence. For example: on the occasion of His first visit in Cana of Galilee, it is recorded that, "He manifested forth His glory, and His disciples believed in Him." Again: on the occasion of His Transfiguration His divine glory shone round about Him, and His disciples were "eyewitnesses of His majesty." Thus His Divine dignity, glory, and, power cannot be hid. Men may deny His Godhead and reject His Atonement, but as well may they attempt to blot the sun from its sphere or to stop the progress of the earth round its center, as to hide the glory of His Deity, or impede the advancing conquests of His death.

The orb of His majesty has arisen, and His enemies cannot extinguish it; the tide of His truth has set in, and error cannot arrest it; His kingdom is established in the world, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. My reader, if you are on the side of Christ and His truth, you are on the strong and the victorious side. There is no neutrality here. We are either for Christ, or we are against Christ. "He that is not with Me is against Me," said the Lord. See that you are with Christ; your heart with Him, your talents, your influence, your time and your worldly substance- all, all for Jesus.

Valiant for His truth on the earth, vindicating the honor of His name, and devoted to the advancement of His kingdom in the world, and, above all, living the holiness of His Gospel, you follow the banner of Him who will lead you from conquest to conquest, and finally to glory, honor, immortality, and eternal life! Oh, is not this worth the struggle with sin, the mortification of the flesh, a crucifixion to the world, and a life of self-denying consecration to Jesus?

The love of Christ cannot be hid; His whole life was a life of love. Every word He spoke was the echo of love; every act He performed was the deed of love; every tear He shed was the sensibility of love; every pang He endured was the suffering of love. O how Jesus loved! It was impossible that His love, which blazed out more brightly than the noonday sun, could be concealed: His love is as visible to us now. Satan seeks to conceal it by his suggestions, unbelief would rob you of it by its doubts, sin would wrest it from you by its guilt, even sorrow would enshroud it in some dark cloud. Nevertheless, the love of Christ is too divine and too human, too great and too free to be a concealed and unknown thing.

Behold it, my reader! It unveils its bosom to you; it opens its door to you; it holds out its hand to you; it invites you to approach in the deep consciousness of your sin and misery, your emptiness and poverty, and accept in faith the costliest gift it can bestow, the greatest blessing it can confer, even the present entire pardon of your sins and a full, free justification of your person. Thus will the all powerful love of Christ burst through every barrier of unbelief, lay low every mountain of sin, penetrate every shade of sorrow, and stand before the believing soul, a love unparalleled and unrivaled, which no cloud veil can conceal, and which many waters cannot quench.

The willingness and ability of Christ to save sinners cannot be hid. The world is filled with too many witnesses for this. Every truly converted sinner, every loving gracious soul is a lasting monument of the salvation of Jesus- a living witness to His power and His grace in saving to the uttermost all that come unto God by Him. With so great a cloud of witnesses, then, to Christ's reception of poor lost sinners, need you, my reader, despair of being saved? What! will you be the one solitary exception? Will you be the first to perish at His feet- to die suing out your pardon beneath His cross- sent empty and unblest away from the door of His mercy, at which you have so long anxiously and beseechingly knocked? Oh no! never! Arise, and go into the royal presence of the King of grace, exclaiming,

"Perhaps He will admit my plea,
Perhaps will hear my prayer;
But if I perish I will pray,
And perish only there.

"And if I die with mercy sought,
When I the King have tried,
This were to die-delightful thought!
As sinner never died."

And who are they who really find Jesus? First, the sin-burdened find Him. To whom else can they go? To whom more fitly? To whom more immediately? Jesus is the Sin-bearer of His Church. God the Father laid upon Him the transgressions of His people, and for them He made His soul an-offering for sin. And when the Holy Spirit convinces the soul of its sin and guilt and condemnation, under the guiding of the same Spirit it sets itself upon the work of seeking Christ; and, seeking Him earnestly and perseveringly, it finds Him- for, He cannot be hid. Press on in your inquiry and search, O sin-troubled soul, through all difficulty and opposition and discouragement- for you shall find Him. It is impossible that He can hide Himself from you. His invitations and His promises assure you of this- "Seek, and you shall find."

The soul-distressed and perplexed believer finds Him. The Lord permits soul-trouble that we may be set upon seeking Him. You are anxious about an assured interest in Christ; you are filled with fear and alarm lest this new discovery you have made of indwelling sin should prove from past experience a deception, and your present hope a lie. You are perhaps troubled with vain, sinful, blasphemous thoughts, and you know not how to reconcile their existence and assault with the divine nature in your soul and the love of God in your heart.

But this experience have all the saints; all have trodden this path to glory. No saint has arrived there without a fearful struggle with sin; no believer has reached the realms of bliss without many a shaft from the adversary, and with the scar of many a wound, which shall go with him to glory to testify to the zeal, faithfulness, and love with which he fought the battles of his Lord. All such shall find Jesus a merciful and faithful High Priest, succouring those who are assailed, delivering the godly out of temptation, and quieting the fears of His saints with the assured truth that the spiritual warfare they discover within is the result of two opposite principles- sin and grace; of two diverse natures- that of the first and that of the Second Adam.

The tried and afflicted find Jesus. Where can we repair with our sorrows but to Him? They are sent for this end. We have, perhaps, been insensible to Christ's attractions, and have not yielded to His drawings; and now He has sent the rod that drives us to Him! Oh how often does He visit us with trouble, that it may stir us up to seek Him. It is recorded of Manasseh that, "when he was in affliction, he sought unto the Lord his God." Blessed discipline that sets us upon the search for Christ!

He has, perhaps, for some time been to us as a hidden Christ. We have followed Him, like Peter, afar off. Our love to Him has chilled; our zeal for Him has waned; our desires for Him have lessened; our heart has gone after other loves. But, bent upon our restoration, He sends pining sickness, or crushing adversity, or heart-breaking bereavement, -the rod of correction in one or more of its many forms; and then we discover the real state of our souls- at what a distance we have been walking from God, how little of our hearts Jesus possessed; and, like the Church of old, we arise and go about the streets, and inquire, "Have you seen Him whom my soul loves?"

Blessed discipline, we again exclaim, that results in setting us upon the errand of searching out and finding Christ. To whose love so tender, to whose sympathy so compassionate, to whose support so effectual, and to whose power so mighty can we disclose our sorrow as Christ's? There is not a being in the universe who so loves and cares for you as Jesus, and into whose precious presence we have such immediate access as His.

The poor penitent, returning backslider finds Christ. And who more needs to search and find and experience His restoring grace than one who has felt the love of God, has tasted that the Lord is gracious, and who has fed in the green pastures where Jesus leads His flock and causes them to lie down; but who, yielding to the devices of his own heart, the allurements of the world, and the temptations of Satan, has departed from the Lord into bypaths and forbidden ways of sin and folly, walking no more with Jesus.

Has the Holy Spirit enkindled in your heart godly grief, holy, tender contrition? Are you God's repentant Ephraim, bemoaning yourself, ashamed and confounded, exclaiming, "Turn unto me, and I shall be turned"? Are you like Christ's Apostle, Peter, "weeping bitterly" at the sad remembrance of your backsliding? O betake yourself to Christ, who, though He may long have been to you as a hidden Savior, will yet be found of you again, receiving you graciously, loving you freely, and turning His anger away from you.

O the joy of Christ's heart over one stray sheep returned to the fold! Wandering child of God! backsliding believer, return! This is His own invitation. "Return, backsliding Israel, says the Lord; and I will not cause my anger to fall upon you: for I am merciful, says the Lord, and will not keep anger forever."

"Return, O wanderer! Return,
And seek an injured Father's face;
Those warm desires that in you burn
Were kindled by restoring grace."

In conclusion, let us not forget that we would never have found Jesus, had He not first sought and found us! If you have taken one step towards God, it is because He has taken ten thousand steps towards you. His language is- "I am sought of those who asked not for Me; I am found of those who sought Me not." He first began the work of grace in your soul, inspired the first desire, created the first throb of life, and kindled the first spark of love! O give Him the praise due to His great and Holy name; and ever acknowledge by your holy walk, your loving return of obedience, of service, and of patient endurance of suffering, your eternal indebtedness to the grace that sought you out in the cloudy and dark day, and brought you to Jesus.

Be watchful against everything that would hide Christ from your view. The world is a very Christ-obscuring object- guard against its encroachment; you cannot, in your march to heaven, take Christ in one hand and the world in the other. You and the world must part, however self-denying the struggle, if you would walk with God.

Sin is a Christ-obscuring object: pray against its power. Nothing is so Christ veiling as tampering with sin, as a willful dallying with unholy temptation, as guilt upon the conscience, unconfessed, uncleansed, unforsaken.

Distance in our devout walk, the restraining of prayer, the unfrequent visits to the place of sweet fellowship with God, will obscure the Savior from our view. Some disciples follow Christ so far off, that they can scarcely distinguish His form from that of a stranger!

Another word of caution. Enter not into places, or society, or recreation, as a Christian, where Christ is excluded. "Surely the fear of God is not in this place," exclaimed Abraham of Abimelech's house. If this is your experience, flee from the place as unsuited to one who desires to rule his life and his home by the fear of God. You will not find Christ's approving, sanctifying presence in scenes of worldly gaiety, in haunts of carnal pleasure, or amid the excitement of political, social, or ecclesiastical strife. You will not find Him at the card-table, nor at the theater, nor in the dance, nor on the playing field. You will not find Him where error is preached, or false worship is offered, or religious formalism maintains its cold and lifeless reign. Oh no! not here, not here, beloved, will you find the Lord. In all these places, and amid all these scenes Christ is hid!

But you will find Him in the midst of His saints, met together in His Name. You will find Him among the poor in spirit, the broken of heart, those who hunger and thirst after righteousness, -to whom His name is as ointment poured forth, and who, in their emptiness and poverty, live upon His fulness. You will find Him in the home of mourning, amid the scene of adversity, in the chamber of sickness, by the couch of suffering, at the bed of death, and at the grave that unveils its bosom to receive the ransomed dust of a temple of the Holy Spirit.

Most of all, you will find Him in the retirement and solitude of the closet, shut in alone with God, in sweet "fellowship with the Father, and with His Son, Christ Jesus." Heed not the popular cry, "Lo! here is Christ!" Believe it not, and go not after it, for He is not there. Our Lord has forewarned us of this as one of the signs of the last day. Even now are there many "false Christs." But inquire after and walk in the old paths, shaded with His cross, traced with His feet, and trodden by His saints. Look forward to the great day of His personal, visible, and illustrious manifestation. "Behold, He comes with clouds; and every eye shall see Him, and they also which pierced Him; and all kindreds of the earth shall wail because of Him."

Then, when the dead in Christ shall have been raised, and the living saints shall have been translated, and the millennial reign shall have terminated, Christ will sit upon the great white throne, and before Him all nations shall be gathered. And then shall every eye be riveted upon His glorious and ineffable countenance, each gazer waiting to hear from His lips, with joy or sorrow, with hope or fear, the blessed word, "COME!" or the terrible word, "DEPART!"

"But, before the trumpet wake
The mansions of the dead,
Hark! from the Gospel's gentle voice
What joyful tidings spread!

"You sinners, seek His grace,
Whose wrath you cannot bear;
Fly to the shelter of His cross,
And seek salvation there!"

The Woman That Left Her Waterpot

Then, leaving her waterpot, the woman went back to the town and said to the people, "Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Christ?" John 4:28-29

It was a striking and instructive feature in the personal ministry of the Lord Jesus, that the most gracious and unreserved discoveries of His Messiahship were to the most unworthy and improbable objects. His saving and sovereign grace delighted to illustrate its wealth by conferring it upon the poorest, and its power by saving the most vile. It was deep in the mine of fallen nature He loved to sink the shaft of His Gospel, in quest of the lost and hidden jewels He had come from heaven to seek and to save.
This fact introduces us to that large class of the community to whom, for the most part, our blessed Lord limited His ministry. They were the poor and unlearned, the depraved and despised of the race. Far different from these might have been His listeners. Had He chosen He might have identified Himself with the most celebrated scholars of Greece and Rome, placing Himself at their head, attracting and chaining them to His feet as His adoring disciples. He could have composed a poem, or have painted a picture, or have propounded a philosophy that would have filled all Athens with the splendor of His genius, and the world with the echoes of His fame. But this was neither His mission nor His sphere.
He left these pagan sages to prove to the world that by its wisdom it knew not God; and allowed them to learn the utter inefficacy of are, science, and philosophy, either to emancipate their own selves from the groveling superstitions by which they were enthralled, or to elevate the masses from the moral degradation into which they were sunk. The people asked for bread, and these heathen philosophers gave them a stone; they looked for a fish, and received a serpent. Thus true is the Bible- "Has not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? For after that, in the wisdom of God, the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God, by the foolishness of preaching, to save those who believe."
But let the evangelical Prophet Isaiah describe the nature of the ministry, and the character of Christ's hearers: "The Spirit of the Lord God is upon us, because the Lord has anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek: He has sent me to bind up the broken-hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound."
The incident selected for our present exposition is a true and impressive illustration of these remarkable words. It refers to the conversion of the woman of Samaria. Our Lord had traveled forty miles on that day, and at the sixth hour (or, at about twelve o'clock, the time of the Jewish meal) weary and footsore, He sat Him upon (or, probably, near by) Jacob's well. "There came a woman of Samaria to draw water." Then follows the remarkable, soul converting conversation of Christ with this woman, and the happy result, as narrated in the words I am about to unfold: Then, leaving her waterpot, the woman went back to the town and said to the people, "Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Christ?" -or, the Messiah.
Guided by the leading points of this interesting and instructive narrative, three things suggest themselves for our study- Christ's knowledge of the woman of Samaria- the woman's discovery of Christ- and her spiritual change consequent upon that discovery.
The knowledge which the Lord Jesus possessed of this woman was marvellous and minute. They had never met before, and, perhaps, never met on earth again, and yet He knew all about her- her name, her abode, her past history, and the sad, sad life of sin she then was living. What a great and precious truth does this unfold with regard to Jesus- His especial knowledge of His people. "I am the good Shepherd, and know My sheep. My sheep hear My voice, and I know them." Jesus knows them before conversion, when in their natural state of sin and rebellion. Hidden though they are in the quarry of their unregeneracy, mixed with the world, lost in the crowd, He has His eye of mercy upon them, for He knew them from eternity. When the Father placed the lost jewels in His hand to seek and to save, each one passed before His eye; He knew them when, with His own hand, He wrote their names in His eternal Book of Life; He knew them when He hung upon the cross, pouring out His soul unto death -a ransom to God for their redemption.
Not less minute is Christ's knowledge of His people after conversion. If He knew them from eternity- if, when involved in the wreck and ruin of our fallen nature, He knew them- if, in their rebellion and folly (lost, perhaps, in many instances, to virtue, honor, and happiness) He knew where to find them- surely there is nothing belonging to them, since His sovereign grace has sought and found them, which He does not know-and with the minute knowledge of His own divine love.
Believer in Jesus! the Lord knows everything about you. Deem not yourself as hidden in the crowd. While His knowledge of His flock is universal, it is also personal and special. He knows them collectively, and He knows them individually. You may feel yourself almost overlooked; those who are acquainted with you do not know you, and those who do know you may not understand you. But, be still every thought! hushed be every murmur! Jesus knows you personally, knows you minutely, knows you altogether. He knows your name, for He wears it upon His breastplate; He knows your burden, for He carries it upon His shoulder; He knows your sorrow, for He enshrines it in His heart; He knows all the way that you take, for all that way He has Himself ordained. Such knowledge as this, how unutterably precious to the believing soul!
How closely and firmly does the faith of the Christ-loving heart enfold around itself the omniscience of Jesus!
O Lord, you have searched me
and you know me.
You know when I sit and when I rise;
you perceive my thoughts from afar.
You discern my going out and my lying down;
you are familiar with all my ways.
Before a word is on my tongue
you know it completely, O Lord.
You hem me in--behind and before;
you have laid your hand upon me.
Such knowledge is too wonderful for me,
too lofty for me to attain.
Where can I go from your Spirit?
Where can I flee from your presence?
If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.
If I rise on the wings of the dawn,
if I settle on the far side of the sea,
even there your hand will guide me,
your right hand will hold me fast. Psalm 139:1-10

We approach now a remarkable and instructive part of the narrative- Christ's discovery of Himself to the woman. In the course of a lengthened conversation the question of Christ's Messiahship was raised . "The woman said unto Him, I know that Messiah comes, who is called Christ: when He comes He will tell us all things." The blessed Savior could not resist this pointed and touching reference to Himself. The hidden spring of His love was touched by the hand of a poor sinner, in quest of whom He had traveled that day many weary miles- and that touch, unconscious to herself, was irresistible with Him. No longer able to preserve His disguise, and, as if aware of discovery, He removed the veil, and stood before her- the long promised, the true, the acknowledged Messiah: "Jesus said unto her, I that speak unto you am He."
What a precious prophecy concerning Christ was now fulfilled! "But I will reveal my name to my people, and they will come to know its power. Then at last they will recognize that it is I who speaks to them." What an honor did Jesus confer upon this woman! That He should make Himself known in such explicit terms, in so gracious a manner, and to so obscure an individual and so great a sinner, while from all others the fact of His Messiahship had been withheld, except to His Apostles- and only revealed to them under the seal of silence- surely was a marvellous and precious instance of His great and free grace to poor sinners!
What an announcement- "I who speak unto you am He!" The discovery of a new world were as nothing, compared to this! The Savior promised, before the gates of paradise closed upon our sinning and expelled parents; of whom Moses wrote, and Isaiah sung, and whose day Abraham saw; the Redeemer whom types foreshadowed, and symbols taught, and prophets predicted; the Beloved Son and the unspeakable gift of God, now stood before this guilt-stained woman; the revealed, the confessed, the gracious Savior of men!
O what marvellous, what sovereign grace! Here let me pause, and ask you, my reader- Has there been a discovery of the Savior, through faith and by the Spirit, to your soul? Has this same Jesus been made known to you? I inquire, not if you have found Him, but- has He found you? Oh! it is of infinite moment to you to be assured of this. The religion of many is a religion destitute of a manifestation of Jesus to their souls. It is a cold, lifeless profession of Christianity without Christ, - a form of godliness without the power! It is for your life I press the inquiry- Has Christ revealed Himself to your soul? This is the essence, the very soul of vital, experimental, saving religion. Real religion is to know Christ, to have a revelation of Christ- yes, it is Christ Himself in us. And there can be no true comfort, no assured hope until faith has apprehended or laid hold of Christ, and Christ has removed the veil from our heart and the disguise from Himself, and has spoken these precious words- "I who speak unto you am he."
And the Lord Jesus is prepared to make Himself known to poor anxious souls. What the woman of Samaria, in her deep sinfulness, found, you may find. Limit not His redeeming mercy, restrict not His free grace, doubt not His pardoning love, but bend your ear to His gracious voice. "I who speak unto you am He who came into the world to save sinners. I am He upon whom my Father laid the burden and the curse of your sins. I was wounded for your transgressions, and was bruised for your iniquities. I obeyed the law, and my obedience is your righteousness; I suffered and bled, and my death is your atonement. I am He who binds up the broken in heart and heals their wounds. I am He whose blood cleanses from all sin, who pardons the guiltiest, accepts the poorest, saves the vilest. I require no merit, expect no worthiness, ask no price; but receive, pardon, and save you just as you are. It is My office, My delight, My glory to seek and to save lost sinners. I am the good Shepherd; I know My sheep and the work of My Spirit in their hearts, and the desire of their souls towards Me. I am He that speaks unto you by My Spirit, in My Word and through My ministers; by all the temptations that test you, and by all the sorrows that shade you, and by all the blessings that gladden you, and by all the hopes that cheer you. Let no voice but mine speak peace to your soul. Let no other pronounce you forgiven, or assure you that you are saved. Let your prayer to me be, 'Say unto my soul, I am your salvation.' Let Me speak, and all shall be peace!" Such, virtually, are the precious words of Jesus to every spiritually awakened sinner.
We now reach the transforming effect of this manifestation of Christ upon the character and conduct of this woman. Our text informs us- Then, leaving her waterpot, the woman went back to the town and said to the people, "Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Christ?" She left her waterpot. What does this sudden and marvellous change mean? Why this forgetfulness of her errand to the well? What had she found as a substitute? Why this hasty and eager abandonment of her worldly goods? Oh, she had now, by the Savior's converting grace, become" a new creature." A new spiritual world had burst upon her view. She had found Him of whom Moses and the prophets spoke- Jesus of Nazareth; the Christ of God, the Savior of sinners. She had found the Fountain of living water; she drank of it, and her soul lived.
Until now she loved sin, lived in sin, and, had it not been for Jesus, she would have perished in sin. The object of His everlasting love, she now became the subject of His converting grace. The living water which Jesus gave her was now a well of water in her soul- a springing well of life, grace, and love in her heart; and, with this new-found treasure and this new-born joy, she forgot her errand to the well, and retraced her steps back to the city, to tell her friends and neighbors what great things the Lord had done for her soul!
Such, my reader, is true conversion! The Holy Spirit imparts a new and a divine nature; divine grace supplants the principle of sin with the principle of holiness- changes the thirst for the world into a thirst for Christ. The pottery of earth is exchanged for the golden vessel of heaven, now filled to overflowing with the new-born love and joy of Christ the Lord. "Whoever drinks of this water shall thirst again; but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him, shall never thirst."
"I thirst: but not as once I did,
The vain delights of earth to share;
Your wounds, Immanuel, all forbid
That I should seek my pleasures there.
"It was the sight of Your dear cross,
Fast weaned my soul from earthly things;
And taught me to esteem as dross
The mirth of fools and pomp of kings."
I want the grace that springs from Thee,
That quickens all things where it flows,
And makes a wretched thorn like me
Bloom as the myrtle or the rose.
"Dear Fountain of delight unknown!
I no longer sink beneath the brim;
But overflow, and pour me down
A living and life-giving stream!"
Precious and important are the instructions we may gather from the whole narrative. We learn, in the first place, that our Lord's initiative step in the conversion of this sinful woman, was to make her spiritually acquainted with her own self. She was living in known and deadly sin. Jesus, who knew all that she was, said unto her, "You have had five husbands and one whom you now have is not your husband." Thus did the Lord turn her eye in upon herself. Where did He get the knowledge of her sin? How did He know her life and read her heart? Because He was GOD as well as Man- the God-Man, Christ Jesus. What a proof of the divinity of our blessed Lord is this!
Thus we learn, in conversion, that before the Lord makes Himself known to us, He first makes us known to ourselves. A personal acquaintance with our sinfulness is essential to a personal acquaintance with Jesus as our Savior. Have you been so enlightened, my reader? Have you approached God in the spirit, attitude and prayer of the humble and penitent publican, and cried, "God be merciful to me a sinner"? O this is the first step in your conversion! Lord! show me to myself, that I may know You!
We learn from the history of this woman the coexistence of formalism and sin in the same individual. How close may be a religious form and an irreligious life! The woman of Samaria was a zealous Ritualist; she could argue intelligently and contend warmly for her place and mode of religious worship. "Our fathers worshiped in this mountain; and you say, that in Jerusalem is the place where we ought to worship." How deceitful and desperately wicked is the human heart! Thus may an individual maintain with tenacity, and contend with fiery zeal for a form of godliness which is utterly destitute of its vital, sanctifying reality; for a party, a denomination, a church; and all the while be the vassal of Satan, the servant of sin, and the slave of lust.
But nothing can be a substitute for the new birth; no religious service, nor creed, nor zeal, nor profession, nor worship, nor sacraments, can be a substitute for the conversion of the heart. We must be BORN AGAIN, or eternally perish! Oh, let us examine our hearts, each for himself, touching this vital and momentous matter!
The Lord Jesus likewise teaches us in this narrative the nature of true and acceptable worship. He emphatically declares it to be spiritual. "God is a Spirit and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth." No other worship is acceptable with Him. However splendid the building, or beautiful the ritual, or imposing the ceremonial, it is nothing with God. The sweetness of the music, the grandeur of the service, the solemnity of the demeanor, without the devotion of the heart are an abomination in His sight. Let us seek much of the power and anointing of the Holy Spirit, that we may worship our heavenly Father in spirit and in truth; for He seeks such, and only such, to worship Him. He looks to the heart- "to the man who is of an humble and contrite spirit." Oh how costly and precious in His view is the incense of a heart lying lowly and broken at His feet!-no sacrifice upon His altar is like this to Him.
Thus our Christian homes may be true sanctuaries of God; the worship offered to Him there pure and spiritual, and its ministry- expounding and enforcing His sacred Word -a holy and divinely-authorized agency for making known Christ, blessed and made a blessing, encircling the whole household with the fragrance of His precious name.
We are told, in the commencement of this spiritually instructive narrative, that Jesus "must go through Samaria." Why this constrained necessity? Has it not a most precious spiritual significance? The whole incident supplies the answer. There was a poor adulterous woman living in that city, needing His grace, and for whom He had covenant purposes of mercy, and eternal thoughts of love, and He must- as in the case of Zaccheus- "pass that way" to search and find her, and draw her to Himself.
We learn a most precious truth from this, my beloved reader. There is a holy needs be in all that Christ does. There was a needs be in the providence which brought you into grace; and there has been a needs be in all His gracious dealings with you since then- a needs be in every permitted assault of Satan, and in every discovery of inbred corruption, and in every season of spiritual darkness. There is a needs be in all the way by which God is at present leading you, in all the dispensations of His love, in every cloud that shades, in every element that embitters, in every stroke that wounds. God does not deal with His people as a despot- tyrannically and arbitrarily- but as a Father, lovingly and wisely.
O yes! there is a wise, righteous, loving needs be in all that He does with us. He would not thus have shaded your life's bright landscape, nor have embittered your sweet domestic joy, nor have thus sorely tried your faith and patience, had there not have been a holy needs be- some inbred corruption to subdue, some threatening evil to check, some unseen evil to prevent, some untold blessing to bestow.
Yield yourself up unto God; and, "though now for a season, if needs be, you are in heaviness through manifold temptations," yet, "the trial of your faith, though tried with fire," will most surely result in your greatest good and in the Lord's highest glory.
Have you left the waterpot? or, to speak less figuratively, Have you abandoned your idols for the Lord Jesus? -and, finding Him, have you turned your back entirely upon things that are seen and temporal, Caleblike, "WHOLLY following the Lord?" O to be true followers of Christ! following the Lamb wherever He goes- wholly; unreservedly following Him; renouncing a sinful, Christ-rejecting, God-hating world its carnal enjoyments, its worldly gaieties, its human confidences, its unhallowed friendships and connections -following hard after that blessed Savior whom the ungodly world condemned, whom the religious world covered with shame, and whom the infidel world nailed to the tree!
Such is the world now! -and as such we must come out of it, and separate ourselves from it, and touch not the unclean thing. We must leave all, if need be, for Christ; we shall find all we have left, and infinitely more, in Him.
"We have left everything to follow you!" "I tell you the truth," Jesus replied, "no one who has left home or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields for me and the gospel will fail to receive a hundred times as much in this present age (homes, brothers, sisters, mothers, children and fields--and with them, persecutions) and in the age to come, eternal life." And now the "waterpot" is left! The world has lost its charm, the creature its attraction, carnal sweets their power to please, earth is exchanged for heaven, and henceforth CHRIST is all in all through time and through eternity!
Let us imitate the zeal of this new convert, and seek to bring others to Christ. "Come, see a man that told me all things that ever I did." One of the first publishers of the glad tidings of the Gospel was a woman, just rescued from sin and made a monument of grace! The Lord would teach us by this fact that, while the office of the Christian ministry, as a divine institution, stands alone, all private Christians not excepting the female sex, may, like the woman of Samaria, invite sinners to Jesus. While it is the work of the Holy Spirit alone to convert, it is our duty instrumentally to say- "Come, and see Jesus." Oh! let none of us aspire after a "starless crown." May the diadem which Christ will place upon the brow of every disciple faithful unto death, be gemmed with many a precious soul, led to Jesus by our hands. Then, with the Elders we will lay down that jeweled diadem at Jesus' feet, and He shall have all the glory, and to Him shall be all the praise!
"Now will I tell to sinners round,
What a dear Savior I have found
I'll point to Your redeeming blood
And say- "Behold, the way to God!"
One word: "The well is deep!" God's love, Christ's grace is an infinite depth, - deeper than our sins, deeper than our unworthiness, deeper than our need. Come in child-like faith, and just as you are, to Christ; and with joy shall you draw water out of this deep, this fathomless, this free well of salvation. "Of His fulness have all we received, and grace for grace." The lord add His blessing, for Christ's sake. Amen.

The Power of the Tongue

"Death and life are in the power of the tongue." Proverbs 18:21

It is a painful and humiliating thought, that a faculty so noble as speech, a gift so useful as language, should ever be so ignobly employed and basely misused as it often is. God has not endowed us with a faculty or furnished us with an engine more fruitful of good or of evil, than this. Of the power of the tongue for evil, how strong is the language of the Apostle James, "The tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity: so is the tongue among our members, that it defiles the whole body, and sets on fire the course of nature; and it is set on fire of hell." These are words terribly significant!
Not less strong is the language of God's Word, touching the power of the tongue for good- "The tongue of the just is as chosen silver." "A wholesome tongue is a tree of life." "Heaviness in the heart of man makes it stoop: but a cheerful word makes it glad." "A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in pictures of silver." "The Lord God has given me the tongue of the learned, that I should know how to speak a word in season to him that is weary."
Thus, what a marvellous instrument of power is human language! As the vehicle of thought, as the channel of love, and as the instrument of communion it transcends all others. The tongue of the intelligent instructs us; the tongue of the holy sanctifies us; the tongue of the sympathizing soothes us; the tongue of the faithful admonishes us; the tongue of the loving and the kind is as marrow to the bones; and, transcending all, the tongue that discourses to us of Jesus is as life to the soul. Marvellous instrument! possessing a power so great! Capable of producing such great misery or such intense happiness; of being a curse so bitter or a blessing so sweet. "Out of the same mouth," is the language of James, "proceeds both blessing and cursing."
Before proceeding further with our meditation, let me endeavor to impress you with a solemn conviction of its great practical importance. It is not an idle or speculative subject which now asks your consideration. It is more closely connected with our individual sanctification and with the solemn transaction of the final judgment than, perhaps, many of my readers may have thought. If, as the Apostle James says, "the tongue is a world of iniquity," and if, as the Lord Jesus has forewarned us- "By your words shall you be justified, and by your words you shall be condemned" -then, it takes its place by the side of the most vital and serious subjects that can engage our study. I speak the words of truth and soberness when I remark, that most of the evils which shade the luster of domestic happiness, empoison the springs of social communion, sending their baneful influence along all the channels of society -and most of the strifes and dissensions which mar the harmony and impair the holiness of Christians, may be traced to unguardedness of speech- to an unbridled, unhallowed use of the tongue.
Since speech, as I have remarked, is one of those noble faculties by which man is distinguished from the irrational creation, the thought should never be absent from our minds that, on its proper or perverted use hangs much of the good, or much of the evil, that affects human society. As heirs of eternity, nothing that we utter can be deemed trifling or insignificant. If our thoughts are indestructible, equally so are the words which clothe them. The air itself is a vast whispering gallery, along which travel, as upon its undulating waves, the thoughts we conceive and the words we utter, onward to the distant shores of the eternity to which they speed; where, though now scarcely noted or soon forgotten, they will meet us again- rising up as witnesses against us at the great day of judgment, if not cleansed and sanctified by the blood of the Lamb. Such is the solemn subject which is about to engage our study. May the Holy Spirit guide and sanctify our present meditations! May the tongue which is about to speak be touched as with living fire.
In the first place, we are told that, "death is in the power of the tongue." This, taking a general and comprehensive view of the subject, will apply to all species of evil speaking. The evil tongue is a polyglot; that is, it speaks as in many languages: its name is legion. Let me specify a few of those particular forms which come under the general head of evil speaking.
First, there is the tongue of the talebearer- the officious propagator of idle gossip: a numerous body, alas! is this- greater pests to society do not exist within its bosom. What lengths will not the talebearer travel, what pains will he not take, what time will he not expend in circulating an injurious report, in dispersing a dark assumption! It was, perhaps, at first but a conjecture, a rumor, a hearsay; nevertheless, this voracious devourer of evil, this ruthless utterer of base coin, has caught it- and it now becomes his self-imposed and dreary mission to travel from one end of the town to the other, in one day giving circulation and fixedness to a slander, the sad effects of which years may not entirely obliterate. I ask, is there not death in the power of the tongue of an idle, unscrupulous talebearer?
But what does the Word of God say concerning such? There is, first, God's positive command, forbidding the crime- "You shall not go up and down as a TALEBEARER among the people." What does Solomon observe? "A TALEBEARER reveals secrets." "What dainty morsels rumors are—but they sink deep into one's heart." " Where no wood is, the fire goes out; so, where there is no TALEBEARER [whisperer], the strife ceases." "He that utters a SLANDER is a fool." And what says the holy and indignant Psalmist? "Whoever privily SLANDERS his neighbor, him will I cut off."
Such is the solemn light in which the Scriptures of truth place this form of evil speaking. There is death in it- death to domestic happiness and individual reputation. Shun the talebearer as you would the touch of a glove infected with the plague; set your face as a flint against him; let him see by your look that his presence is as distasteful as his mission is abhorrent. "The north wind drives away rain: so does an angry countenance a BACKBITING tongue."
You, idle gossiper! traveling from house to house, retailing your unholy wares, trafficking in character, reputation, and happiness; you violator of confidence! unveiling domestic life, within whose sacred precincts unguarded friendship admitted you; you keen anatomist! visiting abodes for no other purpose than to dissect the character, or the doings, or the sayings of each family or neighbor- while your own dreads most of all the knife and the probe- what are you but a moral epidemic, that walks in darkness, spreading around you desolation and death; over whom, angels might weep and demons do shout, and whom every pious and well-regulated mind shuns, as it shuns the sting of a scorpion or a breath of the plague!
Such, too, is the tongue of slander. The slanderer is not merely the idle gossip, he is more. He is the inventor, or, what is equally criminal, he is the propagator of calumny itself! Envious of a rival, resolved upon shading the luster, or bent upon the total extinguishment of a star circling in a wider and brighter orbit than his own, he either coins, or propagates a lie injurious to the character of some public servant of God, or the reputation and happiness of some private individual moving in the quiet and unobtrusive walks of usefulness.
Is there not death in this unhallowed use of the tongue? Is there not 'slaying power' in that false report, that base insinuation, that cruel surmise, that "Soft buzzing slander, that eats an honest name"? Most assuredly! The treacherous moth is not a more insiduous and dangerous foe to the beautiful fabric it secretly and slowly destroys; nor the worm a more searching and wasting enemy of the costly vellum whose heart it pierces and devours, than he whose tongue is sharper than a sword, "Cutting honest throats by whispers."
It has been remarked that against slander there is no effectual armor of defense. Nothing is easier than to invent a slander, and nothing more difficult than to annihilate it. It generally selects for its victims the most good and worthy, as the birds peck at and destroy the best and loveliest fruit. I do not think that Tophet boasts of a darker fiend, or man can deplore a fouler foe than he who deals in it. Like the Indian, it dips its arrows in deadly poison; like Judas, it betrays the innocent with the kiss of villainy. Assassination is its employment, the guiltless its victims, ruin its sport, and the loud laugh of hell its reward! It is a moral pestilence veiled in darkness; a thousand fall beside it and ten thousand at its right hand, so unmercifully and deeply wounded as often never to recover the anguish of heart it has occasioned. This demon spirit of slander is thus graphically portrayed by a Christian poet:
"The man in whom this spirit entered was undone;
His tongue was set on fire of hell; his heart
Was black as death; his legs were faint with haste
To propagate the lie his soul had framed;
His pillow was the peace of families
Destroyed, the sigh of innocence reproached,
Broken friendship, and the strife of brotherhood.
Yet did he spare his sleep, and hear the clock
Number the midnight watches over his bed
Devising mischief more; and early rose
And made most hellish meals of good men's names."
To these must be added the backbiter- the destroyer of the absent one. Of all evil speaking this is, perhaps, the lowest, the most cruel and dastardly. Taking advantage of the defenseless position of his victim, asserting behind his back what he would not dare to utter before his face- by dark insinuations, by mysterious innuendoes, by a tragic tone- or, as Hannah Moore expresses it, "by a significant shrug of the shoulder," -the backbiter will give affected importance and authenticity to what all the while he knows to be unfounded in truth; and by this despicable means do serious and, perhaps, irreparable injury to the character and good name of an innocent, and, it may be, useful servant of the Lord; who, by his absence, is precluded from either defending his innocence or confounding his calumniator.
How pointed and pungent are the Divine denunciations of all such,"Lord, who shall abide in Your tabernacle? who shall dwell in Your holy hill? He that walks uprightly and works righteousness, and speaks truth in his heart. He that does not BACKBITE with his tongue, nor does evil to his neighbors, nor takes up a reproach against his neighbor." If such only have a place in God's tabernacle, if only such dwell upon His holy hill, if the slanderer and the backbiter are excluded thence- alas! how great will be the number thus excluded! How sad and unenviable, then, the character of the evil-speaker, the slanderer, the whisperer, the backbiter, the talebearer, the gossip! What are all these but domestic pests- propagators of a social moral plague? "Their throat is an open sepulcher; with their tongue they have used deceit; the poison of asps is under their lips."
Under this head we must class the anonymous disseminator of evil. The pen is a powerful auxiliary of the tongue, and gives permanence to its words, as the press gives to them wings. The anonymous propagator of evil must be classed among the most dangerous, as the most infamous vipers of the community: he is a concealed assassin. An individual may imagine that he sees just reasons for personal concealment in the act of doing a good service; but, even viewed in this point of light, the morality of anonymous communications is at best but dubious. What is it but wearing the assassin's cowl- assuming the murderer's mask? It is the adoption of a mode of doing us a supposed good by a friend, which public sentiment looks upon and condemns as only befitting the secret and sworn foe.
If you wish to warn an individual of a danger, or to apprise him of any evil, or to tell him of a fault, three courses are open to you. Either go to him yourself, and tell him; or, write to him, with your signature; or, enlist the office of a mutual friend. If neither of these modes commend themselves to your judgment and feelings, then it is plainly your duty to do nothing. If you are not willing to help save an individual, when in your power, at the expense of a little personal feeling, then your friendliness is not sufficient to entitle you to meddle in any way with his affairs. An individual's name is a guarantee of his honorable and truthful procedure: his name on paper represents himself. Acting thus openly and avowedly, he is invested by a safeguard which silently yet effectually restrains him from many temptations which would sorely assail him if he were consciously unknown. He is, perhaps, restrained from taking a false step, or from committing himself to a dishonorable action, or from doing an unwise thing injurious to himself or another, from a consideration of the compromise in which it would inevitably involve the integrity of his character and the honor of his name.
But what shall we say of the concealed foe?- the man who writes unfavorably of a third party; who seeks to separate very friends, to sow the seeds of discord in families, to make mischief in neighborhoods and in churches by anonymous communications, whether true or false? What can we say of him who, under cover of darkness, thus seeks to stab another's feelings, or reputation, or hopes, but that, in the strong language of God's Word, he is a "child of the devil," doing his work with his father's zeal and fidelity.
Less than this we dare not say of the individual who has the ineffable vileness to write and propagate slanderous reports and false statements of a fellow creature, while seeking to escape all responsibility of the cowardly act by concealing his name. It is a species of moral assassination of the deepest dye, branding the murderer as an outlaw of society; and every good and honest man will so denounce it.
From the power of all such our only true deliverance is prayer. And whose words so suitable as David's?- "Deliver me, O Lord from the evil man; preserve me from the violent men who imagine mischief in their hearts; continually are they gathered together for war. They have sharpened their tongues like a serpent; adders' poison is under their lips. Let not an evil speaker be established in the earth: evil shall hunt the violent man to overthrow him."
There is also death in the tongue of the flatterer. Not less pointed and scarcely less severe is the portrait which God presents of the character of the flatterer. Thus is he spoken of- "He that goes about as a talebearer reveals secrets; therefore meddle not with him that FLATTERS with his lips." "A man that FLATTERS his neighbor spreads a net for his feet." "They speak vainly, every one with his neighbor; with FLATTERING LIPS and with a double heart do they speak. The Lord shall cut of all FLATTERING lips, and the tongue that speaks proud things." Such is God's estimate of this character.
There are few evils of the tongue apparently more innocent and harmless, and yet, in reality, more sinful and dangerous than this. The flatterer places the victim of his eulogy in a false position; he invests him with an untrue, ideal estimate of himself. Against this species of praise few are invulnerable: it is natural for men to love adulation! Self-flattery is the idol of the human heart, and before the shrine of this, their favorite god, men delight that others should worship. However conscious they may be of not possessing the qualities commended, and even penetrating enough to discern the hollowness and insincerity of the adulation, still, the incense is so fragrant and self-satisfying that, while it is felt to be too exaggerated to be true, it yet is too courtly not to please.
How few possess that humility of mind and refinement of feeling that fortifies against its baneful influence! To some delicately formed minds nothing is more painful and offensive than to be covered with the incense of creature-adulation. And yet, offered to whom and however delicately, in all flattery there is death! Even the most high-minded and refined are not entirely armored against its injurious effects.
Man is a fallen being; and to speak to him of his virtues as many, of his infirmities as few, and of his offences as venial, is to ignore his state as a sinner, to soften and refine away the corruptness of his depraved nature, and to come between him and Christ. It is to cajole him in his self-righteousness, to foster the delusion that he is "rich and increased in goods, and has need of nothing," blinding him to the solemn fact that he is "Wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked." Surely there is death in the tongue of the flatterer!
Not less dangerous and equally reprehensible is religious flattery- flattery as addressed to our fellow Christians. How conspicuous is this spot upon the Christian profession of many! Is there not a strong habit in us of speaking approvingly and applaudingly of each other's piety? to commend the spirituality, religious knowledge, and ripeness of Christian experience? And yet how unconscious we may be of the treacherous snare we lay for the feet of a Christian brother or sister, and in so doing, lay for our own! What almost irreparable injury we are doing to his personal piety!
To eulogize his gifts, to commend his graces, to extol his experience, to applaud his achievements and his usefulness, is to mar and impair that lowliness of spirit and abnegation of self with which a Christian man should ever walk before the Lord and before his fellows. The corruption even of a saint of God is still so deep, and his sanctification so imperfect -the old Adam still so strong and the new man so feeble- that, the most gracious are not entirely armored against the injury to their spiritual life to which the tongue of flattery exposes them.
To say to one Christian, you wish you possessed his spiritual gifts; to another, what would you not give to possess his faith; to tell a third, that you envied his power in prayer; a fourth, that he had outstripped you in the Christian race; and to assure a fifth, that his exalted views of Christ and his gigantic grasp of truth put your own spiritual attainments to the blush! -is this language fit to address to a worm of the dust, to a fallen creature, to one like ourselves- a debtor to the free and sovereign grace of God?
Surely not: it is cruel, unkind, unchristian; it is acting towards a believing brother as the eagle does to the tortoise, lifting him to a great height but to make his fall the greater. If a brother does not come short in that very gift or grace which you have so unwisely and so highly commended, it is just because Christ has interfered to prevent his fall. "Of all wild beasts, preserve me from a tyrant; and of all tame ones, a flatterer."
What is flattery but aiding the work of Satan, the great deceiver of our race? There is a proverb- "When flatterers meet, the devil goes to dinner." That is, when those traitors to our virtue, happiness, and usefulness confederate against us, Satan's work is so well done that he has time for other employments. Flattery is the food of courts and not the nourishment upon which a true humble-minded believer lives. He desires to walk humbly with God; and yet, without courting human adulation, to preserve a good name more precious than ointment among his fellows. He thus deprecates the evil of flattery, and more especially that of religious flattery.
I do not overlook the great difference between a delicate and proper appreciation of piety and merit, and the false and exaggerated praise which, in some cases wounds the susceptibility, and in others inflates the vanity of those upon whom it is lavished. To a mind rightly constituted, to a heart in much communion with God, nothing is more painful than undeserved, or even excessive commendation. Yet, as I have remarked, we must discriminate between an unmeaning adulation, and kind and encouraging appreciation of those endowments and powers which God has given for the good of man and for the glory of His great name.
Thus have we attempted to illustrate the first clause of the text "death is in the power of the tongue" -a death more bitter, to a holy, high-minded individual, than the fatal dart of the last dread foe. More welcome to him the shadow of the tomb draping all the present, than a life lived on amid the cruel strife of false, and the undying taint of defaming, tongues.
But there is a theological view of this first clause of the passage strikingly and solemnly true. There is death in the preaching of the law. The Word of God is a two-edged sword; the law, in its slaying, condemning power, is one edge of this weapon of divine temper. "The law works death." "I was alive without the law once," says the Apostle, "but when the commandment came, sin revived and I died. And the commandment which was ordained to life I found to be unto death." Look not, therefore, O man, O woman, to the works of the law for spiritual life: it is not an instrument of life, but of death- not of justification, but of condemnation.
And he who has broken, and therefore is under the penalty of God's law, yet expects to be saved by it, is as infatuated as the criminal, who, under the sentence of death, yet sues out his pardon upon the footing of that very act of the legislature by virtue of which he is condemned. It was a favorite saying of the Countess of Huntingdon- "I would run away from the law, considered as a covenant of works, as fast as I would from my sins." The influence of the law upon all religious duties and obedience is much the same as the frost upon the silvery stream: it congeals and hardens them with the rigidity and coldness of death. But the warm rays of the Sun of Righteousness thaws the hardness and dissolves the icy fetters of the soul, and repentance and love then sweetly flow.
Oh! see that all your religious duties are 'evangelical'; that is, that they are the result of faith in and of love to Christ. See that they flow from a sight of a crucified Savior, that they are fruits growing beneath the cross of Immanuel. No fruit of godliness like to that found there! no contrition so deep, no faith so strong, no love so intense, no surrender of the heart so unreserved. Truly they are "precious fruits brought forth by the sun."
There is also death in the tongue of him who preaches false doctrine. The minister of soul-destroying error is the minister of death! All teaching which is opposed to the Gospel of Christ, which misleads men on their way to eternity by failing to show to them the way of life- all preaching which denies the work of the Spirit in regeneration; which substitutes human merit for the atoning work and sacrifice of Christ; which builds up men in their own doings and works as a meritorious preparation for heaven. All pulpit instruction which tends to lower the holiness of the truth, to relax the bond of moral obligation, to suppress, in the professor of the Gospel, an ardent desire after godliness- we say all such teaching is fatal to souls, and that, therefore, there is death in the power of the preacher's tongue.
As you value your eternal well-being go not in the way of such false teachers- these murderers of souls! Recoil from them as you would from the wily serpent; reject their ministries as you would the poisoned cup; cease to hear the instruction that causes to err from the words of knowledge and from the way of life. "Woe unto those who call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter."

But not less true is the second clause of our text, "LIFE is in the power of the tongue." God has invested sanctified speech with a life-giving power. There is a vitality in the hallowed tongue peculiarly its own. This is true of words of kindness and love spoken in cases of mental depression, or on seasons of temporal or spiritual trial. "Heaviness in the heart of man makes it stoop: but a kind word makes it glad." "A word spoken in season, how good is it! A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in pictures of silver." Such is the testimony of God's Word! Who will not say there is life in that tongue?
To go to such a one and speak of Jesus, to unfold the fulness of His grace, to tell of the faithfulness of God to His promises, His unchangeable love to His people, to remind the believing soul of the stability of the covenant, of the certain salvation of all who are in Christ Jesus- Oh! there is life- sweet, soul-uplifting life- in the power of that tongue that speaks to me words of heart-cheer when it is sad; to my mind, words of hope when desponding; that tells me of JESUS when going about and inquiring, "Have you seen Him whom my soul loves?"
There is LIFE in the power of the tongue of him who preaches the Lord Jesus Christ. When we preach Jesus we preach the only true life. Jesus is emphatically the Way of Life- Yes, He is Life itself. "I have come that you might have life." "I am the Life." "When Christ, who is our life, shall appear." It is impossible, then, to preach the Lord Jesus and not be an instrument of spiritual life. However deficient in acquired lore, and limited in human talent, however unrecognized by the Church and unhonored by the schools, the man who makes known the Lord Jesus, the Savior of sinners, possesses a tongue of life at whose irresistible power the tomb of the soul flies open and spiritual death gives up its prey.
Was there no life in those precious words of the manacled Apostles, addressed to the trembling jailer at Philippi, in reply to his momentous inquiry- "What must I do to be saved?" "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you shall be saved." But, had the Apostles instructed him to perform some mighty achievement, to do some great thing of himself; had they told him to trust to the mercy of God, to live a pure and honest life, to give alms, to build a synagogue, and, then, by completing his round of meritorious doings, to present himself regularly at the sacramental table; there had not been life, but death in the answer.
Oh who can estimate the awful results of a ministry in which there is nothing of Christ? Who can gauge the tremendous consequences of such teaching of immortal souls as proves but a "savor of death unto death"? But he who lifts up the Lord Jesus Christ as the only Savior of sinners, His work the only salvation of the soul, His cross the only way to glory- he who proclaims the all-sufficiency of His merit, the guilt-cleansing efficacy of His atoning blood, the freeness of His grace, the boundlessness of His love, His willingness and ability to save to the uttermost extent of wretchedness and woe- preaches the Gospel with a tongue of life! Such a Christ-exalting minister is a "savor of life unto life."
Such is the glorious message we proclaim to you, my reader. Are you anxious about your soul? Are you sin distressed, guilt-burdened? Do you ask, what you must do to be saved? My answer is based upon a free grace salvation- Look unto Jesus, and be saved. Come to Christ just as you now are, with no price in your hand, with no self-preparation; meriting nothing, doing nothing; and accept a present and full pardon, a free and perfect justification, all provided for you in Christ.
You are to believe not in a doctrine, or in a creed, or in a dogma, or in a Church: but, you are to believe in the Lord Jesus, in a personal Savior. Christ is the Object of faith, and Christ alone. And will He spurn you, will He reject you, will He cast you out? Oh never! He has given His word; and heaven and earth shall pass away, but that word shall never fail- "Him that comes unto Me, I will in no way cast out." Oh, into what perfect peace, into what holy joy, into what assured hope of glory will one act of simple, child-like faith in the Lord Jesus in a moment bring your soul! Try it; my reader: it is your life.
There is LIFE in the tongue of wise and timely counsel. It is a great power to be able, with the meekness of wisdom, to advise in the time of perplexity and doubt; to speak words which shall be as light upon the dreary path of some tried and perplexed child of God, anxious to know and do His will, yet needing the wise and gentle guidance of an experienced, God-fearing friend. If the Lord has conferred upon you this power, use it; and life to some drooping heart, some embarrassed mind will flow in a sacred stream from your words. "A word spoken in season, how good it is."
There is LIFE in the tongue of kindness, sympathy, and love. To this many a sad and sorrowing heart, and many a deep, bleeding wound, which words of human sympathy have comforted and healed, will testify. "The law of kindness upon the tongue" is a law of life to the heart whose joys sorrow has withered, and whose hope death has slain. Oh, who can describe the exchange of the shroud of woe, for the robe of gladness; the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness, which one word of kindness creates? This power is ours! Ours is the angel mission of folding around a tempest-tossed soul the wings of love and sympathy. Be faithful to it: this is no hard task- nothing easier. Ourselves partaking of the "kindness and love of God;" soothed and comforted by the words and sympathy of Christ, we shall know how to speak a word in season to a wounded spirit. "Blessed be God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies, and the God of all comfort; who comforts us in all our tribulations, that we may be able to comfort those who are in any trouble, by the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted of God."
Lord! we accept with cheerful submission the discipline of sorrow, however keen and crushing, which perfects us for a mission so noble, Christ-like, and Divine. If some child of suffering, some son or daughter of grief, shall in future time reap soothing and joy from this sowing in tears, we bow our head meekly to the cup Your love has ordained, and from our heart would say, Your will be done!"
My dear reader, let this be the practical conclusion of the whole matter- guard your speech, bridle your tongue, seek that grace may be poured into your lips; reflect that life and death are enthroned upon this little member. Think how great a fire one spark may kindle! Ever remember before you speak, that you are in the presence of God; that Christ hears you, and that an angel stands by to record your words in a book, and that, "every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment; for by your words you shall be justified, and by your words you shall be condemned." "Set a watch at the door of my lips, lest I speak unadvisedly with my tongue. Let the words of my mouth and the meditations of any heart be acceptable in Your sight, O Lord, my strength and my Redeemer."
And let David's holy, determined resolution be ours: "He that works deceit shall not dwell within my house: he that tells lies shall not tarry in my sight." And may the characters of those who shall abide in the Lord's tabernacle, and dwell in His holy hill, belong to us- "He that backbites not with his tongue, nor does evil to his neighbor, nor takes up a reproach against his neighbor, but in whose eye a vile person is abhorred."
Lord! purify my lips with a living coal from off your altar; and ever grant that my speech may be seasoned with the salt of your grace, that it may administer instruction, edification, and comfort to those that hear!
"One angry moment often does what we repent for years,
It works the wrong we never make right by sorrow or by tears;
It speaks the rude and unkind word, it wounds the feeble breast,
It strikes the reckless sudden blow, it wounds the household rest.
The hand of Peace is frank and warm, and soft as ringdove's wing,
And he who quells an angry thought is greater than a king;
Shame to the lips that ever seek to stir up jarring strife,
When gentleness would shed so much of Christian joy through life."

The Gift of Suffering

"Unto you it is GIVEN in the behalf of Christ, not only to believe on Him, but also to SUFFER for His sake." Phil. 1:29.

"I love my sufferings," remarked one of the most pious and gifted female writers of her day, "for they come from God. I love everything that comes from Him." Doubtless, this eminent saint was familiar with the passage which suggests our present reflection, to the confirmation of which she brought her personal experience "Unto you it is GIVEN ... to SUFFER." There is, probably, no point of light in which suffering is less viewed by believers than this, and yet not one more consolatory. There is always a peculiar charm in a gift. It is the acknowledged token of friendship, the silent expression of love. It may in itself be but a trifle, yet how expressive and precious! You would believe that the individual who presented you with a lock of hair, or a simple flower, or a picture regarded you with interest, and held you in sacred remembrance.
Now it is just in this point of view we wish you to contemplate the afflictive dealings of God. "Unto you it is GIVEN ... to SUFFER." God has given us many precious gifts; but I believe, that next to the unspeakable gift of His beloved Son, we shall thank and praise Him the loudest in heaven for the gift of suffering.
Let us in this brief meditation first direct our thoughts to the gift itself- it is SUFFERING. That suffering should universally prevail, is simply to remark that sin universally prevails. Sin and suffering are convertible terms. They bear the same relation to each other as cause and effect. There was no bodily or mental suffering in the primal or sinless state of man. Prior to the fall both the body and mind were total strangers to pain. Perfect holiness was another expression for perfect freedom from all the ills bequeathed to us by our sinning father, of which we are the sad legatees. But we must restrict our thoughts on this subject. Universal as is suffering, is the sentiment equally as universal that suffering is a Divine appointment? Is it regarded and acknowledged as a gift of God? Just the contrary is the feeling of the unregenerate world. They regard it as an unmerited infliction, as an unjust and arbitrary act of God. Viewed in this light, they fly in the face of God, impeach His wisdom, deny His goodness, and dispute the justice and sovereignty of His will.
To this may be traced the different reception of suffering by the Christian and the worldling. The suffering Christian falls down in lowliness and submission at the feet of God; the suffering worldling flies up in anger and hostility in His face. The rod in the one case is all budding, in the other it is all bare; in the one, affliction is unto life, in the other, it is unto death. The sufferings of the Lord's people are many. The terms which indicate this truth are expressive: "many waters," "in much tribulation," "all Your waves and Your billows," "the sufferings of Christ abound in us." Thus, the recipe of our Heavenly Physician is compounded of many and diverse ingredients, all of which work together for the spiritual and eternal health of the soul!
From bodily suffering none are entirely exempt. All are more or less its subjects. The seeds of disease, which are but the germs of suffering, are sown in every human constitution, and sooner or later yield their own sad fruit. There are few dwellings in which there is not a sick chamber, few homes in which there is not a loved one the subject of disease in some one of its many forms. But sickness is God's messenger, bent upon a mission of mercy and of love. It may wear a cold repelling aspect, for our visitation of sickness is not for the present joyous, but grievous. The painful convulsion, the maddening delirium, the hectic fever, the waste and decay, the nervous irritability, the incessant anguish, the restless days and the sleepless nights, the lingering, dying languor, is not a discipline the spirit would choose or the flesh would welcome.
Nevertheless, it must be right, and it will result in good, because our Heavenly Father sends it. In this light view your present sickness, suffering saint! Little would you taste of the inexpressible sweetness of that precious grape-cluster bending down from our Living Vine- "He bore our sicknesses,"- but for your present suffering. The wasting of decay, the pain of disease, the languor of prostration, the trembling, quivering nerve, must in measure be experienced, to experience what the sympathy of Jesus is in sickness.
Perhaps, a yet more acute form of suffering is the mental. I think this is indisputable. The mind resting in God, confiding, peaceful, hopeful, will enable the body to endure almost any form or degree of suffering. Take, for example, the "noble army of martyrs," as witnesses of this truth. What was it that enabled many of them to kiss the stake, to toy with the leaping flames, and to glory in the consuming conflagration, from which they ascended up, as in a chariot of fire, to heaven, but the love of Christ, and the peace of God keeping their hearts and minds tranquil, even joyful, amid their tortures? "The spirit of a man will sustain his infirmity; but a wounded spirit who can bear?"
"A wounded spirit!" ah! it lowers the loftiest, weakens the strongest, humbles the proudest: who can bear it? Mental depression receives its complexion very much from the causes which produce it. The mind is a marvellous and mysterious thing. There is no part of our organism more vital, sensitive, and subtle than it. It is the barometer of the soul, affected by every atmospheric feeling through which we pass. We possess nothing more keenly, acutely sensitive.
The causes from where mental suffering arises are many. With some of the Lord's people the origin is hereditary, with others it is natural, and with yet more it is religious. But, from whatever it may arise, mental suffering in some form is the discipline appointed by God for many of His people. Think not that your case is singular, or that you are an especial object of your Father's displeasure, because he has so afflicted you.
I will not pause to inquire the cause of your mental depression; it is enough for my purpose in penning these remarks to know that yours is a mind depressed, needing a gentle, yes, a Divinely healing touch. He who created your mind, who has hitherto proved its Sustainer, knows the cloud that veils it, the tumult that agitates it, the imaginations that play around it like hideous spectres- all is known to God! And do you think that Christ is either ignorant of, or insensible to, the spiritual exercise through which your mind may be now passing? Far from it. If there is any stage of our discipline for heaven with which the Lord Jesus more closely sympathizes than another, it is our spiritually-mental stage. Can He ever forget the mental conflict of the garden, the soul-travail of the cross; the blood-sweat of the one, the soul-sorrow of the other?
Child of God! walking in mental gloom, passing through deep waters of soul exercise- doubting, fearing, despairing, sinking- look up! There is One who knows your sorrow, and has come down to rescue you. His eye of compassion is upon you, His wing of love is around you, His arms of power are beneath you, His heart is your pavilion, His wounds your refuge, His precious promise the word upon which He invites you to hope!
Dwell upon the solemn thought that your Lord and Savior trod this identical path before you; that, if there is one cloister of His heart deeper and warmer than another, in that cloister He hides you while passing through this mental eclipse. Fear not that He will abandon you to total darkness or endless despair. Your soul will emerge from its present obscuration, all the brighter for its temporary darkness. Tempest-tossed, you will be all the more firmly rooted and grounded in God's love. The Lord by this process is deepening the work of grace in your heart, consuming the dross with the fire, and scattering the chaff with the flail of His discipline, that had too much, and unsuspected by yourself, mingled with your Divine and heavenly nature.
Deem yourself not a child of God, because you are the subject of mental disquietude and of spiritual exercise. Were your soul still locked in the sleep of death, it would be Satan's policy to keep you so. But the mental and spiritual exercises through which you are now passing are indices of soul vitality, of an awakening out of sleep, of the possession of that spiritual life, which is linked indissolubly with the life which is to come. Suffering is the royal highway to glory. It is royal, for the King of Saints Himself trod it; it is royal, for the royal children all walk in it; it is royal, for it leads to the kingdom of heaven.
Our text distinctly speaks of one particular form of suffering- suffering for Jesus' sake. "To suffer for His sake." This, I imagine, is the highest distinction the Lord can put upon His saints this side of heaven. The early Christians "rejoiced that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for His sake." The cross was heavier then than it is now, its offense was greater, its crucifixion keener. To own the Savior then was to be cast out as evil, to suffer the loss of kindred and of substance, and frequently to be immured in a dungeon, chained to a stake, or impaled upon a tree. And yet the early followers of the Savior gloried in sufferings for their Lord.
But ours is a smoother path, an easier Christianity, a more pleasant cross, a lighter burden than theirs. Certainly, the present is not the age of martyrdom, or of martyrs. This may account, in a great measure, for the false religion, the anemic profession, the sickly Christianity, the specious holiness everywhere so prevalent. And yet "the offence of the cross is not ceased." "For all who live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution." There is still a degree of suffering to be endured from the ungodly world, and even from a portion of what is called the "religious world," by those who would be loyal to Christ's, faithful to His pure truth and spiritual worship.
We cannot come out of Babylon, separate ourselves from the world, set our faces as a flint against the errors that are so rife, and the religious formalism that is so prevalent, and the Romanistic worship that is so common, and the superstitions that are so popular- all so opposed to the Divine religion and the spiritual Church of Christ- and not be reproached for Christ's sake. But, we have still the example and the precept of Jesus for our encouragement and imitation- "Wherefore Jesus also, that He might sanctify the people with His own blood, suffered outside the gate. Let us go forth, therefore, unto Him outside the camp, bearing His reproach."
Think of our blessed Lord- the holy, the loving, the gracious Savior- cast out as an accursed being from Jerusalem! Then, think of the privilege, yes, the honor of going unto Him, outside the camp of this ungodly, Christ-rejecting, Babylonish world, bearing His reproach. Precious privilege! distinguished honor! Such may be yours, dear reader. You may now be walking in this identical path; you may be separated from your brethren, as Joseph was; you may be subjected to the loss of earthly goods, experience the chilled affection, the changed friendship, the suspicious glance, the unkind remark, the unjust, ungenerous rebuke of those who should be the first to honor your fidelity to conscience, your adhesion to truth, and your attachment to Christ.
But be not surprised, as though some strange thing had happened unto you. Such honor have all the saints. Christ will not leave you alone in the hour of trial and suffering for Him. His presence and grace are pledged to you here; and a crown of glory, studded with many a precious jewel, is laid up for you hereafter. "Whoever will save his life shall lose it; but whoever shall lose his life for My sake and the Gospel's, the same shall save it." So spoke the Lord, and His words will be found true!
Suffering is involved in all we do for Jesus. There never was service for God without sacrifice, or a path of duty without a cross, good done for others apart from self-denial in ourselves. The precious seed we here sow- the token of a golden harvest- must be saturated with tears. We must work, with conscious infirmity and unworthiness in ourselves, against much resistance and opposition from others, and in view of great difficulty and discouragement springing from our work. In all we do and endure for Christ, we must keep in memory the cross upon which He died, and endured for us.
Forward, then, let us go in the service of our Master. Work while it is day; the night comes. Never be without something in hand for the Lord. When one mission is accomplished, when one work is finished, seek another at His hand. My reader, what are you doing for Christ? Is it the true, earnest prayer of your heart, "Lord, what will You have me to do?" Then He will show you what you shall do, perchance what you shall suffer. O do not be a loiterer in the vineyard, a drone in the hive, hiding your light and burying your talents, for all of which the Master, when He comes, will hold you accountable. "Why do you stand idle all day?" when in a forlorn world there is so much to do for man, and in a redeemed Church so much to do for God?
But we are to look at suffering in a peculiarly soothing and sanctifying point of light- as the gift of God. "Unto YOU it is GIVEN on the behalf of Christ, not only to believe in Him, but also to SUFFER for His sake." Faith in Christ is here represented equally as a gift. We must not forget that, "faith is the GIFT of God," -one of those most costly and precious gifts that comes down from the Father of lights. Seeing, then, that you need faith- for without it nothing is pleasing to God- seeing that faith is the foot that travels to Christ, and the hand that receives Christ, and the eye that looks to Christ, let us go to God and ask this divine, precious, grace at His hand, since it is His free and gracious gift.
And where real faith exists there will also be true suffering. Every grace of the Spirit in us must be subjected to trial- for, "the Lord tries the righteous," and no single grace of the Holy Spirit is, perhaps, subjected to more severe trial than faith. "The trial of your faith being much more precious than gold that perishes, though it be tried with fire."
But in what manner and for what purposes are we to regard suffering as God's gift? And first, Suffering is the gift of love. All God's gifts to us are such; but it is our mercy to regard suffering peculiarly in this light. It is not for the moment pleasant; it settles not upon us with the soft, snowy pinion of the dove, but with the rough, dark wing of the raven. It wears a bleak aspect, assumes a threatening form, is bitter in its taste and harsh in its tone. Like the loving brother Joseph, it speaks to us 'roughly.'
Nevertheless, it is the gift of a Father who loves us too well to be unkind. "As many as I love I rebuke and chasten." Afflicted saint of God! in this soothing light I bid you view your present suffering. If God did not love you He would not deal with you thus. Sound the depth and estimate the tenderness of His love by the nature and intensity of your suffering. Because He loves you He thus smites.
Jesus bore all for you! O yes, all! He exhausted the fulness of the curse, sheathed in His own heart the sword of Justice, quenched with His own blood the fire of hell, drained the cup of wrath of its last drop, then filled it with salvation, and breathing the fragrance of His love upon its brim, gave it you freely to drink. Receive, then, this cup of love, disguised as a cup of suffering, and say- "The cup which my Father has given me, shall I not drink it?"
Suffering is equally the gift of God's wisdom. His wisdom, too divine to err, ordained it. In nothing of our history is God's wisdom more conspicuous than in devising and arranging its each act. This fact often rises before us with startling effect; we are compelled to stand still and acknowledge the shaping of God. There has been exhibited such foresight and design, such forethought and harmony as forces from us the acknowledgment, "This is the finger of God!" In this light, beloved, would we teach you to view your present suffering.
The first pressure of your lips to the brim may raise for a moment the question, "Could Divine wisdom have appointed this cup? There is so much apparent incongruity in the event, the thread of circumstances giving it birth is so entangled, the network is so curiously wrought, the whole so dark and inexplicable, so sudden, unlooked for, and crushing; can it be possible that the mind of God conceived and planned and arranged it all?" O yes, you suffering saint! "This also comes from the Lord of hosts, who is wonderful in counsel and excellent in working."
Rest assured that God's wisdom was never more displayed than in arranging all the minutiae of this event. He saw the end from the beginning, knew what it would cost you to bear, and was well assured of the result that would ensue; and in the infinite depths of His wisdom conceived and planned and executed the whole. Be still, and charge not God foolishly; but remember that, "wisdom is justified in her children," and that, the "Judge of all the earth must do right."
Not less are we taught to view God's afflictive dispensations- suffering among them- as the gifts of His faithfulness. "In faithfulness have You afflicted me," is the response of David. In nothing is the Divine faithfulness more exhibited than in the chastenings of our God. Faithfulness to His covenant, faithfulness to His word, and faithfulness to His people demand this at His hands. O yes, there is no breaking of His word of promise, no falsifying of His covenant engagement, no dealing untruthfully, unfaithfully with you, you suffering disciple of Jesus, you afflicted child of God, in the present painful discipline through which you are passing. In this matter, "Righteousness is the girdle of His loins, and faithfulness the girdle of His reins."
Accept, then, this trying dispensation, as another evidence among ten thousand, that God will never leave nor forsake you; that, He is faithful who has promised; and let your faith behold, sparkling amid the wreck and gloom of this calamity, the luster of a love that cannot change, of faithfulness that cannot fail. Receive then, beloved, at God's hand this sacred, costly GIFT! "Every good and perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning;" and high up in the inventory of these precious gifts place, as the most fruitful and sanctifying of all, the gift of suffering.
Suffering is our school in which, like our Lord, we are made perfect. Suffering is the school in which alone we learn experimentally the sympathy of Christ. I have already reminded you that, "the road to heaven is the royal road of the cross." Along this thorny, entangled path we trace the "royal priesthood," following the destinies of their glorious Leader, the Captain of their salvation. Fight on, you soldier of Jesus! you follow the banner of a victorious Chief who will lead you from victory to victory, from suffering to joy, from grace to glory, and finally make you more than conqueror, yes, triumphant, through Him who has loved you.
We may spread our couch with roses,
And sleep through the summer day;
But the soul that in sloth reposes,
Is not in the narrow way.
If we follow the chart that is given,
We never need be at a loss,
For the only way to heaven
Is the "royal way of the cross."
To one who is reared in splendor
The cross is a heavy load,
And the feet that are soft and tender
Will shrink from the thorny road.
But the chains of the soul must be riven,
And wealth must be held as dross,
For the only way to heaven
Is the "royal way of the cross."
We say we will walk tomorrow
The path we refuse today,
And still with our lukewarm sorrow
We shrink from the narrow way.
What heeded the chosen 'eleven'
How the fortunes of life might toss,
As they followed their Master
to heaven By the "royal way of the cross"

The Bereaved Home

"Then said Martha unto Jesus, Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died." John 11:21

If ever home was honored and blest it was the home of Bethany. "Jesus loved Martha, and her sister, and Lazarus." There, sad and weary, He would often repair- gently lift the latch and enter. No guest more welcome; for none was the humble repast more cheerfully laid- for none was so loved as He. And, as He stepped across its lowly threshold we almost hear Him say, "No unkindness, no rebuke, no upbraiding here!" But the home of Bethany was bereaved. Death had entered its domestic circle: had disturbed its center, removed its head, and quenched its brightest light. Lazarus, the beloved brother, was dead- and Bethany was truly a house of mourning. But Jesus was there- and there too as the chief mourner. His friend Lazarus was dead. It was a common bereavement. The sisters had been bereaved of a brother, Jesus of a friend. The sorrow of one was the sorrow of each: towards one center their sad thoughts and their bereaved affections converged: theirs was a mutual grief.
And yet we trace a dissimilarity. The sorrow of each partook of the different features of each character. The sorrow of Martha was impassioned and reasoning; that of Mary was shrinking and meditative; that of Jesus was profound and still. Martha gave vent to grief in words, Mary in retirement, Christ in sympathy. I have said that Jesus was the chief mourner in this bereaved home. He was so because his sensibility as man was of a deeper cast; more pure and therefore more intense. His human sympathies, free from all the taint of sin and selfishness, were more exquisitely keen and tender than throbbed in any other breast. And yet with the emotions of both- the grief of Martha which found expression in words, and with that of Mary which found vent in tears -Jesus sympathized. With the one sister He calmly discoursed, with the other He silently wept, burying His own grief in the deep, silent cloisters of His loving heart.
We now turn now to the subject suggested by this touching narrative. Our homes are often BEREAVED HOMES! Where is there one exception? In the course of time it must be so. Our domestic circle cannot always remain unvisited, the family ties cannot always exist unbroken by death. At one time or another the pale messenger enters our roof, and, bowing to his inexorable summons, we are borne away to the house appointed for all living.
Funerals must darken our doors. How hard often to believe that this will be so! We cannot force upon ourselves the thought that these precious links will ever be sundered. Separation from them seems the last reflection that we indulge, the last idea that crosses our minds. They seem too lovely and too loved ever to die! The home seems too bright ever to be draped with the shadow of death; the family circle too united ever to be sundered by the ruthless messenger; the dwelling too joyous and vocal with the loud and merry laugh ever to become a house of mourning!
But, alas! what household, ever so bright or united or happy, but, sooner or later, is called to yield some loved member of its circle to the irresistible demand of the enemy? How often, too, in the all-wise providence of God, that the one chosen is the last we had thought would leave us! The one we felt we could the least spare -the one that seemed so essential to the unity of the family, who so knitted and bound together all the rest, our heavenly Father sees fit to call.
Such must, necessarily, be the history of our families. And since no home is so strongly fortified by youth or manhood, by rank or wealth, by loveliness or piety, as effectually to resist the invasion of the last enemy, let us have wisdom to learn the lessons our God- the God of the families of the whole earth would teach us, and glean the consolations He would convey to us in the family bereavements, with which, in the righteous administration of His government, He sees fit to visit us.
Is not the first and most obvious lesson that of submission? This is, perhaps, the most difficult one of all, we are such self-willed, wayward children. The moment the human will is crossed there is rebellion. Whether it be the will of a child under the restraint of parental authority, or the will of a people under the government of a sovereign, or the will of God's saints under the higher and diviner rule and discipline of their Heavenly Parent, there is a natural and powerful tendency to rebel. But the lesson which the bereaved child of God is to learn is that which David so beautifully and touchingly exemplified- "Surely I behaved and quieted myself, as a child that is weaned of its mother: my soul is even as a weaned child."
Higher still is the example of our true spiritual David- David's Lord and Christ- "The cup which my Father path given me, shall I not drink it? O my Father, if this cup may not pass away from Me, except I drink it, Your will be done." The moment the will is thus brought into a perfect, and even cheerful, acquiescence with the Divine will, all rebellion ceases, and the bereaved heart lies passive in God's hands. And this is more than half the comfort we receive in our domestic calamities. There is no comfort, no peace, no quietness, so long as there is the slightest collision of our will with God's will. The least vibration of hostility jars the music that breathes from the holy blending. But, the moment we recognize the truth, "He Himself has done it," so fully convinced are we that He has done all things well-that His decision is the result of infinite wisdom, of parental love, of Divine faithfulness, of unimpeachable righteousness, we lay down our stricken hearts upon the heart of God, and all is peace.
Mark that weaned infant enfolded within its mother's arms! How safely it lies, how softly it breathes, how sweetly it slumbers, reclining upon that gentle bosom! What a lovely image of innocence, confidence, and peace! So let our sad and bleeding hearts, smitten of God and afflicted, repose upon the bosom of Jesus. "And Aaron held his peace." "I was dumb, I opened not my mouth, because You did it." "The beloved disciple who also leaned upon His breast."
Where else can a weary child repose? To whom can we repair, with our weight of sin, and our burden of sorrow, and rebelliousness of spirit, but to Christ? He invites us to the repose of His loving heart, to the rest which His atoning work imparts, to the sympathy which flows from His compassionate nature.
"I heard the voice of Jesus say,
Come unto Me and rest;
Lay down, you weary one,
lay down Your head upon my breast.
I came to Jesus as I was,
Weary, and worn, and sad;
I found in Him a resting place,
And He has made me glad."
If submission to God in our domestic bereavements be the first lesson we should learn, love to one another should be the second. God often sends family afflictions, especially in the form of bereavement, in order to draw more closely together the family ties. There is, alas! in many homes, a great lack of family affection. The dissentions and broils that exist; the lack of real love, with all the sad results of alienated feeling- cold, unsympathizing address, selfishness, covetousness, unkindness, and wounding- are sad blots upon the family escutcheon of many homes. But God sends domestic adversity- sometimes in the form of a loss of temporal position- sometimes it is the inroad of sickness. At other times, the home ties are severed by distance of place; but, more stern and painful than all- is the form of bereavement.
And what is a practical and holy lesson God would then teach us?- to "love as brethren." As tie after tie of the home-circle is severed: as one by one passes into eternity, God would have those who yet remain draw closer and closer to one another, and nearer and nearer to Himself. O how passing solemn are family afflictions, especially the visitation of death! To follow to the grave a venerated parent- a loved husband- a fond wife- an affectionate brother- a devoted sister- a promising child- O these are terrible wrenches, heart-crushing sorrows. How closely it brings us to eternity! Where are these loved ones gone? Their places at our hearths, and at our tables are vacant- significantly, impressively vacant- and know them no more. We enter their chambers- we search where we have been wont to meet them, but we see them not, we call, but they answer not- we wait the meal, as if they would appear - they come not! Where are they? Gone into eternity! Soon we shall follow. What tie will next be ruthlessly severed? Who will next be summoned! Seeing we know not which one, or how soon, let us love one another more fervently; let us cherish the relations that remain more fondly; and seek to promote each other's happiness and comfort and well-being more sincerely. This will save us many an aching pang when they are gone.
Our own personal preparation for death surely is a lesson death itself most imperiously and solemnly enforces. We must soon follow. We are like sheep grazing in a field, waiting for the slaughter. Each day the messenger enters, and drives one and another away to the butchers, until gradually all are gone. And yet those which still remain for awhile graze on heedless of the fact that tomorrow their turn may come.
So death enters our domestic enclosures, and marks one today and another tomorrow, gradually lessening the house-hold number, until there are no more to die. The great and momentous question is- Am I prepared to die? I wait my turn- am I ready? Am I converted? Have I felt myself a sinner? Have I fled to Christ? Am I safe in Him? Do I believe in Him with my whole heart? Is Jesus precious to my soul, is He all my salvation, and all my desire? Do I, in a word, love the Savior truly, devotedly, supremely? And am I living and laboring and hoping as a disciple and follower of Christ- as one whose treasure is in heaven, and whose heart, in sweet communion and longing desire and growing holiness, is where its treasure is?
Our true, saving, sole preparation is alone in Christ. If we are washed in the blood of Christ, and are justified by the imputed righteousness of Christ, and are sanctified by the Spirit of Christ, and are living as the regenerate children of God, and as new creatures in Christ Jesus, then death will not be to us an unwelcome messenger. We may depart suddenly, but not unpreparedly. Death will find us in Christ, accepted in Him, hid in Him, saved in Him; and when we die, the blessedness will be ours of those "who die in the Lord."
Admit the Savior to your bereaved home. The house of mourning had more attraction to Him when on earth than the house of feasting. It is so with Him now. He is by this very domestic bereavement, knocking at your door, asking to be admitted. He condescendingly stands and asks to enter. O admit Him to the home of woe. He comes to soothe and comfort and succor: He comes to bless, to sanctify, to save. He comes with hands laden with gifts, with a heart melting with compassion, with a nature overflowing with grace. Rise, and bid Him welcome. With Martha prepare Him good entertainment. With Mary sit humbly at His feet and hear His words.
The season of bereaved sorrow is a most favorable time to become acquainted with Jesus, to form a friendship with the Son of God, to enter into an alliance with the Savior. O allow not these golden hours to pass unimproved. "Behold, I stand at the door and knock." Death has crossed your threshold, Jesus quickly follows! He comes to repair the ravage, to supply the void, to heal the wound, to soothe and sanctify the grief death has made. O if out of this "eater " there shall come forth "meat,"- if from this evil, good shall be evolved- if this dark cloud upon your household, this shadow of death upon your heart, should be gilded with the "hope of glory," will you not through time and eternity bless God for a bereaved home?
Has it pleased God to remove from yours its head of power, its center of influence- its source of supply? Remember that He has not withdrawn Himself. He may have written you a widow, or fatherless, or an orphan; but He is the widow's God, and in Him the fatherless finds mercy. His precious promise is- "Leave your fatherless children, and let your widows trust in Me." What a legacy for a Christian man to bequeath to God- a helpless widow, a father less family! He will prove kind and faithful to the trust. Only believe in Him. He has never yet falsified Himself, has never violated His word of promise, and you shall not be the first to charge Him with having proved unfaithful to the confidence reposed in Him; reposed in Him by a poor and desolate widow, by a bereaved and helpless orphan.
How appropriate and precious in the home bereavement is the sympathy of Jesus! Perhaps the most touching attitude of our Lord in the domestic grief of Bethany- or the most sublime spectacle of His life is His weeping at the grave of Lazarus. "Jesus wept." The Son of God, the Creator of heaven and earth, the Maker of all things, the upholder of all worlds, in tears! Marvellous spectacle! Such is the sympathy of Christ with our human race. It is a great boon for us to have- a precious truth for us to receive- a priceless blessing for us to experience. There is nothing that can possibly be its substitute. Human sympathy is inexpressibly sweet, and gratefully welcome; but the grief of bereavement is often too fathomless for its line of compassion to sound, the pain too deep for its tenderness to soothe.
We must have Christ, and we do have Him! Yes; that very same Savior whose tears fell fast and warm upon the grave of His buried friend, who had tears for the mourning sisters, tears for the saddened disciples, tears for the unbelieving Jews, and tears for Himself- for, as I have said, He stood the Chief Mourner at that grave- even He has tears, bereaved one, for you. The sympathy of Christ with our sorrows is not a mere sentiment, a transient emotion, a passing tear quickly shed, and as quickly dried. O no! His are the tears of a love that once wept tears of blood for us. His is a compassion that sustains, as well as comforts, that sanctifies as well as soothes. The sympathy of Christ has a soul-transforming effect, a Divinely assimilating power, it makes us Godlike.
And, oh! to be Godlike- to be changed into the same image from glory to glory! what though "friend after friend departs," -what though tie after tie of domestic love is broken- if this be but the hallowed, the blessed result! Cling to the sympathy of Christ. Nestle beneath His soft wing-it will enfold and shelter you until these calamities be overpast.
Let us be comforted by reflecting upon the glory into which our departed ones who died in the faith of Jesus have entered; and let us strive to gain that heaven of glory where they are gone. They are not here, they are with the Lord. All their sins and sorrows and trials and infirmities and temptations are passed, and they shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more, nor battle more with sin, or Satan, or the world. They are with Christ the Lord. With Him they will come when He shall appear in the clouds of heaven with all the saints; for He will bring with Him all them who sleep in Him. Let us comfort one another with this glorious prospect.
Until then, He who mourned with the loved ones in the home of Bethany, and wept over the grave of Lazarus, mourns and weeps with you. Turn from the gloom and mystery of your bereavement, and lose yourself and it in the loving, sympathizing Savior.
"You! who are touched with feeling of our woes,
Let me on You my heavy burden cast,
My aching, anguished heart on You repose,
Leaving with You the sad mysterious past!
Let me submissive bow, and kiss the rod;
Let me 'be still, and know that You are God.'
"Why should my harassed, agitated mind,
Go round and round this terrible event;
Striving in vain some brighter side to find
Some cause why all this anguish has been sent?
Do I indeed that sacred truth believe,
You do not willingly afflict and grieve?
"Infinite wisdom! can it ever err?
Infinite love! can it to us work ill?
Good, only good, do You, my God, confer,
Though it to me, alas! seem evil still;
Oh! let not finite, frail, presumptuous man,
Your acts arraign- Your hidden purpose scan.
"Oh! pity me, all crushed beneath the blow,
Thus weeping over this sad, mysterious blight;
My garden's richest, fairest plant laid low,
Gemmed with its dewy blossoms sparkling bright;
Just when its roseate blooms were set for fruit,
Stricken and shattered at the very root.
"There are none like it left, and earth appears
So stripped, so desolate, without its charms,
A barren waste, a mournful vale of tears,
That, were I not supported by Your arms,
My pitying Savior! this poor heart would break!
Oh! shield-oh! comfort, for Your mercy's sake.
"My lovely gourd is withered in an hour!
I droop, I faint, beneath the scorching sun
My Shepherd, lead me to some sheltering bower
There, where Your little flock 'lie down at noon;'
Though of my dearest earthly joy bereft,
You are my portion still-You, You, my God, are left!"

The Influence of Companionship

"He who walks with wise men shall be wise, but a companion of fools shall be destroyed." Proverbs 13:2O.

God has made us social beings. He has implanted in every bosom a desire for companionship. Man was never intended to be an isolated thing, a hermit, or recluse. When God created Adam, having furnished him with all the attributes of a social being, He met this necessity of his nature by the creation of Eve, whom He brought to him henceforth to be his equal, his companion, and friend- "another self, a kindred spirit, with whom he might lessen his cares by sympathy, and multiply his pleasures by participation."
Not only is there this social craving of our nature, but there is sown in us all a strong desire to reproduce ourselves by the influence which our own hearts and minds bring to bear upon others. This is a sort of moral transmigration of which, more or less, we all have the power- the power of molding the mind, shaping the opinions, ruling the affections, and influencing the lives of our fellows to our own.
In no passage of God's Word is this truth more forcibly brought out as in the one the exposition of which is now to engage our attention. In it two different characters are portrayed, and the influence which each one exerts upon others is described. The "wise"- making wise: the "fool"- destroying fools. Here each character is represented as reproducing itself in others. "He that walks with wise men shall be wise, but a companion of fools shall be destroyed."
What an appropriate and solemn subject is this for our consideration, especially of the young! Love of society, or craving for companionship, is a natural and strong impulse of youth. And yet this very companionship- so great blessing when wisely and holily directed- has proved one of the most fatal rocks in the voyage of life, upon which many a gallant youth has made shipwreck for time and for eternity. In view of a subject so practical, important, and solemn, may the Holy Spirit guide and bless our meditation!
Let us present both of these characters- the "wise" and the "foolish"- in contrast. The first character delineated in the passage is, the wise man. Who is the wise man? He is not necessarily a learned or intellectual man; a man of literary attainments and scientific acquisition. Knowledge and wisdom are not convertible terms. Learned men are not always wise men. Knowledge is what we acquire by study, research, and education; wisdom is the power of applying that knowledge to the best and highest end. We may have much knowledge with little or no wisdom, and much wisdom with but limited knowledge. Just as a man may have physical strength and energy to fell the tree or quarry the marble, without the genius or the skill to carve the one, or to chisel the other.
But who is the truly "wise man"? God has given to man a natural, or worldly wisdom, which, although essentially differing from, and infinitely inferior to, the "wisdom of the just," is not to be denied or ignored. Our Lord Himself recognized it when He said- "The men of the world are wiser in their generation than the children of light." But I wish more especially to speak of the "wisdom that comes down from above;" for the "wisdom of this world," necessary and valuable as it is in conducting the affairs of the present life, is "foolishness with God." An individual may be a wise man in things appertaining to the life that now is, and a fool in things appertaining to the life that is to come.
Let us, then, trace some of the characteristics of the truly wise. And we pray that the Spirit of God may move effectually and convertingly upon the hearts of the young whose eye shall trace these pages, that they may, one and all, become truly "wise unto salvation."
A truly wise man is he who knows himself. This is the first step in true knowledge, though not, as a classical poet has remarked, the greatest. The greatest and most excellent knowledge is to know Christ. The grandest of all science, is the science of the Gospel. But the first step in this knowledge is to know ourselves to be sinners. The first step towards a knowledge of the Savior, is to know that we are lost. We know the worth of a plank when it has floated us safely to the shore. We value the fitness of the life-boat that has rescued us from the wreck. We appreciate the sovereign efficacy of the remedy that has healed us of our disease. It is thus we become experimentally acquainted with the Lord Jesus Christ. The Holy Spirit reveals to us our sinfulness; makes us acquainted with the plague of our hearts; opens our eyes to the discovery of our moral shipwreck; shows us that the barque we thought so strong and safe is sinking; that the planks we trod so firmly and so proudly are yielding beneath our feet; and that death- eternal death, the death that never dies- stares us grimly, darkly in the face.
And now amid the storm the eye descries a speck far off upon the dark waters- it approaches nearer, and grows larger lo! it is the life-boat hastening to our rescue. How welcome its arrival! How beautiful to the eye does it appear! But, the enquiry arises: "May I trust it? Will it battle successfully with the raging billows, and carry me in safety to the shore? Is it for me? May I venture into it?" Thus a soul, convinced by the Spirit of its sin, that it is "ready to perish," when urged at once to accept the Savior as able to save it to the uttermost of its lost, undone, and perilous condition, begins to reason- "Is Jesus able to save? Is He willing to save? Will He save me? May I venture my sinful soul in humble faith upon His salvation?"
These are questions which often arise at the turning-point of the sinner's salvation. Nevertheless, He who began the good work, carries it on unto completion; and having shown the sinner that he is poor, and wretched, and naked, and miserable, and lost, He shows him Jesus as just the Savior that he requires; reveals the Cross as the plank that will rescue him from the yawning deep; and then gives him simple faith to take hold of it and be saved.
Have you, my reader, reached this first stage of your salvation? Truly this is the first step in divine and heavenly wisdom. He alone is the truly wise man who sees his follies- the folly of his heart, the folly of trusting to his own works, the folly of seeking to enter heaven upon the babel of his own righteousness. He truly is the wise man who, led by the Spirit to an acquaintance with himself, is, by a subsequent and concluding step in his heavenly teaching, and by the same Spirit, made acquainted believingly and savingly with the Lord Jesus Christ.
The "fool" is he who, ignorant of his spiritual condition as a sinner, not knowing that he has broken God's law by original and by actual transgression, and is therefore under present condemnation, and is exposed to future and eternal punishment, yet lives on in his rebellion and sin: like Galeo of old, "caring for none of these things." He is a "fool " who, when God has "laid in Zion a stone, a tried stone, a precious cornerstone," for sinners to build their hope of heaven upon, rejects this most sure foundation, and rears the fabric of his hope upon the sliding, treacherous, fatal quicksand of his own fancied goodness and merit, and thus is "in danger of hell fire,"- he, without the shadow of a doubt, is the foolish man.
But, as this subject more especially addresses itself to the young, and to young men particularly, let me in its further exposition enumerate a few of the more prominent characteristics of the "wise," leaving the reader, by the power of contrast, to portray in his own mind the character of the "foolish."
It is a distinctive mark of a "wise" man that he possesses a high appreciation of the importance of character. Such a man knows that personal character is, to a certain degree, everything to a young person. That, without it, he is but a wreck, a mere waif on the sea of human life, tossed from billow to billow, no one claiming, no one caring for, no one pitying him. That, he is looked upon in his family as a disgrace, in society as a blot, in the world as a cipher.
The wise man knows that "a good name is better than precious ointment." That a character for uprightness and integrity, for virtue, sobriety, and loveliness, is of more worth to him than the ermine of the Judge, the coronet of the Peer, or the diadem of the Sovereign. The ermine may be sullied, the coronet may be shaded, and the kingly diadem may be the symbol of despotism and cruelty; but, a man of integrity, though poor, who can lift up his head among his fellows without a blush, whose principles and fame no man can justly impeach or gainsay, he is a wise man: to know whom is an honor, and to call whom a "friend" is among earth's richest treasures.
The "fool" is he who makes light of this priceless, precious jewel of personal character; who treats it as the swine does the pearl, trampling it in the mire beneath his feet. He who lives "a fast life," reckless of principle, and honor, and fortune; reckless, too, of the feelings, reputation, and influence of those with whom in life he is closely and endearingly linked; reckless of a father's honor, of a mother's happiness, of a sister's peace; he who deems "a merry life and a short one" the very acme of wisdom, and the 'summum bonum' of happiness, he, unquestionably, is a "fool" doubledyed. Young man! guard your character as your fairest jewel, as your richest birth-right. Rank is not equal to it; wealth cannot purchase it; learning cannot redeem it. "Keep yourself pure;", "flee youthful lusts;" and pray to God that "uprightness and integrity may preserve" you.
But, if on the contrary, you select as your companions those to whose character there is attached a taint, whose religious sentiments are low, whose moral principles are base, who live in the indulgence of secret vice, in the commission of secret sin; whose influence is vitiating and destructive, you then at once compromise your character and name, and will by society be placed on a footing with your associates. It is a quaint but truthful aphorism- "Show me your companions, and I will tell you what you are."
It is another mark of the truly wise that they regard their physical, intellectual, and moral powers, their endowments of rank, wealth, and influence, as conferred by God: and, therefore, for God's glory are to be employed. The great end of man's creation is, "to glorify God here." God created every thing for His praise. "He has made all things for Himself." He, then, is a truly wise man who fully recognizes this solemn truth, and practically lives it. He feels that he is not his own proprietor; that his wealth, and his power to acquire it- his talents, and his opportunities of employing them- his influence, and the sphere in which it is exerted, are all the gift of God; and, therefore, are all to be consecrated to the service and glory of the Giver.
He is a "fool" who merely imagines that God created him for his own self; that he is his own proprietor; that he may, therefore, without consulting his Creator, and with impunity, waste, and squander, and prostitute those powers and endowments as he will. O what a "fool" and unfaithful steward is he who buries his talents, be they many or few, in the earth! Reader, you are to give an account of yourself to God! For every talent you possess God regards you as responsible, and Christ holds you answerable. "Every one of us shall give account of himself unto God."
He is truly a "wise" man, who allows no vice, evil habit, or sin, to enslave him. A young person, jealous of his character, guarding as with more than vestal watchfulness the golden lamp of his personal reputation, will never allow a low-born principle or vicious propensity to obtain the mastery. He knows to whom, under God, he belongs; and is resolved prayerfully, solemnly resolved- that, by God's help, no sin shall claim him as its own; no vice shall rule him as its servant; no evil habit shall enchain him as its slave.
Fool and slow of heart to appreciate what is for his highest interests is he who lends himself to low-born habits, mingles with loose society, cultivates a companionship that depresses rather than elevates him, indulges in habits of prodigal expenditure and reckless extravagance- blind to what is due to self-respect, to filial duty, to parental authority, and to home happiness!
We reach now the moral influence which companionship exerts. "He that walks with wise men shall be wise, but a companion of fools shall be destroyed." I have already remarked that a desire for association is a natural and powerful instinct of the young. Not more naturally and spontaneously does the gentle vine seek the sheltering wall, or the feeble ivy stretch its tendrils towards the strong oak, than does the young heart yearn for, and go forth to meet and embrace, some kindred self whom it can love, in whom it can confide, and with whom it may associate.
Now this only renders the path of a young person all the more intricate, difficult, and perilous. Suppose, in selecting his companions, or forming his friendships, he should make a wrong or fatal choice? Suppose, in the ingenuous, too confiding, and unsuspecting feelings of his young heart, he should admit to his confidence a fiend instead of a friend, a "serpent" instead of a "dove"; one who, having obtained an ascendency in his affections, now exerts the influence thus possessed for evil and not for good- who can calculate the sad results of such a calamity?
But, it is a mark of a truly wise youth that he "walks with the wise." Exercising the rational powers of discernment God has given him, following the virtuous tastes and self-respecting instincts of his nature, he is enabled to discriminate, and to select from the crowd competing for his friendship and companionship, the "wise," -walking with whom he himself may become wiser. O the blessing of associating in confiding love, and sacred friendship, and sweet communion, with those who are furnished with "the wisdom that comes from above, which is first pure, then peaceable;" who are wise unto salvation; who walk with God, whose fear rules their hearts, and shapes their lives.
How powerful for good is their companionship! How sanctifying and far-reaching their influence! Seek, my young reader, your associates, select your friends, from among the virtuous and the good, the holy and the God-fearing, the Christ-loving and the Christ-like. You will by association and communion assimilate with their spirit, and grow wiser, holier, and more useful by the all-powerful molding influence both of their precept and example.
The influence which we all exert is not a matter for us to determine. The fact is certain. That influence is fixed. The great question is, what kind of influence shall it be? Since others take their mold from our society, this becomes a solemn question. Happy for us, happy for others, if our piety is so decided, our views of truth so evangelical, our life so holy and useful, that others, beholding it, shall say- "We will go with you, for we perceive that God is with you." Thus it becomes a matter of infinite moment that our families should be homes of piety- our households God-fearing households.
And what a mercy if, whether as relations or as friends, whether as visitors or as domestics, our sojourn is in a house where the fear of God is. Seek such, my reader. Say with David- "I am a companion of all those who fear God, and keep His precepts." What a wise decision was that of Ruth when she cleaved to her mother-in-law with the impassioned resolve- "Intreat me not to leave you, or to return from following after you: for where you go, I will go; and where you lodge, I will lodge: your people shall be any people, and your God my God: where you die will I die, and there will I be buried."
"But a companion of fools shall be destroyed." What true and solemn witnesses to the truth of this are our reformatories and jails, our convict transports, and our penal settlements, and, alas! our public scaffolds! Go and inquire of all the wretched, forlorn, unhappy occupants of these miserable abodes, the first step which conducted them- perhaps from high social position, from virtue and prosperity, from home and happiness, to their present crime, degradation, and shame; and the great majority will reply- "I became the companion of fools, and they destroyed me! I was ensnared by their hollow reasoning, was fascinated by their insinuating address, was influenced by what I deemed their heroic example, and was seduced by their well-laid schemes- and my present lamentable condition is the inevitable and sad result!"
Turn then, from all evil companionship, from all social association injurious to your principles and character; to your morals, influence, and reputation; to your present and eternal well-being. Shun the infidel and an infidel literature, as you would the serpent's fang and the impoisoned cup. Keep at an immeasurable distance from the debauched, as you would from the man smitten with the plague. "Have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them."
Equally shun the teaching of those divines who entertain lax views of the Inspiration of the Scriptures, -who preach false doctrine, and observe a ritualistic and superstitious form of worship. "Cease, my son, to hear the instruction that causes to err from the words of knowledge." "In vain," says Christ, "they do worship Me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men." Bring the doctrines you hear to the test of God's Word. "Prove all things by it, and hold fast that which is good." Make the Lord's people and Christ's true ministers your friends, associates, and teachers. You will share their benediction and privileges, for God's blessing is upon His people.
But, select fools, and people regardless of religion, and the propagators of error, as your companions and teachers- and you must inevitably share the destruction of their social position, their blasted reputation, their ruinous influence, and blighted prospects now; and, hereafter, they will be the companions of your misery, and your tormentors forever.
"He that walks with wise men shall be wise, but a companion of fools shall be destroyed." Hearken to the invitation which Moses gave to Hobab, and which the Lord's people address to you "We are journeying to the place of which the Lord said, I will give it you: come with us and we will do you good : for the Lord has spoken good concerning Israel." Accept this invitation to Christian Companionship; and the issue will be, happiness in this world, and glory, honor, immortality, and eternal life in the world which is to come.
This subject is solemnly instructive to the saints of God. Let your companionship be decidedly and pre-eminently Christian. Much association with half-religionists- with worldly disciples- with the cold-hearted, volatile, and frivolous religious professor, will be to you of incalculable evil. It will naturally and seriously damage your personal piety. Your spirituality and heavenliness of mind will be essentially and sadly deteriorated. It will be utterly impossible for your soul to escape their influence. Imperceptibly, and unsuspectingly to yourself, you will grow like them. But, associate with the most pious, holy, and heavenly. Walk in close communion with those who walk in close communion with. God. Be much with those who are much in converse with their Bible, who are much anointed of the Spirit, and who live in personal converse with eternal realities. They will help you heavenward.
You may have but few Christian companions- but few of kindred spirit with yourself, who are taught as you are taught, who are tried as you are tried, who are tempted as you are tempted, -nevertheless, if the Lord has given you but one spiritually-minded, close-walking fellow traveler, bind yourself to that one; and as iron sharpens iron, so will intimate, prayerful converse with that one fellow believer increase your personal piety, advance your heavenliness of mind, divine knowledge, and comfort of spirit. Let your aim be, in its most exalted sense- CHRISTIAN COMPANIONSHIP.
"Let others choose the sons of mirth,
To give a relish to their wine;
I love the men of heavenly birth,
Whose thoughts and language are divine.
"O may I see Your tribes rejoice,
And aid their triumphs with my voice!
This is my glory, Lord, to be,
Joined to Your saints, and near to Thee.

Gracious Surprisals

"Before I was aware, my soul became like the chariots of Amminadab." Song of Solomon 6:12

It is not one of the least conclusive evidences of the truth of the Bible, that a Book written centuries ago should accurately delineate all the delicate lights and shadows of Christian experience, mental and spiritual, through which God's people pass in all future times. So that in reading the recorded experience of the Church when David, and Solomon, and Job, and Nehemiah flourished, we read, as it were, our own at the present moment. The only logical deduction we can draw from it is- that, the same Divine Spirit has been the Teacher of the saints in every age, and that the hand that recorded their spiritual history upon the sacred page, was guided by an Intelligence higher and Diviner than its own.
The passage under consideration, presents a confirmation of this truth. It illustrates a singular but precious chapter of experimental religion- the surprisals of grace, or, those sovereign, manifestations and dealings of the Lord, which so often take His saints by a sudden and unexpected surprise. "Before I was aware, my soul became like the chariots of Amminadab." Many of the Lord's people can set their seals to the truth of this gracious experience.
The first thing which arrests our attention, is, the surprise- "Before I was aware." Our whole life may in truth be said to be a surprise. To God alone it is known from the end to the beginning. To Him who has predestinated all events; mapped and arranged our entire history; who in the well ordered covenant of grace has anticipated the minutest incident of our life, it is no surprise. Great truth! Mighty thought! "The council of the Lord that shall stand, and His thoughts to all generations." Amid the mysteries and perplexities, the dark and bewildering events of His providence in your personal experience, my reader, let this assurance be as fragrant oil upon the gloomy, broken waters of your pathway- that, all is known to our God, for all is wisely, lovingly, and righteously ordained and overruled by Him.
But to us, all is surprise. What individual can forecast the coming events of his history? Who can predict with foresight and accuracy, what may hang upon the next breath he draws, or follow upon the next step he takes? God has wisely and benevolently veiled all our future, that we might learn that we are not masters of our position, but are dependent each moment upon Him. Happy life is this to the child of God, because it is a life of reliance upon a Father who loves him. He is not afraid of evil tidings, for his heart trusts in the Lord.
Thus, in, a sense, our whole life is a surprise. Events transpire in our history, revolutions occur in our thoughts and feelings, of which no foreshadowings cross our path, and we are "very amazed," and are made to "drink the cup of astonishment." O how should this fact teach us to walk humbly, watchfully, and prayerfully! How should it check in us all worldly aspirings, all curious peering into our future, and keep us living by the day, by the hour, yes, by the moment, upon out covenant God, accepting in cheerful acquiescence and meek submission, every lesson of His love.
But it is less of the surprisals of providence than of grace, that we at present would speak. Conversion is often a gracious surprise. In how many cases is it scarcely less so than it was with Saul of Tarsus. With him it may have been a more instantaneous, but not a more sudden and unexpected event. The Lord is found by those that sought Him not. When we were the least anticipating so great a change; when, perhaps, we were at the time apparently at the farthest remove from converting grace- surrounded by circumstances, and in a state of mind the most unlikely to lead to a result so blessed, the Lord in the sovereignty of His grace, and as if to demonstrate the truth that conversion is not of man but of God, has surprised us with the effectual call of the Spirit, and we responded- "Lord, what will You have me to do?"
O sweet surprise! O blissful moment! O never to be forgotten hour, when we heard the call of Jesus, before we were aware found ourselves weeping in penitence at His feet- all our rebellion gone, all our hatred annihilated, our weapons of hostility against God and Christ and the Gospel grounded before the all conquering power of the cross- grace, free and sovereign grace, triumphant! What a precious surprise, when Jesus drew near, and in all the sweet benignity of His favor, and in all the winning power of His love, spoke words of pardon and of peace to our sin distressed soul. When He revealed Himself to us as willing to receive and able to save us just as we were, and assured us that He was ours, and that we were His. What a gracious surprise was this!
Was it not so to Zaccheus, when he climbed the sycamore tree? And to Matthew, as he sat at the receipt of custom? And to Nathaniel, as he prayed beneath the fig tree? And to the malefactor, hanging upon the cross? O yes grace, Divine and sovereign grace, delights to surprise its objects, and to call them "before they are aware," with that effectual call that triumphs over all opposition, overcomes all impediment, leads them captive at its sovereign will, and demonstrates the truth that salvation is of the Lord.
"That was a time of wondrous love,
When Christ my Lord was passing by;
He felt His tender pity move,
And brought His great salvation near.
"Guilty and self-condemned, I stood,
Nor thought His mercy was so near;
When He my stubborn heart subdued,
And planted all His graces there.
"When on the verge of endless pain,
He gently whispered- 'I am thine;'
I lost my fears and dropped my chain,
And felt a transport all Divine."
Those, too, are gracious surprisals, when the Lord draws near, and "before we are aware " sweetly manifests Himself to our soul. It is like an unexpected visit from a loved and absent friend. The very surprise lends to it a peculiar sweetness and charm; and we exclaim, with the wondering astonishment of the disciples of old- "Lord, how is it that You will manifest Yourself unto us?" Are we sensible, beloved, of these gracious visits? Do they form a large proportion of our Christian experience? Let us not settle down upon our lees satisfied without these gracious, sensible discoveries of Jesus to our souls.
Many religious professors are content to experience them very seldom; while yet others are content to be without them altogether. He has promised that, in union with His Father, He will come and manifest Himself to His people. Do we honestly expect Him to fulfil this promise, and to fulfil it in our personal experience? Do we seek it in earnest prayer, as evidencing the experimental nature of our religion? Do we know what it is to have the love of God shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit?
How often, too, are our emancipations from trouble, and our deliverances out of soul-distress and mental depressions, a secret and gracious surprise of Jesus. "Before we are aware," some divine and precious promise is brought home with the power of the Spirit to our hearts; or, a word fitly spoken by a minister of the Gospel, or by a saint of God, has, in a moment, dissolved the dark cloud into sunshine, unclasped the heavy burden from the mind, and the bound and fettered spirit is free. The Lord will ordain deliverances for Jacob, and He knows when to time their coming.
It is a sweet thought for the righteous when in their trials, that God is acquainted with their existence- is thoughtfully cognizant of their emergency; and when they can bear no more- when the last feather is about to break the back, and the last drop overflows the cup- when the barrel of meal and the cruise of oil are just come to the end- that His providence appears, and surprises them with a timely and effectual aid. Watch God in every thing, my reader. Overlook Him not in the small occurrences of life. See His love, wisdom, and control in the minor as in the major events of your daily history. Who then can harm you? If God is for you, who can be against you? Stand still and see His salvation from all your enemies. "My heart is fixed, O God, my- heart is fixed."
What additional worth will attach to the Divine interposition, how much sweeter will be the promise, how much more glorious will be the Divine faithfulness, how increasingly precious the loving kindness of the Lord, when the devout and believing mind is enabled to say- "This is the finger of God! This is a surprise of my Father's love! Before I was aware, from a source and in a way which I could never have conceived, my God has come to my relief!"
"Ill tidings never can surprise
His heart, that fixed on God relies,
Though waves and tempests roar around;
Safe on the Rock he sits, and sees
The shipwreck of his enemies,
And all their hope and glory drowned."
And now what are those "chariots" which seem to form an essential part of these gracious surprisals, these opportune deliverances, of which the saints are often the favored subjects? "Before I was aware, my soul became like the chariots of Amminadab." These " chariots " constitute a remarkable symbol in the Christian's experience. They are figurative of the means by which the soul is brought near to God, and God near to the soul.
For example, PRAYER is one of the most essential and costly "chariots" of the believer. It advances the soul in grace; it elevates, and brings us near to God. When has the Christian not use for this Divine chariot? The Apostle speaks of our coming to the mercy seat "in every time of need." When, in our experience, is it not a time of need? Allow me, then, to remind you how close and accessible is the chariot of prayer. There are moments when your mind is perplexed with anxious thought- when your spirit is bowed with deep-seated grief- when your heart is filled with forebodings of coming trouble, domestic care, professional anxiety, commercial embarrassment- or, the more spiritual exercises of the soul seem to prostrate you in the dust.
Behold, the chariot of prayer at your side! It waits to bring you near to God. Arise, and give yourself to prayer, so shall you soar above all external circumstance, into a region whose brightness shall be unshaded, and whose serenity shall be unruffled by a single vapor, earth-born sorrow, anxiety, or trouble. Hesitate not to get into this "chariot." Deem not your trouble too great, or you yourself too unworthy. Nothing is too hard for God; with Him all things are possible. Giving yourself to prayer in the name of Jesus- pleading, not your righteousness, but His- not your merits and deservings, but the Savior's worth and worthiness- you may, with a firm and bold foot, step into this divine chariot, and in a moment it will lift you into the presence of God.
FAITH is a marvellous "chariot" of the soul, by which it mounts heavenward. The blessings flowing from simple faith in God are many and precious. "If you believe, you shall eat of the fruit of the land." "I had fainted, unless I had believed to see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living." Faith has a wondrous power to uplift the soul, "couching down," like Issachar, "between two burdens"- the burden of dark providence, and the burden of sinful unbelief. "Have faith in God." Use this "chariot" provided by Christ Himself, for all our burdens.
Here is the grand secret of being delivered from the pressure of a heavy heart "They looked unto Him, and were lightened." Cruel unbelief that dishonors God, and robs us! Wicked doubt that makes God a liar, and us atheists! But "precious faith," under sin's conviction, looks to Jesus and is saved: trusts God's veracity, power, and love, and so brings comfort to the soul, and glory to God. "Abraham was strong in faith, giving glory to God."
O be often in this "chariot." "Before you are aware," it will raise you above the loftiest mountain of difficulty and the darkest cloud of woe. It will anchor the soul; tempest-tossed as from billow to billow of doubt and fear-upon God's faithfulness, and the changeless love of Jesus--keeping it in perfect peace, stayed upon God.
LOVE is one of the choicest chariots of the Christian. "The love of Christ constrains us;" that is, impels us, presses us on, bears us forward and upward, by its irresistible and all-commanding influence. Love to Christ is the great exciting motive in the obedience, labor, and suffering of the believer. When love is in the ascendant, the wheels of obedience will run freely, the Cross will be sweet, and self-denial pleasant. It will sweetly soothe the soul in suffering- not by the removal of all sense of pain, but by overcovering it with a sense of love. It will so robe the dankest providences, that you shall see nothing but itself nothing but love.
How kind, then, and condescending of our Lord, to send this lovely chariot, when we need so much the Divine power of a heavenly affection to overcome our slothfulness, expel our selfishness, raise us to loftiness of thought, and to incite us to noble deeds for man, for God, and for Christ. Celestial are the flights that the believing soul takes in the chariot of love. Heaven and earth seem to embrace each other.
Heaven is love- the source and home of love. And when the love of God makes its advent to the soul, it assimilates it to heaven by assimilating it with love. Thus when the Holy Spirit brings down this Divine affection, and makes a place for it in our sin-loving, creature-idolizing, earth-clinging hearts, we are conscious of the rapture of love, and before we are aware, our soul becomes like the chariot of Amminadab.
MEDITATION is a powerful promoter of this gracious and heavenly experience of the believing soul. "While I was musing the fire burned." Thus, while I was retracing all the way the Lord had led me- while I was meditating upon the fulness and preciousness of His Word- and while I was musing upon the great love with which He had loved me, the fire in my soul was enkindled; my lips were unsealed, and I spoke with my tongue. There are few more powerful aids to growth in grace, to progress in sanctification of heart, and humbleness of mind, than devout meditation. Once in this chariot, and before we are aware, we are caught up as to the third heaven, and lose ourselves in God. "Isaac went out to meditate in the field at evening." "I meditate on You in the night-watches." Cultivate, my reader, this holy and useful habit. In a world of incessant action, and in an age of restless excitement, we have great need to imitate these holy examples, and to retire to the "calm retreat, the silent shade," and there abandon ourselves to devout meditation upon Divine, heavenly, and eternal things.
But we wait the solemn approach of the last chariot, and the final surprise- our departure out of this life to go unto the Father. The Lord will, before long, send for us the chariot of death, and it may be in a place and at a time that will fill the soul with solemn and sweet surprise. This chariot, like Solomon's royal equipage, is "paved with love." There is nothing but love in the departure of the Lord's people. "Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints." In love He takes them from us: in love He translates them to Himself: and in love to them He translates them to the eternal home of love, into which He most lovingly welcomes them- taken from the evil that now is, and from the evil that is to come.
Often does this heaven descending chariot appear at a time when the saints are not looking for it, and at an hour when they are not aware. It, perhaps, finds him with harness and armor on, with active brain, and willing hands, and loving heart, all engaged in the Master's work: when lo! Before he is aware, his soul is made like the chariot of Amminadab.
O, the wondering surprise! O, the overpowering amazement! O, the unspeakable joy of the soul when it finds itself in heaven! It saw not death, suffered no pang, felt no fear, experienced no dread, was not conscious even of dying; but, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, was in glory- mingling with the "glorious company of the Apostles," with the "noble army of martyrs," with an innumerable company of angels, and with "the spirits of just men made perfect." "Before I was aware, my soul became as the chariot of Amminadab."
My dear unconverted reader, see that the chariot of death does not overtake you unawares, in other words, unprepared. I was on one occasion summoned to the dying bed of a gentleman whose early life had been absorbed in the accumulation of wealth, and his later life in its selfish and worldly enjoyment. The attack was sudden, and the illness fatal. No skill could arrest the disease, no wealth could bribe the stern messenger. "Sir," said he, as he fastened upon me his dying gaze, "I am taken by surprise!" Alas, he had lived in the neglect of the great salvation: he had sought to gain the world, and when summoned to leave it forever, found to his overwhelming astonishment and alarm, that in so doing he had lost his own soul! O, see that death does not surprise you, in finding you unprepared to obey its stern, inexorable summons. Your only preparation is, as a penitent, believing sinner, in receiving the Lord Jesus Christ as your Savior. Place your soul in the hands of Jesus, and it is safe. Make its salvation, its safety for eternity, the first and chief object- all else is as unsubstantial and fleeting as a dream.

Beginning the Year with Jesus

The Lord said to Moses and Aaron in Egypt, "This month is to be for you the first month, the first month of your year. Tell the whole community of Israel that on the tenth day of this month each man is to take a lamb for his family, one for each household. If any household is too small for a whole lamb, they must share one with their nearest neighbor, having taken into account the number of people there are. You are to determine the amount of lamb needed in accordance with what each person will eat. The animals you choose must be year-old males without defect, and you may take them from the sheep or the goats. Take care of them until the fourteenth day of the month, when all the people of the community of Israel must slaughter them at twilight. Then they are to take some of the blood and put it on the sides and tops of the doorframes of the houses where they eat the lambs. Exodus 12:1-7

God has ever been wont to express his estimate of certain events in history and epochs in time. He would mark their importance, and perpetuate their memory by appointing standing memorials, which should in after ages testify to His righteousness, faithfulness, and love in the government of His Church. The institution of the Passover, and the time selected for its observance, illustrate this thought. There was, probably, no Jewish rite more strikingly typical of Christ, more impressively suggestive of Gospel truth than this. Whether we consider the occasion of its appointment- the deliverance of the Israelites from the destroying angel; or the nature of the institution itself- a lamb slain, without blemish; or, the sprinkling of the blood upon the dwellings of God's chosen people- all point to the great truth- "Christ our Passover:" or, "Christ our Pascal Lamb," as the original expresses it- "was sacrificed for us."

The time, too, of its appointment was scarcely less significant. The Israelites were to begin the year with its observance. They were to enter upon the first month of the year with sacrifice- the sacrifice of the pascal lamb. All this was typical of Jesus: all was replete with Gospel truth. But it is more especially with one view of the type our present reading relates- the period when the pascal lamb was to be offered- it was "the first month of the year."

We are now entering upon a similar period of time. This is the beginning of months, the first month of the year to us. How are we to commence it? With what sentiments, feelings, and service shall we embark in its yet unshaped history? Guided by the typical teaching of the institution we have just referred to, we are to commence this new year with sacrifice: to begin it with atoning blood; in other words, speaking in Gospel language- to make the cross of Jesus the starting point in the new journey of life. The reasonableness of this will at once appear to the spiritual and reflective mind. If we would not ingraft upon the new year the sad memories of the old: if we are desirous not to import into its yet unstained, because its yet unborn time, the sins and guilt, the backslidings and failures, the habits and doings of the past, we must offer a sacrifice: we must present in faith a lamb: we must observe the sprinkling of blood. All this we have in "Christ our Passover, sacrificed for us."

The first thought which the opening of the year naturally suggests to a reflective mind, relates to individual conversion. It is quite possible that many into whose hands this work may fall, are about to enter upon a new epoch of time still in a condition of spiritual unregeneracy. You are about to take into the new year the same unrenewed nature to which must be traced the countless sins, short-comings, and infirmities of the old. What a solemn, yes, what an appalling thought is this! You are entering upon a year in which everything in its history will be new. What! are you resolved to wed the old nature, the old sins, the old habits, with the new stage of your being? Shall this year be even as all the past have been -blanks in your life? -worse than blanks!

There are, properly speaking, no blanks in human life. The page of each day's life is being inscribed with a history that will confront us in the last great day, and which will be read out before an assembled universe. There are no blanks! This is a probationary state, and every event, and action, and word of the present is solemnly and indissolubly linked with our future. What a man sows in this probationary state of his being, that shall he also reap. Let your first consideration, then, be, on entering upon a new stage of life- your new birth, your true, spiritual conversion to God.

Prostrate yourself in prayer, and beseech Him that this may be the year of jubilee to your soul- the year of your release from the thraldom of sin, the tyranny of the world, the despotism of Satan, and the yet more enslaving power of your self-righteousness. Thus introduced into the liberty of the children of God, the freedom with which Christ makes His people free, it will be to you not only the beginning of months, but of a new and heavenly life, the beginning of an immortality of ever-growing bliss, and of ever-deepening glory.

Thus earnestly do I plead with you, while yet standing amid the twilight shadows of the dawning year, to exclaim- "What have I to do any more with idols? Henceforth, the Lord Jesus Christ shall be enthroned upon my heart, the Sovereign of every faculty, power, and affection of my being. Henceforth I am the Lord's." Thus taught by the Spirit, your sinfulness and need of Christ; thus led to trust only in Jesus; drawing from Him the inspiration of a new-born and heavenly life, and by His grace henceforth living upon Christ and for Christ, all things will become new.

This is conversion- the conversion which the Word of God teaches, which the Holy Spirit imparts, and which heaven demands as an essential condition of its end less glory. Oh, hesitate to take another step in this new stage of life, before you seek in earnest prayer to be a partaker of spiritual life. Begin not the year's duties, responsibilities, and temptations, but with Christ. It is for your life that I solemnly implore you to ask the Holy Spirit to regenerate you, that, henceforth; living the higher, nobler, and enduring life of a child of God here, you may became an heir of glory, and an inheritor of the kingdom of heaven hereafter.

Another reflection suggested by the new year relates, to our progress in the Divine life. Where is the child of God who desires that the past year of his Christian advance should be the model and the standard of the present? Who would ingraft upon the new year the spiritual coldness, torpor, and slothfulness, the infirmities, backslidings, and feeble advance of the old? No! the real believer, the true Christian pilgrim, mournfully and sorrowfully lamenting the past- his slow advance, his little real growth in grace, his innumerable frailties, infirmities, and short-comings, the coldness of his love to Christ, and the distance of his walk with God- most earnestly desires that, with a new-born period of time he should commence a new start in the Divine life, a fresh surrender of himself to the Lord.

If this be so, we must begin the year as the Israelites did with atoning blood. In other words, we must make the cross of Jesus our starting point. There must be a renewed application of the blood, cleansing the past: and there must be the fresh sprinkling of the blood, consecrating the future. O import not into the new year the unrepented, uncleansed sins, the unhealed backslidings, and low spiritual standard of the old. Begin. the year with all things new.

One spiritual truth I am most solicitous in pressing upon the believer: it is, the application of atoning blood. This alone imparts assured peace. What was it that gave to the Israelites the security, confidence, and composure which they felt when the angel of death sped through the land smiting the first-born of Egypt? It was the knowledge and consciousness of the blood of the pascal lamb applied to his dwelling! Apart from this he possessed no security and could have felt no peace.

The grand failure in experimental religion of multitudes of Christian professors is, the lack of an applied atonement. They are not sure that this blood is upon them: they have not fully come in faith to the blood. To them the words cannot wholly apply, "You ARE come to the blood of sprinkling." Rest not short of this, my reader. The blood, sprinkled by the Spirit and received by faith, will impart to your conscience present peace, by assuring you of a present security. Beneath that sprinkled, that personally applied blood, you can calmly repose, and triumphantly exclaim- "There is now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus."

The blood on the conscience will purge it from the guilt of sin, and from dead works; the blood on the heart will fill it with peace in believing: yes, with joy unspeakable, and full of glory. Allow nothing, then, to interpose itself between you and an applied atonement. Let no turpitude of guilt, no amount of sin, no aggravated backslidings, no abused privileges, no sense of personal unworthiness, no mournful memories, dare to interfere with your coming to the Savior's blood of sprinkling.

If the blood of the pascal lamb, a type only, was to the Israelites a boon so precious, and conferred a blessing so vast, and was attended by results so hallowed, "how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the Eternal Spirit, offered Himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works, to serve the living God!" sealing upon your heart "quietness and assurance forever."

Thus commencing our year afresh, as from the cross, the next consideration that will engage our thoughts, will be- our new start in the Christian life, a new and stronger impulse in personal and vital godliness. Every true child of God desires to be more holy, more gracious, more Christ-like, more heavenly, and so more matured for heaven. If there be one motto I would have more prominently and constantly before your eyes than another, throughout the year, it would be the Apostolic exhortation- "Grow in Grace." Everything is advancing- nature is advancing- our state of probation is advancing- prophetical events are advancing- time is advancing, shall the believer in Christ, the heir of God, the expectant of glory, be the only one stationary? God forbid! Surely if there is any creation of God possessing the element of advance, and destined to an unlimited growth and the highest culture, it is the Divine nature implanted in the believing soul.

"Speak unto the children of Israel, that they Go Forward." Jehovah's command is equally addressed to us. Forward, then, in a knowledge of Gospel truth; forward in a close assimilation to the Divine image; forward in personal holiness; forward in the service of Christ; forward in willing obedience and in patient suffering, and in matured fitness for glory; in a word, forward in every work of faith and labor of love for Jesus. We shall receive this new impulse by making the cross of redeeming, dying love, our starting point. We shall gird ourselves for another stage of life's duties, responsibilities, and trials, by a closer view of the purchase-price of our redemption, a more realizing sight of Him who gave Himself for us, the wondrous love that loved us, the unknown agony endured for us, the precious, priceless blood that ransomed us.

O can we enter upon another- it may be our last year of life, and not resolve that, by God's help, it shall be a year more fruitful of glory to His great and glorious Name? This year we will lay aside the weight that retarded the spiritual progress of the last; we will nail the daily besetting sin to the cross; we will lay down that which has been to us an impediment, and we will take up that which has been to us an irksome duty; and for Christ's sake, who gave Himself for us, that He might purify and appropriate us unto Himself a holy people, we will prayerfully, solemnly resolve that, henceforth, no creature and no created thing shall claim us; but that for us to live, shall be simply, wholly, unalterably, Christ!

Once more would I remark- so vital and momentous is the subject- what a new year, in its noblest significance, and what a happy year, in its highest sense, will this be, if it prove the year of grace to any upon whom it dawns in a state of unregeneracy! Who can tell what purposes of mercy, what thoughts of peace, God may have towards you? The still small voice of love may blend with the pensive winds which proclaim the advent of new time- "The year of my redeemed is come." Emancipated, and enfranchised with the immunities and privileges of Christ's freed-men, it will be, in its fullest sense, the year of jubilee, in the history of your being. Earnestly do I plead with you humbly to invoke the grace and power of the Holy Spirit to enable you to resolve, "From this day I am not the world's devotee, nor sin's servant, nor Satan's vassal, nor my own proprietor; I am the Lord's!"

Thus taught by the Spirit your sinfulness, helplessness, and need of Christ; thus led from your own works and merits- which are nothing but filthy, loathsome rags- to trust in faith only in Christ, this year will be the commencement of a new and heavenly life. Oh, shall it be as the past of your life has been, and even yet more rebellious, more hardened in impenitence, and fortified in unbelief? Shudder to think such a condition should be possible, or even probable.

Terrible is the thought, appalling the prospect, that this newly added year of your existence, should but prepare you the more fully as fuel for the eternal fire- "a vessel of wrath fitted to destruction." It is for your life, then, I entreat, I implore you, I beseech you, in Christ's stead, be reconciled to God. Lay down the weapons of your rebellion against God, and of hostility to His Son, and submit to the terms His Gospel requires, that, this year, you may live the higher, nobler life of an heir of glory.

For the Lord's own called people entering upon this new year, I would suggest both a prayer and a promise. The, prayer is that of Moses- "If Your presence go not with me, carry me not up hence." What a needed and solemn petition! God's presence, going with us! Such is the response of every true God-fearing, Christ-loving heart. The believer has learned to understand the nature of God's favor, to know the value of His presence, to test the wisdom of His guidance, and to experience the blessedness of the light of His countenance. And now, the one desire and prayer of his heart is- "Let Your presence go with me. Let it accompany me in all the chequered, changeful history of this year. Let it counsel me in difficulty, soothe me in sickness, cheer me in solitude, keep me in danger, shield me in temptation, strengthen me in service, sustain me in suffering, and deliver me from evil." Let, then, the accompanying presence of God be the intense desire of your heart, and the principal element of your Christian experience throughout the present, and every future year of your earthly pilgrimage.

God's conscious comforting presence has been the experience and the solace of His people in all ages and in all circumstances. David felt it in the cave, Daniel in the lion's den, Jeremiah in the dungeon, Jonah in the whale's belly, Paul and Silas in the Philippian jail, and John in the isle of Patmos. And why not you, O child beloved of God, in all the varied journeyings and trials and circumstances of your history? Earnestly covet this blessing- the sensible presence of God throughout what may prove an eventful year in your personal history. Realize that, whatever the varied incidents and afflictions in your experience may be, you are not alone, because your Father is with you. Live as in His continual atmosphere. Walk as before him, and be perfect. His presence is promised, His help is pledged. "Lo! I am with you aways."

Aspire after the Psalmist's enviable experience- "I am continually with You: You have held me by my right hand. You shall guide me with Your counsel, and afterward receive me to glory." Thus robed with God's conscious presence, your walk will be so regulated as to please Him in all things. You cannot voluntarily sin against Him, standing as encircled by the halo of His Divine perfections. The place will be too awesome, the atmosphere too pure, the feeling too solemn, for Satan or sin to dare intrude. It was when Peter lost sight of the person, and the felt-presence of Jesus, that he fell. Had he followed Christ closely, kept Him in view, sheltered beneath His side, and shared His ignominy, he would not have fallen. What warning for us! What a beacon light for those who professedly follow Christ! Our safety alone is in nearness to the cross- is in walking in close communion with God, in the holy, filial, happy enjoyment of His encircling presence.

The promise is- "As your days, so shall your strength be." What an exceeding great and precious promise is this! There are some promises of God which are intended to apply to particular circumstances in the Christian's history. They are special promises intended for some speciality in our experience. But here is a Divine promise intended for all. It seems to override and to include every other. "As your day" -whatever the nature of the experience, or the demands of that day may be- "As your days, so shall your strength be."

This great promise of God chimes with the equally Divine and precious promise of Christ on the eve of His ascension- "Lo I am with you aways (Greek, all days), even unto the end of the world." Grasping in faith these two Divine and beautiful staffs, let us enter upon a new year strong in faith for another stage of life's solemn and eventful history. We may not reach the close of this year- this year we may die! But let this be our comfort; that whatever may be its daily needs, its daily cares, its daily sins, its daily sorrows, God will be our strength and our salvation. He will not allow us to be our own spiritual sustainers: but will keep the supplies of strength and grace in His own hand: doling them out just as our daily and hourly necessities demand.

Such is the life of faith the Lord would have us live throughout this year; and so living, we shall best promote our own highest interests, and our heavenly Father's greatest glory. Beginning with the cross of Jesus on earth, we may end it with His throne of glory in heaven!

Cast your burden on the Lord,
Only lean upon His word;
You will soon have cause to bless
His unchanging faithfulness.

He sustains you by the hand,
He enables you to stand;
Those whom Jesus once has loved
From His grace are never moved.

Heaven and earth may pass away,
God's free grace shall not decay;
He has promised to fulfill
All the pleasures of His will.

Jesus! Guardian of the flock,
Be Yourself our constant rock
Make us by Your powerful hand
Firm as Zion's mountain stand.

Christ's Law of Christian Beneficence

"Freely you have received, freely give." Matthew 10:8

Our Lord addressed these words to His disciples, on sending theirs forth as the appointed heralds of His own beneficence; as the chosen dispensers of the divine and precious blessings of His Gospel to all people. They were to consider themselves, not proprietors, but stewards; not as originating, but as dispensing the gifts and grace with which He, their Lord and Master, had furnished them. This will explain the special law which was to rule them in the exercise of their marvelous powers. They had received this treasure and these endowments at no cost to themselves, but simply and entirely as a gratuity- as the free gift of God's favor. The law of their reception was to be the law of their dispersion. Freely they had received, freely they were to give. They were, by no means, to barter their gifts, to sell their favors, or in any way to make gain of godliness. They were not to be influenced in the exercise of their miraculous powers of healing the sick, and of expelling demons from the possessed, or in their higher ministerial vocation of preaching the Word, by an avaricious spirit, by sordid motives- laborings for filthy lucre's sake; but, as generously, as heartily, and as freely as they themselves had been dealt with by their Divine Master, so were they, His messengers, to deal with those to whom He sent them.

This law, however, had its wise and just exception. It was not to clash in any way with another law our Lord laid down on a similar occasion, in which He enjoined that, the "laborer was worthy of his hire." Nor was this unfettered and spontaneous exercise of their powers to preclude them from receiving a competent support as the ministers of the Gospel, or as the stated pastors of the Churches. "Even so has the Lord ordained that those who preach the Gospel should live of the Gospel." (1 Cor. ix. l4.) "If we have sown unto you spiritual things, is it a great thing if we shall reap your carnal things?"

But, as it regarded the sin of making merchandise of souls, the crime of bartering the costly wares they were Divinely commissioned freely to dispense, the law laid down by their Lord and Master was clear and imperative- that, freely as they had received, as freely were they to give. The crime of "Simony," as in ecclesiastical law it is termed, originated in the case of Simon the sorcerer, who offered the Apostles money in exchange for the miraculous gift of the Holy Spirit, and whom Peter thus sternly rebuked, "Your money perish with you: because you bast thought the gift of God may be purchased with money, you have neither part nor lot in this matter; for your heart is not right in the sight of God."

In the control and negotiation of modern ecclesiastical affairs, of what moment is it that there should be not the slightest appearance of compromise with so dire a crime as that of making merchandise of godliness- of selling and purchasing the "souls of men." But this law of Christ thus laid down for the regulation of the Apostles, is of equal application to us, as defining the rule which is to regulate our Christian beneficence. It stands closely connected with an important precept of practical religion, but seldom expounded, but little understood, and consequently, but imperfectly observed- namely, the precept of giving. It is not our purpose, however, in the present limited space, fully to discuss this subject, but simply to suggest a few instructions tending to guide and stimulate the reader touching the obligation and the privilege of all the Lord's people of giving a portion of their worldly substance to the Lord. "Freely you have received, freely give."

The subject as presented in the text, is based upon two facts. The first is- that we are all the recipients of certain blessings. "You have received." This would seem a self-evident proposition, requiring not a single proof or illustration; and yet, obvious as it is, we have need constantly to be reminded of it. For what, among countless blessings, are we more especially indebted to God? In the first place, we have received from Him our present life. "We thank You for our creation," should be our daily litany. Our life is a wondrous, responsible, and deathless thing. It is from God- a pulse, a stream, a spark from the "Fountain" of His own being. God is the Author, as He is the Arbiter, of our life. From Him it came, by Him it is preserved, and at His fiat it returns to Him again. Thus life, with all its powers and sources of enjoyment -with its rainbow hues, its sparkling gems, its springing fountains, its murmuring music, its light and its song- is a divine thing, a sacred, beauteous thing, emanating from God, and is destined to return to God again; and if redeemed, renewed, and sanctified, to enjoy Him forever.

Many, alas, take their views of life, form their conception of its obligations, and their estimation of its worth, from the ten thousand ills which afflict and sadden, taint and degrade it and then contemptuously inquire- "Is this the life for whose creation I am daily to chant my litany?" In this they charge God with folly. Little do they think that God never made life as now they behold it. God created it holy- man tainted it with sin. God made it teeming with beauty- man marred it by disobedience. God made it a reservoir, pure and sparkling- man poisoned the fountain, and sent its baneful streams circling through the world. God made it bright and luminous- man draped it with darkness and woe. Charge not God, then, with the sins and crimes, with the ills and sorrows with which life is laden and cursed: but thank and praise Him, that, notwithstanding all that fallen man has done to blast and ruin it, life is yet so bright, so beauteous, and so sweet a thing.

But some are the recipients of spiritual life. This is the higher, yes, the highest form of life- life redeemed by Christ and renewed by the Spirit. The moment a man begins to live for God- the selfishness of His nature supplanted by love to his Creator, constraining him to devote his life to the glory of Him to whom by right of creation it belongs- that moment he really begins to live, and enters upon the highest and noblest sphere of his being. My reader, until you are "born again," passing out of the old into the new birth, you cannot be said truly to live. It is death that lives in you, not life! "Dead in trespasses and in sins," your whole existence is but a prolonged and lingering death. O implore the Holy Spirit to quicken you with spiritual life, that henceforth you may live no longer to yourself, but to God. Ponder the remarkable and precious words of Christ," I have come, that they might Have Life." "Those who hear the voice of the Son of God Shall Live."

Christ is our life, and until we know Christ, we are dead. Let it, then, be the one aim and goal of your being- the one desire, prayer, and aspiration of your heart, until it is realized- that Christ may be formed in you the hope of glory. Are we the happy recipients of spiritual life? Then, let us remember how great our indebtedness to sovereign love, and how solemn and imperious our obligation to devote its every pulse, its every thought, its every act to Christ.

As intellectual beings, we are distinguished recipients of God's mercy. God has conferred upon us mind; and he who, under God is instrumentally the teacher, the regenerator, the restorer, and the comforter of mind, is the greatest benefactor of his race. To administer to a mind diseased- to restore its balance, to dispel its delusions, to dislodge its ignorance, to raise its depression, and to shed around it the sunshine of gladness and of hope; above all, to lead it simply to Christ, and through Him up to God, is the noblest, holiest mission intrusted to mortal man.

As an intellectual being, then, you must acknowledge yourself as having received a vast boon from God. He created, as He has preserved, your mind. The possession of intellect involves you in a great and solemn responsibility. God holds you accountable for its use. Beware how you employ it! If used to pervert the minds of others by the teaching of erroneous doctrines, by the propagation of a frivolous or licentious literature, by the circulation of principles injurious to the morals of society, or periling to the stability and happiness of the domestic constitution, in a word, a literature that panders to vice and laughs at virtue, that fosters infidelity and superstition, while it ignores true religion and spiritual worship- we say, if the intellectual powers God has conferred upon you, are thus employed and prostituted, your present responsibility and your final account are more tremendous and appalling than imagination can conceive or language describe. Who is sufficient to bear such a weight? Remember, oh remember, your Maker holds you accountable for your intellect!

But still more precious this treasure, and yet more solemn our obligation, if by His regenerating grace, God has renewed us in the spirit of our mind. To what a noble sphere of intellectual being does the renewing of the Holy Spirit raise us! In its natural state, the human mind is made a little below the angels: but, in its renewed and restored state, it is raised to but one remove from the Divine. In the strong and emphatic language of the Apostle, all true believers are "partakers of the Divine nature; created after the image of God, in righteousness and true holiness." As such, what a powerful engine we possess for good! To be the author of a tract blest by the Spirit to the conversion of thousands; to compose a hymn that shall soothe many a sick and suffering couch; to speak a word about Jesus that shall lift up a bowed or heal a wounded spirit; to explode a fatal error, to vindicate a Gospel truth- O what a noble consecration this of renewed mind, of sanctified intellect.

And what providential blessings have we not received? Who can count their number? Blessed be the Lord, who daily loads me with benefits." Our HOME, with all its precious attractions, He provides- a roof to shelter us, a hearth to warm us, a couch to refresh us, food and clothing to sustain and cover us, and all the domestic affection that graces and sweetens all. He gives us health to enjoy the benefits of His providence; blesses our industry, succeeds our enterprises, and fills our barns with plenty. He rebukes our diseases, sustains our trials, soothes our mental and bodily sufferings, and makes all our bed in sickness. He holds up our goings, shields our bodies, and guards us with an eye that never slumbers by day, nor sleeps by night. Truly we "have received."

But, we turn to the child of God, the believer in Jesus. If in this vast universe there is a being who has received of God, that recipient is he! God's gifts of nature are great: His gifts of providence are greater but His gifts of grace are greatest. What have we as believers received? First, we have received the greatest of all gifts, the gift of God's dear Son. "God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son." "To as many as received Him." "Thanks be unto God for His unspeakable gift." Have you, my reader, received Christ Jesus the Lord? If so, you have received the greatest, the costliest, the most loved and lovely gift God could bestow upon you. Receiving this precious gift, you receive in it the Divine Giver. For Christ has said- "He that receives Me, receives Him who sent Me." Rich indeed are you who have received Christ into your heart, the Savior of your soul, and the hope of your glory.

In Him you have all the fulness of the Godhead bodily, and all the infinite treasures of grace mediatorily. In Him you have a Divine Savior, with a heart as willing, as He has a hand able, to save. In Him you possess a loving Brother, a faithful Friend, a sympathizing, wise, merciful, and ever interceding High Priest within the veil. Oh prize highly your Divine treasure, make much of your precious gift. Let Jesus be all to you. Repair to Him for every thing. Take to His blood all your guilt: confess beneath His cross all your sin: suspend upon His arm all your care: breathe upon His heart all your sorrow- and draw from His fulness all your supply. Oh that He may become increasingly precious to our hearts!

What more as believers have we received? We have received a free pardon- a complete justification- a gracious adoption- a present salvation, and a hope of future glory- even an "inheritance incorruptible, undefiled, and that fades not away." We have received, too, a throne of grace to repair to in all times of need; the Divine Word, with all its precious promises and rich instructions; the means of grace in all their richness; the communion of saints; and ten thousand streams all flowing from the heart of God, through Jesus, and gliding along our every homeward path.

The second fact referred to, relates to the principle upon which we have received these blessings. "Freely you have received." Bankrupt of all worthiness, and having forfeited all claim- without righteousness, without strength- rebels against God's government, and outlaws of His kingdom- there dwells in our flesh no good, but every evil thing. If ever these blessings become ours, it must be as a gratuity, and not as a purchase; as a gift, and not as a claim. Freely, "without money and without price," irrespective of all works of merit, of all personal worthiness whatever on our part.

And so it is. The declarations of the Gospel are as explicit on this matter as they are precious. Listen to them. "By grace are you saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God." "Not of works, lest any man should boast." "Who has justified us freely by His grace, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus." "The free gift came upon all men unto justification of life." "Ho, every one that thists, come you to the waters, and he that has no money; come you, buy, and eat; yes, come, buy wine and milk without money and without price." And with the same gracious declaration- a free grace salvation, the Bible closes- "And whoever will, let him take the water of life freely."

Such are the gracious, unfettered, precious revelations of the Gospel of the grace of God: nothing more and nothing less. Soul burdened with sin, oppressed with guilt, bankrupt of all righteousness and strength, you have nothing to pay in return for God's full forgiveness of all your sins. "And when they had nothing to pay, He frankly forgave them both." You have nothing to pay; and over the portal it is written- "There is nothing to pay:" why then should you hesitate coming to Christ? There is but one applicant for His salvation whose suit He rejects: but one soul whom He sends empty away- it is the sinner who, in the boldness and presumption of his proud, unhumbled heart, comes with a price in his hand, profanely -and vainly imagining that the precious, priceless gift of God's forgiveness, of Christ's salvation, can be purchased with money. Accept, then, you sin-convinced soul, the free pardon of your sins, and the free justification of your person, as the free gift of God's unmerited and unpurchasable grace, and you shall be saved.

We reach the application of this law to the subject of our present reading- Christian beneficence. We have remarked that the subject of consecrating our worldly substance to the Lord, as a Divine precept of our holy religion, is but seldom brought before the Christian Church with that distinct prominence, and enforced by those powerful motives, with which it is set forth in the Word of God. It is a part of practical religion much and sinfully overlooked. We do not assert that real religion consists in giving: far from this; but we do venture to affirm that, while there may be great liberality without true religion, there cannot be true religion without liberality. Giving of our worldly substance may not of itself be a religious act, but where vital religion has a place, the love of God a home, Christ and the Spirit a temple in the soul, selfishness, parsimony, and covetousness- in other words, a withholding from the Lord of our worldly substance, cannot possibly co-exist in the same individual. A Christian man, recognizing himself as bought with a price, regards his earthly possessions as much the Lord's as his being. A money-loving, a money-hoarding, a money-withholding disciple of Jesus, are not synonymous terms. "The covetous whom the Lord abhors," have no part or lot with Him who emptied Himself of His glory and for our sakes became poor.

Let us trace a few of the characteristics of Christian liberality, and thus test our observance of this precept. In the first place, it is of Divine authority. It is a command of God: a precept of Christ: a revealed principle of our holy faith. It was God's command to His people of old, that a tenth of their herds should be holy unto Him. And when building and furnishing the temple, God enjoined the people of Israel to bring freely and abundantly of their offerings- their gold and silver and wood, to rear the sacred edifice, and their beaten oil with which to keep its lamps perpetually burning. How reasonable the precept- "Honor the Lord with your substance, and with the first fruits of all your increase;" and how God-like the promise- "so shall your barns be filled with plenty, and your presses shall burst forthwith new wine." Who has ever honored the Lord in the observance of this precept, whom the Lord has not honored in the fulfilment of the promise?

Christian beneficence also recognizes the truth that, it is the Lord's which we give to Him, and not our own. We are recipients and not originators, stewards and not owners of our earthly possessions. The principle is this- "All things come from You, and of Your own have we given You." In devoting, then, any portion of our worldly goods to the Lord, we are to remember that we are not thereby making God our debtor, placing Him under an obligation to ourselves; we are but laying at His feet what already He has poured into our cup, and is His by original right, by free bestowment, and by temporary loan. And as we cast our offerings into the treasury, justice and humility extort the exclamation- "All this store comes from Your hand, and is all Your own."

Remember this, disciple of Jesus! God asks, yes, demands at your hands but that which already belongs to Him. It is He that has prospered your plans, has blessed your industry, and has enriched you with wealth; and, in giving to the Lord you give nothing which He has not loaned to you. "Of Your Own Have We Given You."

Our liberality is to be corresponding to our possessions. The Divine rule is- "You shall give unto the Lord your God according as the Lord your God has blessed you. Every man shall give as he is able." How wise and equitable this law of Christian beneficence! God does not require of us to give beyond, but commensurate with, our ability. See well to this. Are you giving to the cause of God in proportion to God's gifts to you? Are your contribution's to aid the kingdom of the Savior in the world, on a scale with your worldly possessions and your income? Are you in this sense a faithful steward of your Lord's goods? Remember, the Master has said- "Unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall much be required."

Our beneficence is to be willing and not begrudged, cheerful and not reluctant. "And the Lord spoke unto Moses, saying, Speak unto the children of Israel, that they bring Me an offering: of every man that gives it willingly with his heart you shall take My offering." The same rule is to govern the servants of Christ. "Every man according as he purposes in his heart, so let him give; not grudgingly, out of necessity: for God loves a cheerful giver."

The love of Christ constraining us, this will be the spirit actuating our liberality. It will not be wrung from us by constraint or by argument, neither will it be exercised under the influence of impulse or excitement- it will be the spontaneous, free-will offering of the heart, and exercised upon the principle of obligation and love. It is not at the costliness of the gift God looks, but the heart which prompts it. "For if there be first a willing heart, it is accepted according to that a man has, and not according to that he has not."

Our giving should be, as far as possible, systematic. "Upon the first day of the month, let every one of you lay by him in store, as God has prospered him." Such is the Apostolic injunction. When this plan can be conveniently adopted, it will be found the most simple and successful. Those who are in the receipt of daily or weekly returns, have it in their power to adopt this systematic mode of contribution, which in the end will be found in all respects the best. They will be surprised to discover how this small tax upon their daily earnings, this weekly setting apart of a portion of their income for the Lord, has gradually accumulated to an amount as astonishing and gratifying to themselves, as helpful to the cause of Christ and pleasing to the Lord.

This plan of systematic giving enters essentially into home-religion. Cultivated by each member of the household, from the master down to the humblest domestic, it will be found to aid marvelously the economy and happiness of the home-circle, and in the end to contribute richly towards the claims and calls of Christian beneficence.

Our liberality should be prompt. A slow, tardy benevolence, postponed to a more convenient season, often fails of its object. There are occasions when the necessity of a Christian brother, or the cause of truth, or the kingdom of Christ and the glory of God, demand a prompt and immediate, as well as a generous and unconstrained, response and action. Promptness in giving frequently enhances the value of the gift. It is a significant aphorism, "He gives double who gives promptly."

A seasonable liberality, a timely aid, a helping hand just at the crisis, may often be of tenfold more worth to a society, an enterprise, or an individual, than if bestowed at a later period, and with a more profuse hand.

But little space in the present reading is left for a consideration of the blessings connected with giving. "Blessed is he that considers the poor; the Lord will deliver him in time of trouble." "He who gives to the poor lends to the Lord;" and of this we are assured, none shall lend to the Lord and not receive an ample return, full measure and running over will the Lord give to him. Remember the words of the Lord Jesus, when He said- "It is more blessed to give than to receive." And again- "Give, and it shall be given unto you; good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running over, shall men give into your bosom." And those of the Apostle- "Let us do good unto all men, especially unto those who are of the household of faith." How noble the character and how encouraging the promise- "The liberal soul devises liberal things; and by liberal things shall he stand."

In conclusion, let us seek grace, that we may walk in this Christian precept of liberality with all faithfulness and simplicity; giving, not as to man, but as to the Lord. The responsibility of wealth is tremendous. Money is a talent. We must give an account to God of the manner in which we have employed it. Do not be ambitious of dying rich. "How hardly shall a rich man enter the kingdom of heaven!" Hesitate not to lay down at Christ's feet of your substance, retaining only that which is absolutely necessary to enable you to walk honestly and uprightly before men. "Freely You Have Received, Freely Give."

"With my substance I will honor
My Redeemer and my Lord;
Were ten thousand worlds my manor,
All were nothing to His Word
While the heralds of salvation
His abounding grace proclaim,
Let His friends of every station
Gladly join to spread His fame."

Spiritual Diligence

"The diligent soul shall be made fat." Proverbs 13:4

The professing Christian who is not painfully conscious of a strong tendency to spiritual sluggishness, is but imperfectly conversant with the sinfulness of his own heart, and knows but little of the subtle workings of his own mind. Not more certain is the setting of the sun at even, or the going down of a time-piece the moment it is wound up, than is the tendency of the renewed nature, from its highest point of experience, to spiritual declension and relapse. "On my bed I sought him whom my soul loves. I sleep, but my heart wakes," was the humiliating confession of the Church of old; and in numberless cases, were they honest to themselves, would be the confession of many Christians now.

It is not thus is it with the men of this world: they, for the most part, are no signs of sluggishness. In their toil for gain, in their struggle for honor, in their chase of pleasure, they are seldom found reposing upon the bed of sloth. Rising early, and sitting up late, they eat the bread of carefulness. Enlisting every faculty, employing every means, and straining every nerve- one thing they do, and that one thing they attain. And although, when they reach the goal and grasp the prize, they find it but a shadow, a phantom, a dream; nevertheless, staking their life for "a corruptible crown," they win it, and so they have their reward.

But how different with us, the professed disciples of Christ, the children of God, and heirs of glory! How languidly we run the race, how feebly we struggle with the foe, how slow to lay hold on eternal life. The passage which suggests our present reading, places before us two characters in striking contrast the "sluggard" desiring and having nothing; the "diligent, and his soul made fat."

The points of contrast are many and striking. The "sluggard" has his religious "desires," and nothing more. He would sincerely be saved, but makes no effort to get salvation. He would be religious, without real religion; pious, without true piety; claiming the fruit of godliness apart from the root of godliness; looking for the reward of labor, without the labor that secures the reward; expecting the conquest of sinful habits without the battle that ensures the victory: in a word, looking for heaven without taking one real step heavenward!

Is this rational?- is it sane? Ask him to apply the same rule to his worldly affairs- in his race for wealth- in his chase for honor- in his pursuit of pleasure, and he would laugh you to scorn. Alas! that in the all-momentous matter of the soul's salvation, the religion of multitudes should consist in nothing more than mere desire- which means, and ends in, nothing. My dear reader, does this apply to you? Then let me, in all faithfulness, endeavor to dispel your delusion. An old divine remarks that, the path to hell is paved with good desires. Satan has not a more flattering, or a yet more fatal mode of smoothing the soul's pathway to the nethermost hell than this. If he can but foster in you these dead, meaningless desires after salvation, until your conscience becomes so torpid, and your heart so languid, and your soul so indifferent, that even these desires at last fail, he well knows he has secured his victim.

But if ever you become a true Christian, if ever you are really saved, it must be by a desire more vital, by a struggle more severe, by an influence more spiritual and divine than that which now moves you. Oh! it is of the utmost importance that you are sincere, and earnest, and persevering in the all-momentous matter of the soul's eternal well-being! It admits of no sluggish effort, it will be obtained by no languid desires, it will be secured by no faint, heartless competition for the prize. Let the solemn, earnest words of Jesus ring in your ears until they awaken a response in your soul: "STRIVE to enter in at the strait gate."

If in anything you must be down-right earnest, it is the salvation of your soul. All other considerations are, in comparison with this, but as shadows upon the wall, as the foam upon the billow. Eternal life or eternal death- endless bliss or endless woe- heaven or hell, are suspended upon the issue! Oh! remember it is written by the pen of Inspiration that, "the sluggard desires and has nothing." -NOTHING!

But let us turn our attention to the diligent soul, "The soul of the diligent shall be made fat." What are some of the characteristics of the spiritually diligent? Let us group them. The diligent soul is a converted soul. The words are descriptive of a gracious state. The truly diligent believer is a partaker of spiritual life; to speak more emphatically, he is a living soul; or, in language yet more expressive, Christ lives in him: so that it is not so much he that lives as that Christ lives in him. The "diligent soul " is a sin pardoned soul. All his sins are washed away by the blood of Christ, God, for Christ's sake, having forgiven him all iniquity. He is equally justified. Forgiveness and justification go hand in hand. By grace the pardoned soul is accepted of God in His beloved Son. He thus stands before God, through imputed righteousness, freely, fully, justified from all things.

Sanctification, or progressive holiness, is another characteristic. A partaker of the divine nature, the diligent soul aims after the divine image, hungers and thirsts after holiness, and experiences its highest happiness in doing and suffering the will of God from the heart.

Love to the Savior is an essential attribute of the spiritually diligent. The absence of love would involve the absence of the great motive power of religious diligence. Love is the grand moving principle of God in redemption. "God so loved," is the key-note of the wondrous announcement. And love to God unfolds the great secret of all earnest, holy obedience and diligence in the great matter of the soul's spiritual and eternal well-being.

But let me now, having thus briefly portrayed the character of the diligent soul, specify some of those things in which spiritual, earnest diligence is demanded. The first is, to make quite sure of our personal salvation. This is a matter too vital and momentous to admit of a careless, languid, or postponed consideration. It is the only moral problem in a man's life which demands incessant study and accurate solution. The proof must be demonstration itself. It is a fact the truth of which cannot be assumed. It is a matter which cannot be taken for granted. It is a question which, speaking after the manner of the logicians, we cannot "beg." It must be Scripturally proved, divinely authenticated, and internally witnessed.

Listen to the strong language of the Apostle Peter, addressed to the saints of God- "Wherefore brethren, give diligence to make your calling and election sure." The transposition of the Apostle in these words is worthy of remark. It will be observed that although "election" is the antecedent act, he mentions "calling" first. There is much wisdom and skill, as well as tenderness and love in this. He would teach us that, in this great matter of working out our salvation, we must begin with "calling," since it is God's part to begin with "election."

With "election" we have nothing to do but simply to believe it and holily to live it, since it is one of those "secret things which belong unto God." It is the first link in the chain of our salvation, and is fastened to the eternal throne of the everlasting God. But the link in the chain with which we, as sinners, are more especially concerned, is the lowest one of all- that of our "calling." If we once get firm hold of this link, the question of our election is settled.

We are to give all diligence to make our calling sure, and this in its turn makes sure to us the fact of our election. Thus with what confidence the Apostle addresses the Thessalonian saints- "knowing, brethren beloved, your election of God." How did he arrive at a knowledge of their election of God? By what evidence was the fact confirmed? He himself answers, "For our Gospel came not unto you in word only, but also in power, and in the Holy Spirit, and in much assurance." Thus, it was by their effectual calling of the Spirit that he knew their eternal election of God. By the same simple process we are to arrive at the same happy conclusion.

Like the Apostle, we must reason, not from election to calling, but from calling to election. We must take hold by faith of the lowest link and so rise to the highest. Use all diligence, then, to make your calling sure. Let it not be a questionable, doubtful matter whether or not you have heard the call of the Spirit in your soul. All God's people, sooner or later, are a called people. "Whom He did predestinate, them He also called." What does the Apostle, referring to himself? "and called me by His grace."

Have you then been called? Have you heard the voice of Jesus calling you from the world, from your sins, from your idols, from your own righteousness to Himself? "My sheep hear my voice." Have you heard it? It is a sweet, winning voice, unmistakable in its accents, melodious in its tone, and irresistible in its power to those who hear it. It whispers in love now- it will thunder in judgment before long. It now invites the weary, the burdened, the sorrowful to the repose of His loving, gracious heart; by and by it will be the voice of the Archangel sounding the trump of God, saying to the ungodly, "depart!"

Have you, I again ask, heard the call of Jesus? Has His Gospel come to you, not in word only, but with the quickening, converting power of the Holy Spirit? If it is still a doubtful matter, if you are not quite sure that you are converted give all diligence to be so. Rest not until you have got, as the old Scotch divines were wont to express the thought, "a grip of Christ." Get hold of Him by faith, and you may rest assured as to your calling; and if called of God, you maybe equally sure as to your election of God.

Election is a most unmerited and glorious act of God's love and grace; and when it occupies in our experimental religion its proper place, it is one of the most encouraging, comforting, and sanctifying truths of the Gospel. But if you are just setting out in the divine life; if you are seeking the Lord, feeling after the Savior, let the subject of your election remain in abeyance for a while, until you have first given all diligence to make your calling sure. You will then find God's electing love sweet and holy nourishment to your soul.

Our growth in grace also demands all diligence. The soul's progress in holiness is not promoted by languor and neglect. It must not be left to its own spontaneity. The soil in which the holy seed is sown, the garden in which the divine plants are reared by God, is too hostile to the culture of holiness to admit of their growth apart from the strictest diligence and incessant watchfulness on the part of the believer. There must be much self communion- holy vigilance- close walking with God- and the diligent use of all the appointed means of grace. It is thus the Apostle Peter exhorts us to this: "Giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue; and to virtue knowledge; and to knowledge temperance; and to temperance patience; and to patience, godliness; and to godliness brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness charity. . For if these things be in you, and abound, they make you that you shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ."

What a lesson in sacred arithmetic for the saints of God to learn- the holy lesson of increasing their grace, and adding to the graces of their Christian character. This sacred lesson is only learned by giving to its study all diligence.

It is, too, the lesson of daily life and of our whole life. Each day should find us growing in an acquaintance with Christ; augmenting our stock of grace; strengthening the graces of our Christian character; and "increasing in the knowledge of God." Nor is this diligence to terminate but with the termination of our Christian course. "We desire," says the Apostle, "that every one of you show the same diligence to the full assurance of hope unto the end." The necessity of watchfulness, earnestness, and perseverance in the things relating to our eternal future will exist until that future is reached.

The race we run, admits of no pause; the pilgrimage we travel, of no halting; the battle we fight, of no truce; the prize for which we compete, of no compromise. There is an end before us, and that end we must keep full in view. The Savior has said, "He that endures to the end shall be saved." "Be faithful unto death, and I will give you a crown of life that fades not away."

The garden of the believing soul will soon show the lack diligent care and skill of its culture. "I went by the field of the slothful, and by the vineyard of the man void of understanding; and, lo, it was all grown over with, thorns, and nettles had covered the face thereof, and the stone wall thereof was broken down."

But to those who keep diligently their own spiritual vineyard, seeking to walk in all godly obedience, the promise is, "The Lord shall guide you continually, and satisfy your soul in drought, and make fat your bones: and you shall be like a watered garden, and like a spring of waters whose waters fail not." O who would not give all diligence to work out a salvation- which God by His Spirit has wrought in us- with fear and trembling, knowing that such blessings as these are held out as its reward?

We can only further remark, in general terms that, spiritual earnestness and activity involve diligence in prayer: the praying soul will ever be a diligent soul. Prayer preserves religion alive in the soul. Prayer draws in the vital influence that keeps it healthful and vigorous. And if we would forego the couch of ease and the bed of slumber, we must keep the heart with all prayerful diligence in close communion with God.

If, too, the soul would become fat and flourishing, there must be all holy diligence in the employment of those means and appliances God has appointed for our use. "Blessed is the man that hears Me, watching daily at My gates, waiting at the posts of My doors." We can expect nothing but leanness of soul if we are found sinfully undervaluing and wilfully neglecting God's appointed ordinances and means. When a religious professor imagines that he has got above the means -that he has reached so advanced and elevated a point in his Christianity as to be independent of a teaching ministry, of sanctuary worship, of the ordinances of Christ's Church, of social Christian fellowship, of closet prayer, and of the communion of saints -it is time that he should look with holy jealousy and alarm to the real state of his soul as before God. That man is deceived. He is not that diligent soul whose grace is vigorous, and whose graces are radiant. He is not fighting manfully, nor violent in prayer, nor trading diligently with heaven, nor so employing his Master's talents as to bring to Him the largest revenue of glory. His soul shall be lean, while the soul of the diligent shall be made fat.

We must give all diligence, too, that God's afflictive dealings with us may be sanctified. There is scarcely any path in our Christian course which so loudly calls for diligence as this. The loss of an affliction, of a trial, of a temptation, is an irrevocable loss. It cannot be repaired. There was a necessary reason for the rod of correction with which our Heavenly Father visited us- some sin to be removed, or some backsliding to be restored, or some evil to be checked, or some lesson to be learned, or some blessing to be bestowed. If, then, we are not diligent in seeking a sanctified possession of the discipline, earnest in securing the end for which our God chastened us, we have lost the mission and the blessing for which it was sent- and O how great and irreparable that loss! Let us, then, see that we lose not one of our sorrows- they are too precious and valuable to be lost; but that we turn them all to a good account; diligent to extract some sweet thing from the bitter, some nourishing thing from the eater, and to find a penciling of light in the somberest cloud. Let us see that under the afflictive hand of God we become more humble, more spiritually minded, more dead to the world, more prayerful, more Christ-like, and Christ more precious- in a word, made by our Father's corrections more "a partaker of the Divine holiness." O hallowed fruit of sanctified sorrow!

Earthly sorrow is, too, a preparation for heavenly joy. All the saints in glory graduated from this school; and many with high honor- honor to themselves and honor and glory to our God. No tongue can adequately describe the costly, sacred blessings flowing from one hallowed sorrow. We have, perhaps, become more intimately acquainted with the character of God, more experimentally know the Lord Jesus Christ, and more spiritually understand the meaning of God's holy Word, in one sanctified affliction, than we ever attained to in all our previous history.

"Blessed is the man whom You chasten, O Lord, and teach him out of Your law." Trial makes us apt scholars- skillful interpreters of the Scriptures. "I never understood the Psalms," says Luther, "until God afflicted me." Thus affliction performs a heaven-sent mission. It stirs us up to Christian diligence and wakefulness.

Some of God's people are 'spiritual sleep walkers' - they are apt to walk the heavenly way in their sleep! "I sleep, but my heart wakes." In consequence of this infirmity they are exposed to great danger. If Israel's Keeper, who never slumbers nor sleeps, did not hold them up, a single step in this their drowsy, dreamy state, would prove forever fatal. But God wisely and lovingly provides for this moral 'sleep walking' of His saints.

By the rod of affliction, sometimes very gentle, at other times very heavy, He wakes them from their slumbers, rouses them to a sense of their peril, and stirs them up to more diligent, earnest, prayerful waiting upon Him. And then they testify, "Before I was afflicted I went astray; but now I keep Your Word. It is good for one that I have been afflicted, that I might learn Your statutes." This subject is a most practical one. Let us, as believers, watch against sleepy frames. "Drowsiness covers a man with rags:" it robs and impoverishes him.

Spiritual drowsiness will be followed with like spiritual effects in our souls. We shall forget how glorious is our clothing in the righteousness of Christ, how lovely are our people before God, viewed in Jesus, and consequently we shall not realize our present acceptance in the Son of God; we shall lose the enjoyment of the blessing which flows from the blessed state described by the Apostle: "Being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ."

There is no position or place in which there is not need to watch against spiritual sluggishness and lethargy. The disciples fell fast asleep on the mount of transfiguration, and in the garden of Gethsemane! Who of us, then, are safe? Some grow lean in the midst of plenty, while others are kept alive in famine. Rutherford quaintly but truly remarks, "An empty stomach often keeps a man awake, while a full one lulls him to sleep." When God removes us from fat pasture, leads us into the desert, creates in us hungering and thirsting after the means of grace, after the banqueting house of His Gospel- fills the soul with a sight of sin, with a sense of its deep need of Christ, and with earnest longings after Him- O, what a powerful means has all this proved of keeping believing souls broad awake, watchful, prayerful, close to God!

Equally must we be on our guard against that which produces supineness and sleepiness of frame. The world is a powerful soporific. Its spiritual effect is stupifying, deadening. Watch against it. Go not into it. You cannot drink of its cup of pleasure and not be spiritually drowsy. The world and Christ are the antipodes of each other; and it is impossible for you to carry Christ to heaven in one hand, and the gay, the frivolous, the Christ-despising world in the other.

Sin in every shape is spiritually stupifying. It is a fearful narcotic to the soul of a man of God. Watch against its pleas and its disguises; its small departures which inevitably lead to great ones. Be careful of a too great absorption in your worldly calling. Let not business drown your soul. Be content with a limited measure of success, that you may find time for spiritual privileges and duties, public and private. Never allow the interests of Christ's cause to give place to, or be slighted by, your own. Seek first the kingdom of God- this will tend much to keep your soul alive. You will not be less "diligent in business," for being first "fervent in spirit, serving the Lord.

"Watch, then, against all these sleeping draughts. Remember Pharaoh's dream- it is strikingly significant. "The ill favored and lean-fleshed kine did eat up the seven well favored and fat kine." All these things against which I have guarded you are the "ill favored and lean-fleshed kine," which will "eat up" the marrow and fatness of your soul, compelling you to exclaim, "My leanness, my leanness, woe unto me."

Be studiously, prayerfully watchful against the world's religion. O yes! It looks very religious, but in reality it is all hollow, sinful, and fatal. The holiness of the world is false. Its religion is false. Its worship is false. Its hopes are false. Its professors are false.

Be on your watch-tower against Ritualism- it is fascinating, ensnaring, but soul-destroying. The skeptical religion and ritualistic worship of the day- the religion and worship of vestments, of altar lights, of incense, of crosses, of sacraments, of genuflexions, of a ghostly priesthood- which is no priesthood at all- is drugging the souls of thousands, who, drinking of its fleshly, enticing cup, sink into a profounder sleep of spiritual death, from which, perhaps, they never wake until awakened by the groans and curses, the flames and torments of hell!

Perhaps the Lord is rousing you to spiritual sensibility, by causing you to feel how cold, and sleepy, and dormant your heart has too long been. And now, it may be, you feel as if you had no feeling! You are sensible only of insensibility! You are softened by the very consciousness of your hardness. You are alive only to the existence of death. The words of the Christian poet may best express your experience:

"O yes! I'm sinful: that I know,
For God and conscience tell me so;
But yet, for all my sin and woe,
I cannot feel!

"I know the Truth: I'm deeply read;
And Bible doctrines fill my head
But oh! my heart is cold and dead-
I cannot feel!

"O could I feel enough oppressed,
Then Jesus Christ might give me rest
But with a stone within my breast,
I cannot feel!

"If I could weep and mourn for sin,
Then my salvation would begin
But what a hardened state I'm in,
I cannot feel!"

Do these lines express your spiritual experience? Then, thank God, and take courage! These thoughts, these words, these feelings are unmistakable evidences of grace. They are not the marks of a dead, but the vital breathings of a living soul- a soul alive from Christ, and alive in Christ. As a corpse is not sensible of its insensibility, so an individual entirely "dead in trespasses and sins," would never weep and mourn for sin, and lament its want of feeling. The Lord comfort, encourage, and stimulate you with these words! If you have this true, real desire for Christ, His whole heart travels towards you. Yes, the diligent soul shall have its reward- "it shall be made fat."

Just as a man diligent in the business of this life prospers and becomes rich, so the spiritual merchantman, the soul trading with heaven and heavenly things, who, waiting on the Lord, constantly attending on the Word and ordinances of His house, laborings for the food which endures unto eternal life- shall be fat and flourishing, shall be filled and satisfied as with marrow and fatness, shall become fruitful in every good word and work, a vessel of honor fit for the Master's use.

Be watchful, be prayerful, be diligent. Christ is coming! the Lord is at hand! "It is high time to awake out of sleep; for now is your salvation nearer than when you believed." Everything bids you persevere. The prize held out to you bids you persevere. The glittering crown, the snowy robe, the waving palm, the golden harp, the new song, the vision of Jesus in His glory, all, all with one accord unite in saying to you- persevere! Wherefore, beloved, seeing that you look for such things, be diligent, that you may be found of Him in peace, without spot and blameless."

Sweet thought, that Jesus, amid the drowsiness of His people, never sleeps. He watches over us by day, by night, moment by moment, with unwearied care and with unslumbering love. See how patiently, faithfully, lovingly, He stands at the door of your cold and half dead heart. "Open to Me, My sister, My love, My dove, My undefiled; for My head is filled with dew, My locks with the drops of the night." Does this look as if Jesus slumbers when we sleep, or as though He had withdrawn when we depart? Ah, no! Expressive attitude, touching words, tender irresistible appeal! O that the response of our innermost heart may be- "Come, Lord Jesus come quickly! Enter and claim me for Yourself, body, soul, and spirit." "Watch, therefore; for you know not when the master of the house comes, at evening, or at midnight, or at the cock crowing, or in the morning; lest coming suddenly he find you sleeping."

"Wake, you that sheep in enchanted bowers,
Lest these lost years should haunt you in the night
When death is waiting for your numbered hours
To take their swift and everlasting flight
Wake, before the earth-born charm unnerve you quite,
And be your thoughts to work divine addressed;
Do something-do it soon-do it with all your might!
An angel's wing would droop, if long at rest,
And God himself, inactive, were no longer blest."

Fragments Gathered

He said unto His disciples, "Gather up the fragments that remain, that nothing be lost." John 6:12

It is a marked and instructive feature of all God's works, that there is no waste- no unmeaning expenditure, nothing extravagant or superfluous. All His operations, from the most minute to the most stupendous, are upon a principle of the strictest economy. There is not an atom of matter, nor a ray of light, nor a breath of air, nor a drop of water, nor a living thing over and above what is absolutely needful. Not a tree or shrub, not a beauteous flower or noxious weed, not an insect or animal, not a breath of air or a wave of the sea, that has not a mission to accomplish, an end to answer. Munificence and economy are the prevailing laws of God's works. Every thing is vast, and nothing is lost.
Such is the principle recognized and enforced by our Lord in the words selected for our present reflection. Moved by human compassion, He had just performed a Divine miracle. A great multitude, attracted by His marvelous power of healing, penetrated the desert where He had retired, and found themselves cut off from all temporal supply. Inquiring of His disciples the extent of their resources, and finding them to consist of but five barley loaves and two small fish, He resolved upon the exercise of His miraculous power to meet the case. Taking in His hands the loaves, and looking up to God, He broke, and then gave to His disciples, who distributed to the multitude until their needs were fully met. Then followed the command inviting our attention- "When they were filled, He said unto His disciples, gather up the fragments that remain, that nothing be lost."
Such is the Divine precept of economy which we now propose to consider. The subject is highly spiritual, practical, and instructive. The great truth inculcated is that, as there is no waste in God's works, so there should be none in ours. That the fragments, whatever they are, in our domestic, personal, or official economy, should be conscientiously husbanded and carefully gathered, that nothing be lost. This principle applies to human society in all its departments, more thoroughly than would at first sight appear.
It belongs to the ministry of home- it is inseparable from the proper government of our various public societies- it enters essentially into the prosperity of our different callings in life- and it is yet more closely and solemnly entwined with our Christian character and religious profession. "Gather up the fragments, that nothing be lost." Returning to the narrative, let us attempt to glean from it the sacred truths which it teaches, and this will have prepared us to consider the Divine precept which it illustrates.
The first thing which the incident teaches is, the miraculous feeding of this vast multitude. It was in all respects a Divine miracle. The miracles of the Bible have ever been regarded as constituting one of its most essential and impregnable fortresses. This will account, in a great measure, for the malignant assaults to which they have been subjected in every age of the world and by every phase of infidelity. Destroy the miraculous element of revelation, and its Divine authority is essentially shaken. Not that we would overrate the importance of miracles; as if the Bible relied for its evidence alone upon them. We regard the proofs drawn from the prophecies as equally demonstrable. It is the glory of our faith that its witnesses are many and true. That if one fails to rebut the assault and to convince the assailant, others appear upon the field equally as credible and conclusive. If one seal be ruthlessly torn from the sacred parchment, others remain to witness its truth and to attest its Divinity.
The miracle was like this: attracted by His healing power, the multitude followed Jesus into Tiberias on foot, while He went by sea. Their route being shorter than His, He found them awaiting His arrival, to whom "He spoke of the kingdom of God, and healed those who had need of healing." Seeing this great multitude hemmed in by the wilderness and with need staring them in the face, the question arose- how was their hunger to be met?
"Five barley loaves and two small fishes" -humble and scanty fare this! -were all that the disciples could produce. But the Son of God was there! He who made the heaven and the earth, who provided seed for the sower and bread for the eater- who clothed the hills with flocks and the valleys with corn- was present, and the difficulty in His hands was of easy solution. The unbelief which once inquired- "Can God furnish a table in the wilderness?" was now to receive a most severe, because a most kind and benevolent answer.
The table was furnished, and furnished with guests. Jesus, who had an exquisite taste for the picturesque, commanded the multitude to be artistically grouped "in fifties and in hundreds upon the green grass." Then, taking the slender supply in His hands, and uplifting His prayer to God, He proceeded to distribute to the disciples, and the disciples to the people, and they ate and were filled. How are we to account for this marvellous fact- five thousand men fed to the full, from five loaves (a loaf for a thousand!) and two small fish? By what power did our Lord perform this feat?
Was it by sleight-of-hand, or by collusion with His disciples, or by the power of evil magic? -for the sceptics of old affirmed that, "He cast out devils by Beelzebub, the prince of the devils." Neither of these hypothesis will supply a fitting answer. It was a miracle- a supernatural act- and He who wrought it proved Himself Divine. His enemies had just been traducing His character and denying His Deity. As if to refute their slander and confound their blasphemy, He adduced this marvellous and undeniable evidence of His Godhead.
Challenge the modern sceptics who deny the authority of miracles to imitate it! Bid the " spiritualists," the scoffers and the condemners of revelation of this Sadducean age, to assemble five thousand starving artisans in one place, and by necromancy, or legerdemain, or "spiritualism" satisfy their gnawing hunger with five barley loaves and two small fishes. How blank they look! How they skulk away, each one convicted in his own conscience of his littleness, his folly, and his crime! Accept, my reader, this fact of our Lord's life as a miracle, and the miracle as an evidence of His Deity, and His Deity as all engaged for your present and eternal salvation. Limit not the power of your Divine Savior. His Deity wrought your salvation- is the basis of His atonement; and His atonement is the foundation of your hope: and His Deity is engaged to sustain you in every trial, to enable you to surmount every difficulty, to supply your every need, to give you the victory over all your foes, and to conduct you to glory! Safe forever is every soul committed to His keeping. All power on earth and in heaven is His: His, that He might give eternal life to as many as the Father bath given to Him; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of His hand, because He is God.
This miracle equally demonstrated the fact of our Lord's pure humanity. We read that, "when He saw the multitude, He was moved with compassion." The Lord Jesus was very man as He was very God. As Man, He, sympathizes with our humanity in all its varied conditions and needs, and as the God-Man He meets it all. Compassionating our need- He supplies it; pitying our grief- He soothes it; touched with our infirmity- He sustains it; sympathizing with our sickness- He heals it; commiserating our temptation- He scatters it; lenient towards our weakness- He places beneath us His everlasting arms.
Precious are the blessings thus distilling from the Divine-human nature of our adorable Lord. How could we part with it? What fount of sympathy, what source of succor, what spring of soothing; could be its substitute? What friend, what brother, what companion in tribulation, could take the place of the Incarnate God? Let this truth encourage you to take every sorrow, difficulty, and need to Christ.
The miracle illustrates, too, the power which our Lord possesses of increasing the little and of multiplying the few. Do we speak of the Church of Christ? It is comparatively but a small body; and those incorporated Christian communities, composed of members of the one Body of Christ, who walk in the truth and ordinances of Christ blameless, yet smaller. But, nevertheless, with the Lord's blessing upon the preaching of His Gospel, and the earnest labors of His self-denying saints, both at home and in heathen lands, the little one shall become a thousand, and a small one, a strong nation." "He will multiply them, that they shall not be few: and will glorify them, and they shall not be small." Let not, then, your hand slacken or your heart grow weary in the service of Christ, because of the feebleness of the instrumentality or the scantiness of the result. The few crumbs of the bread of life which you may scatter, He can so bless as to "multiply your seed sown and increase the fruit of your righteousness."
It is thus He employs a worm to thrash the mountain, and allows the lame to take the prey, that He may secure all the glory to Himself. Not a crumb of the bread of life you give, not a grain of the precious seed you sow, but the Lord's blessing is in it, and shall so surely accompany its distribution as that ultimately it shall yield you a rich and eternal recompense of reward. If but one soul only is brought to Christ, if but one brand is snatched from the burning through your instrumentality, your life here will not have been in vain, and the crown you shall wear in the life hereafter will not be starless.
"The good begun by you will onward flow
In many a branching stream, and widening grow;
The seed that, in these few and busy hours,
Your hands unsparing and unwearied sow,
Shall deck your grave with a maranthian flowers,
And yield you fruits Divine in heaven's immortal bowers."
The miracle of feeding the five thousand encourages us to lean upon Christ's bountiful providence. Our resources may be narrow, our supplies humble and slender: but the Lord can so increase the little and multiply the few, as that the barrel of meal shall not waste, nor the cruise of oil fail until all our need is amply supplied. Those who possess but a "handbasket portion" of this world's good, see most of the providential power and goodness of God. These learn to live upon His bounty, and to feel His care. They hang upon His hand as a child upon a parent; and doubly sweet to them the "bread" and refreshing to them the "water" it supplies- for this is a Divinely assured portion- when they can trace a Father's faithfulness and love in sending it.
This life of faith in God may be trying to flesh and blood, and often humiliating to the natural pride of the human heart nevertheless, it is a school in which many of the cardinal graces of the Spirit are developed and the Christian character is strengthened and matured, and, above all, in which there is a more close transaction with, and consequently a more intimate knowledge of, the character of God.
Look then, to Jesus to bless your limited means, and to increase your scanty and lessening supplies. He can prevent hunger, or He can meet its demands. He can remove a lack, or He can supply its need. He has told you that your heavenly Father knows that you have need of these things, and that He who opens His hand and supplies the needs of every living thing- who gems the landscape with flowers, pencils them with beauty and clothes them with perfume; who feeds the ravens when they cry, and guides the sparrow to its morning's repast- will feed and clothe you, you precious child of His love. "Don't be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known unto God."
Nor must we overlook the higher truth our Lord doubtless intended to shadow forth in this distribution of bread to the famishing multitude, namely, Himself as the Bread of Life come down from heaven to meet the spiritual needs of a fallen and famished world. Without going out of our way, as we think has been erroneously done, to represent this breaking of bread to the multitude as Eucharistic- there being not the shadow of a reference in the incident to the Lord's Supper. We yet may regard it as a symbol of the great and precious Gospel truth which our Lord upon another occasion thus clearly enunciated- "I am the Living Bread which came down from heaven: if any man eat of this Bread he shall live forever."
What a glorious announcement is this for a poor sinner in whose soul the Holy Spirit has created a longing after Christ! None will come to Christ until they feel their need of Him; and none will eat of Christ until they possess a hungering for Him. "He has filled the hungry soul with good things, and the rich He has sent empty away." He Himself has said, "Blessed are those who hunger after righteousness."
How much may we thus learn of Gospel truth from this miracle of Christ! Were these five thousand men needy and famishing? -so spiritually are we. Did they come to Christ empty handed, receiving the bread without money and without price?- so spiritually may we. Did they all eat and were filled?- so spiritually may we. Did Christ increase the little and multiply the few?- so spiritually will He deal with us: He can increase our small faith, deepen our feeble love, augment our little strength, and greatly add to our limited degree of grace. Such are some of the Gospel and vital truths illustrated by the miraculous feeding of the five thousand. May the Holy Spirit give to us a quickening, sanctifying, and saving possession and experience of their power in our souls!
We reach now the subject more especially under our notice- the PRECEPT which our Lord enjoined at this miraculous meal. "He said unto His disciples, Gather up the fragments that remain, that nothing be lost." There is scarcely less spiritual, practical teaching in the precept than in the miracle. At first sight this command of the Lord appears hardly consistent with His greatness and dignity. It would seem to be scarcely in agreement with the magnitude, the power, and the opulence of the resources just displayed. To an eye, resting but upon the surface of the precept, it seems to shade the splendor and lessen the grandeur of the miracle- that, He who possessed the resources of infinity, and who had but just unlocked the treasury of His affluence, lavishing its wealth upon a needy multitude, should condescend to notice the broken fragments that remained, over and above the generous and ample meal He had provided, would seem to awaken feelings in the hearts of some, fatal to their conception of the true sublime. And yet no act of our Lord's whole life more became Him than this. He was now acting in perfect agreement with Himself and in strict harmony with a law which, as we have shown, presided over all His works and operations- the law of economy and frugality. Let us simply open up and apply this precept thus taught by our blessed Lord, and see how truly consonant it is with His Divine greatness and glory.
"Gather up the fragments that remain, that nothing be lost." We are taught that there is no thing too small, and no event too trivial for our Lord to notice. For instance, we learn from this injunction of Christ, His estimate of little grace. Can we doubt this? What! did Christ regard the broken fragments of human food as not beneath His notice and His care; and will He, do you think, look with indifference and disdain upon the smallest measure of grace, the feeblest budding of faith, the faintest spark of love in the soul of a beloved disciple? Never! This was not His way when He dwelt with men.
See Him crown the faith that touched but His fringe; see Him immortalize the love that anointed but His feet; see Him honor the grace that asked but the crumbs beneath the table; see Him respond to the cry of penitence in life's last, closing hour. O yes! the Spirit's work in the soul of a poor sinner is too Divine, costly, and precious- though it be ever so feeble- to be lost. Christ will not lose a fragment nor a crumb. Every act of faith shall crown Him; every breath of spiritual life shall honor Him; every pulse of love shall praise Him. In heaven the " fragments" shall be gathered, and all shall be preserved and garnered up forever; and all shall laud His name and augment His glory.
Cheer up, gracious soul! Have you nothing in your own estimation to bring to Jesus but "fragments?" nothing but a poor, sinful nature: a broken, contrite heart: a feeble, faltering faith; a faint, flickering love; a slow, halting footstep; a frail, imperfect service? here a little and there a little of your time, and talent, and substance? Cheer up! Jesus, your Lord and Master despises not the "day of small things;" but says to His ministers- "Gather up the fragments, that nothing be lost."
"They shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of My hands." The work of grace in your soul may be feeble, and you yourself a hidden child of God dwelling in the shade; nevertheless, it is the will of your Heavenly Father that not one of His little ones shall perish, and shall you be the first?
But let me illustrate this precept of Christ, by its bearing upon our individual selves. How practical and solemn its teaching! For example, we are taught to set a high value upon the fragments of our spiritual graces and gifts, that nothing be lost. The Apostle John seemed to have an eye to this when he thus solemnly and touchingly exhorted the saints, "Look to yourselves, that you lose not those things which you have wrought; but that we receive a full reward." The Apostles were alive to the danger of their own loss as ministers who had been instrumental of working this grace, as of those saints in whose hearts the grace had been wrought. The loss of one would be the loss of both.
John exhorts the elect lady and her children to whom his letter was especially addressed, to watch over themselves, lest they be carried away by the errors by which they were surrounded. This is the first duty of a Christian. Many a man has gone forth to combat with sin and error, not having first fortified and strengthened the citadel of his own heart; and presently he has been captured by the very foes he went forth to subdue. "Look to YOURSELVES!" says the Apostle. "Secure your own hearts; guard the citadel of your own soul first; see that the forts are well manned, and the avenues well patrolled, and the sentinels awake at their posts, before you sally out to confront the enemy in the field." By this personal and careful vigilance they would be protected from loss of grace, and holiness, and gift; and so their reward and his in heaven would be greater.
The greater grace here, the greater glory hereafter! Glory is grace in full-flower and bloom! As the seed, the kernel, the flower here, so will be its fulness and perfection in heaven. The bliss and reward of heaven will be graduated by our personal holiness and service for Christ on earth! We may lose a portion of that bliss and reward. Our throne may be less elevated, our crown less radiant, our song less full, our joy less perfect, we may not receive a "full reward,"- by wavering in our course, by tampering with sin; by being led away by the error of the wicked, by following Jesus afar off. O let us "look to ourselves; let us gather up the fragments of our grace and gifts that nothing be lost, but that the lowliest measure be made subservient to the glory of Christ, and that both we and Christ's ministers who brought us to Jesus, may "receive a full reward."
The same law of economy applies to the nobler part of our being- our mental powers. Our intellectual life is, for the most part, composed of fragments of thought- single thoughts, isolated and alone. To this we may trace almost all the great discoveries in science, inventions in physics, and reforms in morals. A man of one idea may be slighted by the unthinking and be ridiculed by the frivolous; but that one idea has blest the race with his genius, and filled the world with his renown. Such, for example, was the discovery of steam as a propelling power, and of the electric telegraph as a highway of thought and of international communication. Such, too, the great social reforms which have tended to purify and elevate society- the temperance reformation, so widely blest in emancipating the slave of strong drink, and making his home happy; the penny postage, drawing the heart of the nation into closer and more intelligent communion with itself. All these, and similar movements, had their birth in one idea: flashing, perhaps, upon the mind amid the busy hours of day, or stealing across it in the still hours of night.
What spiritual light, liberty, and joy, too, have often sprung from one thought, or from one text of God's Word, suggested to the believer by the Holy Spirit! That one thought! O what a new world has burst upon the mind: what a new sun has arisen upon the soul: what a new creation, bathed in glory and rich with a thousand sweets, has floated before the eye of God's child. What a fresh discovery of God's character, what a precious glimpse of the Savior's loveliness and love, it has poured in upon the believing soul who has gone on its way rejoicing.
Despise not, then, one idea. A single thought, yes, the mere fragment of a thought, who can tell what may lie hidden within its bosom! The fragment of a block of marble may be chiseled into a breathing statue; the fragment of a sheet of canvas may be pencilled into a speaking picture; the fragment of a lump of clay may be molded into a beautiful vase. Let us look to ourselves, then, that we allow no intellectual waste, no prodigality of mind; that, not a thought, or purpose, or resolve be lost, which by prayer and culture might have been made subservient to the good of man and the glory of God.
Has such a thought found an entrance within your heart? Allow it not to depart; cherish it, communicate it to others: above all, in prayer commit it to the Lord. Who can tell what may be its result? A tiny seed, a little bud now, it yet may germinate, expand, and branch forth as into a noble tree, whose fruit and foliage shall bless the world.
How much, too, may we economize our time? Time is priceless and precious. In one point of view, it is more important and solemn than eternity. Eternity is the creature of time: it is just what time makes it, happy or miserable, a blessing or a curse, draped with clouds of endless night, or gilded with beams of eternal day. One hour of time is of more value to a soul speeding to the judgment, unprepared to meet its dread sentence, than the ceaseless evolutions of eternity. There is no day of grace- no opportunity of conversion- no proclamation of salvation; in the eternal world. "Now is the accepted time, Now is the day of salvation."
Let us, then, "redeem the time," because "the time is short." Gathering up its unemployed hours, its spare moments; redeeming it from sleep, from frivolous calls, from vain recreation, how much work for God and service for man may be accomplished? Many a valuable volume has been compiled at the breakfast table- many a useful plan has been matured in a railway carriage- and many a work for Christ has been arranged while yet but few had brushed the dew of morning's slumber from their eyelids, which otherwise the absorbing calls of professional and public life had rendered impossible.
Human life is made up of a succession of trifles, and its great achievements of fleeting thought. We must not wait for great occasions in order to accomplish great things. "He who waits to do a great deal of good at once;" remarks Dr. Johnson, "will never do any." He who stands upon the river's bank until its tide shall turn or cease to flow, may stand until doomsday, and have done nothing. He must seize it at its height, throw himself upon its bosom, and let it bear him on to some great and noble end.
Grand occasions are rare, and yet more rare are the grand actions to which they give birth, men almost invariably proving themselves unequal to the occasion. But we need not travel far, nor wait long for suitable occasions to do good. Within our own homes, at our very doors, in each hour, the "sweet charities of life " may be fully employed. If these are allowed to pass unimproved, God will not entrust to our hands greater. "He, that is unfaithful in that which is least, is also unfaithful in much."
O it is marvellous how much useful service may be performed by a strict economy of time, and by embracing every small occasion for its employment! "In the morning sow your seed, and in the evening withhold not your hand." "Blessed are those who sow beside ALL waters." He who watches God's providence, whose daily inquiry is, "Lord, what will You have me to do?" shall not long be idle.
A Christian lady, on a recent occasion, one morning made it a subject of earnest prayer to the Lord to give her some work to do for Him. In the course of the same day she was waited upon with a request to take the important charge of a mother's class, which had just become vacant by the death of the lady who had conducted it with much success for years. Thus, in answer to prayer, the Lord will give to every one of His servants his work. Thus, then, let us gather up the broken fragments- the scattered crumbs of time, that nothing be lost. All are accountable to God for precious time! How solemn the account of wasted time! What is eternity, but time, divested of its probation, prolonged to endless ages, moments of time never ceasing! Up, then, and work for God! There is work for all. None need fold their hands in sloth. "Why do you stand here all the day idle?" Your talents may be humble, your sphere limited, yet how much you may do for God and for man!
The drops of rain and the rays of light
Are small themselves: but when all unite,
They water the world, and they make it bright.
Then do not say- "Of what use am I?"
We may each do good, if we will but try;
We may soothe some grief, or some need supply.
We can lend to the poor a helping hand;
We can cheer the sick, as we by them stand;
We can send God's Word to a heathen land.
We can speak to others in tones of love;
We can dwell in peace, like the gentle dove;
We can point the weary to rest above.
O how sweet to think that in life's young days
We may live to show forth our Savior's praise,
And may guide some feet into Wisdom's ways.
Thus, too, with our worldly possessions. There is to be no extravagance here. By a wise husbanding of our temporal resources, however limited, by a prudent frugality and judicious economy, how much may be rescued from needless expenditure and sinful waste, and be devoted to advance some benevolent and Christian object, useful to man and glorifying to God. Money, as we have in another chapter remarked, is a responsible and solemn talent. The fragments must be gathered up that nothing be lost. With many of the Lord's people, Christian beneficence can only be exercised by a strict economy of their resources. By a little self-denial here, and by a little frugality there- gathering up the fragments over and above necessary demands, they are enabled materially to aid the cause of God and of truth in the world.
We are but stewards of property, and must not waste our Master's goods. It was a pious and noble resolution of a Christian physician, "I am resolved, with God's help, from whom all good thoughts and pious actions proceed, to whose grace we are indebted for any good we are enabled to do, to devote all fees earned and received on Sunday, and the tenth of all money received on week-days, for the promoting of the cause of Christ, and for the spiritual and temporal welfare of my fellow creatures." This is true Christian beneficence: a beneficence not the result of a fitful and momentary impulse, but springing from Christian principle, from the love of God in the heart- the fruit of a steady and fixed purpose. "Seek not proud riches," says Bacon "but such as you may get justly, use soberly, distribute cheerfully, and leave contentedly;" and to this we may add, such as a judicious economy may frugally save, and a Christian benevolence may usefully scatter.
In conclusion: do not undervalue, nor overlook the trifles of life. As there is not a sunbeam that glows, nor an insect that sports in its warmth; not a breath of air nor an atom of matter borne upon its wing, that has not its appointed mission, and that accomplishes not a useful end; so there is nothing, however trivial or trifling in our individual life, that may not be subservient to some noble and useful purpose. There is meaning in the words of the poet:
Think nothing a trifle, though it small appear
Sands make the mountains, moments make the year,
And trifles life: your care to trifles give,
Or you may die before you learn to live."

See that there is no waste in your life. Have you an excess of prosperity? -feed the hungry, clothe the naked, help the orphan, and make the widow's heart to sing for joy. Have you an excess of happiness? -let its overflowings distill into the cup of some child of woe, who, perchance, has none. Have you leisure time? -devote it to help forward some useful enterprise, the wheels of which, perhaps, are standing still for the lack of a voluntary hand. Gather up the fragments, from whatever source they spring, that even these may advance the fame of Jesus, the glory of God, and the well-being of man.
Once more, we remind you, that in God's economy of the universe, nothing is lost. Nor shall it be in our individual history. If our intellectual faculties are misemployed- if our influence is abused- if our time is wasted, if our possessions are squandered- if our one talent is buried in the earth- if, in a word, we are living to ourselves, and not unto God- not even these things shall be lost!
They have gone forth upon a solemn mission to be executed in the great day of account. Then will they appear as witnesses against us, when each one of us shall give account of himself to God. Not lost! O no! Failing to aid the cause of mercy, they will advance the purpose of judgment; laying up for us no treasure in heaven, they will pave our descent into the shades of despair, where God will by no means clear the guilty. No,
Nothing is lost! The drop of dew
Which trembles on the leaf or flower
Is but exhaled, to fall anew
In summer's thunder shower;
Perchance to shine within the bow
That fronts the sun at fall of day,
Perchance to sparkle in the flow
Of fountains far away.
Nothing is lost! The tiniest seed
By wild birds borne, or breezes blown,
Finds something suited to its need,
Wherein it is sown and grown.
The language of some household song,
The perfume of some cherished flower,
Though gone from outward sense, belong
To memory's after hour.
So with our words; or harsh or kind,
Uttered, they are not all forgot;
They leave their influence on the mind,
Pass on, but perish not!
So with our deeds; for good or ill
They have their power scarce understood;
Then let us use our better will
To make them rife with good!

The Punishment of the Wicked

"What will you say when He shall punish you?"
Jeremiah 13:21

As we pass through life many sad and solemn scenes meet our eye- the natural result of the fall and the bitter fruit of sin. But, perhaps, no spectacle is invested with a solemnity so appalling as that of a criminal at the bar of justice, awaiting the judgment of the court, to whom the Judge, wearing the awful symbol of condemnation, addresses the terrible question, "Prisoner at the bar, what have you to say why the sentence of death should not be passed upon you?" Awfully impressive as is this scene, it is but the faint shadow of a spectacle infinitely more appalling which awaits this fallen world- the final and eternal condemnation of the wicked.
That such an event is reasonable the light of nature teaches, and that it is certain, the Book of Revelation declares. Reason would teach us that, living under a moral government- a government of rewards and punishments, if we do well, it is accepted of God, and that if we do not do well, sin lies at the door and is righteously punished. Thus by the dim light of nature we may learn that, that must be an unholy government which would allow sin to pass unpunished, and that, that must be an unjust government that would allow good to go unrewarded.
But, in proof of a judgment to come we have stronger evidence than that of reason. Divine revelation comes to our aid, and affirms emphatically and solemnly that, "We must all appear before the Judgment Seat of Christ, that every man may receive the things done in the body, according to what he has done, whether it be good or bad." That, "God has appointed a day in which He will Judge the world in righteousness." That, "the Lord comes with ten thousand of His holy ones to execute Judgment upon all, and to convince all who are ungodly of all their unrighteous deeds which they have ungodly committed, and of all their hard speeches which ungodly sinners have spoken against Him."
Such are some of the Scripture declarations concerning this momentous subject. It is to one particular view our present reading will be restricted- namely, the final, awful, and everlasting punishment of the ungodly. If we saw a friend, arraigned in a criminal court of justice about to be tried for his life, we would naturally and anxiously inquire, "Are you well prepared with your defense? Have you carefully weighed every jot of the evidence, and thoroughly examined the nature of the plea you purpose to adduce?" To the sinner speeding to the judgment seat of Christ we address a similar but an infinitely more momentous inquiry, "Are you prepared for your trial? With what plea are you provided in arrest of judgment? What have you to say why the sentence of eternal death should not be pronounced upon you? Have you any excuse for your sins, any palliation of your crimes, any reason for your rejection of His Son, which the Judge will accept? What will you say when He shall punish you?- what plea, what excuse, what extenuation will you allege when the Judge shall proceed to pronounce the awful sentence of eternal doom?" Such is the solemn, awakening subject, which now asks your serious and prayerful attention. May the Holy Spirit aid and bless our meditation.
First, with regard to the CERTAINTY of the punishment of the wicked. No truth is more clearly revealed in the Bible than that it is God's solemn purpose to punish the ungodly. It must, from the very necessity of the case, be so. God is holy, and if just to Himself He must, from the holiness of His nature, punish sin. Were the ungodly, the impenitent and the unbelieving to go unpunished, what a lowering of His moral government, and what an indelible dishonor to Himself would present itself to the eyes of all the holy beings in heaven. Sin can never go unpunished. God's holiness, and justice, and truth must be vindicated, either in the person of the sinner or in the person of a substitute.
A few declarations from God's Word will be sufficient to set this momentous question at rest. That of our text is decisive- "He shall PUNISH you." "He will by no means clear the guilty." "The Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with His mighty angels, in flaming fire, taking vengeance on those who do not know God, and do not obey the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ: they shall be PUNISHED with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of His power." "The Lord knows how to deliver the godly out of temptations, and to reserve the unjust unto the day of judgment to be PUNISHED." "How can you escape the damnation of hell?" "Who has warned you to flee from the wrath to come? " "How shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation?"
What need we further evidence of the awful truth that, God will most surely punish the wicked? The Bible is replete with awful examples confirmatory of the fact. The destruction of the antediluvian world by water, of the Cities of the Plain by fire, of Jerusalem by the invasion of Titus, and countless other examples testify to His hatred of sin and of His inexorable justice in punishing it.
And, were it possible to unveil the bottomless pit, and for a moment penetrate the "mist of darkness" that enshrouds the damned, with what startling and convincing force would the terrible fact flash upon every skeptical mind, hitherto wont to regard hell as a myth and to make sport of its quenchless fire! Nothing, my unconverted reader, has kept you from increasing the countless witnesses to the truth that, God will by no means clear the guilty, but His infinite patience. "The patience of God is salvation."
It has been thus far your salvation from immediate destruction, into which at any moment of its suspension, and at any hour of your being, you may inevitably and irremediably be plunged. There is no lack of power on the part of God to do this. More easily than you can crush a worm, or snap a thread, can God cast you into hell. He but "looks upon the earth and it trembles," and, "at His rebuke the rocks are thrown down!" It is no security against this awful infliction of God's power that there are no visible means of death at hand, no apparent prospect of immediate destruction. They are at hand, however unseen by you.
When you go forth in the morning in an unrenewed state, your whole path throughout the day is on the very brink of an eternity of woe, and along the very mouth of the bottomless pit. The bow of death is bent, and the arrow, pointing at your heart, is upon the string, waiting but God's word to bid it fly. There is no necessity that God should suspend a single law of nature in order to remove you from the world. He has but to unveil His power, to withdraw His restraints, and the slightest hair, an atom of matter, a simple vapor, a drop of blood, could send your soul into eternity.
Over the abyss of hell God holds you in His hand, as you would hold a deadly scorpion over burning coals, ready to let it fall. What are you in His sight, viewed as in your sins and guilt and rebellion, but as a loathsome thing, more repulsive and hateful to Him than to you is the most venomous serpent that drags its slimy form across your path.
No, more, you are under present condemnation. "He that believes not is condemned already." The sentence is not yet executed, the law has not yet taken effect; but like a criminal condemned to die, you only wait the solemn knell that announces the awful moment has arrived. Again I remind you that nothing but the good pleasure of God that keeps you any moment out of hell. No robustness of health, no watchful guards posted along the avenues of life, no adroit evasion of the pestilence, no running from danger, no preservatives against, or palliatives of, disease, no remedy or skill, can prevail when God ceases His patience and withdraws His power.
Then will He "laugh at your calamity and mock when your fear comes." "I will tread them in My anger and trample them in My fury; and their blood shall be sprinkled upon My garments, and I will stain all My clothing." O solemn thought, that the Omnipotence of God will so crush out the blood of ungodly men, that it shall sprinkle and stain His very garments! Can any image convey to us a more appalling idea of the destruction of the wicked? "What if God, willing to show His wrath and to make His power known, endured with much patience the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction?" What if that patience should in a moment cease?- that moment you are in hell!
All the ministers of grace on earth, and all the angels of God in heaven, could not help you when the pit opens its mouth to swallow you up. Presume not, then, upon the patience of God. Persist not in sin and rebellion. "Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil." God grant that this may not be your presumption and your end!
The punishment of the wicked will be TERRIBLE in the extreme. The imagination of man cannot conceive any calamity so appalling as the final condition of a lost soul. The Italian poet Dante, with his intensely vivid imagination and marvellous powers of description, has drawn an appalling picture of hell; but no picture is so appalling, and none so true, as that presented to us in the Word of God. What are some of the expressions and images employed by the sacred penmen, to delineate the place and condition of the lost?
Listen to them attentively, my reader, ponder them thoughtfully, and pray over them earnestly- it is for your life! The hell of the wicked is described as–
"the outpouring of God's wrath"
"the lake of fire"
"fire and brimstone"
"the "bottomless pit"
"the worm that dies not, and as the fire that shall never be quenched"
"damnation"
"the perdition of ungodly men"
"torment"
"an impassable gulf"
"outer darkness "
"the gnashing of teeth"
"destruction from the presence of the Lord"
"the winepress of the wrath of Almighty God "
"the smoke of their torment ascending up forever and ever."
Surely we need not multiply these appalling expressions, so vividly and truly descriptive of the terrible condition of sinners falling into the hands of a holy, just, and angry Lord God. Will not this suffice to arouse, alarm, and induce you to pause and reflect upon what may be, upon what must be, the final end of your present course of sin and rebellion against God- of the rejection of Christ, and of the self-destruction of your own soul. Dying unconverted, dying with the weapons of hostility against God in your hands- terrible witnesses to your treason and your crime!- how can you escape the damnation of hell?
The punishment of the wicked, thus terrible, will yet be most RIGHTEOUS. No truth will flash upon the condemned mind with more overwhelming force in the last great day than this- the perfect righteousness of God in the condemnation of the ungodly. Sinners will read in the lurid light of the quenchless flames of hell, as they never read before, the strict JUSTICE of their doom. In their eyes, God's throne, though awful, will appear guiltless; His justice, though severe, most just; and the sentence, though more terrible than thought can conceive, or language describe, based upon the principles of the divinest equity.
O sinner, you neglecter of the great salvation, you despiser and rejecter of Jesus, you slave of Satan, you servant of sin, you Sabbath-breaker, you profane, you unclean, you who makes and loves lying, how will these sins then rise before you in all their measureless magnitude, indescribable blackness, and ineffaceable guilt! You will then remember- for no faculty of the mind will be in such awful force as memory- you will then remember the glorious Gospel that you heard but to turn from it; the faithful sermons but to reject them; the life-boat of salvation that floated to your aid but to reject it; the convictions you had but to stifle them; the hand of God outstretched to you but to spurn it; the loving, beseeching Savior inviting you but to disbelieve, despise, and reject Him!
Then will you see that you preferred sin to holiness, Satan to God, yourself to Christ, hell to heaven, eternal woe to eternal happiness! Will not your condemnation, then, be strictly just? In giving you what you asked, in granting you what you preferred, in assigning to you a doom you yourself intelligently, deliberately, solemnly chose, will you not be most equitably judged, and most righteously condemned? Most assuredly! Every lost soul shall acknowledge that he himself, and not God, was the author of his ruin- "I am here," he will exclaim, "in this insufferable agony, in this interminable torment, in this quenchless fire, because I chose it. I am a moral suicide. I loved my sin, and served Satan, and followed the world; made a covenant with death, and an agreement with hell, and I now receive the due reward of my choice. The wages of sin is death: I faithfully earned my wages, and the just payment thereof is mine. You are righteous, O Lord, in that You have judged thus." This conducts to another and a yet more solemn thought.
The punishment of the ungodly will be ETERNAL. That there should be those who deny this truth is no marvel. Satan has left no art unemployed, and no effort untried, to lessen in the eyes of sinners the terribleness of their appalling doom. One of his most ingenious and successful devices is, the denial of the eternity of future punishment. If he can succeed in palming upon his victims the fiction that hell is a myth; or, if this idea is too monstrous to believe, that it is, at the least, but a place of temporary purification, washed in whose flames, and purified by whose sufferings, the soul is fitted to enter Paradise, he has done much to lessen the apprehension of its terrors, and to reconcile the sinner to the thought of his dread doom. Hence the popular notion of a brief purgatorial state of punishment, so welcome to the depraved nature, the sin-loving heart of man.
But no sophistry of Satan, and no ingenuity of error, and no self-deception of the human heart touches the revealed doctrine that the future punishment of the wicked is endless. In vindication of this all-momentous and all-solemn subject, human reason shall be silent. Let God's Word alone speak. His voice only shall be heard. And even here we are compelled to place a limit. A few Scripture proofs only must suffice. To the law and to the testimony let us refer a doctrine, involving interests outweighing the worth of ten thousand worlds like this. Listen devoutly and believingly to the following declarations-
"The Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with His mighty angels, in flaming fire taking vengeance on those who know not God, and that obey not the Gospel; who shall be punished with EVERLASTING DESTRUCTION from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of His power." "And many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake; some to EVERLASTING life, and some to shame and EVERLASTING CONTEMPT." "Depart from Me, you cursed, into EVERLASTING FIRE, prepared for the devil and his angels." "And these shall go away into EVERLASTING PUNISHMENT, but the righteous into ETERNAL life ." "If your hand offend you cut it off, it is better for you to enter into life maimed, than having two hands to go into hell, into the fire that NEVER shall be quenched; where their worm DIES NOT, and the fire is NOT QUENCHED." "To whom the mist of darkness is reserved FOREVER." "And her smoke rose up FOREVER AND EVER." Let these awful statements suffice to prove the scripturalness of the doctrine, of the endlessness, the eternity of future punishment.
O! what imagination can conceive the terribleness of never-ending woe! How dreadful and indescribable the anguish of one moment's endurance of hell fire! Imagine then, if it be possible, what interminable ages must be millions and millions of years rolling round, and yet millions and millions more to roll, and still no nearer the end of suffering than when it first began! O who can adequately portray the state of the soul in such a woe as this?
And yet see how sinners risk eternal happiness, and court everlasting torment, and rush into quenchless flames, for the carnal, sensual, worldly enjoyment of a moment! Listen, O listen, to the searching, solemn question of our Lord: "What will it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul?" The loss of the soul! What can compensate for such a catastrophe? What make up for such a loss? Not present wealth- nor fame- nor pleasure- nor anything that earth can give, when once the soul is cast away forever! O whatever else you lose, do not lose your precious, priceless, immortal soul. Once lost, it is lost FOREVER!
"Lord, shall we part with gold for dross,
With solid good for show!
Outlive our bliss, and mourn our loss
In everlasting woe!
"Let us not lose the living God
For one short dream of joy,
With fond embrace cling to a clod
And fling all heaven away.
"Vain world, your weak attempts forbear,
We all your charms defy,
And rate our precious souls too dear
For all your wealth to buy."
But God propounds a personal, searching, and solemn question: "What will you say when He shall punish you?" In other words, "What, sinner, will be your excuse, what your line of defense, what your plea in arrest of judgment when God shall arise to punish?" What should we think of the wisdom of a man about to stand in a court of justice to meet a charge imperiling his most precious interests, who had bestowed no reflection whatever upon his line of defense? Or, yet more, what would be our opinion of the sanity of a criminal arraigned upon a capital charge, whose proposed proofs of innocence and pleas of defense should be of the most senseless and childish, even of a most treasonable and criminating nature? But such will certainly and inevitably be the position of every unconverted sinner cited to appear at Christ's tribunal in judgment.
What then will you say? You will not, as a rational being, with your mental faculties unimpaired, and your consciousness of right and wrong unclouded, be able to plead exemption from punishment on the ground of irresponsibility. Nor can you plead that you possessed no Bible -had not been favored with a preached Gospel- had not heard of Christ- had not been warned by providence, nor admonished by conscience, nor moved by conviction, nor stirred by the Spirit. You cannot offer the plea that you had no time to seek salvation; that your incitements to sin were irresistible, your evil passions irrepressible, your position in life surrounded by influences with which you had no power to combat. None of these pleas- even if you had the brazenness to present them- would avail to arrest the stern and terrible arm of Divine law and justice.
What then will you say when He shall punish you? Alas! like the intruder at the marriage feast, not having on a wedding garment, to this solemn, heart-searching appeal you will be "speechless." You have now your ready excuses, your plausible arguments, your ingenious pleas why you should not be a Christian. You can start objections, and indulge in cavils, and postpone to a more convenient season the great work of conversion, the duty of repentance and faith, but what will you do in the solemn day? What will you answer Him when God shall punish you? Will you dispute His authority, defy His power, or flee from His presence? This you cannot do. All beings will then bend to Him the knee, and all nations will be prostrate at His feet.
Escape from Him you cannot. No rocks, or mountains, or hills move at your call, to veil you from His eye, or shield you from His wrath. Speechless and self-condemned, bound hand and foot, you are led away, and "cast into outer darkness, where there is weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth." Inquire, in the language of Job- "What then shall I do when God rises up? And when He visits, what shall I answer Him?"
But must this be your terrible and inevitable doom? Listen to the touching message of God: "As I live, says the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked; but that the wicked turn from his way and live- turn, turn from your evil ways; for why will you die!" "Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the Lord, and He will have mercy upon Him; and to our God, for He will abundantly pardon."
In proof of this, God has provided an expedient most glorifying to Himself and suitable to us, by which the greatest sinner, repenting of his sins and believing in Christ, may be saved. It is revealed in those wondrous words: "God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life." Accept, in penitence and faith and gratitude, this marvellous message of love; abandon your excuses; cast away your weapons of rebellion against God; turn from your evil ways; look to the Cross; accept the Savior; believe and be saved!
God now commands you to repent, and Christ now invites you to believe. Why, then, should you perish? Is there no balm in Gilead, and no Physician there? Is there no life-boat that will rescue you from the yawning abyss, no plank that will float you safely to the shore? Oh yes! There is a Physician- it is Jesus. There is balm- it is His precious, sin-atoning blood. There is a plank that will snatch you from death- it is the Cross of Calvary. There is a life-boat that will bear you through the surging billows in safety to the shore of Heaven- it is the Savior who, upon the Cross, died for the chief of sinners, and of whom it is recorded that, "He is able to save to the uttermost those who come unto God by Him." Why then will you, why should you die?
Believer in Jesus! that day of wrath, that scene of punishment will have no woe nor terror for you. The day that will "rain upon the wicked snares, and fire, and brimstone, and an horrible tempest," will be to you a day of salvation, of glory, and of triumph. You will be found in Christ, robed with His righteousness, and washed from every stain in His blood.
Your present faint love will then be found true love; your weak faith, real faith; your trembling hope, firm as the throne. Christ has engaged in covenant to bring home all that the Father gave to Him. There will not be one stray sheep from His fold, not one missing jewel from His cabinet, not a soul lost for whom he shed His atoning blood. All will be there when He comes in majesty, glory, and power to receive and to present His Bride to His Father.
Oh, what a day of glory, of bliss, of triumph will that day be to you! From myriads of voices- and your's will swell the harmony- the anthem of salvation, the shout of joy will ascend and roll through the mansions of heaven: "Lo, this is our God, we have waited for Him, and He will save us! this is the Lord, we have waited for Him; we will be glad and rejoice in Him."
The very elements which will be employed in the everlasting destruction of the wicked, will be the very elements which will unite in the everlasting salvation of the righteous. The waters which drowned the antediluvian sinners, bore Noah and his family in safety to the shore. What proved a grave to the one, proved as an ark to the others. Terrible as the last day will be to the ungodly, it will be a day of consummate glory to the saints. In the person and face of the Judge you will recognize the form and countenance of the Savior. The eye that will flash indignation and vengeance upon His enemies, will beam love and kindness and welcome upon His friends. The voice, louder and more piercing than ten thousand thunders; which will say to them "DEPART!" -sweeter and more melodious than the united harps of angels, will say to you "come!"
The Lord grant that we may find mercy of Him in that day. "Who among us shall dwell with the devouring fire? who among its shall dwell in everlasting burnings?" Not one who has fled as a poor, lost sinner to the Cross, and has hid in the wounded side of the Savior. Covered within a cleft of this Rock, he shall be safe in the great, the terrible Day of the Lord.
Reader! are you there? then, go forth and live and labor, and if need be, suffer and die for Christ! If not there, give no sleep to your eyes, or slumber to your eyelids, until you know that you are! "Agree with your adversary quickly, while you are in the way with him; lest at any time the adversary deliver you to the judge, and the judge deliver you to the officer, and you be cast into prison. Verily I say unto you, You shall by no means come out of there, until you bast paid the uttermost farthing."

"How will your heart endure
The terrors of that day,
When earth and Heaven before His face
Astonished, shrink away?
"But before the trumpet shakes
The dwellings of the dead,
Hark! from the Gospel's gentle voice
What joyful tidings spread.
"You sinners seek His grace,
Whose wrath you cannot bear;
Fly to the shelter of the Cross
And find salvation there."

The New Song of Heaven

"And they sang as it were a new song before the throne." Revelation 14:3

This passage opens to us a door in Heaven, through which, as it were, its music steals. The service of heaven is preeminently the service of song. Music celebrated the beginning of this creation, and music will celebrate its close. When the new-born creature first entered the paradise of earth, the morning stars sang together for joy. When the renewed soul enters the paradise of heaven, all the minstrels of glory strike their golden harps, and music welcomes home their sister-spirit. The chief occupation, then, of heaven will, doubtless, be PRAISE. And can we imagine a more appropriate employment? -a more natural and befitting expression of the new-born feelings of the glorified?
Prayer- now so needful and precious- would then seem unnatural and out of place; and praise now so faint and faltering- will then be but the spontaneous, full, and universal outburst of every happy spirit. In the absence of all evil and in the presence of all good, there can be no lack of material for music in heaven. And when the saved sinner, once so vile and lost, when the renewed believer, once so filled with doubt and trembling, finds himself safe in heaven at last, oh will its walls, its arches, and its dome ever cease to ring and reverberate with his hallelujahs, thanksgiving, and praise?
Think also, above and beyond all, when the eye rests upon JESUS, when the glorified form of the exalted Redeemer occupying the central throne, robed in majesty, first bursts upon the view- when the panting spirit folds its weary wing within His blessed embrace, and meets the loving welcome of His eye, will anything but praise- praise waking every faculty, employing every thought, inspiring every affection- occupy the mind and engage forever the heart of the countless throng circling the throne of the Lamb?
The vision now unveiling to our eye is a magnificent one. John looked, and behold! a Lamb stood on the Mount Zion, surrounded by a great multitude of the redeemed, upon whose forehead His Father's name was written. And he heard music. It was the voice of harpers harping with their harps. "And they sang as it were a new song before the throne." To this New Song of the redeemed let us now bend a listening ear.
If we are Christ's, if we love Him, are following and serving Him, then this New Song has a profound and entrancing interest for us. We, too, shall one day possess a harp, and shall wake it to the swelling music of the New Song of Heaven. For this the Lord is now preparing us, as we shall presently more fully show. Every grace imparted and every sin subdued, every assault finished, and every temptation overcome- tested by trial, purified by affliction, chastened by sorrow, taught by adversity, God is training us to sing the song of heaven.
All the manifestations of Christ to our souls, all that we now see of His glory, taste of His love, experience of His grace, and learn of His truth, forms part of our education on earth for the choir of heaven. Through suffering our God is training us for song; by sorrow and tears and groans He is fitting us for the sweet, entrancing, never-ending music of the skies. Learning thus to sing the New Song upon earth- in what higher sense will it be new, when we arrive in heaven? To this question let us briefly turn our attention.
In the first place, those who sing it will be, in the most enlarged sense, new creatures. Renewed in part now by the Holy Spirit, this spiritual renewal admits of a more comprehensive meaning in heaven. Heaven is occupied by beings once our fellow travelers and companions in tribulation, and like us born again of the Spirit. But the work of grace, carried to the highest state of culture earth would admit, is now complete when we get to heaven. The Divine image is perfect- the spiritual kingdom is finished- the bud has beauteously flowered- the blossom is set in golden fruit- the outline of the picture is filled up- the embryo saint has become a glorified spirit; and now the New Song ascends from hearts perfected in holiness, and breaths from the lips of choristers "without fault before the throne."
O what then must be the deep melody of that song! With what new emphasis must they sing it in the happy consciousness of perfect holiness, of entire freedom from all the taint, and guilt, and power of sin! Every present victory over the promptings to sin wakes a new song from the lips. But what will be the music of the soul, what the newness and melody of the song, when the last fetter of corruption is broken, and the spirit is entirely and forever free!
My dear reader, permit me earnestly to enforce the absolute necessity of your being "born again," of your becoming a "new creature in Christ Jesus," before you can join in the New Song of Heaven. It will be a new song sung only by a new creature. What share in this anthem could a heart take, if it were still the seat of all sin? What sympathy with its music could a mind feel, if it were still armed in all its powers with enmity and hatred against God? None whatever! We must be spiritually changed, must be divinely regenerated, must be born of the Spirit, before we can be admitted to participate in the New Song of Heaven.
The Lord Jesus shadowed forth this essential truth, when He reminded us that, "the new wine must be put into new bottles." The new song of the Lamb- the inspiration of perfect love, of complete holiness, of consummate bliss, and of endless glory- can only breathe from a soul all whose powers and affections Divine, grace has made new. There must be spiritual harmony between the minstrel and the song, a moral fitness of the instrument and the music.
Again, the song of heaven will be "new" because it will be sung in a new world. Heaven is a place, not a state- a locality, and not a condition of the redeemed soul. "I go," said the Lord, "to prepare a PLACE for you." We know not in what part of boundless space this new and glorious world is; for the revelations which we possess of heaven are but partial and dim, -but of this we are assured, that heaven is where Christ is, and wherever Christ is that will be heaven to the Christ-loving believer, and where He is not will be hell.
Now the glorified are in a new place. They have fled from this fallen planet, have escaped from this sinful earth, and have entered upon a new existence, in a new world. Blessed thought! they are away from all the sins and evils, the privations and sufferings of this time-state. The lone-path is no more bedewed with their tears; the solitude of the mountain no longer echoes with their groans; the mind is no more affected by sin, misery, and care; the heart is no more shaded by sorrow- they are in heaven, the inhabitants of a new world, the occupants of a new home, the companions of new associates, engaged in new employments- and all this essentially contributes to the freshness and sweetness of their new-born song.
The circumstances are new in which the glorified sing this new song. In heaven how changed is all that appertains to the believer! Behold all things have become new! It would seem at first sight as if it would be impossible to recognize our own selves. We shall probably find it difficult to imagine that we were the sinful, the vile, the frail and infirm beings that we once were. Then we possessed such unamiable dispositions, such selfish natures, such low-born minds, such corrupt and sinful hearts. But O how changed do we find ourselves now! All is new- all is ennobled thought, perfect love, untainted joy, unmingled bliss. Nothing remains to recall our identity, but the grace that called, sanctified, kept, and at last brought us home to God- the divine image and superscription of the soul is now visible, resplendent and indelible. We marvel not that the song which celebrates this new creation, this spiritual renovation of the soul, should never cease to be the "new song sung before the throne."
The materials which compose this song will be ever new. It will open with Redemption- it will begin with Christ. Jesus the Savior will be its grand theme, its endless subject. Myriads of ages will revolve upon their golden hinges, and still the song will be of Jesus and His love, as new, as melodious, and as wondrous as when its first notes broke in trembling ecstasies from the lips of the glorified. And as His person unveils new beauties, and His love new depths, and His grace new wonders, and His atoning sufferings and death, new and still surpassing glories- the stupendous redemption of man thus dilating in magnitude and heightening in grandeur- the song will grow in the richness of its tone, in the sweetness of its music, and in the majesty of its meaning- ever and forever, the new song sung by redeemed minstrels before the throne of God and the Lamb!
The perpetually recurring memories of the past will contribute to the endless music of this song. The opening mysteries of Providence, blending with the unveiling prodigies of grace, will be ever supplying fresh material for wonder, gratitude, and praise. As each volume is unsealed, and as each chapter is read, and as each sentence is studied, and as each line is scanned, and as each word is spelled in the marvellous history of all the way the Lord our God skillfully and tenderly and safely brought us through the wilderness, across the desert, and over the flood, another and a higher chord will be added to the music of this anthem, making it ever new.
"Above the rest this note will swell,
Our Jesus has done all things well."
The enlarged and ever enlarging capacity of the soul will contribute essentially to the development of this song. With new powers of song there will be new strains of melody. With the continued expansion of the spirit will come increased capacity of thought and feeling; and with each accession of intelligence and love will come fresh material for praise; and thus, as the mind expands in its knowledge of God's character, as the heart grows larger with the love of Christ, and the soul gets deeper views of that free and sovereign grace which chose it to eternal life, the new and heavenly song will wax louder and louder, and ascend higher and higher, and grow sweeter and sweeter, rolling its rich majestic strains along the high, arched roof of heaven.
The study will be interminable. Never shall we come to the end of Christ's love and grace, or of God's wisdom and power and glory in our salvation. Never shall we exhaust our gratitude, nor reach the last throb of love to the Savior for having, by the sacrifice of Himself, and by His free and sovereign grace, brought us there; and thus new, increasingly new, ever new, will be the song that will wake the undying symphonies of eternity.
But an important truth is suggested to us here. This song is learned, and learned on earth, and learned only by the redeemed. There is a remarkable passage bearing on this truth, recorded in the fourteenth chapter of the Revelation and third verse. It is this; "No man could LEARN that song but the hundred and forty and four thousand, who were redeemed from the earth." The saints of God are trained for heaven. Earth is the school of our graces. "No man could learn that song."
The new song is a learned, an acquired song. It is not learned by intuition, nor acquired by ear, nor taught by man- but in the school of God; and oftimes by a discipline the nature of which would seem to unbelief and sense the most unlikely to promote and mature the soul's fitness for the choir of heaven. But to be able to sing it, it must be learned. The great masters of human art, although "born with music in their souls," reached not their matchless attainments, and gave not birth to those almost divine compositions which will perpetuate their genius and their fame to the remotest age of the world, but by the most diligent and unwearied study.
How much more must the heavenly minstrels be instructed in the music which is to employ their tongues in ever growing melody through eternity! We must be trained for heaven. It is a holy place, it is the dwelling of the Lord- it is the high throne of the Holy One. We must be constituted for its holiness by becoming holy. Nothing can live in its pure atmosphere but a nature made pure. No heart can sympathize with its atmosphere of love, but a Christ-loving heart. None can hold fellowship with God in heaven but those who have walked in communion with God on earth. None can unite in the song of the Lamb but those who have learned its first notes beneath the Cross of Calvary.
Again, the choristers of heaven are represented as "redeemed." O yes! redemption is the condition, the right, the title to their place in the celestial choir. They are there because Christ has ransomed and saved them by His most glorious sacrifice. They have been cleansed from the guilt, emancipated from the despotism, and released from the condemnation of sin, by the atonement of the Son of God. Atoning blood has brought them there- the blood of the Incarnate God. See how glorious this truth appears, bathed in the light of the throne! "These are those who came out of great tribulation, and have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb; therefore are they before the throne of God."
Listen to their music! "And they sang a NEW SONG, saying, You are worthy to take the book, and to open the seals thereof: for You were SLAIN, and have REDEEMED us to God by YOUR BLOOD out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation, and have made us unto our God kings and priests." Are we thus prepared to join in the New Song of Heaven? Have we come as sinners to Jesus? have we accepted in faith the Savior? have we washed in His blood? do we believingly and wholly rely upon His one and finished Sacrifice? and are we growing in holiness, and thus training for the New Song of Heaven?
One more view of this subject yet remains. It is on earth this song is learned. "We were redeemed FROM THE EARTH." It was on earth the grand redemption of the Church was made. This world, fallen, sinful, dark as it is, surpasses in wonder all other material worlds, since it constitutes the redemptive scene of the Church. It was here the Cross was planted- here the Savior died- here the Church was ransomed- and it is here the Spirit is training God's children for their Father's home. And O in what a school! and by how varied a discipline! There is nothing in our individual history, nothing in our Father's dealings- not a joy nor a sorrow, not a sunbeam nor a cloud-mist, which forms not an element in our preparation for the new song of glory.
Earth is training us for heaven! Its discipline of trial and of sorrow, of temptation and of care, is to make us "fit to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light." In the night watches God gives us songs, and those songs are stray notes from heaven, which here in the house of our pilgrimage we learn to sing, until we rise to the full anthem of glory. Taught to say, "Your Will Be Done," is the highest preparation on earth for the celestial harmonies of the blest; it is to prepare us to take our place in the white-robed choir around the throne, to sing as sweetly, as loudly, and as eternally as they- "Blessing, and honor, and glory, and power, be unto Him who sits upon the throne, and unto the Lamb forever and ever."
Truly does our light and momentary affliction work for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory. If this, O Lord, be the end of all Your dispensations, this the blest result of Your wise, holy, and loving correction, then do with me as seems good in Your sight. Try me, chasten me, refine me, as You will, if through the hallowed discipline of earth I am but learning to sing the new, the endless, song of heaven- "Worthy the Lamb That Was Slain to Receive Power, and Riches, and Wisdom, and Strength, and Honor, and Glory, and Blessing."

"Jesus, the Lord, their harps employs!
Jesus, my love, they sing!
Jesus, the life of both our joys,
Sounds sweet from every string.
Now let me rise and join their song,
And be an, angel too
My heart, my ear, my hand, my tongue,
Here's joyful work for you.
I would begin the music here,
And so my soul should rise;
O for some heavenly notes,
to bear My passions to the skies!

The Church of God a Garden

"Awake, O north wind; and come, south wind; blow upon my garden, that the spices thereof may flow out." Song of Solomon 4:16.

The fact cannot fail to have impressed the mind of the most cursory reader of the Bible, to how great an extent the emblematic character of its teaching prevails. The kingdom of nature, rich and exhaustless in its mine of imagery, is made to illustrate, in some of its most important truths, the higher kingdom of grace, while both do homage to their one Creator and Lord. Thus does the Holy Spirit, in condescension to our finite and fallen minds, naturalize, as it were, things that are spiritual, and humanize, as it were, things that are Divine. The great central fact of the Gospel, around which all other doctrines cluster- the Incarnation of the Son of God- supplies the most sublime and most impressive evidence and illustration of this truth.
The Bible is replete with imagery drawn from landscape scenery, designed to set forth spiritual truth. Our present subject supplies us with an eminent example of this. The Church of God is presented to us in the text under the similitude of a Garden, upon whose sacred plants a two-fold life-giving and fertilizing influence is invoked. "Awake, O north wind; and come, you south; blow upon my garden, that the spices thereof may flow out."
There are other instances in which similar imagery is used descriptive of the same truth. Speaking of the Church, the Prophet says: "I will sing to my well beloved a song of my beloved touching his vineyard. My well beloved has a vineyard in a very fruitful hill. The vineyard of the Lord of Hosts is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah His pleasant plant." Again, "In that day sing you unto her, a vineyard of red wine. I the Lord do keep it; I will water it every moment: lest any hurt it, I will keep it night and day." And employing a corresponding image the Apostle addressing the saints reminds them, "You are God's husbandry." Thus the Church of God, composed of the one election of grace, is set forth under the similitude of a Garden.
The passage we are about to expound is rich and precious in its spiritual instruction, and will awaken in many an experimental heart a deep, fervent response. It is the prayer of the Church appealing to her loved Lord. Conscious of her mournful declension, thirsting for spiritual quickening, longing for a gracious, restoring visit from Christ, she directs to Him her earnest and fervent prayer. What an evidence have we here of the deathless nature of real grace in the regenerate soul! The garden of the soul may suffer from a long and withering drought; the plants may droop, the flowers may fade, the fruit may wither, and the whole growth for a while seem stunted; nevertheless, the gracious soul is, in its worst and lowest spiritual state, infinitely better than the graceless soul in its highest and most prosperous carnal condition.
It may at times be low water with the Christian's soul. Christ withdrawn, evidences shaded, hope obscured, and joy depressed. Nevertheless, there is the water- the indwelling water of life that never dies, but springs up into eternal life; and although the tide may ebb, leaving the soul for a season barren and exposed, it will yet return in refulgent and flowing waves, and all shall once more be sunshine and song.
We now turn to the text. It suggests three things for our contemplation: The Garden- the Invocation- the Fruitfulness. The Church of God is represented as a garden. "My garden." It is of the utmost importance that we have Scriptural and correct views of the Church of Christ. The views of many are the opposite of this. Some idolize the Church, and place it above Christ; others ignore it almost entirely. Forgetting that it is the "light of the world, "the "salt of the earth," the "pillar and ground of the truth," they would throw down its walls, upheave its foundations, and virtually efface its very existence; while others, assigning to it a place, conceding to it a power, and investing it with an authority which belong, not to the Church which is the Body, but to Christ, who is the Head, would exalt it above Christ Himself. Guided by the similitude of the passage, let us endeavor to learn what the Holy Spirit would teach us concerning the true nature and properties of Christ's Church, both in its collective and individual capacity.
A garden is a chosen and choice spot- so is the Church of God. Election- free, unconditional, holy election- is inseparable from the people of God. Engraved as with the point of a diamond is this precious truth upon every page of the Church's history. The language of the inspired penman is unmistakable. "You are a chosen generation." "Elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father." "According as He has chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world." "I have chosen you out of the world." "Knowing brethren beloved your election of God." Such is the harmonious teaching of God's Word on this point.
The Church of God is a living and lasting monument of His electing love. Those who are taught this truth by the Spirit- and by the Spirit alone can it be received in the love of it- find it a sweetly comforting, heart-humbling, and soul-sanctifying doctrine. Chosen that we should be holy, they find in it the strongest motive to conformity to the image of God. Elected by an act of sovereign grace, they find it in their experience a most emptying, humbling, truth, ever keeping them in the dust of self-abasement before the Lord.
Take comfort and hope from this truth, poor sin-distressed, guilt-burdened soul; for all whom the Father loved, the Savior died; and all for whom the Savior died, the Spirit inclines, and draws, and makes willing to come to Christ poor, and empty, and lost- to be saved wholly, freely and entirely to be saved by Him. So long as Jesus stands ready to save- as able to save poor sinners as He is willing, and as willing as He is able- hesitate not to accept Him, believe in Him and be saved.
Your broken heart for sin, your humbling sense of vileness and unworthiness, your renunciation of the works of the law, and the deep felt need you have of Christ to justify you, constitute some of the strongest proofs of God's electing love towards you. These are signs and marks of grace. All the Lord's trees of righteousness, all the flowers of His garden reflect these divine hues, and breathe this sacred perfume- all smite upon the breast and cry- "God be merciful to me a sinner!"
Another truth grows out of this. The Lord's people, like a garden, are an enclosed and separate people. No two communities are more essentially separate and dissimilar than the Church and the world. The great effort of Satan has ever been to annihilate this distinction, and thus to break down the wall of separation between Christ's kingdom and his own; and, alas! many false religious professors have in this been his most zealous and efficient allies. But Christ has left not a shade of doubt resting upon this truth- namely, the unearthliness of His Church, the unworldliness of His people. How emphatic and conclusive His memorable declaration- "My kingdom is not of this world: if My kingdom were of this world, then would My servants fight, that I should not be delivered to the Jews: but now is My kingdom not from hence." Thus, how clear the nature, constitution, and government of Christ's Church as propounded by its sole Head and Legislator.
With this corresponds the preceptive teaching of His Apostles- "Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him." "Be not conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind." "Wherefore, come out from among them, and be separate, says the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing." What need do we have of clearer or more solemn teaching? Can we as professors of Christ unite a compliance of this holy precept with an unholy conformity to the world? Can we be said to "Come out from among them, touching not the unclean thing," and yet give our personal and practical countenance to the theater, the opera, the concert, and the card table- the dance, the turf, and the novel- or any one of the sinful pleasures, frivolous gaities and vain recreations essentially and professedly of the world?
Impossible! The Lord's garden is a separate enclosure. Its true plants are transplants, taken out of the world into the Church, henceforth to be a "chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a peculiar people, that they should show forth the praises of Him, who has called them out of darkness into His marvellous light." "I have chosen you," says the Lord of the vineyard, "out of the world." Such is the wide and essential demarcation of the Church of God and the world, and such the baneful effects of attempting their amalgamation, I feel that too great stress cannot be laid upon the importance of absolute separation of the Lord's people from the unclean thing.
The question is not, how far you may go into the world and not be worldly; nor is it to be decided by the immediate and sensible effect of worldly amusements upon your feelings. A professing Christian may indulge in certain worldly gaities, or employments of questionable propriety, without being conscious of any immediate injury received, and then vainly imagine that he has derived no hurt to himself, whatever it may be with others.
But, has no injury in reality been received? Has no evil influence been exerted upon the spirituality of an easily susceptible and finely-fibered soul? Has not the spirit of devotion been killed, the heart estranged from God, the mind secularized, and all the sweet, holy impressions of religion seriously impaired? Thus the matter is not to be decided by feeling. The question can only be determined by inquiry into the nature, tendencies, and results of scenes enacted at a theater- of sentiments promulgated in an romance novel- of frivolities indulged in at a ball, upon a soul on whom the solemn vows of holy consecration to God are sealed. Thus the spiritual injury of worldly conformity to a professing Christian is often in a way of which he is the least conscious. His only safe and consistent path is one of marked and decided separation- combating with the faith that overcomes the world, and crucifying it by the cross upon which it crucified his Lord and Master.
And yet, as Christians, we must not forget that we have a holy and solemn mission to the world. As the "light of the world," we are to illumine it; as the "salt of the earth," we are to purify it; as the "pillar and ground of the truth," we are to "contend earnestly for the faith once delivered unto the saints." As true loyalists, we are to maintain the crown rights of Jesus. As members of His body, we are to vindicate His Divine Headship. As graciously saved by His Atonement, we are to testify to the vicarious nature of His sufferings and death. As His disciples we are to confess Him, to take up His cross and follow Him. As His professing servants, we are to bear the torch-light of His Gospel into all lands, wafting the fragrance of His name and the music of His love upon the wings of every wind, and upon the crest of every billow. Love to Christ, attachment to His truth, loyalty to His cause, binds us to obedience, devotion, consecration, and, if need be, to suffering and death, as "plants of His own right hand planting, that He may be glorified." Of what moment, then, that we be holy and consistent in our walk and conversation in and before the world! The eyes of the ungodly are upon us- watching, waiting, hoping for our fall. Let our holy living, let our Christ-like spirit, be a daily, hourly, solemn protest against the wickedness, heartlessness, and emptiness of this ungodly world.
The unity of Christ's Church is strikingly illustrated by the similitude of a "garden." A garden is a spot single and complete in itself; in which there exists in all its essential landscape features, the most perfect harmony of character and design. Such is the great truth the similitude illustrates in reference to the Church of God. It is a Divine and sacred unity. The body of Christ is one. "My beloved is ONE." The unity of the Church is not accidental, dependent upon a sameness of polity, or assimilation of worship, or identity of nations. The unity of the Church is essential and indivisible. Nothing can destroy the natural, inherent properties of it. Divided it may be, dismembered and isolated, but the essential elements themselves must ever maintain their original and indestructible character.
Thus is it with the Church of God. It is essentially one. There may be different communions, known among men by various human titles, but the Elect Church of God is essentially one Family, one Flock, one Body. No accident can touch the essential unity of the Church. Different forms of Church government and modes of Christian worship may exist, but fail to touch the spiritual life, to dislodge the one indwelling Spirit, or to impair the vital union with Christ the One Head, in which consists the essential union of all the Lord's people- the "Church of God which He has purchased with His own blood."
How clearly the Apostle presents this interesting truth in his letter to the Ephesian saints. "There is one body, and one Spirit, even as you are called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all." Evidence, my reader, your oneness to Christ by a manifested love and fellowship with His people. He has given us this test- "By this shall all men know that you are my disciples, if you have love one to another." By the same evidence we are personally assured of our spiritual life, "We know that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren." Let it be our earnest endeavor, forgetting our denominational distinctions- which in God's sight are but human inventions- to "keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace;" every where, and on all occasions, cultivating and enjoying the "communion of saints," as we hope to enjoy it in its plenitude and perfection in the world of glory.
God binds all His children in the one Parental heart, and sad were the spectacle of alienation from, or unholy strife with, any of those who repose with us upon that Father's bosom. Thus every tree of righteousness in the Lord's garden is of His own right hand planting; and surely among those who dwell under His shadow, and who derive their fruit from their mutual engrafting into the same Living Vine, and are refreshed and fertilized by the showers of the same Divine Spirit, love, forbearance, confidence, and sympathy should exist and increase more and more. Do all in your power to manifest and promote the visible unity of Christ's Church! The benediction of the "peace-maker" will then be yours.
The similitude of the text strikingly illustrates the sovereign grace exhibited in the salvation of God's people. A garden partakes originally of the same nature and is intrinsically of the same soil as that from which it was reclaimed. Nothing but the skill and pains and culture of the owner and husbandman have made it to differ from the wilderness by which it is surrounded. How impressively the Apostle puts this truth: "You has He quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins; wherein in time past you walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now works in the children of disobedience: among whom also we all had our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others." And then He traces up the grace that has made us to differ from what we once were, and from what the ungodly world now is, to the "great love with which God, who is rich in mercy, has loved us."
Thus, then, nothing but free and sovereign grace has made us what we are. All human boasting, fleshly pride, and self-exaltation is laid at the feet of Jesus, and upon His head the crown shall flourish. Thus the Church of God, in its moral relation to the world, becomes what Goshen was to Egypt- a place of light in the midst of darkness, of plenty in the midst of famine, of rest and repose in the midst of toil and weariness.
What infinite wisdom, what marvellous grace are seen in the planting by God of such a garden as the Church, in the midst of such a world as ours! This is the only holy place, this the only fertile enclosure, this the only sun-light spot in this vast wilderness of sin, barrenness, and woe. O what a privilege to be the lowliest plant growing, the obscurest flower blooming, within this divine and spiritual garden.
"Lord, it is a pleasant thing to stand
In gardens planted by Your hand;
Let me within Your courts be seen,
Like a young cedar, fresh and green.
"There grow Your saints in faith and love,
Blest with Your influence from above;
Not Lebanon, with all its trees,
Yields such a lovely sight as these."
As in a garden there is a great variety of flowers, so in the Church of Christ. All believers have not the same measure of grace, all have not the same strength of faith, nor have all the same degree of fruitfulness. The Apostle speaks of "babes," "little children," "young men," and "fathers" in the Church; therefore let not one Christian be set against another; let there be no disparaging comparisons, no unholy envyings, no disdainful neglects. What has made one believer to differ from another, but the sovereignty of the Lord of the vineyard? Rather should the saints of God cultivate towards each other love, forbearance, and humility. The strong should assist the weak, the advanced should encourage the halting, the joyful should cheer the sad; those of soaring wing should teach to fly the newly fledged, and those who are strong should bear the burden of the burdened; while the faithful and persevering should seek out, restore, and bring back to the fold those who had wandered far away. "We then who are strong ought to bear the infirmities of the weak, and not to please ourselves. Let every one of us please his neighbor for his good to edification; for even Christ pleased not Himself." Thus much for the garden.

We now turn to the prayer, "Awake, O north wind; and come, south wind; blow upon my garden, that the spices thereof may flow out." It is, doubtless, the invitation of the Church. Sensible of deadness, drought, and barrenness, she earnestly uplifts her prayer to Christ, desiring quickening, renewing, refreshing. Christ has command of the winds. "What manner of Man is this, that even the winds and the waves obey Him!" Such is Christ now. There are TWO OPPOSITE WINDS spoken of in the passage. First, the north wind- cold, keen, and cutting. Sometimes the north wind is emblematic of the deepening law-work in the soul, which often marks a later stage of the Christian's experience. If his earliest conviction of sin is light and superficial, in a more advanced stage of his spiritual journey he is led into deeper discoveries of his heart's sinfulness.
The ploughshare of the Word is inserted, the surface turned up, the fallow ground broken, and the Christian is led to see more of the deep depravity and sinfulness of his nature. O how cold and keen is now the "north wind" of the Spirit thus blowing upon the garden of his soul! Paul's seventh chapter of Romans was written after his conversion- certainly not before. And who can read and study that remarkable and instructive chapter of his personal experience, and not learn how chill and piercing and humbling the blast of the north wind may be sweeping across the quickened soul of the man of God, long after he had found refuge in Jesus, the Hiding Place.
Be not astonished, then, O believer, if the Lord is dealing so with you now. This more pungent conviction of sin, this opening of a new chamber of imagery in your heart, this deeper insertion of the plough of God's Word in your soul, but evidences the truth of your Christianity, proves the reality of your grace; and while it shows you more thoroughly the blackness of your heart, unveils more deeply the love of Christ's.
The "north wind" is also an emblem of the afflictive dispensations of God in the believer's history, by which soul-fruitfulness is promoted. And O how cold and wintry often this blast! What tender buds it nips, what precious blossoms it blasts, what beauteous flowers it slays of creature good, of earth's treasures! How the cold north wind blew over the garden of good old Jacob, when bereavement and famine overtook him! How wintry the blast over David's garden when Absalom proved a traitor, and would have been a parricide and regicide! How nipping the blast across the domestic garden of Naomi when she exclaimed, "Call me not Naomi, call me Mara: for the Almighty has dealt very bitterly with me. I went out full, and the Lord has brought me home again empty!" How terribly withering the north wind that rushed athwart the garden of Job, when by one blast, children, and wealth, and herds, and health, were swept from him, and he was left like the scathed oak of the forest!
But O! how fruitful did all these afflicted saints by this very process become! How the garden of the soul revived, freshened, and blossomed! How real; luxuriant, and golden became the fruits of righteousness in those who were exercised thereby! Shrink not then, beloved, from the cold north wind of God's holy, loving, though trying dispensations. Welcome the influence, however unkindly it may seem to come, which promotes your growth in grace, deepens the Lord's work in your soul, endears the Savior to your heart, makes sin more hateful, holiness more longed for, and advances your fitness for glory. O precious and welcome blast, concealing beneath its cold, sweeping wing, blessings so holy and precious as these!
"Trials must and will befall
But with humble faith to see
Love inscribed upon them all,
This is happiness to me."
"God in Israel sows the seeds
Of affliction, pain, and toil;
These spring up, and choke the weeds
Which would else overspread the soil."
"Trials make the promise sweet,
Trials give new life to prayer,
Trials bring me to His feet,
Lay me low, and keep me there!"
And WHO sends and tempers this north wind? Even Him of whom it is said- "He stays His rough wind in the day of His east wind." Even Him of whom it is written- "And You shall be a Hiding Place from the wind and Covert from the tempest." Jesus controls the winds: He rides upon their wing, makes them subservient to His will, employs them as instruments of accomplishing His purposes of love. And as the north wind scatters the clouds, purifies the air, and checks the too rapid and luxuriant growth of the plants, so the Spirit's deeper conviction of sin and God's afflictive dealings tend but to promote the well-being of the plants of grace which Christ in His garden on earth is preparing for His garden in heaven. Shrink not, then, from the cold, cutting breath of the north wind, my reader, since Jesus sends it, and Jesus controls it, and Jesus employs it, and Jesus will stay its roughness and hide you within His pierced and sheltering side.
But there is also an invitation to the south wind. "Come south wind and blow upon my garden." The South wind- warm, balmy, and fertilizing. Such is another operation of the Holy Spirit, diverse from the preceding, and yet equally promotive of the believer's spiritual fruitfulness. The south wind is emblematic of the "love of God shed abroad in our heart by the Holy Spirit which He has given unto us." O how warming, how vivifying, and how fructifying God's love in the soul. Truly it is as the south wind, breathing sweet odors, balmy in its influence, thawing and warming the frozen soul, bringing with it fruitful showers that make the flowers to spring up, and the plants to grow.
How promotive of our fruitfulness is the love of Jesus moving us to holy and unreserved evangelical obedience. "The love of Christ constrains us;" and when love enlarges the heart we run the way of the Lord's commandments, in the keeping of which we find a great reward. Seek earnestly this "south wind" to blow upon the garden of your soul. Let love be the great influential motive of all you do for the Lord. Let all that springs from the flesh- all that is self-seeking, self-pleasing, self-exalting be dislodged from your doings and your ends, by the love of Christ alone constraining you. Come, O south wind of a Savior's warm, fertilizing, and precious love, and blow upon the garden of my soul!
And what is the holy RESULT of the north and south wind breathing in sweet unison upon the soul? This is the end- "That the spices thereof may flow out." The true believer desires to be fruitful: he knows that from Christ his fruit is found: he remembers the words of Jesus- "As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abide in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in Me." And now his earnest desire is to rest in Christ- to live upon Christ- to draw large supplies of grace from Christ- to be assured of his union with Christ- and by looking in faith to Christ continually, so to bring forth "much fruit" to the glory of God the Father.
O how fragrant now the fruitful soul! It is "as the smell of a field which the Lord has blessed." Now the SPICES- the GRACES OF THE SPIRIT, the FRUITS OF HOLINESS flow forth, to the praise and delight of the heavenly Gardener! They flow forth in all their plenitude, richness, and fragrance, and Jesus comes into His garden and eats the pleasant fruit.
Look well to the condition of your soul! What ever else is neglected, allow no neglect here. Your spiritual state infinitely outweighs every other consideration. Nothing demands more incessant watchfulness- pruning, weeding, irrigation- since nothing is so susceptible of decay, as the garden of the soul. Guard against the world's blight, the canker-worm of covetousness, the nipping frost of carnal-association, and the withering heat of religious professional excitement, lest the lamentation of old should again be heard- "They made me the keeper of the vineyard, but My Own Vineyard have I not kept."
The moment the discovery is made of dulness and decay send up the earnest prayer- "Awake, O north wind, and come, south wind, and blow upon my garden!" Cultivate this sacred enclosure with sleepless care and divinely-taught skill, that Jesus, your Beloved, may often love to come into His garden and eat His pleasant fruits.
Remember how precious and delightful this garden is to Christ- that it cost Him His life to ransom and reclaim. Seek, in earnest prayer to the Holy Spirit, much of His divine, quickening influence. So seek to please Him in your Christ exalting walk- careful not to grieve His love, or restrain His influences- that He may breathe His gentle gales, and unseal His warm springs of grace to make your soul fruitful and fragrant. Then shall "the Lord guide you continually, and satisfy your soul in drought, and make fat your bones; and you shall be like a watered garden, and like a spring of water, whose waters fail not." The sacred poet's graphic picture will then be realized in you-
"We are a garden walled around,
Chosen and made peculiar ground;
A little spot, enclosed by grace
Out of the world's wide wilderness.
"Like trees of myrrh and spice we stand,
Planted by God the Father's hand,
And all His springs in Zion flow
To make this young plantation grow.
"Awake, O heavenly wind! and come,
Blow on this garden of perfume;
Spirit divine descend, and breathe
A gracious gale on plants beneath.
"Make our best spices flow abroad,
To entertain our Savior God;
And faith and love and joy appear,
And every grace be active here."
And when the Lord and Keeper of the vineyard shall come into His garden to gather His lilies, when the pale reaper invades the Church and gathers from it its greatest ornaments, or enters the domestic garden and breaks the stem of its loveliest and fondest flower- remember that He has taken but what was His own, transplanting it to the paradise above, to bloom and breathe its fragrance in immortal youth and beauty!
Do not say that they are lost. Faith can see them even now. Their spirits are with the Lord, and their bodies, resting in the dust, shall, at His personal appearing, be raised in incorruption, glory, and power; for this mortal shall put on immortality, and death shall be then swallowed up in victory. "The Lord Himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first; then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord. Therefore comfort one another with these words."
"Oh what a garden will be seen,
When all the flowers of grace
Appear in everlasting green,
Before the Planter's face!"
"No more exposed to burning skies,
Or winter's piercing cold;
What never-dying sweets will rise
From every opening fold!"
"No lack of sun or shower above
To make the flowers decline;
Fountains of life and beams of love,
Forever spring and shine."
"No more they need the quickening air,
Or gently rising dew;
Unspeakable their beauties are,
And yet forever new."
"Christ is their Shade, and Christ their Sun
Among them walks the King!
Whose presence is eternal noon;
His smile, eternal spring!"

The Fragrance of Christ's Name

"Because of the savor of Your good ointments Your Name is as ointment poured forth, therefore do the virgins love You." Song of Solomon 1:3 (kjv)

"Pleasing is the fragrance of Your perfumes; Your name is like perfume poured out. No wonder the maidens love You!" Song of Solomon 1:3 (niv)

The preceding chapter has spoken of the Church of Christ; the present will speak of CHRIST THE SAVIOR OF THE CHURCH. The two sacred themes are mystically and inseparably one. Correct views of the Church will ever be associated with correct views of Christ. Those who would exalt the Church above Christ, can only do so at the expense of Christ Himself. All the undue honor given to the Church, which is His Body, is so much robbery of the dignity, authority, and glory belonging to Christ, who is the Head.
The Church of God possesses no legislative authority, no power to enact laws, to decree doctrines, or to institute rites; to control the conscience, or to exact a blind submission of judgment to her interpretation of God's Word. "The Lord is King in Zion." "The Lord is our Law-giver." But, still the Church of God is a glorious Church, exalted to great privilege, eminence, and power in virtue of her union with Christ her Head. And we cannot think of her as the mystical Body of Christ, and as the "Pillar and Ground of the truth," apart from the most exalted views of HIM who "loved the Church, and gave Himself for it, that He might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, that He might present it to Himself a glorious Church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing."
No wonder, then, that the Name of Jesus should be precious to the Church: yes, in the experience of all His saints, fragrant as ointment poured forth, awakening their warmest love, and inspiring their loftiest praise. Let these two points engage our present meditation on the Name of Christ: the Fragrance which it breathes, and the Love which it inspires.
"Your Name is as ointment poured forth, therefore do the virgins love you." "What is in a name?" is sometimes flippantly and facetiously asked; and yet there is often magic in a name quite irresistible. Great names are a power, a tower of strength; they have often mightier weight and influence in a hero-worshiping world than even sound principles, or holy deeds. If a man's name is great, he possesses a great power for evil or for good.
There are not many independent minds among men; few individuals think for themselves: they like not the trouble of excavating the mine for the hidden treasure, and even when the ore is provided at their hand, they have no skill or taste to smelt, assay, and mold it for themselves. They would rather accept other men's thoughts than conceive thought for themselves: they prefer to adopt the opinions of others than form their own: and would rather follow and worship an illustrious name, than carve their own upon some grateful heart, or upon some imperishable monument of virtue and truth.
We have need to be on our watch against this powerful influence lest, fascinated by the fame of some popular leader, we become the willing dupes of a childish superstition, or the blind followers of a fatal error. Do not take your views of Divine truth from man; draw them primarily from God's Word. Do not study the Bible through your system, but let your system be taken from, and faithfully weighed with, the Bible. Our system, be it theological or ecclesiastical, must not be allowed to give its complexion to, or to be the interpreter of, revealed truth. But, on the contrary, God's Word is to suggest and mold and tint all our thoughts and opinions and systems for eternity.
We must not set the sun by our watch, but our watch by the sun- in other words, we must not attempt to make God's Word dovetail with our creed, but must test every doctrine we hold, every opinion we receive, every principle we maintain, the hope we cherish, by the unerring standard of revealed truth. This will give a Divine and proper complexion to our views. If we receive the light of the sun through a tinted lens, the light will necessarily reflect the hue of the medium through which it passes; so, if we receive the light of God's Word through any theological or ecclesiastical system whatever, it will necessarily reflect the error and imperfection, if such there be, of that system. And thus we shall fail to receive the teaching of God as it flows pure and simple from His Word, as light flows from the sun, and as streams from the fountain.
The Bible is our rule of faith and our only and ultimate appeal. By the law and the testimony let every doctrine, and system, and hope for eternity be tried. Be not, then, carried away by the learning, the influence, or even the piety attaching to a popular name. Allow no human power the mastery of your mind and conscience: yield yourself meekly and obediently to the authority and teaching of Christ, accepting human guidance only so far as it comes with a "thus says the Lord" as its divine endorsement.
Our only safeguard in a matter of such infinite moment as our future well-being, is God's pure Word; our only secure place, the feet of the Savior. Sitting there as His lowly disciple, the Holy Spirit will lead our minds into the truth, even "the truth as it is in Jesus," as it emanates from Jesus, as it speaks of Jesus, as it strengthens our faith in, and inspires our love to, Jesus, and as it prepares us to go and be with Jesus forever. But we turn from this digression, to the subject more immediately before us.
The Church declares of the Name of her Beloved, that in her experience it was as ointment poured forth. Our attention is thus invited to THE FRAGRANCE OF THE NAME OF CHRIST. The reference to "ointment " would to the intelligent and pious Jew, be a familiar image. His thoughts would naturally recur to the royal coronation of Solomon, and to the sacred anointing of the priesthood. He would think of the precious and fragrant materials prescribed by God for its composition: the myrrh, the cinnamon, the sweet calamus, the cassia, the oil olive. "And you shall make it an oil of holy ointment, an ointment compound after the art of the apothecary; it shall be an holy anointing oil."
All these materials were significant. The cassia was medicinal, the myrrh was preservative, the cinnamon was fragrant, the calamus was sweet, and the whole formed a rich unguent, like unto the "precious ointment upon the head, that ran down upon the beard, even Aaron's beard, that went down to the skirts of his garments." All this was impressively significant of the Name of Jesus. All these properties were typical of Him. His Name is healing, preserving, fragrant and sweet to the spiritual taste.
A few particulars will suffice to justify this comprehensive view of what Jesus is to a poor, believing sinner. Let us trace some of the costly and fragrant materials of which the Name of Jesus is composed. The Divine Name of Jesus is fragrant. His Name is God. "Unto the Son He says, Your throne, O GOD, is forever and ever: a scepter of righteousness is the scepter of Your kingdom." He Himself claims this Divine dignity. "I am the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, says the Lord: who is, and who is to come- THE ALMIGHTY." We need not, though we might to any extent, multiply these Scripture quotations in proof of the essential Deity of our Lord. If He was not God- God essential, God absolute, as well might we fasten our faith to the name of Caesar, or Napoleon, or Plato, or any other human name, as to any saving benefit we should derive therefrom.
I would not trust my soul to a created Savior for millions of worlds. No mere creature could save itself, and must fail, therefore, to save me. Every angel in heaven stands by a power not his own, and all their combined merit and strength could not keep me from falling into the bottomless abyss. Deity, and Deity alone, must save me. How fragrant and precious, then, is the Divine Name of Jesus. Believing soul, inhale its rich perfume! When sin distresses you, when guilt burdens you, when sorrow saddens you, when care corrodes you, when difficulties perplex you, when needs alarm you, remember the Divine Name of Jesus, and all will vanish.
You trust your salvation to Deity, you hang your burden upon the arm of Deity, you bring your sin and guilt to the merit of Deity, you make known your need to the resources of Deity, you breathe your sorrow, grief, and woe upon the bosom of Deity, when you hide you within the pavilion of Christ's Name. Rejector of the Savior's God-head! Listen to Jehovah's words concerning Christ and tremble- "Pay attention to Him, and obey all of His instructions. Do not rebel against Him, for He will not forgive your sins. He is my representative- He bears MY NAME."
The Atoning Name of Jesus is fragrant. All that Jesus did on earth was representative, substitutionary, sacrificial. His one work was to atone. His one mission was to save. "You shall call His name JESUS, for He shall SAVE His people from their sins." With this harmonizes the wondrous declaration of the Apostle, "This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners." O marvellous, precious saying this! of more worth to the soul in a dying hour than the diadem of the universe studded with earth's richest jewels. We can pass into eternity peacefully and happily, hopefully and savingly in the faith of no other truth than this- "Christ died for our sins;" "Christ died for the ungodly." "Christ has given Himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God, for a sweet smelling savor." "You were not redeemed with corruptible things ...... but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a Lamb without blemish and without spot." "By the obedience of One shall many be made righteous." "Who is made unto us wisdom and righteousness, sanctification and redemption."
Such are some of the Scripture testimonies to the sacrificial work of Jesus. In all this truth how fragrant is HIS SAVING NAME! As a law-fulfilling, sin-atoning; justice-satisfying Savior, His Name expresses all that the guiltiest, the most despairing sinner needs. To those who are saved, what fragrance breathes from the work of Him who has saved them, and called them with a holy calling.
Whatever may be the advanced pilgrimage, the matured experience of the Christian, he never can release himself from the first principles of Divine truth. We close our spiritual course as we began it, with a believing reliance upon the simple elements of the Gospel. The foundation truth of the Gospel- that Jesus Christ saves sinners, which gave us comfort and peace and hope when we first fled to the cross, is just the truth which sustains and cheers us when we come to die. We terminate our spiritual life as we commenced it- clinging as poor, empty, and worthless sinners to Jesus, the Savior and Friend of sinners; the last believing look we have of Christ on earth, is the first look we had of Him when He drew us to Himself and told us our sins were all forgiven, and then filled our hearts with His love.
Embracing alone the first principles of the Gospel, resting only in the single, simple, yet sublime declaration that Jesus was sacrificed for, invites and receives, sinners- casts out none who come to Him, but saves them to the uttermost- some of the greatest saints and most eminent divines that ever lived have- either in the near expectation of their departure, or in the actual passage of death- experienced the sweetest peace and richest comfort and most assured hope. We might here cite the case of Bishop Butler, the mightiest of reasoners, who, when he came to die, could find no comfort but from the text quoted by his chaplain, "He who comes unto Me, I will not cast out."
Writing to a minister, the late Robert Hall (one of the most learned divines and eloquent preachers of any age), thus testifies to this truth- "I have been attacked with a violent fever, and in my own apprehension for about two days was on the borders of eternity. I never before felt my mind so calm and happy. Filled with the most overwhelming sense of my own unworthiness, my mind was supported merely by a faith in Christ crucified. I would not for the world have parted with that text, 'The blood of Christ cleanses from all sin.' I never before saw such a beauty and grandeur in the way of salvation by the death of Christ as on that occasion. I am fully persuaded the Evangelical doctrines alone are able to support the mind in the near view of death and eternity." What a sacred and precious fragrance of Jesus and His finished work flows from this testimony!
"Like the sweet South
That breathes upon a bank of violets,
Stealing and giving odor."
But we must limit our illustration of this truth. There were SEVERAL INGREDIENTS, as we have shown, in the sacred ointment that consecrated, all united in imparting to it its efficacy and perfume. There is everything we need in Jesus to endear His name to our hearts. He is our Prophet- teaching us the will of the Father. He is our Priest- offering up Himself as our atoning Victim. He is our King- erecting His throne in our hearts, and subduing us to Himself as His loving and obedient subjects. How fragrant, too, His Name as our Friend- loving us at all times. As our Brother- bone of our bone, and flesh of our flesh, born for our adversity. As our Great High Priest- touched with the feeling of our infirmities, tempted in all points as we are and in our sorrows, griefs, and trials encircling us with the many-folded robe of His tender, loving sympathy.
A few PRACTICAL INFERENCES must close our meditation upon this delightful theme. Remember that the Name of Jesus is as ointment poured forth. The box must be broken, opened, distributed. It was when the loving woman broke the alabaster box that the precious ointment- which was at once the expression of her love and the anointing of her Lord- filled all the house with its odor.
Why is it that the Name of Jesus has no sweetness, no charm, no fragrance to unbelievers? Because the Holy Spirit has not broken the box and poured out the ointment upon their hearts! It is not enough to hear of Christ, to read of Christ, to assent to Christ- we must have Christ in us the hope of glory.
We may be enchanted with the box, admire its shape, be charmed with its carving, and yet experience nothing of its precious and priceless contents. In other words, we may be captivated with the elegance of a book, and be enchanted with the eloquence of a sermon, and be drawn in affection to the preacher setting forth the Lord Jesus Christ; and yet His Name may not be to our souls as ointment poured forth- a name above every name. The precious ointment must become a part of our spiritual being.
But WHEN is the Name of Jesus really as ointment poured forth? It was partially opened to the Old Testament saints who saw Christ's day and were glad. Four thousand years before the great sacrifice upon the cross was made, its fragrance floated upon the sin tainted atmosphere of Eden. In the first promise of salvation to man the ointment was poured forth. This it was too, which imparted such a sweet smelling savor to the offerings and sacrifices under the law, and so deep a significance to the types, and shadows, and symbols of the Mosaic dispensation. Christ was the meaning, the sweetness and the substance of all. And yet how partial was the unfolding! "Why ask you ask My name, seeing it is secret?"
But the full outflow of this precious ointment was reserved for the solemn scene of CALVARY. We travel back to His agony and bloody sweat, His cross and passion, in the garden and on Calvary, when the nails cruelly penetrated His hands and feet, when the soldiers rudely pierced His side; when the thorn-crown bound His sacred temples, when the Father bruised and put Him to grief. Then was the sacred casket broken- then did the precious ointment pour forth its rich perfume, wafted to the remotest part of earth, and filled the temple of heaven with its fragrance.
O what must have been the wonder- swelling into transport and then bursting into song- when angels and the spirits of the glorified caught the first breath of that precious perfume as it rose from Calvary and ascended into heaven! Around the throne of glory it circled, and Jehovah Himself was well pleased with the sweet smelling savor of that sacrifice, which had harmonized all His attributes and glorified His name in the full salvation of His Church!
The fragrance of this ointment is poured forth when the PULPIT lifts high the Lamb of God, and sets forth the glory, the grace, the love of the Lord Jesus. That is the most fragrant sanctuary, that the holiest atmosphere, and that the richest temple-service, where Christ crucified is the most simply and fully preached. It may be with severe simplicity of ritual, in a crude structure, with but little human talent: nevertheless, Christ is preached, the box of ointment is opened, and the sacred house is filled with the odor thereof.
O how great and blessed the privilege of a ministry which sets forth a full Christ for empty sinners, accompanied with the unction of the Spirit, and enfolds our whole being with the fragrance of His Name. I ask not where, nor how, nor by whom. It is enough that "Christ is preached, and I therein do rejoice; yes, and will rejoice."
This ointment is 'poured forth' at the Communion of the LORD'S SUPPER, when the disciples of Jesus meet in His Name, to remember and commemorate His dying love. Happy, holy season this! Here, if ever, all other names fade for the while from memory, and all our thoughts and affections and desires concentrate upon that one Name, which is above every name -the Name of Jesus, our Redeemer Lord. Approach this sacred banquet, desiring only to meet Jesus. Come to these solemn symbols, these precious memorials of His dying love, looking only to Jesus. Draw near in faith, expecting to meet and to receive a blessing directly from Jesus.
It is not your name in this ordinance you remember, nor your love you celebrate, nor your worthiness you present; but the Name, the love, the worthiness of JESUS! Hesitate not, then, to take your place at the feast, losing your sins, your sorrows, your trials, your needs, yourself in the sweet fragrance of this "ointment," as with a cloud it envelopes you.
This "ointment" is "poured forth" in Christian communion and FELLOWSHIP of the Lord's people. "Then those who feared the Lord spoke often one to another." This is the true idea of the "communion of saints," speaking often one to another of Jesus. Christian fellowship is one of the sweetest privileges, one of the most heaven-helpful engagements of the saints on earth. How the ointment flows, how the fragrance diffuses, how the spirit revives, how the heart burns when Christians meet to talk of Jesus.
Jesus Himself draws near and communes with them. "Where two or three are gathered together in My name, there am I in the midst of them." And where Jesus is, there is heaven. Aim in every circle to promote the communion of saints- not restricting it to your own peculiar sect, but embracing all of every sect upon whom this fragrant ointment rests. Let not the communion of saints be a cold, lifeless article of your religious belief, but a vital, influential element of your Christian life. See how the holy Apostle panted for Christian fellowship- "I long to see you, that I may impart unto you some spiritual gift, to the end you may be established; that is, that I may be comforted together with you, by the mutual faith both of you and I." So let us speak often one to another of Jesus.
"Forgotten be each worldly theme,
When Christians meet together thus
We only wish to speak of Him
Who lived and died and reigns for us."
"We'll talk of all He did and said
And suffered for us here below,
The path He marked for us to tread,
And what He's doing for us now."
"Thus, as the moments pass away,
We'll love and wonder and adore,
And hasten on the glorious day
When we shall meet to part no more."
Seek to be a sweet savor of Christ in every place. Be not ashamed of Him. The alabaster box must be opened. The ointment must be poured forth. Christ must be confessed before the world. There is no diffusive, reviving, healthful influence, where the Name of Jesus is either basely denied, or timidly concealed. We must not be ashamed of our Lord and Master on the one hand, nor, on the other, consulting our personal ease and indolence, selfishly withhold Him from our fellow sinners.
The ointment on our right hand must betray us. The world and the saints must take knowledge of us that we have been with Jesus. Every hour we occupy, every service we engage in, every relation we sustain should be redolent of the ointment poured forth. We must seek to bring souls to Christ. Life should be one continuous sacred fragrance. But to this end we must be more with Jesus the Anointed One. The spiritual verdure that clothes us, the divine fruit that enriches us, and the holy fragrance our personal religion sheds around us, emanates from Christ!
We must know our union with Christ. We must walk with Christ. We must abide in Christ. We must open the conservatory of the soul and let the Divine Sun shine in upon the flowers. We must throw wide every avenue of the heart that the ointment may penetrate, yes even saturate, our entire being- blending Jesus with every sorrow, entwining Him with every joy, and associating Him with every service. Thus will our "garments smell of myrrh, and aloes, and cassia, out of the very palace;" and we shall go forth to duty, to suffering, and to toil, perfuming the moral atmosphere in which we move with the odoriferous influence of His precious Name.
This ointment possesses a marvellous soothing, softening virtue in seasons of sorrow. Never is the Name of Jesus as the "Brother born for adversity," more precious to the believing heart than in the time of adversity. It would seem as if Jesus bore a title appropriate to every condition of the believer's life. It pleased the Father that in Him, as the Mediator of His Church, ALL fulness should dwell- all fulness for all circumstances. But especially does His life of sorrow fit Him to be "the Consolation of Israel." Born in adversity- Sharon's Rose bruised and crushed by God, by man, and by Satan- how well was Jesus fitted by the discipline through which He passed, to enfold His suffering Church within the robe of human sympathy.
You are, perhaps, smarting under the severe chastening of your Heavenly Father. The vase is shattered, and the flower that lent to life its sweetest perfume, lies smitten and trailing in the dust, and the hand of God is heavy upon you. But think of the Name of Jesus, what it involves. Think of it as containing all, and infinitely more, than you have lost. Recall the sweetness of a wife's fond love, of a husband's faithful protection, of a child's tender devotion, of a friend's soothing sympathy, of a minister's unvarying kindness: yes, the sweetness of every earthly good you once possessed, but possess no longer.
Then remember that all this is in Christ; that all this affection, all this counsel, all this care, all this sympathy, and all this pleasantness distilled from Him, the infinite Spring-head of all blessing! O what a mercy that, when the rivulet is dried, and the stream is gone, and the cloud shades the pleasant picture that adorned with its presence and brightened with its smile our home-circle, Christ remains a sufficient substitute for all- all of which combined could never have been an all-satisfying substitute for Him.
Accept, then, the fragrant sympathy of Christ. No being in the universe is so near to you, loves or compassionates you so deeply in your present calamity as Christ does. Deem it not hard that He has dealt with you thus. He has but transferred the flower from your bosom to His own- transplanting it to a sunnier and holier climate. Jealous of your love, He would have your undivided heart, and absorb your whole being in Himself. And O how honored and blest you now are! You shall experimentally know more of Christ, see more clearly His surpassing glory, drink more deeply His fathomless love, and experience more fully His tender sympathy than in all the past of your experience.
It is only in the school of adversity that we really know what the Lord Jesus is. How much we learn from Him and of Him in one trial! Until the trial brought us sobbing upon His heart, how little we knew what that heart contained. Welcome, then, the grief that lifts you nearer to God, and that increases your acquaintance with, and your peace and joy in, the Lord Jesus.
Equally salutary is this sacred "ointment" in its influence upon the intellectual powers of the soul. It enlightens and quickens the mind. The human intellect is dark, stunted, and scentless, until it knows Christ; and until it knows Christ by the teaching of the Spirit (that anointing that teaches us of all things)- it does not know God. We may put it simply thus. Christ is the true Revealer of God- God is the great Object of man's knowledge- therefore, we must know Jesus properly and savingly to know God. Thus he who becomes a humble and earnest student at Christ's feet, however limited his intellectual powers; really knows more of the wisdom and power and goodness of God, than the most learned astronomer, the profoundest philosopher, or the wisest sage, whose research has been limited by the range of creation. Thus the study of Christ strengthens the intellect, while the knowledge of God thus gained enriches, sanctifies, and ennobles it.
Would you quiet and sooth your heart? Bring it in close contact with Christ's human sympathy. Would you enlarge and enrich your mind? Bring it into believing contact with Christ's Divine person. O to know Jesus, that most excellent and superlative knowledge! With Paul we may well count all things but loss for its possession. To know Him as the Savior, to know Him as our Friend, to know Him as our Brother, to know Him as our Advocate, to know Him as our Portion, is endless life and glory. "This is life eternal, that they might know You the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom You have sent."
My reader, when death approaches what will all your human learning and science avail you, without a saving knowledge of Christ? What if you fathom all mysteries but the great mystery of God's love in Jesus, and understand all knowledge but the knowledge that you are saved? In that very hour all your worldly, self-righteous, and erroneous thoughts perish. But a spiritual knowledge of the Savior will stand by you at that awful moment, sustain and comfort you, and light your soul's pathway to glory.
It is the fragrance of this ointment which imparts such sacred and divinely acceptable perfume to the believer's PRAYERS. What, O suppliant, bending before the mercy-seat, gives such touching eloquence and such irresistible power to the devout breathings of your heart, to the faint and faltering utterances of your lips, filling the temple above with their fragrance? It is the power of Jesus' atoning merit, investing with its incense-cloud every petition you send up to heaven. "Whatever" (says the Savior) "you ask in My Name that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you will ask anything in My Name, that will I do."
O for more faith in the power of prayer offered in the Name of Jesus! Not for your merit, O suppliant, will God grant this request, nor for your demerit will He deny it- but He will do it all for Christ's sake. Approach then, sad heart, the mercy-seat. You wave in faith the true censer, whose much incense is offered with the prayers of all saints upon the golden altar which is before the throne, when you ask your blessing and present your petition and make your confession of sin, in the Name of Jesus, which wafts it to heaven as the sweetest perfume.
You need no interceding 'virgin Mary', no praying dead saint, no suppliant angel, no human merit, of your own. Jesus supplies it all.
"Jesus alone shall bear my cries
Up to His Father's throne
He, dearest Lord, perfumes my sighs,
And sweetens every groan."
"Petitions now and praise may rise,
And saints their offerings bring
The Priest, with His own sacrifice,
Presents them to the King."
So powerful is this "ointment," IT IMPARTS AN UNDYING FRAGRANCE TO ALL IT TOUCHES. A sphere the most obscure, a craft the most lowly, a service the most feeble that is associated with Christ, becomes sacred and ennobled. One touch of Christ sanctifies and immortalizes all. O how the sacred perfume lives! Years have passed away, time's many chequered, changeful scenes have transpired, and yet the remembrance of that holy life smells sweet and blossoms from the dust. Through some living character it aided to form- or some eminent intellect it taught to shoot- or some Christian work it indirectly started- or in some printed narrative which records its history, the fragrance of that one life devoted to God still lives, and will live forever.
What holy fragrance, too, breathes from pious books penned centuries ago! And why? Because the holy men who wrote them were baptized in the perfume of Christ's Name. Of Him they wrote, to Him they still bear witness, and every page is redolent of the sweetness of His truth. Who can turn over the pages of Charnock, and Caryl, and Traill, and Rutherford, and Leighton, and Bunyan, and a host of others, and not feel how precious and undying is the fragrance that flows from Christ through the writings of His servants long since gathered unto Him, who set forth the glories of His person, the perfection of His work, the greatness of His love, and the preciousness of His Word. Would that the pulpit and the press- the preaching and the literature of the nation- were more deeply imbued with the fragrance of this divine ointment- with the principles, and precepts, and spirit of Christ's holy Gospel! Of this we are thoroughly persuaded, that the influence of this anointing is the only safe-guard of the nation's pulpit, and the only conservative element of the nation's sacred literature.
One or two words of CAUTION. Be watchful against that which would mar the sweet savor of this holy ointment, and change its perfume into a pestilent odor. There are many decomposing influences destructive of this sacred confection, against which we must be prayerfully vigilant. Inbred corruption, unholy selfishness, morbid irritability, an uncharitable spirit, an unsanctified temper, levity of manner, tampering with error, sporting with sin, trifling with sin, needless exposure to temptation, are as "dead flies which spoil the ointment," and cause it to send forth an sickly savor. Let us then, as the Lord's anointed, as the royal priesthood upon whose head the golden oil has been poured- bear it holily, employ it usefully, and in its sacred fragrance walk humbly with our God.
A second caution is- beware of mixing up with this Divine ointment, anything of your own miserable invention, or of sinfully attempting its imitation. God gave especial instructions respecting this point: "Whoever compounds any like it, shall even be cut off from the people." God's work is perfect- Christ's salvation is complete- the Savior's sacrifice is finished, and needs no creature merit, or human ceremonial to perfect its efficacy, or heighten its splendor. Jesus is the one and only Savior of sinners- "Neither is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven, given among men, whereby we must be saved." Away, then, with all your vain, contemptible, and sinful attempts to add to the virtue, fragrance, and worth of this Divine and precious ointment by self-righteous doings, dead duties, and worldly ritual of your own. Attempt to improve God's works in creation if you will- add warmth to the sun-beam, glow to the stars, beauty to the lily, fragrance to the violet, luster to the diamond, and let your littleness and folly be manifest, but lay no unhallowed hand upon the Ark of salvation, mix no human ingredient with the anointing of God, tamper not with the fragrance, preciousness, and efficacy of the name of Jesus, lest you perish in your sin, and your crime be written in eternal misery, lamentation, and woe.
Deep and lasting is the love to Jesus which the fragrance of this ointment inspires. "Therefore do the virgins love You." When the Holy Spirit opens up this glorious Gospel, (the Divine and precious box which contains the 'ointment') and reveals the Name of Jesus to the heart, love admiring, love adoring, love obeying, love serving, love sacrificing, love assimilating will bear the whole being onward by its all-commanding and irresistible force! Would you love the Savior with a more intense and influential affection? Inhale much of the fragrance of His Name, and ask for more copious effusion upon your soul of this Divine and precious ointment. Seek in every service and in every trial, and in every duty, with David, to be "anointed with FRESH Oil."
UNCONVERTED SINNER! You may think lightly of the Name of Jesus now. You may hate and despise it. It may have no music in your ear, or sweetness to your soul. But remember that the day is coming- how fast it speeds! -when, "at the Name of Jesus, every knee shall bow, of things in heaven and things on earth and things under the earth, and when every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father." In that last great day your knee shall bow, either in adoring love or in trembling submission -yes, even yours! Bow your heart to Him now, that it may be well with you in that solemn day.
And what, we ask, in conclusion, is that which makes your sick-room so sweet, and your dying-bed so pleasant? It is Christ's precious name poured forth! Death, so dreaded by others, will come to you, around whose pillow glory streams down from Immanuel's land, wearing a countenance of beauty and a robe of fragrance, supremely, unutterably glorious and precious.
The departing believer views death through Christ, the lovely and the all-conquering One; and so death looks lovely, pleasant, and harmless. Oh! then, as, perhaps, never before, the Holy Spirit will unseal this sacred box of ointment, and the NAME OF JESUS, when every other name has faded, will cling to your memory and heart, you blest saint, departing now amid its life-sustaining and heaven wafting fragrance. "Unto You Therefore Who Believe He Is Precious."
"There is A NAME I love to hear;
I love to sing its worth
It sounds like music in my ear,
The sweetest name on earth.
"It tells me of a Savior's love,
Who died to set me free
It tells me of His precious blood-
The sinner's perfect plea.
"It tells me of a Father's smile
Beaming upon His child
It cheers me through this little while,
Through desert, waste, and wild.
"It tells me what my Father has
In store for every day;
And though I tread a darksome path,
Yields sunshine all the way.
"It tells of One whose loving heart
Can feel my smallest woe;
Who in each sorrow bears a part
That none can bear below.
"It bids my trembling soul rejoice,
And dries each rising tear
It tells me, in a 'still small voice,'
To trust and not to fear.
"Jesus! the name I love so well,
The name I love to hear!
No saint on earth its worth can tell
No heart conceive how dear.
"This name shall shed its fragrance still
Along this thorny road;
Shall sweetly smooth the rugged hill
That leads me up to God!
"And there, with all the blood-bought throng,
From sin and sorrow free,
I'll sing the new eternal song
Of Jesus' love to me!"

The Burden Cast upon God

"Cast your burden (or cares) upon the Lord, and He shall sustain you." Psalm 55:22.

Whose eye will light upon this the closing meditation of our volume, and feel that the character which these remarkable words portray belongs not to him? Who is not burdened? Who bears not some heavy load, staggers and faints not under the pressure of some galling, perhaps, crushing weight of infirmity, trial, or cross, along life's crowded avenues? There is no exception clause in the covenant of grace exempting the saints of God from burdens. Yes, the very provision of that covenant- "a covenant ordered in all things"- implies their existence, their varied character, and deep necessity. The covenant of grace is made for a poor and an afflicted people whom the Lord has left in the midst of Egypt. To know from experience what the fulness and preciousness of that covenant is, we must be emptied, tried, burdened. It is only the poor sinner that lives upon Christ's wealth, the empty soul that lives upon Christ's fulness, the feeble saint that lives upon Christ's power, the tried, afflicted, and tempted believer that lives upon Christ's grace, sympathy, and love. The extent of our conscious need is the measure of our life of faith on Jesus. We ally our weakness with His strength, our demerit with His righteousness, our indigence with His opulence, and hang our empty vessel upon His unbounded and fathomless sufficiency. Beloved, entwine as a thread of gold with the ministry of home this precious thought: "MY EMPTINESS FITS ME FOR CHRIST'S FULNESS; AND CHRIST'S FULNESS IS DESIGNED FOR MY EMPTINESS."
But what an exceeding great and precious exhortation and promise is this- "CAST YOUR BURDEN upon the Lord, and He shall sustain you." The marginal reading is, "your gift." We accept both readings as correct. All that we receive from the Lord we receive as a gift- the gift of His most free grace and love. The believer sees and tastes free grace in every blessing of His Heavenly Father. He traces it in the sun that cheers him, in the spring that refreshes him, in the breeze that fans him, in the flowers that delight him. He sees it in the love that comforts him, in the friendship that strengthens him, in the sympathy that soothes him, in the outstretched hand that relieves his need.
No, more. The child of God sees free grace- a Father's gift- in every cloud that darkens, in every sorrow that embitters, in every disappointment that wounds, in every burden that crushes.
But infinitely beyond all, he sees and tastes free grace in the blood that pardons him, in the righteousness that justifies him, in the love that adopts him, in the voice that calls him, and in the promises that engage to bring him home to glory! Over the "door of hope" opened to us down in the dark "valley" of our poverty and nothingness, the marvellous words are emblazoned- "BY GRACE ARE YOU SAVED."
All these as gifts, natural and spiritual, are to be cast upon the Lord; in other words, employed in His service and devoted to His glory. Is it talent? is it wealth? is it influence? is it time? is it grace? -cast your gift- whatever the one talent may be- upon the Lord; consecrating all to, and employing all unreservedly for, HIM.
But we restrict our exposition of the passage to the received text. "Cast your BURDEN upon the Lord." The Lord's people are truly a burdened people. They of the whole creation are the most burdened. They are conscious of burdens of which the unregenerate world is totally unconscious. In the first place, beloved, are you sensible of the burden of sin? This is an evidence of spiritual life. As a dead body has no sensibility and feels no pressure, so a soul dead in trespasses and in sins has no consciousness of the body of sin and of death to which it belongs. A corpse does not weep, nor groan, nor sigh, nor bewail its humiliated condition; neither does a spiritually dead soul cry out from its grave of corruption, "O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from this body of sin and of death?" And why not? Because there is no life, and where there is no life there is no sensibility. If, my beloved, conscious sin is your burden- if your heaviest sigh, your deepest groan, your bitterest tear springs from the feeling of indwelling sin, it is one of the strongest evidences of spiritual life- that you are in truth a living soul. The Spirit of God has breathed divine life into you, and thus quickened and vitalized, you cry, "Woe is me! for I am undone, because I a man of unclean lips."
Go, you who despairingly have thought that you had no affiliated relation to the children of God, since you discern so much in your heart contrary to the Father's nature, and so much in your spirit contrary to the image of the brethren, and who in view of this exclaim, "I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes,"- take the comfort to yourself that, this conscious burden proves your possession of spiritual sensibility, and this bitter bewailment evidences the life of God in your soul. O yes, the Lord's people are a burdened people, and the burden of indwelling sin is the greatest burden of all.
Such, too, is the burden of the newly awakened soul. Where did great inquiry come from- "What shall I do to be saved?" Where did the touching appeal come from- "Lord, help me!" Where did the agonizing cry come from- "God be merciful to me a sinner!" O it springs from the awakened conscience, from the guilt-distressed soul, the sinner just made to feel his sins a burden, convinced that he is poor and wretched, lost and undone, and without Christ must perish forever.
To WHOM did the Savior address that wondrous invitation, the power and savor of which will continue until the last awakened sinner shall look to Christ and live: "Come unto Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." O it was to just such as you! Has the Spirit discovered to you your sinfulness, shown you to yourself as "poor, and blind, and miserable, and naked"? Does your load of sin seem too great for you to bear? Come and cast it upon Christ, the sinner's great Sin-Bearer! This great, gracious, and free invitation is addressed, you guilt-burdened soul, to you, and nothing shall dare forbid your acceptance. Christ speaks it, Christ means it- and who shall say, No, when Christ says, Yes?
The love that bids you come, will be accompanied with the power that enables you to come and in simple faith cast that burden of sin and guilt upon the loving, Almighty Savior, who alone can unclasp it from your soul, and give you rest. You have nothing to do either with its material or its dimension. That is Christ's concern. Yours is simply to believe that He sorrowed for it in Gethsemane, died for it on the cross, and now invites you to transfer it to Him, seated in glory upon His throne. You have nothing to do in the matter but believingly to take Him at His word, and so find rest for your guilt-oppressed and sin-weary spirit.
"Come unto Me, you weary! Come!
You heavy-laden, cease to roam!
I will refresh the weary breast,
And give the laborings spirit rest."
"Sweet word! it calms my troubled soul,
It bids my sorrow cease to roll;
Smiles like the rainbow on the deep,
And hushes all my woes to sleep."
Perhaps a sense of backsliding from the Lord is your burden. You did run well, walked closely with God, and loved to feed in green pastures with the flock and beside the Shepherd's tent; but you did not love the fold, and went away and walked no more with Jesus. And now the Shepherd has gone after you, and by the gentle moving of His Spirit on your heart is drawing you back with weeping, and mourning, and confession. Your departures are a grievous and a heavy burden, and like Ephraim you smite upon the thigh, and are ashamed, you are even confounded, and exclaim, "Turn me and I shall be turned, for You are the Lord my God."
Come, then, poor backslider, you wanderer from the Shepherd's side, you truant from the fold, and listen to the tender, forgiving language of that God and Father against whom you have sinned. "Is not Ephraim still my son, my darling child? asks the Lord. I had to punish him, but I still love him. I long for him and surely will have mercy on him." (Jeremiah 31:20) Approach, you penitent soul, though a wanderer, still a son; though a backslider, still a child- and cast the burden of your back-slidings upon Jesus, whose unchanging love and restoring grace are now gently and effectually drawing you back to Himself. "I will arise and go to my Father, and will say unto Him, Father, I have sinned against heaven and before You."
"Return, O wanderer! Return,
And seek an injured Father's face;
Those warm desires that in you burn
Were kindled by recovering grace."
Perhaps your burden is mental. There is, probably, no pressure so acutely felt as that in which the mind is more immediately concerned. Any trial- be it spiritual or temporal- which implicates the mental powers, entails a burden which nothing short of supernatural power can sustain.
The Lord has seen fit to send this cloud-veil upon your mind, which for a time shades your Christian evidence, obscures your hope, weakens your hold upon the Savior, depresses you to despondency and drives you almost to despair. And now you question the sincerity of your Christian profession, you doubt the reality of your conversion, and are ready to ignore the hope of heaven which you once so happily cherished. All this, however, is the effect only of a mind morbidly, nervously, and for a season, temporally unhinged; but whose spiritual regeneration, whose hidden life, and whose eternal safety nothing can touch.
Creation illustrates this idea. The sun is eclipsed, but not annihilated. The stars are veiled, but not extinguished. Dark clouds may drape Christ from the believer's eye, but nothing extinguishes, or can for a moment lessen His great love to His saints. Mental depression may obscure your Christian evidences- those stars of the soul which smile upon it so cheeringly- but the Divine seal of the Spirit nothing can ever efface. The child of the light may walk in darkness and be a child of the light still- for once a child, ever a child!
Such is the burden which the Lord invites you to cast upon Him! No saint or angel can sympathize with it as Jesus can. He passed through mental distress infinitely darker and more crushing than yours. And will He allow you to succumb to this temporary eclipse, or permit you to sink beneath these dark waters? Will He allow the enemy always to take advantage of your physical infirmities, thus to work upon your mental and spiritual feelings, producing so much gloom, disquietude, and distress?
O no! In the exercise of His Divine power He will cry- "Thus far shall you, go and no farther." The darkness and the light are both at His command, and both, in the experience of His saints, work together for good. If ever the sympathy of Him who in the terrible and unparalleled darkness of His soul exclaimed, "My God, my God, why have You forsaken Me," flowed out toward you, it is now. And do you think that this temporary darkness of the mind through which you are passing, lessens the love, or shakes the faithfulness, of impairs the power of your covenant God and Father?
Impossible! Listen to His marvellous language. "The mountains shall depart, and the hills be removed; but My kindness shall not depart from you, neither shall the covenant of My peace be removed, says the Lord who has mercy on you." Cheer up, then, you sad and desponding one! Why are you cast down? Hope in God, for this long, dreary night of weeping shall, before long and forever, merge into a bright morning of joy.
Heavy, too, is the burden of affliction. Who counts not this among the many which he bears along the weary, dusty road of life? "Many are the afflictions of the righteous." And again: "The Lord tries the righteous." Yet again: "Whom the Lord loves He chastens, and scourges every son whom He receives." Thus if you are an afflicted saint, a tried believer, a chastened child, burdened with carping cares, corroding-anxieties, heart-crushing sorrows, and heavy stripes, you wear but the garments of the spiritual realm to which you belong, and possess but the seals and evidences of a nobler sonship and closer relationship to God than angels claim. "If you endure chastening God deals with you as with sons." Accept, then, in meekness and love these Divine evidences -these sacred proofs of adoption- even the many trials, sore temptations, and painful corrections with which your Heavenly Father, in love, sees fit to visit you.
But, perhaps, your home-duties, trials, and needs, form your burden. Every home is an embryo kingdom, an epitomized world, of which the parent constitutes the sovereign. There are laws to be obeyed, rules to be observed, subjects to be governed, cares to be sustained, demands to be met, and "who is sufficient for all this?" is often your anxious inquiry. Who can tell what crushing burdens, what bitter sorrows, what corroding cares, what pressing demands, may exist within a single family circle, deeply veiled from every eye but God's? You are perhaps a widower- bereaved and desolate; or you are a widow- lonely and helpless. Your children are an anxiety, your domestic duties a trial, your necessities are pressing, your whole position one of embarrassment and depression.
What shall you do? Do even as the Lord who loves you enjoins- "Cast your burden upon the Lord, and He shall sustain you." Your Heavenly Father knows all your home-trials, for He has sent them! Jesus, though he had no home on earth, yet sympathized with the home-cares and sorrows of others, and is not a stranger, nor indifferent to yours. Bring all to Him, tell Him all, confide to Him all, trust Him in all. You have no family trial too great, and no domestic need too little, and no home-sorrow too delicate, to take to Christ. Obey the precept, "Cast your burden upon the Lord;" and He will make good the promise, "and He shall sustain you." O costly and blessed home-burden that brings Jesus beneath our roof!

But who is our Burden-Bearer? "Cast your burden UPON THE LORD." JEHOVAH-JESUS is the great Burden-Bearer of His people. No other arm, and no other heart, in heaven or upon earth, were strong enough, or loving enough, to bear these burdens but His! He who bore the weight of our sin and curse and shame in His obedience and death- bore it along all the avenues of His weary pilgrimage, from Bethlehem to Calvary- is He who now stretches forth His Divine arm, and makes bare a Brother's heart to take your burden of care and of grief, dear saint of God, upon Himself. Can you for a moment question either His power or His love after all that He has done for you? This would be cruel unbelief indeed!
But how shall we, how can we, describe the tenderness of Christ towards His burdened ones, and the gentleness with which He leads them? "He tends his flock like a shepherd: He gathers the lambs in his arms and carries them close to his heart; he gently leads those that have young (those who are burdened)." Isaiah 40:11 You are wearied. Your deep afflictions area burden. Your sinful heart is a burden. Your lack of faith, and love, and fruitfulness is a burden. You are, as it were, "with young," passing through much sore and painful travail of soul, a burden to yourself, cast down and discouraged by reason of the way.
But oh, blessed solace! Jesus leads you, and leads you gently. All others would drive you- man would drive you, the world would drive you, Satan would drive you, your own impulsive heart and blind judgment would drive, and even the saints would drive you- but Jesus leads you, and leads you tenderly, skillfully, and safely. He is the loving, careful Shepherd who overdrives not His sheep, especially the weak, the sick, the burdened, the little ones of His flock.
He knows your burden- "your burden." The marvellous language of God is "I know their sorrows." He knows how your friend that loved you is gone like a shadow, how your gourd that sheltered you is smitten in a night, how the voice that was the sweetest music to you is hushed in the stillness of death, how the strong and beautiful staff that supported you is broken and lies a ruin in the dust. Jesus knows all- and He is leading you through all. He is leading you by these very same dark providences; these events that appear so adverse, this way that seems so dark, these dealings that seem so mysterious, painful, and crushing. How precious and soothing is the promise, "I will bring the blind by a way that they knew not; I will lead them in paths that they have not known; I will make darkness light before them, and crooked things straight. These things will I do unto them, and not forsake them."
As Jesus thus gently leads, so let us meekly, confidingly follow, believing that His hand is powerful, His heart is loving, His eye is unslumbering, and that He is leading us by the right way home to be with Him forever.
But the question will arise in your heart, HOW am I to cast my burden upon Him? The answer is at hand. In faith and by prayer. It is by an act of simple, prayerful faith we transfer our cares and anxieties, our sorrows and needs, to the Lord. Only believe that God is able to do all that you need, and ask Him to do it. Only believe that Christ is willing to grant all that you request. Only believe that He is most true, most loving, most faithful when He invites you come and lean upon Him, and to lean with all your might upon that arm that balances the universe, and upon that bosom that bled for you upon the soldier's spear!
Perhaps faith and unbelief are now struggling painfully within your tried and anxious heart. You believe that God is able to bear your burden, but you question His willingness to bear it. Or, perhaps, you question not His readiness, but you doubtingly ask, "Is the Lord able to do this thing for me?" And thus, while you are debating a matter about which there is not the shadow of a shade of doubt, the burden is crushing your gentle spirit to the dust. And all the while Jesus stands at your side and lovingly says- "Cast your burden upon Me and I will sustain you. I am God Almighty. I bore the load of your sin and condemnation up the steep of Calvary, and the same power of omnipotence, and the same strength of love that bore it all for you then, is prepared to bear your need, and sorrow now. Roll it all upon Me."
"Child of My Love! Lean hard! Let Me feel the pressure of your care. I know your burden, child! I shaped it- I poised it in My own hand and made no proportion of its weight to your unaided strength. For even as I laid it on, I said I shall be near, and while she leans on Me, this burden shall be Mine, not hers. So shall I keep My child within the circling arms of My own love. Here lay it down! Do not fear to impose it on a shoulder which upholds the government of worlds! Yet closer come! You are not near enough! I would embrace your burden, so I might feel My child reposing on My breast. You love Me! I know it. Doubt not, then. But, loving me, Lean hard!"
And, how precious and assuring the promise- "He shall SUSTAIN you." The terms of the promise are clear. It is not that the Lord will remove the burden, but that He will sustain us under it. He gives us what is equivalent, and, perhaps, more than equivalent to its removal- grace to endure, and strength to carry it- so that we reap more spiritual blessing, and He receives more Divine glory, than would accrue from its entire removal. Read the histories of the saints, and learn how they illustrate and confirm this truth.
Look at Jacob, in danger from the revenge of Esau, casting his burden of anxiety and fear upon God. God did not remove it, but sustained His servant, and brought him safely through.
Look at Elijah, fleeing for his life from the threatenings of Jezebel- how God met him in his weariness and petulance, nourished and sustained him in the wilderness, so that in the strength of that food he traveled forty days and forty nights unto Horeb, the mount of God.
Look at Paul, afflicted with the thorn in the flesh, thrice asking, and thrice denied, its removal- yet so sustained by the all-sufficiency of Christ's grace, that he glories in its existence, that the power of Christ might rest upon him. And what has been, is still the experience of the Lord's people- that when He does not immediately remove a burden, He imparts all-sufficient grace and strength to bear it. And O how much greater a blessing to be daily upheld by the power of God, sustained by the grace of Christ, and comforted by the consolation of the Spirit, than, with the immediate and entire removal of the burden, to lose all the sweet, sanctifying blessings that directly spring from it.
A prolonged affliction is often a prolonged mercy. The tedious illness never alleviated; the couch of weakness never left; the white-hot furnace never extinguished; the daily cross never lightened. O who can describe what sweet mercy flows through this channel? what sweet nourishment comes from this eater? how glorious and precious the Savior becomes? and how the daily burden proves a daily confirmation of the truth and experience of the great promise of God. "As your day so shall your strength be."
And when we arrive at heaven, and survey in the light of its glory all the way the Lord our God led us there; when we review every cross and every bereavement, every need and every correction, we shall then see the covenant faithfulness of God, the tender love of Christ, and the gentle grace of the Spirit, in not removing the burden, nor lifting the cross, nor taking our feet out of the thorny, flinty path, but in giving us instead, what was a richer, holier blessing: the upholding of His power, the sustaining of His grace, and the consolation of His love.
Accept then, my beloved- and this shall be my last exhortation- accept in meekness and faith your burdens as from the Lord. Seek that they may make you more holy, may endear Jesus to your heart, fit you for heaven, and bring much praise, and glory, and honor to your covenant triune God. They then shall be as pinions to your soul, bearing you upon their gold-plumed wing higher, and yet higher towards heaven, in faith, love, and prayer, until, delivered from the burden of the flesh, you shall enter into eternal joy and felicity- Forever with the Lord!
"Look onward still!
However dark the night may be,
The morning breaks joyously;
Wars after wars may come and go,
And billows seem to overflow
Your Father's hand a bound will set,
His love is deeper- deeper yet."
"Lean on this love!
Oh, earthly love has little power
To cheer you in your saddest hour;
And with your lonely, bitter lot,
The stranger intermedles not;
But there is One whose sympathy
Can prove enough for thee.
"Are there none left,
None, whom your life may help to show
How vain and empty all below?
To shine as brightest stars is given
To those who point the way to heaven
If such shall be their glorious state,
It is blessed, then, to work and wait."
"Say not, 'it is long!'
This sin-stained world is not to be
Your haven for eternity
The aching heart, the heavy trial,
Are only for a 'little while'
Patient, your upward pathway trace
Unto your Father's dwelling place."
"Joy comes then!
For when faith's less-enduring light
Is changed for perfect, lasting sight,
And hearts that even on earth seemed one
Shall beat in perfect unison,
And, leaning on a Father's breast,
His weary child shall be at rest."

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

THE NIGHTINGALE SONG OF DAVID

Table of Contents

Preface

1. Christ the Shepherd

2. Green Pastures

3. Still Waters

4. The Restored Sheep

5. The Valley

6. The Rod and the Staff

7. The Banquet

8. The Anointing

9. The Overflowing Cup

10. Heaven, at Last and Forever

11. Hell, at Last and Forever

PREFACE

Of the Divine Inspiration of the Book of Psalms the Psalmist himself shall speak: "These are the last words of David: David, the son of Jesse, speaks- David, the man to whom God gave such wonderful success, David, the man anointed by the God of Jacob, David, the sweet psalmist of Israel. The Spirit of the Lord speaks through me; his words are upon my tongue." 2 Samuel 23:1-2. Fortified with such a testimony, we may accept without hesitation the Twenty-third of this "Hymn Book for all times" as not only a divine, but as the divinest, richest, and most musical of all the songs which breathed from David's inspired harp; and to which, by the consent of the universal Church, the palm of distinction has been awarded. No individual, competent to form a judgment in the matter, and possessing any pretension to a taste for that which is pastoral in composition- rich in imagery- tender in pathos- and sublime in revelation- will fail to study this Psalm without the profoundest instruction and the most exquisite delight. Its melodies- divine and entrancing, and which may well suggest the expressive title we have ventured to give it- have echoed through all ages of the Christian Church- instructing more minds, soothing more hearts, quelling more fears, and inspiring more hopes- than, perhaps, any other composition in any language, or of any age. It begins with CHRIST, and ends with HEAVEN; and all that intervenes between this true and precious starting-point, and its certain and glorious goal, portrays every divine feature, and meets every spiritual need of the believer's religious experience, from his first step into grace, to his first step into glory. If no other blessing results from the present exposition of this Psalm, than the refreshment it has afforded the writer in its composition, he will have been richly rewarded for the labor and weariness of preparing it. To the divine blessing of the One Shepherd, and to the gracious acceptance of the One Fold, he devoutly and affectionately commends his work and to the Triune Jehovah shall be the glory!

Christ, the Shepherd

"The Lord is my Shepherd; I shall not be in want." Psalm 23:1.

"The Lord is my Shepherd; I have everything I need." Psalm 23:1.

The Divinely-inspired lyre of David, "the sweet singer of Israel," never awoke its chords to melody more rich, or to truths more precious, than when he poured forth his soul in the utterances of this magnificent and comprehensive Psalm. And well was his heart attuned to the song! Himself a shepherd- the office he extols was to him sacred and significant; Christ the substance- his theme was elevated and entrancing. Recalling to memory his early history, when God "took him from following the ewes great with young," and tracing all the way he had thus been divinely led- from the sheep-fold to the throne- from the pastoral to the kingly office- we do not wonder that of all the strains which breathed from his magic touch, this should be, par excellence, the Nightingale Psalm of all.

The key-note of earth, is, Christ the Shepherd- as the key-note of heaven, is, Christ the Lamb. In that world of music the song is all and ever of Christ. His Name warbles from every tongue- His beauty resounds from every harp- His Atonement the substance of every anthem- His love the inspiration of every minstrel chanting the "new song before the throne" - "Worthy is the Lamb that was slain." 'New' though that song will be, we yet are 'learning' it in the house of our pilgrimage. We read- "No man could learn that song but the hundred and forty and four thousand, who were redeemed from the earth." The song was thus learned- learned on earth -the scene of our training for heaven. My soul! are you training for heaven? are you learning this song? have you caught the key-note? are you practicing its scales- rehearsing its music? Remember, it must be learned on earth, or it can never be sung in heaven! Put if thus learning it- learning it, it may be, in the humbling region of self-knowledge, or in the painful school of personal suffering, and beneath the shadow of the cross- when the first burst of this song shall fall upon your ravished senses, you will wonder how familiar to your ear were the notes it breathed, and how precious to your heart the truths it uttered! We now turn to the Psalm itself. And may the Divine Spirit, by whose inspiration it was penned, unseal our ear to the voice of the charmer!

"The Lord is my Shepherd." The office David thus assigns to Christ- and this is the key-note of the Psalm- is one of the most appropriate and expressive. It would seem to have been His own favorite designation, "I am the good Shepherd." Both Testaments, the Old and the New- Messiah's two faithful witnesses- unite in investing Him with this office. He was early revealed under this title. When the family of good old Jacob clustered around his dying bed, eager to catch the parting blessings breathing from his lips, the expiring patriarch pointed his offspring to the Author of all his mercies as the "Shepherd of Israel," who by covenant engagement had promised a continuance of those blessings to His posterity. Still more distinctly and emphatically is Christ spoken of by Evangelists and Apostles under this title. The evangelist John records the assumption of it by our Lord Himself; and the apostle Peter ascribes it to Him as the "Chief Shepherd and Bishop" of His Church. This passage infers the existence in the Church of subordinate, or under shepherds. Such are all Christ's true ministers whose office it is to call out of the world, gather into the fold, and feed, the one elect Flock of God. They are Christ's 'under-shepherds', or overseers, infinitely subordinate, and solemnly accountable to Him, the "Chief Shepherd and Bishop" of His Church, in the administrative authority which they wield, in the divine gifts which they possess, and in the spiritual functions which they perform. Their office is not priestly, but ministerial; they are anointed with no sacerdotal grace, and are clothed with no divine prerogative, and are ordained to present no sacrificial offering. Nevertheless, their office is holy and honorable; their responsibility, tremendous and solemn ; their duties, arduous and trying; their anxieties many, and their trials sore; and they are to be "esteemed very highly in love for their works' sake." Woe unto them if they preach not the gospel! woe unto those who reject the gospel they preach! and woe to the world who by slander, falsehood, and persecution touch God's anointed, and seek to do His prophets harm. My soul! has the Lord blessed you with a true and faithful gospel minister? Remember your duty to him, and your responsibility to God; and in both act as one who is soon to give an account at His bar. But let us turn from the 'subordinate' shepherds to Christ, the 'Chief' and "good Shepherd of the sheep."

"The Lord is my Shepherd." A brief enumeration of some of CHRIST'S ATTRIBUTES is necessary to our due appreciation of this His office as the Shepherd of His flock. We need every view of Christ that will elevate our thoughts of His person, strengthen our faith in His work, and expand our view of His glory. And if Christ is "made of God unto us wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption"- if our knowledge of the Son is the measure of our knowledge of the Father- and if in proportion to the clearness of our views and the closeness of our intimacy will be the silvery flow of our peace and the golden brightness of our hope- then, it follows that we cannot pay too great and earnest heed to the apostle's injunction, "Grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ."

What, then, are some of the attributes of the Lord our Shepherd? Christ is a Divine Shepherd. We place this view of Christ in the foreground of our exposition. It is the loftiest and sweetest note in our song. Our Shepherd derives His office, authority, and fitness, exclusively from His personal dignity. The entire superstructure of the Work of Christ rests upon the foundation of the Person of Christ. A denial and rejection of the one, involves a denial and rejection of the other- they stand or fall together. The title our psalmist applies to Christ expresses His personal Divinity, "The Lord" -JEHOVAH- "is my Shepherd." Divinity was essential to His office. A mere human shepherd would have been inadequate to the requirements of His office and to the demands of His flock. Divine knowledge is an essential perfection. He must possess a perfect knowledge of His sheep, collectively and individually. He must know their persons, their names, their requirements; in a word, all their individual circumstances, positions, and needs. How else could He meet the demands of each and all of a flock composed of countless numbers, and scattered far and wide over the face of the earth? "I know my sheep," is His own declaration of this glorious truth, and a more precious truth- one more replete with assurance and comfort- never flowed from His grace- anointed lips. My soul, ponder this truth in the light of your individuality, and reason the matter with yourself thus: Jehovah, my Shepherd, knows me individually. He calls me by my name; recognizes my person; is acquainted with my needs; and is cognizant of the path I tread. And although others may but imperfectly know me, or know me not at all; my actions misunderstood, my motives misconstrued; ignorant of my daily cross, my veiled sorrow, and the narrow and difficult path I tread; nevertheless, Jesus the Shepherd has declared; "I know my sheep." Enough, my Lord! Not a path perplexes me; not a cloud shades me; not a difficulty embarrasses me; not a need grieves me; not a grief distresses me; not a being wounds me; but You, the Lord my Shepherd, know it altogether. He knows the way that I take; and when He has tried me, I shall come forth as gold."

Christ is a guiding Shepherd. "He leads Joseph like a flock." It is a part of His office as a Shepherd to go before His sheep. He knows the way to heaven- Himself the Way- through the entangled wilderness- across the dreary desert- down the deep valley- over the swelling flood- and up the steep ascent- Jesus knows all the way! Confide yourself to His convoy. He will lead you in no path which God's purpose has not ordained, which His wisdom has not mapped, and for which the everlasting covenant has not provided; yes more, you will tread no path in which you may not trace the travel of Him who, "when He puts forth His own sheep, goes before them." It is no untrodden path you tread. Lonely and footsore, Jesus has left the imprint of His weary, dust-sandled, nail-pierced feet along that very road, that you might follow His steps, and have fellowship with His sufferings. Oh! what a privilege- what an honor this! Lord! the way I travel is solitary, tearful, and suffering; but Your wisdom has appointed, and Your love has planned, and Your grace sustains it; and, toilsome and dreary though it be, it blooms with the flowers, and is fragrant with the perfume of Your own travel of love; and you will lead me along no more darksome or thorny way than You Yourself have trod. "You shall guide me with Your counsel, and afterwards receive me to glory."

Divine power is equally a perfection of Christ our Shepherd. A shepherd powerless to cope with every circumstance of His flock, would be unequal to his office. In this respect, Christ is the perfection of power. "All power is given unto Me in heaven and in earth"- given to Him irrespective of His divine power as God, in view of His office as the Shepherd of His sheep. The conduct of His saints to heaven demands the utmost resources of Deity. Nothing short of this could bring a single saint to glory. "Kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation," is the history and the testimony of every saved sinner. Not a foe invades the fold- not a beast of prey worries the sheep- not a storm-cloud threatens them- but the power of Christ is present to cover with its shield the flock entrusted to His keeping. How strikingly David, as a personal type of Christ the Shepherd, foreshadowed this! Narrating his exploits as a shepherd, he thus addressed Saul the king: "Your servant kept his father's sheep, and there came a lion, and a bear, and took a lamb out of the flock: and I went out after him, and smote him, and delivered it out of his mouth: and when he arose against me, I caught him by his beard, and smote him, and slew him. Your servant slew both the lion and the bear. The Lord that delivered me out of the paw of the lion, and out of the paw of the bear, He will deliver me out of the hand of this Philistine." The apostle records a similar rescue by the same Divine power on his behalf: "Notwithstanding the Lord stood with me, and strengthened me; . . . and I was delivered out of the mouth of the lion." The same Divine power is momentarily exerted on our behalf. "You have given Him power over all flesh, that He should give eternal life to as many as You have given Him," is the assertion in His intercessory prayer of our Divine-human Shepherd.

What need have we of this power! "Without me you can do nothing." Corruption within- temptations without- a subtle foe never sleeping- the world ever alluring- and grace ever decaying- O how could we hold our own were Christ our Shepherd to withdraw His Divine power for one moment? But fear not, you assailed and trembling sheep! You have the assurance of the Shepherd- "They shall never perish, neither shall any one pluck them out of m y hand."

But Jesus' power to save is the crowning view of this perfection. "He is ABLE to save to the uttermost all who come unto God by Him." In no part of His mission is His power so appropriately and sublimely exerted- no, not even in the creation of the universe- as in saving from guilt and condemnation one poor lost sinner. Oh, it is the costliest and brightest gem in the mediatorial diadem of His glory! Do you think, then, O you sin-burdened one, laden with the iniquities and bowed down with the guilt of years, that Jesus is not able to save you? Do you doubt the love of the mother who bore you? Do you doubt the affection of the being who wedded you? Doubt, if you will, your very existence; but cast not one cruel, dishonoring doubt upon the POWER of Jesus to SAVE you from the guilt, dominion, and condemnation of all the transgression you have ever committed from the first breath you drew until now. The "blood that cleanses from all sin," in its divine efficacy, in its sovereign virtue, in its gracious freeness, has a present and unlimited power to wash you, even you, whiter than snow. In view of this divine attribute of our Shepherd- His power to convert, His power to keep, His power to deliver, His power to save- may we not blend our voice with the chorus of the apostle- "Unto Him that is ABLE to keep you from falling, and to present you faultless before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy, to the only wise God our Savior, be glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and ever. Anon."

The crowning attribute of our Shepherd remains to be considered- His redeeming character. We have pronounced this the crowning perfection of our Lord. What were all His other perfections- illustrious though they are- were He not a Redeeming Shepherd? His intelligent knowledge, His guiding skill, His shielding power had not met the necessities of His flock apart from its redemption by the sacrifice of Himself. And now were to be fulfilled the remarkable prophecies concerning this sacrifice. "All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all." "Awake, O sword, against any shepherd, and against the man that is my fellow, says the Lord of hosts: smite the shepherd, and the sheep shall be scattered: and I will turn my hand upon the little ones." Our Shepherd claims the verification of these wonderful predictions. "I am the Good Shepherd: the Good Shepherd gives His life for the sheep." "I lay down my life for the sheep." Oh what a precious view does this present of the love of Christ for the flock of His pasture! We needed a sin-bearing; a sin-atoning; a sin-sacrificing Shepherd; one who by His sinless obedience would honor the rigid claims of the law, and by His sacrificial death would satisfy the righteous demands of Justice; be, the plague of death, and the destruction of the grave, on behalf of His elect church. The Lord our Shepherd did all this. All the sins of His church were made to meet upon Him. Your sins, oh you doubting, trembling sheep! Fear not! Christ, your Redeeming Shepherd, has ransomed you- died for you- has paid all your great debt- has drowned all your sins in the fathomless sea of His blood- and has clothed you with the robe of His righteousness, making you in God's eye lovely through His loveliness put upon you. "He was made sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him." Hold fast this doctrine of substitution- Christ dying in our stead. It is the marrow and pith of the gospel- our sanctification in life, our hope in death, our song in eternity.

"MY Shepherd," the sweetest note in our nightingale song! It is the privilege of faith to turn a general into a particular truth, a collective blessing into an individual one. The apostle illustrates this, " Who loved ME, and gave Himself for ME." My soul! put in your claim to a personal proprietorship in a personal Shepherd. He is as much you as though there were not another sheep of His flock. He loves you individually, chose you individually, died for you individually, called you and lives for you individually; and it is your privilege to join in the lofty melody of David the king- "The Lord is my Shepherd; I shall not want." "MY Lord and MY God," echoed Peter the apostle.

There is no reasoning so logical and accurate as that of faith. What inference could be more natural, what deduction more true? Mere human reason is sure to err when it attempts to solve the mysteries and grapple with the truths of divine revelation. But the moment we summon faith to the study- faith accepting what reason discards- the heart believing what the mind cannot understand- the whole soul bowing down to revelations and facts which infinitely transcend, but do not in the least degree contradict, reason, that moment we are made to know the doctrine whether it be of God. All our difficulty then vanishes, the mist dissolves, the soul is uplifted, and a landscape of divine truth, clothed with beauty, bathed in sun-light, and vocal with song, bursts upon our view. Receive the Bible as a little child, not citing it to the bar of your reason, but prostrating your reason unquestioningly and humbly before it, and you shall be saved. "The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul: the testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple." "Your word is truth." Such, then, is the deduction of faith– "The Lord is my Shepherd "- and because He is my Shepherd- "I shall not be in need." It is impossible that it should be otherwise, since it is the office of a shepherd to look well to the needs of his sheep. We shall not lack temporal supply. He instructs us to watch the sparrow lighting upon the earth in quest of its morning meal- to admire the lily clothed with a beauty eclipsing the most gorgeous attire of Solomon- bids us not be anxious what we shall eat or what we shall drink, or wherewithal we shall be clothed, since our heavenly Father knows we have need of all these things; and that He, as our Shepherd, is pledged to meet our every temporal necessity. Faith may be tried- and its very trial be found among our most precious blessings- yet sooner or later the supply of His providence will come, and the promise be verified, "My God shall supply all your needs according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus."

Still more, is He pledged to meet all the soul's requirements. What are our temporal needs in comparison to our spiritual? In this light we interpret those wonderful words, "It pleased the Father that in Him should all fulness dwell," "Full of grace and truth." Christ, our Divine-human Shepherd, holds the keys of all the resources of Deity, of all the provisions of the covenant, of all the supplies of the Church. What is your need, O my soul? Is it grace? Christ is "full of grace." Is it power? "All power is given unto Me in heaven and in earth." Is it comfort? Christ is "the Consolation of Israel." Is it supply? "He shall feed His flock like a Shepherd." Is it counsel? "His name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor." Is it sympathy? "He is touched with the feeling of our infirmities." "Jesus wept." In view of these precious declarations confirmatory of the all-sufficiency of Christ our Shepherd, let faith exclaim in every circumstance- "I shall not lack."

When I come with troubled heart,
Jesus bids me not depart- Until He stills it.
When I come with empty urn,
Jesus bids me not return- Until He fills it.
Once I came in tattered dress,
And the God of holiness- Did not loathe me.
Bringing nothing for the payment.
When I came for change of raiment- He did clothe me.
When I dared not nearer draw,
For the terrors of the law- He compelled me.
Then He showed me how the Son
Has my full salvation won- By His dying.
How the law's demand He met,
The poor bankrupt's total debt- Satisfying.
Still He bids me to draw near,
With my every grief and fear- And He quells it.
All unworthy, yet I learn,
Just to bring my empty urn- And He fills it.

"The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not be in want."

Green Pastures

"He makes me lie down in green pastures." Psalm 23:2.

"He lets me rest in green meadows." Psalm 23:2.

David had affirmed his belief- predicated upon the all-sufficiency of his Shepherd- that he should not be in need. It was, as we have remarked, the natural and logical conclusion of faith from the promise. He now proceeds to justify and confirm it: "He makes me to lie down in green pastures." It is one of the most natural and essential duties of a shepherd that he should provide suitable and ample nourishment for his flock; and then skillfully and timely to conduct them to it. Such is the office to which our Psalmist now refers.

There is no evidence of the truth of the Bible so convincing as the evidence of personal experience. "You are my witnesses," says God. He who can lay his hand upon his heart, and say- "I have the testimony here that God's word is true," is fortified against the most sophistical and powerful assaults of the foes of the faith. "He that believes on the Son of God, has the witness in Himself." If this weapon, my reader, is yours, let it not slumber in the scabbard; but draw it thence, and wield it manfully, "valiant for the truth upon the earth," and "contending earnestly for the faith once delivered unto the saints." You need not then tremble before the atheism and rationalism of the day; your sword is invincible- your soul invulnerable. Bend your ear to this sweet refrain of our song- "He makes me lie down in green pastures."

It will be observed that David employs the plural number- "pastures." The Lord's flock is composed of many sheep, of various orders of mind, degrees of knowledge, and attainments in grace. As in His Family there are 'babes,' 'little children,' 'young men,' and 'fathers;' so in His Fold there are the 'lambs' and the 'sheep'- representing different degrees of grace and stages of maturity in the Christian life. But, for the nourishment of all these- the 'lamb,' the 'sheep,' and 'those that are with young', Christ, the Shepherd, has suitably and richly provided. What a precious truth meets us here! No member of Christ's flock scanning these pages need retire from their perusal with the sigh- "Alas! my case is not recognized- my need is not met- my way is hid from the Lord- my judgment is passed over from my God." Come and walk amid these pastures, and see if there is not 'milk for babes' in grace- 'tender grass for lambs'- and 'strong food for those who are of full age,' -admiring and adoring the love and wisdom of the Divine Shepherd who so graciously and amply provided them.

We place in the foreground, the green pastures of God's truth. All other nourishment flows from, and is subsidiary to, this. All sacred literature- embracing those works of sanctified minds through whose channels biblical illustration, spiritual teaching, and practical and comforting truth are conveyed- is based upon the divine authority and teaching of God's revealed Word. The divine life in the regenerate can only be sustained and nourished by nourishment congenial to its nature; divinity must be met with what is divine; the indwelling Spirit, with what is spiritual; the renewed intellect, with the thoughts and revelation of the mind of God. To attempt to satisfy its hungering with the light and worldly literature of the day- the fiction, the story, the play- were to starve its cravings and dwarf its growth. The Bible is the granary of the spiritual life of the regenerate, from where it draws the "daily bread" that feeds and nourishes it that it may grow thereby.

Listen to the testimony of all the saints, "How sweet are your words unto my taste! yes, sweeter than honey to my mouth!" "All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: that the man of God may be perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works." Let this be the first and chief meadow to which your soul travels for its nourishment. Permit no uninspired volume, however sacred- still more, allow no worldly literature, however intellectual and entrancing- to supplant in your study and meditation the pure word of God. What David said of the "sword of Goliath" may with yet more significance be said of the "sword of the Spirit," "There is none like that; give it to me." By the devout and close study of this sacred volume, accompanied with the teachings of the Holy Spirit, by whose inspiration it was given, your acquaintance with God's character will be close, your views of divine truth will be sound, your knowledge of Christ will increase; and the graces of the Spirit thus strengthened and nourished, you will put forth the might and prowess of "a perfect man in Christ Jesus." In this divine fold all may roam; the 'lambs may feed in their way,' and the sheep in yet richer pasture.

Here are gracious invitations for the sin-laden; precious promises for the sorely tried; real consolation for the bereaved mourner; a glorious hope for the most deeply depressed and most profoundly despairing sinner; a balm that heals every wound, a hand that dries every tear.

"Lord, I have made Your Word my choice,
My lasting heritage;
There shall my noblest powers rejoice,
My warmest thoughts engage.

"I'll read the histories of Your love,
And keep Your laws in sight,
While through Your promises I rove
With ever fresh delight.

"Tis a broad field of wealth unknown,
Where springs of life arise,
Seeds of immortal bliss are sown,
And hidden treasure lies.

"The best relief that mourners have,
It makes our sorrows blest
Our fairest hope beyond the grave,
And our eternal rest."

The doctrines of grace supply rich and appropriate pasture for Christ's flock. It must be acknowledged, with a sigh, that these divine and precious truths are not received by many modern Christians with the reverence and love of other days. And yet, how instructive and establishing, how comforting and sanctifying, are the doctrines of electing love-finished redemption-sovereign mercy- free grace-effectual calling-and final salvation. How the spiritual mind loves to roam amid those green meadows, to feed among those rich pastures; and is nourished and established by those truths which lay the boast of human merit, and the pride of man's power in the dust; and ascribe to the Triune Jehovah, the glory of that 'salvation which is of the Lord.' Hold fast these distinguishing doctrines of grace theologically, live upon them spiritually, and exhibit them practically in all their holy and sanctifying influence.

Not less nourishing is the preceptive teaching of God's word. How significantly and indissolubly interwoven are the doctrines and the precepts of the bible! Who can study devoutly the Pauline epistles addressed to the Ephesian and Colossian churches, and not be profoundly impressed with this truth? Doctrine is the basis of precept, and precept is the handmaid of promise. Built up in the divine doctrines, the believer will study to walk in the holy precepts; and walking in the precept, he may fully expect a fulfilment of the promise; and thus the preceptive part of God's word, which "teaches us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world"- will realize to him the precious promise- "looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Savior Jesus Christ; who gave Himself for us, that He might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto Himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works." Lord, make me as intensely to love the precepts, as I firmly believe the doctrines, and earnestly plead the promises of Your word!

But how can we adequately picture the real and ample pasture provided in the fulness and all-sufficieney of Christ Himself, the Shepherd of the flock? It is a marvellous, and not less precious, truth that the sheep live upon the person, resources, and supplies of their Shepherd. Could any argument in support of His Essential Deity be more conclusive? A Being who, from Himself, could meet all the needs of His church-collectively and personally- in all ages- in all climates- and at all times- must be absolutely and essentially Divine. "In Him dwells all the fulness of the Godhead bodily." And, touching the mediatorial relation to the flock as their Redeeming Shepherd, it is written: "It pleased the Father that in Him should all fulness dwell." From this, His own infinite and boundless sufficiency, the Shepherd supplies all the needs of His flock. You have not a sin His grace cannot pardon- not a corruption it cannot subdue- not an infirmity it cannot help- not a burden it cannot sustain- not a sorrow it cannot sooth-not a difficulty it cannot surmount. "ALL FULNESS"- "FULL OF GRACE." Oh live in your emptiness and poverty by faith upon the all-sufficiency of Christ! He is honored and glorified when the 'hungry sheep, looking up' to the under shepherd 'and are not fed'- repair to Him for the food for which they crave, but cannot find, and from whom they receive it with no reluctant and measured hand. Oh what music in the Shepherd's ear is the feeble bleat of the lamb- the plaintive cry of the sheep- appealing in times of sorrow, danger, and need, to His sympathy, power, and protection! "I know my sheep, and am known of mine."

He leads us too in the green pastures of the ministry of His word. It is no light blessing to be led into the fertile fold of a purely and fully preached gospel. The Christian ministry is as divinely an appointed institution as any ordinance of the Church of God- not one whit less so than Baptism or the Lord's Supper. Any religious sect or system that ignores the gospel Ministry, and sets up in its place another, and an unscriptural one, as diametrically opposed to the appointment of Christ, and the teaching of God's word. In recognition of this institution, the glorified Shepherd, "when He ascended up on high, gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers; for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ." And what language can fully set forth the immense blessing to the flock of a Christ-exalting ministry, fragrant with the anointing, rich with the fulness, and glowing with the beauties of the Shepherd? Oh, if He has so favored you, estimate highly the worth, weigh accurately the responsibility, and study prayerfully the duties involved in a boon so divine, precious, and priceless. "Know those who labor among you, and are over you in the Lord, and admonish you; and esteem them very highly in love for their works' sake;" remember them in your intercessions, and consider that the frequency and fervor of your prayers on their behalf will be the measure and richness of your profit by them. Nor this alone. The responsibilities of the Christian ministry, and of the Christian Church, are mutual and reciprocal. You have a duty to perform even as they; and this is your duty- that you see that their temporal necessities are justly and amply cared for. In pressing this duty upon you we have the mind of the Spirit, and the injunction of the apostle. "Who feeds a flock, and eats not of the milk of the flock? . . . . If we have sown unto you spiritual things, is it a great thing if we shall reap your earthly things? . . . The Lord has ordained that those who preach the gospel should live of the gospel." Look well to this sacred duty- no, this sweet privilege- and see that he who leads you into the green pastures of the gospel- feeds and nourishes your souls in the faith- is lightened of all needless temporal anxiety through your bountifulness. If it is his solemn and bounden duty to preach to you the whole counsel of God, not less is it your individual and bounden duty- yes, your holy and sweet privilege- to see that his temporal necessities are so equitably and suitably met as that, freed from anxiety and care, he may give himself wholly to prayer and meditation; and thus your soul profit withal. We verily and solemnly believe that to a neglect of this divine precept and apostolic injunction may, to a great extent, be traced the fact that in the Church of God so "many are weak and sickly, and many sleep." There is a 'withholding' from Christ's ministers temporally, and it tends to the poverty and leanness of those who thus withhold spiritually. There is a just and righteous law regulating spiritual as well as temporal things. "Give, and it shall be given unto you; good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running over. . . . . For with the same measure that you mete withal it shall be measured to you again." Thus, the measure of your temporal liberality shown towards Christ's ministering servants- especially him who ministers to you- will be the measure-pressed down and running over- of what you will be the recipient through the channel of his ministrations. Oh to remember that we are not proprietors, but stewards- not the owners, but the trustees of our intellectual endowments, and worldly possessions; and that before long we shall hear the summons- "Give an account of your stewardship; for you may be no longer steward." May that account be with joy, and not with grief- with honor, and not with shame- when standing before the Master, we bend our ear to His approving voice, "Well done, good and faithful servant; you have been faithful over a few things, I will make you ruler over many things: enter you into the joy of your Lord."

The Ordinance of the Lord's Supper is not the least nourishing and refreshing of the pasturage provided by Christ for His flock. The ordinance, in its original institution by Christ, was to compass two purposes- the one, the perpetual memorial until His Second Coming, of His one, great, sacrificial oblation of Himself once offered for sin; the other, to keep the Christ-believing, loving heart in life and bloom, as it roamed through this luxuriant and fragrant meadow, and reposed upon its green and sunlit slope. An institution of His own appointment, and designed to be a memento of Himself, and the channel of blessing to His saints, what less could we expect than that the King should preside at His own Royal Banquet; and that, influenced by His spiritual presence, our graces of penitence, faith, and love, should breathe their fragrance, to His ineffable complacence and delight.

"While at the table sits the King,
He loves to see us smile and sing;
Our graces are our best perfume,
And breathe like spikenard round the room."

There is, probably, no occasion- if we may speak of degrees in the Savior's love- on which the heart and ear of Christ are so widely expanded as when in faith and love we meet thus in obedience to His command, and in remembrance of Himself. With a heart thus dilated, and an ear thus inclined, He waits to catch the softest sigh of grief- the deepest groan of desire- the most urgent appeal of neediness- saying to each guest, "What is your request, and what is your petition? "Hasten- for the audience is brief and precious, the moments are few and fleeting- to pour out your whole heart before Him, telling Him all your cares- all you feel- and all you need. But examine yourself, and ascertain whether your views of the Lord's Supper are in strict accord with the teaching of the Lord Himself. Beware of being seduced from the nature, design, and simplicity of this ordinance by the Romish perversions of the day! The moment you substitute the material for the spiritual- sense for faith- the corporeal for the spiritual presence of Christ in the Sacrament- that moment a withering mildew will fall upon your observance of the rite; and, thus ceasing to be "afield which the Lord has blest," no nourishment or refreshment will flow through it to your soul. But, oh, how expressive and precious the ordinance, when in faith and love we cluster around that solemn Banquet! Then it is we realize, in some degree, the significance and fulness of the Savior's words- "He that eats my flesh, and drinks my blood, dwells in me, and I in Him." And then, too, our swelling, joyous hearts respond- "I sat down under His shadow with great delight, and His fruit was sweet to any taste. He brought me to the banqueting house, and His banner over me was love." Thus, Lord, ever feed and nourish my soul, until at Your call I exchange the Feast of Earth, for the Banquet of Heaven, and sit down with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, prophets, apostles, and martyrs, and all the saints in glory, at the Marriage Supper of the Lamb."

The health and nourishment of a flock often demand a variety and change of pasture. The Lord, our Shepherd, acts upon this principle. He leads His sheep from one pasture to another, varying it as best suits the circumstances and condition of His saints. The ministers of Christ are not, happily, all alike endowed. The same law of variety which pervades all God's works exists in the Church of God. All ministers have not the same order of gifts, or the same degree of grace, as all have not the same office and work. Some are apostles- some evangelists- some pastors, and some teachers. Marvel not, then, if the Lord sees fit to change either your shepherd or your pasture. Rest assured that, in removing your minister from you, or you from your minister- as He often does with His people- He is but consulting your highest interests, and His own greatest glory. He is the fittest Judge of your soul's requirements, and how best to meet them. He may see the necessity of a change in your pasturage. You have, perhaps, been roaming in fields rich and luxuriant in intellectual and philosophical teaching, and, like Jeshurun, have "grown fat and kicked." Or, on the contrary, you have been browsing upon the stony and barren moor, with scarcely a turf or a spire- intellectually or spiritually- to keep your soul alive in famine- and your cry is- "O my leanness! my leanness!" -and no marvel! The ever-varying circumstances of life- its chequered history of joy and sorrow- personal advance in knowledge, intelligence, and grace- often necessitate another and a different order of ministry than that upon which we have been wont to wait. We have- in our spiritual education- grown 'wiser than our teacher'; perhaps, more deeply rooted and grounded in the faith- more advanced in doctrinal truth and experimental religion- and we need a ministration of the Word more harmonizing therewith- more in sympathy with our matured judgment and our sorrow-disciplined heart. If, then, the Lord sees fit to change your Shepherd, and thus your pasture, be assured that He is but consulting your soul's greatest need and His own highest glory.

One feature yet remains to be noticed. They are "GREEN PASTURES" into which our Shepherd leads us. The image is beautiful and suggestive. They are always green; like the oasis of the desert, bright and radiant amid dreariness and sterility. Time does not change them- age does not impair them- neither the drought of summer nor the frosts of winter affect them. Like the "Tree of Life" planted in the New Jerusalem, they yield their verdure and their fruit 'every month,' every day; yes, always, in every place, and under all circumstances, they are bright with verdure and rich in nourishment. Come to God's word, when you may- to the Mercy Seat, where you may- to the Savior's fulness, as you may- with your most depressed frames, your most pressing need, your bitterest grief, your most embarrassing difficulty- your profoundest unworthiness- you will find these pastures ever the same. Change is written upon everything out of God, and Christ, and His word. All other sources of happiness pass away like 'the morning cloud and the early dew.' The warm springs of human affection congeal- the fervor, the promises, and the faithfulness of earthly friendship change- your features, yes, your very name, fading from its memory- and over the entire scenery of life, adversity may breathe its wintry blast and scatter its thick snows, and the green and pleasant pasture of earthborn good wither and die; but the love of God and the sufficiency of the Savior undergo no change- "Jesus Christ the same yesterday, today, and forever."

The 'grass' of these pastures never withers- the 'flowers' of these gardens never 'fade'- the springs of these meadows never dry- approach them, and you will find them always rich in nourishment, replete with comfort, inspiriting of joy; ever strengthening, soothing, and sanctifying. Oh, forget not that, beneath the cross of Jesus the richest pasture, the sweetest flowers grow. There are experienced the truest penitence, the strongest faith, the warmest love, and the brightest hope- and when barrenness, dreariness and sorrow mantle and becloud every other position and prospect of life, at the foot of the cross are found a precious Savior- perfect peace- fulness of joy- the love of God, and the hope of glory!

Still Waters

"He leads me beside the still waters." Psalm 23:2

"He leads me beside peaceful streams." Psalm 23:2

It is not into a dry land, a land where no water is, our Shepherd leads His flock. "Give me a blessing," said the daughter of Caleb to her father-in-law; "for you have given me a south land; give me also springs of water. And he gave her the upper springs, and the nether springs." Such is the blessing conferred upon the sheep of Christ's pasture. We have considered the "green pastures" in their varied character and perpetual verdure; but, apart from the springs of water- "the upper and the nether springs" -it would be at best but as a south, or a dry land, lacking not only the beauty, but the nourishment, of the pasturage fitted for the needs of the flock. How rich and precious the Divine promises which assure us of this! "When the poor and needy seek water, and there is none, and their tongue fails for thirst, I the Lord will hear them, I the God of Israel will not forsake them. I will open rivers in high places, and fountains in the midst of the valleys. I will make the wilderness a pool of water, and the dry land springs of water."

What a fulfilment of this magnificent promise is found in the gracious invitation of Jesus- "If any man thirst, let him come unto Me and drink." Here was the true smitten Rock- the breaking forth of waters in the wilderness- springs of water in a dry place, where no water was, "And they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them, and that Rock was Christ." It is to these waters- these springs in the desert- our inspired Songster refers, by the side of which the Shepherd led him, upon whose banks He caused him to lie down.

Before we meditate upon the repose, let us contemplate THE WATERS themselves. Of what spiritual gospel truths are these "still waters" the emblem? Will not a spiritual and reflective mind return- as the first truth- to the everlasting love of God, from whose Infinite Ocean all other springs of grace flow? This is the fountain- the sea- the source of every covenant and redemptive blessing conferred upon the Church of God. "There is a river, the streams whereof make glad the city of God." This River is the Divine- infinite- eternal love with which He has chosen, and with which He has drawn, us to Himself. "I have loved you with an everlasting love therefore with loving-kindness have I drawn you." Now it is to this River the Lord Jesus delights to lead us. With what emphasis and distinctness He declared the great love of the Father, of which He was the revelation and the gift! "God so loved the world, that He gave His only-begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life." "I say not unto you that I will ask the Father for you: for the Father Himself loves you;" that is, My intercession is not the cause, but the effect- not the inspiration, but the expression of my Father's love. Oh how blessed to repose in confidence upon the bank of this Divine River, and know that God loves us- that these waters are for us- to feel that His love is causing all the events and incidents of our history to work together for our good- that He, who spared not His Son for us, will send no evil thing, and will withhold no good thing that we need! Do not be content, O my soul, with a mere taste of this River- though to have only "tasted that the Lord is gracious" is an unspeakable blessing; and one draught of God's love is infinitely sweeter and more satisfying than a life-long draught of the worldling's richest, purest nectar- of whom it has been said that he–
Drank every cup of joy, heard every trump
Of fame; drank early, deeply drank; drank draughts
That common millions might have quenched-then died
Of thirst, because there was no more to drink!"

My soul! outbid and outstrip this poor worldling- a noble and splendid poet though he was- and drink abundantly and often of these "still waters" which flow down from the throne of the Eternal; for the River is full, inexhaustible, and free.

Nor drink only; lie down upon its sylvan, mossy bank. You are sad and weary. The sun of affliction has smitten you- the heat and burden of life's toilsome day has exhausted you- and, footsore and faint, you seek that repose and restoration found only in the assurance that God loves you! Approach, then, and take your rest upon the slopes of this River which makes glad the Church of God; it will cause your spirit of lassitude and sadness to sing for joy; and, blending with your Marah's bitterest waters, will make them sweeter than honey. "The Lord" (the Spirit) "direct your hearts into the love of God, and into the patient waiting for Christ."

Not less true and emblematic are these "still waters " of the pure water of life which flows from Christ, the Shepherd, and to the fulness of which He leads His flock. All spiritual life flows from "Christ, who is our life." "I have come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly." "Whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life." Beloved, learn the secret of the high, and still ascending, life- it is your privilege here to live, until you pass to that life that knows no chill- no cloud no end. It is not you that live- it is Christ, your life, that lives in you. And the life you live of battle, of service, and of suffering, is maintained and matured only as you live by faith on the Son of God; and this living by faith implies the confession of every sin at His cross- the hanging of every burden upon His arm- the sobbing of every grief upon His heart. Reclining upon the bank of these still waters of life, your soul will bloom, and your life will blossom with all the graces and fruits of the Spirit.

How sweet and refreshing the still waters that flow through the channel of communion with God! There the Shepherd loves to lead the footsteps of His flock in the sultry heat and in the faint weariness of the day. Is there a pasture more verdant, a spot more shaded, a slope more sunny than the meeting-place with God? "Come, my people, enter you into your chambers, and shut your doors about you- hide yourself as it were for a little moment, until the indignation be over past." How gently did the Shepherd lead His sheep to those still waters when He bade them ask, and they should receive; seek, and they should find; knock, and it should be opened to them. Are you weary? are you wounded? are you faint? Come and lie down by this flowing river, and drink of these waters of communion with God, and your soul shall be refreshed; your peace will flow as a river, and your joy as the waves of the sea. Oh the power, the repose, the comfort of prayer! 'Having boldness,' or privilege, 'to enter into the Holiest- the pleading blood of Jesus upon the Mercy Seat- the Father's scepter of grace extended- all the resources of Deity at your command- can you for a moment hesitate, through fear and unbelief, to arise and give yourself to prayer? One draught of these 'still waters' of calm, confidential, filial approach to God will be infinitely more powerful and efficacious than all the oblivious waters of the fabled river of Grecian mythology- you shall drink, and forget your sorrow, and drown in oblivion your misery and care. Oh listen again and yet again- you sin-burdened, sorrow-stricken one- to the divinest words, the sweetest melody that ever chimed upon the ear- "Come unto Me, all you that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest!"

"Are you weary, are you languid, are you sore distressed? 'Come to Me,' says One, 'and coming, be at rest!'

Has He marks to lead me to Him, if He be my guide?
In His feet and hands are wound-prints, and His side.
Is there diadem, as monarch, that His brow adorns?
Yes, a crown, in very surety- but of thorns!
If I find Him, if I follow, what His promise here?
Many a sorrow, many a labor, many a tear!
If I still hold closely to Him, what has He at last?
Sorrow vanquished, labor ended, Jordan past!
If I ask Him to receive me, will He say me no?
Not until earth and not until heaven pass away!
Tending, following, keeping, struggling, is He sure to bless?

Angels, martyrs, prophets, pilgrims, answer, 'Yes!"' (Written by Stephen before the Eastern Church became corrupted by Papal superstitions.)

But let us turn our thoughts to the expressive POSTURE OF THE FLOCK. "He makes me to LIE DOWN." Beautiful and expressive image! There is not a spectacle more truly pastoral and picturesque than that of a flock of sheep reposing amid the luxuriant verdure of a sunlit meadow. Contemplate the spectacle in its spiritual aspect: "He makes me to lie down." It is, first, the rest of faith. No grace brings the soul into such perfect repose as faith in God's character- in Christ's all-sufficiency- in the unchangeableness of the divine promises. Faith can lie down in the midst of trial, and sorrow, and need, in the 'quiet resting places' where the Divine Shepherd causes His flock to repose at noon.

It is the posture of perfect satisfaction. Dissatisfaction shades the brow of every worldling. It is impossible in the nature of things that it should be otherwise. The world, with all its greatness, is too small a thing to fill the human soul. That must needs be a vast void which Infinity alone can fill! But perfect satisfaction is found only where the flock of God lie down amid the green pastures of His love, and the fragrant meadows of His word. Oh how satisfied, beloved, God can make you with all the way by which He is conducting your trembling footsteps homewards! The way, at times, may be thorny and dark- intricate and solitary- faith sifted- patience tried- principle tested- love wounded; nevertheless, the soul can lie down in a quiet resting-place, satisfied with all God's dealings- that He, the Lord of all the earth, must do right. "Whom have I in heaven but You? and who is there on earth that I desire beside You?" "Not my will, O my Father, but Yours be done!" "And now, what do I wait for? My hope is in You." "I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with Your likeness." Return, you wanderer, from your roamings in quest of that which no worldly good or creature here can give you, and come and rest your weary spirit amid the 'green pastures' of God's love in Christ Jesus, and your "soul shall be satisfied as with marrow and fatness."

Perfect safety is expressed by this posture of the soul. There is not a more exposed object to every form of assault and danger than the Flock of God. It is well termed, "the Flock of the slaughter." "For Your sake we are killed all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter." But where can we repair for perfect security but where the Shepherd leads His flock, and causes it to lie down? The moment we wander from the side of Christ- swerve from the purity of His truth- and turn from the simplicity of His worship- roaming amid other and forbidden pasture that looked so fair and promised so much, but tasted so bitter and proved so false- that moment we exchange the place of safety for the place of danger; and well for us if, while thus wandering from the Shepherd and the Fold, into dangerous enclosures, we lose not all evidence of our Christianity, and meet the 'last enemy' with a beclouded, if not a shaken and uncertain hope!

We have made but passing reference to THE ESPECIAL CHARACTER OF THESE WATERS. They are emphatically

"still," or, "quiet waters." Where does the gentle Shepherd lead thus His flock? Not by the thundering fall- not to the foaming cataract- not even by the low-murmuring brook- these would alarm and agitate His sheep! But He leads them to the still, gentle, peaceful waters of His love, and there He causes them to lie down. "When He gives quietness, who then can make trouble?" Come away, my soul from the strife and turmoil and excitement of this busy life, and lie down upon the slopes of these quiet waters. "You will keep him in pee feet peace whose mind is stayed on You, because he trusts in You." See how lovingly Jesus invites us to these 'still waters,' and how gently He causes us to lie down.

"These things I have spoken unto you, that in Me you might have peace. In the world you shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer ; I have overcome the world." "Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you." Here is perfect quietness- here is unruffled repose. "In quietness and in confidence shall be your strength." How fierce the storm! How loud the tempest! How surging the billows oftimes of God's providences! "Be still, and know that I am God." "The Lord on high is mightier than the noise of many waters, yes, than the mighty waves of the sea." Be still- be trustful- be prayerful- be hopeful! The night is dark and long- it is the fourth watch, and Jesus has not yet come! Be still! He is on His way- He will come- and presently you shall hear His divine voice of power and His human voice of compassion rising above the tempest- "Peace, be still!" -and sweet will be the hush- perfect the quietness and peace Christ will give you. "O Lord, when my heart is overwhelmed: lead me to the rock that is higher than I." Yes, to the quiet waters of Your love, from where all my fresh springs flow. "Tell me, O you whom my soul loves, where you feed, where you make your flock to rest at noon: for why should I be as one that turns aside by the flocks of your companions?"

When my heart is likely to break,
When the surging billows shake
My feeble bark,
Lead me to the Rock most high
The Rock that higher is than I ;
even in the dark.

When I see my sin so great,
When no comfort I can get,
No place to hide,
Lead me to the Rock most high
The Rock that higher is than I;
The smitten side.

When no refuge I can find,
No shelter for the weary mind,
No cooling shade,
Lead me to the Rock most high
The Rock that higher is than I;
No more afraid.

When thirsting for the living stream
Of that eternal life in Him,
No more to die,
Lead me to the Rock most high
The Rock that higher is than I;
To Him I fly.

In the cleft of that dear Rock,
From the surging billows' shock,
I'll hide me ever.
In His righteousness so pure,
In His covenant so sure,
I'll dwell forever.

The Restored Sheep

"He restores my soul" -Psalm 23:3.

David, the king of Israel, would, from his early occupation as a shepherd, be thoroughly conversant with the roaming instincts of his flock- its natural proneness to wander, and its utter inability, by any self-faculty, either of memory or skill- to retrace its steps back to the fold. His own spiritual history- as a sheep of Christ's flock- would supply Him with a striking and melancholy illustration of this fact in natural history. If ever there were a sad wanderer from the sacred fold- or one who, when restored, more sincerely deplored his backsliding- frankly confessed his sins- and deeply felt his inability by any self-effort to return to God– it was David.

What a confirmation of this fact is his close of the hundred and nineteenth Psalm- "I have gone astray like a lost sheep; seek Your servant!" Conscious of his departure, he was as deeply conscious that God alone could restore him. The points suggested by this verse for our present meditation are- the wandering sheep- the Restoring Shepherd- the path of righteousness in which He led him; in other words, the departure- the restoration- the walk. "He restores my soul"- a subdued, yet joyous note of our Song- penitence and praise sweetly blended!

THE DEPARTURE-
Soul-restoration clearly and logically implies soul-departure. We speak not now of the life of the unregenerate. Alas! the life of an unconverted individual is one entire, unbroken, unrestored departure from God! What hue sufficiently dark can portray the life of an unrenewed man? He may be upright and honorable as a man of the world- faithful in all the relations of life- admired for his private, and honored for his public character and career. His morality, stainless- his virtue, unquestioned- his liberality, generous- his philanthropy, distinguished- his religion, admired; and yet, destitute of the converting grace of God- a stranger to the great change of the new birth- an unbeliever in the Lord Jesus Christ, his life is but a blank- a negation of all that is evangelically good- and with a 'righteousness not exceeding the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees,' dying in this condition, he can in no way enter into the kingdom of heaven. Reader! marvel not that you must be born again!

But, our present view of the departure of the soul from God must be confined to the sheep of Christ's flock- accepting David's case as an instructive and impressive illustration. We are now to consider backsliding, not before, but after grace; not previous to, but succeeding, conversion; the wandering, not of a rebel, but of a child! And yet fidelity compels us to remark that this condition, though not finally fatal, is of an inexpressibly aggravated character. The soul-departures of the believer are from a God we have known- from a Savior we have loved- from pastures in which we have roamed with delight. We have tasted that the Lord was gracious- have heard His voice, and have fed at the Shepherd's hand- have walked in the footsteps of the flock- and have rested where they lie down at noon on the banks of God's river of love- and yet, we wandered! Is there a character of sin more aggravated, a turpitude of guilt more deep, than this? But our view of this sad state must assume a more limited range. Passing by the overt acts of backsliding Christians- which, like David's, beginning at the house-top, from the house-top are proclaimed- we direct our thoughts to the hidden declensions of the soul- the veiled backslidings of the heart, unseen by others, scarcely suspected by themselves, and therefore all the more insidious and fatal, and demanding yet more vigilance and prayer.

The word of God speaks of "the backslider in heart." It is there that all departure from God begins. The human heart is the most subtle and treacherous thing in the world; it is described as "deceitful above all things." The wind is unpredictable- the sea is treacherous- the serpent is subtle- but the heart of man is more fickle, and treacherous, and subtle than all! Thus, there may be growing in the soul-deeply veiled from every eye- a declension of faith, an alienation of love- a decay of grace- a restraining of prayer- a weakening of the power of spiritual life, while the believer may remain almost entirely unconscious that the 'grey hairs'- the unmistakable evidences of spiritual relapse and attenuated strength- are whitening and thickening upon him. Oh how should this fact lead to a close searching of heart- to honest probings of conscience- lest the sin, that lies at the door ready to avail itself of the slightest opening should enter, and, obtaining a momentary ascendancy, should dishonor God- wound the Shepherd- and bring deep and long distress into the soul!

All this declension, too- and this is one of its most startling aspects- may be advancing without any visible or marked disturbance of the external rites and duties of religion! These may be uninterrupted in their beautiful and hallowed continuity- the sanctuary attended- the sacrament observed- the district visited- the class instructed- the stereotyped forms of devotion rigidly honored- while the insidious process of spiritual decay may be silently and unsuspectedly, yet most surely and fatally, advancing in the soul. Oh it is here we have need to be whole nights on our watchtower- not so much guarding against an external and foreign invasion- as against the treacherous and never-slumbering foe of our own house. We may 'hold the fort' gallantly and successfully against a besieging foe, while the betraying enemy within may be undermining the very foundation of our faith, the evidences of our grace, and the stability of our hope!- and all this sickliness of spiritual life- chilled affection- distant walk from Christ- deadened devotion, and worldly-mindedness, exist in close alliance with religious observances, flaming zeal, and charitable gifts- its unhappy subject the 'observed of all observers,' and the admired of all admirers, in the Christian world- living, and yet dead!

Not the least evidence of the decay of spiritual life in the soul may be the carriage and spirit of the believer under the afflictive dealings of God. In the very height of your hidden declension you may be overtaken by some heavy dispensation of providence. The chastening hand of God is heavy upon you. He has frustrated some earthly plan- has withered some cherished flower- has disappointed some fond hope- has touched your health- has given wings to wealth- or taken from you all that lent to life its sweetest charm. And what is the effect? Alas! alas! your heart rises in rebellion against the God who has smitten! You deem His discipline harsh- His heart unsympathizing- His government arbitrary- you refuse to be comforted, and you do you think do well to be angry- and so you kick against God! What an evidence do you now afford- in thus flying in the face of your Heavenly Father, instead of falling down humbly and submissively at His feet- of the real and secret declension of the life of God in your soul!

THE RESTORATION-
But let us change our theme. Are we assuming too much in supposing that the Holy Spirit has interposed His power to arrest your wandering- to reveal to you your declension- and has awakened the cry in your heart- "Oh that it were with me as in days that are past, when the candle of the Lord shone round about me!"? If this be so, then chant to the plaintive note of the sweet songster- "He RESTORES my soul."

WHO is the Restorer, but the Shepherd, whose the sheep are, and from whom they have wandered! There is but one Being who would or could go in quest of the stray sheep- traversing the bleak mountains and the lonely valleys, and the dark, stormy night, until He finds it, bringing it back upon His shoulder rejoicing. Christ alone knows the existence and extent of our heart-declensions- our soul-backslidings. With His hand upon the pulse- His eye upon the heart- acquainted with every fluctuating thought and emotion of the soul- who so fitted as He to seek and restore the wanderer from His fold? Oh what a throb of gratitude should beat in our hearts at the thought that Jesus knows us altogether- all our infirmities, and all our graces- all our declensions, and all our revivings- when the pulse of love beats faintly-or when, in the sincerity of our hearts, we can appeal to His Omniscience, and exclaim- "You know that I love You!" "I know my sheep."

And what an evidence of the restoring grace of Jesus, and of David's restoration, do we possess in the fifty-first Psalm! Oh, it is a Psalm which should be read and pondered every day of the Christian's life! for there is no Psalm which so fully embodies and expresses the experience of the man of God as it. It is a portion upon which a child of God can lay his dying head, and depart peacefully. This was the experience of one distinguished for his gifts, eminent for his usefulness, and honored above many in the Church of God. When the time of his departure had come, and his life and labors passed in solemn review as from a dying bed, the only portion of God's word that seemed the most appropriately and fully to embody and express the humble feelings and prayerful utterances of his mind, and to impart comfort and peace to his departing spirit in the near prospect of eternity, was this penitential Psalm of David, so expressive of the feelings of a contrite soul- the acknowledgment of sin- the washing of the blood- restored joy- and renewed consecration to God.

Dear Shepherd, draw me to your fold;
I am cold, cold!
I've wandered in forbidden paths,
Far from your fold.
I left the "pastures" fresh and "green,"
Where rest your sheep;
The sweet "still waters" of your love,
For mountains steep.
I'm weary, and my soul does yearn
For your embrace
Oh, bear me from this mountain pass,
This dreary place!
You only can "restore my soul."
Oh, hear my cry!
Nor let me in this wilderness,
Forgotten die.
Dear Shepherd, draw me near to you;
I am cold, cold!
And me in your warm arms of love,
I pray, enfold.

THE LEADING-
"He leads me in paths of righteousness for His name's sake." The Shepherd that restores, leads the soul into higher and more advanced stages of grace, experience, and holiness; and thus by a sanctified result of arrested declension and more quickened life, the restored soul walks in a new and hitherto untrodden path of righteousness, joy, and peace in the Holy Spirit. Wanderer from the fold! return! The Shepherd calls you- seeks you- invites you, implores you to return. He waits to be gracious. Listen to His heart-melting words- "Return, backsliding Israel, says the Lord; and I will not cause my anger to fall upon you: for I am merciful, says the Lord, and I will not keep my anger forever. Only acknowledge your iniquity." "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness."

Restored! -wander no more from the Shepherd and the flock, lest a worse thing come unto you! Knowing the cause of your declension- the temptation which led to your departure- be prayerful, be vigilant. "Remember therefore, from where you are fallen, and repent, and do the first works." Was it unguardedness? unwatchfulness? -be vigilant, be sober. Was it undevoutness? -give yourself more constantly and earnestly to prayer. Was it the influence of the world? -come out from it, and touch not the unclean thing. Or, was it the power of some easy-besetting sin which overcame you? -lay it down beneath the cross, and with your eye of faith upon the Crucified One, exclaim, "By Your agony and bloody sweat, by Your cross and passion, I will henceforth die to sin, and live to You!" Thus, whatever the cause of your departure from God- your wandering from the fold of Jesus- the power of sin, the influence of the world- the idolatry of the creature- the love of self- lay it at Jesus' feet, and exclaim–
"Is there a thing beneath the sun
That strives with You my heart to share?
Take it away, and reign alone,
The Lord of every motion there."

Oh bend your ear to the loving, entreating voice of the Shepherd- retrace your steps- return to the fold- once more feed and lie down with the flock- and saints below and angels above will be summoned to unite in the celebration of your recovery- "Rejoice with Me; for I have found my sheep that was lost."

"Return unto your rest, my soul,
Return unto your rest!
Too long these wandering feet have strayed
In paths, of God unblest;
The tempting gate stood open wide,
The way was broad and fair,
While breath of flowers and song of birds
Filled all the sunlit air.

"The flowerets faded before the noon,
The bird-song died away;
And, lowering over the tangled path,
The skies seem ashen gray.
Oh, weary, lonely, frighted soul,
By toil and storm distressed;
One only refuge waits for thee,
Return unto your rest!

"No chiding words of stern rebuke
Or anger wait for thee;
Your erring steps have grieved your Lord,
But pardon still is free.
Poor, trembling soul, 'look up and live!'
Obey such love's behest;
From downward paths of woe and sin,
Return unto your rest!

"The child upon its mother's heart
Forgets the weary day;
So love divine shall fold you close,
And soothe each grief away.
Come, burdened soul, your wanderings over,
Your follies all confessed,
With hastening feet that rove no more
Return unto your rest!"

The Valley

"Yes, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for You are with me." -Psalm 23:4.

"Even when I walk through the dark valley of death, I will not be afraid, for you are close beside me." -Psalm 23:4.

Plaintive and pensive refrain of our Song is this- yet how inspiriting and melodious! What a marvellous combination of note, and harmony of sound! It speaks of soul-depression; the pathway of the valley; the shadow of death; the presence of the Shepherd; and the triumph of the sheep! "Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for You are with me." The spiritual landscape of the Christian- like the natural- is diversified in character, feature, and tint. Mountains and hills, rivers and valleys, forests and glens, grassy mounds and sunny slopes, compose it; and each succeeding and varied scene, presents some new and brighter view of the divine character, and brings the saints of God into the experience of some yet unstudied and unlearned lesson in the divine life. It is in this way our education for heaven is advanced: it is thus our acquaintance with God is promoted. We only experimentally and closely know God by personal relationship. A theoretical or intellectual religion is of little or no practical avail. We must know God, not by hearing and reading merely, but by personal understanding and feeling; the emotional, as well as the thinking, faculty must be brought into play: the heart must, so to speak, discourse with the head- there must be a communication, a harmony of the intellect and the affections in the religious training of the soul. Perhaps we conceive of God as so infinitely great that He can only deal with us- and we with Him- in the greater events of our history; while the smaller incidents- the little affairs of daily life- are left to the government and molding of blind chance, or fortuitous circumstance! But this is practical atheism of the worst description. It is the privilege of the believer to recognize and practically act upon the truth that, there transpires not an event or incident in his history but marks the hand and echoes the voice of his Divine Shepherd. The Lord is in it. "The very hairs of your head are all numbered"- Christ thus teaching us that our Heavenly Father takes cognizance of the minutest event and circumstance of our individual history, and that there is nothing too trivial or common to be beneath His interest and control. And thus, although the heaven and heaven of heavens cannot contain Him, yet He seeks a dwelling-place amid the sighs and groans and desires of a humble, broken, and contrite heart; and all the interests of that heart- its faintest desire, gentlest sigh, and softest prayer- are entwined with the purposes, thoughts, and affections of His. "You are NEAR, O Lord," should be the consciousness of every believing mind: You, God, see me! You, God, hear me! You, God, shield me! Jesus meets us in every bend of our path, and speaks to us in every circumstance of our history- in the cloudy pillar, as in the golden beam; in the soft, 'still small voice,' as in the roar of the tempest and the vibration of the earthquake- and thus, were there less atheistical unbelief in our hearts- alas! so natural and so strong- we should feel that God has to do with us, and we with God, in the most infinitesimal event and incident of our history. Oh deem nothing too small for God! If it concerns you, it yet more deeply concerns Him; if it is your care, it is still more His. "Casting all your care upon Him; for He cares for you;" and how could He care for you, felt He not your care? You are His child by adopting grace, and nothing that attaches to you as a child is alien to Him as a Father. But let us now bend our ear to this pensive yet triumphant strain of our song- "Yes, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for You are with me."

The course of the flock- as mapped in this verse of the Psalm- is clearly that of THE VALLEY- and rich and holy is its teaching. There are VARIOUS VALLEYS which trace the journey of the Christian- and in each of which some especial blessing is found, and found in no other. The first stage of the divine life commences in the valley- the valley of repentance and humiliation for sin. All pass through this valley who are called by grace, and have set out for heaven. It is, indeed, the first step in real conversion. Until we are led down into this valley, we tread the high mountain of self-righteousness and pride, in the self-inflated, boasting spirit of Nebuchadnezzar, who walked in the palace of his kingdom exclaiming, "Is not this great Babylon, that I have built for the house of the kingdom by the might of my power, and for the honor of my majesty?" Alas! there are many heights, each one more elevated than the other, traversed by the natural man, from the towering summit of which he fondly, yet vainly, hopes to reach heaven, as easily and surely as Moses from the top of mount Pisgah! But, from all these elevations, divine grace, by a descent gradual yet effectual, removes him, leading him down into the valley of his own sinfulness, emptiness, and poverty, extorting from him the only prayer expressive of his felt condition- "God be merciful to me a sinner!" Oh, blessed valley of death is this! There is something more than shadow here- there is reality! -it is death itself! The sentence of death is now written upon all imaginary holiness- imaginary merit- and spurious hopes of salvation by the works of the law. The "commandment" has been applied by the Spirit to the heart and conscience- 'sin,' that lay dead and dormant, is 'revived,' quickened as into new life; and we 'die' to all our own righteousness, false hopes, and vain expectation of mounting to heaven from the Babel we had so zealously, yet so foolishly and fatally, reared. And now the lofty look and the proud heart are brought low, and with the hand upon the mouth, and the mouth in the dust, the humbled soul exclaims, "I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes."

In this valley of repentance, self-renunciation, and godly sorrow for sin, Christ is found- and found only here! This that was, in a sense, the valley of death, now becomes the valley of life! It is here our first discovery of Christ is made. Where else should we look for Him but "outside the camp," and in the valley- the scorn of the Pharisee, and the rejected of the worldling- but the attraction and the treasure, the Savior and the Friend of every poor, penitent sinner; who, feeling the plague of his own heart, and casting away the leprous-tainted, sin-soiled, worthless garment of his own righteousness, comes to Jesus, and accepts Him as all his salvation and all his desire? Oh how real and precious does Christ now become! and how true and glorious does the gospel appear! Truly it is a new creation within; and the old and material creation outside is now clothed with a beauty and a charm unseen, unfelt before; for lo! "old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new!" Every object in nature- the flowers of earth, and the stars of heaven- as now seen with a spiritual and new-born vision- bloom with a beauty and shine with a splendor, the most brilliant imagination could never have conceived; and, recognized as the work of the Incarnate God- of Him who died upon the cross- appear as though the universe had but just sprung from chaos at the fiat of its Maker, clothed with the splendor, fragrant with the perfume, and vocal with the song of its first-born creation! It is only to the Christian's eye- and as seen to be the work of Jesus- that this world appears, even in its sin-tainted and curse-blighted condition, to be surpassingly beautiful. It is true, the painter, the poet, and the philosopher may revel amid the sublimities and wonders of 'nature'- portraying them upon canvas, chanting them in song, and illustrating them in science- but, until there is a new visual faculty of the soul, a veil conceals even from the most artistic eye, and the most brilliant fancy, and the most learned mind, more than half the grandeur and splendor of the universe. Creation, recognized as the handiwork of Christ- God seen in it- oh then it is the sentiment comes with a power perfectly irresistible- "He has made all things beautiful!" "How great is His beauty!"

Study Creation with the Christian's eye- not with the eye of a Byron, dimmed with the mist of an atheistic philosophy, but with the eye of a Milton, lit up with the noontide splendor of the Sun of Righteousness! And when you look down at the flowers- those stars of earth, and up to the planets- the jewelry of heaven, and when you gaze upon the rainbow, kissing the valley, then springing to the sky, arching and tinting hill and cloud with its mysterious beauty- and when you gaze upon the cloud-piercing Alps, capped with its eternal snows, inaccessible to the foot of man- oh let the devout thought, the rapturous feeling, leap from your adoring soul- "My Father- my Redeemer made it all!" -and lo! the curse will seem to have rolled from creation, and "instead of the thorn will be the fir tree, and instead of the brier, the myrtle tree; the mountains and the hills will break forth before you into singing, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands."

My reader, have you been brought into this valley of humiliation? and have you there found- where alone it can be found- the "Rose of Sharon" -the "Plant of renown" -the "Lily of the valley" -the "Tree of life" -even the Lord Jesus Christ, the Savior of sinners, discovered alone by the soul led down into the depths of its own conscious sinfulness.

There is the valley of affliction which lies in our pathway to heaven, along which all the sheep travel, and was trodden by the Shepherd of the flock Himself; for, "though He was a Son, yet learned He obedience by the things which He suffered." Thus the valley of sorrow is the royal road through which all traveling to the delectable mountains are led by the Shepherd. It is an essential part of our education for heaven- our learning of the New Song- that we should pass through this valley- often profoundly deep and densely shaded. Our descent into it may be singularly mysterious. We are, perhaps, led down by the Shepherd from some verdant hill-side, where we fed so luxuriantly- or from some silvery stream, upon whose soft bank we reclined so peacefully- into the loneliness and gloom of the valley of tears, to learn some new lesson, to experience some new truth, to taste some new spring, found only there. It is not always upon the consecrated heights of devout communion, Christian joy, and entrancing song, that we find the richest fruit, the sweetest flowers, the purest streams of the divine life. All no! "He sends the springs into the valleys, which run among the hills;" and so He fulfils the precious evangelical
promise- "I will open rivers in high places, and fountains in the midst of the valleys: I will make the wilderness a pool of water, and the dry land springs of water." And so it is when God brings us low, we discover the springs of life and grace and truth, found nowhere so full, so sweet, so refreshing, as in the valley winding among the 'hills' of difficulty and doubt, weariness and neediness, which lie in our path to glory. Oh there are blessings found in the shaded valley, that are not on the sun gilded height; even as there are sublimities seen by night, invisible to the eye by day! It is here the character of God is unfolded- the compassion of Christ is felt- the consolation of the Spirit is experienced. We have found it good to be in the valley. Almost paralyzed with wonder, and overwhelmed with emotion, in the shaded valley into which the Shepherd has gently led us we have plucked our ripest fruit, cropped our richest pasture, and drank our purest spring of divine truth, sweet peace, and holy joy! The discipline of sorrow thus hallowed, we have echoed the lofty note of our sweet-singing Psalmist- "Before I was afflicted I went astray: but now have I kept Your word. It is good for me that I have been afflicted; that I might learn Your statutes." Shepherd of my soul! if this be the pasture, these the blessings, found in the valley of sorrow, the valley of tears- my rebellious will disciplined- my heart's idolatry surrendered- my worldly-mindedness removed- and You made more precious to my soul- then,
"Your way, not mine, O Lord,
However dark it be!
Lead me by Your own hand,
Choose out the path for me.
"Smooth let it be, or rough,
It will be still the best;
Winding or straight, it leads
Right onward to Your rest.
"You take my cup, and it
With joy or sorrow fill,
As best to You may seem;
Choose You my good or ill."

But the most solemn valley we have yet to pass- "the valley of the shadow of death." "It is appointed unto men once to die," and even the believer is no exception to this divine appointment. The Shepherd Himself was not exempt. He must pass through the valley of death before He could " open the kingdom of heaven to all believers." We must keep in view the essential distinction of Christ's death and ours. Christ suffered death as the Substitutionary Offering of His Church; consequently, death was to Him not what it is to us, (a covenant blessing), but an unrepealed, unmitigated curse. He met, not the shadow, but the substance of death; not the phantom, but the reality- suffering countless million deaths in one! If it is an appalling event for one individual to die, what must have been the "bitterness of death" to Christ, dying the death- the sting of each buried in His heart- of every individual sheep of His flock? Oh, had He not been God, as He was man- and had not His love been equal to His Deity- infinite, boundless, fathomless- how could He have drank and exhausted that tremendous cup of death's unmingled bitterness? Consider its ingredients- all the sins of His Church- the curse entailed by those sins- the condemnation involved in that curse- yet all this He endured in the sacrificial, sin-atoning sufferings and death through which He passed.

Turn we now to THE DEATH of those for whom He thus died. Christ's death has essentially and entirely changed the character of ours. The believer, in the words of Jesus Himself, "shall not see death." Literally, it is death- symbolically, death is a shadow. Poetically, death is a sleep. "Those who sleep in Jesus will God bring with Him." And what is this sleep? It is not the sleep of the soul- the soul loses not for a moment its consciousness. It is the sleep of the body- an euthanasia- in which the mortal part of our nature only reposes in unconsciousness until the trumpet of the Archangel wakes and bids it rise a "spiritual body" 'the body of our humiliation fashioned like unto Christ's glorious body.' Banish from your mind and your creed the freezing, cheerless idea that the soul of the believer sleeps until the resurrection morn! No! the soul- even of the lost- in its transit to eternity is not the subject of a moment's insensibility. 'Absent from the body'- that instant the believer is 'present with the Lord.' The moment that the body closes its eyes upon all the sin and suffering of earth, the ransomed soul opens its rapt vision upon all the glory and splendor of heaven- and JESUS is the first Object which meets, fastens, and feasts its ravished and wondering gaze!

"I will fear no evil!" An elevated note of our song is this! What! "no evil" in the approach of the 'king of terrors'? "No evil" in the assaults of the Evil One? "No evil" in the near prospect and realities of eternity? "Yes," responds the dying believer, "I fear no evil! Death cannot sting me- Christ has died! The grave cannot hold me- Christ is risen! Sin cannot condemn me-Christ has atoned! Satan cannot touch me- Christ has conquered! The fetters I wore so long and so wearily, now fall broken and shattered at my feet- and I am free!" What, in reality, has the believer to fear in death? When Christ passed through the valley, He destroyed the substance of death, and left nothing but its shadow- its phantom- its dream! Oh, believer in Jesus! are you afraid of a shadow? And have you forgotten the exceeding great and precious promise- "As your day, so shall your strength be"? "As your day" -and not before your day! The grace laid up for a dying hour is wisely reserved by God for its 'day,' and never given ahead of time. Oh, how prodigal we should be of the precious treasure were the deposit entrusted to our own keeping! It is the prerogative and design of faith to live upon God by the day. This is evidently His purpose and arrangement. "As your day, so shall your strength be." We have daily demands for grace quite enough, irrespective of anticipating our reserves, and antedating our need. We need living grace for life's daily duties and responsibilities, temptations and trials- and we have it all in Christ, our Depositary and Head, and it is ours- affluently and freely- by pleading the promise- "My grace is sufficient for you." Our dying grace will come at the appointed time, and when most we need it; and as we experienced the grace of Jesus all-sufficient for life- its deepest sorrows, its sorest trials, its strongest temptations, its greatest difficulties- so shall we find it all-sufficient for death- its fears and doubts, its tremblings and faintings- once more, and for the last and closing scene, presenting the precious promise- "My grace is sufficient for you." Wait, then, trustfully, calmly, hopefully, God's appointed time for the divine strength, grace, and comfort, that will bear you safely, yes, triumphantly through the shaded valley.
"His wisdom is sublime,
His heart profoundly kind;
God never is before His time,
And never is behind."

No! "I will not fear" -why should I, with such a Father- such a Savior- such a Comforter at my side, as I traverse the swellings of Jordan, my foot of faith firmly planted upon the precious promises that pave my pathway to glory? Oh, what must be the power of the blood and righteousness of Christ, which annihilates every fear at that dread moment when the "King of terrors" brandishes his uplifted dart, prepared to strike, but powerless to sting! Where this boldness at a moment when the stoutest heart might quail- this calmness, when the most sublime heroism might succumb- this smiling at the pale messenger, when nature is dissolving, and loving watchers are weeping and sobbing?

"Come, death, shake hands!
I love your bands;
It is happiness for me to die!
What! do you think that I will flinch?
I go to immortality!"

Where, we again ask, does this sublime victory over death come from? Our sweet Songster shall supply the answer.
"For You are with me." The presence and power of the Savior in the hour and point of death, alone explain the phenomenon. There is no fact in the believer's history more certain, as there is not one more precious, than that the Divine Shepherd walks side by side with each departing member of His flock. If ever the Savior is manifestly and sensibly with His saints, it is then. Never did He permit one of His sheep, not a lamb of His fold, to pass down the valley unsustained by His arm, uncheered by His voice, unblest with His smile. It may be that the loved ones who shared and soothed our earthly pilgrimage are absent now; or, if present, we may be unconscious that they are at our side. A fond parent may watch in silent agony the closing scene- a devoted husband, a loving wife, may tenderly wipe the cold death-damp from our brow- an affectionate child may bend to catch the last sigh from our lips- and yet we are utterly unconscious of their presence and their love! But of one presence- of the nearness of one Friend- your departing spirit is fully, blessedly sensible. "You me with me!" breathes from the dying lips- resounds through the valley! Hell trembles! Heaven rejoices! And all the saints and angels shout for joy!

"Death comes to take me where I long to be;
One pang, and bright blooms the immortal flower.
Death comes to lead me from mortality
To lands which know not one unhappy hour.
I have a hope, a faith- from sorrow here
I'm led by death away- why should I flinch and fear?
"A change from woe to joy- from earth to heaven
Death gives me this- it leads me calmly where
The souls that long ago from me were riven
May meet again! Death answers many a prayer.
Bright day, shine on! be glad! Days brighter far
Are stretched before my eyes than those of mortals are!"

The Rod and the Staff

"Your rod and Your staff they comfort me." Psalm 23:4.

"Your rod and your staff protect and comfort me." Psalm 23:4.

When David spoke these words he was, in anticipation, passing down the 'valley of death,' his spirit poised upon its wing for heaven. It is befitting and profitable to pause amid the engagements and turmoil of this present life, and forecast the hour and the scene when its business and its probation will close- lost amid the realities and solemnities of the life that knows no ending. He is a wise man who meditates frequently and seriously upon his latter end. Common and certain as death is, alas! it is the last event of our history with which we make ourselves familiar! Wiser far the heathen monarch who, amid the pomp and splendor of his court- the wine and the music of the banquet- ever and anon bent his ear to catch the warning of the attendant at his side- "Remember, O king, you are mortal!" Less eccentric, and more real, was the mode by which Joseph of Arimathea sought to familiarize his mind with his certain dissolution. In the excavation of a rock, encircled by the flowers and foliage of his garden, he built a tomb for his body- "a new sepulcher, wherein was never man yet laid. There laid they Jesus." And as, at eventide, he walked in his garden, and gazing upon its beauty and breathing its fragrance, he would pause before his prepared tomb, and recall the impressive 'cry' of the Prophet- "All flesh is grass, and all the goodness thereof is as the flower of the field: the grass withers, the flower fades." If, in the sublime language of the Burial Service, "in the midst of life we are in death," then should the thought, the imagery, and the preparation of death be ever present with our minds. And we hold that there is nothing inappropriate or incongruous in the idea that, in whatever place or engagement we may be occupied, the prospect of our dissolution should impart a tone to every feeling, a character to every circumstance, and a sanctity to every thought, word, and action of our life. It were no mere fanciful exaggeration of the sentiment were the muffled death knell to blend with the joyous music- the bridal robe to suggest the image of the pale shroud- and the thronged and sumptuous hall, thoughts of the lone and vaulted tomb- for 'in the midst of life'- the most busy, festive, and hilarious- 'we are in death.' We now turn to the Christian's "Rod and Staff," -his guidance and support in that eventful and solemn hour.

"Your rod and your staff." The image is pastoral and exquisitely beautiful. There are few objects more picturesque than that of the shepherd and his crook. The 'rod and the staff' are essential to the office of the shepherd as to the guidance and protection of the flock. The spiritual and practical significance of the symbol will be obvious to every reflective mind. The first is that of designation. The first and primary use of the shepherd's rod is that of marking the sheep, by which they are distinguished from all others, and recognized as his own. This is the meaning of God's word- "I will cause you to pass under the rod, and I will bring you into the bond of the covenant." And again, "In the cities of the mountains, in the cities of the valley, shall the flocks pass again under the hands of Him that tells them, says the Lord." And yet once more, "Concerning the tithe of the herd, or of the flock, even of whatever passes under the rod, the tenth shall be holy unto the Lord." How clear and precious the teaching! Christ's Church is a chosen flock, distinguished and separate from all others by an act of eternal, sovereign, and most free election. Hence our Lord said- "I am the good Shepherd, and know my sheep." If a member of Christ's Fold, you have 'passed under the rod' of electing love, and have upon you His own secret and distinguishing mark that you are His. Deny it not! To that everlasting love- to this election of grace from where it sprang- to your having thus passed under the Shepherd's rod- you owe all that you are as a child of God, and all that you hope for as an heir of glory. Your views of the doctrine of Election may be misty, and your faith in it hesitating; nevertheless, your crude conception and hesitating belief do not negate the doctrine itself, nor release you from the solemn obligation to believe it humbly, to accept it gratefully, and to live it holily. It is a blessed thought, that the unbelief of the believer cannot invalidate any truth of God, or lessen his obligation to receive it, though it may shade the luster and impair the power of that truth in his personal experience, thus robbing him of its blessing, and God of its glory!

While yet upon this subject, however, let me remind you that a divinely revealed doctrine though Election is, and one of the central truths in the mediatorial scheme, yet the question of your personal election of God is not the truth with which your faith has primarily and mainly to deal. Election is nowhere in the Bible placed before you as an essential tenet of your faith, but rather as a doctrine which imparts symmetry and consistency to the entire scheme of divine truth- renders lucid and harmonious doctrines otherwise obscure and dissonant- involves the divine glory- and supplies the believer with one of the most potent and influential motives to personal holiness- "According as He has chosen us in Him [Christ] before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love."

Salvation recognizes but one Object of faith- the Lord Jesus Christ. You are not called upon to believe that you are one of the Elect; but you are to believe in the Savior, as a sinner saved wholly by God's free grace, only and entirely through the Lord Jesus Christ, the one Name given under heaven whereby we must be saved. Do not be, then, troubled in your mind touching your election; it is one of the secret things of God with which He alone has to do. The revealed thing is, the absolute necessity of faith in Christ, who for your encouragement has declared- "He that believes in me shall be saved." No longer, then, stumble at this stumbling-stone; divine and revealed though it be- but, be anxious and earnest to know that you are called by grace. This great question once fairly settled, you may remain perfectly composed as to your election of God; for, your "calling made sure," you have logically and theologically, "made sure your election of God."

Another use of the shepherd's "Rod" is that of separation. With it he separates the sheep. By passing under the rod, God thereby intimated that His people were especially separated and set apart from all other nations for Himself. Here we have what, to use a logical term, may be called the corollary of election- the certain conclusion to which it conducts us. All the elect of God are the called of God. "Whom He did predestinate, them He also called." With this calling, then, we have first and chiefly to do- the antecedent act- your election- so to speak, transposed; that coming last in your experience which is the first in God's mind. Grasp in faith this the last and lowest link in the mystic chain of your salvation, and it will by-and-by raise you to the first and highest. The people of God, then- the sheep of Christ's flock- are a separated people. They have passed under the separating, consecrating rod of the Shepherd. "He calls His own sheep by name, and leads them out. And when He puts forth His own sheep, He goes before them." Sweet and precious truth! Divine and sovereign grace has taken you out of the world, and set you among those who are

"called to be saints," "the called according to His purpose." "It pleased God," says the apostle, "who called me by His grace, to reveal, His Son in me." Oh, high and holy calling! What are all others- the most imperious and brilliant- in comparison? Oh let the thought never be absent from your mind, that you are called out of, that you should be separate from, this ungodly world- "a holy nation, a peculiar people, a royal priesthood" -separated, set apart from all others to be Christ's especial treasure. My soul! have you heard the call of Christ? Outwardly, again and again, the gospel call has fallen upon your ear; but has the inward and effectual call of the Spirit penetrated the ear of your soul, bidding and constraining you to arise and come to Jesus? Rest not short of this!

The shepherd's "Rod" is equally employed for the guidance of the flock. By a single wave of his "rod," by a gentle touch of his crook, the shepherd of the east was wont skillfully and effectually to lead his flock in the way in which they should go. How clearly our Lord appropriates this. "When He puts forth His own sheep, He goes before them, and the sheep follow Him." As one of Christ's Fold, from the moment you 'passed under the rod,' you became an object of His especial guidance and care. Henceforth, "I will guide you with my eye," is the promise He has made individually yours, and which your faith is to plead. You are passing through an enemy's country- your path often intricate and perplexing- you see not a step before you, and are often called to descend a valley deeply shaded with dark and trying providences. But you have divine and precious promises- "I will bring the blind by a way that they know not; I will lead them in paths that they have not known: I will make darkness light before them, and crooked things straight. These things will I do unto them, and not forsake them."

Blessed Shepherd! I am perplexed to know the path of duty! My way is hedged, and I can't see a step before me. Show me now Your way that I may know You. Let Your guiding-rod- the word of Your truth, and the eye of Your providence- indicate the way in which I should walk- Your way. And when that way is made plain, give me grace to walk in it; be it the path of service, the most self-denying; of suffering, the most severe; or of loneliness, the most solitary.

Commit yourself, then, unhesitatingly to the guidance of Christ's rod. He will most assuredly lead you by the best way. He is leading you now in the right path. Clouds and darkness may be round about you; but all is light to Him, in whom is no darkness at all. Around your path the events of Divine providence may be as a complete web, baffling your every effort to unravel; but He 'knows the way that you take,' and will guide you through the labyrinth and the maze, bringing you 'out of a strait place into a broad place, because He delights in you.' Blessed Shepherd! "You shall guide me with Youe counsel; and afterwards receive me to glory."

The shepherd's "Rod" is for protection. It is a weapon of defense with which the flock are shielded from the prowling beasts of prey. There is not a moment that danger is not near, and not a moment that Christ's Rod is not outstretched in our defense. There is not a being in the vast universe more exposed to assault, nor yet one more divinely and safely kept, than a saint of God. Loved with a love that passes knowledge- redeemed with the precious blood of the Shepherd- and made a temple of God through the Spirit, is it possible that he can ever perish? Listen to the Shepherd's declaration of this truth- "I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. My Father, who gave them me, is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father's hand." Take comfort from this, O my soul! You do often tremble at the prowling beasts of prey, causing the forest to shake with their roar- yet more do you dread the veiled and subtle foe- the sin that dwells in you- ever present, never slumbering, treacherous and strong, and therefore the more dangerous and dreaded, often extorting the cry, "I shall one day perish by my enemy!" Do not be dismayed! Every sheep and lamb of the flock is kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation; and shall be delivered from the mouth of the lion, the paw of the bear, and the fangs of the serpent.

Nor must we overlook the restraining use of Christ's Rod and Staff. The restraints of Christ's grace are not less conspicuous in the believer's experience than the constraints of His love. There is a strong tendency in us to go before the Lord, rather than follow His leading hand. We desire to anticipate His will and antedate His way concerning us, rather than in quietness and confidence wait the movement of His guiding rod. Peter- impulsive and self-reliant, went before the Lord when He asked Jesus to bid him come to Him upon the water. The consequence was, he began to sink; and but for the hand of Christ, the proud waves had whelmed him in their depths. Impetuous and distrustful, we would dictate to God the way by which He should lead, and the means by which He should deliver, and the lessons by which He should instruct, and the discipline by which He should sanctify us. But Jesus, consulting our greatest good, orders otherwise. "When He puts forth His own sheep, He goes before them." Oh blessed restraints of Christ! Restraining our rebellious will- our impetuous spirit- our blind zeal- and our erring judgment- Christ interposes His "rod and His staff," and in a thousand instances keeps us from falling. Significant words of God to David- "I kept you from sinning against Me"! Among your costliest mercies, count the restraints and checks of Christ's "rod and staff." We shall never fully know, until we arrive in heaven, in how many instances and ways we were kept by God- from how many a precipice, and from how many a broken bone, and from how many a fatal mistake, the Lord went before to preserve us. We rebelled, perhaps, at the interference of the "rod"- we murmured at the checks of the "staff"- we felt the sickness sore- the suffering acute- the disappointment bitter- nevertheless, when the mist and the cloud uplifted, revealing the imminent peril to which we had been exposed, we then saw clearly the wisdom and mercy of our God in imposing those divine and salutary restraints, but for which we should blindly and inevitably have wrecked all that was precious to us in this life, and glorious in the life that is to come.

Nor would we omit the employment of the "Rod" as a disciplinary agent in the hands of our Divine Shepherd. This symbol is frequently used as illustrating the afflictive dispensations through which God's people pass. "Hear the rod, and He who has appointed it." The rod of Divine discipline is not less essential to the completeness of our Christian character, and thus our fitness for heaven, than any other use in which the Lord employs it. The reference in God's word to this is striking and instructive. "If he commit iniquity, I will chasten him," says God, "with the ROD of men." Listen to the words of the sorely afflicted patriarch- "Let Him take His ROD away from me, and let not His fear terrify me." How necessary this "Rod" of reproof, judgment, and restraint, by which the Church of God is disciplined! It is fearful to contemplate the result of its absence! Dissever a timely and wholesome exercise of discipline from a church-or a nation- or a school- or a family, and how soon would lawlessness, anarchy, and ruin ensue! And thus, exempt the Church of God- collectively and individually- from the discipline of Christ- let Him extinguish the furnace, and suspend the flail, and lay aside the knife, and what would be the result? The dross would then hide the gold- the chaff would spoil the wheat- the sucker would ruin the vine- and incalculable would be our soul's loss!

But the "Rod" of Christ's discipline has a voice. "Hear the rod, and Him who has appointed it." It is the voice of a Father, whose love for us is not a blind, unwise affection, but infinitely holy and intelligent. It is the voice of a Savior bidding us not shrink from the pruning, but accept its severing as designed but to promote our fruitfulness. "He opens mine ear to discipline." And when the ear bends humbly and submissively to the Divine voice in this discipline of sorrow, then it may be said that, like Aaron's, it "brought forth buds, and bloomed with blossoms." Sanctified affliction- hallowed grief- is no bare and barren rod of God. There is power and vitality in it: it quickens the divine life- awakens the spirit of prayer- strengthens and purifies faith- enthrones Christ supremely upon the heart- and though 'at present not joyous, but grievous, yet afterward it yields the fruits of righteousness unto those who are exercised thereby.' And thus it is, when the Heavenly Husbandman prunes the branch, and the Divine Refiner purifies the gold, that the one brings forth more fruit, and the other reflects the more perfect likeness; and He that prunes and He that refines receives all the glory.

"Your rod and your staff they comfort me." Divine discipline and divine comfort are synonymous terms. The Lord tries the righteous, that He might comfort them. He wounds to heal- creates a channel for His divine consolations often through the furrows and fissures of a broken heart. Jesus told His disciples that He was about to leave them- and sorrow filled their heart. But at the first burst of grief He hastens to apply the balm- "Let not your heart be troubled: you believe in God, believe also in Me"- thus creating a way for His richest consolations through the channel of their bitterest sorrow. In what other school do we learn that the Lord is full of compassion- that Christ is touched with the feeling of our infirmities- that His strength is perfected in weakness, and His grace all-sufficient for us- but in the school in which He Himself, though a Son, learned the great lesson of 'obedience' to the will and behest of His Father? Oh yes, the "Rod and the Staff" are channels of divine "comfort" which flow to us through no other. Bow humbly and submissively to the "Rod" of God's correction- grasp believingly and firmly the "Staff" of Christ's truth- and, in the multitude of your thoughts within you, His comforts will delight your soul. The cross may be heavy- the furnace fiery- the knife sharp- the rod crushing- but all the richer and sweeter will be the "strong consolation" flowing into your soul from the "God of all comfort."

Oh shrink not from the burden your Father lays upon your shoulder, however weighty- turn not your eye from the cross your Savior bids you carry, however sore- for here often are found the richest pastures and the stillest waters of the soul. Bearing this cross to the brink of Jordan, you shall then exchange it for the crown- and, looking unto Jesus, you shall pass triumphantly over its swellings, and all the minstrels of heaven will celebrate your coming! Lord! if such the fruit of the "Rod"- and such the support of the "Staff"- and such the blessing of the "Cross"- do with Your servant as seems good in Your sight!

"Heavier the cross, the nearer heaven;
No cross without, no God within;
Death, judgment from the heart, are driven
Amid the world's false glare and din.
O happy he with all his loss,
Whom God has set beneath the cross!

"Heavier the cross, the better Christian;
This is the touchstone God applies.
How many a garden would be wasting,
Unwet by showers from weeping eyes!
The gold by fire is purified;
The Christian is by trouble tried.

"Heavier the cross, the stronger faith;
The loaded palm strikes deeper root;
The vine juice sweetly issues
When men have pressed the clustered fruit;
And courage grows where dangers come,
Like pearls beneath the salt sea foam.

"Heavier the, cross, the heartier prayer;
The bruised herbs most fragrant are.
If sky and wind were always fair,
The sailor would not watch the star;
And David's Psalms had never been sung
If grief his heart had never wrung.

"Heavier the cross, the more aspiring;
From valleys we climb to mountain crest;
The pilgrim of the desert tiring,
Longs for the Canaan of his rest.
The dove has here no rest in sight,
And to the ark she wings her flight.

"Heavier the cross, the easier dying;
Death is a friendlier face to see;
To life's decay one bids defying,
From life's distress one then is free.
The cross sublimely lifts our faith,
To Him who triumphed over death.

"Crucified One! the cross I carry,
The longer, may it dearer be;
And lest I faint while here I tarry,
Implant such a heart in me,
That faith, hope, love, may flourish there,
Until for the cross, my crown I wear."
(From the German of Smolk)

The Banquet

"You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies." Psalm 23:5

"You prepare a feast for me in the presence of my enemies." Psalm 23:5

How soon is true and simple faith crowned with its reward! The first and exultant refrain of our song had scarcely died upon the ear- "I shall not want"- before another and still more jubilant one ravishes the soul. "You prepare a table before one in the presence of my enemies." God, when He gives faith in Himself- in His love to promise, in His faithfulness to fulfil, in His power to perform- seldom keeps the believing, waiting soul in long and anxious suspense. It is true He may, in some instances, test the sincerity, exercise the faith, and prove the love of His suppliant child by causing the 'vision awhile to tarry;' but sooner or later it comes, and the faith that trusted, and the prayer that petitioned, and the hope that expected, and the patience that waited, meet their due reward- never a whit less, but oftener far beyond the utmost limit of the request- from "Him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us."

Sheep without nourishment, would be as incongruous as a flock without a shepherd. The very relation Christ sustains to you, is a pledge that your needs shall all be met. The existence of a table- the table emblematic of an appropriate and ample banquet- a banquet, too, where famine and foes prevail- is a demonstrative proof of the power and expectation of faith- "I shall not lack." It is no little comfort to be well and divinely assured that, in whatever part of the wilderness your lot may be cast- however weary and pressing your need, numerous and potent your enemies- yet there the Shepherd has prepared a table of the most appropriate and costly viands, and invites you to partake- He Himself presiding at the banquet.

Shall we remind you of the table of His Providence- provided for you in the face of your enemies- which, though the least, does not the less exhibit the thoughtful, tender care the Lord takes of His own? He will have us as much live a life of dependence upon Him as the God of providence, as the God of grace. Jesus has taught us to pray- "Give us this day our daily bread." Nowhere did our Lord speak lightly of our temporal need, or discourage the prayer of those that petitioned for its supply. It is not likely that He who made the body- Himself a partaker of its nature and its infirmities, often pinched with hunger and parched with thirst- would speak lightly of its needs, or fail to meet them when they occurred. No lesson did He more frequently or emphatically inculcate than that of a humble dependence upon God's regard of our temporal necessities. His simple, yet inimitable, illustration of the 'sparrow' and the 'lily,' were designed to impress us with the duty and the happiness of seeking from God's hand the loaf that should enrich and adorn our daily board. "Do not be anxious, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, With what shall we be clothed? Your Heavenly Father knows that you have need of all these things." And are you not a living witness of God's providential care? Has He not hitherto prepared a table for you in the wilderness, and in the sight of all your foes? And when faith has been sharply tried- like the Shunamite widow, nothing in the house but a handful of meal- and unbelief- your greatest enemy- has tauntingly asked, "Where is now your God?"- has not He who fed the five thousand in the wilderness with five small loaves and two fishes, as marvelously, and almost as miraculously, appeared on your behalf, sending an ample supply at a time, and with an affluence which has filled you with amazement-extorting the praiseful acknowledgment- "You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies." Oh that every meal were as a sacrament, uplifting the heart to the Source of all our mercies, in grateful and devout acknowledgment of His daily providential care- in everything giving thanks! Is this your invariable habit, my reader, when you take your place at the table God has furnished with the bounties of His providence? is His hand recognized, and His goodness acknowledged, and His blessing invoked? Oh let not yours be an atheist's, but a Christian's table, where God is always acknowledged, and Christ is often a welcomed guest!

It is possible that these pages may find you straitened and tried in your temporal circumstances. Your income is, perhaps, inadequate- your supplies are failing- your demands multiplying- and your heart fails you for fear. Forget not that He who hears the raven's cry- feeds the sparrow- clothes the lily, is your Father and Benefactor, and that He knows your needs, and has promised, and is able, to supply it. And now, "have faith in God." Cry unto Him mightily; trust His word implicitly; wait His time and way patiently; and sooner or later the promise will be fulfilled- "Your bread and your water shall be sure;" "and truly you shall be fed!" Be it so that you have nearly come to the end of your supplies- that there is nothing in the house but the poor widow's portion- "a little meal and a pot of oil;" He who sent Elisha the prophet at the moment of her need, and more than met it, will appear in His wonder-working providence for you; and help shall come from a quarter you least expected, and at a time when you looked not for it, even though He work a miracle to accomplish it- multiplying the few loaves, and so blessing the barrel of meal and the cruse of oil, that they cease not. We lose much blessing and God much honor, by not more simply and implicitly living upon His providential care. It is an old and familiar aphorism, that "they who watch God's providence shall never lack a providence to watch." The simple meaning of which is- that they who see God's goodness in all their temporal supplies- who recognize His superintending and molding hand, ordering and shaping all the events- the most minute of their personal history- shall never be left without some marked and unmistakable evidence of God's care and bountifulness in providing for their temporal need, and His wisdom and faithfulness in ordering and directing all their worldly concerns. Be, then, a close student of God's providence. Seek a dislodgment from your mind of that atheism which would exclude God from the government of the world, but what is a far worse species of practical atheism- from the events and circumstances of our individual history. The terms 'chance', 'accident', 'contingency', as they are employed by the world in connection with the events of human life, should be entirely expunged from the Christian's vocabulary. They belong solely to the dictionary of the atheist, and should never pass the lips of the believer. It is the privilege of the believing mind to do with God in the most infinitesimal incident of individual life. Tossed amid the waves of second causes, faith often loses its anchorage on God in dark and mysterious calamities; and the believing and devout mind, thus for the moment loosed from its divine fastening, drifts away amid the breakers and the shoals of doubt and perplexity; and but for the restraining power and the restoring grace of the Divine Shepherd would become an utter wreck.

But a richer table is, the Banquet of His Grace. In nothing is the broad line of distinction more clearly drawn between the Church and the world than in the provision God has made for His own people. The blessings of Providence with which He favors us- though covenant mercies, as all our blessings are- yet are shared in common with an ungodly world- for He makes the sun of His goodness to shine upon the evil and the good. But the saints of God have infinitely more than this. There is another table, at which only His own people sit- the Family Table, around which cluster the adopted children of His love. "I have food to eat," said Jesus, "of which you know nothing." And in the same language may the children of God address the poor worldling, feeding upon wind, and starving upon husks- "We are fed and nourished with bread to which you are an utter stranger." What a rich banquet is the gospel of Christ: a "feast of fat things full of marrow, of wines on the lees well refined."

To this banquet our Lord referred when He compared His Gospel to a "great supper," to which the poor and the needy and the penniless were bidden. How divine, costly, and precious this Banquet! Well may it be called- "the glorious Gospel of the blessed God." Next to God's unspeakable gift of His beloved Son, is the glorious gospel of His grace which makes Him known. What a banquet for poor sinners! How rich and varied its viands!- the full pardon of our sins- the free acceptance of our persons- our gracious adoption into God's family- and our joint heirship to the inheritance of glory. "Blessed are the people who know the joyful sound" of this full and free gospel! Alas! how few hear it- and when heard, how few know it! It is a jubilant sound- but to thousands, within its reach, it possesses no music, attraction, or charm.

How many religious professors, contemplating a change of abode, make the existence of a faithful, evangelical ministry the very last consideration in their search! Health- society- and scenery are points of attraction which take precedence of all religious questions; and a purely-preached Gospel is the very last- if at all considered- that awakens a moment's thought or enquiry! Like Lot, the situation is chosen because pleasant to the eye and well watered; and like him, we have lived to rue the choice that involved us in such worldliness,
temptation, and sin. Oh, in solemn consideration of the souls of your family, your domestics, and your own- and with death and Eternity before you- pitch your earthly tent on no spot where a famine of the bread and water of life exists! Avoid as you would a plague-smitten spot the place where soul-destroying doctrine, and God-dishonoring worship, have superseded an evangelical and faithful ministry of God's word, and a spiritual and devout worship of God's name. See well to it, that both the preaching of the truth and the rendering of the service are profitable to you and glorifying to Him!

A present salvation is an essential element of this Gospel Banquet thus provided for us in the wilderness. For the lack of a more simple recognition of this aspect of the gospel, many of God's people are deprived of much blessing. If saved at all-we are saved now. The believer is as entirely pardoned- as completely justified- as fully adopted at the present moment, as he will be when glorified. "By
grace you are saved." "Accepted in the Beloved." "You are complete in Him." Could any truth be expressed in terms more strong, or placed in light more lucid? Oh marvellous banquet, that meets and satisfies all the requirements of the soul! Come to it with what infirmity- with what need- with what sorrow- with what frame you may, there is a place and a viand for you; a loving welcome, and a most free meal. "You prepare a table for me in the presence of my enemies."

And what a divine and rich banquet is God's word! Here is a table furnished with "all pleasant fruits," -the costliest and the richest God can give, for the instruction and nourishment of His own life in the soul. Here are doctrines for establishment; precepts, for guidance; promises, for comfort; and hopes which scatter the shadow of death, and light the soul's path to glory with an effulgence shining more and more unto the perfect day. Be a firm believer- a prayerful student- and an uncompromising defender of God's word.

This Divine table stands in the presence of many enemies. It is assailed on every hand. Never was there a time when the word of God was more universally, virulently, and insidiously attacked than the present. It behooves, therefore, the true believer in Scripture to grasp firmly this "Rod and Staff" of the Divine Shepherd; and thus armed and strengthened, to "contend earnestly" against the prevalent atheism and infidelity of the age, "for the faith once delivered to the saints."

We must not conclude this chapter on the Banquet of the Flock without a passing allusion to the Lord's Supper- not the least table of spiritual nourishment provided by the Shepherd in the presence of our enemies. We have, in the preceding pages, already alluded to this; but the subject at the present moment has assumed so important an aspect, we make no apology for returning to it again. As the present work is designed to be of a spiritual and experimental, rather than of a theologically controversial character, we pass by those views of the Lord's Supper by which its nature is perverted, and its simplicity and efficacy are destroyed. All that we can venture to premise on that head briefly is the declaration that, the Lord's Supper is not- as the Romanists maintain- a sacrifice, but simply and only the commemoration of a sacrifice; and that, consequently, those who officiate as 'celebrants' are not 'Priests'- in an official or sacerdotal sense of the term- but ministers only, possessing no authority whatever to change the elements into any other than their original nature, and no power whatever to impart to them any other than their appointed efficacy. How explicit and clear the words of 'consecration'- "Who made there (by His one oblation of Himself once offered) a full, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice, oblation, and satisfaction for the sins of the whole world." Here- in the very terms by which the officiating minister invokes the Divine blessing, and presents hearty thanks to Almighty God, in connection with the simple, yet most expressive symbols- is the entire exclusion of all idea of a corporeal presence- the offering of a sacrifice, or the office of a sacrificing priest. Neither of these pretensions have the shadow of a shade of existence in the original institution of the sacrament. The words of our Lord, when He instituted this Holy Supper, are as explicit and lucid as they are simple and touching. "And as they were eating, Jesus took bread, and blessed it, and broke it, and gave it to the disciples, and said, Take, eat; this is my body. And He took the cup, and gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying, Drink from it, all of you; for this is my blood of the new testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins." The figurative meaning of our Lord- "This is my body", "This is my blood "-is explained by similar passages, and admits of no more literal interpretation than the metaphorical language which He employed on another occasion, when He said- "I am the Door." The argument of Zwingle, in the famous Marburg Conference on the Lord's Supper, that "a body cannot be without place; and that the body of Christ, being in heaven, could not be at the same time in the bread," holds as strongly now as it did then; and if reasonably and dispassionately weighed, would produce the same rational impression on all thoughtful minds as it did upon those of that learned Conference, presided over by "that pious hero and Christian Prince, the Landgrave." The Lord of His mercy grant that we may never hear in this Protestant land the echo of the shouts which then rang through the streets of Switzerland- "Down with a God of bread! a baker God!"

And yet, while avoiding the Sacramentarian theory of the Lord's Supper, let us not run into an opposite extreme, and be betrayed into light and indifferent views either of its nature, its object, or its blessing. There is great danger of turning the back upon one of the most significant institutions, and one of the richest means of grace, the Divine, Redeeming Shepherd has provided for the sheep of His pasture. There are three aspects in which the devout mind may contemplate it. The first is, retrospective. It is the remembrance, or a memorial of a fact the most stupendous, of a transaction the most noble, in the history of the universe- Christ dying for our sins! And, when humbly and believingly we approach this table, how should our fondest thoughts wing back to the scenes of Gethsemane and Calvary, and muse awhile amid the soul-sorrow and blood-sweat of the one, and the lingering sufferings and the torturing death of the other! Oh, forget not, my soul, what it cost your Lord to furnish this table for you in the wilderness!
"It cost Him death to save our souls;
To buy our souls, it cost His own;
And all the unknown joys He gives
Were bought with agonies unknown."

The Lord's Supper is a banquet of present enjoyment. Who can adequately describe the refreshment and strength which flows through this channel, "as often as we eat this bread, and drink this cup?" We re-produce the experience, and re-echo the exultant language of the church of old- "I sat down under His shadow with great delight, and His fruit was sweet to my taste. He brought me to the banqueting house, and His banner over me was love." We come believingly to the Lord's Supper, weary and jaded and we find sweet repose; we come sorrowful and depressed- and we find joy and uplifting; we come languid and cold- and we retire with hearts burning within us as He communed with us by the way. Revived- refreshed- invigorated by the spiritual nourishment thus received- we go forth to service and to conflict, to duty and to suffering, as the bridegroom out of his chamber, and as a giant refreshed with new wine.

There is also a prospective aspect of the Lord's Supper- it points to the future Advent and glory of the Lord, with all His saints. "As often as you eat this bread, and drink this cup, you do show the Lord's death until he comes." Like the two arms of the cross of Jesus, the one pointing to the types and shadows of the past- the other, to the realities and glories of the future- this divine banquet directs our thoughts and anticipations to the Second Coming of our Lord- "that blessed hope, and glorious appearing of the great God and our Savior Jesus Christ." How marvelously do the cross and the crown meet in this ordinance- the dark, cold shade of the one, and the splendid radiance and warm glow of the other; thus falling in blended hues upon this holy Banquet of love!

The cross of Jesus, deep and dark as was its shadow, was never designed to eclipse the crown of Jesus, bright and resplendent with its glory. "We look for the Savior"- a Personal Savior- who will come to wake the holy dead, and translate the righteous living- the waking and the rapture of both contemporaneous: "For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not precede those who are asleep. For the Lord Himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord." Thus the sacrament of the Lord's Supper- as often and wherever we observe it- with the morning light, or in the evening shade- amid the public services of the sanctuary, or the more private and solemn scenes of the sick and dying chamber- teaches us to keep in memory the sacrificial death, and to anticipate the coming glory, of our Divine and adorable Redeemer. My soul! draw near the Holy Table of your Lord- with the humility of contrition- the simplicity of faith- the fervor of love- and the anticipation of hope. Hesitate not to take your place at this family feast, this banquet of love, since all the merit that provided the feast, and all the worthiness that supplies your plea, and all the fitness that warrants your approach is in Him who prepared the table- who is, spiritually, the substance of the feast- who bids you 'do this in remembrance of Him' -and whose gracious welcome meets you upon the threshold- "Eat, O friend, and drink; yes, drink abundantly, O beloved."

But oh what a table awaits us in heaven! From the banquet of grace below- which often strengthened and refreshed us in the wilderness, when weary and faint- we pass to the banquet of glory above, and sit down with apostles, prophets, and martyrs, and all the ransomed, whom no man can number- Jesus Himself coming forth to serve us. And what a Banquet will that be! How costly, how precious
its materials! The beatific sight of the glorified Redeemer- reunion with departed saints- the new song before the throne- unmingled happiness- perfect holiness- and eternity perpetuating all! "God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away."

Truly, when our Lord comes, and the wicked shall be summoned to judgment, will this Table be spread 'in the presence of all our enemies'- devils and men! Those who hated and persecuted the saints on earth- who maligned, slandered, and tortured them- will now gnash their teeth and gnaw their tongues with rage, when they see the objects of their malice and the victims of their torture sitting down with "the glorious company of the apostles, and the goodly fellowship of the prophets, and the noble army of martyrs," in the kingdom of their Father, and they themselves forever shut out! My soul, live and labor, suffer and die, looking for this blessed hope! "And He says unto me, Write, Blessed are those who are called unto the marriage supper of the Lamb." Blessed are they now- yet more blessed when the Lord comes to re-unite them to their risen and glorified body. Lament not, then, the holy dead! They are done with toil and sorrow, with suffering and sin, and are with Christ now, and Christ will bring them with Him when He comes in glory, "to be admired by His saints, and adored in all those who believe."

"High in yonder realms of light,
Far above these lower skies,
Fair and exquisitely bright,
Heaven's unfailing mansions rise
Built of pure and massy gold,
Strong and durable are they,
Decked with gems of worth untold,
Subjected to no decay.
"Glad within those blest abodes
Dwell the enraptured saints above,
Where no anxious care corrodes,
Happy in Emmanuel's love!
Once indeed, like us below,
Pilgrims in this vale of tears,
Torturing pain and heavy woe,
Gloomy doubts, distressing fears;
"These, alas! full well they knew,
Sad companions of their way,
Oft' on them the tempest blew,
Through the long, the cheerless day!
Often their vileness they deplored,
Wills perverse, and hearts untrue,
Grieved they could not love their Lord,
Love Him as they longed to do.
"Oft' the big unbidden tear,
Stealing down the furrowed cheek,
Told, in eloquence sincere,
Tales of woe that could not speak;
But, these days of weeping over,
Past this scene of toil and pain,
They shall feel distress no more,
Never, never, weep again!
"'Mid the chorus of the skies,
'Mid the angelic lyres above,
Hark! their songs melodious rise,
Songs of praise to Jesus' love!
Happy spirits! you are fled
Where no grief can entrance find;
Lulled to rest the aching head,
Soothed the anguish of the mind!
"All is tranquil and serene,
Calm and undisturbed repose;
There no cloud can intervene,
There no angry tempest blows;
Every tear is wiped away,
Sighs no more shall heave the breast;
Night is lost in endless day
Sorrow- in ETERNAL REST!"
(Raffles)

The Anointing

"You anoint my head with oil." Psalm 23:5

The holy anointing of the believer is a subject occupying a significant and prominent place in the teaching of God's word. Nor is this to be wondered at. It constitutes one of the most expressive emblems of spiritual blessing, as it is one of the divinest elements of the Christian life. Indeed, apart from its possession, spiritual life has no existence or reality in the soul. The indwelling of the Spirit in the regenerate is nothing less than the anointing of the Spirit; and the anointing of the Spirit indicates our priestly relation as a part of the "Royal Priesthood," of which the Lord Jesus Christ is the Great High, and only sacrificing, Priest over the House of God. The limits of the present chapter restrict our illustration of this subject to the reference David makes to it in the Psalm- "You anoint my head with oil." Having spoken of the Banquet provided for him by the Shepherd, David naturally and appropriately adverts to a related blessing- the anointing which in Eastern countries was considered an essential and inseparable requisite on all great festive occasions. Homer, Aristophanes, Pliny, and other ancient classic writers, frequently refer to its use as a mark of respect shown by the host to his guests before the meal. But not the head only was it customary thus to anoint. The feet- shod with sandals, and therefore rendering the act all the more appropriate and grateful- were wont to be bathed, and then anointed with fragrant oil. This often a filial office on the part of the daughter, not more reflecting the affection and reverence of the child, than it was honoring and refreshing to the parent.

To this Eastern custom, doubtless, reference is made in the frequent allusion to the symbol. For example- "Let your garments be always white, and let your head lack no ointment." Again- "You, when you fast, anoint your head." And what reader of his Bible does not recall that touching narrative of the woman recorded by the Evangelist, who, following her Savior into the Pharisee's house, bearing an alabaster box of precious ointment, "stood at His feet behind Him weeping, and began to wash His feet with tears, and wiped them with the hairs of her head, and kissed His feet, and anointed them with the ointment." Pause for a moment, and ponder this exquisite picture! It is too beautiful and significant to be superficially studied. She had been a sinner lost- but Jesus found her, and she was now a sinner saved. She loved much. Her affection for Jesus was not a mere sentiment evaporating in words; it was a real and practical principle, embodied and expressed in an act not less grateful to Jesus than expressive of her true affection. Oh there is no bath so acceptable to the Savior as the tears of penitence- and no anointing so precious to Him as the service of love! We now turn to the subject more immediately before us- "You anoint my head with oil."

THE SOURCE AND NATURE OF THE BELIEVER'S ANOINTING.
We must place in the foreground the truth that, all true spiritual anointing centers in, and flows from, Christ the Head and Depositary of His Church. It is in this light we shall understand the frequent and significant references to Christ as the Anointed of God. Thus for example, at Solomon's dedication of the temple- "O Lord God, turn not away the face of Your Anointed." Again- "You love righteousness, and hate wickedness: therefore God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness above your fellows." And David prayed- "Behold, O God, our shield, and look upon the face of Your anointed." Once more- "God has anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power." And to crown all, we have Isaiah's glorious prophecy- "The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me; because the Lord has anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek." And what, it will be asked, was this anointing of which Christ was the Object? As God, He needed it not; but as Man, it was necessary to the accomplishment of His mission that His Humanity should be filled with the Spirit; and this was the anointing which He received- "for God gives not the Spirit by measure unto Him." "Your holy child Jesus, whom You have anointed." From this rapid glance at the source and nature of the believer's anointing, let us show in what way it becomes ours.

HOW THIS ANOINTING BECOMES OURS.
It becomes ours in virtue of our union with Christ. Engrafted into Him, we partake of His anointing, as the branch partakes of the sap of the vine- as a member participates in the life of the body. Apart from union with Christ, there can be no life from Christ. "If any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His." "Hereby we know that He abides in us, by the Spirit which He has given us." On this truth we need not enlarge. Clear is it to every spiritual and reflective mind that, united by the Spirit to Christ, we partake of all that Christ is- His fulness of the Spirit as Man, which is the 'anointing which teaches us of all things.' Oh, beloved, realize your union with Christ! in proportion to this will be the spiritual vitality of your soul. "You anoint my head with oil."

ELEMENTS OF THIS ANOINTING.
What are some of the ideas suggested by this anointing of the believer? The first clearly is that of consecration. To consecrate, or set apart, to a particular and holy office or function, anointing was invariably employed. We find this in the consecration of Aaron and his sons to the office of priesthood. "You shall put upon Aaron the holy garments, and anoint him, and sanctify him, that he may minister unto me in the priest's office." Thus, by the Holy Spirit we are anointed and set apart to be Christ's Royal Priesthood- the only priesthood in the Church of God, of which all true believers of every name partake. How high the office! how solemn the consecration! how divine and precious the anointing! Forget not, O my soul, that you are, as one with Christ- sanctified and set apart by the consecrating oil of the Spirit to be a royal priest of God! The holy unction is upon you, and henceforth you are a priest of God, in union with all His saints, anointed to "offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God by Jesus Christ." "You anoint my head with oil."

Spiritual illumination is another property and effect of this holy anointing. "As for you, the anointing you received from him remains in you, and you do not need anyone to teach you. But as his anointing teaches you about all things and as that anointing is real, not counterfeit– just as it has taught you, remain in him." The anointing of the Spirit- that is, His divine teaching- renders us in a manner independent of human teaching in divine truth. "You do not need that any MAN teach you." Thankful indeed should we be for any spiritual aid in the understanding of the Scriptures, and in our travel heavenward, afforded by holy and well-informed minds. But the authorised Teacher and Interpreter of God's word is the Holy Spirit alone, independent of all human or ecclesiastical teaching or authority. And where human assistance is lacking, the Holy Spirit is ever present with His own inspired Word- the Author with the Book- to loosen the seals thereof, making known to us the hidden things of God's mind and will and heart as therein revealed.

Oh, my soul! seek plentifully this anointing! Honor the Spirit as your Divine Interpreter. What is dark, He will illuminate. What is discrepant, He will harmonize. What is hard to believe, He will elucidate, and give you faith to accept; and so He will-as Christ did of old- "open your understanding, that you might understand the Scriptures."

And how sanctifying is this anointing! He is emphatically the "Spirit of holiness" -the "Holy Spirit." As He is the Author of our spiritual life, so is He its divine Promoter. We have no holiness which is not His fruit in the soul. The Holy Spirit is our Sanctifier, as Christ is our Sanctification. And He sanctifies us by bidding us wash daily in the blood of Christ- and to draw all our supplies of grace from the fulness of Christ- thus taking of the things of Christ, and showing them unto us, and by anointing enabling us to reflect Christ- to live Christ- to labor for Christ- to suffer for Christ- and, if need be, to die for Christ. If, then, you would be holy- and, "without holiness no man can see the Lord " -seek large supplies of this sanctifying anointing of the Spirit, that your experience may be an echo of the Psalmist's- "You anoint my head with oil."

Nor must we- in conclusion- overlook the comfort which this divine anointing conveys to the soul. It is the "oil of gladness." As the Divine Paraclete, the Holy Spirit is the Comforter of the Church. "I will send the Comforter," was the precious promise of the ascending Savior. Christ is the Comfort, the "Consolation of Israel." The Holy Spirit is the Comforter- by whom the sympathy, and grace, and consolation of Christ is conveyed into our sad and disconsolate hearts. The Holy Spirit is pledged by His office to pour the 'oil of joy' into the broken and sorrowful heart. You are, perhaps, spiritually and sorely tried. You may imagine that the Lord has forgotten to be gracious; that in anger He has shut up His tender mercies; that your past spiritual experience has been a delusion, and your religious life a pious fraud- and that you have no part or lot in the matter. And now you refer your present affliction- your mental gloom and spiritual despondency- to Divine anger, and have resigned your present to dark despair, and your future to inevitable woe! But this is your infirmity! You are not in a position to judge of your true condition, to form an intelligent and correct opinion of your real case. Oh! how comforting is the thought that the Lord does not endorse our self-condemnation: when we condemn ourselves, He does not! "My thoughts are not yet your thoughts, says the Lord."

But whatever may be the sword that has wounded you- the arrow that has pierced you- the cloud that has darkened your mind- or the sorrow that has broken your heart- lo! the loving Shepherd stands prepared to pour the 'oil of gladness' on your head- to give you the "oil of joy for mourning, and the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness." O Lord! "You have turned my mourning into joyful dancing. You have taken away my clothes of mourning and clothed me with joy, that I might sing praises to you and not be silent. O Lord my God, I will give you thanks forever!" Psalm 30:11-12

In conclusion. Be exhorted to seek large communications of this holy anointing. The growth of your spiritual life- the holiness of your Christian walk- the glory of Him whose you are and whom you serve, demand that your head should be anointed- daily and abundantly- with holy oil. "Be filled with the Spirit." The anointing of Christ, our true Aaron, flows down to the fringe of His robe; and those who sit lowest and the closest at His feet in the spirit of penitence, love, and docility will partake the most richly of this holy unction. Oh with what power you will then testify for Jesus! If a minister of Christ, you will preach as with 'a tongue of fire,' with such unction, wisdom, and demonstration of the Spirit as no enemy of the truth shall be able to gainsay; sinners shall be converted to God, and the flock confided to your care will exhibit all the marks of a manly, vigorous Christianity, built up in sound doctrine and holiness of life. Oh! never cross the threshold of your pulpit but with the prayer- "Anoint me, O Christ, for this service with fresh oil."

If a Christian laborer, your work, your visits, your prayers will be attended with an energy and force perfectly irresistible; and "the ointment of your right hand will betray" you as one upon whose head the holy anointing has truly and richly fallen. Thus go forth to service and suffering- to toil and labor- to spend and to be spent for Christ- your garments always white, and your head lacking no ointment.

The Overflowing Cup

"My cup runs over." Psalm 23:5

"My cup overflows." Psalm 23:5

"My cup overflows with blessings." Psalm 23:5

God's goodness to His people is meted out with no begrudged or measured hand. Our Shepherd is Divine, and Deity is the source, and Infinity the measure, of His supplies. "My cup runs over." This would appear the crown and climax of the blessings of which our Nightingale Psalmist had been sweetly singing. The Lord his Shepherd had given him not a full cup merely, but a brimmed one; not brimmed only, but overflowing; a cup like, and worthy of, Himself- "exceeding abundantly above all that he had asked or thought." The emblem is familiar and expressive: the Bible abounds with its use, and presents it in a variety of beautiful and suggestive forms; to some of which let us direct our devout study.

There can be no such contemplation of the symbol as that suggested by the history of OUR BLESSED LORD HIMSELF. What was the life of Jesus but a life-long cup of humiliation, destitution, and need? Think of His homelessness- "The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests; but the Son of Man has no where to lay His head." The only bed the world He had created afforded Him, was the lowly pallet of straw upon which as an infant He lay in the stable of Bethlehem! He was poor and destitute. With nothing with which to purchase bread- He hungered; parched with thirst- He craved at the hands of an alien from His religion and His race, a draught of cold water; and when Caesar's tax was demanded- which He hesitated not to pay- He had nothing to pay it with. O Son of God! what wealth Your life has imparted to honest poverty- what dignity to virtuous lowliness- what sweetness to sanctified sorrow- and what sublimity to a life of faith on God!

Think too, of the persecution and insult which traced His daily life! Hounded by His foes from place to place- assailed by the most ingenious deceitfulness- accused of complicity with devils- denounced as a glutton and an inebriate-stigmatized as the friend and associate of publicans and sinners- yes, with every species of shame and insult cast upon Him!- O my soul! was ever cup of humiliation like unto this, which your Savior drank for you?

And what was our Lord's life but the foreshadowing of the suffering and death which overflowed the cup now brimmed? It is here the symbol finds its most significant and impressive illustration. We accompany Him to the garden- we behold the Incarnate God bowed in grief-His impurpled brow pressed to the cold, damp sod-the cup of trembling in His hands-and the cry of anguish-Oh how piercing, yet how submissive!-bursting from His quivering lips, "My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me!" We follow Him to Calvary, staggering and swooning beneath the instrument of His torture; we behold the legions of hell let loose upon His holy soul, 'bruising the heel of the woman's seed,' we listen to the insulting taunts of the bald-headed priests as to and fro they swaggered beneath the cross: rising above all, we hear the Voice issuing from the "secret place of thunder"- "Awake, O sword, against my Shepherd, and against the Man that is My fellow, says the Lord of hosts: smite the Shepherd, and the sheep shall be scattered." The sun is clothed in sackcloth- the earth trembles upon its axis- the granite rocks are rent asunder- and amid the darkness, convulsion, and earthquake of the globe, a cry is heard-louder and more agonizing than all, "My God, any God, why have You forsaken Me?"

Listen once more- "Is it nothing to you, all you that pass by? behold, and see if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow, which is done unto Me, with which the Lord has afflicted Me in the day of His fierce anger." And now the chalice of woe overflows! but not a drop is lost- for the Divine-human Sufferer emptied it to its lees, leaving for His church- on whose behalf He drank and drained it- nothing but AN OVERFLOWING CUP OF LOVE!

To this cup let us now turn. And first- It is the cup of salvation. "What shall I render unto the Lord for all His benefits toward me? I will take the cup of salvation, and call upon the Name of the Lord." Surely the emblem finds no illustration more true and precious than this. If Christ exhausted the cup which could not pass from His lips undrunk- for thus it behooved Him to suffer- it was that thus drained He might return it to our hands brimmed and overflowing with a salvation in whose ingredients not a taint of sin- not an atom of the curse- not a drop of wrath- not a spark of hell could be found. Oh wondrous elements of this cup!

All sin forgiven- the soul fully justified- the person graciously adopted- and an heirship conferred to "an inheritance incorruptible, undefiled, and that fades not away." Well may the believer exclaim- "My cup runs over!" Drink, yes, drink deeply of this cup, O my soul! Are your sins so many, and your guilt so great- your faith so weak, and your fears so strong, that you hesitate pressing this overflowing cup of a full, finished, and free salvation to your lips? Hesitate no longer! it is all for you! Receive it at your Savior's hand, with no price in your own, exclaiming- "By grace I am saved! I accept and drink it, not as a saint, but as a sinner; not as worthy, but as hell-deserving; not as a lost sheep who of his own will and power found his way back to the Flock; but as one in quest of whom the Shepherd traveled in the cloudy and dark day over hill and dale, mountain and river, until He found and brought me with rejoicing to His fold. I was a sheep going astray, but am now returned unto the Shepherd and Guardian of my soul, and my cup runs over."

And is not the cup of holy joy at times brimmed and overflowing? If there is a joyful being in the world, it is the true believer in Christ Jesus. There is everything to contribute to this joy. If our Divine-human Surety drained the cup of wrath, what is left for us but the overflowing cup of love? "Whom having not seen, you love; in whom, though now you see Him not, yet believing, you rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory." Rejoice then in the Lord! No longer travel with your head bowed down like a bulrush- your harp, every chord of which should vibrate with shouts of praise- suspended in silence upon the willow. But, as you count each link in the golden chain of your salvation- sin forgiven- person accepted- soul adopted- hell closed- heaven opened- Oh! how should a deep, holy joy thrill your whole soul- your life uplifted far above the crested billows, and threatening clouds, and veiling mists of your present light and momentary afflictions, into the pure sunlit region of a "joy unspeakable and full of glory." "These things," said the Savior, "have I said unto you, that your joy might be full." "Rejoice in the Lord always: and again I say, Rejoice."

"Jesus has all my powers possessed,
My hopes, my fears, my joys,
He, the dear Sovereign of my breast,
Shall still command my voice.

"Some of the fairest choirs above
Shall flock around my song,
With joy to hear the Name they love
Sound from a mortal tongue.

"I'll carve my passion on the bark,
Until every wounded tree
Shall drop and bear some mystic mark,
That Jesus died for me.

"They shall wonder, as they read
Inscribed on all the grove,
The Lord Himself came down and bled
To win a mortal's love."

The cup of divine, providential goodness- often overflowing- must not be omitted in these illustrations of the symbol. The Covenant God of grace, is the same Covenant God of providence. A sweeter, holier life we cannot live than a life of daily, childlike reliance upon the providential care of our Heavenly Father. "He cares for you." Oh how great is His goodness! "The Lord is good, a stronghold in the day of trouble; and He knows those who trust in Him." Can you recall to memory the gifts of His goodness- the almost miraculous interpositions of His providence on your behalf- His thoughtful anticipation of your need- His marvelous deliverance of you out of trouble- the unthought of quarter from where, and unlooked for time at which, your supplies have come- and not humbly, and praisefully exclaim, "My cup runs over "? Oh, let not all His benefits- your temporal needs supplied- pressing emergencies met- insurmountable difficulties removed- threatening dangers averted; be forgotten! "Return unto your rest, O m y soul; for the Lord has dealt bountifully with you." "You have dealt well with Your servant, O Lord, according to Your word."

But it is given to the sheep of the flock on behalf of the Shepherd that, not only should they drink the cup of joy, but that at times, in His all-wise and loving dealings, their cup of sorrow should overflow. "Therefore His people return here: and waters of a full cup are wrung out to them." What numbers of the flock of Christ will echo these words of Asaph- "Waters of a full cup of sorrow are wrung out to me. My cup of affliction runs over!" How affecting the language of God to Jerusalem- expressive often of His dealings with His spiritual Jerusalem- "Awake, awake, stand up, O Jerusalem- which have drunk at the hand of the Lord the cup of His Fury; you have drunken the dregs of the cup of trembling, and wrung them out!"

You, perhaps, are now holding in your hand the cup of trembling; God has bereaved you of the loved one of your heart- the prop of years, the hope of life, is removed- and your cup of grief runs over. Adversity has befallen you- the earnings and the hoardings of years are gone, and you are left in poverty and dependence- and your cup of trembling runs over. Disease has invaded your earthly house, and you lie prostrate upon a bed of suffering, and wearisome days and sleepless nights are yours- and waters of a full cup are wrung out to you. Your cup of sorrow is perhaps a relative; some object of your affection has swerved from the path of rectitude, and, linked as you are to the erring one, you feel the shock- and your cup of grief and shame runs over. Or, perhaps, your sorrow is spiritual and personal; your soul-sorrow, like that of your Lord, seems near unto death. A sense of sin- divine desertion- Satanic suggestions- the piercing of unbelief- the world's assaults- the loss of Christian evidence- the fear of death- the dread of condemnation- are the elements of the cup trembling in your hand- and it runs over! Be it so. All this soul-trouble validates your sonship-y our heirship- your oneness with your suffering Head, your loving Father, whose hand has mingled, and gives you to drink, the cup now mantling in yours. Compare it with the bitter cup your Shepherd drank for you, and let your broken, sobbing, yet submissive heart echo His touching, yet sublime language- "My Father! Your will, not mine, be done!"

"How bitter that cup no heart can conceive,
which He drank quite up, that sinners might live!
His way was much rougher and darker than mine;
Did Christ, my Lord, suffer, and shall I repine?"

But the emblem is not without its pointed and solemn bearing upon the present condition and the future destiny of the unconverted. There is a cup of condemnation, as there is of salvation; and if the one- overflowing and free to all who will accept the proffered gift- is unbelievingly neglected and scornfully refused, this must inevitably be followed by the other- the awful contents of which the lost soul will drink drop by drop to all eternity! "For the Lord holds a cup in his hand; it is full of foaming wine mixed with spices. He pours the wine out in judgment, and all the wicked must drink it, draining it to the dregs." Psalm 75:8. Again, "Upon the wicked He shall reign snares, fire and brimstone, and a horrible tempest: this shall be the portion of their cup." Unconverted reader! are you resolved- deliberately and wilfully resolved- to drink this cup- to endure the undying worm, the unquenchable fire, the wrath of God forever, rather than forego 'the pleasures of sin for a season'? Oh the folly! Oh the madness of your choice! The Savior- before long to be the Judge- has drawn aside the awful curtain- as He only could- of the lost in hell, and bids you look within, repent, and escape! "And in hell he lift up his eyes, being in torments.... And he cried and said, Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water, and cool my tongue, for I am tormented in this flame!"

Oh, by the solemnities of a hopeless, perhaps, a sudden death- by the torments of a certain and eternal hell- and by the ingredients of that 'cup of fire and brimstone' and wrath, which you must drink forever and ever- be persuaded to break off your sins by righteousness- repent before God- believe in the Lord Jesus Christ- and be forever saved! "Who is a God like You, that pardons iniquity, and passes by the transgression of the remnant of His heritage? He retains not His anger forever, because he delights in mercy."

In conclusion, fail not to take an empty cup to Christ's fulness. Who travels to the well with a full vessel? Who goes properly and hopefully to Christ, but the soul that travels to Him in its emptiness, poverty, and need? Such will ever find Him, and such He will never reject. He saves to the uttermost all that come unto God by Him. In the vital, stupendous matter of salvation, He is all to us, or nothing! The debt was great- and He canceled it; the satisfaction was necessary- and He made it; the death was awful- and He endured it; the cup was bitter- crimsoned with every ingredient which the turpitude of sin, the fire of justice, the fury of hell could pour into it- and He drank it! Oh, receive Christ in simple, unquestioning faith, and He will turn your "water of a full cup" into a cup of the wine of His love, brimmed and running over!

See that there is no waste in the overflowings of your cup of salvation and of joy. There was none in Christ's. Use the excess of your happy experiences for the help and comfort of others. Do not be a spiritual miser- hoarding in selfish niggardness your surplus. "There is one who scatters, and yet increases; and there is one who withholds more than is fit, but it tends to poverty." Oh to how many a saint, dear to Jesus, the waters of a full cup of suffering, sorrow, and need are wrung out, to whom you may repair, and in His name, and for His sake, share the overflowings of your cup- lightening their burden- soothing their grief- supplying their need- thus turning their sorrow into joy, their note of woe into a nightingale psalm of praise. Thus you will pour the alabaster box of the precious ointment of your love upon the head of Jesus- in the person of one of His members- and heaven will be filled with its undying fragrance, and eternity with its endless praise. "Inasmuch as you have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, you have done it unto Me."

Heaven, at Last and Forever

"Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever." Psalm 23:1-6

"Surely your goodness and unfailing love will pursue me all the days of my life, and I will live in the house of the Lord forever." Psalm 23:1-6

The closing note of our Nightingale Song is the most mellifluous and entrancing of all!

"Death darkens his eye, and unplumes his wings,
And the sweetest note is the last that He sings."
"Where with a soul composed of harmonies,
Like a sweet swan, he warbles as he dies,
His Maker's praise, and his own obsequies."
(Cotton)

And thus often is it with the departing saint. The pilgrimage has been long and dreary- the song of the wilderness often of a minor key- plaintive and pensive- but the end- the solemn yet glorious end has come; and just as corruption is putting on incorruption, and mortal is putting on immortality, lo! the soul puts forth a might and power unknown before- spiritual life beats its strongest pulse, divine love its deepest throb, holy faith achieves its sublimed victory, and the soul, poised upon the wing for heaven, chants its sweetest song!

The last meditations of the Christian- as from the shaded valley he reviews the goodness and mercy of God- must be composed of grateful love and adoring praise. Whatever may have been the chequered history of his life- sunshine and shade, flower and flint, his "song of judgment and mercy"- yet, tracing all the way God had led him, one theme fills his whole soul- "Surely goodness and mercy have followed me all the days of my life, and His statutes have been my songs in the house of my pilgrimage."

It is profitable to pause awhile in life's journey and survey the Divine dealings- number the milestones we have passed, and recount the Ebenezers we have reared- gathering from the review, material for present praise and future trust. David, when in soul-despondency, found it so. "O my God, my soul is cast down within me: therefore will I

remember you from the land of Jordan, and of the Hermonites, from the hill Mizar." But the closing words of our sweet Psalmist point to the future of God's dealings: "Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life." The past of the Divine goodness and mercy and faithfulness was to David an earnest and pledge of the future. All that God had been in his history, he well knew He was now, and ever would be. And thus may our faith reason. We may have yet many a toilsome, lonely stage to travel before we reach the terminus- all wisely and kindly veiled from our view- the sorrows that may shade and the joys that may brighten it; nevertheless, of this we are certain, that Divine goodness, mercy, and faithfulness will shape and color the whole scene; and that the 'painting of our life'- whatever its form and hue- will have its place in the picture-gallery of heaven, perpetuating, in imperishable history, the Divine goodness, faithfulness, and love that brought us there. What a 'strong and beautiful staff' is this truth with which to travel on, confiding the future- all so profoundly enshrouded- to Him who has so skillfully and successfully guided the past- until the life that now is- with all its gloom, trials, and sorrows– shall be lost in the splendor, repose, and song of the life that is to come. "Bless the Lord, O my soul: and all that is within me, bless His holy name. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all His benefits." Again and again have You rescued my soul from destruction, and now that the shadows of its close are draping and darkening around me, You are placing upon it the crown of Your loving-kindness and tender mercy!

"Bless and extol His mighty name!
Bless, O my soul, your God and King!
Bless Him who was for sinners slain!
Bless Him who did salvation bring-
Whose tender mercies never fail,
Though earthly storms and ills assail!

"When you are weary, worn, and sad,
It is He alone can solace give-
Can bid your fainting heart be glad,
And all your wonted strength revive.
Even as a pitying father bends
O'er his weak child, so God befriends.

"He knows well our feeble frame,
Remembers we are only dust;
Strength in our weakness He became
A Rock wherein to place our trust;
And those who fear His name, shall prove
Emmanuel still a God of love.

"Man's days are as the fragile flower,
That bends beneath the wind's rude breath
It lives and blooms its little hour,
Then drops its head and sleeps in death;
But mercy shall endure forever
When heaven and earth shall pass away.

"Then bless the Lord, you heavenly host!
You ministers that do His will,
Bless Him who died for sinners lost,
Who lives to plead for sinners still!
Let songs of praise ascend above-
Bless evermore a God of love!"

"And I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever." Heaven at last and forever, is the loftiest and sweetest note to which our Psalmist could wake his sacred harp. He had loved the House of God on earth- but he now looked beyond it to the House of God, not made with hands, in heaven- of which the earthly temple- with its hallowed service, its Christ-pointing ritual, its holy incense and its divine song- had been to his soul the very gate and vestibule. We now turn to the House of God in heaven: what are some of the views which this beautiful and expressive image suggests?

Is not that of HOME the first that impresses the filial and devout mind? Our blessed Lord, who had come from heaven and was now on His return there, was the first to present it in this winning point of light. "In My Father's House are many mansions. I go to prepare a place for you." HOME! How the heart leaps into the throat, stifling all utterance, at the mention of that little word! What a potent spell it weaves around our soul! What precious memories and hallowed thoughts it summons back from oblivion's deep cell, and we seem to live the past again! HOME! It is the charmed circle in which our best and purest affections move; the hive of the industrious- the temple of childhood- the shrine of age- the ark of the past, and the haven of the future. It is here the heart nestles- the mind reposes- and our whole being drops its anchor in the purest, sweetest, and calmest waters of earth-born life; and what is all the world to us beside?

The heart has many dwelling-places,
But only once a home."

But, it is around the Christian home the sweetest charms, and the richest blessings cluster- and within whose hallowed sanctuary the holiest and finest affections of the soul are inspired, developed, and trained. It is religion- family religion- that makes home the most sacred and conservative institution of earth- the center of Christian life, duty, and service. Here- where God is acknowledged and Christ is loved- where the claims of the life that is eternal take precedence over the thoughts and engagements of the life that is temporal- is experienced a happiness and joy found nowhere else. What a sanctifying, cementing, consecrating power has family prayer, as a means of promoting domestic happiness, cultivating mutual affection and sympathy, softening and preventing those petty but vexing misunderstandings, chafings, and recriminations which go so far to roughen the edge and unravel the border of the web of daily life! Oh, let true religion breathe its holy atmosphere around your home!

Such is the image of Heaven. Child of God- pilgrim of earth- voyager on life's sea- you are traveling homeward, and will soon hear your Father's voice- "Child, come up here!" Heaven is the family mansion. With what a charm and attraction does this idea invest the "house of God" above! God's church is a family; for all believers are the "children of God by faith in Christ Jesus." Divide and dismember the one Body of Christ as you may- rear high your party walls- shout loudly your Shibboleths- disown, excommunicate, unchristianize as you will- the children of God, the Body of Christ- the temple of the Spirit are one family, essentially and indivisibly one, for all that? All true believers are one in "Christ Jesus, of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named." How closely should this feeling of fraternity knit in affection and fellowship our hearts to all who reflect- however faintly- the family image; from whose lips- as from ours- breathe the endearing words- Abba, Father; and who, in different homes and with foreign tongues, address their every petition at the same mercy-seat, "Our Father who is in Heaven."

REUNION AND RECOGNITION are among the most sacred and precious features of attraction and tenderness expressed by this image. We delight to picture those who once traveled by our side- who went with us to the house of God, and with whom we took sweet counsel- but who have fled from our embrace to the Fatherland, as the occupants of the heavenly home. Filled with sorrow as are our hearts, our grief is not selfish; we wish them joy that they are safely housed, clustering with others of the "family in heaven" around the Father's table. There is an appropriate and graceful fitness of Heaven to the varied characters and employments of the departed saints who people it, which beautifully chime with, and immeasurably brighten, its enjoyment. Were they the Children of God? -then they are at home in the Father's house. Were they Christ's workers? -then they rest from their labors and their works follow them. Were they Christian soldiers? -then they have gotten the victory, and have laid down the sword for the palm and the helmet for the crown. Were they Christian mariners? -then they have reached the shore, and have dropped their anchor in the haven of eternal rest. Were they Christian pilgrims? -then they have terminated their weary pilgrimage, and have exchanged their traveled-soiled garments for the robe made white in the blood of the Lamb. "I heard a voice from heaven saying unto me, Write, Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from henceforth: Yes, says the Spirit, that they may rest from their labors; and their works do follow them."

And now are experienced the reunion and recognition. The separation was not long. The 'little while' when we shall not see them is passed, and once more we are locked in their embrace. By what mode the recognition and communion of disembodied spirits in glory transpires is a mystery we attempt not to explain: God has made it so; and as we find it, so we leave it until that day when "what we know not now we shall know hereafter." But that there is a reunion and a recognition of the glorified spirits admits not of a moment's doubt. This communion is, of course, entirely restricted to the spirit-world. There are no revelations of departed spirits to the inhabitants of this sphere, neither are there any communications from us to them. The return of Paul from the world of spirits, and the seal of silence impressed upon his lips as to what he there saw and felt, should be enough to set this question of communication from the dead to the living forever at rest. Listen to his statement. "I was caught up into the third heaven fourteen years ago. Whether my body was there or just my spirit, I don't know; only God knows. But I do know that I was caught up into paradise and heard things so astounding that they cannot be told." What testimony could possibly be more conclusive? To imagine the existence of such phenomena as revelations from the invisible and eternal world, other than those which we derive from a knowledge of the Bible, would not only throw a discredit upon the divine authority and sufficiency of the revealed Scriptures of truth, but would entirely reverse the divinely-established order of things; it would be to suppose departed spirits ceasing to be entirely spiritual, or we, yet in the body, ceasing to be entirely material.

But, with regard to the reunion and recognition of departed saints there cannot be the shadow of a doubt. The perfection of the heavenly state demands it. If we have pleasure in a knowledge of, and communion with, those we have seen- a pleasure of the highest and purest nature- it is not a forced inference to suppose that that pleasure will exist in glory, and exist to a heightened degree of which, in the present state, we can have but the faintest conception. What soothed the bereaved heart of David concerning his departed child? "Now he is dead, why then, should I fast? Can I bring him back again? I shall go to him, but he shall not return to me." Bereaved saint! let this reasoning and this prospect sooth your agonized mind. You cannot

nor would you- recall the happy spirit that has fled from suffering, sorrow, and sin to its heavenly home. Be comforted with the thought that a reunion and recognition await you. And if we are to "sit down with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of God "- if they whom, having not seen, we yet shall then recognize, surely we shall know the loved ones whose image, affection, and sympathy were the unfading sun-pictures of our hearts; who lessened the sorrows, and increased the joys, of our earthly pilgrimage. Oh, with what reality and glory this thought invests our Home above!

But, with regard to the holy dead, let us not be misunderstood. While we do not impart the faintest scintillation to the delusion that there is any direct, personal, and intelligent communication between the dead and the living, we are far from ignoring the fact that there is a spiritual influence- silent and invisible- which the remembrance of departed saints should ever exert upon our minds. If we have lost their personal presence, let us remember that we have not lost the hallowed power which their holy life and sacred memory still exerts. If this were not so, why should it be recorded that, "The memory of the just is blessed"? Why should we be exhorted, "do not be slothful, but followers of them who through faith and patience inherit the promises"? Oh yes we love to embalm their memories- to recall their holy deeds- their fervent prayers; to be guided by their still molding influence- and to live as though, being dead, they yet spoke to us words of heart cheer and comfort. Nor are we quite sure that they have ceased to love, shield, and guide us. "Are they not all ministering spirits, sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation?" 'Encompassed by so great a cloud of witnesses,' oh, let us live as though we heard their voices, bending from their thrones in glory, saying to us- "Persevere! Heaven is worth living, laborings, and dying for!"

Our dead are around us, we feel their pure breath!
They loved us while living, they loved us in death;
They love us in heaven; they watch from its towers;
They cherish us ever- the dead still are ours!

"Our dead are around us- not dead, but alive
To comfort us, guide us, and help us to strive;
They pity us, bear with us, weep for us, too
Not tears such as we weep, but tears like the dew

"And dropped in the darkness, as that falls on earth,
As silent, and softening, and bringing to birth
The good seed within us, in bitterness sown,
From which, at the harvest, comes sweet fruit alone.

"Our dead are around us, without and within;
Our spirit's clear vision, is darkened by sin;
We cannot discern them, though near they may be,
Because the flesh blinds us, while they clearly see.

"Our dead are around us, and with us will stay
All through this life journey, to show us the way;
These are our good angels; they lead on before,
And they will be ready, to open the door.

"When Death's key of iron, unfastens the lock,
And lets out the spirit, with one final shock;
Then, into the pearl-gates, with victory led,
We shall see that our leaders, were those we thought dead!"

But, soothing and healing to the bereaved heart as is this prospect of a reunion and recognition, infinitely transcending is the thought and anticipation of SEEING- KNOWING- AND TALKING WITH THE GLORIFIED SAVIOR. "With Christ, which is far better." It is not, O Jesus, to forget You that we still remember and love those whom You have taken from us to Yourself! Oh! if You were not there, heaven would be no heaven to us! To see You as You are- to love and adore- to worship and serve You, is our heaven on earth, and will be our heaven of heaven in heaven! "Whom have I in heaven but You? and there is none upon earth that I desire beside You."

Heaven at last! The surprise of glory will be well-near overwhelming! If wonder and emotion could seal the lips- strike mute the tongue- it would be when the glory of the Lamb- the splendor of the place- and the music of song burst upon the soul! But not these alone. Methinks the greatest surprise and wonder will be to find ourselves in heaven- at last! There were times and circumstances in our pilgrimage when our hope of heaven seemed in eclipse- an eclipse almost total. Dark clouds of grief enshrouded it- gloomy doubts and fears obscured it- strong corruptions and sad relapses made it to tremble in the balance! -and we often despaired of weathering the storm- and breasting the waves- and of ever reaching the shore! But our Divine Shepherd, who would not lose a lambkin of His flock for whom His soul travailed in Gethsemane- whose goodness and mercy followed us all the days of our life- safely brought us there, and we find ourselves- in Heaven at Last! and forever! "I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever."

How great the contrast with earth! Here nothing is satisfying nothing real- nothing permanent. Passing away is inscribed upon the heart's fondest love- richest treasure. Our Christian experience alternates- our religious privileges change- our cherished friendships fluctuate; and we are scarcely in the house of our God before the sacred service closes- the solemn assembly dissolves- and with a sigh we leave the hallowed place that has been to our soul the banquet of love, and the very gate of Heaven. But, Heaven is forever; the house of God is forever; the society of the glorified is forever- "forever with the Lord." Eternity is stamped upon it all! Blessed hope! glorious prospect! My soul, fight on- toil on -suffer on! Jesus has promised- "He who overcomes I will make a pillar in the temple of my God, and he shall go no more out."

"Yes, beyond the grave's cold portal,
We shall meet the friends we love,
Sing with them in strains immortal
In the fairer worlds above.
When we cross the narrow river,
We the sweeter rest shall share,
Love and dwell with Christ forever,
Re-unite with dear ones there.

"What, oh what were heaven without it,
Could we not those pleasures share!
Where's the heart, oh who can doubt it!
Yes, we'll know each other there!
We shall meet that father, mother,
Who await, in yonder sky,
Each dear sister, loving brother,
In that better world on high.

"They have only gone before us;
Soon our journey will be over,
And we too shall join the chorus,
Meet where partings are no more!
Are you seeking for that treasure,
The immortal crown to win,
For that life of endless pleasure,
Free from sorrow, death, and sin?

"Would you meet when life is over,
Would you join the friends you love,
See that sainted father, mother,
In that brighter world above?
Who's so poor but has some dear one,
Some loved kindred, gone before;
Some kind friend, ev'n one sincere one,
Waiting on yon fairer shore?

"How we love to hold communion,
Muse over some departed friend,
Sweetly contemplate our union
In the life that never shall end!
What a comfort in our sorrow,
What a joy amid the gloom,
To feel, to know, that on the morrow
Loved ones meet beyond the tomb!

"Look aloft amid bereavement,
Seek above the Shepherd's care!
Christ has won the great achievement,
He will guide you safely there.
Life is transient, time is fleeting;
Soon from earth we pass away!
Are you Christ and loved ones seeking
In those realms of endless day?"

Hell, at Last and Forever

"And in hell he lifted up his eyes, being in torments." Luke 16:23.

The indescribably solemn subject with which we close the present volume, does not necessarily grow out of our exposition of the Psalm we have been considering; nevertheless, the work would be incomplete were it entirely omitted. Having considered the heaven which awaits the flock of Christ, it is proper that we should place in direct contrast the condition and doom of all those of the race who, on the great day of account and division, will be found outside the fold, when "before Him shall be gathered all nations: and He shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divides his sheep from the goats: and shall set the sheep on His right hand, but the goats on His left." It is with the profoundest awe that we venture upon a theme so solemn, and yet so momentous. It is one in which the whole human race have individual interests at stake more precious than the universe itself; for what will be the destruction of this material planet, which the conflagration of the last day will consume, in comparison with the loss of one soul? The words we have selected as the foundation of the present subject, shall guide us in its discussion- "In hell he lifted up his eyes, being in torments."

That there is a hell- the place of the finally lost- is as clearly revealed as that there is a heaven- the place of the finally saved. Before advancing some of the arguments upon which we base the doctrine, a passing observation upon the exact definition of the term may be instructive. The word "hell" has two different significations in the Bible- both, however, referring to the condition of the soul after death. In the original Greek the word translated "hell" in some passages is, 'hades'- which refers to the whole unseen world, and not especially to the place of torment. In those instances in which the word "hell" occurs with a direct reference to the condition of the lost, the original word is 'Gehenna'- and quite distinct in its origin and import from the other. Concerning the English word "hell," it may be instructive to remark that it is derived from an Anglo-Saxon, word, 'helan', which is, "to cover." Hence the old English verb, "to hell," has an apt appellation as being 'helled over,' that is to say, hidden or covered in obscurity. And in some parts of the West of England a man employed as a thatcher, who covers a barn, or a slater, who roofs a house, is called in the provincial dialect "a heller;" that is, an individual who covers a thing. In this sense, as I understand, we are to interpret the familiar phrase which occurs in the Apostles' Creed in reference to Christ, and which has occasioned perplexity to so many- "He descended into hell." The original word, doubtless, in the minds of the learned and holy compilers of the "Book of Common Prayer," was 'hades'- the place of departed spirits; and not 'Gehenna'- the place of lost spirits, which is the signification we assign to it in our popular theological language. It is nowhere intimated in the Bible that the soul of our blessed Lord went into Gehenna- the word expressive of the state of final suffering- but into hades- the place of disembodied spirits. We may adduce a passage corroborative of this idea from the Psalms, quoted by the apostle Peter as referring to our Lord- "You will not leave my soul in hell; neither will You allow Your Holy One to see corruption;" that is, "My soul will not remain in Hades, and my Body will not see corruption."

In these words, therefore, there is no foundation whatever for the extraordinary theory as sustained by some, that, in order to the complete Atonement of Christ, it was necessary that He should actually suffer the torments of the damned! There is not the vestige of a reasonable argument in favor of an idea so absurd and groundless. To maintain, therefore, that our Lord's sufferings were those of the consciously guilty, who were enduring the insufferable torments of remorse, is not only forced and unnatural, but goes far to invalidate the perfection of the Atonement He presented upon the cross, when, before His soul departed, He exclaimed, "It is finished." The only passage that would seem to give the slightest shadow of support to the absurd theory we are combating is that found in the Epistle of Peter, "By which also He went and preached unto the spirits in prison." Interpreting these words by the context, it appears clearly that the apostle refers to the Holy Spirit preaching to the Antediluvians through the instrumentality of Noah; not after they were confined in prison, but, "while the ark was being prepared," and which, doubtless, some of them had aided to build! "By which [Spirit] He also went and preached unto the spirits [now] in prison." Noah was "a preacher of righteousness," and by the Holy Spirit he preached the gospel of salvation- of which the ark was the type- to the sinners before the flood, but who, when the apostle wrote, were "now in prison."

Let us direct our thoughts to a consideration of the solemn subject before us- the argument by which the existence of a hell- the final and eternal place of suffering is established.

And in the first place we remark that, it is clearly a divinely-revealed truth. We predicate our belief of this appalling state mainly on the authority of the Bible. The fact is too vital and solemn to place it exclusively on any other ground, though there are other evidences which will presently occur. If the Bible does reveal this truth, woe unto us if, carried away by the sophistical teaching of men, endorsed by the depravity of our own hearts, we deny and reject a fact upon which are suspended interests of such eternal consequence! There can be but two conditions of the soul after death, and but two are revealed in the Scriptures of truth- heaven and hell. On a question of such vital moment, it were insanity of the worst kind to accept any authentic guide other than the Bible. Among the "Books that will be opened" in the great day of judgment, the Word of God will be pre-eminent; for, upon the things written in this volume will the equitable decisions of the judgment, and of each individual, be made. Disbelieve the Bible as you may- bring your philosophy- falsely so called- and the results of your scientific researches, to disprove the Divine Inspiration and integrity of the whole, or of any part of this Book, if you will- but, remember that out of it you will be judged in the great day when, "every one of us must give account of himself to God." Oh, what will be your dismay when you see that Book unfold its awful leaves, whose truth you denied- whose revelation you disbelieved- and whose great salvation you rejected! But what are some of the more direct and conclusive Scripture proofs of the existence of hell? "What says the Scripture?"

The passage which introduces our subject would seem conclusive were there no other to sustain it. They are the words of Christ Himself, of Him who had descended from the invisible and eternal world, and who is described as the "Faithful Witness." It may be objected that our Lord spoke a parable only; but we must not forget that the parabolic mode of communicating His revelations was a familiar and common one of the Great Teacher. "Without a parable spoke He not unto them." The parable, then, is that of the rich man and Lazarus; and it must be acknowledged by every thoughtful mind, that it forms one of the most vivid and instructive word-pictures our Divine Artist ever painted. It is with the state of the "rich man" we are at present concerned. The Lord describes his place of abode- the suffering he endured- and the fruitless petition he made. And what was the place in which he was? "in Hell." And what was his condition? "lifting up his eyes in torments." And what his fruitless prayer? "Send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water, and cool my tongue; for I am tormented in this fame." No statement could be more lucid- no argument more conclusive- and no picture more appalling concerning the place and condition of the lost: he was in Gehenna- the final and inevitable abode of the damned!

Take again the words of our Lord as revealing this doctrine. "Fear not them who can kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do: but fear Him, who after He has killed, has power to cast into hell." Gehenna- the place of torment- is the word our Lord here employs- a mode of expression which no ingenuity can disturb, or sophistry gainsay.

In two passages taken from the Old Testament, we find the awful truth for which we contend distinctly and solemnly stated. Job, speaking of the Infinite immensity of God, illustrates it thus, "Can you by searching find out God? Can you find out the Almighty unto perfection? It is as high as heaven; what can you do? deeper than hell; what can you know?" Heaven has its heights of knowledge, glory, and happiness, to which, perhaps, the glorified will be ever ascending- yet never fully reach! Hell, too, has its depths of place, of suffering, and of woe- termed, "the bottomless pit"- into which the lost soul will be ever descending, and yet never touch! Oh, could there possibly be an idea more appalling- an image more horrific, than this- the soul ever and forever sinking, yet never reaching the ocean-bed of its unquenchable flames? The Psalmist is not less pointed in his allusion to the place of suffering, "The wicked shall be turned into hell, and all the nations that forget God." In both these passages the word 'sheol' is used, which clearly teaches that, not to the place of departed spirits only- 'hades'- but, to 'Gehenna'- the abode of the condemned- is that to which the writers refer.

We turn to two more passages taken from the New Testament. How terrible and withering our Lord's denunciation of the subtle and hypocritical scribes and Pharisees! "You serpents, you generation of vipers, how can you escape the damnation of hell?" Could language be more distinct or awful? and, coming from the lips of the Lamb of God, they are tenfold more emphatic and expressive. The words of the Apostle Peter shall close our Scripture testimony. "God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell, and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment." To this place of torment our Lord refers when He speaks of Gehenna as "prepared for the devil and his angels" -observe, 'prepared,' not for men, but for demons. Suggestive and solemn thought! But from the Scripture proof, let us turn to another and scarcely less striking and conclusive line of argument. Two only shall suffice.

The first argument is drawn from the Personal Character and the Moral Government of God. God is holy- and His holiness must be vindicated; God is just- and His justice must be honored. Thus, from the very necessity of the case, God is bound, both by His holiness and justice, to punish sin and condemn the sinner. What would be the impression of the Celestial Intelligences were God to allow sin to pass unnoticed, and the guilty to remain unpunished? What would be their idea of His character and government but the very reverse of what they are, were this the case? But, God is holy; and Holiness is the bond and perfection of all the Divine Attributes. A denial of God's Holiness involves a denial of God Himself- it would be the worst species of Atheism- Infidelity in its most repulsive and malignant form. It were an infinitely less wrong done to God to count Him as nothing, than, acknowledging His existence, yet deny His Holiness. Thus, Holiness is the bond of perfectness of all God's attributes. Omnipotence is His Arm; Omniscience, His Eye; Mercy, His Affections; but Holiness is the girdle and beauty of them all.

"Who is a God like unto You, glorious in holiness?" The greatness of this, His most glorious perfection, is inferred from the fact that, it is the ground of His oath- "Once have I sworn by my holiness that I will not lie unto David." To swear by His holiness is to attach a confirmation and solemnity to His oath which no other perfection could supply; thus placing the crown of honor upon this His most illustrious and sublime perfection. He has demonstrated His holiness in the most emphatic and solemn way. Go to Mount Sinai- and behold the awesome emblems of His holiness! Travel to Mount Calvary- and gaze upon the Son of God impaled upon the cross- the Sin-bearer of His Church suffering and dying, the Just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God! Look into Hell- and behold the quenchless flames, and hearken to the awful groans of the lost! Gaze up into Heaven, and behold its glory, and bend your ear to the song of Cherubim and Seraphim- "Holy, holy, holy Lord God of heaven and earth,"-and then deny, if you will, the holiness of God, and the equity of His moral government in that, "by no means will He clear the guilty."

There remains yet one other reason why the wicked should be punished with everlasting destruction, and with which we close the argument. We refer to hell as the most befitting place and condition of the finally impenitent and unbelieving. There is a moral fitness of the soul, progressing in the present life, for its future state. See how this reasoning applies. Heaven is holy- the abode and state of the holy- consequently, the sinner after death could not enter there. Heaven would be Hell to him. Dying unconverted, unpardoned, unsanctified, he could not exist in Heaven. Its atmosphere would be too pure- its society, too holy- its employments, too sacred- its music, too divine- and he would exclaim, "Take me out of here! for this world of holiness I am unfitted- with its employments I have no sympathy- with its society I have no congeniality- and for its condition I never prepared!" It is recorded of the betrayer of Christ that, "he, went to his own place"- words pregnant with the most solemn meaning! It is not said to what place Judas went- but, "to his own place." The studied obscurity that veils it, renders the expression all the more significant and impressive. We are left to the most strictly logical and scriptural inference it is possible to draw; namely, that, Judas went to the place most suitable to his nature, befitting his character, and congenial to his spirit. If he were a holy and righteous man, then he went to the most fitting and proper place- he went to Heaven. If, on the contrary, he was a sinful and ungodly man, then, the place for which he was fitted was the one to which he went- he went to Hell. He "went to, his own place," is the record of the sacred penman, and there he leaves it. What a momentous truth are we here taught! Not one revealed in the Bible is more true than this, that, every individual of the race is educating for a future state- is training for Eternity- is going to his own place- Heaven or Hell! Retribution will be just what Probation makes it. "Do not be deceived; God is not mocked for whatever a man sows, that shall he also reap. For he that sows to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that sows to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting." Reader! for which are you preparing- for which are you fitted? Of Heaven it is recorded- "Nothing impure will ever enter it, nor will anyone who does what is shameful or deceitful, but only those whose names are written in the Lamb's book of life." And of Hell it is written- "Whoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire." All who have departed the present life are gone to their own place; and we who survive shall die and go to ours: if it be Heaven- to heaven; if it be Hell- to hell. Which, my reader, is your present place? Is it beneath the cross of Jesus- the place of penitence and pardon, of faith and love? Is it among the sons of God, the holy and the good? Is it in the house of God- listening to His gospel, and worshiping Him in the beauty of holiness? Is it at the Table of the Lord's Supper- spiritually and believingly eating of His flesh and drinking of His blood? In a word- are you enrolled among the 'poor in spirit,' the 'pure in heart,' -the 'meek and peaceful'- those who 'hunger and thirst after righteousness'-and the loving, cross-bearing followers of Jesus?- then, when you die, you will go to your own place- and that place will be- Heaven forever!

One most solemn aspect of our subject yet remains. The Eternity of Future Punishment, and the consequent Deathlessness of the soul, are truths as clearly revealed as is any doctrine of the Bible. The word of God nowhere- not in a solitary instance- speaks of either the annihilation of the lost, or, of the terminable nature of their punishment. We hold that the idea of the annihilation of the wicked is as un-philosophical as it is unscriptural. It is un philosophical. Man has an immaterial, invisible property, which we call the soul: and a material, visible substance which we call the body. The soul is spiritual, pure and uncompounded, and, therefore, indestructible- nothing can touch, separate or destroy it. There is but one Being in the universe who could annihilate the soul- He who created alone can uncreate. He who made, alone can destroy it. If, then, God does not annihilate the soul, it cannot be annihilated. And is it conceivable that, having made man in His own image- intellectual, moral, and immortal- He will everlastingly destroy the chief work of His creative power- marred and tainted though that image be? Would the Sovereign of a nation command the coin of the realm to be utterly destroyed, simply because time and use had defaced the royal image and superscription, rendering it almost invisible? And, is it reasonable to suppose that God will command to utter annihilation that which partakes the most essentially of His own immortal nature, and which reflects the most distinctly His own Divine image- even though that nature be fallen, and that image be obscured? We maintain, then, that it is purely un-philosophical to suppose the soul capable of annihilation. The immortality of man is not 'conditional,' as some teach. It is entirely independent of 'life in Christ.' Life in Christ is totally and essentially distinct from the natural immortality of the soul- the soul of man lives forever, independently of spiritual life from Christ. Saved or lost, my reader, you are born to immortality as your intrinsic and inalienable inheritance- it is the birthright of your soul, of which none can divest you but God Himself. Your being, once commenced, never eases to exist–
"The inextinguishable flame burns on,
And shall FOREVER burn."

The doctrine of the soul's annihilation, and the terminable nature of future punishment, is as contrary to sound theology, as it is to sound philosophy. We can only select a few, from among the many, Scripture evidences. The writings of the Old Testament teach the certain punishment and endless damnation of the lost. When the wicked spring as the grass, and when all the workers of iniquity do flourish; it is that they shall be destroyed forever. Destruction nowhere in the Bible can be predicated of annihilation, without the most ingenious perversion of the term. We speak of the destruction of a person- of a house- of a city. Who with the most ordinary understanding of the term would attribute to it the idea of annihilation? A fortune- a picture- a reputation may be destroyed- but neither one nor the other can resolve itself into its original element of nothingness. Take a yet stronger passage: "The Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with His mighty angels, in flaming fire taking vengeance on those who know not God, and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ: who shall be punished with everlasting destruction away from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of His power." Mark the words, "everlasting destruction"- if the destruction of the wicked means in the Bible annihilation, this everlasting destruction is a misnomer- words to which we can attach no definite or intelligible meaning whatever. "Everlasting destruction" must- grammatically and intelligibly interpreted- be accepted as meaning the interminable punishment, and not the utter annihilation of the finally lost. If annihilation is the final condition of the wicked, what meaning are we to attach to the solemn words which our Lord spoke concerning His betrayer: "It had been good for that man if he had not been born." If there were no future punishment- or if that punishment were ever to terminate- how inexplicable the words of Christ thus used of Judas! But to him- as to all who die in their sins- will be addressed by the same Redeemer and Judge the appalling sentence- "Depart from Me, you cursed, into everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels." and then comes the great separation- "these shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal." If the happiness of the saved is eternal, equally eternal is the condemnation of the lost!

Let us close these solemn passages with one of the most momentous, searching questions, ever propounded- "Who among us shall dwell with the devouring fire? who among us shall dwell with everlasting burnings?" Who? Who that reads these pages shall come under this "eternal damnation"? Lord is it I? Oh banish from your creed- eject from your mind- efface from your thoughts of the future- the idea that your soul will ever cease to be- or, that, if lost- which God of His infinite mercy in Christ Jesus forbid! -your righteous doom will ever be reversed; or your indescribable sufferings will ever terminate! Ally yourself with false doctrine- abandon yourself to superstitious worship- sell yourself to sin- and make a covenant with Hell- as you will- then will follow the appalling, righteous, and inevitable doom- "The same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture into the cup of His indignation; and he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb: and the smoke of their torment ascends up forever and ever."

But, why will you die? Jesus Christ came down into this fallen, sinful world to save the lost- to save sinners- the vilest. The God against whom you have sinned is "ready to pardon." He has pledged His word, confirmed with an oath- swearing by Himself- "As I live, says the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked; but that the wicked turn from his way and live: turn, turn from your evil ways; for why will you die?" God is prepared to treat with you. If you have no merit- as merit you have none- if your unworthiness is great- as immeasurably great it is- Christ supplies all. It is all the merit and all the worthiness God demands, or you require. What if your sins are countless as the stars- your guilt, deep as crimson- fly to His pierced heart- wash in His cleansing blood- hide in a cleft of this smitten Rock- and you shall be saved. Let your place now, be the sheltering cross- then, when you die, you will go to your own place, God had from eternity ordained- which Jesus has gone to prepare- and for which- by all His dealings in providence and grace- He is preparing you. Relinquish every false hope- escape from every lying refuge- renounce every other name; and, "None but Jesus" be your boast in life- your hope in death- your song through eternity. "There is salvation in n o other; for there is no other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved"- but the one name of Jesus. "This man receives sinners, and eats with them."

"None but Jesus Christ I see;
Other Saviors I have none;
Jesus died on Calvary,
Jesus has the battle won.
Many waters could not drown
His deep love for you and me;
Love from glory brought Him down,
Love o'ercame Gethsemane.

"None but Jesus, still I cry;
Other Saviors cannot save;
Jesus made death's channel dry,
Opened up the gloomy grave.
Jesus sets an open door,
Earth and Hell can never close,
That we may for evermore
Follow Him wherever He goes.

"None like Jesus can do good,
Other remedies are vain;
Plunged beneath His healing flood,
He my soul restores again.
He my nature sanctifies
By His Holy Spirit's power
Gives the hope which purifies,
Gives me strength in Satan's hour.

"None but Jesus I would see
In my trouble and my grief;
He alone can comfort me,
He alone can bring relief.
'None but Jesus,' I shall cry
When in Heaven His face I see;
Lesser lights escape the eye
Near the sun's bright majesty."

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

THE SYMPATHY OF CHRIST

Table of Contents

Preface

1. Sympathy, an Element of Christ's Nature

2. The Sigh of Christ

3. The Tears of Christ

4. The Emotion of Anger in Christ

5. The Silence of Christ

6. The Emotion of Love in Christ

7. The Sensitiveness of Christ to Suffering

8. The Sympathy of Christ with True Shame

9. The Sympathy of Christ with Spiritual Joy

10. Christ's Sensitiveness to Desertion

11. Christ's Dependence on Human Sympathy

12. Christ's Sympathy with Temptation

13. Christ's Sympathy with Christian Perseverance

14. The Disinterestedness of Christ's Sympathy

15. Christ's Parting Sympathy

PREFACE

One, and the chief, design of this volume is to exhibit and illustrate the practical character of our Lord's emotional nature--thus linking Him in closer and more personal actuality with our circumstances. Every endeavor to bring into more proximate communion the personality of Christ, and the individuality of the Christian, cannot fail, however imperfect the execution, to promote the holiest interests of experimental Christianity. Much that passes for sympathy, and is really so, as commonly understood, is deficient in this one essential element, and needs to be remodeled. There is poetry and there is beauty in real sympathy; but there is more- there is action. True sympathy may exist impotent to aid, we concede, and its silent expression may not, in some instances, be the less grateful and soothing; but the noblest and most powerful form of sympathy is not merely the responsive tear, the echoed sigh, the answering look- it is the embodiment of the sentiment in actual help. It identifies itself with the object of its commiseration so personally and so closely as to realize the apostle's beautiful idea of true sympathy- "Remember those who are in bonds, as bound with them; and those who suffer adversity, as being yourselves also in the body." This was preeminently the character of Christ's compassion when on earth. He was willing Himself to wear the chain He came to loose, to share the sorrow He came to soothe; and the remembrance that He was likewise "in the body" constantly forced itself upon His mind, imparting to His deep sensibility and tender compassion the power and the luster of an actual and personal participation in the calamities He repaired, the needs He met, and the griefs He assuaged. Thus, from His practical sympathy, who is the Great Teacher of the Church, and the "Consolation of Israel," may we derive lessons of holy instruction, and streams of the richest comfort.

To aid this object, the present volume is, with diffidence, offered to the Christian Church. Composed under the pressure of important ministerial, extended pastoral, and continuous public labor, it necessarily partakes of the imperfections of a work thus written, and often at a season when the jaded powers, both of mind and body, demanded the restorative of sleep. But if the "lame take the prey," the author may humbly hope that this lowly attempt to present the Savior more vividly to the personal realization of the reader, and thus render Him more loved and precious, and His example more closely studied and imitated, will not be without acceptance and blessing to the one Church of God, the sorrowing, suffering Body of a Divine and sympathizing Head. The Triune Jehovah bless the work, and to the Sacred Three in One shall be the glory! Amen.

Sympathy, an Element of Christ's Nature

For this reason he had to be made like his brothers in every way, in order that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in service to God, and that he might make atonement for the sins of the people. Hebrews 2:17

It was a noble sentiment of Terrence, the utterance of which electrified the Roman senate, "I am a man, and nothing that is human is foreign to me." With what higher sublimity and profounder emphasis of meaning might our adorable Lord- the Divine Man- have pronounced these memorable words! His whole life was a living, luminous illustration of the thought. He was the highest type of humanity. Essential

God, He was not the less, but all the more, perfect man. He had all the sympathies of manhood. Descending from a pre-existent state of glory, He made His advent to our nature, assuming everything that was essentially human, while relinquishing nothing that was essentially divine. He was intent upon being man, because He was intent upon redeeming man, and "very man of very man" He was. With that one joy set before Him- the joy of saving the lost- and oh, who can sound its depth? -no stoop, no humiliation, no suffering, should deter Him. His first step was to descend to the nature which He was to ransom and exalt. Around the solar rays of His Godhead He cast the darkling vesture of our manhood, shading and softening, not extinguisting or lessening, the glory of His divinity. In that marvellous, that fathomless descent to our nature, there was one exception we must ever, in our study of this subject, keep in view. He assumed all that was human but the accident of sin. "He knew no sin." The drapery of "flesh" which hung in such ample and graceful folds around His hidden and superior nature, was morally untainted and untinted by transgression. Its entire texture, woof and web, was as essentially pure and undefiled as the divine and ineffable glory it sought in vain to conceal. Let it be remembered that sin, as we have just remarked, is an accident of, and not a property essential to, our nature. It was not necessary, no, it was not possible, that in creating man God should create him sinful. Sin is a foreign and alien element, not originally entering into the formation of Adam, but exported from some dark and unknown climate into our humanity, since God first created it in His own holy and ineffable image, and then pronounced it very good. So far, indeed, from sin being a necessary and original element of our humanity, we became less human when we became less holy. In proportion as we recede from the prototype of our creation, we descend in the scale of God's workmanship, and sink the rational in the animal. Sin, despoiling our lower nature, reduces us to a level with the brute creation, from whom God bids us learn: "Ask the beasts, and they shall teach you!" Are not all our faculties and powers paralyzed and prostrated by the Fall? Have we not lost those fine and noble instincts, those traits of beauty, sensibility, and power, which, though human, once looked so divine? Is not our humanity materially changed and essentially deteriorated by sin? Most undoubtedly we are less human because we are more sinful. We think the less profoundly- reason the less accurately- feel the less intensely- act the less vigorously- and achieve the less nobly, because we were shaped in iniquity and conceived in sin. This train of thought will serve to place in a clearer and more impressive light the great and precious truth it is intended to illustrate.

Christ, as we have remarked, was the most perfect type of our humanity. Essentially and entirely free from sin, He was the purest and most exalted specimen of man. The difference between the original formation of His inferior nature and ours is strikingly suggestive. His human body was not, as Adam's, framed of the dust of the ground, but proceeded from ours by the miraculous power of the Holy Spirit; so that, while partaking of all the natural properties of the human, it likewise partook of all the essential sanctity of the divine. He was that "holy One" that knew not and could not sin- "the holy child Jesus." The thoughtful reader will at once perceive the object at which these remarks have pointed. We are about to unfold in these pages the perfect human sympathy of Christ with man. And in order that the fact may have all the force of which it is capable, we have sought to present it in the light of its perfect sinlessness, seeing that, as our humanity becomes freed from the brutalizing influence of sin, its emotional feelings, its sensibilities, and sympathies become all the more unselfish, intense, and exquisite; so that we are prepared to find in our Lord Jesus Christ a sympathy with our sorrows and infirmities such as it would be impossible to find in any other being. Every Christian grace in the believer has its opposite, every human virtue its dark antithesis. If we have faith in God, it is assailed by unbelief. If we love the creature, our affection glides into idolatry. If benevolent, we are exposed to prodigality. But not thus was it with Christ. Every divine grace, and each human excellence, dwelt in Him pure, simple, and unmixed. He could love, without adoration; confide, without suspicion; be cheerful, without levity; be humble, without lowliness; be mild, yet not timid; be firm, yet not tyrannical; secret, yet not crafty; generous, without waste; and tender, compassionate, and sympathizing, without the slightest approach to weakness or unmanliness. And all this because- "He knew no sin!"

Now, the emotional- an essential element of our humanity- belonged to Christ, as we have remarked, in its purest and most intense form. Our nature is essentially and highly sympathetic. The curious and delicate network of nerve which transmits from the sensorium to the extremity of the body each thrill of pleasure or of pain, is not more electrical in its influence than is this sympathetic principle of our humanity. Its relation to the intellectual part of our nature is intimate and reciprocal. Not less independent are they of each other, than both are dependent upon God. The history of our race supplies many illustrious evidences of the union of the loftiest intellectual powers with the finest sensibility. There is no necessity whatever why the mind should not act in perfect union with the heart: why we should be less reflective because intensely feeling. In the words of a deep thinker, "Emotion is always attached to some conception formed by the intellectual faculties. Man is so constituted that the conception of certain objects is accompanied with emotion, or, as we would rather say, that certain conceptions are emotional. The conception of probable pain produces fear, and the conception of wrong treatment inflicted, produces anger. Emotions are thus mainly dependent on the intellectual conceptions to which they are attached. But still, as consciousness attests, they are something more than the mere mental conceptions upon which, as well as upon the general train of association, they exercise a powerful influence. The Author of our nature, in making the conception of certain objects emotional, has added vastly to man's capacity of enjoyment, and has also provided for Himself a powerful instrument of government. The basis of every emotion is a conception. But all conceptions do not raise emotions. The conceptions which raise emotions are all conceptions of objects supposed to be good or evil, or supposed to be connected, for instance, with pleasure or pain, with right or wrong. We thus see the importance of right principles or motive powers in the mind. In a mind of right principles, that which is good is always conceived of as good, and that which is evil as evil, and the emotions flow responsive to the guiding principle. When the motive power is allowed by the will to become perverted, and the objects are conceived of as good which are evil, and as evil which are good- the result is a divided sensibility, disturbing the whole equilibrium of the soul, and like the wind carrying it away." (M'Cosh)

No fact will be more vividly brought before the mind of the reader, as we proceed, than the personality of our Lord- a truth but imperfectly realized, and yet of surpassing interest and preciousness. Each emotion of His nature, as it passes before the eye, will bring us into the closest contact with Christ as a distinct and real person. There are teachers who speak of Christ as a traditional and historical being, and yet others as a visionary or ideal being- a mode of instruction well calculated to transport the learner far into the mysteries of cloud-land. It may be true to a certain extent that our Lord is a historical being, for His whole life is history, and history teaching by the purest, loftiest example, which has been defined the truest philosophy. His gospel has supplied the world with truth, His life with history, and His character with a living model of every divine perfection and human excellence. But our nature craves for more than this. We need fellowship, not with a sentiment, not with a tradition, nor with an idea, but with a real, living, personal being. We seek communion with, and sympathy from, a Savior in alliance with our veritable nature, endowed with real, deep, holy sensibility, disciplined by personal sorrow like our own, and moved with a quick response to every note of "The still, sad music of humanity."

We must know Jesus as once tabernacling in the flesh, and dwelling among men as a man- hallowing earthly spots with His presence- entering the dwellings of men- sitting with them at their tables- noticing and blessing their children- mingling all the scenes of domestic life- smiling upon our loves- sanctioning our marriage-feasts- healing our diseases- pitying our infirmities- weeping at our tombs- consecrating our loneliness and solitude; in a word, unveiling a bosom, the perfect reflection of our own, in all but its sinfulness. Oh, it is this fact of our Lord's personality that brings Him so near to us, blends Him so closely with our individual history, and which imparts to His presence and sympathy a reality and preciousness so inexpressibly great and endearing. Read in the clear, steady light of this fact, what meaning and what beauty appear in these inspired declarations concerning Him: "Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, He also Himself likewise took part of the same." "Verily He took not on Him the nature of angels; but He took on Him the seed of Abraham." "The Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us." "In that He Himself has suffered being tempted, He is able to support those who are tempted." "We have not a high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities." Such, my reader, is Christ, and such His sympathy with you! And in all the circumstances of your Christian life it is an instructive and consolatory thought, that your humanity is represented in heaven by the Head of all creation; that the Lord Jesus- the "first-born among many brethren"- is still clad in our nature, and occupies the central throne in glory, exalted "far above all principality and power, and might and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to come." From that elevation of dignity, glory, and power, encircling spirits hymning His high praise, there flows down to you a continuous stream of sympathy, grace, and support, meeting your every circumstance, supplying your every need, soothing your every grief, and shedding the soft and cheering luster of a personal presence on your homeward path to glory. And although we no more "know Christ after the flesh," yet, dealing by faith with His personality, we may realize that we possess a Friend, a Brother, and a Redeemer, in whom are mysteriously yet truly united- the sympathetic nature of man, with the infinite mind of God.

The Sigh of Christ

He looked up to heaven and with a deep sigh said to him, "Be opened!" Mark 7:34

The sympathy of our Lord evaporated not in mere sentiment- cold and unpractical. It was always expressed and embodied in acts of benevolence and in works of power, which, while they conferred upon their recipient a real and permanent good, confirmed His Messiahship, illustrated His boundless resources, and gratified His own manly and man-loving nature. Unlike changeable pity which sublimates into thin vapor- hollow, heartless, unsubstantial- Christ's sympathy, wakeful to every sigh of sorrow and spectacle of suffering, flowed in streams of real and abiding blessing; and of Him it may in truth be said, "He lived in deeds, not words- in thoughts not years."

And as we proceed, dear reader, in unfolding the precious truth of this volume- Christ's practical sympathy with man- let the fact be constantly before your mind, that you are not reading of a Savior who was, but of a Savior who is; that the Lord Jesus is moved by the same sympathy, is possessed of the same power, and is as quickly and as tenderly responsive to the appeal of the sorrowful and the necessities of the needy, as when the tabernacle of His humanity adorned and consecrated our earth, and when to its asylum thronged earth's sons and daughters of suffering and of woe. Oh, it is a truth as replete with comfort as with wonder, "Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today, and forever." Beloved, cling to this Unchanging One! No ebb in the tide of your affection, nor trembling in the needle of your faith, has created, or can create, the slightest variation in His love or faithfulness. Your waywardness has not chilled it, your fickleness has not affected it, your sinfulness has not forfeited it, because He is essentially, immutably, and eternally the same. "If we are unfaithful, he remains faithful, for he cannot deny himself."

The first view of Christ's sympathetic nature which we present, brings Him into close relation with the more pensive and subdued feelings of our humanity- the sigh of Jesus. "He sighed." How near will this bring the Savior to many a heart! To some minds of delicate sensibility and perception there is no emotion more eloquent and touching than a sigh- nothing which carries so deep a meaning, or penetrates the heart with so irresistible a force. What feelings does that sigh betray! what volumes does it speak! We turn to the Savior. "Looking up to heaven, He sighed." Never did He appear more human, or with our humanity more sympathetic! Let us examine THE OCCASION which gave birth to this emotion, and receive from it spiritual instruction.

There was brought to Him for healing, a man bereft of two bodily senses, the deprivation of which entails so much loss of exquisite enjoyment. As if to illustrate our Lord's illimitable power over the physical and mental infirmities of our nature, and thus to confirm our faith in His deity, there was no species of disease which He did not combat and conquer. But a bodily healing was not the end of His interposed compassion and power. There was a hidden and deep significance in every cure He effected. He had come the Divine Healer of a more woeful malady- the Physician of a nobler, more diseased and imperilled part of our being. He had come to heal and save the soul. And while all physical disease fled at His command, vanished at His touch, He sought thus to illustrate His deeper compassion for, and His higher power over, the spiritual. The case before us is replete with gospel teaching.

Take the first infirmity mentioned. This poor man was DEAF. The tympanum of the ear was destroyed, and thus a direct and exquisitely constructed inlet to the soul- one of the most beneficent creations of God- was closed. If for a moment we reflect- gathering the evidence from our own experience- how the soul is stirred to its depths by the accented sounds of the human voice- the breathings of love, the words of friendship, the strains of eloquence, the melody of music- we may form some idea of the severity of the loss which the deprivation of this sense must entail. Take a single illustration- one of the purest enjoyments of which this sense is the avenue- the power of music. I say the purest, for it has been well defined the only sensual gratification which mankind may indulge to excess without injury to the moral feelings. (Addison). The power of music in tranquillizing the mind, calming the spirit, and waking the whole soul to elevated thoughts and feelings, is marvellous. Milton, with a licence of expression resigned to poets, speaks of it as "creating a soul under the ribs of death." Luther's remark is, perhaps, less poetical in its conception but more true in idea- " Music is the art of the prophets, the only art that can calm the agitation of the soul: it is one of the most magnificent and delightful presents God has given us." A modern writer, forgetful of his own marvellous power as a poet, generously awards the palm to music:

"Of all the arts beneath the heaven
That man has found, or God has given,
None draws the soul so sweet away
As music's melting, mystic lay;
Slight emblem of the bliss above
It soothes the spirit all to love."

Its necromantic power to reproduce, as it were, the past- to summon back its sacred reminiscences, its holy loves, its precious and undying memories, has been exquisitely and touchingly expressed by a master in the sister art:
"Mysterious keeper of the key
That opens the gates of memory,
Often in your wildest, simplest strain,
We live over years of bliss again!

"The sun-bright hopes of early youth.
Love, in its first deep hour of truth,
And dreams of life's delightful morn,
Are on your seraph-pinions borne!

"To the enthusiast's heart your tone
Breathes of the lost and lovely one,
And calls back moments, brief as dear,
When last 'twas wafted on his ear.

"To gloom of sadness you can suit
The chords of your delicious lute;
For every heart you have a tone
Can make its pulses all your own!" (A. Watts)

There is one view of music which to the Christian mind gives it a transcendent place among the arts- I refer to its truthfulness- especially as an expression of religious feeling. Poetry, sculpture, and painting- faithful as may be their delineations- deal more closely with the ideal. The loftiest and most sublime soarings of their genius are upon the eagle plume of imagination, and they delight to revel and to sport amid brilliant worlds of their own creation. But, withdrawing us from the unreal, the gorgeous fancies and subtle refinements of poetry and painting, music brings us into closer communion with the true, into closer communion with ourselves.

To both the 'sister arts' of poetry and music the Church of God will ever acknowledge its profound indebtedness. Sanctified by the grace of God, and consecrated to the high and noble purpose of expressing religious sentiment and pious feeling- the holy thoughts of the mind and the spiritual feelings of the heart- the saints in all ages, including Moses and David, Solomon and Job, have poured forth their noblest thoughts and loftiest aspirations through the medium of these divine gifts. The poetry and the music of the Bible would be, in the absence of all other evidence, alone sufficient to stamp it as a Divine Book, to authenticate, beyond all doubt, its Divine inspiration. From where but from God himself could those historians, poets, and musicians have derived their sacred annals, lighted their holy fires, and learned their entrancing melody? Truly, their minds were instructed and their muse was kindled and their harps were tuned from other than a human source, and by other than a human hand. And yet there are, styling themselves "Masters in Israel," who would reduce this divine and sublime Book to the level of a human, no, a false and spurious composition, and compel us to receive it, not as it is in truth, the Word of the Most High God, but as an invention of man, "a cunningly-devised fable." With regard to music, let the saints of God be jealous of its true glory, which is, its high and holy consecration. "Speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and snaking melody in your heart to the Lord," you employ the gift in the noblest service, and consecrate it to the highest end on earth. "Praise is lovely." And God has said, "Those who offer Praise glorify me." A praiseful spirit is one of the most deeply sanctified emotions of the soul- praise one of the holiest engagements of the Christian.

The service of heaven is the service of song; the chief employment of the glorified is praise. It behooves us, then, to give the holiest, the highest consecration possible to this noble art. Carnal, worldly music breathing from the lips of a saint of God is as incongruous and inharmonious as a drunkard's song breathing from the lips of a glorified spirit. Nothing but what is holy in its sentiment, spiritual in its tone, and edifying in its influence should be uttered by a Christian's lips, should vibrate from a Christian's harp. The magnificent composition of 'Handel's Messiah' supplies no exception to this rule. Admitting the Divine inspiration of the words, the transcendent genius of the compose, the sublime character of the oratorio, and the elevating influence of its skillful and masterly execution, we must yet maintain that the music of the Messiah, as performed in modern times by the unholy and the unsanctified, should be as distasteful and painful to the Christian and spiritual mind, as it is unquestionably, unacceptable and dishonoring to God. What spiritual mind can listen to the solemn words of Christ, expressive of His heart-sorrow, His soul-anguish, His bodily sufferings, sung by voices and breathing from instruments of music in a cathedral, used to wake the echoes and the plaudits of a theater, without indescribable torture of feeling and the most depressing sadness of spirit? Could we thus listen to a recital of the humiliating insults, the lingering tortures, and dying agonies of one the nearest and the dearest to our hearts? Never! Beware, then, of the unholy fascination of music. It may lead you from God, allure you from Christ, draw you into the world. It may become an easy and a fatal snare to your soul. Seek the deep sanctification of the gift, and its holy and supreme consecration to God. As such, sacred music, breathing from a spiritual mind, a Christ-loving heart, may be a valuable aid to the soul-soothing, sanctifying, elevating. God can give you a night-song- a song in the gloom of your sorrow, loneliness, and woe- a song of His love unchanging, of His faithfulness unfailing, of His presence sweetening your sorrow, soothing your grief, cheering your solitude, making you submissive, happy, and cheerful in the darkest and most painful path along which your covenant God is leading you. Beloved, the chief employment of heaven is music. Oh, what melody floats through those bowers, rings through those mansions, reverberates through that dome, from the spirits of just men made perfect!

They sing the song of Moses and the song of the Lamb. They sing of the everlasting love, of the atoning blood, of the sovereign grace that brought them there. Around the Lamb once "slain" they cluster, and upon His head, once filled with bruises, torn and bleeding with the thorn-crown, they bind the diadem of their praise. And, oh, how worthy is He of their sweetest anthem, their loftiest song, their loudest hallelujahs! So resplendent will be the unveiling of His divine glory, His human beauty; so great will appear His love, so glorious His work, so rich His grace, and so precious Himself to the heart, that from every creature which is in heaven will be heard the anthem, "Blessing and honor and glom and power be unto Him that sits upon the throne, and unto the Lamb forever and ever." Then, O disciple and follower of Christ, separate yourself from all secular, carnal, worldly music, and learn on earth, in the house of your pilgrimage, in the strange land in which you dwell, and amid your trials, sorrows, and conflicts, the song of Moses and the song of the Lamb, which will employ your tongue throughout eternity. "It is good to give thanks to the Lord, to sing praises to the Most High. It is good to proclaim your unfailing love in the morning, your faithfulness in the evening, accompanied by the harp and lute and the harmony of the lyre."

But to return from this digression. What a deprivation, then, is the loss of the sense of hearing! To such a one all nature is mute, all beings dumb- signs instead of sounds conveying intelligence to the mind and love to the heart. The feeling, too, of isolation and loneliness, the pensive sadness which the loss produces, is often extremely painful and depressing, and should awaken in our heart, on behalf of its subject, the tenderest sympathy and the most delicate attention. Happy, indeed, for such if the trial is so sanctified as to sequester the heart more entirely from others, entwining it more closely with Christ!

Turn we now to the spiritual teaching of this part of the narrative.

There is a still more marvelously-constructed and delicate organ- the ear of the soul. Through this enter, not the accents of man, but the voice of God! And when He speaks with commanding, irresistible, and saving power, the human soul is yet more deeply conscious of the fact than it ever was of the breathings of love and the words of kindness and sympathy. But this spiritual organ is sealed to the voice of God. The fall of man produced a spiritual concussion of the soul, and from that moment its ear has been closed to the most glorious announcement, the sweetest melody, the most powerful voice that ever chimed upon the ear. We will confirm and illustrate this fact by a reference both to the law and the gospel.

The law of God speaks authoritatively, powerfully, solemnly. It commands perfect obedience- demands supreme love- threatens eternal judgment- thunders the divine curse; but although its dread artillery peals above the sinner, although it confronts him with its commands at every step, exclaiming with imperative tone, "Pay me that you owe," not a sound strikes upon the spiritual ear of the soul! The sinner heeds not the voice of justice, and of wrath, and of condemnation. He is as a deaf man that cannot and that will not hear. So with the gospel. The gospel is the voice of Jesus speaking in mercy, grace, and love. It is the voice of pardon, of peace, and of hope. It affirms the most astounding fact that ever startled the universe, that, "God so loved the world, that He gave His only-begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life;" and still the natural man receives not this saying, heeds not this voice, is deaf to this sound. Jesus speaks from Calvary in tones that encircle the earth, that darken the sun, that melt the rocks, that wake the dead, but all is still and motionless as the cemetery of the sleeping dead, over whose graves floats unheeded the music of the spheres. "They have ears, but the do not hear." With many the case is judicial. In them is fulfilled the awful command of God- "Make the heart of this people fat, and make their ears heavy, and shut their eyes; lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and turn, and be healed." That is, leave them to the consequences of their wilful rejection of the Savior and His gospel; give them over to a reprobate mind and to judicial blindness of heart. My reader, God has but to leave a sinner to his wedded idols, to "let him alone," and the unchecked, unbridled, unrestrained passions of his fallen nature will work out their legitimate, certain, and appalling result- judicial hardness of heart here, and eternal destruction from the presence of God hereafter! What is the case with you? Examine and determine- it is for your life! But glance once more at this condition of the soul. Is it a calamity to be deaf to human sounds- to not hear the soft breathings of affection, the entrancing strains of music, the spirit-stirring sounds of eloquence? Oh, infinitely greater the calamity to have the ear of the mind closed to the voice of God, of Christ, of the Spirit, of the gospel! To not hear the voice of life and love, of providence and grace- the melting accents of Calvary, the lessons of adversity, the solemn warnings of bereavement, the imperative tones of death- this is a calamity and a crime the magnitude and the guilt of which distances all thought and defies all expression! Sinner! the hour is coming when you must hear the voice of Jesus speaking to you- not in the all-gentle, all-persuasive pleadings of a Savior, but in the terrible, overwhelming thunders of a Judge! Believer in Jesus! blessed are your ears, for they hear. You have heard the Shepherd's voice, and it has won your heart, enkindled your affection, and bowed your whole soul to its gentle and gracious supremacy. Oh! is there, amid the voices of the universe, one like unto Christ's? Is there one so powerful, so winning, so gentle, so sweet? Lord! were all other sounds hushed in the profoundest depths of eternal silence, all other voices forever quenched in the stillness of everlasting death, to hear Your gentle tones of pardon, peace, and love quelling my fears, soothing my sorrows, assuring me of an interest in Your salvation, calling me Your own, and promising that I shall be with You forever, oh, that were enough for the eternity of my being!

To the loss of the sense of hearing was added, in the case of this object of Christ's compassion, the loss of the faculty of SPEECH. Language is a divine gift. The power of communicating by articulate and intelligent sounds our thoughts, and feelings, and needs, is one of God's most wise and beneficent arrangements. It is by this faculty we hold communion with intelligent beings. The tongue is a mighty instrument for good or for evil. Solomon reminds us that "life and death are in the power of the tongue." There life in it when it speaks a word in season to him who is weary- when it drops into the ear an accent of kindness- when it speaks of Jesus' love and compassion to a sad and mournful heart- when it quotes a promise of God to a dejected, disconsolate mind- when it gives utterance to thoughts that elevate, to counsels that guide, to the breathings of encouragement and sympathy. Oh, what life is there in the faculty of speech when, holy, and wise, and gentle, it is employed for the good of our fellows and for the glory of God! There is death too in the power of the tongue when it is employed as an instrument of evil by the whisperer, the backbiter, the slanderer, the tale-bearer, the untruthful- death to reputation, death to character, death to usefulness, death to happiness. The poison of asps may be under the tongue, and death to some injured one may be the consequence! This thought finds a yet more awful illustration in his case who, as a professed minister of Christ's gospel, gives utterance to doctrines fatal in their tendency and effect to the well-being of souls. God holds us responsible for the use of this faculty, for He writes, "By your words shall you be justified, and by your words shall you be condemned." Oh, see that your speech is seasoned with grace, administering instruction and edification to the hearer. Let no corrupt thing, no false doctrine, no untruthful statement, no harsh, unkind, unsympathizing, heart-wounding word flow from your lips. Speak for God, for Christ, for souls.

But this poor man was mute, or was afflicted with an impediment in his speech, which rendered the faculty distressing if not useless. There is something touchingly affecting in the sight of a mute person! He stands apart, insulated and alone, from his species. All beings, all things, all events, seem to have a language and a speech but him. And yet, perchance, cloistered deep within the recesses of his soul, there are great thoughts reposing, and noble purposes forming, and tender feelings, and sacred sympathies welling up, to which his lips, mute and soundless, can give no utterance. The musings of a mother, bending over her mute and only child, are thus vividly, and with great poetic beauty, described:

"Twas long before I believed
That this one daughter might not speak to me;
Waited and watched, God knows how patiently!
How willingly deceived!
Vain love was long the untiring nurse of faith,
And tended hope until it starved to death.

"Oh! if she could but hear
For one short hour, until I her tongue might teach
To call me 'Mother,' in that broken speech
That thrills the mother's ear!
Alas! those sealed lips never may be stirred
To the deep music of that lovely word.

"I've watched her looking up
To the bright wonder of a sunset sky,
with such a depth of meaning in her eye
That I could almost hope
The bursting soul would burst its binding cords,
And the long pent-up thoughts flow forth in words.

"Wills He the mind within
Should from earths Babel-clamor be kept free?
Even that His 'still small voice' and step might be
Heard at its inner shrine,
Through that deep hush of soul with clearer thrill!
Then should I grieve? O murmuring heart, be still!

"Not of all gifts bereft
Even now. How could I say she did not speak?
What real language lights her eye and cheek,
And renders thanks to Him who left
Unto her soul yet open avenues
For joy to enter, and for love to use!

"And God in love does give
To her defect a beauty of its own,
And we a deeper tenderness have known
Through that for which we grieve;
Yet shall the seal be melted from her ear,
Yes, and my voice shall fill it- but not here.

"When that new sense is given,
What rapture will its first experience be,
That never woke to lower melody
Than the rich songs of heaven,
To hear the full-toned anthem swelling round,
While angels teach the ecstasies of sound!"

Ah! see we not our spiritual nature here portrayed? The only being in the universe that has not a tongue to speak for God, lips unsealed to praise, a tongue loosed to show forth His glory and magnify His great name, is the natural man. You have, perhaps, my reader, grown up from infancy to manhood, from manhood you have descended to old age, and to this moment you have remained spiritually mute! The language of God's children is a strange dialect to you, and you cannot understand what they mean or whereof they affirm. They speak of reconciliation with God, of peace through Christ, of pardon, of justification, of adoption, of the power of indwelling sin, of the desperate depravity of their nature, of the constant alienation of their heart, and yet of an assured hope of endless life in heaven- but you have never learned their language, and cannot understand their speech, because you have never been admitted to their experience. It is an appalling spectacle to meet an individual whose head is blossoming for the tomb, but upon whose lips have never dwelt the heaven-taught accents of a Savior's love.

But how many of the Lord's own people, especially among young believers, maybe said to have a spiritual impediment in their speech- they open their mouths so seldom or so imperfectly for Christ. They are tongue-tied through fear, or timidity, or shame. They hesitate to own the Lord boldly, to speak unhesitatingly of the great things Jesus has done for them, and to magnify the sovereign grace that has called them to be saints. And even with regard to more matured believers, alas! we understand the language of Canaan but im perfectly. We are "a people of a stammering tongue." The truth of God, the love of Christ, the accents of prayer and praise and thanksgiving- the precious, the endearing name, Abba, Father- do but falter upon the tongue of the most advanced, fluent, and eloquent among us. Alas! that there should be so much fear one of the other, striking mute each lip when the saints of God meet together. Why should religion be ignored, Christian experience be tabooed, the name of Christ be banished from the social circle where alone the Savior may be expected to find a welcome and a place? Oh, let us seek to have the heart so replenished with His grace, so glowing with His love, that we may talk of His beauty, and the glory of His kingdom, and the might of His wonderful acts. "Lord, open my lips, and any mouth shall show forth Your praise." Let the well-spring of life within my soul be as a gushing fountain; let the beauty of Christ, the glory of His kingdom, the faithfulness and loving-kindness of His dealings, be the themes upon which I dwell. "Lord, unloose my stammering tongue who should louder sing than I?"

We approach now THE EMOTION OF CHRIST. "And looking up to heaven, He SIGHED." It may appear, at the first glance, but a common place expression of feeling. How many a sigh do we breathe, of which, perchance, we think nothing. The air around us is agitated, like the waves of the sea, with the sadness, the sighs of woe, breathed by our oppressed humanity. We sigh, some from habit, others from sympathy, yet others more from real grief, and the emotion awakens no response. But there was something in the sigh of Christ profoundly significant in its meaning, inexpressibly touching in its character- it possessed an import and a tenderness which no other sigh of our humanity could. Let us not, however, misunderstand it. Christ breathed His sigh over this deaf and mute man not because He felt unequal to the task of healing him. How frequently do we sigh over our conscious inadequacy to meet a case which implores our aid. Not so with Christ. No depression like this forced that sigh from His lips. Well did He know that power over all flesh was His, that His resources were equal to the demand, and that with a touch He could loose the string, and make those mute lips discourse the sweetest eloquence; and that with a word- "Be opened"- He could pour into that sealed ear the most delicious melody. Nor did He sigh from anger that they had brought to Him this patient. Never was He known to betray a feeling of displeasure or uneasiness when men appealed to His compassion or solicited His help. Even when His disciples had been more honored than Himself, and a case which had first been brought to them, had been transferred to Him as incurable, He never uttered a word of upbraiding, but took the child and healed it. Ah, how many of us would have felt our self-esteem wounded that we had not been given the precedence! Blessed Jesus! we will learn of You, for You are meek and lowly in heart. No sigh ever breathed from Your lips the expression of an angered heart, or wounded pride, or disappointed ambition.

And yet why did Christ sigh? In the first place, I would remark, it was an outgushing of sympathy bursting from a humanity kindred to our own. It was a sigh of compassion. As He benignantly bent over this suffering form, the hidden spring of emotion was moved, and it gave vent in a deep, upbreathed sigh. Ah, beloved! the humanity of your Savior was really like your own, sin only excepted. That audible emotion expressed an identity with your nature, your infirmities, your weaknesses, unutterably endearing. And when grief, or depression, or anxiety, pent up within your breast, finds an outlet in a sigh- and for that emotion, perchance, some heartless, unsympathizing one harshly chides you- is there no soothing in the thought- "Jesus once sighed as I sigh, and still, in the overflowing of His sympathy and compassion, echoes every sigh that breathes from my lips?"

The sigh of Jesus was awakened, too, by a view of the ravages of sin. In that spectacle He beheld the humanity He had originally cast into a perfect, peerless mold, and had pronounced "very good," bruised and crushed- its organs impaired, its beauty marred, its nature tainted- and, Himself lovely and sinless, He could not look upon that wretched, defaced, paralyzed specimen of our nature without emotion- without a sigh. Ah, what a glorious truth does this illustrate- the holiness of our Lord's emotional nature! Pure and sinless, it is all the more exquisitely tender and touching. The sin which gives birth to our sorrow, the moral taint inseparable from all that we feel and do, impairs not the compassion and sympathy of the Savior. While on the other hand, so pure and holy is He, He cannot survey the devastating reign of sin, He cannot behold His own image so defaced, a part of His own nature so polluted, without emotion heaving His bosom and breathing from His lips. Beloved! Jesus knew more of the exceeding sinfulness of sin than we shall know through all eternity. There was more of the essence of the sorrow and suffering and fruit of sin in one drop of that cup which could not pass His lips undrunk, than we should have known had we been left to drink the wrath of a holy God forever. Oh, how should this impart to us a holy disgust and loathing of sin! How should we hate the garment spotted by the flesh, and walk humbly and mournfully and softly with God on account of our transgressions; and seek more sympathy with Jesus in His emotion at the ravages and ruin which the fall has produced! Do you sigh for sin- the sin you see in others- the sin yet more visibly and deeply traced in yourself? Ah, there is no calamity that can befall you, were your future pathway to the tomb strewed thick with trials, over which you have more need to sigh than this. And if the deep consciousness of sin heaves your bosom with this emotion, be assured your holy sigh, as it rises, meets and blends with your Savior's.

It was a sigh of practical benevolence. I have remarked upon the hollow, vapid nature of human pity and compassion. How much of it evaporates in thin air! It is needless, it is heartless, no, more, it is criminal, to say, "Be warmed, be clothed, be fed, be healed," and yet extend not a hand, and stir not a foot to help. "If a brother or sister be naked, and destitute of daily food, and one of you say unto them, Depart in peace, be warmed and filled; notwithstanding you give them not those things which are needful to the body; what does it profit?" Oh, let us authenticate our faith by our works; for, "faith, if it has not works, is dead, being alone." Not so was the emotion of Christ. His pity was a real, tangible, practical principle. It was always connected with some sorrow comforted, some need supplied, some burden unclasped, some help needed, some blessing bestowed. Oh, we deal with the REAL, the sincere, the true, when we deal with Christ- with facts, not fables; with realities, not fictions; with compassion and sympathy robed with the beautiful garment of real, practical charity.

"The Son of God, in doing good,
Was fain to look to heaven and sigh;
And shall the heirs of sinful blood
Seek joy unmixed with charity?"

Now trace THE MARVELLOUS CURE, and see how He blends the power of His deity with the tenderness of His humanity, and illustrates, at each step, the higher healing of the soul. The first move was the separation: "And He took him aside from the multitude." He would make it apparent that there was no collusion, no trickery, no finesse in the cure; but, by making it visible and palpable to all, the miracle should be apparent and the witnesses confounded. What is real conversion- the spiritual opening of the mouth and the unstopping of the ear- but a separation? When the Lord Jesus converts a sinner, He separates him from the world, from his family, from his former self; takes him apart from the multitude, from his associates, from his worldly, sinful pursuits, and He becomes consecrated to God. "The Lord has set apart him that is godly for Himself." The religion of Jesus is a separating religion. Christ said that He had come to sever the dearest ties of nature, to sunder the closest relations of life, and to divide a house against itself. And often when He is about to work a spiritual miracle like this the conversion of the soul- by His providence He takes the subject of it apart from all others, isolates and exiles him, and thus performs the work and secures to Himself the glory. Let Christian, praying parents glean instruction and comfort from this. You have, perhaps, mourned the event that sundered you from your child, that separated him from your influence and your counsels- not your prayers- by oceans and continents removing him into exile and loneliness. Ah! many a one can testify that it was not until thus separated, taken thus apart from a loved circle, into that strange land, in that solitude and loneliness, on that stormy sea, threading that interminable prairie, crossing that burning desert, or in that distant, quiet, and, perhaps, sick-chamber, the Spirit of God moved upon the heart and led it to Jesus. My beloved reader, has the grace of God separated you?

And then came THE SIMPLE MEANS. Jesus touched his tongue. He did not stand at a distance, like some proud and haughty patron, conscious of superior dignity, of higher sanctity, about to confer a favor which He felt a great obligation to bestow. Oh, no! how unlike Jesus would this posture and air have been! But He placed the Divinity that was about to heal, in an angle with the humanity that was to be healed. The Sinless should be brought into contact with the sinful- the Divine should heal the human! He inserted His finger into the ear, and He placed it upon the tongue, and the mute spoke and the deaf heard! Oh, how near does Jesus bring Himself to us when He would, as with a word or as with a touch, open our ear to hear the voice of life, and loose our tongue to speak the words of love. Christ's plans and modes are simple. A touch- a word- and a work is done, greater, sublimer, holier, and more lasting than when He said, "Let there be light, and there was light." Do not be suspicious of sudden conversions, nor afraid of encouraging an immediate repentance and faith. God's ways are not as our ways, nor are His thoughts as our thoughts. In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye- a touch of His hand, a word from His lips- "Be opened!"- and a new moral creation bursts into existence! a son is given- an heir of glory is born!

And now mark the fulfilment of a beautiful prophecy of Christ- physically and spiritually fulfilled: "A man shall be a hiding-place from the wind, and a covert from the tempest; as rivers of water in a dry place; as the shadow of a great rock in a weary land. And the eyes of those who see shall not be dim; and the ears of those who hear shall hearken. The heart also of the rash shall understand knowledge, and the tongue of the stammerers shall be ready to speak plainly"- (margin, "elegantly.") And never does the human tongue, in the highest sense, speak "elegantly," until, instructed and sanctified by the Holy Spirit, it speaks of Christ! And the more it discourses of Him- of the beauties of His person, the perfection of His work, the fulness of His grace, the wonder of His love, the tenderness, compassion and sympathy of His nature- the more eloquent and elegant is its speech. That tongue, untaught by the schools, undisciplined by education and art, may be naturally unlearned and witless- its tones harsh, its language broken, its accents faltering- yet, discoursing of Jesus, there is a softness and mellifluence, an elegance and grace clothing it, which the colleges of the world could not inspire, which those who dwell in king's houses might envy, and those who occupy university chairs might imitate.

And mark the attitude of Jesus as He gave utterance to this emotion. "He looked up to heaven." Oh, how expressive! how replete with significance the picture! It was to His Father He looked for the present sealing of His messiahship. His mind and heart and will were in perfect unison with God's, and He could say, "I came not to do my own will, (apart from the Father,) but the will of Him that sent me." And how precious and holy the lessons He would teach the multitude gazing upon the scene! He would thus remind them that "every good and perfect gift is front above, and comes down from the father of lights." And when they saw the Son of man, with filial reverence and prayerful reliance, thus gazing into the blue vault of heaven in mystic and close communion with His Father, how deeply would the spectacle impress them with the conviction that it was by the power of God the miracle was wrought that broke the silence of those lips and poured delicious sounds into those ears. Learn from this, beloved, what should be your true attitude when the pressure upon your emotional nature forces the deep-drawn sigh from your lips. We sigh, and look within- Jesus sighed, and looked without. We sigh, and look down- Jesus sighed, and looked up. We sigh, and look to earth- Jesus sighed, and looked to heaven. We sigh, and look to man- Jesus sighed, and looked to God!

Let us glean from this particular view of Christ's emotional nature A FEW APPROPRIATE INSTRUCTIONS.

It addresses itself especially to those who are addicted to a like emotion. See how Jesus has recognized and consecrated the sighs of His Church. If the Head sighed, surely it is not sinful for the member of the Body to sigh. A sigh is often the expression of a holy desire, the utterance of a heart-breathed prayer. It has a meaning and an eloquence understood by, and persuasive with, God.

"Sighs now breathed
Unutterable, which the spirit of prayer
Inspired, and winged for heaven with speedier flight
Than loudest oratory." (Milton)

Ah, that sigh! what a depth and pathos of meaning has it. You sigh by reason of the body of sin and of death you bear about with you. You sigh over your flaws and failings. You sigh by reason of your infirmities, your domestic, relative, or personal trials. You sigh as you survey the scenes of sickness and suffering and wrong- for all the abominations that surround you. Do not think that you are alone- that there are no responsive echoes awakened by your emotion. Take your sighs to Jesus, and if this is the only language you can command in giving vent to your sorrow or expression to your need, employ it, and wait in hope God's answer.

"A sigh can reach His heart,
A look can bring Him down from heaven."

We must, however, be cautious lest this emotion should become a physical infirmity. It may grow into a habit- a nervous, morbid habit- and thus, instead of being an outlet of suppressed feeling and a vehicle of sacred intelligence affording unspeakable relief, it may aggravate the suffering it was designed to initiate. Do not, then, let this emotion be too frequently indulged, lest it degenerate into a meaningless habit. It is only twice recorded that Jesus sighed.

Employ your restored and renewed faculties for God. Are you, like Moses, slow of speech and not eloquent? Remember God's words to him- they are equally addressed to you: "And the Lord said unto him, Who has made man's mouth,? or who made the mute, or deaf, or the seeing, or the blind? have not I, the Lord! Now therefore go, and I will be with your mouth, and teach you what you shall say." Seek, then Christ's divine and gracious touch, that your tongue may be loosened to vindicate His honor, to defend His truth, to diffuse His gospel, to speak of Him to those who are weary, and to show forth the praise of your covenant God. "For with the heart man believes unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation."

And ask Him to unseal your ear- the secret ear of your soul- to the still small voice of His Spirit, the gentle breathings of His love that you may be skillful to distinguish between truth and error, the law and the gospel, the voice of man and the voice of God. Not only seek the sanctifying touch of Christ, teaching you when to speak, but equally do you need it to teach you when to be silent. It has been remarked, Better that the feet slip than the tongue. We need as much wisdom, no, perhaps more, when to be silent as when to speak. To be silent when others detract, accuse, and defame; to be silent when reviled, censured, and condemned, displays no little control over the tongue. "Sometimes to unkindness and injustice, silence may be safer than even the soft answer that turns away wrath." The conquest over self under severe provocation by a dignified and holy quietness is a greater victory than his who takes a city. Oh that our tongue may be Christ's! Oh that it may be employed for the good of our fellows! Oh, that we may be training for the communion and song of the upper skies.

Alas! to what multitudes is life but a "bridge of sighs" to a future of inconceivable and interminable woe! My unconverted reader, you are one of this long and melancholy procession, moving slowly, sadly, surely, from the sighs that are temporal to the sighs that are eternal. Life with you is a toilsome journey, a hard struggle, a severe battle, a continuous scene of change and disappointment, of wrong and suffering, of toil and anxiety, of temptation and sin. Your experience has taught you that the world is heartless and insincere, the creature fickle and disappointing, riches unsatisfying and fleeting, ambition a phantom, human hopes illusive, pleasure concealing a sting, sin embittering, and the way of transgressors hard. Truly the sighing of the prisoner is yours. And yet there is a "Branch" which makes the bitter waters of the curse sweet! Jesus made His advent to this world of sin and woe to deliver us from the burden of the curse, to relieve us from the bondage of sin, to transform our sorrow into joy, our despair into hope, and to make this life-bridge of sighs a radiant, joyful pathway to a world of glory, a land of joy, a home of perfect purity and bliss. "Christ gave himself for its, a sacrifice and an offering to God." Oh, how marvelously changed would be all your present and future being with the sweet forgiving love of God in your heart, and the hope of glory in your soul! With such a Savior as Christ, with such a salvation as God has provided- a salvation all that your extremest case requires, and that the highest claims of His moral government demands- you need not be the sin-burdened; the sad, the lost, the hopeless despairing one that you are, mournfully exclaiming, as you pass to the tomb, ."My life is spent with grief- and my years with sighing." The Redeemer whom you have hitherto despised, or wilfully rejected, or whose will willingness to save you, you have doubted, is prepared to receive you as a sinner, to pardon you as a penitent, to reclaim you as a prodigal, and to enroll your name among the children of God. "For the sighing of the needy will I arise, says the Lord."

Anticipate, child of God, the solemn yet blissful moment when the last gentle sigh will heave your breast. It speeds on! There awaits us a freedom from sin and grief, a state of perfect purity and happiness, in which will be realized the magnificent picture of the far-seeing prophet, when the ransomed of the Lord shall return and come to Zion, with songs and everlasting joy upon their heads: they shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee a away."

And in conclusion, let the sweet words uttered by the wondering spectators of this marvellous and touching display of our Lord's sympathy with man, awaken a deep response within our hearts in all His dealings with us- "He has done all things well." Yes, from first to last, from our cradle to our grave, from the earliest pang of sin's conviction to the latest thrill of sin's forgiveness, from earth to heaven, this will be our testimony in all the way the Lord our God has led us in the wilderness. In providence and in grace, in every truth of His Word, in every lesson of His love, in every stroke of His rod, in every sunbeam that has shone, and in every cloud that has shaded, in every element that has sweetened, and in every ingredient that has embittered, in all that has been mysterious, inscrutable, painful, and humiliating; in all that He gave, and in all that He took away, this testimony is His just due, and this our grateful acknowledgment through time and through eternity- "He has done all things well." Take a survey of His conduct towards you from whatever standpoint, you may- and it is to His dealings with us in our individual history I alone refer, as illustrating and confirming this declaration- such must be our admiration, and such our testimony of Christ. Has He converted us through grace by a way we had thought the most improbable? Has He torn up all our earthly hopes by the roots? Has He thwarted our schemes, frustrated our plans, disappointed our expectations? Has He taught us in schools most trying, by a discipline most severe, and lessons most humbling to our nature? Has He withered our strength by sickness, reduced us to poverty by loss, crushed our heart by bereavement? And have we been tempted to exclaim, "All these things are against me?" Ah! no; faith will yet obtain the ascendency, and sweetly sing

"I know in all things that befell,
My Jesus has done all things well."

Beloved, it must be so, for Jesus can do nothing wrong. Study the way of His providence and grace with the microscopic eye of faith, view them in every light, examine them in their minutest detail, as you would the petal of a flower, or the wing of an insect, and, oh, what wonders, what beauty, what marvellous adaptation would you observe in all the varied dealings with you of your glorious Lord! And when the next storm wave surged, and the next thunder cloud darkened, and the next dark mystery threw its veil around you, you would hopefully exclaim, "What new truth is He now teaching? what new glory is He now unveiling? what new wonder is He now working to arouse my admiration, to win my confidence, and to deepen my love?"

"I'll sing of Jesus crucified,
The Lamb of God who bled and died,
A healing balm, a crimson tide
Flowed from His head, His feet, His side.
Above the rest this note shall swell,
'My Jesus has done all things well.'

"He sought me in the wilderness,
And found me there in deep distress;
He changed and washed this heart of mine,
And filled me with His love Divine.
Above the rest this note shall swell,
'My Jesus has done all things well.'

"For what the Lord has done for me,
For boundless grace so rich and free,
For all His mercies that are past,
I'll praise Him while my life shall last.
Above the rest this note shall swell,
'My Jesus has done all things well.'

"When sorrow's waves around me roll,
His promises my mind console;
When earth and hell my soul assail,
His grace and mercy never fail.
Above the rest this note shall swell,
'My Jesus has done all things well'

"When death shall steal upon my frame,
To damp and quench the vital flame,
I'll look into my Savior's breast,
And there recline and sweetly rest.
Above the rest this note shall swell,
'My Jesus has done all things well.'

"And when we join the ransomed throng,
To chant the sweet immortal song,
With tuneful heart, and voice, and tongue
We'll roll the lofty note along.
Above the rest this note shall swell,
'My Jesus has done all things well.'

"To Him who washed us in His blood,
And made us kings and priests to God;
Hosanna we will ever sing,
And make the heavenly arches ring.
Above the rest this note shall swell,
'My Jesus has done all things well.'

The Tears of Christ

"Jesus wept." John 11:35

In our inquiry into the emotional nature of our Lord, where shall we find so instructive, consolatory, and touching an exhibition of His sensibility as this? It appeals at once to every heart. Tears are a universal language. The sensibility which they express engirdles the human race. Travel to what nation we may, who cannot interpret the tear of woe- the tear of need- the tear of gratitude- the tear of sympathy- the tear of joy? Now, our Lord could not fully have partaken of our nature, and failing this, He could not have understood the condition of man, apart from this particular emotion. Had He allied Himself only with our joys and smiles, avoiding our sorrows and tears, His fellowship with our humanity had been but partial and defective. He could not in all points have been like us. We are composed of varied emotions, which are inspired and called into play by different objects. And until the finer feelings of our nature have been trained in sorrow, interlaced and edged with suffering, our own humanity is but partially understood. We are unequal to the task of educating and molding others, until we ourselves have been educated and molded in the school of human sensibility, which is the school of suffering- the school of sympathy. The character that is not reflective, aud instinct with sensibility, is incapable of the true condition of natural life, and is inadequate to its high mission. We must be taught by chastening, be purified by trial, be subdued by sorrow and suffering, in order to minister to the condition of man. Thus was our adorable Lord fitted for His great mission. He was born and cradled, educated and trained in the school of suffering. "Though He was a son, yet learned He obedience by the things which He suffered." And all that sorrow and all that suffering was not for Himself alone, but for us. The sensibilities of His human soul were being "made perfect through suffering." He was by this process disciplined to lessen our burdens by participation, to soothe our griefs by sympathy, and to comfort our hearts by the comforts with which His own had been comforted of God. Oh, who would part with this precious truth- Christ, schooled in sorrow, perfected in suffering, a man of grief, with all a man's sensibility, all a man's sympathy, all a man's compassion and yearning! Welcome the affliction, shared, soothed, and sanctified by such a Savior- such a brother- such a Friend.
We cannot, then, conceive of an incident in our Lord's life which presents Him in a light more truly human than that which now engages our thoughts- weeping at the grave! His human sensibilities would now seem to have attained their highest development, and to have found their most exquisite expression. Could He, in touching tenderness, have surpassed it? Does it not in sympathy meet all that we need? Could there be another incident better fitted to elicit the finest feelings of His heart, and to illustrate the noblest traits of His character? Let us examine it more closely.
It was one of the most memorable occasions of His history. Look for a moment at the picture. The first feature that arrests the eye is, the marvellous assemblage, the strange yet perfect blending of opposites, around the lowly grave of Lazarus. Here was bereavement, and the affection that soothed it. Here was death, and the Essential Life that conquered it. Here was the grave, and the Resurrection that emptied it. Here was the melting, weeping sensibility of man, in the closest alliance with the Divine majesty and commanding power of God. What a study! The Creator of all worlds, the Author of all beings, the Upholder of the universe, raining tears of human woe and sympathy upon a grave! But WHY DID JESUS WEEP? Is it possible to analyze
those tears? Let us at least attempt it.
The spectacle of death would stir to its depths His holy sensibility. No being in the universe could form so vivid a conception of death- its pathos as an event, its terribleness as a reality, its ravages as a spoiler, its despotism as a sovereign, and its awful solemnity as a crisis of our being introducing us to the eternal world, as the Son of God! Here stood Essential Life, with Death. To His mind, the fountain of all life- to His heart, pulsating with all that was tender and benevolent- to His eye, familiar with all that was bright and beautiful- what a strange, what a revolting; what a solemn thing must death have appeared! More than this- He beheld the ravages of the spoiler! Imagine the feelings of an artist gazing on a work of art upon which He had concentrated all the loftiest powers of his genius and labor- the best work of his chisel or his pencil- lying shattered at his feet! A faint emblem of Jesus! As the Divine Artificer of man bent over that grave, and with eyes that pierced its deep sepulchral gloom, beheld in the shrouded form the destruction of His masterwork, His Father's image defaced, the temple of the Holy Spirit in ruins, and death's pale conquest proudly planted upon the cold, marble brow of one for whom He was about to shed His most precious blood- Jesus wept!
The love of bereaved friendship would enter deeply into this expression of Christ's sensibility. His affection for this family, to whom He was now proving Himself the "Friend that sticks closer than a brother," was of the tenderest character. He seemed to have found in them another existence, a second self. If this be a correct definition of true friendship, then Jesus realized it in its fulness. Homeless in a world which He had filled with homes for all but Himself, He loved to steal away from its rudeness and turmoil, and nestle His sad and weary spirit in the warm bosom of the home of Bethany,
"And share the inward fragrance of each others heart."
Gently lifting its latch, He might say, "No disappointment here! no upbraidings here! no coldness or unkindness here!" And as He entered, Lazarus would advance to welcome Him, Martha would hasten to spread the evening meal, and Mary would quietly take her place at His feet to hear His words. All loved Him, and each testified their affection in their own way. The first, would illustrate the courtesy of the Christian host; the second, the hospitality of the Christian home; the third, the devout earnestness of the Christian disciple. Hallowed home, where Jesus is a guest! happy, happy family, all whose varied gifts and spheres of duty are consecrated to His service! Reader, see that your home has attractions for Jesus. See that He has good entertainment when He comes- the first of your time, the best of your powers, the supremest of your love. He is worthy- oh, how worthy!- of the highest honor and the sweetest service.
But the home of Bethany was now the scene of mourning. Lazarus was dead! Jesus revisits it, not, as He was wont, to indulge its sunshine, but to share its gloom- not to participate in its joy, but to soothe its grief. It was just the place and the scene where the finest feelings, the deepest sensibilities of His nature would find their freest and their sweetest flow. And as He sat within that house of mourning, and remembered that it was the bereaved home of the friend of His heart, the companion of many a happy hour, the confidant of many a sacred feeling, the sharer and the soother of many a lonely, chafing sorrow- Jesus wept. Are you deploring a like loss? Are you mourning with a like grief? There is One who has known how such a sorrow wrings the sad soul, and bends it down to earth, and is prepared to embosom Himself in it with such a sense of its reality and keenness, and with such a delicacy of feeling and sympathy as no other can. There is a depth of agony and loneliness in the sorrow of bereavement into the secrecy of which the bereaved only can enter. It touches the finest and most hidden springs of the soul. It lies fathoms deep, and seldom passes the lips. The crushed affections- the annihilated hopes- the severed ties of friendship- the grave
entombing life's charm, attraction, and sweetener- quenching the sunbeam that illumined the dreary wilderness- is a grief not always apparent, or that may be known and told, but which yet ploughs the deepest furrows on the brow and silvers the hair with its earliest gray. But, oh, to know that Jesus can enter into its sorrow, is touched with the feeling of this grief, and is prepared to accompany us to the grave and weep with us there, is a solace no language can describe! Precious Jesus! must You feel Your own sorrows thus to enter into ours? Was ever love like Yours!
But not His remembrance alone of the dead but His affection also for the living, His compassion for the bereaved sisters, would contribute not a little to this outgushing of melting tenderness and grief. They were the tears of love. It is a touching parenthesis in the narrative, "Now Jesus loved Martha, and her sister, and Lazarus." That love was the secret of His present tears. He knew what a brother Lazarus had been. How like weak and clinging tendrils these sisters had entwined around him for their sunshine and support. And now that He was removed, they were torn from their support, and lay prostrate and bleeding on the earth. And as He beheld their grief- Martha's impetuous and chiding, Mary's veiled and silent, yet both real, intense, and agonizing- Jesus wept. Beloved reader, the Lord is acquainted with our domestic ties, and takes an interest in each one. No act of kindness, no breach of faith, no tie tenderly cherished or rudely sundered, no duty faithfully discharged or wilfully neglected, no relation honored and sanctified, escapes His all-seeing- approving or condemning- eye. And when death enters and sunders a domestic link, and fills the home with mourning and the heart with woe, Jesus comes and makes all grace abound, giving submission to the will, peace to the mind, and consolation to the heart. Oh, there lives not a being in the universe who can enter into our bereavements with the sympathy, the support, and the soothing of Christ!
From this brief glance at some of the probable causes of Christ's tears on this occasion, let us consider THE WEEPING ITSELF. The emotions of Christ were perfectly true to nature. The Savior dissolved in tears, presents a spectacle of apparent effeminacy of character not in keeping with His dignity and greatness. Yet, was it really so? Tears are not always marks of weakness, they are oftener evidences of power. Springing from the depths of the soul, they are sometimes the exponents of great thoughts, of mighty purposes, of manly feelings, and have a language and a meaning more eloquent and effective than ten thousand tongues. Such were the tears of Jesus. In Him they betrayed no cowardice, exhibited no weakness, expressed no softness of character, but were the interpretation of a sensibility in alliance with the omnipotence of power. Let us not, then, give place to the idea that emotions are indices of a feeble faith in God, of a languid hold upon Christ, of a weakness of Christian character. Ah, no! See how close was the sensibility of Christ's manhood with the power of His Godhead. He wept over the dead like a man- He raised the dead to life like a God! Feeling is an essential element of real religion. A religion that is without feeling, embraces the intellect only, is not true to nature, and is radically and fatally defective. If it enlists but the judgment and not the heart, appeals solely to the intellectual; leaving the emotional of our nature untouched, it is lacking in one of the grand essentials of the religion of Christ. An enlightened perception of sin, a Godly contrition springing from the conviction of its existence and guilt, an experience of pardoning love, a sense of God's goodness, nearness to the cross, a faith's view of Jesus crucified- His dying love, His deep sorrow, His unparalleled agonies, His profound abasement, all, all endured for us- will break up the hidden fount of feeling, will stir our sensibilities to their depth, and dissolve the entire soul in tenderness and tears. Oh, deem not a sensibility like that of the Incarnate God unbefitting the strength and greatness of a natural or a gracious character. Affect not to despise a religious experience, the prominent element of which is emotion. The richest and deepest veins of feeling often underlie the incrusted and rugged surface of our nature. The loftiest genius, the profoundest intellect, and the most manly dignity and courage, have been found in union with a woman's delicacy of perception, tenderness, and sensibility of feeling. Condemn not, then, a religious feeling, the prominent feature of which is tears. It is equally as essential that the heart should be affected as that the judgment should be enlightened; both are indispensable elements of real religion. Weep on, then, you mourner for sin and sorrow- weep!
"Hide not your tears, weep boldly, and be found
To give the flowing virtue manly way
It is nature's mark to know an honest heart by,
Shame on those hearts of stone that cannot melt
In soft adoption of another's sorrow!"
They were also tears of sympathy. We must not omit the sympathetic in Christ's present emotion. His heart was not only touched with a sense of His own personal affliction, but it was also touched, deeply touched, with sympathy for the sorrow of others. He wept because the mourning sisters wept. He mingled His tears with theirs. This is true sympathy, "weeping with those that weep," making their sorrow our own. How really our Lord does this with His people. So completely is He our Surety, that He takes our sins and infirmities, our trials and sorrows upon Himself, as if they were all and entirely His own. Our sins were so completely laid upon Him, that not one remains charged to the account of those who believe in Jesus. And our present griefs are so entirely absorbed in Him, that, softened by His love, soothed by His sympathy, supported by His grace, trial is welcome, affliction is sweet, and the rod of a Father's chastening, buds and blossoms into delectable fruit. Bereaved mourner! the sympathy of Christ is yours! The Savior who wept at the gave of Bethany, now shares your grief and joins your tears. Deem not your sorrow is isolated , or that your tears are forbidden or unseen. You have not a merciful and faithful High Priest who cannot be touched with your present calamity. There exists no sympathy so real, so intelligent, so deep, so tender, so sanctifying as Christ's. And if your heavenly Father has seen it wise and good to remove from you the spring of human pity, it is but that He may draw you closer beneath the wing of the God-man's compassion, presence, and love. O child of sorrow! will not this suffice, that you possess Christ's sympathy, immeasurable and exhaustless as the ocean, exquisite and changeless as His being? Yield your heart to this rich compassion, and then, "though you have laid among the pots, yet shall you be as the wings of a dove covered with silver and her feathers with yellow gold."
Learn a lesson from the practical sympathy of Jesus. Compassion is as luxurious an emotion of our nature, as it is manly and graceful in him who shows it. "To him that is afflicted pity should be showed from his friend." What a sacred privilege to imitate Him "who went about doing
good!" To visit the widow and the fatherless in their distress, the prisoner in his dungeon, the bereaved in their grief, the sick in their solitude, the poor in their need, the fallen in their self-reproach; in a word, to be an angel of comfort to some child of woe from whose bosom hope has fled- this, oh! this is sympathy. Truly,
"No radiant pearl which crested fortune wears,
No gem that, twinkling, hangs from beauty's ears,
Not the bright stars which night's blue arch adorn,
Nor rising suns that gild the vernal morn,
Shine with such luster as the tear that treks
For others' woe down virtue's manly cheeks." (Darwin)
But Christ's emotion was not only in sympathy with grief, but He wept also in sympathy with souls. We think no spectacle presents in idea so vividly the moral sympathy of the Savior- His compassion for the lost- as when He wept over Jerusalem. He was on His way, accompanied by His disciples, to the doomed city. As He reached the brow of Olivet, it burst in magnificence upon His sight. Its high encircling walls, its costly edifices, its splendid palaces, its sacred temple, the central seat of God's chosen people- towering in holy sublimity above them all, was a spectacle which might have impressed His mind at any other time with rapt delight. "But when He was come near, He beheld the city, and wept over it!" And why those tears? He wept because of its impenitence and unbelief- its rejection and slaying of His prophets- its yet more awful and fearful rejection and slaying of Himself. "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you that kill the prophets, and stone those who are sent unto you, how often would I have gathered your children together, even as a hen gathers her chickens under her wings, and you would not!" What must have been its sinfulness, its guilt, its doom, to have made Jesus so sad, to have wrung those tears from the Son of God! Christ's tears over Jerusalem! what a life-like picture of the compassion of Jesus for lost sinners! But more sacred, more precious tears He afterwards shed when He agonized in Gethsemane, and hung upon the cross. Tears of blood then gave expression to the deep, tender, loving compassion of His heart for man, sinful man. And do you think, O weeper over your sins, that this weeping, bleeding Savior will reject you if you come to Him? Never! no, never! The tears of Christ, in their mute, persuasive tenderness, bid you come and be saved. What more could Jesus do?
"The Son of God in tears
The wondering angels see!
Be then astonished, O my soul!
He shed those tears for thee.
He wept that we might weep,
Each sin demands a tear;
In heaven alone no sin is found,
And there's no weeping there."
We will only further remark, that the tears of Christ were associated with prayer. "Who, in the clays of His flesh, when He had offered up prayers and supplications, with strong crying and tears." Christ was a man of prayer. He walked with God as man, and as the Mediator He maintained the closest and most continued communion with His Father. His sensibility did not evaporate in mere emotion- in sighs, and groans, and tears. He turned all into prayer. So let it be with us! Let us not indulge in mere grief; let our grief take us to prayer, urge us to the throne of grace, prompt us to rise and call upon God. And though we breathe our grief, and our needs, and our sins in no language but that of strong crying and tears, yet, He who Himself once so prayed to His Father, will interpret their meaning, and respond to their request.
Deem it not sinful to give free scope to the emotions of your nature. The religion of your Savior encourages not stoicism. It is not the religion of Seneca nor Plato- it is the religion of Jesus! of Him who wept! And although, as we shall see in a subsequent chapter, that, holy joy and chastened cheerfulness are inseparable from the gospel of Christ, that the believer is called upon to rejoice all the day long, yet it is not designed to suppress and crush those finer feelings of our humanity which find their suitable expression in tears of penitence and love, of sadness and sympathy. Do you water your couch with your tears? Are tears your food day and night? Do you feel it a relief to the full heart thus to weep? Weep on, Jesus forbids you not. Only see that your emotions are not in opposition to the mind and dealings of God. Weep, but weep in filial, mute submission to the Divine will. Let not the feeling of rebellion, the emotion of hostility to God, blend with your tears. Then, with David you may pray, "You keep track of all my sorrows. You have collected all my tears in your bottle. You have recorded each one in your book." Psalm 56:8.
BE OFTEN A WEEPER AT THE SAVIOR'S FEET. The woman who was a sinner, who followed Jesus into the house of Simon, and stood behind Him weeping, then stooped and bathed His feet with her tears, found her heaven upon earth in that position and in that act. Simon rebuked, but Jesus encouraged her; the one condemned, the other approved. Man may forbid your tears, and when they fall fast and thick, may deem you weak and sentimental; but Jesus invites and will commend them when you lie at His feet a penitent, loving, grateful disciple. Oh, precious tears that flow from a contrite heart for sin, and from a loving, grateful, subdued sense of its full and free pardon!
"Why, O my soul, why do you weep?
Oh say, from where arise
Those sacred tears that often flow,
Those groans that pierce the skies?
"Is sin the cause of your complaint,
Or the chastising rod?
Do you departed friends lament,
Or mourn an absent God?
"Lord, let me weep for nothing but sin,
And after none but Thee!
And then I would- oh, that I might!
A constant weeper be!"
Have you long been a weeping suppliant at the mercy-seat? And does the vision tarry? Is there no response? Let me remind you of the promises so appropriate to your case, which, perchance, your intense emotion has veiled from your eyes. "Those who plant in tears will harvest with shouts of joy. They weep as they go to plant their seed, but they sing as they return with the harvest." "Weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning." Humble penitent! earnest, sorrowing seeker of Jesus! tried, afflicted child of God! listen yet again to the promise, "You will weep no more. How gracious he will be when you cry for help! As soon as he hears, he will answer you."
When you go to the grave of some loved one to weep and meditate there, take Jesus with you. No mourner will bend with you over that tomb with a deeper sympathy, with tears more real, more warm, more soothing than His. Realizing His presence, you will indulge in a chastened sorrow, blended with a faith that rises above the scene, with a hope that anticipates heaven, and with a love that adores God for all His dealings.
Honored grave, bedewed with Christ's tears! It is pleasant to visit it, holding fellowship with the unseen world, and blending the conscious presence of the Savior with the ideal communion of departed friends. Is it a pious mother's grave? Memory loves to make its pilgrimage there as to the Mecca at whose shrine it kneels, travel where we may. If, of all the graves which bestud the earth, there is one more attractive, more holy, more sacred to Jesus than another, it is this- the precious urn which contains the ashes of a once godly, praying mother! And of all the friends who have shared your sorrow, the first to meet you there will be Him who from the cross, and in the agonies of death, bent His last tender look, and breathed His latest words of love upon- His mother!
Meditate often upon the sensibility of Jesus- it will quicken, sanctify, and soothe your own. If you are an artist- study it. If you are a poet chant it. If you are an orator- extol it. If you are a pastor- preach it. If you are a disciple- imitate it. If you are a mourner- bring to it your keenest, loneliest, deepest grief. "Jesus wept!" ''Was there ever a more interesting portrait than what the evangelist has here drawn of the Son of God? If the imagination were to be employed forever in forming an interesting scene of the miseries of human nature, what could furnish so complete a picture as these words give of Christ at the sight of them- 'Jesus wept!' Here we have at once the evidence how much the miseries of our nature affected the heart of Jesus, and here we have the most convincing testimony, that He partook of all the sinless infirmities of our mature, and was truly and in all points man, as well as God. We are told by one of the ancient writers (Chrysostom), that some weak and injudicious Christians, in his days, were so rash as to strike this verse out of their Bibles, from an idea that it was unsuitable and unbecoming in the Son of God to weep. But we have cause to bless the overruling providence of God, that though they struck it out of their Bibles, they did not from ours. And why those groans at the grave of Lazarus, if tears were improper? Precious Lord! how refreshing to my soul is the consideration that forasmuch as the children were partakers of flesh and blood, You likewise did take part of the same; that in all things it behooved You to be made like Your brethren. Hence, when my poor heart is afflicted, when Satan storms, or the world frowns, or Your waves and Your billows go over me, oh, what relief is it to know that Jesus looks on and sympathizes! Then do I say, 'Will not Jesus, who wept at the grave of Lazarus, feel for me? Shall I look up to Him, and look in vain? Did Jesus, when upon earth, know what these exercises were, and was His precious soul made sensible of distress even to tears, and will He be regardless of what I feel, and the sorrows under which I groan? Oh no! The sigh that bursts in secret from my heart is not secret to Him; the tear that is my food day and night, and drops unperceived and unknown, is known and remembered by Him. Though now exalted at the right hand of power, where He has wiped away all tears from off all faces, yet He himself still retains the feelings and the character of the 'Man of sorrows, and of one well acquainted with grief.' Help me, Lord, thus to look up to You, and thus to remember You." (Hawker) Precious and holy is the divine precept, illustrated and enforced by so divine an example- "Weep with those who weep." Oh, it is the richest luxury on earth to share the sorrow, by the sympathy of another; to soothe the grief, by the gentleness of another; to wipe away the tears, by the kindness of another. This Christ did, and we are to prove our discipleship to Him by imitating His example. "Remember those who are in bonds, as bound with, them"- sharing their chain; "and those who suffer adversity, as being yourselves also in the body"- exposed to like weaknesses and assaults, calamities and griefs. Oh, aspire, beloved! to be a drier of human tears; to have a hand always ready to wipe them away! Who can estimate its worth? To have soothed one human sorrow, to have met one pressing need, to have unbound one crushing load, to have dried one tear of grief, to have shed one beam of light upon a dreary path, to have reclaimed one wanderer, to have made the widow's heart to sing for joy, to have befriended and soothed an orphan, oh! it is a work to be measured in its importance and its blessedness only by a life. Again, we repeat, let your life be an outflowing sympathy with the distressed and the needy, the widow and the fatherless. Be Christ-like, who "went about doing good;" -raise the fallen, strengthen the weak, comfort the feeble-minded; and if tears of compassion and sympathy will soothe and mitigate the tears of penitence and adversity, then be it your mission and your privilege to "weep with those who weep!"
In heaven there will be no more tears! It is tearless, because it is sorrowless; it is sorrowless, because it is sinless; it is sinless, because it is the dwelling-place of the holy Lord God and of the "spirits of just men made perfect." How magnificent the description! "And God shall wipe away all tears from, their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain." Such is the condition of the New Jerusalem- the new earth and the new heaven in which the risen and glorified saints will dwell and reign forever with Jesus at His coming. "He will swallow up death in victory; and the Lord God will wipe away tears from all faces." Then there will be no more tears of penitence, for there shall be no more sin. There will be no more tears of parting, for they shall go no more out. There will be no more tears of bereavement, for there will be no more death. "The Lamb who is in the midst of the throne shall feed them, and shall lead them unto living fountains of waters, and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes."
Tears of love! behold them flowing
From the Elder Brother's eye!
See Him as a mourner going
To the grave at Bethany!
He, who through its shadowy portal
Summoned back the freed immortal,
He, whose all-commanding word
Sheathed the gloomy victor's sword-
There, where buried friendship sleeps,
He, our own Emmanuel, weeps.

Tears of pity! see them gushing
From their pure and sacred fount!
Angels! your hosannas hushing,
Bend you from the holy mount.
Stoop to read the wondrous story,
How the "Father's brightest glory"
At a sinner's grave can stand,
Mourner 'mid a mourning band,
With the heart, the voice, the eye
Of a perfect sympathy!

Tears of Jesus! while I ponder,
Blessed comfort let me reap;
"That same Jesus" lives up yonder
Who on earth was wont to weep.
Though His brow the rainbow wears
Yet my thorny crown He shares;
Yet that loving heart Divine
Throbs responsively to mine
Not a struggling sigh can rise,
But it is echoed in the skies.

Blessed Jesus! in Your sorrow,
Friends and kindred passed You by;
You alone could never borrow
The support of sympathy.
When Your human heart was bursting,
When your parched lips were thirsting,
When encompassed with the foe,
Mocking at Your bitter woe,
You, who had a heart for all,
Drank alone Your cup of gall.

Now in glory, where You dwell,
All unknown is sorrow's look,
Yet Your people's tears You tell,
"Are they not within Your book?"
While my "night of weeping" lasts,
Before the morn its brightness casts,
My blest portion may it be,
That You weepest, Lord, with me!
And one day, with heart and voice
In Your joy may I rejoice! (Ellen Willis)

The Emotion of Anger in Christ

And when he had looked round about on them with anger, being grieved for the hardness of their hearts, he saith unto the man, Stretch forth thine hand. And he stretched it out: and his hand was restored whole as the other. Mark 3:5

He looked around at them in anger and, deeply distressed at their stubborn hearts, said to the man, "Stretch out your hand." He stretched it out, and his hand was completely restored. Mark 3:5

He looked around at them angrily, because he was deeply disturbed by their hard hearts. Then he said to the man, "Reach out your hand." The man reached out his hand, and it became normal again! Mark 3:5

It is not in partial light that our Lord's emotional nature must be studied. Like lines radiating to a center, or the varied hues forming the arch which spans the heavens, His emotions must be considered, not separately and divisibly, but in combination and as a whole, in order to form a correct idea of the portrait. The incident, thus related in His life, presents a feeling differing in its expression, though not in its nature, from any we have as yet considered; and at first sight He appear, in a character less lovely and engaging than we have been wont to admire. That the emotion of anger should find a place in a heart so loving and gracious would seem discordant with all our tender, holy conceptions of the "gentleness of Christ." But, as we investigate the emotion and the occasion which gave birth to it, we think it will appear consonant with the finest and holiest feelings of His heart, and will develop those qualities of His nature which are necessary to the symmetry and perfection of the portrait. Let it, however, be premised, before we proceed further in this subject, that anger, wrath, displeasure, are not the same sinful passions in the Divine that they are in the human. Pure emotions in God, they are expressions of His hatred and punishment of sin, growing out of the holy necessity of His being. God's anger and wrath in punishing the ungodly is nothing less than His holiness and justice in their most awful exercise.
The cross of Calvary was the most august and awful illustration of this truth the universe ever beheld. The spectacle which presents Jesus suffering as the Surety Head of His Church, exhibits Him as enduring the wrath of God to its uttermost, justly due for His people's transgressions. What was the bitter cup our Lord then drained- what the soul-agony He then felt- what the bodily suffering He then experienced- what the ignominious death He then endured, but God's hatred of sin, and the infliction of its penalty in the person of His beloved Son, suffering as the substitute of His Church? "He was made sin (a sin-offering) for us, who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Min." Child of God there is no divine wrath, or anger, or displeasure in the bitterest, darkest dispensation of your God- since Christ, our Divine Surety and Head, endured and exhausted it all for you. Fear not, then, to enter the dark cloud- tremble not to drink the bitter cup- all, all is love.
We now proceed to view in its spiritual light the Incident and the Emotion.

THE INCIDENT.
The first circumstance which arrests our attention is- THE WITHERED HAND. We read, "And He entered again into the synagogue; and there was a man there which had a withered hand." This affliction may be regarded either as a divine judgment, or as a natural infirmity. Instances of both occur in God's Word. As a judgment of God, we have an intimation and solemn example in Jeroboam. With unhallowed rashness He put forth his hand to seize the prophet who denounced his idolatrous altar, and God smote and withered it. And so we read, "His hand, which He put forth against him, was dried up, so that He could not pull it in again to him." (1 Kings xiii. 4.) The lesson is solemn and instructive! The hand that would profanely rear idolatrous altars, or that would rashly deal with those who denounce them, Jehovah can dry up. The hand that, with unhallowed touch, would assail the truth of God's Word- or which would uphold and advance His kingdom and truth by means human and worldly, distrusting the power and faithfulness of God- He can smite and wither. We have to deal with a God jealous of His honor, who has said, "My glory will I not give to another," and who in regard to His servants has said, "Touch not my anointed, and do my prophets no harm." In the case of the king of Israel, then, the withered arm was a judgment of God. But in the present instance it appears not to have been a divine punishment, but a natural infirmity, permitted and overruled by God to confirm the mission, and to illustrate the grace and power of Christ.
Now let us trace ITS SPIRITUAL TEACHING. In this withered hand we behold the emblem of the moral withering of the soul of man. The moment our first father stretched forth his hand to partake of the forbidden fruit, all his original righteousness, strength, and love withered, decayed, and dried up; and we, his posterity, are the spiritually paralyzed and shriveled limbs of a once stately tree God smote and destroyed. "It is written, There is none righteous, no, not one there is none that understands, there is none that seeks after God. They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that does good, no, not one." It is of the utmost moment to our salvation that we should know our nature just as it is. Essentially defective views of original and actual depravity lie at the root of essentially defective views of the Atonement. There floats before the imagination of man an unreal conception of natural goodness and power, which it is of infinite importance we should dislodge and dispel from the mind. The sacrificial work of Christ is built upon the spiritual ruin of the creature- the glory of the divine upon the utter wreck of the human. Nothing of man shall mingle with the work of God. We see the foreshadowing of this in the law given to the children of Israel, "You shall not sow your field with mingled seed; neither shall a garment mingled with, linen and woollen come upon you." The law, too, defining the construction of an altar, illustrates the same idea, "If you will make an altar of stone, you shall not build it of hewn stone for if you lift up your tool upon it, you have polluted it." God would here teach that the divine garment of Christ's justifying righteousness is not to be interwoven with the fabric of man's righteousness; and that in the uprearing of that one Altar upon which the Atoning Sacrifice of Christ was to be laid, no human weapon was to be employed. In the stupendous matter of our salvation Christ shall be the Alpha and the Omega. With Him the gospel plan originated- by Him it was revealed- by Him it was executed- and in His undivided glory and endless praise it shall forever terminate. From every tongue in glory, and through the high arches of heaven, the anthem shall peal, "Worthy is the Lamb!" Believer in Christ! Does not your soul pant to join in that song? and does not your spirit exult in the truth that salvation, from first to last, is of God? Oh, how precious is this truth in the consciousness of our many failures and defects! Our salvation is all in Christ- our righteousness is all in Christ- our merit is all in Christ- our completeness is all in Christ- in Christ our Covenant Head, our Surety and Mediator; and no flaw in our obedience, no defect in our love, no failure in our service, should so cast us down as to shut our eye to our acceptance in the Beloved. Imperfections we would not overlook, sin we would not allow, disobedience we would not indulge, temptation we would not encourage; nevertheless, we would ever remember, for our encouragement that, in default of perfection in the most perfect of our own doings, we are fully and eternally complete in Jesus.
What a tendency, too, is there in the believer, in consequence of this utter drying up of original holiness and power, to a withering and decay of grace in the soul! How many who looked like green fir-trees, tall cedars in Lebanon, have to mourn over spiritual declensions, the loss of vital power, the decay of faith, and the waning of love through indwelling sin, neglect of means of grace, the indulgence and seductions of the world! Thus, the breath of prayer is languid, the fervor of affection is faint, and all the spiritual powers and functions of the soul seem paralyzed. How many such withered arms, dried up as to the socket, are found in our Christian churches! How are the holiness, beauty, and strength of the Church shaded, marred, and impaired by innumerable cases of dried-up vitality, withered spirituality, decay, and weakness found within her membership. Alas! how few exhibit marks of spiritual healthiness, growing grace, increasing holiness, love, and divine conformity!
But let us turn from the patient to the PHYSICIAN- from the sinner to the Savior. It appears that on entering the synagogue to preach His own gospel, our Lord's quick eye lighted upon one of the hearers who had a withered hand. Moved by the impulse of His own benevolence, He selected him from the multitude and resolved upon his cure. The scribes and Pharisees, ever on the watch to baffle His designs and impeach His sanctity, seized the opportunity suggested by this work of mercy on the Sabbath-day, to accuse Him with the crime of its desecration. Then follows the expression of His displeasure- the emotion which this chapter of our work illustrates. "He looked round about on them with anger." And what was the nature of this anger which our Lord here expressed? We must acknowledge that never did He appear more unlike Himself than now, and yet never was He more truly so! Had He not exposed the hypocrisy and denounced the malevolence of these whited sepulchers with all the burning, withering, holy indignation of which He was master, then a cloud had shaded some of the brightest beams of His character. Christ was angry, but He did not sin. This could not be the case with us. Let us rebuke sin, let us chide the fall, the error, the inconsistency of a brother faithfully, tenderly, gently as we may, the infirmity and imperfection of our fallen humanity will yet taint and shade it. But this feeling of anger in the heart of Christ was a pure and holy passion, an emotion embodying the deepest hatred of sin with the tenderest compassion for the sinner. Another instance in His life illustrates the same emotion. Entering the temple on one occasion, He discerned men of the same type and mold desecrating the sacred edifice by unholy traffic- turning His Father's house into a mart of merchandise, and converting the place of the Just One into a den of thieves. His righteous soul was moved with holy indignation at the spectacle. "When He had made a scourge of small cords, He drove them all out of the temple." And in what light did His disciples interpret this act? They "remembered that it was written, The zeal of your house has eaten me up." Zeal for the glory of His Father self-consumed Him. On another and a memorable occasion, we find our Lord hurling the thunders of His wrath and indignation against the entire Sanhedrin, exposing their false doctrine, unmasking their sanctimoniousness, denouncing their hypocrisy, and branding their unholy lives with the most appalling woes that ever flashed from mortal lips. Never did the emotion of anger stir a bosom more gentle, or yet assume a form or speak in terms more dreadful. Never did the Lamb of God seem more unlike Himself, and yet never was He more really Himself as now. Beneath the surface of His demeanor, thus broken into the dark waves of a righteous indignation against sin, flowed the deepest, warmest currents of benevolence, gentleness, and love that ever glided through the channels of our humanity. We see, then, that Christ's anger was holiness clad in its judicial vesture- it was the anger of holiness.
The wrath of God, as experienced by the eternally lost, suggests another and yet more appalling illustration of this truth. Divine justice, as measured to those who have irretrievably passed the boundaries of hope, and who inhabit the regions of dark and changeless despair, is nothing more than Divine purity in its most appalling and overwhelming exercise. It is Divine justice, unarrested by mercy; it is Divine wrath, unappeased by blood; it is Divine holiness, unclothed with the attribute of grace. Hell is kindled with the untempered, unmixed, unmitigated anger of the holy and righteous Lord God. The day is foreappointed, and it speeds on, when the awfully sublime scene depicted by John will have its full, its terrible consummation: "And the sky was rolled up like a scroll and taken away. And all of the mountains and all of the islands disappeared. Then the kings of the earth, the rulers, the generals, the wealthy people, the people with great power, and every slave and every free person—all hid themselves in the caves and among the rocks of the mountains. And they cried to the mountains and the rocks, 'Fall on us and hide us from the face of the one who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb. For the great day of their wrath has come, and who will be able to survive?'" "The wrath of the Lamb!" What is it? Who can describe, who can fathom, who can stand before it? It can only be conceived or estimated by the glory from which He descended, the humiliation to which He stooped, the sufferings which He endured, and the sacrifice which He offered in order to save sinners. A wilful, unbelieving, and persisted rejection of such a Redeemer and of such a redemption must enkindle in the bosom whose slighted mercy it wounds, a holy, just, and righteous displeasure as infinite and august as the benevolence that warmed it. It is the wrath of Incarnate Deity- of Him who sorrowed in Gethsemane, who bled on Calvary, and who gave His life a ransom for many. It is the wrath of Him who said, "You will not come unto me that you might have life." "Him that come unto me I will in never cast out." It is the wrath of Him who pardons the guiltiest, who reclaims the vilest, who saves to the uttermost- who holds out His hand all day long to poor, lost sinners, rushing past it in scorn and madness to swift destruction, choosing death rather than life. Unconverted reader! the judgment is approaching, the great white throne will descend, the books will be opened, the dead will be raised, and all, all will confront this gracious or this angered Lamb of God. From His presence there will be no escape. Every eye shall see Him. The mountains will not hide you, the rocks will not shelter you, the grave will not retain you, the sea will not entomb you, but when the trumpet of the archangel sounds, at that bar you must stand, and by that Redeemer you must be judged.
"But before the trumpet shakes
The mansions of the dead,
Hark, from the gospel's gentle voice
What joyful tidings spread!"
"You sinners, seek His grace
Whose wrath you cannot bear,
Fly to the shelter of His cross,
And find salvation there."

Let us proceed to examine THE HEALING OF THE WITHERED HAND, and its gospel significance. The first step in the process was the separation of the man from the multitude. "He said unto the man who had the withered hand, Stand forth." Is it not by a like process Jesus initiates our spiritual healing, as we have shown at length in the preceding chapter? He takes us, by His providence, out of the midst of the world, sets us apart from others, severs us often from our home and kindred and country, and then graciously draws us to Himself. "The Lord has set apart him who is godly for Himself." Saints are an emphatically separated people, a chosen generation, a church taken out of the world, sanctified or set apart for God. Oh, with what deep emphasis of feeling will you thank the Lord through eternity if the waning of health, or the loss of property, or the vicissitudes of friendship severed the cords, broke the links, that too closely, too inordinately, and too idolatrously bound you to the multitude; and thus alluring you into the desolateness and solitude of the wilderness, there spoke graciously, tenderly to your heart.
The next step in the curative process was Christ's command to the man, "Stretch forth your hand." Perchance some beholders of the scene may have thought this a heartless mockery of the poor man's infirmity, or laughed to scorn what appeared an utter impossibility. To extend, by self-effort, a limb shrunk to its socket, all whose sinews and muscles were paralyzed and withered, would seem a thriftless, hopeless task. Yet such was the command of the Great Healer. By this act Jesus, the Heavenly Teacher, would instruct us in the mystery of a higher healing that, spiritual impotency did not destroy moral responsibility in man- that, though the fall has changed man's original relation to God as a holy being, it has not touched his relation to God as a moral, responsible, and accountable being; that, what was man's duty and obligation when He wandered through Eden unsullied and happy, is still his duty and obligation now that he is a fugitive from paradise, roaming in misery and woe the face of a sin-blighted and curse-smitten world. " God commands all men everywhere to repent." Stricken through with a spiritual paralysis, which has benumbed all your moral powers, dried up the spring of love to God, and withered the right arm of your strength- conclusive and affecting evidence of your moral condition as a fallen being, and of your need of the new birth- Christ commands you to stretch forth the debilitated hand; in other words, to believe in Him to the salvation of your soul. The spiritual hand is withered, but still it is the hand of a reasonable, responsible, and immortal being. The Bible addresses you as endowed with a mind that can examine and feel the force of evidence- with a will that can choose, with a heart that can feel, with a conscience that can dictate; and thus, in the face of evidence the most convincing, of love the most unparalleled, of motives the most over-powering, God commands you to repent and believe- to repent and believe now. Stretch forth the withered hand, ground the weapons of your rebellion, cease your hostility, and fall in the dust at His feet. Cease to do evil- learn to do well. Have you no spiritual strength or power, inclination or will? Is the heart insensible, the conscience callous, the mind dark and inert to spiritual and eternal things? This is no excuse for your inactivity and indifference. I admit your moral inability, your utter lack of power, of will, and of heart to what is holy and spiritual; and in making this solemn admission, I but confirm the fact of your deep sinfulness, guiltiness, absolute and entire need of the Spirit's quickening, regenerating grace. "Repent therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out."

With the command to extend the withered hand, there went forth the Divine power to obey. "And He stretched it out." When Christ had recognized the rationality and responsibility of the man, He then performed His part of the cure, which was- the cure itself. Man's duty to obey, Christ's prerogative to heal, and the Divine blessing ever attendant upon immediate and unquestioning obedience to God's commands, are lessons of practical truth and wisdom, beautifully and strikingly illustrated and enforced in this part of our narrative. The injunctions, warnings, and invitations of God's Word relax nothing of their authority, and lessen in no degree human obligation, in consequence of moral inability in the creature. Whatever may be our spiritual infirmity, impotency, and disinclination; God remains the same- infinitely holy in His nature, eternal and immutable in his law. Apply this to your present condition as a soul conscious of the spiritual withering, and standing as if in the presence of the healing Savior. What is the command of Jesus to you? "Look unto me, and be you saved." "Do you believe that I am able to do this?" Simply, then, to believe in the word of Christ, is tantamount to the command- "Stretch forth throe hand." See! that infirmity is no barrier to your coming. Your heart may be hard, insensible, impure; you may be mournfully conscious of manifold infirmities and impediments; you may turn the eye from the Divine Healer to the poor debilitated limb, looking now at the Savior, and anon at your sins, wondering if one so weak and sinful, so poor and wretched, so grace-neglecting, so hell-deserving, may venture to touch so divine, so holy, so rejected a Savior as Jesus is- but this reasoning, this hesitation, need not, must not be. Come, beloved, with the withered limb, approach with the poor, trembling, debilitated hand of faith; with one more effort, one more resolve, a last, a final venture- the crowning one of all- and, oh, you are saved!
"Jesus! full of all compassion,
Hear Your humble suppliant's cry,
Let me know Your great salvation
See! I languish, faint, and die.
"In the world of endless ruin,
Let it never, Lord, be said,
Here's a soul that perished suing
For the boasted Savior's aid!
"Saved! the deed shall spread new glory
Through the shining realms above;
Angels sing the pleasing story
All enraptured with Your love."

We are thus conducted to THE CURE. And now the Savior appears truly Himself. Now He vindicates His proceedings from all suspicion of unsympathizing trifling with the poor man's infirmity, unveils His ineffable benevolence, and manifests His merciful design. It was a perfect cure. "And his hand was restored whole as the other." "Whole as the other!" Christ's cures are not half cures. Perfection traces all that He does- whether He paints a lily or rears a mountain, heals the body or redeems the soul, like Himself, all His ways and works are perfect. When God justifies the sinner, it is a perfect justification- he is "justified from all things." When He adopts the soul, He fully and inalienably adopts- "Now are we the sons of God." When He pardons the guilty, He entirely and forever pardons- "having forgiven you all trespasses." The Lord has left nothing in our salvation for us to supply, nothing in the gospel plan for man to supplement. It is on the basis of a finished work the believer stands- his Lord and Surety having done all, suffered all, given all that law and justice demanded for the present redemption and the future glory of His Church. "When we were without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly." " Without strength." When the arm was paralyzed and withered, Jesus then undertook the cure; and, undertaking, He perfected it, Nothing has He left for us to add- not a tear of repentance to His tears of grief; not a groan of sorrow to His groans of agony; not a drop of blood to His vital stream; not an atom of merit to His infinite and all-sufficient worthiness. Lift up your heart, then, depressed child of God- rejoice in the Lord greatly. He has perfected the cure of your soul. All your salvation is in Christ, and God has pardoned and accepted you without a single work of your own, rests in His love, and rejoices over you with singing. Blessed Savior put forth the power of Your grace in our souls, and perfect that which concerns us. You have completed our justification, complete our sanctification, and mature us fully for glory. Subdue our iniquities, weaken the power of inbred sin, quicken our sensibilities to all that is holy and spiritual, deaden them to all that is earthly and carnal, and bring our souls into a closer communion with the solemn, invisible realities of eternity. "Heal us, O Lord, and eve shall be healed."
In CONCLUSION, let me remark, if Christ is grieved at our unbelief, what must be the joy which our faith gives Him! If our hardness of heart shades His countenance, how must that countenance gleam with holy delight over the soul subdued in penitent love at His feet! Think it not presumption, then, to travel to Jesus with the withered hand- with a chilled love, with declension of grace, with weakness of faith, with low frames, and with a tempted, tried, and wounded spirit. Jesus Christ makes you whole. Christ is for the poor and needy and empty- for those who have no helper. It is said of David, the type of Christ, that, there gathered unto him within the cave of Adullam "every one that was in distress, and every one that was in debt, and every one that was discontented, and He became a captain over them." Around the glorious Antitype, Jesus the Son of David, there gathers- received and welcomed- all who are in spiritual distress, who are in debt to the law of God, having nothing to pay, who are discontented with the world, with the creature, with themselves; and, lo, Jesus becomes the Captain of their salvation! We repeat, Christ is for the necessitous, the bruised, the outcast, the bankrupt; and, withered though may be your spiritual strength and beauty- withered the flower and fruit of holiness and grace- withered the heart's young springs of love, its gushing streams of sympathy- all its early sensibilities, yearnings, and hopes crushed and withered, blighted and beclouded- the gloom and desolateness of winter mantling and chilling the bright landscape of life, yet Jesus' heart expands, and invites you to the asylum of its warm, fathomless, changeless love!
Do not be weary nor discouraged in the Lord's service. Like your Savior, many will seek to thwart, impeach, and wound you in your work of faith and labor of love for Christ. Heed them not. Rejoice if you are counted worthy to be identified with your Lord and Master in suffering for righteousness' sake. "Consider Him. who endured such, contradiction of sinners against himself, lest you be weary and faint in your minds."
Let us seek grace that the emotion of anger in our breasts may more closely assimilate with the emotion of anger in Christ's- a holy anger against sin, blended with a loving, yearning compassion for the sinner. Such is the Divine precept: "Be angry, and sin not: let not the sun go down upon your wrath." When this emotion springs from zeal for God, His truth, and worship, and glory, and when it prompts us to seek, in the spirit of meekness, humility, and love, the good of those whose conduct we condemn, it then becomes in us, what it was in Christ, a holy, amiable, God-honoring emotion, unmixed with sin and self, and throwing no shadow of sadness upon the mellow light of evening, when the sun goes down at the hour of prayer.
If, on the contrary, you find this emotion rising in your bosoms, in its sinful, fleshly, and corrupt form, lose not a moment in bringing it to the cross, that by the love, the sufferings, the last prayer for the forgiveness of injury of Him who died upon its wood, that species of anger which dwells alone in the bosom of fools, may be crucified and slain in you. Seek not mercy from your fellows, and ask not forgiveness from your Father, while unholy anger against a brother or a sister finds a moment's lodgment within your heart. It has been well remarked, that, "some who profess to bury their wrongs, do but embalm them; and a busy and eager memory keeps unbroken all the lineaments of the injury they have received." But with what sincerity of confession, and with what hope of pardon can such approach suppliantly the Father's footstool, and ask, for sins and wrongs against that Father infinitely more numerous and aggravated, the forgiveness which cancels forever the guilt and the memory of all? O beloved! imitate Him who overcame evil with good; and "let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamor, and evil-speaking be put away from you, with all malice; and be kind one to another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's salve has forgiven you."
Saint of God? in the light of His love interpret the frowns of your Father's displeasure. The hidings of His face, the rebukes of His word, the smitings of His hand, are but the muffled tones of love. They fall upon your wakeful ear like a dirge; nevertheless they are the deep and solemn utterances of Divine affection, compassion, and sympathy. They are correctives for sin, but they are the correctives of a Father, hating your sin, but loving you His child. "You shall also consider in your heart, that, as a man chastens his son, so the Lord your God chastens you." Humbling yourself under the chastening hand of God, you will rise up instructed, purified, and God-like, exclaiming, as the discipline passes away, leaving nothing but its hallowed effects and its grateful memory- "O Lord, I will praise you: though you were angry with me, your anger is turned away, and you comfort me."

The Silence of Christ

But he answered her not a word. And his disciples came and besought him, saying, Send her away; for she crieth after us. Matthew 15:23

Jesus did not answer a word. So his disciples came to him and urged him, "Send her away, for she keeps crying out after us." Matthew 15:23

But Jesus gave her no reply—not even a word. Then his disciples urged him to send her away. "Tell her to leave," they said. "She is bothering us with all her begging." Matthew 15:23

The silence of Christ! How unlike the winning, glowing conceptions we had been wont to form of His responsive compassion and sympathy! Is it really Christ or some other being of whom these words speak? If it really is Christ whose lips are now so mute to an appeal so touching, how are we to interpret the silence? What are the lessons it conveys?
The reader, conversant with his Bible, will be familiar with the narrative which gave birth to this instructive incident of our Lord's life. It was one of those peculiar and touching instances of our fallen and infirm nature with which humanity alone could sympathize, and which Deity alone could meet. It was a mother eliciting the compassion and invoking the aid of the Savior on behalf of her daughter, demoniacally possessed. Surely no petitioner ever approached Him with a case more calculated immediately to unseal the deepest, warmest springs of His benevolent, sympathizing humanity. How touching, earnest, and irresistible her appeal: "Have mercy on me, O Lord, Son of David; my daughter is grievously vexed with a devil." And yet He was silent. "But He answered her not a word." With the depth and tenderness of a mother's love Christ was personally acquainted. He had felt its warm throbbings in infancy; He was subject to its gentle influence in youth; and in manhood, when the sun of His human life was sinking in shame, agony, and death, its last, its latest rays rested in filial affection and solicitude upon his mother. If, then, there were a request, the tenderness, urgency, and importunity of which it would seem impossible He should resist, it was this mother's. And yet He was silent! Not a look expressed His recognition, not a word His sympathy, not an action His response. But oh, what a silence was this! More significant and expressive far its meaning than syllables could utter or deeds embody. Beneath that veil of muteness were concealed some of the most magnificent traits of Christ's character, and some of the tenderest pulsations His heart ever displayed. Nothing can be more evident, from the sequel of the narrative, than that Christ was revolving in his mind thoughts and purposes of love and help towards this woman- that the largeness of His grace and the outgushings of His compassion were about to weave a diadem for the head of that faith which had now so signally crowned Him. Dropping for a moment the narrative, let us examine the illustration which it affords of a page in GOD'S VARIED DEALINGS WITH HIS SAINTS- the silence of Christ towards His people.
There are but few believers who have not passed this stage of Christian experience, or who may not yet add this chapter to the solemn and instructive volume of their own spiritual history. Few trials of faith and prayer are more keen, and few paths in our homeward march more lone and dreary than this. The absence of Christ, in the experience of believers, creates a sadness and a void no other can soothe or supply. For, as the clinging vine cannot be dissevered from its support without laceration and loneliness, so the Christ-loving, Christ-clinging heart cannot part with the Savior's presence, strength, and communion, without the consciousness of a loss which no created good could remunerate. It is blessed to feel that there is One Being in the universe to whom the heart travels as its center, and reposes in as its rest, that Being is Jesus. Oh, what dreariness can there be, what sadness and solitude, while the soul, as it ascends from the wilderness, leans upon its Beloved, and travels homeward to His glorified presence! Christ's presence makes a heaven of earth, Christ's absence would make an earth of heaven. And yet there is sometimes this peculiar experience in the history of the saints- the silence of the Lord. There may be in prayer no sensible audience; in sorrow no conscious soothing; in difficulty no immediate support; in appeal no audible response; and this silence of Christ is more painful and discouraging than though every other lip in the universe were eternally mute! Mark how keenly David felt this trial of faith. Listen to his appeal: "Do not be silent unto me, O God, lest if you be silent unto me, I become like them who go down into the pit." Listen to Job: "O that God would speak unto me." But speak! Any utterance of His voice that would break the awful silence! Let Him chide, let Him rebuke, let, Him refuse me- anything but the silence of my God! Oh that He would but speak unto me! Let us illustrate, by a few examples, this peculiar phase of Christian experience- the Lord's silence towards His people.
There is sometimes a silence in the Word of God which to the spiritual mind is deeply significant and instructive. Are there not doctrines and revelations and statements in the Bible around which a solemn silence reigns- a silence which eternity alone will break? In our understanding of these truths, we can advance no further than the voice of God is heard- beyond that, no angel-tongue dare break the mysterious stillness. There is, for example, a solemn silence on the revealed doctrine of the Trinity. We believe, on the authority of the Bible, that there are three Persons in the one Godhead- Father, Son, and Holy Spirit- that these three are personally distinct, yet essentially and indivisibly one. As to the mode of their existence, there is a divine and awful silence, to penetrate which we must not, we dare not, venture. There is a silence of Scripture, too, touching the equally revealed yet equally mysterious doctrines of the incarnation of the Son of God- the substitution and vicarious sacrifice of Christ- the election and sovereignty of Divine grace, and other cognate doctrines of the Bible, the existence of which in the Inspired Word is as clear as the sunshine bathing the throne of God in heaven.
But what is the great and holy lesson the Holy Spirit would convey by this striking feature of revealed truth? It is, to be silent when God is silent! How constantly is the human mind tempted to speculate and philosophize and reason about Divine truth! to attempt to sound that which is unfathomable, to unveil that for which there is no clue, to understand that which baffles speculation, transcends reason, and, like Him whose truth it is, enfolds itself in inexplicable and awful mystery. Enough of God's mind is revealed to show us how we may be saved, and this must suffice for our present limited range of thought and knowledge. We know but in part. The fall has be-dwarfed, and sin has obscured our mental perceptions; and God, in giving a revelation of His mind and will to man, has wisely and consistently withheld such discoveries as would have dazzled and blinded with their excessive light and luster our feeble and limited powers. Stand in awe, then, of God's Word, and sin not by indulging in vain, speculative attempts to break down the barriers which He has erected around the Sacred Volume. It were impious to tread where God has provided no footing, to tear the veil with which He has encircled the Sacred Ark, to raise the lid and peer into its awful mysteries with a curious, carnal, and forbidden glance. "Who by searching can find out God? who can understand the Almighty to perfection?" Leave the mode of the Divine existence to the explanation- if, indeed, it ever will be explained- of a higher and more perfect state of knowledge. Cease to speculate respecting the origin of sin- the permission of evil- the apparent discrepancies of revealed truth- the mysteries of the Divine government in the world- the few that are saved- the unrevealed details of the future world; leave these questions where God has left them- in solemn, awful, unbroken silence; and let reason give way to faith, and pride to humility; and vain speculation to adoring wonder, gratitude, and love. The only fact necessary for you to know is- that you are lost. The only question worthy your research is- how you may be saved. And both of these are revealed in the Bible with a distinctness and emphasis unmistakable and overpowering. You are lost- but the "Son of man came to seek and to save that which was lost." You may be saved- for "Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners." You are guilty- but "the blood of God's Son cleanses us from all sin." And to know from experience this, is all that is essential to your salvation to know, until God perfects you in the holiness and knowledge of heaven. Oh, seek to work out this great problem of your life- "Am I saved? am I in Christ? have I Christ in me? shall I be in heaven when I die?" It will essentially aid you in this momentous inquiry if you come to the study of the gospel of Jesus with the lowliness, docility, and trustfulness of a little child. With such a spirit can you alone receive into your soul the kingdom of God. Listen to the words of the great Teacher come from God- "Verily I say unto you, Whoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child, He shall not enter therein." The apostle lays down the same rule- "If any man among you seems to be wise in this world, let him become a fool, that He may be wise." Solemn verities are these! Let them sink down into your heart, that the Word of God may be quick and powerful- the word of light, life, and salvation to your soul. Settle it in your mind as a fixed principle guiding your researches into God's Word, that on all subtle questions of speculative theology Jesus Christ, the Eternal Word, is silent. Touching the origin and permission of evil- Christ answers not a word. Touching the mystery of the incarnation- Christ answers not a word. In explanation of the harmony of Divine providence with human freedom- election and sovereignty- the eternal Sonship- the vicarious substitution of the Savior- the regeneration of man by the Spirit- the details of the future relation of the soul- Christ answers not a word. When He is silent, it behooves us to be silent. Presume not, then, to plunge, rashly and profanely, into these profound abysses of Divine mystery, but rather bow before them in faith, love, and obedience, and let both your ignorance and your science be alike docile, receptive, and trustful. The mysteries of Christianity imply no deficiency in revelation; and because you have no line with which to sound its depths, you are not the less saved if you embrace, in the faith of a humble, penitent, and believing sinner, the great Atonement of the Son of God. Believe and love now, and you will one day know all that God will reveal or you can comprehend.
Conversion, too, is often a work of silence. With what invisible, noiseless power does the kingdom of Christ's grace make its advent into the soul! Real conversion is a marvellous work. No miracle ever wrought approaches it in vastness and wonder. What a mighty moral revolution is passing- what a stupendous work is being wrought- what a magnificent edifice is rising- what a holy temple is forming in the soul! And yet, like that of old- in the construction of which "there was neither hammer nor axe, nor any tool of iron heard in the house while it was in building"- not a sound is heard; so gentle, so noiseless, so quiet is the movement of the Spirit upon the heart. Gentle as the day-dawn of light, still as the night-fall of dew, enters Christ's grace into the soul, and lo! as in a moment, a new creation in Christ Jesus bursts into view, and all the sons of God sing together for joy.
We trace Christ's silence, too, in the advancing process of sanctification. A great conflict is passing within the soul between the law of the flesh and the law of the mind; the kingdom of God within you is extending its empire of Holiness, righteousness, and love; the Divine image is developing its features of beauty and perfection, and the inner man is day by day advancing in its maturity of holiness for heaven, and yet all is so silent! Ah, we often little suspect what is passing within the soul of a child of God. Of his sorrow we are ignorant, and with his joy a stranger cannot imagine. And because He sounds no note, makes no show, awakens no inquiry, we deem not how, unseen and unheard, Christ is rearing within him a temple which shall reflect His glory through eternity, outshining ten thousand suns.
There is, too, the silence of Christ's love. The sense or enjoyment of the Lord's love in the soul may for a season be suspended; the voice of love be still. Jesus answers not a word. There was love in His heart towards the mother suing at His feet on behalf of her daughter, but it was silent love. There was love in the heart of Joseph towards his brethren, to whom He spoke roughly, but it was silent love. "He will rest in His love" margin, "He will be silent in His love." God's love may be silent when it might justly rebuke and chide- it may be silent when it might be expected to comfort and cheer. And still it is love- not less love because it utters no voice. Oh, deem not that Christ's love has chilled or changed towards you because He answers you not a word! He has loved you, O believer, from everlasting! He loves you still, and will love you unto the end! Wait in faith and patience, Jesus will break the silence- Christ will speak; the tempest shall subside, the clouds shall vanish, and sweet the peace your Father will give.
There is often, too, the silence of Jesus in prayer. You approach the throne of grace, you draw near the mercy-seat, but He answers you not a word! Jesus is silent. Around the spot where you had thought His voice would the soonest and the clearest be heard, lo! the stillness of death seems to reign. You have brought a new sorrow, you have come with a new burden, you have repaired- with a new need, and Jesus hides Himself. You weep, you cry, you complain, but He answers you not a word. God's answers to prayer are not always immediate and direct. The "vision" has an appointed time and for that it tarries. But though the Lord is silent in prayer, it does not follow that He hears not the voice, or is indifferent to the appeal of prayer. Oh no! It would seem an utter impossibility that God should be deaf to the voice or disregard the prayers of His people. "O You that hears prayer, unto You shall all flesh come." The silence of God in prayer is to be interpreted but as a test of our sincerity, and as a trial of our faith, and as a lesson He would teach us in His own divine sovereignty. His silence in prayer is not indifference. His delays in answer to prayer are not refusals. Were our faith expert and lively, it would take encouragement from silence, and gather hope from delay. Long and silent was the night of the Patriarch's holy wrestlings with the Angel of the Covenant; but when the day dawned it broke the mysterious silence, and Jacob retired from the conflict a prince and a conqueror. The language of the prophet is, "I will wait upon the Lord, that hides His face from, the house of Israel, and I will seek for Him." Faith waits for a silent God, and seeks for a hiding God; believes that He is a God that cannot He, and so trusts His word of promise even though the silence of death seems to entomb it forever. Lift up your heart, then, child of God! your prayers are heard, Your God will answer. The bright vision may tarry, but it will surely come; the blessing may be delayed, but it will certainly be given. Jesus may auswer you not a word, but He knows the thoughts and purposes He has towards you, and beneath the stillness and solemnity of that weary, painful silence there is revolving in His infinite mind and loving heart, responses to your supplications and prayers the most gracious and full, far above all that you lead asked or thought.
In the season of trial, affliction, and sorrow, the believer may have much to do with the silence of the Lord. He may seem to sit alone in his grief, no one caring for his soul. To the trial of the decay of health, the loss of property, sore and deep bereavement, there may be added darkness of soul, the hidings of God, the silence of Jesus. "This is why I weep and my eyes overflow with tears. No one is near to comfort me, no one to restore my spirit." All is gloom and silence. No voice is heard but the resounding billow, no sound save the moans and echoes of the storm. The vessel is tossed amid the waves, the night is dark, and Jesus has not yet come. Such, beloved! is the dreary path traveled by many a hove-bound pilgrim. You are steering Your bark in the wake of many a gallant vessel- you are pursuing your way along a path traveled by many a heaven-enshrined saint. All have experienced the silence of Christ in sorrow. But how is faith to explain and interpret it? Just as the Jews did the silence which sealed the lips of Jesus as He wept in mute grief over the grave of Lazarus. "Behold how He loved him!" It is the silence of love! There are some sorrows so deep, so acute, and so delicate, silence is the most befitting, touching, and expressive form of soothing and sympathy. We read of the friends of Job who came to mourn with and to comfort him, that when they saw his grief, his sad and changed appearance, "they sat down with him upon the ground seven days and seven nights, and none spoke a word unto him for that they saw that his grief was very great." The silence of a look, the silence of a tear, the silence of a conscious presence in sorrow, oh, who has not felt its magic power and its soothing! Such is the silence of Jesus in grief. He may answer us not a word; He may seem coldly indifferent to the burden that crushes us, to the bereavement that smites us, the cloud that shades us, the temptation that wounds us, the need that presses us, but still it is the silence of a love that once poured forth its utterance of anguish for us on the cross, and now bends down its look of ineffable delight upon us from the throne. If the voice of Christ is mute on earth, it speaks in heaven, and speaks with an authority, power, and tenderness which God cannot resist. The interceding merits of our Savior intercept our supplications on their way to God, blends them with His own, and bears them to the Father, thus securing the acceptance of every prayer and the bestowment of every blessing.
There is not unfrequently the silence of God in His dark and afflictive providences. How often have these dispensations gathered around you in gloom and mystery, the deep, the awful stillness of which not a divine syllable has broken. Your vessel has been tossed amid the waves of grief, night has, set in, and gloom enshrouds every object. Yes; the mysteries of providence are for a time totally unexplained, and even unmitigated by a single utterance from Christ. The afflicted one must tread his shady and silent way; must walls through trials and sorrows, confront difficulties and impediments, exclaiming, "You are a God that hides Yourself! O that You would speak, and tell me why You contend with me!" Here, again, faith is summoned as the interpreter. And how does it interpret God's silence in afflictive dispensations? Not as the sullen silence of anger, not as the cold silence of indifference, not as the portentous silence of judgment, but as the infinitely wise, holy silence of a Father's love. Afflicted one! God may appear at a great distance from your voice; your cry for support may not seem to reach His ear, nor your appeal to His compassion touch His heart. You go forward, but He is not there; and backward, but you cannot perceive Him; on the left hand, where He dwells, but you cannot behold Him; He hides Himself on the right hand, that you cannot see Him. Nevertheless, He knows the way you take, and when He has tried you, you shall come forth as gold. God's silence to you in this overwhelming calamity, in this crushing affliction, in this overshadowing cloud, in this bitter trial, is the silence of infinite and unchangeable love. Wait, and He will speak anon, and sweet, assuring, and soothing will be the words that shall break that silence, the stillness of which has filled your mind with forebodings so painful, and with an awe so profound- "It is I, do not be afraid!" Your bounding heart shall respond, "It is the voice of my Beloved!"
And mark THE BLESSING which rewarded the faith of the petitioning parent. From the too impatient disciples, weary of her importunity, she is met with an unsympathizing repulse. "Send her away; for she cries after us." Oh, how soon may we come to the end even of a saint's kindness, sympathy, and forbearance! These disciples were dwelling close to the Fountain of boundless compassion, tenderness, and love; and yet how imperfect and shallow their own! how little had they of the heart of Christ! Why do we marvel at this? It is but that of a sinful, finite creature, and must of necessity have its end. After another trial of her faith at length she prevailed: "Then Jesus answered and said unto her, O woman, great is your faith: be it unto you even as you will. And her daughter was made whole from that very hour." Thus shall faith ever triumph. "Shall not God avenge His own elect, who cry day and night unto Him, though He bear long with them? I tell you that He will avenge them speedily."
The silence of God, both in the kingdom of nature and in the kingdom of grace, is deeply instructive. We trace the working of the principle in nature, some of whose most genial operations and powerful agencies are the most quiet and noiseless. The sun travels its wondrous path, pouring from its bosom a flood of light bathing the world in glory, and yet not a vibration of his burning wheels is felt. The dew of heaven is distilling by night, and the rain by day, clothing creation with life, verdure, and fruitfulness, and yet so gentle and quiet that not a sound is heard. The whole process of vegetation is going on- the root deepening, the blade shooting, the bud forming, the flower blowing, the fruit maturing- and yet all so still and noiseless. So is it in the kingdom of grace. A deep and powerful work may be going on in your soul, O man! through the agency of the Holy Spirit and the influence of Divine grace, and yet so quiet, unseen, and gentle as scarcely to be perceived. The kingdom of God makes its advent to the heart without observation, grows stronger and stronger, deepens and expands, in solemn and holy stillness. Reflect not, then, against yourself because you cannot not pray fluently, or preach eloquently, or reason profoundly, or open your lips boldly to speak for Christ. Your Christianity may not be the less true, nor your religion the less sincere, nor your influence the less power ful because it is quiet, gentle, speechless. The silence of a Godly, holy life is infinitely more eloquent and effectual in its influence, than the most resonant religious zeal in alliance with a dubious profession and an inconsistent walk. It was predicted of the Savior, "He shall not strive, nor cry; neither shall any man hear His voice in the streets." And yet that government, thus so gentle and meek, shook to its center the empire of darkness and sin.
We gather, too, from this subject how silent are some of the profoundest and most spiritual emotions of our renewed nature. The joy of the Lord, when its inspiration is felt in the heart, often distances all thought and forbids all language- it is "a joy unspeakable, and full of glory." The feelings of the soul are too deep for utterance. Could their soundings be measured or their fulness be expressed, could imagery the most rich delineate, or language the most copious interpret them, we might doubt their intensity or question their truthfulness- "Silence is the most perfect herald of joy
I were but little happy, if I could say how much."
Do not be, then, distressed if your elevated, and sometimes ecstatic, spiritual feelings are misunderstood or misrepresented by others. Enough that Christ understands you, and has enkindled in your soul a joy so real and deep that a stranger cannot enter into it, and which the world cannot take away.
In all your concerns let there be a silent waiting upon and for God. "Rest in the Lord, (margin, be silent to the Lord,) and wait patiently for Him." "Truly my soul waits upon God," (margin, is silent upon God.) When the Lord speaks it behooves us to hearken; when He smites to hold our peace. Oh, to be silent upon God! All repining hushed, all murmuring stilled, all disputing mute, the soul behaving and quieting itself as a weaned child. This is no small attainment in grace, no small triumph of faith. The peace and serenity it will diffuse through the soul passes understanding. The moment the heart rests from itself, and the mind ceases to reason and the will to dispute, the believer drops his anchor in a tranquil and pleasant haven, unmoved by a breath, unruflled by a wavelet. "Be still, and know that I am God."
We may learn a holy, practical lesson from this subject. Is it the wisdom of God to be silent? Surely there are times and circumstances when it were so with us! "In the multitude of words there needs not sin: but He that refrains his lips is wise." It has been sagely remarked, that "there are three kinds of silence. Silence from words is good, because inordinate speaking tends to evil. Silence, or rest from desires and passions, is still better, because it promotes quietness of spirit. But the best of all is silence from unnecessary and wandering thoughts, because that is essential to internal recollection, and because it lays a foundation for a proper regulation and silence in other respects." (Madame Guyon).
We need to seek a wisdom higher than our own to know when to speak and when to refrain. Sometimes, when unkindly wounded or unjustly assailed, silence, if it be a committing of our case to Him who pleads the causes of His people, and who judges righteously, is our best and wisest policy. This may be even safer than the soft answer which turns away wrath. Study this silence, too, not only in personal provocation and injury, but in reference to the failings and infirmities of others. Put to confusion all evil-speaking, backbiting, and censoriousness by a becoming, dignified, holy silence. Speak evil of no man. Curb the tongue, seal the lips, be silent concerning a brother's or a sister's failings. God is silent of yours; learn of Him to be silent of your fellow-servants. Go to your brother and tell him his fault between him and you alone, but let no consideration induce you to unveil that fault to another.
How much of the feuds and heart-burnings, suspicions and wranglings, which mar the happiness of families, and which disturb the peace and impede the prosperity of churches, would be prevented were this sacred, holy silence more strictly observed. Spend a whole night in prayer before you open your lips to utter a sentence or to breathe a word tending to sully the fame, to injure the character, or to wound the happiness of a child of God. Think how dear, how precious, that believer is to Christ, and that in wounding the disciple you wound the Lord. "Set a watch, O Lord, before my mouth; keep the door of my lips."

The Emotion of Love in Christ

And to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God. Ephes. 3:19

and to know this love that surpasses knowledge--that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. Ephes. 3:19

May you experience the love of Christ, though it is so great you will never fully understand it. Then you will be filled with the fullness of life and power that comes from God. Ephes. 3:19

The mind has often been sensible of a feeling of awe as we have stood upon the shore, and gazed upon the vast expanse of the ocean. With a similar, yet far transcending emotion, we approach the subject which is now to engage our thoughts- the infinite ocean of Christ's love. Of all the sympathetic emotions of our Lord's humanity, the emotion of Love must be regarded as the parent source. We would have known nothing of Christ, or of His redemption, but for love. The stupendous fact that Christ loves us- loves man, sinful man- admits us to the secret of all that He has done, and is still doing, for man. There is no other solution to the marvellous mysteries of His Incarnation and Sacrificial Death but this- Christ has loved us. Love originated all, explains all, illustrates all- love is the interpreter of every Divine mystery. There is not a circumstance of our Lord's history which is not another form or manifestation of love. His incarnation, is love stooping; His sympathy, is love weeping; His compassion, is love succouring; His grace, is love acting; His teaching, is the voice of love; His silence, is the repose of love; His patience, is the restraint of love; His obedience, is the labor of love; His suffering, is the travail of love; His cross, is the altar of love; His death is the burned offering of love; His resurrection, is the triumph of love; His ascension into heaven, and His sitting down at the right hand of God, is the enthronement and the intercession of love. Such is the deep, the vast, the boundless ocean upon which our thoughts are now about to launch. The soul muses in silent awe as it gazes upon this fathomless, limitless sea. Like the eternity of God, we cannot fathom where His love begins, or where it terminates. It has neither beginning nor ending. Like the peace of God, "it passes all understanding;" like itself, "it passes all knowledge." And yet there exists not an emotion of Christ of which the saints of God have a more truly blessed experience. Christianity is the experience, as it is the embodiment, of love. A religion destitute of the love of God in the heart is a vain religion. A religion without love, is a religion without soul, without life. All real, vital, saving religion resolves itself into love- love to God in Christ, and love to man. Your religion, beloved, may be lacking in some of the more visible attributes of profound knowledge, brilliant gifts, costly offerings; yet, is there in that heart of yours the deep, silent, gentle, throbbing of a true and sincere love to Christ? Then your religion is real. You have no eloquence, perhaps, to speak for Christ, and you have no power to labor for Christ; but you have love enough to suffer for Christ, yes, if need be, to die for Christ. Enough! "Lord, you know all things, you know that I love you." "Enough, my disciple," says your Lord; "go and feed my lambs." Lord! I go; Your love constrains me to the lowliest service in Your Church!
Let us now descend from the shore and dip our line of faith into the depths, and endeavor to "comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height" of this infinite ocean of love which has flowed down to us from God through Christ- an ocean which has its shallows for the babe, and its depths for the mature man in Christ Jesus.
The love of Christ is a divine emotion. Were it the most exquisite, profound, and pure that could possibly find a home in the human heart, and yet were created, it would still be but a finite affection: and a mere finite love could not have met the requirements of God's moral government, by the perfect satisfaction and honoring of which sinful man is saved. Why is it a love that passes knowledge? Why cannot the deep line sound it- the swift wing reach it- the eagle eye pierce it- the eloquent tongue describe it? Why are there depths and heights, lengths and breadths, which distance all thought, imagination, and measurement? Because it is the love of deity. The love of Christ is the love of God. We employ no rhetorical exaggeration, we speak not in hyperbole, but the words of truth and soberness; when we declare, on the authority of revealed truth, Christ to be the eternal and essential Son of God- "God over all, blessed for evermore." Listen to the argument. "God has in these last days spoken unto us by His Son- the brightness of His glory, and the express image of His person." "Unto the Son He says, Your throne, O God, is forever and ever: a scepter of righteousness is the scepter of Your kingdom." All the names, attributes, and works predicated of Deity are ascribed to Him, which, were He not God, essential, absolute God, would be the most vicious blasphemy. Hear the voice of prophecy: "His name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace." Do we speak of Creation? "By Him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by Him, and for Him." Do we speak of Providence? "By Him all things are held together." Do we speak of Universal Dominion? "He is Lord of all." Do we claim for the Scriptures of truth Divine Inspiration? "The words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life." "Then opened He their understanding, that they might understand the scriptures." Do we speak of Omniscience? "All the churches shall know that I am He who searches the minds and hearts." Do we speak of Omnipotence? "Christ, the power of God." Do we speak of Omnipresence? "Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them." Do we speak of Immutability? "Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and today, and forever." Is it the office and power of Judge? "We must all appear before the judgment-seat of Christ." Is He to be loved with a love belonging only to Deity? "If any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be Anathema!" But enough! It is not the accumulation of Scripture proof woven around a doctrine that establishes its truth. One text of Scripture, or single declaration of God's Word taken in its connection, simple in its meaning, grammatical in its construction, and correct in its rendering, should be sufficient to command our unquestioning faith, win our deepest affection and purest homage, when so essential and vital a doctrine as the Deity of Christ is taught us in the Bible. Such should be our full belief in, and profound reverence for the revealed Word of God.
In addition to the direct and positive evidence, there are collateral proofs of the Deity of Christ equally as strong and conclusive. Our Lord is beautifully styled "the radiance of the Father's glory." Could this be affirmed of a mere creature? Light flows from the sun. The ray that trembles in the eastern sky at day-dawn, and the light that glows in noontide effulgence, equally emanate from the majestic orb, and alike partake of its nature and reflect its beauty. Were it possible to exhaust the sun of its light, you would not merely exterminate the light, but you would inevitably destroy the source of light- the sun itself. We cannot separate Christ from the essence of the Godhead without destroying the Godhead. To destroy the Deity of Christ, we must first destroy Deity itself. Denial of the Divinity of the Son, is a denial of the Divinity of the Father. "He is an antichrist, that denies the father and the Son. Whoever denies the Son, the same has not the Father." Prostrate yourself, my soul, before this great mystery of Godliness, "God manifest in the flesh." Angels study it- seraphim and cherubim adore it- the spirits of just men made perfect magnify it- O my soul, believe it, rest in it, entwine it with every fibre of your heart, blend it with your sweetest song, for your Savior is divine, your Redeemer is God! Nothing short of a divine love could or would have borne our sins, and the punishment of our sins. The weight of the one and the terribleness of the other would have crushed and annihilated a mere created affection. There existed no love but the love of Deity equal to the work of salvation. Who was willing, who was able, to bear that heavy load, to endure that overwhelming curse, but the eternal Son of the Father? Oh, think, beloved reader, what the love of Christ has done and suffered- the burden it bore, the sorrow it felt, the humiliation it underwent, the insults, ignominy, and privation through which it traveled; its groans, its sighs, its tears, its darkness- how inconceivably it agonized, how freely it bled, how voluntarily it died- think of the sins it has pardoned, the guilt it has cleansed, the declensions it has restored, the backslidings it has healed, the sorrows it has soothed, the patience it has exercised, the gentleness it has exhibited, and then ask, could any other but a divine affection have done all this and endured all this? Yet all this was exhibited in the love of Christ which passes knowledge. Love less divine, less strong, less gentle, could never have won Your heart, uprooted your enmity, tore you from your idols, enthroning Christ- all of Christ, Christ only, Christ supremely, Christ forever!
"Love divine Constrains me: I am yours. Incarnate love Has seized me, and holds me in Almighty arms. Here's my salvation, my eternal hope- Amidst the wreck of worlds and dying nature, I am the Lord's, and He forever mine."
It follows from this statement that the love of Christ is eternal. There is no reasoning, no philosophy so correct as that of God's Word. Did men- theologians- employ the same rules of interpretation, or the same process of reasoning in the study of the Bible that they do in their scientific researches and inquiries, there would be less false doctrine, crude, blind, erroneous teaching in the pulpit and from the press. Why should the doctrine of Christ's eternal, electing love be thought a thins incredible? Admit His Deity, and you acknowledge His eternity. Acknowledge His eternity, and you must accept the truth of His everlasting love.
We have proved from Scripture His Deity, and, of necessity, His eternity; and yet there is so direct a declaration of this doctrine in the book of Proverbs we would place it before the reader. "The Lord formed me from the beginning, before he created anything else. I was appointed in ages past, at the very first, before the earth began. I was born before the oceans were created, before the springs bubbled forth their waters. Before the mountains and the hills were formed, I was born— before he had made the earth and fields and the first handfuls of soil. I was there when he established the heavens, when he drew the horizon on the oceans. I was there when he set the clouds above, when he established the deep fountains of the earth. I was there when he set the limits of the seas, so they would not spread beyond their boundaries. And when he marked off the earth's foundations, I was the architect at his side. I was his constant delight, rejoicing always in his presence. And how happy I was with what he created—his wide world and all the human family!" Proverbs 8:22-31. Of what could this be predicated but of a Person, and of whom but of the Eternal Son of God, even Him who is the "wisdom of God," the hidden wisdom? Such is the antiquity of the love of Christ! And what a glorious and precious truth is it to the spiritually taught soul; sweeter than the honey in the honey-comb to those who have tasted the bitterness of sin, and have felt the plague of their own heart "I have loved you with an everlasting love," is the Divine declaration which places the antiquity of Christ's love beyond a doubt. Christ is the Covenant Head of His people, the "Head over all things to the Church." In Christ we are chosen, through Christ the covenant is made with us by the Father- in Christ we are blessed with all spiritual blessings- in Christ we are called- and in Christ we are pardoned, justified, sanctified, and glorified. Every blessing that appertains to our salvation from first to last is interwoven with Christ- in His hand, and through His relation to the Father and to us. Well may the apostle give utterance to that ma;nificent doxology "
Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will-- to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves. In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God's grace that he lavished on us with all wisdom and understanding." Ephes. 1:3-8. Such is the eternal ocean from where flows this river, these rivulets and springs, which, bearing on their bosom innumerable blessings of grace, glide through the Church of God, Christ's garden- clothing it with living verdure, enriching it with divine fruit, adorning it with unfading bloom, and breathing over it the fragrance of a "field which the Lord has, blest." The everlasting love of Christ! Divine source of my eternal redemption! Spring-head of my sweet refreshment in this weary land where no water is! Pledge and earnest of all which my faith believes, which my hope expects, and for which my panting Spirit longs, enthrone yourself upon my heart, and under your gentle, yet all-commanding, all-constraining power may my consecrated being, my surrendered life evince, "How much I owe, how much I love!"
The love of Christ is condescending. We measure an act of condescension by the position, rank, or power of the individual from whom it emanates. Forming our view of Christ's love upon this principle- sounding its depth and testing its greatness and intensity by this criterion, even our profoundest conception of the self-abasement and humiliation to which it descended will be at an infinite remove from the reality. The stoop of the Son of God to our humanity- the Incarnation of Deity- was an event so unheard of, a fact so stupendous, marvellous, and transcendent, that it stands in the history of the universe like an orb in its own solitary, unapproachable grandeur, and will be the wonder, the study, and the song of all pure, holy intelligences through eternity. Such was the love of Christ! It drew Him from heaven, brought Him down to earth, to live and labor, suffer and die, robed in the humanity which He stooped so low to save. "Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might destroy him who holds the power of death--that is, the devil-- and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death. For surely it is not angels he helps, but Abraham's descendants. For this reason he had to be made like his brothers in every way, in order that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in service to God, and that he might make atonement for the sins of the people." Hebrews 2:14-17. Not only- as if this did not suffice to demonstrate the lowliness of His love- did He consent to wear our nature, but He linked Himself in that nature with lowliness and poverty, with obscurity and privation, with toil, weariness, and need! In addition to this, He was spit upon, scourged, reviled, maligned, denied; was the "rich man's scorn, the poor man's ridicule;" bowed His dear, devoted head meekly, uncomplainingly to the storms of human insult, contempt, and derision which broke over Him. Oh! was ever love like unto this? And such, beloved, is still the condescension of Christ's love! Having stooped so low, it would seem as if there were no deeper depths to which it could not sink. Ah! perhaps, in your personal history there are circumstances of woe, of scorn, of humiliation, from which you imagine the Son of God must shrink- an abyss which He cannot fathom- physical and mental prostrations with which He has no sympathy, or to alleviate which He has no power. But judge Him not thus. His thoughts are not your thoughts. The love of Christ is prepared to entwine itself with every event and circumstance of your being and history. Having taken into union with His divinity your nature, all prostrate, and bruised, and crushed beneath the curse, do you think that there can be a position in which your fallen humanity is placed beyond the pale of His compassion, or the reach of His arm? Ah, no! Love made God willing to unite Himself with man; and love made the God-man willing to unite Himself with all the lowliness, degradation, and suffering of the human. And the same love of Christ that stooped to all this is prepared to descend with you into He valley of poverty, to enter with your trembling spirit into the cloud of adversity, to divide with you the cup of sorrow, to cheer your exile, and share the ignominy, insult, and neglect to which you may be exposed. Will Incarnate Love, which once stooped to wash the disciples' feet, shrink from any office or service with which your happiness, honor, or well-being is entwined? "Lord! You shall never wash my feet," says your resisting spirit. "Allow it to be so now," replies your condescending Lord. I am that friend that loves at all times, a Brother born for adversity. Having stooped to the vesture of your nature, do you think that I have not love, and grace, and lowliness enough to sink with that nature to its lowest condition of necessity and woe? Though others, recoiling from your position, deaf to your entreaty, and ashamed of your bruise, may pass you by on the other side, I am prepared to identify myself with your case, to rouse your sinking pulse with the wine of my love, to heal your wound with the soothing on of my compassionate sympathy; and, amid the strife and clamor of tongues, to spread around you the invincible shield of my power. Truly may we say, "For he will conceal me in his pavilion when troubles come; he will hide me in his sanctuary. He will place me out of reach on a high rock. Then I will hold my head high, above my enemies who surround me." Psalm 27:5-6. It is the pavilion of love.
Labor is another characteristic of the love of Christ. The apostles speak of the saints' "labor of love," or loving labor. In a sense infinitely transcending this do we speak of Christ's labor of love. His first, His chief labor was not in sharing the sorrows, bearing the infirmities, or in healing the sicknesses of our humanity, but it was in the perfect obedience to the precepts of the law which His holy, fervent, toilsome life rendered. This was His highest, holiest, divinest labor of love. "If by the disobedience of one many were made sinners, by the obedience of one many are made righteous." He found His own law broken, desecrated, dishonored. He consented to be made under the law, that He might redeem those who were under the law. He could only be held responsible by the law for obedience, as He placed Himself under its power, precept, and authority. He, the Lawgiver, and the Administrator of the law, consented thus to humble Himself. There was but one Being in the universe who could magnify that law and make it honorable by a full recognition of its authority, and a perfect deference to its just and holy requirements- it was God's co-equal and eternal Son. His Godhead gave dignity, His sinlessness imparted perfection, His love clothed with voluntariness the obedience and honor which He rendered to God's moral government, from which man had plucked the diadem of glory, trailing and trampling it in the dust. And now, this obedience, thus deriving its sanction, perfection, and acceptance from the dignity and sinlessness of His nature, is the "righteousness of God," finished and imparted, which justifies the believing sinner, and which exalts and glorifies the accepted saint. "He has made Him to be sin for us who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him." "Blessed are the people who know the joyful sound; they shall walk, O Lord, in the light of Your countenance, and in Your righteousness shall they be exalted." The life of our Lord was one continuous, unswerving, unbroken act of homage and obedience to His Father's law. He alone of all others could my, "My food and any drink is to do the will of Him that sent me, and to finish His work." The two objects He had in view in this labor of love were- the offering of such an obedience as would constitute our perfect righteousness, and thus secure our perfect and free justification; and the second was the honoring and magnifying of the law in its divine authority and holiness, thus winning back to the Father the glory He had lost by the violation of that law. With these objects before Him, and impelled onward by the irresistible force of His own love, He faltered not, swerved not, deviated not an hair's-breadth from His sublime and holy purpose. His was the true battle of life. The world sought to allure, men sought to entrap, Satan sought to tempt Him; but He passed through the fiery ordeal untouched and unscathed- observing every requirement, and keeping every precept. To what shall we ascribe this unswerving, unfaltering obedience, this pure and perfect compliance with the law's stern and righteous demands, but to His divine dignity and perfect sinlessness? And all this was the labor of love! Well knowing that the salvation of His Church was based upon the law's fulfilment, and that that salvation was confided to His hand, it was His food and His drink to entwine with every word, and thought, and deed the perfect doing of the will of God with His everlasting love to His saints- zeal for God's glory with fidelity for His people's cause. Behold the groundwork of our full justification!- justified on the basis of a repaired, restored, honored law- a law upon which, divine and glorious though it was, the obedience of the Son of God shed a new and ineffable luster. "He has magnified the law, and made it honorable." Behold the ground and channel of peace with God!- peace through faith in a righteousness which renders it illustrious in God to justify the sinner. "Being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ." Is this not true, assured, and perfect peace? To know that the indictment against us is quashed, the sentence is cancelled, the condemnation is removed, and that we are reinstated in a Paradise, forfeited, but restored; lost, but regained- a Paradise amid whose sylvan bowers no tempter lurks, upon whose sunny banks no shadow reposes, whose vernal bloom no curse blights, whose perfumed air no sin taints; into which nor sickness, nor suffering, nor death, nor parting ever enter; where is neither sorrow nor crying, neither shall be any more pain- surely, "the work of righteousness is peace, and the effect of righteousness, quietness, and assurance forever."
We return to the statement that all this is ours through the obedience of the "Lord our Righteousness." Heaven, the coming paradise of the saints, is won by no creature-merit. Not a grain of human worthiness mingles with the merit that justified the sinner before God. Not a filament of creature-obedience is woven into the wedding robe that will give us a place at the "marriage supper of the Lamb"- all, all must be the worthiness, the merit, the obedience of God in our nature. Gracious soul! brought to the end of all your own duties, doings, and sacrifices- seeing all to be but as dross and chaff, no, more, but so much gilded, 'splendid sin'- bowed down to the earth beneath your load of guilt- shut up to the condemnation of the law, with not a ray of hope, trembling upon the thunder-cloud of divine wrath which enshrouds you- oh, look up! in the Lord you have righteousness and strength. The Eternal Spirit is now graciously and effectually teaching you this glorious, precious truth in the school of your own utter emptiness, vileness, and poverty. Do not be, therefore, hopeless and despairing. In Christ Jesus there is pardon, acceptance, grace, sanctification, salvation for the vilest, the most hell-deserving penitent that earth ever saw, or that heaven ever received. Oh, what a glorious gospel is ours! What a marvellous truth is this which it reveals- a justifying righteousness divinely provided, freely given, believingly received, which exchanges our filthy rags for a spotless robe, our condemnation for hope, our hell for heaven, an eternity of woe for an eternity of bliss! What divine peace should this truth impart, what fervent love should it inspire, what holy, unreserved surrender should it induce! How precious to our hearts should be this gracious Savior, how welcome His yoke, how delightsome His service, how pleasant and sweet His cross. And, oh! how will the challenge, bursting from countless tongues, awaken the deep, undying echoes of eternity- "Who is he that condemns? it is God that justifies!"
"And lest the shadow of a spot
Should on my soul be found,
He took the robe the Savior wrought
And cast it all around."
The reception of Christ's obedience as our justification by faith, is a kindred and equally essential and precious truth. Oh, it is a wondrous fact that God has made our salvation entirely independent of ourselves, in making it to rest upon our believing, and not our doing! "It is of faith, that it might be by grace." By grace are you saved, through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God." It is not our penitence, nor our love, nor our knowledge that looks to the cross and lives- it is our faith. It was not the hand, nor the foot, nor the tongue, nor the ear which availed to the poor bitten Israelite, stung with the fiery flying serpent- it was the eye. He traveled not, He spoke not, He handled not, but simply raised himself, or, perchance too feeble, was uplifted in the arms of another, and rested his eye upon the serpent of brass, looked, and was healed! How much more facile an effort was this! It was easier, more simple, and effectual to look, than to perform a tedious task with the hands, or to utter long sentences with the tongue, or to take a wearisome pilgrimage with the feet. Thus single and easy is the divine instrument God has appointed for your salvation! Faith beholds the Lamb of God; faith looks upon Him whom our sins have pierced; faith sees Jesus, and the simple "looking unto Jesus" crucified heals the wounded conscience, unbinds our burden of guilt, and the Sun of Righteousness arises in the soul with healing in His wings. But while thus we insist upon faith as the instrument of your justification, and consequent peace with God, as earnestly would we remind you that faith is but an instrument. It is not the object that is to engage your thought, awaken your interest, or arrest and fix your gaze. That object is Christ, and Christ alone! And now we would have you for a moment forget all that we have said upon faith, and think of Jesus, and of Jesus only. It was not the eye that healed the bitten Israelite- it was the eye in contact with its distant, and, perhaps, dim and obscure object, reposing upon which, in obedience to the Divine command, instantaneous life was the consequence. Suppose the dying man had argued, "I cannot see by reason of my wound. The shadow of death is upon me. The film of death is on my eyes- darkness dims my sight, and I cannot see." Still, the command was- "Look to the uplifted serpent;" and, looking, the dying lived! No objection lay against the feebleness and dimness of the sight. His refusal to raise and open that eye, dim and dizzy though it was, and rest it upon the pole, was death. Oh, I beseech you, deal less with faith, and more with Christ, the object of faith. Your weak faith, your little faith, your obscure faith, your tried faith, your sinking faith, is no reason why you should not look to, cleave to, and rejoice in Christ Jesus, knowing of a truth that your sins are forgiven, and that your person is accepted in the Beloved. One believing 'blink on Christ', as the holy Rutherford expresses it, and you are saved. Or, to quote the lively picture of faith presented by another worthy, one of the early Reformers of Scotland (John Welsh)- "It is not the quantity of faith that shall save you. A drop of water is as true water as the whole ocean. So a little faith is as true faith as the greatest. A child eight days old is as really a person, as one of sixty years; a spark of fire is as true fire as a great flame; a sickly man is as truly living as a well man. So it is not the measure of your faith that saves you; it is the blood that it grips to, that saves you. As the weak hand of a child that leads the spoon to the mouth will feed as well as the strongest arm of a man- for it is not the hand that feeds you, albeit it puts the food into your mouth, but it is the food carried into the stomach that feeds you- so if you can grip Christ ever so weakly, He will not let you perish. All that looked to the brazen serpent, be they ever so far off- they were healed of the sting of the fiery serpent; yet all saw not alike clearly, for some were near at hand, and some were far off. Those that were near at hand might see more clearly than those that were far off; nevertheless, those that were far off were as soon healed of the sting when they looked to the serpent as those that were near at hand; for it was not their look that made them whole, but He whom the serpent did represent. So if you can look to Christ ever so dimly, He can take away the sting of your conscience if you believe. The weakest hand can take a gift as well as the strongest. Now Christ is the gift, and weak faith may grip Him as well as strong faith; and Christ is as truly yours when you have weak faith, as when you have come to these triumphant joys through the strength of faith."
The same reasoning will conduct us to a like conclusion respecting faith's dealing with the promises of God. If our faith can lay hold of but one divine promise of the gospel, then all the promises are ours. It is not our faith that gives us a warrant to receive the promise, or upon which the efficacy of the promise depends; it is the word, power, and faithfulness of the Divine Promiser. If, then, beloved reader, your faith can rest in any one of these promises, "Him that comes unto me I will in no wise cast out;" "Come unto me, all you that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest; " "Call upon me in the day of trouble, and I will answer you and deliver you;"- then you may put in your claim to every precious promise in the Bible, and say, "It is mine." "The promises can be no more divided than Christ can be divided, or than heaven can be divided; the promises are not like loose pearls, but as pearls made into one entire chain. He that can lay his hand upon that promise in Matt. v. 6, 'Blessed are they who do thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled,' and truly say, This promise is mine, may safely lay his hand upon that promise, ver. 8, 'Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God,' and say, This promise is mine; and the same He may say of the rest of the precious promises of that chapter. He that can lay his hand upon any one promise that God has made for those who love Him, and truly say, This promise is mine, may safely lay his hand upon every promise that God has made to those who love him, and say, These are mine. He that can lay his hand upon any one promise that God has made to those who fear Him, and truly say, This promise is mine, may assuredly lay his hand upon every promise that God has made to those who fear Him, and say, These are all mine. He that can lay his hand upon any one promise that God has made to faith in Christ, to believing in Christ, and truly say, This promise is mine, may safely lay his hand upon every promise that God has made to faith in Christ, to believing in Christ, and say, All these promises are mine. He that can lay his hand upon any one promise that God has made to the returning sinner, and truly say, This promise is mine, may securely lay his hand upon every promise that God has made to the returning sinner, and say, All these are mine. He that can lay his hand upon any one promise that God has made to the waiting soul, and truly say, This promise is mine, may without peradventure lay his hand upon every promise that God has made to the waiting soul, and say, All these are mine. Prove but your right in one, and you may safely infer your right to all." (Brookes)
But Christ's love possesses yet another and more touching feature, one that has never failed to dissolve and win the heart wherever it has effected a believing entrance, and will be as potent to the end of time- the suffering, dying love of Jesus. It traveled its wearisome, law-fulfilling path until it confronted the cross. Could it pass the instrument of torture and of death? Must it be crucified, bleed, and die? Ah, yes! what significance, unmeant by His enemies, in the taunt which they cast at His dying agonies, "He saved others, Himself He cannot save!" Yes; He saved others, and He could have saved Himself. It was voluntary on His part to die, or not to die. As easily could He have descended from the cross as He ascended from the grave. But the same love to poor sinners which emancipated Him from the one, kept Him impaled upon the other. Love could not regard its mission accomplished, its purpose fulfilled, until it had sacrificed itself; it must be baptized in suffering; be clothed in a vesture dipped in blood- its own blood. And why this suffering, sacrifice, and death? The answer shall be in the words of the Holy Spirit: "Christ has loved us, and has given Himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling savor." We can find no proper solution to the mystery of Christ's sufferings and death but that supplied by this fact, that He died as a sacrifice for our sins, to offer an atonement to the justice of God for our transgressions. "An offering and a sacrifice"- a sin-offering, an expiatory sacrifice, a justice-satisfying oblation. How sacred and precious are the sufferings of His love, viewed in this light! What love they inspire, what joy they create, what comfort they impart, what hope they shed upon the dark, the solemn future! Christ has died, thereby condemning sin in the flesh. Christ has died, thereby freeing us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us. Christ has died, thereby washing out and effacing all our guilt- His own most precious blood cleansing us from all sin. Christ has died, therefore the believing sinner that accepts that death as his one and only sacrifice, his sole and complete salvation, shall never die. Such is the love of Christ! Was it ever equaled? Where shall we find its parallel? To have accepted the mission of our salvation upon such terms- a stoop so low, a humiliation so profound, a labor so immense, mental anguish so acute, bodily suffering so agonizing, a death so ignominious- was ever love like this? There was nothing coercive or compulsory, ignorant or blind, in the marvellous step. Christ well understood the work He was to accomplish, and had counted well the price He was to pay. He knew the nature of the burden He was to bear, the ingredients of the cup He was to drink, the terribleness of the death He was to die. Never was love so intelligent and far-seeing as His. The grim, dread instrument of torture and of death was vivid to His mind; and yet He was willing to endure it all. Two wills consented to the issue- the will of the Divine, and the will of the human nature of our Lord. And although, like streams from opposite sources, these two wills met, they yet met in perfect harmony and conjunction, forming one confluent tide of love, which bore Him onward upon its bosom, until He reached the cross, and expired. Blessed Jesus! Your love, like Your agonies, is an unknown and unfathomable depth- it passes knowledge. Let it rise and expand before me, until it fill the entire scope of my soul's vision, occupy every niche of my heart, and bear me onward by its all- commanding, all- constraining influence in the path of a holy loving obedience and surrender.
But there are some CHARACTERISTICS OF THE LOVE OF CHRIST which bring it more home to our bosoms, FORMING A PERFECT AND HOLY MODEL FOR OUR IMITATION.
The believing mind delights to dwell upon the filial element of our Lord's love. Both the Divine and natural Sonship of Christ are mysteries; and yet the mind accepts, and faith believes them. As the Son of God and the Son of man, His love was the most perfectly filial that ever existed. His love to God the Father was the affection of a reverential, obedient son. He could say, "I do always those things which please Him." It was this filial love which made Him willing to uphold the honor of His Father's name, the glory of His Father's government, at the costly expense of the sacrifice of Himself. "Know you not that I must be about my fathers business?" Then glance at His filial love to His earthly parents. It is said that, "He was subject into them,"that is, He reverenced their parental authority, manifested towards them all dutiful respect, yielded an unquestioning and cheerful obedience to their wishes and commands, lived with them, labored for them, and clung to them until He reached the period of manhood. Nor did His filial love terminate here. He bore it with Him to the death- breathed it in touching expressions from the cross. In that hour of woe, when the throes and throbs of agony were upon Him, and His soul was travailing in sorrow beneath the weight of His people's sins and the inflictions of Divine wrath, He beheld His mother! Forgetful of Himself, He thought only of her; and bending upon her a look of filial affection, He commended her to the care of the disciple whom He loved, who from that hour adopted her as his own. How holy and touching this example of filial love! What an illustrious and impressive enforcement of the Divine precept- "Children, obey your parents in the Lord: for this is right. Honor your father and mother." Would you be Christ-like? Then cherish the deepest affection for your parents, the profoundest reverence for their authority, and regard for their wishes. And when bereavement and sorrow, age and infirmity, poverty and sickness overtake them, cherish them as the most costly and precious of earth's treasures. Rock the cradle of their old age as gently and watchfully as they rocked yours in infancy, through the silent vigils of many sleepless, weary hours by day and by night.
The love of Christ is also fraternal. It is the love of a brother. He calls us brethren, and Himself our Elder Brother. Listen to His words "whoever shall do the will of God, the same is my brother;" " Go to any brethren." And oh, what a tender, loving, faithful Brother is He! Truly and emphatically is He a "Brother born for adversity." Oh, never forget that the love of Christ to you is the love of- Joseph! Go to Him in need, go to Him in difficulty, go to Him in sorrow- take to Him the empty vessel; and, though to test your sincerity, to try your faith, to prove your love, and make His own all the more precious and resplendent, He may speak roughly to you in His dealings, yet a Joseph's heart, a Brother's love beats deeply and warmly beneath it all; and, before long, He will throw off the disguise, and exclaim, in tones of melting tenderness, "I am Christ your brother."
Let your love to the brethren assimilate to this fraternal love of Christ Jesus. Love them because they are brethren in Christ Jesus, irrespective of national, ecclesiastical, or social distinctions. Love them for the Father's sake- love them for the Elder Brother's sake- love them for their own sake; not because their creed chimes with yours, or that you kneel at the same altar with them in the outward rites of worship, but because they are Christ's brethren, and your brethren in Christ Jesus. Act towards them the part of a loving, sympathizing, helping brother, and so you will please and resemble Him who, when He acknowledges it at the last day, will say, "Inasmuch as you have done it Unto the least of these my brethren, you have done it unto me."
The love of Christ is the love of a Friend. How touchingly and pointedly did He delight to speak of this: "Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends, if you do whatever I command you. Henceforth I call you not servants; . . . . but I have called you friends." God has created in the human heart the desire for friendship. The sunflower turns not more instinctively to its orb, drinking in the golden beams of light and warmth, and returning its grateful smile, than turns the human heart to the friend it loves. The religion of Jesus is not indifferent to any noble sentiment of our humanity, but teaches us to cultivate that sentiment to its highest degree of development, and of consecration to God. Thus, so far from ignoring or trampling upon the fine sensibilities and affections of our nature, the gospel of Christ recognizes them, and instructs us in the holy art of their sacred culture and supreme dedication to the Divine glory. The disciple of the Lord pretends not, therefore, to look coldly upon those noble, generous specimens of affection which adorn our humanity, or to be insensible to the touching beauty with which some pens have portrayed the love of an ardent and sacred friendship. Among the most glowing is, perhaps, that of one of our own poets:
"I had a friend that loved me;
I was his soul: He lived not but in me.
We were so closed within each other's breast,
The rivets were not forged that joined us first,
That do not reach us yet: we were so mixed,
As meeting streams; both to ourselves were lost
We were one mass; we could not give or take
But from the same; for he was I, I he.
Return, my better half, and give me all myself,
For you are all!
If I have any joy when you are absent,
I grudge it to myself: methinks I rob
You of your part." (Dryden)
But the renewed heart, vivified with spiritual life, glowing with Divine love, and breathing with heavenly aspirations, yearns for a diviner, purer, and more lasting friendship than this lovely picture portrays- such as earth yields not- such as heaven only can give. Jesus meets this holy yearning of our renewed nature; He reveals Himself as our Friend- the Friend who loved us from eternity, who shed His blood for us, sacrificed His life for us, paid our great debt, delivered us from captivity, and has enfranchised us with the title, freedom, and wealth of a heavenly citizenship, henceforth calling us friends. Oh, what a Friend is Jesus! Truly may we say of Him,
"He loved me well; so well He could but die
To show He loved me better than His life:
He lost it for me."
Cultivate Christ's friendship- love Him as your Friend- confide in Him as your Friend- confess Him as your Friend- consult Him as your Friend- be faithful to Him as your Friend- ever repair to Him as your Friend. Your love delights Him, your faith honors Him, your service glorifies Him; and every need and trial, every sin and infirmity, that brings you to Him, but tests His friendship, and endears Him to
your heart, and makes you better acquainted with your best, your only Friend. You may be called to learn this precious truth- the friendship of Christ- by a painful discipline- amid the fading of earthly friendships- by the rupture of ties once so close, sacred, and endeared- distance separating you, misunderstanding alienating you, death sundering you from the friend your heart enshrined as God's most precious earthly gift. Be it so, if this the result- your closer intimacy with Jesus, the "frieind who loves at all times," and who, in all the changeful, chequered scenes and circumstances of life, will "show Himself friendly."
Seek to mold your earthly friendships like unto Christ's. Let His friends be your friends, and your friends the most spiritual, unworldly, and Christ-like.
But this chapter, which has grown with its subject, must close with one or two EXHORTATIONS. Seek to know this love of Christ, though it is so vast that it "passes knowledge." Infinite though it is, you may experience its reality, taste its sweetness, and be influenced by its all- commanding, all-constraining power. "The love of Christ constrains us." Let it constrain you to a loving, unreserved obedience, to a cheerful bearing of His cross, to a manly vindication of His truth, to a close imitation of His spirit, and to "deny all ungodliness and worldly lusts, and to live righteously; godly, and soberly in this present evil world."
Confide in the unchangeableness of Christ's love. Nothing shall take it from you, or separate you from it. It does not ebb with the ebbing of your feelings; it does not chill with the chill of your affections; it does not change with the changing scenes and circumstances of your life. A love that "passes knowledge" must have depths we cannot sound, heights we cannot explore, an infinite fulness and freeness tiding over all the sins, infirmities, and sorrows of its blessed and favored objects.
"Nothing for us remains
Nothing but love;
Love that no tongue can teach,
Love that no thought can reach,
No love like His.
"God is its blessed source,
Death never can stop its course,
Nothing can stay its force,
Matchless it is."
Do not limit your heart-experience of Christ's love, for it is infinite in its nature and boundless in its extent. The prayer of the apostle for the Eplhesian saints was, that they might "know the love of Christ which passes knowledge." As yet, how many of us stand but upon the shore of this ocean! How little do we know, experimentally, of the love of Christ in our souls, disloding slavish fear, a bondage spirit, unbelieving doubt, and so enlarging our hearts that we may run the way of the Lord's commandments. Bring your heart with its profoundest emptiness, its most startling discovery of sin, its lowest frame, its deepest sorrow, and sink it into the depths of the Savior's love. That infinite sea will flow over all, erase all, absorb all, and your soul shall swim and sport amid its gentle waves, exclaiming in your joy and transport, "Oh, the depths!" The Lord direct your heart into the love of God! Just as it is, hard, cold, fickle, sinful, sad and sorrowful. Christ's love touching your hard heart, will dissolve it! Christ's love touching your cold heart will warm it! Christ's love touching your sinful heart will purify it! Christ's love touching your sorrowful heart will soothe it! Christ's love touching your wandering heart will draw it back to Jesus. Only bring your heart to Christ's love. Believe in its existence, its reality, its fulness, and its freeness. Believe that He loves you, and just as love begets love, so the simple belief in the love of Jesus will inspire you with a reflected, responsive affection; and your soul, like the chrysalis, will burst from its captivity and bloom, and, soaring in life, liberty, and beauty, will float in the sunbeams of Gods full, free, and eternal love, and, in a little while, will find itself in heaven- where all is love!
"Love divine! 'neath human feature
You Your glory have concealed.
Love! to me, a fallen creature,
You Your fulness have revealed.
Love! I give myself to You,
Yours to be eternally.
"Love! before my soul's creation,
You my ransom did decree.
Love! to purchase my salvation,
You became a man like me.
Love! I give myself to You,
Yours to be eternally.
"Love! the shameful cross enduring,
You Yourself to death did give
Love! eternal bliss securing,
You do bid the sinner live.
Love! I give myself to You,
Yours to be eternally.
"Love! at once both strength and being,
Word and Spirit, truth and light;
Love! since I, for refuge fleeing,
Find deliverance through Your might;
Love! I give myself to You,
Yours to be eternally.
"Love! your easy yoke upon me,
All my powers shall cheerful own;
Love! the sovereign grace which won me,
Reigneth in my heart alone.
Love! I give myself to You,
Yours to be eternally.
"Love! which changeless, ever-living,
Step by step, me onwards leads;
Love! which peace unbroken giving,
Prevalently intercedes.
Love! I give myself to You,
Yours to be eternally.

"God is love, and all who live in love live in God, and God lives in them."

The Sensitiveness of Christ to Suffering

And he went a little farther, and fell on his face, and prayed, saying, O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me: nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt. Matthew 26:39

Going a little farther, he fell with his face to the ground and prayed, "My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will." Matthew 26:39

He went on a little farther and fell face down on the ground, praying, "My Father! If it is possible, let this cup of suffering be taken away from me. Yet I want your will, not mine." Matthew 26:39

There is no point of light in which Christ is viewed so appropriate and soothing to our present condition of sorrow as that of our Fellow-sufferer. In suffering, we naturally seek for companionship; we instinctively yearn for sympathy. And if we but meet the individual whose history bears some resemblance to our own- who has suffered as we suffer, has sorrowed as we sorrow, and who in both has betrayed like human feelings, infirmities, and weakness with ourselves- we are at once conscious of a support the most sustaining, and of a sympathy the most grateful and soothing. It is just in this particular that Christ meets our case, and meets it as no other being can.
The absence of personal suffering in the experience of our Lord, would have been the absence of one of the strongest characteristics of our present condition; and the absence of that sensitiveness which shrinks from sorrow, which recoils from pain, to which we cannot teach human nature to be wholly indifferent, would have been the absence of one of the most essential elements of His sympathy with man. When, therefore, we contemplate our Lord as a sufferer, and as betraying in suffering the sensibility, the sensitiveness, and the trembling, proper to our nature, and of which we are so constantly the subjects, we have truly found in Him a Fellow-sufferer in all points like us, save in that which must ever be the one grand exception- our sinfulness. How full of strong consolation, then, to the Christian, is the subject which is about to engage our study- Christ's instinctive dread of suffering! How close it brings Him to us! How real, how truly man, how essentially human, how like ourselves does He appear! This is just the one attribute in suffering we feel the most replete with soothing and sympathy. It is not merely that Christ was a Sufferer, but that He revealed in suffering that human sensitiveness, that shrinking from pain, and that deprecation of sorrow, which sued for exemption from the cup, which, perhaps, in our own case, we have often thought unbecoming our dignity as men, our piety as Christians, and our filial submission as children of God. But before we embark upon the leading subject of this chapter, it will be proper briefly to view our deer Lord in the light of His own sufferings. We can only understand in some measure what that human sensitiveness to suffering was which He showed, by forming some faint conception of the nature of the suffering from which His spirit shrank. And, although we institute no comparison whatever between the expiatory sufferings which our Lord endured and our own, we may yet trace sufficient resemblance between His human nature and ours in suffering, as to establish a bond of sympathy the most sustaining, comforting, and precious. Let us, then, address ourselves briefly to the task of ascertaining THE NATURE OF THOSE INGREDIENTS WHICH COMPOSED THE CUP OF SORROW FROM WHICH NOW HIS SENSITIVE SPIRIT RECOILED. "O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me."
The language is figurative. The suffering upon which the Lord now entered in the garden of Gethsemane, into whose central horrors, and towards whose dark climax on Calvary each step was conducting Him, He compares to the drinking of a "cup." "This cup." And what was this cup from which His sensitive spirit shrank in terror and dismay? Surely it must have been a chalice of which none other had ever tasted- and which none but the Divine-Man could taste. And truly it was so. Lose sight of the fact that Christ suffered in His representative character as the Surety and Mediator of His Church- that His obedience was preceptive, and His death expiatory- the one honoring Divine law, the other satisfying Divine justice- and you have lost all clue to the otherwise profound and inexplicable mystery of His sacrifice. Upon no other hypothesis can we arrive at a satisfactory, or even intelligent solution of this strange, this anomalous facts- the Innocent suffering for the guilty, the Righteous dying instead of the unrighteous, as it is written, "Christ also has once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might being us to God." But the Bible is interwoven with this truth as by a thread of gold, not simply running through its center, but ramifying every part, linking and interlacing itself with each doctrine, precept, promise, and statement- every revealed truth vivified and tinted with- Atoning Blood. Yes, let the denier of Christ's sacrifice remove from the Bible this essential, fundamental doctrine of faith, and it is as though He had blotted the sun from the heavens, wrenched the soul from the body, sapped the foundation of the building; He has robbed Christianity of Christ, the sinner of salvation, the dying of hope, the saint of heaven. "There remains no more sacrifice for sin" but a fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation, which shall devour the adversaries." Saint of God! it is written- and it stands until the end of the world, the salvation and hope of the last sinner that shall be saved- "He was wounded for our transgressions; He was bruised for our iniquities." Behold your Sin-bearer, and rejoice! The work is all complete; the debt is all cancelled. Christ has died, rather, is risen again; and His resurrection from the dead is the Father's acceptance of the Savior's work, and the pledge and earnest of your resurrection to life eternal. Oh, with what melody should you make the mountains and the valleys ring and echo with your song! Jesus, my Sin-bearer, has died for me, and I am saved!
"Your works, not mine, O Christ,
Speak gladness to this heart;
They tell me all is done;
They bid my fear depart.
To whom, save Thee
who can alone
For sin atone,
Lord, shall I flee!
"Your pains, not mine, O Christ,
Upon the shameful tree,
Have paid the law's full price
And purchased peace for me.
"Your tears, not mine, O Christ,
Have wept my guilt away;
And turned this night of mine
Into a blessed day.
"Your bonds, not mine, O Christ,
Unbind me of my chain,
And break my prison-doors,
Never to be barred again.
"Your wounds, not mine, O Christ,
Can heal my bruised soul,
Your stripes, not mine, contain
The balm that makes me whole.
"Your blood, not mine, O Christ,
Your blood so freely spilt,
Can blanch my blackest stains,
And purge away my guilt.
"Your Cross, not mine, O Christ
Has borne the awful load
Of sins that none in heaven
Or earth could bear, but God.
"Your death, not mine, O Christ,
Has paid the ransom due;
Ten thousand deaths like mine
Would have been all too few.
"Your righteousness, O Christ,
Alone can cover me;
No righteousness will do
Save that which is of You.
"Your righteousness alone
Can clothe and beautify;
I wrap it round my soul;
In this I'll live and die."
But it is a specific view of this subject which now engages our attention- our Lord's sensitiveness to suffering; and the consideration of this will yet more fully unfold the depth and keenness of His sufferings. It would seem impossible that as man Christ should be indifferent or insensible to suffering. Had sorrow lighted upon Him as the snow-flake falls on the ocean, or as the arrow flies through the air, untraceable by a single impression, then we might justly have questioned the perfect identity of His nature with ours. But when we mark the surging of the soul, the quivering of the lip, the trembling of the hand, the plaintive cry of pain, and the uplifted prayer for deliverance, we see in Jesus our Fellow-sufferer, bone of our bone, and flesh of our flesh. Let its cite a few examples of our Lord's sensibility to suffering.
Select, as the first and chief, that which is placed at the head of this chapter- the cup of wrath now trembling in His hand. "And He went a little farther, and fell on his face, and prayed, saying, O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me." How perfectly true to nature the affecting prayer, the touching ejaculation, thus breathing from the Savior's lips! There was nothing in it wild, enthusiastic, extravagant- no coveting of death, no choosing of pain, no stoical indifference to agony. Unlike some martyrs who have rushed to the stake with maddened joy, goaded by a blinded, excited, intoxicated nature, a high excitation of feeling, blunting the apprehension of a coming woe, He entered into this dark cloud of sorrow and suffering with fear and trembling! And why? Because He was bearing sin, exhausting the curse, and drinking the wrath of God for us. This makes all the difference between Christ's sufferings and those of the noble army of martyr; whom we reverence. He went to the cross laden with all sin- they went to the stake with all sin forgiven. He lifted to His lips and drank the cup of pain and of suffering, embittered with all the strength of the curse, and brimmed with the unmitigated wrath of God- they drank their cup of suffering, as we drink ours, sweetened and alleviated with Divine love, sympathy, and soothing.
But look at His sensibility. "Let this cup pass from me." It was from soul-agony, from mental grief, that He now shrunk. "Now is my soul troubled." He had reached the crisis of His mission, the goal of His passion; and as the dark hour drew on- His enemies watching, His disciples sleeping, His blood-impurpled brow pressing the damp soil of the garden- the midnight stillness is broken with His cry of agony, His prayer for deliverance- "O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me." Beloved reader, is your spirit troubled? is your mind disquieted? and do you shrink from the cup your heavenly Father has given you to drink? Oh, behold the source of your true sympathy, the lessons and the consolations flowing from Him, "Who in the days of his flesh, when He had offered up prayers and supplications, with strong crying and tears, unto him that was able to save him from death, and was heard in that He feared; though He were a Son, yet learned He obedience by the things which He suffered; and being made perfect, He became the author of eternal salvation unto all those who obey him." Your Savior was sensitive to soul-sorrow, and do you think that He will chide or be indifferent to yours? Ah, no! He knows your spirit's grief, and will comfort it. He has passed through your mental sorrow, and will soothe it. He has felt your soul-darkness, and will cheer it. You are, perhaps, suffering from a present, or are shrinking from an anticipated, sorrow. The cup is in your trembling hand. You pray, "O my Father, if it be possible- if it be possible- let it pass from me. Sustain me in this calamity beneath which my wounded spirit sinks. Spare me the impending blow from which my sensitive spirit recoils." Oh, do you think that the sympathy of Christ is not with you now? Can He not enter with you into that cloud, share with you that cup, understand that recoil of feeling, and make all allowance for these keen, wounded, crushed sensibilities? "Father, if it be possible." Who will forbid that prayer?- not Jesus!
Our Lord was equally sensitive to bodily pain. This was, doubtless, one of the ingredients of the cup Christ was now about to drink to its dregs. The body was involved in the fall of man- the inlet to the sin of the soul. In the working out of an atonement for sin, the body must also suffer. Our dear Lord's entire exemption from a sinful nature did not exempt Him from a sensitive nature- a nature sensitive to physical suffering. The absence of sensibility to pain of body would have compromised the fact of His actual humanity. What an essential defect in His sympathy would have been His freedom from bodily pain! How could the Head then have sympathized with the members? The diseases which assail our frame, it is true, found no counterpart in Him; yet, was He not the less exempt from suffering of body. Oh, was there no bodily agony in the laceration of the scourge, in the heavy blows of the clenched fist, in the plucking off the hair, in the thorn-crown, in the spikes impelled through the hands and the feet, in the thrust of the spear entering the side and piercing the heart of Jesus? Was there no torture in the long, lingering agony of the cross, the blood oozing from the wounds by drops, and life ebbing slowly by inches? How literally was verified His own prophetic words, "I gave my back to the smiters, and my cheek to those who plucked off the hair!" Hear His cry, "Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me"- this cup of mortal agony. You, too, may thus be shrinking from bodily suffering. Does the weak flesh recoil from those agonies which no tongue can describe, which no skill can baffle, which no anodyne can soothe, and which no affection can prevent? Jesus can sympathize with you. Do you think that He will desert you in this trial of your humanity, or make no allowance for the weakness of the flesh, the pain and nervousness, the agony and languor, the fainting and swooning which so much interferes with your soul's enjoyment, beclouds your mental powers, and prevents those spiritual exercises of reading, meditation, and prayer in which you have been wont so happily to indulge? Ah, no! He is your fellow-sufferer! and when, in anticipation of the throes, the agonies, and the convulsions which rack the body with pain, the spirit fails, the flesh shrinks, and your trembling heart breathes to heaven its earnest, plaintive cry, "Father, if it be possible,"- you are at once in the closest sympathy with your Savior's sensitiveness to bodily suffering, and He in sympathy with yours. Who will arrest that prayer?- not Jesus!
Our Lord was sensitive to the pain of domestic slight. It is marvellous to trace the perfect assimilation of His humanity to all the natural circumstances of ours. Was there no betrayal of sensitiveness to this peculiar form of suffering when He quoted the proverb as applicable to Himself- "A prophet is not without honor, but in his own country, and in his own house?" He was as a stranger among His brethren, an alien in His Father's house. They doubted Him- slighted Him- insulted Him. Jesus felt the neglect- and felt it keenly. His sensitive spirit was wounded. How many of the Lord's people are drinking this cup of sadness, are enduring this form of suffering! The icy coldness, the studied slight, the marked neglect of those of your own house, whose confidence, affection, and sympathy you had not forfeited and had a right to possess, is a daily cross, chafing, wounding, fretting the spirit sorely. But your Lord and Master prepared you for this- teaching you the precept, and then enforcing it by His example "Do you suppose that I came to give peace on earth? I tell you, no; but rather division: for from henceforth there shall be five in one house divided, three against two, and two against three." "And a man's foes shall be they of his own household." How faithfully does our Lord here forewarn His disciples, that love to Him and a profession of His gospel would, in many instances, involve the weakening, if not the entire rupture, of those ties, the closest and the dearest, which bind us to earth's kindred. The religion of Jesus is a separating religion; it has done but little for us if it has not severed us from the world, and quenched in us the spirit of the world, and separated us from all worldly association, and sympathy with the world's followers, bound to us though they are by ties which we cannot and may not entirely sunder. Oh, how extensive and subtle a snare is the world to a disciple of Jesus- to one desirous of living for eternity! Our relations are snares- our friendships are snares- our alliances are snares- our business transactions are snares- our necessary recreations of intellect and taste are snares- and our social and domestic enjoyments are often but pleasant bowers within whose foliage lurks the tempter. If, then, beloved reader, the Lord has given you grace to tread the narrow path of separation- shaded and secluded though it be; if you are called to witness for Jesus and His gospel against the world, error, and sin, surrounded by those with whom you sported in childhood, among whom your youth was trained, who are entwined with associations of later life the sweetest, and with memories of earlier life the most sacred and dear, and yet you are the object of alienated affection, frigid neglect, doubt, and scorn, because you love the Savior- Oh, do not be cast down, as though sonic strange thing had happened to you. Your Lord and Master, for whom you suffer; suffered all this, and infinitely more, for you; and in sympathy and in love soothes and supports and suffers with you now.
Having given prominence to this feeling of our Lord, as man- His sensitiveness to suffering- let us briefly draw from it SOME HOLY, PRACTICAL DEDUCTIONS.
We learn how completely Christ could be our fellow-sufferer, without the slightest compromise of His essential dignity and greatness. It demonstrated no defect in our Lord's character that He should rather have repelled than coveted suffering. We seek the evidence of real humanity- we have it here! Taken into alliance with His absolute Deity, there could be no element in it not in harmony with His higher and superior
nature. When, therefore, we find our Lord in the days of His flesh shrinking from pain, as we now do, we find nothing in it to disturb the perfect equipoise of a well-balanced mind, or to cast a shadow upon the luster of a strong and a great One. A great and holy mind may be so sustained in the endurance of suffering, loss, shame, or death, as to rise superior to them; but it is no mark of real greatness to affect to despise or to be indifferent to them absolutely and unconditionally. A man of God would willingly accept them as alternatives, but thankfully would He escape them, if by so doing He did not compromise his own honor and self-respect, and, above all, his allegiance to Christ and truth. Behold, then, beloved, your Lord as in all respects your fellow-sufferer. He sympathizes with you when you shrink from pain; for there was an hour when He shrunk from it Himself; and in that hour of extreme distress, every nerve quivering, and the sweat like blood dropping from His sacred body, He prayed that the cup might be taken away. Oh, do not think that you betray an improper weakness, or prefer an undutiful petition, when the poor frail flesh dreads the pang, and the spirit cries- Let this cup pass from me!
But not only may this tender susceptibility to pain be perfectly consistent with true greatness and dignity of character, but equally so with the perfect submission of the will to God. An intense desire to be saved from suffering may be in strict harmony with the holiest resignation, fortitude, and courage in suffering. What a page in the history of our Lord is here! "If this cup may not pass from me except I drink it, your will be done." It was not possible that that cup should pass His lips undrank. The salvation of His elect Church hung upon it- the glory of His Father was involved in it- the interests of the universe were bound up in it- it was not possible! But not less did His own love constrain Him to exhaust that cup, than the necessity imposed by the eternal purpose and will of the Father. Oh, deem not that that sensitiveness to pain, that shrinking from suffering, displayed in the plaintive cry "If it be possible,"- manifested the slightest veering of love, the remotest vacillation of mind, the least hesitancy on the part of Christ to offer Himself as a voluntary sacrifice for our sins. Oh, no! Light flows not from the sun more spontaneously, the winds blow not more freely, nor does the mountain stream rush on to the ocean more impetuously, than went our blessed sacrificial Lamb of God to the altar of atonement. And yet we thank, we bless, we laud Him for this plaintive ejaculation- "If it be possible." This is nature, and this is truth. I need not pause to inquire what nature- it is enough that it harmonizes with my nature, that it is true to all the instincts of my manhood, and pours a deeper, richer, sweeter tide of sympathy and soothing into my troubled spirit than the most stoical nature foreign from my own could have done. Oh, how much more deeply and tenderly does that cry of weakness and of suffering touch my sad heart, than the most sublime words of excited heroism! It assures me that my feebleness, my sensitiveness, my prayer for exemption from pain, is not sinful, is not wrong, is not unmanly and undignified, and will meet with no check nor rebuke from Him who in the days of His flesh offered up prayers and supplications, with strong crying and tears, unto Him that was able to save Him from death. Before this loving, sympathizing Savior I am subdued and melted. Oh, how my love is awakened! I love Him, because that He, though God, is near to me, near in the valley of tears and suffering, not chiding but sharing, not crushing but sustaining, not repelling but, sanctifying my infirmities, feebleness, and sorrow. I love Him for the sympathy that soothes, and for the power that supports me. I love Him who, while He sighs with me, weeps with me, sorrows with me, encircles me with His omnipotent arms, upholds me with His Divine grace, and perfects His strength in my weakness. "I love the Lord because he hears and answers my prayers. Because he bends down and listens, I will pray as long as I have breath!" Psalm 116:1-2.
We recur again to the thought that we must not only claim Christ's alliance with us in our cup of suffering, but if we would experience all the advantage of His sympathy, we must conclude His prayer- "Nevertheless, not as I will, but as You will." While our Savior would stoop to our human sorrow, He would raise us to His Divine resignation. He seems to say to us- "You shall indeed drink of the cup that I drink of, and in the same spirit of filial submission to your Father's will." Yes, child of suffering and of sorrow! it may not be the will of God that your request should be granted. That cup from which you shrink- it is not possible should pass. It becomes you to drink and drain it, as did He- but His words shall strengthen and aid you, "Your will, not mine, be done." It is in cleaving by faith the deep waters, and in climbing the difficult ascent, we reach the firmest footing, and the highest, brightest, holiest elevation in our Christianity- the complete absorption of our will in God's will. Great trials make great saints. The most deeply afflicted are the most deeply sanctified. It was not until our blessed Lord first pressed that cup to His lips that the conflict and the triumph of will took place. "Let this cup pass from me- Your will be done." Oh, it were worth any cup our Father mingled to be able to bow our head to the earth and say
"Let me never choose- or to live or die,
Bind or bruise, in Your hands I lie."
What a holy, practical lesson may we here learn! Does Christ thus sympathize with us? does the Lord know our weak frames and remember that we are dust? Then let us go forth in perfect sympathy with Christ in everything, that relates to His truth, His kingdom, His people. He is unworthy of a love so self-sacrificing; of a sympathy so engirdling; who feels not himself one and identified with Christ in everything that relates to the honor of that name at which every knee shall bow. Embraced by such a love, and interested in such a sympathy, let us melt into the profoundest sensibility at the thought that it was for us Christ sighed and wept, bled and suffered; and, standing before that awful spectacle- the wonder and marvel of the universe- let us resolve that the sins which crucified Him once shall not crucify Him again- but that the death our Savior died for sins, shall be our death unto sin, and that henceforth we will be Christ's true disciples, Christ's faithful followers.
You will learn, too, to sympathize with the suffering members of Christ's body. Soothed by such a sympathy as His, your own will flow forth in its tenderness toward all who through the weakness and infirmity of the flesh are shrinking from or are drinking the cup of suffering. Catching the spirit, imbibing the gentleness and tenderness of Jesus, in imitation of Him, you will, by your compassion, prayers, and substance, seek to alleviate the pain, soothe the grief, and supply the need of those, the companions and representatives of your Lord, in whom are filled up the afflictions of Christ, which are behind. Recognize a suffering Christ in His suffering members, a persecuted Christ in His persecuted members, a poor Christ in His poor members, a despised Christ in His downtrodden members, an imprisoned Christ in His imprisoned members; a sick, a naked, a hungry Christ in those whom worldly adversity, penury, and need have smitten and laid low. "Inasmuch as you have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, you have done it unto me."
Whatever may be the cup your heavenly Father prepares for you, keep firm hold of this truth, that He will never forsake you. "He forsakes not His saints." Shrink not from the suffering that seems inevitable, the cup which may not pass your lips untouched- God will be with you. You are, perhaps, anticipating a fiery ordeal, a dread crisis of your case; the flesh shrinks from the knife, the heart dies within you at the thought of that hour of silent agony which approaches. Oh, have faith now in your heavenly Father. Do you think that He will leave you to drink that cup alone? to endure that pain alone? to pass through that hour alone? Oh, no! He will be with you, Christ will be with you, the Comforter will be with you, and, as "your day, so shall your strength be." Has God ever yet been to you a wilderness? Has His promise ever failed? Has Jesus ever stood aloof from your sore, leaving your wound untouched, unsoothed, unhealed? Has not the Lord always been better than all your trembling anticipations, quelling your fears, reassuring your doubting mind, and hearing you gently and safely through the hour of suffering which you dreaded? Then trust Him now! Never, never will He forsake you! Let His will be done in you, and by you- and thus, both in doing and suffering, you may sweetly sing–
"My Father, choose the path I tread,
Midst drooping hopes and pleasures fled,
Or with bright sunshine round me spread,
But never let me go!
"My Father, choose the rank I fill,
To rule a nation at my will,
Or lowliest services fulfil,
But never let me go!
"My Father, choose my lot in life,
A peaceful home, unvexed by strife,
Or stormy scenes, with danger rife,
But never let me go!
"My Father, choose my work for Thee,
To toil in bright activity,
Or pause and wait on bended knee,
But never let me go!
"My Father, choose my dying day,
In prime of life to pass away,
Or sink in age's slow decay,
But never let me go!
"Yes, Lord, Your wisdom, love, and power
Are my strong rock, my sheltering tower,
And this shall soothe life's darkest hour
You will not let mo go!"

The Sympathy of Christ with True Shame

And Jesus answered and said unto them, Are you come out, as against a thief, with swords and with staves to take me? Mark 14:48

Jesus asked them, "Am I some dangerous criminal, that you come armed with swords and clubs to arrest me? Mark 14:48

Our Lord's nature, from its essential sinlessness, was at an infinite remove from every sentiment and feeling of littleness. There was in His character no admixture of lowliness with majesty, of baseness with dignity, of littleness with greatness. No thought lodged in His mind, no emotion stirred His bosom, no motive swayed His conduct, no act traced His life that towered not in its loftiness and splendor above the taint and shadow of suspicion. More than this. There was not only the actual existence in Christ of the most perfect honor and rectitude, but, superadded to this, there was a holy sensitiveness to and shrinking from, the least appearance of the opposite. He not only was not a thief, but He refused to be dealt with as a thief. He was not only free from crime, but He would also be free from the suspicion of criminality. He possessed in the highest degree the element of true shame. It was an element of His being, a characteristic of His nature. His delicacy of feeling was remarkable; His sensibility exquisitely acute; His sensitiveness shrinking from the slightest breath. Our Lord possessed the most perfect sympathy with true shame. It was an essential feature and evidence of His greatness. A remarkable and touching illustration of this characteristic is before us. The scene, is the garden of Gethsemane; the time, is midnight; and the occasion, His arrest. Look at one particular of the scene- His arrest. It was by Judas, one of the twelve, attended by circumstances which must have been exquisitely torturing to the feelings of Christ. He had committed no wrong, had done no violence, had sought no concealment, had attempted no escape; and yet the betrayer hunted Him as a fugitive from justice, and arrested Him as a criminal fit only to die. There was a degree of dishonor and degradation attached to the mode of His apprehension from which His native dignity, and conscious innocence and human sensitiveness to shame instinctively and painfully recoiled. Shrinking from their touch, while awe-struck they stood motionless in His presence, He exclaimed, in tones of conscious dignity and integrity, which must have sent the keen rebuke deep into the breast of His betrayer, "Are you come out, as against a thief, with swords and with staves to take me?" There was nothing exaggerated, nothing untrue to nature in this. It was precisely the sentiment, the feeling, and the words to which conscious integrity and superiority would give birth. He was upright, and He would not be arraigned as a felon. He was innocent, and He would not be prejudged as guilty. He was willing to die, the just for the unjust, expiating, by a voluntary offering of Himself to Divine justice, the sins of His people; but there shall be no physical force, no human impeachment of His sanctity, no act in the mode of His arrest, which, by implication, should incriminate His conduct, shade His holiness, or brand Him in the eyes of men as a sinner and a culprit. He had a character to maintain, a mission to perform, which demanded an integrity and uprightness which should stand out before the world unimpeached and unimpeachable, at an infinite remove even from the appearance of evil. Willing to be "numbered with transgressors," and to "make His grave with the wicked in His death," He yet refused to be arrested by an armed force, and to be haled to the judgment as a felon and an outlaw. "Then Jesus answered and said unto them, did you come out, as against a thief, with swords and with staves to take me?"
In all this we discern a perfect identity of our Lord with our nature- the truest sympathy with one of its most peculiar and deeply-veiled features- the believer's holy regard to true shame. There is a false shame, which we are prayerfully to avoid; and there is a true shame, which we are studiously to cherish. False shame deprecates the good, true shame deprecates the evil; the one is ashamed of being found doing right, the other is ashamed of being found doing wrong. There is a spurious feeling of shame attaching itself to our nature, with which true greatness of character and high moral bearing in the saints of God would ever lead them to combat. Our Lord abjured it, as we shall presently see. His life was one unbroken testimony to the fact that this false sentiment never found a moment's lodgment within His breast. And this fact furnishes another and no slight evidence of His perfect sinlessness. If sin were utterly extirpated from our heart, our cheek would never be suffused with a blush when doing right, as though there was a consciousness of doing wrong. We might blush to find our good, done by stealth, had become fame; or we might be annoyed to find that good evil spoken of, but for the good itself we should never be ashamed. Having said thus much in explanation of the false and the true shame, in the further prosecution of this subject we shall notice Christ's sympathy with true shame, and the instruction and comfort we are permitted to derive from it.
CHRIST'S SYMPATHY WITH TRUE SHAME.
In the first place, our Lord was not ashamed of assuming a nature lower and inferior to His own. "The Word was made flesh, and dwelt among its." "Forasmuch as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, He also took part of the same." "He that sanctifies, and they who are sanctified, are all of one: for which cause He is not ashamed to call them brethren." Such are the declarations affirming this truth. Here was an example of freedom from false shame worthy our profoundest study and closest imitation. That it was a stoop, a descent, a lowering of Himself, who can doubt? It involved a humiliation in the sight of holy intelligence the deepest to which an infinite Being could stoop. It was not a 'created one' sinking in the scale of creation: it was the Infinite descending to the finite. It was the Divine invested with the human. And yet, conscious that He was doing no wrong, conscious of the perfect rectitude and purity of His doing, He lifted His brow to heaven untinged with a blush of shame. What a precious truth is this! Repair, O believer, to Christ, with your nature laden with infirmity, sorrow, and need. Christ will not turn away from His own flesh: He will own you as a brother, for He is not ashamed to call us brethren.
Nor was Christ ashamed of low and obscure birth. Had He so willed it, He might have been born in a palace rather than in a stable; the son of a prince rather than of a carpenter; his mother a king's daughter rather than the wife of a carpenter. But no! He was born to humiliation, and He eschewed not lowliness and obscurity of birth. Let no child of God be ashamed of the circumstance of his parentage and birth, for God has appointed both. Low birth entails no dishonor, and impoverished parentage is no disgrace. The greatest and the holiest have traced their earthly origin to this. Put if our Lord could not boast of noble birth, He could boast of Christian birth. Obscure and low as were His earthly parents, they were holy, God-fearing parents. Are we like favored? Did God give us pious, holy, praying parents? Then the patent of true nobility was theirs. And although Divine grace is not hereditary, for the new birth comes not by the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God, nevertheless, we may be thankful for a God-fearing father and for a praying mother, as among God's most sacred and precious gifts.
Nor was our Lord ashamed of earthly poverty and toil. His parents were poor in this world, and toiled with their own hands for daily sustenance. That He shared their poverty and toil, there can be no doubt. He was not merely the reputed son of a carpenter, but, doubtless, He himself plied at the same lowly craft. He was the son of a carpenter, and Himself a carpenter. Not was He ashamed of this. Why should He be? There is no discredit in holiest poverty; there is no disgrace in industrious toil. He who earns his bread by the sweat of his brow, who labors with his own hands for himself and for those who cannot thus toil, is pursuing an honorable and dignified course; and, however lowly may be his calling, however lowly his craft, poverty is to him no crime, and labor no disgrace; and He may walk among his fellows without dishonor, and lift his countenance unmantled with a tinge of shame.
Our Lord was not ashamed of the opinion of the world. It had its views of Christ, its opinion of His character and conduct. And although there were occasions when Christ manifested an interest in the popular sentiment concerning Himself, "Whom do men say that I am?"- thus teaching that there is a sense in which His disciples may not be wholly indifferent to the sentiment of others- yet, whatever that opinion was, favorable or unfavorable, He never for one moment allowed it so to influence or control Him as to swerve one hair's-breadth from the strictest, straightest line of duty, integrity, and love. Every believer, however limited and veiled from human eye his sphere of life, will create a public sentiment respecting his individual self. His relations, his friends, his neighbors, will form their opinion of his character, doings, and life. Few pass through life incognito to eternity; few slide through society unseen, unnoticed, unfelt. To this we cannot be, nor ought we to be, wholly indifferent. Each individual Christian especially should live for an object. He should so live as to make his talents, influence, and example tell upon the present and eternal well-being of all with whom He comes in contact. "No man lives to himself." As a "light," He is to shine; as "salt," He is to influence; as a "witness," He is to testify for Christ. In a world like this, where there is so much evil to correct, so much temptation to resist, so much sorrow to soothe, so much need to supply, so much misery to counteract, so much ignorance to instruct, so much good to be done, none need be all the day idle, dreaming away existence, vegetating in selfishness, not living for man or laboring for God. Oh, be an earnest, active Christian! Be up and doing! Life is too real, too solemn, too responsible, for sluggishness, inactivity, and selfishness! We are gliding down the stream onward to eternity. Shall we spend our fleeting moments in grasping at the floating straw, when for every moment and act of our present course we shall soon be cited at Christ's bar for scrutiny and judgment? Souls are perishing- ignorance of the gospel is prevailing- iniquity is abounding- Satan is unslumbering- death plies its scythe, and the grave yawns each moment, and an eternity of bliss or of woe is gathering, at every stroke of the pendulum, deathless beings to its bosom. Shall we not, then, be active and earnest in a world like this? But in so doing we must learn, like our Divine Master, to live above the world's opinion. We must not blush, nor cower, nor bend before it. The world hates us because we are not of the world, but testify of its works, that they are evil. We must, therefore, set our face as a flint against its opinion, its opposition, its malice, and its hate, not ashamed of the evil report from which none are entirely exempt who, like Jesus, go about doing good. Oh for more of this dignified, holy freedom from the opinion of men! If we are carrying out our Christian principles, reducing to practice the great and glorious truths of Christ's gospel- meekly, humbly pursuing that course which truth and conscience and love dictate, however opposed by human opinion, and the principles and the spirit and the customs of the world- we may indeed confront the frowns and scorn the censure of man, but we shall walk with an approving conscience, and beneath the smile of a favoring and sustaining God.
Another illustration of our Lord's freedom from false shame was the avowal, everywhere and on all occasions, that His life was ruled by the fear of, and terminated in the glory of, God. He could say, as none other could- "I do always those things which please Him." And why should the child of God, the disciple of Christ, blush to acknowledge that the fear of God is his governing principle, and the glory of God the great end of his being? Why should we shrink to answer- "I cannot pursue that course; I cannot adopt that mode; I dare not conduct my business on those principles; I cannot descend to those questionable arts and subterfuges, because I am a follower of Christ. Others may stoop to the tricks of trade, its artifice and fraud and commercial immorality; but I don't because of the fear of the Lord." Oh, let no false shame turn you from this course. The world may laugh, the false religious professor may scorn, the infidel may scoff, friends may censure, but yours is the honor, the dignity, and the reward of having lived and walked and acted as in the fear of God.
Nor was our Lord ashamed of the death which He died. It was the death of a Roman felon, the most ignominious, tortuous, and accursed death He could die- the death of the cross. And yet we read- "Who for the joy that was set before him, endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God." Oh, never did His real greatness and true dignity rise to such an altitude as now! See Him impaled upon that tree, stretched upon that wood, scourged, spit upon, insulted, mocked, derided, taunted, wounded, then left to linger and die; and yet, oh, what glory gathered round that scene of humiliation, suffering, and death! Jesus rose superior to it all, enduring the cross with all its unknown horrors, despising the shame with all its unfathomable depths, all endured, all suffered, all despised, for the love He bore us!
This subject has its PRACTICAL LESSONS as well as its rich CONSOLATIONS. Let us glean a few in conducting the chapter to a close.
It is a false shame to be ashamed of Christ and of His gospel. That there is a tendency to this, even in the renewed heart, is clear from the meaning and instruction of Christ himself. "Whoever shall be ashamed of me and my words, of him shall the Son of man be ashamed, when He shall come in his own glory, and in his Father's, and of the holy angels." True Christian discipleship demands an uncompromising avowal of attachment to Christ, of adhesion to His person, and of adherence to His truth. The offence of the cross is not ceased. A real decision for the Redeemer cannot exist without some sacrifice, demanded and made, as a term of discipleship. "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me." The sacrifices thus expected and thus endured are various. Some are called to assert their conscientious decisions confronted by hostility from quarters the most loved, venerated, and cherished, but all the keener and the more overwhelming. Arrayed against him are father, mother, brother, sister, wife, husband, child- ties of affection which bind the heart so closely to the family altar and the hearth. The pang of separation from these, who can estimate? The deep, lonely grief, who can describe? Yet the Savior has said- "He that loves father or mother more than me, is not worthy of me; and He that loves son or daughter more than me, is not worthy of me." Other saints are called to abandon their worldly interests, to renounce their earthly property, to exclude themselves from the means of acquiring distinction, rank, honor, wealth, and to link them with poverty and toil and need; encountering the reproach of friends, blighted hopes, disappointed wishes, ruined expectations. Be it so. This is nothing more than Jesus foretold and forewarned: "Let us go forth, therefore, unto Him outside the camp, bearing His reproach."
But for whom are you enduring and suffering and sacrificing all this? For Jesus! For Him who, though He was rich, for your sakes became poor, that you through His poverty might be rich. For Him who was not ashamed to call you His brother, but bowed His Godhead to your nature, and on your behalf became a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. For Him who, while working out your righteousness by His life of unwearied and perfect obedience, could say, "Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man has nowhere to lay his head." For Him who gave His back to the smiter, and His cheek to those who plucked off the hair; who sorrowed in Gethsemane, clad in a purple robe of blood; who was mocked and buffeted and spit upon in the judgment-hall; who bore the full weight of sin and the curse, and the suffering and the desertion upon the cross, and then bowed His head and died. Before this stupendous spectacle, this amazing sacrifice, we exclaim, in the language of an inspired apostle, "I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ; for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believes." And, in the words of a Christian poet
"Were the whole realm of nature mine,
That were a present far too small;
Love so amazing, so divine,
Demands my soul, my life, my all."
BE SENSIBLE TO TRUE SHAME. This was the shame our Lord felt. "Jesus answered and said unto them, Are you come out, as against a thief, with swords and with staves to take me?" I marvel not at this holy indignation and recoil of my Savior! The mode of His arrest was repulsive to every high, honorable feeling of His nature. It was a reflection upon the purity of His character. It was an imputation of His loyalty and honesty in His civil relation to the State. It was a slight upon the pacific nature of His religion and kingdom. It was a denial of the voluntariness of His sacrifice. And it was an impeachment of the sincerity and integrity of His whole career. We marvel not that with holy shame He indignantly repelled the armed force that would arrest and hale Him as a criminal to the judgment. Imitate Christ in this! Be sensible to true shame. Whatever would place you in a false position before the world- whatever would reflect unjustly upon your Christian character, meekly but firmly repel- silence the slander, vindicate your integrity, and then commit your case to Him that judges righteously. So acted the noble and magnanimous apostle. He and his companions had been unjustly arrested and cast into prison. An earthquake ensued. The magistrates, filled with fear, sent the sergeants, saying, "Let these men go." No, exclaimed Paul- "They have beaten us openly uncondemned, being Romans, and have cast us into prison; and now do they thrust its out privily? no verily, but let them come themselves and fetch us out." And so they did. The religion of Jesus ignores not our civil rights, tramples not upon our natural privileges, nor forbids us to vindicate, before magistrates and rulers, our innocence, uprightness, and integrity against falsity, malice, and injustice. Like your Master, and like our "beloved brother Paul," we must expect to be maligned, falsely accused and condemned, traduced, slandered, and evil spoken of. We must expect to have our doings censured, our motives impugned, our principles scorned, our ends questioned. Nevertheless, "let us consider Him that endured such contradiction of sinners against Himself, lest we be weary and faint in our minds."
There is much indeed in ourselves of which we have reason truly to be ashamed and to be filled with profound self-abhorrence. We have need to be ashamed of our unbelief- of our low thoughts of the Savior- of our little love to God- of our slow advance in the divine life- of our imperfect conformity to Christ- of the power of indwelling sin- and of our slender spiritual attainments in knowledge, personal holiness, and heavenly meekness. What shamefacedness should cover us that we are so ready to compromise, to falter, and to halt. How deeply humbled should we be that there still exists in us so much carnality, love of the world, and conformity to the world- so little of the crucified spirit, of a cross-bearing Savior! What cause of shame that, with all our profession, the pulse of spiritual life beats in our souls so faintly, the spirit of prayer breathes in us so feebly, that we possess so little real, vital religion, and follow Christ at so great a distance. Filled with self-abasement should we be that the fruits and graces of the Spirit are in us so sickly, drooping, and bedwarfed- that we have so limited a measure of faith, love, and humility, are so defective in our patience and meekness, wisdom, and gentleness- that, with all our blossom and foliage, there is so little real fruit to the glory of our Father. May we not, in view of all this, exclaim with Ezra, in his deep grief and humiliation for the sins of the people, "O my God, I am utterly ashamed; I blush to lift up my face to you. For our sins are piled higher than our heads, and our guilt has reached to the heavens." Ezra 9:6. Oh, where shall we fly, where hide our blushing face but in the blood of atonement! sprinkled afresh with which, we may lift up our heads and not be ashamed.
My dear reader, look well to your foundation, to your religion, to your hope, to your daily walk. Be this your constant prayer, mixed with a constant self-examination and faithful dealing with conscience- "Let me not be ashamed of my hope." If you are justified by faith, you will know what peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ is; and then you will experience that hope that makes not ashamed, because the love of God will be shed abroad in your heart by the Holy Spirit which is given unto you. And, Oh, may we live in the believing, hopeful expectation of our Lord's coming to roll away our shame and reproach, and to exalt us to glory, honor, and immortality. May we not be ashamed at His coming! But, owning and serving Him now, may we then bear Him say, "Come, you blessed ones! You who have continued with me in my temptations, confessed my name, borne my cross, suffered for me on earth, I appoint unto you a kingdom, as my Father has appointed unto me. Enter you into the joy of your Lord."
"Then will He own my worthless name
Before His Father's face,
And in the New Jerusalem
Appoint my soul a place."
Go, dear reader, from the perusal of this chapter, to the solitude of your closet, there to beseech the Lord to give you grace henceforth, Caleb-like, wholly and unreservedly to follow Him outside the camp, bearing His reproach. We read of the first disciples of the Lord, "And they forsook all and followed Him." The solemn confession of Christ you have made before the world pledges you to the offence, the shame, the crucifixion, and the self-denial of the cross of Jesus. You have bound that cross around your heart, you have identified yourself with its reproach and its boast, its defeats and its victories, its humiliation and its glory; onward you must bear it through flood and flame, through good and through evil report, glorying in its doctrine, despising its shame, enduring its crucifixion, until the Master bids you exchange your sword for a scepter, your cross for a crown, which His own hands will place upon your head! Blessed, thrice blessed, you who, when that blessed moment arrives, will be enabled calmly, exultingly to exclaim, "As for me, my life has already been poured out as an offering to God. The time of my death is near. I have fought a good fight, I have finished the race, and I have remained faithful. And now the prize awaits me—the crown of righteousness that the Lord, the righteous Judge, will give me on that great day of his return. And the prize is not just for me but for all who eagerly look forward to his glorious return." 2 Tim. 4:6-8.
"Jesus, I my cross have taken,
All to leave, and follow Thee;
Naked, poor, despised, forsaken,
You from hence my all shall be.
Perish every fond ambition,
All I've sought, or hoped, or known;
Yet how rich is my condition,
God and heaven are still my own!
"Let the world despise and leave me;
They have left my Savior too;
Human hearts and looks deceive me,
You are not, like them, untrue;
And while You shall smile upon me,
God of wisdom, love, and might,
Foes may hate, and friends disown me,
Show Your face, and all is bright.
"Go, then, earthly fame and treasure,
Come, disaster, scorn, and pain.
In Your service praise is pleasure,
With Your favor loss is gain.
I have called You, Abba, Father;
I have set my heart on Thee;
Storms may howl, and clouds may gather,
All must work for good to me.
"Man may trouble and distress me,
'Twill but drive me to Your breast;
Life with trials hard may press me,
Heaven will bring me sweeter rest.
Oh, it is not in grief to harm me,
While Your love is left to me;
Oh, 'twas not in joy to charm me,
Were that joy unmixed with Thee.
"Soul, then know your full salvation;
Rise over sin, and fear, and care;
Joy to find in every station
Something still to do or bear.
Think what Spirit dwells within thee;
Think what Father's smiles are thine;
Think that Jesus died to win thee,
Child of heaven, can you repine?
"Haste you on from grace to glory,
Armed by faith and winged with prayer;
Heaven's eternal days before you,
God's own hand shall guide you there.
Soon shall close your earthly mission;
Soon shall pass your pilgrim days;
Hope shall change to glad fruition,
Faith to sight, and prayer to praise!"

The Sympathy of Christ with Spiritual Joy

"In that hour Jesus rejoiced in spirit" Luke 10:21.

It is a frequently-quoted remark of one of the fathers, that Christ was often seen to weep, but never once to smile. We doubt both the correctness and the wisdom of the statement. Our Lord was a man of joy as well as a man of sorrow. He must, in the fathomless depths of His holy soul, have been as intimately acquainted with gladness as with grief- with the emotion of joy as with the feeling of sorrow. And can we picture Him to our mind thus rejoicing in spirit, the oil of gladness poured upon Him without measure, and insinuating itself into the innermost depths of His being, without a gleam, a smile of joy lighting up that benign, placid, and expressive countenance which more than all others must have been a perfect index of the soul's hidden, varied, and profound emotions? Impossible!
A portrait of Christ, with nothing but shadows– shadows of grief and sorrow darkening the entire picture– would be lacking in one of its most essential and life-like features. That a pure and deep joy never found a home in the Savior's breast, we cannot, then, for a moment credit. That His heart was the seat of grief unmitigated, of sorrow unmixed- that, from that harp breathed no sounds but woe- that from that fount of sensibility welled up no emotions but found their utterance in sighs and groans and tears, is far, very far from our conceptions of the Savior. And that, when the emotion of joy did for a moment glow in the human soul of Christ, there was no corresponding glow lighting up and illumining every feature of that wonderful countenance, and for a while clothing it with the warm sunshine and radiance of a holy smile, we cannot believe.
Again– Is the statement of Christ's joyless expression wise? We think not. It gives a wrong, distorted, gloomy portrait of His holy religion. The religion of Christ is the religion of JOY. Christ came to take away our sins, to roll off our curse, to unbind our chains, to open our prison-house, to cancel our debt; in a word, to give us the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness. Is not this joy? Where can we find a joy so real, so deep, so pure, so lasting? There is every element of joy- deep, ecstatic, satisfying, sanctifying joy- in the gospel of Christ.
The believer in Jesus is essentially a happy man. The child of God is, from necessity, a joyful man. His sins are forgiven, his soul is justified, his person is adopted, his trials are blessings, his conflicts are victories, his death is immortality, his future is a heaven of inconceivable, unthought of, untold, and endless blessedness- with such a God, such a Savior, and such a hope, is he not, ought he not, to be a joyful man?
We propose, in the further unfolding of this subject, to state the grounds of the Lord's joy, and the corresponding grounds of the spiritual joy of the Lord's people; thus illustrating the perfect sympathy of Christ with His saints in this holy, elevated element of Christian experience. The varied emotions of Christ never resolved themselves into empty sentiment, or evaporated into mere feeling- which, alas! is so much the case with many of His professed disciples- but that they were always in harmony with the occasions which gave them birth: that they were either an embodiment of some Divine principle or in illustration of some important truth, or in connection with some beneficent act- a doctrine of the gospel propounded, or a miracle of mercy wrought.
In the present instance (Luke 10:21), the joy of Christ is in connection with the enunciation of one of the most important doctrines of the Bible- the gospel, hidden to the worldly-wise, revealed to the spiritually enlightened and taught. "In that hour Jesus rejoiced in spirit, and said, I thank you, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and prudent, and have revealed them unto babes: even so, Father; for so it seemed good in your sight." In tracing our Lord's joy to some of its causes, let us place this one in the foreground- His joy at the sovereign revelation of His gospel to His disciples.
What a solemn, and equally true, statement of our great Teacher is this- the gospel a hidden, concealed thing to the carnal mind! "You have hidden these things from the wise and prudent." The "wise and prudent," in the general acceptation of the title, include the great men of the unregenerate; all those to whom the mysteries of the kingdom are not revealed; but, doubtless, our Lord had a special reference to the carnally-wise, the lettered philosophers of the world, who, wise and prudent in the learning and science and arts of this life, were yet profoundly ignorant of the things of the Spirit of God.
Now, this arises from no defect either in the nature of the gospel, or in the evidence of its divinity, or in the simplicity of its statements. There is everything in the gospel to awaken the intellect, to incite the imagination, to gratify the taste, to enlist the sympathies and sensibilities of the finest and most cultivated minds. Its themes of thought, its touches of beauty, its unveilings of grandeur, its history, its philosophy, its poetry, its science, are such as to charm and feast the noblest intellect that ever shone in the world of mind. And when the soul at first wakes up to the sublimity and power of the gospel of Christ, it marvels and it wonders that all this magnificence and beauty and tenderness, all these sources of the highest thought and purest feeling, should have been so long and so deeply veiled from its view.
Nor does this ignorance of the gospel, and lack of interest in its revelations, arise from any deficiency of evidence. God has made nothing more demonstrably true than His gospel. If ever proof, self-evident and overwhelming, accumulated around an object, that object is the glorious gospel of the blessed God. Internal and external, immediate and collateral, positive and presumptive, the evidences of the truth of the gospel are many and mighty, convincing and conclusive, leaving the sceptic, unbelieving mind without one excuse to justify or palliate at Christ's tribunal the fearful crime of its rejection.
If you, my reader, are rejecting the Bible on the ground of its unsatisfactory proof, on the plea of its lack of evidence, and at the same time, it may be, giving the fullest credence to some old wives' fable unsupported by one shadow of evidence, I bid you pause before you advance one step further, and ponder these solemn, searching words of Christ- "This is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men love darkness rather than light, because their deeds are evil." Light is come- the light of Christ, the light of revelation and the light of evidence.
Not for lack of light, then, will you finally be condemned. Then, for what? For your willful rejection of that light. And why this rejection of the light? Because you love the darkness of sin! Examine yourself honestly, and ascertain if your infidelity, your scepticism, your unbelief, your quibbling and caviling at the truth of the Bible, has not its seat, not in a mind that cannot be convinced, but in a heart that will not!
Infidelity is not the child of reason; it is the deformed offspring of a depraved heart. There is a love of sin- of some master, dominant sin- underlying all scepticism. The light is rejected, because the darkness is loved; the truth is renounced, because the sin is preferred. The Bible is hated and ignored, because it is against sin, and testifies of the world that the works thereof are evil. We reiterate the statement, that atheism and infidelity are not the beauteous flowers of intellect, as some affirm, but the indigenous plants of a sinful and sin-loving heart.
"The fool has said in his HEART"- not in his head; the intellect could not affirm that- "there is no God." The words, "there is," are in italic, denoting that our translators have supplied them, needlessly we think, so that, viewing the passage as in the original, it would read- "The fool has said in his heart- NO GOD"- that is, "No God for me, I want no God, though in my judgment I know that there is one." Such is the wisdom of the worldly-wise and prudent. Truly may the apostle affirm, "the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God," and "the wisdom of God is foolishness with men."
Nor does this blindness of the unrenewed mind to the glorious gospel of the blessed God arise from any lack of simplicity in the gospel. Inconceivably great, indescribably grand, transcendently sublime as is the gospel of Christ, it is the very essence of simplicity- as all God's works and ways are. Was ever any scheme, any plan, any command so simple as this, "Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and you shall be saved."? And yet, this is the whole gospel! This is the sum and substance of salvation! The first principles of Christianity, the elements of the gospel, are few and simple.
And this forms the stumbling block- the naked simplicity of "the truth as it is in Jesus." The "wise and the prudent" stumble, not at the profoundness, not at the grandeur, not at the difficulties of the gospel, but at its severe, its pure, its perfect simplicity. And because it submits its mysteries to faith, and not to reason; appeals to the heart, and not to the intellect; demands the evidence of the child, and not the understanding of the philosopher; the silent, lowly, believing homage of the soul, and not the haughty, towering reasoning of the mind; the philosophizing, pharisaical, and proud of this world instantly, scornfully, and totally reject it.
Such is the solemn truth our Lord affirmed; and the entire analogy of Scripture maintains the fact. The gospel is a hidden glory to the unrenewed man. The apostle thus confirms the statement- "The natural man receives not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned." The Greek is more emphatic- "he is not able to know them"- his spiritual organs are impaired; he has eyes, but the transcendent wisdom and sublimity of the gospel he sees not; he has ears, but the thunders of its threatenings and the soft-breathing music of its doctrines he hears not. With all his human acumen- his attainments in philosophy, his discoveries in science, his perfection in are, his power to sound the depths of human mystery, the Bible is to him- unenlightened, untaught, unregenerated by the Spirit- a book seven times sealed- he is not able to know it. And the poor, uneducated peasant, dwelling in some lowly cottage, with nothing but his Bible and its Divine Author to enlighten and instruct him, shall travel far into the depths of revelation and sound their wonders; shall grasp the truths of the Bible, understand their meaning, feel their power, receive their comfort, and explain the mind of the Spirit with a lucidity, beauty, and power which might put to the blush many an acknowledged champion of literature and many a professed college professor.
And what causes the difference? The cottage learner of God's Word is taught by the Divine Spirit; the learned expositor of the schools still belongs to the worldly "wise and prudent," to whom the gospel is a hidden thing! My reader, become a disciple of Jesus! Quit the schools and the teaching of men for the school and the teaching of Christ. Receive the gospel as a little child. Become a fool that you may be wise. Lay your human learning and philosophy, your pride of intellect and of merit, beneath the cross, and take your place at the Savior's feet, and learn of Him, and be taught by Him the truth as it is in Jesus. Be this your petition, urged importunately until the Spirit responds- "Open my eyes that I may behold wondrous things out of Your law."

We now turn to one of the causes of the Savior's joy. "In that hour Jesus rejoiced in spirit and said, I thank you, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and prudent, and Have Revealed Them unto Babes." This was His joy- that His Father, in the exercise of His electing love and sovereign grace and Divine power, had passed by the worldly-wise and prudent, and had revealed the glorious things of the gospel to those whom the world regarded as "babes" in intellect, in power, and in knowledge. These "babes," then, are not children of tender years, but children in docility, humility, and simplicity; those who not only "from a child have known the Holy Scriptures," but who, as a child, have received them into their understandings and hearts.
Now let us pause and press the inquiry- Has the gospel been revealed to you? Has it pleased God to reveal His Son in you? Has the spirituality of the Divine law been revealed to you? Has your condemnation under the law been revealed to you? Has the plague of your own heart been revealed to you? Has the salvation of Christ been revealed to you? In a word, has God in Christ, and Christ Himself, the sent of God, the gift of God, the Son of God, been revealed by the Holy Spirit to your soul? Take nothing for granted in ascertaining this momentous matter. Assume nothing as true, unauthenticated, unconfirmed, unsealed by the Holy Spirit. "The Spirit bears witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God."
Oh, what an unspeakable mercy- the greatness, the grandeur, the blessedness of it, who can describe? -of having a revealed Christ to our souls! To have the Divine truths, the precious promises, the glorious revelations, the sublime hopes of the glorious gospel of the blessed God made known to our minds, sealed upon our hearts, ingrafted upon our souls, is to be the partakers of a joy such as glowed in the breast and lighted up the countenance of Jesus in that hour when He looked up to heaven, and said, "I thank you, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have revealed these things unto babes." Do not rest short of this revelation by the Spirit of Jesus to your soul. Without it you are lost- your religion is vain, your evidences are spurious, your conversion is false, and your hope will make you ashamed.
Another ground of the Lord's joy was, the sovereignty of God thus displayed. Seeing that the gospel, hidden from the wise, was revealed unto babes, and resolving this into the sovereign will and discriminating grace of God, He rejoiced in spirit, and said, "Even so, Father, for so it seems good in your sight." And here it is we must find a solution to what would else, in our poor minds, appear partial, unjust, and inexplicable in God's testimony of His grace- why the gospel should be a hidden thing to one, a revealed thing to another; why one should be called and another left, we can only explain and understand in the exercise of that Divine sovereignty which belongs essentially to God. "He gives no account of any of His matters." Who are you, then, O man, that replies against God? Shall not He, the Judge of all the earth, do right? Has He not a right to do with His own as He will? And in the merciful decisions of His grace, and in the awful decisions of His Providence, and in the yet more tremendous decisions of His judgment, He, the Most Upright, will be guided by the eternal principles of righteousness, rectitude, and wisdom.
Beware, then, how you quarrel with God's sovereignty! You touch one of the most righteous principles of His administration, you shade one of the brightest perfections of His being, you pluck one of the costliest gems from His crown, when you attempt to arrest the sovereign exercise of His own will. How clearly and emphatically is this set forth by the Holy Spirit! "Who works all things after the counsel of His will." "Of His own will begat he us by the word of truth." "Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will." "Therefore has he mercy on whom he will have mercy, and whom he will he hardens." "Has not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honor and another unto dishonor?" Let your whole soul, amid the mysteries and shadows of the Divine administration of grace, bow down to this glorious doctrine, exclaiming, "Even so, Father, for so it seems good in your sight."
This interpretation, too, of what is dark, inexplicable, and painful in the providential dealings of God with you, will infuse joy and create repose throughout your tried and agitated mind. God will have you meekly, truthfully resolve all the mysteries, enigmas, problems of His divine dispensations into this- "Even so, Father, for so it seems good in your sight." And the moment you are brought to acquiesce in the sovereignty, equity, and love of God's trying, afflictive, correcting dealings with you- to feel that it is all right, all wise, all good, all faithful- your storm-tossed, agitated barque is at anchor in the roads of perfect security and peace.
Truly, this is joy! Here, then, is our Model- the joy of the Lord. Surely if Christ was a man of joy, we, who are Christ's, should be joyful too. And yet how much this Christian grace is overlooked! How few aspire to this attainment in the divine life! Joy is as much a fruit of the Spirit as any other. "The fruit of the Spirit is- JOY." And the Divine precept is, "REJOICE in the Lord aways. And again, I say, REJOICE." And was not this one of the distinct blessings sought for His disciples in our Lord's intercessory prayer, "That they might have my joy fulfilled in themselves?" He here prays His Father that His own personal joy- the joy of which He was the subject- and the disciples' joy- the joy of which He was the object- might be realized in their experience. Did Christ thus care and pray for our joy? Oh, then, let us not deem this too lofty, too holy an attainment in our Christianity to aspire to.
To stimulate your aspirations after it, to aid your endeavors to climb this sunlit height in your Christian experience, let me suggest the grounds you have for holy, spiritual rejoicing in the Lord- and then remind you how closely Christ sympathizes with you in your joy. Christian, what a ground of joy is your possession of Christ! There is everything in Christ, and in the knowledge and possession of Christ, to make the believing heart joyful. You may have strong corruptions, powerful inbred sins, severe temptations, deep trials, heavy afflictions, yet if you know Christ, and have Christ in the midst of all, you have ground for the deepest, holiest joy. All joy apart from Christ is but the inspiration of the wind.
The man who seeks the element of joy in his baptism, in his sacraments, in his church, in his religious duties, in his zeal, in his usefulness, yes, in anything outside of Christ, is building upon that which has no foundation. It is a false, a spurious, a fatal joy, a joy which will prove but as the crackling of thorns under a pot. But, beloved, we hope and speak better things of you. You have found Christ, or rather, Christ has found you, and you have in Him the substance, the essence, the fulness of all holy joy. You possess in Christ a Divine Redeemer, a loving Friend, a sympathizing Brother, an ever-interceding Intercessor, a powerful Advocate; One whose presence is with you always, encircling you as an atmosphere in all places and under all circumstances- truly this is a ground of the deepest, holiest joy. Oh, what a portion is Jesus in a portionless world! What a rest is Jesus in a restless world! What a joy is Jesus in a joyless world! What a hope is Jesus in a hopeless world! Beloved, we too little and too imperfectly realize what we possess in possessing Christ. Throw into one scale all the good of the world, its rank, its honors, its wealth, its pleasures- all the love, the kindness, the sympathy, the power of the creature and of all creatures; and place in the other scale, CHRIST- Christ as your Savior, Christ as your Friend, Christ as your Portion, and Christ as your all--which kicks the beam? which sinks, and which rises? No, more- cast into one scale poverty, and sickness, and affliction of every kind, and sorrow of every form- the adversity that swept from you affluence, or the bereavement that tore from you the creature- and place JESUS in the other- Jesus in His deathless love, Jesus in His human sympathy, Jesus in His boundless fulness, Jesus bearing you upon His heart in heaven, and receiving you into His grace on earth--and then decide what should he the nature, the depth, the music of your joy. "This is my Friend, and this is my Beloved." Oh, be joyful, then, believer in Jesus! There breathes not a being in the universe- tried, tempted, sad though you are- who has greater reason to be of a gladsome spirit than you.
Rejoice, then, in what Christ is in Himself- in His preciousness and fulness; rejoice in what Christ is to you, and rejoice in what you are to Christ. Truly, "we rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh." The work of Christ is also a ground of joy to the Lord's people. There is everything in the salvation of the Lord to meet the necessities of our soul, and therefore to inspire the emotion of joy. What a source of the truest, purest, deepest joy is the blood and righteousness of Christ- the finished work of Christ- the revealed, accepted sacrifice of Christ- the infinite suffering of Christ- the resurrection of Christ from the grave- and the present advocacy of Christ at the right hand of God! Truly may "we joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received the atonement." Is not the forgiveness of all your sins- the full justification of your person- your inalienable adoption into God's family- the complete payment of all that great debt you owed, and the assured and certain prospect of being where Christ is, and with Christ, beholding His glory forever, a well-grounded source of joy? Most truly!
Why, then, are you not a more joyful believer? Why go you mourning all your days, without one gleam of sunshine, one thrill of joy, one ray of hope, one note of praise? Is it not because you are looking to yourself and within yourself, to the almost entire exclusion of Christ and of the great and complete salvation wrought for you in and by Christ? No material for joy and gladness, beloved, will you find within yourself. It is all sin there- all corruption there- all gloom there. Its chamber of imagery is all dark, and repulsive, and depressing. Oh, turn the eye of faith to Christ, look simply, and fully, and exclusively at Him, and every chord of your soul will thrill and resound with the joy of the Lord's salvation. "I will greatly rejoice in the Lord, my soul shall be joyful in my God; for he has clothed me with the garments of salvation, he has covered me with the robe of righteousness."
And what a God and Father have you to rejoice in! Truly, here is a source of spiritual joy the divinest and surest. To have a God to go to in all difficulties, troubles, and fears; a Father to fly to with every pressure, every sorrow, every need, His ear ever hearkening, His hand ever outstretched, His power equal to His goodness, His ability to aid equal to His readiness to aid, surely- with such a covenant God and such a loving Father as ours- our spirit ought to rejoice more in "God our exceeding joy." There is everything in God to make us joyful all the day long.
All His perfections smile upon us in Christ, and all are pledged to defend us, to provide for us, to supply us, and to bring us through all and out of all the vicissitudes, trials, temptations, and sins of this present life into life eternal. We rejoice so faintly in God, because we are so imperfectly acquainted with Him. And we are so little acquainted with Him, because we have so few close transactions with Him. We run to the creature- we rest in the creature- we rejoice in the creature, until the Lord empties, embitters, or removes the creature; and then we learn that "men of low degree are a vanity, and men of high degree are a lie," and that it is better to put confidence in God, even our own God, than in earth's mightiest potentates. And, oh, what a new-born joy do we then find God to be! It would seem as if we had never known, had never trusted, had never loved, had never led to Him before.
The newly-broken cistern has given us a new, a more vivid view of the Divine, the never-failing Fountain. The paralyzing of the human arm has thrown us more entirely on the strength of the Divine arm. The utter vanity and disappointment we have found in the creature has brought God more really, fully, and blessedly into our soul; and we have learned more of Him as our trust, our hope, our joy, more of His condescension, His faithfulness and love, more of Him as our Father and our God, in that one, that earthly disappointment, than we ever learned in all the fulness of the world's sufficiency. Child of God! rouse yourself to the truth that, be the depths of your soul's distress, or mental despondency, or temporal embarrassments never so profound- too deep for human power to sound, soothe, or relieve- yet you may hope and joy in God.
"I am the Almighty God" -God all-sufficient. God can, God will, God has promised to help you. Let your faith reason thus- "Why are you cast down, O my soul? and why are you disquieted within me? Hope in God; for I shall yet praise him, who is the health of my countenance, and my God." God can make you joyful amid the circumstances which else would make you sad. All things may seem against you but the promises of God, all beings but the God of the promises. Divine providences are dark, but the Divine promises are light. And the very billows that swell, and foam, and surge around you, shall but uplift and cast your soul more entirely upon the Rock that is higher than you. Oh, I desire you to see what a source of joy you have in Jehovah amid the joyless, sorrowful path you tread. There is everything in Him to make you happy. Everything to win your confidence, to inspire your love, to awaken your joy. Creatures shall fail, resources shall fail, hopes shall fail, but GOD will never fail you. His love is as changeless, His power is as omnipotent, His faithfulness is as firm, His resources are as boundless, as infinite as His being.
Listen to the song of faith, sung by saints who have gone to glory, once as tried, as tempted, as sorrowful as you--"My soul, wait only upon God; for my expectation is from him." "I had fainted, unless I had believed to see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. Wait on the Lord; be of good courage, and he shall strengthen your heart; wait, I say, on the Lord." "Although the fig-tree shall not blossom, neither shall fruit be in the vines; the labor of the olive shall fail, and the fields shall yield no food; the flock shall be cut off from the field, and there shall be no herd in the stalls:" (what condition could be more barren and desolate?) "yet I will rejoice in the LORD, I will joy in the God of my salvation," (Hab. 3:17, 18.)
See how the believing soul may experience GOD, its exceeding joy- in the depth of its exceeding trial. And all that He now asks at your hands is that you will trust in Him. What though He has written you a widow, what though He has made you fatherless, what though He has blown upon riches, blighted health, bereaved you of friends, yet still He is your God, and your Father, and your exceeding joy. Not one spring of His own love, and compassion, and grace, and power is dried, whatever others have may have passed forever away. "Come, let us return unto the Lord; for he has torn, and he will heal us; he has smitten, and he will bind us up."
Again, we find two notable instances of deep joy in the midst of deep tribulation in the experience of David, worthy of our study. For a moment the popular idol had become a subject of popular hate. The people spoke of stoning David: "David was greatly distressed; for the people spoke of stoning him, because the soul of all the people was grieved; but David encouraged himself in the Lord his God," (1 Sam. 30:6.) Has the creature turned against you? Have you found popular favor but a floating bubble- the fickle wind? Are those now against you who once rent the air with your acclaim? Oh, see what a source of joy you have in God, and in the Lord your God encourage yourself.
The other example is taken from a yet more tender, affecting page in David's history- the treason of Absalom. And yet, listen to his language in that the deepest of a parent's grief:- "Although my house be not so with God; yet he has made with me an everlasting covenant, ordered in all things, and sure: for this is all my salvation, and all my desire." Beloved, take hold of this covenant in this the dark stage of your journey. Be the cloud what it may that enshrouds your path, be the sorrow what it may that wounds your heart, be the hand what it may that wings the dart that pierces your soul, to this everlasting covenant of grace, well-ordered and sure, take a firm grasp of faith, and your soul shall rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory.
And do not overlook the ever fresh, ever perennial spring of spiritual joy that flows from the throne of grace. Who can fully describe the joy which prayer brings into the soul? God has graciously appointed this medium of communication with Himself. Prayer is the soul's safety-valve, and God's channel. This is the outlet of the soul's deep overcharged feelings which, but for this escape, would serve to rend it in twain. And it is the channel through which the God of all comfort, who comforts those that are cast down, conveys into the heart of His child the strong consolations of His love.
Oh, then, seek to enkindle your holy, spiritual joy at this blessed altar- a throne of grace, accessible through Jesus, sprinkled with His blood, encircled by every assurance and promise of acceptance and response, from which none are debarred but those who debar themselves. Arise, and give yourself to prayer. Prayer will turn your night of weeping into a morning of joy. Prayer will dissipate the sadness, dissolve the cloud, quell the fear, and calm the tempest of your soul. Prayer will restring and retune the broken and silent chords of your heart, and you shall sing, "Blessed be the LORD, because he has heard the voice of my supplications. The LORD is my strength and my shield; my heart trusted in him, and I am helped: therefore my heart greatly rejoices; and with my song will I praise him." Betake yourself, then, to the throne of grace, and, however sad and heavy be the heart you bear to this hallowed spot, you shall return rejoicing in Christ Jesus.
And what holy, spiritual, deep joy should fill your soul in the assured prospect of your being in heaven! Believers rejoice too little in hope of the coming glory. And yet what rich material for joy have we in the anticipation of being forever with Jesus! Heaven should have a more direct, powerful influence upon our minds than it has. It should be more exclusively the center of our soul's moral gravitation. Our affections, our meditations, our aspirations, our longings should be oftener and more supremely there. Heaven has every attraction to win, every prospect to soothe, every motive to stimulate, every aspect to sanctify us in our homeward journey. Rejoice, then, in the anticipation of glory. Let sick and suffering saints be joyful on their beds; let afflicted saints be joyful in their tribulations; let the laborings servants of Christ rejoice amid their toilsome, arduous, self-denying service; let all rejoice in hope of the glory that is to be revealed, when Christ shall say, "Come up here." "Whom not having seen, we love; whom though now we see him not, yet believing, we rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory."
And should not the coming of the Lord be to us a cause of longing, spiritual, unutterable joy? Most assuredly! What theme more holy, what prospect more comforting, what hope more blessed, what truth more sanctifying than- the glorious appearing of our Lord! The Word of God speaks of those who "love His APPEARING." It exhorts the saints to be "looking for and hastening unto the COMING of the day of God." It comforts those who are bereaved of holy ones by the assurance that, "those also that sleep in Jesus will God bring with him." And it supplies us with one of the most powerful, most solemn, most winning motives to personal holiness--"The very God of peace sanctify you wholly; and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless until the Coming of Our Lord Jesus Christ."
And, oh, what links of blessing bind us to this "blessed hope, the Glorious Appearing of the great God our Savior!" What are some of them? We shall see Him as He is- we shall be like Him- we shall appear with Him in glory- we shall not be ashamed at His coming- we shall be blameless- we shall have part in the first resurrection- we shall be reunited with those who died in the Lord- we shall receive a crown of life- we shall reign with Him forever- and we shall be with the New Jerusalem saints in the new heavens and the new earth- "And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away." Let the second coming of the Lord, then, be more a theme of your devout meditation, a subject of more prayerful study, an event of more ardent longing, and more believing, hopeful, joyful expectation. "Wherefore, beloved, seeing that you look for such things, be diligent that you be found of Him in peace, without spot, and blameless."
Did Christ rejoice in spirit? Then He will sympathize with your gospel joy. Do you rejoice that He came to save sinners- that He died for sinners- that He receives sinners- the poorest, the weakest, the vilest? Then with this holy joy trembling within your heart, Jesus your Savior warmly, tenderly sympathizes. Think not that He will forbid, repress, or discourage it. Oh no! He will rather mend the bruised reed and fan the smoking flax; He will rather heal the broken bones that they may rejoice in His salvation.
Christ delights in your joy, loves your joy, is glorified by your joy; and when He sees you resting in His blood and righteousness, coming in your poverty to the unsearchable riches of His grace, in your emptiness to His infinite fulness, in your guiltiness to His atoning blood, "He will rejoice over you with joy; he will rest in his love; he will rejoice over you with singing."
Spiritual joy is a holy, sensitive plant- it shrinks from the rude, ungentle touch- from every influence uncongenial with its heaven-born nature. Watch it with sleepless vigilance- shield it with every hallowed defense. There are many hostile influences to which it is exposed, any one of which will seriously injure it. Temptation courted, sin tampered with, worldliness indulged, the creature idolized, means of grace slighted, Christ undervalued--any one of these things will damp your joy, cause it to shrink, and compel it to retire. But nothing will sooner or more effectually do this than looking away from the Object and Source of joy- the Lord Jesus Christ. Your joy is not only of the Lord, but it is a joy in the Lord.
That which caused the Ethiopian eunuch to go on his way rejoicing was, not his baptism- Christ-like as it was- it was CHRIST Himself. He had found Christ the Messiah- Christ the Sin-Bearer, Christ the sin-atoning Lamb, as preached by Isaiah in the fifty-third chapter of his evangelical prophecy, and this it was that sent him on his way rejoicing! Oh, there is everything in Jesus to inspire and increase your spiritual joy- and He who first awakened in your soul the celestial emotion must sustain and nourish it. As there is no music in the Aeolian harp until the wind breathes upon it- as there is no perfume in the flower until the sun warms it- as there is no verdure in the grass until the rain and the dew moisten it, so there is no melody, no fragrance, no fruitfulness in the soul until it is brought into close believing relation with Christ.
Again, I remark, there is everything in Christ to make you a joyful Christian. There is all redundance of grace to subdue your corruptions, an overflowing sympathy to soothe your sorrows, a sovereign efficacy in His blood to cleanse your guilt, infinite resources to meet all your needs, His ever-encircling presence around your path, His ceaseless intercession on your behalf in heaven. His loving attention of all you feel, and fear, and need--oh, is this not enough to make your heart a constant sunshine, and your life a pleasant psalm?
But do not be discouraged, however, if you seldom reach this high attainment in Christian experience. Many an eminent saint of God passes to the land of light and song with little or no spiritual joy in his soul. It is not a grace that is essential to salvation. It is but seldom remarked of our Lord that He rejoiced in spirit- often that He sighed, and groaned, and wept. He seemed more intwined with sorrow than with joy- better acquainted with grief than with gladness. There may be many disturbing causes affecting and preventing your spiritual joy. You may be constitutionally of a sad, nervous, and pensive nature--you may be the subject of constant mental depression, imparting its complexion of sadness and gloom to every bright view of the present and hopeful expectation of the future.
There may be in your Christianity a tendency to look more to self than to Christ; to dwell in contemplation more upon the interior of your own heart than the interior of the Lord's heart; to a microscopic view of your varied and ever-fitful feelings, to a too close and minute analysis of Christian experience; or, your path may be one continuity of shade flung upon it by the pressure of a daily cross, a home sorrow, a lone grief, a physical frame unstrung and shattered by disease; all, or any, of these causes may contribute to the absence of spiritual joy in your soul.
But, yield not yourself, in consequence, to despondency and despair. It is not spiritual joy that saves you- you are saved by faith in Christ, by Christ, and with Christ. And in the absence of joy thrilling your soul, illumining your countenance, and waking the echoes of the wilderness with its melody, there is, perhaps, the quiet, simple recumbence of your faith on Christ as all your salvation and all your desire, ever and anon giving vent to this its Christ-sent breathing- "Whom have I in heaven but you? and there is none upon earth that I desire besides you." Then, be still, trustful, assured that you are Christ's, and that where Christ is, there you also will be.
Let us seek more personal identity with the joy of the Lord in the progress of His kingdom in the world. What emotion in Christ's soul was deeper and superior to every other? What caused Him to long for the garments rolled in blood, to pant for His baptism of suffering, to press the cold earth of Gethsemane, to embrace the rude cross of Calvary, and to confront the serried ranks of His enemies in that fatal hour? Oh, it was this- "Who for the JOY that was set before Him, endured the cross, despising the shame." It was the joy of saving sinners- the joy of ransoming His Church- the joy of supplanting earth's sin, and woe, and curse, with the holiness, the happiness, the of His gospel. Identify yourself- your intellect, your wealth, your influence, your time- with this joy of your Lord! Then shall Christ's joy be fulfilled in you.
Oh, hallowed and ecstatic the joy of saving a soul from death- of reclaiming a wanderer to the fold- of planting a jewel in Christ's crown! How touching the picture of Christ's joy- "And when he has found it, he lays it on his shoulder, REJOICING. And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and neighbors, saying unto them, REJOICE with me: for I have found my sheep that was lost." Be this, beloved reader, your joy, then, indeed, will you now enter into the joy of your Lord- the joy of saving one soul! It will give to your life a brighter sunshine- to your death a more hallowed memory- it will heighten the glory and sweeten the music of heaven.
Remember that Christ's joy and your joy are one- His joy is fulfilled in you, and your joy flows from Him- and this brings Christ and you into the closest sympathy. You belong to Christ, and therefore Christ admits you to a partnership in His own joy. He shares it with you. He takes your sorrow, and gives you His joy; and thus you become mighty, yes, almighty in your weakness, because "the joy of the Lord is your strength." This reciprocity of joy should deepen the realization of your being Christ's. And if you are Christ's He will guard and increase your joy, and will share and lessen your sorrow, and you shall dwell in safety by Him--"because you belong to Christ."
Live much in anticipation of the fulness of joy that awaits you in heaven. If our present is blended with sighing and weeping, with toil and temptation, with the sword and the cross, our future will be a pure, simple, unmixed joy, truly and emphatically "a joy Unspeakable and Full of Glory." And if now the joy of the Lord in your soul is at times so overpowering as to compel you to exclaim, "Lord, stay Your hand, or enlarge my capacity," oh, what will be the Fulness of Joy That Is at His Right Hand, and the Pleasures That Are Forever More? Blessed Jesus! You are my joy now--and to see You then, will be joy, full, perfected, and eternal. Until then, keep me very near Your side--You my joy, my hope, my all! "The beloved of the Lord shall dwell in safety by him; and the Lord shall cover him all the day long."

Since I belong to You, my Savior-God,
All must be well, however rough my road;
However dark my way or prospects be,
All, all is right, since overruled by Thee.

Safely in You shall Your beloved dwell,
Though storms may rage, and angry tempests swell;
All the day long, their covering You shall be,
What then can harm those, Lord, kept by Thee?

Feeblest of all Your flock, You know me, Lord,
Helpless and weak, I stay upon Your Word;
In all my weakness, this is still my plea—
That You are mine, and I belong to Thee.

Then come whatever may, I am secure;
Your love unchanged shall to the end endure,
Frail though I am, Your everlasting arm
Shall shield Your child from every breath of harm.

Your loving eye shall guide wherever I roam;
Your Holy Spirit lead me to my home.
You will not let Your feeble frail one stray,
Though dark temptations often may crowd my way.

In sorrow's saddest hour, Your strength my stay;
My darkest night, Lord, You can turn to day.
The most loved here may sometimes changeful be
You change not—and I belong to Thee.

Then may the life, which now on earth I live,
Be spent for Him, who His for me did give.
Oh! make me, Lord, in all I will and do,
Ever to keep Your glory in my view.

And when my course is run, and fought the fight,
Life's struggles over, and faith is changed to sight,
Then all triumphant I shall ever be,
Safe in Your Home, for I belong to Thee.

"'Fulness of joy' with all Your ransomed there,
In Your loved presence I shall ever share;
With them I'll sing the love that made us free,
The grace that taught us we belonged to Thee."

Christ's Sensitiveness to Desertion

"My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" Matthew 27:46.

How really and perfectly did every shade of our life's picture meet and blend in the life of Jesus! Conducted along no avenue of our existence shall we be by the invisible yet ever-guiding hand of our God, in which faith shall not observe some trace of Him who, "when He puts forth His own sheep, goes before them, and the sheep follow Him." Take the touching illustration of this fact presented in the subject of the present chapter. Our Lord loved solitude, yet was sensitive to desertion. For the one He longed, from the other He shrank. His sad and pensive spirit led Him frequently to the mountain's solitude to spend long hours amid its calm stillness in devout meditation and prayer. These hours of separation and solitude must have been as essential to His mission as it was in harmony with His nature. There could not but have been the consciousness of the necessity of privacy and prayer in order to the bracing of His spirit for the countless demands made upon His compassion, sympathy, and power. Always giving out- for He was man as well as God- His weary, jaded, saddened spirit needed the reviving and recruiting found only in periods of entire separation from man and close communion with God. Our Lord, therefore, often coveted and sought
"The calm retreat, the silent shade," that He might replenish His resources, invigorate His spirit, refresh and gird His mind for the work and the battle of His life.
But the feeling of which He now so mournfully complains differed essentially from the solitude which He loved and courted. It was not solitude nor loneliness, it was desertion which wrung from His sad spirit this dolorous cry- "My God, my God, why have you forsaken Me?" There was more than a sense of loneliness, more than the sadness of solitude- there was the keen, painful feeling of abandonment- of abandonment, too, at a moment and under circumstances which must have imparted a peculiar pang and unlocked an additional source of suffering, to the sensitive spirit of our Lord. Ah! is there a sword that penetrates the heart more surely, more deeply than this- deserted by those we trusted in- forsaken by those we loved? Such was now the Savior's position. Thus is our Lord brought into personal sympathy with one of the most delicate forms of human grief, with one of the most lonely sorrows of the heart- the sorrow of the forsaken. Before we proceed to claim His sympathy, let us follow Him a few steps in this gloomy path, and study His character amid the deep shadows now darkling around Him.
That our Lord should ever have been subjected to such a discipline, that He should have known the sorrow of one forsaken and abandoned by those in whom He trusted, and to whom He clung with more than a woman's confiding love, seems a wonder and a marvel. He had now reached the darkest hour of His sorrow- it was the total eclipse of the Sun of righteousness; the concentration, in their focal power, of all the physical, mental, and soul sufferings to which He was subjected. He was now exhausting that cup we have just seen could not pass His lips. He was wringing out the dregs of that chalice of woe, the bitterest draught of which was reserved for the hour of His impalement upon the tree. He was now treading the wine-press of Divine wrath alone- forsaken of man, abandoned by God. "About the ninth hour Jesus cried out in a loud voice, "Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?"--which means, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" That hour was about three o'clock in the afternoon, at which time the daily sacrifice was being offered in the temple; and just at the moment that that sacrifice was typifying Him, He, its great Antitype, was laying upon the altar of Justice a more Divine, glorious, and efficacious sacrifice for sins- "giving himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God."
In considering our Lord's abandonment by the Father on the cross, there are two or three preliminary views we must keep before the mind, or we may be beguiled, unconsciously, into perplexity and error. In the first place, let it be premised that in this hour of darkness and desertion through which our Lord was passing, there was no separation, not the slightest loosening of the tie that
bound them, of Christ's Divinity from His humanity. The fulness of the Godhead still dwelt in Jesus bodily; He was not the less Divine now that, in His extreme anguish and suffering, He appeared all the more human. As it was from His Divinity that the atoning sacrifice of Christ derived its virtue, it was not probable, nor was it possible, that, at the awful crisis of His atoning death, there should be the slightest separation between the complex natures of our Lord. His Deity was in union with the humanity at the moment He uttered the cry of desertion, now the subject of our study. To the fact of the existence of a Divine Sufferer, all nature, in her marvellous prodigies, now bore testimony. The earth trembled on its axis- the sun veiled its light- the rock was rent in twain- hades gave back its population- the grave yielded up its dead- all nature was robed in mourning because He who formed the earth created that sun, piled those rocks, and wore in His belt the keys of hades and the grave, was, as man, and for man, expiring upon the tree. It was nature's testimony to the Godhead of its Maker.
To a like conclusion we may come, beloved, in all our reasoning in seasons of soul-darkness and distress. Through whatever mental or spiritual exercises the children of God may pass, there is not the slightest change in their divine and heavenly nature. The child of God is born again of incorruptible seed; He is a partaker of the Divine nature; and no deeper discovery of the principle of corruption in his heart, no veiling of the light of God's countenance, touches the spiritual principle, or affects the divine nature. The soul may pass through various eclipses, sometimes partial, at other times total, nevertheless, like our blessed Lord, the profoundest gloom which enshrouds it but shades, not extinguishes, the divine sun within. Rejoice, then, O believer, in the immortality of your divine relationship to God, in the indestructible nature of your spiritual life- once His adopted child, remember that you are His child forever.
Nor are we to imagine, as included in this desertion of Christ on the cross, any, the slightest, variation in the love of the Father to His Son. This hiding of God from Jesus was a suspended manifestation, a veiled light, a concealed presence. If ever the Father loved His Son with an intense, approving, unchanged affection, it was at that moment that the "darling" of His soul was enduring all this anguish, desertion, and horror to uphold the honor and win back the glory of the Divine government. In like manner may the saints of God argue respecting God's love to them in their darkest desertions and deepest sorrows. There is not the slightest veering in God's love to us in the discipline of the covenant. He may seem to frown, darkness may conceal the light of His countenance, and in His profoundly mysterious dispensations we may be led to exclaim, "Verily, you are a God that hides yourself," nevertheless, He loves us still- loves us with a love changeless as His being- from everlasting to everlasting. Oh, argue no change or chill in the love your heavenly Father cherishes towards you from the severity of His dealings; but rather from the very severity of the chastening and the rebuke by which He seeks to make you a partaker of His holiness, infer the reality and tenderness of His love.
With this explanation, we proceed to consider THE NATURE OF THE TRIAL THROUGH WHICH OUR LORD WAS NOW PASSING. In one word, it was- DESERTION. "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" This forsaking of Christ was the withdrawment of the sensible presence of God from the human soul of Jesus. And why this withdrawment, this hiding, this abandonment by the Father? The suffering Son of God himself asks the question- "Why have you forsaken me?" Why this darkness? Why this forsaking? It was an act so new, so strange, so appalling, that, in the depth of His soul-agony, Jesus uplifts His eyes to heaven and asks the cause- why, for what, have You withdrawn Yourself from me? Beloved, there is but one answer to this question, but one solution to this mystery. Jesus, our Surety, was now bearing all the sins of His whole Church by imputation; and it was from that tremendous load, it was in view of those accumulated transgressions that the Holy One, "who is of purer eyes than to behold iniquity," turned away- the sun of His glorious presence fading into the deepest, profoundest gloom. There was darkness on the whole earth from the sixth hour until the ninth; but what was that darkness in comparison with the darkness in which the holy soul of Jesus was enshrouded? But do not think, however, that, in this abandonment of Christ by the Father to loneliness, darkness, and horror, there was any, the slightest, withdrawment of His love to, or of His interest in, His Son. Nor let it be imagined that in this forsaking there was the least suspension of His upholding, sustaining power. Far from this. It was but the sensible, not the actual, withdrawment of God in this the darkest, direst hour of the Savior's passion. But Jesus was now the antitypical Scapegoat on whose head Israel's sins were placed- Jesus was now the true sin-bearer, on whom the Father had laid the iniquities of His people; and it was proper that, in the eyes of all holy and unholy intelligences, God should, in that hour of accumulated, concentrated sin, demonstrate to the universe that He was a God of purer eyes than to look upon iniquity. Studied in the light of this truth, who can deny and reject the expiatory nature of Christ's death with reason or impunity?
But let it not be supposed- as some modern theologians have most erroneously affirmed- that this was the first and only period in our Lord's life in which He officiated as the sin-bearer of His people. No statement could be more unscriptural. His relation to the Church as her Sin-bearer commenced with the first pressure of His foot upon our sin-tainted earth- the moment He touched its horizon, that moment commenced the bearing of sin and the work of its removal. The manger of Bethlehem was the starting-point, the cross of Calvary was the goal, in His career of working out the salvation, accomplishing the redemption of His people. He had known nothing of the curse when He came under the broken law of God- the first drop of which moistened His infant lips- had not sin by imputation been laid upon Him. If I reject the fact of the sin-bearing commencing with His life, I must necessarily reject the fact of His obedience to the law commencing with His life, which obedience becomes the "righteousness of God unto all and upon all those that believe." But it is written- written by the pen of the Holy Spirit- "Who his own self bore our sins in his own body on the tree,"- in the original- TO the tree. To the tree, as the final stage, to the tree, as the end of sin, He bore, step by step, the tremendous load. That, in the great truth of His Suretyship He was a learner- learning something more and more of sin, and of the consequences of sin, and of the penalty of sin- who can doubt? The pressure increased upon Him by decrees, the load augmented in weight as He advanced, the storm thickened in darkness and deepened in intensity as He pressed forward to the goal. "Though He were a Son, yet learned He obedience by the things which He suffered." "The Captain of our salvation was made perfect through suffering." And the great lesson He learned in this school of suffering was- obedience. And how could He learn obedience but under the growing burden of His people's accumulated, concentrated sin and curse? Each step deepened His knowledge of what sin was- and this only could be as the sin was imputed. It was by suffering He was perfected in obedience, and His suffering commenced with the commencement of His life. It was not physical suffering alone by which our Lord was thus instructed. He suffered mentally, He suffered spiritually; and this school of suffering began from the moment that Herod sought His infant life, and virtually slew Him when He "slew all the children that were in Bethlehem, and in all the coasts thereof, from two years old and under," and terminated when He breathed these wondrous words- "It is finished!" Then it was our Lord began to learn what sin was, and what the suffering for sin. The more He came to learn the nature, the evil, the exceeding sinfulness of sin, the more must He have learned, not only the necessity of an expiation, but that He was the Expiator. And as He grew in stature, He grew in acquaintance with sin. Its monster form dilated before Him in gigantic proportions- the tornado of the curse grew thicker and darker- the wrath-cup became fuller and fuller as He advanced to meet the central horrors of the last, the latest hour of His passion. And how could this be but as, from His cradle to His cross, our adorable Emmanuel was our Divine, glorious sin-bearer? But let us not, in this refutation of an error, lose sight of the truth we are unfolding- the darkness of Christ's soul upon the cross. Now indeed was the hour of darkness! Now was the Sun of righteousness in total eclipse- an eclipse which extinguished every ray of light, dried up every spring of joy, silenced every expression of sympathy and every word of comfort. Hear Him again exclaim, in the prophetic language of His prototype, "My God, my God! Why have you forsaken me? Why do you remain so distant? Why do you ignore my cries for help? Every day I call to you, my God, but you do not answer. Every night you hear my voice, but I find no relief. Yet you are holy." Psalm 22:1-3. Oh, love of Christ! unsurpassed, unparalleled! My soul, all this darkness, all this desertion, all this love was for you!
Contrast this, your Lord and Master's condition, with the light of God's reconciled countenance by which you walk in darkness. Such was the testimony of Job- "By His light I walked in darkness." Ah, beloved reader, in your gloomiest hour you experience no such darkness as the soul of Jesus now did. Your spiritual eclipse is never total. And even when, though a child of the light, God leads you by a way that is dark, a path that is lone and dreary, there is no punitive justice, no Divine wrath, no darkness of hell in the cloud that shades your soul. Nor are you forsaken. Christ is with you- unknown, unseen, unfelt it may be, still not the less really is He treading that lone and gloom some way side by side with you. "When I pass through the valley of the shadow of death, (which the path of sorrow is sometimes termed,) I will Fear no evil, for You are with me."
"My God, the spring of all my joys,
The life of my delights,
The glory of my brightest days,
The comfort of my nights.
"In darkest shades if He appear,
My dawning is begun;
He is my soul's sweet morning Star,
And He my rising Sun.
The opening heavens around me shine,
With beams of sacred bliss,
While Jesus shows His heart is mine,
And whispers, I am His."
Our Lord was also forsaken by man. As man, He felt this sword to enter deeply into His soul. For as man, He clung to man- to the companionship, the solace, and the sympathy of man- as we shall more fully show in a subsequent part of this work. But He, like many of His followers, was destined to learn how vain was human help, how fickle was human love, how changeful was human friendship. He was forsaken by man, by the very men whom He had constituted His College of Apostles, whom He had admitted to His confidence, who had shared His love, and who had sworn eternal fealty to Him their Lord and Master. But now, in His deepest sorrow, " they all forsook Him and fled." But in this His prophecy was fulfilled which said, "I have trodden the winepress alone; and of the people there was none with me." There was a fitness, a propriety in this that our Lord should accomplish the work of our salvation unaided by creature power, unsweetened by human sympathy. Oh, how different it is with us! There are few of God's people who taste the cup of human sorrow unsweetened by the element of Christian compassion and sympathy. The Lord gives us, what He denied Himself, the clinging, soothing, cheering presence and affection of Christian friends and fellow-disciples. He was utterly forsaken; we are not so. Few believers there are who tread the shaded valley, confront the sweeping tempest, unaccompanied, uncheered by one loving heart, one sympathizing spirit, one 'second self'. Jesus, insulated from heaven and earth, was alone!
And, as if to complete the picture, nature seemed to conspire against Him. The sun forsook Him on the cross, withdrawing its cheering light, and leaving Him to the deep, sepulchral gloom of a total and protracted eclipse. Who has not, in deep sorrow, felt his heart ascend in thanksgiving to God for the pleasant sunshine? "Truly the light is sweet, and a pleasant thing it is for the eyes to behold the sun." "Draw the curtain, raise the blind, let me see the sweet sun," is the languid request of many a sick and fading one. And what a glow have those golden beams imparted to the pallor of sickness! what solace to suffering! what cheering to the gloomy and lonely chamber! But all this was denied our blessed Lord in the hour of His dissolution. The sun veiled its splendor, the light paled into darkness- the darkness without only surpassed by the deeper darkness within His holy soul. Thus was our adorable Savior forsaken by God- by man- by nature.
The remainder of this chapter will be devoted to the tracing of some analogy between this experience of Christ and that of many of His saints. It enters deeply into the moral discipline of the child of God that loneliness should occupy a large portion of his experience. It may be one of the most painful, yet is it one of the most wholesome and prolific causes of spiritual growth. Let us trace this feeling of desertion and loneliness to a few of its causes.
It is sometimes produced by a deeper self-acquaintance. The more thoroughly we come to know our own selves- the inner world, the life within life, the heart with its deep-rooted and deep- veiled sinfulness, the mind with its perplexities of thought, the will with its unusual counter-workings- the more deeply we seem drawn into the profoundest isolation and solitude. The very discovery we have made of ourselves, seems to isolate us from all others, and to shut us up to ourselves. With such conscious impurity and defect we shrink from the society and fellowship of the holy, as though others read our heart as we read it, and knew our unworthiness as we know it. And, as the leper, shrinking from the haunts of men, retired to his separation and loneliness, a like moral instinct often would force us to wander in solitary places, bemoaning our sinfulness, and holding communion only with Him from whose gracious presence no unworthiness shall exclude, and from whose loving eye no sorrow shall shade, nor solitude shall hide us. Still, we must guard against an extreme of feeling here. No intimacy with ourselves, no consciousness of infirmity, failure, and dereliction should be allowed such influence and mastery as to force us, by self-isolation, from the society of our fellow-Christians, or drive us from the scene of influence, service, and battle, into slothful inaction and ignoble solitude.
Our religious profession, too, may separate us from others. In addition to what we have already advanced on this head, we may remark that religious principles, character, and profession necessarily involve separation. The Church of God and the world are two distinct, opposite, and antagonistic corporate bodies. We cannot in our Christian character belong in part to the one and in part to the other. There can be no compromise, no truce, no uniting the two in a Christ-witnessing profession of love to the Savior. There, then, is separation. But, added to this, we shall often find that even the bosom of the family circle is to us a lonely desert. There shall be chilled affection, alienated interest, suspended sympathy, shunned communion, on the part of near and dear ones from whose principles and spirit, from whose worldliness, and even from whose religion, we feel compelled, by all that is dear, and sacred in the name, the religion, and profession of Christ, decidedly and entirely to separate ourselves. Oh, what a desert may a parent's home be- what isolation and solitude, among life's nearest and dearest! But Jesus trod this path before us- penetrated these solitudes far more deeply than we. He was all alone;
we never can be. The echoes of the mountains and the valleys, to which He resorted, were the only responses to His sighs, groans, and prayers- ours are in unison with voices of kindness, affection and sympathy uttered by a thousand Christ-loving and saint-loving hearts. Still, the desertion is bitter, the solitude irksome, and the discipline, though needful and wholesome, is unspeakably humiliating and painful.
The saints, too, will often experience the truth of God to be a separating element. There are many who desert our communion because of the doctrines of grace. It is a narrow path, the path of Christ's truth, and there are but few who walk in it. Doctrines separate- differences of judgment separate- varieties of interpretation separate- and thus those who really love the same Lord, and are traveling to the same inheritance, are divided in fellowship and sympathy the one from the other on this very ground. There are but few who love, delight in, and preach the distinguishing doctrines of grace, or who have much sympathy and fellowship with those who do. And because this path is so narrow, few walk in it together. When our Lord, the great Teacher from heaven, propounded the doctrine of Divine sovereignty, we are told that "many went back, and walked no more with Him."
Worship is often another separating element in the Church of God. The question which divided the opinions and sundered the fellowship of the two great sections of the Jews- "where ought men to worship?"- still exists. Where shall we worship- in this sanctuary or in that? How shall we worship- with a liturgy or without? are questions which still separate multitudes of God's people- some of whom are united by the closest ties of nature, and dwell beneath the same roof- the one from the other. Alas! that it should be so! Nor would it thus be, at least to so great and so bitter an extent, did we more deeply enter into our Lord's definition of true worship. "The hour comes, and now is, when the true worshipers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth for the Father seeks such to worship Him." "God is a spirit; and those who worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth." Realizing this idea of true worship, it will be to us of but trivial moment where we worship our heavenly Father- whether in mount Gerizim or in Jerusalem- or how we worship Him- whether with or without a ritual- so that we worship Him in spirit and in truth. It is the heart at which He looks, with which He has to do- the sincere, lowly, loving heart; and if that be true, I see not why differences of judgment as to a liturgical or a non-liturgical service should separate the saints of God in worship, create in them suspicion and distrust, still more alienation and bitterness. The more deeply we imbibe the true spirit of worship, the less formal and cold shall we be in the use of a prescribed form; and the more orderly, reverential, and devout shall we be without it. God has His eye and His heart upon all such true and humble worshipers. Listen to His gracious words of recognition- "Who is this that engaged his heart to approach unto me? says the Lord." Truly may we respond, "Blessed is the man whom you chose, and cause to approach unto you, that He may dwell in your courts: we shall be satisfied with the goodness of your house, even of your holy temple."
The ways of Divine providence, too, often brings us into this feeling of desertion and loneliness. As in grace, so in providence, the dealings of our God with us individually are frequently such as to lead us into paths diverse and separate from all others- paths sequestered, solitary, and lonely; awakening no observation, constraining no sympathy, inviting no communion, unsoothed, unnoticed, and unknown. And by how sudden, unlooked for, and painful a process are we often led into this shaded way of the Lord! A removal by death- a reverse of fortune- the change of place or relation in life- the breaking up of a center of affection and union, has plunged us into the depths of solitude, and henceforth life's lonesome journey brings us into closer assimilation and sympathy with a solitary, homeless Redeemer. Dearest Lord! anything, everything You do appoint, if it but link me closer with Your life, and moulds me more perfectly to Your image.
And, then, there are seasons of spiritual desertion and gloom through which many believers are called to pass. Apart from this peculiar stage of the divine life, we should lose a great portion of Christ's sympathy. Spiritual darkness is a portion of the discipline, more or less, of every child of the light. It is a distressing, dreary stage; nevertheless, there is light enough in it for faith to observe the footprint of the Shepherd and the flock, and this alone were sufficient to invest the gloomiest path with sunshine, and to awaken ten thousand echoes of love in the loneliest. But let no child of God, who may be in spiritual darkness and desertion of soul, cast away his confidence, or cease to hold fast firmly the profession of his faith. Our blessed Lord did not renounce His Sonship or loosen His hold of faith when in the hour of His deepest gloom He exclaimed, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" Imitate your Lord and Master. Is your soul in a spiritual eclipse- the light of God's countenance hidden, the visible presence of your Savior withdrawn, the strong consolations of the Spirit suspended, prayer distilling no dew, the promises speaking no comfort? - be it so. Yet, what is the message of your God to you? "Who is among you that fears the Lord, that obeys the voice of his servant, that walks in darkness, and has no light? let him trust in the name of the Lord, and stay upon his God." Here is the true, the sublime attitude of faith in spiritual darkness- the soul staying itself upon God the strong One, the unchangeable One, the reconciled One. The mental depression, the spiritual darkness, the soul desertion through which you are now passing, does not touch your union with the Lord Jesus, does not affect your adoption into God's family. You are still one who fears the Lord- who obeys the voice of His servant- a child of light, though in darkness, beloved of God, and dear to Christ. "Why are you cast down, O my soul? and why are you disquieted within me? Hope you in God, for I shall yet praise Him who is the health of my countenance and any God."
Seasons of loneliness and solitude often prove among the most hallowed and precious in the experience of the believer. In the first place, the spiritual discipline is healthful and wholesome. The solitary are never really in solitude. They are never more with God, or God with them, than at that period. He not only "sets the solitary in families," as He often kindly does, but He makes it to be in reality no solitude to the soul, by virtue of His own manifested presence, converse, and glory. Thus that which else might prove the most severe, indescribable source of anguish, becomes one of the highest, holiest, and sweetest enjoyments of which our renewed nature is susceptible. It is then that,
"Contemplation prunes her ruffled wings,
And the free soul looks down to pity kings."
This close communion with God, which sacred solitude produces, must then stamp this otherwise painful discipline as a golden period of our Christian career. It is then, if ever, the soul is alone with God. And the believer, having once experienced this sacred luxury, ever after pants for it as the deer pants for the water-brooks. In how many a spiritual mind, thus sighing for the Divine presence in secret, will these poetical thoughts awaken sacred echoes, tender and plaintive as Aeolian breathings–
Prostrate, O Lord, before Your cross,
I come to own my shame and loss,
My nakedness and poverty,
Because I'm never alone with Thee.
"The fretting trifles of the day,
Like droppings, wear my soul away
No lively frames- no spirit free
Because I'm never alone with Thee.
"Your daily mercies often forgot,
My conscience stained with many a spot;
A broken reed behold in me,
Because I'm never alone with Thee.
A day will come when I must be
Alone, my Lord and God, with Thee;
With shame I then shall bow my head,
My only plea- Your blood was shed.
But it is not all lamentation with the child of God. His harp has chords which might arrest an angel's ear. How often has solitude witnessed to the richest experience, the sweetest songs, the brightest revelations of the Church of God! David in his cave, Jeremiah in his dungeon, Paul in his jail, John in Patmos, form a part of a great cloud of witnesses to this page of Christian experience. In all these places of banishment and desertion, of loneliness and solitude, God, in Christ, was their suit and their shield. And it is to these periods, sequestered from earth, separated from man, and shut in with God, that the Christian Church is indebted for some of the richest truths, the most mellowed experiences, sweetest strains, and most sublime visions which the pen of inspiration has recorded. It is then, truly and emphatically, the soul is- alone with God
"Alone with Thee! alone with Thee!
It is there, dear Lord, I often would be
Where can my throbbing heart find test
But on my God and Savior's breast?
"Alone with You would I be found,
where none can misconceive or wound,
Before Your eye my soul to bare,
And roll on You each burdening care.
"Alone with You when You do bless,
Alone, in sorrow and distress
Alone with You, by day by night,
I cannot live, save in Your sight.
"Yes, even amid the seraph choir,
While praising You with golden lyre,
My jealous heart shall crave to prove
Your personal, unchanging love."
Is this the way God is now leading you, my reader? Is your path shaded with grief, solitary with desertion? Have friends and kindred forsaken you? You are not all alone! Your mind needed the teaching of solitude, your heart the discipline of separation; and so Christ, who is preparing both for the place He has prepared for you, allured you into this wilderness that He might instruct, sanctify, and comfort you. It is in the calmer quietude of separation, alone with God, that Divine truth is often the best studied and understood. We read of Christ that, "when they were alone, He expounded all things to His disciples." The Word of God, ever precious and instructive, is never so much so as when the circumstances that exile it from man shut us up exclusively and entirely to its study with God. How instructive, consolatory, and precious, then, grows this Divine Book! The mysteries of providence have helped to explain the mysteries of revelation; the bitterness of sorrow has drawn forth the sweetness of the Divine promises; the crushed hopes of earth have brought the soul into a closer realization of the assured hope of heaven; and the wintry chill and gloom of adversity has made us acquainted with the Brother born for it. Oh, who can describe the preciousness, the soothing, the sustaining power of God's Word in the direst, the extremest circumstances of calamity, exile, and woe? Among the countless ancient and costly treasures contained in the great national treasury of this land, the most ancient, rare, and precious is a copy of God's Word found among the relics of the Franklin Expedition. To whom it belonged is not known, nor, perhaps, ever will be; enough that, amid the awful solitude of the Arctic seas- surrounded by interminable fields of ice, robed with the dreariness and gloom of eternal winter- pining in loneliness and starvation- thoughts of home crowding the memory- an awful death fast congealing the life-current- the contents of this copy of God's Word, all thumbed and marked, cheered, comforted, and sustained its possessor as He laid himself down to die amid the polar snows, with none to soothe the last hour of agony save Christ and His Word. Enough! less will not suffice- more we cannot have, in that trying, that solemn hour. No! you will never be all alone with this blessed volume of your Father's love, and the Savior's presence sharing and soothing your solitude.
How beautifully adapted, then, is the sympathy of Christ to seasons of desertion and solitude. Did Christ know what it was to be alone- to be unbefriended and deserted? Was He abandoned, forsaken in sorrow, all Divine and human consolation for the moment suspended? Then Christ is with me in my present position! I have Jesus side by side with me in the shaded path I tread. He is with me- the companion of my solitude, the sharer of my grief, softening, sweetening, sanctifying it; deepening and maturing His work of grace in my soul, and, by putting far from me lover and friend, drawing me all the closer to Himself. "When my father and my mother forsake me, then the Lord will take me up."
Fear not the hour when you will descend into the valley of death's shadow. Not all solitary and alone will you be then. Believer in Christ! Jesus will be personally, visibly with you at that moment. His arm will encircle you, His bosom will pillow you, His voice will cheer you, His words will strengthen you, His rod and His staff will comfort you, and you shall fear no evil. In all the past states of your pilgrimage never will you have been so conscious of the encircling, clinging presence of your Lord, never will you so fully leave realized His sustaining grace and soothing love as at the moment that severs you from all that is human, and shuts you up to all that is Divine. A Divine Redeemer, when heart and flesh are failing, will be the strength of your heart and your portion forever.
"Rise, my soul, your God directs you;
Stranger hands no more impede;
Pass you on; His hand protects you,
Strength that has the captive freed.
"Is the wilderness before you,
Desert lands where drought abides?
Heavenly springs shall there restore you,
Fresh from God's exhaustless tides.
"Light divine surrounds your going,
God Himself shall mark your way;
Secret blessings richly flowing,
Lead to everlasting day.
"God, your everlasting portion,
Feeds you with the mighty's meat,
Saved from Egypt's hard extortion,
Egypt's food no more to eat.
"Are you weaned from Egypt's pleasures?
God in secret you shall keep,
There unfold His hidden treasures,
There His love's exhaustless deep.
"In the desert God will teach you
What the God that you have found-
Patient, gracious, powerful, holy,
All His grace shall there abound.
"On to Canaan's rest still wending,
Even your needs and woes shall bring
Suited grace from high descending
You shall taste of mercy's spring.
"Though your way be long and dreary,
Eagle-strength He'll still renew
Garments fresh, and feet unweary,
Tell how God has brought you through,
"When to Canaan's long-loved dwelling
Love divine your foot shall bring,
There with shouts of triumph swelling
Zion's songs in rest to sing.
"There, no stranger, God shall meet you
Stranger you in courts above
He who to His rest shall greet you,
Greets you with a well-known love."

Christ's Dependence on Human Sympathy

Then saith he unto them, My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death: tarry ye here, and watch with me. Matthew 26:38

Then he said to them, "My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with me." Matthew 26:38

He told them, "My soul is crushed with grief to the point of death. Stay here and watch with me." Matthew 26:38

God has created us with a social nature, and its instincts prompt us to seek fellowship with our own. We can scarcely imagine an instance of the human traveling, in its depression and sadness, to the aid and sympathy of the angelic. There is nothing between the two natures affinitive and sympathetic. That these celestial beings are our ministering spirits, clustering around us, noiseless and invisible, each moment fulfilling some benevolent behest of God on our behalf, it is delightful to believe- but, to invoke an angel's sympathy, to cast ourselves upon an angel's compassion in a season of difficulty and sorrow, is conception that not only never enters into the human mind, but is foreign to all the instincts and yearnings of our nature. What an illustrious and impressive instance have we of this before us! Our Lord was now in the garden which lay at the foot of the Mount of Olives, just outside, and north of the holy city. He was in solitude and sorrow. His mental anguish, His spirit-grief, had now in reality begun. The "hour of darkness" had flung its first cold shadow upon His soul, and the cup, that must not pass undrank, now pressed His lips. Listen to His touching words, "my soul is exceeding sorrowful." And to whom, in this hour of unknown agony, of crushing grief, of overwhelming sorrow, does He turn? He is man- and to man He looks. He is human- and to the human He repairs. He is the Friend of man- and upon the friendship and sympathy of man He now casts Himself. "And he took with Him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee." Favored men! honored disciples! And what did He ask of them? -their words? -their protestations of loyalty and friendship? Oh, no! But simply their quiet presence, their silent sympathy- "tarry you here and watch with me."
The discussion in the preceding pages renders it the less necessary that, in the present chapter, we enlarge at great length upon the soul-sorrow of Christ- the occasion of His present appeal to the sympathy of His disciples. It will suffice in brief terms to remark that it partook essentially of the sorrow which grew more intense and dark as He approached the goal of His passion. The cup was the same, but He had not reached its dregs. The physical element had not as yet been added- it was now all mental, all spiritual, all soul-sorrow. "My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death." The human soul undoubtedly was the seat of this agonising, exceeding grief. The Deity was unapproachable by suffering. Not a cloud shaded its glory, not a wavelet ruffled its repose. It was the human in Christ that now sorrowed, and in its sorrow turned piteously and beseechingly to the human for its sympathy. But in what light are we to view this "soul- sorrow even unto death" of our Lord? His soul was holy- He had never sinned- no atonement was needed for Himself. The answer is at hand- "But it was the Lord's good plan to crush him and fill him with grief. Yet when his life is made an offering for sin, he will have a multitude of children, many heirs. He will enjoy a long life, and the Lord's plan will prosper in his hands. When he sees all that is accomplished by his anguish, he will be satisfied. And because of what he has experienced, my righteous servant will make it possible for many to be counted righteous, for he will bear all their sins. Isaiah 53:10-11. His soul was now suffering for sin. This is the solution, this the explanation of what on other grounds could never be solved or explained. Christ was suffering as the sin-bearing, sin-atoning Substitute of His Church. For this the waters were rushing into His soul, and He was sinking in deep mire where there was no standing- into deep waters where the floods overflowed Him. He was now, by imputation, bearing the exceeding sinfulness and malignity of sin- the bitter, burning nature of Divine wrath on its account- the assaults of the powers of darkness- added to which was the withdrawment of all divine, sensible, and spiritual light and comfort from His soul. Beloved, behold your salvation! Your sins were on that sinless One! Your sorrow was sinking that holy soul! All this darkness and desertion was for you! He loved you, and He gave Himself for you! The simple, full belief of this will lift your soul above all sorrow, distress, and alarm for sin. The Divine Redeemer's soul bore all, absolved all, and exhausted all penal grief in the place and stead of His people. The punishment was His, because, by suretyship and transfer, the sin was His. He took our sins, and made Himself answerable to Divine justice on their account. Our sins being thus found upon Him by imputation, when Justice paused at the cross, she exacted from Him the full equivalent, inflicted upon Him the full penalty. Surely, a Divine and sinless Redeemer could only have met this demand! The sorrow, then, was His, the joy ours. Sin-distressed soul! look at the distress of Christ's soul, and be joyful. Never shall your soul be as His was, "sorrowful unto death." Yours is a sorrow unto "life." The burden of sin you now feel shall be as wings to your soul bearing it to Jesus; the grief for sin you now experience shall be the occasion of your deepest, holiest joy. There is everything in a soul-sorrowing Christ to impress with joy, gladness, and hope the soul-sorrowing sinner. The deep, fathomless grief of His holy soul utterly forbids, the existence of despair on account of sin in the heart of a truly awakened, sensible sinner. After such sorrow as the Savior experienced, the chief of sinners, stricken with godly penitence, may hope. Remembering His soul-travail, the sorrow unto death, do you think that when, by one touch of His hand, one word of His mouth, one glance of His eye, He can heal, assure, and save you, that He will repel your approach, reject your plea, and refuse to pardon and accept you? Oh no! Before you arrive at such a conclusion, you must ignore His sacrifice, and retard the story of His dying agonies, His soul-grief, His blood-shedding on the cross as mere fiction, a fable, and a myth. "It is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners; of whom I am chief."
But we must keep in view the subject of our more immediate study- our Lord's appeal to the sympathy of His disciples in this the hour of His soul-sorrow. Nothing could afford a stronger proof than this that the human soul of our Lord was the seat of His grief. His humanity was suffering, and with all the instincts of humanity it turned for support to the human. "Tarry here and watch with me." Was it, we ask, incongruous that, suffering as man, for man, and, in a measure, from man, our Lord should throw Himself upon the affection, and sympathy, and compassion of man for a portion of the soothing which should soften and mitigate His grief? By no means. It was true to nature, to our nature, the very nature which still yearns in us for sympathy from its own. Let us take each particular of this marvellous incident in our Lord's closing life. From whom did He ask this sympathy? Was it from the world? Oh no! He had never received anything from the world but a thorn-crown and a cross! It flung no flowers on His path, beamed upon Him no smile, rent not the air with His acclaim; but, hating and despising Him, because He testified of it, that its works were evil; it maligned and traduced His character, then insulted, tortured, and put Him to death. Oh believer, do not love, do not imitate, do not identify yourself with a world which thus traduced and slew the Lord who bought you. But it was to His Church Christ turned for its holy watchings with Him in the hour of His soul-sorrow. It was to our renewed, sanctified, and redeemed nature- to His beloved disciples. None but the holy were admitted to share the loneliness, the solitude, the sorrow of that hour. He took with Him His chosen followers, His beloved apostles, a representative portion of His Church. In what a touching point of light does this present His love for, and clinging to, His people! That He should have admitted them to a confidence so sacred, to a sorrow so deep, to a scene so solemn, to a transaction so momentous- permitting them, in a sense, to share it, to sustain it, to sympathize with it- oh the marvellous love of Christ for His people! And still He permits us to have "fellowship with Him in His sufferings," and to feel the "power of His resurrection." If this be so, see that you cultivate a tender, holy sympathy with Christ in His soul-sorrow for your sins. And manifest that sympathy by vowing eternal hate to all sin, and in seeking its crucifixion by that very cross on which your Lord and Savior was crucified.
And what was the nature of the sympathy which our Lord now asked? "Tarry here, and watch with me." "Watch with me!" He was alone! The clouds were darkening, the sorrow was swelling, the foe was advancing, the cup was brimming; in that hour He felt the need of human sympathy- He flung Himself upon it- He asked it. "Watch with me." How touching His exquisite conception of the true, the soothing, and the delicate in real sympathy! He asks no cheering words, no visible sign, no interposing action- but simply and only their silent presence. This would relieve the dreariness of the scene, lighten the pressure of His load, and diffuse over His troubled spirit a measure of serenity and repose. To feel that they were near to Him- to know that, with unslumbering eyes, they were keeping solemn vigils- that their affections, their thoughts, and their sympathies, like holy sentinels, were hovering around Him on the spot where He lay prostrate in wrestling prayer- oh, this, this would be solacing and soothing; and His weary, yearning spirit asked it! Who can describe the power and the tranquillizing influence of a mute sympathy- the calm, quiet presence of a loving, gentle heart in the hour of grief and woe? And have we no need of fellow-watchers in our sorrow- the loving heart, the speaking eye, the unwearied patience, the silent sympathy? Surely, it is not weak to feel its need, nor sinful to ask its expression!
But how painful and sad was our Lord's disappointment! "And He came unto the disciples, and found them asleep, and said unto Peter, What, could you not watch with me one hour?" They were human, and but human; and
our Lord was now learning the uncertainty and frailty of human reliance in the dark and bitter hour of the soul's grief. It was a reproof- but, oh, how gentle! It was a rebuke- but, oh, how considerate! "The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak." The Lord Jesus is not only cognizant of our shortcomings, our frailties, failures in duty, in service, and in love, but He remembers that we are dust; He considers how limited are our powers, and how often our energies are overtasked and exhausted. The spirit with Him is everything, the flesh as nothing. And if He observes in us a loving heart, a willing mind, an honest intention of purpose, a ready spirit, He makes all allowance for the limit, the weariness, and the infirmities of the flesh, and graciously and condescendingly accepts, in our endeavors and strivings to serve Him, to watch with Him, and to glorify Him, the sincere desire of the will.
From this picture of our Lord's dependence upon human sympathy, we may gather much that is instructive and consolatory.
It is delightful to meet, among those already considered in this volume, yet another instance of the perfect identity of Christ's nature with ours. There is no wide chasm which separates Him from us. It is true, as we have again and again asserted, He was sinless; but as true, as we have again and again affirmed, that He was not the less human. His human nature, apart from our moral taint, was cast into the same mold as our own. It had all our social instincts, our sympathies, our sensitiveness, our cravings and yearnings for fellowship with its species. Let us, then, cultivate a closer intimacy with Christ in all our infirmities and sorrows, nor deem any weakness, or pressure, or craving of our nature too lowly and insignificant to bear to Him.
We have already remarked that it cannot involve either a charge of weakness or sin- our felt reliance upon the sympathy, compassion, and help of our fellow-Christians. What God has provided, cannot be wrong in the indulgence. It is He who gives us friends, forms our friendships, governs our affections, and unveils to us those deep founts of feeling and sympathy which well up from the human heart, and gush forth in a thousand warm streams of support, comfort, and soothing. The genius of Christianity, the nature of the gospel, the teachings and exhortations of Jesus, are all predicated upon the fact, that man is to help man, to strengthen man; that Christian is to support Christian, to weep with Christian; that brother is to love brother, to share a brother's sorrow, supply a brother's need, and bear a brother's burden; that sister is to sympathize with sister, shield her weakness, veil her frailty, and comfort her grief. If such, then, be the wise, the kind, the benevolent provision of God for the needs of our nature, surely it is not, it cannot be wrong to avail ourselves of it.
And yet the Lord may, to discipline us to a higher, purer, and surer reliance, dry up this source of sympathy on which we had too firmly and too fondly relied. We may look for it, when we had a right to expect it; ask it, when we had every hope of receiving it; and yet meet with the bitter disappointment our Lord experienced when He found His watchers in sorrow slumbering at their post. Human sympathy is not a thing we can either create or command. It is not controlled by the laws of force. We can neither inspire nor invoke it. It must flow naturally and spontaneously, or not at all. There may, therefore, be occasions and circumstances in which all sympathy is withheld from us- sympathy with our position, sympathy with out enterprises, sympathy with our grief; we may ask but for the "one hour's" sympathy, and ask in vain! And what is the lesson the Lord would thus teach us? Ever to look to a higher source than the human- to look to Himself. There is a strong natural inclination in us to lean too reliantly upon the human arm, and too fondly upon the human heart. We repair first to man before we go to God. We counsel in our perplexities with a human wisdom, before we seek the wisdom which comes from above. We go with our burden of grief to man's sympathy, before we take it to Christ's. Now the Lord would teach us that real strength, true consolation; pure, unmixed, sustaining sympathy; is found only in Himself.
"Man's wisdom is to seek
His strength in God alone;
And even an angel would be weak,
Who trusted in his own."
It is possible, we repeat, that your Lord should see proper- for the holiest, wisest, and most loving end- to withhold from you the reciprocated affection, the responsive sympathy, the close, sacred communion for which your heart yearns. May it not be that another and a sweeter channel should be opened, another and a holier object should be supplied- even Himself? Attempt not, then, to check those feelings, to suppress those yearnings, to veil those affections within the deep, lonely cloister of a morbid, self-consuming, wounded sensibility. Let them flow forth in unrestrained, unforbidden freedom, and rise to the source from where they came. The heart's crushed affections, and earth's beclouded hopes, in the hallowed experience of the believer, but go to bloom in a kindlier soil and shine beneath a brighter sky in heaven.
The need of 'creature' strength, and of 'human' sympathy, is only to be met by being brought into closer communion with the Invisible. The defect, the insufficiency, the failure of human friendship, human affection, human aid, and human sympathy only can be remedied and supplied by Jesus- the sufficiency, the fulness, the tenderness of whose grace, strength, and love can so fill the soul, so engage the heart that it shall not sigh for anything besides. Oh, with such a treasure so rich and so near- with such a Friend and Father so mighty, yet so compassionate, whatever your sorrows or your loneliness may be- forsaken and disappointed, wounded and deceived- the void is more than filled, the need is more than supplied by the infinite sufficiency and eternal sympathy of your incarnate God! Blessed result of disappointment in the human, to find one's self absorbed in the Divine!
"Who is alone, if God be near?
Who shall repine at loss of friends,
While he has One of boundless power,
Whose constant kindness never ends;
Whose presence felt enhances joy,
Whose love can stop the flowing tear,
And cause upon the darkest cloud
The pledge of mercy to appear."
And yet we must not forget that He who has provided this sweet spring of comfort and support- the affection and sympathy of a human heart- would not have us undervalue the precious gift. Our Lord Himself was not indifferent to it. He was not insensible to human sympathies. He loved man- He sought man's love, and He asked man's sympathy; and keen was the pang and bitter the disappointment when the friends and disciples He had chosen out of the world to be His companions and followers, forsook and failed Him in the hour of His adversity. Do not then, beloved, attempt to be wholly independent of your fellows; and do not regard with cold indifference and ingratitude, the tear that would flow with yours, or the hand kindly upraised to dry it. At the same time, do not be too reliant upon this reserve of human sympathy and compassion. If the Lord supplies it, receive it with gratitude, use it with moderation, and employ it for His glory. If He withholds it, it is but to bring you into the experience of something infinitely better- the deeper experience of Himself.
"Oh, ask not, hope not, too much of sympathy below;
Few are the hearts where one sure touch
Bids the sweet fountains flow;
Few- and, by still conflicting powers,
Forbidden here to meet;
Such ties would make this life of ours
Too fair for anything so fleet.
"Yet scorn you not, for this, the true
And steadfast love of years;
The kindly, who from childhood grew,
The faithful to your tears!
If there be one that, over the dead,
Has in your grief borne part;
And watched through sickness by your bed;
Call his a kindred heart." (Hemans)
But to what did Jesus resort when, sad and disappointed, He turned from this dried stream of human sympathy? He gave Himself again to prayer- He returned a third time to His Father. O blessed lesson He would thus teach us! We shall find in prayer, beloved, all, and infinitely more, that we sought, and failed to find, in the holy watchers around us. They, like the dear disciples in the garden, may grow weary- we may, in the moment of our deepest woe, find them unconscious of the throes and anguish of our spirit. Where shall we go? In prayer to our Father! Oh, the power, the solace, the charm of prayer! What magic influence it now had upon the Savior's troubled spirit! After He returns from His third appeal to His Father, He no more asks their sympathy- He had found all He needed in communion with God. The struggle was over- the conflict was past- His will and His Father's will were now perfectly one. He rose from the earth strengthened and solaced in His soul; a peace, like the calm of evening, stole over His spirit, and He went forth in dignity, energy, and repose to confront His betrayer and to meet His fate. "Sleep on now, and take your rest." It is the way, my reader, God, by human disappointments, impels us to prayer, and by prayer allures us to Himself. You have the same Father that Jesus had to go to in trouble. And when the creature-stream is dried, and human dependence fails, and the loving, tender sympathy upon which you had fondly relied becomes weary and exhausted by its watchings, the Fountain from where that stream flowed- God's all-sufficiency- remains as full and changeless as ever! The hour of agony, before this point is reached, may be long and dark. Not once, or twice, but thrice, you may journey with your soul-sorrow, your mental darkness, to the throne of grace before relief is felt; but the result, however agonizing and protracted the wrestling, will be glorious- "Your will, not mine be done!" -and a halcyon peace, a sunlight joy, and a giant's strength will bear you on to meet the crisis- to do, or to endure- to service, or to suffering- that your holy, wise, and loving Father has ordained. Go, then, your way, clasping the robe of Christ's full sympathy closer and firmer around you, girded and strengthened with all might by His presence and grace promised and pledged to His disciples, always, and in all circumstances, to the world's end.
"When gathering clouds around I view,
And days are dark, and friends are few,
On Him I lean, who, not in vain,
Experienced every human pain.
He sees my needs, allays my fears,
And counts and treasures up my tears.
"If aught should tempt my soul to stray
From heavenly wisdom's narrow way,
To fly the good I would pursue,
Or do the thing I would not do;
Still, He who felt temptation's power
Shall guard me in that dangerous hour.
"If 'wounded love' my bosom swell,
Deceived by those I prized too well,
He shall His pitying aid bestow,
Who felt on earth severer woe:
At once betrayed, denied, or fled,
By those who shared His daily bread.
"When vexing thoughts within me rise,
And, sore dismayed, my spirit dies;
Yet He who once vouchsafed to bear
The sickening anguish of despair,
Shall sweetly soothe, shall gently dry,
The throbbing heart, the streaming eye.
"When sorrowing over some stone I bend,
Which covers all that was a friend;
And from his hand, his voice, his smile,
Divides me for a little while,
You, Savior! see the tears I shed,
For you did weep over Lazarus dead.
"And oh, when I have safely past
Through every conflict but the last,
Still, still unchanging, watch beside!
My dying bed- for You have died;
Then point to realms of cloudless day.
And wipe the latest tear away!"

Christ's Sympathy with Temptation

Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil. Matthew 4:1

Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert to be tempted by the devil. Matthew 4:1

Then Jesus was led out into the wilderness by the Holy Spirit to be tempted there by the Devil. Matthew 4:1

This must be regarded as one of the most marvelous pages in the Savior's history, and, to a large portion of the Church of God, not less precious end soothing. That the Son of God should be exposed to so personal, so searching, so trying, and so protracted an onslaught of the devil as this- that He who was sinless and could not sin, who was almighty and could not fall, who with one word could have commanded back the foe to the regions from where He came, or with a breath could have annihilated his being, should yet for forty days and forty nights have subjected Himself to this fiery, burning furnace- which, had He not been God would have utterly consummed Him- is the marvel of earth, and will be the wonder, the study, and the song of heaven through eternity. But it was a part of the suffering of our Lord by which He was to learn, even though He were a Son. That wilderness was to Christ both a school and a battle-field. He had not been perfected but for this suffering, He had not learned obedience but for this trial, He had not been complete, as the Head of His Church, but for this furnace. Had our Lord been exempt from temptation, had He known nothing of Satanic agency and power, what an essential defect would there have been in His mediatorial relation to the Church! How could He have met the case of a tempted member of His body, a worried sheep of His flock, a Satan-terrified lamb of His fold? Impossible! Where, then, could these have turned for support, aid, and deliverance in temptation? From whom, when the fiery darts fell thick and fast around and upon them, could they have obtained the skill to quench, the grace to support, the sympathy to soothe them in the conflict, and bring them through more than conquerors? Alas! not another being in the universe could have met the case! And it was necessary for the Church, His body, that Christ, its Head, should be in all points tempted like as we are, and yet be without sin. Reserving, for the present, the peculiar circumstances attending Christ's temptation, let us view the temptation itself, and then apply it as illustrating His sympathy with His tempted people.

THE TEMPTATION ITSELF.

In the first place, let us remark that Christ was tempted by the devil. He was confronted with the leader, the chief of the hierarchy of hell. It was proper that it should be so. To have met and defeated a foe of inferior rank, a subordinate agent of the Evil One, one of less authority or of less power, would have broken the Scriptures and compromised the Church. But "the Scripture cannot be broken," and the interests of the Church can never be imperilled. The sentence pronounced upon the serpent in Paradise involved a prediction which must be fulfilled- "I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed; it shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel." It was necessary, then, that, if our Lord be tempted, that temptation should come from the prince of the devils- the tall archangel of hell himself. Our temptations from Satan often flow from indirect sources, from sin within or incentives to sin without; our Lord's were directly from Satan. He had come to destroy the works of the Devil, but He must first confront, bind, and virtually destroy the Devil himself. It was by this malignant foe God had been accused to man, and it is by this same malignant foe man is accused to God; and it was proper that, by the God-man, He should be met and overthrown- himself accused and condemned. But how replete with instruction, and how full of consolation to the Church is this truth! Not the myrmidons, not the subordinate ministers and agents of the Devil have been defeated by Christ, but the Devil himself. The head has been bruised, the prince has been despoiled, the chief defeated, by Christ's heel. Thus, from personal experience, our Lord learned who and what Satan is- his subtlety, his malignity, and his power- and is prepared to support and sympathize, as no other being can, with those who are tempted. It was proper, then, that the Captain of our salvation should meet in conflict hell's chief; that the Head of the Church should meet face to face the head of hell, and so "be led into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil."

And what were His temptations? They would seem to have been from every quarter and of every kind. The quiver of the artful foe lacked no darts. The moment one was winged and quenched, another, yet more potent, was upon the string! The devil is never at a loss for means and appliances. His resources are vast, his ingenuity versatile, his operations as rapid and as telling as the electric current. The wiles and devices of the devil are worthy a being of so vast, yet so depraved, an intellect. What, then, was his first assault upon our Lord?

It was the temptation to distrust the providence of God. After His long, exhausting fast our Lord hungered. He needed bread. He was man, and He felt as man. Oh, touching evidence of His real humanity! precious proof of His perfect oneness with us! Of this sinless infirmity of His nature Satan took advantage. Thus we read, "And when the tempter came to Him, He said, If you are the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread." The temptation was timely, plausible, and strong. It had been as easy for Christ to have established the fact- not denied by His adversary- of His Divine Sonship by turning the stones into bread, as subsequently He did by turning the water into wine. But He would not! He had come to bring to our spiritually famished race Himself the Bread of life; to teach His disciples the lesson of a believing reliance upon the care and provision of their heavenly Father- His Father and their Father. To have yielded to this temptation, to have complied with this suggestion of the wily foe, would have been a practical compromise of the one, and a direct denial of the other. No! Christ would not break His fast upon such terms. He would endure the gnawings of hunger still rather than place the food that perishes above the food that endures unto eternal life, or throw the shadow of a shade of distrust upon a Father's care. How Godlike and sublime His reply, "It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God." And is there not a page in our experience corresponding to this? How often by the same Adversary we are assailed with the same temptation! It is one of the ingenious plans of our subtle foe to seize upon the present circumstances of believers, turning them to his own advantage, and to their discomfort, by constructing them into a weapon of point and power with which to assail them. Are we in affliction and sorrow?- He tempts us to question God's goodness and love. Are we prostrate on a sick and suffering couch?- He tempts us to doubt the wisdom and kindness of our Father. Is the mind in spiritual darkness, the soul painfully exercised, a cloud-veil thrown over the evidences of our union with Christ and our adoption into God's family?- He tempts us to ignore our past Christian experience as a delusion, and to yield ourselves to a present and dark despair. Are the providences of our God trying, painful, and mysterious?- He tempts us to carnal reasoning, and hard thoughts of the character and government of God, sometimes bringing us to the very verge of atheism and infidelity- impeaching His character, if not doubting His very being. Are our temporal resources straitened, our needs pressing, our position trying and critical?- He tempts us to unbelief, distrust, and despondency; to employ unwise, if not unlawful, means of extrication, and to purchase immediate and temporary relief by a compromise of integrity, reputation, and happiness. My reader, Satan knows your circumstances, is acquainted with the network of your trying and difficult position, and is prepared to forge from it a weapon of assault upon your principles, your well-being, and your peace. The Devil is marvelously strategic: his suggestions will have all the appearance of reason, fitness, and propriety; they will seem plausible, facile, and honest; nevertheless, they are satanic, are from beneath, and must not receive from you the consideration of a moment. "Trust in the Lord with all your heart; do not depend on your own understanding. Seek his will in all you do, and he will direct your paths." Proverbs 3:5-6. The Lord can give you bread- and no good thing will He withhold from you- without the intervention of a miracle. The sustenance is all provided; no need, then, that He command the stones that they be made bread!

The second temptation of our Lord was self-destruction. This was its form- "Then the Devil took him to Jerusalem, to the highest point of the Temple, and said, "If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down! For the Scriptures say, 'He orders his angels to protect you. And they will hold you with their hands to keep you from striking your foot on a stone.' " Matthew 4:5-6. And still there is no denial of His Divine Sonship on the part of the devil. Alas that there should be on the part of man! He places the fact in a hypothetical point of light only- "IF you be the Son of God,"- for on a subsequent occasion the unclean demon could exclaim, "I know you who You are, the Holy One of God." And yet, there was this fearful temptation of this Holy One. And what was its nature? Suicide! "cast yourself down- destroy Yourself! Presume upon the providence and power of God to preserve You. Commit the act, and leave Him to shield You from its consequences." Such, in substance, was the reasoning of this arch-fiend of darkness. With what holy horror must the Son of God have recoiled from the temptation to this rash, sinful, appalling crime! And yet with what dignity and power He repels and silences it! "Jesus said unto him, It is written again, You shall not tempt the Lord your God." (Jesus responded, "The Scriptures also say, 'Do not test the Lord your God.' ") Matthew 4:7. There are few temptations by which our race is assailed more common, and none more dire, than this. And, as Satan loves a prominent and shining mark, the victim of his malignity is often placed upon a pinnacle of the temple, that the crime may be the darker, and his triumph the more conspicuous and complete. Therefore it is that God's saints, Christ's disciples, are not the exception, but generally the rule, of this appalling onslaught of the foe. How many of the saints of the most High are, like their Lord and Master, thus assailed by the devil! My dear reader, it may be that this fiery dart has been hurled at you. Taking advantage of your position, your circumstances, your domestic anxieties, your pressing liabilities, the detractions of enemies, a nervous temperament, mental dejection, a frame tortured by suffering or enfeebled by disease, this may be the form of the temptation by which Satan approaches you. As "there has no temptation taken you but such as is common to man," and as both Christ and many of His disciples have been alike assailed as you may now be, it may not be considered out of place or unacceptable if we endeavor to meet and mitigate your present trial with such words and counsels as the Holy Spirit may suggest and apply.

The temptation that assails you is- self-destruction. "Cast yourself down." With whom but with a spirit so inventive of crime, so depraved and malignant, could so unnatural a suggestion, so fearful a sin, originate? Every point of light in which we view it, every reason with which we assail it, every plea by which we dissuade from it- its touching relation to the present, and its more solemn relation to the future- conspire to render the act abhorrent and repelling. Reserving, for the present, its more religious aspects, regard the sin of suicide in the light of nature. There is not a stronger or more innate principle of the human mind than self-preservation. The love of life and the fear of death are feelings naturally and incontestably implanted in all beings. The irrational creation possess an instinctive principle of the kind engrafted in their nature by God. But it has been left for man to war against a principle of his nature which all other beings preserve inviolate; and, though endowed with reason, intelligence, conscience, and responsibility, yet, estranged from God, and the subject of a deranged mind, he is often swept on by the force of an irresistible current which lands him at the tribunal of eternity, the destroyer of a principle the most precious and solemn in the universe! It is a remarkable fact that in the primitive state of society the idea of self-destruction is scarcely known; that it is only in nations of extreme civilization and high intelligence that this crime the most greatly prevails. A distinguished French physician remarks that, when a captive in Russia, He once spoke to an intelligent peasant concerning this unnatural deed, and found him totally and blissfully ignorant of its existence. In the rise of the Roman republic it was scarcely known, nor did it become frequent until after the battle of Pharsalia. Thus it would seem that, as society advanced in civilization and refinement, not only modes of self-destruction became more refined, but the act itself more familiar. We need scarcely cite the cases of Regulus, Codrus, and Socrates as illustrating what have been termed virtuous and patriotic examples, but which, in no point of light, justify a crime as opposed to the instincts of man as it is condemned by the law of God. As we are not attempting a treatise on this melancholy subject, we forbear pressing our inquiry into the various motives or causes which may predispose the mind in the commission of so rash an act. Indeed, it would seem impossible to give anything like a proper analysis or classification of them. A few examples will show this- Adrian, Licinius, and Coecinus destroyed themselves from excess of pain; Imilicar, Nasso, and Hannibal from excess of fear; Pontius Pilate from chagrin at the spread of Christianity; Maximian from despair at having oppressed its disciples; Judas from guilt and remorse at having betrayed its Author. Others have been tempted thus to anticipate their future from the pressure of poverty, from the dread of exposure, from wounded pride, from crushed affections; from disappointed hopes, from hypochondriacism assuming a religious form, from sheer selfishness, and from a morbid disgust and weariness of life. These are some of the predisposing causes to which this wastefulness of life may be traced. But it is with the temptation itself we have now to do.

We premise, however, that in most cases of this kind the melancholy subject of the temptation must be regarded in the light of an irresponsible agent, whose diseased and disordered mind has utterly destroyed the self-controlling power of the soul, and consequently annihilating the only basis upon which human responsibility rests- that is, a sound and healthful mind. The majority of suicidal cases must be thus resolved- the alienation of an unbalanced intellect obscuring the light of reason, and destroying the responsibility of the agent. Let nothing, therefore, which may be traced upon this page deepen the shade of sadness which still lingers upon the memory of the past; but let the profoundly mysterious act resolve itself in the righteous permission of the Divine will, quenching in its melancholy subject every vestige of human accountability. "Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?" "Even so, Father, for so it seems good in your sight," must be the expression of our submission to so dark a mystery of providence. With regard to the temptation, if for a moment it be suggested to your mind, there is every argument drawn from the light of nature with which resistance may be strengthened, and the crime repelled. Let us briefly group them together. Your life is not your own. "Behold, all souls are mine, says the Lord." The possession of a power over your own life establishes no claim to ownership, any more than the same power over the lives of others invests you with a right to destroy them. God, therefore, "in whom we live and move and have our being," as your sole Proprietor, alone has authority to dispose of you- demanding or retaining your life, as it pleases Him. "None of us can hold back our spirit from departing. None of us has the power to prevent the day of our death. There is no escaping that obligation, that dark battle." Eccles. 8:8. "None can keep alive his own soul."

What an impeachment, too, is this act of the wisdom, goodness, and righteousness of God. Deliberately and dispassionately to fling into His face a soul He had created in His own image; endowed with an intelligence second only to His own; and for whose culture, happiness, and preservation He had provided, in His infinite goodness, so amply; is to insult His majesty, to deny His faithfulness, and virtually to own a disbelief in His very being. It is an act, too, of extreme selfishness; selfishness utterly indifferent to the claims and feelings of those dependent upon our existence for their own, whose interests we compromise, and upon all the future of whose earthly happiness we cast the dark shadow of grief. What sad fruit, too, of pride, shame, and cowardice is this act, calmly, premeditatively done! Shrinking from meeting the eye of man, yet not afraid of rushing into the presence of God! Seeking to escape from present embarrassments, afraid to face existing responsibilities, yet not shrinking from the responsibility of a sane suicide, braving the terror of God's tribunal before which the soul thrusts itself uncalled! Oh, it is a fearful temptation of the arch-foe of man, from listening to which for a moment every natural, reasonable, and moral argument and consideration powerfully and solemnly dissuades. Listen to the voice of God, echoed by reason and conscience- "do yourself no harm."

The language of a good man is, "All the days of my appointed time will I wait until my change comes." Let revelation and reason unite in winning back your thoughts to solemn reflection and self-restraint, that thus you may be doubly armed against this fearful temptation of Satan.

"Our time is fixed, and all our days are numbered;
How long, how short, we know not; this we know
Duty requires we calmly wait the summons,
Nor dare to stir until Heaven shall give permission.
Like sentinels that must keep their destined stand,
And wait the appointed hour until they're relieved.
Those only are the brave who keep their ground,
And keep it to the last. To run away
Is but a coward's trick; to run away
From this world's ills, that at the very worst
Will soon blow over, thinking to mend ourselves
By boldly venturing on a world unknown,
And plunging headlong in the dark! it is mad;
No frenzy half so desperate as this."

We have remarked that this is a temptation of Satan from which God's people are not totally exempt. A consideration of this will place before us the religious aspect of the subject. The Head of the Church thus tempted, the Church and the individual members of the Church must not expect to be absolved. "Cast yourself down," was the temptation presented to Christ by Satan. "Destroy yourself," is the like dark thought often suggested by the Evil One to the minds of Christ's disciples. Seizing upon your peculiar and pressing circumstances, or the physical and mental condition through which you are for the time passing- your tried spirit, or embarrassed position, or bodily suffering, or spiritual gloom and despondency of mind, Satan avails himself of it to present to your mind gloomy thoughts and distrustful feelings of God and His dealings, and to insinuate an easy and effectual mode of escaping from present difficulties and mental distress- the dark, the awful, the appalling one of anticipating the future by your own hand! The idea, the suggestion, the mode of its execution come from him the adversary, the accuser, the foe of God's saints. But not for the universe must an instigation so awful in its nature, so dishonoring to your Christian profession, so wounding to Christ, so denying of God; and investing life's close with a pall of woe so dark, find a moment's reflective response in your heart or mind. All the powers of your soul, every effort of self-resistance, every tender, holy consideration it is possible for you to command, must be summoned to the battle and aid you in the victory. Far beyond this, must you betake yourself to Christ the tempted One, tempted as you are now and by the same tempter, who is prepared to strengthen, aid, and fortify you against, and deliver you out of, this terrible onslaught of His foe and yours. No imagination can portray the tenderness, the compassion, the sympathy of Christ with you in this dark hour of your terrible temptation. All the boundless resources of His grace, power, love, and sympathy are enlisted on your side, and are at your command. How appropriate and precious are the Divine declarations of this truth written for you- "We have not an high Priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities, but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need." "For in that He himself has suffered, being tempted, He is able to support their that are tempted." Oh, yield yourself in this extremity to prayer. There is no weapon of resistance like this. With it, you can "resist the devil, and He will flee from you." Meet the arch-foe with the name of Jesus, and He will quail before you. Uplift in faith the cross of Christ, acid you will put to flight all the hosts of hell.

Christ has wounded, despoiled, and vanquished Satan on the cross and in the grave; and a yet more signal and a final triumph over him awaits the Son of God- and you have but to shelter your tried, tempted, trembling soul beneath His overshadowing wing until this dark hour of temptation is past. Oh, what a soothing reflection is this- "The Son of God, my Savior, was tempted to self-destruction, even as I am! Then, will He desert me in this hour of my weakness? will He leave me to combat the tempter alone? Will He not assist me by His grace, aid me with His strength, comfort me with His love, soothe me with His sympathy, and deliver me by His great power? Most assuredly He will! He has trodden this very path Himself. He has been assailed by this very foe, and with this very temptation; and will He not support me as no other being does, as no other being can? O sweet assault that opens to me the gentle heart of Jesus, into which I run, and am shielded by its power, soothed by its sympathy, and am lost in its love. Then, I will look to Jesus, cling to Jesus, trust in Jesus, who knows how to deliver the godly out of temptation, and who will deliver- me!"

Closely akin to this form of temptation of Satan, is a modern manifestation popularly termed "Spiritualism," or the alleged power to unravel the mysteries of the spirit-world. To so great an extent has this delusion spread, and so disastrous has been its influence upon the mental and moral well-being of numbers of its victims, that, in touching upon the subject of satanic agency, we should be scarcely justified in passing it over in total silence. We do not assert that the senseless mummeries of spirit-rapping; table-turning, clairvoyance, and kindred delusions- professed media of communication with the invisible world- are the direct results of satanic power- the manifestations are far too clumsy and transparent to conduct us to such a conclusion- still, we avow our unhesitating belief that they are the conceptions of human depravity and the inventions of human fraud, working upon the imagination of the weak and the credulous, suggested, prompted, and abetted by the Evil One, who employs the sin that is in man to increase the amount of sin and misery that is in the world. Indirectly, then, we track these ungodly arts, these awful delusions, to the "prince of the power of the air, who "works in the children of disobedience." From all such proceedings, then, it becomes the solemn duty of every believer in Jesus to turn with detestation and horror, as from the Evil One himself, and to have no fellowship with these works of darkness, but rather to reprove them. They are diabolical and satanic so far as they are a part of the machinery by which the Devil carries forward his government in this ungodly world, where for a season his seat is. That even some of the elect of God have been deceived by these delusions, it is mournful and humiliating to confess; and not a few cases have transpired in which domestic happiness has been blasted, spiritual peace has been destroyed, Christian hope has been beclouded, and the mind has succumbed either to moody despair, or to hopeless insanity, in some instances terminating in self-murder. Oh, be this our constant prayer, "Keep back Your servant also from presumptuous sins: let them not have dominion over me." And to the Divine exhortation we do well that we take heed- "Put on therefore the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. Therefore take unto you the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand."

The third temptation of our Lord was IDOLATRY, with the promise of temporal territory, glory, and power. This was the form in which the Devil put it- "Next the Devil took him to the peak of a very high mountain and showed him the nations of the world and all their glory. "I will give it all to you," he said, "if you will only kneel down and worship me." Matthew 4:8-9. We pause not to notice the monstrous arrogance and mendacious insolence, together with the glaring falsehood, exhibited in the form of this assault. It is enough to notice the aspiring ambition of this proud Lucifer who now demanded the homage and worship of the Son of God, and thus aspired to be God: "If you will fall down and worship me!" This would seem to have been the climax of horror, the sin of sins, to the holy Son of God. No sin has Jehovah so emphatically forbidden, or has marked with such signal and overwhelming indications of His hatred, displeasure, and wrath, as the sin of idolatry. And yet this was the climax to the series of temptations by which our Lord was assailed of the devil! Dwell upon the thought for a moment- devil-worship, offered, justified, and encouraged by the example of the Son of God! Can the imagination depict a temptation so fearful, or a crime so appalling? Again we remark, with what horror must the Savior have met, with what indignation must He have repelled, and how instantaneously must He have quenched this fiery dart of the foe! Listen to His words: "Away from me, Satan! For it is written: 'Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only.'" Matthew 4:10.

And are the saints of God entirely exempt from temptation akin to this? We believe not. Assailing us through our senses- the eye fond of beauty, the heart ambitious of power, the mind dazzled with glory, the soul lusting for possession- easy and accessible avenues are open to this arch-foe of Christ and of the Church. To what idolising of ourselves, and of the creature, and of worldly possessions, are the best of saints exposed! We may– so deceitful and wicked are our hearts- be beguiled, before we are conscious of our sin, into a worshiping of our intellectual powers, of our acquired endowments, of our popularity, of our usefulness, of our very graces! Wherein else could have been the appropriateness and the force of the apostolic exhortation- "Therefore, my dearly beloved, flee from idolatry." And again, "Little children, keep yourselves from idols." And what is the homage paid by the ungodly to objects that are sinful, yes, to sin itself, but a worship unconsciously, but really, offered to Satan? It is against this the saints of God have need to be armed and fortified- to be vigilant and prayerful. He assails us through the affections- through the eye- the ear- the intellect, yes, through every bodily sense and mental faculty. The creature may become an idol of the heart, and learning an idol of the intellect; we may be so enamored with the beauty of the arts, of the melody of music, of the fascination of science, as to be swept on by the resistless force of the passions to a point where we may worship and serve the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Such is the natural tendency to idolatry of the human heart, such the power and influence of Satan, we have need to be acquainted, in some measure, with the deceitfulness and wickedness of the one, and not to be ignorant of the wiles and the devices of the other.

From this subject of our Lord's temptations, we may glean some LESSONS OF HOLY INSTRUCTION, and derive some STREAMS OF REAL COMFORT.

We learn that our great adversary and accuser is a defeated foe. From this onslaught upon Christ He retired foiled, vanquished, and abashed. The Seed of the woman had bruised the serpent's head. It is true, "Satan left Him for a season," to renew the battle on another and a more conspicuous field, and at a future and a more eventful time; but only to be more signally discomfited, more fatally wounded, and more completely overthrown. Tempted believer in Jesus! learn thus the paralyzed power of your tempter, that you do not be disheartened and dismayed. Remember that the Son of God has foiled him, that the Captain of your salvation has pierced him, signally and fatally; and that every fiery dart winged at your soul is plucked from a quiver all whose weapons, pointed at the believer, are tipped with the conquering blood of Christ, and are hurled by the stricken arm of an archer humbled and cowed by the consciousness of a signal and irrecoverable defeat!

Learn to meet Satan's suggestions, to answer his arguments, and to repel his temptations by the "sword of the Spirit, which, is the Word of God." He too can quote and apply Scripture, only to misquote and misapply it. You may, therefore, safely infer that if He seeks to give Scripture point and force to a vile insinuation- quotes a promise or cites an example from the Word of God in support of some infernal suggestion, some dark design, some horrid temptation- He has by fraud and subtlety stolen from the arsenal of truth weapons with which, by perversion and wicked ingenuity, to accomplish his dark, nefarious design. Lend not your ear for a moment to a temptation that comes clad in Scripture authority. Suspect the cloven foot of Satan. The Word of God is very pure. It is on the side of holiness, of uprightness, of goodness, of love. It inculcates the fear of God, confidence in God, and love to God. It teaches the protection, the sufficiency, and the sympathy of Jesus. It unfolds many exceeding great and precious promises; announces many gracious and free invitations; and it is designed to support the tempted, to comfort the mourner, to soothe the sorrowful, to hold out the promise of pardon to the guilty, salvation to the lost, and to reveal the hope of glory to all those who humbly and simply believe in Christ. The moment, then, beloved, that a text of God's Word is suggested to your thoughts in favor of sin, of distrust of God, of disbelief of Christ, of self-injury, repel it with the holy indignation of a believer in Christ from the threshold of your mind, as from the Evil One, prompting you to evil, and seeking to slay you with the very weapons God graciously provided for your defense! O yes! God's Word will fortify, strengthen, and support you in temptation. It is the Book of the tempted. Like its Author, it is divine, invincible, and holy. It is the history of saints tempted like you, but from whose temptation God rescued them. "The Lord knows how to deliver the godly out of temptation." The most gracious souls, the most eminent saints, have been tempted saints. Abraham was tempted, David was tempted, Job was tempted, Peter was tempted, Paul was tempted, Luther was tempted- and, above all, and greater than all, Christ was tempted; and all from the selfsame foe- "Satan, the accuser of the brethren." All passed through this heated crucible, all were taught in this painful school, all bore to heaven the scars of the wounds in this battle with the devil- but out of all God delivered them. Do not think, then, that some strange thing has happened unto you- that you tread a peculiar, solitary path, a path untrodden by the saints of God. O no! You are one of the "great cloud of witnesses" of whom it is recorded, "they were tempted," and with them you shall testify to the power of faith in giving you the victory over all the assaults of the world, the flesh, and the devil. Fly, tempted one! to the precious Scriptures. They are your grand arsenal, richly stored with every species of weapon with which to foil and vanquish your powerful, sleepless, subtle foe. "Your word have I hid in my heart, that I should not sin against you." Above all, fly to the Christ of the Scriptures, and nestle your tempted spirit beneath His sheltering wing.

And do not forget what a girding of the soul in the temptations of Satan is- prayer. Take your temptation, drag the tempter to the throne of grace, and you are safe. The shadow of that spot is too divine, too pure and holy, for a temptation to live a single moment. There the Wicked One will cease to trouble you, there your weary soul will sweetly rest. Communion with God, the opening of your heart to Christ, flying into the very bosom of the Comforter, will put to flight all the hosts of hell. Oh, betake yourself, tempted child of God, to prayer! God invites you, the blood of Jesus gives you access, and the mercy-seat will cover you with its Divine and sacred shadow, beneath which God will keep you in perfect peace. "Oh, how great is your goodness, which, you have laid up for those who fear you; which you have wrought for those who trust in you before the sons of men! You shall hide them in the secret of your presence from the pride of man; you shall keep them secretly in a pavilion from the strife of tongues." Resort, then, to prayer "If he haunts you with fears of your spiritual estate, fly to the throne of grace, and beg a new copy of your old evidence, which you have lost. The original is in the pardon-office in heaven, whereof Christ is Master; if you are a saint, your name is upon record in that count; make your moan to God, hear what news from heaven, rather than listen to the tales which are brought by your enemy from hell. Did such reason less with Satan, and pray over their fears more to God, they might sooner be resolved. Can you expect truth from a liar, and comfort from an enemy? Did He ever prophesy well of believers? Was not Job the devil's hypocrite, whom God vouched for a nonsuch in holiness, and proved him so at last? If He knew that you were a saint, would He tell you so? If a hypocrite, he would not have you know it; turn your back therefore on him, and go to your God: fear not but sooner or later He will give his hand again to your certificate. But see that you do not pass rashly a censure on yourself, because a satisfactory answer is not presently sent at your desire; the messenger may stay long, and bring good news at last." (Gurnall)

Designed as this volume is to set forth the sympathy of Christ with man, no illustration of this precious truth is more touching than Christ's sympathy with the tempted. The inspired allusions to it are few, but, oh, how pointed and precious! "In that He himself has suffered, being tempted, He is able to support, those who are tempted." "We have not a High Priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities, but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin." How schooled and trained to this work of sympathy with Satan-tempted souls, then, is our great High Priest! What! is He not "touched?" will He not "support?" And when Satan stands at your right hand to accuse, do you think that He, your Advocate with the Father, will not put in a plea on your behalf that shall quash the indictment, silence the accusation, and condemn the accuser? Oh, enfold yourself, tempted believer, within the robe of your Savior's sympathy! Hide within its rich, its ample folds, until the temptation be past. Christ will not fail you. He may permit, for wise and holy ends, the messenger of Satan to buffet you, but He will restrain the enemy, permitting him to go so far and no farther, and will make good His promise, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my strength is made perfect in weakness." This very temptation of your soul may make you better acquainted with Christ than ever. For this end, doubtless, He permits it. You have learned what Christ is in times of guilt, in times of sorrow, in times of need, in times of perplexity; now you are to learn what He is in times of temptation. New views of God will be opened to you, new treasures of truth unlocked, new promises applied, new discoveries and manifestations made to you of the love, the grace, the tenderness, the sympathy of Christ. You will have found some new niche in His heart of love and sympathy, unknown, undiscovered before, into which your weary, panting spirit will insinuate itself and nestle in assured safety and repose until the tempter flee. Every deluge has its dove, every dove its ark, every ark its Noah, every cloud its bow. And when the enemy shall come into your soul like a flood, the Spirit, the Comforter, will gently lead you to Jesus, and cloister you within the secret place of His loving, sheltering bosom. Hidden and resting there, the swelling waves may lift up their voice, but the Lord Jesus on high "is mightier there the noise of many waters, yes, than the mighty waves of the sea," and you need not fear. Satan is more restless, earnest, malignant at the present moment than ever; yes, often assuming the form of an angel of light, seeing that his time is short. But the Lord is at hand! In a little while He will come and complete the victory begun in Paradise, continued in the wilderness, renewed on the cross, carried on through the long history of His Church, and consummated in the day of His personal, glorious, and triumphant appearing. Tempted child of God! take heart- look up! You shall, through your conquering Head, bruise Satan under your feet shortly!

But slight allusion has been made in this chapter to THE AWFUL CONDITION OF THE UNCONVERTED, still under the dominion and power of Satan, led captive by him at his will. We would not close it without a solemn word addressed especially to such. My dear reader, be your standard of morality, your religious creed, your education, your rank in society what it may, nothing modifies, softens, or alters, in the slightest degree, the appalling fact that an unrenewed, unregenerate soul is a soul yet the subject of Satan- the captive and slave of his power and service. What is the unerring testimony of God's Word? Addressing those who, through grace, were rescued from the power of Satan, the apostle thus speaks, "You has He quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins; wherein in time past you walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now works in the children of disobedience." What an appalling description of the unrenewed! Reader, it is a faithful portrait of you. if you are yet not born again of the Spirit. What need have we of further testimony? Surely this one passage, were there no other proof, is sufficient to fill with awe and alarm every unconverted reader of this page. The strong man armed, who is the Devil, has still the full possession of your soul; and will remain in undisturbed, undisputed, and willing occupation, until a stronger than He enters, spoils him of his goods, and casts him out. "Satan, the god of this evil world, has blinded the minds of those who don't believe, so they are unable to see the glorious light of the Good News that is shining upon them. They don't understand the message we preach about the glory of Christ, who is the exact likeness of God." 2 Cor. 4:4. It is his aim and policy to keep your soul in carnal security, in false peace, in the stillness and insensibility of spiritual death. Mistake not your real condition! Mistake not cold ritualism for vital religion; dead formalism for spiritual life; carnal insensibility for Divine peace; rash confidence for humble faith; human excitement for holy love; groundless expectation for assured hope! Satan is a great counterfeiter! He not only can quote Scripture, but He can imitate grace. Every species of false religion, and every form of spurious Christianity, are his inventions. He will strive to retain possession of your soul, nor relinquish his hold without a long and a desperate struggle. Be assured of this, that everything that is evil and false is of Satan. Every atheistical idea of God, every infidel thought of the Bible, every suggestion of sin, every prompting to evil, every new attraction of the world, every impediment in the way of your salvation, every argument and persuasive pleading for a postponement to a more convenient season, it may be to a sick and dying bed, of the great, the needful work of repentance and of faith, the solemn, the momentous preparation of the soul for eternity, all, all is of Satan. In all this you are "led captive by him at his will." Oh, solemn, appalling thought- "My soul the palace of Satan! my intellect, my will, my heart all under his influence and at his command! My present and my future life not God's, not Christ's, not heaven's, but Satan's!" Oh, throw yourself at the feet of the Savior, whose mission it is to destroy the works of the devil, and the devil himself, and beseech Him to rend the chain, to eject the usurper, and to claim and possess the throne and the kingdom of your soul as His own forever! Hell shall not then be your everlasting abode, nor Satan your eternal tormentor. But He who came into this world "to proclaim liberty to the captive, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound," will claim you as His lawful prize, and when you die, heaven will be your home and God your Father. You shall live and reign with Christ forever and ever. "Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walks about, seeking whom He may devour; whom resist steadfast in the faith." And then comes the final defeat and eternal doom of him who so long and so fearfully reigned and ruled, the God and despot of mankind– "Then the Devil, who betrayed them, was thrown into the lake of fire that burns with sulfur, joining the beast and the false prophet. There they will be tormented day and night forever and ever." Rev. 20:10

Christ's Sympathy with Christian Perseverance

Then said Jesus unto the twelve, Will ye also go away? John 6:67

"You do not want to leave too, do you?" Jesus asked the Twelve. John 6:67

Then Jesus turned to the Twelve and asked, "Are you going to leave, too?" John 6:67

When one views the perilous journey which conducts the believer to heaven, it seems a miracle that any should ever arrive there at last! Remembering that each one carries within his bosom the elements of his own destruction- a moral gun-powder, a single spark lighting upon which, unextinguished instantaneously by the power of Christ, would annihilate every vestige of hope; when we remember, too, that the wilderness through which He passes is thronged with beasts of prey, headed by the prince of the power of the air, and how, at the very last gasp of life, he would, were it possible, pluck the trembling spirit from the hand of Jesus; when to this is added the allurements of the world, the snares of one's daily calling, the offence of the cross, the seduction of false doctrines, the disguises of error, it does indeed appear a miracle- an especial and continuous intervention of Divine power, contrary to the law of nature and of sin- that a sinner should ever find himself in glory. It is an solemn thought that multitudes who appear to set out for heaven, moved by some powerful, undefinable impulse, eventually flag, halt, and finally turn back, and never touch the borders of the good land. They seem to make some spiritual progress, to bid fair to hold on their way to the end, but by and by, when the straitness, the difficulties, and the dangers of the way unfold themselves, they tire, and stumble, and gradually decline and walk no more professedly with Jesus. It were well, my reader, if we lay these things close to heart- if they lead us to earnest self-examination as to our religion, our progress, our hope, lest at any time we should seem to come short. A solemn and striking instance of turning back from Christ is before us. Christ had been propounding truths unpalatable to some of his hearers- truths which uprooted their self-righteousness, laid their glory in the dust, removing the crown from the head of human merit and placing it upon the head of Divine grace. These doctrines gave offence; they were 'test truths'- truths which brought the principles, the grace, and the progression of these professing disciples to the proof, and when thus tested and proved they failed. His line of truth was this- "Even his disciples said, "This is very hard to understand. How can anyone accept it?" Jesus knew within himself that his disciples were complaining, so he said to them, "Does this offend you? Then what will you think if you see me, the Son of Man, return to heaven again? (thus declaring His pre-existent Deity); It is the Spirit who gives eternal life. (thus teaching the doctrine of spiritual regeneration); Human effort accomplishes nothing. (thus upholding the doctrine of man's moral impotence); And the very words I have spoken to you are spirit and life. (thus asserting the Divine inspiration of His truth); But some of you don't believe me." (For Jesus knew from the beginning who didn't believe, and he knew who would betray him.) Then he said, "That is what I meant when I said that people can't come to me unless the Father brings them to me." At this point many of his disciples turned away and deserted him." John 6:60-66. Thus early commenced the offence of gospel truth, the enmity and opposition of man's carnal mind to the doctrines and principles of grace. "From that time"- from the moment these Divine and distinctive doctrines were declared, which laid the axe at the root of human power, pride, and merit- "many went back, and walked no more with Him." It was at this trying and critical juncture that Christ manifested that touching sympathy with the Christian fidelity and perseverance of His true disciples, which prompted the affecting appeal, "Will you also go away?" What a solemn, heart-searching question! What an exhibition of our Lord's sympathy with the Christian constancy and perseverance of His people! Our spiritual progress, our growth in grace, our Christian consistency and perseverance, cannot be a matter of indifference to Christ. That He should construct a beautiful vessel- recreating, remodelling, and re-embellishing it from the ruins of the fall, for the purpose of restoring to it the Divine image, and of filling it through eternity with the Divine glory- and should then feel and manifest no regard, sympathy, or care for its future safety and well-being, is a picture of Christ the Bible nowhere presents. Such a statement is belied by the words before us- "Will you also go away?" What an impressive and exquisitely affecting view of the Savior's holy, tender solicitude for His people's perseverance in grace! May its study quicken our sensibilities, stimulate our diligence, awaken our vigilance, and call forth the response, "Lord, to whom shall we go? you have the words of eternal life!" In considering this sympathy of Christ with the constancy of His disciples to His person and truth, and their perseverance in personal holiness and grace, it will be proper to place in the foreground the solemn fact, that there are professors of Christ who, assailed by certain hostile influences, go away and walk no more with Jesus. This will prepare us to consider true Christian perseverance, and Christ's tender, wakeful sympathy with it. "Will you also go away?"
The sin implied in this affecting appeal of Christ is that of backsliding and apostasy from Him and His cause. With an unregenerate man, the whole life is one act of going from Christ. Our nature has been wandering from God, from Christ, and from heaven more and more, farther and farther, from the moment that it first broke from its grand center- God. Supposing myself addressing personally such a one, in proof of this solemn statement as to your spiritual condition, let me remind you that you have never yet taken one actual step toward Christ; that you have never yielded to the attraction of His cross, have never felt the power of His love, have never tasted that the Lord is gracious. What is this but a turning the back upon the Savior? The final condemnation of such a rejection of Christ will admit of no palliation or excuse. Your plea at Christ's bar will not even be that which we might suppose a heathen would present, whose shores the keel of the missionary ship never smote, whose valleys and whose rocks never echoed with the sounds of salvation- "I never heard of You, O Lord! The gospel of Your salvation never saluted my ears. I never knew that I was a sinner, and never heard that Christ Jesus came to save sinners, and that I might be saved." You possess the Bible, have some intellectual knowledge of the truth, have heard the solemn warnings and the thrilling invitations of the gospel, and yet your whole life is one continuous act of wilful going away from Jesus. You reject His person, neglect His salvation, spurn His grace, and trample upon His bleeding heart. Listen to the solemn word of God: "How shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation?" "There remains no more sacrifice for sin, but a fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation, which shall devour the adversaries." Oh, ponder these declarations before you take another step with your back upon Christ!
But there are those who, by a most solemn profession, have given in their adherence to Christ- have walked with Him in the observance of religious duties and ordinances- have appeared to exhibit some marks of grace, some signs of conversion- the bud, the blossom, the foliage- but, alas! whose "goodness has been but as the morning cloud and the early dew, passing away." The bud was nipped, the blossom withered before the fruit was set; and so they went back and walked no more, even professedly, with Jesus. To what cause shall we trace the spiritual inconstancy, defections, and backslidings of many who walk no more with the Lord?
Some forsake the way of the Lord because of its growing straitness. The extreme narrowness of the way does not fully appear to the believer on his first setting out in the Divine life. The Lord wisely and graciously reserves this for the more advanced and matured stages of grace. As the believer grows in grace, He grows in the knowledge of the difficulties of salvation, of the increasing straitness of the path, and of the necessity of working out his own salvation with fear and trembling. He comes to learn more fully what at first sight have startled and discouraged him, that "the righteous scarcely are saved." This proves a test of real grace. True conversion will stand it. He that truly has Christ in his heart will never swerve from the Christian life because, as He advances, He finds the path become straiter, narrower, and more difficult. His growing knowledge of Christ meets the new intricacies of his Christian course. Indeed, Christ is his way; and while He grows in a closer intimacy with the way, He also grows in a closer intimacy with all his supplies for the way. I have remarked that the growing narrowness of the Christian way is a test of religious profession. This supplies one reason why so many religious professors after a while prove inconstant, and backslide from the way. Wearied with the practice of self-denial- tired of bearing the cross after Jesus- restless beneath His yoke- impatient of His burden- they slacken in the race, halt in the journey, and eventually altogether relinquish their proffession. Such individuals never counted the cost of a Christian profession of Christ. They took not into consideration the self-denial demanded, the battle with sin involved, the crucifixion to the world required; and when these things came upon them, these half-hearted pilgrims swerved from their profession, and returned to the sins they professed to have renounced, and to the world they professed to have abandoned, and walked no more with Jesus.
The world is another fruitful cause of alienation from a religious profession. It is a deadly snare, a fatal rock to many a towering professor. Its seductions are so powerful, its disguise so successful, its pleas so plausible, its eddies so numerous, its vortex so powerful and absorbing, few who profess to have come out of and to have renounced it forever, escape from its entire enthralment, and hold on their Christian course of daily dying to its fascination and power. Oh, what a snare to the Christian profession is the
ungodly world! And is there not, at the present moment, cause for alarm at the growing encroachment of the world upon the professing Church of Christ? We verily think so. Are
not worldly amusements- dancing, card-playing, private theatricals, concerts- rife among many who have openly and solemnly professed His holy name before men, "who gave Himself for our sins, that He might deliver its from this present evil world?" What means this eager pursuit of wealth, this love of display, this extravagance of living, this conformity to the world in a hundred different ways, so conspicuous and so increasing among Christian professors? Wherein, but in an outward profession, do these avowed disciples of the Crucified differ from the unregenerate, ungodly, non-professing world around them? If these are true disciples of Christ, where are we to look for the worldlings?- if these are worldlings, where are we to look for the true followers of Christ? The Church in its worldly conformity looks so like the world, and the world in its religious forms looks so like the Church, we are at times embarrassed where to look for the one or for the other. But this amalgamation must not be! The true Church of Christ is a separate body, a holy nation, a peculiar people, a royal priesthood, the light and the salt of the world." And the precept that is to regulate its course as it regards this world is, "Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world." "If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world." "Do not be conformed to this world: but be transformed by the renewing of your mind." "Know you not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? whoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God." "If you be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sits on the right hand of God. Set your affection [mind] on things above, not on things on the earth. For you are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God." "Wherefore, come out from among them, and be separate, says the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you, and will be a Father unto you, and you shall be my sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty." What can be more clear, more imperative, or more solemn than these injunctions to a nonconformity to the world? To their entire disregard must be traced the apostasy from their solemn vows of Christian discipleship of multitudes of professed disciples of Christ. "Demos has forsaken me, having loved this present world." "They went out from us, because they were not of us."
Offence because of the truth, is another popular cause of inconstancy of religious profession and of apostasy from the faith. As the gospel becomes more unfolded to their view, and those truths and doctrines are propounded which teach eternal election, Divine sovereignty, free grace, effectual calling, spiritual regeneration, preceptive holiness, final perseverance, and related doctrines of grace, by and by they become offended, go back, and walk no more with Jesus. These were the truths our Divine Prophet taught the people. On one occasion so powerfully did they stir up the opposition of the natural heart and the enmity of the carnal mind, that they bore Him to the brow of a hill, and would from thence have hurled Him headlong to destruction. And what prevented the accomplishment of this murderous purpose? The indwelling of His Godhead! "And all they in the synagogue, when they heard these things, were filled with wrath, and rose up, and thrust him out of the city, and led him into the brow of the hill whereon their city was built, that they might cast him down headlong. But He, passing through, the midst of them, went his way."
The awful consequences of having professed Christ only to renounce Him, of swerving from Christian doctrines and profession, must be left for the pen of inspiration to portray. They will be found delineated with terrific and startling power in the sixth chapter of the Epistle to the Hebrews. That these solemn passages can be predicated of real Christians we do not aver, and have elsewhere taught. The apostle supposes the hypothetical case of one who had so far professed Christianity as to bear a strong resemblance to its genuine truths and practice, but who yet eventually fell away and renounced both the doctrines and the precepts of Christ. Applied, as they originally are, to this class of religionists, they present a picture of so appalling a character as should make every religious professor in Christendom turn pale and tremble!
But there are those who do not go away from the Savior. To those He touchingly appealed, "Will you also go away?" What was the feeling our adorable Lord here manifested? It was a deep, intense, earnest sympathy with the Christian progress and perseverance of His true disciples. "Will you leave and forsake me? Will you sever from my faith, no more walk with me, and henceforth cease to be my disciples?" Oh, what must have been the touching tenderness of that look, the melting tones of that voice, the winning power of that appeal when these words were spoken! We marvel not that the earnest and instantaneous response of His true disciples was, " Lord, to whom shall we go? If we forsake You, where could we turn? Who could be to us such a Savior, such a Friend, such a Portion as You are, if, Lord, we turn from You?" Now, what is the subject thus so dear to the heart of Christ? With what is His sympathy so closely, so warmly entwined? It is the perseverance of His disciples in spiritual knowledge, grace, and steadfastness, resolving itself into a simple, single, and firm adherence to Himself. "Will you also go away?" The subject is important- Christian perseverance. Let us present it to the reader in two or three particulars.
And first, perseverance in the growth of spiritual knowledge must necessarily occupy a prominent place in religious progress. "Add to virtue knowledge." Real growth in experimental Christianity demands calm thought, mental abstraction, patient and prayerful study of Divine truth. Christian progression would be an anomaly not based upon, and accompanied by, Christian knowledge- an increasing knowledge of Christ, knowing more and more of the glory of His person, the excellency of His work, the sufficiency of His grace, and the depth of His love- knowing more and more of God in Christ as our Father, as God all-sufficient- knowing more and more of the fulness and preciousness of the Scriptures of truth- and knowing more and more of the depravity of our nature, and at the same time of the blood that cleanses from all sin- past, present, and to come. Religious progress, not guided and tempered by this, will be a progression in the wrong direction, in all probability landing the traveler upon the bleak and perilous shore of some essential error in doctrine, or wild extravagance in practice, which may prove fatal to his Christian profession, holiness, and hope! To our progress in Christian knowledge there is no limit in this life but life itself. The subjects of spiritual research and study are so infinite in their nature, rich in their wealth, and boundless in their range, the believer may be ever learning; and yet, when He comes to relinquish the limited for the illimitable sphere of knowledge, He will feel that, like the great philosopher, He has been all his lifetime but gathering pebbles on the shore, while the vast ocean of truth lay at his feet unsmitten by his barque, unsounded by his line. And yet, fathomless as are the depths, and boundless as is the range of spiritual truth, we are not to be discouraged in seeking, through the teaching of the Holy Spirit, to know more of God's revealed Word. The point from which we start, and the goal to which we aspire, are the same- a knowledge, spiritual and saving, of God and Christ. "This is life eternal, that they might know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent." With this we commence our spiritual life, with this we close it on earth, and with this we prolong it through eternity, ever studying the glory, the character, the love, the government of God, and knowing more and more of the infinite Triune Jehovah. Lord, if this is to be Your disciple, a humble learner in Your school and at Your feet would I ever be.
The ways by which God thus increases our spiritual knowledge are various. The great Instructor is the Holy Spirit, and the great school is sanctified affliction, and the great instrument is the Word. No child of God is perfected in the evidences of his adoption, and no disciple of Christ has made any very high attainments in experimental truth, until He has passed through trial. His Christianity must be tried- his grace must be tried- his faith must be tried, before he has any deep experience in godliness. Oh, how much is known of God in one mysterious providence! How much is learned of Jesus in one painful affliction! How much is experienced of the Comforter in one deep sorrow! "Blessed is the man whom You chasten, O Lord! and teach him out of Your law." Chastening and teaching are always linked, as cause and effect, in the corrective dealings of God with His saints. He corrects and rebukes but to promote our spiritual education; that knowing His truth more experimentally, and becoming better acquainted with Himself, we may enter into more perfect peace and snore real possession. "Acquaint now yourself with, Me, and be at peace, and so good shall come unto you."
A faithful, consistent attachment to Christ also includes a firm, unswerving adherence to His pure truth. To compromise the gospel is to compromise the Christ of the gospel. To give heed to the teaching that causes to err, to exchange truth for error, sound doctrine for false, to relinquish the evangelical system of truth, any part of it, for any one of the modern anti-evangelical systems or tenets, is to turn the back upon Christ. Adherence to truth and loyalty to Christ are inseparable. As error enters the mind, love to Christ leaves the heart. As anti-christian doctrine obtains the ascendancy in the intellect, Christ sinks in the affections. Christ only maintains His supremacy in the spiritual affections of the soul as His pure, simple gospel dwells in the heart an element of life and holiness. The gospel is the heart of Christ speaking. The truth as it is in Jesus is the glory of Christ revealed; and as the swerve from the gospel and sell the truth, our love to the Savior chills, our admiration for His person lessens, and our attachment to His cause and His disciples relapses into indifference, alienation,
and neglect. Study the moral history of all who have turned from the way of vital truth into the way of deadly error, and mark how gradually their spirituality has deteriorated, their heavenliness declined, and their prayerfulness, humility, and Christ-like simplicity has given place to a dogmatical, self-sufficient, worldly spirit and carriage. It was to check this evil in the early Church that Paul thus expressed himself toward the Corinthian saints, "I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtlety, so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ." My dear reader, before, then, you yield your ear to the ensnaring, seductive voice of error, listen to the gentle, persuasive voice of Jesus- "Will you also go away?" To go away from the truth is to go away from Him who is emphatically and essentially- "the Truth."
Adherence to Christ includes also adherence to the Church of Christ. Christ and His Church are one, as the Church is essentially one and indivisible. We cannot, therefore, in any way separate from the Church of Christ without compromising our union with Christ Himself. We do not say by this that the believer's union with Christ can ever be imperilled. This is impossible. Our union with the Head does not depend upon our union with the body, though it involves it; but our real and vital membership with the body, the Church, does depend upon our firm and vital union with Christ the Head. If we are truly united to Christ, that union involves another union with all the members of Christ- with the one and the whole Church of God. We cannot deny the one without a virtual denial of the other. Nor does the true believer in Christ find this a hard saying or unwelcome truth. The sap ascends not from the root, through the trunk, to every branch, and twig, and fibre, and leaf of the whole tree more naturally and really than does the spiritual life that we derive from Jesus extend throughout the whole Church, permeating and vitalizing all the members of the entire body, uniting each to the other, and all to Christ. How careful, then, should the be of unduly fostering and magnifying those ecclesiastical, sectarian differences of form, those varieties of judgment and interpretation in religious things, not vital and essential, which already to too great an extent exist to the deformity of the body, to the detriment of real religion, to the grieving of the Holy Spirit of God, and the dishonor of Christ. Let us, then, manifest the reality of our union with, and the sincerity of our love for, Christ, by diligently cultivating brotherly love and Christian union with all who love our Lord Jesus in sincerity, even though they do not belong to our branch of Christ's Church. We go away from Jesus when we go away from His saints. They are dear, very dear, precious, priceless to His heart. They are as tender to Him as the apple of His eye; are engraved upon the palm of His hand, and are borne upon the breastplate on His heart. God is equally their Father, Christ equally their Elder Brother; and as you are, so are they, the temple of the Holy Spirit. Oh, then, evince your love to Jesus by the manifestation of your love to His disciples. Let not your affection, your confidence, and your communion be cold, suspicious, forced; let it be as spontaneous and as warm as light streaming from the sun; as free and as refreshing as the rain distilling from the clouds, as the stream flowing from the mountain spring. "Beloved, let us love one another; for love is of God; and every one that loves is born of God, and knows God. He that loves not, knows not God, for God is love."
Let us, then, exhort you ever listen to this appeal of Jesus. In all times of temptation, in all times of trial, in all times of error, in all times of adversity, in all times of creature, worldly, sinful allurement may the tender, touching, melting words of Jesus penetrate our inner most soul- "Will you also go away?" Oh, whatever transpires, forsake not Christ! Walk so near to Him that you may feel He is at your side in every path and circumstance of life; lean upon Him so confidently that you may find yourself, with the disciple whom Jesus loved, reclining upon the very bosom of your Lord. Let your every-day life be a constant going to, rather than a going from, Jesus. Be humbled and mourn that you ever forsook, distrusted, wounded, and grieved Him. Times without number have we done this. Alas! our Christian profession of Christ has been chequered and uneven. Declension and revival, relapse and recovery, backsliding and restoring, have made up so much of our spiritual history; who would or could have borne with us as Jesus has? We have never forsaken Him and have returned, throwing ourselves at His feet deploring, confessing, bemoaning the sinfulness of our ingratitude, forsakings, distrustings; but He has graciously received us, gently raised us to His bosom, lovinly and freely forgiving all our sins.
"Wretch that I am to wander thus
In chase of false delight."
How touching, then, the sympathy of Christ with the difficulties, temptations, and progress of our Christian perseverance- "Will you also go away?" He could not endure the thought that, among the many who went away and walked not with Him, any of His own true disciples should prove cold, false, and recreant. "Will you also go away?" With what power and tenderness must this appeal to their attachment, fidelity, and love have pierced their hearts! He addresses it still to us! What multitudes in the present age of religious excitement and profession fall off and walk no more with Jesus! Weary of the cross, discouraged by reason of the way, possessing neither real grace, nor true conversion, nor the indwelling of the Spirit, nor vital union with the Lord Jesus, they fall from the profession- not from the possession- of grace, and return to the beggarly elements they had so openly and solemnly renounced. Oh, it is an appalling thing- apostasy from the faith! it is a fearful step falling from a profession of Christ! Rather let us endure any self-denial, hardship, scorn, persecution or loss, yes, death itself, than deny the Lord Jesus, crucifying Him afresh, and putting Him to an open shame by turning from our solemn profession of faith and love. And yet, if ours be a profession of the Savior only, unaccompanied with true change of heart, with real regeneration by the Spirit, let us not be content to meet the Bridegroom with this empty lamp! The sooner a mere profession of Christ is relinquished for what is real, vital, saving; the better. Oh let us not go down to the grave with a spurious religion, a false hope, a lie in our right hand!
But, for the encouragement of the Lord's true people, let us remark that Christ has pledged the exercise of His power, the communication of His grace, the aid of His intercession on behalf of all His true disciples. Not one of these shall utterly backslide, not one shall finally fall, not one shall eternally be lost. His promise is, "they shall never perish!" Their vital union with Christ, the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, the power of Jehovah, the intercession of the High Priest in heaven, all the promises of God prove their security, and are pledges of their perseverance from grace to glory. In His strength, then, and aided by His grace, let our response be, "Lord, to whom shall I, to whom would I go, if I go from You? Who so lovely, who so attractive, who so worthy, who so precious as You? Who such a Friend, such a Brother, such a Redeemer, such a Portion? Heaven embraces, earth contains no being that can be what You are to my soul. To whom could I repair with my needs, upon whose arm could I suspend my burdens, upon whose breast could I breathe my sorrows, into whose ear could I pour my prayers, at whose feet could I confess my sins, and weep my love, but Yours, O Lamb of God? To go from You is death! Rather let me yield my heart's fondest treasure, costliest strongest attraction, life's sweetest charm, yes, life itself, than part, blessed Jesus, with You "You do not want to leave too, do you?" "Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life." Saints of God- persevere! Every serious thought of time, every solemn view of eternity, bids you- persevere! All the promises of God, all the assurances of Christ, all the revelations of the gospel bid you- persevere! Angels winging their way from heaven, the spirits of just men made perfect bending from their seats in glory, the great cloud of witnesses around your path, bid you- persevere! Christ from His throne holds out the jeweled diadem, the palm, the robe, and bids you- persevere! "Be you faithful unto death, and I will give you the crown of life." "You do not want to leave too, do you?" Blessed Lord, kept by Your power, upheld by Your grace, comforted by Your love, soothed by Your sympathy, I will never, no, never leave You!
"I'll not leave Jesus- never, never!
Ah, what can more precious be?
Rest, and joy, and light are ever
In His hand to give to me.
All things that can satisfy,
Having Jesus, those have I.
"Love has bound me fast unto Him,
I am His, and He is mine;
Daily I for pardon sue Him,
Answers He with peace divine.
On that Rock my trust is laid,
And I rest beneath its shade.
Without Jesus, earth would weary,
Seem almost like hell to be;
But if Jesus I see near me,
Earth is almost heaven.
Am I hungry? He does give
Bread on which my soul can live.
"Spent with Him, one little hour
Gives a year's worth of gain.
Grace and peace put forth their power,
Joy does wholly banish pain.
One faith-glance that findeth Him,
Maketh earthly crowns look dim.
"Oh, how light upon my shoulder
Lies my cross, now grown so small!
For the Lord is my upholder,
Fits it to me, softens all;
Neither shall it always stay,
Patience- it will pass away.
"Now He leads me wonderfully,
Right and left, through sun and rain,
Yet I know and trust Him truly,
It is always for my gain.
Yes, His wonder-road, indeed,
Always heavenward does lead.
"Those who faithfully go forward,
In His changeless care shall go;
Nothing's doubtful or untoward
To the flock who Jesus know.
Jesus always is the same;
True and faithful is His name.
"Blinded world! if you admire
Earthly trifles, you are free!
Out of Jesus my desire
Never shall contented be
I have sworn it in my heart,
I from Jesus will not part"

The Disinterestedness of Christ's Sympathy

"For even Christ did not please Himself." Romans 15:3

I. The selfishness of sinful man.
No single principle of His own religion did our Lord more perfectly embody or more touchingly illustrate than its disinterested benevolence. The nature which, sinless He assumed, yet whose sinfulness He came to remove, was essentially and totally disorganized. To affirm, as the Scriptures of truth positively do, that it is originally and totally depraved, is but to portray it with every feature of its pristine nobleness, purity, and excellence utterly spoiled. When, therefore, our Lord made His advent to our world, He found man the living embodiment, the acting impersonation, the very incarnation of fallen self-love; self-love in the form of complete selfishness. The original Center of the soul forsaken, man had become a center to himself. The God he worshiped, was the deification of- self. The religion he professed, was the adoration of- self. The powers he cultivated were consecrated to- self. His whole existence was one act of service and devotion to- self. The Divine Center, as we have said, abandoned, he knew no other God, acknowledged no other sufficiency, recognized no other end than- himself. Every faculty and thought, every affection and action, was made to contribute to the cloud of incense which rose as in one dense column before this little idol- SELF. Himself the first- himself the last- himself all in all! And is it not so now? Self, in some shape, is still the Deity of the natural man. Selfishness is still the universal sin of our nature, exhibited in one or more of its thousand modifications, its endless forms. All are in pursuit either of wealth, or ambition, or pleasure, or honor, or gratification- each one urging his individual suit- under the rule of this "reigning law of the world ravaged and disorganized by sin"- the law of selfishness. A total disregard for the interests and enjoyment of others- an entire oblivion of what is due to another's feelings and well-being; the possession of a certain good; the attainment of a certain end at the expense of another's happiness and rights, is the only recognized principle and a rule of action which regulates the conduct of the great majority of our depraved species. The indictment is heavy, the picture is dark, the sin is awful, we admit; but it is borne out as much by daily observation and frequent experience, as by the faithful, unerring Word of God- "All men seek their own." What means this self-exaltism- this egotism- this envy and jealousy- this attempt to supplant others in esteem, influence, and power- this prodigality and love of worldly show- this eager chase of wealth- this covetousness and penuriousness- this niggardly dole of charity- this cruel, heartless, grinding oppression- this growing sensuality and crime- this haughty inflexibility of will, impatience of contradiction, and acknowledging no superiority to its own- this love of ease and sloth- this sectarian exclusiveness which looks with coldness, jealousy, and distrust upon the spiritual prosperity of others? What, we ask, is all this, and a thousand times more, but the one appalling, cancerous sin of selfishness existing in the very heart of depravity, and sending its fatal poison along all the fibers of human society? That there are noble modifications of this appalling description of our nature, we readily and thankfully concede; but they are the exceptions to the rule- the beautiful ivy entwining the decayed and crumbling trunk of our fallen humanity, reminding us of what man was in his first estate, and faintly foreshadowing what man in his restored state will be, when the Lord comes to make all things new.
Nor is this selfishness of our nature entirely uprooted, though greatly mortified, in the renewed man. The Divine precepts, admonitions, and exhortations of God's Word all imply its existence and working in the believer, and the need of incessant battle with the fallen principle. In nothing, perhaps, is its existence more marked than the perpetual collision of our will with the will of God. To please ourselves, and not God, in the path we tread, in the service we perform, in the cross we bear, in the suffering we endure, in the place we dwell- to gratify our inclinations, to please our taste, to indulge our repose, to promote our self-interest, often at the expense of others, is the baneful fruit borne by this corrupt tree. Oh, it is a humiliating truth, that though engrafted, through sovereign grace, as the believer is upon Christ, there should mingle with the "fruits of righteousness, which are by Jesus Christ," fruit so bitter and noxious. That, with the great, the lofty, the holy principle implanted within of living to please God, we should yet be brought into perpetual conflict with its opposite most low and degrading principle- living to please ourselves. And yet so it is. We marvel not, then, at the earnest and pointed exhortation of the apostle, "We then who are strong ought to bear the infirmities of the weak, and not to please ourselves. Let every one of us please his neighbor, for his good to edification. For even Christ pleased not himself." This precept is in perfect harmony with the genius of the gospel of Jesus. The Divine religion He introduced into the world was in direct and close antagonism to the world's selfishness. It revealed to man a new and unearthly principle- the principle of unselfish love, disinterested sympathy, high-minded, chivalrous benevolence and self-denial. He descended to earth, the reflection of heaven. He appeared to man, the incarnation of God- the embodied essence of the divinest, purest, loftiest affection in the universe. His gospel was unselfish speaking- His life was unselfishness acting- His sympathy was unselfishness weeping- His death was unselfishness suffering, self-consumed amid its own sacrificial fires. "The zeal of your house has eaten me up." And, then, when He had presented on the cross such a spectacle of disinterested love for man as angels could not have conceived, and such an outgush of unselfish sympathy as man had never seen- pure, sublime, unparalleled- He rose from the grave; and, before He relinquished the scene of His humiliation for the home of His glory, He commissioned His apostles to traverse the world and tell its wondrous story as far as the empire of man and misery extended, "Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature." Such is the divine precept, and such its human embodiment we are about to study. "Even Christ pleased not himself." May the Holy Spirit of truth, while we behold as in a glass this glory of the Lord, transform us into the same image, that henceforth we may be more like Christ in His unselfish love and disinterested sympathy.

II. The Unselfish Love of Christ.
In what points did our Lord illustrate this Divine principle of His gospel? Trace first its higher forms.
In Christ there was perfect submission to the supreme will of His Father. Our Lord descended to this part of His Father's empire to erect no throne, to assert no will in opposition to God's. His language was, "I came, not to do my own will, but the will of Him that sent me." In this He pleased not Himself. He would have done so had there been the slightest dissonance of mind, or collision of will. But the union was essential- the harmony complete- between the will of Christ on earth and the will of God in heaven. It was the will of God that His elect should be redeemed- it was the will of Christ to redeem them. It was the will of God that His glory should be revealed- it was the will of Christ to reveal it. It was the will of God that His truth should be taught- it was the will of Christ to teach it. It was the will of God that Christ should be sacrificed- it was the will of Christ to die. "Lo! I come to do your will, O God," were the prophetic words which struck the first key-note to the harmony of God's will and Christ's will. "Don't you know that I must be about my Father's business?" was a deeper intonation of the melody."Not my will, O my Father, but Yours be done!" has its loftiest strain on earth. To do God's will from the heart, He was willing to forego the joys of heaven, to empty Himself of His glory, to sink to the deepest humiliation, to die the accursed death- and in all this, "Christ pleased not Himself." Child of God, you reach the loftiest attainment in sanctification, you stand upon the highest round in the ascent of holiness, when your will, like Christ's, is thus blended with your Father's. No holier, no higher, no sublimer act of self-denial marks the believer than this. It was in this school of subjection to the Divine will that Christ's disinterested sympathy for us was trained. Had there been anything of self-seeking in Him, it would have been exhibited in the opposition of His will to the will of His Father. And the moment this hostility commenced, all disinterested benevolence for man would have ceased. The pure, deep spring of His self-consuming sympathy had its rise in the perfect union of His human will with the Divine.
In addition to the sinlessness of the human nature of our Lord, it was also replenished with the Holy Spirit without measure, and He was the fulness of the Godhead bodily. Our Lord Jesus was thus the embodied revelation of infinite benevolence and love. In seeking, therefore, as man, to do the will of God, He clasped the object of His sympathy in a love that sought not its own but the happiness of the being it embraced. It is in this same school we, if molded in Christ's image, are trained to love man, to sympathize with man, to aid man with an unselfish affection. In proportion as we are found doing the will of God, we rise superior to selfishness, and learn the difficult, yet God-like, lesson of looking not exclusively upon our own things, but in expansive, disinterested sympathy also upon the things of others. As we recede from the human and approximate to the Divine, we recede from selfishness and approximate to that disinterested love to man which manifested itself in the bestowment and sacrifice of its unspeakable gift. "In this was manifested the love of God toward us, that God sent His only-begotten Son into the world that we might live through Him."
In seeking the glory of God supremely, our Lord pleased not Himself. If ever there was the single eye, it beamed in Christ. He had no separate kingdom, swayed no rival scepter, wore no divided crown separate from His Father. All that He embarked in, did, and taught converged to one common center, pointed to one single aim, terminated in one great end- the glory of God! Had there been one thought or feeling of self-seeking in Christ, He might easily have erected a separate throne from His Father's, at whose feet kings, and princes, and potentates would have been proud to bring their treasures and lay their crowns. But no! His whole soul was swallowed up in God. "I seek not my own glory," was a declaration of unselfishness which found a living expression in every action of His life. To win back homage to the dishonored law of God, to vindicate the outraged glory of His Father's government, to reveal His love, and accomplish His purpose in the salvation of His elect, and finally to bring to heaven all whom the Father had chosen to eternal life, to the endless honor and praise of His name, was the pole star which guided Him, the goal for which He pressed. To vindicate and uphold His Father's glory He was willing that His own should set in darkness, in ignominy, and in blood. Oh that this mind that was in Christ might be in us! What a powerful impetus, what a divine sanctity, what a lofty elevation it would give to every purpose, and act, and sacrifice, were it done with a more simple, pure, single aim to the glory of God! It would dignify the lowliest, and sanctify the loftiest service for Christ. Done solely and only for His glory, the cup of cold water which we offered to a disciple would be sweeter than nectar to him who drank it, and to Him in whose name it was given, precious and priceless above rubies! There is no greater, no more humiliating or visible form of selfishness than in placing our glory above God's. If we preach, or labor, or achieve, or suffer, or give with a view of making the world our pedestal, self the sole figure, mankind the admiring gazers, we are seeking but our own honor and glory, and God will consume the idol, and will make us drink the waters which the ashes of our self-deification and man-worship have embittered and defiled. Oh for the mortification of this sin! Oh for the crucifixion of this self-seeking that taints and deforms all that we do for God and for our fellows! In all this, "even Christ pleased not himself."
Such, too, was the tenor of His whole life- it was a life of continuous and perfect self-denial. Every step He trod was another footprint in the path of disinterested benevolence. He went about doing good, scattering from the horn of blessing, His favors and benedictions on friends and foes, on those who blessed, and on those who reviled, those who loved, and those who hated Him. Behold Him denying Himself of earth's comforts to promote the comfort of others; hungry Himself, yet feeding the famishing; weary, yet inviting and leading others to rest; Himself accused, yet vindicating the condemned. Was there ever such a spectacle of self-abnegation?
Trace Christ, too, in service. There was no labor too toilsome or self-denying from which He shrank. He would walk forty miles in one day to take the living water to a poor sinner. He would stoop to unclasp the sandal and wash the feet of His erring disciple. He would stand still at the word of a blind beggar sitting by the wayside, and in response to his appeal, pour the light of day upon the sightless eye. He would go, when asked, to heal a sick servant. He would come, when bidden, to the house of mourning. He had an ear for every cry of sorrow, an eye for every spectacle of woe, a hand for every object of need, a heart for every appeal to human sympathy. Yes, there was no service so wearisome, or, so distasteful, or so difficult, or so self-denying, in which He was not at home. The atmosphere most genial with His nature was laden with suffering, saturated with tears, vocal with sighs, and groans, and supplications. The homes most attractive to Him were those where poverty, sickness, and grief had found an entrance. Such was the pure, self-denying benevolence of Jesus! Well may it be said, "even Christ pleased not himself."

But the crowning act of His disinterested love and sympathy was, His suffering unto death. Marvellous and precious as were all the other expressions of His unselfish love, they pale and vanish before this the most marvelous, precious, and costly of all- the sacrifice of Himself upon the cross! What more could unselfish love do? What loftier form could it assume? What costlier sacrifice could it make? More than itself it could not give. Listen to the inspired confirmation of this: "When we were utterly helpless, Christ came at just the right time and died for us sinners. Now, no one is likely to die for a good person, though someone might be willing to die for a person who is especially good. But God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners." Romans 5:6-8. What more, we again ask, could love so unselfish, so disinterested do? Listen yet again "Christ also has loved us, and has given himself for us." "Who gave himself for our sins." "Christ also loved the Church, and gave himself for it." "Who gave himself for us, that He might deliver us from all iniquity." Oh what an infinitude of wealth and glory and blessing is included in these words- "gave himself!" Gave His Deity- gave His humanity- gave His obedience- gave His life- gave His heart's blood- gave His heaven of glory- all for poor, unworthy, self-destroyed, helpless sinners who had nothing to pay- pardoning them fully, justifying them freely, calling them graciously- keeping and eternally glorifying them! O Lord, my soul dissolves before this stupendous, this strange, this unparalleled spectacle of disinterested, self-sacrificing love! I blush to find myself so unlike it- I weep that my sins demanded it- I believe because it was You who died- my heart is won, my affections are captivated by a love which enchains to itself my whole being!
"Love celestial, ardent fire!
Oh extreme of sweet desire!
Spread your bright, your gentle flame,
Swift over all my mental frame.
Sweet affections flow from thence,
Sweet above the joys of sense!
Let me thus forever be
Full of gladness, full of You."

III. The Practical Lessons.
Before we speak of the consolation flowing to the saints of God from this view of Christ's disinterested sympathy, let us glean a few of THE PRACTICAL LESSONS IT INCULCATES.
The first holy lesson it teaches is- humility of mind. Pride forms the root of all living to ourselves. And before our selfishness can be expelled, replaced by a new and divine principle, the power of Christ's cross must be brought into the soul, ruling and conquering the principle of pride. "Though, I be nothing," will then be the echo of our hearts to the noble declaration of Paul. The moment this inflated bubble is pierced by the cross of Jesus, the collapse follows, and the disciplined, humbled believer is prostrate in the dust before God, in the spirit of self-abasement and self-surrender. Oh, let us cultivate a grace which assimilates us more than all others to Him who, "being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God but made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant." Never are we more truly conformed to Christ than when, emptied of self, we walk humbly with God. Oh, let us earnestly seek more fully to possess, with all our attainments, this, the highest and holiest of all- "the mind that was in Christ Jesus." It will brim with it a happiness and a soothing, real and indescribable. It will preserve us from those woundings, chafings, and self-pity to which the unslain pride of our hearts incessantly exposes us. Why do we feel so sensitively and so keenly the slight, the neglect, the depreciation of our fellows? Why, when thrust into the shadow, while others are more favored and honored and admired, do we, like Haman, "retire to our house mourning, and having our head covered?" Is it not because of the deification and worship of self within us? Oh to be emptied of self-complacency, self-seeking, self-exaltation! This multi-headed monster, which can only be effectually conquered and slain by a believing realization of the self-denying love of Christ! Study this perfect annihilation of self in Jesus more closely, and you will imperceptibly, yet really, transcribe the divine and beauteous lineament to your own soul. The power of Christ will be upon you visibly, the loveliness of Jesus will array you beauteously, you will feed in the greenest pasture, and gather the fairest flowers, and pluck the richest fruit, and drink the purest stream of spiritual blessing, because your daily walk will be in lowliness and love beneath the Saviors cross- self swallowed up in Christ, and Christ all and in all.
"Oh, hide this SELF from me, that I
No more, but Christ in me, may live;
My vile affections crucify,
Nor let one darling lust survive!
In all things nothing may I see,
Nothing desire or seek, but Thee!
"O love, your sovereign aid impart,
To save me from low-thoughted care!
Chase this self-will through all my heart,
Through all its latent mazes there
Make me your duteous child, that I,
Ceaseless, may 'Abba, Father! ' cry.
"Each moment draw from earth away
My heart, that lowly waits your call;
Speak to my inmost soul, and say,
'I am your Love, your God, your All!'
To feel Your power, to hear Your voice,
To taste Your love, be all my choice."
But the deepest renunciation of self is in the believing reception, as a sinner, of the Lord Jesus Christ. All other acts of humiliation and self denial apart from this are imperfect. Until the contrite and believing heart has received Christ, until the soul has subjected itself to the power of His gospel, until the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus has freed the mind from the enslaving law of 'self-justification', self may be mortified, but not humbled; wounded, but not slain. The very reception of God's free justification implies the surrender of that strong citadel of the soul of man- the principle of self-righteousness. And on no other ground will God capitulate with man in the great work of salvation. All human merit must be disclaimed, all creature worthiness must be abjured, and the one plea with which we may approach the Savior is that of a sinner bankrupt and beggared of all personal righteousness, worthiness, and claim, looking only to Jesus, and resting simply and solely in His blood and righteousness for pardon and acceptance. Oh, what a real prostration and crucifixion of self is there in this one believing act of receiving Christ! The great mountain has been shaken to its center before the power of the true Zerubbabel. Jesus has conquered. His grace has gotten the victory. His love is clothed with triumph, and another jewel is planted in His studded diadem. My reader, has there been such a revelation of the Lord Jesus to your soul as to stain the pride of your own glory? Has this Dagon self fallen before the divine Ark of your salvation?
But let me remind the child of God that the principle of self in the renewed heart, though fatally wounded and destined eventually to die, yet retains much of its original vitality, and will, by occasional spasmodic acts, often seem to regain its original power and ascendancy. This must be met by a constant and close dealing with Christ. The principle of self-pleasing can only be kept in abeyance by strengthening its opposite principle- walking humbly with God, under the influence of the love of Christ, constraining us to live, not as seeking our own ease, advantage or honor, but with the single eye to God's glory both in service and in suffering, in all we do and endure. Oh hateful and hated act that terminates only in- self! If, to gratify the lust for human distinction and applause, if, to please self in any one of its many forms: self-esteem, self-complacency, self-exaltation; this thing has been done, better, far better, that it had been left undone, than that it should stand but as a monument to the pride and self-pleasing of our depraved hearts! And, oh, let us lay our mouth in the dust in the remembrance of our many failures concerning this divine and holy precept. How much have we done for self, ostensibly done for Christ! How have we spoken and labored and given in connection
with holy things, seeking our own glory and not the glory of God! But for the blood of atonement, where could we look? The most righteous, most pure, most lowly act would witness against us at the tribunal of Christ, as having enough of the sin of self-pleasing to assign both it and us to God's eternal displeasure! What need have we to confess the sin, and wash in atoning blood, the moment we are conscious our self-complacency has been moved by the flattery and applause of our sinful fellows!
O God! we blush to lift up our faces to You in the remembrance of our sin of self-pleasing! Lamb of God! wash out the deep, dark stain, and fill our soul with contrition, humiliation, and self-abhorrence, that we should ever have sought to carve our vile name upon Your dear cross, while professedly uplifting only You!
The practical embodiment by us of this holy principle, thus so beautifully exhibited in our Lord, will regulate our conduct towards others. A disinterested sympathy, like His, will prompt us to seek the advancement of another's interest and well-being as well as our own. It is one of the characteristics of true love, that she "seeks not her own." Like the Being from where it flows, true love is disinterested and self-sacrificing. It looks with an eye of interest upon the condition of others. It will, so far as it righteously can, descend to their circumstances and infirmities, if it might but promote their well-being. A striking example of this is presented in the conduct of Paul. The quotation is long, but one passage supplies a clue to the whole. "Though I am free and belong to no man, I make myself a slave to everyone, to win as many as possible. 1 Cor. 9:19-23. Magnanimous man! your love was like your Master's, high-minded, chivalrous, and self-sacrificing. What abnegation of self in your ministry! what a forgetfulness of self in your labors! what a sacrifice of self in your suffering! Lord, may I follow Your apostle as he followed You!
This Divine precept, so touchingly illustrated by Christ, also includes bearing the burdens, tenderness toward the infirmities, and sympathy with the sorrows and necessities of our brethren. In all this Christ has set us an example that we should follow His steps. To be Christ-like, in this particular, is to aspire to one of the loftiest and loveliest features of our religion. To supply, as far as in our power, the needs of Christ's poor- our brethren by a fraternal tie, closer and holier than nature's; to visit the sick and afflicted, the widow and the fatherless; to bear with the infirmities of those who, in religious things, are weak in judgment, in faith, and in practice; to identify ourselves with those who are suffering calumny, persecution, and loss for Jesus' sake- oh, this it is to be like Him who went about doing good in the spirit of His own unworldly, unselfish religion! How touching is the apostle's exhortation- "you then who are strong ought to bear the infirmities of the weak, and not to please ourselves. Let every one of us please his neighbor for his good to edification. For even Christ pleased not himself; but, as it is written, The reproaches of those who reproached you fell on me." May the Lord the Spirit write this holy, unearthly precept upon our heart! May we more deeply feel, more constantly realize, that, ransomed with so great a price as Christ's blood, we are not our own; and that, in the self-denying spirit of the gospel, living for the good of others, especially for the household of faith, we are, in reality, living for the Lord himself. The lowliest labor of love, the feeblest work of faith, the obscurest act of self-denying service, done in the Lord's name, is registered in His remembrancer, to be reproduced, acknowledged, and rewarded in the great day of account. Treading thus in the footsteps of Jesus, we shall experience a happiness and a blessing found only in a life of unselfish benevolence, of disinterested, expansive sympathy. And while others are living in the frigid region of self-pleasing, your spirit will rise to an atmosphere of the purest happiness and joy, unchilled and undimmed by the iciness and fogs of this sinful, heartless, selfish world. Assimilating with the spirit, you will also participate in the joy of Him who pleased not Himself, but lived and labored, suffered and died for others. Oh, evidence and illustrate your union with the Lord by the studious and daily cultivation of this disinterested, self-denying sympathy! And, in addition to the evidence thus appended to your discipleship with Christ, it will return into your own soul with a sweet recompense of reward. Disinterested charity is sweetly and richly remunerative- blessing him who receives, and with a powerful reflex influence, it blesses him who bestows. Would you experience the purest, the most exquisite and refined bliss the human heart is capable? Then, imitate Christ, and be merciful, sympathizing, and kind; loving others as you love yourself, seeking and promoting their well-being and happiness, even though it curtail or sacrifice your own. "This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers. If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him? Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth." 1 John 3:16-18. Do this, and your own need will be met, your own sorrow soothed, your own wound healed, by the love and sympathy you have dispersed abroad, returning back in confluent streams upon yourself.
"Are you dejected? Is your mind overcast?
Go, fix some weighty truth;
Chain down some passion;
do some generous good;
Teach ignorance to see, or grief to smile."
Then shall the benedictions of the widow, the fatherless, and the poor light upon you in gentle breathings; above all, and sweeter than all the hand of Him who submitted to a life of poverty and humiliation to enrich you with grace and glory, will pour the oil of gladness on your head.
"Blest is the man whose softening heart
Feels all another's pain,
To whom the supplicating eye
Is never raised in vain.
"Whose breast expands with generous warmth
A brother's woes to feel;
And bleeds in pity over the wounds
It lacks the power to heal.
"He spreads his kind supporting arms
To every child of grief;
His secret bounty largely flows,
And brings unasked relief.
"To gentle offices of love
His feet are never slow;
He views, through mercy's melting eye,
A brother in a foe.
"Peace from the bosom of his God,
My peace to him I give;
And when He kneels before the throne,
His trembling soul shall live."
"To him protection shall be shown,
And mercy from above
Descend on those who thus fulfil
The perfect law of love."
We have equal reason to guard against "religious selfishness". This is but another form of the fallen principle we have been endeavoring to combat- it is selfishness in a Christian disguise. A child of God may be so exclusively enfolded within his own religious privileges and enjoyments as to overlook his obligation and pledge to promote the spiritual well-being of others. Satisfied of his own conversion- nourished in rich pastures- and experiencing high spiritual enjoyment, He may become selfishly and criminally indifferent to the multitudes within his reach living in sin and ignorance, destitution and neglect; hearing of no Savior, possessing no Bible, attending no sanctuary; and each day passing into a hopeless eternity, uttering the fearful wail and the bitter reproof- "no man cared for my soul!" But this must not be. The religion and the love of Him who sacrificed Himself for us, forbids it! What an example of self-denying, self-sacrificing, self-consuming, disinterested benevolence, sympathy, and labor was Christ's- He had griefs that needed assuaging, loneliness that needed cheering, depressions that needed soothing, wounds that needed healing, needs that needed supplying, weakness that needed strengthening, and yet, He buried all within the deep, silent cloisters of His own bosom, and went about doing good! Let us imitate Hin! God converted us, that we might be instrumental in converting others! Through grace we have found Jesus, that we may bring our fellow-sinners to Jesus. The light of life has been enkindled within our soul, that its bright shining might guide the steps of those who are stumbling on the dark mountains of death, to the Savior. The Lord, therefore, deposited this rich grace in our heart, that it might be dispersed abroad in self-denying efforts to win souls to Christ. Arise, then, and let us labor. This is a day of glad tidings, and we dare not hold our peace. We must not be satisfied with our own salvation, but seek also the salvation of others. We must love our neighbor as ourselves. And what is the nature of the love we are to cherish for him? A self-denying sympathy for his soul's eternal happiness! And who is our neighbor? Not simply him who dwells beneath the shadow of our own abode- but the sinner, the wanderer, the sufferer, the child of sorrow and of need, be he who and where he may. He is your neighbor! Be willing for a while to forego your own religious advantage, to relinquish some personal spiritual enjoyment, to find him out and tell him of Christ. How can you go to and fro to the rich banquet of the gospel, week after week, and feel no concern for, and make no effort in behalf of, those within your reach who are dying of spiritual starvation amid the plenty of which you have enough and to spare? This is religious selfishness of a fearfully responsible kind! The Lord deliver us from blood-guiltiness! You must deny yourself of some spiritual privileges for the spiritual benefit of others, if you are a true disciple and imitator of the Savior. Restrict not your evangelical sympathy and labor within the limits of your own vicinity. At home or abroad, in your native or in a foreign land, be a herald of salvation, a missionary of the gospel; a witness for Christ, recognizing him as your neighbor and your brother who needs a word of instruction, a look of kindness, an uplifting hand- the oil and the wine of Christian sympathy and love poured into a wounded and bleeding heart- in a word, someone to speak to of- Jesus!
"Your neighbor? It is he whom you
have power to aid and bless;
Whose aching heart or burning brow,
Your soothing hand may press.
"Your neighbor? It is the fainting poor
whose eye with need is dim,
Whom hunger sends from door to door-
Go and succour him.
"Your neighbor? It is that weary man
Whose years are at their brim,
Bent low with sickness, cares, and pain-
Go and comfort him.
"Your neighbor? It is the heart bereft
Of every earthy gem;
Widow and orphan helpless left-
Go and shelter them.
"Your neighbor? Do you meet a human form
Less favored than your own?
Remember, it is your neighbor worm,
Your brother, or your son.
''Oh, pass not, pass not heedless by;
Perhaps you can redeem
The breaking heart from misery,
Go, share your lot with him.
Let us, also, be watchful against "denominational selfishness". Other branches of the Christian church than our own should share our sympathy, good-will, and prayers. We add nothing really to the ranks of Christ by proselyting from one denomination to another. Alas! there are those who deem it of much more importance to compass sea and land to draw over a convert to their own religious sect from another, than to make a single effort to win a convert to Christ from the world! What has Christ, or what has the gospel really gained by this? Nothing! To labor only to advance our own denomination, to seek exclusively the increase, the wealth, the prosperity of the body to which we belong, indifferent to the depression, or jealous of the increase and prosperity of other communions, is not the spirit of the gospel, is not the spirit of Christ. Oh for more largeness of heart! Oh for more of our Lord's disinterested sympathy! Let our love and intercessions embrace all Christian sections and congregations of the one Church of Christ, praying, "Peace be within your walls, and prosperity within your palaces! For my brethren and companions' sake I will now say, Peace be within you. Because of the house of the Lord our God I will seek your good."
Nor would we fail to remind you that in proportion as self-pleasing in us decreases, pleasing God increases. In the same degree that the one is crucified, the other lives. "I live, yet not I, but Christ lives in me." And what is Christ living in the believer, but the believer living so as to please God? And, oh, to live as pleasing God is the holiest principle, the purest joy, the most sublime life. An angel, with soaring wing, could not ascend higher!

But for one moment let us refer to the CONSOLATIONS flowing from this subject. If such is the disinterested sympathy of Christ, then, believe that you have not a need, nor a grief, nor a burden that He is not prepared to make all His own. Oh, how much have we yet to learn of the unselfishness of Christ's compassion- its self-denying, yearning, weeping tenderness! He would have you learn something of it in your present circumstances. For this end He has permitted them. Oblivious of all your past waywardness, ingratitude, and sins, forgetting your countless backslidings and base requitals of His love; and remembering only the kindness of your youth, the love of your espousals, how you once went after Him in the wilderness, and entered into a covenant to be His, which covenant you have broken times without number- in the exercise of a love forgetful of Himself, and thinking only of you, He will cast around you the robe of a sympathy which soothes your sorrow, while it veils your sin, and which absorbs your infirmity, while it makes you lovely through His loveliness put upon you. Let no sad memories, then, intercept your approach to the Savior. So unselfish is His love, so disinterested His sympathy, not one look, or word, or motion of the hand will upbraid you for the past, or reprove you for the present. He will forget how you have wounded, grieved, and dishonored Him; how your heart has again and again proved treacherous and inconstant as a broken bow; how, forsaking your first love, you have gone after other lovers and other confidences; and now retrace your steps and return to Him again, because the hand of affliction, of sorrow, and of chastisement is upon you- forgetting all this, He will receive you graciously, love you freely, and turn His anger away from you, clasping you to the bosom of a disinterested sympathy that writes your countless failures upon the sand, while it engraves your lowliest deeds of love eternal upon the rock.

"But my life is worth nothing unless I use it for doing the work assigned me by the Lord Jesus—the work of telling others the Good News about God's wonderful kindness and love." Acts 20:24

Christ's Parting Sympathy

I tell you, I will not drink of this fruit of the vine from now on until that day when I drink it anew with you in my Father's kingdom." Matthew 26:29

There is, to a feeling heart, something inexpressibly tender and touching in the last contact with what is dear and sacred. The last tearful look of home, the last fond glance of love, the last warm grasp of friendship, the last word of counsel and of prayer unlocks a spring of sensibility in the soul until that moment sealed- feelings of which the heart was before unconscious, scarcely suspecting their existence. In that moment of parting, what an oblivion transpires of every painful memory, every resentful feeling, of all that has injured, wounded, and grieved us. One thought, one feeling only occupies the whole soul- it is the thought, the feeling of parting; and in the tenderness and agony of that thought, and of that feeling, all others are absorbed. Nothing now remains in the cell of memory, or engraved upon its tablet, but- how much we loved! "Men seldom appear so human, or in a position so advantageous to their humanity, as when they part. How few friends are there who endure a protracted separation without some abatement of warmth, or meet by appointment, without some precautionary anxieties, or continue together long without some accidental discontents; but none in any degree entitled to the character ever part without much regret! Even the cheerful and social are not always exempt from these momentary perturbations with which selfishness chills the pulse, or controversy overheats. The needle will oscillate a little from the just point of its affection; and though its polarity is never lost, it is seldom steady. Yet even the petulant, the irritable, and the more generous of the resentful, lose all unfriendliness as they pass away from each other- sighing at a conversation which, perhaps, they may have mutually desired. The last shake of the hand is sufficient to dissipate a hundred grievances. There are then no reproaches which we can recall, besides those against ourselves."

And these are pointed and poignant beyond expression! The thought that we should have inflicted a pang on the heart of one from whom we are now severing- and severing, it may be, forever- the memory of harshness and neglect, of unkindness and wrong, received from our hands- oh the bitterness it infuses into that parting! Worlds would we give that it had never been! And yet who would lose the moral discipline of that moment? To have these sharp angularities of our nature smoothed- these rude, rough blemishes effaced- and the nobler, finer features which sin and infirmity had veiled, now exhibited and strengthened, and to realize how truly and deeply we had actually loved, were worth even the extreme grief and anguish of that parting moment!

''Oh, who that from a friend must sever,
For long, long years- perhaps forever-
Would wish to fly without possessing
A parting look, a parting blessing!
Though in that moment is combined
All that can agonize the mind,
Though lips cannot express their woe,
Though tears may then refuse to flow;
Though anguish, not to be expressed,
Nearly overwhelms the throbbing breast!"

Studied in this light, how exquisite the beauty and how instructive the lessons of Christ's farewell to His disciples at the Last Supper! It is true He met them again- met them in Gethsemane, to which place He went from that table, met them on Calvary- yet again when He arose from the grave- and for the last time on Mount Olivet, where, in the act of breathing His final blessing, He was taken up into heaven- yet this was the real farewell- the hour of His parting sympathy. In no subsequent interview was there such a tender, hallowed outflow of His sympathy as now. He was on the eve of His passion; it was the institution of His supper; the expressive memorials of His dying love, in beautiful simplicity, were upon the table; clustering around Him, in touching, clinging union, were His followers; one was reclining on His bosom; alas! another was meditating His betrayal- that was the hour of His parting sympathy! Then it was He uttered the memorable words- "I will not drink henceforth of this fruit of the vine, until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father's kingdom." A brief meditation upon this sacred occasion and these expressive words will not prove, we trust, an inappropriate or unprofitable close to a volume, the one theme of which is Christ's sympathy with man- Christ's sympathy with His Church.

It was at the institution of this beautiful and solemn festival of the Lord's Supper that the Lord himself, for the first and the last time, presided. The occasion was well calculated to unfold, in its clearest and most winning form, the sympathy of Christ's love for His Church. It was His last feast of love on earth. That assemblage of disciples- a type of the one Church of God- gathered at the feet of their one Redeemer, Lord, and Head, to express, in these symbols of His death, of which all partook, their union with each other- the closer, dearer, union of all with Christ. No institution of Christ has been more mystified, misrepresented, or abused than the Lord's Supper. The infidel has scoffed at it, the world has prostituted it, the sacramentalist has exaggerated it, the unconverted have abused it, an the professing Christian has denied it; and yet it still continues, and will continue, until the twilight shadows of the Church on earth are lost in the noontide splendor of the Church in heaven, a memorial of love, a feast of communion, a symbol of unity, a pledge and first-fruit of the great supper of the Lamb. Before we address ourselves more especially to the relation of the Lord's Supper to the Christian experience of the believer, tracing the tender, close communion into which it brings him with Christ, let us endeavor, briefly, to vindicate the institution from some of those unscriptural and erroneous views with which it is associated in the creed and practice of not a few.

In the first place, THE LORD'S SUPPER is not, as many suppose, a sacrifice, but rather the commemoration of a sacrifice. It is the glory of our divine and holy religion that the one and only sacrifice for sin is- the Lord Jesus Christ, who "gave Himself an offering and a sacrifice to God." And so divine, so perfect, and acceptable was it, we read that, "after He had offered one sacrifice for sins forever, He sat down on the right hand of God." That one sacrifice of Christ, so completely met all the claims of God's moral government, rendered it so righteous, so glorious, on the part of God, to pardon sin and justify the sinner, that no more was required; and when Christ had offered this one, He ascended into heaven, and sat down at the right hand of God: "for by one offering He has perfected forever those who are sanctified." It follows, then, that "there remains no more sacrifice for sins;" and that this one sacrifice wilfully and finally rejected, nothing remains to the rejecter but a "certain fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation, which shall devour the adversaries." Away, then, with the fearful notion that the Lord's Supper is a sacrifice! In no sense whatever is it so. A sacrifice is to propitiate, to atone, to render an equivalent for sin committed. Does the Lord's Supper do this? Preposterous idea! Oh no! We approach this ordinance as sinners pardoned, as enemies reconciled, as children adopted, as those whose sins and transgressions our Divine Surety bore, and with His atoning blood has forever put away. We come to celebrate the offering of this one finished, glorious, accepted sacrifice of our incarnate God, in faith, gratitude, and love.

Nor is the Lord's Supper a transubstantiated institution, as taught by others. On this ground we seriously object to the expression, "holy mysteries," as applied to the elements. We cannot, perhaps, convey to the general reader, not conversant with the exact meaning of the term, a better idea of the error we seek to refute, than by quoting the authorised Roman statement of the doctrine as propounded by the Council of Trent; it is as follows- "Inasmuch as our Redeemer Christ said, that that which He offered under the species of the bread was really His body, therefore the Church of God has ever been in the persuasion, and it is now again declared by this Holy Synod, that by the consecration of the bread and wine a conversion is made of the whole substance of the bread into the substance of the body of Christ our Lord, and of the whole substance of the wine into the substance of His blood, which conversion has by the Holy Catholic Church been conveniently and properly called transubstantiation." Without going at length into the refutation of this heresy, which the few remaining pages of this volume will not admit, we may remark, in brief but emphatic terms, that this notion is at once repugnant to taste, is opposed to reason, is contradicted by the evidence of sense, and is unauthorized and unsustained by the Word of God. We remark, then, at once, that in a figurative, and not in a literal sense, we are to interpret the words of our Lord, the Originator of this ordinance. When, therefore, Christ said, "This is my body- this is my blood," He spoke the words in the same sense in which Isaiah did when He said, "All flesh is grass."

Did the prophet speak these words in a literal, or in a figurative sense? In a figurative sense undoubtedly. "All flesh is grass,"- that is, as grass- frail, fading, evanescent, cut down, and withered. Thus, then, "This is my body- this is any blood," in other words, "This bread is the figure, the symbol of my body; this cup is the figure, the symbol of no blood." In a figurative, and not a literal sense, then, we are to interpret these words of our Lord. This is strictly in agreement with the general usage of Scripture language. Thus when Christ says, "I am the vine;" "I am the door;" "You are the salt of the earth;" "You are the light of the world;" and a thousand other figurative passages which might be quoted, who ever for a moment imagines that our Lord was transubstantiated into a vine, or into a door, or His people into salt and into light? If, then, we are to take, as undoubtedly we are, the general usage of Scripture language, and our Lord's language in particular, as possessing any value in interpretation, the doctrine of transubstantiation, as tested by it, falls to the ground. But not only is the doctrine of a real, corporeal presence of Christ in the elements opposed by the Word of God, but it is equally contradicted by the evidence of sense, as it is extremely revolting to our best feelings. The bread is bread, and the wine is wine. There is no change in the elements. They are simply bread and wine, and nothing more, our senses confirming the fact. But the doctrine we are confuting is not only contradicted by our senses, but is extremely revolting to our feelings. It is three times affirmed in the Bible of our Lord, that He was incapable of corruption. "You shall not allow your Holy One to see corruption." If the doctrine of the real, corporeal presence of Christ in the elements of the Lord's Supper be true, then this scripture is false! Which? But the Scripture cannot be broken. Let God be true, and every man who would impeach His veracity or contravene His word a liar. But a yet graver objection is alleged against the doctrine of transubstantiation. It identifies Christianity with one of the grossest forms of heathenism. Those who hold the idea of a literal and actual presence, cannot escape the sin, the terrible sin, of idolatry. They worship the bread and the wine, and are involved in one of the most God-dishonoring crimes to which the soul of man can be brought into subjection. It is impossible for the transubstantiationist to escape this logical conclusion- he is emphatically an idolater. To ascribe Divine homage, adoration, and worship to the simple, material elements of the Lord's Supper, as we must do if we believe that they have been converted into the real body, and blood, and divinity of Christ, is to violate the second great law of the Divine decalogue, and to be involved, if unrepented of, in its in evitable and fearful punishment.

How true and graphic of such is the description of the prophet, "And after his care, he uses part of the wood to make a fire to warm himself and bake his bread. Then—yes, it's true—he takes the rest of it and makes himself a god for people to worship! He makes an idol and bows down and praises it!" Isaiah 44:15. And what is the final doom of all idolaters, be they those of heathendom or of Christendom? The Word of God alone reveals it: "idolaters, shall have their part in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone which is the second death." But believers in Jesus, who approach the Lord's table in faith and love, enjoy the real presence, which is the spiritual, believing, realized presence of the Lord Himself. And a more blessed and honored manifestation of the Lord in the ordinance is this, inasmuch as faith, in its present realization of Jesus, is transcendently more glorious than sight. "Blessed are they who have not seen, and yet have believed." Oh, approach that table, beloved, with an earnest desire, and with the full expectation of the realized presence of the Lord! Go, seeking and seeing Jesus only. It is with Him alone you have to do in this solemn feast. Jesus is its original, its substance, and its sweetness. Apart from a believing apprehension of Him, it is but an unmeaning symbol, a cold ceremonial, a lifeless picture- cold, shadowy, and unblest.

Equally unscriptural and erroneous is the idea that the Lord's Supper is a converting and saving institution. Neither of the two divinely appointed rites of Baptism or the Lord's Supper were intended by Christ to accomplish this end; to interpret and employ them as such is to pervert their design, and to press them into the service of fostering a spurious and fatal hope. The Lord's Supper is a shadow, and not a substance; a sign, a symbol, a figure, an exponent of the most glorious Being and of the most august event in the universe. Beyond this, the elements possess no spiritual, quickening, gracious influences.; and no act of the administrator, be he the most holy, spiritual being on earth, can possibly impart to them a miraculous change or a sacramental virtue. Real conversion is the work of the Holy Spirit alone; and He who is not born of the Spirit, and made a possessor of divine life, may partake of the Lord's Supper every day of the week, and at last perish in his unregeneracy and sins! Away, then, with the false and fatal idea that your observance of the Lord's Supper conveys to your soul one particle of grace, of holiness, or spiritual life. You may partake of it in health- in sickness- and in the hour of death, but it will serve you nothing, but as a seal of your greater condemnation, if you are not born again of the Spirit, apart from which neither foods nor drinks, circumcision nor uncircumcision, will avail you anything at the judgment-seat of Christ. But let your simple faith embrace the one glorious sacrifice of our divine and gracious Redeemer, of whom this ordinance is the expressive and sacred memorial, the lowly, life-like portrait, and you shall be saved.

It is a strictly logical and solemn inference from this, that none but true believers in the Lord Jesus either are authorised or are qualified to partake of the Lord's Supper. It was originated by Christ for His Church, and not for the world. And who are His Church? All, and none but those, who are born of the Holy Spirit, who possess a saving faith in Christ, and are living godly, righteously, and soberly, in this present evil world. These compose the one family of God, this banquet is the family feast, this the children's bread, of which none have a right to partake but true members of the family. The paschal lamb was commanded not to be eaten until the posts of the house were sprinkled with the blood of it. How significant! We must come in faith to the blood of sprinkling, before we eat the flesh of the Lamb of God spiritually and in faith, as set forth in this ordinance. The individual who partakes of it without the application of atoning blood, the washing, the cleansing from sin and guilt through the atonement of Jesus, comes under the charge of "eating and drinking unworthily," and occupies a position of fearful peril! The Lord's Supper is a seal. But a seal implies a covenant made, a promise given and accepted. Jehovah has made a covenant of salvation through the Lord Jesus on behalf of His Church. In that covenant He has promised pardon, adoption, acceptance, and heaven to all who truly and heartily believe in Christ. By faith we take hold of His covenant, and accept the promise. In the Lord's Supper, God seals this covenant of redemption to us, and we set our seal to the covenant. The promise of salvation, therefore, being only to those who truly repent and believe, the Lord's Supper becomes a seal of condemnation, and not of salvation, to all who partake of it in an unconverted, unbelieving, unsaved state. The language of the apostle is solemn and decided: "So if anyone eats this bread or drinks this cup of the Lord unworthily, that person is guilty of sinning against the body and the blood of the Lord. That is why you should examine yourself before eating the bread and drinking from the cup. For if you eat the bread or drink the cup unworthily, not honoring the body of Christ, you are eating and drinking God's judgment upon yourself." 1 Cor. 11:27-29. Let no timid, doubting believer in Jesus be discouraged by these words from approaching the Lord's table, and let none who in truth acid sincerity love the Savior, be deterred by them from making a profession of Christianity.

We must, in their interpretation, bear in mind the distinction and the difference between the words unworthy and unworthily. The grammatical construction of the passage would seem to indicate this. The one word is an adjective, and refers to personal qualification; the other is an adverb, and refers to the manner in which the ordinance is observed. With regard to our personal worthiness to partake of the Lord's Supper, we possess none but what we have in and through the grace of Christ implanted in us by the Spirit, and the merits of Christ imputed to us through faith. This is our only personal qualification. We partake of this ordinance unworthily when we come to it without this renewing grace implanted in, and this justifying righteousness imputed to, us by the Lord Jesus. But let no individual suppose that because He may have partaken of the Lord's Supper unworthily, either through ignorance or wilfully, that, therefore, He has committed an unpardonable sin. Oh no! "The blood of Jesus Christ cleanses from all sin,"- and this one among them. No contrite soul deploring in true penitence his unworthy partaking of Christ's Supper, and coming to the atonement of Christ, shall be excluded from the Divine forgiveness. The blood that the soldier shed pardoned the sin of shedding it. The Lord's Supper, of which we may unworthily have partaken, is the symbol of His foriving love, and His cleansing blood, whose ordinance we thus have dishonored.

But while, for the honor of our Lord Jesus, we have thought it right to vindicate His institution, and to guard the reader against erroneous views respecting it, it will be a more pleasant duty to devote the few remaining pages of this work to two or three views of the Lord's Supper, tending to simplify and endear it to the hearts of those who truly love Jesus.

And let us first remind you that it is a feast of hallowed and solemn memory. With this view, among others, our blessed Lord instituted it. He would have His saints kept in memory of Himself. How simple and emphatic His words, "Do this in remembrance of me!" And oh, how solemn and precious the memories clustering around this table! Our thoughts are wafted back to the hour of His agony and bloody sweat, His cross and passion, when, bearing our sins, He was led as a lamb to the slaughter, and was slain for us. There are some events in human life that are never effaced from its annals. Among the most solemn and precious are the death memories of loved ones. Whatever other events transpire, this one stands alone in its own solemn, hallowed impressiveness; and we find it sanctifying and salutary often to remember the day and the circumstances that tore that fond one from our eyes. Transcendently more solemn and sanctifying than all is the memory of our Lord's death. To this end He left this memorial. And not of His death alone, but of the love that constrained Him to die, is it the sacred and lasting remembrance. It is a memorial of dying love- love that could not, and that would not, do less than die for the object of its affections. Therefore may we regard it as the chief one of the Agape, or love-feasts, of the Christian Church- a festival peculiar to the primitive Christians, and which conduced much to the early promotion of Christianity by the cultivation of mutual affection and sympathy, and which awoke the observation of heathen strangers- "See how these Christians love one another!" How kind, and sacred, and considerate of Jesus to bequeath to us this memento of love, knowing how often and how long the should allow other beings and objects to thrust Him from our thoughts! But the return of this season of communion recalls Him to our mind. Just as when we unclasp a casket, and gaze upon the image of an absent one, and there rushes back upon memory the loved features, the familiar tones, the cherished acts of kindness, so the Supper of our Lord- this fond and faithful remembrancer of one so dear- keeps us in tender, hallowed memory of Him whom our souls love until He comes again. Lord, we will remember Your love; Your love is better than wine. Saints of God, beware, then, how you wilfully neglect this ordinance, seeing it is to keep you in vivid, grateful remembrance of Jesus. To neglect is to despise it, and to despise it is to turn the back upon Him who should be entwined with our every affection, and blended with our every thought.

The Lord's Supper is also a feast of present enjoyment. Our Lord spread this table in love to a Church yet in the wilderness. In that wilderness, a dry and thirsty land, she would often be weary and faint. The toilsome march, the perils without, the fears within, the soul's hunger and thirst, would all conspire to render the table in this wilderness a banquet exceedingly welcome and refreshing to the saints. He who, when on earth, had compassion on the multitude who followed Him into the desert, and would not dismiss them fasting, lest they should faint by the way, was not likely to leave His Church in the world unfurnished with spiritual supplies. In addition to the rich provision of the gospel, He has instituted this feast of remembrance and of love, which, like perpetually descending manna, forms a continuous source of nourishment in the wilderness. The chief and the highest enjoyment flowing from the observance of the Lord's Supper is, the Lord's presence at the table. There is ever, on this hallowed occasion, an especial and peculiar manifestation of Christ to His saints, such as is vouchsafed and experienced nowhere else. The testimony of the Church is the same in all ages- "While the King sits at His table, my spikenard sends forth the smell thereof." It is emphatically His table, a banquet of His own originating and of His own furnishing. He provided the meal, and He Himself is there to sanction it, to welcome and bless the guests. And, oh, is not this the highest enjoyment on earth- the manifested, realized, and precious presence of Christ? There is none other like it. What were heaven itself without it, but a Christless and a joyless heaven? What is earth with it? It is the uplifting of this planet of sin and of woe, as it were, into the meridian and region of heaven. While the King, arrayed in beauty, overflowing with benignity and love, sits at His table, it is as though heaven in its glory had come down to earth, or that earth in its woe were upraised to heaven- so divine, holy, and precious is the communion. No marvel that our spiritual graces put forth their power and their fragrance. It is the Sun of Righteousness warming into life and beauty, fertility and perfume, the holy and costly work of the Spirit in the soul. Our religion only becomes vitalized, vigorous, and fertile, as it closely deals with Christ. He is the source of our holiness, as He is the spring of our happiness and the anticipation of our glory. The beams of His grace and love flowing in upon the conservatory of the Spirit, the fruit and flower of the Holy Spirit appear, to the glory and praise of the heavenly Husbandman. "Their soul shall be as a well-watered garden," is the Divine promise that crowns obedience to the Divine precept with its diadem of holy fruit. Approach, then, the Table of the Lord with the full expectation of meeting Jesus. Rise above the sign and the symbol to Him of whom it testifies, and do not leave that Table until you have realized the presence, caught a glimpse, of the beauty, and heard the voice of Him whom your soul loves.

Another present enjoyment at the Lord's Supper, of which we should avail ourselves, is the especial opportunity it affords for the presentation of particular requests in prayer. The soul is in close, confidential audience with Jesus. "What is your petition? and what is your request?" is the gracious, assuring language of the benignant glance He now bends upon each believer. Hasten, then, to pour every petition into His ear, every sorrow into His bosom. Jesus expects it. He waits to be gracious. He asks no preparation for your approach other than your felt need, and the longing of your heart for Him. And whether you come to confess your sins beneath His cross, or to rain upon His feet tears of love, or, while reclining upon His bosom, to bury in its deep sympathy your sorrows, cares, and needs, His gracious, loving heart bids you welcome. Oh, the solemn stillness, the sacred meditation, the precious communion, the confidential transaction of that moment when Jesus and the believer meet together at the Supper!

It is a feast, too, of joyous anticipation. Our Lord has closely blended the past, the present, and the future of the Church in this Festival. These are the words which point to the coming glory- "You do show the Lord's death until He comes." The Second Advent, the glorious appearing of Christ, is interwoven with this memorial of humiliation, suffering, and death. The Cross and the Crown are strangely yet beautifully entwined together in this expressive institution. The dark shadow of the one, and the bright effulgence of the other, meet and mingle here. What play for the trio graces of the Spirit! Faith looks back to the sacrifice of Calvary- Love dissolves with holy affection to a present Christ- and Hope, with uplifted, unwearied wing, soars onward to the glorious future. Thus are we to eat the Lord's Passover, all sandaled and prepared for our heavenly march. This world is not our rest, for here we have no continuing city, but we seek one to come, having Christ in us, the hope of glory. Thus, then, let us never merge the crown in the cross, nor the cross in the crown; but in all service and suffering, in duty and in trial, ever keep in view the truth, that if we now bear the cross, we shall then wear the crown- if we suffer with Him here, we shall reign with Him hereafter. Oh, delightful, when we cluster around this sacred feast, to feel that it links us with the coming glory of Christ- with the sorrowless, tearless, sinless, triumphant state of the spirits of just men made perfect, the general assembly and church of the first-born which are written in heaven- and what will be ours when we shall relinquish the Supper of the Lamb on earth, for the marriage Supper of the Lamb in heaven. Then there will be no more ordinances! The symbol will merge into the reality, the shadow will melt into the substance, the river will be lost in the ocean, and the stars, which heralded His coming, and often led us to His feet, will vanish before the light and splendor of the meridian Sun. We shall be with Jesus then, and with Him drink the new wine of the kingdom; our holiness will be perfect, our happiness will be complete, and God in Christ will be our all in all.

"I love the windows of Your grace,
Through which my Lord is seen,
And long to meet my Savior's face,
Without a glass between.

"Oh, that the happy hour were come,
To change my faith to sight!
I shall behold my Lord at home,
In a diviner light.

"Haste, my Beloved, and remove
These interposing days;
Then shall my passions all be love,
And all my powers be praise."

There is one view of the Lord's Supper which should render it inexpressibly dear to our hearts. It is this, that it is not the table of a church, of a sect, of a party, but, emphatically, the Lord's Table, and, as such, belongs alike to the whole Church of Christ; and no priest or ecclesiastical body has an especial and exclusive right either to bless and administer its elements, or to appropriate and monopolize its communion. We approach this table, not to exhibit a badge, or to utter a shibboleth, or to assert a system, but to show forth the Lord's death, in the goodly fellowship of apostles and prophets, of the noble army of martyrs, and the communion of all saints, until He come. And if there be one spot more appropriate and precious than all others from where the prayer for Christian love and unity should ascend, surely it is this- and from this hallowed spot let it ever fervently and believingly be breathed!

"O God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, our only Savior, the Prince of Peace, give us grace seriously to lay to heart the great dangers we are in by our unhappy divisions. Take away all hatred and prejudice, and whatever else may hinder us from godly union and concord, that, as there is but one body, and one Spirit, and one hope of our calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of us all, so we may henceforth be all of one heart and of one soul, united in one holy bond of truth and peace, of faith and charity, and may with one mind and one mouth glorify You, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen." (Book of Common Prayer)

How sacred, soothing, and precious, then, is the parting sympathy of Christ! It flows in silver streams around our path even to the last and latest of life. Having loved us in the world, He loves us to the end. His tender sympathy is with us when we part from places, from privileges, from friends, yes, from life itself. He knows this peculiar sorrow; and, as if to meet and soothe it, He instituted this sacred and expressive ordinance, blending its past history with a present holy joy, and a future glorious hope. Oh, do you think that when the last, the final, the parting hour comes that severs you from the home you have loved, from the being to whom so fondly, so inseparably you have clung, or from your life, now ebbing fast away- the deathless soul pluming her wing and poised for her awful, mysterious fliglit- do you think that Jesus will not be there to clasp you in the arms of a sympathy that shall solace that grief, sustain that hour, and enable you to say "farewell" without a sigh, and meet death with out a quiver? Oh, yes! Jesus will be there; for He has promised, "Lo, I am with you always, even unto the end."

"Thus, when I read the holy page,
The guide of youth and staff of age,
I need a Teacher ever near,
To make the sacred message clear.
At Jesus' feet I sincerely would sit,
And ask Him to interpret it;
Then shall the Word a lamp become,
To light the pathway to my home.

"Jesus, I need You all my life,
Through childhood's glee and manhood's strife,
In cloud or sunshine, joy or woe,
In wealth and power, or station low.
What other name such power to cheer;
What other voice so charms the ear;
What hand so gently leads as Thine;
Whose heart so ready answers mine?
I need You ever by my side,
Supply this need, whatever betide.

"Thus when I read the holy page,
The guide of youth and staff of age;
I need a Teacher ever near;
To make the sacred message clear.
At Jesus' feet I sincerely would sit,
And ask Him to interpret it;
Then shall the Word a lamp become,
To light the pathway to my home.

"When fevered pulse and throbbing brain
Seem to proclaim earth's healing vain,
I need the great Physician near,
To bid diseases disappear.
Once more my Savior comes to me,
The wondrous Man of Galilee;
Then healthfully life's currents roll,
He speaks the word, and makes me whole.

"This changing world I cannot trust,
I need a friendship true and just;
One friend alone can hope impart
The 'Friend of sinners' claims my heart,
Closer than any brother He
Accompanies and comforts me
His love unchanging, strong, and pure-
The only friendship to endure!

"I am defenseless, weak, alone,
Cast down by foes, and overthrown;
I need a valiant arm- a shield,
While struggling on life's battle-field.
Then Jesus comes, a mighty King!
And now to arms I gladly spring;
His banner, o'er me in the fray,
Still leads me on a conquering way.

"I need my Savior, when I mourn
Over fleeting wealth or funeral urn;
When disappointments chill my soul,
And troublous billows angry roll,
With bleeding heart to Him I fly,
And once more find a helper nigh-
With words of love, in accents sweet,
He cheers me at the mercy-seat.

"I need my Savior when I die-
Then most of all I wish Him nigh,
To bid me doubt and fear no more,
And bring me to the 'shining shore.'
There shall my needs be all supplied,
With harp and crown, at Jesus' side;
And ever more my rapture be,
That Jesus needed even me!"
(Anon. -Brooklyn)

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

THE TREE OF LIFE

Table of Contents

Preface

1. The Shadow of Christ; its Fruit and Repose

2. Truths Learned at Bethlehem

3. Jesus Wept or, Christ's Love at the Grave of Lazarus

4. Be Not Afraid or, the Voice of Jesus in the Storm

5. Daily Cleansing, or Christ Washing His Disciples Feet

6. The Service of Love, or The Disciple Washing Christ's Feet

7. Patience in Suffering, or He Was Led as a Lamb to the Slaughter

8. The Sight of a Living Christ the Joy of the Christian

9. I Am Jesus

10. Help and Salvation Only in Christ

Preface

"On each side of the river stood the tree of life, bearing twelve crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month. And the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations." Rev. 22:2

The simple design of this little volume is, not so much to unfold the varied and striking phenomena of our Lord's life, as to illustrate some of its leading incidents. His life can alone be properly studied in the light of its doings. It was pre-eminently a practical life. "Not words, but deeds," might have served for its motto. "He went about doing good." It was life for life- life set apart, life spent, life sacrificed for man. Living in a world that hated Him, He yet loved it. Dwelling among a race that injured Him, He yet toiled for it. Belonging to a nation who insulted and rejected Him, He yet died for it. Behold the man! -the God-man, Christ Jesus- and let your admiration deepen into love, and your love constrain you to go forth and live, and, if need be, die, for Him.

If we would be Christ's true disciples, we must be practical. Our Christian life, not evaporate in mere words, must, like the dew of night and the light of day, diffuse, invisible and noiseless, its vital and illuminating influence along all our pathway to eternity- blessed of God and blessed to man. Oh, it is a solemn thing to live! We have but one life- yet that life may act for weal or for woe upon the deathless lives of countless beings, speeding, like ourselves, to the judgment. "No man lives to himself." He cannot, if he would. Man lives for man, his friend or foe.

It has been the aim of the author of the present volume so to unfold the "way of life " that each chapter should contain an epitome of the gospel plan of salvation. It may thus be found an appropriate work to place in the hands of those alas! how countless the number!- who are living in blinded ignorance or in criminal neglect of the claims of God, the interests of their soul, and the solemnities of eternity.

Nor this alone. Equally has it been his object gently, as beneath the floating banner of Christ's love, to lead the experienced believer into the banqueting house of God's truth, supplying such doctrinal and preceptive instruction as may aid the growth of that vigorous, manly, and practical Christianity which can alone with effect meet the demands, and confront the foes of this extraordinary age.

Nor has the suffering, the tried, and the tempted believer been overlooked. "All manner of fruit" clusters upon our "Tree of Life." It has been the aim of the writer to bring all believers within its reach; that those who, by reason of weakness of faith, or sorrow of mind, or suffering of body, cannot touch the topmost bough, may at least pluck from the lowest the spiritual nourishment that shall make sorrow less bitter, suffering less keen, sin more hated, and Christ more precious.

The writer has but to add that it is his purpose, the Lord permitting, to follow the present volume with a similar one on some of the leading TITLES OF CHRIST, in which he proposes shall, like the "Tree of Life," yield its fruit "every month." The Lord add His blessing, and to the Triune-Jehovah shall be ascribed all the praise!

The Shadow of Christ; its Fruit and Repose

"I sat down under His shadow with great delight, and His fruit was sweet to my taste." Song of Solomon 2:3.

These words may not embody an incident in the personal life of Christ, such as in these pages will engage our study; nevertheless, they refer to Christ Himself, which is better still; and they supply an appropriate introduction to the interesting events in His personal history upon which we propose to concentrate the reader's attention. We premise, in the outset that, the religion of Christ is essentially and intensely experimental in its character. There is nothing in it theoretic, speculative, or ideal. Its history is true, its facts are authentic, its doctrines are divine. It appeals to the intellect, and takes it captive; it enters the heart, and finds a home. It blends with every faculty of the mind, entwines with every passion of the soul, and is absorbed with our entire mental, moral, and spiritual being.
The Word of God thus becomes the engrafted word- incorporated with, and inseparable from, ourselves. This is the only knowledge of Christ worth possessing, because it is only experimental knowledge of Christ that saves the soul. What we need is salvation. What we need to know is how we may escape the eternal damnation of the lost, and how to secure the eternal happiness of the saved. Our knowledge of Christ is real and precious, as it gives reality and certainty to the transcendently momentous fact that we are saved. One feeble touch of His hem, one dim sight of His cross, one drop of His sprinkled blood, has more in reality of Christ in it than the most accurate intellectual knowledge, or the most refined, speculative theory.
The passage, then, of which this opening chapter of our volume is a brief exposition, is essentially experimental. There is nothing in it borrowed, imitated, or stolen. It does not refer to what the Church had heard, or had read, or had imagined of Christ; but it unfolds the actual, spiritual, and personal experience of Jesus and the truth. Oh, holy and precious experience this! Blessed is that soul that can put its seal to this truth, and happy if, as we close this volume, unfolding- as we humbly trust it will, something of the divine glory and the practical grace of Jesus, we can say concerning Him, "I sat down under His shadow with great delight, and His fruit was sweet to my taste." Let us, taking up each particular of the passage, speak in order of the shadow -the repose- the fruit.
Our first object of consideration is- the shadow of Christ. "His shadow." Not as the worldling's shadow is the Christian's. All is but shadow that appertains alone to this present life. The toil for wealth, the strife for honor, the pursuit of pleasure, is but the race of shadows. I summon the worldling as a witness. Does not your past experience confirm this melancholy fact? Has your lust for gold been satisfied with wealth? Your thirst for happiness, with worldly pleasure? Your longing for rest, with earthly repose? Your sighing for creature friendship, sympathy, and love, with the creature? Truth and honesty compel your emphatic answer, "No!" And yet see how persistent is your folly! Although bubble after bubble has burst, and dream after dream has vanished, and shadow after shadow has dissolved, you are as eager and earnest as ever in chase of those phantoms of earth born bliss which dazzle but to bewilder, and which allure but to destroy. The Lord awake you from your sleep of spiritual insensibility, convince you of your folly, give you to see your sin and danger as a dying man, and to realize your position as a responsible being, as one who has to give account of himself to God, that, ceasing from the vain pursuit of earthly, carnal good, you may lay hold on eternal life.
Equally shadowy is the religion of the world. To the dim religious eye it appears the very perfection of devotion. Its forms are many, and its ceremonial gorgeous; its spirit is devout, and its doings abundant- even to oppression, and costly even to sacrifice. And yet, what is the ritualism of the formalist and the pharisaism of the self righteous but the religion of mere empty shadow? And when the shadows of time meet the shadows of eternity, when the gorgeous, glowing shadows of life blend with the cold, darkling shadows of death, then will all the hopes built upon a religion of form, of self righteous observance, of mere religious profession, dissolve and perish, leaving nothing for the naked soul to enfold itself in but the pale shroud of deep despair and the dark pall of eternal death!
Look well, my reader, to your hope of the future, and to the foundation upon which it rests. Take nothing of so momentous a matter for granted. Bring your religion to the test of God's word. Try it by the gospel of Christ. You are on your way to another, a future and eternal world- see that your chart is a sure one, your map a correct one, your light a true one. There are false charts, and there are spurious maps, and there are decoy lights, in the soul's travel to eternity. Heretical teaching abounds, and erroneous doctrines are rife, and superstitious worship prevails.
Men are teaching from the pulpit and the press that baptism is regeneration, and that the Lord's Supper is the real body and blood of the Savior, and that ritualism is spiritual worship; that, confession of sin is to be made to 'the priest', and that to man is given the prerogative and the power to absolve from its guilt; that, religious duties and alms-giving, and like works of human merit, render the soul worthy of, and fit for, the enjoyment of heaven. But all these are false lights kindled along the rock-bound shore of the soul's transit to eternity, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness whereby they lie in wait to deceive.
Your only authentic chart and your only safe map in your solemn and momentous journey to the other world is, God's word. The Gospel tells you how you may be justified by the righteousness of Christ, how your sins may be forgiven through the blood of Christ, how peace with God may be obtained through the mediation of Christ, how your corruptions may be subdued by the grace of Christ, and how all your trials may be sustained, your griefs assuaged, and your sorrows soothed by the loving sympathy of Christ; and that faith, or simply believing in Jesus, is the channel through which all these blessings become yours.
But we turn to the only true and substantial shadow- the shadow of Christ. "His shadow." The metaphor is of frequent and significant occurrence in God's word, and in almost every instance it refers personally to Christ. One example shall suffice. "And a man shall be . . . as the shadow of a great rock in a weary land." This "man" is none other than the God-man, the divine man, Christ the Lord. Now in what point of view may we regard Christ as the shadow of His people? The following particulars will briefly illustrate this truth.
Christ is a protecting shadow. He stands between the believing soul and divine justice, between the saint of God and the fiery darts of Satan, between the tempter and the tempted, between the tried saint and the fiery trial. Thus in Christ is fulfilled, as in Him alone it could be, the precious promise, "There shall be a Tabernacle for a shadow in the day time from the heat, and for a place of refuge and for a covert from storm and from rain." In this point of light how suitable and precious does Christ appear. We needed a shadow that could effectually interpose itself between us and the law's loud thunder and the flaming sword of justice- that shadow is Christ. "He was made a curse for us." He "who knew no sin was made sin (or a sin-offering) for us." Christ threw Himself between His Church and the righteous administration of God's moral government. Upon Him, as their Surety, fell the crushing vengeance, the consuming fire, the bitterness of death. All this He bore for us!
Come and sit down beneath His shadow, and you are safe. Not a flash can scathe you, not a spark can kindle upon you, not a dart can wound you. Christ is your "shadow from the heat," and in simple faith and assured peace you may repose with great delight and perfect security beneath this divine-human canopy, and gaze without fear upon the lurid lightning, and listen without dread to the peeling thunder. "There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus."
Christ is a refreshing shadow. There is no real refreshment to the believing soul but from Christ. And how deep is our need of it! The eastern pilgrim traveling across the burning sands welcomes the spreading and luxuriant foliage that greets him on his way. How grateful and refreshing to him its shadow in a weary land! Such is Jesus to Zion's pilgrims. How much there is in our travel to endear to us His sacred shadow! The roughness of the way wounds us, the narrowness of the way wearies us, the trials of the way sadden us, the loneliness of the way depresses us, the heat of the way scorches us- our mind droops, our spirits flag, our hearts faint, and our discouraged soul is "ready to halt." But Jesus interposes. Taking our hand, He gently leads us to His cross, yes, leads us to Himself! and then we sit down beneath His shadow with great delight, and find His fruit sweet to our taste. Oh, the refreshment we now find in Him!
For example- How refreshing is the Communion of His body and blood! "The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ?" What a refreshing shadow is this! Let those testify who by faith eat of the body and drink of the blood of Christ, what soul-refreshment they have found beneath it. How one believing sight of Jesus, one endearing thought of His love, one close view of His cross, has dissolved their hearts into penitence, love, and praise at His feet! Absent not yourself, my reader, from this Sacred Banquet because of your unworthiness to partake. Wait not, before you approach these simple yet expressive symbols, for self-fitness and preparation, which never can be found. The Lord, whose dying love you commemorate, and for whom your own love is expressed, asks not and expects not this at your hands.
He who provides the banquet, invites and prepares the guests. The love that spread the feast, provides the festal robe. Jesus supplies His merit for your demerit, substitutes His worthiness for your unworthiness, freely gives and graciously imputes the righteousness that entitles you to take your place at His table and, in grateful remembrance of His atoning death, to eat and drink of His provision abundantly.
Oh, let the saints on earth and the saints in glory testify to the soul refreshment found beneath this shadow of Christ! Here have you fed and feasted on the fruit bending down from the tree of life to the feeblest, lowliest saint as, clustering around His table, you sought to remember Him who will remember you when He comes in all the glory of His most glorious kingdom. What soul-refreshing seasons, what heaven-attracting moments, what Christ-endearing feelings have you experienced, and how has the fragrance of your graces poured forth as the King has sat at His table, and you have bowed your head upon His breast at supper!
"Come, let us join a joyful tune
To our exalted Lord,
You saints on high around His throne,
And we around His board.
"While once upon this lower ground
Weary and faint you stood,
What dear refreshments have you found
From this immortal food."
Will you then, living and professing the Savior, turn from this sacred feast, refusing obedience to His command- "Do this in remembrance of me?" When again He spreads the banquet, and you are prompted by your feelings to regard lightly the invitation, imagine that you hear the gentle accents of His winning, pleading voice saying, "Will you also go away?" Let your heart respond, "No, Lord, to whom shall I go if I turn my back upon You? How can I ever cease to remember One who has done so my soul?"
"Gethsemane can I forget?
Or there Your conflict see,
Your agony and bloody sweat-
And not remember Thee?
"When to Your cross I turn my eyes,
And rest on Calvary,
O Lamb of God, my sacrifice!
I must remember Thee.
"Remember You and all Your pains,
And all Your love to me;
Yes, while a breath, a pulse remains
Will I remember Thee.
And when these failing lips grow dumb,
And mind and memory flee,
When You shall in Your kingdom come,
Jesus, remember me."
What refreshment, too, is found beneath the shadow of Christ's mercy-seat! Christ is inseparably associated with every true prayer we breathe to God. In His name it is presented, through His merit it is accepted, and by His intercession it is answered. We draw near, and, lo! we find ourselves overshadowed with a cloud! It is the cloud of Christ's presence! And, oh, the refreshment which it diffuses throughout our spirit!
We come weary, and find repose; sad, and we experience joy; weak, and our strength is renewed like the eagle's; exhausted and faint, and we retire as giants refreshed with new wine. Sweet communion with God, believing fellowship with unseen and eternal realities, has dissipated the shadows that rested so darkly and coldly upon our hearts, and we have felt ourselves as if floating in a higher and holier region. Brother, sister, arise amid your weariness and woe, and give yourself to prayer! Your Father's scepter bids you approach, your Savior's blood provides your plea, the Spirit's grace gently draws you. Come and sit down beneath this shadow; sweet and refreshing will it be to your soul.
Christ is a fruit promoting shadow. There are some flowerets in nature which only grow in the shade. Too rare and delicate for the sun's heat, they are often found blooming amid the shadows and snows of Alpine scenery. This is strikingly illustrative of the kingdom of grace. There are some graces of the Spirit which are seldom seen in full bloom and beauty but as the shadow covers them. The Heavenly Husbandman knows best what soil and atmosphere suits them. God therefore puts these His plants of righteousness in the shade to grow.
Withdrawing them from the scorching beams of the ungodly world, and taking them apart from the feverish excitement of the religious world, He gently leads them to the Tree of life, and bids them sit beneath its shadow.
There faith buds, and love blossoms, and the blossom of faith and love sets in the fruit of holiness. How seldom are the graces of patience and lowliness and submission found in their vigor and beauty except in the shadow of some enshrouding adversity. God has put you, suffering saint, in the lonely shade of separation, or in the chill shade of neglect, or in the veiling shade of obscurity, or in the funeral shade of bereavement, or in the darkling shade of some overshadowing trial.
But He has put you there, you precious floweret of His own right hand planting, to grow, to bloom, to bear fruit. It is when in separation, and neglect, and obscurity, and bereavement, and trial, He draws near and covers us with the shadow of His wings, and assures us that we are not all alone, nor all unknown, that He knows those who are His, that He does not withdraw His eye from the righteous, and that His encircling presence is with them in all places where they go. Thus we learn the wisdom and the love of our heavenly Father in all His dealings. We needed the shade!
The drought of prosperity had dried up in a great measure the spring of our grace, and with it our graces drooped- for it should ever be remembered by us that when the well-spring of spiritual life in the soul is at a low ebb, the fruits of the spirit are painfully conscious of its decay. In the warm glow of the world's sunshine, our hearts had strayed from Him we loved. Like Jeshurun, we "grew fat and kicked." We walked distantly, self-sufficiently, and proudly. Our love to Christ chilled, our communion with God was restrained, the flesh grew strong, and the world seductive, and spiritual pursuits lost their attraction, and gray hairs- emblems and witnesses of spiritual declension- accumulated around us, and we knew it not.
But the Lord loved us too well to permit us to remain long in this state of heart-backsliding. He saw that His tree of righteousness was unfruitful, that the plant of His own right-hand planting was sickly, that the floweret of His heart drooped, and He resolved upon its recovery. The rod is uplifted, it smites, and its stroke falls just where it was most instinctively dreaded and was most keenly felt. And now our God has brought us out of the sunshine into the shade- the shadow, as it were, of death; and we exclaim, as of old, "He has led us and brought us into darkness, and not into light."
And now we have found a Shadow within a shadow- the shadow of life beneath the shadow of death. The shadow of the cross, where hung, and bled, and died the "Man of sorrows," the sympathizing high priest of His Church, overshadows with its own vital, soothing, healing influence the dark, cold shadow of our adversity. Never did we feel the Savior so sensibly near, or so unutterably precious as now. We thank Him for the dark shadows that have fallen on life's landscape. Never before were we so conscious of spiritual growth in graces which previously were undeveloped, or, if developed, but partially visible; the graces of patience and humility, of meekness and submission, now shoot forth with a vigor, unveil a bloom and breathe a sweetness we could never have imagined, and from the depth of our heart's deep love we exclaim, "Lord! I thank You as much, no, even more, for the dark cloud-veil as for the radiant sunshine. I have learned more experimentally Your truth, and have known more fully of Yourself in the darkness than I ever did in the light. My Christianity has deepened, my religion has become more real, my hope more confirmed, and my peace and joy and happiness more substantial in this one sanctified affliction than during the whole of my previous spiritual life. O my God, I see Your wisdom and Your love in placing Your poor, sickly plant, that withered and drooped in the sun, now to grow and bloom and bear fruit in the shade. I have learned more of myself and of You, have been brought into closer relation with Him I love, in this isolated and dreary path than was ever my experience when the candle of the Lord shone upon my head."
Rest assured, my reader, the Lord is leading you by a right way in leading you along a dark one. It is good at times to walk in the shade of the world's opinion and favor; even to be thrust aside, neglected, and forgotten by the Church. The Lord would not thus put us in the shade did He not love us, and were it not for our good. His darkest shadows have more of sunshine in them than earth's brightest beams; His paternal frown more of real love in it than the creature's blandest smile; His severest rebukes more of tenderness than the world's softest caress.
But the shadow of Christ!- how fruitful is it! Possessing a vital influence on all upon whom it falls, it quickens into life and verdure and fertility the soul so happy as to be led beneath it by the Spirit. It is then we are more personally and immediately alone with Christ. The world's din is hushed into the quietness of peace, the Church's contentions subside into the stillness of communion with God, and the fevered excitement of religious duties and engagements gives place to holy reflection, self-examination, and prayer.
Never, perhaps, did the Church of God more need to sit down beneath His shadow as now! The exciting subjects of thought and the Christian activities of the age- its ecclesiastical conflicts, its theological controversies, its religious feuds- are calculated to exert a baneful and deteriorating influence upon the individual piety of the Christian and the spiritual life of the Church itself. How important, then, to retire from the close, sultry atmosphere we breathe, and sit down beneath the refreshing and invigorating shadow of Jesus!
Would you, my reader, be a fruitful branch of the Living Vine, you must be much beneath its shade. "Abide in Me and I in you," says Jesus. "As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abide in the vine, no more can you, unless you abide in Me." Retreating from earth's shadows, which, alas! are but shadows of death, we must be in closer fellowship with Him who is our life, from whom our fruit is found, and without whom we can do nothing.
This conducts us to another idea- the repose of which the Church speaks. "I sat down under His shadow." It will thus be seen that not only is Christ a protecting, a refreshing, and a fruit-promoting shadow to the saints, but He is also a shadow of rest. Could language be more expressive of this condition of the soul- "I sat down!" It is the attitude of perfect repose. Look at this attitude in one or two points of view. It is the rest of choice. It was a repose of her own free, deliberate choosing- "I sat down." Is not this the experience of all whom the Spirit has made willing in the day of His power to choose and accept the Savior? Most assuredly.
Is it not yours, my Christian reader? There was no hesitation or doubt when the Holy Spirit led you by the gentle yet irresistible force of His grace to receive Christ. The rebellion of your will conquered, the reluctance of your heart overcome, the enmity of your carnal mind dislodged, you exclaimed, with all the earnestness of your new-born emotions, "What have I to do anymore with idols! Henceforth Christ shall have the pre-eminence. He chose me before I made Him my choice. He loved me before I surrendered my heart. He called me, or I would never have come. And now that His grace has conquered, and His Spirit has made me willing, and His love has drawn me, henceforth and forever I am my Beloved's, and my Beloved is mine!"
Can you ever forget that hour? No, never! Other memories have vanished, other bright spots have faded, other joys have blended with the shadows of the tomb, but upon the hour when the angels celebrated in their nuptial song your union with Christ, the sun of glory will never set!- eternity will enshrine it in deathless light. And oh, what a repose is this! It must be experienced to be understood, and even though experimentally understood, it cannot be fully described.
What are some of its distinctive features? It is the repose of certainty. It is, in fact, the believing soul's only sure repose. Driven from billow to billow in its battle with unbelief, the believer can only rest on one object, which is Christ the Lord. As well may we expect the needle to fix at any other point of the compass than the north, as to expect that the believing soul can rest on any other object than Christ! In Christ he finds a righteousness that freely justifies; in Christ, a pardon that fully forgives; in Christ, grace that personally sanctifies; in Christ, truth that combats all error, annihilates every doubt, answers every argument, and meets to its utmost the earnest, yearning inquiry trembling on a thousand lips, "What is truth?" The moment the soul returns from its distant but fruitless travel, and finds Christ, it feels it has found a sounding upon which it may firmly drop its anchor- an ark within which it may fold its weary wing. Come to Christ in faith- in simple, child-like, unquestioning, faith- and you, too, will, with the Church of old, exclaim, "I sat down under His shadow with great delight, and found rest for my weary spirit."
It is the repose of love. Love will never rest but on the object of its choice. Christ is the one object of the regenerate soul's true love. We have sought repose beneath other shadows of the heart's love, and they refreshed us for a while; but when the morning's sun arose, lo! like the prophet's pleasant shade, they had vanished as in a night! Oh, how unsubstantial and fleeting, though fond and precious, the human shadows we have loved! Even while we pressed them to our hearts, admiring their beauty, and rejoicing in their presence, in a moment they dissolved into the shadow of death, and disappeared within the veil of eternity!
But the Object of divine love is no mere unsubstantial, passing shadow. They who, through grace, set their hearts on Jesus, have found an object worthy of their supreme affection, concerning whom they can with the Psalmist say, "My heart is fixed, O God, my heart is fixed. I will sing and give praise." Here true love finds its perfect repose. Here is an Object that meets all its yearnings for affection, friendship, and sympathy. Here is love that satisfies the soul. No infirmity impairs, no change affects it.
The heart that loves Jesus trembles at no passing cloud, dreads no painful vicissitude, anticipates no stroke of the fell destroyer. Removal cannot affect its love, distance cannot separate it from its object, sickness cannot imperil, death cannot shade, nor the grave veil it from our view. How triumphant the challenge of the apostle! "Who shall separate us from the love of Christ! Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him that loved us."
Here let your love repose. It needs to rest on His love who rests on His own. Its sensitiveness is often wounded, its serenity often disturbed, its glow often shaded, and it needs just the repose and fixedness found only in Him it loves. Has sin pierced it, has guilt burdened it, has sorrow shaded it? Come and sit down beneath this tree of life, and you shall find its shadow refreshing, and its fruit sweet to your taste.
It is also the rest of faith. Faith and love have a common object of rest- JESUS. They both travel to the same source, and like twin-sisters, repose on one maternal bosom. In fact, faith in Christ begets love to Christ; and in the same degree in which we have believing transactions with the Savior, our love to Him will increase and intensify. We love Him so little, because we know Him so little. To know Christ, is to love Him. He is a Friend towards whom an increasing acquaintance increases affection. He grows upon you. The more you know Him, the more you love Him.
Now, faith delights to lie down under His shadow. There it travels in weariness and woe, as in joy and gladness. In the dark and cloudy day, as in the sultry heat, with its wound of sin, its burden of guilt; with its bruised, crushed spirit, and its broken, bleeding heart; its pressing need and its approaching troubles. Jesus is the magnet of faith. He attracts it, draws it, binds it to Himself, and simple faith clings to and has dealings with Him the more He is adored, and loved, and trusted in. Here, then, beneath this sacred shadow, beloved, let your faith repose. It is, perhaps, weary in its wanderings, pained by cruel unbelief, tossed from billow to billow in many a surging tide; almost engulfed in the waves of care and sorrow; sick and sad, weary, yearning, and footsore, and ready to halt, let it travel to this Tree of Life, and beneath its shadow find rest!
Christ is all that your faith requires. Does it need vigor? Christ will strengthen it. Fixedness? Christ will confirm it. Is it wounded? Christ will heal it. Does it ask increase? Christ will replenish it. Does it need encouragement and comfort? Christ will say to it, "Be it unto you according to your faith." Is it ready to sink? Christ will take it by the hand, and will reassure it with words of hope: "O you of little faith, why did you doubt?" Come, then, you believing soul, whatever may be the measure of your faith, its trials, its tremblings, its temptations, let it lie down under His shadow with great delight, and it shall find, in a full, a present, and a loving Christ, all that it needs.
"Jesus it owns a king,
And all-atoning priest;
It claims no merit of its own,
But looks for all in Christ.
"On Him it safely leans,
In times of deep distress;
Flies to the fountain of His blood,
And trusts His righteousness."
But the Church speaks of fruit. "And His fruit was sweet to my taste." There is no difficulty in determining whose fruit is here meant. "His fruit." How important to observe the distinction! The Church never speaks of her own fruitfulness apart from Christ. It is more her barrenness than her fertility, her unprofitableness than her productiveness, she is wont to mention. The religionist who plumes himself on the splendor of his gifts, and boasts of the abundance of his grace, and trumpets the success of his services for Christ, encompasses himself with sparks of his own kindling, and shall lie down in sorrow. But the most spiritually-minded and fruitful saint is he who is little in his own eyes, and like the full and ripened ear, bends the lowest to the ground.
"Lord," exclaims the humble soul, "I will not make mention of any fruit that I have borne, but of Yours only. If in my soul there beats one pulse of spiritual life, You have inspired it. If there glows in my heart one spark of divine love, You have kindled it. If my walk and conversation is sanctified and adorned with one bud of grace, or blossom of holiness, You have formed it; and You shall have all the glory!
But it is of Christ's fruit the Church speaks. The saints of God find real sweetness in no other. You cannot live, beloved, on your own grace, or toy with your own graces. There is such a mixture of imperfection and sin with all we are and do- the loveliest so marred, and the holiest so tainted; the gracious soul cannot extract one drop of merit from anything that springs from himself. True is it, blessedly true, that "there is a reward for the righteous;" that holiness is happiness; that, "if we be willing and obedient, we shall eat of the fruit of the land." Nevertheless, the best saints have to complain that, after all they have done, they are but unprofitable servants.
But how sweet is the fruit that grows upon our divine "Apple-Tree," beneath whose ever-pleasant shade we sit with such ineffable delight. The fruit of His obedience and suffering, of His blood-shedding and death, of His resurrection and ascension into glory; how sweet is it to the gracious soul! The full forgiveness of our sins by His blood, the free justification of our person by His righteousness, the sanctification of our hearts by His grace, and the upholding of our feet in His ways by His power, is blessed fruit, the real sweetness of which can only be known by its experience.
A few remarks must close this introductory chapter of our volume. Are the gray shadows of adversity and sorrow falling thick and fast upon you? Come and lie down beneath the Shadow of Christ, and all will be well. Or, is the shadow of death upon your eyelids, does the darkness of the tomb veil from your view the form you once so loved, and whose ashes are still so precious? There is a place for your sad and shaded heart beneath the spreading foliage of this sacred Tree, where you may lie down in a quiet resting-place.
"He that dwells in the secret place of the Most High shall abide under the SHADOW of the Almighty." Especially is it needful for those who are bearing the burden and heat of the day in the Lord's service to heed the invitation of Christ once addressed to His weary disciples, "Come apart into a desert place, and rest awhile." Those who labor to bring others to rest, must themselves rest. Those who water others, must themselves be watered. Those who feed others, must themselves be nourished. Let all Christian laborers, then, look well to their own vineyard, that it be not neglected, and find time to come and lie down under Christ's shadow, and "rest awhile," lest they should have to take up the lamentation of the Church of old, "They made me keeper of the vineyards, but my own vineyard have I not kept."
Remember that the fruit of this wondrous Tree bends so low that the feeblest faith may lift its hand and pluck it. This divine Tree of Life bears all manner of fruit, and at all seasons; so that there is nourishment for every measure of grace, and for every degree of knowledge, and for every stage in the Christian life- for babes and little children, for young men, and fathers. Christ meets each and all, and all may eat and find His fruit sweet to their taste. Oh, what a heart-cheering and encouraging truth this is to you who have but "tasted that the Lord is gracious." To have tasted only the graciousness of Christ puts you in a condition more exalted and enviable than that of the greatest philosopher on earth. May this be our condition and privilege!
Thus, the precious fruit that springs from Christ is not known to the gracious soul by mere report. His is the knowledge of personal and blessed experience. "His fruit is sweet to my taste." Sweet the streams that flow from His inexhaustible fulness, sweet the gracious manifestations of His presence, sweet the unfoldings of His love and the expressions of His sympathy, sweet to lean upon His arm and know His power, sweet to recline upon His bosom and feel His love. But let us not be content with this. Having tasted, let us press onward to know more of Christ. Be not satisfied with gathering fruit from the lower boughs of this "Tree," but ascend to the higher ones. The nearer the sun, the riper and sweeter the fruit.
Go forward in your acquaintance with the doctrines of grace, and seek to eat of the "strong meat" that belongs unto them who are of "full age." Thus will your sanctification deepen, sin will become more hateful, self more loathed, the world more crucified, and the Savior more precious. Then, when we shall have passed from all earth's shadows, and even from the shadow of Christ on earth, we shall go and lie down beneath the overspreading shadow of His throne, and bask forever in the sunshine of His glory.

"Beneath His cooling shade I sat,
To shield me from the burning heat;
Of heavenly fruit He spread a feast
To feed my eyes, and please my taste.
"Kindly He brought me to the place,
Where stands the banquet of His grace;
He saw me faint, and over my head,
The banner of His love He spread.
"O never let my Lord depart;
Lie down and rest upon my heart;
I charge my sins not once to move,
Nor stir, nor wake, nor grieve my love."

The Holy Child Jesus in the Temple;
or, "The Truths Learned at Bethlehem"

"They found Him in the Temple." -Luke 2:15.

There is no object in nature more exquisitely beautiful, or richly suggestive, than a brilliant sunrise. Those who have watched the gorgeous spectacle as from an Alpine height have felt themselves amply repaid for the tax it imposed upon their morning slumbers. But the student of the Bible dwells with infinitely more delight upon those events in the early life of Christ which traced the day-dawn of the "Sun of Righteousness" upon our world. It is true but little is recorded by the inspired historian of His early years; and still less of what may be termed the ripening of His youth into the maturity of His manhood. But the incidents that are narrated are of sufficient importance to supply ample material for thought, rich lessons for holy living, and clear indices of our Lord's future and eventful history.

Entering, as we are, upon the holy and joyous commemoration of His Nativity, it may quicken our spiritual conception of the grandeur and significance of this illustrious event, if we select for our study, as one of the incidents of His life, the early appearance of the Holy Child Jesus in the temple of Jerusalem. Our blessed Lord would seem to have obeyed the laws and hallowed the condition of each stage of human life. He may be said to have passed from the bloom of childhood into the worn and weird appearance of age. For, although he was only about thirty-three years old when He died, yet the gravity of His demeanor, and the air of sadness which He wore, together with the lines of premature age which would, seem to have penciled His sacred countenance- doubtless produced by toil, privation, and grief- imparted to Him all the resemblance of life's autumn. "You are not yet fifty years old," was the exclamation of the Jews to the young man Christ Jesus; implying, in all probability, that He looked this age.

But, of the consecration of childhood by His own remarkable passage through this interesting period of human life there can be no question. The recorded incidents of His early life, as I have remarked, are but few; and yet how significant! The sun of His being burst forth with sudden and overpowering effulgence, pouring a flood of light upon the world's darkness, and then as suddenly disappeared, as though it had gone down while it was yet day. But if it disappeared, it had not set; and if for a while its golden light withdrew, it yet left some living, lingering beams to show the path trodden by His infant feet. One of those beams will illumine these pages the Holy Child Jesus in the temple. The narrative will be familiar. Jesus, who was now about twelve years old, accompanied His parents to Jerusalem at the annual observance of the Passover. At the termination of the festival they set out on their return to Nazareth in company, in all probability, with a large number of Jews traveling to the same city. At the close of the day, the child Jesus was missing. His parents, greatly distressed on discovering their loss, left the company and went in search of their stray child. Not finding Him in the crowd, they returned to Jerusalem, and, after three days' anxious search through the city, they at length "found Him in the temple, sitting in the midst of the doctors, both hearing them and asking them questions."

A difference of opinion has existed as to the fact whether Jesus, on this memorable occasion, was a learner or a teacher- whether He was now sitting as a disciple at the feet of these Jewish doctors of the law, or, whether they were sitting, as disciples, at His. I am of opinion that the circumstance admits of both explanations. His reverence for the law and the prophets, which distinguished Him in after years, together with His great humility of mind, would prompt Him on this occasion to listen with lowliness and respect to their instructions. "Think not that I am come to destroy the law or the prophets : I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill.

"But, on the other hand, to suppose that He now sunk the teacher in the learner, would involve us in a difficulty in our attempt to interpret the meaning of His answer to the gentle upbraiding of His parents- "How is it that you sought me! Don't you know that I must be about my Father's business?" And what was the 'business' thus confided by the Father to His hands? Certainly not to be instructed in the law and the prophets, but to reveal to mankind both Himself and His truth. And when we read that, "He asked them questions," we may suppose that He but adopted a catechetical, or, as the schoolmen would term it, the Socratic mode of conveying to them the divine instruction which He had come from God to impart- thus seeking to win these doctors of the law from Judaism to Christianity, and from Moses to Himself.

We may therefore infer that when Jesus sat in the midst of the doctors hearing them and asking them questions, He was illustrating both the docility of the disciple, and the wisdom of the teacher, on this first public and instructive occasion of His early life. Reserving for the present any further reference to the childhood of Jesus, let me proceed to notice the great event around which, as its central truth, the chief interest and instruction of this narrative gathers- Christ's first advent to our world.

Alas! that so many should make the commemoration of Christ's Birth a season of carnal festivity and social gaiety, rather than of devout study and holy praise. Instead of its being an occasion of sacred meditation and holy joy, of quickened faith and intensified love, it is with multitudes rather one of worldly amusement and sensual feasting, of "rioting and drunkenness, chambering and wantonness." These are "spots upon their feast of charity."

Approaching as we are this the greatest of sacred festivals- the commemoration of Christ's blessed Nativity- it behooves us to enter upon its observance intelligently, devoutly, soberly. I propose, then, in the remarks that will follow, to endeavor, with all simplicity and godly sincerity, to lead the mind of the reader to such a scriptural and spiritual view of this stupendous event -the appearing of the Son of God in the flesh- as may enhance his conception of its greatness, deepen his sense of its love, and instruct his mind in some of the precious truths learned at Bethlehem.

The first point which presents itself, is the fulfillment and truth of Scripture. And the Scripture to which we especially refer as thus fulfilled is, that famous one found in the prophecy of Isaiah, "Unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given." In the course of your Bible-reading you will often have been struck with the frequent occurrence of these words, "That the Scripture might be fulfilled." What a stupendous fact do these words embody- the truth of God's Word. This fact is everything to us who believe. If the Bible is not divinely and plenarily inspired- if it is not from the beginning of Genesis to the last of Revelation wholly and verbally the Word of God- divine truth, all divine truth, and nothing but divine truth- then our faith is vain and we are yet in our sins. Everything that is precious to us in time, soothing in sorrow, sustaining in trial, hopeful in death and in eternity, is bound up in the truth, unimpeachableness, and immutability of God's Word. "Your word is truth," is the foundation of our belief and the sheet-anchor of our hope.

Beloved, you cannot press this fact to your heart with too strong confidence. It is everything to you. If this beautiful staff breaks, if this strong foundation yields, if this living spring fails, where shall we go? But the staff will never break, and the foundation will never yield, and the spring will never fail, because it is of God. God was in the bush, and it was not consumed- He is in the Church, and it shall not be destroyed -He is in the Bible, and heaven and earth shall pass away, but His word shall not pass away. " The grass withers, and the flower thereof fall away; but the word of the Lord endures forever." Satan will devise every engine of power, and employ every agent of error, to shake your faith in the divinity of the Bible. He will, to accomplish his hellish purpose, use both the professed friends and the avowed enemies of revelation.

But, "hold fast the profession of your faith without wavering." Cling to the Bible amid the surging waves as the limpet to the rock, as the drowning mariner to the plank, as the storm-tossed bark to its anchor. It will never betray your confidence, mock your expectation, or falsify your hope. In doubt and perplexity, in trial and sorrow, fly to the Scriptures of truth. Your soul's experience of their power will be your strongest evidence of their truth, and your best preservation against the assaults of its foes. Every attempt, then, of the enemies of the faith to shake your confidence, to stagger your belief, will prove but like an attempt to shatter the rock with a bubble, or to penetrate the adamant with a feather.

Few books of men there are which endure the test of time and trial. When all is smooth and sunny in our experience, we can read, admire, and even revel in them. But when the season of sorrow, temptation, and darkness comes, they fail to emit one ray of light, or to distill one drop of consolation. Then we run to the Bible and find it all that we need- the pure wine unmixed with water, divine sunshine undimmed by cloud- and learn its preciousness above all other books, and its value above all price. "Vanity of vanities, all is vanity," is indelibly inscribed upon all that is human. "Verity of verities, all is verity," is emblazoned upon every page of Inspiration. Hesitate not, then, to bring your doubts and perplexities, your sorrows and sins, to God's Word; your soul drinking from these two breasts of consolation, the Old and New Testaments, which, like the same 'nursing mother,' impart the same nourishment, both testifying of Jesus, the Savior of sinners and the "Consolation of Israel," and both bearing witness to Him who is "the way, the truth, and the life."

The second thought suggested by the birth of Christ is, His consecration of the period of childhood. He was but a child when He sat encircled by the Jewish rabbis in the court of the temple. How impressively and condescendingly has He, by coming in the flesh, honored and sanctified this interesting age! How significant and appropriate the title- "The Holy Child Jesus.'' One of the fathers observes, touching this point, "that Christ came not disdaining, nor going in any way above nature, nor breaking in His own person, the law which He had set for mankind; but sanctifying every age by the likeness it bears to Him. For He comes to save all men by Himself- all, I mean, who are by Him born again unto God- infants, and little ones, and children, and youths, and those of older age; for the sake of infants, being made an infant, sanctifying infants: to little ones He was a little one, sanctifying those of that age, and giving them an example of godliness, righteousness, and dutiful subjection."

How beautifully and touchingly did our Lord exhibit His peculiar interest in, and regard for, young children, when, despite the rebuke of His disciples, He took them in His arms, blessed them, and said, "Allow the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not, for of such is the kingdom of heaven." Are we not justified by this touching incident in the life of Christ- no, does it not come with all the solemnity and force of a positive command-I n dedicating our infants to God by prayer, and in seeking the early conversion to Christ of our more intelligently and responsibly advanced children? Who can for a moment question it?

The Church of God is yet to be more deeply instructed and more thoroughly roused upon this subject- the subject of early conversion. The emissaries of papal and infidel error- equally with the agents of an ungodly world- are directing their most potent batteries, and are exerting their most strenuous efforts in securing the conversion of the young to their deadly creeds and their fatal sway. The next generation will be just what the religious or the irreligious forces of the present age make it. It is of the utmost moment that pious parents, Christian ministers, evangelical guardians, Sabbath-school teachers, and gospel laborers should make the early conversion of the young the great object of their most vigilant, strenuous, and prayerful efforts. To this end instruction in the great doctrines of Christianity, and in the distinctive principles of the Reformation, as also in the nature of vital, experimental, and practical religion, should be simply, scripturally, and earnestly enforced.

The Bible is replete with instances of early piety, which at once settle the question as to its practicability, while they hold out every encouragement to its attainment. Samuel, Josiah, Jeremiah, John the Baptist, and Timothy are among the witnesses left on sacred record to show that such piety has existed in the Church of God; and we are confirmed thereby in our belief, and are justified in stating that, through the instrumentality of godly parents, and praying teachers, and devoted ministers, such instances may exist in any dispensation of the Church and in any age of the world, and may exist- and would exist if sought in the prayer of faith, now.

We are speaking in these pages of that sacred and illustrious example of the holy child Jesus in the temple. While this fact stands recorded in the Bible, we have both the warrant and the encouragement to seek on behalf of our offspring, the early converting grace of the Spirit, "that our sons may be as plants, grown up in their youth, that our daughters may be as corner-stones polished after the similitude of a palace" -that they may be "planted in the house of the Lord, and flourish in the courts of our God." Let it not be supposed that the doctrines of the gospel are too recondite, or that its precepts are too spiritual, for the comprehension of young children. It is this fatal mistake that has led in so many instances to the abandonment of the soil to other more earnest but soul destroying laborers. Children for the most part have a quicker understanding and a more tender conscience than many of riper years. I could fill these pages with examples. Let one or two suffice.

An ungodly father, accompanied by his little son, went into a corn-field one Sabbath morning, when all others had gone to the house of God, for the purpose of robbing it of grain. Before entering the field, he rested on the fence, and cast his eyes around to ascertain if there were any one near that would be likely to notice him. Finding no one, he entered upon his work of depredation. While gathering the corn, his little son thus accosted him, "Pa, what made you look round so when you were on the fence?" "Be still," replied the father." "But what made you do so, Pa?" "To see if there was anybody in sight," was the reply. "And doesn't anybody see you, Pa?" " No." "But can't God see you in the corn field Pa?" This reproof was enough. The father's conscience was touched. The idea of an omniscient God roused him, and he left the field and his ill-gotten grain, and returned to his home a wiser and better man.

Another instance. A godly mother was giving vent to the anguish of her lacerated heart upon receiving word of the death of her husband at a distance. Her sorrow was intense, and she refused to be comforted. Her little child inquired the cause of her grief. The reply was, "To think that you are a little orphan girl." "But what is an orphan, Ma? " "Your Papa is dead, my dear. You will have no Papa to take care of you any more." The little thing covered her face with both hands for a moment, and then lifting her moistened eyes to her weeping mother, said, "Ma, don't cry so; is God dead, too?" It was the message of God. Out of the mouth of a babe and suckling the God of all comfort, even the God of the widow and the Father of the fatherless, spoke sweet consolation and hope to that widow's broken, bleeding heart.

One more fact shall suffice. In a New England town, where it had formerly been the practice to urge all moral people to unite with the Church, lived a wealthy man who had in this way become a professor of religion, but alas a professor only, having the form without the experimental and practical power of godliness; so that he lived in the entire and sinful neglect of family worship. On one Sabbath afternoon, after returning from the funeral of a child, where the clergyman had taken occasion to urge upon parents the necessity of faithfulness in giving their children religious instruction, and in accompanying their instruction by their prayers- as the family to which we have alluded were sitting at the teachable, a little daughter interrupted the conversation by inquiring, in the simplicity of her heart, "Ma, did not the man say at the funeral that Christians should pray in their families, and talk to them about religion?" "Yes," was the reply. "Well, Ma, Pa does not do it." This appeal was an arrow of conviction to the father's heart, resulting in his hopeful conversion to God, and the erection of a family altar where God was worshiped morning and evening.

Who, in view of these facts, will for a moment doubt that young children can understand the truth, feel the power, and recognize the obligations of true religion? Truly, "out of the mouths of babes and sucklings, You have perfected praise."

But, in this our faith's travel to Bethlehem to see this great sight which has come to pass there- the birth of the Holy Child Jesus, we who are of full age are instructed in some of the greatest and most precious truths of our Christian faith. In the first place, the doctrine of the true humanity of our Savior is thus vividly brought before us. In this doctrine, lies the great mystery of godliness- that God should take up into union with Himself the nature of man; that the Word- the Eternal Logos- should become flesh. "The Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us." "God was manifest in the flesh" We attempt not to unravel this great mystery, to fathom this awful depth- or to explain, still less to understand, the mode of the Incarnation. Enough for us that God's word declares it- that it was essential to our salvation, and that its believing reception is a true mark of those who are born of God. "Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh, is of God."

Behold, then, the grace and love displayed in this wonderful stoop of the Son of God. "The word was made flesh, and dwelt among us; and we beheld His glory, the glory of the only-begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth." We behold in the Humanity of our Lord a Reservoir of all saving truth, of all divine grace, and of all rich consolation. Upon that humanity, so holy and pure, met all our sins, curse, and condemnation. It was bruised and put to grief for us. For us it was bowed with sorrow; for us scourged and spit upon; for us crowned with thorns, mocked, and insulted; for us it was led to Calvary, tortured, bled, and put to death.

Oh, how has our nature been ennobled and yet abased, dignified and yet abused, bathed with glory and yet covered with shame in the Person of the Son of God! Oh, what blessing, inconceivable, indescribable, flows from the humanity of our Lord, thus so humbled, so crushed, so slain! Its real power and sweetness can only be fully exhibited under the pressure of the wine-press. It must be subjected to trial, must pass through the furnace, must be crushed and bruised, before its sweetest fragrance could be breathed or its greatest power be felt.

The human nature of our Lord was holy, essentially and entirely holy, free from all taint of sin. And yet it bore sin. Upon it God made to meet all the transgressions of His elect Church. It could come in contact with sin and not be defiled, because it was essentially holy. It could pass through the searching furnace of temptation, and come forth unscathed by the fire, because it was impeccably pure. The idea has been raised by those who have strongly contended for a theory closely bordering on the idea of our Lord's sinfulness, that the assault of a temptation supposed the existence of a liability to succumb to the temptation. Never was reasoning more unsound and illogical. We ask, How was it that Adam fell? He was pure and sinless, and yet he was tempted.

There was no sin in Adam, no tinder upon which the spark might light and the flame be enkindled. Why, then, did he succumb to temptation and fall! Because God made him free to stand or fall. God withdrew His power, and he yielded to the tempter's assault. But when the same Enemy came to our Lord, and shot at Him with arrows drawn from the same full quiver, and sped by the same malignant hand, he found no sin in Him. How true and impressive the words of Jesus- "The prince of this world comes, and has nothing in Me. Nothing by which he can accomplish his malicious design -nothing of evil he can allege- nothing of sin upon which he can work." Precious truth is this to the soul that finds nothing but sin and all manner of evil in its own self, but yet believingly and humbly trusts in the one sin-atoning sacrifice of the sinless Savior.

Not the least precious truth we learn at Bethlehem is, the oneness of the Son of God with all the instincts and circumstances of our nature- the perfect identity of His humanity, though entirely sinless, with ours, though entirely tainted with sin. The humanity of our Lord was not human because it was more holy than ours. In a former work, I have endeavored fully to show that sin was not a necessary element of humanity, that it did not enter into our original creation, and that our nature would be all the more human, and therefore all the more ennobled, were sin entirely extirpated from our being. Our Lord's humanity, then, was essentially identical with ours in all but its sin. Thus we read "As the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also took part of the same." "Wherefore in all things it behooved Him to be made like unto His brethren."

And why, among other reasons, this perfect identity of His humanity with ours? Even that from this well-spring, pure and undefiled, might flow a stream of sympathy which should soften, soothe, and assuage ours in all the sufferings and sorrows it meets with in its travel through this vale of conflict and of tears. There, then, repair, believer in Jesus, with the sin, the burden, and infirmity chat clings to you, with the sorrow that bows, with the disease that wastes, with the wound that bleeds, and with the spirit that mourns and weeps in secret places. Jesus is touched with the feeling of your sorrow and your infirmity. From the shrine of Bethlehem's manger shall flow a brother's tender sympathy- even the Brother born in that lowly place for your adversity. Over that stable-door is written, in words which only faith can see and read, "Emmanuel, God with Us." God with us in our sin-burdened nature, God with us in our sorrow-stricken nature, God with us in our Satan-tempted nature, God with us in our sick, suffering, and bruised nature.

Let us with the shepherds now go even unto Bethlehem, and "see this thing which is come to pass, which the Lord has made known unto us." Let us with the wise men from the East, "fall down and worship Him, open our treasures, and present unto Him gifts: gold, and frankincense, and myrrh"- the Christmas offering to Jesus of a contrite, believing, and loving heart.

Yet another precious truth we learn. Where did Joseph and Mary in their anxious search for the lost child at length find Him? Failing in all other places, they at length directed their steps to the temple, and found Him there. There we, too, must repair. Weary and disappointed, perhaps, in our search, how often have we found the Lord in the sanctuary where His name is recorded, where His gospel is proclaimed, and where His people assemble together to sing praises to His name. But, be it the public sanctuary or the private closet where the soul is alone with God, Jesus is there waiting to welcome and to bless. We have gone in weariness, and have found in Him rest; in grief, and have found Him the "Consolation of Israel;" in perplexity, and have found Him the "Wonderful Counselor." He has soothed and comforted us, has turned our water into wine, our sorrow into joy, has untangled our web, and has brought us out of a strait into a large place, and we have exclaimed, "I have found Him whom my soul loves."

Of what infinite importance that those who occupy pulpits should faithfully and fully preach the Lord Jesus Christ! There will always be those present who have come to the temple in earnest, anxious search for the Holy Child Jesus, inquiring of the watchman, "Did you see Him whom my soul loves? " What, if through our Christless ministry they should not find Him! What, if they should be compelled to retire from the sanctuary mournfully exclaiming, "They have taken away no Lord, and I know not where they have laid Him." How great their loss how terrible our woe!

We learn another precious truth- that, with the Holy Child Jesus in the arms of our faith, the sting; and dread of death is removed. What a touching spectacle that of good old Simeon in the temple, when the parents brought in the Child Jesus to do for Him after the custom of the law- "Then he took Him up in his arms, and blessed God, and said, Lord, now let you your servant depart in peace, according to your word, for my eyes have seen your salvation."

How many of the Lord's people will read this page, who, all their lifetime have been in bondage through the fear of death. But why, beloved, this bondage? Why this fear? Jesus died to break your every fetter- to break even this, the last, the latest, and most solemn one. He took upon Himself the bondage, the fetters, the imprisonment, that you, His loved and ransomed one might be released. Because He has died, there is a sense in which you, blood-bought one, cannot die, yes, shall not His even see death "Whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die. Do you believe this?" "If any man keep my saying he shall never see death." Christ has abolished death, leaving to His saints nothing but its shadow. Go forth, then, sick and drooping one, and meet the 'last enemy' without dread! With the Holy Child Jesus enfolded to your believing and loving breast, you shall not see death, but Jesus only. Death, through Christ, shall lose all its terror, as through Him it has lost all its sting. And as you pass down the valley, you shall wake its echoes with your song–
"Jesus, the vision of Your face
Has overpowering charms;
Scarce shall I feel death's cold embrace
With Christ within my arms."

What a holy and impressive lesson for pious youths does the subject of these pages teach! Our Lord was still a young man when He finished as a faithful servant, as an obedient Son, the business entrusted to His hands. And yet His worn and aged look bore witness to His faithful, untiring devotion to His Father's business. We have all a work to do for God, a testimony to bear for Christ. Our Divine Lord and Master has given "to every man his work." And to each youth called early by this grace, His loving command is, "Son, go work today in my vineyard." Let your grateful and responsive heart inquire, "Lord, what will you have me to do? Show me my mission, open to me the door of service, and then give me grace to enter and labor for You- however humble my work, or obscure my sphere, or unrewarded my toil, if You are but glorified." Be up, then, and doing in your Lord's vineyard. Why do you stand all the day idle? There is no lack of service for souls, and for Christ. Our Sabbath schools need teachers- the highways and hedges of our cities and towns demand evangelists- our pulpits lack ministers- and the foreign field cries aloud for missionaries. The harvest truly is great, but the laborers are few. And what, though like your Lord and Master you early consume in this blessed service- what though your locks become prematurely silvered- your countenance becomes less blooming- your brow less smooth- your features stamped with an early expression of care and thoughtfulness- your spirit less light and your heart less buoyant? Great and consolatory will be the reflection that you employed the first of your life and the best of your powers for Jesus, and the well being of your fellow-man. Rich will be your present happiness, and bright your future career. Your work soon done, your rest will soon be gained, and your crown sooner won.

Unconverted youth, these pages have a message from God unto you. For whom are you laboring, and for what are you living! Is it for sin, and for Satan, and for self! or is it for God, and for Christ, and for man? Are you living for time or for eternity! for this world, or for the world that is to come? Decide this momentous question with a certain, and a solemn, endless future before you. Awake to righteousness and sin not. "Flee youthful lusts." Go to Bethlehem, and learn from Jesus the happiness of a holy life, and the blessedness of an early consecration to God. You will find 'the way of transgressors hard,' and the 'wages of sin death.'

But, on the other hand, 'Wisdom's ways, ways of pleasantness, and all her paths, paths of peace.' Choose whom you will serve!

"Let not O generous youth, your mind recoil
At transitory pain, or manly toil;
Nor fondly linger in the painted vales,
Nor crop the flowers, nor woo the summer gales,
Heedless of Pleasure's voice, be yours the care
Nobly to suffer and willingly to dare;
While Jesus waves on high the radiant prize,
And each firm step but lifts you to the skies."

The last truth to which we refer is one most appropriate and consolatory to bereaved parents mourning their dead infant. I think we may fairly infer from this subject the eternal safety of all those who die in infancy. Our Redeemer was once Himself a little child. He manifested a peculiar interest in, and a warm affection for, little children. He commanded them to be brought to Him. He invited them to come to Him. He placed His hands upon their heads and blessed them. He said, "Of such is the kingdom of heaven." In heaven their angels do always behold the face of my Father. And then He went to Calvary and died for them. What need we more? All who die in infancy are saved- not because they are innocent of sin- not because of holy parentage- not because of baptismal dedication- not because they knew not good or evil- for none of these things are infants saved; but they are saved through electing love, and sovereign mercy, and the precious blood of Christ. "There is none other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved," but the name of the Holy Child. Jesus.

And through that One Name, all who die in infancy- even "infants which never saw light," whose spirits passed away amid the perils of their transit to our world- go to heaven and join the infant choir, and sing "Hosanna to the Son of David!" Are there, then, infant choirs in heaven? Oh yes!

"The harp of heaven
Had lacked its least, but not its meanest string,
Had children not been taught to play upon it,
And sing, from feelings all their own,
what men or angels can conceive of creatures born
Under the curse, yet from the curse redeemed,
And placed at once beyond the power to fall."

There are few events of human life which pierce the soul as with a sword more keenly than the death of an infant. It was, perhaps, the first-born. It had been long desired, fondly looked for, joyously welcomed, and tenderly cherished. It had, probably, arrived at that age in which the first beam of intelligence and love played upon its infant brow. It has begun to discriminate between objects around it, and to discover that on earth it had but one deity- its ever-present mother; and but one Heaven- that mother's bosom. But sickness seized it, and, like a snowdrop smitten by autumn's early frost, it faded, drooped, and died.

The consolations appropriate to your bitter sorrow, bereaved and sorrowing parent, are many and precious. Your little one is now with Jesus, once the Holy Child. It has fled from sin and suffering and gloom to a world where all is pure and blissful and bright. Its embryo being has reached a full development, its love is deeper, its mind is larger, its bliss is greater than the most cultivated intelligence upon earth. It knows more and feels more than the loftiest angel in heaven -itself an angel. A redeemed spirit, it sees and understands more of the glory of God and the love of the Savior in redemption than the flaming cherubim bending for ages in profound study over the mercy seat. Jesus has but transferred the little daisy from your bosom to His own- and you shall find it there again. There let your affection travel. The Shepherd has gathered your lamb to His arms that you might follow Him more closely. Press hard after Christ, and soon you and your little one shall meet in glory- and meet forever! "It is well with the child." Let your bleeding, sobbing heart respond- IT Is WELL. "Your will, not mine, be done."

"When I can trust my all with God,
In trial's fearful hour,
Bow all resigned beneath His rod,
And bless His sparing power;
A joy springs up amid distress,
A fountain in the wilderness.

"Oh! to be brought to Jesus' feet,
Though sorrows fix me there,
Is still a privilege; and sweet
The energies of prayer,
Though sighs and tears its language be,
If Christ be near, and smile on me.

"An earthly mind, a faithless heart,
He sees with pitying eye;
He will not let His grace depart;
But, kind severity,
He takes a hostage of our love
To draw the parent's heart above.

"There stands our child before the Lord,
In royal vesture dressed;
A victor before he drew the sword,
Before he had toiled, at rest.
No doubts his blessed faith bedim,
We know that Jesus died for him.

"Oh, blessed be the hand that gave;
Still blessed when it takes.
Blessed be He who smites to save,
Who heals the heart He breaks.
Perfect and true are all His ways,
Whom heaven adores, and death okays."

Jesus Wept or, Christ's Love at the Grave of Lazarus

"Behold how He loved him." John 11:36

Never did our blessed Lord appear more completely like Himself as when, dissolved in tears, clad with power, and glowing with love, He stood by the grave of Lazarus. It would seem as though this was His most befitting place. He had come from a state of pre-existent glory to destroy death, and him that had the power of death. He had come to unbar the grave, to restore life, and to blend His sacred sympathy with man's deep woe. And now, on an occasion entering deeply into His own personal feelings, and in the presence of competent witnesses- some fortified with scepticism, others warped with prejudice, yet others more with hearts bursting with grief- He presents one of the most touching and signal displays of His power as God, and of His love and sympathy as man, which marked His illustrious and eventful life. Let us bend our devout thoughts to the scene before us.
One feature alone will engage our attention- that one enough to employ our study and wake our praise through eternity-the love which Christ illustrated and displayed at the grave of Lazarus: "Behold how He loved him." I am not about to present for your study an affection alien from yourself- a love in which you have no share. The love which Christ exhibited for His deceased friend- which first bedewed and then unsealed his grave- enfolds within its embrace and pillows upon its bosom alike each member of His elect and redeemed Church; and if you believe that Jesus died and rose again, if He is all your salvation and all your desire, then I am about to illustrate a love in which you have a personal, inalienable, and most precious interest.
"Behold how He loved him!" Such was the exclamation of the Jews as they gazed with awe and wonder upon the tears of Jesus. They resolved the whole scene into love. Blinded as they were to His Messiahship, and prejudiced against His religion, yet the love of the Savior, which had now found so touching and sympathetic an outlet, inspired their wonder and awoke their praise. This exclamation of the Jews was but an echo of the expressive declaration which introduces the narrative, "Now Jesus loved Martha, and her sister, and Lazarus." Jesus loved them. He loved them from everlasting. He loved them when He called them by His grace. He loved them in their domestic relation, and His love now culminates at the grave.
What are some of the leading features of Christ's love as displayed on the occasion of this bereavement, and which, in similar manifestations, embraces all His disciples in all places? Oh, that while we meditate upon this a great love with which Jesus loves us, the theme may enlighten our minds, warm our hearts, and take captive every power, thought, and affection for the Savior. We turn now to the instructive incident. The first feature of Christ's love which it exhibits is seen in the delay which attended His coming to the sisters in the earliest stage of their anxiety. Lazarus was sick, but Jesus was not there. This we find in the sixth verse, "When He heard therefore that he was sick, He abode two days sill in the same place where He was." It was for this apparent neglect on the part of Christ that Martha in her impassioned and impetuous grief thus gently chided Him, "Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died."
But the Lord had a reason for His conduct, which He thus condescendingly explains, "I am glad for your sakes that I was not there, to the intent you may believe." What a striking and instructive feature in the Lord's love is presented to us here- the delay which often attends His coming to His people's help. We should have supposed that the moment Jesus heard that Lazarus was sick, and that his sisters were filled with alarm, He would not have hesitated in presenting Himself at the door of an abode which He had often visited when bathed in sunshine, but which He now deserts when enshrouded in gloom. But oh, how replete with instruction is this incident of the narrative. It was the delay of love- what a holy lesson of Christian experience! If the Lord sees proper to suspend for a time His help, to postpone for a season His coming, He has reasons for His conduct, which do not in the slightest degree contravene His wisdom, or the great, the tender love, with which He loves us. And yet how apt are we to misinterpret this delay, and call in question His love when its manifestation is for a moment suspended. This was the case with the Church of old, "Zion said, The Lord has forsaken me, and my Lord has forgotten me." But how does God meet this charge?- by reproof? -by indignation? Oh no! He meets it like Himself, gently, lovingly, touchingly, "Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? yes, they may forget, yet will I not forget you. Behold, I have engraved you upon the palms of my hands; your walls are continually before me."
If possible, still more touching are the accents of His faithful, unchangeable love towards His people in those remarkable words found in the 54th chapter of Isaiah's prophecy: "For a small moment have I forsaken you; but with great mercies will I gather you. In a little wrath I hid my face from you for a moment; but with everlasting kindness will I have mercy on you, says the Lord your Redeemer." Is there a stage in your experience, my reader, corresponding with this? Is there a mysterious pause, a solemn silence, a strange delay on the part of God in His dealings with you? Is there a tarrying of the vision, a hiding of His power, a veiling of His purpose? No immediate response to prayer, no divine interposition on your behalf, no joy or comforter hope imparted? Does God seem deaf to your entreaty, Jesus ignorant of your position, or indifferent to your distress? And are you ready, like the agonized sister, to misinterpret His conduct, and to chide His delay?
Go to Bethany and learn that the Lord, in this delay, in coming to your help is but waiting the appointed and the best time to interpose on your behalf. He is but concealing His purpose to make your deliverance appear all the more divine, His sympathy all the more tender, His love all the more faithful. The darkness which, for a moment, obscures the sun of His love will, when the cloud shall have withdrawn, but deepen its splendor and heighten its effulgence. He is veiling His designs of mercy and His loving-kindness, that when He does manifest Himself, He may be all the more glorious in your eyes and precious to your heart; while you will take a lower place in the dust, instructed, disciplined, sanctified, by that very silence which you thought so mysterious, and by that very delay which you deemed so unkind.
God knows your present position; Jesus is not indifferent to your present sorrow, and will appear on your behalf. He is cognizant of the need that presses, of the sickness that alarms, of the bereavement that crushes; and only waits the ordained, the best time to come to your help, the time that will give you the most touching, overwhelming demonstration of the great love with which He loves you! "But the vision is yet for an appointed time, but at the end it shall speak, and not lie though it tarry, wait for it; because it will surely come, it will not tarry,"
We find another characteristic of the love of Jesus in the friendship which subsisted between Him and Lazarus. "Our friend Lazarus sleeps," said the Lord. The love of Christ is the love of friendship. There is something exquisitely sweet and costly in the affection of a true, loving, confiding friend. Real friendship is one of the few blessings of our humanity which sin, though it has tainted and impaired, has not entirely crushed out. But where shall we find a friendship like Christ's, so pure and unselfish, sc constant and real?
There is no sin or infirmity in Jesus. He was without sin. Purer than light flowing from the sun, or water from the spring, is all that emanates from Christ. We cannot inhale earth's sweetest flower, or sip its purest stream, or take to our bosom the choicest friend God has given us, and not find a secret something which, in a measure, lessens its enjoyment.
But all the blessings which we have in Jesus partake of the pure, benevolent source from which they flow, and are perfect; and whatever may be the smiting of His rod, the utterance of His voice, the movement of His hand, it but reflects the holy and loving nature from where it springs. The love of Jesus thus toward you is the love of a Friend possessing all the attributes both of a Divine and human friendship. "I have called you friends." He admits us to the confidence and affection of His heart, and asks, in return, that we reciprocate the same, and admit Him to ours.
Oh, what a Friend is the Lord Jesus! how little we know of the reality, depth, and constancy of His friendship! how faintly we believe in it, how slow to employ it, how ready to misinterpret it, how prone to wound it! And yet never was there such a friend as Christ! A Friend loving us at all times, ever showing Himself friendly- yes, a Friend that sticks closer than a brother. Yes! "closer than a brother." A brother's heart, in your adversity, maybe hardened, his door closed, his love and sympathy alienated, or else, with a will, he maybe powerless to aid you. The wise man says, "Go not into your brother's house in the day of your calamity: for better is a neighbor that is near than a brother far off." But Jesus is that Friend who more than takes a brother's place. He is both a Friend loving at all times, and a Brother born for adversity.
"A Friend more tender, true,
Than brother e'er can be
Who, when all others bid adieu,
Remains the last to flee;
Who, be their pathway bright or dim,
Deserts not those who turn to Him."
Another feature of the Lord's love as illustrated in the history of Lazarus is, its resurrection power: Jesus said to Martha, "Your brother shall rise again." God often sees fit to write the sentence of death upon His promises and upon our blessings. The Bible is replete with examples of this. Perhaps, the most eminent and instructive one is that of Abraham. God made him a great promise, namely, that he should be the father of many nations, and that in his seed all the nations of the world should be blessed. But before this promise was fulfilled, age was to impair all the means naturally leading to its accomplishment. "Being not weak in faith, he considered not his own body now dead, nor yet the deadness of Sarah's womb."
Thus did God write the sentence of death upon this great and precious promise before He accomplished it. And even after its accomplishment, and the son of promise was given, God commanded him to "offer up his only begotten son, of whom it was said, That in Isaac shall your seed be called; accounting that God was able to raise him up, even from the dead; from where also he received him in a figure." Thus God, as it were, wrote the sentence of death, first upon the promise, and then upon the blessing, after the promise was fulfilled. He may deal thus with you- ask the surrender of your 'Isaac,' and when obediently made, yield it back to you again.
And was not this the case with the patriarch Joseph? Long before the vision of the sheaves should be realized, he was to be sold as a slave and imprisoned as a criminal, God thus writing death upon the vision. And so was it with David, king of Israel. God promised him a kingdom, and gave command to the prophet to anoint him king. But before the promise is fulfilled, it must apparently die. David is thrust out, became a fugitive and a wanderer from the vengeance of Saul, is hunted upon the mountains like a partridge, and hides himself in the dens and caves of the wilderness, like a traitor.
And thus, too, was it with Job. The sentence of death must be inscribed upon children, and upon substance, and upon health, and upon all his comforts, before God's purpose of love was accomplished in "blessing his latter end more than his beginning."
And take that illustrious example of this mode of God's dealing presented to us in the life of our blessed Lord. How truly did the sentence of death pass upon Him before "God highly exalted him, and gave him a name which is above every name." He must first be made of no reputation, must take upon Him the form of a servant, must be despised, rejected, insulted, slain. All this must be before He is glorified. Thus was fulfilled His own words, "Verily, verily, I say unto you, except an ear of wheat fall to the ground and die, it abides alone; but if it die it brings forth much fruit." Such are some of the illustrations of this truth that, before -God fulfils a promise, or bestows a blessing, He often seals it with the impress of death.
But then follows the glorious resurrection! In all the cases we have thus cited, the bringing back to life of the promise and of the blessing, followed the death which God wrote upon all. Beloved, there is a resurrection power in Christ's great love to us. He may permit- as in the case of Lazarus, the precious blessing to die, but, as in his case, He can come and stand by the grave that entombs it, and with one word raise it up to life again. Deem not, then, your mercy gone, your blessing lost, when death seems to veil it from your view. There is the germ of an imperishable life in every new covenant, blood-purchased mercy, which no death can kill, and which no grave can retain. God hides it for a while that He may take its place. Christ buries it that He may be our All-in-all.
And when the holy lessons are learned, and God takes His rightful place, and Jesus has the pre-eminence in our hearts, the love of the Lord will give us back our dead and entombed mercy. What a glorious foreshadowing have we here of our personal, happy, and eternal re-union with the holy dead! The sentence of death has passed upon them- the grave contains them- the veil of the invisible world conceals them from our view. But, at the Lord's second coming, His trumpet will sound, and the dead in Christ will rise first, and then will come the complete re-union and the perfect fellowship, when the risen body is re-united to the glorified spirit, and all the saints, clad in their resurrection-robes, will meet, recognize, and banquet together at the marriage supper of the Lamb!
Yes, wait but the Lord's time, and your smitten mercy shall quicken into life again, your lost joy shall be restored, your departed happiness shall return, and your buried hope shall rise from the tomb all the brighter for its transient eclipse. "Light is sown for the righteous, and gladness for the upright in heart." "Weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning."
Another feature of Christ's love most touching and marvellous, as illustrated by this narrative- is, its sympathy. "Jesus wept." These are among the most wonderful words recorded in the Bible. They mark the most exquisitely tender, touching, and expressive incident in His whole life. God has constituted us emotional beings. He has not only endowed us with intellect, but also with sensibility. He has given a head to think, and equally a heart to feel.
The religion of Jesus, as embodied in His own life, was not intended to congeal the fine feelings of our nature, to crush and annihilate the sweet, tender sensibilities of our being, to convert us into monsters. His religion is not the religion of stoicism. It is the religion of God, and is therefore the religion of love. It is the religion of Incarnate love, of Him who left the realms of glory and tabernacled in this vale of tears, who exchanged the anthems of angels for the sighs and groans and tears of men, who was laid in a manger and sorrowed in Gethsemane- who died upon the cross, and left the luster and fragrance of His risen life in the tomb. The gospel of Christ does not therefore petrify our sensibilities, forbid our feelings, or chide us when we go to the grave to weep there. "Jesus wept," wept from emotion, wept from sympathy. Is there a more consolatory, soothing view of Christ's love than this? -it is a compassionate, sympathizing, weeping love. "We have not a High Priest who cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities." "Wherefore in all things it behooved Him to be made like unto His brethren, that He might be a merciful and faithful High Priest." He is touched by our infirmity, sympathizes with our sufferings, weeps with us in our bereavement.
His sympathy is of the highest, purest type. No taint of sin mars it- no element of selfishness warps it- no ingredient of weakness impairs it. It never wearies or slumbers, it never chills or forgets. It entwines with our every cross, attaches to our every burden, and frosts with sparkling light each darkling cloud. It is not the vapid sentiment of fiction, nor the morbid sympathy of romance. It is a divine-human reality- the sympathetic love of the Incarnate God. Let your faith, then, repose with confidence on the reality of Christ's sympathy with your grief. Deal not with it as a fable, but as a fact, a gospel fact, an actuality in the experience of all the afflicted, suffering members of His body.
Oh how sacred and precious are the tears of divine love, the tears of Jesus! Soothed and sustained by such a sympathy as Christ's, we may well drink meekly the cup our Father mingles; we can well afford to be severed from all other sympathy, and weep out our sorrow in lonely places.-Jesus weeping with us by the couch of languor, by the bed of darkness, and at the grave of buried love. O you afflicted one, tossed with tempest and not comforted, refuse not this cup of consolation which the Holy Spirit, the Comforter, would give you- the sympathy of your Lord and Savior, your Friend and Brother in the time of your calamity. Yield yourself to its irresistible power, and it will draw you submissively to His feet, and hush to rest your sobbing heart upon His bosom.
But there is a practical lesson taught us in the tears of Jesus, which we must not overlook. If there is any one thing in the saints of God more unlike Christ than another, it is a hard, unfeeling, unsympathizing spirit towards others- the spirit that looks coldly upon those who through sinful infirmity may have erred: who have been overtaken by a fault and have fallen- or, who are enduring some severe persecution for truth,- or, are bearing some heavy cross for Jesus,- or, are passing under the correcting rod of their heavenly Father. Oh, did we drink more deeply into the spirit of Christ, were we more like Him, patient and gentle, tender and loving, we should go forth among the frail, the afflicted, the mourning, bearing the honored title of, "Sons of Consolation."
Let us cease, then, to censure and condemn, to reveal the shame, and speak of the faults and frailties of others; and, in the spirit of self-condemnation, let us, like Jesus, learn to weep with those that weep, while we rejoice with those that rejoice. Then shall we be as the dew in all places where the Lord directs our steps- we shall support the weak, and raise the fallen, we shall strengthen those who are combating with infirmity, and cheer on those who are struggling against sin; we shall sweeten with honey the cup of gall, and gild with sunshine the cloud of woe, and so prove ourselves true disciples of Him who took upon Him our sorrows, bore our sicknesses, and who went about doing good. Does Jesus weep with you? Go you and weep with others.
One more feature. The love of Jesus is a spiritual, life- restoring love. This is beautifully brought out in the words which He addressed to Martha, "Your brother shall rise again." The love of Jesus is the love of essential life: what a thought is this! What a view it gives us of the reality, power, and preciousness of this love. It restores to life. What love other than a Divine, Essential love could do this? In its spiritual sense how true and blessed is this fact. Are we truly converted? Are we living souls? Has the life-giving love of Jesus wakened us from our spiritual sleep, unsealed our grave, and said to us "Live?" In a word, is Christ our life?
"Your brother shall rise again." Is the soul of him you love wrapped in the profound sleep of spiritual death? Has nothing prevailed to raise it? Has warning failed? Has threatening failed? Has judgment failed? Has mercy failed? Have the thunders of the law rolled, and the lightnings of justice flashed over that grave, and it still remains unopened? Have the beams of goodness shone upon it, and the dews of mercy distilled upon it, and is it still sealed? Now let Jesus draw near, and with tears of compassion like those which He wept over Jerusalem, and with a voice like that which raised Lazarus from the sleep of death, address Himself to the spiritual resurrection of the dead, and your brother- your long sinning, long dead, long buried brother- shall rise -and the voice of life-giving love shall do it.
The power of Christ's life-giving love is not less exhibited in the providential dealings of God in our history. I venture once more to recur to this thought, so important is it, that God often sees fit in infinite wisdom and righteousness to write the sentence of death upon His promises and upon our blessings. In the words of the apostle, "We have the sentence of death in ourselves," and there is the sentence of death upon the blessings, upon the promises, and upon all the means leading to their fulfilment. Is God thus dealing, beloved, with you? Is the blessing dead? Has the sentence of death passed upon the promise? Is the barrel of meal failing, the cruse of oil exhausting? Is the human arm upon which you so fondly leaned powerless in death? and the friend upon whom you so long relied gone? Listen to the words of love as they flow from the Savior's lips, "Your brother shall rise again."
His mercy, beloved, is not dead, but sleeps. The promise is not dead, but slumbers; there is life in the blessing- there is immortality in the promise, because there is life Essential, restoring life in the Promiser. That mercy enshrouded by the shadows of the tomb- that mercy once possessed but now gone- that promise once given but still delayed, has enfolded within it a deathless being, and the resurrection-power of the Savior's love shall restore it again to life, all the more loved, loving, and precious, by the very discipline which for a while veiled it from your view.
Thus the love of Christ possesses essential life within itself, imparting life to all it effectually touches. It will fulfil the promise upon which you rest, even though the sentence of death be written upon all the means which lead to its fulfilment. He will restore to you the blessing which long delay in coming to your help seemed for a while to have robbed you. "Your brother shall rise again." Thus Jesus gave back to Martha and Mary their dead and interred brother.
Oh, what a blessing to them now was the very loss of the blessing they mourned! They never knew so much of Jesus as they learned during those four days that Lazarus lay in his winding-sheet within the tomb. A lifetime of divine and holy teaching, of spiritual and experimental experience, was compressed within the space of those four days of bereaved grief. Beloved reader, the Lord intends that the very loss of your mercy shall be a greater blessing to you than the possession of the mercy lost! If the Holy Spirit sanctify it, if it leads you closer to God, if Jesus steps in and fills the void, you shall be richer and holier and happier than when you once clasped the now vanished and buried blessing to your heart.
He intends by its very removal to enlarge your experience, to increase your knowledge, to deepen your holiness, to enrich you with all spiritual blessing, and to endear Himself sevenfold to your heart. You shall now learn more of the character of God, know more of the heart of Christ, partake more richly of the inworking of the Holy Spirit, and realize more fully your calling and election than has yet been your experience.
And what a shadowing forth, as previously remarked, have we here of the certain and glorious resurrection of the saints! The resurrection of Lazarus was a type, as the resurrection of Christ was the pledge, of the final resurrection of the just. "Now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the first fruits of those who slept." The same voice which said, "Lazarus, come forth!" will wake the peaceful slumbers of all who sleep in Him.
Believers anticipate too faintly the resurrection-glory that awaits them when Christ, who is "the Resurrection and the Life," will raise us from the dust, and fashion our bodies like unto His own glorious body, according to the power whereby He is able to subdue all things unto Himself. Oh what a blessing the first resurrection will be! No more sin- no more deformity- no more infirmity- no more pain- no more death. We shall be raised a spiritual body- the material, the gross, the perishable forever annihilated; and we shall re-enter the same body, personally and identically the same which we bore about with us on earth, but now spiritualized, re-organized, and adorned with all the beauty of holiness.
"Arrayed in glorious grace
Shall these vile bodies shine,
And every face and every shape
Look heavenly and divine."
But we must not overlook the marvellous display of the union of the divine and the human nature of our Lord which now transpired. Jesus never appeared more truly GOD, nor yet more really MAN, as now. As Man He wept tears of sympathy over the grave of Lazarus; as God He unsealed it; as Man He mourned the dead; as God He raised the dead to life. Here is blended in marvellous union all the tenderness and sympathy of the human, with all the power and majesty of the divine. Such is the Savior with whom we now are privileged to do.
Because He is God-man, He is able to save to the uttermost all who come unto the Father by Him. His atoning death- sealed and accepted by His resurrection from the grave- has provided a full and free salvation for every penitent believing, sinner. Do you feel yourself sinful, self-destroyed, and lost? His Holy Spirit has taught you this, and now you have nothing to do but to accept in faith the full atonement and sacrifice the Lord Jesus has made to God for your sins, and you shall be saved! Within the great love with which He loved Lazarus He is prepared to enfold you. The voice which brought him back from the dead is ready to pierce your spiritual grave and raise you into newness of life. Listen to His words, "Verily, verily, I say unto you, The hour is coming, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God; and those who hear shall live."
Have you thus heard the life-giving voice of Jesus? Rest not until the question is fairly answered by the Holy Spirit's sealing testimony in your conscience, that Christ is the life of your soul. Oh that voice of Jesus! it is the strongest, yet the sweetest; the most powerful, yet the most gentle voice ear ever heard! It is the VOICE OF LOVE! "Behold how He LOVED him!" Remember that Jesus is with you at the grave when you go there to weep. He will, too, accompany your body when those who love you bear the sacred remains of what was once a "temple of the Holy Spirit" to their final resting place. And when they slowly and sadly return from the solemn scene, and leave you there in lonely silence, Christ will watch over your sleeping dust with an eye of love that never wearies until that day when "all who are in the grave shall hear His voice, and come forth; those who have done good unto the resurrection of life; and those who have done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation."
"The resurrection of damnation!" solemn words! but not more solemn than the final state of the ungodly to which they refer. The awfulness and solemnity of that state no language can describe. There will be a resurrection of all- of the just and of the unjust. But God has put a marked difference between the two, both as it regards the time and the character of the event. A thousand years will intervene between the first and the second resurrections. "Blessed and holy is he that has part in the first resurection; on such the second death shall have no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with him a thousand years."
My reader, for which of these two resurrections are you preparing? The resurrection of life or the resurrection of damnation? A part you must have in one or in the other. The resurrection of damnation! What is it? It is to rise to shame and everlasting contempt. It is to rise with all your sins unatoned, unpardoned. It is to rise with all your sinful affections, and carnal passions, and evil habits still and forever clinging to your being. It is to rise clad in the robe of eternal death, and to join in the dirge of mourning, lamentation, and woe, whose dismal sounds will burst from every churchyard, from every cemetery, and from every sea, on that dread morning. It is to rise but to sink into the abyss of endless woe!
Are you prepared for so fearful a catastrophe? Are you resolved upon so terrible a doom? If not, then fly to Jesus without a moment's delay. Seek immediately spiritual resurrection with Christ now, that you may partake of the "first fruits of those who sleep in Him,'' and so have your "part in the first resurrection." He is willing and He is able to save you. Your sins shall not debar you. Your unworthiness shall not exclude you. Your age shall not discourage you. Christ receives sinners and He will net reject you. But you must come as you are, and accept His salvation as it is. You must come empty, priceless, worthless, and receive as the free gift of God's grace, the salvation which no worthiness could merit, and which no price could procure.
The same redeeming love that raised up Lazarus from the grave, is prepared, if prayerfully and earnestly sought, to raise you from a death of sin into a life of righteousness. Son of God! Speak the word, and the soul shall come forth! O You who are the Resurrection and the Life- whose great love led You to die that we might live- cause me to feel the power of Your resurrection, that I may live by You, and live upon You, and live for You now: and that when the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, I may rise to glory, honor, immortality, and eternal life, and live with You forever. O You whose love wept at the grave of Lazarus, let those warm tears of love fall on me- even me!
Jesus wept! Why, Savior, did you weep?
What meant Your sighs and falling tears?
Could You not break the dreamer's sleep,
And rob the grave of all its fears?
That man, poor sinful man should shed
A thousand drops of bitter grief
That on his curse-devoted head
Earth's woes should pour without relief
Were but the gall his hands have wrung
From fruit of sin's forbidden tree
His pangs are but a conscience stung
By poison fangs he cannot flee.
But, Savior, You no sin did know
Your holy heart from guilt was free;
From Your pure soul no grief could flow
The tears You shed were not for You!
No, no, but Your responsive heart
Thrilled to the wail of others' woe;
You felt Your soft affections start,
When others' tears began to flow.
When Martha's sobbing voice awoke
The music of a brother's name;
When Martha's gushing spirit spoke
In sad responsive tones the same;
Oh, then, from purest sympathy,
Your meekly lifted eyes did weep,
And from Your heart's deep fountain clear,
Your friendly, jeweled tears did leap!
The wasting form before You laid,
Immured in cold Corruption's cave,
To You, O Savior, was not dead
You mighty Conqueror of the grave!
You knew that Your Almighty Word
Would pierce the cold dull ear of Death;
That at the summons of the Lord
The wasting lungs would heave with breath.
You knew that before Your tears were dry
Lazarus upon Your neck would weep;
That before was hushed the sister's sigh,
Her bounding heart with joy would leap;
You wept; but oh, 'twas not the grief
Of Mary, Martha's heavy heart
Your tender soul sought sweet relief
To share in others' griefs a part.
Perhaps Your heaven-directed eye
Beheld, before the Great White Throne,
The weeping spirit backward fly,
Again in cumbrous flesh to groan.
Perhaps the motive of Your sigh
Is Lazarus- not his sister's tears
Not in the grave, but in the sky,
The cause of grief, perhaps, appears.
As on a rude and treacherous tide,
The storm-chased sailor sighs for home,
And long, 'mid heaving waters wide,
Prays for a safe and quick return.
And when, at last, far off he sees
His snow-white cottage on the shore,
He bends to Heaven his grateful knees,
Thanks God for sight of home once more.
When, bounding to the long-sought shore,
With kiss a waiting mother greets,
And, safe within his cottage door,
To friends at home his toils repeats
Could then some hard and sad decree.
Tear him from fond parental arms,
And hurl him back beyond the sea,
Again to battle with its storms,
Oh, then his failing heart might know
What grief a sainted spirit pure
Who's left this stormy world below,
And made the port of bliss secure.
Endures, when summoned from the skies,
To wear his load of flesh again;
To fight once more to win the prize;
Again to sin and suffer pain.
So thus t'was fit, Your power to prove,
And stubborn unbelief to slay,
To drag a spirit from above
To dwell once more in house of clay.
No doubt You also did bewail
Man's sin and bold rebellion vile;
What curses over his heart prevail
How guilt and sin his soul defile.
No doubt, the thought of Joseph's tomb,
Which open for Your body lay,
Cast over Your mind a saddening gloom,
And wrapped Your soul in dread dismay.
The grave a lesson had for You,
Which man, alas! too rarely heeds;
It told how dreadful sin must be
Which such severe chastisement needs.
At Lazarus' grave this truth I scan,
While faith its sacred silence trod:
Your gushing tears have proved You MAN,
The bursting grave has proved You GOD.

Be Not Afraid Or, the Voice of Jesus in the Storm

Immediately he spoke to them and said,
"Take courage! It is I. Don't be afraid." Mark 6:50

Our Lord had just performed one of His most notable miracles. He had fed five thousand men with five loaves and two fish. Let unreflecting doubters, wont to impugn the integrity of the Bible, and to reject the evidence of miracles, candidly and solemnly weigh this fact, as those who are responsible to God for their belief; and accept with humility and faith the conclusion to which it must inevitably lead them- a firm persuasion of the Deity of Christ and the truth of His Word. Anxious to avoid the popular excitement to which this benevolent display of Divine power gave rise, our Lord retired to a mountain, and was there alone. His disciples, thus dismissed by their Master, "went down to the sea, and entered into a ship, and went over the sea toward Capernaum." It was during this voyage the incident occurred which supplies our present subject. The topic which it naturally suggests is, "THE VOICE OF JESUS IN THE STORM" -a topic replete with deep instruction and sweet comfort.
There is a chapter in every Christian's higher life corresponding with this incident in the life of Christ. The believer's path to glory is "through winds and storms and waves." His spiritual life is, figuratively, a voyage- tempestuous seas his pathway, but heaven the port he will ultimately and surely reach. It is in the storm the voice of Jesus is now heard. Let us consider the disciples in their present condition as illustrating much of the spiritual history of the Christian.
The first spiritual storm he combats is, his earliest conviction of sin; and a blessed storm it is! The Holy Spirit like "a mighty rushing wind," breathes over the soul, and the anxious cry of the Philippian jailer is heard, "What must I do to be saved?" Until now the soul has lived in all the quietness of spiritual insensibility. There has indeed been a calm, but it was the calm of death; peace, but the peace of the grave. The soul has been dead in trespasses and sins. But now there is a storm, an awakening, a resurrection from a death of sin. The law of God has been applied to the conscience, its holiness is seen, its condemnation is felt, and the soul cries out, "Lord, save, I perish!"
My reader, has this storm of sin's conviction passed over you? Has it roused you from your deep, Jonah-like sleep? Has it driven you out of your lying refuges, your false pleas, and your fatal hope? Have you felt the vessel of your soul sinking amid the dark, surging waves of condemnation yawning to receive you? Spirit of the living God! blow upon the soul that it may live! Alarm the careless, awaken the sleeper, quicken the dead, and create such a tempest of sin's conviction, as the voice of Jesus alone can still.
We do not assert that all conviction of sin, in its first stage, partakes of the same character. There is a diversity of operation in the Holy Spirit's work. With some, the first storm of conviction is not so violent; it is more the soft, gentle breeze, breathing as from the sunny south. With others, it is the north wind that blows powerful and penetrating; but, in both cases it is the same Spirit that quickens, and both operations illustrate the mystery and sovereignty of divine grace.
Be careful, there fore, of ignoring your conviction because, measuring your experience by others, you find your early conviction of sin was not of so pungent and marked a character as theirs. This would be unwise. There are two gates into the great temple of God's converting grace- the north gate and the south gate. (Ezek. 44:9) Two individuals entering, the one by the north, and the other by the south gate, will meet together in the same sacred edifice, and together unite in the same eternal song, "By grace are we saved!"
To deny, then, your conversion, because you were rather drawn to Christ than driven, were borne to the cross upon the gentle wing of the south gale, rather than upon the strong, rude wing of the north wind, would be both unwise to yourself and dishonoring to the Spirit. You felt yourself a sinner, you saw enough of the plague of your own heart to despair of all salvation in and of yourself, and thus spiritually convinced you went in faith to the Lord Jesus with the acknowledgment,
"Other refuge have I none,
Hangs my helpless soul on You."
See, then, that you do not grieve and disown the Spirit by denying His most blessed work of grace in your soul. Wait His time; sooner or later, He will show you more of your sinfulness, will reveal to you greater abominations than you have yet seen, when your deeper experience, your increased knowledge of Christ, and the blood that cleanses from all sin, will enable you to look into this new 'chamber of imagery' in your soul without despair.
Acknowledge, then, the sovereignty of the Spirit in conversion, be thankful, and praise God that you know anything at all of yourself as a sinner, and anything of Christ as your Savior. "It is the Spirit that quickens." Blessed are they who feel His gentlest breath!
"As blows the wind, and in its flight,
Escapes the glance of keenest sight,
So are the wonder-working ways
Of God's regenerating grace.
As over our frame we feel the gale,
Gently or mightily prevail,
So some are softly drawn to heaven,
And others as by tempest driven."
The disciples in the storm is also symbolic of some of the spiritual exercises of the believer in his Christian journey. Probably, when these disciples of Jesus embarked upon their voyage, they little dreamt of the tempest that awaited them. They, doubtless, expected a smooth and safe passage to the other side. And thus when many of God's people set out upon the Christian voyage, and spread their sails to the fair, gentle breeze, they little anticipate the tempestuous winds and high seas they will encounter before they reach the haven where they would be.
But the Lord sees the 'needs be' for those storms, and so in wisdom and love, He sends them. Hence, soul-storms consist often of a more painful acquaintance with self- a deeper knowledge and conviction of indwelling sin- the power of the law brought into the conscience- a sense of divine wrath- the hidings of God's face- the fiery darts of Satan. All this is needful to help the soul onward. We have need to be shaken out of our spiritual slothfulness- to be roused from spiritual apathy- to be stirred up to prayer. Light winds help us onward but little, smooth waves still less.
"More the treacherous calm I dread;
Than tempests bursting over my head."
This, perhaps, is in answer to prayer. You have long asked the Lord to speed you in your heavenly course, to advance you in the divine life, to increase your personal holiness, and to endear Himself to your soul. You have longed to feel the Savior more precious, for a closer walk, for more matured fitness for heaven, for a stronger and more favoring gale wafting you more truly and rapidly onward to the eternal haven. The Lord has answered your prayer in a way you may not have expected, but still it is the right way. He has sent the storm; the waters have come into your soul; and the frail, trembling bark has well-near submerged.
But what line can measure the increased speed your soul has attained through those tempestuous days and dreary nights pursuing its way homeward-bound? The character of God has been more blessedly unfolded to you; you have got a firmer hold upon Christ; the faithfulness of the Covenant has been more thoroughly tested; the promises have become more precious; and all this has been in answer to your many earnest and long-offered prayers that your soul might "grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ." God has answered you, but in His own way.
There are, then, the storms of adversity which the believer encounters in his course. Our Christianity does not exempt us from those afflictive events which are alike common to the world. Life is a troubled-sea; and all who plough it more or less encounter the storms of adversity which sweep its surface. Affliction, sooner or later, in some one or more of its endless forms, is our portion here. It is a necessary discipline. It is a preparatory process for the appreciation and enjoyment of heaven.
I do not think that heaven would have the enjoyment it possesses without trial. Its happiness is so great, there must be an education, a fitness of the soul for its enjoyment. That education is obtained in the school of sorrow. All the saints in glory, headed by Christ their Leader, came out of great tribulation. And if the Elder Brother- He, the sinless Savior, He, the blessed Son of the Father- was not exempt from tribulation, shall we ask, shall we desire it?
Diversified are the storms of God's people, deriving their character often from the peculiar position in which each believer is placed in life, just as the storms which sweep the ocean derive their intensity from the latitudes in which they occur. Do we possess affluence? -the storms of adversity sweep it away, and we are poor. Are we in places of power? -the wind of popularity changes, and the idol of today becomes the football of tomorrow. Is our table encircled by loved olive branches, or does the gentle vine entwine in clinging beauty around our dwelling? -death enters and bears away the fond treasure of our heart; the olive branch fades, the tender vine is smitten and dies.
"Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivers out of them all." "Through much tribulation we are to enter the kingdom." But oh, how helpful in our heavenly course are these rude and fierce tempests! Many of the Lord's people will testify that their souls make little or no real progress in the divine life, but under the pressure of adversity. As we have remarked, light breezes and smooth seas help them on but little. The vessel is so slow sailing, and withal so heavily-laden, that nothing but strong winds and tempestuous waves, and cross seas, speed it on in its heavenly way.
To change the figure: just as the tempest impels the root more deeply and firmly into the earth, the tree thus acquiring vigor and growth by the very means that threatened to sweep it from the forest, so "God's trees of righteousness," trees of His own right-hand planting, are "rooted and grounded" in Christ and in faith and in love by those very trials, afflictions, and sorrows which seemed the most adverse to their well-being. Affliction is a sowing time, a growing time, a harvest time- the discipline not pleasant now, but afterwards yielding the peaceable fruits of righteousness to those who are exercised thereby.
Testify, O afflicted one, what a precious, priceless blessing that affliction has been to your soul. Testify how the storm that made you poor, enriched you with God's love; how the tempest that broke the stem of your beautiful flower, brought you more closely beneath the shadow of the tree of life; how the contrary winds, and the cross seas, and the surging waves impelled your bark onward, giving you, through the glass of faith, a closer, brighter view of the desired haven where Jesus is bringing all His spiritual mariners. But for the storm how little should we know of His power who controls our tempest, and of His love who quells our fears.
And where was Jesus while the disciples were in the storm? He was alone in the mountain in prayer- in prayer for them! Why did He withdraw His presence well knowing that dangers and fears awaited them? That they might learn the great lesson of the Christian life, namely, that, "without Me you can do nothing." It is thus the Lord now deals with us. He will have us know our weakness, and dependence upon Him our strength. He will wean us from ourselves, and deaden us to the world, and teach us where our great supplies of grace and power and comfort are.
And all this time of our earthly storm and danger, where is Christ? He is in heaven, now to appear in the presence of God for us." He is in glory praying for His Church. With a sleepless eye of love resting upon our storm-tossed souls, He is interceding for us with the Father, that our afflictions engulf us not, that our faith fail not, that our fears prevail not, but that we may be kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation.
Oh how sweet a truth is the intercession of Christ! How soothing and sanctifying the thought, that we are now resting upon His bosom, are entwined with His prayers, that our names are borne upon His heart, that our needs are breathed from His lips, and that our people are ever represented before God in His own! We make too little use of the intercession of Jesus, our great High Priest within the veil. It is too seldom the subject of our meditation, is too loosely entwined with the events and experience of our daily, professional, and home life. By this neglect what loosers we are! What a fount of sympathy our own hands seal, and from what a source of succor we sever ourselves!
Is there any thought more strengthening, animating, and promotive of our holiness, than that Christ is each moment praying for us in heaven? We ask the prayers of the Lord's people, and are strengthened thereby. How much more needed, precious, and prevalent the intercession of Christ! Earthly friends die, or distance removes them, and in process of time we, perhaps, lose their sympathy and prayerful remembrance. But, "Jesus ever lives to make intercession for us." Exalted though He is in glory, the same heart beats within that breast that throbbed and sorrowed and bled on earth.
Encircled by myriads of glorified spirits, He is not neglectful of His saints below. He trod the path you now tread, and sanctified it. He passed through your temptation, and foiled it. He drank your bitter cup, and sweetened it. He traveled through your darkness, and illumined it. He bore your cross, and lightened it. He suffered your persecution, and disarmed it. He experienced your death, and plucked the sting from the last foe. He lay in the grave, and left an undying light and fragrance there.
Look up to Him, then, as your Intercessor. Nothing that He asks the Father is refused Him. He never receives a denial. Your suit, blended with His own, prevails in the Chancery of heaven. And when through suffering, or languor, or sorrow you cannot pour out your needs yourself, Christ is praying for you, employing His interest in your behalf with God. And Him, the Father hears aways.
And could the Lord be ignorant of, or indifferent to, the present position of His disciples? Impossible! He beheld them from the shore. They recognized not Him, but His wakeful, watchful eye rested upon them. "He saw them toiling in rowing, for the wind was contrary unto them." The yawning ocean, the billow's spray, the misty storm could not veil them from His view. Lord, You know my present position. You see my mental conflict, my spiritual exercises, my bodily infirmity, how high the waves, how contrary the wind, how fierce the tempest, how exhausting the toil in rowing. Sweet and comforting assurance, my reader!
Others- the nearest and the dearest- may know nothing of your inner life, the world of excitement within, the anxiety of mind, the nervous pressure, the spiritual conflict, the trial, the sorrow, the need through which you are passing; enough, that Jesus stands upon the shore of glory, and gazes down upon all the way you take with an eye of watchful, faithful love! Nor will he ever remove that eye until He brings you home to Himself in heaven.
"Begone, unbelief, my Savior is near,
And for my relief will surely appear;
By prayer let me wrestle, and He will perform;
With Christ in the vessel, I smile at the storm.
"His love in times past, forbids me to think
He'll leave me at last in trouble to sink;
Each sweet Ebenezer I have in view,
Confirms His good pleasure to help me quite through."
But Jesus, as in the case of Lazarus, tarries. "It was now dark, and Jesus had not come to them." Why this delay? Oh, there was infinite wisdom and divine love in it. He waited but the fittest moment to appear on their behalf. In the same light as we have already exhorted, let us view all the Lord's postponements and delays in appearing on our behalf. He waits the appointed time. It is, perhaps, dark- oh, how dark! -and still there are no signs of Christ's coming to your help. Be it so. He would have you now learn, that it is good for a man that he has hope, and quietly wait for the salvation of the Lord."
There is no obscurity with Him, "He judges through the dark cloud." And when the night, long and dreary, has deepened into a darkness that might be felt, at this juncture Christ appears walking upon the water. It has been a night of weeping, but now the morning dawns, and it is a morning of joy. There is a day-dawn, beloved, succeeding the darkest and longest night of our history. "The night comes, and also the morning." Faint not in the day of adversity. Let faith and hope hold out, and patience have her perfect work until Jesus comes. "Until the day break, and the shadows flee away, I will get to the mountain of myrrh, and to the hill of frankincense."
O yes, Christ is coming! and all these clouds shall quickly melt into the light and splendor of millennial and eternal day. The "Bright and Morning Star," already high in the heavens, shines through the interstices of the clouds which drape and darken the sky, and will soon beam forth in its full, unclouded effulgence. This night of weeping will soon have passed, and then will come the glorious morning, and the perfect and endless day of millennial bliss.
"And about the fourth watch of the night He came unto them walking upon the sea." The fourth watch, or about three o'clock in the morning, the darkest and most wishful period of the night. Their emergency was His gracious opportunity. The height of their fears was the measure of His love. It is thus with his people now. It is dark, and Jesus has not come to us. But it must grow darker still! The "fourth watch" must come.
The darker the night the more visible the stars, and more brilliant the heavens. God's interpositions on our behalf are never so marked and grateful as when our extremity is the greatest. Jesus' love never shines so bright, His pity never appears so tender, His grace never so illustrious, as when we are brought to our wit's end. He waits until the "fourth watch" of our night of tempest and of anxious toil; and then, when weary and exhausted with rowing against wind and tide, our difficulties only exceeded in their height by the fears which they inspire, treading the crest of the billows He advances to our deliverance!
What marvellous words are those- "walking upon the sea." He made it. He set its bounds and He controls it; and now, in all the majesty of His Deity, blended with all the sympathy of His humanity, He comes to the help of His disciples. How truly did He now appear the Sovereign of the seas, the Head of creation! "The waters saw you, O God, the waters saw you; they were afraid: the depths also were troubled." They acknowledged the Godhead, and obeyed the voice of their Creator, proud that He trod their limpid pavement.
Who can tread the broken and dark waves that often dash and foam and surge around us, but Jesus! What are our troubles, what our sorrows, what our needs, what our difficulties, to Him! He can as easily control the huge billows which come into our soul, as He walked upon the sea to the rescue of His disciples. Oh, how we limit the Son of God! What low views we have of Christ! -of His power, His grace, His love, His nearness to us at all times!
We turn again to the disciples. So supernatural was their Lord's appearance as He approached them- His feet tipping with golden light the mountain billows- the disciples were afraid, for they knew not that it was Jesus. Little thought they how near to them, amid the storm and in their highest fears, was their best, most powerful, and ever faithful Friend!
And thus we often, too, mistake our blessed Lord. We are so filled with fear, are so desponding and sinking, that, looking at God's character through His dealings, and interpreting His promises by His providences, like the disciples in the storm, appalled and overwhelmed with terror, we cry out for fear! And when, too, the Holy Spirit gives us a deep, and still deepening, sense of our sinfulness, and we have a vivid perception of the justice of God, seeing Christ through this dark and hazy medium, just as the disciples saw Him only through the gray twilight of morning, we exclaim, "Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord!" mistaking our Savior for an avenger, our Friend for a foe.
How groundless for the most part are the fears of the believer in Jesus! There is but one thing we need fear- sinning against God. "How can I do this great wickedness, and sin against God?" "You, God, see me." Such is the strong language of a God-fearing man, a saint of God fearing only sin. But we have no reason to distrust God, or to fear that Christ will not come to us walking upon our troubled waves just at the crisis when our peril is the greatest and our alarm the highest.
"He talked with them." He brought them at once into communion with Himself. The first tones of His voice betrayed Him, and its first accents allayed all their fears. Jesus talks with His people now. They hear His voice amid the raging tempest, in the cloudy pillar, from 'the secret place of thunder,' and in the still, calm hour of pensive thought.
"It is the voice of my Beloved," exclaims the Christ-loving disciple, speak how and when it may. "My sheep hear my voice, and they know not the voice of strangers." Have we this mark of the true sheep of Christ? Can we distinguish the voice of God from man, the voice of truth from error, the voice of Christ's true ministers from false teachers, the voice of Jesus from the voice of all others? "The sheep follow Him, for they know his voice."
Jesus still talks with His people. He speaks pardon to the guilty, peace to the troubled, comfort to the sad, heart-cheer to the fearful, and hope to the despairing. There is but one voice that can still the tempest of the soul and give it peace. Let no voice but Christ's assure you of your salvation- no voice but God's ever pronounce you pardoned. He has delegated no priestly authority or power to man either to bind your sins or to loose them, either to confess or to absolve you. It is daring presumption that claims it, the deepest blasphemy that employs it, and the basest and most abject prostration of the intellect that acknowledges it. I return to the thought, let no voice but that of Christ pronounce your sins pardoned. Let nothing but an applied Atonement, the blood sprinkled, allay your convictions, quell your fears, and assure you that you are really, truly saved.
And, then, with regard to prayer, endeavor to realize the idea of real fellowship and communion to be just this- Jesus talking with you, and you talking- as did the disciples on the mount- with Jesus. How will this conception of what true prayer is simplify your approach to the mercy-seat! Prayer is, Christ talking with us, and we talking with Christ. Dwell upon this thought until all your vague, cold views of prayer vanish, and you find yourself sitting at the feet of Jesus, bathed in the sunshine of His presence, talking with Him in all the simplicity of a little child, and gazing up into His face in all the confidence of a loving disciple.
"It is I, be not afraid." Such were the thrilling words with which He calmed their excited feelings, soothed and assured their troubled minds. Words of marvellous significance! Of all the many titles which He wore, not one is mentioned now. Nor is this needful. This one word, this divine personal pronoun, contained and expressed them all: "IT IS I"
Such is the voice of Jesus to us now. It speaks in every storm- faith hears it in every circumstance of life. Christ's union with His people involves His personal control of all the events of their individual history. Indeed, there is not an incident in your momentous life which does not bring Jesus to your side, riding as in a chariot, bright or somber. The checkered events of your daily life are so many comings of Christ to you, and are equally so many errands bidding you go to Him. He wants us to meet Him in all His providential dispensations.
If each one contains His heart- as it most assuredly does- He asks the union of our heart with His. Listen, then, to the voice of Jesus in the storm. "It is I" -who raised the tempest in your soul, and will control it. "It is I" -who sent your affliction, and will be with you in it. "It is I" -who kindled the furnace, and will watch the flames, and bring you through it. "It is I" -who formed your burden, who carved your cross, and who will strengthen you to bear it. "It is I" -who mixed your cup of grief, and will enable you to drink it with meek submission to your Father's will. "It is I" -who took from you worldly substance, who bereft you of your child, of the wife of your bosom, of the husband of your youth, and will be infinitely better to you than husband, wife, or child. "It is I" -who have done it all.
I make the clouds my chariot, and clothe myself with the tempest as with a garment. The night-hour is my time of coming, and the dark, surging waves are the pavement upon which I walk. Be of good cheer, be not afraid; "It is I -your Friend, your Brother, your Savior. I am causing all the circumstances of your life to work together for your good. It is I who permitted the enemy to assail you, the slander to blast you, the unkindness to wound you, the need to press you. Your affliction sprung not out of the ground, but came down from above a heaven-sent blessing disguised as an angel of light clad in a robe of ebony. I have sent all in love. This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God. This bereavement shall not always bow you to the earth, nor drape in changeless gloom your life. It is I who ordered, arranged, and controlled it all! Be of good cheer; be not afraid."
Oh, responds your heart: "Then, Lord, I bow humbly to Your will. I welcome the affliction, and embrace the cross. It is no longer a baptism of fire since You are with me. This couch of weakness is strength; this bed of suffering is feathered; this flaming furnace is a paradise, while I hear Your gentle voice floating above the storm, 'Be of good cheer: it is I; be not afraid.' Enter, dear Lord, into the door of my heart, for You have it. Then I shall rejoice in tribulation, glory in infirmity, and welcome the storm. I cheerfully drink the cup of sorrow You have given me, and would return it to You over-flowing with Your praise.
"The moment the disciples received Jesus into the ship, the wind ceased, and there was a great calm. What an instantaneous and delightful change! Thus is it with the tempest-tossed believer. When the Lord Jesus draws near and manifests Himself, all is peace! The storm of mental anxiety subsides, spiritual fear ceases, the burden is lightened, despondency vanishes, and a great calm diffuses itself over the soul. "He stays His rough wind in the day of His east wind." The fear that produces torment gives place to perfect love; the legality that engenders bondage is succeeded by the spirit of adoption, crying "Abba, Father;" and the heaven-bound bark glides placidly along the dimpled sea, and rides gently over the gold-tipped waves, and steers straight for the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, into which it has are abundant entrance- and so He brings them unto their desired haven.
All believers may not have this "abundant entrance" into glory- that is, they may not all enter heaven in full sail- nevertheless, all shall assuredly enter there, though, like Paul's shipwrecked mariners, "some on boards, and some on broken pieces of the ship." Delightful thought, that all who are in the gospel-ship, all who have God their Father at the helm, all who have Christ for their pilot, shall weather every tribulation, and trial, and temptation of life, and reach heaven at last!
But let it not, my reader, concerning yourself, be a matter of uncertain and doubt. Agonize for an assured hope of heaven. Be satisfied with nothing short of "Christ in you, the hope of glory." Press forward until you have found the rest, the only rest, of a poor sinner in the blood and righteousness of Christ. Then you may confidently commit yourself to all the vicissitudes of the Christian's voyage. You may have cloudy skies, and tempestuous seas, and dark nights, but you will find Jesus a "hiding-place from the wind and a covert from the tempest."
He who created the winds will control them; He who made the sea will command it; He who formed the clouds will balance them, and through deep and dark waters will lead you to the Rock that is higher than you. In every stormy wind, in every darksome night, in every lonesome hour, in every rising fear, the voice of Jesus shall be heard, saying, "Be of good cheer: it is I, be not afraid."
Do you shrink from the "swellings of Jordan?" Are you in bondage through the fear of death? Do you dread the solemn, the appalling hour? Why these fears! Jordan's waves are all under the control of Jesus! He has had more to do with death than we ever shall. He passed through the trackless deep, and left a path paved with the foot-prints of His feet; and when we reach its banks, and enter the cold stream, we have only to follow His footsteps- for He has abolished death- and pass dry-shod over Jordan.
Repenting sinner, Jesus waits to receive you. At the voice of your weeping, He will be gracious to you. His own Spirit wrought in you this contrition, unsealed these tears, inspired these desires, awoke these confessions; and the work the Holy Spirit has begun in your soul, Jesus Christ will complete in your full, free, and present salvation. But you must believe in the Lord Jesus now, and with all your heart. You must accept Him just as He is and just as you are, without qualification or demur. There must be no adding to, or taking from, the Savior's work. Not a thought or feeling that will cast the shadow of a shade upon His glory.
It would not be a greater dishonor to Christ to deny His very being than to deny His ability and willingness to save a sin-distressed, wounded, broken-hearted sinner. As to one point there can be but one rational conclusion, namely, that unless you accept Christ as your only Savior, and Christ receives you as an undone sinner, Christ and you can have no agreement, or fellowship, or union whatever. If you are looking at works, and duties, and fitness as grounds of acceptance with God, instead of looking wholly and exclusively to Jesus, it will cost you dear in the end.
You must come to God, bringing nothing but your sins with you! You must renounce your baptism, your obedience, your duties, your graces, your sanctification, your tears, your humblings, your sacraments, as grounds of acceptance, and nothing must be seen, nothing trusted in, nothing held up but Christ. All these things, valuable in their proper place, yet mixed up with your faith and love and trust in Christ, will but poison and corrupt your graces, neutralize and defeat your salvation, and keep you out of heaven forever. Christ must be, in the great matter of your acceptance with God, all, and in all.
Be equally trustful and hopeful as to the well-being and safety of the Ark of God, His Church, now tossing amid the billows. It is true, the sky is lowering, and clouds are gathering, and the sea is swelling, and many of the officers and crew are mutinous against Christ and His truth; nevertheless, her great Captain and Pilot stands upon the heavenly shore, and He is present by His Spirit, and watches with a sleepless eye of love His storm-tossed Church ploughing through the deep, its way to glory. All these things shall work together for its good; all shall conspire but for the furtherance of the gospel, the triumph of His truth, the increase of His kingdom, and the glory of His name.
Error may for a time be in the ascendant, Infidelity, Ritualism, and Popery, may have their day; but, give Divine Truth time, and it shall, it must win. The victory may be deferred, the contest may be protracted, the end apparently uncertain; but the triumph is as sure as the result will be manifest and glorious. Were it otherwise, we might well enfold ourselves in the mantle of despair. If there be not in the gospel of Christ, if there be not in the Church of God, if there be not in the eternal principles of truth and righteousness, elements which give them a present superiority, and ensure them a final supremacy, what stimulus should we have for present effort, and what ground should we possess for faith and hope in the future!
But we have no misgiving. Possessing the consciousness of ultimate triumph; firm in our belief in the divine promises, and in the final reign of Christ, we are calm in defeat, hopeful in discouragement, and trustful when all things seem against us. "Therefore will not we fear, though the earth be removed, and though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea; though the waters roar and be troubled."
Amid the raging elements we hear the Heavenly Voice, "Be still, and know that I am God." Yes, Lord, we will be still, trustful, hopeful. "The floods have lifted up, O Lord, the floods have lifted up their voice; the floods lift up their waves. The Lord on high is mightier than the noise of many waters, yes, than the mighty waves of the sea."

It is well, my soul, though the dark cloud lowers,
And the reaper has gathered your choicest flowers;
Though the tempest roar, and the waves run high,
A sweet voice whispers- Fear not, it is I!
Those accents so tender, so loving, and kind,
Can scatter the tempest, and silence the wind;
Can still the rough waves into perfect repose,
And cause the waste desert to bloom as the rose.
Then, since it is the hand of an infinite God
That in wisdom corrects me, I'll smile at the rod,
Yes, rejoice in affliction, so graciously given,
To wean me from earth and allure me to heaven.
And when the wild storms of life's journey are past,
And the haven of glory is entered at last;
Midst the songs of the ransomed my anthem shall swell
To the praise of His name who did all things so well.

Daily Cleansing, or Christ Washing His Disciples Feet

"Jesus knew that the Father had put all things under his power, and that he had come from God and was returning to God; so he got up from the meal, took off his outer clothing, and wrapped a towel around his waist. After that, he poured water into a basin and began to wash his disciples' feet, drying them with the towel that was wrapped around him." John 13:3-5

I have remarked, in a previous part of this work, that never did the sympathy of Christ appear more true than when, suffused with tears, He bent over the grave of Bethany. I may observe, with equal truth, that never did His humility appear more like itself as when the impressive act transpired which is now to engage our study- His washing the feet of His disciples.
Our Lord's life was a practical gospel. He was no mere theorist. He embodied every doctrine He taught, illustrated every precept He enforced, fulfilled every command He enjoined, and was, in a word, a living, practical, exemplification of His own gospel. With what confidence He could meekly say to His disciples, "Learn of me."
Let us now direct our devout attention, as the Spirit of God shall enable us, to this marvellous and most instructive incident in His life. Christ washing His disciples' feet, as teaching the necessity of our daily cleansing. The chief interest of this wondrous picture gathers around its Central Object. And who is He? It is Jesus. We measure the condescension of an act by the rank of the person from whom it emanates. And yet it is possible for such an individual to occupy a false position. He may so far forget what is due to his station as to demean himself unworthily. Oblivious of all self-respect, he may so lower himself as to deprive the act to which he stoops of all true condescension on his part. So far from its being an attribute of greatness, challenging our admiration, it may be but an expression of littleness awakening our contempt.
Apply this reasoning to the present act of Christ washing His disciples' feet. It was no false position which He now occupied. In the eyes of man it may have been regarded as despised- in the estimation of a proud Oriental, as the act of a slave- but viewed in all its bearings, the Person, the, occasion, and its significance, it presents our Lord in one of His most truer and dignified position.
Glance at the expressions which conduct us to this conclusion: "Jesus knowing that the Father had given all things into His hands." There was no forgetfulness of His personal dignity on the part of Jesus: He knew, who, and what He was at the moment that He stooped to perform the most menial service of His life. He knew that "the Father had given all things into His hands.
A precious truth meets us here. All things were given to Him as Mediator. All power, all authority, all wealth, all grace, all worlds, all beings, the whole elect Church of God, were by the Father placed in the hands of Jesus. And yet at the very moment that He possessed all this opulence, He was, as man, poor, friendless, homeless, and had nowhere to lay His head!
If this be the mediatorial wealth of Christ, then let us repair to Him for all that we need. Pharaoh placed all the resources of Egypt in the hands of his prime-minister, and when the people in their hunger cried to him for food, he Said, "Go to Joseph." And thus God has dealt with Jesus. He has deposited all the unsearchable riches of grace and glory in the hands of His beloved Son, in whom it "pleased the Father that all fulness should dwell." And when we need grace and strength, wisdom, comfort, and counsel, as we do each moment and for every circumstance, God's command is, "Go to Jesus." If all things were given by the Father into His hands as the Mediatorial Head of His Church, it was not for Himself, but for His Church, for whom He was thus appointed the Trustee and Guardian; and we are warranted, no, invited, to repair to Christ; that out o£ His fulness we may receive grace to help in every time of need. Yes, the grant of the Father to Christ is comprehensive and illimitable. "The, salvation of the Church, the government of the world, the final judgment of all men, and the universal supremacy of his kingdom, in its millennial glory- all, all is given into the hands of our Savior.
Our Lord then alludes to His mission to our world. "Jesus knowing that He had come from God." Here was another evidence of His dignity. He had come from a pre-existent state, and from a heaven of glory; on a mission of mercy to man. Behold low low He stooped! He who bowed to bathe the feet of His disciples, bowed the heavens and came down on an embassy of love! Yes, of love! He came not to roll the thunder and to flash the lightning of God's wrath, but to proclaim the fact and to breath the accents of Hits mercy.
He came not as a judge but as a Savior, not to condemn but to save. Here is salvation for the vilest, pardon for the guiltiest, hope for the most despairing. If the Spirit of God has shown to yourself, has revealed to you the plague spot of sin, and has filled you with self-abhorrence and sin-loathing, then Jesus came from God for the express purpose of saving you. Having done all the work, completely accomplishing His mission from the Father, He issued a proclamation which He commanded should be made known to all the world, extending a free pardon to every sinner who will accept in penitence and faith the great salvation that God has provided for the chief of sinners. What glad tidings for poor, self-destroyed souls do these words contain- "Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us, by the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit." Cast yourself in faith upon His mercy in Christ Jesus, and you are saved!
As if to add the completing link to the chain of evidence touching His dignity, reference is then made to His return to His glory. "And went to God." His ascension into heaven, His return back to the kingdom and the glory which for a while He relinquished, was as much His right as God, as it was His reward as man. "What if you see the Son of Man ascend to where he was before!" "Jesus said, "I am returning to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God "
The atoning work was done, the victim slain, the sacrifice offered, the oblation accepted, and every claim of God's government met, and now the great High Priest returns to heaven and enters into the holiest to present, as the ground of His intercession, His own sacrifice for sin on behalf of His elect. Such is He whom now we are studying, from whom we are to learn one of the lowliest acts and one of the holiest lessons of our Christian life.
"He poured water into a basin and began to wash his disciples' feet, drying them with the towel that was wrapped around him." Look at the act first as setting forth a doctrine- the doctrine of the Atonement. There cannot be a doubt but that our Lord intended by this to impress His disciples with the importance, of 'the blood-cleansing of which they stood in need; without which they could have no part with Him. The Atonement is so great, essential, and precious a truth. It is the central doctrine of the Bible- that our Lord made every act of His life a finger-post pointing to this fact. "without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness." No pardon of sin; no cancelling of guilt; no covering of transgression, without BLOOD. There must be Atonement. The death of Christ supplies it. His blood, containing all the virtue of the Godhead, possesses a moral and sovereign efficacy. It is the only thing in the universe that really, savingly touches sin. Sin is the greatest evil. Sin is the vilest, darkest, most dreadful thing. It laughs to scorn all expedients to cleanse, to subdue, to annihilate it, but the atoning blood of the Son of God- before this it trembles and falls! Brought into believing contact with this, its, guilt disappears, its stain vanishes, its power is conquered, and its every threat of condemnation is hushed in the music of the cross!
Remember the words of Jesus- "If I wash you not, you have no part with Me." No part with Christ in His obedience and sufferings, no part with Him in His great salvation, no part with Him in the glory into which He has entered, no part with Him when He shall come in all the majesty and triumph of His kingdom, unless we are washed in His blood "If I wash you not, you have no part with Me." My reader, are you washed in this blood? Have you bathed in this fountain? Has it cleansed you from all sin? Remember, it is the blood that gives you union with Christ, He cannot unite Himself with a soul which He has not first washed. He can have no union with uncleansed, unpardoned sin.
Washed in the fountain of His blood, you have a part with Christ in His sufferings now, and will have a part in the glory of His second Coming. Oh the purification this blood of Christ imparts, the peace it speaks, the confidence it inspires, the hope, the blessed, hope, it reveals to faith's eye! Who enlightened by the Spirit, with such a sovereign remedy for sin, with such an effectual balsam for the wounded conscience, with a truth so heaven-assuring, would toil and labor and strive to work a salvation of his own? Away with your own works, lay down your deadly doings, cast overboard your oars, wash and be cleansed, believe be saved!
But this lowly act of Christ had a preceptive, as well as a doctrinal significance. It is intended to inculcate the precept of daily cleansing; of humility. Here was the Infinite Majesty of heaven, the Maker of all worlds and the Creator of all beings stooping to wash the feet of His disciples! What a needed precept, what a holy lesson this! The pride of our hearts is the deep-rooted evil of our depraved nature. It is perpetually cropping up- notwithstanding all the prunings by which God seeks to keep it down, and lay it low. Its forms are many, its name is ' legion.' There is the pride of ancestry, the pride of rank, the pride of wealth, the pride of place, the pride of intellect, and the worst of all pride, the pride of self-righteousness. There is nothing too little and trivial with which pride will not plume itself. It can find its nourishment in a fine dress, in a beautiful face, in a splendid mansion, in tasteful furniture, in a rare piciure, in any work of man's device- "the lust of the eyes and the pride of life." No, more, it will engraft itself upon our holy things. From hence springs what is termed 'spiritual pride.'
What but pride of heart keeps you from coming to Christ to be saved just as you are? What but pride refuses the salvation of God upon His own terms? You are willing to receive it as a purchase- your pride of heart scornfully rejects it as a gift. If you can but do some little thing yourself- if you may but be a partner in the matter- merit it in some degree, be worthy of it in some shape, supplementing the work by some doing of your own, you are then prepared to be saved. Your pride rises in opposition to a free-grace salvation -it refuses to take its place by the side of the poor, the blind, the naked, the bankrupt, and to cry with them, "God be merciful to me a sinner!"
Pride compasses you about as with a chain; and that chain, unless broken by the power of God, will bind you down to regions of eternal despair! But if you are saved by Christ, the pride of your heart, rising in rebellion against the doctrine of a gratuitous salvation, must be brought down, mortified, and slain root and branch. Christ, must receive all the honor and glory of emancipating you from your sins, of delivering you from condemnation, and of bringing you to heaven. And well does He deserve that glory! He has fulfilled the law to the utmost- has paid the last farthing of the debt- has honored the Divine government- has vindicated the Divine glory- has secured to Jehovah's great Name endless anthems of praise from countless tongues of ransomed sinners! Do you think then, O sinner, that He will allow one thread of your filthy rags to be woven with the divine and pure robe of His righteousness? Do you think that He will permit one single doing of yours to be added to the work which He finished on the cross when He bowed His head and died? Will He admit you to participate in the honor, divide the glory, share the crown of that wondrous redemption which He achieved on Calvary! Never! But one note shall rise, but one song shall be heard in Heaven- "Worthy is the Lamb!" And, oh, how worthy will Jesus be of every note of music, of every act of adoration, of every expression of love, and of every diadem laid at His feet!
Believer in Jesus! does not your spirit pant to love Him and to adore Him and to serve Him as the spirits freed from sin and sorrow in heaven do? But wait patiently your time. A little more service for Christ, a little more suffering with Christ, a little more glory brought to Christ, a little more conformity to Christ, a few more trials, a few more conflicts, and then the angel chariot will descend and escort you up to Him you love, and so shall you be forever with the Lord!
We trace, too, the working of this pride of the human heart in the bearing of the Lord's people under the Divine dispensations. How resisting under the yoke, how rebellious against the discipline! And when the strong staff is broken, and the beautiful flower is plucked, and the sparkling stream is dried, we question the wisdom and faithfulness and love of Him who has done it, and so pride covers us as with a garment, and binds us as with a chain.
But the grace of Christ is all-sufficient, and the believing soul will be entirely emptied, root and branch, of this hideous, this God-abhorring sin before it reaches that bright and holy world where all bow in the profoundest humility before the throne of God, and all the glory of the creature is lost in the splendor of the Lamb!
How much sinful, hateful pride of heart is intermixed with all our service for Christ! We are proud of our spiritual gifts and graces, proud of our ecclesiastical place and power, proud of our popularity and usefulness, we taint and shade and mar all we do for God. How little of that self-abnegation which led the great apostle of the Gentiles to exclaim, "Though I am nothing;" and of another to say, "After we have done all, we are but unprofitable servants." And yet another- "The latchet of whose shoes I am not worthy to untie." Oh, were it not for atoning blood, the blood that washes our holy as our unholy things, 'spiritual pride' would hurl us from our lofty temple-pinnacle of power and glory into the nethermost abyss of hell!
How much, too, does this pride of the human heart exhibit itself in our carriage towards the Lord's people? To how great and painful a degree does class religion and ecclesiastical caste prevail in the Church of God! and Christian community, or, what is so beautiful in its conception but so imperfect in its practice, "the communion of saints," is sadly marred thereby. How much stateliness of bearing and haughtiness of spirit, what coldness and restraint, what distrust, misinterpretation, and judging, what isolation and distance traces the conduct of many of God's people towards their fellow-saints!
Alas! how little of the spirit that stoops to wash the disciples' feet- in other words, how little of the mind that was in Christ Jesus! God enable us to learn this holy lesson!
But let us view this marvellous and expressive act of Jesus in another point of light. "He pours water into a basin, and began to wash the disciples' feet." And first, who were those disciples upon whom this wonderful condescension was bestowed? Were they in any degree worthy of such a marked distinction? Had they merited this refreshment from the. hand of their Divine Master? Quite the contrary. They had proved themselves utterly undeserving of so distinguished a favor.
One of them was about to deny Him, a second was plotting His betrayal, while all of them had just murmured at the costly box of fragrant ointment with which a holy woman, as an expression of the depth and sincerity of her love, had poured upon His head. Yet, behold the Son of God, forgetful of all this denying, this treachery, and this ingratitude- rising from supper, laying aside His garment, and pouring water into a basin, washes His disciples' feet! Oh, how the grace of the Savior beams forth from this wonderful act! How great the love that could tide over all this base unworthiness, effacing, as it were, every record from His memory. Such is Jesus now! He is immutably the same. His love to sinners is as deep as ever, His grace is as overflowing as ever, His condescension is as great as ever. We have no sin which He will not obliterate, no sorrow which He will not compassionate, no infirmity which He will despise, no need which lie will not supply, no act of lowliness to which He will not stoop.
But turn to the holy need which our Lord now enforces- the need of daily cleansing. What member of the body did our Lord wash? This part of the narrative is most significant. It was not the head, nor the hand, nor the whole body, but it was the feet. How impressive and important the teaching conveyed by this fact! It suggests one of the most necessary and holy engagements of the Christian's life- the washing of the feet, after the bathing of the body. The believing soul has already been washed, not in the laver of baptism, but in the fountain of Christ's blood, and his "body washed with pure water" emblematic of the sanctifying grace of the Spirit.
But here is another, a continuous, and daily washing enjoined- the washing of the feet. We all know that the feet are that part of the person which- because of their literal and constant contact with the earth, need the daily ablution. Now, when Jesus performed this lowly act, He sought to illustrate the necessity of the believer's renewed cleansing each day of his heavenly travel. Our Christian walk is kept pure and unsullied only as the feet, symbolic of that walk, are brought, into habitual contact with atoning blood.
It was a quaint but true remark of a puritan divine, "The devil lets no saint reach heaven with-clean feet." His meaning is obvious. In the separate paths we tread, and in the several engagements in which we are occupied- be it business, or recreation, or communion, o rChristian service, or religious duty- we touch that fearful, that all-defiling thing, sin and need the blood. So polluted and polluting are all created things that, after our day's travel, we need to wash our feet, that we array keep ourselves "unspotted from the world."
Who that takes account of daily omissions, and commissions, the things which he has done and the things which he has left undone- the Bible slurred over, devotions slovenly performed, duties imperfectly discharged, mis-used riches, misspent time, double aims, self-interest, self-gratification, self-glory sought, un-guardedness of speech, ebullitions of temper, the little that has been really said and done promotive of God's glory- Who, I say, that closely scrutinizes his daily Christian walk, finds not out that he NEEDS daily to wash his feet- thus having his feet shod with the preparation (or preparedness) of the gospel of peace.
You Christian men of business, look well to this! You cannot retire from your place of trade, your round of professional life; into the tranquil bosom of your homes, into the more hallowed stillness of your closet, and solemnly reviewing the day's history, not feel the necessity of loosening the sandal and washing in the blood that cleanses from all sin. Let not the necessity of repeated and daily ablution discourage your continuous coming. Come by night- by day- come with the failure of your holy, and with the guilt of your unholy things- come, though you have a thousand times before, wash and be clean! He who washed the feet of His disciples, knew the necessity of repeated cleansing. The Fountain is an open one for this very purpose! Come without one fear of being upbraided for having come before, or of one chiding for the infirmity or the sin that brings you again."
"So shall your walk be close with God,
Calm and serene your frame;
So pure a light shall mark the road
That leads you to the Lamb."

The relation of this daily feet-washing with our religious progress, is close and essential. A habitual acknowledgment of sin, and a constant recurrence to the Sacrifice that removes it, are among the most powerful as the most precious preservatives in the way of holiness. These are most sanctifying engagements. They keep the heart in close communion with itself, and, in closer communion with Christ. They promote wakefulness of conscience, tenderness of spirit, hatred of sin, watchfulness, and humility of walk.
And, just as the turf which fringes the fountain and is washed by its spray, always blooms with life and beauty, so the heart that builds its home fast by the Fountain of Calvary will ever exhibit the quickening, sanctifying influence of the blood in its daily and constant application.
Would we "walk in newness of life" -would we "walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit" -would we "walk worthy of the calling with which we are called"-would we "walk wisely, not as fools" -would we "walk worthy of the Lord, unto all pleasing, being fruitful in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God" -in a word, would we walk with Jesus in white, we must bring our FEET daily to Him to be cleansed, saying to every sinful allurement that would sincerely turn us from the way of holiness, "I have washed my FEET, how shall I defile them?" (Song of Sol. 5:3)
While upon this subject of washing, let me earnestly caution you against the substitution of any other laver whatever for the laver of Christ's atoning blood. The water of baptism, administered either in the unconsciousness of infancy, or to the individual of full age and with consenting will, has no moral efficacy whatever either in changing the recipient from nature to grace, or in effacing from the soul one spot of sin. Awful and fatal delusion! Awful in those who preach it, fatal to those who believe it! Woe to those who blindly accept this doctrine, and still heavier woe is theirs who daringly and presumptuously propagate it- "teaching for doctrines the commandments of men." Greatly do they err, not knowing the Scriptures. When our Lord said to Peter, "A person who has had a bath needs only to wash his feet; his whole body is clean." He referred not to the laver of baptism, but to the laver of his own most precious blood, in which whoever is washed, though he were morally black as the Ethiopian, or spotted as the leopard, "is clean every whit."
The believing soul stands before God washed from every sin, and justified from all things. He is clean every whit. His sins are all and wholly forgiven, his person is fully and forever justified. "Such were some of you, but you are gnashed." Oh marvellous cleansing this! wonderful atonement, precious blood that can wash the sin-dyed, guilt-stained soul "whiter than snow."
When Christ affirms this to be the state of every believing soul, He palms upon us no fatal lie, He builds us up in no vain delusion, He mocks us with no shadowy promise or illusive hope. "Verily, verily, I say unto you, he that hears my word, and believes on him who sent me, has everlasting life- he has passed from death unto life." Oh, distrust not this great cleansing! Disbelieve not this precious blood. Walk in the holy, happy experience of its daily application by the power of the Holy Spirit. Live upon it, and live it out, in your daily life. Esteem nothing so precious, estimate nothing so costly, regard nothing so reverentially, exalt nothing so highly, deal with nothing so constantly and holily, as the Atoning Blood of Christ. "The soul that sins it shall die;" but "the blood is the life of the soul," and that life is eternal.
The subject of these pages addresses itself pointedly and solemnly to the unconverted; the unwashed, What were the words of Jesus? "If I wash you not, you have no part with me." There exists not a greater sin, a crime of deeper dye, a guilt whose turpitude no words can describe, than that of neglecting this atonement, despising the blood, and trampling it under your feet as an unholy thing. The blood of Jesus, God's Son, is the divinest, the most costly and precious thing in the universe. It is the only thing that cleanses us from all sin. Imagine, then, what must be the guilt, and what the consequent doom of that man who scorns and rejects atoning blood! It is alone the washing of this blood that gives you a part with Christ. It is the blood that gives us union with Jesus -it is the blood which brings us near to God- it is the blood that speaks, and that speaks peace to the conscience and pardon to the soul. Apart, then, from this blood, you are unwashed. Your soul is still tainted and darkened and covered with the poison and pollution and guilt of sin. Not one spot of original, and not one stain of actual, sin is effaced; and you are hurrying to the dread judgment, of the great day all covered, all laden, all condemned by sins red crimson, and countless as the ocean sands!
No part with Jesus! -then you are separated from all that is holy, gracious, and saving! No part with Jesus! -then you are enrolled among His foes, and are walking in the counsel of the ungodly, and are standing in the way of sinners, and are sitting in the seat of the scornful. No part ,pith Jesus! -then you must have your part with those of whom it is written, "The fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone: which is the second death."
Are you prepared to accept this as your doom? To burn forever and ever in quenchless fire -to be gnawed forever and ever with the undying worm! Awful thought! appalling destiny! Better never to have been born than to live the servant and to die the slave of sin, and then to wear its galling chain unbroken, unfastened, through eternity.
But the blood you hitherto have disbelieved and neglected still flows, and still washes the vilest clean. Lose not a moment in applying to its sovereign efficacy. Repent of your sins. Throw down the arms of your rebellion against God. Turn, turn, for why will you die? If the believer who is clean every whit, yet needs the daily cleansing of this blood, how deep and imperious must your need be upon whom not one drop of this precious, sin-cleansing blood has yet fallen! Repair, then, to Christ without one moment's delay; take your sins, great as they are; take your burden, heavy as it is, and in faith plunge into this "fountain, open for sin and uncleanness." Wash, and be clean. Once more, remember the words of Jesus- "If I wash you not, you have no part with me." Throw yourself upon His pardoning mercy, who will in no wise cast you out.
"O You who are yet without Christ in the world,
I've a message from God unto thee!
Before the last thunders of earth shall be hurled,
Jesus whispers, now, "Come unto me."
It will soon be too late!
but yet there is room
The Lamb that was slain now appears!
Oh, will you abide in perpetual gloom,
And only be washed in His tears?
King David could weep, but his life he near gave.
From sin to set Absalom free!
But Jeans has died- He is 'able to save,
His blood is availing for thee!"
Should the eye of a sin-distressed reader light upon these pages, let him not limit the sovereign efficacy of the blood of Christ by doubting its power to pardon his sins and remove his guilt. There is no limit to the power of atoning blood but that which an unbelieving distrust of its efficacy presents. There is not a greater sin or deeper turpitude of guilt than a disbelief of the divine nature and sovereign virtue of the blood of the incarnate God. As it is the most costly and precious thing in the universe, so to doubt and reject it is a crime that has no parallel.
And yet, oh weeping penitent, oh sin-distressed soul, as the blood of Jesus pardoned the sin and washed away the guilt of shedding it, so His blood can blot out the crime of having disbelieved its virtue and hesitated to accept its overture. " The blood of Jesus Christ, His Son, cleanses us from ALL sin." How impressive the example of Jesus in this act! Listen to His words, "Don't you know what I have done unto you? You call me Master and Lord: and you do well, for so I am. If I then, your Lord and Master, have washed your feet, you ought also to wash one smother's feet. For I have given you an example, that you should do as I have done to you."
In another place our Lord inculcated the same spirit of lowly bearing among the saints. "He that is greatest among you shall be your servant." "He that is greatest among you let him be as the younger, and he that is chief as him that does serve." In the same strain the apostle exhorts, "Let nothing be done through strife or vain glory; but in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves." "Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus."
How many of the evils which affect society, still more, how much of the heart-burnings and schisms which mar the peace of families and impede the prosperity of churches, are traceable to the non-observance of this precept. What a happy world, what a united household, what a holy Church, if all were animated with this spirit, and were all molded in their interactions by this illustrious example. Thus influenced, we should be ready to undertake any service for Christ, however humble, and to stoop to any office for the saints, however lowly.
In a preceding part of this chapter we have ,dwelt at some length on the existence of pride in the believer. We would close it by remarking that the existence of its opposite- humility, is an essential element of the true Christian. As this is one of the first principles of our Christianity, so it is an ever growing and deepening one. Nothing more closely evidences an advance in the divine life as our growth in humility of mind. The nearer we approach to heaven the lower we grow in the estimate of ourselves.
Not long after his conversion, Paul speaks of himself as unworthy to be called an apostle. As he advanced farther on in the divine life, he esteems himself less than the least of all saints. But as he approached the time of his departure, on the eve of his martyrdom, he speaks of himself as the chief of sinners. As the fruit ripens for the gathering grows more mellow, so the soul that matures for glory becomes more humble an Christlike, and is willing not only to wash the saint's feet, but even to be trampled under foot of the saints.
"If she has washed the saints' feet" (I Tim.5:10) was a scriptural and distinctive characteristic of the piety of the early widows, Why should it be less so now? It will be so, at least in its spirit, in proportion to our real growth in grace. We learn to take the low place as we become more deeply sanctified, ready for any and every work and office the Master may assign us. It is the bough most richly laden with fruit that bends downwards, and hangs the lowest. So those Christians who have the richest gifts and are favored with the greatest usefulness think the most lowly of themselves, and hide their gifts and graces and usefulness deepest in the shadow of Christ's cross, and are the best prepared for the lowliest service of love to the saints.
The nettle mounts on high, while the violet shrouds itself under its own leaves, and is chiefly found out by its fragrance. Let Christians be satisfied with the honor that "Comes from God only." Thus wrote that eminent man of God, Manton, his spirit and example presenting a true illustration of his own beautiful and expressive image.
"Lord, if You Your grace impart,
Poor in spirit, meek in heart,
I shall as my Master be,
Rooted in humility.
"Simple, teachable, and mild,
Changed into a little child,
Pleased with all the Lord provides,
Weaned from all the world besides."
Nor would we fail to remind you that the Lord sometimes employs the sanctified discipline of trial in order to quicken our spiritual sense of the need of daily cleansing. Not the least blessing flowing from affliction is this. We have, perhaps, lived at a distance from the Fountain. The blood has lost its preciousness, the cross its attraction; and we have traveled long and far- if travel we may term it- with the dust upon our sandals, and with the soil upon our feet. Affliction has brought us to a stand-still. It has led us to reflection and self-examination, and we are roused to the conviction of the startling fact how much unrepented, unconfessed, uncleansed sin has accumulated, engirdling the heart, encrusting the conscience, clogging and impeding our feet in their heavenly way.
Oh, how close to the Fountain does adversity now bring us! How precious to our hearts does sorrow now make the Savior! We were unconscious of our heart's backsliding, had no suspicion of our spiritual declension, and knew not how far away we had strayed from Jesus and the fold until the voice of the rod awoke us from our deep, treacherous slumber, and brought us back. "Before I was afflicted, I went astray; but now have I kept your law." Oh, sweet affliction that brings us in penitence to Christ's feet, that He might, in the condescension of His love, cleanse us afresh!
Be much in prayer and confession at the feet of Jesus, and, though you are often foot-sore and soiled in your earthly travel, His love will heal and His blood will cleanse you, and so shall you walk in white with Jesus here until, before long, He shall say to you- Come up higher!
"Behold! wherein the Friend of man
Appears each grace divine;
The graces all in Jesus met,
With holiest radiance shine.
Lowly in heart to all His friends,
A Friend and Servant found,
He washed their feet, He wiped their tears,
And healed each bleeding wound.
Be Christ our Pattern, and our Guide!
His image may we bear;
Oh, may we tread His sacred steps,
And His bright glories share!"

The Service of Love, or The Disciple Washing Christ's Feet

"A certain immoral woman heard Jesus was there and brought a beautiful jar filled with expensive perfume. Then she knelt behind him at his feet, weeping. Her tears fell on his feet, and she wiped them off with her hair. Then she kept kissing his feet and putting perfume on them." Luke 7:37-38

We have considered one of the most instructive and impressive acts of our Lord's life. His washing the disciples' feet. Scarcely less so is that one which is now to engage our study, and which we place by its side- the disciple washing the lord's feet. The incident is one of those occurrences which illustrates the reciprocal interest which exists between Christ and His people. On His part, redeeming love and condescending grace; on theirs, the warmest affection and the most unreserved service.
We need not speculate upon the identity of the woman who stole into Simon's house to perform this act of love to her Savior. But little is known of her history. The only event recorded of importance to know is, her true conversion to Christ, and this fact will contribute to the praise of Jesus and the glory of God when the annals of the world and the exploits and pomp of the great will be buried in eternal oblivion.
How indistinctly do we understand the nature, or estimate the importance of conversion. It is the only event in our history worthy of a thought. It is the one event of our present life, which moulds and colors all our endless future. All other events are band impertinences in comparison of this one. Converted or unconverted ! is the grand question. Converted- "life eternal!" Unconverted- "eveslasting punishment!" So spoke Him who is eternal truth.
Let us turn to the woman who washed the Savior's feet. We are not to identify her with Mary, sister of Lazarus, who was of Bethany, nor with Mary Magdalene, who is supposed to have acquired this appellation because she was born in Magdala, an unimportant town of the tribe of Manasseh. But she, doubtless, resided in the city of Nain, and is described as "a woman in the city," where in His walks of usefulness Jesus met her, to whom He preached the gospel of His grace -a gospel of glad tidings for poor, lost sinners- and who by His Spirit He drew to Himself in penitence, faith, and love.
And now we are to view her as sitting at His feet, bathing them with her warm tears of affection, and illustrating the sweet service of love. She is described as a sinner. Was she a sinner above all that dwelt in the city of Nain? Was she by nature viler than us? No, in the strong language of Scripture, "All have sinned, and have come short of the glory of God." "There is none righteous, no, not one." We are all included in man's fall from original righteousness; all are conceived in sin and born in iniquity; all are by nature wholly depraved and universally tainted. "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked." This is the first lesson we learn in grace, the first stage we take in conversion- the lesson of our sinnership.
If, my reader, the Lord is for the first time setting you to learn this lesson, if the fact has burst upon your mind as with electric power, startling you from a profound slumber, yes, awakening you from the sleep of death, hail with joy this new-born revelation of yourself to yourself, as the dawn of that day of grace which will assuredly terminate in an eternity of glory. Oh, it is a grand thing to learn spiritually and experimentally that we are sinners! To know it not merely in the judgment, but from the heart. To acknowledge it not only with the lip in the public service of the sanctuary, but to confess it in the private devotion of the closet, with the mouth in the dust, beneath the cross of Immanuel.
Be assured of this, as of a most vital truth, that Christ will have no gracious dealings with you in the way of pardon, but in your capacity as a sinner. "He came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance." "He came to seek and to save that which was lost." "This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptaance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners." "Sinners, of whom," says Paul, "I am chief." The Pharisee despised this poor woman because she was a sinner, but Jesus threw around her the shield of His sin-forgiving love.
But she was more than a sinner- she was a penitent sinner. God had given her a broken heart and a contrite spirit, and this had humbled her at His feet. Has He, my reader, wrought this grace in your soul? The world thinks meanly of a man who thinks meanly of himself; but God's estimate of self-abhorrence and man's estimate are essentially and widely different. The world passes him by as a being beneath its notice and regard, but God says, "To this man will I look, even to him who is of a broken and humble spirit, and who trembles at my word."
Make a personal and serious application of this truth to yourself, my reader. Has your proud spirit been humbled? Has the inmost and hidden fountain of evil been unveiled to your eye! Has Jesus, by His Spirit and truth and ministers, met you pacing along the highway of sin and rebellion, and shown to you the leprosy of sin, as, like a pestilential and fatal plague, it touched and tainted all within! Solemn, momentous questions!
But how sweet and blessed is the grace of repentance! To lie in the dust before God is at once the most humiliating and the most exalting condition; it is the bitterest and yet the sweetest experience of the believers life. There is no sweetness tasted of pardoning grace until this bitter. Like the little book which John received from the angel's hand and ate, which was "to the belly bitter, but in the mouth sweet as honey," so godly grief for sin is at first bitter as gall, but afterwards sweet as honey, in the experience into which it brings the soul of God's forgiving love.
She was also a pardoned, saved sinner. Her sins had been great, but the blood of Jesus had proved greater, and had prevailed to wash them all away. We too much overlook this assured truth- and its oversight is the secret cause of much spiritual despondency- the present salvation of a child of God. Salvation is always referred to in the divine Scriptures of truth in the present tense. "By grace you are saved." "He has saved us." We shall never be more really saved than we now are if we believe in Jesus. Our salvation is not a past or a future blessing to be enjoyed, but a present one. Our sins are now all pardoned- "Who has forgiven you all trespasses."
Our persons are now fully justified- "Accepted in the Beloved." We are now adopted- "Now are we the sons of God." Oh, let us not sink below the level of this precious and sanctifying truth, but rise to its highest reach and its fullest realization and enjoyment. We lose one of the most powerful incentives to holiness, and with this, one of the sweetest springs of happiness, when we lose sight of our present and complete salvation.
How should our songs of praise wake the sweet echoes of every valley, and of every mountain, and of every plain, along which we travel home to God, for this great salvation which God has provided, which Christ has wrought, and which the Holy Spirit has applied, and which faith has freely received and is privileged fully to enjoy.
"There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus." Rest not until you know that you are saved. It is attainable- others have attained it, and so may you. The blood sprinkled, the Spirit's seal impressed, peace with God experienced, the Savior's preciousness felt, and holiness breathed after, will leave not the shadow of a doubt upon your mind as to your present and eternal safety.
How blessedly will this experience bear you through the trials and sufferings and sorrows of your pilgrimage! It will extract poignancy from grief, will blunt the keen edge of affliction, will sweeten the cross, and fringe with gold and purple hues the dark and gloomy clouds which often drape the path we tread.
And mark the place where this loving disciple stood. It was at the feet of Jesus. "And stood at His feet behind Him." How suggestive is this feature of her history. This is the true place of every believer- at the feet of Christ. Everything which attaches to us as believers, and all the dealings of God, point to Christ's feet as our true place. All is designed to bring us there. Nor could we seek a place this shady side of heaven so favored, appropriate, or blessed as this. That we may feel that this is the privilege of all, and that it is accessible to all, let us see what some of the errands are that brings us there.
In the first place, spiritual ignorance brings us to the feet of Jesus. The Lord Jesus is the great Prophet of His Church, her only Divine and authorised Teacher! All God's children are taught of Him, and their great Teacher is Christ the Anointed One. Thus spoke the Lord, "It is written in the prophets, And they shall be all taught of God. Every man therefore that has heard, and has learned of the Father, comes unto me." And again, "Neither knows any man the Father, except the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son wills reveal him." There is a remarkable ignorance of this truth in the present day.
Among the many and marked denials of Christ in high places, the denial of His prophetical office is not the least one. Men are setting themselves up everywhere as God-sent teachers of Divine truth, but who give undeniable evidence that they are but Satan-sent emissaries of human error- and, what is most lamentable and alarming, people love to have it so. But what is our safety? what is our true position? The answer is- humbly sitting at the feet of Jesus. Oh, honored place! Oh favored position of a poor sinner deeply sensible of his spiritual ignorance, and ardently desirous of being taught the truth as it is in Jesus. To this place we must bring all those mysteries of revelation, and apparently inexplicable truths, and discrepant statements, and things hard to be understood, which have perplexed and confounded us. The Bible can only be properly studied in the light of Christ and at the feet of Christ. If we read it merely as a history, or as a poem, or as a system of philosophy, and not as a Revelation of Christ only, we shall fail of compassing the grand end for which the Divine revelation was given. Or, if we sit at the feet of a human Gamaliel, and not at the feet of Jesus only, receiving in humility and faith the gracious words that proceed out of His lips, we shall most assuredly err, not understanding the Scriptures.
Let your place of learning, then, my reader, be at the feet of Jesus. Are you perplexed about a doctrine, or an ordinance, or a question of conscience, or a path of duty? Take your place here, and seek instruction from Him, and in His light you shall see light.
Human reason must come there, the pride of intellect must lie there, preconceived opinion must yield there- sitting there as a little child, desiring the sincere milk of the word- as a humble disciple anxious to know the truth that quickens, sanctifies, and saves. Thus surrendering yourself entirely to Divine teaching, Jesus will show you the way of life, will enlighten your mind, resolve your doubts, and unfold to you more clearly the blessed truth that He Himself is "the Truth," whom to know is life eternal!
I cannot sufficiently reiterate the averment that the Bible can only be clearly understood as it is studied in the light of the Sun of Righteousness, with one intent and aim only to know the Lord Jesus Christ, of whom the Old and the New Testament unitedly testify. Thus the very closing book of the sacred canon, the Revelation of John- mystical and symbolical as it is, is termed "the Revelation of Jesus Christ", not the revelation by Jesus Christ merely, but the revelation concerning Jesus Christ Himself. In other words, it does not mean so much Christ the Revealer, as Christ the Revealed.
And so is Christ the revealed Messiah, Savior, Redeemer of the entire Scriptures of truth. Jesus Christ is the same in the "yesterday" of the Old Testament, in the "today" of the New, and in the "forever" of our endless study. "Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, and today, and forever." "Search the Scriptures," said He to whom gave all the prophets witness, "for they are they which testify of Me."
At the feet, then, of this Divine, skillful, gentle Teacher, humbly take your place as a sincere learner, as a loving disciple, and in His light you shall see light upon all that is essential you should know as a sinner on your way to the judgment. He will open your understanding as He did that of the disciples of old, that you may understand the Scriptures concerning Himself. Let us imitate Mary of Bethany, who also sat at Jesus' feet and heard His word. Affection brings us to the feet of Christ. Love ever delights to be near the object of its preference and regard- In nothing does this sentiment find a truer, or more sacred illustration as in the experience of the believer. Christ is the Object of his supreme affection. He loves Christ more than he loves all other beings, single or combined.
"Do you love Me more than these?" awakes the ready and earnest response from every Christian's heart, "Lord, you know that I love you." It is his supreme happiness, his heaven on earth, to be close to the Savior who sacrificed His life for him, who called him by His grace, and has told him that where He, the Lord, is, there he the disciple shall be.
This sensible realization of the Lord's personal presence constitutes the life and nourishment of daily personal religion. There are many religious professors who do not know what the absence of Christ is, because they know nothing experimentally of His presence. We cannot miss a joy we have never felt, nor pine for a blessing we have never possessed. We must experimentally and personally know Christ, and love Him, and walk with Him, to be conscious of the cold, dreary blank- a blank no creature-good can fill- which the withdrawment of His sensible presence creates. Oh happy soul, so living in the sunshine of the Divine presence as to be sensible of the slightest cloud that veils it! who, wont to walk side by side and in face-to-face communion with the Lord, are more sensitive to any disturbance of your holy joy than the compass is to the slightest variation of the needle.
Behold, then, the true place of love to Christ- His sacred feet. Prove your love to the Savior, my reader, by being often there. Allow no creature to come between you and Jesus. Let not the world allure you from so dear a Friend. Be loving to His person, loyal to His cause, steadfast in His faith, valiant for His truth, holding fast your Christian profession without wavering.
Let sensible nearness to Christ be the life of your religion and the characteristic of your walk. It is the happiest as it is the holiest life on earth. It is one remove only from the life of heaven. There, "in His presence is fulness of joy," and only there. We know the joy in part now when we feel our Lord near to us; but we shall know the "fulness of joy" then when standing in His beatific presence unshared by an object, unshaded by a cloud. Let the cold-hearted intellectualist call this the religion of sentiment if he may. I desire no other.
To walk with God is the loftiest reach of the sanctified intellect, the highest and noblest desire of the human mind. We can only properly employ our thoughts upon God as we move in the orbit of His presence; and no object of contemplation and research, no theme of meditation and discourse, gives such development and expansion to the intellectual powers, as the study of God revealed in His Word and manifest in His Son- Christ Jesus. "This is life eternal, to know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent."
How do we best become acquainted with the mental and moral qualities of an individual but by frequent, close, and confiding communion. Thus is it that in the Enoch-like walk of the child of God he gets to understand God's revealed mind and Christ's unveiled heart, and so his soul revolves near to the Divine, Eternal, and blessed Center.
Not less does the discipline of sorrow bring us to the feet of Jesus. It is sent, indeed, by our blessed Lord for this purpose. Sorrow always brings Christ to our people, and to our homes; and, when sanctified, brings us to His feet in a closeness of acquaintance and fellowship, perhaps, unknown before. We become better acquainted with Him who Himself was acquainted with grief. Oh how near to Christ, our Friend and Brother, does one trial, a single affliction, a solitary sorrow, bring us. We seem scarcely to have known Him before. The stars we admired, the moon we worshiped of created attraction, have withdrawn their light, and the Sun of Righteousness takes their place, and we fall before Him with a depth of adoration and an intensity of love such as no Persian idolater ever felt in the worship offered to his god.
What a volume on the hallowed benefits of affliction might the personal history of each child of God supply! Would not this one stand first and foremost in the catalogue- "I have known more of Christ in this season of suffering, in this hour of sorrow, in the discipline of this one trial, than I ever knew in all my previous experience!" Truly is that sorrow a blessing when we can bless the Refiner for the sorrow, a sorrow that has brought us into the possession of a blessing like this. Oh, how we shrink from the discipline of trial as though some strange and needless thing happened unto us! How we recoil from this assimilation into which it brings us to Jesus, just as if the disciple must be above his Lord; the servant above his Master; the bride a wife of pleasure while the Bridegroom was a man of grief.
O no! we wish it not. We would be like our Lord, and in nothing is the resemblance more complete than in the sacred sorrow which often drapes the spirit and crushes the heart. It is thus we "have fellowship with Him in His sufferings," and are made "partakers of the afflictions of Christ," drinking of the cup He drank, baptized with the baptism with which He was baptized, and treading the path He trod. And all this we come into the experience of when sorrow brings us to His feet.
This, perhaps, in a measure, is a new place in our Christian experience. We have known something of the head of Christ, for we have felt the power of His truth; we have known something of the heart of Christ, for we have tasted the sweetness of His love; but little have we known of the blessing of lying down at the feet of Christ, chastened and humbled, emptied and weaned, willing that He shall be now, and in all future time, our all in all.
For this the discipline has been sent. Your heart, perchance, has wandered far away from the Lord; your walk with Him has been distant, your communion shy. Your mind has grown worldly, and your heart idolatrous; your confidence has become timid, and your love has chilled. The Lord, whose eye has not for a moment lost sight of you, has seen it all, and, loving you, in love has sent the chastening that has brought you back to Himself, and once more you find your heaven at His feet. And then you sing,
"Trials make the promise sweet;
Trials give new life to prayer;
Trials bring me to His feet,
Lay me low, and keep me there."
There, tried and sorrowful believer, bring your grief. Those feet once pierced for you will now hide and soothe you within their very wounds, those wounds at once your healing and your shelter. It is a holy and costly sorrow that brings us closer to Christ. We never learn so much what He is as then. And when we arrive in heaven and fall down before His throne, how fully shall we the sentiment of the Christian poet realize,
"Blessed, there, with a weight of glory,
Still the path I'll never forget,
But, exulting, cry, It led me
To my blessed Savior's feet.
Sweet affliction,
Which has brought to Jesus feet!"
Once more. The feet of Christ is the only place of real safety. There is much in the history of each saint of God to jeopardize his well-being. David was a giant in grace, compared with whom the tallest of us are but dwarfs- and yet listen to his petition, "Hold me up and I shall be safe." Paul was a veteran in the holy war- compared with whom the most valiant of us are but raw recruits- yet listen to his exhortation, "Let him that thinks he stands take heed lest he fall."
Ecclesiastical pinnacles are dizzy and dangerous places for a man of God. Have we ever met with one advanced to distinguished preferment who has not had need to seek a double portion of God's Spirit to rest upon him? I received this holy acknowledgment once from the lips of a prelate whom in earlier years I had known and labored with as the humble pastor of a village parish, but who since then had been advanced to one of the most important sees in the English Church; and God, I believe, gave him the request that he asked. The divine discipline, moreover, through which he subsequently passed, out of which fiery tribulation Christ took him to glory, brought him yet closer to the Master's feet, from where Jesus raised him to that bright world of bliss "where the wicked cease from troubling and where the weary are at rest.''
Here, then, is our true place of safety, wandering from which we are as "a bird that wanders from her nest." Peter had not denied his Lord but for this. Following his Master afar off, the enemy found room to come between him and Jesus; and thus, effecting a momentary separation of the disciple from the Lord, accomplished his downfall. Here, then, is our safety. "He that is down need fear no fall." He that lies "low in a low place" is safe.
Here at the feet of Jesus the world is renounced, self is loathed, sin is forsaken. Satan flies, and God draws near, and we sit and bask in the sunbeams of His smiles. Oh that wherever we are, and with whatever we possess, to the place where this loving woman sat may we repair. Have you talents? bring them here. Have you honors? renounce them here. Have you wealth? deposit it here. Are you useful? lay it at the feet of Jesus. Accumulate, cluster, and concentrate all you are and all you have around those feet that trod for you Gethsemane's garden, and were nailed for you to Calvary's cross, that in all things He may have the pre-eminence.
We now reach an interesting and instructive part of this narrative- the disciple washing Christ's feet: "And washed His feet with tears, and wiped them with the hair of her head." Those tears! who can analyze them? Where shall we find pearls so priceless, or stones so precious and of fairer colors? Away with the notion that true religion is the foe of sensibility, that the gospel of Christ is the patron of stoicism. The religion of Christ is the only religion that unseals the fount of feeling, while it chastens and sanctifies the tears it bids us shed. The divine Author of that religion wept. What more do we need. Let us turn to the weeping disciple.
She washed Christ's feet with the tears of penitence. There are no tears in Christ's view more costly or precious than these. This woman was poor in spirit, humble and contrite, and as she stood behind her sin-forgiving Savior, her tears of godly sorrow for sin rained fast upon his feet. Have you, my reader, wept for sin? Does the recollection of past transgression make you sorry? Does the memory of the sins of your youth, the transgressions of riper years, the sinful infirmities of old age, humble you in the dust? Holier and more precious tears were never shed than those wept for having sinned against God at Christ's feet. "And Peter went out and wept bitterly." "The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: a broken and a contrite heart, O God, you will not despise." Good words these for penitent souls!
She washed Christ's feet with the tears of faith. Is faith, then, you ask, an emotional grace? Most surely so. "With the heart man believes unto righteousness." And again it is written, "They shall look upon Me whom they have pierced, and shall mourn." It is faith that looks to a crucified Savior, and the sight of the eye melts the heart, and the believing penitent weeps. A humble penitent, this woman was a true believer. These are twin graces in the experience of the saints. Repentance towards God and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ constitute the two cardinal principles of experimental religion. Do you believe in the Lord Jesus, my reader? The Bible does not ask if you work, or if you strive, or if you pray; its great inquiry is, "Do you believe?" "To him that believes is the reward not reckoned of works but of grace." Do you believe in Jesus? Has your faith received Him? Are you willing to be nothing- to cast your deadly doings down, yes, down at Jesus' feet, accepting Him as "made of God unto you wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption? Come and wash the Savior's feet with the tears that flow from a believing sight of Him whom you have pierced. Faith in Jesus will be as the rod of Moses smiting the rock and causing the waters to flow.
She washed Christ's feet, too, with the tears of grateful love. Jesus had pardoned all her sins, had absolved her from their guilt, and had released her from their power. How natural was the feeling of gratitude, how appropriate this service of love! The most evangelical and genuine contrition for sin flows from a sense of its forgiveness. Nothing breaks the heart so thoroughly as the experience of God's pardoning love, love flowing from a sight of the cross.
Sinai terrifies, but Calvary subdues. The law petrifies, but the gospel melts; terrors repel, but love wins.
"Law and judgment do but harden,
All the time they work alone,
But a sense of blood-bought pardon
Soon dissolves the heart of stone."
Let your love be a weeping love, then it will be a practical love, bathing the feet of Him who virtually bathes yours in the condescending acts of His grace, by which He is among us still as Him that serves.
In lending ourselves to acts of Christian kindness, beneficence, and sympathy, we are still washing the feet of Jesus in the lowly service of love offered in His name to His saints. This fact is much overlooked- Christ as represented by, and as recognized in, His people. We but little reflect that when in any way we wound, or neglect, or despise a true disciple of Christ, we turn our back upon Christ Himself- such is the oneness, the essential, undeniable oneness of the Lord Jesus with His people. Oh how sweet it will be to hear Him say, when He comes in His glory to receive to Himself and to present to His Father His elect Church, "Inasmuch as you have done it unto one of the least of these, my brethren, you have done it unto Me." Then will the cup of cold water given; the soothing administered at the sick-bed; the visit to the house of mourning- be acknowledged and rewarded before an assembled world!
Then followed her holy caress and the sacred annointing. "And kissed his feet, and anointed them with ointment." This mode of courtesy, prevalent among the Jews, and also among the Greeks and Romans, received a peculiar and impressive significance in this instance. The kiss was her confession of Christ, the seal of her love to His person, the expression of her gratitude for His great and distinguishing grace towards her.
The Church of old aspired to kiss the lips of Christ- "let Him kiss me with the kisses of His mouth" -but this disciple was content to kiss His feet! It is our happiness to know that the Lord will accept the lowliest service and the feeblest expression of faith in, and love to, Him. "If I may but touch the border of His garment," is the highest ambition of humble faith; if I may but kiss His feet, is the ardent desire of lowly love. Judas soiled the face of Jesus with the kiss of perfidious treachery- this humble disciple anointed His feet with the sacred kiss of admiring and grateful love. Whose place would we prefer? Lord, let me kiss Your feet, worship at Your feet, keep close to Your feet, until, springing from Your footstool on earth, I find myself adoring, praising, loving You at Your feet in glory.
"That blessed interview, how sweet!
To fall transported at His feet,
Raised in His arms to view His face,
Through the full beamings of His grace.
"Yet, with this prospect full in sight,
I'll wait Your signal for my flight,
For, while Your service I pursue,
I find my heaven begun below."
This narrative impressively illustrates the true service of love. Never did purer love offer a more grateful service to the Savior than that which this sin-pardoned disciple presented. We behold the model of what Jesus desires and expects at our hands. We are Christ's servants if we are Christ's disciples- "for we serve the Lord Christ." Our consecration to the service of Jesus is an evidence of our true love to Him. Love is not an inactive, selfish, indolent grace. "Faith," which is the root of every other grace, "works by love." What will not mere creature-love do and suffer for the object of its regard! See its power in a mother's heart, bending night after night in sleepless watching over her sick and suffering babe! See its power in a father's heart nerving him for toil, and constraining him to plough stormy seas, imperiling life in distant and unhealthy climates, for love of that home-circle around which his untravelled heart still clings.
But infinitely more potent, as divinely more precious, is the love which constrains the disciple of Jesus to consecrate his service to the Lord. Our Christian profession involves a service, as our Christianity imposes a cross. An inactive, indolent disciple of Christ is a contradiction of terms. The moment we become the Lord's, we submit our necks to a yoke, and our backs to a burden, and love makes the one to be easy and the other to be light. Christ's service has many fields and various departments- all may find employment here. There is a sphere for every servant, work for every laborer, employment for every gift. "Son, go work today in my vineyard," is Christ's command to every believer, even to him of but one talent only. There is a field for the evangelist, a sphere for the teacher, scope for the visitor, work for male and female.
Oh, how much is to be done for this fallen, sinful world, speeding to the judgment! What countless, goodly pearls are to be found! what hidden sheep are to be sought! what wandering children are to be brought home of the innumerable seed given of the Father to the Son, for whom He travailed in the sorrow of Gethsemane, the ingathering of whom He shall yet behold with infinite satisfaction, delight, and glory! To aid Him in this work of recovery, He asks our consecrated service, He bids us come to the help of the Lord, to the help of the Lord against the mighty. And shall we, wearing the badge of the Christian disciple, renounce the livery of the Christian servant? Redeeming love, forbid it! We are the Lord's. Henceforth we bind ourselves to acknowledge no Master but Him, to wear no yoke, and to engage in no service but His. Oh impressive thought "Whose I am, and whom I serve!"
Up, then, my Christian reader, to the service of your Lord and Master. Awake you that sheep! Rouse up from selfishness and indolence, and disinter your buried talent. Go to the cross, where, in tears and blood, in suffering and death, your hell was extinguished and your heaven won, and before that cross blush that you should for one moment have hesitated to yield your ransomed powers, gifts, time, and possessions entirely, freely, and supremely to the Savior. From this solemn hour let love constrain you to a simple, self-denying, unfaltering devotion to Him who sacrificed His life for you, and who, at His second coming in glory and majesty, will make you sit down at the marriage banquet, and serve you. "Where I am, there shall also My servant be."
Weary, suffering, persecuted servant of Christ, take heart, for the Master is coming, and rich will be your reward. Bind to your heart His yoke more firmly, His burden more closely, His cross more fondly, for a glittering crown, and a snow-white robe, and a waving palm, and a golden harp await you in glory. Living or dying, be your place and posture that of the loving disciple we have been considering- at the feet of Jesus! There you are happy and safe; there you will derive strength for duty, and grace for trial; and whatever clouds may shade other spots in life, this will be bathed in undimmed and eternal sunshine.
"Sitting at the feet of Jesus,
Oh, what words I hear Him say;
Happy place! so near, so precious,
May it find me there each day.
"Sitting at the feet of Jesus,
I would look upon the past;
For His love has been so gracious,
It has won my heart at last.
"Sitting at the feet of Jesus,
I would seek to be much blest;
There I lay my sins and sorrows,
And, when weary, find sweet rest.
"Sitting at the feet of Jesus,
I would wait my way to see;
Leaning, trusting, and confiding,
Since He orders all for me.
"Sitting at the feet of Jesus,
Holy happiness I find;
In the secret of His presence,
He reveals to me His mind.
"Sitting at the feet of Jesus,
There I love to weep and pray;
While I from His fulness gather
Grace and comfort every day.
"Sitting at the feet of Jesus,
I would choose that better part;
Flee from earthly cares and pleasures,
While I tell Him all my heart.
"Sitting at the feet of Jesus,
I there learn His will divine;
See His smile, and catch His sweetness,
As He whispers, "You are mine."
"Sitting at the feet of Jesus,
I would pray to be kept there;
Clothed and hidden, washed, forgiven,
I may lay aside all fear.
Bless me, O my Savior, bless me,
As I sit low at Your feet;
Oh! lock down in love upon me,
Let me see Your face so sweet.
Give me, Lord, the mind of Jesus,
Make me holy as He is;
May I prove I've been with Jesus,
Who is all my Righteousness.

Patience in Suffering, or He Was Led as a Lamb to the Slaughter

"Patient in tribulation." Romans 12:12

Doubtless, the preceding chapter, illustrating the "service of love," has found its way into many a sick and lone chamber. And as the suffering patient languidly turned over its leaves, the sad thought doubtless has risen in the mind- "alas! I am but a dry tree, a useless cumberer of the ground, exiled from the world, hidden from the Church, and, lying upon this couch of weakness, an anxiety and care to many, a helper and succourer to none! How can I offer to Jesus the service of love?"
Suppress that desponding thought, hush that self-reflection, suffering child of God. Do you forget that there is a passive service of love, equally as an active service of love, for Christ? That, there are graces of the Spirit which only find their true development and culture in the very school of God in which He has now placed you? And that, in that darkened room, and upon that suffering couch, and from that lonely exile, you may render to God a service of love, and yield to Him a sacrifice of praise not less precious, acceptable, and glorifying than that of the most active servant in the vineyard, or the most valiant soldier of Christ upon the battle-field.
To endeavor to allay this mental depression, and to remove this unjust and painful self-reflection, the subject of these pages invites your devout attention - the PATIENCE of SUFFERING. "He was led as a Lamb to the slaughter." There is probably no grace of the Spirit in the believer more underrated or overlooked than that of patience. And yet there is not one which presents a stronger evidence or a more lovely illustration of the Christian character than it. Like some of those flowers God has pencilled with beauty, and perfumed with sweetness, which unfold their tints and breathe their fragrance veiled from human eye, this lovely and lowly grace of patience is almost entirely lost sight of by those who are borne onward upon the sweeping tide of this ever-heaving, active age of the Christian Church.
And just as those flowers are only to be found in turning aside from the beaten path and the excited multitudes who throng it, into some quiet, shaded nook, so those patient sufferers of Christ's Church- those precious plants of His garden, so dear to His heart and so beauteous in His eye- are only to be met in scenes of suffering and sorrow, sequestered and shaded from all but God. Thus, in this age of Christian service, of rapid thought and of earnest action, there is danger of overlooking the hidden flowers of Christ's garden; in other words, of forgetting that there are passive as well as active graces of the Christian character which are as much the fruit of the Spirit, and requiring equally as skillful and diligent culture, and are as pleasant and glorifying to God, as an apostle's zeal or a martyr's heroism.
Let us, then, turn our attention to this hidden grace of the Spirit in the believer the grace of patience in the season of suffering. "Patient in tribulation." And what, in the first place, is the school in which the holy lesson of patience is learned, the sphere in which this precious grace of the Spirit is developed and exercised? It is God's school and sphere of suffering! The very existence of patience, or, in other words, a meek and quiet endurance of God's will, implies the existence of suffering and trial.
The passive graces of the Christian character have a sphere of development peculiarly their own. Like the stars of heaven, they only shine forth when night robes the world in darkness. We know but little of the character of others, still less of our own, until adversity draws it forth. It is thus with the Christian. It is seen but in profile by others, still more partially by himself, until brought under the discipline of trial. Adversity gives symmetry and completeness to Christian character. A Christian man who is a stranger to affliction, a "vessel of mercy," who, though pencilled with the renewed image of God, has not yet passed through the fiery furnace which gives vividness and fixedness to the likeness- a child of God who, though a son, has yet to receive this unerring seal of his sonship, the chastening of a loving Father- must have much to pass through before his Christianity receives its full and most beauteous development.
And when we ponder these wondrous words respecting our Lord - "Though He were a Son, yet He learned obedience by the things which He suffered," "He was led as a Lamb to the slaughter," can it be to us a matter of surprise, or even of regret, that, claiming a relationship to Him as our Elder Brother, we, like Him, should be "made perfect through suffering"? If He, our Brother, partook of our nature, and thus proved He was not ashamed to call us brethren, shall it be considered by us a strange and humiliating thing if we should be called to partake of His afflictions, to bear His cross, and thus have fellowship with His sufferings?
Such, then, is God's school- the school of all whom He is training for heaven. There are various classes or departments in this school of suffering, just as there are varied lessons that we learn, and different degrees of grace to which we attain. All do not suffer, all are not chastened, all are not afflicted, alike. There is a secret in every cross we carry, a loneliness in every path we tread. The believer is of all beings the most inexplicable. A mystery to others, he is a greater mystery to himself. "I am," says David, " a wonder unto many," but a far greater wonder must he have appeared in his own eyes.
Perhaps, in nothing does this deep, impenetrable veiling more signally appear than in the discipline through which the Lord leads us. Why we should suffer- why the suffering should come from such a quarter- or why it should assume such a form- be so dark, intense, and painful is a profound in God's dealings which we cannot fathom. But, beloved, we shall never fully unravel this mystery of suffering until we arrive at that world where all the concealments of the present will be unveiled, where the mystery of suffering will then be found to have been but the mystery of love- love lovingly disguised- and when we shall know even as also we are known.
It is this view of the concealment of suffering which invests it with a character so solemn and sacred. Nothing requires to be touched with a hand more gentle, nothing more delicately and partially unveiled, than sorrow. It would seem as if God alone had a right to do with grief, to enter within that most sacred of all human sanctuaries, the sanctuary of a heart which affliction has smitten, whose arteries are bleeding, whose fibers are quivering, whose tenderest sensibilities are crushed beneath a calamity God only can meet, a sorrow He only knows, as He only can comfort.
But what are some of those forms of suffering in each of which we learn the lesson and exhibit the grace of a loving, patient, acquiescence in the will of God? in other words, in which we illustrate, not the service, but the patient waiting of love. "Patient in tribulation." We reach many a home, and touch many a heart, when we place in the foreground our sad picture the suffering of bodily ailment. The world is a vast hospital. It is a lazar house of disease. Sickness is a result of the Fall, a direct result and fruit of sin. This form of parental discipline embraces a large portion of the suffering Church of God, perhaps, the largest. Enter what abode we may- the palace or the cottage, the palatial mansion of the rich, or the lowly cot of the poor- each has its bed of sickness, its couch of suffering, or its chamber of death.
This, beloved, may be your school of discipline- the sphere in which you are called of God to exercise not the active service, but the passive waiting, of love. You were, perhaps, once an entire stranger to disease, and you could scarcely imagine that a form so stately could bow, and a constitution so robust could yield, and a bloom so brilliant could fade at the touch of sickness. But it has come! The vigor, the elasticity, the flush of health are gone, and you lie prostrate upon that couch of suffering and weakness, the shadow, the wreck of your former self. And now, what gloomy thoughts and painful self-reflections crowd upon your mind! You take up the stirring narrative that lies upon your pillow of arduous, brilliant, successful service for Christ and His truth wrought by others, and contrasting it with your own helpless inactivity and apparent uselessness, you are ready to write hard and bitter things against yourself, if not even tempted to cherish hard and murmuring thoughts against your God.
But be still, my brother, my sister! Yours is a high school, a noble realm, an honored sphere of love- love to God flowing forth and ascending to Him in a patient, cheerful, uncomplaining endurance of His will. What a witness for Christ and a teacher of men are you on that bed of paralyzed helplessness, that couch of unmitigated pain, that room of restless, ceaseless suffering! Superficial thinkers may imagine, and your own morbid feelings may suggest to your desponding mind the thought, that, because a child of God is confined to his room, or, in ordinary language, is laid aside, that therefore he has no duties to perform, no service to engage in, no testimony to bear for Christ. A great misconception is this, a lamentable error the result, in most cases, of the gloomy, distorting effect of disease acting upon the mental and spiritual of our nature.
The sick-room, the suffering-bed, has its peculiar and appropriate duties. Sermons are preached, truths are illustrated, lessons are taught there, heard from no pulpit and in no sanctuary in the land. To say nothing of the moral discipline to himself, of which sickness is instrumental- exercising and maturing the various graces of the Christian -what a testimony is borne from a sickbed to the sustaining power of Divine grace, to the preciousness of the Divine promises, to the love of God, and to the faithfulness, tenderness, and sympathy of the Savior!
And, as we stand beside that sufferer, and silently gaze upon that beautiful quietness of godly submission, see the battle that is there waging between doubt and faith, despondency and hope, weakness and strength, fear and heroism, patience and irritability, and mark how the Christian shines, and how Christianity triumphs, surely there is a testimony borne in that sick, lonely, quiet chamber to the Divine nature, the sustaining, soothing, death-conquering religion of Christ found in no battle-field of the Christian strife, though strewn with the spoils and resounding with the shout of victory.
Oh yes, you sick and suffering child of God, God has still lessons for you to learn, a work for you to do, and prizes for you to win! The lamp of life may burn long and sickly, but its dim and flickering flame may give light to some dark, bewildered soul feeling its way to Jesus; it may guide some wandering footstep back to God, may nerve some wavering faith, dispel some gloomy fear, and plant a gem in the Savior's diadem that shall sparkle in the sunlight of glory forever. Be patient, then, beloved, in this tribulation, for God is dealing well with you, you sick and suffering one, and yours is the patience of love.
Adversity presents another illustration of the passive grace of patience. Life has its moral seasons as nature its physical. It is not always spring or summer with us- oftener it is winter. The cold, withering storms of adversity sweep over us, and we are ready to take up the language of the weeping prophet, and exclaim, "I am the man that has seen affliction by the rod of His wrath." "He has led me and brought me into darkness, but not into light. Surely against me is He turned; He turned His hand against me all the day."
Thus, perhaps, God is dealing with you, my reader. Affliction has arrested you. You have met with a sad reverse. Your commercial affairs are embarrassed, your extensive investments are imperilled, your hard earnings are swallowed up, and your entire social position is changed. And now let patience have its perfect work, lacking nothing. All is not gone? The fruit may be blighted, the foliage may be scattered, the boughs may be broken, but the trunk and the root of the tree yet remain of spiritual life, of faith in God, of love to Christ, of integrity and uprightness, which no vicissitude of fortune can impair, no unruly blast of adversity destroy. All is not gone! God is still your Father, Christ is still your Friend, hope is still your anchor, and heaven still your home! Let the quiet spirit exclaim, "Your will, my God, be done!" Thus "in your patience shall you possess your soul."
From the whirl, excitement, and snares of busy, active life, God is leading you into the quiet, reflective repose of comparative exile. He has purposes of wisdom and thoughts of love by this timely arrest. He has wisely, righteously interposed a check to a course, a curb to a spirit, that may have imperceptibly beguiled you on to an unseen and fearful precipice. Stand still and see His salvation; and learn from this holy lesson of your Christian life, that the patience of love, exhibited in your unswerving acquiescence, in your deadness to the world, and the closer drawing of your mind to divine things and eternal realities, may result in a richer blessing to yourself, and of greater glory to God, than the most successful enterprise in which your worldly interests were ever embarked. Hallowed discipline that yields such fruit, though it tear up and destroy, root and branch, every worldly gourd beneath whose grateful shade you sat.
Not less beneath the correcting hand of God is this heaven-wrought grace of patient acquiescence beautifully exhibited. He greatly errs who interprets the Divine chastening as a mark and token of judicial displeasure. He has read that magnificent chapter, the twelfth of the Epistle to the Hebrews, but superficially who so construes its remarkable and consolatory teaching. Thus we read, "Whom the Lord LOVES He CHASTENS, and scourges every son whom He receives. If you endure chastening, God deals with you as with sons: for what son is he whom the Father chastens not? " I pause not, beloved reader, to inquire the cause of the Lord's present correction. It is a secret between Him and you, with which it behooves not a stranger to meddle. The Lord has made known His secret to you- for "His secret is with the righteous "-and you have committed yours to Him; and well will He keep it, for you have confided it to a loving and faithful heart.
All that we know is, that you are now the subject of His loving, wise, and holy discipline, and that as such we are desirous to aid you in the culture of that most attractive grace of the chastened child, which, while it will bring sweet repose to your own spirit, will result in a rich tribute of glory to Him, "even the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit, which in God's sight is of great price." Take God's servant David, as uttering the true language of a corrected yet patient and submissive child. He had been guilty of complicated crimes, and the heavy correction of a righteous Father was upon him. But mark his humble demeanor beneath the chastening rod- "And the king said to Zadok, Carry back the ark of God into the city. If I shall find favor in the eyes of the Lord, He will bring me again, and show me both it and His habitation. But if He thus say, I have no delight in you, behold here am I, let Him do to me as seems good unto Him." What remarkable language is this! How does this beauteous gem of patience in tribulation shine in this dark night of sorrow! Calm be your carriage, beloved, under the chastening hand of God.
"Why does a living man complain, a man for the punishment of his sin?" Hushed be every murmur, quiet every rebellious feeling. Be patient, silent, even cheerfully acquiescent, behaving and quieting yourself even as a child that is weaned of its mother. Oh, sweet correction that embitters sin, endears the Savior, unseals a new spring of love in my Father's heart, and gives me to see that infinite wisdom, rectitude, and goodness maintain His throne and guard all my interests!
Patience in bearing the cross of Jesus is one of the fairest flowers blooming beneath its life-giving shadow. We have all, as Christ's followers, a common cross to bear after Jesus, and each bearer has a cross peculiar to himself. For the most part it is hidden. We but imperfectly know ourselves, and others, especially those who are the most eager to vault into the judgment-seat, know us still less.
How little do men know the concealed cross that daily chafes and crushes us! In our home circle, in our avocations in life, in our Church-relations, in our social position, the spirit droops and faints beneath the pressure of a trial which we can lay upon no heart but Christ's. Still heavier and more chafing, perhaps, the cross of our own irascible temper, murmuring, and fretfulness, our constitutional tendency to look always at the somber shadings of the picture, the dark hues of the cloud spreading above us to interpret as combining and working against us the varied providences of our God.
Oh, what a heavy and sore cross lies deeply veiled in the heart of many a child of God! But what, beloved, is the most sure remedy? what the emollient which softens, soothes, and heals? It is the patience of love. To be ready to carry the heavy yet sacred wood for Jesus, willing to bear reproach and contumely for His truth, willing to take the low place in His kingdom, to be set lightly by and considered as secondary, perchance to be laid entirely aside from His service altogether, oh, here is the patience and faith of the true saint and disciple of Christ, and rich the glory it brings to His great name!
But, probably, there is not a more impressive illustration of this elevating grace of Christian patience in the endurance of suffering than is supplied by a season of bereaved sorrow. "There is no sorrow," we are tempted in its first bitterness to exclaim, "like this." At least at the moment we feel that it is the greatest. When God takes from us affluence, we feel that by honest and persevering industry we may possibly regain it. When He deprives us of health, we hope that skill and science may restore it. Or, if the venomed tongue of slander has sought to poison and taint our reputation, we are conscious that time and holy living will confound our foe and bring forth our innocence as the noon-day sun.
But when God enters our domestic garden to gather His lilies, breaks this strong stem, plucks that beauteous flower, fells this stately cedar or that strong oak; or, to speak without a figure, when He justly takes the loved one that was but His, yet condescendingly asks it as if it were all our own- transferring to Himself the being we had felt was more than half ourselves, whose love seemed essential to our very existence, and if then we bow meekly the head and exclaim, "I was dumb, I opened not my mouth, because You did it," oh this, this is indeed patience in suffering, the luster of which adds a new beam to the splendor of Christ's grace!
The mute Christian in bereavement presents one of the finest specimens of the power of real religion recorded in its history. God said to the prophet Ezekiel, "Son of man, behold I take away from you the desire of your eyes with a stroke; yet neither shall you mourn nor weep, neither shall dry tears run down. Forbear to cry (be silent) because I have set you for a sign to the house of Israel." What stupendous grace is this which can raise a man above himself and above the sorest affliction of his life, sealing his lips in silence, or, if permitted to speak, extracting the utterances of the most filial, uncomplaining submission to God's will. "It is the Lord; let Him do what seems to Him good."
Be patient, then, beloved, under this sore bereavement. "Himself has done it " who loves you as He loves Himself. "Am I not better to you than ten husbands, or wife, or child, or friend? Have I divorced you from myself? Have I cast you off? Have I taken your all? Am I not still yours, all yours, forever yours?" "Yes," faith responds, "You, Lord, are mine, and through blinding tears I can now see how much better, far better, that the earthly treasure of my heart should be removed thus to prepare a wider, holier temple for Yourself.
Let "patience," then, beloved, in this season of crushing grief, "have her perfect work "that is, give to it full play and development. Let it not be hindered, suppressed, or paralyzed by fretfulness, murmuring, or rebellion. "That you may be perfect and entire, lacking nothing"- that is, that there may be nothing lacking essential to the symmetry of your Christian character; that it may be, as the original expresses it, whole in every part, nothing missing.
What apparently beautiful and perfect Christian characters we sometimes meet in the bright sunshine of prosperity; but when affliction comes, the elements and principles of their piety are not fully carried out, and the incompleteness of their Christianity becomes strikingly and painfully evident. There is opposition to God's will, a questioning of the wisdom and love of His procedure, a restiveness and restlessness which at once show that Christian patience, in other words, meek, silent submission to God, has not had her perfect work.
This thought suggests the closing observations of the present chapter- What are we to understand more fully by patience in suffering? It is decidedly a Christian grace, wrought in our hearts by the Holy Spirit. We must distinguish it from natural apathy and in difference. Apathy implies a lack of sensibility; but Christian patience, in the midst of the deepest feeling, enables the sufferer to bear the weight of his affliction without a single murmur. It is often found in alliance with the acutest sensibility; yes, it is from the depth of the deepest feeling that the truest patience often springs up the purest and most sparkling. There may exist in the unregenerate a self-control, under circumstances of the greatest provocation, strongly resembling the patience of the believer, which we must be careful not to identify with the Christian grace.
An incident in the life of Sir Walter Raleigh will illustrate this idea. On one occasion, when insulted by a young officer at court, he placed his hand upon his sword, and calmly said, "Young man, could I wipe your blood from my sword as easily as I can your spittle from my face, I would pierce you to the heart." This, after all, was but a striking instance of natural self-command. But listen to the language and behold the patience of a greater man and of a more wounded sensibility than his. God had swept from Job all his wealth, had bereaved him of all his children, and had afflicted his body with a loathsome disease; the affection of his wife was alienated, and his "inward friends abhorred him, and those whom he loved were turned against him;" and the agony of his soul found vent in these exquisitely touching words, "Have pity upon one, have pity upon me, O my friends; for the hand of God has touched me." But how did he behave himself before God? Did he fly in His face, dispute His right, impeach His goodness? Listen to his words- "The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away, blessed be the name of the Lord."
Sublime repose! magnificent faith! God-glorifying patience! "You have heard of the patience of Job." Study it, pray over it, transcribe it, until it becomes, as it were, a part of your own moral being, you tried believer, you chastened saint of God. Was, then, this grace of patience in suffering peculiar to the patriarch? No, beloved, the feeblest saint who kisses God's rod, who falls in the dust beneath its stroke, as the wheat beneath the flail falls down at the feet of the thresher, and who lies there chastened, yet subdued, sorrowful, yet silent, afflicted, yet submissive, possesses like precious faith with job, and presents a spectacle of moral sublimity scarcely less magnificent and instructive than his.
Can you bless God for all His dealings with you? Can you honestly bless Him for sickness? bless Him for bereavement? bless Him for poverty? bless Him for the spring He has dried, for the sun He has shaded, for the cloud-veil He has drawn over life's sweet landscape? Then you are enrolled among God's nobility; your "witness is in heaven, and your record is on high," and Jehovah looks down upon you with ineffable delight.
Oh, what moral grandeur invests this patient and unreserved surrender of your being, your way, your entire history to God! How must angelic students study this spectacle of grace! How must it deepen the joy of glorified spirits! How must heaven grow brighter and its music sweeter by this and every other conquest of Divine grace, power, and love in the saints on earth, redeemed by the precious blood of the Lamb! May this simple and entire surrender, my reader, be yours.
Suffering child of God, "you have need of patience," and Christ can give, and His grace can sustain it, and its exercise shall be an unceasing source of praise to our great Jehovah's name. If this be so, your willing heart responds, "Then, Lord, not my way, nor will, nor pleasure, but Yours, and Yours alone."
Again, the Christian grace of patience is to be carefully distinguished from the sullen, stoical indifference of the man who recognizes not God in his affliction. The essential difference of the two characters is this: the unregenerate man looks upon his affliction as coming forth from the dust; while the Christian man traces it to God, accepting it as a Heaven-born, God-sent dispensation. The one is sullen and morose because he regards his reverse as the result of a misjudged step, or of cruel fate; the other is joyous and praiseful because he sees the hand of a loving Father in the discipline. Hence the language of the apostle- "My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into diverse trials, knowing that the trying of your faith works PATIENCE."
The same apostle, referring to himself, says, "I am exceedingly JOYFUL in all our tribulation." And again, writing to the Colossian saints, he speaks of their being "strengthened to patience with joyfulness." Thus cheerfulness is an essential element of true Christian patience, as distinct from the petulant and gloomy spirit of the unregenerate mind, which is not resigned to God's will, because it rejoices not in His sovereignty, but reluctantly and churlishly submits to His government, because it is too impotent to resist His power. Oh, what a high attainment in our spiritual education for heaven is patience in tribulation!
But turn we to that signal and illustrious instance of patience in suffering presented by our adorable Lord Jesus. As there never was suffering like unto His, nowhere shall we find such a perfect exhibition of Lamblike, uncomplaining endurance. His infinite intelligence, His perfect sinlessness, and exquisite human sensibility, rendered Him all the more acutely alive to the extreme baptism of suffering through Which He passed.
Suffering to Christ was a school. "Though He were a Son, yet learned He obedience by the things which He suffered." He learned experimentally. Until our Lord came under the obligation of the law, and took upon Him sin, the path of obedience and suffering must necessarily have been to Him an untrodden path. It was necessary, therefore, that He should be an experimental Savior. "He learned obedience" -He learned experimentally the nature of obedience, as also the difficulty and the blessings of obedience. He learned, too, the nature and the bitterness of suffering "by the things which He suffered." He derived not His knowledge of obedience and suffering from His own intuitive consciousness, neither did He receive it through the predictions and writings of the prophets. He would accept nothing that was merely notional or theoretical. He would know it all, understand it all, and pass through it all by a personal experience of what it was.
Thus our Lord Jesus becomes our perfect Pattern in this one particular of His life- His patient endurance of suffering. "He opened not His mouth" to murmur or complain. He repined not, fretted not, rebelled not; but when reviled of man He reviled not again, and when afflicted of God He bowed His head and exclaimed, "Your will, not mine, be done."
Suffering believer, come and learn how to suffer from your suffering Savior. Admire His patience in suffering; nor stop at admiration, but imitate it, transcribe it, and make it your own, for "He has left us an example that we should follow His steps."
"Perfect through suffering; may it be,
Savior, made perfect thus for me!
I love to kiss the rod
That brings me nearer to my God.
"Perfect through suffering; be Your cross
The crucible to purge my dross!
Welcome for that its pangs, its scorns,
Its scourge, its nails, its crown of thorns.
"Perfect through suffering; heap the fire,
And pile the sacrificial pyre;
But spare each loved and loving one,
And let me feed the flames alone.
"Perfect through suffering; urge the blast,
More free, more full, more fierce, more fast;
It reeks not where the dust be trod,
So the flame waft my soul to God." (Bishop Doane)
These pages are necessarily limited to a consideration of patience in suffering; yet would I not overlook a class, a large class, who, in all probability, will scan them, who, like the paralytic at the pool of Bethesda, have been long and patiently waiting the moving of the healing waters. But why this waiting? Unlike that mystic fount, the waters of salvation are ever healing, and the atoning blood of Jesus is ever-cleansing, come when and where and how the poor, miserable, sin-burdened, guilt-oppressed soul may. Have you been long in this state of conscious sinfulness? Has no one helped you to believe in Jesus?
Behold, Jesus Himself now passes by! He sees you, knows you, compassionates you, you sin-distressed soul, and is ready to make you whole. Your patient waiting for Christ alone to speak words of comfort, and to assure you with His own tender accents of love that you are saved, shall not be all in vain. Believe but in Jesus, believe in Him now, simply, only believe, and all the chimes of heaven will announce and celebrate the event of your soul new-born into Christ's kingdom. With joy you may now draw water from the wells of salvation, and henceforth that living stream shall be in you a well of water springing up into everlasting life. Come without preparation, believe without demur, accept without price, and God will throw around you the paternal arms of His reconciled love.
The blessings that flow from patience in suffering are many and precious. Patience is more than half the removal of the cup, the unclasping of the burden, the healing of the wound. It brings with it peace and joy, and hope passing all understanding. The moment you cease to fret against the Lord, and assert your own will, to kick against His dealings, and to refuse to bow the neck to His yoke, that moment peace, sweet peace, lights upon you as a heaven-descending dove, and enfolds around your spirit her loving wings.
Deeply sanctifying, too, is this grace of Christian patience in suffering. There can be no hallowed results of the Divine discipline while the heart is in a state of rebellion against God. The recipe can avail us nothing as a cure while we resist the hand that compounds and administers it. But let faith accept what reason cannot fully understand; let love interpret what sense cannot perfectly decipher; let the heart obey what the judgment cannot wholly grasp in the providential and gracious dealings, revelations, and commandments, of our Heavenly Father, and you are more perfectly conformed to His holiness.
Patience in tribulation will not only bring you into more perfect fellowship with Christ in His suffering, but also into greater nearness to, and a holier fellowship with, the "God of all comfort." You need comfort, you crave comfort, you ask for comfort; and who can grant it you but God? Into what heart does He the most delight to pour the deepest, richest streams of consolation? Is it not the heart of the meek and patient sufferer? Listen to His words, "For thus says the high and lofty One that inhabits eternity, whose name is holy; I dwell in the high and holy place with him who is of a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite one." Take your place, then, low at His feet, suffering child of God, drinking meekly the cup He has given you, and your peace shall flow as a river, and your righteousness as the waves of the sea. "I, even I, am He that comforts you."
Have I then, with God's blessing, chased one gloomy shadow from your brow, or quelled one trembling fear in your heart, suffering Christian? Then give to Him thanksgiving. Paralyzed and bed-ridden, you have deemed your life a blank, no, more, a lost life, and have wondered God has not expelled you from His Church, or removed you from the world. Be still! Remember Him who commended the thoughtful, quiet spirit of Mary above that of the active, bustling Martha, and recall to mind the expressive words of the blind poet sublime, "They also serve who only wait." Oh, no! you are not in Christ's garden a sapless tree, a fruitless branch, a withered, scentless flower. Your lowly chamber has its teaching, your suffering couch its mission; and a more Christ-exalting and God-glorifying sermon never woke the rapture of a listening throng than you by your patient endurance, simple faith, peaceful love, and fervent prayer, may preach to all who shall glorify God in you. You have thought that you could glorify Christ more by the service of love -He sees that you can best glorify Him by the patience of love.
And now, by a "meek and quiet spirit," by exhibiting the strength of Divine grace in sustaining, and the power of covenant love in soothing the mind in the season of sorrow and weakness, you may scatter golden seeds of truth and comfort along your sad and suffering pathway, which, when the fashion of this world shall forever have passed away, and the music of its harp and violin and tambourine shall be hushed in the wailings of endless despair, will yield to you a harvest of thanksgiving and joy, and to God a revenue of glory and praise holy as His being and lasting as eternity. "You have need of patience, that after you have done the will of God you may receive the promise."

He Is Risen; Or,
"The Sight of a Living Christ the Joy of the Christian"

"Then were the disciples glad when they saw the Lord." -John 20:20

The three days of our Lord's burial were days of gloom and sadness to the disciples. Not less truly or darkly did the shadows of the grave drape His sacred form than they did the hearts and hopes of His little band of followers. Their faith in His often-repeated assurance that He would rise again from the dead was faint and fluctuating. To their spiritual eye, wailed by unbelief and dimmed with tears, the Sun of Righteousness, which set in darkness and in blood, had set forever. Although He had forewarned them He should be delivered into the hands of men, that they should kill Him, and that after He was killed He should rise the third day, yet we are told, "they understood not that saying, and were afraid to ask Him." And even after His resurrection was an accomplished and indisputable fact, attested by eyewitnesses, angels and men, and confirmed by many infallible proofs, yet how slow of heart were they to give it their full and unhesitating credence?

Don't we see, beloved, a reflection of our own Christianity in these unbelieving, timid disciples? We as faintly believe all that Christ is, all that Christ has done, and all that Christ has promised. The fact that He is risen from the dead, that He is alive in heaven spending His life for us at this moment, and that with His our life is essentially and indissolubly bound, is so faintly believed, so imperfectly realized, so little lived upon by faith, no marvel that, like the disciples of old, we "walk, and are sad," with tears gazing into the tomb in search of a dead Christ, rather than looking above the grave, above sin, above sorrow, above a poor, changing world up to a living Christ in heaven.

Strange that we should for a moment lose sight of the fact that true faith, "the faith of God's elect," has solely to do with all that Christ is. God has deposited all our grace and glory in the person of Christ. All the fullness of God, all the promises of God, all the supplies of the covenant, and all the granaries of the gospel, are lodged in the hands of our risen Lord. It follows, then, that faith, the receiving grace of the believer, has to do immediately, simply, and only with Christ. It can believe nothing that Christ has not taught, can obey nothing that Christ has not commanded, can practice nothing that Christ has not exemplified; in short, Christ to true faith is all and in all. It trusts in Christ as a Redeemer, obeys Christ as a Lawgiver, yields allegiance to Christ as a King, lives upon Him as his Preserver, and in grief, and trial, and need repairs to Him as the Brother born for adversity; in a word, turns to Him under all circumstances, as truly and spontaneously as the needle to the magnet, as the flower to the sun.

The fact of the resurrection of Christ must ever be regarded as one of the most essential, and, as a doctrine, one of the most precious of the Christian faith. The argument in support of the fact, as drawn from the experience of the early apostles, is simply this- They went forth enduring every species of scorn, submitting to every kind of persecution, and exposing their lives to every form of death in their firm belief that Christ was risen from the dead. Would they, or could they, have subjected themselves to all this in the propagation of what they knew to be a lie? Impossible!

In attempting to crush the new and rising religion, it was everything to the Jewish rulers to prove that Christ was not alive- in propagating and establishing that religion it was everything to the Christian apostles to prove that Christ was alive. This was the question of dispute between them. But when the Sanhedrin, in attempting to disprove the fact of the resurrection, substituted physical force for moral argument, violence for proof, and cruelty for evidence, they but demonstrated the fallacy of their own statement and the truth of the apostles'. When, by bribery and corruption, they sought to win over to their cause the Roman soldiers, and by stripes and imprisonment to silence the apostles, who does not see that they betrayed the falsehood of the one statement, that Christ was not risen, and confirmed the truth of the other, that He was?

Now we argue that the apostles- men who, on former occasions, had manifested so much natural timidity, and had betrayed so great a lack of moral courage- when they went forth and throughout Jerusalem and the provinces, preaching the resurrection of Christ in the face of persecution and death, gave the strongest moral attestation to the fact that their Lord and Master was alive. In support of this truth, they were willing to wade through a sea of tribulation, to be regarded as false witnesses and wild enthusiasts, to suffer the confiscation of property and the loss of personal liberty, to go to a loathsome prison and to meet a martyr's death!

My reader, are you a religious skeptic? do you disbelieve the truth of Christ's resurrection from the grave? Ponder, I beseech you, honestly, calmly, this, one fact- the willingness of the apostles to suffer loss, persecution, and death for their belief of this truth. Who was it that supported these apostles in the fiery furnace which they endured for their faith in this doctrine? It was by no natural, no human power and courage that they were sustained. They were suffering for Christ, and they were fortified, strengthened, and upheld by Christ. Do you think that God would become a party to a lie? that Christ would lend Himself to the propagation of a fiction? that the Holy Spirit would impart might, energy, and fortitude to men who were seeking to palm a falsehood upon the world? And yet to this monstrous, this awful conclusion you must come, if you deny the cardinal doctrine of the Christian faith-the resurrection of Christ from the dead.

The fact that the apostles bore about with them in their bodies the death of the Lord Jesus in the sufferings which they endured was one of the strongest evidences of the life of the Lord Jesus- in the succor which they experienced.

But the resurrection of Christ is not only a historical fact, it is also an essential doctrine and an experimental truth of Christianity. It is in reality the foundation of the fabric- the key-stone of the arch of our divine and holy faith. The resurrection of Christ is inseparable from the truth of the Christian religion. If Christ is alive, then the gospel of Christ is what it affirms itself to be- divine. Viewed in this point of light, it is inexpressibly precious.

The believer sees in it the evidence and the pledge of his full pardon, his complete justification, of non-condemnation. There is now no condemnation to those who are mystically risen with Him. The argument of the apostle is conclusive- "Who was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our justification." That is, Christ was surrendered to death to expiate our sins, and was raised again from the dead to justify our person. By the death of our Lord a full atonement was made for sin, and by His resurrection our complete acceptance with God was sealed and secured.

His death would have availed us nothing apart from His resurrection. The one would have been imperfect but for the other. It is true, justice would have been satisfied, but the evidence of that satisfaction had been lacking if Jesus had not come back from the grave. There was death so long as He remained a prisoner within the tomb. A great stone lay upon the hope and salvation of the Church. But when He rose from the dead, He rose as the "Resurrection and the Life" of His people. He then gave to the universe full proof that His work was complete and accepted of the Father, that His sacrifice was perfect and approved, and that henceforth whoever believed in Him were fully pardoned, freely justified, and eternally saved.

But we return to the apostles. After much doubt and hesitation, the glorious fact burst upon their minds with overpowering conviction that their Lord was alive, that Christ was risen from the dead. A new world glowing with life and beauty seemed to unveil to their view. "Truly the light is sweet, and a pleasant thing it is for the eyes to behold the sun." After three days of entombment, according to His promise, often made and as often disbelieved, He rose from the dead, and once more, as of old, appeared alive in their midst.

Again they saw their beloved Friend, heard the well known tones of His voice, gently touched His wounds, and ate the bread He broke. And now their gladness was great! Their night of weeping had brightened into a morning of joy; and, filled with the thought of His resurrection, their hearts glowing with the truth that He who was dead was alive again, and lived, to succor, to comfort and to be ever with them, they went forth to chant through the wide world their Easter hymn of gladness- "THE LORD IS RISEN INDEED!" "Then were the disciples glad when they saw the Lord."

Not less vital or joyous to us is the truth that Christ is alive. What to the first disciples was a gladsome object of sense, is to us a yet more gladsome object of faith. They beheld their living Lord with a bodily, we with a spiritual eye. They believed because they saw, we believe though we see not. Our mind rests upon a less material, but more spiritual and assuring evidence, since faith is a higher, more convincing and God-glorifying principle than sight. Hence our Lord said to Thomas, "Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen, and yet have believed."

Listen to the language of the apostle, "Though having not seen you love, in whom, though now you see Him not, yet believing, you rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory." In what sense, then, should the truth of a living Savior be a cause of joy and gladness to the Christian? First, it is a soul-quickening truth. There is no spiritual life but that which flows from Christ. I have come," says our Lord, "that you might have life, and that you might have it more abundantly." The apostle confirms this truth when he says, "Christ, who is our life."

The inference from this fact is a solemn one, namely, that he who has not Christ has not life! That, whatever may be the vigor of his natural life, the splendor of his intellectual life, the purity of his moral life, the strictness of his religious life, if he has no spiritual, vital, personal union with a risen Christ, he is dead while he lives, and when he dies, is the heir of the second death, whose worm never dies, whose fire is never quenched! "Awake, you that sleep, arise from the dead, and Christ shall give you life."

But how replete with the material of true joy is the life of Christ to His people! Life, beautiful in any form, was transcendently so when "Christ who is our life" rose from the dead. So long as our Lord remained locked in the rigid chain of death, and in the cold embrace of the tomb, the life of the Church was in eclipse, veiled with the deep, dark shadows of the grave. But when He broke that chain, and emerged from that imprisonment, life and immortality appeared as in a new form and with more resplendent glory, and took its place in the universe as never seen before. Never before had death slain so illustrious a victim, or the grave held so great a prisoner, or had both been so signally defeated, as when the Son of God died and rose again.

All this was representative. How much we overlook the substitutionary life of Jesus. How faintly we realize our personal identity with the Savior in all that He did as the Head of the Church, as the Surety and Mediator of His people. The risen life of Christ is the resurrection life of our souls. As mystically they were crucified with Christ, so mystically we are risen with Christ. Figuratively, we are "buried with Him in baptism, and are risen with Him through the faith of the operation of God, who has raised Him from the dead."

Blessed union! One with Christ in all that He did. One life in many forms- the risen life of Jesus pulsating in countless myriads of living souls; the whole Body, the Church, quickened with new vitality from the new-born life of its Divine and Risen Head. Let the life you live, beloved, be a life of faith in the resurrection-life of Christ. And when you are conscious that your spiritual life is depressed, that its pulse beats faintly, and its actings are fitful; that faith is weak and the spirit of prayer languishes, that grace is at a low ebb, and that your soul mounts, if it mount at all, towards God and heaven but upon a feeble wing, then travel afresh to the resurrection-life of the Savior, and give Him no rest until you feel afresh the quickening power of His resurrection in your soul.

Do not be satisfied with mere spiritual existence, a moral vegetation only in the Lord's garden; aim after the higher life, and after the highest development of that life- even to know your individual and vital oneness with Christ in His resurrection. Oh, holy, happy life this! Clouds may wreath your sky, thorns may strew your path, your faith may be assailed, your circumstances may be trying, your spirit sad and lonely, but yet, walking in sweet fellowship with a risen Christ, you will rise above it all, filled with the peace, joy, and gladness which the believing sight of a living Savior ever inspires. Then will you be enabled in some blessed measure to enter into the apostle's exalted experience, "I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ lives in me, and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me."

A believing apprehension of a living Christ seals the conscience with peace. Peace is a precious, priceless jewel. None possess it but those who are sprinkled with the peace-speaking blood of Jesus. Peace springing from a sense of friendship with God, of pardoned sin, of acceptance in Christ, of life with a living Savior, is theirs only who have felt in their souls the power of Christ's resurrection. The sense and enjoyment of peace may fluctuate because the spiritual life is a ceaseless conflict with the flesh, with corroding doubts and unbelieving fears, with outward assaults, temptations, and trials; so that the peace of the believer is often interrupted and ruffled by hostile and disturbing influences. But Christ is alive! Walking upon the broken waves of our doubts and fears, He comes to us in all the majesty of Divine power and the meekness of human compassion; and says, "Peace, be still, and there is a great calm."

Oh, how gladsome is the soul when thus it sees the Lord! In all this holy war between the old man and the new, with all the "mire and dirt " which indwelling sin, "like the troubled sea," is ever casting up, with all your battle with doubts and fears, only realize your oneness, not so much with the life of Christ, as with a personal, living Christ Himself, and you shall know the peace of God in your soul, passing all understanding. Because Christ lives, indwelling sin shall not slay you. It will struggle for the mastery, the flesh will contend for the pre-eminence, but the power of a living Savior through the indwelling of the Spirit will prevail, and sin shall not have dominion over you.

Not less effectual is a sight of our living Lord in the removal of spiritual doubts and in the quelling of unbelieving fear. Until these disciples "saw the Lord," saw Him in His risen, resurrection-life, their minds were assailed by carnal reasoning and unbelieving despondency. "Is this the Christ that should come? Is His religion true? Was He a deceiver, and are we the victims of the deception? Will He really come back again from the grave? Will He fulfil His promise? Shall we once more behold the form that attracted us, hear the voice that charmed us, feel the presence that soothed us, and again lean our head upon His loving heart?" But all this carnal reasoning vanished, all these unbelieving doubts and fears gave way, when they saw the Lord, as the gray mists and spectral illusions of the morning vanish before the light and splendor of the ascending sun.

By like spiritual doubts and fears are we, beloved, often assailed. Seeing more and more clearly the sin that dwells in us, knowing increasingly the spiritual war, the fight of faith, we are ready to doubt our saint-ship, to renounce our sonship, and to relinquish our humble hope of ever reaching heaven at last. But one simple, believing sight of Jesus alive, ever living to make intercession that our weak, assailed, and trembling faith fail not, disperses all our doubts, annihilates all our fears, silences our fleshly reasoning, and reassures our trembling souls with the blessed hope that, because Christ lives we shall live also.

Thus, then, when assailed by doubts and fears touching your salvation, behold afresh your risen Lord. Realize His life in your soul. One sight of Jesus, one throb of His risen life, one moment's realization of your present oneness with Him who came back from the grave to seal forever the justification of all who believe in Him, will lift you from the region of uncertainty and cloud into the meridian of assurance and joy, awaking in your soul the exclamation, "This is my Beloved, and this is my Friend? Now I believe and am sure that this is the very Christ of God, the Savior of sinners, even of me!"

A sight of Christ alive will make your afflicted and sorrowful heart joyful. Never was sadness so real, turned into joy so great, as when the first disciples once more saw their risen and living Lord. Sorrow, beloved, is the heritage of all God's people. The disciples and followers of the "Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief," can we expect or even desire that it should be otherwise? Thus, for the members to be assimilated to the Head is a great privilege and honor. Deem not, then, that some strange thing has happened unto you if your Lord calls you to drink a cup of bitter woe, to tread a path of piercing sorrow, to bear a cross that chafes or a burden that crushes you, since it is the royal road to heaven.

Little, oh, how little, would you know of the blessedness of possessing spiritual life in, of drawing fresh life from, Jesus- life-supporting, life-soothing, life-sanctifying- but for the very discipline of suffering and of trial through which you are, perhaps, now passing. The Lord is writing death upon some living blessing, is blighting some blooming mercy, is enshrouding in the grave some choice and precious treasure of your heart, and your cup of sorrow overflows. Is all dead? is all gone? Is He Himself, who has blasted health, who has broken the strong and beautiful staff, who has dried up earth's resources, who has emptied you from vessel to vessel, entirely and forever withdrawn? Oh, no! Jesus lives! He lives to strengthen you in weakness, to make all your bed in sickness, to supply all your temporal need, to give you a much greater blessing than He has removed, and to stand fast by your side when days are dark, and riches take wing, and friends prove false, and health decays, and suffering and weakness incapacitate you for service and isolate you from God's sanctuary.

The season of bereavement is one in which a believing apprehension of a risen, living Savior brings to the mind especial comfort and repose. When death flings its deep, cold shade upon life's sunniest spots, then faith takes hold of a living Friend- a Friend and Brother who, though once dead, is alive again, and lives for evermore. Oh, how sweet is this life of Jesus in the moment of death! If "in the midst of life,'' as the beautiful service for the burial of the dead, expresses it, "we are in death," in a nobler sense he who has a living Christ in him can exclaim, "In the midst of death I am in life."

The Lord, dear reader, may write the sentence of death on earth's fairest, dearest mercy, but He has erased that sentence from your soul and its solemn future. The sentence of death is repealed and cancelled in all those who believe in a risen and living Savior, and not even shall they "see death" when he, the "last enemy," draws near to break the silver cord and let the ransomed spirit free.

But death has entered your abode, and its ravages and its blank are unmistakable, sad, and painful. You feel his icy shadow is upon you. You behold the ravages of the spoiler in the faded leaf, in the broken stem, in the smitten flower, and your lone and darkened home is but the emblem of your more lonely and darkened heart! But be still! Jesus is alive and lives for you. All that you have lost in the counsel of that wise father, all that you miss in the love of that fond mother, all that you possessed in the strong arm of that kind-hearted brother, or in the sweet devotion of that affectionate wife, or in the faithful, filial attachment of that dear child, you have now in the love, the wisdom, the protection, the presence of a living Savior!

Death cannot rob you of this precious treasure. He will guide your future of perplexity with His counsel, He will light your future loneliness with His smile, He will strengthen your weak frame with His encircling arm, and will bid you repose your weary, aching head where the beloved disciple gently rested his- upon the bosom of your risen, living Lord. Oh, let your faith, then- though it be a weeping faith, a feeble faith, a lowly, trembling faith, a faith that bends in tears over the grave that seems to entomb all that made life so sweet and now death less bitter- let it rise above the coffin, the shroud, the dust, and see Jesus only, still wearing your bereaved nature, and bending upon you from His throne in heaven an eye of unutterable tenderness, sympathy, and love!

Nor this alone. The resurrection of Christ is the pledge that you shall meet again those loved ones from whom you have lately parted and who died in the Lord. The hope of the believer is a living hope, because it is a hope in a living Christ. " God has begotten us again unto a lively (a living, real) hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead." Yes, we shall see them again! "For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so those also who sleep in Jesus will God bring with Him." Let us then, fellow-bereaved, comfort one another with these soothing words and with this glorious hope!

In the spiritual conflict of the Christian, the power arising from faith dealing with the risen life of Christ, is appropriate and mighty. It is only as we enter into the death of Christ that we can have fellowship with Him in His life. We must be partakers of His death before we become partakers of His resurrection. It is in the daily cross we are bearing of the dying of Jesus, that we learn the blessedness of the life of Jesus. Thus the apostle puts it-, "Always bearing about in the body the DYING of the Lord Jesus, that the LIFE also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body, "

Hence, as previously remarked, the thought and the feeling that Christ was alive, which strengthened the apostles for service, nerved them for trial, soothed them in sorrow, and sustained them in suffering and in death. It was only as they bore about the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life of Jesus was made manifest in them. They believed that He was alive, and they proved that He was alive. It was to them not an empty fiction, but a confirmed fact; not an empty theory, but blessed and precious experience.

And is it less so with us? We, too, exclaim, "I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live. I go to a risen, living Christ weak, I come away strengthened; I go to Him sad, I return rejoicing; I go to Him carrying a heavy burden, and am lightened. I take to Him my sins, my backslidings, my infirmities, my guilt, and He raises me out of the horrible pit and the miry clay, and places my feet upon a Rock, even the Rock that is higher than I, and puts a new song into my mouth, even salvation unto my God, -and now, I need no trumpet-tongue of angel, or silver voice of man, to announce that Jesus is alive and lives in heaven for me. I have, in the grace which He gives, in the strength which He inspires, in the love, sympathy, and smile with which He soothes and cheers me, proof which no foe can gainsay that Jesus lives, and ever lives to make intercession for me within the veil."

This spiritual subject is eminently practical; and, indeed, the more spiritual any truth or ministry of the truth is, the more deeply sanctifying will the spiritually-minded Christian experience it to be. The first use we should make of it is, earnestly to seek to know more of the POWER of Christ's resurrection in our souls. It has a vitalizing influence of which the believer, raised from a death of sin to a life of righteousness, is blessedly sensible. It is a mighty lever to raise the soul above the world, sin, and death. If the corpse flung into the grave of the Prophet quickened into life by contact with the body of the buried seer, how much more shall we, who believe in Jesus, feel the quickening, life-increasing power of a daily faith in the resurrection of the Great Prophet of the Church- Jesus Christ?

Oh, deeply sanctifying truth! Who feels not the solemnity and power of the apostle's magnificent reasoning on this subject? "Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory." This it is to feel the power of Christ's resurrection; it is to rise above the things of sense, the attractions of earth, the pleasures of the world, the power of sin to mortify our lusts, and to have our mind, and heart and hopes in heaven, where our precious Treasure, our living, loving Savior, is.

Weeping mourner after Jesus, gaze not down into the empty grave, but up to the glorious throne where your Savior is. He is not here, "He is risen." You are, perhaps, earnestly seeking Him. You long to see Him, to hear His sin-pardoning voice, to have a manifestation of His risen life to your soul. Let your faith look up! Come away from the emptiness, the silence, and the grave-clothes of the tomb, and gaze up into heaven, and see Him who was crucified for you, now alive to pray for you at the Father's right hand.

Do not doubt either His willingness or His power to save you. "He is able to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by Him, seeing He ever lives to make intercession for them." Oh, the magic, the life-giving power of these words, "save to the uttermost!" Sin-distressed, guilt-burdened soul, will you, can you, now despair? Look at your darkest, vilest sins- look at your deepest, greatest unworthiness- look into the mouth of the bottomless pit, glowing, flashing with the fires of a hell you have so long and so richly deserved- then, let your weak and trembling faith uplift its eye and gaze upon Christ in heaven, alive to save your soul to the uttermost of all its crime, to the uttermost of all its guilt and hell deserving, and you shall rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory.

Who can doubt, from this truth, the final blessedness, the eternal glory, of all the Lord's people? The life of every believing soul is bound up in the life of Christ. Listen to His life-inspiring, life-sustaining declaration, "because I live, you shall live also." The risen and glorified life of Jesus is the pledge and the security of the everlasting bliss of every humble believer. Not one shall perish. Not a poor sinner who has touched in faith the hem of His robe shall die- no, not one. As Abraham Booth somewhere observes, If any one may perish whom God the Father gave to His Son, two might perish; and if two, why not a hundred?- and if a hundred, why not a thousand?- and if a thousand, why not all? Hence our dear Lord says, "All that the Father gives Me shall come to Me;" and coming to Him in grace now, they shall most assuredly come to Him in glory hereafter.

How certain and glorious is the first resurrection of the saints! "Now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the first fruits of those who slept." Christ the first fruits! Oh, what a glorious harvest, then, will the angel reapers sickle, and heaven's garners treasure up! All, from the believing Adam to the last believing sinner on earth, will rise on that bright morning, and enter upon the thousand years of millennial bliss and glory, undimmed by a cloud, and undisturbed by a wail of the despair which will gather round the rest of the dead, who shall rise to shame and everlasting contempt.

Oh, to have part in the first resurrection; for on such the second death shall have no power! Strive, brother, sister, strive against sin, against the world, and against Satan, "if by any means you might attain unto the resurrection of the dead." What a fearful thing to have no prospect of a happy and glorious resurrection! To be looking forward to a Christless death, and a hopeless burial, and a resurrection to all the untold, inconceivable horrors of the second death!

Behold, I place before you life and death! Do you count your soul of so little worth, your endless future so unsubstantial a dream, as to imperil the precious salvation of the one and to forego the eternal blessedness of the other for the earthly riches, the sensual joys, the shadowy honors of a moment! Fly to Christ- this moment fly. Escape for your life! Fall in penitence at His feet, and ask Him that you might "know Him, and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, and be made conformable to His death."

Another practical deduction from this subject is, to live in the continuous realization of our identity with the life of Christ. It is the same spiritual life pulsating in the souls of all the regenerate, and that life is from Christ. He imparts it, He nourishes it, He preserves it. It follows, then, from this that we are as believers to live upon a living Christ, to prove to the world that He is alive by His life manifest in our mortal bodies. We go to Christ weak, and are made strong; we go to Him sorrowful, and we rejoice; we go to Him burdened, and we are lightened; and so, while we bear about with us the dying of the Lord Jesus- dying to sin and to the world and to self, and enduring persecution and loss for His name- we also bear about with us the life of the Lord Jesus in its daily succourings, consolation, and joy.

And what a sanctifying truth is this! Did we manfully realize the oneness of our life with Christ, how holy should we be as becomes those whose life is hid with Christ in God. Bearing about with us the consciousness of a life so divine and heavenly, life so pure and holy, how should we tremble to plunge into society and scenes, or embark in enterprises and engagements with which we know our Lord could have no sympathy or fellowship! Oh, saint of God! remember whose life and what a life dwells within you! Can you willingly compromise such a life by a worldly course, or by indulged sin? You are a living temple -for Christ dwells in you by the Spirit.

Nor would I fail to remind you how ready Christ is to breathe His life into you more abundantly. When spiritual decays creep in, and converse with God languishes, and eternal realities lose their all-commanding control of your mind and heart and life, then fly to Christ for life more abundant. Go and draw a fresh inspiration from Him, "the fountain of life." Ask Jesus to quicken and revive you afresh. Tell Him that your life languishes, that grace decays, that love is cold, that faith is weak, and that you are in yourself powerless to resist the world, the flesh, and Satan. Oh, how blessedly will He, in response to your prayer, cause the fresh springs of life to flow through your soul, now to pulsate with stronger life, and bloom with richer beauty, and ripen into more golden fruit. Is this your spiritual state? Are you living upon the life of Christ? So living, you will die daily; and in daily dying, behold you live!

"Dying, yet in Christ we live!
Living, yet in Christ we die!
We die to sin, we live to God,
Eternally, immortally.

"Living, and behold we die!
Dying, yet from death we rise!
This is our resurrection-
life the life beyond the skies.

"Savior, give us now Your grace,
Quicken us to faith and love;
Be now our life, and through Your death
May we have life above."

Once more I implore you to seek by earnest, persevering prayer, spiritual life from Christ. Oh that you may now hear the voice of the Son of God and live! Renounce your deadly doings, your lifeless ritual, and touch by faith the Savior's hem, and you shall live! Jesus was never known to spurn from Him a suppliant who humbly sought at His hands this life- nor will He spurn you! Then, when you have received it in your soul, let it have full, unfettered scope, nothing of the old nature deadening its power or fading its light. Soon- oh, how soon! it will ascend to the source from where it came, and lose itself in the boundless ocean of life eternal!

Grant, O Lord, that as we are baptized into the death of your blessed Son, our Savior Jesus Christ, so by continually mortifying our corrupt affections we may be buried with Him; and that through the grave and gate of death we may pass to our joyful resurrection; for His merits, who died and was buried, and rose again for us, Your Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

I Am Jesus; or,
"Christ's Conversion of Paul a Christian Evidence."

And immediately he began preaching Christ in the synagogues, saying, "He is indeed the Son of God!" Acts 9:20

The conversion of Saul of Tarsus has ever been considered one of the most conclusive evidences of the truth, and one of the most distinguished trophies of the power, of the Christian faith on record. So convincing and impressive indeed that a branch of the Christian Church has, in its devotional formula, appointed a distinct place for its special recognition and remembrance.

In what point of light however we view this triumph of the Savior's free and sovereign grace, it must afford instruction to the mind, comfort to the heart, and establishment to the faith of the Christian; and to the latest period of time exist as a monument of God's great love to sinners, holding out hope to the most despairing, and testifying that God, who had mercy upon Saul of Tarsus, will extend a like mercy to the vilest sinner seeking in penitence and faith a like interest in the Savior's pardoning grace. Such is His own testimony, "For this cause I obtained mercy, that in me first Jesus Christ might show forth all patience, for a pattern to those who should hereafter believe on Him to life everlasting."

And then we read that, immediately after his conversion, "... he began preaching about Jesus in the synagogues, saying, He is indeed the Son of God" Did we, in our present exposition, strictly adhere to these words, we should speak, in their order, of the preacher- as confirming the truth of Christianity; of the subject-matter of the preaching as evidencing the nature of Christianity; and of the place of the preaching as evidencing the triumph of Christianity. Without, however, pledging myself to a minute examination of each of these points in detail, we may yet keep them in view as landmarks guiding our present meditation upon the subject which we propose to illustrate by these words- The conversion of Said of Tarsus, an evidence of the truth of the Christian religion.

Christianity lacks no evidence. Occupying the central position of all truth, it attracts universal notice, challenges the closest scrutiny, and summons its testimony from every object and source. All modern attempts of infidelity to impugn the divinity, to sap and undermine the foundation of our holy faith, have been met, answered, and exploded a thousand times over: and the gospel of Christ has invariably come forth from the battle and the scrutiny, its evidence all the stronger, its glory all the brighter, wearing fresh laurels and girt with new strength. The discoveries of science and the march of intellect have but accumulated around the gospel increased proofs of its divinity, while the foes of our faith, retiring from the conflict discomforted and dismayed, have but foamed forth their shame and revenge as the billow hurled from the rock against which it thundered but which it could not move.

Let us look for a moment at his conversion. What were the moral antecedents of Saul of Tarsus? In general terms, he was what we all are by nature- the children of wrath, even as others. There breathes not an individual of the race who is not involved in the fall and wreck of humanity -whose nature is not originally and totally alienated and depraved, tainted by sin and accursed of God; who, dying in that state, unrenewed, unconverted by the Holy Spirit, must pass into eternity but to endure its inconceivable, indescribable, and never-ending woe. "All have sinned, and come short of the glory of God." "There is none righteous, no, not one."

Such is the testimony of Scripture. But in addition to that which we hold in common with him, there was a strong development of the carnal mind in Saul, which brought out his enmity against God in bold relief, and took the form of avowed and virulent hostility to Christ and His Church. Reviewing at a subsequent period this part of his history, he employs this language, "I too was convinced that I ought to do all that was possible to oppose the name of Jesus of Nazareth. " "Being exceedingly mad against them, I persecuted them even unto strange cities."

So sworn a foe of Christ, and so decided an enemy to the truth, he was the last man, we might have supposed, who would eventually become not only a convert to the faith, but one of its greatest and boldest preachers. One could scarcely have selected from the entire ranks of Christ's enemies, an individual less likely to become a disciple and apostle of the Savior. As soon might we have expected Caiaphas would have torn the ephod from his breast and the tiara from his brow, and, trampling them in the dust at the Savior's feet, avow himself henceforth Christ's follower. One would almost as soon have expected Pilate himself- the vacillating, temporizing Pilate- would have descended from his judgment-seat and have bowed the knee in homage to Christ, as that the bloodthirsty Saul of Tarsus, the bitter and relentless persecutor of the saints, should become a sincere believer in, and the chief apostle of, the Lord Jesus.

And yet mark the great change through which he passed. Armed with authority from the Sanhedrin to arrest all whom he found professing Christ, he himself was arrested by a higher power and for a nobler end. A glory brighter than the noontide sun shone around him. What was that glory? It was as though the Shekinah of the ancient temple had returned to earth with augmented and transcendent luster- It was the glory of Jesus which now shone around him with blinding and overpowering effulgence, from which there came a voice saying, "I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting."

In a moment the rebel was disarmed, the foe was conquered, and the proud pharisee was smitten to the ground, conquered, regenerated, saved! By whom and by what was this remarkable and instantaneous revolution effected? Was it natural or supernatural? human or divine? Let the disciple of a cold, skeptical philosophy reply. By no process of training was this wonderful change preceded. In a moment, as in the twinkling of an eye, the cry burst from his lips, "Lord, what will you have me to do I?"

To what can we ascribe this extraordinary awakening, this remarkable revolution of thought and feeling, but the power of God? Behold the change! The hand that had just grasped the weapon that was to slay, was now uplifted in supplication. The knees that stood firm as a rock when Stephen was writhing in death's agonies now smote each other in fear. The eye that gloated upon the fast-flowing blood of Christ's first martyr now overflowed with tears of penitence. The man who was mad against the saints a moment before was now at the feet of Jesus pleading for mercy and suing for service. Again, I ask, is not this instance of regenerating power, of converting grace, an evidence of the divine nature of the religion of Christ such as all its enemies cannot gainsay, carrying conviction to every ingenuous, honest mind in favor of the divinity of that religion which could transform such a nature as Saul of Tarsus into the nature of God?

And what was his subsequent career? From that hour he became one of the greatest of saints and one of the foremost apostles of Christ. Follow him from the moment that he cried, "Lord, what will you have me to do?" until he closed his career by a martyr's death, and every candid mind must acknowledge that neither the history or the martyrology of the Christian Church ever presented a character more illustrative of the sovereign grace of Christ, and more demonstrative of the divine truth of Christianity than Paul's. My reader, why have I dwelt thus long and earnestly upon the conversion of Paul? Why, but to carry conviction home to your heart, as by the power of the Holy Spirit, of the truth that such must you become if you share the grace that made Paul what he was, and partake of the glory into which he has entered.

Conversion is essentially and unchangeably the same in every age, environment, and individual. The new birth is in all the regenerate alike the advent of a new nature in the soul, involving a new governing principle, new affections, a new mind, leading to a new and holy life, a life henceforth lived unto God. This new nature is divine, and, therefore, sinless. It is essentially different from our old nature, which we derive from the first Adam, and which, in common with the race, is wholly fallen and totally corrupt- not only 'very far gone,' but gone to the farthest distance from original righteousness, and to the utmost limit of sin. The testimony of God's word is explicit, "All have sinned and come short of the glory of God. There is none good, no, not one."

But, as I have remarked, regeneration is the implanting of a new nature in the believer, not the old mended and repaired. Hence the apostle John employs this striking language, personating the new nature in the regenerate- "Whoever is born of God, does not commit sin; for His seed remains in him: and he cannot sin because he is born of God." Corresponding with this is the language of the apostle Paul, "Put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness," "and have put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of Him who created him."

Could language, even inspired by the Holy Spirit, be more explicit? Thus the regenerate man bears about with him two natures, essentially different, and yet ever in the closest union; deadly opposed, and yet inseparably united. Hence the apostle, referring to the Roman mode of punishment, speaks of his bearing about with him a body of death and corruption. "O wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?" The interpretation which we thus present of the new nature in the believer will explain the spiritual conflict which the regenerate daily wage, and, not clearly understanding which, many of the Lord's people are led into much mental distress and spiritual bondage and fear.

You have often thought, O Christian, that you cannot possibly be a true child of God because of the battle raging within you, the law in your members warring against the law of your mind, and bringing you into captivity to the law of sin which is in your members. Oh, how mournfully have you travailed because of this! How have you made your bed to swim with tears, and the solitude of the desert to echo with sighs. But take heart, dear child of God! Were you "dead in trespasses and in sins," you would be insensible to the spiritual conflict of the "two armies" within you- the flesh and the spirit. Your conscience would be asleep, your heart motionless, your mind blinded, and your whole soul wrapped in the shroud of spiritual death. Satan and the world, too, would continue their efforts to renew the anodyne, and to rock the cradle of your spiritual slumber, lest you should awake from your sleep, and arise from the dead, and Christ should give you light, and you should be saved.

Oh, what reason have you to thank God for the least evidence of spiritual feeling, for the faintest pulse of spiritual life, though it be but a sigh, a groan, a tear, a smiting on the breast, a breathing to heaven the prayer, "God be merciful to mea sinner!" Is the Spirit of God showing to you more deeply your sinfulness and poverty, your weakness and need? Do you seem in your own eye to grow worse and not better, viler and not holier, to go backward and not forward? Blessed teaching, beloved, is this! The schools could not instruct you thus. Philosophy could teach you no lesson like this. "Flesh and blood'" is impotent here.

Have you cast from you the garment of you're your own righteousness, coming to Christ "wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked," accepting Him as your only righteousness, believing in Him as your only salvation, reposing in Him as your only rest? Then be it known to you that these are divine drawings, these are holy leadings, this is God's work in your soul. I give you the words of Jesus for this assertion, "No man can come to Me, except the Father, who has sent Me, draw him. . . . . Every man that has heard, and has learned of the Father, comes unto me."

Accept then, beloved, your spiritual awakening, your humbling discoveries, the deep insight into your own heart, the conflict within of which you are so acutely, so painfully sensible, the tears that moisten your pillow, the groans that wake the solitude of the desert, the sighs that float upon the air, as marks of grace, as symptoms of life, as evidences that you are born again, and, by God's grace, been translated out of darkness into light, and from the power of Satan unto God. Oh, blessed, unerring signs of your adoption, your high calling, your heirship to eternal glory?

In further consideration of the conversion of Paul, we are arrested by his preaching. "And immediately he preached Christ." "Immediately." This is a remarkable expression- a volume in a word; the moment he was converted he became a preacher of Christ. He waited for no preparation, sought no authority from the Church, asked for no orders from man, applied for no diploma from the schools; but the moment that the discovery of the Lord Jesus Christ was made to his mind, he became Christ's bold, earnest, and powerful preacher. This feature is too significant and suggestive to be lightly overlooked.

Still we must guard ourselves here. We do not infer from this that an individual may devote himself ably and successfully to the work of the Christian ministry apart from a previous process of spiritual and mental training, qualifying him for the holy and solemn functions of his high office. Far from this. We can see no exact parallel between the case of the apostle Paul and that of an individual called by grace by ordinary means. It is generally admitted that the conversion of Paul was miraculous. Prior to this his mind had undergone a thorough intellectual training in one of the first schools of learning, and at the feet of Rabbi Gamaliel, one of the most renowned doctors of the law. His mental culture was of no imperfect cast. It is evident, from his writings, that he was not only profoundly taught in Jewish lore, but that his mind was singularly familiar with the philosophers of Greece and with the poets of Rome. No advocate, therefore, of an uneducated ministry can properly cite the great apostle of the Gentiles as sustaining his idea or as illustrating his theory.

And yet, at the same time, I am prepared to concede that I see no reason, when God converts an intelligent individual by His grace- his heart glowing with love to the Savior and with yearning for the salvation of souls- why he should not go forth through the length and breadth of the land preaching Christ and evangelizing as he goes. The authority to preach with which we are invested is not from a church. Our ordination, as received from man, conveys no priestly power, and confers upon us no prescriptive right to expound the mysteries of God's Word.

We are ministers, and not priests; we do not make, we but proclaim a sacrifice offered once for all the one sacrifice of Christ. We administer the sacraments not sacerdotally but ministerially. The administration of the rite of baptism and of the Lord's Supper possesses no more virtue or efficacy, coming from the hands of the highest ecclesiastical dignitary, than from those of the most humble evangelist in the land. It is well, however, that those who, like Saul of Tarsus, straightway preach Christ, should, like him, receive the recognition and be set apart by the prayers of the Church. Then may he with confidence and power go forth, seeking to bring others to a saving knowledge of that Savior whom he has found so precious to his own soul.

This conducts us to the subject-matter of Paul's preaching. "And immediately he began preaching CHRIST." Dilating at some length upon this vital and important part of our subject, I must crave the indulgence of my readers. The reply to the question, "What is it to preach Christ?" embraces a wide range of truth. There may be much preaching so denominated which yet presents no scriptural claim to the character. It is marvelous how much may pass current with men for the real in divinity, and for the true in religion, which yet passes not current with the Lord. An individual may preach theology without God, Christianity without Christ, the cross without the atonement, and the Bible without revelation! But Saul of Tarsus "immediately preached Christ."

Before we attempt to show what this involves, let me remind my reader briefly of the position of the apostle. He had to cope with difficulties and opposition of every kind. In the first place, he was confronted by the ancient religion of Judaism. There was much the Jew could allege in favor of his religion. It was divine, it was ancient, it was taught in the writings of the prophets. His arguments were many, his reasoning strong, his prejudices unconquerable. And yet the apostle in the face of all this preached Christ Jesus and Him crucified.

In addition to this, he had to cope with the philosophy of Greece and with the heathenism of Rome. And it was here, I imagine, the trained intellect and the well-stored mind of Paul came to his help. It was here he felt the advantage of his previous mental culture. But still he changed not his theme. Still he preached Christ and the resurrection. And whether he confronted the pharisaical Jew in the synagogue, or reasoned with the skeptical philosopher on Mars' Hill, Jesus Christ was his one, his only, his grand, his invariable theme.

Much may be learned from this. There is a strong tendency in the minds of some to meet the errors of the day by other and less authorized and potent means than the preaching in stern simplicity the Gospel of the grace of God. But it is a great and a fatal mistake. The experiment has been tried again and again, and has failed. The preaching of the Lord Jesus Christ in the demonstration and power of the Holy Spirit, is the only divinely appointed instrument of destroying false religion, overthrowing error, and converting the soul, and the only one God Himself will acknowledge and the Holy Spirit bless.

But the question still recurs, What is implied in preaching Christ? Paul preached Christ in the divine dignity of His person. He had so overwhelming a demonstration of this truth in his remarkable conversion, that ever after, in all the discourses he delivered, and epistles he penned, he testified to the Godhead of the Savior with an apostle's zeal and with a martyr's firmness. The true preaching of Christ remains unalterably the same. We cannot, my reader, properly preach Christ without in the very foreground placing this grand article of our creed- this fundamental doctrine of our faith- that Christ and God are one, that Jesus Christ is as truly God, as essentially Divine, as the Father. The whole fabric of Christianity rests upon this great doctrine as its basis. Cut from beneath us the doctrine of the essential Deity of Christ -sweep away the Divinity of the Son of God, and on what do we stand? in what is our hope for eternity?

I marvel not that men who deny the Godhead of Christ deny also the sacrifice of Christ; the one stands or falls with the other. If my Savior be but a mere creature; if He be but a man like myself; if He be not everlastingly and essentially God; then I can have no confidence in His death. The saving efficacy of the death of Christ- the obedience of Christ- the sacrifice of Christ- the blood of Christ- the power of Christ to save- all springs from the Godhead of Christ. If Christ is Divine-if my Savior is God- then my hope is resting on Divinity- my salvation is based on Deity, and I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I commit unto Him until the last great day.

Hold fast this great, cardinal, precious doctrine of our faith- the essential Deity of Christ. Entertain no doubts, indulge in no cavilings, give heed to no reasonings and debatings tending to shake your faith in this doctrine; cast not away your confidence in this truth; it is your life! The more firmly your faith is built on the essential Deity of Christ, the more will you realize the Atonement to be what it is, the more will you realize the joy and comfort that springs from the one sacrifice He has offered for poor sinners.

Why is it that the blood of Jesus Christ can wash the soul, all guilty as it is, whiter than snow? Why is it that the righteousness of Christ, imputed by the Spirit and received by faith, will present you before God justified from all things? It is because your Savior is Divine, your Redeemer is God, and has imparted the virtue of His Godhead, the dignity of His higher nature, to His atoning sacrifice.

I have anticipated my second observation, that, to preach Christ we must preach the Sacrifice and atonement of Christ without qualification or reserve. This is a day of much criminal reserve, of holding back bold, uncompromising statements of these great and essential verities of our faith. Men styled evangelical seem afraid to place in the front rank of their preaching these great doctrines of the Gospel; whereas, the Gospel of Christ is what it ever has been, and the work of Christ is what it ever has been- of vital, essential moment to souls speeding to the judgment. No change in modern modes of thought, or of opinion, or of education, or of philosophy, has altered, in the slightest degree, the essential nature and the vital importance of the great doctrines of Christianity. We are not to adapt our preaching to the education, the philosophy, or the politics of the times. We are to preach the same old glorious Gospel which the apostle Paul preached when he uplifted the cross of Christ as the only hope of a lost and a ruined world, and declared that by this Name- this one Name, given under heaven alone could men be saved.

We teach without the slightest modification or reserve, that Christ's obedience and death, sealed and confirmed by His resurrection, constitute the one and only ground of the sinner's salvation. That there is salvation in no other. That no man is justified by the deeds of the law, but by faith in Christ. Christ represented His Church in His legal obedience and expiatory sacrifice. He kept the precept and endured the penalty of the law in our stead; was tried, condemned, and crucified for us. "He was delivered for our offences, and rose again for our justification." Believe this truth- or rather, believe not so much in a truth as in Him who is the Truth; not so much in the official work as in the personal dignity, grace, and love of Christ- and you are saved.

Patrick Hamilton, one of the first Protestant martyrs of Scotland, thus clearly and forcibly puts this great doctrine, "No man is justified by the deeds of the law, but by the faith of Christ. He was punished for you, and therefore you shall not be punished. I do not say we ought to do no good deeds, but I say we should do no good works to the intent to obtain remission of sins and the inheritance of heaven; for God says, 'Your sins are forgiven for my Son's sake, and you shall have the inheritance of heaven for my Son's sake.' I condemn not good deeds, but I condemn trust in our works; for all the works wherein a man puts any confidence are by his confidence poisoned and become evil; wherefore, you must do good works, and beware of doing them with the view to deserve any good for them. In a Christian man's life, and in order of doctrine, there is the law, repentance, hope, charity, and the deeds of charity; yet in the act of justification there is nothing else in man that has part or place but faith alone, apprehending the object, which is Christ crucified, in whom is all the worthiness and fulness of our salvation."

Paul preached Christ, too, as the Savior of poor, lost sinners. Oh, what a grand feature was this in His ministry- Christ the Savior of sinners! God forbid that out preaching should be contradictory and dissonant in its utterance and in its melody to that glorious key-note of the apostle, "This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners." When we preach Christ truly, we preach Him as the Savior who died for the ungodly- as the Savior, not of saints, not of the worthy, not of those who imagine themselves fit to be saved, but as the Savior of sinners- lost, heartbroken, self-condemned, sin-loathing, self-abhorring sinners, sinners who have become acquainted with the plague of their own hearts, who place their mouths in the dust, and cry, "God be merciful to me, the sinner" -sinners who have not a hope but that which springs from the finished work of Christ.

Oh, if I did not believe that Jesus Christ came to save the worst of sinners, will never cast out the very chief who comes in penitence at His feet, and takes hold of His blessed cross, resting on his finished work, I would never more preach. There may be not a few who scan this page who have deemed themselves beyond the pale of salvation. You have thought yourself a great sinner. Your transgressions of a deep and dark dye. You have so sinned against conviction, have so stifled emotion, have so endeavored to conquer spiritual feelings. You have so sinned against light, knowledge, and feeling, against a father's pleadings- a mother's prayers- a minister's warnings- the providential dealings of God in your history.

You seem as if you had placed yourself beyond the reach of Christ's arm, and that for you there was no salvation. But listen to our wondrous story. Christ, the Savior of the lost, whose glory, delight, love it is to exercise His divine power and the freeness and the fulness of His grace in saving sinners to the uttermost, I present to you. Yes! that same Jesus who found Saul of Tarsus, who transferred the dying malefactor from the cross on earth to His bosom in glory, washed from every crime in His most precious blood, is willing, is able to save you. You may have been a persecutor of the saints; you may have been a bold blasphemer, a scorning sceptic; you may have herded with the unclean, may have sold yourself to Satan; nevertheless, do you feel a wish to be saved? Is there stirring within your heart a desire to be saved? Do you long to be a child of God, a disciple of Jesus? Then, my brother-for such you are- if you come to this precious Christ, this glorious Savior, He will not reject you nor cast you out. Oh, if the angels in heaven, were now to speak, they could not make to you an announcement truer, sweeter, more precious than this that, if you will throw yourself at the foot of the cross, and believe in the Lord Jesus Christ- if you will now wash in the fountain of His blood, the Lord Jesus Christ will graciously accept you, freely pardon you, and forever glorify you in heaven.

Paul preached Christ in His fullness. It is impossible to present the Lord Jesus in His proper light apart from this. The feeblest, gentlest unfolding of the Divine character expresses in some degree the grace, the love, the blessing it contains. This is a great encouragement to those preachers who are conscious of the much infirmity with which they attempt to uplift the Savior. Let them remember that however humble their gifts, narrow their acquirements, and limited the range of their influence, it is impossible that they can exhibit the Lord Jesus without some fragrance breathing from His name, and some blessing distilling from His grace, for which some sin-distressed soul, or some tried and tempted believer shall thank them in heaven. But what a blessed preaching this of Christ! All fullness of guilt-pardoning and of sin-subduing grace, all fulness of wisdom and strength; all fulness of tenderness and love; all fulness of salvation and glory, free, redundant, inexhaustible fulness.

To bring you in some measure into the experience of this truth, the Lord has, perhaps, been instructing you more deeply in the experience of your own emptiness. The two lessons are taught in the same school, and by the same Teacher; the two blessings flow through the same channel, and to the same recipient. He who sees his own poverty sees something of Christ's wealth; who feels his own emptiness realizes in some measure Christ's fulness. Thus the Lord impoverishes, that He might enrich us; weakens, that He might strengthen us; casts us down, that faith may look for uplifting. "When men are cast down, then you shall say, there is lifting up."

Repair, then, to the Savior's fulness with frequent, unhesitating, and unlimited application. That fulness is not for Himself, nor for angels, but for us, empty, needy, sinners. "It pleased the Father that in Him should all fulness dwell" for the Church, whose salvation was confided to His hands. And you cannot chant His praise more sweetly, nor weave a garland more worthy of His brow, than when in faith you bring your guilt to the cleansing virtue of His blood, your corruption to the conquering power of His grace, and your exhausted resources to the fulness from which the saints on earth and the saints in heaven have for ages drawn, and which yet has not sunk one hair's breadth.

Open your eyes, you weeping Rachel, and behold the fountain of all blessing in Jesus flowing at your side. "All my springs are in You."

To preach Christ is to present Him in the tender compassion of His heart. To keep back or to dilute this truth is to divide Christ, to veil one-half His nature. We need the two natures of our Lord, and cannot dispense with either- the one, His divine nature, to impart efficacy to His atonement; the other, the human nature, to make the atonement His deity thus stamps with infinite worth. But it is of His sympathizing nature as man I now speak. How precious is this to the heart in seasons of suffering of mind, body, or estate! Adversity proves a costly pearl when it brings us into the experience, compassion, and sympathy of the Savior. Sorrow makes us better acquainted with our common humanity. We know more of man, feel more for man, and do more for man when God brings us into affliction. If this is true of our fellow-men, how much more so of Christ! There are perfections of His being we cannot properly see, excellences in His character we do not distinctly discern, cloisters in His heart we do not fully penetrate, truths in His gospel we cannot clearly understand, until trial in some shape or other impels us to more individual and actual fellowship with Him. Accept, then, the discipline of your Heavenly Father, as designed to make you better acquainted with His blessed Son. Blend the brightest thoughts of Jesus with the gloomiest thoughts of your present grief. He knows it, has sent it, comes with it, will sustain you beneath it, and will bring you through it, as He has promised. "I will bring the third part through the fire, and will refine them as silver its refined, and will try them as gold is tried: they shall call on my name, and I will hear them: I will say, It is my people; and they shall say, The Lord is my God"

Oh, to know more of Christ, to hold with Him more confidential communion, to insinuate ourselves, as it were, more closely within His heart, it were worth all the discipline of trial we ever experienced. The measure of our true knowledge of God's truth is the measure of our personal experience; and the measure of our experience is the sanctified result of God's discipline. "Blessed is the man whom You chasten, O Lord, and teach out of your law."

We preach Christ in the glory of His second coming. As this great and august event approaches- and the time of the end speeds on- it is of solemn moment that the trumpet of the Lord's ministers give no hesitating and uncertain sound touching this great and glorious truth. Paul, though living so remote from the time of the second advent of Christ, constantly made it the theme of his ministry and the burden of his epistles. "I beseech you by the coming of the Lord," was his frequent and impressive argument when enforcing holiness, or urging us to entire surrender to God. Yes, the Lord is at hand! He is coming to gather in His ancient people Israel, to confront the Antichrist yet to be revealed and then to be overthrown, to punish with judgments the idolatrous nations of the earth, and finally to Judge the ungodly, and to reign over and among His people gloriously. He will come as a thief in the night; blessed are they who shall then be counted worthy to stand before the Son of man!

My reader, let me devote the brief space yet left me in pressing home upon your attention the personal question- Have you been arrested by Christ? Has He 'apprehended' you by His Spirit in the midst of your hatred and rebellion, your pleasure and worldliness? In other words, are you truly converted by His grace? Has Jesus called you, not with the audible voice that arrested Saul, but by the still, small voice of His Spirit in your heart? Oh to hear Him say, "I am Jesus! whom you have long disbelieved and despised; I am Jesus, whose grace you have scorned, whose salvation you have neglected, with whose blood you have trifled. I am Jesus who, notwithstanding all, is able and willing to save you to the uttermost." The Lord of His grace grant that you may hear that voice speaking mercy, and saying, "Come unto me," before you hear it speaking to you in judgment, and saying, "Depart from me!"

Let me close these pages as I commenced them. If, my reader, you are a disbeliever in the divine authority of the Bible, a rejecter of the truth of Christianity, let me implore you candidly and prayerfully to weigh the evidence of the Christian faith afforded by the remarkable conversion of Saul of Tarsus. And the Lord grant that by the Spirit, it may convince you, as it carried conviction to the skeptical mind of Lord Lyttleton, that God's Word Is True! and thus may you henceforth become a disciple and follower of the Savior now, and a jewel in His crown hereafter. For this let us pray. O God, who through the preaching of the blessed apostle Paul, have caused the light of the gospel to shine throughout the world; grant, we beseech You, that we, having his wonderful conversion in remembrance, may show forth our thankfulness unto You for the same, by following the holy doctrine which He taught, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Bring him unto Me;
or, "Help and salvation only in Christ"

Then Jesus answered, and said, "Bring him here to Me." Mt. 17:17

The narrative to which these words refer is replete with touches of the deepest interest. Our Lord had just been transfigured. Descending from the mount, His robes streaming with the brightness, and His countenance radiant with the glory of that wonderful scene, He finds Himself in the midst of an anxious and excited group. The occasion quickly transpired. The central object of that multitude, upon whom its chief and most touching interest gathered, was a distressed and suppliant parent, accompanied by an afflicted, demoniacally-possessed child, whom he had brought to the disciples of Christ for their healing. But the case had baffled their skill for, "they could not cure him."

Seeing the Savior approach, the father of the child directed his appeal to Him. "Lord, have mercy upon my son for he is lunatic, and sore vexed; for he often falls into the fire or into the water. And I brought him to your disciples and they could not cure him." And then followed Christ's gracious response, "Bring him here to me. And Jesus rebuked the devil, and he departed out of him: and the child was cured from that very hour."

The whole narrative, viewed in its gospel significance, is richly instructive. The miracles of our Lord were a marvelous blending of human compassion and divine instruction. They were never intended to terminate in mere bodily or mental relief; but were designed also to shadow forth His higher mission to man and His nobler work for man- physical illustrations of spiritual life. In this light let us view the present one, and glean the precious truths it conveys.

What are some of the chief spiritual points it illustrates? The disease of this child reminds us of a peculiar and affecting feature of our moral condition- we are by nature demoniacally possessed. Will any deem this view of our spiritual condition harsh and overdrawn? Are they, with all their reasoning faculties in full health and play, disposed skeptically to question its truth, and indignantly to repel the charge? Pause a moment, my reader, and ponder these striking and solemn words of Scripture- "The heart of the sons of men is full of evil, and madness is in their heart while they live."

This awful picture is not that of a class, or of a nation merely, but of every son and daughter of Adam on the face of the globe; and, if still unconverted by the grace of God, it finds its counterpart, my reader, in you. Were you not the subject of this moral insanity, could you, an heir of eternity, live as you do but as an heir of time? Look at your life. A rational being, yet living irrationally. A responsible being, yet ignoring your obligation to God. An accountable being, yet with not one serious thought of your individual accountability. A sinful being, yet with no knowledge of the Savior of sinners. A mortal being, yet living as though you were never to die. An immortal being, yet never pausing to inquire, "Where shall I spend my eternity?"

Living amid dreams, fancies, and hallucinations; playing with straws, blowing bubbles, pursuing shadows, and so sporting each moment upon the precipice of endless woe! Is this an evidence of sanity? Is this a mark of a life of a spiritually renewed and sound intellect? Alas! what does it prove but that the demon of moral insanity, the most terrific and fatal, sits gloomily and supremely enthroned upon your unregenerate heart, and will continue so enthroned until the Savior graciously ejects him thence, and brings you to His feet clothed and in your right mind.

By what avenue can we approach you with words of warning and entreaty? How awaken you to a conviction and sense of your present danger and future condition? Alas, as we cannot by our own efforts reason with the insane, neither can we by our own unaided powers convince you of the depravity of your heart, of the recklessness of your life, and of the terribleness of the doom that awaits you when the shadows and dreams of your present existence give way to the stern, dread realities of the life that is to come.

And yet, morally insane and infatuated though you are, God deals with you as an intelligent, sinful, responsible being, and holds you firm within the grasp of His almighty power. Listen to His gracious overture. "Come now and let us reason together, says the Lord: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool." God in these words recognizes your intelligence, sinfulness, moral responsibility and obligation. Never will He admit your utter impotence to help and save yourself, or for a moment release you from the solemn obligation you are under to love, serve, and obey Him. You tell me that you cannot repent- I answer, it is because you will not repent. You say you cannot believe in Jesus- it is because you will not believe in Jesus. You complain that you cannot come to Christ- it is because you will not come to Christ. Your sin is, not that you cannot, but that you will not be saved. Our blessed Lord clearly puts it in this light. "You will not come unto Me, that you might have life."

Most true is it that you cannot, that you have no moral power, but it is the rebellion of your will that constitutes your highest crime before God. Oh that sinful, stubborn will! It is the depraved, perverse rudder of the soul, guiding all its movements, controlling all its actions, and often steering it amid the rocks, the quicksands and breakers of present destruction and eternal woe. But when Jesus comes with His converting Spirit, He first conquers the will. He grasps this rudder, brings under the power of His grace this all governing principle of man's soul; subdues it, renews it, gives it a new bend and holy bias, and thus, having made the soul "willing in the day of His power," gently and persuasively draws it to Himself.

Lord, subdue my sinful will! Bend and break the iron sinews of its rebellion, bow it to Your control, lay it low beneath the Cross, and make it willing to love and serve and follow You! This done, the demon of our moral madness leaves the soul and leaves the throne for Jesus!

We reach another feature of this narrative -the means of cure sought by the distressed parent. "I brought him to Your disciples." Supposing them to be Christ's representatives, his first resort was to man. There is not a more solemnly instructive feature of the narrative than this. What a rebuke it administers, what a truth it teaches! There is not a stronger feeling of our nature than that which this parent's conduct illustrates- the tendency of our hearts in times of trouble and need to repair first to human help.

"I brought him to Your disciples." What significant words! They meet one of the most popular and prevalent errors of the present day- the priestly element, supposed by many to be lodged in human hands. Underlying the whole system of Ritualism and Sacramentarianism is this principle- the supposed existence of priestly authority and power. Divest the system of this principle, destroy this its central element, and the whole thing crumbles to ruin. Sad, oh how sad, to see men calling themselves Christ's ministers and representatives, vaulting into His throne and usurping His authority and power. The only priest over the Church of God is Christ; and the only priesthood in the Church is the Church of God itself. "You are a royal priesthood." "You"- that is, all believers in Christ Jesus; all who are washed in His blood and clothed with His righteousness, who join the one song of His one priesthood- "Who has made us kings and priests unto God."

That the great Head of the Church has appointed and ordained an order of men to preach His word, and to administer His institutions, we recognize with profound gratitude. The Christian ministry is of Christ, and we gratefully recognize, reverently esteem, and thankfully accept it; giving to Him all the glory and praise of the power and blessing of which it is the channel to His Church. Beyond this we dare not go! Christ is the one and only sacrificing Priest in the Church. He alone has merit to atone for sin, and He alone has authority and power to pardon it. He has delegated this priestly power to no creature, man or angel. All who claim it are profane usurpers, and shall be found deceivers and liars in the great day when every one of us shall give account of himself unto God.

This conducts us to another equally striking feature of the narrative, the inability of the disciples to meet the case. "I brought him to Your disciples, and they could not cure him." What a fatal blow do these words hurl at all the vain pretensions of man to priestly authority and power! What? were these the first and inspired disciples and apostles of Christ, the earliest preachers of His gospel, and administrators of His ordinances, and builders of His Church, powerless to help? Then who shall dare claim in this day a priestly prerogative and power which even the earliest, inspired and holy apostles of the Church never claimed. But what a lesson is here taught us, my reader, even us who regard the figment of priestly power in man but a base delusion and a lie! Are we not often betrayed into a like fatal error of going first to human power for help and salvation?

We go to Christ's ministers, thinking they can relieve us of the burden of sin; we repair to the Lord's servants supposing they can administer comfort in grief, counsel in perplexity, and sympathy in trial; but, alas! we find them often powerless to help. "Lord, I brought my sin, my grief, my wound, my perplexity, my burden, to Your ministers, and they could not hep me."

Thus the Lord empties us of our heart's idolatry, teaches us the weakness of human power, withers the arm and dries up the spring of creature help- that He might but draw us to Himself. We trust either in our own selves or in others, until God writes upon our human dependence the sentence of death. He has written that solemn sentence already within ourselves, that we might not trust in our own righteousness for salvation, and He writes it daily upon all our human props and creature resources, that we might learn to put our trust alone in Jesus. How instructive and solemn the teaching of God's word on this subject of human trust. "This is what the Lord says: "Cursed are those who put their trust in mere humans and turn their hearts away from the Lord. They are like stunted shrubs in the desert, with no hope for the future. They will live in the barren wilderness, on the salty flats where no one lives." Equally pointed is the language of the apostle- "We had the sentence of death in ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves, but in God, which raises the dead."

Accept, as sent in love to you, child of God, the painful and humiliating discipline of your heavenly Father, which has destroyed all your creature confidences, broken your beautiful vessels and blasted your pleasant gourds of created good. Oh, never did Jesus evince His love to you as now! Were not His desire towards you, were He not jealous of your love, and did He not wish to make you supremely happy by bringing you to seek and find that happiness supremely in Himself, then would He have allowed you to follow after your lovers, giving you up to the creature idolatry of your too fond and clinging heart.

But we reach the most interesting and instructive part of the narrative- that portion which will supply the subject of our remaining thoughts. "Then Jesus answered and said,

"Bring him unto ME." It was at this critical juncture, when human power failed, that our Lord steps in and concentrates the entire interest of the scene upon Himself. And what is the spirit He manifests and the language which He employs? Is He offended with the distressed parent, and does He express that offence in words of rebuke? Are His feelings wounded and is His language harsh, because His disciples had received precedence of Himself, and that He had only been applied to as a last resource because all other means had failed?

Ah, no! there was no sin in Jesus, and consequently no pride. How differently we would have felt, and how opposite to this we should have acted! Standing upon our self-respect, which is often nothing less than self-idolatry, and resenting the wound which the slight had inflicted, we should in all probability have looked coldly upon the case, and either have accepted it with reluctance, or have dismissed it with disdain. How often has this infirmity of our nature exhibited itself under real or supposed slight. We could ill brook to be supplanted by another, or to be dismissed to the cold shade of neglect. That we were not given precedence, our judgment first consulted, and our aid first sought, has stung our pride and wounded our sensibilities, and has rendered us peevish, haughty, and morose.

But not thus was it with our adorable Lord. In Him was no sin, and consequently no infirmity. His transcendent trait was humility. He made Himself of no reputation. He condescended to become a servant, yes, the servant of servants. Self negation, like a thread of gold, was interwoven with the web of His whole life, from the moment that He stooped to take our nature in the stable until that in which he bore it with Him to glory. Oh, to be assimilated to Him in this grace of humility! In nothing will our resemblance be more perfect.

Our Lord, when He clustered His disciples at His feet on the mount, did not in those memorable instructions say, "Learn of me, for I am wise," or, "Learn of me, for I am powerful"- no! but, "Learn of me, for I am meek and lowly in heart." His grace of humility was made to eclipse His gift of intellect; the mind was to crown the heart; and passing by the "spirit of wisdom and of understanding, the spirit of counsel and of might" which He possessed was without measure, He turned their eye upon His humility of heart, and bade them learn, admire, and imitate.

Never, perhaps, in the life of our Lord did this lowly trait appear in a lovelier light than now. Not a look of anger darted from his eye, not a word of rebuke breathed from His lips. And thus Jesus demeans Himself towards us. How seldom do we repair to Him with our burdens, perplexities, and needs until we have tried any and every other resource. Such finite beings are we, so earthly and carnal, that if we can but attach ourselves in seasons of conscious sorrow and need and weakness to that which is sensible, however frail the object and feeble the hold, we would rather do so than trust in the invisible God; we bear our burden first to the disciple of Jesus rather than directly and immediately to Jesus Himself. But, finding no help here, we then gladly turn to Christ. And what do we find Him to be? What has our experience of Him been when all human power failed, and all creature resources dried, and men or angels could not help us? Just what this poor, distressed parent found Him to be- a present and willing and all-powerful help.

Now the words which Jesus addressed to this afflicted suppliant in the hour of his need and extremity He equally addresses to us- "bring him here unto ME." It is Christ's invitation to all needy souls, whatever that need may be- it is His invitation, my reader, to you. What a great and precious privilege is this? It would be impossible to over-estimate its worth, or to give full expression to its blessedness. Indeed it is the highest as the sweetest privilege of the believer to bring all to Jesus- to come, though He be a last resource- to come, though filled with shame and penitence at not having come to Him before, at not having come to Him at first, yet to come bearing the burden, unveiling the grief, disclosing the need to Jesus.

Let us endeavor to strengthen and encourage you, my reader, in this holy and helpful privilege of bringing to Jesus what, in all probability, you have brought in vain to man. Imagine the Lord addressing these words to you, "Bring it here unto me." The invitation, perhaps, finds you in deep need, in overwhelming distress, at a critical crisis of your history. Human power has proved helpless, friends faithless, plans futile, and you are at your wits' end. In your moment of disappointment and despair, Jesus meets you with the gracious words, "Bring it here unto me." And now your spirit revives, your heart bounds, at the words, and you exclaim, "Behold, Lord, I come."

Let us in two or three particulars amplify these words. In the first place, Jesus in effect says, "Bring your sins here unto me." He begins with sin, because it is the cause of all burdens, and the heaviest burden of all. Your general experience testifies to this. Your sins are to you a grievous burden, and you sigh and cry for deliverance. You have, perhaps, taken your sins to the minister, or you have disclosed them to a Christian friend. It may be you have sought relief for their oppressiveness in the gaieties of the world, in the excitement of business, or in the rigid but vain observance of religious duties. But, after all, you find yourself in the same dilemma with the afflicted parent, "I brought him to your disciples, and they could not heal him."

Listen to the Savior's gentle, unreproving words, "Bring your sins and guilt here unto Me." To whom more fitly, more hopefully, can you bring that heavy, crushing burden, but to Jesus? He is the only being in the universe who has to do judicially, or who can do remedially, with sin. Sin is a moral disease for which there is but one remedy, and but one physician. That remedy abjured, and that physician rejected, the sinner must accept, as the appalling, the inevitable result, the pangs and horrors of the second and eternal death.

But Jesus has to do personally and officially with sin. His mission to our fallen world was for its overthrow and annihilation. He made His advent to the empire of sin, entered the lazar-house of sin- and took upon Himself, by imputation, the guilt, the curse, and the condemnation of sin. His sufferings on the cross were sin-vicarious, His death was sin-atoning, His blood is sin-cleansing, His last and latest breath was a supplication for the forgiveness of sin- even the sin of His slayers.

In the language of the prophet, "He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities." In the language of the evangelist, "This man receives sinners, and eats with them." In the language of the apostles, "Christ died for our sins." All these witnesses unite in testifying to the great truth of the Bible that, "Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners." Poor sin-distressed soul, will not this suffice? Take not your sin-burdened heart to minister, nor to saints, nor to sacraments, nor to religious duties, nor to pious services- all, all these, are vain helpers, having no power to lighten you of the burden, or to efface the blot of one single sin.

In this infinitely momentous matter, happily for you, you must look up solely and exclusively to Jesus. God's plan of saving you cuts you off from all other resources, dissevers you from all other saviors, and throws you upon Jesus alone. Bring your sins, then, straight and at once to Him. Let there be not a moment's hesitation. Bring them, though they be as high as the pyramids, and red like crimson, and countless as the sands of the sea-shore.

Bring then your sins before conversion, your sins after conversion, your sins negating conversion; be they sins of youth, or sins of manhood, or sins of age, sins against knowledge, and sins against conviction, bring them all to Jesus! Yes, from whatever standpoint you view, and in whatever light you contemplate your sin and guilt, only bring it in confession, penitence, and faith to Jesus, and you shall learn from blessed experience that His blood cleanses from all sin.

Jesus says, "Bring your convictions to Me." There is no state of mind which keeps the inquiring soul, to use the expressive language of the prophet, so "long in the place of the breaking forth of children," as a conviction of sin. How many there are who stop here for months, and even for years, knowing nothing of the peace, and joy, and hope of the new birth? They seem to make no real spiritual progress. There is the infant's feeble and faint sob of life, and that is all. There is nothing of the vigor of youth, still less of the strength of the father, in their religion. They are not fully born again. And why this because they are resting in their convictions, living on their convictions, content to remain in this gloomy and doubtful position, rather than, by a simple, single act of faith, plunge into the fathomless, boundless sea of the Savior's grace, and there forever lose them.

But listen to the overture of Jesus. When He commands, "Bring it unto Me," and when He invites the weary and heavy laden to come to Him for rest, He includes you in the number. Leanness of soul must be the result of every attempt to subsist upon the starving aliment of conviction, while the gospel unveils to you the finest wheat of God's granary, and honey flowing from the rock. What, then, is your remedy? Simply this: instead of taking your convictions to duties, and to ordinances, and to ministers, to take them to Christ.

There is no healing of sin's wound, no lighting of sin's burden, no removal of sin's guilt, no weakening of sin's power, but as Christ deals with it. And since "His name is called Jesus, because He shall save His people from their sins," no turpitude of guilt, however great- no number of sins, however countless- no depth of conviction, however profound- can bar the soul from His redeeming love and pardoning grace.

Jesus says, "Bring your desire for conversion to Me." With how many individuals conversion, in its incipient stage, amounts to a desire only. And yet this day of small things in grace is not to be despised. The writer well remembers when it was his experience. Solemnly conscious of living in an unconverted state, and well instructed in the truth that conversion was essential to the enjoyment of heaven, his heart ardently longed and earnestly prayed for the priceless blessing. Remembering this, the earliest stage of his Christianity, he is prepared to offer sympathy and aid to all whom the experience of this work of grace is but a sincere desire.

And yet that desire is the work of God's Spirit, is the germ, the dawn, the first pulse of spiritual life. Welcome it, cherish it, bring it to Jesus, from whom all holy desires, as all good counsels, and just works, do proceed. And He who "quenches not the smoking flax, nor breaks the bruised reed," will so strengthen and increase that holy desire that it shall ripen into a full state of grace here, and into a perfect state of glory hereafter.

Jesus says, "Bring your sorrows to Me." Never did the soul find so powerful a magnet, attracting to itself affliction in every form, and sorrow in every shade, as Jesus. If sympathy is the expression of compassion nurtured and trained in a like school, then there is to be found in the wide universe of being no sympathy like Christ's. Standing as in the center of a world of woe, He invites every daughter of sorrow, of sin, of grief to repair to Him for succor, sympathy, and healing. As the High Priest of His Church -for whom alone He suffered, and wept, and sobbed- He unveils a bosom capacious enough and loving enough, and sympathizing enough, to embrace every sufferer, and to pillow every grief. Accept, then, His compassionate invitation, and bring your grief to the soothing, sustaining, sanctifying grace of His heart.

Jesus says, "Bring your needs to Me." We are necessitous beings. Sin has created countless needs; the absence of God from the soul, fathomless yearnings. Nor is there a being or a thing in the wide universe of life and wealth that can meet a solitary need. Jesus only can. With all the affluence of the universe which He made at His disposal, is there a single need you have which He is not able to supply? Bring, then, your needs to Him. Are they temporal? "The earth is the Lord's, and the fulness thereof." Are they spiritual? He is " full of grace and truth." Thus, possessing all earthly good, and furnished with all that is heavenly,

"What need shall not our God supply,
From His redundant stores?
What streams of mercy from on high,
An Arm Almighty pours?
From Christ, the ever-living spring,
These ample blessings flow;
Prepare my lips His name to sing,
Whose heart has loved us so."

Jesus says- "Bring your temptations me." To whom more appropriate can the tempted children of God repair with their varied assaults- the temptations of Satan, of the world, of their own hearts- as to Christ the tempted One? "For in that He himself has suffered, being tempted, He is able to succor those who are tempted." Truly, our spiritual Joseph, of whom it may truly be said, "The archer sorely grieved Him, and shot at Him, and hated Him," is prepared to quench each flaming arrow hurled at His dear people, to extract the dart, and heal, with balsam flowing from His own pierced side, the wounds those darts have inflicted.

Jesus says- "Bring your sick and suffering ones to me." When He dwelt upon earth He was earth's Great Physician. From all the cities and provinces, the towns and villages, they brought to Him their sick folk, and He healed them all. Not less humane or skillful is He now. To whom can we bring the sick ones we love, but are powerless to help, with such prospect of cure as to Jesus? Man's incurables are Christ's curables. He has power to control mental aberration, saying to the surging billows of the mind, "Peace, be still." He can arrest bodily sickness, quiet the trembling nerve, cool the feverish pulse, assuage the torturing pang, and cause the severest disease to fly at His all-controlling command. Bring, then, your afflicted, drooping one to Christ, and the prayer of faith offered to, and exercised in, Him shall save the sick.

To whom more appropriately can we take the skeptical religious doubts which distress us than to Jesus? Your faith in the truth of the Bible, in part or as a whole, has, perhaps, been disturbed by popular writers. You have come to question the veracity of the Mosaic history, or you have been led to doubt the integrity of this prophecy, or the accuracy of that gospel, or the inspiration of the other epistle, until your mind, having lost its anchorage, is driven out amid the broken seas and bleak rocks of doubt, uncertainty, and despair. And yet you are not satisfied. You have not entirely lost your faith in the integrity of the Bible, nor your filial hold upon God. You have, probably, confided your state of mind to man. You have read this book, and have consulted that authority, and have made known your case to that minister, yearning to find a proper solution to your distressing doubts, and a firm anchorage ground for your tossed and bewildered spirit. But all has proved in vain. You have borne your doubts and difficulties and distress to Christ's disciples, and they have proved powerless to help you.

This little booklet comes to echo the loving, gracious invitation of Jesus to you, "Bring it unto me." To you as truly and as personally He addresses these words as originally He did to the afflicted parent. The explanations of men have failed you, human teaching has proved powerless. Now try the experiment, as a last resource, and take your skeptical doubts to Jesus, and beseech Him to solve them, to neutralize them, to dislodge them, supplanting them by a simple, child-like, unquestioning faith in Himself as "the truth."

The moment your believing heart receives into it the Lord Jesus Christ, that moment all your doubts are gone. Your long-existing and agonizing inquiry, "What is truth?'' is now met fully, instantly answered, as that question only can be answered, by Him who has sublimely declared, "I am the truth." In bringing your doubts touching the truth of revelation to Jesus, you have complied with His command, you have yielded assent to His invitation. And in doing this you have obeyed God's command, who, respecting His beloved Son, uttered those significant words, "Hear Him." And in thus doing God's will, you have placed yourself in the only true position to know the truth of His word, "If any man," says our Lord, "will do His will, he shall know of the teaching, whether it be of God, or whether I speak of myself."

Oh bring, then, your agitated mind to Christ! Unveil to Him your mental difficulties, your religious doubts, your tortured feelings. With one word He can dislodge the demon of doubt from your mind, and all will be firm faith, full assurance, and heavenly peace.

Equally does He ask you to bring to Him your spiritual fears. "Fearful heart," is one of the most common and expressive titles of the Lord's people: "Say unto those who are of a fearful heart." This will account for the fact, that no words oftener fell from the lips of Jesus when on earth; than those soothing, precious ones, "Fear not." To whom, then, can you better repair with those distressing fears touching your conversion, your adoption, your salvation, your growth in grace, than to Jesus? Oh, why these fears, we may ask, when He is so near to soothe and allay them?

See the troubled waves receiving upon their foaming crests the footsteps of their Creator! "God manifest in the flesh"- bearing Him to His fearful, foundering disciples, with the words rising higher than the storm, "Be not afraid, it is I." Essentially immutable, He is just the same, high upon His throne in glory, that He was when thus He stepped from billow to billow to the comfort and the rescue of His affrighted disciples on the sea.

You have unveiled your fears to His ministers and to His saints, and still they torment, and still they distress you. He says, "Bring them here to Me." He will not repel your doubts nor chide your fears, but, as of old, He will tenderly meet them, gently deal with them, entirely remove them, and calm your perturbed and trembling heart upon the love and repose of His own. This simple living upon Christ will be found to be a very sanctifying life. Every errand that takes you to Him brings you in personal contact with perfect holiness; and you cannot return from the interview, though it were but of five minutes' duration, without the perfumed garment and the reflected glory. Men will take knowledge of you that you have been with Jesus.

Equally will this habit of bringing all our circumstances to Jesus tend to increase His endearment to your soul. He will grow upon our love. It is an instinct of our nature that the more we are with an object that we admire and love, the more that object entwines with our being. A growing acquaintance with its mental and moral excellence increases and deepens the affections, until we come to feel that communion seems essential to our existence, and that separation is almost its extinction. Thus the more we are with Christ the more we know Him, and the more we know the more we admire Him; and the more we admire, the more we love Him; and to love Him is to walk obediently to His sweet and holy commands. Oh, to love Him more!

Do not be ashamed to take your case to Jesus, even though you have gone first to human help. He won't be ashamed of you, if you are not ashamed of Him. It is His glory to step in and achieve a work and bestow a blessing when all human power and resources have failed. He loves to unlock His treasury when man's is utterly exhausted. Go, then, fall at His feet, and tell Him you have tried all other help, and all has failed you, and at last you come to Him. In a word, Jesus bids you bring all to Him-your depression and despondency, the sadness of your heart, and the anxieties of your mind, the wounds of friends and the calumnies of foes, the chidings of God and the assaults of man; your fear of death and your dread of judgment, all, all He invites to the asylum of His love, to the arm of His power, and to the fulness of His sufficiency. No word of upbraiding will fall from His lip, no look of anger dart from His eye.

Well will He remember how you leaned upon the arm of human power and it failed you, how you reposed upon the heart of human love and it disappointed you, how you resorted to human skill and it could not cure. And now, in the deepest, tenderest sympathy with your blighted hopes, your wounded affections, your disappointed plans, He would sincerely uplift the flower crushed and trampled in the dust, and, bathing it in the dew of His grace, place it in His sheltering bosom, to freshen and to bloom forever beneath the warm sunshine of His smile.

"Toiling in the midnight storm,
Tossed on sorrow's surging sea,
Weary, terrified, forlorn,
Jesus bids you, "Come to Me."

Drifting on the soundless deep,
Wave on wave rolls over thee;
Shadows coldly round you creep;
Jesus bids you, "Come to Me."

Clustering griefs becloud your way,
Earthly joys and comforts flee.
Oh, to be your light, your stay,
Jesus bids you, "Come to Me."

Jesus, take the vacant helm;
Guide me over this troubled sea;
Before the tide my soul o'erwhelm,
Jesus, Savior, come to me.

Let me hear Your cheering voice,
Even though it in chiding be;
Bid my fearful heart rejoice,
Jesus, Savior, come to me!

You can make the tempest cease,
At Your word the shadows flee;
You alone can give me peace;
Jesus, Savior, come to me!

Even upon the billow's crest,
Sweetly tranquil I can be,
If near Your dear heart I rest,
Jesus, Savior, come to me!

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

DIVINE REALITIES
Spiritual Reflections for the Saint and Sinner

Table of Contents

Preface

1. The Untrodden Path

2. Going Home

3. My Times in God's Hand

4. The Bosom of the Father

5. Only Trust Me

6. It Is Well

7. All Things for the Best

8. Go and Tell Jesus

PREFACE

Shadows and Realities constitute the great contrast between earth and heaven, time and eternity. "What shadows we are, and what shadows we pursue!" was an exclamation once uttered upon the floor of the British Senate by Burke, one of England's most eloquent statesmen, not less true than solemn and sublime. But the revelations of the Bible have come to displace these human, these earthly shadows, with divine and heavenly REALITIES. The Bible is true--eternity is real. "We have not followed cunningly devised fables" in yielding our unquestioning belief to the great and precious truths of the Gospel. Experience has proved them real, has demonstrated them divine. We have tried the world, and it has wounded us--the creature, and it has disappointed us--the teaching of men, and it has bewildered us--our own hearts, and they have proved "deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked." We turn to the "glorious Gospel of the blessed God," and we find it, through the anointing of the Holy Spirit, light in darkness, joy in sorrow, counsel in perplexity, strength in weakness, and hope in despair. It tells us of Jesus, the loving One, the mighty One, the sympathizing One, the faithful One, the saving One; and concentrating our whole soul in childlike faith upon Him, we prove the Gospel divine, God's Word true--all it threatens, and all it promises, REAL.

The following pages will, we trust, in a humble way, lead the reader into a closer acquaintance with a few of these Divine Realities. With them many who take up this volume, may be already familiar. Those who have welcomed them before, as they have eagerly looked for a word of counsel and comfort at the opening of a new year, may not regret to meet them again in another and more permanent form. To those to whom they will be new, this will explain the particular and appropriate bearing of each chapter upon this reflective and impressive period of time. But, believing that they contain instructive and saving, sanctifying and consolatory truths, suitable for the history of every-day life, and that they have already had the seal of the Divine blessing, the author commends them with confidence, in their enlarged form, to the prayerful perusal of the Christian Church, and to the continued favor of the Triune God.

The Untrodden Path

"You have not passed this way before."--Joshua 3:4

How solemn is the reflection that with a new cycle of time commences, with each traveler to Zion, a new and untrodden path. New events in his history will transpire--new scenes in the panorama of life will unfold--new phases of character will develop--new temptations will assail--new duties will devolve--new trials will be experienced--new sorrows will be felt--new friendships will be formed--and new mercies will be bestowed. How truly may it be said of the pilgrim, journeying through the wilderness to his eternal home, as he stands upon the threshold of this untried period of his existence, pondering the unknown and uncertain future, "You have not passed this way before."

But there is another thought inexpressibly soothing. Untried, untrodden, and unknown as that new path may be, it is each step mapped and arranged, and provided for in the everlasting and unchangeable covenant of God. To Him who leads us, who accepts us in the Son of his love, who knows the end from the beginning, it is no new, or uncertain, or hidden way. We thank Him that, while He wisely and kindly veils all the future from our reach, all that future--its minutest event--is as transparent and visible to Him as the past. Our Shepherd knows the windings along which He skillfully, gently, and safely leads his flock. He has traveled that way Himself, and has left the traces of His presence on the road; and as each follower advances--the new path unfolding at each step--he can exultingly exclaim, "I see the footprint of my Lord--here went my Master, my Leader, my Captain, leaving me an example that I should follow his steps." Oh! it is a thought replete with strong consolation, and well calculated to gird us for the coming year--the Lord knows and has ordained each step of the untrodden path upon which I am about to enter.

Another reflection. The infinite forethought, wisdom, and goodness which have marked each line of our new path have also provided for its every necessity. Each exigency in the history of the new year has been anticipated. Each need will bring its appropriate and adequate supply--each perplexity will have its guidance--each sorrow its comfort--each temptation its shield--each cloud its light. Each affliction will suggest its lesson--each correction will impart its teaching--each mercy will convey its message of love. The promise will be fulfilled to the letter--"As your day so shall your strength be."

And how blessed to know that all the provision for the untrodden path is in Jesus. "It pleased the Father that in Him should all fullness dwell." All wisdom to guide, all power to uphold, all love to soothe, all grace to support, all tenderness to sympathize, dwells in Christ. Let us, then, gird ourselves to a fresh taking hold of Christ. We must walk through this year not by sight, but by faith, and that faith must deal simply and directly with Jesus. "Without me you can do nothing." But with his strength made perfect in our weakness, we can do all things. Oh, be this our course and our posture--"coming up from the wilderness leaning on our Beloved."

Living in a world of imperfection and change, we must expect nothing perfect, nothing stable, in what we are, in what we do, or what we enjoy. But amid the dissolving views of the world that "passes away," let us take firm hold of the unchangeableness of God. The wheels may revolve, but the axle on which they turn is immoveable. Such is our covenant God. Events may vary--providences may change--friends may die--feelings may fluctuate--but God in Christ will "know no variableness, neither the shadow of a turning." "Having loved his own that were in the world, He loved them unto the end." And will it not be blessed to receive each new event of our remaining history as directly under the government and appointment of God? "He who sat upon the throne said, Behold, I make all things new." That new thing, be it what it may, which will transpire in your coming history, He will have created for your greatest good and his highest glory.

Reader! if you are a believer in the Lord Jesus, you will enter upon a new stage of your journey by a renewed surrender of yourself to the Lord. You will make the Cross the starting-point of a fresh setting out in the heavenly race. Oh, commence this year with a renewed application to the "blood of sprinkling." There is vitality in that blood; and its fresh sprinkling on your conscience will be as a new impartation of spiritual life to your soul. Oh, to begin the year with a broken heart for sin beneath the Cross of Immanuel! looking through that Cross to the heart of a loving, forgiving Father! Be not anxious about the future--all that future God has provided for. "All my times are in your hands." "Casting all your care upon Him, for He cares for you." "Cast your burden upon the Lord, and He shall sustain you."

Let it be a year of more spiritual advance. "Speak to the children of Israel that they go forward." Forward in the path of duty--forward in the path of suffering--forward in the path of conflict--forward in the path of labor--and forward in the path to eternal rest and glory. Soon will that rest be reached and that glory appear. This new year may be the jubilant year of your soul--the year of your release. Oh, spirit-stirring, ecstatic thought--this year I may be in heaven! this year I may be with Jesus, leaning my head upon his breast--my conflict, my sin, my sorrow all over! this year all the glorious wonders of the upper world may burst upon my view, and I may mingle with apostles, and prophets, and martyrs--the "general assembly of the church of the first-born who are written in heaven." What manner of people, then, ought we to be in all holy conversation and godliness? "Now is our salvation nearer than when we believed."

Reader! if you are not a believer in the Lord Jesus, Oh, that your New Year's Gift may be a new heart, a renewed mind, the second birth introducing you to a life for God. The Lord Jesus has solemnly, irrevocably affirmed, that unless you are born again of the Holy Spirit you shall not see the kingdom of God. Let not this new year be another year spent for SELF. Think of eternity--think of your solemn accounting--think of the coming of the Lord; and prepare to meet Him; "Awake, you that sleep, arise from the dead, and Christ shall give you life." Are you wondering if a wretch so vile as you may hope to be saved? Do you feel the serpent's sting? Do you know the plague of your own heart? Then we have joyful news for you! Throw yourself for acceptance and eternal life upon the infinite merits of Jesus, and you shall be saved. No merit but his, no intercessor but Him, no mediator but Christ will avail you. All the saints and angels on earth and in heaven cannot give you peace here or glory hereafter. Go to God simply and entirely through Christ, breathing no name but the name of Jesus, and God, for Christ's sake alone, will accept, pardon, and save you. "Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and you shall be saved."

Dear reader, if Christ is in you, and you are in Christ, and these blessed truths are heartfelt truths in your experience, then may I not wish you joy of the New Year into which the good hand of the Lord has brought you? The year that is passed has brought you nearer home; the year that has commenced may bring you to that home. There may we, through the everlasting love and sovereign grace of God, at last meet and sing together, "Worthy the Lamb that was slain!"

Ah! I shall soon be dying,
Time swiftly glides away;
But on my Lord relying,
I hail the happy day;
The day when I must enter
Upon a world unknown;
My helpless soul I venture
On Jesus Christ alone.
He once, a spotless victim,
Upon Mount Calvary bled!
Jehovah did afflict Him,
And bruise Him in my stead.
Hence all my hope arises,
Unworthy as I am:
My soul most surely prizes
The sin-atoning Lamb.
To Him by grace united,
I joy in Him alone;
And now, by faith, delighted
Behold Him on his throne.
Then with the saints in glory
The grateful song I'll raise,
And chant my blissful story
In high seraphic lays.

GOING HOME

"You have not yet reached the resting place and the inheritance the Lord your God is giving you." Deut. 12:9

And is it so, that at the close of this lonely and weary pilgrimage there is rest above? And that after this earthly fleeting existence there is an inheritance reserved? May I unhesitatingly believe this assurance, and hopefully clasp it to my heart? Then with what a firm tread, and with what a buoyant spirit may I press my foot upon the mysterious threshold of the year now opening upon me--even as the morning's sun peers above the horizon, and as the early flower expands to the warm influence of its genial beams. Whether, like that sun, this new born year shall in its course be wreathed with storm-clouds--or whether, like that opening floweret, its earthly loves and joys and hopes shall pale and droop and die, I cannot tell nor wish to know. Enough that God is my Father, my Sun, and Shield; that He will give grace and glory, and will withhold no good and needed thing. Enough that Christ is my Portion, my Advocate, my Friend, and that whatever else may pass away, his sympathy will not cease, his sufficiency will not fail, nor his love die. Enough that the everlasting covenant is mine, and that that covenant, made with me, is ordered in all things and sure. Enough that heaven is my rest, that towards it I am journeying, and that I am one year nearer its blessed and endless enjoyment.

Thus may each Christian pilgrim commune with his own heart while standing beneath the shadowy portal of another cycle of time. Before yet we meet its new and sacred claims, its duties, its responsibilities, and its trials--it may be our wisdom to remember, that we are "not as yet come to the rest and to the inheritance which the Lord our God gives us." Our path, pointing homewards, lies across a long and dreary desert. We have, as yet, many a milestone to pass--many a stage to travel--many a foe to confront--many a battle to win. We cannot exult as those who put off the armor and wave the palm. And yet we are going home. Going home! what a soothing reflection! what an ecstatic prospect! The heart throbs quicker--the eye beams brighter--the spirit grows elastic--the whole soul uplifts its soaring pinion, eager for its flight, at the very thought of heaven. "I go to prepare a place for you," was one of the last and sweetest assurances that breathed from the lips of the departing Savior; and though uttered eighteen hundred years ago, those words come stealing upon the memory like the echoes of by-gone music, thrilling the heart with holy and indescribable transport. Yes! He has passed within the veil as our forerunner; He has prepared heaven for us, and by His gentle, wise, and loving discipline, he is preparing us for heaven.

Amid the perpetually changing scenes of earth, it is refreshing to think of heaven as our CERTAIN hope. "In hope of eternal life, which God, that cannot lie, promised before the world began." This is no quicksand basis for faith--no mirage of hope. Heaven is a promised "rest"--exquisitely expressive image!--and that promise is the word of Him who cannot lie. Nothing can surpass, nothing can compare with this! Human confidences--the strong and beautiful--have bent and broken beneath us. Hopes--bright and favorable--we too fondly fed, have, like evening clouds of summer, faded away, draping the landscape they had painted with a thousand variegated hues, in the somber pall of night. But heaven is true! God has promised it--Christ has secured it--the Holy Spirit is its pledge--and the joys we now feel are its pledges and "first-fruits." Christian, consider this new epoch of time; unfold a new page of your yet unwritten history with the full, unwavering conviction that God is faithful--that in all the negotiations, transactions, and events of the unknown future--in all the diversified and fluctuating phases of experience through which you may pass, it will be your mercy to do with Him of whom it is said, "It is impossible for God to lie." Oh, take this precious truth into your heart, and it will shed a warm sunlight over all the landscape of your yet shadowy existence. "He abides faithful, He cannot deny Himself." Receive the promise, and confide in the veracity of the Promiser, and He will make good to its utmost the word upon which He has caused you to hope. Standing yet within the solemn vestibule of this new and exciting year, could our fluttering hearts find repose in a more appropriate or sweeter truth than the Divine faithfulness of Him "with whom there is no variableness, neither the shadow of a turning?"

The Home to which we aspire, and for which we pant, is not only a promised, it is also a PERFECT and a PERMANENT Home. The mixed character of those seasons we now call repose, and the shifting places and changing dwellings we here call home, should perpetually remind us that we are not, as yet, come to the perfect rest and the permanent home of heaven. Most true, indeed, God is the believer's present home, and Jesus his present rest. Beneath the shadow of the cross, by the side of the mercy-seat, within the pavilion of a Father's love there is true mental repose, a real heart's ease, a peace that passes all understanding, found even here, where all things else are fleeting as a cloud, and unsubstantial as a dream. "Come unto me, all you that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest."

But it is to heaven we look for the soul's perfect and changeless happiness. With what imagery shall I portray it? How shall I describe it? Think of all the ills of your present condition--not one exists in heaven! Bereaved one!--death enters not, slays not, sunders not there. Sick one!--disease pales not, enfeebles not, wastes not there. Afflicted one!--sorrow chafes not, saddens not, shades not there. Oppressed one!--cruelty injures not, wounds not, crushes not there. Forsaken one!--inconstancy disappoints not, chills not, mocks not there. Penitent one!--sin exists not, burdens not, embitters not there. Weeping one!--tears spring not, scald not, dim not there. "The former things are passed away." There rests not upon that smooth brow, there lingers not upon those serene features a furrow, or line, or shade of former sadness, languor, or suffering--not a trace of wishes unfulfilled, of fond hopes blighted. The desert is passed, the ocean is crossed, the home is reached, and the soul finds itself in heaven, where all is the perfection of purity and the plenitude of bliss. Ages move on in endless succession, and still all is bright, new, and eternal. Oh, who would not live to win and enjoy a heaven so fair, so holy, and so changeless as this? He who has Christ in his heart enshrines there the inextinguishable, deathless hope of glory.

It is a richly instructive and deeply sanctifying thought--the FUTURITY of the heavenly rest. When told that we are not as yet come to the rest and to the inheritance which the Lord our God gives us, we are gently reminded that we have each one a niche in life to occupy, a sphere to fill, a mission to perform. The idea of personal responsibility, of individual influence, and of untiring action instantly starts up before the mind, "Not yet in heaven--then for what am I here? Surely it is for an object in harmony with my intellectual and spiritual being, and worthy of Him who still detains me on earth. It must be that I have something to do, or something to endure for Christ--an active or a passive part to fill. Lord, what will you have me to do or suffer for You?" Oh, there is a fathomless depth of Divine wisdom in the arrangement that keeps us so long out of heaven. The world needs us, and we need the world. It needs us to illumine and sanctify it; we need it as the field of our conflict, and as the school of our graces. We need the world, not as a hermit's cell, but as a vast theater where before angels and men our Christianity is developed in the achievements of prayer, in the triumphs of faith, in the labors of love, and in the endurance of suffering.

Not yet at home--then we would remember that it is "through much tribulation we are to enter the kingdom." As a new period of time slowly rises from the depths of the unknown and mysterious future, its form, half-shadowy, half-brightness, seeming to say,
"Cold is my greeting: but when we part
You shall find I have crept around your heart.
Ah! vainly then would'st you bid me stay,
And sigh to recall me when I am away."

Shrink we from its stern and solemn duties, its bosomed sorrows, its deep and impenetrable decrees? Why shrink we? Infinite resources unveil their treasures upon its threshold. Christ's atoning merits confront our vast demerit. Christ's boundless grace confronts our deep necessities. Christ's promised presence confronts our sad and gloomy loneliness. Jesus thus filled with grace so overflowing, with love so tender, with sympathy so exquisite, with power so illimitable, with resources so boundless, with a nature so changeless, stands before us and says to each trembling heart, "Fear not!" We commence a new march under His convoy. We prepare for a new conflict with His armor. We renew our pilgrimage with fresh supplies of "angels' food," affording nourishment for the present and pledges for the future. For that future, be not heedlessly, unbelievingly anxious. It is all in God's hands. He desires that you should live each day upon Him as a little child--simple in your faith, unshaken in your confidence, clinging in your love. Let each morning's petition be--ever linking it with the precious name of Jesus, that name which is above every name--"My Father! give me this day my daily bread." Then, Oh, yes, then shall the promise be fulfilled, and its fulfillment shall be the immediate answer to your prayer--"As your days, so shall your strength be."

Inspired by the prospect of going home, we shall be watchful that nothing hides it from our view, or hinders our growing fitness for its enjoyment. "Arise, and depart, this is not your rest," is the yet impressive voice uttered by each drooping flower, and dying spring, and fading beam of earth-born good. Each moment we leave the desert behind us. We lose nothing, but we gain much; each night we pitch our tent "a day's march nearer home." The hope of the man whose portion is in this life is continually darkening and deteriorating. Each revolving year brings him nearer to the end and the loss of all his treasures. Unconverted reader, ponder this! But the hope of a believer in Jesus is rendered all the more lively, more precious, and more bright as time approaches eternity. Growing more intense, it becomes more sanctifying. Like the highland stream, dashing from the rock, and purifying itself as it courses its way to the ocean, Christian hope purifies the heart in which it dwells. Gently disentwining its thoughts, affections, and desires from a too clinging attachment to terrestrial objects, it bears them onward to the sea of glory towards which it flows.

Forward, then, with firmer tread, and with swifter wing to the hope laid up for us in heaven. Animated by such a hope, with a home before us so alluring and so near, shall we linger on our way to pluck the blighted flower, to admire the receding landscape, or even to build our tabernacle upon the mount all glowing with the Savior's presence? We are leaving behind us all present scenes of sadness and of joy. An Arabian prince, on approaching the city of Damascus, was so overwhelmed by the splendor of the city, that he paused at its entrance and said, "I expect to enter one paradise; but if I enter this city I shall be so caught by its blandishments, as to lose sight of the paradise in which I hope to enter."

We are journeying to a heaven infinitely surpassing a Mohammedan paradise--a heaven of perfect knowledge, of perfect holiness, of perfect love--shall we allow the dazzle of earthly blandishments to blind our eye to the glory so soon to be revealed? "Here we have no continuing city, we seek one to come."

Not yet come to the heavenly rest, we still are approaching it, and oh, ecstatic thought! we shall reach it at last! Everything in our present course reminds us that we are nearing home, as the seaweed washed from the rocks, and as the land-birds venturing from their bowers and floating by the vessel, are indices to the voyager that he is nearing his port. Are you bereaved?--weep not! earth has one tie less, and heaven has one tie more. Are you impoverished of earthly substance?--grieve not! your imperishable treasure is in heaven. Are you sailing over dark and stormy waters?--fear not! the rising flood but lifts your ark the higher and nearer the mount of perfect safety and endless rest. Are you battling with disease, conscious that life is ebbing and eternity is nearing?--tremble not! there is light and music in your lonely and shaded chamber--the dawn and the chimings of your heavenly home. "I am going home! Transporting thought!--true, I leave an earthly one, all so sweet and attractive, but I exchange it for a heavenly one infinitely brighter, more sacred and precious. I am going to Jesus--to the Church Triumphant--to Apostles, Prophets, and Martyrs--to the dear ones who line the shore on the other side, prepared to welcome me there. Death, from which I have so often recoiled, is but the triumphal arch--oh, how bright a risen Christ has made it!--through which I pass into my Father's house."

"I'm fading, slowly, slowly as the day
Fades into even, and the quiet night;
But with the body's sinking and decay,
The spirit gathers new and holy light.
A brief, brief time, and I shall be at rest,
Forever sheltered on the Savior's breast."

Let us, on this birthday of the year, renew each his personal and solemn dedication to God; supplicating forgiveness for the past, and invoking grace to help in every time of need for the future. The atoning blood of Jesus! how solemn and how precious is it at this moment! Bathed in it afresh, we will more supremely, unreservedly, and submissively yield ourselves unto God as those who are alive from the dead. It is only as we commence with the atoning blood that we commence aright. It is this that purifies the conscience, allays legal fears, dissolves the heart, embitters sin, and gives a loftier elevation to motives, principles, and actions. We begin, then, with the Cross. To it, poor and vile, worthless and faithless though we are, we are yet welcome. Oh! let us not carry the burden of the Old Year's sins and backslidings, failures and shortcomings, into the New. We will travel to the open fountain, wash, and be clean. Christ loves us to come as we are. We may approach all clothed with shame for the past, but not a reproving look will dart from His eye, nor an upbraiding word will breathe from His lips. The very fact of our coming penitent, humble, and trusting will, so to speak, wake every feeling of love in His heart, and move Him to the tenderest and most forgiving compassion. Nor shall abuse and ill-requited mercies past, seal our lips from supplicating blessings for the future. "Open your mouth wide, and I will fill it," is still the Divine promise. And He who gave it has added a supplementary one, if possible, yet ampler and richer, "Call unto me, and I will answer you, and show you great and mighty things which you know not." For what, then, shall we supplicate of Him, who is thus prepared to bestow more than we are able to ask or think? Lord! hearken to my petition--
I ask for a power to plead with men,
With a might like that of an angel's pen;
To bid them turn to their only rest,
And in their blessing to make me blest!
The plaudits I want are a silent voice,
Which shall bid my inner soul rejoice!
I ask in my bosom a wealth to secure
That shall make the whole world's riches poor.
I ask for a wisdom that brings to naught
The hoarded years of experience and thought.
I ask for a love which with rapture and light
Shall fill up my being's infinite;
Which cannot change with a changing lot;
Which endures, and oh! disappointeth not!--
Loveliest and brightest, when all earth can borrow
Is dark, and touched by the gloom of sorrow;
Which soothes with unfailing sympathy
When all human founts of feeling are dry;
Which wipes a tear in secret shed;
And cradles the sick and weary head;
True, where all else is but shadow and dream--
Perfect, immortal, celestial, supreme.

And now, beloved, let us arise and depart. "You have dwelt long enough in this place." "Let us pass over unto the other side." The cloud moves! 'Tis the heavenly signal for our advance. A greater than Moses is our Leader; a mightier than Joshua is our Savior. A fairer, sunnier, richer land than an earthly Canaan invites and woos us to its serene and peaceful coast. Trooping around and bending over us is a great cloud of witnesses, sister spirits, who seem to say, "Imitate our example, and yours will be our reward. Will you linger where we hastened? flee where we fought? fall where we stood? surrender where we conquered? Oh! be not slothful, but followers of us, who through faith and patience, are inheriting the promises." Blessed Savior! you shall guide me with your counsel, and afterwards receive me to glory.

I'M GOING HOME!

A poor and aged Christian, who had passed upwards of seventy years on earth, seeing her friends weeping around her death-bed, exclaimed, "Mourn not, I'm going home."

I'm going home--prepare the bridal wreath!
My Savior bids my happy spirit come:
Damp not with tears the Christian's bed of death,
Rejoice!--I'm going home!
Earth has its cares; for threescore years and ten
My lot has been 'midst thorny paths to roam;
I would not track those desert scenes again;
'Tis past--I'm going home!
The dove has found her nest, the storm-tossed found
A place of rest beyond the dashing foam
Of griefs wild billows--there am I bound.
Joy, joy!--I'm going home.
Earth's flowers all fade--there fadeless roses blow:
Earth's sunniest light is shaded by the tomb;
Earth's loves all slumber in the vault below--
Death dwells not in that home.
I see the city of the blest on high,
With the freed spirit's range. I come! I come!
You calling voices! catch my heart's reply;
Home! home!--I'm going home.
--Ragg

OH! TO BE READY!
Oh! to be ready, when death shall come!
Oh! to be ready to hasten home!
No earthward clinging, no lingering gaze,
No strife at parting, no sore amaze;
No chains to sever what earth has twined;
No spell to loosen what love would bind;
No flitting shadows to dim the light
Of the angel pinions winged for flight;
No cloud-like phantom to fling a gloom
'Twixt heaven's bright portals and earth's dark tomb.
But sweetly, gently to pass away
From the world's dim twilight into day.
To list the music of angels' lyres;
To catch the rapture of seraph fires;
To lean in trust on the Risen One;
Until borne away to a fadeless throne.
Oh! to be ready, when death shall come!
Oh! to be ready to hasten home!
--Anonymous

MY TIMES IN GOD'S HAND

"My times are in Your hand."--Psalm 31:15

What confirmation would the precious truth contained in these words derive, from the personal experience of the man of God who penned them! Reviewing the past of his eventful history, he would trace the guiding and overshadowing hand of his Heavenly Father in all the circumstances of the chequered and diversified scene; and as memory thus recalled the strange and momentous events of his life, with what overpowering solemnity would the conviction force itself upon his mind--that for the form and complexion of that life how little was it indebted to himself! Circumstances which chance could not originate, events which human sagacity could not foresee, and results which finite experience could not determine, would at once lift his grateful and adoring thoughts to that God of infinite foreknowledge and love, whose over-ruling providence had guarded with a sleepless eye each circumstance, and whose infinite goodness had guided with a skillful hand each step. With this retrospect before him, with what intensity of feeling would the aged king exclaim, "MY TIMES ARE IN YOUR HAND."

But if David felt this truth--that all his interests were in God's keeping and under His supreme direction--so consolatory, as life drew near its close, how much more cheering may it be to us just entering upon a new year of human life, all whose history is, to our view, wisely and beneficently enshrouded in obscurity, and all whose events, from the least to the greatest, are happily beyond our control. "My times are in Your hand." Who can give us the heartfelt, soothing influence of this precious truth, but the Holy Spirit, by whose Divine inspiration it was uttered? May He now unfold, and apply with his sanctifying, comforting power this portion of his own holy word to the reader's heart!

The declaration, that "our times are in the Lord's hand," implies, that the FUTURE of our history is impenetrably and mysteriously veiled from our sight. We live in a world of mysteries. They meet our eye, awaken our inquiry, and baffle our investigation at every step. Nature is a vast arcade of mysteries. Science is a mystery--truth is a mystery--religion is a mystery--our existence is a mystery--the future of our being is a mystery. And God, who alone can explain all mysteries, is the greatest mystery of all. How little do we understand of the inexplicable wonders of a wonder-working God, "whose thoughts are a great deep," and "whose ways are past finding out." But to God nothing is mysterious. In His purpose, nothing is unfixed; in His forethought, nothing is unknown; in His providence, nothing is contingent. His glance pierces the future, as vividly as it beholds the past. "He knows the end from the beginning." All His doings are parts of a divine, eternal, and harmonious plan. He may make "darkness His secret place; His pavilion round about Him dark waters, and thick clouds of the skies," and to human vision His dispensations may appear gloomy, discrepant, and confused; yet is He "working all things after the counsel of His own will," and "at the brightness that is before Him, His thick clouds pass," and all is transparent and harmonious to His eye.

And why this obscurity thus investing all our future? Would it not make for our present well-being--would it not be a satisfaction and a blessing, could we loop back the mystic veil, and gaze with a far-seeing and undimmed eye upon "our times," yet awaiting us on this side the grave? Remembering the past, you are perhaps ready to say, "Could I but have foreseen, I would have fore-arranged. Had I anticipated the result of such a step, or have known the outcome of such a movement, or have safely calculated the consequences of such a measure, I might have pursued an opposite course, and have averted the evil I now deplore, and have spared myself the misery I now feel."

But hush this vain reasoning! God, your God, O believer, had in wisdom, faithfulness, and love, hidden all the future from your view. "You shall remember all the ways which the Lord your God led you these forty years." How has He guided, counseled, and upheld you. He has led you by a right way. In perplexity, He has directed you--in need, He has supplied you--in sorrow, He has comforted you--in slippery paths, His mercy has held you up, and when fallen He has raised you again. From seeming evil He has educed positive good. The mistakes you have made, and the follies you have committed--in the blindness of your path, and in the sinfulness of your heart--have but led you to a closer acquaintance with, and to a stronger confidence in, God. They have opened up to you new and more glorious views of His character and His government; while, in leading you closer to the feet of Jesus in self-knowledge and self-abhorrence, they have unlocked to you springs of spiritual blessings--fresh, sanctifying, and unspeakable.

Beloved, God has placed us in a school in which He is teaching us to lay our blind reason at His feet, to cease from our own wisdom and guidance, and lean upon and confide in Him, as children with a parent. The goodness of God to us, combined with a jealous regard to His own glory, constrains Him to conceal the path along which He conducts us. His promise is, "I will bring the blind by a way that they knew not; I will lead them in paths that they have not known: I will make darkness light before them, and crooked things straight. These things will I do unto them, and not forsake them."--Isaiah 42:16.

Could the scenes of this year's history rise in their shadowy outline before us--or were an angel permitted to divulge a single page in the momentous volume of events just opened, how might we shrink from the revelation, and closing the book again, calmly wait until He should unfold its leaves, "in whose hand our times are." How unfitted would we be to discharge our duties--to sustain our responsibilities --to meet our trials--cope with our difficulties, and bear our sorrows, were they all to confront us at this moment! Oh, how kindly, wisely, and tenderly does our Father deal with us! And in no part of His providential dealings is His goodness more clearly seen than in veiling all our future from our view. Let us sit down at Jesus' feet, thanking Him that the "life which we now live in the flesh," we live not by sight, but by "faith in the Son of God, who loved us, and gave Himself for us."

But our "times," all wrapped in impenetrable mystery, are yet in the Lord's hand. The words are emphatic. Our times are not in the hands of angels or of men, still less in our own--they are in the Lord's hand. It is an individual truth. "My times." We deal too timidly with our individuality--with the truth of God as individuals--with Jesus as individuals--with the covenant of grace as individuals--with our responsibilities as individuals. "What," you exclaim, "I, a poor worm of the dust, not worthy of His regard, too insignificant for His notice--I, who have a heart so cold, a nature so depraved, a will so perverse--"my times?" Yes, dear reader, you may humbly adopt these words as your own, and exultingly exclaim, "My times are in His hand."

How comprehensive, too, is this truth, "My times are in His hand." Diversified as they may be--whatever the shape in which they are developed, or the complexion which they assume--attractive or repulsive, bathed with light or draped in gloom--all are there, exclusively and safely lodged in the Lord's hand. Let us specify a few of these "times."

Our time of prosperity is in the Lord's hand. There are no circumstances of life in which we are more sadly prone to indulge in self-complaisance than those of earthly prosperity. Industry is enriched and perseverance is rewarded, wealth increases and blessings accumulate, and the "heart grows fat, and kicks against God." The merchant ship returns freighted with treasure--the acres of the tiller are fruitful, and his barns are filled with plenty; or prosperity in some other form smiles upon our path, and then, alas, God is forgotten. We arrogate to ourselves the praise of our success. "My hand, and the might of my power has gotten me this." But what is the language of God's Word? "Beware that you do not forget the Lord your God, lest when you have eaten and are full, and have built goodly houses and dwelt therein; and when your herds and your flocks multiply, and your silver and your gold is multiplied, and all that you have is multiplied, then your heart be lifted up, and you forget the Lord your God."--Deut. 8:11, 14.

But oh, let us remember all our past, and all our coming prosperity--if indeed He shall so appoint it--is in the hand of God. It is His wisdom that suggests our plans--it is His power that guides, and it is His goodness that causes them to succeed. Every flower that blooms in our path, every smile that gladdens it, every mercy that bedews it, yes, "every good and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights." Oh, for grace to recognize God in our mercies, for a heart lifted up in holy returns of love, gratitude, and praise! How much sweeter will be our sweets, how much more blessed our blessings, and endeared our endearments, seeing them all dropping from the outstretched, munificent hand of a loving, gracious, and bountiful Father.

But there are times of adversity, and they, also, are in the Lord's hand. As every sunbeam that brightens, so every cloud that darkens, comes from God. We are subject to great and sudden reverses in our earthly condition. Joy is often followed by grief, prosperity by adversity. We are on the pinnacle today--tomorrow at its base. Oh, what a change may one event, and in one moment, create! A storm--a conflagration--a slight oscillation of the funds--the morning's post--the casual meeting of a friend, may clothe our life in mourning. But, beloved, all is from the Lord. "Affliction comes not forth of the dust, neither does trouble spring out of the ground."--Job 5:6.

Sorrow cannot come until God bids it. Health cannot fade--wealth cannot vanish--comfort cannot decay--friendship cannot chill--loved ones cannot die until He, in His sovereignty permits. Your time of sorrow is His appointment. The bitter cup which it may please the Lord you shall drink this year, will not be mixed by human hands. In the hand of the Lord is that cup. The cloud that may lower on your path, will not gather at a creature's bidding. "He makes the cloud His chariot." Some treasure you are now pressing to your heart, He may ask you to resign--some blessing you now possess, He may bid you relinquish--some fond expectation you now cherish, He may will you should forego--some lonely path He may design you should tread--yes, He may even bereave you of all, and yet all, all is in His hand. His hand--a Father's hand--moving in the thick darkness, is shaping every event, and arranging every dispensation of your life.

Has sickness laid you on a bed of suffering? has bereavement darkened your home? has adversity impoverished your resources? has change lessened your comforts? has sorrow in one of its many forms crushed your spirit to the earth? The Lord has done it! In all that has been sent, in all that has been recalled, and in all that has been withheld, His hand, noiseless and unseen, has moved. Ah! yes! that hand of changeless love blends a sweet with every bitter, pencils a bright rainbow on each dark cloud--upholds each faltering step--shelters within its hollow, and guides with unerring skill His chosen people safely to eternal glory.

Dear child of God, your afflictions, your trials, your crosses, your losses, your sorrows, all, all are in your heavenly Father's hand, and they cannot come until sent by Him. Bow that stricken heart, yield that tempest-tossed soul to His sovereign disposal, to His calm, righteous sway, in the submissive spirit and language of your suffering Savior, "Your will, O my Father, not mine, be done! My times of sadness and of grief are in Your hand."

Times of soul-distress, spiritual darkness, and conflict are in His hand. Many such are there in the experience of the true saints of God. Many the hard-fought battle, the fiery dart, the desperate wound, the momentary defeat in the Christian's life. Taking advantage of the spiritual mist which may hover around the mind in the time of perplexing care, and of gloomy providences; the foe, with stealthy tread, may rush in upon the soul like a flood. And when to this surprisal is added the suspension of the Lord's manifested presence, the veiling of His smile, the silence of His responsive voice, Oh, that is a time of soul-distress indeed!

But it is in the Lord's hand. No spiritual cloud shades, no mental distress depresses, no fiery dart is launched, that is not by Him permitted, and for which there is not a provision by Him arranged. There is nothing which the Lord has taken more entirely and exclusively into His keeping than the redeemed, sanctified souls of His people. All their interests for eternity are exclusively in His hand. In the infinite fullness of Jesus, in the inexhaustible supply of the covenant, in the exceeding great and precious promises of His word, He has anticipated every spiritual exigence of the believer. How precious is your soul to Him who bore all its sins, who exhausted all its curse--who travailed for it in ignominy and suffering, and who ransomed it with His own most precious blood. Guarded, also, by His indwelling Spirit is His kingdom of righteousness, joy, and peace within you. Oh, endeavor to realize that, whatever be your mental exercises, spiritual conflicts, doubts and fears, your "times" of soul despondency are in the Lord's hand.

Lodged there, safe are your spiritual interests. "All His saints are in His hand." And He to whose care you have confided your redeemed soul, has pledged Himself for its eternal security. Of His own sheep He says, "I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. My Father, who gave them to me, is greater than all: and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father's hand." With like precious faith and humble assurance you are privileged to exclaim with Paul, "I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I have committed unto Him against that day."

Ah! as soon shall Christ Himself perish, as one bought with His blood. No member of His body, insignificant though it may be, shall be dissevered. No temple of the Holy Spirit, frail and imperfect though it is, shall be destroyed. Not a soul to whom the divine image has been restored, and the divine nature has been imparted, upon whose heart the name of Jesus has been carved, shall be involved in the final and eternal destruction of the wicked. Nothing shall perish but the earthly and the sensual. Not one grain of precious faith shall be lost--not one spark of divine light shall be extinguished--not one pulsation of spiritual life shall die!

Oh, think of this, you who have fled all sinful and trembling to Jesus--you who cling to Him, as the limpet to the rock, as the ivy to the oak, never shall you lose that hold of faith you have on Christ, and never will Christ lose that hold of love He has on you. You and Jesus are one, indivisibly and eternally one. Nothing shall separate you from His love, nor sever you from His care, nor exclude you from His sympathy, nor banish you from His heaven of eternal blessedness. You are in Christ, the subject of His grace; and Christ is in you, the hope of glory. All your cares are Christ's care--all your sorrows are Christ's sorrow--all your need is Christ's supply--all your sicknesses are Christ's cure--all your crosses are Christ's burden. Your life, temporal, spiritual, eternal, is "hidden with Christ in God." Oh, the unutterable blessings that spring from a vital union with the Lord Jesus! The believer can exultingly say, "Christ and I are one! One in nature--one in affection--one in sympathy--one in fellowship, and one through the countless ages of eternity.

The life I live is a life of faith in Him. I fly to Him in the confidence of a loving friend, in the simplicity of a little child, and I reveal to Him my secret sorrow. I confess to Him my hidden sin. I acknowledge my heart-backsliding. I make known to Him my needs, my sufferings, my fears. I tell Him how chilled is my affection, how reserved is my obedience, how imperfect is my service, and yet how I long to love Him more ardently, to follow Him more closely, to serve Him more devotedly, to be more wholly and holily His. And how does He meet me? With a hearkening ear--with a beaming eye--with a gracious word--with an out-stretched hand--with a benignity and a gentleness all like Himself." Confide, then, dear reader, your spiritual and deathless interests in the Lord's hand. Careful only to "work out" in a holy life the grace He has wrought in your soul--thus manifestly a "living epistle of Christ, known and read of all men."

To those who, depressed with a painful foreboding at their final dissolution, are all their lifetime subject to bondage, how consolatory is the reflection that the time of the believer's death is peculiarly in the Lord's hand. It is solemnly true that there is a "time to die." Ah! affecting thought--"a time to die!" A time when this mortal conflict will be over--when this heart will cease to feel, alike insensible to joy or sorrow--when this head will ache and these eyes will weep no more--best and holiest of all--a time "when this corruptible shall put on incorruption, and this mortal shall put on immortality," and we shall "see Christ as He is, and be like Him." The world we have left will move on then as now: life's lights and shadows will gather in blended hues around our grave; but wrapped in death's deep, dreamless sleep, we shall be unconscious of all that once distressed or charmed us--the frown of anger, and the smile of love--"forever with the Lord."

If this be so, then, O Christian, why this anxious, trembling fear? Your time of death, with all its attendant circumstances, is in the Lord's hand. All is appointed and arranged by Him who loves you and who redeemed you--infinite goodness, wisdom and faithfulness consulting your highest happiness in each circumstance of your departure. The final sickness cannot come, the "last enemy" cannot strike until He bids it. All is in His hand--then calmly, confidingly leave life's closing scene with Him. You cannot die away from Jesus. Whether your spirit wings its flight at home or abroad, amid strangers or friends, by a lingering process, or by a sudden stroke, in brightness or in gloom, Jesus will be with you; and, upheld by His grace and cheered with His presence, you shall triumphantly exclaim, "Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; for You are with me; your rod and your staff they comfort me," bearing your dying testimony to the faithfulness of God and the preciousness of His promises. My time to die is in your hand, O Lord, and there I calmly leave it.

There is a peculiar emphasis in a truth contained in the beautiful words upon which we have been commenting worthy of a more particular notice. In whose hand are the believer's times? In a Father's hand. Be those times what they may--times of trial--times of temptation--times of suffering--times of peril--times of sunshine or of gloom--of life or death--they are in a Parent's hand. Is your present path lonely and dreary? Has the Lord seen fit to recall some fond blessing, to deny some earnest request, or painfully to discipline your heart? All this springs from a Father's love as fully as though He had unlocked His treasury, and poured its costliest gifts at your feet.

Can you enter upon the unknown history of this year--troubles, it may be, looming in the shadowy distance, uncertainty hanging over your future path, not able to forecast a single probability of what may be your future lot--with a firmer, sweeter truth for faith to lean upon than this?--"My times are in a Father's hand, and all will, all must be well."

In a Redeemer's hand, also, are our times. That same Redeemer who carried our sorrows in His heart, our curse and transgressions on His soul, our cross on His shoulder, who died, who rose again, and who lives and intercedes for us, and who will gather all His ransomed around Him in glory, is your guardian and your guide. Can you not cheerfully confide all your earthly concerns, all your spiritual interests to His keeping and control?--"casting all your care upon Him who cares for you?" "Oh, yes!" faith replies, "in that hand that still bears in its palm the print of the nail, are all my times; and I will trust and not be afraid."

Unconverted reader--do you ask, "In whose hand are my times?" I answer, in that Infinite Sovereign's, "in whose hand your life is, and whose are all your ways." I confront you, standing upon the threshold of the new year, with this solemn truth--Your times are in God's hand. "In Him you live, and move, and have your being." You cannot be independent of God for a single breath, a single thought or a single step. From His government you cannot break, from His eye you cannot hide, from His power you cannot flee. He holds you responsible for all your endowments, acquirements, and doings, and before long will say to you, "Give an account of your stewardship." Oh, that this may be a year of new life to your soul--of living to the Lord. A new year it then, indeed, will be in your history, such as you have never lived before. Oh, that this year your stubborn will, after so long a resistance--your rebellious heart, after its years of closing and hardening against a beseeching, pleading Savior, may be sweetly constrained to bow to the despised gospel of Christ--born of the Spirit a child of God, an heir of happiness which the revolution of time and the ages of eternity shall never terminate.

Ah! of how many who read these pages may the decree have already gone forth, "Thus says the Lord, This year you shall die!" Oh, dismal sentence to those who have no union with the Lord Jesus! Dear reader, are you preparing and resolving to spend this year as all the previous years of your life have been spent? What! in hating God, in abusing His mercies, in despising His Son, in neglecting His salvation, in hardening your heart in sin, in living for the world and to yourself, and in treasuring up wrath against the day of wrath? Is such a life worthy of your being? Can you bend the knee upon the confines of this year and pray--"Great Author of my being! Father of all my mercies! Righteous Judge of the world! grant me another year of rebellion and impiety; more time to waste; more mercies to abuse; more means of grace to neglect; more property to squander; more influence to oppose and fight against You?"

You shudder at the thought! You could not, for your life, breathe such a prayer. And yet, entering upon this year in an unconverted state, are not your thoughts, temper, and resolves--always far more expressive than words--insulting God with the spirit of a petition the language of which you dare not utter. Oh, that, gently, persuasively drawn by the Holy Spirit, you may now betake yourself to the Lord Jesus as a self-destroyed yet humble, repentant sinner. Oh, that this may be the happy hour of your spiritual espousals--of your covenant, unreserved surrender to the Lord to be His child, His servant forever. True happiness, joy, and peace will ever be strangers to your heart until it tastes the love of the Savior. Nor will you be able to give yourself to the high and noble duties of real life, or to contemplate death with calmness, and the eternity that stretches beyond it with hope, until you are reconciled to God, through the "one Mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus."

In pressing these thoughts upon your attention, with equal earnestness and affection would I exhort you to come to Christ without demurring at your sinfulness, or hesitating on the ground of having no fitness or worthiness to plead. Jesus saves none but sinners. Approach with a price in your hand with which to purchase your salvation, and you will be indignantly rejected! But approach the life-giving waters "without money and without price," and receive salvation as a free gift, and you will be cordially received! The atoning work is finished, the great salvation is purchased, the mighty debt is paid--all perfected and secured by the blood of God's incarnate Son. And now it is His good pleasure and delight to confer this priceless, precious boon upon every one who is of a "contrite and humble spirit," as an act of most free favor, however vile, undeserving, and poor the recipient might be. "By grace are you saved." "Therefore it is of faith that it might be by grace." Before the majesty and splendor of this precious truth all human glory must fade, all human pride must fall.

Were a crown to encircle your brow--or had you lived the life of the most rigid moralist--or were you possessed of all the spoils of ancient and modern lore--yet, if saved, you must be saved as was the humble tax-collector, approaching in his spirit and breathing his petition, "God be merciful to me a sinner." That proud, rebellious, self-righteous heart of yours must be laid low in the dust. Oh, descend from the Babel of your own works, from the towering summit of which you have profanely hoped to build your way into heaven, tear from off you the fig-leaf righteousness with the covering of which you have vainly sought to veil the moral deformity of your soul, and come and base your hope of heaven upon the "only name given under heaven whereby a sinner might be saved," and enfold yourself believingly in the righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ, and you shall be accepted. "Being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus." It is written, "By the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in His sight." And by the same inspiration it is also written, "But to him that works not, but believes in Him that justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness." And then, from this act of most free justification follows this precious, holy result, "Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with GOD through our Lord Jesus Christ."--Rom. 5:1. Oh, then, by all the deathless interests that are at stake, by the desire for a holy life, a happy death, and a glorious immortality, cease from yourself; relinquish all reliance upon sacraments, religious duties, and charitable works, and under a spiritual, deep conviction of the desperate sinfulness of your fallen and corrupt nature, the "plague of your own heart," your condemnation by the law, your entire inability to save yourself and your utter unpreparedness to stand before the holy Lord God, flee to Christ, and avail yourself of the great salvation which He has effectually wrought and most freely bestows.

And what will be your reception by the Savior? Does it admit of a doubt? Oh, no! not one. He came into the world to save sinners--and He will save you. His compassion inclines Him to save sinners--His power enables Him to save sinners--His promise binds Him to save sinners. "This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners." And Oh, how easy it is to be saved when the Holy Spirit draws the heart to Christ! It is not great faith, nor deep experience, nor extensive knowledge that are required. The dimmest eye that ever looked to Christ--the feeblest hand that ever took hold of Christ--the most trembling step that ever traveled to Christ, has in it present salvation--has in it life eternal. The smallest measure of real faith will take the soul to heaven. Yes! there is hope for the trembling penitent. Jesus suffered to the uttermost, therefore He is able to "save to the uttermost all that come unto God by Him."

Let us, in conclusion, trace the practical influence which this truth should exert upon our minds. The present aspect of our "times," as a nation, is gloomy and depressive to a degree. It is "a time of WAR!" The scourge which our hearts fondly hoped would be stayed, and which a patient diplomacy strenuously strove to avert, has fallen upon us with more than expected terror and destruction. The nation is clad in mourning. Scarcely is there a family, from the highest to the lowest, that has not felt some vibration of the terrible shock. "Abroad the sword bereaves, at home there is as death." Who can paint the anguish or describe the desolateness at the present moment of many an English home--whose brave husband, father, brother, lover, friend, reposes, all alone and gory, on Alma's bleak heights, or in Inkerman's low valley?

Bereaved ones! GOD IS LOVE. With what more consoling truth can we meet your case? There is kindness in God--there is sympathy in Jesus--there is consolation in the Bible--there is soothing in prayer--there is the hope of a reunion in a holier and brighter world with all those who have died in the Lord. Such a hope may you not cherish? The tear of penitence--the cry for pardon--the look of faith--the appeal to mercy from the battle-field while life was fast ebbing, was it in vain? Infinite power! Divine compassion! Sovereign grace! forbid the thought! He who met the last look, and caught the last sigh, and "heard the last prayer of the dying malefactor and saved him, as life passed away, was near the expiring warrior--and who will dare say that He who can save at the "eleventh hour," and the chief of sinners, heard not that cry for help, answered not that prayer for mercy? In one moment the Spirit of God can breathe divine life into the soul, and fit it for heaven. He who said, "Let there be light," and light was, can by a word say, "I am your salvation," and the expiring sinner is instantly and eternally saved.

But we turn to you who are thus suddenly and deeply bereaved. Your present time of calamity is in the Lord's hand. He has made you a widow that He might be your God--a fatherless one that in Him you might find mercy. "Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?" "I wound and I heal." Oh, that this the time of your deep, inconsolable grief may be the time of prayer, of seeking unto Him who has smitten and who alone binds up. "Acquaint now yourself with Him, and be at peace;" and then, in deep unmurmuring submission to the Divine disposal, you will exclaim, "The cup which my Father has given me shall I not drink it? He has done all things well."

Let this precious truth, "My times are in your hand," divest your mind of all needless, anxious care for the present or the future. Exercising simple faith in God, "be anxious for nothing." "Be content with such things as you have, for He has said, I will never leave you nor forsake you." Learn to be content with your present lot, with God's dealings with, and His disposal of, you. You are just where His providence has, in its inscrutable, but all-wise and righteous decision, placed you. It may be a painful, irksome, trying position, but it is right. Oh, yes! it is right! Only aim to glorify Him in it. Wherever you are placed, God has a work for you to do, a purpose through you to be accomplished, in which He blends your happiness with His glory. And when you have learned the lessons of His love, He will transfer you to another and a wider sphere, for whose nobler duties and higher responsibilities the present is, perhaps, but disciplining and preparing you.

Strive, then, to live a life of daily dependence upon God. Oh, it is a sweet and holy life! It saves from many a desponding feeling, from many a corroding care, from many an anxious thought, from many a sleepless night, from many a tearful eye, and from many an imprudent and sinful scheme. Repairing to the "covenant ordered in all things and sure," you may confide children, friends, calling, yourself, to the Lord's care, in the fullest assurance that all their "times" and yours are in His hand.

In a letter addressed by Luther to Melancthon, at Augsburg, there occur these striking remarks, which from their relevancy to the present subject, I venture to interweave with my own, "Grace and peace in Christ! in Christ I say, and not in the world, amen. I hate, with exceeding hatred, those extreme cares which consume you. If the cause is unjust, abandon it; if the cause is just, why should we belie the promises of Him who commands us to sleep without fear? Can the devil do more than kill us? Christ will not be lacking to the work of justice and of truth. He lives! He reigns! What fear, then, can we have? God is powerful to upraise His cause, if it is overthrown; to make it proceed, if it remains motionless; and if we are not worthy of it, He will do it by others. For our cause is in the very hands of Him who can say, 'No one shall pluck it out of my hands.' I would not have it in our hands, and it would not be desirable that it were so. I have had many things in my hands, and I have lost them all; but whatever I have been able to place in God's, I still possess." (D'Aubigny's Reformation.)

Oh, yes! beloved reader, thank God that your times, your interests, your salvation, are all out of your hands, and out of the hands of all creatures, supremely and safely in His. Forward in the path of duty, of labor, and of suffering. Aim to resemble Christ more closely in your disposition, your spirit, your whole life. Soon will it be said, "The Master has come, and calls for you." He is coming. "Prepare to meet your God."

Let your motto for this year be--FORWARD! Patient in endurance--submissive in suffering--content with God's allotment--zealous, prayerful, and watchful, be found "standing in your lot at the end of the days." Trust God implicitly for the future. No sorrow comes but shall open some sweet spring of comfort--no necessity transpires but shall endear a Father's care--no affliction befalls but shall be attended with the Savior's tenderest sympathy. In Him meets all confluence of grace for your hourly, momentary need. Let your constant prayer be--"Hold me up, and I shall be safe." Let your daily precept be--"Casting all your care upon Him, for He cares for you." And then leave God to fulfill, as most faithfully He will, "His own gracious, precious promise"--"AS YOUR DAYS, SO SHALL YOUR STRENGTH BE." Thus walking with God through this valley of tears, until you exchange sorrow for joy, suffering for ease, sin for purity, labor for rest, conflict for victory, and all earth's chequered, gloomy scenes, for the changeless, cloudless happiness and glory of heaven.

"Go to, then! Henceforth it shall no longer vex me,
Because as I wish the world goes not always;
The turmoils of life shall no longer perplex me,
Nor my heart be worn out with grief of today.
Woe is Time's blight;
The seed of delight
Shall spring up and bloom in heaven's islands of light.

"Then pain shall inherit a rich o'er-payment;
Then tears shall be wiped from all sorrowing eyes;
The poor be clothed then in the fairest of clothing,
And the sick with the vigor of health shall arise;
Hatred shall cease;
All shall be peace;
For in heaven alone does good ever increase.

"Oh, let, then, my lot and my life be appointed,
Just as my God and my Lord sees meet;
Hopes laid in heaven are never disappointed,
Let the world have its way until the end is complete;
Time's tree will cast
Its leaves on the blast,
And heaven make everything right at the last."
--Thomas Kingo, 1634

THE BOSOM OF THE FATHER;
OR, THE UNVEILED LOVE OF GOD

"The only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father."--John 1:18

In what a critical and impressive position does a new era of time place us! Such must be the feeling and such the reflection of every serious mind, realizing, in any degree, how solemn and precious a thing is LIFE! The opening year plants us midway between the past and the future, standing as upon a narrow isthmus, its shores washed by the waves of two eternities. The past of time a history--real, palpable, irrevocable, its records and its recollections all treasured up in the archives of another world, to be produced, scrutinized, and adjudged in that great day, when the books will be opened, and the dead shall be judged out of those things which were written in the book, according to their works.

The future of time, a conjecture--impalpable, shadowy, formless, its dim perspective slowly and silently rising before the mind, all draped with the deep shadows of an inscrutable unknown. Shuddering as we stretch our aching vision into the future--its duties and trials, its changes and perils, its promises and hopes--for life is a scene of sunshine and shade--all looming in the mist that shrouds them, the mind recoils from the contemplation. Verily, it is a thoughtful and serious position, this, in which we stand. And yet the child of God, believing, confiding, hoping, is tranquil and serene. With the scene before him, he is awe-struck, but not appalled; he is solemn, but not dismayed. With an intelligent survey, and a vivid perception of the responsibilities involved, of the duties imposed, of the trials embosomed, of the dangers concealed in this new-born epoch of time; and with, perhaps, a nervous and pensive anticipation of its yet unwritten history, he still is conscious of a feeling of trust and repose, of calmness and serenity, to which all others are strangers, unsustained by a "like precious faith" with him.

And whence this heaven-like placidity, this undisturbed feeling of confidence now stealing so gently and so soothingly across the spirit bending over the dreary confine, and peering into the shrouded events of the misty future? Oh, it is the assurance--the Divine, firm, unwavering assurance--that whatever that future may be--bright or shady, joyous or sad, sickness or health, life or death, earth or heaven--he dwells in the bosom of the Father. Could we confront our undeveloped history with a truth more spiritual, appropriate, and precious than this? It presents to us that great God, with whom in life's minutest incidents we have to do, clothed in the most lovely and winning character; while it defines our relation to Him as the most close and tender. Let our trembling faith but firmly grasp it; let our fluttering hearts but quietly repose in it; let our whole soul be absorbed in it; and every gloomy thought and anxious forecasting of the future will disappear as morning's gray mists dissolve into a landscape of pencilled loveliness and glowing light.

The first view of this interesting subject is that which presents to us THE HEART OF GOD UNVEILED--in other words, the manifested love of God to His people. Previous to the fall, no veil hid from the human soul, the heart of God. The sun of His affection, unshaded by even a vapor, shone forth in all its infinite yet not overpowering effulgence, since man's vision was yet unimpaired by sin, and undimmed by sorrow. Every recess in the Father's bosom was thrown open, every thought known, and every throb felt; while between the Creator and the creature there existed the most perfect harmony, confidence, and communion. He lived as none other did, in the very heart of God, as though he were its sole possessor and its solitary occupant.

But when, by a voluntary relinquishment, he forsook that sacred home, tore himself from that loving heart, a dark cloud, an impervious veil, hid it from his view; and no longer calm and happy in the assurance of his Father's love, from that moment God became to him an object of vague conception, of distorted feature, of guilty terror, and of dark distrust. A fugitive from the bosom that had nursed and cherished him in the days of his innocence; haunted by the misgivings of a guilty nature; shunning, terror-stricken, the glorious Being with whom he had been used so confidingly and so sweetly to converse, he sought distance and concealment from the God that had loved him, amid the deeply-shaded bowers of Eden. Ever since that fatal and entire severance from God, the atheistic language of man's revolted and alienated heart has been, "Depart from us; for we desire not the knowledge of your ways."

The heart of God thus veiled, WHO could unveil it? The love of God thus forfeited, who could restore it? The character of God thus shrouded in mystery, profound and impenetrable, who could portray it? If the Deity once more appeared in a manifested and benignant form to beings conscious of deserved wrath, and trembling with guilty fear, it must be by the Deity revealing Himself. To scale the height of the ascent that would once more bring us in view of the still loving and unchanged heart of God, would be an achievement impossible to man. To cross the barrier which separated the Eternal One from the fallen creature; to search out the viewless Godhead, resolve the secret, unravel the thoughts, and fathom the purposes pondering in the bosom of the Infinite Father--were beyond the utmost stretch of finite power, that power all bedwarfed and paralyzed by sin.

Nothing, then, is more clear, than that the Deity must descend to man; because of the utter incapability of man's ascending to the Deity. As God only knows His own love, that love, once alienated and lost, can only be re-won and revealed by a power in which the Godhead should appear, achieving the wonder and securing the praise. Now all this has been accomplished! God has come down to man in the form and appearance of man--the Deity visible to human eyes. "The only begotten Son who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him." In his incarnate form man sees "the brightness of the Father's glory, and the express image of His person." Enshrined in humanity, he has stepped forth upon the platform of our world--the visible image of the invisible God--the authentic representation of Deity--"God manifest in the flesh." Stupendous verity!

Man can now look upon God and live. He can now gaze into the heart of God, repose, and not be afraid. All our terror and distrust is gone. All our vague, shadowy, and distorted conceptions are vanished. We observe the character, and read the heart, and behold the glory of God in the sinless humanity and atoning work of His beloved Son. The Father stands before us all unveiled. In the tears of sympathy which Jesus shed--in the accents of tenderness which He breathed--in the lessons of wisdom which He taught--in the strains of deep pathos with which even His rebukes and remonstrances were clothed--in the affluence with which He supplied every need--in the promptness with which He stifled every woe--in a word, in the profuseness with which He lavished His blessings on man in all the diversified forms of suffering and need--we see the bosom of the Father all unveiled. It was the heart of God throbbing in responsive benevolence to the quiverings of our soul; it was the love of the Father manifested, and flowing through the incarnate and crucified Son.

"God is love," was thus the great truth Jesus came to make known. Hence God's love is clearly a revelation to man, rather than a discovery by man. Divine love was the last perfection of Deity to baffle the research of human wisdom. Other attributes might be dimly traced in creation. Some faint glimmerings of God's wisdom, power, and goodness might be seen in the "things which are made;" but how God could love sinners, could redeem and save sinners, was a question to which nature's oracle returned no response. In the exercise of the vast powers with which his Creator has endowed him, man may discover everything but this. He sweeps the skies above him with his telescope, and a new brilliant world of surpassing glory opens before his view. He delves into the earth beneath him, and an ancient and long-lost city is untombed. He works a problem, and science develops some new and startling wonder.

But there is one discovery he cannot make--one wonder surpassing all wonders, the most marvelous and stupendous--he cannot unravel. Nature, aiding him in all other researches, affords him no clue to this. The sunbeam paints it not upon the brilliant cloud; the glacier reflects it not from its dazzling brow; the valley's stream murmurs it not in its gentle music; it thunders not in the roar of ocean's billow; it sighs not in the evening's zephyr; it exhales not in the opening flower; all nature is profoundly silent upon a theme so Divine and strange, so vast and tender, as God's redeeming love to man.

But the Son, leaving the bosom of the Father, in which from eternity He had reposed, and which, in the "fullness of time," He relinquished, has descended to our world to correct our apprehensions and to dislodge our doubts, to calm our fears and to reassure our hopes with the certainty of the wondrous fact--that God is still mindful of man, and takes delight in man--that no revolt nor alienation, no enmity nor ingratitude has turned away His heart from man; that He loves him still, and that loving, He "so loved him that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life."

Thus did He come, His Father's representative, to declare Him to man. And as He wrought His brilliant miracles of stupendous power--thus attesting the fact of His Godhead; and as He pronounced His discourses of infinite wisdom--thus unlocking the treasures of His grace; and as He traveled all laden with our sins to the cross--thus unsealing the fountain of His compassion, He could say to all who challenged the Divinity of His mission, or who asked, at His hands, a vision of the Father, "He that has seen Me has SEEN THE FATHER."--"I and my Father are ONE."

Behold the mission of the Savior to our world! He has come to uplift the veil, and reveal the heart of God--that heart, all throbbing with a love as infinite as His nature, as deathless as His being. He came not to inspire but to reveal the love of God. The atonement did not originate, it expounded the Father's love--the love was already there. Sin had but beclouded its existence; man's rebellion had but arrested its flow. Struggling and panting for a full, unrestrained expression, it could find no adequate outlet, no appropriate channel in its course to man, except in the surrender and sacrifice of its most costly and precious treasure. The Son of the Father must bleed and die before the love of the Father could embrace its object. And now, O child of God, the veil is withdrawn, the thick cloud is blotted out, and your God stands before you all arrayed in ineffable love, His heart your divine pavilion, His bosom your sacred home. "The only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him."

And whose heart is it thus unveiled? It is a Father's heart. "I go to my Father and to your Father." Contemplate the child's place--it is "the bosom of the Father." "In You the fatherless finds mercy." Does an orphan's moistened eye drop a tear upon this page? Let him clasp these words to his sad heart, and no more feel that he is desolate and alone in the world, with no heart to love, no bosom to sympathize, no friends to cheer, no hand to help him. God is your Father, the orphan's Father and Friend. Confide but in His wisdom to guide you; repose but in His love to soothe you; trust but in His power to protect and in His willingness to befriend you, and His mercy shall be your solace and your shield until life's latest hour.

The heart of God, then, is a parent's heart; and what child would refuse to repose in a parent's bosom? Where will he look for affection, for sympathy, for confidence, for an asylum, if not in the bosom of his father? This place, and this privilege, child of God, is yours. "For you have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father."

Such is the distinction, and such the peculiar privilege of the child of God realizing in all circumstances that, in virtue of his union with the Lord Jesus, and of his adoption by grace into God's family, his perpetual dwelling-place is "the bosom of the Father!" To some of the Lord's people this may appear a truth strange and startling. "The Father's bosom; it is too sacred, too lofty, too privileged a place for one so sinful and wayward, so fickle and unworthy as I am." But listen to the argument that meets and removes your objection. Let me ask, where does the Head of the Church repose? You reply, "In the bosom of the Father." Then, where the Head dwells there also must dwell the body. And, where the body reposes, there must also repose the members of the body. Now the Lord Jesus is the Head of the Church, and the Church is "the body of Christ, and all we are members one of another." And because we belong to Christ, are accepted in Christ, and are loved by Christ, where Christ is, there we must be also. Thus it follows that our oneness with the Lord Jesus places us in the very bosom of the Father. All our atoning merits centering in Christ, all our worthiness springing from Christ, with this one, ever-prevalent, all-accepted plea, we go, and in childlike love, freedom, and simplicity, lay our sinful, weary, storm-tossed soul, in the soothing, sheltering bosom of the Father. There rests our elder brother; and there, in virtue of their relation to him, rests all "his brethren"--the weak and infirm, the tried and sorrowful, the bruised and tempted of the one family of God, the sacred and indivisible brotherhood of Christ. All repose where Jesus reposes--in the Father's bosom.

The posture is as expressive as the privilege is great. It implies identity of nature with the Father--intimate knowledge of the Father--confidential communications to the Father--and the tenderest love and sympathy ever flowing from the Father. Oh, it is a blessed posture, expressive of the perfect nearness of the Christian to God. Could we be nearer to God than to dwell, moment by moment, in His very heart? Nor this alone. It involves a pledge--solemn and binding as eternity--that all who repose there sincerely desire and earnestly aim to bring their heart and will and life into filial obedience and harmony with the mind and precepts of God.

The bosom of the Father is the HOLIEST place in the universe--it is tender, yet dreadful; winning, yet solemn--and none repose there but those who, participating in its deep love, and sympathizing with its Divine sanctity, aim in all things to be conformed to the Divine image. The bosom of the Father is not the place of the alien, the refuge of the outlawed rebel; it is the home and dwelling-place of the loving and obedient child. "Be therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect."

And what are some of the varied circumstances, in the Christian's chequered experience, in which the privilege of dwelling in the love of God is felt to be especially precious and appropriate? May we not specify, as among the chief, the season of parental chastisement? The rod of your heavenly Father is upon you. In the experience of your sensitive spirit, your feeling heart, the stroke is a heavy and a painful one. To a keen sense of its severity is, perhaps, added the yet keener conviction of the sin that has evoked it--that, but for your wanderings from God, your rebellion against His will; your disobedience of His commands, there had not lighted upon you a correction so painful and humiliating.

But where in your sorrow will you repair? To the solace and sympathy of whose heart will you betake yourself? Will you flee from that Father? Will you evade His eye and shun His presence? Eternal love forbids it! What then? You will hasten and throw yourself in His arms, and fall upon His bosom, confessing your sins, and imploring His forgiveness. Thus taking hold of His strength, with that displeased and chastening Father you are in a moment at peace. Blessed is the man, O Lord, whom you chasten, and draw closer within the sacred pavilion of your loving, sheltering bosom.

Oh, what an unveiling of the heart of God may be seen in a loving correction! No truth in experimental religion is more verified than this, that the severest discipline of our heavenly Father springs from His deepest, holiest love. That in His rebukes, however severe, in His corrections, however bitter, there is more love, more tenderness, and more real desire for our well-being, than exists in the fondest affection a human heart ever cherished. And oftentimes, in His providential dealings with His children, there is more of the heart of God unfolded in a dark, overhanging cloud than is ever unveiled and revealed in a bright and glowing sunbeam. But this truth is only learned in God's school.

Amid the many changes and vicissitudes of time, how precious becomes this truth! Out of God, "nothing is fixed but change." "Passing away," is inscribed upon all earth's fairest scenes. How the heart saddens as the recollections and reminiscences of other days come crowding back upon the memory. Years of our childhood--where have you fled? Friends of our youth--where are you gone? Hopes the heart once fondly cherished, joys the heart once deeply felt, how have you, like cut flowers, faded and died! All, all is changing, but the Unchanging One. Other hearts prove cold, other friendships alter--adversity beclouds them--fickleness chills them--distance separates them--death removes them from us forever. But there is One heart that loves us, clings to us, follows us in all times of adversity, poverty, sickness, and death, with an unchanged, unchangeable affection--it is the heart of our Father in heaven. Oh, turn to this heart, you who have reposed in a human bosom, until you have felt the last faint pulse of love expire. You who have lost health, or fortune, or friends, or fame--be your soul's peaceful, sure refuge, the Father's bosom, until these calamities be overpast.

And when from God we have strayed, and the Holy Spirit restores us to reflection, penitence, and prayer, and we exclaim, "I will arise!"--whose bosom invites and woos us back to its still warm, unchanged, and forgiving affection? whose but the bosom of the Father?--that same Father thus touchingly, exquisitely portrayed: "And when he was a great way off, his father saw him, and had compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him." Oh, who is a God like unto You? With a privilege so precious as this, shall not our future progress in the Divine life be in some degree commensurate with its costliness? Turning our back more upon the world--living more decidedly for God, for Christ, and for eternity--our spiritual advance and posture will more closely resemble the Church as it was seen, "Coming up out of the wilderness, leaning upon her Beloved."

And what a uniting truth is this in its influence upon the household of faith! Realized in all its preciousness, and experienced in all its power, would difference of judgment be allowed to produce alienation of heart in the Church of the Lord Jesus? Assuredly not! The true and sad secret of the low ebb of Christian love, of the great and cold distance at which they stand from each other who are purchased by one and the same Atonement, who are inhabited by one and the same Spirit, who are journeying to one and the same heaven, is to be found in the faint and imperfect realization of this great uniting truth--that all the saints repose alike in the bosom of the Father. Dwelling so little in their Father's love, is it surprising that they dwell so little in each other's love? How touching is Christ's plea--"You are all brethren;" "One is your Father." What an argument for brotherly love is this!--The love that bounds beyond the wall of separation to embrace its object; the love that asks not the climate, the creed, the church--recognizing only the image of the Father, and relationship to the Elder Brother, as the sole term of its affection, confidence, and sympathy; the love that "suffers long, and is kind, that envies not, boasts not itself, is not puffed up, does not behave itself unseemly, seeks not her own, is not easily provoked, thinks no evil."

Who should be more closely united in affection and service as those who are, in the words addressed by Augustine to his friend Alpius, "Cemented with the same blood of Christ"--and to this, we add, who are bound together in the same heart of the Father? Oh, how should this great truth draw the saints of God nearer and still nearer to each other--even as rays of light more closely approach and blend as they converge towards their common center. Christian reader, let this year find you more warmly and prayerfully than ever devoted to a work so holy in itself, and so pleasing to your heavenly Father, as the promoting of an increased affection and manifested unity among the severed and separated, but the essentially ONE and indivisible, family of God. "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God."

Dwelling in the bosom of the Father, do not forget that throughout this year there is no needed and no asked blessing which that bosom can refuse you. Never will God chide you for asking too much. His tender upbraiding is that you ask too little. "Open your mouth wide and I will fill it." Oh, be satisfied with asking nothing less than God himself. God only can make you happy. He only can supply the loss--fill the void--guide you safely, and keep you securely unto His eternal kingdom. God loves you! Oh, embosom yourself in His love; and then, were all other love to wane and die--were it to chill in your friend--to cease its throbbings in a father's bosom--to leave its last and holiest home on earth--a mother's heart--still, assured that you had an interest in the love of God, a home in the bosom of the Father, no being in the universe would be happier than you. To that bosom take your every sorrow; from it draw your every joy. Let no cloud veil it from your view. The moment it is intercepted, repair to the cross, and sprinkled afresh with the precious Blood of Christ, you shall again feel yourself at home in the bosom of your Father. Let the grief you bear, the evil you dread, the sadness and loneliness you feel, but conduct you closer and yet closer within the loving, sheltering heart of God. No fear can agitate, no sorrow can sadden, no foe can reach you there! The moment you find yourself resting in childlike faith upon God, that moment all is peace!

Upon whose bosom, dear reader, does your soul repose? Where are you relying for affection and friendship, for sympathy and support? There is but One who can meet your rational desires, your mental disquietudes, your soul's longings, your heart's pantings--it is God, revealed in the Son of His love, His heart unveiled in the person and work of the Lord Jesus. Do you need a bosom friend?--Christ is that Friend. He is the Friend of poor sinners--sinners just like you. He died for the vilest; shed His blood for the guiltiest; saves the chief of sinners--freely, graciously, without money, and without price. His precious blood cleanses from all sin. Make Christ, then, your bosom friend; receive Him into your heart, and He will take you into His heart. Unveil to Him your secret sorrows, and He will make known to you His hidden love. Believe in Jesus! Go and imitate, in the closeness of your walk with God, in your intimate fellowship with Christ, the holy example of the disciple whom Jesus loved, who leaned upon His breast at supper. There is room there for you. He shall gather the lambs with His arm, and carry them in His bosom. Sick one--bereaved one--chastened one--aged one, recline upon the bosom of the Father, and be still.

"His arm is beneath you,
His eye is above;
His spirit within you,
Says, rest in my love."

And let us be watchful and prayerful--drawing all grace from the fullness of Christ--that we do not grieve the bosom upon which we recline, by questioning its love, distrusting its faithfulness, or opposing its known wishes and commands. And oh, when the final hour comes--when comes the last sickness, and the last glance of earth, and the last look of love, and the last tear of sorrow--the world receding, eternity nearing, heaven opening--where will you then pillow your restless, languishing, dying head?--where but on the bosom of the Father? And when your spirit, escaping from earth to heaven, from sin and sorrow and suffering below, to a sinless, sorrowless, sunny home above, where will it find itself at last?--safely, serenely, and forever reposing upon THE BOSOM OF THE FATHER!

ONLY TRUST ME

"Only believe."--Mark 5:36

Precious and significant are the words of Jesus, the very same words that He spoke when on earth. Did those lips--glowing with more than a seraph's hallowed touch, lips into which grace without measure was poured--ever breathe a sentence more touching, more simple, or more significant than this, "Only believe"? Originally addressed to an afflicted parent, who sought His compassion and His help in behalf of a little daughter lying at the point of death, they seem to be especially appropriate to every case of anxiety, of trial, and of need. Alas! how many such will scan this page--how many a sigh will breathe over it, how many a tear will moisten it, how many a mournful glance will light upon it. Be it so--there comes back a voice of sympathy responsive to each sad heart--not man, but Jesus speaks--"Only believe"--in other words--"only trust."

What is faith, but trust? what is believing in Jesus, but trusting in Jesus? When Jesus says, "Only believe Me," He literally says, "Only trust Me." And what a natural, beautiful, soothing definition of the word faith is this! Many a volume has been written to explain the nature and illustrate the operation of faith--the subject and the reader remaining as much mystified and perplexed as ever. But who can fail to comprehend the meaning of the good old Saxon word, trust? All can understand what this means. When, therefore, Jesus says--as He does to every individual who reads these words--"Only believe Me," He literally says, "Only trust Me." Thus He spoke to the anxious father who besought Him to come and heal his child; "Only believe--only trust my power, only trust my compassion, only trust my word, be not afraid, only trust Me." And thus He speaks to you, believer. Oh, for a heart to respond, "Speak, Lord, for your servant hears!"

With this posture of soul Christ invites us to commence the year. Could there be one more appropriate? Trust implies, on our part, mystery and ignorance, danger and helplessness. Such is the condition and prospect, and such are the feelings with which we greet the return of a new period of time. How wrapped in inscrutability, how shadowy and unreal is all the future! As we attempt to penetrate the dark clouds, what strange forebodings steal over our spirits. With a feeling of uncertainty connected with all before us, we seem to clutch our blessings with a more nervous grasp, to enfold our treasures within a closer embrace, and to shrink back ourselves from the mystic symbols of the strange unknown. Just at this juncture Jesus approaches, and with address most winning, and in accents most gentle, speaks these words, "Only believe--only trust Me! Trust Me, who knows the end from the beginning--trust Me, who has all resources at my command--trust Me, whose love never changes, whose wisdom never misleads, whose word never fails, whose eye never slumbers nor sleeps--only TRUST Me!" Enough, my blessed Lord, my soul replies. I will sit myself down as a loving child, a lowly disciple at your feet, and, indistinct and dreary as my future path may be, will learn from You how and where I may trust You all my journey through.

The necessity that exists for faith, or trust in Jesus, seems almost too obvious to require extended remark. We find an illustration in the construction of human society. This beautiful fabric is held together, and sustained in its multiform operations, simply upon a principle of faith. Every pin that binds it would be loosed, and every spring that moves it would be relaxed, were this principle of trust withdrawn or impaired. The commercial world, also, is carried on in its vast and complicated enterprises upon this same principle of faith, or trust. Eager to dispute, and affecting to despise it when brought to bear upon the claims and the realities of a world hidden and invisible, man yet pleads for, and adopts it, in matters that concerns a life that is seen and that is passing away. He will credit the announcement of a discovery in science, believe a fact in history, and embark his entire savings in a commercial enterprise in the exercise of a simple, naked faith in the word, the integrity, or the skill of another; but on the testimony of God's Word he will not believe anything that it reveals.

Revelation, traveling from a distant and unseen world with announcements infinitely great, revealing facts transcendently momentous, and based upon grounds which reason cannot dispute nor skepticism gainsay, asks the simple and unquestioning faith of man. Does he believe? Does he fully admit the Bible to be the Word of God? Does he believe in its dreadful declaration that there is a hell, and in its glorious delineation of a heaven? Does he receive the salvation it announces, believe in the Savior it reveals, and adopt the character it enjoins? Alas! he will credit the veriest fictions, will surrender his credulity to the wildest conjectures, will receive unquestioningly fables as facts, falsehoods as verities, announcements as true, based on evidence the most slender and dubious; and yet, from the depth of his unbelieving heart, scorn as a forgery and reject as a lie the eternal, divinely-authenticated and unchangeable truth of God--revealing a world so solemn, truths so momentous--a heaven--a hell--a Savior in which are bound up individual interests inconceivably precious and undying. Such is the moral insanity of the carnal mind. "Madness is in their heart while they live." But we suppress this train of thought, and proceed to illustrate the necessity of the believer's trust in God in view of the yet undeveloped, unshaped circumstances and events of the future.

When we consider the convulsions of life's future--limited it shall be within the brief space of twelve months--how varied and undulating the path! It resembles, in its windings and its changes, the serpentine course of a river, as it pursues its way--now suddenly disappearing behind jutting rocks or towering headlands, now bursting into view again and rushing on, foaming and sparkling, through smiling meadows and sunny slopes--then, by some sudden course, lost again to view--surely the believer will feel the need of confidence in an invisible hand to guide him through the labyrinth of his intricately tortuous way. This cloud of mystery, enshrouding all the future from our view, bids us trust. Not a step can we take by sight. We cannot even conjecture, much less decide, what the morrow will unfold in our history--what sweet sunbeam shall illumine, or what somber cloud shall shade our path. How little can we predict what loved ones, now clustering around our fireside, will, before this year closes, have left us for the spirit land--what storm shall wreck our fortunes or our fame--at what distant part of the globe, and in what sanctuary, the last Sabbath in the year shall find us worshiping--or how soon we ourselves shall depart from our princely halls and broad acres, or our lowly homes and limited possessions, and join the long, gloomy procession that has just preceded us to eternity. How veiled from sight the next bend of our path! But Jesus says, "Only trust Me!"

The number, invisibility, and insidiousness of our spiritual foes--their combined power, and the surprisal of their incessant assaults--demands our trust in Jesus. Nothing is more unseen than the principalities and powers through which we have to force our way to heaven. Satan is invisible--his agents are unseen--moral evil veiled--our hearts a great deep--the world masked--truly we have need to cling to, and confide in, Jesus, the Captain of our salvation, seeing that "we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places," and that therefore we are to take to ourselves the whole armor of God, remembering that this is the victory that overcomes the world, and with it the god of this world, even our faith or trust in Jesus.

The heavenly source of all our supplies for the battle and the journey of life pleads for our trust in Jesus. In ourselves we have no resources. Grace is not natural to us, holiness is not innate, and our native strength is but another term for utter impotence. Bankrupt of everything that is morally strong, righteous, and lovely, we are "wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked." Where, then, are our supplies to come from? All in Jesus. "It has pleased the Father that in Him all fullness should dwell." "Who has blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places (things) in Christ." Christ is both the believer's armory and his granary. The weapons of our warfare and the supplies of our necessities--our ammunition and our nourishment--all are in Christ. And the life we live as warriors and as pilgrims must be a life of continuous coming to, and trusting in, a full Christ, an all-sufficient Savior. If, as each morning dawns, and before we gird ourselves for the conflict, the duties and the trials of the day, we breathe from our hearts to our Heavenly Father, who knows our need and is pledged to its supply, the prayer--"Give me, my Father, this day, my daily bread; I look to You for the wisdom that counsels me, for the power that keeps me, for the love that soothes me, for the grace that sanctifies me, and for the presence that cheers me; now supply my need, and do unto me as seems good to You"--each day's provision would be meted out, and we should experience the blessedness of living upon a Father's bounty, upon the Savior's grace, and upon the Spirit's love.

We now come to consider the principle of faith, or trust. It is altogether divine--created by no human power, commanded by no human authority; and sustained by no human resources. "Faith is the gift of God." Jesus is its Author and its Finisher. It is a free, unmerited, unpurchased bestowment. It is given to the poor because of their poverty, to the vile because they are unworthy, to the bankrupt because they have "nothing to pay." All human boasting and vain excuses are thus swept away, and the truth stands out radiant with its own divine luster--"By grace are you saved, through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God." Such, then, is the faith, or trust, which the Bible enforces, and which these pages are designed to illustrate.

There is, first, what an old divine would term a "bronze serpent faith." That is, a faith that looks alone to Jesus for salvation. It brings the penitent soul to His feet, it leads it to His blood for cleansing, and to His righteousness for acceptance. It looks to Jesus as the wounded Israelite did to the bronze serpent which Moses up lifted upon the pole. Reader, have you this bronze serpent faith? As this year unfolds the first page of your hidden history, can you humbly say, "Let what will betide, I am saved; I am converted! I am in the ark, and have a hope laid up in heaven?" Oh, wondrous words are these, "As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up; that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life."

Then, there is what the same divine would term a "golden scepter faith"--a faith that enables the soul to draw near to God. When Ahasuerus extended the golden scepter to queen Esther, it was the symbol of her approach, the token of her welcome. She drew near, touched it, and held audience with the king, and he granted her all that she desired. Thus the soul draws near to God the Father through Christ. Christ is to the sinner what the golden scepter was to the queen--the appointed medium of access, "For through Him we both have access, by one Spirit, unto the Father." Oh, with such a medium of approach to God--so near, so suited, so precious--why should we stand afar off? why doubt, and linger, and hesitate? "Having therefore, brethren, boldness (or liberty) to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, let us draw NEAR."

And now, for WHAT would Christ have us trust Him? "Only believe--only trust Me."

Only trust the Salvation of Christ.--He would have us commence with what He has constituted the central truth of the gospel--the Cross. God has made it the focus of His glory--for around no object do such wonders and glories gather as at the cross of Christ--and He would have us make it the central fact of our faith. What a sure ground of trust for a poor sinner is here--the great and complete salvation of the Lord Jesus. Here God Himself rests--for He has confided all His glory to Christ, whom "He has made strong for Himself." And surely if the work of Jesus were sufficient to uphold the moral government and secure the eternal honor of God, there need be no demur, no hesitation on the part of the sinner, there to place his entire trust for forgiveness and acceptance. Sinner as you are, here is a salvation worthy of your confidence. "Christ died for the ungodly." "He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities." "Through His blood we have redemption, even the forgiveness of our sins." "By Him all who believe are justified."

Christ has paid the great debt to divine justice. His resurrection from the dead by the glory of the Father is His complete discharge, and now, "whoever will, may come and drink of the water of life freely." To each guilt-stricken, heart-broken, sorrow-burdened, weary sinner Jesus says, "Only TRUST Me." Beloved reader, no partial trust must this be. Your foothold on every other foundation must give way--your grasp upon every other support must loosen, your clinging to duties, to works, to self, in every form, must yield--and your whole, implicit, sole trust for salvation must be in the one Atonement which God has provided, in the one salvation which Christ has finished, in the only name given under heaven whereby we must be saved. Pointing to Himself as the only door by which you can come to God, the only way by which you can be justified, the only life by which you can live, Jesus says to you, "Only trust Me."

Only trust in the love of Christ.--Never was there before--nor has there been since--nor ever will be again--such ancient, marvelous, stupendous love as the love of Jesus! It is the astonishment of heaven, it is the wonder of angels, and in their best, holiest, and most self-abased moments, it is the marvel of saints on earth, and will be, through eternity, their study and their praise. His condescending stoop to our nature--His descent from heaven's glory to earth's lowliness--His bearing our sins--his endurance of our curse--His suffering our penalty--His exhaustion of our bitter cup--His resurrection from the grave, and His ascent into heaven, are facts which speak, louder and sweeter than an angel's trumpet, the love of Christ to His Church. "Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave Himself for it."

But not only was Jesus the unveiler of His own heart, but He came to unveil the heart of God. He came, not to inspire the heart of God with an affection for man--but to make known a love already existing from eternity. He who only knew the secret love of God's heart, came to reveal that secret. So that Jesus was the exponent of God's love, its only revealer, and its most precious gift. Christ is God's love embodied--God's love speaking, God's love acting, God's love weeping, God's love dying, God's love inviting. Blessed truth, that he whose arms of faith embrace Christ, and through Christ also embrace the Triune Jehovah.

Now the Lord Jesus would have us commence the year with fresh confidence in His love to us--that confidence, or trust, accompanying us through its entire course. He invites us to trust His love when it wears the disguise of displeasure; when, changing its appearance and its tones, it looks and speaks threatening and unkind. What a harsh disguise did Joseph wear to his brethren--and yet beneath it there never beat a more loving, tender, or kinder heart than his. Such is our Jesus--the Brother who has saved us from famine and from death--and has done for us more than Joseph did for his brethren--has died for us. Let us trust this love. Trust it when veiled--trust it when it threatens to slay--trust it when it appears to frown--trust it when even we cannot trace it; still, oh, still let us trust in Jesus' love, when, to our dim sight, it would seem never to smile, or speak to us again. The time may come, and the circumstances may arise, that shall put to the utmost test our confidence in the Savior's love. When it shall say to us, "Can you surrender this idol--can you make this sacrifice--can you bear this cross--can you undertake this service--for Me?" Oh, blessed, if your heart can reply, "Lord! relying upon your grace, trusting in your love, I can--I will--I DO!" Oh, touching attitude of Jesus, who, just as the dark, uncertain vista stands open to our view, our hearts all quaking for fear of what may transpire, meets us at the threshold, and says, "Only believe--only trust my love, wisely, gently, safely to guide you through the wilderness into the good land that lies beyond."

Only trust in the Power of Christ.--Divine Power, not less than love, is a perfection we shall require at every step of our yet untried and unknown path. We shall have needs which none but the power that multiplied the five loaves to supply the hunger of the five thousand can meet. We shall have difficulties, which none but the power that asks, "Is anything too hard for me, says the Lord?" can overcome. We shall have enemies, with whom none but the power that resisted Satan, vanquished death, and broke from the grave--can cope. All this power is on our side if our trust is in the Lord. "All power is mine in heaven and in earth," exclaims Jesus. This power which the Lord exerts on our behalf, and in which He invites us to trust, is made perfect in weakness.

Hence, we learn it in the same lesson that teaches us the utter lack of strength in ourselves. And when the Lord has reduced our confidence, and weakened our strength, as in the case of Gideon, whose army He reduced from thirty-two thousand men to three hundred, He then puts forth His power, perfects it in our weakness, gives us the victory, and secures to Himself all the praise. What a year of blessing, then, will this be, if we go forward relying upon the power of Jesus to do all in us, and accomplish all for us. Power to subdue our sins--power to keep our hearts--power to uphold our steps--power gently to lead us over rough places, firmly to keep us in smooth places, skillfully to guide us through crooked paths and safely to conduct us through all perils, fully to vindicate us from all assaults, and completely to cover our head in the day of battle. Invincible is that soul thus clad in the panoply of Christ's power. The power which belongs to Him as God, and the power which He possesses as Mediator, is all exerted in the behalf of those who put their trust in Him. "You have given Him power (are His own words) over all flesh, that He should give eternal life to as many as You have given Him."

Child of God! gird yourself for the duties, the toils and trials of another year, "strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus." Hear Him say to you, before you do take one step in the bending path opening to your view, "Only believe--only trust Me." And when the stone of difficulty confronts you--lying, perhaps, heavily upon some buried mercy--hear Him ask you, before He rolls it quite away--"do you believe that I am able to do this?" Oh, that your trusting heart may instantly respond, "Yes, Lord, I believe, I trust; for with You all things are possible."

Only trust the faithfulness of Christ.--There can be no perfection of the Lord Jesus of more exalted glory in his eye than His veracity. If the truthfulness of Christ can be impeached, then no reliable confidence can be placed in anything that He is, that He does, or that He says. But because He is not only truthful, but truth, His word eternally fixed and unalterable--"Righteousness will be his belt and faithfulness the sash around his waist," veracity an essential perfection of His nature--He condescendingly appeals to our confidence, and says, "Only trust Me." And have we, in any single instance, ever had reason to doubt His word? Has He ever given us cause to distrust Him? Has the Lord ever been to us a wilderness, a land of darkness, an exhausted fountain, a dried spring? No, never! He has often done more than He promised--never less. It is impossible for Him to lie. His word is truth. All the promises of God are yes and amen in Him. Has He promised to be a Father, a Husband, a Brother, and a Friend to those who put their trust in Him? Has He pledged to guide their steps, to supply their needs, to shield their souls, to do them good and not evil, to be with them down to old age, and even unto death? Then hear Him say, "Only believe--only trust Me. Trust my word--for it is truth; trust my promises--for they are yes and amen; trust me--for I am God." Heaven and earth shall pass away, but not one jot or tittle of His word shall fail. "Only believe--only trust."

Only trust Christ as the Answerer of Prayer.--As the Mediator and High Priest of His Church it is one of Christ's especial prerogatives that He has to do with the prayers of His saints. Standing midway between God and the suppliant, He intercepts the petition, purifies it from all taint, divests it of all imperfections, supplies its deficiencies, and then blending it with His own merits, perfuming it with the much incense of His atoning sacrifice, He presents it to the Father endorsed with His name, and urged by His own entreaty. Thus the believer has an "Advocate with the Father," who "ever lives to make intercession." Oh, costly and precious privilege, that of prayer! Access to God--fellowship with the Most High--communion with the Invisible One--filial communion with our Heavenly Father--mighty privilege this!

And yet, vast as it is, it is ours. There will not, beloved, be a sweeter, a holier, and more precious blessing unfolded to you throughout this year's experience than this. With the warrant of approaching God, through Christ, with every need and trial, with every sorrow and temptation, with every fear, burden, and sin; yes, unveiling to His eye the profoundest and most sacred secret of your heart, is there out of heaven a richer, holier privilege? Then, beloved, with the throne of grace accessible moment by moment--with the Holy Spirit disclosing each need, inditing each petition, and framing each request--with Christ at the right hand of God, presenting the petition--and with a Father in heaven bowing down His ear, and hearkening but to answer--surely we may "trust, and be not afraid." "Only believe--only trust Me."

Only trust in the sympathy of Christ.--The blessing of creature sympathy we would not undervalue. The word of God does not. The Scriptures of truth enjoin and encourage it, yes, command it. "Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others." "If one member suffer, all the members suffer with it." We believe it to be no small evidence of grace, and to assimilate in no little degree with the mind that was also in Christ Jesus, to "weep with those that weep." And yet so enamored with it may we be, so look and cling to it, as to be insensible to the higher, purer, deeper sympathy of Christ.

The power of human sympathy, like everything created, must necessarily be limited. A Christian brother or sister has so much personal trial, anxiety, and pressure of his own, the marvel is that a single chord of a heart, all whose strings are stretched to such tension on its own account, can emit a solitary note of real sympathy with our grief. Let us, then, be thankful to God for the smallest measure of true human sympathy. But there is no limit, no fathom to the sympathy of Jesus. It is real, human, most tender, boundless, fathomless. It enters into all our sorrows, and with a penetration and delicacy indescribable, it insinuates itself into all the shades and peculiarities of our sorrow. It even enters into our infirmities. Infirmities into which others cannot enter, and still more with which we can ill bear ourselves, Jesus sympathizes with. Infirmities of temperament--infirmities of constitution--infirmities of habit--infirmities of education--infirmities of position--bodily, mental, and spiritual infirmities--there is One who enters deeply into all! He has borne them all--bears them still. Commiserating the feebleness of our nature--for it is still the robe He wears in heaven--He patiently bears with us, tenderly deals with us, and gently soothes, supports, and sustains us. "For we have not a High Priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin. Let us, therefore, come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need." In this sympathy Jesus would have us confide. And if upon your opening path there falls the forecasting shadow of some approaching sorrow--if the sky is lowering and the surge is swelling--meet it by a renewed appeal to the anticipated compassion and intercession of Christ. Jesus!--what a plenitude of sympathy, tenderness, and grace is in that name! Run into it, and you shall be safe from the coming storm. And when the darkling sorrow comes--the rose hue of health paling--blossoms falling--flowers withering--hope expiring--fame, fortune, friends, like the orient tints of evening, fading one by one away--remember that in JESUS you have a Brother born for your adversity, a Friend who loved you in eternity--loved you on the cross--loves you on the throne--and will love you unto the end. He will make the cloud His chariot--will walk upon your stormy waters--and will say, "Peace, be still!" "Only believe--only trust Me."

"Commit you all your griefs
And ways into His hands,
To His sure truth and tender care,
Who earth and heaven commands.

"Give to the winds your fears;
Hope, and be undismayed;
God hears your sighs, and counts your tears;
God shall lift up your head.

"Through waves, and clouds, and storms,
He gently clears your way:
Wait on His time--your darkest night
Shall end in brightest day."

Such is the soul-posture to which the Lord invites us, and in which He would have us calmly repose in view of a year which promises to be one of much national disquietude and of severe social pressure. The war cloud lowers more darkly than ever--our fathers, our sons, and our brothers are girding themselves for a yet more fearful conflict--the narrowed resources of many--the critical position of capital--the under-flowing current of restlessness and agitation working its way upward to the surface, are indices to an intelligent, reflective mind of an advancing period of extreme pressure and anxiety. With what feeling shall we confront it?--TRUST IN GOD. "Only believe--only trust Me," are the words with which Jesus seeks at once to inspire our confidence and allay our fears.

There is no act of the soul more acceptable to God, because there is none that brings more glory to His Great Name than this. Wherever we trace in the Scriptures of truth a trust in the Lord, there we find especial and remarkable deliverance. It is recorded of the children of Israel that the Lord delivered their enemies into their hand, "for they cried to God in the battle, and He was entreated of them; because they put their trust in Him." Again, we read of God's wondrous message, sent by Jeremiah to Ebed-melech, the Ethiopian, "I will surely deliver you, and you shall not fall by the sword, but your life shall be for a prey unto you; because you have put your trust in me, says the Lord," Jeremiah 39:16, 18.

The experience, also, of God's people confirms the blessedness of trusting in the Lord. "In God have I put my trust; I will not fear what man can do unto me." "I will trust in the covert of your wings." "It is better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in man." "Oh, my God, save your servant who trusts in You." "The Lord is my trust and my shield; my heart trusted in Him, and I am helped."

The promises connected with trusting in the Lord are equally rich and encouraging. "You will keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on You; because he trusts in You. Trust in the Lord forever; for in the Lord Jehovah is everlasting strength." "The salvation of the righteous is of the Lord; He is their strength in the time of trouble. And the Lord shall help them, and deliver them for He shall deliver them from the wicked, and save them, because they trust in Him." "None of those who trust in Him shall be desolate." "The Lord knows those who trust in Him." "Oh, how great is your goodness, which You have laid up for those who fear You; which You have wrought for those who trust in You before the sons of men. You shall hide them in the secret of your presence." "He shall not be afraid of evil tidings; his heart is fixed, trusting in the Lord."

What a marvelous and precious cluster of divine encouragements to those who trust in the Lord with all their heart, under all circumstances and at all times! "Only trust," is Jesus' word. "This is all that I ask of you, the utmost thing I require at your hand. I demand no costly sacrifice--no wearisome pilgrimage--no personal worthiness--no strength, or wisdom, or self-endeavors of your own. Only TRUST ME. Only believe that I wait to answer prayer--that I am gracious--that I have all power at my command--that I have your interests at heart--that there is no good thing I am willing to withhold--that I, and I alone, can guide your present steps, can unravel the web of your difficulties, guide your perplexities, extricate you from the snares that have woven their network around your feet, and bring you through fire and through water into a healthy place. Only TRUST ME!"

Beloved, is this too hard? Is the request unreasonable and impracticable? What! only to trust Jesus! Only to trust your needs to His ear--your burdens to His arm--your sorrows to His heart? Is this too hard? Is it beyond your power? Then tell Jesus so! Remind Him of His own words, "Without Me you can do nothing." And ask at His hand the faith to trust, the heart to trust, the courage to trust, and the power to trust all your interests, temporal and spiritual, for time and for eternity, into His hands.

This trusting implies a ceasing from self, and from all confidence in the arm of flesh, and from all reliance in unbelieving, carnal plans and schemes to obtain deliverance from the pressure of present trial, and supplies for present need. It involves a constant, prayerful, and believing leaning on the Lord; a quiet, patient waiting for the Lord; a peaceful, child-like, passive resting in the Lord; and a holy, filial walking with the Lord. Recollect--a leaning upon Christ, a waiting for Christ, a resting in Christ, and a walking with Christ. Only do this in all the events of this year--in all your trials and temptations, needs and sorrows, and it shall be in truth a happy year. Only trust Him to lead you by a right way to bring you to heaven. Only trust Him to appear in His own good time to deliver you from a present cross, to remove a present burden, to supply a present need, and to conduct you into the green pastures and the sweet flowing waters of His truth and love. So delightsome to Him will be this calm, submissive trust--so honoring of His faithfulness, and so glorifying to His name this full, implicit confidence--He will honor and bless you by granting the desires of your heart, and bestowing, from the plenitude of His resources, every blessing that you ask and need.

Above all other trusts, trust to Jesus your priceless soul. Relax your grasp upon everything else but Jesus. Let go your religious duties and doings--your sacraments and prayers, your works of righteousness, and Babel-built hopes of heaven--and only trust, and trust only in the Lord Jesus Christ, and you shall be saved. No poor, penitent sinner did He ever reject--none was He ever known to cast away. And if you come and trust in His righteousness alone to justify you, and to give you acceptance with God, and a title to eternal glory, you will be the first that ever perished at His feet--if you perish there! Cease from all unbelieving reasonings and proud objections. If you are conscious of your need of pardon; if, above all things, you desire pardon; if you despair of doing anything whatever to deserve it; if you are really willing to receive it, as guilty, condemned, helpless, dying men; then you are as much warranted as sinners can be to go, in Christ's name, to the mercy-seat, and to take this complete and eternal pardon as your own.

To you, as well as to the proud in heart, God says, "Put Me in remembrance--Let us plead together." "Tell Me not for ever of your unfitness for My kingdom, your rebellion, and your crimes. Tell Me of My invitations to the guilty, and My promises to the lost. Tell Me of the blood that was shed to save you. Tell Me of the tears, and prayers, and righteousness, the cross and passion of My Son. Show Me that you can trust My words. Only believe, and though you were as sinful as the cursing Peter, or as unworthy as the persecuting Saul, I, even I, am He that blots out your transgressions, for My own sake, and will not remember your sins." (Bradley)

Are you a lone widow? a helpless orphan? homeless, friendless? Does your heart curse some secret sorrow, some anxious care, some crushing burden? Is life's landscape draped in wintry gloom, and all your future cheerless, starless, uncertain to your view? Come, beloved, and hear the wondrous, sympathizing, cheering words of Jesus--"Only trust Me!" Hear your Father and your God say--"As your day, so shall your strength be." "As your day." Each new burden shall bring its support; each new difficulty, its guidance; each new sorrow, its soothing; and each new day, its strength. Be it your only care to deny all ungodliness, and to walk worthy of your high vocation; to separate yourself more widely and distinctly from the world, its practices and its spirit; to more closely resemble Christ in His gentle, charitable, forgiving spirit; and yielding yourself more entirely to the disposal of the Lord, to do as seems Him good. And should you this year be called to meet death--to hear the summons that bids you rise--then, when all other things are receding from your view, and all other voices are dying upon your ear, Jesus will approach, and, amid the gloom and stillness of the shadowy valley, you shall see His person, and hear Him say--"be not afraid--only trust Me!"

"When adverse winds and waves arise,
And in the heart despondence sighs;
When life her throng of care reveals,
And weakness o'er my spirit steals;
Grateful I hear the kind decree,
That 'as your day, your strength shall be.'

"When, with sad footsteps, memory roves
'Mid smitten joys and buried loves;
When sleep my tearful pillow flies,
And dewy morning drinks my sighs;
Still to your promise, Lord, I flee,
That 'as your day, your strength shall be.'

"One trial more must yet be past,
One pang, the keenest and the last;
And when with brow convulsed and pale,
My feeble quivering heart-strings fail,
Redeemer, grant my soul to see
That 'as her day, her strength shall be.'"
--Mrs. Sigourney

"Commit everything you do to the Lord.
Trust him, and he will help you." Psalm 37:5

IT IS WELL

But sure enough, the woman soon became pregnant. And at that time the following year she had a son, just as Elisha had said.
One day when her child was older, he went out to visit his father, who was working with the harvesters. Suddenly he complained, "My head hurts! My head hurts!"
His father said to one of the servants, "Carry him home to his mother."
So the servant took him home, and his mother held him on her lap. But around noontime he died.
So she saddled the donkey and said to the servant, "Hurry! Don't slow down on my account unless I tell you to."
As she approached the man of God at Mount Carmel, Elisha saw her in the distance. He said to Gehazi, "Look, the woman from Shunem is coming. Run out to meet her and ask her, 'Is everything all right with you, with your husband, and with your child?' "
And she answered, "It is well." –2 Kings 4:17-20, 24-26

A dark cloud was now settling upon the home of the Shunamite woman and her husband. As the evening of life drew on, and life itself had lost its object and its charms, according to the promise of the prophet, God gave them a son. It was an unexpected and precious gift. He came like a winter's flower, to gladden them with its late and delicate beauty, and to refresh them with its rich and rare fragrance. The stillness of their home was now broken with the echo of childhood's gaiety, and the walls which the twilight shadows had been slowly darkening now smiled with unusual light. Life assumed another aspect with its new object and a new purpose. God had given them a being whom, by the tenderest of bonds and the dearest of rights, they could call their own. Approaching towards manhood they seemed about to reap, in a more full enjoyment of their treasure, the reward of their early anxiety and care. He would now become their grown-up companion, the beautiful staff of their declining years--abroad sharing the field-toil of his father, and at home charming the hours of his mother, and often kneeling at her side while both would implore the blessing of Israel's God.

But God's thoughts and purposes were otherwise, and He was about to accomplish in His own way His wise and gracious designs. Just at this juncture the household plant they loved so fondly and nurtured so tenderly, whose unfolding beauty inspired such gladness and hope, sickened, drooped, and died. "One day when her child was older," says the simple, touching story, "he went out to visit his father, who was working with the harvesters. Suddenly he complained, 'My head hurts! My head hurts!' His father said to one of the servants, 'Carry him home to his mother.' So the servant took him home, and his mother held him on her lap. But around noontime he died." What a withering of all their hopes! what a crushing of all their expectations! how anguished were now those parental hearts! and how desolate that happy home, the shadows of which fall deeper and faster since the spirit that was its light is gone. "Like a flower, we blossom for a moment and then wither. Like the shadow of a passing cloud, we quickly disappear." Job 14:2

With a mother's smitten heart the Shunamite woman hastened to the prophet Elisha at Mount Carmel, to relate her calamity and seek in his counsel and sympathy, direction and soothing, in her affliction. With what frame of mind and with what words of grief does she approach the man of God? How does she deport herself in her sad bereavement? Does she upbraid him for promising her a son, or murmur at God for recalling him? Does she indulge in vain lamentations that a gift unasked, when it had become so lovely and precious, had been so early, so rudely, and so suddenly removed? Is there any indulgence in excessive grief, in fruitless regrets, in repining thoughts, in rebellious words, anything that betrays opposition to God's will, that disputes His right, or that impeaches His wisdom, faithfulness, and love? Far, very far, from this is the posture of the Shunamite. Listen to her reply to the question of the prophet's servant sent by his master to inquire of her welfare. "Is it well with you? is it well with your husband? is it well with the child? And she answered, IT IS WELL!"

O, touching picture of deep yet chastened sorrow! Lovely attitude of soul--meek and submissive--in the hour of keen anguish! The child was dead, and it was all winter now, but--It is well! The hope of future years was extinguished, and it was all disappointment now--but It is well! The "strong staff and the beautiful rod was broken," and the weight of years bowed them to the dust now, but--It is well! Could it be otherwise? The stricken parents knew that their covenant God "Himself had done it," and that it was well done. It was wise, it was righteous, it was even good, because He had done it.

What moral sublimity invests this picture of domestic bereavement? What a study, were it the province of a human pencil to portray an attitude of soul so spiritual, so unearthly, almost divine! Has it no reflected image? Can we not find its copy? Yes! death still reigns--bereavement still desolates--sorrow still has its home in the human heart. But the same grace that formed this beautiful picture of holy submission, of sweet, cheerful acquiescence in the will of God, that could say, when the loved one was smitten, It is well! still lives to produce the same holy and blessed fruit.

If, dear reader, you are lying at God's feet, His afflicted, chastened child, gazing in calm, mute submission upon the wreck of human hopes, and gently whispering, "My God, my Father, it is well!" then your spirit is as this Shunamite's, and God fashions your hearts alike. May the Holy Spirit graciously give His divine teaching while we glean the instruction and the comfort which these words so richly contain.

In looking back upon the by-gone Year, and forward to the New--the past, perhaps, in some of its aspects, sad and mournful, the future, cloud-veiled and uncertain--how suitable the sentiment and the spirit embodied in the words selected as the basis of our address--"IT IS WELL." We purpose, in the following pages, to view them as the grateful acknowledgment of the REDEEMED soul--as the believing acquiescence of the chastened soul--and as the triumphant language of the glorified soul.

It is proper that we should seek our first illustration of this truth in the salvation of God. Salvation is God's greatest work; in nothing has He so manifested forth His glory as in this. He embarked all His infinite resources, and staked all His divine honor in the accomplishment of this work so dear to His heart--the salvation of His Church. The universe is full of His beauty, but myriads of worlds, on a scale infinitely more vast and magnificent than this, could give no such 'concept of God' as the salvation of a single sinner. Salvation required the revelation and the harmony of all the divine perfections.

CREATION affords only a partial view of God. It displays His natural but not His moral attributes. It portrays His wisdom, His goodness, His power--but it gives no idea of His holiness, His justice, His truth, His love. It is but the alphabet, the shadow of God. These are parts of His ways, and how little of Him is known! But in the person of Immanuel, in the cross of Christ, in the finished work of redemption, God appears in full-orbed majesty. And when the believing soul surveys this wondrous expedient of reconciling all the interests of heaven, of uniting all the perfections of Jehovah in the salvation of sinners by the blood of the cross--"Mercy and truth meeting together, righteousness and peace kissing each other"--it exclaims, in full satisfaction with the salvation of God--It is well!

The anxious question of an awakened soul, as it bears its weight of sin to the cross, is, "Is the salvation of the Lord Jesus a work commensurate with my case? Will it meet my individual condition as a sinner? May I, in a deep conviction of my guiltiness, venture my soul upon Jesus? Am I warranted, without a work of my own, apart from all my merit or demerit, to believe in Christ and indulge the hope that I shall be saved?" The Bible, in brief but emphatic sentences, answers these inquiries. "Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and you shall be saved." "Him that comes unto Me I will in no way cast out." "By grace are you saved." "If by grace, then it is no more of works." "You are complete in Him." The Holy Spirit giving the inquirer a possession of these declarations, working the faith that receives the Lord Jesus into the heart, the believing soul is enabled to exclaim, "It is well! I see that it is a salvation for sinners, for the vilest, the poorest, the most unworthy. I came to Christ, and was received; I believed in Him, rested in Him, and I am saved. Christ is mine, His salvation is mine, His promises are mine, His advocacy is mine, His heaven is mine. It is well!"

But it is not always that in the same strength of faith the child of God can say, 'it is well with his soul'. Through the feebleness of your faith, and the power of indwelling sin, and your many conscious backslidings and infirmities, you may be led to question the well-being of your state. Harassed with doubts, assailed by temptations, agitated by fears, you tremble to say, "It is well with my soul." But let me caution you against a rash judgment or a hasty conclusion as to your real condition. I have a message from God to you, my reader: "Say unto the righteous, it shall be well with him."

Now, in all the spiritual exercises through which the believer in Jesus passes, it must in truth be well with him as to his real standing in Christ. You may be walking in darkness or in light; you may be mourning in the valley or be rejoicing on the mount; now conquering, now foiled; now weeping, now rejoicing; yet it is still well with you as a pardoned, justified, saved sinner. Nothing can touch your interest in the Savior--or expel you from the covenant--or change the love of God towards you.

There are tides in the faith and comfort of a child of God even as there are in the ocean. The believer has his ebb and flow, his fluctuations of spiritual feeling. It is often low tide with his soul. The waves of spiritual joy and peace ebb, and all looks barren and cheerless. The arid sands, the moss-covered rocks, the entangled weeds that line the shore when the ocean's waves have receded, are, in his mournful view, but the apt emblems of his spiritual state. And now he begins to question the reality of all his former experience, and the sincerity of all his past professions. He abjures his adoption, doubts his interest in Christ, puts from him the promises, appropriates the judgments, keeps back from the ordinances, and his soul refuses to be comforted.

But, beloved saint of God, is there no flow, as well as ebb, in the spiritual joy and comfort of the believer? Is there no return of the tide of faith and consolation and hope in the Christian's experience--the waves of love's infinite ocean, of the soul's perfect peace, of glory's anticipated joy rolling back again upon the shore, in sweet heavenly cadence! Oh, yes! Listen to the divine assurances of this: "I have loved you with an everlasting love"--"I have chosen you, and not cast you away"--"Yes, she may forget, yet will not I forget you"--"I will never leave you nor forsake you"--"I have prayed for you, that your faith fail not"--"I will restore comforts unto you"--"Though I spoke against him, yet do I remember him still"--"I will not leave you comfortless"--"You have a little strength"--"Therefore will the Lord wait that He may be gracious unto you"--"He will be very gracious unto you at the voice of your cry: when, He shall hear it, He will answer you"--"He restores my soul." All these exceeding great and precious promises, beloved, are yours. They are your Father's epistles of love, and He bids you read, believe, and enjoy them.

Yet, with all affectionate fidelity would I exhort you not to rest where you are. Be not satisfied with your present state, but seek to obtain a renewed application of the atoning blood, a fresh "blink of Jesus," as Rutherford says, looking away from your sins, backslidings and unfruitfulness, your infirmities, shortcomings, and flaws to Christ, and getting a closer, clearer, fuller view of the cross. The all-sufficiency of Christ meets your case. Sweet truth! I ask not how peculiar, how aggravated, how desperate, how discouraging, the state of your soul may be; I hesitate not to affirm that such is Christ, such His love, His compassion, His fullness, His power, your condition of soul comes within the scope of His sufficiency. Christ's merit meets your demerit; Christ's unchangeableness meets your backslidings; Christ's grace meets your corruptions; Christ's blood meets your guiltiness; Christ's fullness meets your emptiness; Christ's power meets your impossibilities; Christ's compassion meets your misery; Christ's sympathy meets your sorrow; Christ's intercession covers all your circumstances and needs. "Christ is all and in all." "From the fullness of His grace we have all received one blessing after another."

Oh, it is, it must be well with those whose sins are forgiven through Christ, who are 'accepted in the Beloved', whose God is the Lord, and upon whom His eye of love and delight rests from the beginning of the year to the end of the year. Say not it is ill with your soul, and not well, because the Holy Spirit is inserting the plough more deeply into your heart, thus discovering more of its hidden evil, detecting the lurking sin where its existence was not suspected, and discovering the flaw and the failure in the action, the principle, the motive, the end, which the fair surface, self flattery, or specious reasoning, had concealed. O say not that it is ill with your soul, and not well, because Jesus does not speak, God does not smile, and prayer is not answered. "For a small moment," says God, "have I hidden myself from you; but with great mercies will I gather you." In the dreary, lonely, trying path you now tread, you may trace the 'footsteps of the flock', and yet more distinct and blessed than all, the footprints of the Shepherd of the flock. Be not, then, cast down. The Lord will bring you through this night of weeping into a morning of joy. And your knowledge will be the deeper, and your faith the stronger, and your joy the fuller, and your hope the brighter, and your song the sweeter and the louder for all the painful exercises through which your soul has passed, and with deeper emphasis you shall exclaim--"IT IS WELL."

But these words express the sentiment and feelings of the CHASTENED soul. It is the language of faith in trial. Let us trace some of the afflictive circumstances under which the child of God can say, "It is well."

Affliction and poverty are the distinctive features of the saints of God under the new dispensation; affluence and exemption from great suffering were probably those of the saints of the former economy. The character of the gospel economy is unique. It is the dispensation of suffering, the economy of the cross. The suffering of the old dispensation was more in type, and shadow, and symbol; that of the new is the great, the dark filling up of the outline of the picture. The Son of God SUFFERED--the Son of God DIED! And Christianity derives all its efficacy, and the Christian dispensation all its character, and the Christian all his glory, from this single, this wondrous fact. "Unto you it is given, in the behalf of Christ, not only to believe in His name, but also to suffer for His sake." "Whoever does not bear His cross; and come after Me, cannot be my disciple."

Such is the nature of Christ's religion, and such the terms of His discipleship--suffering and self-denial. By those who are not initiated into the mysteries of the kingdom of grace this is a truth hard to be understood. To them it is inexplicable how one whose person is loved by God, whose sins Christ has forgiven, whose life appears holy, useful, and honored, should be the subject of divine correction, and, perhaps, in some instances, should, more than others, seem smitten and afflicted by God. But to those who are students of Christ, who learn at the feet of Jesus, this is no insoluble problem. They understand, in a measure, why the most holy are frequently the most chastened. Ah! beloved, in the school where this truth is learned, all truth may be learned--at the feet of Jesus. There is no mystery in revelation that may not be satisfactorily elucidated, no discrepancy in truth that may not be sufficiently explained, no doctrine that may not be understood, or precept that may not be welcomed, sitting in the attitude of a little child at the feet of Christ, the Great Teacher of men.

In His light we shall see light. But men turn from the sun and wonder that in the study of divine truth, shadows should fall darkly upon their path. They study the Bible so little beneath the cross with an eye intent upon Christ, from whom all truth emanates, of whom all truth testifies, and to whom all truth leads. Reader, are you a sincere inquirer after the truth? Then listen to the words of Jesus: "I Am the Truth." You have sought it in the schools, you have sought it in systems, you have sought it in creeds, you have sought it in churches; and many a weary step you have trod in quest of the precious gem, and your heart has sighed and your spirit has panted in vain. Lay aside your philosophy, your reasoning, your caviling, and receive the gospel of Christ as a learner, not as a teacher; as a sinner, not as a saint; as a humble child, not as a proud philosopher; as one who is really desirous of knowing how he may be saved.

What does the Truth Himself say? "This is life eternal, that they might know You the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent." The crisis in your life speeds on when all knowledge, except the knowledge of Christ loving you, pardoning you as a guilty sinner, saving you as a lost sinner, and reconciling you to God as a rebellious sinner, will prove as unsubstantial as a shadow, as unreal and fleeting as a dream. Oh, let this be the one desire and earnest resolve of your soul, "That I may know Him"--"Yes, doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus"--"Acquaint now yourself with Him, and be at peace, thereby good shall come unto you."

Such, then, as have learned of Christ can understand why a child of God should be a child of affliction, why "the Lord tries the righteous." Declarations such as these have a significance of meaning they can well comprehend. "I have chosen you in the furnace of affliction"--"It is good for me that I have been afflicted"--"Whom the Lord loves He chastens, and scourges every son whom He receives"--"As many as I love I rebuke and chasten." But what are the general grounds of this believing acquiescence in the afflictive dealings of God expressed by the chastened soul? We can but group them in the smallest possible space.

Tracing the affliction, whatever its nature, to God as the First great Cause, faith calmly acquiesces, and says, "It is well." From nothing does the believer find it more difficult to disengage his mind, in the first blow of his affliction, than second causes. The reasoning of the bereaved sisters of Bethany finds its corresponding frame of mind in almost every similar case, "Lord, if You had been here my brother would not have died." Ah! that "if," in the first hour of the heart's anguish, what bitter self-accusation does it occasion, what deep aggravation of the wound does it produce. But with second causes the child of God has nothing to do. Second causes are all by the appointment and under the control of the First Cause. They are but the agents God employs, the means which He selects, to accomplish His own eternal purpose. "He Himself has done it," is the voice of His word, and faith responds, "It is well." Rise, then, O child of sorrow, above the circumstances of your calamity--dwelling upon which will but intensify your suffering, prolong your grief, and rob you of comfort--and rest in the Lord, from whom your affliction proceeds. "For He wounds, but He also binds up; He injures, but His hands also heal." Then shall you indeed exclaim, from the depth of your stricken heart--It is well!

The believer, regarding all God's dispensations in the light of needed discipline, cheerfully acquiesces in the wisdom and righteousness of the divine procedure. Discipline by trial is an essential element in the Christian's sanctification and instruction. Our adorable Lord, as man, exemplified this truth in His own personal history. We read that, "Though He were a Son, yet He learned obedience by the things which He suffered." The lesson which Christ learned--to Him a new one--was the lesson of obedience--obedience to the will of His Father in suffering. As the curse expanded before Him, into more perfect and dreadful proportion, He came to learn more of the evil of sin and more of the difficulties of redemption, and so more deeply the lesson of obedience--doing and suffering the will of God. It was thus our blessed Lord was perfected through suffering.

And this, beloved, is the school in which the "many sons," Christ is bringing to glory learn submission to the Father's will. The discipline which was becoming in the case of the Head, cannot be without its need and its blessing in the case of the members. There is much--many deep truths of God, and many holy lessons of practical Christianity--to be learned in the pathway trodden by the Savior, which can be learned in no other path--the path of afflictive discipline.

When bereavement darkens our homes, and funeral following funeral leaves our doorways; when joys are blighted, and hopes are crushed, and hearts are sorrowful, then it is that the most difficult, yet most holy, of all lessons is inculcated--submission to the will of God, expressed in the language of the Shunamite, "It is well." But, oh, how needful and how wholesome this discipline! Who would be exempted from it that has once plucked and tasted the fruit which clusters so richly on the blossoming rod? If submission to the divine will is ever learned, beyond all question it is where Christ learned it, by the things which we suffer.

And, oh, what holy fruit is this--the will of God accomplished in us! The pathway may be through the furnace, whitened seven-fold with the heat, but if your will has become more pliant with the will of your Heavenly Father, if the Christian character has become purified, and the graces of the Holy Spirit have become strengthened, and a wider and freer scope has been given to faith, and hope, and love, then ought we not to rejoice in tribulation, and exclaim, "He has done all things well"?

The canker-worm has been busy at the root of your pleasant gourd, the cold north wind has blown rudely over the long-nurtured buds, and the fell hand of death has laid the cedar low, and in the anguish of your soul you exclaim, "Is it nothing to you, all you that pass by? behold, and see if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow, which is done unto me, with which the Lord has afflicted me in the day of His fierce anger"--but the Son of God drank a deeper and bitterer cup, and trod a more suffering and a gloomier path than you, and yet could say, "My Father, not my will, but Yours be done," and shall you shrink from a training and a discipline through whose courses God led the Elder Brother and High Priest of our profession? "Oh, no!" you reply; "the self-knowledge I have already attained unto has been so needful and so salutary, that I would not desire that the cup of sorrow had passed my lips untouched. I little thought that I was so unbelieving, until the Lord tried my faith. I little suspected that pride so lurked within, until God made me stoop. I little imagined that I was so impatient, self-willed, and restiff, until God bade me wear the yoke, and wait for His will. I little supposed that my strength was so small until the Lord laid upon me the burden. And little did I suspect that my heart was so idolatrous--its affections so closely entwined around the creature--until my Father asked the surrender. Little did I believe how limited was my knowledge of Christ, how deficient was my acquaintance with divine truth, and how estranged my heart was from true prayer, until the affliction of my God set me upon examining my resources to meet it. Then I discovered how shallow was my experience, and how low and meager was my Christianity."

Thus when we trace the discipline to its necessity, the rebuke to the sinfulness that occasioned it, the chastisement to the evil it was designed to correct; the meek and lowly heart can say, "It its well!"

And when the present and hallowed results of the divine dealings are in a measure realized--when some sheaves of the golden fruit of the precious seed sown in weeping are sickled--the heart awakened to more prayer, Christ more precious, sin more hated, self more loathed, holiness more endeared, and the soul brought into greater nearness to God--when the suffering Christian reviews the divine supports he has experienced in his affliction, how God encircled him with the everlasting arms, how Christ pillowed his languid head, how the Holy Spirit comforted and soothed his anguish, by unfolding the sweetness and fullness of the Scriptures, sealing promise upon promise upon his smitten heart, his chastened spirit can exclaim, "You have dealt WELL with your servant, O Lord, according to your word." You have broken but to bind up, have wounded but to heal, have emptied but to replenish, have embittered but to sweeten, have removed one blessing but to bestow another and a greater.

"You do but take my lamp away,
To bless me with eternal day."

"Whom have I in heaven but You? and there is none upon earth that I desire beside You."

But the place where the clearest view is taken of the present unfathomable dispensations of God, and where their unfolding light and unveiling glory wake the sweetest, loudest response to this truth--"He has done all things well"--is HEAVEN. The glorified saint has closed his pilgrimage; life's dark shadows have melted into endless light; he now looks back upon the desert he traversed, upon the path he trod, upon the river he passed, and as in the full blaze of glory each page unfolds of his wondrous history, testifying to some new recorded instance of the loving kindness and faithfulness of God; the grace, compassion, and sympathy of Jesus; the full heart exclaims, as no angel's lips could utter it--"It is well!"

The past dealings of God with him in providence now appear most illustrious to the glorified mind. The machinery of divine Government, which here seemed so complex and inexplicable, now appears in all its harmony and beauty. Its mysteries are all unraveled, its problems are all solved, its events are all explained, and the promise of the Master has received its utmost fulfillment, "What I do, you know not now, but you shall know hereafter." That dispensation that was enshrouded in such mystery; that event that flung so dark a shadow on the path; that affliction that seemed so conflicting with all our ideas of God's infinite wisdom, truth, and love; that stroke that crushed us to the earth, all now appears but parts of a perfect whole--and every providence in his past history, as it now passes in review, bathed in the liquid light of glory, swells the anthem--IT IS WELL!

But when from that elevated position the glorified saint looks back upon all God's conduct in grace--electing, redeeming, calling, and preserving him; when he thinks of the righteousness that gave him acceptance, the blood that procured his cleansing, the grace that effected his sanctification, the upholding power that kept him from falling, and that conducted him at last to glory--a sinner, perhaps the very chief, saved by grace--oh, what music do the words awaken through all the bowers of paradise--He has done all things well! In what new and perfect light is every truth of the Bible now placed! All is cleared up! All that perplexed the mind in the doctrines of the revealed word, and all that embarrassed it in the administration of the divine government, gives place to complete satisfaction. "I shall be satisfied when I awake with your likeness," is the fond anticipation of the believer on earth; that expectation is the full realization of the believer in heaven.

The beatific vision has brought his whole soul into the most perfect harmony with God. He is satisfied with the character and perfections of God which now unfold their grandeur without a cloud, and fill the soul without a limit. "Now we see through a glass darkly; but then face to face: now we know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known." An angel's sight and an angel's knowledge, enkindle an angel's fervor; and as growing discoveries and endless illustrations of the divine perfections increase with eternity, glory, honor, and thanksgiving to Him who sits upon the throne, will be the saint's undying song.

He is satisfied, also, with all God's providential dealings with him in the world he has passed. The present is the repose of faith--and faith can say, amid scenes of perplexity and peril, of obscurity and doubt, it is well, trusting in the wisdom and faithfulness of God. And yet how difficult often do we find it to trace God's design, or connect His strange dealings with a wise purpose or a gracious end. We cannot unravel the web! Is it not so, my reader? Let faith look back upon the past of your life, not to revive its painful emotions, but that with steadier wing and bolder flight it may bear you forward.

That dark cloud of sorrow that settled upon your fair prospects--that blast of adversity that swept away riches--that stroke of providence that tore from your sight the wife of your youth, or hurried the child of your hopes prematurely and amid harrowing circumstances to the grave, or that placed the friend of your bosom, the life-companion, the sharer of your toils, into darkness--or that came near to your own person and arrested you with disease--you pause and inquire, why is it thus? Ah! the full answer you may never have in this world--for faith must have scope--but by and by, if not here, yet from a loftier position and beneath a brighter sky, and with a stronger vision, you shall look back, and know and understand, and admire it all, and shall be satisfied.

The glorified are satisfied, also, with the conduct of God's grace. If there is often inexplicable mystery in providence, there is yet profounder mystery in grace. Loving him as God does, yet that He should hide Himself from His child; hating sin, yet allowing its existence, and permitting His children to fall under its influence; leaving them often to endure the fiery darts of Satan, and to tread dreary paths, cheerless, starless, the sensible presence of the Heavenly Guide withdrawn, and not a voice to break the solemn stillness or to calm the swelling wave--ah! this is trying indeed!

But all, before long, will be satisfactorily explained! Then the glorified see how harmonious, with every principle of infinite holiness and justice, truth and wisdom, was God's scheme of redeeming mercy; and that it was electing love, and sovereign mercy, and free favor, that made him a subject of grace on earth, and an heir of glory in heaven. And as he bends back his glance upon all the way the Lord his God brought him the forty years' journey in the wilderness--traces the ten thousand times ten thousand unfoldings of His love--the wanderings and the restorings; the stumblings and the upholdings; the falls and the upliftings; the love that would not and the power that could not let him go; the faithful rebukes, the gentle dealings, the tender soothings, the unwearied patience, and the inexhaustible sympathy of Jesus, with what depth of emotion and emphasis of meaning does he exclaim, I am satisfied--it is well!

The saints are satisfied, also, with the heaven of glory to which they are brought. They wake up in God's likeness. Positively and perfectly holy, positively and perfectly happy, actually with Christ, and contemplating, with an intellectual and moral perception all unclouded, the glory of God, how completely satisfied is he with the new world of purity and bliss, of light and splendor, into which his ransomed spirit sprung. The last polluted earthly passion has died away, the last remnant of corruption is destroyed, the last moan of suffering and sigh of sorrow is hushed in the stillness of the tomb; the corruptible has put on incorruption, the mortal has put on immortality, and the glorified spirit stands among the throng of holy and adoring ones who encircle the throne and swells the universal anthem--IT IS WELL.

"This life's a dream, an empty show;
But the bright world to which I go
Has joys substantial and sincere;
When shall I wake and find me there?

Believer in Jesus, how animating the hope, and how elevating the prospect before you! Ascend with me to the upper world. Place yourself in imagination as a glorified spirit amid the splendors of the holy city. To what are you come? To Mount Zion--to the heavenly Jerusalem--to an innumerable company of angels--to the general assembly and church of the firstborn--to God the Judge of all--to the spirits of just men made perfect--to Jesus the Mediator of the new covenant.

Return back to earth! With this blissful vision before you--all so soon to be realized--what manner of people ought we to be in all holy conversation and godliness? How unearthly, how heavenly, how separate from the world, how Christian in principle, how Christ-like in spirit, temper, and conversation. How like him in our communion with each other--loving, forbearing, and forgiving; gentle, charitable, and kind. How condescending in position, liberal in wealth, humble in prosperity, submissive in adversity, contented in poverty, devoted and active in the Master's service!

Sorrowing Mother!--"it is well" with the child (that is, if the child was a true Christian– for there is no salvation outside of faith in Jesus –editor). The spirit has returned to God who gave it, and now communes with its Creator, of whose greatness, and wisdom, and glory it knows infinitely more than the profoundest philosopher or the holiest divine. It is safer and happier with its Father in heaven than with you on earth. And who can tell from what evil it is taken, and from what bitter anguish you are preserved--anguish greater in his life than now wrings your heart in his death. He has gone where innocence has no snares, where there exists no temptations to beguile, and where no foes invade. Your child may have stolen your heart from Jesus, who did not intend that His precious gift should supplant Himself in your love. It is well with him.

And is it not well with you? The vacant place is occupied with a sympathizing Savior--the stricken heart turns to Him who smote it--and the ensnared and truant affections, severed from the idol they had worshiped, find their way back again to God. It is well that your Heavenly Father has dealt with you thus. It is well that He condescends to instruct you, though it be by chastening, and to heal your heart-wanderings, though it be by suffering. Twice gracious has your God been to you--gracious when He loaned the blessing--a little flower to gladden you a while with its presence, and now to cheer you with its memory--and gracious in taking it away, transplanting it to a holier soil and sunnier skies, beneath whose influence its youthful faculties and young affections have expanded and ripened into more than an angel's intellect and a seraph's love. "It is well with the child."

Bereaved Christian!--"it is well." God has smitten, and the stroke has fallen heavily. The blessing you thought you could least spare, and would be the last to leave you, God your Father has taken. Why has He done this? To show you what He can be to you, in your extremity. It may be difficult for faith, in the first moments of your calamity, to see how it can be well, or to acknowledge that it is really so. But be still, and wait the outcome. Banish from your mind every hard thought of God, stifle in your breast every rebellious feeling, suppress upon your lip every repining word, and bow meekly, submissively, mutely to the sovereign, righteous will of your Father.

The blessings, like spring flowers blooming on the grave over which you weep, that will grow out of this affliction, will prove that God never loved you more deeply, was never more intent upon advancing your best interests, never thought more of you, nor cared more for you, than at the moment when His dear hand laid your loved one low. Receive the testimony of one who has tasted, aye, has drank deeply, of the same cup of grief which your Father God now mingles for you. Let us drink it without a murmur. It is our Father's cup. As a father pities his children, so does He pity us, even while He mingles and presents the draught. It is bitter, but not the bitterness of the curse; it is dark, but not the frown of anger; the cup is brimmed, but not a drop of wrath is there!

Oh, wondrous faith that can look upon the beautiful stem broken; the lovely, promising flower, just unfolding its perfection, smitten; the toils and hopes of years, all, and in a moment, extinguished, and yet can say--"It is well!" Go, now, precious treasure! God will have my heart. Christ would not desire that I should be satisfied with His gift of love, but that I should be satisfied with His love without the gift. "You alone are my portion, O Lord."

The world looks dreary, life has lost a charm, the heart is smitten and withered like grass, some of its dearest earthly affections have gone down into the tomb, but He who recalled the blessing is greater and dearer than the blessing; and is just the same Himself, as when He gave it. Jesus would be glorified by our resting in and cleaving to Him as our portion, even when the flowers of earthly beauty, and the yet more precious fruits of spiritual comfort and consolation wither and depart. Satan would suggest that we have sinned away our blessings and forfeited our comforts, and that, therefore, the Lord is now hiding His face from us, and in anger shutting up His tender mercies. But this is not really so. He is hiding the flowers, but not Himself. In love to them He is transferring them to His garden in heaven, and in love to us He thus seeks to draw us nearer to His heart. He would have us knock at His door and ask for a fresh cluster.

We are so apt to cherish our blessings, and rest in our comforts, and live upon our frames and feelings; that we lose sight of, and forget Him. He removes His gift, we might be always coming to Him for more. Oh, matchless love of Jesus!--it is well.

"Stricken, smitten, and afflicted,
Savior, to your cross I cling;
You have every blow directed,
You alone can healing bring.

"Try me until no dross remains;
And whatever the trial be,
While your gentle arm sustains,
Closer will I cling to Thee.

"Cheerfully the stern rod kissing,
I will hush each murmuring cry;
Every doubt and fear dismissing,
Passive in your arms will lie.

"And when through deep seas of sorrow,
I have gained the heavenly shore,
Bliss from every wave I'll borrow,
And for each will love You more."
--Mrs. E. C. Judson

Sick one!--"it is well." 'Is it so, can it be?' you doubtfully inquire. Yes, it is and must be so, since He who loves you has permitted, no, has sent this sickness. His wisdom cannot err, His love cannot be unkind. This trying dispensation may appear adverse to your best interests. It has, perhaps, come at a time when you could be least spared from your domestic duties, the engagements of business, or the work of the Lord. Thus secluded from your family, withdrawn from your customary employments, or, what may be a yet more painful reflection, exiled from the public ordinances of the Lord's house--those means of grace that have been so precious and profitable to your soul--you marvel how this sickness can be well.

Marvel not, since God's ways are not as our ways, nor His thoughts as our thoughts. He works His purposes of mercy and love towards us in a way often directly opposite to all our anticipations and plans. This sickness may appear to you a heavy calamity, the result may prove it an untold blessing. Sanctified by the Spirit's grace, that bed of suffering, that couch of weakness, those wearisome days, and long, sleepless nights, shall teach you precious truths, and realize to you precious promises, and bring your soul so near to God, and so endear the Savior to your heart, as shall constrain you to exclaim--"Lord, it is well!" "Commune with your own heart upon your bed, and be still." "Let patience have her perfect work, wanting nothing."

Do not be over anxious as to your recovery. God's time is best. Not one pain, not one moment's sense of weakness more than is needful, will God permit. Nor will He keep you upon that bed of suffering, nor a prisoner within that shaded room, one day longer than is necessary to accomplish the good He designs to bestow. Be trustful--be passive--lean upon Jesus, who will make all your bed in your sickness--open your heart to God in inward, silent breathings--and commit yourself, your family, your calling, yes, all your interests entirely to Him, and all will be well.

And suppose this present sickness should be unto DEATH--will not that be well? What! not to be released from a body of infirmity and sin? Not to go home, and take possession of your glorious inheritance? Not to go and see Christ in His glory, and be reunited to those who have gone before, and mingle with prophets, and apostles, and martyrs, and be as they are, perfected in holiness and love? Oh, yes, it will be far better to depart and be with Christ, if He sees fit. Tremble not to cross the flood. Our true Joshua has paved the path with precious stones--the doctrines, truths, and promises of His word--upon which your faith may plant its feet, and so to pass over dry shod into the heavenly Canaan. The bitterness of death is gone, to all who believe in Jesus, and "it is well."

Child of ADVERSITY--"it is well." Can you respond to this, now that God may have taken from you health, friends, riches, earthly comforts, and creature supports? It must be well, since providence and not accident, God and not man, has done it. But weep not, be not cast down, all is not gone. God is still your God and Father, Christ is still your Friend and Brother, the Spirit is still your Comforter and Guide, the covenant is still your inexhaustible supply, the promises are still left you, and all these losses and trials are working together for your good. Beware of rash steps, of creature-confidence, of distrusting God. Make not 'man' your arm, be not too curious to know the Lord's designs, but remember that "in quietness and in confidence shall be your strength."

God will not leave you in this time of adversity. In Him let your faith be filial, implicit, unwavering. If you honor Him by trusting Him now, He will honor your trust by and by. Give yourself to prayer. You will find it a sweet outlet to your full and burdened heart. All will yet be well. Stand still, and let God solve His own deep and mysterious problems, and you will then see how much infinite love and wisdom, and faithfulness and goodness was enfolded in this dark distressing calamity. But before this, in faith and submission, learn to say--it is well.

Is it well with your SOUL, my reader? Are you converted by the Spirit of God? Is your soul saved? This is the only part of your being that is worthy of a moment's serious thought. Everything else in comparison is but as the bubble that floats down the stream. This busy life will soon cease; its last thought, and care, and anxiety will yield to the great, the solemn realities of eternity. Are you ready for the sequel? Are you in a state of pardon, of justification, of peace with God through Christ? How is it with your soul? Will it be well with you in death, well with you after death, well with you at the judgment-seat of Christ? Have you come to the Lord Jesus as a Savior, to His blood for cleansing, to His righteousness for acceptance, to His cross for shelter, to Himself for rest? Have you fled as a sinner to Jesus as the Savior?

Look these questions, I beseech you, fairly, fully in the face, and answer them in your own conscience, and as in view of that dread tribunal at whose bar you will soon be cited. What, if you should prosper in temporals, and be lean in spirituals! What if you should pamper the body and starve the soul! What if you should gain the world--its riches, its honors, its pleasures--and be yourself through eternity a cast-away! To die in your sins, to die without union to Christ, to die unreconciled to God, tremendous will be the consequences; so dire will be your condition, so fearful and interminable your sufferings from the wrath of a holy and righteous God, it would have been good for you never to have been born. The unrighteous will be "punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of His power."

But there is hope! Does this page meet the eye of a penitent mourner, one whose heart is smitten with godly grief for sin? Truly can I say it is well with your soul, if this be so. If the sacrifice you bring to God's altar is that of a broken heart, be it known to you that the sacrifice of a broken heart and of a contrite spirit God will not despise. Despise it! Oh, no! It is the precious, holy fruit of His own Spirit in your soul, and in His eye it is too holy, too costly, too dear, to be despised. Bring to Him that broken heart, and Jesus will bind it up, heal and fill it with joy, and peace, and hope. It was His mission to receive and save sinners--it is His office to receive and save sinners--it is His delight to receive and save sinners; and if you will but approach Him, exactly as you are, He will receive and save you. "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you shall be saved."

On one ground only is there a possibility of your rejection. Come with a price in your hand with which to purchase salvation--be it your tears, your confessions, your sacraments, or whatever else it may be--and Christ will have no dealings with you. It is as though a sound man should come to be cured of the physician; or, as though a full man should come to sit down at a banquet; or, as though a beggar should offer to purchase at the door the bread he had craved in his hunger. But come to the Lord Jesus empty-handed, broken-hearted, sin-burdened, with no plea but your deep necessity, with no argument but your utter unworthiness, with no price but your insolvency, and Jesus will receive you graciously, will welcome you freely, and save you eternally. "And when they had nothing to pay He frankly forgave them both."

Christian professor, is it well with you? Is your soul prosperous? Are you making progress towards heaven, advancing in the divine life, and walking worthy of your high and holy calling? Is Jesus increasingly precious to you, is your heart warm with divine love, and have you the inward testimony--the comfortable, cheering witness of the Spirit--to your interest in Christ, and your adoption into God's family? We are entering upon a New Year of our earthly pilgrimage; let us commence it with a new setting out for heaven. Begin the year with a renewed application to the atoning blood, with a fresh draft upon the supplies of the covenant of grace, with a fresh coming to the fullness of Jesus, with a closer, clearer, more simple sight of the cross. Do not let us commence the New Year with the old stores, but let us repair to our true, spiritual Joseph for a fresh impartation of new grace, new strength, new faith, new love, new courage. Let the old things pass away, and forgetting the things that are behind, let us start anew for glory.

It is recorded of the children of Israel, that when they reached the confines of the good land they ceased to eat of the old corn, and "ate of the fruit of the land of Canaan that year." In like manner are we invited to live upon the foretastes and pledges of the coming glory; to partake of the new corn, and to press into our cup the first ripe fruits of the new vintage. Let us relinquish the old stores for the new. Let no remembrance of past backslidings, no lingering taint of past sins, no cloud-veiling of past sorrows discourage us from laying all our burdens at the foot of the cross, making it the starting-point of a new and more advancing stage in the glorious race that is before us. Jesus stands prepared to supply every need, to sympathize with every sorrow, to uphold us with His hand, to guide us with His eye, and to conduct us by a right way safely to heaven. In a little while and we shall behold Him. All things betoken the shaking of the heavens and the earth, when the "Desire of all nations" shall come. The late movements in the East--the present trembling in the valley of dry bones (the Jewish people)--the diffusion of the gospel as a witness to all nations--the daily fulfillment of prophecy--the rapid transit and close intercommunication with all parts of the globe, are striking and significant indices of the great events which are approaching. The grand event to which all others point, and of which all are but the herald, is--the Personal Appearing of the Son of Man. "The coming of the Lord draws near." In a little while He that shall come will come, and then shall be the rapture of the saints! In view of this illustrious and solemn event, let our attitude be that of holy, watchful, prayerful expectation, "looking for and hastening unto the coming of the Lord." Let brotherly love abound--let charity towards one another increase--let the saints of different Christian communions band more closely together in the Lord's work--and let all seek to be filled and animated with the lowly, gentle, winning, loving spirit of Christ, the one Lord and Master of His ONE Church.

Saints of the Most High! over these broken waters of a sinful, sorrowful, toilsome life we shall soon have passed, and standing upon the "sea of glass," with the harp of God in our hand, there shall be reflected from its tranquil bosom the glory, and there shall breathe from every string the praise of our God in having done all things well! Oh, what harmony shall we then see in every discrepance, what wisdom in every labyrinth, what love in every affliction, what tenderness, gentleness, and forethought in every stroke of His hand, and in every event of His providence! The mystery of God will be finished, and God will be all in all.

"Through the love of God our Savior,
All will be well.
Free and changeless is His favor;
All, all is well.
Precious is the blood that healed us,
Perfect is the grace that sealed us,
Strong the hand outstretched to shield us,
All must be well.

"Though we pass through tribulation,
All, all is well.
Ours is such a full salvation,
All must be well.
Happy still in God confiding,
Fruitful if in Christ abiding,
Holy through the Spirit's guiding:
All, all is well.

"We expect a bright tomorrow;
All, all is well.
Faith can say in deepest sorrow
All, all is well.
On our Father's love relying,
Jesus every need supplying,
All in living, all in dying,
ALL MUST BE WELL."

ALL THINGS FOR THE BEST

"And we know that all things work together for the best to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose." –Romans 8:28

Such is the rendering by Tyndale of a passage which to the children of God has ever been as a fresh and living spring of divine and unfailing consolation. How many a Christian pilgrim, weary and faint in his journey, has paused, drank of it, and passed on his way, like a giant refreshed with new wine. How many an inexplicable problem in providence has it solved--how many a lowering cloud has it pencilled with light--how many a burden has it lightened--how many a sorrow has it soothed--how many a tear has it dried--how many a soul has it bowed in meek submission to the Divine will, in the history of God's church! More precious than rubies are these words of the Holy Spirit! To be divinely assured--assured by Him "who cannot lie"--that all the events, circumstances, and incidents of my life--that all the arrangements and dispensations of His government, work together for the best--that they are designed to promote my greatest good and to secure His highest glory--surely it is enough to bring the heart into perfect and cheerful acquiescence with the most gloomy, adverse, trying, and mysterious event that ever cast its deep, broad shadows on our path!

We have reminded you, beloved reader, in years gone by, that God often leads His children by an "Untrodden Path"--that, although this were so, it was yet a sweet thought that the believer is "Going Home"--that, until he should reach the confines of his eternal rest, his "Times were in God's Hands"--that, by Him who dwelt in the "Bosom of the Father, the heart of God had been unveiled"--that, with such a revelation of divine love, it was the simple province of faith, in all the dim perspective of the future, "Only to Trust Him!"--and that, if that future developed some overwhelming, crushing affliction, it was the believer's privilege to bow meekly his head, and exclaim, "It is Well!"

We meet you at the opening of another year with a truth not less divine, appropriate, and precious--a truth well calculated to soothe under present circumstances, and to inspire confidence in prospect of the future: "We know that all things work together for good (for the best) to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose."

There may occur events in national and in individual history which to our blind reason may appear the very reverse of our well-being. What means that dark cloud settling upon the British dependencies in the East? What that intelligence of woe flashing along the electric wire, the heraldings of a crushing sorrow to many a loving heart, to many a happy home? Doesn't it seem that the providence of God contravenes the truth of God? My reader, "It is the glory of God to conceal a thing." God, in the administration of His all-wise, all-righteous, all-beneficent government, has night seasons as well as day--seasons of darkness as well as seasons of light--and in both He must be contemplated, studied, and known.

As the night reveals glories in the skies, which the day concealed, so dark dispensations of Divine Providence bring to the believer's eye, as viewed through the telescope of faith, glories in the character and wonders in the government of Jehovah which the milder and brighter displays of Himself had veiled from the eye. Oh, beloved, how scanty would our experience of God be--how limited our knowledge of His love, wisdom, and power--how little would we know of Jesus, our best Friend, the Beloved of our souls, did we know Him only in mercy, and not also in judgment--were there no lowering skies, no night of weeping, no shady paths--no rough places, no cloud-tracings--no seasons of lonely sorrow, of pressing need, and of fierce temptation. "In the way of your judgments, O Lord, have we waited for You; the desire of our soul is to your name, and to the remembrance of You."

Nor should we overlook the full play and exercise of faith which occurrences, to us--dark, inconsistent, and mysterious, call into operation. Faith in God is the most precious, wondrous, and fruitful grace of the Holy Spirit in the renewed soul. Its worth is beyond all price. Its possession is cheap at any cost. One saving view of Jesus--one dim vision of the cross--one believing touch of the Savior--a single grain of this priceless gold--millions of rubies were as nothing to it. Then were its exercise and trial good. And but for its trial how uncertain would it be! Were there no circumstances alarming in the appearance they assume--somber in the form they wear--crude in the voice they utter--events which threaten our happiness and well-being--which seem to dry our springs, wither our flowers, blight our fruits, and drape life's landscape in gloom--how limited would be the sphere of faith! It is the province of this mighty grace to pierce thick clouds, to scale high walls, to walk in the dark, to pass unhurt through fire, to smile at improbabilities, and to master impossibilities. As the mariner's compass guides the ship, coursing its way over the ocean, as truly and as safely in the starless night as in the meridian day, so faith--the needle of the soul--directs as safely and points the believer in his right course homewards, as truly, in the gloomiest as in the brightest hour. Oh, how little are we aware of the real blessings that flow to us through believing! God asks of us nothing but--faith. For where there is faith in the Lord Jesus there is love--and where there is love there is obedience--and where there is obedience there is happiness--and where there is happiness, the soul can even rejoice in tribulation, and sit and sing sweetly and merrily in adversity, like a bird amid the boughs whose green foliage the autumnal blast has scattered. Let faith, then, echo to the words of truth, "All things work together for the best."

But, perhaps, my reader asks for something more than naked assertion. "What is the proof that all things are for the best?"

The first evidence is drawn from WHAT GOD IS HIMSELF. "He is good, and does good." It is His sole prerogative to educe good from 'apparent' evil--to order and overrule all events of an adverse nature and of a threatening appearance, for the accomplishment of the most beneficent ends. This He is perpetually doing with reference to His saints. The Spirit of love broods over the chaotic waters, and life's dark landscape appears like a new-born existence. The curse is turned into a blessing–from the cocoon emerges into a beauteous insect--the noxious weed becomes a life-sustaining plant--the discordant notes breathe the sweetest music. Jesus made the water into wine--and God, by the exercise of a like Divinity, is able to make all things work together for the best--turning the water of our affliction into the wine of His love.

You marvel how this can be. What is impossible with man is more than possible with God. Often in your silent musings over some unfortunate event in your life, sad in its nature, and threatening in its look, have you asked, "What possible good can result from this? It seems utterly opposed to my interests, and hostile to my happiness. It appears an unmixed, unmitigated evil." Be still! Let not your heart fret against the Lord and against His dealings--all things in your history are for the best--and this affliction, this loss, this calamity, is among the "all things." Here, then, is the first proof that all things work together for the best. God Himself is good, and God is able to do it.

Another evidence is adduced from the ATONEMENT OF THE LORD JESUS. The extraction of the curse from everything appertaining to the child of God converts every thing into a blessing. "There is no enchantment against Jacob, neither is there any divination against Israel." Christ has so completely annihilated the curse by obedience, and has so entirely put away sin by suffering, nothing is left of real, positive evil in the dealings of God with His church. They must be for the best, since the salvation of Jesus has secured the best. Jesus, because His love was so great, did all, endured all, finished all--and it is not only in the heart of God, but it is in the power of God--a power exerted in alliance with every perfection of His being--to cause all events to conspire to promote our present and eternal happiness.

I cannot see how God will work it, or when He will accomplish it, but assured that I am His pardoned, adopted child, I can calmly leave the issue of all things in my life with Him; confident that, however complicated may be the web of His providence, however hostile the attitude, or discouraging the appearance of events, all, all under the government and overruling will of my Heavenly Father are working together for the best. "The result, then, of this matter, my God, I leave with You."

"Your ways, O Lord, with wise design,
Are framed upon your throne above,
And every dark and bending line
Meets in the center of your love."

It is in the heart of God to bestow nothing but the best upon His people. "He that spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things." What is there of good we need, or of evil we dread, which His heart will withhold, or His power cannot avert? He has already bestowed upon you the best, the very best it was in His power to bestow. He has given us His best love--the best Savior--the best Atonement--the best righteousness--the best hope--the best heaven; and think you that He will not cause the greatest evil that befalls you to issue in the greatest good you can experience--the best blessing, perhaps, of your life? Oh, it is in the heart of our Covenant God to lavish every good, all good upon us; to "withhold no good thing from those who walk uprightly." Lord, lead us into your love--your love infinite, your love unfathomable, your love hidden and changeless as your nature!

The COVENANT OF GRACE secures the best as the result of all the dispensations of God with His people. In Jesus, our Surety Head, God has made with us a "covenant, ordered in all things and sure." This covenant provides all blessings, secures all good, and has arranged all things, all events, all occurrences, all removals, all losses, all sudden surprisals, for the greatest happiness, the best well-being of the believer in Jesus.

"My God, the covenant of your love
Abides forever sure;
And in its matchless grace I feel
My happiness secure."

Let us specify a few particulars illustrative of this precious truth.

DIVINE CHASTENINGS are for the best.--The punitive dealings of God as much enter into the blessings that spring from our adoption as any positive good. Nothing is healthful, vigorous, or pure apart from discipline. The university would be a wreck, the state anarchy, the domestic constitution utter discord, the church of God a ruin, were a wholesome discipline not rigidly and faithfully observed. This applies with equal force to our spiritual relation as the children of God. The wise, loving, holy discipline of God's family is as needful and as beneficial as any part of His government.

The corrections, therefore, of our Heavenly Father are for the best. It may be a heavy stroke that has lighted upon us, but in the sin it has discovered, in the folly it has rebuked, in the tendency to evil it has checked--in the clearer evidence it has given of our divine relationship--the discipline, painful and humiliating though it be, has proved for the best. "Blessed is the man whom You chasten, O Lord, and teach out of your law."

In this same soothing and consolatory light must all AFFLICTIONS be viewed. Why are afflictions for the best? Because they never come, but beneath their raven wings they enfold some hidden blessing; embosomed in the somber cloud there reposes some covenant mercy. Repeated afflictions are repeated blessings. They fall not as lightning on the scathed tree, blasting it yet more; but as the strokes of the sculptor on the marble block, forming it to the image of life and loveliness. Gash may follow gash, stroke may follow stroke, but it is only to mold and fashion the soul of the child more like unto its Heavenly Parent. If this be so, my Lord, proceed with your chiselings, until your child, molded beneath your hand, becomes more really and more visibly a "partaker of your holiness."

"Am I in this light to view my BEREAVEMENT?" Even so. The Lord has smitten and taken away the desire, the joy, the beauty of your eyes with a stroke. A sudden and terrible event, or a long and painful process has laid the beloved treasure low. Stunned, paralyzed, crushed, you dare not, you cannot see how this mournful event, this irreparable loss, this crushing calamity can result in any good to you--can possibly be for the best. But wait God's time.

What! if a closer tie now binds you to God--if Christ now comes and takes the vacant place--the Father, the Husband, the Brother, the Friend, the Counselor, the Shield--if all your future life draws you closer within His embrace--endears Himself by an unthought of, unheard of, unlooked for love, tenderness, and sympathy--say, will not this bereavement, sore and desolate as it is, be for the best? It is best for those who sleep in Jesus--though a martyr's death were theirs--it is best for you, Oh, mourner! though the best and dearest is gone, if Jesus comes and mingles His tears with yours, then wipes them all away.

Faith may find it difficult to justify the wisdom, the goodness, and the righteousness of our God in the appalling, indescribable, inconceivable calamity which has robbed England of so many precious sons and daughters, and turned our Eastern dominions into a very aceldama. But hush each rebellious feeling, be still each murmuring thought--dark, terrible, agonizing as these national and domestic bereavements are--"the Judge of all the earth must do right." Be assured of this, weeping mourners, "all things work together for good to those who love God"--and among them is the heart-rending calamity that has filled the land with weeping, lamentation, and woe.

And has not the truth which we are endeavoring to enforce found confirmation in the recorded histories of the Lord's people? Events that seemed so untoward and threatening, circumstances that appeared so adverse and obscure, have but resulted in the greatest good--the dark clouds parting and forming a tabernacle for an unclouded sun.

All things seemed against JOSEPH when sold as a slave, and cast into prison. All things seemed against JACOB when bereaved of one son, and required to resign another, the youngest and dearest--bereavement and famine staring him in the face. All things seemed against JOB when God plunged him into the lowest depths of sorrow, suffering, and poverty. All things seemed against PAUL and SILAS when cast into the jail at Philippi, and when the great apostle of the Gentiles was carried in chains to Rome. All things seemed against LUTHER when excommunicated by the Papal church. And appearances looked gloomy and unfavorable when JOHN BUNYAN was torn from his pulpit and his church, and flung into Bedford jail. All things seemed to militate against the Church of God when its Great Head was taken lifeless from the cross, and lay three days in the tomb. But, Oh, no! these very events and circumstances--dark and mysterious though they appeared--were but realizing and working out God's eternal purposes of mercy and thoughts of love towards His servants and His church--all were working together for the best. Take courage, then, beloved reader, God will not make you an exception, but you shall live through all present and all future dark and painful providences to testify, "He has done all things well."

These pages may possibly be placed quietly by your side when lying upon a bed of SICKNESS. This illness appears to you enshrouded in mystery. In your lonely musings you wonder how it can possibly be for good. You have marveled that at a time when, perhaps, health seemed so precious a blessing--a vigorous pulse, a cool brain, an active limb seemed so essential--the Lord should interpose and set you aside from your beloved employment, or from pressing duties--a disabled, helpless sufferer.

Be still, beloved! this sickness is for the best, and before long you shall see and acknowledge it. Your soul needed healing--sickness is God's remedy. Your heart needed withdrawment--sickness is God's agent. Your spirit needed closer converse with Jesus--sickness is the Lord's method. Your mind required more time for reflection, for self-examination, for looking into God's Word, and learning the secret of the Lord with His people--sickness is the teacher. Welcome, then, this lonely room, this suffering bed, this couch of languor, these sleepless nights and feverish days, as sent in infinite wisdom and love but to work out the best blessings your loving Father, your covenant God could give you. If this illness has brought Christ to your side, His left hand under your head, His right hand embracing you, then be sure it is for the best.

These pages may come to you at a time of heart-breaking BEREAVEMENT. The loved one--perhaps the best and loveliest--is laid low; and looking at the event in the consequences it may entail, you fear and tremble, and find it hard to view it even as 'a mournfully draped blessing'. But, be still, bereaved one! "All things work together for the best to those who love God"--and this sad bereavement is in the catalogue. Perhaps you find it hard to say--yet harder still to feel--"Your will be done!" Listen to the experience of one smitten with a sorrow like your own, but sustained, comforted, and sanctified as God is prepared to sustain, comfort, and sanctify you.

"I shall never be happy again," quivered the pale lips; "earth and sky are alike dark to me, since they laid my only one in the dust."

"Does religion, then, afford you no consolation?" asked the beloved pastor, solemnly. "Does not the thought that you shall go to him lift this veil from off your spirit?"

"No, no; I know nothing, think of nothing, but that I have lost him--lost him. All is a dead blank; my heart is like a stone. Oh, I would give worlds to part with this dreadful weight! worlds, worlds!"

"And what if I should say that this terrible weight may be cast off; this cold heart be made warm again!"

"Oh, tell me how, for I am in despair!" she cried.

"In one year, dear madam," said the venerable pastor, "my only son, grown to manhood, was drowned; my wife laid in the grave; my daughter taken from me by death, and my own health so prostrated that I could no longer minister to my people."

"How sad!" cried the young widow, clasping her hands, while her eyes filled. "How did you, how could you bear it?"

"By looking up to my Father, and saying, 'Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.' Is the prayer new to you?"

"Oh, no," murmured the disconsolate one, her pale face bowed upon her hands; "I say it every day, but I never felt it."

The Sabbath day came round, and the young widow, for the first time since her husband's death, went to the house of God. On her way she met the white-haired pastor, and with a gentle, but subdued smile, she said, "I can bear it now."

A light as from heaven beamed on his aged face. "Then you find His strength sufficient?"

"Yes," she answered. "It was a struggle, but as soon as I felt it was right, and for the best, the load fell off."

And the man of God, as he stood up to address the people, took as his text, the words, "Your will be done."

These pages may fall under your notice, perhaps, at a time when some dark providence has suddenly arrested you. A reverse of fortune--involving loss of property, a change of social position, the lessening of temporal comfort, the breaking up, it may be, of home itself. How cold and wintry, how desolate and lonely does everything now appear! Will you, can you believe, my dear reader, that God is at this very moment, and by these very circumstances, working out that which is for your best! Ah! it is so, doubt it though you may. Does the Lord in His dealings with His people ever recall an inferior good and not replace it with a better? Does He exhaust a spring and not unseal a fountain? Does He create loneliness and not "set the solitary in families?" Be sure of the truth that this affliction bears a silent message of love, and that it is among the "all things" in your experience that will work together for the best.

God, perhaps, in His inscrutable but all-wise providence may have seen fit to transfer to another and distant part of His vineyard the presence and labors of your beloved minister, pastor, and friend. Your eyes no more see your teacher. It is an acutely-felt trial--you hardly know how to bear up under it. The severing of such a tie--to some spiritual and feeling minds the closest and holiest tie upon earth--seems to cast the deepest, darkest shadow upon all your future. It is a mutual sorrow. On the part of the minister the sensibility is keen--keener far than his position would allow him to express. It is impossible to sunder a union of long existence, and of so sacred and precious associations without a torn and bleeding heart. To tear himself from an affectionate and attached flock can only be done at an expense of feeling which, because words cannot express it, must be borne in lonely, uncomplaining silence. To you the event seems like a cloud without the silver lining--rayless, cheerless, hopeless--so dark and calamitous, indeed, that no good can seem possible as a result. Yet, beloved, even this event, which, perhaps, almost more than any other, affects all the future of your personal happiness, is for the best. What, if it throws you more directly upon God? What, if it draws you closer to Christ? What, if it renders more precious to your heart the Word of God and the mercy seat--the private means of grace--will you not be a gainer, and testify "All things work together for the best to those who love God;" and this removal of my beloved pastor is among the "all things."

Oh, that the Divine Spirit, the Comforter, may draw near and soothe your sad heart by disclosing more of the tender, loving and sympathizing heart of Jesus, the Chief Shepherd and Bishop of souls. Oh, that Christ may fill the vacancy, and raise your thoughts above the present, and unveil to your faith the glorious and certain prospect of the happy meeting, the eternal reunion of pastor and people in heaven. Then, in that world of perfect and endless bliss, "you will weep no more. How gracious he will be when you cry for help! As soon as he hears, he will answer you. Although the Lord gives you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction, your teachers will be hidden no more; with your own eyes you will see them."

Launched on the tide of heaven's eternal love,
His ark beneath you, and His light above,
What can you fear?--be still, my soul, be still,
Your God has never left you--never will."

Dear reader, you "love God." "Ah!" you exclaim, "sincerely would I love Him!" But what is that deep, yearning desire of your soul, but the gentle, tremulous breathing of love itself? It is love panting, love thirsting, love longing, love really, actually loving--and the one divine and glorious Object around whom its feeble tendrils entwine, who attracts to, and concentrates upon, Himself your sincere, hidden affection, is He who is "LOVE;" and who, because He is essential love, can interpret the significance of a desire, the language of a sigh, the meaning of an uplifted glance of love in His saints.

Faint and fluttering, then, as the pulse of divine love in your soul may be, you are one in whose history all things are working together for the best. A hidden ember, a solitary spark of love to Christ, glowing in your soul--the gentlest effectual call of the Spirit in your heart--places you in the ranks of the privileged, all the trials, and sorrows, and joys, and hopes of whose personal history God is transmuting into good, and is combining and causing to work together for the best. Oh, comfort your trembling heart with this thought!

It is, perhaps, with you a time of deep sense of personal sinfulness. It may be your first conviction, the first view, discovery, and knowledge of the deep-seated evil of your heart. All appears to you polluted, vile, condemnatory. You feel yourself a lost, undone, self-ruined sinner. Your past life is all a dark background--your present filled with bitter lamentations, self-reproach, and sorrow--your future unillumined, uncheered with one ray of hope. And yet, beloved reader, even all this is working together in the sovereignty of God's most rich and free grace for your best, for your eternal good. Along this humiliating and dreary path the Shepherd of the flock, who in the "cloudy and dark day" sought you out, is bringing you back to His fold, laying you upon His shoulders, with rejoicing.

Ah! yes, that deep conviction of sin is for the best--that mournful review of the past is for the best--that bitter self-abasement is for the best--that thorough conviction of the insufficiency and hopelessness of your own righteousness is for the best all, all is working together but to bring you to Christ--and Christ will bring you to God--and God will bring you home to heaven. Doubt not for a moment the suitableness of Jesus' atonement, the sufficiency of Jesus' sacrifice, the fullness of Jesus' grace, the ability of Jesus' power, and the willingness of Jesus' heart to receive and save you. His invitation is, "If any man thirst, let him come unto Me and drink;" "Come unto Me, and I will give you rest." His promise is, "Him that comes unto Me I will in no wise cast out." The encouragement is, "Therefore He is able to save to the uttermost all that come unto God by Him." Oh, precious truth! Oh, sweet words!

"Depth of mercy! Can there be
Mercy, Lord, for such as me?"

Ah, yes! the fathomless depths of infinite mercy and love are deeper than the lowest depths of your transgressions. Only come to the Savior in the simplest faith, believing that He is able; or if you cannot believe that He is able, yet that He is willing to receive and save you--pardoning all your sins through His blood, justifying, as an act of free grace, your person through His righteousness, and enrolling your name among those whom He will finally receive into glory--and you shall be saved! Oh! that you could believe but half the love that Jesus bears to poor, penitent, bruised and sorrowing sinners; how He yearns over them--compassionates them--pities them, and stoops to comfort, heal, and save. He loves to impart the oil of joy, to bind up the broken heart, and to lavish the riches of His kindness and grace upon the poor, the contrite, and believing soul. Be assured, then, that

"If you die with mercy sought,
When you the King have tried,
That were to die, delightful thought!
As sinner never died!"

"Work together." What significant words are these! It is the union of opposites, the combination of different properties in nature that produce such salutary and magnificent results. This is equally true of God's moral chemistry. All the elements of His various and different dispensations are combining and working together to promote the wisest, holiest, and most beneficent ends. The dark shadow is as essential as the brilliant light--the discordant note as the sweetest chord--the bitter ingredient as the sweet. Let us not, then, murmur at our position, nor repine at our trials, nor fret against the Lord, because we are not where, and are not what we desire. All is right! for all things in our personal history are working together for the best. One moment of heaven will explain all, elucidate all, reconcile all. Let us patiently wait and quietly hope for that day--it speeds on and will soon arrive--when shall be fulfilled the Savior's promise, designed to soothe and quiet the mind under all present mysteries, "What I do you know not now; but you shall know hereafter."

Allow a few practical conclusions from this subject.

LET GOD BE HIS OWN INTERPRETER. He, and He only, can decipher the dark symbols of His providence in individual history; leave, then, the solution of this one with Him, and the result will be the best.

"God is His own interpreter,
And He will make it plain."

Does not your past experience confirm this? How many an adverse circumstance, how many a severe trial, how many a bitter sorrow, how many a deeply-mysterious event in your past life--that at the time filled your mind with such painful forebodings--has, by a process the most marvelous, yet most certain, worked out your best interests and issued in the advancement of your greatest happiness. Then hope and believe that God's present dealings will issue in a like happy result.

TAKE NO UNLAWFUL, UNADVISABLE STEPS TO TERMINATE A PRESENT EVENT. Stand still, and calmly, confidingly wait the result. Rather sever your right hand than put your own signature, or the signature of another, to what is wrong; rather pluck your tongue from its root than give utterance to that which is false; rather sink, crushed beneath the load of your calamity, than distrust God and yield to Satan. Adopt, then, no worldly policy, be swayed by no carnal expediency, repair to no human confidence, listen to no sophistical reasoning, catch at no floating straw of creature help--but, in believing prayer and childlike faith, commit your concerns to, and cast yourself upon, God. Oh, dark and inextricable as may appear your present difficulty, He can and He will rescue you. "Call upon Me in the day of trouble: and I will deliver you, and you shall glorify Me." Oh, be it your incessant prayer, "Let integrity and uprightness preserve me; for I wait on You."

Admire, adore, and glorify the infinite wisdom and power that can overrule the sins, the backslidings, and the errors of a child of God for the best. This is marvelous, this is humbling--but so it is. By them the Lord instructs, abases, and sanctifies. Thus it is that sin-loathing is promoted, self-abhorrence is inspired, the atoning blood is endeared, and Jesus, the Savior, becomes more precious. This is the most wonderful achievement of God's chemistry, that He should extract an effectual corrective from the deadliest venom--a healing panacea from the most fatal virus--employing our very backslidings, infirmities, follies, mistakes, and sins, to the greater advancement of our personal holiness and happiness.

Oh, it is a surprising unfolding of that Divine power, grace, and love, that causes all things in the experience of His people to work together for the best! What! shall I presume upon this truth? God forbid! But may it deepen in my soul the conviction--"Wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes." "Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew in me a right spirit."

ENTRUST, THEN, ALL YOUR FUTURE LOT TO GOD. He may bring you to the border of the sea, and hem you in on every side, and no avenue of escape open to your eye--nevertheless, "Stand still and see the salvation of the Lord." He can smite those waters, and make the dark waves you dread to be crystal walls, fencing you on either side. He can allow your enemies to pursue, and those very waters that were your defense shall be their defeat. The deluge that bore upon its swelling tide the church of God enclosed within the ark, while it proved the salvation of His people, closed in darkness and in death over His foes. So shall it be with you!

And when the hour arrives that separates you from all below--in the midst of life, of labor, and of usefulness--from thoughts unaccomplished, from plans unfinished, from hopes unrealized, from a home so attractive, and from kindred so dear--be sure, beloved, that it will be, in the arrangement and appointment of your God, the best time, and the best mode, and for the best end. Your Father will not put you off with an inferior good, with a common blessing; He will give you, in all His givings, the very best that is in His power and in His heart to bestow. The best place in His church on earth, and the best place in the church in heaven, is yours, because you are Christ's, and Christ is God's!

Oh, see how dear and precious you are to the heart of God! You have no conception how He loves you! At this very moment He is causing all present, as He will all future, circumstances in your life to work out your best welfare and His greatest glory. Will you, then--Oh, I enforce it as a closing exhortation--go forward in your new stage in life, upon your new year's existence, TRUSTING Jesus to order, arrange, and overrule all things in its undeveloped history for your best in time, and for your best through a long, a blessed, and never-ending eternity?

Happy, Savior, would I be,
If I could but trust in Thee;
Trust Your wisdom me to guide,
Trust Your goodness to provide;
Trust Your saving love and power,
Trust You every day and hour;
Trust You, as the only light,
In the darkest hour of night;
Trust in sickness, trust in health,
Trust in poverty and wealth;
Trust in joy, and trust in grief,
Trust Your promise for relief;
Trust Your blood to cleanse my soul,
Trust Your grace to make me whole;
Trust You living, dying too,
Trust You all my journey through;
Trust You until my feet shall be
Planted on the crystal sea;
Trust You, ever-blessed Lamb,
Until I wear the victor's palm;
Trust You until my soul shall be
Wholly swallowed up in Thee.

GO AND TELL JESUS

"So John was beheaded in the prison, and his head was brought on a tray and given to the girl, who took it to her mother. John's disciples came and took his body and buried it. Then they went and told Jesus." Matthew 14:10-12

As if to illustrate the nature and test the efficacy of His great and gracious expedient of saving sinners, it pleased the redeeming God that the first subject of death should be a believer in the Lord Jesus. Scarcely had the righteous Abel laid his bleeding lamb upon the altar--that altar and that lamb all expressive of the truth and radiant with the glory of the person and work of the coming Savior--before he was called to seal with his blood the faith in Christ he had professed. But if the first victim he was also the first victor. He fell by death, but he fell a conqueror of death. He lost the victory, but he won the battle. Thus was the "last enemy" foiled in his very first assault upon our race. The point of his lance was then turned, the venom of his sting was then impaired, and, robbed of his prey, he saw in the pale and gory form his shaft had laid low the first one of that glorious race of Confessors, that "noble army of martyrs," who in all succeeding ages should overcome sin, hell, and death by the blood of the Lamb.

It was on an occasion similar to the death of the first martyr, that the passage suggesting the subject of these pages was written. Falling a sacrifice to his fidelity, as Abel had to his faith, John was now a mangled corpse--the victim of Herod's sin and cruelty. Taking up the headless body of their master, the disciples of John bore it to the tomb, and then went and poured their tale of woe into the ear, and laid their crushing sorrow upon the heart, of Jesus. "John's disciples came and took his body and buried it. Then they went and told Jesus." It was, perhaps, their first direct communication with the Savior. They had known but little of Jesus until now. Another being had engaged their interest and occupied their thoughts. Absorbed in their admiration of the star that heralded its approach, they had scarcely caught sight of the Sun which had just appeared above the horizon. In vain had John, with characteristic lowliness, reminded them that he was not the Messiah, and but His Forerunner. Wedded to their master, they thought of, clung to, and loved only him. John must therefore die--the star paling and disappearing before the deepening splendor of the Divine ascending Orb.

All this was the ordering of infinite wisdom and love. The removal of John was necessary to make his disciples better acquainted with Jesus. They had heard of Him, had seen Him, and in a measure believed in Him; but they never fully knew or loved Him until now that profound grief brought them to His feet. What a divine Savior, what a loving Friend, what a sympathizing Brother Jesus was--how truly human in His affinities, compassionate in His heart, gentle in His spirit--they had no adequate conception until the surge of sorrow flung them upon His sympathy. Ah! how they clung to Jesus now! Owning no other master, seeking no other friend, repairing to no other asylum in their lonely grief, "they went and told Jesus." Favored disciples! honored men!

Oh, how many now hymning their praises in heaven, or still watering their couch with tears on earth, will alike testify that until God smote the earthly idol, or broke the human staff, or dried up the creature spring, Jesus was to them an unknown Savior and Friend? Blessed, thrice blessed sorrow that leads us to Jesus! That sorrow, dark, deep, though it be, will wake the harp of the glorified to heaven's sweetest melody. The bitterest grief of the saint on earth will issue in the sweetest joy of the glorified in heaven--because that grief, sanctified by the Spirit, brought the heart into a closer alliance and sympathy with Him who was emphatically a "man of sorrows and acquainted with grief."

We know so much of divine truth, my reader, as we have in a measure a personal experience of it in our souls. The mere speculatist and notionalist in religion is as unsatisfactory and unprofitable as the mere theorist and declaimer in science. For all practical purposes both are but ciphers. The character and the degree of our spiritual knowledge begins and terminates in our knowledge of Christ. Christ is the test of its reality, the measure of its depth, and the source of its growth. If you are advancing in an experimental, sanctifying acquaintance with the Lord Jesus, you are advancing in that knowledge which Paul thus estimates, "I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord."

Dear reader, let the chief object of your study be to know the Lord Jesus. It may be in the region of your sinfulness, emptiness, weakness, and foolishness that you learn Him--nevertheless, however humiliating the school, slow the progress, and limited the attainment, count every fresh step you make in a personal acquaintance with the Lord Jesus as a nobler triumph, and as bringing you into the possession of more real wealth than were the whole arcade of human knowledge and science mastered, and its untold treasures poured at your feet. When adversity comes--when death approaches--when eternity unveils--oh, how indescribably valuable, how inconceivably precious will then be one faith's touch, one faith's glimpse of a crucified and risen Savior! All other attainments then vanish, and the only knowledge that abides, soothes, and comforts, is a heartfelt acquaintance with the most sublime fact of the gospel, that "Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners." Oh, whatever other studies may engage your thoughts, as you value your eternal destiny, do not forget to study the Lord Jesus Christ.

The subject which we must keep prominently before us is--COMMUNION WITH JESUS. That there may exist a serious defect in the experience of many Christians concerning this point, we solemnly believe. There is in the walk of many so wide a chasm between Jesus and their personal and confidential fellowship, as to leave upon the mind the conviction that they have no dealings with Jesus at all! Hence the distressing doubts, the timid fears, the obscure evidences, the beclouded hopes, that shade the luster, impair the vigor, and render dubious the religion of so many. The secret is, they have so little to do with Jesus! and, as a natural result, Jesus, in the bestowment of His favors, in the manifestations of Himself, in the breathings of His love, has so little to do with them! Oh, how sad that such distance and coldness should ever exist between Christ and a soul redeemed with His most precious blood! What an evidence of the fallen condition of our humanity, and of its but partial sanctification even in its renewed state.

We propose, in the further unfolding of this interesting subject, to state the GROUNDS upon which the believer is warranted to go and tell Jesus--the occasions on which he is privileged to go and tell Jesus--and the blessings that will flow from his going and telling Jesus.

The first springs FROM WHAT JESUS IS HIMSELF. The very fact that He whom we approach--the Being, the Savior, the Friend with whom this close and constant communion is maintained--is JESUS, forms our highest encouragement--our divinest warrant. It is not every great person who is at all times accessible. The official barriers which surround, or the austere address which marks him, may interdict and discourage all free and confidential approach. It is not so with Jesus. Infinitely great though He is--for He is the maker of all beings and worlds--there is not a being in the universe so accessible as Jesus. We approach Him, and we find Him--sin only excepted--a being just like ourselves. His divine nature is clad with the human--His circumstances are human--His love is human--His sympathy is human--His compassion is human--His smile is human--His trials, temptations, sufferings, and sorrows are human; all are so human that there is not a petition with which we approach, growing out of our suffering humanity, that challenges not a hearing, that awakens not a response.

Let us add a few particulars. Do we go to Him burdened?--we are in the presence of Him who bore the mighty weight of sin. Do we go to Him in sorrow?--we are in the presence of Him who was acquainted with grief. Do we go to Him in temptation?--we are in the presence of Him who was tempted in all points like as we are. Do we carry to His feet our adversities, poverty, need?--we are holding audience with Him who, when He sojourned on earth, was poor, homeless, and unbefriended--who subsisted by charity, and had not where to lay His head.

And, then, there is another encouragement to our approach growing out of His official relationships--they are all in our favor. His prophetical office--His priesthood--His royal character, all have a relation to our varied need. Exalted as His position is, each separate office that He fills warrants and invites our approach. And, as if to crown the encouragements accumulating around our access to Jesus, there are His own personal attractions--all-inviting and irresistible. Everything in the person of Jesus encourages our advance. Does glory charm us--does beauty attract us--does love win us--does gentleness subdue us--does sympathy soothe us--does faithfulness inspire confidence?--then, all this is in Jesus, and all invites us to draw near. He is the "altogether lovely One," and if our minds can appreciate the grand, and our hearts are sensible of the tender--if they feel the power of that which is superlatively great and exquisitely lovely, then we shall need no persuasion to arise and go and tell Jesus every emotion of our souls, and every circumstance of our history.

Take all that is tender in love--all that is faithful in friendship--all that is wise in counsel--all that is forbearing in patience, all that is balmy, soothing, and healing in the deepest sympathy--and its embodiment, its impersonation is--JESUS. Can we, then, be insensible to all this personal attraction and hesitate repairing to His feet--telling Him all?

In addition to what Jesus is in Himself, there is the encouragement to repair to Him growing out of the covenant relationships He sustains to His people. Apart from His ever-loving heart, kindly disposition, and sympathizing nature, Jesus is your Brother--your Friend--your Redeemer--your next of kin. As a Brother He knows the need of His brethren in adversity--as a Friend He shows Himself friendly--and as next of kin, He has redeemed your soul, and bought back your lapsed inheritance. No, more--He is your Advocate in heaven, your Intercessor at the right hand of God, your Representative, having ascended up on high to take possession of heaven on your behalf, and to prepare a place for you. Upon His heart He wears your name--a precious pearl in the priestly breastplate. And there is not a moment of time--nor an event of life--nor a circumstance of daily history--nor a mental or spiritual emotion in which you are not borne upon the love and remembered in the ceaseless intercession of Christ. Is not this enough? What more, to win you to His feet in the all endearing confidence of one who delights in everything to go and tell Jesus? Is there another Being in the universe you can approach with such perfect repose of mind, with such full assurance of heart, with an unveiling of every thought, emotion, and feeling, so full, unreserved, and confiding? No! not one!

The MEDIATORIAL WORK of the Lord Jesus constitutes another and assured ground of our approach. The full, complete, and free salvation which He by His obedience and death has accomplished for sinners, anticipates every objection and answers every argument growing out of our personal and deep unworthiness. Nothing can withstand this plea. When we enter into His presence--be it as a sinner confessing guilt--be it as a penitent supplicating pardon--be it as a mourner unveiling sorrow--be it as needy asking grace--or, be it as a recipient of mercy offering the sacrifice of praise--we stand upon the basis of an Atonement which meets our case in its most individual form. It is utterly impossible that we can be repulsed.

We approach Jesus by Jesus! We "take hold of His strength," and a rejection of our suit must involve a rejection of Himself. We draw near by the way of His cross. We penetrate into His loving heart through His pierced side. His wounds are our "door of hope." We plead His own merits--bathe in His own blood--enfold ourself in His own righteousness--and the one name that breathes from our lips in its purest fragrance and sweetest music is, His own!--that "name which is above every name." Can He deny us? Will He reject us? Impossible! How shall we more strongly put the case? What more can we add to annihilate all your doubt and fear touching your reception, if you but arise and come to Jesus?

Tell me after this statement--justified and borne out by every sentence of revealed truth--who shall dare interpose or come between your soul and Christ? What echoes of the "law's loud thunder"--what lightning gleams of justice--what profound sense of sinfulness--what aggravated departures--shall presume to halt your approach to the Savior! With the cross of Calvary clasped within the arms of faith, you may challenge the universe to forbid your approach to Jesus--every foe shall turn pale and shrink away. No sin, no curse, no Satan can stand beneath the sacred, solemn shadow of that cross where--impaled, suffering, dying--hung the incarnate God.

Sooner at the bidding of a mortal shall the laws of nature stand still and this universe cease to be--sooner shall Christ vacate His throne of glory, and God resign the government of all worlds and of all beings, than shall a poor penitent, humble, supplicating soul enter into the presence of Jesus, pleading His own infinite merits and most precious blood, be chilled by coldness, be awed by a frown, or be rejected with disdain.

Once more, believing reader, would we remind you that Jesus your Surety Head has done all for you, and has left you nothing to do but go and tell Him all. He has paid all your great debt--annihilated all your innumerable sins--exhausted every particle of your tremendous curse--and is now sat down at the right hand of God to secure by His intercession, and to administer by His government, the untold blessings purchased by His blood--can you, then, hesitate and demur? Approach Him, and with the gentlest pressure of faith, touch the spring of His heart's love, and every door flies open to welcome you.

In addition to all this, we have to blend the thought of the CLOSE AND SACRED RELATIONSHIP which binds you to Jesus, on the ground of which you are emboldened to approach and tell Him all. As a believer, you are one of the countless number given by the Father to Jesus. You are one of His sheep--His brother--His friend. To receive you with indifference, or to repulse you with scorn, would be to trample upon Himself--for we are His brethren, "bone of His bone and flesh of His flesh." In us, also, He beholds His Father's image restored--His own righteousness imputed--and our bodies living temples of the Holy Spirit. When the eye of King Ahasuerus lighted upon Esther, robed and jeweled with royal splendor, she found grace in his sight, and he bade her approach. With a complacency and delight infinitely transcending this does Jesus contemplate the believer as he enters into the divine presence, lovely with His loveliness put upon him. Extending the symbol of welcome, He invites your approach; His heart, responsive to your petition, is prepared, and His power, commensurate with your case, is "able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think." O royal highway of access! Opened by the blood and kept open by the intercession of Christ, the much incense of whose merit ascends up moment by moment before the throne--there is not a thought, a feeling, or a circumstance, with which you may not go and tell Jesus.

"Just as I am--Your love unknown
Has broken every barrier down,
Now to be Yours, yes, Yours alone,
O Lamb of God, I come."

Let me remind you, in vindication of the glory of Immanuel, that going and telling Jesus, implies on His part no ignorance of, or indifference to your case. He who redeemed us is GOD--"God manifest in the flesh." All people, all things, all events are known to Him from the end to the beginning. When, therefore, you stand in the presence chamber of Jesus you offer no request, breathe into His ear no sorrow, unveil to His eye no infirmity, with which in all its most minute detail He was not already infinitely better acquainted than yourself. Long before the sadness had shaded your brow, or a tear had dimmed your eye, or the burden had pressed your spirit, or the perplexity had woven its web around your path, or the archer had bent his bow and winged his shaft--Jesus knew it all--had appointed it all--had anticipated it all. It was no surprise to Him! Precious truth!

Christ had entwined my perplexity with His thoughts, had wrapped my grief around His heart, had provided a pavilion for my safety before a pebble had paved, or a cloud had shaded, or a whisper of the storm had breathed over my path. "O Lord, you know my down sitting and my uprising; you understand my thoughts afar off, you compass my path and my lying down, and are acquainted with all my ways." Satisfied with such a fact, cheered by such a truth, animated by such a thought, you may unhesitatingly advance into the unknown history of another year; firm in the belief that Jesus will be faithful in fulfilling the promise, "I will bring the blind by a way that they knew not; I will lead them in paths that they have not known; I will make darkness light before them, and crooked things straight. These things will I do unto them and not forsake them."

Let me now briefly trace a few of the many OCCASIONS in which you are invited to avail yourself of this privilege.

Are you burdened with a sense of SIN?--Go and tell Jesus. There is no burden that mortal ever bore like this! Do you feel this weight? Then there is spiritual sensibility, a holy consciousness, a divine life in your soul. This is not the mark of an unconverted nature. The corpse does not recoil from its own corruption--nor is the rock sensible of its own weight. You feel yourself a sinner--your spirit is contrite for sin--your whole soul is bowed in the dust of self-abhorrence for sin. Then, my reader, there is life, spiritual, divine, deathless life in your soul--and you are just the one to go and tell Jesus. To whom can you repair with that burden--to whom confess that sin--to whom unveil that guilt but--Jesus? As a sinner you need a Savior--Jesus is your Savior. As guilty, you desire to know how God can pardon, justify, and accept you--Jesus, "the brightness of the Father's glory, and the express image of His person," is prepared to reconcile you to God, and thus bring you into perfect peace. "Being justified by faith we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ."

Appointed by God, Jesus is the infinite burden-bearer of our race. "Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows. He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities." That burden you feel, Jesus bore--for that sin you mourn, Jesus suffered--for that iniquity you acknowledge, Jesus bled--for that guilt, beneath which you tremble, Jesus died. Go, then, and tell Jesus all your sin. To whom can you tell but to Him? He "came into the world to save sinners." "Christ died for the ungodly." His "blood cleanses from all sin." His "name is JESUS because He saves."

To Him confess all your sin. Beneath His cross, watering His feet with tears of penitence, acknowledge your transgressions--unveil your every sin. He knows it all, yet would have you tell Him all--withholding, veiling, extenuating nothing. Only go and tell Jesus what a sinner you are, and that you are emboldened thus to come because He has revealed Himself as such a Savior; that it is His pardoning mercy--His boundless love--His gracious invitation--His tender, compassionate heart that never yet rejected a seeking sinner, that warrants your coming, that draws and woos you to His feet. Oh, if instead of brooding over your unworthiness--magnifying your sins and lessening His most free grace to sinners--you will but arise and go and tell Jesus, the song of the pardoned would soon burst in the sweetest melody from your lips. Only go to Jesus--
"With all your sins against your God,
All your sins against His laws,
All your sins against His blood,
All your sins against His cause--
Sins as boundless as the sea!--
And hide them in Gethsemane!"

Go and tell Jesus your BACKSLIDINGS. "My people are bent to backsliding from me," is the mournful language of God. "Our backslidings are many," is the penitential acknowledgment of the Church. Backsliding, as the simple definition of the word indicates, is a going back. "They have gone backward and not forward," says the Lord. How constantly do we recede in the ways of the Lord Jesus. And if, through restraining grace, there are no outbreaks of sin, there yet may be the secret declension of the soul, the hidden backsliding of the heart, all concealed from human eye, yet "open to the eye of Him with whom we have to do." Oh, how little vital religion, how little of the anointing of the Holy Spirit, of the power of real godliness, is there in the souls of many who yet at the Lord's table solemnly profess themselves His!

Perhaps, my reader, you are awakened to a sense of your backsliding from the Lord. Startled by the discovery, alarmed at the symptoms, deploring the consequences, you exclaim, "Oh, that it were with me as in days that are past, when the candle of the Lord shone round about me." You think of the "love of your espousals"--of your "song in the days of your youth, in the day when you came up out of the land of Egypt"--of the "green pastures and the still waters," and your heart dies within you. Be it so--be it that you have wandered far from God, and that you have fallen by your iniquity--that you have pierced afresh the bosom of that Savior that has so often pillowed your head in weakness and grief--yet go and tell Jesus! There is not in the universe a being who can so understand and sympathize with your case as He. Tell Him how your affections have strayed--how your love has chilled--how the spirit of prayer has waned in your soul, and what ascendancy the world, the creature, and SELF have obtained in your mind. Take with you words and turn to the Lord--say unto Him, "Take away all iniquity and receive us graciously."

In this connection of our remarks, we would venture upon an observation which relates closely to the happy and holy walk of the child of God. How many a believer in Jesus pursues his Christian course with a sad countenance, the reflection of a yet sadder heart, from the consciousness of the indwelling evil of his nature perpetually exhibiting itself in flaws, and failure, and shortcomings, to which the eye of human affection is blind, but which to his own inspection are real, palpable, and aggravated--not the less humiliating and abhorrent because unknown and unsuspected by all but himself. The remedy, what is it? Going and telling Jesus!

Oh, if there be one view of this privilege more precious, endearing, and sacred than another, it is the liberty of admitting Jesus to the deepest confidence of the heart--of unveiling to Him thoughts, imaginations, and emotions which no inducement could persuade us to reveal to our most dear and intimate friend. Bending beneath the cross, the eye reposing in faith upon the Crucified, there is no heart wandering, no mental emotion, no secret so profound, no sorrow so delicate, no perplexity so great, no guilt so aggravated, which the lowly, penitent heart may not fully and freely tell Jesus. It is the oversight of this truth that produces so much solitary grief in the minds of many of the Lord's people. They forget what a Friend, what a Brother, what a Confidant, what a Savior they have in Jesus. They refuse to go and tell Him all; and thus brooding over their failures and sins, nursing in loneliness their trials and sorrows, their "sore runs in the night, and their soul refuses to be comforted."

As a child of the light WALKING IN DARKNESS--go and tell Jesus. The path of the believer, though it be the only sunny path in life, is often shaded and dreary. There are spiritual despondencies and mental depressions peculiar to the divine life of the Christian. If the "Sun of Righteousness" had His periods of obscuration, His temporary eclipse when His whole soul was enshrouded in deep gloom, it is no great marvel that along a similarly shaded path His disciples should travel. The cloud that envelops you may be so dense as to obscure every star and to extinguish every ray. You cannot see Jesus--you cannot observe a single promise upon which you can rest your soul--not a word of Jesus from which you can extract comfort or gather hope. All means fail, and every spring of consolation is dried, and you have no evidence of your interest in the Savior, of your adoption into His family, of your title to glory--and you exclaim, "My God, my Father! why have You forsaken me?"

But, hush that murmur! God has not forsaken you. "O Israel, you shall not be forgotten by Me," is His assuring declaration. What is your course? Go and tell Jesus! If in the universe there is one who can sympathize with this spiritual darkness it is He. Turn in faith to the full sunshine of this Divine Orb. In Christ's light you shall see light upon all the hidden riches and glory of the kingdom of God within you. Sinful though you are, your soul, renewed and inhabited by the Holy Spirit, presents the pencilings and enshrines the gems of a Divine Artist, the beauty, grandeur, and costliness of which are hidden until Jesus shines upon it. It is the light flowing from the Sun of Righteousness that alone can make manifest the work of the Holy Spirit in our souls. This is one mode by which the Spirit "bears witness with our spirit that we are the sons of God." He reveals Jesus to the believer. Opening, as it were, the casement, uplifting the window, He admits the light that streams from a Divine Sun, and the soul thus illumined, unveils the wealth and sparkles with the glories that are garnered there--the restored image of God, and the precious, costly, imperishable graces of the Holy Spirit. Go, then, my reader, and tell Jesus the darkness that broods around you and that conceals all this glory. Ask Him to arise upon your soul with healing in His wings. One ray darting from that Sun--and how soon will that long, dreary "night of weeping" be succeeded by the bright "morning of joy." "He that follows me," says the Savior, "shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life."

I will suppose you, my reader, to be a TEMPTED soul--for temptation is an essential element in the spiritual discipline of the child of God. "There has no temptation taken you but such as is common to man." "Though now for a season, if need be, you are in heaviness through manifold temptations." Through this furnace, more or less heated, all the followers of Jesus pass--they could not be like Him were it not so. He was tempted like as we are that He might know how to sympathize with us, and we are tempted that we might fly to the asylum of that sympathy. Perhaps you are tempted to distrust God--to question the Savior's love to you--to oppose the divine will--to fret, and murmur, and repine at the dealings of your heavenly Father--to doubt the truth of the Bible--to look upon your professed Christianity as a fiction, and upon all your past experience as a lie. Poor tempted soul, what are you to do? Where repair? Already you are prepared to succumb to the foe. You have no heart to resist--no skill to fence--no power to vanquish. Satan is too subtle, experienced, and vigilant in this war to be easily foiled or soon overcome. Already your wounded conscience, confidence, and peace, testify to the perseverance and precision with which his "fiery darts" have been winged.

Where, then, will you look? Go and tell Jesus. To whom can you more fitly repair for support in temptation than to the tempted One? Lay all your case before Him. Tell Him how your faith trembles, how your courage fails, how your heart dies within you, and how ready you are to cast away your confidence, and to part with the anchor of your hope. Oh, methinks, that in a moment--the scene of His own long, weary temptation in the wilderness still vivid in His remembrance--He will open every recess of His loving, gracious, sympathizing heart, and draw you within the blest pavilion until the storm be past. Tempted ones are peculiarly precious to Jesus. It is His own temptation over again, in the persons of His members. And if there be a niche in His heart deeper, warmer, or more sacred than another, it is where He hides and shelters His Satan and sin-tempted disciples.

Go and tell Jesus your TRIALS. To whom, as a tried Christian, but to Jesus can you go? Oppressed and sorrowful as our humanity is, there is lacking in each and all the tender, disciplined feeling that exactly harmonizes with our own chastened and pensive spirit. We take our sorrow even to a sorrowing believer, and we find his heart so charged with his own personal trial, his mind so perplexed with his own anxieties, or his spirit so bowed under its own concealed dejection, that we shrink from adding one drop to his brimmed cup by pouring into his sad heart the sadness of our own. He is silent of his own grief, but that silence, Oh, how expressive!

But there is One to whom you may go, whose sorrows now are all over, and who is prepared to make yours His own. You are tried in your spirit--tried in your principles--tried in your faith--tried in your worldly calling--tried in your spiritual history--tried in your domestic circumstances--tried in those near and dear to you--where, son, daughter of trial, can you turn but to Jesus? Have you pondered this sacred and precious privilege? Has it ever occurred to you to arise in your grief and go and tell Jesus? He was, as you are, a child of sorrow--a man of grief. Smitten, wounded, traduced, belied, foully accused, bruised, and heart-broken--and is adapted, as no other being in the universe is, to listen to the story of your trial, support, soothe, and sanctify it.

These pages will, doubtless, find their way within the home of the BEREAVED. We refer to this sorrow with the most profound awe--we touch it with a shrinking hand. It seems almost too sacred for human sympathy to approach. But there is One, and only one, who can approach it--One, and only one, who can enter into and understand it--One, and only one, who can soothe it. It is Jesus! Contemplate Him in the bereaved home of Bethany! Martha and Mary are mourners. Lazarus their brother is dead. Jesus, their brother's Friend and theirs, has come--but He has come too late! "Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died." No! not too late! It was just the moment that Jesus should come. He timed His visit of sympathy and help with their grief and need.

Beloved, Jesus never approaches you a moment sooner, or a moment later, than your case demands. He will come--but it will be at the very instant that you most need Him. There shall be more than an angel's chime of His sympathy with your sorrow--the most perfect and exquisite blending. If He comes a moment too soon, your grief would not be matured enough for His sympathy--if a moment too late, that grief might have crushed you. Now, mark the thoughtfulness and skill, the delicacy and sympathy of Jesus. All is inscribed in one brief but expressive sentence, "JESUS WEPT!" To this weeping Jesus go! You return to the house of mourning, from the grave where repose the ashes of one once animated and glowing with a spirit that blended with your own--you seem to have entombed a second self--all that gave existence an object, or life its charm. But rise, and go to Jesus. Tell Him what a wreck your heart is--what a blank life seems--and what wintry gloom enshrouds all the landscape of human existence. Tell Him how mysterious to your view seems the event--how heavy falls the blow--what hard, dark, rebellious thoughts of God now haunt your perturbed mind. Lay your grief upon Jesus' breast. Do not think that you are alone in your sorrow--that there is not in this wide, wide world, one who can appreciate your loss, or enter into all the peculiar features of your afflictions, the delicate shadings of your sadness--Jesus can--and Jesus only!

The vacancy, also, death has made, in your love and friendship, whatever be the relation, Jesus can fill. Ah, there is not a relation, many and varied though they are, both of domestic and social life, which the Son of God has not assumed, so, that when these human ties are sundered by death, Jesus stands prepared to reknit, replace, and restore them, by Himself occupying the vacancy. In the rupture of the parental bond--He is a Father; of the filial--He is a Son; of the conjugal--He is a Husband; of the fraternal--He is a Brother; of friendship--He is a Friend. Thus, in every condition of human life, whatever the peculiarity of its bond, the speciality of its sorrow, or the desolation it produces, Jesus avows His aptitude and readiness to meet and sympathize with it. Go, then, bereaved mourner, and present your claim to a newborn relation, it may be, to the Incarnate Son of God.

It is possible that you are entangled within the meshes of a present DIFFICULTY, to the unravelment of which no clue presents itself, and from which there appears no way of escape. Human ingenuity is baffled, creature strength fails, all earthly means are exhausted, and you are at your wits' end. Behold your remedy--how near, how simple--Go and tell Jesus. Take your difficulty and spread it before the Lord. Your appeal to His compassion and your believing reliance upon His promise will secure on your behalf infinite wisdom and omnipotent strength. Listen to the divine declaration, simple faith in which will raise you above your circumstances, "Behold, I am the Lord, the God of all flesh: is anything too hard for me?" Then, what is your present entanglement, great though it be, to Him, "with whom nothing is impossible?" In a moment, and by a way transcending all your thoughts and conceptions, He can "pluck your feet out of the net," and bring you into a "large place where there is no straitness." Do not pore despairingly over your obstacles, nor faint under your adversity, nor sit down, stunned and paralyzed, upon the stone of difficulty, asking, "who will roll it away?" Here is your effectual remedy, adopt it in faith and you shall be delivered--Go and tell Jesus.

Enlist Him on your side, retain Him as your Counselor, honor Him by committing your case to His skill, power, and willingness, and He will guide you through all the intricacies of your position, making the rough path smooth and the crooked path straight. Jesus has power to rescue you from all your entanglements. He can level the mountain, lift up the valley, roll aside the rock, and clear your way to an equitable, honorable, and happy adjustment of all your worldly difficulties. Only make use of Him. Only honor Him. Only confide in Him. Only call upon Him. All hearts are in His hand, all resources are at His command, all agencies are at His disposal--nothing is impossible with Jesus but to deny Himself--this He cannot do. Then, "be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known unto God."

What more shall we say? We will sum up all in a few words--Go and tell Jesus EVERYTHING. You have much to disclose--tell Him all. Tell Him of the world's woundings, of the saints' smitings, of the spirit's tremblings, and of the heart's anguish. Tell Him your low frames, your mental despondencies, your gloomy fears, beclouded evidences, and veiled hope. Tell Him your bodily infirmities--your waning health, failing vigor, progressive disease--the pain, the lassitude, the nervousness, the weary couch, the sleepless pillow, which no one knows but Him. Tell Him of your dread of death, how you recoil from dying, and how dark and rayless appears the body's last resting-place. Tell Him how all beyond it looks so dreary, starless, hopeless. Tell Him that there is not a being in the universe--none in heaven or on earth--whom you desire as Himself. Tell Him all the temptations, the difficulties, the hidden trials and sorrows of your path--tell, oh, tell Him all! There is nothing that you may not in the confidence of love and in the simplicity of faith tell Jesus--no temporal need--no spiritual sorrow. "Casting all your care upon Him, for He cares for you." "You people, pour out your heart before Him!" Tell Him your desolateness as a widow--your friendlessness as an orphan--your sadness and solitude as one whose heart is overwhelmed within you. Go, and lose yourself in the love of Jesus--hide in the wounds of Jesus--wash in the blood of Jesus--replenish from the fullness of Jesus, and recline upon the bosom of Jesus.

Do not think this a weak, sentimental Christianity to which we are urging you. We know no other than this--no other which so appeals to the intellect, as to the most sacred feelings and affections of the heart. This telling Jesus everything in our individual history--this recognition of His government in all our ways, and this reliance upon His power and love in all our circumstances--is the legitimate employment of a faith at once the most sublime exercise of the mind as it is the loveliest and holiest impulse of the heart. Here is a faith that recedes from the objects of sense, and "beholds Him that is invisible;" that leaves the region of illusions and shadows, and entwines itself with infinite realities; that carries all the interests and relations, responsibilities and accountabilities of time into the solemn, awesome, and unalterable decision of eternity.

In urging you, Christian reader, to the exercise of a privilege of personal contact and close transaction with Jesus, we have but endeavored to simplify a principle, in its application to all the minutia of life, the divinest, loftiest, and most sublime that can possibly task the powers of the human soul. All the splendor of human philosophy, science, and prowess, pales before the moral grandeur which gathers, like a halo, around a mortal man reposing at the feet of the Incarnate God, unveiling his whole soul in all the child-like confidence of a faith that grasps Jehovah. At this focal point must meet the profound philosopher and the untutored peasant; the matured man and the little child--all taught, counseled, and supplied at the feet of Jesus.

It only remains that we briefly glance at the SANCTIFYING INFLUENCE this operation of faith must naturally exert. The first result to which we refer is, the CLOSE INTIMACY WITH CHRIST which the habit cultivates. Human society will illustrate this. It is close communion with our fellow-beings that removes ignorance, dissolves prejudice, and unseals in our hearts the hidden springs of confidence, affection, and sympathy. How many of the Lord's people stand aloof from each other's society simply from not knowing one another. Did believers in the Lord Jesus more frequently meet in council, in service, in communion, how soon and entirely would the coldness, the party-spirit, the jealousies, the erroneous impressions vanish, which now, alas! divide the body of Christ, all whose members are "members one of another." Knowing each other better, they would love each other more, there would be more ready concession made to the freedom of judgment and the claims of conscience. The clergy of the various sections of the Christian Church stand too wide apart from each other simply because they do not know each other. And if the shepherds are thus sundered, it is no marvel that the sheep are divided!

The Church of Christ is essentially one, why should she not be visibly one? Inseparable from Christ, why should we be separated from each other? With an essential unity of faith, why should we not all unite in excluding uncharitableness? Oh, if the Lord's people--losing sight of every badge but 'Christian', and of every name but Christ--were to mingle more frequently, confidingly, and prayerfully together, how much more would they find of assimilation, of sympathy, and affection--how much less to sunder, separate, and censure, and how much more to admire, love, and imitate in each other than they had conception of. "I believe in the communion of saints"--would then be, not a cold, heartless, unbelieving acknowledgment of a creed, but the sincere, glowing avowal of a fact!

Apply this to our communion with Jesus. It would be impossible for us to cultivate the habit of telling Him every sin, every sorrow, every temptation, every trial, in a word, every incident of every hour of our daily history, and not increase in a knowledge of Christ. We would then "grow up into Christ in all things." The flower absorbs the light, the heat, the air, the dew, and so maintains its vitality, unfolds its beauty, and breathes its fragrance. It is by a similar absorption of Christ into our souls that we grow, becoming vigorous, holy, and fruitful. "He who dwells in Me and I in him the same brings forth much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing." Oh, how endeared will Christ become, and God our Father in Him, by this habit of going and telling Jesus everything. The more frequently we go to Jesus the more intimately we shall know Him; and the more intimately we know Him, the more ardently shall we love, self-denyingly serve, and closely resemble Him. Oh, how close, confiding, and endearing will your intimacy become by this habit of going and telling Him everything. How will His glory, loveliness, and excellence unfold to your admiring eye. Day by day, and hour by hour, each exigency of its history will reveal stronger reason why you should admire, love, trust, and glorify Christ. Language cannot describe how growingly precious He will become to your soul; how more intensely your heart's affections will clasp and firmly entwine around Him, your whole soul striving day by day to please and glorify Him here, longing to be with Him that you might see and enjoy Him hereafter forever.

This habit, also, will greatly tend to the NOURISHING AND STRENGTHENING OF FAITH. It is faith that takes us to Jesus, and each fresh act of faith invigorates the divine principle. Faith, taking everything to Christ, and bringing back everything from Christ, by this process "grows exceedingly." Would you, my reader, have a faith powerful and stalwart, a faith that can slay the vaunting foe with a pebble and a sling, that demurs not at probabilities or impossibilities, because it leans upon Him with whom all things are possible? Then you must have close transactions with Jesus, the "Author and Finisher of your faith." The eaglet's eye acquires strength of vision by gazing upon the sun--thus will your eye of faith be strengthened by "looking unto Jesus," the "Sun of Righteousness," in everything, and for everything.

This habit of continuous application to the Lord Jesus will KEEP YOUR HEART AS AN EVERGREEN PLANTED BY THE WATER-COURSES. The springs of its devotion will be kept pure and flowing; its affections fresh and ascending. My reader, true godliness has its empire in the heart. As a man's heart, so is he. It is the moral mainspring of the soul--it regulates and governs the whole man. Oh, watch with sleepless vigilance, with the most prayerful interest, the power of godliness in your heart. Let other religious professors, if they will, split hairs and solve abstract problems in theology. Let them speculate and refine, spending their energies and their time in upraising but the scaffolding of the building--let the religion of others more consist in frivolous conversation, heartless levity, and unholy gossip about preachers and preaching, churches and societies--criticizing, fault-finding, condemning--with you, my Christian reader, let the one grand, momentous, absorbing matter be, the religion of God in your soul--the making sure work for eternity. A religious professor may talk about ministers, and churches, and parishes, and societies, all his life, and be lost forever! Alas! alas! it is with a mournful and solemn conviction of its truth we pen it, the religion of thousands, and of tens of thousands, has no more spiritual vitality than this! Why is it that in the professing Church of God there is so much vain conversation, idle, worldly gossip--so much evil speaking and backbiting--so much censoriousness, suspicion and condemning? Alas! it is because there exists so little real, Christ-like godliness in those who profess it. Why is it that there is so little of the meekness and gentleness of Christ, of the spirit of charity, kindness, and forbearance--the taking the low place--the refusal to join others in hurling the missile, in uncovering the infirmity, and in inflaming the wound of a Christian brother or sister? Alas! it is because multitudes who, though professing His name, have no close, heart transactions with Jesus!

The more closely you deal with Christ, the more faithfully you will deal with yourself, and the less inclination and time you will have to deal with others. You will feel that to "save yourself" were a matter sufficiently momentous to absorb every feeling, and thought, and moment; and that, having made sure of this, all the time and energy and sympathy you have to spare would find its appropriate work in endeavoring to "save others." How is it, then, with you, my reader? Is that kingdom of Jesus, which "comes not with observation," which "consists not in foods and in drinks, but in righteousness, joy, and peace in the Holy Spirit," dwelling, advancing, ascending in you? Are you a living soul--enshrining a living Christ--yielding in your life the fruit of a living faith, and cherishing a living hope of life eternal? What present transactions have you with Jesus--in your closet, by the wayside, in your families, and amid the din and conflict of your worldly calling? This will be the test and gauge of the reality and depth of your Christianity--your personal dealings with Christ.

The crowning blessing accruing from this sacred privilege is--the PRAISE, HONOR, AND GLORY IT WILL BRING TO JESUS. To secure this as its end were worth embarking in any labor, with any self-denial, and at any cost. To plant one gem in His crown--to blend one note in the anthem of His praise--to add one beam to the sun of His glory--Oh, ten thousand lives spent, ten thousand deaths endured, were as nothing! Conceive, if it be possible, what a continuous revenue of glory is accruing to Jesus from your constant habit of conferring with Him--communing with Him--drawing from Him in all the minute concerns of daily life. Each occasion that you repair to confess at His cross--to draw from His fullness--to lay your grief upon His sympathy--to confide in His counsel--to repose in His love, and to spread around you the unyielding shield of His power, you place a fresh diadem upon His head--that head that will before long appear in the clouds of heaven, wearing and radiant with His "many crowns."

Live in the constant expectation of soon seeing Him face to face--conversing with Him whom here below, cheered, upheld, and sweetened many a weary step of your Christian pilgrimage. That moment is speeding on. In a little while and all that now wounds and ruffles, tempts and pollutes, will have disappeared like the foam upon the billow, and you shall eternally repose your weary soul in the bosom of Jesus!

"A little while to wear the robe of sadness,
To walk with weary feet through thorny ways,
Then to pour forth the fragrant oil of gladness,
And clasp the belt round the robe of praise."

Are you, reader, entering upon the New Year still UNCONVERTED? Oh, we beseech you, begin it with contrition, confession, and prayer at the cross. Dare not to add another year of impenitence, unbelief, and sin to the many which have gone before to judgment. Seek the "washing of regeneration," which is, "the renewing of the Holy Spirit" without which you cannot enter into the kingdom of glory. Seek it with all your heart, and seek it NOW.

Forward, BELIEVER in Christ, to the toils, duties, and trials of another stage of life's journey! Christ is enough for them all, and Christ will be with you in them all, and Christ will triumphantly conduct you through them all. Begin your year--telling Jesus; continue it--telling Jesus; close it--telling Jesus. Imitate the early Christians, who, at the termination of their day of labor, "gathered themselves unto Jesus, and told Him all things both what they had done, and what they had taught." Tell Jesus you have no grace but what He communicates--no strength but what He gives--no love but what He inspires--no sympathy but what He vouchsafes. Then will come His sweet and instant response--"Do you hang upon me, my loved disciple, for all? Then all grace shall be yours, and yours forever!"

One word before we close. Do not dishonor the Lord by repairing to human counsel and sympathy first, and failing, then betake yourself to Him. Many Christians are ruled by this principle of making Christ secondary and subordinate to the creature, greatly to their own loss and His discredit. But in all things, in all teaching, in all service, in all obedience, yes, in all your ways, give Jesus the pre-eminence. He asks, it--expects it--and is most worthy of it. Go and tell Jesus FIRST. Make Him your confidant before the creature. The bereaved disciples betook themselves to no mere human sympathy. They went sad and lonely from the grave of their master to the bosom of their Lord, and buried their sorrow in His loving, sympathizing heart. Imitate their Christ-honoring example. Before you take counsel of man, or ask sympathy of friendship--before you confer and communicate with the dearest and nearest earthly friend--go and tell Jesus. Thus confiding in Him, He will return your confidence a thousandfold. Pleased with your dependence, honored by your trust, and moved by your appeal, He will graciously respond, "You are my servant, I have chosen you and not cast you away. Fear not; for I am with you--be not dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you; yes, I will help you; yes, I will uphold you with the right hand of My righteousness." Enough, my gracious Lord! Enough! Arise, my soul!--GO AND TELL JESUS.

"O Lord! how happy is the time,
When in Your love I rest,
When from my weariness I climb,
Even to Your tender breast.
The night of sorrow ends there,
Your rays outshine the sun.
And in Your pardon, and Your care,
The heaven of heavens is won.

"Let the world call itself my foe,
Or let the world allure,
I care not for the world--I go
To this tried Friend and sure.
And when life's fiercest storms are sent
Upon life's wildest sea,
My little bark is confident,
Because it holds by Thee.

"When the law threatens endless death,
Upon the dreadful hill,
Immediately from its consuming breath
My soul mounts higher still;
She hastes to Jesus, wounded, slain,
And finds in Him her home,
Whence she shall not go forth again,
And here no death can come.

"I do not fear the wilderness,
Where You have been before;
No! rather would I daily press
After You! near You, more!
You are my strength, on You I lean,
My heart You make sing,
And to Your pastures green at length
Your chosen flock will bring.

"And if the gate that opens there
Be closed to other men,
It is not closed to those who share
The heart of Jesus then.
That is not losing much of life,
Which is not losing Thee,
Who are as present in the strife,
As in the victory!

"Therefore, how happy is the time,
When in Your love I rest,
When from my weariness I climb,
Even to Your tender breast.
The night of sorrow ends there,
Your rays outshine the sun,
And in Your pardon and Your care,
The heaven of heavens is won!"
--From the German of Dresler.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

WORDS OF DIVINE COMFORT

Table of Contents

PREFACE

1. Reverence for God's Word

2. Honoring the Lord

3. The Lord, the Saints' Avenger

4. God's Unchanging Love

5. The Believer's Sufficiency of God

6. The Lord's Measured Correction

7. The Backslider's Return

8. The Nearness of God

9. Divine Acceptance

10. The Lord, a Wall of Fire

11. The Human Means

12. The Bless ing Divine

13. Divine Love Questioned

14. The Best for God

15. The Tithes Brought--the Blessing Given

16. Jehovah's Jewels

17. God's Wounding and Healing

18. The Voice of the Lord in the Cloud

19. Patient Endurance of Wrong

20. Separation from the Ungodly World

21. Obedience to Christ

22. It Is the Blood That Saves

23. Jesus in the Chamber of Sickness

24. The Dying Believer

25. The Believer in Glory

26. Jesus in the House of Mourning

27. Jesus the Sinner's Guest

28. The Gentleness of God

29. Nothing Too Hard for God

30. The Lord's Loving Remembrances of Youth

31. The Lord Faithful, and His Word True to the Last

PREFACE

The title of this little work, it is hoped, sufficiently indicates its character and design, irrespective of any formal preface. It is intended to be a faint echo of God's words of divine love, addressed from time to time to His people, amid the varied experiences, duties, and trials of their Christian course. To aid and secure this holy result is the earnest design of this little volume, which the author commends to the devout perusal of the sincere believer in Jesus, and commits to the condescending blessing of the Triune God.

REVERENCE FOR GOD'S WORD

"And Micaiah said, As the Lord lives, even what my God says, that will I speak."--2 Chron. 18:13

Micaiah was a God-fearing prophet. His fidelity to the Lord stands in striking and instructive contrast with the worldly policy of Jehoshaphat, King of Judah, who joined affinity with Ahab, King of Israel--an alliance which proved, as all alliances of the holy with the unholy ever will, a source of discomfort and sorrow to the king. The good prophet Micaiah was charged by the Lord with an especial and solemn message to Ahab. It contained a prohibition, and forewarned a danger. The message was distasteful and annoying to the ungodly, self-willed monarch. Other prophets, anxious to conciliate Ahab, had prophesied good, urging the adoption of a course at once contradictory to the divine injunction, and ruinous to the monarch. The moment was a critical one. Micaiah, the true prophet of the Lord, urged to join the false prophets in speaking what the Lord had not spoken to Ahab, refused to disobey God, replying in the noble language which suggests our present reflection--"As the Lord lives, even what my God says, that will I speak." What to him was the favor of Ahab? What the earthly and temporary reward of a time-serving, man-pleasing policy, weighed with reverence for, and obedience to, the word and command of the living God? How replete with spiritual and solemn instruction are the words of the prophet? May the Holy Spirit open and apply them to our minds!

Am I a minister of Christ? Then, as the Lord lives, what my God says, that must I speak, nothing more and nothing less. In this point of light how tremendous the responsibility of my ministerial office! I am under the most solemn obligation to preach the Gospel, the whole Gospel, and nothing but the Gospel, as God has spoken it in His Word. I must not dilute, nor pervert, nor withhold it. I must not preach it with reservation, either to exalt myself or to please man. I must preach Christ's obedience as the sinner's free justification; Christ's death as the sinner's full pardon; Christ's example as the believer's rule of life--in a word, Christ must be the all and in all of my ministry--even what my God says, that will I speak. Woe is unto me, if I preach not the pure, simple, unadulterated Gospel of Christ! The blood of souls will God require at my hands!

Am I a disciple of Christ? Then I must believe and accept nothing but what the Lord my God has spoken. Guarded against human additions, man's teaching, and those who would seduce me from the simplicity of the truth as it is in Jesus, I must have a "Thus says the Lord" for what I believe and accept. To the law and to the testimony. By this divine rule I must weigh and examine, taking heed, not only how I hear, but also, what I hear. An inspired Apostle has told me that, "The anointing which I have received abides in me, and that I need not that any man should teach me;" let me therefore believe and speak only that which my God has spoken.

O Lord! deepen my reverence for Your word! Confirm my faith in its divinity, increase my experience of its power, and deepen my sense of its preciousness. May I stand in awe of its solemn revelations, walk in the holiness of its precepts, live more simply upon its promises, and increasingly find it sweeter than honey, yes, than the honeycomb, to my taste. As the Lord lives, even what my Lord says, that will I believe, that will I accept, and that will I speak. In all my trials, sorrows, and needs, may Your Word be my comfort and support. May it sweeten the bitter waters of affliction, pencil the rainbow of hope upon the dark clouds of my pilgrimage; and, when I die, may its gracious invitations and precious promises bring Jesus near to my soul.

"How well Your blessed truths agree!
How wise and holy Your commands!
Your promises, how sweet they be!
How firm our hope and comfort stands!

"Should all the forms that men devise
Assault my faith with treacherous art,
I'd call them vanity and lies,
And bind the Gospel to my heart."

HONORING THE LORD

"The Lord says, Those who honor Me I will honor."--1 Sam. 2:30

How necessary for our instruction and God's glory that we should accept His Word just as we find it, and not as interpreted by a fallible church, or as reflected from a human standard. It is perilous to study the Bible in any other light than its own, or to recognize any other interpreter than its Divine Author. Guided by this precept, let us consider the words of God which suggest our present meditation--"Those who honor Me I will honor." They were originally spoken to Eli on the occasion of his preferring the sinful indulgence of his sons to the command and glory of God. By retaining them in the priests' offices, polluted by their iniquity and scandalized by their sacrilege, Eli had greatly dishonored God. It was on this solemn occasion that He spoke these words--"Those who honor Me I will honor, and those who despise Me shall be lightly esteemed."

The subject is solemn--searching--instructive. God keep us from Eli's sin! May His glory be our first and supreme object. God is justly jealous of His honor. He would not be God, righteous and pure, were He to part with one scintillation of His glory. "My glory will I not give to another." How, then, may I--trusting that, through electing love and sovereign grace, I am His adopted child, His chosen servant--best honor Him?

First. By fully believing in the divinity of His revealed Word. In magnifying His Word above His Name, God has demonstrated how closely entwined are His honor and His truth. To cast, then, a doubt upon the truth of God's Word, is to cast the highest dishonor upon God himself. My soul, beware of low views of inspiration, of tampering with the Bible, of caviling at any revealed truth; but, stand in awe of its divinity, adore its majesty, and bow unquestioningly to its authority. Then will God honor you, by making His Word your light in darkness, your joy in grief, your strength in service, your hope in despondency and despair. Thus, the Gospel you do implicitly and fully accept, will soothe you in life, support you in death, and be your glory and song through eternity. Thus honoring God in His Word, God will honor you by making that Word the joy and rejoicing of your soul.

I honor God by trusting Him. As there is not a more God-dishonoring principle than unbelief, so there is not a more God-glorifying grace than the faith that reposes in Him, with a childlike and unquestioning confidence--a faith that trusts His veracity to fulfill, and His power to perform all that He is pledged in His covenant and Word to do. My soul, you are tried, burdened, and in need. Have faith in God! Now is the time to bring honor and glory to His great Name by a simple, unhesitating trust in His power, faithfulness, and love--to comfort your sorrow, to counsel your perplexity, and to bring you out of trouble, with the richest blessing springing therefrom. Then will your God honor you. The faith that trusts the all-sufficiency of God, believing that the promise, though not yet performed, and that the prayer, though not yet answered, still will be, shall be crowned with a full realization of all it needed, all it asked, and all it hoped. God will say, "You have crowned My faithfulness by trusting Me, I will now crown your faith by giving to you."

Let me honor Christ by fully accepting His salvation. O my soul, beware of placing your sin, and guilt, and unworthiness, beyond the limit of Christ's ability and willingness to save. Oh! what dishonor to the Savior--a dishonor with which even devils are not chargeable--to doubt the efficacy of His blood to pardon, and the merit of His righteousness to justify the very chief of sinners.

Lord! what honor have You put upon me, to ask me to believe--to accept--to be saved! What marvelous condescension and grace that, in doing this, You should receive it as an honor done to You at my worthless hands. Blessed Lord! I will trample my own honor in the dust, if Yours be but reared upon its utter ruin. Self shall be uncrowned, that upon Your head the crown may flourish!

THE LORD THE SAINTS' AVENGER

"Because of the oppression of the weak and the groaning of the needy, I will now arise," says the Lord. "I will protect them from those who malign them." Psalm 12:5

Never are the ungodly further from the mark--never committed to a mistake more suicidal and fatal than when they lay the hand of injustice and oppression upon the saints of the Most High! God is for them. He is the Avenger of all those who put their trust in Him--the widow and the fatherless--and those who touch them touch the apple of His eye. "If God is for us, who can be against us?" A simple missionary incident may illustrate this truth. A little band of missionaries in the Fiji Islands found their home, on one occasion, surrounded by a troop of armed savages, bent upon their destruction. Unable, as unwilling, to fight, they closed the door, and betook themselves to prayer. Presently, the war-whoop suddenly ceased. On opening the door they found only one savage there. "Where are your chiefs?" he was asked. "They are gone," was the reply; "they heard you praying to your God, and they knew that your God was a strong God, and they left." How true this testimony of the savages! The God of the Christians is a strong Lord. All that strength is on the side of His people. "For the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to show Himself STRONG in the behalf of those whose heart is perfect toward Him." Consider, O my soul, this truth, that the Lord is the strength of His people and the Avenger of all who are oppressed, and will set them in a safe place from those who malign them.

The Lord's people are an OPPRESSED people. The ungodly oppress them--sins oppress them--afflictions oppress them--temptations oppress them--needs oppress them--infirmities oppress them--the body of sickness and suffering oppresses them--and, alas! that it should be said, even the saints often oppress them--for some of their keenest shafts have been forged and flung by a brother's hand. Oh, if there is a spectacle on earth which might well awaken tears in heaven, it is that of the brethren of one Father, the ransomed of one Savior, the travelers to one home, "falling out by the way," by reason of their varied shades of doctrine, or of worship, or of church relation and so, "biting and devouring one another." My soul, be a lover of good men; love them, not because they are of your creed, or of your church, but, because they belong to Christ--so shall all men know that you are also one of His disciples.

But, the Lord stands up for His oppressed ones. He is the Avenger of all such. "It is God who avenges me," says David. Leave Him, O my soul, to vindicate your character, to redress your wrong, to rid you of your adversary, and He will bring forth your righteousness as the light, and your judgment as the noon-day. "O Lord, You have pleaded the causes of my soul."

The sighing of the needy." Jesus was a sighing Savior! He often "sighed deeply in His spirit." And still He is in sympathy with His members, who sigh by reason of sin and suffering and need. For these He will arise. Sigh on, O my soul! the sigh that breathes from a broken heart, or is wrung from an anguished spirit, or is awakened by the unkindness of the oppressor, or the wounding of a Christian brother, ascends to heaven as music in the ear of the Great High Priest within the veil, and awakens the echoes of His loving and compassionate heart. Weeping has a voice--sighs have a language--and Jesus hears the one and understands the other. To nothing belonging to a saint can the Lord be indifferent. "O Lord! I am oppressed--undertake for me." Thus, let the burden of oppression, and sigh of need, prompt you to prayer; then shall you thank and praise Him for both.

"Give to the winds your fears;
Hope, and be undismayed;
God hears your sighs, and counts your tears,
God shall lift up your head."

GOD'S UNCHANGING LOVE

"The mountains shall depart, and the hills be removed; but My kindness shall not depart from you, neither shall the covenant of My peace be removed, says the Lord who has mercy on you."--Isaiah 54:10

There is nothing true but heaven--none unchangeable but God. "The mountains shall depart, and the hills be removed"--the lofty and the beautiful, the strong and the attractive of created good shall decay and vanish--the earthquake of time's revolution and of human instability shaking them to the center; but God's covenant of love, and God's love of the covenant, abides forever--for God has spoken it, and it is impossible for Him to lie. Sit down, my soul, and meditate awhile upon this heart-cheering, soul-satisfying truth--the unchangeable love of your covenant God and Father. "The mountains shall depart, and the hills be removed; but My kindness shall not depart from you, neither shall the covenant of My peace be removed, says the Lord who has mercy on you."

"My kindness." Oh what touching and impressive words are these! Human kindness is sweet and grateful--the kindness and love of the creature; what, then, must be divine kindness--the kindness and love of God? Oh how kind is Jesus! There is kindness in all He does and in all He says--kindness in His promises, kindness in His rebukes, kindness in what He gives, kindness in what He withholds, and kindness in what He recalls; kindness in every stroke of His rod, and kindness in every smile of His love. O! my Savior, how great Your kindness in bearing my sins, in calling me by Your effectual grace, in keeping me from falling by Your power, and in giving me a name and a place among Your saints.

"Shall not depart from you." My soul, consider the love of God for you, as everlasting love. It never did, it never will, depart. Notwithstanding your fall in Adam--your depraved nature--your constant sins and departures, the love of God continues. He may veil for a little moment the light of His countenance, may chastise and afflict you for your revoltings and backslidings; still, having loved you once, He loves you to the end. Whatever else departs, His love never will. Wealth may leave you, health may fail you, friends may forsake you, and life itself expire; but God's paternal love, and Christ's fraternal sympathy, will never, never change.

"Neither shall the covenant of My peace be removed." The covenant of peace made with Christ, on your behalf, O my soul, sealed with His blood, even the "blood of the everlasting covenant," which procured peace, speaks peace, and bequeaths peace, even "the peace of God which passes all understanding," shall never be removed. The mountains of human strength, lofty and sun-gilded--the hills of creature good, clad with verdure, and smiling with fruit--shall be removed--the strongest, the loveliest, and the dearest the first to die--but, "Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever." Amid the vicissitudes and changes of the present--the dying friends and revolving landscapes of life--cling, O my soul, to Him whose covenant never alters, whose kindness never changes; who, having loved you before all time, and loved you in all time, will love you to the end of all time--yes, when time shall be no longer. The Lord that has mercy upon you has said it.

Unconverted soul! the day will come when, if found out of Christ, you will cry to the mountains and to the rocks to cover you--but will cry in vain! Before His face of glory the heavens and the earth will flee away, and your soul will stand without a shelter or a hiding place. Escape for your life! There is one mountain, and one only, where you can find shelter from the wrath that is to come--it is Mount Calvary. Hidden there, the "Avenger of Blood" cannot reach you. No refuge but the cross--no fountain but the blood--no righteousness but Christ's--no Savior but Jesus--will meet your case. "Him that comes unto Me I will in no way cast out.''

"Just as I am! without one plea,
But that the Savior died for me,
And that You bid me come to Thee,
O Lamb of God, I come!"

THE BELIEVER'S SUFFICIENCY OF GOD

"Then I said, Ah, Lord God! behold, I cannot speak--for I am a child. But the Lord said unto me, Say not, I am a child--for you shall go to all that I shall send you, and whatever I command you, you shall speak. Be not afraid of their faces--for I am with you to deliver you, says the Lord."--Jer. 1:6-8

Such was the spirit, and such the prayer, of the weeping prophet Jeremiah, in view of the great mission to which God now called him. How instructive the words! Learn, my soul, this, among other lessons taught by His servant, that before the Lord exalts, He lays us low; before He places a believer in some position of distinction in the Church, or calls him to any great and holy service in the world, He first empties him of all vain and foolish conceit of his own wisdom, power, and holiness; imbuing him with a lowly, obedient, and docile spirit; acknowledging, "Lord, I am but a child; I know not how to go out or how to come in." Is the Lord thus dealing with you, my soul? is He mowing down by His Spirit your fancied strength, worthiness, and importance? or, is He causing you to pass through some fiery trial, and the flame scorching and consuming? Accept this discipline of God as but intended to prepare you for a higher office, a holier mission, greater usefulness in the Church and the world, for which, in the purpose of His grace, He has ordained you. By this training of sorrow and suffering and emptying, you shall become a "vessel unto honor, sanctified and fit for the Master's use, and prepared unto every good work."

"You shall go to all that I shall send you, and whatever I command you, you shall speak. Be not afraid, for I am with you, to deliver you, says the Lord." This "thus says the Lord" is enough to quell every fear, to meet every objection, and to inspire the timid servant of the Lord with a giant's strength, and a martyr's fortitude in the "kingdom and patience of Christ." "I am with you, says the Lord." You may shrink at the call of God from a sense of personal unfitness; you may plead your educational deficiency--your lack of wisdom--of years--or of eloquence--exclaiming, "Lord, I know not how to speak, or how to act, for I am but a child in knowledge, in experience, in strength;"--but, listen to the word of the Lord, "Fear not, I am with you." Enough! O my Lord, put forth Your hand and touch my mouth as You did Your servant Jeremiah, clothing and sanctifying my tongue with heavenly wisdom and grace, that, with a power and a wisdom higher and holier than my own, I may speak a word for You, for Christ, for truth.

Learn, my soul, that in all holy service for God and for man, your true sufficiency is of God. Ever be anxious only to obey His call, to go where He shall send you, to speak what He shall command you, not afraid of the stern look, and frowning brow, and angry countenance of man; for your God is with you to defend you, and to give you a mouth and wisdom, such as all your adversaries shall not be able to gainsay or resist. In all your needs, trials, and service, do not forget, O my soul, that it has pleased the Father that all fullness of grace, and wisdom, and strength, and sympathy, should dwell in Jesus. To Him repair with every need, spiritual and temporal. Draw frequently and largely from this inexhaustible Treasury, living by faith as a personal pensioner upon His personal bounty. He can make you strong to bear, eloquent to speak, patient to endure, meek to suffer, wise as the serpent, harmless as the dove, a lamb in your gentleness, a giant in your might, a martyr in your fortitude. "With Christ strengthening me, I can do all things." "My grace is sufficient for you." Forward, then, in duty, forward in service, forward in suffering, mortifying the flesh, crucifying the world, resisting the devil, strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus, and realizing moment by moment that, "as your day is so shall your strength be." "OUR SUFFICIENCY IS OF GOD."

"One trial more must yet be past,
One pang--the keenest and the last;
And when, with brow convulsed and pale,
My feeble, quivering heart-strings fail,
Redeemer! grant my soul to see
That, 'as her days, her strength shall be.'"

THE LORD'S MEASURED CORRECTION

"I am with you, says the Lord--I will correct you in measure."--Jer. 30:11

Divine correction is an essential element in our spiritual fitness for divine glory. The furnace of trial is as necessary to our heart-sanctification; as the fountain of blood is to our soul-cleansing. There must be, not only a legal title to the possession of heaven, but there must also be a moral fitness for the enjoyment of heaven. Christ produces the one by the imputation of His righteousness, the Holy Spirit produces the other by the impartation of His grace; and one of His most powerful instruments in its accomplishment is, the sanctified correction of our God. Oh, who would ask exemption from the discipline of correction, when the rod that inflicts it is so thickly studded with the buds and so richly blooms with the blossoms of grace, soon to expand and ripen into the golden fruit of glory?

"I will correct you." It is the language of our heavenly Father--for what son is there whom the Father chastens not? Enough, my soul, that all your afflictions and sufferings, trials and sorrows, are paternal, and not judicial--the correction of a Father, and not the condemnation of a Judge; and, though the sword is unsheathed to slay, and the rod is uplifted to smite, both are in the hands of Paternal Love--love, that can do nothing unkind, nothing arbitrary, nothing wrong, nothing that shall injure a hair of our head. "I will correct you." Then, Lord, do as seems good to You. Give me this sign and seal of my sonship; let me but look above and beyond the second and proximate causes of my calamity and grief, and see no one but Jesus, and hear no voice but my Father's--and I bow my head and drink without a murmur the cup You give me.

"In measure," that is, according to judgment; with discretion, with moderation, not measured by what you deserve, but by what you can bear. Ah! how measured, my soul, have the corrections of the Lord been with you! Not according to the scale of my innumerable sins, aggravated backslidings, ungrateful returns; but, according to the multitude--the infinite multitude--of Your tender mercies and loving-kindnesses, have You chastened me, O my Father. Know therefore, my soul, that God exacts of you less than your iniquity deserves (Job 11:6). Truly, Lord, You have not dealt with me after my sins, nor rewarded me according to my iniquities. "Correct me, but with judgment--not in Your anger, lest You bring me to nothing" (Jer. 10:24).

Listen to the Lord's gracious answer, "I will not accuse forever, nor will I always be angry, for then the spirit of man would grow faint before me--the breath of man that I have created." (Isaiah 57:16). Jesus bore for you correction without measure, wrath without mixture, draining the cup to its dregs, that He might give it back to you, brimmed and overflowing with a Father's love.

Precious Savior! there had been no mixture of sweetness in my cup of sorrow--no tender mitigation of my discipline of suffering--no measurement in my Father's corrections--no hope in my approaching death--had You not sorrowed, suffered, and died in my stead--exhausting the last particle of my curse, and drinking the last drop of God's wrath. I will love You, Lord, for You have dealt well with Your servant. Correct me--it will but scatter the chaff, and consume the dross, and rid me of the clay; and I shall mount on stronger wing, and soar to a loftier height, and sing a sweeter song, as I ascend–

"All I meet I find assists me
In my path to heavenly joy,
Where, though trials now attend me,
Trials never more annoy–
Sweet affliction!
Thus to lead to endless joy.

"Blest these with a weight of glory.
Still the path I'll never forget,
But, exulting, cry, it leads me
To my blessed Savior's seat!
Sweet affliction!
Which has brought to Jesus' feet!"

THE BACKSLIDER'S RETURN

"Yet return again to Me, says the Lord."--Jer. 3:1

Could there be a more touching "Thus says the Lord" than this? The voice of Jesus, as it echoed over the mountains and along the valleys of our unregenerate distance from God, seeking and finding and bringing us home, was inexpressibly sweet and irresistibly gracious. But, to hear that same voice, after our many wanderings, our repeated relapses, our sad backslidings, still seeking, still inviting, still imploring us to return, though we had "played the harlot with many lovers," oh, there is music in that voice such as the heavenly minstrelsy must bend their ear to catch.

My soul, you are "bent upon backsliding, even as a backsliding heifer." Your heart is as a broken bow, treacherous to the arrow fixed upon the string, and ready for its flight. Your purposes of good formed, but thwarted; resolutions of amendment made, but broken; plans of usefulness laid, but frustrated; prayers for grace offered, but forgotten; desires and aspirations after God sent up, but, through a deceitful and wicked heart, dissolving into air. Oh! how many and aggravated have your backslidings from God been--backslidings in heart, backslidings in deed--secret wanderings, open wanderings. You have "left your first love," have "forgotten your resting-place;" and, straying from the cross, have gone back to walk no more with Jesus. Truly, your "heart is like a deceitful bow."

But, has the Lord, by some gentle movement of His grace, or by some solemn event of His providence, aroused, overtaken, arrested you? Has He set a hedge around your path, that you could not find your lovers, bringing you to reflection, to penitence, to prayer? Then, listen, O my soul, to the gracious words of your "first husband;" "Yet return again to Me, says the Lord."

Spiritual restoration implies a spiritual re-conversion. In this sense we are to interpret our Lord's words to His fallen apostle Peter--"When you are converted, strengthen your brethren,"--that is, when you are restored, recovered, turned back again, employ your restored grace, the experience you have derived, and the lessons you have learned by your fall and recovery, in strengthening your weak brethren--in warning and exhorting, in restoring and comforting those who have been alike tempted, and have alike fallen.

There is something very expressive, tender, and touching in the word--"Again." "Yet return again." It sounds like the "forgiveness of seventy times seven." Lord! I have wandered from You times without number--"Yet return again." Lord! I have so often sinned and repented--"Yet return again." Lord! You have received and forgiven me more than seventy times seven--"Yet return again." Lord! I come confessing the same sins, deploring the same backslidings, acknowledging the same self-will and base ingratitude--"Yet return again to me, says the Lord." Then, Lord! I come with weeping, and mourning, and confession, since Your tenderness, grace, and changeless love, and outstretched hand bid me.

"Return to Me." My soul, rest not until you rest in Jesus. Let nothing come between your returning heart and your advancing, loving, forgiving Father. There is no true return of a backsliding believer but that which takes him past his repentance, past his tears, past his confessions, past his amendments, past his minister, and brings him at once close to Christ. There is no healing of the hurt, no binding up of the wound, no cleansing, no peace, no comfort, no joy, but as the soul comes to the blood, and nestles once more within the very heart of Jesus. "Return unto ME."

THE NEARNESS OF GOD

"A God at hand, says the Lord."--Jer. 23:23

More saints than Luther have felt a personal interest in the forty-sixth Psalm--"God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble;" thus drinking with him of the "river the streams whereof make glad the city of God." My soul, are you not one of them? Has not your praiseful exclamation often been, "You are NEAR, O Lord!" God is everywhere, but it is only His own children who forcibly feel, and gratefully acknowledge, and holily exhibit, not His omniscience only, but His especial and personal presence. Look at this precious truth, my soul, in connection with two or three features of your varied experience.

He is a God at hand in the person of Christ. The Lord Jesus brings God very near to us. He is not only the revealed One of God, but He is in His own person really and absolutely God--"He who has seen Me, has seen the Father." Could a mere creature, a man only, say this? Impossible, with any truth, and without blasphemy. Oh, how near to us has Jesus brought the Father! Come to Jesus, look at Jesus, listen to Jesus, and realize that in so doing you approach to, gaze upon, and hear the voice of, God your Father in heaven.

God is near in the work of Jesus. The blood brings us sinners near to God, as it brings a sin-pardoning God near to us. "You that were afar off are made near by the blood of Christ." See then your true and present standing, O my soul! Nothing comes between you and God but the atoning blood of Jesus. His blood annihilates all your sin and guilt. Robed in His imputed righteousness, you are to God nearer than the highest angel in heaven--and nearer you can not be--and God draws near to you and speaks--"A God at hand, says the Lord."

God is near at hand when you do approach Him in prayer. Oh, comforting truth! A God at hand to hear the softest breath of prayer--to listen to every confession of sin--to every cry of need--to every utterance of sorrow--to every wail of woe--to every appeal for counsel, strength, and support. Arise, O my soul! and give yourself to prayer; for God is near at hand to hear and answer you. Listen to His word, "Who is this that engaged his heart to approach unto Me? says the Lord." "You meet him that rejoices and works righteousness, those who remember You in Your ways."

A God at hand is He in every time of trouble. "A very present help." Not far have you to travel for the guidance and deliverance you need. If forsaking the Lord your God you go down into 'Egypt' for help, and trust in the chariots and horses thereof, then will you be ashamed of your confidence. But why fly to creature help, when the Lord your God is near unto you in all that you call upon Him for? Cease from man; for God in Christ is very near, and one step of believing prayer will bring you to His feet.

Oh, live as in His presence! Be your life a life of communion, doing and enduring, toiling and suffering, as beholding Him who is invisible. In a little while we shall pass from our partial and imperfect realizations of His presence when on earth, to enjoy His full, unclouded, and eternal presence in heaven! Then shall our eyes see the King in His full unveiled beauty, not as now, through a glass darkly, but then face to face. And, oh transporting thought! we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is.

Guard vigilantly and strive prayerfully against that which creates a conscious distance between God and your soul. Is it the world?--come out of it. Is it the creature?--relinquish it. Is it the flesh?--mortify it. Is it sin?--forsake it. Is it unbelief?--nail it to the cross. Oh, let nothing separate you from Christ--no earthly good or carnal delight cause a distance, or coldness, or shyness between God and your soul. Give Jesus your undivided heart, and let God be your all in all. Then shall your happy experience be--"You are NEAR, O Lord."

DIVINE ACCEPTANCE

"I will accept you with your sweet savor."--Ezek. 20:41

There is not an essential truth of the Gospel more dimly perceived or imperfectly estimated, and yet not one more clearly revealed or more unspeakably precious, than the doctrine of God's acceptance of the believing sinner. An error here is destructive of the scheme of salvation, and fatal to our eternal happiness. May the Holy Spirit open it up in all its scriptural clearness to our minds, and apply it in all its saving, sanctifying sweetness to our hearts!

First, there is the Lord's acceptance of our PERSON. "I will accept you." Our person must first be the object of God's favor and delight before He regards with favor and delight the offerings we bring. It was the Person of our Lord Jesus Christ which gave such virtue, efficacy, and acceptance to His sacrifice. Because He was Divine and sinless, His Godhead imparted dignity and perfection to His Atonement--the Sacrifice of Christ resting, as its basis, upon the Person of Christ. This marked the essential difference between Cain and Abel. Cain brought his offering of fruits and flowers without a personal acceptance, and God rejected both him and his offering. Abel "brought of the fatlings of his flock," "and the Lord had respect unto Abel,"--first to his person, and then to his offering.

My soul, are you personally accepted in the Beloved? Before bringing to God any flower or fruit of your fancied merit, springing from the stock of your unregenerate nature, have you brought your sins to Jesus--to His blood to be cleansed, to His grace to be subdued? Have you put on in faith Christ's righteousness, "which is unto all and upon all those who believe?" And have you tasted of the honey that flows from that precious, glorious declaration of the Apostle--"Being justified by faith, we have peace with God, through our Lord Jesus Christ?"

"I will accept you with your sweet savor." And now comes God's gracious delight in, and acceptance of, the sweet savor of our spiritual offerings! And what are these savory offerings, thus so acceptable to God? What a "sweet savor" to Him is prayer! The prayers of the saints are "vials full of odors," sweet incense perfumed with the yet sweeter incense of their Savior's divine and precious merits, and so presented by Him with acceptance to God. Pray on, dear saint! If afflicted, pray; your words may be few--your utterances stammering--your faith weak--yet pray on. God having accepted you in the Person of Jesus, will, on the ground of His worthiness, accept the "sweet savor" of your prayers.

What a sweet savor to God are our praises! "Whoever offers praise glorifies Me." What strong ground have we for joy, what rich material for praise! Were we to rejoice in the Lord all the day, and praise Him all the night--as before long we shall without weariness or pause--it would not be a too exaggerated expression of the greatness of our salvation of grace here, and of the preciousness of our hope of glory hereafter.

What a fragrant offering to God is the dedication of our intellect--the contribution of our wealth--the consecration of our rank, influence, and time--all, all is a "sweet savor" to God, acceptable and accepted through the sweet savor of Christ's atoning merits. Such, too, is the ministry of those who preach Christ. "We are unto God a sweet savor of Christ in those who are saved, and in those who are lost." There is a divine savor and power, in that preaching which exalts the Savior that no other preaching has. Oh for more of the savor of His Name in the pulpits of our day! Truly His Name would then be as ointment poured forth, delighting all who love Him. And such too the liberality of the saints towards the Lord's ministers--"an odor of a sweet smell, a sacrifice acceptable and well-pleasing to God."

Approach, my soul, the mercy-seat, robed in the righteousness of Christ; and when you have presented His blood and righteousness, then lay your own offerings at His feet, for your covenant God and Father has said--"I will accept you with your sweet savor."

THE LORD, A WALL OF FIRE

"For I, myself, will be a wall of fire around Jerusalem, says the Lord. And I will be the glory inside the city!" Zech. 2:5

This metaphor is, probably, taken from the practice of travelers in eastern countries, who kindle fires by night around their encampments, to guard them from the approach of prowling beasts of prey. How precious and comforting the truth it illustrates--God, the divine defense and Protector of His people, even a wall of fire round about them by night and by day; so that their enemies, like roaring lions and hungry wolves, seeking to alarm and devour, cannot come near to them, but as He permits. O, my soul! carefully and devoutly consider this precious, this sanctifying truth.

You are traveling hence, through a waste howling wilderness, filled with wild and ferocious beasts; often pitching your tent enshrouded by the darkness and danger of the night, where the roaring lion and the hungry wolf, emerging from their lairs, go forth in quest of prey; and your soul is filled with terror and dismay. But fear not. Greater is He that is for you than those who are against you. He who went before the Church in the wilderness, a pillar of cloud by day, and of fire by night--He who encircled Elisha with horses and chariots of fire, when the King of Syria came against him with a huge host, and He who placed the cherubim and a flaming sword to keep the garden of Eden, when man was driven from its Paradise--is a wall of fire round about you; and no foe shall approach you, no threat shall alarm you, no assault shall reach you, no fiery dart shall wound you, not a hair of your head shall be injured, for Israel's covenant God is a wall of fire round about you by night and by day, and the "beloved of the Lord shall dwell in safety by Him."

Such a wall of protection to His people is the Lord Jesus. "Your life is hidden with Christ in God." What can be more secure? Thus guarded, the work of grace in your soul can never fail. The pulse of spiritual life may beat feebly--the spark of divine love may glow faintly--the principle of faith may act irresolutely--nevertheless, Jesus, who paid too costly a price for your redemption, a part of whose "purchased possession" you are, will never permit the lurking foe, strong and savage and cruel though he be, to hurt you. All His divine perfections--all His gracious safeguards--all His providential dispensations--are round about you. Let this encourage you, O my soul, to be prayerful, and watchful, and circumspect; remembering that, the Lord's care is not to encourage our carelessness; that, Christ's intercession is not to supersede our prayerfulness; that, the Savior's watchfulness is not to throw us off our guard--but, rather to stimulate and encourage us to a vigilant, holy, and close walk with God. Fear not, then, O timid believer, trusting in Jesus. Before Satan can pluck you from His hands, or sin condemn you to hell, or man swallow you up, they must--braving their inevitable destruction--break through this Divine wall of flame, perishing in the very attempt, "for our God is a consuming fire."

The subject of our present reflection has a solemn, heart-searching bearing towards the unconverted, unsaved soul. If God in Christ is not a wall of fire round about us, He must be, as we have just read, a "consuming fire" against us. And if we are not safe in Jesus, our soul is inevitably and eternally exposed to the burning and unquenchable fire of God's righteous anger. "Who among us shall dwell with the devouring fire? Who among us shall dwell with everlasting burnings?" Not one poor sinner who has fled from the wrath that is to come, and is hidden in a cleft of the Divine Rock, Jesus Christ, wounded, bruised, and smitten for us.

THE HUMAN MEANS

"Thus says the Lord, make this valley full of ditches…That valley shall be filled with water, that you may drink."--2 Kings 3:16, 17

The Christian requires no little spiritual intelligence and skill in accurately balancing the means and the blessing--the part which belongs to him, and the part which belongs to God. The Word of God nowhere encourages a spirit of inactivity and indolence in us. We are not to fold our arms, sit down, and do nothing. Hence, the varied means the Lord has graciously appointed for our use. We must not forget that the means are as much ordained as the end; and that, if these means are carelessly and willfully neglected, we have no right to expect the Divine blessing. The power of the divine does not preclude or dispense with the employment of the human.

You will generally find that, in the performance of His wondrous miracles, Christ, as it were, stood at one end, and man at the other. See this thought illustrated in the raising of Lazarus from the dead--"Jesus said, Take away the stone." Man was to have some share in this marvelous resurrection; he was to remove the stone that lay upon the dead, as this formed an impediment to the working of the miracle. While, then, we are instructed that the POWER is His, we are at the same time taught that the MEANS are ours. It is man's to dig the well and prepare the ditches; it is God's to fill both with the living water of His Spirit. "Thus says the Lord, make this valley full of ditches…That valley shall be filled with water, that you may drink." What, O my soul, are these "ditches," and how are they made?

In the forefront must be placed the eye, simply and only fixed upon Jesus. We may sink the well, and dig the trench, and plough the soil, but all will be in vain if we do not this from a sense and conviction of our present spiritual standing in Christ. Thus we shall work from life, and not for life! Oh, with what celerity we run the way of the Lord's commandments, with what zeal do we His work, and how we prize the means of grace, with a sweet sense of pardon--of acceptance--of a present salvation in all its completeness, fullness, and certainty, in our souls!

We dig the "ditch" in the valley of prayer. Communion with God, while it is the most elevating, is at the same time the most humbling employment of the soul. When thus we lie the lowest, then are we the most exalted. When, in the confession of sin, and the abasement of self, we come before God, "looking unto Jesus," oh! what a channel we have prepared for the rain of God's grace, far down in the deep valley of our conscious need and nothingness. Be much in secret, closet prayer, O my soul, and God will rain down abundantly His quickening, fertilizing grace. Pray--pray--PRAY--and your fleece shall never be dry, your soul shall never lack the dew of God's Spirit. Dig deep, dig wide, dig constantly the channel of PRAYER--earnest, persevering, believing prayer--and He who has promised to be the "Dew unto Israel," and to "come down as rain upon the mown grass," as with "showers of blessing," will fill that channel to overflowing with His grace.

In a few words--such, too, is the diligent study of God's word--such a devout and frequent meditation thereon--such the public means of grace--such the appointed ordinances of Christ's house, and the "communion of saints." Omit not, O my soul, the valley of affliction, of trial, of temptation, in some of which your deepest ditches are often dug, and the richest blessings often flow. "I will open fountains in the midst of the valleys," says the Lord; and to this end He sends bereavement, and sickness, and suffering, and adversity--all of which are but designed to open channels through which His tender love, and soothing sympathy, and increasing grace, and quickening Spirit, might fully and freely flow. "Blessed is the man who passing through the valley of Baca make it a well; the rain also fills the pools." Oh, seek large supplies of this living water! Make the trench deep and broad, for in proportion to your large requests will be your blessing. Ask much, believe much, expect much, and it shall be unto you according to your faith. "Open your mouth wide and I will fill it."

THE BLESSING DIVINE

"Not by might, nor by power, but by My Spirit, says the Lord of Hosts."--Zech. 4:6

Our meditation yesterday was directed to the human means we are diligently and believingly to employ; let us today consider the Divine blessing which God has promised, and which we may expect, in the proper use of these means. The Temple was a type of the Church, and Zerubbabel was a type of Christ. The great truth shadowed forth by these two types, is that, both the work of preparing materials, and of constructing the house--"the Church of God, purchased with His own blood"--is, from first to last, a Divine and supernatural work, not in any degree wrought by human power, but solely and entirely by the Spirit of God. "Not by might, nor by power (that is human), but by My Spirit, says the Lord of Hosts." From this subject of meditation many spiritual and profitable reflections arise.

And first, whose work is conversion? man's work or God's work? God's Word, as vindicating His glory, shall answer--"Who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God" (John 1:13). O, my soul! your spiritual creation was a mightier work than the natural creation of the vast universe. There is more of the power of God, and the wisdom of God, and the love of God, and the holiness of God, in the new birth of one sinner, than in the creation of myriads of worlds like this! The Divine image restored--the dead soul made alive--the kingdom of Satan destroyed--the empire of sin overthrown--the divine nature imparted--and the soul becoming a "temple of God through the Spirit"--oh, what an unfolding of God is here! "Not by might, nor by power, but by My Spirit, says the Lord of Hosts."

And who carries on in your soul the work of grace thus divinely begun? The same Spirit--by whom the first tear of penitence was created, and the first look of faith was imparted, and the first throb of life was inspired, and the first spark of love was kindled, is our Teacher, Sanctifier, and Comforter. Dwelling in the regenerate soul, He guards the work He has thus divinely wrought; and, lest anything hurt it, He keeps His sacred vineyard night and day. O, then, my soul! seek to be filled with the Spirit of holiness; and see that no self-dependence, no grieving of the Spirit, no looking off of Jesus whom He glorifies--arrests the progress of your heart-holiness, and so retards your fitness for the inheritance of the saints in light. Oh! honor the Spirit by acknowledging His work, and the Spirit will honor you by completing it until the day of Jesus Christ.

And what is the great secret of power and success in service? Still the answer is, "Not by might, nor by power, but by My Spirit, says the Lord of Hosts." We are strong for labor--powerful in service--successful in work for God and for man--in the same proportion as we cease from the human and lean upon the Divine--cease from ourselves, and draw all our supplies from the Spirit of God. Not by human might and self power shall we be able ministers, successful evangelists, useful teachers of the young. In drawing sinners to Jesus, in instructing the ignorant, in reclaiming the vicious, in placing living stones in the temple of God, and in planting precious jewels in the diadem of Jesus, deal closely with the life-giving power of the Spirit. Weak though you are, inefficient and unskillful, yet gird yourself to the battle with the world, the flesh, and Satan; go forth to your work of preaching Christ's Gospel, of making Jesus known, of plucking souls as brands from the burning, with these wondrous words ringing in your ears, "not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, says the Lord of hosts."

DIVINE LOVE QUESTIONED

"I have loved you, says the Lord. Yet you say, How have you loved us?"--Mal. 1:2

Was ever baser, darker, ingratitude than this? Study it, O my soul, for have you not, in spite of the countless evidences of your Lord's love to you, often doubted its reality, and questioned the wisdom, righteousness, and tenderness of its dealings? But, listen to the divine declaration of its existence. God Himself asserts it; and who shall dare call it in question?

"I have loved you." How does the Lord evidence the reality of His love to us? Take the display of God's love to the literal Israel, as typifying His love to His spiritual Israel; and in the analogy we shall see more distinctly wherein He has loved us. The Lord's love to His ancient people was exhibited in choosing them above all nations upon the face of the earth to be His peculiar people in conferring upon them especial blessings and distinctive privileges; by perpetuating their nationality amid many changes and revolutions; by bringing them up out of Egypt; by emancipating them from the Babylonish captivity; and by conducting them to their own land. And to crown these signal and especial blessings, having one Son, well-beloved, He sent Him to deliver and save them, saying, "They will reverence My Son."

In all this, O my soul, see your Lord's love shadowed forth. Did He not choose you to be His peculiar treasure, loving you with an everlasting love, and with love drawing you from your idol state to Himself; making you to forget your own people and your father's house, that He might "betroth you to Himself forever, in righteousness and in judgment, and in loving kindness and in mercy?" Has He not "blessed you with all spiritual things in Christ Jesus," conferring upon you the relation of a child, the dignity of a saint, the inheritance of an heir? And to crown all, has He not given you His dear Son to be your Sin-Bearer, your Surety, your Redeemer, your Portion, and your all? Truly may the Lord say, "I have loved you."

"And yet you say, How have You loved us?" Ah! here is your dark ingratitude and base unbelief. When a cloud has shaded His love--when a providence has hidden it--when a trial of faith has tested it--when some dark, crushing dispensation of your God seems to belie it, then you have exclaimed, "How have you loved me? Is this love? Has love painted this dark cloud, blighted this beauteous flower, broken this strong staff, and embittered this cup of earthly sweet, emptying me from vessel to vessel, all His waves and His billows overflowing me?"

Yes, my soul, divine love--everlasting love--redeeming love--unchanging love has done it all! Then, Lord, I will no longer distrust your love--no more will I ask, How have You loved me? but will accept every cloud that shades it--every trial that embitters it--every correction that changes its voice from the accents of tenderness and sympathy, to those of austerity and terror, as still love, disguised though it be. Dear Lord, allow me never more--in the gloomiest hour, in the sorest trial, in the severest rebuke, in the saddest moment--to call in question, to allow the shadow of a doubt to rest upon the great, the tender, the changeless love with which You have from all eternity loved me.

But, my soul, how much greater reason have you to doubt your true and deep love to Christ! He may well ask, "Do you love Me?" Be humbled at the cross for this; and yet be not discouraged. Look to the Lord's great and changeless love to you, and not to your poor, faint, faltering love to Him. This will inflame your affections, kindle a more responsive, obedient and patient love in return--a love that will constrain you to do all and suffer all your blessed Lord in love commands and ordains.

THE BEST FOR GOD

"Cursed is the cheat who has an acceptable male in his flock and vows to give it, but then sacrifices a blemished animal to the Lord. For I am a great king," says the Lord Almighty, "and my name is to be feared among the nations." Malachi 1:14

What a fearful anathema is this? But is it disproportioned to the sin it denounces? It is a fearful thing to attempt to deceive God; and yet how many religionists, unsuspectingly to themselves, are committing this sin! My soul, examine yourself, and see if there is anything in your dealings towards God unreal and deceptive, false and dishonoring; and if so, drag it to the Cross, and by its revealing light, search it out, and by its crucifying power, slay it. But look at this sin. What is it?

It is the sin of making a solemn vow to God, and then attempting to palm upon Him a deception by offering to Him that which is an abomination in His sight. "You brought Me that which was torn, and the lame, and the sick; thus you brought an offering--should I accept this of your hand? says the Lord." Have you not often offered God a divided heart--a heart divided with the world, or, the creature--while He is presented with but a scanty measurement of that love of which He originally and righteously claims the whole?

O Lord! make my heart and its love true and constant to You! If there be a rival to this, gently, lovingly displace it; that I might give to You, the First and the Best of Beings, the first and the best of my love.

And am I consecrating to God the first and the best of my intellectual powers? Deriving my mind from God, who can strengthen or blight, illumine or darken it, am I consecrating to Him the first and the best of my mental endowments and acquirements? or, am I presenting to Him but the dregs and the drivellings of my intellect; using the first and the best for myself and for the world?

And what of my worldly possessions? Am I giving to the Lord, who has so affluently and freely given to me, a due proportion of my wealth, be it much or little, for the advancement of His truth and kingdom in the world? or, am I casting into His treasury, with a stinted and begrudged hand--calculating not how much, but how little I can devote to His glory, of that which is all His own? Will He not say, "Who has required this at your hand? I cannot endure it."

And what of your rank and social influence? Is this "holiness to the Lord?" Human rank is powerful, and individual influence far-reaching, and for both these talents God holds us responsible! Are we laying it all down at Jesus' feet, a holy consecrated thing, all made subservient to the advancement of His truth and kingdom and glory?

And what of your time, my soul? Is the first and best the Lord's? Are the fragments gathered up--the unemployed hours frugally collected, and spent in some good and holy work for God, and for your fellows; in meditation and prayer--in solemn preparation for eternity? O my soul, you have but one life, and your days are but as a shadow! Devote that one life to God; employ those few and fleeting days in spiritual and gospel preparation for a never-ending future--a future of bliss or of woe!

My soul, conclude this present meditation by remembering that your God has given you the first and the best, when He spared not His Son, that He might spare you. And remember, also, that Jesus gave you the first and the best, when He gave Himself for your sins, a sacrifice, and an offering unto God of a sweet-smelling savor. Is it then an unreasonable request that He should ask at our hands, in return, the first and the best we can present of our intellect and heart, of our time, and wealth, and our all?

Blessed Lord, I will not put You off with the lame, and the sick, and the blind. You shall have the best lamb in my fold, the first flower of my youth, the prime of my life, the ripe and golden fruit of my old age.

THE TITHES BROUGHT--THE BLESSING GIVEN

"Bring all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this," says the Lord Almighty, "and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that you will not have room enough for it." Malachi 3:10

The Lord's purposes of wisdom and thoughts of love are not intended practically to go before, or virtually to supersede the personal obligations and efforts of His people. He will fully and faithfully do His part, but He expects that they will as fully and faithfully do theirs. They must roll the stone from off the sepulcher, and He will then open it, and call back to life their buried and lamented mercy. They must bring their tithes and offerings into His house, and He will then, as an evidence of their acceptance, and as a proof of His faithfulness and love, pour His blessings affluently into their lap.

"Bring all the tithes." My soul, what will you bring? Lord, I bring a sinful heart--a depraved nature--an empty hand--a needy soul. This is all I have. I dare not speak of my faith, it is so weak; or of my love, it is so fluctuating; or of my service, it is so imperfect. I will speak of nothing of my own, but will make mention of Your righteousness and Yours only. I will take the cup of salvation and call on the name of the Lord. But, my soul, remember that there must be no keeping back a part of the tithe, for He commands you to bring all into His store-house. Lord, let there be no reservation, mental, spiritual, or practical, in my offerings. Oh, take the first, the best, take my all, who has given Yourself and all that You have, for me.

"Test me in this," says the Lord Almighty." Oh condescending love! Oh marvelous grace! Lord, do You delight to be brought to the touchstone of Your word? Do You stoop to the test of Your people's faith? Do You say, "Test me in this." Oh who is like unto You. My soul, draw near and take Jesus at His word. Test Him now. Test His love, and see if it will not embrace you. Test His power, and see if it will not deliver you. Test His grace, and see if it will not be sufficient for you. Test His fullness, and see if it will not supply you. Test His blood, and see if it will not pardon you. Test His invitation, and see if He will not receive you. Test His sympathy, and see if He will not comfort you. Test His faithfulness, and see if He will not make good all that He has promised--never leaving nor forsaking you; loving you always, and loving you forever. Lord, I have tested You a thousand times over, and have never found You to fail.

"I will pour out a blessing." The tithe of prayer and faith thus unreservedly brought--the believing soul having done his part, heaven's window is opened, and the blessing bountifully descends; and so God does His. And oh, the preciousness and largeness of the gift! What an outpouring of the Spirit will follow! What a reviving of grace in the soul! What a bestowment of family blessing! What an increase of ministerial power! What strength in service, guidance in perplexity, shielding in temptation, soothing in grief, will descend in showers, when God draws aside the curtain of heaven, throws open its window, and pours down its blessing, so large, so copious, so expanding, that there shall not be room enough to receive it.

My soul! what has hitherto withheld the blessing? Why have the clouds poured down no fruitful showers, and the heavens distilled no refreshing dew, and the sun emitted no vivifying warmth? Is it not because you have not brought all your tithes into the treasury--prayer restrained, faith distrusting, property withheld--thus bringing Him to the test of His veracity to give you the blessing? "You have not called upon Me, O Jacob; you have been weary of Me, O Israel!" Weary of You, my blessed Lord? You are my only Rest. "Whom have I in heaven but you? and there is none upon earth that I desire beside you."

JEHOVAH'S JEWELS

"They shall be Mine, says the Lord, in that day when I make up my jewels."--Mal. 3:17

That which the merchant regards as most costly, and the bride as most ornamental, Jehovah condescends to employ to illustrate the character and relation of His saints--"My Jewels." My soul, if, through sovereign grace, you have been quarried from your dead and sinful nature, and have been made a living and polished stone in the house of your God, sit down a while and meditate upon the precious, soul-quickening truths taught you by this beautiful and expressive similitude.

It speaks, first, touchingly of the love the Lord has for you, as one of His jewels. How much His saints have to learn of the greatness of His marvelous love! And, although it has depths we cannot sound, heights we cannot reach, dimensions we cannot measure, yet, as a little child may dip its tiny shell into the ocean rolling in its immensity at its feet, so may we be able to comprehend in some measure the love of Christ, which passes knowledge. And apart from a personal and spiritual experience of Christ's love, what avails it to us?

It speaks, also, of the rarity of the Lord's people. Jewels are not common, every-day things. How rare are real Christians, true believers in Christ! How many can talk about religion, and about churches, and about ministers, and about societies, and about sacraments, who have not been converted, are not born again, who know nothing experimentally and spiritually of the Lord Jesus Christ--nothing of the blessedness of a broken heart for sin, nothing of the healing application of atoning blood! Oh how few among those who crowd the sanctuary and encircle the communion-table, are safe for eternity! Lord, are Your jewels so rare? Oh may I make full proof of being one of them!

Jewels are precious. Who can fully estimate the preciousness to Jesus of His saints? Their persons are precious, their faith is precious, their love is precious, their sacrifices are precious, their petitions in prayer and ascriptions of praise are unutterably precious, to the heart of Christ, upon whose breast-plate they are set as stones of light and glory. They must be precious for whom a precious Christ poured out His most precious blood!

Jewels are polished stones. Taken from the quarry of nature, they need the chiseling of the Jeweler, and the purifying of the Refiner, before they prove their genuineness, and emit their luster. "The Lord tries the righteous." And oh, the untold blessings that spring from the discipline of His hand! "Not joyous, but grievous now, yet afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who are exercised thereby."

How beautiful, also, are these precious jewels! Washed in the blood of the Lamb, clothed with the righteousness of God, adorned with the graces of the Spirit, complete in Christ, and lovely through His loveliness put upon them, no marvel that He should thus commend their beauty and completeness--"You are all fair, my love; I see no spot upon you."

Jewels are guarded with vigilance and care. Is there a being in the universe more vigilantly watched, incessantly upheld, or divinely kept, than the believer in Jesus? Destined to deck His brow when the Savior comes in His glory, wearing His many crowns, none of these shall perish; but all shall constitute a "crown of glory in the hand of the Lord, and a royal diadem in the hand of our God."

Dear Savior, set me as a seal upon Your heart, as a seal upon Your arm, and when You come in Your kingdom, may I be found among those redeemed and precious ones of whom thus it is written, "They shall be Mine, says the Lord of hosts, in that day when I make up my jewels."

GOD'S WOUNDING AND HEALING

"I wound and I heal."--Deut. 32:39

It is no little comfort to the afflicted child of God to be thus divinely assured that both the wounding and the healing flow from one Hand--that Hand a Father's. The sword that wounds--"bathed in heaven"--bears upon its point the balm that heals. Meditate awhile, my soul, upon this wondrous truth; and should you, like the stricken deer, endure your wound in solitude, the assurance that He who smites is He who heals, may rouse you from your lonely sorrow, and draw you closer to the heart of Him "by whose stripes we are healed."

"I wound." What majesty in these words! How worthy of Him who is the sovereign disposer of sickness and health, of life and death, from whose belt hang the keys of the grave and of Hades. To His Hand, O my soul, trace the wound which now fills you with sore pain and grief. What is the sword? Is it the visitation of bereavement--the decay of health--the loss of wealth--the fickleness of friends--the unkindness of other believers--or the taunt and cruel slanders and reproaches of the world? Rise above the sword that has pierced you, and see only the Hand that holds and controls it. "I wound." It is a loving Father's voice. O Lord, I lose more than half my sorrow when I hear Your voice, "It is I," and when faith responds--"He Himself has done it."

And whose Hand inflicts the spiritual wound? Who convinces of sin--gives the broken heart--imparts the humble, contrite spirit--and brings the soul to His feet with the prayer, "God be merciful to me the sinner." Still the language is--"I wound." Then, Lord, let the "sword of the Spirit" pierce me through and through, might it but penetrate the deep-seated evil of my heart, revealing to me more of my sinfulness, thus preparing me for the touch of that Hand that heals the broken in heart and binds up their wounds.

"And I heal." Blessed Lord! who can heal the wounded spirit--who can bind up the broken heart but Yourself? My wound is too fresh, my sore too tender, my sorrow too deep, for any hand but Yours to touch. Lord, Your wounds are my healing--Your blood my balm--Your soul-sorrow my heart's joy. Keep me from a false healing. Let Your blood be the only balsam of my wounded conscience; let Your love be the only solace of my troubled spirit. Precious Jesus! smite and bruise me as You will, may but the hand that bears in its palm the scar of the nail pour the wine and the oil of Your love into my bleeding, sorrowing heart. "Heal me, O Lord, and I shall be healed."

But, perhaps, your wound is self-inflicted, and the consciousness of this keeps you back from Christ. Your own hand has pierced you! You have sadly departed from God, have willfully sinned against conviction, against your own conscience; against so much divine love experienced, so much covenant mercy received, so many rich blessings given, so many sins pardoned and backslidings healed, and wanderings restored. Be it so. Still the language of God is--"And I said after she had done all these things, Turn unto Me." "I will heal their backslidings, I will love them freely--for my anger is turned away from him." Bring, then, these wounds to Jesus which your own or another's hand has inflicted; and with the balm that flows from His own pierced heart, He will heal you. "O Israel, you have destroyed yourself, but in Me is your help found." Oh, remember that there can be no wound too deep or too desperate for Christ's healing, loving touch.

THE VOICE OF THE LORD IN THE CLOUD

"He spoke unto them in the cloudy pillar."--Psalm 99:7

And still the voice of the Lord is in the cloud. Not, indeed, in a visible and audible manner as of old, when the pillar of cloud, in fan-like form, expanded above them, and, as a thing of life, went before them in the wilderness. But, not less divine, not less real, not less distinct, does the Lord now speak to His saints from out of every cloud that casts a shadow upon their path.

Clouds comprise a great part of the believer's experience. It is no strange thing that a child of the light should walk in darkness. Clouds of varied shape and hue lie in his track to heaven; and he can no more avoid them, than can the sun careering its pathway through the skies. Our Blessed Lord Himself was not exempt. They formed an essential part of that learning of obedience by the things which He suffered, though He were a Son. Behold Him on the cross! The sun clothed in sackcloth above, the earth draped in shadows beneath, were fit, though faint, emblems of the deeper, darker clouds that enshrouded His holy soul, when He uttered that dolorous cry, "My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?" But every cloud that shades the path of the believer is vocal with the voice of the Lord. "He spoke unto them from the cloudy pillar."

And still the Lord speaks to His saints from out the cloud. He speaks to us from the cloud of His glory. The Gospel of the grace of God is the revelation of the grace and glory of His great salvation. As, from the cloud of His glory on Mount Tabor, the voice of love issued, so, from the glorious cloud of His Gospel, a voice comes, saying, "Whoever will, let him come and drink of the water of life freely;" "I came to call not the righteous, but sinners to repentance;" "Come unto Me all you that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest;" "Him that comes unto Me I will in no way cast out."

Is it a trial of faith? This cloud is often very dark--yet Jesus speaks to us from it. He assures us that tried faith, though tried as by fire, is more precious than gold; that He anticipates every trial of faith by His intercession on behalf of His beloved disciple; and that, when the trial actually comes, though faith be purified as gold, and winnowed as wheat, it shall not fail. "And the Lord said, Simon, Simon, behold, Satan has desired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat--but I have prayed for you, that your faith fail not."

Is it the cloud of adversity? Property gone--health failing--friends changed--social position altered? The voice of the Lord speaks in the cloud--"Fear not! when you pass through the water, I will be with you." "I will never leave you, nor forsake you." The moment faith can anchor itself on God, the believing soul is brought into perfect peace--the tempest subsides, and there is a great calm.

Is it the cloud of bereavement? Dark and overwhelming as this cloud often is, the voice of Divine love sweetly speaks from its somber bosom. "It is I, fear not. I have done it. I plucked the flower, broke the stem, bent the oak to the ground; and dark though the cloud be that rests upon your tabernacle, love sent, love shaped, love tinted it." "Be still, and know that I am God."

Is it the cloud of mental depression? This cloud is often very dense and protracted; and some of the holiest and most eminent saints of God have been called to pass through it. But, blessed be God, it cannot touch the soul's union with Christ! It may hide Jesus from us, but it cannot hide us from Jesus. It may quench the light of our Christian evidence, but it cannot extinguish the light of our Christian grace. But the voice of divine love is in this cloud, and it tells you that there is a bright light in it, that the sun shines behind it, and that, before long God's wind will pass and scatter it, and your soul shall bathe itself in eternal sunshine!

"He makes the clouds His chariot." Then, blessed Lord, I would welcome every dispensation You do send; and though I may fear as I enter into the cloud, faith believes that I shall find you there, and hear no voice but that of redeeming love!

PATIENT ENDURANCE OF WRONG

Do not take revenge, my friends, but leave room for God's wrath, for it is written: "It is mine to avenge; I will repay," says the Lord. Romans 12:19

Offences will come, both from the wicked and from other believers. We live in an ungodly world, and are members of an imperfect Church. We must not, therefore, expect freedom from wrongs and injuries, from woundings and opposition, from which none have ever been exempt, not excepting our Lord himself, who, in addition to the wrongs He personally endured, was "wounded for our offences."

But how are we, as believers in Jesus, to acquit ourselves under a sense of injury and injustice? Are we to take the law in our hands? Are we to revenge ourselves? Are we to vault into the judgment-seat? God forbid! The law of Christian duty touching this matter is clearly laid down. "Do not take revenge, my friends, but leave room for God's wrath."

But does this precept of patient endurance and non-resistance imply that wrong is to go unpunished, injustice unrequited, injury unrepaired, malignity unrebuked, and falsehood unrefuted? By no means! An individual, by becoming a Christian, does not cease to be a citizen. In coming under the law of Christ, he is not the outlaw of man. His spiritual duties and privileges do not abrogate his civil rights and obligations. Our Lord was a striking and instructive example of this. He claimed justice at the hands of his accusers. "Jesus answered him, If I have spoken evil, bear witness of the evil--but if well, why do you smite Me?" (John. 18:23.) And Paul asserted his rights and privileges as a Roman citizen.

Therefore, not prompted by malice or a feeling of revenge, not acting from personal resentment, or a desire to inflict an injury, but moved by a concern for the public virtue and peace, in order to maintain truth and justice, and at the same time to vindicate our personal character from slander and falsehood, it is strictly within the province of the Christian to take his case into a court of human justice; for to this end--"the punishment of evil-doers, and for the praise of those who do well"--the magistrate holds the sword by God's ordinance.

But what is the high ground the believer in Jesus should take under every species of injury, injustice, and wrong? It is first, if not exclusively, to go into God's court of justice, to commit his case to Christ, his Advocate, who has undertaken to plead the cause of his soul. Let us look at this for a moment.

Beloved, are you suffering injury? Has a foe assailed you? a friend wounded you? a relation wronged you? Avenge not yourself, but rather "leave room for God's wrath;" that is, make room for it to pass by and escape; and that no feelings might possess your mind but those of pity, charity, and forgiveness, go into God's court of justice before you go into man's. Take your cause first to Jesus. Oh, what a powerful Advocate and wonderful Counselor is Christ! He will avenge you of your adversary, and will compensate your wrong. He will refute the foul slander, silence the lying tongue, and bring forth your righteousness as the light, and your judgment as the noonday. For thus has the Lord spoken.

But, oh, the blessedness of reposing trustfully, calmly on the bosom of Jesus amid the unkind criticisms, bitter calumnies, unjust accusations, and the cruel envyings and jealousies of man! Sheltered there, who or what can harm us? "Oh, how great is Your goodness, what You have laid up for those who fear You, which You have wrought for those who trust in You before the sons of men! You shall hide them in the secret of Your presence from the pride of man--You shall keep them secretly in a pavilion from the strife of tongues. Blessed be the Lord for He has showed me His marvelous kindness in a strong city."

Separation from the Ungodly World

"Therefore, come out from them and separate yourselves from them, says the Lord. Don't touch their filthy things, and I will welcome you." 2 Cor. 6:17

There is not a stronger mark of the Lord's people than their separation. They are separated from the world, separated from their families, separated from their own righteousness, and often separated from the religious world--a godly people whom the Lord has set apart from all others, that He might set them apart for Himself. Now, it is this distinctive badge of separateness the Lord will have His saints retain in all their Christian course. We are very apt to forget it. We live in the world, mix with the world, hold transactions with the world, and, in some measure, are guided by the conventional habits of the world. Still, we have need to be continually reminded that, though living in the world, and, of necessity, compelled to conform to its proper and lawful customs, we yet are not OF the world. "I have chosen you OUT OF the world," says the unworldly, loving Savior to His disciples; "therefore the world hates you." "You are not of the world, even as I am not of the world." Now, in what sense, oh my soul, and to what extent, does your loyalty to Christ demand your separation from the world?

The words which suggest the present reflection are, by a slight variation, taken from the prophet Isaiah 52:11, and originally were applied to the captive Jews in Babylon,

"Depart, depart, go out from there! Touch no unclean thing! Come out from it and be pure, you who carry the vessels of the Lord." Now, Babylon, a city of proud, unclean idolaters, and opposed to God, was an emblem of this ungodly, Babylonish world, in which the saints of the Most High dwell, but from which they are called to come, and from whose inhabitants they are called upon to separate themselves, touching not the unclean thing.

The religion of Christ is not ascetic and monkish. It knows nothing of "nunneries," or "monasteries," or "retreats." These are all opposed to the genius and requirements of Christianity--its divine, social, and spiritual nature. Our blessed Lord, the Divine Founder of our religion, expressly warns His disciples of this perversion of His gospel--"Wherefore if they shall say unto you, Behold He is in the desert; go not forth--behold, He is in the secret chambers; believe it not." It enjoins nothing like this upon its disciples, "for then must you needs go out of the world," says the apostle.

But it does teach crucifixion to the world, nonconformity to the world, spiritual and marked separation from the world, from its pleasures, its gaieties, its principles, its religion. We are the professed disciples of an unearthly Christ, the followers of an unworldly Savior. "Let us go forth, therefore, unto Him outside the camp" (of the Babylonish world), "bearing His reproach," keeping our consecrated garments unspotted from the world, touching not the unclean thing. Then will Jesus, our Lord, receive us, and infinitely make amends for all we have lost of power and wealth and honors, for His holy and precious Name.

Let our separation from the world be our closer union and fellowship with the Church of Christ in its every branch, and with Christ Himself, the one Head of the Church. This will tend more strongly to define and sharpen the line of demarcation between us and an ungodly world. Association with the saints will render us a more marked and distinct people. The world will take account of us that we are the Lord's. O my soul! come away from an unclean and defiling world. "If any man loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him." Lord! by Your cross may I be crucified to the world, and the world to me!

OBEDIENCE TO CHRIST

"Whatever He says unto you, do it."--John 2:5

What reader of his Bible is not reminded by these words of the mother of Jesus referring to her Son, of the command of Pharaoh addressed to the Egyptians concerning Joseph--perhaps the most remarkable personal type of Christ, "Go unto Joseph; what he says to you, do." The Lord Jesus is our Lawgiver, the only true Legislator of the Church, the only spiritual Head of authority and power. It is to Him we are to go for our orders. His Word we are implicitly to obey, finding His service perfect freedom, and obedience to His commands great reward.

"What He says unto you, do it." Such--could her voice be heard from heaven--would still be the language of the Virgin Mary to all her poor deluded worshipers! "Look not to me, pray not to me, invoke not my intercession and aid; what He, God, my Savior, says unto you, do it." What a sweet echo of the words of Jesus himself, "If you love me, keep My commandments." These words are pregnant with meaning and power. Oh my soul, sit down at His feet, and learn what He would have you do, and then do it unhesitatingly and with all your heart.

"What He says unto you." Lord, I would bend my ear attentively, believingly, to know what You say unto me. Speak, Lord, Your servant hears. Do You bid me believe? Lord, enable me to give full credence to all Your gracious invitations, and precious promises, and good words addressed to Your sin-burdened, guilt-distressed, travail-weary ones. Do You bid me in simple faith look to You, accept You, rest on You? Lord, I believe, help my unbelief. My trembling heart sincerely seeks repose from guilt and fear and labor in You, and in You alone. Do You command me to take up my cross, and follow You along Your unearthly, self-denying way? Lord, You would I then follow, and You only. "Through floods and flames, if Jesus leads, I'll follow where He goes."

Do You bid me, my Father, take from Your hands the cup of sorrow, and meekly drink it? Your will, not mine, be done! Do You ask me to slay my Isaac, to yield my Benjamin, to tear my fondest idol from its shrine? Lord, give me grace, and I will obey. Whatever You say unto me, I will do. Do You bid me mortify my strong corruption, nail to Your cross my bosom sin, part with the Delilah upon whose treacherous lap I have slumbered, and by whose hands the locks of my strength have been shorn? Lord, perfect Your strength in my weakness, and, Samson-like, by faith in Your all-sufficient grace, I will slay Your foes and mine, and will be Your servant, Yours only, and Yours forever. Number me among the blessed ones, of whom it is said, "These are they who follow the Lamb wherever He goes."

Let there be no mental reservation in your obedience to the Lord, O my soul. The Lord searches the heart and weighs the actions of men. He hears the bleating of the herds we have spared, ostensibly for sacrifice, yet in reality but to condone our sin of disobedience to God (1 Sam. 15:22). O Lord, to whom obedience is better than sacrifice, let my obedience to Your word be sincere and honest, full and unreserved, lacking nothing, that I may stand complete in all the will of God.

Let love to Jesus be the all-constraining principle of my obedience, as the all-authenticating evidence of my discipleship. "If you love Me, keep My commandments." Oh, how smoothly and swiftly will the wheels of obedience revolve when divine love to a precious loving Savior moves them! How light will be Jesus' burden, how easy His yoke, how pleasant His cross, how sweet to deny myself for Him, of what was so sweet to myself, when the all-constraining principle is love to Him who loved me unto death!

Keep the eye fixed upon the reward of obedience to Christ. "If you be willing and obedient, you shall eat the fruit of the land." We shall eat the sweet fruit of peace and joy and hope now; and we shall eat the golden fruit of the fullness of joy and of the pleasures that are at God's right hand in a holier world, and beneath a brighter sky hereafter.

IT IS THE BLOOD THAT SAVES

"And He said unto them, This is My blood of the new testament, shed for many."--Mark 14:24

Never did those lips, upon which grace shed its divinest, sweetest fragrance, utter words so precious as these. The language is figurative, but the truth is literal. "This is My blood," or, this cup is the 'emblem' of "My blood of the new testament," the new covenant, "shed for many," for the sins of beings whom no man can number. We are thus brought into contact with the most essential and vital doctrine of the Bible, the great Atonement of the Son of God. Beloved, the blood of Jesus is very precious to a poor, guilt-burdened sinner. It is the blood that saves him. There is everything you need in the blood of Jesus, forgiveness for every guilt-burdened, healing for every sin-wounded conscience.

The blood of Jesus speaks peace, the blood brings us into the holiest, and places us in the very presence of the Father. It is the blood that keeps the heart pure, and supplies it with the most powerful motive to holiness. It is the blood that sustains the soul in death, and after death places it before the throne in robes washed white, with the "new song" breathing from its joyous lips. My soul, consider the blood of Jesus in two or three essential points of light.

It is the blood of the Incarnate God. Herein lies its intrinsic worth, its essential efficacy. The Deity of the Savior gave it all its merit to atone, and all its virtue to cleanse. We marvel not that the apostle should denominate it, "the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish." It is the most precious thing in the universe--it is the precious blood of Him whose person is precious to those who believe. Is it, my soul, precious to you?

And, then, remember that faith alone is necessary to make its saving virtue ours. Believe only, and all the sovereign efficacy of Christ's blood is ours. This "precious blood" and "precious faith" constitute the two most precious things in the universe.

Look at it, also, as applied blood. We know that the blood of the paschal lamb would have availed nothing to the Israelites when the angel of death swept through the land to slay the first-born of the Egyptian, had it not been really and visibly sprinkled upon their dwellings. It was the applied blood that saved them. So must it be with the blood of Jesus, our Passover slain for us. If we want to be placed in a state of non-condemnation, if we desire to be quite sure that we are safe from eternal death, the blood of Jesus must be applied to the conscience. Rest not short of this, my soul! Clearly this is the mind of the Spirit in those remarkable words of the apostle, "You are come to the blood of sprinkling." There is a present coming to the blood of Jesus, and this gives us a present salvation.

It is the blood of Jesus that sanctifies. It sets us apart as a holy people for God, it cleanses the heart from vain thoughts, worldly imaginations, and impure desires--from the taint and defilement of indwelling sin. Rest not short, then, of the applied blood of Jesus. This will remove all your doubts, quell all your fears, and bring you into perfect peace. The Holy Spirit is prepared to take of the blood of the covenant, and sprinkle it upon your heart, and then all will be peace.

The blood will give you great power in prayer. Coming to God with this plea, you may open all your heart to Him, confess every sin, disclose every sorrow, make known every need, and reveal, as in the light of the noontide sun, every secret cloistered there.

In a word, it is the blood of Jesus that SAVES, saves us from a present condemnation, and saves us to a future and eternal salvation. There is no salvation elsewhere. Here is pardon for the vilest sinner, for the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses from all sin. Yes, dear Lord! it is Your blood, Your own blood, possessing all the dignity and virtue of Your Godhead, and this will be my song and my joy through eternity, "Unto Him who loved us, and washed us from our sins IN HIS OWN BLOOD, and has made us kings and priests unto God and His Father--to Him be glory forever and ever. Amen."

JESUS IN THE CHAMBER OF SICKNESS

"Jesus said, This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of God might be glorified thereby."--John 11:4

Sickness stands high up in the catalogue of the believer's covenant blessings. When it is recognized as coming immediately from the hand of God, and when it lays us lower at the feet of Jesus, and when it draws us closer within the bosom of Jesus, oh, a lovelier flower or sweeter fruit of holiness blooms and grows not upon the rod of correction than this! Deem not that a cold, unsympathizing heart that dictates this sentiment. He whose hand traces it is too conversant with the scenes of the sick room--its suffering and weariness, its despondency and depression, its hopes and fears--to speak flippantly and unfeelingly of this painful discipline of God. He looks upon the believer's chamber of sickness as one of most sacred and hallowed spots this side of eternity. He never approaches it, never gently opens the door, and with silent footfall glides within that solemn and shaded room, but with an unearthly awe resting upon his spirit. God is there--Jesus is there--the Holy Spirit is there--attendant angels are there; and, it may be, the spirits of the just made perfect are permitted to hover there, fanning, as with noiseless and invisible wings, the fevered brow of the being they love, to whom they are permitted to minister, and whose ransomed soul they wait to escort up to the gate of glory.

"This sickness is not unto death." Oh no, there is life in it, you sick one, you child of Jesus! This shall prove a time of spiritual quickening to your soul. You shall know more of God, see more of Jesus, read your title to the mansion in heaven in a clearer light, and with stronger faith than ever. No, it is not unto death! The Lord may, by this sickness, be preparing you for greater service and usefulness in His Church and in the world than ever. Wycliffe was at one time supposed to be upon his dying bed. An embassy of friars and doctors from Oxford was deputed to call upon him to urge and receive a recantation of his published opinions. They entered the apartment of the rector of Lutterworth, and, surrounding his bed, expressed the hope that, as death was about to remove him, he would not conceal his penitence, but distinctly revoke whatever doctrines he had advanced to their injury. The noble reformer, fixing upon them his languid but now flashing eyes, and summoning all his remaining strength, exclaimed, "I shall not die, but live, and shall again declare the evil deeds of the friars." He recovered, and lived to preach the doctrines of the Reformation even with greater power and success than he had ever done! Be still, then, you sick one, dear to Jesus. Who can tell for what great work in your Lord's vineyard this sickness and suffering and depression are preparing you! But, should it terminate fatally--should it be the chariot sent from heaven to bear you home, still it will not be unto death, but unto life, life eternal--"forever with the Lord!"

"When languor and disease invade
This trembling house of clay,
'Tis sweet to look beyond our cage,
And long to fly away.

"Sweet to look inward, and attend
The whispers of His love;
Sweet to look upward to the place
Where Jesus pleads above.

"Sweet to reflect how grace divine
My sins on Jesus laid;
Sweet to remember that His blood
My debt of suffering paid.

"Sweet in the confidence of faith,
To trust His firm decrees;
Sweet to lie passive in his hands,
And know no will but His."

THE DYING BELIEVER

"And she lay dying."--Luke 8:42

The transition of the believer from the chamber of sickness to the bed of death is a natural and often a short one. The Lord's sick one now becomes the Lord's dying one. It is by the process of 'wasting disease' that the loving Savior, for the most part, comes into His garden, and gathers His plants of righteousness--the lily in its youthful bloom, the rose in its matronly beauty, the cedar in its manly strength, the oak in its grace and grandeur--transferring them to His paradise on high.

There are, indeed, some of God's children whose departure may be regarded more in the light of Enoch--like translations than of an ordinary death. The chariot has descended so suddenly and with wheels so noiseless, the last enemy has approached so stealthily and with tread so softly, that we had scarcely seen them enter the celestial carriage before it bore them beyond our weeping eyes and wondering gaze; they themselves not knowing that it was death, until they had passed through its portal, and found themselves in heaven! Absent from the body, as in a moment, they were present with the Lord.

But with you, beloved, the Lord's wise and loving dealings may be far otherwise. It is, perhaps, by slow disease and acute suffering He is taking down the earthly house; wearisome days and sleepless nights are appointed to you; and looking through the lattice of the dissolving tabernacle, you exclaim, "Why is His chariot so long in coming? why tarry the wheels of His chariot?" And now, as with unclasped and uplifted wings, your soul lingers upon the border land–
"Only waiting until the angels
Open wide the mystic gate,
At whose feet I long have lingered,
Weary and poor and desolate.
Even now I hear their footsteps,
And their voices far away;
Only waiting to obey."

Dying saint of God, how enviable is your state! Soon you will see Jesus in all His glory; soon you will mingle with apostles and prophets and martyrs and all the heavenly host; soon you will be clasped in the fond and welcoming embrace of the loved ones who preceded you to glory; soon you will be freed from all taint of sin, from every fetter of corruption, from every tear of sorrow, from every pang of suffering, and from every feeling of languor and faintness. Oh blissful exchange! Oh glorious prospect! Fear not! Keep your eye upon Jesus. Look not so much to His work as to Himself, not so much to His salvation as to the Savior, not so much to the gospel of Christ as to the person of Christ. Let yours be a personal dealing with a personal Savior. Let nothing come between you and Jesus. He is with you, and He bids you come--not to His cross, or to His work, or to His sacrament--but--to Himself. "Come unto ME; I will give you rest." He wants you to lay your dying head upon His very heart, to clasp His very hand in yours, and to feel that nearer to Him you cannot be, until your disembodied spirit speeds its flight, and folds its weary wings upon His glorified bosom.

"Shudder not to cross the stream,
Venture all your hope on Him,
Not one object of His care
Ever suffered shipwreck there."

One word as to the world you are about to leave. Have you made a wise and equitable adjustment of your temporal matters, so that, after your decease, the near and beloved ones who survive and succeed to your property, may be free from all anxiety, allegation and litigation? Our Lord Jesus made His last will and testament, bequeathing to His people the richest treasure He could leave--His peace which passes all understanding--do you follow His example, and set your worldly house in order, that those who inherit your goods may bless your memory, and glorify God for the grace and wisdom and uprightness given you. The criminal neglect of this significant duty has been the productive cause of more domestic unhappiness than almost any that can be named. "Godliness is profitable unto all things, having promise of the life that now is, and of that which is to come."

THE BELIEVER IN GLORY

"You shall receive me to glory."--Ps. 73:24

We have followed the believer in Jesus from sickness to death; we now follow him from death to glory. In each stage of this his earthly pilgrimage, how precious is he to the heart of Jesus, how firmly and safely kept by the power of God unto full salvation! The journey is not long, the transition is often very quick. The instant that he has suffered the last pang, and wept the last tear, and heaved the last sigh, and looked his last look of love on earth, he is before the throne of God and the Lamb, drinking of the crystal river that flows from beneath it, and basking in the effulgence of glory that beams around it. My soul, let faith, with its far-seeing eye, look within the veil, and behold the glory into which you shall before long enter, and exclaim, in the sweet exercise of that faith, "You will receive me to glory."

And, first, think of its certainty. The inspired Scriptures, which cannot be broken, affirm this truth in the most clear and positive terms. Nothing is more certain than the final glory of all God's saints. "You will show me the path of life--in Your presence is fullness of joy; at Your right hand there are pleasures for evermore." "As for me, I will behold Your face in righteousness--I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with Your likeness." "The hope which is laid up for you in heaven." And if these aspirations and declarations of faith are not sufficient, then, listen to the crowning evidence affirmed by the words of Jesus himself, "Father, I will that they also, whom You have given Me, be with Me where I am; that they may behold My glory." Yes, my soul, glory is at the end of your weary, tearful, toilsome pilgrimage. It is the last link in the golden chain that binds you to the throne of heaven. The first link of that chain is God's foreknowledge of His saints; the last, His glorification of them. "Whom He foreknew, them He also glorified" (Rom. 8:30).

And now the sick and suffering and longing one is--in glory! The soul has passed the portal of death, has dropped its chain, and is free! All it believed, all it expected, and all it longed for is now realized, fully and forever realized, and its traveled feet walk the golden streets, and its weary wing is folded upon the bosom of its Savior. No more sin, no more impurity, no more suffering, no more weariness, no more tears--the former things are passed away, behold, all things are new! It has seen Jesus--it is now mingling with prophets, apostles, and martyrs, and all the holy angels--it is "without fault before the throne," hymning the high praises of the Lamb. Listen to its triumphant, rapturous song–
"I shine in the light of God,
His likeness stamps my brow,
Through the shadows of death my feet have trod,
And I reign in glory now.

"No breaking heart is there,
No keen and chilling pain,
No washed cheek where the frequent tear
Has rolled, and left its stain.

"I have found the joys of heaven,
I am one of the sainted band;
To my head a crown of glory is given,
And a harp is in my hand.

"I have learned the song they sing,
Whom Jesus has set free,
And the glorious walls of heaven still ring
With my new-born melody.

"No sin, no grief, no pain,
Safe in my happy home;
My fears all fled, my doubts all slain,
The hour of triumph come.

"Friends of my mortal years,
The trusted and the true,
You are walking still in the valley of tears,
But I wait to welcome you.

"Do I forget? Oh, no!
For memory's golden chain
Shall bind my heart to the hearts below,
Until they meet to touch again."

"These are they who have come out of the great tribulation; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb." Rev. 7:14

JESUS IN THE HOUSE OF MOURNING

Jesus said to her, "Your brother will rise again." John 11:23

We have lately been with Jesus in the chamber of sickness and of death; let us now accompany Him to the house of mourning. He was equally Himself in both. His loving, sympathizing heart was at home in every place where suffering and woe found a lodgment. He Himself had passed through this school. And well He had learned its lessons, emerging from its teaching and discipline in all respects fitted for, and in all points assimilated to, His peoples' trying and afflictive circumstances. Oh, wondrous truth! oh, marvelous love! Must the divine Son of God, must the sinless Son of man be perfected by suffering, that He might suffer when I suffer, weep when I weep, bear the heaviest end of my cross, and in all my afflictions be Himself, by sympathy and support, afflicted? So I read, and so I believe.

You are a bereaved one--the Lord's bereaved! Himself has done it. Arise, oh my soul, from second and proximate causes. With them you have nothing to do. Like pieces of wreck floating on the surging waves, they will but wound and bruise you, and, perhaps, loosen your hold of faith on the Divine and faithful plank to which you are clinging, and which will assuredly bear you up, and float you in safety to the shore. Every view of your bereavement which draws your eye away from Jesus will but lacerate and inflame your wound. Looking above, seeing Jesus only, recognizing God's hand in your calamity, and referring it all to His infinite wisdom, perfect righteousness, and unchanging love, will enable you to bow meekly in your sorrow, and with your mouth in the dust, exclaim, in lowly imitation of your Lord, "My Father, if this cup may not pass from me except I drink it, Your will be done."

Yes, beloved, your brother shall rise again. Did he not die in the faith of Jesus? Did he not depart in the hope of glory? Then, that faith has saved him, and that hope sheds a halo around his grave. He shall rise even now, for the memory and the influence of his holy life and love still live in undecaying power and fragrance; and, "he, being dead, yet speaks." But he shall rise again in the resurrection of the just at the last day, when, at the Second Resurrection, the trumpet of Christ, the Archangel shall sound, and the "dead in Christ shall rise first." Oh, the glory and the bliss of that moment, when the ruined temple of the Holy Spirit shall spring from the dust, a spiritual body, freed from all the taint of sin, the grossness of the flesh, the sorrows and sufferings of earth, resplendent in beauty, perfected in holiness, "fashioned like unto Christ's glorious body." And, until my body shall be committed to the dust in the faith of Him who is "the Resurrection and the Life," may I live and die, dear Lord, to You, and, then, be with You forever!

Jesus is one with you in your bereaved grief. He is in your house of mourning now. He goes with you to the grave to weep there. Spiritual blessings will bloom around that grave, sweeter and more beautiful far than the flowers with which you deck it, if your sorrow draws you closer to Christ, making you better acquainted with Him, the weeping and sympathizing Savior, and loving Friend and Brother, born for this crushing adversity.

JESUS THE SINNER'S GUEST

When Jesus came by, he looked up at Zacchaeus and called him by name. "Zacchaeus!" he said. "Quick, come down! For I must be a guest in your home today."

But the crowds were displeased. "He has gone to be the guest of a notorious sinner," they grumbled. Luke 19:5,7

The social element of our Lord's nature found its appropriate and widest scope in the race He had come to redeem. It formed, indeed, one of the most marked and effective instruments of His mission of love. Overcoming every class barrier, and penetrating the hardest surface of society, it bore Him into every abode of man, blending Him with every form of sorrow and suffering. Jesus was now the guest of Zaccheus. He had come to seek and to save that which was lost; and this rich man, and chief among the publicans, was one of them. Living in sin though he was, and now concealed amid the foliage of the sycamore tree, the Savior knew where to find, and how to call this "hidden one" of His eternal love, this "vessel of mercy afore-ordained unto glory." "Quick, come down! For I must be a guest in your home today." But the crowds were displeased. 'He has gone to be the guest of a notorious sinner,' they grumbled." Blessed testimony! Jesus is still our guest; He still abides and banquets with us.

What a banquet is the Gospel Feast at which we meet the Savior! It is just the feast our famished souls need. Here is the full forgiveness of all sin; here is a free grace, justification from all things; here is adoption into God's family; here is the wine and the milk of God's love and the Savior's grace, "without money and without price," for all who have "nothing to pay." Approach, my soul, for, "all things are ready." Come, not waiting to change your clothing, or for some self-cleansing, but just as you are, since Jesus has provided the fountain that washes, and the robe that clothes you; the only plea springing from yourself, that you are "wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked." Oh, remember that Jesus is the guest of sinners!

Jesus meets His saints at the table of His Holy Communion. If ever heaven and earth unite and embrace, it is then! When the King sits at the table, surrounded by the people of His love, eating by faith of His flesh, and drinking by faith of His blood--symbols, and nothing more, of His atoning death--it is a heaven below, lacking but the immediate and unveiled presence of the glorified Lord. Approach, then, oh my soul, take your place as a welcome guest at this heavenly banquet, and hear your Lord's sweet welcome, "Eat, O friends, and drink, yes, drink abundantly, O beloved."

"He knows what wandering hearts we have,
Apt to forget His lovely face;
And to refresh our minds He gave
These kind memorials of His grace.

"The Lord of life this table spread
With His own flesh and dying blood;
We on the rich provision feed,
And taste the wine, and bless our God.

"While He is absent from our sight,
'Tis to prepare our souls a place,
That we may dwell in heavenly light,
And live forever near His face."

Oh my soul, invite Jesus often to your house, for none ever entertained such a guest as He. He brings His own refreshment, and always gives more than He receives. Receive Him into your house, worship Him at your domestic altar, acknowledge Him at your meals, invite Him to your marriage feasts, and see that He has on all occasions a loving reception, and the best entertainment--even a loving and an unreserved heart. O Lord, since you receive sinners, and eat with them, enter my humble abode, and abide with me, for it is toward evening, and the day is far spent.

THE GENTLENESS OF GOD

"I will do you no hurt."--Jer. 25:6

What a tender, touching declaration of God is this! How condescending and considerate of His people's feelings! Would God, could God hurt a hair of the head of His child, severe and painful though His dealings maybe? Oh, no! They may be called to leave their father's house, as was Jacob--they may go down into Egypt, as did Israel--they may be tried in their children, as was Eli--they may be bereft of property and children and health, as was Job--they may be cast into the lions' den, as was Daniel--and into the fiery furnace, as were the Hebrew children--they may have a thorn in the flesh, as did Paul--they may be banished, as was John--yet God will do them no hurt!

Nevertheless, His dealings with His beloved saints and servants of old, were but among the all things that worked together for their good. It was a mysterious; and to them a trying and afflictive way. Nevertheless, He was but unfolding His purposes of wisdom, His thoughts of peace and His ends of love. Consider this, my soul, whatever God's way with you is, He will do you no hurt.

And first, there is the utter impossibility that God could hurt one of the children of His love. His nature is love--His heart is love--all His attributes are manifestations of His love--all His dealings but unfoldings of His love. Listen to David's representation of God, "You, O Lord, are a God full of compassion, and gracious, long-suffering, and plenteous in mercy and truth." Can not you, my soul, affix your seal to this testimony? What has your God been to you through these many long years of your pilgrimage but a God who could do you no hurt? Oh, no! He loves you too deeply, cares for you too tenderly, watches over you too vigilantly--you are too dear to Him as a child of His adoption, too precious to Him as a jewel of His cabinet, too lovely in his eye as accepted in the Son of His love, that He should do you hurt. Whatever His conduct may be, you shall exclaim with David, "Your gentleness has made me great."

His rebukes will do you no hurt. They are the probings of the Lord, searching into the deep evil of our heart, and into the sinnings of our spirit, but to bind up and heal. We may shrink from the cuttings of the surgeon's knife, wince at the searching of his probe as it penetrates to the core of the disease--nevertheless, painful for the moment as the process may be, it is essential to our cure. And so God's searching of the heart, His deep probing of its hidden evil, His intent to discover the concealed agent that has caused so much ill health to your soul, will do you no hurt, but will result in your greater purity of heart, conformity to Christ, and real advance in the divine life.

The Lord will do you no hurt in His afflictive dispensations. For the present the disappointment is grievous--the blow is crushing--the hand of your God is heavy upon you--nevertheless, underlying all, there is a divine tenderness, infinitely more gentle than the gentlest nurse with her child, infinitely more tender than the tenderest love of a mother towards her first-born. Then, be still, lie passive, and as a weaned child, behave and quiet yourself beneath a loving Father's gentle hand, for He has said, "I will do you no hurt."

Nor will He permit others to hurt you. What a wonderful passage is that in the history of His dealings with His people in the wilderness, "When they went from one nation to another, from one kingdom to another people, He allowed no man to do them wrong." And so He will shield and protect you.

And when we hurt ourselves, as we continually do by our sin and folly, He graciously and tenderly binds up our self-inflicted wounds, soothes the bruises of our falls, and makes our broken bones once more to rejoice. Then, my soul, yield yourself to Jesus. He never has hurt you, He never will.

NOTHING TOO HARD FOR GOD

"Then came the word of the Lord unto Jeremiah, saying, Behold, I am the Lord, the God of all flesh--is there anything toe hard for me?"--Jer. 32:26, 27

The believer has nothing to do in his religious life with anything, as his guide and directory, except with the Word of the Lord. Not with the "ifs" and the "buts" of unbelief--not with the changeful frames and experiences of the soul--not with the ever-varying providences of God--but with the Word of the Lord alone, eternally settled in heaven, and which lives and abides forever. With a "Thus says the Lord," the believer may confound every suggestion of Satan, may silence every "if" and "but" of unbelief, rise above each shifting phase of Christian experience, and anticipate with confidence and composure the solemn moment of his departure out of this world to go unto the Father. Have we, in the course of our daily thoughts, met with a "Thus says the Lord" more precious and comforting than this--"Is anything too hard for Me? says the Lord"? Let us meditate upon it for a moment, and extract from it the honey that will enlighten and revive us even more than that which David's weary and exhausted army experienced from the honey they found in the forest.

This condescending challenge of our God, while it conveys to us a gentle rebuke, contains also a self-evident truth. The answer of faith would admit of not a moment's hesitation. The reason is simple. Can anything finite outdistance infinity? Can any difficulty confound it? Can any contingency thwart it? Can any demand exhaust it? Can any sin out-measure it? In a word, can anything be too hard for God? Oh, no! We deal with INFINITY, with whom nothing is too hard, and nothing impossible, except that He should lie. "That by two immutable things, in which it is impossible far God to lie, we might have a strong consolation."

Let us consider these words of God as a great strengthening of our faith. We need every view of God calculated to enlarge our thoughts of His greatness, and to increase our faith in His power and love. Our low thoughts and limited views of God lie at the root of all unholiness. Our hatred of sin will be in proportion to our conception of God's holiness, the infinite purity of His nature, and the spirituality and extent of His love. Behold, then, the strength faith may derive from its dealing with God's all-sufficiency! The difficulty that has out-measured your power--the perplexity that has confounded your wisdom--the impossibility that has paralyzed your efforts--the demand that has exhausted your resources. But what is it all that with God? Let your faith, then, deal not with yourself, but with God--not with your perplexity, but with His wisdom--not with your difficulty, but with His power--not with your need, but with His wealth--not with your vileness and ingratitude, but with His great love, grace, and all-sufficient merit treasured in Christ Jesus.

Let this view of God encourage you to cast yourself upon His boundless mercy in Christ Jesus. Is any sin too great, any guilt too deep, any ingratitude and unworthiness too vast for the compass of His pardoning grace lodged in the Son of His love? Oh, no! If His salvation could not and did not reach infinitely beyond the utmost bound of human sin, guilt, and unworthiness, then there would be a limit to Infinity. But this is impossible.

Let this view of God's all-sufficiency deepen our love to Him. Faith works by love. They are twin graces in the renewed soul. The closer the transactions of your faith with God--dealing with Him in all the little things of life--the deeper will be your love to Him! The more intimate our acquaintance with God in Christ, the warmer will be our love. Sinners have not the love of God in them, because He is to them an unknown God. They know not what a God they hate, rebel and sin against. But, my soul, you have seen the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ, and in the trials and needs, the sins and sorrows you have transacted with Him; you have known Him but to confide in Him; and have trusted Him but to love Him; and have loved Him but to go forth and live and labor, and, if need be, die for Him.

THE LORD'S LOVING REMEMBRANCES OF YOUTH

"Thus says the Lord; I remember you, the kindness of your youth."--Jer. 2:2

If there is a stage of the Christian's life ever verdant, ever precious in God's remembrance, it is that important and memorable period when he gave his youth, consecrated his first and best to God. God calls it "kindness." How gracious and condescending is our God! Can he ever forget that solemn moment of life's turning-point, when the great and blessed decision for eternity was made, when the world was forsaken and sin renounced, and the creature relinquished, and the good part was chosen? that hour of the soul's espousals to Christ, when the divine marriage between Jesus and your heart took place, and all the angels sang the nuptial song in heaven?

"Your youth." In its spiritual aspect what an important period is youth! It is the moral spring of human life. It maintains the same spiritual relation to our being, as the natural spring does to the autumn of the year. It is the seed-time of life. It seems to hold the future of our existence in its grasp, fixing and foreshadowing its mold and destiny. In almost every case the noon and evening of life reflect the morning. A religious, virtuous, God-fearing morning predicts a career holy, happy, and useful. On the other hand, youth tainted, stunted, and shaded by sinful indulgence, often transmits a sad and fearful heritage of suffering, sorrow, and remorse, mental and physical, to life's future; crippling its prime, and bringing down the grey hairs of age--if indeed it reach that period--with shame and sorrow to the grave.

Oh! then, seize the golden period, and by prayer and God's Word, by Christ's grace and the Spirit's help, seek its renewal, sanctification and dedication, that you may be like the Savior, a "holy child;" like Josiah, fearing God in your youth; like Samuel, early found in the Temple, hearkening to the call of God and doing His will; like thousands we could mention, of later times, who consecrated the "dew of their youth" to Christ, and gave the first and best to God.

"The kindness of your youth." The early seeking and finding the Lord, He condescends to denominate a kindness shown Him. He seems to lose sight of His own kindness in early giving His Spirit, in early calling by His grace, and to speak only of the kindness done Him in responding to that call and in yielding to that grace. Are you prepared to manifest this kindness to Jesus? It is kindness to Him when you weep in penitence at His feet. It is kindness to Him, when you arise in faith and wash in His precious blood. It is a kindness to Him, when you accept the free gift of His salvation without a work of your own. It is a kindness, when you lay the sheaf of the "first fruits" of your being--intellect, rank, wealth, service--upon the altar of consecration.

"'Tis done! the great transaction's done!
I am my Lord's, and He is mine;
He drew me, and I followed on,
Charmed to confess the voice divine.

"Now rest my long-divided heart,
Fixed on the blissful center rest;
With ashes who would grudge to part,
When called on angels' bread to feast?

"High Heaven that heard that solemn vow,
That vow renewed shall daily hear;
Until in life's latest hour I bow,
And bless in death a bond so dear."

"I remember you." Lord, amid the myriad thoughts and memories that crowd Your mind, do You remember that sacred vow, that solemn hour, that blissful moment, when You and I did became one? Oh! matchless love! oh! infinite long-suffering, to remember it still, after all my sinful and sad forgetfulness of You and of Your love! Here beneath Your cross, let me renew my vow of dedication, consecrate myself afresh to You; devoting more holily and unreservedly than ever the little remnant that is left of this sinful, transient being. Remember your servant, O Lord, for good; and give Your grace that, in hallowed remembrance of his "first love," and of all the long line of Your mercies, he may be faithful unto death, and through Your grace receive the crown of life that fades not away.

THE LORD FAITHFUL, AND HIS WORD TRUE TO THE LAST

"Now I am about to go the way of all the earth. You know with all your heart and soul that not one of all the good promises the Lord your God gave you has failed. Every promise has been fulfilled; not one has failed." Joshua 23:14

There is no testimony to the faithfulness of God in His Word so convincing and touching as that of the dying believer. If ever a man is sincere, it is then. If ever the veil is laid aside and the soul appears real and undisguised, be it a saint or a sinner, it is at that solemn moment. No motive now exists for the false, and no cloud can conceal the true; the coin that has passed current with many for genuine is now found to be counterfeit, and that which many regarded as counterfeit--even the possessor himself--proves to be genuine! Nature now appears to be but nature; and grace, vindicating its true character, proves itself grace. The specious hope dies, and the true hope gathers life; the false faith sinks, and the real rises; and the timid believer, who went doubting and trembling all the way to Jordan's brink, plunges boldly into the river, and passes over to the other side, with the paean of triumph breathing sweetly from his lips, "O Death, where is your sting? O Grave, where is your victory?"

Such is the picture which the position of Joshua now presents to our view. He is standing upon the sunny slope, and before the soles of his feet smite the cold waters, he casts a back glance upon all the way the Lord his God had brought him; and in words the most emphatic and impressive, testifies to the divine faithfulness and unchanging love of his covenant God in making good all His great and precious promises He had so graciously given, "Not one thing has failed of all the good things which the Lord, your God, spoke unto you; all are come to pass."

Such is the divine assurance with which we conclude our daily thoughts. What more precious truth, blended with sweeter melody, could linger upon the ear as we close the volume than this--God's faithfulness in the fulfillment of His Word? Let us look at this truth as confirmed by the experience, first, of the living, and then of the dying believer, for both are God's witnesses.

What is the life of the child of God but a continuous experience of the truth of His Word, and the veracity of His promises? You have, perhaps, been placed in trying circumstances; resources have lessened and demands have increased; your faith has been sharply tried; your spirits depressed; the sky has lowered and the waters have risen; but lo! the Spirit, the Comforter, has guided you to some precious promise which has just met your case. It has touched your heart, moistened your eye, uplifted the pressure, and your whole soul has been, as it were, absorbed in God. And now the harp that hung sad and mute upon the willow is taken down, and thrills with a new song of praise and thanksgiving to the faithfulness of God in the fulfillment of His Word.

Yes, my soul, you can testify to the truth that every sweet invitation and precious promise and loving word of Jesus, upon which He causes your soul to rest in its grief and desolation, has come to pass--not one word has failed. This is a clear proof of God's veracity in the making good His every word of promise. Has He not promised to provide for you? then trust Him. Has He not pledged Himself to guide you? then commit your way to Him. Has He not undertaken to save you? then believe His Word and pray--"Say unto my soul, I am your salvation."

Soon the living witness to the faithfulness of the Lord in His Word will become the dying one. When heart and flesh are failing--when the solemn curtain of eternity is rising--when the eye is darkening, and the pulse is sinking, and earth is receding, and eternity is nearing, and, heaven is opening, oh, then, like Joshua, you shall testify to the unchanging love and faithful word and precious comforts and secure supports of your covenant God and redeeming Savior, as He gently leads you down the valley, radiant with His presence, resounding with your song--up the delectable mountains, home to your Father's House--"Forever with the Lord!"

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

THE GLORY OF THE REDEEMER

Table of Contents

1. The Redeemer, the Revelation of the Father's Glory

2. The Typical Glory of the Redeemer

3. The Prophetical Glory of the Redeemer

4. The Glory of the Redeemer in His Humiliation

5. The Glory of the Redeemer in His Resurrection

6. The Glory of the Redeemer in His Ascension and Exaltation

7. The Glory of the Redeemer in His People

8. The Holy Spirit Glorifying the Redeemer

9. The Glory of the Redeemer in His Second Coming

The Redeemer, the Revelation of the Father's Glory

"The glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ." 2 Cor. 4:6

That God was under any obligation or necessity to reveal Himself to man, is an idea that cannot for a moment be seriously entertained. It will follow, then, that such a revelation of Himself, of His mind and will, to fallen creatures having been made, it must be regarded as astounding act of His sovereign mercy, irrespective of any claim whatever arising from the creature man. The source where it originates must be entirely within God Himself. The great point which now lies before us bears upon the mode of the Divine revelation; and resolves itself into the single and important inquiry- What forms the most perfect revelation of the glory of God to man? It is the design of this chapter, in humbly attempting an answer to this question, to show that the only full and perfect revelation of the glory of God is seen in the Lord Jesus; that apart from a spiritual and experimental knowledge of the Son there can be no true, adequate, and saving knowledge of the Father. To clear up this momentous matter the more thoroughly, it will be proper that we first demonstrate THE UTTER IMPOSSIBILITY OF A CORRECT KNOWLEDGE OF GOD OUTSIDE OF CHRIST; this will have prepared us for a more full consideration of our main subject.

The most palpable evidence and fearful result of man's fall from original holiness is the deep and awful ignorance of God, of His character, perfections, and moral government, in which that apostasy has involved him. It was the glory and the happiness of Adam that, before his revolt, not a cloud rested upon his mind tending to obscure the most clear and perfect views of the Divine character which it was possible for a finite creature to possess. He knew God sufficiently for all the purposes of a life wholly conformed to His will, and supremely devoted to His glory. There was no intellectual darkness in his understanding, no moral corruption of his will, nor of his affections. The whole soul constituted as it were an orb of the most beauteous light, kindled by God Himself, and reflecting its beams of beauty on every object in nature. It is true that, regarding his knowledge of God, nature was his teacher, or rather the medium through which he was taught; that impressions and perceptions of the Divine existence and glory were received mainly through the imagery of sensible objects; that the "invisible things of God were clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead." Yet this

affords no solid argument in favor of a perfect knowledge of God in nature; for let it be remembered that nature, as a mirror of the Divine glory, was framed for man as innocent, and not for man as guilty; that when by his own act this mirror was defaced and destroyed, with it was destroyed all true natural knowledge of Jehovah. Had the creature continued in his state of perfect rectitude, then no other revelation of God would have been needed; but throwing around him the pall of guilt, he necessarily threw around him the pall of ignorance. And before there can be clear and perfect light in the soul of the character and perfections of God, there must be a removal of that sin which else must eternally separate God and man. Hence the absolute necessity of just such a revelation of the Father as Jesus, the "true Light, which enlightens every man that comes into the world."

The most difficult, perhaps, because the most humbling lesson which the world has ever had to learn, has been the nothingness of its own wisdom, and the folly of its unaided endeavors to find out God to perfection. Earnest as have been its desires, ardent as have been its aspirations, and laborious as have been its endeavors, the "unknown God" is the only inscription written upon its altars. The ancient philosophers prided themselves on their superior attainments in this study; but to what did their knowledge of God, underived from revelation, amount? What was the actual result of their profound researches, patient inquiries, acute reasonings, and subtle disputations? Let the apostle reply: "Professing themselves to be wise men, they became fools." Even worse than this. Not only "by wisdom the world knew not God," but the imperfect knowledge it did gather of Him in nature, so far from expanding their mental conceptions of the Divine character, and elevating their lives to a conformity to the Divine will, seemed but to lead them into the deepest and grossest idolatry! "Professing themselves to be wise men, they became fools, and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and four footed beasts, and creeping things." What an affecting picture! Oh that the proud eulogist of the dignity of human nature would study it! What an instructive lesson! Oh that the vain seeker of God outside of Christ would learn it! Here was the world, at an age when civilization and philosophy, poetry and the arts, flourished in a pre-eminent degree, and were exerting a softening and ameliorating influence upon society, yet utterly abandoned to superstition and idolatry. Idolatry in its darkest clouds was settling upon its moral landscape; idolatry in its gloomiest attributes was entwined with its history; idolatry in its grossest features was blended with its literature; idolatry in its most insinuating forms was advanced with the creations of its poetic genius; idolatry of the most degrading and sensual kind, was enthroned in the seats of its philosophers, was dignified by their approval, inculcated in their lectures, and sanctioned by their example. The histories of Egypt, of Greece, and of Rome, testify that "the world by its wisdom knew not God,"- that after every expedient had been adopted, and every experiment had been tried- after the triumphs of war, and the arts of peace, and the wisdom of legislation, and the lessons of philosophy, and the inculcations of religion, had done their utmost, man was still left ignorant of God, and consequently steeped in guilt, and bowed in grief, the slave of every vice, and the sport of every sorrow. Thus did God "destroy the wisdom of the wise, and bring to no thing the understanding of the prudent." And thus, too, will He ever confound the wisdom and abase the pride of that man, who, towering on the Babel of his own unassisted research, would find Him out to perfection who is the "blessed and only Potentate, the King of kings, and Lord of lords; who only has immortality, dwelling in the light which no man can approach unto; whom no man has seen, nor can see."

But we proceed to the main subject or this chapter, which is to set forth the Lord Jesus in His person and work as constituting the only true and perfect revelation of God to man. The great and precious truth we are now to contemplate is introduced to us in these words of the inspired Evangelist: "No man has seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared him." Of the vast importance of a correct knowledge of God, need we speak at length? It is a truth which finds an assent in well-near every judgment. Every awakened conscience desires it; every believing mind admits it; every tried soul feels it. It lies at the basis of salvation; it forms the material of happiness; it supplies the true motive to holiness; it is the groundwork and the prelude of future and eternal glory. May the eye of faith be now so anointed by the Spirit as to behold with a clear and unclouded vision the "light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ!"

There are THREE DIFFERENT MEDIUMS THROUGH WHICH GOD IS SEEN. The first, to which we have already in general terms referred, is creation. Now, while we are far from underrating any sources of evidence which the wisdom and goodness of God had given to guide our research, we must yet maintain in strong language that the knowledge of God gleaned from this source is imperfect, and meets not the cravings of our nature. It is true, that it demonstrates the fact of God's existence, but here it stops. It tells us that God is, but it tells us not perfectly what God is. It proves to us clearly, undeniably, God's being; but it unfolds not the relation in which that Being stands to us. It gives, so to speak, a glimpse into the essential properties of God, but it reveals nothing of His moral perfections. Creation, even in its fallen state, is a beautiful piece of workmanship, in which we see, not only that there is a God, but that He is infinite in wisdom, omnipotent in power, great in goodness; but as a fallen creature, I need more than this. And what, as a guilty creature, I pant to know of God I find not, though I go in search of it through the length and breadth, the height and depth, of this beautiful territory of God's handy-work. Let me simply illustrate the thought. I take in my hands an exquisite piece of mechanism; I examine its various parts, ponder its exact movements, and, laying it down, admire the wisdom and applaud the skill displayed in its construction; and this is all that I can discover of the maker. For anything that I know, the moral elements which compose his character may be of the lowest order. Yes, the very individual whose workmanship has awakened my wonder and called forth my praise, may be my sworn, my deadly foe, cherishing in his bosom the elements of hatred, and ruminating in his mind the plan of my destruction! Now that we have a partial discovery of God, of His wisdom, and power, and goodness, in creation, is not enough to satisfy the mind convinced that God is holy, to quiet the conscience convicted of sin, and to soothe a heart bowed down with godly grief. The grand inquiries with such a soul are, "How can I be just with God? How can I satisfy His justice, appease His wrath, and propitiate His regard? How may I know that He is my God, my reconciled Father? How may I be assured that He loves, has pardoned and accepted me, and that I shall be with Him forever?" Traverse in imagination the extent of creation, wander over the most beautiful landscape, pluck the most fragrant flower, select the most costly gem, glide upon the surface of the fairest lake, scale the highest mountain, soar to the farthermost star, still the momentous question rushes back upon the mind, "How may I stand with acceptance before this holy Lord God?" Poor anxious searcher for peace, all nature unites in testifying, "It is not in me! It is not in me!"

The second medium through which God has seen fit to discover Himself to man is His Law. But here again are we compelled to acknowledge the defectiveness of the revelation, as far as its degree extends. The knowledge of God derived from this source must necessarily be partial and shadowy. It is true, the holiness of God is discovered in its precepts, and the justice of God is inferred from its threatenings; but the law can never be more nor less than what the Holy Spirit has declared it to be, the "ministration of condemnation." As a fallen creature, revolving the great matter of the soul's salvation, it can afford no satisfactory reply to the great question, "What must I do to be saved?" It breathes not a sound of mercy to a poor sinner; not one kind, soothing, saving accent falls from its lips. It speaks of death, but not of life; of condemnation, but not of salvation. It asserts the authority, reflects the holiness, and denounces the vengeance of God: but not one beam of hope springing from His mercy, His grace, or His love, does it throw upon the gloomy path of the soul passing on to judgment, bowed down beneath the "terrors of the Lord." Reader! are you seeking salvation by the law? Alas for you! How can that save which only condemns? How can that give life which in its nature and design is but the minister of death? Mount Sinai is no refuge for your soul, poor, guilty, condemned, heart-broken sinner. All is thunder and lightning, tempest and darkness. Come down from the mount before you are consumed. Abandon as utterly futile and deceptive all your legal expectations of acceptance, and betake yourself to the one only refuge of your guilty soul- the cross of the incarnate God.

We are now conducted to the consideration of the great point. We have seen that upon an extensive scale a great and fatal experiment had been made by man to know God and happiness. That God existed, he had every demonstrative proof. The same evidence which authenticated His being, proved Him to possess great and glorious attributes; and the manner in which these attributes were displayed gave some insight into His character, "so that they are without excuse." Wearied as the creature was with a laborious, and dispirited with a fruitless, research, God, in the depths of infinite mercy and wisdom, takes the work of salvation into His own hands. He sends His only begotten and well-beloved Son into the world, and declares Him to be the perfect revelation of Himself to man. On this important truth Jesus Himself laid great stress. Let the following declaration suffice. To a question of difficulty raised by Thomas– Jesus answered, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you really knew me, you would know my Father as well. From now on, you do know him and have seen him." Philip said, "Lord, show us the Father and that will be enough for us." Jesus answered: "Don't you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, 'Show us the Father'? Don't you believe that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me? The words I say to you are not just my own. Rather, it is the Father, living in me, who is doing his work. Believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; or at least believe on the evidence of the miracles themselves." John 14:6-11.

Let us, in a few particulars, unfold the glorious and all-important truth contained in these words. And in the first place, we find, on examination of the sacred word, that the Lord JESUS EMBODIES THE GLORY OF THE GODHEAD. In other words, we behold the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus. Having devoted an entire chapter of this work to a scriptural exposition of the Deity of Christ, it will not be deemed necessary that we enlarge upon the doctrine in the present connection. And yet we are here presented with a further confirmation of this cardinal truth, demanding more than a mere cursory glance. Of the spirituality of the Divine nature, we can form no just nor definite conception. All our ideas of it must necessarily be unintelligible, vague, and shadowy. Referring to this impossibility, and, in language of condescending adaptation to our sensible view of objects, Jesus says of His Father, "You have neither heard His voice at any time, nor seen His shape." Ignorant of this inspired truth, and yet with a quenchless thirst ever desiring such a conception of the Infinite Spirit as would afford a resting-place for the mind, an object on which faith could repose, and round which the affections could entwine, man has been beguiled into atheism and idolatry of the most debasing and fearful character. Framing his conceptions of spirit after his own low and depraved idea of matter, he has "changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and four-footed beasts, and creeping things."

But God has revealed Himself. He has stooped to our nature, and, in the person of His incarnate Son, has embodied the spirituality of His being with all its Divine and glorious attributes. Behold with what clearness and power this truth is set forth. "Christ, who is the image of God." "Who, being the brightness of His glory, and the express image of His person." "Who is the image of the invisible God." Could any single point be more distinctly stated and more conclusively proved than this, that our Divine and adorable Redeemer constitutes, in His person, a perfect revelation of the essential glory of the Godhead? All that we clearly, savingly know of God, is just the measure of our acquaintance with this truth. Jesus brings God near. "You are near, O Lord." Oh, how near! "They shall call His name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us." The most stupendous, glorious truth which created mind ever grasped is involved in this wondrous declaration, "Emmanuel, God with us." With what glory does it invest the Bible! what a foundation does it lay for faith! what substance does it impart to salvation! and what a good hope does it place before the believing soul! God is with us in Christ, with us in the character of our reconciled Father, with us in every step of our journey to heaven, with us to guide in perplexity, to soothe in sorrow, to comfort in bereavement, to rescue in danger, to shield in temptation, to provide in need, to support in death, and to conduct us safely to glory. My soul! fall prostrate in the dust before the majesty of this amazing, this precious truth; adore the wisdom that has revealed it, and admire the grace that makes it yours!

The great revelation of the Godhead, Jesus, is equally the revelation of all the PERFECTIONS Of the Godhead. Is "God the only wise?" Jesus is the glory of that wisdom- "Christ the wisdom of God." He is the masterpiece of Divine wisdom; its highest manifestation; its most perfect, finished production. We trace the lesser forms of wisdom in nature; we ascend a scale higher in providence; we reach the summit in grace. Here we launch into a boundless immensity, and, overwhelmed with its greatness, can but exclaim, "Oh the depth of the riches, both of the wisdom and knowledge of God!"

Behold this wisdom, as it shines in the recovery of lost and ruined man, by Christ. Here is a manifestation infinitely transcending in greatness and glory the first creation of man in holiness. In the first creation, God had nothing to undo- no dilapidated temple to take down, no occupant to dispossess, no ruin to repair, no rubbish to remove, no enemy to oppose. "He spoke, and it was done." The materials which composed the first human temple were ready to His hands, unfallen and pure. The very dust that He took to frame it with was holy. The life He breathed into it was holy. The air with which He surrounded it was holy. The paradise in which He placed it was holy. The breezes that played upon it, the sunbeam that gilded it, the fountains that watered it, all, all were in harmony with the spotless purity of God, and His glorious creature, man.

But in the re-creation of man, how vastly different! This beautiful temple is a ruin- dilapidated and fallen. God is ejected; another and an antagonist occupant dwells in it, and enmity to its Creator is written in letters of darkness upon every part, and over every inlet. In rebuilding this structure, all things were to be created anew. "Behold," says God, "I create a new thing in the earth." It was a new and profounder thought of infinite wisdom, unheard, unseen before. Fallen man was to be raised- lost man was to be recovered- sin was to be pardoned- the sinner saved, and God eternally glorified. Now were the treasures of wisdom, which for ages had been hidden in Christ, brought forth. Resources that had never been drawn upon were now revealed. Infinite wisdom had never developed such vast wealth, had never appeared clothed in such glory, had never shone forth so majestic, so peerless, and Divine. Oh, how must angels and archangels have wondered, admired, and loved, as this brighter discovery of God burst in glory upon their astonished vision- as this new temple of man rose in loveliness before their view!

The first and greatest display of infinite wisdom was in the construction of the model upon which the new temple regenerated man was to be formed. This model was nothing less than the mysteriously constituted person of the Son of God. In this, its highest sense, is "Christ the wisdom of God." "A body have You prepared me." This was the great "tabernacle of God which was with men." The inhabitation of Deity in that prepared temple of clay formed the masterpiece of Divine wisdom. Here it shone forth in full-orbed majesty. Gaze upon the living picture! Look at Emmanuel, God with us- God in our nature, God in our accursed nature- God in our tried nature- God in our sorrowful nature- God in our suffering nature- God in our tempted nature- yet untouched, untainted by sin. Is not this a fathomless depth of Divine wisdom? To have transcended it, would seem to have transcended Deity itself.

The next step in the unfolding of this Divine wisdom, is the spiritual restoration of man to a state corresponding in its moral lineaments to this Divine and perfect model. This is accomplished solely by "Christ crucified, the wisdom of God." And here, again, does the glory of God's wisdom shine in the person and work of Jesus. Every step in the development of this grand expedient establishes His character as the "only wise God," whose "understanding is infinite;" while it augments our knowledge, and exalts our views of the Lord Jesus, as making known the Father. Here was a way of salvation for perishing sinners, harmonizing with every perfection of Jehovah, sustaining the highest honor of His government, bringing to Him the richest glory, and securing to its subjects, as the rich bequest of grace, happiness eternal and inconceivably great. It was a thought, oh how like God- a scheme, oh how worthy of Him! We can scarcely imagine Him to have gone further- that in thus fathoming the depth of infinite wisdom, a lower deep could be found. Redemption, by the obedience and death of the incarnate God, was so honoring to the Divine law, and satisfactory to Divine justice, was so harmonizing to the attributes, and so illustrative of every glorious perfection of the Divine nature, and in its results so suited to the highest ends of human happiness, that it was the interest of the Divine government without demur to accept it. Oh, how truly did God here "work all things after the counsel of His own will!" How has He "abounded towards us in all wisdom and prudence!" In Jesus' sacrificial obedience and death, we see sin fully punished, and the sinner fully saved; we see the law perfectly honored, and the transgressor completely justified; we see justice entirely satisfied, and mercy glorified to its highest extent- we see death inflicted according to the extreme tenor of the curse, and so vindicating to the utmost the truth and holiness of God, and yet life- present and eternal life- given to all whom it is the purpose and grace of the Father to save. Tell us, is not Jesus the great glory of the Divine wisdom?

Were we to survey the effects of this manifold wisdom on individual character, it would still further exalt our views of Christ as the wisdom of God. To see a man "becoming a fool that he may be wise," -his reason bowing to revelation, his knowledge and attainments laid beneath the cross- his own righteousness surrendered- "counting all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus the Lord;" and as a little child receiving the kingdom of God, oh, how glorious does appear in this the wisdom of God, the light of which shines in Jesus' face! Behold how determined is the Father, in every step of His grace, to humble the creature, and to exalt, magnify, and crown His co-equal Son, Lord of all!

One step more. We see Jesus the mediatorial Head of all wisdom and counsel to the Church. "It pleased the Father that in Him should all fulness dwell." "In whom," says the same apostle, "are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge." He is the "Wonderful Counselor," of whom it was thus prophesied: "The Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon Him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge, and of the fear of the Lord." Oh Divine and precious truth! unutterably precious to the soul having no resources adequate to the great purposes of knowing self, Christ, and God; of salvation, sanctification, and guidance.

Reader, are you earnestly desiring the "wisdom that is profitable to direct" you at this moment? Acquaint now yourself with Jesus, in whom all the treasures of this wisdom are hidden. What is His language to you? The same which Moses, the great legislator, spoke to the people of Israel: "The cause that is too hard for you, bring it unto me, and I will hear it." What a cheering invitation is this! A greater than Moses speaks it; and speaks it to you. You find your case baffling to human wisdom, too difficult for the acutest skill of man- take it, then, to Jesus. How sweetly He speaks- "bring it unto me!" One simple exercise of faith upon His word, will remove all that is difficult, make simple all that is complex, and lucid all that is dark in your case. With Him nothing is impossible. To Him all is transparent. Knowing the end from the beginning, there can be nothing unforeseen in it to His mind, by His prescience all is known, and by His wisdom all is provided for. His precious promise is, "I will bring the blind by a way that they knew not: I will lead them in paths that they have not known: I will make darkness light before them, and crooked things straight. These things will I do unto them, and not forsake them." Thus is Jesus "made of God unto us wisdom," that all our perplexities may be guided, and all our doubts may be solved, and all our steps may be directed, by one on whom the anointing of the "spirit of wisdom and understanding" rests "without measure;" and who, from experience, is able to lead, having trodden every step before us. "And when He puts forth His own sheep, He goes before them, and the sheep follow Him." "If any man lack wisdom let him ask it from God, who gives liberally:" let him repair to Christ, whom God has set up from everlasting, "to the intent that now unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places might be known by the Church the manifold wisdom of God."

In the person and work of Christ, the HOLINESS Of God is revealed with equal power and luster. It is only through this medium that we possess the most clear and perfect demonstration of this Divine and awful perfection. From nature and from providence the evidence of its existence, and the illustration of its nature, come to us more in the form of inference than of positive declaration. Sin has obliterated all traces of holiness which once existed; not a foot of this vast domain, not a shrub, nor flower, nor creature remains, to tell what the "beauties of holiness" once were. Not a link binds the present with the world's primeval history. Sin has severed the chain, has created a vast and fearful chasm, engulfing all that was ever holy and beautiful in this now fallen and defaced creation. And yet, even from its present condition, we form some faint idea of what it once was. The near approximation to a perfect state which we find in some departments of nature, the constant ascending towards that state which we find in others, together with the retributions of Divine justice which sometimes appal the mind in the providential dealings of God with men, afford sufficient data from which to infer that God is holy.

In the study of the Divine law, we ascend a step higher in a more clear discovery of this great truth. Here we have God's own solemn asseveration that He is holy. The evidence is not inferential, but positive; nothing is left to conjecture, nothing to foster doubt. Jehovah declares that He is of "purer eyes than to behold iniquity." The law which was given to man as the rule of his obedience, which, after his fall, was more permanently renewed upon tables of stone, superadded to the ceremonial law, to which were appended numerous sacrifices importing God's holy indignation against sin, and the necessity of a more perfect sacrifice for its expiation, must have produced upon the mind deep and solemn convictions of God's spotless purity.

But the truth of His essential holiness needed a more clear and impressive discovery and illustration; and God has given it. Where was there ever such a demonstration of God's infinite hatred of sin, and His fixed and solemn determination to punish it, as is seen in the cross of Christ? Put your shoes from off your feet; draw near and contemplate this "great sight." Who was the sufferer? God's only begotten and well-beloved Son! His own Son! In addition to the infinitely tender love of the Father, there was the clear knowledge of the truth, that He who was enduring the severest inflictions of His wrath was innocent, guiltless, righteous- that He, Himself, had never broken His law, had never opposed His authority, had never run counter to His will; but had always done those things which pleased Him. At whose hands did He suffer? From demons, from men? They were but the agents; the moving cause was God Himself. "It pleased the Lord to bruise Him: He has put Him to grief." His own Father unsheathed the sword: He inflicted the blow: He kindled the fierce flame: He prepared the bitter cup. "Awake, O sword, against my Shepherd, and against the man that is my fellow, says the Lord of hosts: smite the Shepherd." "The cup which my Father has given me, shall I not drink it?" "My God, my God, why have You forsaken me?" And what were the nature and degree of His sufferings? Imagine, if we can, what must have been the outpouring of God's wrath upon the whole Church for all the sins of that Church through eternity! Can you compute the amount of her transgressions? Can you conceive the degree of her punishment? Can you measure the duration of her woe? Impossible! Then, who can tell what Jesus endured, when standing in the place and as the Surety of His Church, in the solemn hour of atonement, and in the day of God's fierce anger? Never had God so manifested before, and never will He so manifest again, His essential holiness- His spotless purity- the inconceivable heinousness of sin- His utter hatred of it, and His solemn purpose to punish it with the severest inflictions of His wrath. Never did this glorious perfection of His being blaze out in such overwhelming glory, as on that dark day, and in the cross of the incarnate God. Had He emptied the full vials of His wrath upon the world, sweeping it before the fury of His anger, and consigning it to woeful and eternal punishment, it would not have presented to the universe so vivid, so impressive, and so awful a demonstration of the nature and glory of His holiness, of His infinite abhorrence of sin, and the necessity why He should punish it, as He has presented in the humiliation, sufferings, and death of His beloved Son. What new and ineffably transcendent views of infinite purity must have sprung up in the pure minds even of the spirits in glory, as bending from their thrones they fixed their astonished gaze upon the cross of the suffering Son of God!

In Jesus shines the awful glory of Divine JUSTICE. Justice is but another term for holiness. It is holiness in strict and awful exercise; and yet it is a distinct perfection of Jehovah, in the revelation and acknowledgment of which He will be glorified. The basis of the atonement is righteousness, or justice. So the apostle argues: "Whom God has set forth to be a propitiation through faith in His blood, to declare His righteousness for the remission of sins." Previous to the apostasy of man, the only revelation of God's justice was the threatening annexed to the law: "In the day that you eat thereof, you shall surely die." Subsequently to the fall, the appointment of a bloody ritual- the institution of expiatory sacrifices, not only recognized the existence, but illustrated the nature of this awful attribute. There are those who madly dream of acceptance with the holy God, at the expense of this perfection of His nature. In vain do they acknowledge Him in some of His perfections if they deny Him in others, trampling them with indifference beneath their feet. Such was Cain in the offering which he presented to the Lord; there was an acknowledgment of His dominion and goodness, but no distinct recognition of His holiness, no solemn apprehension of His justice, no acknowledgment of guilt, no confession of sin. The claims of God's moral government were entirely set aside, and by consequence, the necessity of a mediator totally denied. Not so Abel; his offering honored God in that in which He most delights to be honored, that is, in His spotless purity, His inflexible justice, and His infinite grace in the appointment of the Savior for the pardon of iniquity, transgression, and sin. Therefore it is recorded, and we do well deeply to ponder it, that "he offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain." But this was only the pre-figurement of God's justice -the mere type and shadow. The great antitype and embodiment are seen in Jesus offering Himself up a whole burned-offering to God amid the fearful blaze which was beheld ascending from the summit of Mount Calvary. Then did this perfection appear in its most fearful form- Jesus bearing sin- Jesus enduring the curse of the law- Jesus sustaining the wrath of His Father- Jesus surrendering His holy soul a sacrifice for man's transgressions. Oh, never, never did Divine justice so imperatively assert its claims and so loudly demand its rights- never did it so strictly exact its penalty, and so fearfully grapple with its victim, as now; and never before nor since had such a sacrifice been bound to its altar- never did Jehovah appear so just, as at the moment the fire descended and consumed His only-begotten and well-beloved Son!

The glory of God's TRUTH is reflected with equal luster in the person and work of Christ. It is the perfection of a perfect being that He does not, yes, that He cannot change. God is the perfect being. It is His perfection that He is true, essentially and immutably true. He can as soon cease to be, as cease to be true. His truth is the golden thread which unites all His perfections; it is the glory and perfection of all, that all are based upon and held together in perfect and eternal harmony by truth. "It is impossible for God to lie;" "He cannot deny Himself," are among the strongest assertions which the Holy Spirit has made of His veracity. To deviate the shadow of a shade from His word- from His oath- from His promise- from His covenant- would be to undeify Himself. Now as God cannot cease to be- that being an impossibility- it is equally impossible that He should deny Himself. Consider, too, what the converse of this proposition would be in its consequences to the child of God. How disastrous to all the blessed and glorious hopes of the believer! For, what repose could the soul find in His love, what confidence in His power, if truth, the basis and the security of all, were lacking? What a cloud would overshadow every perfection of His being, and how soon would He cease to be what He is so beautifully declared to be, "a God of truth and without iniquity, just and right is He!"

Of the glory of this Divine perfection, the Lord Jesus is the grand revelation. Nowhere does it shine forth with such unveiled majesty as in Jesus. Nowhere does God appear so true, so gloriously true, as in Christ. "I am," says He, "the truth;" not merely true, but the truth. "The law was given by Moses, but grace acid truth came by Jesus Christ." The same inspired evangelist represents Him as dwelling among us in the flesh, "full of grace and truth."

It pleased the gracious and sin-pardoning God to meet our guilty and conscience-stricken parents, immediately after the fall, with the comforting and gracious promise that "the seed of the woman" -His eternal Son, the everlasting Mediator- should "bruise the serpent's head." On this Divine assurance of recovering and saving mercy they rested. Believing in this, as they doubtless did, they were saved, "the first-fruits unto God and the Lamb." They rested, let it be emphatically spoken, not upon the bare letter of the promise, but upon its substance; not merely upon the grace promised, but upon the truth of God in the promise. The bare letter of a promise is no resting-place for a believing soul; it can convey no solid consolation and support. Thus far, and no farther, did the Jews get, to whom pertained the promises. This is all that they saw in the types and promises, which set forth "God's unspeakable gift." They rested in the mere letter. They saw not Christ in them; and seeing not Christ to be their substance and glory, to them "the promises of God were made of none effect." Now God has fulfilled His ancient promise. The word He spoke to Adam, He has made good to the letter to us his posterity. It is true, the vision of grace and glory seemed for a while to tarry, but it tarried only for its appointed time. It is true, the vista was long and dreary, through which patriarchs, seers, and prophets beheld it. The star of hope was often scarcely seen in the dim distance, and frequently seemed for a moment entirely quenched in darkness. Time rolled heavily along- a period of four thousand years elapsed- but true to His word, faithful to His promise, "when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth His Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons." Oh how gloriously did the truth of Jehovah shine in the person of the babe of Bethlehem! How did it gather brightness as the holy child Jesus increased in stature and in favor with God and man! And to what meridian splendor did it blaze forth, when on Calvary it united with holiness and justice, in finishing the great work of the Church's redemption! Then was it that "mercy and truth met together, righteousness and peace kissed each other."

Jesus is the grand evidence that God is true. Faith needs, faith asks no more. Here as on a stable foundation it rests. Its eye ever "looking unto Jesus," it can thread its way- often sunless and starless- through a dreary and an intricate wilderness. It can travel through trials, endure temptations, bow meekly to disappointments, bear up under cross providences, and sustain the shock of fearful conflicts, trusting in the God of the covenant, resting on His promise and oath, and implicitly believing His word, because it sees in Jesus the ever-living witness that God is true.

O you of doubting and fearful heart! looking at the waves rolling at your feet, and well-near sinking beneath their swellings, exclaiming, "Will the Lord cast off forever? and will He be favorable no more? Is His mercy clean gone forever? does His promise fail for evermore? Has God forgotten to be gracious? has He in anger shut up His tender mercies?" behold the glory of God's truth beaming in the face of Jesus Christ, and doubt no more! So long as Jesus lives- lives as your Advocate, as your High Priest, as your Representative in the court of heaven, all is yours which the covenant promises, and which His mediation secures. The "promises of God are all yes and amen in Christ Jesus." Never will He break His oath, nor falsify His word, nor alter the thing that has gone out of His mouth. "Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my word shall not pass away." God says it, and let faith believe it, because He says it. So essential is it to your comfort, that I would repeat the caution- in all your dealings with the Divine promises, avoid a Jewish faith. Do not so much look at the grace of the promise, or at the thing promised- precious as both are, -as at God in the promise. The promise is the heart of your Father speaking; it is the faithfulness of your Father performing. Rest, then, not in the blessing promised, but in the veracity of Him who promises it, and then shall your faith have confidence towards God.

But we must not close this imperfect glance at some of the more prominent perfections of God as revealed in Christ, without for a moment including in the classification that glorious one of LOVE. It is a self-evident truth, that as God only knows, so He only can reveal His own love. It is a hidden love, veiled deep within the recesses of His infinite heart, yes, it seems to compose His very essence, for "God is love," -not more lovely and loving, but love itself, essential love. Who, then, can reveal it but Himself? How dim are the brightest views, and how low the loftiest conceptions of the love of God, as possessed by men of mere natural and speculative knowledge of Divine things! They read God's goodness, even in nature, with a half-closed eye, and spell it in providence with a stammering tongue. Of His essential love- His redeeming love, of His great and glorious manifestation of His love in Jesus, they know nothing. The eyes of their understanding have not been opened; and "God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness," has not yet "shined into their hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ."

But God has declared His own love. Jesus is its glorious revelation. "God showed how much he loved us by sending his only Son into the world so that we might have eternal life through him. This is real love. It is not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to take away our sins." Oh what an infinite sea of love now broke upon our guilty and rebellious world, wafting in upon its rolling tide God's only begotten Son! That must have been great love, love infinite, love unsearchable, love surpassing all thought- which could constrain the Father to give Jesus to die for us, "while we were yet sinners." It is the great loss of the believer, that faith eyes with so dim a vision this amazing love of God in the gift of Jesus. I marvel not that, dealing so little with the Father's love in the greater gift, faith should stagger at His promise of the less. We have transactions so seldom and so unbelievingly with the cross, that we have need perpetually to recur to the apostle's cheering words, written as it kindly and condescendingly to meet this infirmity of our faith, "He that spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?"

But, behold God's love! See how He has inscribed this glorious perfection of His nature in letters of blood drawn from the heart of Jesus. His love was so great, that nothing short of the surrender to the death of His beloved Son could give an adequate expression of its immensity. "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son." Here was the greatest miracle of love. Here was its most stupendous achievement- here its most brilliant victory- and here its most costly and precious offering. Seeing us fallen, obnoxious to the curse of the law, exposed to its dreadful penalty, guilty of innumerable sins, and deserving of as many deaths, yet how did it yearn to save us! How did it heave, and pant, and strive, and pause not, until it revealed a way infinitely safe for God and man; securing glory to every Divine attribute in the highest degree, and happiness to the creature, immense, unspeakable, and eternal. "Herein is love!" as though John would say, "and nowhere else but here." That God should punish the innocent for the guilty- that He should exact the blood of His Son to cancel the guilt of His rebels- that He should lay an infinite weight of wrath on His soul, in order to lay an infinite weight of love on ours- that He should sacrifice His life of priceless value for ours, worthless, forfeited, and doomed- that He should not only give His Son, but should bruise Him, put Him to grief, afflict Him, should make His soul an offering for sin- that the Lord of glory should become a man of sorrows- the Lord of life should die- and the Heir of all things should be as he that serves." Oh depth of love unfathomable! Oh height of love unsearchable! Oh length and breadth of love unmeasurable! Oh love of God which surpasses knowledge!

And how shall we set forth the love of the Redeemer- the deep and precious love of Christ? We can only say, it is equal in its eternity, its immensity, its freeness, and its unchangeableness, with the Father's love. Persuasion did not induce Him to undertake redemption. Compulsion did not bring Him to the cross. His own love constrained Him. Love for His Church, His bride, bore Him on its soft wings, from the highest throne in glory to the deepest abasement on earth. How forcibly and touchingly was His love depicted in His attitude, when on the eve of suffering- "Jesus therefore, knowing all things that should come upon Him, went forth." He not only knew that death awaited Him, but with equal prescience He knew all the circumstances of ignominy with which that death would be attended. The storm, the outskirts of which had already touched Him, was now thickening and darkening, each moment concentrating its elements of destruction, and preparing for the tremendous outburst. Yet He went forth, as if eager to meet it's woeful horrors, not with the fame-panting spirit of Achilles, when he hastened to the Trojan war, knowing that he should fall there, but with the irresistible power and constraint of His own love, which would have nerved Him for a thousand deaths, had His Father's law demanded, and the salvation of His Church required it. "Christ also has loved us, and has given Himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God, for a sweet-smelling savor."

And now, beloved, with this ocean of mercy rolling its swelling waves at your feet, each billow as it breaks murmuring in the sweetest cadence, "God is love," can you for a moment question the wise, gracious, tender conduct towards you, of that Father from whose heart this ocean flows? Look at the cross; behold His precious Gift transfixed to it, and that by His own hand, and for your sins; then look at your present circumstances, survey your needs, your trials, your chastisements, your bereavements, your heart-sickening, heart-breaking tribulations, and know that God still is love. If He had love strong enough, deep enough, to give you Jesus, to release Him from His bosom, and to permit Him to be affixed to yonder accursed tree for your iniquities, has He not love enough to bow His ear to your cry, and His heart to your sorrow? Will He not rescue you from this difficulty, deliver you out of this trouble, shield you in this temptation, supply this need, and support and comfort you in this grief? O yes, He will! doubt it not! The cross of Calvary is a standing pledge- standing until sin and guilt, need and woe, shall be known no more- that God, who "spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, will with Him freely give us all things " necessary to our good, and promotive of His glory.

In conducting the chapter to a close, we remark, first, how defective and fallacious is all knowledge of God outside of Christ. Examine closely, and in the light of the revealed word, the source and character of your professed acquaintance with the nature, character, and perfections of God. Ponder seriously this solemn declaration of Christ Himself, "No man knows the Son, but the Father; nor knows any man the Father, but the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal Him." Has your knowledge of God overwhelmed you with a sense of your sinfulness? Have you caught such a view of the spotless purity, the immaculate holiness of His nature, as to compel you to exclaim, "Woe is me! for I am undone, because I am a man of unclean lips, for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts; wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes." Has your study of his law forced upon your mind the deep and solemn conviction that you are a fallen, ruined, lost, guilty, condemned sinner, at this moment lying under the wrath of God, and exposed to future and everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and the glory of His power? Has it laid you beneath the cross of Christ? Has it brought you to His blood and righteousness for pardon and acceptance? Has it led you utterly to renounce all self-trust, self-confidence, self-boasting, and to accept of Jesus as "made of God unto you wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption?" If it has not wrought this for you, your knowledge of God is but as "sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal." "This," says Christ, "is life eternal, that they might know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent." If you know not the Son, you know not the Father. "No man knows the Father, but he to whom the Son shall reveal Him," Jesus, Himself, has declared.

Consider well the mercy of having transactions with such a God in such a Christ. A God so holy and just, so good and wise, in a Christ so truly human, so spotless, so near, so dear, and precious! God in Christ! Oh the immensity of the truth! Oh the glory of the revelation! That God reconciled, one with the believer; all His feelings love, all His thoughts peace, and all His dealings parental; each perfection harmonizing in the most perfect agreement with all the others, to secure the highest amount of good here, and of happiness unspeakable and eternal hereafter.

"To know the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ, is both a fruitful and a comfortable knowledge. We know the pattern we must walk by; we know the life we must live by; we know the treasure we must be supplied by; we know whom we have believed; we know whom we may be bold with, in all straits and distresses; we know God in Christ, full of love, full of compassion, full of ears to hear us, full of eyes to watch over us, full of hands to fight for us, full of tongues to commune with us, full of power to preserve us, full of grace to transform us, full of fidelity to keep covenant with us, full of wisdom to conduct us, full of redemption to save us, and full of glory to reward us."

How precious to us should the Gospel be which reveals this great truth! These are days in which it behooves the true saints to set a high value on the Gospel. More precious should it be to them than their dearest earthly interest; nothing can compensate for its loss. And that there is a danger of its waning glory, if not of its being entirely lost to this country, who does not see? The prediction of John Owen seems fast hastening to its fulfilment. "The time will come," says that holy and eminent divine of a former century, "when a faithful minister of the Gospel will be more scarce and precious than a bar of gold." Already has this famine of the true word of God commenced! How few there are who preach the undiluted Gospel, who set forth the full Christ- who proclaim the finished and free salvation! How few, forming their ministry upon the apostolic model, can affirm with Paul, "My speech and my preaching are not with enticing words of man's wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power!" How few, disdaining artificial embellishment, and scorning the applause of men won by a vain show of intellect and eloquence, preach that simple truth of which Jesus is the Author, the Substance, the Glory, the Power, and the End- purely, boldly, faithfully, affectionately, uncompromisingly! How sadly, how painfully, is the Lord Jesus Christ kept in the background! How is His glory obscured, His beauty veiled, His honor withheld! And yet there are those- (honored men! would that your number were greater!) -who honestly and heartily desire to lift up their Lord and Master, themselves lost behind the glory of His person and the splendors of His cross. Do we rejoice in this? Can we with the apostle say, "Christ is preached; and I therein do rejoice, yes, and will rejoice?" By whomsoever He is exalted- in whatever sanctuary His Gospel is proclaimed, however feeble the talent, and limited the attainment, and defective the announcement, and humble the manner in which Jesus is set forth, do our hearts rejoice that glory is thus brought to Him?

Dear reader, if the image of Christ is admired by you, you will recognize it when you see it. If His name is fragrant to you, you will rejoice wherever it is poured forth. If His Gospel is prized by you, you will be glad by whomsoever it is preached. If His person is precious to you, you will love Him most who most fully exhibits Christ's glory, and who most successfully draws souls to adore and worship at His feet. Oh, let us, as before God, search and try our hearts, touching this matter!

But the Gospel is greatly assailed. Never, perhaps, was it more resolutely opposed on every hand; never did there seem to be a stronger combination formed to neutralize its power, and sap its very foundation, than at the present moment. Infidelity, popery, and semi-popery, in close and powerful alliance, are confederate against the Divine word of God. Low views of inspiration; the exalting of tradition above Scripture, of reason above revelation, of human talent above the teaching of the Spirit, of forms and ceremonies above the vital power of godliness; are significant and fearful signs of our times. We need, then, every view of the Gospel, tending to illustrate its value and endear its preciousness. Here is truth calculated to produce this holy effect. Nature does not teach it; the law does not reveal it; philosophy does not inculcate it; tradition does not contain it; the Gospel only makes it known. How God is revealed in Jesus Christ; how that "two should become one, and yet remain two still, as God and man do in Christ; that He who makes should be one with the thing which Himself has made; that He who is above all should humble Himself; that He who fills all should empty Himself; that He who blesses all should be Himself a curse; that He who rules all should be Himself a servant; that He who was the Prince of Life, and by whom all things in the world do consist, should Himself be dissolved and die; that mercy and justice should meet together, and kiss each other; that the debt should be paid, and yet pardoned; that the fault should be punished, and yet remitted; that death, like Samson's lion, should have life and sweetness in it, and be used as an instrument to destroy itself, -are evangelical truths and mysteries revealed alone in the "glorious Gospel of the blessed God." "In nature we see Him the God of power, in providence the God of wisdom, in the law the God of vengeance, but in the Gospel the God full of compassion, of overflowing love, ready to pardon; humbling Himself that He might be merciful unto His enemies- that He might Himself bear the punishment of those injuries which had been done unto Himself; that He might beseech His own prisoners to be pardoned and reconciled again. In the creature He is the God above us; in the law He is the God against us; but in the Gospel He is Immanuel, the God with us, the God like us, the God for us."

What strong encouragement does this subject afford to every truly humbled, sin-burdened, Christ-seeking soul! God in Christ is no longer a "consuming fire," but a God of love, of peace; a reconciled God.

God in Christ holds out His hand all the day long to poor sinners. He receives all, He welcomes all; He rejects, He refuses, He casts out none. It is His glory to pardon a sinner. It is the glory of His power, it is the glory of His love, it is the glory of His wisdom, it is the glory of His grace, to take the prey from the mighty, to deliver the lawful captive, to pluck the brand from the burning, to lower the golden chain of His mercy to the greatest depth of human wretchedness and guilt, and lift the needy and place him among the princes. Behold Christ upon the cross! Every pang that He endures, every stroke that He receives, every groan that He utters, every drop of blood that He sheds, proclaims that God is love, and that He stands pledged and is ready to pardon the vilest of the vile. JUSTICE, sheathing its sword, and retiring satisfied from the scene, leaves MERCY gloriously triumphant. And "God delights in mercy." Having at such an infinite cost opened a channel- even through the smitten heart of His beloved Son- through which His mercy may flow boundless and free, venture near, nothing doubting. No feature of your case is discouraging, nor can possibly arrest the pardon. Your age, your protracted rebellion against God, your long life of indifference to the concerns of your soul, the turpitude and number of your sins, your need of deep convictions or of stronger faith, or of worth or worthiness to recommend you to His favor, are no true impediments to your approach, are no pleas wherefore you should not draw near and touch the outstretched scepter, bathe in the opened fountain, put on the spotless robe, welcome the gracious pardon, and press it with gratitude and transport to your adoring heart!

In the light of this truth cultivate loving and kindly views of God. Ever view Him, ever approach Him, and ever transact your soul's affairs with Him, in and through Jesus. He is the one Mediator between God and your soul. God your Father may now be leading you through deep and dark waters. His voice may sound roughly to you. His dim outline is, perhaps, all that you can see of Him. His face seems veiled and averted; yet deal with Him now in Christ, and all your hard thoughts, and trembling fears, and unbelieving doubts shall vanish. In Jesus every perfection dissolves into grace and love. With your eye upon the cross, and looking at God through that cross, all the dark letters of His providence will in a moment become radiant with light and glory. That God who has so revealed Himself in Jesus must be love, all love, and nothing but love, even in the most dark, painful, and afflictive dealings with His beloved people.

Especially in the matter of prayer, cultivate and cherish this kindly, soothing view of God in Christ. Without it, in this most solemn and holy of all transactions, your mental conceptions of His nature will be vague, your attempts to concentrate your thoughts on this one object will be baffled, and the spiritual character of the engagement will lessen in tone and vigor. But meeting God in Christ, with every perfection of His nature revealed and blended, you may venture near, and in this posture, and through this medium; may negotiate with Him the most momentous matters. You may reason, may adduce your strong arguments, and throwing wide open the door of the most hidden chamber of your heart, may confess its deepest iniquity; you may place your "secret sins in the light of His countenance;" God still can meet you in the mildest luster of His love. Drawing near, placing your tremulous hand of faith on the head of the atoning sacrifice, there is no sin that you may not confess, no need that you may not make known, no mercy that you may not ask, no blessing that you may not crave, for yourself, for others, for the whole Church. See! the atoning Lord is upon your mercy-seat, the golden censer waves, the fragrant cloud of the much incense ascends, and with it are "offered the prayers of all saints upon the golden altar which is before the throne." Jesus is in the midst, "Looks like a lamb that has been slain, And wears His priesthood still."

"Having, therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, and having a High Priest over the house of God, let us draw near." Open all your heart to God through Christ, who has opened all His heart to you in Christ. Remember that to bring Himself in a position to converse with you, as no angel could, in the matter that now burdens and depresses you, He assumed your nature on earth, with that very sorrow and infirmity affixed to it; took it back to glory, and at this moment appears in it before the throne, your Advocate with the Father. Then hesitate not, whatever be the nature of your petition, whatever the character of your need, to make known your requests unto God. Coming by simple faith in the name of Jesus, it cannot be that He should refuse you. With His eye of justice ever on the blood, and His eye of complacency ever on His Son, Himself loving you, too, with a love ineffably great, it would seem impossible that you should meet with a denial. Yield your ear to the sweet harmony of the Redeemer's voice, "Verily, verily, I say unto you, Whatever you shall ask the Father in my name, He will give it you. Hitherto have you asked nothing in my name: ask, and you shall receive, that your joy may be full." "Whatever you shall ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son."

The subject is in the highest degree soothing, comforting, and encouraging. It seems to introduce us into the very pavilion of God's heart. There, curtained and shut in, we may repose in perfect peace. Not a single perfection can a believing mind view in Christ but it smiles upon him. Oh! to see holiness and justice, truth and love, bending their glance of sweetest and softest benignity upon a poor, trembling soul, approaching to hide itself beneath the shadow of the cross! What a truth is this! All is sunshine here. The clouds are scattered, the darkness is gone, the tempest is hushed, the sea is calm. Justice has lost its sting, the law its terror, and sin its power, the heart of God is open, the bosom of Jesus bleeds, the Holy Spirit draws, the Gospel invites, and now the "weary and the heavily laden" may draw near and rush into the bosom of God reconciled in Christ. Oh, were ever words sweeter than these- "God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them." "Whom God has set forth to be a propitiation through faith in His blood." "He is able to save to the uttermost those who come unto God by Him"?

God in Christ is the covenant God of His people. He is their God; their tender, loving, condescending Father. They may lose for a while the sight and the enjoyment of this truth, but this does not negate it; it still remains the same, unchangeable, precious, and glorious. Nothing can rob them of it. In the tempest, let it be the anchorage of your faith; in darkness, the pole-star of your hope. Let every circumstance- the prosperity that ensnares and the adversity that depresses, the temptation that assails and the slight that wounds, endear to your believing soul this precious thought- God reconciled, God at peace, God our Father in Christ, is my God forever and ever, and He will be my guide even unto death."

If to view God in Christ is a comforting truth, it is also a sanctifying truth. Why has God revealed Himself in Jesus? To evince the exceeding hatefulness of sin, and to show that nothing short of such a stupendous sacrifice could remove it consistently with the glory of the Divine nature, and the honor of the Divine government. Each sin, then, is a blow struck at this transcendent truth. The eye averted from it, sin appears a trifle; it can be looked at without indignation, tampered with without fear, committed without hesitation, persisted in without remorse, gloried in without shame, confessed without sorrow. But when Divine justice is seen drinking the very heart's blood of God's only Son in order to quench its infinite thirst for satisfaction; when God in Christ is seen in His humiliation, suffering, and death, all with the design of pardoning iniquity, transgression, and sin, how fearful a thing does it seem to sin against this holy Lord God! How base, how ungrateful, appears our sin in view of love so amazing, of grace so rich, and of glory so great! Cultivate a constant, an ardent thirst for holiness. Do not be discouraged, if the more intensely the desire for sanctification rises, the deeper and darker the revelation of the heart's hidden evil. The one is often a consequent of the other; but persevere. The struggle may be painful, the battle may be strong, but the result is certain, and will be a glorious victory, VICTORY, through the blood of the Lamb!

"Thanks be unto God for His Unspeakable Gift!"

The Typical Glory of the Redeemer

"The Burning Bush"

And the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush: and he looked, and, behold, the bush burned with fire, and the bush was not consumed. Exodus 3:2

There the angel of the Lord appeared to him in flames of fire from within a bush. Moses saw that though the bush was on fire it did not burn up. Exodus 3:2

Suddenly, the angel of the Lord appeared to him as a blazing fire in a bush. Moses was amazed because the bush was engulfed in flames, but it didn't burn up. Exodus 3:2

The entire theocracy of the Israelites was interwoven with a system of symbols and types of the most significant and instructive character. It was thus the wisdom and the will of God that the revelation of Jesus to the Church should assume a consecutive and progressive form. Not a sudden but a gradual descent to the world, marked the advent of our adorable Redeemer. The same principle of progressiveness is frequently seen in a saving discovery of Christ to the soul. Not by an immediate and instantaneous revelation, not by a single glance of the mind, is Jesus always made known and seen. Long and slow is often the process. "Unto you that fear my name shall the Sun of righteousness arise." Observe, it is a gradation of light. The Sun rises- beam follows beam, light expands, Christ is more known; more known, He is more admired; more admired, He is more loved; and more loved, He is more implicitly obeyed and devotedly served. Thus, the "path of the just is as the shining light, which shines more and more unto the perfect day."

Thus has been the revelation of Christ's glory to the Church of God. In her infancy- her nonage- she was placed "under tutors and governors, until the time appointed by the Father." Not prepared to sustain the sudden and full revelation, God disciplined and trained her by various types and ceremonies; thus, wisely, and, it must be admitted, graciously, shadowing forth His dear Son by gradual but increasingly clear and luminous discoveries, until the "fulness of time was come," when He appeared the great Antitype of all the types, the glowing substance of all the shadows, the full signification of all the symbols, the "brightness of the Father's glory, the express image of His person."

With the glory of Jesus, the typical part of the old dispensation is replete. And although this economy was composed principally of mere types, they nevertheless were God's appointed means of transmitting a gradual revelation of His mind and purpose to His Church and the world, and of developing, by a series of the most expressive symbols, His stupendous plan of redemption; nor can they be passed by in the study of revealed truth, without rendering unintelligible and obscure a very extensive portion of the sacred word.

In considering the typical glory of Christ, it would be impossible in the compass of a single chapter to present an adequate view of all the types of the Old Testament which set forth the Lord Jesus in His person and work. We have, therefore, selected from the many a single one- the burning bush- as embodying a mass of truth relating to our adorable Immanuel. On the history with which it stands connected, it is not necessary to enlarge. It will be sufficient to our purpose to remark, that Moses, to whom the wondrous spectacle appeared, was now preparing for a post of signal labor, responsibility, and honor. Brought up in the palace and educated in the court of Pharaoh, king of Egypt, he was but imperfectly qualified to take his place in the front of a suffering and tried people, delivering them from their oppression, sympathizing with their sufferings, establishing their economy, framing their laws, and conducting them through a rough, intricate, and dangerous desert, to a land of promised rest. From this school of luxury and repose, God transferred him to one more calculated to train him for the toils, the hardships, and the perils of the wilderness; and to qualify him for the office of legislating for a Church, whose God was Jehovah, and whose history was at that moment written in "letters of mourning, lamentation, and woe." He sent him into the land of Midian, and for forty years was he employed in pastoral servitude for Jethro, his father-in-law. Engaged in this lowly calling, by the side of Mount Horeb, "the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush: and be looked, and, behold, the bush burned with fire, and the bush was not consumed. And Moses said, I will now turn aside, and see this great sight, why the bush is not burned. And when the Lord saw that he turned aside to see, God called unto him out of the midst of the bush, and said, Moses, Moses. And he said, Here am I. And He said, Draw not near here: put off your shoes from your feet, for the place whereon you stands is holy ground. Moreover He said, I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. And Moses hid his face; for he was afraid to look upon God."

Now this type- a type it doubtless is- is radiant with the glory of Christ. Who but the Holy Spirit, the Glorifier of Jesus, can unfold it? It shadows forth Christ in the mysterious constitution of His complex person, and in the great work for the accomplishment of which He became so constituted. In these two points of view, in connection with the import of the solemn admonition annexed to it, let us proceed to consider this expressive symbol.

The first point demanding our attention is, THE DIVINE MANIFESTATION. That Jehovah was here revealed, the evidence is most conclusive. When Moses turned aside to see the great sight, "God called unto him out of the midst of the bush." It was not a mere vision that he saw, no hallucination of the mind had come over him; he could not be deceived as to the Divine Being in whose immediate and solemn presence he then stood. How awe-struck must have been his mind! how solemn his impressions, and how sacred his thoughts! But if further proof were needed, the declaration of God Himself sets the question of the Divine appearance at rest; "I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob." No truth could be more clearly established.

But in which person of the sacred and adorable Three, it may be asked, did God thus appear? We have every scriptural reason to believe that it was Jehovah Jesus; that it was a manifestation, anticipative of His future appearance in the flesh, of the Godhead of Christ. Thus, then, the type sets forth the glory of the Divine person of our dear Lord. How solemn, and yet how delightful to the mind, and establishing to our faith, is the truth, that the same God who under the old dispensation, on so many occasions, in so many gracious and glorious ways, and in so many remarkable and undoubted instances, appeared to the ancient believers, is He who was born in Bethlehem, who lived a life of obedience to the law, and died an atoning death upon the cross; the Savior, the Surety, of His people! What reality does it give to the salvation of the saints! Beloved, remember as you hang over this page, the same Jehovah who spoke from the midst of the flaming bush, and said, "I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob," speaks to you from the cross, and in the Gospel, and says, "Come unto me, all you that labor and are heavily laden, and I will give you rest." O "glorious Gospel of the blessed God!"

The second point of consideration in this remarkable type, as setting forth the glory of Immanuel, is THE SYMBOL in which He appeared. It is full of instruction. And what symbol did our Lord select in which to embody His Deity? Did He choose some tall cedar of Lebanon, or some majestic oak of the forest? No; but a bush- the most ordinary and insignificant, the most lowly and unsightly, of all trees- was to enshrine the Godhead of Him whom the heaven of heavens cannot contain. And what is the truth it conveys? Oh, most glorious and precious! It points to the incarnate glory of the Son of God- the lowliness of His nature. Referring again to the type, it will instantly appear that the unveiled, unclouded, and unembodied glory of Jehovah would have appalled and overwhelmed with its ineffable brightness the awe-stricken and astonished man of God. He could not have looked upon God and lived. "There shall no man see me, and live," says the Lord. It was therefore proper, yes, it was merciful, that all the manifestations of God to His people in the old dispensation, should be through the medium of objects on which the eye could look without pain, and on which the mind could repose without fear. Veiled in a cloud, or embodied in a bush, God could approach the creature with condescending grace, and reveal His mind, the creature could approach God with humble confidence, and open his heart. How kind and condescending in Jehovah to subdue and soften the splendor of His majesty, thus tempering it to the weak vision of mortal and sinful man!

But this was typical of that more wondrous and stupendous stoop of God in the new dispensation. All the subdued and obscure manifestations of the Godhead in the former economy, were but the forecasting shadows of the great mystery of godliness then approaching; and possessed no glory by reason of the glory that excels. But mark the condescending grace, the deep abasement, the infinite lowliness of the Son of God. When He purposed to appear in an inferior nature, what form of manifestation did He assume? Did He embody His Godhead in some tall archangel? Did He enshrine it in some glowing seraph? No! "For verily He took not on Him the nature of angels; but He took on Him the seed of Abraham." He lowered Himself to our lowly and degraded nature- He selected our fallen, suffering, sorrowing, tempted humanity- He takes into union with Deity a creature, not of the highest rank and beauty, but a spirit dwelling in a temple of flesh; yes, not merely the inhabitant of the temple, but He unites Himself with the temple Himself, for "the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us;" and even this flesh not connected with its state of primeval glory, but associated with all the humbling though sinless infirmities of its fallen condition.

Behold, too, the lowliness of Christ in the world's eye. In Him it sees no glory and traces no beauty; His outward form of humiliation veils it from their view. He is to them but as a "root out of the dry ground, having no form nor loveliness." On this point we shall more fully enlarge when we come to consider the humiliation of the Son of God.

There is yet another part of this significant type to be considered, equally important and rich in the view it conveys of the glory of Jesus in His work. "The angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a fame of fire out of the midst of a bush: and he looked, and, behold, the bush burned with fire, and the bush was not consumed." The symbol of fire was expressive of the holiness and justice of God. It is thus frequently employed: "The Lord your God is a consuming fire." "And the sight of the glory of the Lord was like devouring fire." "Our God is a consuming fire." But that which formed the greatest wonder- which riveted the eye, and attracted and enchained the feet of Moses to the spot, was the bush unconsumed. "And Moses said, I will now turn aside, and see this great sight, why the bush is not burned."

But a more marvellous and stupendous spectacle meets us in the cross of Christ– Jesus enduring the fire of His Father's wrath: wrapped in the flame of His justice, and yet unconsumed! Let us turn aside from all inferior objects, and for a while contemplate this "great sight." It is indeed a great sight! The Son of God is laid upon the altar as a "burned offering," -a sacrifice for sin. The fire of Divine justice descends to consume Him- holiness in fearful exercise heaps on its fuel, and the flame and the smoke ascend in one vast column before the throne of the Eternal, "an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling savor." But behold the astonishment! Jesus suffering, and yet rejoicing! dying, and yet living! consuming, and yet unconsumed! These prodigies marked the offering up of our great High Priest upon Calvary. The dark billows of sorrow rolled over the human soul of Christ, but the Godhead remained calm and peaceful, its tranquillity unruffled by a wave of grief, its sunshine undimmed by a cloud of dark ness. He thus passed through all these throbs, and throes, and agonies of death, descended into the grave, rose again, lived, and still lives, the fountain of life to the created universe. Behold the God! Do you say He is a mere creature? Preposterous thought! Mad conception! Soul-destructive belief! Had He been less than divine, suffering as He did for sin, the devouring fire would have consumed Him in its unquenchable flame.

To the heart-broken sinner, how attractive and glorious is this spectacle of the Almighty Redeemer sustaining the wrath and suffering the justice of God for transgression! Mourning soul! turn aside, and behold yet again this "great sight." "Put off your shoes from your feet, for the place whereon you stand eat is holy ground." Lay aside your fleshly reasoning, your carnal views of self-justification, self-salvation, and human power- put off all your fleshly ideas of God, of His grace, and of His goodness; divest yourself of all your unbelieving and hard thoughts of His power, willingness, and readiness to save you. Thus prepared, approach- gaze, wonder, and adore! No one can stand on this holy ground, but he who stands in his own nothingness-none are welcome here but the poor, the empty, the bankrupt, and the vile. Are you all this? is this your case? Then draw near! God will speak from amid the flame of the sacrifice, and say to you, "Fear not!"

One feature more in this beautiful and instructive type remains to be considered, that is, the especial design of God in this miraculous appearance. After calming the troubled mind of Moses by revealing to him who He was, verse 6, He then proceeds to explain the gracious intentions of His advent. "And the Lord said, I have surely seen the afflictions of my people who are in Egypt, and have heard their cry by reason of their task-masters; for I know their sorrows. And I am come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians, and to bring them out of that land into a good and a large land, into a land flowing with milk and honey." -verses 7, 8.

But a greater work, a mightier and more glorious deliverance, did our Almighty Redeemer come down to effect. To this the Spirit of Christ which was in the prophet Isaiah testified. "The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me; because the Lord has anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek; He has sent me to bind up the broken-hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound." The Lord saw from heaven the affliction of His chosen people who were in Egypt- the land of spiritual darkness, bondage, and oppression: He heard their cry by reason of their hard taskmasters- He knew their sorrows, and He came down to deliver and to bring them out of that land into a good land- a large place- a land truly flowing with milk and honey. Oh, from what a land of gloom, from what an iron furnace, and from what a hard oppressor, has Jesus delivered His people! He has rescued them from a state of nature, and brought them into a state of grace; from ignorance of God, of Christ, and of themselves, in which the fall had involved them- from the guilt of sin, and the condemnation of the law- from the captivity and tyranny of Satan, and from their hard and oppressive servitude. And, oh, into what a land of rest, blessedness, and plenty, has He brought them! Into covenant relationship with God, as His adopted children- into a state of pardon and acceptance- into the enjoyment of His love and presence; to know God as their reconciled Father- to know their oneness with Jesus their exalted Head, and their union with the body as its members- to a state of most holy and blessed liberty, as chosen, called, and adopted saints. Into the experience of all these blessings has a greater than Moses brought us. "When the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth His Son made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons." Let us, then, "give thanks unto the Father, who has made us fit to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light: who has delivered us from the power of darkness, and has translated us into the kingdom of His dear Son," "even Jesus, who delivered us from the wrath to come." Truly is Jesus, our Great Deliverer, "counted worthy of more glory than Moses."

This remarkable incident in the history of God's ancient Israel, which we have thus far been considering, as setting forth the typical glory of our Immanuel, is perhaps as equally illustrative of most important truth, bearing upon the experimental and practical experience of each believer in Jesus. It presents a true and beautiful outline of the Church of God. We are reminded of the two opposite natures of the believer- the fallen and the restored, the fleshly and the spiritual. The one low, sinful, unlovely, and of the earth-earthly; the other elevated, holy, glorious, and of heaven-heavenly. "That which is born of the flesh is flesh; that which is born of the Spirit is spirit."

The conflict between these opposite and antagonist natures in the child of God, is also presented to view. As the bush in which the Divinity dwelt was surrounded by flame, so the regenerated man, in whom the eternal God deigns to dwell by His Spirit, is perpetually encircled by the fire of conflict, trial, and suffering. Nature and grace, sin and holiness, are as contrary the one to the other as any two principles can be. They can no more agree, commingle, nor coalesce, than can the opposite and antagonist elements in the natural world. Nor can there ever be a truce between them. They must necessarily and perpetually be at variance, hostile to, and at war with, each other. The contest is for supremacy. The great question at issue is, "which shall reign in the believer- sin or holiness, nature or grace, Satan or God?" Oh, what a fiery conflict is this! Hear the confession of an inspired apostle, drawn from his own painful experience: "I don't understand myself at all, for I really want to do what is right, but I don't do it. Instead, I do the very thing I hate. I know perfectly well that what I am doing is wrong, and my bad conscience shows that I agree that the law is good. But I can't help myself, because it is sin inside me that makes me do these evil things. I know I am rotten through and through so far as my old sinful nature is concerned. No matter which way I turn, I can't make myself do right. I want to, but I can't." Who cannot trace the conflict here? Sin, he deeply, inveterately abhorred. The prevailing tendency, the habitual and fixed inclination, of his renewed mind, was to holiness- the bent of his desires was towards God. And yet, in consequence of the native depravity of his heart, the influence of sinful propensities, corrupt inclinations and desires, he felt like one chained to a body of death, from which he longed to be delivered. Here was that which defined the two natures, marked the perpetual conflict between both, and which distinguished the holy man from the sinner.

In addition to this spiritual conflict, there are the flames of suffering and trial which often encircle a dear child of God. This is the baptism of fire, connected with, and ever following, the baptism of the Holy Spirit. "He shall baptize you," says John, "with the Holy Spirit, and with fire." God has His "fire in Zion, and His furnace in Jerusalem." "The Lord tries the righteous.," "He shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver." But it is not the furnace of justice nor the fire of wrath. Jesus, the Surety, has passed through and sustained all this; He has quenched its flame, and extinguished its embers. But it is the discipline of everlasting love and mercy. And though persecution may be permitted to rage, and the confessor of Christ may ascend to glory in a chariot of flame- though trials of various kinds may overtake the child of God, his grace and his graces "tried with fire," yet both the persecution of the Church and the trials of the believer are but the fruit of eternal and unchangeable love, and will prove purifying, sanctifying, and saving. Nothing will be consumed but the tinsel of the world, and the dross of sin, the alloy so much and so frequently found mixed with the pure gold.

But contemplate one more surpassing and precious truth- the Church is unconsumed! And why? Because He who dwelt in the bush dwells in the Church. The believer is the temple of the Holy Spirit. The High and the Lofty One that inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy, dwells in him. Christ is in him the hope of glory. It is impossible that he can perish. Why has not the poor, feeble bush been consumed? why has not grace declined, and faith failed, and love become totally extinguished? why has not "the fiery dart" of Satan prevailed, and the fierce and hot flame of persecution and of trial utterly consumed? Because greater is He that is in the believer than he that is in the world. Believer in Jesus! tell me not only of the sin that dwells in you, often bringing your soul into bondage and distress; tell me also of the grace that dwells in you, which as often gives you the victory, and sends you rejoicing on your way. Tell not only of the burning fiery furnace seven times heated; tell also of Him whose form is like the Son of God, who is with you in the furnace, and who has brought, and who will yet bring, you through with not a hair of your head singed, nor the smell of fire passed upon your garments. Tell not only of the "trial of your faith," "though it be tried with fire," but that also, through the ceaseless intercession of Jesus within the veil, that faith never yet has failed. Tell not only of the burden that has oppressed; tell also of the grace that has sustained- not only of the sorrow that has wounded, but also of the Divine sympathy, tenderness, and gentleness that have soothed and comforted, bound up and healed that wound. Oh, to hear more frequently the shout of victory and the song of praise breaking in sweet music from the lips of the redeemed! How much more would Jesus be glorified!

Unconverted reader! there is a fire- what if it be already kindled- that will never go out; a flame now burning that will never be quenched. Have you not read of it in God's word? "Behold, the day comes, that shall burn as an oven; and all the proud, yes, and all that do wickedly, shall be as stubble: and the day that comes shall burn them up, says the Lord of hosts, that it shall leave them neither root nor branch." "Then shall He also say unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, you cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels." "If your hand offend you, cut it off: it is better for you to enter into life maimed, than having two hands to go into hell, into the fire that never shall be quenched where their worm dies not, and the fire is not quenched." "Who among us shall dwell with the devouring fire? who among us shall dwell with everlasting burnings?" Flee, then, from the wrath to come! This moment flee! Linger not upon the confines of a world "kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men," but hasten from all below to Christ. "Escape for your life; look not behind you, nor stay in all the plain; escape to the mountain, lest you be consumed." Jesus is your only hiding-place, your refuge, your covert from the tempest. Away from a world doomed to woe; away from all refuge in your own obedience to the law, in works of human merit; away from self, from sin, from all, to Jesus. Until you have reached Him, you are suspended by a hair over the bottomless pit: in one moment, and at any moment, it may break, and you are gone; and once lost, lost forever!

Dear tried and suffering reader, do you resemble this burning bush? are you in the fire, passing through the furnace? does some strong temptation assail you- some sore trial oppress you- some deep sorrows wound you? He who dwelt in the bush dwells in you! and He who kept the bush unconsumed amid the flame, will keep you! Let your greatest care and deepest solicitude be to "glorify God in the fires." Be more prayerful for sustaining and sanctifying grace, than for the removal of your trial. This will bring richer glory to God. Beseech your Father that the flame may not be extinguished until the alloy is consumed, and the tried gold has come forth reflecting more vividly from its surface the image of Jesus- your soul partaking more deeply of the Divine holiness.

"Thanks be unto God for His unspeakable gift!"

The Prophetical Glory of the Redeemer

"Isaiah said this because he saw Jesus' glory and spoke about him." John 12:41

"Isaiah was referring to Jesus when he made this prediction, because he was given a vision of the Messiah's glory." John 12:41

How true is it that "the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy!" "To Him gave all the prophets witness." Of Him, as of one only glorious person, they delighted to testify- of Him, as of one only precious subject, they delighted to speak. Never did the Divine Spirit rest upon them with greater power- never did they strike their prophetic harps to strains so high, so rich, so sweet, as when Emmanuel was their theme. And is it too much to say, that magnificent as is the drapery in which their writings are clothed- gorgeous as is the imagery, and sublime the doctrines, in which these announcements are invested, they would possess no beauty, glory, or sweetness, but for- Jesus?

The confidence and the joy of the Church has ever been the prospective view she has had of the coming Messiah. Through the long vista of ages she saw Him advancing; and though the vision was distant and dim, yet, persuaded of the promise, she embraced it, and rested in it, believing that God was able as He was willing to make good all that He had in covenant mercy pledged to do. The incarnate God was her hope, her joy, her trust; and living or dying, the "Consolation of Israel" was the pole-star on which the eye of her faith was ever and immovably fixed. It pleased God to raise up a school of prophets, whom He endowed with extraordinary powers of inspiration, filling them with the Holy Spirit, whose especial office it was to feed this desire, to animate this hope, and to strengthen this expectation of faith, by keeping the glorious truth of the approaching Savior constantly and prominently before the eye of the Church. "Of which salvation the prophets have inquired and searched diligently, who prophesied of the grace that should come unto you: searching what person, or what period of time the Spirit of Christ who was in them did signify, when He testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ, and the glory that should follow."

That we are justified in looking into the prophetical Scriptures for peculiar revelations of the glory of Christ will appear clear from a reference to a few passages bearing upon this subject. Our Lord's conversation with the two disciples journeying to Emmaus is strikingly in point. In the first place, Jesus gently chides them for their lack of faith in the prophetical writings relating to Himself. "O fools, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken." He then passes to the great subject before Him, "And beginning at Moses, and all the prophets, He expounded unto them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself." The same day, and on another occasion, appearing in their assembled midst, "He said unto them, These are the words which I spoke unto you while I was yet with you, that all things must be fulfilled, which were written in the law of Moses, and in the prophets, and in the Psalms concerning me. Then opened He their understanding, that they might understand the Scriptures."

In a conversation He held with the Jews, how pointedly did He refer to His glory as beaming from beneath the veil of the Mosaic writings! "Do not think that I will accuse you to the Father: there is one that accuses you, even Moses, in whom you trust. For had you believed Moses, you would have believed me, for he wrote of me." And well did He exhort them to "search the Scriptures; for in them you think you have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me." Thus invited and encouraged, let us address ourselves to the pleasing task of drawing aside the prophetical veil, thus revealing the hidden glories of our Emmanuel. The unfolding of this subject will be found to present a brief exposition of those striking words of the evangelist: "These things said Elijah, when he saw His glory, and spoke of Him."

We commence with the testimony which the prophetical Scriptures bring to the doctrine of our Lord's Deity. Clearer intimations of the Divinity of Christ are nowhere found than in the Old Testament writings. "In the year that king Uzziah died, I saw also the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and His train filled the temple. Above it stood the seraphim: each one had six wings; with twain he covered his face, and with twain he covered his feet, and with twain he did fly. And one cried unto another, and said, Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord of hosts: the whole earth is full of His glory. And the posts of the door moved at the voice of Him that cried, and the house was filled with smoke. Then said I, Woe is me! for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips: for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts." What an august revelation of the glory of Christ's Godhead was this which broke upon the view of the lowly prophet! How instructive is each particular of his beatific vision! Mark the profound humility of the seraphim- they veiled with their wings their faces and their feet. They were in the presence of Jesus. They saw the King in His beauty, and covered themselves.

Bat the effect of this view of our Lord's Divine glory upon the mind of the prophet, is still more impressive: "Then said I, Woe is me! for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips ... for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts." What prostrated his soul thus low in the dust? What filled him with this self-abasement? What overwhelmed him with this keen sense of his vileness? Oh, it was the unclouded view he had of the essential glory of the Son of God! And thus will it ever be. The beaming forth of Christ's glory in the soul, reveals its hidden evil; the knowledge of this evil lays the believer low before God with the confession, "I abhor myself. Woe is me, for I am undone!" Beloved, let this truth be ever present to your mind, that as we increasingly see glory in Jesus, we shall increasingly see that there is no glory in ourselves. Jesus is the Sun which reveals the pollutions and defilements that are within. The chambers of abomination are all closed until Christ shines in upon the soul. Oh, then it is these deep-seated and long-veiled deformities are revealed; and we, no longer gazing with a complaisant eye upon self, sink in the dust before God, overwhelmed with shame, and covered with confusion of face. Holy posture! Blessed spectacle! A soul prostrate before the glory of the incarnate God! All high and lofty views of its own false glory annihilated by clear and close views of the true glory of Jesus. As when the sun appears, all the less lights vanish into darkness, so when Jesus rises in noontide glory upon the soul, all other glory retires, and He alone fixes the eye, and fills the mind. "With twain they covered their faces, and with twain they covered their feet." Their own perfections and beauty were not to be seen in the presence of the glory of the Lord. How much more profound should be the humility and self-abasement of man! Have we covered ourselves- not with the pure wings of the holy cherubim- but with sackcloth and ashes, before the Lord? Have we sought to veil- not our beauties, for beauties we have none; but our innumerable and flagrant deformities, even the "spots upon our feasts of love," the sins of our best and holiest things; and, renouncing all self-glory, have we sunk, as into nothing, before God? Oh, we are yet strangers to the vision of Christ's glory, if we have not! If the constellations of human gifts and attainments, distinctions and usefulness, on which unsanctified and unmortified self so delights to gaze, have not retired into oblivion, the Sun of Righteousness has yet to rise upon our souls with healing in His wings.

His glory as the God-man is reflected with equal clearness from the prophetical page. Thus was it predicted that the eternal Son of God should assume an inferior and a human form. "Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call His name Emmanuel." "Unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon His shoulder: and His name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace." Could any truth be more emphatically or distinctly stated? Oh, what love in the Father does it unfold, that not only He should have promised His dear Son, but that He should have held out that promise at so distant a period, and in such terms, as would lay an unequivocal foundation for the faith, hope, and joy of the saints, in all ages of the world!

His Divine anointing, constituting an important feature of His official glory, and opening a channel of the most costly blessing to the Church, forms a distinct and sacred theme of the prophetical writings. "The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me; because the Lord has anointed me." "And there shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a Branch shall grow out of his roots: and the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him." This anointing was upon the Redeemer, in infinite richness and fragrance. "God gives not the Spirit by measure unto him." As essentially Jehovah, He needed it not; but as the great High Priest, and the mediatorial Head of His "Church, which is His body, the fulness of Him that fills all in all," it was necessary that the anointing oil should be upon Him in its utmost plenitude. As one with Him, all the members alike participate. "It is like the precious ointment upon the head, that ran down upon the beard, even Aaron's beard: that went to the skirts of his garment;" even to the lowest believer- Ah! and he that lies the lowest, obtains the most of this "precious ointment," as it descends from Jesus: the hand of faith that touches but the hem of His garment, receives from Him who was "anointed with the oil of gladness above His fellows." Dear reader, are you professedly one with Jesus and His saints? then seek, oh diligently seek, a large and still larger degree of this holy and fragrant anointing. Rest not short of it. Do not be satisfied to proceed another step without it. Do not be content with a mere profession, having a name to live, yet lacking all the essential evidences of real life, while discovering many of the fearful attributes of actual death.

The possession of this anointing of the Holy Spirit will decide the momentous, and perhaps with you doubtful, question of your union with Christ. Men will take knowledge of you that you have been with Jesus, and learned from Him. Your life will be a reflection, faint at best, yet a reflection of His holy life. You will bear some resemblance to the "altogether lovely" one; your spirit will breathe His meekness; your demeanor will be stamped with His gentleness; your whole conversation will be seasoned with His grace; all your "garments will smell of myrrh, and aloes, and cassia, out of the ivory palaces;" an unction will pervade your prayers, a power irresistible will accompany your labors, and in every place you will be a sweet savor of Christ, blessed and a blessing.

Christ, the foundation of the Church, was a truth, the great glory of which the evangelical prophet also saw and spoke of. "Thus says the Lord God, Behold, I lay in Zion for a foundation a stone, a tried stone, a precious corner-stone, a sure foundation." How identical of the Redeemer is this splendid prophecy! Every word in the passage, and every quality of the figure, is expressive of some essential part of His character and work. Jesus is fitly compared to a "stone" for strength and durability. He is a "Savior, and a great one" "mighty to save." "I have laid help upon one that is mighty." If it were probable that the fact of His Deity should be announced in a voice of thunder from the eternal throne, can we suppose it would be uttered in terms more decided and explicit than those which fell upon the ear of the exiled evangelist from the lips of Christ Himself? "I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the ending, says the Lord, who is, and who was, and who is to come, the Almighty." And what a needed truth is this! None but an Almighty ransom could have saved from going down to the pit. Jesus is our ransom, and Jesus is the Almighty.

The Redeemer is not only a stone, but a "tried stone." The grand experiment has been made- the great test has been applied, and, to answer all the ends for which the Lord God laid it in Zion, it has proved completely adequate. Never was a foundation tried as this. In the eternal purpose of Redemption, Omnipotence tried it. In the Divine mind there existed no lurking suspicion, no embarrassing uncertainty, as to the result. The Father knew all that this foundation was to sustain, and well He knew, too, that it was capable of sustaining all. Stupendous were the consequences. His own glory and the honor of His government were involved; the salvation of His elect was to be secured; death, with all its horrors, was to be abolished; life, with all its immortal, untold glories, was to be revealed; hell was to be closed, and heaven opened to all believers. With such momentous realities pending- with such mighty and glorious results

at stake, the Eternal mind, in its purpose of grace and glory, would lay for a foundation a "tried stone." Blessed Emmanuel! how effulgently does your glory beam from beneath Your prophetical veil! You are that "tried stone,"- tried by the Father when He laid upon You all His people's sins and transgressions, bruised You and put You to grief. Tried by the law, when it exacted and received from You Your utmost obedience to its precepts. Tried by Divine justice, when it kindled around You its fiercest flame, yet consumed You not. Tried by the Church, built upon You so securely that the gates of hell shall never prevail against her. Tried by poor sinners, who have brought their burdens of guilt to Your blood, and have found pardon and peace. Tried by believers, who have taken their trials to Your sympathy, their sorrows to Your love, their wounds to Your healing, their weakness to your strength, their emptiness to Your fulness, their petitions to Your ear, and have never, never been disappointed. Oh yes, You are that "tried stone," to whom I would come moment by moment.

"A precious corner stone." Of whom does the prophet speak this, but of Jesus, compared with whom nothing is precious? He alone is worthy of the term, who alone can smooth life's rugged path, sweeten life's bitter trials, lighten life's heavy burdens, and this by daily and hourly emanations of His own life, grace, and preciousness. Oh, how precious- what language can express it? Is this precious stone to him who, conscious of his vileness, poverty, and nothingness, or with a spirit oppressed with deep trial, or bleeding from painful bereavement, wades to it through the billows, exclaiming, "When my heart is overwhelmed, lead me to the Rock that is higher than I." Precious in His all-atoning blood; precious in His all-justifying righteousness; precious in His infinite fulness; precious in every office that He fills; in every work that He performs; in every promise that He makes; is Christ to him who, finding all other foundations but as sliding sand, builds his hope of glory upon the incarnate God. "To you, therefore, that believe, He is precious."

A "corner stone," too, is our glorious Redeemer. The important position which this occupies in the spiritual building- its essential relation to the compactness, strength, and durability of the whole fabric, we fear, is not duly considered by many who are professedly "living stones in the spiritual house." And yet how momentous and how holy is the instruction it conveys! The corner stone is that which unites the parts of the edifice: it is to the building what the key stone is to the arch; it imparts unity, symmetry, and strength. The Lord Jesus has been the uniting stone of the Church in all ages. The saints of the Patriarchal, Levitical, and Christian Churches, all meet and form, in Him, one glorious temple of the living God. "No longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow-citizens with the saints, and of the household of God:" they are "built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief Corner Stone; in whom all the building, fitly framed together, grows unto a holy temple in the Lord," and thus becomes "a habitation of God through the Spirit."

To allude to another figure employed by the Holy Spirit to illustrate and enforce the same blessed truth- the unity of the Church- the Lord Jesus is declared to be the one spiritual HEAD of His "Church, who is His body, the fulness of Him that fills all in all." Thus in itself one by its oneness with Him, it is represented as "growing up into Him in all things, who is the Head, even Christ: from whom the whole body, fitly joined together, and compacted by that which every joint supplies, according to the effectual working in the measure of every part, makes increase of the body unto the edifying of itself in love." "There" (in Christ)- "is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus," and "Christ is all and in all." To the consideration of this holy and precious theme- THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH- let us for a few moments turn our attention.

That there are divisions in the Church of God, visible and painful; that the one body is sadly dismembered, the seamless robe rudely torn and disfigured, is a truth too glaring to conceal, and almost too painful and humiliating to acknowledge. Alas that it should be so! Oh, how much is the unity of the Church lost sight of in the din of religious controversy, and in the heat of party zeal! How does brother look coldly upon brother, and minister glance suspiciously at minister, and church stand aloof from church! Ought this so to be?

And to what may it in a great degree be traced? We believe, to a forgetfulness of the truth, that all true believers are "one in Christ Jesus;" that the blood of the Lamb is the bond of union of the saints; that He is the "corner stone," uniting all the parts of the one edifice; and that, if built upon Him, we are one with that Church, and that Church is one with Christ.

The unity of the mystical Church of God consists not in a unity of creed. A higher, a diviner, and a more endearing principle unites her than this. Ardently as it should be desired, and fervently as it should be prayed for, that the promised day of millennial blessedness may speedily come, when the "watchmen shall see eye to eye," when from every battlement in Zion the silver trumpets shall emit one sweet harmonious sound; yet, even then, not more essentially will the Church of God be one than she is now. True, her unity will be more visible, her divisions will be healed, her bleeding wounds will be stanched, her internal conflicts will have ceased; "Ephraim shall not envy Judah, and Judah shall not vex Ephraim any more;" and the harsh sounds of strife, now so loud and discordant, be lost in the sweet strains of peace and love floating from every lip; yet is the Church at this moment essentially one and indivisible. Not, then, in a unity of creed, or of ecclesiastical polity, does the real unity of the Church consist, but in the "unity of the Spirit," that unity sustained by the "bond of peace." She has been baptized, not into one form of church government, or into one system of doctrinal truth, but "by one Spirit we are all baptized into one body, whether we are Jews or Gentiles, whether we are bond or free; and have all been made to drink into the same Spirit." The "one Spirit" regenerating all the children of God, fashioning their hearts alike, uniting them by a living faith to the Head, equally dwelling in, teaching and guiding, comforting and sanctifying them, demonstrates the perfect oneness of Christ's body. And thus, then, when an individual crosses our path in whom the spirit of Jesus breathes, who manifests a union to the Head, and who speaks the language and bears the image of the Father, and a resemblance to the one family, be his climate and color, be his name and minor points of creed, what they may, it becomes our solemn duty, as it is our great privilege, to extend to him the recognition, and to greet him with the tender and holy affection of the one brotherhood. In the Lord's eye he is a member of His body, and he should be so in ours. And if, refusing to own the relationship, we withdraw the hand of Christian love, we render our own regeneration doubtful, we wound and grieve and deny the Spirit in him. It is written, yes, it is written by the pen of the Holy Spirit, "Whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ, is born of God; and every one that loves Him that begat, loves Him also that is begotten by Him."

I would recur to what may be considered one of the most fruitful and painful causes of the defective Christian union which so much mars the beauty and impairs the moral power of the Church of God in our day. I allude to the great distance from Christ which characterizes the spiritual walk of so many believers. The effect of this upon the operation of Christian love is obvious. A distance in spirit from the Head, leads to a distance in spirit from the members of the body. As with the beams of the sun, the further they recede from their center, the wider are they separated from each other; so it is with the "children of the light." Each believer is a solar beam- an emanation from the Sun of Righteousness. The more remote he lives from Christ- the center of the soul- the wider will he be alienated in affection and in spirit from the members of Christ. His eye less simply and constantly looking unto Jesus, his sense of union to, and communion with, Him weakened, love waning, faith declining, there will of necessity be a lessening attachment to the Church of Christ. But the converse, oh, how precious! The rays of light reflected back to the sun, meeting and rejoicing in their center, meet and rejoice in themselves. So with the saints. Drawn closer to Jesus- our wandering steps retraced- restored by those sanctifying unfoldings of the cross, which the Spirit delights to impart, the eye of penitence and faith, swimming though it be in tears, once more turned on Christ, love rekindled in the heart, oh, how will the affections, in their fondest and holiest power, go forth towards "all them who love our Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity!" His image will be their passport to our hearts; His name will secure their welcome to our homes.

Have you felt, dear reader, the sanctifying, cementing power of the Redeemer's love in your heart? Then, with all affectionate fidelity is the question proposed- how far do you deem yourself justified in regarding with frigid affection and distance of spirit any believer in Jesus, or in declining communion at the throne of grace, or alliance and confederation in the cause of our common Lord, with any portion of the Church of God, on the plea of a lack of ecclesiastical uniformity, or unity of doctrinal creed as a basis of union? Is this the unity of the Church spoken of in the word of God? Are you prepared for the result to which this plea for separation will lead you? Are you willing to defend it on a dying-bed, and go with it to the judgment-seat of Christ? Examine it in the light of God's word, and see where it springs, what is its nature, and what are its tendencies. Remember the words of our Lord, in His reply to the disciple who frowned upon an expression of zeal for the glory of Christ, because it was not from one of their own party- "And Jesus said, Forbid him not; for there is no man who shall do a miracle in my name that can lightly speak evil of me." And is it not a solemn thought, that in turning our back upon any holy, consistent member of Christ, we turn our back upon Christ Himself; and that in standing aloof from any holy confederation or Christian enterprise for the advancement of His truth and kingdom, because its promoters follow not with us, our very neutrality may be justly interpreted as criminal indifference, and our refusal to lend our cooperation, an act of hostility to Him whose subjects we profess to be! Oh that for the "divisions of Reuben there were great searchings of heart!" Yes, Jesus is the "corner stone" of the one Church, and the more firmly we build on, and the more closely we adhere to Him, the more tenderly and closely will the hearts of all the saints be "knit together in love." Precious Jesus! draw us nearer to Yourself; then shall we be drawn nearer to Your one family, redeemed by Your most precious blood!

"A sure foundation," is the last quality of excellence specified concerning this precious Stone. As if, in so momentous a matter as the salvation of the soul, to remove all lingering doubt from the mind, to annihilate all imaginary and shadowy conceptions of Jesus, Jehovah, the great Builder of the Church, declares the foundation thus laid to be a real and substantial one. Confidently here may the weary rest, and the sinner build his hope of heaven. All is sure. Sure that the word he credits is true- sure that the invitation that woos him is sincere- sure that the welcome extended to him is cordial. Sure, in coming to Jesus, of free forgiveness, of full justification, of complete and eternal acceptance with the reconciled God. Sure that, in renouncing all self-dependence, and building high his hope of glory on this foundation, he "shall not be ashamed nor confounded, world without end." All, too, is sure to the believer in the covenant of grace, of which Jesus is the Surety and Mediator. Every promise is sure- the full supply of all our needs- the daily efficacy of the atoning blood- the answer to our prayers, though long delayed- the hope of being forever with Jesus- all, all is certain and sure, because based on Jesus, and springing from the heart of the unchangeable God, and confirmed by the oath of Him who has said, "Once have I sworn by my holiness, that I will not lie unto David."

There is yet another prophecy of our glorious Redeemer, as remarkable for its literal fulfilment as for its affecting nature and solemn instruction. It is that He should be a "stone of stumbling and a rock of offence," and that Jew and Gentile should be confederated against Him. "And He shall be . . . . for a stone of stumbling, and for a rock of offence to both the houses of Israel." "Israel, who followed after the law of righteousness, have not attained to the law of righteousness. Why? Because they sought it not by faith, but as it were by the works of the law: for they stumbled at that stumbling stone; as it is written, Behold, I lay in Zion a stumbling stone and rock of offence." What a literal fulfilment has this prophecy received! To the Jews, once God's favorite people; now a "nation scattered and peeled," wandering over the face of the earth- for where have human footsteps trodden that the Israelite has not penetrated? "without a king, and without a prince, and without a sacrifice, and without an image, and without an ephod, and without teraphim," but in whose history promises of mercy and restoration are strangely blended with predictions of their apostasy and dispersion; even to them has the Messiah ever been, as He now is, a "stone of stumbling and a rock of offence."

But not Jews only- Jews and Gentiles confederated together against the Son of God, form a gloomy portion of prophetic announcement, containing a yet more mournful shadow- a large portion of the Gospel record. "The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together against the Lord, and against His anointed." "And the same day Pilate and Herod were made friends together, for before they were at enmity between themselves." Compare these passages with Acts 4. 8-11. How striking and solemn the instruction conveyed in this incident! Pilate and Herod, standing in the attitude of the deadliest hate to each other, are now made friends!

And what strange, but mighty power has thus suddenly subdued their animosity, and turned their hatred into love? What mystic chain has drawn and bound together these hostile rulers? Their mutual and deep enmity against Jesus! Believers in Christ! are the enemies of our glorious Redeemer, inspired by a natural and kindred feeling of hatred, induced to forget their private quarrels, and merge their differences in one common confederation to crush the Son of God, the object of their mutual hostility- and shall not the friends of the Redeemer, constrained by that Divine principle of love which dwells in the hearts of all who are born of God, quench their heart-burnings, bury their antipathies, and draw more closely together, in one holy, vigorous, and determined alliance to exalt the Son of God, the glorious and precious Object of their mutual affection? Oh, if Jesus is the bond of union to those who hate Him, how much more should He be the bond of union to those who love Him! Beneath His cross how should all unholy jealousy, and bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamor, and uncharitableness, be mourned over, confessed, abhorred, and renounced by the children of the one family; and how should all who love the Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity, be unhesitatingly and cordially recognized as such, thus "endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace!"

What a distinct prophetical view bad Isaiah also of the NATURE AND GLORY OF THE REDEEMER'S WORK! He thus foretells it: "Behold, the Lord has proclaimed unto the end of the world, Say you to the daughter of Zion, Behold, your salvation comes; behold, His reward is with Him, and His work before Him." And he thus describes it: "The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek: He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound." We can with difficulty realize, as the eye traces this evangelical declaration, that we are reading the prophecy, and not its fulfilment; the shadowy writings of the Old, and not the noontide revelation of the New Testament, so luminous with the Gospel, so fragrant with the name, so replete with the work, of Jesus is it. Oh, what tidings of joy and gladness are here to the heart-broken, burdened captive! Could announcements be more suited to his case, more appropriate to his circumstances, more soothing to his heart? Here, from the very heart of the Bible, Jesus Himself speaks. And never, in the days of His flesh, when preaching from the mountain, or in the synagogue, were sweeter sounds uttered from His lips than these. This was the work that was before Him, to seek and to save lost sinners, to save them as sinners, to rend asunder their chains, to deliver them from their captivity, and to introduce them into the glorious liberty of the sons of God.

THE QUIET, LOWLY, UNOSTENTATIOUS CHARACTER OF JESUS, blending with the most exquisite tenderness of heart, the pen of the evangelical prophet with equal vividness and beauty portrays. "He shall not cry, nor lift up, nor cause His voice to be heard in the street. A bruised reed shall He not break, and the smoking flax shall He not quench." Compare this beautiful prophecy with Matt. 12. 15-20. Could the fulfilment be more perfect? Was not the entire life of our Lord in exact harmony with this prophetical portrait? Did not the glory of His lowly life, which Isaiah saw with a prophet's far-reaching eye, illumine, as with a living light, every step and every act of His history! Verily it did! Truly might He say, "Learn from me, for I am meek and lowly in heart." The most sublime miracles, the most stupendous exertions of power, and the most brilliant displays of philanthropy, on which a self-aggrandizing man would have established successfully his claims to profound and universal homage, He only referred to as sustaining the glory of His Father in His Divine mission; while all earthly honor and temporal power that might have accrued separately to Himself He utterly rejected, veiling His own person in the deep folds of that humility which clothed Him as a garment. Shrinking from the intense gaze of a delighted multitude, and from the murmuring breath of popular applause, He would vanish as in a moment from the scene of His benevolence, either to lavish His boundless compassion on other and more wretched objects of suffering and woe, or to hide Himself amid the gloom and solitude of the desert. Never was humility like Yours, meek and lowly Lamb of God! Subdue this hated self in us- lay low this pride- suppress these inward risings, and draw, in fairer and deeper lines, Your own image on our souls!

The limits of this chapter will not permit us any further to linger amid these delightful twilight unfoldings of the Redeemer's glory; else it would be easy, and perhaps profitable, to show how distinctly were foretold, and how literally were fulfilled, all the events and circumstances associated with His mysterious humiliation, sufferings, and death. There are, however, two points connected with Isaiah's unfolding of the prophetical glory of the Redeemer, too instructive in the spiritual and important truth which they convey to be entirely overlooked.

It will be observed, that John observes of Isaiah that he saw the glory of Christ. "These things said Elijah, when he saw His glory." The glory of the Redeemer has ever been an object visible to the spiritual eye. What the evangelist here records of the prophet, he also avers of himself and his fellow disciples. "And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory." Here is a point of vital moment, entering deeply into the very soul of experimental Christianity. May the Spirit of all truth give us a clear and solemn perception of it!

If a man sees not the glory of Christ, we hesitate not to say of him, that with regard to all other spiritual objects he is totally blind- he is yet a stranger to the illuminating grace of the Holy Spirit. To see the Redeemer's glory, the eye must be spiritual; a spiritual object being only discerned by a spiritual organ. Hence the apostle prays in behalf of the Ephesian Christians, "That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him: that the eyes of your understanding being enlightened." So self-evident is this truth, that a lengthened argument to establish it would seem unnecessary. As an intellectual mind alone can grapple with an abstruse problem in science, and as a mechanical genius alone is fitted to comprehend the movements of a complicated piece of mechanism, so, in revealed truth there must be an adaptation of the mind to the nature of the truth investigated. The eyes of the understanding must be enlightened; the soul must be brought into harmony with Divine truth, or rather into harmony with the God of truth.

We are willing to concede, that to a man of intellect and taste, there is much of the Scriptures of truth peculiarly and powerfully attractive. The literature of the Bible, confessedly of the loftiest character, is especially alluring to such a mind. The beauty of its diction- the boldness of its conception- the richness of its imagery- the profoundness of its philosophy- the sublimity of its poetry- the antiquity of its history, conspire to throw around it an interest and a charm peculiarly fascinating to a man of profound thought, to the philosopher, the poet, and the historian. It is just possible enough for an individual to study the Bible as he would study any branch of human science, or investigate the authenticity of any historical document: he may perceive the beauty of its evidence, and feel the power of its demonstration, and this shall be the utmost limit of his knowledge of the word of God! The "sword of the Spirit" maybe so sheathed in the intellect, or wreathed with the flowers of a poetic fancy, that the heart may never have felt the keenness of its double edge, piercing and separating it from its sinful and idolatrous self. "For the word of God is quick and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intentions of the heart." We will venture a step further. As a natural man, I may, on certain indisputable evidence, admit the Bible to be a record from God. I may give to its sublime revelations my firm credence, to its Divine character my profound reverence, to its pure ethics my warmest admiration, and to its holy doctrines my strongest adherence and most zealous advocacy. I may believe Jesus to be no impostor, and His religion no cunningly devised fable, and His name the only name given under heaven whereby we may be saved, and yet remain totally blind to the true glory of the Redeemer! All the while that I am thus examining the outworks of Christianity, or traversing the outer courts of the great sanctuary of truth, I have not yet taken a single step within the sanctuary of my own bosom, exploring its hidden plague, and searching out that direst of all evils that ever tainted and ruined a finite creature- the heart's natural, deep, and deadly enmity against God! Blind to my own guilt, wretchedness, and woe, is it a thing incredible that I should be blind to the true glory of the Savior; and that to me His obedience, sufferings, and death- facts of transcendent magnitude and importance, interwoven with my dearest interests, and kindling an undying light around my every step to eternity- should be to me but as the dreams of my boyhood? So true is it, "the natural man receives not the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned."

But, enlightened by the Spirit of God, the believer beholds the glory of Jesus. Brought to see no glory in himself, yes, nothing but deformity in that on which the eye once so complacently rested; the glory of the Redeemer, as it is reflected in His person, in His atoning blood and justifying righteousness, His infinite fulness of grace to pardon and to sanctify, fills now the entire scope of his moral vision, and lifts his soul in admiring and adoring thoughts of the holiness and love of God!

More than this, such is its transforming influence, he comes to be a partaker, in a degree, of that very glory which has arrested his eye and ravished his heart. On him the glory of the Lord has shined, the Sun of Righteousness has risen, he rises from the dust, and shines arrayed in garments of light from Christ's reflecting light. A sight of Jesus assimilates the soul to His Spirit: a contemplation of His beauty transforms the believer more and more into the "child of the light;" and thus perpetually "looking unto Jesus," the path he treads kindles and glows with an increasing effulgence, until its luster expands into perfect, cloudless day. "We all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord."

The medium through which the spiritual eye beholds the glory of Christ, is faith. It is a hidden glory until the Eternal Spirit imparts this mighty principle to the soul. The eye of reason cannot discern it, the eye of intellect and of sense cannot behold it- it remains a veiled thing, 'dark with excessive brightness,' until God the Holy Spirit utters His voice, "Let there be light." "Abraham," says Christ, "rejoiced to see my day: and he saw it, and was glad." At that remote period, how did he see it? -by faith. Through the long and dreary vista of advancing ages he saw the day dawning, the sun rising. By faith he beheld Jesus approaching. He saw His blood, His righteousness, and his own interest there, "and he was glad." The beamy prospect dilated the patriarch's heart with joy. Oh yes, a sight of Jesus by faith, be it distant and dim, be it shadowy and imperfect, fills the soul with ineffable gladness, lights up its onward way, sweetens its solitude; enlivens its loneliness, and soothes it amid its deepest sorrows.

Isaiah not only beheld the glory of Christ, but he also "spoke of it." While he mused upon the wondrous sight, "the fire burned, then spoke he with his tongue." He could not but speak of that which he saw and felt. And who can behold the glory of the Redeemer, and not speak of it? Who can see His beauty and not extol it- who can taste His love and not laud it? "Come," will be the invitation, "see a man who told me all things that ever I did: is not this the Christ?" The Church of old, as her eye wandered over the beauties of her Lord, broke forth in expressions of wonder and praise; and, after particularizing and extolling these beauties, she then exclaims, as if all language were exhausted, "Yes, He is altogether lovely. This is my beloved, and this is my friend." "In His temple does every one speak of His glory." So did the sweet singer of Israel. "I will speak of the glorious honor of Your majesty, and of Your wondrous works. And men shall speak of the might of Your terrible acts: and I will declare Your greatness. They shall abundantly utter the memory of Your great goodness, and shall sing of Your righteousness. They shall speak of the glory of Your kingdom, and talk of Your power; to make known to the sons of men His mighty acts, and the glorious majesty of His kingdom." "We beheld His glory," is the testimony of John. And in his preface to his First Epistle he could testify, "That which we have seen and heard (of the Word of life) declare we unto you." Yes, the saints of the Most High must speak of the King in His beauty. They are constrained to show forth His praise, and tell of His love and loveliness, who is to them more precious than the gold of Ophir; yes, dearer than life itself. The Pharisee may murmur, the worldling may scorn, and the cold-hearted professor may rebuke; yet, "if these should hold their peace," who have been redeemed by His most precious blood, and who are looking forward to His second appearing, as an event which will fully introduce them to His glory, and conform them to His likeness, "the stones would immediately cry out."

Some important CONCLUSIONS flow from the subject which it has been the attempt of this chapter to unfold. The first that it suggests to the mind is, the perfect harmony of the Old and the New Testaments, thus confirming our faith in the Divine authenticity of the Scriptures of truth. Upon what other ground can we account for this singular agreement of the Word with itself, and for this exact and literal fulfilment of its predictions, but on that of its divinity? "Your word is truth," is the glorious and triumphant inference fairly deducible from a fact so striking and self-evident as this. And in what particular is this beautiful harmony especially seen? -in exalting the Lamb of God. The Old and the New Testament Scriptures of truth do for Christ, what Pilate and Herod did against Him- they confederate together. They unite in a holy alliance, in a sublime unity of purpose, to show forth the glory of the incarnate God. Divine book! Precious volume! Behold an illustration of what the Church of the living God should be, a transparent body, illumined with the glory of Immanuel, and scattering its beams of light and beauty over the surface of a lost and benighted world. How much does a perfect representation of the glory of the Redeemer by the Church depend upon her visible union! A mirror broken into a thousand fragments, cannot reflect the glory of the sun with the same brilliancy, power, and effect, as if a perfect whole. Nor can the Church of God, dismembered, divided, and broken, present to the world the same harmonious, convincing, and effective testimony to the glory of Jesus, as when, in her unimpaired oneness, she is seen "looking forth as the morning, fair as the moon, clear as the sun, and terrible as an army with banners." Oh then, by all that is fragrant in the name of Jesus, by all that is sanctifying in His glory and attractive in Isis cross, by all that is sweet and persuasive in Christian love, by all that is solemn in the near approach of death and eternity, and by all that is blissful in the hope of eternal life, springing from the one atonement, reader, seek to promote the visible unity of Christ's Church. Resolve, beneath the cross, and by the grace of God, that you will not be a hindrance to the accomplishment of so blessed, so holy an end. Hold the faith with a firm hand, but hold it in righteousness. Speak the truth with all boldness, but speak it in love. Concede to others what you claim for yourself- the right of private judgment, and the free exercise of an enlightened conscience. And where you see the image of Jesus reflected, the love of Jesus influencing, and the glory of Jesus simply and solely sought, there extend your hand, offer your heart, breathe your blessing and your prayer. Oh, this were to be like Christ; and to be like Christ is grace below, and glory above!

This subject, of momentous importance, admits of an individual application. Reader, what do you think of Christ? What are your apprehensions of His glory, as it has thus far been placed before you? Do you see beauty, surpassing beauty, in Emmanuel? Has His glory broken upon your view? Has it beamed in upon your mind? Has a sight of Jesus, seen by faith, cast you in the dust, exclaiming, "I have heard of You by the hearing of the ear: but now my eye sees You. Wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes"? Your honest reply to these searching questions will decide the nature and the ground of your present hope for eternity. On the confines of that eternity you are now standing. Solemn consideration! It is of infinite moment, then, that your views of the Son of God should be thoroughly examined, sifted, and compared with the inspired word. A crown now lowered on your brow, a kingdom stretched at your feet, a world gained and grasped, were as infants' baubles, compared with the tremendous interest involved in the question, "What do you think of Christ?" And what do you think of Him? Is He all your salvation and all your desire? Have you laid sinful self and righteous self beneath His cross? and in all your poverty, nakedness, and vileness, have you received Him as made of God unto you, "wisdom and righteousness, sanctification and redemption"? Does His glory dim all other glory; and does His beauty eclipse all other beauty in your eye? Can you point to Him and say, in the humble confidence of faith and joy of love, "This is my Beloved, and this is my Friend"? Eternal God! but for the righteousness of Your Son, I sink in all my pollution! but for the atoning blood of Emmanuel, I perish in all my guilt! Holy Father, look not on me, but behold my Shield, and look upon the face of your Anointed! And when Your glory passes by- the glory of Your majesty, Your holiness, and Your justice- then put me in the cleft of the rock, and cover me with Your hand while You pass by.

Cultivate frequent and devout contemplations of the glory of Christ. Immense will be the benefit accruing to your soul. The mind thus preoccupied, filled, and expanded, will be enabled to present a stronger resistance to the ever advancing and insidious encroachments of the world without. No place will be found for vain thoughts, and no desire or time for carnal enjoyments. Oh, how crucifying and sanctifying are clear views of the glory of Emmanuel! How emptying, humbling, and abasing! With the patriarch, we then exclaim, "I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes." And with the prophet, "Woe is me! for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips . . . My eyes have seen the King." And with the apostle, "God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world." Oh, then, aim to get your mind filled with enlarged and yet expanding views of the glory of the Redeemer. Let it, in all the discoveries it affords of the Divine mind and majesty, be the one subject of your thoughts, the one theme of your conversation. Place no limit to your knowledge of Christ. Ever consider that you have but read the preface to the volume, you have but touched the margin of the sea. Stretching far away beyond you, are undiscovered beauties, and precious views, and sparkling glories, each encouraging your advance, inviting your research, and asking the homage of your faith, the tribute of your love, and the dedication of your life. Go forward, then! The glories that yet must be revealed to you in a growing knowledge of Jesus, what imagination can conceive, what pen can describe them? "You shall see greater things than these," is the promise that bids you advance. Jesus stands ready to unveil all the beauties of His person- and to admit you into the very arcade of His love. There is not a chamber of His heart that He will not throw open to you; not a blessing that He will not bestow upon you; not a glory that He will not show to you. You shall see greater things than you have yet seen: greater depths of sin in your fallen nature shall be revealed; deeper sense of the cleansing efficacy of the atoning blood shall be felt; clearer views of your acceptance in the Beloved; greater discoveries of God's love; and greater depths of grace and glory in Jesus shall be enjoyed. Your communion with God shall be closer, and more the fruit of adopting love in your heart; your feet shall be as hinds' feet, and you shall walk on your high places. Your "peace shall flow as a river, and your righteousness as the waves of the sea." Sorrow shall wound you less deeply; affliction shall press you less heavily; tribulation shall affect you less keenly; all this, and infinitely more, will result from your deeper knowledge of Jesus. Ah, wonder not that the heaving, panting, thirsting soul of the apostle exclaimed, "Doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord. That I may know Him, and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being made conformable unto His death." "Then shall we know, if we follow on to know the Lord."

Let your life be a clear reflection of the glory of the Redeemer. The saints of God are the only witnesses to this glory- the only reflectors the Lord has in this dark and Christ-denying world. HOLINESS, springing from the fount of the Spirit's indwelling grace, cherished and matured by close views of the cross, and imparting a character of sanctity and beauty to every act of your life, will be the highest testimony you can bear to the Redeemer's glory. That glory is intrusted to your hands. It is committed to your guardianship. Seeing, then, that it is so, "what manner of people ought you to be in all holy conversation and godliness"! How exact in principles, and upright in conduct- how watchful over temper, and how vigilant where most assailed, how broad awake to the wiles of the devil, and how watchful against the encroachments of sin- how strict in all transactions with the world; and how tender, and charitable, and meek, and forgiving, in all our conduct with the saints! Alas! we are at best but dim reflectors of this great glory of our Lord. We are unworthy and unfaithful depositories of so rich a treasure! How much of clinging infirmity, of unmortified sin, of carelessness of spirit, of unsanctified temper, of tampering with temptation, of a lack of strict integrity and uprightness, dims our light, neutralizes our testimony for God, and weakens, if not entirely destroys, our spiritual influence! We are not more eminently useful, because we are not more eminently holy. We bring so little glory to Christ, because we seek so much our own. We reflect so faint and flickering a beam, because our posture is so seldom that of the apocalyptic angel, "standing in the sun." We realize so imperfectly our oneness with, and standing in, Christ; and this will ever foster a feeble, fruitless, and drooping profession of Christianity. "As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine, no more can you, except you abide in me." Oh to know more of this abiding in Christ! See how Jesus invites His saints to it. Are they fallen? He bids them take hold of His strength. Are they burdened? He bids them cast that burden on His arm. Are they wearied? He bids them recline on Him for rest. Does the world persecute them, do the "daughters of Jerusalem" smite them, does the watchman treat them unkindly? He bids them take refuge within the hallowed sanctuary of His own pierced and loving heart. Do they need grace? He bids them sink their empty vessel beneath the depths of His ocean fulness, and draw freely "more grace." Whatever corruptions distress them, whatever temptations assail them, whatever adversity grieves them, whatever cloud darkens them, whatever necessity presses upon them; as the watchful Shepherd, as the tender Brother, as the faithful Friend, as the great High Priest, He bids His saints draw near, and repose in His love. Oh, He has a capacious bosom: there is room, there is a chamber in that heart for you, my Christian reader! Do not think your lot is desolate, and lonely, and friendless. Do not think that all have forsaken you, and that in sadness and in solitude you are threading your way through an intricate desert. There is One that loves you, that thinks of you, that has His eye upon you, and is at this moment guiding, upholding, and caring for you: that one is Jesus! Oh that you could but look into His heart, and see how He loves you; oh that you could but hear Him say, so gently, so earnestly, "Abide in my love!" Cheer up; you are in Christ's heart, and Christ is in your heart. You are not alone: your God, even your Father, is with you. Your Shepherd guides you; the Comforter spreads around you His wings, and heaven is bright before you. Soon you will be there. The pilgrim will repose his weary limbs; the voyager will be moored in his harbor of rest; the warrior will put off his armor, and shout his song of triumph. Then look up! Christ is yours, God is yours, heaven is yours. If God is for you, who can be against you? And if you find disappointment in created good, it will but endear Jesus; and if you know more of the inward plague, it will but drive you to the atoning blood; and if you have storms and tempests, they will but shorten the voyage, and waft you the quicker to glory.

"Thanks be unto God for his unspeakable gift!"

The Glory of the Redeemer in His Humiliation

"He humbled Himself." Phil. 2:8

We have now, in the prosecution of our subject, arrived at a great and solemn truth. It may be regarded as sustaining the same relation to our theme that the dark background does to the picture- the shading, so essential to the richness, grandeur, and perfection of the piece. We have seen the elevation from which the Son of God descended- the stupendous height from which He stooped. The glory which belonged to that elevation has passed before us, faintly shadowed forth in the type, embodied in the symbol, uttered by the voice of the seer, but more authoritatively and distinctly affirmed by the testimony of Jesus Himself. That same glory is now presented for our contemplation, as assuming another and a different aspect- an aspect so opposite and strange that, but for express revelation, human imagination would never have conceived it, reason's unillumined eye could never have discerned it- the glory of the incarnate God, beaming forth with subdued yet burning luster from beneath His profound and mysterious humiliation! Oh may the Spirit of glory and of Christ, of grace and truth, rest upon us while endeavoring to explore and elucidate this vast and holy subject! We shall in the present chapter trace the glory of the Redeemer in the fact of His humiliation- in the blessings which flow from it to the Church- and in the lessons of practical holiness which it inculcates.

THE GLORY OF THE REDEEMER IN THE FACT OF HIS HUMILIATION.

There are an inconceivable magnitude and grandeur of meaning in the passage placed at the head of this chapter, which could not belong to it as applied to the circumstances of any finite creature, man or angel. "Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: who being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: but made Himself of no reputation, and took upon Him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: and being found in fashion as a man, He humbled Himself." Predicated, we say, of any other than a Divine Person, these words would be perfectly incoherent and unintelligible; but regarded in their obvious and received import, they become luminous with one of the most glorious emanations found in the page of revelation. "Who being in the form of God," affirms His preexistent and Divine nature; "made Himself of no reputation," marks His voluntary descent from that elevation; "took upon Him the form of a servant; was made in the likeness of men," describes tho inferior condition to which He stooped; "and being found in fashion as a man, He Humbled Himself," broadly and distinctly asserts the fact of His profound abasement.

The bare idea of humiliation on the part of Jehovah, divested of all that invests it with a palpable and tangible form, presents to the mind a conception so inscrutable and so vast; that but for the revelation of the fact by God Himself, imagination must have let fall her wing in her efforts to soar to it, and the mind must have exhausted its powers in its attempts to grasp it. And yet thus is it plainly declared: "Who is like unto the Lord our God, who dwells on high, who humbles Himself to behold the things that are in heaven and in the earth?" The visible form which this Divine condescension assumed, in its profoundest stoop, is the point that now invites our attention.

The primary step in the humiliation of the Son of God undoubtedly was His mysterious incarnation. This was the first shading of the picture- the commencement of a series of humiliations, which followed in rapid succession, thickening and darkening around His path until He reached the utmost limits of human abasement, suffering, and woe. We need not recapitulate the scriptural evidence already adduced in support of this fundamental article of our faith. We have shown that the Eternal Word was made flesh, that the Deity stooped to our nature, and took it up in mysterious and indissoluble union.

Now, the great glory which gilds this dark part of the Redeemer's humiliation consists in the lowering of the infinite to the scale of the finite- the bringing down of the Godhead to a level with the manhood. In this lay His real humiliation, and from this springs His true glory. Had our Lord assumed our nature, descending from the highest order of angelic being, He would but have exchanged one form of created existence for another; and although made a "little lower than the angels," there would have been no such relinquishment of previous dignity, as could justify the term thus applied to Him by the Holy Spirit, "He humbled Himself." If, as a finite creature, it were possible for me to assume the incarnation of an insect, there would be in the act but the mere semblance of humility- the appearance, and not the true virtue itself: because, there being some proportion between the form relinquished and the form assumed, the step would be but a lower one in the same scale of finite being. But how vastly different in the case of our adorable Redeemer! As we have just remarked, between two finite things there is always some relative proportion; thus a grain of sand bears some proportion to the Alps, and a drop of water bears some proportion to the ocean; but between the finite and the infinite there can be no possible proportion whatever. Now, in the person of the Son of God, the two extremes of being- the infinite and the finite- meet in Strange and mysterious, but close and eternal, union. The Divine came down to the human- Deity humbled itself to humanity. This was humiliation indeed! It was not the creature descending in the scale of creation, but it was the Creator stooping to the creature. "God was manifest in the flesh," "He humbled Himself." Oh, it is an amazing truth! So infinitely great was He, He could thus stoop without compromising His dignity, or lessening His glory.

But, if possible, a step still lower did He seem to descend. Thus, in prophetic language, did He announce it: "I am a worm, and no man." What astounding words are these! Here was the God-man sinking, as it were, in the depths of abasement and humiliation below the human. "I am a worm, and no man"! In the lowliness which marked His external appearance; in the estimation in which He was held by men; in the contemptuous treatment which He received from His enemies; the trampling of His glory in the dust, and the crushing of His person on the cross, would seem in His own view to have robbed Him not only of His glory as God, but even to have divested Him of His dignity as man! "I am a worm, and no man"! Oh, here is glory- glory surpassing all imagination, all thought, all power of utterance! He who bent His footsteps along this flinty path, He who sank thus low, was Jehovah, the "mighty God, the everlasting Father, the Prince of peace." Wonder, O heavens, and be astonished, O earth! Lowliness and majesty, humiliation and glory, how strangely were they blended in You, incarnate God!

The assumption of our nature, in its depressed and bruised condition, constituted no small feature in the abasement of the Son of God. That, in the strong language of the Holy Spirit, He was "holy, harmless, undefiled, and separate from sinners," is a truth we cannot too distinctly affirm, or too earnestly maintain. The least misgiving concerning the perfect sinlessness of the human nature of our Lord, tends to weaken the confidence of faith in the atonement, and so to enshroud in darkness the hope of the soul. As a single leak must have sunk the ark beneath the waves, so the existence of the slightest taint of sin in Jesus would have opened an inlet through which the dark billows of Divine wrath would have rolled, plunging both Himself and the Church He sustained in eternal woe. But that "holy one" who was begotten of the Holy Spirit, knew not the least moral taint. He "knew no sin," He was the sacrificial "Lamb without spot." And because He presented to the Divine requirement a holy, unblemished, and perfect obedience and satisfaction, we who believe are "made the righteousness of God in Him." Hold fast this essential and blessed truth, and guard against its fatal opposite, as you value your own salvation, and the glory of God.

But His taking up into subsistence with His own, our nature in its fallen condition, comprehends the sinless infirmities and weaknesses with which it was identified and encompassed. "That it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Elijah the prophet, saying, Himself took our infirmities and bare our sicknesses." And when I see Him weeping, bowed down with grief, and enduring privation, when I behold Him making the needs, and sorrows, and sufferings of others His own, what do I learn, but that my Lord and Master was truly a "Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief"? Is there any spectacle more affecting, than thus to behold the incarnate God, entering personally and sympathetically into all the humiliations of my poor, bruised, vile nature, and yet remaining untouched, untainted, by its sin? Taking my weaknesses, bearing my sicknesses, sorrowing when I sorrow, sighing when I sigh, weeping when I weep, touched with the feeling of my infirmities, in all points tempted like as I am!

The attending circumstances of His birth, and the subsequent events of His life, entered deeply into the fact of His abasement. In each step that He took, He seemed to say, "I was born to humiliation and suffering, therefore came I into the world." His parents were poor, of lowly extraction, and humble occupation. Until the age of thirty He lived a life of entire seclusion from the world; and, as He was "subject unto His parents," doubtless His early years were employed in assisting His father in His lowly calling; thus, with His own hands, ministering to His temporal necessities. For, be it remembered, it was a material part of the original curse pronounced by God on man, "In the sweat of your face shall you eat bread." Jesus was made under the law, that He might endure the curse; that curse He fully sustained. There was not a part, the bitterness of which He did not taste, and the tremendousness of which He did not endure; and that for His elect's sake. It were no fanciful idea, therefore, to suppose, that in this feature of the curse, our Lord personally entered; that this part of the penalty of human transgression He fully paid; and that in early life, by the sweat of His brow, he did literally provide for His own temporal sustenance. Oh, touching view of the humiliation of the Son of God! How does it dignify the most lowly occupation, sweeten the heaviest trial, and lighten the deepest care, to reflect, "thus lived, and labored, and toiled, the incarnate God!"

His riper years were marked by corresponding lowliness. The curse tracked His every step, pressing its claims, and exacting its penalties, to the last moment of existence. What were all His excessive privations, but parts of the same? No home sheltered Him- no domestic comforts cheered Him- no smile of fondness greeted Him- no hand of affection welcomed Him. "The Son of man has nowhere to lay His head," was the heart-rending acknowledgment extracted from His lips. And when a day of exhausting toil had closed upon Him, a day spent in journeying from village to village, and from house to house, preaching the kingdom, healing all manner of disease, supplying the needs, alleviating the sufferings, and soothing the cares of others, He would retire, lonely and unrefreshed, to the bleak mountain, and spend His long, sleepless night in unremitting prayer for His Church! Oh you adorable and adored Jehovah-Jesus! Was ever humiliation and love like Yours?

His temptation in the wilderness was a yet darker shadow thrown upon His path, a still more bitter ingredient mingled in His cup. Imagine yourself, my Christian reader, shut in for a single day with one of the vilest and most degraded of our species. During that period, his whole conversation shall be an attempt to tamper with your allegiance to Christ, to undermine your principles, to pollute your mind, to infuse blasphemous thoughts, to wound your conscience, and destroy your peace. What mental suffering, what grief, what torture would your soul endure in that period of time! Yet all this, and infinitely more, did Jesus pass through. For forty days and nights was He enclosed in the wilderness with Satan. Never were the assaults of the prince of darkness more fearful, never were his fiery darts more surely aimed and powerfully winged, and never had so shining a mark presented itself as the object of his attack than now. There is much in this part of our Lord's humiliation in the flesh on which we should delight to expatiate, did it come within the scope of our present design. A rapid glance at some of its more prominent and instructive points, is all that we can now venture upon.

Our Lord's exposure to temptation, and His consequent capability of yielding to its solicitations, has its foundation in His perfect humanity. It surely requires not an argument to show that, as God, He could not be tempted, but that, as man, He could. His inferior nature was finite and created; it was not angelic, it was human. It was completely identical with our own- its entire exemption from all taint of sin, only excepted. A human body and a human mind were His, with all their essential and peculiar properties. He was "bone of our bone, and flesh of our flesh." He traveled up through the stages of infancy, boyhood, and manhood; He was encompassed with all the weaknesses, surrounded by all the circumstances, exposed to all the inconveniences, that belong to our nature. He breathed our air, trod our earth, ate our food. The higher attributes of our being were His also. Reason, conscience, memory, will, affections, were essential appendages of that human soul which the Son of God took into union with His Divine. As such, then, our Lord was tempted. As such, too, He was capable of yielding. His finite nature, though pure and sinless, was yet necessarily limited in its resources, and weak in its own powers. Concerning His inferior nature, He was but man. The Godhead, as I have before remarked, was not humanized- nor was the humanity deified, by the blending together of the two natures. Each retained its essential character, properties, and attributes, distinct, unchanged, and unchangeable.

But let no one suppose that a liability in Jesus to yield to Satan's temptation, necessarily implies the existence of the same sinful and corrupt nature which we possess. Far from it. To deny His capability of succumbing to temptation, were to neutralize the force, beauty, and instruction of this eventful part of His history altogether. It were to reduce a splendid fact to an empty fable, a blessed reality to a vague supposition; it were to rob Jesus of the great glory which covered Him when left alone, the victor on this battle-field. And yet, that He must necessarily be sinful in order to be thus capable of yielding, does not follow; it is an error in judgment to suppose that the force of a temptation always depends upon the inherent sinfulness of the person who is tempted. The case of the first Adam disproves this supposition, and in some of its essential features strikingly illustrates the case of the second Adam. In what consisted the strength of the assault before whose fearful onset Adam

yielded? Surely not in any indwelling sin, for he was pure and upright. There was no appeal to the existence of any corrupt principles or propensities; no working upon any fallen desires and tendencies in his nature; for, until the moment that the blast swept him to the earth, no angel in heaven stood before the throne purer or more faultless than he. But God left him to the necessary weakness and poverty of his own nature, and thus withdrawing His Divine support and restraint, that instant he fell! That our adorable Lord did not fall, and was not overcome in His fearful conflict with the same foe, was owing solely to the upholding of the Deity, and the indwelling and restraining power of the Holy Spirit, which He possessed without measure.

But we approach the consideration of those parts of this temptation which constitute it an essential element of the humiliation of our Lord. And do you think, my reader, was it no humiliation for the Son of God to be thus assailed by the prince of darkness? Was it no degradation, that His dignity should be questioned, His authority disputed, His reverence for, and allegiance to, His Father assailed, and His very purity tampered with, by a fallen and corrupt spirit whom He had ejected from heaven? Ah! how deeply and keenly He must have felt it to be so, the first moment He was brought into contact with this arch-fiend, and subtle foe of God and man!

But oh, what glory beams from beneath this dark veil of Christ's humiliation! How lovely and precious an Object does He appear to saints and angels in this wondrous transaction! What holy sympathies and fond affections are kindled in the heart, and rise towards Him, as the eye surveys each particular, the appalling nature of the onset- the shock which His humanity sustained- the mighty power by which He was upheld- the signal victory which He achieved- the Divine consolation and comfort which flowed into His soul as His vanquished enemy retired from the conflict, leaving Him more than conqueror- and above all, the close and tender sympathy into which He was now brought with the tempted Church! These are features replete with thrilling interest and rich instruction, on which the renewed mind delights to dwell.

But our Lord's humiliation went deeper still than this! The clouds now gathering around Him grew darker and more portentous as He advanced towards the final conflict. We must consider the fact of His bearing sin, the painful consciousness of which increased as the hour of its atonement drew on, as forming one of the most overwhelming demonstrations of that voluntary abasement to which He had stooped, and through which He was now passing. In the following passages, this great truth of the Gospel is explicitly and emphatically stated. And let it be borne in mind, that when the Holy Spirit represents our Lord as bearing sin, the statement is not to receive a figurative but a perfectly literal interpretation, as asserting a solemn and momentous fact. He bore not the appearance of sin, or the punishment merely of sin, but the sin itself.

The type, which is truly significant, thus shadows forth the truth: "And Aaron shall lay both his hands upon the head of the live goat, and confess over him all the iniquities of the children of Israel, and all their transgressions in all their sins, putting them upon the head of the goat, and shall send him away by the hand of a fit man into the wilderness: and the goat shall bear upon him all their iniquities unto a land not inhabited." Here is the truth we are now contending for, clearly stated. Not the punishment of the sin merely, but the sin itself, did Aaron lay upon the expiatory victim, "putting them upon the head of the goat."

And thus does the Holy Spirit declare it: "He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities;" "The Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all;" "He shall bear their iniquities;" "He bore the sin of many;""Who His own self bore our sins in His own body on the tree;" "He has made Him to be sin for us, who knew no sin." There stood the eternal God, in the closest proximity to the evil one. Never did two extremes, so opposite to each other, meet in such near contiguity and collision. Essential sin, essential holiness; essential darkness, essential light; essential hatred, essential love; man's deadliest foe, man's dearest friend. What an hour of seeming power and triumph was this to the grand adversary of God and man; what an hour of deepening gloom and humiliation and defeat to God's beloved Son! How would this Lucifer of the morning exult as with the swellings of pride he placed his foot upon incarnate Deity! And how keenly and powerfully conscious would Jesus be at that moment, of the deep abasement and degradation to which He had now sunk!

But behold how this great transaction contributed to the deep humiliation of the Son of God. What must have been the revulsion of moral feeling, what the shrinking of His holy soul, the first instant it came in personal contact with sin! What a mighty convulsion must have rocked His human nature, pure and sinless as it was! Saint of God, what composes your bitterest cup, and what constitutes your keenest, deepest sorrow? Has a tender Father blown upon your blessings, removed your mercies, lessened your comforts, darkened your bright landscape, dried up your sweet spring? Is this the cause of your shaded brow, your anxious look, your tearful eye, your troubled and disconsolate spirit?

"Ah, no!" you perhaps exclaim; "rid me of this body of sin, and you chase the cloud from my brow, and the tear from my eye, and the sorrow from my heart. It is the sin that dwells in me." Do you think, then, what the spotless Lamb of God must have felt, and how deeply must it have entered into His humiliation- the existence of an all-absorbing, ever present and, ever painful, and humiliating consciousness of bearing upon His holy soul iniquity, transgression, and sin!

But behold the glory! My reader, it is your highest honor, as it was His deepest shame- your richest glory, as it was His deepest humiliation- that He literally did bear all the sins of all His Church. As truly as we are "made the righteousness of God in Him," He was "made sin," or a sin-offering, for us. Behold how beautifully has the Holy Spirit brought out the doctrines of substitution and union. Of substitution thus: "He has made Him (who knew no sin) to be sin for us." And of union thus: "That we might be made the righteousness of God in Him." Oh amazing truth! Sinking Himself to our deepest dishonor, He raises us to His highest glory. Sinking Himself with our fallen humanity, He raises us to a union with God. Substituting Himself for us, He makes us one with Himself. Ah, affecting thought! Were all our iniquities, and all our "transgressions in all our sins," laid on Jesus? Yes, all! Before His infinite mind, to whom the past and the future are one eternal now, the sins of all His chosen ones, to the remotest period of time, passed in review, and were made to meet on the head of the atoning Lamb.

Here is opened the high source of all real blessedness to the believing soul. Sweet is the spring, and sweet are the streams that flow from it. Reconciliation with God- His free forgiveness- union with His nature- adoption into His family- acceptance in the Beloved- oneness with the risen Head- access within the veil- filial and perpetual communion, and the "peace of God which passes all understanding," are among the costly results of Christ bearing sin. And see how completely He has borne the mighty load. The moment our iniquities touched Him, it would seem as though He flung them to an infinite distance, or sunk them to an infinite depth. Never, in point of law and justice, can they appear against the pardoned soul. Laid upon our Surety, condemned, and punished, and pardoned in Him, "there is now no condemnation" of or for sin "to those who are in Christ Jesus." How strong is the language which declares this truth! "I have blotted out as a thick cloud your transgressions, and as a cloud your sins;" "You have cast all my sins behind Your back;" "Thus says the Lord, The iniquity of Israel shall be sought for, and there shall be none; and the sins of Judah, and they shall not be found." And why? "Behold the Lamb of God, that takes away the sin of the world!" And may we not account as among the most precious and costly blessings resulting from this truth, its sanctifying tendency? My beloved, the deepest view you can ever have of God's hatred of sin, is in the cross of Calvary; and the deepest sense of the "exceeding sinfulness of sin" you can ever feel, is its entire pardon, imprinted on your heart with the atoning blood of Jesus, and witnessed by the power and grace of the Holy Spirit. You hate it because it is forgiven; you abhor it because it is pardoned. And with your eye upon the wounds of Jesus, and His blood daily sprinkled on your conscience, you wrap your white garments close about you, lest your passage through a sinful and seductive world should sully and pollute them. Oh powerful and precious motive to holiness! My soul, yield yourself to its sweet influence, draw your constraints to a life of deeper sanctification, from the cross; thirst and pant with more intense desire after Divine conformity, as one all whose iniquities, transgressions, and sins, are forever cancelled by the heart's blood of God's dear Son. Oh hateful and hated sin, atoned for so richly, pardoned so freely, blotted out so entirely, how can I admire you? how can I love you? how can I cherish you? and how can I yield to you now? You burdened and bow down to the earth the soul of my blessed Lord. You marred the beauty, and veil the glory, and humbled the spirit of my Beloved. You crimsoned His body with the bloody sweat- you wreathed His brow with thorns-you troubled His soul even unto death; and yet you, my transgression, are forgiven; you, my sin, are covered, you, my iniquity, are not imputed, and that because Jesus, my surety, was wounded, and bruised, and stricken for me!

"Thus beneath the cross adoring,
Sin does like itself appear;
When the wounds of Christ exploring
I can read my pardon there.

"Truly blessed is this station,
Low before His cross to lie;
While I see Divine compassion
Floating in His languid eye.

"May I still enjoy this feeling,
In all need to Jesus go;
Prove His blood each day more healing,
And Himself more fully know."

We are now conducted to a consideration of the SUFFERING of the Redeemer, as imparting the last and deepest shade to this picture of humiliation; but from which there yet spring some of the brightest beams of His glory. Our adorable Lord was a sufferer- the Prince of sufferers- the Martyr of martyrs. None had ever suffered as He; no sorrow was ever like His sorrow. Scarcely had He touched the surface of our sin-accursed earth, before the cup of suffering was placed to His lips. The deep fountain of human woe, stirred to its very center, poured in upon His soul its turbid streams from every source and through every channel. Human malignity seized upon Him as its victim, and mingled the first draught that He tasted. Linked though He was by the strongest sympathies to our nature, descending though He had, to elevate, sanctify, and save him- man yet ranked himself among his first and deadliest foes. Oh, that condescension and love to our race so profound, should have met with a requital so base!

The necessity of Christ's sufferings is the first point that arrests the mind in contemplating this subject. In His way-side conversation with the two disciples journeying to Emmaus, our Lord clearly and emphatically pronounced this characteristic of His passion "Ought not Christ to have suffered?" The following considerations would seem to justify this plea of necessity.

The sufferings of Christ were necessary in order to accomplish the eternal purpose and counsel of God. To suppose that His sufferings were contingent, originating in the circumstances by which He was surrounded, is to take a very low and defective view of the truth. But the light in which the Scripture presents the doctrine of a suffering Redeemer, is that which gives the most exalted view of redemption, and reflects in the richest manner the glory of the Triune God. The truth we have now advanced, the Apostle Peter embodies in his awakening discourse on the day of Pentecost, and which truth the Holy Spirit employed in the conversion of three thousand souls: "Him, being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, you have taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and slain." The same doctrine is reiterated in Acts 4: "For of a truth against Your holy child Jesus, whom You have anointed, both Herod, and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles, and the people of Israel, were gathered together, for to do whatever Your hand and Your counsel determined before to be done." Our Lord Himself confirms it when He says, "The Son of man goes, as it was determined." Dear reader, behold the fountain-head, where arise all those precious streams of covenant mercy which flow into your soul- the electing love of God, which constrained Him to present His beloved Son as an atoning Lamb for the slaughter, from before the foundation of the world! Oh! that must be infinite love- vast love- costly love- unchangeable love- which had its existence in the heart of God towards you from all eternity. Oh! run with humility and gladness to this holy and blessed truth! Welcome it joyfully to your heart as God's truth, from which you may not, you dare not turn, without robbing your souls of immense blessing, and incurring fearful responsibilities. And when by faith you stand beneath the cross, and gaze upon its glorious Sufferer, remember that in His death were fulfilled the eternal purpose and counsel of the Triune Jehovah; and that to predestination- rejected and hated as this truth is by some- you owe all that is dear and precious to you as a ransomed expectant of glory.

To fulfill the types, and to make good the prophecies concerning Him, it was necessary that Jesus should suffer. The Levitical dispensation, and the prophetical Scriptures, as we have already shown, point steadily to Jesus; they are replete with Christ crucified. He who reads and investigates them with his eye turned from Jesus, will find himself borne along upon a rapid stream of prophetic annunciation he knows not where, and involved in a mass of ceremonial usages, to him perfectly chaotic and unintelligible, "without form and void." But with the Spirit of God opening the spiritual eye, and moving upon the word, a flood of light is poured upon every page, and every page is seen to be rich with the history, and effulgent with the glory, of the suffering Messiah. Thus does our Lord assert this truth: "Do you think that I cannot now pray to my Father, and He will presently give me more than twelve legions of angels? But how then shall the Scriptures be fulfilled, that thus it must be?" Again, "But all this was done, that the Scriptures of the prophets might be fulfilled." It was necessary, therefore, that Christ should humble Himself- should be a man of sorrows- should drink deeply the cup of suffering, and should be lifted upon the cross, in order to authenticate the Divine mission of Moses, to establish the consistency of the Jewish dispensation, to vindicate the truth of the prophets, to fulfil the counsel of the Lord, and thus to verify His own most blessed word.

But that argument, enforcing the necessity of Christ's sufferings, which the most closely touches our own hearts, grows out of the relation He sustained to His people as their Surety; pledged to accomplish their full salvation in a way consistent with the justice of God and the honor of His law. Here it is we see why one so holy as Jesus was should suffer- why God should lay all His wrath upon the head of His dear Son. Now we learn why the innocent should suffer for the guilty, "the Just for the unjust." He came to reinstate the holiness of the Divine law- to uphold the rectitude of the Divine government- to satisfy the claims of Divine justice- to vindicate the glory of God- to make an end of transgression, and bring in an everlasting righteousness for His people. Ought not Christ, then, to have suffered? Had He not, there would have been no atonement for sin- no fountain opened for uncleanness- no avenue of return to God- no reconciliation- no way of access within the holy of holies- no pardon- no acceptance- no peace- no hope- no heaven! Oh, how wretched must have been our condition, and how fearful our doom, had not Jesus suffered! The pall of dark despair would have covered us, and our eternal destiny had been written in letters of "mourning, lamentation, and woe." "This," exclaims the awakened soul, "is just the Redeemer that I need, just the Savior that I need. One who can stoop to my deep necessity, lift me from my dunghill, place me among the princes, and yet sustain, and more than sustain, magnify, by this very act of redeeming rescue, the majesty, purity, and honor of Jehovah."

The completeness of His character as a compassionate and sympathizing Sigh Priest, pleaded for His sufferings. "It became Him, for whom are all things, and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons unto glory, to make the Captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings." "Wherefore in all things it behooved Him to be made like unto His brethren, that He might be a merciful and faithful high priest;" "For in that He Himself has suffered, being tempted, He is able to support those who are tempted;" "We have not a high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities." What deduction are we to draw from this rich cluster of precious declarations but, that in order to the perfection of His character as the High Priest of His people, as the Brother born for adversity, in order to be "touched with the feeling of our infirmities," He must Himself suffer? He must know from painful experience what sorrow meant- what a wounded spirit and a broken, bleeding heart, and a burdened and a beclouded mind, were. In this school He must be taught, and disciplined, and trained: He must "learn obedience by the things which He suffered." He must be made "perfect through sufferings." And oh, how deeply has He been taught, and how thoroughly has He been trained, and how well has He learned, thus to sympathize with a suffering Church! You have gone, it may be, with your trouble to your earthly friend, you have unfolded your tale of woe, have unveiled every feeling and emotion. But ah! how have the vacant countenance, the wandering eye, the listless air, the cold response, told you that your friend, with all his love, could not enter into your case! The care that darkened your brow, had never shaded his- the sorrow that lacerated your heart, had never touched his- the cup you were drinking, he had never tasted. What was lacking? Sympathy, growing out of an identity of circumstance. You have gone to another; he has trod that path before you, be has passed through that very trouble, his spirit has been inured to grief, his heart schooled in trial, sorrow in some of its acutest forms has been his companion; and now he is prepared to bend upon you a melting eye, to lend an attentive ear and a feeling heart, and to say, "Brother, I have known all, I have felt all, I have passed through all- I can sympathize with all." That Friend of friends, that Brother of brothers, is Jesus. He has gone before you; He has left a fragrance on the brim of that very cup you are now drinking; He has bedewed with tears, and left the traces of His blood, on that very path along which you are now walking; He has been taught in that very school in which you are now learning. Then, what encouragement to take your case, in the sweet simplicity of faith, and lay it before the Lord! To go and tell Jesus, confessing to Him, and over Him, the sin which has called forth the chastisement, and then the grief which that chastisement has occasioned. What a wonderful High Priest is Jesus! As the bleeding Sacrifice, you may lay your hand of faith upon His head, and acknowledge your deepest guilt; and as the merciful Priest, you may lay your head on His bosom, and disclose your deepest sorrow. Oh my precious Savior! must You sink to this deep humiliation, and endure this bitter suffering, in order to enter into my lone sorrow!

And yet, in this view of the necessity, we must not lose sight of the VOLUNTARY character of the Redeemer's sufferings. God was not impelled, by a necessity which He could not resist, to redeem, nor Jesus to be the Redeemer. Our Lord was not so circumstanced antecedently to His acceptance of the office of Mediator, that He could not have avoided the humiliation, suffering, and death which He endured. Had He so willed it, He might have resigned the human race to the dire consequences of their apostasy, remaining Himself everlastingly happy and glorious. But, after His most free consent had been given, after having voluntarily entered into an engagement with His Father, to secure the salvation of His covenant people, then, by the most solemn and irrevocable bonds, it was necessary for Him to go forward and finish the work He had undertaken, or leave the Church to perish eternally. "For where a testament is, there must also of necessity be the death of the testator." Coupling this passage with His own God-like declaration, how harmonious appear these apparently conflicting truths: "I lay down my life, that I may take it again. No man takes it from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again."

And yet He suffered most voluntarily. In this consisted greatly the perfection of His sacrifice. His penal death had proved of no atoning efficacy but for this willing obedience and the Divine merit that were in it. It would have been unjust in justice to have inflicted punishment upon an innocent and unwilling person. The injury thus inflicted must have recoiled with tremendous force upon itself; for while on the one hand, seeking satisfaction justly- on the other, it would have exacted that satisfaction most unjustly.

The full and free concurrence of His own will was essential to the perfection of His sacrifice. Yes, had it not been most free, and acting in perfect harmony with His Father's consent, our sins could not have been imputed to, nor the punishment inflicted upon, Him. Entering, then, most freely into a bond to cancel the mighty debt, it was righteous in God, it was just in justice, and it invested the throne of the eternal Jehovah with surpassing glory, to arrest, in default of the debtor, the Surety, and to exact from Him the uttermost payment.

And here, my reader, is the great point to which we are aiming to bring you- the wonderful love of Jesus in so willingly suffering, the "Just for the unjust." Oh, how readily did He humble Himself, and become obedient unto death, even the death of the cross! "Lo, I come; I delight to do Your will, O my God yes, Your law is within my heart;" "I have a baptism to be baptized with, and how am I straitened until it be accomplished!" "Who gave Himself for us;" "Christ also has loved us, and has given Himself for us." This is the spring of all that He has done, for "Christ has loved us." Constrained by this, He gave Himself as the Son of God, and as the Son of man- His soul and body, His life and death: yes, all that He possessed in heaven and on earth, He freely gave for us. What was there above or below- in His previous state of glory, or subsequent state of humiliation, that He retained? What part of the price did He withhold? When He could give no less- for all angels and all men would not have sufficed- and when He could give no more, He gave Himself. Ah! this made His "offering and sacrifice to God a sweet-smelling savor." And still it perfumes the oblation, and sends it up each moment fragrant and acceptable before the throne of the Holy One. Oh, surpassing love of Jesus! With the burden of sin- the fire of justice- the wrath of God- the ridicule of man- the malignity of demons- the sorrows of Gethsemane- the pains of Calvary, and the sea of His own blood, all, all in vivid prospect before Him, He yet went forward, loving not His own life unto the death, because He loved ours more. Oh let your heart bend low before this amazing love! Yield to its sweet and attractive influence: let it draw you from yourself, from the creature, from all, to Him. Are you wounded? Does your heart bleed? Is your soul cast down within you? Is your spirit within you desolate? Still Jesus is love, is loving, and loves you. He has suffered and died for you; and, were it necessary, He would suffer and die for you yet again. Whatever blessing He sees good to take from you, He will never take Himself away. Whatever stream of creature love He sees fit to dry, His own love will never fail. Oh can that love fail- can it cease to yearn, and sympathize, and soothe, and support, which brought Jesus from heaven to earth to endure and suffer all this for us? Be still, then- lie passive and low, drink the cup, and let the surrender of your sin, your obedience, and yourself to Him, be as willing and as entire as was the surrender of Himself for you. Then shall you, in a blessed degree, be "able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height, and know the love of Christ, which surpasses knowledge, filled with all the fulness of God."

But the NATURE of His suffering! This is yet to be considered as forming the most essential part of His deep and unheard of humiliation. Exile from His Father was no small element in the abasement of our adorable Redeemer- it was no slight ingredient of the bitter cup He was now drinking! What a change of circumstances for the Son of the Highest! To leave the bosom of the Father, where, in all the confidence and endearment of the closest and holiest love, He had from eternity reposed, to be embosomed in a world of sin, of anarchy, and of woe! Oh, what a descending was this! That He was banished from all communion with God we do not assert. His whole life, which would seem to have formed one continuous act of devotion, so entirely did He live in the element of prayer, so closely was He enfolded by the atmosphere of communion, would contradict this. But the communion which Jesus held with His Father on earth was far different from that which He had been wont to hold in heaven. There it was from His bosom, not a cloud shading His mind, nor a sorrow wounding His spirit, nor a tear dimming His eye. Here it was from His footstool, amid infirmities, sufferings, "strong crying, and, tears." Invested with a robe of flesh, His communion with God must have received a character from the medium through which it passed. And although not earthly were His conceptions of the Divine essence, or carnal His frame of spirit in its approach to God yet, as man, and in all points tempted like as we are, we may easily suppose He could sympathize with the depth of meaning involved in that sweet portion of His own word, "The Spirit also helps our infirmities for we know not what we should pray for as we ought but the Spirit itself makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered." Comparison must utterly fail when instituted between the degree and tone of communion with God on earth, and the same hallowed employment in heaven. Take the loftiest flight of the spirit toward God, still caged and cabined by this body of sin, and measure its height with the soarings of that same spirit when disembodied and glorified, freed from all encumbrance of mortal clay, and how low in comparison are its most elevated communings! This deprivation Jesus endured, this limited communion Jesus felt, and deeply did it enter into His humiliation.

But the climax of His humiliation, the consummation of His bitter sorrow, was in the garden, and on the cross. We go with Him to Gethsemane, and we hear Him exclaim, "My soul is exceedingly sorrowful, even unto death;" "O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me: nevertheless, not as I will, but as You will;" "And being in an agony, He prayed more earnestly; and His sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground." We follow Him to Calvary, and amid the darkness and throes of nature, and the still deeper darkness and throes of His soul, a cry more plaintive and more bitter breaks upon the ear: "My God, my God, why have You forsaken me?" "Jesus knowing that all things were now accomplished, that the Scripture might be fulfilled, said, I thirst. Now there was set a vessel full of vinegar: and they filled a sponge with vinegar, and put it upon hyssop, and put it to His mouth. When Jesus therefore had received the vinegar, He said, It is finished: and He bowed His head, and gave up the spirit. And, behold, the veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom; and the earth did quake, and the rocks rent; and the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints which slept arose. When the centurion, and those who were with him, watching Jesus, saw the earthquake, and those things that were done, they feared greatly, saying, Truly this was the Son of God."

Here we rest. We have descended with Him from the sunny heights of His glory to the dark depths of His abasement: further than this we cannot pass. We have traveled with Him to the utmost limit of ignominy; beyond it, it would seem, He Himself could not go. Now did the storm, which for ages had been gathering strength, break upon Him in its overwhelming fury. Now did He endure the wrath of God to its uttermost. No shield was around Him, no refuge was over Him, no advocate pleaded for Him. His head was uncovered to the tempest, His person was bowed to the stroke, and He met both in their fiercest onset. Oh, was it no humiliation now to the Son of God? Hear His bitter complaints: "Save me, O God, for the waters are come in unto my soul. I sink in deep mire, where there is no standing; I am come into deep waters, where the floods overflow me. I am weary of my crying; my throat is dried; mine eyes fail while I wait for my God. Those who hate me without a cause are more than the hairs of my head; those who would destroy me, being my enemies wrongfully, are mighty: then I restored that which I took not away." Thus sank the eternal Son! Thus bowed to the dust the Redeemer of men! Here let us pause, and adore Him who, though "equal with God, humbled Himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross."

Briefly tracing some of the vast BLESSINGS which this subject secures to the Church of God, the glory which belongs to the Redeemer in His humiliation and sufferings will thus more fully appear.

The first that presents itself to the mind is the deep and broad foundation which it lays for the salvation of the Church. There could have been no restoration of man, and no satisfaction to law and justice, but in the humiliation of the Son of God. The very necessity of the case demanded it. The Divine government had been dishonored- that dishonor could only be removed by the humiliation of one equal in dignity, holiness, and glory, even an infinite Being. The humiliation of every angel in heaven would not have effaced a single stain of its reproach, nor have restored a single beam of its glory. The law of God had been humbled, justice demanded, as the price of its reparation, the humiliation of the Lawgiver Himself. The incarnate God did humble Himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. Thus it was Jesus restored that which He took not away. He restored holiness to the law- satisfaction to justice- dignity to the Divine government- honor to God, and happiness and immortality to man. "Then I restored that which I took not away." Oh, what a stable foundation is thus laid for the fall salvation of every believer!

The humiliation of the Redeemer opens a fountain of infinitely great and ever-glorious grace. Nothing could we have known of the glory of His person, nothing of the character of God; and all the things of His hidden love must have remained forever sealed, had He not so humbled Himself. His coming forth, invested not with the dazzling robes of His infinite majesty, but wearing our degraded nature, descending to our state of deep abasement, yes, sinking infinitely deeper than we, throws open a treasury of grace as rich in its glory, and ample in its supply, as were the dark humiliation and deep poverty which made it ours.

Here is glory springing from His abasement- it is the "glory of His grace;" "We beheld His glory, full of grace." This fulness of grace in Jesus includes all that a poor sinner needs, all that a necessitous believer requires, all that the glory of God demanded. Here is the grace of pardon in all its fulness- the grace of justification in all its fulness- the grace of sanctification in all its fulness- the grace of consolation in all its fulness- the grace of strength in all its fulness. "It pleased the Father, that in Him should all fulness dwell." Grace is poured into His lips, and gracious words proceed from His lips. Hearken! "Come unto me, all you that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." Hearken again! "Him that comes unto me, I will in no wise cast out." Does He not bind up the broken heart? Does He not preach glad tidings to the meek? Does He not "satisfy the hungry soul, and satiate the weary soul with goodness?" Has He ever sent the poor empty away? Was He ever known to turn His back upon one humble comer drawing near, bowed with guilt, disconsolate with sorrow, oppressed with trial? Never! never! Oh, it is with infinite delight- delight of the depth of which we can form no conception- that He welcomes poor sinners. He thinks of His own humiliation for sin; He remembers His own sorrows and tears, agonies and death; and throwing Himself, as it were, into the very center of a bosom storm-tossed with godly grief, He seeks to soothe and hush it to a calm. And how does He allay the tempest? He pours the oil of His own love upon the waves: He sprinkles the conscience with that blood which cleanses from all sin, and bids the soul go in peace. Dear reader, where least we should have expected it, Jesus is set before us, the "Door of hope," even in the deep valley of His humiliation. "I will give the valley of Achor for a door of hope." The Gospel of this precious promise is found in the wondrous theme we are now contemplating- the humiliation of the incarnate God. To that humiliation we must sink, into that valley we must descend. Convinced of sin, separated from all self-reliance and creature-trust, emptied, humbled, laid low in the dust before God, we shall then find Jesus to be the "Door of hope" set open before us in the deep and dark valley of our poverty, hopelessness, vileness, and abasement. Just the Door we need, is Jesus. A Door to a Father's forgiving heart; a Door to God's reconciled love; a Door to the sweetest, closest, holiest fellowship and communion; a Door into heaven itself; a Door so wide, that the greatest sinner may enter- so free, that the penniless may come.

"Here the hopeless may draw near;
Jesus bids them stay no more,
And receives them graciously.

"Door of mercy open wide,
He that will may enter here;
Find in Jesus' pierced side
Shelter from each rising fear.

"Door of pardon for the vile,
Here the vilest enter in,
Find the fruit of Jesus' toil
Full atonement for their sin.

"Door of peace, yes, peace with God,
Sinners may adore and bless
Peace, the fruit of Jesus' blood,
Peace, the fruit of righteousness.

"Door of heaven, there saints shall raise
Loud hosannas swelling high,
And in gratitude and praise
Spend a long eternity."

The humiliation of Christ is also the believer's path to the enjoyment of the richest blessings here, and the highest glory hereafter. How little do we associate our most costly mercies, and even those which we are accustomed to esteem of a more ordinary character (although every mercy is infinitely great), with the abasement of our Lord! How seldom do we trace our happy moments, and hallowed joys, and high delights, and sacred scenes, and precious privileges, to this dark part of His eventful history! And yet all flow to us through this very channel, and but for this, never, never had been ours. When the ocean of His goodness rolls in upon me, wave on wave- when I feel the cheering warmth of creature smiles beaming sweetly and fondly- when I review, one by one, my personal, domestic, and relative mercies- when even the cup of cold water, offered by the hand of Christian kindness, moistens my lips- what is the thought that forces itself upon my mind? "All this springs from the deepest humiliation of my adorable Christ!" And when I ascend into the higher region of grace, and survey the blessings so richly and so freely bestowed- a rebel subdued- a criminal pardoned- a child adopted- a royal priest anointed- union with Christ- covenant relationship with God- access within the holy of holies- conformity to the Divine image- still more deeply am I overwhelmed with the thought, "All this proceeds from the infinite abasement of the incarnate God!" And when yet higher still I ascend, and passing from grace to glory, contemplate the heaven of bliss that awaits me- in one moment absent from the body of sin, and present with the Lord, away from the world, beautiful though it is, because God has made it, yet the throne of Satan, the empire of sin, the scene of sorrow, pollution, suffering, and death; and eternally shut in with God, where all is joy, and all is holiness- made perfectly holy, and consequently perfectly happy, to sin no more, to sorrow no more, to weep no more, to wander no more, to fall no more, oh, how full of glory then becomes the humiliation of my incarnate Lord! Beloved, when God exalts you, remember it is because your Savior was abased. When your cup is sweet, remember it is because His cup was bitter. When you do press your mercy fondly and closely to your heart, remember it is because He pressed His heart to the spear. And when the eye of faith and hope looks forward to the coming glory, oh, forget not that because He endured your hell, you shall enjoy His heaven!

How gloriously does the love of the Father towards us shine in the humiliation and sufferings of Jesus! How deep, how immense, how real that love must be, thus to have dealt with His beloved Son, in order to waft all the blessings of heaven and immortality into our souls! If I want to know in some degree the height of the Father's love, I must in a proportionate degree know the depth of the Son's humiliation. Beloved, ponder this amazing truth. Sink down into it until you find it too deep for mortal thought to fathom; grasp it until its infinite dimensions expand beyond your powers of conception. God is love, and loving His Son, God loves you; and the strong and costly proof of it is, that He resigned Jesus to the shame and the spitting, gave up His darling One to the power of the dogs, and abandoned Him to darkness and woe upon the cross, withdrawing every beam of light from His mind, and every drop of consolation from His heart. Love prompted the gift, love constrained to the surrender, love sank Him low, and love stands pledged to give you every blessing that you need; and this is its security- "He that spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with him also freely give us all things?" Oh ascend from your narrow, straitened views of the Father's love! They dishonor that Father, they undervalue His gift, they grieve the Spirit, and they bring leanness into your own soul. In the humiliation and sufferings of Jesus, God has unlocked every chamber of His heart, and invites you to enter and revel amid their untold riches. In view of this stupendous truth, He asks you to surrender yourself simply and unreservedly to His government and service- to walk obediently- to trust implicitly- to bow resignedly- to imitate closely- and to be ever ascending in faith, and hope, and love, towards your heavenly home.

A spiritual and continued contemplation of the Redeemer's humiliation supplies a powerful check to sin. What is every sin committed, but opening afresh the wounds, and re-acting anew the humiliation of Jesus? Oh, how hateful must that sin appear in our serious moments, which shut out the sun of God's countenance from the soul of Christ, and sunk Him to such inconceivable depths of humiliation! We need every view of Divine truth calculated to sanctify. At present, the deepest sanctification of the believer is imperfect: his loftiest soarings towards holiness never reaching the goal. And yet to be ever thirsting, panting, wrestling, and aiming after it, should be classed among our highest mercies. Oh, we too much forget this truth, that the thirsting for holiness is as much the Holy Spirit's creation, as it is His work to quench that thirst. "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness;" or, Blessed are they who have the desire for Divine conformity, who long to know Christ, and to resemble Christ more perfectly. They may never reach the mark, yet ever pressing towards it- they may never attain to their standard, yet, ever aiming for it, they are truly blessed. Here, then, is one powerful means of attaining to holiness- the spiritual eye brought in close and frequent contact with the lowly life of God's dear Son. But for our sins, His mind had never been shaded with clouds, His heart had never been wrung with sorrow, His eye had never been bedewed with tears, He had never suffered and died, had never known the wrath of the offended God.

How fraught with soothing and consolation is this subject to the bereaved and tried believer! It tells you, weeping mourner, that having drained all His wrath, and poured it on the head of your Surety, nothing is reserved for you in the heart of God but the deep fountain of tender mercy and loving-kindness. Then where springs your present trial, but from the loving heart of your Father? In the life of Jesus all was humiliation, in the life of the believer all is glory; and all this glory springs from the headship of Christ. In every step that He trod, He is one with him- the only difference being that Jesus changes positions with the believer, and thus what was bitter to Him becomes sweet to us; and what was dark to Him, becomes light to us; and what was His ignominy and shame, becomes our highest honor and glory.

Humbling as may be the way God is now leading you, do not forget that the great end is to bring you into fellowship with Christ's humiliation- into a more realizing oneness with your tried Head. How contracted were the believer's views of, and how limited his sympathy with, the abasement of God's dear Son, but for the humiliation of His life, but for the way the Lord leads him about in order to humble him! Deut. viii. To be brought into sympathy with you in all the gloomy stages of your journey, "He humbled Himself;" and that this feeling might be reciprocal, bringing you into a sympathy with the dark stages of His life, He humbles you. But deep as your present humiliation may be, you cannot sink so low, but you will find He sunk yet lower, and is therefore able to sustain and bear you up. "I was brought low, and He helped me." Never can Christians sink beneath the everlasting arms; they will always be underneath you. You may be sorely tried- deeply bereaved- fearfully tempted- painfully wounded. Saints and sinners, the Church and the world, may each contribute some bitter ingredient to your cup; nevertheless, the heart of Jesus is a pavilion within whose sacred enclosure you may repose until these calamities be overpast. Your greatest extremity can never exceed His power or sympathy, because He has gone before His people, and has endured what they never shall endure. In the shadow now deepening around you, there is no frown; in the bosom of the cloud now gathering over you, there lurks no thunderbolt. On the path along which you tread, no lightning gleams, for Jesus has borne it all, and borne it all away. Do not be tempted, then, to believe that your case, extreme as it may be, can exceed the limit of His compassion, power, and sympathy. Behold what glory thus springs from the humiliation and sufferings of our adorable Redeemer!

This subject is of an eminently practical tendency. It especially points to Christ as an example. In view of the Redeemer's humiliation, how appropriate and forcible is the exhortation: "Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus!" The great and holy lesson the Lord the Spirit would inculcate as the foundation of this truth, is profound self-abasement, increasing, habitual lowliness of mind. Never was so holy a precept based upon such a doctrine, illustrated by such an example, and enforced by such a motive as this. It would seem, while descending into the dark valley of Divine abasement, as though all human self-exaltation must wither, and all self-glory must die. The atmosphere would seem too pure for affections so vile to exist even for a moment. It must be acknowledged as a truth of great moment, that only beneath the cross is this holy and precious grace truly cultivated and nurtured. There can be no evangelical humility until sin is felt and deplored, and Christ is seen and loved. The Lord, by various processes, may seek to "hide pride from men." Beneath the hand that has smitten, the haughty spirit, if it does not cherish secret and determined rebellion against the dispensation, may for a while be subdued, and the lofty look be laid low; but the pressure once removed- the sorrow vanishing, with it often vanishes all semblance of real humility and submission; and the spirit is more haughty and the eye more lofty than before.

But a spiritual, inward perception of this stupendous truth-God humbling Himself for man's transgression -the eternal Spirit laying it upon the heart with sanctifying power, begets a spirit of deep self-abasement, and promotes that lowliness and humbleness of mind with which Jehovah deigns and delights to dwell. Oh, how leveling is a sight of the cross of the incarnate God to human pride! Bereavements may empty- afflictions may humble- trials may subdue, and in the hand of the sanctifying Spirit they often work wonders for a child of God, and are not to be despised, or in any degree lightly esteemed; but the cross in the heart, this, this it is which truly and effectually lays the soul prostrate in the dust before the holy God, with deep abhorrence of self, and of sin's exceeding sinfulness.

But what is it to have "the mind that was in Christ?" We answer, it is to be ever aiming after the highest perfection of holiness. It is, to have the eye of faith perpetually on Jesus as our model, studying Him closely as our great example, seeking conformity to Him in all things. It is, to be regulated in all our conduct by His lowly spirit. First, with regard to others- to choose the low place, to acknowledge God in and to glorify Him for the grace, gifts, and the usefulness bestowed on other saints, and to exemplify in our social communion the self-denying, expansive benevolence of the Gospel, which enjoins the duty of not seeking paramountly our own interests, but to sacrifice all self-gratification, and even honor and advantage, if, by so doing, we may promote the happiness and welfare of others- thus it is to live, not for ourselves, but for God and our fellow-men; for "no man lives to himself, and no man dies to himself;" in the spirit of Him who, on the eve of returning to His glory, took a towel and girded Himself, and washed His disciples' feet, it is to serve the saints in the most lowly acts and offices. Second, it is to exemplify, with regard to ourselves, the same lowly spirit which He breathed. It is to be little in our own eyes- to cherish a humble estimate of our gifts, attainments, usefulness, and station- to be meek, gentle, and submissive under rebuke and correction- to "seek not great things for ourselves," -to court not human praise, watching our hearts with perpetual vigilance and jealousy, lest we thirst for the "honor which comes from man, and not the honor which comes from God only." It is to contribute to the necessities of saints without begrudging, to give to Christ's cause without ostentation, to do good by stealth- to seek, in all our works of zeal, and benevolence, and charity, to hide ourselves, that self may be perpetually mortified- in a word, it is to hunger and thirst after righteousness, to be poor in spirit, lowly in mind, to walk humbly with God, and to live to, and labor for, and aim after, the glory of God in all things. This is to have the "mind that was also in Christ Jesus."

There cannot, perhaps, be a position, however peculiar and difficult, in which the believer may be placed, but he will find that Jesus, either by precept or example, has defined the path in which he should walk. Let me illustrate this, by citing a few individual cases. The subject of this chapter pointedly and solemnly addresses itself to the rich. Circumstanced as you are by the providence of God, you have need closely and prayerfully to ascertain how, in your situation, Jesus walked. One of the peculiar snares to which your station exposes you is high-mindedness, and consequent self-trust and complacency. But here the Lord Jesus presents Himself as your example. He, too, was rich; creating all things, He possessed all things. The Creator of all worlds, all worlds were at His command. Yet, amazing truth! in the days of His humiliation, He was as though He possessed nothing, "Though He was rich, yet for our sakes He became poor." In view of such an illustrious Pattern, what is your duty? Simple and obvious. You are in a degree to become poor, by devoting your substance to the glory of God. To amass wealth, for the purpose of hoarding it, is contrary to the spirit of the Gospel, and is opposed to the teaching and example of Christ. It is a sin- an awful, a soul-periling sin. It exposes you to a vortex, which has already drawn and engulfed within its fearful abyss thousands of rich professors. Unless you are strictly following the steps of Christ, as one to whom immense responsibilities attach in connection with worldly prosperity, increasing wealth, or already acquired affluence, you are encircled by imminent danger. Your property is a talent, for which, as a steward, you are as certainly and as solemnly accountable to God as for any other. It is perhaps the one talent that He has given you. What if you bury it in covetousness, or in prodigal expenditure and self-indulgence, refusing to relax your grasp of it to promote His cause and truth, who became poor to enrich us; how will you meet His scrutiny and His glance when the judgment is set, and He demands an account of your stewardship? Nor is it a small, though, perhaps, a solitary talent. Bestowed upon but few, the obligation becomes the greater to consecrate it unreservedly to the Lord. And how can you withhold it, in view of the claims which crowd upon you on either hand? What! are you at a loss for a channel through which your benevolence might flow? Are you inquiring, "How shall I devote my property to God? To what especial object shall I contribute of my substance? In what way may this my one talent best answer the end for which it is bestowed?" Cast your eye around you- surely you cannot long hesitate. Survey the map of Christian missions, is there no part of Christ's kingdom languishing through an inadequacy of pecuniary support? Is there no mission embarrassed, if not abandoned, no laborious missionary disheartened, perhaps recalled, for the lack of that very substance which you are either hoarding up in the spirit of avarice, or lavishing in unnecessary and extravagant selfishness, or else, in the anticipation of a posthumous benevolence, have locked up in a piece of dry parchment, in the shape of a testamentary bequest, to be disposed of after your death? Is there no important enterprise impeded in its course of benevolence by the lack of funds? -no useful society discouraged and crippled through the narrowness and insufficiency of its resources? Is there no important sphere of labor in your vicinity neglected, no spot in the moral wilderness entirely untilled, because the means to supply and sustain an effective agency have been lacking? Is there no sanctuary of God burdened with debt, the existence of which presses like an incubus upon the spiritual prosperity and zealous exertion of the Christian community worshiping within its walls, and which your outstretched hand could remove and cast away? Is there no faithful, hard working minister of Christ within your knowledge and your reach, combating with straitened circumstances, oppressed by poverty, and toiling amid lonely care, embarrassment, and anxiety, studiously and delicately screened from human eye, which it is in your power to alleviate and remove? Is there no widow's heart you could make to sing for joy? no orphan, whose tears you could dry? no saint of God tried by sickness, or need, or imprisonment, from whose spirit you could lift the burden, and from whose heart you could chase the sorrow, and from whose feet you could strike the fetter? Surely a world of need, and woe, and suffering is before you, nor need you yield to a moment's hesitation in selecting the object around which your charity should entwine.

Here, then, is your example. Jesus became poor, lived poor, and died poor. Dare you die a rich man, an affluent professor? I beseech you, ponder this question. If your Lord has left you an example that you should follow His steps, then you are called upon to become poor, to live poor, yes, even to die poor for Him.

But especially are you exhorted to rejoice in that, by the grace of God, you are made low. That in the midst of so much calculated to nourish the pride and lofty independence of the natural heart, you have been made to know your deep spiritual poverty, and as a sinner have been brought to the feet of Jesus. By that grace only can you be kept low. Here is your only security. Mere wealth invests its possessor with no real power or greatness. It confers no moral nor intellectual glory. It insures not against the inroad of evil. It throws around no shield. It may impart a measure of artificial importance, authority, and influence in the world's estimation; beyond this, what is it? Unsanctified by Divine grace, it entails upon its unhappy possessor an innumerable train of evils. As a Christian man, then, exposed to the snares of even a moderate degree of worldly prosperity, your only security is in drawing largely from the "exceeding riches of Christ's grace;" your true wealth is in the fear of God ruling in your heart, in the love of Christ constraining you to "lie low in a low place;" to bear the cross daily; to walk closely, obediently, and humbly with God; employing the property with which He has intrusted you as a faithful steward; your eye ever "looking unto Jesus" as your Pattern.

Equally full and pointed in its instruction is this dark page in the Redeemer's history, to those of His saints who, by the providence of God, are placed in elevated walks in life, and upon whom are conferred the distinctions of human rank, power, and greatness. To assert, as some have done, that the word of God refuses to recognize human distinctions in society, and that when Divine grace takes possession of the heart, it becomes the duty of its subject to relinquish the rank, forego the influence, descend from the position, and go out of the sphere of life in the possession of which grace found him, would seem, not only to transcend the wisdom, but even to arraign the providence of God.

He who despises a rich man because he is rich, as much reproaches God, as he who oppresses a poor man because he is poor. The same providence which ordained the one, created the other. In the one case, we reproach God for creating the rich, and in the other, we reproach Him for creating the poor. In both we impeach His sovereignty, wisdom, and goodness. There is much in the leveling and equalizing spirit of the age to awaken strong suspicion and alarm. Let us be clearly understood. With the holy desire and fervent prayer of those who long for a clearer and wider line of demarcation between the Church and the world- for a more visible separation of the one from the other- for more spirituality among the Lord's people- more heavenly-mindedness, less sinful conformity to, and unnecessary mingling with, the world, we truly and deeply sympathize. But with the spirit to which we have alluded- a spirit which seeks to sap the foundation of human governments, to upheave human society, to loosen its bonds, annihilate its orders, and equalize its distinctions, we can have no sympathy whatever, believing it opposed to the spirit of true Christianity, which inculcates upon all men reverence for the civil power; which enjoins homage to kings, obedience to magistrates, prayer for all that are in authority, "honor to whom honor, and tribute to whom tribute is due;" remembering that "the powers that be are ordained by God."

Would it not also appear on examination, that, even among many saints of God, views are found to exist, the tendency of which is to foster a similar principle to that we have just reprehended? There would seem to be an impression- though the idea would probably meet with instant rejection- that providence and grace are opposed to each other- that, when the purpose of grace is accomplished, the arrangements of providence must be broken up; in other words, that the grace of God disqualifies for the previous sphere of elevated life which the providential arrangements of God had assigned to its subject. We think such an idea, practically acted upon, as some have done, fraught with many and serious evils. God will be glorified in everything that He has created, from the mote in the sunbeam to the highest product of His power. Especially is He glorified in maintaining His saints in the different spheres and relations of life in which His grace has called them. Thus He makes use of one believer's rank, of another's wealth, of another's influence, of another's attainments. On all is inscribed, "Holiness to the Lord;" and all, sanctified and set apart to a holy purpose and end, are pressed into His service, and are made to contribute to His glory. Imagine, then, how antagonistical the one to the other would providence and grace be made to appear, were a man of rank to relinquish his rank, a man of wealth to part with his wealth, a man of influence to come out of the sphere of his influence, the moment the great transition from death to life, from darkness to light, had taken place. The change from nature into grace is not an immediate translation from grace to glory. He is called spiritually out of the world, but yet left in the world, and left in it, too, that for awhile be may glorify Him who has called him. "These are in the world," says Christ to His Father. And again; "As You have sent me into the world, even so also have I sent them into the world." And although it is most true that "not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble are called;" yet it is equally true that to those who are so called the inspired exhortation is addressed, "Brothers, each man, as responsible to God, should remain in the situation God called him to."

But if, my reader, God has called you by His sovereign grace in the circumstances to which I have alluded, the grand point that we would press upon you, is the importance of placing prominently and constantly before you the Lord Jesus as your Pattern. Have you rank? have you distinction? have you wealth? have you influence? So had Christ. But how did He wear that rank, and sustain that distinction, and dispose of that wealth, and employ that influence? In the spirit of the profoundest humility, and with a view to the holiest and most sublime end! On what occasion will you detect in Him the parade of lofty title, or the pride of elevated distinction, or the haughty reserve of superior birth, or the tyrannical exercise of sovereign power, or the selfish indulgence of unbounded influence? Never! The "Ancient of days" did seem to be the infant of days, the eternal God as the lowliest man- with so meek, so humble, and so condescending a carriage, did He deport Himself in the days of His flesh. Of Him, and from Him, you have need to learn how best to glorify your heavenly Father in your present position. Looking narrowly into His word, examining closely His precept and example, you will avoid all worldly aggrandizement in your profession of Christian discipleship- you will be reminded that His "kingdom is not of this world;" that in the Church the "rich and the poor meet together;" that on common ground they there stand; that there all human distinction is lost, and all embrace each other as fellow-heirs of the same eternal inheritance. But if forbidden to carry your worldly distinctions into your Christianity, you are not forbidden to carry your Christianity into the elevated circle in which you move, showing how the grace of the Lord Jesus can make you poor, though rich; humble, though elevated; and child-like, though gifted. Oh, be constrained in the spirit of the profoundest humility to lay your title, your wealth, your honor, and your intellectual attainments at the foot of the cross, an unreserved, consecrated, and willing offering to His glory, who though the "King of kings, and Lord of lords," once hung upon it in ignominy and suffering and death. You "know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ," -the rich, the amazing, the sovereign, the free grace of Jesus, to which you owe all that is precious and glorious in the prospect of eternity; you know from personal and blessed experience this fathomless, boundless grace, which has made you what you are, and will make you what you shall yet be- let this grace, then, accomplish its perfect work in you, by leading you to glory only of Jesus, to yield yourself supremely to His service, and to regard the worldly distinction God has conferred upon you as valuable only as it promotes His kingdom, truth, and glory, who "though rich, for your sakes became poor, that you, through His poverty, might be made rich."

Permit me to reiterate the exhortation- cultivate, above all spiritual conditions, most assiduously, prayerfully, earnestly, and fervently, poverty of spirit. Rest not short of it. This is the legitimate fruit, and the only safe evidence, of our union to Christ, and the indwelling of the Spirit in our hearts. Nothing can suffice for it. Splendid talent, versatile gifts, profound erudition, gorgeous eloquence, and even extensive usefulness, are wretched substitutes for poverty of spirit. They may dazzle the eye, and please the ear, and delight the taste, and awaken the applause of man, but, dissociated from profound humiliation of mind, God sees no glory in them. What does He say? "To this man" (to him only, to him exclusively) "will I look, even to him that is poor and of a contrite spirit, and trembles at my word." We may think highly of gifts, but let us learn their comparative value and true place from the words of our Lord, spoken in reference to John: "Verily I say unto you, Among those who are born of women there has not risen a greater than John the Baptist: notwithstanding he that is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he." Behold the true position which Christ assigns to distinction of office, of place, and of gifts-subordinate to lowliness of spirit. This is their proper rank; and he who elevates them above profound self-abasement, deep lowliness of spirit, sins against God, impeaches His wisdom, and denies the truth of His word.

But how shall we adequately describe this blessed state? how draw the portrait of the man that is "poor, and of a contrite spirit?" Look at him as he appears in his own apprehension and judgment- "the chief of sinners," "less than the least of all saints," "though I be nothing." Prostrate, where others exalt him; condemning, where others approve him; censuring, where others applaud him; humbling himself, where others have put upon him the greatest honor. Confessing in secret and in the dust before God, the flaws, the imperfections, and the sins of those things which have dazzled the eyes, and awakened to trembling ecstasy the souls of the multitude. Look at him in the place he assumes among others- taking the low position; in honor preferring others; washing the disciples' feet; willing to serve rather than be served; rejoicing in the distinction, the promotion, the gifts, the usefulness, and the honor put upon his fellow-saints; and ready himself to go up higher at his Master's bidding. Look at him under the hand of God- meek, patient, resigned, humbled, drinking the bitter cup, blessing the hand that has smitten, justifying the wisdom, the love, and the gentleness which mark the discipline, and eager to learn the holy lessons it is sent to teach. Look at him before the cross- reposing all his gifts, and attainments, and honors at his foot, and glorying only in the exhibition it presents of the holy God pardoning sin through the death of His Son, and as the hallowed instrument by which he becomes crucified to the world, and the world to him.

And how shall we array, in the strongest light, before you, the motives which urge the cultivation of this poverty of spirit? Is it not enough that this is the spiritual state on which Jehovah looks with an eye of exclusive, holy, and ineffable delight? "To this man will I look." "Splendid gifts, brilliant attainments, costly sacrifices, are nothing to me. To this man will I look, that is poor and of a contrite spirit, and that trembles at my word."

To this would add, if you value your safe, happy, and holy walk- if you prize the manifestations of God's presence- "the kisses of His mouth, whose love is better than wine," the teaching, guiding, and comforting influence of the Holy Spirit, seek it. If you would be a "savor of Christ in every place," -if you would pray with more fervor, unction, and power- if you would labor with more zeal, devotedness, and success, seek poverty of spirit. By all that is dear, and precious, and holy- by your own happiness, by the honor of Christ, by the glory of God, by the hope of heaven, seek to be found among those who are "poor, and of a contrite spirit," who, with filial, holy love, tremble at God's word, whom Jesus has pronounced blessed here, and fit for glory hereafter. And though, in approaching the Great High Priest, you have no splendid and costly intellectual offerings to present, yet with the royal penitent you can say, "You would not be pleased with sacrifices, or I would bring them. If I brought you a burnt offering, you would not accept it. The sacrifice you want is a broken spirit. A broken and repentant heart, O God, you will not despise." "This, Lord, is all that I have to bring You."

Avoid a spurious humility. True humility consists not in denying the work of the Holy Spirit in our hearts, in underrating the grace of God in our souls, in standing afar off from our heavenly Father, and in walking at a distance from Christ, always doubting the efficacy of His blood, the freeness of His salvation, the willingness of His heart, and the greatness of His power to save. Oh no! this is not the humility that God delights to look at, but is a false, a counterfeit humility, obnoxious in His sight. But, to "draw near with a true heart, in full assurance of faith," in lowly dependence upon His blood and righteousness; to accept of salvation as the gift of His grace; to believe the promise, because He has spoken it; gratefully and humbly to acknowledge our calling, our adoption, and our acceptance, and to live in the holy, transforming influence of this exalted state, giving to the Triune God all the praise and glory; this is the humility which is most pleasing to God, and is the true product of the Holy Spirit.

This subject addresses itself especially and soothingly to those who, like their Lord, are the subjects of deep humiliation and suffering. But imperfectly, perhaps, beloved reader, are you aware of the high privilege to which you are admitted, and of the great glory conferred upon you in being identified with Jesus in His life of humiliation. This is one of the numerous evidences by which your adoption into the family of God is authenticated, and by which your union with Christ is confirmed. It may be you are the subject of deep poverty, your circumstances are straitened, your resources are limited, your necessities are many and pressing. Perhaps you are the "man that has known affliction;" sorrow has been your constant and intimate companion; you have become "acquainted with grief." The Lord has been leading you along a path of painful humiliation. You have been "emptied from vessel to vessel." He has brought you down, and laid you low; step by step- and yet, oh how wisely and how gently He has been leading you deeper and yet deeper into the valley! But why all this leading about? why this emptying? why this descending? Even to bring you into a union and communion with Jesus in His life of humiliation! Is there a step in your abasement that Jesus has not trodden with you- ah, and trodden before you? Is there a sin that He has not carried, a cross that He has not borne, a sorrow that has not affected Him, an infirmity that has not touched Him? Even so will He cause you to reciprocate this sympathy, and have fellowship with Him in His sufferings. As the Head did sympathize with the body, so must the body sympathize with the Head. Yes, the very same humiliation which you are now enduring, the Son of God has before endured. And that you might learn something what that love, and grace, and power were which enabled Him to pass through it all, He pours a little drop into your cup, places a small part of the cross upon your shoulder, and throws a slight shadow on your soul! Yes, the very sufferings you are now enduring are, in a faint and limited degree, the sufferings of Christ. "Who now rejoice in my sufferings for you," says the apostle, "and fill up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh, for His body's sake, which is the Church."

There is a twofold sense in which Jesus may be viewed as a sufferer. He suffered in His own person as the Mediator of His Church; those sufferings were vicarious and complete, and in that sense He can suffer no more; "for by one offering He has perfected forever those who are sanctified." The other now presents Him as suffering in His members- in this sense Christ is still a sufferer; and although not suffering to the same degree, or for the same end, as He once did, nevertheless He who said, "Saul, Saul, why do you persecute Me?" is identified with the Church in all its sufferings; in all her afflictions, He being afflicted. The apostle therefore terms the believer's present sufferings, the "afflictions of Christ." Behold, then, your exalted privilege, you suffering sons of God! See how the glory beams around you, you humble and afflicted ones! You are one with the Prince of sufferers, and the Prince of sufferers is one with you! Oh! to be one with Christ- what tongue can speak, what pen can describe the sweetness of the blessing, and the greatness of the grace? To sink with Him in His humiliation here, is to rise with Him in His exaltation hereafter. To share with Him in His abasement on earth, is to blend with Him in His glory in heaven. To suffer shame and ridicule, persecution and distress, poverty and loss, for Him now, is to wear the crown, and wave the palm, and swell the triumph, and shout the song, when He shall descend the second time in glory and majesty, to raise His bride from the scene of her humiliation, robe her for the marriage, and make her manifestly and eternally His own.

Oh! laud His great name for all the present conduct of His providence and grace. Praise Him for all the wise, though affecting, discoveries He gives you of yourself, of the creature, of the world. Blessed, ah! truly blessed and holy is the discipline that prostrates your spirit in the dust. There it is that He reveals the secret of His own love, and draws apart the veil of His own loveliness. There it is that He brings the soul deeper into the experience of His sanctifying truth; and with new forms of beauty, and expressions of endearment, allures the heart, and takes a fresh possession of it for Himself. And there, too, it is that the love, tenderness, and grace of the Holy Spirit are better known. As the Comforter, as the Revealer of Jesus, we are, perhaps, more fully led into an acquaintance with the work of the Spirit in seasons of self-abasement, than at any other time. The mode and time of His Divine manifestation are thus beautifully predicted: "He shall come down like rain on the mown grass; as showers that water the earth." Observe the gentleness, the silence, end the sovereignty of His operation- "He shall come down like rain." How characteristic of the blessed Spirit's grace! Then mark the occasion on which it descends- it is at the time of the soul's deep prostration. The waving grass is mown, the lovely flower is laid low, the fruitful stem is broken; that which was beautiful, and fragrant, and precious, is cut down- the fairest first to fade, the loveliest first to die, the fondest first to depart; then, when the mercy is gone, and the spirit is bowed, and the heart is broken, and the mind is dejected, and the world seems clad in wintry desolateness and gloom, the Holy Spirit, in all the softening, reviving, comforting, and refreshing tendency of His grace, descends, speaks of the beauty of Jesus, leads to the grace of Jesus, lifts the bowed soul, and reposes it on the bosom of Jesus, and wakes its heart to the sweetest strains of music.

"I live, His power to show, who once did bring
My joys to weep, and now my griefs to sing."

Precious and priceless, then, beloved, are the seasons of the believer's humiliation. They tell of the soul's emptiness, of Christ's fulness; of the creature's insufficiency, of Christ's all-sufficiency; of the world's poverty, of Christ's affluence: they create a necessity which Jesus supplies, a void which Jesus fills, a sorrow which Jesus soothes, a desire which Jesus satisfies. They endear the cross of the incarnate God, they reveal the hidden glory of Christ's humiliation, they sweeten prayer, lift the soul to God; and then, "truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with His Son, Jesus Christ." Are you as a bruised flower? Are you as a broken stem? Does some heavy trial now bow you in the dust? Oh, never, perhaps, were you so truly beautiful; never did your grace send forth such fragrance, nor your prayers ascend with so sweet an odor; never did faith, and hope, and love develop their hidden glories so richly, so fully as now! In the eye of the wounded, bruised, and humbled Christ, you were never more lovely, and to His heart never more precious than now- pierced by His hand, smitten by His rod, humbled by His chastisement, laid low at His feet, condemning yourself, justifying Him, taking to yourself all the shame, and ascribing to Him all the glory.

"Thanks Be unto God For His Unspeakable Gift!"

The Glory of the Redeemer in His Resurrection

And when I saw him, I fell at his feet as dead. And he laid his right hand upon me, saying unto me, Fear not; I am the first and the last: I am he that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive for evermore, Amen; and have the keys of hell and of death. Rev. 1:17-18

When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead. Then he placed his right hand on me and said: "Do not be afraid. I am the First and the Last. I am the Living One; I was dead, and behold I am alive for ever and ever! And I hold the keys of death and Hades. Rev. 1:17-18

When I saw him, I fell at his feet as dead. But he laid his right hand on me and said, "Don't be afraid! I am the First and the Last. I am the living one who died. Look, I am alive forever and ever! And I hold the keys of death and the grave. Rev. 1:17-18

We now stand upon the threshold of a subject second to none, yet considered in the grandeur of its character, in the immensity of its results, and in the glory with which it encircles the person and the work of our adorable Redeemer. It is that single doctrine of the Bible, the existence of which authenticates the truth, and develops the beauty of all the others. Indeed, it is to Christianity what the soul is to the body, what the foundation is to the building, what the key-stone is to the arch- it would seem necessary to the very existence of revelation, imparting vitality, substance, and security to every doctrine of the inspired word. The life of Jesus is the life of the Bible- the life of the believer- the life of glory. The one fact- the resurrection of Christ- would appear to be the fountain of life to the Church of God in all ages of the world. It throws back a quickening influence, felt by prophets and by patriarchs; it is the life of the Church now, and it will, to the remotest period of time, transmit an influence which shall be felt by the last vessel of mercy. Impressed thus with its vast importance, its essential relation to the truth of the Bible, and to the existence of the Church of God, we humbly enter upon its discussion. And oh may the Eternal Spirit of truth so anoint both the writer and the reader, that this glorious and precious doctrine may come to our minds with all the power, freshness, and sweetness of a newly-discovered, heaven-descending doctrine!

We have placed at the head of this chapter a sublime portion of the inspired word, which, while it embodies the doctrine before us, places it in a lucid and convincing point of view. At the first glance, it may seem to direct the eye rather to the glorified humanity of our Lord, than specifically to the single fact of His resurrection. But a little reflection will convince the mind that the two doctrines are closely interwoven the one with the other; and the appearance of Jesus in a state of ascension-glory, necessarily involves His resurrection-glory, and so places the master-fact of the Bible beyond the region of doubt. The passages are affirmative, from His own lips, of the risen life of Jesus; and as this is the point now demanding our consideration, a brief exposition of the words may greatly assist our investigation.

The occasion on which they were spoken is deeply instructive. Our adorable Emmanuel frequently reveals the most brilliant beams of His glory in seasons of the most painful trial and deepest gloom. The dark providential dispensations of God often bring out in richer radiance the glories of His beloved Son, as the darkness of night reveals more distinctly and brightly the existence and beauty of the heavenly bodies. For the manifestation of this remarkable revelation of His risen glory to His servant, our Lord selects precisely such an occasion- an occasion which, to the eye of reason, would appear the most unpropitious and improbable; but to faith's eye, ranging beyond second causes, the most appropriate for such a revelation of Jesus. Domitian, though not released from his fearful responsibility for the act, was but the instrument of executing the eternal purpose of grace and love. God's hand was moving, and moving, too, as it often does, in the "thick darkness." Exiled as John was by this Roman emperor to a desolate island of the Aegean Sea, "for the word of God, and for the testimony of Jesus Christ," the Redeemer was but preparing the way for the revelation of those visions of glory, than which none more sublime or more precious ever broke upon the eye of mortal man. God was not only placing His beloved servant in a right posture to behold them, but was also most wisely and graciously training and disciplining His mind spiritually and humbly to receive them. There are two features in the Lord's manifestation of His glory to His saints worthy of our serious notice. As in the case of the Apostle John, there is often a preparation for the manifestation. The believer is placed in a position suited to a proper view of the object. A holy disciplining is employed. There is a bringing down, a laying low, a soul-emptying and humbling process, often most trying and painful, but most needed in preparing the Lord's way into the soul. Other objects of love and beauty are removed, other glory is dimmed, the palace is "swept and garnished," the eye is "anointed with fresh eye-salve," then the Lord of glory enters– then Jesus draws near- reveals His beauty, manifests His glory, and unfolds His love.

The second feature is illustrated by the case of the Apostle Paul, and marks the subsequent process through which the soul often passes. Through the abundance of the revelations of the Redeemer's glory that are sometimes made, the Lord has now to fortify the soul against the risings of self; and lest, through the clinging infirmities of our unsanctified nature, we should be "exalted above measure," a "messenger of Satan" is sent to bring and keep us low in the dust before God.

But mark how this dark and trying incident was making for the good of this holy exile. Banished though he was from the saints, from society, and from all the means of grace, man could not banish him from the presence of God, nor persecution separate him from the love of Christ. Patmos, to his view, became resplendent with the glory of the risen Savior- the reconciled God and Father was his sanctuary- the Holy Spirit, the Comforter, overshadowed him- and the Lord's day, already so hallowed and precious to him in its association with the resurrection of the Lord, broke upon him with unknown effulgence, sanctity, and joy. Oh, how richly favored was this beloved disciple! Great as had been his previous privileges- journeying with Christ, beholding His miracles, hanging on His lips, reposing on His bosom- yet never had he been so privileged- never had he learned so much of Jesus, nor had seen so much of His glory, nor had drunk so deeply of His love, nor had experienced so richly His unutterable tenderness, gentleness, and sympathy, and never had he spent such a Lord's day as now, the solitary inhabitant of a lonely isle though he was. Oh, where is there a spot which Jesus cannot irradiate with His glory- where is there solitude which He cannot sweeten with His presence- where is there suffering, privation, and loss, which He cannot more than recompense by His sustaining grace and soothing love- and where is there a trembling and prostrate soul, which His "right hand" cannot lift up and soothe? This, then, was the occasion on which the Lord appeared in so glorious a form, with such soothing words and sublime revelations, to His beloved servant. We now proceed to the subject before us.

The resurrection-life of Jesus, as we have remarked, is the life of the child of God. Before more fully going into the consideration of this great truth, it may be profitable briefly to trace the close relation which this one fact sustains to the veracity of the Bible itself; for if this doctrine be false, it falsifies the sacred word, neutralizes the faith, and annihilates the hope of the Church. "If Christ has not been risen," argues the apostle, "then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain; yes, and we are found false witnesses for God. And if Christ has not been raised, you are yet in your sins. Then they also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished." Now, as on this one fact the truth of the Gospel hinged, and the life of the Church was suspended, and the whole glory of the Redeemer hung, and events the most stupendous and solemn were poised, we wonder not that the apostles placed this doctrine in the very foreground of their ministry; everywhere, and on all occasions, proclaiming it with marvellous boldness, power, and success, the testimony of their own conscience, and the descending evidence of the Holy Spirit, bearing witness that it was true. "And with great power the apostles gave witness of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus: and great grace was upon them all." How necessary, then, would it appear that, in their preaching, they should lay great stress upon this doctrine, proclaiming it as men who knew it to be no lie, and who, in the face of the rack, and the boiling cauldron, and the cross, and the scourge, and the prison, and the banishment, undaunted and unmoved, should press it to their hearts, and hold it high- the glorious truth of God!

If the tomb still enclosed the lifeless body of their Master, then were made good the assertions, and then were realized the predictions, of His enemies, that He was an impostor, and His religion an imposition. If the apostles could prove, as eye-witnesses of what they asserted, that the tomb of their Lord was empty, and that nothing of Him remained in it but the shroud that had wrapped His form, and the "napkin that was about His head;" then would they confound their enemies, strike the death-blow to Judaism, and triumphantly establish the truth of Christianity. As it was everything to the success of their cause, to prove that Christ was alive, so it was everything to the Sanhedrin, in their plot to defeat their cause, to disprove that Christ was alive. Both saw that the verification or the falsification of this single fact was of the first moment. Everything hung upon it. The chief priests and rulers, driven to desperation, affirmed that the body was stolen; the apostles, strong, but calm, in the belief of the truth of what they asserted, affirmed that the body was quickened. Vain and weak attempt of the Jewish council to defeat the evidence of a fact, the truth of which they could not gainsay! The body stolen! The grave robbed! By whom? By His enemies? It was their interest to have allowed the body of our Lord to remain undisturbed in the grave, that the proof of His imposture might be the more palpable and overwhelming. Surely they would not have taken a step tending to impart even the semblance of truth to the predictions of Christ, and the declarations of His friends. But supposing that they had secreted the body, why did they not, if in their power, produce it? This would have decided the question of His resurrection in their favor, and have stifled in its birth, at once and for ever, the infant and rising religion. By His disciples? But who can prove that they stole the body? Is it probable that, if confederated to deceive, they would witness against themselves? And if the soldiers were awake, would they have allowed themselves to be over come by a handful of unarmed and timid men? And is it likely that the disciples, thus unarmed and timid, would have opposed their weakness to the strength of a Roman guard, strongly armed, and awed by the fear of certain death, to the most sleepless vigilance? Or would they have thus periled their lives for a man who had so shamefully deceived, and so cruelly abandoned them? Or if, as the rulers would have made it appear, the soldiers were asleep, how came they to know that the disciples secretly, and by night, took the body away?

But we turn to the testimony of the apostles themselves. How unlikely were they to impose upon the credulity of the world and the Church! They were unlearned and unsophisticated men, incapable of a plot. They were poor and uninfluential men, possessing neither the means nor the power of executing, even had they the skill to conceive it. And yet how clearly and triumphantly do they establish the great fact for which they contended! The Apostle Paul thus condenses their personal and unanimous testimony. "I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins, according to the Scriptures; and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day, according to the Scriptures; and that He was seen by Cephas, then by the twelve: after that He was seen by above five hundred brethren at once; of whom the greater part remain unto this present, but some are fallen asleep. After that He was seen by James; then by all the apostles. And last of all He was seen by me also, as by one born out of due time." What further testimony need we than this?

But what are SOME OF THE GREAT TRUTHS CONFIRMED BY THE RESURRECTION of Jesus, and in the belief of which the believer is built up, by this glorious and life-inspiring doctrine? They are many and vast. Indeed, it would not be too much to affirm of the entire system of Divine truth, that it depended mainly for its evidence upon the single fact of Christ's resurrection from the dead. In the first place, it establishes the Bible to be the revelation of God. If the types which shadowed forth, and the prophecies which predicted, the resurrection of the Lord, received not their substance and their fulfilment in the accomplishment of that fact, then the Scriptures were not true, the types were meaningless, and the predictions were false. For thus do they unite in setting forth this glorious and precious truth. First, as it regards the types. What was the receiving back of Isaac after he had been laid upon the altar, and the knife raised to slay him, but the shadowing forth of Christ's resurrection? As the binding of him upon the wood prefigured the sacrificial death of Christ, so the unbinding of him from the altar, and his surrender to his father the third day from the time that he had received the command to sacrifice him, prefigured the risen life of Christ. Significant type! radiant with the glory of the risen Jesus! In the one part we see Him dying, in the other part we see Him rising. The one shadows forth His atoning sacrifice, the other His risen glory. And here did the mind of Abraham rest. His towering faith rose above the type; he looked beyond the shadow. His soul embraced the crucified and the risen Lord. Strong in the exercise of a prospective faith, he beheld before him as vividly, and he reposed in as firmly, the dying and the living Redeemer, as did John when the sweet voice broke upon his ear, "I am He that lives, and was dead." "By faith Abraham, when he was tried, offered up Isaac. . . . Accounting that God was able to raise him up even from the dead from where also he received him in a figure."

A part of the ceremony observed in the purification of the leper, points to the same glorious truth. "Two birds alive and clean," were to be brought to the priest. One was to be "killed in an earthen vessel over running water." The priest was then to "dip the living bird in the blood of the bird that was killed," and to "let it go out of the city into the open fields." The bird killed in an earthen vessel was a type of the human nature of our Lord crucified for the leprosy of sin, the atoning virtue of whose precious blood is of continual efficacy, typified by the running water; for the "blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us from all sin." The living bird dipped in the blood of the bird slain, and then let free, was the type of the resurrection life of Jesus, who, as the great High Priest, "ever lives to make intercession for us," by pleading within the veil the merits of His atoning blood.

The type of the slain and the living goat embodies in vivid outline the same essential doctrine. Aaron was commanded to kill the goat of the sin-offering, and bring his blood within the veil. But upon the head of the live goat he was to place both his hands, and confess over him all the iniquities of the children of Israel, and then to send him away by the hand of a fit man into the wilderness. "And he shall let go the goat in the wilderness." Our adorable Lord was the glorious substance of this expressive type. Both parts met, and were realized in Him. "He was delivered for our offences, and rose again for our justification."

The prophetic Scriptures are equally as explicit in setting forth the resurrection of Christ. It will not be necessary that we quote them accompanied with any lengthened comment, as in a former part of this work allusion has already been made to the Scripture prophecies concerning the Redeemer. "You are my Son, this day have I begotten You." "My flesh shall also rest in hope. For You will not leave my soul in hands, nor will You suffer Your Holy One to see corruption." "I will make an everlasting covenant with you, even the sure mercies of David." Now mark how exactly these portions of the prophetic Scriptures are quoted by the Apostle Paul, and strictly applied by him to the resurrection of Christ. "But God raised Him from the dead; and He was seen many days by them who came up with Him from Galilee to Jerusalem, who are His witnesses unto the people. And we declare unto you glad tidings, how that the promise which was made unto the fathers, God has fulfilled the same unto us, their children, in that He raised up Jesus again; as it is also written in the second Psalm, You are my Son; this day have I begotten You. And as concerning that He raised Him up from the dead, now no more to return to corruption, He said on this wise, I will give you the sure mercies of David. Wherefore he says also in another Psalm, You shall not suffer Your Holy One to see corruption. For David, after he had served his own generation, by the will of God, fell asleep, and was laid unto his fathers, and saw corruption: but He whom God raised again, saw no corruption." How brightly does the doctrine of the risen Savior shine throughout this remarkable portion of God's holy word! Truly the life of Jesus is the life of the Scriptures. Again, "Your dead men shall live, together with my dead body shall they arise." "I know that my Redeemer lives." Thus does the resurrection of Christ from the dead confirm the truth of God's holy word. The types find their substance, and the prophecies their fulfilment, in Him who was emphatically the "plague of death, and the destruction of the grave."

The resurrection of the Redeemer established the truth of His Godhead. Thus the Holy Spirit speaks by the apostle- "And declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the Spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead." His miracles had already proved the truth of His Divine Sonship. Yet there wanted one other evidence, the crowning one of all- the resurrection. This one evidence would put the final seal to the truth of His Deity. If not, then all that He had previously said, predicted, and done, would prove but to have been, as His enemies have asserted, the stratagem of a designing man, attempting to impose upon the credulity of a few devoted but deluded followers. But this return to life on the exact day which He had predicted, breaking, by the exercise of His Divine power, from the cold embrace of death and the imprisonment of the grave, put at rest forever the question of His Deity, and declared Him to be the Son of God. Oh, how truly and properly Divine did He now appear! August and convincing as had been all the previous attestations of His Godhead, His life one succession of the most astonishing and brilliant achievements of Divine power and goodness, diseases healed, sight restored, demons ejected, the dead raised, tempests hushed, and winds stilled, His death marked by prodigies of terrible and surpassing wonder and sublimity- the earth heaving beneath His feet, the sun darkening above Him, the graves opening around Him; yet never had His Godhead shone forth with such demonstrative power and resplendent glory, as when He broke from the tomb and rose triumphant over hell, death, and the grave. Then did He fulfil this prediction, and redeem this pledge- "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up again." Receding for awhile from Communion with life- as if to create a pause in nature, which would awaken the interest and fix the gaze of the intelligent universe upon one stupendous event- He disappeared within the very domain of the "king of terrors," wrapped around Him its shroud of darkness, and laid Himself down- Essential Life locked in the embrace of death, immortality slumbering in the tomb! But He rose again! bursting from the cold embrace, and awaking from the mysterious slumber, He came back to life, all radiant, immortal, and Divine!

Saint of God! need you a further and stronger evidence that your faith has credited no cunningly devised fable? that He to whose guardianship you have committed your precious soul, is able to keep it until the morning of your own resurrection glory? Behold it in the risen life of the incarnate God! He has come up from the grave, to make good all His previous claims to Deity, thus to encourage and confirm your belief in the truth, dignity, and glory of His person, and to assure you that He that "believes in Him shall not be ashamed." Now may you take up the triumphant strain, as it falls from the lips of the departing apostle, prolonging it until another shall catch it from your expiring tongue: "I know in whom I have believed, and am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I have committed unto Him against that day."

The resurrection of Christ was the Father's great seal to the truth of His Son's mission, and the public expression of His entire satisfaction with, and full acceptance of, His atoning work. The quickening of Christ's body is, therefore, frequently ascribed to the Father, "Whom God has raised up," "But God raised Him from the dead," "The working of His mighty power which He wrought in Christ, when He raised Him from the dead," "Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father." Participating as the Son Himself and the Holy Spirit did in this work- for it was a work employing equally the power, and involving equally the glory, of the triune God- it is yet particularly spoken of as the act of the Father. And why? Because at His hands His Son had received the great commission- by Him He had been invested with the mediatorial office- and by Him sent to discharge the claims of law and justice in behalf of His covenant people. Who, therefore, but the Father, could authenticate the truth of His mission, receive back His office, release Him from the obligation, and accept the work at His hands? This He did "when He raised Him from the dead, and set Him at His own right hand." Here was the grand evidence of the perfection and acceptance of His sacrifice. The atoning work of Jesus was in itself perfect and complete. It was all that God demanded, all that the Church required, and all that law and justice asked. Yet there was needed one proof that this work was accepted by God, and was Satisfactory to Divine justice. On the cross He had uttered that wondrous cry, which sent gladness through all heaven, and dismay through all hell- "It is finished!" But, lo, He dies! The Captain of our salvation is conquered! The promised Victor is vanquished! He is laid in the grave! The stone covers Him! The earth imprisons Him! What proof have we now that He was more than mortal? what evidence that He was God? What Divine seal is affixed to the great charter of redemption? What pledge have we that it is complete? What security against the law's loud thunder, and the consuming flames of justice- against the wrath of the offended God, and the condemnation that is to come? In a word, how may we know that all the Divine perfections are harmonized in our salvation, and that "whoever believes in Jesus shall not perish, but have everlasting life?" Behold, the Father raises Him from the dead! This is the evidence- this is the seal- this is the pledge- and this the security. We need even ask no more. It satisfied God, it satisfies us. Then did God "rest in His love;" and then, if ever, did He rejoice over His Church with singing. It was a sublime, a momentous event. It was bringing forth the top-stone amid the shouts of angels, and placing it upon that finished work of which His death had been the foundation. At that moment all created intelligences were summoned to witness the great and final Seal affixed to redemption's perfect work. And while every eye was thus intently bent upon the yielding grave, the Father, in that stupendous act of His power and love, utters His solemn voice, "This is my beloved Son, in whose person I delight, and with whose work I am well satisfied." Oh what majesty now encircled the rising form of the incarnate God! Never had He appeared so truly the Savior, never so illustriously the Redeemer, and never so perfectly the Mediator and Advocate as now- sealed by God the Father, quickened by God the Spirit, and radiant with the beams of His own Divine glory.

But not only was it His personal release from all the obligations He had assumed as the sin-bearer of His people, but His resurrection also involved the complete justification of His Church. Obeying, suffering, and rising as the Representative, the Surety, the Head of His Church, may we not say, that what He did was not so much His own act, as that of the Church in Him? He obeyed not for Himself, nor for Himself did He die and rise again, but for His "body, the Church." His resurrection, therefore, was as much His Church's entire release, discharge, and justification, as it was His own. Then was the glorious sentence of acquittal passed- then transpired the great act of justification. The emerging of the Redeemer from the grave, was the emerging of the redeemed from all condemnation. His release from the cold grasp of the destroyer was their release from the iron hand of the law. "He was taken from prison and from judgment;" and as He passed out of the court of God's justice, and from the prison-house of death, the Church, purchased with His blood, passed out with Him, legally and fully discharged, exclaiming as the last barrier yielded, and the last fetter broke, "Who is He that condemns? it is Christ that died, yes rather, that is RISEN AGAIN!" On this ground, therefore, the apostle argues that righteousness is imputed to us, "if we believe on Him that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead;, who was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our (declared) justification." Precious Redeemer! What surpassing glory beams forth from Your emptied sepulcher!

It was also the consummation of His glorious victory. Until this moment, the Redeemer had all the appearance of one vanquished in the great fight. He was left slain upon the battle-field. Indeed, it would appear that He had really endured a momentary defeat. He was now under the dominion of death; and as death was the consequence and penalty of sin, so long as He was subject to its power, He still lay beneath the sins of His people. Cancelled although they were by the blood He had just shed, the great evidence of their remission did not, and could not, transpire until the resurrection had passed. What gloom now enshrouded the Church of God! The Sun of Righteousness was setting in darkness and in blood; and with it were descending into the tomb, the hopes of patriarchs and prophets, of seers and apostles. The "king of terrors " had laid low his illustrious victim; and the cold earth had closed upon His sacred body, mangled and lifeless. Oh, what a victory did hell and sin, death and the grave, now seem to have achieved! But the "triumphing of the wicked is short." In three days the tomb, at the mighty fiat of Jehovah, unveiled its bosom, and yielded back its Creator and Lord. The Sun of Righteousness ascended again in cloudless glory and peerless majesty, to set no more forever. The Church of God, now "begotten again unto a living hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead," arose from the dust and put on her beautiful garments. Now was the scene changed. His enemies, no longer wearing even the semblance of victory, were overthrown and vanquished. Hell was disappointed, and its gates forever closed against the redeemed. Sin was thrown to an infinite distance, and "death had no more dominion over Him, God having loosed its pains, because it was not possible that He should be holden by it. He rose the mighty and the illustrious Conqueror. And all this conquest, let it not be forgotten, was achieved in behalf of the chosen and the beloved people. It was our battle that He fought, it was our victory that He won. Therefore, called though we are to "wrestle against the principalities and against the powers," and exhorted though we are to "take unto us the whole armor of God," we yet are confronted with enemies already vanquished. It would seem as though we were summoned, not so much to go out upon the field of battle, as upon the field of conquest; not so much to combat with the foe, as to gather up the spoils of victory. For what is every successful conflict with our spiritual adversaries- what is every corruption mortified- what is every temptation resisted- what is every sin overcome- but a showing forth the great victory already won by the Captain of our salvation? Every triumph of the Holy Spirit in the heart of a regenerate man, is a display of the triumph of Him who, in hanging on the cross, and in rising from the grave, "spoiled the principalities and the powers, and made a show of them openly, triumphing over them in it."

But there is a most important and blessed view of the glory of the Redeemer's resurrection still to be considered; a view which will be found to bring this essential doctrine of our faith with living power to the soul, causing each believer in Jesus to feel a personal interest in, and identity with, it. The resurrection of Christ from the grave is the spiritual, assured, and eternal life of the Church. In this light, the risen life of Jesus is everything to the believer's salvation, as it is everything to the entire system of Christianity. Death seemed to rest upon all that related to the kingdom of Christ, during the short period that He Himself continued under its dominion. It was a three days of fearful, agonizing suspense. If there ever was silence in heaven, may we not suppose it was during that period? The salvation of millions yet unborn, as of millions who had died in the faith of Jesus, and the everlasting honor and glory of the triune Jehovah, were suspended upon that single event. But He rose again, the death of death, the life of the Church. The quickening of His natural body was the quickening of His spiritual body. Here we are again brought back to that elevating and sanctifying truth- the federal relation of Christ to His Church- the responsible headship of Jesus- His perfect oneness (implying more than mere union) with His Church. We have seen that in dying, His death was the death of the Church in Him- its death to the claims of the law, to the penalty of justice, to the imputation of sin, and to the power of death itself. Therefore says the apostle, "I am crucified with Christ," "Dead with Christ," "Reckon yourselves to be dead to sin." "You also are become dead to the law." Now, as all the death of the believer comes through the sacrificial death of Christ, so also does all the life of the believer come through the risen life of Christ. And in language equally as clear and explicit is this corresponding truth set forth. A few passages will be sufficient proof. "God has quickened us together with Christ," "risen With Christ," "Christ lives in me," "Buried with Him in baptism, wherein also (emblematically) you are risen with Him through the faith of the operation of God, who has raised Him from the dead. And you has He quickened together with Him." Here, then, are two grand truths placed before us, written as with a sunbeam- the believer's oneness with Christ, and Christ the new and spiritual life of the believer.

Now let us attempt to unfold the great and glorious truth- THE MANIFESTATION OF CHRIST'S RISEN LIFE IN THE SOUL OF A CHILD OF GOD. The apostle, in the following passage, places in beautiful and striking contrast the two opposite elements of the Christian character- the death and the life. "Always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body." That there is a literal signification which we are to attach to the "dying of the Lord Jesus," as it applied to the case of the apostle, there cannot be a doubt. We have shown that the great fact which everywhere, and on all occasions, they asserted, was the resurrection of their Master. If this fact were proved- as proved it was beyond all possibility of doubt- then their argument was a triumphant one, that the religion of Jesus was no fable, and that He Himself was no impostor. But when, in place of confuting this doctrine by argument, and disproving this fact by evidence, the Sanhedrin strove by violence, persecution, and cruelty, to silence the propagators of this statement, was it not naturally to be inferred that they knew the falsehood of their own account, though unwilling to admit the truth of the apostles? In vain did they endeavor, by stripes, and imprisonments, and torture, to compel the apostles to "speak no more in His name;" in vain did they substitute power for proof, and cruelty for argument; undaunted and undismayed they girded themselves to their work, "and with great power gave they witness of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus."

Now the "bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus," in its literal acceptation of the words, consisted of the persecutions to which the apostles submitted in defense of the doctrine which they so firmly believed and so zealously preached. And was this, we ask, no evidence of the truth of the fact which they affirmed? Would they have submitted to the scorn and the ridicule, to the persecution and the suffering, which they endured, had they been conscious that they were propagating a falsehood, and were palming a deceit upon the world? There is a limit to enthusiasm. There is a line, beyond which an impostor dares not pass. But the apostles, in "taking joyfully the spoiling of their goods," in cheerfully exposing themselves to peril and to death for the sake of the doctrine which they affirmed, demonstrated their own belief that Jesus was alive; and their believing that He was alive, was no small proof that He actually lived.

But the "bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus" has a deeper meaning than this. We are not to restrict its experience to the early and suffering days of Christianity, nor its meaning to that scathed and scarred appearance of the earthly tabernacle, to which Paul, in another place, thus touchingly alludes: "From henceforth let no man trouble me for I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus." Every truly regenerate individual bears about with him the "marks of the dying of the Lord Jesus." "You are dead," says the apostle; and again, "Our old man is crucified with Christ, that the body of sin might be destroyed." And when thus the flesh is crucified, with its affections and lusts, and the redeemed body is presented to God a living sacrifice upon the altar of a holy and filial obedience, then most spiritually, most emphatically is it true of us, "always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus."

But turn we now to the contemplation of the glorious truth which the Holy Spirit has placed in soothing contrast with this: "That the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body." The one great fact of which the believing soul needs to be assured, is that Jesus lives. Convince him that Christ is risen, that He is alive at the right hand of God, and you have supplied a mighty lever, which raises him above the deepest agitations, changes, trials, and conflicts of this mortal life. But oh, who can assure him of this, but the living Savior Himself? and who can enable him to press it to his heart as a personal truth, but the Holy Spirit, the great testifier of Christ, and the witness of the soul?

NOW IN WHAT POINTS OF VIEW IS THE LIFE OF JESUS MANIFEST IN THE SAINTS?

In the first place, their conversion to God is a convincing and precious evidence that Jesus is alive. In the regeneration wrought in the soul by the Holy Spirit, the life of Jesus is imparted. He breathes into the soul morally dead the breath of life, and it becomes a living soul. Until, in the exercise of His distinct office, this Divine Person of the adorable Trinity convinces of sin, quickens and brings the soul to Christ for acceptance, risen with Christ although that soul mystically is, it yet remains totally dead to, and insensible of, its great privilege, an utter stranger to that new life which springs from oneness with the "second Adam." The new nature which the eternal Spirit now imparts is nothing less than the creation of the life of Christ in the soul; yes, even more than this, it is the bringing of Christ Himself into the soul to dwell there the "hope of glory" through time, and glory itself through eternity.

Here, then, is an evidence that Jesus is alive, to the renewed mind the most convincing and precious. Thus quickened by the Eternal Spirit of God, believers become temples of Christ. Jesus lives in them. "I in them." "If Christ be in you, the body is dead," "Behold, I stand at the door and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him." "Know you not that Christ is in you?" "Christ lives in me." "My little children, of whom I travail in birth again until Christ be formed in you." "Christ in you the hope of glory." Thus every believer is a living witness that Jesus is alive, because He bears about with Him the very life of Jesus. By the indwelling of the Spirit, and realized by faith, Christ abides in the believer, and the believer abides in Christ. "I in them, and You in me, that they may be made perfect in one; that they also may be one in us."

We have already stated that this glorious entrance of Christ within the soul transpires at the period of the new birth. What, then, is every new conversion, every fresh trophy of redeeming grace, but a new manifestation to the universe of the life of Jesus? Contemplate the spectacle! I see the sinner pursuing his mad career of folly, rebellion, and guilt. He is, perhaps, a blasphemer- a sceptic- a sensualist- a lover of pleasure- a hater of God, and a despiser of the Lord Jesus. Suddenly he is arrested. I see him bowed to the earth, his heart broken with sorrow, his spirit crushed beneath the burden of sin. He smites upon his breast; he acknowledges his transgression, confesses his iniquity, deplores it in the dust. Presently I see him lift his eye and rest it upon the bleeding Savior- he gazes, wonders, believes, adores- is saved! By whom is this miracle of grace wrought? The Spirit has descended to testify that Jesus is alive. That newly-converted soul, so lately dead in sins, but now quickened with Christ; that sinner but recently dwelling among the tombs, whom no human power could tame, now sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in his right mind- demonstrates that Christ is in heaven, and is alive for evermore. Oh, it is the heaven-descending life of Jesus! It is, so to speak, a second incarnation of the Son of God, assuming, as it were, another tabernacle of flesh, investing Himself with another veil of mortality. Show me, then, a soul just passed from death unto life, and I will show you an evidence that Jesus is alive at the right-hand of God.

But not only is Jesus the actual, but He is also the relative, life of the believer- the life of his pardon and acceptance. See it in reference to the blood of Emmanuel. It is the blood of Him who was essential life. And, although springing from His pure humanity, essential life gave it all its virtue and its power. The resurrection of Jesus confirmed forever the infinite value and sovereign efficacy of His atoning blood. Oh what virtue has it now, flowing from the life of Jesus! It has removed transgression to the distance of infinity, and to the duration of eternity, from the Church. Washed whiter than snow, all iniquity forgiven, all sin blotted out, the believer stands before God a pardoned soul. And oh! what life does he find in the constant application to his conscience of the atoning blood! One drop, what peace does it give! what confidence does it inspire! what vigor does it impart to faith, and power to prayer, and cheerfulness to obedience! Oh, it is living blood. He who spilt it, lives to plead it- lives to apply it- lives to sustain its virtue, until there shall be no more sins to cancel, and no more sinners to save. "The blood of Jesus Christ cleanses from all sin," and "speaks better things than the blood of Abel," because it possesses undying life. Behold, then, beloved, how manifestly is Jesus the life of your pardon. Oh! as fresh, as efficacious, as precious is that blood at this moment, as when it sprang warm and gushing from the pierced side of the glorious Redeemer. It is life-giving and life-sustaining blood. Here we see the antitype of the "living bird dipped in the blood of the bird slain," and then allowed to go free, suspended mid-heaven upon the wing of unrestricted and joyous life. As the living bird bore upon its plumage the crimson symbol of atonement- death and life thus strangely blended- what was the glorious gospel truth it shadowed forth, but the close and indissoluble union of the pardoning blood with the resurrection life of our incarnate God? And, O believer! lose not sight of the deep significance of the "running water" over which the bird was slain. That flowing stream was the image of the perpetual life of the blood of Jesus. And it bids you, in language too expressive to misunderstand, and too persuasive to resist, to draw near and wash. Glorious truth that it teaches! Precious privilege that it enforces! the repeated, the perpetual going to Emmanuel's atoning, life-giving, life-sustaining blood, thus keeping the conscience clean and at peace with God. My beloved reader, no experimental and practical truth does this work enforce of greater moment, of more precious nature, and more closely interwoven with your happy, holy walk, than this. Your peace of mind- your confidence in God- your thirsting for holiness- your filial access- your support in the deepest trial- spring from your soul's constant repose beneath the cross. What is your present case? what is the sin that wounds your spirit? what the guilt that burdens your conscience? what the grief that bows your heart? what the fearfulness and trembling that agitate and rock your mind? what gives you anxious days and sleepless nights? See yonder stream! It is crimson, It is flowing, It is vivifying with the life-blood of Jesus. Repair to it by faith. Go now- go at this moment.

Have you gone before? go yet again. Have you bathed in it once? bathe in it yet again. See I it is a "running stream." Cast your sin, your guilt, your burden, your sorrow upon its bosom; it shall bear them away, never, never more to be found. Oh deal closely with the atoning, life-giving blood! Were I here to end my task, penning not another sentence, this should be its closing one- deal closely, constantly, believingly with Emmanuel's blood. When you do rise in the morning, and when you do lie down at night- wash in the blood. When you go to duties, and when you come from duties- wash in the blood. When your deepest sigh has been heaved, when your holiest tear bas been shed, when your most humbling confession has been made, when your sincerest resolution has been formed, when your holiest covenant has been renewed, when body, soul, and spirit have again been fully, freely, unreservedly dedicated- wash in the blood. When you draw near to the holy Lord God, and spread out your case before Him- plead the blood. When Satan accuses, and conscience condemns, and death terrifies, and judgment alarms- flee to the blood. Oh! nothing but the atoning blood of the spotless Lamb, gives you acceptance at any moment with God. And this, at any moment, will conduct you into the secret chamber of His presence, and bow His ear and heart to your faintest whisper, and to your deepest need.

Christ is equally the life of the righteousness that justifies. He was "raised again," or restored to life, for our justification." The believer stands before God in the righteousness of the living Head. The resurrection from the dead was God's acknowledgment of the perfection, and His full acceptance of the obedience of His dear Son, as the basis of His people's justification. By this stupendous act of His power and glory, He proclaimed the eternal acquittal of His Church. Never did the work of our great Surety appear so complete; never did the robe of righteousness, wrought by His life of obedience, and steeped in His own blood upon the cross, appear so truly Divine, so glistening with beauty, as when He broke the scepter of death, and rose, resplendent with living glory, from the tomb- "the Lord our righteousness."

Here is a truth, the vastness of which is only equaled by its unspeakable preciousness. The Lord Jesus is the life of our acceptance with God. We stand as believers in the righteousness of the living Head. Within the veil He has entered, "now to appear in the presence of God for us," presenting all His people each moment complete in Himself. It is a present justification. "You are complete in Him."

"Accepted in the Beloved." "Justified from all things." Perfection in himself, the enlightened soul utterly repudiates. Completeness in anything that he is, or has done, he totally rejects. Incomplete his deepest repentance- incomplete his strongest faith- incomplete his best obedience- incomplete his most costly sacrifice- low in the lowest dust does he lay himself. Too low he cannot think of himself- too little he cannot be in his own eyes. Language fails to express the deep self-loathing and sin-abhorrence of his soul. But, lo! a voice is heard- oh, it falls upon his ear like the music of the spheres: "you are complete in Him." In one moment all is peace! The believing soul ceases from his works- the weary spirit enters into rest, because, believing, it enters into Jesus. In Christ he now stands complete. His pardon complete- his justification complete- his adoption complete- his whole person complete before the holy God! Is not this a great truth? And is it not a glorious one? Where is the doctrine that exceeds it? Where is the declaration that has in it such life as this? Dear reader, it may be you have long been looking at yourself for some one thing complete. Something- in your judgment you may reject the thought, yet in your heart there is that principle which has been looking for something in yourself to commend you to God- something to make you more acceptable to, more welcome by, Him. But behold where your completeness is found- in, and solely in, Christ. Oh precious truth! A poor, vile sinner, standing before the holy God, complete in righteousness, the object of His infinite love and delight, over whom He rejoices with singing! Oh, how Divine, how finished, and how glorious must that righteousness be which so covers your soul as to present you before the God of immaculate purity, "without a spot, or a wrinkle, or any such thing!"

Behold, too, as a result of this blessed truth, THE ETERNAL SECURITY OF THE WEAKEST BELIEVER IN JESUS. The act of justification once passed under the great seal of the resurrection of Christ, God can never revoke without denying Himself. Here is our safety. Here is the ground of our dauntless challenge- "Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect? it is God that justifies." What can I need more? What more can I ask? If God, the God of spotless purity, the God of inflexible righteousness, justifies me, who is he that condemns? Sin may condemn, but "it is God that justifies!" The law may alarm, but "it is God that justifies!" Satan may accuse, but "it is God that justifies!" Death may terrify, but "it is God that justifies!" Then, "if

God be for us, who can be against us?" Who will dare to condemn the soul whom He justifies? How gloriously will this truth shine forth in the great day of judgment! Every accuser will then be dumb. Every tongue will then be silent. Nothing tending eternally to condemn, shall be laid to the charge of God's elect. God Himself shall pronounce them fully justified and forever saved: "For whom He justifies, them He also glorifies." All this is confirmed to us by the resurrection of Christ from the dead.

And what is the life of faith which the believer lives, but a manifestation of the life of the Lord Jesus? The highest, the holiest, the happiest life lived below, is the life of faith. But nature contributes nothing to this life. It comes from a higher source. It is supernatural- it is opposed to nature. It springs from the life "hidden with Christ in God." "I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ lives in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God." Here is a glorious manifestation of the life of Jesus. It is not he that lives- "not I," but Christ in him- "Christ lives in me." If we desire any evidence that Jesus is risen, that He is alive again, and that He is the life of the soul, here it is! See the faith of the child of God sifted as wheat, yet not one grain falling to the ground. Tried as gold, yet not one particle lost. Severely tempted, but never failing. Though in the flame, yet never consumed. And why? Because Christ lives in the soul. The living Christ is there, guarding his wheat, watching his gold, strengthening, feeding, nourishing, sustaining that faith, but for which it must fail, be consumed, and die. Dear believer! your faith may be sharply tempted, severely tried- tried by Satan- tried by strong corruption- tried by adversity- tried by straitened circumstances, but never, never shall it quite fail, for Jesus lives in you, and lives in you forever! Oh blessed trial of faith, that manifests in, and endears to you, the life of Jesus! It is the precious trial of "precious faith," -a faith which, the more deeply it is tried, the more deeply it manifests the risen life of its Divine "Author and Finisher."

And what, too, are all the supports of the believer in seasons of trial, suffering, and bereavement, but so many manifestations of the life of the Lord Jesus? Thus was it exemplified in the case of the apostles. "We are troubled on every side," says Paul, "yet not distressed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed. Always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our mortal flesh." In another place, alluding to their sufferings, the apostle says, "I think that God has set forth us the apostles last, as it were appointed unto death: for we are made a spectacle (margin, we are made a theater) unto the world, and to angels, and to men." Theirs was no smooth and flowery, but a rugged and a thorny, way to God. They passed through the baptism of fire to glory. They fought their way to their thrones through the martyr's tribulations. But what to them were ignominy and suffering? What to them were the malice and the fury of their persecutors, hemming them in on every side, and confronting them at every step? What to them were the torture, which stretched the limb and tore the nerve- the famine, which wasted the body's strength, and dimmed the eye's luster- the imprisonment, which wore away the elasticity of the spirit- and the death of long and lingering agony, which wrenched the soul from its framework of flesh? They shrunk not, they murmured not, they fled not, for Christ was living in them. Why should they be depressed, or why yield to despair? They knew their Lord was risen, that He was alive, and was at the right hand of God, upon the throne. They knew that their life was bound up with His. They felt that Jesus was pouring forth each moment from the ocean-fulness of His own risen life, perpetual streams of existence into theirs; and that if, on the one hand, they were troubled, yet, on the other, they were not in distress; if perplexed, they yielded not to despair; if persecuted, they felt they were not forsaken; if cast down, they knew they were not destroyed; because they were conscious that, while bearing about in their bodies the dying of the Lord Jesus, the life also of Jesus was manifest in those bodies.

From the apostles we turn to the Church of God. What is our path to glory, but the path of trial, of tribulation, of suffering, and of death? Our Lord and Master, in the expression of His wisdom and love, forewarns us of this. "In the world you shall have tribulation." And His apostles but echo the same sentiment when they affirm that it is "through much tribulation we must enter the kingdom." But the life of our risen Lord is daily manifested in us. This it is, and this only, that keeps the soul buoyant amid the billows, strong in faith, joyful in hope, soaring in love. Thus is Jesus the life of every grace, the life of every promise, the life of every ordinance, the life of every blessing: yes, of all that is really costly and precious to the child of God. Jesus is the substance, the glory, the sweetness, the fragrance, yes, the very life itself. Oh! dark and lonely, desolate and painful, indeed, would our present pilgrimage be, but for Jesus. If in the world we have tribulation, in whom have we peace? In Jesus! If in the creature we meet with fickleness and change, in whom find we the Friend that loves at all times? In Jesus! If in the wilderness the well is exhausted, and the stream is dried, and the gourd withers, in whom find we an ever-flowing fountain, and an ever-grateful and out-spreading shade? In Jesus! When adversity comes as a wintry blast and lays low our comforts, when the cloud is upon our tabernacle, when health, and wealth, and distinction, and influence, and friends are gone, in whom do we find the covert from the wind, the faithful, tender Brother born for adversity? In Jesus! When temptation assails, when care darkens, when trial oppresses, when bereavement wounds, when heart and flesh are failing, who throws around us the protecting shield, who applies the precious promise, who speaks the soothing word, who sustains the sinking spirit, who heals the sorrow and dries the tear? Jesus! When sin struggles in the heart, and guilt burdens the conscience, and unbelief beclouds the mind, whose grace subdues our iniquities, whose blood gives us peace, and whose light dispels our darkness? Jesus'! And when the spark of life wanes, and the eye grows dim, and the pulse grows feeble, and the heart's-blood congeals, and the mind wanders, and the soul, severing its last fetter, mounts and soars away- who, in that awful moment, draws near in unseen form, and whispers in words unheard by all but the departing one, now in close communion with the realities of the invisible world- "Fear not, I am the resurrection and the life; he that believes in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: and whoever loves and believes in me shall never die?" Still, it is Jesus!

From this subject MANY SANCTIFYING, PRACTICAL, AND CONSOLATORY LESSONS are deducible. Is Jesus alive? then the saints of God are a risen people. What a glorious character is theirs! Mystically they are risen with Christ from the tomb, and spiritually they are risen from the grave of death and sin to newness of life. One of the most fruitful causes of a feeble Christianity is the low estimate the believer forms of his spiritual character. Were this higher, were it more proportioned to our real standing, our responsibility would appear in a more solemn light, our sense of obligation would be deeper, and practical holiness of a high order would be our more constant aim. Ours is a glorious and exalted life. Our standing is higher, infinitely higher than the highest angel- our glory infinitely greater than the most glorious seraph. "Christ is our life." "We are risen with Christ." By this we are declared to be a chosen, an adopted, a pardoned, a justified, and a quickened people. This is our present state- this our present character. We bear about with us the life of God in our souls. As Jesus bore about in His lowly, suffering, tempted, and tried humanity, the hidden, essential life, so we, in these frail, sinful, bruised, dying bodies, enshrine the life derived from the risen Head, the hidden life concealed with Christ in God. What an exalted character, what a holy one, then, is the believer in Jesus! Herein lie his true dignity and his real wealth- it is that he is a partaker of a Divine nature, that he is one with his risen Lord. All other distinctions in comparison vanish into insignificance, and all other glory fades and melts away. Poor he maybe in this world, yet is he rich in faith, and an heir of the kingdom, for he has Christ. Rich he may be in this world, titled and exalted, yet if Christ is in his heart, that heart is deeply sensible of its native poverty, is lowly, child-like, Christ-like.

If this is our exalted character, then how great our responsibilities, and how solemn our obligations! The life we now live in the flesh is to be an elevated, a risen, a heavenly life. "If you are risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sits on the right hand of God. Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth. For you are dead, and your life is hidden with Christ in God." What is the holy state here enjoined? Heavenly-mindedness. On what ground is it enforced? Our resurrection with Christ. As a risen people, how heavenly-minded, then, ought we to be! How sickly does any other state comport with our new and hidden life! How incompatible and incongruous do groveling pursuits, and carnal joys, and earthly ambitions appear, with a life professedly one and risen with the incarnate God! But even here much heavenly wisdom is needed to guide in the narrow and difficult way. To go out of the world- to become as a detached cipher of the human family- to assume the character, even in approximation, of the religious recluse- the Gospel nowhere enjoins. To relinquish our secular calling, unless summoned by God to a higher and more spiritual service in the Church, to relax our diligence in our lawful business, to be indifferent to our personal interests and responsibilities, to neglect our temporal concerns, and to be regardless of the relative claims which are binding upon us, are sacrifices which a loyal attachment to our heavenly King does not necessarily demand; and if assumed, are self-inflicted; and if made, must prove injurious to ourselves, and displeasing to God.

But to be heavenly-minded, in the true and scriptural sense, is to carry our holy Christianity into every department of life, and with it to elevate and hallow every relation and engagement. There is no position in which the providence of God places His saints, for which the grace of Jesus is not all-sufficient, if sincerely and earnestly sought. The statesman in the cabinet, the legislator in the senate house, the professor in the chair, the magistrate upon the bench, the warrior in the camp, the seaman upon the deck, may maintain, even amid circumstances the most unfavorable and hostile, a high degree of heavenly-mindedness, and may bear a holy and uncompromising testimony for God and for Christ. Nor is there any sphere, however humble, nor calling, however lowly, to which the life of Jesus in the soul may not impart dignity, luster, and sacredness. Christianity through all grades, and classes, and occupations, is capable of diffusing a Divine, hallowing, and ennobling influence, transforming and sanctifying all that it touches. Blessed and holy are they who know it from personal and heartfelt experience!

But "if we are risen with Christ," what is it to seek those things which are above, and to set our affections not on things on the earth? In other words, what is true heavenly-mindedness? It involves, in the first place, habitual and close converse with God. Upon no other terms can this spiritual state be maintained. The life of the soul can only be sustained by constant and ceaseless emanations from the life of God. There must be a perpetual stream of existence flowing into it from the "Fountain of life." And how can this be experienced but by dwelling near that Fountain? Of no practical truth am I more deeply and solemnly convinced than this, that elevated spirituality, (and oh, what a blank is life apart from it!), can only be cultivated and maintained by elevated communion. The most holy, heavenly minded, devoted, and useful saints have ever been men and women of much prayer. They wrestled with God secretly, and God wrought by them openly; and this was the source which fed their deep godliness, which supplied their rich anointing, and which contributed to their extensive and successful labors for Christ. Thus only can the life of God in the soul of man be sustained. Such is the mighty evil by which this indwelling principle is begirt, and such the hostile influences by which its every development is assailed, it is quite impossible that a plant so heavenly and divine, embedded in a soul so earthly and uncongenial, can thrive but as it dwells in its own atmosphere- the atmosphere of close communion with God. How stands your soul, concerning this holy and practical truth, my reader? Perhaps you are at the head of a family whose claims draw largely upon your time, your sympathies, and your thoughts. Perhaps you are a man of business, deeply immersed in this world's lawful, yet low and deadening cares. Perhaps you are placed upon 'a pinnacle of the temple,' occupying some post of distinction and honor in the Church of God! one of its builders, zealously laboring upon the external parts of the structure; or the man of societies and committees, living in the meridian of a controversial, exciting, and bustling Christianity. Has the thought ever crossed your mind, that you may all the while be living in sad and awful neglect of secret, close, and real fellowship with your Father? that you may be almost a stranger to closet prayer, closet wrestling, closet transaction with God? It is quite possible that this may be so. Your family, your business, your profession, even what you would term your religious engagements, may crowd the religion of your soul into the smallest compass of time. Oh do not think that spirituality of mind, even in an ordinary degree, can thus be sustained or promoted! Do not marvel at the difficulty you find in maintaining even the holy spark alive. Do not wonder at the little real delight you take in drawing near to God- at the growing distaste you find for spiritual duties- at the little life that breathes in your prayers- at the lack of power and sweetness in the ministry of the word- at the greater preponderance of your mind and affections to the things that are earthly and sensual. But return to prayer- return with earnestness, with real desire for more heavenly-mindedness, for more true and close walking with God, and God will return to you. Return to ejaculatory prayer- to closet prayer- to family prayer- to social prayer- return but to PRAYER! The way of your return is open- it is a "new and a living way," sprinkled with the reconciling blood of the great High Priest, now alive upon His throne, and leading into the holiest. And the moment you turn your face towards God, you shall find His face turned towards you. Let nothing then rob you of this precious means of advancing your heavenly-mindedness- nothing can be its substitute. Other duties- however spiritual- other enjoyments- however holy- other means of grace- however important and necessary- never can supply the place of prayer. And why? because prayer brings the soul into immediate contact with Christ, who is our life, and with God, the Fountain of life. Exclude all air from the body, and it would soon cease to exist. Shut out all prayer from your soul, and how can you expect to maintain its Divine life, vigorous and healthy? As the total absence of the breath of prayer marks the soul "dead in trespasses and in sin;" so the waning of the spirit of prayer in the quickened soul as surely defines a state in which all that is spiritual within seems "ready to die."

Another means of increasing and promoting eminent spirituality of mind, is a diligent and prayerful reading of God's holy word. This, we fear, is not an element in the Christianity of the many. It defines a duty sadly, and to a great extent, neglected. The tendency of the age is to substitute the writings of man for the book of God. Let them come but with the robe of religion gracefully thrown around them, and whether they assume the form of history, or story, or song, they are devoured by the professing multitude, who would deem their true spirituality unquestionable! But the Divine life of the soul is not to be fed and nourished by the profound discoveries of science, or the recondite axioms of philosophy, or the brilliant flowers of genius, or the dreams of a poetical imagination. It ascends to a higher and a diviner Source; it aspires towards the nourishment of its native climate. The bread that comes down from heaven, and the water that flows, pure as crystal, from beneath the throne of God and the Lamb, can alone feed, and nourish, and refresh this hidden principle. Jesus is its sustenance; and the Gospel, as it unfolds Him in His glory and grace, is the spiritual granary from where its daily food is drawn. To this it repairs, oftentimes pressed with hunger, or panting with thirst, weary and exhausted, drooping and faint, and it finds its doctrines and its precepts, its promises and its admonitions, its exhortations and revelations, a "feast of fat things, a feast of wines on the lees: of fat things full of marrow, of wines on the lees well refined." And thus refreshed and satisfied, the grateful soul adoringly exclaims, "Your words were found, and I did eat them; and Your word was unto me the joy and rejoicing of my heart." Truly did Jesus testify, "Verily, verily I say unto you, Except you eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink His blood, you have no life in you;" evidently and solemnly implying that if there exists no appetite for spiritual food, there is lacking the great evidence of the life of God in the soul. A mere semblance of life, an informed judgment, a "fair show" of religion in the flesh," can content itself with anything short of the spiritual nourishment contained in God's word. A ministry without Christ, without unction, without power, and without profit; the duty and the day rigidly observed without spirit and without sweetness; the monthly periodical, the religious story, the drawing room exposition, may seem to feed the lamp of mere profession, can keep alive the "form of godliness," and satisfy a soul utterly destitute of its "power." But the Divine life of a quickened soul, while it disdains no auxiliary to its spiritual advance, can yet feed on nothing but Divine food. The "flesh and the blood" of Emmanuel can alone meet and satiate its hungering and thirsting. It is from heaven, and its supply must be heavenly; it is from God, and its nourishment must be Divine. Jesus, and Jesus alone, received into the heart, rested in, and lived upon by faith, is the food of a believing man. Nothing but Christ- "Christ all" in Himself, and Christ 'in all' means, 'in all' ordinances, I 'in all' channels, 'in all' seasons- sustains a soul whose "life is hidden with Christ in God." Dear reader, do you see the importance and feel the solemnity of this truth? Oh, it is a great and solemn one! Except by faith you "eat the flesh and drink the blood of the Son of man, you have no life in you!" Your mind content with anything as a substitute for this- your faith standing in the wisdom of men- your sacramental observances- your religion of "foods, and drinks, and diverse washings, and carnal ordinances"- your "keeping of days, and months, and times, and years;" or, to use great plainness of speech in a subject so momentous, your past submission to the rite of baptism- your present habitual observance of the Lord's supper- your visible union with the Church of God- all will avail you nothing in the great matter of your soul's salvation without Christ! Does this startle you? Are you alarmed at the discovery? It is, I trust, with the affection and tenderness which the spirit of the Gospel inspires, that I thus address you. Nothing short of Christ- Christ's righteousness, Christ's atonement, Christ's flesh and blood, Christ in us, Christ outside us, Christ risen, Christ alive at the right hand of God, yes, "Christ all and in all," can meet the deep immortal necessities of your soul. You need all that Christ is in the matter of pardon, and justification, and sanctification, and wisdom, and redemption. If anything less than Jesus had sufficed, if an expedient less magnificent, or if an expenditure less costly, had answered for God and man, then less would save you. But since the incarnate God alone is the Savior of a poor, lost sinner, see that you detract not from, or add to, this salvation by any works of human merit. To return to our first observation: be exhorted to an intimate acquaintance with God's holy word, as supplying a powerful help to the progress of the soul in deep spirituality. And if your time for reading is limited, limit it to one book, and let that one book be the bible. Let it be the companion of your hours of solitude; the solace in your seasons of sorrow; the store-house in all your necessities; the man of your counsel in all your doubts and perplexities. Then will your blessed experience resemble that of the Psalmist, "Your word have I hidden in my heart, that I might not sin against You. This is my, comfort in my affliction: for Your word has quickened me. Your word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path. I rejoice in Your word, as one that finds great spoil."

But observe the exhortation, in connection with the precept, "Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth." How solemn and full of meaning are these words! To set the affections on heavenly things, is to realize the ardent desire of the apostle, that he might "know Christ and the power of His resurrection." Oh, there is a mighty, elevating power in the resurrection of Christ! It is the great lever to a child of God, lifting him above earth, heavenward. To know that he is closely and inseparably one with the risen Head of the Church, is to be the subject of a continuous quickening influence, which in spirit raises him from the dust, and the darkness, and the pollutions by which he is surrounded; fixing the affections with greater ardency of devotion and supreme attachment on things above. Oh, nothing will more sanctify and elevate our hearts, than to have them brought under the "power of Christ's resurrection." Following Him by faith, from the dust of earth to the glory of heaven, the affections will ascend with their Beloved. Where He is, the heart's most precious treasure- there it will be also. And oh, to have the heart with Christ in heaven, what an unspeakable mercy! And why should it not be? Has earth more that is attractive, and lovely, and holy, and worthy of its affection, than heaven? Here, we are encircled by, and combat with, spirits of darkness and pollution, principalities and powers- there, is "an innumerable company of angels." Here, we are much separated from the Church of God- there, is the "general assembly and Church of the first-born," from whom nothing shall divide us. Here, the Divine presence is often withdrawn, and we are taunted and accused by our foes- there, is "God the judge of all," whose presence will be our eternal glory, and who will "bring forth our righteousness as the light, and our judgment as the noon-day." Here, we often hang our heads in sorrow, at the imperfections we mark in the saints, there, are the "spirits of just men made perfect," "without fault before the throne." Here, we often lose sight of our beloved Lord- there, is "Jesus, the Mediator of the new covenant," never more to be veiled from our view. Oh, then, how much richer and more attractive is heaven than earth, to a renewed and holy mind, each moment growing richer and more attractive, by the accession to its numbers of those, the holy and loved ones of the earth, who have for a little while preceded us to that world of perfect bliss! Our treasure in glory, how rapidly it accumulates! Death, which impoverishes us here by snatching from our embrace the objects of our love, by that same act augments our riches in heaven, into the full possession and enjoyment of which it will, in its appointed time, beneficently translate us. But the sweetest, the most powerful attraction of heaven, let us never forget, is, that Jesus is there. Ah! what would heaven be, were He absent? Could we, at this moment, rush into the fond embrace of the dearest of the glorified ones, and meet not the "Chief among ten thousands, the altogether lovely One," who on earth was more precious to our hearts than life itself, oh, how soon would its glory fade from our eye; and its music pall upon our ear! It would cease to be heaven without Christ. Even on earth His presence and His smile constitute the first dawnings of that better world. And he who lives most in the enjoyment of this- and oh, bow much more may be enjoyed than we have the faintest conception of- has most of the element of heaven in his soul. Aim, then, to cultivate heavenly affections, by a life of high communion with God.

But there is also a prohibition. "Set your affection not on things on the earth." It is not the design or tendency of the Gospel, to destroy or impair any single class of those human affections which God has created. On the contrary, it recognizes, encourages, and strengthens them all. He is the fondest parent, the most dutiful child, the most faithful servant, the sincerest friend, the best citizen, whose affections are sanctified and regulated by the hallowing influence of the Gospel of Christ. It is the Gospel, experienced in the heart, that alone gives tone, elevation, and security to the conjugal, the parental, and the filial relation, defining and enforcing the duties of each. It is worthy of remark, that in the identical chapter which declares the believer risen with Christ, and which exhorts him to consequent heavenly-mindedness, some of the precepts to which we have referred are thus strikingly portrayed, and earnestly enforced- "Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as it is fit in the Lord. Husbands, love your wives, and do not be bitter against them. Children, obey your parents in all things; for this is well-pleasing unto the Lord. Fathers, provoke not your children to anger, lest they be discouraged. Servants, obey in all things your masters according to the flesh, not with eye-service, as men-pleasers, but in singleness of heart, fearing God. Masters, give unto your servants that which is just and equal; knowing that you also have a Master in heaven." Thus the weighty precepts of God are closely interwoven with the most sublime doctrines of His word.

And yet there is much solemn meaning in the prohibition, "Set not your affection on things on the earth," worthy of our deepest consideration. The circle it embraces is a wide one. It includes every earthly object tending to injure and impair the heavenly-mindedness of him who is mystically and spiritually risen with Christ. That was a solemn charge which, with tears, the holy apostle alleged against some of the primitive professors- "who mind earthly things." Against the sin with which they were chargeable, and which rendered their Christianity of so doubtful a character, he warns the Colossians, in the passage before us, "Set not your affection on things on the earth." The prohibition includes creatures, riches, honors, pleasures, yes, every earthly object that would be a substitute for Christ- everything that would render Him less glorious to the eye, less precious to the soul, less an object of the heart's holiest, fondest, and supreme affection. Oh, many a mother has taken the little flower God has intrusted to her, and placing it in her bosom, has been so elated with its beauty and its fragrance, as to forget the "Rose of Sharon," the "Lily of the valley." Her affections have been inordinately set upon an earthly object- her love to Jesus has, in consequence, waned. Her zeal for His glory has cooled; her walk with God has been less intimate. She has followed her Lord afar off; the means of grace have been neglected- her child has come between her soul and Christ, and presently He has transferred it from her bosom to His own. He has blighted the mercy that tended to supplant in her holy affections the God of the mercy.

Delicate as is the subject, and needing as it does to be treated with a tender and skillful hand, we nevertheless must allude to that undue, idolatrous, if not superstitious, attachment to, and reverence for, Christian ministers by churches and by individuals, which, we think, comes within the scope of this prohibition, the existence and growing extent of which demand a prompt and effectual check. The office of the Christian ministry is strangely misunderstood at the present time. By one part of the professing Church, the Christian minister is all but deified; and by another part, he is all but crucified. By the one he is exalted into the place of God; so that multitudes, in the blindness of their superstitious attachment, worship him as God; by the other, his office is altogether denied, and his dignity, authority, and instructions are cast out of the Church, to be trodden under foot by men. Fearful extremes are these! And yet, both at this moment to an alarming extent exist. Who will be found tenderly, yet earnestly and faithfully, to lift up his voice against them, for the Lord's sake? May not a slight investigation of God's holy word bearing upon this subject, clearly point out the middle and the better path between these opposite and dangerous points of opinion, which at the present time threaten, and even already are working, the greatest evil to the Church of God?

In turning, then, "to the law and to the testimony," we find that there exists in the Church of Christ the office of the Christian ministry, having its appointment from Christ Himself, the great Head of the Church: "And Jesus spoke unto them, saying, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. Go you, therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit: teaching them to observe all things whatever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you aways, even unto the end of the world." Again: "And He gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers; for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry." This high commission, which no man, nor body of men, can confer, every minister of the Gospel bears, whom the Holy Spirit has called to the work, and who "goes forth, preaching everywhere, the Lord working with him." Let no man, at his peril, deny his office, or despise his work. The ministerial character is described: "A bishop must be blameless, as the steward of God; not self-willed, not soon angry, not given to wine, no striker, not given to filthy lucre; but a lover of hospitality, a lover of good men, sober, just, holy, temperate; holding fast the faithful word as he has been taught, that he may be able by sound doctrine both to exhort and to convince the gainsayers." They are to be thus recognized by the saints: "Let a man so account of us, as of the ministers of Christ, and stewards of the mysteries of God." They are to be respected, honored, and loved: "Receive him (Epaphroditus) therefore in the Lord with all gladness; and hold such (margin, honor such) in reputation." "And we beseech you, brethren, to know them who labor among you, and are over you in the Lord, and admonish you; and to esteem them very highly in love for their work's sake." "Let the elders that rule well be counted worthy of double honor, especially they who labor in the word and doctrine." They are to be especially prayed for, "Now I beseech you, brethren, for the Lord Jesus Christ's sake, and for the love of the Spirit, that you strive together with me in your prayers to God for me." "Withal praying also for us, that God would open unto us a door of utterance, to speak the mystery of Christ." "Brethren, pray for us." Their authority is to be acknowledged, and their word obeyed: "I beseech you, brethren, ... that you submit yourselves unto such, and to every one that helps with us, and labors." "For to this end also did I write, that I might know the proof of you, whether you be obedient in all things." "Remember them who have the rule over you, who have spoken unto you the word of God." Their temporal necessities are to be amply and cheerfully ministered to by the churches whom they serve- "If we have sown unto you spiritual things, is it a great thing if we shall reap your carnal things?" (see the First Epistle to the Corinthians, the ninth chapter). "Let him that is taught in the word communicate unto him that teaches in all good things." "The laborer is worthy of his hire." These are some of the statutes of the New Testament, bearing upon the Christian ministry: from them it will appear- that the office is of Divine institution, that it is essential to the existence of a Gospel Church, that it is connected with the discharge of certain functions, and that it is clothed with dignity and authority, which are to be recognized and exercised, not for its own self-aggrandizement, but for the welfare of the saints, and for Christ's honor and glory. On the other hand, equally clear is it, that the Christian ministry possesses essentially no Divine rights of its own, that it confers no spiritual gifts, conveys no spiritual grace, and that it disclaims all superstitious reverence, and rejects all idolatrous attachment and worship from the creature.

With all earnestness and solemnity of feeling we urge the reader to avoid the two extremes of error which we have pointed out, and to which we have thus opposed the word of God. Let him, on the one hand, be careful how he takes a step in sapping the foundation, or in impairing the influence, of an institution which Christ has so distinctly appointed, and so signally blessed. Second to none, but superior to all, as an instrumentality of promulgating truth and of promoting Christ's kingdom in the world, is the Christian Ministry, composed of Divinely called, spiritually taught, and holy men. Dark will be that day, when this holy bulwark of our country, this mighty engine of the truth, this powerful safeguard of virtue, and this distinguished glory of the Church, ceases to occupy that elevated and commanding position assigned to it by the "chief Shepherd and Bishop of souls." In placing yourself in opposition to it, you are not, perhaps, aware that you are allying yourself with the enemies of God and of truth, who reject Christ as a deceiver, who oppose Christianity as a fiction, and who deride the Christian ministry as a system of priestcraft. From such turn away. Have no fellowship with them in these doctrines, not even in appearance. Countenance them not in their attempts to uproot the Divine and hallowed institutions of the New Testament, by holding views inimical to, and destructive of, any one of these institutions. The Church of God has never existed without a holy and a Divinely taught ministry. He who first gave to His Church "apostles and prophets, pastors and teachers," "for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ," has never ceased, in all the scenes of persecution and darkness through which she has passed, to replenish, glorify, and comfort her with men after His own heart; thus guarding the high office with a jealous, sleepless, and loving eye, from all the evil that has ever threatened its overthrow. And so will He ever guard it. In the fierce conflict of mind with mind, of principle with principle, of truth with error, which is fast approaching, no, which even has already begun, the pulpits of our land cannot be dispensed with. This is the field upon which the great battle is to be fought. While a godly press will be found an invaluable and an indispensable barrier against the advancing foe, it is from the pulpit those silver trumpets are to be blown, at whose shrill sound the host of Israel are to gather themselves to "the help of the Lord against the mighty;" and at whose overpowering blast the wall of Antichrist shall fall before Him. Rather than be found, then, in opposition to Christ's ministry, seek, by all scriptural and holy means, to impart to it greater efficiency and strength, praying continually to the "Lord of the harvest, that He will send forth more laborers into His harvest."

On the other hand, seek to divest your mind of all unscriptural, superstitious, and idolatrous views and feelings in reference to the nature and powers of this office. Remember it is but a human instrumentality, possessing no essential, inalienable grace or holiness of its own; that it is an agency, powerful and efficacious only as God the Eternal Spirit makes it so; that the treasure of the everlasting Gospel is in "earthen vessels;" and that "Paul may plant, and Apollos may water," -and this is the utmost limit of their agency- but that God only can give the increase. See, too, that you dishonor not God, nor grieve the Holy Spirit, nor cast reflection upon this sacred office, by refusing the message of God's word from the lips of any of His servants by whom He may send it. Oh! what numbers rob their own souls of vast blessing, and Christ of much glory, by not taking heed to this! They will attend upon sanctuaries where, confessedly, no healing waters flow, and upon ministrations barren of Gospel truth, clothed with no unction, and conveying no blessing, rather than break from fetters which education, or prejudice, or superstition, or habit, have forged, and woven around them, and humbly and earnestly inquire from the Lord, in the spirit and language of the Church of old, "Tell me, O you whom my soul loves, where you feed; where you make your flock to rest at noon?" Were this petition more sincerely and frequently urged, the answer would not long tarry. "O you fairest among women, go your way forth by the footsteps of the flock, and feed your kids beside the shepherds' tents." Receive it as a word sent from God to your soul, dear reader. It is the Lord's message to you. Go where His Spirit draws you- go where the name of Jesus draws you- go where His glory attracts you- go where His truth invites you- go where His blessing awaits you. It should be to you of but little consideration through what channel, or by what instrument, the Lord feeds your soul, so that He does feed it. The nourishment of God's life within you is of the first and greatest moment. A scrupulous conscience, a prejudiced mind, a contracted heart, may be productive of the greatest injury to your spiritual interest. Of what value will it be, if God gives you your request, by giving you a ministry according to your prescribed order, but sends leanness into your soul? And this He will do- perhaps is now doing- if His word is in any way, directly or indirectly, undervalued, slighted, or refused. Oh, that God may fill your heart with His love- love to Himself- love to His people- love to His truth- and love to His ministers, by whom His truth is proclaimed, by whatever name they may be known among men.

But the evil against which many of the Lord's people need to be tenderly cautioned, and which we think is deprecated by the broad precept, "Set not your affection upon things on the earth," is, that undue exalting of the instrument which we sometimes mark in Christian communities. A Church may so vaunt itself of the talents, the gifts, the attainments, the popularity, and even the success of its pastor, as greatly to detract from the glory of God, grieve the Spirit, and seriously injure both itself and the object of its adulation. How keenly is the spiritual mind pained by the humiliating spectacle of man-worship which sometimes meets the eye! What applauding of human eloquence- what burning of incense at the shrine of human intellect and genius- what vain boasting of profound learning, and brilliant talent, and popular gifts- the mere mint, and anise, and cummin- while the infinitely weightier attributes of a holy, powerful, and useful ministry, are lightly esteemed, if not totally dispensed with! The evils which arise from this vain- glorying in men, and this undue admiration of, and exclusive attachment to, a particular order of ministerial character and fitness, are many and various. We have only space to allude to a solitary one- the painfully depressing effect it produces upon the feelings of other ministers and pastors- men self-taught, of irregular mental training, and lacking, it may be, that intellectual furniture, polish of address, and those graces of elocution, which a university may be supposed to confer; yet, men profound in the Scriptures, mighty in prayer, rich in Christian experience, deeply taught and anointed by the Spirit, partaking largely of the grace of Jesus- the true polish and refinement of a man of God- humble-minded, and eminently successful in winning souls to Christ. That the Church of God is honored and blessed by many such men, is a fact demanding a prompt and most grateful acknowledgment. They are, in some particular departments of labor, the most effective workmen. The Church could ill spare them. Is there not, then, danger of impairing influence that should be jealously guarded, and of wounding feelings that should be tenderly shielded, and of undervaluing an office that should be highly esteemed, by attaching an undue importance to a certain class of gifts and accomplishments, the possession of which has, perhaps, more frequently proved a greater snare than a blessing?

But, even where there exists not this vain boasting in man, may there not be, even in more spiritual communities, a setting of the affections upon the instrument, tending to its undue exaltation, thus entrenching upon the power of the Spirit and the grace and glory of Christ? Oh, it is a lovely and a holy sight, the strong attachment of a pastor and a Church! Earth presents no spectacle of moral beauty surpassing it; and angels, bending from their thrones in heaven, must gaze upon it with new ecstasy and delight. We would not breathe a word, or pen a sentence; tending to mar the symmetry, or shade the beauty, or impair the strength, of such a union. This only would we say- receive him reverently and gratefully, as the Lord's messenger, esteem him very highly in love for his work's sake; yet hold him infinitely subordinate to Christ, and with a loose and gentle grasp. If heavenly-minded, and the channel of blessing to your souls, he is the Lord's gift, and as such only is he to be regarded. All that he possesses, really valuable, is from Jesus- his gifts, his acquirements, his grace, his usefulness, his moral loveliness, and even those minor attractions of person and address- which, if possessed, may, without much holy caution, but strengthen the heart's idolatry, and shade the infinite loveliness of Christ- came from God, are the bestowments of His undeserved mercy, and were intended but to lead you up to Himself, the source from where they proceed. Then lend your ear and yield your heart to the needed exhortation, as it bears upon this point- "Set not your affection on things on the earth." Cherish a devout and grateful spirit for the precious and invaluable gift of a holy, affectionate, and useful minister; but rest not in him short of Jesus. Give to him his proper place in your affections and thoughts- a place infinitely beneath the adorable Son of God, God's "unspeakable gift." He is not his own, nor yours, but the Lord's. And He, whose he is and whom he serves, may, in the exercise of His infinite wisdom, and sovereign will, and, I may add, tender love, suspend for a while his labors, or transfer him to another section of the vineyard, or, which would be most painful, crumble the earthen, though beautiful, vessel to dust, and take the precious treasure it contained to Himself. Still, Christ is all; He is your all; and, as the chief Shepherd and Bishop of His Church, He will never take Himself from her. The happy secret of retaining our mercies is to receive and enjoy Christ in them; to turn every blessing bestowed into an occasion of knowing, and loving, and enjoying more of Jesus, apart from whom, poor indeed were the most costly blessing. Blessed indeed would our blessings then be! Leading our affections up to God; giving us a deeper insight into a Father's love; laying us lower in the dust at His feet; filling the spirit with secret contrition and tender brokenness, the heart with adoring love, the mouth with grateful praise; endearing the channel through which it descends, and the mercy-seat at which it was sought and given; encouraged and stimulated by the gift, to devote person, time, influence, and property, more simply and unreservedly, to the glory of God; then should we keep a longer possession of our sanctified blessing, nor fear the thought, nor shrink from the prospect of its removal; or, if removed, we should be quite satisfied to have God alone as our portion and our all.

Against the love of the world, this holy and stringent precept as solemnly warns the believer. As those who are professedly risen with Christ, but who yet, for a while, dwell in a world of perpetual seduction, how needed, how kind the exhortation! How necessary to be constantly reminded of our risen life! Behold how we are cautioned- "Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, io not of the Father, but is of the world." Are you walking in filial obedience to this precept? Oh, as a risen man, love not the world! Let it be to you as a dead thing. Receive them with gratitude, and use them for God's glory, but oh, set not your affections inordinately, exclusively, sinfully, on "things on the earth" -husband, wife, children, wealth, honor, estate, dress, recreation, or whatever is of "the earth, earthly." "Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world." You are dead; you are alive. Your death is a death to things below; your life is a life to things above. You are crucified, you are risen. You are professedly crucified to the world; you are mystically risen with Christ; then live as one whose treasure, whose conversation, and whose all is on high, even " where Christ sits at the right hand of God."

The resurrection of Christ is the pledge and earnest of the glorious resurrection of the believer. This great event- the crowning bliss of the Church- has long been as a star of hope, on which the eye of faith has loved to gaze. Patriarchs, and prophets, and apostles, sang, and spoke, and wrote of it. Who does not recognize the doctrine of the resurrection, and trace the yearning of his soul for this glorious event, in the expressive and touching words of Job, "There is hope of a tree, if it be cut down, that it will sprout again, and that the tender branch thereof will not cease. Though the root thereof wax old in the earth, and the stock thereof die in the ground, yet through the scent of water it will bud, and bring forth boughs like a plant." How strikingly and beautifully significant is this figure of the resurrection! His faith grafted upon the doctrine, see how his heart longed for the arrival of the event- "Oh that You would hide me in the grave, that You would keep me secret until Your wrath be past; that You would appoint me a set time, and remember me! If a man die, shall he live again? All the days of my appointed time (not the appointed time of his death, as some interpret it, but of his resurrection, for this is the event he is now anticipating) will I wait until my change come. You shall call, (oh! how sweetly will fall the sound of the archangel's trump upon the ear of those who sleep in Jesus!) and I will answer: You will have a desire to the work of Your hands." But if possible, in terms yet more distinct and glowing, the holy patriarch announces his faith in this doctrine, and expresses his ardent longing for this event, "I know that my Redeemer lives, and that He shall stand at the latter day upon the earth. And though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God: whom I shall see for myself, and my eyes shall behold, and not another; though my reins be consumed within me," (marg. my reins within me are consumed with earnest desire for that day). How clearly does the prophet Isaiah enunciate the doctrine- "Your dead men shall live, together with my dead body shall they arise!" or, as it has been more properly rendered, "Your dead men shall live," alluding to the Church's dead- "my dead body shall rise," Christ here being the speaker, and referring to His mystical body, whom He has promised to raise at the last day. "Awake and sing, you that dwell in dust; for your dew is as the dew of herbs, and the earth shall cast out the dead." But our limits forbid any lengthened quotation from God's word, establishing this doctrine. We must rather assume than prove its existence. The hope to which the resurrection of the Lord has begotten the believer, is termed by the apostle a "lively," or, as it may be rendered, a "living hope." Its life springs from the resurrection-life of Christ, just as the same glorious event imparts quickening to the whole Christian economy. "Blessed be the God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who, according to His abundant mercy, has begotten us again unto a living hope, by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead." Thus the believer, and he alone, can adopt the language of his Lord, as he resigns his body to the dust- and oh! let it be the epitaph of all who sleep in Jesus- "my flesh also shall rest in hope." A living hope, based upon the resurrection of Jesus, smooths his suffering pathway to the tomb; hope dissipates its gloom, and kindles within its somber recesses an immortal radiance; and hope- the Pharos of the sepulcher- throws its bright beams across the dark waters of eternity, revealing in all its glory an "inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fades not away." "Oh yes!" may every slumbering believer exclaim, "my flesh shall rest in hope of a glorious resurrection to eternal life." Observe how closely the two events- the resurrection of Jesus, and that of the believer- are interwoven the one with the other. "Now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the first-fruits of those who slept." "Every man in his own order: Christ the first-fruits; afterward those who are Christ's at His coming." What was the meaning of the first sheaf, which, under the law, was commanded to be presented before the Lord in His temple? Was it not to be considered as an earnest, a pledge, and a pattern of the future harvest, ripening for the sickle? So was the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead! In like manner He burst from the grave, the "first-fruits," the earnest, the pledge, and the pattern of a future and a glorious harvest. As surely as He rose, so surely shall all His people rise. As certainly as the first golden sheaf has been presented in the temple, and waved before the throne of God, as certainly shall the "blade, the ear, and the full corn in the ear," be sickled in, and gathered home, "and not the least grain fall upon the earth."

"But how are the dead raised up?" That there is much of sublime mystery associated with this event, we readily admit. But its very mystery endears Him to the soul "who has abolished death (or, rendered it of none effect) and has brought life and immortality to light by the Gospel." Thus is this mystery explained: "It is sown in corruption; it is raised in incorruption: it is sown in dishonor; it is raised in glory: it is sown in weakness; it is raised in power; it is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. Behold, I show you a mystery. We shall not all sleep; but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised in corruptible, and we shall be changed. For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality." Yes, this very body, as much redeemed by the precious blood of the incarnate God as the deathless principle it enshrines, shall rise again! And by what power? The power of Omnipotence! "He that raised up Christ from the dead, shall also quicken your mortal bodies by His Spirit that dwells in you." Every entombed saint of God is an entombed temple of the Holy Spirit. Think of this, and tread lightly, as you carry it to the grave. You bear a temple of the Holy Spirit! Precious is the dust, and hallowed the urn that contains it. And shall that temple lie in ruins forever? God forbid! Oh, it is a mighty and a glorious work, to resuscitate, remold, and re-occupy this dilapidated structure! To gather from the four winds of heaven every particle of the scattered dust- to bring bone to its bone, and sinew to its sinew- to invest the reformed skeleton with a covering more soft and delicate than an infant's- to summon back its former occupant- and then to lift it to glory, outliving in its deathlessness the stars of heaven, and outshining in its brilliancy the brightest angel before the throne. Oh, it is a stupendous work! But stupendous as it is, it transcends not in its mightiness the power of God. Oh, we deal too faintly with the almightiness of Jehovah! We limit the power of the Holy One of Israel. Bring but this power to bear upon the doctrine of the resurrection, and all its mystery is explained, and all its difficulty vanishes. On this Divine perfection rested the faith of Abraham, who, in obedience to God's command, bound his son upon the altar, and took the knife to slay him, "believing that God was able to raise him up again, even from the dead." Shall it, then, be thought a thing incredible that God should raise the dead? The difficulties of summoning together every atom of dust, borne though it may have been by the winds to the furthermost parts of the earth, or strewn upon the waves of the sea- of distinguishing what element belonged to each individual, and appropriating to each his own- of clothing the framework with a new and a deathless nature, and animating it with the same human soul which it contained in the long years of its humiliation, oh, how do they vanish before one touch of Omnipotence! What! shall He who at first formed man out of the dust, and breathed into him the breath of life- shall He at whose fiat world on world started into being, each one, for anything that we know, teeming with a population partaking of His likeness, and sharing in His immortality, shall He who "upholds all things by the word of His power," who "takes up the isles as a very little thing," who "holds the winds in His fist, and the waters in the hollow of His hand," who "has His way in the whirlwind and in the storm, and the clouds are the dust of His feet," -shall He be perplexed and baffled when He comes to unlock the world's charnel-house, quickening, and summoning to His bar, each slumbering occupant? Oh, it will be a stupendous and a glorious work! but reason and revelation unite in ascribing it to Him as worthy of His infinite greatness, majesty, and glory.

But "with what body do they come?" The identical body that was sown, yet so changed, so spiritualized, so glorified, so immortalized, as to rival in beauty the highest form of spirit, while it shall resemble, in its fashion, the glorious body of Christ Himself. We can form but a faint conception, even from the glowing representation of the apostle, of the glory of the raised body of the just. But this we know, it will be in every respect a structure worthy of the perfected soul that will inhabit it. Now it is the antagonist, and not the auxiliary of the soul- its clog, its prison, its foe. The moment that Jesus condescends to 'grace this mean abode' with His indwelling presence, there commences that fierce and harassing conflict between holiness and sin, which so often wrings the bitter cry from the believer, "Oh wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?" Oh, what a cumbrance is this body of sin! Its corruptions, its infirmities, its weaknesses, its ailments, its diseases, all conspire to render it the tyrant of the soul, if grace does not keep it under and bring it into subjection as its slave. How often, when the mind would pursue its favorite study, the wearied and overtasked body enfeebles it! How often, when the spirit would expatiate and soar in its contemplations of and in its communings with God, the inferior nature detains it by its weight, or occupies it with its needs! How often, when the soul thirsts for Divine knowledge, and the heart pants for holiness, its highest aspirations and its strongest efforts are discouraged and thwarted by the clinging infirmities of a corrupt and suffering humanity! Not so will it be in the morning of the resurrection. "Then shall this corruptible put on incorruption, and this mortal shall put on immortality." Mysterious and glorious change! "In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet, "the dead in Christ shall awake from their long sleep, and spring from their tombs into a blissful immortality. Oh, how altered! oh, how transformed! oh, how changed! "Sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body." "A spiritual body!" Who can imagine, who describe it? What anatomy can explain its mysteries, what pencil can paint its beauties? "A spiritual body!" All the remains, all the vestiges of corrupt matter passed away. "A spiritual body!" So regenerated, so sanctified, so etherealized, so invested with the high and glorious attributes of spirit, yet retaining the 'form and pressure' of matter; that now, sympathizing and blending with the soul in its high employment of obeying the will and chanting the praises of God, it shall rise with it in its lofty soarings, and accompany and aid it in its deep researches in the hidden and sublime mysteries of eternity. "Our conversation is in heaven," -oh that it were always there!- "from where also we look for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ: who will change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto His glorious body, according to the working whereby He is able even to subdue all things unto Himself." Then, oh then, shall we be perfectly like Christ. Like Him in the spotless purity of the mind, like Him in the perfect beauty of the body. Transporting thought!

There is yet another view of our subject peculiarly soothing. Have you lately committed to the dust some beloved object of your affection, now sleeping in Jesus? Are you wont to "go unto the grave to weep there?" Oh listen to the voice of Jesus, which proclaims, "I am the resurrection and the life: he that believes in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live." Let this declaration chasten your grief, and moderate your sorrow, and dry your tears. The Lord, in the faith of whose finished work His people fall asleep, is their resurrection and their life: and soon the heavens will part, the archangel's trumpet will sound, and He will come again, that He may awake them out of sleep, and then, 'your brother shall arise again.' "And I heard a voice saying unto me, Write, Blessed are the dead that die in the Lord." Ah! blessed and holy indeed are they! for they shall have a "part in the first resurrection, and on them the second death shall have no power, but they shall be kings and priests unto God, and shall reign with Him forever." "I am the resurrection and the life." Precious words! Then, death, where is your sting? and grave, where is your victory? You have none, both are gone, for Jesus has abolished both. "I am the resurrection and the life." Divine and glorious title, Captain of my salvation! Then why, since "through death You have destroyed him that had the power of death, that is, the devil," should I be in bondage through its fear? And why, since You have "died, and risen, and revived," and have declared that he that believes in You, though "he die, yet shall he live," should I shrink from descending into the grave, narrow, and dark, and lonely though it be? Precious Son of God! You are "the resurrection and the life," and because You live, I shall live also!

But there is another resurrection! UNCONVERTED READER, it is yours. Have you ever seriously thought of it? "Those who have done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation." Poor thoughtless, careless, prayerless, Christless soul! dying in your sins, ah! long before your body rises, your soul will have been a prey to the "worm that dies not," and to the "fire that is never quenched." It will have been years in torment before the body becomes its companion in misery. And when the archangel's trumpet shall exclaim, "Awake, you dead, and come to judgment," then will your body "rise to shame and everlasting contempt," and be reunited to the soul, fearfully increasing the torment that shall endure forever. Yes, the same body, now the servant of Satan, and the instrument of sin; now pampered by luxury and indulgence, the prey of every vile affection, that identical body shall rise again, with all its appetites, and lusts, and cravings immortalized. It is "sown a natural body," it rises a natural body. "It is sown in corruption,"it rises in corruption. "It is sown in dishonor," it rises in dishonor. The resurrection takes it up as death laid it down. Can you conceive a picture of future torment, surpassing this in its fearfulness and intensity? With every sensual affection perpetuated, the strength of every lawless desire still remaining, unbridled appetites and passions yet existing, with no corresponding objects to meet their cravings, will not this constitute an element of hell, an ingredient in your cup of trembling of an appalling character? Oh! the "resurrection of damnation!" To rise but to sink! To awake but to "shame and everlasting contempt!" To meet the angry God, the frowning Judge- the God you have hated, and the Christ you have rejected! The resurrection of your body will be the resurrection of your sins. All then will come to light. Every transgression will rise to memory and to judgment, and all your secret sins will be placed in the light of God's countenance. Scoffing infidel! polluted sensualist! sordid miser! groveling worldling! proud pharisee! deceived professor! you are to stand before the judgment-seat of Christ. What will your scepticism, what will your carnal joys, what will your money, what will your fame, what will your own works, and what will your empty lamp do for you then? Oh, how are you bartering your birthright of immortality, and selling your soul of priceless worth and deathless existence, and choosing death rather than life, and hell rather than heaven! Your present existence has its limit, and will soon be over. For the remote and tremendous consequence you are unprepared. You have no Savior to trust in, no righteousness to stand in, no refuge to hide in, no atonement to build on, no plea wherefore you should not be eternally condemned. Is not your state awful? is not your position perilous? "What will you say when He shall punish you?"

Oh! by all that is solemn in death, and awful in the resurrection, and terrific in judgment, I beseech you, I implore you, repent- this moment- repent! "God now commands all men everywhere to repent, because He has appointed a day in which He will judge the world in righteousness." Not a moment is to be lost- eternity is near at hand. Lay yourself low before God. Humble yourself in the dust at His feet. Confess your sin, acknowledge your iniquity. Flee to the Lord Jesus Christ, your only refuge from the wrath to come. Seek God's forgiveness alone through Him. Renounce all dependence on your own works of righteousness, and implore the Holy Spirit of all grace and love, to invest you with the righteousness "which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith." Then, living or dying, you will be the Lord's. And when the morning of the 'first resurrection' dawns in glory upon the tomb, a voice, soft as angels' music, shall dissolve your long slumber "Awake and sing, you that dwell in dust: for your dew is as the dew of herbs, and the earth shall cast out the dead." Then, planting your feet upon the crumbling tombstone and the heaving earth, you shall spring into life and immortality, swelling as you rise the chorus of the noble anthem, which will be chanted by every lip, and which will float from every harp- "thanks be unto God for his unspeakable gift!"

The Glory of the Redeemer in His Ascension and Exaltation

"Received up into Glory." 1 Timothy 3:16

It is not surprising that the deeper we go into the consideration of the Redeemer's glory, the greater it should appear. It is the glory of the incarnate Jehovah; infinite therefore in its nature it must be, fathomless in its depth, and illimitable in its degree- leaving in the far distance the mightiest powers of man to reach it. Who that is not himself infinite, can understand infinity? "No man," is the emphatic declaration of Christ, "knows the Son but the Father." It is recorded of Epictetus, that, when his hearers said to him, "You have uttered many excellent things of God, but we cannot as yet understand what He is," he truly and nobly replied, "Were I able fully to set forth God, I should either be a god myself, or God Himself would cease to be what He is." What a demonstrative testimony does the declaration of the Son of God, just quoted, bear to His infinite greatness and glory! How fatal is this simple passage to the doctrine which denies the absolute Godhead of Christ! Honestly and prayerfully considered, it must lead to the overwhelming conviction, that he who can only be understood by God, must be God Himself. "No man" (no one- man or angel) "knows the Son but the Father." The mightiest created intellect cannot grasp Him, the loftiest imagination cannot conceive of Him, the most eloquent tongue cannot describe Him. The principalities and the powers, overwhelmed with the greatness of the theme, and the vastness of the idea, sink down before the incarnate God, happy if permitted but to gaze upon His face, and blessed if but irradiated with His smile, or sheltered beneath the skirtings of His glory. And yet, infinitely great and glorious as He is, He graciously invites us to sit at His feet and learn from Him. Precious privilege! May the Holy Spirit, now that we are about to retire from the scene of His dark humiliation, and to follow Him to the height of His glorious exaltation, strengthen the wing of love, and anoint the eye of faith, that to us speeding our flight and clearing our vision, we may be enabled to approach in spirit very near the King, drinking in deep views of His beauty!

As in His sufferings, so in His exaltation, there was a solemn NECESSITY why He should be advanced to a state of supreme glory. In the one case, He could not have become the Redeemer but as He became the Sacrifice; in the other, He could not have applied His redemption, but as He assumed the sovereignty of a king. "For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by His life." The reasons which plead for the exaltation of Christ are many and powerful. The consideration of a few of the more commanding ones will serve to present, in some important points of view, the glory and preciousness of this great subject. And, in the first place,

The truth and glory of the Father were pledged to the exaltation of His Son from the scene, and as the reward, of His suffering and humiliation. And here it is delightful to trace the faithfulness of God to His promises. For all that the Father was to His Son, He is to them whom His Son represented. Jesus, in every step of His life, acted as a public person, as a representative. He lived, He labored, He thought, He suffered, He died, He rose from the dead, and was received up into glory, not in His individual capacity, but as the covenant head of His covenant people. So that all that the Father was to Jesus, He is now to the body of Jesus- the Church. Christ revealed the Father to His people, and in return He represented His people to the Father. "He that has seen me, has seen the Father." "No man knows the Father but the Son, and He to whom the Son shall reveal Him." And on the other hand, "If any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous One." Thus gloriously does our adorable Emmanuel stand between God and the believer- revealing the glory of the one, and hiding the deformity of the other. Oh, how should this truth heighten our views of His glory, and deepen our sense of His love!

The promise of the Father stood pledged to the exaltation of His Son. It was a part and condition of the covenant of redemption, that if He obeyed the law and endured its penalty on behalf of His people, He should "see of the travail of His soul and be satisfied;" that if He went down, He should return again; that if He sunk, He should rise again; that if He restored honor to the Divine government, reconciling the conflicting attributes of God, in the way of mercy and grace to man, the throne, the crown, and the scepter of mediatorial glory and sovereignty should be His reward. Thus speak the Divine promises. "It pleased the Lord to bruise Him; He has put Him to grief- when you shall make His soul an offering for sin, He shall see His seed, He shall prolong His days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in His hand." The seed He was to see, and the days that were to be prolonged, were the result of His humiliation, and were to follow His exaltation to glory. "My servant shall be exalted and extolled, and be very high." Not less explicit and beautiful is that promise recorded by the prophet Ezekiel, "Thus says the Lord God; I will also take of the highest branch of the high cedar, and will set it; I will crop off from the top of its young twigs a tender one, and will plant it upon a high mountain and eminent: in the mountain of the height of Israel will I plant it: and it shall bring forth boughs, and bear fruit, and be a goodly cedar." To whom can this prediction properly refer, and to whom can this promise be fully accomplished, but in Jesus? He was the "BRANCH," the 'high Branch;' He was the "Plant of renown," the plant of the Father's setting: in His humiliation He was the 'young twig, the tender one;' in His exaltation He was the 'goodly cedar, planted upon a high mountain and eminent, spreading forth His boughs;' His unveiled and infinite perfections overshadowing His Israel, while supplying them with all manner of precious fruits. With this corresponds the happy experience of the Church: "As the apple tree among the trees of the wood, so is my Beloved among the sons. I sat down under His shadow with great delight, and His fruit was sweet to my taste." But the exaltation of Jesus by the Father was as much the fruit of His love, as the fulfilment of His promise. The Father's heart yearned over His Son with a love which, through all His toil, through all His humiliation, faltered not, cooled not, and knew "no variableness, nor shadow of turning." Now, if He loved His Son in His abasement, He wanted also to love Him in His exaltation. If He loved Him in His humiliation, He wanted also to love Him in His glory. His paternal heart yearned to embrace Him once more, who, from eternity, had dwelt in His bosom in all the infinite strength of filial confidence and affection. Thus were the perfections of God pledged to the exaltation of the Redeemer to glory. Justice, truth, goodness, love, all were concerned in effecting the accomplishment of this glorious event.

But the plea for His exaltation found its existence as much in the circumstances in which Christ was placed as in the purpose and love of the Father. As the faithful Servant of the everlasting covenant, it was just, it was the reward of His finished work, that His deepest humiliation on earth should be succeeded by the highest glory in heaven. "For the joy that was set before Him," -the joy of His exaltation, with its glorious fruits, "He endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God." On this plea for the exaltation of our adorable Lord, we would lay great stress, as one deeply unfolding His glory in this stupendous event. How proper, how righteous does it appear, that the crown of His glory should follow the cross of His humiliation! Toilsome and faithful had been His life; ignominious and painful had been His death. From both there had accrued to God, is now, and will yet be accruing through the countless ages of eternity, a revenue of glory, such as never had been His before. He had revealed the Father gloriously. Drawing aside the veil as no other hand could do, He caused such Divine glory to beam forth, as compelled every spotless spirit in heaven to cover himself with his wings, and fall prostrate in the profoundest humility and homage.

The glorious perfections of God! -never had they appeared so glorious as now. The mediatorial work of Jesus had laid a deep foundation on which they were exhibited to angels and to men in their most illustrious character. Never before had wisdom appeared so truly glorious, nor justice so awfully severe, nor love so intensely bright, nor truth so eternally stable. Had all the angels in heaven, and all the creatures of all worlds, become so many orbs of Divine light, and all been merged into one, so that one should embody and reflect the luster of all, it would have been darkness itself compared with a solitary beam of God's glory, majesty, and power, as revealed in the person and work of Emmanuel. Now it was fit, it was congruous, that, after this faithful servitude, this boundless honor and praise brought to God, His Father should, in return, release Him from all further obligation, lift Him from His humiliation, and place Him high in glory. Therefore it was that Jesus poured out the fervent breathings of His soul on the eve of His passion- "I have glorified You on the earth: I have finished the work which You gave me to do: I have manifested Your name. And now, O Father, glorify me."

His work being finished, the great atonement made, and salvation eternally secured to all the covenant seed, it was fit that the Son of God should return to glory. Heaven was His original and proper place. He was but a stranger and a sojourner here. His mission accomplished, earth, which had once attracted Him to its bosom, attracted Him no longer. As the field of His labors, and the scene of His humiliation, and the theater of His conflict, He had willingly bent His steps towards it. His labors now finished, His humiliation now passed, His battle now fought, and His victory won, He as readily hastened from all below. What stronger ties, what more powerful allurements, had earth than heaven for Jesus? All to Him had been toil and suffering, trial and sorrow. Wearisome had been His pilgrimage, laborious His life, humiliating its every scene, and painful its every incident. Creatures, the best and the fondest, had disappointed Him- sources of created good the most promising had failed Him, and the hour of His deepest necessity and woe found Him treading the wine-press alone, forsaken by man, deserted by God! An atmosphere of sin had enveloped Him on every side; forms of suffering and pollution each moment flitted before His eyes, and sounds of blasphemy and woe fell at each step upon His ear. At whatever point He turned, He saw His Father's name dishonored, His Spirit grieved, His own dignity outraged, His teaching despised, His Gospel rejected, and His authority trampled under foot, by men swearing allegiance to another and a rival sovereign. What greater, fonder, and holier attractions, then, had earth than heaven for Jesus? His resurrection from the dead was His preparative for glory. Leaving the garments of mortality in the forsaken tomb, He wrapped around Him the robe of immortality, and, poised upon the wing, awaited but the signal for His heavenly flight. All that now remained for Him to accomplish was to authenticate the fact of His risen life, place His Church in a position to receive the promised Spirit, breathe His parting blessing, and then ascend to glory. Heaven was His home- loved and longed for! How sweet to Him were its recollections! how hallowed its associations, heightened by their contrast with the scene from which He was now retiring! There, no curse; there, no sorrow; there, no suffering; there, no tears; there, no indignity awaited Him. All was one expanse of glory, all one haven of happiness! But far above all, rose in spiritual and surpassing grandeur, the seat, the altar, and the throne, which, as our Prophet, Priest, and King, He sighed to occupy. A more perfect investiture of Him in these offices, a more complete establishment of His mediatorial dominion, awaited Him. All power in heaven and on earth was to be placed in His hands: all things were to be put in subjection under His feet: and all beings, from the loftiest angel in heaven to the lowest creature on earth, were to acknowledge His government, submit to His sovereignty, worship and 'crown Him Lord of all.'

One more plea for the exaltation of the Redeemer. We find its existence in the relation which the Church sustained to this great event. The ascension of Jesus to glory involved the greatest blessing to His saints. Apart from His own glorification, the glory of His Church was incomplete, so entirely; so identically were they one. We have already seen that the resurrection of Christ from the dead, was the Father's public seal to the acceptance of His work; but the exaltation of Christ to glory was an evidence of the Father's infinite delight in that work. Had our Lord continued on earth, His return from the grave, though settling the fact of the completeness of His atonement, could have afforded no clear evidence, and would have conveyed no adequate idea, of God's full pleasure and delight in the person and work of His beloved Son. But in advancing a step further- in taking His Son out of the world, and placing Him at His own right hand, far above principalities and powers, He demonstrated His ineffable delight in Jesus, and His perfect satisfaction with His great atonement. Now, it is no small mercy for the saints of God to receive and to be well established in this truth, namely, the Father's perfect satisfaction with, and His infinite pleasure in, His Son. For all that which He is to His Son, He is to the people accepted in His Son; so that this view of the glorification of Jesus becomes exceedingly valuable to all who are "accepted in the Beloved." So precious was Jesus to His heart, and so infinitely did His soul delight in Him, He could not allow of His absence from glory a moment longer than was necessary for the accomplishment of His own purpose and the perfecting of His Son's mission. That done, He showed His Beloved the "path of life," and raised Him to His "presence, where is fulness of joy," and to "His right hand, where there are pleasures forevermore."

The descent of the Holy Spirit upon the Church in His most enlarged degree, and for the highest and most gracious ends, rendered the glorification of the Head necessary and expedient. Holding in His hands, not only the keys of hades and of death, but of all the fulness of God, all the riches of the covenant, all the treasures of His Father, He could only dispense these blessings in His exalted state. As it was necessary in the case of Joseph- a personal type of our glorious Redeemer- that he should be exalted to the office of prime minister in Egypt, in order to possess dignity, authority, and power to dispense the riches of Pharaoh, so was it expedient that the great Antitype should assume a mediatorial exaltation, with the view of scattering down mediatorial blessings upon His people. The delay of this event was the only barrier to the outpouring of the Spirit upon the Church. "The Holy Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified." His own words confirm this statement of the evangelist: "It is expedient for you that I go away: for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I depart, I will send Him unto you." Now here, second to Himself, was the gift of gifts- the donation of the Holy Spirit, the greatest God could give, the richest man could receive- suspended upon the single fact of the Redeemer's ascension to glory. It would seem as if the baptism of the Church by the Spirit was an event especially reserved to signalize the enthronement of the Son of God in His mediatorial kingdom. God would demonstrate how great was the glory of Jesus in heaven, how perfect was the reconciliation which He had effected between Himself and man, how spiritual was that kingdom which He was about to establish in the earth- the foundation of which His own hand had laid- and how full, and immense, and free, were the blessings ready to be bestowed upon all who, in poverty of spirit, and sincerity of heart, and fervency of soul, should seek them, by opening the windows of heaven, and pouring down the Holy Spirit in all His converting, life-giving, sanctifying, and comforting grace. And oh, how must this Divine and Eternal Spirit, occupying as He did a personal existence in the glorious Trinity, possessing equal glory, honor, and love with the Father and the Son, as equally engaged in securing the salvation of the chosen people- how must He have rejoiced at the consummation of an event which permitted Him to give full vent to the overflowing fountain of His heart's grace and love over the Church which He was about to renew, sanctify, and dwell in through eternity! "The love of the Spirit" pleaded eloquently for the exaltation of Jesus.

To take possession of heaven in behalf of His people, and to perpetuate His office as their intercessory High Priest, it was necessary that He should, at the termination of His sufferings, enter into His glory. "I go," says He, "to prepare a place for you." "Which hope," says the apostle, "we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast, and which enters into that within the veil; where the forerunner is for us entered, even Jesus." Thus is the kingdom of heaven secured to all believers. Thus is a mansion in our Father's house made ready for every adopted son. Jesus has gone before to make ready for the glorification of His Church. "I go to prepare a place for you." Oh, sweet words! A place prepared- a mansion set apart for each individual believer! "In my Father's house are many mansions." A mansion in His heart, a mansion in His kingdom, a mansion in His house, for the weakest babe in Christ. The Forerunner has for us entered, even Jesus! How sure is heaven! How certain the eternal happiness of every pardoned and justified soul!

But Jesus took not merely a passive, but also an active, possession of glory for His people. He is there, not only as the Forerunner, but also as the Intercessor. "For Christ has not entered into the holy places made with hands, which are the figures of the true; but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us." And with what did He enter? "By His own blood He entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us." "Wherefore He is able to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by Him, seeing He ever lives to make intercession for them." These points will recur to our notice, in the further unfolding of the subject.

Thus much for the necessity of the Redeemer's exaltation to glory. It behooves now to consider THE ASCENSION ITSELF, and the nature of that glory into which He entered.

The circumstance of the Lord's ascension and exaltation meets with frequent and marked allusion in the word of God. The Holy Spirit has attached to the fact the greatest weight. The writings of the Old Testament frequently and distinctly speak of it. "God is gone up with a shout, the Lord with the sound of a trumpet." It is impossible to misunderstand the obvious allusion of these words. He came down as God, He went up as "God manifest in the flesh." The ascension was worthy of His Deity. It was royal and triumphant. He went up as the "great King," and as the mighty Conqueror, "leading captivity captive." Attended by a celestial escort, and amid the shouts and acclamations of all the heavenly hierarchy, He passed within the portals of glory. The demand was made, the challenge was given, the answer was returned: "Lift up your heads, O you gates; and be lifted up, you everlasting doors; and the King of glory shall come in. Who is this King of glory? The Lord strong and mighty, the Lord mighty in battle. Lift up your heads, O you gates; even lift them up, you everlasting doors; and the King of glory shall come in. Who is this King of glory? The Lord of hosts, He is the King of glory." Yes, our Emmanuel, God with us, is "gone up with a shout;" the Lord, Jehovah Jesus, "with the sound of a trumpet." And although no echo of the heavenly minstrelsy was heard on earth, and the cloud which received Him veiled His receding form from the gaze of His disciples, hiding from the view the deepening glory which encircled His ascending flight, yet all heaven reverberated with the song, and grew resplendent with the majesty of His entrance within its gates.

If possible, a still more direct reference to this glorious event is found: "You have ascended on high, You have led captivity captive: You have received gifts for men; yes, for the rebellious also, that the Lord God might dwell among them." All question as to the reference of this prophecy to the Lord Jesus is set at rest by the apostle, who, in his Epistle to the Ephesians, quotes and applies it to Him. How perfectly does each particular harmonize with the ascension of the Redeemer! "He ascended up on high," "far above all heavens," where no mere creature has ever entered, or can enter- even within the hallowed pavilion of the Divine Majesty itself. "He led captivity captive," chaining to His triumphal car the principalities and the powers- Satan conquered, hell defeated, sin condemned, death vanquished, and the grave dismantled. "He received gifts for men," and to men He gave them; "to some apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers;" "yes, for the rebellious also," for those who, with no plea of worthiness springing from themselves, received the "gifts" as the gratuitous expressions of God's love, the free and sovereign bestowments of His grace. "That the Lord God might dwell among them," even in the midst of His saints, formed into distinct Gospel Churches, "built together for a habitation of God through the Spirit."

The scene and the circumstances of His ascension were of thrilling interest, and deeply spiritual in their meaning. The period, which it is important distinctly to specify, was just forty days after His resurrection; thus affording ample time to establish, by the most irrefragable proof and tangible evidence, this master-fact of His history. Not only did He take this occasion to answer all the reasonings and resolve all the doubts of His still incredulous disciples, but He crowded into this brief space of time, instructions the most needed, precious, and momentous to the well being of His Church. Drawing closer around Him, as if by the new and more powerful attraction of His risen body, His devoted apostles- the future builders of His spiritual temple- He proceeds to renew their Divine commission to preach the Gospel, widening it to the exigences of the world that Gospel was in tended to bless. Opening their understandings more perfectly to understand the Scriptures, He cleared and enlarged their view of His Divine nature, the spiritual character of His kingdom, and the offices, ordinances, and discipline which were to be observed in each Gospel-constituted section of His Church. Thus, even after His atoning work was finished, and the great seal of heaven was affixed to it, our adorable Lord was still engaged in His Father's business, still intent upon promoting His glory, and the eternal welfare of His people. Oh, what love was the love of our Emmanuel! It was no selfish, indolent, inoperative principle; but a love of the purest benevolence, deepest tenderness, and ceaseless action. It was a love ever thinking, ever planning, ever acting, ever seeing, ever speaking, and ever yearning, in behalf of the Church which He carried each moment in the very center of His heart.

And now let us approach the spot where the Redeemer ascended. It was from the Mount Olivet, near to Bethany; so that the two accounts of Christ's ascension recorded by Luke, the one in his Gospel, and the other in his Acts of the Apostles, perfectly agree. How full of great, and holy, and solemn, yes, awful associations would be that spot to Jesus! It was no strange, unfamiliar, untrodden ground to Him. At the foot of that mount, from whose summit He entered into glory, He had been wont to resort with His disciples for holy meditation and prayer. There, too, His sufferings commenced. There He endured the fearful conflict, when His soul was "exceedingly sorrowful, even unto death." It was there, prostrate in the dust, the cup of trembling in His hand, the sweat of blood falling to the ground, He thrice poured out His soul in that touching prayer- "O my Father! if it be possible, let this cup pass from me: nevertheless, not as I will, but as You will." Yes, it was from the Mount Olivet, the scene of His deep mental agony, and near to Bethany (which signifies the house of affliction), our blessed Lord took His flight to His Father and His God, to enjoy His presence forever, and to drink deeply and eternally of the pleasures which are at His right hand.

And so must it be with all His members. As if to heighten, by contrast with the sufferings of earth, the glories of heaven; as if to give a deeper melody to their song, and a richer sweetness to their joy, and a higher character to their ecstasy, and a profounder sense of the grace that brought them there, it often pleases the Lord that affliction, in various forms, should throw its deepest gloom around the path of the children of God, when just on the eve of translation to glory. And when, in anticipation of a smooth descent, and a cloudless sunset, they have said, with Job, "I shall die in my nest," God, their Father, has seemed to have reserved the bitter dregs of affliction's cup for the dying lips; and, like Jacob, they have been constrained to anticipate, that "with sorrow their grey hairs will be brought down to the grave." Thus "through much tribulation, they enter the kingdom;" out of the house of affliction, and, as it were, from the Mount Olivet, they ascend to the Mount Zion, borne up as in a chariot of fire. Be it so; "He does all things well." Compared with the sufferings of Jesus, it is, in its heaviest form, but a "light affliction;" and, measured with an eternity of bliss, in its longest duration, is "but for a moment."

How touching and instructive was the parting interview! "And He led them out as far as to Bethany, and He lifted up His hands, and blessed them. And it came to pass, while He blessed them, He was parted from them, and carried up into heaven." Oh, how worthy of Himself was this His final blessing! How harmonious with every previous act of His life, was this, its closing one! Blessing to the last, and while with outstretched hands, that blessing was yet breathing from His lips, "received up into glory." Oh how full of grace and love is our adorable Emmanuel! What a heart of overflowing tenderness and blessing is His. Knowing this, knowing it from observation and from experience, supported by the innumerable proofs which crowd every page of the New Testament, is it not a marvel that we should seek our blessing from any other source than Jesus, or that we should breathe our sighs, or pour our sorrows, or repose our aching head, on any other bosom than His? Ah! our acquaintance with Him- our best, our dearest, our most loving Friend- is so limited, we walk with Him so coldly, we follow Him so distantly, we believe in Him so feebly, the greatest wonder is, that in the midst of all, His patience, forbearance, tender and unchangeable love towards us should still be so unwearied and so great.

But who can describe the parting interview and the last blessing? Clustering around Him a lonely, timid band, saddened as they must have been by the thought that they were about to separate forever on earth from Him whom they loved- as many of them afterwards proved- better than life itself; to whom they had been wont to look for guidance, on whom they had leaned for strength, and to the asylum of whose bosom they had fled in danger and in sorrow, they needed His blessing- they needed that which none but Jesus could give to them. They were "oppressed," and He only could "undertake" for them. They were in sorrow, and He only could comfort them. They were tried and perplexed, and He only could sustain and counsel them. And what, may we suppose, would that blessing contain, which He now breathed over them?- The richer anointing of the Spirit to fit them for their work- a larger measure of grace to shield them in temptation, and to uphold them in trial- increased light in the understanding respecting the spiritual nature of His kingdom, and the meaning of the holy Scriptures of truth; and, what to them at that moment would be of unspeakable preciousness- a deeper discovery of His own pardoning love, a fuller assurance of their personal acceptance in Himself, and a richer bestowment of the "peace of God which surpasses all understanding." Thus blessing, He was "parted from them, and carried up into heaven," to intercede for them there; and thus blessed, "they worshiped Him, and returned to Jerusalem with great joy," to spread the fragrance, and to manifest the power of His name through all the world.

Let us now ascend in spirit with Jesus, and contemplate THE GLORY OF HIS EXALTATION. That His ascension into heaven was His introduction to a condition of pre-eminent dignity, power, and glory, the Scriptures of truth clearly affirm. Two quotations will be sufficient in proof of this. Thus the apostle speaks of the working of God's "mighty power, which He wrought in Christ, when He raised Him from the dead, and set Him at His own right hand in the heavenly places, far above all principality, and power, and might, and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to come: and has put all things, under His feet, and gave Him to be the head over all things to the Church, which is His body, the fulness of Him that fills all in all." Again, in another place, passing from a most affecting description of the humiliation of Jesus, the same apostle proceeds to draw aside, as it were, the veil of His exalted and glorified state. "Wherefore God also has highly exalted Him, and given Him a name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth; and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father." How forcible and expressive are these declarations of the high position in heaven to which the Son of God was advanced!

In the first place, He entered fully and manifestly into the glory of His Deity. We may not for a moment suppose that His exaltation added anything to His essential Godhead. This could necessarily undergo no change. His humiliation could not take from, nor His exaltation add to, it. We can suppose the sun pouring light upon a stagnant pool, and yet remain as essentially unsullied as though its beams had but played upon the surface of the most pure and polished lake. Now what was the revelation of Jesus, but the pouring down of the beams of the Sun of Righteousness upon a sin-accursed and sorrow-stricken world? Yet the contact of our Lord with this vast mass of pollution and iniquity, was no detriment to His essential and personal holiness and dignity. His beams of light and glory extracted and absorbed no poison from this stagnant pool, but rather- oh sovereign virtue of His grace! -exerted so Divine, so cleansing, and so purifying an influence, that myriads once sunk beneath its pollutions, have emerged cleansed, sanctified, and saved.

Now the exaltation of Jesus was the full, clear, and manifest revealing of His Deity. He entered into the glory of His Godhead, so long suspended and eclipsed. He was reinstated in His original dignity, and reinvested with His former glory. Oh, how magnificently glorious did the beams of that Sun now shine, which but a little before had set in darkness and in blood! Yes, our Emmanuel entered fully into His Divine glory when He entered into heaven! There it had been from everlasting; there it existed during the period of His humiliation; and there, as a robe of dazzling light, it awaited to invest Him the moment He should pass within the veil of the heavenly sanctuary, and enter the portal of the celestial and eternal palace. Then came the coronation! Then the enthronement! Oh, what hallowed imagination can form an adequate conception of that scene? What tongue describe the splendor of that moment? Attended by a celestial retinue, each angel's harp strung and tuned for a higher strain of melody than that which broke in the stillness of night upon the plains of Bethlehem, He passed within the golden portal, file on file of adoring spirits lining the path that conducted Him to His throne. Then rose the loud acclaim of welcome, as ten thousand times ten thousand struck their golden harps, louder than seven thunders rolling and reverberating along the dome of heaven. Falling prostrate upon their faces, all the celestial host, cherubim and seraphim, and "spirits of just men made perfect," would worship at His feet, while every hand would be extended to place the crown upon His head, and every tongue assist to swell the coronation anthem- "Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honor, and glory, and blessing." Oh, let us catch their thrilling note, and echo back their lofty song:

"All hail the power of Jesus' name!
Let angels prostrate fall,
Bring forth the royal diadem,
And crown Him Lord of all!

"Let every kindred, every tribe,
On this terrestrial ball,
To Him all majesty ascribe,
And crown Him Lord of all!

"Oh that with yonder sacred throng
We at His feet may fall
We'll join the everlasting song,
And crown Him Lord of all!"

This exaltation would also include the full induction of the Redeemer into His mediatorial glory. This had but in a measure developed itself on earth. Our blessed Lord lived in great obscurity as to His personal glory when below. As the Prophet, Priest, and King, haw partially was He recognized; how small a portion of His dignity, majesty, and power, was visible! It was perfectly congruous with the whole economy of His kingdom, that it should be so. That kingdom was purely spiritual; its nature, its laws, its subjects, its progress, and its ultimate and certain triumph, purely and perfectly from heaven, spiritual and Divine. By the early demonstration of this truth, our Lord sought to rebuke the lofty ambition, and earthly hopes, and visionary expectations of the proud and haughty nation, who, pluming themselves upon their national election of God, their miraculous history, their early conquests and former greatness, and sighing for release from the Roman yoke, were dreaming of the pomp, and glory, and conquest of a temporal Messiah. Now it was proper, that even the spiritual glory of our Lord, seen, as it would be, through material objects, and liable thus to be secularized, should be but partially and cautiously developed. Too full a discovery of His glory, and too great a demonstration of His power, might have but strengthened the expectation and fostered the views which He sought so earnestly, and yet so gently, to correct. Even His Church, in consequence of the limited bestowment of the Spirit, was not yet prepared for a full disclosure of His personal and official greatness. Therefore He said to His disciples, "I have yet many things to say unto you, but you cannot bear them now."

His entrance into heaven was the signal for the full development of His mediatorial power and glory. This was the promise of His Father, and this the reward of His death. "I have set my King upon my holy hill of Zion." "Unto the Son He says, Your throne, O God, is forever and ever." "I appoint unto you," says Christ, "a kingdom, as my Father has appointed unto me!" "When You shall make His soul an offering for sin, He shall see His seed. He shall see of the travail of His soul, and shall be satisfied." Thus His exaltation at the right hand of the Father was His full induction into the mediatorial kingdom. Now was He exalted "heir of all things" -now were "all things put under His feet," -now "all power in heaven and on earth was given to Him;" and from that moment that He touched the crown and grasped the scepter, and the government was placed upon His shoulder, His truth was to advance, and His kingdom widen, with ever-growing power, until, supplanting all error, and subduing all kingdoms, He was to reign "King of kings and Lord of lords."

But we have yet to consider an essential, and, to the Church of God, a most blessed, part of the Redeemer's exaltation- the glory into which His human nature entered on His ascension into heaven. The Divine and the human nature once united, were united forever. Now there was an honoring, but not a glorifying, of our humanity, when the Son of God assumed it. Its union with the Deity, its fulness of the Spirit- its spotless holiness- its deep knowledge of, and intimate fellowship with, God- conspired to invest it with a dignity and honor such as no creature had ever before or ever shall again attain. But not until its ascension into heaven was it glorified. Oh, through what humiliation did it pass, what indignity did it endure, when below! What sinless weaknesses, imperfections, and frailties, clung to it! It hungered, it thirsted, it labored, it sorrowed, it wept, it suffered, it bled, it died! The poor man's scorn, the rich man's ridicule, what indignities did it endure- it was scourged, it was bruised, it was mocked, it was smitten, it was spitten upon, it was nailed to the tree, it was pierced, it was slain! Oh, what eye but that of faith can, through all this degradation, behold the person of the incarnate God?

But now "we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honor." Even after His resurrection, it must be acknowledged that a change, approximating to that state of glory, had already passed over Him. So spiritualized was He, that His disciples, when they saw Him, knew him not. What, then, must be the glory that encircles Him now that He has passed within His kingdom, and is exalted at the right hand of God, "far above all heavens, that He might fill all things!" John, during his banishment in Patmos, was favored with a view of His glorified humanity, and thus describes its dazzling appearance: "When I turned to see who was speaking to me, I saw seven gold lampstands. And standing in the middle of the lampstands was the Son of Man. He was wearing a long robe with a gold sash across his chest. His head and his hair were white like wool, as white as snow. And his eyes were bright like flames of fire. His feet were as bright as bronze refined in a furnace, and his voice thundered like mighty ocean waves. He held seven stars in his right hand, and a sharp two-edged sword came from his mouth. And his face was as bright as the sun in all its brilliance. When I saw him, I fell at his feet as dead. But he laid his right hand on me and said, "Don't be afraid! I am the First and the Last. I am the living one who died. Look, I am alive forever and ever! And I hold the keys of death and the grave." Sublime description of the "glory and honor" which now crown the exalted humanity of our adorable Redeemer! Did the awe-stricken and prostrate evangelist entertain any doubt of the glorious Person who thus appeared to him?- that doubt must all have vanished the moment he felt the "right hand" of Jesus laid upon him, and heard His own familiar voice saying unto him, "Fear not." Oh; what a tangible evidence, and what a near view did he now have of the exalted and glorified humanity of his Lord! At that instant, he saw Him to be Divine, and he felt Him to be human!

Yes! the very tabernacle of flesh in which He dwelt, the identical robe of humanity that He wore, He carried up with Him into heaven, and sat down with it upon the throne. There it is, highly exalted! There it is, above angels, and higher than saints, in close affinity and eternal union with Godhead. There it is, bathing itself in the "fulness of joy," and drinking deeply of the satisfying "pleasures" which are at God's "right hand forevermore." Oh, what must be the holy delight which the human soul of Jesus now experiences! Sin presses upon it no more: sorrow beclouds it no more: the hidings of God's face distress it no more: infirmity clings to it no more: it exults in the beams of God's unveiled glory; and it swims in the ocean of His ineffable love. If the vision upon the Mount Tabor was so glorious- if the splendors then encircling that form which yet had not passed through the scenes of the crucifixion, the resurrection, and the ascension, were so overpowering- if the attractions of that spot were so great, and the ecstasy of that moment was so ravishing- what, oh, what must be the glory, the joy, the bliss of heaven, where we shall no longer see Him "through a glass darkly," but "as He is," and "face to face!"

THE BLESSINGS WHICH FLOW TO THE CHURCH of God through the channel of the Redeemer's exaltation, are varied and immense. A brief reference to some of them will conduct us to the close of this chapter.

We place in the forefront the greatest of all, and the parent of all spiritual blessings thus accruing to the believer- the baptism of the Church by the Holy Spirit. Our adorable Lord, as He approached the termination of His sojourn on earth, went more fully into the work of the Spirit, than at any former period of His ministry, laying especial stress on this truth, that His own personal residence on earth in permanent conjunction with the presence of the Spirit, was a union not to be expected by the Church. Why such an arrangement might not have been made, we proceed not to inquire. Sufficient should be the answer to this, as to all questions involving the sovereignty of the Divine will, "Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in Your sight." But the promise to which He directed the eye of His disciples, and with which He sought to soothe their sorrow in the prospect of His personal withdrawment from the Church, was the descent of the Holy Spirit in an enlarged degree, and in continuous outpouring, to the end of the Christian dispensation. This event, dependent upon, and immediately to follow, that of His inauguration in His heavenly kingdom, is thus alluded to: "The Holy Spirit," says the Evangelist John, "was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified." "Nevertheless," says Christ, "I tell you the truth: it is expedient for you that I go away; for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I depart, I will send Him unto you." In a former part of this work, we have already alluded to the instantaneous fulfilment of this gracious promise in the glorification of Christ, tracing some of its remarkable results, as seen on the day of Pentecost. That day, with its hallowed scenes, cannot be too frequently brought before the mind. Were there a more simple looking to Christ upon the throne, and a stronger faith in the promise of the outpouring of the Spirit, and in the faithfulness of the Promiser to make it good, that blessed day would find its prototype in many a similar season enjoyed by the Church of God to the end of time. The effects of the descent of the Spirit on that day upon the apostles themselves are worthy of our especial notice. What a change passed over those holy men of God, thus baptized with the promised Spirit! A new flood of Divine light broke in upon their minds. All that Jesus had taught them while yet upon earth, recurred to their memory with all the freshness and glory of a new revelation. The doctrines which He had propounded concerning Himself, His work, and His kingdom, floated before their mental eye like a newly-discovered world full of light and beauty. A newness and a freshness invested the most familiar truths. They saw with new eyes; they heard with new ears; they understood as with re-created minds; and the men who, while He was with them, teaching them in the most simple and illustrative manner, failed fully to comprehend even the elementary doctrines and the most obvious truths of the Gospel, now saw as with the strength of a prophet's vision, and now glowed as with the ardor of a seraph's love. Upon the assembled multitudes who thronged the temple, how marvellous, too, the effects! Three thousand as in one moment were convinced of sin, and led to plunge in the "Fountain opened to the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, for sin and uncleanness." And how does the apostle explain the glorious wonder?- "This Jesus," says He, "has God raised up, whereof we all are witnesses. Therefore, being by the right hand of God exalted, and having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, He has shed forth this which you now see and hear."

This, and this only, is the blessing which the Church of God now so greatly needs- even the baptism of the Holy Spirit. She needs to be confirmed in the fact that Jesus is alive and upon the throne, invested with all power, and filled with all blessing. The simple belief of this would engage her heart to desire the bestowment of the Spirit; and the Spirit largely poured down would more clearly demonstrate to her the transcendent truth in which all her prospects of glory and of happiness are involved, that the Head of the Church is triumphant. Oh, let her but place her hand of faith simply, solely, firmly, on the glorious announcement- Jesus is at the right hand of the Father, with all grace and love in His heart, with all authority in His hand, with all power at His disposal, with all blessings in His gift; waiting to open the windows of heaven, and pour down upon her such a blessing as there shall not be room enough to receive it- prepared so deeply to baptize her with the Holy Spirit as shall cause her converts greatly to increase, and her enterprises of Christian benevolence mightily to prosper; as shall heal her divisions, build up her broken walls, and conduct her to certain and triumphant victory over all her enemies; let her, I say, but plant her faith upon the covenant and essential union of these two grand truths- the Exalted Redeemer, and the Descending Spirit- and a day far brighter than that of the Pentecost shall dawn- a day on which, not three thousand only, but a nation shall turn to the Lord, and all flesh shall see His glory!

Oh never did the Church of God more need the baptism of the Spirit than now she needs it! The days in which we live are fearful. The signs that are around us are significant and portentous. The forecasting shadows of approaching events of the greatest magnitude are darkening upon our path. We cannot be blind or indifferent to the fact, that the elements of evil are combining and consolidating their force for a vigorous and determined onset. The 'enemy' has already come in 'like a flood.' Popery is increasing- infidelity is triumphing- formalism is abounding- God-dishonoring, Christ-denying, Bible-rejecting, and soul-destroying doctrines in rank and rampant growth, are springing forth on every side. The demon of heresy has mapped the world, resolved to possess it for himself. His agents, numerous and disguised, subtle and persevering, are in the field, resisting every opposition, employing every instrumentality, and rushing with a promptitude that is marvellous, and a zeal that is appalling, into every new-made opening. What now should be the posture, and wherein lies the true strength of Christ's Church? How is she to rise to the true dignity and responsibility of her position? Shall she look to her marshaled hosts? Shall she repose upon her stores of wealth, her former conquests, her arsenals of learning, and her titled warriors? Alas! trusting in these alone, her ruin is inevitable. Where, then, shall she turn, and on whom shall she fix her eye? Upwards, where sits her Lord upon His throne, exalted, triumphant, and glorified. Tell her that Jesus is at the right hand of God; assure her that He loves her still- that He wears her name on His heart, and has engraven her upon the palms of His hands- that He is ready to pour down upon her the Holy Spirit in all the plenitude of His reviving, teaching, and sanctifying grace- and you have unlocked to her the secret of her salvation. Yes, nothing but the baptism of the Holy Spirit can bring up the Church to her right position, and prepare her for the approaching conflict. And this, this is the blessing the great Head of the Church is exalted and waits to give.

And why have we it not? What hinders the blessing? We live under the dispensation of the Spirit- we hold in our hands the promise of the Spirit- we have seen in the history of God's American Israel- in the dispensations of His grace in some favored parts of Scotland- in the almost miraculous progress of Christianity in the islands of the South Sea, as well as the extraordinary triumphs of the Gospel and the planting of churches in Burmah and among the Sarens, that there are seasons in which the exalted Head of the Church pours down His Spirit in an especial and remarkable way, converting sinners, reviving saints, and more eminently qualifying ministers for their great work of preaching the Gospel. Why, then, should we disbelieve the doctrine, and limit the Holy One of Israel? We have not, because we ask not; we ask not, because we believe not. Oh for the outpouring of the Spirit upon our pastors, upon our churches, upon our congregations, upon our seats of learning, upon our rising ministry! Oh for the powerful descent of the Holy Spirit, lifting up an effectual standard against the enemy now coming in like a flood!

What the Church of God needs as a Church, we equally need as individual Christians- the deeper baptism of the Holy Spirit. Reader, why is it that you are not more settled in the truth- your feet more firm upon the Rock? Why are you not more rejoicing in Christ Jesus, the pardoning blood more sensibly applied to the conscience, the seal of adoption more deeply impressed upon your heart, 'Abba, Father,' more frequently, and with stronger, sweeter accent, on your lips? Why are you, perhaps, so yielding in temptation, so irresolute in purpose, so feeble in action, so vacillating in pursuit, so faint in the day of adversity? Why is the glory of Jesus so dimly seen, His preciousness so little felt, His love so imperfectly experienced? Why is there so little close, secret transaction between God and your soul- so little searching of heart, confession of sin, dealing with the atoning blood? Why does the conscience so much lack tenderness, and the heart brokenness, and the spirit contrition? And why is the throne of grace so seldom resorted to, and prayer itself felt to be so much a duty, and so little a privilege; and when engaged in, so faintly characterized with the humble brokenness of a penitent sinner, the filial boldness of an adopted child, the rich anointing of a royal priest? Ah! let the small measure in which you have received the Holy Spirit's influence supply the answer. "Have you received the Holy Spirit since you believed?" -have you received Him as the Witness, as the Sealer, as the Teacher, as the Indweller, as the Comforter, as the Spirit of adoption? But, rather, have you not forgotten that your Lord was alive, and upon the throne, exalted to give you the Holy Spirit, and that more readily than a father is to give good gifts to his child? That He is prepared now to throw open the windows of heaven and pour down upon you such a blessing as shall confirm your faith, resolve your doubts, annihilate your fears, arm you for the fight, strengthen you for the trial, give you an unclouded view of your acceptance in the Beloved, and assure you that your "name is written among the living in Jerusalem?" Then, as you value the light of God's countenance, as you desire to grow in the knowledge of Christ, as you long to be more "steadfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord," Oh seek to enjoy, in a larger degree, the presence, the love, the anointing of the Holy Spirit! Christ has gone up on high to give to you this invaluable blessing; and says for your encouragement, "Hitherto have you asked nothing in my name: ask, and you shall receive, that your joy may be full."

Another blessing, springing from the exaltation of Jesus, is the view it gives us of His ever-living and unchanging Priesthood. The work of our Lord as Priest was twofold, atonement and intercession. The one He accomplished upon the cross, the other He now transacts upon the throne. "When He had by Himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high." The high priest under the law, after He had slain the sacrifice, took the blood, and, passing within the veil, sprinkled it on the mercy-seat, so making intercession for the people. "The Holy Spirit this signifying, that the way into the holiest of all was not yet made manifest, while as the first tabernacle was yet standing. " But Christ being come a high priest of good things to come, by a greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this building; nor by the blood of goats and calves, but by His own blood He entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us." And what is He now doing? What is His present and high employment? Presenting His own blood each moment before the mercy-seat on behalf of His redeemed people! "He ever lives to make intercession for us." Oh do not forget this, dear saint of God! "If any man sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous." This is spoken for the comfort of the mourners in Zion- for those who, knowing the plague of their own hearts, and deploring its constant tendency to outbreak, are humbled in the dust with deep godly sorrow. Look up! does sin plead loud against you? The blood of Jesus pleads louder for you. Do your backslidings, and rebellions, and iniquities committed against so much light and love, call for vengeance? The blood of Jesus "speaks better things." Does Satan stand at your right hand to accuse you? Your Advocate stands at God's right hand to plead for you. All hail! you mourning souls! You that smite on the breast, you brokenhearted, you contrite ones, "who is he that condemns? it is Christ that died, yes, rather, that is risen again; who is even at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us." Jesus is the glorious and the successful Advocate. He has never lost a cause intrusted to His advocacy, and never will.

He pleads powerfully, He pleads eloquently, He pleads prevalently, because He pleads in behalf of a people unspeakably dear to His heart, for whom He "loved not His own life unto the death," and presses His suit, on the ground of His own most precious blood and accepted person, and with His Father and their Father, with His God and their God.

"Jesus, the King of glory, reigns
On Zion's heavenly hill,
Looks like a Lamb that has been slain,
And wears His priesthood still.

"He ever lives to intercede
Before His Father's face;
Give Him, my soul, your cause to plead,
Nor doubt the Father's grace."

In the Redeemer's exaltation we have the strongest pledge of His continued sympathy, support, and deliverance in all our trials and temptations. It is delightful to the believing mind to reflect, that in passing from the scene of His humiliation to that of His glory, and in the spiritual change which His body must have undergone, thus to fit it for the region which flesh and blood cannot inherit, His humanity lost none of the tender sympathies of our nature which so closely clung to Him when upon earth. The same compassionate nature- the same loving heart- the same deep sympathy with all our sorrows, and the same outstretched hand to relieve them, distinguished the glorified state of the precious Son of God! Do you think, that though dwelling in yonder region of light, and holiness, and joy, and glory, He has forgotten the days of His humiliation- the "strong cry and the tears" - "the wormwood and the gall?" No, He has them still in remembrance. And can He forget the Church in the wilderness- His tried and suffering people? Never! Hark how He prays for them- "Now I am no more in the world, but these are in the world, and I come to You. Holy Father, keep through Your own name those whom You have given me." "I pray not that You should take them out of the world, but that You should keep them from the evil." "As You have sent me into the world, even so have I also sent them into the world." Yes, He forgets not that His Church is yet in the world- a polluting, persecuting, harassing world, demanding all the infinite resources of His sympathy, grace, and might. Oh how sweet and holy is the thought, that, having passed within the veil though He has, there is still a chain of the closest sympathy suspended from the glorified Redeemer on the throne, touching the most lowly and tried of the redeemed on earth. How can Jesus forget that He still bears our nature, a part of our very being? The "head so full of bruises," the body so scarred, reminding Him of the suffering state of the Church below, and pleading with a power which Omnipotence itself cannot resist, for the support, comfort, and deliverance of every tried and tempted member of that body. "Seeing, then, that we have a great High Priest, that is passed into the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our profession. For we have not a high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities."

Thus, through the channel of our glorified Redeemer, what immense and varied blessings may the believer expect and receive! "Exalted a Prince and a Savior, to give repentance unto Israel, and forgiveness of sins," will He not with these costly mercies freely give us all things? What an open door is here for a humble suppliant, bowed with sorrow and pressed with need! Do you think that He can close His heart, or withdraw His hand, or falsify His promise? Ah no! our Jesus, in His exaltation, is more mindful of His people in their low state, than the chief butler, in his advancement, was of Joseph imprisoned in the dungeon. He thinks of us still- He speaks a good word for us to His Father- bends upon us each moment a glance of the most ineffable love, with whose expression infinite compassion sweetly blends. Nor is there a moment in which He is not exerting Himself on our behalf, hedging up the way of one believer, and opening the way of another; strengthening the tried faith of some saints, and soothing the deep sorrows of others. Oh, see what costly blessings are bound up in the exaltation of

Jesus! All sanctification to make us holy- all love to make us happy- all wisdom to guide- all grace to uphold- and all glory to crown. "Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of His grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need."

The exaltation of Jesus is the pledge of the full glorification of every believer. The certain glorification with Jesus of every believer is a truth as much involving the honor of God, as it does the present comfort and future happiness of the Church. The opposite sentiment- the possibility of a child of God falling short of eternal glory (a doctrine, let it be observed, at total variance with the entire Scriptures of truth), by unhinging the soul from God, and throwing it back completely upon itself, must necessarily lead to low and dishonoring views of the Divine character; while it begets in the mind a spirit of bondage, and a sense of the most painful apprehension, both equally inimical to a fruitful Christianity. But the most solemn, I may say awful, light in which the doctrine of the believer's final insecurity presents itself is, that it casts a thick veil over the glory of Emmanuel. It touches every perfection of His being. Oh, could the dear saints of God, thus tossed in the troubled sea of doubt, and thus agitated with a "fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation," but be brought to see how the Jesus whom they love is wounded, dishonored, and shorn of His glory by this unscriptural tenet, would they not unhesitatingly renounce it as leading to a result so fearful? Can that, I earnestly ask, be a doctrine of Divine revelation, which tends in the slightest degree to shade the glory of Christ?

If one of those given to Him by His Father- one whose sins He carried, whose curse He bore, whose soul He has renewed by the grace of His Spirit, were permitted finally and eternally to perish, where would be His glory? where the glory of His truth? where the glory of His power? where the glory of His love? where the glory of His work? Gone! Every perfection of His Divine being would be impeached, and every beam of His Divine glory would be tarnished.

But all shall be brought safely to heaven. Hark how distinctly and authoritatively He pleads for this their crowning blessing, when on the eve of His mysterious passion, and about to spring from His cross to His throne- "Father, I will that they also whom You have given me be with me where I am; that they may behold my glory." Sublime prayer! Comprehensive and tender petition! How did the Head long to have with Him, where He was, each member of His body! Having had fellowship with Him in His humiliation, it was His desire that they should have fellowship with Him in His glory. And this He asks, not as a gift, but claims as a right. In virtue of His covenant engagement with the Father, His full satisfaction to Divine justice, His perfect obedience to the Divine law, His finished redemption of His people, He reverently bows at the mercy-seat, and pours out His full soul, and unburdens His loving heart, in the most sublime petition that ever ascended from mortal lip; "Father, I will that they also whom You have given me be with me where I am."

But mark the reason why- "that they may behold my glory." Consummation of glory! Overflowing cup of bliss! Height of perfect holiness! Was it the parting charge of Joseph to his brethren- "You shall tell my father of all my glory in Egypt, and of all that you have seen; and you shall haste and bring down my father here?" Our Joseph, with love infinitely more intense, desires that all His brethren may be brought to heaven, that they may, behold His glory there- the glory of His unveiled Deity- the glory of His glorified humanity- and the glory to which, as Mediator, His Father had advanced Him. Who can fully tell of all the Redeemer's glory in heaven? Or, were it fully revealed, what power to grasp, what faculties to comprehend, what eye to behold, and what tongue to describe, so lofty a theme and so sublime a spectacle as this have we? But we shall behold it! We, too, shall be glorified. The mind shall be adjusted to the mightiness of the theme, and the eye shall be strengthened for the dazzling magnificence of the spectacle. Every physical, and mental, and moral faculty perfectly developed, and sanctified, we shall be a glorified Church, placed in the presence and contemplating through eternity the glory of our glorified Head. We shall behold the Redeemer's glory. "Shall I see the King in His beauty? What! my eye behold His glory?" Yes! if you do see beauty in Jesus now, if your eye beholds glory in Emmanuel, feeble and dim though the view may be, so surely shall you be with Him where He is, and wander over the ceaseless unfoldings of His unclouded glory, and that through all eternity.

But the ungodly, the impenitent, and the unbelieving! Ah! they, too, shall see His glory. But it will be the glory of His justice, in burning wrath, in quenchless flames. Unconverted reader! You do see no glory in Jesus, no beauty that you should desire Him. You see an imaginary glory in the world, a fancied beauty in self; and this blinds your eye to the real glory and true beauty that are in Christ. Oh, in what a dream do you live! What madness do you cherish! What phantoms do you pursue! What a vain show in which you live! You can see beauty in your estate, and loveliness in your family, and attraction in the world, and glory in yourself, and yet see no beauty, no loveliness, no attraction, no glory in Jesus! Oh, what a dark veil is over your mind, and what thick scales are upon your eyes! And thus darkened and blinded, your feet are stumbling over the mountains of death. Soon, the beauty that now delights, and the glory that now attracts you, will have passed away. Fickle and fleeting is it! The ploughshare of ruin will raze its foundation; the flood of desolation will sweep it into nothingness. A fleeting ship- a floating vapor- a passing cloud- a broken cistern- a failing spring- a withering flower- these are its just emblems. Not more unstable the sand of the desert, nor more uncertain the wind of heaven, nor more helpless before the storm, the chaff of the threshing-floor, than the glory with which you have linked your eternal destiny. Death has marked you for its own, and the Judge stands at the door. What will rank, and beauty, and estate, and friends, and money, and this poor world, avail you now? See! how they vanish away, all like a gorgeous day-dream, their glory departing like the setting sun at even, and you are encircled by the dark spirits, and the gloomy scenes, and the appalling solemnities, and the dread realities of Eternity! Eternity! Eternity!

And now you find yourself without God, and without Christ, and without hope. You have pampered the body, but have neglected the soul. You have unheeded warnings, and despised providences, and stifled convictions, and neglected sermons, and have desecrated sabbaths, and have blasphemed God, and have hated the saints, and have despised and rejected Jesus. God, in the plenitude of His patience and patience, has "called, and you have refused: He has stretched out His hand, you have not regarded, but have set at nothing all His counsel, and would none of His reproof: now, He laughs at your calamity, and mocks at your fear; your fear which has come as a desolation, and your destruction as a whirlwind; now that distress and anguish are upon you."

But yet there is hope. The bow of covenant mercy is round about the throne. The cross still stands! The fountain is still open! The ark has not left the shore! The city of refuge is accessible! In a word, Jesus died upon the cross to save the vilest sinners. And now He lives upon the throne, "exalted a Prince and a Savior, to give repentance and forgiveness of sins." Then, haste to Him, haste! From a sinful, polluting, and doomed world, on which the fire of God is so soon to descend, "escape for your life; look not behind you, nor stay in all the plain, lest you be consumed." Beseech the Holy Spirit to discover you your pollution, and Christ's blood; your sinfulness, and His atonement; your deformity, and His righteousness; your poverty and emptiness, and His sufficiency and grace. And let this be your prayer- urged with agonizing and ceaseless wrestling, until, in the personal and happy experience of the blessing, the prayer is answered- "Lord, show me Your glory!" For, oh, be it known unto you, that if you see not the Redeemer's glory by faith on earth, you will never see it in its unveiled effulgence by sight in heaven. But Balaam's mournful prophecy and fearful doom will find its fulfilment in you: "I shall see Him, but not now; I shall behold Him, but not near." Far in the dim distance, curtained within the beams of His own majesty, the Redeemer will be seen upon the throne of His glory, surrounded by His Church- the white-robed and palm-bearing saints, now fully redeemed from all sorrow and sin, beholding the glory and entering into the joy of their Lord. A great and impassable gulf separates you from their companionship; and while you are torn from their view- the gloom and the darkness of hell gathering and deepening around you as you recede- exclaiming, "Lost! lost! eternally lost!" they will be striking their harps, and waving their palms, and casting down their crowns at, Jesus' feet, uttering their ascription in strains of overpowering sweetness, gratitude, and love–

"Thanks be unto God for his unspeakable gift!"

The Glory of the Redeemer in His People

"I am glorified in them." John 17:10

Upborne on the pinion of faith, we have been soaring to the third heaven, contemplating for awhile the glory of our Emmanuel within the veil. Sweet and ravishing sight! Soon, oh! so soon to be seen without a glass; and seen but to be transformed into the same glory! The further consideration of our subject recalls us again to earth, to behold yet another manifestation of the glory of the Redeemer- even His glory in His saints. The unfolding of this truth will be found to confirm and illustrate another equally important one; namely, the perfect oneness of Christ and His Church, and the consequent reciprocity of interest and affection which exists: thus showing, that while Christ represents the Church above, the Church represents Christ below; while she is glorified with Him in heaven, He is glorified in her on earth. Holy, blessed, and indissoluble unity!

The manifested glory of Christ in His Church is clearly and emphatically stated in the sublime prayer of our dear Lord, to which we have already had occasion more than once to allude. Addressing His Father, He claims with Him- what no mere creature could do- a conjunction of interest in the Church, based upon an essential unity of nature. "All mine are Yours, and Your are mine, and I am glorified in them." What angel in heaven could adopt this language, what creature on earth could present this claim- "All Yours are mine!" It would be an act of the most daring presumption; it would be the very inspissation of blasphemy: but when our Lord asserts it- asserts it, too, in a solemn prayer, addressed on the eve of His death to His Father- what does it prove, but that a unity of property in the Church involves a unity of essence in being? There could be no perfect oneness of the Father and the Son in any single object, but as it sprang from a oneness of nature. We think this demonstratively true. Two things equal to a given thing, must be equal to each other. The axiom will apply with equal force to the truth before us. Convincing evidence of His Deity! Oh reject it not! He that lives and dies in the disbelief of the absolute Godhead of Jesus is lost forever. I assume not the office of his judge: I pronounce not the sentence of his condemnation. He who shall judge him in the last day has already foredoomed him- "If you believe not that I AM He, you shall die in your sins."

The mutual interest, then, which Christ thus claims with His Father, refers, in this instance, specifically to the Church of God. And it is delightful here to trace the perfect equality of love towards the Church as of perfect identity of interest in the Church. We are sometimes tempted to doubt the perfect sameness, as to degree, of the Father's love with the Son's love; that, because Jesus died and intercedes, the mind thus wont to familiarize itself with Him more especially, associating Him with all its comforting, soothing, hallowing views and enjoyments, we are liable to be beguiled into the belief that His love must transcend in its strength and intensity the love of the Father. But not so. The Father's love is of perfect equality in degree, as it is in nature, with the Son's love; and this may with equal truth be affirmed of the "love of the Spirit." "He that has seen me," says Jesus, "has seen the Father." Then he that has seen the melting, overpowering expressions of the Redeemer's love- he that has seen Him pouring out His deep compassion over the miseries of a suffering world; he that has seen His affectionate gentleness towards His disciples; he that has seen Him weep at the grave of Lazarus; he that has followed Him to the garden of Gethsemane, to the judgment-hall of Pilate, and from thence to the cross of Calvary, has seen in every step which He trod, and in every act which He performed, a type of the deep, deep love which the Father bears towards His people. He that has thus seen the Son's love has seen the Father's love. Oh, sweet to think, the love that travailed- the love that toiled- the love that wept- the love that bled- the love that died, is the same love, in its nature and intensity, which is deep-welled in the heart of the triune God, and is pledged to secure the everlasting salvation of the Church. "All mine are Yours, and Yours are mine, and I am glorified in them."

We are now to show IN WHAT PARTICULARS THE REDEEMER IS GLORIFIED IN HIS CHURCH.

He is glorified in being the covenant Head of all blessing to His people. How distinctly has the Holy Spirit declared this precious truth- "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places (things) in Christ." Here is our true Joseph with all the treasures which a Father's love can bestow, or which the covenant of grace provides, placed in His hands and at His disposal. It has "pleased the Father" to constitute Him the Head of the Church, and that in Him, as such, "all fulness should dwell." Here, too, is our true spiritual Eliakim, of whom it is sweetly prophesied, "And they shall hang upon Him all the glory of His Father's house, the offspring and the issue, all vessels of small quantity, from the vessels of cups even to all the vessels of flagons." Isa. xxii. 24. Who sustains, as 'a nail fastened in a sure place,' all the glory of the Church, but Jesus? In Christ the Church is chosen. In Christ it is preserved. In Christ it lives. In Christ it is pardoned. In Christ it is justified. In Christ it is sanctified. In Christ it will be glorified. Thus does all the glory of the spiritual house hang on Christ- He is its foundation, He is its corner-stone; in Him; "fitly framed together, it grows up a holy temple in the Lord;" and He will be the top-stone, which shall be brought forth on the day of its completion, amid the shoutings of "Grace, grace unto it!"

On Him, too, hang all the 'vessels' of the house, the 'vessels of cups and the vessels of flagons;' the small and the great, the young and the old, the feeble and the strong, all the saints hang on Jesus, and Jesus supports and supplies all. See, how the 'vessels of cups, the vessels of small quantity,' hang upon Him, and how He supplies them. "And, behold, there came a leper, and worshiped Him, saying, Lord, if You will, You can make me clean. And Jesus put forth His hand, and touched him, saying, I will; be clean. And immediately his leprosy was cleansed." "And one of the multitude answered and said, Master, I have brought unto You my son, who has a dumb spirit . . . . and ofttimes it has cast him into the fire, and into the waters, to destroy him: but if You can do anything, have compassion on us, and help us. Jesus rebuked the foul spirit, saying unto him, You dumb and deaf spirit, I charge you come out of him, and enter no more into him." "And, behold, a woman, who was diseased with an issue of blood twelve years, came behind Him, and touched the hem of His garment: for she said within herself, If I may but touch His garment I shall be whole. But Jesus turned Him about; and when He saw her, He said, Daughter, be of good comfort; your faith has made you whole. And the woman was made whole from that hour." "And He said unto Jesus, Lord, remember me when You come into Your kingdom. And Jesus said unto him, Verily I say unto you, Today shall you be with me in Paradise." "And, behold, a woman of Canaan came out of the same coasts, and cried unto Him, saying, Have mercy on me, O Lord, Son of David; my daughter is grievously vexed with a devil. But He answered her not a word. . . . . Then came she and worshiped Him, saying, Lord, help me. But He answered and said, It is not fit to take the children's bread, and to cast it to dogs. And she said, Truth, Lord: yet the dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their masters' table. Then Jesus answered and said unto her, O woman, great is your faith: be it unto you even as you will."

Behold, how these 'vessels of small quantity' hang on Jesus; and behold, how He sustains and fills them. They are but as 'vessels of cups'- their knowledge is defective, their grace is limited, their experience but shallow, their faith but small, and they themselves but little- oh! how little, who can tell?- in their own eyes; yet, coming thus to Jesus' grace, exclaiming-
"Other refuge have I none,
Hangs my helpless soul on You,"

He receives them, He welcomes them, He bears them up, He supplies them, He fills them; He rejoices in their feeble grace, He despises not their little strength, He crowns their weak faith, He grants them the utmost desires of their hearts. Oh, what a Jesus is our Jesus! Were ever such gentleness, tenderness, and skill manifested towards the "bruised reed and the smoking flax? "

Dear reader, are you a 'vessel of small quantity?' It may be that, through the infirmities that encompass you, the trials that oppress you, the temptations that assail you, the clouds that surround you, you can receive Christ's fulness but in a limited degree; truth is understood but partially, there being doctrines, perhaps, hard to be understood, and precepts still harder to be obeyed. Light beams in upon the mind but faintly, the Scripture statement of the heart's deep subtlety and desperate wickedness is but slowly, cautiously, doubtingly received; the daily cross imposed by Christian discipleship, sometimes taken up, as often laid down; the rough way wounding the feet, the strait way causing them to stumble. Christ's grand atonement, His one, perfect obedience, His great and finished work, the sprinkling of His blood upon the conscience, the completeness of a believing soul in His righteousness, and the consequent "peace and joy in the Holy Spirit," but little known. These, it may be, are some of the features that mark your case. Yet, feeling your own vileness, and Christ's sufficiency and preciousness, and constrained to hang on Him solely and exclusively, as all your salvation and all your desire; though you can receive but a 'small quantity' of knowledge, of grace, and of love, you are yet a 'vessel of gold' in His house, and Jesus bears you on His heart, sets you as a seal upon His arm, and presents you each moment before God complete in Himself.

But there are also in this house "vessels of flagons," the larger vessels- saints of a deep grace, of gigantic faith, of profound knowledge. Hear one of them exclaim, "I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless, I live; yet not I, but Christ lives in me and the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave Himself for me." Oh how abundantly did this beloved apostle drink of "the river of God!" How deeply did he sink into the ocean of Christ's fulness! How high did he soar into the beatific presence of God, until sweeping the heavens with his expanded pinions, all the treasures that sparkle there seemed gathered into his soul. Yet, a large vessel though it was, in himself he was poor, vile, and empty; counting himself as the "chief of sinners," esteeming himself "less than the least of all saints," and ascribing all that he was as a renewed man to "the grace of God." In this his poverty, vileness, and emptiness, he hung with the small vessel, solely, entirely on Christ. The thief saved at the last moment, and Paul, the great apostle of the Gentiles, side by side hung on Jesus. "Of His fulness have all we received, and grace for grace." Both were pardoned with the same blood, both were justified by the same righteousness, both were filled from the same source, and both are now in glory, chanting the same song, and together casting their crowns before the throne. Thus is Jesus made the "Head over all things to His Church;" and His Church becomes in all its members, be they small or great, "the fulness of Him that fills all in all." Thus is Christ glorified in them. And oh, what infinite mind can compute the revenue of glory thus accruing to the Redeemer through His saints?

In the conversion of His people- their translation from nature to grace, the Redeemer is glorified. This is the first step to a manifest glorifying of Christ in His called saints. Conversion is the commencement of an endless revenue of glory to Christ. To behold a poor sinner living a life of practical enmity to God, hatred to Jesus, rebellion against the Divine government, and wilful and determined hostiliy to the one glorious plan of salvation; perhaps a blasphemer, a persecutor, and injurious; now changed, now conquered, now sitting at the feet of Jesus, "clothed and in his right mind," oh, is there no glory thus brought to the grace of Christ Jesus? To see him translated out of darkness into God's marvellous light; emancipated from the power of sin and Satan, and made the Lord's free man; the rebellious will conquered, the hard heart subdued, the proud spirit humbled, the hatred turned into love, and the long roving mind now finding its center of rest and fountain of happiness in the reconciled God, oh! is there no crown of glory placed on the head of Jesus in all this? Say, you angelic spirits, bending over the mercy-seat in deep contemplation of its awful mysteries of incarnate grace and dying love- whose eyes glisten and whose bosoms expand with new effulgence and joy over one sinner that repents, do you see no glory deepening around the Son of God, as each vessel of mercy is called in, emptied of self, and filled with Jesus? Yet not to angels, but to saints themselves, we appeal. Hear the testimony of one- "Afterwards I came into the regions of Syria and Cilicia; and was unknown by face unto the churches of Judea which were in Christ: but they had heard only, that he who persecuted us in times past, now preached the faith which one he destroyed. And they glorified God in me." Oh, how are the power, the wisdom, the grace, the love of the Redeemer glorified, and God through Him, by every new accession thus made to the number of the redeemed! Aim to be instrumental in bringing one soul to receive the Lord Jesus as all its salvation, and you bring more glory to His name than were a thousand worlds like this to start into being at your fiat. "Those who are wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament; and those who turn many to righteousness, as the stars forever and ever."

But how is He glorified in God's acceptance of His people through Him! Who can entertain a doubt of this, that has any experimental knowledge of the great work of the Lord Jesus? Look at this for one moment. God's justification of the believing sinner through the righteousness of His Son, is His seal to the perfection, and efficacy, and worth of Christ's obedience and death. What glory, suppose you, would encircle the form of Gabriel, were it possible for Jehovah to accept a poor sinner in his righteousness! How high would this act advance him in dignity, and honor, and praise above all celestial intelligences! But oh! we stand, beloved, in a better and a diviner righteousness than that of angel or archangel; we stand in the righteousness of the incarnate God! and that God, the holy Lord God, should accept a poor sinner in the righteousness of His Son, places that Son in the ascendant of all creatures, "dwelling in light," the full effulgence of which "no man has seen, nor can see." This truth, unfolded to his soul by the Holy Spirit, constrained an eminent saint of God to exclaim, "Had I all the faith of the patriarchs, all the zeal of the prophets, all the good works of the apostles, all the holy suffering of the martyrs, and all the glowing devotion of the seraphs; I would disclaim the whole, in point of dependence, and count all but dross and dung when compared with the infinitely precious death and the infinitely meritorious righteousness of Jesus Christ my Lord." But one yet more eminent for his deep experience of this truth, has thus recorded his testimony: "What things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ. Yes, doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ, and be found in Him, not having mine own righteousness which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith." Who can compute the glory brought to Jesus by God's full justification of the poor believing sinner through the righteousness of His beloved Son?

He is glorified in the progressive holiness of His people. "The kingdom of God is within you," says Christ. The increase of this kingdom is just the measure and extent of the believer's advance in sanctification. This is that internal righteousness, the work of God the Holy Spirit, which consists in the subjugation of the mind, the will, the affections, the desires, yes, the whole soul, to the government and supremacy of Jesus, "bringing into captivity," says the apostle, "every thought to the obedience of Christ." Oh, you who are "striving against sin," longing to be "conformed to the image of God's Son," panting to be more "pure in heart," "hungering and thirsting for righteousness," think that in every step which you take in the path of holiness, in every corruption subdued, in every besetting sin laid aside, in every holy desire begotten, Christ is glorified in you! But you perhaps reply, "the more I strive for the mastery, the more I seem to be conquered. The more strongly I oppose my sins, the stronger my sins seem to be." But what does this prove? it proves that "God is working in you both to will and to do of His good pleasure," -that the kingdom of God is invading the kingdom of Satan- that the Spirit dwelling in the heart is warring with the flesh. It is truly remarked by Owen, that "if a believer lets his sins alone, his sins will let him alone." But let him search them as with candles, let him bring them to the light, oppose, mortify, and crucify them, they will to the last, struggle for the victory. And this inward warfare, so graphically and touchingly described in the seventh chapter of the Epistle to the Romans, undeniably marks the inhabitation of God the Holy Spirit in the soul.

But to see one advancing in holiness, thirsting for God, the heart fixed in its solemn purpose of entire surrender; cultivating higher views, and aiming for a loftier standard; to behold him, perhaps, carving his way to the throne through mighty opposition, "fightings without; fears within; "striving for the mastery of some besetting sin, sometimes foiling, and sometimes foiled, sometimes with the shout of victory on the lip, and sometimes with painful consciousness of defeat bowing the heart; yet still onward- the needle of the soul, with slow and tremulous, but true and certain, movement, still pointing to its glorious attraction, God- faith that can never fail, and hope that can never die, and love that can never be quenched; hanging amid their warfare and in all their weakness upon the "nail fastened in a sure place." How is Christ, our sanctification, glorified in such a saint!

Oh to be like Jesus! meek, and lowly, and gentle, and kind, and forgiving; without craftiness, without deceit, without malice, without revenge; without one temper, or thought, or feeling, or look, that is unlike Him! Beloved, mistake not the nature and the evidence of growth in sanctification. In all your self-denial in this great work, be cautious of grace-denial. You will need much holy wisdom here, lest you overlook the work of the Spirit within you. You have thought, it may be, of the glory that Christ receives from brilliant genius, and profound talent, and splendid gifts, and glowing zeal, and costly sacrifices, and even extensive usefulness. But have you ever thought of the glory, the far greater, richer glory, that flows to Him from the contrite spirit, the broken heart, the lowly mind, the humble walk; from the tear of godly repentance that falls when seen by no human eye, and the sigh of godly sorrow that is breathed when heard by no human ear; and the sin abhorrence, and self loathing, and deep sense of vileness, and poverty, and infirmity that takes you to Jesus with the prayer- "Lord, here I am; I have brought to You my rebellious will, my wandering heart, my worldly affections, my peculiar infirmity, my besetting and constantly overpowering sin. Receive ,me graciously, put forth the mighty power of Your grace in my soul, and subdue all, and rule all, and subjugate all to Yourself! Will it not be for Your glory, the glory of Your great name, if this strong corruption were subdued by Your grace, if this powerful sin were nailed to Your cross, if this temper so sensitive, and this heart so impure, and these affections so truant, and this mind so dark, and these desires so earthly, and these pursuits so carnal, and these aims so selfish, were all entirely renewed by Your Spirit, sanctified by Your grace, and made each to reflect Your image? Yes, Lord, it would be for Your glory, through time and through eternity."

Especially is the Lord Jesus glorified in the life of faith which His saints live upon Him. The experience of every believer is, in a limited degree, the experience of the great apostle of the Gentiles, the tip of whose soaring wing, we, who so much skim the earth's surface, can scarcely touch- "The life which I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God." "Like precious faith" with his, dwells in the hearts of all the regenerate. Along this royal highway it is ordained by God that all His people should travel. It is the way their Lord traveled before them; it is the way they are to follow after Him. The first step they take out of the path of 'sense', is into the path of 'faith'. And what a mighty grace do they

find it, as they journey on! Do they live? it is by faith. Do they stand? it is by faith. Do they walk? it is by faith. Do they fight? it is by faith. Do they overcome? it is by faith. Do they see what is invisible? it is by faith. Do they receive what is incredible? it is by faith. Do they achieve what is impossible? it is by faith. Glorious achievements of faith!

And, oh, how eminently is Jesus thus glorified in His saints! Was it no glory to Joseph that, having the riches of Egypt in His hands, all the people were made, as it were, to live daily and hourly upon Him? Was no fresh accession of dignity brought to His exaltation, by every fresh acknowledgment of His authority, and every renewed application to His wealth? And is not Jesus glorified in His exaltation, and in His fulness, and in His love, and in His grace, by that faith, in the exercise of which, "a poor and an afflicted people," the needy and the tried Church, are made to travel to, and live upon, Him each moment? Ah, yes! every corruption taken to His sanctifying grace; every burden taken to His omnipotent arm; every sorrow taken to His sympathizing heart; every need taken to His overflowing fulness; every wound taken to His healing hand; every sin taken to His cleansing blood; and every deformity taken to His all-covering righteousness, swells the revenue of glory, which each second of time ascends to our adorable Redeemer from His Church.

You may have imagined- for I will now suppose myself as addressing the seeking soul- that Christ has been more glorified by your hanging back from Him- doubting the efficacy of His blood to cancel your guilt, and the power of His grace to mortify your corruption, and the sufficiency of His fulness to supply your need, and the sympathy of His nature to soothe your grief, and the loving willingness of heart to receive and welcome you as you are, empty, vile, and worthless; little thinking, on the contrary, how much He has been grieved, and wounded, and dishonored, and robbed of His glory, by this doubting of His love, and this distrusting of His grace, after all the melting exhibitions of the one, and all that convincing evidence of the other.

But, is it the desire of your inmost soul that Christ should be glorified by you? then do not forget the grand, luminous truth of the Bible, that He is the Savior of sinners, and of sinners as sinners- that in the great matter of the soul's salvation, He recognizes nothing of worthiness in the creature; and that whatever human merit is brought to Him with a view of commending the case to His notice- whatever- be it even the incipient work of His own Spirit in the heart- is appended to His finished work, as a ground of acceptance with God, is so much detraction from His glory as a Redeemer- than which, of nothing He is more jealous- and, consequently, places the soul at a great remove from His grace. But like Bartimeus, casting the garment from you- be that garment what it may- pride of merit- pride of intellect- pride of learning- pride of family- pride of place- yes, whatever hinders your entering the narrow way, and prevents your receiving the kingdom of God "as a little child," and coming to Jesus to be saved by Him alone, brings more real glory to Him, than imagination can conceive, or words can describe.

If, then, Jesus is especially glorified in the faith of His people, let yours be a life of faith in all its minute detail. Live upon Him for spiritual supplies; live upon Him for temporal supplies. Go to Him in dark providences, that you may be kept from sinking: go to Him in bright providences, that you may be kept from falling. Go to Him when the path is rough, that you may walk in it contentedly: go to Him when the path is smooth, that you may walk in it surely. Let your daily history be a traveling to Jesus empty, and a coming from Jesus filled. Keep the truth constantly and prominently before your eye, "The just shall live by faith." If this be so, do not expect that God will ever permit you to live by sight. Bend your whole soul submissively to Him in this matter. Let His will and yours be one. If, in the course of your wilderness journeyings, He has brought you into a great strait, yes, to the very margin of the sea, still at His bidding, 'go forward,' though it be into that sea. Trust Him to cleave asunder its waters, making a dry passage for your feet, and causing those very waves that threatened to engulf you, now to prove as a cloud canopying you above, and as walls of strength, fencing you in on every side. Remember, too, that it is one peculiar exercise and precious privilege of faith, to "wait patiently for the Lord." The Divine exhortation is, "Commit your way unto the Lord; trust also in Him; and He will bring it to pass." "Rest in the Lord, and wait patiently for Him." This patience of the soul is the rest of faith, on the faithful God; it is a 'standing still, to see His salvation.' And the Divine encouragement is, that in this posture will be found the secret of your real power. "In quietness and in confidence shall be your strength." "Their strength is to sit still." Be watchful against everything that would mar the simplicity of your faith, and so dim the glory of Jesus. Especially guard against the adoption of unlawful or doubtful measures, with a view to disentanglement from present difficulties. Endure the pressure, submit to the wrong, bear the suffering, rather than sin against God, by seeking to forestall His mind, or to antedate His purpose, or by transferring your interests from His hands to your own.

"Beware of desperate steps: the darkest day,
Wait but tomorrow, will have passed away."

Oh, the glory that is brought to Jesus by a life of faith! Who can fully estimate it? Taking to Him the corruption, as it is discovered- the guilt, as it rises- the grief, as it is felt- the cross, as it is experienced- the wound, as it is received; yes, simply following the example of John's disciples, who, when their master was slain, took up his headless body, and buried it, and then went and poured their mournful intelligence into the ear of Jesus, and laid their deep sorrow on His heart; this is to glorify Christ! Truly is this "precious faith," and truly is the "trial of our faith precious," for it renders more precious to the heart "His precious blood," who, in His person, is unutterably "precious to those who believe."

By a patient endurance of suffering for His sake, the Redeemer is greatly glorified in His saints. The apostle- and few drank of the bitter cup more deeply than He- presents suffering for Christ, in the soothing light of a Christian privilege. "Unto you it is given in the behalf of Christ, not only to believe on Him, but also to safer for His sake." And how touchingly did the experience of the disciples correspond with this: "They departed from the presence of the council rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for His name." Has it pleased the Lord, dear reader, to place you in a somewhat similar position? Ah! is it no suffering to stand up in the midst of one's beloved family, surrounded by irreligion, and worldliness, and a total disregard of the fear of God, a lone and a despised witness for Jesus? Ah! is it no suffering to thread the intricate and narrow way, or to run with you the Christian race, in the domestic circle- no eye beaming with holy love, no voice responding in cheering accent, no hand to guide, no arm to lean upon, no bosom to weep upon, no kindred spirit, no second self; to see one's God denied, one's Savior rejected, one's religion scoffed, one's principles trampled under foot, and one's privileges curtailed; to have one's name cast out as evil, to be counted a fool, an enthusiast, or mad; to endure the loss of temporal interest, and domestic happiness, and earthly prospects, and in a sense to "forsake house, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for Christ's sake;" -is this no path of trial and suffering? "But if you be reproached for the name of Christ, happy are you," for thereby is Christ glorified in you. He is glorified in your patient endurance of suffering, in your meek submission to reproach, in your overcoming evil with good, your return of prayer for cursing, of blessing for railing, and of love for hatred. Believer, suffering for Christ! rejoice, yes, rejoice that you are counted worthy to suffer shame for His sake! What distinction is awarded you! What honor is put upon you! What a favored opportunity have you now of bringing glory to His name! -for illustrating His sustaining grace, and upholding strength, and almighty power, and infinite wisdom, and comforting love! By the firm, yet mild maintenance of your principles, by the dignified, yet gentle spirit of forbearance, by the uncompromising, yet kind resistance to allurement, let the Redeemer be glorified in you! In all your persecution for righteousness' sake, let your eye be immovably fixed on Jesus. In Him, and in this peculiar path, you have a bright example. "Consider Him that endured such contradiction from sinners against Himself, lest you be wearied and faint in your mind." Remember how, for your redemption, He "endured the cross, despising the shame;" and for your continual support, "is set down at the right hand of the throne of God." "Wherefore lift up the hands which hang down, and strengthen the feeble knees," "for the Spirit of glory and of God rests upon you."

Great, too, is the glory brought to our incarnate God by the sanctified afflictions of His saints. How deep these often are, let many testify; and yet the deeper the affliction, the deeper the glory. Behold the glory brought to God by Daniel in the den of lions; by Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, in the fiery furnace; and by Paul and Silas in the prison. And what is their history, but a type of all the afflicted members of God's family? The Lord will be glorified in His people- therefore does He afflict, and try, and chasten them. "The Lord tries the righteous." He has His den, His prison, His furnace. He has His own mode, His appointed way of proving His work in their hearts; and whether by the lions' den, or the prison, or the furnace, He is glorified in them. To see how Christ can shut the mouth of the lion, and can temper the devouring flame, and can unbar the doors of the prison-house, how glorious thus appears His power! To mark the resigned will, the subdued spirit, the mute submission, the cheerful acquiescence in the deepest affliction, how glorious thus appears His grace! To behold the daily strength imparted, the precious promises applied, the soothing consolation experienced, how glorious thus appears His love! To see the chaff scattered, and the dross consumed, and the mind brought into perfect harmony with God's will, to say with David, "My soul is even as a weaned child," how glorious thus appears His wisdom! Oh, if these are the blessings which blossom upon the rod, then welcome the rod! If this is the glory brought to the name of Jesus by a process of sanctified affliction, then welcome the affliction! Only see that He is truly glorified in you by it. See that He is glorified while you are in the furnace, by your passive graces; see that He is glorified when you have come forth from the furnace, by your active graces. "Wherefore glorify you the Lord in the fires, even the name of the Lord God of Israel." "When He has tried me, I shall come forth as gold."

Nor must we overlook that path walking in which the Redeemer is so manifestly glorified in His saints- even the way of a holy and cheerful obedience to His commands. Were we to select a single word from the Bible which we would desire to be distinctly, prominently, and constantly before the eye of the believer, it would be- obedience. The stress which the Holy Spirit has laid upon the duty is great, and the blessing and honor which the Lord has attached to its observance, is immense and encouraging. It involves every covenant mercy, and it is the great secret of all holiness, and therefore of all happiness.

What the Lord once spoke to His ancient people, He speaks at the present to all His spiritual Israel, "Now, therefore, if you will obey my voice indeed, and keep my covenant, then you shall be a peculiar treasure unto me above all people, for all the earth is mine. And you shall be unto me a kingdom of priests, and a holy nation." And who does not trace the blessing which the Lord has attached to obedience in the history of Abraham, when, at God's command, be bound his son as a sacrifice upon the altar- "And in your seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed, because you have obeyed my voice." And see how the Lord confirmed the fact of his obedient walk, and fulfilled the promise of blessing to his son Isaac, to whom He said, "Sojourn in this land, and I will be with you, and will bless you; for unto you, and unto your seed, I will give all these countries, and I will perform the oath which I aware unto Abraham your father . . . because that Abraham obeyed my voice, and kept my charge, my commandments, my statutes, and my laws." Rich, too, is the blessing annexed to the promise, "If you be willing and obedient, you shall eat of the good of the land." And solemn and searching the word addressed by the holy prophet to the temporizing king, "Has the Lord as great delight in burned offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams."

As King in Zion, our adorable Lord Jesus delights to reign over a loving and an obedient people. Thus He has made their obedience to His commands a test of their love to His person- "If you love me, keep my commandments." "Teaching them to observe all things whatever I have commanded you," was the last charge given to His disciples. Now it is this keeping of His commandments, this observance of what He has enjoined, that glorifies Him in His saints. Coming to Him in our ignorance, glorifies Him as our Prophet; coming to Him with our guilt, glorifies him as our Priest; and walking obediently to His precepts, glorifies Him as our King. It places the crown upon the head of His sovereignty, it recognizes the spiritual nature of His kingdom, and it upholds the purity, majesty, and authority of His laws. It becomes, then, the solemn and imperative duty of every believer to search the will and testament of his dying, risen, and exalted Lord, to ascertain all that He has enjoined upon his obedience in the way of precept and command. For how can he be a good and an obedient subject, if be understands not the laws of Christ's kingdom? Then, when the precept is clearly revealed, and the command is distinctly made known, immediate, self-denying, and cheerful obedience is to follow, as that path which, while it insures the sweetest peace to the soul, brings the highest glory to Christ. Let yours be an obedient walk, dear reader! Let your obedience be the fruit of faith, the dictate of love. Permit no reserve in your obedience! let it be full, honest, and complete. Search the New

Testament Scripture, and examine closely your own walk, and ascertain in what particular your obedience to Christ is deficient. Be upright, honest, and sincere in your inquiry. Let your fervent prayer be, "Lord, what will You have me to do? Is there any precept of Your word slighted, any command disobeyed, any cross not taken up? Is there any desire to withhold my neck from Your yoke, or to withdraw my shoulder from Your burden, or to mark out a smoother path than that which You have chosen and bid me walk in? Is there any secret framing of excuse for my disobedience, any temporizing, any carnal feeling, any worldly motive, any fear of man, any shrinking from consequences? Lord, You know all things, You know that I love You. You are precious to my soul, for You have borne my sins, endured my curse, carried my cross; and in return do only ask, as an evidence of how much I owe, and how much I love, that I should keep Your commandments, and follow Your example. Now, Lord, take my poor heart, and let it be Yours, Yours only, and Yours forever. Let Your sweet love constrain me to 'run in the way of Your commandments,' for this will I do when You shall enlarge my heart." Then will follow the precious fruits of obedience, even as the bud expands into the blossom, and the blossom ripens into the fruit. There will be a growth, a delightful expansion of the life of God in the soul! and with the increase of the Divine life, there will be an increase of all the precious 'fruits of the Spirit.' "Thus says the Lord, your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel! I am the Lord your God, who teaches you to profit, who leads you by the way that you should go. Oh that you had hearkened to my commandments! then had your peace been as a river, and your righteousness as the waves of the sea." See that your Redeemer is glorified in your obedience; that for the happiness of your soul, and for the honor of Christ, you "stand complete in all the will of God!"

The branch of our subject, thus imperfectly placed before the reader, is deeply practical. In what a solemn and responsible position it places every believer! "You are my witnesses, says the Lord." "I have created him for my glory." "You are my servant, O Israel, in whom I will be glorified." Then, how "very jealous for the Lord God of hosts" should we be! How vigilant, lest in any degree, or in any way, we withhold from Christ the glory due unto Him. There are many ways by which we may be betrayed into this grievous sin- a careless walk- unmortified sin- self-indulgence- a light and volatile spirit- a neglect of means- a distant walk with God- coldness of love towards the saints. But especially mixing up with, and indulging in, a sinful conformity to the world, its fashions, its pleasures, its literature, its religion. Christian professor! can you rigidly conform to these fashions- can you spend your hours over that novel- can you attend that ball- can you move in that dance- can you embark in that enterprise, and glorify Jesus by it? Put the question fairly, honestly, and closely to your conscience, "Do I bring glory to Christ by this? Is my Redeemer thus magnified in me before the world and the Church?" Oh, aim for a high standard! Do not be a common-place professor. Do not be an ordinary Christian. Shun not to be singular. Dare for the glory of Christ to come out of the world, not to touch the unclean thing, and to be separate, set apart for God alone. "Herein is my Father glorified, that you bear much fruit! so shall you be my disciples." Thank God for the little, but, oh, aim for the 'much fruit!' -strong faith, ardent love, self-consuming zeal, unreserved obedience, holy, and entire, and supreme surrender. "From me is your fruit found." Your union with Christ, your living in Christ, your close adherence to Christ, your constant drawing from Christ, will be found to involve the happy secret of that great fruitfulness which brings most glory to the Triune God. Come- drawn by grace, constrained by love, attracted by the glory and the preciousness of Jesus- come now to that one' altar which sanctifies both the giver and the gift,' and as you lay yourself upon it, body, soul, and spirit, exclaim with the apostle, "Christ shall be magnified in my body, whether it be by life or by death." The solemn vow is taken! The holy surrender is made! It is seen, it is heard, it is ratified in heaven. May you be so strengthened from above, "that the name of our Lord Jesus Christ may be glorified in you, and you in Him, according to the grace of God, even the Lord Jesus Christ," is the devout and fervent desire of one who, with you, through time and through eternity, hopes to unite in the grateful, adoring, and never ceasing hallelujah,

"Thanks be unto God for His unspeakable Gift!"

The Holy Spirit Glorifying the Redeemer

He will bring glory to me by taking from what is mine and making it known to you. John 16:14

He will bring me glory by revealing to you whatever he receives from me. John 16:14

How replete with the deepest instruction, and how copious with the richest comfort, is the chapter which embodies the great truth, on the unfolding of which we have now entered! We have before observed, that it was a marked characteristic of the farewell discourse of our blessed Lord to His disciples, that He then went more fully into the character and official work of the Holy Spirit than at any former period of His ministry. There is an air of solemnity and a force of affirmation in the manner and in the terms with which He proceeds to enunciate the great truth of the Spirit's descent, as an immediate and necessary consequent of His own departure, which not only awaken on its behalf the deepest interest, but which evidence that, in the mind of the glorious Promiser Himself, the gift was identical with the most enlarged, costly, and enduring blessing to the Church: "Nevertheless, I tell you the truth; it is expedient for you that I go away; for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you: but if I depart, I will send Him unto you." Thereby implying, that the permanent presence and indwelling of the Spirit as the Comforter, was even more than an equivalent for His bodily absence; and would fully compensate the Church for any loss it might sustain from His departure. Ah, it is the mercy of the believer to know that he is not only a temple of the Holy Spirit, but that through all his pilgrimage he shall be gladdened with the presence, and cheered with the smile, of Jesus too.

Our Lord then proceeds to advance another reason for the gift which He was about to bestow. "I have yet many things to say unto you, but you cannot bear them now." We are not to understand, that by this He meant to convey the idea that He had kept back any doctrines or precepts of the Gospel, to be afterwards revealed to, and more fully promulgated by the apostles: far from it; for in His frequent discourses, on various suitable occasions, He had fully expounded to His disciples all the great leading truths and doctrines of His Gospel, leaving them nothing to conjecture or to doubt. Hence, on a previous occasion, He declares, "I have called you friends; for all things that I have heard from my Father, I have made known unto you." But we are to interpret His meaning as referring, among other things, to the enlargement of His kingdom, by the accession of the Gentiles to it; to the nature of the Gospel Church, of which they as yet were imperfectly informed, if informed at all; to the dispersion of the Jewish nation, and their final restoration to their own land; to the entire abrogation of the Mosaic economy, and to the rise and progress of Antichrist; the full disclosure of these things, they could not then bear, in consequence of their Jewish prejudices, which yet existed- the earthly conceptions of Christ's kingdom, which they still cherished, and the scanty measure- the mere pledge- of the Holy Spirit, which they had as yet but received.

There is yet another declaration of our Lord concerning the Spirit, to which we would refer, vindicating it from a misinterpretation, which it has received- "He will not speak of Himself." This passage has led many to suppose, that the Spirit does not speak of, or witness to, His own work! But this is, obviously, not the true meaning of the words. "He will not speak of (or, from) Himself," that is, in opposition to, or independently of, the Father and the Son. Thus our Lord, referring to Himself, says, "I have not spoken of (or, from) myself;" and again, "The words that I speak unto you, I speak not of myself," evidently meaning, "I come not in my own name, I come to do my Father's will; I have no separate authority of my own; I act in concert with Him that sent me." And in this obvious sense, our Lord says of the Spirit, "He shall not speak of (or, from) Himself;" -not that He shall not speak of or witness to His own work in the soul, but that He shall not speak of His own self, as separate from the Godhead. The misinterpretation which we have thus endeavored to correct, has led those who entertained it, to question the absolute Deity of the Spirit; as if the text implied inferiority of nature. But we answer, Did not our Lord come as a servant, and not in His own name; and did that inferiority of office prove an inferiority of nature? Surely not. Is the King's Son less a prince royal, because He bears a commission from His Father? He may be inferior to His Father in office, yet equal to Him in all the personal and essential attributes of royalty. When Christ affirmed, "My Father is greater than I," He alluded to a subordination of office, not to an inequality of nature. Thus the Spirit is as much a procession from the Father as the Son, and is as much the messenger of Christ as Christ is of the Father. The Spirit leads us to the Son, and the Son conducts us to the Father. "For through Him (the Son) we both (Jew and Gentile) have access by one Spirit unto the Father." The Father is God- the Son is God- and the Holy Spirit is God, and these three constitute the One Triune Jehovah.

But the great work of the Spirit is to glorify Christ. To the devout and solemn consideration of this precious and important branch of our great subject, let us now direct our thoughts. Thus does our Lord affirm the truth- "He will glorify me: for He shall receive of mine, and shall show it unto you." Viewed in relation to this truth, the work of the Holy Spirit appears in a light of immeasurable greatness and glory. It would seem to be the pivot on which turned the entire work of Jesus- the source which supplied its life, its power, and its efficacy. Not for a moment would we hazard the idea, that the testimony and grace of the Spirit imparted any intrinsic efficacy to the atoning work of Jesus; the entire completeness of that work, its full acceptance in the court of justice, the legal discharge of the Church on its ground, and the Father's approval of it by the resurrection and exaltation of His Son; as we have shown at some length. The sacrificial work of Jesus, therefore, receives no measure of intrinsic value, or efficacy, from any part of the work of the Spirit: and yet there is a connection, and a dependence. As far as the work of our dear Lord becomes available in the personal salvation of the believer, it depends solely upon the life-giving influence of God the Holy Spirit. Complete as is the righteousness, efficacious as is the blood, and all-sufficient as is the grace of Christ, yet apart from the especial, effectual, and Divine operation of the Spirit upon the heart, they would remain to us as a robe unworn, a fulness untouched, a "fountain sealed." Thus, there is a beautiful relation, a sweet harmony, between the atoning work of Jesus and the official work of the Holy Spirit- "He will glorify me."

We have already alluded to the day of Pentecost. We recur to it again, because on that memorable day the Spirit first glorified Christ, openly, visibly, manifestly. It would seem as if the curtain of eternity were parted, and the windows of heaven were opened, and eyes that saw nothing but lowliness, and poverty and degradation in Jesus before, now were permitted to behold Him inaugurated in His throne, a Prince and a Savior, encircled with glory, and with gifts of grace in His hand, ready to shower them profusely upon the rebellious. Three thousand souls pierced to their heart, made to see the plague within, stretched out their hands of faith, and welcomed these gifts, adoring the grace, extolling the love, crowning the Prince, and lauding the Savior, from where, and through whom, they proceeded. Oh, how illustriously did the Spirit now outwardly glorify Jesus! How glorious did He appear to those who now saw nothing but deformity in themselves! How precious to those whose hearts were never before stricken with godly grief! What compunction, what sadness, what sorrow must have bowed their hearts to the dust as they thought- "This is He whom we called a Nazarene, whom we stigmatized as a glutton and a wine-bibber, whom we bound, whom we scourged, whom we spat upon, whom we mocked, and whom we crucified!" But how glorious to their eye would He now appear, returning them good for evil, blessing for cursing, cherishing them on the bosom they had wounded, and causing pardon, acceptance, present hope and future glory, to flow to them through that very blood in the shedding of which their hands had been imbrued! What an open, visible glorifying of Christ by the Eternal Spirit was this!

The Spirit glorifies Jesus in the Word. The Word of God is full of Christ. He is the sun of this Divine system, the fountain of its light and beauty. How emphatically does He Himself declare this truth, and we know that His witness is true- "You search the Scriptures because you believe they give you eternal life. But the Scriptures point to me!" The Scriptures testify of Jesus. Every doctrine derives its substance from His person, every precept its force from His work, every promise its sweetness from His love. Is it not to be feared, that in the study of the Scriptures, it is a much forgotten truth, that they testify of Jesus? Are they not read, searched, and examined, with a mind too little intent upon adding to its wealth, by an increased knowledge of His person, and character, and work? And thus it is we lower the character of the Bible. We may read it as a mere uninspired record; we may study it as a book of human literature. Its antiquity may interest us, its history may inform us, its philosophy may instruct us, its poetry may charm us; and thus, while skimming the surface of this Book of books, the glorious Christ, who is its substance, its subject, its sweetness, its work- and but for whom there had been no Bible- has been deeply and darkly veiled from the eye.

But it is the office of the blessed and eternal Spirit to unfold, and so to glorify, Jesus in the Word. All that we spiritually and savingly learn respecting Him, through this revealed medium, is by the sole teaching of the Holy Spirit, opening up this word to the mind. He shows how all the luminous lines of Scripture truth emanate from, return to, and center in, Christ- how all the doctrines set forth the glory of His person, how all the promises are written in His heart's blood, and how all the precepts are embodied in His life.

To the question often earnestly propounded- "What is the best method of reading, so as to understand the Scriptures?" I would, in this connection of our subject, reply- Read them with the one desire and end of learning more of Christ, and with earnest prayer for the teaching of the Spirit, that Christ may be unfolded in the Word. With this simple method persevered in, you shall not fail to comprehend the mind of the Holy Spirit, in portions which previously may have been unintelligible and obscure. Do not restrict yourself to fixed rules, or to human helps. Rely less upon dictionaries, and maps, and annotations. With singleness of aim, with a specific object of research, and with fervent prayer for the Holy Spirit's teaching, "you need not that any man teach you;" but collating Scripture with Scripture, "comparing spiritual things with spiritual," you may fearlessly enter upon the investigation of the greatest mysteries contained in the sacred Volume, assured that the Savior, for whose glories and riches you search, will reveal Himself to your eye, "full of grace and truth." Precious Bible! so full of a precious Jesus! How do all its clouds and darkness melt into light and beauty, as He, the Sun of Righteousness, rises in noontide glory upon its page!

Search it, my reader, with a view of seeing and knowing more of your Redeemer, compared with whom, nothing else is worth knowing or making known. Love your Bible, because it testifies of Jesus; because it unfolds the great Savior, the almighty Redeemer; because it reveals the glory of the sin-pardoning God, in the person of Jesus Christ. Aim to unravel Jesus in the types, to observe Him amid the shadows, to trace Him through the predictions of the prophets, the records of the evangelists, and the letters of the apostles. All speak of, and all lead to, Jesus. "They are they which testify of me."

And not only thus, but by employing the truth which especially testifies of Jesus, as the grand instrument of producing that holiness in the soul of which He is the Divine Author, He confers unspeakable honor on Christ in the word. The Spirit of God undertakes the achievement of a stupendous work. He enters the soul, and proposes to restore the empire of grace, the reign of holiness, and the throne of God. He engages to form all things anew- to create a revolution in favor of Christ and of heaven. He undertakes to change the heart, turning its enmity into love; to collect all the elements of darkness and confusion, educing from them perfect light and perfect order; to subdue the will, bringing it into harmony with God's will; to explore all the recesses of sin, turning its very impurity into holiness- in a word, to regenerate the soul, restoring the Divine image, and fitting it for the full and eternal enjoyment of God in glory. Now, in accomplishing this great work, what instrumentality does He employ? Passing by all human philosophy, and pouring contempt upon the profoundest wisdom and the mightiest power of man, He employs, in the product of a work, in comparison with which the rise and the fall of empires were as infants' play, simply and alone, the "truth as it is in Jesus." With this instrument He enters the soul- the seat of the greatest revolution that ever transpired. He moves over the dark chaos, without form and void, and in a moment, a world of immortal beauty bursts into view. He overshadows the soul, and a vital principle is imparted, whose stream of existence, once commenced, flows on with the eternity of God Himself. How Divine, yet how natural, too, the process! In the illapses of human thought, in the overtasked power of the human intellect, how often is the mind impaired and shattered by the severe process through which it passes! But here is a revolution which touches every faculty of the soul, which changes all the powers of the mind; and yet, so gentle, so persuasive, and so mild, is the Spirit's operation, that so far from deranging the power, or disturbing the balance, of the intellect, it develops resources, awakens energies, and inspires strength, of which, until now, it knew not its possession. "The entrance of Your word gives light; it gives understanding unto the simple."

And to what shall we turn for the secret of this? To the Gospel, so replete with the glory of Jesus. That Gospel, the substance of which is the incarnate God; the theme of which is Christ crucified. That Gospel which testifies of His Godhead, which declares His manhood, which unfolds the union of both in the person of the glorious Redeemer; and which holds Him up to view, mighty and willing to save to the uttermost. Well may the great apostle of the Gentiles exclaim, "I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believes."

In the further work of sanctification by the truth, the Divine Spirit equally magnifies Christ. Still does He employ the truth, that speaks of Jesus. Does He quicken? it is by a Gospel precept. Does He establish? it is by a Gospel doctrine. Does He comfort? it is by a Gospel promise. Does He sanctify? it is by a Gospel admonition. Thus is Jesus honored through the word, in every step of our way to heaven. And oh, how sanctifying and comforting is the truth which testifies of Jesus! It has but to point to Him, and, clothed with the energy of the Spirit, the strongest corruption is subdued, the deepest grief is soothed. "The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul: the testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple. The statutes of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart: the commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes." And this it does, by unfolding Jesus in the word. Oh, of what, value or efficacy is all our knowledge of the truth, if it lead us not to Jesus; if it expand not our views of His glory; if it conform not our minds to His image; if it increase not our love to His person, and if it quicken not our obedience to His commands, and our zeal for His cause; and mature us not, by a progressive holiness, for the enjoyment of His beatific presence?

But here let us vindicate the honor of the Divine Spirit against the view of some, calculated greatly to affect it. There are those who deny any other operation of the Holy Spirit, than that which exists in the written word- thus restricting His influence solely to the letter of the truth, and thereby limiting His power and detracting from His glory.

But is not this an exalting of the instrumental above the efficient cause of regeneration? Divine as is the record, and precious as is the revelation it affords of Jesus, it yet is but an instrument, and nothing more. Unaccompanied with the power of the Holy Spirit, it is inactive, inoperative, a mere dead letter. It quickens not, it sanctifies not, it comforts not. It may be read constantly, and searched deeply, and known accurately, and understood partially, and quoted appropriately; yet, left to its own unassisted power, 'it comes but in word only,' producing no hallowing, no abiding, no saving results. If there be no other, especial and invincible, influence of the Divine Spirit, operating upon the mind, how comes it to pass that all who read the word are not instantly converted by the word? -that wherever these healing leaves are borne, wherever this precious seed is scattered, broad-cast upon the world, man's moral malady is not arrested, and a harvest of happiness to the creature, and of glory to God, springs not forth. Let those who insist upon no other extraneous and superior operation of the Holy Spirit, in the spiritual creation of the soul, than exists in the mere letter of the word, reply.

But the truth itself shall testify. See how it disclaims all such glory, ascribing it to Him to whom it of right and alone belongs- God the Holy Spirit. "Our Gospel came not unto you in word only, but also in power, and in the Holy Spirit." Here, evidently, are the word and the Spirit, the instrument and the Agent, co-operating together. The apostle, in another place, speaks of the truth, as the "sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God." Of what real service can the sword be, if not used? Its surface may be polished, and its edge may be keen, yet if there is no powerful arm to wield it, it can do no execution- none feel, none fear it. But it is the "sword of the Spirit," -He employs it then it is that the "word of God is quick and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword," -then it separates, then it wounds, then it slays.

"The word declares Christ, and the Spirit excites the heart to accept Him. The word shows His excellency, and the Spirit stirs up strong cries after Him. The word declares the promises, and the Spirit helps us to plead them. The word administers reasons against our reasonings, and the Spirit applies them. The word shows the way, the Spirit enables us to walk in it. The word is the seed of the Spirit, and the Spirit is the Quickener of the word. The word is the graft, and the Spirit is the Engrafter. The word is the pool of water, and the Spirit stirs it to make it healing." (Charnock)

In the clear and decided testimony which He bears to the Godhead of the Redeemer, the Spirit especially glorifies Him. We have seen in the preceding pages, that the great glory of our Emmanuel is His essential glory. When our faith can firmly grasp the Deity of our adorable Lord- and on this precious doctrine may it never waver!- there is a corresponding confidence and repose of the mind in each particular of His sacrificial work. Then it is we talk of Him as a Mediator, and love to view Him as the great Sin-bearer of His people. In vain do we admire His righteousness, or extol His death, if we look not upon Him in the glory which belongs to Him as essentially God. From this truth, as from a fountain of light, beams forth the glory which sheds its soft halo around His atoning work. Oh, when, in the near view of death, memory summons back the past, and sin in battle-array passes before the eye, and we think of the Lord God, the Holy One, into whose awful presence we are about to enter, how will every other support but this sink beneath us! And as the Holy Spirit then glorifies Christ in His essential glory, testifying that the blood and righteousness- the soul's great trust- are from the incarnate God, we shall rise superior to fear, smile at death, and pass in peace and triumph to glory. Yes, reader, we shall be satisfied with nothing short of absolute Deity when we come to die. And in proportion as you find this great truth the substance of your life, you will experience it the support of your death. Thus does the Spirit glorify Christ in His Godhead.

But especially in the experience of all His saints, does the Holy Spirit magnify Christ. "He shall glorify me, for He shall take of the things of mine, and show them unto you." We would not have you forget, that the first step which the Spirit takes in glorifying Christ in the creature, is to lay that creature low in the dust. He uncrowns, and humbles the pride of man, before He glorifies Jesus in the soul's experience. Oh, what a mighty work is this- what a great preparation for the entrance of Christ's glory in the soul! A preparation performed, not by the creature, but by the Spirit in the creature. And in what does the Spirit's preparation consist? Not in bettering the condition, but in exposing the depravity of our fallen nature. Not in concealing, but in uncovering the leprosy within. He goes before the Lord, to prepare His way, by discovering to the soul its extreme emptiness, poverty, and vileness. He creates a felt-necessity for Christ's entrance. He brings the soul into such a position, that none but Christ can meet its case. He inflicts a wound, which Christ alone can heal: He awakens grief, which Christ only can assuage: He creates a void, which Christ only can fill. Oh, what is the spectacle which fills God with delight, and heaven with gladness? Not the palace, rising in stately grandeur; not the monarch, ascending his throne in imposing royalty; not the cathedral, with its long-drawn aisle, and fretted roof, and pealing music, and burning incense, and fluttering robes. Nor is it the splendid but empty 'form of godliness,' which distinguishes the religion of the many. All is not gold. Many a man has been applauded for his benevolence, and the Lord has said, "I saw no benevolence in it!" And many a man has been extolled for his prayers, and the Lord has said, "I heard no prayer!" What then? It is a poor sinner laid low before the cross, uncrowning himself, and crowning Jesus. And as Jehovah looks down upon the spectacle- despised by man, honored by God, for "to this man will I look, who is of a humble and a contrite spirit," -He seems to say, "I see a broken heart; I see a holy trembling at my word; I see one smiting on his breast, I hear a cry- oh, it is the voice of my Spirit- 'God be merciful to me a Sinner!' I behold my own image reflected in that lowly, contrite soul."

Now the Spirit proceeds to glorify Christ, by revealing what Christ is to such an emptied, lowly, penitent soul. And this He does, by unfolding the great truth of the Bible- that Jesus died for sinners. Not for the righteous, not for the worthy, but for sinners, as sinners; for the unrighteous, for the unworthy, for the guilty, for the lost. Precious moment, when the Eternal Spirit, the great Glorifier of Jesus, brings this truth with power to the heart! "I had believed," exclaims the transported soul, "that Jesus died only for those who were worthy of so rich a sacrifice, of such immense love. I thought to bring some price of merit in my hands, some self-preparation, some previous fitness, something to render my case worthy of His notice, and to propitiate His kind regard. But now I see His salvation is for the vile, the poor, the penniless. I read, that 'when we were without strength, Christ died for the ungodly,' that 'while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us,'- that 'when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son'- that 'it is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners,'- that it is 'without money and without price,'- that it is 'by grace we are saved,'- and that it is 'of faith, that it might be by grace."' This good news, these joyful tidings, this glorious message of free mercy for the vilest of the vile, believed, received, welcomed, in a moment the clouds all vanish, the fogs all disappear, the face of God beams in mild and softened luster, and amid light and joy, gladness and praise, the jubilee of the soul is ushered in. Oh, what glory now encircles the Redeemer! That soul venturing upon Him with but the faith of reliance, traveling to Him in all weakness, and in the face of all opposition, brings more glory to His name than all the hallelujahs of the heavenly minstrelsy ever brought.

Having conducted the soul to a sweet rest in Christ, the Spirit carries on His work, by keeping that soul perpetually within the influence of Christ's grace. The planets revolving around the sun, each moment liable to wander from their orbit, yet kept by the power of the sun's attraction, illustrates the position of every true believer. The Lord is the sun- in His orbit of light and glory every believer moves. Nor is there a moment in which there is not a tendency in that believer to start off, like a shooting star, or a wandering comet. The apostle has his eye upon this truth, when he thus sounds the note of tender warning- "Take heed, brethren; lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief, in departing from the living God." And observe to what cause he traces all departure from God- unbelief. This is the sin which, in another place, he exhorts the Christian to 'lay aside,' as "the sin which does so easily beset us." What is the besetting sin of every child of God? Let any believer testify. Ask him to point to his most subtle, constant, powerful, and dangerous foe. Ask him what has the most easy access to his mind; what most entangles his feet, and so impedes him in the race that is set before him; what has most easily and frequently vanquished him; what has brought most distress to his soul, and dishonor to God- and he will unhesitatingly reply, "my evil heart of unbelief." He may have constitutional infirmities, and be assailed by peculiar temptations, and may yield to 'presumptuous sins,' and these, in secret and close transaction with God, may cause him the deepest bitterness and humiliation of soul. But the sin which does so easily and so perpetually beset him, is the sin of unbelief, the fruitful cause of all other sin. For as faith is the parent of all holiness, so is unbelief the parent of all unholiness. "It is always present with us," as Owen says, speaking of the restless workings of this evil heart of unbelief, "and so never lacking with any occasion. It stands in need of no help nor furtherance from any outward advantages to tempt our minds. Dwelling in us, abiding with us, cleaving unto us, it is always ready to clog, to hinder, and to disturb us. Does any difficulty or danger appear in the way? It is at hand to cry, 'Spare yourself,' working by fear. Is any sinful compliance proposed unto us? It is ready to argue for its embracement, working by carnal wisdom. Does the weariness of the flesh decline perseverance in necessary duties? It needs not arguments to promote its inclination, working by the dispositions of remaining enmity and vanity. Does the whole matter and cause of our profession come into question, as in a time of severe persecution? It is ready to set all its engines on work for our ruin- fear of danger, love of things present, hope of recovery, reserves for a better season, the example of others esteemed good and wise, shall all be put into the hands of unbelief, to be managed against faith, patience, constancy, and perseverance. It has this advantage, because it has a remaining interest in all the faculties of our souls. It is not in us as a disease that attempts and weakens one single part of the body, but is an evil habit that infects and weakens the whole. Hence it has a readiness to oppose all the actings of grace in every faculty of the soul. The flesh always, and in all things, lusts against the soul."

This being the power of repulsion, so innate and so strong in the heart of a child of God, by what counteracting power is it opposed? By what other and mightier influence is the soul so kept within its Divine orbit, that it becomes not as a "wandering star, to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness forever?" By what but the Sun's perpetual and never-failing attraction? Jesus, by the ceaseless energies of His grace, upholds, restrains, and restores the believer. Oh, the mighty power of the Lord continually exerted on behalf of His people! See, how He wins them by His attraction- "Draw us, and we will run after You!" See, how He upholds them by His power- "I have prayed for you that your faith fail not." See, how He checks them by His grace- "I kept you from sinning against me." See, how He restores them by His love- "And Jesus turned and looked upon Peter, and he went out and wept bitterly." Oh, wonderful patience, that bears with all our departures! Oh, surpassing love, that endures all our imperfections! Oh, powerful grace, that heals all our backslidings! Less than this never could meet our case. We need deity from first to last in our salvation. We need the power that never faints! the love that never changes! the patience that never wearies! the tenderness that never fails! the sympathy that never flags! We need Jesus in all that He is. We need the Sun that draws back the roving star. We need the Shepherd that goes after the stray sheep. We need the Fountain that perpetually cleanses from all sin. We need the righteousness that constantly imparts perfect peace. Oh, how does the Spirit glorify Jesus, as He thus unfolds Him in the experience of the believer! -and this He does by keeping the soul each moment within the influence of His grace.

"He shall take of the things of mine, and shall show them unto you." The Spirit is the Great Conveyancer of Christ to the soul. Placing Himself between the Fountain and the believer, He purposes to convey all blessing, to supply all need, by taking the things of Christ's mediatorial fulness, bringing them into our blessed and holy experience. Having gone before to prepare the soul for the blessing, by discovering its poverty of state, and creating its poverty of spirit, He now takes of the atoning blood, and applies it to the conscience; and the justifying righteousness, and wraps it around the soul; and the sanctifying grace, and conducts it into the heart. In a word, He reveals Jesus to the mind, testifies of Christ to the soul: how Divine He is, therefore able to save; how loving He is, therefore as willing as He is able; how gracious He is, therefore stooping to our lowest circumstance; how tender He is, therefore trampling not upon our weak faith, nor despising our little grace; how sympathizing He is, therefore turning not away His ear, and withdrawing not His heart from our tale of sorrow or our burden of grief. Oh, what a glorifier of Christ is the Divine Spirit! All that we truly know of Jesus, all that we have inwardly experienced of His grace, has been from His teaching and conveyance. He has conducted us to the Fountain- He has led us to the robing-chamber of the King- He has anointed us with the 'oil of gladness,'- He has caused our "garments to smell of myrrh, and aloes, and cassia, out of the ivory palaces," -He has opened the treasury, taking of the precious, glorious things of the precious, glorious Christ, spreading them out in all their vastness, suitableness, and freeness, before our longing eye. How often, when the soul has hungered, He has broken up to us the bread that came down from heaven! when it has thirsted, He has smitten the Rock, and satiated us with its life-giving stream! How often, when guilt has distressed us, He has sprinkled anew the peace-speaking blood; and when sorrow has oppressed, and difficulties have embarrassed, and dependences have failed, and resources have become exhausted, and creatures most deeply loved have most deeply wounded us, He, the tender, loving Comforter, He, the blessed Teacher, He, the great Glorifier of Jesus, has given to us some new, and appropriate, and precious view of our Emmanuel; and in a moment the storm has passed, the waves have stilled, and peace, serenity, and joy, have shed their luster on the soul. One glimpse of Jesus in deep tribulation, one glance in heart-rending bereavement, one discovery of His countenance when all is dark, and dreary, and desolate, one surprisal of His love when the heart sinks into loneliness, one touch of His cross when it is depressed, and bowed, and broken by sin; oh, it is as though heaven had expanded its gates, and we had passed within, where neither tribulation, nor bereavement, nor darkness, nor loneliness, nor sin, is known any more forever!

In placing before the renewed mind the Lord Jesus, as the model by which it is to be molded and fashioned in all godliness, the Spirit glorifies Him. Every soul re-cast into this model, every mind conformed to this pattern, and every life reflecting this image, is an exalting and a glorifying of the Son of God. Now there is no single practical truth in the word of God, on which the Spirit is more emphatic, than the example which Christ has set for the imitation of His followers. The Church needed a perfect pattern, a flawless model. It needed an impersonation, a living embodiment, of those precepts of the Gospel so strictly enjoined upon every believer. To whom should it look? To the holiest of mere men? Hear what one says who yearned to be a pattern of all that was noble and magnanimous in the Christian character, and whom some would have claimed as their master: "Be followers of me, even as I also am of Christ," "only as I follow Christ, only as I am conformed to Him as my copy, my pattern, my example." But God has graciously set before us our true model. "Whom He did foreknow, He also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of His Son." And what says Christ Himself? "My sheep follow me." Now, in laying stress upon this great practical truth, we concede that much heavenly wisdom and caution are here required. We allow that there are points in which we cannot, and are not required literally and strictly to follow Christ. We cannot lay claim to His infallibility. He who sets himself up as infallible in his judgment, spotlessly pure in his heart, and perfect in his attainments in holiness, deceives his own soul. Jesus did many things, too, as our surety, which we cannot do. We cannot drink of the cup of Divine trembling which He drank; nor can we be baptized with the baptism of blood with which He was baptized. He did many things as a Jew- was circumcised, kept the passover, etc., which things are not obligatory upon us. And yet, in all that is essential to our sanctification, to our holy, obedient, God-glorifying walk, He has "left us an example, that we should follow His steps." In His lowly spirit, meek, humble deportment, and patient endurance of suffering: "Learn of me, for I am meek and lowly in heart." In the freeness of His love, His pure benevolence, the unselfishness of His religion: "Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others; let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus." "We then that are strong, ought to bear the infirmities of the weak, and not to please ourselves. For even Christ pleased not Himself." Look not every man on his own circle, his own family, his own gifts, his own interests, comfort, and happiness; upon his own church, his own community, his own minister. Let him not look upon these exclusively. Let him not prefer his own advantage to the public good. Let him not be self-willed in matters involving the peace and comfort of others. Let him not form favorite theories, or individual opinions, to the hazard of a church's prosperity, or of a family's happiness. Let him yield, sacrifice, and give place, rather than carry a point to the detriment of others. Let him with a generous, magnanimous, disinterested spirit, in all things imitate Jesus, who "pleased not Himself." Let him seek the good of others, honoring their gifts, respecting their opinions, nobly yielding when they correct and overrule his own. Let him promote the peace of the Church, consult the honor of Christ, and seek the glory of God, above and beyond all private and selfish ends. Oh, this is to be conformed to the image of God's dear Son, to which high calling we are predestinated! But as the preceding pages have frequently alluded to the example of Christ, on this point we need not further enlarge; only adding, that in any feature of resemblance which the Holy Spirit brings out in the holy life of a follower of the Lamb, Christ is thereby glorified before men and angels. "These are they who follow the Lamb wherever He goes."

The Spirit glorifies Christ in the death of the believer. In that last, closing, trying moment, when life is brought to a fine point, and on that point is suspended an eternal world of glory, Jesus stands by the departing soul. Heart and flesh are failing- the world fades upon the eye- reason wanders- the hand returns not affection's last grasp- the cheek feels not the scalding tear of grief that falls upon it- external objects, once so fond and pleasing, affect no more; but Jesus is there, walking through the dark valley, side by side with the receding spirit. Yes, He is bearing it up in His arms, and is carrying it over the flood gently and safely in His bosom. How many saints in dying have been privileged, with all the strength of their powers, to testify, "Christ is with me in the valley!" The Eternal Spirit in this awful moment has applied afresh the atoning blood- He has wrapped around the spotless righteousness- He has fed with the hidden manna- He has spoken the comforting promise- in a word, He has testified of Jesus. Oh what anticipations of heaven, what transporting joys, what untold glory, what visions of God, have now burst upon the soul! How one has longed to die with them! "Death is not terrible," said Halyburton, when dying in an ecstasy; "it is unstinged, the curse of the fiery law is done away: I bless His name, I have found Him; I am taken up in blessing Him; I am dying, rejoicing in the Lord; I long to be in the promised land! I wait for Your salvation; how long? Come, sweet Lord Jesus, take me by the hand. What means He to stay so long? I am like to faint for delay; I could not believe that I could have borne, and borne cheerfully, this rod so long. This is a miracle, pain without pain; and this is not a fancy of a man disordered in his brain, but of one lying in full composure.

Oh, blessed that ever I was born! Oh, if I were where He is! and yet for all this, God's withdrawing from me would make me weak as water. I am wonderfully helped, beyond the power of nature; though my body be sufficiently afflicted, yet my spirit is untouched. In the Mediator, Christ Jesus, there is all the fulness of the Godhead, and it will never run out. When I fall so low that I am not able to speak, I'll show you a sign of triumph when I am near glory, if I be able." This he did by elevating his hands, and clapping them together when speechless, and just departing. Janeway declared in his last sickness: "I am through mercy quite above the fears of death, and am going unto Him whom I love above life. Oh that I could let you know what I now feel! Oh that I could show you what I see! Oh that I could now express the thousandth part of that sweetness which I now find in Christ! You little think what a Christ is worth upon a deathbed. Oh, the glory, the unspeakable glory that I behold! My heart is full, my heart is full! Christ smiles- would you keep me from my crown? The arms of my blessed Savior are open to embrace me, the angels stand ready to carry my soul into His bosom! You would not have the heart to detain me, if you could but see what I see!" Dr Goodwin said, "I am going to the three People with whom I have held communion: they have taken me, I did not take them. I shall be changed in the twinkling of an eye; all my corruptions I shall be rid of in a moment!" Then alluding to the eleventh of the Hebrews, he said, "All these died in faith. I could not have imagined I should ever have had such a measure of faith in this hour; no, I could never have imagined it; my love abides in strength. Is Christ divided? No, I have the whole of His righteousness; Christ cannot love me better than He does; I think I cannot love Christ better than I do; I am swallowed up in God: soon I shall be forever with the Lord!" John Knox thus spoke in dying: "That day is now at hand, which I have so often and intensely longed for, in which I shall be dissolved, and be with Christ. O my friends, wait on the Lord, and death will not be terrible! I have a certain persuasion in my own breast, that Satan shall not be permitted to return, or molest me any more in my passage to glory; but that I shall soon, without any pain of body or agony of mind, sweetly and peacefully exchange this wretched life for that which is through Christ Jesus." Rutherford said, "I shall shine! I shall see Him as He is, and all the fair company with Him, and shall have my large share. I have gotten the victory; Christ is holding forth His arms to embrace me: I have had my fears and faintings, but as sure as ever He spoke to me in His word, His Spirit witnessed to my heart, saying, 'Fear not."' A few moments before breathing his last, he exclaimed, "Now I feel, I believe, I enjoy, I rejoice, I feed on manna, I have angels' food; my eyes shall see my Redeemer: I know that He shall stand at the latter day upon the earth!" and then expired, saying, "Glory, glory dwells in Emmanuel's land!" Mr. Holland, overwhelmed with a vision of glory on his death-bed, asked whether the candles had been lighted: he was told it was the sunshine. "Sunshine!" said he, "no, it is my Savior's shine. Oh! tell at my funeral God deals favorably with man; whether in the body or out of the body I cannot tell, God knows; but I see things unutterable;" and in this rapture he fell asleep. And how shall we describe the last moments of the seraphic Payson? To go and stand by his dying-bed seems more like a visit to the land of Beulah than to the place where the 'king of terrors' was waging his last conflict. It is to stand 'quite on the verge of heaven.' Listen to the dying saint: "The celestial city is full in my view. Its glories beam upon me, its breezes fan me, its odors are wafted to me, its sounds strike upon my ears, and its spirit is breathed into my heart. Nothing separates me from it but the river of death, which now appears but an insignificant rill, that may be crossed at a single step, whenever God shall give permission. The Sun of Righteousness has been drawing nearer and nearer, appearing larger and brighter as He approached, and now He fills the whole hemisphere, pouring forth a flood of glory in which I seem to float like an insect in the beams of the sun, exulting, yet almost trembling, while I gaze on this excessive brightness, and wondering, with unutterable wonder, why God should deign thus to shine upon a sinful worm. Oh! if ministers only saw the inconceivable glory that is before them, and the preciousness of Christ, they would not be able to refrain from going about, leaping and clapping their hands for joy, and exclaiming, 'I'm a minister of Christ! I'm a minister of Christ!'

I can find no words to express my happiness. I seem to be swimming in a river of pleasure, which is carrying me on to the great Fountain. I find no satisfaction in looking at anything I have done; I need to leave all this behind- it is nothing- and fly to Christ, to be clothed in His righteousness. I have done nothing myself. I have not fought, but Christ has fought for me; I have not run, but Christ has carried me; I have not worked, but Christ has wrought in me- Christ has done all! It seems as if the promise, 'God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes,' were already fulfilled to me, as it respects tears of sorrow. I have no tears to shed now, but those of love, and joy, and thankfulness. Peace! peace! Victory! victory!" Thus, to life's closing scene, the Spirit glorifies Jesus in the experience of the believer. And thus will He take of Christ's and show them unto you, Christian reader, in the final hour. You shall not lack your Christ when you most need Him. He who has been with you through all your earthly pilgrimage, will be with you in its last step. The Shepherd who has guided you through the wilderness will not leave you when just emerging from it into the promised land. The Pilot who has conducted you across the stormy main, will not resign the government just as the vessel enters the haven of rest. The Captain who has conquered for, and conquered in you, will not leave you when on the eve of the final conflict, and the certain victory. Oh no! Jesus will be with you to the last. Do not be painfully anxious about your dying hour. Let all your solicitude be how you may best glorify Him in your life- He will glorify Himself in your death. All grace, all strength, all glory is laid up for you against that moment. And when it comes, and not until then, will Jesus unlock the treasury, and bring it forth. But oh, to live to Him! To be able to say, "To me to live is Christ!" "Christ shall be magnified in my body, whether it be by life or by death." Strive for this. Whatever opposes it, take it to His grace, lay it beneath, yes, fasten it to His cross. Oh! let Christ be everything to you in life, then will He be everything to you in death.

Does the ear of some dear departing saint of God lend itself to the recital of these closing words? Beloved of the Lord, beloved in the Lord, what a blessed opportunity have you now of leaning the entire weight of your soul, with all its sins and sorrows, upon the finished work of Jesus, your Almighty Savior, your Goel, your Redeemer! The great debt is cancelled. Justice exacts not a second payment, the first from your Surety, the second from you. No! justice itself is on your side; every perfection of God is a wall of fire round about you. You stand complete in the righteousness of the incarnate God. The blood of Jesus Christ, the Father's own Son, cleanses you from all sin. Many and aggravated you now see to have been your flaws, your derelictions, your departures, your backslidings, your stumblings; sin appears now as it never did before; the sense of your utter unworthiness presses you to the earth. Well, who is on the eager watch for the first kindlings of godly sorrow in the heart of the prodigal? Who welcomes his return with joy, with music, with honors? Whose heart has not ceased to love, whose eye has not ceased to follow, amid all the waywardness and wandering of that child? Oh, it is the Father! "When he was yet a great way off, his father saw him, and had compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him." Behold your God, your covenant God and Father in Christ Jesus! This reconciled Father is yours. Throw yourself into His arms, and He will fall on your neck, and will seal upon your heart afresh the sense of His free forgiveness and His pardoning love. Heaven is before you. Soon you will be freed, entirely and forever freed, from all the remains of sin. Soon the last sigh will heave your breast, and the last tear will fall from your eye, and the last pang will convulse your body. Soon, oh how soon, will you "see the King in His beauty," the Jesus who loved you, died for you, ransomed you, and loves you still! Soon you will fall at His feet, and be raised in His arms, and be hushed to rest in His bosom. Soon you will mingle, a pure and happy spirit, with patriarchs and prophets, apostles and martyrs, and with all who sleep in Jesus, who have gone but a little before you. See how they line the shores on the other side, and wait to welcome you over! See how they beckon you away! Above all, sweetest and most glorious of all, behold Jesus standing at the right hand of God, prepared to receive you to Himself! Then, may you not sing–
"What's this that steals, that steals away my breath?
Is it death? Is it death?
That soon will quench, will quench this vital flame?
Is it death? Is it death?
If this be death, I soon shall be
From all my sins and sorrows free,
I shall the King of glory see!
All is well, all is well!
Weep not, my friends, dear friends, weep not for me,
All is well, all is well!
For I am pardoned, pardoned, I am free;
All is well, all is well!
There's not a cloud that does arise
To hide my Jesus from my eyes;
I soon shall mount the upper skies!
All is well, all is well!

"Tune, tune your harps, your harps, you saints in glory,
All is well, all is well!
I will rehearse the pleasing story,
All is well, all is well!
Bright angels are from glory come!
They're round my bed, they're in my room;
They wait to waft my spirit home!
All is well, all is well!
"Hark! hark! my Lord, my Lord and Master calls me!
All is well, all is well!
I soon shall see His face in glory!
All is well, all is well!
Farewell, loved friends, adieu, adieu,
I can no longer stay with you!
My glittering crown appears in view!
All is well, all is well!
"Hail, hail, all hail, all hail, you blood-washed throng,
Saved by grace, saved by grace
I soon shall join, shall join your rapturous song,
Saved by grace, saved by grace!
All, all is peace and joy divine,
And heaven and glory now are mine!
Oh, hallelujah to the Lamb,
All is well, all is well!"

With this song of joy may you wade the swellings of Jordan, until, landing on the other side, you drop it, to join the triumphant hymn– "Thanks be unto God for his unspeakable Gift"

The Glory of the Redeemer in His Second Coming

Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ; Titus 2:13

while we wait for the blessed hope--the glorious appearing of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ, Titus 2:13

while we look forward to that wonderful event when the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ, will be revealed. Titus 2:13

If it were true, that the abuse or the perversion of a good thing formed a valid argument against its truth, or were a proper objection to its utility, then how soon should we be compelled to abandon all our strongholds of truth, tamely relinquishing into the hands of the sceptic and the caviler the power of controlling our opinions, and legislating for our consciences! If the advocates of Christianity were responsible for all the flaws, mistakes, and inconsistencies, with which its professed disciples were chargeable; and if it were demanded from them to concede a doctrine or an institution, because that doctrine or that institution had been made the instrument of unrighteousness, then how little would be left to us of the "glorious Gospel of the blessed God!" To what a mere skeleton of truth would this sublime, life-inspiring system be reduced! Take, for example, the Scripture doctrine of justification by faith in Christ. To the urgent and faithful expositor of this cardinal truth, laid deeply and pressed home upon the conscience with earnestness and power, how ready is the opponent of this truth with the remonstrance, "You are teaching a doctrine which has proved most injurious to the best interests of the Christian Church- a doctrine which undermines the foundations of morality, and which weakens the obligation to practical holiness!" Suppose that the believer, admitting the truth of this allegation, were in consequence to abandon the doctrine altogether- what would he be relinquishing? One of the essential corner-stones of the great fabric of the Gospel; one of the main pillars of Christianity; one of the most sanctifying, God-glorifying truths of the Bible; yes, a truth which has well been denominated the doctrine of a standing or a falling Church.

Now the subject of this closing chapter is one of those Scripture doctrines against which the prejudices of many Christian minds have been formed, in consequence of the speculative and fanciful views with which it has been associated by many of its advocates. The same mode of reasoning which we have applied in the vindication of the great doctrine of justification, will with equal force apply here. Is the doctrine of Christ's second appearing less a doctrine of Divine revelation- is it less glorious in its nature and holy in its tendency, because some have abused it? Assuredly not. But separated from human speculation, disentangled from the errors with which men have interwoven it, and made to stand out dressed in its own native sweetness and sublimity, it will be found to be one of the most precious, holy, and influential truths revealed in God's holy word.

The doctrine of a coming Savior was to the early Church a fully received, most endearing, and practical truth. They are represented as "waiting for His Son from heaven;" as "loving His appearing;" as "looking for the blessed hope and the glorious appearing of the great God even our Savior Jesus Christ." The great apostasy, however, dimmed this star of hope on which the eye was accustomed to gaze so intently and so fondly. And as it waned, with it waned her true spirituality. The Church of Rome, 'the mother of abominations,' the great extinguisher of all evangelical light, by the introduction of doctrines more palatable to the taste of a declining Church, drew off its mind from the great truth, and the expectation of the Lord's coming became, almost entirely extinct. A purgatory after death, which might allow a longer period and an easier atonement to cleanse the souls of the wicked, was far more agreeable to such a system, than the sure and near approach of the Almighty King, "coming to take vengeance on those who knew not God, and that obeyed not the Gospel of His Son." To the Reformation we are indebted for the recovery of this, as of many other glorious truths of the Bible, so long buried beneath the rubbish of the great apostasy. The reformers, returning to the principles of the early Christians, returned to the 'blessed hope' of the Church, and once more pointed her eye to this bright constellation, which, though darkened and lost to view for a while, now shone forth as if robed with new and richer effulgence; and again the Bride was brought into the holy posture of an anxious expectant of her Lord.

The great subject which has for some time occupied our attention, I trust to the endearing of His name to our hearts, has been the glory of Jesus. Imperfectly as it has been discussed, I am reluctant to conduct it to a close without directing the eye of my reader to one more view of the Redeemer's glory- the last, the crowning one of all- the glory of His second appearing. Let it be premised, however, that with the spiritual and practical bearing of the doctrine as it is laid down in God's word, we have alone to do. It comes not within our scope or design to meet the objections which have been alleged against it, or to touch upon those controverted prophetic points with which, in the minds and in the writings of many, it has been connected. This would divert our attention from the grand topic before us. May the Holy Spirit descend upon us while investigating this great truth! May He unfold it deeply to our minds, and lay it closely upon our hearts, that we may awake out of sleep, gird up afresh the loins of our minds, trim anew our lamps, and be found waiting, watching, and looking for the coming of the Bridegroom, that thus we may be prepared to go forth and meet Him, when He shall "appear the second time without sin unto salvation."

We shall first endeavor to place the doctrine of the second coming of the Redeemer upon a scriptural basis; and then proceed to unfold His glory in connection with the grand event. If it be found to be a truth revealed by God the Holy Spirit, then it becomes us with all teachableness, humility, and joy, to receive it- all prejudices and objections yielding before- "Thus says the Lord."

We commence the SCRIPTURE PROOF with adducing a few of the more prominent predictions of the Old Testament, quoting an observation of Sir Isaac Newton, that "there is scarcely a prophecy in the Old Testament which does not in something or other relate to the second coming of Christ." The first promise of mercy to fallen man must be regarded as containing an intimation of the second advent of our Lord, for the events of the first advent did not fulfil all that is contained in this prediction. "And I will put enmity between You and the woman, and between Your seed and her seed: he shall bruise Your head, and You shall bruise his heel." Now, the incarnation of our adorable Lord has taught us who is the "woman's Seed;" His death has fully explained the prophecy of the "bruising of his heel;" but that part which relates to the bruising of the serpent's head must be considered as yet an unfulfilled prophecy. Christ did indeed defeat and overcome Satan upon the cross; chaining Him to His car, thus "leading captivity captive." But the fatal blow aimed at the head, cannot be said to have been inflicted until Christ tames the second time to take full possession of His kingdom, to raise His saints, and chain down Satan, so that he shall never go forth again to deceive the nations that are upon the earth. The head, or the power of the serpent, is not yet fully bruised nor destroyed; but it will be when the descending Redeemer shall place His foot upon him, trampling him to the earth in complete and glorious triumph.

Restored to its chronological order, the remarkable prophecy of Enoch, the seventh generation from Adam, as preserved by the Apostle Jude, is worthy of our next consideration. "And Enoch also, the seventh from Adam, prophesied of these, saying, Behold, the Lord comes with ten thousand of His saints to execute judgment upon all." That this refers not to the first, but to the second coming of Christ, is unquestionable, from the fact that the former was an errand of mercy, whereas the latter is here represented as one of judgment.

We must be content to present in a single group, and without comment, the remaining prophetic testimonies. Thus the patriarch Job, in the strength of a far-reaching faith, testifies, "I know that my Redeemer lives, and that He shall stand at the latter day upon the earth: and though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God." Thus the prophet Daniel: "I watched as thrones were put in place and the Ancient One sat down to judge. His clothing was as white as snow, his hair like whitest wool. He sat on a fiery throne with wheels of blazing fire, and a river of fire flowed from his presence. Millions of angels ministered to him, and a hundred million stood to attend him. Then the court began its session, and the books were opened." Thus, too, speaks the prophet Haggai: "Thus says the Lord of hosts; Yet once, it is a little while, and I will shake the heavens, and the earth, and the sea, and the dry land; and I will shake all nations, and the Desire of all nations shall come." Malachi, in a similar strain, closes the prophetic testimony: "The Lord, whom you seek, shall suddenly come to His temple, even the Messenger of the covenant, whom you delight in: behold, He shall come, says the Lord of hosts. But who may abide the day of His coming? and who shall stand when He appears? for He is like a refiner's fire, and like fuller's soap." Thus clearly, as a golden thread, does the great truth run through the prophecies of the Old Testament. We pass to the proof afforded by the New Testament writings.

Intimations of a second appearing are clearly discoverable in the angel's annunciation to Mary. "Behold, you shall conceive in your womb, and bring forth a Son, and shall call His name Jesus. And He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the Highest: and the Lord God shall give unto Him the throne of His father David: and He shall reign over the house of Jacob forever; and of His kingdom there shall be no end." Surely the subsequent history of our suffering Lord forbids the application of this angelic prediction to the era of His humiliation in the flesh. The Son of David at that time found no throne; the scene of His humiliation was the ignominious cross; thorns the only crown which He wore; and a reed, mocking in His dying, agonies the claims of His majesty, the only scepter which He swayed. But we look for its full accomplishment at a period of far greater visible glory, when He shall part the heavens asunder, and appear in great and acknowledged majesty.

While upon the testimony of the angels, we may refer to the period of His ascension, when, for anything that we know, the same 'ministering spirits' thus proclaimed His second coming: "And while they looked steadfastly toward heaven as He went up, behold, two men stood by them in white apparel; who also said, You men of Galilee, why stand you gazing up into heaven? this same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as you have seen Him go into heaven."

We pass on to our Lord's own testimony to the doctrine. Comprehending two distinct predictions, the one the destruction of His temple, and the other His coming again, when the nation now rejecting Him should gladly welcome and acknowledge Him their Redeemer and their King, He thus addresses the Jews- Behold, your house is left unto you desolate. For I say unto you, You shall not see me henceforth, until you shall say, Blessed is He that comes in the name of the Lord." Again, intimating that the time of His appearing would be a season for which His Church would long have to wait, thus rebuking the received opinion that it was then near at hand: "He said unto the disciples, The days will come, when you shall desire to see one of the days of the Son of man, and you shall not see it." He then presents an emblem of His manifestation: "As the lightning, that lights out of the one part under heaven, shines into the other part under heaven, so shall also the Son of man be in His day." He then proceeds in the following verses to describe the unexpected manner in which the day of His appearing will burst upon an ungodly and unprepared world; illustrates it by the sudden surprisal of Sodom and Gomorrah by the Divine judgments, leaving not a moment to loiter upon worldly possessions; and then, to rebuke a hankering spirit after earthly glory, now fading upon the view, pointed to the case of Lot's wife, who, casting a lingering look upon the doomed city she had left, became instantly a monument of God's indignation.

It only remains that we adduce the proof found to exist in the writings of the apostles. Here the doctrine of the second coming is inscribed as with a sun beam. How solemnly and emphatically are we reminded of this great and grand event, on each return of the ordinance of the Lord's Supper! "As often as you eat this bread, and drink this cup, you do show

the Lord's death until He come." Thus fitly is this precious truth entwined with our most solemn rites, and blended with our most hallowed scenes. Well is it that we keep in mind, when partaking of the sacred emblems, the speedy return of Him, the elements of whose dying love are at that moment melting upon our lips, and the splendor of whose personal appearing will soon burst upon our view.

With this same truth the apostle seeks to soothe the sorrow of those who were mourning over the pious dead. "I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning those who are asleep, that you sorrow not, even as others which have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with Him. For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord, shall not prevent (or rise before) those who are asleep." Mark the certainty which He attaches to the second coming: "If we believe that Jesus died and rose again." As surely as Christ has atoned for our sins, and has risen again for our justification, so surely will He come again for our glorification. The three great facts form so many links in one golden, indissoluble chain.

Yet again. "Our conversation is in heaven, from where also we look for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ." "When Christ who is our life shall appear, then shall we also appear with Him in glory." "It does not yet appear what we shall be, but we know that when He shall appear we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is." "Waiting for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ." "Christ the first-fruits, afterward those who are Christ's at His coming." "To the end He may establish your hearts unblameable in holiness before God, even our Father, at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ with all His saints." "We beseech you, brethren, by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and by our gathering together unto Him." "The coming of the Lord draws near."

What further testimony need we? The doctrine stands upon the impregnable basis of Divine revelation, and happy and holy is he that receives and embraces it as the "blessed hope" of the Church.

Let us now contemplate THE GLORY OF THE REDEEMER AS CONNECTED WITH THIS GREAT EVENT. It is called the "glorious appearing of the great God our Savior." Surpassing in glory all that the eye has ever seen, or the imagination has ever conceived, will be the second personal appearing of the Son of God. A perfect contrast will it present to His first advent. Then He appeared a king, but disguised in the form of a servant, without a retinue, without the insignia of royalty, without visible glory, His throne a cross, His crown the thorns, His scepter a reed. But His second coming will be in perfect contrast with this. He will now have thrown off the garment of humiliation, and will appear clad with the robe of majesty, the King acknowledged and adored.

In the first place, He will appear in the glory of His Father. "The Son of man shall come in the glory of His Father." As the representative of the Father, He appeared in the flesh: "He that has seen me has seen the Father." But when He appears the second time, it will be with a clearer, brighter manifestation of the Father's glory. He will come as the Father's equal- as His own beloved Son, and with all the glory which the Father gave Him as the Mediator of His Church. This will contribute immensely to the splendor of the scene. The Father's glory and the Son's glory will now be seen to be one glory. All His former claims to a oneness with the Father, to a perfect equality with Him in essential dignity, will now be made good. How gloriously will shine out the Father's love, the Father's grace, the Father's wisdom, when the Son of God appears in the clouds of heaven with great glory and majesty! Exalted and precious as had been our previous views of the Father, methinks they will appear as nothing compared with the revelations which at that moment will burst in overwhelming power on the soul.

But more especially will He appear in His own personal glory. "The Son of man shall come in His glory." He will come in the glory of His Divine nature. His Deity will now be unveiled, unclouded, and undenied, the "God over all, blessed forever more." He will appear as the" Great God, even our Savior." The question of His Deity will be set at rest forever. Will men deny it now? Will they refuse Him Divine honor? Will they withhold from Him Divine worship? Will they now lift their puny hands and pluck the crown of Godhead from His brow? No! "At the name of Jesus every knee shall bow, and every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father." Angels will laud Him, saints will crown Him, devils will fear Him, His enemies will bow to Him. Every tongue will confess His Deity. His own glory will shine out to the confusion of His foes, to the admiration of His friends.

But He will also appear in the glory of His human nature. This was concealed beneath the cloud of sin and sorrow when He was on earth. Although it was holy, spotless, flawless, yet it was humbled, bruised, and trodden under foot. But He will "appear the second time without sin unto salvation," that same humanity now robed in glory and exalted in dignity. Especially will the glory of His priestly character now burst forth; and like the Jewish high priest, who, after He had offered the sacrifice, entered the holy of holies, taking in His hands the blood of the atonement; then when He had sprinkled the blood upon the mercy-seat, put on His gorgeous robes, and appeared again to bless the congregation; so Jesus, our great High Priest, having offered Himself a sacrifice, and having entered within the veil with His own blood, will appear the second time, robed in majesty and glory, to bless His people, and to take them to Himself forever.

Angels and saints will contribute to the glory of the scene. The celestial beings who sang His nativity song, and who escorted Him back to heaven with ten thousand times ten thousand, and thousands of thousands more, will now throng His descending way. Clustering around still nearer to His person will be the ransomed Church, the "holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband." And as she nears the new earth, the future scene of her rest and her glory, a "great voice out of heaven" will be heard, saying, "Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them, and God Himself shall be with them, and be their God. And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying, nor shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away." Oh, blessed hope and glorious appearing of the great God our Savior, "when He shall come to be glorified in His saints, and to be admired in all those who believe!"

But let us briefly trace SOME OF THE IMPORTANT EVENTS suspended upon the coming of the Lord, which will contribute greatly to the glory of the Redeemer, and to the grandeur of the scene.

The first that will then transpire will be the resurrection of the righteous. This is termed in the Apocalypse the "first resurrection." After a glowing description of the thrones, and of the happy saints who filled them, the apostle proceeds to say, "This is the first resurrection. Blessed and holy is He that has part in the first resurrection: on such the second death has no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with Him a thousand years." Now this first resurrection, which will transpire a thousand years before the second, will be exclusively the resurrection of the saints. They shall take precedence of the ungodly world. How distinctly is this truth thus affirmed! "The Lord Himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord." Then the upright shall have dominion over the wicked in the morning of the resurrection; and in the evening of the thousand years- for with the Lord a thousand years are but as one day- the rest of the dead shall come forth. Blessed hope! transporting prospect! The Lord descends! the trumpet sounds! the earth trembles! the graves open! And who emerge?

None but those who slept in Jesus. All the rest of mankind remain locked in the iron dominion of death until the thousand years shall have expired. Not an enemy of God, not a despiser of Christ, not a foe of the Christian, now rears his dark brow! None but holy and happy forms are seen throwing back the clods, and coming forth, gilded with the light, breathing the air, and drinking the dew of that orient and blessed morning. What calmness reigns! All sounds of sin and of suffering are now hushed, and no voice breaks the holy stillness of that hour, save the joyous challenge, as each mounts in triumph from the tomb, "O grave! where is your victory?" Saints of God! this will be your resurrection! Oh to have a part in it! Then will God's electing love shine forth in all its magnificence. Then will sovereign grace appear truly glorious. And then will the crown be laid at Jesus' feet, and every tongue will confess, "Salvation is from the Lord."

The perfect glorification of His saints will then follow. In what will it consist? The reunion of the soul and the body, and both made like Christ. "Our citizenship is in heaven; from where we look for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto His glorious body." "It does not yet appear what we shall be, but we know that when He shall appear, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is." "As we have borne the image of the earthly, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly." This will constitute the perfect glory of the risen saints- they shall be like Christ in body and in soul. The body spiritual, immortal, glorified: the soul resembling a sea of glass, transparent, pure, serene, reflecting every perfection and lineament of the Divine image: "We shall be like Him." Then we will not speculate as fo the details of that happy and holy existence- it is enough that we shall be like Jesus: this, we know, will comprehend perfect holiness and consummate bliss. "Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father."

The mutual recognition and reunion of the saints, will form another element in the glory which is to be revealed at the first resurrection, and at the second coming of the Redeemer. This truth is not one of vain speculation or idle theory, and conducting to no important practical result. It is one, if not of express, yet of clear, revelation in God's word, is comforting in its influence, and is associated with the most sublime prospect of the believer's faith. We shall meet and know each other at the appearing of the Lord. That the saints will recognize and have communion with each other immediately on their entrance into glory, is, we think, clear from the apostle's words, when enumerating the privileges of the released believers: "We are come . . . . to the spirits of just men made perfect." We indulge, therefore, the fond hope that, should death remove us before the coming of the Lord, we shall meet, know, and have delightful communion with our friends, who departed this life in Jesus. But the recognition and the communion must necessarily be not so perfect and full as when Christ shall appear, and the risen saints shall cluster together around the person and in the kingdom of their Lord; since neither we nor they have attained our state of full knowledge and capacity, until that great event take place, and the "blessed hope" is realized.

How clearly is this truth stated by the apostle! Attempting to console the minds of those who were mourning for their departed kindred, he uses these animating words: "But I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them who are asleep, that you sorrow not even as others who have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with Him." These members of the Church in Thessalonica were bereaved: the apostle seeks to soothe their grief by assuring those who, at the coming of Jesus, they would meet their departed relatives again. But what real consolation could this hope inspire if, when they met them again, they should not know them?

But we argue the recognition of the saints from the fact of the perfection of knowledge to which the coming glory will advance us. Our dear Lord reminds His saints that they shall be equal to the angels. They know each other. It would seem impossible, living together for so many years, that they should not. If, then, the saints are equal to them at all, they must be in this sweet privilege. And is it reasonable to suppose, that in all other respects our knowledge will be perfected, save in this one particular only? Shall we possess an element of mental power here, which we shall lose in a gradation towards perfection, and consequently, shall not possess in a higher degree hereafter? Assuredly not. When, therefore, the dead in Christ shall rise at His coming, every intellectual faculty will be enlarged, and not only retaining all our former, but increasing the amount by a larger degree of additional knowledge, we shall "know even as we are known."

The perfection of happiness, which glorification implies, involves this blessing. What a rich source of high and holy delight does the communion of saints supply even in our present state! How it elevates, chastens, expands, and soothes the mind and heart, so much beclouded by care and chafed by sorrow! A look beaming with love, an expression of the countenance speaking of sympathy, a word unfolding counsel or uttering a promise, oh, it has been like the sudden gleam of the sun bursting through the dark clouds of a storm-wreathed sky!

Above all price is Christian friendship! How sweet the communion of holy minds! To rush into the warm embrace of fond ones, from whom oceans had divided or years had long separated us; to recognize their well-remembered features, too deeply engraven on memory's tablet to have faded- to know again the speaking eye, the familiar countenance, the gentle voice- oh, who has not felt the joyous thrill of that moment?

But heaven will perfect this bliss. Does it not heighten the beauty of the prospect, and strengthen the expectation of the scene? Will it add nothing to the glory of that event, and to the happiness of that moment, when the Son of God descends, and, dissolving the soft slumbers of the holy dead, will re-animate each with its former occupant, that then we shall perfectly recognize those we once knew and loved, and renew the sweet communion before imperfect and limited, but now complete and eternal? Dry, then, your tears, and cease to mourn, you saints of God. They are 'not lost, but gone before.' Their spirits live with Jesus. And when He comes, He will bring them with Him, and you shall see and know them with a cloudless sight and a perfect knowledge. The very eyes which once smiled upon you so kindly- the very tongue which spoke to you so comfortingly- the very hands which administered to you so skillfully- the very feet which traveled by your side so faithfully- the very bosom which pillowed you so tenderly- you shall meet again. "The coming of the Lord draws near," and those who "sleep in Jesus will God bring with Him." Let us "comfort one another with these words."

And will it be no additional joy to meet and to know those eminent servants of the Lord whose histories and whose writings stimulated, instructed, and cheered us, shedding light and gladness on our way? Abraham, whose faith had animated us; David, whose experimental psalms had comforted us; Isaiah, whose vision of Jesus had gladdened us; Paul, whose doctrinal epistles had instructed us; John, whose letters of love had subdued us; to gaze upon 'Magdalene' sitting at Jesus' feet- upon the 'beggar' reposing in Abraham's bosom- upon the 'thief' with Christ in paradise- oh! will not this add to the happiness of heaven? Will this be no joy, no bliss, no glory? Assuredly it will!

At Christ's coming, will not His ministers, too, and those to whom their labors had been useful, meet, know, and rejoice in each other? The pastor and the flock, will there be no certain and permanent reunion? no sweet, and fond, and holy recognition? Shall their union in the Church below exceed, in its beauty and sweetness, their reunion in the Church above? Here it is necessarily mingled with much that is imperfect. Much concealment is connected with their united labors in the vineyard of Christ. They go forth weeping, bearing precious seed, and often are called to their rest before the fruit of their prayers, and tears, and toil appears. Here, too, seasons of sickness and of separation frequently transpire, enshrouding the spirit with gloom, and wringing the heart with anguish. And then, at last, death itself rudely breaks the tender bond, lays the Standard-bearer low, leaving the affectionate flock to gaze with streaming eye upon the lessening spirit of their pastor as it ascends and towers away to glory. But the coming of Jesus, with all His saints, will restore this happy union, invest it with new and richer glory, and place it upon a permanent, yes, everlasting basis. "For what is our hope, or joy, or crown of rejoicing? Are not even you in the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ at His coming? For you are our glory and joy." It was this hope which animated the apostle so fully and constantly to preach Jesus: "Whom we preach, warning every man, and teaching every man, in all wisdom, that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus." Do we not see here an argument for the mutual recognition of the saints at the coming of the Lord? For how could the apostle present those believers in that day, unless he had a knowledge of their persons? or how, without this recognition, could he call them his "crown of rejoicing?" Yes, beloved, we shall know one another again, altered and glorified though we may be. Our Lord's appearing, if it change our vile body, fashioning it like unto His glorious body, will also enlarge our mental capacity of knowing even as also we shall be known. You bereaved flocks! you mourning churches! has the Lord taken from you the faithful minister, the tender pastor, the watchful shepherd? Has he who first led you to Jesus, who preached to you Jesus, who built you up in Jesus, gone now to be with Jesus? Oh think, as you gaze upon the vacant and mourning-clad pulpit, that soon Jesus will come in the clouds of heaven, attended by your pastor; and you shall meet him again, and he will present you, even you, his children begotten in the faith, before God perfect in Christ Jesus.

The restoration of the Jewish nation to their own land, and their national conversion to God, will be an event greatly contributing to the glory of the Redeemer at His coming. Into the full investigation of this deeply interesting subject- deepening in interest as the "day draws near" our few remaining pages will not allow us to enter. We must content ourselves with a rapid glance at the Scripture testimony on which we ground our belief of the gathering together of Israel and Judah to the land of their fathers, and the reunion of the two kingdoms subsequently to, and yet closely connected with, the second advent of Him whom they pierced. We need not spend any time in proving that the descendants of Abraham are not only not in possession of Palestine, but are at this moment a people 'scattered and torn,' the dispersed over all the lands. This fact is too evident to need proof. Where is there scarcely a spot on the earth, trodden by the foot of civilized man, where the Jews have not, in their wanderings, found their way? Separate and distinct from all, they yet have existed among all nations, a living monument of the truth of God's word, and a mournful witness to the sin of their fathers. In almost every part of Europe, Asia, Africa, and America, they have been alike found. No mountains nor rivers, no deserts nor oceans, have terminated their wanderings. They have penetrated into the very heart of countries, where the traveler hears of their existence, but can not reach them. Thus are fulfilled to the letter the predictions which foretold their ostracism and dispersion among all countries, their total separation from all people, and the severe persecution of which they should everywhere be the subjects: "I will scatter you among the heathen, and will draw out a sword after you, and your land shall be desolate, and your cities waste." "And the Lord shall scatter you among all people, from the one end of the earth even unto the other. . . And among these nations shall you find no ease, nor shall the sole of your foot have rest: but the Lord shall give you there a trembling heart, and failing of eyes, and sorrow of mind." "And I will deliver them to be removed into all the kingdoms of the earth for their hurt, to be a reproach and a proverb, a taunt and a curse, in all places where I shall drive them." "So the people shall dwell alone, and shall not be reckoned among the nations." How literally have these prophecies been accomplished! From the moment of their banishment from their own land they have roamed the world in quest of rest, finding it not, a "proverb and a byword," the objects of individual hate, of national scorn, proscription, and violence. Oh what an overwhelming evidence to the truth of revelation does their thrilling history afford! Let the infidel honestly study it with God's word in his hand, and he must bend his judgment to the irresistible conviction that that word is truth. Their preservation is a standing miracle, and that miracle is a standing proof of the divinity of the Bible. But exceedingly great and precious promises are theirs. Bright and glowing prospects are placed before them.

Their own land, now occupied by Turks, Greeks, Christians, Arabians, and Moors, while very few Jews are permitted to remain in it- let it be distinctly borne in mind- God gave to them unconditionally, and as theirs forever. Thus He spoke to Abraham, "Unto your seed will I give this land." "All the land which you see, to you will I give it, and to your seed forever." "I will give unto you, and to your seed after you, the land wherein you are a stranger, all the land of Canaan for an ever lasting possession; and I sill be their God." Now this gift God has never revoked, in any subsequent period of their history, painful and chequered as that history has been. The unconditional promise of their perpetual possession of the land of Palestine remains to this day as God gave it to Abraham, and will ever so remain.

Let us now turn our attention to some of the promises which distinctly point to their certain restoration to this their own land. "And it shall come to pass in that day, that the Lord shall set His hand again the second time to recover the remnant of His people, which shall be left." How striking and conclusive is this passage! It refers to a second recovery of the Jews. Hitherto there has been but one restoration of the whole nation, which was when God delivered them out of Egypt, for their partial recovery from Babylon does not correspond with the fulness of the language of this prophecy. Again, the prophet declares that the Lord shall set up an ensign for the nations, and shall assemble the outcasts of Israel, and gather together the dispersed of Judah from the four corners of the earth." "In those days the house of Judah shall walk with the house of Israel, and they shall come together out of the land of the north to the land that I have given for an inheritance unto your fathers." "The days come, says the Lord, that I will bring again the captivity of my people Israel and Judah, and I will cause them to return to the land that I gave to their fathers, and they shall possess it." "Thus says the Lord of hosts, Behold, I will save my people from the east country, and from the west country; and I will bring them, and they shall dwell in the midst of Jerusalem; and they shall be my people, and I will be their God, in truth and in righteousness.... Thus says the Lord of hosts, In those days it shall come to pass, that ten men shall take hold out of all languages of the nations, even shall take hold of the skirt of him that is a Jew, saying, We will go with you: for we have heard that God is with you." What a bright and radiant landscape stretches out before the view of God's ancient people! What hues of beauty tint and adorn their sky! What blessings, what bliss, what honor, what distinction await them!

The conversion of the Jews to the faith of Jesus- perhaps the first in order of time- is a subject as distinctly and clearly specified in God's word as is their literal restoration to their own land. A few passages only, affirming the certainty of this blessed event, must suffice for our present proof. "I will take you from among the heathen, and gather you out of all countries, and I will bring you into your own land. Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you, and you shall be clean: from all your filthiness, and from all your idols, will I cleanse you. A new heart also will I give you, and anew spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and you shall keep my judgments, and do them. And you shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers; and you shall be my people, and I will be your God." "Behold, I will bring them from the north country, and gather them from the coasts of the earth .... They shall come with weeping, and with supplications will I lead them." "They shall look upon me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for Him, as one mourns for his only son."

Passing on to the New Testament, we find the conversion of Israel as unequivocally and explicitly declared. "I say then, Has God cast away His people? God forbid. For I also am an Israelite, of the seed of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin. God has not cast away His people whom He foreknew. Know you not what the Scripture says of Elias, how he makes intercession to God against Israel, saying, Lord, they have killed Your prophets, and dug down Your altars: and I am left alone, and they seek my life? But what says the answer of God unto him? I have reserved to myself seven thousand men, who have not bowed the knee to the image of Baal. Even so then at this present time also there is a remnant according to the election of grace." The apostle then goes on to show, that the accession of Jacob's posterity to the Church of God will involve on a large and national scale the conversion of the Gentiles. "Now if the full of them be the riches of the world, and the diminishing of them the riches of the Gentiles; how much more their fulness! ... If the casting away of them be the reconciling of the world, what shall the receiving of them be but life from the dead?" "God has concluded them all in unbelief, that He might have mercy upon all. Oh the depth of, the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are His judgments, and His ways past finding out!"

But the glory which these events- the complete recovery of the lost sheep of the house of Israel, and their gathering together within one fold, and under the one Shepherd- will enkindle around the descending form of the Redeemer, what imagination can fully conceive, or pen describe? Then how glorious will appear His word, magnified above all His name! How manifest His faithfulness in fulfilling to the letter all His promises to His ancient people! How stupendous His love, how rich His grace, how precious His blood, how mighty His power, how illustrious His wisdom, yes, how transcendent His whole moral government, as from the valley of dry bones a mighty army is seen to arise, of living, joyous, holy beings as from every part under heaven, His long lost, long afflicted, long rebellious people are seen to come clustering in adoring crowds around Him whom their fathers slew and hanged upon a tree! Methinks it will be the crowning act of redeeming, pardoning, quickening grace- the brightest, the sweetest, the richest of all. The cry of wondrous joy will be raised, "Who are these that fly as a cloud, and as doves to the windows of their dove-cote?" Ten thousand voices will be heard replying- "These are they who have come out of great tribulation, and have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb;" while from their lips, once muttering imprecations upon their Messiah, the song will now float, filling the air with its melody, "I will greatly rejoice in the Lord, my soul shall be joyful in my God; for He has clothed me with the garments of salvation, He has covered me with the robe of righteousness." Oh, who does not love and long for His appearing in the clouds of heaven, whose coming will be the signal of such blessings to the Church as these?

Other events dependent upon the coming of the Redeemer will augment the glory of His person and the splendor of the scene. Then will take place the full revelation, and the final overthrow of the "Man of sin," and all anti-christian confederates- the creation of a new heaven and a new earth, in which will dwell righteousness- the setting up of the throne of David, and the millennial reign of the saints with Christ over a holy and happy creation. "Then will He sit upon the throne of His glory." "He will judge among the nations." He "shall reign in Mount Zion and in Jerusalem, and before His ancients gloriously." "All things shall be put under His feet." He shall wear the "many crowns," and the "kingdoms of this world shall become the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ, and He shall reign forever and ever." "Even so, come, Lord Jesus! Come quickly!"

Let us now briefly contemplate THE APPROPRIATE AND SPIRITUAL POSTURE IN WHICH IT BEHOOVES ALL, AND ESPECIALLY CHRIST'S CHURCH, TO BE FOUND IN VIEW OF SO GLORIOUS AND NEAR AN EVENT AS THE SECOND COMING OF JESUS. For "behold the Lord comes with ten thousand of His saints." The becoming attitude is in general terms thus expressed- "Looking for that blessed hope and the glorious appearing of the great God even our Savior Jesus Christ." It involves among other particulars, Faith in the doctrine of the coming Savior, as the basis of a holy posture of expectation. Without a belief of this truth, there can be no looking for this blessed hope. "When the Son of man comes, will He find faith" -in this doctrine- "on the earth?" No: it is to be feared that many in the Church will be found sadly lacking here. They had believed in the coming of death, but they had not believed in the coming of Him who has 'abolished death.' They had expected with trembling the "king of terror," but had not expected with joy the "King of glory." They had hoped to go to Christ, but they had not hoped that Christ would come to them. But the "glorious appearing" of Jesus, and not the death of the saints, is the "blessed hope" of the Church of God. On this one grand event the eye of faith is bade to rest, as the pole-star of the soul: "Until the day-star arise in your hearts." And how much more soothing to the believing mind is such an object of faith, than the terrific monster- Death! To look up to the "bright and morning Star," and not down into the misty vault of the grave- to anticipate the glorious coming of the great Captain of my salvation, and not the gloomy and subtle approach- perhaps by slow and lingering steps- of the "last enemy" of my being- to hope for the coming of the Conqueror, and not to live in dread expectation of the foe, surely is more strengthening to faith, animating to hope, and stimulating to love!

Faith thus firmly grasping the doctrine that reveals, will inspire the hope that expects, the event. The child of God first believing it, will then be found looking for it. Resembling the faithful and affectionate wife, who frequently retires to read over the letters of her long-absent and far-distant husband, lingering with especial interest and delight over the assurances of his certain and speedy return to her again, love will constrain you to dwell upon the promise- "Let not your heart be troubled: you believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father's house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go to prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you unto myself; that where I am, you may be also." "I will not leave you comfortless (orphans), I will come to you." Thus, a quickening power and holy exercise are given to these sister graces of the Spirit, faith, hope, and love. Faith believes it; hope expects it; love desires it.

Thus, with this firm belief in the doctrine of the Lord's coming, the truth itself will be found an eminently influential one. Is it asked, Of what PRACTICAL USE is this blessed hope to the Church of God? We answer, 'Much every way.' Chiefly in the emptiness and nothingness to which it reduces all worldly glory, and in the holy elevation which it gives the believer above all sublunary enjoyments. And is this no great attainment in holiness? The grand duty of the believer is to live above the world. He is not of the world, even as Christ was not of it. The very name of a Christian implies his crucifixion to the world. In his profession, his joys, his pursuits, his hopes, he seems to say, with the soaring eagle, "I was born on the earth, but I live in the sky." But we require powerful motives to influence us to this. We are moved by motive, and the religion of Jesus is pre-eminently a religion of motive. The certain and speedy coming of Christ to glorify His Church, oh, what a motive is here! Were you to rise in the morning impressed with this truth, how sweetly would it carry you through your day! How effectually would it dim the luster of the world's pomp, deaden its joys, soothe your sorrows, dry your tears, lighten your burdens, reconcile you to poverty, to crosses, to losses, yes, to whatever your Lord ordains! You would feel, "What have I to do with the world's vanities, its smiles, and its glories? I am waiting, expecting, looking, hoping, praying, for that blessed hope, the appearing of my Redeemer." Oh what an eminent Christian would you be! What a burning and shining light! What vigorous faith, what lively hope, what fervent love, what a holy living for God, for Christ, and for eternity, would henceforth distinguish you!

It stimulates to the exercise of watchfulness and prayer. How closely and beautifully has our dear Lord connected together these two important Christian duties, "Watch and pray!" The one as necessary as the other is sublime. Watchfulness implying uncertainty as to time; prayer expressive of an earnest desire to be found in an appropriate attitude for the event. "Watch therefore and pray always, that you may be accounted worthy to escape all these things that shall come to pass, and to stand before the Son of man." "Watch therefore, for you know not what hour your Lord does come." "Therefore, be you ready also, for in such an hour as you do not think, the Son of man comes." "Behold, I come as a thief. Blessed is he that watches and keeps his garments." Surely, if our affections were supremely fixed on Jesus- were He to us the "chief among ten thousand," and did we really feel in our hearts the sentiment which our lips so often utter, "Whom have I in heaven but You? and there is none upon earth that I desire besides You," the return of our Lord would be to us a matter of most delightsome expectation and joyous desire. Our earnest prayer would oftener be, "Why are Your chariot-wheels so long in coming? Come, Lord Jesus, come quickly!"

Yet again: we are the expectants of a "new heaven and a new earth," from which will be excluded all that is sinful and sorrowful, and in which will dwell all that is holy and blissful. This world of pollution and of woe, and yonder skies of storm and of tempest, soon will pass away. "The heavens and the earth which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and of perdition of ungodly men." "The day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat; the earth also, and the works that are therein, shall be burned up. Nevertheless we, according to His promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwells righteousness." As to the precise period at which

God will thus create all things new, the students of prophecy are divided in opinion. Some place it at the commencement of the thousand years of millennial blessedness, believing that on this renovated earth Christ will reign in glory with His saints, and that at its expiration, the second or general resurrection will take place, the judgment will be set, and the books be opened. But differing from this view as to the time of the new creation, we are constrained to place it after the first resurrection, at the close of the thousand years, and immediately following the judicial process of the judgment day. In support of this opinion we again quote the words of Peter, "The heavens and the earth which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and of perdition of ungodly men." And it will be recollected that immediately after John describes the process of the last judgment, he says, "And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and there was no more sea."

The heavens and the earth, thus renovated and formed anew, will constitute the home and the abode of the glorified, palm-bearing saints. All the physical evils, all the ravages of sin, all the emblems of the curse, will have passed away; and from the conflagration of the old, a new creation will spring, like the fabled phoenix from its ashes, robed in beauty, order, and loveliness. "For behold," says God, "I create new heavens and a new earth; and the former shall not be remembered, nor come into mind. But be you glad and rejoice forever in that which I create." That this view of a renovated earth may disturb the conceptions of many pious minds, we are prepared to believe. To the believer the present material world has so long been the scene of moral degradation and of sin, a valley of bereavement and of tears, that he has labored to detach his best sympathies and affections from its locality, and fix them upon some distant though undefined abode of glory and of bliss. Throwing his eye around, and resting it on nothing but spots blighted with the mildew of the curse; forms of pollution each moment crowding around his path, and spectacles of suffering meeting him at every glance; his ears assailed with the plaintive sighs of grief, or the harsh sounds of blasphemy, he has longed for the wings of a dove, with which he might soar to another and a holier dwelling-place, far removed from all the sorrows of earth and the grossness of materialism. But of such would I inquire, May not your views and anticipations of heaven be less spiritual than you have supposed? Are not your conceptions of its nature derived less from anticipations of the Divine glory, than they are intertwined with cherished expectations of your own happiness? What is it to me, whether I float in ether, or whether I dwell in a material heaven- a world re-created, restored, made holy, if God is but glorified, and His will is done on earth, even as it is done in heaven? And this is heaven!

To come back, wearing my same material but glorified body, to the same material but glorified earth, both springing from their ruin, lovely, pure, beauteous, immortal- "to be with Christ"- to be like Christ- to behold the glory of Christ- to mark His triumphs- to witness the golden harvest of Redemption waving in a world once accursed through rebellion, and barren through sin- to behold the contrast between revolt and allegiance, hatred and love, sorrow and bliss, death and immortality- to go and trace the spot where this picture of incarnate love was displayed- to see the crown upon His head, who singlehanded fought the battle and won the victory- to reign with Him, and to unite in the accordant song of praise in the presence of Him to whom it refers, "Unto Him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in His own blood, and has made us kings and priests unto God and His Father; to Him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen," -oh, can we form a loftier conception of heaven, or cherish a fonder desire for its happiness and joy, than this? Where is rest, where is peace, where is joy, where is purity, if not found in the presence of the crowned Lamb, associated with the reigning Church, and on the actual theater of His glorious triumph? "Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of people ought you to be in all holy conversation and godliness, looking for and basting unto the coming of the day of God!"

But the appearing of the Lord, while it will be "the year of His redeemed," will also be the "day of vengeance" to His enemies. He comes to judgment! "Look, the Lord is coming with thousands of his holy ones. He will bring the people of the world to judgment. He will convict the ungodly of all the evil things they have done in rebellion and of all the insults that godless sinners have spoken against him." You may think lightly of Christ now- you may despise and reject Him now- you may scoff at the doctrine, and say, "Where is the promise of His coming? " but, He will come to judgment, and every eye shall see Him, and you shall see Him. That same Jesus whose Deity, perhaps, you have denied, whose atonement you have rejected, whose saints you have ridiculed, that same "Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven, with His mighty angels, in flaming fire, taking vengeance on those who know not God, and obey not the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ: who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of His power." Then will "all the kindreds of the earth wail because of Him." "I beheld," says the apostle, "and the kings of the earth, and the great men, and the rich men, and the chief captains, and the mighty men, and every bondman, and every free man, hid themselves in the dens, and in the rocks of the mountains; and said to the mountains and rocks, Fall on us, and hide us from the face of Him that sits on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb; for the great day of His wrath is come; and who shall be able to stand?"

You enemies of God! You despisers of Christ! You lovers of the world, dazzled with its pomp, and fascinated with its pleasures, pause for a moment, and contemplate this tremendous scene. "Look at that point, far away in the ethereal regions, where the gradually lessening form of our Savior disappeared from the gaze of His disciples, when He ascended to heaven. In that point see an uncommon, but faint and undefined, brightness, just beginning to appear. It has caught the roving eye of yon careless gazer, and excited his curiosity. He points it out to a second and a third. A little circle now collects, and various are the conjectures which they form respecting it. Similar circles are formed, and similar conjectures made, in a thousand different parts of the world. But conjecture is soon to give place to certainty- awful, appalling, overwhelming certainty. While they gaze, the appearance which has excited their curiosity rapidly approaches, and still more rapidly brightens. Some begin to suspect what it may prove; but no one dares to give utterance to his suspicions. Meanwhile the light of the sun begins to fade before a brightness superior to its own. Thousands see their shadows cast in a new direction, and thousands of hitherto careless eyes look up at once, to discover the cause. Full clearly they see it; and now new hopes and fears begin to agitate their breasts. The afflicted and persecuted servants of Christ begin to hope that the predicted, long-expected day of their deliverance is arrived. The wicked, the careless, the unbelieving, begin to fear that the Bible is about to prove no idle tale. And fiery shapes, moving like streams of lightning, begin to appear indistinctly amid the bright dazzling cloud which comes rushing down as on the wings of a whirlwind. At length it reaches its destined place. It pauses; then, suddenly unfolding, discloses at once a great white throne, where sits, starry resplendent, in all the glories of the Godhead, the Man Christ Jesus! Every eye sees Him, every heart knows Him. Too well do the wretched unprepared inhabitants of the earth now know what to expect; and one universal shriek of anguish and despair rises to heaven, and is echoed back to earth. But louder, far louder than the universal cry, now sounds the last trumpet; and, far above all, is heard the voice of the Omnipotent, summoning the dead to arise, and come to judgment. New terrors now assail the living. On every side, no, under their very feet, the earth heaves, as in convulsions; the graves open, and the dead come forth, while, at the same moment, a change, equivalent to that occasioned by death, is effected by Almighty power on the bodies of the living. Their mortal bodies put on immortality, and are thus prepared to sustain a weight of glory, or of wretchedness, which flesh and blood could not endure. Meanwhile legions of angels are seen darting from pole to pole, gathering together the faithful servants of Christ from the four winds of heaven, and bearing them aloft to meet the Lord in the air, where He causes them to be placed at His own right hand, preparatory to the sentence which is to award to them everlasting life." But another and a different scene presents itself. Consternation now seizes the myriads whom this event has surprised amid their worldliness, their gaiety, their voluptuousness, their employment, their marrying, and their being given in marriage. As a thief in the night, the Bridegroom has startled them from their sleep! And now the graceless professor seizes his lamp, and finds it destitute of oil. The pharisee hastens to wrap his righteousness around him, but discovers that it is too narrow to conceal his deformity. The scoffer, the sceptic, the careless, the procrastinator, are seen fleeing from refuge to refuge, from mountain to mountain, from rock to rock, but none afford a shelter from the darkening storm. The great day of His wrath is come, and who is able to stand? The judgment is set! the books are opened! the wicked are arraigned! the trial proceeds! the verdict is given! the sentence is pronounced! the doom is fixed! and the undying worm and the quenchless flame are their portion forever! "The wicked shall be turned into hell, and all the nations that forget God." "Upon the wicked He will rain snares, fire and brimstone, and a horrible tempest: this shall be the portion of their cup." Reader! are you prepared for the coming of the Lord? Are you ready to enter in with Him to the marriage supper? Are you a professor? Have you grace- renewing, humbling, sanctifying, Christ-exalting grace in your heart? Is your preparation one of principle, one of habit? Will it abide the searching scrutiny of that day? Examine and see. Take nothing for granted, in deciding a matter so solemn, and involving interests so momentous. Christ must be all in all to you- the entire groundwork and fabric of your salvation. Mere notions of truth- external membership with the Church- sacraments- regular attendance upon means- punctilious observance of days, and forms, and ceremonies, in themselves, are no fit preparation for this awful event. As the fruit of a living faith in Jesus, they are valuable; but standing alone, without repentance towards God and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, they are the wood, the hay, the stubble which the last fire will consume.

Believer in Jesus, the day of your redemption draws near! The Lord is at hand. Behold, the Judge stands at the door. The days we live in are eventful. The times are perilous. The signs, thickening and darkening around us, are deeply and fearfully significant. We are standing on the eve of events perhaps more awful than the world has ever seen. A period of glory for the Church brighter than has yet shone upon her, and a period of woe to the world more dark than has yet cast its shadows upon it, seems rapidly approaching. Then, "let us not sleep as do others, but let us watch and be sober." "And that, knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep, for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed. The night is far spent, the day is at hand." "Watch you therefore for you know not when the master of the house comes, at even, or at midnight, or at the cock-crowing, or in the morning: lest coming suddenly He find you sleeping." Oh, to blend the steady thought of our Redeemer's coming with every present duty, privilege, and effort: how would it hallow, cheer, and dignify us, consecrating by one of the most solemn motives, the lowliest work of faith, and the feeblest labor of love!

Thus, too, would there be a growing preparedness of mind for the judgments which are yet to come upon the earth. "For there shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be." "Men's hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth; for the powers of heaven shall be shaken. And then shall they see the Son of man coming in a cloud with power and great glory. And when these things begin to come to pass, then look up, and lift up your heads; for your redemption draws near."

"A child of God! and can this earth's vain pleasures
Be anything to you for whom the Savior died?
Rise, rise above them all! its worthless treasures,
Its soul-destroying joys, its pomp and pride.
Be His in all, your soul and eye be single,
Fixed as the glory that surrounds the throne;
Seek not Christ's service with the world to mingle;
Remember God has sealed you for His own.
O child of God! do not be this earth your dwelling,
But stand in spirit on that glassy sea,
Where the rich harmonies forever swelling,
Sound forth the slain Lamb's love, so full, so free.
Stand forth in peace, far above all the madness
Of sinful man, weighing with even scale
The worth of all things- feeling the deep gladness
Of one who follows Christ within the veil.
Child of the living God! what boundless blessing!
His Spirit yours, to comfort and refine;
The heir of God! joint-heir with Christ, possessing
All things in Him, and He Himself too thine.
Hold fast your crown, go forth with joy, meet Him
Soon will He come, and take you for His own.
With girded loins and burning lamps then greet Him,
The Bridegroom's triumph yours; yours too His throne!"

Precious Jesus! we have been contemplating Your glory as through a glass darkly. And yet we thank and adore You even for this glimpse. Dim and imperfect though it is, it has endeared You, unutterably endeared You, to our hearts. Oh! if this is Your glory beheld through a clouded medium, what will it be when seen face to face! Soon, soon shall we gaze upon it. Then, glorious King, we will exclaim, "It was a true report that I heard of Your acts and of Your wisdom, and behold, the half was not told me." "Seeing that we look for such things, grant us grace, that being diligent, we may be found of You in peace, without spot and blameless. Send to us what You will, withhold from us what You will; only vouchsafe to us a "part in the first resurrection," and a seat at Your right hand when You come to Your kingdom. Low at Your feet we fall! Here may Your Spirit reveal to us more of Your glory! Oh irradiate, sanctify, and cheer us with its beams! Behold, we cling to You! You are our Emmanuel, our portion, and our all. In darkness, we repair to the fountain of Your light. In sorrow, we flee to the asylum of Your bosom. Oppressed, we come to the shelter of Your cross. Oh take our hearts, and bind them closer and still closer to Yourself! Won by Your beauty, and drawn by Your love, let there be a renewed surrender of our whole spirit, and soul, and body. Claim and take a fresh possession. "Your statutes have been our songs in the house of out pilgrimage;" "You shall guide us with Your counsel, and afterward receive us to glory." Then, oh then shall we unite with the Hallelujah Chorus, and sing in strains of surpassing sweetness, gratitude, and love

"Thanks be unto God for his unspeakable gift!"

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

THE ATONEMENT

Table of Contents

Preface

1. The Spiritual and Experimental Character of the Atonement

2. The Divine Attributes Entwining Around the Tempted and Trembling Believer

3. The Speciality of the Design of the Atonement

4. The Freeness of the Atonement

5. The Tried Believer Comforted

6. The Fearful Alternative of Rejecting the Atonement

Preface

This unpretending little volume forms the commencement of a series of similar works, which it is the author's design, should the Lord permit, to publish upon the important subject of experimental religion, under the general title of "The Inquirer Directed to an Experimental and Practical View of Divine Truth." Various considerations, to one or two of which he may be permitted to allude, suggested the undertaking, and pleaded for its execution. The first that may be mentioned was, the vast and solemn importance of the subject.

The religion of the Lord Jesus is valuable only as its power is experienced in the heart. In this respect, and in this only, it may be compared to the physical sciences, which, however ingenious in structure, or beautiful in theory, yet, if not reduced or reducible to purposes of practical use, are of little worth. It is so with the truth of Jesus. The man of mere taste may applaud its external beauty- the philosopher may admire its ethics, the orator its eloquence, and the poet its sublimity, but if the Spirit of God does not take his own truth, and impress it upon the heart, as to the great design of its revelation, it avails nothing. What numbers there are who rest in the mere 'theory' of Christianity. As a practical principle they know nothing of it. As a thing experienced in the heart, it is a hidden mystery to them. They speak well of it as a religious system; believe its Divinity, and even defend its doctrines and extol its precepts; yet make no approaches towards a personal and practical obedience to its claims. In a word, they know nothing of repentance towards God, and faith towards our Lord Jesus Christ. It will surely appear to a spiritually-enlightened mind, a subject of vast and solemn moment that this delusion should be exposed- that this foundation of sand should be undermined, and the absolute necessity of experimental religion, as necessary to an admission within the kingdom of glory, be strenuously and scripturally enforced.

Another consideration which had its weight with the author's mind was, the conviction that the state of the church demanded a more spiritual, experimental, and practical exhibition of Divine Truth. To those who have been silent, though sad, spectators of the recent history of the Christian church, it is known that controversies of an alarming character have, for a lengthened period, existed in her bosom. They have seen and deplored the divisions that have rent her- the party feeling that has been engendered, the alienation and distance that have existed among those who, holding one Head, should therefore "love as brethren." To mitigate this alarming evil, to heal these divisions, and to draw the different sections of the church more closely together, various able disquisitions have been written, many ingenious plans have been proposed, and many affecting appeals have been made. But, it is the author's honest conviction, that the first and the chief step towards the accomplishment of an end so earnestly to be sought, and so fervently to be prayed for, is to deepen the spirituality of the churches of each evangelical denomination. Nothing short of this will bring it about. Vain will be all expectation of returning to an apostolic union- fruitless will be every plan for a coalition of sects, while the spirituality of the church is at so low an ebb. But, augment the true piety of the churches- hold up a more elevated standard of holiness- let them be deeply baptized in the reviving and sanctifying influences of the Holy Spirit, and these controversies will all terminate, these divisions will all be healed, and the din and the strife of party interests will speedily be hushed. Christians will not hold less firmly, and defend less zealously their conscientious views of truth, but they will hold and speak the truth in love. In order then thus to strengthen the tone of spirituality among the churches, experimental and practical religion must be more frequently and earnestly insisted upon. There cannot possibly exist genuine piety apart from experimental truth, and in proportion to the deep experience of the truth, will be the depth of spirituality.

It will suffice to mention but one other consideration which influenced the author in the preparation of these works, and that was, the demand which the church herself has made for writings of this class. The church is wearied with controversy. There is a restlessness, a growing desire for publications of a less polemical and more spiritual and experimental character, which it is important should be met. There are those, and the number is increasing, who are hungering and thirsting for the simple truth of God, presented to them unmixed with the bitter herbs of controversy and discussion. They want God's truth as it is. They want it so opened and explained as to meet the daily experience of the Christian life. The inward and the outward conflicts- the struggling of inbred sin- the deep affliction- the heavy cross, all of which demand an experimental unfolding of the doctrines and truths of the Bible. And there is a sweetness and preciousness in Divine Truth thus exhibited, which controversy tends much to impair. The father of the inductive philosophy truly and beautifully remarks, "As those wines which flow from the first treading out of the grapes, are sweeter and better than those forced out of the press, which gives the roughness of the husk and of the stone; so are those doctrines best and most wholesome which flow from a gentle crush of the Scriptures, and are not wrung into controversies." (Bacon)

To meet in some degree this demand, has been the humble attempt of the Author. How far he has proved successful, the experienced believer must decide. He has commenced with the doctrine of the Atonement of Christ, it being the central truth of the Bible, on which all others are based, and around which they all entwine. The second volume in the series will embrace "Experimental and Practical Views of the Work of the Holy Spirit," and will appear, should the author's life and health be preserved, early in the ensuing autumn. Should the Lord, in a solitary instance, condescend to bless the perusal of this work, let all the praise and the glory redound to the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, the triune Jehovah, to whom it alone belongs.

Introduction–

"The Province of Reason in the Investigation of Spiritual and Experimental Truth"

"The world by wisdom knew not God. " -1 Cor. 1:21.

In a few observations, intended mainly as introductory to this series of works, we wish to explain what we believe to be the legitimate province of Natural Reason in the investigation of revealed Scriptural truth. We feel the more impelled to this- perhaps otherwise unnecessary, task, lest in the views we may advance on experimental religion, we shall be suspected of abrogating entirely the exercise of the intellectual faculties in the study and experience of God's truth, thus turning away from a most important instrument which He has given us for the purpose of weighing and sifting the evidence of its validity.

The two extremes towards which writers on Christianity have verged, have been, the opponents of the system on the one hand, descanting upon the power and sufficiency of reason, as though all the light which we possess of the invisible world and its sublime realities were owing to its discoveries, and to no other source: and on the other, the advocates of the system, abdicating almost entirely the employment of our mental faculties- setting aside the use of reason, assigning to it no office, and awarding to it no distinction. Both, we believe to be in error; each extreme of opinion untenable. The one, in elevating reason too high, the other, in depressing it too low. The one, in investing us with the prerogative of God, the other, in robbing us of the dignity of man. We feel it important then, briefly and in simple terms, to state what province should be assigned to human reason in prosecuting our researches in revealed and experimental truth. And that the reader may have the subject clearly before him, we shall first show what is not, and then what is, the proper use of reason in matters of religious faith.

First, It is NOT the province of human reason to discover spiritual truth. This far transcends the power of the highest created reason, unenlighted by the Spirit of God. We do not say that the mind taught of God can discover nothing of the glory of his character, the excellence and loveliness of Jesus, and the spirituality and fitness of his truth. By no means would we assert this. The mind divinely illuminated can penetrate deeply into the vast domain of faith, and discover the glories there revealed. But without this teaching, aside from this divine illumination it cannot advance a step. All is dark- all mysterious. And just what the telescope is to the eye of the astronomer, as when with a glance he sweeps the firmament of nature in search of new and undiscovered worlds, faith is to the eye of reason, as it ranges the firmament of revelation in search of the glorious truths of God. But unenlightened by the Holy Spirit, it can discover nothing. Take, for example, the existence, perfections, and moral government of Jehovah; what can human reason discover here? What light can it throw upon the fundamental article of our belief- the being of a God? Our senses may assure us that we exist: that we form but a moiety of human existence is equally certain. That we have existed but a short time, memory testifies- and that we are not self-created, but that there must be a First Cause, from which all creation originated; is all that we can deduce from these obvious facts. This is the utmost limit to the discoveries of reason. "Who is this First Cause?" "What is He?" "Where is He?" "In what relation does He stand to me?" "How may I propitiate his regard, and be admitted to communion with Him?" are momentous questions on which reason may conjecture, but on which it can pronounce with no authority.

Let the reader glance but for a moment at the results to which reason has come in its investigation of religious truth. What are they? where is the evidence of its mighty powers? where is the scribe? where is the philosopher? where is the disputer of this world?- let them produce the amount of their researches. What discoveries have they made of God?- what light have they reflected upon his moral attributes? How far have they penetrated into the dark and deep abyss of futurity, demonstrating with certainty whether there be any state after this, and if there be, what that state is? How have they accounted for the existence of moral evil; and what balm have they proposed for the mitigation of all its entailed miseries? And how have they solved the problem, that God can be a just God just to his law, just to himself, and yet be the justifier of the ungodly? We ask, and are referred to tradition, while that tradition is derived, we are all assured, from the fountain of divine revelation.

That this is not mere assertion, unsustained by evidence, let us show. No fact is more certain, than that all the knowledge which the ancient philosophers had of morals and of God, was traditionary; revelation being the source of that tradition. We may inquire in the language of Tertullian, "Which of the poets, which of the sophists was there, who did not drink of the prophet's fountain?" To this they came, wearied with their own fruitless researches, and panting for some better guide than reason. Here they drank, Ovid from Moses, and Virgil from Isaiah. Another of the fathers styles Plato the Hebrew Philosopher, while a third asserts that, from the Hebrew writings he derived his pious conceptions of God and his worship. A heathen writer asserts that Pythagoras transferred many things from the Jewish institutions into his own philosophy, and styles himself the imitator of the Jewish dogmas; and it is certain from the testimony of Hermippus, as quoted by Selden and Grotius, that Pythagoras dwelt among the Jews, and must necessarily have been familiar with their religion. Another heathen writer was often heard to ask the question, "What is Plato but Moses atticising?" And who can doubt but the lo on of this philosopher was borrowed from the I AM of Moses? and that his noun logos and psuke cosmo clearly refer to the Word and the Spirit, by whom, as he learned from the Old Testament, the world was made. Thus it is evident from the few examples cited, and these are not all that might be adduced in proof of the position, that in the vast domain of spiritual truth, reason can never assert its claims to the power of discovery. All that it can do, is to seize upon existing facts, and from these facts proceed to argue and establish its conclusions.

Nor is it the province of our intellectual faculties to judge in matters of religious faith with an authoritative power of dictation- rejecting what may be inexplicable to reason, and receiving only what is "perfectly consentaneous with reason." There is much of deep mystery in revelation. God, considered both in himself and in his operations, is a mystery stretching far beyond the most sublime power of finite reason. "Can you by searching find out God? can you find out the Almighty unto perfection?" Job xi. 7. And of his operations, may we not exclaim with the same inspired penman, "Lo! these are parts of his ways: but how little a portion is heard of him!" xxvi. 14. Christ, too is the "great mystery of godliness." Whether his complex person is regarded- the union of the divine and human natures in one; or whether we look at his work- his obedience and death constituting a full Atonement to Divine justice in behalf of the sins of his people, it must be acknowledged a depth too profound for human thought adequately to fathom. What can poor finite reason accomplish here? What beams can its feeble, flickering light cast upon this world of mystery? And if ever it stands forth invested in its own native impotence, it is when it sits in judgment upon the doctrines and facts of revelation, discarding or retaining such only as are intelligible to its dwarfish capacity. "Which things," says the apostle, "the angels desire to look into." Mark his expressions! He represented not these celestial beings of purity and intellect, as scaling the heights and diving into the depths of redemption's mystery- but "which things the angels desire," scarcely dare, but "desire to look into." And yet for fallen and unrenewed mind to sit in judgment upon God's truth, can only be exceeded in its brazenness by the depravity which prompts it.

If the truth of God, in its doctrines and facts, is a mystery incomprehensible to unrenewed reason, what shall we say of the truth as experienced in the heart? If reason cannot understand the vast framework of truth, how can it comprehend the secret power by which it operates? The very fact, that, to be understood it must be experienced, accounts for the difficulty. The transforming operation of the Holy Spirit upon the mind, giving it a new bias, new inclinations; turning its darkness into light, and kindling its enmity into love- the life of God in the soul, creating the man anew in Christ Jesus- that life which is hidden, ever productive of a holy life that is seen- its hopes and its fears; its defeats and its triumphs- the causes which operate to deaden it, and the spiritual nourishment by which it is supported, all, all is incomprehensible to human reason. Truly "the world knows us not."

It will be perceived then, that we readily admit that, in the revelation of God, there is much that towers above human reason, but which is yet perfectly agreeable to the very reason it transcends. Is it then, we ask, the province of our intellectual faculties to pronounce with a dictatorial and authoritative tone, what matters of religious faith shall be received and what rejected? By no means. There are mysteries in the world of mind which philosophy cannot unravel, why not reject them? There are mysteries in the physical world, with which reason cannot cope, why not reject them? Our being too is a mystery; why not, on the same grounds, reject it, and deny our very existence? We assert then, that the proper jurisdiction of our reason in matters of faith and of divine revelation, does not extend so far, as that a doctrine should be rejected, merely because it is interlaced with difficulties which our intellectual faculties cannot unravel.

It is important that we devote a moment to an inquiry into the cause of this incapacity of reason, in its natural state, to comprehend spiritual and experimental truth. The cause is, the corruption and perversion of our reason by sin: sin has impaired our mental faculties, enslaved, clouded, and debased our reason. On this account, and on this only, the door is closed which leads into the great treasury of spiritual and experimental truth. This view perfectly accords with the spiritual delineation of man by nature. We open God's Word, and it declares that since the fall the nature of man has been corrupt, and his reason blind; his understanding darkened, and his heart, the seat of his affections, polluted: "Having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart," Eph. iv. 18. "That upon the face of the whole earth there is none that understands and seeks after God," Rom. iii. 11. The natural man, while in that state, so far from being able to explore the wide domain of spiritual truth, hates and flees from it when proposed to his consideration, "receiving not the things of the Spirit of God, they being foolishness unto him," 1 Cor. ii. 14. This being the state of man, God's Word consequently declares it necessary that, before spiritual truth can be understood, he should be "transformed by the renewing of his mind," Rom. xii. 2: that he should be restored to that sound mind, and enlightened understanding, and spiritual discernment, with which his nature was endowed when it came originally from the hands of God: in a word, that he should be born again, created anew in Christ Jesus; that old things should pass away, and that all things should become new. Then, and then only, will he be able to understand the mystery of the truth of God.

From this dark and corrupted state of natural reason, arises the constant and fearful perversion of God's holy truth by ungodly minds. "It is the design of corrupted reason," as Dr. Owen truly observes, "to debase all the glorious mysteries of the Gospel, and all the concernments of them. There is nothing in the whole mystery of godliness, from the highest crown of it, which is the person of Christ, 'God manifested in the flesh,' unto the lowest and nearest effect of his grace, but it labors to deprave, dishonor, and debase. The Lord Christ, it would have in his whole person to be but a mere man, in his obedience and suffering to be but an example, in his doctrine to be confined under the capacity and comprehension of carnal reason, and the holiness which he communicates by the sanctification of his Spirit to be but that moral virtue which is common among men as the fruit of their own endeavors." (John Owen)

We promised to show, and in a few words, what is the legitimate province of reason in the investigation of spiritual truth. That our intellectual faculties are to be laid aside when we come to the study of God's holy Word- that reason must be entirely sacrificed to faith, we believe God has nowhere demanded. "Come, let us reason together," is his own condescending invitation, Isa. i. 18. And when Paul stood before Felix, the Roman governor, he "reasoned of righteousness, temperance, and of a judgment to come," Acts xxiv. 25. And in writing to the scattered Christians, the apostle Peter exhorts them to be ready always to "give an answer to every one that asks them a reason of the hope that is in them, with meekness and fear," 1 Pet. iii. 15. The revelation of God asks not the surrender of our reason as a sacrifice on the altar of faith; all it demands is, that reason shall carefully, candidly, and prayerfully examine the evidence of its validity, for, "if she have not satisfactory evidence of this, she cannot, without criminal rashness, surrender her own authority which the Creator had invested her with for the government and guidance of man;" and then bow humbly, reverentially, and obediently to the Word of God. This is the legitimate province of reason, when it comes to the study and examination of God's truth. Beyond this, it dare not, it cannot pass, without sitting in the place of God, and exalting itself above all that is called God. When God speaks plainly, it is the privilege of reason instantly to obey; where he sees proper to throw a veil of mystery over some of his revelations, it is the duty of reason instantly to submit, and believe what God has said, because God has said it. Mistake not then, reader, the true province of your reasoning faculties when God's Word speaks. He has empowered you to investigate well and thoroughly the grounds of your faith, at the same time withholding from you all authority to exalt your reason as a rule of judgment, discarding or retaining doctrines propounded for your belief; as they or may not accord with its taste or capacity of comprehension. The enlightened reader will be gratified, if we once more fortify our position with the testimony of a divine, so spiritual and profound as Dr. Owen. "To say," are his words, "that a man is not to use his reason in finding out the sense and meaning of the propositions wherein the truths of religion are represented unto him, and in judging of their truth and falsehood by the rule of them, which is the Scripture, is to deny that indeed we are men, and to put a reproach upon our mortality, by intimating that men do not, cannot, nor ought to do, that which they not only know they do, but also that they cannot but do. For they do but vainly deceive themselves who suppose, or rather dream, that they make any determination of what is true or false in religion, without the use and exercise of their reason; it is to say they do it as beasts, and not as men; than which nothing can be spoken more to the dishonor of religion, nor more effectual to deter men from the entertainment of it. For our parts we rejoice in this, that we dare avow the religion we profess to be highly rational, and that the most mysterious articles of it are proposed unto our belief on grounds of the most unquestionable reason, and such as cannot be rejected without a contradiction to the most benign dictates of that intellectual nature with which of God we are endued. And it is not a few trifling instances of some men's abuse of their reason in its prejudiciate exercises about the things of God, that shall make us ungrateful to God that he has made us men, or to neglect the laying out of the best that he has entrusted us with by nature, in his service in the work of grace."

The subject we have thus but imperfectly discussed, speaks pointedly and solemnly to those who are setting up their reason in opposition to God's truth. Reader, are you such a one? Pause, before you advance another step, "lest haply you be found to fight against God?" Dare you reject any single doctrine or fact of revelation, because it transcends, in its sublimity and mystery, the finite power of your mind? What astounding brazenness is this! Dare you turn your back upon God's truth- and in rejecting any part of his truth, remember you turn your back upon God himself- dare you withhold the obedience of your faith, the homage of your affections, the entire consecration to his service of your life, because there are parts of his Word which you cannot harmonize, doctrines which you cannot comprehend, and operations of his moral government which accord not with your rule of judgment, and your views of equity and of mercy? What fearful presumption is this! What are you? the infant of a day! and will you oppose your puny intellect to the mind of God? Even were the grasp of your intellect that of an angel, yet, when measured with God's, what is it? What too, are all your literary and scientific attainments the wisdom of ages, which you may have toiled to accumulate; the treasures with which you have enriched and garnished your mind; what is it all, but foolishness with God? Yes, more than this, is not the very intellect God has given you, and which he sustains, turned into a new weapon of attack against his truth? How then can you escape the woe pronounced upon him, who "strives with his Maker?"

The reader, whose eye traces this page, may be longing to know and experience the truth, but to the present, has "stumbled at the word" through a desire to understand what God has not revealed. Is it so? then tear yourself away from every thing that would keep you from the cross of Christ. To that cross you must come as a poor, ignorant, humble sinner. You must stand, as stood the publican; and you must cry, as did he, "God be merciful to me a sinner." That depraved heart of yours must be changed; that proud intellect must be humbled; that rebellious will must be subdued, before you can know "the blessedness of the man, whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered," Psalm. xxxii. 1. Listen to the solemn words of the Son of God- "Except you be converted and become as little children, you shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven," Matt. viii. 3. Listen to the word of the apostle; "Let no man deceive himself. If any man among you seems to be wise in this world, let him become a fool that he may be wise. For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God: for it is written, He takes the wise in his own craftiness," 1 Cor. iii. 18, 19. Are you longing to know the truth? then come: the heart of God bids you come; every promise of his Word bids you come; and, taking your place low at the feet of Jesus, receive with the simplicity, docility, and ingenuousness of a child, the precious Word of God. O lay aside your caviling, your false reasoning, which does but keep you back from simply receiving Christ as the Savior of sinners; and, impressed with a deep and abasing sense of your ignorance and vileness, let your ardent prayer be, "That which I know not, teach me. Lead me in your truth, and teach me, for you are the God of my salvation," Job xxxiv. 32; Psalm. xxv. 5. The reader is earnestly requested to make this petition his own, and breathe it at the mercy-seat, before he passes to the next chapter, in which the principles enforced in this introduction, are fully carried out, and individually applied.

The Spiritual and Experimental Character of the Atonement: Inexplicable to the Unregenerate Mind

THE NATURE AND NECESSITY OF THE NEW BIRTH ILLUSTRATED.

"The natural man receives not the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness unto him; neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. " 1 Cor. ii. 14.

By no stronger argument does the truth of God establish the Divinity of its origin, than that to all, except the regenerate, it is a incomprehensible mystery. Not only the great principles of truth are inexplicable, but the hidden and transforming operation of that truth upon the mind- the alarm, the contrition, the joy, the hope, the varied and often conflicting emotions which are its proper results, are altogether unintelligible. The life of God in the soul, the mode of its communication, the peculiarity of its actings, and the source of its nourishment, are incomprehensible. To such an unregenerate individual, spiritual truth has no attraction. There is neither admiration of its external form, taste for its intrinsic excellence, sympathy with its holy revelations, nor love for its adorable Author. Is this a hard saying? We fear not to assert, that to a mind on whom the renewing influence of the Holy Spirit has never passed, the great mystery of godliness is unintelligible. "Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God." If we are to understand our Lord, whose words we quote, to mean by "the kingdom of God," (as the same phraseology in parallel passages would seem to decide,) not strictly the kingdom of glory and purity in which Jehovah reigns with an immediate and majestic presence, but distinctly and emphatically that spiritual empire which Christ came to establish among men, then it is as true as the testimony of Jesus can make it, that until a man is regenerated, or born from above, until he is the subject of a new spiritual creation, the truth of God he cannot see. It requires no labored process of reasoning to establish the proposition, so simple and self-evident is it- things that are spiritual can only be discerned by a mind that is spiritual. For instance, there is a beautiful and perfect symmetry in the vast structure of God's truth. Each doctrine and precept has its proper and appropriate place. Now, how is this symmetry to be seen?- how is this harmonious relation and nice adjustment of each part to the whole to be ascertained by a mind not only morally blind to the truth, but all whose faculties are warring against it? As well may you pour tones of delicious music on the ears of the deaf, or floods of brilliant light on the eye-ball of the blind, and expect to awaken corresponding sympathy in the soul, as that spiritual truth, when brought in contact with a "carnal mind," will produce conviction in favor either of its excellence or its beauty. Of the law of God, the great assertor and defender of the holiness of God, it is totally ignorant; what then does it know of sin? Of sin- the transgression of that law, its great aggravation, its moral turpitude, it is as equally insensible; what then does it know of sin's wondrous Sacrifice? And, being ignorant of Christ, what does it know of God? We repeat the observation then, in order to impress it upon every mind, that the supreme excellence, and perfect harmony which pervade the entire revelation of God, can only be discerned by a spiritual eye. And all this process, be it known- this heart to love the truth, this mind to investigate its nature, this eye to trace its proportions and its beauties, is the production of God himself.

Expanding this thought yet further, we would dare assert, painful as it may be to the minds of many whose eye may trace this page, that he alone is a truly confirmed believer in a Divine revelation, who is a true experimental believer in the Atonement of Christ. We are prepared to admit that, there are individuals who have closely investigated and accurately weighed the external and historical evidences in corroboration of the truth of Christianity, and who, upon the conviction produced by those evidences, have received it as a system from God. And yet there is a species of evidence, the nature of which they may have never examined, and the force of which they may have never felt. The evidence to which we allude, is the evidence of experience, for in the striking language of God's own truth, "he that believes has the witness in himself." The Spirit of God breaking, humbling, healing the heart; taking his own truth and transcribing it upon the soul; witnessing, sealing, sanctifying; opening the eye of the soul to the holiness of God's law, to its own moral guilt, poverty, helplessness, and deep need of Christ's blood and righteousness, thus leading it to rest on him as on an all-sufficient Savior; thus producing "righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit;"- this is the truth experienced- this is the religion of the heart; and all other religion, beautiful as may be its theory, and orthodox as may be its creed, is nothing worth. Without this experience there is no true belief in God's Word. The revelation of God asks not for a faith that will merely endorse its Divine credentials; it asks not merely that scepticism will lay aside its doubts, and receive it as a Divine verity; it asks, yes, it demands, more than this, it demands a faith that will fully, implicitly, practically receive the momentous and awful facts it announces; a faith that brings them home with a realizing power to the soul, and identifies it with them; a faith that believes there is a hell, and seeks to escape it- a faith that believes there is a heaven, and strives to enter it- a faith that credits the doctrine of man's ruin by nature, and that welcomes the doctrine of man's recovery by grace: in a word, a faith that rejects all human dependence, and accepts as its only ground of refuge, "the righteousness of Christ, which is unto all, and upon all those who believe." O this is the true faith of the gospel! Have you it, reader?

Let us for a moment glance at the different reception of God's truth by a renewed mind. To such an individual there is glory, harmony, and excellence in spiritual truth. Every part to him is precious; no portion undervalued. In whatever form it presents itself, whether doctrinal or preceptive- with whatever tone it speaks, whether it rebukes or comforts, admonishes or cheers, he welcomes it as God's own eternal truth, more precious to him than gold, yes, than much fine gold. In his eye, it is a perfect system; dismember it of any one part, and you mar its beauty. It is a sovereign panacea; take out of it any single ingredient, and you impair its efficacy. He must have it with no doctrine dissevered, with no precept diluted, with no institution perverted. He can consent to no compromise: he has bought the truth, and the truth he cannot sell. Not only does he feel bound to watch it with a jealous and vigilant eye, because it is God's own truth, but he loves it for its perfect adaptation to his own case. It has disclosed to him his sinfulness, and has revealed to him a "fountain open for sin." It has led him in his ruin, helplessness, poverty, and condemnation to the cross, and there introduced him to a Savior all-sufficient and willing to repair that ruin, assist that helplessness, enrich that poverty, and remove that condemnation. Is it any marvel that, to such an individual, God's revealed truth should be precious? that he should guard it vigilantly, and love it ardently?

This leads us to return to the close and important, yet much forgotten connection, which exists between a clear, spiritual perception of God's truth, and a holy, humble, and close walk with God. The two can never be separated. A distant and careless walk not only veils the mind to the glory of the truth, but hardens the heart to the power of the truth. The world in the heart, guilt upon the conscience, and unmortified sin in the life, have a fearful and certain tendency to petrify the spiritual sensibilities, and render powerless the sword of the Spirit. Let not such a professor of Christ wonder that appeals the most thrilling, truths the most solemn, and motives the most persuasive, all, all are disarmed of their force in his case. Let him not be amazed that, with an enlightened judgment, and a scriptural creed, and a spotless orthodoxy, he knows nothing of the holy spiritual actings of the life of God in the soul, and that he does but hang a lifeless, sapless, withered branch upon the Vine, ready to be removed at the Husbandman's bidding. Let him not be astonished that there is no close and fervent fellowship with the Father and his dear Son Christ Jesus- that his prayers are cold and formal, his conversation vapid and unedifying, the habitual frame of his mind earthly and sensual, and that all taste and desire for the "communion of saints," and for a spiritual searching ministry, should have become extinct in his soul; this is no marvel. The great wonder would be if it were otherwise: that if, while living in a state of distance from God, the ordinances neglected, and sin unmortified, the Father and the Son should yet draw near and manifest themselves, and so make known that secret which peculiarly belongs to those that fear him. Oh how awful is the state of such a professor! Does the eye of such an one scan this page? Let him be affectionately and earnestly entreated to abandon as worthless his notional, lifeless religion; humble himself before the Lord God; implore his forgiveness, and recover if he has lost, or seek if he never possessed, a sense of acceptance in Christ and adoption into God's family. O might we rouse you to the importance of this! What consolation and support will be derived from a formal profession in the hour of death? What will it avail after death, when comes the judgment? "I never knew you," will be the withering repulse of the Savior. Be assured, beloved reader, it is an awful event to die. To pass onward and upward to the fearful scrutiny, bearing in the hand the empty lamp, the outward garb- the name, the vesture, all, except the reality of a justified soul. To have outwardly professed Christ, what is easier? To speak respectfully him; to bow the head at the mention of his name; to have assented to his doctrines, and ably and successfully defended his institutions, nothing less difficult. It costs a man nothing to do all this. There is no cross in it; and what is a man's religion if he extract from it the cross? There is no love to Christ influencing, impelling the soul; and what value are all inferior motives? There is no singleness of eye to God's glory; and what if self only be the idol which the heart sets up, and before which it burns its daily incense? But O, to have Christ in the heart!- this, this is the truth of God experienced. Call you it enthusiasm? Blessed enthusiasm! we exult in it, we glory in it. Let the formalist, let the man of notional religion, let the mere professor call it what he may, deride it as he will; we admire the grace, and adore the love, and extol the power, which has formed "Christ within us the hope of glory." Reader, be satisfied, take nothing for granted short of this.

In proportion then to a believer's simple, filial, and close walk with God, will be his deep and spiritual discoveries of truth. "If any man will do His will," says Christ, "he shall know of the doctrine whether it be of God." The more steadily he walks in God's light, the clearer will he see the light. The nearer he lives to the Sun of Righteousness, the more entirely will he be flooded with its glory, and the more vividly will he reflect its brightness. The more simply and entirely the believing soul lives on Christ, the more enlarged, experimental, and practical will be his ideas of all truth. The central fact of the Bible is Christ crucified. From this, as their center, all the lines of truth diverge, and to this, as by a common attraction, they all again return. To know Christ then- to know him as dwelling in the heart by his own Spirit is to have traversed the great circle of spiritual truth. What is his own testimony? "He that has seen me, has seen the Father." 'I am the Father's great revelation. I have come to make Him known. To unveil His attributes, illustrate His law, to pour forth the ocean fulness of His love, and to erect one common platform on which may meet in holy fellowship, God and the sinner- the two extremes of being– learn of me, I am the way, the truth, and the life.'

Not only will a spiritual perception of the beauty and fitness of the truth be the result of a close and filial communion with God, but the assurance that God's Word is truth and not fiction, will increase. And to be thoroughly established in this, is no small attainment. To know that God's Word is true; to cherish no doubt or hesitancy; to give Him full credit for all that he has said- to repose by simple faith upon the promise, and on the faithfulness of Him that has promised, is a blessing earnestly to be sought, and when found, diligently to be kept. A holy walk then will tend much to confirm the soul in the belief of the truth.

To quote again the striking words of the Apostle, "he that believes on the Son of God, has the witness in himself." He has the inward witness to the truth. He needs no outward demonstration. He is in possession of a source of evidence to the truth of God's Word which scepticism cannot shake, because it cannot reach it. He may not be able to define the precise nature of his evidence- his reply to the unbelieving objector is, "it must be felt to be known, it must be experienced to be understood. This evidence is not the result of 'a labored process of thought.' I arrived not at it by mathematical reasoning. I was convinced by the Eternal Spirit of my sin, fled to Christ, ventured my all upon him, and now I know of a surety that God's blessed Word is truth." And not more completely was his sophistry confuted, who attempted to disprove the doctrine of motion by his opponent immediately rising and walking; than a humble, spiritual, though unlettered believer, may thus put to silence the foolishness and ignorance of men. Their sophistry he may not be able to detect, their assertions he may not be able to disprove, yet by a walk holy and close with God, he may demonstrate to the unbelieving universe that Jehovah's Word is true. There is much wisdom in the observation of Coleridge- "Evidence of Christianity! I am weary of the word! Make a man feel the need of it; rouse him to the self-knowledge of his need of it, and you may safely trust it to its own evidence."

The truth, dear reader, you are now invited to consider, is, of all truth, the most spiritual and important. It is the central fact of the gospel- its sun; its glory; yes, its very substance; for, take from it the Atonement, and what of the gospel remains? It lies at the very basis of a believing sinner's hope. Remove this, and all is gone! Seal up the fountain of Christ's precious blood, and you seal up the soul to blackness, darkness, and despair! And yet, in this all-important light, how few view it, even of the many who profess a sacred regard for God's Word! The truth of revelation is admitted, and even the necessity of the Atonement, as an essential pillar of immortal hope, is conceded, and still it is but an occasional and transient thought that is conferred upon a subject of the deepest moment and transcendent interest. O that men should treat this subject so?- that Jehovah should tabernacle in flesh, and in his humiliation pour out his precious blood as an offering for sin, and that yet we should pass it by with indifference and neglect! What language is sufficient to describe the affecting spectacle?

The Atonement in its Relation to the Godhead of Christ.

The Divine Attributes Entwining Around the Tempted and Trembling Believer

"The church of God, which he has purchased with his own blood." Acts xx. 28.

In entering upon the more immediate discussion of this glorious subject, it seems proper and appropriate that we should begin with the absolute Deity of Christ. The reader will at once perceive the propriety of this, from a consideration of the single fact, that all the value and efficacy of the atoning blood is derived solely and entirely from the dignity of the person who sheds it. If Christ is not absolutely and truly what the Word of God declares, and what he himself professes to be, the true God, then, as it regards the great purpose for which his Atonement was made, that is, the satisfaction of Divine justice, in a full and entire sacrifice for sin, it were utterly valueless. We feel the vast and solemn importance of this point. We cannot view it lightly, nor discuss it partially. And in reading disquisitions on the Atonement, otherwise able and elaborate, we have been pained to find this single point passed by, with so superficial and casual an allusion: whereas it is of the deepest importance; it is the key-stone of the arch, sustaining and holding together every part of the mighty fabric. Our examination of the claims of Christ to proper Deity cannot be too close: we cannot too rigidly scrutinize the truth of his Godhead; Jesus himself challenges investigation. When personally upon earth, carrying forward the great work of redemption, on all occasions, and by all means, he announced and proved his Deity. Thus was he wont to declare it: "I and my Father are one." "Verily, verily, I say unto you, Before Abraham was, I AM." "I came forth from the Father, and have come into the world; again, I leave the world, and go to the Father." Thus was he wont to confirm it: "I have greater witness than that of John; for the works which the Father has given me to finish, the same works that I do, bear witness of me that the Father has sent me." "If I do not the works of my Father, believe me not; but if I do, though you believe not me, believe the works: that you may know and believe that the Father is in me, and I in him." Our blessed Lord saw and felt the importance of a full belief in the doctrine of his Godhead. If the foundation of our faith were not laid deep and broad in this, he well knew that no structure, however splendid in its external form, could survive the storm that will eventually sweep away every lying refuge. And what, to the believing soul, is more animating than the full, unwavering conviction of the fact, that he who bore our sins in his own body on the tree, was God in our nature?- that he who became our surety and substitute, was Jehovah himself: "God manifest in the flesh?"- that, as God, he became incarnate, as God, he obeyed, and as God-man, he suffered the penalty? What deep views does this fact give of sin! what exalted views of sin's atonement! Pray, dear reader, that the blessed and Eternal Spirit may build you up in the belief of this truth. It is a truth on which we can live, and on no other can we die. That Satan should often suggest suspicions to the mind respecting the veracity of this doctrine we can easily imagine. That a dear saint of God should at times find his faith wavering in its attempts to grasp this wondrous fact, "the incarnate mystery" we marvel not. It is the very basis of his hope; is it surprising that Satan should strive to overturn it? It is the very sun of the Christian system; is it surprising that he should seek to veil it? Satan's great controversy is with Christ. Christ came to overthrow his kingdom and he did overthrow it. Christ came to vanquish him, and he triumphed. This signal and total defeat Satan will never forget. To regain his kingdom he cannot. To recover what he has lost he knows to be impossible. Therefore his shafts are leveled against Christ's members. And the doctrine, to them most essential and precious- the doctrine of Christ's Godhead- is the doctrine most frequently and severely assailed. Let no believer sink in despondency under this severe temptation. Let him look afresh to the cross, afresh to the atoning blood; and faith in Him, whose word stilled the angry waves of the Galilean lake, and whose look prostrated to the ground the soldiers sent to his arrest, will give him the victory.

It is our design in this chapter to bring before the reader, in a limited compass, the scripture testimony to the Deity of our adorable Immanuel, and the just inference which is derived in favor of the Divine efficacy of his atoning blood. The result of this scripture investigation will compel us to adopt one of two conclusions- Either that Christ is an impostor- his Atonement of no value, and the worship we have rendered him mistaken and idolatrous, or, that he is all that the Scriptures declare him to be, the supreme God; his death vicarious- and he himself a just object of spiritual worship. While, if the former conclusion be the one fairly deducible from the Word of God, then it will appear that they who reject Christ's Deity, are opposed to the most stupendous and transcendent display which has, or ever will be, made of the Divine wisdom and goodness, and consequently, dying in this rejection, are doomed to the fearful punishment of those who are found fighting against God.

The supreme Deity of Christ rests for its proof upon the testimony of God's Word. We bring the doctrine to no other test; nor shall we, in examining this testimony, perplex the mind of the reader with needless criticisms. It is an erroneous impression which many have imbibed, that the Scriptures cannot be understood without the constant application of philological criticism, to bring to light their deep and concealed meaning. If this were so, then is God's Word lost to more than two-thirds of the human race, who have no such key to its concealed treasures, and consequently the very purpose of revelation must be entirely frustrated. The holy men who wrote the Scripture under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, were, in general, plain and unlettered men. They were educated at the Savior's feet; and therefore a beautiful simplicity of style- a style unadorned by the arts of rhetoric, and untrammeled by the technicalities of the schools pervades all their writing. We are far from undervaluing the aid afforded in the investigation of revealed truth by the labors of able and learned biblicists- the Church owes them, and will ever owe them, a debt of gratitude. "I deny not the utility of such learning," are the sentiments of a profound scholar and eminent divine; "but I wish to establish a correct idea of the nature and extent of its utility, as seldom reaching beyond the explaining of allusions and phrases of minor importance; while the great facts and doctrines, the precepts and the promises of the gospel, are expressed in terms the most plain and the least associated with remote allusions." And when we turn our eyes towards Germany, and discover a decrease in evangelical piety, of true vital Christianity, almost in the same ratio with the advance of philological learning, we are compelled to yield our preference to the scriptural and simple method of investigating religious truth; that is, "comparing spiritual things with spiritual." Jesus Christ is the true God; if this be scripturally proved, then the inference will be indisputable, that his precious blood is of priceless value and sovereign efficacy.

It has been usual, in establishing this doctrine, to refer to the various modes by which God has manifested himself in his own sacred word, and then to trace the application of each and all these several particulars, both in nature and degree, as they are attributed to the Lord Jesus Christ. The modes of manifestation are- the names which are given to him- the attributes which are ascribed to him- the actions peculiar to himself- the relations which he sustains to created beings and the worship which he has demanded from his intelligent creatures. Let us then proceed to show how Christ stands forth invested with each and all of these several properties of Deity. We begin with the NAMES which are given to God.

The idea conveyed to the mind by the names Jehovah, Lord, God, are self-existence, omnipotence, infinite and absolute perfection; indeed, they include all the awesome attributes which belong to the Divine nature. Now then our argument is this; Jehovah is the incommunicable name of the eternal, self-existent God- if it can be shown that in the Scriptures of truth Christ is called Jehovah, Lord, God, then Christ is God.

We commence with Numbers xxi. 5-7: "The people spoke against Jehovah, and Jehovah sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people, and many people of Israel died." Now compare this passage with 1 Cor. x. 8: "Neither let us tempt Christ as some of them also tempted, and were destroyed of serpents." To what conclusion do these passages conduct us, but to the blessed one, that the Person whom the rebellious Israelites tempted, who inflicted the punishment, and who swore they should not enter into his rest, was the Eternal Son of God Jehovah Jesus?

Again, Isaiah vi. 1- 6: "In the year that king Uzziah died, I saw also Jehovah sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and his train filled the temple. Above it stood the seraphim; each one had six wings; with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. And one cried unto another, and said, Holy! Holy! Holy! is Jehovah of hosts! the whole earth is full of his glory. And the posts of the door moved at the voice of him that cried, and the whole house was filled with smoke. Then said I, Woe is me, for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips: for my eyes have seen the King, Jehovah of hosts." And in the eighth verse, "Also I heard the voice of Jehovah, saying, Whom shall I send, and who will go for us? Then said I, Here am I; send me! And he said, Go and tell this people, Hear indeed, but understand not; and see indeed, but perceive not; make the heart of this people fat, and make their ears heavy, and shut their eyes, lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and be converted, and be healed." Compare these passages with John xii. 39- 41: "Therefore they could not believe, because that Elijah said again, He has blinded their eyes and hardened their hearts, that they should not see with their eyes, nor understand with their heart, and be converted, and I should heal them. These things said Elijah, when he saw his glory and spoke of him." Whose glory was it that Elijah saw, and of whom did he speak? It was the glory of the only- begotten Son of God- and of Him he spoke. It was the Glory of Christ as the King Jehovah of hosts- the Ancient of days- He that was to come. Here, dear reader, might we pause and adore the great Jehovah for this glorious revelation of himself. Blessed Immanuel! give us, by the teaching of your Spirit, clear, close, humbling views of your exalted person. Keep our souls fast anchored on this truth, that you are God in our nature.

But let us proceed. Regard the declaration of the Evangelist- John i. 1, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." What can more clearly and conclusively prove the real Deity of our dear Lord than these words of the Holy Spirit? Not merely is it declared that the Word was God- even this would have been overwhelmingly conclusive- but the Word, as distinguished from the Father, and as so distinguished, declared to be God as absolutely as the Father himself was declared to be God. Another instance in which the term God is applied to Christ, is found in Rom. ix. 5, "Of whom as concerning the flesh Christ came, who is over all, God blessed forever, Amen." Here is a distinct declaration of the complex person of our Lord. Touching his humanity, he came from the Jews; touching his Deity, he is God over all. Can language be more explicit? 1 Tim. iii. 16, "Without controversy, great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the Spirit; seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into glory." Here Christ is declared to be the visible Jehovah. God embodied in Christ, clear, tangible to our apprehensions. Will not this single passage suffice to remove every doubt? We have yet other and equally conclusive evidence. Is Jehovah the great God? so is Christ- Tit. ii. 13, "Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Savior" ("the great God our Savior," marg.) "Jesus Christ." Is Jehovah the true God? so is Christ- 1 John v. 2O, "We know that the Son of God has come and has given us an understanding that we may know him that is true: and we are in him that is true, even in his Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God, and eternal life." Is Jehovah the mighty God? so is Christ- Isa. ix. 6, "Unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given, and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, the Mighty God, the everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace." What was the declaration of Thomas, after his doubts had vanished, and his mind received the full conviction of the truth? "My Lord and my God!" Again, 2 Peter i. 1, "Simon Peter, a servant and an apostle of Jesus Christ, to those who have obtained like precious faith with us, through the righteousness of God and our Savior" ("God our Savior," marg.) "Jesus Christ;" 2 Cor. v. 19, "God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself,"; 2 Cor. v. 2O, "We are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us: we beg you in Christ's stead, be you reconciled to God:"- in which passage the interchanging of the names God and Christ, proves that the same person is entitled to both.

Again, let us compare the Word of God with itself. Isa. viii. 13, 14, "Sanctify the Lord of Hosts himself, and let him be your fear, and let him be your dread. And he shall be for a sanctuary; but for a stone of stumbling, and for a rock of offence to both the houses of Israel." The stone of stumbling and the rock of offence, mark, is the Lord of Hosts himself. But this stone of stumbling and rock of offence, as appears from the language of Peter, is no other than Christ. 1 Peter ii. 6, "Wherefore also it is contained in the Scripture, Behold I lay in Zion a chief corner-stone, elect, precious; and he who believes in him shall not be confounded. Unto you, therefore, who believe, He is precious; but unto those who are disobedient, the stone which the builders disallowed, the same is made the head of the corner and a stone of stumbling, and a rock of offence." Who with a mind not steeled against the truth, but open to conviction, can doubt that the same Being who is called Jehovah of Hosts in the Old Testament, is the Lord Jesus Christ in the New? To the proud and unbelieving Jews he was a stone of stumbling and rock of offence; but to us who believe, he is precious.

Further, Isa. xliv. 6, "Thus says the Lord the King of Israel, and his Redeemer the Lord of Hosts, I am the first, and I am the last; and beside me there is no God." Compare with Rev. xxii. 13, "I (Jesus) am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last." These titles are confined to him alone, besides whom there is no God. Jesus has assumed these titles to himself; inference, strictly logical, is, Jesus is God. We would also direct the reader to that remarkable prophecy which was fully accomplished in Christ, recorded by Zech. xi. 12, "If you think good, give me my price; and if not, forbear. So they weighed for my price thirty pieces of silver. And the Lord said unto me, Cast it unto the potter: a goodly price that I was prised at of them. And I took the thirty pieces of silver, and cast them to the potter in the house of the Lord." Who is the speaker in this passage? Jehovah. Who was sold? Jehovah Jesus. At what price? For thirty pieces of silver. Let the reader turn for the exact fulfilment of this prophecy, to Matthew xxvii. 3- 1O, "Then Judas, who had betrayed him, when he saw that he was condemned, repented himself, and brought again the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and elders, saying, I have sinned, in that I have betrayed the innocent blood. And they said, What is that to us? see you to that. And he cast down the pieces of silver in the temple, and departed, and went and hanged himself. And the chief priests took the silver pieces, and said, It is not lawful for to put them in the treasury, because it is the price of blood. And they took counsel, and bought with them the potter's field, to bury strangers in. Wherefore that field was called the field of blood unto this day. Then was fulfilled that which was spoken by Jeremy (or Zechariah) the prophet, saying, And they took the thirty pieces of silver, the price of him that was valued, whom they of the children of Israel did value: and gave them for the potter's field, as the Lord appointed me."

The last proof we quote is Isa. xlv.23, "I have sworn by myself, the word is gone out of my mouth in righteousness, and shall not return, that unto me every knee shall bow, every tongue shall swear." Compare this prophecy with Rom. xiv. 11; The Apostle argues that all creation should do honor to Christ, "For it is written, As I live, says the Lord, every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall confess to God." What is the solemn inference? that the God who predicates that all men shall give account to him and stand before him, is the same referred to in the tenth verse- "We shall all stand before the judgment-seat of Christ." Thus have we shown, from the simple testimony of Scripture, that Christ is, without qualification or diminution, Jehovah, Lord, God. We now proceed to show that the Lord Jesus, our adorable Immanuel, is represented in God's Word as invested with all the ATTRIBUTES which belong to Jehovah.

Let us commence with his ETERNAL EXISTENCE. If it can be proved from the sacred Scriptures that this belongs to Christ, it must follow that he is God; for of no other being can it be said that he is eternal, but Jehovah. Examine then Coloss. i. 17, 18: "And he is before all things, and by him all things consist. And he is the head of the body, the church: who is the beginning, the first-born from the dead; that in all things he might have the pre-eminence." In this striking and beautiful passage, Jesus is declared to be before all created things. Could this be true, if he himself were a created being? Christ is either created or he is uncreated. He is a creature or the Creator. There is no intermediate scale of being. We repeat it, he must be one of two, the creature or the Creator. If a mere creature- and the Socinian allows him to be no more- then it were absurdity to suppose him creating all things, for he must have been created before he could create; then he could not have been before all created things. If, too, he were a mere creature- and still let it be remembered the Socinian and Arian deny that he is more- how could he uphold all things? For he would need an upholding power for himself. No mere creature ever has or ever can sustain itself. The angels could not, for they fell. Adam could not, for he fell. And Christ could not have sustained himself in the solemn hour of Atonement when standing beneath the mighty load of his people's sins, had he not been more than creature- the uncreated Jehovah. His humanity did indeed tremble and shudder and shrink back- but, upborne by his Godhead- secretly, invisibly, yet effectually sustained by his Deity, he achieved a complete triumph, made an end of sin, and brought in a new and everlasting righteousness. If, too, he were a creature only, how could he give spiritual life to the dead, and how could he sustain that life when given? All spiritual life is from Christ, and all spiritual life is sustained by Christ- "Christ who is our life,"- the life of the soul- the life of pardon, the life of justification, the life of sanctification, the life of all the Christian graces; the life of all that now is, and the life of all that is to come. Glorious truth this, to the saint of God!

Compare Rev. i. 8: "I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, says the Lord, who is, and who was, and who is to come, the Almighty." Isa. xliv. 6: "Thus says the Lord the King of Israel, and his Redeemer the Lord of Hosts, I am the first and I am the last; and beside me there is no God." We refrain from commenting on these passages, so self-evident is the truth. Turn to our blessed Lord's conference with the Jews, in which he asserts his eternal existence; John viii. 58: "Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Before Abraham was, I am." Does not Jehovah apply these very terms to himself? Exod. iii. 14: "And God said unto Moses, I Am That I Am." How then are we to understand these words? Not by the Socinian's gloss, but by the conduct of the Jews: "Then took they up stones to cast at him." They considered Christ guilty of blasphemy in applying to himself the incommunicable name and attributes of Jehovah. They perfectly understood him to mean that he was God. Had he not been truly Divine, would he have left them under so fearful a delusion? And would he have jeopardized his life, when by a single retraction he could have allayed their rage, and averted the danger that threatened him?

What a consoling view do we derive of Christ, from this revealed attribute of his nature! Is he eternal?- then his love to his people is eternal; his love to them being co-existent with his very being. It is not the love of yesterday or of today- it is the love of eternity: its spring-head is his own external existence. Is he eternal? Then must he be unchangeable too: his precious love, set upon them from all eternity, can never be removed: having given them himself, himself he will never take away. Blessed thought! he may blight earthly hopes; he may break up earthly cisterns; he may wither earthly gourds; he may send billow upon billow, breach upon breach, but never, never will he take himself from the people of his love. Dear reader, you may be conscious of many and great departures; this single view of your Father's unchangeableness may recall to your recollection backslidings many and aggravated; forgetfulness, ingratitude, unkindnesses without number; murmurings, rebellion, and unbelief. Still does God, your God, say to you, 'Though you have dealt so with me, though you have forgotten me, though your name is rebellious, yet do I love you still. Return unto me, and I will return unto you.' What a soul-humbling, heart-melting thought is this! Does your Father love your sins? No- does he look complacently on your wanderings? No! He hates your sins, and he will follow your wanderings with his chastising rod; but he loves your person, beholding you in the Beloved, fully and freely accepted in the glorious righteousness of Jesus, who is the same "yesterday, today, and forever." If this truth, dear reader, be broken up to your soul by the blessed and Eternal Spirit, the effect will be most holy and abasing. The legitimate tendency of all spiritual truth is sanctifying. Hence our blessed Lord prayed that the truth might be the medium through which his people should be sanctified. "Sanctify them through your truth. "John xvii. 17. "And for their sakes I sanctify myself that they also might be sanctified through the truth. " Ver. 19. And hence the apostle reasons, "Christ also loved the church and gave himself for it: that he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water, by the word." Eph. v. 26. That God's truth has been, and is abused by wicked and ungodly men, is no argument against the truth. They abuse it to their own condemnation; they turn it from its right and legitimate use to their own loss. Still, the truth stands firm in its peerless dignity and holy tendency: and when unfolded to the understanding, and laid upon the heart by the Holy Spirit, Christ's prayer is answered, in the progressive sanctification of the soul.

OMNIPRESENCE is an attribute of Deity ascribed to Christ. We would refer the reader to two portions of Scripture for proof; they both run in parallel lines with each other. In Matt. xviii. 2O, we have this encouraging declaration from Christ: "Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them." Compare this with Exod. xx. 24: "In all places where I record my name, I will come unto you and will bless you." Thus the reader will perceive that the identical promise which God gave to his ancient church, when he established her in the wilderness, when he gave to her the law, built for her the tabernacle, and instituted for her a sacrifice, the Lord Jesus makes of himself. Consoling thought! Jesus is with his saints at all times, in all places, and under all circumstances. He is "God with us." He is with them to comfort them in the hour of sorrow, to enlighten them in the hour of darkness, to guide them in the hour of doubt and perplexity, to deliver them in the time of conflict, to support them in the hour of death. O for faith to realize this! He was with his three faithful servants in the fiery furnace; he was with Daniel in the lions' den; he was with Jacob in his wrestlings at Bethel; he was with John in his exile at Patmos. Jesus is, at all times, in all places, and under all circumstances, with his dear people. Reader, are you a child of sorrow?- perhaps you are a son or a daughter of affliction: you may now be passing through the furnace; you may now be draining adversity's bitter cup: the rod of the covenant may be heavy upon you: friends unkind, the world empty, every thing earthly changing, faith weak, corruptions strong, and, what embitters the cup, and deepens the shade, your Father hiding from you his dear reconciled face. Is it so? Still is your omnipresent Jesus with you. Do not be cast down; this furnace is but to consume the tin and burnish the gold, this draught is but to work your inward good: these painful dispensations, by which you are learning the changeableness of every thing earthly, are but to wean you from a poor, unsatisfying world, and to draw you near and yet nearer to Jesus. Then be of good cheer, for he has promised never to leave or forsake you. So that you may boldly say, "The Lord is my helper."

Regard the attribute of OMNISCIENCE as belonging essentially to Christ. John ii. 24, 25: "But Jesus did not commit himself unto them, because he knew all men, and needed not that any should testify of man; for he knew what was in man." We beseech the reader to regard attentively 1st book of Kings viii. 39, where the same attribute, in almost the same expressions, is ascribed to Jehovah: "For you, even you only, know the hearts of all the children of men." Whose prerogative is it to search the heart? who can fathom this fathomless sea of iniquity? who can follow it in all its serpentine windings? who can detect its deep subtlety?- who? "I, the Lord, search the heart; I try the reins." A mere creature- such as the denier of Christ's proper Deity would make him- cannot know the heart. It is a perfection peculiar to God, and must in its own nature be incommunicable; for were it communicable to a creature, it could not be peculiar to God himself. Were it possible, we say, that God should delegate the power and prerogative of searching the heart, and trying the reins of the children of men to a mere created being, then it could with no propriety be said of him, that he only searches the heart. And yet to Jesus does this attribute belong. In the prophecy of Jeremiah xviii. 1O, the Lord says, "I, Jehovah, search the heart and try the reins, to give every man according to his ways." In Rev. ii. 23, Christ says, and he would have it proclaimed through the churches as the true doctrine of the Gospel- "And all the churches shall know that I am he who searches the reins and hearts, and I will give unto every one of you according, to your works." Is not then the evidence of his Deity most conclusive? Who can resist it? From this attribute of Christ what blessedness flows to the believing soul! It is at all times a consolation to him to remember that Jesus knows and searches the heart. His iniquity he sees and subdues; for the promise is, "He will subdue our iniquities." Micah vii. 19. He detects some lurking evil, some latent corruption, and before it develops itself in the outward departure, the overt act, he checks and conquers it. 'Cheering thought,' may the believer say, 'that all my inbred evil, the hidden corruption of my heart, is known to my Savior God. Lord, I would not hide it from you, I would not veil from your eye a single corruption- I would not conceal a thought; but would cry, "Search me, O God, and know my heart; try me, and know my thoughts; and see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting."' Ps. cxxxix. 23, 24. He sees, too, his own gracious work in the soul. The little spiritual life that he has breathed there- the little grace that he has implanted there- the little spark of love that he has kindled there- the faint and feeble longings after him- the inward strugglings with sin- the hungering and thirsting for holiness- the panting for divine conformity- all is known to Jesus. The Lord Jesus knows and recognizes his own work: the counterfeit he soon detects. The outward garb and the unhumbled spirit- the external profession and the unbroken heart, escape not his piercing glance. Man may be deceived- the Lord Jesus never. We may not be able to discern between the righteous and the wicked- between nature and grace between the outward profession and the inward reality; but Jesus knows what is genuine and what is base, what is the work of his own blessed Spirit, and what is the mere effect of an enlightened judgment, and an alarmed conscience. Dear reader, this is his own solemn declaration of himself- "I, the Lord, search the heart." Can you open all your heart to him? Can you admit him within its most secret places? Are you willing to have no concealments? Are you willing that he should search and prove it? O be honest with God!- keep nothing back- tell him all that you detect within you. He loves the full, honest disclosure: he delights in this confiding surrender of the whole heart. Are you honest in your desires that he might sanctify your heart, and subdue all its iniquity?- then confess all to him- tell him all. You would not conceal from your physician a single symptom of your disease, you would not hide any part of the wound; but you would, if anxious for a complete cure, disclose to him all. Be as honest with the Great Physician- the Physician of your soul. It is true he knows your case- it is true he anticipates every need; yet he will have, and delights in having, his child approach him with a full and honest disclosure. Let David's example encourage you: "I acknowledged my sin unto you, and my iniquity have I not hid. I said, I will confess my transgressions unto the Lord; and you forgave the iniquity of my sin." Psalm xxxii. 5. And while the heart is thus pouring itself out in a full and minute confession, let the eye of faith be fixed on Christ. It is only in this posture that the soul shall be kept from despondency. Faith must rest itself upon the atoning blood. And O, in this posture, fully and freely, beloved reader, may you pour out your heart to God! Disclosures you dare not make to your tenderest friend, you may make to him: sins you would not confess, corruption you would not acknowledge as existing within you, you are privileged, thus "looking unto Jesus," to pour into the ear of your Father and God. And O, how the heart will become unburdened, and the conscience purified, and peace and joy flow into the soul by this opening of the heart to God! Try it, dear reader: let no consciousness of guilt keep you back; let no unbelieving suggestion of Satan, that such confessions are inappropriate for the ear of God, restrain you. Come at once- come now- rush to your Father's feet, and bringing in your hands the precious blood of Christ, make a full and free disclosure. Thus from the attribute of Christ's Omniscience, may a humble believer extract much consolation; at all times permitted to appeal to it, and say with Peter, "Lord, you know all things: you know that I love you."

OMNIPOTENCE is declared to belong to Jesus. Compare Psalm. xlv. 3: "Gird your sword upon your thigh, O most mighty." Rev. i. 8: "I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, says the Lord, which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty." Compare ver. 6, 7, of the same Psalm: "Your throne, O God, is forever and ever: the scepter of your kingdom is a right scepter. You love righteousness and hate wickedness: therefore God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness above your fellows." Heb. i. 8, 9, where the same words are quoted and applied to Christ. And let us glance at the authoritative manner with which he executes his mighty acts of grace. Mark his deportment. Was there anything that betrayed the consciousness of an inferior, the submission of a dependant, the weakness of a mortal, or the imperfection of a sinner?- did not the God shine through the man with majestic awe, when to the leper he said, "I will; be clean:"- to the man with the withered hand, "Stretch forth your hand:"- to the 'blind, "Receive your sight:"- to the dead, "I say unto you, Arise:"- and to the tumultuous waves, "Peace, be still?" Dear reader, are you an experimental believer in Jesus? then this Omnipotent Christ is wedded to your best interests. He is Omnipotent to save- Omnipotent to protect- Omnipotent to deliver- Omnipotent to subdue all your iniquities, to make you humble, holy, and obedient. All power resides in Him. "It pleased the Father that in Him"- in Him as the Mediator of his church- "all fulness should dwell." Not a corruption, but he is omnipotent to subdue it; not a temptation, but he is omnipotent to overcome it; not a foe, but he is omnipotent to conquer it; not a fear, but he is omnipotent to quell it. "All power," is his own consoling language, "all power is given unto me in heaven and in earth." Could any mere creature assert this of himself? Never, without the deepest blasphemy. "Cry out and shout, O inhabitant of Zion, for great is the Holy One of Israel in the midst of you."

From this view of the Divine attributes, let us pass to a consideration of THE DIVINE WORKS attributed to Christ, and such as no mere creature could perform.

The work of CREATION belongs to him. Col. i. 16,17: "By him were all things created that are in heaven and that are in earth, visible and invisible; whether they be thrones or dominions, or principalities or powers, all things were created by him and for him. And he is before all things, and by him all things consist." If then he is the Creator, he must be God. The glory of creation is given to him by the redeemed in heaven- "They cast their crowns before the throne, saying, You are worthy, O Lord, to receive glory, and honor, and power, for you have created all things, and for your pleasure they are and were created." Rev. iv. 2. What a thought is this- that the great Creator of all things once trod, in human form, the world of his own creating!- for "He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not." John i. 1O. And so is he the author of the new spiritual creation. He spoke, and there was life, light, and order in the soul, where before there was death, darkness, and derangement. Let us give him the glory of both creations, the natural and the spiritual.

PROVIDENCE is another Divine work as truly belonging to Christ. Thus he says, Matt. xxviii. 18, "All power is given to me in heaven and in earth." "He is Lord of all." Acts x. 36. "Lord both of the dead and the living." Rom. xiv. 9. "Christ is above all principality and power, might and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to come." Eph. i. 2O- 22. "Upholding all things by the word of his power." Heb. i. 2. "By him (Christ) all things are held together." Col. i. 17. "The prince of the kings of the earth." Rev. i. 5. Thus is it clear that Jesus is the God of providence. The government of all worlds and of all creatures, according to the prediction of prophecy, is upon his shoulders. Is not this thought full of rich comfort and consolation to the experienced believer? Jesus is the God of providence. All your steps, dear reader, if you are his, are ordered and directed by him- by him who is God in your nature by him who loved you unto the death- by him who is your Elder Brother, your Prophet, Priest, and King. O how tranquillizing to the soul in the hour of its deepest sorrow and bereavement, to know that it is sheltered in the hollow of those very hands which were once pierced for us! that Christ has blended with his mediatorial character his providential government! that the Redeemer who died to save, is the God who lives to sway the scepter! It has been well remarked, that Providence was intended to be the handmaid to Grace, but that Grace only can unfold the steps of Providence. It is only the experimental believer who can clearly discern the movements of an invisible hand in all the affairs and incidents of life. He has learned to acknowledge the Lord in all his ways, and to commit to his disposal all his steps. And he who thus guides and governs is the Mediator- the Christ who obeyed, suffered, and died in our behalf. O consoling thought! Christian reader, ponder this! What are your present circumstances? Are you persecuted for Jesus' sake?- Listen to his own cheering words, "Marvel not if the world hates you, for you know that it hated me before it hated you." "In the world you shall have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world." Are you in circumstances of need? What does he say? "Do not be anxious for your life, what you shall eat, or what you shall drink; nor yet for your body, what you shall put on. Is not the life more than food, and the body than clothing? Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much better than they?" "But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you." Are you perplexed to know the path of duty? longing to know the way the Lord would have you walk? This is his promise- "Call upon me in the day of trouble, and I will deliver you." "Commit your way unto the Lord; trust also in him, and he shall bring it to pass." "The steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord, and he delights in his way." Are you sore pressed by temptation? See how the Holy Spirit would lead you to the sympathy and tenderness of Jesus- "He took not on him the nature of angels, but he took on him the seed of Abraham. Wherefore in all things it behooved him to be made like unto his brethren, that he might be a merciful and faithful High Priest in things pertaining to God, to make reconciliation for the sins of the people. For in that he himself has suffered, being tempted, he is able to support those who are tempted." "For we have not a High Priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities, but was in all points tempted like we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need." Are you oppressed by present or anticipated trials? Hearken again to his dear voice- "Let not your hearts be troubled, you believe in God, believe also in me." John xiv. 1. Whatever may be the dark and gloomy aspect of things around you, yet Jesus does all things well- and all things, however adverse, and apparently severe, yet all things are working for your present and ultimate good.

The last Divine work belonging to Christ to which we allude, is that of JUDGING the world. This, the most skeptical will acknowledge, peculiarly belongs to God. In Eccles. xii. 14, we read, "God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good or whether it be evil." Now it is most clear, that Christ shall be the Judge. For so we read- "We must all stand before the judgment- seat of Christ." "He shall judge the quick and the dead at his appearing." "The Father judges no man, but has committed all judgment to the Son." John v. 22. Could this office be filled, and this power exercised, by a mere creature? Are not Omnipotence, Omniscience, and Omnipresence indispensably necessary to qualify the judge of all, for the high office? We have shown that Christ is fully invested with all these qualifications- that he is fully qualified to sit in judgment at his second coming, upon the beings whom he created. The Redeemer of men then will be the Judge of men. He who once appeared in the mild and gentle character of a Savior, will then appear in the glorious form of a judge. Men will not then question his Godhead- men will not then dispute his Deity- but "to Him every knee shall bow, and every tongue confess that he is Lord, to the glory of God the Father." To the believer in Jesus, what a transporting thought is this- that his Savior shall be his Judge; that in the face of him who shall sit upon the great white throne- before him gathered for judgment all nations, he will recognize a Friend- a Brother- a Redeemer- an Advocate. Dear reader, have you an Advocate with the Father? What is your foundation in view of that solemn day? A professor of Christ you may be; but is his blood and righteousness at the root of that profession? Are you building, as a poor, empty, condemned sinner- disclaiming all merit, all self- righteousness, all works- upon a crucified Savior? What know you of the broken heart- of the contrite spirit? What know you of the precious blood of Christ? O examine yourself, be affectionately entreated; for in the day when Christ shall judge the world in righteousness all mere outward profession, all notional religion, will wither away, and if you are found destitute of a better righteousness than your own, even the finished righteousness of Christ, how appalling will be the consequences!

We have now arrived at the last source of argument in proof of our Lord's absolute Deity, and that is, the DIVINE WORSHIP which belongs to him. We feel this to be strong ground. It will be acknowledged that one end of revelation was to expel from the world polytheism and idolatry, by teaching that God, and God only, was to receive the adoration and worship of men. Now if it can be shown by a reference to the simple declaration of God's Word, that the Lord Jesus received and encouraged the adoration and worship due only to proper Deity, then most triumphantly shall we have established this glorious doctrine of the gospel, that Christ is God. The reader will bear in mind that solemn command of Jehovah, recorded in Exod. xx. 3: "You shall have no other gods before me." Let him then turn to Heb. i. 6: "And again, when he brings in the first- begotten into the world, he says, And let all the angels of God worship him." What can be more conclusive? Here, in ushering into the world his only begotten Son, the Father claims for him the adoration and worship belonging exclusively to Deity. Would he have so contradicted himself; trampled upon his own law, had not Christ been co-equal with himself? Never! Yet further: if Christ had been a mere man, why did he not check those people who, when he was on earth, presented to him divine homage? We find that Paul and Barnabas refused the worship that was offered them as divine. When Cornelius would have worshiped Peter, he said, "Stand up, for I myself also am a man." And when John, in the Apocalypse, mistook a celestial messenger for a divine being, and would have worshiped him, the angel immediately abjured the homage and said, "See you do it not: for I am of your fellow servants the apostles .... worship God." And yet Jesus refused not, but rather encouraged divine homage when he tabernacled in the flesh. "Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord," was the exclamation of Peter, when he caught a sudden glimpse of the Godhead of Jesus, reminding us of an equivalent expression of the prophet Isaiah, "Then said I, Woe is me, for I am undone, for mine eyes have seen the Lord of hosts." Isa. vi. 5. And what was the last act of the disciples, as they saw the sacred form of their Lord ascending and lessening from their view? It was a solemn act of worship; we read that "they worshiped him, and returned to Jerusalem with great joy." Luke xxiv. 52.

Having followed us through this mass of scriptural evidence in favor of Christ's proper Deity, the reader will now be prepared to pass to the INFERENCE which is fairly deducible from the doctrine, that is, THAT THE ATONEMENT OF CHRIST IS OF INFINITE VALUE AND EFFICACY. Let the remark already made be borne in mind, that if Christ were a mere creature, if he claimed no higher dignity than Gabriel, or one of the prophets or apostles, then his atonement, as it regards the satisfaction of Divine justice, the honoring of the law, the pardon of sin, the peace of the conscience, and the salvation of the soul, would possess no intrinsic efficacy whatever. It would be but the atonement of a finite being, a being possessing no superior merit to those in whose behalf the atonement was made. We state it then broadly and unequivocally, that the entire glory, dignity, value, and efficacy of Christ's precious blood which he shed for sin, rests entirely upon the Deity of his person. If the Deity of Christ sinks, the atonement of Christ sinks with it; if the one stands, so stands the other. How strong are the words of Paul, addressed to the Ephesian elders!- "Take heed therefore unto yourselves, and to all the flock over which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to feed the church of God which he has purchased with his own blood." Acts xx. 28. How conclusive to the question before us is this testimony! The blood that purchased the church was Divine. It was indeed the blood of Christ's humanity- for his human nature alone could suffer, bleed, and die- yet deriving all its glory, value, and efficacy from the union of the human with the Divine nature. It was the blood of the God-man, Jehovah Jesus; no inferior blood could have sufficed. The law which Adam, our federal head, broke, before it could release the sinner from its penalty, demanded a sacrifice infinitely holy, and infinity great: one equal with the Father- the dignity of whose person would impart infinite merit to his work, and the infinite merit of whose work would fully sustain its honor and its purity. All this was found in the person of Christ. In his complex person he was eminently fitted for the mighty work. As God, he obeyed the precepts and maintained the honor of the law; as man, he bore its curse and endured its penalty. It was the blending as into one, these two natures; the bringing together these extremes of being, the finite and the infinite, which shed such resplendent luster on his atonement, which stamped such worth and efficacy on his blood. No subject discussed in these pages claims such vast importance as this. I beseech the reader, treat it not lightly; deem it not a useless speculation; it is of the deepest moment. If the blood of Christ possess not infinite merit, infinite worth, it could never be efficacious in washing away the guilt of sin, or in removing the dread of condemnation. When you come to die, this, of all truths, if you are an experimental believer, will be the most precious and sustaining. In that solemn hour, when the curtain that conceals the future parts, and eternity lets down upon the view the full blaze of its awful realities, in that hour, when all false dependences will crumble beneath you, and sin's long catalogue passes in review before you- O then to know that the Savior on whom you depend is God in your nature- that the blood in which you have washed has in it all the efficacy and value of Deity, this, this will be the alone plank that will buoy up the soul in that awful moment, and at that fearful crisis. The author lately saw one die; and his testimony to the sustaining power of Christ's Deity in that moment was given in these words- "If Christ was not my Creator, what could I do now?" O precious truth this, for a poor believing soul to rest upon! We wonder not that "he, who has Jesus, is safe even amid the perils of the sea." We wonder not that, fast anchored on this truth, amid circumstances the most appalling, death in view, wearing its most terrific aspect, the believer in Jesus can survey the scene with composure, and quietly yield his spirit into the hands of Him who redeemed it.

The Speciality of the Design of the Atonement.

The Entire Pardon and Justification of the Believing Sinner.

"In that day there shall be a fountain opened to the house of David and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, for sin and uncleanness." Zechariah 13:1.

We have already, in the opening chapter of this work, remarked upon the incompetency of natural reason to understand spiritual truth: neither the nature, the harmony, or the end of Divine truth can it discern. This incapacity may be traced, not to a deficiency of mental endowment, or to the extreme abstruseness of revelation, for the weakest intellect, enlightened and sanctified by the Spirit of God, may grasp the profoundest doctrine in the great system of theology, so far as the revelation of that doctrine extends- but to the lack of a spiritually-renewed mind. This is the cause and this only. There is the mind, and there is the truth; the one vigorous, the other lucid; and yet there is no sympathy the one with the other. How, on other grounds, can it be accounted for? There is no spiritual taste for the investigation of God's holy Word. The moral tone of the mind harmonizes not with its holy and lofty themes. The one is on the side of holiness, the other on the side of sin. The one asserts the authority and spirituality of the law, the other assumes the attitude of hostility to that law. Where then is the affinity? where the sympathy? On other subjects it may be at home; here, it is tossed upon an open sea. In the investigation of other themes, it may prove itself a giant in power; here, it betrays the feebleness of a dwarf. It follows then, as a self-evident truth, that the mind must be changed, and changed by God himself, before Divine truth will either be understood or received. Hence we find the Apostle, in behalf of the Ephesian Christian thus praying: "That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him, the eyes of your understanding being enlightened." Eph. i. 17, 18.

Of all the doctrines of the Gospel, thus dark and inexplicable to an unrenewed mind, is the doctrine of Christ's Atonement in its especial and gracious design. This can only be understood by a mind awakened to the nature and turpitude of their personal sin. As the expiation of sin was the great design of Christ's wondrous death, so no individual, thus ignorant of sin, however vast his mental powers, and however firm his belief in the truth of Divine revelation, can discover and welcome this truth. We speak not, and need we again assure the reader, of mere theoretical views of truth. O no! We speak of a higher grade of knowledge than this. There is as wide a difference as possibly can be, between a reception of the truth in the judgment, and the reception of the truth in the heart. Let no man be deceived. To deceive others is awful- but to deceive one-self; more awful yet! It is to this natural darkness, this ignorance of sin, this lack of the Spirit's teaching, that we are to attribute all the false and erroneous views that men have advanced touching the nature and design of Christ's death. It is our solemn belief, that all error in theology, especially that which undermines the Atonement, has its rise in the setting aside the law of God. Let the law be fully recognized in its Divine authority, its inflexible dignity, and its spotless purity; let its condemnatory sentence be felt in the soul; let all hope of justification by its obedience be swept away, and let the sinner stand forth in the full blaze of its terrors; and then will be seen the absolute necessity of an Atonement, and precisely such an Atonement as the adorable Redeemer offered upon the cross. No individual then, taught by the Spirit, who is emphatically designated "The Spirit of Truth,"- made to see the exceeding sinfulness of sin as against a holy God- emptied of all self-sufficiency- the eye open to the inward plague, and laid prostrate in the dust as a poor, broken-hearted sinner- no individual thus taught, would ever affirm that Jesus died with any other design than that for which he did die, that is, to offer to Divine Justice a full and infinite satisfaction for sin.

This brings us to the immediate discussion of the subject. May we feel, that the ground on which we now stand, is holy. If there be a subject, the consideration of which we should approach with caution, humility, and prayer, it is this. May our hearts be lifted up to God for the teachings of his Spirit, whose blessed office, in the economy of grace, it is to glorify Christ, "taking of the things that belong to him, and showing them to the soul." John xvi. 14. O for his holy anointing, while we treat of this stupendous subject- Christ presenting himself a sacrifice for sin! For the purpose of presenting the subject clearly before the mind of the reader, we shall first adduce those prominent portions of God's Word, which declare the end and design of Christ's death to be an Atonement for sin; it will then be appropriate to show that the Atonement of Christ is a full and entire blotting out of the sins of his people; this will prepare us to glance at the great covenant blessings which an experimental belief of this truth conveys into the soul.

The Word of God, the only rule of faith and duty, distinctly and invariably represents the death of Jesus as a sacrifice, and the especial and gracious design of that sacrifice, an Atonement for sin. If this is denied, how are we to interpret the following remarkable passages? "He was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed." Isa. liii. 5. "The Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all." Ver. 6. "This is my blood of the New Testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins." Matt. xxvi. 28. "When we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly." Rom. v. 6. "He has made him to be sin (or a sin offering) for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him." 2 Cor. v. 21. "In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace." Eph. i. 7. "Forasmuch as you know that you were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold, from your vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers; but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot." 1 Pet. i. 18, 19. "For if the blood of bulls and of goats, and the ashes of an heifer sprinkling the unclean, sanctifies to the purifying of the flesh: how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the Eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?" Heb. ix. 13, 14. "Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins." 1 John iv. 1O.

How perfectly unintelligible these declarations of God's Word, if we regard them not as so many affirmations of the great doctrine in question! Let not the reader turn away from God's Word. If he be a disbeliever in the doctrine of Christ's vicarious sufferings, let him be cautious how he tampers with these solemn declarations. They affirm the doctrine of the Atonement, or nothing at all. They possess no meaning if interpreted in any other light. Recur again to the amazing expressions- "Wounded for our transgressions." "Bruised for our iniquities." On him the "iniquity of us all." "Blood shed for the remission of sins" "Died for the ungodly." "Made sin." "Through his blood the forgiveness of sins." "Propitiation for our sins." What see we here, but the Atoning blood- the full satisfaction- the bearing of sin- the surety, the substitute?

And how shall we account for the sufferings of Christ, which were intense, and mysterious, if not on the ground of their vicarious character? Those sufferings were intense in the extreme. There was a severity in those who, if not required by Divine justice, would be perfectly unaccountable. Heaven, Earth, and Hell, all were in league against him. Survey his eventful history mark every step which he took from Bethlehem to Calvary; and what do we learn of his sufferings, but that they were of the most extraordinary and intense character? His enemies, like dogs of war, were let loose upon him. His professed followers themselves stood aghast at the scenes through which their Lord was passing- one betraying him, another denying him, and all, in the hour of his extremity, forsaking him. Is it any wonder that, in the anguish of his soul, his suffering humanity should exclaim, "Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; yet not my will, but yours be done." In that awful moment, all the waves and billows of God's wrath, due to the sins of his people, were passing over him. The Father, the last resource of sympathy, veiled his face, and withdrew from him his sensible presence, and on the cross, draining the cup of sorrow, he fulfilled the prophecy which spoke of him- "I have trodden the wine-press alone; and of the people there were none with me." Isa. lxiii. 3.

His sufferings, too, were mysterious. Why a holy, harmless Being, whose whole life had been one act of unparalleled beneficence, should be doomed to persecution so severe, to sufferings so acute, and to a death so painful and ignominious, the denier of the atonement must be embarrassed to account. But the doctrine of a vicarious sacrifice explains it all, and presents the only key to the mystery. "He was made sin for us, who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him." 2 Cor. v. 21. "Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us." Gal. iii. 13. All the mystery now is gone. He was "made sin for us." He was "made a curse for us." He bore the sin, and consequently the penalty of sin. Had we been left, Christian reader, to bear our sins, we must inevitably have borne alone the punishment of our sins. But Jesus took upon him our sins. For this, he became a party in the covenant of redemption; for this, he assumed our nature; for this, he sorrowed in Gethsemane; for this, the law of God exacted its utmost claim; and for this, the justice of God inflicted the utmost penalty. O what a truth is this! The Son of God offering himself up a sacrifice for sin! He who knew no sin; who was holy, harmless, and undefiled; not one thought of evil in his heart, yet made sin, or a sin-offering!

O the bigness of the thought! If God had not himself declared it, we could not have believed it, though an angel's trumpet had announced it. God himself must proclaim it; and because he has so proclaimed it, we believe it. And God alone can write it upon the heart. 'O blessed and adorable Immanuel! and was this the end and design of your intense and mysterious sufferings? Was it that you should obey, bear the sin, endure the curse, and bow your head in death, that I might go free? Was it in my stead, and in my behalf? O unexampled love! O infinite and free grace! That God should become incarnate: that the Holy One should so take upon Him sin, as to be dealt with by stern justice as though He were Himself the sinner: that He should drain the cup of wrath, give his back to the smiter, endure the shame and the spitting, and at last be suspended upon the cross, and pour out his last drop of most precious blood- and all this for me- for me a rebel- for me a worm for me the chief of sinners! Be astonished, O heavens! and be amazed, O earth! Was ever love like this?'

It will now be appropriate to show from God's Word, that the Atonement of the blessed Redeemer was a full and entire blotting out of the sins of the believer. Need we say anything upon the vast importance of this truth? Need we say how closely it stands connected with the peace, the sanctification, and the eternal glory, of the sinner that hangs on Christ? Let not the reader be satisfied to rest upon the mere surface of the truth, that Christ has made an Atonement for sin; this may be believed, and yet the full blessedness, peace, and sanctification of it not enjoyed. And why? Because he enters not fully into the experience of the truth. Shall we not say, too, because his views of sin rest but on the surface of sin's exceeding sinfulness? Deep views of sin will ever result in deep views of the Sacrifice for sin. Inadequate knowledge of sin result in inadequate knowledge of Christ. Low views of self result in high views of Christ. Be satisfied then not to rest upon the surface of this wondrous truth. May God the Eternal Spirit now lead us into it!

Before we consider the completeness of Christ's Atonement, it may be proper to glance at the BASIS OR CAUSE of that completeness. This arises from the infinite dignity of his Person: his Godhead forms the basis of his perfect work. It guarantees, so to speak, the glorious result of his Atonement. It was this that gave perfection to his obedience, and virtue to his Atonement: it was this that made the blood He shed efficacious in the pardon of sin, and the righteousness He wrought out complete in the justification of the soul. His entire work would have been lacking, but for his Godhead. No created Savior- that dream of the Socinian- could have given full satisfaction to an infinite law, broken by man, and calling aloud for vengeance. How could such a sacrifice, as we would suppose a created Savior to offer, have "magnified the law, and made it honorable?" utterly impossible! A finite being had broken it- an infinite Being must repair it. An obedience was required, in every respect equal in glory and dignity to the law that was violated. The rights of the Divine government must be maintained, the purity of the Divine nature must be guarded, and the honor of the Divine law must be vindicated. To accomplish this, God himself must become flesh, and to carry this fully out, the incarnate God must die! O depth of wisdom and of grace! O love infinite, love rich, love free! Love...
"Not to be thought on, but with tides of joy,
Not to be mentioned, but with shouts of praise."

Stamped, as the work of Christ is, with the infinite glory and dignity of his Godhead, it will now be an easy and a delightful task to trace its perfection, as it is seen first, in the entire blotting out of all sin, and second, in the complete justification of the person.

The pardon of a believer's sins is AN ENTIRE PARDON. It is the full pardon of all his sins. It were no pardon to him if it were not an entire pardon. If it were but a partial blotting out of the thick cloud- if it were but a partial cancelling of the debt- if it were but a forgiveness of some sins only- then the Gospel were not be glad tidings to his soul. The law of God has brought him in guilty of an entire violation. The justice of God demands a satisfaction equal to the enormity of the sins committed, and of the guilt incurred. The Holy Spirit has convinced him of his utter helplessness, his entire bankruptcy. What rapture would kindle in his bosom at the announcement of a mere partial atonement of a half Savior- of a partial payment of the debt? Not one throb of joyous sensation would it produce. On the contrary, this very mockery of his woe would but deepen the anguish of his spirit.

But, go to the soul, weary and heavy laden with sin- mourning over its vileness, its helplessness, and proclaim the Gospel. Tell him that the Atonement which Jesus offered on Calvary was a full satisfaction for his sins. That all his sins were borne and blotted out in that awful moment. That the bond which Divine justice held against the sinner was fully cancelled by the obedience and sufferings of Christ, and that, appeased and satisfied, God was "ready to pardon." How beautiful will be the feet that convey to him tidings so transporting as this! And are not these statements perfectly accordant with the declarations of God's own Word? Let us ascertain. What was the ark symbolical of, alluded to by the Apostle, in the ninth chapter of his Epistle to the Hebrews, which contained the manna, Aaron's rod, and the tables of the covenant, over which stood the cherubim of glory shadowing the mercy-seat? What, but the entire covering of sin? For, as the covering of the ark did hide the law and testimony, so did the Lord Jesus Christ hide the sins of his chosen, covenant people; not from the eye of God's omniscience, but from the eye of the law. They stand legally acquitted. So entire was the work of Jesus, so infinite and satisfactory his obedience, the law of God pronounces them acquitted- and can never bring them into condemnation. "There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit." "Who is he that condemns? It is Christ that died." How could the Apostle, with any truth, have made a declaration so astounding, and uttered a challenge so dauntless as this, if the point we are now endeavoring to establish were not strictly as we affirm it to be?

And does not the phraseology which the Holy Spirit employs in announcing the doctrine of Divine forgiveness confirm the statement we have made? "I have blotted out, as a thick cloud, your transgressions, and, as a cloud, your sins: return unto me; for I have redeemed you." Isa. xliv. 22. Where would be the constraining power of the motive to "return" to God, but on the ground of a full and entire blotting out of all sin? This it is that subdues, overcomes, and wins back God's wandering child. This it is that abases the soul- deepens the conviction of its vileness, makes the sin of departure, of ingratitude, of rebellion, so abhorrent, when on the broad basis of a full and free blotting out of sin, God bids the soul "return." 'I have blotted out all your sins, therefore return. Though you have gone after other lovers- though you have departed from me- forgotten and forsaken me, yet have I blotted out, as a thick cloud, your transgressions: return, for I have redeemed you.' Again: "In those days, and in that time, with the Lord, the iniquity of Israel shall be sought for, and there shall be none; and the sins of Judah, and they shall not be found." Jer. 1. 2O. "He will turn again, he will have compassion upon us; he will subdue our iniquities; and will cast all their sins into the depths of the sea." Micah vii. 19.

What an astounding truth is contained in these two passages! In the one it is declared, that if the iniquity of Israel, and the sin of Judah, be sought for, they shall not be found. So entire was the blotting out, so glorious was the work of Jesus, so perfect his obedience, that if the eye of God's holy law searches- and where can it not penetrate? it cannot discover them. In the other, it is declared, that, so fathomless are the depths of that sea of atoning blood, which Christ has poured out, that in it are cast, never to be found again, all the sins of the believer. So that the trembling soul may exclaim, "You have in love to my soul delivered it from the pit of corruption: for you have cast all my sins behind your back." Isa. xxxviii. 17.

And who can read, without deep emotion, these affecting announcements by the God of heaven? Gently chiding his wayward, yet beloved people, he says: "But, my dear people, you refuse to ask for my help. You have grown tired of me! You have not brought me lambs for burnt offerings. You have not honored me with sacrifices, though I have not burdened and wearied you with my requests for grain offerings and incense. You have not brought me fragrant incense or pleased me with the fat from sacrifices. Instead, you have burdened me with your sins and wearied me with your faults. I—yes, I alone—am the one who blots out your sins for my own sake and will never think of them again." Isaiah 43:22-25. "I will cleanse them from all their iniquity, whereby they have sinned against me; and I will pardon all their iniquities whereby they have sinned, and whereby they have transgressed against me." Jer. xxxiii. 8. "Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits: who forgives all your iniquities; who heals all your diseases. For as the heaven is high above the earth, so great is his mercy towards those who fear him. As far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us." Psalm. ciii. 2, 3, 11, 12.

Look up, you saints of God, who are disconsolate through fear of condemnation. See all your sins charged to the account of your mighty Surety. Yes, see them all laid upon him as your Substitute. See him bearing them away- sinking them in the ocean of his blood- casting them behind his back. Look up and rejoice! Let not the indwelling of sin, the remains of corruption, cause you to overlook this amazing truth- the entire blotting out of all your sins, through the atoning blood of your adorable Immanuel. It is truth, and it is your privilege to live in the holy enjoyment of it. Fully received into the heart, by the teaching of the Holy Spirit, its tendency will be of the most holy, sanctifying, abasing character. It will weaken the power of sin- it will draw up the heart in pantings for Divine conformity- it will deaden the influence of the objects of sense- expel the love of the world and of self- impart tenderness to the conscience, and cause the soul to go softly- "Walking worthy of the Lord, unto all pleasing, being fruitful in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God." Col. i. 1O.

Before we pass to an experimental view of the kindred, though distinct doctrine of justification, we would beg the Christian reader's serious attention to a subject of the greatest importance, and yet one much overlooked- we allude to the intimate connection between a daily habit of confession of sin, and the application of the atoning blood to the conscience. This is a point of deep significance- and for the lack of clear and scriptural views of it- or from not having seriously considered it at all, the believer in Christ walks for days, and it may be, months, without the blood upon the conscience. The sympathy between the soul's deep and humble confession of sin and the sense of the blotting out of that sin, is great. God has so ordained it. In turning to the book of Leviticus xvi. 21, we find a beautiful and striking illustration of this important point. Thus we read: "And Aaron shall lay both his hands upon the head of the live goat, and confess over him all the iniquities of the children of Israel, and all their transgressions in all their sins, putting them upon the head of the goat, and shall send him away by the hand of a fit man into the wilderness." Here was the confession of sin and the pardon of sin, closely and beautifully blended. The one would have been useless if separated from the other. There could be no pardon without confession, and the mere confession, without the bearing away of sin, would have availed nothing in averting God's holy displeasure. In the first Epistle of John, this Apostle thus writes- ver. 8, 9.- "If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." Observe the close relation in this passage- "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins."

Let us unfold some of the evils that result from a neglect of this duty, and some of the blessings that result from its observance. Sin unconfessed, tends to remove that holy familiarity which ought always to subsist between God and the believer. This communion is of the tenderest kind. The communion between a called, pardoned, and adopted child, and its heavenly Father, is more close and endearing than even that between a mother and her first-born child. Standing in the righteousness of the adorable Immanuel, the Father opens, without reservation, all his heart- pours down the ocean fulness of his love- communes by the inward voice of the indwelling Spirit and draws up the affections to Himself. Who can fully enter into that amazing expression of the Apostle's, "Beloved of God"? On God's part, too, how precious is his own work in the soul of his child. That lowly view of self- that contrite sigh- that broken heart- that faint and feeble longing for Christ- that hungering and thirsting for righteousness- that poverty of spirit- those broken accents of prayer- that feeble lisping of a child, "Abba, Father!" O how unutterably dear is it all to the heart of God! But let the spiritual reader imagine how much of this holy communion is destroyed, and this confidence weakened, by the remains of guilt upon the conscience, through the neglect of a full and free confession of sin.

A sense of guilt upon the conscience invariably occasions distant views of God. The moment Adam became conscious of having sinned, he hid himself from God's eye. He sought concealment from the endearing presence of Him who had been wont to walk in the cool of evening through the bowers of paradise, in sweet and confiding communion. It is so now. Guilt upon the conscience, sin unconfessed, imparts misty, gloomy, distorted views of God. We lose that clear endearing view of his character, which we once had. We dare not look up with holy, humble boldness. We misinterpret his dealings- think harshly of his ways- and if providences are dark, and afflictions come, in a moment we exclaim, 'I have sinned, and God is angry.' And so we seek concealment from God. We sink the Father in the judge, and the child in the slave.

Another evil that results from sin unconfessed is, the hardening tendency it produces upon the conscience. To a child of God who has felt and mourned over the power of sin, we need not stay to prove how hardening is the tendency of sin. How it crusts the heart with a callousness which no human power can soften; and which often requires heavy affliction to remove. Where a child of God, then, neglects the habit of a daily confession of sin, by slow and almost imperceptible degrees, the conscience loses its tenderness, and becomes, by this gradual process, so hardened, as at length to think nothing of a sin which at one period would have filled the soul with horror and remorse.

One more evil we may mention, and that is, that a neglect of this most important duty causes a fearful forgetfulness of sin, without the sweet sense of its forgiveness. The believer loses sight of his sin, not because he knows it to be pardoned, afresh blotted out, but from a mere carnal forgetfulness of the sin. The child of God on whose conscience the atoning blood has been afresh sprinkled, cannot soon forget his sin. O no! Freed from a sense of its condemnation, delivered from its guilt, and looking up to the unclouded face of a reconciled God, yet he remembers how far he could depart from the God that so loved him, and so readily and freely forgave him. The very pardon of his sin stamps it upon his memory. He thinks of it, only to admire the love, and adore the grace, and extol the blood that blotted it out- and thus he is led to go softly all his days. "My soul has them still in remembrance, and is humbled in me." Lam. iii. 2O. But the believer who neglects the duty and the privilege of confession, loses the remembrance of his sin, until brought under the rod of the covenant; then some deep and heavy chastisement recalls it to his memory, and fills him with shame, humiliation, and contrition. In this state, the Eternal Spirit comes into the soul with his restoring mercies, leads the abased and humbled believer afresh to the "fountain opened"- God the God of all comfort, speaks in language of comfort and says, "I will establish my covenant with you; and you shall know that I am the Lord: that you may remember, and be confounded, and never open your mouth any more because of your shame, when I am pacified toward you for all that you have done, says the Lord God." Ezek. xvi. 62, 63.

THE BLESSINGS that result from a strict observance of daily confession of sin, are rich and varied. We would present them as in one group. The conscience retains its tender susceptibility of guilt. Just as a breath will tarnish a mirror highly polished, so will the slightest aberration of the heart from God- the smallest sin, leaves its impression upon a conscience in the habit of a daily unburdening itself in confession, and of a daily washing in the fountain. Going thus to God, and acknowledging iniquity over the head of Immanuel- pleading the atoning blood- the conscience retains its tenderness and its sensitiveness- and sin, all sin, is viewed as that which God hates, and the soul abhors.

This habit too, keeps, so to speak, a clear account between God and the believer. Sins daily and hourly committed are not forgotten- they fade not from the mind, and therefore they need not the correcting rod to recall them to remembrance. For let us not forget, God will eventually bring our sins to remembrance. "He will call to remembrance the iniquity." Ezek. xxi. 23. David had forgotten his sin against God, and his treacherous conduct to Uriah, until God sent the prophet Nathan to bring his iniquity to remembrance. A daily confession then of sin, a daily washing in the fountain, will preserve the believer from many and perhaps deep afflictions. This was David's testimony- "I acknowledged my sin unto you, and my iniquity have I not hid. I said, I will confess my transgressions unto the Lord, and you forgave the iniquity of my sin." Ps. xxxii. 5.

See, then, the close connection between an honest and minute confession of sin, and the application of the precious blood of Christ. Let the child of God be encouraged to take all his sins to his heavenly Father. Have you sinned? Have you taken a single step in departure from God? Is there the slightest consciousness of guilt? Go at once to the throne of grace- stay not until you find some secret place for confession- stay not until you are alone; lift up your heart at once to God, and confess your sin with the hand of faith upon the great atoning Sacrifice. Open all your heart to him. Do not be afraid of a full and honest confession. Shrink not from unfolding its most secret recesses- lay all bare before his eyes. Do you think he will turn from the exposure? Do you think he will close his ear against your breathings? O no! Listen to his own encouraging, persuasive declarations- "Go and proclaim these words toward the north, and say, Return, backsliding Israel, says the Lord; and I will not cause my anger to fall upon you: for I am merciful, says the Lord, and I will not keep anger forever. Only acknowledge your iniquity, that you have transgressed against the Lord your God." Jer. iii. 12, 13. "O Israel, return unto the Lord your God, for you have fallen by your iniquity. Take with you words, and turn to the Lord; say unto him, Take away all iniquity, and receive us graciously." Hos. xiv. 1, 2. "I will heal their backsliding, I will love them freely; for my anger is turned away from him." Ver. 4. O what words are these!

Does the eye of the poor backslider fall on this page? And as he now reads of God's readiness to pardon- of God's willingness to receive back the repenting prodigal- of his yearning after his wandering child- feels his heart melted, his soul subdued, and struck with that amazing declaration, "Only acknowledge your iniquity" would dare creep down at his feet, and weep, and mourn, and confess. O is there one such now reading this page? then return, my brother, return! God, the God against whom you have sinned, says, "Return." Your Father, the Father from whom you have wandered, is looking out for the first return of your soul, for the first kindlings of godly sorrow, for the first confession of sin. Return, my brother, return! God has not turned his back upon you, though you have turned your back upon him. God has not forgotten to be gracious, though you have forgotten to be faithful. "I remember you,"- is his own touching language- "the kindness of your youth, the love of your espousals." Jer. ii. 2. O! then, come back; this moment, come back; the fountain is still open- Jesus is still the same- the blessed and Eternal Spirit, loving and faithful as ever- God ready to pardon. Take up then the language of the prodigal and say, "I will arise and go to my Father, and will say unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven and in your sight, and am no more worthy to be called your son." "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness."

We now proceed to SHOW HOW FULL AND ENTIRE IS THE JUSTIFICATION OF A BELIEVER. This will not require much amplification- seeing that, if the pardon of a believing sinner is a full and entire forgiveness it follows that, so must be his justification. They both result from the same glorious cause- the perfection of our adorable Lord's obedience.

Let us briefly enquire what we are to understand by the righteousness of Christ imputed to a believer, and thus constituting the sole ground of his acceptance. It is not our intention to view the subject metaphysically, but in the clear light of God's own Word. We deprecate the introduction of a metaphysical and scholastic mode of reasoning in the exhibition of Divine truth. God's Word does not require it; it is quite unnecessary in the investigation of the mind of the Spirit. The evils, too, resulting from it, are many and dangerous. God's Word is obscured, mystified, and often its simple meaning fearfully perverted. The mind in search of the truth, not being able to follow a metaphysical argument, or to comprehend the meaning of a scholastic term, becomes perplexed, embarrassed, and discouraged, and at length gives up the investigation. May it not be a subject of important enquiry how far the pulpit and the press, in their efforts to diffuse evangelical knowledge, may be chargeable with the adoption of a mode of discussing religious truth, far removed from the beautiful simplicity of the Gospel, and tending to mar its beauty, pervert its meaning, and impart to the learner crude and misty views of Divine truth? Confident are we, that that ministry would come clothed with most unction, and that treatise would be read with more blessing, and that believer would walk more in peace and joy in the Holy Spirit, where God's Word was most honored, most prayerfully studied, and most studiously followed. This Book tells best and simplest its own wondrous story. But to return from this digression.

We mean by JUSTIFICATION, or rather, we would say, the Word of God means by Gospel justification, the imputation of Christ's infinite and finished righteousness to a repenting, believing sinner; the making over of his perfect obedience in behalf of his church to him that believes. Christ obeyed not for himself, but for his Church. It is an absurdity to suppose that he obeyed the law for himself- the law of God demanded no personal obedience from Christ- for he was perfectly holy, had never sinned, had never broken the law: and to suppose the law exacting obedience, and holding out its threats to a being who was immaculately holy, and therefore had never incurred its penalty, is to take a most obscure and defective view of truth. True, Christ was made under the law, but it was "to redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons." Gal. iv. 4, 5. If he was obligated to do anything for himself, as under the personal curse of the law, then he became incarnate for himself, obeyed for himself, endured the curse for himself, suffered for himself, died and rose again for himself.

As made under the law, true, he was bound to obey, in its every iota, that law, but it was for the people for whom he had entered into a covenant engagement with the Father. In their behalf he kept the Law- for it was not possible that he could himself break it- Satan came, tried, and tempted him, and found nothing in him. John xiv. 3O. In their behalf he endured the curse, and suffered the penalty. And on the ground of his obedience- his obedience, or righteousness imputed to them, in the same manner in which their sins were imputed to him- they stand before God, the holy, the heart-searching God, fully and freely "justified from all things." "For he has made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin," (there is the imputation of our sins to him,) "that we might be made the righteousness of God in him" (there is the imputation of his righteousness to us). 2 Cor. v. 21. "He is the kind of high priest we need because he is holy and blameless, unstained by sin. He has now been set apart from sinners, and he has been given the highest place of honor in heaven. He does not need to offer sacrifices every day like the other high priests. They did this for their own sins first and then for the sins of the people. But Jesus did this once for all when he sacrificed himself on the cross." Hebrews 7:26-27. With this explanation of the doctrine, let us proceed to unfold it.

The righteousness wrought out by the incarnation, obedience, sufferings, and death of Christ, is a most glorious righteousness. It took in the whole law of God. It did not soften down, or ask for a compromise of its claims. It took the law in its utmost strictness and honored it. It gave all the law demanded, all it could demand. And what stamped this righteousness with a glory so great? what enabled the Redeemer to offer an obedience so perfect? What, but that he was God in our nature! The Law-giver became the Law-fulfiller. The God became the Substitute- the judge became the Surety. Behold, then, the justification of a believing sinner! He stands accepted in the righteousness of Christ with full and entire acceptance. What says the Holy Spirit? "In the Lord shall all the seed of Israel be justified, and shall glory." Isa. xlv. 25. "And by him (the Lord Jesus) all who believe are justified from all things, from which you could not be justified by the law of Moses." Acts xiii. 39. "Accepted in the Beloved." Ephes. i. 6. "And you are complete through your union with Christ. He is the Lord over every ruler and authority in the universe." Col. 2:10 "Christ loved the church, and gave himself for it, that he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the Word, that he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having a spot or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish." Eph. v. 25- 27. "He has made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him." 2 Cor. v. 21. Mark the expression, "Made the righteousness of God"!

So called because the righteousness which Christ wrought out was a Divine righteousness, not the righteousness of a created being, of an angel, or of a superior prophet, else it were blasphemy to call it "the righteousness of God." O no! the righteousness in which you stand, if you "are accepted in the Beloved," is a more costly and glorious righteousness than Adam's, or the highest angel in glory: it is "the righteousness of God." The righteousness of the God-Man; possessing all the infinite merit, and glory, and perfection of Deity. And what seems still more incredible, the believer is made the righteousness of God in Christ. Made that righteousness, so that, beholding him in Christ, the Father can "rest in his love, and rejoice over him with singing." Zech. iii. 17. Is it not then we ask, a perfect, a complete justification? what can be more so? Do not the passages we have quoted prove it? Can any other meaning be given to them, without divesting them of their beauty and obvious sense? Would it not be to turn from God's word, to dishonor and grieve the Spirit, and to rob the believer of a most influential motive to holiness, were we to take a less expanded view of this subject than that which we have taken? Most assuredly it would. Then let the Christian reader welcome this truth. If it is God's truth, and we humbly believe we have proved it to be so- it is not less his privilege than his duty to receive it.

What consideration shall we urge upon him why he should welcome it? Shall we say his sanctification is intimately connected with it? and what an argument should this be with a child of God! To be holy- to be like God- to be conformed entirely to the will and image of Christ- to have the temper, the taste, the principles, the daily walk- all like our blessed Immanuel, who is "the chief among ten thousand, the altogether lovely." O! can a believer aspire to a more lofty aim? And this righteousness- this infinite, this Divine, this finished righteousness, received in the heart by the power of God the Holy Spirit, broken up to the soul, lived upon daily, will promote all this: "In your righteousness shall they be exalted." Psalm lxxxix. 16. The righteousness of Christ has a most exalting tendency; it exalts a believer's view of God, of his character and perfections; it exalts his view of Jesus, his person, work, and love; it exalts the believer himself; it takes him out of himself, above and beyond himself; it exalts his principles, his practice, his affections, and conforms him to Christ.

Shall we say his happiness is intimately connected with it? And where is the believer that does not desire to walk happily with God? This is the attainment the world are eagerly in search of- but the believer in Christ is its only possessor; he has found it, and found it in Jesus; he has found it in a renunciation of self-righteousness, and in a humble reception of Christ; and there is no happiness, worthy of the name, that is sought and found outside of Jesus. What true happiness can the heart feel while it is unrenewed, its sins unpardoned, the soul unjustified, and therefore under condemnation, and exposed to the wrath of a holy and just God? O dream not of happiness, reader, until you have gone as a repenting sinner to the cross of Christ; until the atoning blood has been applied to your conscience, and the Spirit bears his witness to your adoption.

If this, and this only, is the source of all true happiness, then the more constantly and closely the believer realizes his full and complete acceptance in the Beloved, the greater must his happiness be. You may be a son or a daughter of affliction; in this furnace you may be chosen, Isa. xlviii. 1O, and through this furnace it may be the Lord's holy will you should pass all your days. You may be a child of poverty, possessing but little of this world's comforts, lonely, neglected, despised. Yet, O look up! you are precious in God's sight dear to him as the apple of his eye; his heart yearns over you with more than a mother's exquisite fondness for her child, because he has loved you with an everlasting love, and, to the praise of the glory of his grace, has "accepted" you "in the Beloved." Eph. i. 6. Realize this, and, though rough and thorny may be your path, and fiery the furnace, and deep your poverty, and lonely your situation, you shall experience a peace, and a happiness, to which the world around you is an utter stranger.

Shall we say, the holy influence which a believer is called to exert around him, will be greatly augmented, and powerfully felt, by an abiding realization of his full and entire acceptance in Christ? The child of God is "the salt of the earth," "the light of the world." He is surrounded by moral putrefaction and darkness. By his holy, consistent example, he is to exert a counteracting influence. He is to be purity where there is corruption, he is to be light where there is darkness. And if his walk is consistent, if his life is holy, his example tells, and tells powerfully, upon an ungodly world. Saints of God catch, as it were, the contagion of his sanctity. The worldling acknowledges the reality of the Gospel he professes, and the bold sceptic falls back abashed, and feels, "how appropriate goodness is." What then will so elevate his own piety, and increase the power of his influence, as a realization of his justification by Christ? O how this commends the religion of Jesus! We will suppose a Christian parent surrounded by a large circle of unconverted children. They look to him as to a living Gospel; they look to him for an exemplification of the truth he believes; they expect to see its influence upon his principles, his temper, his affections, his whole conduct. What then must be their impression of the Gospel, if they behold their parent always indulging in doubts as to his acceptance, yielding to unbelieving fears as to his calling? Instead of walking in the full assurance of faith, saying with the apostle, "I know whom I have believed." 2 Tim. i. 12- instead of walking in the holy liberty, peace, and comfort of acceptance, there is nothing but distrust, dread, and tormenting fear. How many a child has borne this testimony- "The doubts and fears of my parent have been my great stumbling-block!" O then, for the sake of those around you- for the sake of your children, your connections, your friends, your domestics, realize your full, free, and entire acceptance in Christ.

Is it any marvel then- reviewing our ground- that in speaking of his beloved and justified people, God employs in his Word language like this: "All beautiful you are, my darling; there is no flaw in you." Song 4:7; "He has not beheld iniquity in Jacob, neither has he seen perverseness in Israel." Num. xxiii. 21. Carry out this thought. Had there been no iniquity in Jacob? Had there been no perverseness in Israel? Read their histories, and what do they develop but iniquity and perverseness of the most aggravated kind? And yet, that God should say he saw no iniquity in Jacob, and no perverseness in Israel, what does it set forth but the glorious work of the adorable Immanuel- the glory, the fitness, the perfection of that righteousness, in which they stand "without spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing?" Eph. v. 27; in themselves vile and worthless- sinful and perverse- deeply conscious before God of possessing not a claim upon his regard, but worthy only of his just displeasure, yet counted righteous in the righteousness of another, fully and freely justified by Christ.

Is this doctrine startling to some? Is it considered too great a truth to be received by others? Any other Gospel than this, we solemnly affirm, will never save the soul! The obedience, sufferings, and death of the God-man, made over to the repenting believing sinner, by an act of free and sovereign grace, is the only plank on which the soul can safely rest. Let it attempt the passage across the cold river of death on any other, and it is gone! On this it may boldly venture, and on this it shall be safely and triumphantly carried into the quiet and peaceful haven of future and eternal blessedness. We acknowledge the magnitude of this doctrine; yet is it not to be rejected because of its greatness. It may be profound, almost too deeply so, for an angel's mind; the cherubim may veil their faces, overpowered with its glory, while yet with eager longings they desire to look into it- still may the weakest saint of God receive it, live upon it, walk in it. It is "a deep river, through which an elephant might swim, and which a lamb might ford."

Nor let any individual slight it, because worldly men have held it in unrighteousness. To the heart of a child of God it should not be the less precious because of this. The abuse of any single truth is no argument against the soundness or utility of that truth: if so, then might we set aside well near every doctrine of the cross, because well near every doctrine of the cross has been abused to unholy purposes. It is a solemn thing for a believer to overlook any single doctrine, to stand aloof from any single truth of God's holy Word, because the pearl has been trampled under foot of swine- because ungodly men, receiving the truth notionally in the judgment, and not experimentally in the heart, have walked after their own lusts, deceiving and deceived. O no, we look not to them for an exemplification of the great doctrines of grace; nor are we to attribute their abuse of God's truth to the legitimate tendency of the truth itself. This we assign as a reason why we contend so earnestly for experimental religion: there is no true holiness of heart and of life without it. The mere prater about doctrine, his head filled with notions, and his heart with pride and unmortified sin, may walk in the outward garb of Christianity, deceiving others, and, what at the day of judgment will be most awful, deceiving himself- but the day of separation, the day of sifting, will come, when the wheat will be gathered into the garner, and the chaff will be burned with unquenchable fire.

Let not the reader then turn his back upon a truth, because unholy men have brought it into reproach- then might he turn his back upon Jesus, because of the wounds which, again and again, he has received in the house of his friends. The doctrine of God's eternal, sovereign, and unconditional election of a people, his redemption of them by the sacrifice of his Son Jesus Christ, his particular and effectual calling of them by the Eternal Spirit, their complete pardon and justification, and their preservation to eternal glory- these are God's truths, and not to be rejected. They come from God, and, when received in the heart, they lead to God; they have their origin in him, and to him they draw the soul. Precious truths! How they abase the sinner, how they exalt the dear Redeemer; how they glorify God, how they empty, humble, and sanctify the soul! We would not be the individual to speak anything against them, or think slightingly of them, no, not for our right hand, or for our right eye.

And now, may we not inquire, Have you, dear reader, this robe upon you? In whose righteousness do you at this moment stand? Is it all merely profession? Startle not at the question- turn not from it- it is for your life we ask it. Do you wonder that such a scrutiny into the ground of your hope should be made? Are you astonished at the solemn fact implied in this question? Do not be so. Many have lived in the mere outward profession- have put on Christ in the external garb have talked well of him- have been baptized in his name- given liberally for his cause, and after all, have gone into eternity holding up the empty lamp! O marvel not then, that we repeat the question, In whose righteousness do you at this moment stand? Mere profession will not save your soul; your being found mingling among the wise virgins will not secure you an admittance with them into heaven; your talking respectfully of Jesus will avail you nothing; your church memberships, your liberality, your irreproachable deportment, your spotless morality, your regular attendance on the sanctuary, all, all are vain without the justifying righteousness of the God-man upon you.

What do you know of the broken heart and the contrite spirit? What do you know of the healing blood of Jesus? What do you know of a sense of pardon and acceptance? What do you know of the witness of the Spirit? What do you know of a humble, low, abasing view of yourself? What do you know of a holy and a close walk with God? What do you know of communion and fellowship with the Father and his dear Son? In a word, what do you know of yourself as a helpless, ruined sinner, and of Jesus as a rich, able, and present Savior? Ponder these solemn questions! The hand that pens them trembles with awe as it traces them on this page. This is a day of great profession- a day of great ingathering into the church; a day when much chaff must necessarily be gathered with the wheat. It was so in the primitive days of the church, when apostles, inspired by the Spirit of God, were the men who planted, watered, and gathered in the sheaves. Shall it then be thought a thing incredible with you that, in the present day, the minister may be deceived, and the hearer deceived, and neither of them know it? It solemnly behooves each professing member of Christ's church, of every name and denomination, narrowly to scrutinize his motives, deeply to probe his heart, and closely and habitually to examine the foundation on which he is building for eternity. Thus shall he walk, if he be an adopted child, in the sweet and holy realization of his pardon and acceptance; thus shall he experience the blessedness of the man whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered; and thus, too, shall he constantly be "a vessel unto honor, sanctified, and fit for the Master's use, and prepared unto every good work."

There are many and peculiar BLESSINGS which an experimental belief and realization of this great truth conveys into the soul, a slight glance at some of which will close this chapter.

First, A consciousness of perfect security, and freedom from condemnation. Let us not be misunderstood. We mean not to affirm, that a child of God is secure only as he realizes his pardon and acceptance. Far be it from us to utter a sentiment like this. Many and long are the seasons of spiritual darkness and sensible withdrawments of God's presence, through which the believer is often called to pass; seasons, during which his hope seems to have perished, Lam. iii. 18; and God, as he believes, has forgotten to be gracious, Ps. lxxvii. 9; seasons, during which he cannot look up as a pardoned sinner, as a justified soul, as an adopted child, and say, "Abba, Father!" All is midnight gloom to his soul. And while God seems to have withdrawn, Satan instantly appears. Taking advantage of the momentary absence of the Lord, for, let it be remembered, it is not an actual and eternal withdrawment- Satan levels his fiery darts; suggests hard thoughts of God; tempts the soul to believe the past has been but a deception, and that the future will develop nothing but darkness and despair. Satan, that constant and subtle foe, frequently seizes, too, upon periods of the believer's history, when the Providences of God are dark and mysterious- when the path, along which the weary pilgrim is pressing, is rough and intricate- or, it may be, when he sees not a spot before him- the way is obstructed, and he is ready to exclaim with job, "He has fenced up my way that I cannot pass, and he has set darkness in my paths." Job xix. 8; or with Jeremiah, "He has hedged me about, that I cannot get out." Lam. iii. 7.

Let it not then be forgotten by the soul that walks in darkness and has no light, that the providential dealings of a covenant God and Father, which now are depressing the spirits, stirring up unbelief, and casting a shade over every prospect, may be seized upon by its great enemy, and appropriated to an occasion of deep and sore temptation. It was thus he dealt with our blessed Lord, who was in all points tempted as his people, yet without sin, Heb. iv. 15. Satan, taking advantage of his prolonged fast, and the weakness of body and hunger which were the consequence- for, let it ever be borne in mind, God took upon him pure humanity with all the sympathies of our nature, and with all the weakness which clung to it presented the temptation in its most pliable form. Luke iv. 2- 13. And if the Head thus was tempted, so will be the member- if the Lord, so the disciple. And for this very end was our blessed Lord thus tempted, that he might enter sympathetically into all the circumstances of his tried and suffering people- "For in that he himself has suffered being tempted, he is able to support those who are tempted." Heb. ii. 28.

But we must not, we dare not, refrain from ascribing this spiritual darkness to another, and perhaps more obvious cause, we allude to a distant and careless walk. This will as certainly bring darkness into the soul, with its painful attendants- unbelief- loss of thoughts of God- slavish fear- as if an individual were to close every inlet of a habitation to the rays of the sun, and sit down amid the gloom and the obscurity with which he has enshrouded himself. There is no true spiritual light but that which beams from the Sun of Righteousness; and to this every inlet of the soul must be open. All other light is false- it is but like the treacherous beacon erected upon a rock-bound coast, for the purpose of beguiling to its shore the unsuspecting bark. To enjoy this light then, a believer must dwell near the Sun, he must live close to Christ: he must live the life of daily faith upon him- he must look away from himself to Jesus- he must walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing- he must be found prayerful and diligent in the means; while, rising above them, he draws all his light, life, and peace from the God of the means.

O what losers are they who walk as Peter walked- at a distance from their Lord- what seasons of endearing communion- what tokens of love- what visits of mercy they rob themselves of! What losers are they who neglect the means of grace- closet prayer- church fellowship- the communion of saints- the blessed ordinances of baptism and the Lord's supper- these channels, through which a covenant God conveys such untold blessings into the soul of his dear child! For "the secret of the Lord is with those who fear him;" and to fear him, is not to dread him as a slave, but as a child to walk in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blamelessly. O! what losers then are such!

While penning this closing part of the chapter, the writer was sent for to administer spiritual consolation to one on the confines of eternity, who, at an early period of her life, professed publicly her attachment to the Lord, but who, after a time, walked no more with Jesus; and now the season of sickness, and probably of death, had come! And O! could he have gathered every wandering, every backsliding, every careless, worldly professor of Christ around that bed, to have listened to the deep regrets, the bitter self-reproaches, the piercing cries for pardon, that fell from her lips, and to have witnessed, too, the deep anguish that wrung her agonized bosom, how more powerfully would they have warned, and how more persuasively would they have pleaded, than the page which now warns and pleads with the careless, prayerless, worldly professor! Christian professor! are you walking at a distance from Christ, if following him at all? Are you opening your heart to the world- laying yourself out for its entanglements? Are you conforming to it in your spirit, your policy, your maxims, your dress, your pursuits, your friendship, your religion? Are you neglecting the means of grace, the sanctuary of God- the preaching of the Gospel, the prayer-meetings, the communion of saints? Are you neglecting prayer- family prayer- social prayer- sanctuary prayer- most of all, closet prayer?

O, if so, how fearfully you are turning your back upon God! how wantonly are you trampling your precious privileges under foot! What a harvest of sorrow are you sowing for a dying hour! what reason have you to tremble, lest after all, Christ has never been formed in your heart, the hope of glory! What is your present hope? Is it merely a profession? Give it up- abandon it as worthless, and as a sinner undone, a sinner without hope, go to Jesus. A mere profession will never save you. A bare supposition will only delude you. You must have the witness of the Spirit. But to the soul following hard after God, we would say, there are two 'exceeding great and precious promises,' which a child of God should ever keep in view: "Unto the upright there arises light in the darkness." Ps. cxii. 4; "Unto you that fear my name shall the Sun of Righteousness arise with healing in his wings." Mal. iv. 2. Thus it is evident that to those who walk uprightly before God- upright in heart, as well as upright in outward conduct- upright in principle as well as upright in practice- and to those who walk in the holy filial fear of God, the Lord has his choicest covenant blessings. But to return:

We say not, then, that a momentary sense of God's withdrawment from the believer affects his actual security in the atoning blood: this, nothing can disturb. The safety of a child of God hinges not upon a frame or a feeling, the ever varying and fitful pulses of a believing soul. O no! The covenant rests upon a surer basis than this; the child of the covenant is sealed with a better hope and promise. He may change, but his covenant God never; his feelings may vary, but his Father's love never veers: He loved him from all eternity, and that love extends to all eternity. As God never loved his child for anything he saw, or should see, in that child, so his love never changes for all the fickleness, sinfulness, and unworthiness, he daily and hourly discovers. O where would the soul fly but for this truth? When it takes into account the sins, the follies, the departures, the flaws of but one week; yes, when it reviews the history of but one day, and sees enough sin in a thought to sink it to eternal and just perdition, but for an unchangeable God, to what consolation would it resort?

But what forms the great security of the believer? what, but the atoning blood? This, and this only. The Father, beholding his child in his beloved Son, washed and clothed, pardoned and justified, can "rest in his love, and rejoice over him with singing." The atonement guarantees his eternal safety. What formed the security of Noah and his family, when the deluge of God's wrath descended upon an ungodly world? The ark in which God had shut him. What formed the security of the children of Israel in Egypt, when the destroying angel passed through the camp waving in his hand the weapon of death? The blood of the Pascal lamb, sprinkled on the lintel and doorposts of their dwellings; and where this sacred sign was seen, into that house he dared not enter, but passed on to do the work of death where no blood was found. Exactly what the ark was to Noah, and the blood of the lamb was to the children of Israel, is the atoning blood of Christ to the believing soul. It forms his eternal security.

Reader! is that blood applied to you? Are you washed in it? Is it upon you at this moment? Precious blood! precious Savior who shed it! precious faith that leads to it! how it washes away all sin! how it lightens the conscience of its burden, heals the heart of its wound- dispels the mist, and brings down the unclouded sunlight of God's reconciled countenance in the soul! O, adore the love and admire the grace that opened the fountain, and led you to bathe, all guilty, polluted, and helpless as you were, beneath its cleansing stream! and with Cowper let us sing,

"E'er since by faith I saw the stream
Your flowing wounds supply,
Redeeming love has been my theme,
And shall be until I die.

"Then in a nobler, sweeter song,
I'll sing your power to save;
When this poor lisping, stammering tongue
Lies silent in the grave."

Second- deeper views of sin's exceeding sinfulness, may be regarded as another invaluable blessing, resulting from a realizing apprehension of the atoning blood. No child of God, if he is advancing in the divine life, but must mourn over his defective views of sin. The holier he grows, the more sensible he is of this: yes, may we not add? the deeper the view of his own vileness, the stronger the evidence of his growth in sanctification. A growing hatred of sin, of little sins, of great sins, of all sin- sin detected in the indwelling principle, as well as sin observable in the outward practice, O, it is one of the surest symptoms of the onward progress of the soul in its spiritual course. The believer himself may not be sensible of it, but others see it; to him it may be like a retrograde, to an observer it is an evidence of advance. The child of God is not the best judge of his own spiritual growth. He may be rapidly advancing when not sensible of it; the tree may be growing downwards, its roots may be expanding and grasping more firmly the soil in which they are concealed, and yet the appearance of growth not be very apparent. There is an inward, concealed, yet effectual growth of grace in the soul; the believer may not be sensible of it, and even others may overlook it, but God sees it: it is his own work, and he does not think disdainfully of it.

God, in his gracious dealings with the believer, often works by contraries. He opens the eye of his child to the deep depravity of the heart; discloses to him the chamber of imagery; reveals to him the sin unthought of, unsuspected, unrepented, unconfessed, that lies deeply embedded there. And why? Only to make his child more holy; to compel him to repair to the mercy-seat, there to cry, there to plead, there to wrestle for its subjection, its mortification, its crucifixion. And through this, as it were, circuitous process, the believer presses on to high and higher degrees of holiness. In this way, too, the believer earnestly seeks for humility, by a deep discovery which the Lord gives him of the pride of his heart; for meekness by a discovery of petulance; for resignation to God's will, by a sense of restlessness and impatience; and so on, through all the graces of the blessed Spirit. Thus there is a great growth in grace, when a believer's views of sin's exceeding sinfulness, and the inward plague, are deepening.

But how are these views of sin to be deepened? By constant, close views of the blood of Christ- realizing apprehensions of the Atonement. This is the only glass through which sin is seen in its greater magnitude. Let the Christian reader, then, deal much and often with the blood of Christ. O! that we should need to be urged to this; that, once having bathed in the "fountain opened," we should ever look to any other mode of healing and of sanctification! For, let it never be forgotten, that a child of God is as much called to live on Christ for sanctification as for pardon: "Sanctify them through your truth." And who is the truth? Jesus himself answers, "I am the truth." Then we are to live on Jesus for sanctification: and happy and holy is he who thus lives on Jesus. The fulness of grace that is treasured up in Christ, why is it there? For the sanctification of his people- for the subduing of all their sins. O forget not, then, that he is the Refiner, as well as the Savior; the Sanctifier as well as the Redeemer.

Take your indwelling corruptions to him; take the besetting sin, the weakness, the infirmity, of whatever nature it is, at once to Jesus: his grace can make you all that he would have you to be. Remember, too, that this is one of the great privileges of the life of faith- living on Christ for the daily subduing of all sin. This is the faith that purifies the heart; and it purifies by leading the believer to live out of himself upon Christ. To this blessed and holy life our Lord Jesus referred, when speaking of its necessity in order to the spiritual fruitfulness of the believer: "Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself; except it abide in the vine; no more can you, except you abide in me. I am the vine, you are the branches: he that abides in me, and I in him, the same brings forth much fruit: for without me you can do nothing," John xv. 4, 5.

O that the church of Christ, and each individual member, would but realize this truth, that simpler, closer, more experimental views of Jesus would essentially strengthen the tone of inward spirituality and comfort! The great secret of all comfort in seasons of affliction, is to take the affliction, as it comes, simply to Christ; and the great secret of all holiness, is to take the corruption, as it rises, simply to Christ. It is this living upon Christ for all he needs, this going to Christ under all circumstances and at all seasons, which forms the happy and holy life of a child of God. There is no other path for him to walk in. The moment he turns from Christ, he becomes like a vessel loosed from its moorings, and driven at the mercy of the winds from billow to billow. Christ must be all in all to him. Friends, domestic comforts, church privileges, ordinances, means of grace, nothing must suffice for Jesus. And why does the Lord so frequently discipline the soul? why remove friends, why blight domestic comforts, why rob us of church privileges, why close up the ordinances, and write death upon the means of grace? O why, but to open away through which he himself might enter the believer, and convince that lonely, bereaved, and desolate heart, that he is a substitute for everything, while nothing shall ever be a substitute for him! He will have the supreme affection of his saints; they shall find their all in him; and to this end he sends afflictions, crosses, and disappointments, to wean them from their idols, and draw them to himself.

Sometimes, in order to learn experimentally this holy truth, that Christ must be every thing, the Lord, the Spirit, leads back the believer to first principles! He is led to retrace his steps, go over the ground he has traveled, and find his comfort and his evidence at the very spot from where he first set out. He has to come as at first, a poor, empty, helpless sinner, hanging on a full, rich, and all-sufficient Savior. After all he has passed through of severe trial and fiery temptation, after all the storms and tempests, the conflicts and the victories, he is compelled to betake himself afresh to Jesus, empty and helpless as when first he cried for mercy. This, let us assure the reader, is no small proof of God's love, thus to be led back to first principles. Let him not be discouraged if the Lord is dealing thus with him now; let him count it all joy if his Great Teacher has seen fit to put him in a lower class, and has given him the first lesson of Christian experience to learn- that lesson is the first and the last lesson. Happy and holy is he who thoroughly learns it. The author will not soon lose the impression left upon his mind by an interview with that eminent servant of Christ, the late Rev. Rowland Hill, a few months previous to his death, who, when speaking of his then state of mind, remarked in his peculiarly solemn manner- "Sir, when I enter heaven, I shall enter it, crying, 'God be merciful to me a sinner!"' Coming from such a man, and at such a time, it was an affecting and striking testimony to the blessedness of being led back to first principles.

Third- a conformity to the death of Christ may be regarded as another and a great blessing, resulting from a personal realization of the atoning blood. Indeed, we dare affirm, that conformity to his death can only be obtained by close, individual, realizing views of the cross. It is in the cross sin is seen in its exceeding sinfulness. It is in the cross the holiness of God shines with such ineffable luster. This is the sun that throws its light upon these two great objects- the holiness of God, the sinfulness of the sinner. Veil this sun, remove the cross, blot out the Atonement, and all our knowledge of holiness and sin vanishes into distant and shadowy views. Faith, dealing much and closely with the cross of Christ, will invariably produce in the soul conformity to his death. This was the great desire of the apostle: "That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death." Phil. iii. 1O. This was the noble prayer of this holy man. He desired crucifixion with Christ; a crucifixion to sin, to indwelling sin, to sin in its every shape, to sin in principle, sin in temper, sin in worldly conformity, sin in conversation, sin in thought, yes, sin in the very glance of the eye. He desired not only a crucifixion of sin, of one particular sin, but of all sin; not only the sin that most easily beset him, the sin that he daily saw and felt, and mourned over, but the sin that no eye saw but God's- the sin of the indwelling principle- the root of all sin- the sin of his nature.

This is to have fellowship with Christ in his sufferings. Jesus suffered as much for the subduing of the indwelling principle of sin, as for the pardon of the outbreakings of that sin in the daily practice. Have we fellowship with him in these sufferings? There must be a crucifixion of the indwelling power of sin. To illustrate the idea: if the root be allowed to strengthen and expand, and take a deeper and firmer grasp, what more can we expect than that the tree will shoot upward, and branch out on either hand? To cut off the outward branches is not the proper method to stay the growth of the tree: the root must be uncovered, and the axe laid to it. Outward sins may be cut off, and even honestly confessed and mourned over, while the concealed principle, the root of the sin, is overlooked, neglected, and allowed to gather strength and expansion.

We do not assert that the inherent evil of a believer will ever be entirely eradicated, in his present earthly life. To expect this, would be to expect what God's Word has not declared: but that it may be greatly subdued and conquered, its power weakened and mortified, this the Word of God leads us to hope for and aim after. How is this to be attained? Faith dealing frequently and closely with Christ the atoning blood upon the conscience- the "fountain opened" daily resorted to- the believer sitting constantly at the foot of the cross- gazing upon it with an eye of steady, unwavering faith- "looking unto Jesus." In this posture, sin, all sin- the sin of the heart, the sin of the practice- is mourned over, wept over, confessed, mortified, crucified. Let the reader again be reminded, that all true crucifixion of sin springs from the cross of Christ.

Fourth- a most powerful incentive to prayer is found in a close and realizing view of the atoning blood. What encouragement does it present to this blessed and holy life of communion with God! the atoning blood! the mercy-seat sprinkled over! the High Priest before the throne! the cloud of incense constantly ascending! the Father well pleased! What can more freely invite the soul that pants for close and holy communion with God? And when the atoning blood is realized upon the conscience, when pardon and acceptance are sealed upon the heart by the Eternal Spirit- O then what a persuasion to draw near the throne of grace has the believer in Christ! Then, there is no consciousness of guilt to keep the believer back; no dread of God; no trembling apprehensions of a repulse from God. God is viewed through the cross as reconciled, and as standing in the endeared relationship, and wearing the inviting smile, of a Father. With such an altar, such a High Priest, such atoning blood, and such a reconciled God, what an element should prayer be to a believer in Christ! Let the soul, depressed, burthened, tried, tempted, as it may be, draw near the mercy-seat: God delights to hear, delights to answer. Taking in the hand the atoning blood, pleading the infinite merit of Christ, reminded the Father of what his Son has accomplished, of his own gracious promise to receive and favorably answer the petition endorsed with the name, and presented in behalf of that Son- the feeblest child of God, the most disconsolate, the most burdened, may approach and open all the heart to a prayer-hearing and prayer-answering God. Let the atoning blood be strenuously pleaded, let the precious and infinite merit of Christ be fully urged, and the blessing petitioned for will be obtained.

May not this be assigned as a reason why so few of our petitions are answered, why so little blessing is obtained, the faint pleading of the atoning blood? There is so feeble a recognition of the blessed way of access, so little wrestling with the precious blood, so little looking by faith to the cross, the dear name of Immanuel so seldom urged, and when urged so coldly mentioned- O! is it any marvel that our prayers return to us unanswered, the petition ungranted, the draft on the full treasury of his love unhonored? The Father loves to be reminded of his beloved Son; the very breathing of the name to him is music; the very waving of the censer of infinite merits to him is fragrant. He delights to be pressed with this plea; it is a plea at all times prevalent; it is a plea He cannot reject; it glorifies himself, honors his Son, while it enriches him who urges it.

And O, in the absence of all other pleas, what a mercy to come with a plea like this! Who can fully estimate it? No plea has the poor believer springing from himself: he searches, but nothing can he find on which to rest a claim; all within is vile, all without is marred by sin; unfaithfulness, ingratitude, departure, do but make up the history of the day. But in Christ he sees that which he can urge, and in urging which God will hear and answer. "Having, therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way, which he has consecrated for us, through the veil, that is to say, his flesh; and having a High Priest over the house of God; let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water." Heb. x. 19- 22.

Fifth, We would allude but to one other blessing growing out of the atonement realized- the spring it gives to all holy evangelical obedience. The great impelling motive of all Gospel obedience is, the love of Christ in the heart. David acknowledged this principle when he prayed, "I will run the way of your commandments, when you shall enlarge my heart." Psalm cxix. 32. The apostle admits it when he says, "The love of Christ constrains us." In order to walk as an obedient child, to bear the daily cross, and yield obedience to the law of Christ, to delight in the precepts as in the doctrines of God's truth, the atoning blood must be realized. How easy and how sweet will then become the commandments of the Lord! Duties will be viewed as privileges, and the yoke felt to be no yoke, and the cross felt to be no cross.

If these are the inestimable blessings connected with personal and close realizing views of the blood of Atonement, surely the Christian reader will strive to live near the fountain: this is the only spot where his soul shall flourish. As the gentle flower which blooms unseen by the side of some veiled fountain, is, from the constant moisture it receives, always beautiful and fragrant, so is that believing soul the most fruitful, holy, spiritual, and devoted, who daily dwells by the side, yes, in the "fountain opened for sin and uncleanness." We see not how a child of God can be fruitful otherwise. A sweet and abiding consciousness of pardon and acceptance is essential to spiritual fruitfulness. No believer can advance in the Divine life, wage a daily war with the innumerable foes that oppose him, and be fruitful in every good work, who is perpetually in search of evidence of his adoption. We need all our time, all our energies, all our means, in order to vanquish the spiritual Philistines who obstruct our way to the heavenly Canaan: we have none to send in search of evidences, lest while they have gone the bridegroom comes! O then to know that all is right- the thick cloud blotted out- the soul wrapped in the robe of righteousness- ready to enter in to the marriage supper of the Lamb! To die will be quite enough: to face and grapple with the King of Terrors will be sufficient employment for the spirit struggling to be free: no time, no strength, no energy then to search for evidences. Let not the professor of Christ leave the "sealing" of his pardon and acceptance to that fearful hour; but let him earnestly seek it now, that when he comes to die, he may have nothing to do but to die; and that will be quite enough.

The Freeness of the Atonement

The Anxious Sinner Venturing on Christ.

"Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus." -Rom. iii. 24.

When speaking of the great unfolding of Divine mercy in the redemption by Christ, the apostle employs language the most concise and expressive; he terms it, "The grace of God that brings salvation," Tit. ii. 11. In this short but emphatic sentence, he elevates his reader at once to the source and fountain-head of all grace; he sets forth its author, its nature, and its end. It is the grace of God, constituting as essential and substantial a part of the Divine existence, as the attributes of power, holiness, justice, or goodness. With an eminent divine, we would pass to higher ground even than this; we would rather not call it an attribute, but the will of God which brings all other manifestations of the Divine character before the eye: "It is not mercy, though mercy is to be seen in grace; it is not holiness, though holiness is to be seen in grace; it is a mere act of the Divine will, which manifests itself to all it pleases. It is necessary to go still higher; it is not merely the second in a series of ascending steps; it is not a repairing of a breach; but an exalting of the handiworks of God into a higher region; in humanity to make the Godhead forever manifest, and to lift man up, and make him the nearest link in that chain that hangs from the throne of God."

A less theological, and, perhaps, more simple, definition of grace may be acceptable to the general reader; and as the great manifestation of this grace we are now to consider is the Atonement of Christ, we prefer the phrase, the freeness of the Atonement, as expressing "the grace of God that brings salvation." Should not even this be deemed sufficiently explicit, we mean then, the perfectly gratuitous and unconditional manner in which the blessings of pardon and justification, flowing through the Atonement of Christ, come to the vilest sinner, sensible of his lost state, and made willing to accept of Jesus in the day of God's mighty power. We enter the more readily on the discussion of this subject, not only from a deep consciousness of its vast importance, but also from the conviction, which much conversation with inquiring souls has tended to deepen, that from the lack of clear and spiritual views of the freeness of the gift, the perfectly unconditional bestowment of the blessing, many are kept, even among those "called to be saints," from entering fully into the liberty and peace of the Gospel. They have been convinced of their need of Christ; they have been made to hunger and thirst for pardon and acceptance; they have been brought, it may be, through a deep 'law work of the soul,' to stand, as on the very borders of the land that flows with milk and honey; but, looking more to themselves and less to Christ, lingering on its margin, while the river flows so richly and so freely at their feet, waiting for some condition to be performed, some fitness to be experienced, or some price to bring, they are kept back from those rich and untold blessings which a closing in with Jesus, the Savior of sinners, would assuredly bring into their possession.

For the purpose of clearness in the discussion of our subject, the reader will be first led to consider the simple and express testimony of God's Word; then, the medium through which its blessings flow to the seeking soul; and, lastly, some scriptural examples will be adduced confirmatory of the doctrine before us.

In the observations now to be made, we particularly address ourselves to that class of our readers who, with brokenness of heart and deep contrition of spirit are inquiring, "What shall I do to be saved?" With you, dear penitent reader, the anxious question is, "Will God have mercy upon me? Will he have a wretch so vile as I?" Read then, with close attention and prayer, the following statement, and may the Eternal Spirit give you light, joy, and peace!

In adducing the simple and express testimony of God's Word on this subject, let not the reader be amazed if we lead him first into the Old Testament. For where will be found more distinct and glorious views of the Atonement- its nature, design, and freeness- than are found in the Old Testament writings? The single point of course now under proof is, the perfect freeness of the gift. This is the testimony: "Ho! every one that thirsts, come to the waters, and he that has no money; come you, buy and eat; yes, come, buy wine and milk, without money and without price," Isa. lv. 1. Behold the freeness of the rich and inestimable blessing! "Without money- without price." The simple meaning of which is- without worthiness, without fitness, without condition. So that the most unworthy, the most vile, the most penniless, may come and drink water freely out of the wells of salvation. This is the language of God, by the mouth of his prophets. What a gospel, then, is here revealed! how full the supply! how free the gift! And if this was the language of God under the obscure exhibition of the Gospel, what must be his free welcome to poor sinners under the full meridian glory of the Gospel? Now that Christ has come, and the Atonement has been made, and the fountain has been opened, and the invitation has gone out, can we suppose that the blessing of pardon will be less freely bestowed? Again, "Thus says the Lord, You have sold yourselves for nothing; and you shall be redeemed without money," Isa. lii. 3. Again, "The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me; because the Lord has anointed me to preach good tidings unto the poor; he has sent me to bind up the broken-hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound," Isa. lxi. 1. Mark the expressions as descriptive of the characters to whom our blessed Lord came- "broken-hearted," "captive," "those who are bound." Where was the worthiness here? What price with which to purchase their redemption, had these "broken-hearted," these "captives," these "bound?" See, then, reader, how the glorious Atonement received its stamp of freeness, even under the legal dispensation.

Come we now to the clearer revelations of the new Dispensation. Take those remarkable words, "And when they had nothing to pay, he frankly forgave them both," Luke vii. 42. O sweet expression! "Nothing to pay." Entirely bankrupt. Poor, wretched, penniless, bereft of all, nothing to pay, and yet frankly forgiven; that is, fully, freely, cordially forgiven; forgiven with all the heart of God! But one other passage is adduced- "And the Spirit and the bride say, Come. And let him that hears say, Come. And let him that is athirst come. And whoever will, let him take the water of life freely," Rev. xxii. 17. See how the Word of God closes with the proclamation of a free-grace salvation. The last words that linger in sweet vibration on the ear, as the blessed canon of Scripture closes, are, "the water of life freely!" Let us view the subject in another point of light.

If it be shown from God's truth, that faith, and not the works of the law, is the grand medium through which pardon and justification flow, then, even as faith is the gift of God's grace, it will be clear that, in this respect, the Atonement must be free and unconditional. What says the Scripture? "Therefore no one will be declared righteous in his sight by observing the law; rather, through the law we become conscious of sin. But now a righteousness from God, apart from law, has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood. He did this to demonstrate his justice, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished-- he did it to demonstrate his justice at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus. Where, then, is boasting? It is excluded. On what principle? On that of observing the law? No, but on that of faith. For we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from observing the law." Romans 3:20-28. Thus, by one of the finest arguments in the apostolic writings does Paul triumphantly establish the perfect freeness and unconditional character of a sinner's acceptance with God. Review the outline of his reasoning: "By the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified." By "the deeds of the law," he has reference to those many and fruitless efforts to obey the law which men in a state of nature are found so zealously to aim at. Are you striving, reader, to conform to the requirement of this holy, this inflexible law of God? Let me assure you, that all these strivings, all these works, all that toiling, is worse than worthless in God's holy sight; they are sinful, they proceed from an unregenerate nature, from an unrenewed, unsanctified heart, they flow not from faith and love; and therefore, the heart being thus a fountain of corruption, every stream that branches from it must partake of the foulness of the source from where it flows. Let the failure of the past suffice to teach you that you can never keep this holy law. Let your formal prayers, your lifeless religion, your vows foresworn, your resolutions broken, all confirm the solemn declaration of the apostle- "By the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight." Again, "For by the law is the knowledge of sin." Accompanied by the Spirit of God, it discloses to the soul the sinfulness of the heart and life, convinces it of sin, and brings it in guilty and self-condemned before God. Now, how is it possible that the law can ever be an instrument of life and an instrument of death to a sinner? It is utterly impossible that it can be. It never yet gave spiritual life to the soul, it never yet emancipated the soul from its thraldom, it never yet conducted it to Jesus, it never yet whispered liberty and peace. It can, and does, condemn- it can, and does, curse- and this is the utmost extent of its prerogative. O then, resign all the hope you fondly cherish of life, peace, and acceptance by "the deeds of the law," and betake yourself to Him who has, by his most precious blood, "redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us."

Having established the incapacity of the law to justify the sinner, the apostle then proceeds to unfold the glory, fitness, and freeness of that righteousness which can and does justify the soul before God. He takes up and argues two important points- the nature of the righteousness, and the instrument by which it is received. With regard to the first he declares it to be "the righteousness of God," ver. 21, 22. As we have enlarged upon this point in another chapter, we dismiss it now with but one observation- nothing but the "righteousness of God" can justify a soul in the sight of God. It must not be the righteousness of angels, nor the righteousness of Adam, nor the righteousness of Moses; it must be the righteousness of God in our nature. Away with every other refuge, away with every other covering; and let not the reader dream of entering with acceptance into the presence of a holy and heart-searching God, clad in any other righteousness than that which the adorable Immanuel wrought out. In this righteousness the believing sinner is safe, and safe forever: take him for a moment out of this righteousness, and he is lost, and lost forever!

The instrument by which this divine righteousness is received, is the second point established by this conclusive argument of the apostle. He clearly proves it to be by faith. Thus: "This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe." Romans 3:22. And in verse 25: "For God sent Jesus to take the punishment for our sins and to satisfy God's anger against us. We are made right with God when we believe that Jesus shed his blood, sacrificing his life for us." How perfectly does this statement of the instrument or medium by which the blessings of pardon and justification are received into the soul, harmonize with every other portion of God's Word! Thus, for instance: "By Him all who believe are justified from all things." Acts xiii. 39. "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you shall be saved." Acts xvi. 31. "God so loved the world, that he gave his only-begotten Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have everlasting life." John iii. 16. "And as they went on their way, they came unto a certain water: and the eunuch said, See, here is water; what hinders me from being baptized? And Philip said, If you believe with all your heart, you may. And he answered and said, I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God." Acts viii. 36, 37. O see, disconsolate soul, the freeness of the gift! "To him that believes," not to him that works, not to him that deserves, not to the worthy, but "to him that believes." "Where is boasting then? It is excluded. By what law? of works? No: but by the law of faith. Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith (in Christ) without the deeds of the law."

Let not, however, the subject of faith be misunderstood. Wrong views, views contrary to God's Word, and inimical to the soul's spiritual peace, may be entertained by the seeker of salvation. There is a danger of giving to faith, precious and important as it is, undue prominence. We may deify faith; we may convert it into a Savior; substitute it for Christ, the great object of faith. Where this is the case, let not the seeking soul wonder that it finds no peace. Anything, even if it be the blessed production of the Eternal Spirit of God, which takes the place of Christ, which shuts out Christ from the soul, is dangerous. In the great work of salvation, Christ must be everything or nothing; from him solely, from him entirely, from him exclusively, must pardon and justification be drawn. Whatever then rises between the soul and Christ- whatever would tend to satisfy the soul in his absence- whatever would take his place in the affections, must be surrendered. Is it as the plucking out of a right eye?- it must be yielded. Is it as the cutting off of a right hand?- let it go. Christ in his Godhead, Christ in his humanity, Christ in his great and finished work, Christ in his mediatorial fulness, must be all in all to the sinner.

Now, this making a Christ of faith, this substituting of the instrument for the great Object, is the danger of which we caution the soul seeking for salvation. On this point we cannot be too earnest, or too explicit. The matter of a sinner's standing before God, the method of the soul's acceptance of Christ, are momentous themes. It is of the utmost importance that none should be satisfied with crude and obscure views. We say then, that faith is not the source of pardon and peace to the soul, but the mere instrument, the simple channel through which the Atonement, with its attendant blessings, is received by the repenting sinner. It is not the Savior, but the instrument by which that Savior is received; it is not the fountain, but the channel through which that fountain flows; it is not the blood, nor the righteousness of Christ, but the eye that looks at both. In itself, it possesses no intrinsic efficacy; it has no healing, peace-imparting power. It is efficacious, it is healing, it is peace-speaking as it leads, and only as it leads, the soul to Jesus, to his healing, peace-speaking blood. And what is that hanging back, that lingering, that waiting for more faith, for stronger faith, before the soul closes in with Christ- what is it, but making a Savior of faith? It is not great faith that saves the soul: it is not strong faith that pardons and justifies it: it is a weak faith, small faith, "looking unto Jesus," as a rich, a full, an able and willing Savior. "So that office of faith," in the words of an old divine, "is to receive from, and not bring to, Christ, unless it be needs and weakness, ill and hell deservings, sins without number, and obligations to punishments without end. Of all the graces of the Spirit, faith is the most emptying; it accordingly goes empty, poor, and indigent to Christ. Other graces bring something, as it were, along with them; whereas faith brings nothing to Christ but a naked back. As in nature the hand and the mouth are both of them adapted to receive- the one a gift, the other food; so is faith adapted to look, to receive, and to close with the Lord Jesus Christ; and, having received him, to realize all those Scripture motives, by which we are persuaded to abide with him, and to follow him: so that faith in the business of justification before God is not to be considered as a working, but as a receiving grace, though it is both, and sows in tears of godly sorrow, and works by love; but its first and great business is with the person and righteousness of Christ, particularly to receive the Atonement."

It is delightful to trace THE DIFFERENT EXHIBITIONS OF FAITH which the Holy Spirit has presented to our views in his own Word. And he seems to have thus spread them out before us, that the ever-varied and varying circumstances of the saints of God may be adequately met. In some sections of his Word, he has presented to our views sturdy characters, impressed with the lineaments of a strong, gigantic faith.

For example: that was strong faith in the centurion, when he said, "Lord, I am not worthy that you should come under my roof: but speak the word only, and my servant shall be healed." Matt. viii. 8. That was great faith exhibited in the case of the woman of Canaan, who, at the apparent repulse of the blessed Lord, would take no denial, but met his seeming objection by saying, "True, Lord, yet the dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their masters' table. Then Jesus answered, and said unto her, O woman, great is your faith: be it unto you even as you will." Matt. xv. 27, 28. That, too, was strong faith in Abraham, who could take his son, his only son, his son whom he loved, and offer him up at God's bidding. And, to mention no more, that was strong, unwavering faith in Job, who could say, "Though He slay me, yet will I trust in him."

But, on the other hand, the Holy Spirit presents to the view some of the weakest exhibitions of faith, in order that no dear child of God, reposing by simple reliance on Christ, might despair. That was feeble faith which the leper exercised when he said, "Lord, if you will, you can make me clean." Matt. viii. 2. Here was no doubting of Christ's ability- the only point he seemed to question was, his willingness to cleanse him. That was faith of the same feeble character, exercised by the father who brought his child possessed of a mute spirit to Jesus, to be dispossessed, with the request thus couched- "If you can do anything, have compassion on us and help us," Mark ix. 22. In this case, Christ's willingness was fully believed, his ability only doubted; and yet, in both cases, the one that doubted his willingness, and the other that doubted his ability, Christ manifested his compassion, and answered their request. Let no anxious, seeking soul, then, hang back from Jesus, because of the weakness of its faith. It may be small faith; it may be small in its degree, and weak in its exhibition; yet it is "precious faith," yes, "like precious faith" with Abraham and job and all the prophets and apostles. If it be faith, however small, it yet is "the faith of God's elect;" it is of the mighty operation of the Holy Spirit: and though feeble, yet, if it directs its eye out of, and off itself, simply to Jesus, that single glance shall sweep the ocean fulness of his love in the soul. Only let the dear reader bear in mind, that faith is not Christ, and can never be a substitute for him.

We pass now to the consideration of those kindred passages which declare the salvation of the sinner to be an act of mere GRACE. The reader will bear in mind our simple definition of grace: it means God's unmerited favor to sinners; it implies no worthiness whatever in the creature. This is the glory of the gospel: "By grace are you saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: not of works, lest any man should boast." Eph. ii. 8, 9. "Now when a man works (O mark his expressions!), his wages are not credited to him as a gift, but as an obligation. However, to the man who does not work but trusts God who justifies the wicked, his faith is credited as righteousness." Romans 4:4-5. "Therefore it is of faith, that it might be by grace." ver. 16. "And if by grace, then is it no more of works: otherwise grace is no more grace. But if it be of works, then is it no more grace: otherwise work is no more work." Rom. xi. 6. What language can possibly establish the doctrine of the freeness of the Atonement more conclusively than this? See the force of the apostle's argument. It lies here: if there be anything of merit in the creature; if the works of the sinner are the ground; even partially so, on which salvation is bestowed; then the reward, or the blessing, is not a free gift, but the discharge of a debt- a debt, let it be borne in mind, due from God to the sinner! And in consequence of his merit, in consequence of his works, pardon and justification are thus made over to him! What doctrine can be more horrendous than this? what more opposed to God's Word? And yet the doctrine that teaches me that I may present myself before the Holy God with some fitness of my own, some price in my hand, something to merit God's forgiveness, is this very doctrine. Survey again the apostle's argument: if there be anything of merit in the creature, if it be so much as the raising of my hand, salvation then is not of grace, the Atonement is not free; and God, we tremble while we write it- God becomes the sinner's debtor!

The Atonement itself precludes all idea of human merit, and from its very nature proclaims that it is free. Consider the grandeur of the Atonement- contemplate its costliness: incarnate Deity- Perfect obedience- spotless purity- unparalleled grace and love- acute and mysterious sufferings- wondrous death, resurrection, ascension, and intercession of the Savior, all conspire to constitute it the most august sacrifice that could possibly be offered. And shall there be anything in the sinner to merit this sacrifice? Shall God so lower its dignity, underrate its value, and dishonor himself, as to barter it to the sinner? And if God were so disposed, what is there in the sinner that could purchase it? Where is the equivalent, where the price? "Alas!" is the exclamation of a convicted soul, "I am a spiritual bankrupt: I lost everything in my first parent who fell; I came into the world poor and helpless; and to the sin of my nature, I have added actual transgression of the most aggravated character; I have nothing to recommend me to the favor of God; I have no claim upon his mercy; I have no price with which to purchase it; and if redemption is not free, without money, and without price, I am undone." The very costliness then of the Atonement puts it beyond all price, and stamps it with infinite freeness.

The great source of the Atonement stamps its freeness. What is that source? The heart of God! The Atonement, with all the blessings it involves, originated in the very heart of Jehovah. Where else could the thought have originated, of saving a guilty world, and saving it in such a way and at such a sacrifice? It was a stupendous thought even that of saving- of showing mercy to rebellious man. The bare idea of exercising love towards the apostate race, was in itself so mighty, that God alone could have conceived it. But when the plan of salvation is viewed- when the method of mercy is contemplated- when the sacrifice, "the price of pardon" is weighed- that sacrifice, his only begotten and well-beloved Son- that price, his own most precious blood: O the grandeur of the thought! It was fit only to have originated with God, and is, in every view, worthy of himself. From what other and higher source, then could the Atonement have proceeded, if not from the very heart of God? And from his heart it did proceed. And not more freely does the sun pour forth its streams of light, and not more freely does the air fan with its refreshing influence, and not more freely does the ocean billow heave, than the Atonement flows from the heart of God. "God is love;" and the seat of that love is his heart. Towards a sinner standing in the righteousness of his Son, that heart is love, all love, and nothing but love. Not an unkind thought lodging there; not a repulsive feeling dwelling there: all is love, and love of the most tender character. Yes, we dare affirm, that towards his chosen people, there never has been, and there never will be one thought of unkindness, of anger, of rebuke in the heart of God: from eternity it has been love, through time it is love, and on through eternity to come it will be love. "What! are not their afflictions, their chastisements, the rough and thorny path they tread, proofs of God's displeasure? What! is that individual loved of God, whom I see yonder bearing that heavy and daily cross; against whom billow after billow dashes, and to whom messenger after messenger is sent; whose gourds are withered in a night, and whose fountains are all broken in a day; whose body is diseased, whose domestic comforts are fled; who is poor, feeble, and dependant; what! is that individual beloved of God?" Go and ask that afflicted saint; go and ask that cross-bearing disciple; go and ask that son and daughter of disease and penury; and they will tell you, their Father's dealings with them are the most costly proofs of his love; that instead of unkindness in that cross, there was love; instead of harshness in that rebuke, there was tenderness; and that when he withered that gourd, and broke up that cistern, and removed that earthly prop, and blighted that budding hope, it was but to pour the tide of his own love in the heart, and satiate the soul with his goodness. O dear cross! O sweet affliction! O precious discipline! thus to open the heart of God; thus to unlock the treasury of his love; thus to bring God near to the soul, and the soul near to God. But to return to the subject.

Let it not be forgotten that the Atonement had its origin in the heart of God; it follows then that it must be free. To recur again to our illustrations: Does the sun need bribing in order to shine? Does the wind need persuasion in order to blow? Does the ocean wave need argument in order to roll? Is the sunlight purchased? Is the air purchased? Is the water that flows from the fountain purchased? Not less free is the love of God, gushing from his heart, and flowing down through the channel of the cross of Christ, to a poor, repenting, believing sinner. Without works, without merit, without money, without price, without a previous fitness. Convictions do not merit it; repentances do not merit it; tears do not merit it; faith does not merit it. Pardon to the chief of sinners, forgiveness to the vilest of the vile- the blotting out of sins of the deepest dye- the justification and acceptance of the most unworthy- all, free as the heart of God can make it. The hungry and the thirsty, the poor and the penniless, the weary and the heavy laden, may come to the gospel provision, for the heart of God bids them welcome.

THE OBJECTS CONTEMPLATED in the special and gracious design of the Atonement, establish its perfect freeness beyond all question. Who are they? Are they spoken of as the worthy, the righteous, the deserving, the rich, the noble? The very reverse. They are sinners, ungodly, unworthy. Let the Holy Spirit speak: "To him that works not, but believes on him that justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness." Rom. iv. 5. "When we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly." "God commends his love towards us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." Rom. v. 6. 8. And see how our blessed Lord confirms this statement: "I have not come to call the righteous (that is, the self-righteous- those who were righteous in their own estimation, and despised others), but sinners to repentance." Matt. ix. 13. "The friend of publicans and sinners," was the charge that these self-righteous religious leaders brought against him. "This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptance, (O listen to it, reader; it is the declaration of one who styles himself the chief of sinners,) that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners; of whom I am chief." 1 Tim. i. 15.

And who did He save when upon earth? Were they the worthy or the most unworthy? were they the righteous or sinners? Let us examine? Take the case of Saul of Tarsus. His own description of his previous character will certainly be believed: this it is- "who was before a blasphemer, and a persecutor, and injurious." And, in detailing before Agrippa the nature of his persecutions of the Christians, he says, "And I punished them often in every synagogue, and compelled them to blaspheme; and being exceedingly mad against them, I persecuted them even unto strange cities." Acts xxvi. 11. And yet Saul of Tarsus "obtained mercy:" and why? He himself replies- "that in me first Jesus Christ might show forth all patience, for a pattern to those who should hereafter believe on him to life everlasting." 1 Tim. i. 16. If Saul of Tarsus, then, obtained mercy- obtained it as a sinner, as a sinner of the deepest dye- obtained it fully, freely, aside from all human merit, penitent reader, so may you.

It would expand this volume beyond our intended limits, were we to adduce every prominent case of conversion recorded in the New Testament, as illustrating the freeness of the Atonement. The reader is requested to open God's Word and turn to the cases of Zaccheus, the Philippian Jailer, the woman of Samaria, Mary Magdalene, and the thief upon the cross. Let him examine minutely these several instances, and ascertain if there was anything of worthiness, of claim, of previous fitness, of price, in these individuals, why they obtained mercy; but, on the contrary, if they were not ungodly, unrighteous sinners- sinners of the most unworthy kind.

Let us attempt the APPLICATION of this subject to the case of the anxious, inquiring reader, to whose eye this page may unfold itself. To such we observe,

First- The atoning blood of Christ possesses a pardoning efficacy. We will suppose that you have been convinced of this cardinal truth, that God is holy, and, from the very necessity of his nature, cannot but hate sin. "Your eyes are too pure to look on evil; you cannot tolerate wrong." Habakkuk 1:13. We will suppose, too, that you have been brought by the Eternal Spirit to the deep consciousness of your utter sinfulness; that, convinced of having broken, and in breaking of having incurred the penalty of God's holy law, you are looking pensively around you for some effectual remedy for the wound, some sure shelter from the storm, some city of refuge to screen you from the avenger of blood. O, then, what tidings are here! Through this blood of Christ, God, the holy God, the God against whom you have sinned, and whose wrath you justly dread, can pardon all your sins, blot out all your transgressions, and take from you the terror of a guilty conscience. O what news is this! Do you doubt it? Do you look incredulous at the declaration of a truth so amazing? We know it is an amazing fact, that God should pardon sin, and that he should pardon it, too, through the blood of his dear Son; yet take his own word as a full confirmation of this stupendous fact, and doubt no more- "The blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanses us from all sin." 1 John i. 7. O yes, blessed declaration! it cleanses us from all sin- "all manner of sin." We ask not how heavy the weight of guilt that rests upon you; we ask not how wide the territory over which your sins have extended; we inquire not how many their number, or how aggravated their nature, or how deep their dye: we meet you, just as you are, with God's own declaration, "The blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us from all sin." Many there are who can testify to this truth. "Such were some of you," says the apostle, when writing to the Corinthian converts, who had been fornicators, idolaters, adulterers, homosexuals, thieves, covetous, drunkards, revilers, extortioners; "such were some of you: but you are washed." 1 Cor. vi. 9-11. In what had they washed? where were they cleansed? They washed in the "fountain opened to the house of David, and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, for sin and uncleanness." To this fountain they came, guilty, vile, black as they were, and the blood of Jesus Christ cleansed them from all sin. Mourning soul, look up; the Fountain yet is open, and open, too, for you. Satan will seek to close it, unbelief will seek to close it; yet it is ever running, ever overflowing, ever free. Thousands have plunged in it, and emerged, washed, sanctified, and saved. To this Fountain, David, and Manasseh, and Saul, and Peter, and Mary Magdalene, and the dying thief, and millions more, came, washed, and were saved; and yet it has lost nothing of its sin-pardoning, sin-cleansing efficacy! full and free as ever! O, say not that you are too vile, say not that you are too unworthy! You may stand afar from its brink, looking at your unfitness, looking at your poverty; but listen, while we declare that, led as you have been by the Holy Spirit to feel your vileness, for just such this precious blood was shed, this costly Fountain was opened.

We can tell you of one, who, in her deep sorrow for sin, was brought to the extreme of mental anguish. Despairing of mercy, and anxious to anticipate the worst of her punishment, she resolved, when none should be near her, to terminate her life, and go, reeking with her own blood, to the bar of God. The fearful opportunity presented itself. The door was fastened, the knife prepared, and she fell on her knees to accomplish the awful deed. At the moment her hand was raised to give the fatal stroke, these words came to her mind with overwhelming power- "The blood of Christ Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin." Her arm fell motionless at her side, the weapon dropped from her convulsed grasp, and she exclaimed in a transport of relief, 'If the blood of Christ Jesus cleanses from all sin, then why not mine too?" She arose- her fatal purpose was broken- her shaken spirit was calmed- and her heart drawn out in prayer to God. On the following Sabbath she hastened to the house of God; and, to her astonishment, the minister announced as his text- "The blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanses us from all sin." The Holy Spirit completed the work so graciously begun in her soul. The blood of Christ was applied to her conscience; and from the terror and gloom of sin, she passed into the sunshine of God's full and free forgiveness. Anxious soul, you too may come. Why not you? True, you are unworthy; true, you are poor and penniless: so was this individual, yet she "obtained mercy." And why not you?

Second- It is peace-speaking blood. It not only procures peace, but, when applied by the Holy Spirit to the conscience, it produces peace, it gives peace to the soul. It imparts a sense of reconciliation: it removes- all slavish fear of God, all dread of condemnation, and enables the soul to look up to God, not as "a consuming fire," but as a reconciled God- a God in covenant. Precious peace-speaking blood, flowing from the "Prince of Peace!" Applied to your heart, penitent reader, riven asunder as it may be with godly sorrow, it shall be as a balm to the wound. Sprinkled on your conscience, burdened as it is with a sense of guilt, you shall have "beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness." It is peace-speaking blood.

Third- It is through simply believing, that the blood of Christ thus seals pardon and peace upon the conscience. Forget not this. "Only believe," is all that is required: and this faith is the free gift of God. And what is faith? "It is looking unto Jesus;" it is simply going out of yourself, and taking up your rest in the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ- this is faith. Christ has said, that "whoever comes unto him, he will in no way cast out;" that "He saves to the uttermost all who come unto God by him; that he died for sinners, and that he saves sinners as sinners: the Holy Spirit working faith in the heart, lifting the eye out of, and off the wound, and fixing it on the Lamb of God, pardon and peace flow like a river in the soul. O! stay not then from the gospel-feast because you are poor, penniless, and unworthy. Why starve and die, when there is food enough in your Father's house, and to spare? See the provision, how full! see the invitation, how free! see the guests- the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind! Come then to Jesus just as you are. We stake our all on the assertion, that he will welcome you, that he will save you. There is too much efficacy in his blood, too much compassion in his heart for poor sinners, to reject you suing at his feet for mercy. Then look up, believer, and you shall be saved; and all heaven will resound with hallelujahs over a sinner saved by grace!

The Sympathy of the Atonement.

The Tried Believer Comforted.

"For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are--yet was without sin." Hebrews 4:15

Could we draw aside, for a moment, the thin veil that separates us from the glorified saints, and inquire the path along which they were conducted by a covenant God to their present enjoyments, how few exceptions, if any, should we find to that declaration of Jehovah, "I have chosen you in the furnace of affliction!" Isa. xlviii. 1O. All would tell of some peculiar cross; some domestic, relative, or personal trial which attended them every step of their journey; which made the valley they trod truly "a valley of tears;" and which they only threw off when the spirit, divested of its robe of flesh, fled where sorrow and sighing are forever done away. God's people are a sorrowful people. The first step they take in the divine life is connected with tears of godly sorrow; and as they travel on, sorrow and tears do but track their steps. They sorrow over the body of sin which they are compelled to carry with them; they sorrow over their perpetual proneness to depart, to backslide, to live below their high and holy calling. They mourn that they mourn so little, they weep that they weep so little; that over so much indwelling sin, over so many and so great departures, they yet are found so seldom mourning in the posture of one low in the dust before God. In connection with this, there is the sorrow which results from the needed discipline which the correcting hand of the Father who loves them almost daily employs. For, in what light are all their afflictions to be viewed, but as so many correctives, so much discipline employed by their God in covenant, in order to make them "partakers of his holiness?" Viewed in any other light, God is dishonored, the Spirit is grieved, and the believer is robbed of the great spiritual blessing for which the trial was sent.

There is something so remarkable in the words of the Holy Spirit which we have quoted, that before we enter more fully into the discussion of our subject, we must again call them to the reader's mind. The passage is, "I have chosen you in the furnace of affliction." With what is the Divine will, as stated in these words, connected, respecting the afflictions of the believer? Is it with the circumstances of time? Is it since they were brought into existence that God determined upon the circumstances that should surround them, and the path they should tread? O no! The trying circumstance, the heavy affliction, stands connected with the great and glorious doctrine of God's eternal, sovereign, and unconditional election of his people. They were "chosen in the furnace"- chosen in it before all time- chosen in it from all eternity- chosen in it, when he set his heart upon them, entered into an everlasting covenant with them, and took them to be his "chosen generation, his royal priesthood, his holy nation, his peculiar people." O, thus to trace up every affliction that comes from God to his eternal choice of his people; to see it in the covenant of grace; to see it connected with his eternal purpose of salvation; thus viewed, in connection with his eternal love, in what a soothing light does it place the darkest dispensation of his providence!

But, there is another thought in the passage equally blessed: "I have chosen you"- in what? in prosperity?- no: in the bright summer's day?- no: in the smooth and flowery paths of worldly comforts?- no: "I have chosen you in the furnace of affliction." "The furnace of affliction!"- is this according to our poor finite ideas of love and tenderness? O no! Had we been left to choose our own path, to mark out our own way, it had been a far different one from this. We should never have thought of affliction as a source of blessing. But God's thoughts are higher than our thoughts, and his ways above our ways.

Our great object in this work has been, to keep prominently and distinctly before the mind of the reader the absolute necessity of experimental religion. Without this, we have shown that all gifts and knowledge and profession were worse than worthless; that if the grace of God is not in the heart, the truth of God merely settled in the understanding, as to all holy, practical purposes, would avail a man nothing. Having expatiated upon the necessity and nature of experimental religion, together with the great Author of the work, it seems appropriate that the reader now be led to a consideration of that method which a good and covenant God frequently employs, yet further to deepen his gracious work in the heart of his dear child, to try its character, test its genuineness, and bring the soul more fully into a personal experience of the truth. This method, it will be shown, is the sanctified discipline of the covenant.

The very WISDOM seen in this method of instruction proves its divine origin. Had the believer been left to form his own school, adopt his own plan of instruction, choose his own discipline, and even select his own teacher, how different would it have been from God's plan! We would never have conceived the idea of such a mode of instruction, so unlikely, according to our poor wisdom, to secure the end in view. We would have thought that the smooth path, the sunny path, the joyous path, would the soonest conduct us into the glories of the kingdom of grace- would more fully develop the wisdom, the love, the tenderness, the sympathy of our blessed Lord, and tend more decidedly to our weanedness from the world, our crucifixion of sin, and our spiritual and unreserved devotedness to his service. But "My thoughts are completely different from yours, says the Lord. And My ways are far beyond anything you could imagine. For just as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways and My thoughts higher than your thoughts." Isaiah 55:8-9

Nor is the believer fully convinced of the wisdom of God's method of procedure, until he has been brought, in a measure, through the discipline; until the rod has been removed, the angry waves have subsided, and the tempest cloud has passed away. Then, reviewing the chastisement, minutely examining its nature and its causes- the steps that led to it- the chain of providence in which it formed a most important link- and, most of all, surveying the rich covenant blessings it brought with it- the weanedness from the world, the gentleness, the meekness, the patience, the spirituality, the prayerfulness, the love, the joy- he is led to exclaim, "I now see the infinite wisdom and tender mercy of my Father in this affliction. While in the furnace I saw it not. The rising of inbred corruption, unbelief and hard thoughts of God darkened my view, veiled from the eye of my faith the reason of the discipline; but now I see why and wherefore my covenant God and Father has dealt with me thus; I see the wisdom, and adore the love of his merciful procedure." It is our purpose to show that, the path of affliction along which the believer walks, is the path of God's own appointment; and that, walking in this path, he comes into the possession of rich and varied blessings not found in any other.

This is a truth much forgotten, especially by the young Christian, who has just set out on his pilgrimage. To his eye, now opened to the new world into which grace has introduced him, all seems fair and lovely. "The love of his espousals," is the one theme of his heart. All above, beneath, and around him, seems but the image of his own joyous feelings- the sea unruffled, the skies unclouded, the vessel moving gently as over a summer sea, and the haven of rest full in view.

"Tongue cannot express
The sweet comfort and peace
Of a soul in its earliest love."

He thinks not that all, now so fair, will soon change- that the summer sea will be lashed by angry billows- that the sky will look dark and threatening- that the fragile bark will be tossed from billow to billow- and that the port will be lost to sight. How needful then that this important truth, "through much tribulation we must enter the kingdom," should be ever kept in view!

In looking into God's Word, we find it full and decisive on this point. We have already commented upon Isa. xlviii. 1O: "Behold, I have refined you, but not with silver; I have chosen you in the furnace of affliction." There is yet another remarkable declaration in Zech. xiii. 9: "And I will bring the third part through the fire, and will refine them as silver is refined, and will try them as gold is tried." Our Lord's own testimony harmonizes with this declaration: "In the world you shall have tribulation" -as though he had said, 'Expect nothing less: it is a world of sorrow! and while in it, you shall have tribulation. It is your lot. It is the way of my appointment it is the path I have ordained you to walk in- it is the path I have trod myself, and I leave you an example that you should follow my steps: "In the world you shall have tribulation, but in me you shall have peace." And so taught his apostles. They went forth confirming the souls of the disciples, and exhorting them to continue in the faith, and that we must "through much tribulation enter into the kingdom of God." Acts xiv. 22.

From the declarations of God's Word, let us pass to consider THE EXAMPLES. The entire histories of the Old and New Testament saints presents to us a people "chosen in the furnace of affliction." Paul inquires, "What son is there whom the Father chastens not?" He seems to throw out a challenge: 'Where is the exception to this principle of the Divine procedure? Where is the child taken unto God's family- where is the adopted son who has never felt the smartings of the rod, whom the Father chastens not?' More than this. Let it not be supposed that the feeblest of God's saints- those who have the least measure of grace and strength, who find the ascent difficult, and whose advance is slow and tardy- are those whom the Lord most frequently and sharply afflicts. O no! In looking into the Word of truth, in reading the memoirs of God's ancient saints, it will be found that those whom He blessed most, who were the most distinguished for some eminent grace of the Spirit, some mighty exploit of faith, some great act of devotedness, were those whom He "most deeply afflicted." "The branch that bears fruit, he purges it, that it may bring forth more fruit." Let the histories of Abraham, Jacob, Moses, Job, and David testify. Let Paul's "thorn in the flesh" speak. And what is the testimony?- that the most eminent of God's saints are the most afflicted. Their eminence grew out of their afflictions. Like their blessed Lord, they were perfected through suffering. They became thus strong in faith, holy in life, close in their walk, devoted in the service of their Master, by the very discipline through which they passed. They were eminently holy, because eminently tried.

And what was the life of our adorable Lord? Anything but exemption from suffering. His life was one continuous trial. From the moment he entered our world he became leagued with suffering; he identified himself with it in its almost endless forms. He seemed to have been born with a tear in his eye, with a shade of sadness on his brow. He was prophesied as "a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief." And from the moment he touched the horizon of our earth, from that moment his sufferings commenced. Not a smile lighted up his benign countenance from the time of his advent to his departure. He came not to indulge in a life of tranquillity and repose; he came not to quaff the cup of earthly or of Divine sweets, for even this last was denied him in the hour of his lingering agony on the cross. He came to suffer, he came to bear the curse- he came to drain the deep cup of wrath, to weep, to bleed, to die. Our Savior was a cross-bearing Savior; our Lord was a suffering Lord. And was it to be expected that they who had linked their destinies with his, who had avowed themselves his disciples and followers, should walk in a dissimilar path from their Lord's? He himself speaks of the incongruity of such a division of interests: "The disciple is not above his master, nor the servant above his lord. It is enough for the disciple that he be as his master, and the servant as his lord." Matt. x. 24, 25.

There can be no true following of Christ as our example, if we lose sight of him as a suffering Christ- an afflicted Savior. There must be fellowship with him in his sufferings. In order to enter fully and sympathetically into the afflictions of his people, he stooped to a body of suffering; in like manner, in order to have sympathy with Christ in his sorrows, we must in some degree tread the path he trod. Here is one reason why he ordained that along this rugged path his saints should all journey. They must be like their Lord; they are one with him: and this oneness can only exist where there is mutual sympathy. The church must be a cross-bearing church; it must be an afflicted church. Its great and glorious Head sought not, and found not, repose here: this was not his rest. He turned his back upon the pleasures, the riches, the luxuries, and even the common comforts of this world, preferring a life of obscurity, penury, and suffering. His very submission seemed to impart dignity to suffering, elevation to poverty, and to invest with an air of holy sanctity a life of obscurity, need, and trial.

We are far from considering the present posture of the church that of a cross-bearing church. The church has thrown off the cross. Her path would be less smooth, the world less her friend, and she less the favorite of the world, were this not the case. How can we believe that she is bearing the cross, when we view her trimming policy, her compromising character, her worldly conformity, her efforts to catch the vain breath of human applause, her self-proclaimed importance, her heralded benevolence, her trumpeted fame, her sectarian badge, the waving of her treason-flag, and the shout of her shibboleth? O no! She bears not the cross as in her primitive days. We speak not in a tone of unkind rebuke: we love the church universal; we love all and know no distinction of name or sect who love the Lord Jesus in sincerity and in truth; and it is this love we bear the whole elect of God which impels us to avow our solemn conviction, that the present is not the cross-bearing age of the church. True, she is extending her conquests far and wide; true, she is sending the preached and the oral Word into almost every accessible part of the globe; true, she is pouring in of her abundance into the treasury of the Lord: yet, with all this seeming prosperity, the true piety of the church may be exceedingly low, and there may exist in her bosom evils that call loudly for the correcting hand of God.

We have seen, then, that our blessed Lord sanctified, by his own admission, a life of suffering; and that all his followers, if they would resemble him, must have fellowship with him in his sufferings. The apostle Paul seems to regard this in the light of a privilege. "For unto you," he says, "it is given in the behalf of Christ, not only to believe on him, but also to suffer for his sake." Phil. i. 29. It seems, too, to be regarded as a part of their calling: "For even hereunto were you called: because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that you should follow his steps." 1 Pet. ii. 21. Happy will be that afflicted child of God, who is led to view his Father's discipline in the light of a privilege. To drink of the cup that Christ drank of- to bear any part of the cross that he bore- to tread in any measure the path that he trod, is a privilege indeed. This is a distinction which angels have never attained. They know not the honor of suffering with Christ, of being made conformable to his death. It is peculiar to the believer in Jesus; it is his privilege, his calling.

There is often a severity, a grievousness in the chastisements of our covenant God, which it is important and essential to the end for which it was sent not to overlook: "Now no chastisement for the present seems to be joyous, but grievous." Heb. xii. 11. He who sent the chastisement appointed its character: he intended that it should be felt. There is, we would solemnly remind the reader, as much danger in underrating as in overrating the chastisements of God. It is not uncommon to hear some of God's saints remark in the very midst of his dealings with them, "I feel it to be no cross at all; I do not feel it an affliction; I am not conscious of any peculiar burden." Is it not painful to hear such expressions from the lips of a dear child of God? It betrays a need, so to speak, of spiritual sensitiveness- a deficiency of that tender, acute feeling, which ought ever to belong to him, who professes to have reposed on Jesus' bosom. Now, we solemnly believe that it is the Lord's holy will that his child should feel the chastisement to be grievous; that the smartings of the rod should be felt. Moses, Jacob, Job, David, Paul, all were made to exclaim, "The Lord has chastened me sorely."

There are many considerations which seem to add a grievousness to the chastisements of God. When it is remembered that our chastisements often grow out of our sin; that, to subdue some strong indwelling corruption, or to correct for some outward departure, the rod is sent; this should ever humble the soul- this should ever cause the rebuke to be rightly viewed- that, were it not for some strong indwelling corruption, or some step taken in departure from God, the affliction would have been withheld. O how should every stroke of the rod lay the soul in the dust before God! "If God had not seen sin in my heart, and sin in my outward conduct, he would not have dealt thus heavily with me." And where the grievousness of the chastisement is not felt, is there not reason to suspect that the cause of the chastisement has not been discovered and mourned over?

There is the consideration, too, that the stroke comes from the Father who loves us- loves us so well, that if the chastisement were not needed, there would not be a feather's weight laid on the heart of his child. Dear to him as the apple of his eye, would he inflict those strokes, if there were not an absolute necessity for them? "What! is it the Father who loves me that now afflicts me? does this stroke come from his heart? What! does my Father see all this necessity for this grievous chastening? Does he discover in me so much evil, so much perverseness, so much that he hates and that grieves him, that this severe discipline is sent?" O how does this thought, that the chastisement proceeds from the Father who loves him, impart a keenness to the stroke!

And then there is often something in the very nature of the chastisement itself that causes its grievousness to be felt. The wound may be in the tenderest part; the rebuke may come through some idol of the heart; God may convert some of our choicest blessings into sources of the keenest sorrow. How often does he, in the wisdom and sovereignty of his dealings, adopt this method! Abraham's most valued blessing became the cause of his acutest sorrow. The chastisement may come through the beloved Isaac. The very mercy we clasp to our warm hearts so fondly, may be God's voice to us, speaking in the tone of severe yet tender rebuke. Samuel, dear to the heart of Eli, was God's solemn voice to his erring yet beloved servant.

Let no afflicted believer, then, think lightly of his chastisements: it is the Lord's will that he should feel them. They were sent for this purpose. If I did not feel the cross, if I was not conscious of the burden, if the wound were not painful, I should never take it to the mercy-seat, there to seek all needed grace, support, and strength. The burden must first be felt before it is cast upon the Lord; the chastisement must be felt to be grievous before the tenderness and sympathy of Jesus will be sought.

There is equal danger of overrating our afflictions. When they are allowed too deeply to absorb us in grief; when they unfit us for duty, keep us from walking in the path God has marked out for us, hold us back from prayer and from the means of grace; when they lead us to think hardly and speak harshly of God- then we overrate God's chastisements, and prevent the good they were so kindly sent to convey. There are many and rich blessings found in this the Lord's appointed path of affliction, and in no other, which we would for a moment glance at. We speak now of those afflictions which have been sanctified to the soul by the Spirit of God.

First- The view they give us of the faithfulness of God in sending the affliction, is no small mercy. This was the light in which David viewed his afflictions: "I know, O Lord, that your judgments are right, and that you in faithfulness have afflicted me." Ps. cxix. 75. O what an act and triumph of faith is this, to count God faithful in sending the affliction; when messenger follows messenger- when wave follows wave- when our dearest comforts are taken- our cisterns broken- our props removed from beneath us- children, friends, health, wealth, character, all touched by God- O then to feel and acknowledge, that God is faithful still- that "in faithfulness he has afflicted!"

It is one thing to be convinced in the judgment of this truth, and it is another thing to acknowledge and approve of it in the heart. But, when the Eternal Spirit works in the tried believer this still, composed, and satisfied frame, then the language of the bereaved and wounded, yet resigned heart, is, "True, Lord, I needed this rod, my heart was torpid, wavering, wandering, proud. This rouses, fixes, recalls, humbles me. I know you, love you better now. I see the emptiness of self and the world, and I die to both. You, Lord, will have my whole heart; Lord, it is yours. Your love is judicious, not falsely fond. It is in faithfulness to my soul that you have afflicted. My good, not my ease, is what you, my God and Father, consult. It is good for me that I have been afflicted."

It is no small attainment to be built up in the faithfulness of God. This forms a stable foundation of comfort for the believing soul. Mutability marks everything but of God. Look into the church, into the world, into our families, ourselves: what innumerable changes do we see on every hand! A week, one short day, what alterations does it produce! Yet, in the midst of it all, to repose calmly on the unchangeableness, the faithfulness of God! to know that no alterations of time, no earthly changes, affect his faithfulness to his people! And more than this- no changes in them- no unfaithfulness of theirs, cause the slightest change in God! Once a Father, ever a Father; once a Friend, ever a Friend. His providences may change, his heart cannot. He is a God of unchangeable love. The promise he has given he will fulfil; the covenant he has made he will observe; the word that has gone out of his mouth he will not alter. "He cannot deny himself." Peace then, tried believer! Are you passing now though the deep waters? Who kept you from sinking when wading through the last? Who brought you through the last fire? Who supported you under the last cross? Who delivered you out of the last temptation? Was it not God, your covenant God, your faithful, unchangeable God? This God, then, is your God now, and your God forever and ever, and he will be your guide even unto death. It is walking in the ordained path of trial, that the believer learns out the Divine faithfulness.

In this path, too, he learns his own nothingness. And what a lesson is this to acquire! For a child of God, not to confess merely- for nothing is easier than confession- but to feel his nothingness; to be conscious that he is the "least of all saints;" to be willing to be thought so; to feel no repining at being over-looked- cast in the shade yes, trampled under foot- O what an attainment is this! And yet, how few reach it! how few aspire after it! It is to be learned only in the path of sanctified affliction. Other discipline may mortify, but not humble the pride of the heart- it may wound, but not crucify it. Affliction sanctified by the Spirit of God lays the soul in the dust; gives it low thoughts of itself. Gifts, attainments, successful labors, the applause of men, all conspire the ruin of a child of God; and, but for the prompt, and often severe, discipline of an ever-watchful, ever-faithful God, would accomplish their end. But the affliction comes- the needed cross- the required medicine- and in this way are brought out "the peaceable fruits of righteousness"- the most beautiful and precious of which is, a humble, lowly view of self.

And is not this, too, the method by which holiness is attained? So says God's own Word. Speaking of the needed chastisements of our heavenly Father, the apostle assures us, that they were "for our profit, that we might be partakers of his holiness. "Heb. 12:1O. Job anticipated this as the result of God's afflictive dealings with him: "When he has tried me, I shall come forth as gold." Job 23:1O. It is the fire of affliction, the furnace of trial, that searches and purifies the heart; it is here the tin and tinsel are consumed; it is here the dross is separated from the pure ore, and the gold is brought forth reflecting back the image of him who, as the refiner, watches with tenderness, and faithfulness, the process of trial through which the precious metal is passing.

And is not this the method by which the righteousness of Christ is made to stand out in all its glory and fitness? Sanctified affliction teaches the soul its utter destitution. The believer often commences his spiritual journey with shallow and defective views of the perfect fitness and glory of the Redeemer's justifying righteousness. There is, we admit, a degree of self-renunciation, there is a reception of Christ, and there is some sweet and blessed enjoyment of his acceptance. Yet, his views of himself, and of the entire, absolute, supreme necessity, importance, and glory of Christ's finished work, are as nothing compared with his after experience of both. God will have the righteousness of his Son to be acknowledged and felt to be everything. It is a great work, a glorious work, a finished work, and he will cause his saints to know it. It is his only method of saving sinners; and the sinner that is saved shall acknowledge this, not in his judgment merely; but from a deep heartfelt experience of the truth, 'to the praise of the glory of his grace.'

It is then, we say, in the successive stages of his experience, that the believer sees more distinctly, and adores more profoundly, and grasps more firmly, the finished righteousness of Christ. And what is the school in which he learns his nothingness, his poverty, his utter destitution? The school of deep and sanctified affliction. In no other school is it learned, and under no other teacher but God. Here his high thoughts are brought low, and the Lord alone is exalted. Here he forms a just estimate of his attainments, his gifts, his knowledge; and that which he thought to be so valuable, he now finds to be nothing worth. Here his proud spirit is abased, his rebellious spirit tamed, his restless, feverish spirit soothed into passive quietude; and here, the deep, humbling acknowledgment is made, "I am vile!" Thus is he led back to first principles. Thus the first step is retaken, and the first lesson is relearned. The believer, emptied entirely of self; of self-complacency, self-trust, self-glorying, stands ready for the full Savior. The blessed and eternal Spirit opens to him, in this posture, the fitness, the fulness, the glory, the infinite grandeur of Christ's finished righteousness, leads him to it afresh, puts it upon him anew, causes him to enter into it more fully, to rest upon it more entirely; opens it up to the soul, and discloses its perfect fitness in his case.

And what a glory he sees in it! He saw it before, but not as he beholds it now. And what a resting place he finds beneath the cross! He rested there before, but not as he rests now. Such views has he now of Christ- such preciousness, such beauty, such tenderness he sees in Immanuel- that a new world of beauty and of glory seems to have floated before his view; a new Savior, a new righteousness appear to have been brought to his soul. All this has been produced by the discipline of the covenant- the afflictions sent and sanctified by a good and covenant God and Father. O, you tried believers! murmur not at God's dispensations; repine not at his dealings. Has he seen fit to dash against you billow upon billow? Has he thought proper to place you in the furnace? Has he blasted the fair prospect- dried up the stream- called for the surrender of your Isaac? O, bless him for the way he takes to empty you of self, and fill you with his own love. This is his method of teaching you, schooling you, and fitting you for the inheritance of the saints in light. Will you not allow him to select his own plan, to adopt his own mode of cure? You are in his hands; and could you be in better? Are you now learning your own poverty, destitution, and helplessness? and is the blood and righteousness of Jesus more precious and glorious to the eye of your faith? Then praise him for your afflictions; for all these disagreeable dispensations are now, yes, at this moment, working together for your spiritual good. It is no small mercy to have clear, close views of the glory and absolute fitness of Christ's righteousness. "If, from this moment," is the beautiful sentiment of an old divine, "I had all the purity of angels, all the sanctity of seraphs, all the immaculate love of pure spirits made perfect, I would part with all to stand before God in the righteousness of Christ."

Other and equally important blessings might be enumerated as resulting from the sanctified dealings of God with his people. Leaving the tried and experienced reader to supply them from a page of his own history, we pass to the consideration of the SYMPATHY OF CHRIST, as the point to which we had intended to have given more distinct prominency in this chapter. The view which the Atonement presents of the sympathy of Christ is most glorious! The Divine compassion and sympathy could only be revealed by the incarnation of Deity. In order to the just exhibition of sympathy of one individual with another, there must be a similarity of circumstances. The like body must be inhabited, the same path must be trod, the same, or a similar, sorrow must be felt. There can be no true sympathy apart from this. A similarity of circumstances is indispensably necessary. See then the fitness of Christ to this very purpose. God took upon him our nature, in order to bear our griefs, and carry our sorrows. Here we enter into the blessedness that flows from the human nature of Christ.

As God merely, he could not endure suffering, nor weep, nor die: as man only, he could not have sustained the weight of our sin, grief, nor sorrow. There must be a union of the two natures to accomplish the two objects in one person. The Godhead must be united to the manhood; the one to obey, the other to die; the one to satisfy Divine justice, the other to sympathize with the people in whose behalf the satisfaction was made. Let not the Christian reader shrink from a full and distinct recognition of the doctrine of our Lord's humanity; let it be an important article of his creed, as it is an essential pillar of his hope. If the Deity of Jesus is precious, so is his humanity: the one is of no avail in the work of redemption apart from the other. It is the blending of the two in mysterious union that constitutes the "great mystery of godliness."

Approach then the humanity of your adorable Lord. Turn not from it. It was pure humanity. It was not the form of an angel he assumed; nor did he pause in his descent to our world to attach himself to an order of intelligent beings, if such there be, existing between the angelic and the human. It was pure humanity, bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh, which he took up into intimate and indissoluble union with his Deity. It was humanity, too, in its suffering form. Our Lord attached himself to the woes of our nature, he identified himself with sorrow in its every aspect. This was no small evidence of the love and condescension of Jesus. To have assumed our nature, this had been a mighty stoop: but, to have assumed its most humiliating, abject form, this surpasses all our thoughts of his love to man. The dark picture of fallen humanity was before him, drawn in its most gloomy and repulsive features; and, although he could not possibly have taken up into union with him our fallen humanity without the peculiar weakness inseparable from it, yet there were walks through life he might have chosen, and in which suffering and sorrow would have been greatly mitigated and softened, if not entirely unknown. But, he chose the suffering state; he preferred to link himself with sorrow and tears, they being more in harmony with the mission on which he had come, and with his own pensive and sympathetic nature.

It was necessary that our Lord, in order to sympathize fully with his people, should not only identify himself with their nature, but in some degree with their peculiar circumstances. This he did. It is the consolation of the believer to know, that the shepherd has gone before the flock. He does not bid them to walk in a path which his own feet have not first trod, and left their impress. As the dear, tender, ever-watchful Shepherd of his sheep, "he goes before them," and it is the characteristic of his sheep, that they "follow him." Our Lord was eminently fitted to enter sympathetically into every circumstance of his dear family, so that no believer shall he able to say, "Mine is a solitary case; my path is a lonely path: I walk where there are no footprints; I bear a cross which none have borne before me; surely Jesus cannot enter sympathetically into my circumstances." -then there would have been a limit to the tender sympathy of Christ. If there were a case among his dear family of trial, affliction, or temptation, into which Jesus could not enter, then he could not be "in all points" the merciful and sympathetic High Priest.

View the subject in any aspect, and ascertain if Jesus is not fitted for the peculiarity of that case. Shall we commence with the finer feelings of our nature?- they belonged to him, and in him were of a far more exquisitely tender and chastened character than in us. His heart was delicately attuned to the gentlest harmony of ours. Not a refined and tender emotion, but he possessed in a higher order; the tenderest affection, the most delicate and confiding friendship, were not strangers to his capacious heart. He knew, too, what it was to have those gentle ties rudely sundered by inconstancy, and painfully severed by death. Over the treachery of one, and the tomb of another, his sensitive spirit had poured out its grief. Beloved reader, the heart of Jesus is composed of the finest chords. You know not how accurately and delicately it is attuned to yours, whether the chord vibrates in a joyous or a sorrowful note. You are perhaps walking in a solitary path; there is a peculiarity in your trial: it is of a nature so delicate, that you shrink from disclosing it even to your dearest earthly friend; and though surrounded by human sympathy, yet there is a friend you still need, to whom you can disclose the feelings of your bosom- that friend is Jesus. There is sympathy in Jesus to meet your case. Go to him- open all your heart do not be afraid, he invites, he bids you come.

Christian reader, we suppose you to be no stranger to grief. Your heart has known what sorrow is; you have borne, perhaps for years, some heavy, painful, yet concealed cross. Over it, in the solitude and silence of privacy, you have wept, agonized, and prayed. And still the cross, though mitigated, is not removed, Have you ever thought of the sympathy of Christ? Have you ever thought of him as bearing that cross with you? as entering into its peculiarity, its minutest circumstance? O, there is a fibre in his heart that sympathizes, there is a chord there that vibrates to that grief of yours; it is touched the moment sadness and sorrow find their lodgment in your bosom. That cross he is bearing with you at this moment; and although you may feel it to be so heavy and painful, as to be lost to the sweet consciousness of this, still, it rests on him, as on you; and were he to remove his shoulder but for a moment, you would be crushed beneath its pressure. "Then why, if so tender and sympathizing, does he place upon me this cross?" Because of his tenderness and sympathy. He sees you need that cross. You have carried it, it may be, for years: who can tell where and what you would have been at this moment, but for this very cross? What evil in you it may have checked; what corruption in you it may have subdued; what constitutional infirmities it may have weakened; from what lengths it has kept you, from what rocks and precipices it has guarded you; and what good it has been silently and secretly, yet effectually working in you all the long years of your life; who can tell but God himself? The removal of that cross might have been the removal of your greatest mercy. Hush, then, every murmur: be still, and know that he is God; and that all these trials, these cross dispensations, these untoward circumstances, are now working together for your good and his glory.

And what would you know- may we not ask?- of Jesus- his tenderness, and love, and sympathizing heart- but for the rough and thorny path along which you have been thus led? The glory and fulness, the preciousness and sympathy of Christ, are not learned in every circumstance of life. The hour of prosperity, when every thing passes smoothly on- providences smiling- the heart's surface unruffled- the bud of hope expanded into the fall flower- the gladsome sunlight of creature happiness gilding every prospect with its brightness- this is not the hour, nor these the circumstances, most favorable to an experimental acquaintance with Christ. It is in the dark hour- the hour of trial and of adversity- when the sea is rough and the sky is lowering, and providences are mysterious, and the heart is agitated, and hope is disappointed- its bud nipped, and its stem broken, and creature comfort and support fail; O, then it is the fulness, and preciousness, and tenderness of Jesus are learned! Then it is the heart loosens its hold on created objects, and entwines itself more fondly and more closely around the incarnate Son of God! Blessed Jesus! Brother born for our every adversity! Did you take our nature up into union with your own? And can you, do you weep when we weep, and rejoice when we rejoice? O, adorable Son of God! we stand amazed, and are lost in this love, at your condescension and this sympathy. Draw our hearts to yourself- let our affections rise and meet in you, their center, and cling to you, their all.

Shall we go on, as we proposed, to classify the peculiar trying circumstances of God's dear family? They are so many and so diversified, we know not where to commence, nor where to terminate. "Many are the afflictions of the righteous." Each heart has its own sorrow- each soul bears its own cross; but Jesus is enough for all, he has sympathy for each and all his suffering people. Are you suffering from pining sickness? Are your days wearisome and your nights sleepless from the inroads of disease? Then there is sympathy in Christ for you; for it is written, "Himself took our infirmities, and bore our sicknesses." He remembers that you are but dust; and, we doubt not, his blessed body knew what languid days and sleepless nights were. O, then, think of Jesus. That disease that wastes- that pain that racks- that debility that unnerves you, Jesus knows fully and sympathetically. True, he is now beyond all physical feelings; yet his tender heart sympathizes still.

Are you suffering from temporal poverty? Are sources on which you depended broken up? Friends on whom you have leaned, removed? Does need stare you in the face? And are you at a loss to know from where the next supply may come? Even here, my brother, even here, my sister, can Jesus sympathize with you. He, like you, and like the greater part of his people, was poor in this world's goods. No home sheltered, no daily-spread table provided for him; he was a poor, homeless, houseless, friendless wanderer! The foxes had holes, and the birds had nests, but Jesus had nowhere to lay his blessed head- that head that ached and bled for you. Take your poverty to him; take your needs to him. Let the principle of faith now be exercised. Has he died for your soul- has he pardoned your sins- has he given you himself, then will he not with himself freely give you all things necessary for your temporal comfort, while yet a pilgrim upon earth? Take your poverty and your need simply and directly to Jesus, think it not too trifling and too trivial to disclose to him; he has an ear to hear your cry, a heart to sympathize with your case, and a hand to supply all your need. Then again we say- take your needs simply and directly to Christ.

Has death entered your domestic circle, plucking from it some precious and valued member?- the affectionate parent the tender husband- the fond wife, or the endeared child? Has he "put lover and friend far from you," leaving the heart to weep in silence and sadness over the wreck of hopes that were so bright, and over the rupture of ties that were so tender? O, there is sympathy in Christ even for this! Jesus knew what it was to weep over the grave of buried love- of friendship interred; he knew what it was to have affection's ties broken, leaving the heart wounded and bleeding. He can enter into your sorrow, bereaved reader- yes, even into yours. See him at the tomb of Lazarus- see him weep- "behold how he loved him." What! do you repair to the grave of the dear departed one to weep, and Jesus not sympathize with you? Let not unbelief close up this last remaining source of consolation- the tender sympathy of Christ. He can enter into those tears of yours: the heart's desolateness, loneliness, and disappointment, are not unknown and unnoticed by our blessed Immanuel.

And why has the Lord dealt with you thus? why has he torn the idol from its temple? why has he emptied the heart, and left it thus lonely and desolate? O why, but to prepare that temple for himself; why, but to pour into its emptiness the full stream of his own precious love and sympathy! For this, beloved, has he been, and, it may he, is now dealing with you. That heart of yours belongs to him- he bought it at a costly price; it belongs to him- he conquered and subdued it by the omnipotence of his Spirit; it belongs to him- he has sealed it with his precious blood. And he would have you know this, too, by deep and sweet experience. He would have you know how he has loved you, and loves you still; he would have you know that you are his; his by eternal election; his by gift by purchase- by conquest- by a covenant that all your departures, all your unfaithfulness, all your unworthiness, all the changing scenes through which you pass, shall never, and can never alter. All this, it is his will you should experience. Then, bow with submission to the discipline; as a weaned child, sit at his feet, adopting his own blessed words, "Not my will, but yours be done."

Thus, dear reader, does the glorious Atonement of the Son of God open to us the ocean sympathy of his heart. But for that Atonement, nothing should we have known of his sympathy; but for his cross, nothing of his love; but for his death, nothing of joy on earth, and nothing of glory in heaven- all, all springs from the Atonement of Jesus. "Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has gone through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to the faith we profess. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are--yet was without sin. Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need." Hebrews 4:14-16

"Soon we go from grace to glory,
God's own hand shall lead us there;
Soon shall we rehearse the story
Of his gracious dealings here.

"Soon will end our earthly mission,
Soon will pass our pilgrim days,
Hope give place to full fruition,
Faith to sight, and prayer to praise."

The Fearful Alternative of Rejecting the Atonement

THE IMPENITENT SINNER WARNED

"There remains no more sacrifice for sins, but a certain fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation which shall devour the adversaries." Hebrews 10:26, 27.

Many will doubtless be induced, from various motives, to read these humble pages, who will assent and consent to the truths they discuss, the doctrine they advocate, and even the one principle on which they constantly insist, that is, the necessity of experimental religion; and yet will close the book and retire, thinking as lightly of the great Atonement of the Son of God, as the child of the diamond, with which it for a moment plays, then tramples as a thing of no value beneath its feet. There is such a thing, my impenitent reader, as assenting to the great Atonement of Christ, defending ably and successfully its divine character, its expiatory nature, and its infinite design, and yet living without its practical influence upon the mind, the affections, and the life; and dying, as fearfully rejecting it, and with equal guilt, as he who openly avows his disbelief in the divine revelation of the doctrine. There may be a secret, practical rejection of the atoning blood, while the judgment fully and cordially assents to its truth and its necessity. It is not he who merely yields an intellectual assent to the truth of God's Word, who is accepted of God. Something far beyond this is needed. The Atonement is a practical, influential, life-imparting, and life-sustaining principle. It demands more than the bare and cold assent of the judgment. The heart must welcome it; and in order thus to welcome it, that heart must have mourned over the bitterness of sin, and in deep and unfeigned repentance before a holy God. Again we assert it- and would that the sentiment were carried to the conscience of the reader, and fastened there by the Eternal Spirit of God! -no man shall value the precious blood of Christ, until he has been made to see and feel himself to be a lost and undone sinner. Christ is precious only to the soul that feels its spiritual poverty, its vileness, its emptiness, its nothingness- to such an individual, Jesus is everything. The deeper the Eternal Spirit leads him to an acquaintance with himself, the more precious is that Savior, whom he now finds to be the very Savior that he needs. The daily discovery of indwelling corruption, inordinate affection, pride, self-esteem, instability, love of the world, and the innumerable other forms which indwelling depravity assumes, endears to him the fountain that cleanses from all sin; he repairs afresh to it, washes again and again in it; and these daily applications to the atoning blood make sin increasingly sinful, and strengthen the panting of his soul for divine conformity.

But, not so is it with the man who is a stranger to himself, while yet assenting with all the vigor of a forceful intellect, and an enlightened judgment, to the truth of the doctrine of Christ's Atonement. Reader, what is the atoning blood to you, as far as its saving influence extends, so long as you have never experienced its power in your heart? We charge you not with an open hostility to this doctrine, we rank you not among the number who profess no belief whatever in its existence- who deny it to be a doctrine of revelation, who refuse divine honors to the person of the Redeemer, and trample under foot his most precious atoning blood- we rank you not with this class of errorists. You are, in a sense, a believer in the Atonement, you have always so believed in it, it has always been an article of your orthodox creed: you have never denied it; you have sat, and still sit, beneath a ministry that holds it up to view as the one hope of the sinner, the exclusive ground of acceptance with God: and still you are "dead in trespasses and in sins." What an awful and anomalous spectacle do you present! A believer, and yet an unbeliever, in the atoning blood of Christ; receiving, and yet rejecting it; consenting to, and yet denying it; vindicating it, and yet turning your back upon it; your judgment assenting to it, your heart refusing it! What a spectacle do you present to the whole intelligent universe, and to the God of the universe! Bear with the writer while he says it- he speaks with tenderness and affection- your intellectual reception of the doctrine of the Atonement will avail you nothing while your heart is yet a stranger to the experience of its truth. Ah! you approve even of this, you assent even to the justness of this remark. What is your approval and your assent, but as the signing of your own death warrant? See what an alarming callousness a long life of impenitence and Gospel preaching has produced, that you can cordially approve of the most solemn and affecting statements- statements which bear strongly upon your own condemnation- and yet live on in a practical rejecting of Christ!

But, perhaps your reception of Christ in the judgment, your long life of approval of his person and his work, have beguiled you into the belief that you have really welcomed him into your heart. For this is not a mere hypothetical case. There is such a thing as persuading one's self into the belief that all is right, that the heart is changed and heaven secured, from the mere circumstance of the understanding being enlightened. But let us examine for a moment into this. Do you think you are converted? What reason have you for thinking so? Upon what grounds do you base this belief? Can you give a reason, with meekness and fear, of this supposed hope that is in you? Where is the evidence of the mighty, spiritual, internal change? Has that heart of yours ever been broken, softened, humbled? Has it ever mourned over sin before God? Have you ever sought and found a secret place for repentance, confession, and prayer? Have your views of sin essentially altered? Do you hate, abhor, and loathe it; and is it the chief cause of your daily sorrow? Are your views of yourself materially changed? How does your own righteousness appear to you? Are you humble, meek, gentle? What is the precious blood of the Savior to you? Is it, with the righteousness that justifies, all to your soul? Are you living as a converted, regenerated man- as a child of God- an heir of glory? Is your life that of a cross-bearing disciple of the Lord Jesus- as one who is a stranger and a pilgrim here- but, all whose hopes of honor and happiness are future and on high? But, is not your history the very reverse of this? Be honest with your soul and with God. Your decision now is for the judgment and for eternity. Is not your whole life, your daily walk, are not your pursuits and the governing principle of your conduct, those of an individual yet unacquainted with the experimental power of the truth? Is there not a love of the world, a grasping for its honors and its wealth, totally incompatible with the humble, self-denying spirit of one professing to "love not the world nor the things of the world," but by the cross of Christ, to be wholly crucified to it? These are solemn and heart searching questions, and must, in a process of self-examination, be frequently called up in the court of conscience, and honestly and unequivocally answered by every true believer. How much more anxiously ought he to weigh these considerations and narrowly scrutinize his heart, whose whole life, to the present, has been at variance with the first elements of the Christian character!

We recur again to a former thought. To receive Christ, is not merely to cherish an inward veneration, or to manifest an outward respect for him, his religion, his institutions, or his people. A man may talk well of Christ; think highly of his disciples, his ministers, his laws; and all the while live in secret rebellion against God, and a secret rejection of his Son. "That which is born of the flesh is flesh." -it is nothing but flesh- no elements of the spiritual nature are incorporated with it- it is flesh, all flesh, and nothing but flesh: and yet, with this fleshly nature, a man may speak well of Christ, defend ably his cause, and outwardly profess his name.

"The carnal mind is enmity against God." It is nothing but enmity- no elements of love to God are there- it is enmity, all enmity, and nothing but enmity: neither while it remains a carnal mind, can it be otherwise. And yet with this carnal mind a man may throw himself in the very front ranks, and lead on the vanguard of the host of God's elect. O how solemn and affecting is this thought! May this train of remark have the tendency of driving the Christian reader, not within himself in search of evidences, proper as this to a certain extent may be, but to the feet of Jesus- to the cross of Christ there, viewing afresh his atoning blood and all- sufficient righteousness, draw those evidences from their proper and legitimate source- the finished work of Immanuel.

The sin of rejecting the Savior is, to the writer's mind, the sin of sins. The sin of thinking lightly of Christ, of turning the back upon God's unspeakable gift, of refusing to receive, love, and obey his only and well-beloved Son, is the sin which seems, like Aaron's rod, to swallow up every other. It is the master sin- the sin on which the great indictment will be made out against the ungodly world in the day when God shall make inquisition for blood. It is a sin, too- shall we remind the impenitent reader?- of which the devils have never been guilty. To them the Savior has never been sent. Before their eyes the cross has never been lifted. Along their gloomy coasts no tidings of redeeming mercy have ever echoed. To reject the Savior then- to turn your back upon the cross, to heed not the glad tidings of redemption, and to die in that state- is to pass to the judgment, guilty of a sin, from the charge of which even Satan himself will be acquitted! "This is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men love darkness rather than light, because their deeds are evil."

The reason of this will be obvious to a thoughtful mind. Nowhere has God made such a full and glorious revelation of himself, as he has done in sending his only-begotten and well-beloved Son into the world. All the glory of all creation; worlds on worlds, and suns on suns; and all the glory of providence collected as into one focus, would possess no glory by reason of the glory that excels in the incarnation, obedience, and death of the Lord Jesus Christ. Here Jehovah, as it were, comes forth from the pavilion of his greatness, and unveiling his glories shows himself to man. Here all the perfections and attributes of the Divine character are revealed. And here, too, love, the crowning attribute of all, shines with surpassing luster. May it not be lawful to ask, without limiting the power of Omnipotence, whether it were possible for Jehovah to have devised a method better fitted to make himself known to his creatures than the mission of his Son into our world? The incarnation of Deity is an amazing theme. The thought of this could have originated but with Deity himself. The united strength of all created intellect would never have devised this plan of revealing the Divine glories, and making known the Divine mind. It was fit that it should originate with God, and him only. What angel in heaven, even had the idea been conceived in his mind, would have breathed the proposal that God should become incarnate and so die for man? O no! it was too grand a thought for created mind.

Now let the impenitent reader consider solemnly the fearful sin, and weigh well the appalling consequences, of rejecting the Lord Jesus Christ. In rejecting Christ you turn your back upon God himself. Has He not declared it? How then are we to interpret these solemn words?- "He that hates me hates my Father also." John xv. 23. "For the Father judges no man, but has committed all judgment unto the Son: that all men should honor the Son, even as they honor the Father. He that honors not the Son, honors not the Father who has sent him." John v. 22, 23. Behold in what light the word of truth places the sin of hating, honoring not, and rejecting the Lord Jesus, the Son of God, and the Redeemer of men. We beseech you, ponder well the sin of turning your back upon God's "unspeakable gift."

Permit us for a moment to glance at the present consequences- consequences felt in this life- of rejecting Christ. A stranger experimentally to the atoning blood, your heart must necessarily be a stranger to true happiness. Knowing nothing of a state of reconciliation, your mind can know nothing of the peace of God. You may repair to the ball-room and frequent the theater; you may visit the scenes of fashionable gaiety, or you may descend to the regions of sinful pleasure, and there excitement may flutter your heart and flush your cheek, and impart a moment's radiance to your eye; and yet the truth of God's word is verified in your experience- "there is no peace, says God, to the wicked." Isa. lvii. 21. Talk of happiness to the culprit within the grasp of the law- speak of peace to the man under the condemnation of death, and as soon might you expect a response from his heart, as from his who is living a rebel against God, and a stranger to the atoning and peace-speaking blood of Christ. O no, reader: you will ever be a stranger to true peace, you know nothing of true happiness, until you find it at the foot of the cross, in a sense of pardon, reconciliation, and acceptance with God. The world will deceive you, and sin will deceive you, and Satan will deceive you, and your own heart will deceive you, and even friends may deceive you, all speaking "peace, peace," when there is no peace. But heed them not: go as a sinner lost, a sinner undone, a sinner without anything but your vileness to commend you, and wash in the fountain open for all sin; and thus repenting, and believing in Jesus, your "peace shall be as a river, and your righteousness as the waves of the sea."

The eternal consequences of rejecting the Atonement of Christ are almost of too fearful a character to trace out: and yet the Word of God is our guide in this, as on all other matters, connected with the welfare, present and eternal, of the undying soul. We open it, and we read of "everlasting punishment," "the worm that never dies, and the fire that is never quenched," of "everlasting torments," of "everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power," of "everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels," of "outer darkness, where there is weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth." All this, and more, we read in connection with the final state of the impenitent and unbelieving, the rejecter of the Atonement of the Son of God. And is it surprising that this should be your doom, sinner? Not, if it be remembered that a rejection of Christ's Atonement involves a rejection of the only way of Salvation- "Other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ." 1 Cor. iii. 11. "Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is no other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved." Acts iv. 12. "There remains no more sacrifice for sin, but a fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation, which shall devour the adversaries." If this be true- and most true it is- to what an alarming state is the sinner reduced! He must receive Christ, or be eternally banished from heaven. This is the only plank: reject this, and your soul must sink beneath the dark billows of Jehovah's wrath. Then, what ought to be your present course? Immediate repentance and humiliation before God- this must be your first step: throw down the weapons of your long rebellion- throw down your weapons before the cross- and come in the posture and with the confession of a law-condemned and self-condemned soul. Think not of a future repentance- dream not of a deathbed conversion: it is a work too great and important to leave until then; it must be done now- the present is yours only- tomorrow you may be in eternity. Many have been the sermons you have heard- solemn have been the warnings you have received- affecting have been the entreaties and motives with which the faithful minister, and the beseeching parent, and the anxious friend have plied you- and yet you remain impenitent and unbelieving. Repent then, this moment repent: God commands you to repent; death, judgment, eternity, all urge you to repent now. Think not that you have anything of goodness to commend you to God. On his mercy you have no possible claim. You heavily deserve to die, and it is a wonder of wonders that you are at this moment out of hell. O trifle not with the patience of God! It may weary soon, and then he will swear that you, who have broken his law, slighted his grace, and rejected his Son, shall never enter into his rest. But, if you are resolved to perish in your unbelief- if you are resolved to die rejecting Christ and his great salvation- if you have made a covenant with death, and with hell are at an agreement then, there remains no more sacrifice for sin, but one tremendous, appalling alternative, O it is a fearful one, pause before you choose it- the alternative of being eternally lost!

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

The Officer's Daughter

A memoir of Miss Elizabeth Tatton,
who died at the age of 18

PREFACE.
It is with some hesitancy — yet not without hope of its favorable acceptance, that the Author presents to the military and naval circle, chiefly — the following unpretending little volume. It derives its claims to their perusal less from any literary merit of its own, than from the interesting character and the instructive piety of its subject. It is the record of no military chieftain of daring prowess, and of brilliant exploit — of no warrior, the hero of a hundred battles, and connected with the exciting incidents of a long and a splendid campaign. But rather, it contains the simple recollections of a young female, claiming no higher rank in the military, than an "Officer's Daughter," and disappearing from the scenes and associations of earth with scarcely eighteen summers' radiance upon her head.

And yet, private as was her life, and unknown and brief as is its history, the few events with which that life was connected, the grace with which it was sanctified, and the holiness with which it was adorned — will replenish heaven with glory, and eternity with song, when all earth-born grandeur and renown shall, like a dream, have passed forever away!

She was, indeed, the true warrior — for in the morning of life she entered upon the Christian warfare, combating by faith, "not with flesh and blood — but with principalities, with powers, with the rulers of the darkness of this world, with spiritual wickedness in high places." Hers was the splendid victory — for she "overcame" all these foes by the "blood of the Lamb." And by her is now chanted the song of triumph which never ceases, and around her brow is bound the garland of conquest which never fades. With all her natural vigor of mind, sweetness of disposition, and personal loveliness — her moral nature was yet sinful — and this she acknowledged, felt, and deplored. But by the sovereign grace of God, and the "renewing of the Holy Spirit," she became a humble and an enlightened believer in Jesus — a Christian in the truest sense, and of the highest style. Reader, peruse these pages in the spirit of prayer, that the same Holy Spirit may instruct, sanctify, and prepare you for heaven!

PREFACE TO THE NEW EDITION.
The wide and warm acceptance which this work has received in military circles, and especially the Divine blessing which has attended it in the conversion to Christ of several young officers in the army, has suggested its republication in a new and enlarged form. The interest of the volume is much enhanced by the appendage to the present edition of a brief sketch of Lieutenant-colonel Tatton, the honored father of the "Officer's Daughter," whose Christian character and peaceful, happy death are worthy of a place side by side with the record of the brief but brilliant life of his daughter, Elizabeth Tatton. Both are, doubtless, now among the faultless throng before the throne of God and the Lamb — the one, a lovely spring flower of holiness, plucked while yet glowing with the tints and sparkling with the ' dew of youth' — the other, a venerable 'tree of righteousness,' transferred to the paradise above, bending in lowliness beneath the golden fruit brought forth in old age. Christ loved both — and both loved Christ, and sweet and harmonious is the song with which they unite in extolling the blood — the righteousness — the grace — the love of Him who died and rose again to bring them there!

Reader! Love, and live for, this Savior — and seek to win and reach this heaven only by faith in Him. The work is done, and you have nothing to do but — believe. Christ must be ALL in the matter of your salvation — His Atonement the one, the only hope of your acceptance with God. Your best righteousness is worthless to justify you! Believe in Jesus — and your worst sins are powerless to condemn you! God is ready to pardon, and the Holy Spirit to renew you, for Christ's sake alone. This little volume may arrest your eye amid the profligacy of the military camp — the weariness of the long march — the loneliness of night guard — the separations, the pinings, the fond memories, or, perchance, the sickness and languor of foreign military service. Read it, then, with prayer — it may instruct, solace, and cheer you, and lead you, as it has led others of your manly yet perilous profession — to Jesus, the Savior, the Friend, the Brother — of the Soldier. God grant this, for the one Mediator's sake! Amen.

Memoir of Miss Elizabeth Tatton.

"Listen, O daughter, consider and give ear: Forget your people and your father's house. The king is enthralled by your beauty; honor him, for he is your lord!" Psalm 45:10-11

On descending, upon one occasion, from my pulpit, I was met in the vestry by a gentleman who introduced himself to me under circumstances, and in a manner, which at once presented a passport to my confidence, and which found an instant avenue to my heart. He had been in former years the friend and the military companion of my revered father. Holding commissions in the same regiment, they had both served their country with fidelity and honor, amidst the same heart-stirring scenes and events which conspire to lend a fascination so great, and yet a peril so fearful to the military profession. The period which threw them together as fellow-officers was — as, alas, is too much the case in military life — oblivious of all true pious reflection and feeling — a period emphatically "without God," its precious moments unredeemed from an all-absorbing worldliness — by one serious, inquiring thought of the dread and tremendous realities of the eternal world!

Time passed on, and with it the changes which are perpetually transpiring in all human friendships and earthly associations. My beloved father having withdrawn from the army into private life, and his friend Mr. Tatton having joined the 77th regimen, they had for years lost all knowledge of each other; with nothing of the former intimacy remaining, but the reminiscences which the scenes of early life spent in the military service, fix indelible upon the memory.

But God had not lost sight of them. Purposes of grace had long been formed in His mind, and thoughts of redeeming love were moving in His heart. Both were chosen "vessels of mercy;" and He who is "bringing many sons unto glory under the Captain of their salvation," was about to enroll them among the happy and holy number. My honored father had left the scenes of earth-born distinction and of human trial, his departure smoothed with the peace and cheered with the hope which a heartfelt, believing reception of that simple yet glorious truth inspires, even in the final conflict with death — "This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners." Mr. Tatton, with his amiable wife, still survived, and lived to magnify this sovereign grace, of which they too had now become the happy subjects.

In the touching narrative which my father's friend gave of the past, there was one link in the chain of circumstances which could not fail to arrest my attention and awaken my interest. I allude to the instrument and the occasion of the conversion of himself and his beloved wife to God. And who was that instrument, and what was that occasion?

Let parents listen to it, let children ponder it — it was the early piety — and the happy departure of Elizabeth, their only and a fondly-loved child. Moved by this touching fact, and impressed with this remarkable display of Divine grace to them, I requested, and obtained, permission to weave in a brief Memoir, the particulars of her short but holy life, with the hope that the Holy Spirit might again, though dead, speak by her to some hitherto thoughtless, Christless souls.

Elizabeth Tatton was the only child of Major and Mrs. Tatton of the 47th Foot Regiment — but subsequently of the 77th Foot Regiment. Born and educated in the army — a school which, for its worldly and unsettled habits, has not generally been regarded as the most favorable for the training of a youthful mind, and for the formation of those sober views of the realities of the present life, and of the claims of the "life which is to come," so essential to individual happiness — she yet from earliest childhood exhibited a strength of character, a force of intellect, and a maturity of judgment, united with a refinement of feeling, a sweetness of disposition, and a winning gentleness of manner — which rendered her, in a measure, superior to the unfavorable influences of her circumstances, and which threw around her a dignity and an attraction, which at once commanded the respect and won the affection of all who knew her.

But the wonder and the charm of her early years, was the extraordinary piety which marked and sanctified them. This was both her armor and her ornament. The precise period at which Divine grace took possession of her heart, and the human agency, if indeed any were employed, by which this grace effected its conquest in the soul — it would seem impossible to define. But with the first dawn of intelligence, and with the first expansion of feeling, both the judgment and the heart would appear to have been taken captive by the silent yet resistless power of true piety. The child of parents yet unconverted, moving in a circle the center of which was worldliness, and compelled to be a spectator of, and sometimes a participator in, scenes sadly contrary of all religious feeling, she yet exhibited an early development of Christian character, in some of its strongest and most interesting features, which excited the wonder, while it could not fail to secure the respect, of all around her.

An incident in her history when but two years of age, will illustrate the especial care with which the providence of God watched over this dear child of His love — its relation may likewise serve as a cautionary hint to mothers. The hall-door being left open one day, a strolling beggar-woman presented herself with a view of soliciting charity. Elizabeth, whose natural disposition was remarkably benevolent — for she was often known to part with all her money to objects of charity — ran to the door, and gave her a penny. Observing the child young and unprotected, the woman, with the promise of supplying her bountifully with sweets, seized upon the unsuspecting little creature, and folding her beneath her cloak, stole her quickly away. Elizabeth was soon missed from the side of her watchful mother, and an anxious but fruitless search was made for her in the house and gardens. On the loss becoming known, information was brought that a wandering mendicant was seen rapidly passing through the town with a respectable dressed child in her arms. Pursuit was instantly made; and on finding herself discovered, the wretched woman dropped her prey, and fled. Justice, however, soon overtook her, for she was immediately afterwards committed to jail for the commission of a similar crime.

The reader, especially if a mother, may form some idea of the joy of her parents when their lost child was once more restored to their fond embrace. As simple as this incident may appear, does it not in some degree illustrate the holy joy which the recovery of a lost sinner creates in the minds of pure and heavenly hearts? What joy must fill the Father's mind, what satisfaction the Savior's soul, what gladness the Spirit's heart, what ecstasy the bosoms of angels and glorified spirits, and what new-born melody all heaven itself — when a sinner is brought to repentance and faith, when a soul is converted and saved, when the "prey is taken from the mighty," and Christ has won another captive! "It was fit that we should make merry and be glad," exclaims the joyful father, "for this your brother was dead, and is alive again; and was lost and is found!"

Oh, who would not thus be an object of joy to the hearts of saints and of angels, of Christ and of God! And yet if you, my reader, are a sinner saved by grace, if the tear of godly sorrow for sin has ever stood in your eye, if you have been brought to the great trust of a poor sinner — even a crucified Savior — you have filled heaven with more gladness than when all the sons of God sang together over this world's new-born creation! Ah! and ten thousand worlds like this:

"Who can describe the joys that rise
Through all the courts of paradise,
To see a prodigal return,
To see an heir of glory born?

"With joy the Father does approve
The fruit of His eternal love;
The Son with joy looks down and sees
The purchase of His agonies.

"The Spirit takes delight to view
The holy soul he formed anew;
And saints and angels join to sing
The growing empire of their King!"

Another incident which transpired when Elizabeth was but three years of age, evinced that early strength of character for which she afterwards became so remarkable. One day her mamma had occasion, for some slight failure, to correct her with a light rod, and, for a while, to place her in a distant part of the room by herself. After many acknowledgments of her error, and entreaties for forgiveness — she was permitted to return to her mamma. Dropping upon her knees, she exclaimed, in a voice of the most melting tenderness, "I beg your pardon, mamma, for being so naughty, and for causing you so much trouble in whipping me. How kind of you to do so, or I should be so bad!" Then going to the table, she raised the rod, and kissing it, pressed it fervently to her heart, and said, "And you, sweet pretty rod, I could not do without you; you make me a good girl!"

Tried and chastened believer! is there no instruction in this simple story for you? Yes! your heavenly Father is correcting you — but it is in love to your soul, and to make you a "partaker of His holiness." Go, and fall down at His feet, and exclaim, "Lord, I required the rod, the chastisement is just — the discipline is needed. You are righteous — I am vile; I kiss the rod; I welcome the stroke; I hear the voice — it is the voice of my God, the voice of my Father!" "Heed the rod — and the One who appointed it!" Micah 6:9.

I have already remarked, that it would seem impossible to fix the precise period when, or to point to the exact instrumentality by which, divine grace first took possession of her young heart. But as early as four years of age the "tender grape began to appear, and the pomegranate to bud," in the soul of this intelligent and engaging child. Her reading, of which she was remarkably fond, was wholly confined to works of a pious character; and although the library of a military barracks — especially at this period, when religious publications were not so numerous, or so cheaply and generally circulated as now — would be enriched with but few works of this description — she yet contrived to obtain several valuable ones, and among others, a volume containing the "Narratives of Pious Children." The reading of this book deeply impressed her mind.

One day her mamma found her weeping. On inquiring the cause, Elizabeth replied, "I have just been reading the life of little Harriet, and she has made me ashamed of myself; she used to go to the kitchen to teach the servants to read the Bible — but I never do any good to anyone." Who can doubt, that the Spirit of God, the Convincer of sin, was in this instance moving upon her young heart — giving her to know something of its hidden plague, and dissolving it in godly penitence!

It was remarkable how all her thoughts and acquisitions at this early and almost infantile period, were associated with eternity. Thus, for instance, one day she remarked, in her sweet simplicity of manner, "Mamma, I have been thinking what a fortunate thing it is that I have been taught music, for when I die and go to heaven, how awkward I would appear among the angels — if I had not known how to play an instrument!" Ah! yes, she had indeed been taught by the Holy Spirit to sweep the golden harp — long before she joined the heavenly minstrelsy, and in "sweeter strains than angels use," she had learned to sing of redeeming grace, and of dying love!

But her advance in life, was the measure of her growth in grace. Her love for the Scriptures, and her tender yearning for the salvation of souls — now developed themselves as strong features of her Christian character. To witness a young girl, unblest with the preaching of the gospel, unacquainted with a single serious person to instruct and encourage her in the way of holiness, with no parental precept or example "alluring to brighter worlds," surrounded by worldly officers, mirthful and thoughtless — and yet from day to day bending, often with tears, over the pages of the New Testament, and saying, as she once did, "I can never read of our blessed Savior's sufferings, mamma — but my heart is almost torn!" — is a moral spectacle to a spiritual eye, of no ordinary interest and sublimity.

At this time it was her constant habit and delight, with all humility of mind and most affectionate address — to direct her mother's attention to the beauty of the Scriptures, and the preciousness of the Savior. One day she was heard to exclaim, with a voice of much earnestness, "Mamma! mamma! "On hastening to her, her mamma found her with her Bible upon her lap, and intently bending over its sacred page. "Oh, listen," she said, "to these sweet and blessed words of our precious Savior! 'Let not your heart be troubled; you believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father's house are many mansions. I am going to prepare a place for you. When everything is ready — I will come and get you, so that you will always be with Me where I am!'"

And when she read the sixth verse, "Jesus said unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man comes unto the Father — but by me," — she exclaimed, "Oh, what would I not give to know some pious minister or serious Christian who could explain all these things to me!" But the Holy Spirit of truth was her teacher — and guided by Him, her heart, thirsting for the Word of God, was led into all truth needful for her present salvation and her eternal glory!

The holy shrinking of her conscience from sin, and the faithful yet gentle manner with which she was accustomed to reprove sin in others — were remarkable features of her early piety. There was an old lady in the regiment, the paymaster's wife, in whom Elizabeth had felt a particular interest. One morning she called to ask if Elizabeth might be allowed to accompany her in the evening to the theater. Horrified at the very proposal, Elizabeth seized the opportunity of pointing out to her aged friend, the great sin of visiting such places of amusement; at the same time, with great earnestness and solemnity, enlarging upon the nearness of death, and the certainty of a judgment to come! The old lady laughed at the fervent expostulations of the holy child, and retired, saying, that "she feared Elizabeth Tatton had been among the Methodists!"

When she was gone, the sweet girl turned to her mamma, and said, "Oh, how grieved I am to see that dear woman ridicule everything that is serious! And yet, as young as I am, an officer's daughter, and an only child, so that if any person were happy in this life, I ought to be that person. Yet there is not a pleasure in this world I would regret to leave this night — if it were God's will, except your darling self. — (Kissing her mamma.) Paul's was a wise choice, 'having a desire to depart — and to be with Christ.'"

Another instance may be given of the pain which sin occasioned her. It conveys a severe though tender rebuke to those who are accustomed to indulge in unholy levity in reference to divine and spiritual things. Calling with her mamma to pay a visit, on their return, she said, with great solemnity, "Mamma, were you not shocked and grieved at Major ___'s blasphemous expression? When speaking of his three friends, did you observe that he called them the trinity — instead of the trio?"

Alas! how prevalent the sin of sacrilege is — even with some professing Christians! The common use which is sometimes made of sacred words, the light and flippant manner in which holy phrases are employed, the carnal use which is frequently made of the words of Scripture itself, the interlarding of light conversation with Scripture phraseology, and what are intended to be witticisms — at the expense of God's holy Word. These are sins of greater prevalence and magnitude than, perhaps, many who are beguiled into their commission are aware!

We can scarcely conceive of anything more grieving to the Holy Spirit — than the manner in which some people deal with His inspired Word. Nor is the low spirituality which this solemn trifling with the Bible betrays, less painful. A heavenly mind will guard the sacredness and purity of God's Word with holy jealousy! How can it be otherwise? To the Bible, the instrumentality of God's truth — the believer is indebted for his quickening, for his sanctification, and for his comfort! To trifle, then, with that holy Word, to quote it flippantly, to speak of it irreverently, to jest with it profanely — would seem a crime from which a mind stored with its precious treasures, and imbued with its hallowed spirit — would recoil with holy dread!

Oh, beware, reader, how you sport with, or trifle with — God's holy Scriptures! Oh, it is a fearful thing to quote with sportive lip, to touch with unhallowed hands — the holy Word of God! "My heart stands in awe of Your Word! I rejoice in Your Word like one who discovers a great treasure!" Psalm 119:161-162. How beautiful and instructive is this trait of Elizabeth's piety — her jealous regard for whatever was revealed and holy!

Elizabeth's opinion of the influence of light literature — particularly of novel-reading — may be gathered from the following simple incident. At the time it occurred, she was past sixteen years old — it is not, therefore, the crude opinion of an unformed and unenlightened judgment. The evening had been spent in reading aloud, by her papa, a new novel. On retiring for the night, she said, "Mamma, what an unprofitable evening we have spent." Her mamma replied, with surprise, "Do you think so?" "Oh yes," was the response of the young believer; "had my papa read the Bible, there would have been good for our souls, something to comfort and cheer us; or even had it been history, we might have derived some profit — but this novel was altogether worthless!" Such a testimony against the unhappy tendency of works of fiction outweighs a thousand arguments urged in their favor. Young, though she was, with a mind thirsting for knowledge, and with a judgment and taste capable of appreciating works of superior merit, she yet considers a novel "worthless," and the evening devoted to its perusal — as most "unprofitably spent."

Let the blush of conscience crimson the cheek of the novel-reading Christian professor, as the eye of such a one lights upon this page. Let him be humbled that he should have spent an hour of precious time over a sickly romance, or immoral tale of fiction — the reading of which must have inflicted deep and almost ineffaceable injury upon his spiritual and best interests. Let such works, from this hour — be removed from the library, and banished from the drawing-room, and forbidden the parlor! Such was the opinion of Elizabeth Tatton, on the deleterious influence upon the mind and heart — of novels and works of fiction.

We have already alluded to her sensitive and benevolent character. One day, on entering the parlor, her mamma found her sitting in a thoughtful posture. On recovering herself, she remarked, "Oh, mamma, what would I not give — were I but rich." Her fond parent replied, "Are you not rich, having everything you could wish for?" "Yes, mamma, as far as I am concerned; but oh, were I rich, how would I wish to have all these chests" (pointing to a room where the military luggage was stored) "filled for the poor, and I would clothe and make them so warm and comfortable during the winter." Who will not say that this benevolent wish of her heart was as acceptable to God — as David's desire to build a temple for Him? "Because it was in your heart to build a temple for My Name, you did well to have this in your heart!" The Lord doubtless was pleased with the thought of this dear child. Ah! how many have it in their power thus to contribute to the needs and the comforts of the poor — who lack the well-spring of benevolence which sparkled up from her sensitive heart.

"How often," is the testimony of her dear father, "have I seen her weep, and implore for pardon on behalf of poor delinquents, that they might not be sent to the jail-house. On one particular occasion, a soldier was brought to our room by a guard, to be sent off to confinement by her papa, when she ran to the staircase, and fell upon her knees, and implored forgiveness for the culprit, exclaiming, 'Oh, papa, as you expect to be forgiven yourself — do forgive this poor man!' Such was her benevolence towards all her fellow-creatures." She was never known to expend but one penny upon herself — and that was for some fruit. As soon as she had tasted it, she said, "Mamma, I feel conscious I have done wrong." "In what way?" was the reply. She said, "Well, even this simple penny would have made the heart of some poor person glad!"

Possessed of great personal attractions, of rare abilities, and of superior accomplishments — for no pains or expense had been spared in the cultivation of her mind and taste — yet so entirely did the lovely robe of humility veil all her beauteous character from her own view, that she seemed totally unconscious of possessing anything worthy of admiration, and was always grieved when undue adulation was paid to her person or her singing, in which accomplishment, such was her power of execution, she became the admiration and the pride of the regiment.

One evening, on entering the room dressed for a party, her mamma, enraptured with her appearance, arose, and throwing her arms around her neck, lavished upon her some expression of admiration and affection — too extravagant and fond. Elizabeth gave her a most solemn look, and said — "O my darling fond mother, begging your pardon, you ought not to say these things to me! You might make me vain; recollect that I am human." Observing that her mamma appeared disconcerted, she laid her hand upon her arm, and pressing it, said — "I know, my dear mamma, you will not be hurt at what I have said. One moment's reflection will convince you that I am right."

At one time, her mother was desirous that Elizabeth should sit for her portrait, from a secret, trembling apprehension, that this lovely flower would soon be transplanted to its native skies. But such was her profound humility of mind, nothing could prevail upon her to comply with the request. She would playfully resist all her mother's entreaties by saying, "And what would you do with it, if you had it? You would place it over the mantel-piece, and every person coming into the room would naturally say, 'Ah! I suppose this girl fancies herself pretty.'" Thus, to the inexpressible and lasting regret of her parents, they possess no "faithful remembrancer of one so dear," except

"The image on the heart bestowed,
To dwell there, beautiful in holiness."

In the absence of any such specimen of the "art that can immortalize," a pen-and-ink sketch of her personal appearance and literary acquisitions may not be inappropriate in this place. Let the imagination of the reader picture to itself an individual — in person, tall and symmetrically formed, her complexion fair, and her cheeks deeply tinted with the rose-hue of health, her soft blue eyes beaming with meek intelligence, and a profusion of light-brown hair falling in bright ringlets around her neck — and it will possess a faithful portrait of the interesting subject of our memoir.

Upon this picture, must be thrown the sun-light of that sweet, gentle disposition, winning manner, and air of superior refinement, which imparted dignity to every action, and grace to every movement. And yet to all this loveliness — her own eye was deeply veiled! An object of attraction to all who saw her, she alone was unconscious of the power which she possessed, and of the admiration which she awoke. Absorbed in the contemplation of the beauties of Jesus, reveling amidst the wonders of God's Word, and yearning in her heart for the conversion of souls — personal vanity and pride, inherent though they were in her fallen nature, (for the germ of all sin dwells within each of us,) appeared not to soil and mar the peerless beauty of her character.

Young although she was, her literary attainments, particularly her acquisition of languages, were of a high order. She was a superior linguist. Before she arrived at the age of sixteen, she had become a perfect master of the French, Italian, and other languages. Her written accomplishments were not less brilliant. Her drawings were exquisite, and her executions upon her favorite guitar, and the piano, marked a skill and proficiency in music far beyond her years. Piety seemed to blend with, and to sanctify all her accomplishments.

One day, she said to her mamma, "Mamma, although I have a great quantity of music — yet I have so few sacred pieces, and, oh, if you did but know how I love to sing the praises of my God!" The next day, on driving into town, her mamma enriched her stock of music, by the addition of a choice selection of anthems and other sacred pieces. On their return home, Elizabeth went to her piano, and sang that splendid composition of Handel — "Comfort, comfort My people, says your God," etc. Overpowered with a sense of God's love, on finishing the piece, she arose, and approaching her mamma, dropped upon her knees, kissed her feet, and wept. With a heart struggling with the deepest emotion, she exclaimed — "Oh, God is good! how can I ever praise Him sufficiently in having given me such dear parents to gratify me in this way!"

Another instance of affectionate and grateful appreciation of her parents' sympathy with her fondness for music, may be given. On their return from Lisbon, her papa presented her with a new and splendid piano. After running over the keys on the day of its presentation, she became deeply agitated, and nearly fainted from emotion. On recovering herself, she arose from the instrument, and throwing her arms around her papa's neck, she exclaimed with tears — "Oh, how good is God, to give me such dear parents! And how kind of you, papa, to put yourself to so great expense for such a worthless creature as I am!" Her mamma replied — "Yes! Lizzy; you must take great care of it — as it must last your lifetime." Alas! how brief that lifetime! Within twelve months she passed into eternity, and entered upon the music of heaven!

Death and eternity seemed ever-present conceptions to the mind of Elizabeth. To her friends, not one of whom gave to these all-important subjects a single serious consideration — so eager were they in chase of the honors and the pleasures of the world — she was a person "wondered at." They would frequently inquire, "What has come over Elizabeth, for she is always speaking on pious subjects?" Upon one occasion, when walking in view of the mountains, her mamma, in the fond romance of her heart, and yielding at the same moment to the full inspiration of the grand and tranquil scene, said to her — "Oh, Elizabeth, if you and I had a cave in that mountain to reside together in — how happy we would be!" Elizabeth, with great impressiveness of manner — yet gentleness of tone, instantly replied, "Yes, mamma — but one of us might die! And then what would become of the survivor?"

The thought that death might enter that peaceful glen, and rudely sunder the fond tie that existed there, leaving a broken, bleeding heart, to sigh out its lone grief to the wild winds of the mountain — never crossed the mind of this warm-hearted mother. But to the sanctified and thoughtful intellect of this girl of sixteen, with the capacity and the power of enjoying life to its extreme of earthly bliss — there seemed an ever-present consciousness of the nearness and solemn realities, of the eternal world.

The preciousness of the Savior was her favorite and frequent theme. One day, when her mamma was embarrassed in replying to some of her questions on pious subjects, she said — "Oh, mamma, look to Jesus! He can do all things; nothing is impossible with Him." How touching the spectacle — a child directing the author of her natural life — to Him who is the Author of spiritual and eternal life!

The following incident in her Christian experience will impart to the reader some insight into the simplicity and closeness of her walk with Jesus. One morning her mamma found her bathed in tears. On inquiring the cause, she said, "Last night, when we returned home, I was so fatigued, that instead of going on my knees, I was wicked enough to lie down to pray, and consequently I fell asleep. And now I feel as if the Lord had forsaken me. He has hidden His face from me altogether, as if He would not receive me any more." She continued in great dejection throughout the day, until the evening, when she came to her mother, her countenance radiant with animation, exclaiming — "O mamma! I have found my blessed Jesus again!"

Thus, at this tender age, with no human instructor, totally ignorant of the dealings of God with others — but taught by the Spirit alone, this dear young believer was led into one of the profoundest mysteries of the Christian life — the hidings of the Lord's face — the restorings of the Lord's presence. How forcibly will the Christian reader be reminded of the corresponding state of the Church, as described in the Song of Songs! "All night long on my bed I looked for the One my heart loves; I looked for Him but did not find Him. I will get up now and go about the city, through its streets and squares; I will search for the One my heart loves. So I looked for Him but did not find Him. The watchmen found me as they made their rounds in the city. "Have you seen the One my heart loves?" Scarcely had I passed them when I found the One my heart loves. I held Him and would not let Him go!" Song of Songs 3:1-4

Dear Christian reader, what is the state of your soul? Do not turn from the searching but affectionate inquiry. I repeat it with increased earnestness, What is the present state of your soul as before God? Time is flitting away — a dying bed is before you — and beyond it, stretching far into the dim or bright distance — as the state of your soul may paint it to your eye — is an endless eternity! What, then, is your spiritual state? Are you walking thus softly and closely with Jesus? Are you so accustomed to live in the enjoyment of His presence, that the least withdrawment of Him "whom your soul loves" fills you with alarm and sorrow? Or are you reposing upon the bed of sloth, insensible to your Lord's absence, not awake to the loss your soul has sustained, and manifesting no earnest, seeking desire for His return?

Ah! it was not always so with you! The time was when you could not live without the sensible presence of Christ; when your converse with Him was simple, and close, and tender; when the name of Jesus was as "ointment poured forth;" when you walked with God as your Father; and when your highest desire was to do those things which were pleasing in His sight.

But is it so now? Let conscience answer — let the barrenness of your soul, let the chill upon your affections, let the drowsiness of your spirit, let the increasing love of the world, let the growing insensibility of your spirit, let the light thoughts of sin — testify that it is not with your soul now, as in "months past, when the candle of the Lord shone round about you." Oh, that the example of this dear young believer might encourage you to arise and search for your Lord, until with her restored joy you exclaim — "I have found my blessed Jesus again!"

We now approach a memorable and solemn period of dear Elizabeth's history — the closing scene. The period had arrived when, at the interesting age of eighteen, the Lord was about to remove this beautiful plant of Paradise to its own congenial climate in heaven. A voice spoke to her — others saw the glory that beamed around her person — she alone heard the voice — "Child, your Father calls — come home!"

Let us draw near the DEATHBED of this lovely young believer —

On the 12th of September Elizabeth caught a cold. For a time her illness, regarded by her doctor as ordinary and transient, created no immediate uneasiness in the minds of her friends. In a few weeks, however, it assumed a serious and an alarming cast; and it was then discovered that an abscess had formed upon her lungs. A consultation of eminent physicians pronounced the case hopeless. It now became necessary to represent to her, her real condition. To whom could the painful task, requiring such tenderness and skill, be more appropriately confided, than her mother? In whom were faithfulness and affection so powerfully and sweetly blended, as in her? An opportunity soon presented itself for the solemn announcement. One morning she said to her mother, "Mamma, suppose papa were to speak to Dr. ___, perhaps he might give me something that would do me good."

It was at that moment her mamma summoned sufficient self-command to disclose to her, that all hope of her recovery was over! She instantly clasped her hands, and, lifting her eyes to heaven, said, with great solemnity, "Then, may God's will be done!" From that moment she seemed to regard herself as more the inhabitant of the eternal world, than of this. Not another wish or word expressive of a desire to live, escaped her lips; but her spirit commenced its preparation for the heavenly flight.

Her first step was to arrange her little temporal affairs. On taking out her case of trinkets, with a view of disposing of them as mementos of her affection, she said, "How the sight of these things reminds me of my folly! Do you remember, after we left Lisbon, how I regretted not having bought more of these baubles? How little did I then think I should so soon leave them behind! Do not these things show our short-sightedness?" She then presented to a young friend, the daughter of one of the officers, a few of her jewels, accompanied with the most solemn and appropriate advice. It is much to be regretted that the counsels which then fell from her lips, and which so strikingly marked the strength of her mind and the maturity of her grace, have not been preserved.

When speaking to all who approached her dying bed, of the uncertainty of life, she more than once said, "Do you not see an instance of it in me? I who was always so healthy — who could have supposed that I had come at last to lay my body here? The worms will not have much to feed upon, with me," holding up her emaciated hands. I mention this to show how completely her faith in Christ and her bright hope of heaven raised her above all the terrifying and humiliating circumstances of her approaching dissolution. The "last enemy" was disarmed of his terrors by her simple yet strong faith in Him who had "abolished death, and had brought life and immortality to light."

She then requested her mamma to allow her to make a few bequests of money to the servants and attendants, expressive of the gratitude which she felt for their attentions during her illness. The first person she asked to see was Charles, the household servant. On his approaching her bedside she said, "Charles, are you sorry that I am going to die?" He dropped on his knee, and wept. She then said, "But do not grieve for me; I am going from a world of sin and care — to one of unutterable joy! And, Charles, Jesus is willing also to be your Savior. Oh, look to Him now that you are in good health; and let not the world persuade you that your color will prevent you entering into rest. No; Jesus is an all-sufficient Savior; believe on Him, and taste how gracious the Lord is. Here, take this trifling sum from the hand of your dying young mistress." She then addressed each one in a similar strain, exhorting with all the earnestness and solemnity of one standing upon the verge of the eternal world, with expanded wings for glory — to prepare, by repenting of their sins, and believing in the Lord Jesus, for that solemn hour.

To her beloved papa she said, "I wish to exact a promise from you. It is a thing near my heart. It is, that you will do everything to console my dear mamma when I am gone. From me she expected much temporal happiness; but the Lord is pleased to withdraw me from her, and she will require your kindness and sympathy." Her papa instantly made the promise; and, by the grace of God, that promise has been faithfully fulfilled.

She then requested that her burial might not be attended with needless expense, adding, "I have necessarily put you to too much already."

About this time she was favored with the visits from her minister, whose evangelical and affectionate ministrations appeared to have consoled her dying hours. On one occasion she asked him, "Does the soul appeared before its Maker, the moment it leaves the body?" He replied that we have every reason to believe that it did, from what we read in Scripture. For example, what our Lord said to the penitent thief, "Truly, I say unto you, today shall you be with Me in paradise." She then said, "Ah! that is true! and if my Lord smiles upon me when I appear before Him, and says, 'Come, you who are blessed of my Father!' — oh with what ecstasy will I fly into His arms!" And then her bright eye sparkled with joy, and her countenance kindled with a glow of heavenly delight.

That her filial desire may have been gratified — that she may now be a ministering spirit, hovering around those beloved ones who cradled her in infancy, and whose steps, in later life, she guided to the Savior — we delight to think. There is nothing, we suppose, visionary or speculative in the thought. Our conceptions of the world of glory are far too unreal, our ideas of its inhabitants and their employments far too shadowy and vague. The home of the glorified is not so remote from us as we deem it. The "Father's house" is nearer than we suppose. Heaven itself being not so distant, the "spirits of just men made perfect," who people its blissful regions, are closer to us than we have thought. We move, in fact, through a world of invisible spirits. They cluster around our persons, they crowd upon our path, and they fan us with their wings as they sweep on their errands of mercy and love. Were but the spiritual eye unsealed, as was the prophet's servant's — forms of beauty and "chariots of fire" would be seen trooping around every pilgrim on his way to heaven!

And oh! is it fanciful to suppose, is it credulous to believe, is it presumptuous to hope — that among those pure and lovely spirits clustering around us, we should recognize some loved one who once journeyed by our side, soothing our sorrows, and heightening our joys — whose last sickness we nursed, whose dying pillow we smoothed, whose eyes we closed in death, and whose departing spirit we accompanied to the celestial gate — now "sent forth" to guide us — noiseless and unseen — along our trying and perilous path?

The very conception is sanctifying. For, "seeing we are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses," "what manner of persons ought we to be in all holy conversation and godliness?" It may be an inferior — but it is yet a powerful incentive, to watchfulness.

But do not allow this thought, as holy and persuasive as it is, to take the place of that greatest of all motives to holiness — "You O God, see me!" The consciousness of God's eye resting upon us at every step — that eye, the eye of a Father reconciled in Jesus, and never for one moment withdrawn from us — oh, there is no motive to a holy walk like this! "I have set the Lord always before my face." "The eyes of the Lord are upon the righteous!" "You compass my path and my lying down, and are acquainted with all my ways!" All these are deeply solemn and sanctifying declarations to the child of God. What are the eyes of angels and of glorified saints gazing upon us — compared with the eye of the holy God — this God, our God and Father, accepting us, rejoicing over us in Jesus, the Son of His love?

Oh, to walk beneath the beamings of that eye — as a holy, obedient child, loving what He loves, hating what He hates, and aiming in all things to please and glorify Him! This may be a high and difficult walk — but the grace of Jesus is all-sufficient for it. That grace can make us all that the Lord would have us to be.

We return to the dying young saint. Her affectionate minister took occasion to direct her attention to some of those "exceeding great and precious promises" appropriate to her present circumstances. After he had paused, she herself took up and prolonged the delightful strain, and quoted that most wonderful of all the promises, as expressing the source of her joy and the foundation of her hope — "God so loved the world, that he gave his only-begotten Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish — but have everlasting life." "These," she continued, "are indeed sweet and cheering promises. Oh, that I could convey to you the most distant idea of the joys of heaven — nay, the bliss which I already feel! But I cannot describe it to you. And no wonder that my feeble tongue is powerless, when the Scripture says, 'No eye has seen, no ear has heard, and no mind has imagined — what God has prepared for those who love Him!'"

Presently she was heard to exclaim, "I see the cross — the cross of my crucified Savior!" Her mamma replied, "Let your eye be fixed upon the cross and the Savior who died upon it, my love, and He will save your precious soul." "I will, mamma," she gently replied, and raised her hands in prayer.

It was evident to those now watching her expiring moments, that the spirit of this departing saint was in close communion with the realities of that celestial world upon whose confines she stood. To her a "door was opened in heaven;" she "had come to Mount Zion, and unto the city of the living God." Looking as Stephen did, "within the veil," she saw, and heard, and felt what no mortal tongue could disclose. " h, that I could convey to you the most distant idea of the joys of heaven — nay, the bliss which I already feel!"

"Music swells around my bed —
Angels fill the room;
Lovely voices whisper near —
'Sister-spirit, come!'

"Pain and earthly grief depart!
In my soul there's peace;
Darkness veils the outward world,
But my heart has bliss.

"See the beauty of the skies
Sweetly round me glows;
Light above the light of earth,
Opening glory shows.

"While the sun of nature sets,
Heaven's rich beams arise;
Changeless day follows night —
Mental darkness flies.

"Every storm of woe is quelled,
All the billows rest;
Peace dwells on my dying lips —
Peace is in my breast.

"Upward to my God I haste,
There my joys to tell;
Earth no more enchains my thoughts —
Friends, farewell! farewell!

"Music swells around my bed —
Angels fill the room;
Lovely voices whisper near —
'Sister-spirit, come!'"

On the day which preceded her death, she expressed an earnest desire to partake of the Lord's Supper. Her wish arose from an enlightened and proper view of this holy ordinance. She regarded it not, as it is feared thousands have done, as a kind of "last-rites" for the soul, a meritorious preparation for heaven. She had been too exclusively the pupil of the Holy Spirit, and too close a reader of her Bible, to nourish, at a crisis so solemn, views so dark and soul-periling as these. Her hope of heaven was based upon a better and a surer foundation than the mere observance of this ordinance. She looked upon it only as the picture of an absent Friend whom her soul loved, recalling to her grateful and adoring memory — the thought of His affection and the image of His death.

"Do this in remembrance of me," was the sweet command which awoke in her soul the holy desire. All that she requested was another and a last glance at that picture — for the true image of her Lord was already enshrined within her heart! She had bathed in the fountain of His blood, she had clothed in the white robe of His righteousness, and thus "anointed for the burying," all that she desired was a little refreshment to faith before she passed over Jordan.

Her dying wish was gratified. It was a touching and solemn service. Had it been the spectacle of a soul on the eve of appearing in the presence of God — unrenewed, unpardoned, and unsanctified, and just at the last gasp of life clutching with the convulsive grasp of death, this ordinance as its only passport to heaven — it would, to a spiritual mind, have been a service painful in the extreme. But far different was the present solemnity. There was a propriety, a beauty, and a tenderness in it which no pencil could have portrayed. I speak not of the mere scene as it presented itself to the eye of sense — interesting though it was — I allude to that moral sublimity perceptible only to the spiritual eye — for it was a service into which faith and love essentially and deeply entered, and which faith and love only can rightly understand.

"Leaning upon her Beloved," she received at the hands of His servant, the expressive symbols of His atoning death — her last remembrance of Jesus upon earth. It proved a means of grace which was greatly refreshing to her spirit, and invigorating to her faith. It gave her a more realizing apprehension of the reality and perfection of that great Atonement made by her dying and risen Lord, upon which her departing soul now confidently and peacefully reposed. "I never felt more peace and joy," was her testimony, "than I have done since I commemorated the dying love of my precious Savior!"

And now the solemn but blissful moment arrived, which summoned her to drink of the new wine in the kingdom of her Lord. The chariot had come, and she addressed herself to the journey. She was already robed. The "king's daughter was all-glorious within, her clothing was of wrought gold," and she was prepared to be "brought unto the king," and to "enter into the king's palace!"

Never did the chamber of death appear more like the opening gate of glory — never did death itself look more lovely, never more like a peaceful falling asleep as now. There was a repose upon that countenance, a calmness and a radiance in that room "quite on the verge of heaven." The Conqueror of death was there! The "Resurrection and the Life" was there! The Shepherd of the flock was there! The Redeemer of sinners was there! And the valley of the shadow of death, from that dying couch to the portal of glory — was illumined with His presence and smoothed with His love. "I will fear no evil, for You are with me," expressed in one brief but comprehensive sentence, the secret of her calmness, and the ground of her hope.

Her breathing now became shorter, which baffled her attempts to speak. About five o'clock in the evening, she said, "Mamma, what a pity I forgot . . ." her tongue faltered. "Alas! I cannot" "Where's papa?" "He is there, my love," was the reply. Turning her eyes, she fixed them upon him for a moment with a look of the tenderest affection; then raised them heavenward in prayer. One fond parting glance at her mamma kneeling by her side, holding her dying hand — and then, as the sun was setting, she gently closed her eyes upon all earthly scenes — to open them upon the glories of that heavenly world, where the sun no more goes down. And thus passed away her pure, happy spirit — into the blissful presence of Him whom, in life, she loved, and with whom, in death, she longed to be!

"Dear as you were, and justly dear,
We will not weep for thee;
One thought shall check the starting tear,
It is — that you are free!

"And thus shall faith's consoling power
The tears of love restrain!
Oh, who that saw your parting hour,
Could wish you here again!

"Triumphant in your closing eye
The hope of glory shone;
Joy breathed in your expiring eye,
To think the fight was won.

"Gently your passing spirit fled,
Sustained by grace Divine;
Oh, may such grace on me be shed,
And make my end like thine!"

Before we follow to their resting-place, the remains of what was once, and what will be again, in more surpassing beauty, a lovely temple of the Holy Spirit — let us review some of the points in Elizabeth's life, from which we may gather instruction appropriate to our own. We purpose only to speak of what she was by the grace of God, and of what, dear reader, that same Divine grace can make you!

By the grace of God, Miss Tatton was instrumental in leading her parents to Jesus. "With sorrow and shame I confess," says her mother, "we were then in such darkness, and so blind to its consequences, that we only went to churches where there were good singing and fashionable people; but what a mercy, that, through grace, we have now been better taught. It was my sweet Elizabeth who pointed out to me the beauty of the Scriptures and the preciousness of the Savior. She was so affectionate, humble, and obedient, (indeed, everything that my heart could wish,) that when I lost her — I felt I had lost my guardian angel."

Now here is an example of individual influence employed in a most interesting and important direction. This record forms one of the most instructive pages in our little Memoir. The influence which we exert over relatives and friends is powerful and far-reaching! It is a mighty engine in our hands, capable of effecting great good — or great evil; and thus becomes an important gift, involving fearful responsibility. But in what direction may this influence find scope for its exercise, so important as in relation to the eternal happiness of the soul? What a wide field of exertion is this! What an honor to be instrumental in conferring blessing — lasting as its duration — upon deathless mind!

Onward to eternity our kinsmen are traveling. There the parent and the child, the husband and the wife, the brother and the sister, the lover and the friend — are traveling. See how, one by one, they disappear! Even while we are conversing with them, and are smiling upon them — they vanish and are gone! Gone beyond our sympathy, our influence, and our reach. And where? — ah! where? There is a heaven and a hell — to which have they gone? To the throne of divine mercy — or to the tribunal of inflexible justice? To the unfading glory — or to the undying worm? To either one or the other — they are gone.

Can you think of the dread alternative — of their dying beds uncheered with a ray of hope — of their appearance before a holy God without a hiding-place — of their banishment to the regions of eternal despair, to the unutterable and interminable woes of the lost — and not shrink appalled from the thought of being accessory to their ruin!

And what efforts, as a professing Christian, are you making for their conversion? What compassion do you feel for their souls? What yearning of heart for their salvation? What attempts to "pull them out of the fire?" Is your gospel witnessing scriptural? Are your warnings faithful? Are your pleadings earnest? Are your prayers fervent? Are your spirit and manner humble and affectionate? Above all, is your own Christian walk commanding in its influence — from the holy and uniform consistency of its character? Oh, with what moving eloquence and with what mighty persuasion — does a devout and holy life speak to the hearts of unregenerate relatives! There is no human instrumentality like it. With what sleepless vigilance, then, ought we to guard against those infirmities to which we are peculiarly exposed, lest we hinder the conversion of any over whom our affection and relationship give us power. May the Lord pardon us "where we have come short concerning this great matter! So important is this subject, permit me to pursue it a little further.

In the Word of God, we have both our warrant and encouragement to bring our unconverted relations to Christ. For example, Who was it that Andrew brought to Jesus? — it was his brother. Who did Zebedee's wife lead in her hands to Christ? — they were her two sons. When Jesus visited the house of mourning at Bethany, whom did Martha call to share the comfort of the interview? — it was her sister. When Cornelius sent for Peter that he might be admitted to the privileges of the Christian Church, whom did he call together on an occasion so important? — "his relatives and close friends." And on whose behalf did the centurion send messengers to Jesus asking the exercise of His healing word? — it was for his servant.

And so has many a mother cherished in her heart, the precious words that have fallen from the lips of a converted child, until they have resulted in the surrender of that mother's heart to Christ. Oh, what a signal honor to be instrumental in leading a beloved parent — perhaps a father in his worldliness, or a mother in her cares — through the shadows and mists of spiritual ignorance, and out of the mazes of earthly concerns — to seek and find in Jesus the chief good.

Christian child! Do you not aspire to this honor? Do you not long to bring your unconverted parents to a knowledge of Christ? This may be the end — as it regards others — for which you have been converted. "Who knows whether you have come to the kingdom for such a time as this?" was Mordecai's faithful message to Queen Esther. And who knows, whether you, in the sovereignty of God's grace, have been thus early brought into the kingdom of Christ — that you might be instrumental in bringing your honored parents to the feet of Jesus? Who can tell?

And Christian mothers! You who bear this sacred, powerful name — have you taken your children by the hand, and led them to Jesus? Have you travailed a second time for your offspring, that Christ might be formed in their hearts, as the hope of glory? For them you have passed through the pangs and the perils of the first birth — will you feel no anxiety, nourish no solicitude, put forth no effort, and endure no travail of soul — for their second birth? Blessed mother — who, having dedicated your child to God in prayer, are now training it for Christ, for His Church, and for Heaven!

Let me remind you, for your encouragement, that some of the most eminent men who have adorned the Christian Church, or have guided the destinies of states, received the first impression of their future greatness from a mother's influence. Washington, the founder of a new empire — Morison, who gave to China a version of the Bible — Doddridge, the most useful of Biblical commentators — Whitfield, the prince of preachers, and Knibb, one of the most successful of modern missionaries, among a thousand brilliant names crowding upon the memory, built their greatness and success upon the foundation which a mother's hands had laid.

Among the papers of a recently-deceased American statesman of great distinction, (John Quincy Adams, president of the United States) has been found a letter addressed to him by his mother, when yet a lad, and holding an office in an embassy to Europe, which in part reveals the secret of her son's future and unsurpassed eminence. "Great learning and superior abilities," she writes, "should you ever possess them, will be of little value and of small estimation — unless virtue, honor, integrity, and truth are nourished by you. Adhere to the rules and principles early instilled in your mind, and remember that you are responsible to God. As dear as you are to me — I had much rather you would find a grave in the ocean which you have crossed — than to see you an immoral, graceless child."

Let every mother realize that, to a certain extent, she holds in her hand the future destiny of her child; that she is the founder of its character, and the architect of its greatness, as she is the author of its being — and then let her trifle with a responsibility so precious and tremendous, if she can! Oh, who can fully estimate the worth, or unfold the blessing of a Praying Mother!

"If we reflect upon those instances supplied so strikingly in Scripture, of the efficacy of unwearied and persevering prayer, we shall find several, even of the most affecting of them all, such as bear directly on our subject. For whom was it that the Syrophenician woman endured the bitterest humiliations and the most disheartening delays, until at length her faith and fervor called forth so signally the testimony of the Savior's approbation? Was it not for a daughter bound and oppressed by Satan? What was the unconquerable impulse which sustained the Jewish ruler when, in spite of its apparent hopelessness, he came and worshiped Him, and offered, not in vain, this singular petition — 'My daughter is even now dead — but come and lay your hand upon her, and she shall live!'

It is needless to multiply examples — but there is one so singularly applicable, and which may seem to treat the case of parents agitated by an almost hopeless solicitude for the spiritual welfare of their children in so many separate points, and in a manner of such striking adaptation, that we cannot pass it unnoticed. We refer to that urgent, and as it seemed, remediless extremity, wherein our Lord, descending from the mountain of transfiguration, found His disciples surrounded by the caviling scribes and an incredulous multitude, in the midst of which there stood a suppliant and half-desponding parent with his demoniac son. How great was that parent's disquietude! how heart-sickening his affliction! A fury, altogether uncontrollable, maddened the spirit over which he had watched and wept from its first dawn of intellect. A malignant and resistless influence had often thrown him to the ground, cast him into the fire, engulfed him in the waters, and sought his destruction in a thousand ways. And now his last dependence seemed utterly to fail. He had brought his melancholy burden to the followers of Jesus — they could not administer relief.

His knowledge was still imperfect respecting the power of that Great Prophet, whose help at length he despondingly implored — 'If You can do anything, have compassion on us, and help us.' Bitter were the tears with which he uttered that memorable confession — than which there is none more consolatory to the afflicted and tempted soul — 'Lord, I believe; help my unbelief.' And his cup of anguish appeared to have received its last agonizing ingredient, when, at the command of the Redeemer, compelled as he was to a surrender, the possessing demon gathered his utmost rage, put forth the last and fiercest demonstration of his energy, and left his prostrate victim convulsed and breathless in the dust, so that a murmur ran throughout the horror-struck assembly that the strife was over, and that life had departed! But oh, how encouraging the outcome!

Who will any longer despair of the rescue and salvation of his child? Who will desist from his entreaty to Jesus, because of the confirmation of those evil habits, or the present exasperation and recklessness of that infuriated spirit, whose ravages he can only deplore?"

We must refer to Elizabeth's love to the Bible as forming a remarkable trait in her Christian character worthy of imitation. She may almost be said to have been the child of one book. The Word of God was the instrument of her conversion; and thus early imbibing a deep reverence and love for it — it became her constant, and indeed her only spiritual companion, and the rich storehouse from whence she daily drew the divine nourishment which sustained the life of God in her soul. An instance of her early attachment to the Scriptures may be mentioned. On one occasion, when her papa embarked for Portugal to join his regiment, her mamma gave him the only copy of the Bible which Elizabeth possessed, promising to replace it immediately with another. For sometime this promise, despite of Elizabeth's earnest and perpetual entreaties, was unfulfilled and evaded. The sense of her loss was acute. Bereft of her Bible, she was bereft of her most precious treasure. Passing one day near a place where Bibles were sold, she stopped her mamma, and said, with imploring earnestness, "O Mamma! I will go down upon my knees to you in this square — if you will but purchase me a precious Bible!" "Alas!" says the mother, "I did not then know the value of it myself — but, blessed be the Lord, she did, and felt its power and comfort too."

My dear young reader, do you thus prize and read this blessed Book? If you are a believer — then aspire to be a diligent and prayerful student of your Bible. Let it model your Christianity. Allow nothing to prevent its daily and devout perusal. No other reading, however spiritual and instructive, can supply its place. No other book can be a substitute for the Book of God. Consult it as the your wisest counselor. Carry it with you as you would a lantern in a dark night and along a dangerous path. Let it cast its heaven-beaming rays before and around your uncertain and perilous way. Say with David, "Your word is a lamp unto my feet — and a light unto my path." Seek to have, by the Spirit's teaching, its divine truths inwrought with your soul's experience, that God's Word may daily quicken and sanctify, comfort, and guide you. "Your Word have I hid in my heart — that I might not sin against You!"

The encouragement which Elizabeth's early conversion affords to the young to seek the Lord, and to walk in His ways, is great. Elizabeth was a sinner. She knew it intelligently, she felt it deeply, she acknowledged it humbly. The Holy Spirit of God, the convincer of sin, had taught her this humiliating, but needed truth. "He shall convince the world of sin." She had learned, not theoretically — but experimentally, that by nature she was fallen, sinful, and under the divine curse! The knowledge of this truth led her to renounce all dependence upon her own righteousness, to disclaim all merit in her own performances, and to rest her only hope of acceptance with God, and the joys of heaven — upon the sacrificial death and atoning work of her divine and adorable Redeemer!

In the matter of her salvation, Christ had become everything. All her merit was in Him, all her justification was in Him, all her pardon was in Him, all her happiness was in Him, all her hope of glory was in Him. Is it surprising, then, that Christ should be "all in all" to her? That there should be no object in heaven or on earth so lovely, so worthy, so dear in her esteem — as Jesus? O no! She loved the Savior. To her He was "altogether lovely," the "chief among ten thousand." No name to her was so melodious or so fragrant as His. She had tasted the sweetness, and proved the truth, of that animating promise, "I love those who love me, and those who seek me early — shall find me."

There was another inspired declaration to which, in concert with the saints in all ages, she could set her seal: "Unto you, therefore, who believe — He is precious." Jesus was precious to her soul. His person was precious — His work was precious — His blood was precious — His righteousness was precious — His name was precious — His precepts were precious — yes, He was altogether precious! And His preciousness was a theme which never failed to dwell with peculiar sweetness upon her lips.

And now to that same precious Savior you are invited, my reader. Will you come to Him? I do not only invite you: Christ himself invites you. The invitation is from Him who is able to shut you up in hell — or take you up to heaven! It is at your soul's peril that you disregard it. There must be no procrastination — no demur — no hesitation — no indecision — no delay. The invitation is too great, and the consequences of its acceptance or its rejection too momentous, to admit of this.

While you are debating the question, whether you will accept of Christ — or the creature; whether you will give your heart to God — or to the world; whether you will repent now — or at some future period, in time or in eternity — you may drop into hell! And Hell! — oh, it is a dreadful place! Have you given it a serious reflection? Have you thought of its remote distance from heaven — separated by a great and impassable gulf? Have you thought of its society — the devil, his demons, and wicked men? Have you thought of its sufferings — the fire, the worm, and the darkness? Have you thought of its employments — blaspheming God, tormenting one another, the weeping of remorse, and the gnawing of the chains? And all this — forever and ever! Surely you cannot have thought of this — or would you have sought a refuge from the wrath to come!

To Jesus the Refuge and the Hiding-Place, I invite you flee to Him now, and just as you are. Not a moment is to be lost. Your eternal destiny hangs in the balance. Oh, how alarming, how perilous your condition — you who have no union with Jesus, you who are out of Christ! And yet, how appalling your indifference — and how profound your insensibility! What is your gaze upon the tinseled glories of this fleeting world — but the wild stare of idiocy? And what your loud laugh — but the senseless ravings of madness?

But the reader, whose eye traces this page, may have upon his sincere lips the greatest of all questions, "What must I do to be saved?" And is it so? Dear soul! Welcome, oh, welcome to the Savior! You are just the one He died to save — and lives to receive. He died to redeem sinners — He lives to receive the penitent, the broken-hearted, and the poor. Listen to the music of His words — "Him that comes unto me I will never cast out." And again, to the precious promise — "Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and you shall be saved."

Oh, that I could allure you to Christ! Oh, that I could win your heart to the Savior! Never did an Object so glorious — so lovely — so loving — so worthy, stand and ask your love, as He. He deserves the first, the best, the chief. Give, then, your heart to Jesus. Disentwine it from the creature — loosen it from the world — divorce it from self — wrench it from sin — and just as it is, surrender it willingly and supremely, decidedly and irrevocably to Jesus.

The reader has perhaps just arrived at that interesting era of a young lady's history — her introduction into public society. It cannot be concealed, that if this is an interesting, it is also a critical period of your life. It is perhaps the most serious step you have hitherto taken. Viewed in some points of light, it must be so. To your eye it may assume quite a different aspect. Brighter visions than have yet floated before you, may dawn upon the view; scenes more inviting than any that have preceded them, are stretching themselves onward in far-reaching and gladsome perspective.

But how can we suppress the sad feeling that, verdant with promise and sunny with hope as that path may be — it lies amidst the dangers and the uncertainty of the future — through days that may never arrive, and events that may only be as the phantoms of a dream. Nor this alone. You are about to enter upon a new and an advanced stage of your existence — a new world, as it were, is opening upon you — new friendships will be formed, new springs of feeling will be unlocked, new pleasures will be tasted, new temptations will be encountered, and joys and sorrows, hopes and disappointments — hitherto strangers to your young heart, wait to throw their light and shade upon your path.

At this critical moment, a question presents itself for your consideration of the utmost importance. It is a question of choice, upon the decision of which all your future destiny may depend. That question is: "Christ — or the world, for my portion?" Upon this question are suspended all your precious and deathless interests. It is before you, standing yet, as you are, upon the threshold of a new, untried, and uncertain existence, and it cannot be evaded — it will be heard, it must be decided, and decided now, and decided, perhaps, forever!

Christ — or the world — which shall it be? Both unveil their beauties and present their attractions — both urge their claims and invite your acceptance. The question must be decided, not by sense — but by faith. The eye of sense sees the present only; the eye of faith looks beyond the present to the future. Sense deals alone with the things that are "temporal," faith deals with the things that are "eternal." To the eye of sense — the world will appear substantial, attractive, and permanent — and all beyond it will appear dim, shadowy, and unreal. But to the eye of faith — the reverse presents itself; the world assumes its true character — empty, polluted, and passing away; while the future unfolds itself filled with great, solemn, and eternal realities! Your decision, then, must be made, if made aright, in the exercise of that faith which is the "substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen."

You must lose sight of the world's tinsel and vanities — and turn a deaf ear to its siren song; regarding it as "dazzling — but to blind, as enchanting — but to bewilder." You must contemplate it as one of your greatest foes, against which you have need to be armed at every point. And, O my reader, what a formidable foe it is! How beguiling and ensnaring, how treacherous and fatal! And shall this poor world be your choice? What if you realize all that its rank and wealth, its honors and its pleasures promise — and gain the prize for which you cast the die — you still lose your own soul! And is that nothing? Is it nothing to lose yourself, and be eternally cast away?

But what if you choose Christ as your portion? oh, blessed choice will that be! Christ is just the Savior and Friend, the Counselor and Guide that you need at the present moment. The period has arrived, when you must cease to be cradled in the soft indulgence and re pose of a parent's home. You have now become, in an important sense, independent and responsible. You are to think and compare, to decide and act for yourself. Your bark — to speak figuratively — is launching out alone upon the stormy and uncertain sea of life! You are no longer to creep, as you have been accustomed, along the shore, gliding upon its smooth and shallow waters, sheltered and shaded by its overhanging mountains; but stretching out upon the deep broad ocean, you are about to spread your daring canvas to its winds, braving and breasting its huge billows.

What a scene now opens upon you! The green hills are fading in the distance; your home is receding from your view, while before you stretches the broad ocean, the crested wave, and the endless blue sky. And does no one stand upon the shore you have just left, watching with tearful eye, and with thrilling heart, and with tremulous hope, and with silent prayer — the precious bark, as,

"From billow to bounding billow cast,
Like the fleecy snow on the stormy blast?"

Yes! there is one — a parent, it may be — perhaps a mother — gazing with unblinking eye upon its every movement. And many a sigh is heaved, and many a tear is shed, and many a prayer ascends, unheard and unseen by others — but of which the "record is in heaven, and the witness is on high."

You, my reader, are the individual whose present course I have been depicting! You are on the eve of commencing the untried and perilous voyage of life. How much of its future history depends upon the decision which you may make at its commencement! The choice lies between Christ — and the world. A life of piety — or a life of worldliness. A life for the glory of God — or for the gratification of self. A life for time — or for eternity. A life for heaven — or for hell! Thus to one question, the great matter is reduced. I have placed before you the consequences of choosing the world as your portion. Listen, while I remind you of some of the blessings that will result from your making choice of Christ.

He will be your Redeemer, "mighty to save" you from hell. He will be your Hiding-Place from the "wrath which is to come." He will be your Friend, loving you at all times. He will be your Brother, tender and faithful, sympathizing with all your sorrows. He will be your Counselor, imparting wisdom and direction in all your perplexities. He will be your Leader, guiding you every step. He will be your Advocate in heaven, pleading your cause with the Father against all the assaults of your enemies; and He will at length bring you there, to dwell with Him forever.

Will you, then, for a single moment, place Jesus and the world in competition? Can you hesitate and demur which you will choose? Oh, then, be persuaded to commence life with Christ. I do not ask you, Christ does not require it of you, Christianity does not demand it of you — that you lay down your rank, or relinquish your wealth, or resign your influence, or sunder the ties which bind you to family and friends. This were to oppose yourself to the arrangements of that all-wise Providence, which has ordained all the circumstances of your life, which has mapped every step of your journey, which has appointed the bounds of your habitations, and which directs all the minutiae of your history from first to last. But I do ask you, and Christ invites you, and your best interests plead with you — to enter upon life with making the Lord Jesus your Savior, your friend, your portion, your everlasting treasure!

Oh, begin its important duties, its high responsibilities, its many and varied trials — with a saving knowledge of His person, with an entire reliance upon His salvation, with an assured interest in His love, with a heartfelt experience of His grace, with a soul surrendered to the possession and government of His Spirit. Upon the threshold of the path now opening before you, Jesus stands, and in gentle and persuasive accents, says, "Give me your heart!" Yield to His request, and you are happy for time and for eternity! Go in prayer, go in faith, go in sincerity and in truth to God, and there exclaim, "I Am The Lord's!" Oh, blissful moment that finds your heart at rest in Jesus!

"Here, Lord! I give myself away,
'Tis all that I can do."

But have you chosen the world as your portion? Have you resolved and decided for the sinful, unsatisfying, wounding, false, and disappointing world? — the world that passes away? Then let it be! You have chosen the world — in preference to Christ; the creature — in preference to God; hell — in preference to heaven! Then let it be! And as saints and angels, the Church below, and the Church above, witness your mad choice, they will together chant in mournful strains the death-dirge of your soul —

"She has chosen the world,
And its paltry crowd;
She has chosen the world,
And an endless shroud!

"She has chosen the world,
With its misnamed pleasures;
She has chosen the world,
Before heaven's own treasures.

"She has launched her boat
On life's giddy sea,
And her all is afloat
For eternity!

"But Bethlehem's star
Is not in her view;
And her aim is far
From the harbor true.

"When the storm descends
From an angry sky,
Ah! — where from the winds
Shall the vessel fly?

"When stars are concealed,
And rudder gone,
And heaven is sealed
To the wandering one —

"The whirlpool opes
For the gallant prize;
And with all her hopes
To the deep she flies!

"But who may tell
Of the place of woe,
Where the wicked dwell,
Where the worldlings go!

"For the human heart
Can ne'er conceive
What joys are the part
Of them that believe.

"Nor can justly think
Of the cup of death,
Which all must drink
Who despise the faith.

"Away then — oh, fly
From the joys of earth;
Her smile is a lie,
There's a sting in her mirth.

"Come, leave the dreams
Of this transient night,
And bask in the beams
Of an endless light!"

God was glorified in the death of Elizabeth. Her one aim and supremest delight, while living, had been to glorify her Father in heaven. To please and serve the Savior — she seemed alone to live. Life had no attraction so sweet, no object superior to this. And now, as she honored God in life — God would honor her in death, by making that death the occasion of the true conversion of her beloved parents. It would seem necessary that she should die — that they might live.

Her holy life had done much to rebuke their earthliness, and to arouse them to the conviction, that there was another and a brighter world, from which she seemed to have come, and to which she sought to allure. But it was the sanctified bereavement of her death which fully brought them to the Savior, of whom she was the first to tell them, and of whose love, beauty, and preciousness she had so often and so sweetly spoken.

That solemn day that saw this lovely flower droop and die, saw that mother, whose bosom had loved and cherished it so fondly, offering up praise and thanksgiving to the Lord as she had never done before. And for what? For the loss of her child? Yes! for then it was she heard a voice saying — it was no sound in the air, it was the still small voice of Jesus in the soul — "Oh, turn unto Me, and be saved."

"I covered my face with my hands," is that mother's testimony, "and could literally have laid my mouth in the dust. I then knew whose voice it was; and from that moment the Lord condescended to reveal Himself to me by the teaching of His Holy Spirit, and I became a new creature in Christ Jesus."

Convinced of sin at the same solemn hour — but conducted to the cross of Jesus by a longer and more humiliating path, Elizabeth's father was at length numbered among those to whom the Lord reveals Himself as "merciful and gracious, slow to anger, forgiving iniquity, transgression, and sin." And thus her dying prayer was answered in the full conversion of her parents. "For them she languished, and for them she died."

THE BURIAL.
It was in Ireland, and in the city of Cork, that the 77th regiment was quartered at the time the interesting subject of our Memoir passed to her eternal rest. Nothing could more strikingly mark the respect and affection in which she was held, than the distinction which attended her to the tomb. With the exception of firing over the grave, she was buried with full military honors. The band playing the dead march in muffled tone, preceded the body, the officers wearing crape upon their military dress, (their ladies went into deep mourning,) following in brilliant but mournful procession. The privilege of carrying the coffin from the hearse to the grave having been contested by the officers, the captains of the regiment, who had kindly undertaken the arrangements for the funeral, appointed six of their number upon whom this melancholy distinction was conferred.

Thus, loved of God and honored by man, Elizabeth descended to the tomb. In the cathedral of Cork, her ransomed dust reposes until the morning light of the "first resurrection" shall brighten upon her grave, when the archangel's trumpet shall awake it from its sleep, to rise and meet the Lord in the air, changed and "fashioned like unto His own glorious body," and so shall she "ever be with the Lord!"

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

DIVINE GRACE IN THE ARMY
With the narrative of Miss Tatton's history, thus imperfectly but faithfully portrayed, there were interwoven several instances of God's gracious working among the officers of the regiment, which, to the writer's mind, appeared of too important and interesting a character to be thrown aside unrecorded, and lost. With the hope that their simple and brief record may find its way into the barracks or the mess-hall, and arrest the eye, and arouse to a solemn and earnest concern for the salvation of the soul, of some who hitherto have been living as if there were no God and no hereafter — I have ventured, in the spirit of prayer, to append them to this little volume.

LIEUTENANT-COLONEL TATTON.
In the front rank of personal sketches, illustrating the power of Divine grace in the army, with which we propose to supplement this Memoir, it is proper that we should place the gallant officer who bore to its interesting subject the endeared and honored relation of — Parent. Those who, in their perusal of these pages, have lingered over the touching statement of the conversion to Christ of the father, through the instrumentality of the grace that shone with such meek radiance in the brief yet holy life of the daughter, will feel an interest in tracing his subsequent pious character and life, from that period until its close amid years lengthened to a good old age, invested with the "crown" and laden with the "fruit of righteousness."

The reputation of the British army as a school of grace, was not, in the early military career of Colonel Tatton, what it now so eminently is. There were at that period but few officers professing the humble religion of Jesus, adorning their profession by corresponding holiness of life, and vindicating the truth of His Word and the honor of His name, by a bold, uncompromising — yet meek and loving, championship. Such distinguished specimens of Christianity as we now associate with a noble army of godly men, whose earnest and consistent piety sanctifies and adorns their profession — were then almost entirely unknown. Here and there a solitary light shone amid the gloom, all the more conspicuous and resplendent from the general and dreary state of worldliness and impiety which prevailed — but they were lone stars, and not clusters — moving in orbits, separate and remote, of their own.

It was at this period that God called by His grace the subject of this sketch, whose piety, even at that remote time, may be said to have won for him the character ascribed to the evangelist, of a "burning and a shining light." Truly, if the electing love of God and the sovereignty of His most free favor ever found an illustration and a proof — it was the gracious calling and decided conversion to Christ, from a state of worldliness, spiritual blindness, and religious formalism — and this by an instrument so weak and improbable — of this now glorified saint of God. From that moment until he finished his life, and fought his last battle in the Christian warfare, he maintained the honored designation of "a good soldier of Jesus Christ."

Passing over the first few years of his Christian life, we may remark that it was when stationed with the 77th Regiment at Jamaica, West Indies, that the eminently real and practical character of his religion appeared so striking and conspicuous. Evangelical army chaplains were not so numerous in those days, as happily they are now. The appointments to high and responsible positions in the Church, both by civil and military authority, were generally types of the existing state of religion — men who reflected the lifeless, cold system of religious formalism so universal at that period. Nor had the subject of Christian Missions — either colonial or foreign — occupied the attention and taken hold upon the sympathies, prayers, and exertions of the Church of Christ, as now. Consequently many of our colonial military stations were left almost entirely destitute of the gospel, and of the evangelical, spiritual, and earnest visits and instructions of the faithful minister at the bedside of the sick and dying soldier.

On arriving at Jamaica, a fine field of Christian effort and usefulness presented itself to the religion and heart of Colonel Tatton, of which he was not slow to avail himself. In default, therefore, of sufficient ministerial instruction and oversight in the regiment, with a soul glowing with love to His Divine Master, and with sympathy and compassion for the perishing soldiers — he gave himself to the work of visiting the men in their quarters, reading and explaining to them the Word of God, lending them gospel tracts, praying with the sick and dying, pointing them to the Lamb of God, and often reading over their graves, the service for the burial of the dead.

The results of these earnest, evangelical labors will only be manifest in that great day when every lowly effort now made to glorify Christ will appear — then, recognized and rewarded — resplendent far above all earth's greatest, proudest, grandest achievements. The "precious seed "we now sow in tears, broadcast with feeble, trembling hand over these dreary waters of the curse — shall then appear a golden harvest, sickled by the angel-reapers, and garnered with joy in the paradise of God. Oh, how should this thought prompt and encourage every personal, humble effort to win a soul to Christ! No uncertainty attends our efforts. "Those who sow in tears — shall reap in joy. He who goes forth and weeps, bearing precious seed — shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him," (Psalm 126. 5, 6.)

Multitudes are perishing around us, and it behooves the Christian laity, not less than the professed minister of the gospel — the pious officer, as the regular chaplain of our army and navy — to imitate the holy, Christ-like example of Colonel Tatton, and of many godly men in the present day — and employ their personal influence, talents, and efforts for the conversion of sinners, the advancement of gospel truth, and the ultimate and destined triumph of the kingdom of Jesus in the world. My reader, why do you stand idle? "Go you and do likewise," and God will bless you, and make you a blessing.

On relinquishing the army, Colonel Tatton took up his residence in Bath. It was in this beautiful city he spent the remainder of his days, and terminated his long and now consecrated life. But although thus relinquishing the active duties of his profession, he had not left the army of the living God, nor had forgotten that he was a soldier of Jesus Christ. He fully recognized his obligation, and estimated his privilege of following and serving Jesus, the "Captain of his salvation." He therefore at once united himself with a Christian Church, and gave in his adhesion to a band of godly laymen — some of whom, like himself, were retired military officers, and had seen hard and long service abroad — who were united in conducting and promoting various local Christian and benevolent societies.

To one, especially, his truly Christ-loving, devout spirit and warmest sympathies prompted him to unite. We refer to the Bath Branch of the Evangelical Alliance. Of the committee of this interesting society he became an early and active member, punctual in his attendance at its business and devotional meetings, when health permitted, and contributing liberally to this, as to other local societies, of his earthly substance. His loving, lowly, gentle spirit, his deep self-prostration, his gentlemanly and refined address, his tenderness for the feelings, and his charity and sympathy for the needs and sorrows of others — endeared him to the hearts of all in the circle in which he moved. The sincere self-abnegation, which was so remarkable a trait of his Christianity, the profound humility of his spirit — never more apparent than when he alluded to the days of his unconverted state, the many years that he lived a stranger to Christ and in rebellion against God — imparted a luster, beauty, and sanctity to his pious character which those who were capable of appreciating it will never cease to admire or forget.

Colonel Tatton had reached the eighty-eighth year of his protracted life, when the time arrived that he should be gathered to his fathers. His beloved partner — the affectionate wife of his youth, the staff and comfort of his declining years, and now his mourning survivor, after a happy union of nearly sixty-one years — could not fail to mark in his deepening holiness, his growing heavenliness of conversation, the brightening gleams of glory which illumined his spirit, and his soul's preparation for its celestial flight. And yet the actual probability of his speedy entrance into the world invisible was the last thought of her mind. A separation on earth, after so long and so happy a union, to her conception seemed scarcely to come within the range of possibility. But his Savior had need of him, and the growing fitness for glory which imparted increased closeness, sanctity, and sweetness to the bond of earth, and which seemed to concentrate upon its close the fond endearment of a whole life — was but the opening of heaven to the loved one, now standing as within its vestibule.

On the day previous to his departure to heaven, he appeared to have been favored with peculiar and overwhelming manifestations of the Lord's presence. His habit was to spend four hours of each day in reading, meditation, and prayer. It was in connection with this sacred employment, on the morning of the day which preceded his entrance "into heaven itself" that he was favored with those foretastes of heaven to which he thus referred. Addressing his beloved wife, he said, "My darling, I have been favored with such gracious manifestations of the Lord to my soul this morning, as I am not able to describe. I cannot tell you how precious He is to me. I have been so filled, so overpowered with a sense of His love, that I cannot contain it. Oh, how loving! Oh, how gracious the Lord is to me!" In this elevated frame of mind, he continued during the day, manifesting no evidence of immediate nearness to glory — other than the immediate nearness of glory to him.

He was now quite on the verge of heaven, and yet, so gentle was the tread of death, that no one suspected that the messenger was so near. The royal chariot was at the door — but with a descent so noiseless and invisible, the most wakeful ear failed to catch the angel's summons, "The Master has come, and is calling for you!" But Jesus was there, preparing the soul of His ransomed one, for its celestial journey. The earthen vessel could contain no more. The Divine communications of love and glory must be withheld — or the capacity to receive must be enlarged. "I am overpowered with His love!" was his joyous exclamation. And now that his spirit was replenished to its utmost bounds of enjoyment, and its fluttering wings were uplifted for their flight, "Before I realized it, I found myself in the royal chariot with my Beloved!" (Song of Sol. 6:12.)

He retired to rest at his accustomed hour, and in his usual health. The warmth of affection, the grateful sense of kindness, and the polished courtesy of address which had marked his fellowship through life — shone forth with undimmed luster at its close. While sitting upon the side of the bed preparing for his night's repose; to his beloved wife, in acknowledgment of some little attention to his comfort, with his usual warmth of grateful expression, he said, "Oh, how kind you are to me!" After a few moments' pause, he turned his head, and fixing his eyes intently upon her, with a look beaming with indescribable affection and tenderness, he exclaimed, with a voice of extraordinary energy and emphasis, "May the Lord bless you, my love!"

And then, as in an instant, the curtain which unveiled to his eye the glories and blessedness of the eternal world — enshrouded forever from his view all terrestrial objects! Death-struck, he bowed his head upon his pillow, gathered up his feet in his bed — and fell asleep in Jesus, on Thursday evening, at half-past ten.

"How blessed the righteous when he dies!
When sinks a weary soul to rest,
How mildly beam the closing eyes;
How gently heaves the expiring breast!

"So fades a summer cloud away;
So sinks the gale when storms are o'er;
So gently shuts the eye of day;
So dies a wave upon the shore.

"A holy quiet reigns around,
A calm which life nor death destroys;
Nothing disturbs that peace profound
Which his unfettered soul enjoys.

"Life's duty done, as sinks the clay,
Light from its load the spirit flies,
While heaven and earth combine to say,
How blessed the righteous when he dies!"

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

The second illustration, though it cannot strictly be denominated an example of converting grace — yet presents in a light so profoundly solemn — the sin and danger of trifling with Providence, of stifling the convictions of conscience, and of slighting the warning voice of God — that I cannot refrain from recording it.

He was the son of an Episcopal minister, and an officer in the regiment. Handsome in person, amiable in disposition, and fascinating in address — he was a general favorite — admired, loved, and courted by all. His brilliant but thoughtless career was suddenly arrested by disease. His bed of sickness, to all appearance and expectation, threatened to be his bed of death. Human skill was baffled; remedies failed; and his doctors secretly relinquished all hope of saving their patient. Anxious to know their opinion of his case, one of them tenderly but candidly replied to his searching inquiry — that he must die!

Solemn sentence for an unprepared man! Dreadful announcement for one whose whole life would seem to have been spent upon the assumption that death was a fiction, and eternity a fable! The news burst like a loud clap of thunder upon his soul. "I am going to die!" was his terrifying exclamation, "and hell will be my portion forever! Oh, if God would but look in mercy upon me, and raise me up again — what a different life would I live! Oh, that He would but spare me one month — if that month were spent in a dungeon, I would be content; for if I die now — I shall be lost forever!"

God saw his alarm, heard his cry, and in His long-suffering goodness — granted his request. He was spared. But the return of health — was the return of all his former thoughtlessness. His resurrection, as from the grave — was the resurrection of all his sins. His alarm vanished with his sickness — and all concern for his soul was lost in folly, gaiety, and dissipation! The result proved that in the dreadful prospect of soon appearing as a guilty sinner before the righteous God — his natural conscience alone had been alarmed, apart from the renewing work of the Holy Spirit upon the heart. There had been no genuine repentance; no true conviction of, or sorrow for, sin; no real contrition of spirit; no prostration of the soul before the cross of Jesus. The storm was allayed — but not with the peace which God gives; the alarm of the conscience subsided — but not with the atoning blood which Jesus sprinkles.

In a word, he arose from that bed of sickness, and came forth from that chamber of horror — still the slave of Satan and the lover of sin — an unregenerate, unconverted man! God gave him "space to repent," and he "repented not." But "he who being often reproved hardens his neck, shall suddenly be destroyed, and that without remedy!" God was about to verify, in the case of this young officer, the truth of this solemn threatening.

Some time after his recovery he joined a mirthful gathering of soldiers. The whole night was spent in cards and wine, in folly and vanity. As morning broke upon them — a bright morning in summer — it was proposed that before they separated, they should go to the beach and swim. On returning from the water, a suit of clothes was found without an owner. They belonged to the young officer! Alas! he was not there to claim them! Overpowered with wine, and unobserved by his companions — he had sunk beneath the waves, and was seen no more!

"But since you rejected Me when I called and no one gave heed when I stretched out my hand, since you ignored all My advice and would not accept My rebuke, I in turn will laugh at your disaster; I will mock when calamity overtakes you — when calamity overtakes you like a storm, when disaster sweeps over you like a whirlwind, when distress and trouble overwhelm you! Then they will call to me — but I will not answer; they will look for me — but will not find Me. Since they hated knowledge and did not choose to fear the Lord, since they would not accept My advice and spurned My rebuke — they will eat the fruit of their ways and be filled with the fruit of their schemes!" Proverbs 1:24-31

And what, reader, is the all-important lesson we would have you draw from this appalling fact? Even the necessity of a thorough conversion of your soul to God. There may be alarm, there may be tears, there may be anxiety, there may be a seeking after God — and yet, unaccompanied with any real conviction of sin, and not resulting in a conversion of the heart. While the hand of God in terror is upon you, while bereavement softens, or adversity humbles, or affliction wounds, or sickness wastes, or death threatens — and visions of eternity shroud from the view the scenes and attractions of earth — there will appear to be a sincere concern for the salvation of the soul! The eye is suffused with tears, the conscience smites, the bosom heaves, the lips utter the prayer of confession and the supplication for mercy — and amidst the anguish of the soul, and the excitement of the moment, the pious resolve and the solemn vow to "live a better life" are made.

But how transient proves the alarm, how fading and evanescent the promise and resolve! Where now — are the tears, the sighs, the repentance, the prayer, the vow? Alas! all this "goodness has passed away like the morning cloud and the early dew!" Oh, do not be deceived! Again do I implore you — do not rest short of true conversion! Be satisfied with nothing except the convincing, renewing, sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit in your soul! Place no reliance upon the hope of a deathbed repentance. See how fallacious is the hope! Cherish it — and it may prove fatal to your eternal happiness!

Seek the Lord now. Seek Him while life, and health, and reason are yours. Incline your ear to the gracious invitation — "Seek the Lord while He may be found, call upon Him while he is near! Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; and let him return unto the Lord, and he will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon." Thus seeking Christ — you shall find Him.

In Jesus, God is reconciled, and is at peace with the returning penitent. His language is — "Let him take hold of My strength that he may make peace with Me; and he shall make peace with Me."

Jesus is God's strength. "Christ the power of God." Take hold of Jesus by faith, and God will be at peace with you. Jesus only can make peace between God and your soul. "He is our peace." All is peace around the cross. The blood flowing there is "peace-speaking blood." Get beneath its shelter — and from the dark region of the curse, and guilt, and woe — you will pass into the sunshine of God's pardoning love!

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

From this dreadful example of God's righteous judgment — let us turn to a pleasing instance of His saving grace.

"Captain Clark" was an officer in the British army, and was on his way to rejoin his regiment in India at the time of his remarkable conversion. On landing at the Cape of Good Hope, the ship was joined by a "Captain Preston", who had been staying at the Cape for the recovery of his health, and availed himself of the opportunity of returning to the East. Captain Preston was a man of God. His pious character was soon discovered by the officers on board. Holy and devout in his spirit, zealous in his Lord's work, and active in his plans for the spiritual welfare of the souls who sailed with him — it was not possible that his religion should be concealed, or that he should escape the storm of persecution, which all who will live godly in Christ shall suffer. That storm soon broke furiously upon him. Indignant at his efforts of Christian usefulness, and self-rebuked by the holiness of his life — the officers went in a body to the commander of the vessel, and warmly remonstrated with him for receiving on board his ship a "Methodist preacher," as they termed Captain Preston.

The commander replied, "Gentlemen, it will be a strange thing if so many of you cannot keep one man in order." This, they said, they were resolved to do. On the following day, which happened to be the Lord's Day, with a view of annoying Captain Preston, and showing their contempt for his religion, they brought out the cards, and prepared to spend the day in a scene of carnal dissipation. On going to his room for the cards, Captain Clark, the subject of our narrative, observed the godly Captain Preston, bent on a far different mission, ascend to the deck with a Bible in his hand, and a bundle of religious tracts under his arm. Anxious to know what his object could be, Captain Clark followed him. On reaching the fore-part of the ship, the holy man assembled the soldiers and the crew around him, read to them a portion of God's Word, addressed them in a solemn and impressive manner, and concluded by distributing among them the tracts. At the close of the service, the "enmity of the carnal mind" in Captain Clark, rose to the highest pitch, and he resolved to embrace the first opportunity of insulting Captain Preston.

On both returning to the quarter-deck, he attempted the execution of his design. Captain Preston turning meekly round, bent upon him a look expressive of the tenderest pity and compassion, and then passed on. But that look pierced his rebellious heart to its core. There was a power in that glance, not of man — but of God. It was as an arrow winged by the arm of the Spirit, and lodged deeply within his heart! Instantly leaving the deck, he flew to his cabin, fastened the door, and exclaimed — "Oh, that look! What have I done! That godly man was doing his duty as a Christian, while I was acting the part of a devil!"

Then throwing himself across his berth, he wept like a child. Overwhelmed with a sense of his sins, he at length fell upon his knees, and poured out his soul in prayer to God for forgiveness. Missed by his companions, they went to his room, and sought to rally him. But all was in vain. Neither raillery nor entreaty could induce him to rejoin their society. For three days and three nights he remained in his cabin in retirement, and in the greatest distress of mind, from a sense of his lost condition as a sinner.

A gale of strong wind rendering it necessary to close all the windows, he was driven to the deck for air. The first person whom he encountered was the holy Captain Preston.

On finding himself by his side, he exclaimed — "Oh, my dear sir, can you pardon me for my rude conduct towards you on Sunday?" Extending his hand, Captain Preston replied, "Do not mention it, my dear sir; I am sure it was done without a thought."

From that moment Captain Preston took the penitent officer by the hand, led him to the Savior of sinners, unfolded to him the great redemption wrought out by the Son of God for the guilty, pointed him to the "blood of Jesus Christ which cleanses us from all sin" unfolded to him the nature of that faith in Christ which brings pardon and peace, and showed to him "how God was in Christ reconciling sinners to Himself," and was the "justifier of all who believed in Jesus."

On arriving in India, Captain Preston furnished him with pious books, provided him with letters of introduction to different Christians and missionaries at every place at which he would have to stop on his way to his regiment, and parted from him as a fellow-voyager now to the port of eternal rest.

The remainder of his life evidenced the reality and sincerity of his conversion. Captain Clark became a decided Christian, "old things had passed away — and all things became new;" and lived for years to adorn the holy profession which he made. He recently departed to the eternal world in the faith and hope of the gospel of Christ. But who can read this narrative and not feel the touching force of those words — "Oh, that look!" It was but a look. Not a sentence was uttered, nor a word spoken; no feeling of resentment dwelt in that bosom; no expression of upbraiding gleamed in that eye. It was but a look! But, "Oh, that look!" How meek its glance, how tender its expression, how forgiving its language. It was as a sword penetrating to the depth of the soul — so exquisitely piercing is the look of love.

Such, too, was the look which Jesus bent upon His faithless apostle — "And the Lord turned and looked upon Peter." And that look, which no painter has ever been able to imitate, dissolved Peter's heart: "And he went out and wept bitterly."

And such is the look of pardoning love with which Jesus is prepared to welcome every poor wanderer returning to Him in humiliation, and in penitence, and in faith.

Christian reader, you may know something in your experience, of the "offence of the cross." You may be called to endure shame and disgrace, insult and loss — for Christ. But learn instruction from this incident. Meet every such assault with meek endurance, with patient suffering, and with kind forgiveness. "Overcome evil — with good." Your adorable Lord and Master endured for you the greatest indignity and insult. He was spit upon, the hair was plucked off from His face, He was scourged, mocked, derided, and was slain! And yet, "He went as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is silent — so opened he not his mouth." "Let us then go to Him outside the camp, bearing His disgrace." You may be derided, insulted, and persecuted for the name of Christ; nevertheless, a look of meekness, a glance of love — may disarm the scoffer, and lay him low at the feet of Jesus. Oh, that prayer of Christ's — "Father, forgive them — for they know not what they do!"

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

"Major Mason" was what the world would style a good-hearted, noble-minded man. Elegant in appearance, generous in disposition, chivalrous in spirit, and distinguished in the service — he was an especial favorite with his brother officers.

"But he was a leper." 2 Kings 5:1. In other words, he was an unregenerate man. His heart was hostile to every feeling and sentiment of true, evangelical religion. Although the brother of an eminently godly minister of the Church of England, who frequently and faithfully addressed him on the all-important subject of his soul's salvation — his carnal mind still remained in deep and determined enmity against God, pronouncing it "fanaticism in his brother, which induced him to annoy him with his pious cant!"

But we often find that Providence is the handmaid of grace. In this instance it was remarkably true. While on a visit to his mother and sisters, he was induced to accompany them on the Lord's Day to church. His feelings and conduct on this occasion were sadly dissonant with the sacredness of the place and the solemnities of the service. On the clergyman ascending the pulpit, he remarked to his sister — "Did you ever see such an ugly rascal in all your life?"

But the man of God bore a message from the high court of heaven to his soul. He announced his theme: "They will ask the way to Zion and turn their faces toward it. They will come and bind themselves to the Lord in an everlasting covenant that will not be forgotten." Jeremiah 50:5. He then proceeded to unfold his message with scriptural clearness and affectionate fidelity.

He portrayed the character of a soul under a deep sense of its lost state, asking the way to Christ with full purpose of heart, and earnest desire to be saved. The influence and the motives which would awaken and give force to such an inquiring, seeking state of mind — he referred to the Spirit of God moving upon the heart, convincing it of sin. He also spoke of the curse and condemnation under which the soul outside of Christ lay — the reality of a dying bed — and, after death, the solemnities of the day of judgment!

Changing his theme, he spoke in tones of melting tenderness of Jesus — of His great love in dying for sinners, of His ability to save to the uttermost, and of His willingness to receive the vilest who fled to Him in faith. He thus enlarged upon the nature, fullness, and unchangeableness of that covenant of grace in which they have an interest, who join themselves forever to the Lord.

The attention of Major Mason was riveted throughout the discourse. His mind was filled with astonishment and awe. All was new and startling to him. Such truths he never before had heard, such emotions he had never experienced, such convictions he had never felt. It was indeed a message from God to his soul. With a bruised and bleeding heart, he hastened to the vestry at the close of the service, disclosed his feelings to the minister, and solicited the copy of his sermon. Oh, how changed was the appearance of that minister to him now! With the Church of old he could exclaim, "How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him who brings good tidings, who publishes peace; who brings good tidings of good."

The clergyman, on hearing of the blessed effects which his discourse had produced upon the mind of Major Mason, instantly offered all the spiritual instruction and comfort which his inquiring mind and anxious heart required. "He brought him to Jesus." After repeated interviews and much prayerful teaching, he had the happiness of seeing the Major — a rejoicing believer in Christ, joining, himself to the Lord in a perpetual covenant. The change was marvelous, and such as the grace of God only could have produced.

The once mirthful, thoughtless, scoffing Major Mason — now became the holy, humble, zealous disciple of Jesus, sitting at His feet, clothed, and in his right mind. He directly turned his attention to the conversion of others. Testifying to all whom he met — what "great things God had done for his own soul" — he sought to bring them to the same salvation that was in Christ Jesus. Retiring from the army, he went to reside in Edinburgh. It was there the message which summoned him to his Father's house reached him. His departure was sudden — but his soul was ready. His death was instantaneous — but it was a translation to glory. On coming out of his garden one day, he seated himself in his chair, leaned back, and expired!

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

The conversion of "Captain Barnes" was not less striking. It forcibly illustrates the great truth, that "salvation is of the Lord," and that bent upon bringing His people to a knowledge of Himself, God can accomplish His purpose in the employment of any means, and in a way often most improbable to human wisdom, which His sovereignty might see fit to adopt.

Captain Barnes possessed all the attributes of a man of the world. He was admirably fitted by nature to participate in its scenes and to contribute to its enjoyments. He danced gracefully, retained his box at the opera, and was the attraction at every mirthful party in the regiment. At the time that most momentous event of his life took place which we are now recording, his regiment was quartered at Auberge de Castile, Malta, commanding a beautiful view of the harbor.

Standing one day at his window, he beheld a ship sailing out of the harbor, and stretching for the ocean. As he gazed upon the beautiful object, he observed her suddenly tremble, the masts went overboard — and she sank! She had struck upon a rock; and so severe was the blow, that she instantly went down.

This solemn spectacle was the voice of God to his conscience. Such was the arousing, convincing effect upon his feelings, that he instantly fell upon his knees, and exclaimed — "Such will be the shipwreck of my soul, O Lord, if you do not undertake for me!" From that moment, he became an earnest seeker of the Lord Jesus. Seeking, he found the Savior; and, finding the Savior — he found the chief good, the satisfying good, and he was happy.

To the surprise and regret of his companions — he withdrew from the world, and attached himself to the little band of Christians assembling together for the worship of God in the island. His friends mourned that he had imbibed "fanatic opinions," which had so "spoiled him for the world;" but he had found an all-satisfying, sanctifying good in Christ, and from the moment that this precious treasure obtained a lodgement in his heart — in the face of scorn, and obloquy, and reproach — he "forsook all, and followed Jesus in the narrow way."

Reader, are you not afraid of the shipwreck of your soul? You are voyaging to eternity! There are sunken rocks, many and treacherous, in your way. The most concealed and fatal of all — is self-righteousness! Ah! upon this, many a soul has struck and perished! Beware of it. "Except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you shall never enter the kingdom of heaven." Solemn words! May the Holy Spirit engrave them upon your heart. These words cut up, root and branch, the religion of vast numbers who are dreaming of heaven. But no righteousness of your own — not the most splendid, costly, or perfect — will ever take you there! A hope founded upon a salvation by works — will disappoint its possessor in death, and fill the soul with confusion and remorse throughout eternity!

One righteousness, and one alone — will save you. "The Lord our righteousness" is the name of Him who wrought it out, and who freely imputes it to all those that believe. The following are the words which declare these important truths — "Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be silenced and the whole world held accountable to God. Therefore no one will be declared righteous in his sight by observing the law; rather, through the law we become conscious of sin. But now a righteousness from God, apart from law, has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood!" Romans 3:19-25. Here is a summary of the gospel plan of salvation. Believe with your whole heart the truths contained in these verses — and you shall be saved.

It may be that your "mouth is stopped," and that you feel yourself "guilty before God." Is it so? — then welcome the good news of the gospel — "justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus." The very God before whom you tremble — is prepared to accept you in the righteousness of His dear Son. The Lord Jesus, whom you may have "despised and rejected," stands with this divine and spotless robe of righteousness in His hands, prepared to cast it over your soul, hiding every sinful spot. The Holy Spirit, whom you have slighted and grieved, is prepared to produce that faith in your heart, which will enable you to believe to the saving of your soul.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

"Captain Nagel" and his wife were returning from a walk to the barracks, and had occasion to pass James Street Chapel, Isle of Wight, as the congregation were assembling for worship. Importuned by his wife to enter, assured that he would meet with a 'friendly congregation, and hear a beautiful sermon,' having herself occasionally been there — after much reluctance he consented. Dressed in his regimentals, the conspicuousness of his appearance and the fear of being recognized, induced him to select a part of the sanctuary which would screen him from observation. The pulpit on that occasion, was occupied by Rev. Guyer of Ryde, who announced his text from Luke 10:42 — "Only one thing is needed. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her."

The timid and restless mind of Captain Nagel was soon interested and absorbed in the theme, and his whole attention riveted upon the preacher, from whom he did not withdraw his eyes until the sermon was concluded. That sermon was the saving message of God to his soul. Accompanied with the power of the Holy Spirit — it roused him to the consciousness of his lost condition as a sinner, and of his need of a better righteousness than his own to justify him before God. He retired from the sanctuary to his room in the barracks, under the most pungent conviction of sin — there to pour out his aroused, alarmed, agonized soul to God. For several nights, sleep was a stranger to his pillow — those nights being spent in incessant supplication for pardoning mercy.

But the morning of joy followed the night of weeping. The light of the glorious gospel of the blessed God broke in upon his mind; Jesus was revealed to him as having come into the world to save sinners, even the worst! He believed the message, received the Savior with his heart by faith, and peace with God through Christ became the divine and heavenly inhabitant of his heart.

The change thus wrought in his soul was astonishing — such indeed as the Holy Spirit of God only could produce. Previously to his hearing the gospel from the lips of Christ's minister — Captain Nagel thought himself a good Christian. He was strict in saying his prayers, and in reading "the verses for the day," and knew not that in a spiritual sense — he was "wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked" — a poor, lost sinner, needing just such a Savior as Jesus is.

From that hour, the gallant Captain Nagel became a "good soldier of Jesus Christ," and for more than twenty-five years continued a consistent and exemplary Christian," valiant for the truth," and zealous in endeavoring to bring others to Jesus.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

It is possible that these pages may be honored with the perusal of some who are contemplating the army or navy, or are already holding commissions in the military. Permit the writer — himself belonging to a military family — to address you pointedly but affectionately upon your prospects for eternity. Your profession is proverbially one of religious thoughtlessness. Although beneath its scarlet and gold — its brilliant and fascinating surface — there lie concealed toils and anxieties, perils and privations — which often exhaust the frame, sicken the heart, and throw a shade of sadness over the spirit. Yours is yet a profession whose duties and recreations are of such a nature — presenting at one glance a combination of opposites the most striking — as to stifle all religious feeling, and to dissipate all serious thought.

There is not, perhaps, another calling in life in which the great concerns of eternity are more entirely forgotten, and the salvation of the soul more fearfully imperiled — than yours. Each department partakes of this. In the mess-hall — all is conviviality; on parade — all is show; in the field and on the deck — all is worldly ambition. There rarely, if ever, does the searching and solemn inquiry obtrude itself, "Where will I be when I die?"

And yet God has sent you many and affecting admonitions and warnings. You have seen your companions — the manly and the brave, the talented and the gay — fall at your side, struck down by the ravages of disease, or by the desolations of war! You have seen them exchange their fancy uniforms — for the pale shroud; and forego their prospects of promotion — for the humiliation of the grave! Hearts stout and valiant, which never quailed before — now succumb to the will of a foe, whose mercy they may not bribe, and whose power they could not resist. Oh, the vanity of all human hope — and of all earthly glory! What is man in his power and pride, in his pomp and glory — when death takes away his soul? "He comes forth like a flower, and is cut down!"

But in what school will you learn to form a just estimate of your character as a sinful being — of your destiny as an accountable being? Where would you fill your mind with a sense of the overpowering greatness, grandeur, and solemnity of eternity? Not amidst the scenes of earthly pomp and pageantry, of carnal mirth and dissipation! Not in the camp resounding with martial music and glittering with a thousand banners waving proudly to the sun. Not in the theater, with its play actors! Not at the opera, where music enchants! Not in the ball-room, where beauty captivates, and wealth dazzles, and admiration intoxicates, and flattery ensnares! No, not there! From those resorts and scenes — you must flee as from a tremendous vortex that has swallowed up its tens of thousands of souls, and is each day drawing within its treacherous bosom, its thousands more!

But oh, could one realizing apprehension of the eternal world fasten itself upon your mind — could you form any adequate conception of what the loss of the soul is — you would hasten your escape from a catastrophe so appalling, and from a doom so tremendous! You would not pause — until you had found Jesus, the crucified One, you would shelter yourself in Him from the "wrath which is to come." No longer be beguiled by the world that is "passing away." Its rank and its wealth, its honors and its pleasures, its pride and place are soon to perish in the dust — yes, are perishing now. But your soul is imperishable — that lives on, and lives on forever! Death triumphs over everything but the soul — this it cannot conquer.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

A few observations, in closing, addressed to the believing soldier. There are many such, we rejoice to think, compared with the history of the army in former years. How far it is the duty of a truly converted and spiritual man to take up the profession of war, or to relinquish it when called of God to be a follower of the "Prince of Peace," are questions which we do not here attempt to discuss. They must be decided in the court of a conscience enlightened by the truth of God. But there is one thing that cannot admit of a moment's doubt — the duty of a Christian man, called to a knowledge of the truth in the army, to glorify God who has chosen him to be a "good soldier of Jesus Christ" in the "calling wherein he is called."

Dear brother, allow me to remind you, that you hold a high commission, such as no temporal potentate could place in your hand. You are commissioned by the "King of kings" — you wear His uniform — you wield His sword — you defend His cause — you combat with His enemies, and beneath his banner you are fighting your way to "glory, honor, immortality, and eternal life."

You will, as a Christian man, desiring to "do that which is good and right in the eyes of the Lord God," find your present path painfully trying to your Christian principles. The circle in which you move, the companions with whom you associate, the etiquette which you are expected to observe, the customs which you are compelled to respect — in a word, the whole routine of your military profession, must exert an influence upon your Christianity, which is adverse to its spirituality and its growth.

Thus, the temptations to inconsistencies of Christian profession, to a shrinking from the offence of Christ's cross, to conform to the habits, and to compromise with the religion of the world — will assail you on every hand, and with no ordinary power.

Hence the necessity and importance of your being clad with the entire panoply of truth, "of putting on the whole armor of God," that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil, against the seductions of the world, and against the carnality and deceitfulness of your own heart — which my brother, your greatest foe!

Thus armed for the spiritual battle — your next step will be to draw truly and distinctly the line of demarcation — the Word of God has already drawn it — between your Christianity and the world. And then, having done this, to take your position as a "good soldier of Jesus Christ."

In taking this decided, bold, uncompromising stand in the army as a Christian man — you must be prepared for suffering. See how faithfully the Holy Spirit forewarns you of this: "If any man will live godly in Christ Jesus — he shall suffer persecution." "Jesus also, that he might sanctify the people with his own blood, suffered outside the gate. Let us go forth, therefore, unto him outside the camp, bearing his reproach."

Our dear and blessed Lord on several occasions reminded His followers, that a profession of attachment to His person, to His cause, and to His truth — involved a "yoke," a "burden," a "cross," — implying obedience, sacrifice, suffering. All this you must expect. But it will be your joy, your boast, your glory, as it was with the disciples of old — "And they went out rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for his name." Your choice will be that of Moses, "He chose to be mistreated along with the people of God rather than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a short time. He regarded disgrace for the sake of Christ as of greater value than the treasures of Egypt, because he was looking ahead to his reward!"

And oh, how great the reward, how verdant the garland, how bright the crown — which await the faithful soldier of Jesus, the "Captain of our salvation!" Who would not enlist in His ranks? Who would not wear His armor? Who would not fight under His standard? Who would not fall, if need be, upon the field, sacrificing life itself in His cause?

Permit me to remind you, my brother, that the great secret of your advance in the divine life, and of your victory in the Christian warfare, will be found to lie in the habitual closeness of your walk with God. Be a man of secret prayer, and you have a coat of armor, proof against all the assaults of your enemy. Prayer will make you skillful in the fight. Prayer will make you "valiant for the truth." Prayer will polish your armor, and sharpen your sword, and make you "terrible as an army with banners" to your foes.

Through the channel of prayer — will flow into your soul all needed grace from Christ's inexhaustible fullness. Going, in simple prayer, empty-handed to Jesus — you shall return laden with all blessings, as from a rich armory, as from a full storehouse, as from an overflowing fountain. Living out of yourself, and above yourself, and in simple prayer and faith upon the fullness of all grace treasured up in Christ — you will be strengthened in all weakness, shielded in all assault, comforted in all sorrow, and be enabled to "deny all ungodliness and worldly lusts, and to live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present world."

Fight on! The Lord — He it is, who fights for you. Fight on! All your enemies — Christ has conquered. Fight on! The Captain of your salvation has secured to you the victory. Fight on! Like "Gad, a troop may overcome you — but you shall overcome at the last." Fight on! Heaven is before you; the crown glistens, the palm waves, and the shout of victory is already upon your lips. Fight on! And soon, with an aged Christian warrior, who, with sword in hand, fell gloriously upon the red battle-field, you too shall exclaim — "The time of my departure is at hand. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day!" Then, over your grave, how sweet will sound the song of the Christian warrior triumphant in death —

"Servant of God! well done!
Rest from your beloved employ;
The battle fought, the victory won,
Enter your Master's joy!"

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Gathered Flowers From a Bible Class
Being a Brief Memoir of Two Young Believers

"My Beloved has gone down to His garden, to the beds of spices, to browse in the gardens and to gather lilies." Song of Songs 6:2

Preface to the Fourth Edition

The author is thankful to God for any measure of acceptance and blessing with which He has favored the work; and now in prayer and humility of mind, he commends this new and improved edition to the blessing of the Holy Spirit, and to the devout perusal of the young. May it prove instrumental of leading many precious souls to Jesus — and to Jesus shall be the glory!

Memoir of ELIZABETH LINN (who died at the age of 21)

"Her sun has gone down while it was yet day." Jeremiah 15:9

How inexpressibly lovely and engaging is youthful piety! The grace of God in every period of life and form of development, invests its possessor with a moral dignity and beauty, infinitely transcending the loveliest exhibitions of nature that ever elevated and adorned the human mind and character. But if to a young man, who has "overcome the wicked one" — it is strength; and if to the aged man, walking in the "way of righteousness" — it is a crown of glory encircling his hoary locks — then in those of more tender years — just budding into life — it possesses a beauty and a charm peculiarly and touchingly its own.

To see the first streaks of life's morn merging into the more glorious light of eternal day; to behold the first development of intellect, the first pulsation of feeling, the first awakening of human energy, enterprise, and thought — laid upon the altar of God, consecrated in the "dew of youth" and in the "beauty of holiness" to Him who consecrated His infancy, His earlier and His maturer years, yes, His entire self, to the working out of our salvation — Oh, it is a lovely spectacle, on which angels' eyes may feast; and as they look down upon each fresh conscript to the ranks of their King, they feel a new-born emotion of rapture thrilling their pure and benevolent hearts, such as no object even in glory could inspire.

But if the period of youth is the most interesting — let us not forget that it is also the most momentous and important period of life. It comes but once. Gone, it returns not again. With it flits away the period of human existence, most favorable to the consideration of the soul's preparation for eternity. Never again will the individual stand in a position so advantageous for the accomplishment of a work so great. The soil seems prepared for the seed. The world has not yet obtained the mastery over the heart. Sinful habit has not yet seized upon the passions. Different forms of religious belief have not yet taken captive the mind. The love of wealth, of distinction, and of pleasure — has not yet thrown its fascinations around the soul. Long-existing impenitence has not yet seared the conscience — and guilt has not yet covered the conscience with its pall of dark presumption and despair.

It would seem as if the temple of the soul were all "swept and garnished," ready for the entrance of the Lord. Of what priceless value, then, is the season of youth!

Is life a DAY? Then youth is its bright morning. It is then that the soil, mellowed with the early dew, is to be broken up and prepared for the in-casting of the precious seed of the Word.

Is life a YEAR? Then youth is its springtime, upon which the happiness of all other seasons depends. It is then that the seed is to be sown, whose fruits will refresh us in summer, enrich us in autumn, and sustain and cheer us in the winter of old age.

Is life a VOYAGE? Then youth is the time when the destination is to be selected, the chart examined, the course marked out, and the supplies, which are to meet the necessities of the voyage, laid up.

The precious season of youth, if thus allowed to go by unimproved — in years to come, we will bewail our folly — but find it impossible to retrieve our loss. Oceans may be traversed, distant points reached, and the voyager may set out again; but to human life there is but one morning, but one spring, and but one voyage.

God, who calls His people by His sovereign grace, calls the greater part of them in early life. Beyond the age of thirty years — how few conversions transpire, compared with the number who press into the kingdom long before that period! As in the case of Samuel — the Spirit has begun to move early, gently, and almost imperceptibly upon their heart. They have heard the voice of the Lord calling them to His work at early dawn of day — while yet the more advanced in life were deeply immersed in worldly care, and the aged still remained wrapped in the profound unconsciousness of spiritual sleep — all living as if there were no eternity!

And how completely are young believers placed in the ascendant of all others, in the career of an honorable, useful, and happy life! They ascend an eminence of distinction and privilege — which leaves groveling at its base, the countless numbers of the unregenerate, who, like the poor miner trapped in the earth — are delving amidst impurity and darkness, strangers to the air and the light that are above them. A holy atmosphere they never breathe; the warm beams of the Sun of righteousness they never feel; "they are of the earth — earthy."

But the advantages accruing to the young believer are as numerous as they are precious. These are a few of the immense and wonderful privileges of early piety: To have God become in early life — my God, my Father, the "Guide of my youth!" To have surrendered the heart as His temple — His dwelling-place, renewed, sanctified, made holy and happy by His Spirit's grace! To know and to feel that God has now become mine; and that from the blissful moment that the mutual covenant was made and sealed and ratified — my person and my interests were placed in His hands, and transferred to His keeping for time and for eternity! That no longer am I my own — but His; and that in all future times I am to cast all my care upon Him, knowing that He cares for me! That Jesus, having become my Redeemer, has become my brother and my friend, pledging . . .
His wisdom to counsel me,
His power to protect me,
His hand to supply me,
His eye to guide me,
His love to soothe me,
His grace to uphold me
— all my journey through!

That the Holy Spirit, having taken up His abode in my heart, will dwell there permanently and forever, subduing all sin, checking all evil, purifying the fountain of thought and of feeling, and prompting to holy desire and useful exertion!

Yet there are more advantages of youthful piety! The early blighting of sin's bud — the early check given to unholy propensities — the knowledge and experience acquired, before the bark has been fully launched upon its sea — the temptations, the sins, the sorrows, the mistakes, which are thus avoided, are among the blessings of a youthful consecration of the heart to the Lord, ranging beyond all human calculation.

Add to this, the sweetest and highest of all blessing here in this life — the enjoyment of communion with God, of the love of Christ, of the foretaste of glory, the cup so early filled, and often running over.

And last, and best of all — a speedy passage to eternal glory, with which God often favors the youthful Christian — his grace so soon matured, his work so soon complete, the spiritual house, whose foundation has been laid, and whose walls have been raised in a life of early godliness here below, receives the top-stone in glory — Glory everlasting.

These are among the innumerable and inestimable blessings and advantages accruing from a life dedicated in the spring-time of youth to Jesus, which no tongue nor pen of man can adequately describe!

But I will no longer detain my young reader from the interesting subject of our narrative. Permit me to request, however, that before you proceed a step further, you will lay down this little volume, and breathe an earnest prayer to the Holy Spirit — that He may bless to your soul, the perusal of her brief but bright and instructive history; and that by His converting and sanctifying influence, He may make you all that she was — as a lovely and fragrant flower of grace in the Lord's garden on earth; and all that we believe she now is, a happy, glorified spirit before the throne of God in heaven. Have you prayed? May the Holy Spirit answer for Christ's sake!

Elizabeth Linn was a member of a Bible Class, belonging to a Sunday School in Edinburgh, for nearly five years. She was an attentive student, but although much attached to the class, and regular in her attendance, for two years she gave no clear evidence that her mind was truly affected by the blessed truths of the gospel. In the winter of 1838, it pleased God to afflict her with a severe attack of inflammation of the lungs. On being visited by her respected and beloved teacher, her mind was found to be powerfully awakened to a sense of her lost state, and the necessity of having a portion beyond this poor dying world. She wept when she referred to the many times she had heard of the willingness of Jesus to receive all who came in humble penitence to Him; and although she had often purposed in her heart, when returning from the Sunday evening class, to delay coming to Him no longer, still she had put it off, and now she found that a sick-bed, amidst pain, fever, and lassitude — was not the best time or place to seek Jesus, the sinner's Friend.

It pleased God to lift her disease, and to raise her up again, evidently with a mind open to a full reception of the truth. On rejoining her much-loved class, she listened to the instructions given, as one who had eternity full in view, and so vividly contemplating it, as to awaken, not only deep anxiety for her own personal salvation — but also intense solicitude for the salvation of her dear companions.

Although brought to see there was no way of acceptance with God but in the finished work of Jesus — at times her mind was much beclouded and depressed, arising evidently from a lack of that simple exercise of faith which credits the great matter-of-fact truth of the Bible — that Jesus Christ came into the world to save SINNERS. She was looking more at her sins — than at the Lamb of God, who came to take those sins away; more at her truly fearful disease — than at God's infinitely great and all-merciful remedy! As clearly, then, as she saw the only way of acceptance, and glorious as it appeared to her yet imperfect vision — it is no marvel that she could not say with Paul, "He has loved me, and has given himself for me." She lacked but the simple touch of faith.

The truth had reached her heart — that Jesus died for sinners. The yet more cheering tidings had saluted her ear — that He was alive again, and that even He could save to the uttermost all that come unto God by Him. Yet, lacking the hand of faith, feeble and tremulous though its touch might be — she could not exclaim in the transporting assurance and joy of Thomas, "My Lord and my God!" One faith's touch of Jesus, were it but the border of His garment — will bring forth perfect healing for the deepest wound of sin! O blessed, soul-cheering truth! May that touch, dear reader, be yours!

Her teacher, on hearing an address founded on Isaiah 45:1, "Ho! every one who thirsts, come to the waters," etc, in which the minister remarked how many anxious inquirers he had found, who from mistaking the meaning of the passage, felt discouraged, supposing that the invitation was to those who were thirsting for righteousness, not after happiness, as was clearly the mind of the Spirit — was directed to think of Elizabeth, who was at that time confined by her sickness, to the house. On the interpretation of the text being repeated to her, with tears in her eyes she said, "The feelings described are my own. I often think I am not thirsting enough for righteousness. Now I see the meaning of that passage, which is fitted to cheer and comfort every poor sinner."

About this time the school was privileged with several visits from the Rev. William Burns. On one occasion his address was founded on Philippians 2:5-12. This was an evening much blessed to Elizabeth and several of her companions. She often referred to it as a time when the Spirit applied the word spoken to her heart, and gave her clear saving views of Christ — His person, and work, and love. From this period may be dated her sealing unto the day of Jesus Christ. It was the birthday of her soul. From this time, her mind was never beclouded — but was enabled unceasingly to rejoice in God her Savior.

The reality of this perfected work of grace in her soul, was soon manifested by its strongest evidence — communion with God. The life of God in the soul of man — will draw that soul out in prayer to God. The stream will flow back to the fountain from whence it rose. Descending from heaven — it returns back to heaven. Elizabeth became a child of prayer. Prayer was her element.

An interesting proof of this was seen in her uniting with two of her companions in requesting the use of a small room connected with the school, in which they might meet together for prayer on Sundays, especially to supplicate a blessing on the instructions about to be given to them and their associates, and upon the devotional services which always followed the dismissal of the general school.

At home too, in a little room consecrated to this holy purpose, Elizabeth was accustomed to hold meetings for prayer, on which occasions, much spiritual fellowship was held between her and those of her dear companions, who were united with sweet and tender cords of Christian love.

But the Lord was about to try this young and much-loved child. The silver and the gold of His work in her soul — the Refiner was about to place in the furnace! Oh, how soon Jesus may call the young Christian to pass through tribulation, that the "trial of her faith, being much more precious than gold that perishes, though it be tried with fire," might be found to the praise, and honor, and glory of His grace!

In December of 1840, Elizabeth was deprived of her kind and affectionate mother. This was a severe affliction to her. The loss of a mother, and a Christian mother — but for Jesus, who can supply every loss — would be overwhelming and irreparable. From being by natural constitution delicate, and constantly subject to illness, her mother had watched over her with a tenderness and solicitude, such as a mother only could feel. That stream of comfort was now dried; that cistern of happiness was now broken — and Elizabeth was left with a feeble constitution, in charge of her father and a brother about eight years of age.

Deeply and suitably did she feel the responsibility which God had now placed upon her, and earnestly did she pray for aid from above to direct and guide her aright. God heard and answered her prayers. To her aged parent — she was enabled to discharge the obligations of a most affectionate and faithful daughter; and to her little brother — she blended the high and sweet duties of a watchful mother and a tender sister. Thus is the grace of Jesus, all-sufficient for all the responsibilities, duties, and trials of life. That grace, earnestly and sincerely sought — will be promptly and fully given. God never calls His people to any post of labor, responsibility, or trial — but for its right discharge or improvement, He has provided in Jesus all fullness of strength; and to the simple prayer of faith — He will mete out that strength according to the day of its need. So Elizabeth found it.

Christian reader, are you situated as she was — perhaps without a mother, or a father — in circumstances of responsibility and of trial? Flee, as she did — into the very bosom of Jesus! That bosom, once stricken for you, and once the abode of sorrow infinitely great — is the precious refuge of all the sons and daughters of need who flee to it for shelter. Though millions have gone to it, and are now enclosed within it — there yet is room for you. All the fondness of the most affectionate father — all the tenderness of the most tender mother — all the gentleness of the most gentle sister — all the faithfulness of the most faithful brother — all the love of the most loving friend — center in Jesus. In His person He blends the father, the mother, the brother, the sister, the friend. All this He will be to you!

Elizabeth's religion was not of a selfish nor reclusive character. It sought communion with the good and the spiritual of her own gender and age. During the summer, she enjoyed much happiness from fellowship with a dear friend, formerly a member of the class — but now removed to Glasgow. To the correspondence and the personal interviews which she was privileged to hold with her young companion, she often referred as seasons of peculiar spiritual refreshing to her soul. Thus can the Lord convey great blessing through the channel of Christian fellowship with others.

It is of the highest importance to the advancement of a young Christian in the divine life, that his or her companions be selected from among the saints of God — the most eminent for spirituality of mind, and consistency of Christian walk. These, with God's blessing, will become great helpers to us in our way to heaven. But mere professors — cold, formal, trifling, worldly, inconsistent professors — will, if we are much in their company, or under their influence and example — retard our advance, rob us of our sweetest blessings, and bring leanness into our souls!

You may, my reader, safely decide the tone and temper of your Christianity, by the level of spirituality observable in those whom you have selected as your companions. Oh, aim to be a young Christian, in every respect, of a high order; and do not forget that the influence and example of those with whom you are accustomed to associate, will either elevate or lower the standard of your own personal holiness.

Elizabeth was enabled to attend her Sunday evening Bible class with great regularity, until the middle of January 1842. Some time previous to this, her health began visibly to decline; her cough increased, and her strength perceptibly gave way. Her teacher advised her to relinquish her attendance, in consequence of her exposure to the harsh night air. This she was most unwilling for a time to do, so deeply had increased her interest in the Bible instructions of the class, and in the hallowed exercises of the prayer-meeting. On the last day of January, her teacher received a message from her announcing her sudden illness, and expressing great anxiety for an interview.

On hastening to her bedside, her teacher found her body in a state of great exhaustion — but her mind filled with the peace of God. She expressed the delight which she had experienced from meditating on the finished work of Jesus. That for some time finding her bodily strength failing, she felt she was not long to be a sojourner in this world — and her thoughts had been much in contemplation of heaven, of being with Jesus, and free from sin. Her eyes brightened when she spoke of being present with her God.

But when she alluded to the dear Bible class, of which she had so long been a member, and into whose spiritual instruction she had so deeply drunk, she wept, and said, "That is now the only tie which binds me to earth." She spoke of the many sweet seasons she had enjoyed there, and especially of the communion with God which she had often felt in the little praying circle of young believers, bowed together around the mercy-seat. She particularly mentioned an address given in the school on a recent occasion, the precious truths of which had much cheered and comforted her since she had been confined to her bed, and then added, "Oh, how precious is it to be enabled to say: My Lord and my God!" Her further and closing history will best be given in the words of her faithful and much-loved teacher, taken from a journal of her visits, made from time to time, with which I have been kindly favored:

"Thursday. — I found dear Elizabeth very weak. She told me she had felt a degree of dullness and disappointment the day before — as if her joy was gone. She believed she had been looking too much within herself, and not solely to Jesus and His finished work; but that this morning she had anew come with her sins — to the foot of the cross, and there had obtained fresh peace. 'Oh,' she said, 'to be enabled to keep the eye of faith continually fixed upon our dear Redeemer!'

We spoke of the sympathy of Jesus. This subject cheered her much, and she drew sweet comfort from the words, 'He knows our frame; he remembers we are dust.' She referred to a previous conversation upon the 55th chapter of Isaiah, 1st verse, and to the instruction it had afforded her, and added that she had been enabled to come without anything of her own to Jesus — and since that time she had found peace. She spoke much of Mr Burns' visits to the school, and especially of an address which he made on one occasion from Phil, 2:5-12, which she called the happy night when she and some of her dear companions were brought to feel the love of Jesus in a way they had never known before. She alluded to the beautiful hymn,
'Behold a stranger at the door —
He gently knocks — has knocked before;'
and of the comfort which she had derived from the verse,
'Are you a mourner? grief shall fly,
For who can weep — with Jesus nigh?'
and of a hymn read one Sunday evening in the school,
'Oh, tell me not of the lonesome grave.'

"Friday. — Found dear Elizabeth a little revived, and in a very happy state of mind. She said that her meditations upon the sympathy of Jesus had afforded her much consolation, and quoted the last verses of Hebrews 4, 'For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are — yet was without sin.' She remarked that it was her earnest desire to be of use to her companions of the class who visited her, and trusted that, as she was now laid upon a sick-bed, the Lord might give her a message which He would bless to their souls.

"Saturday. — Found Elizabeth weaker — but, in her own words, 'happy, enjoying peace, the gift of Jesus.' She had found much sweetness in thinking upon the words, 'The peace of God, which passes all understanding.' 'Oh,' she exclaimed, 'the Lord Jesus gives His children even here, to enter into rest!' She spoke of the many mercies she enjoyed, having had more quiet sleep than usual; then of the kindness of God's people to her, particularizing that of Miss M. D., whom she prayed that God would bless and reward. When she spoke of the class she so dearly loved, tears ran down her cheeks. I said, 'Elizabeth, would you wish to recover?' She replied, 'If it is the will of the Lord — I would rather die. To depart, and be with Christ, is far better; then I shall serve Him without sin!'

"Tuesday. — Found her very weak and low — but very happy. She told me of the happiness she enjoyed the previous day, from thinking of our need to come to Jesus as empty vessels to be filled out of His fullness. She sincerely felt that she was nothing — but that Christ was all. She referred to Peter as an example, of how we needed to be upheld every moment by Jesus. She believed he had so much love to Jesus, that he forgot his own weakness when he said, 'Though all men forsake You — yet will I not.' Then she contrasted with this the tender love of Jesus, after His resurrection, towards His fallen apostle, when He said, 'Tell my disciples, and Peter.'

She expressed the enjoyment she had derived from the visits of her companions, H. P. and E. M., and of her concern about another young friend, who she feared had grown cold in spiritual things. She said how much she felt the necessity of being watchful, of seeking to be upheld continually by Jesus, and of the encouragement she had experienced from a conversation we had had upon the words, 'I will hold you by my right hand.'

"Wednesday. — Found her very feeble. She told me she had thought a good deal about death, and a shrinking came over her, from the dread of suffering before she entered the heavenly Canaan; but she added, 'I should seek dying strength, and trust alone to Jesus.' She was comforted by some passages of Scripture which I read to her, particularly Psalms 23 and 48, and by a remark of Toplady's, that 'he had seen many a believer go weeping to the edge of the river — but had never seen one go weeping all the way through.' She found much enjoyment in God's words to Jacob, 'Fear not to go down into Egypt; I will go with you, and will surely bring you up again;' and then she repeated the lines of the beautiful hymn of Watts' —

"There is a land of pure delight,
Where saints immortal reign!'

"Friday. — She was rather revived today, freer from cough and pain, and more able to speak. She said she had felt as if she had been on the Mount — but that, like Peter, she must come down again; remarking how kind it was of the Lord to give her such a foretaste of happiness to cheer her; but added, 'I do not wish to be looking too much to my frames and feelings — but only to Jesus.'

"Monday. — Continuing better. She told me of the much sweet communion she had had with Jesus during her present illness — but that in getting better, she felt a dread of returning to the world; but added, 'Jesus can keep me steadfast; and if He restores me for a little — (I know I cannot live long) — oh, may I glorify Him by a humble and consistent walk!' She spoke with longing desires about her father, earnestly desiring that his heart might now be given to God.

"Wednesday. — Elizabeth has passed a sleepless night, owing to the excitement of the evening before. Her dear friend H. G. unexpectedly arrived from Glasgow to see her. This was a great pleasure and comfort, as she had longed to meet once more in the body with one with whom she had enjoyed so much sweet spiritual fellowship. This day she looked much exhausted. On repeating some cheering passages of God's Word, she made no reply — but manifested deep inward emotion. She burst into tears, and said, 'Oh, I feel that my heart is so hard! I seemed to have no feeling when you were speaking of Jesus. Pray for me; I have been wishing I was in the dear class, hearing you invite sinners to come to Jesus. Oh, I feel as if I had lost Him, my beloved, and knew not where to find Him!'

After speaking to her of the way she at first found peace, by coming to the Fountain opened for sin and uncleanness, she became more composed. She continued in much distress all that evening; but the next day I found her composed and happy. When I asked her how she was, she answered, 'Jesus is with me! Oh that He may never again see it needful to send me such a chastisement as I had yesterday. All was dark. I could see no light. I must have been thinking too much of the comforts He has been so kindly giving me, and not feeling enough my continual dependence upon Himself. Oh, pray that I may be kept very humble.' I read to her the closing verses of Isaiah 50 and Psalm 77, which afforded her much comfort; and left her giving thanks to God for His great loving-kindness in removing the cloud, and revealing Himself to her as the portion of her soul.

"Saturday, 19th. — Elizabeth is very happy. She told me she had great enjoyment from a visit from Mr Burns, and Mr Wingate, who was going as a missionary to the Jews. 'Oh,' she added 'I felt how unworthy I was of the Lord's mercies, when His two dear servants were speaking to me.' She said Mr Burns' visit recalled to her mind the delight she had in his first letter to the school, and repeated a sentence from it. His remarks, during this visit, on the happiness of heaven — of 'seeing the King in his beauty,' Were cheering to her soul.

"Monday, 21st — Found her, from increased weakness, unable to sit up — but the happy and sweet expression of her countenance was very cheering to witness. She told me she enjoyed much peace; and that the words of our Lord to His disciples in John 14, had given her great enjoyment. I read to her a part of 1 Peter 1, and on leaving, she remarked how much strength of body and mind she had experienced, by our conversing together upon the things of God.

"28th. — Dear Elizabeth had derived much enjoyment in a visit from Mr Johnston, a valued friend, whose remarks on 2 Peter 1:5 had afforded her a subject of sweet meditation.

"20th. — On calling today, she said, in much weakness, 'Oh, speak to me of Jesus — of His love! My mind has been much filled with this subject. Oh, think of Gethsemane, of Calvary!' And then her tears flowed as she spoke of His sufferings, and longed to enjoy more of His love. She dwelt upon the text, 'We know that when he shall appear — we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is!' She then spoke of being with Jesus; what it must be to be free from sin. She remarked, that she thought she might be enabled in heaven to take an interest in her dear companions; and the joy she would feel on seeing them give their hearts to God. I then read to her portions of Lamentations 3."

Elizabeth took a deep interest in others who, like herself, were laid upon a bed of suffering; and anxiously desired that they might largely partake of the consolations which faith in Christ alone can give. She particularly inquired about a young lady, who, like herself, was dying of consumption, and said, "Oh, I would like to hear if she is now enjoying that peace, which resting upon Jesus alone can give." And she delighted in the assurance, that to His children, God would cause light to arise, though for a time, from bodily weakness, they might seem to walk in darkness.

She often expressed much interest in the subjects of Mr Drummond's addresses at his prayer-meetings. Some of her young friends had told her much of Mr Drummond's kindness, when he examined the day-school. On hearing of her illness, he attempted visiting her — but from her house being difficult to find, both were disappointed of the interview. On hearing that he had spent some time in a fruitless search for her dwelling, Elizabeth expressed deep sorrow at the trouble he had taken to search her out, and sweetly added, "I dare say he will pray for me; I am happy we know of each other, and it is a pleasant thought that we shall meet in heaven."

"April 5. — Elizabeth, though her weakness and pain have at times been severe, has continued in a composed and happy state of mind. The all-sufficiency of Jesus as a Savior — His willingness to save the chief of sinners, even the thief on the cross at the last moment — are thoughts that have afforded her much consolation. She has much regretted that she was now obliged to give up seeing her dear companions; but added, she still could and did pray for them. A prayer-meeting, held in her room by some of her young friends, had been a season of much refreshing to her spirits, though she had been unable to speak. She enjoyed much comfort from knowing the Lord was her righteousness, A visit from Miss H., the teacher of the day-school, had afforded her much delight.

"Monday.–In accompanying Mrs B.* we found Elizabeth in much agony of body; still, amidst her acute pain, her mind was in perfect peace. She said God was very good; that, in the prospect of immediate death in the morning, she had been enabled to commit all the dear companions of the Bible class to the Lord. 'I have made,' she remarked, 'a large request — but not too hard for Him to grant — that not one may be lacking at the day of our Lord's appearing.' She then referred again to the sweet seasons she had enjoyed with them — thanked me for the instructions the Lord had enabled me to give to her, and added, she believed the happy Sunday evenings she had then enjoyed were foretastes of the Sabbath which would never end, when we should meet with the innumerable multitude of the glorified saints in the presence of Jesus — completely like Him, free from sin.

*In revising this little volume for a fourth edition, the author cannot pass over this endeared initial (Mrs B.) without breaking the impressive stillness in which it stands — solitary and solemn. "The memory of the just is blessed." It is fragrant and sanctifying. We love to think of them as they once were — the holy and the lovely of earth; we delight to imagine what they now are — the bright and the blissful of heaven. Since the paragraph was penned which thus records the interviews with Elizabeth Linn, the veil of eternity has opened and received within its glories the beloved one, whose kind and affectionate visits to the couch of the young believer were by her so gratefully remembered. She has passed away from earth like a bright, celestial visitant; and to some who knew and loved her well, now that she is gone — life is less sunny, and death's valley has less gloom. She lived for God. She labored and witnessed for Christ. And lovely as she appeared — the ornament and the charm of cultivated society, maintaining amidst the highest circles, the "simplicity of Christ" — and her Christianity and her natural loveliness never shone forth with such blended resplendent beauty — as when visiting the lowly cottages of the poor and the ignorant, or when administering to the spiritual and temporal necessities of the sick and the dying. Oh that the grace of Jesus may make all who sustain the responsibility of having shared in her acquaintance and her friendship, like her, as she resembled the meek and lowly Savior, "whose food and drink were to do the will of His Father." Let us not stop at admiration — but let us imitate her as she imitated Christ. The young believer and the kind lady who sat by her bedside repeating appropriate and precious portions of God's Word, have met, and met in glory! Together, and "without fault," they are "before the throne of God," each with a harp tuned in unison to the one anthem of heaven — "Worthy Is The Lamb!" Embalmed in our grateful hearts, be the memory of Mrs Bruce!

"8th. — Free from pain — but very weak. She referred to her sufferings on the previous day — said she was refreshed by Mrs B.'s visit — but, from excessive pain, she was unable to enjoy it to the extent she desired, adding, 'This is to teach how dependent we are upon the Lord for every blessing, trusting alone for our comforts to God.'

"Again accompanied Mrs B. Found Elizabeth better, and able to converse a little. She spoke of the Lord's goodness in giving her ease. The day before, when suffering so much, she had been cheered by a verse which had been repeated to her: 'The ransomed of the Lord shall return and come to Zion, with everlasting songs upon their head; they shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away!' She had great joy the past evening by a visit from two of the Sunday evening students, one of whom with tears told her Jesus was now precious to her soul. The other was deeply affected, and expressed great anxiety about her salvation. Elizabeth said, 'Oh, how the Lord encourages us to continue in prayer!' She then alluded to the joy of meeting some belonging to the class whom we now believed to be among the glorified in heaven, particularly her beloved friend, Elizabeth Aitchinson.

"Found Elizabeth very weak — but quite happy. Mrs B. repeated some passages of Scripture to her, which she enjoyed. She asked me to thank Mrs B. for coming to see her so often when she was in town. She felt her memory failing, which grieved her much. On repeating to her that precious portion, 'The Lord will not forsake his people for his own name's sake, because it has pleased the Lord to make you his people;' she smiled, and said, 'This is so sweet and precious, I shall delight to meditate upon it!'

"11th. — After much suffering, Elizabeth revived a little. She said she had longed much for my coming; and she felt a new proof of the Lord's kindness to her in sending me at this time, for she had been wishing I might come when the pain was not so great, that she might more enjoy my visit. Her dear friend Helen was present, and we read and spoke of some passages of the Word of God. Elizabeth remarked that, since the pain had been so severe, the Lord had allowed her to experience what strong consolation He could bestow; and that in the night, when all was still, she was often extremely happy in the enjoyment of the presence of the Lord, and enabled to commit those near and dear to her heart, to His care and keeping. Thus did He, as she expressed it, 'give her songs in the night.' Her dear young friend was present with her for the last time, being obliged to return home the following day.

This was felt to be a great trial by Elizabeth — but our spirits were cheered by speaking of the time,

'When death-divided friends, at last,
Shall meet to part no more.'

The interview today with Christian friends, she felt to be particularly cheering.

"16th. — Found our beloved and suffering friend very weak — but able to converse a little. She referred to the pain of parting from her affectionately attached young companion, who had that morning returned to Glasgow; but she added, 'the goodness of God has been great, in allowing us to be so long together, and in uniting us in bonds that can never be broken.' We spoke together of Psalm 73:24-26; and 2 Tim. 4:6-8. She said, 'In how many ways she saw how gently the Lord was leading her.' Truly was He, as the good Shepherd, carrying this tender and suffering lamb of His flock, on His arm and in His bosom.

Two Sundays ago she had a longing desire to live a little longer, for the sake of the dear class to which she felt so strongly attached. But since that time, the Lord had loosened the ties which bound her to earth, and now she could leave all who were dear to her below — to go and be with her Beloved. She spoke with sweet composure of her fast approaching death, and of the cheering thought, that to God's children Death was but the shadow and not the substance — but the shaft and not the sting; that which would have made him the king of terrors — to the believer, being quite taken away by Christ, the Conqueror of death.

It was delightful to see the grateful sense she entertained of the kindness of Christian friends who visited her. Today, she particularly referred to the refreshing she had derived from the visit of Mr Burns, and of the gratitude she felt, when informed that he had earnestly and affectionately remembered her at the meeting for prayer on the Monday before. She also spoke with much feeling of Mr Wingate, and often remembered his request, that she would pray for a blessing to rest upon the means employed to advance the best interests of the students of the College. Who can tell — eternity alone will disclose — the blessings that may have descended on this object of prayer, through the holy and fervent wrestlings of this hidden vessel of mercy.

"Monday. — Very exhausted, and suffering much from her breathing, yet happy in her soul. Although too weak to read, she said, 'she had been lifting up her heart in prayer for the extension of the Redeemer's kingdom; and had been seeking to remember all the faithful ministers of the gospel; her soul drawn out to pray that their labors might be much blessed by God, as the means of converting many sinners.' She stated the consolations she received on hearing from her friend Helen, that the Rev. Mr P. remembered her in prayer. She said she sometimes thought, that her being so enabled to bear severe pain, was in answer to the prayers of God's people.

"Tuesday, 21st. — Has suffered much during the last two days — but her heart was filled with holy love and gratitude to God for all His goodness to her. She told me, when she lay in comparative ease upon her bed, enjoying the society of Christian friends, she was in danger of taking up her rest here. She had felt some desire to live a little longer, might she but be useful to her aged father; but the Lord was gradually taking out the pins of the earthly tabernacle — to wean her from creatures and things below. Her meditations had been very sweet on the wondrous love of Jesus. Her soul had been fed with the hidden manna; such portions as these had nourished and strengthened her: 'The sufferings of the present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that shall be revealed in us!' 'Rejoicing in hope of the glory of God.' Several of the Bible class had visited her, affording a season of much spiritual enjoyment.

"24th. — Two little girls belonging to the day-school, calling upon her today, and having sung a few verses, she turned to them and said, 'Dears, I have enjoyed your singing much; would you not like to sing the new song in heaven?' They said, 'Yes.' She added, 'Well, dears, you must learn it here. Come to Jesus now, and He will be with you upon a death-bed.' She then took an affectionate leave of them. I was afraid of her exerting herself more — but she exclaimed, 'Oh, speak to me of the love of Jesus — that always revives me.' On expressing a fear that her sufferings were great, she said, 'Oh, don't be anxious about me; my mind is so happy. Jesus makes me to feel amidst the pain that He is with me, and will never, never forsake me.'

"Saturday, 26th. — Our beloved sufferer has been very ill. She said she had to struggle with impatience — so longing had she been, to depart and be with Christ. 'Oh,' she said, 'pray that I may be willing to wait the Lord's time.' She expressed the great enjoyment she had experienced, even in intense pain. She wept when she spoke of her father, and said, 'Oh that he knew the love of Jesus; he grieves much for me.' She had prayed to be enabled to speak a word which the Lord might bless to him. She called her little brother, to whom she has been as a mother, that I might speak to him about his soul.

"Monday. — In much pain; but she said, when asked how she was, 'Happy! happy! I shall soon be with Jesus!' She had found much comfort in that striking passage, 'Fear not, I am with you; be not dismayed, I am your God. I will strengthen you, I will uphold you with the right hand of my righteousness.' 'In heaven,' she remarked, 'I shall know more of this precious love — the love of the Father, the love of the Son, and the love of the Spirit.' She referred to the comfort which she had derived from a passage which I had quoted to her some days previously — 'I have loved you with an everlasting love.'

"Wednesday. — She is scarcely able to speak. Has received a visit from her kind friend Mr C. — but was unable to converse. She much enjoyed a hymn he repeated upon heaven, and the prayer which he offered up for her.

"Thursday. — Is a little recovered — but suffering much from exhaustion. Her heart is full of the love of Jesus, and the gentle way He is dealing with her, giving her in suffering to see so much of His own precious love. When about to leave her, she referred to the time the Lord first brought us together. She took my hand, and expressed her gratitude for all the instructions which the Lord had blessed to her soul. She said, in the watchful care of her Sunday-school teacher, she had never been permitted to miss her mother. She earnestly desired that each of her beloved associates in the class might be with her in heaven, to spend an eternal Sabbath in praising and serving God. She added, 'Oh, what a meeting it will be!'

And then referred to Miss Hutchinson, the much-loved teacher of the day-school, who had been suddenly removed by death; and also to some of the dear young members of the class, who had gone, she hoped, to glory. While speaking of her beholding the King in his beauty, her countenance grew quite animated. In parting, she seemed to fear that we might not meet again in this world, and seemed unwilling that I should go. She asked me to pray much that patience might be granted to her to wait the Lord's time.

"On Saturday, found her scarcely able to speak. She smiled when I came in; said she was happy to see me, that I might again speak to her of the love of Jesus. I read to her some passages of Scripture, pausing at the 4th verse of the 23rd Psalm. She grew quite animated while we spoke of the glories of heaven, dwelling particularly on those elements of its happiness — freedom from sin, perfect transformation into the image of Jesus, and meeting the innumerable multitude around the throne. She spoke with much affection of her dear companions Mary W. and Isabella F. and others, whom in parting with, she exhorted to keep close to Jesus.

"On Sunday evening, I heard from the members of our class that dear Elizabeth had grown much worse, and now appeared to be very near heaven. They informed me that her mind was happy, and that during her great suffering she was heard to cry out, 'Come, Lord Jesus, come quickly!'

"On Monday morning I went to her, found her a little recovered — but scarcely able to speak. I read to her part of the 11th chapter of John, dwelling upon the 35th and 36th verses. When I read Christ's question to Martha, 'Do you believe this?' she opened her eyes, smiled, and answered, 'Oh, yes!'

Her minister, Mr M'Gilchrist, came in, of whose kindness and great attention to her she had often and gratefully spoken. When he rose to leave, she extended her emaciated hand and said, 'Farewell, until we meet in heaven.' On taking my leave of her, she spoke of our reunion in glory, and desired me to convey her dying love to her companions of the class, mentioning several by name.

We parted to meet no more on earth. And on the Tuesday morning at five o'clock, she fell asleep in Jesus. Her last words were, when asked by a Christian friend if she was happy, 'Peace, peace!' Her age was twenty-one. On the following Friday, her body was committed to the dust, followed to its final resting-place by many of her beloved associates in the study of the Bible which she loved. Many tears were shed; but we have the blessed assurance to comfort us in our sorrow, that 'those who sleep in Jesus will God bring with him.'

"Happy soul! your days are ended,
All your mourning hours below;
Go, by angel guards attended,
To the sight of Jesus go!

"Waiting to receive your spirit,
Lo, the Savior stands above!
Shows the purchase of His merit,
Reaches out the crown of love.

"Struggle through your latest passion
To your dear Redeemer's breast;
To His uttermost salvation,
To His everlasting rest.

"For the joy He sets before you,
Bear a momentary pain;
Die to live the life of glory;
Suffer, with your Lord to reign!"

In the following letters, the interesting subject of this brief memoir will be allowed to speak more fully for herself. The idea, of course, was never present to her mind, when she penned them, that they would ever meet the public eye. They are, therefore, the more valuable, as breathing out the sincere and unfettered sentiments and affections of her soul, into the bosom of those she so fondly loved. The first is a touching one. It was written to her aged father during her last illness, and was directed to be given to him after her decease.

March 1842.
My Very Dear Father,
When you read this, I shall be in heaven, singing that song that is ever new. Dear father, I cannot bear the thought that we should be forever separated. Shake off your robe of self-righteousness, and go as a lost sinner to the foot of the Cross; none can perish there. I die in the firm belief that the Lord Jesus made an infinite atonement for a ruined world; and that all who believe and rest in His finished work as the ground of their hope and acceptance with God — shall be saved, and never can come into condemnation. Dear father, be kind to my little brother. Oh that he may be of the Savior's lambs, fed by Him with heavenly manna; a tree of righteousness to grow up into perfect holiness. Dear parent, I leave you in the hands of my Father in heaven, feeling assured He will answer prayer on your behalf for the sake of the Lord Jesus Christ. Him, the Father hears always. Dear father, ponder this advice of your child, who being dead, yet speaks.

Your affectionate daughter,
Elizabeth Linn.

The tender regard which she bore to her much-loved teacher, and the high value which she placed upon her unwearied and self-denying instructions in the school and in the Sunday-evening Bible class, sweetly breathe in the following letters addressed to her by Elizabeth Linn during her short absence from the class.

May 12, 1841.
My Dear And Much-honored Teacher,
I embrace the present opportunity of writing to you a few lines. I had the privilege of being at the school on Sunday evening. Sweet it was to meet with my dear companions, and to speak to them of the wondrous love of Jesus. I much enjoyed the little prayer-meeting. We read the 3rd chapter of the Revelation, and our friend, Miss Hutchinson, explained it to us. She addressed us sweetly on the 21st verse, "To him that overcomes, I will grant to sit with me on my throne." How animating this prospect!

"A hope so much divine
May trials well endure."

My dear teacher, I have to thank you for the kind letter you sent us. Oh that it may be the means of teaching some careless young ones, who are postponing the interests of their precious souls to a future time, to flee now to Jesus as the only refuge from the coming storm. Dear teacher, we felt deeply interested in the young person you wrote to us about, who is so ill; we remembered her in prayer, and asked the Lord to support and comfort her, and lift upon her the light of His countenance. We shall not forget you, and all the young you may be engaged in teaching. My cough still continues — but not so bad as it was. Oh for more gratitude to God for all His goodness to me!

Your affectionate student,
Elizabeth Linn.

Edinburgh, June 18, 1841.
My Dear Teacher,
I return you many sincere thanks for your very kind letter. I hope, by the grace of God, your dear letters will be greatly blessed to our souls. May the solemn words addressed to those who have not yet come to Jesus, be carried home to their hearts with power, and be made the blessed means, in the hand of God, of awakening many to an anxious concern about their precious souls. And may we, who have found Jesus precious, like the young person you told us of, tell others about that wonderful love that led the Lord of life and glory to die for us fallen and ruined creatures! How little do I seem to do for that Jesus — who has done so much, and such great things for me! Well may I call upon my soul, and all that is within me, to be stirred up to bless and magnify His holy name.

I feel at times very happy, when returning from the Sunday-school, in having heard about the love of Jesus; my heart is made to expand with love to God and to others. For some time past, I have had much enlargement in prayer, and was enabled to bring to the throne of grace every sin and want, and always found peace. But I have been very much cast down for these two days past. And yet I know that the Lord is hiding His face from me in love, and I am enabled to say, It is well, and all for my good. There is still much sin and pride remaining in this unsubdued heart of mine.

Miss Hutchinson is so kind, and so anxious about our souls. I hope we all feel thankful to our heavenly Father, for giving us such kind friends as you and Miss H., who care so much for our souls. Oh that every one belonging to the class would come to Jesus, and believe that God in Him is "pacified toward us, for all that we have done." I hope you will yet have the pleasure of seeing many, many of the dear, dear class, faithful followers of the Lamb. Weak and unworthy though my prayers are, I do not forget you and your dear sick friend. Pray for me, dear teacher, that I may be humble.

Your affectionate student,
Elizabeth Linn.

The following extracts are from letters addressed to the young friend so frequently referred to in the preceding pages. It would appear, as is often the case, that a strong Christian affection had grown up between Elizabeth and her young correspondent, long before any personal acquaintance had taken place. Her love to Jesus was more manifestly, on this account, the sweet, holy, and close-attracting bond of their union.

March 7, 1840.
My Dear Friend,
Though never having seen you, I rejoice to hear you are one of those who love the Lord Jesus. Once I had no love to that Divine Friend who "sticks closer than a brother." I thought I was young, and might live many years; and that after a while, I would begin to seek after God. Oh, foolish thought! not knowing that until I had come to Jesus, I could have no real happiness. But it pleased the Lord, in the riches of His mercy, to lay me on a bed of sickness, and it was then I felt it had been better for me to have sought the Lord in health, and not to have delayed. I was very ill. My friends and medical attendant had very little hope of my recovery. I felt much afraid to die; for I thought I was not one of those who had washed their robes in the blood of the Lamb; therefore I could not stand before His throne, nor serve Him. My much-beloved friend and teacher visited me. She spoke to me of the wonderful love of Jesus to poor sinners; and how willing He was to save to the uttermost, all who come unto Him. But when I felt my own weakness, and the utter inability, of myself, even to think a good thought — this was apt to discourage me. But the Lord showed me that I was not to look into my own heart for any good thing — but to look to Jesus, my great Surety, and to rely on His finished work alone for salvation. Well may I adopt the language of David, and say, "O Lord, in faithfulness you have afflicted me!" "Before I was afflicted I went astray;" but now I have seen the salvation of the Lord.

My dear friend, pray that my faith fail not, and that I may stand, and may lean on the mighty arm of the Lord for strength to help in time of need. The other young friends unite with me in their sincerest regards to you. I will be most happy to receive a letter soon from you.

Yours truly,
Elizabeth Linn

To the Same.
23rd March, 1840.
My Dear Friend,
I have to thank you for your very kind letter; it was long looked for. The Christian sympathy and love it breathed, brought tears into my eyes. My dear friend, I hope you still continue to pray for me. I need your prayers very much. I do not forget you when with Jesus — but seek daily for the welfare of your soul. May you be blessed, and be made more and more a blessing; and any effort you make for the promotion of God's glory, may it be countenanced with an abundant blessing. I hope the students in Glasgow are getting on well. I should be glad to hear good accounts of them. You will have heard of the death of one of my dear companions belonging to the class. She was very dear to me; we often prayed together, and lamented the coldness of our hearts. But she is now, I trust, free from sin, and is where there is no more pain, nor sorrow, nor crying! The Lamb who is in the midst of the throne will feed her, and lead her to living fountains of waters, and God will wipe away all tears from her eyes!

Oh that the blessed hope of living ever with the King, may quicken us more, daily to seek to praise Him, and to do more of His blessed will, rejoicing to be employed as the instruments of telling the way of salvation to any around us! My dear friend, may we, who have tasted of the love of Jesus, be stirred up to earnest prayer, to be made fit for the heavenly inheritance. I feel how earnest we should be in prayer for the dear class, that none be left out at the coming of our dear Lord; may each of them now give their hearts to Jesus, so that they may behold His glory. I doubt not by this time you have had many sweet meetings with our beloved teacher. Oh, how I miss her kind visits; I feel always so cheered after them. I am longing very, very much, to have from her a few lines, which may be as water to a thirsty soul.

You kindly inquire about my health. My cough is much worse. I have not been so unwell for many months. My dear teacher brought two bottles of medicine for my cough. When I think of her tender care of me, I cannot refrain from tears. My God will reward her. Forgive my long silence. Since the death of my mother, I have but little time for writing. Write soon, and tell me how your soul prospers. Good-bye.

Yours in the love of Jesus,
Elizabeth Linn.

To the Same.
Oct. 1841.
I am happy, dear Helen, that you are well. I hope it may please God to strengthen us in body and in mind, that we may be fellow-helpers of each other in the narrow way. Oh, may we not rest satisfied at what we have already attained; but may we press onward in our course! A crown of glory glistens in the distance; surely it is worth the running for. Dear Helen, I have enjoyed very much the sweet meetings (the concert for prayer) we have had these ten days past. Oh, may the united cry of God's dear people come before Him with acceptance, through the Lord Jesus, our great Intercessor! Oh, may the happy result be the conversion of sinners! May the Savior see of the travail of His soul, and be satisfied; and may the time speedily come when the whole earth shall be filled with His glory!

O my dear friend, what a precious privilege it is that we can hold communion with God, and sweet fellowship with His Son Jesus Christ! He is the best of all friends — unchanging — ever the same. He is the First and the Last, and the ever-living One. If we, my dear friend, are His true disciples, He will manifest Himself to us in a way He does not to the world. What are we, that His banner over us should be love — while many are inquiring, "What is your Beloved more than another beloved," seeing no beauty that they should desire Him?

Oh, may we, who have tasted that the Lord is gracious, live above this world — and walk decidedly for Christ! When we think of all that He has done and suffered for us sinners, well may we cry out, "Herein is love, not that we loved God — but that he loved us!" And when we think of what the Savior is still doing for us — interceding at His Father's right hand — how should this urge us to drop the anchor of our souls within the veil! How should the love of Christ constrain us to live not to ourselves — but to Him who so loved us as to give His precious life as a ransom for us!

I rejoice to hear of the interesting meetings. Oh, may the Spirit be poured out in rich abundance in all His renovating and sanctifying influences; and may the happy result of them be, that the Savior may see of the travail of His soul, and be satisfied! May God be glorified, and sinners saved!

When you write, tell me all about the meetings. We enjoy many privileges; and may we remember, that to whom much is given — much is required. I am glad you still bear on your heart the dear class at the hour appointed. Let us not rest satisfied until all are brought to the knowledge of Jesus. What a happy thought, to look forward to the time when we shall be united in our Father's house! Blessed are they, my dear friend, who have a right to enter in through the gate of the city. There the inhabitants will never say, 'I am sick' for those who dwell there shall be forgiven all their iniquities.

Yours affectionately, in the love of Jesus,
Elizabeth Linn.

The following extracts from some of her correspondence betray a high tone of spiritual feeling, an ardent attachment to the dear instrument of so much lasting blessing to her soul, and a fervent desire for the salvation of others:

"I sat down at the table of the Lord for the first time, last communion. I hope I was enabled to look above the ordinance — to the God of ordinances, and to behold Him as a reconciled Father in Christ Jesus. Oh that every trembling soul would believe this precious truth, that God in Christ is reconciled even to the vilest of the vile, and pacified toward us, for all the sin which we have committed!

I feel much in the dear little prayer-meeting, and hope that the Lord will dispose many more of the class to join us in the delightful exercise. Not a few will be found in heaven, who have begun their spiritual warfare and their march to Zion in a Sunday-school. May the Lord more and more bless the labors of our dear teacher! May she have the happiness of seeing the pleasure of the Lord prosper in her hands."

"January 1842. — Pray for submission to the will of God. Oh, do not speak again to me of a struggle at death! It is the words, 'Sleep in Jesus,' that makes me happy when I think of it!

"I shall be very happy to devote a part of the Sunday morning to ask the divine blessing upon the labors of our dearly-beloved teacher. And may we not rest satisfied until every member of the class is brought to the foot of the cross, to take refuge in the bleeding side of Immanuel! Oh, it is not too much to ask that all might be saved, when the salvation of sinners is spoken of as the travail of the Savior's soul, and as giving Him infinite satisfaction! Will not the glory of Christ much consist in the great number of His spiritual seed? And does not the Word of God assure us that they shall be a numerous offspring, even as the drops from the womb of the morning? O my dear friend, what a glorious time will it be when we are all united in one, and our beloved teacher, and all who have loved the dear Savior! We shall cast our crowns at His feet, and ascribe all glory to the Lamb who was slain! My dear friend, I have been thinking that it would be so nice if we knew the hour on the Sunday mornings, that we might all unite together in prayer, in behalf of the dear young ones. We were thinking of from seven to eight o'clock. We may sing —

"Blessed be the dear uniting love,
That will not let us part;
Our bodies may far off remove,
We still are one in heart!"

As the reader has advanced thus far, the ardent attachment of Elizabeth to her Bible class must frequently have impressed the mind, as forming a lively and a prominent trait in her amiable and spiritual character. Her associations with it were most hallowed, her affection for it most tender and holy. It was there she first heard of Jesus, the sinner's Friend. It was there she first felt herself to be that sinner, and Him to be that Friend. It was there, too, beneath the culture of the same tender and skillful hand, by whose instrumentality the seed had first been sown, that the budding of grace in her heart was nurtured, until God removed this lovely plant to a more congenial soil, where the bud of grace has burst into the full-blown flower of glory! The fond attachment to her class, to which we have alluded, will best express itself in the following letter, which she addressed to it while lying on her bed of languishing:

To My Dear Companions Of The Class.
My Very Dear Young Friends,
I would like to write you a few lines tonight, as I fear I shall not be able again. I feel extremely weak, and suffer much from difficulty of breathing. My dear companions, the first thing I would urge upon you is, regular attendance upon the class. I can look back upon the time when I was first brought among you, and thank God for it. O my dear young friends, how very short and uncertain our time is! We have gotten many warnings, the voice has been made to sound in our ears, "Be ready!"

March 9. — My dear young friends, I have been thinking much of you this morning, and have been asking from God that we may all be united at His own right hand. O my dear, dear friends, it is here you must choose whose you will be — "who is on the Lord's side?" Satan is a hard master, serve him no longer, he is seeking to ruin your precious souls forever; delay not a moment longer, flee to Jesus the stronghold, while you are prisoners of hope. The blessed Jesus is waiting to receive you; all things are ready. Are there some of my dear companions here who have been convinced of sin — but who fear that Jesus will not receive them until they perform their neglected duties, and try to be like God's people — and then, they think, Jesus will receive them, with this plea in their hands? Dear friends, this is what I thought — but it will not do! We must come as sinners, as lost sinners, to the foot of the cross — it was for sinners that Jesus died; this is all the plea we need.

March 10. — My dear friends, I should like to speak a word to you who have found Jesus precious. Oh, how sweet and precious I have found these words — "My beloved is mine, and I am his." O my dear sisters, rest not satisfied with any attainments here, seek daily to know more of the love of Jesus. I have been thinking much of dear Elizabeth Aitchinson this morning, who is now in glory. Oh, how sweet to think of meeting with those who are gone before.

O my dear companions, how different things appear when laid on a sick bed! Oh, seek now to glorify God; tell others what the Lord has done for your souls. I rejoice to think I am not forgotten at the much-beloved prayer-meeting. Yes, I can say, the Lord blessed me there. May you have a refreshing season this evening! May Jesus come in and sup with you, and you with Him! Oh, be very much in prayer for our dear devoted teacher, that her labors may be abundantly blessed! May the Lord bless these few lines to your souls, is the earnest prayer of your affectionate sister in the love of Jesus,
Elizabeth Linn.

The following detached observations, which fell from the lips of the interesting subject of our little Memoir, and which were noted down at the time, are supplied by one of her dear companions and fellow-disciples at the feet of Jesus. They unfold a rapid and mature work of grace in the soul; and, coming from the lips of one so young, yield much glory to that blessed Spirit, without whose teaching all other instruction is in vain; but with whose gracious and accompanying influence — the weakest human effort to convey spiritual light to the judgment, and conviction to the heart, of a poor sinner, shall prove effectual to the removal of the strongest barriers to the salvation of the soul. With an eye of faith immovably fixed on the omnipotent and irresistible power of the Holy Spirit, let no one laboring for the conversion of sinners despair. The more unpromising the case, and the feebler the instrument — the more resplendently will the power, grace, and love of the Spirit shine forth! Never abandon a soul until God does; and we have no just ground for supposing that God does until the fearful and irrevocable fiat has gone forth — "Cut it down!" and we see the fruitless tree stretched lifeless upon the earth. The following letter may be read with deep instruction and comfort by the more matured believer:

"About the middle of February, when, through the kind providence of God, I first visited Elizabeth Linn, she said, on seeing me, 'Come away, Margery, why were you so long in coming?' The manner in which she uttered these words, and the pleasing countenance she displayed, bespoke to me a far different character than I had supposed she was. I had thought her distant, just because I did not know her so well as I might have known her. It was indeed a rebuke to me — the judging of anyone from mere outward appearance.

At that time she said, speaking of her sufferings, that 'sin was the cause of them all. But, oh, what a happy place will heaven be, where there is no sin, and therefore no sorrow!' I spoke to her of Christ as the life of the believer, and that that life was hidden in God — that we had no life in ourselves — but that we must draw every breath of our life from Christ. She remarked, 'Oh, how safe and sweet it is to know and feel that Christ is everything to the believer — and that we nothing!'

She many times spoke of the precious privilege of seeing the Lord's hand in everything, especially of my coming to be with her at such a season, when her dear friend had left her. She would often speak of the mystery of the communion of saints — and we, indeed, enjoyed a very great degree of it here — remarking, what would it be in glory, when we would be like Christ, and enjoy it to the full! We would often speak of the great and wonderful things God had done for us, and which He had promised still to do.

She enjoyed much of heaven upon earth. At one time, after a severe fit of coughing, she said to me, 'Oh, how sweet it will be to meet you in heaven, where we shall never, never part, and spend a happy eternity together in speaking of all the way the Lord has led us!' 'Yes,' I replied, 'and every pang of your present sufferings will add another note to the song, ever-charming, ever-new.' 'Oh, how sweet,' she said, 'to think of it! What must the reality be! Have you any doubt that we shall meet again? Do you think it will be long?' I said, 'No, Elizabeth, I have no doubt; and as to the time, I cannot tell.' 'Oh,' she replied, 'it does not matter; at the longest, it is but short. Oh, let us live to the glory of our God!'

About that time I read to her a poem by Ralph Erskine, entitled, 'The Work and the Contention of Heaven.' She said, 'I do not think much of it; it is fancy and conjecture.' 'True,' I remarked, 'the language of earth is too poor to utter the joys which are in heaven; we know very little of them here.'

"I asked her once if she was afraid of death; she replied that she was not. She often spoke of the doubts and fears of the believer, how dishonoring they were to God, and hurtful to our own souls — as if God had promised what He was neither able nor willing to perform. The 'sure mercies of David' were her support; they were sure because God had promised them, and that was enough for her. Once, while suffering very much, I repeated the lines — 'His arms can well sustain, The people of His love.'

'Yes,' she exclaimed, 'though he slays me — yet will I trust in him.' That sweet verse in Romans 5:2 was very precious to her, 'Rejoicing in hope of the glory of God,' rejoicing in hope of the coming glory, as she expressed it. She was very much delighted with the idea, that Christ had paved the way for His flock, and that He keeps an open door, and that no one could shut it against her. She had been tempted to fear that her sins would shut this door; but this precious promise had been given to her, 'The blood of Jesus Christ, God's Son, cleanses us from all sin.' (John 1:7.) This proved, indeed, the sword of the Spirit, whereby she was enabled to quench the fiery dart of the wicked one. This, as far as I know, was her last temptation.

She took very great delight in singing the sweet psalms and hymns she had committed to memory; and often, when Christian friends called to see her, she would request them to sing, in which, as long as her strength permitted, she took a part. On taking leave of her friends, she would frequently exhort and entreat them to keep close to Jesus, and that He would allow them to experience what comfort and support He had in reserve for them for a sick-bed and a dying hour. She spoke to many of the love of Jesus, commending Him as much by her example in patient suffering, as by her counsels.

She had many precious treatises and memoirs presented to her by her dear friends, and which were very useful to her; but for more than three weeks before her death, she wished nothing so much to be read to her as her Bible. It was there she found food for her soul, comfort in the time of sickness, and support in the hour of death. The scriptures were more to her than tongue can utter or heart conceive. She was fond of 'Psalms and Hymns, and Spiritual Songs.' Those commencing, 'There is a fountain filled with blood,' Let me dwell in Golgotha,' ' Guide me, O You great Jehovah!' ' When I can read my title clear,' were favorites. The following beautiful hymn, from the Olney collection, much refreshed her soul:

"When on the cross my Lord I see,
Bleeding to death for wretched me,
Satan and sin no more can move,
For I am all transformed to love.

"His thorns and nails pierce through my heart!
In every groan, I bear a part!
I view His wounds with streaming eyes;
But see! He bows His head, and dies!

"Come, sinners, view the Lamb of God,
Wounded and dead, and bathed in blood.
Behold His side, and venture near;
The well of endless life is here!

"Here I forget my cares and pains;
I drink, yet still my thirst remains;
Only the Fountain-head above
Can satisfy the thirst of love.

"Oh that I thus could always feel!
Lord, more and more Your love reveal!
Then my glad tongue shall loud proclaim.
The grace and glory of Your name!

"Your name dispels my guilt and fear,
Revives my heart, and charms my ear;
Affords a balm for every wound,
And Satan trembles at the sound!"

The following she requested might be read to her a few hours before her death:

"Asleep in Jesus! blessed sleep!
From which none ever wake to weep;
A calm and undisturbed repose,
Unbroken by the last of foes.

"Asleep in Jesus! oh, how sweet
To be for such a slumber meet;
With holy confidence to sing
That death has lost its venomed sting.

"Asleep in Jesus! peaceful rest,
Whose waking is supremely blessed:
No fear, no woe shall dim that hour
That manifests the Savior's power.

"Asleep in Jesus! oh, for me
May such a blissful refuge be!
Securely shall my ashes lie,
Waiting the summons from on high.

"Asleep in Jesus! time nor space
Destroys this precious 'hiding place;'
On Indian plains, or Lapland snows,
Believers find the same repose.

"Asleep in Jesus! far from thee
Your kindred and their graves may be;
But thine is still a blessed sleep,
From which none ever wakes to weep."

"Upon a kind friend bringing her some clean clothes, she said, 'The Lord bless and reward you for all your kindness; but I shall soon get the white robe, clean and white, which will need no washing!' 'Yes,' I replied, 'for it will never be soiled.' 'No, no,' she eagerly said, 'no sin there to defile — for all is pure and holy.' When alone, she would often cry out, 'Oh, come and help me to praise Him, for all the great love with which He loves us. Speak to me of the wonders of redeeming love, and tell me of the sufferings of my Jesus, that I may forget my own; for I am often like poor Peter, looking at the waves — and forgetting the power of the Lord Jesus to help me.'

Once when we were very happy together singing and praying, she said, 'Oh, how strange it is that when we find so much of heaven in this exercise, that we are so seldom engaged in it!' I replied, 'It is owing to the desperate wickedness of our hearts!' On one remarking to her, and regretting that she was deprived the privilege of attending on the public ordinances of God's grace, and that she would weary lying on her bed so long, she said, 'Oh no, I never weary! Triflers wonder how the days, and weeks, and even months, pass away. My God more than makes up for lack of ordinances; for when sufferings abound, consolations much more abound.'

On one occasion, observing her little brother in tears on account of the illness of his father, she said to him, 'O Willie, I thought you knew better; you know what the Psalmist said, "When my father and my mother forsake me, then the Lord will take me up." Read that beautiful chapter which says, "Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid."' I shall not soon forget the scene.

Once, after a severe fit of coughing, she cried out in great pain, 'Lord, help me! Jehovah, hear me in the day of trouble!' For two days before her death, her sufferings were much increased, which prevented her from conversing. Alluding to them afterwards, she said, 'Oh, what a cup of suffering I had yesterday; but what was it, compared to what my Jesus bore for me! Oh, how wonderfully was I supported under it!'

She took an affectionate leave of her minister, to whom she said, 'Farewell, sir, until we meet again.' At broken intervals, she said, 'Light affliction.' — ' Enduring, as seeing Him who is invisible.' I said to her, 'Are you happy? Do you feel Jesus still with you?' She said, 'Peace, peace!' After prayer for a quiet passage home, she pressed and kissed my hand. I repeated the first line of one of her favorite hymns —

'Asleep in Jesus! blessed sleep!'

She looked at me with a countenance with more of heaven in it than of earth, and then sweetly and gently fell asleep in Jesus, on the 5th of April, in the twenty-first year of her age.

'Oh. let me live and die like her,
Enclosed in Jesus' arms!'

The following is the letter from the Rev. Mr Burns, to which allusion is made earlier, as having afforded much spiritual refreshment to our now glorified young friend. It is a touching exhibition of a holy yearning of soul for the full salvation of youth — oh that there were more of it! It affords a striking illustration of one peculiar means by which that great object may be sought. If those who visit this and kindred schools would gather up a fragment of, perhaps, otherwise wasted time, and devote it to a short epistle to the young people, after the example of our brother, how much would it encourage the heart and strengthen the hands of the teacher, and with what rich and lasting blessing might it be followed to the taught!

To the young people attending G___ School, Edinburgh.
Perth, March 10, 1840.
My dear young friends,
Some of you remember that sweet and glorious verse, on which I spoke a little the first time I was among you. I will repeat it, as it is one that ought to be engraved upon all our hearts, "You know the grace of the Lord Jesus, who, though he was rich — yet for your sakes became poor, that you through his poverty might be made rich."

This sweet verse, I well remember, tenderly affected some of our souls, through the power of the Holy Spirit, on that afternoon that I was among you. And it is by considering, and truly believing, the wonderful truth which it contains — that we are to be saved from sin, and all its bitter and everlasting fruits, and to be made partakers of God's salvation, with eternal glory.

Think, then, again, my dear young friends, of the dignity and glory which Emmanuel left — when He came to our earth to save us! This we cannot conceive, it is so great and glorious. He was gloriously rich. He was not a creature — but the Father's "only-begotten Son," the brightness of His glory, and the express image of His person. And, therefore, He was rich from all eternity, not only in having all the universe as His own — but in possessing all the infinite, eternal, and unchangeable attributes of the Godhead! And yet, mystery of mysteries! He became poor! He veiled His divine glory in our weak nature, by becoming a man: "He made Himself nothing — by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness."

But this was not all, "he was a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief;" and His sufferings and shame were only ended by bleeding to death upon the accursed tree! This is a mystery which will never be fully understood by any creature throughout eternity — but will always be forever unfolding new wonders of divine wisdom, power and grace — to the souls of redeemed sinners and unfallen angels!

But then, what comes next in the verse? "He became poor for your sakes — that you through his poverty might be made rich!" Had He not become thus poor, giving up for us — not only all that He possessed — but giving Himself for us — we could not have been ransomed from the power of sin and Satan — but must all have lain down in everlasting burnings, lighted up and fanned forever and ever by the breath of a holy and righteous God!

When we were thus awfully poor, He, in His infinite love, became Himself poor — to enrich us. The wrath of God was suspended over us all, and though all creatures in heaven and earth would have tried, even by their own death, to save us from it — they could no more have done so, than the least worm could support the mighty globe! But when all hope was at an end, Emmanuel interposed Himself in human nature, between the wrath of Almighty God above — and us, poor guilty perishing sinners, below! That wrath descended on Him — it mangled His body, it pierced and tortured His soul, until He, "the Prince of life," "the Lord of glory, died!"

He cried out, "It is finished!" as He bowed His head and gave up His spirit — and the infinite wrath of God coming down on Him, could come no further! Death triumphed over Him as man — but He vanquished death itself, because He was Jehovah! Divine wrath consumed His human nature — but it could not injure the golden altar of His Divine nature on which that sacrifice was consumed! And this altar, sanctifying the gift upon it — gave such a value to the sacrifice of Jesus, that His death is an infinite atonement for sin. And His death was sufficient to ransom, if so it pleased the Father, millions of millions of worlds of sinners, though each individual had on him the united guilt of all men on earth, and all men and devils in hell!

Dear fellow-sinners, if you take refuge by faith in this sacrifice of Emmanuel, you are saved, and cannot come into condemnation — but have passed from death unto life. If you despise and reject it, then sooner may heaven and earth pass away — than that you should escape being in hell to all eternity for your sins!

I rejoice to hear that some of you seem to have gotten a glimpse of the love of Jesus, and of the preciousness of His atoning blood. To such I would say — remain at Calvary, be there sleeping and waking, at work or at play, living and dying. Gaze upon that great sight — until your conscience enjoys perfect peace with God, until your heart is filled with Emmanuel's love, and your whole soul is transformed into His image, and becomes as a mirror, finely polished to reflect to all eternity, the rays of His grace and glory!

"Look unto Jesus!" is the whole the gospel. Look and wonder, look and live, look and love, look and adore, look and admire, look and be blessed, look and be glorified, look eternally — and your hearts will be filled with everlasting love, your mouth with an unending hallelujah!

What can I say to those among you, who have heard of Jesus, and whose hearts are given to another — to the world, to themselves, to a lust, a passion, an idol, to sin, to Satan! Ah! to hell-fire you will go — if the Lord, in infinite mercy, does not interpose for you! Children, young people, who have not yet come to Jesus — realize that you are under the wrath of God — and that every moment it is coming nearer and nearer to your poor souls! Awake, arise, flee without a moment's delay to Jesus, and take refuge below His atoning cross — and enjoy now and to all eternity, His free, infinite, and unchangeable love to perishing sinners!

Shall I meet you in heaven — or see you going away in your impenitence and unbelief to hell? What do you mean, O sleepers! Arise and call upon God! "Whoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved."

Write to me, and I will try and write soon again. May the Lord Jesus be with you!
Yours in Emmanuel,
William C. Burns

Many important reflections are suggested by the narrative now brought to a close; but that the reader may not be detained from the perusal of the one that follows, the practical improvement which may be made of both will be embodied in the closing pages of the volume.

Memoir of ELIZABETH AITCHINSON

"Lovely and pleasant in their lives — and in their death they were not divided." 2 Samuel 1:28

The name of the interesting subject of the following sketch occurs more than once in the preceding pages. She was the Bible-class associate, and the endeared friend of her whose narrative we have just brought to a close. Death for a while separated them here below; but death reunited them again in a better world on high. The interval of their separation was not long. They were indeed "lovely and pleasant in their lives — and in their death they were not divided."

Elizabeth Aitchinson — whose history closes our little volume — was also a member of the same Bible class for a period of six years and a half, and during that period was exemplary for her regular attendance and diligent attention to the spiritual instructions given. About the beginning of November 1839, the school was privileged with several visits from the Rev. Mr Burns. On his addressing a note to her teacher, stating that he was in town, and wished to make an appointment with the school, a reply was returned by Elizabeth. On placing the note in her hand, her teacher took the opportunity of conversing with her with a more personal application of the truth to her conscience than she had before done; reminding her that although she possessed much spiritual light on divine things in her judgment, she yet had not passed from death unto life.

This heart-searching appeal to a conscience sufficiently enlightened and tender to admit its truth and feel its force, drew tears from her eyes. On leaving her teacher, she hastened upon her errand. Mr Burns had just left the house — but she was informed that she might possibly overtake him, which, after a short time, she did. Having read the note by the light of a street-lamp, and delivered a verbal answer, he inquired if she was a student. She replied that she was a "Sunday-evening one." In a kind but solemn manner, he then put the question to her, "Have you seen the glory of Christ?" She hung down her head — but made no reply. He then affectionately took her hand in his, and said, "Never rest until you can say that Christ is precious to you," and left her.

That was the moment in which the arrow of sin's conviction, pointed by the weakness of man — but winged by the unerring power of the Spirit, found a lodgment in her heart. Sleep was a stranger to her eyes that night. Its silent hours were spent in the deepest searchings of heart, and in the most solemn and holy reflection. Who can slumber, conscious of standing upon the brink of hell? Why do the ungodly and impenitent sleep? Why are they so secure, so lightsome, and so mirthful? Because they are strangers to conviction of sin, and see not the lake of quenchless fire, on whose margin they each moment stand!

But Elizabeth was aroused from her deep slumber. That night the thought was riveted upon her mind, "If I cannot answer Mr Burns — then how can I answer if summoned to stand at God's tribunal?" She thought of God's goodness in surrounding her with so many privileges; interesting His people in her spiritual welfare, especially His sending one whom she had never seen before. Ten days she spent in great mental anguish. The arrow remained transfixed in her heart — the wound festered in her conscience — the discovery of her sin, and its exceeding sinfulness, became more and more deep, clear, and overpowering.

On the following Sunday evening, observing on her countenance an air of deep distress, her teacher inquired if she was ill. She burst into tears, and said, "My body is well — but my soul is miserable!" From this time she became an object of deep solicitude and especial prayer. After many conversations with her teacher — who rejoiced to meet with a case so suited in every respect to the Savior of lost sinners, the Healer of the broken-hearted, the Comfort of those that mourn — she at length found peace through the atoning blood of the Lamb, and took her place at Jesus' feet — a pardoned, a justified, and a happy soul.

From that time she rejoiced in God, and the joy of the Lord was her strength. Her sole ground of acceptance was the finished work of the incarnate God. She saw that all this mercy — she owed to the free and distinguishing grace of God. That, as a sinner, without a single claim upon that grace springing from herself, was she saved. That, had God punished her — He would have been perfectly just; but that in saving her by the death of His Son — both His justice and His grace were magnified. This was solid ground for her faith. She was filled with joy unspeakable and full of glory; we marvel not at it. Her peace flowed like a river; we wonder not that it should. Emancipation from the most abject slavery — acquittal from an appalling condemnation — escape from the most fearful doom, followed by a positive state of blessings and privilege, to which the highest angel in heaven is a stranger — if this does not fill the heart with gladness, the mouth with praise, the life with holiness, and even death with transport — what else can?

From this time her path was truly that of the "just, shining more and more unto the perfect day." Short was her journey to the skies; but that journey was to be distinguished by a rapid maturity of grace, which must soon land its happy subject within the precincts of eternal glory!

Fellowship with God, it was soon apparent, was her chief employment and delight. Indeed, she became constant and mighty in prayer. Each Sunday evening, for some months, found her and a few kindred spirits, clustering around the cross, pouring out their hearts in the deepest devotion to Him who from that cross had spoken words of peace to their souls. This meeting for prayer was with a view of especial supplication for a blessing upon the Bible instruction about to be given, and upon the more general assembling for prayer, which usually followed the meeting of the class. Deep humility, blended with filial confidence and importunate earnestness — were the marked characteristics of her prayers.

On one occasion, she was heard to ask of God that the "school might be a Lebanon where many cedars might be reared with which to build the Lord's temple." And on the last evening that she was permitted to attend, her heart was much drawn out in intercession in behalf of her teacher, praying that her hands might be held up by the prayers of her class.

From a memorandum kept by her beloved teacher, we shall gather the materials of her subsequent spiritual course until the close of her life.

"The last Sunday evening of the year was the closing scene of her attendance at the school. On that occasion she was much distressed, in consequence of the domestic affliction of one of the class; and as the unusual lateness of the hour prevented the customary meeting for prayer, she sweetly said to me, as she left the room, 'We must remember each other in secret, and hope to meet next Sunday.' In a few days following, she was seized with an attack of inflammation of the lungs. The first time I saw her after this, she thought she was recovering. She said to me, 'Will you tell my dear companions of the class, that at one time I used to think that when I was ill I would come to Jesus. But, oh, say to them all, that sickness, or the near approach of death — is not the time to begin to seek Him. Tell them I bless God that my feet were upon the Rock, Christ, before this illness; and He has supported and comforted me.' She spoke of the strong consolation and stable hope which she then derived 'from the blessed truths of the gospel' and of the peace she enjoyed as a sinner at the foot of the cross. At the same time, expressing the concern she had of late felt for the conversion of the class, especially the comfort of those who were under concern of mind.

"On calling on her again, she still thought she was slowly recovering — but added, 'I am in the Lord's hands, and He will do with me what is good.' She referred to the delight she had experienced in the class, and of the deep concern which she felt for the souls of its beloved members. On one occasion, I found her dear friend, Elizabeth Linn, sitting by her side, reading a volume, entitled 'Consolatory Letters,' and conversing happily together of the love of Jesus, and what He had done for their souls. They had been conversing together upon different portions of the Scriptures, when Elizabeth Linn paused, and remarked, 'Oh, how different is the Word of God from other writings! What a richness in a few words, and what delight does a single passage afford!' She expressed a longing desire to join her class, that she might testify to others what a present help in her time of trouble, she had found Jesus to be.

"From the stormy state of the weather, I did not see Elizabeth again for several days. On Saturday, a note from her father informed me that she had become suddenly worse, and was anxious to see me. I was informed at the same time by Miss Hutchinson, the teacher of the day-school, that on calling in the forenoon, she had found Elizabeth apparently very near death — but in a most delighted state of mind — so quiet and composed, so cheerful and happy.

She was endeavoring to comfort her weeping parents, by leading them to see the Lord's hand in the trial. When allusion was made to Abraham's trial, in being called to give up his son, Elizabeth said, 'To go further — to think of His love, who spared not His only-begotten Son — but freely gave Him up for us all. Mother, will you not willingly give me up when God requires it?'

"The next day (Sunday) I went early to see her, and found her a little revived. A medicine had given ease to her breathing, in which she gratefully acknowledged the Lord's blessing on the means. She desired especial prayer to be made for her in the class, that in all things she might be enabled to submit to the will of God. She said, that since she knew the Lord, she had never had the least fear of death, until the Friday night before. In consequence of a severe fit of coughing, she had coughed up much blood, which had greatly weakened her. A young friend calling upon her, Elizabeth observed she looked shocked at the change in her appearance; after she was gone, she asked her mother to bring a looking-glass that she might see herself. When she saw her own pale, emaciated face for the first time, she felt a shrinking from death, and a desire to live.

But she added, 'that night the Lord sent me these precious words, "Accepted in the Beloved." Oh,' she said, 'what sweet meditation I had from them! I saw so clearly the work was wholly finished by Jesus; and that as accepted in Him — I had no cause to fear; and since that time have not had another fear of death, my mind has been kept in perfect peace. My heart still clings to the dear Sunday-evening class. I have had a thought, which I hope is not wrong or fanciful. I have been thinking that in heaven, perhaps I may be allowed to know when any member of the dear class gives her heart to Jesus. You know it says, "There is joy in heaven among the angels of God, over one sinner that repents;" and I feel as if my joy would be greater if I knew it was one of my dear companions. Perhaps I may yet be able to be in the class one Sunday evening more. How I would like to speak to all of the love of Jesus!'

"On Monday I found her," continues her teacher, "still better. 'When unable to speak much,' she remarked, 'I can say, God be merciful to me a sinner.' She stated that she felt sweet peace, the gift of Jesus' love, and found at the foot of the cross. She named several of the class, concerning whose conversion she felt great concern, and was desirous that they would not delay — but come immediately and wholly to Christ. She mentioned one particularly, whom she felt to be thoughtless — but rejoiced to think that of late she had manifested more interest in spiritual things, adding, 'the grace of God can soften down the hardest heart!'

I read to her the 7th chapter of the book of Revelation. Upon the last part, in which she much delighted, she remarked, 'It was not because of their tribulation that they are before the throne — but because they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of Jesus.' She referred to the sweetness she tasted in lying passively in the Lord's hands, having no will but His. She delighted in the thought that the way the Lord was leading her — was the right way to a city of habitation. On the Sunday before, she spoke much of Mr Burns, who had been useful to her and to others in the school; and in referring to the evening on which she first saw him, she quoted the lines,

"A thousand ways Jehovah has,
To bring His people home!"

"On Tuesday I found her worse, attended by chill, difficulty of breathing, and restlessness; still she had the same sweet and cheerful expression. She manifested tender anxiety at my coming out in the cold, and wished me to sit near the fire. Upon my asking her how she was, she replied, 'I can scarcely tell how I am, or how I feel; but I am a poor sinner at the foot of the cross; yes, at the feet of Jesus, and there I have found peace.' 'Oh, how I wish to speak to all my class companions!' She referred to her affection fur Elizabeth Linn, and sweetly added, 'Our bond will never be broken.' All who love the Lord Jesus will never be separated — but be united forever with Jesus. She said that she had much pleasure in the thought that the whole family in heaven and in earth were but one, and quoted those lines as expressive of her sentiments on the blessed subject of Christian union of all who love the Lord Jesus, both in heaven and on earth:

'One family we dwell in Him;
One Church above, beneath,
Though now divided by the stream,
The narrow stream of death.'

"She was lifted from the bed and placed near the fire, much exhausted; but her heart seemed to overflow with the love of Jesus. She again remarked that she looked back with gratitude to having been a Sunday Bible-class student for above six years, and spoke encouragingly to me of the blessing with which the Lord had followed the instructions given. I left her at about two o'clock, little thinking her end was so near. Two hours after, just as her father had laid her down on her bed, he saw a change in her countenance, and said, 'Elizabeth, do you think this is death?' She replied, 'Oh no, father! I feel very well, except my breathing.' He again inquired,' Elizabeth, do you love your mother and I?' She immediately answered, 'O father! you know that I love you all; but you know there is One whom I love more than father or mother, brother or sister.' She then turned on her pillow, as they thought, to take rest in sleep; but it was the sleep of death — her spirit had fled to Jesus! Happy soul! 'Your sun shall no more go down, nor shall your moon withdraw itself; for the Lord God shall be your everlasting light, and the days of your mourning shall be — yes, are ended.'

'You are gone to your rest, sister!
We will not weep for thee,
For you are now where oft on earth
Your spirit longed to be.

'You are gone to your rest, sister!
Your toils and cares are o'er;
And sorrow, pain, and suffering, now
Shall ne'er distress you more.

'You are gone to your rest, sister!
Your sins are all forgiven,
And saints in light have welcomed you
To share the joys of heaven.

'You are gone to your rest, sister!
Death had no sting for thee;
Your dear Redeemer's might has gained
For you the victory.'

The following letter, addressed to her much-loved teacher when from home, manifests the yearning of her tender spirit after more of Christ in her own soul, and her ardent desire that Christ might be formed in the souls of others:

"Edinburgh, June 19.
"My Dear Teacher,
We feel grateful to you for your kind fulfillment of your promise in writing to us. Our esteemed friend Miss Hutchinson reads to us your very kind and instructive letters. I earnestly hope that, by the blessing of God, they may be made the means of leading each of my dear companions in the class, who have not yet given up their hearts to the dear and compassionate Redeemer, who is holding out the olive branch of peace, and who says, 'those who seek me early — shall find me,' to yield their hearts to Him now. I feel, in my humble experience, that there is no real and lasting happiness to be found — but in the service of the Redeemer, who so loved us, even when we were rebels against Him, as to give Himself a ransom for us.

You wished us to tell you of the dear prayer-meeting. Oh, it is a dear prayer-meeting to our souls indeed! There we often meet with Jesus; there our souls are refreshed; and we have much pleasure in knowing, that though absent in body, we can meet in spirit with our dear teacher. Pray for me, that I may daily grow more humble, and have more of the love of Jesus shed abroad in my heart.

'Blessed be the dear uniting love
That will not let us part;
Our bodies may far off remove,
We still are one in heart.'

"That the Lord may abundantly bless your labors of love where you are at present, and when at home with us, is the earnest prayer of your affectionate student,
Elizabeth Aitchinson

During her illness, she often recurred to the following hymn, as affording her a simple and clear view of the atoning, finished work of Jesus, on which the Eternal Spirit had brought her soul believingly to rest, and in resting on which she had found perfect peace:

BELIEVE AND LIVE.

"O trembling sinner, lift your eye,
Behold the cross on Calvary!
See! wondrous mercy, from our God,
Flows down to man in streams of blood.

"Look, sinner, look! the work is done,
God has not spared his only Son;
For you He gave Him up to death,
For you Christ heaved His dying breath.

"The spotless 'Lamb of God' is slain,
Whose blood can cleanse from every stain;
All sacrificial lights are o'er,
And lo, the altar smokes no more.

"In smiles is Mercy now arrayed,
Pleased that, while justice is displayed
She can unfold the wondrous plan
Of 'Peace on earth, good-will to man.'

"Oh let your guilty spirit rest
Upon th' atoning work of Christ:
That work is finished — all is done-
Christ is your refuge, Christ alone.

"No longer hasten on the path
Which leads to misery and death:
God now entreats you — hear His cry,
'Oh turn you, turn you, Why will you die?'

"Eternal life is now revealed
In Christ, whose work the Father sealed.
When from the dead He rose on high,
And captive led captivity.

"O sinner, count the record true;
Believe that Christ has died for you,
Believe that God will pardon give;
And Now. oh now, believe and live!"

You have now, my dear young reader, concluded the perusal of these brief but instructive memoirs of two young believers, mowed down by the scythe of death like morning flowers of loveliness, not to wither and decay — but to be transplanted to that better land, where buds of grace expand into flowers of glory. What are the reflections suggested to your thoughtful mind by the gracious dealings of God with their souls, and by His providential removal of them so early to Himself? Permit me to aid you in the practical improvement which, with the Lord's own blessing, you may make of the histories just read.

In tracing the different instrumentalities by which their minds were so early and so clearly enlightened on the great truths of salvation, we must first specify their early connection with the Sunday-school. In this institution they may be said to have spent their years of infancy. Here, doubtless, the foundation was laid of the beautiful superstructure of early piety, which was afterwards so solidly reared and so rapidly completed. Contemplated in this light, the instructions of the Sunday-school became of vast and indispensable importance. True, it is that part of the work which, because it is behind the scenes, and thus concealed, is therefore much overlooked and undervalued. Nevertheless, considered as laying the basis of the fabric, as teaching the first principles, as inculcating the rudiments of divine truth, and as sowing the seeds of future holy thought — the Sunday-school institution occupies the foreground of all kindred and benevolent enterprises. If the hope of the Christian Church in the great conflict that is before her, is in the young — then their hope of early piety, and of a firm basis of Christian character and distinguished usefulness, is in a great degree associated with the training of the Sunday-school, fostered by the labors and prayers of the Christian Church.

My young reader, are you a Sunday-school student? How favored, then, is your position — yet how responsible! You may consider it as the golden period of your life. How much of your future happiness and welfare, respectability and usefulness, depend upon it! The foundation is now being laid: remember what that foundation is to sustain! Perhaps you are of very tender age; your temptations to waste of time, to indolence of disposition, to inattention to study, to neglect of your class, to trifle with your companions, to irregularity in your attendance, if not to stay away altogether — may be very great — too great almost for you to conquer.

Even more serious temptations than these may assail you. You may be tempted to turn a deaf ear to the instructions given — to undervalue the privilege with which you are so richly favored — to break away from the restraint of God's holy day and blessed Word — to resist the authority and disregard the counsels of your teacher — to neglect prayer, and those means most calculated to secure the conversion of your soul. But beware! These are temptations of an alarming character, and they ought to be, and must be, resisted and overcome.

In the Sunday-school, your moral and intellectual character is receiving its first bent: that bent it will never entirely lose. It will give a shape to your afterlife. The good Sunday student will become the diligent Bible-class student, and the diligent Bible-class student will become the devoted teacher; and from the ranks of Sunday-school and Bible-class teachers, the Lord has often selected those who have proved the most eminent ministers of the gospel at home, and the most distinguished and useful Christian missionaries abroad. But a bad Sunday-school boy or girl gives no such hope of honor or usefulness. See, then, what vast importance attaches to your present situation! How costly the privileges! How golden the opportunities! How precious the instructions! Supplicate God's grace, that you may highly value and rightly improve them.

But it was in the Bible Class these lovely flowers of grace first appeared, arrayed in the beauties of holiness. It was there the Spirit of God first began effectually to move upon their hearts. Their previous acquaintance with divine truth, the habits of reading and reflection which they had formed, their reverence for the Scriptures, and their respect for persons and things which were spiritual, all of which the instructions and influence of the Sunday-school had tended to impart, doubtless prepared the way for the subsequent work of grace. And yet it was but preparatory. The great change had not yet taken place. Had they died in that state, they had been lost forever!

Here let us pause and remark, how far a young person may go in a spiritually-enlightened and well-informed judgment — in an outward respect for the truth, and even in much love for those who teach it — while yet the whole soul retains its deep rebellion against God. All this time the heart is held back from Christ. Other objects unlawfully detain it. Either fettered to self, to sin, or to the world — He who alone possesses a right to its affection is made to stand a patient, long-suffering suitor at its closed door. During this season of hesitation and delay, the difficulties of surrendering the heart to Jesus are multiplying, while the probabilities are becoming stronger and stronger that that heart, thus wooed and refused, will never be His!

Oh, how does every moment of procrastination and delay widen the distance between Christ and the sinner! What a fearful process is going on in the soul, of hardening the mind and heart! Every day the conscience becomes more and more impervious to holy impression, and a new link is forged and added to the chain which binds the heart to sin. Impenitence and unbelief weave and entwine their web stronger and faster; Satan is getting a more supreme mastery, and the things and cares of earth a firmer hold. New acquaintances are made — new associations are formed — new habits are contracted — new desires and expectations are begotten, and new sources of gratification are sought and found — to meet their insatiable and resistless cravings. Thus all the while heaven is receding from the view, becoming each moment of persisted impenitence, a "land very far off;" while hell, moved from beneath, is nearing with noiseless and unseen tread, the certain and appalling doom of every soul dying in its sins!

But from this fearful condition the Lord, in the riches of His sovereign grace, delivered these young believers. The instructions of the Bible class, I have already remarked, were mainly instrumental in effecting their conversion to God. As soon as they had been honorably dismissed from the Sunday-school, they attached themselves to the adult class, which met on each Sunday evening for biblical study. It was here the great truths of the Bible were presented to their minds in their more experimental character and personal application to the conscience. Their unrenewed state by nature — the exceeding sinfulness of sin — the holiness of God — the spirituality and claims of the law — the nature and necessity of conversion — the personal glory and the atoning work of Jesus — the grace, power, and love of the Spirit — were subjects pressed upon their individual consideration by the affectionate teacher, with a result which told how faithfully they had been urged, and with what a divine blessing they had been accompanied. What a beautiful and impressive illustration do the histories of these young Christians afford of the superior advantages which flow from Bible-class instruction!

It comes not within our immediate province in these pages, to enlarge upon the most efficient plan of conducting a Bible class. We may venture, however, to suggest a few hints, which may be acceptable to those engaged in this interesting and important mode of imparting spiritual instruction to the young.

We remark, then, in the outset, that that plan will best commend itself to the judgment, which seems most calculated to secure the great and primary end of the institution itself, namely — the immediate conversion to God of its unrenewed members, and the advancement of those who believe in Jesus in all practical godliness. We suppose these to be the grand results aimed at in all biblical instruction.

There is great danger, we venture to premise, of making a Bible class too much to resemble the divinity class of a theological school. The literature of the Bible may supersede, as a study, a thorough investigation of the spiritual meaning, and the practical bearing, of the text. Abstract and subtle questions of theology may hinder those which have a more direct and personal reference to the subject of the soul's salvation. That which we want mainly to know ourselves and make known to others, is the mind of the Holy Spirit in the Word — what God says to us on the momentous matter of our future and eternal state.

To those who possess the ability and the time to acquire a knowledge of the original Hebrew and Greek of the Scriptures — their chronology — their Oriental allusions — their history, science, and poetry, doubtless what may be termed the literary meaning of the Bible, would by these means be better understood; and much that would otherwise appear conflicting and mysterious, would be explained and elucidated. But of the great mass of our youth devoted to the study of the Scriptures, how few possess either the time or the talent for such acquirements, investigation, and research. And yet the Spirit of God being their Teacher — He opening their understanding to understand the Scriptures — they may arrive at such clear and profound views of the spiritual and true meaning of the Bible — as shall render them the most formidable opponents of error, and the most powerful exponents of truth. They shall thus completely out-distance, in a real and deep knowledge of the sacred Word, the more literary and intellectual student. While the one is admiring the external beauty and symmetry of the temple of truth, the other shall have passed within, ranging its numerous and gorgeous apartments. The one shall applaud the taste and skill which mark the arrangement of the table; the other shall take his seat at its side, and partake of its richly-furnished viands, as one "hungering and thirsting after righteousness."

In conducting a Bible class, then, we repeat, it is all-important — first, to keep distinctly and constantly in view, the grand end of such an institution — the present conversion to God of its members. Its results falling short of this, dwindle into comparative insignificance. The Bible was given, not as a textbook of human science — but as a divine revelation of God's will. It was designed, not to make skillful disputants, or dry theologians — but converted sinners, and holy Christians. Scripture was designed, not to inform the judgment merely — but to renew and sanctify the heart.

Let the learner become experimentally acquainted with its holy truths, and you have gone far, yes, you have done the utmost that human instrumentality can do — not only to fortify the mind against the seductions of error — but to make the disciple like Apollos of old, "mighty in the Scriptures," — able to teach others also. As a means to an end — an end, oh, how glorious! — God has placed in your hand a powerful agency. It may be simple in its construction, and noiseless in its operation — human genius may not admire, nor may human breath applaud it; nevertheless, as an instrument of conversion, it is second only to the Christian ministry. Indeed, in some points of view, it may be said to possess an influence transcending that of the ministry. The pulpit addresses itself to the mass — the Bible class to the individual. In the one case there is a hearing for others — in the other, there is a hearing for one's self. The teacher has a hold upon the conscience, and is brought into contact with the whole soul in a way which affords superior advantage of usefulness. Let no conductor of a Bible class underrate his power. Its greatness is equaled only by the responsibility which it imposes, and the blessings which it secures.

You are entrusted with an important charge; you are called to a great work. You hold in your hands a mighty agency of usefulness. Yours it is to open up the mind of the Spirit in the Word — to explain its deep mysteries, to expound its great doctrines, to enforce its holy precepts, and to unfold its precious promises. What a high office — an interpreter of God's holy Word! Is not the bare thought enough to annihilate all secret, fond conceit of your own worthiness, wisdom, or strength; to lay low every wretched feeling and exhibition of self, and to constrain you to be much at the feet of Jesus, in earnest and ceaseless supplication for the teaching and the anointing of His own Spirit! Oh, that hands so unclean — should be permitted to handle a word so pure! — that lips so polluted — should be anointed to speak of a God so holy! — that one poor, ignorant sinner — should be appointed by the Lord a teacher of others! Oh, how should we sink in the dust before Him!

And what an opportunity is thus afforded you of watching the gradual progress of the work of grace in the soul — of tracing it, step by step, from its earliest dawn — to its fullest glory; from its feeblest beginnings — to its perfect maturity!

And, oh, how much of God is learned in this school — of His love to poor sinners; of the power of His grace, in overcoming the most formidable opposition in the soul; of the wisdom with which He teaches; of the skill with which He guides; of the gentleness and sleepless care with which He watches over the soul that He is conducting from earth to heaven! What a deep insight into His glorious character is thus afforded!

And what an honor to be the instrument of effecting this great and wondrous work — of turning a sinner from the error of his ways; of reproving the indifferent; alarming the careless; instructing the ignorant; guiding the inquiring; satisfying the doubtful; encouraging the timid! In a word, of leading a sin-distressed soul to a Savior who casts out none that come to Him! Surely this is a distinction which angels might covet, this is a crown which they might exult to wear. To be a benefactor of mind — what a privilege! To train that mind for a blissful eternity — what a responsibility! It is thus we become co-workers with God!

As to the PLAN of conducting a Bible class, the more simple and the less complicated, the more likely is it to secure the grand object it contemplates. A single book of the Scriptures should be commenced with and closely adhered to until it is finished. All rambling, desultory study of the Bible, both in private reading and in class investigation, should be avoided. By this I do not mean to set aside the comparing of Scripture with Scripture, for this is of the highest importance, is indispensably necessary, and would necessarily not confine the learner to a single book — but carry him into many. But I refer to the advantage of making one Gospel or one Epistle, for example, the subject of study, until its scope is clearly seen, and its textual meaning is thoroughly understood, so far as the Spirit of truth opens it to the mind. The simple plan of question and answer — the student having previously known and well studied the marginal references and renderings, and seeking to ascertain the spiritual and practical, as well as the literal and primary meaning of the passage — will, I think, be the most direct way of arriving at the mind of the spirit in the Word.

The teacher will, of course, taking this as the basis, frame his plan according to the capacities and attainments of his class. Scripture geography, Eastern allusions, etc, may, even in the least informed class, be occasionally introduced, as serving to shed light on many facts of the sacred page.

Should the practice be adopted, which in many cases prevails, of proposing questions to the teacher, through the medium of anonymously written papers, great care should be taken that those questions, if they refer to the meaning of any portion of the Word, or any doctrine of the Bible, should not be idle, curious, or speculative, such as the concentrated wisdom of man could not answer, because the divine wisdom of God has not revealed. Or if the questions have a bearing upon individual Christian experience, or cases of conscience — then the deepest self-examination is needed, to ascertain if the state of mind unfolded, or the difficulty proposed, is really and truly felt by the individual proposing it.

Every statement of the teacher, should be a true expression of the feelings of the heart — nothing varnished, exaggerated, or overdrawn; and every inquiry and research should proceed from a sincere and ardent thirst for truth.

Nothing should be more deprecated and discouraged than insincerity in the composition of religious letters. With some light in the understanding, and a clear observance of the various traits of religious character — it is an easy task to write a letter on Christian experience, which shall greatly mislead others, and awfully deceive one's self. The pen, like the tongue, can move smoothly and rapidly. Feelings are often expressed, and sentiments are uttered, and thoughts are penned — to the real experience of which the individual is an utter stranger! They have been read in books, or heard in sermons, or gathered in conversation — but are not the out-flowings of the water of life deep welled in his own soul! Ah! we may talk well of Christ, and reason profoundly of truth, and discourse fluently of Christian experience, and bend the knee in actual confession and supplication — and remain all the while a stranger to a broken heart for sin, and to the joy and the peace of its forgiveness!

Oh, be watchful here! Lay aside that letter which you may have written, and read it on the morrow. Read it as upon your knees, and with your eye fixed on God's eye. Does that inquiry which it propounds spring from a sincere desire to learn? Is that sin which it confesses really deplored? Is that sorrow which it expresses deeply felt? Is that joy of which it speaks honestly experienced? Is that Jesus of whom it discourses truly admired, loved, and obeyed? Can you, as did Hezekiah, spread your letter before the Lord, with the solemn conviction, "You, O God, see me!"

Oh that in all things we may be constrained to walk uprightly and honestly with God, freely expressing to Him all that we feel, and truly feeling all that we express — Israelites indeed, in whom there is no deceit. But let it be your encouragement to remember that God knows His own work in your heart. And not only does He know — but He acknowledges it; and not only does He acknowledge — but He delights in it. Your faith may be feeble, your strength small, your grace but little, your knowledge limited, your experience defective; yet if, by the Eternal Spirit, you have been led out of yourself, to take refuge in Christ — you are one over whom God rejoices with joy; yes, rejoices over you with singing. Beauteous to His eye, and dear to His heart, is that work of holiness in your soul. What is it but the product of His own power, the germ of His own grace, the fruit of His own Spirit, the outline of His own image! Will He, then, despise, overlook, or turn His back upon it? Never! never! Have you been made willing in the day of His power? Have you, through grace, given to Him the dew of your youth! Is the morning of your life consecrated to His service? Have you laid upon His altar the youngest, the richest, and the best of the sacrifice? Oh, honored servant! Oh, rich, costly, and acceptable offering! Your God delights in it; yes, delights in you!

It may be that I am addressing one, who, from a natural diffidence and nervousness of character, finds it a difficult and painful, if not impossible task, to throw open to the human eye the secrets of the human heart on the great subject of the soul's salvation. Perhaps it would seem to such a one a matter too deep, too solemn, and too personal for a stranger to intermeddle — for a creature to sympathize with. But amiable as such a feeling may be, there is danger of carrying it to excess. "I will speak," says David, "that I may be refreshed." Unbudening the full and oppressed heart to one who can sympathize with its emotions, unveiling the mind to one who can understand its exercises, is often productive of the happiest results. Heart brought into contact with heart, mind with mind, spirit with spirit — has, through the anointing of the Holy Spirit, frequently been the means of scattering the darkest clouds from the mind, and chasing the deepest sorrow from the heart. A word dropped from one who knows our case, oh, how good is it! If your mind, then, is at all roused to anxiety about your salvation — if the subject of your conversion presses upon your conscience — if you feel sin a burden, and have any longings of soul for Christ — if you are accustomed to retire to weep and to mourn in secret — then seek the help of some spiritual Christian, who may be able to counsel, guide, and comfort you.

Above all, do not forget what an open door Jesus is. Here you have at all times free access. No questions asked — no price demanded — no denial given. Oh, then, unveil your heart to Jesus! Its deepest guilt — confess to Him; its keenest sorrow — take to Him; its greatest need — make known to Him. He knows it all — yet would have you tell Him all. His blood is efficacious enough for all. His grace is sufficient for all. His love is deep enough for all. Lose not a moment in going to Christ. Press to Him through all difficulties; you can touch Him, and He can heal you in the crowd. You shall not be unseen nor unnoticed. He has a blessing for you. Rise, He calls you! He calls you to confide to Him the secrets of your burdened heart — and He will unfold to you the secrets of His forgiving love.

One feature, in particular, in the piety of these young believers, must have deeply impressed the mind of the attentive reader, namely, the frequency, speciality, and tenderness with which they were accustomed to bear their beloved teacher in their hearts before the Lord. How worthy of your example, my young reader, is this! Are you a member of a Bible class? Go you and do likewise! Remember that all the light and blessing which flow to you through the instructions of your teacher — come first from Him, who is the Fountain of light and blessing — in whose light we see light, and with whose blessing we are blessed indeed.

Great are the responsibilities, duties, trials, discouragements, and the self-denial of your teacher. He is, perhaps, with you week after week, in "weakness, and in fear, and in much trembling." He is oppressed by the conviction of his personal unfitness for his work — his unworthiness, ignorance, and unfaithfulness. He is borne down by the weight of his responsibility, or he is discouraged by the smallness of the number, or the irregularity of attendance, or the lack of deep, fixed interest in his instructions, or the little practical result of all his toil. Or else, overcome by his sense of the value, and faint with his wrestlings for the conversion of souls, as he passes to his class, he mournfully exclaims, with the prophet, "Ah! Lord God! behold, I cannot speak; for I am a child!" Or with the apostle, "Who is sufficient for these things!" Be much, then, in prayer for your instructor. Pray for him individually, pray for him collectively. Hold up his hands by fervent, unceasing, believing prayer. Endeavor to realize his responsibilities, to identify yourself with his duties, to sympathize with his feelings, and seek to make his work pleasant to himself, and profitable to you, by regular attendance upon, and a serious, devout attention to, his instructions. Who can estimate the immense blessing that may flow from God into his soul, and through him into yours — by the closet devotions of a single member of the class!

Above all blessings, seek in the study of the Bible, large degrees of the grace, influence, and teaching of the Holy Spirit. Apart from this — the Word of God, with all the human subsidiary aid you can bring to its investigation, will remain but as a sealed book — an unrolled scroll. Remember, there is a gracious influence and operation of the Holy Spirit separate from, though in harmony with, the written Word. Without that influence, you cannot understand the Bible, nor will its revelations come to you with a quickening, saving power. "The letter kills — but the spirit makes alive." Do not dishonor nor grieve the Spirit, by supposing that He brings to bear upon the mind no other influence than that which the mere letter of the written Word contains. There are those who hold this doctrine, to the leanness of their souls, and to the denial of the Spirit. If this doctrine were true, then why is it that our Lord, the great Prophet of His people, promised that on His departure to glory, He would send the Comforter, the Spirit of Truth, who should guide us into all truth? If the written Word were enough — why promise such a guide? Why send the Holy Spirit? Why enjoin upon us to ask His bestowment, and to seek His teaching?

Oh, it is alone the Spirit who quickens! It is the Spirit alone who unseals the Word! It is the Spirit who takes of the things of Christ, and shows them unto us! The Word is the "sword of the Spirit;" He it is who makes the sword effectual. Without the wielding of His arm, as polished as is its blade, and sharp its edge, and fine its point, and beautiful its ornament — it yet is but a passive and a powerless weapon — it pierces not, it wounds not, it slays not! There is no "dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow," nor is there any "discernment of the thoughts and intents of the heart."

You have, perhaps, hitherto been baffled and confounded in your attempts to understand the Scriptures. Observing this, Satan has secretly insinuated doubts of the divine inspiration of some parts of the sacred Word. He has suggested that so much that was seemingly contradictory and profoundly mysterious, and hard to be understood — could not have originated with Him whose wisdom would constrain Him to give a true, and whose benevolence would prompt Him to give a clear, revelation of Himself, His mind and will, to man.

But pause and reflect upon the precipice on which you stand! Ponder the steps by which you have been conducted to its fearful brink! Have you not come to the study of God's Word as to a mere human production? Instead of humbly bringing the Word to the teaching of the Spirit — have you not proudly brought it to your reason? Have you not attempted to fathom the fathomless, to measure the illimitable, to know what God has not made known, to comprehend what He has not revealed, even hidden purposes and mysterious modes, which must ever remain concealed in His own infinite mind, forgetting that "secret things belong to God!"

Trace, then, your embarrassment and difficulty in understanding the sacred Word to its real cause, and see if it may not be found to exist in a secret pride of intellect, and in a consequent restraining of prayer for the direct teaching of the Holy Spirit. Oh, let our fervent petition from this moment be, "Teach me, O Lord! You who alone teaches to profit! Open mine eyes — that I may behold wondrous things out of Your law! Waiting upon You, Eternal, enlightening Spirit — would I daily be found seeking as a little child, as an humble learner, that 'anointing which teaches of all things.'"

"Come, blessed Spirit, source of light,
Whose power and grace are unconfined.
Dispel the gloomy shades of night,
The thicker darkness of the mind.

"To my illumined eyes display
The glorious truths Your Word reveals:
Cause me to run the heavenly way,
The book unfold, and loose the seals.

"Your inward teachings make me know,
The mysteries of redeeming love;
The emptiness of things below,
The excellence of things above.

"While through this wilderness I stray,
Spread, like the sun, Your beams abroad.
To show the dangers of the way,
And guide my feeble steps to God."

Doubtless the question of the eunuch, has often expressed the embarrassment you have felt, as a learner of the sacred Word — "How can I understand, unless someone explains it to me?" That Teacher is God's own Spirit. There is no darkness which He cannot scatter, no difficulty which He cannot remove, no portion of the Word which He cannot explain. All that is necessary to your salvation is revealed in the Word — all that can now be known of Jesus is there unveiled; and all this, the blessed Spirit stands prepared to make known to you. He it is who leads you to Jesus; Jesus lifts the veil and reveals the Father; and the Father, when revealed, appears full of love, mercy, and forgiveness to the poor returning prodigal, who in penitence and lowliness seeks an asylum in His heart.

And oh, how ready is the Spirit to instruct you! Such love and grace has He in His heart, the Heavenly Dove seems ever poised upon the wing, ready to fly to that soul who but sighs for His inward teaching! Does He see one oppressed with a sense of guilt? He hastens to apply the atoning blood of Jesus. Does He mark one weary with its fruitless toil? He seals the promise of the Savior on the heart — "Come unto me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." Does He spot one combating with temptation, tormented with fear, harassed with doubts, struggling with infirmity, halting through weakness? Oh, how ready is He to show that soul where its great strength, and comfort, and grace lie — even in the fullness of a most loving, precious, and all-sufficient Savior!

Oh, then, in the name of Jesus, seek this glorious gift of God. Seek Him as a life-giving Spirit, (John 6:63;) as making Jesus known to you, (John 15:26, 16:14;) as leading you into the deep things of God's Word, (1 Corinthians 2:10;) as comforting you in every sorrow, (John 15:26;) as deeply sanctifying you, (Romans 8:13;) as imparting to you the love, confidence, and consolation of an adopted child, (Romans 8:15) as breathing into your soul true prayer, (Zech. 12:10; Romans 8:26, 27;) as evidencing to you your sonship, (Romans 8:16;) as giving you access through Jesus to the Father, (Ephesians 2:8;) as dwelling in you, (John 14;17; 1 Corinthians 3:16;) as strengthening the divine life in your soul, (Ephesians 3:16;) as giving you a oneness with all saints, (Ephesians 5:3, 4;) as being to you the pledge and the seal of eternal glory, (Ephesians 1:14, 4:30.)

For your encouragement in seeking this great and indispensable blessing, I would remind you of the words of our Lord himself, which at once define the precious gift, while they insure its free bestowment, "If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children — how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!" Ask, and you shall receive the teaching and anointing of the Holy Spirit. Without Him, all is the darkness and the stillness of death! Possessing Him, your path to glory will grow brighter and brighter unto the perfect day.

It is not improbable that this little Memoir may find its way into the chamber of solitude and affliction, and be the occasional companion of some young believer confined to the bed of sickness. From its narrative, you will learn the all-sufficiency of Jesus for the wearisome days of sickness, and for the solemn hour of death. Read again the record of His tender, gracious dealings with these now glorified young believers. See how He made all their bed in their sickness, so that they lay softly and composedly as on a bed of down. See how His left hand was under their head, and how His right hand embraced them! See how He deigned to visit their lowly dwellings, cheering their hearts with His love, strengthening their faith, animating their hope, and sustaining them, as He gradually — but so gently, led them down to the shore, and then on through the swellings of the river of death.

Mark, too, the love and faithfulness of the Spirit — how He stood watching over, with sleepless eye, the work of grace which He had begun in their souls, and was now perfecting for its state of glory. Observe how He supplied the soul with the hidden manna — feeding, nourishing, and sustaining it with promise after promise, just as the mind fluctuated and the feelings changed. See how He met every difficulty, solved every doubt, quelled every fear, soothed every sorrow — by His unfoldings of Jesus to the soul. In every new phase that appeared in their experience — in every new doubt that arose, and in every new fear that alarmed — observe how He fixed their eye on Christ, and in a moment all was peace.

And so, my young reader, will be your experience. Doubt not, faint not, fear not; that same heavenly Father — that same all-sufficient Redeemer — that same blessed Comforter will be with you on your bed of languishing, and "even unto death."

The great truth with which you now have alone to do is — the complete salvation of the Lord Jesus Christ. As a sinner, this is just the doctrine that you need. You cannot trust in it too implicitly, nor lean on it too confidently. You are a poor sinner — Jesus is a rich Savior; and an empty sinner and a full Savior go hand in hand!

Let me present my affectionate sympathy with your present state of loneliness, privation, and suffering. Wearisome days and sleepless nights are appointed unto you. When it is day — you long for night; and when night comes — you are as one that watches for the morning. In all this, Satan, ever ready to harass, where he cannot possess the soul — may suggest hard thoughts of the dealings of God with you. Oh, do not entertain them — no, not for a moment!

The God who is now dealing with you is love — all love. If so He saw fit, there should be no cold sweat upon your brow — no hectic flush upon your cheek; no pain or restlessness in your frame; no day without ease; no night without sleep. But since He has so ordered it, let your dear heart bow to His will, and exclaim, "Even so, Father, for so it seems good in your sight."

Has the idea ever suggested itself to your mind, that perhaps the most effectual and pleasant relief for wakeful hours of restlessness, is to endeavor to fix the mind upon God, making Him alone the subject of its musings and contemplations? The remedy has been tried with the happiest results. The mind fixed upon God — every troubling thought being excluded — its excitement ceases, and sweet sleep will follow; when perhaps all other remedies have failed. The following case, presented in the words of another, will best illustrate and confirm the idea:

"A friend once told me, that, among other symptoms of high anxiety and stress, he had been painfully harassed for the lack of sleep. To such a degree had this proceeded, that if, in the course of the day any occasion led him to his bedchamber, the sight of his bed made him shudder at the idea of the restless and wretched hours he had to pass upon it. In this case, it was recommended to him to endeavor, when he lay down at night, to fix his thoughts on something at the same time vast and simple — such as the wide expanse of the ocean, or the cloudless vault of heaven — that the little anxious and disturbing images that flitted before his mind might be charmed away, or hushed to rest by the calming influences of one absorbing thought. Though not at all a religious man at the time, this advice suggested to his mind, that if an object at once vast and simple was to be selected, no one could serve his purpose so well as that of God. He resolved to make the trial, and think of Him. The result exceeded his most optimistic hopes: in thinking of God — he fell asleep. Night after night he resorted to the same expedient. The process became delightful; so much so, that he used to long for the usual hour of retiring, that he might 'fall asleep,' as he termed it, 'in God.' What began as a mere physical operation, grew, by imperceptible degrees, into a gracious influence. The same God who was his repose by night, was in all his thoughts by day. And God, as revealed in the gospel of His Son, became 'all his salvation, and all his desire.' So various are the means, and inscrutable are the ways, by which God can 'fetch home the banished.'" "I lie awake thinking of You, meditating on You through the night!" Psalm 63:6

And, oh, how blessed is the object of contemplation thus presented to your wakeful thoughts! A God in Christ — your covenant God — your reconciled Father. All His thoughts towards you, peace; all His feelings, love; and all His dealings, mercy. Soon will you be in His heavenly presence, and behold His unveiled glory as it beams forth from the eternal throne! Soon will you be with Jesus, shall see Him, be like Him, and dwell with Him forever! Darkness, and conflict, and sickness, and death — shall cease, because sin shall cease. Then, in your blessed experience, will be realized the beatific vision, "And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain; for the former things are passed away."

Let this prospect reconcile you patiently to wait all the days of your appointed time, until your change comes. God is faithful. Christ, in whom you believe, is able to keep that which you have committed unto Him against that glorious day. He will perfect that which concerns you. Nothing shall be consumed in your present fiery trial — but the tin and dross. The precious and imperishable gold shall be "found unto praise, and honor, and glory, at the appearing of Jesus Christ."

Not more safe were Noah and his family, when they sailed in the ark through the storm — than is that soul who is shut up in Christ. If you have come out of yourself, have left all, and have fled to Jesus — this is your encouragement. Not a soul ever perished — whom the Father gave in covenant to His Son; whom the Son redeemed; whom the Spirit has regenerated, and in whom He dwells! A threefold cord keeps that precious saint — the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit! "Kept by the power of God, through faith, unto salvation." Oh, precious declaration! Press it with a stronger faith to your heart; for if God is for you — who can be against you!

Ah! in your present state of weakness, you find it difficult to think or to pray. Still, He who formed you, knows your frame; "He remembers that we are dust." There is One who thinks and prays for you. It is Jesus, your Elder Brother; the "brother born for adversity;" the great High Priest wearing your nature, who has passed within the veil, "now to appear in the presence of God for us." Jesus intercedes for you moment by moment. Your faith shall not fail; your grace shall not decline; your hope shall not make ashamed; for He who came down to earth, and was wounded for your transgression, and was bruised for your iniquities — rose again from the dead, and ascended on high, now to appear in the presence of God for you!

Christ prays for you, and that when by reason of confusion of mind and weakness of body — you cannot pray for yourself. Be not cast down, because of your inability to read the Word, or even to hear it read. Your present incapacity and apparent lack of interest is physical, and the effect of disease. The Lord knows it. He remembers that you are dust. Then do not be grieved; He who said to His disciples, when they were faint and exhausted, "Come with Me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest," cherishes in His tender, loving heart — thoughts and feelings of compassion towards you. He knows your weariness, and your faintness; your confusion of thought, and your present restlessness of body, and does not require from you, more than His own power and grace will enable you to give.

Precious Jesus! You are that gentle Shepherd, who never over-drives Your little ones. When they cannot run — You permit them to walk; and when, through feebleness, they cannot walk — You carry them. You are He of whom it was said, "He will feed his flock like a shepherd. He will carry the lambs in His arms, holding them close to His heart. He will gently lead the mother sheep with their young!"

Lord, regard me, one of the smallest, weakest of Your flock. Gently lead me, or tenderly carry me; yes, in Your very bosom carry me! Nowhere am I so safe. Nowhere so happy — as there. Your bosom was pierced for my sins; yes, by my sins — and there alone can I repose. Your grief — is my joy; Your sorrow — is my gladness; Your wounds — are my healing! And that bosom of Yours was smitten with the sword, racked and rent asunder by the tempest, that it might be to me — a fountain of healing; a pillow of rest; a covert from the storm."

With these feelings, how expressive of your views are the sentiments of a sweet poet of Scotland:

"I lay my sins on Jesus,
The spotless Lamb of God;
He bears them all, and frees us
From the accursed load!

"I bring my guilt to Jesus,
To wash my crimson stains
White in His blood most precious,
Until not a spot remains!

"I lay my wants on Jesus —
All fullness dwells in Him,
He heals all my diseases,
He does my soul redeem!

"I lay my griefs on Jesus,
My burdens and my cares;
He from them all releases —
He all my sorrows shares!

"I rest my soul on Jesus —
This weary soul of mine;
His right hand me embraces,
On His bosom I recline.

"I long to be like Jesus —
Meek, loving, lowly, mild;
I long to be like Jesus,
The Father's holy child.

"I long to be with Jesus,
Amidst the heavenly throng.
To sing, with saints, His praises.
And learn the angels' song!"

Personal effort for the salvation of others — the duty and the privilege of young believers — is impressively illustrated and strongly enforced by the preceding narratives. This is one of the most beautiful traits, and one of the clearest evidences of youthful piety. The moment God converts an individual — He converts him for the good of others. He blesses him — that he may be a blessing. From that moment he is no longer to live to himself. The grace that he has received, places him under the most solemn obligation to live and labor for the souls of individuals. His light is to be reflected; his salt is to be scattered; his gifts, his graces, his time, his influence — all, all are to be pressed into Christ-like service of personal effort for the conversion of souls. He is to seek to multiply himself. He is to labor to fill the world with more Christians — to beautify it with a greater number of living temples of the Holy Spirit. This is to be done, not so much by group efforts — as by personal effort. Not so much as a society — as an individual.

"Resolved," says the holy James Brainerd Taylor, "that I will (the Lord being my helper) think, speak, and act as an individual; for as such I must live, as such I must die, stand before God — and be damned or saved forever and ever. I have been waiting for others. I must act as if I were the only one to act, and wait no longer." Oh, high and holy, and magnanimous resolve! And so he did live, and act, and die. And though his life was a short, yet it was a brilliant one — brilliant with individual effort for the salvation of souls! The God of salvation, whose the power, and to whom the glory belong — crowned his labors with cheering success.

As an individual, Jesus lived and labored, when He "went about doing good." As an individual, Paul lived and labored, and could testify in his parting address at Ephesus, "Remember, that, by the space of three years, I ceased not to warn every one night and day with tears." What a blessed, holy, prosperous church would that be, were every member, as an individual, thus living and laboring to bring souls to Christ! How great and happy would be the reflex influence! A tide of blessing would roll back upon us. Great prosperity of soul in the individual members, and a large increase of the Church as a body, would surely follow.

As an individual, then, consecrate yourself to the service of the Lord. The Sunday school, the Bible class, the Bible and the tract distribution, open to you appropriate and delightful spheres of labor. Why, then, do you loiter in the vineyard? Be up and doing. "Occupy until I come," is your Lord's command. Let your inquiry be, "Lord, what will you have me to do?" and then follow the leadings of His providence; and whether it be to labor at home or abroad — whether to occupy a humble or a more prominent post of labor — bow in cheerful submission to the Lord's disposal of you, exclaiming in the language and in the spirit of the poet —

"May Your will, not mine be done;
May Your will and mine be one!"

I cannot permit myself to conclude these pages without once more proposing the question to the young reader, and pressing it home with an earnestness and a solemnity befitting its unspeakable importance, "Are you truly converted?" I ask not, Are you a member of the Church? This you may be — alas! numbers are! — and yet, bear with me while I say it, for I speak in love to your soul — this you may be, and yet be lost, and that to all eternity, notwithstanding! Multitudes, multitudes, holding an external membership with the Church, having been initiated by baptism, and partaking regularly of what is termed the "holy communion," yet are total strangers to true conversion!

Do not mistake the nature of this great and necessary change. Neither baptism, confirmation, nor the Lord's Supper, can confer or authenticate it. Born in sin, you grow up "dead in trespasses and in sins." Born under the curse of a broken law, you are exposed to its tremendous penalty; and all the works of righteousness which you have done or may do — can never take that curse from off your soul, or screen you from its awful consequences. Living and dying without a change of heart — a renewed mind — a new and divine nature — love to God — pardon by the blood and acceptance in the righteousness of Christ — hell must be your inevitable doom!

Ponder the declarations of God's Word, which define the nature, and urge the necessity of the new and second birth.

See its NATURE: "If any man is in Christ Jesus — he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new," (2 Corinthians 5:17.) "In Christ Jesus neither circumcision avails anything, nor uncircumcision — but a new creature," (Galatians 6:15.) "Put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness," (Ephesians 4:24.) "Partakers of the divine nature," (2 Peter 1:4.) "You has he quickened who were dead in trespasses and sins," (Ephesians 2:1.)

All true Christians are the subjects of this new birth: "As many as received Him, to them gave He power (marg. privilege) to become the sons of God, even to those who believe on His name; who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man — but of God," (John 1:12, 13.) "New-born babes," (1 Peter 2:2.) "Whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ, is born of God," (1 John 5:1.)

The Holy Spirit is the AUTHOR of the new birth: "That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit," (John 3:6.) "Not by works of righteousness which we have done — but according to His mercy He saved us, by the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit," (Titus 3:5.)

See its NECESSITY: Apart from the new birth, there is no salvation: "Jesus answered and said unto him: Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again." (John 3:3.)

Holiness of life is the grand EVIDENCE of the new birth: "If you know that He is righteous, you know that every one who does righteousness is born of Him," (1 John 2:29.)

Reader, here let me pause and ask yet once more the momentous question, "Are you born again?" Are you born again? Marvel not that I press the question with increased earnestness and solemnity! Everything valuable and dear to you in the prospect of eternity is connected with your answer! Heaven is a holy place, and "without holiness no man can see the Lord." Have you seriously contemplated the probability and the possibility of your being forever excluded from heaven? Excluded you must be, without the experience of the new birth. And, banished thence — where do you think that will you spend your eternity? Where — but in hell! Oh, dreadful thought! Appalling prospect! You must lie down, enwrapped in an ocean of quenchless flame — the undying worm gnawing upon you forever!

Do I seem to speak alarmingly? I aim so to do. I wish to agitate, to arouse, to warn you. I would gladly, that when you have laid down this book, you should go to a sleepless pillow, your night spent in deep searchings of heart, solemn reflection, anxious solicitude, and fervent prayer — on the grand subject of your soul's eternal salvation. Give no sleep to your eye, or slumber to your eyelids — until you have fled as a lost sinner to the cross of Jesus! Let these words ring in your ears until followed by the sweet sounds of Mercy, pronouncing your sins forgiven: "You must be born again!" John 3:6

You may defer the consideration of this solemn subject. You will, perhaps, return to the world, throw off all solemn thought, and quench every spark of holy feeling; but

"This fearful truth will still remain:
The sinner must be born again —
Or sink to endless woe!"

The weeping eye of an anxious inquirer for salvation may drop its tear upon this page. Ah! is it so? Then I change my theme. Rich is the provision which God has made for poor broken-hearted, humble, penitent sinners: "God so loved the world, that he gave his only-begotten Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish — but have everlasting life!" "God so loved the world!" Oh, what love was that! This is the love to which, as a trembling sinner, I invite you. And what has this vast and astounding love provided? A Savior — and a great one! Jesus is that Savior.

Has the Spirit convinced you of sin? Do you feel guilt a burden, and does the law's curse lie heavy upon you? Then He is the only Savior. Believe in Him, embrace and welcome Him. See how He points to His atoning blood — and bids you bathe in it! See how He shows you His wounded side — and invites you to take refuge in it! Hear Him say, "Come unto me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." "Him that comes unto me, I will never cast out." "If anyone thirsts, let him come unto me and drink!" Oh, come to Jesus! this moment come! A full Christ, a willing and an able Christ, a precious Christ, a tender, compassionate, loving Christ — is He! He was never known to reject a single soul who besought His healing touch.

There is a fullness of pardon, a fullness of righteousness, a fullness of grace, a fullness of love — in Jesus! There is enough for you, enough for me, enough for every poor, penniless comer! Your vileness, your unworthiness, your poverty, your age — are no hindrances to your coming to Jesus! Rather they are incentives, all in favor of your coming. Every view you take of your emptiness, every sin that presses upon your conscience, speaks loudly, "Go to Jesus!" Where can you take your guilt, your burden, your sorrow — but to Him?

Go, then, nothing doubting of a welcome. "Only believe," and you are saved. Free — free as God's grace can make it — is the blessing of salvation. Your own righteousness will avail you nothing in the procurement of Divine forgiveness. Coming building on any work of your own, you will be as surely rejected — as he who comes building on Christ's work alone, will be surely received. "However, to the man who does not work but trusts God who justifies the wicked, his faith is credited as righteousness." "By grace you are saved, through faith." "Therefore it is of faith, that it might be by grace." "Being justified freely by his grace, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus."

Oh, glad announcement, then, to a poor, bankrupt sinner! Without works! without merit! without money! without worthiness! By faith! By grace! The Spirit of Comfort speaking these words to your broken heart — you may exclaim in an ecstasy of new-born joy, "Then I am saved! I am saved! God is mine, Christ is mine, salvation is mine, heaven is mine! My fetters are broken, my chains are burst, my burden is gone, and I am swimming in a sea of love!"

Such, my reader, is the Lord Jesus. Oh for a thousand tongues, to tell of His dying love to poor sinners — the readiness and the gentleness with which He heals a broken heart, binds up a wounded spirit, soothes a disconsolate mind, and gives the "oil of joy — for mourning; and the garment of praise — for the spirit of heaviness!"

Are you a young believer? Then live as such, remember the holy profession you have made, the solemn vow you have taken to be the Lord's. Walk worthy of your high calling. Be circumspect, be watchful, be prayerful. "Abstain from all appearance of evil." Come out of the world, and be separate; form no alliance in any shape or connection with it. Let your friendships be holy, your companions those who fear the Lord.

Especially guard your affections. Let no natural loveliness of person or of character, be in your eye more lovely and attractive than grace. Remember the Word of God is against unhallowed unions; that a believer in Jesus may "marry only in the Lord." Seeing how many young Christians have slighted this solemn precept, and have in consequence brought upon themselves a Father's chastening rod — I am constrained to lift up my voice in earnest and affectionate warning. Great may be the temptation, and feeble your power of resistance; but the grace that is in Christ Jesus is all-sufficient. "My grace is sufficient for you."

Perhaps you are a young believer, deeply, painfully tried and afflicted. The Lord often early puts His children in the furnace. How soon was Jesus himself made to taste the cup of suffering! When yet an infant, His life was sought. How soon after his conversion was Paul made to know what great things he was to suffer for Christ's sake! Well, if the Lord is now trying you — He is but preparing you for greater usefulness on earth, and for an earlier transmission to heaven. The shorter the work — the sooner the rest. Those who are called by grace early in life — are often taken early to glory! Their voyage is soon made; their journey is soon finished; their race is soon run. Heaven is very near a young believer. His bark sails along its verdant shore. The port soon appears. He enters; and he is forever with the Lord. His sun goes down while it is yet day; but it rises again in cloudless splendor, to set no more forever. Oh, how rich and resplendent is heaven at this moment with innumerable happy and glorified spirits of those who were early brought to Christ, early fought the fight, and early went to receive the prize!

As a young believer, your path may often be a difficult and a perplexing one. Questions may sometimes arise which produce the most painful difficulties and perplexity. But permit me to direct your attention to a portion of God's Word, which, to him whose pen traces these lines, has been through life more precious and more valuable than all the wealth of the Indies. "Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not unto your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct your paths."

Oh, cheering words, to one trembling to follow the will of God! Act faith upon it, and light from heaven will shed its beams upon your soul, and its luster upon your way. God will direct your paths! Are you an orphan? He will take you by the hand, and be to you a Father. Have you no mother, to the shelter and soothing of whose love you may flee? Hear him say, "As one whom his mother comforts, so will I comfort you." Oh, what can you want — that you have not in God!

Let your walk be very close and humble with Him. Cultivate daily communion. Set a high value upon closet prayer. No other prayer can supply its place. It is there alone, that the soul can conduct its secret transactions with God. Remember, if you are His adopted child, your Father delights in your person, loves your voice, and makes all your interests His own. You have not a sorrow that He will not soothe, nor a step that He will not guide, nor an infirmity that He will not subdue, nor a temptation that He will not break, nor a void that He will not fill, nor a need that He will not supply. Lift up, then, your heart with your voice, and exclaim, "You shall guide me with your counsel — and afterward receive me to glory!" "Whom have I in heaven but you! And there is none upon earth that I desire beside you!"

Farewell, my beloved young reader! We have spent some hallowed moments together here: may it be our privilege, through sovereign grace, to spend a happy eternity together in heaven! There may we meet the two lovely "Gathered Flowers" whose beauty we have been admiring, whose fragrance we have been inhaling; and with them may we be presented by Jesus to the Father, a part of the "glorious Church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing," but all washed in His blood, and all clothed in His righteousness! As we commenced this little work in the spirit of prayer — let us close it in the spirit of praise. And what words more appropriate than "The Pilgrim's Song".

"My rest is in heaven, my rest is not here;
Then why should I murmur, when trials are near?
Be hushed, my dark spirit; the worst that can come
But shortens your journey, and hastens you home!

"It is not for me, to be seeking my bliss,
And building my hopes, in a region like this;
I look for a city, which hands have not piled,
I pant for a country, by sin undefiled!

"The thorn and the thistle, around me may grow;
I would not lie down, upon roses below.
I ask not my portion, I seek not a rest,
Until I find them forever, in Jesus' breast!

"Afflictions may damp me, they cannot destroy;
One glimpse of His love, turns them all into joy,
And the bitterest tears, if He smile but on them,
Like the dew in the sunshine, grow diamond and gem!

"Let doubt, then and danger, my progress oppose;
They only make heaven, more sweet at the close.
Come joy or come sorrow, whatever befall,
An hour with my God, will make up for them all!

"A scrip on my back, and a staff in my hand,
I'll march on in haste, through an enemy's land;
The road may be rough, but it cannot be long.
And I'll smooth it with hope, and cheer it with song!"

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

The Hidden Life
Gleanings from the journal of Whitmore Winslow

His journal, which was previously unknown to his family,
was found among his papers after his unexpected death,
at the age of 21. He died in 1856, and was the son of
Octavius Winslow.

1. Gems written at the age of 14

2. Gems written at the age of 15

3. Gems written at the age of 16 - 18

Gleanings from the journal of Whitmore Winslow
written at the age of 14.

His journal, which was previously unknown to his family,
was found among his papers after his unexpected death,
at the age of 21. He died in 1856, and was the son of
Octavius Winslow.

How frail the thread!
How short is time, and what a small portion
is allotted to man to prepare for another world!

And yet how careless is he of that time!

How frail the thread upon which life hangs!

A few hours' illness may carry him away into
a world of endless happiness or of endless woe!

What a vain world it is!
What a fallen creature is man!

Day by day calls forth more hidden depravity
of his heart; and yet his whole affections are
set upon the very object which is fostering
and encouraging that depravity.

His great ambition is to win the approbation
of the world; a world that slew the King of kings;
a world full of sin and sorrow, the medium by
which Satan endeavors to blind the eyes of the
children of men.

And yet, after all, what a vain world it is!

It promises much, but realizes nothing.

The more we expect pleasure, the more are we
disappointed in it.

Oh, what would man be, if instead of seeking
the friendship and the love of a dying world, he
would seek that of Jehovah!

And yet how prone are we to lament when we
are frowned upon by the world. If we did not
seek its smiles, we would not mind its frowns.

But the more we are delighted at the world's
praise, the more are we discomforted and made
unhappy by its disapprobation.

But take the world as a whole; what is it?
A speck in the universe; a ball floating in
the air, surrounded by other worlds greater
and more magnificent than itself.

Shall we love the world which hated and scorned,
and ultimately slew our loved Redeemer?

That ever promising, yet ever deceiving world?
How little have appearances to do with realities!

The outward show has often the effect of deceiving.

Deceit is, indeed, one of the prominent features
in man; he deceives others, he deceives himself.

The world is truly a false world. And does it not
show the depravity of man's heart when after tasting
its bitters, feeling its pains, and experiencing its
disappointments and sorrows, he should still cling
to that ever promising, yet ever deceiving world?

Changeable!
What a changeable world is this, and what
changeable creatures are we! But what a
glorious thought that there is a Being who
changes not!

We chase it like a bubble in the air!
What could the Christian do in a poor world
like this if he had not Christ for his Friend?

Truly is he often seeking other friends, but
God will make him know, by sad yet blessed
experience, that there is no friend like Jesus;
and that while other friends are fickle and
changeable, He changes not.

Oh that we followed not this poor world as we do!

We chase it like a bubble in the air, and with
all its apparent beauty, it fades into nothing!

But oh, when we taste the preciousness of Jesus,
what a heavenly morsel it is! It raises our drooping
spirits to contemplate the joy that awaits us in
another world, the happiness that is laid up for
us above, the glory that will crown the final end
of our weary pilgrimage through a dying and
unsatisfying world.

Pride eats at the root of all happiness!
Ah! blessed is he to whom God shows his own weakness
and insufficiency to do anything of himself. Deem it not
a curse, but a blessing, when God humbles your pride,
however severe the discipline may be by which He does it.
When He teaches you to lean upon Him alone for support,
thank Him for it.

Pride eats at the root of all happiness; and a proud
spirit God will abase, but the humble spirit He will exalt.

Toilsome journey through this weary world
I had some sweet sights of Jesus by faith, some
feeble glimmerings of the happiness and glory
which we shall realize above. It is only these
glorious feelings that will solace the Christian in
his toilsome journey through this weary world.

Come what may, pleasure or pain, happiness or
woe, life or death, I am in the hands of the Lord
of Creation, the King of kings, and in His keeping
no evil will befall me.

Surrounded with trouble at almost every step?
Today I have been surrounded with trouble at
almost every step. But with all this, I can fly to
Jesus as my never failing Friend, and He can give
me all I need.

A bountiful Savior and a needy sinner just suit
each other!

This precious jewel, where can it be located?
Happiness! Where is it to be found?

This precious jewel, where can it be located?

Is it to be obtained in the world, its pleasures and
delights? No! the Christian will answer it cannot!

Happiness, if there be such a thing in this world,
can only be obtained from Jesus. In His bosom
alone can we find repose.

I am persuaded that the more the believer has
of sanctified sorrow, tribulation, and affliction in
this dying world, the more he will have of happiness
and glory in the blessed realms above.

I feel now as if death would be a welcome messenger
to my soul, to waft me from this sinful world to
Canaan's joyful shore. Ah! it is a blessed thing to
be able to meet death with a beaming countenance
and a gladsome heart.

There have been times when amid pleasure and
enjoyment I have loathed the very thought of death.
But when God afflicts a man, then he feels the vanity
and deceitfulness of the world; and if he is a believer
in the Lord Jesus Christ, he will long to see his Redeemer,
and be with Him in the abodes of happiness and light
throughout an endless eternity!

I'm a poor sinner, and nothing at all,
But Jesus Christ is my all in all.

All the troubles and afflictions of His people
How gracious has the Lord been to me today! His
promises, they never fail. They have been indeed
my chief support.

Oh, to have a simple trust in the Savior! He will not
betray your confidence. He is a faithful and just God,
merciful and gracious, and ever ready to lend an ear
to all the troubles and afflictions of His people.

Open all your heart to Jesus, and He will open the
fountain of His mercy to you.

Afflictions come from God!
How soon can God change a man's circumstances!

He is elevated today, and is cast down tomorrow.

So it is, and so it will be in this changeful world,
until we arrive at a better and brighter one, where
there will be no sin, and consequently no sorrow.

But oh, we should remember, that afflictions come
from God! When a Christian neglects prayer, for
instance, God places him, perhaps, in a situation
of great trial, and he is driven to pray.

Or, when a man's affections are set upon the world,
God makes that world his greatest enemy (and I feel
it to be mine), and he is compelled to make Christ
his Friend.

Oh, may every afflicted saint of God profit by the
trials which God shall see fit to lay upon him! But
even in judgment, our heavenly Father will remember
mercy.

If the world satisfies you?
No being knows the trials I have undergone the past
week, but Jesus. And as He only knows, so He only
can help me through.

I have felt such a willingness to die! a feeling that
death would be no dreadful thing to me, having a
wish to leave this more dreadful world. But painful,
yet no less blessed trial has done it all.

And oh, may I be able from my heart to thank God
for having made the world my enemy, and Christ
my Friend!

But mark this: if the world does not suit you, you
will be sure to have a welcome in heaven. But if the
world satisfies you, hell will be the most adapted
to receive you.

While we sojourn in this world
Oh, to realize the happiness in store for us in the
next world! If we more anticipated the blissful future,
we should not so much mind the miserable present.

A few short years will bring the Christian to the end of
his pilgrimage, and to the beginning of his eternal rest!

But, oh, let us never forget that while we sojourn in
this world we have a never failing Friend to whom we
can take all our trials and sorrows!

God is our guide
Oh, that we did but realize that we are the Lord's
and the Lord is ours! No harm can befall us which
is not for our benefit.

And were it not for the corruption within, and
our guilty consciences, no evil from without
could materially affect us.

But may we remember that God is our guide
through life, and will be unto death.

Decay is inscribed on earth's fairest flower!
January, 1851. We have entered upon another year,
which, like the preceding ones, will flit quickly by.

Solemn thought!

We also shall soon pass away, and the place
where we dwelt and lived will know us no more.

The ravages of time, written in letters too
deeply engraved to be erased, are stamped
upon everything mortal.

Decay is inscribed on earth's fairest flower!

Oh, how solemn is the reflection! Our short period
of existence here on earth should be taken up with
preparation for another and a better world.

And yet poor, blind, fallen man seldom gives the
question a moment's consideration, while his whole
thoughts are absorbed in obtaining that which,
even while he seizes it, crumbles in his grasp.

I feel this with regard to myself; and oh, that I
always may have a keen perception of it! The
least prosperity or participation in happiness, as
the world terms it, sets me mad after chasing
the poor baubles, as if I had never known their
deceitfulness and insufficiency. Does not this
show the fallen nature of man in a glaring light?

'I know the right, and yet the wrong pursue.'

Ah, have you cause to mourn over sin?
Do you see that in you which is hateful to yourself,
and which causes you sorrow? Then thank God for it,
as the most decided proof that He has planted within
you the germs of a being that shall one day burst the
bonds of natural corruption, and with all the beauty
and purity of the God who created it, start forth a
glittering gem, forever to shine in the crown of the
Redeemer.

But what is the sequel?
Truly it becomes a Christian to be always happy.

What reason has he to be otherwise, when every
step of his journey, every incident, however minute,
that occurs in his pilgrimage through life, is ordered
and ordained by his heavenly Father, his loving
Savior, his best Friend?

True it is that he has often more care, more affliction,
than the worldling has; while the worldling prospers in
his way, the believer is often bowed down with care
and trouble, scarcely able to struggle through life.

But what is the sequel?

The ungodly enjoy the pleasures and wealth of this
world, only to realize more bitterly their loss in the
world to come; while the Christian sees the worst
side of this world, and tastes more of its bitters,
only to enhance the happiness of a better world,
where he will enjoy the sweetest bliss.

But even in the deepest afflictions the believer in
Christ has cause to be happy, if he can but realize
the truth that the All seeing Jehovah, who framed
and created out of nothing the vast universe, and
who guides its great machinery, has ordered that
event for his essential good.

Love so undeserved, so great, so free!
Oh, what a loving Father He must be! Ah, yes! that
love so undeserved, so great, so free, gave from
His own loving bosom His only beloved Son a sacrifice
for man, when every heart rankled with hatred to God.

Are there no choice beings who reap the fruits of
their Redeemer's love? Yes! God has a chosen church,
and for them the blood of Jesus was shed, to redeem
them from the curse and to bring them to heaven!

I am utterly helpless!
I have been led to feel that in myself I am utterly
helpless. God has made me to see that all my hard
studying, and all my talents, abilities, and boasted
knowledge, will be of no avail to me in this crisis,
if He withholds His blessing.

I have been led to leave the outcome of it all in
God's hands, and to feel that He will do all for the
best, yes, better than the wisest of us could imagine
or desire. One mightier than all is for me!

When we can trace His loving hand
Brief, but sweet, is my diary of today. Oh, how
savory every morsel when the blessing of God is
upon it! When we can trace His loving hand,
what unequaled happiness does it give!

Oh, to trust Him, though He may seem at the
time to blight our fond hopes; to have a thankful
heart for mercies undeserved!

How has He especially appeared to me today
none but Himself can tell. And to repay it is
out of the power of mortal.

O what changeable and fluctuating creatures!
Man, with all his boasted wisdom, understanding,
and sagacity, seldom learns the necessary lesson
of profiting by the past.

That which at one time made an apparent and
indelible impression upon his mind is now entirely
forgotten, or, if not forgotten, viewed in a careless
and indifferent light.

O what changeable and fluctuating creatures
are the human race! We travel with time in all its
changes and fluctuations; and wherever it tends
and winds its onward course, we often pursue the
same given track, and, unsuspecting and unalarmed,
are led to the brink of a fearful precipice, and are
lost to all eternity!

It is good for a man that he should reflect upon
his own condition: what he is? and where bound?

Gleanings from the journal of Whitmore Winslow
written at the age of 15.

His journal, which was previously unknown to his family,
was found among his papers after his unexpected death,
at the age of 21. He died in 1856, and was the son of
Octavius Winslow.

A picture repulsive to every refined feeling.
Truly does the world present a picture repulsive to
every refined feeling. It is devoid of all sources of
true happiness to its earnest seekers, and produces
no end of evils, embittering the life of man, and
ensnaring his heedless steps.

It is a field of conflict between two opposite powers.

The one winning his foes to his side by overwhelming
love, and subduing them into perfect submission by the
power of irresistible goodness.

The other, enlisting his adherents by the offer of
false happiness, alluring them by spurious pleasures,
only to disappoint their hopes, and when life has
spun out its last thread of existence to engulf them
in eternal despair.

How it ensnares, and allures,
and taunts, and disappoints!
What a wretched world it is! How it ensnares,
and allures, and taunts, and disappoints!

I am persuaded that a Christian cannot remain
in worldly company, or be engaged in anything
worldly, without his heavenly mindedness being
damaged, and his holy feelings and resolutions
being vitiated and weakened.

Christ's unchanging love and tenderness
Christ's unchanging love and tenderness scatter
all the gloomy mists and dark clouds of our pilgrimage,
and gladden the drooping spirit.

Cheer up, tried and tempted Christian!

A blissful eternity will make up for all the crosses
and trials, the bitters and woes of the present. Then
shall real happiness dawn upon your spirit, warming
and delighting your soul through eternity.

Strive not for the world's smiles; they are deceitful.
And fear not its scorn while God smiles upon you.

This bewitching world, these alluring pleasures!
What a changeful world is this, and
what changeable creatures are we!

Oh, how have I seen this in myself and in others!
Friends whom I have most trusted have suddenly
grown cold and indifferent, freezing my affections
by their unfaithfulness and wavering.

But, oh, has not this some end? Methinks I see it.

The world's charms have too much allured my gaze
from Jesus and fixed it upon its empty bubbles.

And was not this trial sent to deaden my affections
to the world, and fix them upon something more
substantial? O yes, it was all for my good.

This bewitching world, these alluring pleasures,
how they ensnare! O God, keep me from their power.

May I be weaned from them, and attracted to
Jesus, finding the center of my happiness in
leaning in sweet repose upon His bosom who
never changes nor forsakes those who put
their trust in Him.

We sometimes envy the wicked
How sweet is a calm after the tempest! It would
not do for us were it always smooth. The little
roughness of the way increases the pleasantness
of the calm.

How little do we value a blessing until it is taken
from us; and yet how unconcerned and lifeless we
are until stirred up by adverse circumstances. O
how should we value every chastisement we receive!

We sometimes envy the wicked because they seem
to go on sinning, and yet unpunished. Did we but
realize that it is a Father's hand that is guiding us,
and that it is because He loves and cares for us
that He chastises us.

The ungodly He leaves to themselves until their
eternal punishment. But He watches over His children
with the eye of a father, and all that He does is for
their good now and hereafter.

O what a blessing to be one of His children, to have
such a Protector, such a Friend! He is worth all the
dearest friends the world can produce.

The believer's life
The believer's life, though short and passing as a
vapor, is eventful of circumstances of the greatest
significance. It is a period allotted to him to prepare
for another world. And oh, what a blessed thought
that there is another and a better world!

We shall soon leave our present abode, full of sin
and full of sorrow, changeful as the wind. Friends
change, circumstances change, age changes; soon
the light and joyous childhood of our youth begins
to taste the bitters of life, and his sincere and
happy brow becomes wrinkled with anxiety and
care; old age creeps on, and we apparently are
insensible of it. But soon it will be over, and a
happy eternity follows.

The Christian has his happiness to anticipate;
the sinner his eternal misery to look forward to.

Oh, it is better to be at the disposal of God than
at any moment to have the full control of ourselves!

Infectious, ensnaring, delusive
So infectious is the world, so bright and ensnaring,
yet in reality so delusive, that before you are aware,
it will arrest your glance, steal upon your affections,
and so deaden your spirituality and communion with
God, and thus call for some gentle chastening of your
heavenly Father to bring you back again to His bosom.

Look not for happiness in anything connected with the world.

I, as a youth, have done so, and have been disappointed.

There is no pleasure of any description, I am fully
persuaded, that is not accompanied with some bitter.

God has wisely ordained that Christians in general
should partake but little of this world's enjoyments,
that they may not make the world their home, but
that, all their thoughts taken up with Christ, their
eyes may be blind to its pleasures and enjoyments.

Oh, what will be the ecstasy of that moment!
If there are two things that will more fill us with
wonder and amazement when we arrive at heaven
than another, it will be, first, that we ever got there;
and second, the vast difference of the world we have
left to the one we shall then enjoy! Oh, what will be
the ecstasy of that moment when we find ourselves
in heaven!

And yet we are so mad and so blind as to fear to die,
still clinging to this poor world! Sometimes in solitude
I look forward and enjoy the anticipation of a better
state.

Oh, if this should ever meet the eye of an afflicted
child of God, whatever may be your trials, dry up
those untimely tears, brighten up that saddened
countenance, and look forward with the confident
and blessed assurance of an eternity of bliss.

Your thoughts of affliction are not as God's thoughts.

If your limited comprehension cannot take in the
wisdom of all His plans with regard to you. What
you deem most unfavorable, God regarding as
most beneficial. Yet thank Him, if He is weaning
you from this poor world, although the means
He uses may appear to you most grievous.

True religion
The religion of God has to do with the heart,
whatever may be the sect to which a man belongs.

In the matter of his salvation he has not to do with
churches, or with opinions, or with creeds, but with God.

True religion consists not in notions, forms, or outward
profession. These can avail a man but little when he
is laid upon a dying bed, and is about to appear before
God, when the great question will be, not to what sect
or church he belonged, but how he, a vile and fallen
sinner, can be justified before God?

No sect, or church, or religion, can possibly be
honoring to God which sets aside Christ and His
atonement, and lays its foundations in wretched
SELF.

When is affliction sweet?
When can we thank God for it.

When it brings us near to Jesus.

When it fixes our wandering thoughts and desires
upon One that is mighty; mighty not only to save,
but to make us happy in this dark valley of tears.

Oh, it compensates us for all the humblings and
disappointments which we may experience.

'Sweet affliction,
That brings Jesus to my soul.'

A glimpse of Jesus is a little heaven below.

Who would not part with the world's honors,
reputation, or wealth, to gain it? And yet we
are so prone to fix our affections upon these
poor baubles which must soon pass away.

Happy is he whose lot is cast with the tried,
the poor, the humble of Christ's flock, for there
Jesus abides.

Gleanings from the journal of Whitmore Winslow
written at the age of 16 to 18.

His journal, which was previously unknown to his family,
was found among his papers after his unexpected death,
at the age of 21. He died in 1856, and was the son of
Octavius Winslow.

When He afflicts, it is only out of kindness
Sweet it is not only to believe, but also to experience
that as much affliction as God is pleased to give, so
much of His divine blessing He invariably bestows with it.

He causes us to feel His rod that His blessing may
be experienced the more. He makes us to taste the
bitter only to prepare us for the sweet.

And when He finds that prosperity weans us from
Him and assimilates to the world, He chastens us.

Oh, how sweet to be resigned to His will, feeling
assured that He does all things for our best welfare;
that when He afflicts, it is only out of kindness;
and that when He accomplishes the end, He returns
to us laden with blessing.

O the demon SELF!
Alas! our noblest actions are so mixed with SELF.

Such is the real fact, I need not disguise it. This
it is that chills our warmest feelings, and mars our
happiness in looking to Jesus.

O the demon SELF! it will ever come in to spoil
that which is holy.

Alas, alas! how cold we are! How insensible
to the greatest mercies, perpetually reminded that
we are not only mortal, but sinful.

When I reflect upon the spiritual blessings which
I have received, and feel how insensible I am, oh
it is a cause of mourning. I think nothing is so
ungracious as a thankless spirit, and yet how
often do we manifest it when God has been so
good! We take care not to be ungrateful to an
earthly friend for the slightest benefit, and yet
how careless in thanking God!

How has God led me these many years! How has
He been the Protector and Guide of my youth! And
how has He brought me to what I am! When I
thought of all this I did lift up my heart in gratitude.
What He has done for me is overwhelming.

Oh, my precious Savior
What a blessed thing it is that we are not to live
here always, that our existence is not bounded by
this lower sphere!

Holy Father, may our hearts, while aching, praise
You that Your chastenings but wean us from this
sinful and disappointing world, and fill our minds
with holy joy, and longing hope for the blessed
heaven to come. Oh, may Your love more completely
fill these truant hearts! May Your ceaseless affection,
changeless ever, when we wander, link our souls in
closer union with You.

Oh, my precious Savior, may that look of pity and
love, which beamed so gloriously from Calvary, light
upon Your weak and sinful child! May I find in Your
loving bosom a shelter from the storm. And though
the world, or those I love, cease to sympathize,
precious Savior, You will never look coldly down,
but will open Your heart of love to receive me.

How low and humbled do we feel
As truly as the sinner feels himself unfit for heaven
and for heavenly society on earth, so truly does the
child of God feel sad and unhappy when in the society
of the wicked.

How low and humbled do we feel when accidentally
or necessarily obliged to listen to unholy conversation,
or to witness some open act of sin.

Alas! next to our own sinfulness we ought to deplore
the wickedness of those we are constantly coming in
contact with. All we can do is to observe a marked
silence, and show by our conduct and example how
painful it is to our spirits, though we would desire
openly to rebuke.

Words, however, are sometimes less significant
than conduct, and I have often found how powerful
is the effect of silent example. But we need much
wisdom and much grace both to speak and to act
as we ought and when we ought.

But, blessed thought, that with all our deficiencies,
the righteousness of Christ is our complete covering,
and by its merit we shall soon reach the realms of
purity where sin can never enter.

O Father, preserve me from the deadening
influence of all within and without; and grant
me an eye to see, and a heart to feel, all your
tenderness, forbearance, and love.

It grasps an airy bubble floating by in momentary splendor
Amid all the characters given by poets and philosophers
to Life, perhaps the least regarded is the IMAGINATION.

Life in its loveliest forms consists in a great measure
in the imagination. Thus thought loves to dwell upon
scenes of future or imagined happiness, grouping into
the most felicitous shapes all one's future career.

Thus it grasps an airy bubble floating by in momentary
splendor, and builds upon it a destiny of the highest and
most substantial happiness.

How one's youthful imagination seems to bear us on, blind
to the misery and woe all around us; blind to the stern and
sometimes sickening realities of existence, and alive only
to the beautiful and happy, the gay and glorious.

How imagination, that wonderful power of the soul, can
magnify a transient beam of sunshine into an ever abiding
and increasing stream of effulgent radiancy! How a look
from the eye, a smile of the countenance, a trifling act
of love, can kindle a flame in the soul, which our fond
imagination would persuade us to believe is enduring,
giving power and warmth!

How gladdening are feelings of youth; how keen its
susceptibilities to the beautiful!

But alas, alas! how Life in its onward progress alters
this beautiful picture! How soon do the dark shades
pencilled by the experience of sin and sorrow cast their
chilling influences upon the canvas once so gaily tinted!
How soon the keen blast of adversity sweeps away, as
with a whirlwind, all that before seemed so beautiful and
promising! How soon the slow but fearfully sure disease
cuts down the budding flower!

Yes, how strange a mystery is Life!

Yes, when once the eye has been turned in the right
direction, and the mists and phantoms have disappeared,
we shall see that life is the theater of action, and the
prelude to eternity; an eternity whose untold wonders
are beyond the highest flight of the imagination!

Can a man suppose that he was made for himself?
What a glorious motto for a man, "I Live for God!"

It is religion's truest definition.

It is a motto for a life.

Can a man suppose that he was made for himself?

Miserable thought!

Yet the world acts upon this belief. They devise, and
scheme, and accomplish apparently for others; but
the spring of action and the end of action is, SELF.

This is a course abhorrent to God.

A mere bubble, a toy, an insignificant nothing!
How blessed when one is low and downcast in mind
and body, to feel a little uplifting, and to trace, yet
more blessed, the healing hand of the Great Physician.

To see the Shepherd of the sheep stooping to take and
embrace in His arms of love the weak and feeble lamb.

"When men are cast down, then You shall say, There
is lifting up." Oh, the delightful feeling, this 'lifting up!'
Who can express it but the man who has been down
into the lowest depths, and then brought up so high
that the world appears, as it were, a mere bubble,
a toy, an insignificant nothing! The world no longer
is visible to him; lost in the glorious light shed upon
his soul by the sight of Jesus.

We sometimes reason ourselves into the belief, that
the world, with all its grandeur, beauty, and wonder,
must be something worth our attention.

But, oh! five minutes' communion with God, in spite
of reason and of ourselves, convinces us that nothing
but the object upon which our soul rests is truly great.

The way we read the Bible
What a difference there is in the way we read the
Bible; taking it up sometimes as a matter of form and
duty, perusing some of its most precious truths, and
laying it down again without sensible benefit.

There can be no mistake as to where the fault lies;
a cold or worldly heart, an eye covered with the film
of sensuous objects, are the real causes.

We do not know what Popery really is!
(The following was written by Whitmore Winslow
at the age of 18, after visiting a Roman Catholic
Cathedral in France.)

In England, we do not know what Popery really is!

We imagine it to be something repulsive, and cannot
conceive how people can be deceived by it.

But once to witness it as it really is, with its gorgeous
paraphernalia, you are admitted to the secret of its
power. The whole structure seemed to look down upon
you in conscious magnificence, and is intended to
inspire you with awe and reverence.

No system could possibly have been invented more
captivating to the senses, or better adapted to the
natural heart.

It allows its devotee free scope to sin, while covering
him with a cloak of religion.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Morning & Evening Thoughts

Preface

January
January 1-6 - Evening
January 7-14 - Evening
January 15-20 - Evening
January 21-26 - Evening
January 27-31 - Evening

February
February 1-6 - Evening
February 7-14 - Evening
February 15-20 - Evening
February 21-26 - Evening
February 27-29 - Evening

March
March 1-6 - Evening
March 7-14 - Evening
March 14-20 - Evening
March 21-26 - Evening
March 27-31 - Evening

April
April 1-6 - Evening
April 7-13 - Evening
April 14-20 - Evening
April 21-26 - Evening
April 27-31 - Evening

May
May 1-6 - Evening
May 7-13 - Evening
May 14-20 - Evening
May 21-26 - Evening
May 27-31 - Evening

June
June 1-6 - Evening
June 7-13 - Evening
June 14-20 - Evening
June 21-26 - Evening
June 27-30 - Evening

July
July 1-6 - Evening
July 7-13 - Evening
July 14-20 - Evening
July 21-26 - Evening
July 27-31 - Evening

August
August 1-6 - Evening
August 7-13 - Evening
August 14-20 - Evening
August 21-26 - Evening
August 27-31 - Evening

September
September 1-6 - Evening
September 7-13 - Evening
September 14-20 - Evening
September 21-26 - Evening
September 27-30 - Evening

October
October 1-6 - Evening
October 7-13- Evening
October 14-20 - Evening
October 21-26 - Evening
October 27-31 - Evening

November
November 1-6 - Evening
November 7-13 - Evening
November 14-20 - Evening
November 21-26 - Evening
November 27-30 - Evening

December
December 1-6 - Evening
December 7-13 - Evening
December 14-20 - Evening
December 21-26 - Evening
December 27-31 - Evening

MORNING THOUGHTS, or
DAILY WALKING WITH GOD

By Octavius Winslow, Leamington, Dec. 1856.

"My voice shall You hear in the morning, O Lord; in the morning will I direct my prayer unto You, and will look up." Psalm 5:3

PREFACE.

In compliance with a request frequently, and from various quarters, preferred, that the author would allow selections from some of his published works to appear in the form of Daily Readings, he ventures to offer to the Christian Church the following pages. They have been gleaned- with much care, and with a strict regard to variety, yet consecutiveness, of topic; presenting a spiritual, and occasionally a critical, exposition of each Scripture motto. In the large family of similar productions which have issued from the press, he trusts that his little volume- not quite a stranger to some who will peruse it- may find a humble place. Should it, with the Holy Spirit's blessing, drop occasionally a Christ-endearing, heart-soothing, soul-guiding, word in seasons of daily toil, conflict, or trial, his utmost wish in its publication will be realized.

Robert Hall was wont to define domestic prayer as "that border which keeps the web of my life from unraveling." With equal appropriateness this beautiful remark will apply to morning religion. To begin the day with God is the great secret of walking through the day with God. What a privilege this the moment that "slumber's chain" is broken, and we wake to duty and toil- perchance to temptation and trial- to raise the soul to God, and seek to fill it at this Infinite Fountain of life, love, and bliss, with such thoughts, and feelings, and purposes as will exert a hallowing, soothing, and controlling influence upon the day! Before the secular commences, to begin with the spiritual. Before care insinuates, to preoccupy the mind with peace. Before temptation assails, to fortify the heart with prayer. Before sorrow beclouds, to irradiate the soul with Divine sunshine. What a precious privilege this! A morning without God is the precursor of a uneasy, cloudy, and dark day. It is like a morning around whose eastern horizon thick vapors gather, veiling the ascending sun, and foreshadowing a day of storm. "The first thing I do when I awake in the morning," remarks an aged saint of God, "is to ask the Holy Spirit to take possession of my mind, my imagination, my heart, directing, sanctifying, and controlling my every thought, feeling, and word." (See "Life in Jesus, Memoir of Mrs. Mary Winslow.") What profound spiritual wisdom is there in this conception! What a God-descending, heaven-returning spirit does it betray! How the well of water in the soul springs up! "In the morning will I direct my prayer unto You, and will look up." "Look up!" Ah! here is the true and befitting attitude of the spiritual soul. Looking up for the day's supply of grace to restrain, of power to keep, of wisdom to guide, of patience to suffer, of meekness to endure, of strength to bear, of faith to overcome, of love to obey, and of hope to cheer. Jesus stands at the Treasury of Infinite grace, ready to meet every application, and to supply every need. His fullness is for a poor, needy, asking people. He loves for us to bring the empty vessel. Oh, to have our "morning thoughts" occupied with God, and Christ, and the Holy Spirit, and heaven! Truly this is the border which keeps the web of daily life from unraveling! Dear reader, let your first thought be of God, and your first incense be to Jesus, and your first prayer be to the Holy Spirit, and thus anointed with fresh oil, you will glide serenely and safely through the day, beginning, continuing, and ending it with God.

"Direct, control, suggest, this day,
All I design, or do, or say,
That all my powers, with all their might,
In Your sole glory may unite."

JANUARY 1.

"You have not passed this way heretofore." Joshua 3:4.

How solemn is the reflection that with a new cycle of time commences, with each traveler to Zion, a new and untrodden path! New events in his history will transpire- new scenes in the panorama of life will unfold- new phases of character will develop- new temptations will assail- new duties will devolve- new trials will be experienced- new sorrows will be felt- new friendships will be formed- and new mercies will be bestowed. How truly may it be said of the pilgrim journeying through the wilderness to his eternal home, as he stands upon the threshold of this untried period of his existence, pondering the unknown and uncertain future, "You have not passed this way heretofore!"

Reader! if you are a believer in the Lord Jesus, you will enter upon a new stage of your journey by a renewed surrender of yourself to the Lord. You will make the cross the starting-point of a fresh setting-out in the heavenly race. Oh, commence this year with a renewed application to the "blood of sprinkling." There is vitality in that blood; and its fresh sprinkling on your conscience will be as a new impartation of spiritual life to your soul. Oh, to begin the year with a broken heart for sin, beneath the cross of Immanuel! looking through that cross to the heart of a loving, forgiving Father. Do not be anxious about the future; all that future God has provided for. "All my times are in Your hands." "Casting all your care upon Him, for He cares for you." "Cast your burden upon the Lord, and He shall sustain you." Let it be a year of more spiritual advance. "Speak to the children of Israel that they go forward." Forward in the path of duty- forward in the path of suffering- forward in the path of conflict- forward in the path of labor- and forward in the path to eternal rest and glory. Soon will that rest be reached, and that glory appear. This new year may be the jubilant year of your soul- the year of your release. Oh spirit-stirring, ecstatic thought- this year I may be in heaven!

JANUARY 2.

"He knows the way that I take." Job 23:10.

Untried, untrodden, and unknown as your future path may be, it is, each step, mapped, arranged, and provided for in the everlasting and unchangeable covenant of God. To Him who leads us, who accepts us in the Son of His love, who knows the end from the beginning, it is no new, or uncertain, or hidden way. We thank Him that while He wisely and kindly veils all the future from our reach, all that future- its minutest event- is as transparent and visible to Him as the past. Our Shepherd knows the windings along which He skillfully, gently, and safely leads His flock. He has traveled that way Himself, and has left the traces of His presence on the road. And as each follower advances- the new path unfolding at each step- he can exultingly exclaim, "I see the footprint of my Lord; here went my Master, my Leader, my Captain, leaving me an example that I should follow His steps." Oh, it is a thought replete with strong consolation, and well calculated to gird us for the coming year- the Lord knows and has ordained each step of the untrodden path upon which I am about to enter.
Another reflection. The infinite forethought, wisdom, and goodness which have marked each line of our new path, have also provided for its every necessity. Each exigency in the history of the new year has been anticipated. Each need will bring its appropriate and adequate supply- each perplexity will have its guidance- each sorrow its comfort- each temptation its shield- each cloud its light. Each affliction will suggest its lesson- each correction will impart its teaching- each mercy will convey its message of love. The promise will be fulfilled to the letter, "As your day, so shall your strength be."

JANUARY 3.

"For it pleased the Father that in him should all fullness dwell." Colossians 1:19

All wisdom to guide, all power to uphold, all love to soothe, all grace to support, all tenderness to sympathize, dwells in Christ. Let us, then, gird ourselves to a fresh taking hold of Christ. We must walk through this year not by sight, but by faith- and that faith must deal simply and directly, with Jesus. "Without me you can do nothing." But with His strength made perfect in our weakness, we can do all things. Oh, be this our course and our posture- "coming up from the wilderness leaning on her Beloved." Living in a world of imperfection and change, we must expect nothing perfect, nothing stable, in what we are, in what we do, or in what we enjoy. But amid the dissolving views of the world that "passes away," let us take firm hold of the unchangeableness of God. The wheels may revolve, but the axle on which they turn is immoveable. Such is our covenant God. Events may vary- providences may change- friends may die- feelings may fluctuate- but God in Christ will know "no variableness, neither the shadow of a turning." "Having loved His own that were in the world, He loved them unto the end."

JANUARY 4.

"The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit, be with you all. Amen." 2 Corinthians 13:14.

The doctrine of the Trinity is to the Christian the key of the Bible. The Spirit imparting skill to use it, and the power, when used, it unlocks this divine arcade of mysteries, and throws open every door in the blest sanctuary of truth. But it is in the light of salvation that its fitness and beauty most distinctly appear- salvation in which Jehovah appears so inimitably glorious- so like Himself. The Father's love appears in 'sending' His Son; the Son's love in 'undertaking' the work; the Holy Spirit's love in 'applying' the work. Oh, it is delightful to see how, in working out the mighty problem of man's redemption, the Divine Three were thus deeply engaged. With which of these could we have dispensed? All were needed; and had one been lacking, our salvation would have been incomplete, and we would have been eternally lost. In bringing to glory the church they thus have saved, the sacred Three are solemnly pledged. And in the matter of prayer, how sustaining to faith, and how soothing to the mind, when we can embrace, in our ascending petitions, the blessed Three in One. "For through Him (the Son) we both have access by one Spirit unto the Father."

JANUARY 5.

"He that believes (on the Son of God) has the witness in himself." 1 John 5:10.

The Spirit of God breaking, humbling, healing the heart; taking his own truth and transcribing it upon the soul; witnessing, sealing, sanctifying; opening the eye of the soul to the holiness of God's law- to its own moral guilt, poverty, helplessness, and deep need of Christ's blood and righteousness, thus leading it to rest on Him as on an all-sufficient Savior; thus producing "righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit"- this is the truth experienced- this is the religion of the heart; and all other religion, beautiful as may be its theory, and orthodox as may be its creed, is worth nothing! Without this experience there is no true belief in God's Word. The revelation of God asks not for a faith that will merely endorse its divine credentials; it asks not merely that skepticism will lay aside its doubts, and receive it as a divine verity; it asks, yes, it demands, more than this- it demands a faith that will fully, implicitly, practically receive the momentous and tremendous facts it announces- a faith that brings them home with a realizing power to the soul, and identifies it with them- a faith that believes there is a hell, and seeks to escape it- a faith that believes there is a heaven, and strives to enter it- a faith that credits the doctrine of man's ruin by nature, and that welcomes the doctrine of man's recovery by grace- in a word, a faith that rejects all human dependence, and accepts as its only ground of refuge "the righteousness of Christ, which is unto all, and upon all those who believe." Oh, this is the true faith of the gospel! Do you have it, reader?

JANUARY 6.

"In the world you shall have tribulation." John 16:33.

Could we draw aside, for a moment, the thin veil that separates us from the glorified saints, and inquire the path along which they were conducted by a covenant God to their present enjoyments, how few exceptions, if any, would we find to that declaration of Jehovah- "I have chosen you in the furnace of affliction." All world tell of some peculiar cross; some domestic, relative, or personal trial which attended them every step of their journey; which made the valley they trod, truly, "a valley of tears," and which they only threw off when the spirit, divested of its robe of flesh, fled where sorrow and sighing are forever done away. God's people are a sorrowful people. The first step they take in the divine life is connected with tear's of godly sorrow; and, as they, travel on, sorrow and tears do but trace their steps. They sorrow over the body of sin which they are compelled to carry with them; they sorrow over their perpetual proneness to depart, to backslide, to live below their high and holy calling. They mourn that they mourn so little; they, weep that they weep so little; that over so much indwelling sin, over so many and so great departures, they yet are found so seldom mourning in the posture of one low in the dust before God. In connection with this, there is the sorrow which results from the needed discipline which the correcting hand of the Father who loves them almost daily employs. For, in what light are all their afflictions to be viewed, but as so many correctives, so much discipline employed by their God in covenant, in order to make them "partakers of His holiness." Viewed in any other light, God is dishonored, the Spirit is grieved, and the believer is robbed of the great spiritual blessing for which the trial was sent.

JANUARY 7.

"Thanks be unto God for his unspeakable gift." 2 Cor. 9:15.

The Atonement itself precludes all idea of human merit, and, from its very nature, proclaims that it is free. Consider the grandeur of the Atonement- contemplate its costliness: incarnate Deity- perfect obedience- spotless purity- unparalleled grace and love- acute and mysterious sufferings- wondrous death, resurrection, ascension, and intercession of the Savior, all conspire to constitute it the most august sacrifice that could possibly be offered. And shall there be anything in the sinner to merit this sacrifice? Shall God so lower its dignity, underrate its value, and dishonor Himself, as to 'barter' it to the sinner? And if God were so disposed, what is there in the sinner that could purchase it? Where is the equivalent, where the price? "Alas!" is the exclamation of a convinced soul, "I am a spiritual bankrupt; I lost everything in my first parent who fell; I came into the world poor and helpless; and to the sin of my nature I have added actual transgression of the most aggravated character. I have nothing to recommend me to the favor of God; I have no claim upon His mercy; I have no price with which to purchase it; and if redemption is not free, without money and without price, I am undone." The very costliness, then, of the Atonement puts it beyond all price, and stamps it with infinite freeness.

JANUARY 8.

"Who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works." Titus 2:14.

There is no victory, over the indwelling power of sin, and there is no pardon for the guilt of sin, but as the soul deals with the blood of Christ. The great end of our dear Lord's death was to destroy the works of the devil. Sin is the great work of Satan. To overcome this, to break its power, subdue its dominion, repair its ruins, and release from its condemnation, the blessed Son of God suffered the ignominious death of the cross. All that bitter agony which He endured- all that mental suffering- the sorrow of His soul in the garden- the sufferings of His body on the cross- all was for sin. See, then, the close and beautiful connection between the death of Christ, and the death of sin. All true sanctification comes through the cross. Reader, seek it there. The cross brought into your soul by the eternal Spirit will be the death of your sins. Go to the cross- oh, go to the cross of Jesus. In simplicity of faith, go. With the strong corruption, go. With the burden of guilt, go, go to the cross. You will find nothing but love there- nothing but welcome there- nothing but purity there. The precious blood of Jesus "cleanses us from all sin." And while you are kept low beneath the cross, your enemy dares not approach you, sin shall not have dominion over you, nor shall Satan, your accuser, condemn you.

JANUARY 9.

"And the Lord turned, and looked upon Peter. And Peter remembered the word of the Lord." Luke 22:61.

His Lord's solemn prediction of his sin he seemed quite to have forgotten. But when that look met his eye, it summoned back to memory the faded recollections of the faithful and tender admonitions that had forewarned him of his fall. There is a tendency, in our fallen minds to forget our sinful departures from God. David's threefold backsliding seemed to have been lost in deep oblivion, until the Lord sent His prophet to recall it to his memory. Christ will bring our forgotten departures to view, not to upbraid or to condemn, but to humble us, and to bring us afresh to the blood of sprinkling. The heart searching look from Christ turns over each leaf in the book of memory; and sins and follies, inconsistencies and departures, there inscribed, but long forgotten, are read and re-read, to the deep sin-loathing and self-abasement of our souls. Ah! let a look of forgiving love penetrate your soul, illuminating memory's dark cell, and how many things, and circumstances, and steps in your past life will you recollect to your deepest humiliation before God. And oh! how much do we need thus to be reminded of our admonitions, our warnings, and our falls, that we may in all our future spirit and conduct "walk humbly with God."

JANUARY 10.

"They took knowledge of them, that they had been with Jesus." Acts 4:13.

We have a right to look for one or more of the moral features of our dear Lord's character in His people. Some resemblance to His image; something that marks the man of God; some lowliness of mind- gentleness of temper- humility of deportment- charity- patience in the endurance of affliction- meekness in the suffering of persecution- forgiveness of injuries- returning good for evil- blessing for cursing- in a word, some portion of "the fruit of the Spirit," which is "love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance." If one or more of these are not "in us and abound, so that they make us that we shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ," and in a resemblance to His likeness, we have great reason to doubt whether we have ever "known the grace of God in truth." That is indeed a melancholy profession in which can be traced nothing that identifies the man with Jesus; nothing in his principles, his motives, his tone of mind, his spirit, his very looks, that reminds one of Christ- that draws the heart to Him, that makes the name of Immanuel fragrant, and that lifts the soul in ardent desires to be like Him too. This is the influence which a believer exerts, who bears about with him a resemblance to his Lord and Master. A holy man is a blessing, go where he may. He is a savor of Christ in every place.

JANUARY 11.

"We have not a high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin." Hebrews 4:15.

See Him bearing our sicknesses and our sorrows; more than this, carrying our iniquities and our sins. Think not that your path is a isolated one. The incarnate God has trodden it before you, and He can give you the clear eye of faith to see His footprint in every step. Jesus can say, and He does say to you, "I know your sorrow; I know what that cross is, for I have carried it. You have not a burden that I did not bear, nor a sorrow that I did not feel, nor a pain that I did not endure, nor a path that I did not tread, nor a tear that did not bedew my eye, nor a cloud that did not shade my spirit, before you, and for you. Is it bodily weakness? I once walked forty miles, to carry the living water to a poor sinner at Samaria. Is it the sorrow of bereavement? I wept at the grave of my friend, although I knew that I was about to recall the loved one back again to life. Is it the frailty and the fickleness of human friendship? I stood by and heard my person denied by lips that once spoke kindly to me; lips now renouncing me with an oath that once vowed affection unto death. Is it straitness of circumstance, the galling sense of dependence? I was no stranger to poverty, and was often nourished and sustained by the charity of others. Is it that you are houseless and friendless? So was I. The foxes have their shelter, and the birds their nests; but I, though Lord of all, had nowhere to lay my head; and often day after day passed away, and no soothing accents of friendship fell upon my ear. Is it the burden of sin? Even that I bore in its accumulated and tremendous weight when I hung accursed upon the tree."

JANUARY 12.

"With You is the fountain of life." Psalm 36:9.

Behold, what a fountain of life is God! All intelligences, from the highest angel in heaven to the lowliest creature on earth, drawing every breath of their existence from Him. "In Him we live, and move, and have our being." But He is more than this to the Church. He is the fountain of love, as well as of life. The spirits of "just men made perfect," and the redeemed on earth, satiate their thirsty souls at the overflowing fullness of the Father's love. How much do we need this truth! What stinted views, unjust conceptions, and wrong interpretations have we cherished of Him, simply because we overlook His character as the Fountain of living waters! We "limit the Holy One of Israel." We judge of Him by our poor, narrow conception of things. We think that He is such a one as we ourselves are. We forget, in our approaches, that we are coming to an Infinite Fountain. That the heavier the demand we make upon God, the more we shall receive, and that the oftener we come, the more are we welcome. That we cannot ask too much. That our sin and His dishonor are, that we ask so little. We forget that He is glorified in giving; and that the more grace He metes out to His people, the richer the revenue of praise which He receives in return. How worthy of such an infinite Fountain of love and grace is His "unspeakable gift." It came from a large heart; and the heart that gave Jesus will withhold no good thing from those who walk uprightly.

JANUARY 13.

And when He (the Comforter) has come, He will reprove (marg. convince) the world of sin." John 16:8.

This is the great office of the Spirit- this is His first work, prior to His bringing the soul to rest on the great sacrifice for sin. Not a step will the soul take to Christ, until that soul has been brought in guilty and condemned by the law of God. And this is the work of the Spirit. "No man," says the excellent Newton, "ever did or ever will feel himself to be a lost, miserable, and hateful sinner, unless he is powerfully and supernaturally convinced by the Spirit of God." And what is the instrument by which the Spirit thus powerfully and supernaturally convinces of sin? We reply, the Law. "By the law is the knowledge of sin." "The law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ." The law, brought into the conscience by the Holy Spirit; condemns the man, and leads him to condemn himself; it holds up to view the holiness of God- the purity and inflexibility of every precept- contrasts it with the unrighteousness, guilt, and misery, of the sinner, and thus prostrates the soul in the dust, exclaiming in all the lowliness of self-accusation, "the law is holy, just, and good- I am guilty, guilty, guilty." Through this instrument- the law of God- and thus effectually, does the Holy Spirit convince the soul of sin, and lay it low before God.

JANUARY 14.

"Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof." Matthew 6:34.

It is a matter of much practical importance, that you take heed not to anticipate or to forestall the promised grace. For every possible circumstance in which you may be placed, the fullness of Christ and the supplies of the covenant are provided. That provision is only meted out as the occasions for whose history it was provided occur. Beware of creating trouble by ante-dating it. Seen through the mist, the advancing object may appear gigantic in size, and terrific in appearance; and yet the trouble you so much dread may never come; or coming, it will assuredly bring with it the "word spoken in due season." In the case of every child of God, calamity never comes alone; it invariably brings Jesus with it.

JANUARY 15.

"Christ is all, and in all." Colossians 3:11.

Anything, even if it be the blessed production of the Eternal Spirit of God, which takes the place of Christ, which shuts out Christ from the soul, is dangerous. In the great work of salvation, Christ must be everything or nothing; from Him solely, from Him entirely, from Him exclusively, must pardon and justification be drawn. Whatever, then, rises between the soul and Christ- whatever would tend to satisfy the soul in His absence- whatever would take His place in the affections, must be surrendered. Is it as the plucking out of a right eye? It must be yielded. Is it as the cutting off of a right hand? Let it go. Christ in his Godhead, Christ in his humanity, Christ in his great and finished work, Christ in his mediatorial fullness, must be all in all to the believer.

JANUARY 16.

"If his children forsake my law, and walk not in my judgments; If they break my statutes, and keep not my commandments; Then will I visit their transgression with the rod, and their iniquity with stripes. Nevertheless my loving-kindness will I not utterly take from him, nor suffer my faithfulness to fail." Psalm 89:30-33

Divine love chastens, because it sees the necessity for the correction. The Lord's love is not a blind affection. It is all-seeing and heart-searching. When has He ever shown Himself blind to the follies of His people? When has His love been ignorant of their sinful departures? Was He blind to the unbelief of Abraham? He chastened him for it. Was He blind to the deception of Jacob? He chastened Him for it. Was He blind to the impatience of Moses? He chastened him for it. Was He blind to the self-applause of Hezekiah? He chastened him for it. Was He blind to the adultery and murder of David? He chastened him for it. Was He blind to the idolatry of Solomon? He chastened him for it. Was He blind to the disobedience of Jonah? He chastened him for it. Was He blind to the self-righteousness of Job? He corrected him for it. Was He blind to the denial of Peter? He rebuked him for it. It is our mercy to know that love marks our iniquity, and that love and not justice, grace and not vengeance, holds the rod and administers the correction. Do you think, O chastened child of the Lord, that your Father would have touched you where your feelings are the acutest, where your anguish is the deepest, had He not seen a real necessity? Had He marked no iniquity, no flaw, no departure, no spot, you would have known what the "kisses of His mouth" were, rather than the strokes of His rod. And yet believe it, for he has declared it, those stripes of His rod are as much the fruit and the expression of His love as are the "kisses of His mouth;" "For whom the Lord loves he chastens."

JANUARY 17.

"And it shall come to pass, that before they call, I will answer: and while they are yet speaking, I will hear. Isaiah 65:24.

Remember, the throne of grace is near at hand. You have not to travel far to reach it: no lengthy and painful journey; no wearisome and mortifying pilgrimage. It is near at hand. Lying down or rising up- going out or coming in- in the streets or in the house- in public or in private- in the chamber or in the sanctuary, God is everywhere; and where He is, there is a prayer-hearing and a prayer-answering God. In a moment, in the greatest emergency, you may lift up your heart to the Lord, and in a moment your cry shall be heard, and your request shall be granted. Remember, the throne of grace is everywhere. On the land and on the sea- at home or abroad- in the publicity of business or in the privacy of retirement, "the eyes of the Lord are upon the righteous, and His ears are open unto their cry." Wherever a believer goes, he bears about with him the intercession of the Spirit below, and he has the consolation of knowing that he has the intercession of Jesus above.

JANUARY 18.

"Mighty to save." Isaiah 63:1.

Let us glance at the authoritative manner with which He executes His mighty acts of grace. Mark His deportment. Was there anything that betrayed the consciousness of an inferior, the submission of a dependant, the weakness of a mortal, or the imperfection of a sinner? Did not the God shine through the man with majestic awe, when to the leper He said, "I will, be clean;"- to the man with the withered hand, "Stretch forth your hand;"- to the blind man, "Receive your sight;"- to the dead man, "I say unto you, Arise;"- and to the tumultuous waves, "Peace, he still"? Dear reader, are you an experimental believer in Jesus? Then this omnipotent Christ is wedded to your best interests. He is omnipotent to save- omnipotent to protect- omnipotent to deliver- omnipotent to subdue all your iniquities, to make you humble, holy, and obedient. All power resides in Him. "It pleased the Father that in Him"- in Him as the Mediator of His Church- "all fullness should dwell." Not a corruption, but He is omnipotent to subdue it: not a temptation, but He is omnipotent to overcome it: not a foe, but He is omnipotent to conquer it: not a fear, but He is omnipotent to quell it. "All power," is His own consoling language, "all power is given unto Me in heaven and in earth."

JANUARY 19.

"We know that we have passed from death unto life." 1 John 3:14

For it is a thing of whose possession the believer may be assured. He can speak of its possession with holy boldness and with humble confidence. The life of God in the soul authenticates itself. It brings with it its own evidence. Is it possible that a believer can be a subject of the quickening grace of the Holy Spirit, and not know it? Possess union with Christ, and not know it? The pardon of sin, and not know it? Communion with God, and not know it? Breathing after holiness, and not know it? Impossible! The life of God in the soul evidences itself by its actings. Are you sensible of your sinfulness? Do you love the atoning blood? Is Jesus precious to your soul? Do you delight in God, and in retirement for communion with Him? Then, for your encouragement we remind you, that these are not the actings of a soul lying in a state of moral death, nor are these the productions of a soil still unregenerate. They proceed from the indwelling life of God, and are the ascendings of that life to God, the Fountain from where it flows. Thus the weakest believer in Jesus may humbly exclaim, "This one thing I know, that whereas I was blind, now I see."

JANUARY 20.

"Partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light." Colossians. 1:12.

The glorified saints are "the saints in light." No more veilings of the Father's countenance- no more "walking in darkness, having no light,"- no more mourning over Divine desertions, the suspensions of the Father's experienced love- no more tears to dim the eye- no more clouds of unbelief to darken the mind- no more mental despondency to enshroud the spirit; they leave the gloom, and the mist, and the fog, and the darkness of ignorance, error, and pollution behind them, and they flee to the regions of light, to "the inheritance of the saints" of which "the Lamb is the light thereof."
But it will be observed, that these glorified saints are said to be "partakers of the inheritance." There is something very emphatic in the word. We are "partakers" of it now, in Christ our Head. In consequence of our union to Christ, the exalted Head of the Church, we are at present "partakers" of this inheritance. We have the first dawnings of it in our soul: the foretaste and the antepast, and, what is best of all, the indwelling of the Spirit, who is the earnest of its possession; and if we have the "earnest" of the inheritance in the possession of the Spirit, we must, and shall assuredly, have the inheritance itself.
"Partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light." "Partakers" with all the saints of God; "partakers" with the whole family of the elect; "partakers" with all the children of adoption; "partakers" with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; with David, and Solomon, and with all who have gone before us, with all who have entered heaven a little in advance; and "partakers" with all the "ransomed of the Lord," who shall yet "come to Zion with songs, and everlasting joy upon their heads, obtaining joy and gladness, their sorrow and their sighing fleeing away!" Oh, who would not be a "partaker of the inheritance of the saints in light"? Reader, if you are a humble possessor of the inner life, you shall be a happy partaker of this glorious inheritance- the life which is to come.

JANUARY 21.

"This also we wish, even your perfection." 2 Cor. 13:9

Seek larger degrees of grace. Let your standard be the loftiest, and your aim the highest. Place no limit to that which God has not limited. Never cease expecting until He ceases giving. If you are satisfied with your present measure of grace, a worse sign you could not have. To be content with being stationary in the divine life places you in a doubtful position. It is an essential property of grace that it grows. It is the immortal seed of God, and must, from its very nature, germinate. If your faith does not increase, your doubts will increase; and if your grace does not strengthen, your fears will strengthen. Fill the measure with pure wheat, as one has said, and there will be no room for chaff. Aim after elevated principles, if you desire elevated practice. Low principles invariably lead to low practice. Watch against that which tends to impair the vigor of your grace. Watch against your besetting sins- your greatest infirmities- your strongest temptations. Beware of your own heart- beware of self-confidence- beware of creature idolatry- beware of the world. Beware, too, of any neglect of the means of grace. God has appointed His channels of conveyance. Beware that you do not despise any one of them. A neglected sanctuary- a forsaken throne of grace- an unread Bible- will soon bring leanness into your soul. God has as much ordained the means of grace, as He has appointed the grace of the means.

JANUARY 22.

"This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners." 1 Timothy 1:15.

He came into the world to save sinners- and He will save you. His compassion inclines Him to save sinners- His power enables Him to save sinners- His promise binds Him to save sinners. And, oh, how easy is it to be saved when the Holy Spirit draws the heart to Christ! It is not great faith, nor deep experience, nor extensive knowledge that are required. The dimmest eye that ever looked to Christ- the feeblest hand that ever took hold of Christ- the most trembling step that ever traveled to Christ, has in it present salvation- has in it life eternal. The smallest measure of real faith will take the soul to heaven. Yes! there is hope for the trembling penitent. Jesus suffered to the uttermost, therefore He is able to "save to the uttermost all that come unto God by Him."

JANUARY 23.

"Christ shall be magnified in my body, whether it be by life or by death." Phil. 1:20.

You shall not lack a Christ when most you need Him. He, who has been with you all your earthly pilgrimage, will be with you in its last step. The Shepherd, who has guided you through the wilderness, will not leave you when just emerging from it into the promised land. The Pilot, who has conducted you across the stormy main, will not resign the government just as the vessel enters the haven of rest. The Captain, who has conquered for and conquered in you, will not leave you when on the eve of the final conflict and the
certain victory. Oh no! Jesus will be with you to the last. Do not be painfully anxious about a dying hour. Let all your solicitude be how you may best glorify Him in your life- He will glorify Himself in your death. All grace, all strength, all glory is laid up for you against that moment. And when it comes, and not until then, will Jesus unlock the treasury and bring it forth. But oh, to live to Him! To be able to say, "To me to live is Christ." Strive for this. Whatever opposes it, take it to His grace, lay it beneath, yes, fasten it to His cross. Oh! let Christ be everything to you in life, then will He be everything to you in death.

JANUARY 24.

"Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief, in departing from the living God." Hebrews 3:12.

Observe to what cause He traces all departure from God- unbelief. This is the sin which, in another place, he exhorts the Christian to "lay aside," as "the sin which does so easily beset us." What is the easy besetting sin of every child of God? Let any believer testify. Ask him to point to his most subtle, constant, powerful, and dangerous foe. Ask him what has the most easy access to his mind; what most entangles his feet, and so impedes him in the race that is set before him; what has most easily and frequently vanquished him; what has brought most distress to his soul, and dishonor to God- and he will unhesitatingly reply, "My evil heart of unbelief." He may have constitutional infirmities, and be assailed by peculiar temptations, and may yield to "presumptuous sins," and these, in secret and close transaction with God, may cause him deep bitterness and humiliation of soul. But the sin which does so easily and so perpetually beset him is the sin of unbelief, the fruitful cause of all other sin. For as faith is the parent of all holiness, so is unbelief the parent of all unholiness.

JANUARY 25.

"In all things it behooved him to be made like unto his brethren." Hebrews 2:17.

Partaking of our nature, nothing that was human was foreign to Him but the sin that tainted and defaced it. Separate from it all that is fallen, exorcize every evil spirit from the soul, expel every low sentiment from the mind, extirpate every selfish feeling from the heart, and let all that remains of our humanity, be its pure affections, its exquisite sensibilities, its refined feelings, its noble purposes, its lofty, generous, and delicate sentiments of sympathy and love, and you have a perfect portrait of our Lord and Savior. Our Lord, as man, was truly and purely human. Entering Himself into every affinity of our nature, He became intimate with each thought and feeling, with each sentiment and emotion, with each sorrow and pang, with each tear, groan, and sigh of our humanity- all, all were His, but its sin. Nor was it essential to the exquisite and perfect tenderness and sympathy of His nature that He should, like us, be sinful. No, this would have but beclouded, blunted, and impaired all the gentle sensibilities and intellectual perceptions of His human soul, as in us it has woefully done. The human susceptibilities which Jesus possessed were all the deeper, richer, and intenser from the very fact of their perfect purity, their entire sinlessness. How perfect, then, must be His love, how tender His compassion, how exquisite His sympathy, since it flows from a humanity all immaculate as His Godhead!

JANUARY 26.

"My times are in your hand." Psalm 31:15.

Let this precious truth divest your mind of all needless, anxious care for the present or the future. Exercising simple faith in God, "Do not be anxious about anything." Learn to be content with your present lot, with God's dealings with, and His disposal of, you. You are just where His providence has, in its inscrutable but all-wise and righteous decision, placed you. It may be a position painful, irksome, trying, but it is right. Oh, yes! it is right. Only aim to glorify Him in it. Wherever you are placed, God has a work for you to do, a purpose through you to be accomplished, in which He blends your happiness with His glory. And, when you have learned the lessons of His love, He will transfer you to another and a wider sphere, for whose nobler duties and higher responsibilities the present is, perhaps, but disciplining and preparing you. Covet, then, to live a life of daily dependence upon God. Oh, it is a sweet and holy life! It saves from many a desponding feeling, from many a corroding care, from many an anxious thought, from many a sleepless night, from many a tearful eye, and from many an imprudent and sinful scheme. Repairing to the "covenant ordered in all things and sure," you may confide children, friends, calling, yourself, to the Lord's care, in the fullest assurance that all their 'times' and yours are in His hand.

JANUARY 27.

"If Christ has not been raised, your faith is vain; you are yet in your sins." 1 Corinthians 15:17.

Here was the grand evidence of the perfection and acceptance of His sacrifice. The atoning work of Jesus was in itself perfect and complete. It was all that God demanded, all that the Church required, and all that law and justice asked. Yet there lacked one proof that this work was accepted by God, and was satisfactory to divine justice. On the cross He had uttered that wondrous cry, which sent gladness through all heaven, and dismay through all hell- "It is finished." But, lo, He dies! The Captain of our salvation is conquered! The promised Victor is vanquished! He is laid in the grave! The stone covers Him! The earth imprisons Him! What proof have we now that He was more than mortal? What evidence that He was God? What divine seal is affixed to the great charter of redemption? What pledge have we that it is complete? What security against the law's loud thunder, and the consuming flames of justice- against the wrath of an offended God, and the condemnation that is to come? In a word, how may we know that all the divine perfections are harmonized in our salvation, and that "whoever believes in Jesus shall not perish, but have everlasting life"? Behold, the Father raises Him from the dead! This is the evidence- this is the seal- this is the pledge- and this is the security. We need even ask no more. It satisfied God; it satisfies us. At that moment all created intelligences were summoned to witness the great and final seal affixed to redemption's perfect work; and while every eye was thus intently bent upon the yielding grave, the Father, in that stupendous act of His power and love, utters His solemn voice, "This is my beloved Son, in whose person I delight, and with whose work I am well satisfied." Oh, what majesty now encircled the rising form of the incarnate God! Never had He appeared so truly a Savior, never so illustrious a Redeemer, and never so perfectly the Mediator and Advocate as now- sealed by God the Father, quickened by God the Spirit, and radiant with the beams of His own divine glory.

JANUARY 28.

"Who was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our justification." Romans 4:25.

Obeying, suffering, and rising as the Representative, the Surety, the Head of His Church, may we not say, that what He did was not so much His own act, as that of the Church in Him? He obeyed not for Himself, nor for Himself did He die and rise again, but for His "body, the Church." His resurrection, therefore, was as much His Church's entire release, discharge, and justification, as it was His own. Then was the glorious sentence of acquittal passed, then transpired the great act of justification. The emerging of the Redeemer from the grave was the emerging of the redeemed from all condemnation. His release from the cold grasp of the destroyer was their release from the iron hand of the law. "He was taken from prison and from judgment," and as He passed out of the court of God's justice, and from the prison-house of death, the Church, purchased with His blood, passed out with Him, legally and fully discharged, exclaiming, as the last barrier yielded and the last fetter broke, "Who is he that condemns? It is Christ who died; yes, rather, who has risen again!" Precious Redeemer! what surpassing glory beams forth from your emptied sepulcher!

JANUARY 29.

"We shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is." 1 John 3:2.

Who can fully tell of all the Redeemer's glory in heaven? Or, were it fully revealed, what power to grasp, what faculties to comprehend, what eye to behold, and what tongue to describe so lofty a theme and so sublime a spectacle as this? But we shall behold it! We, too, shall be glorified. The mind shall be adjusted to the mightiness of the theme, and the eye shall be strengthened for the dazzling magnificence of the spectacle. With every physical and mental and moral faculty perfectly developed and sanctified, we shall be a glorified Church, placed in the presence, and contemplating through eternity the glory, of a glorified Head. We shall behold the Redeemer's glory. "Shall I see the King in His beauty? What! my eye behold His glory?" Yes! if you see beauty in Jesus now, if your eye beholds glory in Immanuel, feeble and dim though the view may be, so surely shall you be with Him where He is, and shall contemplate the ceaseless unfoldings of His unclouded glory, and that through all eternity.

JANUARY 30.

"I have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore with loving-kindness have I drawn you. Jeremiah 31:3.

The law of love is the law of God's moral government of His people. By this, and by this alone, He rules them. All that is disciplinary in His conduct is resolvable into love. It is by kindness, "loving-kindness," yes, "marvelous loving-kindness," that He wins back their truant hearts, and binds them closer to Himself. "I am the Lord, who exercise loving-kindness." Oh, to imitate Him in this particular!- to be like God in His kindness to the children of men. Then would there be less sitting in the judgment-seat; less readiness to cast the first stone; less harshness and censoriousness in our conduct and spirit towards others; and more of that self-judging, self-condemning, and self-abasement, before the holy, heart-searching, all-seeing Lord God, without which we may be awfully deceived.

JANUARY 31.

"Therefore glorify the Lord in the fires, even the name of the Lord God of Israel." Isaiah 24:15

Great is the glory brought to our incarnate God by the sanctified afflictions of His saints. How deep these often are, let many testify; and yet the deeper the affliction, the deeper the glory. Behold the glory brought to God by Daniel in the den of lions; by Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in the fiery furnace; and by Paul and Silas in the prison. And what is their history but a type of all the afflicted members of God's family? The Lord will be glorified in His people: therefore does He afflict, and try, and chasten them. "The Lord tries the righteous." He has His den, His prison, His furnace. He has His own mode, His appointed way, of proving His work in their hearts; and, whether by the lions' den, or the prison, or the furnace, He is glorified in them. To see how Christ can shut the mouth of the lion, and can temper the devouring flame, and can unbar the doors of the prison-house; how glorious thus appears His power! To mark the resigned will, the subdued spirit, the mute submission, the cheerful acquiescence in the deepest affliction- how glorious thus appears His grace! To behold the daily strength imparted, the precious promises applied, the soothing consolation experienced, how glorious thus appears his love! To see the chaff scattered, and the dross consumed, and the mind brought into perfect harmony with God's will; to say with David, " My soul is even as a weaned child," -how glorious thus appears His wisdom! Oh, if these are the blessings which blossom upon the rod, then welcome the rod! If this is the glory brought to the name of Jesus by a process of sanctified affliction, then welcome the affliction! Only see that He is truly glorified in you by it. See that He is glorified, while you are in the furnace, by your passive graces; see that He is glorified, when you have come forth from the furnace, by your active graces. "When he has tried me, I shall come forth as gold."

FEBRUARY 1.

"It is God who justifies." Romans 8:33.

Behold the eternal security of the weakest believer in Jesus. The act of justification, once passed under the great seal of the resurrection of Christ, God can never revoke without denying Himself. Here is our safety. Here is the ground of our dauntless challenge, "Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect? It is God who justifies." What can I need more? What more can I ask? If God, the God of spotless purity, the God of inflexible righteousness, justifies me, "who is he that condemns? " Sin may condemn, but it is God that justifies! The law may alarm, but it is God that justifies! Satan may accuse, but it is God that justifies! Death may terrify, but it is God that justifies! "If GOD is for us, who can be against us?" Who will dare condemn the soul whom He justifies? How gloriously will this truth shine forth in the great day of judgment! Every accuser will then be dumb. Every tongue will then be silent. Nothing shall be laid to the charge of God's elect. GOD Himself shall pronounce them fully, and forever justified: "And those He justifies, He also glorifies."

FEBRUARY 2.

"Who went about doing good." Acts 10:38.

Earnestly would I endeavor to impress upon the reader what Henry Martyn beautifully terms "the pleasure of doing good." Next to direct communion with God, the loftiest and purest source of enjoyment opened to us on earth is found in the expression of human sympathy, in the exercise of Christian benevolence. No selfish pleasure ever brought to the heart the peace, the joy, the happiness which one solitary act of kindness to another did. God is happy in the exercise of His boundless love. Angels are happy in the discharge of their beneficent mission, and man is happy as his affections and sympathies travel forth in quest of objects upon which they may repose. Oh! the luxury of effacing one sorrow from the heart, one shadow from the brow, one tear from the eye. It is in this living for the good of others, especially in seeking their spiritual and eternal happiness, we have found a most powerful means of advancing vital godliness in our own souls. The religion of many of the Lord's people is sickly and feeble, cold and gloomy, just because it is so selfish. Would they be more vigorous in their souls? Would they make greater progress in the divine life? Would they combat more successfully the many doubts and fears that assail them? Would they have a happier, sunnier religion, walking more fully in the light of the Lord's countenance? Then let them be up and doing in their Lord's vineyard. Let them seek the conversion of lost sinners, the comforting of poor saints, the betterment of human misery in some of its many forms, thus, like their Master, going about doing good, and then would be fulfilled in their souls' happy experience the precious promise: "You come to the help of those who gladly do right, who remember your ways."

FEBRUARY 3.

"There remains, then, a rest for the people of God." Hebrews 4:9.

Not yet come to the heavenly rest, we still are approaching it, and, oh ecstatic thought! we shall reach it at last. Everything in our present course reminds us that we are nearing home, as the seaweed washed from the rocks, and as the land-birds venturing from their bowers and floating by the vessel, are indices to the voyager that he is nearing his port. Are you bereaved? Weep not! earth has one tie the less, and heaven has one tie more. Are you impoverished of earthly substance? Grieve not! your imperishable treasure is in heaven. Are you sailing over dark and stormy waters? Fear not! the rising flood but lifts your ark the higher and nearer the mount of perfect safety and endless rest. Are you battling with disease, conscious that life is ebbing and eternity is nearing? Tremble not! there is light and music in your lone and shaded chamber- the dawn and the chimings of your heavenly home. "I am going home! Transporting thought!- True, I leave an earthly one, all so sweet and attractive, but I exchange it for a heavenly one infinitely brighter, more sacred and precious. I am going to Jesus- to the Church Triumphant- to Apostles, Prophets, and Martyrs- to the dear ones who line the shore on the other side, prepared to welcome me there. Death, from which I have so often recoiled, is but the triumphal arch- oh, how bright a risen Christ has made it! -through which I pass into 'my Father's house.'"

FEBRUARY 4.

"Who his own self bore our sins in his own body on the tree," or, to the tree. 1 Peter 2:24.

Blessed announcement! Not the less hateful, nor hated, is the sin because it is forgiven and entirely blotted out. Oh no! Let the Lord touch your heart, Christian reader, with a sense of His pardoning love, with the assurance of His forgiveness, and you will go and hate, and mortify, and forsake it, more resolutely and effectually than ever. And must the Son of God become the Son of man, that those who are by nature children of wrath, might become the sons of God! Must God, the eternal God, the high and lofty One, stoop so low as to become incarnate, and that for sinners; for me, a poor worthless sinner! To save me from eternal woe, must the Son of Man suffer, agonize, and die; die in my stead, die for my sins, die an accursed death! Ah! Lord, what must sin be, what must my sin be! How little have I thought of it, how little have I mourned for it, still less have I hated it as I ought to have hated it! Lord, how vile, how unutterably vile I am! Oh hated sin! Do You forgive it, Father of my mercies? This only makes it more hateful still. Never, never, can I forgive myself.

FEBRUARY 5.

"Without Me you can do nothing." John 15:5.

Oh, that the Church of Christ, and each individual member, would but realize this truth; that simpler, closer, more experimental views of Jesus would essentially strengthen the tone of inward spirituality and comfort! The great secret of all comfort in seasons of affliction is to take the affliction, as it comes, simply to Christ; and the great secret of all holiness is to take the corruption, as it rises, simply to Christ. It is this living upon Christ for all he needs, this going to Christ under all circumstances, and at all seasons, which forms the happy and holy life of a child of God. There is no other path for him to walk in. The moment he turns from Christ he becomes like a vessel loosed from its moorings, and driven at the mercy of the winds from billow to billow. Christ must be all in all to him; friends, domestic comforts, Church privileges, ordinances, means of grace, nothing must suffice for Jesus. And why does the Lord so frequently discipline the soul? Why remove friends, why blight domestic comforts, why rob us of Church privileges, why close up the ordinances, and write death upon the means of grace? Oh, why? but to open a way through which He Himself might enter the believer, and convince that lonely, bereaved, and desolate heart that He is a substitute for everything, while nothing shall ever be a substitute for Him. He will have the supreme affection of His saints; they shall find their all in Him; and to this end He sends afflictions, crosses, and disappointments, but to wean them from their idols and draw them to Himself.

FEBRUARY 6.

"Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God." John 3:3.

Regeneration is a work standing alone and distinct from all the other operations of the Divine Spirit. It is to be carefully distinguished from conversion, adoption, justification, and sanctification; and yet must be regarded as forming the basis and the spring-head of them all. For instance, there can be no conversion without a principle of life in the soul; for conversion is the exercise of a spiritual power implanted in man. There can be no sense of adoption, apart from a renewed nature; for adoption confers the privilege only, not the nature of sons. There can be no comforting sense of acceptance in the Beloved, until the mind has passed from death unto life; nor can there be the smallest advance in a conformity of the will and of the affections to the image of God, while there is lacking in the soul the very root of holiness. Faith is a purifying grace, but faith is only found in the heart "created anew in Christ Jesus." There must necessarily be the spiritual renewal of the whole man, before the soul can pass into an adopted, justified, and sanctified state. Reader, ponder seriously this solemn truth.

FEBRUARY 7.

"When He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth." John 16:13.

New and enlarged views of the Holy Spirit mark a regenerate mind. Having received the Holy Spirit as a quickener, he feels the need of Him now as a teacher, a sanctifier, a comforter, and a sealer. As a teacher, discovering to him more of the hidden evil of the heart, more knowledge of God, of His word, and of His Son. As a sanctifier, carrying forward the work of grace in the soul, impressing more deeply on the heart the Divine image, and bringing every thought and feeling and word into sweet, holy, and filial obedience to the law of Jesus. As a comforter, leading him, in the hour of his deep trial, to Christ; comforting, by unfolding the sympathy and tenderness of Jesus, and the exceeding preciousness and peculiar fitness of the many promises with which the word of truth abounds for the consolation of the Lord's afflicted. As a sealer, impressing upon his heart the sense of pardon, acceptance, and adoption; and entering himself as the "earnest of the inheritance, until the redemption of the purchased possession." Oh! what exalted views does he now have of the blessed and eternal Spirit- of His personal glory, His work, His offices, His influences, His love, tenderness, and faithfulness! The ear is open to the softest whisper of His voice; the heart expands to the gentlest impression of His sealing, sanctifying influence. Remembering that He is "a temple of the Holy Spirit," he desires so to walk- lowly, softly, watchfully, and prayerfully. Avoiding everything that would "grieve the Spirit," resigning every known sin that would dishonor and cause Him to withdraw, the one single aim of his life is to walk so as to please God, that "God in all things may be glorified."

FEBRUARY 8.

"He will rest in his love." Zephaniah 3:17.

The marginal reading of the passage is exceedingly beautiful and expressive: "He will be silent because of His love." Divine wrath is silent, because love has hushed it. Divine justice is silent, because love has satisfied it. Sin is silent, because love has condemned it. Satan is silent, because love has vanquished him. God's love has silenced every voice but its own. When an accusation was brought against a poor sinner in the presence of Jesus, and He was called upon to judge in the case, it is recorded that He "stooped down, and with His finger wrote on the ground, as though He heard them not." He was silent, because of His love! And have we no accusers? Ah, yes! many and just. Conscience accuses, and Satan accuses, and sin accuses, and the world accuses, but Jesus does not accuse; He is silent, because of His love. They condemn loudly, fiercely, justly, but He never condemns. "And again he stooped down and wrote on the ground." Still not a word of condemnation breathed from His lips. He had been wronged, He had been sinned against, His own holy law had been broken, and the witnesses, many and malignant, are there to testify in truth against the sinner- but Jesus is silent, and silent in His love.

FEBRUARY 9.

"This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of God might be glorified thereby." John 11:4

The season of sickness is the schooling of the soul. More of God is unfolded then, and more of his truth is learned, than perhaps in any other circumstances. Oh, how the character, and the perfections, and the government of God become unfolded to his mind by the teachings of the Spirit of truth! His dim views are cleared, his crude ideas are ripened, his erroneous ideas are rectified; he contemplates God in another light, and truth through another medium. But the sweetest effect of all is the personal appropriation of God to his own soul. He can now say, "This God is my God, and is my Father, and is my portion forever,"- words of assurance hitherto strange to his lips. The promises of God were never realized as so precious, the doctrines of grace were never felt to be so establishing, and the precepts were never seen to be so obligatory and so sanctifying as now; blessed results of a hallowed possession of the season of sickness! And what a pruning of this living branch has taken place! What weanedness from the engrossing claims of the earthly calling, from an undue attachment to created good, from the creature, from the world, and what is the greatest weanedness of all, from the wedded idol, self! What humility of mind, what meekness of spirit, and self-renunciation follow! He entered that chamber as a proud man; he leaves it as a little child. He went into it with much of the spirit of a grasping, covetous, worldly-minded professor; he emerges from it with the world under his feet: "Consecration to Christ and Holiness to God", written upon his substance, and engraved upon his brow. He has been near to eternity! He has been looking within the veil! He has been reading his own heart! He has been dealing with Christ! He has seen and felt how solemn a thing it was to approach the gate of death, to enter the presence of God- and from that dreadful point of vision, he has contemplated the world, and life, and human responsibility, as they are; and he has come back like a spirit from another sphere, clothed with all the solemnities of eternity- to live now as one soon in reality to be there. Truly, his sickness was "for the glory of God, that the Son of God might be gloried thereby."

FEBRUARY 10.

"He ever lives to make intercession for them." Hebrews 7:25

How sweet and consolatory to the believer is this view of our exalted Immanuel in the hour of bereavement- when confined to his chamber of solitude, or languishing upon his bed of "pining sickness"! Too deeply absorbed in sorrow, it may be, to give utterance to his anguished spirit in prayer- his bodily frame so weakened by disease, and racked by pain, as to render the mind unfit for close and connected spiritual thought- oh, how sweet is then the intercession of Jesus, to know that, in the hour of the soul's extremity, when human sympathy and power are exhausted, "Jesus has entered into heaven, now to appear in the presence of God" for His suffering child! And, when all utterance has failed on earth- and the heart is broken- and the lips are sealed, then to look up and see our elder Brother- the Brother born for our adversity- the exalted High Priest, waving the golden censer before the throne, while the cloud of His atoning merit goes up before the mercy-seat, bearing as it ascends the person, the name, the circumstances, and the needs of the sufferer below. Precious gospel, that opens to the eye of faith so sweet a prospect as this! When you cannot think of Him, afflicted soul, He is thinking of you- when you cannot pray to Him, He is praying for you, for "He ever lives to make intercession."

FEBRUARY 11.

"Every one that does righteousness is born of him." 1 John 2:29.

Negative holiness- the abstaining from outward sins- does not always describe a regenerate soul; associated with this there must be the positive evidence- "Every one that does righteousness is born of him." Where there is life, there is action, motion, energy. The life of a regenerate man is a life of the highest activity. The principles that influence him are divine and heavenly; their tendency is to holy action. The more we resemble Christ "in righteousness and true holiness," the stronger the evidence to ourselves and to others that we are born again. We possess, professedly, and, if not self-deceived, actually, the life of Christ. That life is holy in its tendency and vigorous in its acting. The renewed soul longs for holiness. He pants for divine conformity. He rests not in the mere longing; he arises and labors for the blessing; he "works out his salvation with fear and trembling." He prayerfully and diligently uses the means the Lord of sanctification has given him for the attainment of holiness; he is active in his pursuit of the blessing.

FEBRUARY 12.

"Whom He did foreknow, He also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of His Son." Romans 8:29.

Here is the glorious pattern of a child of God. Sanctification is a conformity to the image and the example of Christ. The more the believer is growing like Jesus, the more he is growing in holiness. And, on the contrary, the less resemblance there is to Christ in his principles, in the habit of his mind, in his spirit, temper, daily walk, yes, in every action and in every look, the less is he advancing in the great work of holiness. Oh, how many who profess His dear name, and who are expecting to be with Him forever, never pause to consider what resemblance they bear to Him now! And were they to deal faithfully, with conscience in the much- neglected duty of self-examination; were they to bring themselves to this great standard, how far below it would they be found to have come! How much in their principles, in their governing motives, in their temper, spirit, and daily conduct- how much in their walk in the world, in their deportment in the Church, and in their more concealed conduct in their families, would be discovered that was unlike Christ! How much that was "from beneath," how little that was "from above,"- how much of the "image of the earthly," how little of the "image of the heavenly!" But look at the image of our dear Lord- how lowly, how holy it is! Look at His poverty of spirit- lowliness of heart- humility of deportment- tenderness- forgiveness of injuries- self-denial- prayerfulness- zeal for His Father's glory- yearnings for the salvation of men. Oh to be like Jesus! to grow up into Him in all things! this is to "walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing." This is to realize "the will of God, even our sanctification." Let it not then be forgotten, that an advancing believer is one growing in a resemblance and conformity to the image and example of Christ.

FEBRUARY 13.

"The wind blows where it wills, and you hear the sound thereof, but cannot tell where it comes, and where it goes: so is every one that is born of the Spirit." John 3:8.

Mark how striking is the figure. The wind bids defiance to man's governing power. It is as sovereign in its influence as it is irresistible in its strength. We cannot command it, nor can we control it. It is alike out of our power to summon it, as it is to soothe it. It comes, we know not where; it goes, we know not where. "So is every one that is born of the Spirit." We do not say that the Spirit is not resisted- He is resisted, strongly and perseveringly. But He is not overpowered. All the enmity and carnality of the heart rises in direct opposition to Him; but, when bent upon a mission of love, when, in accordance with the eternal purpose, He comes to save, not all the powers on earth or in hell can effectually resist Him. Like the mighty force, He bears down all opposition, sweeps away every barrier, overcomes every difficulty, and the sinner, "made willing in the day of His power," is brought to the feet of Jesus, there meekly and gratefully to sit, "clothed, and in his right mind." Who can withstand the power of the Spirit? Whether He speaks in the "still small voice" of tender, persuasive love, or whether He comes in the "mighty rushing wind" of deep and overwhelming conviction, His influence is quenchless, His power is irresistible. He effectually works in those who believe.
But His operation is as sovereign as it is mighty. He comes to whom He will; He comes when He will; He comes in the mode He will. He blows where He wills; we hear the sound, we see the effects; but how He works, why He works, and why in a particular way He works, He reveals not to mortals. Even so, O blessed and eternal Spirit, for so it seems good in Your sight.

FEBRUARY 14.

"Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins." 1 John 4:10.

"Herein is love!" as though John would say, "and nowhere else but here!" That God should punish the innocent for the guilty- that He should exact the blood of His Son to cancel the guilt of His rebels- that He should lay an infinite weight of wrath on His soul, in order to lay an infinite weight of love on ours- that He should sacrifice His life of priceless value for ours- worthless, forfeited, and doomed- that He should not only give His Son, but should bruise Him, put Him to grief, afflict Him, should make His soul an offerinq for sin- that the 'Lord of Glory' should become a 'man of sorrows', the Lord of Life should die, and the Heir of all things should be "as him that serves." Oh depth of love unfathomable! Oh height of love unsearchable! Oh length and breadth of love unmeasurable! Oh love of God, which passes knowledge!

FEBRUARY 15.

"He that spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with him also freely give us all things?" Romans 8:32.

Look at the cross; behold His precious Gift transfixed to it, and that by His own hand, and for your sins. Then look at your present circumstances, survey your needs, your trials, your chastisements, your bereavements, your heart-sickening, heartbreaking tribulations, and know that God still is love. If He had love strong enough, deep enough, to give you Jesus- to tear Him, as it were, from His bosom, and to transfix Him on yonder accursed tree for your iniquities- has He not love enough to bow His ear to your cry, and His heart to your sorrow? Will He not rescue you from this difficulty, deliver you out of this trouble, shield you in this temptation, supply this need, and support, succour, and comfort you in this grief? Oh yes, He will! doubt it not! The cross of Calvary is a standing pledge- standing until sin and guilt, need and woe, shall be known no more- that God, who "spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, will with Him also freely give us all things" necessary to our good, and promotive of His glory.

FEBRUARY 16.

"I am not alone, because the Father is with Me." John 16:32.

Oh, what words are these! Who can harm you now? What can befall you? When and where can you be alone, if your heavenly Father is with you? He is with you on the ocean; He is with you on the land. He is with you in your exile; He is with you at home. Friends may forsake, and kindred may die, and circumstances may change- but "my Father is with me!" may, still be your solace and your boast. And, oh, to realize the presence of that Father- to walk with God in the absorbing consciousness of His loving eye never removed, of His solemn presence never withdrawn, of His encircling arm never untwined- welcome the solitude, welcome the loneliness, welcome the sorrow, cheered, and sweetened, and sanctified by such a realization as this! "I am not alone, because the Father is with Me."

FEBRUARY 17.

"Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints." Psalm 116:15.

It is solemnly true that there is a "time to die." Ah! affecting thought- a "time to die!" A time when this mortal conflict will be over- when this heart will cease to feel, alike insensible to joy or sorrow- when this head will ache and these eyes will weep no more- best and holiest of all- a time "when this corruptible shall put on incorruption, and this mortal shall put on immortality," and we shall "see Christ as He is, and be like Him." If this be so, then, O Christian, why this anxious, trembling fear? Your time of death, with all its attendant circumstances, is in the Lord's hand. All is appointed and arranged by Him who loves you, and who redeemed you- infinite goodness, wisdom, and faithfulness consulting your highest happiness in each circumstance of your departure. The final sickness cannot come, the "last enemy" cannot strike, until He bids it. All is in His hand. Then calmly, confidingly, leave life's closing scene with Him. You cannot die away from Jesus. Whether your spirit wings its flight at home or abroad, amid strangers or friends, by a lingering process or by a sudden stroke, in brightness or in gloom, Jesus will be with you; and, upheld by His grace, and cheered with His presence, you shall triumphantly exclaim, "Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; for you are with me: your rod and your staff, they comfort me," bearing your dying testimony to the faithfulness of God, and the preciousness of His promises. My time to die is in Your hand, O Lord, and there I calmly leave it.

FEBRUARY 18.

"Looking unto Jesus." Hebrews 12:2.

If Jesus is especially glorified in the faith of His people, let yours be a life of faith in all its minute detail. Live upon Him for spiritual supplies; live upon Him for temporal supplies. Go to Him in dark providences, that you may be kept from sinking: go to Him in bright providences, that you may be kept from falling. Go to Him when the path is rough, that you may walk in it contentedly: go to Him when the path is smooth, that you may walk in it surely. Let your daily history be a traveling to Jesus empty, and a coming from Jesus filled. Keep the truth constantly and prominently before your eye, "The just shall live by faith." If this be so, do not expect that God will ever permit you to live by sight. Bend your whole soul submissively to Him in this matter. Let His will and yours be one. If, in the course of your wilderness journeyings, He has brought you into a great difficulty, yes, to the very margin of the sea, still, at His bidding, "go forward," though it be into that sea. Trust Him to cleave asunder its waters, making a dry passage for your feet, and causing those very waves that threatened to engulf you, now to prove as a cloud canopying you above, and as walls of strength fencing you in on every side.

FEBRUARY 19.

"You know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that, though He was rich, yet for your sakes He became poor, that you through His poverty might be rich." 2 Corinthians 8:9.

How little do we associate our most costly mercies, and even those which we are accustomed to esteem of a more ordinary character (although every mercy is infinitely great), with the abasement of our Lord! How seldom do we trace our happy moments, and hallowed joys, and high delights, and sacred scenes, and precious privileges, to this dark part of His eventful history! And yet all flow to us through this very channel, and, but for this, would never have been ours. When the ocean of His goodness rolls in upon me, wave on wave- when I feel the cheering warmth of creature smiles beaming sweetly and fondly- when I review, one by one, my personal, domestic, and relative mercies- when even the cup of cold water, presented by the hand of Christian kindness, moistens my lips, what is the thought that forces itself upon my mind? "All this springs from the deepest humiliation of my adorable Christ!"
And when I ascend into the higher region of grace, and survey the blessings so richly and so freely bestowed- a rebel subdued- a criminal pardoned- a child adopted- a royal priest anointed- union with Christ- covenant relationship with God- access within the Holy of Holies- conformity to the Divine image- still more deeply am I overwhelmed with the thought, "all this proceeds from the infinite abasement of the incarnate God!"
And when yet higher still I ascend, and, passing from grace to glory, contemplate the heaven of bliss that awaits me- in one moment absent from a body of sin, and present with the Lord- away from a world, beautiful though it is, because God has made it, yet the throne of Satan, the empire of sin, the scene of sorrow, pollution, suffering, and death; and eternally shut in with God, where all is joy, and all is holiness- made perfectly holy, and, consequently, perfectly happy, to sin no more, to sorrow no more, to weep no more, to wander no more, to fall no more- oh, how full of glory then becomes the humiliation of my incarnate Lord! Beloved, when God exalts you, remember it is because your Savior was abased. When your cup is sweet, remember it is because His cup was bitter. When you press your mercy fondly and closely to your heart, remember it is because He pressed His heart to the spear. And when your eye of faith and hope looks forward to the coming glory, oh, do not forget that, because He endured your hell, you shall enjoy His heaven!

FEBRUARY 20.

"You have not as yet come to the rest and to the inheritance which the Lord your God gives you." Deuteronomy 12:9.

It is a richly instructive and deeply sanctifying thought- the futurity of the heavenly rest. When told that we are not as yet come to the rest and to the inheritance which the Lord our God gives us, we are gently reminded that we have each one a niche in life to occupy, a sphere to fill, a mission to perform. The idea of personal responsibility, of individual influence, and of untiring action, instantly starts up before the mind. "Not yet in heaven- then for what am I here? Surely it is for an object in harmony with my intellectual and spiritual being, and worthy of Him who still detains me on earth. It must be that I have something to do, or something to endure, for Christ- an active or a passive part to fill. Lord, what will You have me to do or suffer for You?" Oh, there is a fathomless depth of divine wisdom in the arrangement that keeps us so long out of heaven. The world needs us, and we need the world. It needs us to illumine and sanctify it; we need it as the field of our conflict, and as the school of our graces. We need the world, not as a hermit's cell, but as a vast theater, where before angels and men our Christianity is developed in the achievements of prayer, in the triumphs of faith, in the labors of love, and in the endurance of suffering.

FEBRUARY 21.

"If so be that we suffer with Him." Romans 8:17.

Not as He suffered. Oh, no! there is no curse, no wrath, no hell in the cup of sorrow which we drink. All these ingredients composed His bitter draught. Yet He suffers with us, and permits our afflictions to be called the "afflictions of Christ." He is with you on that bed of sickness; He is with you on that couch of languishing; He is with you in that darkened room; He kneels with you at that coffin; and He weeps with you by the side of that sepulcher. Oh, may it not reconcile us to all the suffering we have ever endured, or may yet be called to endure, to feel the perfect oneness, the presence, the sympathy, the succourings of such a Savior? Who would wish to shun the shame of His cross, the scorn of His name, the lowliness of His kingdom, the self-denial of His religion, allied in the tenderest sympathy at every step with this illustrious Martyr- this Prince of sufferers- this Brother born for adversity?

FEBRUARY 22.

"And this is the confidence that we have in Him, that, if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us: and if we know that He hear us, whatever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we desired of Him." 1 John 5:14, 15.

When we draw near to God, and ask for more love, more zeal, an increase of faith, a reviving of God's work within us, more resemblance to Christ, the subjection of some enemy, the mortification of some evil, the subduing of some iniquity, the pardon of some guilt, more of the spirit of adoption, the sprinkling of the atoning blood, the sweet sense of acceptance, we know and are assured that we ask for those things which are according to the will of God, and which it is in the heart of God fully and freely to bestow. There need be no backwardness here- there need be no restraint here- there may be no misgiving here. The believer may, when pleading for such blessings, spreading out such needs before the Lord, with "boldness enter into the holiest, by the blood of Jesus." He may draw near to God, not standing afar off, but, in the spirit of a child, drawing near to God, he may come with large requests, large desires, hopeful expectations; he may open his mouth wide, because he asks those things which it is glorifying to God to give, which glorify Him when given, and which we know, from His own word, are according to His blessed will to bestow. Oh, the unspeakable encouragement of going to God with a request which we feel assured it is in His heart and according to His will freely to grant!

FEBRUARY 23.

"For this thing I besought the Lord thrice, that it might depart from me." 2 Corinthians 12:8.

When Paul prayed for the removal of the thorn in the flesh, he asked that of God which betrayed a lack of judgment in his estimate of the thing which he petitioned for. Who would have suspected this in the apostle of the Gentiles? But the Lord knew best what was for the good of His dear servant. He saw that, on account of the peculiar revelations that were given him in his visit to glory, the discipline of the covenant was needed to keep him low in the dust. And, when His child petitioned thrice for the removal of the thorn in the flesh, he for a moment overlooked, in the painful nature of the discipline, its needed influence to keep him "walking humbly with God." So that we see even an inspired apostle may ask those things of God, which He may see fit to refuse. We may frequently expect some trial, something to keep us low before God, after a season of peculiar nearness to Him, a manifestation of His loving-kindness to our souls. There is a proneness to rest in self-complacency after close communion with God, that the gentle hand of our Father is needed to screen us from ourselves. It was so with Paul- why may it not be with us? In withholding, however, the thing we ask of Him, we may be assured of this, that He will grant us a perfect equivalent. The Lord saw fit to deny the request of the apostle; but He granted him an equivalent- yes, more than an equivalent, to that which He denied him- He gave him His all-supporting grace. "My grace is suffcient for you." Beloved reader, have you long asked for the removal of some secret, heavy, painful cross? Perhaps you are yet urging your request, and yet the Lord seems not to answer you. And why? Because the request may not be in itself wise. Were He now to remove that cross, He may, in taking away the cross, close up a channel of mercy which you would never cease to regret. Oh, what secret and immense blessing may that painful cross be the means of conveying into your soul!

FEBRUARY 24.

"For I am the Lord, I change not; therefore you sons of Jacob are not consumed." Malachi 3:6.

It is no small attainment to be built up in the faithfulness of God. This forms a stable foundation of comfort for the believing soul. Mutability marks everything outside of God. Look into the Church, into the world, into our families, ourselves, what innumerable changes do we see on every hand! A week, one short day, what alterations does it produce! Yet, in the midst of it all, to repose calmly on the unchangeableness, the faithfulness of God. To know that no alterations of time, no earthly changes, affect His faithfulness to His people. And more than this- no changes in them- no unfaithfulness of theirs, causes the slightest change in God. Once a Father, ever a Father; once a Friend, ever a Friend. His providences may change, His heart cannot. He is a God of unchangeable love. The promise He has given, He will fulfil; the covenant He has made, He will observe; the word that has gone out of His mouth, He will not alter. "He cannot deny Himself." Peace then, tried believer! Are you passing now through the deep waters? Who kept you from sinking when wading through the last?
Who brought you through the last fire? Who supported you under the last cross? Who delivered you out of the last temptation? Was it not God, your covenant God- your faithful, unchangeable God? This God, then, is your God now, and your God forever and ever, and He will be your guide even unto death.

FEBRUARY 25.

"Rest in the Lord, and wait patiently for Him." Psalm 37:7.

It is just this simple, patient waiting upon God in all our straits that certainly and effectually issues in our deliverance. In all circumstances of faith's trial, of prayer's delay, of hope deferred, the most proper and graceful posture of the soul- that which insures the largest revenue of blessing to us and of glory to God- is a patient waiting on the Lord. Although our impatience will not cause God to break His covenant, nor violate His oath, yet a patient waiting will bring down larger and richer blessings. The moral discipline of patience is most costly. It keeps the soul humble, believing, prayerful. The mercy in which it results is all the more prized and precious from the long season of hopeful expectation. It is possible to receive a return too speedily. In our eagerness to grasp the mercy with one hand, we may lose our hold on faith and prayer and God with the other. A patient waiting the Lord's time and mode of appearing in our behalf will tend to check all unworthy and unwise expedients and attempts at self-rescue. An immediate deliverance may be purchased at a price too costly. Its present taste may be sweet, but afterwards it may be bitter- God embittering the blessing that was not sought with a single eye to His glory. God's time, though it tarry, and God's deliverance, though delayed, when it comes proves always to have been the best: " My soul, wait only upon God, for my expectation is from him."

FEBRUARY 26.

"Go, and sin no more." John 8:11.

See how Christ manifests His abhorrence of the sin, while He throws His shield of mercy around the sinner. The Lord does not justify the sinner's transgression, though He justifies the sinner's person. In the great matter of salvation, justification and sanctification, pardon and holiness, are essentially and inseparably united. When the Lord Jesus dismisses a sinner with a sense of acquittal in his conscience, it is ever accompanied with that most affecting of all exhortations, "Sin no more." And as he passes out from the presence of Jesus, pardoned, justified, saved, the Savior's tender, soul-subduing words from that moment seem to vibrate upon his ear every step of his onward way. "Go, admire, and publish abroad the glory of that grace that has done such great things for you. Go, and spread His fame, and with your latest breath dwell upon His name, who, when sin and Satan and conscience accused you, and would have consigned you to eternal woe- then appeared your Friend, your Advocate, and your Savior. Go, and when tempted to wound afresh the bosom that sheltered you, remember Me; from Gethsemane, from Calvary, and from the hallowed spot where I spoke to you, I condemn you not. Go, and sin no more."

FEBRUARY 27.

"With You is the fountain of life." Psalm 36:9.

What a fountain of life is Jesus! The dead, on whose ear falls the sound of His voice, live. There is grace in Christ- quickening, regenerating, life-giving grace; and to whomsoever that grace is imparted, he that was lying cold and inanimate in the valley begins to move, to live, to breathe, and to arise. One touch of Christ, a whisper of His voice, a breath of His Spirit, begets a life in the soul that never dies. What a fountain of life is Jesus! Think of its superabundance . There is a fulness of life in Christ. The grace that is welled in Jesus is as infinite in its source, as it is divine in its nature. An uncreated fulness, it must possess an inexhaustible overabundance. Had the Father deposited this life-giving grace in all the angels in heaven, it had long since been exhausted. Think of the myriads, thirsting for holiness and for happiness, who have knelt and slaked their thirst at this fountain- think of the myriads who have here filled their empty vessels, and have gone away with joy and hope springing high in their minds. Think of the myriads whose sins His blood has washed, whose souls His righteousness has clad, whose corruptions His grace has subdued, and whose sorrows His love has comforted. Think of the iniquities which He has pardoned; of the backslidings which He has healed; of the grief which He has removed; of the tears which He has dried; of the souls which He has saved. Think of the myriads once drinking from the stream below, but who are now drinking from the fountain head in glory. And yet is this fountain as full as ever! Not one hair's breadth has it sunk. Jesus is as full of pardoning grace for the guilty, and of justifying grace for the vile, and of sanctifying grace for the unworthy, as ever. He is full enough to meet the needs of every poor, thirsty, panting soul who ventures near. Oh, what a precious truth is this! Precious, indeed, to him who feels his own insufficiency, poverty, and need. What, reader, is your need? what your sorrow? what your trial? what your infirmity? what your burden? Whatever it may be, repair with it to this fountain of living water, and despair not of a gracious welcome and of an adequate supply. It is a fountain, and a living fountain. It needs no persuasion to flow, for it flows spontaneously; and wherever it flows there is life.

FEBRUARY 28.

"I will give unto him that is athirst of the fountain of the water of life freely." Revelation 21:6.

The grace that is in Christ Jesus must, from its very nature, be unpurchasable. It implies absolute poverty in the creature, and infinite affluence in God. Could it, by any possibility, be purchased, it would cease to be what it now is, the "grace of God." Because it is so great, so rich, and infinite, God has made it as free as the sun, the light, and the air. Nothing can procure it. Tears cannot- convictions cannot- faith cannot- obedience cannot- prayer cannot- yes, not even can the most costly work of God's Spirit in the soul procure a drop of this "living water." God gives it, and He gives it, as the word implies, freely. This is its glory- it is an unpurchasable and a freely bestowed gift. Upon no other terms is it granted. Consequently, no condition of human character, and no case of human guilt, is excluded. The vilest of the vile, the poor insolvent sinner, the needy, the wretched, the penniless; the voice of free grace welcomes to the "living waters." What has kept you so long from this fountain? You have thirsted, and panted, and desired; but still your soul has not been replenished. You have, perhaps, long been seeking the Lord, asking the way, and desiring salvation. Why have you not found Him? You have borne the heavy burden of sin, month after month and year after year, knowing nothing of a sense of pardon, of acceptance, of adoption, of rest. And why? Because you have stumbled at the freeness of the gift. You have expected to receive it as a saint, not seeing that God will only give it to you as a sinner. But hear the word of the Lord: "By grace are you saved;" "Redeemed without money;" "Nothing to pay;" "Whoever will, let him take of the water of life freely." Oh! receive into your heart this truth, and you will be happy. All creation will seem to smile upon you- the heavens will smile- the earth will smile- yes, God himself will smile. Dropping its chain, your emancipated soul will spring into the glorious liberty of the sons of God. What sovereignty, sweetness, and glory will now appear in the very act that forgives all, forgets all, and which introduces you into a new world, redolent of joy and delight!

FEBRUARY 29.

"God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble." Psalm 46:1.

It is one of the most blessed truths of the covenant of grace, that the God of the covenant is a very present help in every time of trouble. Loving His people as He does, dwelling in them by His Spirit, their people and circumstances continually before Him in the person and the intercession of His dear Son, how can He possibly lose sight of them for a single moment? They may, and they often do, lose sight of Him. They, do not, alas! set the Lord always before their face. They do not train and discipline themselves to see Him in every event, circumstance, and incident of life. They are not clear-sighted to recognize, nor prompt to acknowledge, Him in every providence that darkens or lightens upon their way. Were they but right-minded, they, would exclaim of every good and of every evil as it came, "The Lord is in this!" But they are never for an instant out of His heart, out of His thoughts, out of His hands, or out of His eye.
How near to them, too, is the Holy Spirit! Dwelling in and overshadowing them, He is at their side to guide, to uphold, and to cheer; bringing to their memory a precious promise, or writing upon their heart an animating truth, or opening before their eye some endearing glimpse of Jesus, just at the moment it was needed. What a happy, what a favored people are the Lord's! "Happy is he that has the God of Jacob for his help, whose hope is in the Lord his God. Happy is that people that is in such a case: yes, happy is that people whose God is the Lord."

MARCH 1.

"Search the scriptures; for in them you think you have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me." John 5:39

The word of God is full of Christ. He is the Sun of this divine system, the Fountain of its light and beauty. Every doctrine derives its substance from His person, every precept its force from His work, every promise its sweetness from His love. Is it not to be feared, that in the study of the Scriptures it is a much-forgotten truth, that they testify of Jesus? Are they not read, searched, and examined, with a mind too little intent upon adding to its wealth by an increased knowledge of His person, and character, and work? And thus it is we lower the character of the Bible. We may read it as a mere uninspired record; we may study it as a book of human literature. Its antiquity may interest us, its history may inform us, its philosophy may instruct us, its poetry may charm us; and thus, while skimming the surface of this Book of books, the glorious Christ, who is its substance, its subject, its sweetness, its worth- and but for whom there had been no Bible- has been deeply and darkly veiled from the eye.
But it is the office of the blessed and eternal Spirit to unfold, and so to glorify, Jesus in the Word. All that we spiritually and savingly learn of Him, through this revealed medium, is by the sole teaching of the Holy Spirit, opening up this word to the mind. He shows how all the luminous lines of Scripture truth emanate from, return to, and center in, Christ- how all the doctrines set forth the glory of His person, how all the promises are written in His heart's blood, and how all the precepts are embodied in His life.

MARCH 2.

"Open you mine eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of your law." Psalm 119:18

To the question often earnestly propounded- "What is the best method of reading, so as to understand the Scriptures?" I would reply- Read them with the one desire and end of learning more of Christ, and with earnest prayer for the teaching of the Spirit, that Christ may be unfolded in the Word. With this simple method persevered in, you shall not fail to comprehend the mind of the Holy Spirit, in portions which previously may have been unintelligible and obscure. Restrict not yourself to fixed rules, or to human helps. Rely less upon dictionaries, and maps, and annotations. With singleness of aim, with a specific object of research, and with fervent prayer for the Holy Spirit's teaching, "you need not that any man teach you;" but collating Scripture with Scripture, "comparing spiritual things with spiritual," you may fearlessly enter upon the investigation of the greatest mysteries contained in the sacred volume, assured that the Savior, for whose glories and riches you search, will reveal Himself to your eye, "full of grace and truth." Precious Bible! so full of a precious Jesus! How do all its clouds and darkness melt into light and beauty, as He, the Sun of righteousness, rises in noontide glory upon its page! Search it, my reader, with a view of seeing and knowing more of your Redeemer, compared with whom nothing else is worth knowing or making known. Love your Bible, because it testifies of Jesus; because it unfolds a great Savior, an almighty Redeemer; because it reveals the glory of a sin-pardoning God, in the person of Jesus Christ. Aim to unravel Jesus in the types, to grasp Him amid the shadows, to trace Him through the predictions of the prophet, the records of the evangelist, and the letters of the apostles. All speak of, and all lead to, Jesus. "They are they which testify of me."

MARCH 3.

"If you then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sits on the right hand of God. Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth." Col. 3:1-2

To win heaven, the mind must become heavenly; and to be heavenly, it must habituate itself to heavenly things and heavenly pursuits. It is a law of our mental constitution, that the mind assimilates in its tone and habits of thought with the subject which most engrosses its study. Hence it is that we sometimes become men of one idea. Now the contemplation of divine and spiritual themes has a powerful tendency to spiritualize and sanctify the mind. It seems impossible to breathe a heavenly atmosphere, and not be heavenly; to study holy things, and not be holy; to admire the image of Christ, and not resemble Christ; to have frequent communion with Jesus upon the throne, and not catch some stray beam of His glory. And apart from Christ nothing is really pleasant and satisfying to the heavenly mind. Without Him, what a dreary, lonesome wilderness would this be! But with Christ in the heart, and the heart resting in Christ- He in the center of our souls, and our affections and desires centering on Him- the desert loses its solitude and its desolateness. To have the eye resting on Jesus- all our heart-springs in Him- the spirit in frequent excursions where He dwells in light and glory- to lean upon Him and converse with Him as though He were actually walking by our side, sitting at our table, associating with us in our callings- this, this is heavenly-mindedness. Such is the counter-attraction to the "things on the earth,"- the secularizing pursuits, the low-thoughted cares, the carnal enjoyments- which we so deeply need. And this powerful counteracting influence which we possess is a realization of our resurrection with Christ, and His enthronement in glory.

MARCH4.

"Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith." Hebrews 12:2

Be careful of making a savior of faith. There is a danger, and it cannot be too vigilantly guarded against, of substituting the work of the Spirit for the work of Christ; this mistake it is that leads so many of God's saints to look within, instead of outside of themselves, for the evidences of their calling and acceptance; and thus, too, so many are kept, all their spiritual course, walking in a state of bondage and fear, the great question never fully and fairly settled; or, in other words, never quite sure of their sonship. The work of Christ is a great and finished work; it is so glorious that it can admit of no comparison, so complete that it can allow of no addition, and so essential that it can give place to no substitution. Precious as is the work of the Holy Spirit in the heart, and essential as it is to the salvation of the soul, yet he who places it where the work of Jesus ought only to be, deranges the order of the covenant, closes up the legitimate source of evidence, and will assuredly bring distress and uncertainty into his soul. "Righteousness, peace, and joy" are the fruit of a full belief in the Lord Jesus Christ, and he who looks for them away from the cross will meet with disappointment; but they are found in Jesus. He who looks away from himself, from his vileness, guiltiness, emptiness, and poverty, fully, and believingly unto Jesus, shall know what the forgiveness of sin is, and shall experience the love of God shed abroad in his heart.
If, then, your faith is feeble and tried, do not be cast down. Faith does not save you; though it be an instrument of salvation, and, as such, is of vast importance, it is but the instrument. The finished work of Immanuel is the ground of your salvation, yes, it is your salvation itself. Then, make not a savior of your faith; despise it not if it is feeble, exult not in it if it is strong, trample not on it if it is small, deify it not if it is great: such are the extremes to which every believer is exposed. If your faith is feeble and sharply tried, it is no evidence that you are not a believer; but the evidence of your acceptance in the Beloved is to arise from Jesus alone; then let your constant motto be, "looking unto Jesus;" looking to Him just as you are; looking unto Him when faith is feeble; looking unto Him when faith is tried; looking unto Him when faith is declining; yes, looking unto Him when you fear you have no faith. Look up, tried and tempted soul! Jesus is the Author, the Sustainer, and He will become the Finisher of your faith. All you need is in Him; one glimpse, dim though it be, of His cross, one touch, trembling though it be, of His garment, will lift you from your lowest depths, lighten your heaviest burden, gild your darkest prospect, and when you arrive at Jordan's brink, will bear you safely through its swellings, and land you on the sunny and verdant shores of Canaan.

MARCH 5.

"The spirit is life because of righteousness." Romans 8:10.

What are we to understand by the term spirit? Our reply will at once exclude the idea of the Holy Spirit. Of the Third Person of the blessed Trinity it cannot be of whom the apostle speaks. The only remaining interpretation, then, is that which restricts its meaning to the spiritual and immortal part of the believer- the regenerated spirit of man, and not the regenerating Spirit of God. The cheering declaration, then, of the apostle is, that the spiritual and immortal part of our nature is recovered from the curse, renewed and quickened with a divine and heavenly life. If the body is dead because of sin, the spirit is life because of righteousness. The spirit is life- instinct with a new and deathless principle- because Christ is the righteousness of His people. On the broad basis of God's method of justification our spirit lives. In every point of view Christ is identified with our spiritual life. We live a life of justification by Christ- a life of holiness from Christ- a life of faith in Christ- and a life of immortality with Christ. Thus, in all its phases, "Christ is our life." Oh glorious truth! Welcome death- the spirit lives! Welcome the grave- the spirit is beyond it! Death! you can but touch the material fabric- the inner life towers above your reach, hid with Christ in God. Grave! you can but imprison the body- the soul is at home with Jesus. I live, not because of any righteousness which I have wrought, but because Christ is my righteousness. I live on account of the Righteous One- I live in the Righteous One- and I shall live forever with the Righteous One. Thus is the spirit life because of righteousness. Oh, what a glorious immortality unveils to the eye of faith! If through the gloomy portals of death the spirit of the believer must pass, in its transit to eternity, life attends it, and life awaits it, and life crowns it. Animated with a deathless existence, clothed with the robe of a new-born immortality, it bursts from its enthralment, and, smiling back upon death, speeds its way to glory, honor, and endless life. To this life let us look forward. From a life now experienced, let us live for a life so soon to be enjoyed. The body must die. But what of that? the spirit is life. And the life-inspired spirit will come back again, re-enter and re-animate the slumbering dust; and now, remodeled and spiritualized, it will be with Christ and all the saints in the new heaven and the new earth, wherein will dwell righteousness.

MARCH 6.

"Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need." Hebrews 4:16.

The throne of grace is for the needy. It is always a time of need with a child of God. "Without me," says Jesus, "you can do nothing." There is not a moment, but, if he knows his real state, he is in need of something. What a blessing, then, is the throne of grace! It is for the needy. It is for those who are in need- upon whom all other doors are closed, with whom all other resources have failed, who have nowhere else to look, nowhere else to fly. To such is the throne of grace always open. Is it a time of trial with you? then it is a time of need. Take your trial, whatever it be, simply to God. Do not brood over it. Do not cherish it. This will not make it sweeter, or more easy to be borne. But taking it to Jesus will. The very act of taking it will lighten it, and casting it upon His tenderness and sympathy will make it sweet. Is it a time of spiritual darkness with you? then it is a time of need. Take your darkness to the throne of grace, and "in His light" who sits upon it you "shall see light." Is it a time of adverse providences? then it is a time of need. And where can you go for guidance, for direction, for counsel, for light upon the intricacies of the way, but to the God of grace? Is it a time of temporal distress with you? then it is a time of need. Take your temporal cares and necessities to the Lord, for He who is the God of grace is also the God of providence.
Thank the Lord for every errand that takes you to the throne of grace. Whatever it is that sends you to prayer, count it one of your choice blessings. It may be a heavy cross, a painful trial, a pressing need; it may be a broken cistern, a cold look, an unkind expression; yet, if it leads you to prayer, regard it as a mercy sent from God to your soul. Thank God for an errand to Him.

MARCH 7.

"Your will be done on earth, as it is heaven." Matthew 6:10.

The holy Leighton has remarked, that to say from the heart, "your will be done," constitutes the very essence of sanctification. There is much truth in this; more, perhaps, than strikes the mind at the first view. Before conversion, the will, the governing principle of the soul, is the seat of all opposition to God. It rises against God- His government, His law, His providence, His grace, His Son; yes, all that appertains to God, the unrenewed will of man is hostile to. Here lies the depth of man's unholiness. The will is against God; and so long as it refuses to obey Him, the creature must remain unholy. Now, it needs no lengthened argument to show that the will, being renewed by the Holy Spirit, and made to submit to God, in proportion to the degree of its submission must be the holiness of the believer. There could not be perfect holiness in heaven, were there the slightest preponderance of the will of the creature towards itself. The angels and "the spirits of just men made perfect," are supremely holy, because their wills are supremely swallowed up in the will of God. "Your will be done on earth, even as it is in heaven." The will of God is supremely obeyed in heaven, and in this consists the holiness and the felicity of its glorious inhabitants.
Now, in exact proportion as God's will "is done on earth" by the believer, he drinks from the pure fountain of holiness; and as he is enabled, by the grace of Christ, in all things to look up to God with filial love, and to say, "not my will," O my Father, "but your, be done," he attains the very essence of sanctification.

MARCH 8.

"Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus." Philippians 2:5.

What is it to have "the mind that was in Christ"? We answer, it is to be ever aiming after the highest perfection of holiness. It is to have the eye of faith perpetually on Jesus as our model, studying Him closely as our great example, seeking conformity to Him in all things. It is to be regulated in all our conduct by His humble spirit. First, with regard to others, to choose the low place, to acknowledge God in, and to glorify Him for, the grace, gifts, and usefulness bestowed on other saints, and to exemplify in our social communion the self-denying, expansive benevolence of the Gospel, which enjoins the duty of not seeking paramountly our own interests, but to sacrifice all self-gratification, and even honor and advantage, if, by so doing, we may promote the happiness and welfare of others; thus it is to live, not for ourselves, but for God and our fellow men; for "no man lives to himself, and no man dies to himself;" in the spirit of Him, who, on the eve of returning to His glory, took a towel and girded Himself, and washed His disciples' feet, it is to serve the saints in the most lowly acts and offices. Second, it is to exemplify, with regard to ourselves, the same humble spirit which He breathed. It is to be little in our own eyes, to cherish a humble estimate of our gifts, attainments, usefulness, and station- to be meek, gentle, and submissive under rebuke and correction- to "seek not great things for ourselves,"- to court not human praise, watching our hearts with perpetual vigilance and jealousy, lest we thirst for the honor which comes from man, and not "the honor that comes from God only." It is to contribute to the necessities of saints without begrudging, to give to Christ's cause without ostentation, to do good in secret- to seek, in all our works of zeal, and benevolence, and charity, to hide ourselves, that self may be perpetually mortified- in a word, it is to hunger and thirst after righteousness, to be poor in spirit, lowly in mind, to walk humbly with God, and to live to, and labor for, and aim after, the glory of God in all things. This is to have the "mind which was also in Christ Jesus."

MARCH 9.

"God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself." 2 Cor. 5:19.

The great glory of our Immanuel is his essential glory. When our faith can firmly grasp the Deity of our adorable Lord- and on this precious doctrine may it never waver!- there is a corresponding confidence and repose of the mind in each particular of His sacrificial work. Then it is that we talk of Him as a Mediator, and love to view Him as the great Sin-bearer of His people. In vain do we admire His righteousness, or extol His death, if we look not upon Him in the glory which belongs to Him as essentially God. From this truth, as from a fountain of light, beams forth the glory, which sheds its soft halo around His atoning work. Oh, when, in the near view of death, memory summons back the past, and sin in battle array passes before the eye, and we think of the Lord God, the Holy One, into whose dreadful presence we are about to enter, how will every other support sink beneath us but this! And, as the Holy Spirit then glorifies Christ in His essential glory, testifying that the blood and righteousness- the soul's great trust- are of the incarnate God, we shall rise superior to fear, smile at death, and pass in peace and triumph to glory. Yes, reader, we shall be satisfied with nothing short of absolute Deity, when we come to die. And, in proportion as you find this great truth the substance of your life, you will experience it the support of your death.

MARCH 10.

"You are come . . . to the spirits of just men made perfect." Hebrews 12:22, 23.

That the saints will recognize and have communion with each other immediately on their entrance into glory is, we think, clear from these words of the apostle, when enumerating the privileges of the released believers. We indulge, therefore, the fond hope that, should death remove us before the coming of the Lord, we shall meet, know, and have delightful communion with our friends who departed this life in Jesus. But the recognition and the communion must necessarily do not be so perfect and full as when Christ shall appear, and the risen saints shall cluster together around the person and in the kingdom of their Lord; since neither we nor they have attained our state of full knowledge and capacity until that great event take place, and the "blessed hope" is realized. We argue the recognition of the saints from the fact of the perfection of knowledge to which the coming glory will advance us. Our dear Lord reminds His saints that they shall be equal to the angels. They know each other. It would seem impossible, living together for so many years, that they would not. If, then, the saints are equal to them at all, they must be in this sweet privilege. And is it reasonable to suppose that in all other respects our knowledge will be perfected, but in this one particular only? Shall we possess an element of mental power here, which we shall lose in a gradation towards perfection, and, consequently, shall not possess in a higher degree hereafter? Assuredly not. When, therefore, the dead in Christ shall rise at His coming, every intellectual faculty will be enlarged, and not only retaining all our former, but increasing the amount by a larger degree of additional knowledge, we shall "know even as we are known." The perfection of happiness, which glorification implies, involves this blessing. What a rich source of high and holy delight does the communion of saints supply, even in our present state! How it elevates, chastens, expands, and soothes the mind and heart, so much beclouded by care and chafed by sorrow! But heaven will perfect this bliss. Does it not heighten the beauty of the prospect, and strengthen the expectation of the scene?

MARCH 11.

"Them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him." 1 Thes. 4:14

Will it add nothing to the glory of that event, and to the happiness of that moment, when the Son of God descends, and, dissolving the soft slumbers of the holy dead, will reanimate each with its former occupant, that then we shall perfectly recognize those we once knew and loved, and renew the sweet communion, before imperfect and limited, but now complete and eternal? Dry, then, your tears, and cease to mourn, you saints of God. They are "not lost, but gone before." Their spirits live with Jesus. And when He comes, He will bring them with Him, and you shall see and know them with a cloudless sight and a perfect knowledge. The very eyes which once smiled upon you so kindly- the very tongue which spoke to you so comfortingly- the very hands which administered to you so skillfully- the very feet which traveled by your side so faithfully- the very bosom which pillowed you so tenderly- you shall meet again. "The coming of the Lord draws near," and those who "sleep in Jesus will God bring with Him." Let us "comfort one another with these words."
And will it be no additional joy to meet and to know those eminent servants of the Lord whose histories and whose writings stimulated, instructed, and cheered us, shedding light and gladness on our way? Abraham, whose faith had animated us- David, whose experimental psalms had comforted us- Isaiah, whose visions of Jesus had gladdened us- Paul, whose doctrinal epistles had instructed us- John, whose letters of love had subdued us; to gaze upon the "Magdalene " sitting at Jesus' feet- upon the "beggar" reposing in Abraham's bosom- upon the "thief" with Christ in Paradise- oh! will not this add to the happiness of heaven? Will this be no joy, no bliss, no glory? Assuredly it will! At Christ's coming, will not His ministers, too, and those to whom their labors had been useful, meet, know, and rejoice in each other? The pastor and the flock, will there be no certain and permanent reunion? no sweet, and fond, and holy recognition? Shall their union in the Church below exceed, in its beauty and sweetness, their reunion in the Church above? Here it is necessarily mingled with much that is imperfect. Much concealment is connected with their united labors in the vineyard of Christ. They go forth weeping, bearing precious seed, and often are called to their rest before the fruit of their prayers, and tears, and toil appears. Here, too, seasons of sickness and of separation frequently transpire, enshrouding the spirit with gloom, and wringing the heart with anguish. And then, at last, death itself rudely breaks the tender bond, lays the standard-bearer low, leaving the affectionate flock to gaze with streaming eye upon the lessening spirit of their pastor as it ascends and towers away to glory. But the coming of Jesus, with all His saints, will restore this happy union, invest it with new and richer glory, and place it upon a permanent, yes, everlasting basis. "For what is our hope, or joy, or crown of rejoicing? Are not even you in the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ at His coming? For you are our glory and joy." Yes, beloved, we shall know each other again, altered and glorified though we may be.

MARCH 12.

"Let me fall now into the hand of the Lord; for very great are his mercies: but let me not fall into the hand of man." 1 Chron. 21:13.

Well did the trembling king of Israel so exclaim, when with an air of tender faithfulness the prophet placed before him the choice of those evils which should mark his sin. Every point of light in which his decision can be viewed justifies both its wisdom and its holiness. It was wise: he knew that the Lord was his God; as such, He had long been wont to deal with him in transactions the most solemn and confiding, and thus, from knowledge and experience, he felt he could now safely trust in Him. It was holy: he saw that God was most righteous in punishing his sin, and that in meekly submitting to that punishment which came more immediately from the Lord, he was sympathizing with the equity of the divine government, and was upholding the character of the "Judge of all the earth" as "most upright.
Guided by these considerations, he would rather fall into the hands of the Lord, uplifted though they were to scourge. Who has not made this prayer his own, and breathed it at the footstool of mercy? The "tender mercies of the wicked are cruel," but the severest corrections of our Father are love. To be smitten by God is infinitely better to the believer than to be blest by man. The creature's affection often brings with it a snare; and the honor which comes from man tends to nourish the corrupt principle of depraved self. But whatever, in the experience of a child of God, that may be which comes more directly from the Lord, it brings with it its concealed but its certain and often unutterable blessing. Oh, how safe are we in the Lord's hands! Though He frown, we yet may love. Though He scourge, we yet may cling. Though He slay, we yet may trust. "I will cause you to pass under the rod, and I will bring you into the bond of the covenant." With such an issue, welcome the discipline that leads to it. "Let me fall into the hand of the Lord; for very great are His mercies."

MARCH 13.

"O you of little faith, wherefore did you doubt?" Matthew 14:31.

Doubting faith is not doubtful faith. If the believer has not the faith of assurance, he may have the faith of reliance, and that will take him to heaven. All the doubts and fears that ever harassed a child of God cannot erase his name from the Lamb's book of life, nor take him out of the heart of God, nor shut him out of glory. "Unbelief," says Rutherford, "may perhaps tear the copies of the covenant which Christ has given you; but He still keeps the original in heaven with Himself. Your doubts and fears are no parts of the covenant; neither can they change Christ."
"The doubts and fears of the elect," remarks another, "are overruled by almighty grace to their present and eternal good; as conducing to keep us humble at God's footstool, to endear the merits of Jesus, and to make us feel our weakness and dependence, and to render us watchful unto prayer." Did ever an unregenerate, lifeless soul entertain a doubt or fear of its spiritual condition? Never. Was it ever known anxiously and prayerfully to question or to reason about its eternal state? Never. Do I seek to strengthen your doubts? No; but I wish to strengthen your tried and doubting faith. I would tell you, for your encouragement, that the minutest particle of grace has eternal glory in it, even as the smallest seed virtually contains all that proceeds from it- the blade, the ear, and the full corn in the ear. Faint not, nor be discouraged in your trial of faith. There is not a sweeter way to heaven than along the path of free grace, paved with hard
trials. It was the way which He trod who was "full of grace." Rich though He was in grace, yet see how deeply He was tried. Think not, then, that your sore trials are signs of a graceless state. Oh no! The most gracious saints have been the most tried saints. But do not rest here. There is still richer, surer comfort for you- even the fulness of grace that is in Jesus- grace, ever flowing, and yet ever full. Disclose to Him your doubts and fears. Tell Him you desire Him above all good. Plunge into the sea of His fulness; and He, who has created in your soul a thirst for grace, will assuredly and bountifully give you the grace for which you thirst.

MARCH 14.

"I will make an everlasting covenant with you, even the sure mercies of David." Isaiah 55. 3.

God had promised David that he would sit upon the throne of his fathers- that the kingdom of Israel, rent from Saul, should be transferred to his government. But the crown and the scepter thus promised loomed in the distance, almost enshrouded from view by dark intervening clouds. The promise seemed as a dead letter. The providence of God appeared to clash with and to contradict the promise of God. But, in the history of His Church, the providences of the divine government are not the exponents of the promises of the Divine Governor. It is not so much by what God does, as by what God has said, that He is to be judged. Christian mourner, in the divine promises you have an equal proprietorship. They are as much yours as they were David's, of whose "sure mercies" you are the possessor. These promises are exceedingly great and precious in their nature- they are personal and particular in their application- they are absolute and infallible in their fulfilment. Death may appear to be written upon the promise, and upon all the means leading to its accomplishment, but there is a life in the promise that cannot die. See how God wrote the sentence of death upon the promise, as in the case of the age of Abraham- the sterility of Sarah- the abduction of Joseph- the demand for Benjamin- the banishment of David; and yet, in all the instances, the word upon which God caused those waiting souls to hope was made good to the letter; and the promise that appeared dead rose again with a life, all the more vigorous and glorious from its long and gloomy entombment. It is the believer's mercy to know that he has to do with a Divine Promiser, whose faithfulness has been proved, and with a promise whose power has been tested. There is not a promise with which the Holy Spirit the Comforter seeks to support and console you, but has passed through the crucible, and has been "tried as silver is tried." "The word of the Lord is tried." And if it be a fearful sin to doubt what God has declared, it is a tenfold aggravation of that sin not to believe, when a thousand times over He has made good what He has promised, and when a great cloud of witnesses testify that He has never once falsified His word.

MARCH 15.

"Trust in the Lord with all your heart; and lean not unto your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct your paths." Proverbs 3:5-6

The constant exercise of prayer makes every burden light, and smooths every rugged step of a child of God: it is this only that keeps down his trials; not that he is ever exempt from them- no, it is "through much tribulation that he is to enter the kingdom;"- he is a disciple of the cross, his religion is that of the cross, he is a follower of Him who died upon the cross, and entire exemption from the cross he never expects until he passes to the possession of the crown. But he may pray down his crosses: prayer will lessen their number, and will mitigate their severity. The man whose walk is far from God, whose frame is cold, and worldly, and careless, if he be a true child of the covenant, one of the Lord's family, may expect crosses and trials to increase upon every step he advances towards the kingdom. Ah! little do many of the tried, afflicted, and constantly disappointed believers think how closely related are these very trials, and afflictions, and disappointments, to their restraining of prayer before God; every step seems attended with some new cross- every scheme is blasted by some adverse wind- every effort is foiled- disappointment follows disappointment, wave attends upon wave- nothing they attempt prospers, all they enter upon fails, and everything seems against them. Oh, could we pass behind the scene, what should we discover? a deserted throne of grace! Were we to divulge the secret, and place it in the form of a charge against the believer, what would it be? "You have restrained prayer before God!" The scheme was framed without prayer; the enterprise was entered upon without prayer; the effort was made without prayer- God has blown upon it, and all has come to nothing. No marvel- God was not consulted- the Lord was not acknowledged, His permission was not asked, His wisdom was not sought, His blessing was not craved; and so He blew upon it all! The precious injunction is- "In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct your paths." Where this is honored, there is the divine blessing; where it is slighted, there is the divine curse.

MARCH 16.

"He shall glorify me." John 16:14.

One essential and important office of the Spirit is to glorify Christ. And how does He most glorify Christ, but by exalting His atoning work, giving to it the preeminence, the importance, and the glory it demands; leading the sinner, whom He has first convinced of sin, to accept of Jesus as a willing, an all-sufficient Savior; to cast away all trust in self, all reliance upon a covenant of works, which is but a covenant of death, and thus going entirely outside of himself, to take up his rest in the blood and righteousness of Immanuel, the God-man Mediator. Oh, what sweet, holy delight must it be to the Spirit of God when a poor sinner, in all his conscious nothingness, is led to build upon Jesus, the "tried stone, the precious corner-stone, the sure foundation!"
Let the reader, then, imagine how grieving it must be to the Spirit, when there is any resting in His work in the soul, either for acceptance, or for comfort, or for peace, or for strength, or even for evidence of a state of grace, and not solely and entirely in the atoning work which Jesus has wrought out for the redemption of sinners. The work of the Spirit and the work of Christ, though they form parts of one glorious whole, are yet distinct, and to be distinguished in the economy, of grace and in the salvation of a sinner. It is the work of Jesus alone, His perfect obedience to the broken law of God, and His sacrificial death as a satisfaction to divine justice, that forms the ground of a sinner's acceptance with God- the source of his pardon, justification, and peace. The work of the Spirit is not to atone, but to reveal the atonement; not to obey, but to make known the obedience; not to pardon and justify, but to bring the convinced, awakened, penitent soul to receive the pardon, and embrace the justification already provided in the work of Jesus. Now, if there is any substitution of the Spirit's work for Christ's work- any undue, unauthorized leaning upon the work within, instead of the work outside of the believer, there is a dishonor done to Christ, and a consequent grieving of the Holy Spirit of God. It cannot be pleasing to the Spirit to find Himself a substitute for Christ; and yet this is the sin which so many are constantly falling into. If I look to convictions of sin within me, to any motion of the indwelling Spirit, to any part of His work, as the legitimate source of healing, of comfort, or of evidence, I turn my back upon Christ, I remove my eye from the cross, and slight His great atoning work; I make a Christ of the Spirit! I make a Savior of the Holy Spirit! I convert His work into an atoning work, and draw the evidence and the consolation of my pardon and acceptance from what He has done, and not from what Jesus has done! Oh, is not this, again we ask, dishonoring to Christ, and grieving to the Holy Spirit of God? Do not think that we undervalue the Spirit's work- great and precious is it. Viewed as a Quickener- as an Indweller- as a Sanctifier- as a Sealer- as a Witness- as a Comforter- as the Author of prayer- His person cannot be too ardently loved, nor can His work be too highly prized; but the love we bear Him, and the honor we give Him, must not be at the expense of the honor and glory and love due to the Lord Jesus Christ, whom it is His office and His delight to glorify. The crown of redemption must be placed upon the head of Jesus; He alone is worthy to wear it- He alone has a right to wear it. "You have redeemed us by Your blood," is the song they sing in glory; and "You shall wear the crown," should be the song echoed back from the redeemed on earth.

MARCH 17.

"And the same day Pilate and Herod were made friends together; for before they were at enmity between themselves." Luke 13:12.

How striking and solemn the instruction conveyed in this incident! Pilate and Herod, standing in the attitude of the deadliest hate to each other, are now made friends! And what strange but mighty power has thus suddenly subdued their animosity, and turned their hatred into love? What mystic chain has drawn and bound together these hostile rulers? Their mutual and deep enmity against Jesus! Believers in Christ! are the enemies of our glorious Redeemer, inspired by a natural and kindred feeling of hatred, induced to forget their private quarrels, and merge their differences in one common confederation to crush the Son of God, the object of their mutual hostility; and shall not the friends of the Redeemer, constrained by that divine principle of love which dwells in the hearts of all who are born of God, quench their heart-burnings, bury their antipathies, and draw more closely together in one holy, vigorous, and determined alliance to exalt the Son of God, the glorious and precious Object of their mutual affection? Oh, if Jesus is the bond of union to those who hate Him, how much more should He be the bond of union to those who love Him! Beneath His cross how should all unholy jealousy and bitterness, and wrath and anger, and clamor and all uncharitableness, be mourned over, confessed, abhorred, and renounced by the children of the one family; and how should all who love the Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity be unhesitatingly and cordially recognized as such, thus "endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace."

MARCH 18.

"I John, who also am your brother, and companion in tribulation, and in the kingdom and patience of Jesus Christ, was in the isle that is called Patmos, for the word of God, and for the testimony of Jesus Christ. I was in the Spirit on the Lord's day." Rev. 1:9-10.

Our adorable Immanuel frequently reveals the most brilliant beams of His glory in seasons of the most painful trial and deepest gloom. The dark providential dispensations of God often bring out in richer radiance the glories of His beloved Son, as the darkness of night reveals more distinctly and brightly the existence and beauty of the heavenly bodies. For the manifestation of this remarkable revelation of His risen glory to His servant, our Lord selects precisely such an occasion- an occasion which, to the eye of reason, would appear the most unfavorable and improbable; but to faith's eye, ranging beyond second causes, the most appropriate for such a revelation of Jesus. The emperor Domitian, though not released from his fearful responsibility for the act, was but the instrument of executing the eternal purpose of grace and love. God's hand was moving, and moving too, as it often does, in the "thick darkness." Exiled as John was by this Roman emperor to a desolate island of the Aegean Sea, "for the word of God, and for the testimony of Jesus Christ," the Redeemer was but preparing the way for the revelation of those visions of glory, than which, none more sublime or more precious ever broke upon the eye of mortal man. God was not only placing His beloved servant in a right posture to behold them, but was also most wisely and graciously training and disciplining His mind spiritually and humbly to receive them.
But mark how this dark and trying incident was making for the good of this holy exile. Banished though he was from the saints, from society, and from all means of grace, man could not banish him from the presence of God; nor persecution separate him from the love of Christ. Patmos, to his view, became resplendent with the glory of a risen Savior- a reconciled God and Father was his Sanctuary- the Holy Spirit, the Comforter, overshadowed him- and the Lord's day, already so hallowed and precious to him in its association with the resurrection of the Lord, broke upon him with unwonted effulgence, sanctity, and joy. Oh, how richly favored was this beloved disciple! Great as had been his previous privileges- journeying with Christ, beholding His miracles, hanging on His lips, reposing on His bosom- yet never had he been so privileged- never had he learned so much of Jesus, nor had seen so much of His glory, nor had drunk so deeply of His love, nor had experienced so richly His unutterable tenderness, gentleness, and sympathy; and never had he spent such a Lord's day as now, the solitary in habitant of an isolated isle though he was. Oh, where is there a spot which Jesus cannot irradiate with His glory; where is there solitude which He cannot sweeten with His presence; where is there suffering, privation, and loss, which He cannot more than recompense by His sustaining grace and soothing love; and where is there a trembling and prostrate soul, which His "right hand" cannot lift up and soothe? This, then, was the occasion on which the Lord appeared in so glorious a form, with such soothing words and sublime revelations, to His beloved servant.

MARCH 19.

"And he led them out as far as to Bethany, and he lifted up his hands, and blessed them." Luke 24:50

Let us approach the spot where the Redeemer ascended. It was from Mount Olivet, near to Bethany; so that the two accounts of Christ's ascension recorded by Luke, the one in his Gospel, and the other in his Acts of the Apostles, 1:12, perfectly, agree. How full of great, and holy, and solemn, yes, awful, associations would be that spot to Jesus! It was no strange, unfamiliar, untrodden ground to Him. At the foot of that mount, from whose summit He entered into glory, He had been wont to resort with His disciples for holy meditation and prayer. There, too, His sufferings commenced. There He endured the fearful conflict, when His soul was "exceeding sorrowful, even unto death." It was there, prostrate in the dust, the cup of trembling in His hand, the sweat of blood falling to the ground, He thrice poured out His soul in that touching prayer- "O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me: nevertheless, not as I will, but as You will." Yes, it was from Mount Olivet, the scene of His deep mental agony, and near to Bethany (which signifies the house of affliction), our blessed Lord took His flight to His Father and His God, to enjoy His presence forever, and to drink deeply and eternally of the pleasures which are at His right hand. And so will it be with all His members. As if to heighten, by contrast with the sufferings of earth, the glories of heaven- as if to give a deeper melody to their song, and a richer sweetness to their joy, and a higher character to their ecstasy, and a profounder sense of the grace that brought them there, it often pleases the Lord that affliction, in various forms, should throw its deepest gloom around the path of the children of God, when just on the eve of translation to glory. And when, in anticipation of a smooth descent and a cloudless sunset, they have said, with Job, "I shall die in my nest," God their Father has seemed to have reserved the bitter dregs of affliction's cup for the dying lips; and, like Jacob, they have been constrained to anticipate that with sorrow their grey hairs will be brought down to the grave. Thus, through much tribulation they enter the kingdom; out of the house of affliction, and, as it were, from Mount Olivet, they ascend to Mount Zion, borne up as in a chariot of fire. Be it so; "He does all things well." Compared with the sufferings of Jesus, it is, in its heaviest form, but a "light affliction;" and measured with an eternity of bliss, in its longest duration, is but "for a moment."

MARCH 20.

"And it came to pass, while he blessed them, he was parted from them, and carried up into heaven." Luke 24:51

How touching and instructive was the parting interview! Oh, how worthy of Himself was this His final blessing! How harmonious with every previous act of His life was this its closing one! Blessing to the last, and while with outstretched hands that blessing was yet breathing from His lips, "received up into glory." Oh, how full of grace and love is our adorable Immanuel! What a heart of overflowing tenderness and blessing is His! Knowing this, knowing it from observation and from experience, supported by the innumerable proofs which crowd every page of the New Testament, is it not a marvel that we should seek our blessing from any other source than Jesus, or that we should breathe our sighs, or pour our sorrows, or repose our aching head, on any other bosom than His? Ah! our acquaintance with Him- our best, our dearest, our most loving Friend- is so limited, we walk with Him so coldly, we follow Him so distantly, we believe in Him so feebly; the greatest wonder is; that in the midst of all, His patience forbearance, tender and unchangeable love, towards us should still be so unwearied and so great.
But who can describe the parting interview and the last blessing? Clustering around Him a lonely timid band, saddened as they must have been by the thought that they were about to separate forever on earth from Him whom they loved- as many of them afterwards proved- better than life itself- to whom they had been wont to look for guidance, on whom they had leaned for strength, and to the shelter of whose bosom they had fled in danger and in sorrow, they needed His blessing- they needed that which none but Jesus could give to them. They were oppressed, and He only could undertake for them. They were in sorrow, and He only could comfort them. They were tried and perplexed, and He only could sustain and counsel them. And what, may we suppose, would that blessing contain, which He now breathed over them? The richer anointing of the Spirit to fit them for their work- a larger measure of grace to shield them in temptation, and to uphold them in trial- increased light in the understanding respecting the spiritual nature of His kingdom, and the meaning of the Holy Scriptures of truth; and- what to them, at that moment, would be of unspeakable preciousness- a deeper discovery of His own pardoning love, a fuller assurance of their personal acceptance in Himself, and a richer bestowment of the "peace of God, which passes all understanding." Thus blessing, He was "parted from them, and carried up into heaven," to intercede for them there; and thus blessed, "they worshiped Him, and returned to Jerusalem with great joy," to spread the fragrance and to manifest the power of His name through all the world.

MARCH 21.

"It is I; do not be afraid." John 6:20.

Imagine yourself threading your way along a most difficult and perilous path, every step of which is attended with pain and jeopardy, and is taken with hesitancy and doubt. Unknown to you and unseen, there is one hovering each moment around you, checking each false step, and guiding each doubtful one; soothing each sorrow, and supplying each need. All is calm and silent. Not a sound is heard, not a movement is seen; and yet, to your amazement, just at the critical moment the needed support comes- you know not from where, you know not from whom. This is no picture of fancy. Are you a child of God, retracing your steps back to Paradise by an intricate and a perilous way? Jesus is near to you at each moment, unseen and often unknown. You have at times stood speechless with awe at the strange interposition, on your behalf, of providence and of grace. No visible sign betokened the source of your help. There was no echo of footfall at your side, nor flitting of shadow across your path. No law of nature was altered or suspended, the sun did not stand still, nor did the heavens open; and yet deliverance, strange and effectual deliverance, came at a moment most unexpected, yet most needed. It was Jesus, your Redeemer, your Brother, your Shepherd, and your Guide. He it was who, hovering round you, unknown and unobserved, kept you as the apple of His eye, and sheltered you in the hollow of His hand. It was He who armed you with courage for the fight, who poured strength into your spirit, and grace into your heart, when the full weight of calamity pressed upon them. Thus has He always been to His saints. The incident of the disciples in the storm presents a striking instance of this. Behold Him standing upon the shore, eyeing, with riveted gaze, the little boat as it struggled amid the sea. They were often invisible to human eye, but not a moment were they lost to His. Not even when in the mount alone in prayer, were they forgotten or unobserved. He beheld from thence their peril, He knew their fears, and He hastened to their support. Stepping from the shore, He approached them. Oh how majestic did His form now appear- walking like a man; and upon the water, like a God! They did not realize that it was Jesus, and were afraid. But their knowledge of Him was not necessary to their safety. It was enough that He knew them. And just as the storm was at its height, and their fears rose with their peril, He drew near and said, in His own gentle, soothing tone, unto them, "It is I; do not be afraid."

MARCH 22.

"One God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all." Ephesians 4:6.

All who? -the one Church of God. One covenant God and Father unites the one family in heaven and in earth. They are one in His choice, one in His purpose, one in His covenant, one in His heart. The same will chose them- the same affection loved them- the same decree predestinated them: they are one in Him. Blessed truth! "One God and Father." Behold them clustering together around the mercy-seat: they come from various parts of the world, they speak different languages, they express opposite feelings, they unfold needs and sorrows; yet listen! they all address Him as "Our Father." Every heart bows in love to Him, every heart is fixed in faith upon Him, and every tongue breathes the lofty, and endearing, and holy name of "Abba, Father." There, in the glowing light amid which the throne of mercy, stands, all sectarian feeling dies, all denominational distinction is lost, and Christians of every name meet, and embrace, and love as brethren. Holy thought! One God loves all, and protects all; one Father pities all, supplies all, bears with all, and, with an impartial affection, binds all together and alike in His heart.

MARCH 23.

"One Lord." Ephesians 4:5.

The Church is also one in the Son- "There is one Lord." The Lord Jesus is the one Head, as He is the one Foundation, of the Church. All believers are chosen in Christ, blessed in Christ, saved in Christ, preserved in Christ, and in Christ will be glorified. The work of Christ is the one resting-place of their souls. They rely for pardon upon the same blood, for acceptance upon the same righteousness, and for sanctification upon the same grace. One in Christ, all other differences and distinctions are merged and forgotten: "There is neither Jew nor Greek; there is neither bond nor free; there is neither male nor female for you are all one in Christ Jesus." Blessed truth! the "righteousness of God, which is unto all and upon all those who believe," imparts the same completeness to all believers in Christ. Upon the breastplate of the great High Priest, now within the veil, every, name is alike written- not a sectarian appellation dims the luster of the "Urim and the Thummin," in whose glowing light the names of all the saints are alike enshrined. What a uniting truth is this! Jesus is the one Head of life, light, and love, to all His saints. He carried the transgression of all- He bore the curse of all- He endured the hell of all- He pardons the sin of all- He supplies the need of all- He soothes the sorrows of all, and He lives and intercedes for all. To Him all alike repair, it is true, with different degrees of knowledge and of faith, and from different points; yet, to Jesus, as to one Savior, one Brother, one Lord, they all alike come. Oh! what a cementing principle is this! The body of Christ- the purchase of the same blood, loved with the same affection, and in heaven represented by the same Advocate, and soon, oh, how soon, to be "gloried together" with Him. What love, then, ought I to bear towards Him whom Jesus has so loved! How can I feel coldly, to, or look unkindly at, or speak uncharitably of, one whom Jesus has redeemed with the same precious blood, and whom He carries each moment in the same loving heart?

MARCH 24.

"By one Spirit are we all baptized into one body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether we be bond or free; and have been all made to drink into one Spirit." 1 Cor. 12:13.

The Church of God is equally one in the Holy Spirit. One Spirit regenerating all, fashioning all, teaching all, sealing all, comforting all, and dwelling in all. Degrees of grace and "diversities of gifts" there are, "but the same Spirit." That same Spirit making all believers partakers of the same divine nature, and then taking up his abode in each, must necessarily assimilate them in every essential quality, and feature, and attribute of the Christian character. Thus, the unity of the Church is an essential and a hidden unity. With all the differences of opinion, and the varieties of ceremonial, and the multiplicity of sects into which she is broken and divided, and which tend greatly to impair her strength, and shade her beauty, she is yet essentially and indivisibly one- her unity consisting, not in a uniformity of judgment, but better far than this, in the "unity of the Spirit." Thus, no individual believer can with truth say that he possesses the Spirit exclusively, boasting himself of what other saints have not; nor can any one section of the Christian Church lay claim to its being the only true Church, and that salvation is found only within its pale. These lofty pretensions, these exclusive claims, this vain-glory and uncharitableness, are all demolished by one lightning touch of truth, even by that blessed declaration, "For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body."

MARCH 25.

"The love of Christ constrains us." 2 Cor. 5:14.

Love is the great influential principle of the gospel. The religion of Jesus is preeminently a religion of motive: it excludes every compulsory principle; it arrays before the mind certain great and powerful motives with which it leads captive the understanding, the will, the affections, and enlists them all in the active service of Christ. Now the law of Christianity is not the law of coercion, but of love. This is the grand lever, the great influential motive, "the love of Christ constrains us." This was the apostle's declaration, and this his governing motive; and the constraining love of Christ is to be the governing motive, the influential principle, of every believer. Apart from the constraining influence of Christ's love in the heart, there cannot possibly be a willing, prompt, and holy obedience to His commandments. A conviction of duty and the influence of fear may sometimes urge forward the soul, but love can only prompt to a loving and holy obedience; and all obedience that springs from an inferior motive is not the obedience that the gospel of Jesus inculcates. The relation in which the believer stands to God, under the new covenant dispensation, is not that of a slave to his master, but of a child to its father. "And because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father." "Wherefore you are no more a servant (a slave), but a son." With this new and spiritual relation, we look for a new and spiritual motive, and we find it in that single but comprehensive word- Love. And thus has our Lord declared it: "If you love me, keep my commandments;" "If a man love me, he will keep my words;" and "he that loves me not, keeps not my sayings." It is, then, only where this love is shed abroad in the heart by the Holy Spirit that we may expect to find the fruit of obedience. Swayed by this divine principle, the believer labors not for life, but from life; not for acceptance, but from acceptance. A holy, self- denying, cross-bearing life, is not the drudgery of a slave, but the filial, loving obedience of a child; it springs from love to the person, and gratitude for the work of Jesus, and is the blessed effect of the spirit of adoption in the heart.
Under the constraining influence of this principle, how easy becomes every cross for Jesus! how light every burden, and how pleasant every yoke! Duties become privileges, difficulties vanish, fears are quelled, shame is humbled, and delay is rebuked.

MARCH 26.

"It is good for me to draw near to God." Psalm 73:28.

The more any object is to us a source of sweet delight and contemplation, the more strongly do we desire its presence, and the more restless are we in its absence. The friend we love we want constantly at our side; the spirit goes out in longings for communion with him; his presence sweetens, his absence embitters every other joy. Precisely true is this of God. He who knows God, who with faith's eye has discovered some of His glory, and, by the power of the Spirit, has felt something of His love, will not be at a loss to distinguish between God's sensible presence and absence in the soul. Some professing people walk so much without communion, without fellowship, without daily, filial, and close communion with God; they are so immersed in the cares, and so lost in the fogs and mists of the world; the fine edge of their spiritual affection is so blunted, and their love so frozen by contact with worldly influences and occupations- and no less so with cold, formal professors- that the Sun of Righteousness may cease to shine upon their soul, and they not know it! God may cease to visit them, and His absence not be felt! He may cease to speak, and the stillness of His voice not awaken an emotion of alarm! Yes, a more strange thing would happen to them if the Lord were suddenly to break in upon their soul with a visit of love, than were He to leave them for weeks and months without any token of His presence. Reader, are you a professing child of God? Content not yourself to live thus; it is a poor, lifeless existence, unworthy of your profession, unworthy of Him whose name you do bear, and unworthy of the glorious destiny towards which you are looking. Thus may a believer test the character of his love. He in whose heart divine affection deepens, increases, and expands, finds God an object of increasing delight and desire, and communion with Him the most costly privilege on earth; he cannot live in the neglect of constant, secret, and close fellowship with his God, his best and most faithful friend.

MARCH 27.

"We walk by faith, not by sight." 2 Cor. 5:7.

This walk of faith takes in all the minute circumstances of every day's history; a walking every step by faith; a looking above trials, above necessities, above perplexities, above improbabilities and impossibilities, above all second causes; and, in the face of difficulties and discouragements, going forward, leaning upon God. If the Lord were to roll the Red Sea before us, and marshal the Egyptians behind us, and thus hemming us in on every side, should yet bid us advance, it would be the duty and the privilege of faith instantly to obey, believing that, before our feet touched the water, God, in our extremity, would divide the sea and take us dry-shod over it. This is the only holy and happy life of a believer; if he for a moment leaves this path and attempts to walk by sight, difficulties will throng around him, troubles will multiply, the smallest trials will become heavy crosses, temptations to depart from the simple and uptight walk will increase in number and power, the heart will sicken at disappointment, the Holy Spirit will be grieved, and God will be dishonored. Let this precious truth ever be before the mind, "We walk by faith, not by sight."

MARCH 28.

"The children of Manasseh could not drive out the inhabitants of those cities; but the Canaanites would dwell in the land." Joshua 17:12.

You will recollect that when the children of Israel took possession of Canaan, although they conquered its inhabitants and took supreme possession and government of the country, yet they could not entirely dispossess the former occupants of the soil. Now, what these Canaanites, these heathenish idolaters, were to the children of Israel, the natural corruptions of the heart are to the called children of God. After all that divine and sovereign mercy has done for the soul, though the inhabitants of the land have been conquered, and the heart has yielded to the power of omnipotent grace, and the "strong man armed" has been deposed, and Jesus has taken the throne, yet the Canaanites still dwell in the land, and we cannot expel them thence. These are the natural corruptions of our fallen nature, the evils of a heart that is but partially renewed, the heathenish lusts and passions and infirmities that formerly were the sole occupants of the soil, and still dwell there, and which we shall never, in the present state, entirely dispossess. But what did the children of Israel do to these Canaanites, whom they could not give out of the cities, but who would dwell in the land? We read in the 13th verse: "Yet it came to pass when the children of Israel were waxen strong, that they put the Canaanites to tribute; but did not utterly drive them out." Now this is what the children of God must do with the spiritual Canaanites that yet dwell in the renewed heart: they cannot be driven out, but they may be put to tribute; they cannot be entirely extirpated, yet they may be brought into complete subjection, and even made to contribute to the spiritual advance of the soul, and to the glory of God. Yes, even these very indwelling and powerful Canaanites, these strong corruptions that war and fight in the renewed soul, may be made subservient to the spiritual benefit of a child of God. Will it not be so, if they lead him to put no confidence in himself, to draw largely from the fulness of grace in Jesus, to repair often to the throne of mercy, to deal much and closely with the atoning blood, to cultivate a watchful, prayerful, tender spirit, and daily and hourly to rejoice in Christ Jesus, having no confidence in the flesh? Thus may the renewed soul- often led to exclaim, "O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?"- through a supply of the Spirit of Christ Jesus, and becoming more thoroughly versed in the are of the holy war, be able to turn the risings of his indwelling sins into occasions of more holy and humble walk with God.

MARCH 29.

"I know, O Lord, that your judgments are right, and that you in faithfulness have afflicted me." Psalm 119:75.

The mark of a vigorous love to God is when the soul justifies God in all His wise and gracious dealings with it; rebels not, murmurs not, repines not, but meekly and silently acquiesces in the dispensation, be it ever so trying. Divine love in the heart, deepening and expanding towards that God from where it springs, will, in the hour of trial, exclaim, "My God has smitten me, but He is my God still, faithful and loving. My Father has chastened me sorely, but He is my Father still, tender and kind. This trying dispensation originated in love, it speaks with the voice of love, it bears with it the message of love, and is sent to draw my heart closer and yet closer to the God of love, from whom it came." Dear reader, are you one of the Lord's afflicted ones? Happy are you if this is the holy and blessed result of His dealings with you. Happy if you hear the voice of love in the rod, winning your lonely and sorrowful heart to the God from whom it came. But when love to God has declined, the reverse of this is the state of a tried and afflicted believer; and hard thoughts of God in His dispensations may be regarded as an undeniable symptom of such declension.

MARCH 30.

"Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus." Hebrews 10:19.

In all true prayer great stress should be laid on the blood of Jesus; perhaps no evidence distinguishes a declension in the power and spirituality of prayer more strongly than an overlooking of this. Where the atoning blood is kept out of view, not recognized, not pleaded, not made the grand plea, there is a deficiency of power in prayer. Words are nothing, fluency of expression nothing, niceties of language and brilliancy of thought nothing, and even apparent fervor nothing, where the blood of Christ- the new and the living way of access to God, the grand plea that moves Omnipotence, that gives admission within the holy of holies- is slighted, undervalued, and not made the groundwork of every petition. Oh, how much is this overlooked in our prayers, how is the atoning blood of Immanuel slighted! How little mention we hear of it in the sanctuary, in the pulpit, in the social circle! whereas it is this that makes prayer what it is with God. All prayer is acceptable with God, and only so, as it comes up perfumed with the blood of Christ; all prayer is answered as it urges the blood of Christ as its plea; it is the blood of Christ that satisfies justice, and meets all the demands of the law against us; it is the blood of Christ that purchases and brings down every blessing into the soul; it is the blood of Christ that sues for the fulfilment of His last will and testament, every precious legacy of which comes to us solely on account of His death; this it is, too, that gives us boldness at the throne of grace. How can a poor sinner dare approach with out this? How can he look up, how can he ask, how can he present himself before a holy God, but as he brings in the hand of faith the precious blood of Jesus? Outside of Christ, God can hold no communication with us; all communion is suspended, every avenue of approach is closed, all blessing is withheld. God has crowned His dearly beloved Son, and He will have us crown Him too; and never do we place a brighter crown upon His blessed head, than when we plead His finished righteousness as the ground of our acceptance, and His atoning blood as our great argument for the bestowment of all blessing with God. If, then, dear reader, you feel yourself to be a poor, vile, unholy sinner; if a backslider, whose feet have wandered from the Lord, in whose soul the spirit of prayer has declined, and yet still feel some secret longing to return, and dare not, because so vile, so unholy, so backsliding; yet you may return, "having boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus." Come, for the blood of Jesus pleads; return, for the blood of Christ gives you a welcome. "If any man sin, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous."

MARCH 31.

"And for sin, condemned sin in the flesh." Romans 8:3.

As sin is the great condemning cause, let us aim to condemn sin, if we would rank with those for whom there is no condemnation. Most true is it, that either sin must be condemned by us, or we must be condemned for sin. The honor of the Divine government demands that a condemnatory sentence be passed, either upon the transgression, or upon the transgressor. And shall we hesitate? Is it a matter of doubt to which our preference shall be given? Which is best, that sin should die, or that we should die? Will the question allow a moment's consideration? Surely not, unless we are so enamored with sin as calmly and deliberately to choose death rather than life, hell rather than heaven. "The wages of sin is death." Sin unrepented, unforgiven, unpardoned, is the certain prelude to eternal death. Everlasting destruction follows in its turbid wake. There is a present hell in sin, for which the holy shun it; and there is a future hell in sin, for which all should dread it. If, then, we would be among "the pure in heart who shall see God," if we would lift up our faces with joy before the Judge at the last great day, if we would be freed from the final and terrible sentence of condemnation, oh, let us be holy, "denying all ungodliness and worldly lusts, and living righteously, soberly, and godly in this present world." Oh, let us condemn sin, that sin may not condemn us. And let us draw the motive that constrains us, and the power that helps us, from that cross where Jesus "condemned sin in the flesh."

APRIL 1.

"For if we would judge ourselves, we should not be judged." 1 Cor. 11:31

Self-condemnation averts God's condemnation. When a penitent sinner truly, humbly, graciously sits in judgment upon himself, the Lord will never sit in judgment upon him. The penitent publican, who stood afar off, wrapped in the spirit of self-condemnation, retired from His presence a justified man. The proud, self-righteous Pharisee, who marched boldly to the altar and justified himself, went forth from God's presence a condemned man. When God sees a penitent sinner arraigning, judging, condemning, loathing himself, He exclaims, "I do not condemn you; go and sin no more." He who judges and condemns himself upon God's footstool shall be acquitted and absolved from God's throne. The Lord give unto us this secret spirit of self-judgment. Such was Job's, when in deep contrition he declared, "I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes." Such was David's, when he penitentially confessed, "Against You, You only have I sinned, and done this evil in Your sight." Such was Peter's, when he vehemently exclaimed, "Depart from me; for I am a sinful man, O Lord." Such was Isaiah's, when he plaintively cried, "Woe is me, for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips." Such was the publican's, when he humbly prayed, "God be merciful to me a sinner." Oh lovely posture! Oh sacred spirit of self-abhorrence, of self condemnation! The Holy Spirit works it in the heart, and this stamps it as so precious, so salutary, and so safe. The great day of the Lord will unveil blessings passing all thought, and glories passing all imagination, to the soul who beneath the cross lies prostrate, in the spirit of self-condemnation. The judgment-day of the self-condemning soul is on this side of eternity; while the judgment-day of the self-justifying soul is on the other side of eternity. And oh, how terrible will that judgment be!

APRIL 2.

"There is a friend that sticks closer than a brother." Proverbs 28:24.

The power of human sympathy is amazing, if it leads the heart to Christ. It is paralyzed, if it leads only to ourselves. Oh, how feeble and inadequate are we to administer to a diseased mind, to heal a broken heart, to strengthen the feeble hand, and to confirm the trembling knees! Our mute sympathy, our prayerful silence, is often the best exponent of our affection, and the most effectual expression of our aid. But if, taking the object of our solicitude by the hand, we gently lead him to God- if we conduct him to Jesus, portraying to his view the depth of His love, the perfection of His atoning work, the sufficiency of His grace, His readiness to pardon, and His power to save, the exquisite sensibility of His nature, and thus His perfect sympathy with every human sorrow; we have then most truly and most effectually soothed the sorrow, stanched the wound, and strengthened the hand in God.
There is no sympathy- even as there is no love, no gentleness, no tenderness, no patience- like Christ's. Oh how sweet, how encouraging, to know, that in all my afflictions He is afflicted; that in all my temptations He is tempted; that in all my assaults He is assailed; that in all my joys He rejoices- that He weeps when I weep, sighs when I sigh, suffers when I suffer, rejoices when I rejoice. May this truth endear Him to our souls! May it constrain us to unveil our whole heart to Him, in the fullest confidence of the closest, most sacred, and precious friendship. May it urge us to do those things always which are most pleasing in His sight. Beloved, never forget- and let these words linger upon your ear, as the echoes of music that never die- in all your sorrows, in all your trials, in all your needs, in all your assaults, in all your conscious wanderings, in life, in death, and at the day of judgment- you possess a friend that sticks closer than a brother! That friend is- Jesus!

APRIL 3.

"Do not be deceived; God is not mocked: for whatever a man sows, that shall he also reap. For he that sows to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that sows to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting." Galatians 6:7-8

It is a self-evident truth, that there can be no harvest where no seed has been sown. But the fact that there is coming a moral harvest in each individual life- a future reaping of present sowing- is a truth equally demonstrable. The life that now is, is the seed-time of a life that is to come. The future of human destiny derives all its complexion and its form from the present of human character. The spring does not more certainly deepen into summer- nor the summer fade into autumn- nor the autumn pale into winter- nor the winter bloom again into spring, than does our present probation merge into our future destiny, carrying with it its fixed principles, its unchanged habits, and its tremendous account.
And what, my dear reader, are you sowing? I wish this question to have all the earnestness and force of a personal appeal. With what seed, again I ask, are you sowing for the future? If you are unconverted, nothing is more true than that you are sowing to the flesh! You may be rigidly moral, deeply intellectual, profoundly learned, exquisitely refined, outwardly religious, generous, and amiable, and yet all the while you are but sowing to the flesh, and not to the Spirit. "That which is born of the flesh is flesh," and nothing but flesh. "That which is born of the Spirit is spirit," it is spiritual and divine, heavenly and holy; and, what is more, it is imperishable. No lowly seed of divine truth, or grace, love, or service, sown in this present life of suffering and toil, shall ever be lost. All other things shall perish- the world with its loveliness and love, the "lust, of the flesh, and the lust of the eye, and the pride of life," all shall pass away and vanish; but not one seed of grace implanted in the heart of man by the Holy Spirit shall ever perish. The Divine image once restored to the soul shall never more be obliterated. Nothing done by Jesus, or for Jesus- no sin laid down, no cross taken up, no holiness cultivated, no labor wrought, no service done, no cup of cold water given- nothing, the fruit of love to God and of faith in Jesus Christ, shall ever be lost. Oh, who does not earnestly desire that in his heart and life may be sowing the good incorruptible seed, that shall, though long buried and concealed, yield a golden harvest of future joy, bliss, and glory?

APRIL 4.

"How are the dead raised up? and with what body do they come?" 1 Cor. 15:35

The identical body that was sown, yet so changed, so spiritualized, so glorified, so immortalized, as to rival in beauty the highest form of spirit, while it shall resemble, in its fashion, the glorious body of Christ Himself. We can form but a faint conception, even from the glowing representations of the apostle, of the glory of the raised body of the just. But this we know, it will be in every respect a structure worthy of the perfected soul that will inhabit it. Now 'the body' is the antagonist, and not the auxiliary of 'the soul'- its clog, its prison, its foe. The moment that Jesus condescends to "grace this mean abode" with His indwelling presence, there commences that fierce and harassing conflict between holiness and sin, which so often wrings the bitter cry from the believer, "Oh wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?" Oh, what a cumbrance is this body of sin! Its corruptions, its infirmities, its weaknesses, its ailments, its diseases, all conspire to render it the tyrant of the soul, if grace does not keep it under, and bring it into subjection as its slave. How often, when the mind would pursue its favorite study, the wearied and over-tasked body enfeebles it! How often, when the spirit would expatiate and soar in its contemplations of, and in its communings with, God, the inferior nature detains it by its weight, or occupies it with its needs! How often, when the soul thirsts for divine knowledge, and the heart pants for holiness, its highest aspirations and its strongest efforts are discouraged and thwarted by the clinging infirmities of a corrupt and suffering humanity!
Not so will it be in the morning of the resurrection. "Then shall this corruptible put on incorruption, and this mortal shall put on immortality." Mysterious and glorious change! "In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump," the dead in Christ shall awake from their long sleep, and spring from their tombs into a blissful immortality. Oh, how altered! oh, how transformed! oh, how changed! "Sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body." "A spiritual body!" Who can imagine, who describe it? What anatomy can explain its mysteries? What pencil can paint its beauties! "A spiritual body!" All the remains, all the vestiges of corrupt matter passed away. "A spiritual body!" So regenerated, so sanctified, so etherealized, so invested with the high and glorious attributes of spirit, yet retaining the "form and pressure" of matter; that now sympathizing and blending with the soul in its high employment of obeying the will and chanting the praises of God, it shall rise with it in its lofty soarings, and accompany and aid it in its deep researches in the hidden and sublime mysteries of eternity.

APRIL 5.

"If God be for us, who can be against us?" Romans 8:31.

With such a Father, such a Friend, and such a Comforter, who can wage a successful hostility against the saints of God? God Himself cannot be against us, even when the clouds of His providence appear the most lowering, and His strokes are felt to be the most severe. "Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him." The law cannot be against us; for the Law-fulfiller has, by His obedience, magnified and made it honorable. Divine justice cannot be against us; for Jesus has, in our stead, met its demands, and His resurrection is a full discharge of all its claims. Nor sin, nor Satan, nor men, nor suffering, nor death, can be really or successfully against us, since the condemnation of sin is removed, and Satan is vanquished, and the ungodly are restrained, and suffering works for good, and the sting of death is taken away. "If God be for us, who can be against us?" With such a Being on our side, whom shall we fear? We will fear nothing but the disobedience that grieves, and the sin that offends Him. Fearing this, we need fear nothing else. "God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore will not we fear." Listen once more to His wondrous words: "Fear not; for I am with you: do not be dismayed; for I am your God: I will strengthen you; yes, I will help you; yes, I will uphold you with the right hand of my righteousness."
Would we always have God for us? Then let us aim to be for God. God deals with us His creatures by an equitable rule. "The ways of the Lord are equal." "If you walk contrary unto me, their will I walk contrary unto you." Is not God for you? Has He not always, since He manifested Himself to you as your covenant God, been on your side? Has He ever been a wilderness to you, a land of darkness? Has He, in any instance, been unkind, unfriendly, unfaithful? Never. Then be for God- decidedly, wholly, uncompromisingly for God. Your heart for God, your talents for God, your rank for God, your property for God, your influence for God, your all for God; a holy unreserved consecration to Him, all whose love, all whose grace, all whose perfections, all whose heaven of glory is for you. Trembling Christian! God is on your side; and "if God be for us, who can be against us?"

APRIL 6.

"But even the very hairs of your head are all numbered." Luke 12:7.

You know so little of God, my reader, because you live at such a distance from God; you have so little transaction with Him- so little confession of sin, so little searching of your own conscience, so little probing of your own heart, so little dealing with Him in the blood and righteousness of Christ, so little transaction with Him in the little things of life. You deal with God in great matters; you take great trials to God, great perplexities, great needs; but in the minutiae of each day's history, in what are called the little things of life, you have no dealings with God whatever; and consequently you know so little of the love, so little of the wisdom, so little of the glory, of this glorious covenant God and reconciled Father.
I tell you, the man who lives with God in little matters, who walks with God in the minutiae of his life, is the man who becomes the best acquainted with God- with His character, His faithfulness, His love. To meet God in my daily trials, to take to Him the trials of my calling, the trials of my church, the trials of my family, the trials of my own heart- to take to Him that which brings the shade upon my brow, that rends the sigh from my heart- to remember it is not too trivial to take to God- above all, to take to Him the least taint upon the conscience, the slightest pressure of sin upon the heart, the softest conviction of departure from God- to take it to Him, and confess it at the foot of the cross, with the hand of faith upon the bleeding sacrifice- oh! these are the paths in which a man becomes intimately and closely acquainted with God!

APRIL 7.

"I the Lord search the heart." Jeremiah 17:10.

Solemn as is this view of the Divine character, the believing mind finds in it sweet and hallowed repose. What more consolatory truth in some of the most trying positions of a child of God than this- the Lord knows the heart. The world condemns, and the saints judge, but God knows the heart. And to those who have been led into deep discoveries of the heart's hidden evil, to whom have been made startling and distressing unveilings, how precious is this character of God- "He that searches the heart!" Is there a single recess of our hearts we would veil from His penetrating glance? Is there a corruption we would hide from His view? Is there an evil of which we would have Him ignorant? Oh no! Mournful and humiliating as is the spectacle, we would throw open every door, and uplift every window, and invite and urge His scrutiny and inspection, making no concealments, and indulging in no reserves, and framing no excuses when dealing with the great Searcher of hearts, exclaiming, "Search me, O God, and know my heart; try me, and know my thoughts; and see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting." And while the Lord is thus acquainted with the evil of our hearts, He most graciously conceals that evil from the eyes of others. He seems to say, by His benevolent conduct, "I see my child's infirmity,"- then, covering it with His hand, exclaims- "but no other eye shall see it, but my own!" Oh, the touching tenderness, the loving-kindness of our God! Knowing, as He does, all the evil of our nature, He yet veils that evil from human eye, that others may not despise us as we often despise ourselves. Who but God could know it? who but God would conceal it? And how blessed, too, to remember that while God knows all the evil, He is as intimately acquainted with all the good that is in the hearts of His people! He knows all that His Spirit has implanted, that His grace has wrought. Oh encouraging truth! That spark of love, faint and flickering- that pulsation of life, low and tremulous- that touch of faith, feeble and hesitating- that groan, that sigh, that low thought of self that leads a man to seek the shade- that self-abasement that places his mouth in the dust, oh, not one of these sacred emotions is unseen, unnoticed by God. His eye ever rests with infinite complaisance and delight on His own image in the renewed soul. Listen to His language to David: "Forasmuch as it was in your heart to build a house for my name, you did well, in that it was in your heart."

APRIL 8.

"This is my infirmity." Psalm 77:10.

The infirmities of the believer are as varied as they are numerous. Some are weak in faith, and are always questioning their interest in Christ. Some, superficial in knowledge, and shallow in experience, are ever exposed to the crudities of error and to the assaults of temptation. Some are slow travelers in the divine life, and are always in the rear; while yet others are often ready to halt altogether. Then there are others who groan beneath the burden of bodily infirmity, exerting a morbid influence upon their spiritual experience. A nervous temperament- a state of perpetual depression and despondency- the constant corrodings of mental disquietude- physical ailment- imaginary forebodings- a facile yielding to temptation- petulance of spirit- unguardedness of speech- gloomy interpretations of providence- an eye that only views the dark hues of the cloud, the somber shadings of the picture. Ah! from this dismal catalogue how many, making their selection, may exclaim, "This is my infirmity." But be that infirmity what it may, let it endear to our hearts the grace and sympathy of Him who for our sake was encompassed with infirmity, that He might have compassion upon those who are alike begirt. All the fulness of grace that is in Jesus is for that single infirmity over which you sigh.

APRIL 9.

"He shall take of mine, and shall show it unto you." John 16:15

The Spirit is the Great Conveyancer of Christ to the soul. Placing Himself between the Fountain and the believer, He purposes to convey all blessing, to supply all need, by taking the things of Christ's mediatorial fulness, and bringing them into our blest and holy experience. Having gone before to prepare the soul for the blessing, by discovering its poverty of state, and creating its poverty of spirit, He now takes of the atoning blood and applies it to the conscience; the justifying righteousness, and wraps it around the soul; the sanctifying grace, and conducts it into the heart. In a word, He reveals Jesus to the mind, testifies of Christ to the soul- how divine He is, therefore able to save; how loving He is, therefore as willing as He is able; how gracious He is, therefore stooping to our lowest circumstance; how tender He is, therefore trampling not upon our weak faith, nor despising our little grace; how sympathizing He is, therefore turning not away His ear, and withdrawing not His heart from our tale of sorrow or our burden of grief. Oh, what a Glorifier of Christ is the Divine Spirit! All that we truly know of Jesus, all that we have inwardly experienced of His grace, has been of His teaching and conveyance. He has conducted us to the Fountain- He has led us to the robing-chamber of the King- He has anointed us with the "oil of gladness,"- He has caused our "garments to smell of myrrh, and aloes, and cassia; out of the ivory palaces,"- He has opened the treasury, taking of the precious, glorious things of a precious, glorious Christ, spreading them out in all their vastness, suitableness, and freeness before our longing eye. How often, when the soul has hungered, He has broken up to us the bread that came down from heaven! when it has thirsted, He has smitten the rock, and satiated us with its life-giving stream! How often, when guilt has distressed us, He has sprinkled anew the peace-speaking blood; and when sorrow has oppressed, and difficulties have embarrassed, and dependences have failed, and resources have become exhausted, and creatures most deeply loved have most deeply wounded us, He, the tender, loving Comforter, He, the blessed Teacher, He, the great Glorifier of Jesus, has given to us some new and appropriate and precious view of our Immanuel; and in a moment the storm has passed, the waves have stilled, and peace, serenity, and joy have shed their luster on the soul. One glimpse of Jesus in deep tribulation, one glance in heart-rending bereavement, one discovery of His countenance when all is dark, and dreary, and desolate, one surprisal of His love when the heart sinks into loneliness, one touch of His cross when it is depressed, and bowed, and broken by sin- oh, it is as though heaven had expanded its gates, and we had passed within, where neither tribulation, nor bereavement, nor darkness, nor loneliness, nor sin, is known any more forever!

APRIL 10.

"More than conquerors." Romans 8:37

The original word will admit a stronger rendering than our translators have allowed it. The same word is in another place rendered "a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory." So that in the present instance it might be translated, "far more exceeding conquerors." The phrase seems to imply that it is more than a mere victory which the believer gains. A battle may be won at a severe loss to the conqueror. A great leader may fall at the head of his troops. The flower of an army may be destroyed, and the best
blood of a nation's pride may be shed. But the Christian conquers with no such loss. Nothing whatever essential to His well-being is imperiled. His armor, riveted upon his soul by the Holy Spirit, he cannot lose. His life, hid with Christ in God, cannot be endangered. His Leader and Commander, once dead, is alive and dies no more. Nothing valuable and precious shall he lose.
There is not a grace in his soul but shall come out of the battle with sin, and Satan, and the world, purer and brighter for the conflict. The more thoroughly the Lord brings our graces into exercise, the more fully shall they be developed, and the more mightily shall they be invigorated. Not a grain of grace shall perish in the winnowing, not a particle of faith shall be consumed in the refining. Losing nothing, he gains everything! He returns from the battle laden with the spoils of a glorious victory- "more than a conqueror." All his resources are augmented by the result. His armor is brighter, his sword is keener, his courage is more dauntless, for the conflict. Every grace of the Spirit is matured. Faith is strengthened- love is expanded- experience is deepened- knowledge is increased. He comes forth from the trial holier and more valorous than when he entered it. His weakness has taught him wherein his strength lies. His necessity has made him better acquainted with Christ's fulness. His peril has shown him who taught his hands to war and his fingers to fight, and whose shield covered his head in the day of battle. He is "more than conqueror "- he is triumphant!

APRIL 11.

"There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear: because fear has torment. He that fears is not made perfect in love." 1 John 4:18.

Who that has felt it will deny, that "fear has torment"? The legal fear of death, of judgment, and of condemnation- the fear engendered by a slavish view of the Lord's commandments- a defective view of the believer's relation to God- imperfect conceptions of the finished work of Christ- unsettled apprehensions of the great fact of acceptance- yielding to the power of unbelief- the retaining of guilt upon the conscience, or the influence of any concealed sin, will fill the heart with the torment of fear. Some of the most eminent of God's people have thus been afflicted: this was Job's experience- "I am afraid of all my sorrows." "Even when I remember, I am afraid, and trembling takes hold on my flesh." "When I consider Him, I am afraid of Him." So also David- "What time I am afraid, I will trust in You." "My flesh trembles for fear of You; I am afraid of Your judgments." But "perfect love casts out fear:" he that fears is not perfected in the love of Christ. The design and tendency of the love of Jesus shed abroad in the heart is to lift the soul out of all its "bondage through fear of death," and its ultimate consequences, and soothe it to rest on that glorious declaration, triumphing in which, many have gone to glory, "There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus." See the blessed spring from where flows a believer's victory over all bondage-fear- from Jesus: not from his experience of the truth, not from evidence of his acceptance and adoption, not from the work of the Spirit in his heart, blessed as it is- but from out of, and away from, himself- even from Jesus. The blood and righteousness of Christ, based upon the infinite dignity and glory of His person, and wrought into the experience of the believer by the Holy Spirit, expels from the heart all fear of death and of judgment, and fills it with perfect peace. O you of fearful heart! why these anxious doubts, why these tormenting fears, why this shrinking from the thought of death, why these distant, hard, and unkind thoughts of God? Why this prison-house- why this chain? You are not perfected in the love of Jesus, for "perfect love casts out fear:" you are not perfected in that great truth, that Jesus is mighty to save, that He died for a poor sinner, that His death was a perfect satisfaction to Divine justice; and that without a single meritorious work of your own, just as you are, poor, empty, vile, worthless, unworthy, you are welcome to the rich provision of sovereign grace and dying love. The simple belief of this, will perfect your heart in love; and perfected in love, every bondage-fear will vanish away. Oh, seek to be perfected in Christ's love. It is a fathomless ocean, its breadth no mind can scan- its height no thought can scale.

APRIL 12.

"Those who are Christ's have crucified the flesh, with the affections and lusts." Galatians 5:24

True mortification has its foundation in the life of God in the soul. A spiritual, yes, a most spiritual work, it can only spring from a most spiritual principle. It is not a plant indigenous to our fallen nature. It cannot be in the principle of sin to mortify itself. Human nature possesses neither the inclination nor the power by which so holy an achievement can be accomplished. A dead faith, a blind zeal, a superstitious devotion, may prompt severe austerities; but to lay the axe close to the root of indwelling evil, to marshal the forces against the principle of sin in the heart- thus besieging and carrying the very citadel itself- to keep the body under, and bring it into subjection, by a daily and a deadly conflict with its innate and desperately depraved propensities, is a work transcending the utmost reach of the most severe external austerities. It consists, too, in an annulling of the covenant with sin: "Have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness"- enter into no truce, make no agreement, form no union; "but rather reprove them." "Ephraim shall say, What have I to do any more with idols?" The resources of sin must be cut off: "Put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to fulfill the lusts thereof." Whatever tends to, and terminates in, the sinful gratification of the flesh is to be relinquished, as frustrating the great aim of the Christian in the mortification of the deeds of the body. Mortification is aptly set forth as a crucifixion: "Those who are Christ's have crucified the flesh." Death by the cross is certain, yet lingering. Our blessed Lord was suspended upon the tree from nine in the morning until three in the afternoon. It was a slow lingering torture, yet terminating in His giving up the spirit. Similar to this is the death of sin in the believer. It is progressive and protracted, yet certain in the issue. Nail after nail must pierce our corruptions, until the entire body of sin, each member thus transfixed, is crucified and slain.

APRIL 13.

"If you through the spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, you shall live." Romans 8:13

"If you." The believer is not a cipher in this work. It is a matter in which he must necessarily possess a deep and personal interest. How many and precious are the considerations that bind him to the duty! His usefulness, his happiness, his sunny hope of heaven, are all included in it. The work of the Spirit is not, and never was designed to be, a substitute for the personal work of the believer. His influence, indispensable and sovereign though it is, does not release from human and individual responsibility. "Work out your own salvation," "Keep yourselves in the love of God," "Building up yourselves," are exhortations which emphatically and distinctly recognize the obligation of personal effort and human responsibility. The reasoning which bids me defer the work of battling with my heart's corruptions, of mortifying the deeds of the body, until the Spirit performs his part, argues an unhealthy Christianity, and betrays a kind of truce with sin, which must on no account for a moment be entertained. As, under the law, the father was compelled to hurl the first missile at the profane child, so under the Gospel- a milder and more benignant economy though it be- the believer is to cast the first stone at his corruptions; he is to take the initiative in the great work of mortifying and slaying the cherished sin. "If you do mortify." Let us, then, be cautious of merging human responsibility in divine influence; of exalting the one by lowering the other; of cloaking the spirit of slothfulness and indolence beneath an apparently jealous regard for the honor of the Holy Spirit. How narrow is the way of truth! How many diverging paths there are, at each turning of which Satan stands, clothed as an angel of light, quoting Scripture with all the aptness and eloquence of an apostle! But God will never release us from the obligation of "striving against sin." "I keep under my body, and bring it into subjection," was Paul's noble declaration. Is no self-effort to be made to escape the gulf of habitual intoxication, by dashing the ensnaring beverage from the lips? Is no self-effort to be made to break away from the thraldom of a companionship, the influence of which is fast hurrying us to ruin and despair? Is no self-effort to be made to dethrone an unlawful habit, to resist a powerful temptation, to dissolve the spell that binds us to a dangerous enchantment, to unwind the chain that makes us the vassal and the slave of a wrong and imperious inclination? Oh, surely, God deals not with us as we deal with a piece of mechanism- but as reasonable, moral, and accountable beings. "I drew you with the bands of a man." Mortification, therefore, is a work to which the believer must address himself, and that with prayerful and resolute earnestness.

APRIL 14.

"Somebody has touched me." Luke 8:46

We must acknowledge that the mortification of sin infinitely transcends the mightiest puttings forth of creative power. "If you through the Spirit do mortify." This He does by making us more sensible of the existence of indwelling sin- by deepening our aspirations after holiness- by shedding abroad the love of God in the heart. But, above all, the Spirit mortifies sin in the believer by unfoldings of the Lord Jesus. Leading us to the cross, He would show us that as Christ died for sin, so we must die to sin- and by the self-same instrument too. One real, believing sight of the cross of Jesus!- oh, what a crucifying power it has! Paul, standing beneath its tremendous shadow, and gazing upon its divine victim, exclaimed, "God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world." Get near the Savior's cross, if you would accomplish anything in this great and necessary work of mortification. The Spirit effects it, but through the instrumentality of the Atonement. There must be a personal contact with Jesus. This only is it that draws forth His grace. When the poor woman in the Gospel touched the Savior, we are told that multitudes thronged Him. And yet, in all that crowd that pressed upon His steps, one only extracted the healing virtue. Thus do multitudes follow Christ externally; they attend His courts, and approach His ordinances, and speak well of His name, who know nothing by faith of personal transaction with the Lord. They crowd His path, and strew their branches in His way, and chant their hosannas; but of how few can Christ say, "Somebody has touched me"! Oh, let us have more personal dealing with the Lord Jesus. He delights in this. It pleases, it glorifies Him. He bids us come and disclose every personal feeling, and make known every need, and unveil every grief, and confide to His bosom each secret of our own. The crowd cannot veil us from His eye. He sees the poor and contrite; He marks the trembling and the lowly; He meets the uplifted glance; He feels the thrill of the gentle, hesitating, yet believing touch. "Somebody has touched me." Who? Is it you, my reader?

APRIL 15.

"My son, despise not you the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when you are rebuked of him: For whom the Lord loves he chastens, and scourges every son whom he receives." Hebrews 12:5-6

The rod of your heavenly Father is upon you. In the experience of your sensitive spirit, your feeling heart, the stroke is a heavy, and a sore one. To a keen sense of its severity, is perhaps added the yet keener conviction of the sin that has evoked it- that, but for your wanderings from God, your rebellion against His will, your disobedience of His commands, there would not have come upon you a correction so painful and humiliating. But where in your sorrow will you repair? To the solace and sympathy of whose heart will you betake yourself? Will you flee from that Father? Will you evade His eye, and shun His presence? Eternal love forbids it! What then? You will hasten and throw yourself in His arms, and fall upon His bosom, confessing your sins, and imploring His forgiveness. Thus taking hold of His strength, with that displeased and chastening Father you are in a moment at peace. Blessed is the man, O Lord, whom You chasten, and draw closer within the sacred pavilion of Your loving, sheltering bosom. Oh, what an unveiling of the heart of God may be seen in a loving correction! No truth in experimental religion is more verified than this, that the severest discipline of our heavenly Father springs from His deepest, holiest love. That in His rebukes, however severe, in His corrections, however bitter, there is more love, more tenderness, and more real desire for our well-being, than exists in the fondest affection a human heart ever cherished. And oftentimes, in His providential dealings with His children, there is more of the heart of God unfolded in a dark, overhanging cloud than is ever unveiled and revealed in a bright and glowing sunbeam. But this truth is only learned in God's school.

APRIL 16.

"The law was our school-master to bring us unto Christ." Galatians 3:24

In the school of the law, the first and the grand lesson which the sinner learns is his sin, his curse, and his condemnation. There he is convinced of his vileness, convicted of his guilt, and learns his poverty, helplessness, and hell-deserving. All the fond conceit of his own worthiness, strength, and fitness, vanishes as a vapor, and he sees himself in the power, under the curse, and exposed to the tremendous condemnation of God's righteous, broken, avenging law. Thus convicted in the very act of his rebellion against God, he is brought, like a felon, into the presence of Jesus. There he stands, pale and trembling, his witnesses many and loud, while his own awakened conscience pleads guilty to the charge.
Are you that soul, dear reader? Has the law arrested and brought you within Christ's court? Oh, you never were in such a position before- so new, so strange, so blessed! It may be, you never felt yourself so near hell as now, under the sentence of God's law; but you never were so near heaven as now, in the presence of Jesus. You are now in that court where justice to the fullest is honored, and where mercy to its utmost is extended. You are in Christ's court, at Christ's bar- awaiting the sentence of Him who was made under that law, fulfilled its precepts, and endured its penalty to the uttermost. You are in the presence of Him who came to deliver sinners from its curse and woe, and to raise them far above the reach of all condemnation. Never were you so sensible of your guilt and ruin as now, yet never were you so near the fountain that cleanses from all sin, or so close to Him who was pierced to shelter the vilest of the vile. Your judge is your Savior. He who sits upon that throne is He who hung upon the cross. You are arraigned in the presence and are thrown upon the mercy of Him, the delight of whose heart, and the glory of whose character, it is to save sinners; whose love for them induced Him to screen His glory, and to appear in humiliation- to suffer, bleed, and die. You are in the presence of Him who, though He has ascended on high, and is now glorified with the glory "he had with the Father before the world was," is yet engaged in securing the precious fruits of His soul's travail.
Look up, poor soul! for "your redemption draws near." Never yet did he allow a sin-accused, self-condemned sinner, to go out of this court unblessed, unsaved.

APRIL 17.

"If you love me, keep my commandments." John 14:15

As King in Zion, our adorable Lord Jesus delights to reign over a loving and an obedient people. Thus He has made their obedience to His commands a test of their love to His person- "If you love me, keep my commandments." "Teaching them to observe all things whatever I have commanded you," was the last charge given to His disciples. Now it is this keeping of His commandments, this observance of what He has enjoined, that glorifies Him in His saints. Coming to Him in our ignorance glorifies Him as Prophet; coming to Him with our guilt glorifies Him as Priest; and walking obediently to His precepts glorifies Him as King. It places the crown upon the head of His sovereignty, it recognizes the spiritual nature of His kingdom, and it upholds the purity, majesty, and authority of His laws. It becomes, then, the solemn and imperative duty of every believer to search the will and testament of his dying, risen, and exalted Lord, to ascertain all that He has enjoined upon his obedience in the way of precept and command. For how can he be a good and an obedient subject, if he does not understand the laws of Christ's kingdom? Then, when the precept is clearly revealed, and the command is distinctly made known, immediate, self-denying, and cheerful obedience is to follow, as that path which, while it insures the sweetest peace to the soul, brings the highest glory to Christ. Let yours be an obedient walk, dear reader! Let your obedience be the fruit of faith, the dictate of love. Permit no reserve in your obedience; let it be full, honest, and complete. Search the New Testament Scripture, and examine closely your own walk, and ascertain in what particular your obedience to Christ is deficient. Be upright, honest, and sincere in your inquiry. Let your fervent prayer be, "Lord, what will You have me to do? Is there any precept of Your word slighted, any, command disobeyed, any cross not taken up? Is there any desire to withhold my neck from Your, yoke, or to withdraw my shoulder from Your burden, or to mark out a smoother path than that which You have chosen and bade me walk in? Is there any secret framing of excuse for my disobedience, any temporizing, any carnal feeling, any worldly motive, any fear of man, any shrinking from consequences? Lord, You know all things, You know that I love You. You are precious to my soul, for You have borne my sins, endured my curse, carried my cross; and in return do only ask, as an evidence of how much I owe, and how much I love, that I should keep Your commandments, and follow Your example. Now, Lord, take my poor heart, and let it be Your, Your wholly, and Your forever. Let Your sweet love constrain me to run in the way of Your commandments, for this will I do, when You shall enlarge my heart." Then will follow the precious fruits of obedience, even as the bud expands into the blossom, and the blossom ripens into the fruit. There will be a growth, a delightful expansion of the life of God in the soul; and with the increase of the divine life, there will be an increase of all the precious "fruits of the Spirit." See that your Redeemer is glorified in your obedience; that for the happiness of your soul, and for the honor of Christ, you "stand complete in all the will of God."

APRIL 18.

"Is not this the carpenter's Son?" Mark 6:3

The attending circumstances of His birth, and the subsequent events of His life, entered deeply into the fact of His abasement. In each step that He took, He did seem to say, "I was born to humiliation and suffering; therefore I came into the world." His parents were poor, of lowly extraction, and humble occupation. Until the age of thirty, He lived a life of entire seclusion from the world; and as He was "subject unto His parents," doubtless His early years were employed in assisting His father in his lowly calling; thus, with His own hands, ministering to His temporal necessities. For, be it remembered, it was a material part of the original curse pronounced by God on man, "In the sweat of your face shall you eat bread." Jesus was made under the law, that He might endure the curse; that curse He fully sustained. There was not a part, the bitterness of which He did not taste, and the tremendousness of which He did not endure; and that for His elect's sake. It were no fanciful idea, therefore, to suppose, that in this feature of the curse our Lord personally entered; that this part of the penalty of human transgression He fully paid; and that, in early life, by the sweat of His brow, He did literally provide for His own temporal sustenance. Oh touching view of the humiliation of the Son of God! How does it dignify the most lowly occupation, sweeten the heaviest trial, and lighten the deepest care, to reflect, "thus lived, and labored, and toiled, the Incarnate God!"
His riper years were marked by corresponding lowliness. The curse tracked His every step, pressing its claims, and exacting its penalties, to the last moment of existence. What were all His excessive privations, but parts of the same? No home sheltered Him- no domestic comforts cheered Him- no smile of fondness greeted Him- no hand of affection welcomed Him- "The Son of man has not where to lay His head," was the heart-rending acknowledgment extracted from His lips. And when a day of exhausting toil had closed upon Him- a day spent in journeying from village to village, and from house to house, preaching the kingdom, healing all manner of diseases, supplying the needs, alleviating the sufferings, and soothing the cares of others- He would retire, lonely and unrefreshed, to the bleak mountain, and spend His long sleepless night in unremitting prayer for His Church! O adorable and adored Jehovah-Jesus! was ever humiliation and love like yours?

APRIL 19.

"They shall call his name, Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us." Matthew 1:23

Apart from the doctrine of the supreme Godhead of Christ, upon what mere sand do men build their hope of heaven; what dreams, what shadows are all their expectations of eternal life! The Divinity of Jesus denied or rejected, all that is precious and valuable in His death is reduced to a mere negation. What would be His obedience to the law, if reduced to a mere finite obedience? What would be His endurance of its penalty upon the cross, if a 'creature' only were suffering? How could either meet the claims of God's moral government, sustain His holiness, satisfy His justice, and present Him to our view- just to Himself, and yet the justifier of him that believes? Never! If your acceptance as a sinner with this holy Lord God is based on any other righteousness than the "righteousness of God," you are lost, and that to all eternity! A 'created' Savior! Oh, wretched fantasy! A finite Redeemer! Oh awful and malignant scheme of Satan to drown men's souls in perdition!
But to the true believer how glorious, invaluable, and precious is this truth! What a rock does he stand upon, whose faith rests upon the Godhead of Christ! He sees in His blood and righteousness the infinite dignity and worth of the God-Man Mediator. All that he needs as a poor, guilty, undone sinner he finds here. A righteousness that fully acquits him from all the charges of law; a fountain that cleanses him from all the pollution of sin; a Savior, not mighty only, but almighty, to carry his sorrows, bear his burdens, and strengthen him for the conflicts and the difficulties of the pilgrimage. Look up, then, O believer! and fasten the eye of your faith upon the eternal glory of your covenant Head. Your salvation is secured by an Almighty Redeemer, who is able to keep that which you have committed unto Him against the day when He will make up His peculiar treasure.

APRIL 20.

"And the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush; and he looked, and behold the bush burned with fire, and the bush was not consumed." Exodus 3:3

This remarkable incident in the history of God's ancient Israel is illustrative of most important truth, bearing upon the experimental and practical experience of each believer in Jesus. It presents a true and beautiful outline of the Church of God. We are reminded of the two opposite natures of the believer- the fallen and the restored, the fleshly and the spiritual. The one low, sinful, unlovely, and of the earth- earthly; the other elevated, holy, glorious, and of heaven- heavenly. "That which is born of the flesh is flesh; that which is born of the Spirit is spirit."
The conflict between these opposite and antagonist natures in the child of God is also presented to view. As the bush in which the Divinity dwelt was surrounded by flame, so the regenerated man, in whom the eternal God deigns to dwell by His spirit, is perpetually encircled by the fire of conflict, trial, and suffering. Nature and grace, sin and holiness, are as contrary the one to the other as any two principles can be. They can no more agree, commingle, or coalesce, than can the opposite and antagonist elements in the natural world. Nor can there ever be a truce between them. They must necessarily and perpetually be at variance, hostile to and at war one with the other. The contest is for supremacy. The great question at issue is, "which shall reign in the believer- sin or holiness; nature or grace; Satan or God?" Oh, what a fiery conflict is this! Hear the confession of an inspired apostle, drawn from his own painful experience: "I am carnal, sold under sin. For that which I do, I allow not; for what I would, that I do not; but what I hate, that do I." Who cannot trace the conflict here? Sin he deeply, inveterately abhorred. The prevailing tendency, the habitual and fixed inclination, of his renewed mind was to holiness- the bent of his desires was towards God. And yet, in consequence of the native depravity of his heart, the influence of sinful propensities, corrupt inclinations and desires, he felt like one chained to a body of death, from which he longed to be delivered. Here was that which defined the two natures, marked the perpetual conflict between both, and which distinguished the holy man from the sinner.
In addition to this spiritual conflict, there are the flames of suffering and trial which often encircle a dear child of God. This is the baptism of fire, connected with, and ever following, the baptism of the Holy Spirit. "He shall baptize you," says John, "with the Holy Spirit, and with fire." God has His "fire in Zion, and his furnace in Jerusalem." But it is not the furnace of justice, nor the fire of wrath. Jesus, the surety, has passed through and sustained all this; He has quenched its flame, and extinguished its embers. But it is the discipline of everlasting love and mercy. And though persecution may be permitted to rage, and the confessor of Christ may ascend, to glory in a chariot of fire- though trials of various kinds may overtake the child of God, his grace and his graces "tried with fire,"- yet both the persecution of the Church and the trial of the believer are but the fruit of eternal and unchangeable love; and will prove purifying, sanctifying, and saving. Nothing will be consumed but the tinsel of the world and the dross of sin, the alloy so much and so frequently found mixed with the pure gold.

APRIL 21.

"I will now turn aside and see this great sight, why the bush is not burned." Exodus 3:3

Contemplate one more surpassing and precious truth- the Church is unconsumed! And why? Because He who dwelt in the bush dwells in the Church. The believer is the temple of the Holy Spirit. The High and Lofty One that inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy, dwells in him. Christ is in him the hope of glory. It is impossible that he can perish. Why has not the poor feeble bush been consumed? why has not grace declined, and faith failed, and love become totally extinguished? why has not the "fiery dart" of Satan prevailed, and the fierce and hot flame of persecution and of trial utterly consumed? Because greater is He that is in the believer than he that is in the world. Believer in Jesus! tell me not only of the sin that dwells in you, often bringing your soul into bondage and distress; tell me also of the grace that dwells in you, which as often gives you the victory, and sends you rejoicing on your way. Tell not only of the burning fiery furnace seven times heated; tell also of Him whose form is like the Son of God, who is with you in the furnace, and who has brought and who yet will bring you through, with not a hair of your head singed, nor the smell of fire passed upon your garments. Tell not only of the "trial of your faith," "though it be tried with fire," but that also, through the ceaseless intercession of Jesus within the veil, that faith never yet has failed. Tell not only of the burden that has oppressed, tell also of the grace that has sustained- not only of the sorrow that has wounded, but also of the divine sympathy, tenderness, and gentleness that have soothed and comforted, bound up and healed that wound. Oh, to hear more frequently the shout of victory and the song of praise breaking in sweet music from the lips of the redeemed! How much more would Jesus be glorified!

APRIL 22.

"Surely he has borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows." Isaiah 53:4

In order to the perfection of His character as the High Priest of His people, as the Brother born for adversity, in order to be "touched with the feeling of our infirmities," He must Himself suffer. He must know from painful experience what sorrow meant- what a wounded spirit and a broken bleeding heart, a burdened and a beclouded mind, were. In this school He must be taught, and disciplined, and trained; He must "learn obedience by the things which He suffered;" He must be made "perfect through sufferings." And oh, how deeply has He been taught, and how thoroughly has He been trained, and how well has He learned thus to sympathize with a suffering Church! You have gone, it may be, with your trouble to your earthly friend; you have unfolded your tale of woe, have unveiled every feeling and emotion. But, ah! how have the vacant countenance, the wandering eye, the listless air, the cold response, told you that your friend, with all his love, could not enter into your case! The care that darkened your brow had never shaded his- the sorrow that lacerated your heart had never touched his- the cup you were drinking he had never tasted. What was lacking? Sympathy, growing out of an identity of circumstance. You have gone to another. He has trod that path before you, He has passed through that very trouble, His spirit has been accustomed to grief, His heart schooled in trial, sorrow in some of its acutest forms has been His companion; and now He is prepared to bend upon you a melting eye, to lend an attentive ear and a feeling heart, and to say, "Brother, I have known all, I have felt all, I have passed through all- I can sympathize with all." That Friend of friends, that Brother of brothers, is Jesus. He has gone before you; He has left a fragrance on the brim of that very cup you are now drinking; He has bedewed with tears and left the traces of His blood on that very path along which you are now walking; He has been taught in that very school in which you are now learning. Then what encouragement to take your case, in the sweet simplicity of faith, and lay it before the Lord! to go and tell Jesus, confessing to Him, and over Him, the sin which has called forth the chastisement, and then the grief which that chastisement has occasioned. What a wonderful High Priest is Jesus! As the bleeding Sacrifice, you may lay your hand of faith upon His head, and acknowledge your deepest guilt; and, as the merciful Priest, you may lay your head on His bosom, and disclose your deepest sorrow. O my precious Savior! must You sink to this deep humiliation, and endure this bitter suffering, in order to enter into my lonely sorrow!

APRIL 23.

"Little children, keep yourselves from idols." 1 John 5:21

An idolatrous and unsanctified attachment to the creature has again and again crucified love to Christ in the heart. Upon the same principle that no man can love the world and God with a like supreme and kindred affection, so no man can give to Christ and the creature the same intensity
of regard. And yet, how often has the creature stolen the heart from its lawful Sovereign! That heart that was once so simply and so supremely the Lord's, those affections that clung to Him with such purity and power of grasp, have now been transferred to another and an inferior object; the piece of clay that God had given but to deepen the obligation, and heighten the soul's love to Himself, has been molded into an idol, before which the heart pours its daily incense; the flower that He has caused to spring forth but to endear His own beauty, and make His own name more fragrant, has supplanted the "Rose of Sharon" in the bosom. Oh! is it thus that we abuse our mercies? is it thus that we convert our blessings into poisons? that we allow the things that were sent to endear the heart of our God, and to make the cross, through which they came, more precious, to allure our affections from their holy and blessed center? Fools that we are, to love the creature more than the Creator!
Dear reader, why has God been disciplining you as it may be, He has? why has He removed your idols, crumbled into dust your piece of clay, and blown witheringly upon your beauteous flower? Why? Because He hates idolatry; and idolatry is essentially the same, whether it be offered to a lifeless, shapeless stock, or to a being of intellect and beauty. And what does His voice speak in every stream that He dries, in every plant that He blows upon, and in every disappointment He writes upon the creature? "My son, give me your heart. I want your love, your pure and supreme affection; I want to be the one and only object of your delight. I gave my Son for you- His life for yours; I sent my Spirit to quicken, to renew, to seal, and possess you for myself; all this I did that I might have your heart. To possess myself of this, I have smitten your gourds, removed your idols, broken your earthly dependences, and have sought to detach your affections from the creature, that they may arise, undivided and unfettered, and entwine around One who loves you with an undying love."

APRIL 24.

"Precious faith." 2 Peter 1:1

Truly is faith the crowning grace of all, and a most costly and precious fruit of the renewed mind. From it springs every other grace of a gracious soul. It has been designated the 'queen' grace, because a royal train ever attends it. Faith comes not alone, nor dwells alone, nor works alone. Where faith in Jesus is, there also are love, joy, peace, long-suffering, patience, godly sorrow, and every kindred perfection of the Christian character, all blending in the sweetest harmony, all uniting to celebrate the glory of God's grace, and to crown Jesus Lord of all. Is it, then, surprising that this should be distinguished from all the others by the term "precious faith"? No! that must needs be precious which unfolds the preciousness of everything else. It makes the real gold more precious, and it transmutes everything else into gold. It looks to a "precious Christ" It leads to His "precious blood." It relies upon the "precious promises." And its very trial, though it be by fire, is "precious." It so changes the nature of the painful, the humiliating, and the afflictive, as to turn a Father's frown, rebuke, and correction, into some of the costliest mercies of life. Precious grace, that bids me look upon God in Christ as reconciled; and which, in the absence of all evidence of sight, invites me to rest upon the veracity of God! which takes me in my deepest poverty to Jesus, my true Joseph, having in His hands and at His disposal all the treasures of grace and glory! These are some of the characteristics of this royal grace. "Being justified by faith, we have peace with God, through our Lord Jesus Christ." By faith I can not only say that Jesus died for sinners, but that He died for me. Faith makes the great atonement mine. Faith appropriates to itself all that is in Christ. It lays its hand upon the covenant of grace, and exclaims, "All things are mine." Oh, to see one bowed to the dust under a sense of sin, yet by faith traveling to the blood and righteousness of the Lord Jesus for salvation, and finding it too- to mark the power of this grace in sustaining the soul in deep waters, holding it up in perilous paths- is a spectacle on which God Himself must look down with ineffable delight.

APRIL 25.

"Do you believe on the Son of God?" John 9:35

The application of this question, reader, must be to your conscience. Have you "like precious faith" with that which we have attempted to describe? Alas! it may be that you are that tree which brings not forth this good fruit. Yours may be a species of fruit somewhat resembling it; but do not be deceived in a matter so momentous as this. "You believe that there is one God; you do well: the devils also believe, and tremble." That is, you assent to the first proposition of true religion- the being of God; this is well, because your judgment assents to that which is true. And still you have not gone beyond the faith of demons! They believe, and yet horror inconceivable is but the effect of the forced assent of their minds to the truth- they "tremble." Oh, look well to your faith! There must be, in true faith, not only an assent, but also a consent. In believing to the saving of the soul, we not only assent to the truth of the word, but we also consent to take Christ as He is there set forth- the sinner's reconciliation with God. A mere intellectual illumination, or a historical belief of the facts of the Bible, will never place the soul beyond the reach of hell, nor within the region of heaven. There is a "form of knowledge," as well as a "form of godliness;" and both existing apart from vital religion in the soul constitute a "vain religion." Again we press upon you the important inquiry, Have you the "faith of God's elect"? Is it a faith that has stained the glory of self-merit, and laid the pride of intellect in the dust? Is it rooted in Christ? Has it transformed you, in some degree, into the opposite of what you once were? Are any of the "precious fruits" of the Spirit put forth in your life? Is Jesus precious to your soul? And to walk in all circumstances humbly with God- is it the earnest desire of your heart? If there is no sorrow for sin, no going out of yourself to Jesus, no fruits of holiness, in some degree, appearing, then is yours but a "dead faith,"- dead, because it is a part and parcel of a nature "dead in trespasses and in sins,"- dead, because it is not the fruit of the quickening Spirit- dead, because it is inoperative, even as the lifeless root transmits no vitality and moisture to the tree- dead, because it never can bring you to eternal life. Of what value, then, is it? Cut it down! why should it use up the ground? If, then, you have never brought forth the good fruit of prayer, and repentance, and Faith, you are yet in the old nature of sin of rebellion, and of death.

APRIL 26.

"For through him we both have access by one Spirit unto the Father." Ephesians 2:18

What is prayer? It is the communion of the spiritual life in the soul of man with its Divine Author; it is a breathing back the divine life into the bosom of God, from where it came; it is holy, spiritual, humble converse with God. That was a beautiful remark of a converted heathen- "I open my Bible, and God talks with me; I close my Bible, and then I talk with God." Striking definition of true prayer! It is a talking with God as a child talks with his father, as a friend converses with his friend: "And the Lord talked with Moses." Let it be remembered, then, that true prayer is the aspiration of a renewed soul towards God; it is the breathing of the divine life, sometimes in the accents of sorrow, sometimes as the expression of need, and always as the acknowledgment of dependence; it is the looking up of a renewed, afflicted, necessitous, and dependent child to its own loving Father, in all the consciousness of utter weakness, and in all the sweetness of filial trust.
Who is the object of prayer? Jehovah, the Lord of heaven and earth; to Him, as the Three in One, does true prayer only address itself. He alone has an ear to hear our tale of sorrow; an arm than can support in time of need; and a heart that can sympathize with our deep necessity. The high and lofty One, that inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy, who is the Creator and Governor of all worlds, who bears up the pillars of the universe, to whom all the powers in heaven, in earth, and in hell are subject, He is the glorious object to whom we address ourselves in prayer.
Not less amazing is the medium of prayer- what is it? Not a creature, dependent as ourselves; but the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, equal in might, majesty, and dominion with the Father, and yet the Elder Brother, the slain Lamb, the Mediator and Surety, the High Priest of His people. Prayer finds acceptance within the veil, only as it is presented in the name of Jesus. The voice that speaks there, in behalf of the lowly suppliant, is the voice of Immanuel's blood; this is the "new and living way,"- this is the plea that prevails, this is the argument that moves Omnipotence itself. He who pleads the blood of Jesus in prayer may have ten thousand tongues all pleading against him, but "the blood of Jesus speaks better things," and drowns their every voice. Oh precious, costly medium of prayer!
Marvellous, too, is the Author of prayer- who is He? The apostle informs us: "Likewise the Spirit also helps our infirmities; for we know not what we should pray for as we ought; but the Spirit itself makes intercession for us, with groanings which cannot be uttered." Thus is it the Holy Spirit who begets the desire, indites the petition, and breathes it forth in prayer through Christ to God. What a sublime exercise, then, is prayer! The outgoing of the divine life in the soul is its nature- Jehovah its object- the Lord Jesus its medium- and the Holy Spirit its author. Thus the blessed Trinity is unity is engaged in the great work of a sinner's approach unto God.

APRIL 27.

"Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and today, and forever." Hebrews 13:8

You will make no advance in the divine life, if your eye is ever upon yourself instead of Christ. What though the experience of today is the opposite of the experience of yesterday- yesterday all brightness, today all cloudiness; yesterday your soul like a well-tuned psalm, today every string loosed and breathing no melody; yesterday, Jesus felt to be so near and precious, today seeming to awaken not a loving emotion in your heart; yesterday, communion with God so sweet, today, none whatever; yesterday, desiring to walk uprightly, holily, and humbly, today detecting so much that is vacillating, weak, and vile. Nevertheless, Jesus is not changed. The work of Christ is the same- your acceptance in Him is the same- His intercession in heaven for you is the same; then, where should you fly to spiritual experiences for support, strength, and consolation- rising when they rise, falling when they fall- when all your standing, joy, peace, and hope are entirely out of yourself, and are solely in Christ? What though you change a thousand times in one day? He never changes. God may vary His dispensations- He may alter His mode of dealing- He may change the nature of His discipline - He may vary the lesson, but His loving-kindness and His truth are as unchangeable as His very being. He may dry up the earthly cistern, but He will never seal up the heavenly fountain! -that will flow on in grace through all time, and in glory through all eternity.

APRIL 28.

"For he has made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that eve might be made the righteousness of God in him." 2 Corinthians 5:21

My reader, it is your highest honor, as it was His deepest shame; your richest glory, as it was His deepest humiliation; that He literally did bear all the sins of all His Church. As truly as we are "made the righteousness of God in Him," He was "made sin," or a sin-offering, for us. Behold how beautifully has the Holy Spirit brought out the doctrines of substitution and union. Of substitution thus, "He has made Him (who knew no sin) to be sin for us." And of union thus, "that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him." Oh amazing truth! Sinking to our deepest dishonor, He raises us to His highest glory. Sinking Himself with our fallen humanity, He raises us to a union with God. Substituting Himself for us, He makes us one with Himself. An affecting thought! Were all our iniquities, and all our "transgressions in all our sins," laid on Jesus? Yes, all! Before His infinite mind, to whom the past and the future are one eternal now, the sins of all His chosen ones, to the remotest period of time, passed in review, and were made to meet on the head of the atoning Lamb. Here is opened the high source of all real blessed ness to a believing soul. Sweet is the spring, and sweet are the streams that flow from it. Reconciliation with God- His free forgiveness- union with His nature- adoption into His family- acceptance in the Beloved- oneness with a risen Head- access within the veil- filial and perpetual communion- and the "peace of God, which, passes all understanding," are among the costly results of Christ bearing sin. And see how completely He has borne the mighty load. The moment our iniquities touched Him, it would seem as though He flung them to an infinite distance, or sunk them to an infinite depth. Never, in point of law and justice, can they appear against the pardoned soul. Laid upon our Surety, condemned, and punished, and pardoned in Him, "there is now no condemnation" of, or for sin, to "those who are in Christ Jesus." How strong is the language which declares this truth: "I have blotted out as a thick cloud your transgressions, and as a cloud your sins;" "You have cast all my sins behind Your back;" "Thus says the Lord, The iniquity of Israel shall be sought for, and there shall be none; and the sins of Judah, and they shall not be found." And why? "Behold the Lamb of God, that takes away the sin of the world!" And may we not account as among the most precious and costly blessings resulting from this truth, its sanctifying tendency? My beloved, the deepest view you can ever have of God's hatred of sin is in the cross of Calvary; and the deepest sense of the "exceeding sinfulness of sin" you can ever feel is its entire pardon, imprinted on your heart with the atoning blood of Jesus, and witnessed by the power and grace of the Holy Spirit. You hate it because it is forgiven; you abhor it because it is pardoned. Oh, powerful and precious motive to holiness! My soul, yield yourself to its sweet influence, draw your constraints to a life of deeper sanctification from the cross; thirst and pant with more intense desire after Divine conformity, as one all whose iniquities, transgressions, and sins are forever cancelled by the heart's blood of God's dear Son. Oh hateful and hated sin, atoned for so richly, pardoned so freely, blotted out so entirely, how can I admire you? how can I love you? how can I cherish you? and how can I yield to you now? You did burden and bow down to the earth the soul of my blessed Lord. You did mar the beauty, and veil the glory, and humble the spirit of my Beloved. You did crimson His body with the bloody sweat- you did wreath His brow with thorns- you did trouble his soul even unto death; and yet you, my transgressions, are forgiven- you, my sins, are covered- you, my iniquities, are not imputed, and that because Jesus, my surety, was wounded, and bruised, and stricken for me!

APRIL 29.

"You are complete in Him." Colossians 2:10

Here is a truth, the vastness of which is only equaled by its unspeakable preciousness. The Lord Jesus is the life of our acceptance with God. We stand as believers in the righteousness of a living Head. Within the veil He has entered, "now to appear in the presence of God for us," presenting all His people each moment complete in Himself. It is a present justification. "You are complete in Him," "accepted in the Beloved," "justified from all things." Perfection in himself the enlightened soul utterly repudiates. Completeness in anything that he is, or has done, he totally rejects. Incomplete his deepest repentance- incomplete his strongest faith- incomplete his best obedience- incomplete his most costly sacrifice- low in the lowest dust does he lay himself. Too wretched he cannot think himself- too little he cannot be in his own eyes. Language fails to express the deep self-loathing and sin-abhorrence of his soul. But lo! a voice is heard- oh, it falls upon his ear like the music of the spheres- "You are complete in Him." In one moment all is peace. The believing soul ceases from his works- the weary spirit enters into rest, because, believing, it enters into Jesus. In Christ he now stands complete. His pardon complete- his justification complete- his adoption complete- his whole person complete before a holy God! Is not this a vast truth? and is it not a glorious one? Where is the doctrine that exceeds it? Where is the declaration that has in it such life as this? Dear reader, it may be you have long been looking at yourself for some one thing complete. Something- in your judgment you may reject the thought, yet in your heart there is that principle which has been looking for something in yourself to commend you to God- something to make you more acceptable to, more welcomed by, Him. But behold where your completeness is found- in, and solely in, Christ. Oh precious truth! A poor, vile sinner, standing before a holy God, complete in righteousness! the object of His infinite love and delight, over whom He rejoices with singing. Oh, how divine, how finished, how glorious must that righteousness be, which so covers your soul as to present you before a God of immaculate purity, "without a spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing!"

APRIL 30.

"You have received the Spirit of adoption." Romans 8:15

The Spirit of adoption is the same as the Spirit of God. There are two essential features which identify Him as such. The first is, He imparts the nature of the Father to all the children of the family. In this there is a wide difference between a human and a Divine adoption. Man can only confer his name and his inheritance upon the child he adopts. But in the adoption of God, to the name and inheritance of God is added the Divine nature, imparted in regeneration; so that, in the words of our Lord, we become manifestly the "children of our Father who is in heaven." The second feature is- having begotten the nature of the Father, He then breathes the spirit of the child into the heart. He inspires a filial love. The love which glows in the believer's heart is the affection of a child to its parent. It is not a servile bondage, but a filial and free spirit. Oh sweet and holy emotion! How tender and confiding, how clinging and child-like is it! Such ought to be our love to God. He is our Father- we are His children. Why should not our love to Him be marked by more of the exquisite tenderness, and the unquestioning confidence, and the calm repose of a child reclining upon a parent's breast? A child-like fear of God is another inspiration of the Spirit of adoption. Love and fear are twin graces in the Christian character. The Spirit of God is the Author of both; and both dwell together and cooperate in the same renewed heart. It is not the dread of the servant, but the holy trembling of the child, of which we speak. It is a filial, loving, reverential fear. A child-like trust in God also springs from the Spirit of adoption. The trust of a child is implicit, affectionate, and unquestioning. Upon whose counsel may he so safely rely, in whose affection may he so fully confide, upon whose fidelity may he so confidently trust, as a parent's? God is your Father, O child of a divine adoption, of a heavenly birth!- let your trust in Him be the result of the relationship you sustain. It admits you to the closest intimacy, and invites you to the most perfect confidence. You have not a need, nor an anxiety, nor a grief, which is not all His own. His adoption of your person- an act of His spontaneous and most free grace- pledged Him to transfer all your individual interests to Himself. To these we must add a filial obedience- "If you love me, keep my commandments." Obedience, whether to the Savior's precept, or to the Father's law, is the test of love; and love is the spring of obedience. "All that the Lord God has spoken to us will we do," is the language of that heart where the Spirit of adoption dwells. Such are some of the features of adoption.

MAY 1.

"This people has a revolting and a rebellious heart; they are revolted and gone." Jeremiah 5:23

We look at a believer's lax practice, we mourn and weep over it, and we do well; we trace our own, and still deeper shame and confusion of face cover us: but we forget that the cause of our bitterest sorrow and humiliation should be the concealed principle of evil, from where springs this unholy practice. How few among the called of God are found confessing and mourning over the sin of their nature; the impure fountain from where the stream flows from, the unmortified root from where the branch originates, and from which both are fed and nourished. This is what God looks at- the sin of our fallen, unsanctified nature- and this is what we should look at, and mourn over. Indeed, true mortification of sin consists in a knowledge of our sinful nature; and its subjection to the power of divine grace. The reason why so few believers "through the Spirit mortify the deeds of the body" is, a forgetfulness that the work has to do first and mainly with the root of sin in the soul. "Make the tree good, and the fruit will also be good;" purify the fountain, and the streams will be pure. Oh, were there a deeper acquaintance with the hidden iniquity of our fallen nature- a more thorough learning of the truth, that "in our flesh there dwells no good thing,"- a more heart-felt humiliation on account of it, and more frequent confession of it before God- how much higher than they now are, would be the attainments in holiness of many believers! There is, then, in every child of God, the innate principle of departure. Notwithstanding the wonders of grace God has wrought for the soul- though He has elected, called, renewed, washed, and clothed the believer- yet if He did not check and bridle him in, he would depart, and that forever! -this unsanctified, unmortified principle would bear him away. Is there not in this aspect of our theme something truly heartbreaking?- the subject of God's kind and benevolent government, and yet to be always rebelling against the Sovereign; dwelling under a kind and loving Father's roof, and yet to be perpetually grieving Him and departing from Him; to have received so many costly proofs of His love, and yet rendering the most ungrateful returns- oh, it is enough to sink the soul in the deepest self-abasement before God. Reader, what has the Lord been to you? Come, witness for Him; has He ever been a wilderness to you, a dry and barren land? has there been anything in His dealings, in His conduct, in His way with you, why you should have turned your back upon Him? has there been any harshness in His rebukes, any unkind severity in His corrections, anything judicial and vindictive in His dealings? No, on the contrary, has He not been a fruitful garden, a pleasant land, a fountain of living waters to you? has He not blended kindness with all His rebukes, tenderness with all His chastisements, love with all His dealings, and has not His gentleness made you great? Then why have you departed from Him? What is there in God that you should leave Him, what in Jesus that you should wound Him, what in the blessed Spirit that you should grieve Him? Is not the cause of all your departure, declension, unkindness, unfruitfulness, in yourself, and in yourself alone? But if this has been your conduct towards God, not so has been His conduct towards you.

MAY 2.

"I will not let you go, except you bless me." Genesis 32:26

It is the knowledge of his need that gives true eloquence to the petition of the beggar; a sense of destitution, of absolute poverty, of actual starvation, imparts energy to his plea, and perseverance in its attainment; his language is, "I must have bread, or I die." This is just what we want the child of God to feel: what is he but a pensioner on God's daily bounty? what resources has he within himself?- none whatever; and what is he without God?- poor indeed. Now, in proportion as he becomes acquainted with his real case, his utter destitution, he will besiege the throne of grace, and take no denial. He must know his needs, he must know what grace he is deficient in, what besetting sin clings to him, what infirmities encompass him, what portion of the Spirit's work is declining in his soul, where he is the weakest and the most exposed to the attacks of the enemy, and what he yet lacks to perfect him in all the will of God; let him examine himself honestly, and know his real condition. This will endear the throne of grace, will stir up the slumbering spirit of prayer, will supply him with errands to God, and give argument, energy, and perseverance to his suit. It was his deep and pressing sense of need that imparted such boldness and power to the wrestlings of Jacob. "I will not let You go, except You bless me;" and the Lord said, "Your name shall be called no more Jacob, but Israel; for as a prince have you power with God and with men, and have prevailed." Thus imitate the patriarch; begin the day with thinking over what you may possibly need before its close- whether any cross is anticipated, or any temptation is apprehended, or any danger to which you may be exposed; and then go and wrestle for the needed and the promised grace. Oh, it is a great mercy to have an errand that sends us to God; and when we remember what a full heart of love He has, what a readiness to hear, what promptness in all His answers, what entering into the minutest circumstance of a believer's history- how it chides the reluctance and rebukes the unbelief that we perpetually manifest in availing ourselves of this most costly, holy, and precious of all our privileges!

MAY 3.

"Those who are whole have no need of the physician, but those who are sick: I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance." Mark 2:17

The Spirit glorifies Christ by revealing what Christ is to an emptied, lowly, penitent soul. And this He does by unfolding the great truth of the Bible- that Jesus died for sinners. Not for the righteous, not for the worthy, but for sinners, as sinners; for the unrighteous, for the unworthy, for the guilty, for the lost. Precious moment, when the Eternal Spirit, the great Glorifier of Jesus, brings this truth with power to the heart! "I had believed," exclaims the transported soul, "that Jesus died only for those who were worthy of so rich a sacrifice, of such immense love. I thought to bring some price of merit in my hands, some self-preparation, some previous fitness, something to render my case worthy of His notice, and to propitiate His kind regard. But now I see His salvation is for the vile, the poor, the penniless. I read that 'when we were without strength, Christ died for the ungodly,' that 'while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us,' that 'when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son,' that 'it is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners,' that it is 'without money and without price,' that it is 'by grace we are saved,' and that it is 'of faith, that it might be by grace.'" This good news, these joyful tidings, this glorious message of free mercy for the vilest of the vile, believed, received, welcomed, in a moment the clouds all vanish, the fogs all disappear, the face of God beams in mild and softened luster, and, amid light and joy, gladness and praise, the jubilee of the soul is ushered in. Oh, what glory now encircles the Redeemer! That soul venturing upon Him with but the faith of reliance, traveling to Him in all weakness, and in the face of all opposition, brings more glory to His name than all the hallelujahs of the heavenly minstrelsy ever brought.

MAY 4.

"Why are you so fearful? how is it that you have no faith?" Mark 4:40

The habitual, or even the occasional, doubtful apprehension indulged in of his interest in Christ will tend materially to the enfeebling and decay of a believer's faith; no cause can be more certain in its effects than this. If it be true that the exercise of faith develops its strength, it is equally true that the perpetual indulgence of doubtful apprehensions of pardon and acceptance must necessarily eat as a canker-worm at the root of faith. Every misgiving felt, every doubt cherished, every fear yielded to, every dark providence brooded over, tends to unhinge the soul from God, and dims its near and loving view of Jesus. To doubt the love, the wisdom, and the faithfulness of God, to doubt the perfection of the work of Christ, to doubt the operation of the Spirit on the heart, what can tend more to the weakening and decay of this precious and costly grace? Every time the soul sinks under the pressure of a doubt of its interest in Christ, the effect must be a weakening of the soul's view of the glory, perfection, and all-sufficiency of Christ's work. But imperfectly may the doubting Christian be aware what dishonor is done to Jesus, what reflection is cast upon His great work, by every unbelieving fear he cherishes. It is a secret wounding of Jesus, however the soul might shrink from such an inference; it is a lowering, an undervaluing of Christ's obedience and death- that glorious work of salvation with which the Father has declared Himself well pleased- that work with which divine justice has confessed itself satisfied- that work, on the basis of which every poor, convinced sinner is saved, and on the ground of which millions of redeemed and glorified spirits are now basking around the throne- that work, we say, is dishonored, undervalued, and slighted by every doubt and fear secretly harbored or openly expressed by a child of God. The moment a believer looks at his unworthiness more than at the righteousness of Christ- supposes that there is not a sufficiency of merit in Jesus to supply the absence of all merit in himself before God- what is it but a setting up his sinfulness and unworthiness above the infinite worth, fulness, and sufficiency of Christ's atonement and righteousness? There is much spurious humility among many of the dear saints of God. It is thought by some, that to be always doubting one's pardon and acceptance is the evidence of a humble spirit. It is, allow us to say, the mark of the very opposite of a lowly and humble mind. That is true humility that credits the testimony of God- that believes because He has spoken it- that rests in the blood and righteousness and all-sufficiency of Jesus, because He has declared that "whoever believes in Him shall be saved." This is genuine lowliness- the blessed product of the Eternal Spirit. To go to Jesus just as I am, a poor, lost, helpless sinner- to go without previous preparation- to go glorying in my weakness, infirmity, and poverty, that the free grace, and sovereign pleasure, and infinite merit of Christ might be seen in my full pardon, justification, and eternal glory. There is more of unmortified pride, of self-righteousness, of that principle that would make God a debtor to the creature, in the refusal of a soul fully to accept of Jesus, than is suspected. There is more real, profound humility in a simple, believing venture upon Christ, as a ruined sinner, taking Him as all its righteousness, all its pardon, all its glory, than it is possible for any mortal mind to fathom. Doubt is ever the offspring of pride, humility is ever the handmaid of faith.

MAY 5.

"If we believe not, yet he abides faithful; he cannot deny himself." 2 Timothy 2:13

This is the only true and secure anchorage-ground for a poor soul, tossed amid the waves of doubt and perplexity- to know that God cannot alter His word; that it is impossible that He should lie; that were He to deviate from His infinite perfection, He would cease to be a perfect being, and consequently would cease to be God: to know, too, that He is faithful in the midst of the unfaithfulness and perpetual startings aside of His child- faithful in the depth of the deepest affliction- faithful when earthly hopes wither, and human cisterns are broken, and when the soul is led to exclaim, "His faithfulness has failed!"- Oh, what a spring to a tried and drooping faith is this view which God Himself has given of His own glorious and perfect character! It is no small triumph of faith to walk with God, when all is darkness with the soul, and there is no light; to feel amid the roaring of the waves that still He is faithful- that though He slay, yet the soul can trust Him; that though He were to take all else, away He would never remove Himself from His people. Oh glorious triumph of faith! "Who is among you that fears the Lord, that obeys the voice of his servant, that walks in darkness, and has no light? let him trust in the name of the Lord, and stay upon his God."

MAY 6.

"You did run well; who did hinder you that you should not obey the truth?" Galatians 5:7

The apostle Paul, skillful to detect and faithful to reprove any declension in the faith or laxity in the practice of the early Churches, discovered in that of Galatia a departure from the purity of the truth, and a consequent carelessness in their walk. Grieved at the discovery, he addresses to them an affectionate and faithful Epistle, expressive of his astonishment and pain, and proposing a solemn and searching inquiry. "I marvel," he writes, "that you are so soon removed from Him that called you into the grace of Christ. How, after that you have known God, or rather are known of God, how turn you again to the weak and beggarly elements? I am afraid of you, lest I have bestowed upon you labor in vain. Where is the blessedness you spoke of? I stand in doubt of you. You did run well; who did hinder you?" To the reader conscious of secret declension in his soul, we propose the same searching and tender inquiry. You did run well; who hindered you?- what stumbling block has fallen in your way?- what has impeded your onward course?- what has enfeebled your faith, chilled your love, drawn your heart from Jesus, and lured you back to the weak and beggarly elements of a poor world? You set out fair; for a time you did run well; your zeal, and love, and humility gave promise of a useful life, of a glorious race, and of a successful competition for the prize; but something has hindered you. What is it? Is it the world, creature love, covetousness, ambition, presumptuous sin, unmortified corruption, the old leaven unpurged? Search it out. Rest not until it be discovered. Your declension is secret, perhaps the cause is secret- some spiritual duty secretly neglected, or some known sin secretly indulged. Search it out, and bring it to light. It must be a cause adequate to the production of effects so serious. You are not as you once were. Your soul has lost ground; the divine life has declined; the fruit of the Spirit has withered; the heart has lost its softness, the conscience its tenderness, the mind its lowliness, the throne of grace its sweetness, the cross of Jesus its attraction. Oh, how sad and melancholy the change that has passed over you! And have you not the consciousness of it in your soul? Where is the blessedness you spoke of? where is the sunlight countenance of a reconciled Father? where are the rich moments spent before the cross? the hallowed seasons of communion in the closet, shut in with God? where is the voice of the turtledove, the singing of birds, the green pastures where you did feed, the still waters on whose banks you did repose? Is it all gone? Is it winter with your soul? Ah! yes; your soul is made to feel that it is an evil and a bitter thing to depart from the living God.

MAY 7.

"For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh) dwells no good thing." Romans 7:18

The Lord will cause His people to know their total weakness and insufficiency to keep themselves, and that, too, not notionally, not theoretically, nor from what they hear, or from what they read, but from their own deep personal experience of the truth: yes, He is perpetually causing them to learn it. I do not allude merely to that blessed period when the Holy Spirit first lays His axe at the fabric of their self-righteousness- truly they first learn it then- but it is a truth they become growingly acquainted with; it is a lesson they are made daily to learn; and he becomes the most perfectly schooled in it, who watches most narrowly his own heart, is most observant of his own way, and deals most constantly and simply with the cross of Jesus. With regard to the way which the Lord adopts to bring them into the knowledge of it, it is various. Sometimes it is by bringing them into great straits and difficulties, hedging up their path with thorns, or paving it with flints. Sometimes it is in deep adversity after great prosperity, as in the case of Job, stripped of all, and laid in dust and ashes, in order to be brought to the conviction and the confession of deep and utter vileness. Sometimes it is in circumstances of absolute prosperity, when He gives the heart its desire, but sends leanness into the soul. Oh, how does this teach a godly man his own utter nothingness! Sometimes it is by permitting the messenger of Satan to buffet- sending and perpetuating some heavy, lingering, lacerating cross. Sometimes by the removal of some beloved prop, on which we too fondly and securely leaned- putting a worm at the root of our pleasant out-spreading gourd, drying up our refreshing spring, or leading us down deep into the valley of self-abasement and humiliation. But the great school in which we learn this painful yet needed and wholesome lesson, is in the body of sin which we daily bear about with us. It was here Paul learned his lesson, as the seventh chapter of his letter to the Church at Rome shows, and for which Epistle the saints of God will ever have reason to praise and adore the blessed and eternal Spirit. In this school and in this way did the great apostle of the Gentiles learn that the most holy, deeply taught, useful, privileged, and even inspired saint of God was in himself nothing but the most perfect weakness and sin. Do not be cast down, dear reader, if the Lord the Spirit is teaching you the same lesson in the same way; if He is now ploughing up the hidden evil, breaking up the fallow ground, discovering to you more of the evil principle of your heart, the iniquity of your fallen nature, and that, too, it may be, at a time of deep trial, of heavy, heart-breaking affliction. Ah! you are ready to exclaim, "All these things are against me. Am I a child of God ? Can I be a subject of grace, and at the same time be the subject of so much hidden evil, and of such deep, overwhelming trial? Is this the way He deals with His people?"
Yes, dear believer, you are not solitary nor alone; for along this path all the covenant people of God are traveling to their better and brighter home. Here they become acquainted with their own weakness, their perpetual liability to fall; here they renounce their former thoughts of self-power and of self-keeping; and here, too, they learn more of Jesus as their strength, their all-sufficient keeper, more of Him as their "wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption." Cheer up, then, for the Lord your God is leading you on by a safe and a right way to bring you to a city of rest.

MAY 8.

"That the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perishes, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honor and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ." 1 Peter 1:7

The trial of faith is a test of its character; it is the furnace that tries the ore of what kind it is- it may be brass, or iron, or clay, or perhaps precious gold; but the crucible will test it. There is much that passes for real faith, which is no faith; there is much spurious, counterfeit metal; it is the trial that brings out its real character. The true character of Judas was not known until his covetousness was tempted; Simon Magus was not discovered to possess a spurious faith, until he thought to purchase the gift of God with money; Demas did not forsake the apostle, until the world drew him away. But true faith stands the trial; where there is a real work of grace in the heart, no tribulation, or persecution, or power of this world, will ever be able to expel it thence; but if all is chaff, the wind will scatter it; if all is but dross and tinsel, the fire will consume it. Let the humble and tried believer, then, thank God for every test that brings out the real character of his faith, and proves it to be "the faith of God's elect." God will test His own work in the gracious soul; every grace of His own Spirit he will at one time or another place in the crucible; but never will He remove His eye from off it; He will 'sit as a refiner,' and watch that not a grain of the precious metal is consumed; He will be with His child in all and every affliction; not for one moment will He leave him. Let gratitude rather than murmuring, joy rather than sorrow, attend every test which a loving and faithful Father brings to His own gracious work, "that the trial of your faith might be found unto praise and honor and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ."

MAY 9.

"No man has seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he has declared him." John 1:18

Of the spirituality of the Divine nature we can form no just or definite conception. All our ideas of it must necessarily be unintelligible, vague, and shadowy. Referring to this impossibility, and in language of condescending adaptation to our sensible view of objects, Jesus says of His Father, "You have neither heard His voice at any time, nor seen His shape." Ignorant of this inspired truth, and yet with a quenchless thirst ever desiring such a conception of an infinite spirit as would afford a resting-place for the mind, an object on which faith could repose, and around which the affections could entwine, man has been beguiled into atheism and idolatry of the most debasing and fearful character. Framing his conceptions of spirit after his own low and depraved idea of matter, he has "changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and four footed beasts, and creeping things."
But God has revealed Himself. He has stooped to our nature, and in the person of His incarnate Son has embodied the spirituality of His being, with all its divine and glorious attributes. All that we clearly, savingly know of God is just the measure of our acquaintance with this truth. Jesus brings God near. "You are near, O Lord." Oh, how near! "They shall call His name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us." The most stupendous, glorious truth which created mind ever grasped is involved in this wondrous declaration, "Emmanuel, God with us." With what glory does it invest the Bible! what a foundation does it lay for faith! what substance does it impart to salvation! and what a good hope does it place before the believing soul! God is with us in Christ, with us in the character of a reconciled Father, with us every step of our journey to heaven, with us to guide in perplexity, to soothe in sorrow, to comfort in bereavement, to rescue in danger, to shield in temptation, to provide in need, to support in death, and safely to conduct to glory. My soul! fall prostrate in the dust before the majesty of this amazing, this precious truth; adore the wisdom that has revealed it, and admire the grace that makes it yours!

MAY 10.

"Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth." Colossians 3:2

How solemn and full of meaning are these words! To set the affections on heavenly things is to realize the ardent desire of the apostle, that he might "know Christ and the power of His resurrection." Oh, there is a mighty, elevating power in the resurrection of Christ! It is the great lever of a child of God, lifting him above earth, heavenward. To know that he is closely and inseparably one with the risen Head of the Church, is to be the subject of a continuous, quickening influence, which in spirit raises him from the dust and darkness and pollutions by which he is surrounded, fixing the affections with greater ardency of devotion and supreme attachment on things above. Oh, nothing will more sanctify and elevate our hearts, than to have them brought under the "power of Christ's resurrection." Following Him by faith, from the dust of earth to the glory of heaven, the affections will ascend with their Beloved. Where He is- the heart's most precious treasure- there it will be also. And oh, to have the heart with Christ in heaven, what an unspeakable mercy! And why should it not be? Has earth more that is attractive and lovely, holy and worthy of its affection, than heaven? Here, we are encircled by, and combat with, spirits of darkness and pollution, principalities and powers; there, is "an innumerable company of angels." Here, we are much separated from the Church of God; there, is the "general assembly and Church of the first-born," from whom nothing shall divide us. Here, the Divine presence is often withdrawn, and we are taunted and accused by our foes; there, is "God the Judge of all," whose presence will be our eternal glory, and who will "bring forth our righteousness as the light, and our judgment as the noon-day." Here, we often hang our heads in sorrow, at the imperfections we mark in the saints; there, are the "spirits of just men made perfect," "without fault before the throne." Here, we often lose sight of our beloved Lord; there, is "Jesus, the Mediator of the new covenant," never more to be veiled from our view. Oh, then, how much richer and more attractive is heaven than earth, to a renewed and holy mind, each moment growing richer and more attractive, by the accession to its happiness of those, the holy and loved ones of the earth, who have for a little while preceded us to that world of perfect bliss! Our treasure in glory, how rapidly it accumulates! Death, which impoverishes us here, by snatching from our embrace the objects of our love, by that same act augments our riches in heaven, into the full possession and enjoyment of which it will, in its appointed time, beneficently translate us. But the sweetest, the most powerful attraction of heaven, let us never forget, is, that Jesus is there. Ah! what would heaven be, were He absent? Could we, at this moment, rush into the fond embrace of the dearest of the glorified ones, and not meet the "Chief among ten thousand, the altogether lovely One," who on earth was more precious to our hearts than life itself, oh, how soon would its glory fade from our eye, and its music pall upon our ear! It would cease to be heaven without Christ. Even on earth His presence and His smile constitute the first dawnings of that better world. And he who lives most in the enjoyment of this- and oh, how much more may be enjoyed than we have the faintest conception of!- has most of the element of heaven in his soul. Aim, then, to cultivate heavenly affections, by a life of high communion with God.

MAY 11.

"Being confident of this very thing, that he, which has begun a good work in you, will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ." Philippians 1:6

The doctrine of the Spirit's personal dignity affords a pledge that the work thus commenced shall be carried forward to a final and glorious completion. Because He is God, He will finish what He has begun. And let it not be forgotten, that the growth of the believer in the experience of the truth is as much the work of the eternal Spirit as was the first production of divine life in the soul. The dependence of the believer on the Spirit by no means ceases in conversion. There are after-stages along which it is his office to conduct the believing soul. Deeper views of sin's exceeding sinfulness- a more thorough knowledge of self, more enlarged discoveries of Christ- a more simple and habitual resting upon His finished work, increasing conformity to the Divine image- the daily victory over indwelling sin, and a constant fitting for the inheritance of the saints in light- all these works the one and the self-same Spirit, who first breathed into his soul the breath of spiritual life. Not a step can the believer advance without the Spirit- not a victory can he achieve without the Spirit- not a moment can he exist without the Spirit. As he needed Him at the first, so he needs Him all his journey through. And so he will have Him, until the soul passes over Jordan. To the last ebbing of life, the blessed Spirit will be his Teacher, his Comforter, and his Guide. To the last, He will testify of Jesus; to the last, He will apply the atoning blood; and to the very entrance of the happy saint into glory, the eternal Spirit of God- faithful, loving to the last- will be present to whisper words of pardon, assurance, and peace. Holy Spirit! build us up in the infinite dignity of Your person, and in the surpassing greatness and glory of Your work!

MAY 12.

"In whom also, after that you believed, you were sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise." Ephesians 1:13

Although it is most true that the moment a sinner believes in Jesus he becomes actually an "heir of God, and a joint heir with Christ," and enters into the family as an adopted child, yet the clear and undoubted sense of this vast mercy may not be sealed upon his heart until after years. He may long have walked without the sweet sense of God's adopting love in his heart, and the frame of his spirit, and the language of his soul in prayer, has been more that of the "son of the bond-woman" than the "son of the free-woman;"he has known but little of the "free spirit,"- the spirit of an adopted child- and he has seldom gone to God as a kind, loving, tender, and faithful father. But now the Divine Sealer- the eternal Spirit of God- enters afresh, and impresses deeply upon his soul the unutterably sweet and abiding sense of his adoption. Oh, what an impression is then left upon his heart, when all his legal fears are calmed- when all his slavish moanings are hushed, all his bondage spirit is gone- and when, under the drawings of filial love, he approaches the throne of grace, and cries, "My Father!" and his Father responds, "My child! You shall call me, My Father; and shall not turn away from me!"
The sealing of the Spirit does not always imply a rejoicing frame. It is not necessarily accompanied by great spiritual joy. While we cannot forget that it is the believer's privilege to be "always rejoicing," "rejoicing evermore," and that a state of spiritual joy is a holy as it is a happy state, yet we cannot suppose that the "sealed" are always in possession of this "fruit of the Spirit." It is perhaps more a state of rest in God- a state of holy quietude and peace, which, in many cases, seldom rises to that of joy. There is an unclouded hope, a firm and unshaken resting on the finished work, a humble reliance on the stability of the covenant and the immutability of God's love, which is never moved even when there is no sensible enjoyment, and when comfort seems to die. It is a state corresponding to that which David thus expresses- "Although my house do not be so with God; yet He has made with me an everlasting covenant, ordered in all things, and sure: for this is all my salvation, and all my desire, although He make it not to grow." Perhaps more akin to Job's frame of soul when he exclaimed, "Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him." Sensible comforts may be withdrawn, joy maybe absent- the Sun of Righteousness casting but a faint twilight over the soul- and yet, such is the power of faith grasping the cross of Christ- such the firm resting of the soul upon the stability of the covenant- upon, what God is, and upon what He has promised- that, without one note of joy, or one ray of light, the believer can yet say, "I know in whom I have believed." And why, we ask, this strong and vigorous reliance?- why this buoying up of the soul in the absence of sensible comfort? We reply, because that soul has attained unto the sealing of the Spirit. This forms the great secret.

MAY 13.

"The Holy Spirit of God, whereby you are sealed unto the day of redemption." Ephesians 4;30

The believer will never lose the sealing of the Spirit. The impression of God's pardoning love, made upon the heart by the Holy Spirit, is never entirely effaced. We do not say that there are no moments when the "consolations of God are small" with the believer- when he shall have no severe "fightings within, and fears without," when the experience of the Church shall be his, "I opened to my beloved; but my beloved had withdrawn himself, and was gone: my soul failed when he spoke: I sought him, but I could not find him; I called him, but he gave me no answer;"- all this he may experience, and still not lose the sealing of the Spirit. In the midst of it all, yes, in the lowest depth, there shall be the abiding conviction of an interest in God's love, which sustains, animates, and comforts. It will be seen, by reverting to the state of the Church above alluded to, that, although there was the consciousness of her beloved's withdrawment- though he was gone, and she sought him but could not find him, called him but he gave her no answer- yet not for one moment did she lose the impression that He was still her beloved. Here was the glorious triumph of faith, in the hour when all was loneliness, desolation, and joylessness. Here was the sealing of the Spirit which never left her, even though her "beloved had gone." And while not a beam of His beauty glanced upon her soul, nor a note of His voice fell upon her ear, she still could look up and exclaim, "I am my beloved's, and my beloved is mine." Oh mighty power of faith, that can anchor the soul firm on Jesus, in the darkest and wildest tempest! And this is but the sealing of the Spirit. It is the Holy Spirit so deeply impressing on the heart a sense of pardoning love- so firmly establishing it in the faithfulness of God- the finished work of Christ- the stability of the covenant, and the soul's adoption into the one family, that in the gloomiest hour, and under the most trying dispensation, there is that which keeps the soul steady to its center- Jehovah-Jesus. And even should his sun go down behind a mist, he has the sustaining assurance that it will rise upon another world, in peerless, cloudless splendor. O yes! the sealing of the Spirit is a permanent, abiding impression. It is "unto the day of redemption,"- the day when there shall be no more conflict, no more darkness, no more sin. It is not to the day of pardon- for he cannot be more entirely pardoned than he is; it is not to the day of acceptance- for he cannot be more fully accepted than now- no, it is to the glorious "day of redemption"- the day of complete emancipation, longed for by the sons of God, and even sighed for by the "whole creation:" "and not only they, but ourselves also, which have the first-fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body." Oh, shout for joy, you sealed of the Lord! You tried and afflicted, tossed with tempest, and not comforted- you who find the wilderness to be but a wilderness, a valley of tears- the way rougher and rougher, narrower and narrower- lift up your heads with joy, the hour of "your redemption draws near," and the "days of your mourning shall be ended." And this is your security- a faithful, covenant-keeping God, "who has also sealed us, and given the earnest of the Spirit in our hearts."

MAY 14.

"And suddenly, when they had looked round about, they saw no man any more, save Jesus only with themselves." Mark 9:8

It is possible, my dear reader, that this page may be read by you at a period of painful and entire separation from all public engagements, ordinances, and privileges. The way which it has pleased God to take thus to set you aside may be painful and humbling. The inmate of a sick chamber, or curtained within the house of mourning, or removed far remote from the sanctuary of God and the fellowship of the saints, you are, perhaps, led to inquire, "Lord, why this?" He replies, "Come apart, and rest awhile." Oh the thoughtfulness, the discrimination, the tenderness of Jesus towards His people! He has set you apart from public, for private duties, from communion with others for communion with Himself. Ministers, friends, privileges are withdrawn, and you are- oh enviable state!- alone with Jesus. And now expect the richest and holiest blessing of your life!
Is it sickness? Jesus will make all your bed in your sickness, and your experience shall be, "His left hand is under my head, and His right hand embraces me." Is it bereavement? Jesus will soothe your sorrow and sweeten your loneliness; for He loves to visit the house of mourning, and to accompany us to the grave, to weep with us there. Is it exile from the house of God, from the ordinances of the Church, from a pastor's care, from Christian fellowship? Still it is Jesus who speaks, "There will I be unto you as a little sanctuary." The very circumstances, new and peculiar as they are, in which you are placed, God can convert into new and peculiar mercies, yes, into the richest means of grace with which your soul was ever fed. The very void you feel, the very need you deplore, may be God's way of satiating you with His goodness. Ah! does not God see your grace in your very desire for grace? Does He not mark your sanctification in your very thirsting for holiness? And can He not turn that desire, and convert that thirst, into the very blessing itself? Truly He can, and often does. As one has remarked, God knows how to give the comfort of an ordinance in the desire of an ordinance. And He can now more than supply the absence of others by the presence of Himself. Oh, who can compute the blessings which now may flow into your soul from this season of exile and of solitude? Solitude! no, it is not solitude. Never were you less alone than now. You are alone with God, and He is infinitely better than health, wealth, friends, ministers, or sanctuary, for He is the substance and the sweetness of all. You have perhaps been laboring and watching for the souls of others; the Lord is now showing His tender care for your soul. And oh, if while thus alone with Jesus you are led more deeply to search out the plague of your own heart, and the love of His- to gather up the trailing garment- to burnish the rusted armor- to trim the glimmering lamp- and to cultivate a closer fellowship with your Father, how much soever you may mourn the necessity and the cause, you yet will not regret that the Lord has set you apart from others, that you might rest awhile in His blest embrace- alone with Jesus.

MAY 15.

"The throne of grace." Hebrews 4:16

Forget not, dear reader, it is the throne of grace, to which you come in prayer. It is a throne, because God is a Sovereign. He will ever have the suppliant recognize this perfection of His nature. He hears and answers as a Sovereign. He hears whom He will, and answers what and when He will. There must be no dictation to God, no refusing to bow to His sovereignty, no rebelling against His will. If the answer be delayed, or God should seem to withhold it altogether, remember that "He gives no account of any of His matters," and that He has a right to answer or not to answer, as seems good in His sight. Glorious perfection of God, beaming from the mercy-seat!
But it is also a throne of grace. And why? Because a God of grace sits upon it, and the scepter of grace is held out from it, and all the favors bestowed there are the blessings of grace. God has many thrones. There is the throne of creation, the throne of providence, the throne of justice, and the throne of redemption; but this is the throne of grace. Just the throne we need. We are the poor, the needy, the helpless, the vile, the sinful, the unworthy; we have nothing to bring but our deep wretchedness and poverty, nothing but our complaints, our miseries, our crosses, our groanings, our sighs, and tears. But it is the throne of grace. For just such is it erected. It is set up in a world of woe- in the midst of the wilderness- in the very land of the enemy- in the valley of tears, because it is the throne of grace. It is a God of grace who sits upon it, and all the blessings He dispenses from it are the bestowments of grace. Pardon, justification, adoption, peace, comfort, light, direction- all, all is of grace. No worth or worthiness in the creature draws it forth- no price he may bring purchases it- no tears, or complainings, or misery moves the heart of God to compassion- all is of grace. God is so full of compassion, and love, and mercy, He does not need to be stimulated to pour it forth. It gushes from His heart as from a full and overflowing fountain, and flows into the bosom of the poor, the lowly, the humble, and the contrite; enriching, comforting, and sanctifying their souls. Then, dear reader, whatever be your case, you may come. If it is a throne of grace, as it is, then why not you? Why stand afar off? If the poor, the penniless, the disconsolate, the guilty are welcome here- if this throne is crowded by such, why make yourself an exception? Why not come too? What is your case, what is your sorrow, what is your burden? Ah! perhaps you can disclose it to no earthly ear. You can tell it only to God. Then take it to Him. Let me tell you for your encouragement, God has His secret audience-chamber, where He will meet you alone, and where no eye shall see you, and no ear shall hear you, but His; where you may open all your heart, and disclose your real case, and pour all your secrets into His ear. Precious encouragement! It comes from those lips into which grace was poured. "You, when you pray, enter into your closet, and when you have shut your door, pray to your Father which is in secret; and your Father which sees in secret shall reward you openly." Then, upon this promise, go to the throne of grace. Whatever be the need, temporal or spiritual, take it there. God loves your secrets. He delights in your confidence, and will honor the soul that thus honors Him.

MAY 16.

"For we are saved by hope." Romans 8:24

The phrase, as employed by the apostle, does not imply the instrument by which we are saved, but the condition in which we are saved. The condition of the renewed creature is one of hope. Salvation by the atonement of Christ- faith, and not hope, being the instrument of its appropriation, is a complete and finished thing. We cannot give this truth a prominence too great, nor enforce it with an earnestness too intense. We cannot keep our eye too exclusively or too intently fixed on Jesus. All salvation is in Him- all salvation proceeds from Him- all salvation leads to Him, and for the assurance and comfort of our salvation we are to repose believingly and entirely on Him. Christ must be all; Christ the beginning- Christ the center - and Christ the end. Oh blessed truth to you who sigh and mourn over the unveiled abominations that crown and darken the chamber of imagery! Oh sweet truth to you who are sensible of your poverty, vileness, and insufficiency, and of the ten thousand flaws and failures of which, perhaps, no one is cognizant but God and your own soul! Oh, to turn and rest in Christ- a full Christ- a loving Christ- a tender Christ, whose heart's love never chills, from whose eye darts no reproof, from whose lips breathes no sentence of condemnation! But, as it regards the complete effects of this salvation in those who are saved, it is yet future. It is the "hope laid up for us in heaven." It would seem utterly incompatible with the present economy that the renewed creature should be in any other condition than one of hopeful expectation. The constitution towards which he tends, the holiness for which he looks, the bliss for which he pants, and the dignity to which he aspires, could not for a moment exist in the atmosphere by which he is here enveloped. His state must of necessity be one of hope, and that hope must of necessity link us with the distant and mysterious future. The idea, "saved by hope," is illustrated by the effects of Christian hope. It is that divine emotion which buoys up the soul amid the conflicts, the trials, and the vicissitudes of the present life. So that we are cheered and sustained, or "saved" from sinking amid the billows, by the hope of certain deliverance and a complete redemption. "In hope of eternal life, which God, who cannot lie, promised before the world began."

MAY 17.

"Joint-heirs with Christ." Romans 8:17

This must be understood in a limited though still in a very enlarged sense. In its highest meaning- touching the essential Deity of our Lord- He is the heir of all things. All worlds and all souls are His. All things were created by and for Him. Heaven is His throne, and earth is His footstool. To participation in this heirship we cannot be admitted. Nor can there be any conjointure with Christ in the merit that purchased our redemption. Here again He is alone, no creature aiding the work, or dividing the glory. But, mediatorially, in consequence of the union subsisting between Christ and His people, they become heirs with Him in all the privileges and hopes appertaining to His kingdom. Our union to the Lord Jesus brings us into the possession of vast and untold blessings. On the basis of His atonement we build our claim. He merits all, and we possess all. All the blessings and glories of our present and reversionary inheritance flow to us through Christ. "In whom also we have obtained an inheritance." "If a son, then an heir of God through Christ." We cannot lay too great stress on this truth. We possess nothing- we receive nothing- we expect nothing, but through Christ. All is given to us in consideration of a righteousness which upholds and honors the Divine government. Jesus is the meritorious Recipient, and we receive only through Him. Alluding to our right to, and our possession of, our inheritance, the apostle traces both to the atonement of the Son of God- "And for this cause He is the Mediator of the New Testament, that by means of death, for the redemption of the transgressions that were under the first testament, they which are called might receive the promise of eternal inheritance." Thus it is alone through the "fitness" imparted by Christ, the merit He substitutes in our behalf, and the righteousness He imputes to us, that we become "partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light." Blessed Redeemer! to what dignity and honor, to what privilege and blessing, to what hope and glory, our union with You has advanced us! We were fallen; and you have lifted us up; we were poor, and You have enriched us; we were naked, and You have clothed us; we were aliens, and You have made us children; we were bankrupts, and You have made us heirs: we lost all from fatal union with the first Adam; we receive all, and infinitely more, by our glorious union with You, the second Adam. Oh, for a heart to love You! Oh, for grace to glorify You! Be increasingly precious to us, and may we be increasingly devoted to You!

MAY 18.

"You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the first and great commandment." Matthew 22:37-38

Love to God is spoken of in His word as forming the primary and grand requirement of the divine law. Now, it was both infinitely wise and good in God thus to present Himself the proper and lawful object of love. We say it was wise, because, had He placed the object of supreme affection lower than Himself, it had been to have elevated an inferior object above Himself. For whatever other object than God is loved with a sole and supreme affection, it is a deifying of that object, so that it, as God, sits in the temple of God, showing itself that it is God. It was good, because a lesser object of affection could never have met the desires and aspirations of an immortal mind. God has so constituted man, implanting in him such a capacity for happiness, and such boundless and immortal desires for its possession, as can find their full enjoyment only in infinity itself. He never designed that the intelligent and immortal creature should sip its bliss at a lower fountain than Himself. Then, it was infinitely wise and good in God that He should have presented Himself as the sole object of supreme love and worship to His intelligent creatures. His wisdom saw the necessity of having one center of supreme and adoring affection, and one object of supreme and spiritual worship, to angels and to men. His goodness suggested that that center and that object should be Himself, the perfection of infinite excellence, the fountain of infinite good. That, as from Him went forth all the streams of life to all creatures, it was but reasonable and just that to Him should return, and in Him should center, all the streams of love and obedience of all intelligent and immortal creatures: that, as He was the most intelligent, wise, glorious, and beneficent object in the universe, it was fit that the first, strongest, and purest love of the creature should soar towards and find its resting-place in Him.
Love to God, then, forms the grand requirement and fundamental precept of the divine law. It is binding upon all intelligent beings. From it no consideration can release the creature. No plea of inability, no claim of inferior objects, no opposition of rival interest, can lessen the obligation of every creature that has breath to "love the Lord his God with all his heart, and with all his soul, and with all his mind." It grows out of the relation of the creature to God, as his Creator, moral Governor, and Preserver; and as being in Himself the only object of infinite excellence, wisdom, holiness, majesty, and grace. This obligation, too, to love God with supreme affection is binding upon the creature, irrespective of any advantage which may result to him from so loving God. It is most true that God has benevolently connected supreme happiness with supreme love, and has threatened supreme misery where supreme affection is withheld; yet, independent of any blessing that may accrue to the creature from its love to God, the infinite excellence of the Divine nature and the eternal relation in which He stands to the intelligent universe, render it irreversibly obligatory on every creature to love Him with a supreme, paramount, holy, and unreserved affection.

MAY 19.

"Those who love God." Romans 8:28

Surely it is no small mercy belonging to the Church of Christ, that, composed as it is of all people and tongues, its members as "strangers scattered abroad," its essential unity deeply obscured, and its spiritual beauty sadly disfigured by the numerous divisions which mar and weaken the body of Christ, there yet is an identity of character in all, by which they are not only known to God, but are recognized by each other as members of the one family- "those who love God."
Love to God, then, is the grand distinctive feature of the true Christian. The reverse marks all the unregenerate. Harmonious as their nature, their creed, their Church may be, no love to God is their binding assimilating feature, their broad distinctive character. But the saints are those who love God. Their creeds may differ in minor shades, their ecclesiastical relations may vary in outward forms- as rays of light, the remoter their distances from the center, the more widely they diverge from each other. Yet in this one particular there is an essential unity of character, and a perfect assimilation of spirit. They love one God and Father; and this truth- like those sundered rays of light returning to the sun, approximate to each other- forms the great assimilating principle by which all who hold the Head, and love the same Savior, are drawn to one center, and in which they all harmonize and unite. The regeneration through which they have passed has effected this great change. Once they were the children of wrath, even as others, at enmity with God. Ah! is not this a heart-affecting thought? But now they love Him. The Spirit has supplanted the old principle of enmity by the new principle of love. They love Him as revealed in Christ, and they love Him for the gift of the Revealer- the visible image of the invisible God. Who, as he has surveyed the glory and realized the preciousness of the Savior, has not felt in his bosom the kindling of a fervent love to Him who, when He had no greater gift, commended His love to us by the gift of His dear Son? They love Him, too, in His paternal character. Standing to them in so close and endearing a relation, they address Him as a Father- they confide in Him as a Father- they obey Him as a Father. The spirit of adoption takes captive their hearts, and they love God with a child's fervent, adoring, confiding affection. They love God, too, for all His conduct. It varies, but each variation awakens the deep and holy response of love. They love Him for the wisdom, the faithfulness, the holiness of His procedure; for what He withholds, as for what He grants; when He rebukes, as when He approves. For His frown- they know it to be a Father's frown; for His smile- they feel it to be a Father's smile. They love Him for the rod that disciplines, as for the scepter that governs- for the wound that bleeds, as for the balm that heals. There is nothing in God, and there is nothing from God, for which the saints do not love Him. Of one truth- the source of this feeling- let us not lose sight- "We love Him because He first loved us." Thus the motive of love to God as much springs from Him as the power to love Him.

MAY 20.

"I am he that lives, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive for evermore." Revelation 1:18

Let the Christian reader fully believe this one truth- that Jesus is alive again, and it will afford to his soul greater confirmation of the veracity of God's character, of the truth of His word, and of the perfection and all-sufficiency of Christ's work, than all other truths beside. Is Jesus alive at the right hand of God?- then the debt is paid, and justice is satisfied. Is Jesus alive at the right hand of God?- then the Father is well pleased in the work of His Son, and He "rests in His love, and rejoices over His Church with singing." Is Jesus alive?- then every promise shall be fulfilled, and all the blessings of the everlasting covenant shall be freely bestowed, and I, a poor worthless sinner, yet resting upon His atoning work, shall live also. May the Holy Spirit lead you into the full belief- the belief of the heart as of the judgment- of this glorious truth. It is the keystone of the temple; press it as you will, the more you lean upon it, the stronger you will find it- the more you rest upon it, the firmer will grow your hope. Only receive it in simple faith; Jesus is alive- alive for you- all you need in this valley of tears is here; all your temporal mercies are secured to you here; all your spiritual blessings are laid up for you here. Such is the great charter, such the immense untold blessings it contains, that, come how you will, come when you will, and "ask what you will, it shall be granted to you by the Father," because Jesus is at His right hand. Well may we take up the dauntless challenge of the apostle, "Who is he that condemns? It is Christ that died; yes, rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us." Your salvation is complete, your heaven secure, and all victory, happiness, and glory bound up in this one great fact. Then may we not again exclaim with Paul, "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which, according to His abundant mercy, has begotten us again unto a lively hope, by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead."

MAY 21.

"Is there no balm in Gilead? is there no physician there?" Jeremiah 8:22

There is! The physician is Jesus, the balm is His own most precious blood. He binds up the broken heart, He heals the wounded spirit. All the skill, all the efficacy, all the tenderness and crucial sympathy needed for the office meet and center in Him in the highest degree. Here then, disconsolate soul, bring your wounded heart. Bring it simply to Jesus. One touch of His hand will heal the wound. One whisper of His voice will hush the tempest. One drop of His blood will remove the guilt. Nothing but a faith's application to Him will do for your soul now. Your case is beyond the skill of all other physicians. Your wound is too deep for all other remedies. It is a question of life and death, heaven or hell. It is an emergency, a crisis, a turning point with you. Oh, how solemn, how eventful is this moment! Eternity seems suspended upon it. All the intelligences of the universe, good spirits and bad, seem gazing upon it with intense interest. Decide the question, by closing in immediately with Jesus. Submit to God. All things are ready. The blood is shed, the righteousness is finished, the feast is prepared, God stands ready to pardon, yes, He advances to meet you, His returning child, to fall upon your neck and embrace you, with the assurance of His full and free forgiveness.
Let not the simplicity of the remedy keep you back. Many stumble at this. It is but a look of faith: "Look unto me, and be saved." It is but a touch, even though with a palsied hand "And as many as touched him were made whole." It is but a believing the broad declaration, "that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners." You are not called to believe that He came to save you; but that He saves sinners. Then if you inquire, "But will He save me? How do I know that if I come I shall meet a welcome?" Our reply is, only test Him. Settle not down with the conviction that you are too far gone, too vile, too guilty, too unworthy, until you have gone and tried Him. You know not how you wound Him, how you dishonor Him, and grieve the Spirit, by yielding to a doubt, yes, the shadow of a doubt, as to the willingness and the ability of Jesus to save you, until you have gone to Him believingly, and put His readiness and His skill to the test.
Do not let the freeness of the remedy keep you away. This, too, is a stumbling-block to many. Its very freeness holds them back. But it is "without money, and without price." The simple meaning of this is, no worthiness on the part of the applicant, no merit of the creature, no tears, no convictions, no faith, is the ground on which the healing is bestowed. Oh no! It is all of grace- all of God's free gift, irrespective of any worth or worthiness in man. Your strong motive to come to Christ is your very sinfulness. The reason why you go to Him is that your heart is broken, and that He only, can bind it up; your spirit is wounded, and that He only can heal it; your conscience is burdened, and that He only can lighten it; your soul is lost, and that He only, can save it. And that is all you need to recommend you. It is enough for Christ that you are covered with guilt; that you have no plea that springs from yourself; that you have no money to bring in your hand, but have spent your all upon physicians, yet instead of getting better you only grow worse; that you have wasted your substance in riotous living, and now are insolvent; and that you really feel a drawing towards Him, a longing for Him- that you ask, you seek, you crave, you earnestly implore His compassion- that is enough for Him. His heart yearns, His love is moved, His hand is stretched out- come and welcome to Jesus, come.

MAY 22.

"Bear you one another's burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ." Galatians 6:2

Thank God for an errand to Him. It may be you have felt no heart to pray for yourself- you have been sensible of no peculiar drawings to the throne for your own soul, but you halt gone in behalf of another; the burden, the trial, the affliction, or the immediate need of some member of God's family has pressed upon you, and you have taken his case to the Lord: you have borne him in your arms to the throne of grace, and, while interceding for your brother, the Lord has met you, and blessed your own soul. Perhaps you halt gone and prayed for the Church, for the peace of Jerusalem, for the prosperity of Zion, that the Lord would build up her waste places, and make her a joy and a praise in the whole earth- perhaps it has been to pray for your minister, that the Lord would teach him more deeply and experimentally, and anoint him more plenteously with the rich anointing and unction of the Holy Spirit- perhaps it has been to pray for Christian missions, and for laborious and self-denying missionaries, that the Lord would make them eminently successful in diffusing the knowledge of a precious Savior, and in calling in His people: and thus, while for others you have been besieging the throne of grace, and pouring out your heart before the Lord, the Lord Himself has drawn near to your own soul, and you have been made to experience the blessing that is ever the attendant and the reward of intercessory prayer. Then let every event, every circumstance, every providence be a voice urging you to prayer. If you have no needs, others have- take them to the Lord. If you are borne down by no cross, smitten by no affliction, or suffering from no need, others are- for them go and plead with your heavenly Father, and the petitions you send up to the mercy-seat on their behalf may return into your own bosom freighted with rich covenant blessings. The falls, the weaknesses, the declensions of others make them grounds for prayer. Thus, and thus only, can you expect to grow in grace, and grace to grow in you.

MAY 23.

"Above all, taking the shield of faith, with which you shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked." Ephesians 6:16

Few of the children of God are ignorant, more or less, of Satan's devices. But few are exempt from the "fiery darts " of the adversary; our Lord Himself was not. Many, peculiar, and great are their temptations. They are often those which touch the very vitals of the gospel, which go to undermine the believer's faith in the fundamentals of Christianity, and which affect his own personal interest in the covenant of grace. Satan is the sworn enemy of the believer- his constant, unwearied foe. There is, too, a subtlety, a malignity, which does not mark not the other and numerous enemies of the soul. The Holy Spirit speaks of the "depths of Satan." There are "depths" in his malice, in his subtlety, in his sagacity, which many of the beloved of the Lord are made in some degree to fathom. The Lord may allow them to go down into those "depths," just to convince those who are there are depths in His wisdom, love, power, and grace, which can out-fathom the "depths of Satan."
But what are some of the devices of the wicked one? What are some of his fiery darts? Sometimes he fills the mind of the believer with the most blasphemous and atheistical thoughts, threatening the utter destruction of his peace and confidence. Sometimes he takes advantage of periods of weakness, trial, and perplexity to stir up the corruptions of his nature, bringing the soul back as into captivity to the law of sin and death. Sometimes he suggests unbelieving doubts respecting his adoption, beguiling him into the belief that his professed conversion is all a delusion, that his religion is all hypocrisy, and that what he had thought was the work of grace is but the work of nature. But by far the greatest and most general controversy which Satan has with the saint of God is, to lead him to doubt the ability and the willingness of Christ to save a poor sinner. The anchor of his soul removed from this truth he is driven out upon a rough sea of doubt and anguish, and is at the mercy of every wind of doctrine and every billow of unbelief that may assail his storm-tossed bark. But in the midst of it all, where does the comfort and the victory of the tempted believer come from? From the promise which assures him that "when the enemy shall come in like a flood, the Spirit of the Lord shall lift up a standard against him." And what is the standard which the Spirit, the Comforter, lifts up to stem this flood? A dying, risen, ascended, exalted, and ever-living Savior. This is the standard that strikes terror into the foe; this is the gate that shuts out the flood. So the disciples proved. This is their testimony: "And the seventy returned again with joy, saying, Lord, even the devils are subject unto us through Your name." Immanuel is that name which puts to flight every spiritual foe. And the Comforter, which is the Holy Spirit, leads the tempted soul to this name, to shelter itself beneath it, to plead it with God, and to battle with it against the enemy. Dear reader, are you a target against which the fiery darts of the devil are leveled? Are you sorely tempted? Do not be astonished as though some strange thing had happened unto you. The holiest of God's saints have suffered as you are now suffering; yes, even your blessed Lord, your Master, your Pattern, your Example, and He in whose name you shall be more than conqueror; was once assailed as you are, and by the same enemy. And let the reflection console you, that temptations only leave the traces of guilt upon the conscience, and are only regarded as sins by God, as they are yielded to. The mere suggestion of the adversary, the mere presentation of a temptation, is no sin, so long as, in the strength that is in Christ Jesus, the believer firmly and resolutely resists it. "Resist the devil, and he will flee from you." Jesus has already fought and conquered for you. He knew well what the conflict with Satan was. And He remembers, too, what it is. Lift up your head, dear tempted soul! You shall obtain the victory. The seed of the woman has bruised the serpent's head; yes, has crushed him, never to obtain his supremacy over you again. He may harass, annoy, and distress you; but pluck you from the hollow of the hand that was pierced for you, he never can.

MAY 24.

"Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Before Abraham was, I am." John 8:58

Dear reader, what a wondrous declaration is this! What a glorious and precious truth does it involve! Are you a believer in Jesus? Is He all your salvation, your acceptance, your hope, and desire? Then cast the anchor of your faith deeply, firmly here; you shall find it an eternal rock. Weak faith you may have, and doubtful faith numbers have; but here is the ground of faith, respecting which there can be neither weakness nor doubt. Is it an Almighty Savior that you need? Behold Him! "Before Abraham was, I am." Oh, what a foundation for a poor sinful worm of the dust to build upon! What a stable truth for faith in its weakest form to deal with- to have a glorious incarnate 'I Am' for an atoning sacrifice- an 'I Am' for a Redeemer- an 'I Am' for a Surety- an 'I Am' as a Day's-man between God and the soul- an 'I Am' as an Advocate, an unceasing Intercessor at the court of heaven, pleading each moment His own atoning merits- an 'I Am' as the center in whom all the promises are "yes and amen"- an 'I Am' as a "Brother born for adversity"- an 'I Am' as "a very present help in trouble"! This is the answer which faith receives to its trembling and anxious interrogatories. To each and all touching His faithfulness, His tenderness, His long-suffering, His fulness, and His all-sufficiency, Jesus answers, "I Am." "Enough, Lord," replies the believer, "on this I can live, on this I can die."

MAY 25.

"But grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ." 2 Peter 3:18

There is an idea fatal to all true sanctification, which some believers, especially those who are young in experience, are prone to entertain- that nothing is to be done in the soul after a man has believed, that the work of conversion having taken place, all is accomplished. So far from this being the case, he has but just entered upon the work of sanctification- just started in the race, just buckled on the armor. The conflict can hardly be said to have begun in conversion; and, therefore, to rest composed with the idea that the soul has nothing more to do than to accept of Christ as his salvation- that there are no corruptions to subdue- no sinful habits to cut off no long-existing and deeply imbedded sins to mortify, root and branch- and no high and yet higher degrees in holiness to attain, is to form a most contracted view of the Christian life- such a view as, if persisted in, must necessarily prove detrimental to the spiritual advance of the believer. The work of sanctification, beloved, is a great and a daily work. It commences at the very moment of our translation into the kingdom of Christ on earth, and ceases not until the moment of our translation into the kingdom of God in heaven. The notion, so fondly cherished by some, of perfect sinlessness here, is as fatal to true sanctification as it is contrary to God's word. They know but little of their own heart, who do not know that sin, in the language of Owen, "not only still abides in us, but is still acting, still laboring to bring forth the deeds of the flesh;"- who do not know that in their "flesh there dwells no good thing," that "that which is born of the flesh is flesh," and will retain its fleshly nature and propensities to the very last. Let us not exult "as though we had already attained, or were already perfect,"- let us not be "ignorant of Satan's devices," one of which is to build us up in the belief that, in the present life, a man may cease from the work of mortification. The Lord keep the reader from cherishing so erroneous an idea. The work of sanctification is the work of a man's life. "When sin lets us alone (as has been remarked), we may let sin alone." But when is the day, yes, when is the hour, that sin does not strive for the mastery, and in which the believer can say he has completely slain his enemy? He may "through the Spirit, mortify the deeds of the body," and if he does, "he shall live;" but, as the heart is the natural and luxuriant soil of every noxious weed of sin, and as another springs up as soon as one is cut down, yes, as the same root appears again above the surface, with new life and vigor, it requires a ceaseless care and vigilance, a perpetual mortification of sin in the body, until we throw off this cumbrous clay, and go where sin is known no more.

MAY 26.

"For all the promises of God in him are yes, and in him Amen, unto the glory of God by us." 2 Corinthians 1:20

It pleased a gracious and sin-pardoning God to meet our guilty and conscience-stricken parents, immediately after the fall, with the comforting and gracious promise that the "seed of the woman"- His eternal Son, the everlasting Mediator- should "bruise the serpent's head." On this divine assurance of recovering and saving mercy they rested. Believing in this, as they doubtless did, they were saved, "the first fruits unto God and the Lamb." They rested, let it be emphatically spoken, not upon the bare letter of the promise, but upon its substance; not merely, upon the grace promised; but upon the truth of God in the promise. The bare letter of a promise is no resting-place for a believing soul; it can convey no solid consolation and support. Thus far, and no further, did the Jews get, to whom pertained the promises. This is all that they saw in the types and promises which set forth "God's unspeakable gift." They rested in the mere letter. They saw not Christ in them; and, seeing not Christ to be their substance and glory, to them "the promises of God were made of none effect." Now God has fulfilled His ancient promise. The word He spoke to Adam, He has made good to the letter to us, His posterity. It is true, the vision of grace and glory seemed for a while to tarry, but it tarried only for its appointed time. It is true, the vista was long and dreary, through which patriarchs, seers, and prophets beheld it. The star of hope was often scarcely seen in the dim distance, and frequently seemed for a moment entirely quenched in darkness. Time rolled heavily along- a period of four thousand years elapsed; but, true to His word, faithful to His promise, "when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth His Son, made of a woman, made under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons." Oh, how gloriously did the truth of Jehovah shine in the person of the babe of Bethlehem! How did it gather brightness as the holy child Jesus increased in stature and in favor with God and man! And to what meridian splendor did it blaze forth, when on Calvary it united with holiness and justice, in finishing the great work of the Church's redemption! Then was it that "mercy and truth met together, righteousness and peace kissed each other." Jesus is the grand evidence that God is true. Faith needs, faith asks no more. Here, as on a stable foundation, it rests. Its eye ever "looking unto Jesus," it can thread its way- often sunless and starless- through a dreary, and an intricate wilderness. It can travel through trials, endure temptations, bow meekly to disappointments, bear up under cross providences, and sustain the shock of fearful conflicts, trusting in the God of the covenant, resting on His promise and oath, and implicitly believing His word, because it sees in Jesus an ever-living witness that God is true.

MAY 27.

"He is faithful that promised." Hebrews 10:23

O you of doubting and fearful heart! looking at the waves rolling at your feet, and well near sinking beneath their swellings, exclaiming, "Will the Lord cast off forever? and will He be favorable no more? Is His mercy clean gone forever? Does His promise fail for evermore? Has God forgotten to be gracious? has He in anger shut up His tender mercies?" Behold the glory of God's truth beaming in the face of Jesus Christ, and doubt no more. So long as Jesus lives- lives as your Advocate, as your High Priest, as your Representative in the court of heaven, all is yours which the covenant promises, and which His mediation secures. "The promises of God are all yes and Amen in Christ Jesus." Never will he break His oath, or falsify His word, or alter the thing that has gone out of His mouth. "Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my word shall not pass away." God says it, and let faith believe it because He says it. So essential is it to your comfort, that I would repeat the caution- in all your dealings with the Divine promises, avoid a Jewish faith. Do not so much look at the grace of the promise, or at the thing promised- precious as both are- as at God in the promise. The promise is the heart of your Father speaking; it is the faithfulness of your Father performing. Rest then not in the blessing promised, but in the veracity of Him who promises it, and then shall your faith have confidence towards God.

MAY 28.

"Old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new." 2 Corinthians 5:17

A believer's experience of the truth of God is no mere fancy. However severely experimental godliness may have been stigmatized by an unrenewed world, as the offspring of a morbid imagination, the product of an enthusiastic mind, "he that believes in the Son of God has the witness in himself," that he has yielded the consent of his judgment and his affections to no "cunningly-devised fable." A sense of sin- brokenness and contrition before God- faith in the atoning blood of Christ- a sweet consciousness of pardon, acceptance, adoption, and joy in the Holy Spirit, are no mere hallucinations of a disordered mind. To read one's pardon, fully, fairly written out- to look up to God as one accepted, adopted, to feel the spirit going out to Him in filial love and confidence, breathing its tender and endearing epithet, "Abba, Father,"- to refer every trial, cross, and dispensation of His providence to His tender and unchangeable love- to have one's will, naturally so rebellious and perverse, completely absorbed in His- to be as a weaned child, simply and unreservedly yielded up to His disposal, and to live in the patient waiting for the glory that is to be revealed- oh, this is reality, sweet, blessed, solemn reality! Holy and happy is that man whose heart is not a stranger to these truths.

MAY 29.

"Cast not away therefore your confidence, which has great recompense of reward." Hebrews 10:35

There is nothing essentially omnipotent in any single grace of the Spirit; to suppose this would be to deify that grace: although regeneration is a spiritual work, and all the graces implanted in the soul are the product of the Spirit, and must necessarily be in their nature spiritual and indestructible, yet they may so decline in their power, become so enfeebled and impaired in their vigor and tendency, as to be classed among the "things that are ready to die." It is preeminently so with faith; perhaps there is no part of the Spirit's work more constantly and severely assailed, and consequently more exposed to declension, than this. Shall we look at the examples in God's word? We cite the case of Abraham, the father of the faithful; beholding him, at God's command, binding his son upon the altar, and raising the knife for the sacrifice, we unhesitatingly exclaim- "Surely never was faith like this! Here is faith of a giant character; faith, whose sinews no trial scan ever relax, whose luster no temptation can ever dim." And yet, tracing the history of the patriarch still further, we find that very giant faith now trembling and yielding under a trial far less acute and severe; he, who could surrender the life of his promised son- that son through whose lineal descent Jesus was to come- into the hands of God, could not intrust that same God with his own. We look at Job: in the commencement of his deep trial we find him justifying God; messenger follows messenger, with tidings of yet deeper woe, but not a murmur is breathed; and as the cup, now full to the brim, is placed to his lips, how sweetly sounds the voice of holy resignation," The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord." "In all this did not Job sin with his lips:" and yet the very faith, which thus bowed in meekness to the rod, so declined as to lead him to curse the day of his birth! We see David, whose faith could at one time lead him out to battle with Goliath, now fleeing from a shadow, and exclaiming- "I shall one day perish by the hand of Saul." And mark how the energy of Peter's faith declined, who at one period could walk boldly upon the tempestuous sea, and yet at another could deny his Lord, panic-struck at the voice of a little maid. Who will say that the faith of the holiest man of God may not at one time greatly and sadly decline?
But we need not travel out of ourselves for the evidence and the illustration of this affecting truth: let every believer turn in upon himself. What, reader, is the real state of your faith? is it as lively, vigorous, and active as it was when you first believed? Has it undergone no declension? Is the object of faith as glorious in your eye as He then was? Are you not now looking at second causes in God's dealings with you, instead of lifting your eye and fixing it on Him alone? What is your faith in prayer?- do you come boldly to the throne of grace, asking, nothing doubting? Do you take all your trials, your needs, your infirmities, to God? What is your realization of eternal things- is faith here in constant, holy exercise? Are you living as a pilgrim and a sojourner, "choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God," than float along on the summer sea of this world's enjoyments? What is the crucifying power of your faith?- does it deaden you to sin, and wean you from the world, and constrain you to walk humbly with God, and near to Jesus? And when the Lord brings the cross, and says, "Bear this for Me," does your faith promptly and cheerfully acquiesce, "any cross, any suffering, any sacrifice for You, dear Lord"? Thus may you test the nature and the degree of your faith; bring it to the touch-stone of God's truth, and ascertain what its character is, and how it has suffered declension.

MAY 30.

"Whom the Lord loves he corrects; even as a father the son in whom he delights." Proverbs 3:12

Hard and harsh thoughts of God will be the effect of wrong interpretations of His dealings: if for one moment we remove the eye from off the heart of God in the hour and depth of our trial, we are prepared to give heed to every dark suggestion of the adversary; that moment we look at the dispensation with a different mind, and to God with an altered affection; we view the chastisement as the effect of displeasure, and the covenant God who sent it, as unkind, unloving, and severe. But let faith's eagle-eye pierce the clouds and darkness that surround the throne, and behold the heart of God as still love, all love, and nothing but love, to His afflicted, bereaved, and sorrow-stricken child; and in a moment every murmur will be hushed, every rebellious feeling will be still, and every unkind thought will be laid in the dust; and, "He has done all things, well- in love and faithfulness has He afflicted me," will be the only sounds uttered by the lips. If then, beloved, you would have your heart always fixed on God, its affections flowing in one unbroken current towards Him, interpret every dispensation that He sends in the light of His love; never allow yourself to be betrayed into the belief that any other feeling prompts the discipline; do not give place to the suggestion for one moment- banish it from the threshold of your mind the moment it seeks an entrance. And let this be the reflection that hushes and soothes you to repose, even as an infant upon its mother's breast: "My God is love! my Father is unchangeable tenderness and truth! He has done it, and it is well done."

MAY 31.

"My people are bent to backsliding from me." Hosea 11:7

The divine life has its dwelling-place in a fallen, fleshly nature. It is encompassed by all the corruptions, weaknesses, infirmities, and assaults of the flesh; there is not a moment that it is not exposed to assaults from within; there is not a natural faculty of the mind, or throb of the heart, that is favorable to its prosperity, but all are contrary to its nature, and hostile to its advance. As there is nothing internal that is favorable to a state of grace, so there is nothing external that assists it forward. It has its many and violent enemies: Satan is ever on the watch to assault it, the world is ever presenting itself in some new form of fascination and power to weaken it- a thousand temptations are perpetually striving to ensnare it; thus its internal and external enemies are leagued against it. Is it then any wonder that faith should sometimes tremble, that grace should sometimes decline, and that the pulse of the divine life should often beat faintly and feebly?
The saints in every age have felt and lamented this. Hence the prayer of David, which is the prayer of all true believers: "Hold me up, and I shall be safe;" implying the greatest weakness in himself, and his perpetual exposure to the greatest falls: "Hold me up, for only as I am upheld by You am I safe." Again he prays "Keep back Your servant also from presumptuous sins; let them not have dominion over me;" implying that a believer, left to the tendencies of his fallen nature, might become a prey to the worst sins. In addressing himself to the converted Hebrews, the apostle seizes the occasion thus to exhort them: "Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief, in departing from the living God." "In departing,"- implying a constant tendency to depart from God. And what does God Himself say of His people? "My people are bent on backsliding from me." And again, "Why is this people of Jerusalem slidden back by a perpetual backsliding?" Yes, it is a perpetual proneness to declension. The sun rises but to set, the clock is wound up but to run down; and not more natural is it for them thus to obey the laws that govern them, than for the heart of a child of God to follow the promptings of its corrupt and wayward nature.

JUNE 1.

"And the inhabitant shall not say, I am sick: the people that dwell therein shall be forgiven their iniquity." Isaiah 33:24

Let the Christian invalid be cheered with the prospect of before long arriving at this land of light and love, of rest and holiness. The moment the spirit is "absent from the body, and present with, the Lord," it treads those balmy shores, where health breathes in the air, flows in the waters, and sparkles in the sunbeams. There is no sickness in heaven, for "the people that dwell therein shall be forgiven their iniquity;" and this accounts for the absence of all physical malady. There is no sickness in heaven, because there is no sin. But the more full enjoyment of this blessing is reserved for the new earth, upon which the "holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband," will dwell. Then it is that "God shall wipe away all tears front their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away." Christian sufferer! you are nearing this land- a few more days of languishing and pain, a few more nights of weary wakefulness, and you are there! Don't you see, through the chinks of the "earthly house of this tabernacle," "a building of God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens"? Don't you see the "city which has foundations, whose maker and builder is God"? It has "no need of the sun, neither of the moon, to shine on it: for the glory of God does enlighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof. . . The gates of it shall not be shut at all by day: for there is no night there." Soon you will exchange this hospital for your Father's house, and as you cross the threshold, the last pang is inflicted, the last sigh is heaved, and the last tear is brushed from your eye. Then, at the resurrection of the just, comes the new body. "It is sown in corruption; it is raised in incorruption: it is sown in dishonor; it is raised in glory: it is sown in weakness; it is raised in power. It is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body." All this blessedness and glory Jesus has procured for you. All this blessedness and glory awaits you; and into its full possession and experience Jesus will soon bring you. Animated with such a prospect, and cheered with such a hope, patiently endure the prolonged sickness, the protracted suffering, exclaiming in the spirit and language of Jesus, "O my Father, if this cup may not pass from me, except I drink it, Your will be done!"

JUNE 2.

"I have prayed for YOU". Luke 22:32

We must not overlook the individuality of our Lord's intercession. As if forgetting for that moment the whole Church, and regarding Peter as representing in his person each tempted believer, Jesus makes him the especial object of His prayer. How much comfort do we lose in overlooking this truth- in not more distinctly recognizing the personal interest which each believer has in the love of Christ! "My grace is sufficient for you;" "I have prayed for you," are the gracious words with which Jesus would meet each individual case. Think not then, O believer, that you are alone, unloved, uncared for, unthought of- Jesus bears you upon His heart; and if loved, and cared for, and remembered by Him, you can afford to part with some creature stream, however loved and valued that stream may be. Keep your eye intently fixed upon your Lord's intercession.
We too much lose ourselves in the crowd, and merge ourselves in the mass. We forget alike our individual interest in the covenant, and our personal obligation to glorify God in our different walks of life. But it is the especial privilege of the believer to concentrate upon himself, as in focal power, every thought and affection of God, just as the eye of a well-executed portrait may be said to fasten itself exclusively upon each individual in the room. "I have prayed for you." O cheering declaration! Christian reader, lose not sight of it. Come and lay your hand of faith upon the covenant of grace, and say, "the fulness of the covenant is mine." Lay your hand upon the covenant of God, and say, "the God of the covenant is mine; Jesus, its Mediator, is my Savior. He obeyed, suffered, bled, and expired, all for me. 'He has loved me, and has given Himself for me.' Lord! do you think of me? does my case come up before Your notice? do You bear my burden upon Your arm, my sorrow upon Your heart, my name upon Your lips; and do You pray for my poor, assaulted, and trembling faith? Yes, Lord, You do. I believe it, because You have said it, and press the precious truth, so rich in consolation, to my trembling, grateful heart."

JUNE 3.

"I have prayed for you that your faith fail not." Luke 22:32

The Lord as its Shepherd goes before His flock. He precedes it every step, not only to map its path, but also to provide for all the circumstances, the most trivial and minute, of its history. To Him nothing can be unforeseen, from Him nothing can be concealed. No event can surprise Him, no contingency can thwart Him, no difficulty can embarrass Him. The entire history of the individual saint of God, from his earliest to his latest breath, is written in His book, when as yet it had no existence, as minutely and as accurately as though it were a record of the past. In anticipation of each developed circumstance, of each temptation and trial, difficulty and need, Jesus prays for His people "I have prayed." It would seem as if the sorrow had reached His heart before it touched our own; as if the assault had fallen upon Him before it fell upon us; and that, knowing what would transpire, seeing in what critical and painful circumstances His child would be placed, He anticipates his case by especial intercession on his behalf: "I have prayed for you."
Can the mind of the tried believer repose upon a truth more sustaining and soothing than this? It had been a glorious unfolding of the love of Jesus, to know that when the sifting came, when faith was actually tried, that then Jesus prayed for the sufferer. But to be assured that before a dart was winged, or a shock was felt, or even a suspicion was awakened that the tempter was approaching, and that danger was near, Jesus, robed in His priestly garments, and bearing the golden censer in His hand, had entered within the veil to make especial intercession for that trial of faith- oh, it is a view of His love, which to the mind of the tempted believer would seem to overtop and outshine all others!
And for what does Jesus pray? That the temptation might not come? that faith may not be tried? Oh no! He does not ask the Father in behalf of His people, for their entire exemption from temptation and trial. Full well does He know that if conformed to Him, their Head, they must through much tribulation enter the kingdom. Pure and sinless though He was, needing no sifting and no refining, He yet passed through each process as if there were in Him the chaff to scatter, and the alloy to consume. How much more needful does Jesus see that His people, in whom there is such an admixture of the precious with the vile, so much indwelling sin, so much powerful corruption perpetually seeking to destroy indwelling grace, should not be exempted from the process which, painful though it be, is absolutely needful and eternally good! But Jesus prays that in the actual trial of faith it might not fail. Now, why, is it, O believing soul, that your tried faith has not failed? Why, have you passed through the sifting with not one precious grain fallen to the ground? Because your great High Priest prayed for you before the trial, and prayed for you in the trial, and has not ceased to pray for you since the trial. All upholding grace, all restraining grace, all restoring grace, all establishing grace, has been meted out to you through the channel of your Lord's perpetual and ever-prevalent intercession. Oh, how should this truth endear the Savior to your heart! With what holy contrition should it fill your spirit, and with what sweet affection should it constrain your soul to a simple and an unreserved surrender to God!

JUNE 4.

"Have faith in God." Mark 9:22

Have faith in Him as God. His character justifies it, His word invites it, His promises encourage it, His blessing crowns it. How frequently in the word does God condescend to invite the exercise of faith in Himself by a declaration and on the ground of what He is. Thus to Abraham: "And when Abram was ninety years old and nine, the Lord appeared to Abram, and said unto him, I am the Almighty God: walk before me, and be perfect." And again to His Church: "I am the Lord God, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt; open your mouth wide, and I will fill it." How kind and condescending in God is this mode of asking and encouraging the confidence of His people! How signally does He come down to our weakness and infirmity! What a foundation for faith to build upon does He reveal! what a field for faith to work in does He open! what amplitude, what scope, and what riches amid which it may revel! "I am God all-sufficient. Is anything too hard for me?" Faith needs and asks no more. Less than this would not meet its case more than this it could not have. When faith feels that it has God's word for its warrant in believing, God's command for its rule in obeying, God's promise for its encouragement in suffering, and God Himself as the foundation of its confidence and the center of its rest, it becomes invulnerable, and almost omnipotent. The exact measure of our faith is the extent of our experimental knowledge of God. Acquaintance with God must inspire the mind with confidence in Him. The more truly we know, the more implicitly we trust in Him. It is in this way, among others, that He answers the prayer of His people, "Establish Your word unto Your servant, who is devoted to Your fear." God establishes the truth of His word by enlarging the believer's knowledge of Himself, and this knowledge is mainly attained through the truth. The word reveals God, and an experimental knowledge of God confirms the truth of the word; the one thus establishing the other. Our faith, then, if it be a real principle, must have respect to God as God. "Have faith in God."

JUNE 5.

"Speak you comfortably to Jerusalem, and cry unto her, that her warfare is accomplished, that her iniquity is pardoned: for she has received of the Lord's hand double for all her sins." Isaiah 40:2

By sealing a sense of pardon upon the conscience, God comforts the disconsolate. There is no comfort equal to this. As our deepest sorrow flows from a sense of sin, so our deepest joy springs from a sense of its forgiveness. What comfort can there be where this is lacking? what sorrow where this is felt? "When he gives quietness, who then can make trouble?" This was the comfort which God commanded the prophet to speak to His spiritual Jerusalem: "Say unto her, that her sins are forgiven." And this is the message which the Lord sends to His whole Church. This comfort have all His saints. Your sins, O believer, are forgiven. "I have blotted out your sins as a cloud, and your iniquities as a thick cloud," says God. You are not called upon to believe that God will pardon, but that He has pardoned you. Forgiveness is a past act; the sense of it written upon the conscience is a present one. "By one offering Jesus has perfected forever those who are sanctified," has forever put away their sins. Faith in the blood of Jesus brings the soul into the possession of a present forgiveness. And when God the Holy Spirit thus imprints a sense of pardoned sin upon the troubled conscience, all other sorrows in comparison dwindle into insignificance. "Strike, Lord," says Luther, "I bear anything willingly, because my sins are forgiven." Thus, beloved, God comforts his conscience-troubled people. He loves to speak comfortably to their hearts. Is it any delight to Him to see you carrying your burden of conscious sin day after day and week after week? Ah no! He has procured the means of your pardon at a great price- nothing less than the sacrifice of His beloved Son; and will not the same love which procured your forgiveness, speak it to your heart? Oh yes; the sun in the heavens pours not forth its light more freely, light itself speeds not more rapidly, the mountain stream rushes on not more gladsome and unfettered, than the pardon of sin flows from the heart of God to the humble and the contrite mourner. Is sin your trouble? Does conscious guilt cast you down? Look up, disconsolate soul! there is forgiveness with God. It is in His heart to pardon you. Repair to His feet, go you to God's confessional, and over the head of the atoning sacrifice acknowledge your transgression, and He will forgive the iniquity of your sin. And, oh, what will be the joy of your heart, the music of your lips, the grateful surrender of your person, when Jesus says, "Your sins are forgiven; go in peace"!

JUNE 6.

"And he that takes not his cross, and follows after me, is not worthy of me." Matthew 10:38

How few there are, among the many professing Christ, who yet know anything by experience of the great and wondrous life of faith! Only those who are taught by the Spirit the plague of their own hearts can possibly know it. How few there are who appear to possess vital religion in their souls! How few choose Christ with His cross! The great mass of professors are aiming to separate them. They would sincerely bear the name of Christ, and be accounted as the followers of Christ, and do something for the cause of Christ; but they hide His cross, they are ashamed of His cross, they shrink from His cross. Christ and His outward lowliness, Christ and His poverty, Christ and His humiliation, Christ and the world's despising, form no part of their creed nor their religion. But Christ and the world, Christ and the popular opinion, Christ and the slavery of sin, Christ and an unhumbled spirit, Christ and a love of money, and ease, and self-indulgence, make up the religion of vast numbers who yet profess and call themselves Christians. Awful fact! How forcibly does it remind us of the solemn words of Jesus, "Not every one that says unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that does the will of my Father who is in heaven." Let us, in view of this solemn truth, search our hearts, and ask the searching of God's Spirit; and in ascertaining the real state of our souls, let us take nothing for granted, rest not in past experience, nor in gifts, nor usefulness, but be satisfied only with the present, inward witness of the Holy Spirit.

JUNE 7.

"Submit yourselves therefore to God." James 4:7

Submission to the Divine will is a great advance in holiness; and this is mainly and effectually attained through sanctified chastisement. In prosperity, how full are we of self-sufficiency! When the Lord asks our obedience, we give Him our counsel. But when He sends the rod, and by the accompanying grace of His Spirit sanctifies its stroke, we learn in what true obedience consists. It was in this school our blessed Lord Himself was taught. "Though He were a Son, yet learned He obedience by the things which He suffered." He learned to obey in suffering- to bring His will in suffering into complete submission to His Father's will. God has not in His family such obedient children as those who, "passing under the rod," are "brought into the bond of the covenant." Oh, what a high Christian attainment is submission to the will of God! The noblest grace attainable upon earth is it. When our Lord taught His disciples to pray to the Father for the spread of holiness, He embodied the petition, in these words, "Your will be done on earth, as it is in heaven." The universal and complete holiness of heaven springs from the universal and complete perfection in which the will of God is done by angels and glorified spirits. In proportion as the Divine will prevails upon earth, holiness will reign. And, oh, what a beauteous earth and what a blissful world would this be, were the will of God done by every creature! In the new earth, in which will dwell righteousness, it will be so. The original harmony of this fallen universe will then be restored, its pristine beauty recovered, and God, in the person of His Son, will once more reign over, and walk in the midst of, a people whose will shall be but the reflection of His own. Thus to approximate to the Divine will is to assimilate with the Divine holiness. What God will, how God will, and when God will, defines the rule which should govern all the conduct and limit all the desires of the child of God. The instant the overwhelmed heart is brought into this state, the afflicted believer has planted his feet upon the Rock that is higher than he. All is peace, all is composure, because all is submission to the will of God. "The Lord reigns" is the truth whose all-commanding yet gentle whisper has stilled the tempest and calmed the waves. In its intense anxiety that the Divine will might be done, the chastened soul is but breathing after deeper holiness; and every fervent desire for the attainment of holiness is holiness already attained. Blessed chastening of love, that produces in this world, so distant and uncongenial, the buds and blossoms and fruits of heaven! A richer fruit grows not within the Paradise of God than Holiness. And yet, in the experience of a chastened believer, bleeding under the rod of his heavenly Father, there may be obtained such victories over sin, such purification of heart, such meekness of spirit, such Christ-like conformity, and such a discipline of the will, as to make him a rich "partaker of the Divine holiness."

JUNE 8.

"Now the just shall live by faith." Hebrews 10:38

We cannot too frequently nor too deeply study the profound meaning of these words. God will have his child perpetually looking to, leaning upon, and receiving from Him. At present we are but in an immature state. We are not, therefore, in a condition to be trusted with grace for the future. Improvident and careless, we would soon squander and exhaust our resources; and when the emergency came, we should find our selves unprepared to meet it. The Lord, in wisdom and love, keeps all our grace in His own hands, and deals it out just as our circumstances demand. Oh, who that knows his own heart, and the heart of Christ, would not desire that all his supply should be in God, and not in himself? Who, so to speak, would wish to be his own spiritual treasurer? Who that knows the blessedness of a life of faith, the sweetness of going to God in everything, and for everything, would wish to transfer his mercies from Christ's keeping to his own, or wish to hold in the present the supply of the future? Be satisfied, dear reader, to walk by faith, and not by sight. You have a full Christ to draw from, and a faithful God to look to. You have a "covenant ordered in all things and sure," and the precious promise, "As your days, so shall your strength be," to lean confidently upon all your journey through. Be content, then, to be poor and dependent. Be willing to travel on empty-handed, seeing God's heart opened, and Christ's hand outstretched to supply your daily bread. Oh! it is sweet to be a dependent creature upon God- to hang upon a loving Father- to live as a poor, needy sinner, day by day, moment by moment, upon Jesus- to trace God in ten thousand ways- to mark His wisdom here, His condescension there- now His love, and then His faithfulness, all combining and exerted for our good- truly it is the most holy and blessed life upon earth. Why should we, then, shrink from any trial, or flee from any duty, or turn aside from any cross, since for that trial, and for that duty, and for that cross, Jesus has provided its required and appropriate grace? You are perhaps exclaiming, "Trouble is near!" Well, be it so. So also Divine grace is near- and strength is near - and counsel is near- and deliverance is near- and Jesus is near- and God is near- and a throne of grace is near; therefore, why must you fear, though trouble be near? "God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble."

JUNE 9.

"As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you: continue you in my love." John 15:9

What sweet repose is here for the saints of God. Does God rest in His love? then the believer in Jesus may rest in it too. Does Infinity, find repose here? then may a poor finite creature. Does Immanuel rest in it? then may I, resting in Immanuel. If it is enough for Jehovah, surely, it is enough for the people of Jehovah. Our dear Lord's exhortations harmonize with this truth, "Abide in me;" "Continue in my love." Beloved reader, come and rest in this love- Jesus invites you to its blessed repose. Are you weary, tossed with tempest? Is there sadness in your spirit, sorrow in your heart, a cloud upon your mind? Is some crystal cistern broken, some fragrant flower withered, some fond and pleasant mercy gone? "Come," says Jesus, "and rest in my love- rest in the reality of my love- rest in the depth of my love- rest in the tenderness of my love- rest in the deathlessness of my love." Oh blessed rest! Poor, heart-broken sinner, weeping penitent, weary, laboring soul! what do you need? Mercy? it is in Christ. Forgiveness? it is in Christ. Acceptance? it is in Christ. The silencing power of love? it is in Christ. A reconciled Father, a pacified God? He is in Christ. All that you need is in Christ. Draw near, then, and rest in His love. The Father rests in Jesus, His justice rests in Jesus, His holiness rests in Jesus, His truth rests in Jesus, His power rests in Jesus- and in Jesus you too may rest! God rests in His love towards you, because He rests in the Son of His love. And in the Son of His love your weary, jaded, trembling spirit may find full and eternal repose. And whatever your present circumstances are, be the severity of your Father's dealings what it may, ever remember that He still rests in His love. Judging of Him by providences rather than by promises, your faith may become unhinged from this truth. But the standard by which you are to form your views of God's character is the same by which you are to judge your own- His word. That word declares that He rests in His love, that He now rests in it, that He rests in it at the present time, and, therefore, He rests in it at the moment that His providences in your history are the darkest and most lowering. When to your view all things seem against you- when even God himself seems against you- then is He resting with infinite satisfaction and delight in the love with which He has loved you from everlasting. And when all the mighty wheels of His providence are rapidly revolving, when event follows event, and convulsion succeeds convulsion- when your spirit is agitated, and your heart is alarmed, and your whole soul is awe-struck and appalled at the wonder-workings of His power, then is God calmly, serenely, resting in His love towards you, unmoved, unruffled, unbeclouded by the things which convulse the universe.

JUNE 10.

"The Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all." Isaiah 53:6

How shall we account for the sufferings of Christ, which were intense, and mysterious, if not on the ground of their vicarious character? Those sufferings were intense in the extreme. There was a severity in those who, if not required by Divine justice, would be perfectly unaccountable. Heaven, earth, and hell, all were in league against Him. Survey His eventful history- mark every step which He took from Bethlehem to Calvary; and what do we learn of His sufferings, but that they were of the most extraordinary and intense character. His enemies, like dogs of war, were let loose upon Him. His professed followers themselves stood aghast at the scenes through which their Lord was passing- one betraying Him, another denying Him, and all, in the hour of His extremity, forsaking Him. Is it any wonder that, in the anguish of His soul, His suffering humanity should exclaim, "Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; yet not my will, but yours be done." In that awful moment, all the waves and billows of God's wrath, due to the sins of His people, were passing over Him. The Father, the last resource of sympathy, veiled His face, and withdrew from Him His sensible presence; and on the cross, draining the cup of sorrow, He fulfilled the prophecy, which spoke of Him- "I have trodden the wine press alone; and of the people there were none with me."
His sufferings, too, were mysterious. Why a holy, harmless being, whose whole life had been one act of unparalleled beneficence, should be doomed to persecution so severe, to sufferings so acute, and to a death so painful and ignominious, the denier of the atonement must be embarrassed to account. But the doctrine of a vicarious sacrifice explains it all, and presents the only key to the mystery. "He was made sin for us, who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him." "Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us." All the mystery now is gone. He was "made sin for us." He was "made a curse for us." He bore the sin, and consequently the penalty of sin. Had we been left, Christian reader, to bear our sins, we must inevitably have borne alone the punishment of our sins. But Jesus took upon Him our sins. For this, He became a party in the covenant of redemption; for this, He assumed our nature; for this, He sorrowed in Gethsemane; for this, the law of God exacted its utmost claim; and for this, the justice of God inflicted the utmost penalty. Oh, what a truth is this! The Son of God offering Himself up a sacrifice for sin! He who knew no sin- who was holy, harmless, and undefiled- not one thought of evil in His heart, yet made sin, or a sin-offering! Oh the greatness of the thought! If God had not Himself declared it, we could not have believed it, though an angel's tongue had announced it. God Himself must proclaim it; and because He has so proclaimed it, we believe it. And God alone can write it upon the heart.

JUNE 11.

"Then shall we know, if we follow on to know the Lord." Hosea 6:3

True faith in God supposes him reconciled in Christ. This is the ground-work of all holy, humble converse with God. But here we must be cautious of placing a limit, as too many do. It is a great display of sovereign grace that we should have peace with God. God reconciled to us in Jesus is, of all divine and experimental truths, the greatest. Until this is experienced, we can affirm of no individual that he is safe for eternity. Yet, alas! what numbers reject this truth, and still dream on of heaven! But, great as is this grace, it is not less our mercy to be advancing, on the ground of assured peace, to more matured attainments in universal holiness. We are, at best, but dull scholars in the science of spiritual arithmetic. We have imperfectly learned one of its first rules, that of adding grace to grace. "Giving all diligence," exhorts the apostle, "add to your faith virtue," etc. Peace through the atoning blood being obtained, the movement is to be progressive, the course onward; each day, if possible, augmenting the measure of our grace, and adding to the number of the Spirit's graces. Reconciliation with God is but the starting-post in the divine life, not the finish-line; it is the commencement, and not the end, of our course. In other words, vast numbers rest in their first reception of Christ. They are hopefully converted, they unite themselves with a particular section of the Church of God, and settle down under an attached ministry. But here they seem to abide. There is no advance, no progress, no forgetting of the things that are behind, pressing upwards to higher rounds in the glorious ladder, which a gracious Father has let down out of heaven, by which we may ascend to heaven. Content with having placed the foot upon the first step, there they remain. There is no "following on to know the Lord." And yet why has the Lord removed the burden from the shoulder, but that we might mount upward? Why has He broken the chains from our feet, but that we may go forward? Thus are we constantly forgetting that the cross is our starting-point in our race, and yet ever to be kept in view- while holiness, breathed after upon earth, and in some blessed degree attained, but perfected in heaven, is our bright and certain goal.

JUNE 12.

"Hitherto have you asked nothing in my name: ask, and you shall receive, that your joy may be full." John 16:24

A most powerful incentive to prayer is found in a close and realizing view of the atoning blood. What encouragement does it present to this blessed and holy life of communion with God! the atoning blood!- the mercy-seat sprinkled over!- the High Priest before the throne!- the cloud of incense constantly ascending!- the Father well pleased! What can more freely invite the soul that pants for close and holy communion with God? And when the atoning blood is realized upon the conscience, when pardon and acceptance are sealed upon the heart by the Eternal Spirit, oh, then what a persuasion to draw near the throne of grace has the believer in Christ! Then, there is no consciousness of guilt to keep the believer back; no dread of God; no trembling apprehensions of a repulse. God is viewed through the cross as reconciled, and as standing in the endeared relationship, and wearing the inviting smile of a Father. With such an altar, such a High Priest, such atoning blood, and such a reconciled God, what an element should prayer be to a believer in Christ! Let the soul, depressed, burdened, tried, tempted, as it may be, draw near the mercy-seat: God delights to hear, delights to answer. Taking in the hand the atoning blood, pleading the infinite merit of Christ- reminding the Father of what His Son has accomplished, of His own gracious promise to receive and favorably answer the petition endorsed with the name and presented in behalf of that Son- the feeblest child of God, the most disconsolate, the most burdened, may approach and open all the heart to a prayer-hearing and prayer-answering God. Let the atoning blood be strenuously pleaded, let the precious and infinite merit of Christ be fully urged, and the blessing petitioned for will be obtained.
May not this be assigned as a reason why so few of our petitions are answered, why so little blessing is obtained- the faint pleading of the atoning blood? There is so feeble a recognition of the blessed way of access, so little wrestling with the precious blood, so little looking by faith to the cross, the dear name of Immanuel so seldom urged, and when urged so coldly mentioned- oh, is it any marvel that our prayers return to us unanswered, the petition ungranted, the draft on the full treasury of His love unhonored? The Father loves to be reminded of His beloved Son; the very breathing of the name to Him is music; the very waving of the censer of infinite merits to Him is fragrant. He delights to be pressed with this plea; it is a plea at all times prevalent; it is a plea He cannot reject; it glorifies Himself, honors His Son, while it enriches him who urges it. And, oh, in the absence of all other pleas, what a mercy to come with a plea like this! Who can fully estimate it? No plea has the poor believer springing from himself: he searches, but nothing can he find on which to rest a claim; all within is vile, all without is marred by sin; unfaithfulness, ingratitude, departure do but make up the history of the day. But in Christ he sees that which he can urge, and in urging which God will hear and answer.

JUNE 13.

"Those who wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength." Isaiah 40:31

We may here meet a question which has often been asked by those who are conscious of a relapsed state of soul- "Am I still to be found in spiritual duties and enjoyments while sensible of a backsliding state of heart from God?" To this we reply- The warrant of a Christian's duty is not the measure of his grace, but the command of his God. If this be so- and we have no reason to question its truth- then, be your state of soul low as it may, you are bound to meet all those obligations and to discharge all those duties which a profession of Christ enjoins, irrespective of the spiritual and mental fluctuations to which the soul is always exposed. Unless aware of his design, Satan will here obtain a great advantage over you. Assuming the form of an angel of light, and with angelic gentleness and plausibility, he will suggest that your frame of soul is too torpid and lifeless and dull to draw near to God; that your affections are too frigid, your love too congealed, your heart too carnal, your mind too groveling, your pursuits too earthly, your backslidings too great, your neglects too many to take to Christ. He will hold up to view the folly, the hypocrisy, and the inconsistency of being found in the employment and use of holy and spiritual duties, while your soul thus cleaves to the dust. But listen not to his false suggestions, and heed not his sophistical reasoning, no, not for a moment. It is only in the way of waiting upon God that you will be recovered from the lapsed state of your soul. In the way of meditation, of confession, of tears, of prayer, you may yet rise from the dust, and with bolder pinion, and richer plumage, and sweeter song, soar to the gate of heaven, and return again, scattering around you its blessings, and reflecting its glory. Oh! go to Jesus, then, however low and discouraging your spiritual state may be, and relax not a single means of grace.

JUNE 14.

"Though I walk in the midst of trouble, you will revive me." Psalm 138:7

Contemplate the Psalmist's circumstances "Walking in the midst of trouble." It was no new and untrodden path along which he was pursuing his way to God. The foot-print, sometimes stained with blood, always moistened with tears- of many a suffering pilgrim might be portrayed in that way, from the time that Abel, the primeval martyr, laid the first bleeding brow that ever reposed upon the bosom of Jesus. And yet how often does trial overtake the believer, as "though some strange thing had happened to him"! That at the peculiar nature of an affliction a Christian man should be startled and alarmed, would create no surprise; but that he should be startled at the trial itself, as if he alone- the only one of the family- were exempted from the discipline of the covenant, and had no interest in the Savior's declaration, "In the world you shall have tribulation," might well astonish us.
But David's experience is that of many of the spiritual seed of David. His words seem to imply, continuous trial: "I walk in the midst of trouble." With how many travelers to the celestial city it is thus! They seem never to be without trial. They know no cessation, they obtain no repose, they experience no rest. The foam of one mountain billow has scarcely broken and died upon the shore, before another follows in its wake- "Deep calls unto deep." Is it the trial of sickness? the darkened chamber, scarcely ever illumined with one cheering ray of light, the bed of suffering, seldom offering one moment's real repose, the couch of weariness, rarely left, are vivid pictures of trial, drawn from real life, needing no coloring of the fancy to heighten or exaggerate. Is it domestic trial? What scenes of incessant chafings and anxieties, turmoils and sources of bitterness, do some families present; trouble seems never to absent itself from the little circle. Yes, it is through a series of trials that many of Christ's followers are called to travel. The loss of earthly substance may be followed by the decay of health, and this succeeded perhaps by that which, of all afflictions, the most deeply pierces and lacerates the heart, and for a season covers every scene with the dark pall of woe- the desolation of death. Thus the believer ever journeys along a path paved with sorrow, and hemmed in by trial. Well, be it so! We do not speak of it complainingly; God forbid! We do not arraign the wisdom, nor doubt the mercy, nor impeach the truth of Him who has drawn every line of that path, who has paved every step of that way, and who knows its history from the end to the beginning. Why should our heart fret against the Lord? Why should we weary at the way? It is the ordained way- it is the right way- it is the Lord's way; and it is the way to a city of habitation, where the soul and body- the companions of the weary pilgrimage- will together sweetly and eternally rest. Then all trouble ceases; then all conflict terminates. Emerging from the gloom and labyrinth of the wilderness, the released spirit finds itself at home, the inhabitant of a world of which it is said, "God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain; for the former things are passed away."

JUNE 15.

"My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death." Matthew 26:38

The spiritual troubles which encompass the Christian are the deepest and the severest of all his trials. What, in comparison, are others? Our Lord keenly felt this when He uttered that affecting exclamation, "Now is my soul troubled; and what shall I say? Father, save me from this hour but for this cause came I unto this hour." What to Him- galling and agonizing as they were- what to Him the smiting, and the scourging, and the spitting, and the excruciating torture, compared with the sword which was now entering His soul- the mental conflict and spiritual sorrow which, in the hour of atonement, amazed, staggered, and overwhelmed Him? Listen again to His affecting cry: "My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death." Then, withdrawing Himself from His disciples- for the human sympathy upon which He had relied in anticipation of the hour of suffering failed Him now- retiring from man, He flung Himself upon the bosom of God, and kneeling down, He prayed, "O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me!" Such, my soul, was the conflict which your Savior endured for you!
Partakers of Christ's sufferings, all true believers are in a measure acquainted with some of those soul troubles which thus overwhelmed the Son of God. The suspensions of Divine consolation- the hidings of God's countenance- the assaults of Satan- the contact and conflict with sin- are bitter ingredients in that cup of spiritual sorrow of which they are sometimes called deeply to drink.
Are you, beloved, walking in the midst of trouble? Think not that you are alone. May your eye of faith be "anointed with fresh eye-salve," to see One walking side by side with you, the same who walked with the three children through the fiery furnace, "whose form is like the Son of God." Yes! Jesus is with you in your trial. Christ is with you in your trouble. The path, however strait, is not so narrow that your Lord cannot tread it with you, side by side. Your way is not so intricate that He cannot enable you to thread your steps through the labyrinth. There is room enough for you and Christ to walk together. He is with you; though, like the two disciples journeying in mournful communion one with the other to Emmaus, your eyes may be so blurred that you see Him not, yet is He traveling with you along that sad and mournful, that lone and pensive path. Christ is in your adversity- Christ is in your cross- Christ is in your burden- Christ is in your suffering- Christ is in your persecution- Christ is m your sickness- yes, Christ is at your side every step you take, and He will conduct you safely to your Father's house. Though you walk in the midst of trouble, He will revive you.

JUNE 16.

"Call upon me in the day of trouble: I will deliver you, and you shall glorify me." Psalm 50:15

It is in the time of trouble that we learn to pray with new power. We become more thoroughly acquainted with the divine nature and the omnipotent energy of prayer. We learn what our resources, as the true sons of Israel, are. Many are then led to pray who never prayed before. "Lord, in trouble have they visited You, they poured out a prayer when Your chastening was upon them." Then it is the proud spirit yields; the knee, that never bent before, bends now, and the terrified soul cries out unto Him whose chastening is upon it. The slumbering Christian, too, is awakened to call upon God. Then it is he finds at what a distance he had been living from God. Then he discovers his true position- the real state of his soul- touching prayer. Thus aroused, like the slumbering prophet, by a voice, and startled by a rebuke issuing from a quarter he would least have suspected- "What meanest you, O sleeper? arise and call upon your God!"- he awakes, and finds himself in a storm, threatening instant destruction. To what does he then betake himself? David shall answer: "I give myself unto prayer." And oh, how, eloquent is then the voice of the wrestling believer! Never did the fugitive prophet "pray unto the Lord his God" as when walking in the midst of trouble. "I cried by reason of my affliction unto the Lord, and He heard me; out of the belly of hell cried I, and You heard my voice. When my soul fainted within me, I remembered the Lord: and my prayer came in unto You, into Your holy temple." In this way the Lord revives the spirit of prayer within us. And oh, what words can describe the blessedness of prayer in trial!- the preciousness of the privilege of having a God to go to, a Father to flee to in trouble! To bring you more deeply and personally into the experience of this, dear tried Christian, the Lord your God is dealing with you now. O beloved, betake yourself unto prayer! You shall indeed find it the outlet of all sorrow, and the inlet of all joy. Welcome the trouble that thus revives you. Receive with meekness of spirit, yes, with gladness of heart, the discipline, however humbling, that throws you upon God- yes, that severs you from all creatures, and that shuts you up to Him alone. That discipline, painful as it is, springs from love. In love that trouble is sent, in love that cross is permitted, in love that cup is given, in love that rod is used- it is to set you upon the work of prayer. What are these frowns of your Father, what these hidings of your Savior, what these withholdings of the Spirit, but to allure you within the holiest, there to find the throne of grace? "I will go," says the Lord, "and return to my place, until they acknowledge their offence, and seek my face; in their affliction they will seek me early."

JUNE 17.

"You meet him that rejoices and works righteousness, those that remember you in your ways." Isaiah 64:5

Let us not fail to learn the secret of receiving much from Christ- even the free dispensing abroad of what we have already received. Be assured of this, that he will receive the most from God who does the most for God: "The diligent soul shall be made fat. He becomes poor that deals with a slack hand: but the hand of the diligent makes rich. There is that scatters, and yet increases." This is God's law, and He will never repeal it; His promise, and He will ever and in all cases make it good. Go forth, believer in Christ, and let your beams of light irradiate, let your streams of grace be dispersed abroad; live for God, suffer for Christ, witness for the truth, and labor for man. Be such a depository of this living and life-giving treasure, that others, less favored than yourself, instructed, guided, and strengthened by your wisdom, experience, and grace, may proceed on their way, glorifying God for the grace given to you. Oh, to have the word of God dwelling in us so richly, and our hearts so intensely glowing with the love of Christ, as to be ever ready, to open our lips for God- a well always full and running over.
This, then, is the secret of augmenting our stores, even by scattering them- of replenishing our resources, even by exhausting them. Who, we repeat the question, has ever become impoverished by giving and laborings for God? Where lives the Christian steward whose fidelity to his Master's interest has compromised the welfare of his own? Where is the Christian man who, with cheerful munificence, has consecrated his intellectual wealth or his temporal wealth to advance the truth and kingdom of Jesus, whom Christ has not reimbursed a thousand-fold? Where is the believer in Jesus who has endured reproach and suffering, patiently and silently, for conscience' sake, for truth's sake, for Christ's sake, who has not infinitely gained in the rest which he has found in God? Where is the active Christian, who, zealously laboring to dispense abroad the life-giving waters, has not felt, in the solemn retirement and calm repose of his closet, when pouring out his sorrow into the bosom of his Savior, or in holding close and holy communion with his God, the springing up into his soul of a hidden well of peace, and joy, and love, which has more than restored the energies he has exhausted, and recompensed him for the sacrifice which he has made? God meets His people in all their works of faith and labors of love. They are never alone. He meets them in the path of duty and of trial- both in doing and in suffering His will. He meets them, when embarrassed; with counsel; He meets them, when assailed, with protection; He meets them, when exhausted, with strength; He meets them, when faint, with cordials. If we take up Christ's cross upon our shoulder, Christ will take both us and our cross up in His arms. If we bow down our neck to His yoke, and bend low our back to His burden, we shall find our rest in both.

JUNE 18.

"But the anointing which you have received of him abides in you, and you need not that any man teach you: but as the same anointing takes you of all things, and is truth, and is no lie, and even as it has taught you, you shall abide in him." 1 John 2:27

"The Lord's anointed" is the expressive and appropriate designation of all the Lord's people. This anointing it is that marks them as a "chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a peculiar people." It is the Lord's peculiar mark upon those who distinguishes and designates them as His own. All who are strangers to this anointing are strangers to the grace of God and the calling of the Holy Spirit. There may be much spiritual light in the judgment, and even an open profession of religion before the world, added to which there shall be something of Jehu's "zeal for the Lord;" and yet that anointing of the Holy Spirit be still lacking, apart from which all intellectual illumination, and outward profession, and party zeal, pass for nothing with a heart searching God. As the proper signification of the endeared name, Christ, is anointed, so the true signification of the honored appellation, Christian, points us to the anointing, of which all who have union with Christ personally share. I believe the remark to be as solemn as it is true, that eternity will only fully unfold the amount of evil that has sprung from calling those Christians who call themselves Christians, without any valid title to the high, holy, and distinguished appellation. How imperfectly are men in general aware of the deep, the significant, the spiritual import of the term! They think not, they know not, that a Christian is one who partakes, in His renewing, sanctifying grace, of that same Divine Holy Spirit with which Christ was anointed of the Father for His great work.
The effects of this anointing are what might be expected from a cause so glorious. It beautifies the soul. It is that anointing spoken of by the Psalmist: "And oil to make his face to shine." Therefore it is called the "beauties of holiness." How does a man's face shine- how is his countenance lighted up- when the joy of the Lord is his strength, when the spirit of adoption is in his soul, when the love of God is shed abroad in his heart! It gladdens too. Therefore it is called the "oil of joy" and "the oil of gladness." It causes the heart to sing in its deep sorrows, imparts the "garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness," and fills the soul with the glory of that "kingdom which consists not in foods and in drinks, but in righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit." Another effect springing from this anointing is the deep teaching it imparts- "You have an anointing from the Holy One, and you know all things." Such are some of the effects of this holy anointing. It beautifies, gladdens, and teaches.

JUNE 19.

"I shall be anointed with fresh oil." Psalm 92:10

That the Lord re-anoints His people, who can doubt? Alas for them, if He did not! The ample provision which He has made for the exigence proves it. There is more of the precious oil in the sacred vessel! Oh blessed, holy, comforting truth to those who, mournfully conscious of their loss, are earnestly desirous for their recovery. In the Lord Jesus Christ all fulness of anointing dwells. "With Him is the fulness of the Spirit." He is prepared to impart more grace to those who have lost grace, or who to their present state desire to add an increase. In the renewed quickening of the Spirit, the re-anointing is received. "Quicken me!" was the reiterated prayer of David. What! was he not already a quickened soul? Undoubtedly. Yet, feeling the need of a renewed quickening, he earnestly importunes for it: "Quicken me in Your truth, through Your judgments, by Your precepts: only quicken me- for this my soul pants." And while the world was asking, "Who will show us any good?" the fervent breathing of this anointed priest of God was, "Quicken me, O Lord, for Your name's sake." Oh, seek this renewed quickening. New supplies of grace from Christ are implied in this fresh anointing. New grace- to subdue new corruptions, perpetually rising to the surface; to meet new temptations, through the ever-shifting ways of the subtle enemy; to overcome new difficulties, perpetually occurring in the path to heaven; and to bear up under new trials, ever transpiring in a world of tribulation. The renewed joys and comforts of the Holy Spirit are also found in the fresh anointing. The joys which had evaporated are replaced by others; the peace which had been interrupted flows back again; consolations, which had fled, are restored; and confidence in God, which seemed shaken, is once more established in the soul. Do not be content with the old anointing. It is essential to a more holy and happy life, it is essential to a peaceful and cloudless death, that you seek to be anointed with fresh oil. Do not be satisfied with past experiences. You may at one time have possessed the clear witness of the Spirit; you may have enjoyed the love of God in your heart; you many have lived so near to Christ as to have found "Wisdom's ways, ways of pleasantness, and her paths, paths of peace:" but the old anointing ceases to afford you now the high delight which you once experienced. Seek, then, the fresh anointing of the Spirit. Seek to have a new revelation of Christ to your soul. Seek the renewed application of His precious blood to your conscience. Oh, seek the fresh oil! There is a fresh supply in Christ; a fresh supply in the Spirit; a fresh supply in the heart of God; a fresh supply in the covenant of grace. Jesus is prepared to pour it upon your soul more abundantly. The Holy Spirit is prepared to lead you to the source where this costly treasure dwells. A vessel of clay though you are- your capacity small- your unworthiness great- yet is the Triune God ready to recognize your exalted dignity and rank as a king and a priest, by shedding more copiously than ever the oil of gladness upon your head. Let aged Christians especially look to the state of their souls, and seek this renewed anointing. In nearing the end of their journey, in looking into their graves, and beyond them, to the meeting with their God and Savior, they will need to be anointed with fresh oil. One drop- oh, how will it insinuate itself through the whole inner life, diffusing energy and might!- the soul thus renewing its strength, and composing its ruffled pinions for its heavenly flight. Come, pilgrim of many a weary stage! come, soldier of many a hard-fought battle! come, voyager of many a storm and tempest, and sit down at the Savior's feet, and receive of the fresh oil! Come, gather up the trailing garments, shake off the gathered dust from your sandals, wipe the sweat from your brow, and rest awhile upon the bosom of your Lord, while with fresh oil He anoints you for your burial. Is it not time for you to give up this poor world's pursuit, and lay aside in some measure its needless anxiety and care, and allow a holy pause, a solemn calm, to intervene- before you unclasp your helmet, lay down your staff, and are gathered to your fathers?

JUNE 20.

"For you are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus." Galatians 3:26

It is delightful to trace the different exhibitions of faith which the Holy Spirit has presented to our view in His own Word. And he seems to have thus spread them out before us, that the ever varied and varying circumstances of the saints of God may be adequately met. In some sections of His Word, He has presented to our view sturdy characters, impressed with the lineaments of a strong, gigantic faith. For example that was strong faith in the centurion, when he said, "Lord, I am not worthy that You should come under my roof; but speak the word only, and my servant shall be healed." That was great faith exhibited in the case of the woman of Canaan, who, at the apparent repulse of the blessed Lord, would take no denial, but met His seeming objection by saying, "Truth, Lord; yet the dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their master's table. Then Jesus answered and said unto her, O woman, great is your faith: be it unto you even as you will." That, too, was strong faith in Abraham, who could take his son, his only, son, his son whom he loved, and offer him up at God's bidding. And, to mention no more, that was strong, unwavering faith in Job, who could say, "Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him." But, on the other hand, the Holy Spirit presents to the view some of the weakest exhibitions of faith, in order that no dear child of God, reposing by simple reliance on Christ, might despair. That was feeble faith which the leper exercised when he said, "Lord, if you will, you can make me clean." Here was no doubting of Christ's ability- the only point He seemed to question was His willingness to cleanse him. That was faith of the same feeble character, exercised by the father who brought his child possessed of a dumb spirit to Jesus, to be dispossessed, with the request thus couched- "If you can do anything, have compassion on us and help us." In this case, Christ's willingness was fully believed, His ability only doubted; and yet, in both cases, the one that doubted His willingness, and the other that doubted His ability, Christ manifested His compassion and answered their requests. Let no anxious, seeking soul, then, hang back from Jesus, because of the weakness of its faith. It may be small faith; it may be small in its degree, and weak in its exhibition; yet it is "precious faith,"- yes, "like precious faith" with Abraham and Job, and all the prophets and apostles. If it be faith, however small, it yet is "the faith of God's elect;" it is of the mighty operation of the Holy Spirit, and though feeble, yet, if it directs its eye out of and off of itself, simply to Jesus, that single glance shall sweep the ocean fulness of His love in the soul.

JUNE 21.

"This do in remembrance of me." Luke 22:19

To the soul hungering and thirsting for the Lord Jesus in the ordinance, Jesus presents Himself. He draws back the shutter, opens the window, stands within it, and looks forth upon His people, clustering around His table, desiring to remember His love. "Precious Jesus!" is the meditation of a soul thus looking for its Beloved, "I have come to Your ordinance invited by Your love, drawn by Your Spirit; but what is it to my soul without You? Your minister may open this institution with clearness and power, but if You do not manifest Yourself, to break and heal my heart- if I don't catch one glimpse of You, my Lord, it is no ordinance of grace or sweetness to my soul. I want by faith to see You in the baptism of Your sufferings, to feed upon Your flesh, and to drink of Your blood. I want to enjoy communion with You. You know, Lord, the workings of my heart; You know that this is the great desire of my soul, that I might enjoy fellowship with Christ. Oh, that I might have more of Christ, that I might meet with Christ, that I might have some further manifestation of Christ, and that I might have my soul closer knit to Christ. I come with thirsting after Jesus, knowing my infinite need of Him, and His infinite excellency and fulness to meet my case. My soul does famish and perish without Christ; but in the enjoyment of Christ there is a sufficiency for the satisfying of my soul. That which I have had of Christ, sometimes in the word, and sometimes in prayer, has been sweet unto my taste; but I look for closer communion, for a clearer manifestation of Christ here, for this is the great "communion of the body and blood of Jesus." Behold, Lord, I approach these windows of Your house, a poor, unworthy, backsliding child, tried and tempted; yet just as I am, clear Lord, I come. I dare not, I cannot, stay away from You, Divine loadstone of my heart, precious magnet of my soul! Draw me, and then I will run after You; Show Yourself in the window, and, overcome with Your beauty and Your love, I exclaim, "Turn away Your eyes from me, for they have overcome me." Blessed Spirit! I have been taught to believe that You will take of the things of Jesus, and show them unto me. Open the window of this ordinance, and let me behold my soul's Beloved standing within it. I cannot live, I cannot die, without Him. Living or dying I must have Christ. "I am any Beloved's, and His desire is towards me;" and truly my soul's desire is towards Him. There is to my soul no love like Christ's love. There is no voice like Christ's voice. There is no sympathy like Christ's sympathy. There is no friend like this Friend; there is no Christ like my Christ.
The window is open! "The voice of my Beloved! behold, He comes, leaping upon the mountains, skipping upon the hills." He looks forth at the window; and lively faith and ardent love, sweet contrition and holy joy, possess and overwhelm my soul!

JUNE 22.

"The God of peace, that brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus." Hebrews 13:20

How beautifully the apostle associates the two blessings! He is now truly the "God of peace" - the pacified God, the reconciled Father; and the evidence of it is His raising up His dear Son from the grave. Thus what a bright view does this truth unfold to us of God! When we retire within ourselves, we see much to engender dark views of, and distrustful feelings towards, Him. But when faith travels to the grave of Jesus, and we see it empty, we have such an overwhelming evidence of the perfect reconciliation of God, of His thoughts of peace towards us, that instantly faith triumphs, and all our gloomy, trembling apprehensions of His character vanish and disappear. He is the "God of peace," because Jesus is a risen Savior. And in proportion as you lay hold by faith of the resurrection-life of Christ, you will have that pillar to sustain you upon which rests the whole fabric of salvation. The peace of God will fill your heart, as you know from experience the power of the Lord's resurrection in your soul. The power of Christ's resurrection, in fact, lies in a sense of pardoned sin, in our apprehension of complete justification, in the living hope of eternal glory. Jesus saves to the uttermost all that come unto God by Him, because he is a risen and a living Savior, and ever lives to make intercession in behalf of all His people. Oh, deal believingly with a risen Christ! The same resurrection-power which brought back to life again the Head of the Church is exerted in effecting the spiritual resurrection of the Church itself. The true believer is already risen. He was once dead in sin, and entombed in the grave of his iniquities. But a power- the same which awoke the death-slumber of Lazarus- has darted from the tomb of Jesus, and has quickened Him to a new and a deathless life. Oh, were we more directly to trace the mighty energy of the Eternal Spirit in our souls, raising us from the region of death to life and immortality, to that stupendous fact of redemption- the resurrection of Christ from the dead- how would it exalt our views of its importance, and fill our souls with its glory! What must be the power of our Lord's resurrection, that can even now awake the profoundest sleep of spiritual death! When the Spirit of God puts forth His own grace to raise a soul from the grave of sin, oh, forget not it is in virtue of a risen, living Savior. Despair not of the spiritual life of any, though they may have laid in the grave so long as well near to have quenched all hope of their conversion, since Christ has risen from the dead, and is alive, to give life in answer to the prayer of faith. "The second Adam is a quickening Spirit."

JUNE 23.

"That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection." Philippians 3:10

Of the downward tendency of our hearts we are, alas! but too conscious. We need an antagonistic principle- something to counteract the overworking influence of an ungodly world. Where shall we meet with it? We answer, in the power of Christ's resurrection, felt, realized, and experienced in the soul. This is the argument of Paul: "You are a risen people, risen in union with Christ. If this be so, then seek after heavenly mindedness, setting your affections on things above." What a heaven-attracting power, then, has this glorious truth! What is Christ? He is alive. Where is Christ? He is in heaven, at the right hand of God, as my head- my representative- my forerunner- my treasure- my all. Then, let me rise! Shall not my affections soar to their best beloved? Shall not my heart be where its treasure is? Shall I set my mind upon things on the earth, when my Lord rose out of the earth, and ascended above the earth, and bids me rise and follow Him in faith, in spirit, and in love, until He calls me to come away to Him entirely, that I may be ever with Him and behold His glory? If I am indeed risen with Christ, then let me evidence it by my increasing spiritual-mindedness. Christ, who is my life, is in heaven- why should I needlessly be buried in the earth? Why allow- as I appear to do- that there is an object upon earth whose claims to my love are paramount, whose beauty to my eye is greater, whose attraction to my soul is stronger, than my risen, ascended, and glorified Lord? Is there upon earth one who loves me as Jesus loves me? Is there one who has done for me what Jesus has done? Is there one who is doing for me now what Jesus is doing? Is there one who is to me such a friend, such a brother, such a counselor as Jesus? No, not one! Then, why should not my thoughts be more with Him? Why should not my heart cling closer to Him? Why this vagrancy of mind, this truancy of affection, this wandering of desire; why this forgetfulness, coldness, and cleaving to earth, when my Lord is risen, and I am professedly risen with Him? Oh, to feel more sensibly, more deeply; more constantly the power of His resurrection! Lord! I detect my heart settling down on creature things- objects of sense and sin. My business is a snare- my domestic blessings are a snare- my friendships are a snare- my position is a snare- the too fond opinion which others entertain of me is a snare- my grace, my gifts, my usefulness, through the corruption of my heart, are snares. Lord, place beneath my soul the mighty lever of Your resurrection, and lift me towards Yourself! Oh, let me feel the earth-severing, the heaven-attracting power of Your resurrection-life! Having been buried with You by baptism into death, sincerely would I now rise with You, like as You were raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father; that I might walk with You in newness of life, until I reach You in the realms of glory.

JUNE 24.

"For verily he took not on him the nature of angels;
but he took on him the seed of Abraham." Hebrews 2:16.

Who are the people upon whom the heart of Jesus is set? They, are not angels; and yet He loves angels, because they are elect and holy; He loves them as the creatures of His power, and as the ministers of His will. But God loves not angels as He loves man. The Lord Jesus bears not the same affection towards those unfallen and pure spirits as He does towards a poor sinner hiding in His wounded side, cleansing in His blood, and enfolding himself within the robe of His righteousness. He never took part of the nature of angels, nor wept over angels, nor bled for angels- but all this He did for man!
It is His Church, then, which is represented as the object of His love- His own people, the donation of His Father, the creatures of His choice, the subjects of His grace, the treasure of His heart. Is it asked wherein has He loved them? Rather might we ask wherein has He not loved them? Look at His assumption of their nature! What a mighty stoop was this!- the Infinite to the finite. Were it possible for me to save the life of an insect by assuming the form of that insect, I should, by so doing, manifest my great benevolence. But behold the love of our Incarnate God! His heart was bent, His whole soul was set, upon saving man. But He could save man only by becoming man. He could not raise our nature, but as He stooped and assumed that nature. He must not only look upon it, and pity it, and weep over it, but He must take it into the closest and most indissoluble union with Himself. Nor was it the mere exchange or blending together of natures so as to form one new nature. It was not the absorption of the Infinite into the finite, for He ceased not to be God when He became man; He only veiled, He did not extinguish, the glory of His Deity. In this consisted the mightiness of the stoop. I see no humiliation in the Savior's life, but as it springs from this one fact- His condescension in taking up into union with His own Divine our human nature. This was the first and greatest step in the path that conducted Him to the cross. All the acts of abasement and ignominy which follow were ingrafted upon this. And, oh, what humiliation! Look at your nature! Contemplate it in some of its severest forms of degradation, wretchedness, and woe. Are you not often constrained to blush that it is your own? Do you not turn from it at times with loathing and abhorrence, ashamed to confess that you are a man? Above all, what self-loathing, what self-abhorrence, when the Holy Spirit opens the chambers of iniquity in your own heart, and makes you acquainted with the abominations that are there! And yet the Son of God stooped to our nature. "A body have You prepared me." But it was unfallen, sinless humanity that He took into union with His Godhead. Where, then, is His condescension? In stooping to an inferior nature, though in that stoop He received no taint from us. He was made a sin- offering, yet He was "without sin." If this truth, dear reader, has no glory to your eye, nor sweetness to your soul, what is your Christianity? It is the foundation of Christianity, it is the marrow of the Gospel, it is the hope of the soul, it is that truth which takes every ruffle from the pillow of death.
And is not this just the truth we need as a suffering and a tried people? When do we extract the sweetest honey from this bitter of bitters? Is it not when our humanity is wounded, oppressed, and cast down? When do we most value and love the humiliation of the Incarnate God? Is it not when by suffering we are driven to it, then to learn the tenderness and the sympathy that are in Christ? Oh blessed affliction, sweet sorrow, friendly chastisement, that brings my soul into the deeper experience of what God is in my nature!

JUNE 25.

"Walk in love, as Christ also has loved us, and has given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling savor. Ephesians 5:2

It was an entire sacrifice. It was Himself He offered up. More He could not give; less would not have sufficed. He gave Himself- all that He possessed in heaven, and all that belonged to Him on earth, He gave in behalf of His people. His life of obedience, His death of suffering, He gave as "an offering and is sacrifice to God." It was an entire surrender.
It was a voluntary offering. "He gave Himself." It was not by compulsion or by constraint that He surrendered Himself into the hands of Divine justice- He went not as a reluctant victim to the altar- they dragged Him not to the cross. He went voluntarily. It is true that there existed a solemn necessity, why Jesus should die in behalf of His people. It grew out of His covenant engagement with the Father. Into that engagement He voluntarily entered: His own ineffable love constrained Him: But after the compact had been made, the covenant of redemption ratified, and the bond given to justice, there was a necessity resting upon Jesus why He should finish the work. His word, His honor, His truth, His glory, all were pledged to the entire fulfilment of His suretyship. He had freely given Himself into the power of justice; He was therefore, on His taking upon Him the form of a servant, under obligations to satisfy all its claims; He was legally bound to obey all its commands. And yet it was a voluntary surrender of Himself as a sacrifice for His people. It was a willing offering. If there was a necessity, and we have shown that there was, it grew out of His own voluntary love to His Church. It was, so to speak, a voluntary necessity. See how this blessed view of the death of Jesus is sustained by the Divine word. "He was oppressed, and He was afflicted, yet He opened not His mouth: He is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so He opens not His mouth." His own declaration confirms the truth. "Therefore does my Father love me, because I lay down my life, that I might take it again. No man takes it the following is from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again."

JUNE 26.

"Jesus therefore, knowing all things that should come upon him, went forth, and said unto them, Whom seek you?" John 18:4

His voluntariness was not founded on ignorance. He well knew what the covenant of redemption involved- what stern justice demanded. The entire scene of His humiliation was before Him, in all its dark and somber hues- the manger- the bloodthirsty king- the scorn and ridicule of His countrymen- the unbelief of His own kinsmen- the mental agony of Gethsemane- the bloody sweat- the bitter cup- the waywardness of His disciples- the betrayal of one, the denial of another, the forsaking of all- the mock trial- the purple robe- the crown of thorns- the infuriated cry, "Away with Him, away with Him! Crucify Him, crucify Him!"- the heavy cross- the painful crucifixion- the cruel taunts- the vinegar and the gall- the hidings of His Father's countenance- the concentrated horrors of the curse- the last cry of anguish- the falling of the head- the giving up the spirit; all, all was before the omniscient mind of the Son of God, with vividness equal to its reality, when He exclaimed, "Save him from going down to the pit: I have found a ransom." And yet He willingly rushed to the rescue of ruined man. He voluntarily, though He knew the price of pardon was His blood, gave Himself up thus to the bitter, bitter agony. And did He regret that He had undertaken the work? Never! It is said that repented God that He had made man; but in no instance is it recorded that it repented Jesus that He had redeemed man. Not an action, not a word, not a look betrayed an emotion like this. Every step He took from Bethlehem to Calvary did but unfold the willingness of Jesus to die. "I have a baptism to be baptized with, and how am I straitened until it be accomplished!"
Oh, how amazing was the love of Jesus! This, this was the secret why He loved not His own life unto the death. He loved sinners too well. He loved us better than Himself. With all our sinfulness, guilt, wretchedness, and poverty; He yet loved us so much as to give Himself an offering and sacrifice unto God for us. Here was the spring-head where flowed these streams of mercy. This was the gushing fountain that was opened when He died. And when they taunted Him and said, "If You are the King of the Jews, save Yourself," oh, what a reply did His silence give "I came not to save myself, but my people- I hang here, not for my own sins, but for theirs- I could save myself, but I came to give my life a ransom for many." They thought the nails alone kept Him to the cross- He knew it was His own love that fastened Him there. Behold the strength of Immanuel's love. Come, fall prostrate, adore and worship Him. Oh, what love was His! Oh the depth! Content not yourself with standing upon the shore of this ocean- enter into it, drink largely from it. It is for you, if you but feel your nothingness, your poverty, your vileness; this ocean is for you. It is not for angels, it is for men. It is not for the righteous, but for sinners. Then drink to the full from the love of Jesus. Do not be satisfied with small supplies. Take a large vessel to the fountain. The larger the demand, the larger the supply. The more needy, the more welcome. The more vile, the more fit.

JUNE 27.

"It is good that a man should both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the Lord." Lamentations 3:26

A believer may present a right petition in a right way, and yet he may not wait the Lord's answer in His own time. He may appoint a time, and if the Lord does not answer within that period, he turns away, resigning all expectation of an answer. There is such a thing as waiting for the Lord. The apostle alludes to and enjoins this holy patience, when he speaks to the Ephesians of "praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and watching thereunto with all perseverance." A believer may present his request- may have some degree of nearness in urging it- may press it with fervency- and yet, forgetting the hoping, quiet, waiting patience which ought invariably to mark a praying soul; he may lose the blessing he has sought. There is such a thing as "waiting upon the Lord." Oh; how long have we made Him to wait for us! For years, it may be, we kept Him knocking, and standing, and waiting at the door of our hearts, until His own Spirit took the work in His own hands, and unlocked the heart, and the Savior entered. The Lord would now often have us wait His time in answering prayer. And, if the vision tarry, still let us wait, and hope, and expect. Let the delay but stimulate hope, and increase desire, exercise faith, and multiply petitions at the mercy-seat. It will come when the Lord sees best.
A believer may lose the answer to his prayer, by dictating to the Lord the mode, as well as the time, of answering. The Lord has His own mode of blessing His people. We may prescribe the way the Lord should answer, but He may send the blessing to us through an opposite channel, in a way we never thought of, and should never have selected. Sovereignty sits regent upon the throne, and in no aspect is its exercise more manifestly seen than in selecting the way and the means by which the prayers of the saints of God are answered. Dictate not to the Lord. If you ask a blessing through a certain channel, or in a prescribed way, let it be with the deepest humility of mind, and with perfect submission to the will of God. Be satisfied to receive the blessing in any way which a good and covenant God may appoint. Be assured, it will be in that way that will most glorify Himself, and secure to you the greatest amount of blessing.

JUNE 28.

"The path of the just is as the shining light, that shines more and more unto the perfect day." Proverbs 4:18

The first light that dawns upon the soul is the daybreak of grace. When that blessed period arrives, when the Sun of Righteousness has risen upon the long-benighted mind, how do the shadows of ignorance and of guilt instantly disappear! What a breaking away of, perhaps, a long night of alienation from God, of direct hostility to God, and of ignorance of the Lord Jesus, then takes place. Not, however, strongly marked is this state always at the first. The beginning of grace in the soul is frequently analogous to the beginning of day in the natural world. The dawn of grace is at first so faint, the daybreak so gentle, that a skillful eye only can observe its earliest tints. The individual himself is, perhaps, ignorant of the extraordinary transition through which his soul is passing. The discovery of darkness which that day-dawn has made, the revelation it has brought to view of the desperate depravity of his heart, the utter corruption of his fallen nature, the number and the turpitude of his sins, it may be, well near overwhelms the individual with despair! But what has led to this discovery? What has revealed all this darkness and sin? Oh! it is the daybreak of grace in the soul! One faint ray, what a change has it produced! And is it real? Ah! just as real as that the first beam, faintly painted on the eastern sky, is a real and an essential part of light. The daybreak, faint and glimmering though it be, is as really day as the meridian is day. And so is it with the day-dawn of grace in the soul. The first serious thought- the first real misgiving- the first conviction of sin- the first downfall of the eye- the first bending of the knee- the first tear- the first prayer- the first touch of faith, is as really and as essentially the daybreak of God's converting grace in the soul as is the utmost perfection to which that grace can arrive. Oh, glorious dawn is this, my reader, if now for the first time in your life the daybreak of grace has come, and the shadows of ignorance and guilt are fleeing away before the advancing light of Jesus in your soul. If now you are seeing how depraved your nature is; if now you are learning the utter worthlessness of your own righteousness; if now you are fleeing as a poor, lost sinner to Christ, relinquishing your hold of everything else, and clinging only to Him; though this be but in weakness, and tremulousness, and hesitancy, yet sing for joy, for the day is breaking- the prelude to the day of eternal glory- and the shadows of unregeneracy are forever fleeing away. And as this day of grace has begun, so it will advance. Nothing shall impede its course, nothing shall arrest its progress. "He which has begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ." The Sun, now risen upon you with healing in His beams, shall never stand still- shall never go back. "He has set a tabernacle for the sun" in the renewed soul of man; and onward that sun will roll in its glorious orbit, penetrating with its beams every dark recess, until all mental shadows are merged and lost in its unclouded and eternal splendor.

JUNE 29.

"For we know in part, and we prophesy in part." 1 Corinthians 13:9

With all our attainments, how little have we really attained! With all our knowledge, how little do we actually know! How superficially and imperfectly are we acquainted with truth; with Jesus who is emphatically "the Truth," with God whom the Truth reveals. "We see through a glass darkly,"- all is yet but as a riddle, compared with what we shall know when the shadows of ignorance have fled. There are, too, the enshrouding shadows of God's dark and painful dispensations. Our dealings are with a God of whom it is said, "Clouds and darkness are round about Him." Who often "covers Himself as with a cloud," and to whom the midnight traveler to the world of light has often occasion to address himself in the language of the Church, "You are a God that hides Yourself." Ah! beloved, what clouds of dark providences may be gathering and thickening around your present path! Through what a gloomy, stormy night of affliction faith may be steering your tempest-tossed barque! That faith eyeing the promise, and not the providence, the "bright light that is in the cloud," and not the lowering cloud itself- will steer that trembling vessel safely through the surge. Remember that in the providences of God the believer is passive, but with regard to the promises of God he is active. In the one case he is to "be still" and know that God reigns, and that the "Judge of all the earth must do right." In the other, his faith, childlike, unquestioning, and unwavering, is to take hold of what God says, and of what God is, believing that what He has promised He is also able and willing to perform. This is to be "strong in faith, giving glory to God."

JUNE 30.

"Until the clay break, and the shadows flee away." Solomon's Song 2:17

The Divine withdrawment is a shadow, often imparting an aspect of dreariness to the path we are treading to the Zion of God. "Why do You hide Yourself?" says Job. "For a small moment," says God to the Church, "have I forsaken you. ... In a little wrath I hid my face from you for a moment." Ah! there are many who have the quenchless light of life in their souls, who yet, like Job, are constrained to take up the lamentation, "I went mourning without the sun." There are no shadows darker to some of God's saints than this. Many professing Christians dwell so perpetually in the region of shadows, they so seldom feel the sunshine of God's presence in their souls, that they scarcely can discern when the light is withdrawn. But there are others, wont to walk so near with God in the rich, personal enjoyment of their pardon, acceptance, and adoption, that if but a vapor floats between their soul and the sun, in an instant they are sensible of it. Oh, blessed are they whose walk is so close, so filial with God, whose home is so hard by the cross, who, like the Apocalyptic angel, dwell so entirely in the sun, as to feel the barometer of their soul affected by the slightest change in their spiritual atmosphere; in other words- who walk so much beneath the light of God's reconciled countenance as to be sensible of His hidings even "for a small moment." Then there comes the last of our shadows, "the valley of the shadow of death." There they terminate. This may be the focus where they all shall meet, but it is to meet only to be entirely and forever scattered. The sentiment is as true as the figure is poetic- "the shadow of death." It is but a "shadow" to the believer; the body of that shadow Jesus, the "Captain of our salvation," met on the cross, fought and overcame. By dying He so completely destroyed death, and him that had the power of death, that the substance of death in the experience of the dying Christian dwindles into a mere shadow, and that shadow melts into eternal glory.

JULY 1.

"All things work together for good to those who love God." Romans 8:28

Observe the unity of operation. They "work together,"–not singly and separately, but conjointly–as adjunct causes and mutual helps. Therefore it is that we often mark a plurality of trial in the calamity which befalls the Christian. Seldom does affliction come solitary and alone; storm rises upon storm, cloud on cloud. One messenger of woe is quickly succeeded by another, burdened with tidings of yet heavier sorrow. Trace the wisdom, nor the wisdom only, but the love of your God, O child of suffering, in ordaining your path to heaven through "much tribulation," and in weaving around you many trials. Single and alone, the good they are charged to convey were but partially accomplished, and the evil they were designed to meet but imperfectly cured. It is the compounding of the ingredients in the recipe that constitutes its sanative power. Extract any one ingredient, and you impair the others, and destroy the whole. We may not understand the chemistry of the process; we do not see how one element acts upon the properties of the others, nor how by the combination of all the cure is effected. Yet, confiding in the skill of the compounder, and submitting our reason to our faith, we take the remedy, and receive the benefit. So with the Divine dispensations, they work, but "work together." How assuredly would the curative process of trial be impaired, if but one of the several sent were lacking! How would the adjustment, harmony, and symmetry of God's arrangement be destroyed, if one dark dispensation were lacking of, perhaps, the many which lower upon our horizon! It is the combination of sound, the harmony of many and often discordant notes, that constitute music. Oh, how imperfectly are we aware, not of the necessity of trial only, but of a plurality of trial, in order to wake from our lips the sweetest, loftiest anthem of praise and thanksgiving to God! Thus it is that the most deeply tried believers are the most skillful and the most melodious choristers in God's Church. They sing the sweetest on earth, and they sing the loudest in heaven, who are passing through, and who have come out of, "great tribulation." Then, Christian, count it all joy when you fall into diverse trials; do not be terrified if wave responds to wave–if cloud caps cloud–if storm rises on storm–if your Joseph has been taken, and now your Benjamin be demanded. The greater the accumulation of trial, the richer the freight it bears. Then it is that the interposition, the wisdom, and love of our God appear the most conspicuous and wonderful. Having delivered us out of six troubles, we see Him hastening to our rescue in the seventh. Then it is the experience of the sweet singer of Israel awakes an echo in our heart: "He sent from above, He took me, He drew me out of many waters."

And let us not forget that it is a present working. It says not that all things shall work together for good, though this is equally certain. But it says that all things do now work together for good. It is not a past, nor a future, but a present process. They are always working for good. The operation may be as invisible and noiseless as the leaven fomenting in the meal, and yet not less certain and effectual. The kingdom of God comes not into our souls with observation, nor does it grow in our souls with observation. And whether the good thus borne upon the raven-wing of trial, thus embosomed in the lowering cloud of some crushing providence, be immediate or remote, it matters little; sooner or later it will accomplish its benign and heaven-sent mission, and then trial will expand its dark pinions and fly away, and sorrow will roll up its somber drapery and disappear. The painful and inexplicable dispensations, which at the present moment may be thickening and deepening around your path, are but so many problems in God's government, which He is working out to their certain, satisfactory, and happy results.

July 2.

"We know that all things work together for good." Romans 8:28

Safely may the apostle rest his appeal with us. We know it, because God has said it. We know it, because others have testified to it. Best of all, we know it, because we have experienced it ourselves. We can set our seal to the truth, that all things under the government of an infinitely great, all-wise, righteous, and beneficent Lord God, both in the world and in the Church, and in the history of each member of the Church, work together for good. What that good may be, the shape it may assume, the complexion it may wear, the end to which it may be subservient, we cannot tell. To our dim view it may appear an evil, but to God's far-seeing eye it is a positive good. His glory is secured by it, and that end accomplished, we are sure it must be good. Oh truth most divine! Oh words most consolatory! How many whose eye traces this page, it may be whose tears bedew it, whose sighs breathe over it, whose prayers hallow it, may be wading in deep waters, may be drinking bitter cups, and are ready to exclaim–"All these things are against me"! Oh no, beloved of God, all these things are for you! "The Lord sits upon the flood." "The voice of the Lord is upon the waters." "He makes the clouds His chariot." Be not then afraid. Calmly stay your faith on this divinely assured truth, that "all things work together for good to those who love God." Will it not be a good, if your present adversity results in the dethronement of some worshiped idol–in the endearing of Christ to your soul–in the closer conformity of your mind to God's image–in the purification of your heart–in your more thorough fitness for heaven? Will it not be a real good if it terminates in a revival of God's work within you–in stirring you up to more prayer–in enlarging your heart to all who love the same Savior–in stimulating you to increased activity for the conversion of sinners, for the diffusion of the truth, and for the glory of God? Oh yes! good, real good, permanent good must result from all the Divine dispensations in your history. Bitter repentance shall end in the experienced sweetness of Christ's love. The festering wound shall but elicit the healing balm. The overpowering burden shall but bring you to the tranquil rest. The storm shall but quicken your footsteps to the hiding-place. The north wind and the south wind shall breathe together over your garden, and the spices shall flow out. In a little while–oh, how soon!–you shall pass away from earth to heaven, and in its clearer, serener light shall read the truth,

"Often read with tears before,"

"All things work together for good to those who love God."

JULY 3.

"Therefore, thus says the Lord God, Behold, I lay in Zion for a foundation a stone, a tried stone." Isaiah 28:16

Jesus is fitly compared to a "stone" for strength and durability. He is a "Savior, and a great one"–"mighty to save." "I have laid help upon one that is mighty." If it were probable that the fact of His Deity should be announced in a voice of thunder from the eternal throne, can we suppose it would be uttered in terms more decided and explicit than those which fell upon the ear of the exiled evangelist from the lips of Christ Himself? "I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, says the Lord, who is, and who was, and who is to come, the Almighty." And what a needed truth is this! None but an almighty ransom could have saved from going down to the pit. Jesus is our ransom, and Jesus is the Almighty.

The Redeemer is not only a stone, but a "tried stone." The grand experiment has been made–the great test has been applied, and to answer all the ends for which the Lord God laid it in Zion, it has proved completely adequate. Never was a foundation tried as this. In the eternal purpose of redemption, Omnipotence tried it. In the Divine mind there existed no lurking suspicion, no embarrassing uncertainty as to the result. The Father knew all that this foundation was to sustain, and well He knew, too, that it was capable of sustaining all. Stupendous were the consequences. His own glory and the honor of His government were involved; the salvation of His elect was to be secured; death, with all its horrors, was to be abolished; life, with all its immortal, untold glories, was to be revealed; hell was to be closed, and heaven opened to all believers. With such momentous realities pending, with such mighty and glorious results at stake, the Eternal mind, in its purpose of grace and glory, would lay for a foundation a "tried stone." Blessed Emmanuel! how effulgently does Your glory beam from beneath Your prophetical veil! You are that "tried stone,"–tried by the Father, when He laid upon You all His people's sins and transgressions, bruised You, and put You to grief. Tried by the law, when it exacted and received from You Your utmost obedience to its precepts. Tried by Divine justice, when it kindled around You its fiercest flame, yet consumed You not. Tried by the Church, built upon You so securely that the gates of hell shall never prevail against her. Tried by poor sinners, who have brought their burdens of guilt to Your blood, and have found pardon and peace. Tried by believers, who have taken their trials to Your sympathy, their sorrows to Your love, their wounds to Your healing, their weakness to Your strength, their emptiness to Your fullness, their petitions to Your ear, and have never, never been disappointed. Oh yes, You are that "tried stone" to whom I would come moment by moment.

JULY 4.

"A precious corner stone." Isaiah 28:16

Of whom does the prophet speak this but of Jesus, compared with whom nothing is precious? He alone is worthy of the term, who alone can smooth life's rugged path, sweeten life's bitter trials, lighten life's heavy burdens, and this by daily and hourly emanations of His own life, grace, and preciousness. Oh, how precious–what language can express?–is this precious stone to him who, conscious of his vileness, poverty, and nothingness, or with a spirit oppressed with deep trial, or bleeding from painful bereavement, wades to it through the billows, exclaiming, "When my heart is overwhelmed, lead me to the Rock that is higher than I." Precious in His all-atoning blood–precious in His all-justifying righteousness–precious in His infinite fullness–precious in every office that He fills, in every work that He performs, in every promise that He makes, is Christ to him who, finding all other foundations but as sliding sand, builds his hope of glory upon the incarnate God. "To you, therefore, who believe, He is precious."

A "corner stone," too, is our glorious Redeemer. The important position which this occupies in the spiritual building–its essential relation to the compactness, strength, and durability of the whole fabric–we fear, is not duly considered by many who are professedly "lively stones" in the "spiritual house." And yet how momentous and how holy is the instruction it conveys! The corner stone is that which unites the parts of the edifice; it is to the building what the key-stone is to the arch; it imparts unity, symmetry, and strength. The Lord Jesus has been the uniting stone of the Church in all ages. The saints of the Patriarchal, Levitical, and Christian Churches all meet and form, in Him, one glorious temple of the living God. "No more strangers and foreigners, but fellow-citizens with the saints, and of the household of God:" they are "built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief corner stone; in whom all the building fitly framed together, grows unto an holy temple in the Lord," and thus becomes "a habitation of God through the Spirit." That there are divisions in the Church of God, visible and painful–that the one body is sadly dismembered, the seamless robe rudely torn and disfigured, is a truth too glaring to conceal, and almost too painful and humiliating to acknowledge. Alas, that it should be! Oh, how much is the unity of the Church lost sight of in the din of religious controversy and in the heat of party zeal! How does brother look coldly upon brother, and minister glance suspiciously at minister, and church stand aloof from church! Ought this so to be? And to what may it in a great degree be traced? We believe to a forgetfulness of the truth that all true believers are "one in Christ Jesus;" that the blood of the Lamb is the bond of union of the saints; that He is the "corner stone," uniting all the parts of the one edifice; and that, if built upon Him, we are one with that Church, and that Church is one with Christ.

JULY 5.

"A sure foundation." Isaiah 28:16

"A sure foundation" is the last quality of excellence specified of this precious Stone. As if, in so momentous a matter as the salvation of the soul, to remove all lingering doubt from the mind, to annihilate all imaginary and shadowy conceptions of Jesusl; Jehovah, the great Builder of the Church, declares the foundation thus laid to be a real and substantial one. Confidently here may the weary rest, and the sinner build his hope of heaven. All is sure. Sure that the word he credits is true–sure that the invitation that calls him is sincere–sure that the welcome extended to him is cordial. Sure, in coming to Jesus, of free forgiveness, of full justification, of complete and eternal acceptance with a reconciled God. Sure, that in renouncing all self-dependence, and building high his hope of glory on this foundation, he "shall not be ashamed nor confounded, world without end." All, too, is sure to the believer in the covenant of grace, of which Jesus is the Surety and Mediator. Every promise is sure–the full supply of all our need–the daily efficacy of the atoning blood–the answer to our prayers, though long delayed–the hope of being forever with Jesus–all, all is certain and sure, because based on Jesus, and springing from the heart of an unchangeable God, and confirmed by the oath of Him who has said, "Once have I sworn by my holiness that I will not lie unto David."

Precious Jesus! we have been contemplating Your glory as through a glass darkly. And yet we thank and adore You even for this glimpse. Dim and imperfect though it is, it has endeared You–unutterably endeared You–to our hearts. Oh! if this is Your glory beheld through a clouded medium, what will it be seen face to face! Soon, soon shall we gaze upon it. Then, Oh glorious King, we shall exclaim, "It was a true report that I heard of your acts and of your wisdom, and, behold, the half was not told me." Seeing that we look for such things, grant us grace, that being "diligent, we may be found of You in peace, without spot, and blameless." Send to us what You will, withhold from us what You will; only vouchsafe to us a "part in the first resurrection," and a seat at Your right hand when You come to Your kingdom. Low at Your feet we fall! Here may Your Spirit reveal to us more of Your glory! Oh, irradiate, sanctify, and cheer us with its beams! Behold, we cling to You! You are our Emmanuel, or portion, and our all. In darkness we repair to the fountain of Your light. In sorrow, we flee to the asylum of Your bosom. Oppressed, we come to the shelter of Your cross. Oh, take our hearts, and bind them closer and still closer to Yourself! Won by Your beauty and drawn by Your love, let there be a renewed surrender of our whole spirit, and soul, and body. Oh, claim a fresh possession of us. "Your statutes have been our songs in the house of our pilgrimage: You shall guide us with Your counsel, and afterward receive us to glory." Then shall we unite with the Hallelujah Chorus, and sing in strains of surpassing sweetness, gratitude, and love. "Thanks be unto God for His unspeakable gift!"

JULY 6.

"Come unto me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." Matthew 11:28

With what brightness does the truth appear, written with beams of heavenly light–Jesus, the Rest of the weary! "Come unto me." The Father has made His Son the resting-place of His Church. He Himself has vested His whole glory in Christ. He knew what Christ was capable of sustaining. He knew that as His fellow–one equal with Himself–He could with safety embark the honor of His government in the hands of His Son. He confided therein Himself! His government, and His Church–all in Christ. To this "tried stone" He would now bring His people. He found it strong enough for Himself, and He knows it to be strong enough for them, and with confidence He invites the weary to come and repose upon it. Jesus but echoes the heart of the Father when he says, "Come unto me–I will give you rest." Never did the tongue of Jesus utter words more learned, more eloquent, more persuasive. Just the word we need. By nature, we seek rest everywhere, and in everything, but in Jesus. We seek it in the sensual world, we seek it in the moral world, we seek it in the religious world–we find it not. We seek it in conviction, we seek it in ordinances, we seek it in doing the works of the law, and still it evades us. We go from place to place, from means to means, from minister to minister, and still the burden presses, and the guilt remains, and we find no rest. No; and never will we find it, until it is sought and found solely, wholly, exclusively, and entirely in Jesus. Rest for the sin-weary soul is only to be met with in Him who bore the curse for man's transgression. Here God rests, and here the sinner must rest. Here the Father rests, and here the child may rest. Jesus is the great burden-bearer, for God and for man. Listen again to the melody of His words: "Come unto me–I will give you rest." See, how He invites you, without one solitary condition. He makes no exception to your guilt and unworthiness. The word is, "Come unto me;" in other words, believe in me. To "come" is simply and only to believe. And oh! how can we fully set forth the "rest" to be found it Jesus? Let those testify who took their guilt to His blood, their vileness to His righteousness, their sins to His grace, their burdens to His arm, their sorrows to His heart. Let them tell how, in a moment, their sense of weariness fled, and rest, sweet, soothing rest to their soul succeeded. Are you, my reader, a sin-weary soul? Then, to you is this invitation addressed: "Come unto me–to me, a Savior whose willingness is equal to my ability. To me, who never rejected a single soul that sought salvation and heaven at my hands. Come unto me–I will give you rest."

JULY 7.

"My grace is sufficient for you: for my strength is made perfect in weakness." 2 Corinthians 12:9

In the case of a tried believer, the rest that Jesus gives does not always imply the removal of the burden from where this sense of weariness proceeds. The burden is permitted to remain, and yet rest is experienced. Yes, it would appear from His procedure, that the very existence of the burden were essential to the experience of the rest. He withdraws not the trouble from us, nor us from the trouble; and still the repose we sighed for is given. Wonderful indeed! But how is it explained? That burden takes us to Jesus. It is but the cause of our simply going to Him. But for that sorrow, or that calamity, or that sickness, or that bereavement, we would have stayed away. The pressure compelled us to go. And how does He meet us! Does He open a way of escape from our difficulty, or does He immediately unbind our burden and set us free? No; better than this, He pours strength into our souls, and life into our spirits, and love into our hearts, and so we find rest. Thus are fulfilled in our experience the precious promises, "As your day, so shall your strength be." "My grace is sufficient for you."

The timing of the Lord's promised grace is no small unfolding of His love. Nor less an evidence of His complex person as God-man. How could He so time His supply of strength as to meet the exigency at its very crisis, did not His Deity make Him cognizant of the critical juncture in which His people were placed! And let it be mentioned that this operation is going on in every place and at every moment. And how could He meet that exigency, and speak a word in season to the weary, but as His humanity was touched with the feeling of the infirmity? It is by this process of experience that we are brought into close views of the glory of our incarnate God. When He speaks through the ministry of the word, or by the word itself, to the believer, wearied with conflict and with trial, it has been just at the moment that its sustaining and consoling power was most needed. The eye that neither slumbers nor sleeps was upon you. He knew in what furnace you were placed, and was there to temper the flame when it seemed the severest. He saw your frail bark struggling through the tempest, and He came to your rescue at the height of the storm. How has He proved this in seasons of difficulty and doubt! How often at a crisis, the most critical of your history, the Lord has appeared for you! Your need has been supplied, your doubt has been solved, and your perplexity has been guided; He has delivered your soul from death, your eyes from tears, and your feet from falling. A word by Jesus, spoken in due season, how good is it!

JULY 8.

"For here have we no continuing city, but we seek one to come." Hebrews 13:14

The true believer in Jesus is a traveler. He is journeying to a city of habitation, to the mount of God–and, blessed be God, he will soon be there! The apostle Peter dedicates his pastoral letter to the "strangers scattered" abroad–the people of God dispersed over the face of the earth. Such is the Church of Christ. It is sometimes incorrectly called "the visible Church." The idea is unscriptural. Visible churches there may be, but a visible Church there is none. The saints of God are "strangers and pilgrims" scattered abroad. Here on earth they have no permanent abode, no certain resting-place. The Church is in the wilderness, journeying through it. The present is called the "time of our sojourning." We are but wayfarers at an inn, abiding only for a night. "Here we have no continuing city." We are strangers and sojourners, as all our fathers were. But this, beloved, is the reconciling, animating thought–we are journeying to the dwelling of God. We are on our way to the good land which the Lord our God has promised us; to the kingdom and the mansion which Jesus has gone to take possession of and to prepare for us. In a word–and this image is the climax of the blissful prospect–we are hastening to our "Father's house," the home of the whole family in heaven and in earth, the residence of Christ, the dwelling-place of God.

To this each believer in Jesus is journeying. The road is difficult, the desert is tedious–sometimes perilous from its smoothness, or painful from it roughness; its difficultness now wearying, its intricacy now embarrassing. But who will complain of the path that conducts him to his home? Who would yield to the sensation of fatigue, who is journeying to an eternal rest? Much of the disquietude and repining of spirit peculiar to the pilgrimage of the saints arises from the faint conceptions which the mind forms of the coming glory. We think too faintly and too seldom of heaven. The eye is bent downwards, and seldom do we "lift up our heads" in prospect of the "redemption that draws near."

And yet how much there is in the thought of glory, in the anticipation of heaven–its nature and associations–calculated to stimulate, to cheer, and to allure us onwards! It is the place where we shall be sinless; it is the residence where we shall see God; it is the mansion where we shall be housed with Christ; it is the home where we shall dwell with all the saints; it is the point at which are collecting all the holy of earth, some of whom have already left our embrace for its holier and happier regions, and whom we shall meet again. Why, then, should we be cast down because of the difficulty of the way, or for one moment lose sight of the glory that awaits us, or cease to strive for the fitness essential to its enjoyment? In a little while–oh, how short the journey!–and we shall be there. Then we shall realize, to their fullest extent, the beauty and the sweetness of the description so often read and pondered with tears of hope– "You have come to Mount Zion, to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to thousands of angels in joyful assembly. You have come to the assembly of God's firstborn children, whose names are written in heaven. You have come to God himself, who is the judge of all people. And you have come to the spirits of the redeemed in heaven who have now been made perfect. You have come to Jesus, the one who mediates the new covenant between God and people, and to the sprinkled blood, which graciously forgives instead of crying out for vengeance as the blood of Abel did." O my soul! will you not stretch every nerve, endure every privation, and relinquish every weight, thus to reach this glorious city of God?

JULY 9.

"But my God shall supply all your needs, according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus." Philippians 4:19

For all the exigencies of the Christian journey God has amply provided. The Lord Jesus being the believer's "way," all nourishment for the pilgrimage of the saints is laid up in Him. All supply of wisdom for the perplexing way, of strength for the wearisome way, of grace for the perilous way, of sympathy for the trying way, is in Jesus. In Him has the Father laid up the provision for the wilderness journey. And what storehouses of nourishment–both testifying of Jesus–are the word of God and the covenant of grace! How full, how rich and ample the supply! All the soul-establishing doctrines, all the sanctifying precepts, and all the precious, comforting promises go to make up the nourishment for the wilderness journey. Sometimes the Lord brings us into the very heart of the wilderness, just to prove to us how easily and how readily He can provide a table for us even there. And when all other resources are exhausted, and all supply is cut off, and every spring of water is dried up, lo! He opens the eye of our faith to see what His heart of love has prepared.

Are you, dear reader, sitting down to weep like Hagar, or to die like Elijah, in the wilderness–desolate, weary, and exhausted? Oh, see what appropriate and ample nourishment your God and Father has provided for you. The Angel of the covenant touches you with the right hand of His love, and bids you rise and eat and drink, yes, to "drink abundantly." In the glorious gospel are "all manner of pleasant fruits, new and old," which the Lord has laid up for His people. "Go your way, eat your bread with joy, and drink your wine with a merry heart," for all this storehouse of nourishment, this table of provision, is for you. All the love that is in God's heart, all the grace that is in the Savior's nature, all the comfort that is in the Spirit's tenderness, all the sanctifying truths, free invitations, and precious promises which cluster in the Gospel of Christ, all are yours–the sacred nourishment provided for the your journey to the mount of God. Listen to the voice of Jesus, saying to you, as of old, "Come and dine."

JULY 10.

"Wherefore he is able also to save to the uttermost, those who come unto God by him." Hebrews 7:25

What a witness is this to the power and readiness of Christ to save! And this is the testimony of the Holy Spirit to the blessed Son of God. But He does more than this. He brings home the record with power to the soul. He writes the testimony on the heart. He converts the believing soul itself into a witness that "Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners."

And what a gospel is this for a poor sinner! It speaks of pardon–of acceptance–of peace–of full redemption here, and unspeakable glory hereafter. It proclaims a Savior to the lost; a Redeemer to the captive; a Surety to the insolvent; a Physician to the sick; a Friend to the needy; an Advocate to the criminal;–all that a self-ruined, sin-accused, law-condemned, justice-threatened, broken-hearted sinner needs, this "glorious gospel of the blessed God" provides. It reveals to the self-ruined sinner One in whom is his help, Hosea 13:9. To the sin-accused, One who can take away all sin, 1 John 1:7. To the law-condemned, One who saves from all condemnation, Romans 8:1. To the justice-threatened, One who is a hiding-place from the wind, and a covert from the tempest, Isaiah 32:2. To the broken-hearted, One who binds up and heals, Isaiah 61:1. That One is–Jesus. O name ever dear, ever sweet, ever precious, ever fragrant, ever healing to the "poor in spirit"!

What a witness, then, is this which the Eternal Spirit bears for Jesus! He assures the believer that all he can possibly need is treasured up in Christ–that he has no cross but Christ can bear it–no sorrow but Christ can alleviate it–no corruption but Christ can subdue it–no guilt but Christ can remove it–no sin but Christ can pardon it–no need but Christ can supply it. Lift up your heads, you poor, you needy, you disconsolate! Lift up your heads and rejoice that Christ is all to you–all you need in this valley of tears–all you need in the deepest sorrow–all you need under the heaviest affliction–all you need in sickness–all you will need in the hour of death and in the day of judgment.

Yes, and Christ is in all too. He is in all you salvation–He is in all your mercies–He is in all your trials–He is in all your consolations, and in all your afflictions. What more can you want? What more do you desire? A Father who loves you as the apple of His eye–a full Savior to whom to go, moment by moment–and a blessed indwelling, sanctifying, comforting Spirit, to reveal all to you, and to give you Himself, as the "pledge of your inheritance, until the redemption of the purchased possession." "Happy is that people that is in such a case: yes, happy is that people whose God is the Lord."

JULY 11.

"I am crucified with Christ; nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ lives in me." Galatians 2:20.

The life of Christ and the life of self cannot coexist in the same heart. If the one lives, the other dies. The sentence of death is written upon a man's self, when the Spirit of Christ enters his heart, and quickens his soul with the life of God. "I live," he exclaims, "yet not I." What a striking and beautiful example of this have we in the life and labors of the apostle Paul! Does he speak of his ministry?–what a renunciation of self appears! Lost in the greatness and grandeur of his theme, he exclaims–"We preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord." Again–"Unto me who am less than the least of all saints, is this grace given, that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ." Does he refer to his office?–what self-crucifixion! "I magnify my office." In what way? Was it by vaunting proclamations of its grandeur and legitimacy, its Divine institution, or its solemn functions? Never! but he magnified his office by diminishing himself, and exalting his Master. He was nothing–aye, and even his office itself was comparatively nothing–that "Christ might be all in all." Does he speak of his gifts and labors? what absence of self! "I am the least of the apostles, that am not fit to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the Church of God. But by the grace of God I am what I am; and His grace, which was bestowed upon me, was not in vain, but I labored more abundantly than they all: yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me." Such was the religion of Paul. His Christianity was a self-denying, self-crucifying, self-renouncing Christianity. "I live, yet not I. I labored more abundantly than they all, yet not I." Oh what a self-denying spirit was his!

But every truly spiritual man is a self-renouncing man. In the discipline of his own heart, beneath the cross of Jesus, and in the school of trial and temptation, he has been taught in some degree, that if he lives, it is not he that lives, but that it is Christ that lives in him. Upon all his own righteousness, his duties, and doings, he tramples as to the great matter of justification; while, as fruits of the Spirit, as evidences of faith, as pulsations of the inner spiritual life, as, in a word, tending to authenticate and advance his sanctification, he desires to be "careful to maintain good works," that God in all things might be glorified.

JULY 12.

"But by the grace of God I am what I am: and his grace which was bestowed upon me was not in vain; but I labored more abundantly than they all: yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me." 1 Corinthians 15:10

We should be always careful to distinguish between the denial of self and the denial of the life of God within us. The most entire renunciation of ourselves, the most humiliating acknowledgment of our personal unworthiness, may harmonize with the strongest assurance and profession of Christ living in us. Self-denial does not necessarily involve grace-denial. It is the profoundest act of humility in a Christian man to acknowledge the grace of God in his soul. Never is there so real a crucifixion, never so entire a renunciation of self, as when the heart, in its lowly but deep and grateful throbbings, acknowledges its indebtedness to sovereign grace, and in the fervor of its adoring love, summons the whole Church to listen to its recital of the great things God has done for it–"Come and hear, all you that fear God, and I will declare what He has done for my soul." Oh yes! it is a self-denying life. Listen to Job–"I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes." Listen to Isaiah–"Woe is me! for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips: for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts." Listen to the penitent publican–"God be merciful to me a sinner!" Listen again to Paul–"I live, yet not I." Thus does a sense of sin, and a believing sight of Christ, lay the soul low before God in self-renunciation and self-abhorrence.

Judge your spiritual condition, dear reader, by this characteristic of the inner life. Is it yours? Has there been this renunciation of your sinful self and of your righteous self? Has the Spirit of God emptied you? has the grace of God humbled you? has the life of God crucified you? Are you as one in whom Christ lives, walking humbly with God! Oh, it is the essence of vital godliness, it is the very life of true religion. If Christ is living in you, you are a humble soul. Pride never existed in the heart of Christ. His whole life was one act of the profoundest self-abasement. In the truest and in the fullest sense of the emphatic declaration, "He humbled Himself." It is impossible, then, that He who was thus "meek and lowly in heart," can dwell in one whom "pride compasses as a chain." "I live, yet not I," are two states of the renewed soul, as inseparable as any cause and effect. A humble and a self-denying Christ dwells only with a humble and a self-denying soul. If your gifts inflate you, if your position exalts you, if your usefulness engenders pride, if the honor and distinction which God or man has placed upon you has turned you aside from the simplicity of your walk, and set you upon the work of self-seeking, self-advancing, so that you are not meek and gentle, child-like, and Christ-like in spirit, be sure of this–you are either not a partaker of the life of Christ, or else that life is at a low ebb in your soul. Which of the two, do you think, is your real state?

JULY 13.

"I have glorified you on the earth: I have finished the work which you gave me to do. And now, O Father, glorify me with your own self, with the glory which I had with you before the world was." John 17:4-5

His work being finished, the great atonement made, and salvation eternally secured to all the covenant seed, it was fit that the Son of God should return back to glory. Heaven was His original and proper place. He was but a stranger and a sojourner here. His mission accomplished, earth, which had once attracted Him to its bosom, attracted Him no longer. As the field of His labors, and the scene of His humiliation, and the theater of His conflict, He had willingly bent His steps towards it. His labors now finished, His humiliation now passed, His battle now fought, and His victory won, He as readily hastened from all below. Oh, what stronger ties, what more powerful allurements, had earth than heaven for Jesus? All to Him had been toil and suffering, trial and sorrow. Wearisome had been His pilgrimage, laborious His life, humiliating its every scene, and painful its every incident. Creatures the best and the fondest had disappointed Him, sources of created good the most promising had failed Him, and the hour of His deepest necessity and woe found Him treading the wine-press alone, forsaken by man, deserted by God! An atmosphere of sin had enveloped Him on every side; forms of suffering and pollution each moment flitted before His eye, and sounds of blasphemy and woe fell at each step upon His ear. At whatever point He turned, He saw His Father's name dishonored, His Spirit grieved. His own dignity outraged, His teaching despised, His Gospel rejected, and His authority trampled under-foot, by men swearing allegiance to another and a rival sovereign.

What greater, sweeter, and holier attractions, then, had earth than heaven for Jesus? His resurrection from the dead was His preparative for glory. Leaving the garments of mortality in the forsaken tomb, He wrapped around Him the robe of immortality, and, poised upon the wing, awaited but the signal for His heavenly flight. All that now remained for Him to accomplish was to authenticate the fact of His risen life, place His Church in a position to receive the promised Spirit, breathe His parting blessing, and then ascend to glory. Heaven was His home, loved and longed for! How sweet to Him were its recollections! how hallowed its associations, heightened by their contrast with the scene from which He was now retiring! There, no curse; there, no sorrow; there, no suffering; there, no tears; there, no indignity, awaited Him. All was one expanse of glory, all one pavilion of happiness! Bright was the landscape stretched before His view; redolent the breezes, and soft the music that floated from its fields and bowers.

But far above all the glory suggested by the most splendid material imagery, rose, in spiritual and surpassing grandeur, the seat, the altar, and the throne which, as Prophet, Priest, and King, He sighed to occupy. A more perfect investiture of Him in these offices, a more complete establishment of His mediatorial dominion, awaited Him. All power in heaven and on earth was to be placed in His hands: and all things were to be put in subjection under Him; and all beings, from the loftiest angel in heaven to the lowest creature on earth, were to acknowledge His government, submit to His sovereignty, worship, and "crown Him Lord of all."

JULY 14.

"And if any man sins, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous." 1 John 2:1

The work of our Lord as Priest was two-fold, atonement and intercession. The one He accomplished upon the cross, the other He now transacts upon the throne. "When He had by Himself purged our sins, He sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high." The high priest, under the law, after that he had slain the sacrifice, took the blood, and, passing within the veil, sprinkled it on the mercy-seat, so making intercession for the people. "The Holy Spirit this signifying, that the way into the holiest of all was not yet made manifest, while as the first tabernacle was yet standing." "But, Christ being come, an high priest of good things to come, by a greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this building; neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by His own blood, He entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us."

And what is He now doing? Presenting His own blood each moment before the mercy-seat on behalf of His redeemed people! "He ever lives to make intercession for us." Oh, do not forget this, dear saint of God! This is spoken for the comfort of the mourners in Zion–for those who, knowing the plague of their own hearts, and deploring its constant tendency to outbreak, are humbled in the dust with deep godly sorrow. Look up! Does sin plead loudly against you? the blood of Jesus pleads louder for you. Do your backslidings, and rebellions, and iniquities, committed against so much light and love, call for vengeance? the blood of Jesus "speaks better things." Does Satan stand at your right hand to accuse you? your Advocate stands at God's right hand to plead for you. All hail! you mourning souls! you that smite on the breast, you broken-hearted, you contrite ones! "who is he that condemns! It is Christ who died, yes rather, who is risen again; who is even at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us."

Jesus is a glorious and a successful Advocate. He has never lost a cause entrusted to His advocacy, and never will. He pleads powerfully, He pleads eloquently, He pleads prevalently, because He pleads in behalf of a people unspeakably dear to His heart, for whom He "loved not His own life unto the death," and presses His suit, on the ground of His own most precious blood and accepted person, and with His father and their Father, His God and their God.

JULY 15.

"This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him." 1 John 4:9

"God is love" was the great truth Jesus came to make known. Hence God's love is clearly a revelation to man, rather than a discovery by man. Divine love was the last perfection of Deity to baffle the research of human wisdom. Other attributes might be dimly traced in creation. Some faint glimmerings of God's wisdom, power, and goodness might be seen in the "things which are made;" but how God could love sinners, could redeem and save sinners, was a question to which nature's oracle returned no response. In the exercise of the vast powers with which his Creator has endowed him, man may discover everything, but this. He sweeps the firmament above him with his telescope, and a new constellation of surpassing glory arises before his view. He delves into the earth beneath him, and an ancient and long-lost city is untombed. He works a problem, and science develops some new and startling wonder. But there is one discovery he cannot make–one wonder surpassing all wonders, the most marvelous and stupendous, he cannot unravel. Nature, aiding him in all other researches, affords him no clue to this. The sunbeam paints it not upon the brilliant cloud; the glacier reflects it not from its dazzling brow; the valley's stream murmurs it not in its gentle music; it thunders not in the roar of ocean's billow; it sighs not in the evening's zephyr; it exhales not the opening flower; all nature is profoundly silent upon a theme so divine and strange, so vast and tender, as God's redeeming love to man.

But the Son, leaving the bosom of the Father, in which from eternity He had reposed, and which in the "fullness of time" He relinquished, has descended to our world to correct our apprehensions and to dislodge our doubts, to calm our fears, and to reassure our hopes with the certainty of the wondrous fact, that God is still mindful of man, and takes delight in man; that no revolt or alienation, no enmity or ingratitude, has turned away His heart from man; that He loves him still, and that loving, He "so loved him that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life." Thus did He come, His Father's representative, to declare Him to man. And as He wrought His brilliant miracles of stupendous power–thus attesting the fact of His Godhead; and as He pronounced His discourses of infinite wisdom–thus unlocking the treasures of His grace; and as He traveled all laden with our sins to the cross–thus unsealing the fountain of His compassion, He could say to all who challenged the Divinity of His mission, or who asked at His hands a vision of the Father, "He that has seen me has seen the Father,"–"I and my Father are one."

Behold the mission of the Savior to our world! He has come to uplift the veil, and reveal the heart of God–that heart all throbbing with a love as infinite as His nature, as deathless as His being. He came not to inspire, but to reveal, the love of God. The atonement did not originate, it expounded the Father's love–the love was already there. Sin had but clouded its existence; rebellion had but arrested its flow. Struggling and panting for a full, unrestrained expression, it could find no adequate outlet, no appropriate channel in its course to man, save in the surrender and sacrifice of its most costly and precious treasure. The Son of the Father must bleed and die, before the love of the Father could embrace its object. And now, O child of God, the veil is withdrawn, the thick cloud is blotted out, and your God stands before you all arrayed in ineffable love, His heart your divine pavilion, His bosom your sacred home. "The only-begotten Son who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him."

JULY 16.

"Only believe." Mark 5:36

Precious and significant are the words of Jesus, the very same words that He spoke when on earth. Did those lips, glowing with more than a seraph's hallowed touch–lips into which grace without measure was poured–ever breathe a sentence more touching, more simple, or more significant than this, "Only believe"? Originally addressed to an afflicted parent, who sought His compassion and His help in behalf of a little daughter lying at the point of death, they seem to be especially appropriate to every case of anxiety, of trial, and of need. Alas! how many such will scan this page–how many a sigh will breathe over it, how many a tear will moisten it, how many a mournful glance will light upon it! Be it so; there comes back a voice of sympathy responsive to each sad heart–not man, but Jesus speaks–"Only believe"–in other words, "only trust." What is faith, but trust? what is believing in Jesus, but trusting in Jesus? When Jesus says, "only believe me," He literally says, "only trust me." And what a natural, beautiful, soothing definition of the word faith is this!

Many a volume has been written to explain the nature and illustrate the operation of faith–the subject and the reader remaining as much mystified and perplexed as ever. But who can fail to comprehend the meaning of the good old Saxon word trust! All can understand what this means. When, therefore, Jesus says–as He does to every individual who reads these words–"only believe me," He literally says, "only trust me." Thus He spoke to the anxious father who besought Him to come and heal his child: "only believe–only trust my power, only trust my compassion, only trust my word; do not be afraid, only trust me." And thus He speaks to you, believer. Oh, for a heart to respond, "Speak, Lord, for your servant hears!"

Trust implies, on our part, mystery and ignorance, danger and helplessness. How wrapped in inscrutability, how shadowy and unreal, is all the future! As we attempt to penetrate the dark clouds, what strange forebodings steal over our spirits. Just at this juncture Jesus approaches, and with address most winning, and in accents most gentle, speaks these words, "Only believe–only trust me! Trust me, who knows the end from the beginning; trust me, who has all resources at my command; trust me, whose love never changes, whose wisdom never misleads, whose word never fails, whose eye never slumbers nor sleeps–only trust me!" Enough, my blessed Lord, my soul replies. I will sit myself down a loving child, a lowly disciple at Your feet, and, indistinct and dreary as my future path may be, will learn from You how and where I may trust You all my journey through.

JULY 17.

"He who spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all; how shall he not with him also freely give us all things." Romans 8:32

How beautiful and conclusive the reasoning of the apostle! Arguing from the greater to the lesser, he proceeds to assure the believer of God's readiness freely to bestow all needful blessing. To this He stood pledged. The gift of His own Son, so freely and unreservedly bestowed, was the security and the channel of every other mercy. When God gave His Son, the reconciliation had not actually been effected, justice had received no satisfaction, and the broken law no repair. Thus "God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us." If then, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son, much more, being reconciled, will He freely give us all things.

"All things!" How comprehensive and grant! "According as His Divine power has given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness," holding the security in the hand of faith, you may repair to your heavenly Father, and ask for all that you need. So to speak, God has bound Himself to withhold no good thing from you. He is pledged, and from that pledge He will never recede, to grant you all you need. What is your demand? Is it the Spirit to seal, to sanctify, to comfort you? Then draw near and ask the gift. "For if you who are evil know how to give good things to your children, how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him?" Is it pardon? Then ask it. He who provided the sacrifice for sin, will He not freely bestow the forgiveness of sin? Is it grace? Having given you the Reservoir of grace, is He not as willing and "able to make all grace abound toward you, that you, always having all sufficiency in all things, may abound to every good work"? Is it comfort? Having given you the "Consolation of Israel," will He not prove to you the "God of all comfort"? Is your necessity temporal? Are your circumstances adverse? Filled with forebodings of approaching difficulty, the cruse of oil and the barrel of meal wasting, are you anxious and fearful? Take your temporal need to God. What! will He bestow the higher blessings of grace, and withhold the inferior ones of providence? Never! And can you press to your believing heart the priceless, precious, unspeakable gift of His Son, and yet cherish in that heart the gloomy misgiving thought of God's unwillingness and inability to supply all you need?

"Freely give." God's gifts are both rich and gratuitous. He always bestows more, never less, than we ask. It would seem as though He could not open His hand to a poor comer, but it overflowed with a bounty worthy of Himself. Here are met all the objections to our coming which spring from our unworthiness, unfruitfulness, and unfaithfulness. Having nothing to pay, nothing in return is required. "Without money, and without price." Free as the sunlight–free as the balmy air–free as the mountain-stream–free as the heart of God can make it, is every blessing which He bestows. "He who spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?"

JULY 18.

"Those who live according to the sinful nature (the flesh) have their minds set on what that nature desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires." Romans 8:5

By this truth let us test the reality of our religious profession. In this light let us closely examine our Christian character and walk. What, reader, is the habitual and supreme bent of your mind? Is it that which is spiritual, or that which is carnal? Judge of your preparation for death, in the near view of its approaching solemnities. Decide upon your state for eternity, in the rapid progress of its deepening shadows. Ascertain the real state of your case for the judgment, in the certain arrival of its dread scrutiny. You have your mind either set upon the things of the flesh, or upon the things of the Spirit. You are either born again from above, or are groveling in things below. You are either holy, or you are unholy. You are for the Lord, or you are against Him. You are either Satan's slave or Christ's freeman. Which?

You inquire, "How may I know that I am of the Spirit?" We answer–by your producing the fruits of the Spirit. A broken heart for sin–a felt conviction of the hidden plague–a humble and a contrite spirit–an utter rejection of a human righteousness–a simple, believing reception of the Lord Jesus–and a breathing after Divine conformity, are evidences of a renewed and sanctified state. If these are yours in any degree, then you are of the Spirit.

But rest not here. Be exhorted to walk in the Spirit. Do not be satisfied with having the question decided in your favor–with just barely knowing that you have crossed the line that separates the regenerate from the unregenerate–death from life. Remain not where you are: go forward. Do not be content with a low standard. Compare not your church with other churches, nor yourself with other Christians; nor measure yourself by yourself. But fix your eye upon Christ; copy His example, imbibe His mind, and place yourself under the government of His Spirit. Strive to go forward! Endeavor to be always sowing to the Spirit. Be satisfied with the Lord's disposal of you. Study the divine art of contentment. Be convinced that what the Lord ordains is best. Covet but little of earthly good; and, as an old divine exhorts, "sail with a low gale." Lie low. The great secret of a holy and a happy life is contained in a small compass–walking humbly with God. In all failures in duty, in all shortcomings in practice, in all transactions with God, and in all dealings with man–remembering the innumerable traces of imperfection and sin found upon all you do–deal frequently, closely, with the atoning blood. "Wash and be clean."

JULY 19.

"We are in him who is true, even in his Son Jesus Christ." 1 John 5:20

"I in them." Thus it is a mutual indwelling–Christ in us, and we in Christ. Here is our security. The believer is in Christ as Jacob was in the garment of the elder brother when Isaac kissed him, and he "smelled the smell of the clothing, and blessed him, and said, See, the smell of my son is as the smell of a field which the Lord has blessed." He is in Christ as the poor homicide was within the city of refuge, when pursued by the avenger of blood, but who could not overtake and slay. He is in Christ as Noah was enclosed within the ark, with the heavens darkening above him, and the waters heaving beneath him, yet with not a drop of the flood penetrating his vessel, nor a blast of the storm disturbing the serenity of his spirit.

How expressive are these Scriptural emblems of the perfect security of a believer in Christ! He is clothed with the garment of the Elder Brother, the righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ, "which is unto all and upon all those who believe." On that garment the Father's hands are placed; in that robe the person of the believer is accepted; it is to God "as the smell of a field which the Lord has blessed:" the blessing of the heavenly birthright is his–and for him there is no condemnation. Pursued by the avenger of blood, the threatenings of a condemning law, he has reached the city of refuge, the Lord Jesus Christ. Fearful and trembling, yet believing and hoping, he has crossed the sacred threshold, and in an instant he is safe–and for him there is no condemnation. Fleeing from the gathering storm–"the wrath which is to come"–he has availed himself of the open door of the sacred ark–the crucified Savior–has entered, God shutting him in–and for him there is no condemnation.

Yes, Christ Jesus is our sanctuary, beneath whose shadow we are safe. Christ Jesus is our strong tower, within whose embattlements no avenger can threaten. Christ Jesus is our hiding-place from the wind, and covert from the tempest; and not one drop of "the wrath to come" can fall upon the soul that is in Him. Oh, how completely accepted, and how perfectly secure, the sinner who is in Christ Jesus! He feels he is saved on the basis of a law whose honor is vindicated; through the clemency of a righteous Sovereign, whose holiness is secured; and through the mercy of a gracious God, the glory of whose moral government is eternally and illustriously exhibited. And now is his head lifted up above his enemies round about him; for there is no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus. Reader, are you in Christ Jesus? Is this your condition?

JULY 20.

"Except you repent, you shall all likewise perish." Luke 13:5

This was the doctrine which our Lord preached; and so did His apostles, when they declared, "God now commands all men everywhere to repent." No command, no duty, can be more distinctly, intelligently, and solemnly defined and urged than this. But the inquirer will ask, "What is repentance?" The reply is–it is that secret grace that lays the soul low before God–self loathed; sin abhorred, confessed, and forsaken. It is the abasement and humiliation of a man, because of the sinfulness of his nature and the sins of his life, before the holy, heart-searching Lord God. The more matured believer is wont to look upon a broken and contrite spirit, flowing from a sight of the cross, as the most precious fruit found in his soul. No moments to him are so hallowed, so solemn, or so sweet, as those spent in bathing the Savior's feet with tears.

There is indeed a bitterness in the grief which a sense of sin produces; and this, of all other bitterness, is the greatest. He knows, from experience, that it is an "evil thing and bitter, that he has forsaken the Lord his God." Nevertheless, there is a sweetness, an indescribable sweetness, which must be experienced to be understood, blended with the bitterness of a heart broken for sin, from a sight of the cross of the incarnate God. Oh, precious tears wept beneath that cross!

"For thus says the high and lofty One who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy; I dwell in the high and holy place, with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite ones." But how shall I portray the man who is of a contrite and humble spirit? He is one who truly knows the evil of sin, for he has felt it. He apprehends, in some degree, the holiness of God's character, and the spirituality of His law, for he has seen it. His views of himself have undergone a radical change. He no longer judges of himself as others judge of him. They exalt him; he abases himself. They approve; he condemns. And in that very thing for which they most extol him he is humbling himself in secret. While others are applauding actions, he is searching into motives; while they are extolling virtues, he is sifting principles; while they are weaving the garland for his brow, he, shut in alone with God, is covering himself with sackcloth and with ashes.

Oh precious fruit of a living branch of the true vine! Is it any wonder, then, that God should come and dwell with such a one, in whom is found something so good towards Him? Oh, no! He delights to see us in this posture–to mark a soul walking before Him in a conscious sense of its poverty; the eye drawing from the cross its most persuasive motives to a deep prostration of soul at His feet. Dear reader, to know what a sense of God's reconciling love is–to know how skillfully, tenderly, and effectually Jesus binds up and heals–your spirit must be wounded, and your heart must be broken for sin. Oh, it were worth an ocean of tears to experience the loving gentleness of Christ's hand in drying them. Has God ever said of you, as He said of Ahab, "See how he humbles himself before me?" Search and ascertain if this good fruit is found in your soul.

JULY 21.

"Likewise the Spirit also helps our infirmities." Romans 8:26

The word here rendered "helps" properly means to take part with. It implies, not merely sympathy with, but a personal participation in our infirmity. The Spirit helps our infirmities by sharing them with us. Now take the general infirmities of the believer–infirmities which, unaided by another and a superior power, must crush and overwhelm–and trace the help thus afforded by the Spirit. We are taught to adore the love of the Father, from where each rill of mercy has its rise. We delight to dwell upon the love of the Son, through whose channel all redemption-blessing flows. And shall we overlook the love of the Holy Spirit? Shall we forget His comforts, His grace, His succourings? Forbid it, oh eternal and blessed Spirit! Your essential Deity–Your personal subsistence–Your tender love–Your Divine power–Your efficacious grace–Your sovereign mercy–Your infinite patience–Your exquisite sympathy–all demand our deepest love, and awake our loftiest praise.

But how is this sympathy of the Spirit expressed? Seeing the soul bound with an infirmity, all His compassion is awakened. Approaching, He takes hold of the burden. Constrained by a love which no thought can conceive, moved by a tenderness no tongue can describe, He advances, and places the power of His Godhead beneath the pressure–and thus He helps our infirmity. Do you doubt this? We summon you as a witness to its truth. Why are you not a ruin and a wreck? Why has not your infirmity long since dethroned reason, and annihilated faith, and extinguished hope, and clad all the future with the pall of despair? Why have you ridden serene and secure upon the crest of the billow, smiling calmly upon the dark and yawning surges dashing and foaming around you? Why have you, when your heart has been overwhelmed, found relief in a sigh, in a tear, in an uplifted glance, in one thought of God? Oh, it has been because the Spirit, all silent and invisible, was near to you, sympathizing, helping, bearing your infirmities. Because around you the power of His Deity was placed. And when you have staggered and turned pale, and have well near given up all for lost, resigning yourself to the broodings of despair, that Spirit has approached, all-loving and powerful, and helped, by sharing your infirmity. Some appropriate and precious promise has been sealed upon your heart–some clear and soothing view of Christ has been presented to your eye–some gentle whisper of love has breathed upon your ear–and you have been helped. The pressure has been lightened, the grief has been assuaged, the weakness has been strengthened, and you have risen superior to the infirmity that bowed you to the dust. Oh, it was the Spirit who helped you. Grieved, and wounded, and slighted a thousand times over though He has been, receiving at your hands the unkindest requital for the tenderest love, yet when your infirmity bowed you to the earth, and the sword entered your soul, He drew near, forgetting all your base ingratitude, and administered wine to your dejected spirit, and oil to your bleeding wound, and placed beneath you the encircling arms of His everlasting love.

JULY 22.

"And the Holy Spirit helps us in our distress. For we don't even know what we should pray for, nor how we should pray. But the Holy Spirit prays for us with groanings that cannot be expressed in words." Romans 8:26

The Holy Spirit is here represented in the character of a pleader or advocate for the saints. To form a vivid conception of this truth, we have but to imagine an anxious and embarrassed client prosecuting some important suit, or, perchance, battling for his life in a court of justice. At his side stands his counselor, thoroughly acquainted with the nature of his case, and deeply versed in the bearings of the law. He is there to instruct his client how to shape his course, with what arguments to support, with what pleas to urge, with what words to clothe his suit. Such is the advocacy and such the aid of the Spirit in the matter of prayer. We stand in the presence of the Lord–it may be to deprecate a deserved punishment, or to plead for a needed blessing.

"We don't even know what we should pray for, nor how we should pray." How shall we order our cause before the Great Judge? With what feelings, with what language, with what arguments shall we unburden our heart, unveil our sorrow, confess our sin, and make known our request? How shall I overcome the remembrance of past ingratitude, and the conviction of present guilt, and the pressure of deep need, and the overwhelming sense of the Divine Majesty? How shall I wake the heart to feeling; rouse the dull, sluggish emotions of the soul; recall the truant affections; and concentrate the mind upon the holy and solemn engagement? But our counselor is there! "The Holy Spirit prays for us." And how does He this?

He indites the prayer. Do not think that that spiritual petition, which breathed from your lips and rose as an incense-cloud before the mercy-seat, was other than the inditing of the Holy Spirit. He inspired that prayer, He created those desires, and He awoke those groanings. The form of your petition may have been ungraceful, your language simple, your sentences broken, your accents tremulous, yet there was an eloquence and a power in that prayer which reached the heart and moved the arm of God. It overcame the Angel of the Covenant. And whose eloquence and whose power was it?–the interceding Spirit's.
He also teaches us what to pray for. Many and urgent as our needs are, we only accurately know them as the Spirit makes them known. Alas! what profound ignorance of ourselves must we cherish, when we know not what we should ask God for as we ought! But the Spirit reveals our deep necessity, convinces us of our emptiness, poverty, and need, and teaches us what blessings to ask, what evils to deprecate, what mercies to implore.

He sympathizes, too, with our infirmity in prayer, by portraying to our view the parental character of God. Sealing on our hearts a sense of adoption, he emboldens us to approach God with filial love and child-like confidence. He leads us to God as a Father. Nor must we overlook the skill with which the Spirit enables us to urge in our approaches to God the sinner's great plea–the atoning blood of Jesus. This is no small part of the Divine aid we receive in our infirmity. Satan, the accuser of the saints, even follows the believer to the throne of grace to confront and confound him there. When Joshua stood before the Angel of the Lord, Satan stood at his right hand to resist him. But the Spirit, too, is there! He is there in the character, and to discharge the office, of the praying soul's Intercessor. He instructs the accused suppliant what arguments to use, what pleas to urge, and how to resist the devil. He strengthens the visual organ of the soul, so that it clearly discerns the blood upon the mercy-seat within the veil, on which it fixes the eye in simple faith. Oh, it is the delight of the Spirit to take of the things of Jesus–His love, His work, His sympathy, His grace, His power–and show them to the soul prostrate in prayer before the throne of grace.

JULY 23.

"I lie in the dust, completely discouraged; revive me by your word." Psalm 119:25

Ah! how many whose eye scans this page may take up and breathe David's words. You feel a deadness, a dullness, and an earthliness in spiritual enjoyments, and duties, and privileges, in which your whole soul should be all life, all fervor, all love. You are low where you ought to be elevated; you grovel where you ought to soar; you cleave to the earth where you ought to be embracing the heavens. Your thoughts are low; your affections are low; your feelings are low; your spirits are low; and you seem almost ready to question the existence of the life of God in your soul.

But even in this sad and depressed state may there not be something cheering, encouraging, hopeful? There was evidently in David's–"My soul cleaves unto the dust: quicken me." This was the cheering, encouraging, hopeful feature in the Psalmists's case–his breathing after the requickening of the Divine life of his soul. Here was that which marked him a man of God. It was a living man complaining of his deadness, and breathing after more life. It was a heaven-born soul lamenting its earthliness, and panting after more of heaven. It was a spiritual man mourning over his carnality, and praying for more spirituality. It is not the prayer of one conscious of the low state of His soul, and yet satisfied with that state.

"I lie in the dust, completely discouraged; revive me by your word." Perhaps no expression is more familiar to the ear, and no acknowledgment is more frequently on the lips of religious professors, than this. And yet where is the accompanying effort to rise above it? Where is the putting on of the armor? Where is the conflict? Where is the effort to emerge from the dust, to break away from the enthrallment, and soar into a higher and purer region? Alas! many from whose lips smoothly glides the humiliating confession still embrace the dust, and seem to love the dust, and never stretch their pinions to rise above it. But let us study closely this lesson of David's experience, that while deep lamentation filled his heart, and an honest confession breathed from his lips, there was also a breathing, a panting of soul, after a higher and a better state. He seemed to say–"Lord, I am prostrate, but I long to rise; I am fettered, but I struggle to be free; my soul cleaves to the dust, but quicken me!" Similar to this was the state of the Church, so graphically depicted by Solomon in his Song–"I sleep, but my heart wakes."

JULY 24.

"Revive me." Psalm 119:25

This prayer implies what, alas! is so needful in many, a revival of soul. It is a putting of the Lord's hand a second time to the work of grace in the heart. "When you are converted," said our Lord to Peter, "strengthen your brethren." What! had not Peter already been converted? Most truly. But; although a regenerate man, he had so relapsed in grace as to need a re-conversion. Our Lord's meaning, then, obviously is, "When you are restored, recovered, re-quickened, then strengthen your brethren." How many religious professors stand in need of a fresh baptism (filling) of the Holy Spirit! You, perhaps, my reader, are one. Where is the spiritual vigor you once displayed? where the spiritual joy you once possessed? where the unclouded hope you once indulged? where the humble walk with God you once maintained? where the fragrance that once breathed around you? Alas! your soul cleaves to the dust; and you need the re-converting grace, the renewed baptism (filling) of the Spirit. "Revive me" is your prayer.

A clearer manifestation of Divine life in the soul is not the least blessing contained in this prayer for quickening. How little realization enters into the religion of many! There is the full credence of the judgment to the truth; a conversing about religion, the ministry, and the Church. But where is felt the realizing power, the earth-fading, heaven-attracting power, of vital godliness into the soul? Dear reader, the hour that will bring your religious profession, your religious creed, your religious notions, to the test, is at hand; and the great question in that awful moment will be, "Am I ready to die?–have I in my soul the life of God?–am I born of the Spirit?–have I a living Christ in my now failing, dying heart?"

But what a prayer is this in view of a scene and a scrutiny so solemn: "Revive me, Lord, quicken Your work in my soul, and strengthen that which You have wrought in me. The love that congeals, the faith that trembles, the hope that fluctuates, the joy that droops; inspire with new life, new energy, new power! It is of little moment what others think of me; Lord, You know my soul cleaves to the dust. There is in my heart more of earth than of heaven; more of self than of Christ; more of the creature than of God. You know me in secret–how my grace wanes, how my affections chill, how seldom my closet is visited, how much my Bible is neglected, how insipid to my taste the means of grace, and how irksome and vapid are all spiritual duties and privileges. Lord, stir up Yourself to the revivifying of my soul; quicken, oh, revive me in Your ways. Enlarge my heart, that I may run the way of Your commandments."

JULY 25.

"I lie in the dust, completely discouraged; revive me by your word." Psalm 119:25

The argument with which this holy petition is urged is most powerful and prevalent. According to the promise of the word, and the instrumentality of the word. Both are engaged to quicken the soul. The promise is most precious: "I will heal their backslidings, I will love them freely; for my anger is turned away from him. I will be as the dew unto Israel: he shall grow as the lily, and cast forth his roots as Lebanon. Those who dwell under his shadow shall return; they shall revive as the corn, and grow as the vine." This precious promise to quicken and revive you, to shed the dews of His grace upon your soul, thus moistening and nourishing the roots and fibers and fruits of the new and heavenly life within you, God stands ready to fulfill in your holy and happy experience. "I will be to Israel like a refreshing dew from heaven. It will blossom like the lily; it will send roots deep into the soil like the cedars in Lebanon." Christ is our dew: the dew of His love, the dew of His grace, the dew of His Spirit, is prepared, silent and unseen, but effectual and vivifying–to fall upon the renewed powers of your nature–reviving the work of God in your soul.

But by the instrumentality of the word, the Lord quickens the soul. The word of Christ is "spirit and life," therefore it is a quickening word. "This is my comfort in my affliction; for Your word has quickened me." Again, "I will never forget Your precepts; for with them You have quickened me." Therefore did Jesus pray to His Father in behalf of His Church, "Sanctify them through Your truth." Thus does the word quicken. We are here constrained to suggest an inquiry–May not the prevalent decay of spiritual life in the Church of God–the low standard of spirituality–the alarming growth of soul-destroying error–the startling discovery which some modern teachers appear to have stumbled upon, that doctrines which the Church of Christ has always received as revealed truth, which councils have authorized, and which creeds have embodied, and which the sanctified intellects of master-spirits–the Anakims and the Shamgars of polemic divinity and divine philosophy of past ages–have contended for and maintained, are not found in the Bible, but are the visionary dogmata of a by-gone age–we say, may not these prevalent evils be mainly attributable to the contempt thrown upon the word of God? We verily and solemnly believe it to be so.

We need to be constantly reminded that the great regenerator and emancipator of the world is the Bible–that nothing short of this disturbs the spiritual death which universally prevails, and that nothing short of this will free the human mind from the shackles of error and superstition which enslave at this moment nearly two-thirds of the human race. This "sword of the Spirit"–like that of Goliath, "there is none like it"–has overcome popery and infidelity, and, unimpaired by the conflict, it is ready to overcome them yet again. Oh, that in this day of sad departure from the word of God, we may rally round the Bible in closer and more united phalanx! Firm in the belief of its divinity, strong in the conviction of its potency, may we go forth in the great conflict of truth and error, wielding no weapon but the "sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God." In all our spiritual relapses, too, may the word of the Lord quicken us. May it, like a mighty lever, raise our soul from the dust to which it so much cleaves.

JULY 26.

"Blessed is the man whom you chasten, O Lord, and teach him out of your law." Psalm 94:12

That there is a present partial understanding of God's will and ways concerning us we readily concede. We may, now and then, see a needs-be for His conduct. The veil is just sufficiently lifted to reveal a portion of the "end of the Lord." He will make us acquainted with the evil which He corrects, with the backsliding which He chastens, with the temptation which He checks, and with the dangerous path around which He throws his hedge; so that we cannot escape. We see it, and we bless the hand outstretched to save. He will also cause us to be fruitful. We have mourned our leanness, have confessed our barrenness, and lamented the distance of our walk, and the little glory we bring to His dear name–and lo! the dresser of the vineyard has appeared to prune His sickly branch, "that it may bring forth more fruit." "By this therefore shall the iniquity of Jacob be purged; and this is all the fruit to take away his sin." The deeper teaching, too–the result of the Divine chastenings–has revealed to some extent the "end of the Lord" in His mysterious conduct. Oh, there is no school like God's school; for "who teaches like Him?" And God's highest school is the school of trial. All his true scholars have graduated from this: "Who are these which are arrayed in white robes? and where came they? These are they which came out of great tribulation, and have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb." Ask each spiritually, deeply taught Christian where he attained his knowledge, and he will point you to God's great university–the school of trial.

JULY 27.

"Jesus answered and said unto him, What I do you know not now, but you shall know hereafter." John 8:7

Oh that "hereafter," what a solemn word to the ungodly! Is there, then, a hereafter? Jesus says there is; and I believe it, because He says it. That hereafter will be terrible to the man that dies in his sins. It will be a hereafter whose history will be "written in mourning, lamentation, and woe." It had been better for you, reader, living and dying impenitent and unbelieving, had you never been born, or had there been no hereafter. But there is a hereafter of woe to the sinner, as of bliss to the saint. "These shall go away into everlasting punishment; but the righteous into life eternal."

The position which the Christian shall occupy hereafter will be most favorable to a full and clear comprehension of all the mysteries of the earthly journey. The "clouds and darkness"–emblems in our history of obscurity and distress–which now envelope God's throne, and enshroud His government of the saints, will have passed away; the mist and fog will have vanished, and, breathing a purer atmosphere, and canopied by a brighter sky, the glorified saint will then see every object, circumstance, incident, and step, with an eye unobscured by a vapor, and unmoistened by a tear. "Now we know in part; then shall we know even as we are known." And what shall we know? All the mysteries of providence. Things which had made us greatly grieve, will then be seen to have been causes of the greatest joy. Clouds of threatening, which appeared to us charged with the agent of destruction, will then unveil, and reveal the love which they embosomed and concealed.

All the mysteries of faith, too, will be known. "Now we see through a glass darkly (in a riddle), but then face to face; now I know in part, but then shall I know even as also I am known." The great "mystery of godliness" will develop and unfold its wonders. His everlasting love to His Church–His choice of a people for Himself–His sovereign grace in calling them–all, all, will shine forth with unclouded luster to the eternal praise of His great and holy name. Oh, what a perfect, harmonious, and glorious whole will all His doings in providence and grace appear, from first to last, to the undimmed eye, the ravished gaze of His white-robed, palm-bearing Church.

Many and holy are the lessons we may gather from this subject. The first is the lesson of deep humility. There are three steps in the Christian's life. The first is–humility; the second is–humility; the third is–humility. In veiling His dealings, Jesus would "hide pride" from us. In "leading the blind by a way that they know not," He teaches them to confide in the knowledge, truth, and goodness of their Divine escort–and that confidence is the calm unquestioning repose of faith.

JULY 28.

"Showing himself through the lattice." Solomon's Song 2:9

This is a clearer and more glorious discovery of Christ, inasmuch as it is the manifestation of Christ in the revealed word. Our Lord cares not to conceal Himself from His saints. He remembers that all their loveliness is through Him, that all their grace is in Him, that all their happiness is from Him; and therefore He delights to afford them EVERY MEANS and occasion of increasing their knowledge of, and of perfecting their resemblance to, Him. The "lattice" of His house is figurative of the doctrines, precepts, and promises of His Gospel. Through these the Lord Jesus manifests Himself, when we come to the study of the word, not as self-sufficient teachers, but as sincere and humble learners, deeply conscious how little we really know, and thirsting to know more of God in Jesus.

The Lord Jesus often shows Himself through these "lattices,"–perhaps some type, or prophecy, or doctrine, or command–and we are instructed, sanctified, and blest. It is the loss of so many readers of the Bible that they do not search it for Christ. Men will study it with the view of increasing their knowledge of science and of philosophy, of poetry and of painting; but how few search into it for Jesus! And yet in knowing Him the pavilion of all spiritual mystery is unlocked–all that God designed to communicate in the present world. To know God is to comprehend all knowledge; God is only truly known as revealed in Jesus; therefore he who is experimentally acquainted with Jesus, holds in his hand the key that unlocks the vast treasury of God's revealed mind and heart.

Oh, search for Christ in the lattice of the word! The types foreshadow Him, the prophecies unfold Him, the doctrines teach Him, the precepts speak of Him, the promises lead to Him. "Rejoice in the word, but only as the wise men did in the star, as it led them to Christ. The word of Christ is precious, but nothing more precious than Christ Himself and His formation of the soul. Rest not in the word, but look through it to Christ."

Blessed Lord, I would sincerely open this box of precious ointment–Your own word–that the fragrance of Your grace and of Your name might revive me. It is Your word, and not man's word, that can meet my case, and satisfy my soul. Man can only direct me to You; Your word brings me to You. Your servants can at best but bring You in Your Gospel to my heart; but Your Spirit of truth brings You through the gospel into my heart. Oh, show Yourself to me in the gospel "lattice" of Your word, and I shall rejoice as one that has found great spoil–in finding You.

JULY 29.

"Who is this that comes up from the wilderness, leaning upon her beloved?" Solomon's Song 8:5

Was ever a poor pilgrim more honored? Was ever a lonely traveler in better company? How can you be solitary or sorrowful, be in peril, or suffer need, while you are journeying homewards in company with and leaning upon Jesus? But for what are you to lean upon your Beloved? You are to lean upon Jesus for your entire salvation. He is "made of God unto you wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption;" and for each one of these inestimable blessings you are to depend daily upon Christ. Where can you lean for pardon, but upon the atoning blood of Jesus? Where can you lean for acceptance, but upon the justifying righteousness of Jesus? And where can you lean for sanctification, but upon the sin-subduing grace of Jesus? This leaning upon the Beloved, then, is a daily coming up out of ourselves in the great matter of our salvation, and resting in the finished work of Christ–no more, in Christ Himself. You are to lean upon the fullness of your Beloved. He is full to a sufficiency for all the needs of His people. There cannot possibly occur a circumstance in your history, there cannot arise a necessity in your case, in which you may not repair to the infinite fullness which the Father has laid up in Christ for His Church in the wilderness. Why, then, seek in your poverty what can only be found in Christ's riches? why look to your emptiness when you may repair to His fullness? "My grace is sufficient for you" is the cheering declaration with which Jesus meets every turn in your path, every crook in your lot, every need in your journey. Distrust then your own wisdom, look from your own self, and lean your entire weight upon the infinite fullness that is in Christ.

The posture is expressive of conscious weakness and deep self-distrust. Who is more feeble than a child of God? Taught the lesson of his weakness in the region of his own heart, and still learning it in his stumblings, falls, and mistakes, many and painful, in his self-inflicted wounds and dislocations, he is at length brought to feel that all his strength is outside of himself. He has the "sentence of death in himself, that he should not trust in himself." "I am weak, yes, weakness itself," is his language; "I am as a reed shaken of the wind; I stumble at a feather; I tremble at an echo; I recoil at my own shadow; the smallest difficulty impedes me; the least temptation overcomes me. How shall I ever fight my way through this mighty host, and reach in safety the world of bliss?" By leaning daily, hourly, moment by moment, upon your Beloved for strength. Christ is the power of God, and He is the power of the children of God. Who can strengthen the weak hands, and confirm the feeble knees, but Jesus? In those who have no might He increases strength. When they are weak in themselves, then are they strong in Him. His declaration is–"My strength is made perfect in weakness." Lean, then, upon Jesus for strength. He has strength for all your weakness; He can strengthen your faith, and strengthen your hope, and strengthen your courage, and strengthen your patience, and strengthen your heart, for every burden, for every trial, and for every temptation. Lean upon Him; He loves to feel the pressure of your arm; He loves you to link your feebleness to His almightiness, to avail yourself of His grace. Thus leaning off yourself upon Christ, "as your day, so shall your strength be." In all your tremblings and sinkings, you will feel the encircling of His power. "The eternal God is your refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms."

JULY 30.

"And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there you may be also." John 14:3

When heart and flesh are fast failing, and the trembling feet descend into the dark valley of the shadow of death, to whom shall we then look but unto Jesus? The world is now receding, and all creatures are fading upon the sight; one object alone remains, arrests and fixes the believer's eye–it is Jesus, the Savior; it is Emmanuel, the Incarnate and now-present God; it is the Captain of our salvation, the Conqueror of death, and the Spoiler of the grave; it is our friend, our brother, our Joseph, our Joshua, loving and faithful, and present to the last. Jesus is there to confront death again, and vanquish him with his own weapons. Jesus is there to remind His departing one that the grave can wear no gloom, and can boast of no victory, since He himself passed through its portal, rose and revived, and lives for evermore.

Sick one! in your languishing, look to Jesus! Departing one! in your death-struggles, look to Jesus! Are you guilty?–Jesus is righteous. Are you a sinner?–Jesus is a Savior. Are you fearful, and do you tremble?–the Shepherd of the flock is with you, and no one shall pluck His sheep out of His hands. How fully, how suitably, does the gospel now meet your case! In your bodily weakness and mental confusion, two truths are, perhaps, all that you can now dwell upon–your sinfulness and Christ's redemption, your emptiness and Christ's sufficiency. Enough! you need no more; God requires no more. In your felt weakness, in your conscious unworthiness, amid the swelling of the cold waters, raise your eye and fix it upon Jesus, and all will be well. Hear the words of your Savior calling you from the bright world of glory to which He bids you come, "Arise, my love, my fair one! and come away." Believer! look to Him–lean upon Him–cleave to Him–labor for Him–suffer for Him–and, if need be, die for Him. Thus loving and trusting, living and dying, for "Jesus only."

JULY 31.

"Surely I have behaved and quieted myself, as a child that is weaned of his mother: my soul is even as a weaned child." Psalm 131:2

The first object from which our heavenly Father weans His child is self. Of all idols, he finds self the hardest to abandon. When man in Paradise aspired to be as God, God was dethroned from his soul, and the creature became as a deity to itself. From that moment, the idolatry of self has been the great and universal crime of our race, and will continue to be until Christ comes to restore all things. In the soul of the regenerate, Divine grace has done much to dethrone this idol, and to reinstate God. The work, however, is but partially accomplished. The dishonored and rejected rival is not eager to relinquish his throne, and yield to the supreme control and sway of another. There is much yet to be achieved before this still indwelling and unconquered foe lays down his weapons in entire subjection to the will and the authority of that Savior, whose throne and rights he has usurped.

Thus, much still lingers in the heart which the Spirit has renewed and inhabits, of self-esteem, self-confidence, self-seeking, and self-love. From all this our Father seeks to wean us. From our own wisdom, which is but folly; from our own strength, which is but weakness; from our own wills, which are often as an uncurbed steed; from our own ways, which are crooked; from our own hearts, which are deceitful; from our own judgments, which are dark; from our own ends, which are narrow and selfish, He would wean and detach us, that our souls may get more and more back to their original center of repose–God Himself.

In view of this mournful exhibition of fallen and corrupt self, how necessary the discipline of our heavenly Father that extorts from us the Psalmist's language, "Surely I have behaved and quieted myself as a child that is weaned of this mother"! Self did seem to be our mother–the fruitful parent of so much in our plans and aims and spirit that was dishonoring to our God. From this He would gently and tenderly, but effectually, wean us, that we may learn to rely upon His wisdom, to repose in His strength, to consult His honor, and to seek His glory and smile, supremely and alone. And oh! how effectually is this blessed state attained when God, by setting us aside in the season of solitude and sorrow, teaches us that He can do without us. We perhaps thought that our rank, or our talents, or our influence, or our very presence were essential to the advancement of His cause, and that some parts of it could not proceed without us! The Lord knew otherwise. And so He laid His hand upon us, and withdrew us from the scene of our labors and duties, engagements and ambition, that He might hide pride from our hearts–the pride of self-importance. And oh, is it no mighty attainment in the Christian life to be thus weaned from ourselves! Beloved, it forms the root of all other blessing. The moment we learn to cease from ourselves–from our own wisdom, and power, and importance–the Lord appears and takes us up. Then His wisdom is displayed, His power is put forth, His glory is developed, and His great name gets to itself all the praise. It was not until God had placed Moses in the cleft of the rock, that His glory passed by. Moses must be hid, that God might be all.

AUGUST 1.

"Now I beseech you, brethren, for the Lord Jesus Christ's sake, and for the love of the Spirit, that you strive together with me in your prayers to God for me." Romans 15:30

There are many weighty and solemn considerations which powerfully plead for the prayers of the Church of God, in behalf of her ministers and pastors. The first which may be adduced is- the magnitude of their work. A greater work than theirs was never entrusted to mortal hands. No angel employed in the celestial embassy bears a commission of higher authority, or wings his way to discharge a duty of such extraordinary greatness and responsibility. He is a minister of the Lord Jesus Christ- an ambassador from the court of heaven- a preacher of the glorious gospel of the blessed God- a steward of the mysteries of the kingdom. Properly to fill this high office- giving to the household their portion of food in due season- going down into the mine of God's word, and bringing forth to the view of every understanding its hidden treasures- to set forth the glory of Emmanuel, the fitness of His work, and the fullness of His grace- to be a scribe well instructed, rightly dividing the word of truth- to be wise and skillful to win souls, the grand end of the Christian ministry- oh, who so much needs the sustaining prayers of the Church as he?

Secondly. The painful sense of their insufficiency supplies another affecting plea. Who are ministers of Christ? Are they angels? Are they superhuman beings? Are they inspired? No, they are men in all respects like others. They partake of like infirmities, are the subjects of like assaults, and are estranged from nothing that is human. As the heart knows its own bitterness, so they only are truly aware of the existence and incessant operation of those many and clinging weaknesses of which they partake in sympathy with others. And yet God has devolved upon them a work which would crush an angel's powers, if left to his self-sustaining energy.

Thirdly. The many and peculiar trials of the ministry and the pastorate ask this favor at our hands. These are peculiar to, and inseparable from, the office that he fills. In addition to those of which he partakes alike with other Christians- personal, domestic, and relative- there are trials to which they must necessarily be utter strangers. And as they are unknown to, so are they unrelievable by, the people of their charge. With all the sweetness of affection, tenderness of sympathy, and delicacy of attention which you give to your pastor, there is yet a lack which Jesus only can supply, and which, through the channel of your prayers, he will supply. In addition to his own, he bears the burdens of others. How impossible for an affectionate, sympathizing pastor to separate himself from the circumstances of his flock, be those circumstances what they may. So close and so sympathetic is the bond of union- if they suffer, he mourns; if they are afflicted, he weeps; if they are dishonored, he is reproached; if they rejoice, he is glad. He is one with his Church. How feelingly the apostle expresses this: "Then, besides all this, I have the daily burden of how the churches are getting along. Who is weak without my feeling that weakness? Who is led astray, and I do not burn with anger?" To see a Christian pastor, in addition to his own personal grief, borne often in uncomplaining loneliness and silence, yet bowed down under accumulated sorrows not his own- others looking to him for sympathy, for comfort, and for counsel- is a spectacle which might well arouse in behalf of every Christian minister the slumbering spirit of prayer. We marvel not to hear the chief of the apostles thus pleading, "Brethren, pray for us."

AUGUST 2.

"You all are partakers of my grace." Philippians 1:7

Most true is it, that in the grace bestowed by God upon a Christian pastor all the members of the flock share. They partake of that which belongs to him. All the grace with which he is enriched- all the gifts with which he is endowed- all the acquirements with which he is furnished- all the afflictions with which he is visited- all the comforts with which he is soothed- all the strength with which he is upheld- all the distinction and renown with which he is adorned- belong alike to the Church over which God has made him an overseer. There is in the pastoral relation a community of interest. He holds that grace, and he exercises those gifts, not on account of his own personal holiness and happiness merely, but with a view to your holiness and happiness. You are partakers with him. You are enriched by his "fatness," or are impoverished by his "leanness." The degree of his grace will be the measure of your own; the amount of his intelligence, the extent of yours. As he is taught and blest of Christ, so will you be. The glory which he gathers in communion with God will irradiate you; the grace which he draws from Jesus will sanctify you; the wealth which he collects from the study of the Bible will enrich you. Thus, in all things are you "partakers of his grace." How important, then, that on all occasions he should be a partaker of your prayers! Thus your own best interests are his strongest plea. Your profit by him will be proportioned to your prayer for him.

To the neglect of this important duty much of the barrenness complained of in hearing the word may be traced. You have, perhaps, been wont to retire from God's house caviling at the doctrine, dissecting the sermon in a spirit of captious criticism, sitting in judgment upon the matter or the manner of the preacher, and bitterly complaining of the unprofitableness of the preaching. With all tender faithfulness would we lay the question upon your conscience, "How much do you pray for your minister?" Here, in all probability, lies the secret of the great evil which you deplore. You have complained of your minister to others (alas! how often and how bitterly, to your deep humiliation be it spoken); have you complained of him to the Lord? Have you never seriously reflected how closely allied may be the deficiency in the pulpit, of which you complain, to your own deficiency in the closet, of which you have not been aware? You have restrained prayer in behalf of your pastor. You have neglected to remember in especial, fervent intercession with the Lord, the instrument on whom your advancement in the divine life so much depends. You have looked up to him as a channel of grace, but you have failed to ask at the hands of Jesus that grace of which he is but the channel. You have waited upon his ministrations for instruction and comfort, but you have neglected to beseech for him that teaching and anointing, by which alone he could possibly establish you in truth, or console you in sorrow. You have perhaps observed a poverty of thought, and have been sensible of a lack of power in his ministrations; but you have not traced it in part to your own poverty and lack in the spirit and habit of prayer in his behalf. You have marveled at, and lamented, the absence of sympathy, feeling, and tenderness in the discharge of his pastoral duties, but you have forgotten to sympathize with the high responsibilities, oppressive anxieties, and bewildering engagements inseparable from the office which your pastor fills, and in which he may largely share, often "under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired even of life." Thus in a great degree the cause of an unprofitable hearing of the word may be found nearer home than was suspected. There has been a suspension of prayer and sympathy on your part, and God has permitted a suspension of power and sympathy on his.

AUGUST 3.

"We wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies." Romans 8:23

The terms "adoption," "redemption," must here be taken in a restricted sense. Our present adoption into God's family is as perfect as God can make it. We shall not in reality be more the children of God in heaven than we are now. Dwell upon this truth, beloved; press it in faith and gladness to your sighing, groaning heart. Is God's hand uplifted? Oh, tremble not! It is a Father's hand. Say not that it presses heavily upon you- it is the pressure of love. Do not think that there is one throb of affection less towards you in His heart. "Beloved, now are we the sons of God," and all the immunities and blessings of a present sonship are ours.

Equally as complete is our redemption from all that can condemn. When Jesus exclaimed, "It is finished!" by one offering He perfected forever the salvation of His Church. Then did He entirely roll away the curse from His people. Then did He hurl their sins into an infinite depth. Then did He complete the work the Father gave Him to do. For the finishing of that work, thanks be to God, the saints do not "wait."

And still, all believers are the expectants of an "adoption" to be confirmed, and of a "redemption" to be perfected. Their adoption now is concealed; their adoption then will be visible. Their present adoption is limited in its privileges; their future adoption will introduce them to all the riches of their inheritance, and to all the splendors of their Father's house. For this unveiled, this manifest, this full adoption they are "waiting."

And so, too, of "redemption." The ransom-price is paid, but the body is not yet fully redeemed. It still is fettered, and cribbed, and cabined by a thousand clinging corruptions and infirmities. But the day of its complete redemption draws near. In virtue of its ransom it will spring from the dust, its last link of corruption entirely and forever dissolved. "But we are citizens of heaven, where the Lord Jesus Christ lives. And we are eagerly waiting for him to return as our Savior. He will take these weak mortal bodies of ours and change them into glorious bodies like his own, using the same mighty power that he will use to conquer everything, everywhere." Like unto Christ's glorious body! Oh, then, no deformity will mar its symmetry! no infirmity will impair its strength! no sickness, no fainting, no nervousness, no pangs of suffering or throes of death will ever assail and torment it more! For this "redemption of the body" the sons of God are waiting. Our heavenly Father has adopted it. Our Divine Savior has redeemed it. The Holy Spirit, our Comforter, has sealed it. Oh yes! The first-fruits of the "first resurrection" bloom on the grave of the holy dead. This page may arrest the eye of a sufferer, not soothed in his grief or cheered in his loneliness by such prospects as these. But there still is hope. Jesus died for sinners, and there is mercy even for the chief. Blessed suffering, hallowed sorrow, if now, in the agony of your grief, you are led to the Savior to learn, what in the sunny hour of prosperity and gladness you refused to learn, that God only can make you happy, and that God in Christ is prepared to make you happy. O heaven-sent affliction! sweet messenger of love! beautiful in your somber robes, bearing to my soul a blessing so divine, so precious as this!

AUGUST 4.

"And I said, You shall call me, My Father; and shall not turn away from me." Jeremiah 3:19

Fellowship with God is the highest, purest, sweetest mercy a saint of God can have on earth. Yes, it is the highest, purest, sweetest bliss the saints of God can have in heaven. What is the enjoyment of heaven? Not merely exemption from trial, and freedom from sorrow, rest from toil, and release from conflict. Oh no! it is the presence- the full unclouded presence of our Father there. To be with Christ- to behold His glory- to gaze upon His face- to hear His voice- to feel the throbbings of His bosom- to bask in the effulgence of God's presence- oh, this is heaven, the heaven of heaven!

The twilight of this glory we have here on earth. "I am not alone," can each sorrowful and banished soul exclaim, "because the Father is with me." Yes, beloved, your own Father! "You shall call me my Father." In Jesus He is your Father- your reconciled, pacified Father- all whose thoughts that He thinks of you are peace, and all whose ways that He takes with you are love. The presence, the voice, the smile of a parent, how precious and soothing! especially when that presence is realized, and that voice is heard, and that smile is seen in the dark, desolate hour of adversity. God is our heavenly Parent. His presence, His care, His smiles are ever with His children. And if there be a solitary child of the one family that shares the richer in the blessing of the Father's presence than another, it is the sick, the suffering, the lone, the chastened child. Yes, your Father is with you ever. He is with you to cheer your loneliness, to sweeten your solitude, to sanctify your sorrow, to strengthen your weakness, to shield your person, to pardon your sins, and to heal all your diseases. Hearken, in your deep solitude, to His own touching words: "Don't be afraid, for I am with you. Do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you. I will help you. I will uphold you with my victorious right hand." Enough, my Father! if thus You are with me, I am not, I cannot be alone; and if such the bliss with which You do sweeten, and such the glory with which You do irradiate the solitude of Your hidden ones, Lord, let me ever be a hidden one- shut out from all others, shut in alone with You!

AUGUST 5.

"As one whom his mother comforts, so will I comfort you; and you shall be comforted in Jerusalem." Isaiah 66:13

Acute is the penitential grief of that child which has strayed from its heavenly Father. Deep and bitter the sorrow when he comes to himself, resolves, and exclaims, "I will arise, and go to my Father." Many the tremblings and doubts as to his reception. "Will He receive back such a wanderer as I have been? Will He take me once more to His love, speak kindly to me again, restore to me the joys of His salvation, give me the blessed assurance of His forgiveness, and once more admit me with His children to His table?" He will, indeed, weeping penitent! God will comfort your present sorrow by the tokens of His forgiving love. He invites, He calls, He beseeches you to return to Him. He is on the watch for you, He advances to meet you, He stretches out His hand to welcome you, He waits to be gracious, He yearns to clasp His penitential, weeping Ephraim to His heart. "When he was yet a great way off, his father saw him, and had compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him."

Will a mother's love live on, warm and changeless, amid all the long years of her child's rebellion, forgetfulness, and ingratitude? Will she, when he returns, and gently knocks at her door, and trembling lifts the latch, and falls, weeping and confessing, upon the bosom he had pierced with so many keen sorrows, press him to a heart that never ceased to throb with an affection which no baseness could lessen, and which no dishonor could quench? And will God our Father, who inspired that mother's love, who gave to it all its tenderness and intensity, and who made it not to change, turn His back upon a poor, returning child, who in penitence and confession seeks restoring, pardoning mercy at His feet? Impossible! utterly impossible!

The love of God to His people is a changeless, quenchless, undying love. No backslidings can lessen it, no ingratitude can impair it, no forgetfulness can extinguish it. A mother may forget, yes, has often forgotten her child; but God, never! "Can a mother forget her nursing child? Can she feel no love for a child she has borne? But even if that were possible, I would not forget you!" How touching, how impressive the figure! It is a woman- that woman is a mother, that mother is a nursing mother- and still she may forget and abandon her little one; "yet will I not forget you," says your God and Father. Touching, heart-melting, heart-winning truth!

Lord! we come unto You in Jesus' name! We have sinned, we have gone astray like lost sheep, we have followed the devices of our own hearts, we have wandered after other lovers, we have wounded our peace, and have grieved Your Spirit: but, behold, we come unto You, we fall down at Your feet, we dare not so much as look unto You, we blush to lift up our faces- receive us graciously, pardon us freely; so will we loathe ourselves, hate the sin You pardon; and love, adore, and serve the God who forgives and remembers it no more forever! As one whom his mother comforts, so do You comfort us!

AUGUST 6.

"For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace." Romans 8:6

Spiritual-mindedness is life. We fearlessly challenge every believer- What has been the effect in your soul of a low state of grace? What has been the effect of carnal indulgence of allowed sin- of needless communion with the world- of conformity to its policy and its pleasures- of unruly temper- of a volatile disposition, yes, of any species of carnality whatever: has it not been "death"? When a process of spiritual relapse has been allowed to proceed stealthily and unchecked- when the world, and sin, and self have gained an ascendancy, what has been the consequence? "Death!"

The habit of prayer may not have been totally neglected, but there has been no communion with God- and so there has been death upon prayer. The Bible has not been entirely unread, but no light has beamed upon the sacred page- and so there has been death upon the Bible. The means of grace have not been utterly forsaken, but no grace has distilled from these channels- and so there has been death upon the means of grace. Thus a spiritual deathliness has crept over the soul, the effect and fruit of indulged and growing carnality.

But "life" is the blessed effect of heavenly-mindedness. It is life springing from life, or rather, the inner life in its outer actings. What spiritual mightiness, almost omnipotent, does he possess, whose mind and heart and faculties are deeply immersed in the Spirit of Christ, closely allied to the Divine and heavenly! As sin is weakness, so holiness is strength. As carnality impairs, so spirituality invigorates. The one deadens, the other vivifies. Close dealing with Essential Life increases the life of spirituality. Much communion with Jesus draws forth "life more abundantly."

It is impossible to live a life of faith in the Son of God, constantly taking to His blood every sin, to His heart every care, to His sympathy every sorrow, to His grace every corruption, to His arm every burden, without being conscious of new life, of augmented power, of increased heavenliness. Inquire of the man of prayer what is the effect in his soul of close filial communion with God? Ask the reflective mind what is the effect upon his spirit of holy meditation? Ask the conscience much beneath the cross what is the result of the constant sprinkling of the atoning blood? And, as with one voice, and with one utterance, each believer will answer, "Life!" Oh, there is an energizing influence in spirituality, a quickening of the spiritual life in heavenly-mindedness, which he only can understand whose converse is much with things heavenly, much with God.

There is life in prayer, life in the word, life in ordinances, life in the enjoyment of vital religion, which transmits the thrill of its deep pulsations through the whole soul. Nor life alone in these. But when the storm of adversity blows- when sore affliction comes- when the "noise of the water-spout" is heard, and the tossing waves and the foaming billows roll over the soul- when the shadow of death is settling upon all creature-good; then, even then, the spiritual mind panting after life exclaims, "Though I walk in the midst of trouble, You will revive me." "This is my comfort in my affliction; for Your word has quickened me." And what is all this but the pledge and the prelude of the glorious consummation and crown of all- the life that is to come, even life everlasting?

AUGUST 7.

"Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world gives give I unto you." John 14:27

Peace also is a fruit of spiritual-mindedness. What peace of conscience does that individual possess whose mind is stayed upon spiritual things! It is as much the reward as it is the effect of his cultivated heavenliness. The existence of this precious blessing, however, supposes the exposure of the spiritual mind to much that has a tendency to ruffle and disturb its equanimity and repose. The Christian is far from being entirely exempt from those chafings and disquietudes which seem inseparable from human life. To the brooding anxieties arising from external things- life's vicissitudes, mutations, and disappointments; there are added, what are peculiar to the child of God, the internal things that distract- the cloudings of guilt, the agitations of doubt, the corrodings of fear, the mourning of penitence, the discipline of love.

But through all this there flows a river, the streams whereof make glad the city of God. It is the peace of the heavenly mind, the peace which Jesus procured, which God imparts, and which the Holy Spirit seals. A heavenly mind soars above a poor dying world, living not upon a creature's love or smile- casting its daily need upon the heart of a kind Providence- anxious for nothing, but with supplication and thanksgiving making known its requests unto God- indifferent to the turmoil, vexations, and chequered scenes of worldly life, and living in simple faith and holy pleasing on Christ. Thus detached from earth, and moving heavenwards by the attractions of its placid coast, it realizes a peace which passes all understanding.

And if this be the present of the heavenly mind, what will be the future of the mind in heaven? Heaven is the abode of perfect peace. There are no cloudings of guilt, no tossings of grief, no agitations of fear, no corrodings of anxiety there. It is the peace of perfect purity- it is the repose of complete satisfaction. It is not so much the entire absence of all sorrow, as it is the actual presence of all holiness, that constitutes the charm and the bliss of future glory.

The season of sorrow is frequently converted into that of secret joy- Christ making our very griefs to sing. But the occasion of sin is always that of bitter grief; our backslidings often, like scorpions, entwined around our hearts. Were there even- as most assuredly there will not be- sadness in heaven, there might still be the accompaniment of happiness; but were there sin in heaven- the shadow of a shade of guilt- it would becloud and embitter all. Thus, then, as heaven is the abode of perfect peace, he who on earth has his conversation most in heaven approximates in his feelings the nearest to the heavenly state. Oh that our hearts were more yielding to the sweet, holy, and powerful attractions of the heavenly world! Then would our conversation be more in heaven.

AUGUST 8.

"For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh." Romans 8:3

What is it that the law cannot do? The law has no power to place the sinner in a justified state. In other words, it cannot fulfill its own righteousness. "By Him all who believe are justified from all things, from which you could not be justified by the law of Moses." "Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in His sight." Nor has it power to give life. "For if there had been a law given which could have given life, verily righteousness should have been by the law."

The law pronounces the unjustified sinner dead- his religion dead- his works dead- his faith dead; but with not one breath of spiritual life has it power to inspire the soul. Oh, the infatuation which prompts men to seek spiritual life from a law powerful only as an instrument of eternal death! Nor has the law power to make anything whatever perfect in the great matter of man's salvation. "For the law made nothing perfect, but the bringing in of a better hope did; by the which we draw near unto God." These things the law fails to achieve. And herein is it weak. Holy in its nature, it is yet incapable of making the sinner holy. Righteous in its precepts, it yet cannot justify the ungodly. Respecting the Divine image, it yet has no power to transfer that image to the soul.

But let us trace this failure to its proper cause. From where, then, this weakness of the law of God? We reply, not from any inherent defect in the law. "The law is holy, just, and good," and of itself powerful enough to take the soul to glory. But the apostle supplies the answer- "weak through the flesh." It was right that he should thus shield the dignity of the law, and maintain that there belonged to it a native force and capacity worthy of Him from whom it emanated, and equal to the accomplishment of the great end for which it was enacted. The weakness of the law, then, is to be traced, not to any inefficiency of the instrument, but to the sinfulness of man; not to the agent, but to the subject.

What an impressive view does this give us of the deep depravity, the utter sinfulness of our nature! So great is the corruption of the flesh, that it opposes and thwarts the law in its great work of imprinting its image upon the mind of man. Oh, what must be the character and power of that sinfulness which can thus sever the locks of its strength, and divert it from its sacred purpose! Sincerely would the law make us holy, but our depravity foils it. Sincerely would it recall our alienated affections, but our heart is so utterly estranged from God that its generous effort fails. Thus the law is weak, through the corrupt and sinful flesh.

Let us be deeply humbled by this truth. How entirely it stains the pride of all our fleshly glory! Where, now, is our native holiness, our boasted pride, and our vaunted worthiness? The law, always on the side of purity and love, yearned to bring us beneath its holy and beneficent influence, but our carnality interposed, and it became weak.

AUGUST 9.

"God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh." Romans 8:3

What words are these- "God sending his own Son!" A person less exalted, less Divine, could not have accomplished what the Divine law failed to do. And since an enactment which was a transcript of Deity proved too feeble for the purpose, Deity itself undertakes the work. God's own eternal and essential Son embarks in the enterprise, and achieves it. What a Rock of salvation, saint of God, is this! Springing from the lowest depths of your humiliation, see how it towers above your curse- your sin- your condemnation! It is a Rock higher than you. Infinitely removed beyond the reach of condemnation is that soul whose faith is planted upon this Rock.

"In the likeness of sinful flesh." These words place in the clearest possible light the true humanity of the Son of God. It was not human nature in appearance that He took, as some have taught, but human nature in reality. It was a perfectly organized body, having all the properties, affinities, and functions belonging to our own; bone of our bone, and flesh of our flesh, made in all points like His brethren. Now can He, with a feeling of the most exquisite sympathy, be touched with my infirmity; for this nature which I drag about with me, feeble and bruised, jaded and crushed, was the very nature which He took into mysterious union with His Godhead, wore it here below, and wears it still in heaven!

But with what care and skill does the Holy Spirit guard the perfect sinlessness of our Lord's humanity! Observe, it was not the reality of sinful flesh that the Son of God assumed, but its "likeness" only. He took real flesh, but bearing the resemblance of sinfulness. He was "made like his brethren." "Tempted like we are, yet without sin." And so in the passage before us, "in the likeness of sinful flesh." The words suppose a resemblance to our sinful nature. And, oh! how close that resemblance was! As like a sinner as one could be, who yet in deed and in truth was not one- "who knew no sin," but was "holy, harmless, undefiled, and separate from sinners."

Man is a sinner; our blessed Lord was man- so truly man, that His enemies exclaimed, "We know this man is a sinner." They could not understand how one could be so really human, and yet be untainted with sin. And then, did there not cling to Jesus the infirmities of our fallen nature, which, though sinless in Him, were not the less the effects of sin? He hungered- He thirsted- He wept- He was wearied- He slept- He was afflicted- He sorrowed- He trembled- He suffered- He died. And as we trace these infirmities of our humanity floating upon the transparent surface of His pure life, how forcible do we feel the words- "Made in the likeness of sinful flesh"!

And when we see Him traduced as a sinner by man, and, standing beneath His people's transgressions- dealt with as a sinner by God; by man denounced as "a glutton," "a drunkard," "a friend of publicans and sinners," "an impostor", "a deceiver," a "blasphemer,"- then arraigned, condemned, and executed as a criminal not worthy to live; as an accursed one by God, charged with all the sins of the elect Church, bruised and put to grief, and at last abandoned by Him on the cross, then numbered with transgressors, and making His grave with the wicked in His death- oh! how like sinful flesh was the robe of lowliness and suffering which He wore! And yet, "He was without sin."

It was the resemblance, not the reality. The human nature of the Son of God was as free from sin as the Deity it enshrined. He was the "Lamb of God, without spot." The least taint of moral guilt- a shade of inherent corruption- would have proved fatal to His mission. One leak in the glorious Ark which contained the Church of God would have sunk it to the lowest depths. Oh! this is the glory of His work, and the solace of our hearts, that Christ our Savior "offered Himself without spot unto God." And now we may plead His sinless atonement as the ground of our pardon, and the acceptance of our people. "He has made Him to be sin for us, who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him." The Lord bless these truths to the comfort and edification of our souls.

AUGUST 10.

"Every branch that bears fruit he prunes, that it may bring forth more fruit." John 15:2

The Lord empties before He fills. He makes room for Himself, for His love, and for His grace. He dethrones the rival, casts down the idol, and seeks to occupy the temple, filled and radiant with His own ineffable glory. Thus does He bring the soul into great straits, lay it low, but to school and discipline it for richer mercies, higher service, and greater glory. Be sure of this, that, when the Lord is about to bless you with some great and peculiar blessing, He may prepare you for it by some great and peculiar trial.

If He is about to advance you to some honor, He may first lay you low that He may exalt you. If He is about to place you in a sphere of great and distinguished usefulness, He may first place you in His school of adversity, that you may know how to teach others. If He is about to bring forth your righteousness as the noon-day, He may cause it to pass under a cloud, that, emerging from its momentary obscuration, it may shine with richer and more enduring luster. Thus does He deal with all His people. Thus He dealt with Joseph. Intending to elevate him to great distinction and influence, He first casts him into a dungeon, and that, too, in the very land in which he was so soon to be the gaze and the astonishment of all men. Thus, too, He dealt with David, and Job, and Nebuchadnezzar; and thus did God deal with His own Son, whom He advanced to His own right hand from the lowest state of humiliation and suffering.

Regard the present suffering as but preparatory to future glory. This will greatly mitigate the sorrow, reconcile the heart to the trial, and tend materially to secure the important end for which it was sent. The life of a believer is but a disciplining for heaven. All the covenant dealings of His God and Father are but to make him a partaker of His holiness here, and thus to fit him for a partaker of His glory hereafter. Here, he is but schooling for a high station in heaven. He is but preparing for a more holy, and, for anything we know, a more active and essential service in the upper world. And every infirmity overcome, every sin subdued, every weight laid aside, every step advanced in holiness, does but strengthen and mature the life of grace below, until it is fitted for, and terminates in, the life of glory above.

Let the suffering believer, then, see that he emerges from every trial of the furnace with some dross consumed, some iniquity purged, and with a deeper impress of the blessed Spirit's seal of love, holiness, and adoption, on his heart. Let him see that he has made some advance towards the state of the glorified; that He is more perfected in love and sanctification- the two great elements of heaven; and that therefore he is fitting for the inheritance of the saints in light. Blessed and holy tendency of all the afflictive dispensations of a covenant God and Father towards a dear and covenant child!

AUGUST 11.

"For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God." Romans 8:14

It is the office of Jehovah the Spirit in the covenant of redemption, after He has called a people out of the world, to place Himself at their head, and undertake their future guidance. He knows the path to heaven. With all its intricacies and dangers He is acquainted. He is familiar with the sunken rock, the treacherous quicksand, the concealed pit, and the subtle snare. He knows, too, the individual and ordained path of each celestial traveler. All that God has appointed in the everlasting covenant- all the windings, and intricacy, and straitness of the way- He knows. All the future of our history is infinitely more vivid and transparent to His mind than is the past, already trodden, to our eye. It is utterly impossible, then, that He should mislead.

And what is equally as essential to Him as a guide, He knows His own work in the soul. All its light and shade, its depressions and its revivings, its assaults and victories, are vivid to his eye. Dwelling in that heart- His sacred temple- His chosen abode- He reads His own writing inscribed there; understands the meaning of every groan, interprets the language of every sigh, and marks the struggling of every holy desire; He knows where wisely to supply a check, or gently to administer a rebuke, tenderly to whisper a promise, or sympathetically to soothe a sorrow, effectually to aid an incipient resolve, strengthen a wavering purpose, or confirm a fluctuating hope.

But, in less general terms, what is it to be led by the Spirit? The existence of spiritual life in those He leads is an essential point assumed. He does not undertake to lead a spiritual corpse, a soul dead in sins. Many are moved by the Spirit, who are not led by the Spirit. Was not Saul, the king of Israel, a solemn instance of this? And when it is said, "the Spirit of God departed from him," we see how, in an ordinary way, the Spirit may strive with a man's natural conscience, and powerfully work upon his feelings through the word, and even employ him as an agent in the accomplishment of His will, and yet never lead him one step effectually and savingly to Christ and to heaven.

There is, as in Ezekiel's vision of the bones, "a voice, and behold a shaking, and the bones come together, bone to his bone; but there is no breath in them." But there is spiritual life in those whom the Spirit leads. They thus become in a sense voluntary in the movement. They are not forced; it is not by compulsion they follow; they are led- persuasively, gently, willingly led. The leading of the Spirit, then, is His acting upon His own life in the soul.

It supposes, too, entire inability to lead themselves in those who are led by the Spirit: "I will lead the blind by a way they know not." And such are we. Unable to discern a single step before us, and incapable of taking that step even when discerned, we need the guidance of the Holy Spirit. What can we see of truth- what of providence- what of God's mind and will, of ourselves? Absolutely nothing. Oh, what unfoldings of ignorance, what exhibitions of weakness, have marked some of the wisest of God's saints, when left to self-teaching and to self-guidance! Thus there is a strong and absolute necessity that wisdom, and strength, and grace, infinitely transcending our own, should go before us in our homeward journey.

AUGUST 12.

"For we who worship God in the Spirit are the only ones who are truly circumcised. We put no confidence in human effort. Instead, we boast about what Christ Jesus has done for us." Philippians 3:3

The first step the Spirit takes in this great work is to lead us from ourselves- from all reliance on our own righteousness, and from all dependence upon our native strength. But let us not suppose that this divorce from the principle of self entirely takes place when we are "married to another, even to Christ." It is the work of a life. Alas! Christ has at best but a portion of our affections. Our heart is divided. It is true, there are moments, bright and blissful, when we sincerely and ardently desire the full, unreserved surrender. But the ensnaring power of some rival object soon discovers to us how partial and imperfect that surrender has been. This severing from ourselves- from all our idols- is a perpetual, unceasing work of the Spirit. And who but this Divine Spirit could so lead us away from self, in all its forms, as to constrain us to trample all our own glory in the dust, and acknowledge with Paul that we are "less than the least of all saints."

But more than this, He leads from an opposite extreme of self- from a despairing view of our personal sinfulness. How often, when the eye has been intently bent within, gazing as it were upon the gloom and confusion of a moral chaos, the Spirit has gently and graciously led us from ourselves to an object, the sight of which has at once raised us from the region of despair! How many walk in painful and humiliating bondage, from not having thus been sufficiently led out of themselves! Always contemplating their imperfect repentance, or their weak faith, or their little fruitfulness, they seem ever to be moving in a circle, and to know nothing of what it is to walk in a large place. Thus from sinful self, as from righteous self, the Spirit of God leads us.

To what does He lead? He leads us to Christ. To whom else would we, in our deep necessity, wish to be led? Now that we know something experimentally of Jesus, to whom would we go but to Him? Having severed us in some degree from ourselves, He would bring us into a closer realization of our union with the Savior. "He will bring glory to me by taking from what is mine and making it known to you."

And this promise is fulfilled when, in all our need, He leads us to Christ. Are we guilty? the Spirit leads us to the blood of Jesus. Are we weary? the Spirit leads us to abide in Jesus. Are we sorrowful? the Spirit leads us to the sympathy of Jesus. Are we tempted? the Spirit leads us to the protection of Jesus. Are we sad and desolate? the Spirit leads us to the tender love of Jesus. Are we poor, empty, and helpless? the Spirit leads us to the fullness of Jesus. And still it is to the Savior He conducts us. The Holy Spirit is our comforter, but the holy Jesus is our comfort. And to Jesus- to His person, to His offices, and to His work, in life and in death, the Divine Guide ever leads us.

AUGUST 13.

"Furthermore then we beseech you, brethren, and exhort you by the Lord Jesus, that as you have received of us how you ought to walk, and to please God, so you would abound more and more." 1 Thessalonians 4:1

What are some of the footprints of this walk? How may we trace it? Unreserved obedience is an undoubted mark of pleasing God. An obedience that asks no abatement of the precept, but that follows the Lord fully in its observance, not from an enlightened judgment, but from a love-constrained heart- walking, as did the primitive saints, in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blamelessly- is indeed well-pleasing to God. Oh! let there be no reserves in our obedience! Let us withhold from Christ no part of His purchased inheritance, but surrender all at His feet, whose heart's blood was the purchase price of all.

"Lord, however strait be the path, painful the cross, and self-denying the precept, sincerely would I walk uprightly in all Your ways, and fully follow You in all Your commands, leaving the consequences of my simple and implicit obedience to Your control. I can endure the repulsion of the world, the alienation of friends, the coldness of relatives, and can take the spoiling of my earthly goods joyfully, if You, my Lord, sustain me with Your grace, cheer me with Your presence, and solace me with Your love."

Another footprint may be described in the walk of faith by which the Christian journeys to His heavenly home. As unbelief is most dishonoring, so faith is most honoring to the Lord Jesus. What a revenue of praise accrues from it to His name! To repair to His sufficiency- with our anxiety, the moment it occurs; with our corruptions, the moment they are discovered; to His grace- with our sorrow, the moment it is felt; to His sympathy- with our wound, the moment it is inflicted; to His love- with our guilt, the moment it is detected; to His blood- oh! do you do not think that this walk of faith is most pleasing to the Lord?

Let us beware of that which impairs the simplicity of this our walk, and causes us to stumble or turn aside. We must be cautious, in the varied circumstances of our history, of applying first to a human arm for support, or to a human bosom for sympathy. With this the Lord cannot be well pleased. But let us not hesitate to bear them at once to the one-appointed source of all our supply; disclosing our needs to the full Savior; our wanderings to our heavenly Father; our griefs and burdens to our elder Brother and Friend; and in thus walking by faith, we shall have the divine assurance in our souls, our rejoicing this- the testimony of our conscience that we please the Lord.

Oh, let us seek closely to resemble the two illustrious examples set before us in the word, of this high and holy walk. The minor one- because purely human- of Enoch, who "before he was taken up had this testimony, that he pleased God." The higher one- because the human was blended with the Divine- of Jesus, who could say, "I always do those things which please Him."

AUGUST 14.

"For your name's sake, O Lord, pardon my iniquity; for it is great." Psalm 25:11

The knowledge of indwelling sin, its existence and power, is often exceedingly defective at conversion, and this ignorance may continue for years after. We just see sin enough to alarm the conscience, awaken conviction, and take us to Christ. As a thing against God, we hate it, mourn over it, and seek its pardon through the atoning blood. This is followed by a sweet and lively sense of its blotting out, and a growing desire after Divine conformity.

But, oh, the unknown depths of sin! These we have never explored. What infinite wisdom and love are seen in hiding these depths at first from our knowledge! Were the Lord fully to have revealed the hidden evils of the heart at the period when grace was yet in the bud, and faith was feeble, our views of the Lord Jesus dim, and the "new creature" yet in its infancy, deep and dark despair would have gathered around the soul.

With, perhaps, just knowledge enough of Christ to go to Him as a Savior; with just faith enough to touch the hem of His garment; the Eternal Spirit just disclosed to us the existence and the guilt of sin; a full disclosure might have shut us up in hopeless despair. It is sweet, beloved, to remember the tender love of God in our espousals; to trace the gentleness of His first dealings with us in conversion; and to bear in mind that what He then was, He is at this moment.

But trace the work of the Spirit in the after days of our experience. He comes, in accordance with the design of the covenant of grace, to sanctify, having called and quickened us. He is about to enlarge the "kingdom of God within" us; to stamp more deeply, and bring out more vividly and broadly on the soul, the varied lineaments of the Divine image. He is about to purify the temple more thoroughly; to take a fresh possession for God; to expel every rival that by slow and imperceptible degrees may have insinuated itself there; in a word, He is about to sanctify us.

And how does He commence the work? By leading us into the chamber of imagery; by disclosing the depths of indwelling sin; sin, whose existence we had never imagined, He shows to have its principal dwelling in the heart! Iniquity, that we had never thought of, He reveals as lurking in secret ambush within. Oh, what darkness, what evil, and what baneful principles are found to have so long existed, where we thought all was light, holiness, and rectitude! We startle, we shudder, and we shrink away, aghast at the discovery!

"What!" says the alarmed soul, "does all this evil dwell in me? Have I borne about with me so long these vile affections? Have I dwelling in me the seeds of such deep and dark depravity? Wonder of wonders is it, that the flood has not long since carried me away; that these deep evils have not broken out, to the wounding of my peace, and to the dishonoring of my God and Savior."

Thus made acquainted with his own heart, almost a stranger to him before, the Holy Spirit awakens in his soul an ardent panting for holiness. In view of such a discovery, where can he fly but to the throne of grace? There, then, he goes, weeping, mourning, confessing; and his prayer is, "Lord, subdue these evils of my heart. I am whelmed with astonishment; yes, 'I lie down in shame, and my confusion covers me,' that I should have harbored so long these treacherous foes against You, O God of holiness and love. 'Save me, O God, for the floodwaters are up to my neck. Deeper and deeper I sink into the mire; I can't find a foothold to stand on. I am in deep water, and the floods overwhelm me.' 'Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my thoughts. Point out anything in me that offends you, and lead me along the path of everlasting life.'"

And now the Spirit deepens and strengthens this panting for sanctification; the believer is set upon earnestly seeking holiness of heart; he sees such an iniquity in sin as he never saw before, and seeing it, he abhors it, and abhorring it, he takes it to the Spirit of holiness, that he might overcome and subdue it. Thus, in leading the believer into a deeper acquaintance with the existence and power of indwelling sin, does the blessed Spirit sanctify the soul, by making it the occasion of stirring up his desires for holiness.

Do not be cast down, beloved, at the discovery of the hidden evil of our heart. Sweet is the evidence it affords to the fact that the Holy Spirit is working there. Whatever be the sin that is brought to light; pride, deceit, carnality, inordinate affection, evil thoughts, unbelief, impatience, whatever it be, He is revealing it to you, not unnecessarily to wound and grieve you; oh no, He is a living and a gentle Spirit; but to beget this desire in your heart, "Lord, conform me to Your image; make me holy, as You are holy."

AUGUST 15.

"My wayward children," says the Lord, "come back to me, and I will heal your wayward hearts."
"Yes, we will come," the people reply, "for you are the Lord our God." Jeremiah 3:22

Do not stay away from the throne of grace because of an unfavorable frame of mind. If God is ready to receive you just as you are; if no questions are asked, and no examination is instituted, and no exceptions are made on account of the badness of the state; then count it your mercy to go to God with your worst feelings. To linger away from the throne of grace because of unfitness and unpreparedness to approach it, is to alter its character from a throne of grace to a throne of merit.

If the Lord's ears are only open to the cry of the righteous when they seek Him in certain good and acceptable frames of mind, then He hears them for their frames, and not because He is a God of grace. But He can never alter His character, or change the foundation of His throne. It is the mercy-seat; the throne of grace; and not for any frame, either good or bad, in the suppliant does He bow His ear, but for His own mercy's sake. Yield not, then, to this device of your adversary, to keep you from prayer.

It is the privilege of a poor soul to go to Jesus in his worst frame; to go in darkness, to go in weak faith, to go when everything says, "Stay away," to go in the face of opposition, to hope against hope; to go in the consciousness of having walked at a distance, to press through the crowd to the throne of grace, to take the hard, the cold, the reluctant heart, and lay it before the Lord. Oh what a triumph is this of the power and the grace of the blessed Spirit in a poor believer!

Dear reader, what is your state? Are you feeble in prayer? Are you tried in prayer? And yet, is there anything of real need, of real desire in the heart? Is it so? Then, draw near to God. Your frame will not be more favorable tomorrow than it is today. You will not be more acceptable or more welcome at any future period than at this moment. Give yourself unto prayer.

I will suppose your state to be the worst that can be; your frame of mind the most unfavorable, your cross the heaviest, your corruption the strongest, your heart the hardest; yet betaking yourself to the throne of grace, and, with groanings that cannot be uttered, opening your case to the Lord, you shall adopt the song of David, who could say in the worst of frames, and in most pressing times, "But I give myself unto prayer." "Come, let us tell of the Lord's greatness; let us exalt his name together. I prayed to the Lord, and he answered me, freeing me from all my fears. Those who look to him for help will be radiant with joy; no shadow of shame will darken their faces. I cried out to the Lord in my suffering, and he heard me. He set me free from all my fears." Psalm 34:3-6

AUGUST 16.

"Beloved, I wish above all things that you may prosper and be in health, even as your soul prospers." 3 John 2

Is it true that God, by setting you aside from active engagements, has set you aside from all duty and labor? We do not think so. Is it too much to say, that He is now summoning you, though to a more limited and obscure, yet to a higher and holier, because more self-denying and God-glorifying, sphere of duty? Your present loss of health has brought with it its high and appropriate duties, obligations, and employments. It bears an especial message from God to you, and through you to others. Contemplate the work to be done in your own soul, and the testimony through this which you are to bear to the power of Divine grace, to the sustaining energy of the Gospel, and to the character of God; and I ask if the lone chamber of sickness has not its special and appropriate duties, responsibilities, and work, equally as difficult, as honorable, and as remunerative as any which attach to the sphere of activity or to the season of health?

You are called upon now to glorify God in a passive, rather than in an active consecration to His service. Graces hitherto perhaps dormant, or but feebly brought into play, are now to be developed and exercised to their utmost capacity. Patience is to be cultivated, resignation is to be exhibited, faith is to be exercised, love is to be tried, and example is to be set; and are not these great, holy, and sublime achievements? Who will affirm that there is no sermon to be preached from that languid couch, that sick-bed; yes, and it may be more solemn, more searching, more full of Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit, than the pulpit ever preached.

The Church and the world have now the testimony of one passing through the present and personal experience of what he speaks. A sick-room is not the place for theorizing upon truth and eternity. All transpiring there is stern reality. The dust of human applause is laid aside, the breath of adulation is hushed, the flush of excitement has faded, and the delirium of an admiring throng has passed away; the artificial gives place to the true. All is as real and solemn as eternity.

Deem not yourself a useless cumberer, because sickness has incapacitated you for active labor. God has but changed your sphere of duty, transferring you, doubtless, to one more glorifying to Himself. Receive, then, with meekness your Heavenly Father's dispensation, which, while it has set you apart from the Lord's work, has set you apart more exclusively and entirely for the Lord Himself. Your great desire has been to glorify Him: leave Him to select the means which may best advance it.

You have thought of health and activity, of life and usefulness; of being a champion for the truth, a herald of salvation to the ignorant and the lost, a leader in some high and laborious path of Christian enterprise; but He has ordained it otherwise. And now by sickness and suffering, by silence and solitude, He is giving you other work to perform, which shall not the less secure your usefulness, and promote His glory.

AUGUST 17.

"And the Lord said, Simon, Simon, behold, Satan has desired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat." Luke 22:31

That faith should be more frequently and severely assailed than any other grace of the Holy Spirit, will cease to create surprise as we become acquainted with the rank and position it occupies in the renewed soul. Placed in the very front of the battle, itself the strongest, the most determined and successful foe of the assailing powers of darkness and of sin, in effecting its overthrow all their force, skill, and malignity are marshaled and directed.

But who is its chief and most formidable assailant? It is Satan, the accuser of the brethren, the tempter, the sworn enemy of God and man. It is he, the master-spirit of darkness and woe, who, without possessing a single attribute of Deity, yet approaches so near in resemblance to the Divine, that in every place and at each moment of time He is present, closely watching, closely studying, and incessantly working to deceive, and to overthrow, were it possible, the faith of the very elect.

By what power or agency he is enabled to prosecute the dark designs of his gloomy intellect, and to effect the malignant purposes of his depraved heart, we cannot now venture at any length to premise. Whether with the subtlety and velocity which belong to the light, there is an incessant expansion of thought, imparting a kind of personal omnipresence, to the ruling mind of the infernal empire; or, whether, without being personally present, we may account for the extent of his agency, operating alike in every place, and at the same moment, by supposing intelligence communicated to, and commands issued from, him through the medium of the innumerable host of myrmidons who compose those "principalities and powers," over which Jesus triumphed, "making a show of them openly," must, however strong the presumption, still remain points involved in much doubt and obscurity.

But there is one fact respecting which we are not left to conjecture. I allude to the eager and restless machinations of Satan, to weaken, dishonor, and destroy the faith of God's elect. "Satan has desired to have you." Observe here the limitation of Satanic power in reference to the believer. This is its utmost extent. He has no power or control over the redeemed, but that which God permits. He can but desire, and long, and plot; not a hand can He lay upon them, by not a single temptation can He assail them, not a hair of their head can he touch, until God bids Him. "Satan has desired to have you"; there stood the arch-foe waiting permission, as in the case of Job, to destroy the apostle of Christ.

Dear reader, how consolatory is this truth to the believing mind. You have often trembled at the power of Satan, and perhaps well-near as often have been the involuntary object of his implacable hatred and deep devices. But press now this animating thought to your trembling heart– he has no control nor influence nor power over a redeemed soul but that which God permits, and which Christ allows. "Thus far shall you go, and no further," are words which reveal His inferiority, prescribe his limits, and arrest the progress of the proud fiend.

AUGUST 18.

"For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places." Ephesians 6:12

Let us inquire what is that which Satan desires to assault? It is the work of God in the soul. Against his own kingdom not a weapon is raised. It is his aim and his policy to keep all there undisturbed and peaceful. But against the work of the Holy Spirit in the renewed mind, his artillery is brought to bear; not a part of this work escapes him. Every grace comes in for its share of malignant attack; but especially the grace of faith. When, for example, a repentant and believing soul approaches Christ with lowliness and hesitancy, and with the tremulous hand of faith attempts to touch the border of His garment, or with a tearful eye looks up to His cross, then comes the assault upon faith in the form of a suggestive doubt of Christ's power and willingness to save. "Is Jesus able to save me? Has He power to rescue my soul from hell? Can He blot out my transgressions, and redeem my life from destruction? Will He receive a sinner, so vile, so unworthy, so poor as I? Has He compassion, has He love, has He mercy sufficient to meet my case?"

In this way Satan assails the earliest and the feeblest exercises of faith in the soul. Does this page address itself to any such? It is Satan's great effort to keep you from Jesus. By holding up to your view a false picture of His character, from which everything loving, winning, inviting, and attractive is excluded, by suggesting wrong views of His work, in which everything gloomy, contracted, and repulsive is foisted upon the mind; by assailing the atonement, questioning the compassion, and limiting the grace of Christ, he would persuade you that in that heart which bled on Calvary there is no room for you, and that upon that work which received the Father's seal there is not breadth sufficient for you to stand. All his endeavors are directed, and all his assaults are shaped, with a view to keep your soul back from Christ. It is thus he seeks to vent his wrath upon the Savior, and his malignity upon you.

Nor does he less assail the more matured faith of the believer. Not infrequently the sharpest attacks and the fiercest onsets are made, and made successfully, upon the strongest believers. Seizing upon powerful corruptions, taking advantage of dark providences, and sometimes of bright ones, and never allowing any position of influence, any usefulness, gift, or grace, that would give force, success, and brilliance to his exploit, to escape his notice, he is perpetually on the alert to sift and winnow God's precious wheat.

His implacable hatred of God, the deep revenge he cherishes against Jesus, his malignant opposition to the Holy Spirit, fit him for any dark design and work implicating the holiness and happiness of the believer. Therefore we find that the histories of the most eminent saints of God, as written by the faithful pen of the Holy Spirit, are histories of the severest temptations of faith, in the most of which there was a temporary triumph of the enemy; the giant oak bending before the storm. And even in instances where there was no defeat of faith, there yet was the sharp trial of faith.

The case of Joseph, and that of his illustrious antitype, the Lord Jesus, present examples of this. Fearful was the assault upon the faith of both, sharp the conflict through which both passed, yet both left the battlefield victorious. But still faith was not the less really or severely sifted.

AUGUST 19.

"The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me." Galatians 2:20

The spiritual life is above human nature, and therefore all the power of nature cannot inspire it. Nature, we admit, can go far in imitating some of its characteristics, but nature cannot create the essential property or principle of this life. Nature can produce a semblance of faith, as in the case of Simon Magus; a semblance of repentance, as in the case of Judas; a semblance of hearing the word with joy, as in the case of Herod. It can even appear to taste the heavenly gift, and feel the powers of the world to come. All this, and much more, can human nature do, and yet be human nature still.

Here its power stops. There is something which it cannot do. It cannot counterfeit the indwelling of Christ in the sinner's soul. It cannot enable a man to say, "I live, and Christ lives in me." This infinitely transcends its mightiest power. Spiritual life, then, springs not from human nature, and is therefore produced by no natural cause or means. It is from God. He it is who calls this new creation into being, who pencils its wonders, who enkindles its glories, and who breathes over it the breath of life. It is God's life in man's soul.

Thus the true Christian is one who can adopt the expressive and emphatic language of Paul; "I live." Amplifying the words, he can exclaim, "I live; as a quickened soul. I live; as a regenerate soul. I live; as a pardoned sinner. I live; as a justified sinner. I live; as an adopted child. I live; as an heir of glory. I live; and I have never lived before! My whole existence until now has been but as a blank. I never truly, really lived, until I died! I lived, if life it may be called, to the world, to sin, to the creature, to myself; but I never lived by Christ, and I never lived to God."

Oh tremendous truth! Oh solemn thought! for a soul to pass away into eternity without having answered the great end of its creation; without having ever really lived! With what feelings, with what emotions, with what plea, will it meet the God who created it? "I created you," that God will say, "for myself, for my glory. I endowed you with gifts, and ennobled you with faculties, and clothed you with powers second only to my own. I sent you into the world to expend those gifts, and to employ those faculties, and to exert those powers, for my glory, and with a view to the enjoyment of me forever. But you buried those gifts, you abused those faculties, you wasted those powers, and you lived to yourself, and not unto me; and now to yourself, and in everlasting banishment from my presence, you shall continue to live through eternity."

Come from the four winds, O breath of the living God, and breathe upon the dead, that they may live! Avert from the reader so dire a doom, so fearful a catastrophe! And permit none, whose eye lights upon this solemn page, any longer to live to themselves, but from this moment and forever, gracious Savior! may they live for You; their solemn determination and their sublime motto this, "For me to live is Christ."

AUGUST 20.

"The church of God, which he has purchased with his own blood." Acts 20:28

The Deity of the Son of God imparted a Divine vitality and value to the blood which flowed from His human nature. So close and intimate was the mysterious union, that while the Deity effected the atonement by the humanity, the humanity derived all its power and virtue to atone from the Deity. There was Deity in the blood of Jesus; a Divine vitality which stamped its infinite value, dignity, and virtue.

Observe in two instances how strikingly the Holy Spirit has coupled these two truths; the Deity and the atonement of Jesus: "Who being the brightness of His glory, and the express image of His person, and upholding all things by the word of His power, when He had by Himself purged our sins." "Awake, O sword, against my shepherd, against the man that is my fellow, says the Lord; smite the shepherd." Here are brought out in the strongest light, and in the most beautiful and intimate relation, Deity and atonement. It was not so much that our Lord was the Priest, as that He was the Sacrifice; not so much that He was the Offerer, as that He was the Offering; in which consisted the value of His blood. "When He had by Himself purged our sins." "Who gave Himself for us." "When He offered Himself." "What did He offer in offering Himself? He offered up His life; His twofold life. There was on Calvary the sacrifice of Deity with the humanity. The Deity not suffering, for it was incapable of suffering; nor of dying, for essential life could not die; but Deity with the humanity constituted the one offering which has perfected forever the salvation of those who are sanctified.

Profoundly and awfully mysterious as is this truth, faith can receive it. It towers above my reason, and yet it does not contradict my reason. While it transcends and baffles it, it does not oppose nor supersede it. Christian reader, the blood upon which you depend for your salvation is not ordinary blood; the blood of a mere human being, however pure and sinless; but it is the blood of the incarnate God, "God manifest in the flesh." It is the blood of Him who is Essential Life; the Fountain of Life the "Resurrection and the Life;" and because of the Divine life of Jesus, from thence springs the vitality of His atoning blood.

Oh, that is a Divine principle that vivifies the blood of Christ! This it is that makes it sacrificial, expiatory, and cleansing. This it is that enables it to prevail with God's justice for pardon and acceptance; this it is that renders it so efficacious that one drop of it falling upon the conscience, crushed beneath the weight of sin, will melt the mountain of guilt and lift the soul to God. Hold fast the confidence of your faith in the essential Deity of the Son of God, for this it is which gives to His Atonement all its glory, dignity, and virtue.

AUGUST 21.

"When Jesus therefore had received the vinegar, he said, It is finished; and he bowed his head, and gave up the spirit." John 19:30

A jar of sour wine was sitting there, so they soaked a sponge in it, put it on a hyssop branch, and held it up to his lips. When Jesus had tasted it, he said, "It is finished!" Then he bowed his head and gave up his spirit. John 19:29-30

Believer in Jesus! remember, all your confidence, all your hope, all your comfort flows from the finished work of your Savior. See that you unwittingly add nothing to the perfection of this work. You may be betrayed into this sin and this folly by looking within yourself, rather than to the person of Jesus; by attaching an importance too great to repentance and faith, and your own doings and strivings, rather than ceasing from your own works altogether, and resting for your peace, and joy, and hope; simply, entirely, and exclusively in the work of Jesus. Remember, that whatever we unintentionally add to the finished work of Christ mars the perfection and obscures the beauty of that work. "If you lift up your tool upon it, you have polluted it."

We have nothing to do, but in our moral pollution and nakedness to plunge beneath the fountain, and wrap ourselves within the robe of that Savior's blood and righteousness, who, when He expired on the tree, so completed our redemption, as to leave us nothing to do but to believe and be saved.

"It is finished!" Oh words pregnant of the deepest meaning! Oh words rich in the richest consolation! Salvation is finished! Look away from your fluctuating frames, and fitful feelings, and changing clouds, to "Jesus only." Look away from sins and guilt, from emptiness and poverty, to "Jesus only." "It is finished!" Let devils hear it, and tremble! Let sinners hear it, and believe! Let saints hear it, and rejoice! All is finished!

"Then, Lord, I flee to You, just as I am! I have stayed away from You too long, and am 'yet instead of getting better, I grew worse.' Too exclusively have I looked at my unworthiness, too absorbed have I been with my impoverishment, too bitterly have I mourned having nothing to pay. Upon Your own finished work I now cast myself. Save, Lord, and I shall be saved!"

Before this stupendous truth, let all creature merit sink, let all human glory pale, let all man's boasting vanish, and let Jesus be all in all. Perish, forms and ceremonies; perish, rites and rituals; perish, creeds and churches; perish, utterly and forever perish, whatever would be a substitute for the finished work of Jesus, whatever would tend to neutralize the finished work of Jesus, whatever would obscure with a cloud, or dim with a vapor; the beauty, the luster, and the glory of the finished work of Jesus!

It was "Jesus only" in the councils of eternity; it was "Jesus only" in the everlasting covenant of grace; it was "Jesus only" in the manger of Bethlehem; it was "Jesus only" in the garden of Gethsemane; it was "Jesus only" upon the cross of Calvary; it was "Jesus only" in the tomb of Joseph; it was "Jesus only" who, "when He had by Himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high." And it shall be "Jesus only"; the joy of our hearts, the object of our glory, the theme of our song, the Beloved of our adoration, our service, and our praise, through the endless ages of eternity. Oh, stand fast, in life and in death, by the finished work of Jesus.

AUGUST 22.

"He that covers his sins shall not prosper; but whoever confesses and forsakes them shall have mercy." Proverbs 28:13

A sense of guilt upon the conscience invariably occasions distant views of God. The moment Adam became conscious of having sinned, He hid himself from God's eye. He sought concealment from the endearing presence of Him who had been used to walk in the cool of the evening through the bowers of Paradise, in sweet and confiding communion. It is so now! Guilt upon the conscience, sin unconfessed, imparts misty, gloomy, distorted views of God. We lose that clear endearing view of His character which we once had. We dare not look up with holy, humble boldness. We misinterpret His dealings; think harshly of His ways; and if providences are dark, and afflictions come, in a moment we exclaim, "I have sinned, and God is angry." And so we seek concealment from God. We sink the Father in the Judge, and the child in the slave.

Another evil that results from sin unconfessed is the hardening tendency it produces upon the conscience. To a child of God, who has felt and mourned over the power of sin, we need not stay to prove how hardening is the tendency of sin; how it crusts the heart with a callousness which no human power can soften, and which often requires heavy affliction to remove. Where a child of God, then, neglects the habit of a daily confession of sin, by slow and almost imperceptible degrees, the conscience loses its tenderness, and becomes, by this gradual process, so hardened as at length to think nothing of a sin, which at a previous period would have filled the soul with horror and remorse.

One more evil we may mention, and that is, that a neglect of this most important duty causes a fearful forgetfulness of sin, without the sweet sense of its forgiveness. The believer loses sight of his sin, not because he knows it to be pardoned, afresh blotted out, but from a mere carnal forgetfulness of the sin. The child of God, on whose conscience the atoning blood has been afresh sprinkled, cannot soon forget his sin. Oh no! Freed from a sense of its condemnation, delivered from its guilt, and looking up to the unclouded face of a reconciled God, yet He remembers how far he could depart from the God that so loved him, and so readily and freely forgave him. The very pardon of his sin stamps it upon his memory. He thinks of it only to admire the love, adore the grace, and extol the blood that blotted it out; and thus he is led to go softly all his days. "My soul has them still in remembrance, and is humbled in me."

But the believer who neglects the duty and the privilege of confession loses the remembrance of his sin, until brought under the rod of the covenant. Then some deep and heavy chastisement recalls it to his memory, and fills him with shame, humiliation, and contrition. In this state, the Eternal Spirit comes into the soul with His restoring mercies, leads the abased and humbled believer afresh to the "fountain opened,"; and God; the God of all comfort; speaks in words of comfort to his broken heart.

AUGUST 23.

"God is love." 1 John 4:8

God in Christ is no longer a "consuming fire," but a God of love, of peace; a reconciled God. God in Christ holds out His hand all the day long to poor sinners. He receives all; He welcomes all; He rejects, He refuses, He casts out none. It is His glory to pardon a sinner. It is the glory of His power, it is the glory of His love, it is the glory of His wisdom, it is the glory of His grace, to take the prey from the mighty, to deliver the lawful captive, to pluck the brand from the burning, to lower the golden chain of His mercy to the greatest depth of human wretchedness and guilt, to lift the needy and place him among the princes.

Behold Christ upon that cross! Every pang that He endures, every stroke that He receives, every groan that He utters, every drop of blood that He sheds, proclaims that God is love, and that He stands pledged and is ready to pardon the vilest of the vile. Justice, sheathing its sword, and retiring satisfied from the scene, leaves Mercy gloriously triumphant. And "God delights in mercy."

Having at such an infinite cost opened a channel; even through the smitten heart of His beloved Son; through which His mercy may flow boundless and free, venture near, nothing doubting. No feature of your case is discouraging, or can possibly arrest the pardon. Your age, your protracted rebellion against God, your long life of indifference to the concerns of your soul, the turpitude and number of your sins, your lack of deep convictions or of stronger faith, nor worth or worthiness to recommend you to His favor; are no true impediments to your approach, are no pleas why you should not draw near and touch the outstretched scepter, bathe in the open fountain, put on the spotless robe, welcome the gracious pardon, and press it with gratitude and transport to your adoring heart.

In the light of this truth, cultivate loving and kindly views of God. Ever view Him, ever approach Him, and ever transact your soul's affairs with Him, in and through Jesus. He is the one Mediator between God and your soul. God your Father may now be leading you through deep and dark waters. His voice may sound roughly to you. His dim outline is, perhaps, all that you can see of Him. His face seems veiled and averted; yet deal with Him now in Christ, and all your hard thoughts, trembling fears, and unbelieving doubts shall vanish.

In Jesus every perfection of God dissolves into grace and love. With your eye upon the cross, and looking at God through that cross, all the dark letters of His providence will in a moment become radiant with light and glory. That God, who has so revealed Himself in Jesus, must be love, all love, and nothing but love, even in the most dark, painful, and afflictive dealings with His beloved people!

AUGUST 24.

"And for their sakes I sanctify myself, that they also might be sanctified through the truth." John 17:19

Christ is glorified in the progressive holiness of His people. "The kingdom of God is within you," says our Lord. The increase of this kingdom is just the measure and extent of the believer's advance in sanctification. This is that internal righteousness, the work of God the Holy Spirit, which consists in the subjugation of the mind, the will, the affections, the desires, yes, the whole soul; to the government and supremacy of Jesus; "bringing into captivity," says the apostle, "every thought to the obedience of Christ."

O you who are "striving against sin." Longing to be "conformed to the image of God's Son," panting to be more "pure in heart," "hungering and thirsting for righteousness," think that in every step which you take in the path of holiness; in every corruption subdued; in every besetting sin laid aside; in every holy desire begotten; Christ is glorified in you! But you perhaps reply, "The more I strive for the mastery, the more I seem to be conquered. The stronger I oppose my sins, the stronger my sins seem to be."

But what does this prove? It proves that "God is working in you both to will and to do of His good pleasure"; that the kingdom of God is invading the kingdom of Satan; that the Spirit dwelling in the heart is warring with the flesh. It is truly remarked by Owen, that "if a believer lets his sins alone, his sins will let him alone." But let him search them as with candles, let him bring them to the light, oppose, mortify, and crucify them; they will to the last struggle for the victory. And this inward warfare undeniably marks the inhabitation of God the Holy Spirit in the soul.

To see one advancing in holiness; thirsting for God; the heart fixed in its solemn purpose of entire surrender; cultivating higher views; and aiming for a loftier standard; to behold him, perhaps, carving his way to his throne through mighty opposition, "fightings without; fears within;" striving for the mastery of some besetting sin; sometimes foiling and sometimes foiled; sometimes with the shout of victory on the lip, and sometimes with the painful consciousness of defeat bowing down the heart; yet still onward; the needle of the soul, with slow and tremulous, but true and certain movement, still pointing to its glorious attraction- God; faith that can never fail; and hope that can never die; and love that can never be quenched; hanging amid their warfare and in all their weakness upon the "nail fastened in a sure place"; how is Christ, our sanctification, glorified in such a saint!

Oh, to be like Jesus! meek and lowly, gentle, kind, and forgiving, without duplicity, without deceit, without malice, without revenge, without one temper, or thought, or feeling, or look, that is unlike Him!

Beloved, mistake not the nature and the evidence of growth in sanctification. In all your self-denial in this great work, be cautious of grace-denial. You will need much holy wisdom here, lest you overlook the work of the Spirit within you. You have thought, it may be, of the glory that Christ receives from brilliant genius and profound talent, from splendid gifts and glowing zeal, from costly sacrifices, and even extensive usefulness. But have you ever thought of the glory, the far greater, richer glory, that flows to Him from a contrite spirit, a broken heart, a lowly mind, a humble walk; from the tear of godly repentance that falls when seen by no human eye, and the sigh of godly sorrow that is breathed when heard by no human ear; from the sin-abhorrence and self-loathing, the deep sense of vileness, poverty, and infirmity that takes you to Jesus with the prayer– "Lord, here I am; I have brought to You my rebellious will, my wandering heart, my worldly affections, my peculiar infirmity, my besetting and constantly overpowering sin. Receive me graciously; put forth the mighty power of Your grace in my soul, subdue all, rule all, and subjugate all to Yourself. Will it not be for Your glory, the glory of Your great name, if this strong corruption were subdued by Your grace, if this powerful sin were nailed to Your cross, if this temper so sensitive, this heart so impure, these affections so truant, this mind so dark, these desires so earthly, these pursuits so carnal, and these aims so selfish, were all entirely renewed by Your Spirit, sanctified by Your grace, and made each to reflect Your image? Yes, Lord, it would be for Your glory, through time and through eternity."

AUGUST 25.

"What is the exceeding greatness of his power to us who believe, according to the working of his mighty power." Ephesians 1:19

Divine power, not less than love, is a perfection we shall require at every step of our yet untried and unknown path. We shall have needs which none but the power that multiplied the five loaves to supply the hunger of the five thousand can meet; difficulties, which none but the power that asks, "Is anything too hard for me? says the Lord," can overcome; enemies, with whom none but the power that resisted Satan, vanquished death, and broke from the grave, can cope. All this power is on our side, if our trust is in the Lord. "All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth," exclaims Jesus. This power which the Lord exerts on our behalf, and in which He invites us to trust, is made perfect in weakness.

Hence, we learn the same lesson that teaches us the utter lack of strength in ourselves. And when the Lord has reduced our confidence, and weakened our strength, as in the case of Gideon, whose army He reduced from thirty-two thousand men to three hundred, He then puts forth His power, perfects it in our weakness, gives us the victory, and secures to Himself all the praise. Go forward, relying upon the power of Jesus to do all in us, and accomplish all for us: power to subdue our sins; power to keep our hearts; power to uphold our steps; power gently to lead us over rough places, firmly to keep us in smooth places, skillfully to guide us through crooked paths, and safely to conduct us through all perils, fully to vindicate us from all assaults, and completely to cover our heads in the day of battle. Invincible is that soul thus clad in the panoply of Christ's power.

The power which belongs to Him as God, and the power which He possesses as Mediator, is all exerted in the behalf of those who put their trust in Him. "You have given Him power," are His own words, "over all flesh, that He should give eternal life to as many as You have given Him." Child of God! gird yourself for duties, toils, and trials, "strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus." And when the stone of difficulty confronts you; lying, perhaps, heavily upon some buried mercy; hear Him ask you, before he rolls it quite away; "Do you believe that I am able to do this?" Oh, that your trusting heart may instantly respond, "Yes, Lord, I believe, I trust; for with You all things are possible."

AUGUST 26.

"And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you forever." John 14:16

He dwells in the believer as an abiding Spirit. It is a permanent indwelling. Our dear Lord laid especial stress upon this feature. When on the eve of leaving His disciples to return to His kingdom, He promised them "another Comforter," whose spiritual presence should more than repair the loss of his bodily absence. And, lest there should be any painful apprehensions as to the time of His dwelling with them, He assures those who the Spirit should abide with them forever. Overlook not this truth. Let no spiritual darkness, no workings of unbelief, nor sense of indwelling sin, rob you of the comfort and consolation which a believing view of it will impart.

There may be periods when you are not sensible of the indwelling of the Spirit; clouds and darkness may be around this doctrine; there may be severe trials, gloomy providences, foreboding fears; the way rough and intricate; the sky dark and wintry; faith small; unbelief powerful; and your soul, from its low depths, led to exclaim, "All these things are against me. Will the Lord cast me off forever? and will he be favorable no more? Is his mercy clean gone forever? does his promise fail for evermore? Has God forgotten to be gracious? has he in anger shut up his tender mercies?"

Oh, do not forget that even then, dejected saint of God; then, when all is dark within, and all is desolate without; then the Holy Spirit, the Sanctifier, the Comforter, the Glorifier of Jesus, dwells in you, and shall be with you forever. True, you may be assailed by powerful corruptions, the "consolations of God" may be small with you, and your prayer like David's "Cast me not away from Your presence, and take not Your Holy Spirit from me;" yet He, the blessed Indweller, is there, and His still, small, and soothing voice shall before long be heard amid the roaring of the tempest, hushing it to a peaceful calm.

He shall "abide with you forever." No wanderings, no neglect, no unkindness, no unworthiness, no unfaithfulness shall ever force Him from our bosom. He may withdraw His sensible presence; He may withhold His comforting influence; He may be so grieved by a careless walk as to suspend for a while His witnessing and sanctifying power, permitting indwelling corruptions for a moment to triumph; but He restores the soul; He brings it back again; breaks the heart, then binds it up; wounds, then heals it; fills it with godly grief, then tunes it with thanksgiving and the voice of melody.

AUGUST 27.

"And if we know that he hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we desired of him." 1 John 5:15

Believing prayer is prevailing, successful prayer. It assails the kingdom of heaven with holy violence, and carries it as by storm. It believes that God has both the heart and the arm; both the love that moves Him, and the power that enables Him; to do all and to grant all that His pleading child requests of Him. We may mention a few of the attributes of believing prayer.

It is real prayer, because it is the expression of need. It springs from a felt necessity of the mercy which it craves. It is sincere prayer, welling up from a soul schooled in the knowledge of its deep poverty and need. Oh, how much passes for real prayer which is not prayer; which is not the breathing of the soul, nor the language of the heart, nor the expression of need. There is in it no true approach to God, no thirsting for Christ, no desire for holiness. Were God to bestow the things which had been so thoughtlessly and heartlessly asked, the individual would be taken by surprise.

The prayer of faith is importunate and persevering. It will not take a refusal. It will not be put off with a denial. Thus Jacob wrestled with the Angel of the covenant until he prevailed; "I will not let you go until you bless me." Thus the woman of Canaan would not release the Savior from her hold until He had granted her suit; "If I am a dog, satisfy me with the crumbs." And thus, too, the man who besieged the house of his friend at midnight for bread, and did not go away until he obtained it; and the oppressed widow, who sought justice at the hands of the unrighteous and reluctant judge until he righted her; illustrate the nature of that prayer; even earnest, persevering prayer, which prevails with God, and obtains the blessing.

Believing prayer is humble. How low in the dust the truly importunate suppliant lies before God! There is nothing of bold ruffianism, of unholy freedom, in the cases of earnest prayer which we have cited. There is no irreverence of manner, nor brashness of speech, nor rushing into God's holy presence as if He were an equal. But rather that awful consciousness of the Divine presence, that profound spirit of self-abasement which seems to say, "How dreadful is this place!" "Behold, I am vile; what shall I answer you? I will lay my hand upon my mouth." Oh, how lowly is the heart from where arises the incense of believing prayer! How utterly unworthy it feels of the least of all the Lord's mercies; how unfit to be a channel of grace to others; and with what trembling it lies prostrate upon the spot where God, the Triune God, is passing by! "Do not be rash with your mouth, and let not your heart be hasty to utter anything before God; for God is in heaven, and you upon earth; therefore let your words be few."

Submission is another attribute of the prayer of faith. Its utmost range of request is bounded, and its deepest fervor of spirit is chastened, by submission to the Divine will. It presumes neither to dictate to God, nor to counsel Him. It leaves the mode of answering its petitions; the time, the place, the way; with God. Trained, perhaps, in the school of bitter disappointment, it has learned to see as much love in God's heart in withholding as in granting its requests; as much wisdom in delaying as in promptly bestowing the blessing. And, seeing that delays in prayer are not denials of prayer, he who believes will not make haste to anticipate the Divine mind, or to antedate the Divine blessing. "Your will, not mine, be done," ever breathes from the praying lip of faith.

Yet another and the crowning attribute of believing prayer is; that it is presented in the name of Jesus. As it is life from God through Christ, so through Christ it is life breathed back again to God. It approaches the Divine Majesty by the "new and living way"; its mighty argument, and its one prevailing plea, is the atoning blood of Jesus. This is the ground of its boldness, this the reason of its nearness, and this the secret of its power and success. "Whatever you shall ask in my name," observes Christ, "that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son."

AUGUST 28.

"Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted." Matthew 5:4

You feel yourself to be the very chief of sinners. You seem to stand out from the great mass, a lone and solitary being; more vile, polluted, guilty, and lost than all. Your sentiments in reference to yourself, to the world, to sin, to God, and to Christ, have undergone a rapid, total, and surprising change. Yourself you see to be guilty and condemned; the world you feel to be a worthless portion, a cheat, and a lie; sin you see to be the blackest and most hateful of all other things; God you regard in a light of holiness, justice, and truth you never did before; and Christ, as possessing an interest entirely new and overpowering. Your views in relation to the law of God are reversed. You now see it to be immaculately holy, strictly just, infinitely wise. Your best attempts to obey its precepts you now see are not only utterly powerless, but in themselves are so polluted by sin that you cannot look at them without the deepest self-loathing. The justice of God shines with a glory unseen and unknown before. You feel that in now bringing the condemnatory sentence of the law into your conscience He is strictly holy, and were He now to send you to eternal woe He would be strictly just.

But ah! what seems to form the greatest burden? What is that which is more bitter to you than wormwood or gall? Oh, it is the thought that ever you should have lifted your arm of rebellion against so good, so holy, so just a God as He is. That ever you should have cherished one treasonous thought, or harbored one unkind feeling. That your whole life, thus far, should have been spent in bitter hostility to Him, His law, His Son, His people; and that yet in the midst of it, yes, all day long, He has stretched out His hand to you, and you did not regard it!

Oh, the guilt that rests upon your conscience! Oh, the burden that presses your soul! Oh, the sorrow that wrings your heart! Oh, the pang that wounds your spirit! Is there a posture of lowliness more lowly than all others? You would assume it. Is there a place in the dust more humiliating than all others? You would lie in it. And now you are looking wistfully around you for a refuge, a resting-place, a balm, a quietness for the tossing of the soul.

Beloved, is this your real state? Are these your true feelings? Blessed are you of the Lord! "Blessed, do you say?" Yes! Those tears are blessed! Those humbling, lowly views are blessed! That broken heart, that contrite spirit, that awakened, convinced, and wounded conscience, even with all its guilt, is blessed! Why? because the Spirit, who convinces men of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment, has entered your soul, and wrought this change in you. He has opened your eyes, to see yourself lost and wretched. He has broken the spell which the world had woven round you. He has dissolved the enchantment, discovered the delusion, and made you to feel the powers of the world to come. Then you are blessed.

AUGUST 29.

"But he that received the seed into stony places, the same is he that hears the word, and anon with joy receives it; yet has he no root in himself, but endures for awhile: for when tribulation or persecution arises because of the word, by and by he is offended. He also that received seed among the thorns is he that hears the word; and the care of this world, and the deceitfulness of riches, choke the word, and he becomes unfruitful. Matthew 13:20-22

"The rocky soil represents those who hear the message and receive it with joy. But like young plants in such soil, their roots don't go very deep. At first they get along fine, but they wilt as soon as they have problems or are persecuted because they believe the word. The thorny ground represents those who hear and accept the Good News, but all too quickly the message is crowded out by the cares of this life and the lure of wealth, so no crop is produced." Matthew 13:20-22

A season of prosperity often proves fatal to a profession of godliness. Divine providence smiles, riches increase, and with them the temptations and the snares, the luxury, indulgence, and worldly show which are inseparable from the accumulation of unsanctified and unconsecrated wealth. And what are the results? In most cases, the entire relinquishment of the outward garb of a religious costume. Found to be in the way of the full indulgence of the carnal mind, it is laid aside altogether; and thus freed from all the restraints which consistency imposed, the heart at once plunges deep into the world it all the while secretly loved, sighed for, and worshiped. Oh, what a severe but true test of religious principle is this! How soon it detects the spurious and the false! How soon does the verdure wither away! "The prosperity of fools shall destroy them."

But if a professing man passes through this trial, and still retains his integrity; still walks closely and humbly with God; still adheres to the lowly cross-bearing path of Jesus; is still found as diligent in waiting upon God in public and private means of grace; is still as meek, condescending, and kind, increasing in devotedness, liberality, and love, with the increase of God's providential goodness around him, such a man has the "root of the matter in him;" and "he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that brings forth his fruit in his season; his leaf also shall not wither; and whatever he does shall prosper." His prosperity has not destroyed him.

A time of adversity is often equally as fatal to a profession of religion, founded upon no true Christian principle. If in the smooth path we are apt to slide, in the rough path we may stumble. Periods of great revolution in the history of the Christian Church, when God tries the principles, the conscience, the love, and the faith of His people, are test-periods. What numbers make shipwreck then of their high profession! And when God enters the pleasant garden of a man's domestic blessings, and blows upon the lovely blossom, or blights the fair flower, or severs the pleasant bough, or scatters the hard-earned wealth of years, or wastes the body's vigor, or frustrates the fond scheme; how does an unrenewed man behave himself?

Is his carriage humble, submissive, child-like? Does stern Christian principle now exhibit itself, in beautiful contrast with the trial that has called it forth? Does divine grace, like the aromatic flower, now appear the sweeter and more precious for its being crushed? Does not every feeling of the heart rise in maddened rebellion against God and against His government? Ah, yes! how accurately does Christ describe his case: "he has not root in himself, but endures for a while; for when tribulation or persecution arises because of the word, by and by he is offended."

AUGUST 30.

"Now no chastening for the present seems to be joyous, but grievous." Hebrews 12:11

There is often a severity, a grievousness in the chastisements of our covenant God, which it is important and essential for the end for which they were sent, not to overlook. He who sent the chastisement appointed its character– He intended that it should be felt. There is as much danger in underrating as in overrating the chastisements of God. It is not uncommon to hear some of God's saints remark, in the very midst of His dealings with them, "I feel it to be no cross at all; I do not feel it an affliction; I am not conscious of any peculiar burden."

Is it not painful to hear such expressions from the lips of a dear child of God? It betrays a lack, so to speak, of spiritual sensitiveness; a deficiency of that tender, acute feeling which ought ever to belong to him who professes to have reposed on Jesus' bosom. Now we solemnly believe that it is the Lord's holy will that His child should feel the chastisement to be grievous; that the smartings of the rod should be felt. Moses, Jacob, Job, David, Paul, all were made to exclaim, "The Lord has sorely chastened me."

When it is remembered that our chastisements often grow out of our sin; that to subdue some strong indwelling corruption, or to correct for some outward departure, the rod is sent; this should ever humble the soul; this should ever cause the rebuke to be rightly viewed; that were it not for some strong indwelling corruption, or some step taken in departure from God, the affliction would have been withheld; oh how should every stroke of the rod lay the soul in the dust before God! "If God had not seen sin in my heart, and sin in my outward conduct, He would not have dealt thus heavily with me." And where the grievousness of the chastisement is not felt, is there not reason to suspect that the cause of the chastisement has not been discovered and mourned over?

There is the consideration, too, that the stroke comes from the Father who loves us; loves us so well, that if the chastisement were not needed, there would not be a feather's weight laid on the heart of his child. Dear to Him as the apple of His eye, would He inflict those strokes, if there were not an absolute necessity for them? "What! Is it the Father who loves me that now afflicts me? Does this stroke come from His heart? What! Does my Father see all this necessity for this grievous chastening? Does He discover in me so much evil, so much perverseness, so much that He hates and that grieves Him, that this severe discipline is sent?" Oh how does this thought, that the chastisement proceeds from the Father who loves him, impart a keenness to the stroke!

And then there is often something in the very nature of the chastisement itself that causes its grievousness to be felt. The wound may be in the tenderest part; the rebuke may come through some idol of the heart; God may convert some of our choicest blessings into sources of the keenest sorrow. How often does He, in the wisdom and sovereignty of His dealings, adopt this method! Abraham's most valued blessing became the cause of his acutest sorrow. The chastisement may come through the beloved Isaac. The very mercy we clasp to our warm hearts so fondly may be God's voice to us, speaking in the tone of severe yet tender rebuke. Samuel, dear to the heart of Eli, was God's solemn voice to His erring yet beloved servant.

Let no afflicted believer, then, think lightly of his chastisements– it is the Lord's will that he should feel them. They were sent for this purpose. If I did not feel the cross, if I was not conscious of the burden, if the wound were not painful, I should never take it to the mercy-seat, there to seek all needed grace, support, and strength. The burden must first be felt, before it is cast upon the Lord; the chastisement must be felt to be grievous, before the tenderness and sympathy of Jesus will be sought.

There is equal danger of overrating our afflictions. When they are allowed too deeply to absorb us in grief; when they unfit us for duty; keep us from walking in the path God has marked out for us; hold us back from prayer and from the means of grace; when they lead us to think harshly and speak severely of God; then we overrate God's chastisements, and prevent the good they were so kindly sent to convey.

AUGUST 31.

"Nevertheless, afterward it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto those who are exercised thereby." Hebrews 12:11

The very wisdom seen in this method of instruction– the sanctified discipline of the covenant, proves its divine origin. Had the believer been left to form his own school, adopt his own plan of instruction, choose his own discipline, and even select his own teacher, how different would it have been from God's plan! We would never have conceived the idea of such a mode of instruction, so unlikely, according to our poor wisdom, to secure the end in view. We would have thought that the smooth path, the sunny path, the joyous path, would the soonest conduct us into the glories of the kingdom of grace; would more fully develop the wisdom, the love, the tenderness, the sympathy of our blessed Lord, and tend more decidedly to our weanedness from the world, our crucifixion of sin, and our spiritual and unreserved devotedness to His service. But "my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, says the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts."

Nor is the believer fully convinced of the wisdom of God's method of procedure until he has been brought, in a measure, through the discipline; until the rod has been removed, the angry waves have subsided, and the tempest cloud has passed away. Then, reviewing the chastisement, minutely examining its nature and its causes; the steps that led to it; the chain of providences in which it formed a most important link; and most of all, surveying the rich covenant blessings it brought with it– the weanedness from the world, the gentleness, the meekness, the patience, the spirituality, the prayerfulness, the love, the joy; he is led to exclaim, "I now see the infinite wisdom and tender mercy of my Father in this affliction. While in the furnace I saw it not; the rising of inbred corruption, unbelief, and hard thoughts of God darkened my view, veiled from the eye of my faith the reason of the discipline; but now I see why and wherefore my covenant God and Father has dealt with me thus: I see the wisdom and adore the love of His merciful procedure."

Other discipline may mortify, but not humble the pride of the heart; it may wound, but not crucify it. Affliction, sanctified by the Spirit of God, lays the soul in the dust; gives it low thoughts of itself. Gifts, attainments, successful labors, the applause of men, all conspire the ruin of a child of God; and, but for the prompt and often severe discipline of an ever-watchful, ever-faithful God, would accomplish their end. But the affliction comes; the needed cross; the required medicine; and in this way are brought out "the peaceable fruits of righteousness;" the most beautiful and precious of which is a humble, lowly view of self.

SEPTEMBER 1.

"He restores my soul." Psalm 23:3

THE first point we would look at is the love of the Lord Jesus in restoring a wandering believer. Nothing but infinite, tender, unchanging love could prompt Him to such an act. There is so much of black ingratitude, so much of deep turpitude, in the sin of a believer's departure from the Lord, that, but for the nature of Christ's love, there could be no possible hope of His return. Now this costly love of Christ is principally seen in His taking the first step in the restoring of the soul: the first advance is on the part of the Lord. There is no more self-recovery after, than there is before, conversion; it is entirely the Lord's work. The same state of mind, the same principle, that led to the first step in declension from God, leads on to each successive one; until, but for restraining and restoring grace, the soul would take an everlasting farewell of God. But mark the expression of David—"He restores my soul." Who? He of whom he speaks in the first verse as his Shepherd—"The Lord is my Shepherd." It is the Shepherd that takes the first step in the recovery of the wandering sheep. If there is one aspect in the view of this subject more touching than another, it is this—that such should be the tender, unchanging love of Jesus towards His wandering child, He should take the first step in restoring him. Shall an offended, insulted Sovereign make the first move towards conciliating a rebellious people?—that Sovereign is Jesus: shall an outraged Father seek His wandering child, and restore him to His affections and His house?—that Father is God. Oh, what love is that which leads Jesus in search of His wandering child! love that will not let him quite depart; love that yearns after him, and seeks after him, and follows after him through all his devious way, his intricate wanderings, and far-off departures; love that no unkindness has been able to cool, no forgetfulness has been able to weaken, no distance has been able to destroy!

Not less conspicuous is the power of Jesus in the restoring of the soul. "He restores my soul,"—He, the omnipotent Shepherd. We want omnipotence to bring us back when we have wandered; nothing less can accomplish it. We want the same power that converted to re-convert; the power that created, to re-create us: this power Jesus possesses. It was essential to the full salvation of His Church that He should have it; therefore, when praying to His Father, He says, "As You have given Him power over all flesh,"—why this power?—"that He should give eternal life to as many as You have given Him." It was necessary that He should have power over all flesh, yes, over all the powers leagued against the Church, that He should bring to glory all that were given to Him in the covenant of grace.

Now this power is gloriously exerted in the restoring of the soul. Jesus works in the believer, in order to his recovery. He breaks down the hard heart, arrests the soul in its onward progress of departure, places upon it some powerful check, lays it low, humbles, abases it, and then draws from it the blessed acknowledgment, "Behold, I am vile; but he restores my soul."

SEPTEMBER 2.

"Before I was afflicted I went astray: but now have I kept your word." Psalm 119:67

THERE is infinite wisdom in the Lord's restorings. This perfection of Jesus is clearly revealed here: in the way He adopts to restore, we see it. That He should make, as He frequently does, our very afflictions the means of restoration to our souls, unfolds the profound depth of His wisdom. This was David's prayer—"Quicken me according to Your judgments:" and this was his testimony—"Before I was afflicted I went astray, but now have I kept Your word." The season of trial is not infrequently the sanctified season of revival. Who that has passed through the furnace has not found it so? Then the declension of the soul has been discovered—then the hidden cause of that declension has been brought to light—then the spirit has bowed in contrition before the Lord—then grace has been stirred up in the heart, a new sweetness has been given to prayer, a new impulse to faith, a new radiance to hope, and from the flame the gold and the silver have emerged, purified from their tin and dross. But for the production of effects like these, why the many peculiar and heavy afflictions that we sometimes see overtaking the child of God? Do not think that our Heavenly Father takes pleasure in chastening us; do not think that it delights Him to behold the writhings, the throes, and the anguish of a wounded spirit; do not think that He loves to see our tears, and hear our sighs and our groans, under the pressure of keen and crushing trial. No: He is a tender, loving Father; so tender and so loving that not one stroke, nor one cross, nor one trial more does He lay upon us than is absolutely needful for our good—not a single ingredient does He put in our bitter cup, that is not essential to the perfection of the remedy. It is for our profit that He chastens, not for His pleasure; and that often to rouse us from our spiritual sleep, to recover us from our deep declension, and to impart new vigor, healthiness, and growth to His own life in the soul.

SEPTEMBER 3.

"My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me: and I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand." John 10:27-28

As God-man Mediator, Christ is able to keep His people. As the covenant Head and Preserver of His Church, "it pleased the Father that in Him should all fullness dwell." The Father knew what His beloved family would need. He knew what corruptions would threaten them, what temptations would beguile them, what foes would assail them, what infirmities would encompass them, and what trials would depress them; therefore it pleased Him, it was His own good and gracious pleasure, that in His Son, the Mediator of His beloved people, should all fullness dwell—a fullness of merit, a fullness of pardon, a fullness of righteousness, a fullness of grace, wisdom, and strength, commensurate with the varied, multiplied, and diversified circumstances of His family. It is "all fullness."

As the Mediator, then, of His people, He keeps them in perfect safety by night and by day. No man, no power, can pluck them out of His hands; He has undertaken their full salvation. To die for their sins, and to rise again for their justification, and yet not to provide for their security while traveling through a world of sin and temptation—to leave them to their own guardianship, an unprotected prey to their own heart's corruptions, the machinations of Satan, and the power of worldly entanglement—would have been but a partial salvation of His people. Opposed by a threefold enemy—Satan and the world in league with their own imperfectly renewed and sanctified hearts, that treacherous foe dwelling within the camp, ever ready to betray the soul into the hands of its enemies—how could a poor weak child of God bear up and breast this powerful phalanx? But He, who was mighty to save, is mighty to keep; in Him provision is made for all the trying, intricate, perilous circumstances in which the believer may be placed. Grace is laid up for the subjection of every inbred corruption—an armor is provided for every assault of the foe; wisdom, strength, consolation, sympathy, kindness—all, all that a poor believing sinner can possibly require, is richly stored in Jesus, the covenant Head of all the fullness of God to His people.

But how is the child of God to avail himself of this provision? The simple but glorious life of faith exhibits itself here. By faith the believer travels up to this rich and ample supply; by faith he takes his nothingness to Christ's all-sufficiency; by faith he takes his unworthiness to Christ's infinite merit; by faith he takes his weakness to Christ's strength, his folly to Christ's wisdom; his fearful heart, his timid spirit, his nervous frame, his doubtful mind, his beclouded evidences, his rebellious will, his painful cross—his peculiar case, of whatever nature it may be—in the way of believing, in the exercise of simple faith, he goes with it to Jesus, and as an empty vessel hangs himself upon that "nail fastened in a sure place," the glorious Eliakim on whom is hung "all the glory of His Father's house, the offspring and the issue, all vessels of small quantity, from the vessels of cups even to all the vessels of flagons." Thus may the weakest believer, the most severely assailed, the most deeply tried, the most painfully tempted, lay his Goliath dead at his feet, by a simple faith's dealing with the fullness that is in Christ Jesus. Oh, how mighty is the believer who, in deep distrust of his own power, casting off from him all spirit of self-dependence, looks simply and fully at Jesus, and goes forth to meet his enemy, only as he is "strong in the strength that is in Christ."

SEPTEMBER 4.

"And declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the Spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead." Romans 1:4

THE resurrection of the Redeemer established the truth of His godhead. His miracles had already proved the truth of His Divine Sonship. Yet there wanted one other evidence, the crowning one of all—the resurrection. This one evidence would put the final seal upon the truth of His Deity. If not, then all that He had previously said, predicted, and done would prove but to have been, as His enemies would have asserted, the stratagem of a designing man, attempting to impose upon the credulity of a few devoted but deluded followers. But this return to life on the exact day which He had predicted, breaking by the exercise of His divine power from the cold embrace of death and the imprisonment of the grave, put at rest forever the question of His Deity, and declared Him to be the Son of God. Oh, how truly and properly Divine did He now appear! August and convincing as had been all the previous attestations of His Godhead—His life one succession of the most astonishing and brilliant achievements of Divine power and goodness—diseases healed, sight restored, demons ejected, the dead raised, tempests hushed, and winds stilled—His death marked by prodigies of terrible and surpassing wonder and sublimity—the earth heaving beneath His feet, the sun darkening above Him, the graves opening around Him—yet never had His Godhead shone forth with such demonstrative power and resplendent glory, as when He broke forth from the tomb, and rose triumphant over hell, death, and the grave. Then did He fulfil this prediction, and redeem this pledge—"Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it again." Receding for a while from communion with life—as if to create a pause in nature, which would awaken the interest and fix the gaze of the intelligent universe upon one stupendous event—He disappeared within the very domain of the "king of terrors," wrapped around Him its shroud and darkness, and laid Himself down, Essential Life locked in the embrace of death, immortality slumbering in the tomb! But he rose again; bursting from the cold embrace, and awaking from the mysterious slumber, He came back to life all radiant, immortal, and divine! Saint of God! want you further and stronger evidence that your faith has credited no cunningly devised fable? that He to whose guardianship you have committed your precious soul is able to keep it until the morning of our own resurrection-glory? Behold it in the risen life of the incarnate God! He has come up from the grave, to make good all His previous claims to Deity, thus to encourage and confirm your belief in the truth, dignity, and glory of His person, and to assure you that he that "believes in Him shall not be ashamed." Now may you take up the triumphant strain, as it falls from the lips of the departing apostle, prolonging it until another shall catch it from your expiring tongue, "I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I have committed unto Him against that day."

SEPTEMBER 5.

"Therefore, brethren, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live after the flesh." Romans 8:12

THAT around a subject so momentous as this no obscurity might gather, tending to misguide the judgment, the apostle most distinctly and emphatically affirms, that the flesh has no valid claim whatever upon the believer; and that, consequently, he is under no obligation to yield compliance with its feigned exactions. We are debtors, but the flesh in not our creditor. What are its demands with which it is incumbent upon us to comply? Do we owe anything to sin, the parent of all our woe? Nothing. To Satan, who plotted our temptation, and accomplished our downfall? Nothing. To the world—ensnaring, deceitful, and ruinous? Nothing. No; to these, the auxiliaries of allies of the flesh, we owe nothing but the deepest hatred and the most determined opposition.

And yet the saints of God are "debtors." To whom? What debtors are they to the Father, for His electing love, for the covenant of grace, for His unspeakable gift, for having blessed us with all spiritual blessings in Christ Jesus! We but imperfectly estimate the debt of love, gratitude, and service which we owe to Him whose mind the Eternal Son came to reveal, whose will He came to do, and whose heart He came to unveil. It was the Father who sent the Son. With Him originated the wondrous expedient of our redemption. He it was who laid all our sins on Jesus. It was His sword of Justice that smote the Shepherd, while His hand of love and protection was laid upon the little ones. We have too much supposed that the Atonement of Jesus was intended to inspire the mercy, rather than to propitiate the justice of God; to awaken in His heart a love that did not previously exist. Thus we have overlooked the source from where originated our salvation, and have lost sight of the truth, that the mediation of Jesus was not the cause, but rather the effect, of God's love to man. "Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us, and gave His Son to be a propitiation for our sins." Oh, for the spirit to understand, and for grace to feel, and for love to exemplify, our deep obligation to God for the everlasting love that gave us His Son!

Equal debtors are we to the Son. He was the active agent in our redemption. He it was who undertook and accomplished all that our salvation required. He left no path untrodden, no portion of the curse unborne, no sin unatoned, no part of the law uncancelled—nothing for us in the matter of our salvation to do, but simply to believe and be saved. Oh, to raise the eye to Him—strong in faith, beaming with love, moist with contrition, and exclaim, "You have borne my sin, endured my curse, extinguished my hell, secured my heaven. Your Spirit was wounded for me; Your heart bled for me; Your body was bruise for me; for me Your soul was stricken—for me, a sinner, the chief of sinners. I am Your debtor—a debtor to Your dying love, to Your eternal, discriminating mercy. Surely an eternity of love, of service, and of praise, can never repay You what I owe You, You blessed Jesus." Oh, how deep the obligation we are under to Christ!

And not less indebted are we to the Holy Spirit. What do we not owe Him of love and obedience, who awoke the first thrill of life in our soul; who showed to us our guilt, and sealed to us our pardon? What do we not owe Him for leading us to Christ; for dwelling in our hearts; for His healing, sanctifying, comforting, and restoring grace; for His influence, which no ingratitude has quenched; for His patience, which no backsliding has exhausted; for His love, which no sin has annihilated? Yes, we are the Spirit's lasting debtors. We owe Him the intellect He has renewed, the heart He has sanctified, the body He inhabits, every breath of life He has inspired, and every pulse of love He has awakened. Thus are all real believers debtors to the Triune God—debtors to the Father's everlasting love, to the Son's redeeming grace, and to the Spirit's quickening mercy. To the flesh we owe nothing but uncompromising hatred; to Jehovah we owe undivided and supreme affection.

SEPTEMBER 6.

"If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy; for the temple of God is holy, which temple you are." 1 Corinthians. 3:17

How holy should the temple of the Spirit be! Reader, are you a temple of God the Holy Spirit? Then dedicate yourself unreservedly to God. You are not your own; your body, your spirit, your family, substance, time, talents, influence, all, all belong to God. He dwells in you; walks in you, rules in you, and calls you His dwelling-place. "Know you not that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit which is in you?" Then, what a separation should there be between you and the world that lies in wickedness! How should you guard against every unnecessary entanglement with it! how cautious and prayerful, lest, by contracting an unholy alliance with it in any form or degree, you should defile the temple of God, "which temple you are"! Oh, what heavenly wisdom, and holy circumspection, and ceaseless prayer, do you need, that you might walk with unspotted garments—that no rival should enter your heart—that no lofty views of self, no spirit of worldly conformity, no temporizing policy, no known sin, no creature idolatry should enter there!—that, like the heavenly temple, nothing that defiles, neither whatever works abomination, should be cherished or entertained in the abode and in the presence of the Holy Spirit! for "what agreement has the temple of God with idols? for you are the temple of the living God; as God has said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them: and I will be their God, and they shall be my people." Reader, whose temple are you? Solemn question! Does God or Satan dwell in you? Christ or Belial? light or darkness? Either the one or the other has, at this moment, entire possession. You cannot serve two contrary masters; you cannot entertain two opposite guests. You are living either for God or for Satan. You are traveling either to heaven or to hell. Which? On your bended knees before God, decide; and may the Lord the Spirit renew you by His grace, and if renewed, make you "a vessel unto honor, sanctified and meet for the Master's use, and prepared unto every good work."

SEPTEMBER 7.

"Have you received the Holy Spirit since you believed?"

WHAT the Church of God needs as a Church we equally need as individual Christians—the deeper baptism of the Holy Spirit. Reader, why is it that you are not more settled in the truth—your feet more firm upon the Rock? Why are you not more rejoicing in Christ Jesus, the pardoning blood more sensibly applied to the conscience, the seal of adoption more deeply impressed upon your heart, "Abba, Father" more frequently, and with stronger, sweeter accent, on your lips? Why are you, perhaps, so yielding in temptation, so irresolute in purpose, so feeble in action, so vacillating in pursuit, so faint in the day of adversity? Why is the glory of Jesus so dimly seen, His preciousness so little felt, His love so imperfectly experienced? Why is there so little close, secret transaction between God and your soul?—so little searching of heart, confession of sin, dealing with the atoning blood? Why does the conscience so much lack tenderness, and the heart brokenness, and the spirit contrition? And why is the throne of grace so seldom resorted to, and prayer itself felt to be so much a duty, and so little a privilege, and, when engaged in, so faintly characterized with the humble brokenness of a penitent sinner, the filial boldness of an adopted child, the rich anointing of a royal priest? Ah! let the small measure in which you have received the Holy Spirit's influence supply the answer. "Have you received the Holy Spirit since you believed?"—have you received Him as a Witness, as a Sealer, as a Teacher, as an Indweller, as a Comforter, as the Spirit of adoption? But, rather, have you not forgotten that your Lord was alive, and upon the throne exalted, to give you the Holy Spirit, and that more readily than a father is to give good gifts to his child? That He is prepared now to throw back the windows of heaven, and pour down upon you such a blessing as shall confirm your faith, resolve your doubts, annihilate your fears, arm you for the fight, strengthen you for the trial, give you an unclouded view of your acceptance in the Beloved, and assure you that your "name is written among the living in Jerusalem"? Then, as you value the light of God's countenance, as you desire to grow in a knowledge of Christ, as you long to be more "steadfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord," oh, seek to enjoy, in a larger degree, the presence, the love, the anointing of the Holy Spirit. Christ has gone up on high to give to you this invaluable blessing, and says for your encouragement, "Hitherto have you asked nothing in my name: ask, and you shall receive, that your joy may be full."

September 8.

"But the natural man receives not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned." 1 Corinthians 2:14

THE mere presentation of truth to the unrenewed mind, either in the form of threatening, or promise, or motive, can never produce any saving or sanctifying effect. The soul of man, in its unrenewed state, is represented as spiritually dead; insensible to all holy, spiritual motion. Now, upon such a mind what impression is to be produced by the mere holding up of truth before its eye? What life, what emotion, what effect will be accomplished? As well might we spread out the pictured canvas before the glazed eye of a corpse, and expect that by the beauty of the design, the brilliancy of the coloring, and the genius of the execution, we would animate the body with life, heave the bosom with emotion, and cause the eye to swim with delight, as to look for similar moral effects to result from the mere holding up to view divine truth before a carnal mind, "dead in trespasses and sins." And yet there are those who maintain the doctrine, that divine truth, unaccompanied by any extraneous power, can effect all these wonders! Against such a theory we would simply place one passage from the sacred word: "Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God." The sacred word, inspired though it be, is but a dead letter, unclothed with the life-giving power of the Holy Spirit. Awful as are the truths it unfolds, solemn as are the revelations it discloses, touching as are the scenes it portrays, and persuasive as are the motives it supplies, yet, when left to its own unaided operation, divine truth is utterly impotent to the production of spiritual life, love, and holiness in the soul of man. Its influence must necessarily be passive, possessing, as it does, no actual power of its own, and depending upon a divine influence extraneous from itself, to render its teaching efficacious. The three thousand who were converted on the day of Pentecost were doubtless awakened under one sermon, and some would declare it was the power of the truth which wrought those wonders of grace. With this we perfectly agree, only adding, that it was truth in the mighty hand of God which pricked them to the heart, and wrung from them the cry, "Men and brethren, what shall we do?" The Eternal Spirit was the efficient cause, and the preached truth but the instrument employed to produce the effect; but for His accompanying and effectual power, they would, as multitudes do now, have turned their backs upon the sermon of Peter, though it was full of Christ crucified, deriding the truth, and rejecting the Savior of whom it spoke. But it pleased God, in the sovereignty of His will, to call them by His grace, and this He did by the effectual, omnipotent power of the Holy Spirit, through the instrumentality of a preached gospel.

Thus, then, we plead for a personal experimental acquaintance with, and reception of, the truth, before it can produce anything like holiness in the soul. That it has found an entrance to the judgment merely will not do; advancing not further—arresting not the will, touching not the heart, renewing not the whole soul—it can never erect the empire of holiness in man; the reign of sanctification cannot have commenced. The mental eye may be clear, the moral eye closed; the mind all light, the heart all dark; the creed orthodox, and the whole life a variance with the creed. Such is the discordant effect of divine truth, simply settled in the human understanding, unaccompanied by the power of the Holy Spirit in the heart. But let a man receive the truth in the his heart by the power of God Himself; let it enter there, disarming and dethroning the strong man; let Jesus enter, and the Holy Spirit take possession, renewing, sealing, and sanctifying the soul; and then we may look for the "fruits of holiness, which are unto eternal life."

SEPTEMBER 9.

"Testifying both to the Jews, and also to the Greeks, repentance toward God, and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ." Acts 20:21

THERE is an order, as well as a harmony, in the operations of the Spirit, which it is highly important should be observed. An ignorance or an oversight of this has led to great and fatal perversions of the gospel. All the self-righteousness of the Pharisee, and all the self-devotion of the deluded disciple of the Papal superstition, have their origin here. Now, the order of the Spirit is this—regeneration of the heart first—then its sanctification. Reverse this, and we derange every part of His work, and, as far as our individual benefit extends, render it entirely useless. Sanctification is not the first and immediate duty of an unrenewed person. Indeed, it were utterly impossible that it should be so. Sanctification has its commencement and its daily growth in a principle of life implanted in the soul by the Eternal Spirit; and to look for holiness in an individual still dead in sins is to look for fruit where no seed was sown—for the actings of life where no vitality exists—it is to expect, in the language of our Lord, to "gather grapes from thorns, and figs from thistles." The first and imperious duty of an unrenewed man is to prostrate himself in deep abasement and true repentance before God; the lofty look must be brought low, the rebellious will must be humbled; and in the posture of one overwhelmed with a sense of guilt. He is to look by faith to a crucified Savior, and draw from thence life, pardon, and acceptance. True, most solemnly true it is, that "without holiness no man shall see the Lord;" yet all attempts towards the attainment of holiness, before "repentance towards God, and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ," will but disappoint the soul that looks for it.

This work of renewal done, sanctification is comparatively an easy and a delightful employ. Motives and exhortations to a life of holiness now find a ready response in the heart, already the temple of the Holy Spirit. The "incorruptible seed" there sown germinates into the plant, blossoms and ripens into the fruits of holiness, and the "living water" there welled springs up, and pours forth its stream of life and purity, adorning and fertilizing the garden of the Lord. Let us, then, be careful how we disturb the arrangement and reverse the order of the blessed Spirit in His work. Great errors have in consequence arisen, and souls have gone into eternity fearfully and fatally deceived. Especially cautious should they be in this matter, who are appointed to the office of spiritual instruction—to whose care immortal souls are intrusted—lest, in a matter involving interests so precious and so lasting, any should pass from beneath their teaching into eternity ignorant of the one a true method of salvation.

SEPTEMBER 10

"For my people have committed two evils; they have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed them out cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water." Jeremiah 2:13

GOD speaks of it as involving two evils—the evil of forsaking Him, and the evil of substituting a false object of happiness for Him. Dear reader, the true painfulness of this subject consists not in the sorrow which your heart may have felt in seeing your cisterns broken. Ah no! the true agony should be, that you have, in your wanderings and creature idolatry, sinned, deeply sinned, against the Lord your God. This, and not your loss, ought to lay you low before Him. This, and not your broken scheme of earthly happiness, ought to fill you with the bitterness of sorrow, and clothe you with the drapery of woe. Oh! to have turned your back upon such a God, upon such a Father, upon such a Friend, and to have supposed that even a universe of creatures could have made you happy without Him, ought to bring you to His feet exclaiming, "God be merciful to me, the chief of sinners!" Is it no sin to have said to God, as you have a thousand times over—"I prefer myself to You—my family to You—my estate to You—my pleasure to You—my honor to You"? Is it no sin to have taken the gifts with which He endowed you, or the wealth with which He intrusted you, and forming them into a golden image, to have fallen down before it, exclaiming, "This is your god, O my soul?" Oh yes, it is a sin, the guilt and the greatness of which no language can describe. And is it no sin, O believer in Jesus, to have turned away, in your unbelief and inconstancy, from the glorious redemption which the Lord has obtained for you at such a price, and to have sought the assurance and the joy of your salvation from other sources than it? What! is not the atoning work of Jesus sufficient to give your believing soul solid rest, and peace, and hope, but that you should have turned your eye from Him, and have sought it in the polluted and broken cistern of self? Oh, slight not the precious blood, the glorious righteousness, the infinite fullness, and the tender love of Jesus thus. No, you dishonor this precious Jesus Himself! Shall He have wrought such an obedience, shall He have made such an atonement, shall He have died such a death, shall He have risen and have ascended up on high, all to secure your full salvation and certain glory, and will you derive the evidence and the comfort of your acceptance from any other than this one precious source—"looking unto Jesus!" Look away, then, from everything to Jesus. No matter what you are, look away from self—to Jesus. The more vile, the more empty, the more unworthy, the greater reason and the stronger argument why you should look entirely off yourself—to Jesus. His atoning work is finished by Him, and is sealed by the Father. It is impossible that God can reject you, entirely renouncing yourself and fleeing into Christ. Coming to Him in the name of Jesus, God cannot deny you. He has pledged Himself that whatever is asked in that name He will grant. Take Him at His word!

Ask Him for a sense of His reconciled love—ask Him for the Spirit of adoption—ask Him for a filial, loving, and obedient heart—ask Him for a meek, lowly, and submissive will. Yes, pour out your heart before Him: God waits to grant your utmost desire breathed out to Him in the name of Jesus. He has given you His beloved Son—oh largess worthy of a God!—oh gift of gifts, priceless and precious beyond all thought!—what inferior blessing will He then, withhold?

SEPTEMBER 11.

"There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus." Romans 8:1

HOW strong the consolation flowing from this truth to the believer in Jesus! No condemnation is the ground of all comfort to the suffering Christian. What a mighty breakwater is this condition to the rolling surge of sorrow, which else might flow in upon and immerse the soul! Let it be your aim to improve it on every occasion of suffering and trial. God may afflict, but He will never condemn you. Chastisements are not judgments; afflictions are not condemnations. Sickness, bereavement, and low estate, based upon a condition of non-condemnation, you can welcome and patiently bear, since they are not the forecastings of a coming storm, but the distillings of a mercy-cloud sailing athwart the azure sky of a soul in Christ. The fiery trials which purify our faith have not a spark in them of that "unquenchable fire" that will consume the condemned hereafter. Oh, what are crosses and the discomforts of this present world, if at last we are kept out of hell! and oh, what are the riches, and honors, and comforts of this life, if at last we are shut out of heaven! At the bottom of that cup of sinful pleasure which sparkles in the worldling's hand, and which with such zest and glee he quaffs, there lies eternal condemnation; the death-worm feeds at the root of all his good. But at the bottom of this cup of sorrow, now trembling and dark in the hand of the suffering Christian, bitter and forbidding as it is, there is no condemnation; eternal glory is at the root of all his evil. And in this will you not rejoice? It is not only your holy duty, but it is your high privilege to rejoice. Your whole life not only may be, but ought to be, a sweetly-tuned psalm, a continual anthem of thanksgiving and praise, pouring forth its swelling notes to the God of your salvation; since beyond the cloudy scene of your present pilgrimage there unveils the light and bliss of celestial glory, on whose portal you read as you pass within—No Condemnation. Unless, then, you either distrust or disparage this, your joyous condition and blessed hope, you must, in the gloomiest hour, and from the innermost depths of your soul, exultingly exclaim—"He is near that justifies me; who will contend with me? Let us stand together. Who is mine adversary? let him come near to me. Behold, the Lord God will help me! who is he that shall condemn me?"

SEPTEMBER 12.

"And if children, then heirs; heirs of God." Romans 7:17

NOT only are they begotten by God as His children, and by a sovereign act of His most free mercy have become the heirs of an inheritance; but, subjectively, they are made the heirs of Himself. "Heirs of God." Not only are all things in the covenant theirs, but the God of the covenant is theirs. This is their greatest mercy. "I am your part and your inheritance" are His words, addressed to all His spiritual Levites. Not only are they put in possession of all that God has—a boundless wealth—but they are in present possession of all that God is—an infinite portion. And what an immense truth is this, "I will be their God, and they shall be my people"! Take out this truth from the covenant of grace, were it possible, and what remains? It is the chief wealth and the great glory of that covenant, that God is our God. This it is that gives substance to its blessings, and security to its foundation. So long as faith can retain its hold upon the God of the covenant, as our God, it can repose with perfect security in expectation of the full bestowment of all the rest. Here lies our vast, infinite, and incomputable wealth. What constitutes the abject poverty of an ungodly man? His being without God in the world. Be you, my reader, rich or poor, high or low in this world, without God, you are undone to all eternity. It is but of trivial moment whether you pass in rags and lowliness, or move in ermine and pomp, to the torments of the lost; those torments will be your changeless inheritance, living and dying without God, and without Christ, and without hope. But contrast this with the state of the poorest child of God. The universe is not only his—"for all things are yours"—but the God of the universe is his: "The Lord is my portion, says my soul, therefore will I hope in Him." We have a deathless interest in every perfection of the Divine nature. Is it Wisdom? it counsels us. Is it Power? it shields us. Is it Love? it soothes us. Is it Mercy? it upholds us. Is it truth? it cleaves to us. "As the mountains are round about Jerusalem, so the Lord is round about His people, from henceforth, even for evermore." What more can we ask than this? If God be ours, we possess the substance and the security of every other blessing. He would bring us to an absolute trust in an absolute God. Winning us to an entire relinquishment of all expectation from any other source, He would allure us to His feet with the language of the Church breathing from our lips—"Behold, we come unto You, for You are the Lord our God. Truly in vain is salvation hoped for from the hills, and from the multitude of mountains: truly in the Lord our God is the salvation of Israel." It is in the heart of our God to give us the chief and the best. Had there been a greater, a better, a sweeter, and a more satisfying portion than Himself, then that portion had been ours. But since there is not, nor can be, a greater than He, the love, the everlasting, changeless love that He bears to us constrains Him to give Himself as our God, our portion, our all. And have we not experienced Him to be God all-sufficient? Have we ever found a want or a lack in Him? May He not justly challenge us, and ask, "Have I been a wilderness unto Israel? a land of darkness?" Oh no! God is all-sufficient, and no arid wilderness, no dreary land, have we experienced Him to be. There is in Him an all-sufficiency of love to comfort us; an all-sufficiency of strength to uphold us; an all-sufficiency of power to protect us; and all-sufficiency of good to satisfy us; an all-sufficiency of wisdom to guide us; an all-sufficiency of glory to reward us; and an all-sufficiency of bliss to make us happy here, and happy to all eternity. Such is the inheritance to which, as children of God, we are the heirs.

SEPTEMBER 13.

"Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God: therefore the world knows us not, because it knew him not." 1 John 3:1

IT is not strange that the fact of his adoption should meet with much misgiving in the Christian's mind, seeing that it is a truth so spiritual, flows from a source so concealed, and has its seat in the profound recesses of the soul. The very stupendousness of the relationship staggers our belief. To be fully assured of our divine adoption demands other than the testimony either of our own feelings, or the opinion of men. Our feelings—sometimes excited and visionary—may mislead; the opinion of others—often fond and partial—may deceive us. The grand, the divine, and only safe testimony is "the Spirit itself bears witness with our spirit." There exists a strong combination of evil, tending to shake the Christian's confidence in the belief of his sonship. Satan is ever on the watch to insinuate the doubt. He tried the experiment with our Lord: "If You be the Son of God." In no instance would it appear that he actually denied the truth of Christ's Divine Sonship; the utmost that his temerity permitted was the suggestion to the mind of a doubt; leaving it there to its own working. Our blessed Lord thus assailed, it is no marvel that His disciples should be exposed to a like assault. The world, too, presumes to call it in question. "The world knows us not, because it knew Him not." Ignorant of the Divine Original, how can it recognize the Divine lineaments in the faint and imperfect copy? It has no vocabulary by which it can decipher the "new name written in the white stone." The sons of God are in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation, illumining it with their light, and preserving it by their grace, yet disguised from its knowledge, and hidden from its view. But the strongest doubts touching the validity of his adoption are those engender in the believer's own mind. Oh! there is much there to generate and foster the painful misgiving. We have said that the very greatness of the favor, the stupendousness of the relationship, startles the mind, and staggers our faith. "What! to be a child of God! God my Father! can I be the subject of a change so great, of a relationship so exalted? Who am I, O Lord God, and what is my house, that You should exalt me to be a King's son? Is this the manner of men, O Lord God?" And then, there crowd upon the believer's mind thoughts of his own sinfulness and unworthiness of so distinguished a blessing. "Can it be? with such a depravity of heart, such carnality of mind, such rebellion of will, such a propensity to evil each moment, and in everything such backslidings and flaws, does there yet exist within me a nature that links me with the Divine? It seems impossible!" And when to all this are added the varied dispensations of his Heavenly Father, often wearing a rough garb, assuming an aspect somber, threatening, and crushing, oh, it is no marvel that, staggered by a discipline so severe, the fact of God's love to him, and of his close and tender relation to God, should sometimes be a matter of painful doubt; that thus he should reason—"If His child, reposing in His heart, and sealed upon His arm, why is it thus? Would He not have spared me this heavy stroke? Would not this cup have passed my lips? Would He have asked me to slay my Isaac, to resign my Benjamin? All these things are against me." And thus are the children of God constantly tempted to question the fact of their adoption.

SEPTEMBER 14.

"The Spirit itself bears witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God." Romans 8:16

AS to the great truth thus witnessed to by the Spirit, we are not to suppose that the testimony is intended to make the fact itself more sure; but simply to confirm our own minds in the comfortable assurance of it. Our actual adoption cannot be more certain than it is. It is secured to us by the predestinating love of God and the everlasting covenant of grace; is confirmed by our union with the Lord Jesus, and is sealed by the Holy Spirit of promise, "Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will." It is not for the benefit of our fellow-creatures, still less for the satisfaction of God Himself, but for the assurance and comfort of our own hearts, that the Spirit bears witness with our spirits that we are the children of God. The testimony is for the confirmation of our own faith, and the consolation of our own hearts.

But the question arises, What is the mode of His testimony? In attempting to supply an answer, we must acknowledge that we have no certain data to guide us. Sufficient light, however, beams from His work in general, to assist us in forming an intelligent and correct idea of His operations. How, then, may we suppose the Spirit witnesses with our spirit? Not by visions and voices; not by heats and fancies; nor by any direct inspiration, or new revelation of truth. Far different from this is the mode of His testimony. We may gather from the measure of light vouchsafed, that He first implants within the soul the germ of spiritual life, which, beneath His culture, produces the "fruits of love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance." From these we are left to draw the rational deduction of our adoption. If, for example, a child of God, with all lowliness of spirit, and after much prayerful inquiry, discover that, more or less, some of these effects of the Spirit's operation are developed in his experience, then it is no presumption in that individual, honestly and humbly to conclude that he is a child of God. This is the Spirit's witness, and he cannot gainsay it without wilful blindness, nor reject it without positive sin. The breathing of the renewed heart after holiness supplies another illustration of the mode of the Spirit's testimony. The panting after Divine conformity is the Spirit's inspiration. Where, therefore, it exists, the deduction is that the individual is a child of God. Thus, be begetting in us the Divine nature, by producing in us spiritual fruits, and by breathing in our souls a desire for holiness, the Spirit conducts us to the rational conclusion that we are born of God. By shedding abroad God's love in the soul—by sprinkling the conscience with the atoning blood—by endearing the Savior to our hearts—by leading us more simply to rest in His finished work, yes, to rest in Himself—by creating and increasing love to the members of the one family, and fellowship with whatever is holy, heavenly, and useful, He thus testifies to our Divine relationship.

SEPTEMBER 15.

"That by two immutable things, in which it was impossible for God to lie, we might have a strong consolation, who have fled for refuge to lay hold upon the hope set before us: which hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast, and which enters into that within the veil; where the forerunner is for us entered, even Jesus." Hebrews 6:17-19

THE hope of heaven fostered by an unrenewed mind is baseless and illusory. There exists not a single element of goodness in its nature. It is the conception of a mind at enmity with God. It is the delusion of a heart in covenant with death, and in agreement with hell. It is the treacherous beacon that decoys the too confiding but deluded voyager to the rock-bound shore. Unscriptural, unreal, and baseless, it must eventually cover its possessor with shame and confusion of face. But not such is the believer's hope. Begotten with his second nature—the in-breathing of the Spirit of God—an element of renewed mind, and based upon the atonement of the Savior, it must be essentially a good hope. Cleansed from moral impurity, not in the laver of baptism, but with the blood of Christ; justified, not by the ritual of Moses, but by the righteousness of the incarnate God; sanctified, not by sacramental grace, falsely so called, but by the in-being of the Holy Spirit—the believer's hope of heaven is as well founded as the throne of the Eternal. Moreover it is "a good hope through grace." The first and the last lesson we learn in our Christian course is, that "by grace we are saved." Lord! do You require of me one thought of stainless purity, one throb of perfect love, one deed of unsullied holiness, upon which shall hinge my everlasting happiness? Then am I lost forever! But since You have provided a righteousness that justifies me from all things, that frees me from all condemnation—and since this righteousness is Your free, unpurchased gift, the bestowment of sovereign grace—I clasp to my trembling yet believing heart the joyous hope this truth inspires. It is a blessed hope. "Looking for that blessed hope." Its object is most blessed. The heaven it compasses is that blissful place where the holy ones who have fled from our embrace are reposing in the bosom of the Savior. They are the blessed dead. The day of their death was to them better than the day of their birth. The one was the introduction to all sorrow, the other is a translation to all joy. Blessed hope! the hope of being forever with the Lord. No more to grieve the Spirit that so often and so soothingly comforted our hearts; no more to wound the gentle bosom that so often pillowed our head. No more to journey in darkness, nor bend as a bruised reed before each blast of temptation. To be a pillar in the temple of God, to go no more out forever. And what a sanctifying hope is it! This, to the spiritual mind, is its most acceptable and elevating feature. "Every man that has this hope in him purifies himself even as He is pure." It detaches from earth, and allures to heaven. Never does it glow more brightly in the soul, nor kindle around the path a luster more heavenly, than when it strengthens in the believer a growing conformity of character to that heaven towards which it soars. It is, in a word, a sure hope. Shall the worm undermine it? shall the tempest shake it? shall the waters extinguish it? Never. It saves us. It keeps, preserves, and sustains us amid the perils and depressions of our earthly pilgrimage. And having borne us through the flood, it will not fail us when the last surge lands us upon the shore of eternity.

SEPTEMBER 16.

"The body is dead because of sin." Romans 8:10

WHAT body is referred to here? Certainly not, as some have supposed, the body of sin. Who can with truth affirm of it that it is dead? The individual who claims as his attainment a state of sinless perfection, an entire victory over the evil propensities and actings of his fallen nature, has yet to learn the alphabet of experimental Christianity. Pride is the baneful root, and a fall is often the fatal consequence of such an error. Oh no! the body of sin yet lives, and dies not but with death itself. We part not with innate and indwelling sin but with the parting breath of life, and then we part with it forever. But it is the natural body to which the apostle refers. And what an affecting fact is this! Redeemed by the sacrifice, and inhabited by the Spirit of Christ, though it be, yet this material fabric, this body of our humiliation, tends to disease, decay, and death; and, sooner or later, wrapped in its shroud, must make its home in the grave, and mingle once more with its kindred dust. "The body is dead because of sin." Our redemption by Christ exempts us not from the conflict and the victory of the last enemy. We must confront the grim foe, must succumb to his dread power, and wear his pale trophies upon our brow. We must die—are dying men—because of sin. "Death has passed upon all men, for that all have sinned." And this law remains unrepealed, though Christ has delivered us from the curse. From this humiliating necessity of our nature even the non-condemned find no avenue of escape; from this terrible conflict, no retreat. One event happens to the wicked and the righteous—they both leave the world by the same dismal process of dissolution. But the character of death is essentially changed; and herein lies the great difference. In the one case death is armed with all its terrors; in the other, it is invested with all its charms—for death has an indescribable charm to the believer in Jesus. Christ did not die to exempt us from the process of death; but He died to exempt us from the sting of death. If, because of original and indwelling sin in the regenerate, they must taste of death; yet, because of pardoned sin in the regenerate, the "bitterness of death is passed." If, because there exists a virus in the body, the body must dissolve; yet, because there exists an infallible antidote, the redeemed soul does not see death as it passes through the gloomy portal, and enters into its own life, light, and immortality. How changed the character of death! If the body of the redeemed is under the sentence, and has within it the seeds of death, and must be destroyed, yet that death is to him the epoch of glory. It is then that the life within germinates and expands; it is then that he really begins to live. His death is the birthday of his immortality. Thus, in the inventory of the covenant, death ranks among the chief of its blessings, and becomes a covenant mercy. "Death is gain." "What!" exclaims the astonished believer, "death a blessing—a covenant blessing! I have been used to contemplate it as my direst curse, to dread it as my greatest foe." Yes; if death is the sad necessity, it is also the precious privilege of our being. In the case of those who are in Christ Jesus, it is not the execution of a judicial sentence, but the realization of a covenant mercy. And, as the Christian marks the symptoms of his approaching and inevitable dissolution—watching the slow but unmistakable advances of the fell destroyer—he can exclaim, as he realizes that there is now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus—

"Come, Death, shake hands; I'll kiss your bands—
'It is happiness for me to die.
What! do you think that I will shrink?—
I go to immortality."

"Because of sin." Ah! it is this truth whose dark shadow flits across the brightness of the Christian's condition. To what are all our ailments, calamities, and sorrows traceable, but to sin? And why do we die? "Because of sin." The immediate and proximate causes of death are but secondary agents. Had we not transgressed, we then had not died. Deathlessness would have been our natural and inalienable birthright. And were we more spiritually-minded than we are, while we looked onward with steady faith to a signal and glorious triumph over the King of Terrors, we should blend with the bright anticipation of the coming victory, the humbling conviction that we have sinned, and that therefore "the body is dead.

SEPTEMBER 17.

"This is life eternal, that they might know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent." John 17:3

WHEN does this acquaintance between God and man commence? It commences in reconciliation—it commences at the time of man's peace with God. I can form no acquaintance with an individual against whom my heart cherishes deep, inveterate, and deadly enmity; my very hatred, my very dislike to that individual prevents me from studying his character, from analyzing his heart, and from knowing what are his feelings towards me. But bring me into a state of amity with that individual—remove my enmity, take away my dislike, propitiate his feelings towards me, and then I am in a position for studying and becoming acquainted with his character. The Holy Spirit does this in man; He takes away the enmity of the sinner's heart, humbles his spirit, and bows it in penitence; constrains the sinner to lay down the weapons of his hostility against God—brings him to see that the God against whom he has been battling and fighting all his life is a God of love, a God who draws sinners to Himself, a God who is reconciled in Jesus Christ. That soul, disarmed of its rebellion and enmity, is now brought into a position for the study of God's character. Looking at God now, not through the law, but through the gospel, not in creation, but in Christ, he is in a position for becoming acquainted with God. And oh what an acquaintance he now forms! All his dark and shadowy conceptions vanish away; all his distorted views are rectified; and the God that he thought was a God so hateful, a God whose law was so repulsive, a God who was so harsh and tyrannical, he sees now to be a God of infinite mercy and love in Jesus Christ: now he becomes acquainted with Him as a sin-pardoning God, blotting out the utmost remnant of his transgressions; he becomes acquainted with Him as a God reconciled in Christ, and therefore a Father pacified towards him. Oh! what a discovery is made to him of that God, with whom before his soul lived in the darkest and deepest alienation! Thus he becomes acquainted with God, when his heart becomes reconciled to God. A closer and more simple view of Jesus, a daily study of Jesus, must deepen my acquaintance with God. As I know more of the heart of Christ, I know more of the heart of the Father; as I know more of the love of the Savior, I know more of the love of Him who gave me that Savior; as I know more of His travail of soul, to work out my redemption—as I know more of the tears of blood He shed—as I know more of the groans of agony He breathed—as I know more of the convulsions through which He passed—as I know more of the death-throes of the spotless soul of His—I know more of the heart of God, more of the character of God, and more of the love of God. Want you to see more of the glory of God? See it in the face of Jesus. Learn it in the "brightness of the Father's glory," learn it in "the express image of His person," as it stands revealed to you in the person and in the work of Jesus Christ.

SEPTEMBER 18.

"But we all with open face, beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord." 2 Corinthians 3:18

Is your knowledge of God a transforming knowledge? Have you so become acquainted with God as to receive the impress (as it were) of what God is?—for a true knowledge of God is a transforming knowledge. As I look upon the glory of God I am changed into that glory; and as my acquaintance with God deepens, I become more like God. There is a transfer of God's moral image to my soul. Is your knowledge then transforming? Does your acquaintance with God make you more like God—more holy, more divine, more heavenly, more spiritual? Does it prompt you to pant after conformity to God's mind, desiring in all things to walk so as to please God, and to have, as it were, a transfer of the nature of God to your soul? Examine, therefore, your professed acquaintance with God, and see whether it is that acquaintance which will bring you to heaven, and will go on increasing through the countless ages of eternity.

And I would say to God's saints—trace the cause of much of our uneven walking, of our little holiness, and, consequently, of our little happiness, to our imperfect acquaintance with what God is. Did I know more of what God is to me in Christ—how He loves me, what a deep interest He takes in all my concerns—did I know that He never withdraws His eye from me for one moment, that His heart of love never grows cold—oh! did I but know this, would I not walk more as one acquainted with God? Would I not desire to consult Him in all that interests me, to acknowledge Him in all my ways, to look up to Him in all things, and to deal with Him in all matters? Would I not desire to be more like Him, more holy, more divine, more Christ-like? Yes, beloved; it is because we know Him so little, that we walk so much in uneven ways. We consult man rather than God; we flee to the asylum of a creature-bosom, rather than to the bosom of the Father; we go to the sympathy of man, rather than to the sympathy of God in Christ, because we are so imperfectly acquainted with God. But did I know more clearly what God is to me in the Son of His love, I should say—I have not a trial but I may take that trial to my Father; I am not in a perplexity but I may go to God for counsel; I am in no difficulty, I have no want, but it is my privilege to spread it before my Father—to unveil my heart of sin, my heart of wretchedness, my heart of poverty, to Him who has unveiled His heart of love, His heart of grace, His heart of tenderness to me in Christ. As I become more acquainted with God, my character and my Christian walk will be more even, more circumspect, more holy, and consequently more happy.

SEPTEMBER 19

"And Jonathan Saul's son arose, and went to David into the wood, and strengthened his hand in God." 1 Samuel 23:16

THE Lord's vineyard is a large one, and the departments of labor are many and varied. And if, in this world of activity—where so many agencies, evil and good, are at work, where so many influences, for weal and for woe, are in constant and untiring operation—there is one class which demands our warmest interest, our most fervent prayers, and our most affectionate sympathy and support, it is those who are actively and devotedly employed in the kingdom and service of Jesus. It is needless to enumerate or specify them: those who are preaching Christ's gospel; those who are teaching the little ones; those who are instructing and training the young about to enter upon life; those who disseminate God's holy word, and promote religious literature; those who visit the sick and the dying, the stranger, and the prisoner, and especial and strong claims upon our Christian sympathy. A little expression of kind interest in their self-denying labors, oh, how often has it inspirited, cheered, and encouraged them! What a privilege to repair to the scene of their toil, anxiety, and discouragement, and by a visit, a word, a donation, "strengthen their hand in God"—that hand often so feeble, tremulous, and ready to fall. And is there not a lamentable lack of sympathy for the Christian missionary? Who so much demands, and who so worthy of the support, the prayers, the sympathy of the Christian Church, as those who are her messengers and almoners to the far distant heathen? How much do they need that by our petitions, our zealous cooperation, and our consecrated substance, we strengthen their hand in God! Let us, then, cheer all Christ's true laborers, remembering that thus, indirectly, we are urging forward His truth and kingdom in the world. Nor let us withhold our sympathy from any case of sorrow, Christian effort, or individual labor, on the plea that its expression and its source are feeble, uncostly, and obscure. Ah! from many a darkened chamber, from many a sleepless pillow, from many a couch of languor, there has gone up the secret, silent, but fervent and believing wrestle with the Angel of the covenant in behalf of some Christian laborer, or some Christian enterprise, that has brought down from heaven the grace and might, and smile of Omnipotence, to support, strengthen, and bless. Thus sympathy has its home in every holy heart and in every lowly dwelling; and there is no individual, however straitened by poverty, or veiled by obscurity, oppressed by trial, or enfeebled by sickness, form the altar of whose heart there my not ascent the sweetest, holiest, most precious and powerful of all human offerings—the offering and the incense of a true and prayerful sympathy.

SEPTEMBER 20.

"Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil." Matthew 4:1

IMAGINE yourself, my Christian reader, shut in for a single day with one of the vilest and most degraded of our species. During that period, his whole conversation shall be an attempt to tamper with your allegiance to Christ, to undermine your principles, to pollute your mind, to infuse blasphemous thoughts, to wound your conscience, and destroy your peace. What mental suffering, what grief, what torture would your soul endure in the period of time! Yet all this, and infinitely more, did Jesus pass through. For forty days and nights was He enclosed in the wilderness with Satan. Never were the assaults of the prince of darkness more fearful, never were his fiery darts more surely aimed and powerfully winged, and never had so shining a mark presented itself as the object of his attack as now.

Our Lord's exposure to temptation, and His consequent capability of yielding to its solicitations, has its foundation in His perfect humanity. It surely requires not an argument to show that, as God, He could not be tempted, but that, as man, He could. His inferior nature was finite and created; it was not angelic, it was human. It was perfectly identical with our own, its entire exemption from all taint of sin only excepted. A human body and a human mind were His, with all their essential and peculiar properties. He was "bone of our bone, and flesh and our flesh;" He traveled up through the stages of infancy, boyhood, and manhood; He was encompassed with all the weaknesses, surrounded by all the circumstances, exposed to all the inconveniences, that belong to our nature. He breathed our air, trod our earth, ate our food. The higher attributes of our being were His also. Reason, conscience, memory, will, affections, were essential appendages of that human soul which the Son of God took into union with His Divinity. As such, then, our Lord was tempted. As such, too, He was capable of yielding. His finite nature, though pure and sinless, was yet necessarily limited in its resources, and weak in its own powers. Touching His inferior nature, He was but man. The Godhead was not humanized, nor was the humanity deified, by the blending together of the two natures. Each retained its essential characters, properties, and attributes, distinct, unchanged, and unchangeable.

But let no one suppose that a liability in Jesus to yield to Satan's temptation necessarily implies the existence of the same sinful and corrupt nature which we possess. Far from it. To deny His capability of succumbing to temptation were to neutralize the force, beauty, and instruction of the eventful part of His history altogether. It were to reduce a splendid fact to an empty fable, a blessed reality to a vague supposition; it were to rob Jesus of the great glory which covered Him when left alone, the victor on this battlefield. And yet that He must necessarily be sinful, in order to be thus capable of yielding, does not follow; it is an error of judgment to suppose that the force of a temptation always depends upon the inherent sinfulness of the person who is tempted. The case of the first Adam disproves this supposition, and in some of its essential features strikingly illustrates the case of the second Adam. In what consisted the strength of the assault before whose fearful onset Adam yielded? Surely not in any indwelling sin, for he was pure and upright. There was no appeal to the existence of an corrupt principles or propensities; no working upon any fallen desires and tendencies in his nature; for, until the moment that the blast swept him to the earth, no angel in heaven stood before the throne purer or more faultless than he. But God left him to the necessary weakness and poverty of his own nature, and thus withdrawing His Divine support and restraint, that instant he fell! That our adorable Lord did not fall, and was not overcome in His fearful conflict with the same foe, was owing solely to the upholding of the Deity, and the indwelling and restraining power of the Holy Spirit, which He possessed without measure.

SEPTEMBER 21.

"For in that he himself has suffered being tempted, he is able to support those who are tempted." Hebrews 2:18

DO YOU THINK, my reader, was it no humiliation for the Son of God to be thus assailed by the prince of darkness? Was it no degradation, that His dignity should be questioned, His authority disputed, His reverence for and allegiance to, His Father assailed, and His very purity tampered with by a fallen and corrupt spirit whom He had ejected from heaven? Ah! how deeply and keenly He must have felt it to be so, the first moment He was brought in contact with this arch-fiend and subtle foe of God and man! But, oh, what glory beams from beneath this dark veil of Christ's humiliation! How lovely and precious an object does He appear to saints and angels in this wondrous transaction! What holy sympathies and fond affections are kindled in the heart, and rise towards Him, as the eye surveys each particular—the appalling nature of the onset—the shock which His humanity sustained—the mighty power by which He was upheld—the signal victory which He achieved—the Divine consolation and comfort which flowed into His soul as His vanquished enemy retired from the conflict, leaving Him more than conqueror—and above all, the close and tender sympathy into which He was now brought with a tempted Church! These are features replete with thrilling interest and rich instruction, on which the renewed mind delights to dwell.

But our Lord's humiliation went deeper still than this! The clouds now gathering around Him grew darker and more portentous as He advanced towards the final conflict. We must consider the first step of His bearing sin, the painful consciousness of which increased as the hour of its atonement drew on, as forming one of the most overwhelming demonstrations of that voluntary abasement to which He had stooped, and through which He was now passing. In the following passages this great truth of the Gospel is explicitly and emphatically stated. And let it be borne in mind, that when the Holy Spirit represents our Lord as bearing sin, the statement is not to receive a figurative, but a perfectly literal interpretation, as asserting a solemn and momentous fact. He bore not the appearance of sin, or the punishment merely of sin, but the sin itself.

Thus does the Holy Spirit declare it: "He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities." "The Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all." "He shall bear their iniquities." "He bare the sin of many." "Who His own self bare our sins in His own body on the tree." "He has made Him to be sin for us, who knew no sin." There stood the eternal God, in the closest proximity to the evil one. Never did two extremes, so opposite to each other, meet in such near contiguity and collision. Essential sin, essential holiness; essential darkness, essential light; essential hatred, essential love; man's deadliest foe, man's dearest friend. What an hour of seeming power and triumph was this to the grand adversary of God and man! what an hour of deepening gloom and humiliation and defeat to God's beloved Son! How would this Lucifer of the morning exult, as with the swellings of pride he placed his foot upon incarnate Deity! And how keenly and powerfully conscious would Jesus be, at that moment, of the deep abasement and degradation to which He had now sunk!

But behold how this great transaction contributed to the deep humiliation of the Son of God. What must have been the revulsion of moral feeling, what the shrinking of His holy soul, the first instant it came in personal contact with sin! What a mighty convulsion must have rocked His human nature, pure and sinless as it was! Saint of God! what composes your bitterest cup, and what constitutes your keenest, deepest sorrow? Has a tender Father blown upon your blessings, removed your mercies, lessened your comforts, darkened your bright landscape, dried up your sweet spring? Is this the cause of your shaded brow, your anxious look, your tearful eye, your troubled and disconsolate spirit? "Ah, no!" you perhaps exclaim; "rid me of this body of sin, and you chase the cloud from my brow, the tear from my eye, and the sorrow from my heart. It is the sin that dwells in me." Do you think, then, what the spotless Lamb of God must have felt, and how deeply must it have entered into His humiliation—the existence of an all-absorbing, ever present, and ever painful and humiliating consciousness of bearing upon His holy soul iniquity, transgression, and sin!

SEPTEMBER 22.

"A little while and you shall not see me: and again, a little while, and you shall see me, because I go to the Father."

THE sacred friendships we form in our present state enter deeply into our future happiness. A bosom friend—and we now speak only of the sympathy which a mutual hope in Christ inspires—we feel to be a part of our own existence, an essential element of our intellectual and moral being. Such a friend is identified with our immortality. The affection inspired, the communion maintained, the communion enjoyed here, surely form but the embryo, the germ, of that friendship which, in its fullness and perfection, awaits us on high. The very character of earth's sacred friendships points us to a fuller development. Is the communion, the communion, the reciprocation of feeling springing from a warm confidential and exclusive friendship, at all commensurate with the depth and intensity of the affection that inspires it? Alas! not so. How little and how imperfect here the communion of kindred hearts! Places, oceans, circumstances separate, and it is but now and then that we sip the sweets of a full and unalloyed communion. And then, how frequently does death step in, and cast its shadow and its blight over the heart's fondest treasure! the thread is broken, and our bosom friend is gone! "A little while, and you shall not see me," gently whispers each holy, precious friendship of the heart. It is but "a little while" we enjoy the friends God gives us, and then, disappearing within the veil of eternity, we see them no more. But are they lost? Oh no! Another voice is heard—it is as a voice from heaven speaking—"And again a little while, and you shall see me, because I go to the Father." Yes! it is but a "little while," and we shall see them again; because they are safe in the house and reposing in the bosom of their Father.

And what is heaven? It is not a place of solitude and loneliness. There is society there—there is companionship there. And the life of the blessed will be a life of the closest personal communion and of the highest social enjoyment. And what beings in the Father's house will be more likely to participate with us, and, by participation, heighten, the joys of heaven? Surely those who, in this lower world, were more closely than all others endeared and assimilated to us, by affection, providence, communion, and time. And when we have passed through the portal of death, and find ourselves in glory, who, amid the bright throng of redeemed spirits, will be the first objects of our eager search? Will it not be those who on earth we knew and loved better than others, and whose associations were so interwoven with our earthly and former life, that not to renew the same peculiar friendship, freed from all the imperfections of sin, and not to enjoy again the same hallowed communion, would be like the destruction of our consciousness and memory? Yes! a little while, and we shall see them again! Oh blessed reunion and of the holy dead! Beloved, in a little while we shall see them all again, because they are with the Father. Let us comfort one another with these words.

SEPTEMBER 23.

"For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us." Romans 8:18

THE world, where not a spot is found unscathed by the curse, must be a world of suffering. The world, where sin holds its universal empire, tainting every object, and beclouding every scene, must be a world of suffering. The world, where the spirit is wounded, and the heart is broken, where reason is dethroned, and hope languishes, where the eye weeps, and the nerve trembles, where sickness wastes, and death reigns, must needs be a world of suffering. From none of these forms of woe does Christianity exempt its believers. But with this truth, on the other hand, it soothes and reconciles—they are the sufferings of the present time. They are but momentary, will soon be over—and forever. We live in a dying world—a world that is passing away. Time is short—is ever on the wing; and we are ever on the wing of time, borne each moment by its sweeping pinion nearer and still nearer our Father's house; of whose occupants it is said, "God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away." Oh, how gentle is the admonition—"Arise you, and depart; for this is not your rest: because it is polluted"! Then comes the glory—"the glory which shall be revealed in us." What word could more appropriately express the future condition of the saints? The world claims the title, but has no claim to the reality. What is the glory of science—of learning—of rank—of wealth, but a tinseled pageant, a meteor blazing for a moment, and then disappearing in eternal night? But the glory that awaits the suffering Christian is a real, a substantial glory. At present it is veiled. The world sees it not; the believer only beholds it through faith's telescope. But the day of its full, unclouded revelation awaits us. It draws near. It will be a glory revealed in us. This truth may be startling to some. "What!" they exclaim, "a glory to be revealed in me! In me, who can scarcely reflect a solitary ray of light! In me, so dark, so sinful, living at so remote a distance from communion with the Father of lights! Can it be that in me this glory will be revealed?" So affirms the word of our God. If a child of the light, dwelling, it may be, in the world's shade, and often called to walk in great darkness, you shall one day outshine the brightness of the firmament and the stars forever and ever.

SEPTEMBER 24.

"For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, works for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory." 2 Corinthians 4:17

IN what respects will it be a glory revealed in us? It will be the glory of perfect knowledge. "Now we see through a glass darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known." Oh, what an orb of intellectual light will be each glorified mind! What capacity of understanding will it develop—what range of thought will it compass—what perfection of knowledge will it attain! How will all mysteries then be unraveled, and all problems then be solved, and all discrepancies then be reconciled; and every truth of God's revelation, every event of God's providence, every decision of God's government, stand out more transparent and resplendent than ten thousand suns. Do you, in your present search for spiritual knowledge, deplore the darkness of your mind, the feebleness of your memory—the energy of your mental faculties impaired, dimmed, and exhausted? Oh, rejoice in hope of the glory that is to be revealed in you, when all your intellectual powers will be renewed as the eagle's strength; developed, sanctified, and perfected, to a degree outvying the mightiest angel in heaven. Then shall we know God and Christ, and truth, and providence, and ourselves, even as now we are known. It will also be a glory in us of perfect holiness. The kingdom within us will then be complete; the good work of grace will then be perfected. It will be the consummation of holiness, the perfection of purity. No more sin! The conscience no more sullied—the thoughts no more defiled—the affections no more ensnared—but a glory of holiness, dazzling and resplendent, beyond an angel's, revealed in us. "It does not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that when He shall appear, we shall be like Him."

The glory of perfect happiness will be the certain effect of perfect sanctity. The completeness of Christ is the completeness of moral purity. With reverence be it spoken, God Himself could not be a perfectly happy, were He not a perfectly holy Being. The radiance of the glorified countenance of the saints will be the reflection of holy thoughts and holy feelings glowing within. Joy and peace and full satisfaction will beam in every feature, because every faculty and feeling and emotion of the soul will be in perfect unison with the will, and in perfect assimilation to the image, of God. Who can paint the happiness of that world from where everything is banished that could sully its purity, disturb its harmony, and ruffle its repose?—where everything is included that comports with its sanctity, harmonizes with its grandeur, and heightens its bliss. Oh, yes! it will be a glory revealed in us. The glory of the Father's adoption—the glory of Christ's atonement—the glory of the Spirit's regeneration, radiating from a poor fallen son of Adam—a sinner redeemed, renewed, and saved. And what is each present ray of heavenly light, each thrill of divine love, each victory of indwelling grace, and each glimpse of the upper world, but the foreshadowings of the glory yet to be revealed in us? Suffering and glory thus placed side by side, thus contrasted and weighed, to what conclusion does our apostle arrive? "I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us." No, not worthy of a comparison. Do we measure their relative duration? "Then, our light affliction is but for a moment," while our glory is a "far more exceeding and eternal weight." Before long all suffering and sorrow will forever have passed away—a thing of history and of memory only—while glory will deepen and expand as eternity rolls on its endless ages. Do we weight them? What comparison has the weight of the cross with the weight of the crown? Place in the scales the present "light affliction" and the future "exceeding and eternal weight of glory," which is the lightest? Are they worthy to be compared? Oh, no! One second of glory will extinguish a life-time of suffering. What were long years of toil, of sickness, of battle with poverty, persecution, and sorrow in every form, and closing even with a martyr's death, weighted with one draught of the river of pleasure at Christ's right hand—with one breath of Paradise—with one wave of heaven's glory—with one embrace of Jesus—with one sight of God? Oh, what are the pangs of present separation, in comparison with the joy of future reunion? What the pinchings of poverty now, with the untold riches then? What the suffering, and gloom, and contempt of the present time, with the glory that is to be revealed in us? We can go no further. Tell us, you spirits of just men made perfect, if it be lawful, if it be possible, what the glory that awaits us is! Tell us what it is to be an unclothed spirit—to dwell in the bosom of Jesus—to see God—to be perfectly holy—to be supremely happy! Wait, my soul! before long it will be all revealed!

SEPTEMBER 25.

"And do not be conformed to this world: but be you transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect will of God." Romans 12:2

THE world, and the love of it, and conformity to it, may please and assist the life of sense, but it is opposed to, and will retard, the life of faith. Not more opposed in their natures are the flesh and the Spirit, darkness and light, sin and holiness, than are a vigorous life of faith and a sinful love of the world. Professor of the gospel! guard against the world; it is your great bane: watch against conformity to it in your dress, in your mode of living, in the education of your children, in the principles, motives, and policy that govern you. Grieve not, then, the Holy Spirit of God by any known inconsistency of conduct, any sinful conformity to the world, any inordinate pursuit of its wealth, its honors, its pleasures, its friendships, and its great things. Pray against the sin of covetousness, that canker-worm that feeds at the root of so many souls; pray against the love of dress, that sin that diverts the mind of so many professors from the simplicity of Christ, and takes the eye off from the true adornment; pray against a thirst for light and trifling reading, that strange and sinful inconsistency of so many, the certain tendency of which is to starve the life of God in the soul, to engender a distaste for spiritual aliment, for the word of God, for holy meditation, and for Divine communion and fellowship—yes, pray against the spirit of worldly, sinful conformity in everything, that the Holy Spirit do not be grieved, and that Christ do not be dishonored and crucified afresh in and through you. It is to be feared that much of the professed Christianity of the day is of a compromising character. The spirit that marks so many is, "What will you give me, and I will deliver him unto you?" There is a betraying of Christ before the world—a bartering of Christianity for its good opinion, its places of honor, and influence, and emolument. The world, the flesh, and Satan are ever on the alert to frame a bargain with a Christian professor for his religion. "What will you give me in return?" is the eager inquiry of many. Oh, awful state! oh, fearful deception! oh, fatal delusion! Reader! are you a professing Christian? Then guard against the least compromise of your principles, the least betrayal of Jesus, the first step in an inconsistency of walk; above all, pray and watch against a worldly Christianity—a Christianity that wears a fair exterior, so far as it is composed of attendance upon sanctuary services and sacraments and religious institutions, but which excludes from it the cross of the meek and lowly Lamb of God—a Christianity which loves the world and the things of the world, "makes a fair show in the flesh," speaks well of Christ, and yet betrays Him with a kiss. Let not this be the model of your religion. The world is the sworn enemy of your Savior; let it not be your friend. No; come out of it, and be you separate.

SEPTEMBER 26.

"I know your works, that you are neither old nor hot: I would you were cold or hot. So then, because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor not, I will spue you out of my mouth." Revelation 3:15-16

OF all spiritual states, lukewarmness is most abhorrent to God, and grieving to the Holy Spirit; and thus has God declared His utter detestation of this state. And yet, who contemplates it in this awful light? who pauses to examine himself, to ascertain what real progress his soul is making—what grace is enfeebled—what part of the Spirit's work is decayed—what spot of his soul is barren and unfruitful, and how far he is secretly and effectually grieving the Holy Spirit by a known, allowed, and cherished state of spiritual declension? If, after all his skill, it must be affecting to the architect to witness the decay of his building—if so to the parent, after his costly expenditure of means in education, to witness the fond hopes he cherished of his child blasted—how infinitely more is the Spirit affected and grieved to behold the temple He had erected at such a cost falling to decay; the soul He had taught with such care and solicitude receding into a state of coldness and formality in its spiritual duties and affections! "The heart of the Spirit," beautifully remarks Dr. Owen, "is infinitely more tender towards us than that of the most affectionate parent can be towards an only child. And when He with cost and care has nourished and brought us up into some growth and progress in spiritual affections, wherein all His concerns in us do lie, for us to grow cold, dull, earthly-minded, to cleave unto the pleasures and lusts of this world, how is He grieved, how is He provoked!" See, then, that your spiritual state is such as occasions joy rather than grief to the Holy Spirit of God. Nothing can fill His loving heart with greater and more holy delight than to witness the deepening character and expanding influence of His own work in the believer. To behold the glimmering light, which He created, "shining more and more,"—the gentle plant emitting its fragrance, and putting forth its fruit—the well-spring in the heart rising heavenward, God-ward—such a picture must be grateful to the Spirit. If the enthroned Redeemer looks down with satisfaction upon the travail of His soul in the calling in of His redeemed, equally joyous must it be to the Eternal Spirit to behold the widening of His kingdom in the saints—the maturing of the soul for the inheritance and the companionship of "just men made perfect." To mark a growing conformity to the image of Christ—holiness expanding its root—each grace in active exercise—every weight cast aside—every sin mortified, and the whole body, soul, and spirit a rising temple to God, must indeed fill all heaven with joy. Christian reader, see well to your state, that the Holy Spirit of God is not grieved at any known and cherished declension of His work in the soul.

SEPTEMBER 27.

"Trust you in the Lord forever: for in the Lord Jehovah is everlasting strength." Isaiah 26:4

THERE is no act of the soul more acceptable to God, because there is none that brings more glory to His great name, than this. Wherever we trace in the Scriptures of truth a trust in the Lord, there we find especial and remarkable deliverance. It is recorded of the children of Israel that the Lord delivered their enemies into their hand, "for they cried to God in the battle, and He was entreated of them; because they put their trust in Him." Again, we read of God's wondrous message sent by Jeremiah to Abed-melech, the Ethiopian, "I will surely deliver you, and you shall not fall by the sword, but your life shall be for a prey unto you; because you have put your trust in me, says the Lord." The experience, too, of God's people confirms the blessedness of trusting in the Lord. "In God I have put my trust; I will not fear what flesh can do unto me." "It is better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in man." "The Lord is my strength and my shield; my heart trusted in Him, and I am helped." The promises connected with trusting in the Lord are equally rich and encouraging. "You will keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on You; because he trusts in You." "None of those who trust in Him shall be desolate." "The Lord knows those who trust in Him." "Oh, how great is Your goodness, which You have laid up for those who fear You; which You have wrought for those who trust in You before the sons of men. You shall hide them in the secret of Your presence." What a marvelous and precious cluster of Divine encouragements to those who trust in the Lord with all their heart, under all circumstances, and at all times! "Only trust," is Jesus' word. "This is all I ask of you, the utmost thing I require at your hand. I demand no costly sacrifice—no wearisome pilgrimage—no personal worthiness—no strength, or wisdom, or self-endeavors of your own. Only trust me. Only believe that I wait to answer prayer—that I am gracious—that I have all power at my command—that I have your interest at heart—that there is no good thing I am willing to withhold—that I, and I alone, can guide your present steps, can unravel the web of your difficulties, guide your perplexities, extricate you from the snares that have woven their net-work around your feet, and bring you through fire and through water into a wealthy place. Only trust me!" Beloved, is this too hard? Is the request unreasonable and impracticable? What! only to trust Jesus? Only to trust your needs to His ear—your burdens to His arm—your sorrows to His heart? Is this too hard? Is it beyond your power? Then tell Jesus so. Remind Him of His own words, "Without me you can do nothing." And ask at His hands the faith to trust, the heart to trust, the courage to trust, and the power to trust all your interests, temporal and spiritual, for time and for eternity, into His hands.

SEPTEMBER 28.

"Jesus answered and said unto her, Whoever drinks of this water shall thirst again; but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life." John 4:13-14

SELECT your choicest, sweetest temporal mercy, and say, is it satisfying to your soul? Does it, in its fullest enjoyment, leave no want unsupplied, no desire unmet, no void unfilled? Does it meet the cravings of the mind? Go into the garden of creature-blessing, and pluck the loveliest flower, and taste the sweetest fruit; repair to the cabinet of friendship, and select from thence its choicest pearl; pass round the wide circle of earth-born joy, and place your hand upon the chief and the best—is it the feeling of your heart and the language of your lips, "I am satisfied, I want no more"? Does it quench the spirit's thirst; does it soothe the heart's sorrow; does it meet the mind's cravings; does it quiet the troubled conscience, and lift the burden from the aching heart? Oh no! the height, the depth, the length, the breadth exclaim, "It is not in me: am I in God's stead?" But how blessed is that which truly satisfies! Listen to the gracious words of the Savior. "Whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst." Did language ever utter a sentiment more true than this? Jesus is an all-satisfying portion. They who have tried Him can testify that it is so. His is not a satisfaction in name, but in reality and in truth. There is a felt, a realized sense of holy satiety. The mind is content. The believer wanders no more in quest of happiness or of rest. He has found them both in Jesus. He is satisfied to stake his eternal all upon the finished work of Immanuel—to live upon His smile, to abide in His love, to draw upon His grace, to submit to His will, to bear His cross, to be guided by His counsel, and afterwards to be received by Him into glory. The Lord Jesus imparts contentment to the soul in which He enters and dwells. Vast as were those desires before, urgent as were those necessities, insatiable as were those cravings, and restless as was that mind, Jesus has met and satisfied them all. The magnetic power of His love has attracted to, and fixed the mind upon, Himself. "He satisfies the longing soul, and fills the hungry soul with goodness." The believer is satisfied that God should possess Him fully, govern him supremely, and guide him entirely, and be the sole Fountain from where he draws his happiness, gratefully acknowledging, "All my springs are in You." Thus is he content to be just what, and just where, his Father would have him. He is satisfied that he possesses God, and that, possessing God, he has all good in God. He knows that his Father cares for him; that He has undertaken to guide all his steps, and to provide for all his needs. The only anxiety which he feels as to the present is how he may the most glorify his dearest, his only Friend, casting the future on Him in the simplicity of child-like faith. Nor is the satisfaction thus felt limited to the present state. It passes on with the believer to eternity. It enters with him into the mansions of bliss. There, in unruffled serenity, in unalloyed joy, in unmingled bliss, it is perfect and complete. "You will show me the path of life: in Your presence is fullness of joy; at Your right hand there are pleasures for evermore." Happy saint! who have found your all in Jesus! Glorified spirit! would we recall you to these scenes of sin, of suffering, and of death? No! the needle of your soul no longer varies and trembles, diverted from its center by other and treacherous objects—Jesus fixes it now, and fixes it forever.

SEPTEMBER 29.

"For I have given you an example, that you should do as I have done to you." John 13:15

EVERY soul re-cast into this model, every mind conformed to this pattern, and every life reflecting this image, is an exalting and a glorifying of the Son of God. There is no single practical truth in the word of God on which the Spirit is more emphatic than the example which Christ has set for the imitation of His followers. The Church needed a perfect pattern, a flawless model. It wanted an impersonation, a living embodiment of those precepts of the gospel so strictly enjoined upon every believer, and God has graciously set before us our true model. "Whom He did foreknow, He also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of His Son." And what says Christ Himself? "My sheep follow me." We allow that there are points in which we cannot and are not required literally and strictly to follow Christ. We cannot lay claim to His infallibility. He who sets himself up as infallible in his judgment, spotlessly pure in his heart, and perfect in his attainments in holiness, deceives his own soul. Jesus did many things, too, as our Surety, which we cannot do. We cannot drink of the cup of Divine trembling which He drank; nor can we be baptized with the baptism of blood with which He was baptized. He did many things as a Jew—was circumcised, kept the passover &christian.—which are not obligatory upon us. And yet, in all that is essential to our sanctification, to our holy, obedient, God-glorifying walk, He has "left us an example, that we should follow His steps." In His lowly spirit, meek, humble deportment, and patient endurance of suffering: "Learn of me, for I am meek and lowly in heart." In the disinterestedness of His love, His pure benevolence, the unselfishness of His religion: "Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others: let this mind be you which was also in Christ Jesus." "For even Christ pleased not Himself." Look not every man on his own circle, his own family, his own gifts, his own interests, comfort, and happiness; upon his own Church, his own community, his own minister. Let him not look upon these exclusively. Let him not prefer his own advantage to the public good. Let him not be self-willed in matters involving the peace and comfort of others. Let him not form favorite theories, or individual opinions, to the hazard of a Church's prosperity or of a family's happiness. Let him yield, sacrifice, and give place, rather than carry a point to the detriment of others. Let him, with a generous, magnanimous, disinterested spirit, in all things imitate Jesus, who "pleased not Himself." Let him seek the good of others, honoring their gifts, respecting their opinions, nobly yielding when they correct and overrule his own. Let him promote the peace of the Church, consult the honor of Christ, and seek the glory of God, above and beyond all private and selfish ends. This is to be conformed to the image of God's dear Son, to which high calling we are predestinated; and in any feature of resemblance which the Holy Spirit brings out in the holy life of a follower of the Lamb, Christ is thereby glorified before men and angels.

SEPTEMBER 30.

"And because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father."

THE apostle employs in the original two different languages. It may not be improper to infer, that in using both the Syriac and Greek form—the one being familiar to the Jew, and the other to the Gentile—he would denote that both the Christian Jew and the believing Gentile were children of one family, and were alike privileged to approach God as a Father. Christ, our peace, has broken down the middle wall of partition that was between them; and now, at the same mercy-seat, the Christian Jew and the believing Gentile, both one in Christ Jesus, meet, as rays of light converge and blend in one common center, at the feet of their reconciled Father. The expressions, too, set forth the peculiarity and intensity of the affection. Literally, "Abba, Father," signifies "My Father." No bond-servant was permitted thus to address the master of the family; it was a privilege peculiar and sacred to the child. And when our blessed Lord would teach His disciples to pray, he led them to the mercy-seat, and sealed these precious words upon their lips—"Our father, which are in heaven." And after His resurrection, with increased emphasis and intensity did He give utterance to the same truth. Previously to His death, His words were, "I go to the Father." But when He came back from the grave, every truth He had before enunciated seemed quickened as with new life. How tender and touching were His words—"I ascend unto my Father, and your Father; and to my God, and your God." No longer a bondslave, but a son, oh, claim the dignity and privilege of your birthright! Approach God as your father. "Abba, Father!" How tender the relation! how intense the affection! what power it imparts to prayer! What may you not ask, and what can God refuse, with "Abba, Father," breathing in lowliness and love from your lips? Remember, it is an inalienable, unchangeable relation. Never, in any instance, or under any circumstance the most aggravated, does God forget it. He is as much our Father when He chastises as when He approves; as much so when He frowns as when He smiles; as much so when He brims the cup of adversity as when He bids us drink the cup of salvation. Behold the touching display of it in His gracious restorings: "But when he was yet a great way off, his father saw him, and had compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck and kissed him." In all his wanderings that father's love had never lost sight of his wayward child. It tracked him along all his windings, and waited and welcomed his return. We may doubt, and debase, and deny our divine relationship, yet God will never disown us as His children, nor disinherit us as His heirs. We may cease to act as a child, He will never cease to love as a Father. To Him, then, as to a Father, at all times repair.

OCTOBER 1.

"Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven." Matthew 5:16

LET your life be a clear reflection of the glory of the Redeemer. The saints of God are the only witnesses to this glory—the only reflectors the Lord has in this dark and Christ-denying world. Holiness, springing from the fount of the Spirit's indwelling grace, cherished and matured by close views of the cross, and imparting a character of sanctity of beauty to every act of your life, will be the highest testimony you can bear to the Redeemer's glory. That glory is entrusted to your hands. It is committed to your guardianship. Seeing, then, that it is so, "what manner of people ought you to be, in all holy conversation and godliness!" How exact in principles, and upright in conduct—how watchful over temper, and how vigilant where most assailed—how broad awake to the wiles of the devil, and how sleepless against the encroachments of sin—how strict in all transactions with the world, and how tender, charitable, meek, and forgiving, in all our conduct with the saints! Alas! we are at best but dim reflectors of this great glory of our Lord. We are unworthy and unfaithful depositories of so rich a treasure! How much of clinging infirmity, on unmortified sin, of carelessness of spirit, of unsanctified temper, of tampering with temptation, of a lack of strict integrity of uprightness, dims our light, neutralizes our testimony for God, and weakens, if not entirely destroys, our moral influence! We are not more eminently useful, because we are not more eminently holy. We bring so little glory to Christ, because we seek so much our own. We reflect so faint and flickering a beam, because our posture is so seldom that of the apocalyptic angel. "standing in the sun." We realize so imperfectly our oneness with, and standing in, Christ; and this will ever foster a feeble, fruitless, and drooping profession of Christianity. "As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine, no more can you, except you abide in me." Oh, to know more of this abiding in Christ! See how Jesus invites His saints to it. Are they fallen? He bids them take hold of His strength. Are they burdened? He bids them cast that burden on His arm. Are they wearied? He bids them recline on Him for rest. Does the world persecute them—do the "daughters of Jerusalem" smite them—does the watchman treat them unkindly? He bids them take refuge within the hallowed sanctuary of His own pierced and loving heart. Do they need grace? He bids them sink their empty vessel beneath the depths of His ocean fullness, and draw freely "more grace." Whatever corruptions distress them, whatever temptations assail them, whatever adversity grieves them, whatever cloud darkens them, whatever necessity presses upon them, as a watchful Shepherd, as a tender Brother, as a faithful Friend, as a great High Priest, He bids His saints draw near, and repose in His love. Oh, He has a capacious bosom; there is room, there is a chamber in that heart for you, my Christian reader. Do not think your lot is desolate, lonely, and friendless. Do not think that all have forsaken you, and that in sadness and in solitude you are treading your way through an intricate desert. There is One that loves you, that thinks of you, that has His eye upon you, and is at this moment guiding, upholding, and caring for you; that one is—Jesus! Oh that you could but look into His heart, and see how He loves you; oh that you could but hear Him say so gently, so earnestly, "Abide in my love." Cheer up! you are in Christ's heart, and Christ is in your heart. You are not alone; your God and your Father is with you. Your Shepherd guides you; the Comforter spreads around you His wings, and heaven is bright before you. Soon you will be there. The pilgrim will repose his weary limbs; the voyager will be moored in his harbor of rest; the warrior will put off his armor, and shout his song of triumph. Then look up! Christ is your, God is your, heaven is your. If God is for you, who can be against you? And if you find disappointment in created good, it will but endear Jesus; if you know more of the inward plague, it will but drive you to the atoning blood; if you have storms and tempests, they will but shorten the voyage, and waft you the quicker to glory.

OCTOBER 2.

"My soul, wait only upon God; for my expectation is from him." Psalm 62:5

THIS trust implies a ceasing from self, and from all confidence in the arm of flesh, and from all reliance in unbelieving, carnal plans and schemes to obtain deliverance from the pressure of present trial, and supplies for present need. It involves a constant, prayerful, and believing leaning on the Lord; a quiet, patient waiting for the Lord; a peaceful, childlike, passive resting in the Lord; and a holy, filial walking with the Lord. Recollect, a leaning upon Christ—a waiting for Christ—a resting in Christ—and a walking with Christ. Only do this, in all your trials and temptations, needs and sorrows. Only trust Him to lead you by a right way to bring you to heaven. Only trust Him to appear in His own good time to deliver you from a present cross, to remove a present burden, to supply a present need, and to conduct you into the green pastures and beside the sweet flowing waters of His truth and love. So delightsome to Him will be this calm submissive trust—so honoring of His faithfulness and so glorifying to His name this full implicit confidence—He will honor and bless you by granting the desires of your heart, and bestowing from the plenitude of His resources every blessing that you ask and need.

Above all other trusts, trust to Jesus your priceless soul. Relax your grasp upon everything else but Jesus. Let go your religious duties and doings, your sacraments and prayers, your works and righteousness and Babel-built hopes of heaven—and only trust, and trust only, in the Lord Jesus Christ, and you shall be saved. No poor penitent sinner did He ever reject—none was He ever known to cast away. And if you come and trust in His righteousness alone to justify you, and to give you acceptance with God, and a title to eternal glory, you will be the first that ever perished at His feet—if you perish there! Hear the Father and your God say—"As your day, so shall your strength be." "As your day." Each new burden shall bring its support; each new difficulty, its guidance; each new sorrow, its soothing; and each new day, its strength. Be it your only care to deny all ungodliness, and to walk worthy of your high vocation; to separate yourself more widely and distinctly from the world, its practices and its spirit; more closely to resemble Christ in His gentle, charitable, forgiving temper; and yielding yourself more entirely to the disposal of the Lord, to do as seems Him good. And when called to meet death—to hear the summons that bids you rise—then, when all other things are receding from your view, and all other voices are dying upon your ear, Jesus will approach, and amid the gloom and steadiness of the shadowy valley you shall see His person, and hear Him say—"Do not be afraid—only trust me!"

OCTOBER 3.

"Now unto him that is able to keep you from falling, and to present you faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy, to the only wise God our Savior, be glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and ever. Amen." Jude 24, 25

WHAT is the great evil of which the true saints of God most stand in jeopardy, and which their timid, fearful hearts most dread? Is it not secret and outward backsliding from God after conversion? Surely it is, as the experience of every honest, upright, God-fearing man will testify. It is his consolation, then, to know that Jesus is "able to keep him from falling." This is the most overwhelming evil that stares the believer in the face. Some, but imperfectly taught in the word, are dreading awful apostasy from the faith here, and final condemnation from the presence of God hereafter—believing that though Christ has made full satisfaction for their sins to Divine justice, has cancelled the mighty debt, has imputed to them His righteousness, has blotted out their iniquities, has called, renewed, sanctified, and taken full possession of them by His Spirit, and has ascended up on high, to plead their cause with the Father—that yet, after all this stupendous exercise of power, and this matchless display of free grace, they may be left to utter apostasy from God, and be finally and eternally lost. If there is one doctrine more awful in it nature, distressing in its consequences, and directly opposed to the glory of God and the honor of Christ, than another, methinks it is this. Others, again, more clearly taught my the Spirit, are heard to say, "I believe in the stability of the covenant, in the unchangeableness of God's love, and in the faithfulness of my heavenly Father; but I fear lest some day under some sharp temptation—some burst of indwelling sin, when the enemy shall come in as a flood—I shall fall, to the wounding of my peace, to the shame of my brethren, and to the dishonoring of Christ." Dear believer, truly you would fall, were He to leave you to your own keeping for one moment; but Jesus is able to keep you from falling. Read the promises, believe them, rest upon them. A simple glance will present to the believer's eye a threefold cord, by which he is kept from falling. In the first place, God the Father keeps him—"kept by the power of God;" the power that created and upholds the world keeps the believer. The eternal purpose, love, and grace of the Father keeps him: this is the first cord. Again, God the Son keeps him: "My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me; and I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand." The covenant engagements, the perfect obedience, the atoning death of Immanuel, keep the believer: this is the second cord. Yet again, God the Holy Spirit keeps him: "When the enemy shall come in like a flood, the Spirit of the Lord shall lift up a standard against him" (marg. shall put him to flight). The tender love, the covenant faithfulness, and the omnipotent power of the Eternal Spirit keep the believer: this is the third cord. And "a threefold cord is not quickly broken." But with these promises of the triune God to keep His people from falling, He has wisely and graciously connected the diligent, prayerful use of all the means which He has appointed for this end.

OCTOBER 4.

"But you, beloved, building up yourselves on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life." Jude 20, 21

THE believer is nowhere in the Bible spoken of or addressed as a lifeless machine, a mere automaton; but as one "alive unto God,"—as "created in Christ Jesus,"—as a "partaker of the Divine nature." As such he is commanded to "work out his own salvation with fear and trembling,"—to "give diligence to make his calling and election sure,"—to "watch and pray, lest he enter into temptation." Thus does God throw a measure of the responsibility of his own standing upon the believer himself, that he might not be slothful, unwatchful, and prayerless, but be ever sensible to his solemn obligations to "deny ungodliness and worldly lusts, and to live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present world," remembering that he is "not his own, but is bought with a price."

If the power of God is the efficient cause of the eternal security of the believer, yet, as auxiliaries which God has appointed, and by which He instrumentally works, the believer is to use diligently all holy means of keeping himself from falling; as a temple of the Holy Spirit, as the subject of the divine life, as a pardoned, justified man, he is called to labor perseveringly, to pray ceaselessly, and to watch vigilantly. He is not to run willfully into temptation, to expose himself needlessly to the power of the enemy, to surround himself with unholy and hostile influences, and then take refuge in the truth, that the Lord will keep him from falling. God forbid! This were most awfully to abuse the "doctrine that is after godliness," to "hold the truth in unrighteousness," and to make "Christ the minister of sin." Dear reader, watch and pray against this!

Let the cheering prospect of that glory unto which you are kept stimulate you to all diligent perseverance in holy duty, and constrain you to all patient endurance of suffering. In all your conflicts with indwelling sin, under the pressure of all outward trial, let this precious truth comfort you—that your heavenly Father has "begotten you again unto a lively hope, by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled, and that fades not away, reserved in heaven for you who are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation;" that soon—oh, how soon!—all that now loads the heart with care, and wrings it with sorrow—all that dims the eye with tears, and renders the day anxious and the night sleepless, will be as though it had never been. Emerging from the entanglement, the dreariness, the solitude, the loneliness and the temptations of the wilderness, you shall enter upon your everlasting rest, your unfading inheritance, where there is no sorrow, no declension, no sin; where there is no sunset, no twilight, no evening shades, no midnight darkness, but all is one perfect, cloudless, eternal day; for Jesus is the joy, the light, and the glory thereof.

OCTOBER 5.

"He that is unjust, let him be unjust still; and he which is filthy, let him be filthy still; and he that is righteous, let him be righteous still; and he that is holy, let him be holy still. And, behold, I come quickly; and my reward is with me, to give every man according as his work shall be." Revelation 22:11, 12

IT would seem to be the cherished delusion of many, that a kind of moral transformation transpires in death; that because death itself is a change of relation, around which gather new sensations, new feelings, new thoughts, new solemnities, new prospects, that therefore the soul passes through a kind of spiritual preparedness to meet its approaching destiny. But such is not the case. The character which time has for years been shaping, it yields to the demands of eternity in the precise mold in which it was formed. Death hands over the soul to the scrutiny and the decisions of the judgment exactly as life relinquished it. The "king of terrors" has received no commission and possesses no power to effect a moral change in the transit of the spirit to the God who gave it. Its office is to unlock the cell, and conduct the prisoner into court. It can furnish no plea, it can suggest no argument, it can correct no error, it can whisper no hope, to the pale and trembling being on his way to the bar. The turnkey must present the criminal to the Judge, precisely as the officer delivered him to the turnkey—with all the marks and evidences of criminality and guilt clinging to him as at the moment of arrest. The supposition of the multitudes seems to be, just what we have stated, that when the strange and mysterious but unmistakable signs of death are stealing upon them—when the summons to appear before the Judge admits of not a doubt, allows of no delay, that then what has been held as truth, and now, in the mighty illumination of an unveiling eternity, is found to be error, may be with ease abandoned; and that however negligent they who have lived all their lifetime without God may have been of religion, while the last day appeared distant—and however careless they who had made a Christian profession may have been of the ground of their confidence, and the reason of their hope, under an indefinite expectation of appearing in the presence of God—yet now that the footfall of death is heart approaching, and the invisible world becomes visible through the opening chinks of the earthly house of their tabernacle, they will be enabled to summon all the remainder of strength, and with the utmost strenuousness turn their undivided attention to the business of saving the soul. But is it really so? Is not the whole course of experience against a supposition so false as this? Do not men die mostly as they have lived? The infidel dies in infidelity, the profligate dies in profligacy, and atheist dies in atheism, the careless die in indifference, and the formalist dies in formality. There are exceptions to this, undoubtedly, but the exceptions confirm rather than disprove the general fact, that men die as they lived. In view, then, of this solemn statement, deeply affecting it must be to the Christian professor—if it be thus that our death will derive much of its character and complexion from the present tenor of our life—that in proportion to the lack of spirituality and the undue influence which the world has had upon the mind—to the habitual distance of the walk with God, and the gradual separation from us of those holy, sanctifying influences which go to form the matured, influential, and useful Christian—will be the lack of that bright evidence, and full assured hope in death, which will give to the departing soul an "abundant entrance into the everlasting kingdom,"—then, of what great moment is it that every individual professing godliness should know the exact state of his soul before God!

OCTOBER 6.

"And the angel of the Lord came again the second time, and touched him, and said, Arise and eat; because the journey is too great for you. And he arose, and did eat and drink, and went in the strength of that food forty days and forty nights unto Horeb the mount of God." 1 Kings 14:7-8

WE have here an illustration of one of the greatest principles in the divine life—one of the most wonderful, precious, and influential—the principle of faith: "The just shall live by faith." It is in this way the Lord prepares His people for what He has prepared for them in the future of their history. That history is to them wisely and graciously concealed. The path of the future is to them all unknown, a veil of impenetrable mystery enshrouding it from view. In all this we trace the love of our heavenly Father. There may be, for anything that we know, a long season of abstinence before us; many a weary stage is yet untraveled, many a new path is yet untrodden, many a battle is yet unfought, and many a temptation and trial are yet unmet. But faith, living upon the nourishment received, in the strength and sustaining power of some view of God which the Spirit has presented, of some especial grace which Christ has meted out, of some higher attainment in truth and experience and holiness, of some profounder lesson learned, of some especial mercy experienced, of some bright realizing view of glory caught, the believer may travel many a long a toilsome stage of his journey to the "rest that remains for the people of God." Ah! how often has the Lord by His present dealings anticipated the future events of your life! For what circumstances of danger, of trial, and of want has Jesus provided! He well knew—for He had appointed every step and every incident of your journey—the deep and dark waters through which you were to wade, the sands you were to cross, the mountains you were to climb, and the valleys into which you were to descend. That cup of sorrow was not mixed, nor that fiery dart winged, nor that heavy cross sent, before all the necessities it would create, and all the supplies it would demand, had been thought of and provided for by Him who knew the end from the beginning. And when the voice of love gently awoke you as from the stupor of your grief, you marveled at the table spread, and wondered at the supply sent; and you could not define the reason why so much love took possession of your heart, and so much grace flowed into your soul, why so much nerve clothed your spirit, and so much hope and joy bathed you in their heavenly sunlight, and shed their radiance upon your onward way—little thinking that this was the Lord's mode of providing nourishment for the journey. And when the period and event of your life, thus anticipated, arrived, then the recollection of God's preparatory dealings rushed upon your memory, and in an instant you saw how for the "forty days and the forty nights" solitary travel, your God and Savior had been graciously and amply providing. But all this mystery the life of faith, by which the justified live, fully explains.

OCTOBER 7.

"For I am with you, says the Lord, to save you: though I make a full end of all nations where I have scattered you, yet will I not make a full end of you: but I will correct you in measure, and will not leave you altogether unpunished." Jeremiah 30:11

THE Lord's love appears in appointing the rebuke, and in tempering the chastisement. That rebuke might have been heavier, that chastisement might have been severer. The deep and dark waters might have engulfed the soul. Thus, perhaps, your prayer has been answered, "O Lord, correct me, but with judgment; not in your anger, lest you bring me to nothing." And then has followed the pleasant psalm of grateful acknowledgment and praise: "The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and plenteous in mercy. He will not always chide; neither will He keep His anger forever. He has not dealt with us after our sins; nor rewarded us according to our iniquities." Oh, could we always analyze the cup, how astonished should we be to find that in the bitterest draught that ever touched our lips the principal ingredient was love! That love saw the discipline needful, and love selected the chastisement sent, and love appointed the instrument by which it should come, and love arranged the circumstances by which it should take place, and love fixed the time when it should transpire, and love heard the sigh, and saw the tear, and marked the anguish, and never for one moment withdrew its beaming eye from the sufferer. Alas! how much is this truth overlooked by the disciplined believer! Think, suffering child of God, of the many consoling, alleviating, and soothing circumstances connected with your chastisement. How much worse your position might be, how much more aggravated the nature of your sorrow, and how much heavier the stroke of the rod. Think of the disproportion of the chastisement to the sin, for "know that God exacts of you less than your iniquity deserves." Think of the many divine supports, the precious promises, the tenderness of God, the gentleness of Christ, the sympathy and affection dwelling in the hearts of the saints—and all this will demonstrate to you that the chastisement of the saints is the chastening of love.

OCTOBER 8.

"Giving thanks unto the Father, which has made us fit to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light." Colossians 1:12

BEAUTIFUL is the order of the Holy Spirit here. Observe to whom this grateful acknowledgment is made—"unto the Father." Then the sweet truth stands revealed—luminous in its own celestial light—that heaven is a Father's gift. And oh, how sweet, to trace all our mercies to a Father's love, to a Parent's heart—to look to Jesus, whose righteousness gives us a title—to look to the Holy Spirit, whose sanctifying grace gives us a fitness, as the precious gifts of a Father's love; then to rise through these up to the Father Himself, and trace the gift of heaven—the consummation of the inner life—to the heart of the First Person of the glorious Trinity. Who, after reading this passage, will any longer rest entirely and exclusively in Jesus—precious as He is? Who will not, through Jesus as the Mediator, rise to the Father, and trace up all the blessings of redemption, and all His hope of glory, to the part which the Father took in the great and wondrous work? Oh, how unutterable blessed is it to see the Father engaged, equally with the Son and the Spirit, in preparing for us, and in preparing us for, "the inheritance of the saints in light!" "Giving thanks unto the Father." Upon what grounds, beloved? Oh! it was the Father who provided the Savior, His beloved Son. It is from the Father that the Spirit emanates who renews and sanctifies. It is the Father who has prepared the inheritance, and who, by His upholding power, will at last bring us safely there. All thanks, then, all adoration and praise unto the Father, "who has made us fit to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light."

Let me affectionately ask you, my reader, in what does your fitness for heaven consist? Put not the question from you—transfer it not to another; let it come home to your own conscience: for in a little while your destiny will be fixed—eternally, irrevocably fixed; and one half-second of hell's torment will fill your soul with remorse, terror, and unavailing regret, that in the land of hope and in the day of grace your turned your back upon both, refused the mercy of God in Christ, rejected His dear Son, and died in your sins. In what does your fitness for heaven, then, consist? If it is only the fitness of a mere profession—if it is but the fitness of a mere notional reception of truth—if it is the fitness merely of an external waiting upon the sanctuary, the public means of grace—it is a fitness not for heaven, but for banishment from heaven! Are you born again of the Spirit of God? Have you fled to the Lord Jesus Christ for salvation? Have you the "earnest," the pledge of heaven, in the indwelling of the Holy Spirit of God—in the life of God in your soul? Have you the first sheaf of the harvest bound up in your bosom? Have you been sealed by God's Spirit as an heir of glory?

To God's saints I would say—cultivate an habitual, a growing fitness for heaven. Do not be satisfied with past attainments, with your present measure of grace and standard of holiness; but, beloved, since heaven is a holy place, cultivate holiness—an habitual growing fitness for "the inheritance of the saints in light." Be advancing, be progressing, be pressing onwards; "putting on the whole armor of God," "laying aside the weight that so easily besets you," the garment that trails upon the earth, pressing onward and heavenward, until you reach the confines of bliss, and enter within the portals of glory.

OCTOBER 9.

"In hope of eternal life, which God, that cannot lie, promised before the world began." Titus 1:2

LOOK upon all the Lord's covenant dealings with you as but preparatory to your approaching emancipation from all sin, suffering, and sorrow. Welcome your trials—they are sent by your Father. Welcome the stroke of His rod—it is a Parent smiting. Welcome whatever detaches you from earth, and wings your spirit heavenward. Welcome the furnace that consumes the dross and the tin, and brings out the precious gold and silver, to reflect in your soul, even now, the dawnings of future glory. Oh! be submissive, meek, and quiet, under God's chastening and afflicting hand, and receive all His dispensations as only tending to fit you more perfectly for "the inheritance of the saints in light." Let his "hope of eternal life" cheer and comfort the bereaved of the Lord, from whose hearts have fled the loved and sanctified ones of earth, to the eternal heaven. Oh! how full of consolation is this prospect! Where have the departed fled, who sleep in Jesus? They have but exchanged the region of darkness and shadow for the regions of light and glory. They have gone from the scene of impurity, defilement, and sin, to the place of perfect holiness, complete sanctification, and eternal love. Then dry your tears—then press the consolations of the gospel to your sorrowing heart, and look up with that eye of faith that pierces the penetrates the dark clouds that intervene between them and you, and behold them now "partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light." And oh! yourselves anticipate the blessed moment when the Savior shall send, not an enemy, but a friend—for such is death to the Christian—to open the cage that imprisons your spirit, and let you escape to the abodes of eternal glory. Oh! anticipate and, by anticipating, be preparing, day by day, for its realization; anticipate the happy moment which releases you from "the body of sin and death," and ushers you into the full enjoyment of "eternal life." Such is heaven, and such is the consummation of the inner life. As that life descended from God so to God it shall ultimately and finally return. It shall never, never die. Not a spark shall be quenched, nor shall a pulse cease to beat—not a thought that it has conceived, nor a desire it has cherished, nor a prayer it has breathed, nor a work it has accomplished, nor a victory it has won, shall die; all, all shall survive in ever-growing, ever-enduring glory.

The babe in grace shall be there! The young man, strong in overcoming the wicked one, shall be there! The father, matured in experience, and laden with the golden fruits of age, shall be there! All, all shall reach heaven at last—the end and the consummation of the life of God in their souls. Oh, to have this heaven in our hearts now! Heaven is love—the place of love—the perfection of love. And what is God's love in our hearts but the foretaste of heaven—the foretaste of heaven—the first gatherings of the vintage—the pledge and earnest of all that is to come?

OCTOBER 10.

"Forasmuch as you know that you were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold, from your vain conversation received by tradition from your father; but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot." 1 Peter 1:18, 19

WHAT a powerful motive does this truth supply to a daily and unreserved consecration of ourselves to the Lord! If, under the old economy, the utensil or the garment touched with blood was sacred and solemn, how much more the soul washed in the heart's blood of Christ! When the king of Israel, in the heat of battle, and in the agony of thirst, cried for water, and some of his attendants procured it for him at the hazard of their lives, the God-fearing and magnanimous monarch refused to taste it, because it was the price of blood! but "poured it out before the Lord." Christian soldier! it was not at the risk of His life, but more—it was by the sacrifice of His life that your Lord and Savior procured your redemption, and brought the waters of salvation, all living and sparkling from the throne of God, to your lips. You are the price of blood! "bought with a price." Will you not, then, glorify God in our soul, body, and substance, which are His? will you not pour it all out before the Lord—presenting it as a living sacrifice upon the altar flowing with the life-blood of God's own Son?

If there be a vital, and therefore a deathless, principle in the atoning blood of Jesus, then it will avail to the salvation of the chief of sinners to the latest period of time. Ages have rolled by since it was shed, and millions have gone to heaven in virtue of its merits, and yet it still avails! Listen, lowly penitent, to these glad tidings. Approach the blood of Jesus, simply believing in its divine appointment and sovereign efficacy, and the pardon it conveys and the peace it gives will be yours. Behold the sacred stream, as vital, as efficacious, and as free as when, eighteen hundred years ago, all nature was convulsed at the sight of this blood starting from the pierced heart of its Incarnate Creator, and when the expiring malefactor bathed in it as was saved! No, more; if the virtue of the Savior's blood before it was shed extended back to the time of Adam and of Abel, for He was "the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world," surely since that it has actually been offered, it will continue its virtue through all the revolutions of time to the remotest age of the world, and to the last sinner who may believe. If Jesus is a "Priest forever," the virtue of His sacrifice must abide forever, for He cannot officiate as a priest without a sacrifice. And as His gospel is to be preached to all nations, even to the end of the world, so the saving efficacy of His blood, upon which the gospel depends for its power and its success, must be as lasting as time.

OCTOBER 11

"Who is among you that fears the Lord, that obeys the voice of his servant, that walks in darkness, and has no light? let him trust in the name of the Lord, and stay upon his God." Isaiah 50:10

HOW prone is the believer to attach an undue importance to the mere article of comfort! to give place to the feeling that when comfort vanishes, all other good vanishes with it—thus, in fact, making the real standing of the soul to depend upon an ever-fluctuating emotion. But let it be remembered that the comfort of grace may be suspended, and yet the existence of grace may remain; that the glory of faith may be beclouded, and yet the principle of faith continue. Contemplate, as affording an illustrious example of this, our adorable Lord upon the cross. Was there ever sorrow like His sorrow? Was there ever desertion like His desertion? Every spring of consolation was dried up. Every beam of light was beclouded. All sensible joy was withdrawn. His human soul was now passing through its strange, its total eclipse. And still His faith hung upon God. Hear Him exclaim, "My God! my God!" My strong One! my strong One! His soul was in the storm—and oh, what a storm was that!—but it was securely anchored upon His Father. There was in His case the absence of all consolation, the suspension of every stream of comfort; and yet in this, the darkest cloud that ever enshrouded the soul, and the deepest sorrow that ever broke the heart, He stayed His soul upon God.

And why should the believer, the follower of Christ, when sensible comfort is withdrawn, "cast away his confidence, which has great recompense of reward"? Of what use is the anchor but to keep the vessel in the tempest? What folly were it in the mariner to weigh his anchor, or to slip his cable, when the clouds gather blackness and the waves swell high! Then it is he most needs them both. It is true he has cast his anchor into the deep, and the depth hides it from his view; but though he cannot discern it through the foaming waves, still he knows that it is firmly fastened, and will keep his storm-tossed vessel from stranding upon a lee shore. And why should the believer, when "trouble is near," and sensible comfort is withdrawn, resign his heart a prey to unbelieving fears, and cherish in his bosom the dark suspicion of God? Were not this to part with the anchor of his hope at the very moment that he the most needed it? I may not be able to pierce the clouds and look within the veil with an eye beaming with an undimmed and assured joy, but I know that the Forerunner is there; that the Priest is upon His throne; that Jesus is alive, and is at the right hand of God—then all is safe: faith demands, hope expects, and love desires no more.

OCTOBER 12.

"And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous." 1 John 2:1

WE are used to read in the Bible of one Intercessor, and of one advocacy. But the believer has two courts with which prayer has to do. In the court below, where prayer is offered, the Spirit is his Intercessor. In the court above, where prayer is presented, Jesus is his Intercessor. Then, what an honored, what a privileged man, is the praying man! On earth—the lower court—he has a Counselor instructing him for what he should pray, and how he should order his suit. In heaven—the higher court—he has an Advocate presenting to God each petition as it ascends, separating from it all that is ignorant, sinful, and weak, and pleading for its gracious acceptance, and asking for its full bestowment. Here, then, is our vast encouragement in prayer. The inditings of the Spirit—the Intercessor of earth—are always in agreement with the mind of God. In prayer we need just such a Divine counselor. Is it temporal blessing that we crave? We need to be taught how to graduate our request to our necessity, and how to shape our necessity to our heavenly calling. Supplication for temporal good is, we think, limited. And this is the limit, "Having food and clothing, let us be therewith content." What child of God is warranted in asking worldly wealth, or distinction, or rank? And what child of God, in a healthy state of soul, would ask them? "But," says the apostle, "my God shall supply all your need, according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus." Should God, in His providence, send either of these temporal things undesired, unasked, and unexpected, receive it as from Him, and use it as to Him. But with regard to spiritual blessings, our grant is illimitable, our requests may be boundless. "Ask what you will," is the broad, unrestricted warrant. When we ask to be perfected in the love of God, we ask for that which is in accordance with the will of God—for "God is love." When we ask for an increase of faith, we ask for that which is in accordance with the will of God; for "without faith it is impossible to please him." When we ask for more divine conformity, we ask for that which is in harmony with God's will; for He has said, "Be you holy, for I am holy." And when we ask for comfort, we plead for that which it is in His heart to give—for He is the "God of all comfort." Oh, to possess a Divine counselor, dwelling in our hearts, who will never indite a wrong prayer, nor suggest a weak argument, nor mislead us in any one particular, in the solemn, the important, the holy engagement of prayer; who is acquainted with the purpose of God; who knows the mind of God; who understands the will of God; who reads the heart of God; yes, who is God Himself. What encouragement is this to more real prayer! Are you moved to pray? While you muse, does the fire burn? Is your heart stirred up to ask of God some especial blessing for yourself, or for others? Are you afflicted? Oh, then, rise and pray—the Spirit prompts you—the Savior invites you—your heavenly Father waits to answer you.

With such an Intercessor in the court on earth—so divine, so loving, and so sympathizing—and with such an Intercessor in the court in heaven—so powerful, so eloquent, and so successful, "let us come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need."

OCTOBER 13.

"But the end of all things is at hand: be you therefore sober, and watch unto prayer." 1 Peter 4:7

WATCH unto prayer, with all diligence and perseverance. Expect an answer to your prayer, a promise to your request, a compliance with your suit. Be as much assured that God will answer, as that you have asked, or that He has promised. Ask in faith; only believe; watch daily at the posts and at the gates of the return; look for it at any moment, and through any providence; expect it not in your own way, but in the Lord's; do not be astonished if He should answer your prayer in the very opposite way to that you had anticipated, and it may be dictated. With this view, watch every providence, even the smallest. You know not when the answer my come—at what hour, or in what way. Therefore watch. The Lord may answer in a great and strong wind, in an earthquake, in a fire, or in a still small voice; therefore watch every providence, to know which will be the voice of God to you. Do not pray as if you asked for or expected a refusal. God delights in your holy fervency, your humble boldness, and your persevering importunity. "The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much." Pray submissively, expect hopefully, watch vigilantly, and wait patiently.

Behold then the throne of grace! Was ever resting-place so sacred and so sweet? Could God himself invest it with richer, with greater attraction? There are dispensed all the blessings of sovereign grace—pardon, justification, adoption, sanctification, and all that connects the present state of the believer with eternal glory. There is dispensed grace itself—grace to guide, to support, to comfort, and to help in time of need. There sits the God of grace, proclaiming Himself "the Lord God, merciful and gracious, long-suffering, and abundant in goodness and truth; keep mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity, transgression, and sin." There is extended the scepter of grace, bidding welcome the sons of daughters of want, the weary and the heavy laden, the guilty, the broken in heart, the poor, the friendless, the bereaved. There stands Jesus the High Priest and Mediator, full of grace and truth, waving to and fro His golden censer, from which pours forth the fragrant incense of His atoning merits, wreathing in one offering, as it ascends, the name, the needs, and the prayer of the lowly worshiper. And there, too, is the Spirit of grace, breathing in the soul, discovering the want, inditing the petition, and making intercession for the saints according to the will of God. Behold, then, the throne of grace, and draw near! You are welcome. Come with your cross, come with your infirmity, come with your guilt, come with your want, come with your wounded spirit, come with your broken heart, come and welcome to the throne of grace! Come without price, come without worthiness, come without preparation, come without fitness, come with your hard heart, come and welcome to the throne of grace! God, your Father, bids you welcome. Jesus, your Advocate, bids you welcome. The Spirit, the Author of prayer, bids you welcome. All the happy and the blessed who cluster around it, bid you welcome. The spirits of just men made perfect in glory, bid you welcome. The ministering spirits, "sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation," bid you welcome. All the holy below, and all the glorified above, all, all bid you, poor trembling soul, welcome, thrice welcome, to the throne of grace!

OCTOBER 14.

"Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for all saints; and for me, that utterance may be given unto me, that I may open my mouth boldly, as I ought to speak." Ephesians 6:18, 19

THE two blessings which Paul craved through the prayers of his flock were, utterance and boldness. He knew that He who made man's mouth could only open his lips to proclaim the unsearchable riches of Christ. Great as were his natural endowments, rich and varied as were his intellectual acquirements, he felt their inadequacy when working alone. We should never fail to distinguish between the natural eloquence of man and the holy utterance which the Spirit gives. Paul had splendid gifts and commanding powers of elocution. But what were they? He needed more—he asked for more. Dear reader, if the ministry of reconciliation comes to your soul with any power or sweetness, remember whose it is. Give not to man but to God the glory. Be very jealous for the honor of the Spirit in the ministry of the word. It is "spirit and life" to you only as He gives utterance to him that speaks. It is mournful to observe to what extent the idolatry of human talent and eloquence is carried, and how little glory is given to the Holy Spirit in the gospel ministry.

But there was yet another ministerial qualification which Paul sought. He desired to be unshackled from the fear of man. "That I may open my mouth boldly." Had we heard him utter this request, we might have been constrained to reply, "Do you desire boldness? You are the most courageous and intrepid of the apostles. You fear no man!" Ah! we forget that when God stirs up the heart of a believer deeply to feel his need, and earnestly to desire any particular grace of the Spirit, that grace will be the distinguishing trait of his Christian character. The very possession and exercise of a grace strengthens the desire for its increase. The more we have of Christ, the more we desire of Christ. The heart is never satiated. Do we see a man earnest and importunate in prayer for faith? faith will be his distinguishing grace. See we another wrestling with God for deep views of the evil of sin? that man will be marked for his humble walk with God. Is it love that He desires? His will be a loving spirit. Be sure of this—the more you know of the value and the sweetness of any single grace of the Spirit, the more ardently will your heart be led out after an increase of that grace. The reason why our desires for grace are so faint, may be traced to the small measure of grace that we already possess. The very feebleness of the desire proves the deficiency of the supply. As all holy desire springs from grace, so the deeper the grace, the more fervent will be the desire. The Lord rouse us from our slothful seeking of Him upon our beds.

OCTOBER 15.

"Be watchful, and strengthen the things which remain, that are ready to die: for I have not found your works perfect before God." Revelation 3:2

AN incipient state of declension does not involve any alteration in the essential character of divine grace, but is a secret decay of the health, vigor, and exercise of that grace in the soul. As in the animal frame, the heart loses nothing of its natural function, when, through disease, it sends but a faint and languid pulsation through the system; so in the spiritual constitution of the believer, divine grace may be sickly, feeble, and inoperative, and yet retain its character and its properties. The pulse may beat faintly, but still it beats; the seed may not be fruitful, but it "lives and abides forever;" the divine nature may be languid, but it can never assimilate or coalesce with any other, and must always retain its divinity untainted and unchanged. And yet, without changing its nature, divine grace may decline to an alarming extent in its power and exercise. It may be sickly, drooping, and ready to die; it may become so enfeebled through its decay, as to present an ineffectual resistance to the inroads of strong corruption; so low that the enemy may ride roughshod over it at his will; so inoperative and yielding, that sloth, worldliness, pride, carnality, and their kindred vices, may obtain an easy and unresisted conquest. This decay of grace may be advancing, too, without any marked decline in the spiritual perception of the judgment, as to the beauty and fitness of spiritual truth. The loss of spiritual enjoyment, not of a spiritual perception, of the loveliness and harmony of the truth shall be the symptom that betrays the true condition of the soul. The judgment shall lose none of its light, but the heart much of its fervor; the truths of revelation, especially the doctrines of grace, shall occupy the same prominent position as to their value and beauty, and yet the influence of these truths may be scarcely felt. The Word of God shall be assented to; but as the instrument of sanctification, of abasement, of nourishment, the believer may be an almost utter stranger to it; yes, he must necessarily be so, while this process of secret declension is going forward in his soul.

This incipient state of declension may not involve any lowering of the standard of holiness, and yet there shall be no ascending of the heart, no reaching forth of the mind, towards a practical conformity to that standard. The judgment shall acknowledge the divine law, as embodied in the life of Christ, to be the rule of the believer's walk; and yet to so low and feeble a state may vital godliness have declined in the soul, there shall be no panting after conformity to Christ, no breathing after holiness, no "resistance unto blood, striving against sin." Oh, it is an alarming condition for a Christian man, when the heart contradicts the judgment, and the life belies the profession!—when there is more knowledge of the truth than experience of its power—more light in the understanding than grace in the affections—more pretension in the profession than holiness and spirituality in the walk! And yet to this sad and melancholy state it is possible for a Christian professor to be reduced. How should it lead the man of empty notions, of mere creed, of lofty pretension, of cold and lifeless orthodoxy, to pause, search his heart, examine his conscience, and ascertain the true state of his soul before God!

OCTOBER 16.

"If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me." Psalm 64:18

THE true spiritual mortification of indwelling sin, and the entire forsaking of the known cause, whatever it is found to be, of the heart's declension, constitute the true elements of a believer's restoration to the joys of God's salvation. There cannot possibly be any true, spiritual, and abiding revival of grace, while secret sin remains undiscovered and unmortified in the heart. True and spiritual mortification of sin is not a surface-work: it consists not merely in pruning the dead tendrils that hang here and there upon the branch; it is not the lopping off of outward sins, and an external observance of spiritual duties; it includes essentially far more than this: it is a laying the axe at the root of sin in the believer; it aims at nothing less than the complete subjection of the principle of sin; and until this is effectually done, there can be no true return of the heart to God. Christian reader, what is the cause of your soul's secret declension? What is it that at this moment feeds upon the precious plant of grace, destroying its vigor, its beauty, and its fruitfulness? Is it an inordinate attachment to the creature? mortify it;—the love of self? mortify it;—the love of the world? mortify it;—some sinful habit secretly indulged? mortify it. It must be mortified, root as well as branch, if you would experience a thorough return to God. Dear though it be, as a right hand, or as a right eye, if yet it comes between your soul and God, if it crucifies Christ in you, if it weakens faith, enfeebles grace, destroys the spirituality of the soul, rendering it barren and unfruitful, rest not short of its utter mortification. Nor must this great work be undertaken in your own strength. It is preeminently the result of God the Holy Spirit working in and blessing the self-efforts of the believer: "If you through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, you shall live." Here is a recognition of the believer's own exertions, in connection with the power of the Holy Spirit: "If you" (believers, you saints of God) "through the Spirit do mortify the deeds." It is the work of the believer himself, but the power is of the Spirit of God. Take, then, your discovered sin to the Spirit: that Spirit bringing the cross of Jesus, with a killing, crucifying power, into your soul, giving you such a view of a Savior suffering for sin, as it may be you never had before, will in a moment lay your enemy slain at your feet. Oh yield not to despair, distressed soul! Are you longing for a gracious revival of God's work within you?—are you mourning in secret over your heart-declension?—have you searched and discovered the hidden cause of your decay?—and is your real desire for its mortification? Then look up, and hear the consolatory words of your Lord: "I am the Lord that heals you." The Lord is your healer; His love can restore you; His blood can heal you; His grace can subdue your sin.

"Take with you words, and turn to the Lord; say unto him, Take away all iniquity, and receive us graciously:" and the Lord will answer, "I will heal their backslidings, I will love them freely; for mine anger is turned away from him."

OCTOBER 17.

"To declare, I say, at this time his righteousness: that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believes in Jesus." Romans 3:26

IN Jesus shines the awful glory of Divine Justice. Justice is but another term for holiness. It is holiness in strict and awful exercise; and yet it is a distinct perfection of Jehovah, in the revelation of acknowledgment of which He will be glorified. The basis of the Atonement is righteousness, or justice. So the apostle argues, "Whom God has set forth to be a propitiation through faith in His blood, to declare His righteousness for the remission of sins." Anterior to the apostasy of man, the only revelation of God's justice was the threatening annexed to the law: "In the day that you eat thereof, you shall surely die." Subsequent to the fall, the appointment of a sanguinary ritual—the institution of expiatory sacrifices, not only recognized the existence, but illustrated the nature, of this awful attribute. There are those who madly dream of acceptance with a holy God, at the expense of this perfection of His nature. In vain do they acknowledge Him in some of His perfections if they deny Him in others, tramping them with indifference beneath their feet. Such was Cain in the offering which he presented to the Lord; there was an acknowledgment of His dominion and goodness, but no distinct recognition of His holiness, no solemn apprehension of His Justice, no conviction of guilt, no confession of sin. The claims of God's moral government were entirely set aside, and, by consequence, the necessity of a Mediator totally denied. Not so Abel; his offering honored God in that in which He most delights to be honored, in His spotless purity, His inflexible justice, and His infinite grace in the appointment of a Savior for the pardon of iniquity, transgression, and sin. Therefore it is recorded, and we do well deeply to ponder it, the "he offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain."

But this was a prefigurement only of God's justice—the mere type and shadow. The great Antitype and embodiment are seen in Jesus offering Himself up a whole burned-offering to God amid the fearful blaze which was beheld ascending from the summit of Mount Calvary. Then did this perfection appear in its most fearful form—Jesus bearing sin—Jesus enduring the curse of the law—Jesus sustaining the wrath of His father—Jesus surrendering His holy soul a sacrifice for man's transgression. Oh, never, never did Divine justice so imperatively assert its claims, and so loudly demand its rights—never did it so strictly exact its penalty, and so fearfully grapple with its victim, as now; and never before or since had such a sacrifice been bound to its altar; never did Jehovah appear so just, as at the moment the fire descended and consumed His only-begotten and well-beloved Son.

OCTOBER 18.

"Lord, behold, he whom you loves is sick."

THIS is the truth, dear invalid reader, upon which the Lord would pillow and sustain your soul—that you are the sick one whom He loves. Doubtless the enemy, ever on the watch to distress the saints of God, eager to avail himself of every circumstance in their history favorable to the accomplishment of His malignant designs, has taken advantage of your illness to suggest hard and distrustful thoughts of the Lord's love to you. "Does He love you? Can He love you, and afflict you thus? What! this hectic fever, these night-sweats, these faintings and swoonings, these insufferable tortures, this long wasting, this low insidious disease—and yet loved by God! Impossible!" Such has been the false reasoning of Satan, and such the echo of unbelief. But Lazarus was loved of Jesus, and so are you! That darkened room, that curtained bed, contains one for whom the Son of God came down to earth—to live, to labor, and to die! That room is often radiant with His presence, and that bed is often made with His hands. Jesus is never absent from that spot! The affectionate husband, the tender wife, the fond parent, the devoted sister, the faithful nurse, are not in more constant attendance at that solemn post of observation than is Jesus. They must be absent; He never is, for one moment, away from that couch. Sleep must overcome them; but He who guards that suffering patient "neither slumbers nor sleeps." Long-continued watching must exhaust the prostrate them; but He, the Divine watcher, "faints not, neither is weary." Yes, Jesus loves you, nor loves you the less, no, but loves you the more, now that you are prostrate upon that bed of languishing, a weak one hanging upon Him. Again I repeat, this is the only truth that will now soothe and sustain your soul. Not the thought of our love to Jesus, but of Jesus' love to you, is the truth upon which your agitated mind is to rest. In the multitude of your thoughts within you, this is the comfort that will delight your soul—"Jesus loves me." Your love to Christ affords you now no plea, no encouragement, no hope. You can extract no sweetness from the thought of your affection to the Savior. It has been so feeble and fluctuating a feeling, an emotion so irregular and fickle in its expression, the spark so often obscured, and to appearance lost, that the recollection and the review of it now only tends to depress and perplex you. But oh, the thought of the Lord's love! to fix the mind upon His eternal, unpurchased, and deathless affection to you—to be enabled to resolve this painful illness, this protracted suffering this "pining sickness," into love—divine, tender, unwearied, inextinguishable love—will renew the inward man, while the outward is decaying day by day, and will strengthen the soul in its heavenly soarings, while its tenement of dust is crumbling and falling from around it. All is love in the heart of God towards you. This sickness may indeed be a correction—and correction always supposes sin—but it is a loving correction, and designed to "increase your greatness." Not one thought dwells in the mind of God, nor one feeling throbs in His heart, but is love. And your sickness is sent to testify that God is love, and that you, afflicted though you are, are one of its favored objects. The depression of sickness may throw a shade of obscurity over this truth, but the very obscuration may result in your good, and unfold God's love, by bringing you to a more simple reliance of faith. Oh, trace your present sickness, dear invalid reader, to His love who "Himself took our infirmities, and carried our sickness." If He could have accomplished the important end for which it is sent by exempting you from its infliction, you then had not known one sleepless hour, nor a solitary day; not a drop of sweat had moistened your brow, nor one moment's fever had flushed your cheek. He, your loving Savior, your tender Friend, the redeeming God, had borne it all for you Himself, even as He bore its tremendous curse—your curse and sin in His own body on the tree. Yield your depressed heart to the soothing, healing influence of this precious truth, and it will light up the pallid hue of sickness with a radiance and a glow—the reflection of the soul's health—heavenly and divine. "Lord, behold, he whom You loves is sick."

OCTOBER 19.

"The Lord God has given me the tongue of the learned, that I should know how to speak a word in season to him that is weary." Isaiah 50:4

THE Lord Jesus gives His people the tongue of the learned, the they may sometimes speak a word in season to His weary ones. Have you not a word for Christ? May you not go to that tried believer in sickness, in poverty, in adversity, or in prison, and tell of the balm that has often healed your spirit, and of the cordial that has often cheered your heart? "A word spoken in due season, how good is it!" A text quoted, a sentiment repeated, an observation made, a hint dropped, a kind caution suggested, a gentle rebuke given, a tender admonition left—oh! the blessing that has flowed from it! It was a word spoken in season! Say not with Moses, "I am slow of speech, and of a slow tongue;" or with Jeremiah, "Ah! Lord God! behold, I cannot speak; for I am a child." Hear the answer of the Lord: "Who has made man's mouth? have not I, the Lord? Now therefore go: I will be with your mouth, and teach you what you shall say." And oh! how frequently and effectually does the Lord speak to His weary ones, even through the weary. All, perhaps, was conflict within, and darkness without; but one word falling from the lips of a man of God has been the voice of God to the soul. And what an honor conferred, thus to be the channel conveying consolation from the loving heart of the Father to the disconsolate heart of the child! to go and smooth a ruffled pillow, lift the pressure from off a burdened spirit, and light up the gloomy chamber of sorrow, of sickness, and of death, as with the first dawnings of the coming glory! Go, Christian reader, and ask the Lord so to clothe your tongue with holy, heavenly eloquence, that you may know how to speak a word in season to him that is weary. Ah! it is impossible to speak of the preciousness of Christ to another, and not, while we speak, feel Him precious to our own souls. It is impossible to lead another to the cross, and not find ourselves overshadowed by its glory. It is impossible to establish another in the being, character, and truth of God, and not feel our own minds fortified and confirmed. It is impossible to quote the promises and unfold the consolations of the gospel to another, and not be sensible of a tranquillizing and soothing influence stealing softly over our own hearts. It is impossible to break the alabaster box, and not fill the house with the odor of the ointment.

In contending for the faith, remember that the Lord Jesus can give you the tongue of the learned. Listen to His promises—"I will give you a mouth and wisdom, which all your adversaries shall not be able to gainsay nor resist." Thus the most unlearned and the most weak may be so deeply taught, and be so skillfully armed in Christ's school, as to be able valiantly to defend and successfully to preach the truth, putting to "silence the ignorance of foolish men."

OCTOBER 20.

"O Lord, truly I am your servant; I am your servant, and the son of your handmaid: you have loosed my bonds." Psalm 116:16

IT is a circumstance worthy of remark, and important in the instruction which it conveys, that, among all the examples of deep humility, self-abasement, consciousness and confession of sin, recorded of the saints in the word, not one appears to a afford an instance of a denial or undervaluing of the Spirit's work in the heart. Keen as appears to have been the sense of unworthiness felt by Jacob, David, Job, Isaiah, Peter, Paul, and others—deep as was their conviction, and humiliating as were their confessions of sin's exceeding sinfulness, not one expression seems to betray a denial of the work of the Holy Spirit in their souls: they felt and mourned, they wept and confessed, as men called of God, pardoned, justified, adopted; not as men who had never tasted that the Lord was gracious, and who therefore were utter strangers to the operation of the Spirit upon their hearts: they acknowledged their sinfulness and their backslidings as converted men, always ready and forward to crown the Spirit in His work. But what can grieve the tender loving heart of the Spirit more deeply than a denial of His work in the soul? And yet there is a perpetual tendency to this, in the unbelieving doubts, legal fears, and gloomy forebodings which those saints yield to, who, at every discovery of the sin that dwells in them resign themselves to the painful conviction, that they have been given over of God to believe a lie! To such we would earnestly say, Grieve not thus the Holy Spirit of God. Deep self-abasement, the consciousness of utter worthlessness, need not necessarily involve a denial of the indwelling grace in the heart; yes, this blessed state is perfectly consistent with the most elevated hope of eternal life. He that can confess himself the "chief of sinners" and "the least of saints," is most likely to acknowledge, "I know in whom I have believed,"—"He has loved me, and given Himself for me." What! is it all fabulous that you have believed? is it all a delusion that you have experienced? have you been grasping at a shadow, believing a lie, and fighting as one that beats the air? are you willing to yield your hope, and cast away your confidence? What! have you never known the plague of your own heart, the sweetness of godly sorrow at the foot of the cross? have you never felt your heart beat one throb of love to Jesus? has His dear name never broken in sweet cadence on your ear? are you willing to admit that all the grief you have felt, all the joy you have experienced, and all the blessed anticipations you have known, were but as a "cunningly devised fable," a device of the wicked one, a moral hallucination of the mind? Oh, grieve not thus the Holy Spirit of God! deny not, undervalue not, His blessed work within you! What if you have been led into deeper discoveries of your fallen nature, your unworthiness, vileness, insufficiency, declensions, and backsliding from God, we ask, Whose work is this? whose, but that same blessed, loving Spirit whom thus you are wounding, quenching, grieving, denying? How many whose eye may trace this page are in this very state—not merely writing hard and bitter things against themselves, but also against the blessed, loving, faithful Spirit of God—calling grace nature, denying His work in them, and, in a sense most painful to His tender heart, "speaking words against the Holy Spirit."

OCTOBER 21.

"I do not frustrate the grace of God." Galatians 2:21

THERE is much spurious humility among many saints of God, and this is one of its common forms. It is not pride gratefully to acknowledge what great things the Lord has done for us—it is pride that refuses to acknowledge them; it is not true humility to doubt and underrate, until it becomes easy to deny altogether, the work of the Holy Spirit within us—it is true humility and lowliness to confess His work, bear testimony to His operation, and ascribe to Him all the power, praise, and glory. See then, dear reader, that you cherish not this false humility, which is but another name for deep unmortified pride of heart; remember that as Satan may transform himself into an angel of light, so may his agencies assume the disguise of the most holy and lovely graces; thus pride, one of his master-agents of evil in the heart, may appear in the shape of the profoundest humility. And I would have you bear in mind, too, that though the work of the Spirit in your heart may, to your imperfect knowledge and dim eye, be feeble—the outline scarcely visible amid so much indwelling sin—the spark almost hid amid so much abounding corruption, yet, to the Spirit's eye, that work appears in all its distinctness and glory. "The Lord knows those who are His." This declaration will apply with equal truth to the knowledge which the Holy Spirit has of His own work in the believer. His eye is upon the gentlest buddings of indwelling grace; the faintest spark of love, the softest whisper of holy desire, the most feeble yearnings of the heart towards Jesus—all, all is known to, and loved by, the Spirit; it is His own work, and strange should He not recognize it. Suffer this consideration to have its proper weight in hushing those murmurings, soothing those fears, and neutralizing those doubts that so deeply grieve the Holy Spirit of God: yield yourself up unto Him; humbly acknowledge what He has done in you; follow the little light He has given you, call into constant and active exercise the small degree of grace and faith which He has imparted, and seek, "with all prayer and supplication," an enlarged degree of His holy, anointing, sanctifying, and sealing influence.

OCTOBER 22.

"Blessed are those who have not seen, and yet have believed." John 20:29

THE circumstances of the Savior's resurrection were in harmony with its lonely and solemn grandeur. No human witness was privileged to behold it. The mysterious reunion of the human soul with the body of Christ was an illustrious event, upon which no mortal eye was permitted to gaze. There is a moral grandeur of surpassing character in the resurrection of Christ unseen. The fact is not an object with which sense has so much to do, as faith. And that no human eye was permitted to witness the stupendous event, doubtless, was designed to teach man that it was with the spiritual, and not with the fleshly, apprehension of this truth that He had especially to do. What eye but that of faith could see the illustrious Conqueror come forth, binding with adamantine chains hell, death, and the grave? What principle but the spiritual and mighty principle of faith could enter into the revealed mind of God, sympathize with the design of the Savior, and interpret the sublime mystery of this stupendous event? It was proper, therefore, no it was worthy of God, and in harmony with the character and the design of the resurrection of our Lord, that a veil should conceal its actual accomplishment from the eye of His Church; and that the great evidence they should have of the truth of the fact should be the power of His resurrection felt and experienced in their souls. Oh yes! the only power of the Savior's resurrection which we desire to know is that which comes to us through the energy of an all-seeing, all-conquering, all-believing faith. Oh, give me this, rather than to have witnessed with these eyes the celestial attendants clustering around the tomb—the rolling away of the stone that was upon the sepulcher—the breaking of the seal—and the emerging form of the Son of God, bearing in His hands the emblems and the tokens of His victory. The spiritual so infinitely transcends the carnal—the eye of faith is so much more glorious than the eye of sense, that our Lord Himself has sanctified and sealed it with His own precious blessing—"Jesus says unto him, Thomas, because you have seen me you have believed: blessed are those who have not seen, and yet have believed." Blessed Jesus! in faith would I then follow You each step of Your journey through this valley of tears; in faith would I visit the manger, the cross, and the tomb; for You have pronounced him blessed above all, who, though he sees not, yet believes in You. "Lord, I believe: help You mine unbelief."

OCTOBER 23.

"The just shall live by faith." Hebrews 10:38

THE experience of every believer is, in a limited degree, the experience of the great apostle of the Gentiles, the tip of whose soaring pinion we, who so much skim the earth's surface, can scarcely touch—"The life which I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God." "Like precious faith" with his dwells in the hearts of all the regenerate. Along this royal highway it is ordained of God that all His people should travel. It is the way their Lord traveled before them; it is the way they are to follow after Him. The first step they take out of the path of sense is into the path of faith. And what a mighty grace do they find it, as they journey on! Do they live? it is by faith. Hebrews 10:38. Do they stand? it is by faith. Romans 11:20. Do they walk? it is by faith. 2 Corinthians 5:7. Do they fight? it is by faith. 1 Timothy 6:12. Do they overcome? it is by faith. 1 John 5:4. Do they see what is invisible? it is by faith. Hebrews 6:27. Do they receive what is incredible? it is by faith. Romans 4:20. Do they achieve what is impossible? it is by faith. Mark 9:23. Glorious achievements of faith!

And, oh, how eminently is Jesus thus glorified in His saints! Was it no glory to Joseph, that, having the riches of Egypt in his hands, all the people were made, as it were, to live daily and hourly upon him? Was no fresh accession of glory brought to his exaltation, by every fresh acknowledgment of his authority, and every renewed application to his wealth? And is not Jesus glorified in His exaltation and in His fullness, in His love and in His grace, by that faith, in the exercise of which "a poor and afflicted people," a needy and a tried Church, are made to travel to, and live upon, Him each moment? Ah, yes! every corruption taken to His sanctifying grace, every burden taken to his omnipotent arm, every sorrow taken to His sympathizing heart, every want taken to His overflowing fullness, every wound taken to His healing hand, every sin taken to His cleansing blood, and every deformity taken to His all-covering righteousness, swells the revenue of glory which each second of time ascends to our adorable Redeemer from His Church. You may have imagined—for I will now suppose myself addressing a seeking soul—that Christ has been more glorified by your hanging back from Him—doubting the efficacy of His blood to cancel your guilt, the power of His grace to mortify your corruption, the sufficiency of His fullness to supply your need, the sympathy of His nature to soothe your grief, and the loving willingness of His heart to receive and welcome you as you are, empty, vile, and worthless; little thinking, on the contrary, how much He has been grieved and wounded, dishonored and robbed of His glory, by this doubting of His love, and this distrusting of His grace, after all the melting exhibitions of the one, and all the convincing evidences of the other. But, is it the desire of your inmost soul that Christ should be glorified by you? Then do not forget the grand, luminous truth of the Bible, that He is the Savior of sinners, and of sinners as sinners—that, in the great matter of the soul's salvation, He recognizes nothing of worthiness in the creature; and that whatever human merit is brought to Him with a view of commending the case to His notice—whatever—be it even the incipient work of His own Spirit in the heart—is appended to His finished work, as a ground of acceptance with God, is so much detraction from His glory as a Redeemer—than which, of nothing is He more jealous—and consequently, places the soul at a great remove from His grace. But like Bartimeus, casting the garment from you, be that garment what it may—pride of merit, pride of intellect, pride of learning, pride of family, pride of place, yes, whatever hinders your entering the narrow way, and prevents your receiving the kingdom of God "as a little child," and coming to Jesus to be saved by Him alone—brings more real glory to Him than imagination can conceive, or words can describe.

OCTOBER 24.

"Furthermore, we have had fathers of our flesh which corrected us, and we gave them reverence: shall we not much rather be in subjection unto the Father of spirits, and live?" Hebrews 12:9

IT is the revealed will of God that His child should meekly and silently bow to His chastening hand. And when the tried and afflicted believer "hears the rod, and who has appointed it," and with a humble and filial acquiescence justifies the wisdom, the love, and even the tenderness that sent it—surely such a soul is a rich partaker of God's holiness. In all these particulars, there is a surrender of the will to God, and consequently a close approximation to the holiness of His nature. Dear reader, the point we are now upon is one of the great moment. It involves as much your holy and happy walk, as it does the glory of God. We put the simple questions—can there be any advance of sanctification in the soul, when the will is running counter to the Divine will?—and can that believer walk happily, when there is a constant opposition in his mind to all the dealings of his God and Father? Oh no! Holiness and happiness are closely allied; and both are the offspring of a humble, filial, and complete surrender of the will in all things to God. I speak not of this as an attainment in holiness soon or easily gained. Far from it. In many, it is the work of years—in all, of painful discipline. It is not on the high mount of joy, but in the low valley of humiliation, that this precious and holy surrender is learned. It is not in the summer day, when all things smile and wear a sunny aspect—then it were easy, to say, "Your will be done;" but, when a cloudy and a wintry sky looks down upon you—when the chill blast of adversity blows—when health fails, when friends die—when wealth departs—when the heart's fondest endearments are yielded—when the Isaac is called for—when the world turns its back—when all is gone, and you are like a tree of the desert, over which the tempest has swept, stripping it of every branch—when you are brought so low, that it would seem to you lower you could not be—then to look up with filial love and exclaim, "My Father, Your will be done!"—oh, this is holiness, this is happiness indeed. It may be God, your God and Father, is dealing thus with you now. Has He taken from you health? has He asked for the surrender of your Isaac? have riches taken to themselves wings? does the world frown? Ah! little do you think how God is now about to unfold to you the depths of His love, and to cause your will sweetly, filially, and entirely to flow into His. Let me repeat the observation—a higher degree of sanctification there cannot be, than a will entirely swallowed up in God's. Earnestly pray for it, diligently seek it. Be jealous of the slightest opposition of your mind, watch against the least rebellion of the will, wrestle for an entire surrender—to be where, and to be what, your covenant God and Father would have you; and so shall you be made a partaker of His holiness.

OCTOBER 25.

"For they verily for a few days chastened us after their own pleasure; but he for our profit, that we might be partakers of his holiness." Hebrews 12:10

BELOVED reader, have you long asked for the removal of some secret, heavy, painful cross? Perhaps you are still urging your request; and yet the Lord seems not to answer you. And why? Because the request may not be in itself wise. Were He now to remove that cross, He may, in taking away the cross, close up a channel of mercy which you would never cease to regret. Oh, what secret and immense blessing may that painful cross be the means of conveying into your soul! Is it health you have long petitioned for? And is the request denied you? It is wisdom that denies. It is love, too, tender, unchangeable love to your soul, that refuses a petition which a wise and gracious God knows, if granted, would not be for your real good and His glory. Do you not think that there is love and tenderness enough in the heart of Jesus to grant you what you desire, and ten thousand times more, did He see that it would promote your true holiness and happiness? Could He resist that request, that desire, that sigh, that tear, that beseeching look, if infinite wisdom did not guide Him in all His dealing with your soul? Oh no! But He gives you an equivalent to the denied request. He gives you Himself. Can He give you more? His grace sustains you—His arm supports you—His love soothes you—His Spirit comforts you; and your chamber of solitude, though it may not be the scene of health and buoyancy and joyousness, may yet be the secret place where a covenant God and Father puts His grace into your soul—where Jesus seeks to meet you with the choicest unfoldings of His love. Could He not, would He not, heal you in a moment, were it for your good? Then, ask for a submissive spirit, a will swallowed up in God the Father's. And it may be, when the lesson of secret and filial submission is learned, so that health shall no longer be desired but as a means of glorifying God, He may put forth His healing power, and grant you your request. But, forget not, the Lord best knows what will most promote His own glory! You may have thought that health of body would better enable you to glorify Him. He may think that the chamber of solitude of the bed of languishing are most productive of glory to His name. The patience, resignation, meek submission, child-like acquiescence, which His blessed Spirit through this means works in your soul, may more glorify Him than all the active graces that ever were brought into exercise.

OCTOBER 26.

"The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: a broken and a contrite heart, O God, you will not despise." Psalm 49:17

THERE is a sense in which the history of the world is the history of broken hearts. Were the epitaph of many over whose graves—those "mountain-peaks of a new and distant world"—we thoughtlessly pass, faithfully inscribed upon the marble tablet that rears above them so proudly its beautifully chiseled form, it would be this—"Died of a broken heart." Worldly adversity, blighted hope, the iron heel of oppression, or the acid tongue of slander, crushed the sensitive spirit, and it fled where the rude winds blow not, and "where the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest." Passing beyond the limit of time, we visit in imagination the gloomy precincts of the lost, and lo! we find that the abodes of the finally impenitent are crowded with weeping, mourning, despairing souls. Yes! there are broken hearts there, and there are tears there, and there is repentance there, such as the betrayer of his Lord felt, before he "went to his own place,"—but, alas! it is the "sorrow of the world, which works death." In all this grief there enters nothing of that element which gives its character and complexion to the sorrow of David—the broken and contrite heart, the sacrifice of God which He despises not. A man may weep, and a lost soul may despair, from the consequences of sin; but in that sorrow and in that despair there shall be no real heartfelt grief for sin itself, as a thing against a holy and a righteous God. But we are now to contemplate, not the broken spirit merely, but the contrite heart also—the sorrow of sincere repentance and deep contrition springing up in the soul for sin—its exceeding sinfulness and abomination in the sight of God.

This state defines the first stage in conversion. The repentance which is enkindled in the heart at the commencement of the divine life may be legal and tending to bondage; nevertheless it is a spiritual, godly sorrow for sin, and is "unto life." The newly awakened and aroused sinner may at first see nothing of Christ, he may see nothing of the blood of atonement, and of God's great method of reconciliation with him, he may know nothing of faith in Jesus as the way of peace to his soul—yet he is a true and sincere spiritual penitent. The tear of holy grief is in his eye—ah! we do not forget with what ease some can weep; there are those the fountain of whose sensibility lies near the surface; an arousing discourse, an affecting book, a thrilling story, will quickly moisten the eye; but still we must acknowledge that the religion of Jesus is the religion of sensibility; that there is no godly repentance without feeling, and no spiritual contrition apart from deep emotion. Yes! the tear of holy grief is in his eye; and if ever it is manly to weep, surely it is now, when for the first time the soul that had long resisted every appeal to its moral consciousness is now smitten to the dust, the heart of adamant broken, and the lofty spirit laid low before the cross of Jesus. Oh, it is a holy and a lovely spectacle, upon which angels, and the Lord of angels Himself, must look with ineffable delight. Reader, have you reached this, the primary stage in the great change of conversion? Have you taken this, the first step in the soul's travel towards heaven? It is the knowledge of the disease which precedes the application to the remedy; it is the consciousness of the wound which brings you into contact with the Healer and the healing.

Oh who, once having experienced the truth, would wish to escape this painful and humiliating process? who would refuse to drink the wormwood and the gall, if only along this path he could reach the sunlight spot where the smiles of a sin-pardoning God fill the heart with joy and gladness? Who would not bare his bosom to the stroke, when the hand that plucks the dart and heals the wound is the hand through whose palm the rough nail was driven—when "wounded for our transgressions, and bruised for our iniquities"? Who would not endure the uneasiness of sin, but to feel the rest that Jesus gives to the weary? and who would not experience the mourning for transgression, but to know the comfort which flows from the loving heart of Christ? Again the question is put—has the Spirit of God revealed to you the inward plague, has He brought you just as you are to Jesus, to take your stand upon the doctrine of His unmerited, unpurchased mercy—asking for pardon as a beggar, praying for your discharge as a bankrupt, and beseeching Him to take you as a homeless wanderer into the asylum of His loving and parental heart?

OCTOBER 27.

"And all the churches shall know that I am he which searches the reins and hearts: and I will give unto every one of you according to your works." Revelation 2:23

WHOSE prerogative is it to search the heart? who can fathom this fathomless sea of iniquity? who can follow it in all its serpentine windings? who can detect its deep subtlety?—who? "I, the Lord, search the heart: I try the reins." A mere creature—such as the denier of Christ's proper Deity would make Him—cannot know the heart. It is a perfection peculiar to God, and must in its own nature be incommunicable; for were it communicable to a creature, it could not be peculiar to God Himself. Were it possible, we say, that God should delegate the power and prerogative of searching the heart and trying the reins of the children of men to a mere created being, then it could with no propriety be said of Him, the He only searches the heart. And yet to Jesus does this attribute belong. Is not, then, the evidence of His Deity most conclusive? Who can resist it? From this attribute of Christ what blessedness flows to the believing soul! It is at all times a consolation to him to remember that Jesus knows and searches the heart. Its iniquity He sees and subdues; for the promise is, "He will subdue our iniquities." He detects some lurking evil, some latent corruption, and before it develops itself in the outward departure, the overt act, He checks and conquers it. "Cheering thought," may the believer say, "that all my inbred evil, the hidden corruption of my heart, is known to my Savior God. Lord, I would not conceal a thought; but would cry, 'search me, O God, and know my heart; try me, and know my thoughts; and see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.'" He sees, too, His own gracious work in the soul. The little spiritual life that He has breathed there—the little grace that He has implanted there—the little spark of love that He has kindled there—the faint and feeble longings after Him—the inward strugglings with sin—the hungering and thirsting for holiness—the panting for divine conformity—all is known to Jesus. The Lord Jesus knows and recognizes His own work: the counterfeit He soon detects. The outward garb and the unhumbled spirit, the external profession and the unbroken heart, escape not His piercing glance. Man may be deceived—the Lord Jesus, never. We may not be able to discern between the righteous and the wicked—between nature and grace—between the outward profession and the inward reality; but Jesus knows what is genuine and what is base—what is the mere effect of an enlightened judgment and an alarmed conscience.

OCTOBER 28.

"Lord, you know all things; you know that I love you." John 21:17

DEAR reader, this is His own solemn declaration of Himself—"I, the Lord, search the heart." Can you open all your heart to Him? Can you admit Him within its most secret places? are you willing to have no concealments? Are you willing that He should search and prove it? Oh, be honest with God!—keep nothing back—tell Him all that you detect within you. He loves the full, honest disclosure: He delights in this confiding surrender of the whole heart. Are you honest in your desires that He might sanctify your heart, and subdue all its iniquity?—then confess all to Him—tell Him all. You would not conceal from your physician a single symptom of your disease—you would not hide any part of the wound; but you would, if anxious for a complete cure, disclose to him all. Be you as honest with the Great Physician—the Physician of your soul. It is true, He knows your case; it is true, He anticipates every want; yet He will have, and delights in having, His child approach Him with a full and honest disclosure. Let David's example encourage you: "I acknowledged my sin unto You, and mine iniquity have I not hid; I said, I will confess my transgressions unto the Lord; and You forgave the iniquity of my sin." And while the heart is thus pouring itself out in a full and minute confession, let the eye of faith be fixed on Christ. It is only in this posture that the soul shall be kept from despondency. Faith must rest itself upon the atoning blood. And oh, in this posture, fully and freely, beloved reader, may you pour out your heart to God! Disclosures you dare not make to your tenderest friend, you may make to Him: sins you would not confess, corruption your would not acknowledge as existing within you, you are privileged thus, "looking unto Jesus," to pour into the ear of your Father and God. And oh, how the heart will become unburdened, and the conscience purified, and peace and joy flow into the soul, by this opening of the heart to God! Try it, dear reader: let no consciousness of guilt keep you back; let no unbelieving suggestion of Satan, that such confessions are inappropriate for the ear of God, restrain you. Come at once—come now—to your Father's feet, and bringing in your hands the precious blood of Christ make a full and free disclosure. Thus from the attribute of Christ's omniscience may a humble believer extract much consolation at all times permitted to appeal to it, and say with Peter, "Lord, You know all things, You know that I love You."

OCTOBER 29.

"Lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world." Matthew 28:20

OMNIPRESENCE is an attribute of Deity ascribed to Christ. We would refer the reader to two portions of Scripture for proof; they both run in parallel lines with each other. In Matthew 18:20, we have this encouraging declaration from Christ, "Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them." Compare this with Exodus 20:24, "In all places where I record my name, I will come unto you and will bless you." Thus the reader will perceive that the identical promise which God gave to His ancient church, when He established her in the wilderness, when He gave to her the law, built for her the tabernacle, and instituted for her a sacrifice, the Lord Jesus makes of Himself. Consoling thought! Jesus is with His saints at all times, in all places, and under all circumstances. He is "God with us." He is with them to comfort them in the hour of sorrow, to enlighten them in the hour of darkness, to guide them in the hour of doubt and perplexity, to deliver them in the time of conflict, to support them in the hour of death. Oh for faith to realize this! He was with His three faithful servants in the fiery furnace; He was with Daniel in the lions' den; He was with Jacob in his wrestlings at Bethel; He was with John in his exile at Patmos. Jesus is at all times, in all places, and under all circumstances, with His dear people. Reader, are you a child of sorrow?—perhaps you are a son of a daughter of affliction: you may now be passing through the furnace—you may now be draining adversity's bitter cup; the rod of the covenant may be heavy upon you; friends unkind, the world empty, everything earthly changing, faith weak, corruptions strong, and, what embitters the cup, and deepens the shade, your Father hiding from you His dear reconciled face. Is it so? Still is your omnipresent Jesus with you. Do not be cast down; this furnace is but to consume the tin and burnish the gold, this draught is but to work your inward good: these painful dispensations, by which you are learning the changeableness of everything earthly, are but to wean you from a poor, unsatisfying world, and to draw you near and yet nearer to Jesus. Then be of good cheer, for He has promised never to leave or forsake you. So that you may boldly say, "The Lord is my helper."

OCTOBER 30.

"Our lamps are gone out." Matthew 25:8

THERE are two periods of awful solemnity, which will be found utterly to extinguish the mere lamp of a Christian profession. Will you follow me, reader, to the dying-bed of a false professor. It is an awful place! It is an affecting spectacle! No hope of glory sheds its brightness around his pillow. There is no anchor within the veil, to which the soul now clings in its wrenchings from the body. No Divine voice whispers, in cheering, soothing accents, "Fear not, for I am with you." No light is thrown in upon the dark valley as its gate opens, and the spirit enters. Coldness is on his brow, earth recedes, eternity nears, the vault damps ascend and thicken around the parting spirit, and the last wail of despair breaks from the quivering lip, "My lamp is going out." And so will it be when the Son of man comes. This great event will fix unchangeably the destiny of each individual of the human race. It will break like the loud artillery of heaven upon a slumbering Church and a careless world. It will find the true saints with "oil in their vessels with their lamps," though in an unwatchful state. It will come upon the nominal professor, grasping firmly his lamp of profession, but utterly destitute of the oil of grace, and in a state of as little expectation of, as preparedness for, the advent of the Lord. And it will overtake and surprise the ungodly world as the flood did in the days of Noah, and the fire in the days of Lot—"They were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage; they bought, they sold, they planted, they built; until the day that Noah entered into the ark, and until the same day that Lot went out of Sodom." "Even thus shall it be in the day when the Son of man is revealed." The true saints will arouse from their slumber—the spirit of slothfulness and lethargy into which they had fallen—and trimming their lamps by a fresh exercise of faith in Jesus, will go forth as the "children of the light," to welcome their approaching Lord. False professors, too, startled by the cry which breaks upon the awful stillness of midnight—solemn as the archangel's trumpet—will eagerly feel for their lamps—their evidences of acceptance based upon an outward profession of the gospel—when lo! to their surprise and consternation, they find themselves destitute of one drop of oil with which to feed the flickering, waning flame, and they exclaim in despair, "Our lamps are going out!" And now the intellectual light goes out, and the moral light goes out, and the professing light goes out, and the official light goes out; and while they have fled to human sources to procure the grace they needed—their backs being thus then turned upon Christ—the "Bridegroom comes; and those who are ready go in with Him to the marriage, and the door is shut." They return with what they suppose the needed evidences, but now they learn—oh that they should have learned it too late!—that to have had a professing name to live—to have outwardly put on Christ by baptism—to have united externally with the Church of God—to have partaken of the Lord's Supper—to have promoted His truth, and to have furthered His cause—to have preached His gospel, and even to have won converts to the faith, will avail nothing—alone and apart from union to Jesus by the Spirit—in obtaining admittance to the marriage supper of the Lamb. "Afterward came also the other virgins, saying, Lord, Lord, open to us. But He answered and said, Verily I say unto you, I know you not." In view of such a catastrophe, oh, how poor, contemptible, and insignificant appears everything, however splendid in intellect, beautiful in morals, or costly in sacrifice, save the humble consciousness of having Christ in the heart the hope of glory.

OCTOBER 31.

"'Arise, shine; for your light is come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon you." Isaiah 40:1

THERE are those whose lamps of Christian profession will not go out when the Lord appears. They are His own chosen, redeemed, and called people. Their light, by reason of manifold infirmities, may often have burned but dimly through life; but there is vital religion in the soul—the golden precious oil of grace, flowing from Jesus into their hearts; and this can never be extinguished. Many were the hostile influences against which their weak grace had to contend, many were the trials of their feeble faith, but the light never quite went out. The waves of sorrow threatened to extinguish it; the floods of inbred evil threatened to extinguish it; the cold blasts of adversity threatened to extinguish it; and the stumbling of the walk, the inconstancy of the heart, the declension of the soul, often for a while, weakened and obscured it; but there it is, living, burning, and brightening, as inextinguishable and as deathless as the source from where it came. The grace of God in the heart is as imperishable, and the life of God in the soul is as immortal, as God Himself. That light of knowledge enkindled in the mind, and of love glowing in the heart, and of holiness shining in the life, will burn in the upper temple in increasing effulgence of glory through eternity. The divine light of Christian profession, which holy grief for sin has enkindled, which love to God has enkindled, which the in-being of the Holy Spirit has enkindled, will outshine and outlive the sun in the firmament of heaven. That sun shall be extinguished, those stars shall fall, and that moon shall be turned into blood, but the feeblest spark of grace in the soul shall live forever. The Lord watches His own work with sleepless vigilance. When the vessel is exhausted, He stands by and replenishes it; when the light burns dimly, He is near to revive it; when the cold winds blow rudely, and the rough waves swell high, He is riding upon those winds, and walking upon those waves, to protect this the spark of His own kindling. The light that is in you is light flowing from Jesus, the "Fountain of light." And can an infinite fountain be exhausted? When the sun is extinguished, then all the lesser lights, deriving their faint effulgence from Him, will be extinguished too—but not until then. Who is it that has often fanned the smoking flax? Even He who will never quench the faintest spark of living light in the soul. "You will light my candle." And if the Lord light it, what power can put it out? Is not His love the sunshine of your soul? Is He not Himself your morning star? Is it not in His light that you see light, even the "light of the glory of God, in the face of Jesus Christ"? Oh, then, "Arise and shine; for your light is come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon you."

NOVEMBER 1.

"Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his." Romans 8:9

THE Spirit of Christ is the great convincer of sin. "He shall convince the world of sin." Have you thus received Him? Has He discovered to you the moral leprosy of your nature, the exceeding sinfulness of sin? Do you know anything of the conflict of which the apostle speaks in the seventh chapter of this Epistle to the Romans—the law of the mind in battle with the law of the members? And has this discovery led you to self-condemnation, to self-renunciation, to lay your mouth in the dust before God? If this be so, then the Spirit of Christ is a Spirit of conviction in you, and by this you may know that you are Christ's.

The Spirit of Christ leads to Christ. He is to the sinner what John was to the Messiah—He goes before as the Forerunner of the Lord's salvation. He prepares the way, and heralds the coming of Jesus into the soul. This was one specific object for which He was sent, and which entered essentially into His mission—to lead men to Christ. Has He led you to Christ? Can you say, "Christ is made unto me wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption"? What do you think of Christ? Is His blood precious? Does His righteousness give you peace? Does His grace subdue your sins? Do you in sorrow travel to His sympathy, in weakness take hold of His strength, in perplexity seek His counsel, in all your steps acknowledge and wait for Him? Is Christ thus all in all to you? Then you have the Spirit of Christ. This we venture to assert for your encouragement. You may resort to Christ, and there may be no sensible apprehension, no realizing touch, no manifested presence; yet, if your heart goes out after Jesus, if your spirit travels alone to Him, praying for His sympathy, panting for His grace, thirsting for His love, and you are led to say, "Lord, the desire of my heart is to Your name, and to the remembrance of You; I seem not to see You, to touch You, to apprehend You; yet I come, and I find a heaven in coming; and for ten thousand worlds I dare not, I could not, stay away"—then, dear reader, you have the Spirit of Christ, and are Christ's. Not only does the Spirit lead to Christ, but He also conforms those thus led to the image of Christ. He guides us to Christ, not for consolation and instruction only, but also for assimilation. If we are humble, we have the Spirit of Christ—for He was humble. If we are meek, we have the Spirit of Christ—for He was meek. If we believe, we have the Spirit of Christ—for He lived a life of faith. If we love God, we have the Spirit of Christ—for He was the incarnation of love. If we are holy, we have the Spirit of Christ—for He was without sin. If we are obedient, meek, and self-denying in suffering, silent in provocation, submissive in chastisement, patient in tribulation, and rejoicing in hope, then have we the Spirit of Christ, for He was all this. Thus the possession of this immense, this indispensable blessing, comprises two grand things—first, to become the subject of an actual and permanent in-being of the Spirit; and second, to be assimilated in character and disposition to the Savior. And while it is most certain, that if the first-mentioned blessing is attained, the second follows, yet it is to the second we are to look as the fruit and evidence of the first. The question, "Am I Christ's?" hinges upon the answer to the question, "Have I the Spirit of Christ?"

NOVEMBER 2.

"If you endure chastening, God deals with you as with sons; for what son is he whom the Father chastens not?" Hebrews 12:7

AS our chastenings are marks of our sonship, equally so are our consolations. The kindly view the Spirit gives of our Father's dispensations—the meek submission of the will, the cordial acquiescence of the heart, and the entire surrender of the soul to God, which He creates, supplies us with indisputable ground for drawing a conclusion favorable to the reality of our being the children of God. There is a depth of sympathy and a degree of tenderness in God's comforts, which could only flow from the heart of a father—that Father, God Himself. "As a father pities his children, so the Lord pities those who fear Him." Sweet to know that the correction and the consolation, the wounding and the healing, flow from the same heart, come from the same hand, and bears each a message of love and a token of sonship. Is the God of all comfort sustaining, soothing, and quieting your oppressed, chafed, and sorrowful heart? Oh, it is the Spirit's witness to your adoption. Bending to your grief, and associating Himself with every circumstance of your sorrow, He seeks to seal on your softened heart the deeper, clearer impress of your filial interest in God's love. And oh, if this overwhelming bereavement—if this crushing stroke—if the bitterness and gloom of this hour, be the occasion of the Spirit's gentle, gracious lifting you from the region of doubt and distress, as to your sonship, into the serene sunlight of your Father's love, so that you shall question, and doubt, and deny no more your acceptance in the Beloved, and your adoption into His family, will you not kiss the rod, and love the hand, and bless the heart that has smitten? Do not forget that the inward seal of adoption is testified by the outward seal of sanctification, and that if the Spirit of Christ is in your heart, the fruits of the Spirit will be exhibited in your life. Then, thus meek, and gently, and lowly, like the Savior, separated from the world, that you live not, and joy not, as the world does—in the secret chamber of your soul you shall often hear the voice of God, saying, "I will be a Father unto you, and you shall be my sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty."

NOVEMBER 3.

"Sanctify them through your truth: your word is truth." John 17:17

"HOW may I know," is the anxious inquiry of many, "that sin is being mortified in me?" We reply—by a weakening of its power. When Christ subdues our iniquities, He does not eradicate them, but weakens the strength of their root. The principle of sin remains, but it is impaired. See it in the case of Peter. Before he fell, his easily besetting sin was self-confidence: "Although all shall be offended, yet will not I." Behold him after his recovery, taking the low place at the feet of Jesus, and at the feet of the disciples too, meekly saying, "Lord, You know all things; You know that I love You." No more self-vaunting, no more self-confidence: his sin was mortified through the Spirit, and he became as another man. Thus often the very outbreak of our sins may become the occasion of their deeper discovery and their more thorough subjection. Nor let us overlook the power of the truth, by the instrumentality of which the Spirit mortifies sin in us: "Sanctify them through Your truth." The truth as it is in Jesus, revealed more clearly to the mind, and impressed more deeply on the heart, transforms the soul into its own divine and holy nature. Our spiritual and experimental acquaintance, therefore, with the truth—with Him who is essential truth—will be the measure of the Spirit's mortification of sin in our hearts. Is the Lord Jesus becoming increasingly precious to your soul? Are you growing in poverty of spirit, in a deeper sense of your vileness, weakness, and unworthiness? Is pride more abased, and self more crucified, and God's glory more simply sought? Does the heart more quickly shrink from sin, and is the conscience more sensitive to the touch of guilt, and do confession and cleansing become a more frequent habit? Are you growing in more love to all the saints—to those, who, though they adopt not your entire creed, yet love and serve your Lord and Master? If so, then you may be assured the Spirit is mortifying sin in you. But oh, look from everything to Christ. Look not within for sanctification; look up for it from Christ. He is as much our "sanctification" as He is our "righteousness." Your evidences, your comfort, your hope, do not spring from your fruitfulness, your mortification, or anything within you; but solely and entirely from the Lord Jesus Christ. "Looking unto Jesus" by faith, is like removing the covering and opening the windows of a conservatory, to admit more freely the sun, beneath whose light and warmth the flowers and fruits expand and mature. Withdraw the veil that conceals the Sun of Righteousness, and let Him shine in upon your soul, and the mortification of all sin will follow, and the fruits of all holiness will abound.

NOVEMBER 4.

"But of him are you in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom." 1 Corinthians 1:30

TO survey the effects of this manifold wisdom on individual character will exalt our views of Christ as the wisdom of God. To see a man "becoming a fool that he may be wise"—his reason bowing to revelation—his knowledge and attainments laid beneath the cross—his own righteousness surrendered—"counting all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus the Lord"—and as a little child receiving the kingdom of God; oh, how glorious does appear in this the wisdom of God, the light of which shines in Jesus' face! Behold how determined is the Father, in every step of His grace, to humble the creature, and to exalt, magnify, and crown his co-equal Son, Lord of all!

We see Jesus the mediatorial Head of all wisdom and counsel to the Church. "It pleased the Father that in Him should all fullness dwell." "In whom," says the same apostle, "are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge." He is the "Wonderful Counselor," of whom it was thus prophesied, "the spirit of the Lord shall rest upon Him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord." O divine and precious truth! unutterably precious to a soul having no resources adequate to the great purposes of knowing self, Christ, and God; of salvation, sanctification, and guidance.

Reader, are you wanting the "wisdom that is profitable to direct" you at this moment? Acquaint now yourself with Jesus, in whom all the treasures of this wisdom are hid. What is His language to you? The same which Moses, the great legislator, spoke to the people of Israel: "The cause that is too hard for you, bring it unto me, and I will hear it." What a cheering invitation is this! A greater than Moses speaks it, and speaks it to you. You find your case baffling to human wisdom, too difficult for the acutest skill of man—take it, then, to Jesus. How sweetly He speaks—"bring it unto me." One simple exercise of faith upon His word will remove all that is difficult, make simple make simple all that is complex, and lucid all that is dark in your case. With Him nothing is impossible. To Him all is transparent. Knowing the end from the beginning, there can be nothing unforeseen in it to His mind; by His prescience all is known, and by His wisdom all is provided for. His precious promise is, "I will bring the blind by a way that they knew not: I will lead them in a path that they have not known. I will make darkness light before them, and crooked things straight. These things will I do unto them, and not forsake them." Thus is Jesus "made of God unto us wisdom," that all our perplexities may be guided, and all our doubts may be solved, and all our steps may be directed, by one on whom the anointing of the "spirit of wisdom and understanding" rests "without measure;" and who, from experience, is able to lead, having trod every step before us. "And when he puts forth His own sheep, he goes before them, and the sheep follow Him." "If any man lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that gives to all men liberally:" let him repair to Christ, whom God has set up from everlasting, "to the intent that now unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places might be known by the Church the manifold wisdom of God."

NOVEMBER 5.

"For Christ is not entered into the holy places made with hands, which are the figures of the true; but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us." Hebrews 9:24

IS it a privilege to be borne upon the affectionate and believing prayers of a Christian friend? Ah, yes! precious channels of heavenly blessing are the intercessions of the Lord's people on our behalf. But there is a Friend still closer to the Fountain of mercy, still nearer and dearer to the Father, than your dearest earthly friend; it is Jesus, "who ever lives to make intercession for them who come unto God by Him." Oh, how precious is that declaration upon which in any assault, or trial, or perplexity, you may calmly and confidently repose: "I have prayed for you"! Yes, when from confusion of thought, or pain of body, or burning fever, you can not pray for yourself, and no friend is near to be your mouth to God, then there is one, the Friend of friends, the ever-skillful Advocate and never-weary Intercessor—no invocating saint, nor interceding angel—but the Son of God himself, who appears in the presence of God moment by moment for you. Oh, keep, then, the eye of your faith immovably fixed upon Christ's intercession; He intercedes for weak faith, for tried faith, for tempted faith—yes, for him who thinks he has no faith. There is not a believer who is not borne upon His heart, and whose prayers and needs are not presented in His ceaseless intercession. When you deem yourself neglected and forgotten, a praying Savior in heaven is thinking of you. When you are tried and cast down, tempted and stumble, the interceding High Priest at that moment enters within the holiest, to ask on your behalf strength, consolation, and upholding grace. And when sin has wounded, when guilt distresses, and unbelief beclouds, who is it that stands in the breach, that makes intercession, that removes the darkness, and brings back the smile of a forgiving Father?—the Lord Jesus, the interceding Savior. Oh, look up, tried and assaulted believer! you have a Friend at court, an Advocate in the chancery of heaven, an Intercessor curtained within the holiest of holies, transacting all your concerns, and through whom you may have access to God with boldness.

NOVEMBER 6.

"Verily I say unto you, Among those who are born of women there has not risen a greater than John the Baptist: notwithstanding he that is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he." Matthew 11:11

IF there are degrees of glory—and we see no reason to question the fact—we believe that those degrees will be graduated, not by the strength or capacity of the intellect, but according to the measure and standard of holiness which the believer attained in this life. If glory is the perfection of grace, then it follows, that proportioned to the degree of grace here will be the degree of glory hereafter. If the great and grand perfection of God be His holiness, then the more clearly I approximate to that holiness, the more deeply must I partake of the glory of God, and the higher must be my degree of glory. It is acquaintance with, and conformity to, God's moral, and not His intellectual being, that will constitute the highest source of our happiness in heaven. That our enlarged intellectual capacity will be a vast inlet to expanded views of God we do not dispute; but it will be the conformity of our moral nature to His that will constitute and augment our perceptions of glory. Were we asked to pass through the Church of God, and from its various communions select the individual whom we should regard as the richest heir of glory, whose degree of happiness would, perhaps, transcend that of the glorified philosopher, we should, it may be, find him the inmate of some obscure hut, dwelling amid lonely poverty, sickness, and neglect; yet holding communion with God, so filial, so endearing, and so close, as to present to our eye his soul's uplifted and soaring pinions, "as the wings of a dove covered with silver, and her feathers with yellow gold." We should go to him whose heart thus breathing after holiness, whose spirit thus imbibing more and more of the mind of Christ, who in this lowly and suffering school was learning more deeply of God, and what God is, and who thus was gathering around him the beams of that glory whose unclouded visions were so soon to burst upon his view; and we would unhesitatingly point to him as the man whose degree of glory will be transcendently great—grace enriching and encircling him with more glory than gift. Do you, my reader, desire to be a star of the first magnitude and luster in heaven? then aim after a high degree of grace on earth. The nearer your present walk with God, the nearer will be your future proximity to God. The closer your resemblance to Christ, the deeper your holiness, the more spiritual and heavenly-minded you become on earth, be assured of this, the higher and the more resplendent will be your glory in heaven. As the ungodly man is treasuring up wrath against the day of wrath, and is growing more and more meet for hell; so the godly man is laying up glory against the day of glory, and is growing more and more meet for heaven. We need not speculate and surmise about the future. Let the child of God be careful as to his degrees towards fitness for glory, and he may calmly and safely leave his degrees of glory to the period when that glory shall be revealed.

NOVEMBER 7.

"God has not cast away his people which he foreknew." Romans 11:2

IN this place the word "foreknew" assumes a particular and explicit meaning. In its wider and more general application it must be regarded as referring not simply to the Divine prescience, but more especially to the Divine prearrangement. For God to foreknow is, in the strict meaning of the phrase, for God to foreordain. There are no guesses, or conjectures, or contingencies with God as to the future. Not only does He know all, but He has fixed, and appointed, and ordered "all things after the counsel of His own will." In this view there exists not a creature, and there transpires not an event, which was not as real and palpable to the Divine mind from eternity as it is at the present moment. Indeed, it would seem that there were no future with God. An Eternal Being, there can be nothing prospective in His on-looking. There must be an eternity of perception, and constitution, and presence; and the mightiest feature of His character—that which conveys to a finite mind the most vivid conception of His grandeur and greatness—is the simultaneousness of all succession and variety and events to His eye. "He is of one mind; and who can turn Him?" But the word "foreknew," as it occurs in the text, adds to this yet another, a more definite, and to the saints, a more precious signification. The foreknowledge here spoken of, it will be observed, is limited to a particular class of people, who are said to be "conformed to the image of God's Son." Now this cannot, with truth, be predicated of all creatures. The term, therefore, assumes a particular and impressive signification. It includes the everlasting love of God to, and His most free choice of, His people to be His especial and peculiar treasure. We find some examples of this: "God has not cast away His people which He foreknew." Here the word is expressive of the two ideas of love and choice. Again, "Who verily was foreordained (Greek, foreknown) before the foundation of the world." "Him being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God." Clearly, then, we are justified in interpreting the phrase as expressive of God's especial choice of, and His intelligent love to, His Church—His own peculiar people. It is a foreknowledge of choice—of love—of eternal grace and faithfulness.

NOVEMBER 8.

"He also did predestinate." Romans 8:29

THIS word admits of but one natural signification. Predestination, in its lowest sense, is understood to mean the exclusive agency of God in producing every event. But it includes more than this: it takes in God's predeterminate appointment and fore-arrangement of a thing beforehand, according to His divine and supreme will. The Greek is so rendered: "For to do whatever Your hand and Your counsel determined beforehand to be done." Again, "Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will." It is here affirmed of God, that the same prearrangement and predetermination which men in general are agreed to ascribe to Him in the government of matter, extends equally, and with yet stronger force, to the concerns of His moral administration. It would seem impossible to form any correct idea of God, disassociated from the idea of predestination. And yet how marvelously difficult is it to win the mind to a full, unwavering acquiescence in a truth which, in a different application, is received with unquestioning readiness! And what is there in the application of this law of the Divine government to the world of matter, which is not equally reasonable and fit in its application to the world of mind? If it is necessary and proper in the material, why should it not be equally, or more so, in the spiritual empire? If God is allowed the full exercise of a sovereignty in the one, why should He be excluded from an unlimited sovereignty in the other? Surely it were even more worthy of Him that He should prearrange, predetermine, and supremely rule in the concerns of a world over which His more dignified and glorious empire extends, than that in the inferior world of matter He should fix a constellation in the heavens, guide the gyrations of a bird in the air, direct the falling of an autumnal leaf in the pathless desert, or convey the seed, borne upon the wind, to the spot in which it should grow. Surely if no fortuitous ordering is admitted in the one case, on infinitely stronger grounds it should be excluded from the other. Upon no other basis could Divine foreknowledge and providence take their stand than upon this. Disconnected from the will and purpose of God, there could be nothing certain as to the future; and consequently there could be nothing certainly foreknown. And were not Providence to regulate and control people, things, and events—every dispensation in fact—by the same preconstructed plan, it would follow that God would be exposed to a thousand contingencies unforeseen, or else that He acts ignorantly, or contrary to His will. What, then, is predestination but God's determining will?

Now all this will apply with augmented beauty and force to the idea of a predestinated Church. How clearly is this doctrine revealed! "According as He has chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world." "Whose names are written in the book of life, from the foundation of the world." "Elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father." "Who has saved us, and called us with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began." What an accumulation of evidence in proof of a single doctrine of Scripture! Who but the most prejudiced can resist, or the most skeptical deny, its overwhelming force? Oh, to receive it as the word of God! To admit it, not because reason can understand, or man can explain it—for all truth flowing from an infinite source must necessarily transcend a finite mind—but because we find it in God's holy word. Predestination must be a Divine verity, since it stands essentially connected with our conformity to the Divine image.

NOVEMBER 9.

"To be conformed to the image of his Son." Romans 8:29

NO standard short of this will meet the case. How conspicuous appears the wisdom and how glorious the goodness of God in this—that in making us holy, the model or standard of that holiness should be Deity itself! God would make us holy, and in doing so He would make us like Himself. But with what pencil—dipped though it were in heaven's brightest hues—can we portray the image of Jesus? The perfection of our Lord was the perfection of holiness. His Deity, essential holiness; His humanity without sin, the impersonation of holiness; all that He was, and said, and did, was as coruscations of holiness emanating from the Fountain of essential purity, and kindling their dazzling and undying radiance around each step He trod. How lovely, too, His character! How holy the thoughts He breathed, how pure the words He spoke, how humble the spirit He exemplified, how tender and sympathizing the outgoings of His compassion and love to man! "The chief among ten thousand, the altogether lovely." Such is the believer's model. To this he is predestinated to be conformed. And is not this predestination in its highest form? Would it seem possible for God to have preordained us to a greater blessing, to have chosen us to a higher distinction? In choosing us in Christ before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy, He has advanced us to the loftiest degree of honor and happiness to which a creature can be promoted—assimilation to His own moral image. And this forms the highest ambition of the believer. To transcribe those beauteous lineaments which, in such perfect harmony and lovely expression, blended and shone in the life of Jesus, is the great study of all His true disciples. But in what does this conformity consist? The first feature is a conformity of nature. And this is reciprocal. The Son of God, by an act of divine power, became human; the saints of God, by an act of sovereign grace, become divine. "Partakers of the Divine nature." This harmony of nature forms the basis of all conformity. Thus grafted into Christ, we grow up into Him in all holy resemblance. The meekness, the holiness, the patience, the self-denial, the zeal, the love, traceable—faint and imperfect indeed—in us are transfers of Christ's faultless lineaments to our renewed soul. Thus the mind that was in Him is in some measure in us. And in our moral conflict, battling as we do with sin and Satan and the world, we come to know a little of fellowship with His sufferings, and conformity to His death. We are here supplied with a test of Christian character. It is an anxious question with many professors of Christ, "How may I arrive at a correct conclusion that I am among the predestinated of God?—that I am included in His purpose of grace and love?—that I have an interest in the Lord's salvation?" The passage under consideration supplies the answer—conformity to the image of God's Son. Nothing short of this can justify the belief that we are saved. No evidence less strong can authenticate the fact of our predestination. The determination of God to save men is not so fixed as to save them be their character what it may. Christ's work is a salvation from sin, not in sin. "According as He has chosen us in Him, before the foundation of the word, that we should be holy." In other words, that we should be conformed to the Divine image. That we should be like Christ—like Christ in His Divine nature—like Christ in the purity of His human nature—like Christ in the humility He exemplified, in the self-denial He practiced, in the heavenly life He lived; in a word, in all that this expressive sentence comprehends—"conformed to the image of His Son." And as we grow day by day more holy, more spiritually-minded, more closely resembling Jesus, we are placing the truth of our predestination to eternal life in a clearer, stronger light, and consequently the fact of our salvation beyond a misgiving and a doubt. In view of this precious truth, what spiritual heart will not breathe the prayer, "O Lord! I cannot be satisfied merely to profess and call myself Your. I want more of the power of vital religion in my soul. I pant for Your image. My deepest grief springs from the discovery of the little real resemblance which I bear to a model so peerless, so divine—that I exemplify so little of Your patience in suffering; Your meekness in opposition; Your forgiving spirit in injury; Your gentleness in reproving; Your firmness in temptation; Your singleness of eye in all that I do. Oh, transfer Yourself wholly to me."

NOVEMBER 10.

"That he might be the firstborn among many brethren." Romans 8:29

THE Son of God sustains to us the relation of the Elder Brother. He is emphatically the "Firstborn." In another place we read, "Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, He also Himself likewise took part of the same." He is the "Brother born for adversity." Our relation to Him as our Brother is evidenced by our conformity to Him as our model. We have no valid claim to relationship which springs not from a resemblance to His image. The features may be indistinctly visible, yet one line of holiness, one true lineament, drawn upon the heart by the Holy Spirit, proves our fraternal relationship to Him the "Firstborn." And how large the brotherhood!—"many brethren." What the relative proportion of the Church is to the world—how many will be saved—is a question speculative and profitless. But this we know—the number will be vast, countless. The one family of God is composed of "many brethren." They are not all of the same judgment in all matters, but they are all of the same spirit. The unity of the family of God is not ecclesiastical nor geographical, it is spiritual and essential. It is the "unity of the Spirit." Begotten of one Father, in the nature of the Elder Brother, and through the regenerating grace of the one Spirit, all the saints of God constitute one church, one family, one brotherhood—essentially and indivisibly one. Nor is this relationship difficult to recognize. Take an illustration. Two brethren in the Lord of widely different sections of the Church, and of much dissonance of sentiment on some points of truth, meet and converse together. Each wonders that, with the Word of God in his hand, the other should not read it as he reads it, and interpret it as he interprets it. But they drop the points of difference, and take up the points of agreement. They speak of Christ—the Christ who loves them both, and whom they both love. They talk of the one Master whom they serve; of their common labors and infirmities, trials and temptations, discouragements, failures, and success; they talk of the heaven where they are journeying; of their Father's house, in which they will dwell together for ever; they kneel in prayer; they cast themselves before the cross; the oil of gladness anoints them; their hearts are broken, their spirits are humbled, their souls are blended; they rise, and feel more deeply and more strongly than ever, that they both belong to the same family, are both of the "many brethren," of whom the Son of God is the "Firstborn," the Elder Brother. Oh, blessed unity! What perfect harmony of creed, what strict conformity of ritual, what sameness of denominational relation, is for a moment to be compared with this? Have you, my reader, this evidence that you belong to the "many brethren"?

NOVEMBER 11.

"But God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world." Galatians 6:14

CONFORMITY to the death of Christ can only be obtained by close, individual, realizing views of the cross. It is in the cross sin is seen in its exceeding sinfulness. It is in the cross the holiness of God shines with such ineffable luster. This is the sun that throws its light upon these two great objects—the holiness of God, the sinfulness of the sinner. Veil this sun, remove the cross, blot out the Atonement, and all our knowledge of holiness and sin vanishes into distant and shadowy views. Faith, dealing much and closely with the cross of Christ, will invariable produce in the soul conformity to His death. This was the great desire of the apostle: "That I may know Him, and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being made conformable unto His death." This was the noble prayer of this holy man. He desired crucifixion with Christ; a crucifixion to sin, to indwelling sin, to sin in its every shape—to sin in principle, sin in temper, sin in worldly conformity, sin in conversation, sin in thought, yes, sin in the very glance of the eye. He desired not only a crucifixion of sin, of one particular sin, but of all sin; not only the sin that most easily beset him, the sin that he daily saw and felt, and mourned over, but the sin that no eye saw but God's—the sin of the indwelling principle; the root of all sin—the sin of his nature. This is to have fellowship with Christ in His sufferings. Jesus suffered as much for the subduing of the indwelling principle of sin, as for the pardon of the outbreakings of that sin in the daily practice. Have we fellowship with Him in these sufferings? There must be a crucifixion of the indwelling power of sin. To illustrate the idea: if the root be allowed to strengthen and expand, and take a deeper and firmer grasp, what more can we expect than that the tree will shoot upward and branch out on either hand? To cut off the outward branches is not the proper method to stay the growth of the tree: the root must be uncovered, and the axe laid to it. Outward sins may be cut off, and even honestly confessed and mourned over, while the concealed principle, the root of the sin, is overlooked, neglected, and suffered to gather strength and expansion.

That the inherent evil of a believer will ever, in his present existence, be entirely eradicated, we do not assert. To expect this would be to expect what God's Word has not declared; but that it may be greatly subdued and conquered, its power weakened and mortified, this the Word of God leads us to hope for and aim after. How is this to be attained? Faith dealing frequently and closely with Christ—the atoning blood upon the conscience—the "fountain opened" daily resorted to—the believer sitting constantly at the foot of the cross, gazing upon it with an eye of steady, unwavering faith—"looking unto Jesus." In this posture sin, all sin—the sin of the heart, the sin of the practice—is mourned over, wept over, confessed, mortified, crucified. Let the reader again be reminded that all true crucifixion of sin springs from the cross of Christ.

NOVEMBER 12.

"Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." Matthew 5:3

CULTIVATE above all spiritual conditions, most assiduously, prayerfully, earnestly, and fervently, poverty of spirit. Rest not short of it. This is the legitimate fruit and the only safe evidence of our union to Christ and the indwelling of the Spirit in our hearts. Nothing can suffice for it. Splendid talent, versatile gifts, profound erudition, gorgeous eloquence, and even extensive usefulness, are wretched substitutes for poverty of spirit. They may dazzle the eye, and please the ear, delight the taste, and awake the applause of man, but, dissociated from humiliation of mind, God sees no glory in them. What says He? "To this man"—to him only, to him exclusively—"will I look, even to him that is poor and of a contrite spirit, and trembles at my word." We may think highly of gifts, but let us learn their comparative value and true place from the words of our Lord, spoken in reference to John: "Verily I say unto you, Among them which are born of women, there has not risen a greater than John the Baptist: "notwithstanding he that is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he." Behold the true position which Christ assigns to distinction of office, of place, and of gifts—subordinate to lowliness of spirit. This is their proper rank; and he who elevates them above profound self-abasement, deep lowliness of spirit, sins against God, impeaches His wisdom, and denies the truth of His word. But how shall we adequately describe this blessed state? How draw the portrait of the man that is "poor, and of a contrite spirit"? Look at him as he appears in his own apprehension and judgment—"the chief of sinners"—"less than the least of all saints"—"though I be nothing." Prostrate, where others exalt him; condemning, where others approve him; censuring, where others applaud him; humbling himself, where others have put upon him the greatest honor. Confessing in secret, and in the dust before God, the flaws, the imperfections, and the sins of those things which have dazzled the eyes, and awoke to trembling ecstasy the souls of the multitude. Look at him in the place he assumes among others—taking the low position; in honor preferring others; washing the disciples' feet; willing to serve, rather than be served; rejoicing in the distinction, the promotion, the gifts, the usefulness, and the honor put upon his fellow-saints; and ready himself to go up higher at his Master's bidding. Look at him under the hand of God—meek, patient, resigned, humbled, drinking the cup, blessing the hand that has smitten, justifying the wisdom, the love, and the gentleness which mark the discipline, and eager to learn the holy lessons it is sent to teach. Look at him before the cross—reposing all his gifts, attainments, and honors at its foot, and glorying only in the exhibition it presents of a holy God pardoning sin by the death of His Son, and as the hallowed instrument by which he becomes crucified to the world, and the world to him.

NOVEMBER 13.

"Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and you shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light." Matthew 11:29, 30

HOW shall we array, in their strongest light, before you, the motives which urge the cultivation of this poverty of spirit? Is it not enough that this is the spiritual state on which Jehovah looks with an eye of exclusive, holy, and ineffable delight? "To this man I will look." Splendid gifts, brilliant attainments, costly sacrifices, are nothing to me. "To this man will I look, that is poor and of a contrite spirit, and that trembles at my word." To this would we add, if you value your safe, happy, and holy walk—if you prize the manifestations of God's presence—the "kisses of His mouth, whose love is better than wine"— the teaching, guiding, and comforting influence of the Holy Spirit, seek it. If you would be a "savor of Christ in every place"—if you would pray with more fervor, unction, and power—if you would labor with more zeal, devotedness, and success, seek it. By all that is dear, and precious, and holy, by your own happiness, by the honor of Christ, by the glory of God, by the hope of heaven, seek to be found among those who are "poor and of a contrite spirit," who, with filial, holy love, tremble at God's word, whom Jesus has pronounced blessed here, and meet for glory hereafter. And though in approaching the Great High Priest, you have no splendid and costly intellectual offerings to present, yet with the royal penitent you can say, "You desire not sacrifice, else would I give it: you delight not in burned offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: a broken and a contrite heart, O God, you will not despise." "This, Lord, is all that I have to bring You." Avoid a spurious humility. True humility consists not in denying the work of the Holy Spirit in our hearts, in under-rating the grace of God in our souls, in standing afar off from our heavenly Father, and in walking at a distance from Christ, always doubting the efficacy of His blood, the freeness of His salvation, the willingness of His heart, and the greatness of His power to save. Oh no! this is not the humility that God delights to look at, but is a false, a counterfeit humility, obnoxious in His sight. But to "draw near with a true heart, in full assurance of faith," in lowly dependence upon His blood and righteousness; to accept of salvation as the gift of His grace; to believe the promise because He has spoken it; gratefully and humbly to acknowledge our calling, our adoption, and our acceptance, and to live in the holy, transforming influence of this exalted state, giving to a Triune God all the praise and glory; this is the humility which is most pleasing to God, and is the true product of the Holy Spirit.

NOVEMBER 14.

"My son, give me your heart." Proverbs 23:26

THE human heart is naturally idolatrous. Its affections once supremely centered in God: but now, disjoined from Him, they go in quest of other objects of attachment, and we love and worship the creature rather than the Creator. The circle which our affections traverse may not indeed by a large one; there are, perchance, but few to whom we fully surrender our heart; no, so circumscribed may the circle be, that one object alone shall attract, absorb, and concentrate in itself our entire and undivided love—that one object to us as a universe of beings, and all others comparatively indifferent and insipid. Who cannot see that, in a case like this, the danger is imminent of transforming the heart—Christ's own sanctuary—into an idol's temple, where the creature is loved, and reverenced, and served more than He who gave it. But from all idolatry our God will cleanse us, and from all our idols Christ will wean us. The Lord is jealous, with a holy jealousy, of our love. Poor as our affection is, He asks its complete surrender. That He requires our love at the expense of all creature attachment, the Bible nowhere intimates. He created our affections, and He it is who provides for their proper and pleasant indulgence. There is not a single precept or command in the Scriptures that forbids their exercise, or that discourages their intensity. Husbands are exhorted to "love their wives, even as Christ loved His church." Parents are to cherish a like affection toward their children, and children are bound to render back a filial love not less intense to their parents. And we are to "love our neighbors as ourselves." Nor does the word of God furnish examples of Christian friendship less interesting and devoted. One of the choicest and tenderest blessings with which God can enrich us, next to Himself, is such a friend as Paul had in Epaphroditus, a "brother and companion in labor, and fellow-soldier;" and such an affectionate friendship as John, the loving disciple, cherished for his well-beloved Gaius, whom he loved in the truth, and to whom, in the season of his sickness, he thus touchingly poured out his heart's affectionate sympathy: "Beloved, I wish above all things that you may prosper and be in health, even as your soul prospers." Count such a friend and such friendship among God's sweetest and holiest bestowments. The blessings of which it may be to you the sanctifying channel are immense. The tender sympathy—the jealous watchfulness—the confidential repose—the faithful admonition—above all, the intercessory prayer, connected with Christian friendship, may be placed in the inventory of our most inestimable and precious things.

It is not therefore the use, but the abuse, of our affections—not their legitimate exercise, but their idolatrous tendency—over which we have need to exercise the greatest vigilance. It is not our love to the creature against which God contends, but it is in not allowing our love to Himself to subordinate all other love. We may love the creature, but we may not love the creature more than the Creator. When the Giver is lost sight of and forgotten in the gift, then comes the painful process of weaning. When the heart burns its incense before some human shrine, and the cloud as it ascends veils from the eye the beauty and the excellence of Jesus, then comes the painful proves of weaning. When the absorbing claims and the engrossing attentions of some loved one are placed in competition and are allowed to clash with the claims of God, and the service due from us personally to His cause and truth, then comes the painful process of weaning. When creature devotion deadens our heart to the Lord, lessens our interest in His cause, congeals our zeal and love and liberality, detaches us from the public means of grace, withdraws from the closet, the Bible, and the communion of saints, thus propagating leanness of soul, and robbing God of His glory, then comes the painful process of weaning. Christ will be the first in our affections—God will be supreme in our service—and His kingdom and righteousness must take precedence of all other things.

NOVEMBER 15.

"In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace." Ephesians 1:7

LET not the reader be satisfied to rest upon the mere surface of the truth, that Christ has made an atonement for sin; this may be believed, and yet the full blessedness, peace, and sanctification of it not enjoyed. Any why? Because he enters not fully into the experience of the truth. Shall we not say, too, because his views of sin rest but on the surface of sin's exceeding sinfulness? Deep views of sin will ever result in deep views of the Sacrifice for sin; inadequate knowledge of sin, inadequate knowledge of Christ; low views of self, high views of Christ. Be satisfied, then, not to rest upon the surface of this wondrous truth. The completeness of Christ's atonement arises from the infinite dignity of His Person: His Godhead forms the basis of His perfect work. It guarantees, so to speak, the glorious result of His atonement. It was this that gave perfection to His obedience, and virtue to His atonement: it was this that made the blood He shed efficacious in the pardon of sin, and the righteousness He wrought out complete in the justification of the soul. His entire work would have been wanting but for His Godhead.

The pardon of a believer's sins is an entire pardon: it is the full pardon of all his sins. It were no pardon to him, if it were not an entire pardon. If it were but a partial blotting out of the thick cloud—if it were but a partial canceling of the bond—if it were but a forgiveness of some sins only, then the gospel were no glad tidings to his soul. The law of God has brought him in guilty of an entire violation. The justice of God demands a satisfaction equal to the enormity of the sins committed and of the guilt incurred. The Holy Spirit has convinced him of his utter helplessness, his entire bankruptcy. What rapture would kindle in his bosom at the announcement of a partial atonement—of a half Savior—of a part payment of the debt? Not one throb of joyous sensation would it produce. On the contrary, this very mockery of his woe would but deepen the anguish of his spirit. But, go to the soul, weary and heavy laden with sin, mourning over its vileness, its helplessness, and proclaim the gospel. Tell him that the atonement which Jesus offered on Calvary was a full satisfaction for his sins. That all his sins were borne and blotted out in that awful moment. That the bond which divine justice held against the sinner was fully cancelled by the obedience and sufferings of Christ, and that, appeased and satisfied, God was "ready to pardon." How beautiful will be the feet that convey to him tidings so transporting as these! And are not these statements perfectly accordant with the declarations of God's own word? Let us ascertain: what was the ark symbolical of, alluded to by the apostle in the ninth chapter of his Epistle to the Hebrews, which contained the manna, Aaron's rod, and the tables of the covenant, over which stood the Cherubim of glory, shadowing the mercy-seat? What, but the entire covering of sin? For, as the covering of the ark did hide the law and testimony, so did the Lord Jesus Christ hide the sins of His chosen, covenant people—not from the eye of God's omniscience, but from the eye of the law. They stand legally acquitted. So entire was the work of Jesus, so infinite and satisfactory His obedience, the law of God pronounces them acquitted, and can never bring them into condemnation. "There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus." "Who is he that condemns? It is Christ that died." How could the apostle, with any truth, have made a declaration so astounding, and uttered a challenge so dauntless as this, if the point we are now endeavoring to establish were not strictly as we affirm it to be?

NOVEMBER 16.

"Even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all those who believe." Romans 3:22

THE righteousness wrought out by the incarnation, obedience, sufferings, and death of Christ, is a most glorious righteousness. It took in the whole law of God. It did not soften down or ask for a compromise of its claims. It took the law in its utmost strictness, and honored it. It gave all the law demanded, all it could demand. And what stamped this righteousness with a glory so great? what enabled the Redeemer to offer an obedience so perfect?—what, but that He was God in our nature! The Law-giver became the Law-fulfiller. The God became the Substitute—the Judge became the Surety. Behold, then, the justification of a believing sinner! He stands accepted in the righteousness of Christ, with full and entire acceptance. What says the Holy Spirit? "In the Lord shall all the seed of Israel by justified, and shall glory." "And by Him (the Lord Jesus) all that believe are justified from all things, from which you could not be justified by the law of Moses." "And you are complete in Him, which is the head of all principality and power." "Christ loved the Church, and gave Himself for it, that He might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the Word, that He might present it to Himself a glorious Church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish." "He has made Him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him." Mark the expression, "made the righteousness of God"! So called because the righteousness which Christ wrought out was a divine righteousness—not the righteousness of a created being, of an angel, or of a superior prophet, else it were blasphemy to call it "the righteousness of GOD." Oh no! the righteousness in which you stand, if you are "accepted in the Beloved," is a more costly and glorious righteousness than Adam's, or the highest angel's in glory: it is "the righteousness of God." The righteousness of the God-man—possessing all the infinite merit, and glory, and perfection of Deity. And what seems still more incredible, the believer is made the righteousness of God in Christ. So that beholding him in Christ, the Father can "rest in His love, and rejoice over Him with singing." Is it not then, we ask, a perfect, a complete justification? what can be more so? Do not the passages we have quoted prove it? Can any other meaning be given to them, without divesting them of their beauty and obvious sense? Would it not be to turn from God's word, to dishonor and grieve the Spirit, and to rob the believer of a most influential motive to holiness, were we to take a less expanded view of this subject than that which we have taken? Most assuredly it would. Then let the Christian reader welcome this truth. If it is God's truth—and we humbly believe we have proved it to be so—it is not less his privilege than his duty to receive it.

NOVEMBER 17.

"To the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he has made us accepted in the beloved." Ephesians 1:6

THE holy influence which a believer is called to exert around him will be greatly augmented, and powerfully felt, by an abiding realization of his full and entire acceptance in Christ. The child of God is "the salt of the earth," "the light of the world," surrounded by moral putrefaction and darkness. By his holy consistent example, he is to exert a counteracting influence. He is to be purity where there is corruption, he is to be light where there is darkness. And if his walk is consistent, if his life is holy, his example tells, and tells powerfully, upon an ungodly world. Saints of God catch, as it were, the contagion of his sanctity. The worldling acknowledges the reality of the gospel he professes, and the bold skeptic falls back abashed, and feels "how awful goodness is!" What, then, will so elevate his own piety, and increase the power of his influence, as a realization of his justification by Christ? Oh how this commends the religion of Jesus! We will suppose a Christian parent surrounded by a large circle of unconverted children. They look to him as to a living gospel: they look to him for an exemplification of the truth he believes: they expect to see its influence upon his principles, his temper, his affections, his whole conduct. What, then, must be their impression of the gospel, if they behold their parent always indulging in doubts as to his acceptance, yielding to unbelieving fears as to his calling? Instead of walking in the full assurance of faith, saying with the apostle, "I know whom I have believed"—instead of living in the holy liberty, peace, and comfort of acceptance, there is nothing but distrust, dread, and tormenting fear. How many a child has borne this testimony, "the doubts and fears of my parent have been my great stumbling-block"! Oh, then, for the sake of those around you—for the sake of your children, your connections, your friends, your domestics—realize your full, free, and entire acceptance in Christ.

Is it any marvel, then, that in speaking of His beloved and justified people, God employs in His word language like this: "You are all fair, my love: there is no spot in you." "He has not beheld iniquity in Jacob, neither has He seen perverseness in Israel"? Carry out this thought. Had there been no iniquity in Jacob? had there been no perverseness in Israel? Read their histories, and what do they develop but iniquity and perverseness of the most aggravated kind? And yet, that God should say He saw no iniquity in Jacob, and no perverseness in Israel, what does it set forth but the glorious work of the adorable Immanuel—the glory, the fitness, the perfection of that righteousness in which they stand "without spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing"? In themselves vile and worthless, sinful and perverse, deeply conscious before God of possessing not a claim upon His regard, but worthy only of His just displeasure, yet counted righteous in the righteousness of another, fully and freely justified by Christ. Is this doctrine startling to some? Is it considered too great a truth to be received by others? Any other gospel than this, we solemnly affirm, will never save the soul! The obedience, sufferings, and death of the God-man, made over to the repenting, believing sinner, by an act of free and sovereign grace, is the only plank on which the soul can safely rest—let it attempt the passage across the cold river of death on any other, and it is gone! On this it may boldly venture, and on this it shall be safely and triumphantly carried into the quiet and peaceful haven of future and eternal blessedness. We acknowledge the magnitude of this doctrine; yet it is not to be rejected because of its greatness. It may be profound, almost too deeply so for an angel's mind—the cherubim may veil their faces, overpowered with its glory, while yet with eager longings they desire to look into it—still may the weakest saint of God receive it, live upon it, walk in it. It is "a deep river, through which an elephant might swim, and which a lamb may ford."

NOVEMBER 18.

"And I will bring the third part through the fire, and will refine them as silver is refined, and will try them as gold is tried: they shall call on my name, and I will hear them: I will say, It is my people: and they shall say, The Lord is my God." Zechariah 13:9

THE believer often commences his spiritual journey with shallow and defective views of the perfect fitness and glory of the Redeemer's justifying righteousness. There is, we admit, a degree of self-renunciation—there is a reception of Christ—and there is some sweet and blessed enjoyment of His acceptance. Yet his views of himself, and of the entire, absolute, supreme necessity, importance, and glory of Christ's finished work, are as nothing compared with his after experience of both. God will have the righteousness of His Son to be acknowledged and felt to be everything. It is a great work, a glorious work, a finished work, and He will cause His saints to know it. It is His only method of saving sinners; and the sinner that is saved shall acknowledge this, not in his judgment merely, but from a deep heartfelt experience of the truth, "to the praise of the glory of His grace."

It is, then, we say, in the successive stages of his experience, that the believer sees more distinctly, adores more profoundly, and grasps more firmly, the finished righteousness of Christ. And what is the school in which he learns his nothingness, his poverty, his utter destitution? the school of deep and sanctified affliction. In no other school is it learned, and under no other teacher but God. Here his high thoughts are brought low, and the Lord alone is exalted. Here he forms a just estimate of his attainments, his gifts, his knowledge, and that which he thought to be so valuable he now finds to be nothing worth. Here his proud spirit is abased, his rebellious spirit tamed, his restless, feverish spirit soothed into passive quietude; and here, the deep humbling acknowledgment is made, "I am vile!" Thus is he led back to first principles. Thus the first step is retaken, and the first lesson is relearned. The believer, emptied entirely of self, of self-complacency, self-trust, self-glorying, stands ready for the full Savior. The blessed and eternal Spirit opens to him, in this posture, the fitness, the fullness, the glory, the infinite grandeur of Christ's finished righteousness; leads him to it afresh, puts it upon him anew, causes him to enter into it more fully, to rest upon it more entirely; breaks it up to the soul, and discloses its perfect fitness to his case. And what a glory he sees in it! He saw it before, but not as he beholds it now. And what a resting-place he finds beneath the cross! He rested there before, but not as he rests now. Such views has he now of Christ—such preciousness, such beauty, such tenderness he sees in Immanuel—that a new world of beauty and of glory seems to have opened before his view. A new Savior, a new righteousness, appear to have been brought to his soul. All this has been produced by the discipline of the covenant—the afflictions sent and sanctified by a good and covenant God and Father. Oh, you tried believers! murmur not at God's dispensations; repine not at His dealings. Has He seen fit to dash against you billow upon billow? Has He thought proper to place you in the furnace? Has He blasted the fair prospect—dried up the stream—called for the surrender of your Isaac? Oh, bless Him for the way He takes to empty you of self, and fill you with His own love. This is His method of teaching you, schooling you, and fitting you for the inheritance of the saints in light. Will you not allow Him to select His own plan—to adopt His own mode of cure? You are in His hands; and could you be in better? Are you now learning your own poverty, destitution, and helplessness? and is the blood and righteousness of Jesus more precious and glorious to the eye of your faith? Then praise Him for your afflictions, for all these cross dispensations are now, yes, at this moment, working together for your spiritual good.

NOVEMBER 19.

"Charity suffers long, and is kind; charity envies not; charity boasts not itself, is not puffed up, does not behave itself unseemly, seeks not her own, is not easily provoked, thinks no evil; rejoices not in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things." 1 Corinthians 13:4—7

TRUE Christian love will excite in the mind a holy jealousy for the Christian reputation of other believers. How sadly is this overlooked by many professors! What sporting with reputation, what trifling with character, what unveiling to the eyes of others the weaknesses, the infirmities, and the stumblings of which they have become cognizant, marks many in our day. Oh! if the Lord had dealt with us as we have thoughtlessly and uncharitably dealt with our fellow-servants, what shame and confusion would cover us! We should blush to lift up our faces before men. But the exercise of this divine love in the heart will constrain us to abstain from all envious, suspicious feelings, from all evil surmisings, from all wrong construing of motives, from all tale-bearing—that fruitful cause of so much evil in the Christian Church—from slander, from unkind insinuations, and from going from house to house retailing evil, and making the imperfections, the errors, or the doings of others the theme of idle, sinful gossip—"busy-bodies in other men's matters." All this is utterly inconsistent with our high and holy calling. It is degrading, dishonoring, lowering to our character as the children of God. It dims the luster of our piety. It impairs our moral influence in the world. Ought not the character of a Christian professor to be as dear to me as my own? And ought I not as vigilantly to watch over it, and as zealously to promote it, and as indignantly to vindicate it, when unjustly aspersed or maliciously assailed, as if I, and not he, were the sufferer? How can the reputation of a believer in Jesus be affected, and we not be affected? It is our common Lord who is wounded—it is our common salvation that is injured—it is our own family that is maligned. And our love to Jesus, to His truth, and to His people, should caution us to be as jealous of the honor, as tender of the feelings, and as watchful of the character and reputation, of each member of the Lord's family, be his denomination what it may, as of our own. "Who is weak," says the apostle, "and I am not weak? who is offended, and I burn not?" Oh how graciously, how kindly does our God deal with His people! Laying His hand upon their many spots, He seems to say, "No eye but mine shall see them." Oh! let us in this particular be "imitators of God, as dear children." Thus shall we more clearly evidence to others, and be assured ourselves, that have "passed from death unto life."

NOVEMBER 20.

"God, who quickens the dead." Romans 4:17

THE commencement of spiritual life is sudden. We are far from confining the Spirit to a certain prescribed order in this or any other part of His work. He is a Sovereign, and therefore works according to His own will. But there are some methods He more frequently adopts than others. We would not say that all conversion is a sudden work. There is a knowledge of sin, conviction of its guilt, repentance before God on account of it; these are frequently slow and gradual in their advance. But the first communication of divine light and life to the soul is always sudden—sudden and instantaneous as was the creation of natural light—"God said, Let there be light, and there was light." It was but a word, and in an instant chaos rolled away, and every object and scene in nature was bathed in light and glory—sudden as was the communication of life to Lazarus—"Jesus cried with a loud voice, Lazarus, come forth!" it was but a word, and in an instant "he that was dead came forth, bound hand and foot with grave-clothes." So is it in the first communication of divine light and life to the soul. The eternal Spirit says, "Let there be light," and in a moment there is light. He speaks again, "Come forth," and in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, the dead are raised.

Striking illustrations of the suddenness of the Spirit's operation are afforded in the cases of Saul of Tarsus and of the thief upon the cross. How sudden was the communication of light and life to their souls! It was no long and previous process of spiritual illumination—it was the result of no lengthened chain of reasoning—no labored argumentation. In a moment, and under circumstances most unfavorable to the change, as we should think—certainly, at a period when the rebellion of the heart rose the most fiercely against God, "a light from heaven, above the brightness of the sun," poured its transforming radiance into the mind of the enraged persecutor; and a voice, conveying life into the soul, reached the conscience of the dying thief. Both were translated from darkness into light, "in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye." How many who read this page may say, "Thus it was with me!" God the Eternal Spirit arrested me when my heart's deep rebellion was most up in arms against Him. It was a sudden and a short work, but it was mighty and effectual. It was unexpected and rapid, but deep and thorough. In a moment the hidden evil was brought to view—the deep and dark fountain broken up; all my iniquities passed before me, and all my secret sins seemed placed in the light of God's countenance. My soul sank down in deep mire—yes, hell opened its mouth to receive me."

Overlook not this wise and gracious method of the blessed Spirit's operation in regeneration. It is instantaneous. The means may have been simple; perhaps it was the loss of a friend—an alarming illness—a word of reproof or admonition dropped from a parent or a companion—the singing of a hymn—the hearing of a sermon—or some text of Scripture winged with his power to the conscience; in the twinkling of an eye, the soul, "dead in trespasses and sins," was "quickened" and translated into "newness of life." Oh blessed work of the blessed and Eternal Spirit! Oh mighty operation! Oh inscrutable wisdom! What a change has now passed over the whole man! Overshadowed by the Holy Spirit, that which is begotten in the soul is the divine life—a holy, influential, never-dying principle. Truly he is a new creature, "old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new." For this change let it not be supposed that there is, in the subject, any previous preparation. There can be no preparation for light or life. What preparation was there is chaos? What preparation was there in the cold clay limbs of Lazarus? What in Paul? What in the dying thief? The work of regeneration is supremely the work of the Spirit. The means may be employed, and are to be employed, in accordance with the Divine purpose, yet are they not to be deified. They are but means, "profiting nothing" without the power of God the Holy Spirit. Regeneration is His work, and not man's.

NOVEMBER 21.

"Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that hears my word, and believes on him that sent me, has everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life." John 5:24

IF, then, the first implantation of the divine life in the soul is sudden; the advance of that work is in most cases gradual. Let this be an encouragement to any who are writing hard and bitter things against themselves in consequence of their little progress. The growth of divine knowledge in the soul is often slow—the work of much time and of protracted discipline. Look at the eleven disciples—what slow, tardy scholars were they, even though taught immediately from the lips of Jesus; and "who teaches like Him?" They drank their knowledge from the very Fountain. They received their light directly from the Sun itself. And yet, with all these superior advantages—the personal ministry, instructions, miracles, and example of our dear Lord—how slow of understanding were they to comprehend, and how "slow of heart to believe," all that He so laboriously, clearly, and patiently taught them! Yes, the advance of the soul in the divine life, its knowledge of sin, of the hidden evil, the heart's deep treachery and intricate windings, Satan's subtlety, the glory of the gospel, the preciousness of Christ, and its own interest in the great salvation, is not the work of a day, nor of a year, but of many days, yes, many years of deep ploughing, long and often painful discipline, of "windy storm and tempest."

But this life in the soul is not less real, nor less divine, because its growth is slow and gradual: it may be small and feeble in its degree, yet, in its nature, it is the life that never dies. How many of the Lord's beloved ones, the children of godly parents, brought up in the ways of God, are at a loss, in reviewing the map of their pilgrimage, to remember the starting-point of their spiritual life. They well know that they left the city of destruction—that by a strong and a mighty arm they were brought out of Egypt; but so gently, so imperceptibly, so softly, and so gradually were they led—"first a thought, then a desire, then a prayer"—that they could no more discover when the first dawning of divine life took place in their soul, than they could tell the instant when natural light first broke upon chaos. Still it is real. It is no fancy that he has inherited an evil principle in the heart; it is no fancy that that principle grace has subdued. It is no fancy that he was once a child of darkness; it is no fancy that he is now a child of light. He may mourn in secret over his little advance, his tardy progress, his weak faith, his small grace, his strong corruption, his many infirmities, his startings aside like "a broken bow," yet he can say, "Though I am the 'chief of sinners,' and the 'least of all saints'—though I see within so much to abase me, and without so much to mourn over, yet this 'one thing I know, that whereas I was blind, now I see.' I see that which I never saw before—a hatefulness in sin, and a beauty in holiness; I see a vileness and emptiness in myself, and a preciousness and fullness in Jesus." Do not forget, then, dear reader, that feeble grace is yet real grace. If it but "hungers and thirsts," if it "touches but the hem," it shall be saved.

NOVEMBER 22.

"Leaning upon her Beloved." Solomon's Song, 8:5

WHAT more appropriate, what more soothing truth could we bring before you, suffering Christian, than this? You are sick—lean upon Jesus. His sick ones are peculiarly dear to His heart. You are dear to Him. In all your pains and languishings, faintings and lassitude, Jesus is with you; for He created that frame, He remembers that it is but dust, and He bids you lean upon Him, and leave your sickness and its issue entirely in His hands. You are oppressed—lean upon Jesus. He will undertake your cause, and committing it thus into His hands, He will bring forth your righteousness as the light, and your judgment as the noonday. You are lonely—lean upon Jesus. Sweet will be the communion and close the fellowship which you may thus hold with Him, your heart burning within you while He talks with you by the way. Is the ascent steep and difficult? lean upon your Beloved. Is the path strait and narrow? lean upon your Beloved. Do intricacies and perplexities and trials weave their network around your feet? lean upon your Beloved. Has death smitten down the strong arm and chilled the tender heart upon which you were used to recline? lean upon your Beloved. Oh! lean upon Jesus in every strait, in every want, in every sorrow, in every temptation. Nothing is too insignificant, nothing too mean, to take to Christ. It is enough that you want Christ, to warrant you in coming to Christ. No excuse need you make for repairing to Him; no apology will He require for the frequency of your approach; He loves to have you quite near to Him, to hear your voice, and to feel the confidence of your faith and the pressure of your love. Ever remember that there is a place in the heart of Christ sacred to you, and which no one can fill but yourself, and from which none may dare exclude you. And when you are dying, oh! lay your languishing head upon the bosom of your Beloved, and fear not the foe, and dread not the passage; for His rod and His staff, they will comfort you. On that bosom the beloved disciple leaned at supper; on that bosom the martyr Stephen laid his bleeding brow in death; and on that bosom you, too, beloved, may repose, living or dying, soothed, supported, and sheltered by your Savior and your Lord.

NOVEMBER 23.

"God is not a man, that he should lie; neither the son of man, that he should repent: has he said, and shall he not do it? Or has he spoken, and shall he not make it good?" Numbers 23:19

GOD has done the utmost which His infinite wisdom dictated, to lay the most solid ground for confidence. He has made all the promises of the covenant of grace absolute and unconditional. Were faith simply to credit this, what "strong consolation" would flow into the soul! Take, for example, that exceeding great and precious promise, "Call upon me in the day of trouble: I will deliver you, and you shall glorify me." What a sparkling jewel, what a brilliant gem is this! How many a weeping eye has caught the luster, and has forgotten its misery, as waters that pass away! While others, perhaps, gazing intently upon it, have said, "This promise exactly suits my case, but is it for me? is it for one so vile as I? Who by my own indiscretion and folly and sin have brought this trouble upon myself? May such an one call upon God, and be answered?" What is this unbelieving reasoning, but to render this divine and most exhilarating promise, as to any practical influence upon your mind, of none effect? But the promise stands in God's word absolute and unconditional. There is not one syllable in it upon which the most unworthy child of sorrow can reasonably found an objection. Is it now with you a "day of trouble"?—God makes no exception as to how, or by whom, or from where your trouble came. It is enough that it is a time of trouble with you—that you are in sorrow, in difficulty, in trial—God says to you, "Call upon me in the day of trouble, I will deliver you." Resign, then, your unbelief, embrace the promise, and behold Jesus showing Himself through its open lattice. Take yet another glorious promise, "Him that comes unto me I will in no wise cast out." "This is just the promise that my poor, guilty, anxious heart needs," exclaims a trembling, sin-distressed soul; "but dare I with all my sin, and wretchedness, and poverty, take up my rest in Christ? What! may I, who have been so long an enemy against God, such a despiser of Christ, such a neglecter of my soul, and scoffer at its great salvation, approach with a trembling yet assured hope that Christ will receive me, save me, and not cast me out?" Yes! You may. The promise is absolute and unconditional, and, magnificent and precious as it is, it is yours. "Him that comes unto me I will in no wise cast out. Satan shall not persuade me, sin shall not prevail with me, my own heart shall not constrain me, yes, nothing shall induce me, to cast out that poor sinner who comes to me, believes my word, falls upon my grace, and hides himself in my pierced bosom: I will in no wise cast him out."

NOVEMBER 24.

"Nevertheless I tell you the truth; It is expedient for you that I go away: for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I depart, I will send him unto you." John 16:7

THERE is no sorrow of the believing heart of which the Holy Spirit is ignorant, to which He is indifferent, or which His sympathy does not embrace, and His power cannot alleviate. The Church in which He dwells, and whose journeyings he guides, is a tried Church. Chosen in the furnace of affliction, allied to a suffering Head, its course on earth is traced by tears, and often by blood. Deeply it needs a Comforter. And who can compute the individual sorrows which may crowd the path of a single traveler to his sorrowless home? What a world of trial, and how varied, may be comprised within the history of a single saint! But if sorrows abound, consolation much more abounds, since the Comforter of the Church is the Holy Spirit. What a mighty provision, how infinite the largess, the God of all consolation has made in the covenant of grace for the sorrows of His people, in the appointment of the Third Person of the blessed Trinity to this office! What an importance it attaches to, and with what dignity it invests, and with what sanctity it hallows, our every sorrow! If our heavenly Father sees proper in His unerring wisdom and goodness to send affliction, who would not welcome the message as a sacred and precious thing, thus to be soothed and sanctified? Yes, the Spirit leads the sorrowful to all comfort. He comforts by applying the promises—by leading to Christ—by bending the will in deep submission to God—and by unveiling to faith's far-seeing eye the glories of a sorrowless, tearless, sinless world. And oh, who can portray His perfection as a Comforter? With what promptness and tenderness He applies Himself to the soothing of each grief—how patiently He instructs the ignorant—how gently He leads the burdened—how skillfully He heals the wounded—how timely He meets the necessitous—how effectually He speaks to the mourner! When our heart is overwhelmed within us, through the depth and foam of the angry waters, He leads us to the Rock that is higher than we.

He leads to glory. There He matures the kingdom, and perfects the building, and completes the temple He commenced and occupied on earth. No power shall oppose, no difficulty shall obstruct, no contingency shall thwart the consummation of this His glorious purpose and design. Every soul graced by His presence, every heart touched by His love, every body sanctified as His temple, He will lead to heaven. Of that heaven He is the pledge and the earnest. While Jesus is in heaven, preparing a place for His people, the Spirit is on earth, preparing His people for that place. The one is maturing glory for the Church, the other is maturing the Church for glory.

NOVEMBER 25.

"What? know you not that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit which is in you, which you have of God, and you are not your own? For you are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God's." 1 Corinthians 6:19, 20

AS a temple of the Holy Spirit, yield yourself to His divine and gracious power. Bend your ear to His softest whisper—your will to His gentlest sway—your heart to His holy and benign influence. In not hearkening to His voice, and in not yielding to His promptings, we have been great losers. Often has He incited to communion with God, and because the time was not seasonable, or the place not convenient, you stifled His persuasive voice, resisted His proffered aid, and, thus slighted and grieved, He has retired. And lo! when you have risen to pray, God has covered Himself as with a cloud that your prayer could not pass through. Oh, seek to have an ear attuned to His softest accents, and a heart constrained to an instant compliance with His mildest dictates. The greatest blessing we possess is the possession of the Spirit.

And oh, to be Christ's—to be His gift, His purchase, His called saint, His lowly disciple—what an inestimable privilege! But how may we be quite sure that this privilege is ours? If we have the Spirit of Christ, we are in very deed Christians. It is the superscription of the King, the mark of the Shepherd, the Lord's impress of Himself upon the heart. And how sanctifying this privilege! "Those who are Christ's have crucified the flesh, with its affections and lusts." "Let every one that names the name of Christ depart from iniquity." And if we are Christ's now, we shall be Christ's to all eternity. It is a union that cannot be dissolved. Every believer in Jesus is "sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise which is the earnest of our inheritance." And as we have the earnest of the inheritance, we shall as assuredly possess the inheritance itself. The Spirit of Christ is an active, benevolent Spirit. It bore the Savior, when He was in the flesh, from country to country, from city to city, from house to house, preaching His own gospel to lost man. "He went about doing good." If we have the Spirit of Christ, we shall be prompted to a like Christian love and activity on behalf of those who possess not the gospel, or who, possessing it, slight and reject the mercy. The Spirit of Christ is essentially a missionary Spirit. It commenced its labor of love at Jerusalem, and from that its center, worked its way with augmenting sympathy and widening sphere until it embraced the world as the field of its labor. Ah! that we manifest so little of this Spirit, ought to lead us to deep searchings of heart, and stir us up to earnest prayer: "Lord, make me more earnest for the salvation of souls, for the advancement of Your kingdom. Grant me this evidence of being Your—the possession of Your Spirit, constraining me to a more simple and unreserved consecration of my talents, my substance, my rank, my influence, my time, myself, to the establishment of Your truth, the advancement of Your cause, and thus to the wider diffusion of Your glory in the earth."

NOVEMBER 26.

"Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to His abundant mercy has begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead." 1 Peter 1:3

TO be sensible of this amazing power in the soul is to be born again—to be raised from the grave of corruption—to live on earth a heavenly, a resurrection-life—to have the heart daily ascending in the sweet incense of love and prayer and praise, where its risen Treasure is. It possesses, too, a most comforting power. What but this sustained the disciples in the early struggles of Christianity, amid the storms of persecution, which else had swept them from the earth? They felt that their Master was alive. They needed no external proof of the fact. They possessed in their souls God's witness. The truth authenticated itself. The three days of His entombment were to them days of sadness, desertion, and gloom. Their sun had set in darkness and in blood, and with it every ray of hope had vanished. All they loved, or cared to live for, had descended to the grave. They had now no arm to strengthen them in their weakness, no bosom to sympathize with them in sorrow, no eye to which they could unveil each hidden thought and struggling emotion. But the resurrection of their Lord was the resurrection of all their buried joys. They now traveled to him as to a living Savior, conscious of a power new-born within them, the power of their Lord's resurrection. "Then were the disciples glad when they saw the Lord." But is this truth less vivifying and precious to us? Has it lost anything of its vitality to quicken, or its power to soothe? Oh, no! truth is eternal and immutable. Years impair not its strength, circumstances change not its character. The same truths which distilled as dew from the lips of Moses, which awoke the seraphic lyre of David, which winged the heaven-soaring spirit of Isaiah, which inspired the manly eloquence of Paul, which floated in visions of sublimity before the eye of John, and which in all ages have fed, animated, and sanctified the people of God, guiding their counsels, soothing their sorrows, and animating their hopes, still are vital and potent in the chequered experiences of the saints, hastening to swell the cloud of witnesses to their divinity and their might. Of such is the doctrine of Christ's resurrection. Oh, what consolation flows to the Church of God from the truth of a living Savior—a Savior alive to know and to heal our sorrows—to inspire and sanctify our joys—to sympathize with and supply our need! Alive to every cloud that shades the mind, to every cross that chafes the spirit, to every grief that saddens the heart, to every evil that threatens our safety or imperils our happiness! What power, too, do the promises of the gospel derive from this truth! When Jesus speaks by these promises, we feel that there is life and spirit in His word, for it is the spoken word of the living Savior. And when He invites us to Himself for rest, and bids us look to His cross for peace, and asks us to deposit our burdens at His feet, and drink the words that flow from His lips, we feel a living influence stealing over the soul, inspiriting and soothing as that of which the trembling evangelist was conscious, when the glorified Savior gently laid His right hand upon him, and said, "Fear not: I am the first and last: I am he that lives, and was dead; and behold, I am alive for evermore, Amen; and have the keys of hell and of death." Is Jesus alive? Then let what else die, our life, with all its supports, consolations, and hopes, is secure in Him. "Because I live, you shall live also." A living spring is He. Seasons vary, circumstances change, feelings fluctuate, friendships cool, friends die, but Christ is ever the same. Oh, the blessedness of dealing with a risen, a living Redeemer! We take our needs to Him—they are instantly supplied. We take our sins to Him—they are immediately pardoned. We take our griefs to Him—they are in a moment assuaged.

NOVEMBER 27.

"Because the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God." Romans 8:21

THEY are already in possession of a liberty most costly and precious. Is it no true liberty to stand before God accepted in the Beloved? Is it no liberty to draw near to Him with all the confidence of a child reposing in the boundless affection of a loving father? Is it no liberty to travel day by day to Jesus, always finding Him an open door of sympathy the most exquisite, of love the most tender, and of grace the most overflowing? Is it, in a word, no real liberty to be able to lay faith's hand upon the everlasting covenant, and exclaim, "There is now no condemnation"? Oh, yes! This is the liberty with which Christ has made us free. But the glorious liberty of the children of God is yet to come. Glorious it will be, because more manifest and complete. Including all the elements of our present freedom, it will embrace others not yet enjoyed. We shall be emancipated from the body of sin and of death. Every fetter of corruption will be broken, and every tie of sense will be dissolved. All sadness will be chased from our spirit, all sorrow from our heart, and all cloud from our mind. Delivered from all sin, and freed from all suffering, we shall wander through the many mansions of our Father's house, and tread the star-paved streets of the celestial city, repose beneath the sylvan bowers of the upper Paradise, and drink of the waters, clear as crystal, that flow from beneath the throne—our pure, and blissful, and eternal home—exulting the in the "glorious liberty of the children of God." How striking and solemn is the contrast between the present and the future state of the believer and the unbeliever! Yours, too, unregenerate reader, is a state of vanity. But, alas! it is a most willing subjection, and the bondage of corruption which holds you is uncheered by one ray of hope of final deliverance. What a terrible and humiliating bondage—a willing slave to sin and Satan! All is vanity which you so eagerly pursue. "The Lord knows the thoughts of man, that they are vanity." Were it possible for you to realize all the schemes of wealth and distinction, of pleasure and happiness, which now float in gorgeous visions before your fevered fancy, still would your heart utter its mournful and bitter complaint, "All is vanity and vexation of spirit." Oh, turn you from these vain shadows to Jesus, the substance of all true wealth, and happiness, and honor. That fluttering heart will never find repose until it rests in Him. That craving soul will never be satisfied until it be satisfied with Christ. At His feet then cast you down, and with the tears of penitence, the reliance of faith, and the expectation of hope, ask to be numbered among the adopted, who shall before long be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God.

NOVEMBER 28.

"As many as were ordained to eternal life believed." Acts 13:48

THERE can be nothing in the Bible adverse to the salvation of a sinner. The doctrine of predestination is a revealed doctrine of the Bible; therefore predestination cannot be opposed to the salvation of the sinner. So far from this being true, we hesitate not most strongly and emphatically to affirm, that we know of no doctrine of God's word more replete with encouragement to the awakened, sin-burdened, Christ-seeking soul than this. What stronger evidence can we have of our election of God than the Spirit's work in the heart? Are you really in earnest for the salvation of your soul? Do you feel the plague of sin? Are you sensible of the condemnation of the law? Do you come under the denomination of the "weary and heavy laden"? If so, then the fact that you are a subject of the Divine drawings—that you have a felt conviction of your sinfulness—and that you are looking wistfully for a place of refuge, affords the strongest ground for believing that you are one of those whom God has predestinated to eternal life. The very work thus begun is the Spirit's first outline of the Divine image upon your soul—that very image to which the saints are predestinated to be conformed.

But while we thus vindicate this doctrine from being inimical to the salvation of the anxious soul, we must with all distinctness and earnestness declare, that in this stage of your Christian course you have primarily and mainly to do with another and a different doctrine. We refer to the doctrine of the Atonement. Could you look into the book of the Divine decrees, and read your name inscribed upon its pages, it would not impart the joy and peace which one believing view of Christ crucified will convey. It is not essential to your salvation that you believe in election; but it is essential to your salvation that you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. In your case, as an individual debating the momentous question how a sinner may be justified before God, your first business is with Christ, and Christ exclusively. You are to feel that you are a lost sinner, not that you are an elect saint. The doctrine which meets the present phase of your spiritual condition is, not the doctrine of predestination, but the doctrine of an atoning Savior. The truth to which you are to give the first consideration and the most simple and unquestioning credence is, that "Christ died for the ungodly"—that He came into the world to save sinners—that He came to call, not the righteous, but sinners to repentance—that in all respects, in the great business of our salvation, He stands to us in the relation of a Savior, while we stand before Him in the character of a sinner. Oh, let one object fix your eye, and one theme fill your mind—Christ and His salvation. Absorbed in the contemplation and study of these two points, you may safely defer all further inquiry to another and a more advanced stage of your Christian course. Remember that the fact of your predestination, the certainty of your election, can only be inferred from your conversion. We must hold you firmly to this truth. It is the subtle and fatal reasoning of Satan, a species of atheistical fatalism, to argue, "If I am elected I shall be saved, whether I am regenerated or not." The path to eternal woe is paved with arguments like this. Men have cajoled their souls with such vain excuses until they have found themselves beyond the region of hope! But we must rise to the fountain, by pursuing the stream. Conversion, and not predestination, is the end of the chain we are to grasp. We must ascend from ourselves to God, and not descend from God to ourselves, in settling this great question. We must judge of God's objective purpose of love concerning us, by His subjective work of grace within us. In conclusion, we earnestly entreat you to lay aside all fruitless speculations, and to give yourself to prayer. Let reason bow to faith, and faith shut you up to Christ, and Christ be all in all to you. Beware that you come not short of true conversion—a changed heart, and a renewed mind, so that you become a "new creature in Christ Jesus." And if as a poor lost sinner you repair to the Savior, all vile and guilty, unworthy and weak as you are, He will receive you and shelter you within the bosom that bled on the cross to provide an atonement and an asylum for the very chief of sinners.

NOVEMBER 29.

"But I certify you, brethren, that the gospel which was preached of me is not after man. For I neither received it of men, neither was I taught it, but by the revelation of Jesus Christ." Galatians 1:11, 12

THE great and distinctive truth thus so broadly, emphatically, and impressively stated is the divinity of the gospel—a truth, in the firm and practical belief of which the Church of God needs to be established. The gospel is the master-work of Jehovah, presenting the greatest display of His manifold wisdom, and the most costly exhibition of the riches of His grace. In constructing it He would seem to have summoned to His aid all the resources of His own infinity; His fathomless mind, His boundless love, His illimitable grace, His infinite power, His spotless holiness—all contributed their glory, and conspired to present it to the universe as the most consummate piece of Divine workmanship. It carries with it its own evidence. The revelations it makes, the facts it records, the doctrines it propounds, the effects is produces, speak it to be no "cunningly devised fable," of human invention and fraud, but what it truly is, the "revelation of Jesus Christ," the "glorious gospel of the blessed God." What but a heart of infinite love could have conceived the desire of saving sinners? And by what but an infinite mind could the expedient have been devised of saving them in such a way—the incarnation, obedience, and death of His own beloved Son? Salvation from first to last is of the Lord. Here we occupy high vantage ground. Our feet stand upon an everlasting rock. We feel that we press to our heart that which is truth—that we have staked our souls upon that which is divine—that Deity is the basis on which we build: and that the hope which the belief of the truth has inspired will never make ashamed. Oh, how comforting, how sanctifying is the conviction that the Bible is God's word, that the gospel is Christ's revelation, and that all that it declares is as true as Jehovah Himself is true! What a stable foundation for our souls is this! We live encircled by shadows. Our friends are shadows, our comforts are shadows, our defenses are shadows, our pursuits are shadows, and we ourselves are shadows passing away. But in the precious gospel we have substance, we have reality, we have that which remains with us when all other things disappear, leaving the soul desolate, the heart bleeding, and the spirit bowed in sorrow to the dust. It peoples our lonely way, because it points us to a "cloud of witnesses." It guides our perplexities, because it is a "lamp to our feet." It mitigates our grief, sanctifies our sorrow, heals our wounds, dries our tears, because it leads us to the love, the tenderness, the sympathy, the grace of Jesus. The gospel reveals Jesus, speaks mainly of Jesus, leads simply to Jesus, and this makes it what it is, "glad tidings of great joy," to a poor, lost, ruined, tried, and tempted sinner.

NOVEMBER 30.

"For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believes." Romans 1:16

TO what but the divinity of its nature are we to attribute the miraculous success which has hitherto attended the propagation of the gospel? Systems of religious opinion have risen, flourished for a while, then languished and disappeared. But the gospel, the most ancient, as it is the most sublime of all, has outlived all other systems. It has beheld the rise and the fall of many, and yet it remains. What religion has ever encountered the fierce and persevering opposition which Christianity has endured? Professed friends have endeavored to corrupt and betray it. Avowed enemies have sworn utterly to annihilate it. Kings and legislatures have sought to arrest its progress, and to banish it from the earth. The fires of persecution have consumed its sanctuaries and its preachers; and behold! it yet lives! The "divinity within" has kept it. He who dwelt in the bush has preserved it. Where are the French Encyclopedists—the men of deep learning and brilliant genius, of moving eloquence, caustic wit, and untiring energy, who banded themselves together with a vow to exterminate Christ and Christianity? Where is the eloquent Rosseau, the witty Voltaire, the ingenious Helvetius, the sophistical Hume, the scoffing D'Alembert, and the ribaldist Paine? Their names have rotted from the earth, and their works follow them. And where is the Savior, whom they sought to annihilate? Enthroned in glory, robed in majesty, and exalted a Prince and a Savior, encircled, worshiped, and adored by countless myriads of holy beings, the crown of Deity on His head, and the scepter of universal government in His hand, from whose tribunal they have passed, tried, sentenced, and condemned, while He yet lives, "to guard His Church and crush His foes." And where is the gospel, which they confederated and thought to overthrow? Pursuing its widening way of mercy through the world; borne on the wings of every wind, and on the crest of every billow, to the remotest ends of the earth, destroying the temples and casting down the idols of heathenism, supplanting superstition and idolatry with Christian sanctuaries and Christian churches; softening down the harshness of human barbarism, turning the instruments of cruelty into implements of husbandry; above all, and the grandest of all its results, proclaiming to the poorest, neediest, vilest of our race, salvation—full, free salvation by Christ—the pardon of the greatest sins by His atoning blood, the covering of the greatest deformity and unworthiness by His justifying righteousness, and the opening of the kingdom of heaven to all that believe. Thus is the glorious gospel now blessing the world. It goes and effaces the stains of human guilt, it gives ease to the burdened conscience, rest to the laboring spirit, the sweetest comfort under the deepest sorrow, dries the mourner's tear, exchanges the "garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness," and all because it speaks of Jesus. Oh, this gospel were no glad tidings, it were no good news, did it not testify of Jesus the Savior. He that sees not Christ the sum, the substance, the wisdom, the power of the gospel, is blind to the real glory of the word. He that has never tasted the love of Jesus is yet a stranger to the sweetness of the truth.

Yes! the gospel is divine! it is of God's own creation. He gave the word, and great is the company of those who preach it. Infidelity may oppose, and infidels may scorn it; false professors may betray, and sworn enemies may assail it; yet it will survive, as it has done, the fiercest assaults of men and of devils; like the burning bush it will outlive the flame, and like the rock of the ocean it will tower above the storm—God, who originated and who guards it, exclaiming to all their rage, "Hitherto shall you come, but no farther; and here shall your proud waves be stayed."

DECEMBER 1.

"He shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver: and he shall purify the sons of Levi, and purge them as gold and silver, that they may offer unto the Lord an offering in righteousness." Malachi 3:3

"Take away the dross from the silver, and there shall come forth a vessel for the refiner." Proverbs 25:4

MARK the great and glorious end of this fiery process—a righteous offering to the Lord; and a vessel formed, prepared, and beautified for the Refiner; a "vessel unto honor, meet for the Master's use." Blessed result! Oh the wonders wrought by the fire of God's furnace! Not only is "God glorified in the fire," but the believer is sanctified. Have you ever observed the process of the artificer in the preparation of his beautiful ornament? After removing it from its mold, skillfully and properly formed, he then traces upon it the design he intended it should bear, dipping his pencil in varied hues of the brightest coloring. But the work is not yet finished. The shape of that ornament is yet to be fixed, the figures are to be set, the colors perpetuated, and the whole work consolidated. By what process?—by passing through the fire. The fire alone completes the work. Thus is it with the chastened soul—that beautifully constructed vessel, which is to adorn the palace of our King through eternity—the gaze, the wonder, the delight of every holy intelligence. God has cast it into the Divine mold, has drawn upon it the "image of His Son," with a pencil dipped in heaven's own colors—but it must pass through the furnace of affliction, thus to stamp completeness and eternity upon the whole. Calmly, then, repose in the hands of your Divine Artificer, asking not the extinguishment of a spark until the holy work is completed. God may temper and soften—for He never withdraws His eye from the work for one moment—but great will be your loss, if you lose the affliction unsanctified! Oh! could we with a clearer vision of faith but see the reason and the design of God in sending the chastisement, all marvel would cease, all murmur would be hushed, and not a painful dispensation of our Father would afford us needless trouble. David's pen never wrote more sweetly than when dipped in the ink of affliction. And never did his harp send forth deeper, richer melody than when the breath of sadness swept its strings. This has been the uniform testimony of the saints of God in every age. "It is good for me that I have been afflicted; for before I was afflicted I went astray, but now have I kept your law." Learn to see a Father's hand, yes, a Father's heart, in every affliction. It is not a vindictive enemy who has chastened you, but a loving Friend: not an unfeeling stranger, but a tender Father, who, though He may cast you down in the dust, will never cast you off from His love. The Captain of your salvation—Himself made perfect through suffering—only designs your higher spiritual promotion in His army, by each sanctified affliction sent. You are on your way to the mansion prepared for you by the Savior, to the kingdom bestowed upon you by God. The journey is short, and time is fleeting; what though the cross is heavy and the path is rough—you have not far nor long to carry it. Let the deep-drawn sigh be checked by the throb of gladness which this prospect should create. "He will not always chide, neither will he retain his anger forever." The wind will not always moan, nor the waters be always tempestuous; the dull vapor will not forever float along the sky, nor the sunbeams be forever wreathed in darkness. Your Father's love will not always speak in muffled tones, nor your Savior hide Himself forever behind the wall or within the lattice. That wind will yet breathe music, those waters will yet be still; that vapor will yet evaporate; that sun will yet break forth; your Father's love will speak again in unmuffled strains, and your Savior will manifest Himself without a veil. Pensive child of sorrow! Weary pilgrim of grief! timid, yet prayerful; doubting, yet hoping; guilty, yet penitent; laying your hand on the head of the great appointed Sacrifice, you look up with tears, confessing your sin, and pleading in faith the blood of sprinkling. Oh, rejoice that this painful travail of soul is but the Spirit's preparation for the seat awaiting you in the upper temple, where the days of your mourning will be ended. You may carry the cross to the last step of the journey—weeping even up to heaven's gate—but there you shall lay that cross down, and the last bitter tear shall there be wiped away forever! Truly we may exclaim, "Blessed is the man whom You chastens, O Lord, and teach him out of Your law."

DECEMBER 2.

"The Lord will strengthen him upon the bed of languishing: you will make all his bed in his sickness." Psalm 41:3

WHAT a view this touching expression gives of the consideration of our heavenly Father—stooping down to the couch of his sick child—softening the sickness by a thousand nameless kindnesses—alleviating suffering, and mitigating pain. Would you learn the Lord's touching tenderness towards His people? Go to the sick chamber of one whom He loves! Ten thousand books will not teach you what that visit will. Listen to the testimony of the emaciated sufferer—"His left hand is under my head, His right hand does embrace me." What more can we desire? what stronger witness do we ask? What! is Jesus there? Is His loving bosom the pillow, and is His encircling arm the support, of the drooping patient? Is Christ both the physician and the nurse? Is His finger upon that fluttering pulse, does His hand administer that draught, does He adjust that pillow, and make all that bed in sickness? Even so. Oh, what glory beams around the sick one whom Jesus loves! Trace it, too, in the grace which He measures out to the languid sufferer. The season of sickness is a season, in the Christian's life, of especial and great grace. Many a child of God knew his adoption but faintly, and his interest in Christ but imperfectly, until then. His Christianity was always uncertain, his evidences vague, and his soul unhealthy. Living, perhaps, in the turmoil of the world secular, or amid the excitement of the world religious, he knew but little of communion with his own heart, or of converse with the heart of God. No time was extracted from other and all-absorbing engagements, and consecrated to the high and hallowed purposes of self-examination, meditation, reading, and prayer—elements entering essentially and deeply into the advancement of the life of God in the soul of man. But sickness has come, and with it some of the costliest and holiest blessings of his life. A degree of grace, answerable to all the holy and blessed ends for which it was sent, is imparted. And now, how resplendent with the glory of Divine grace has that chamber of sickness become! We trace it in the spirit and conduct of that pale, languid sufferer. See the patience with which he possesses his soul; the fervor with which he kisses the rod; the meekness with which he bows to the stroke; the subduing, softening, humbling of his spirit, once, perhaps, so lofty, fretful, and sensitive to suffering. These days of weariness and pain, these nights of sleeplessness and exhaustion, how slowly, how tediously they dray along! and yet not an impatient sigh, nor a murmuring breath, nor an unsubmissive expression breaks from the quivering lip. This is not natural—this is above nature. What but Divine and especial grace could effect it? Oh, how is the Son of God, in His fullness of grace and truth, glorified thereby!

DECEMBER 3.

"Was then that which is good made death unto me? God forbid. But sin, that it might appear sin, working death in me by that which is good; that sin by the commandment might become exceeding sinful." Romans 7:13

NO child of God, if he is advancing in the divine life, but must mourn over his defective views of sin. The holier he grows, the more sensible he is of this: yes, may we not add, the deeper the view of his own vileness, the stronger the evidence of his growth in sanctification. A growing hatred of sin, of little sins, of great sins, of all sin—sin detected in the indwelling principle, as well as sin observable in the outward practice—oh, it is one of the surest symptoms of the onward progress of the soul in its spiritual course. The believer himself may not be sensible of it, but others see it; to him it may be like a retrograde, to an observer it is an evidence of advance. The child of God is not the best judge of his own spiritual growth. He may be rapidly advancing when not sensible of it; the tree may be growing downwards, it roots may be expanding and grasping more firmly the soil in which they are concealed, and yet the appearance of growth do not be very apparent. There is an inward, concealed, yet effectual growth of grace in the soul; the believer may not be sensible of it, and even others may overlook it, but God sees it: it is His own work, and He does not think meanly of it. God, in His gracious dealings with the believer, often works by contraries. He opens the eye of His child to the deep depravity of the heart, discloses to him the chamber of imagery, reveals to him the sin unthought of, unsuspected, unrepented, unconfessed, that lies deeply embedded there—and why? only to make His child more holy; to compel him to repair to the mercy-seat, there to cry, there to plead, there to wrestle for its subjection, its mortification, it crucifixion. And through this, as it were, circuitous process, the believer presses on to high and higher degrees of holiness. In this way, too, the believer earnestly seeks for humility, by a deep discovery which the Lord gives him of the pride of his heart—for meekness, by a discovery of petulance, for resignation to God's will, by a sense of restlessness and impatience—and so on, through all the graces of the blessed Spirit. Thus there is a great growth in grace, when a believer's views of sin's exceeding sinfulness and the inward plague are deepening.

But how are these views of sin to be deepened? By constant, close views of the blood of Christ—realizing apprehensions of the atonement. This is the only glass through which sin is seen in its greater magnitude. Let the Christian reader, then, deal much and often with the blood of Christ. Oh! that we should need to be urged to this!—that once having bathed in the "fountain opened," we should ever look to any other mode of healing, and of sanctification! For let it never be forgotten, that a child of God is as much called to live on Christ for sanctification as for pardon. "Sanctify them through your truth." And who is the truth? Jesus Himself answers, "I am the truth." Then we are to live on Jesus for sanctification: and happy and holy is he who thus lives on Jesus. The fullness of grace that is treasured up in Christ, why is it there? for the sanctification of His people—for the subduing of all their sins. Oh, do not forget, then, that He is the Refiner as well as the Savior—the Sanctifier as well as the Redeemer. Take your indwelling corruptions to Him; take the easy besetting sin, the weakness, the infirmity, of whatever nature it is, at once to Jesus: His grace can make you all that He would have you to be. Remember, too, that this is one of the great privileges of the life of faith; living on Christ for the daily subduing of all sin. This is the faith that purifies the heart, and it purifies by leading the believer to live out of himself upon Christ. To this blessed and holy life our Lord Jesus referred, when speaking of its necessity in order to the spiritual fruitfulness of the believer: "Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can you, except you abide in me. I am the vine, you are the branches: he that abides in me, and I in him, the same brings forth much fruit; for without me you can do nothing."

DECEMBER 4.

"The Holy Spirit was not yet given; because that Jesus was not yet glorified." John 7:39

OUR Lord's triumphant entrance into glory was the signal of the Holy Spirit's descent. Scarcely had He crossed the threshold of the heavenly temple, the august ceremonies of His enthronement, amid the songs of adoring millions, had but just ceased, when the promise of the Father was fulfilled, and the orphan Church of Jerusalem was baptized with the Spirit from on high. Oh! how soon was that promise fulfilled! How soon did Jesus make good the pledges of His love! The outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the Day of Pentecost transpired fifty days after Christ's resurrection. Forty days He was seen of the disciples, "to whom He showed Himself alive after His passion, by many infallible proofs;" consequently but ten days elapsed from the period of His return to His kingdom before the Spirit came down in all the plenitude of His glorifying, witnessing, awakening, and sanctifying power! And why were even ten days allowed to intervene between the glorification of Jesus and the descent of the Spirit? Doubtless to place the Church in a state of preparedness to receive so vast, so holy, and so rich a blessing. The Lord would have them found in a posture suited to the mercy. It was that of prayer, of all postures this side of glory the most blessed and holy. Thus did the Spirit find them on the Day of Pentecost. Returning from the mount of Olivet, where they had caught the last glimpse of the receding form of their ascending Lord, they came to Jerusalem, and "went up into an upper room," where abode the rest of the disciples. "These all continued with one accord in prayer and supplication." And while "they were all with one accord in one place," breathing forth their souls in fervent petition, "suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting. And there appeared unto them cloven tongues, like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit."

And now how manifestly and how illustriously was Jesus glorified—with what overpowering effulgence did His Godhead shine forth—how gloriously did He appear in the eyes of the awe-stricken multitude, wearing the crown, not of painful thorns, and invested with the robe, not of mock-majesty, but of His real Divinity! With what majestic mien and stately step would He now walk amid the assembled throng, the God confessed! And all this divine glory would be seen arrayed on the side of Redemption—its conquests would be those of Grace—its manifestations those of Love—its signals those of Mercy. Was it not so? See how they crowd the temple! Some, their hands scarcely cleansed from the blood they had been shedding on Calvary; others with the dark scowl of malignity yet lingering on their brows. Mark how intently they gaze! how breathlessly they listen! how fearfully they tremble! and with what anguish they smite upon their breasts, and cry, "Men and brethren, what shall we do?" Nor did the Spirit rest its triumph here; it paused not until it led three thousand heart-broken sinners to the Fountain which some of them had been instrumental in opening for "sin and uncleanness," from thence to emerge washed, sanctified, and saved—the heirs of God, the joint-heirs with Christ Jesus. Now was Jesus glorified—now was a crown of pure gold placed upon His head—and now was fulfilled His own prophetic words, "At that day you shall know that I am in my Father, and He in me, and I in you."

DECEMBER 5.

"As you therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk you in him: rooted and built up in him, and established in the faith, as you have been taught, abounding therein with thanksgiving." Colossians 2:6, 7

BY simple, close, and crucifying views of the cross of Christ does the Spirit most effectually sanctify the believer. This is the true and great method of gospel sanctification. Here lies the secret of all real holiness, and, may I not add, of all real happiness. For, if we separate happiness from holiness, we separate that which, in the covenant of grace, God has wisely and indissolubly united. The experience of the true believer must testify to this. We are only happy as we are holy—as the body of sin is daily crucified, the power of the indwelling principle weakened, and the outward deportment more beautifully and closely corresponding to the example of Jesus. Let us not, then, look for a happy walk, apart from a holy one. Trials we may have; yes, if we are the Lord's covenant ones, we shall have them, for He Himself has said, "in the world you shall have tribulation;" disappointments we may meet with—broken cisterns, thorny roads, wintry skies; but if we are walking in fellowship with God, dwelling in the light, growing up into Christ in all things, the Spirit of adoption witnessing within us, and leading to a filial and unreserved surrender—oh, there is happiness unspeakable, even though in the very depth of outward trial. A holy walk is a happy walk: this is God's order, it is His appointment, and therefore must be wise and good.

Seek high attainments in holiness. Do not be satisfied with a low measure of grace, with a dwarfish religion, with just enough Christianity to admit you into heaven. Oh, how many are thus content—satisfied to leave the great question of their acceptance to be decided in another world, and not in this—resting upon some slight evidence, in itself faint and equivocal, perhaps a former experience, some impressions, or sensations, or transient joys, long since passed away; and thus they are content to live, and thus content to die. Dear reader, be you not satisfied with anything short of a present Christ, received, enjoyed, and lived upon. Forget the things that are behind—reach forth unto higher attainments in sanctification—seek to have the daily witness, daily communion with God; and for your own sake, for the sake of others, and for Christ's sake, "give all diligence to make your calling and election sure."

DECEMBER 6.

"God is faithful, by whom you were called unto the fellowship of his Son Jesus Christ our Lord." 1 Corinthians 1:9

FAITH has something still more substantial and firm to rest upon than even the Divine asseverations of the truth, something superior to the averment of the promise—even the faithfulness of the Divine Promiser Himself. Here it is that faith has its stronghold—not the word of God merely, but the God of the word. God must be faithful because He is essentially true and immutable. "He cannot deny Himself." "God that cannot lie." "It is impossible for God to lie." What asseverations of any truth can be stronger? And now, O believer, have faith in God, as true to His word, and faithful to His promise. Has the Spirit, the Comforter, caused your soul to rely upon His promises, to hope in His word? Have you nothing but the naked declaration to bear you up? Stand fast to this word, for God, who cannot lie, stands by to make it good. Have faith in His faithfulness. In doubting Him you cannot dishonor him more. If to discredit the word of man were an impeachment of his veracity, and that impeachment were the darkest blot that you could let fall upon his character; what must be the dishonor done to God by a poor sinful mortal distrusting His faithfulness, and questioning His truth! But "God is faithful." Have faith in Him as such. He is engaged to perfect that which concerns you, to supply all your need, to guide your soul through the wilderness, to cover your head in the day of battle, and to conduct you to ultimate victory and rest. Oh, trust Him. It is all that He asks of you. Is it now with you a day of trouble? a season of pressure? Is your position perilous? Are your present circumstances embarrassed? Now is the time to trust in the Lord. "Call upon me in the day of trouble: I will deliver you, and you shall glorify me." Oh, if God were to speak audibly to you at this moment, methinks these would be the words that He would utter: "Have faith in my faithfulness. Have I ever been untrue to my engagements, false to my word, forgetful of my covenant, neglectful of my people? Have I been a wilderness to you? What evil have you found in me, what untruth, what wavering, what instability, what change, that you do not now trust me in this the time of your need? Oh, let your soul be humbled that you should ever have doubted the veracity, have distrusted the faithfulness of your God." But "if we believe not, yet He abides faithful: He cannot deny Himself." "A God of truth and without iniquity, just and right is He."

DECEMBER 7.

"For I delight in the law of God after the inward man: but I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?" Romans 7:22—24

REGENERATION does not transform flesh into spirit. It proposes not to eradicate and expel the deep-seated root of our degenerate nature; but it imparts another and a superadded nature—it implants a new and an antagonistic principle. This new nature is divine; this new principle is holy: and thus the believer becomes the subject of two natures, and his soul a battle-field, upon which a perpetual conflict is going on between the law of the members and the law of the mind; often resulting in his temporary captivity to the law of sin which is in his members. Thus every spiritual mind is painfully conscious of the earthly tendency of his evil nature, and that from the flesh he can derive no sympathy or help, but rather everything that discourages, encumbers, and retards his spirit in its breathings and strugglings after holiness. A mournful sense of the seductive power of earthly things enters deeply into this state of mind. As we bear about with us, in every step, an earthly nature, it is not surprising that its affinities and sympathies should be earthly; that earthly objects should possess a magnetic influence, perpetually attracting to themselves whatever is congenial with their own nature in the soul of the renewed man. Our homeward path lies through a world captivating and ensnaring. The world, chameleon-like, can assume any color, and, Proteus-like, any shape, suitable to its purpose and answerable to its end. There is not a mind, a conscience, or a taste, to which it cannot accommodate itself. For the gross, it has sensual pleasures; for the refined, it has polished enjoyments; for the thoughtful, it has intellectual delights; for the enterprising, it has bold, magnificent schemes. The child of God feels this engrossing power; he is conscious of this seductive influence. Worldly applause—who is entirely proof against its power? Human adulation—who can resist its incense? Creature power—who is free from its captivation? Love of worldly ease and respectability, influence, and position—a liking to glide smoothly along the sunny tide of the world's good opinion—who is clad in a coat of mail so impervious as to resist these attacks? Have not the mightiest fallen before them? Such are some only of the many ensnaring influences which weave themselves around the path of the celestial traveler, often extorting from him the humiliating acknowledgment—"My soul cleaves unto the dust." In this category we may include things which, though they are in themselves of a lawful nature, are yet of an earthly tendency, deteriorative of the life of God in the soul. What heavenly mind is not sadly sensible of this? Our ever-foremost, sleepless, subtle foe stands by and says, "This is lawful, and you may freely and unrestrictedly indulge in it." But another and a solemn voice is heard issuing from the sacred oracle of truth—"All things are lawful unto me, but all things are not expedient." And yet how often are we forced to learn the lesson, that things lawful may, in their wrong indulgence and influence, become unlawful, through the spiritual leanness which they engender in the soul! Oh, it is a narrow path which conducts us back to Paradise. But our Lord and Master made it so; He Himself has trodden it, "leaving us an example that we should follow His steps;" and He, too, is sufficient for its straitness. Yes; such is the gravitating tendency to earth of the carnal nature within us, we are ever prone and ever ready, at each bland smile of the world, and at each verdant, sunny spot of the wilderness, to retire into the circle of self-complaisance and self-indulgence, and take up our rest where, from the polluted and unsatisfying nature of all earthly things, real rest can never be found. Thus may even lawful affections and lawful enjoyments, lawful pursuits and pleasures, wring the confession from the lips of a heavenly-minded man—"My soul cleaves unto the dust."

DECEMBER 8.

"And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away." Revelation 21:4

IN heaven we shall be freed from the in-being of evil, and be delivered from the tyranny of corruption. Sin, now our thrall, our torment, and our burden, will then enslave, distress, and oppress us no more. The chain which now binds us to the dead, loathsome body of our humiliation will be broken, and we shall be forever free! To you who cry, "O wretched man that I am!" who know the inward plague, and feel that there is not one moment of the day in which you do not come short of the Divine glory—whose heaviest burden, whose bitterest sorrow, whose deepest humiliation springs from the consciousness of sin—what a glorious prospect is this! "It does not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when He shall appear, we shall be like Him; for we shall see Him as He is." The absence of all evil, and the presence of all good, constitute elements of the heavenly state, which place its blessedness beyond the conception of the human mind. Assure me that in glory all the effects and consequences of the curse are done away—that the heart bleeds no more, that the spirit grieves no more, that temptation assails no more, that sickness and bereavement, separation and disappointment, are forms of suffering forever unknown—and let the Spirit bear His witness with my spirit, that I am a child of God, and a door is open to me in heaven, through which a tide of "joy unspeakable and full of glory" rushes in upon my soul. And this is heaven.

But heaven is not a place of negative blessedness merely. There is the positive presence of all good. "In Your presence is fullness of joy; at Your right hand there are pleasures for evermore." The soul is with Christ, in the presence of God, and in the complete enjoyment of all that He has from eternity prepared for those who love Him. All soul, all intellect, all purity, all love—"eye has not seen, nor ear heard" the inconceivable blessedness in the full ocean of which it now rejoices. Its society is genial, its employments are delightful, its joys are ever new. How deeply does it now drink of God's everlasting love, with what wondering delight it now surveys the glory of Immanuel, how clearly it reads the mysterious volume of all the Divine conduct below, and how loud its deep songs of praise, as each new page unfolds the "height, and depth, and length, and breadth of the love of Christ," which even then "passes knowledge"! Truly we may call upon the "saints to be joyful in glory." Sing aloud, for you are now with Christ, you see God, and are beyond the region of sin, of pain, of tears, of death—"forever with the Lord." But we cannot conceive, still less describe, the glorious prospects of believers; for "eye has not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God has prepared for those who love Him." We shall soon go home, and experience it all. Then the eye will have seen, and the ear will have heard, and the heart will have realized, the things which from eternity God has laid up in Jesus, and prepared in the everlasting covenant for the poorest, meanest, feeblest child, whose heart faintly, yet sincerely, thrilled in a response of holy love to His.

DECEMBER 9.

"Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ: by whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God." Romans 5:1, 2

WHAT a ground of rejoicing have the saints of God! You may see within and around you—in your soul, in your family, and your circumstances—much that saddens, and wounds, and discourages you; but behold the truth which more than counterbalances it all—your freedom from condemnation. What if you are poor—you are not condemned. What if you are afflicted—you are not condemned! What if you are tempted—you are not condemned! What if you are assailed and judged by others, you yet are not forsaken and condemned by God; and ought you not then to rejoice? Go to the condemned cell, and assure the criminal awaiting his execution that you bear from his sovereign a pardon; and what, though he emerge from his imprisonment and his manacles to battle with poverty, with sorrow, and contempt, will he murmur and repine, that in the redemption of his forfeited life there is no clause that exempts him from the ills to which that life is linked? No! life to him is so sweet and precious a thing, that though you return it trammeled with want, and beclouded with shame, you have yet conferred upon him a boon which creates sunshine all within and around him. And why should not we "rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory," for whom, "through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus," there is now no condemnation? Christ has "redeemed our life from destruction;" and although it is "through much tribulation we are to enter the kingdom," yet shall we not quicken our pace to that kingdom, rejoicing as we go, that "there is now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus"? "These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full."

Be earnest and diligent in making sure to yourself your discharge from the sentence and penalty of the law. Sue out the great fact in the Lord's own court by fervent prayer and simple faith. Your Surety has cancelled your debt, and purchased your exemption from death. Avail yourself of the comfort and the stimulus of the blessing. You may be certain, yes, quite certain, of its truth. No process is more easy. It is but to look from off yourself to Christ, and to believe with all your heart that He came into the world to save sinners, and assurance is yours. The order is—"We believe, and are sure." Oh, do not leave this matter to a bare peradventure. Make sure of your union with Christ, and you may be sure of no condemnation from Christ.

DECEMBER 10.

"Jesus says unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man comes unto the Father but by me." John 14:6

NOT the least costly blessing, flowing from the vital power of the atoning blood, is the life and potency which it imparts to true prayer. The believer's path to communion with God is called the "new and living way" because it is the way of the life-blood of the risen and living Savior. There could be no spiritual life in prayer but for the vitality in the atoning blood, which secures its acceptance. Not even could the Holy Spirit inspire the soul with one breath of true prayer, were not the atonement of the Son of God provided. Oh, how faintly do we know the wonders that are in, and the blessings that spring from, the life-procuring blood of our incarnate God! Touching the article of prayer—I approach to God, oppressed with sins, my heart crushed with sorrow, my spirit trembling; shame and confusion covering my face, my mouth dumb before Him. At that moment the blood of Jesus is presented, faith beholds it, faith receives it, faith pleads it! There is life and power in that blood, and lo! in an instant my trembling soul is enabled to take hold of God's strength and be at peace with Him, and it is at peace. Of all the Christian privileges upon earth, none can surpass, none can compare with, the privilege of fellowship with God. And yet how restricted is this privilege in the experience of multitudes! And why? simply in consequence of their vague, imperfect, and contracted views of the connection of true prayer with the living blood of Jesus. And yet, oh, what nearness to, what communion with, the Father, may the meanest, the feeblest, the most unworthy child at all times and in all circumstances have, who simply and believingly makes use of the blood of Christ! You approach without an argument or a plea. You have many sins to confess, sorrows to unveil, many requests to urge, many blessings to crave; and yet the deep consciousness of your utter vileness, the remembrance of mercies abused, of base, ungrateful requitals made, seals your lips, and you are dumb before God. Your overwhelmed spirit exclaims, "Oh that I knew where I might find him! that I might come even to his seat! I would order my cause before him, and fill my mouth with arguments." And now the Holy Spirit brings atoning blood to your help. You see this to be the one argument, the only plea that can prevail with God. You use it—you urge it—you wrestle with it. God admits it, is moved by it, and you are blest! Let, then the life-power of the blood encourage you to cultivate more diligently habitual communion with God. With sinking spirits, with even discouragement and difficulty, you may approach His Divine Majesty, and converse with Him as with a Father, resting your believing eye where He rests His complacent eye—upon the blood of Jesus. Oh the blessedness, the power, the magic influence of prayer! Believer! you grasp the key that opens every chamber of God's heart, when your tremulous faith takes hold of the blood of the covenant, and pleads it in prayer with God. It is impossible that God can then refuse you. The voice of the living blood pleads louder for you than all other voices can plead against you. Give yourself, then, unto prayer—this sacred charm of sorrow, this divine talisman of hope.

DECEMBER 11.

"And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded unto them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself." Luke 24:27

THE perfect harmony of the Old and the New Testament confirms our faith in the Divine authenticity of the Scriptures of truth. Upon what other ground can we account for this singular agreement of the Word with itself, and for this exact and literal fulfillment of its predictions, but on that of its Divinity? "Your word is truth" is the glorious and triumphant inference fairly deducible from a fact so striking and self-evident at this. And in what particular is this beautiful harmony especially seen? In exalting the Lamb of God. The Old and the New Testament Scriptures of truth do for Christ what Pilate and Herod did against Him—they confederate together. They unite in a holy alliance, in a sublime unity of purpose, to show forth the glory of the incarnate God. Divine book! Precious volume! Behold an illustration of what the Church of the living God should be—a transparent body, illumined with the glory of Immanuel, and scattering its beams of light and beauty over the surface of a lost and benighted world. How much does a perfect representation of the glory of the Redeemer by the Church depend upon her visible union! A mirror broken into a thousand fragments cannot reflect the glory of the sun with the same brilliancy, power, and effect as if a perfect whole. Neither can the Church of God, dismembered, divided, and broken, present to the world the same harmonious, convincing, and effective testimony to the glory of Jesus, as when, in her unimpaired oneness, she is seen "looking forth as the morning, fair as the moon, clear as the sun, and terrible as an army with banners." Oh then, by all that is precious in the name of Jesus, by all that is sanctifying in His glory, and attractive in His cross, by all that is sweet and persuasive in Christian love, by all that is solemn in the near approach of death and eternity, and by all that is blissful in the hope of eternal life, springing from the one atonement, reader, seek to promote the visible unity of Christ's Church. Resolve beneath the cross, and by the grace of God, that you will not be a hindrance to the accomplishment of so blessed, so holy an end. Hold the faith with a firm hand, but hold it in righteousness. Speak the truth with all boldness, but speak it in love. Concede to others what you claim for yourself—the right of private judgment, and the free exercise of an enlightened conscience. And where you see the image of Jesus reflected, the love of Jesus influencing, and the glory of Jesus simply and solely sought, there extend your hand, proffer your heart, breathe your blessing and your prayer. Oh, this were to be like Christ; and to be like Christ is grace below and glory above!

DECEMBER 12.

"But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed." Isaiah 53:5

A SPIRITUAL and continued contemplation of the Redeemer's humiliation supplies a powerful check to sin. What is every sin committed, but opening afresh the wounds, and reacting anew the humiliation, of Jesus? Oh, how hateful must that sin appear in our serious moments, which shut out the sun of God's countenance from the soul of Christ, and sank Him to such inconceivable depths of humiliation! We need every view of divine truth calculated to sanctify. At present, the deepest sanctification of the believer is imperfect; his loftiest soarings towards holiness never reaching the goal. And yet to be ever thirsting, panting, wrestling, and aiming after it, should be classed among our highest mercies. We too much forget this truth, that the thirsting for holiness is as much the Holy Spirit's creation, as it is His work to quench that thirst. "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness;" or, blessed are they who have the desire for Divine conformity, who long to know Christ, and to resemble Christ more perfectly. They may never reach the mark, yet ever pressing towards it—they may never attain to their standard, yet ever aiming for it, they are truly blessed. Here, then, is one powerful means of attaining to holiness—the spiritual eye brought in close and frequent contact with the lowly life of God's dear Son. But for our sins, His mind had never been shaded with clouds, His heart had never been wrung with sorrow, His eye had never been bedewed with tears, He had never suffered and died, had never known the wrath of an offended God. How fraught with soothing and consolation is this subject to the bereaved and tried believer! It tells you, weeping mourner, that having drained His wrath, and poured it on the head of your Surety, nothing is reserved for you in the heart of God but the deep fountain of tender mercy and loving-kindness. Then where springs your present trial, but from the loving heart of your Father? In the life of Jesus all was humiliation; in the life of the believer all is glory; and all this glory springs from the headship of Christ. In every step that He trod, he is one with Him—the only difference being that Jesus changes positions with the believer, and thus what was bitter to Him becomes sweet to us; what was dark to Him appears light to us; and what was His ignominy and shame becomes our highest honor and glory.

Humbling as may be the way God is now leading you, forget not that the great end is to bring you into a fellowship with Christ's humiliation—into a more realizing oneness with your tried head. How contracted were the believer's view of, and how limited his sympathy with, the abasement of God's dear Son, but for the humiliation of His life, but for the way the Lord leads him about in order to humble him! To be brought into sympathy with you in all the gloomy stages of your journey, "He humbled Himself;" and that this feeling might be reciprocal, bringing you into a sympathy with the dark stages of His life, He humbles you. But deep as your present humiliation may be, you cannot sink so low but you will find He sunk yet lower, and is therefore able to sustain and bear you up. "I was brought low, and He helped me." Never can Christians sink beneath the everlasting arms; they will always be underneath you. You may be sorely tried—painfully bereaved—fearfully tempted—deeply wounded. Saints and sinners, the Church and the world, may each contribute some bitter ingredient to your cup; nevertheless, the heart of Jesus is a pavilion within whose sacred enclosure you may repose until these calamities be overpast. Your greatest extremity can never exceed His power or sympathy, because He has gone before His people, and has endured what they never shall endure. Behold what glory thus springs from the humiliation and sufferings of our adorable Redeemer!

DECEMBER 13.

"Who has saved us, and called us with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began." 2 Timothy 1:9

THERE is an external and an internal call of the Spirit. The external call is thus alluded to: "I have called, and you refused;" "Many are called, but few are chosen." This outward call of the Spirit is made in various ways. In the word, in the glorious proclamation of the gospel, through the providences of God—those of mercy and those of judgment—the warnings of ministers, the admonitions of friends, and, not less powerful, the awakening of the natural conscience. By these means does the Holy Spirit "call sinners to repentance." In this sense, every man who hears the gospel, who is encircled with the means of grace, and who bears about with him a secret but ever-faithful monitor, is called by the Spirit. The existence of this call places the sinner in an attitude of fearful responsibility; and the rejection of this call exposes him to a still more fearful doom. God has never poured out His wrath upon man, without first extending the olive-branch of peace. Mercy has invariably preceded judgment. "I have called, and you have refused." "All day long I have stretched forth my hands." "Behold, I stand at the door and knock." He reasons, He argues, He expostulates with the sinner. "Come, let us reason together," is His invitation. He instructs, and warns, and invites; He places before the mind the most solemn considerations, urged by duty and interest; He presses His own claims, and appeals to the individual interests of the soul; but all seems ineffectual. Oh, what a view does this give us of the patience of God toward the rebellious! That He should stretch out his hand to a sinner—that instead of wrath, there should be mercy—instead of cursing, there should be blessing—that, instead of instant punishment, there should be the patience and forbearance that invites, and allures, and reasons!"—Oh, who is a God like unto our God? "I have called, and you refused; I have stretched out my hand, and no man regarded."

But there is the special, direct, and effectual call of the Spirit, in the elect of God, without which all other calling is in vain. God says, "I will put my Spirit within them." Christ says, "The hour is coming and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God; and those who hear shall live." And in the following passages reference is made to the effectual operation of God the Spirit. "Whereof I was made a minister, according to the gift of the grace of God given unto me by the effectual working of His power." "The word of God which effectually works in you that believe." Thus, through the instrumentality of the truth, the Spirit is represented as effectually working in the soul. When He called before, there was no inward, supernatural, secret power accompanying the call to the conscience. Now there is an energy put forth with the call, which awakens the conscience, breaks the heart, convinces the judgment, opens the eye of the soul, and pours a new and an alarming sound upon the hitherto deaf ear. Mark the blessed effects. The scales fell from the eyes, the veil is torn from the mind, the deep fountains of evil in the heart are broken up, the sinner sees himself lost and undone—without pardon, without a righteousness, without acceptance, without a God, without a Savior, without a hope! Awful condition! "What shall I do to be saved?" is his cry: "I am a wretch undone! I look within me, all is dark and vile; I look around me, everything seems but the image of my woe; I look above me, I see only an angry God: whichever way I look, is hell!—and were God now to send me there, just and right would He be." But, blessed be God, no poor soul that ever uttered such language, prompted by such feelings, ever died in despair. That faithful Spirit who begins the good work, effectually carries it on, and completes it. Presently He leads him to the cross of Jesus—unveils to his eye of glimmering faith a suffering, wounded, bleeding, dying Savior—and yet a Savior with outstretched arms! That Savior speaks—oh, did ever music sound so melodious?—"All this I do for you—this cross for you—these sufferings for you—this blood for you—these stretched-out arms for you. Come unto me, all you that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest—Him that comes to me, I will in no wise cast out—Look unto me, and be you saved—only believe. Are you lost? I can save you. Are you guilty? I can cleanse you. Are you poor? I can enrich you. Are you low sunk? I can raise you. Are you naked? I can clothe you. Have you nothing to bring with you—no price, no money, no goodness, no merit? I can and will take you to me, just as you are, poor, naked, penniless, worthless; for such I came to seek, such I came to call, for such I came to die." "Lord, I believe," exclaims the poor convinced soul, "Help You mine unbelief." You are just the Savior that I want. I wanted one that could and would save me with all my vileness, with all my rags, with all my poverty—I wanted one that would save me fully, save me freely, save me as an act of mere unmerited, undeserved grace—I have found Him whom my soul loves—and will be His through time, and His through eternity." Thus effectually does the blessed Spirit call a sinner, by His especial, direct, and supernatural power, out of darkness into marvelous light. "I will work," says God, "and who shall let it?" (marg. turn it back.)

DECEMBER 14.

"For all things are for your sakes, that the abundant grace might though the thanksgiving of many redound to the glory of God. For which cause we faint not; but though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed from day to day." 2 Corinthians 4:15, 16

CHRISTIAN sufferer! you marvel why the Lord keeps you so long upon the couch of solitariness and upon the bed of languishing—why the "earthly house of this tabernacle" should be taken down by continued and pining sickness, the corrodings of disease, and the gradual decay of strength. Hush every reasoning, anxious, doubtful thought. Your heavenly Father has so ordained it. He who built the house, and whose the house is, has a right to remove it by what process He sees fit. The mystery of His present conduct will, before long, be all explained. Yes, faith and love can even explain it now—"Even so, Father, for so it seems good in Your sight!" Yours is an honorable and a responsible post. God has still a work for you to do. You have been waiting year by year, in the quietness of holy submission, the summons to depart. But God has lengthened out your period of weariness and of suffering, for the work is not done in you and by you, to effect which this sickness was sent. Oh, what a witness for God may you now be! What a testimony for Christ may you now bear! What sermons—converting the careless, confirming the wavering, restoring the wandering, comforting the timid—may your conversation and your example now preach from that sick bed! And oh, for what higher degrees of glory may God, through this protracted illness, be preparing you! That there are degrees of glory in heaven, as there are degrees of suffering in hell, and degrees of grace on earth, admits of not a doubt. "As one star differs from another star in glory," so does one glorified saint differ from another. Will there be the absence in heaven of that wondrous variety of proportion which throws such a charm and beauty around the beings and the scenery of earth? Doubtless not. Superior grace below is preparing for superior glory above. And the higher our attainments in holiness here, the loftier our summit of blessedness hereafter. For these high degrees of heavenly happiness your present lengthened sickness may, by God's grace, be preparing you. Sanctified by the Spirit of holiness, the slow fire is but the more perfectly refining; and the more complete the refinement on earth, the more perfectly will the sanctified soul mirror forth the Divine Sun in heaven. Be, then, your beautiful patience of spirit, meek and patient sufferer, increasingly that of the Psalmist, "I have behaved and quieted myself as a child that is weaned of his mother: my soul is even as a weaned child."

DECEMBER 15.

"But when the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, which proceeds from the Father, he shall testify of me." John 15:26

WITH regard to the spiritual sorrows of a child of God—those peculiar only to a believer in Jesus—we believe that a revelation of Jesus is the great source of comfort to which the Spirit leads the soul. Here is the true source of comfort. What higher comfort need we? What more can we have? This is enough to heal every wound, to dry up every tear, to assuage every grief, to lighten every cross, to fringe with brightness every dark cloud, and to make the roughest place smooth—that a believing soul has Jesus. Having Jesus, what has a believer? He has the entire blotting out of all his sins. Is not this a comfort? Tell us, what can give comfort to a child of God apart from this? If this fail, where can he look? Will you tell him of the world—of its many schemes of enjoyment—of its plans for the accumulation of wealth—of its domestic happiness? Wretched sources of comfort to an awakened soul! Poor empty channels to a man made acquainted with the inward plague! That which he needs to know is the sure payment of the ten thousand talents—the entire cancelling of the bond held against him by stern justice—the complete blotting out, as a thick cloud, of all his iniquity. And, until this great fact is made sure and certain to his conscience, all other comfort is but as a dream of boyhood, a shadow that vanishes, a vapor that melts away. But the Holy Spirit comforts the believer by leading him to this blessed truth—the full pardon of sin. This is the great controversy which Satan has with the believer. To bring him to doubt the pardon of sin, to unhinge the mind from this great fact, is the constant effort of this arch-enemy. And, when unbelief is powerful, and inbred sin is strong, and outward trials are many and sore, and, in the midst of it all, the single eye is removed from Christ, then is the hour of Satan to charge home upon the conscience of the believer all the iniquity he ever committed. And how does the blessed Spirit comfort at that moment? By unfolding the greatness, perfection, and efficacy of the one offering by which Jesus has forever blotted out the sins of His people, and perfected those who are sanctified. Oh, what comfort does this truth speak to a fearful, troubled, anxious believer, when, the Spirit working faith in his heart, he can look up, and see all his sins laid upon Jesus in the solemn hour of atonement, and no condemnation remaining! Dear child of God! poor, worthless as you feel yourself to be, this truth is even for you. Oh, rise to it, welcome it, embrace it, think it not too costly for one so unworthy. It comes from the heart of Jesus, and cannot be more free. "Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered." Having Jesus, what has the believer more?

He possesses a righteousness in which God views him complete and accepted, from the beginning of the year to the end of the year. Is not this a comfort? To stand "complete in Him"—in the midst of many and conscious imperfections, infirmities, flaws, and proneness to wander, yet for the sorrowing and trembling heart to turn and take up its rest in this truth, "that he that believes is justified from all things," and stands accepted in the Beloved, to the praise of the glory of Divine grace, what a comfort! That God beholds him in Jesus without a spot, because He beholds His Son, in whom He is well pleased, and viewing the believing soul in Him can say, "You are all fair, my love; there is no spot in you"! The blessed Comforter conveys this truth to the troubled soul, brings it to take up its rest in it; and, as the believer realizes his full acceptance in the righteousness of Christ, and rejoices in the truth, he weeps as he never wept, and mourns as he never mourned, over the perpetual bias of his heart to wander from a God that has so loved him. The very comfort poured into his soul from this truth lays him in the dust, and draws out the heart in ardent breathings for holiness.

DECEMBER 16.

"Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Jesus Christ, that we might be justified by the faith of Christ, and not by the works of the law: for by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified." Galatians 2:16

THE term is forensic—employed in judicial affairs, transacted in a court of judicature. We find an illustration of this in God's word. "If there be a controversy between men, and they come into judgment, that the judge may judge them, then they shall justify the righteous, and condemn the wicked." It is clear from this passage that the word stands opposed to a state of condemnation, and in this sense it is employed in the text under consideration. To justify, in its proper and fullest sense, is to release from all condemnation. Now, it is important that we do not mix up this doctrine, and the Church of Rome has done, with other and kindred doctrines. We must clearly distinguish it from that of sanctification. Closely connected as they are, they yet entirely differ. The one is a change of state, the other a change of condition. By the one we pass from guilt to righteousness, by the other we pass from sin to holiness. In justification we are brought near to God; in sanctification we are made like God. The one places us before Him in a condition of non-condemnation; the other transforms us into His image. Yet the Church of Rome blends the two states together, and in her formularies teaches an imputed sanctification, just as the Bible teaches an imputed justification. It is to be distinguished, too, from pardon. Justification is a higher act. By the act of pardon we are saved from hell; but by the decree of justification we are brought to heaven. The one discharges the soul from punishment; the other places in its hand a title-deed to glory.

The Lord Jesus Christ is emphatically the justification of all the predestined and called people of God. "By Him all that believe are justified from all things." The antecedent step was to place Himself in the exact position of His Church. In order to do this, it was necessary that He should be made under the law; for, as the Son of God, He was above the law, and could not therefore be amenable to its precept. But when He became the Son of man, it was as though the sovereign of a vast empire had relinquished his regal character for the condition of the subject. He, who was superior to all law, by His mysterious incarnation placed Himself under the law. He, who was the King of Glory, became by His advent the meanest of subjects. What a stoop was this! What a descending of the Son of God from the height of His glory! The King of kings, the Lord of lords, consenting to be brought under His own law, a subject to Himself, the Law-giver becoming the law-fulfiller. Having thus humbled Himself, He was prepared, as the sacrificial Lamb, to take up and bear away the sins of His people. The prophecy that predicted that He should "bear their iniquities," and that He should "justify many," received in Him its literal and fullest accomplishment. Thus upon Jesus were laid all the iniquities, and with the iniquities the entire curse, and added to the curse, the full penalty, belonging to the Church of God. This personal and close contact with sin affected not His moral nature; for that was essentially sinless, and could receive no possible taint from His bearing our iniquity. He was accounted "accursed," even as was Israel's goat, when upon its head Aaron laid the sins of the people; but as that imputation of sin could not render the animal to whom it was transferred morally guilty, though by the law treated as such, so the bearing of sin by Christ could not for a single instant compromise His personal sanctity. With what distinctness has the Spirit revealed, and with what strictness has He guarded, the perfect sinlessness of the atoning Savior! "He has made Him to be sin for us, who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him." Oh blessed declaration to those who not only see the sin that dwells in them, but who trace the defilement of sin in their holiest things, and who lean alone for pardon upon the sacrifice of the spotless Lamb of God! To them, how encouraging and consolatory the assurance that there is a sinless One who, coming between a holy God and their souls, is accepted in their stead, and in whom they are looked upon as righteous! And this is God's method of justification.

DECEMBER 17.

"Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus; whom God has set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood." Romans 3:24, 25

By a change of place with the Church, Christ becomes the "Lord our Righteousness," and we are "made the righteousness of God in Him." There is the transfer of sin to the innocent, and, in return, there is the transfer of righteousness to the guilty. In this method of justification, no violence whatever is done to the moral government of God. So far from a shade obscuring its glory, that glory beams forth with an effulgence which must have remained forever veiled, but for the redemption of man by Christ. God never appears so like Himself as when He sits in judgment upon the person of a sinner, and determines his standing before Him upon the ground of that satisfaction to His law rendered by the Son of God in the room and stead of the guilty. Then does He appear infinitely holy, yet infinitely gracious; infinitely just, yet infinitely merciful. Love, as if it had long been panting for an outlet, now leaps forth and embraces the sinner; while justice, holiness, and truth gaze upon the wondrous spectacle with infinite complacence and delight. And shall we not pause and bestow a thought of admiration and gratitude upon Him, who was constrained to stand in our place of degradation and woe, that we might stand in His place of righteousness and glory? What wondrous love! what stupendous grace! that He should have been willing to have taken upon Him our sin, and curse, and woe! The exchange to Him how humiliating! He could only raise us by Himself stooping. He could only emancipate us by wearing our chain. He could only deliver us from death by Himself dying. He could only invest us with the spotless robe of His pure righteousness by wrapping around Himself the leprous mantle of our sin and curse. Oh, how precious ought He to be to every believing heart! What affection, what service, what sacrifice, what devotion, He deserves at our hands! Lord, incline my heart to yield itself supremely to You! But in what way does this great blessing of justification become ours? In other words, what is the instrument by which the sinner is justified? The answer is at hand, in the text, "through faith in His blood." Faith, and faith alone, makes this righteousness of God ours. "By Him all that believe are justified." And why is it solely and exclusively by faith? The answer is at hand, "Therefore it is of faith, that it might be by grace." Were justification through any other medium than by believing, then the perfect freeness of the blessing would not be secured. The expressions are, "Justified freely by His grace;" that is, gratuitously—absolutely for nothing. Not only was God in no sense whatever bound to justify the sinner, but the sovereignty of His law, as well as the sovereignty of His love, alike demanded that, in extending to the sinner the greatest boon of His government, He should do so upon no other principle than as a perfect act of grace on the part of the Giver, and as a perfect gratuity on the part of the recipient—having "nothing to pay." Therefore, whatever is associated with faith in the matter of the sinner's justification—whether it be baptism, or any other rite, or any work or condition performed by the creature—renders the act entirely void and of none effect. The justification of the believing sinner is as free as the God of love and grace can make it.

DECEMBER 18.

"Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God." John 3:5

THE utter impossibility of the sinner's admission into heaven with the carnal mind unchanged is most clear. Suppose an opposite case. Imagine an unrenewed soul suddenly transported to heaven. In a moment it finds itself in the light and holiness and presence of God. What a scene of wonder, purity, and glory has burst upon its gaze! But, awful fact! horror of horrors! it is confronted face to face with its great enemy—the God it hated, loathed, and denied! Is it composed? Is it at home? Is it happy? Impossible! It enters the immediate presence of the Divine Being, its heart rankling with the virus of deadly hate, and its hand clutching the uplifted weapon. It carries its sworn malignity and its drawn sword to the very foot of the throne of the Eternal. "Take me hence," it exclaims, "this is not my heaven!" And then it departs to its "own place." But we are supposing an impossible case. For it is written of the heavenly city, "There shall in no wise enter into it anything that defiles, neither whatever works abomination, or makes a lie; but they who are written in the Lamb's book of life." Listen to the declaration of the Great Teacher sent from God—"except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God." Ask you what this new birth means? We reply, you must become a new creature in Christ Jesus. You must ground your arms before the Eternal God of heaven and earth. You must give up the quarrel. You must relinquish the controversy. You must cease to fight against God. You must submit to the law and government of Jehovah. Your will must bow to God's will. Your heart must beat in unison with God's heart. Your mind must harmonize with God's mind. Implacable hatred must give place to adoring love—deep ungodliness to a nature breathing after holiness—stern opposition to willing obedience—the creature to the Creator—yourself to God. Oh blissful moment! when the controversy ceases, and God and your soul are at agreement through Christ Jesus. When, dropping the long-raised weapon, you grasp His outstretched hand, and rush into His expanded arms, fall a lowly, believing penitent upon His loving bosom, take hold of His strength, and are at peace with Him. Oh, happy moment! No more hatred, no more enmity, no more opposition now! It is as though all heaven had come down and entered your soul—such joy, such peace, such love, such assurance, such hope do you experience! What music now floats from these words, "No condemnation in Christ Jesus"! How blessed now to lean upon the breast which once you hated, and find it a pillow of love; to meet the glance which once you shunned, and find it the expression of forgiveness; to feel at home in the presence of Him to whom once you said, "Depart from me, for I desire not the knowledge of Your ways"!

What an evidence of the reign of grace in the soul, when the mind fully acquiesces in the moral government of God! "The Lord God omnipotent reigns" is the adoring anthem of every heart brought into subjection to the law of God. To the Christian how composing is the thought, that the government is upon Christ's shoulders, and that He sits upon the throne judging right. From hostility to the law of God, his heart is now brought to a joyful acquiescence in its precepts, and to a deep delight in its nature. "I delight in the law of God after the inward man." "O Lord," he exclaims, "my holiness is in submission to Your authority. My happiness flows from doing and suffering Your will. I rejoice that the scepter is in Your hands, and I desire that the thoughts of my mind and the affections of my heart may be brought into perfect obedience to Yourself. Be my soul Your kingdom, by my heart Your throne, and let grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life."

DECEMBER 19.

"But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanses us from all sin." 1 John 1:7

NOT only is Jesus the actual, but He is also the relative life of the believer—the life of his pardon and acceptance. See it in reference to the blood of Immanuel. It is the blood of Him who was essential life. And, although springing from His pure humanity, essential life gave it all its virtue and its power. The resurrection of Jesus confirmed forever the infinite value and sovereign efficacy of His atoning blood. Oh what virtue has it now, flowing from the life of Jesus! It has removed transgression to the distance of infinity, and for ever from the Church. Washed whiter than snow, forgiven all iniquity, blotted out all sin, the believer stands before God a pardoned soul. And, oh! what life does he find in the constant application to his conscience of the atoning blood! One drop, what peace does it give! what confidence does it inspire! what vigor does it impart to faith, and power to prayer, and cheerfulness to obedience! Oh, it is living blood. He who spilt it lives to plead it, lives to apply it, lives to sustain its virtue, until there shall be no more sins to cancel, and no more sinners to save. "The blood of Jesus Christ cleanses from all sin," and "speaks better things than the blood of Abel," because it possesses undying life. Behold then, beloved, how manifestly is Jesus the life of your pardon. Oh! as fresh, as efficacious, as precious is that blood at this moment as when it spring warm and gushing from the pierced side of the glorious Redeemer. It is life-giving and life-sustaining blood. Here we see the antitype of the "living bird dipped in the blood of the bird slain," and then suffered to go free, suspended mid-heaven upon the wing of unrestricted and joyous life. As the living bird bore upon its plumage the crimson symbol of atonement—death and life thus strangely blended—what was the glorious gospel truth it shadowed forth, but the close and indissoluble union of the pardoning blood with the resurrection life of our incarnate God? And, O believer, lose not sight of the deep significance of the "running water" over which the bird was slain. That flowing stream was the image of the perpetual life of the blood of Jesus. And it bids you, in language too expressive to misunderstand, and too persuasive to resist, to draw near and wash. Glorious truth that it teaches! Precious privilege that it enforces!—the repeated, the perpetual going to Immanuel's atoning, life-giving, life-sustaining blood, thus keeping the conscience clean and at peace with God.

My beloved reader, no experimental and practical truth does this work enforce of greater moment, of more precious nature, and more closely interwoven with your happy, holy walk than this. Your peace of mind—your confidence in God—your thirsting for holiness—your filial access—your support in the deepest trial—spring from your soul's constant repose beneath the cross. What is your present case? what is the sin that wounds your spirit? what the guilt that burdens your conscience? what the grief that bows your heart? what the fearfulness and trembling that agitate and rock your mind? what gives you anxious days and sleepless nights? See yonder stream! It is crimson, it is flowing, it is vivifying with the life-blood of Jesus. Repair to it by faith. Go now—go at this moment. Have you gone before? go yet again. Have you bathed in it once? bathe in it yet again. See! it is a "running stream." Cast your sin, your guilt, your burden, your sorrow upon its bosom; it shall bear it away, never, never more to be found. Oh, deal closely with the atoning, life-giving blood! When you do rise in the morning, and when you do lie down at night, wash in the blood. When you go to duties, and when you come from duties, wash in the blood. When your deepest sigh has been heaved, when your holiest tear has been shed, when your most humbling confession has been made, when your sincerest resolution has been formed, when your solemn covenant has been renewed, when body, soul, and spirit have again been fully, freely, unreservedly dedicated—wash in the blood. When you draw near to the Holy Lord God, and spread out your case before Him, plead the blood. When Satan accuses, and conscience condemns, when death terrifies, and judgment alarms, flee to the blood. Oh! nothing, save the atoning blood of the spotless Lamb, gives you acceptance at any moment with God. And this, at any moment, will conduct you into the secret chamber of His presence, and bow His ear and heart to your faintest whisper and to your deepest want.

DECEMBER 20.

"For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believes." Romans 10:4

BEHOLD, what an open door does this subject set before the humble, convinced sinner. It encircles the whole future of his being with the covenant bow of hope. Beneath its gorgeous and expanding arch he is safe. The law, now honored as it never was before, invested with a luster in view of which its former glory pales, and at the brightness of which angels veil their faces, the utmost glory brought to the Divine government, do you think, penitent reader, that the Lord will reject the application of a single sinner who humbly asks to be saved? What! after the Son of God had stooped so low to save the lowest, had suffered so much to save the vilest, will the Father refuse to enfold to His reconciled heart the penitent who flees to its blessed asylum? Never! Approach, then, bowed and broken, weary and burdened spirit. There is hope for you in Jesus, there is forgiveness for you in Jesus, there is acceptance for you in Jesus, there is rest for you in Jesus, there is a heaven of bliss and glory awaiting you—all in Jesus, the law's great fulfiller. Oh, how welcome will the heart of Christ make you! How full and free will be the pardon of God extended to you! How deep and rich the peace, and joy, and hope, which, like a river, will roll its gladdening waves into your soul the moment that you receive Christ into your heart! "Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and you shall be saved." "He that believes shall not come into condemnation, but is passed from death unto life."

Saints of God, keep the eye of your faith intently and immovably fixed upon Christ, your sole pattern. Our Lord did not keep that law that His people might be lawless. He did not honor that law that they might dishonor its precepts. His obedience provided no license for our disobedience. His fulfillment releases us not from the obligation—the sweet and pleasant, yet solemn obligation—to holiness of life. Our faith does not make void the law, but rather establishes the law. The "righteousness of the law is fulfilled in us" when we "walk after the Spirit," in lowly conformity to Christ's example. Was He meek and lowly in heart? Did He bless when cursed? Did He, when reviled, revile not again? Did He walk in secret with God? Did He always seek to do those things which pleased His Father? Did He live a life of faith, and prayer, and toil? So let us imitate Him, that of us it may be said, "These are they who follow the Lamb withersoever He goes." What richer comfort can flow into the hearts of the godly than that which springs from this truth? "The righteousness of the law fulfilled in us." What wondrous, blessed words! You are often in fear that the righteousness of the law will rise against you; and when you consider your many failures and short-comings, you justly tremble. But fear not; for in Christ the law is perfectly fulfilled, and fulfilled in your stead, as much as if you had obeyed in your own person. Is not this a sure ground of comfort? You see the imperfection of your own obedience, and you are alarmed; but have you not an eye also for the perfection of Christ's obedience, which He has made yours by imputation? "There is therefore now no condemnation to them who are in Christ Jesus," because He has fulfilled the law's righteousness in their behalf. You are cast down because of the law of sin, but the Spirit of life has freed you from the law. You are troubled because of the law of God, but that law, by Christ's perfect obedience, is fulfilled in you. You desire a righteousness that will present you without spot before God; you have it in Him who is the "Lord our righteousness." Christian! Christ's whole obedience is yours. What can sin, or Satan, or conscience, or the law itself allege against you now? Be humble, and mourn over the many flaws and failures in your obedience; yet withal rejoice, and glory, and make your boast in the fullness, perfection, and unchangeableness of that righteousness on the Incarnate God which will place you without fault before the throne.

Sinner! if the righteousness of the law is not fulfilled in you now, that righteousness will be exhibited in your just condemnation to all eternity! Flee to Christ Jesus, "the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believes."

DECEMBER 21.

"For even hereunto were you called: because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that you should follow his steps." 1 Peter 2:21

BUT imperfectly, perhaps, beloved reader, are you aware of the high privilege to which you are admitted, and of the great glory conferred upon you, in being identified with Jesus in His life of humiliation. This is one of the numerous evidences by which your adoption into the family of God is authenticated, and by which your union with Christ is confirmed. It may be you are the subject of deep poverty—your circumstances are straitened, your resources are limited, your necessities are many and pressing. Perhaps you are the "man that has known affliction;" sorrow has been your constant and intimate companion; you have become "acquainted with grief." The Lord has been leading you along a path of painful humiliation. You have been "emptied from vessel to vessel." He has brought you down, and laid you low; step by step, and yet, oh, how wisely and how gently, He has been leading you deeper and yet deeper into the valley! But why all this leading about? why this emptying? why this descending? Even to bring you into a union and communion with Jesus in His life of humiliation! Is there a step in your abasement that Jesus has not trodden with you—ah! and trodden before you? Is there a sin that He has not carried, a cross that He has not borne, a sorrow that has not affected Him, and infirmity that has not touched Him? Even so will He cause you to reciprocate this sympathy, and have fellowship with Him in His sufferings. As the Head did sympathize with the body, so must the body sympathize with the Head. Yes, the very same humiliation which you are now enduring the Son of God has before endured. And that you might learn something what that love and grace and power were which enabled Him to pass through it all, He pours a little drop in your cup, places a small part of the cross upon your shoulder, and throws a slight shadow on your soul! Yes, the very sufferings you are now enduring are, in a faint and limited degree, the sufferings of Christ. "Who now rejoice in my sufferings for you," says the apostle, "and fill up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh, for His body's sake, which is the Church." There is a two-fold sense in which Jesus may be viewed as a sufferer. He suffered in His own person as the Mediator of His Church; those sufferings were vicarious and complete, and in that sense He can suffer no morel "for by one offering He has perfected forever them that are sanctified." The other now presents Him as suffering in His members: in this sense Christ is still a sufferer; and although not suffering to the same degree, or for the same end, as He once did, nevertheless He who said, "Saul, Saul, why persecute you me?" is identified with the Church in all its sufferings; in all her afflictions, He being afflicted. The apostle therefore terms the believer's present sufferings the "afflictions of Christ."

DECEMBER 22.

"It is a faithful saying: For if we be dead with him, we shall also live with him: if we suffer, we shall also reign with him." 2 Timothy 2:11, 12

BEHOLD, then, your exalted privilege, you suffering sons of God! See how the glory beams around you, you humble and afflicted ones! You are one with the Prince of sufferers, and the Prince of sufferers is one with you! Oh! to be one with Christ—what tongue can speak, what pen can describe the sweetness of the blessing, and the greatness of the grace? To sink with Him in His humiliation here is to rise with Him in His exaltation hereafter. To share with Him in His abasement on earth is to blend with Him in His glory in heaven. To suffer shame and ridicule, persecution and distress, poverty and loss for Him now, is to wear the crown, and wave the palm, to swell the triumph, and shout the song, when He shall descend the second time in glory and majesty, to raise His Bride from the scene of her humiliation, robe her for the marriage, and make her manifestly and eternally His own.

Oh! laud His great name for all the present conduct of His providence and grace. Praise Him for all the wise though affecting discoveries He gives you of yourself, of the creature, of the world. Blessed, ah! truly blessed and holy is the discipline that prostrates your spirit in the dust. There it is that He reveals the secret of His own love, and draws apart the veil of His own loveliness. There it is that He brings the soul deeper into the experience of His sanctifying truth; and, with new forms of beauty and expressions of endearment, allures the heart, and takes a fresh possession of it for Himself. And there, too, it is that the love, tenderness, and grace of the Holy Spirit are better known. As a Comforter, as a Revealer of Jesus, we are, perhaps, more fully led into an acquaintance with the work of the Spirit in seasons of soul-abasement than at any other time. The mode and time of His divine manifestation are thus beautifully predicted: "He shall come down like rain on the mown grass; as showers that water the earth." Observe the gentleness, the silence, and the sovereignty of His operation—"He shall come down like rain." How characteristic of the blessed Spirit's grace! Then mark the occasion on which He descends—it is at the time of the soul's deep prostration. The waving grass is mowed—the lovely flower is laid low—the fruitful stem is broken—that which was beautiful, fragrant, and precious is cut down—the fairest first to fade, the loveliest first to die, the fondest first to depart; then, when the mercy is gone, and the spirit is bowed, when the heart is broken, the mind is dejected, and the world seems clad in wintry desolation and gloom, the Holy Spirit, in all the softening, reviving, comforting, and refreshing influence of His grace, descends, speaks of the beauty of Jesus, leads to the grace of Jesus, lifts the bowed soul, and reposes it on the bosom of Jesus.

Precious and priceless, then, beloved, are the seasons of a believer's humiliation. They tell of the soul's emptiness, of Christ's fullness; of the creature's insufficiency, of Christ's all-sufficiency; of the world's poverty, of Christ's affluence; they create a necessity which Jesus supplies, a void which Jesus fills, a sorrow which Jesus soothes, a desire which Jesus satisfies. They endear the cross of the incarnate God, they reveal the hidden glory of Christ's humiliation, they sweeten prayer, and lift the soul to God; and then, "truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with His Son, Jesus Christ." Are you as a bruised flower? are you as a broken stem? Does some heavy trial now bow you in the dust? Oh never, perhaps, were you so truly beautiful—never did your grace send forth such fragrance, or your prayers ascend with so sweet an odor—never did faith, and hope, and love develop their hidden glories so richly, so fully as now! In the eye of a wounded, a bruised, and a humbled Christ, you were never more lovely, and to His heart never more precious than now—pierced by His hand, smitten by His rod, humbled by His chastisement, laid low at His feet, condemning yourself, justifying Him, taking to yourself all the shame, and ascribing to Him all the glory.

DECEMBER 23.

"Now he which establishes us with you in Christ, and has anointed us, is God; who has also sealed us, and given the earnest of the Spirit in our hearts." 2 Corinthians 1:21, 22

IT is, and has long been, the solemn conviction of the writer, that much of the spiritual darkness, the little comfort and consolation, the dwarfish piety, the harassing doubts and fears, the imperfect apprehensions of Jesus, the feeble faith, the sickly, drooping state of the soul, the uncertainty of their full acceptance in Christ, which mark so many of the professing people of God in this our day, may be traced to the absence of a deep sealing of the Spirit. Resting satisfied with the faint impression in conversion, with the dim views they then had of Christ, and the feeble apprehension of their acceptance and adoption, is it any marvel that all their lifetime they should be in bondage through slavish doubts and fears?—that they should never attain to the "stature of perfect men in Christ Jesus"—that they should never rise to the humble boldness, the unwavering confidence, the blest assurance, and the holy dignity of the sons of God? Oh no! They rest short of this blessing. They hang upon the door of the ark—they remain upon the border of the goodly land, and not entering fully in, the effects are as we have described. But, beloved reader, the richest ore lies buried the deepest—the sweetest fruit is on the higher branches—the strongest light is near the sun. In other words, if we desire more knowledge of Christ—of our full pardon, and complete acceptance—if we desire the earnest of our inheritance, and even now would taste the "grapes of Eshcol," we must be "reaching forth unto those things that are before," we must "press toward the mark," and rest not until that is found in a clear, unclouded, immoveable, and holy assurance of our being in Christ; and this is only experienced in the sealing of the Spirit. Again we say, with all the earnestness which a growing sense of the vastness of the blessing inspires, seek to be sealed of the Spirit—seek the "earnest of the Spirit"— seek to be "filled with the Spirit"—seek the "anointing of the Spirit"—seek the "Spirit of adoption." Say not, it is too immense a blessing, to high an attainment for one so small, so feeble, so obscure, so unworthy as you. Oh, impeach not thus the grace of God. All His blessings are the bestowments of grace; and grace means free favor to the most unworthy. There is not one lowly, weeping eye that falls on this page, but may, under the blessed sealing of the Spirit, look up through Jesus to God as a Father. Low views of self, deep consciousness of vileness, poverty of state or of spirit, are no objections with God, but rather strong arguments that prevail with Him why you should have the blessing. Only ask—only believe—only persevere, and you shall attain unto it. It is in the heart of the Spirit to seal "unto the day of redemption" all that believe in Jesus. May it be in the heart of the reader to desire the blessing, seeing it is so freely and richly offered!

Reader, whose superscription do you bear? It may be your reply is—"I want Christ; I secretly long for Him; I desire Him above all beside." Is it so? Then take courage, and go to Jesus. Go to Him simply, go to Him unhesitatingly, go to Him immediately. That desire is from Him; let it lead you to Him. That secret longing is the work of the Spirit; and having begotten it there, do you think that He will not honor it, and welcome you when you come? Try Him. Bring Him to the touch-stone of His own truth. "Prove me now herewith," is His gracious invitation. Take His promise, "Him that comes to me I will in no wise cast out," and plead it in wrestlings at the mercy-seat, and see if He will not "open the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it." Go to Him just as you are; if you cannot take to Him a pure heart, take an impure one; if you cannot take to Him a broken heart, take a whole one; if you cannot take to Him a soft heart, take a hard one—only go to Him. The very act of going will be blessed to you. And oh, such is the strength of His love, such His yearning compassion and melting tenderness of heart for poor sinners, such His ability and willingness to save, that He will no more cast you out than deny His own existence. Precious Jesus! Set us as a seal upon Your heart, and by Your Spirit seal Yourself upon our hearts; and give us, unworthy though we are, a place among "those who are sealed."

DECEMBER 24.

"This Jesus has God raised up, whereof we all are witnesses. Therefore being by the right hand of God exalted, and having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, he has shed forth this, which you new see and hear." Acts 2:32, 33

THE day of Pentecost, with its hallowed scenes, cannot be too frequently brought before the mind. Were there a more simple looking to Christ upon the throne, and a stronger faith in the promise of the outpouring of the Spirit, and in the faithfulness of the Promiser to make it good, that blessed day would find its prototype in many a similar season enjoyed by the Church of God to the end of time. The effects of the descent of the Spirit on that day upon the apostles themselves are worthy of our especial notice. What a change passed over those holy men of God, thus baptized with the promised Spirit! A new flood of divine light broke in upon their minds. All that Jesus had taught them while yet upon earth recurred to their memory, with all the freshness and glory of a new revelation. The doctrines which He had propounded concerning Himself, His work, and His kingdom, floated before their mental eye like a newly-discovered world, full of light and beauty. A newness and a freshness invested the most familiar truths. They saw with new eyes; they heard with new ears; they understood as with recreated minds: and the men who, while He was with them, teaching them in the most simple and illustrative manner, failed fully to comprehend even the elementary doctrines and the most obvious truths of the gospel, now saw as with the strength of a prophet's vision, and now glowed as with the ardor of a seraph's love. Upon the assembled multitudes who thronged the temple how marvelous, too, the effects! Three thousand as in one moment were convinced of sin, and led to plunge in the "Fountain opened to the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, for sin and uncleanness." And how does the apostle explain the glorious wonder?—"This Jesus," says he, "has God raised up, whereof we all are witnesses. Therefore being by the right hand of God exalted, and having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, he has shed forth this which you now see and hear."

This, and this only, is the blessing which the Church of God now so greatly needs—even the baptism of the Holy Spirit. She needs to be confirmed in the fact, that Jesus is alive and upon the throne, invested with all power, and filled with all blessing. The simple belief of this would engage her heart to desire the bestowment of the Spirit; and the Spirit largely poured down would more clearly demonstrate to her the transcendent truth in which all her prospects of glory and of happiness are involved, that the Head of the Church is triumphant. Oh, let her but place her hand of faith simply, solely, firmly, on the glorious announcement—Jesus is at the right hand of the Father, with all grace and love in His heart, with all authority in His hand, with all power at His disposal, with all blessing in His gift, waiting to open the windows of heaven, and pour down upon her such a blessing as there shall not be room enough to receive it—prepared so deeply to baptize her with the Holy Spirit as shall cause her converts greatly to increase, and her enterprises of Christian benevolence mightily to prosper; as shall heal her divisions, build up her broken walls, and conduct her to certain and triumphant victory over all her enemies—let her but plant her faith upon the covenant and essential union of these two grand truths—An exalted Redeemer and a descending Spirit—and a day on which, not three thousand only, but a nation shall turn to the Lord, and all flesh shall see His glory!

DECEMBER 25.

"Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?" Romans 8:35

OF whose love does the apostle speak? The believer's love to Christ? On the contrary, it is Christ's love to the believer. And this view of the subject makes all the difference in its influence upon our minds. What true satisfaction and real consolation, at least how small its measure, can the believer derive from a contemplation of his love to Christ? It is true, when sensible of its glow, and conscious of its power, he cannot but rejoice in any evidence, the smallest, of the work of the Holy Spirit in his soul. Yet this is not the legitimate ground of his confidence, not the proper source of his comfort. It is Christ's love to him! And this is just the truth the Christian mind needs for its repose. To whom did Paul originally address this letter? To the saints of the early and suffering age of the Christian Church. And this truth—Christ's love to His people—would be just the truth calculated to comfort, and strengthen, and animate them. To have declared that nothing should prevail to induce them to forsake Christ would have been but poor consolation to individuals who had witnessed many a fearful apostasy from Christ in others, and who had often detected the working of the same principle in themselves. Calling to mind the strong asseveration of Peter, "Although all shall be offended, yet will not I," and remembering how their Master was denied by one, betrayed by another, and forsaken by all His disciples, their hearts would fail them. But let the apostle allure their minds from a contemplation of their love to Christ, to a contemplation of Christ's love to them, assuring them, upon the strongest grounds, that whatever sufferings they should endure, or by whatever temptations they should be assailed, nothing should prevail to sever them from their interest in the reality, sympathy, and constancy of that love, and he has at once brought them to the most perfect repose. The affection, then, of which the apostle speaks, is the love of God which is in Christ Jesus.

The love of Christ! such is our precious theme. Of it can we ever weary? Its greatness can we fully know? Its plenitude can we fully contain? Never. Its depths cannot be fathomed, its dimensions cannot be measured. It "passes knowledge." All that Jesus did for His Church was but the unfolding and expression of His love. Traveling to Bethlehem—I see love incarnate. Tracking His steps as He went about doing good—I see love laboring. Visiting the house of Bethany—I see love sympathizing. Standing by the grave of Lazarus—I see love weeping. Entering the gloomy precincts of Gethsemane—I see love sorrowing. Passing on to Calvary—I see love suffering, bleeding, and expiring. The whole scene of His life is but an unfolding of the deep, awful, and precious mystery of redeeming love.

DECEMBER 26.

"For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." Romans 8:38, 39

THE love of the Father is seen in giving us Christ, in choosing us in Christ, and in blessing us in Him with all spiritual blessings. Indeed, the love of the Father is the fountain of all covenant and redemption mercy to the Church. It is that river the streams whereof make glad the city of God. How anxious was Jesus to vindicate the love of the Father from all the suspicions and fears of His disciples! "I say not unto you that I will pray the Father for you; for the Father Himself loves you." "God so loved the world that He gave his only begotten Son." To this love we must trace all the blessings which flow to us through the channel of the cross. It is the love of God, exhibited, manifested, and seen in Christ Jesus; Christ being, not the originator, but the gift of His love; not the cause, but the exponent of it. Oh, to see a perfect equality in the Father's love with the Son's love! Then shall we be led to trace all His present mercies, and all His providential dealings, however trying, painful, and mysterious, to the heart of God; thus resolving all into that from where all alike flow—everlasting and unchangeable love.

Now it is from this love there is no separation. "Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?" The apostle had challenged accusation from every foe, and condemnation from every quarter; but no accuser rose, and no condemnation was pronounced. Standing on the broad basis of Christ's finished work and of God's full justification, his head was now lifted up in triumph above all his enemies round about. But it is possible that, though in the believer's heart there is no fear of impeachment, there yet may exist the latent one of separation. The aggregate dealings of God with His Church, and His individual dealings with His saints, may at times present the appearance of an alienated affection of a lessened sympathy. The age in which this epistle was penned was fruitful of suffering to the Church of God. And if any period or any circumstances of her history boded a severance of the bond which bound her to Christ, that was the period, and those were the circumstances. But with a confidence based upon the glorious truth on which he had been descanting—the security of the Church of God in Christ—and with a persuasion inspired by the closer realization of the glory about to burst upon her view—with the most dauntless courage he exclaims, "I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord."

DECEMBER 27.

"Our Savior Jesus Christ, who has abolished death, and has brought life and immortality to light through the gospel." 2 Timothy 2:10

THAT there is a separating power in death is a truth too evident and too affecting to deny. It separates the soul from the body, and man from all the pursuits and attractions of earth. "His breath goes forth, in that very day his thoughts perish." All his thoughts of ambition—his thoughts of advancement—his thoughts of a vain and Pharisaical religion—all perish on that day. What a mournful sublimity is there in this vivid description of the separating power of death over the creature! What a separating power, too, has it, as felt in the chasms it creates in human relationships! Who has not lost a friend, a second self, by the ruthless hand of death? What bright home has not been darkened, what loving heart has not been saddened, by its visitations? It separates us from the husband of our youth—from the child of our affections—from the friend and companion of our earlier and riper years. It comes and breaks the link that bound us so fondly and so closely to the being whose affection, sympathy, and communion seemed essential elements of our being, whose life we were used to regard as a part of our very existence. But there is one thing from which death cannot separate us—the love of God which is in Christ Jesus, and all the blessings which that love bestows. Death separate us! No; death unites us the more closely to those blessings, by bringing us into their more full and permanent possession. Death imparts a realization and a permanence to all the splendid and holy anticipations of the Christian. The happiest moment of his life is its last. All the glory and blessing of his existence cluster and brighten around that solemn crisis of his being. Then it is he feels how precious the privilege and how great the distinction of being a believer in Jesus. And the day that darkens his eye to all earthly scenes opens it upon the untold and unimaginable and ever-increasing glories of eternity. It is the birth-day of his immortality. Then, Christian, fear not death! It cannot separate you from the Father's love, nor can it, while it tears you from an earthly bosom, wrench you from Christ's. You shall have in death, it may be, a brighter, sweeter manifestation of His love than you ever experienced in life. Jesus, the Conqueror of death, will approach and place beneath you His almighty arms, and your head upon His loving bosom. Thus encircled and pillowed, you "shall not see death," but, passing through its gloomy portal, shall only realize that you had actually died, from the consciousness of the joy and glory into which death had ushered you.

DECEMBER 28.

"But thanks be to God, which gives us the victory, through our Lord Jesus Christ." 1 Corinthians 15:57

DOES the ear of some dear departing saint of God lend itself to the recital of these closing words? Beloved of the Lord, beloved in the Lord, what a blessed opportunity have you now of leaning the entire weight of your soul, with all its sins and sorrows, upon the finished work of Jesus, your Almighty Savior, your God, your Redeemer! The great debt is cancelled. Justice exacts not a second payment, the first from your Surety, the second from you. No! justice itself is on your side; every perfection of God is a wall of fire round about you. You stand complete in the righteousness of the incarnate God. The blood of Jesus Christ, the Father's own Son, cleanses you from all sin. Many and aggravated you now see to have been your flaws, your derelictions, your departures, your backslidings, your stumblings; sin appears now as it never did before; the sense of your utter unworthiness presses you to the earth. Well, who is on the eager watch for the first kindlings of godly sorrow in the heart of the prodigal? Who welcomes his return with joy, with music, with honors? Whose heart has not ceased to love, whose eye has not ceased to follow, amid all the waywardness and wandering of that child? Oh, it is the Father! "When he was yet a great way off, his father saw him, and had compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him." Behold your God, your covenant God and Father in Christ Jesus! This reconciled Father is yours. Throw yourself in His arms, and He will fall on your neck, and will seal upon your heart afresh the sense of His free forgiveness and His pardoning love. Heaven is before you. Soon will you be freed, entirely and forever freed, from all the remains of sin. Soon the last sigh will heave your breast, the last tear will fall from your eye, and the last pang will convulse your body. Soon, oh, how soon, will you "see the King in His beauty," the Jesus who loved you, died for you, ransomed you, and loves you still! Soon you will fall at His feet, and be raised in His arms, and be hushed to rest in His bosom. Soon you will mingle, a pure and happy spirit, with patriarchs and prophets, apostles and martyrs, and with all who sleep in Jesus, who have gone but a little before you. See how they line the shores on the other side, and wait to welcome you over! See how they beckon you away! Above all, sweetest and most glorious of all, behold Jesus standing at the right hand of God, prepared to receive you to Himself! Jesus has gone before, to make ready for the glorification of His Church. "I go to prepare a place for you." Oh sweet words! A place prepared—a mansion set apart for each individual believer! "In my Father's house are many mansions." A mansion in His heart, a mansion in His kingdom, a mansion in His house, for the weakest babe in Christ. The Forerunner is for us entered, even Jesus! How sure is heaven! How certain the eternal happiness of every pardoned and justified soul!

DECEMBER 29.

"For you are my lamp, O Lord; and the Lord will lighten my darkness." 2 Samuel 22:29

BLESSED Lord! You are my light. Accepted in Your righteousness, I am "clothed with the sun." Dark in myself, I am light in You. Often have You turned my gloomy night into sunny day. Yes, Lord, and with a love not less tender, You have sometimes turned my "morning of joy" into a "night of weeping." Yet have You made my very griefs to sing. Many a dark cloud of my pilgrimage has You fringed with Your golden beams. "In Your light have I seen light" upon many a gloomy and mysterious dispensation of my covenant God. "By Your light I have walked through darkness," many a long and lonely stage of my journey. Oh, how have You gone before me each step You do bid me to travel. You, too, did pass through Your night of solitude, suffering, and woe. But You were deprived of the alleviations which You do so graciously and tenderly vouchsafe to me. Not a beam illumined, not a note cheered, the midnight of Your soul. The light of the manifested Fatherhood was hidden from Your view, and in bitter agony did You exclaim, "My God, my God, why have You forsaken me?" And all this did You willingly endure, that I might have a song in the night of my grief. Thus Your darkness becomes my light; Your suffering my joy; Your humiliation my glory; Your death my life; Your curse my crown.

O Lord! that is a blessed night of weeping in which I can sing of Your sustaining grace, of Your enlivening presence, of Your unfaltering faithfulness, of Your tender love. In Your school how well have You instructed me! How patiently and skillfully have You taught me! I could not have done without Your teaching and Your discipline. With not one night of suffering, with not one chastising stroke, with not one ingredient in my cup of sorrow, could I safely have dispensed. All was needful. And now I can see, as faith, with a reflex action, surveys all the past, with what infinite wisdom and skill, integrity and gentleness, You were appointing all, and overruling all the incidents and windings of my history. With not less shame and self-abhorrence do I cover my face, and lay my mouth in the dust before You, because You has brought light out of my darkness, and educed good from my evil, and overruled all my mistakes and departures for my greater advance and Your richer glory, and are now "pacified towards me for all that I have done." I have stumbled, and You have upheld me. I have fallen, and You have raised me up. I have wandered, and You have restored. I have wounded myself, and You have healed me. Oh, what a God have You been to me! What a Father! What a Friend! Shall I ever distrust You, ever disbelieve You, ever wound You, ever leave You more? Ah! Lord, a thousand times over, yes, this very moment, but for Your restraining grace. "Hold You me up, and I shall be safe."

DECEMBER 30.

"You shall guide me with your counsel, and afterward receive me to glory." Psalm 73:24

LORD, give me more clearly to see Your love in all Your dealings. Anoint my eye of faith afresh, that, piercing the dark cloud, it may observe beneath it Your heart, all beating with an infinite and a deathless affection towards me. The cup which my Father has prepared and given me, shall I not drink in deep submission to His holy will? O Lord, I dare not ask that it may pass my lips untasted: I may find a token of Your love concealed beneath the bitter draught. Your will be done. Nearer would I be to You. And since You, my blessed Lord, were a sufferer—Your sufferings now are all passed—I would have fellowship with You in Your sufferings, and thus be made conformable to Your death. Grant me grace, that patience may have her perfect work, wanting nothing. Calm this perturbed mind. Tranquillize this ruffled spirit. Bind up this bruised and broken heart. Say to these troubled waters in which I wade, "Peace, be still." Jesus, I throw myself upon Your gentle bosom. To whom can I, to whom would I, tell my grief, to whom unveil my sorrow, but to You? Lord! it is too tender for any eye, too deep for any hand, but Your. I bless You that I am shut up to You, my God. "Whom have I in heaven but You? and there is none upon earth that I desire beside You." You did hear my prayer, and have answered me, "though as by fire." I asked for health of soul, and You gave sickness of body. I asked You to possess my entire heart, and You broke my idol. I asked that I might more deeply drink of the fountain of Your love, and You did break my cistern. I asked to sit beneath Your shadow with greater delight, and You smote my gourd. I asked for deeper heart-holiness, and You did open to me more widely the chambers of imagery. But it is well; it is all well. Though You do slay me, yet will I trust in You. Divine and holy Comforter, lead me to Jesus, my comfort. Witness to my spirit that I am a child of God, though an erring and a chastened one. Lord! I come to You! My soul would sincerely expand her wings, and fly to its home. Let me go, for the day breaks. Come to me, or let me come to You. Ever with You, Lord, oh! that will be heaven indeed. Why do Your chariot wheels so long tarry? Hasten, blessed Savior, and dissolve my chain, and let me spring into glory, and see Your unclouded face, and drink of the river of Your love, and drink—forever.

DECEMBER 31.

"Let not your heart be troubled: you believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you." John 14:1, 2

GOING home! what a soothing reflection! what an ecstatic prospect! The heart throbs quicker—the eye beams brighter—the spirit grows elastic—the whole soul uplifts its soaring pinion, eager for its flight, at the very thought of heaven. "I go to prepare a place for you," was one of the last and sweetest assurances that breathed from the lips of the departing Savior; and though uttered eighteen hundred years ago, those words come stealing upon the memory like the echoes of by-gone music, thrilling the heart with holy and indescribable transport. Yes! He has passed within the veil as our Forerunner; He has prepared heaven for us, and by His gentle, wise, and loving discipline He is preparing us for heaven. Amid the perpetually changing scenes of earth, it is refreshing to think of heaven as our certain home. "In hope of eternal life, which God, that cannot lie, promised before the world began." This is no quicksand basis for faith—no mirage of hope. Heaven is a promised "rest"—exquisitely expressive image! And that promise is the word of Him who cannot lie. Nothing can surpass, nothing can compare with this! Human confidences—the strong and beautiful—have bent and broken beneath us. Hopes, bright and winning, we too fondly fed, have, like evening clouds of summer, faded away, draping the landscape they had painted with a thousand variegated hues in the somber pall of night. But heaven is true! God has promised it—Christ has secured it—the Holy Spirit is its earnest—and the joys we now feel are its pledges and "first-fruits." The home to which we aspire, and for which we pant, is not only a promised, it is also a perfect and permanent home. The mixed character of those seasons we now call repose, and the shifting places and changing dwellings we here call home, should perpetually remind us that we are not, as yet, come to the perfect rest and the permanent home of heaven. Most true indeed, God is the believer's present home, and Jesus his present rest. Beneath the shadow of the cross, by the side of the mercy-seat, within the pavilion of a Father's love, there is true mental repose, a real heart's ease, a peace that passes all understanding, found even here, where all things else are fleeting as a cloud, and unsubstantial as a dream. "Come unto me, all you that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." But it is to heaven we look for the soul's perfect and changeless happiness. With what imagery shall I portray it? How shall I describe it? Think of all the ills of your present condition—not one exists in heaven! Bereaved one! death enters not, slays not, sunders not there. Sick one! disease pales not, enfeebles not, wastes not there. Afflicted one! sorrow chafes not, saddens not, shades not there. Oppressed one! cruelty injures not, wounds not, crushes not there. Forsaken one! inconstancy disappoints not, chills not, mocks not there. Weeping one! tears spring not, scald not, dim not there. "The former things are passed away." There rests not upon that smooth brow, there lingers not upon those serene features, a furrow or line or shade of former sadness, languor, or suffering—not a trace of wishes unfulfilled, of fond hopes blighted. The desert is passed, the ocean is crossed, the home is reached, and the soul finds itself in heaven, where all is the perfection of purity and the plenitude of bliss. Ages move on in endless succession, and still all is bright, new and eternal. Oh, who would not live to win and enjoy a heaven so fair, so holy, and so changeless as this? He who has Christ in his heart enshrines there the inextinguishable, deathless hope of glory.

Enough that God is my Father, my Sun, and Shield; that He will give grace and glory, and will withhold no good and needed thing. Enough that Christ is my Portion, my Advocate, my Friend, and that, whatever else may pass away, His sympathy will not cease, His sufficiency will not fail, nor His love die. Enough that the everlasting covenant is mine, and that that covenant, made with me, is ordered in all things, and sure. Enough that heaven is my rest, that towards it I am journeying, and that I am one year nearer its blessed and endless enjoyment.

Evening Thoughts

JANUARY 1.

As your days, so shall your strength be. Deut. 33:25

CHRISTIAN, consider this new epoch of time, unfold a new page of your yet unwritten history, with the full, unwavering conviction that God is faithful; that in all the negotiations, transactions, and events of the unknown future, in all the diversified and fluctuating phases of experience through which you may pass, it will be your mercy to do with Him of whom it is said, "It is impossible for God to lie." Oh, take this precious truth into your heart, and it will shed a warm sunlight over all the landscape of your yet shadowy existence. "He abides faithful: He cannot deny Himself." Standing yet within the solemn vestibule of this new and portentous year, could our fluttering hearts find repose in a more appropriate or sweeter truth than the Divine faithfulness of Him, "with whom there is no variableness neither shadow of turning"? As a new period of time slowly rises from the depths of the unknown and mysterious future, shrink we from its stern and solemn duties, its bosomed sorrows, its deep and impenetrable decrees? Why shrink we? Infinite resources unveil their treasures upon its threshold. Christ's atoning merits confront our vast demerit. Christ's boundless grace confronts our deep necessities. Christ's promised presence confronts our sad and gloomy loneliness. Jesus thus filled with grace so overflowing, with love so tender, with sympathy so exquisite, with power so illimitable, with resources so boundless, with a nature so changeless, stands before us and says to each trembling heart, "Fear not!" We commence a new march under his convoy. We prepare for a new conflict with his armor. We renew our pilgrimage with fresh supplies of 'angels' food,' affording nourishment for the present and pledges for the future. For that future do not be needlessly, unbelievingly anxious. It is all in God's hands. He would that you should live each day upon Him as a little child—simple in your faith, unshaken in your confidence, clinging in your love. Let each morning's petition be—ever linking it with the precious name of Jesus—"My Father! give me this day my daily bread." Then shall the promise be fulfilled, and its fulfillment shall be the immediate answer to your prayer—"As your days so shall your strength be."

And let us, on this birthday of the year, renew each his personal and solemn dedication to God; supplicating forgiveness for the past, and invoking grace to help in every time of need for the future. The atoning blood of Jesus! How solemn and how precious is it at this moment! Bathed in it afresh, we will more supremely, unreservedly, and submissively yield ourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead. We will travel to the open fountain, wash, and be clean. Christ loves us to come as we are. We may approach all clothed with shame for the past, but not a reproving look will dart from His eye, nor an upbraiding word will breathe from his lips. Nor shall abused and ill-requited mercies past seal our lips from supplicating blessings for the future. "Open your month wide, and I will fill it," is still the Divine promise and He who gave it has added a supplementary one, if possible, yet ampler and richer, "Call unto me, and I will answer you, and show you great and mighty things which you know not."

JANUARY 2.

Yet the Lord will command his loving-kindness in the daytime, and in the night his song shall be with me, and my prayer unto the God of my life. Psalm 42:8

SONGS in the night!—who can create them? Midnight harmony!—who can inspire it? God can, and God does. The "God of all consolation," the "God who comforts those who are cast down;" the "God of hope," who causes the "bright and morning star" to rise upon the dreary landscape; the "God of peace, who Himself gives peace, always and by all means;" even He, our Maker and Redeemer, gives songs in the night. Music, at all times sweet, is the sweetest amid the sublimity of night. When in the solemn stillness that reigns—not a breath rustling the leaves, and Echo herself slumbers—when in the darkness that enshrouds, the thoughts that agitate, the gloomy phantoms that flit before the fancy like shadows dancing upon the wall, there breaks upon the wakeful ear the soft notes of skillfully touched instruments, blending with the melting tones of well—tuned voices, it is as though angels had come down to serenade and soothe the sad and jaded sons of earth. But there are songs richer, and there is music sweeter still than theirs—the songs which God gives, and the music which Jesus inspires, in the long dark night of the Christian's pilgrimage. A saint of God is, then, a happy man. He is often most so when others deem him most miserable. When they, gazing with pity upon his adversities and his burdens, and silently marking the conflict of thought and feeling passing within—compared with which external trial is but as the bubble floating upon the surface—deem him a fit object of their commiseration and sympathy, even then there is a hidden spring of joy, an under-current of peace, lying in the depths of the soul, which renders him, chastened and afflicted though he is, a happy and an enviable man. "Blessed are those who mourn now, for they shall be comforted."

JANUARY 3.

Jesus Christ, and him crucified. 1 Co2. 2:2.

FAITH, picturing to its view the cross, the Holy Spirit engraving it on the heart in spiritual regeneration, the whole soul receiving Him whom it lifts up, as its "wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption," gently and effectually transforms the spirit, that was chafed and restless, into the "meekness and gentleness of Christ." Oh what calmness steals over his ruffled soul! oh what peace flows into his troubled heart! oh what sunshine bathes in its bright beams his dark spirit, who, from the scenes of his conflict and his sorrow, flees beneath the shadow and the shelter of the cross! The storm ceases—the deluge of his grief subsides—the Spirit, dove-like, brings the message of hope and love—the soul, tempest-tossed, rests on the green mount, and one unbounded spring clothes and encircles the landscape with its verdure and its beauty. Child, chastened by the Father's love, look to the cross of your crucified Savior; and as you fix upon it your believing, ardent, adoring gaze, exclaim—
"Wearily for me you sought,
On the cross my soul you bought;
Lose not all for which you wrought."

What is your sorrow compared with Christ's? What is your grief gauged by your Lord's? Your Master has passed before you, flinging the curse and the sin from your path, paving it with promises, carpeting it with love, and fencing it around with the hedge of His divine perfections. Press onward, then, resisting your foe resolutely, bearing your cross patiently, drinking your cup submissively, and learning, while sitting at the Savior's feet, or leaning upon His bosom, to be like Him, "meek and lowly in heart."

JANUARY 4.

Let my prayer be set forth before you as incense; and the lifting up of my hands as the evening sacrifice. Psalm 141:2

THIS passage presents the Christian to our view in his holiest and most solemn posture—drawing near to God, and presenting before the altar of His grace the incense of prayer. The typical reference to this is strikingly beautiful. "You shall make an altar to burn incense upon . . . . . And Aaron shall burn thereon sweet incense every morning; when he dresses the lamps, he shall burn incense upon it. And when Aaron lights the lamps at even, he shall burn incense upon it, a perpetual incense before the Lord throughout your generations." That this incense was typical of prayer would appear from Luke 1:10, "And the whole multitude of the people were praying without at the time of incense." And David, though dwelling in the more shadowy age of the church, thus correctly and beautifully interprets this type: "Let my prayer be set before you as incense."

But from where arises the incense of prayer ascending to the throne of the Eternal? Oh, it is from the heart. The believer's renewed, sanctified heart is the censer from where the fragrant cloud ascends. True prayer is the incense of a heart broken for sin, humbled for its iniquity, mourning over its plague, and touched, and healed, and comforted with the atoning blood of God's great sacrifice. This is the true censer; this it is at which God looks. "For the Lord sees not as man sees; for man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart." Precious censer! molded, fashioned, beautified by God. There exists not upon earth a more vile and unlovely thing, in the self-searching view of the true believer, than his own heart. And yet —oh wondrous grace!—God, by his renewing Spirit, has made of that heart a beautiful, costly, and precious censer, the cloud of whose incense ascends and fills all heaven with its fragrance. With all its indwelling evil and self-loathing, God sees its struggles, watches its conflict, and marks its sincerity. Not a feeling thrills it, not an emotion agitates it, not a sorrow shades it, not a sin wounds it, not a thought passes through it, of which He is not cognizant. Believer! Jesus loves that heart of your. He purchased it with his own heart's blood, agonies, and tears—and He loves it. It is His temple, His home, His censer, and never can it approach Him in prayer, but He is prepared to accept both the censer and incense with a complacency and delight which finds its best expression in the language of His own word, "I will accept you with your sweet savor." And what shall we say of the fragrance of this incense? Oh, how much have we yet to learn of the intrinsic sweetness of real prayer! We can but imperfectly conceive the fragrance there must be to God in the breathing of the Divine Spirit in the heart of a poor sinner. It is perhaps but a groan—a sigh—a tear—a look—but it is the utterance of the heart; and God can hear the voice of our weeping, and interpret the language of our desires, when the lips utter not a word; so fragrant to Him is the incense of prayer. "Lord, all my desire is before You, and my groaning is not hid from You."

JANUARY 5.

And another angel came and stood at the altar, having a golden censer; and there was given unto him much incense, that he should offer it with the prayers of all saints upon the golden altar which was before the throne. And the smoke of the incense, which came with the prayers of the saints, ascended up before God out of the angel's hand. Rev. 8:3-4

THIS angel is none other than the Angel of the Covenant, Jesus, our great High Priest, who stands before the golden altar in heaven, presenting the sweet incense of His divine merits and sacrificial death; the cloud of which ascends before God "with the prayers of the saints." Oh, it is the merit of our Immanuel, "who gave Himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet—smelling savor," that imparts virtue, prevalence, and acceptableness to the incense of prayer ascending from the heart of the child of God. Each petition, each desire, each groan, each sigh, each glance, comes up before God with the "smoke of the incense" which ascends from the cross of Jesus, and from the "golden altar which is before the throne." All the imperfection and impurity which mingles with our devotions here is separated from each petition by the atonement of our Mediator, who presents that as sweet incense to God. See your Great High Priest before the throne! See Him waving the golden censer to and fro! See how the cloud of incense rises and envelopes the throne! See how heaven is filled with its fragrance and its glory! Believer in Jesus, upon the heart of that officiating High Priest your name is written; in the smoke of the incense which has gone up from that waving censer your prayers are presented. Jesus' blood cleanses them, Immanuel's merit perfumes them, and our glorious High Priest thus presents both our person and our sacrifice to his Father and our Father, to His God and our God. Oh wonderful encouragement to prayer! Who, with such an assurance that his weak, broken, and defiled, but sincere petitions shall find acceptance with God, would not breathe them at the throne of grace. Go, in the name of Jesus; go, casting yourself upon the merit which fills heaven with its fragrance; go, and pour out your grief, unveil your sorrow, confess your sin, sue out your pardon, make known your needs, with your eye of faith upon the Angel who stands at the "golden altar which is before the throne," and the incense which breathes from your oppressed and stricken heart will ascend up before God out of the Angel's hand, as a cloud, rich, fragrant, and accepted.

JANUARY 6.

Lo, he goes by me, and I see him not: he passes on also, but I perceive him not. Behold, he takes away, who can hinder him? who will say unto him, What do you? Job 9:11-12

AND is this the way of the Lord with you, my beloved? Are you bewildered at the mazes through which you are threading your steps; at the involved circumstances of your present history? Deem yourself not alone in this. No mystery has lighted upon your path but what is common to the one family of God: "This honor have all his saints." The Shepherd is leading you, as all the flock are led, with a skillful hand, and in a right way. It is yours to stand if He bids you, or to follow if He leads. "He gives no account of any of His matters," assuming that His children have such confidence in His wisdom, and love, and uprightness, as in all the wonder-working of His dealings with them, to "be still and know that He is God." Throw back a glance upon the past, and see how little you have ever understood of all the way God has led you. What a mystery—perhaps now better explained—has enveloped His whole proceedings! When Joseph, for example, was torn from the homestead of his father, sold, and borne a slave into Egypt, not a syllable of that eventful page of his history could he spell. And yet God's way with this His servant was perfect. And could Joseph have seen at the moment that he descended into the pit, where he was cast by his envious brethren, all the future of his history as vividly and as palpably as be beheld it in after years, while there would have been the conviction that all was well, we doubt not that faith would have lost much of its vigor, and God much of His glory. And so with good old Jacob. The famine, the parting with Benjamin, the menacing conduct of Pharaoh's prime minister, wrung the mournful expression from his lips, "All these things are against me." All was veiled in deep and mournful mystery. Thus was it with Job, to whom God spoke from the whirlwind that swept every vestige of affluence and domestic comfort from his dwelling. And thus, too, with Naomi, when she exclaimed, "Call me not Naomi, call me Mara: for the Almighty has dealt very bitterly with me. I went out full, and the Lord has brought me home again empty." That it is to the honor of God to conceal, should in our view justify all His painful and humiliating procedure with us. "It is the glory of God to conceal a thing," as it will be for His endless glory, by and by, fully to reveal it all. But there is one thing, Christian sufferer, which He cannot conceal. He cannot conceal the love that forms the spring and foundation of all His conduct with His saints. Do what He will, conceal as He may, be His chariot the thick clouds, and His way in the deep sea, still His love betrays itself, disguised though it may be in dark and impenetrable providence. There are under-tones, gentle and tender, in the roughest accents of our Joseph's voice. And he who has an ear ever hearkening to the Lord shall often exclaim, "Speak, Lord, how and when and where you may—it is the voice of my Beloved!"

JANUARY 7

The Lord is near unto those who are of a broken heart; and saves such as be of a contrite spirit. Psalm 34:18

A broken and a contrite heart, O God, you will not despise. Psalm 51:17

THERE are those by whom a broken heart is despised. Satan despises it—though he trembles at it. The world despises it—though it stands in awe of it. The Pharisee despises it—though he attempts its counterfeit. But there is one who despises it not. "you will not despise it," exclaims the penitent child, with his eye upon the loving heart of his God and Father. But why does God not only not despise it, but delights in and accepts it? Because He sees in it a holy and a fragrant sacrifice. It is a sacrifice, because it is offered to God, and not to man. It is an oblation laid upon His altar. Moses never presented such an oblation—Aaron never offered such a sacrifice in all the gifts which he offered, in all the victims which he slew. And while some have cast their rich and splendid gifts into the treasury, or have laid them ostentatiously upon the altar of Christian benevolence, God has stood by the spot to which some poor penitent has brought his broken heart for sin, the incense of which has gone up before Him as a most precious and fragrant sacrifice. Upon that oblation, upon that gift, His eye has been fixed, as if one object, and one only, had arrested and absorbed His gaze—it was a poor broken heart that lay bleeding and quivering upon His altar. It is a sacrifice, too, offered upon the basis of the atoning sacrifice of His dear Son—the only sacrifice that satisfies Divine justice—and this makes it precious to God. So infinitely glorious is the atonement of Jesus, so divine, so complete, and so honoring to every claim of His moral government, that He accepts each sacrifice of prayer, of praise, of penitence, and of personal consecration, laid in faith by the side and upon that one infinite sacrifice for sin. He recognizes in it, too, the work of His own Spirit. When the Spirit of God moved upon the face of unformed nature, and a new world sprang into life, light, and beauty, He pronounced it very good. But what must be His estimate of that new creation which His Spirit has wrought in the soul, whose moral chaos He has reduced to life, light, and order!

But in what way does God evince His satisfaction with, and His delight in, the broken and contrite heart? We answer—first by the manifestation of His power in healing it. "He heals the broken in heart, and binds up their wounds." "The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me; because the Lord has anointed me to preach good tidings to the meek: He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted." Never did a physician more delight to display his skill, or exercise the benevolent feelings of his nature in the alleviation of suffering, than does Jesus in His work of binding up and healing the heart broken for sin, by speaking a sense of pardon, and applying to it the balsam of His own most precious blood. But our Lord not only heals the contrite heart, but, as if heaven had not sufficient attraction as His dwelling-place, He comes down to earth, and makes that heart His abode. "Thus says the high and lofty One, that inhabits Eternity, whose name is Holy, I dwell in the high and holy place, with him also who is of a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite ones." What, dear, humble penitent, could give you such a view of the interest which Christ takes in your case—the delight with which He contemplates your contrition, and the welcome and the blessing which He is prepared to bestow upon you, on your casting yourself down at His feet, as this fact, that He waits to make that sorrow-stricken heart of yours His chief and loved abode—reviving it, healing it, and enshrining Himself forever within its renewed and sanctified affections.

JANUARY 8.

What must I do to be saved? And they said, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you shall be saved, and your house. Acts 16:30-31

THE faith of the child of God stands in the righteousness of the God-man Mediator—"the righteousness which is of God by faith." This faith has not been inappropriately termed the "poor man's grace." It is so because it comes to Jesus empty-handed. It travels to Christ in poverty and rags, in want and in woe. It is the grace of him who, feeling the working of an inward plague, and repudiating all idea of human merit, appears at the door of mercy, "poor in spirit," humbly knocking, and earnestly suing, and freely receiving, as a pensioner, the blessing of sovereign grace. Oh, how glorious to the eye of such an one appears the righteousness of the Incarnate God! How precious to his heart the atoning blood of Jesus! How suitable and attractive to his view the foundation to which he is invited, and upon which, with the confidence of faith, he is encouraged to build his assured hope of future glory! Who would not desire, and who would not seek, establishment in a faith like this? a faith that can read its pardon in the blood—its justification in the righteousness—its sanctification in the grace, and its security in the resurrection, life, and intercession of the great High Priest enthroned in heaven. Oh, let a man's faith cling to this, and he is a saved man! And to be saved! Oh, how will eternity prolong the swelling chant!—"Saved, for ever saved! A sinner the very chief—a saint the very least—a child the most unworthy! yet here, through grace, I am saved, forever saved!" Before the glory and importance of this salvation, oh, how do fade and disappear the grandeur and the significance of all other objects! "How shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation?" "This is the record, that God has given to us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. He that has the Son has life, and he that has not the Son has not life." But the faith of the true believer is built upon Christ. It has Christ for its basis, Christ for its object, Christ for its beginning and its end. It is built upon the Godhead of His person, the obedience of His life, and the vicariousness of His death. He who builds his faith short of Deity, builds upon the treacherous sand which the first heaving billow sweeps from beneath his feet. We want, in the great matter of our salvation, Deity to become incarnate—Deity to obey—Deity to atone—Deity to justify—Deity to uphold—Deity to comfort—and Deity to bring us at last to the glorious abode of Deity, to dwell amid its splendors forever.

JANUARY 9.

Jesus only. Matthew 17:8

Is not this the motto of every true believer? Whom does his heart in its best moments, and holiest affections, and intentest yearnings, supremely desire? The answer is, "Jesus only." Having by His Spirit enthroned Himself there, having won the affections by the power of His love and the attractions of His beauty, the breathing of the soul now is, "Whom have I in heaven but You, and who is there on earth that I desire beside You?" Blessed is that soul, the utterances of whose heart are the sincere and fervent expressions of a love of which Christ is the one and supreme object! Oh, to love Him more! Worthy, most worthy is He of our first and best affections. Angels love Him ardently and supremely; how much more should we, who owe to Him a deeper debt of love than they! Let the love of Christ, then, constrain us to love Him, in return, with an affection which shall evince, by the singleness of its object and the unreserved surrender of its obedience, that He who reigns the sovereign Lord of our affections is—"Jesus only."

In all the spiritual circumstances of the believer's history, it is still "Jesus only." In the corrodings of guilt upon the conscience, in the cloud which veils the reconciled countenance of God from the soul, where are we to look, save to "Jesus only"? In the mournful consciousness of our unfaithfulness to God, of our aggravated backslidings, repeated departures, the allowed foils and defeats by which our enemies exult, and the saints hang their heads in sorrow, to whom are we to turn, but to "Jesus only"? In the cares, anxieties, and perplexities which gather around our path, in the consequent castings-down of our soul, and in the disquietude of our spirit within us, to whom shall we turn, but to "Jesus only"? In those deep and mysterious exercises of soul-travail, which not always the saints of God can fully understand—when we see a hand they cannot see, and when we hear a voice then cannot hear; when we seem to tread a lone path, or traverse a sea where no fellow-voyager ever heaves in sight; the days of soul-exercise wearisome, and its nights long and dark—oh! to whom shall we then turn, save to "Jesus only"? Who can enter into all this, and sympathize with all this, but Jesus? To Him alone, then, let us repair, with every sin, and with every burden, and with every temptation, and with every sorrow, and with every mental and spiritual exercise, thankful to be shut up exclusively to "Jesus only."

And when the time draws near that we must depart out of this world, and go unto the Father, one object will fix the eye, from which all others are then receding—it is "Jesus only." Ah! to die, actually to die, must be a crisis of our being quite different from reading of death in a book, or from hearing of it in the pulpit, or from talking of it by the way-side. It is a solemn, an appalling thing to die! But to the believer in Jesus, how pleasant and how glorious! "Absent from the body," he is "present with the Lord." Jesus is with him then. The blood of Jesus is there, cleansing him from all his guilt; the arms of Jesus are there, supporting him in all his weakness; the Spirit of Jesus is there, comforting him in all his fears; and now is he learning, for the last time on earth, that as for all the sins, all the perils, all the trials, and all the sorrows of life, so now as that life is ebbing fast away, and death is chilling, and eternity is nearing, "Jesus only" is all—sufficient for his soul. Believer! look to "Jesus only"—lean upon Him, cleave to Him, labor for Him, suffer for Him, and, if need be, die for Him; thus loving and trusting, living and dying for, "JESUS ONLY."

JANUARY 10.

This is my beloved, and this is my friend. Song 5:16

THE object of the believer's trust is Jesus, his Beloved. He is spoken of by the apostle as "THE Beloved," as though he would say, "There is but one beloved of God, of angels, of saints—it is Jesus." He is the beloved One of the Father. "Behold my servant, whom I uphold; mine elect, in whom my soul delights." "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased." But Jesus is also the church's beloved, the beloved of each member of that church. His person is beloved, uniting all the glories of the Godhead with all the perfections of the manhood. His work is beloved, saving His people from the entire guilt, and condemnation, and dominion of their sins. His commandments are beloved, because they are the dictates of His love to us, and the tests of our love to Him. O yes! you have but one beloved of your heart, dear believer. He is "white and ruddy, the chief among ten thousand;" He is all the universe to you; heaven would be no heaven without Him; and with His presence here, earth seems often like the opening portal of heaven. He loved you, He labored for you, He died for you, He rose for you, He lives and intercedes for you in glory; and all that is lovely in Him, and all that is grateful in you, constrain you to exclaim—"I am my Beloved's, and any Beloved is mine."

And where would you lean in sorrow but upon the bosom of your Beloved? Christ's heart is a human heart, a sinless heart, a tender heart; a heart once the home of sorrow, once stricken with grief; once an aching, bleeding, mournful heart. Thus disciplined and trained, Jesus knows how to pity and to support those who are sorrowful and solitary. He loves to chase grief from the spirit, to bind up the broken heart, to staunch the bleeding wound, and to dry the weeping eye, to "comfort all that mourn." It is His delight to visit you in the dark night-season of your sorrow, and to come to you walking upon the tempestuous billows of your grief, breathing music and diffusing calmness over your scene of sadness and gloom. When other bosoms are closed to your sorrow, or are removed beyond your reach, or their deep throbbings of love are stilled in death—when the fiery darts of Satan fly thick around you, and the world frowns, and the saints are cold, and your path is sad and desolate—then lean upon the love, lean upon the grace, lean upon the faithfulness, lean upon the tender sympathy of Jesus. That bosom will always unveil to welcome you. It will ever be an asylum to receive you, and a home to shelter you. Never will its love cool, nor its tenderness lessen, nor its sympathy be exhausted, nor its pulse of affection cease to beat. You may have grieved it a thousand times over, you may have pierced it through and through, again and again—yet returning to its deathless love, penitent and lowly, sorrowful and humble, you may lay within it your weeping, aching, languid head, depositing every burden, reposing every sorrow, and breathing every sigh upon the heart of Jesus. Lord! to whom shall I go? yes, to whom would I go, but unto You?

We lean truly upon Jesus that we may advance in all holiness, that the graces of the Spirit may he quickened and stimulated, that we may cultivate more heavenly-mindedness, and be constantly coming up from the world, following him without the camp, bearing His reproach. Let our path, then, be upward; let us gather around us the trailing garment, casting away whatever impedes our progress; and leaning upon our Beloved and our Friend, hasten from all below, until we find ourselves actually reposing in the bosom upon which, in faith and love, in weakness and sorrow, we had rested amid the trials and perils of the ascent. There is ever this great encouragement, this light upon the way, that it is a heaven-pointing, a heaven-conducting, a Heaven-terminating path; and before long the weary pilgrim will reach its sunlit summit; not to lie down and die there, as Moses did upon the top of Pisgah, but to commence a life of perfect purity and of eternal bliss.

JANUARY 11.

For none of us lives to himself, and no man dies to himself. For whether we live, we live unto the Lord; and whether we die, we die unto the Lord: whether we live therefore, or die, we are the Lord's. Romans 14:7-8

THE Lord Jesus can only erect and carry forward His kingdom in the soul upon the ruins of self: and as this kingdom of grace is perpetual in its growth, so the demolition of self is a work of gradual advancement. As the inner life grows, Christ grows more lovely to the eye, more precious to the heart. His blood is more valued, His righteousness is more relied on, His grace is more lived upon, His cross is more gloried in, His yoke is more cheerfully borne, His commands are more implicitly obeyed. In all things Christ is advanced, and the soul by all means advances in its knowledge of, and in its resemblance to, Christ. Reader, is Christ advanced by you? Is His kingdom widened, is His truth disseminated, is his fame spread, is His person exalted, is His honor vindicated, is His glory promoted, by the life which you are living? Oh, name not the name of Christ, if it do not be to perfume the air with its fragrance, and to fill the earth with its renown.

This "living unto the Lord" is a life of self-denial; but have the self-denying, the self-renouncing, no reward? Oh yes! their reward is great. They are such as the King delights to honor. When John the Baptist declared, "He must increase, but I must decrease," and on another occasion, "whose shoe-latchet I am not worthy to unloose," Christ pronounced him "the greatest born of women." When the centurion sent to say, "Lord, I am not worthy that you should come under my roof," our Lord places this crown upon his faith, "I tell you, I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel." When the publican exclaimed, "God be merciful to me a sinner," he descended from the temple "justified rather" than the self-vaunting Pharisee. Yes, "when men are cast down, then there is lifting up." And what tongue can describe the inward peace, satisfaction, and contentment of that soul in whom this self-denying life of Christ dwells! Such a one has a continual feast. He may be deeply tried, sorely tempted, heavily afflicted, severely chastened, but his meek and submissive spirit exclaims, "It is the Lord, let Him do as seems good in His sight." Another characteristic of this life is—it is a conflicting life. It always wears the harness, and is ever clothed with the armor. Opposed by indwelling sin, assailed by Satan, and impeded by the world, every step in advance is only secured by a battle fought, and a victory achieved. It is also a holy life: springing from the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, it must necessarily be so. All its actings are holy, all its breathings are holy, all its fruits are holy, and without holiness no man has this life, or can be an in heritor of that life to come, of which this is the seedling and the germ, the foretaste and the pledge. Need we add, that happiness, progression, and deathlessness are equally its characteristics? Happiness is but a phantom and a name, where Christ dwells not in the heart. Progression is but an advance towards eternal woe, where the love of God is not in the soul. And death is an eternal, lingering despair, where the Spirit of life has not quickened the inner man, creating all things new.

Christian reader, that was a blissful day that witnessed your resurrection from a grave of sin to walk in newness of life! Happy hour when you left your soul's shroud in the tomb, exchanging it for the robe of a glorious deathlessness—when your enmity was conquered, and you were led in willing and joyous captivity, amid the triumphs of your Lord, to the altar where He bled—self-consecrated to His service! Ever keep in mind your deep indebtedness to sovereign grace, your solemn obligation to Divine love, and the touching motives that urge you to "walk worthy of the vocation with which you are called." And welcome all the dealings of God, whatever the character of those dealings may be, designed as they are but to animate, to nourish, and to carry forward this precious life in your soul.

JANUARY 12.

I give myself unto prayer. Psalm 119:4

OH, give yourself to prayer! Say not that your censer has nothing to offer; that it contains no sweet spices, no fire, no incense. Repair with it, all empty and cold as it is, to the great High Priest, and as you gaze in faith upon Him who is the Altar, the slain Lamb, and the Priest, thus musing upon this wondrous spectacle of Jesus' sacrifice for you, His Spirit will cast the sweet spices of grace, and the glowing embers of love, into your dull, cold hearts, and there will come forth a cloud of precious incense, which shall ascend with the "much incense" of the Savior's merits, an "offering and a sacrifice to God of a sweet-smelling savor." Nor forget that there is evening as well as morning incense. "When Aaron lights the lamps at even, he shall burn incense." And thus, when the day-season of your prosperity and joy is passed, and the evening of adversity, sorrow, and loneliness draws its somber curtains around you, then take your censer and wave it before the Lord. Ah! methinks at that hour of solemn stillness and of mournful solitude—that hour when all human support and sympathy fails—that then the sweetest incense of prayer ascends before God. Yes, there is no prayer so true, so powerful, so fragrant, as that which sorrow presses from the heart. Oh, betake yourself, suffering believer, to prayer. Bring forth your censer, sorrowful priest of the Lord! Replenish it at the altar of Calvary, and then wave it with a strong hand before God, until your person, your sorrows, and your guilt are all enveloped and lost in the cloud of sweet incense as it rises before the throne, and blends with the ascending cloud of the Redeemer's precious intercession. Prayer will soothe you—prayer will calm you—prayer will unburden your heart—prayer will remove or mitigate your pain—prayer will heal your sickness, or make your sickness pleasant to bear—prayer will expel the tempter—prayer will bring Jesus sensibly near to your soul—prayer will lift your heart to heaven, and will bring heaven down into your heart. Mourning Christian, give but yourself unto prayer in the hour of your sorrow and loneliness, and your breathings, sent up to heaven in tremulous accents, shall return into your own disconsolate and desolate heart, all rich and redolent of heaven's sweet consolations. The holy breathings which ascend from a believer's heart gather and accumulate in the upper skies, and when most he needs the refreshing, they descend again in covenant blessings upon his soul. That feeble desire, that faint breathing of the soul after God, and Jesus, and holiness, and heaven, shall never perish. It was, perhaps, so weak and tremulous, so mixed with grief and sorrow, so burdened with complaint and sin, that you could scarcely discern it to be real prayer, and yet, ascending from a heart inhabited by God's Holy Spirit, and touched by God's love, it rose like the incense-cloud before the throne of the Eternal, and blended with the fragrance of heaven.

JANUARY 13.

For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus. 1 Tim. 2:5

THE salvation of man is an embodiment of God Himself. The essence, the heart, the mind, the attributes, the character, the government of God, are all embarked, embodied, and exhibited in the salvation of man. It is a work so surpassingly stupendous, glorious, and divine, we can account for its vast and unique character, and its transcendent results, upon no other principle than its essential demonstration of Deity—"God manifest in the flesh." To mix, then, anything extraneous with this great and finished work, to add to it anything of human device, would seem a crime of deepest dye—a sin, the pardon of which might well extend beyond the provision of its mercy. God has, at every point, with a jealous regard for His own glory, exhibited and protected this great truth. Over the cross beneath which as a sinner I stand—inscribed upon the portal of the refuge into which as a sinner I flee—above the fountain within which as a sinner I bathe—upon every object on which as a sinner I believingly gaze, God has written one sentence—solemn, pregnant, and emphatic—"Jesus only!"

Jesus alone could stoop to our low estate. He only could stand between justice and the criminal—the Day's-man between God and us. He only had divinity enough, and merit enough, and holiness enough, and strength enough, and love enough to undertake and perfect our redemption. None other could embark in the mighty enterprise of saving lost man but He. To no other hand but His did the Father from eternity commit His church—His peculiar treasure. To Jesus only could be entrusted the recovery and the keeping of this cabinet of precious jewels—jewels lost and scattered, and hidden in the fall, yet predestinated to a rescue and a glory great and endless as God's own being. Jesus only could bear our sin, and sustain our curse, endure our penalty, cancel our debt, and reconcile us unto God. In His bosom only could the elements of our hell find a flame of love sufficient to extinguish them; and by His merit only could the glories of our heaven stand before our eye palpable and revealed. Jesus must wholly save, or the sinner must forever perish. Listen to the language of Peter, uttered when "filled with the Holy Spirit," and addressed with burning zeal to the Christ-rejecting Sanhedrin: "This is the stone which was set at nothing of you builders, which is become the head of the corner. Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved." Thus, in the great and momentous matter of our salvation, Jesus must be all.

JANUARY 14.

O Israel, you shall not be forgotten of me. I have blotted out, as a thick cloud, your transgressions, and, as a cloud, your sins: return unto me; for I have redeemed you. Isaiah 44:21-22

I KNOW not a truth more calculated to light up the gloom of a lone chamber, to lift up the drooping spirit of a heart-sick child of God, than the announcement that God, for Christ's sake, has pardoned all his transgressions and his sins, and stands to him in the relation of a reconciled Father. What has all the restoring conduct of our Lord been towards us, but just this turning to us, when we had turned from Him? We have wandered, He has gone after us; we have departed, He has pursued us; we have stumbled, He has upheld us; we have fallen, He has raised us up again; we have turned from Him, He has turned to us. Oh! the wonderful love and patience of Christ! And what is still His language? "Return unto me; for I have redeemed you." And what should be the response of our hearts? "Behold, we come unto you; for you are the Lord our God." Then "let us search and try our ways, and turn again unto the Lord." What! after all my backslidings and recoveries, my departures and returns, may I turn again to the Lord? Yes! with confidence we say it, "turn AGAIN unto the Lord." That look of love beaming from the eye of Jesus invites you, woos you, to return AGAIN yet this once more to the shelter to His pierced side, to the home of His wounded heart. Press to your heart the consolation and joy of this truth—the glance of Jesus falling upon His accepted child ever speaks of pardoned sin. Chastened, sorrowful, and secluded you may be, yet your sins are forgiven you for His name's sake. Oh! that the Spirit, the Comforter, may give you this song to sing—"Bless the Lord, O my soul! and do not forget all his benefits; who forgives all your iniquities, who heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from destruction, and crowns you with loving-kindness and tender mercies."

JANUARY 15.

I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believes in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live. John 11:25

EVERY truly gracious man is a living soul. He is in the possession of an inner, spiritual life. The first important characteristic of this spiritual life is its engrafting upon a state of death. The words of the apostle will explain our meaning: "For I through the law am dead to the law, that I might live unto God." "I am crucified with Christ; nevertheless I live." The simple meaning of these declarations is—the living soul is dead to the law of God as an instrument of life, and to its works as a ground of salvation. It is dead, too, to the curse and tyranny of the law, and consequently to its power of condemning. To all this the soul made alive by Christ is dead with Christ. Thus is it most clear that a man, dead already though he originally is in trespasses and in sins, must morally die before he can spiritually live. The crucifixion with Christ must precede the living with Christ. He must die to all schemes and hopes of salvation in or by himself, before he can fully receive into his heart Christ as the life of his soul. This spiritual mystery the natural man cannot understand or receive: he only can who is "born of the Spirit." Has the law of God been brought into your conscience with that enlightening, convincing, and condemning power, as first to startle you from your spiritual slumber, and then to sever you from all hope or expectation of salvation in yourself? If so, then will you know of a truth what it is first to die before you live. Dying to the law, dying to self, you will receive Him into your heart, who so blessedly declared, "I am come that you might have life, and that you might have it more abundantly."

The Lord Jesus is ESSENTIAL LIFE. Standing by the grave that entombs the soul dead in sin, ESSENTIAL LIFE exclaims, "I am the resurrection and the life—come forth!" and in a moment the soul is quickened, and rises to newness of life. What but Deity could accomplish this? Take off your shoes from your feet; for you stands upon holy ground! Jesus is the TRUE GOD, and ESSENTIAL LIFE. The smallest seed, the meanest insect, the lowest creature on earth, and the mightiest angel and the brightest saint in heaven, draw their life from Christ. What a mighty and glorious Being, then, is the Son of God, the ceaseless energy of whose essence prevents each moment everything that has life from being destroyed, and from accomplishing its own destruction! Who would not believe in, who would not love, who would not serve such a Being? Who would not crown Him Lord of all?

JANUARY 16.

Examine yourselves, whether you be in the faith; prove your own selves. Know you not your own selves, how that Jesus Christ is in you, except you be reprobates? 2 Cor. 13:5

ALAS! how is this precept overlooked! How few are they who rightly and honestly examine themselves! They can examine others, and speak of others, and hear for others, and judge of others; but themselves they examine not, and judge not, and condemn not. To the neglect of this precept may be traced, as one of its most fruitful causes, the relapse of the inner life of the Christian. Deterioration, and eventually destruction and ruin, must follow in the steps of willful and protracted neglect, be the object of that neglect what it may. The vineyard must become unfruitful, and the garden must lose its beauty, and the machinery must stand still, and the enterprise must fail of success, and the health must decline, if toilsome and incessant watchfulness and care has not its eye broad awake to every symptom of feebleness, and to every sign of decay. If the merchantman examine not his accounts, and if the husbandman examine not his field, and if the nobleman examine not his estate, and if the physician examine not his patient, what sagacity is needed to foresee, as the natural and inevitable result, confusion, ruin, and death? How infinitely more true is this of the soul! The want of frequent, fearless, and thorough searching into the exact state of the heart, into the real condition of the soul, as before God, in the great matter of the inner life, reveals the grand secret of many a solemn case, of delusion, shipwreck, and apostasy. Therefore the apostle earnestly exhorts, "Examine yourselves;" do not take the state of your souls for granted, prove your own selves by the word, and rest not short of Christ dwelling in your hearts—your present life, and your hope of glory.

But how does Christ dwell in the believer? We answer—by his Spirit. Thus it is a spiritual, and not a personal or corporeal, indwelling of Christ. The Scripture testimony is most full and decisive on this point. "Know you not that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit? If Christ be in you, the body is dead, because of sin; but the Spirit is life, because of righteousness. But if the Spirit of Him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, He that raised Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by His Spirit that dwells in you." And that this inhabitation of Christ by the Spirit is not the indwelling of a mere grace of the Spirit, but the Spirit Himself, is equally clear from another passage—"Hope makes not ashamed; because the love of God (here is a grace of the Spirit) is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit which He has given us"—(here is the possession of the Spirit himself). This is the fountain of all the spiritual grace dwelling in the soul of the truly regenerate, and at times so blessedly flowing forth in refreshing and sanctifying streams. Thus, then, is it most clear, that by the indwelling of the holy Spirit, Christ has His dwelling in the hearts of all true believers.

JANUARY 17.

And I will bring the blind by a way that they knew not; I will lead them in paths that they have not known: I will make darkness light before them, and crooked things straight. These things will I do unto them, and not forsake them. Isaiah 42:16

THESE words imply a concealment of much of the Lord's procedure with His people. With regard to our heavenly Father, there can be nothing mysterious, nothing inscrutable to Him. A profound and awful mystery Himself, yet to His infinite mind there can be no darkness, no mystery at all. His whole plan—if plan it may be called—is before Him. Our phraseology, when speaking of the Divine procedure, would sometimes imply the opposite of this. We talk of God's fore-knowledge, of His foresight, of His acquaintance with events yet unborn; but there is, in truth, no such thing. There are no tenses with God—no past—nor present—nor future. The idea of God's eternity, if perfectly grasped, would annihilate in our minds all such humanizing of the Divine Being. He is one ETERNAL NOW. All events, to the remotest period of time, were as vivid and as present to the Divine mind from eternity, as when at the moment they assumed a real existence and a palpable form.

But all the mystery is with us, poor finite creatures of a day. And why, even to us, is any portion of the Divine conduct thus a mystery? Not because it is in itself so, but mainly and simply because we cannot see the whole as God sees it. Could it pass before our eye, as from eternity it has before His, a perfect and a complete whole, we should then cease to wonder, to cavil, and repine. The infinite wisdom, purity, and goodness that originated and gave a character, a form, and a coloring to all that God does, would appear as luminous to our view as to His, and ceaseless adoration and praise would be the grateful tribute of our loving hearts. Let us, then, lie low before the Lord, and humble ourselves under His mysterious hand. "The meek will He guide in judgment, and the meek will He teach His way. All the paths of the Lord are mercy and truth unto such as keep His covenant and His testimonies." Thus writing the sentence of death upon our wisdom, our sagacity, and our strength, Jesus—the lowly one—seeks to keep us from the loftiness of our intellect and from the pride of our heart—prostrating us low in the dust at His feet. Holy posture! blessed place! There, Lord, would I lie; my trickling tears of penitence and of love falling upon those dear feet that have never misled, but have always gone before, leading me by a right way, the best way, to a city of rest. Wait, then, suffering believer, the coming glory—yielding yourself to the guidance of your Savior, and submitting yourself wholly to your Father's will.

JANUARY 18.

For I will declare mine iniquity; I will be sorry for my sin. Psalm 38:18
The blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanses us from all sin. 1 John 1:7

SEEK, cherish, and cultivate constantly and habitually a broken heart for sin. Do not think that it is a work which, once done, is to be done no more. Deem it not a primary stage in your spiritual journey, which, once reached, never again occurs in your celestial progress. Oh no! As in the natural life we enter the world weeping, and leave it weeping, so in the spiritual life—we begin it in tears of godly sorrow for sin, and we terminate it in tears of godly sorrow for sin—passing away to that blessed state of sinlessness, where God will wipe away all tears from our eyes. The indwelling of all evil—the polluting nature of the world along which we journey—our constant exposure to temptations of every kind—the many occasions on which we yield to those temptations, the perpetual developments of sin unseen, unknown, even unsuspected by others—the defilement which attaches itself to all that we put our hands to, even the most spiritual and holy and heavenly, the consciousness of what a holy God must every moment see in us—all, all these considerations should lead us to cherish that spirit of lowliness and contrition, self-abhorrence and self-renunciation, inward mortification and outward humility of deportment, which belong to and which truly prove the existence of the life of God in our souls.

And what, too, prompts a constant traveling to the atoning blood?—what endears the Savior who shed that blood?—what is it that makes His flesh food indeed, and His blood drink indeed?—what is it that keeps the conscience tender and clean?—what enables the believer to walk with God as a dear child? Oh, it is the sacred contrition of the lowly spirit, springing from a view of the cross of Jesus, and through the cross leading to the heart of God. Backsliding Christian! do you feel within your heart the kindlings of godly sorrow? Are you mourning over your wandering, loathing the sin that drew you from Christ, that grieved the Spirit, and wounded your own peace? Are you longing to feed again in the green pastures of the flock, and by the side of the Shepherd of the flock, assured once more that you are a true sheep, belonging to the one fold, known by, and precious to, the heart of Him who laid down His life for the sheep? Then approach the altar of Calvary, and upon it lay the sacrifice of a broken and a contrite heart, and your God will accept it. The door of your return stands open—the pierced heart of Jesus. The golden scepter that bids you approach is extended—the outstretched hand of a pacified Father. The banquet is ready, and the minstrels are tuning their harps to celebrate the return from your wanderings to your Father's heart and home, with the gladness of feasting, and with the voice of thanksgiving and of melody.

JANUARY 19

Giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue; and to virtue knowledge; And to knowledge temperance; and to temperance patience; and to patience godliness; And to godliness brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness charity. For if these things be in you, and abound, they make you that you shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. 2 Peter 1:5-8

HOW many Christian professors limit their spiritual knowledge to the first elements of truth! They seem never to pass beyond the alphabet of the gospel. But if we desire the advancement of the Divine life within us, we must know more of Jesus—we must discern more beauty in our Beloved—we must see more of the glory of our Incarnate God—we must know more of the love and grace of the Father in the gift of His dear Son—we must, in a word, grow in the knowledge of God and of Christ. Thus the soul will be established. Every step within the great sanctuary of truth will confirm the believing heart in the divinity and the vastness, the riches and the glory, of its treasures. That no such affluence of wisdom and knowledge, and truth and holiness, could flow from any other source than Deity, would be a reflection disarming every assault upon the faith of the Christian of its virulence and power. There can be no real establishment apart from growth in spiritual knowledge. Oh seek to be rooted and grounded in the faith! Do not be always a babe in knowledge, a mere dwarf in understanding, but go forward in the use of all God's ordained means of faith, until you "come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ."

And overlook not your individual responsibility in this matter of establishment. The Christian is here cast upon his own endeavor. He is to rouse himself to the great task; to labor as though the achievement of that task were of a power solely his own. "Work out your oven salvation"—"It is God that works in you"—are words which at once link human accountability and individual responsibility with Divine power and accomplishment. Let every Christian professor feel that God has given him this work to do—that he is responsible for its being done and that all grace is laid up in Jesus for its performance, and the church of God would go forth in the great work of her Head, "fair as the moon, clear as the sun, and terrible as an army with banners." Christian reader, persevere! Angels whisper—persevere! Saints, bending from their thrones in glory, whisper—persevere! God bids you—persevere! The Holy Spirit earnestly speaks—"Be you steadfast, immoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord; forasmuch as you know that your labor is not in vain in the Lord."

JANUARY 20.

For in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. Col. 2:9.

WHAT a glorious declaration is this! How should our hearts leap for joy and our souls thrill with gladness at its very sound! All the "fullness of the Godhead bodily," all the fullness of the Church graciously, all the fullness of the sinner savingly, all the fullness of the Christian sanctifyingly—in a word, all that a poor, fallen, tried son of Adam needs, until he reaches heaven itself, where this fullness has come, is, by God's eternal love and wisdom, treasured up in the "second Adam, the Lord from heaven." God, the "Fountain of life," light, and grace, has ordained that the Lord Jesus Christ, his own beloved Son, should be the one source of supply from where all the salvation of the sinner, all the sanctity of the saint, and all the grace and truth of the Church, collectively and individually, should be derived—"of whose fullness all we have received, and grace for grace."

How precious ought Jesus to be to us, who has condescended to pour this heavenly treasure into our hearts, and to undertake its constant supply! In what way can we best prove our sense of His goodness, but by drawing largely from this fullness, and by glorifying Him in what we receive. Our resources are inexhaustible, because they are infinite. Nor can we come too frequently, nor draw too largely. Spring up, O well of grace and love, into our hearts! Oh, for more depth of indwelling grace! Oh, for more fervor of holy love! Oh, for richer supplies from the fullness of Christ! Oh, for a gracious revival in our souls! "Come down," blessed Jesus, "as rain upon the mown grass!" Breathe, O south wind of the Spirit, upon the garden of our souls, that the spices may flow out! Truly the well is deep, from where we have this living water; but faith can reach it, and in proportion to the strength of our faith, and the directness and simplicity with which it deals with Christ, will be the plenitude of our supply. "Drink, yes, drink abundantly, O beloved," is our Lord's gracious invitation to His Church.

JANUARY 21.

I in them. John 17:23

OBSERVE, these are not the words of the apostle, whose ardent mind and glowing imagination might be supposed to exaggerate a truth beyond its proper limits; but they are the words of Jesus himself— of Him who is the Truth, and who therefore cannot lie. "I in them." Christ, dwelling in the soul, forms the inner life of that soul. The experience of this blessing stands connected with the lowest degree of grace, and with the feeblest faith; the lamb of the flock, the soul that has but touched the hem of the Savior's garment, prostrate as a penitent at the feet of the true Aaron, in each and in all Christ alike dwells. He has a throne in that heart, a temple in that body, a dwelling in that soul; and thus, as by a kind of second incarnation, God is manifest in the flesh, in Christ's manifestation in the believer.

You are, perhaps, a severely tried, a sorely tempted, a deeply afflicted believer. But cheer up! you have Christ living in you, and why should you yield to despondency or to fear? Christ will never vacate His throne, nor relinquish His dwelling. You have a suffering Christ, a humbled Christ, a crucified Christ, a dying Christ, a risen Christ, a living Christ, a triumphant Christ, a glorified Christ, a full Christ, dwelling in you by His Spirit. Yes; and you have, too, a human Christ, a feeling Christ, a sympathizing Christ, a tender, loving, gentle Christ, spiritually and eternally reposing in your heart. Why, then, should you fear the pressure of any want, or the assault of any foe, or the issue of any trial, since such a Christ is in you? "Fear not!" They are His own familiar and blessed words—"It is I, do not be afraid." You cannot want for any good, since you have the Fountain of all good dwelling in you. You cannot be finally overcome of any spiritual evil, since you have the Conqueror of sin, and Satan, and the world enthroned upon your affections. Your life—the divine and spiritual life—can never die, since Christ, ESSENTIAL LIFE, lives and abides in you. Like Him, and for Him, you may be opposed; but like Him, and by him, you shall triumph. The persecution which you meet, and the trials which you endure, and the difficulties with which you cope, shall but further your well-being, by bringing you into a closer communion with Jesus, and by introducing you more fully into the enviable state of the apostle—"Always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body. . . . For which cause we faint not; but though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day. For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, works for us afar more exceeding and eternal weight of glory."

JANUARY 22.

Now he which establishes us with you in Christ, and has anointed us, is God; Who has also sealed us, and given the earnest of the Spirit in our hearts. 2 Cor. 1:21-22

THE Holy Spirit renews, sanctifies, and inhabits the believer as a Divine person. It is not the common light of nature, nor the ordinary teaching of man, nor the moral suasion of truth, which has made him what he is—an experimental CHRISTIAN: all his real grace, his true teaching, flows from the Divine Spirit. His light is divine, his renewing is divine, his sanctification is divine. There is more real value in one ray of the Spirit's light, beaming in upon a man's soul, than in all the teaching which books can ever impart! The Divine Spirit, loosing the seals of the written Word, and unfolding to him the mysteries of the kingdom, the glories of Christ's person, the perfection of Christ's work, the fullness of Christ's grace, the revealed mind and will of God, has in it more wealth and glory than all the teaching the schools ever imparted. How precious the grace of the Holy Spirit, what tongue is sufficiently gifted to describe! How precious is his indwelling—an ever-ascending, heaven-panting, God-thirsting, Christ-desiring Spirit! How precious are all the revelations He makes of Christ! How precious are the consolations He brings, the promises He seals, the teachings He imparts, all the emotions He awakens, the breathings He inspires, and the affections He creates! How precious are those graces in the soul of which He is the Author—the faith that leads to a precious Savior, the love that rises to a gracious God, and the holy affections which flow forth to all the saints!

But through what channel does this Divine anointing come? Only through the union of the believer to Christ, the Anointed One. All the saving operations of the Spirit upon the mind are connected with Jesus. If He convinces of sin, it is to lead to the blood of Jesus; if He reveals the corruption of the heart, it is to lead to the grace of Jesus; if He teaches the soul's ignorance, it is to conduct it to the feet of Jesus: thus all His operations in the soul are associated with Jesus. Now, in conducting this holy anointing into the soul, He brings it through the channel of our union with the Anointed Head. By making us one with Christ, He makes us partakers of the anointing of Christ. And truly is the weakest, lowliest believer one with this anointed Savior. His fitness, as the Anointed of God, to impart of the plenitude of His anointing to all the members of his body, is a truth clearly and beautifully set forth. Thus is He revealed as the Anointed Head of the Church, the great High Priest of the royal priesthood: "You loves righteousness, and hate wickedness: therefore God, your God, has anointed You with the oil of gladness above your fellows." "The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me; because the Lord has anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek." In the Acts of the Apostles a distinct reference is made to this truth: "how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power." His human soul filled with the measureless influence of the Divine Spirit, the fullness of the Godhead dwelling in Him bodily, He became the true Aaron, of whose anointing all the priests were alike to partake. One, then, with Jesus, through the channel of his union to the Head, the lowest member is anointed with this Divine anointing.

JANUARY 23.

He that has the Son has life. 1 John 5:12.

A living Christ dwelling in a living soul. This implies permanency. The religion of some is a religion of the moment. Like the gourd of the prophet, it appears in a night, and it withers in a night. It is the religion of impulse and of feeling. It comes by fits and starts. It is easily assumed, and as easily laid aside. But here is the grand characteristic of a truly converted man—Christ lives in him, and lives in him never to die. He has entered his heart never to retire. He has enthroned Himself, never to abdicate. And although the fact of His permanent indwelling may not always appear with equal clearness and certainty to the mind of the believer himself, nevertheless Christ is really there by His Spirit. It is His home, His dwelling-place, His kingdom. He lives there, to maintain His government, to sway His scepter, and to enforce, by the mild constraint of His love, obedience to His laws. He lives there to guard and nourish His own work, shielding it when it is assailed, strengthening it when it is feeble, reviving it when it droops, restoring it when it decays; thus keeping, amid opposing influences, the life of God that it die not.

But perhaps it is a question of deep anxiety with you—"Would that I knew I were in reality a possessor of this spiritual life! My heart is so hard, my affections are so cold, my spirit is so sluggish, in everything that is spiritual, holy, and divine." Permit me to ask you, Can a stone feel its hardness, or a corpse its insensibility? Impossible! You affirm that you feel your hardness, and that you are sensible of your coldness. From where does this spring but from life? Could you weep, or mourn, or deplore, were the spiritual state of your soul that of absolute death? Again I say impossible. But rest not here; go to Jesus. What you really need is a fresh view of, a renewed application to, the Lord Jesus Christ. Take to Him the stone-like heart, the corpse-like soul. Tell him you want to feel more, and to weep more, and to love more, and to pray more, and to live more. Go and pour out your heart, with all its tremblings, and doubts, and fears, and needs, upon the bleeding, loving bosom of your Lord, until from that bosom life more abundant has darted its quickening energy, vibrating and thrilling through your whole soul. "I have come," says Jesus, "that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly." Jesus stands between you and God, prepared to present to God every sigh, and groan, and desire, and tear, and request; and to convey from God every blessing—covenant, blood-purchased blessing—which it is possible for Him to give, or needful for you to receive. Exult in the prospect of soon reaching heaven, where there are no frosts to congeal, where there is no blight to wither, and where no earthly tendencies will ever weigh down to the dust the life of God in your soul.

JANUARY 24.

Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith. Hebrews 10:22.

THE principle of faith is altogether divine—created by no human power, commanded by no human authority, and sustained by no human resources. "Faith is the gift of God." Jesus is its author and its finisher. It is a free, unmerited, unpurchased bestowment. It is given to the poor because of their poverty, to the vile because they are unworthy, to the bankrupt because they have "nothing to pay." Such is the faith which the Bible enforces.

There can be no perfection of the Lord Jesus of more exalted glory in His eye than His faithfulness. If the truthfulness of Christ can be impeached, then no reliable confidence can be placed in anything that He is, that He does, or that He says. But because He is not only truthful, but truth, His word eternally fixed and unalterable—"righteousness the girdle of His loins, and faithfulness the girdle of His reins," veracity an essential perfection of His nature—He condescendingly appeals to our confidence, and says, "Only believe." And have we in any single instance ever had reason to doubt His word? Has He ever given us cause to distrust Him? No, never! He has often done more than He promised—never less. His word is truth. All the promises of God are yes and amen in Him. Has He promised to be a Father, a Husband, a Mother, and a Friend to those who put their trust in Him? Has He pledged to guide their steps, to supply their needs, to shield their souls, to do them good and not evil, to be with them down to old age, and even unto death? Then hear Him say, "Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away."

As the Mediator and High Priest of His Church, it is one of Christ's especial prerogatives that He has to do with the prayers of His saints. Standing midway between God and the suppliant, He intercepts the petition, purifies it from all taint, divests it of all imperfections, supplies its deficiencies, and then blending it with His own merits, perfuming it with the much incense of His atoning sacrifice, He presents it to the Father endorsed with His name, and urged by His own suit. Thus the believer has an "Advocate with the Father," who ever "lives to make intercession." Oh, costly and precious privilege, that of prayer! Access to God—fellowship with the Most High—communion with the Invisible One—filial communion with our Heavenly Father—mighty privilege this, and yet, vast as it is, it is ours. Then, beloved, with the throne of grace accessible moment by moment—with the Holy Spirit disclosing each want, inditing each petition, and framing each request—with Christ at the right hand of God presenting the petition—and with a Father in heaven bowing down His ear, and hearkening but to answer, surely we may "trust and not be afraid." Why should we stand afar off? why doubt, and linger, and hesitate? "Having therefore, brethren, boldness (or liberty) to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus . . . . let us draw near . . . . in full assurance of faith."

JANUARY 25.

Surely it is meet to be said unto God, I have borne chastisement, I will not offend any more: That which I see not teach you me: if I have done iniquity, I will do no more. Job 34:31-32

OH, what a detector of the secret state of our souls does the season of trial often prove! We are not aware of our impaired strength, of our weak faith, of our powerless grace—how feeble our hold on Christ is—how legal our views of the gospel are—how beclouded our minds may be—how partial our acquaintance with God is—until we are led into the path of trouble. The season of prosperity veils the real state of our souls from our view. No Christian can form an accurate estimate of his spiritual condition, who has not been brought into a state of trial. We faint in the day of adversity, because we then find—what, perhaps, was not even suspected in the day of prosperity—that our strength is small.

But seasons of trial are emphatically what the word expresses—they try the work in the souls of the righteous. The inner life derives immense advantage from them. The deeper discovery that is then made of the evil of the heart is not the least important result: "Foolishness is bound in the heart of a child; but the rod of correction shall drive it far from him." What folly still dwells in the hearts of the wise—bound up and half concealed—who can tell? Who would have suspected such developments in the life of Abraham, of David, of Solomon, of Peter? And so is it with all who yet are the possessors of that wisdom which will guide their souls to eternal glory. Folly is bound up in their hearts; but the sanctified rod of correction reveals it, and the discovery proves one of the costliest blessings in the experience of the disciplined child. Listen to the language of Moses, addressed to the children of Israel: "You shall remember all the way which the Lord your God led you these forty years in the wilderness, to humble you, and to prove you, to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep His commandments or no." And oh, what a discovery that forty years' marching and counter-marching in the wilderness was to them of the pride, and impatience, and unbelief, and ingratitude, and distrust that were bound up in their heart! And yet, though all this evil was deep-seated in their nature, they knew it not, and suspected it not, until trial brought it to the surface. Thus, beloved, is it with us. The latent evil is brought to light. God leaves us to try what is in our heart, and this may be the first step in the reviving of His gracious work in our souls. Oh, let us not, then, shrink from the probing, nor startle at its discovery, if it but lead us nearer to holiness, nearer to Christ, nearer to God, nearer to heaven!

The time of trouble is often, too, a, time of remembrance. and so becomes a time of reviving. Past backslidings—unthought of, unsuspected, and unconfessed—are recalled to memory in the season that God is dealing with us. David had forgotten his transgression, and the brethren of Joseph their sin, until trouble summoned it back to memory. Times of trial are searching times, remembering times. Then with David we exclaim, "I thought on my ways, and turned my feet unto Your testimonies: I made haste, and delayed not to keep Your commandments."

JANUARY 26.

The Lord redeems the soul of his servants: and none of those who trust in him shall be desolate. Psalm 34:22.

AMID the many changes and vicissitudes of time, how precious becomes this truth! Out of God, "nothing is fixed but change." "Passing away" is inscribed upon all earth's fairest scenes. How the heart saddens as the recollections and reminiscences of other days come crowding back upon the memory! Years of our childhood, where have you fled? Friends of our youth, where are you gone? Hopes the heart once fondly cherished, joys the heart once deeply felt, how have you, like Syrian flowers, faded and died? All, all is changing but the Unchanging One. Other hearts prove cold, other friendships alter—adversity beclouds them—inconstancy chills them—distance separates them—death removes them from us forever. But there is One heart that loves us, clings to us, follows us in all times of adversity, poverty, sickness, and death, with an unchanged, unchangeable affection—it is the heart of our Father in heaven. Oh, turn you to this heart, you who have reposed in a human bosom, until you have felt the last faint pulse of love expire. You who have lost health, or fortune, or friends, or fame—be your souls' peaceful, sure asylum the Father's heart, until these calamities be overpast. And when from God we have strayed, and the Holy Spirit restores us to reflection, penitence, and prayer, and we exclaim, "I will arise!" who invites and woos us back to His still warm, unchanged, and forgiving affection? Who, but the Father?—that same Father thus touchingly, exquisitely portrayed: "And when he was a great way off his Father saw him, and had compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him." Oh, who is a God like unto You?

Do not forget that there is no needed, no asked blessing which God can refuse you. Never will God chide you for asking too much. His tender upbraiding is that you ask too little. "Open your mouth wide, and I will fill it." Oh, be satisfied with asking nothing less than God Himself. God only can make you happy, He only can supply the loss—fill the void—guide you safely, and keep you securely unto His eternal kingdom. God loves you! Oh embosom yourself in His love; and then, were all other love to wane and die—were it to chill in your friends—to cease its throbbings in a father's bosom—to quit its last and holiest home on earth—a mother's heart—still, assured that you had an interest in the love of God, a home in the heart of the Father, no being in the universe were happier than you. Let the grief you bear, the evil you dread, the sadness and loneliness you feel, but conduct you closer and yet closer within the loving, sheltering heart of God. No fear can agitate, no sorrow can sadden, no foe can reach you there! The moment you find yourself resting in child-like faith upon God, that moment all is peace!

JANUARY 27.

But rejoice, inasmuch as you are partakers of Christ's sufferings; that, when his glory shall be revealed, you may be glad also with exceeding joy. 1 Peter 4:13

WITH the cross of Immanuel before us, and with the heaven of glory which that cross unveils, and to which it leads, can we properly contemplate our trials in any other view than as loving corrections? "He that spared not His own Son, but gave Hint up for us all," shall He send an "evil" which we refuse to interpret as a good? and shall not that good, though wearing its somber disguise, raise the soul to Him upon the outstretched and uplifted wing—as the wing of the "anointed cherub"—of adoration, thanksgiving, and praise? If, numbered among His saints—and, oh, be quite sure, beloved, of your heavenly calling—we stand before Him, objectively, the beings of His ineffable delight, and, subjectively, the recipients of his justifying righteousness. Thus loved and accepted—and we believe, and are sure, that this is the true and unchangeable condition of all His people—shall anything but a sentiment of uncomplaining gentleness—a submission not shallow but profound, not servile but filial—respond to the dealings, however severe, of our Father in heaven?

It is, beloved, in these disciplinary seasons that we become more thoroughly schooled in the knowledge, of the infinite worth, glory, and preciousness of the Savior. How much is involved in a spiritual and experimental acquaintance with the Lord Jesus! We are in the possession of all real knowledge when we truly know Christ. And we cannot know the Son, and not know also the Father. And it is utterly impossible to know the Father, as revealed in His Son, and not become inspired with a desire to love Him supremely, to serve Him devotedly, to resemble Him closely, to glorify Him faithfully here, and to enjoy Him fully hereafter. And oh, how worthy is the Savior of our most exalted conceptions—of our most implicit confidence—of our most self-denying service—of our most fervent love! When He could give us no more—and the fathomless depths of His love and the boundless resources of His grace would not be satisfied by giving us less—He gave us himself. Robed in our nature, laden with our curse, oppressed with our sorrows, wounded for our transgressions, and slain for our sins, He gave His entire self for us. And let it be remembered, that it is a continuous presentation of the hoarded and exhaustless treasures of His love. His redeeming work now finished, He is perpetually engaged in meting out to his Church the blessings of that "offering made once for all." He constantly asks our faith—woos our affection—invites our grief—and bids us repair with our daily trials to His sympathy, and with our hourly guilt to His blood. We cannot in our drafts upon Christ's fullness be too covetous, nor in our expectations of supply be too extravagant. Dwelling beneath His cross, our eye resting upon the heart of God, we will in all things desire and aim to walk uprightly, presenting our "bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God;" that "the trial of our faith may be found unto praise and honor and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ."

JANUARY 28.

The God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our tribulation. 2 Cor. 1:3- 4.

GOD'S family is a sorrowing family, "I have chosen you," He says, "in the furnace of affliction." "I will leave in the midst of you a poor and an afflicted people." The history of the Church finds its fittest emblem in the burning yet unconsumed bush which Moses saw. Man is "born to sorrows;" but the believer is "appointed thereunto." It would seem to be a condition inseparable from his high calling. If he is a "chosen vessel," it is, as we have just seen, "in the furnace of affliction." If he is an adopted child, "chastening" is the mark. If he is journeying to the heavenly kingdom, his path lies through "much tribulation." If he is a follower of Jesus, it is to "go unto Him without the camp, bearing His reproach." But, if his sufferings abound, much more so do his consolations. To be comforted by God may well reconcile us to any sorrow with which it may please our heavenly Father to invest us.

God comforts His sorrowful ones with the characteristic love of a mother. See the tenderness with which that mother alleviates the suffering and soothes the sorrow of her mourning one. So does God comfort His mourners. Oh, there is a tenderness and a delicacy of feeling in God's comforts which distances all expression. There is no harsh reproof—no unkind upbraiding—no unveiling of the circumstances of our calamity to the curious and unfeeling eye—no artless exposure of our case to an ungodly and censorious world; but with all the tender feeling of a mother, God, even our Father, comforts the sorrowful ones of His people. He comforts in all the varied and solitary griefs of their hearts. God meets our case in every sorrow. To Him, in prayer, we may uncover our entire hearts; to His confidence we may entrust our profoundest secrets; upon His love repose our most delicate sorrows; to His ear confess our deepest departures; before His eye spread out our greatest sins. Go, then, and breathe your sorrows into God's heart, and He will comfort you. Blessed sorrow! if in the time of your bereavement, your grief, and your solitude, you are led to Jesus, making Him your Savior, your Friend, your Counselor, and your Shield. Blessed loss! if it be compensated by a knowledge of God, if you find in Him a Father now, to whom you will transfer your ardent affections—upon whom you will repose your bleeding heart. But let your heart be true with Him. Love Him, obey Him, confide in Him, serve Him, live for Him; and in all the unknown, untrodden, unveiled future of your history, a voice shall gently whisper in your ear—"As one whom his mother comforts, so will I comfort you."

JANUARY 29.

I call to remembrance my song in the night. Psalm 77:6

IT is no small wisdom, tried Christian, to recall to memory the music of the past. Do not think that, like sounds of earth-born melody, that music has died away never to awake again. Ah, no! those strains which once floated from your spirit-touched lips yet live! The music of a holy heart never dies; it lingers still amid the secret chambers of the soul. Hushed it may be for a while by other and discordant sounds, but the Holy Spirit, the Christian's Divine Remembrancer, will summon back those tones again, to soothe and tranquillize and cheer, perhaps in a darker hour and in richer strains, some succeeding night of heart-grief: "I remember You upon my bed, and meditate on You in the night watches."

But this season of night is signally descriptive of some periods in the history and experience of a child of God. It reminds us of the period of soul-darkness which oftentimes overtakes the Christian pilgrim. "My servant that walks in darkness and has no light," says God. Observe, he is still God's servant, he is the "child of the light," though walking in darkness. Gloom spreads its mantle around him—a darkness that may be felt. God's way with him is in the great deep: "You are a God that hides Yourself," is his mournful prayer. The Holy Spirit is, perhaps, grieved—no visits from Jesus make glad his heart, he is brought in some small degree into the blessed Savior's experience—"My God, my God, why have You forsaken me?" But, sorrowful pilgrim, there is a bright light in this your cloud—turn your eye towards it; the darkness through which you are walking is not judicial. Oh no! You are still a "child of the day," though it may be temporary night with your spirit. It is the withdrawment but for "a little moment"—not the utter and eternal extinction—of the Sun of Righteousness from your soul. You are still a child, and God is still a Father. "In a little wrath, I hid my face from you for a moment; but with everlasting kindness will I have mercy on you, says the Lord your Redeemer." "Is Ephraim my dear son? is he a pleasant child? for since I spoke against him I do earnestly remember him still."

And what are seasons of affliction but as the night-time of the Christian. The night of adversity is often dark, long, and tempestuous. The Lord frequently throws the pall of gloom over the sunniest prospect—touching His loved child where that touch is the keenest felt. He knows the heart's idol—the temptation and the peril lying in our path. He knows better far than we the chain that rivets us to some endangering object; He comes and draws the curtain of night's sorrow around our way. He sends messenger after messenger. "Deep calls unto deep." He touches us in our family—in our property—in our reputation—in our persons. And, oh, what a night of woe now spreads its drapery of gloom around us!

But dark and often rayless for a time as are these various night-seasons of our pilgrimage, they have their harmonies. There are provided by Him who "divides the light from the darkness"—alleviations and soothings, which can even turn night into day, and bring the softest tones from the harshest discord. The strong consolations which our God has laid up for those who love Him are so divine, so rich, so varied, that to overlook the provision in the time of our sorrow seems an act of ingratitude darker even than the sorrow we deplore. It is in the heart of God to comfort you, His suffering child. Ah! my reader, there is not a single midnight of your history—never so dark as that midnight may be—for which God has not provided you a song, and in which there may not be such music as human hand never awoke, and as human lip never breathed—the music that God only can create: "In the night his song shall be with me."

JANUARY 30.

Commit your way unto the Lord; trust also in him; and he shall bring it to pass. Psalm 37:5.

WHEN we consider the convolutions of life's future, how varied and undulating the path! It resembles in its windings and its changes the serpentine course of a river, as it pursues its way—now suddenly disappearing behind jutting rocks or towering headlands, now bursting into view again and rushing on, foaming and sparkling, through smiling meadows and sunny slopes—then by some sudden course lost again to view—surely the believer will feel the need of confidence in an invisible Hand to guide him through the labyrinth of his intricately tortuous way. This cloud of mystery, enshrouding all the future from our view, bids us trust. Not a step can we take by sight. We cannot even conjecture, much less decide, what the morrow will unfold in our history—what sweet sunbeam, shall illumine, or what somber cloud shall shade our path. How veiled from sight the next bend of our path! But, just as the dark, uncertain vista stands open to our view, our hearts all quaking for fear of what may transpire, Jesus meets us and says, "Only believe—only trust my love, wisely, gently, safely to guide you through the wilderness, into the good land that lies beyond."

The number, invisibility, and insidiousness of our spiritual foes—their combined power, and the surprisal of their incessant assaults—demands our trust in Jesus. Nothing is more unseen than the principalities and powers through which we have to force our way to heaven. Satan is invisible—his agents unseen—moral evil veiled—our hearts a great deep—the world masked; truly we have need to cling to, and confide in, Jesus, the Captain of our salvation, seeing that "we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places," and that therefore we are to take to ourselves the whole armor of God, remembering that "this is the victory that overcomes the world, even our faith," or trust in Jesus.

The foreign source of all our supplies for the battle and the journey of life pleads for our trust in Jesus. In ourselves we have no resources. Grace is not natural to us, holiness is not innate, and our native strength is but another term for utter impotence. Where, then, are supplies? All in Jesus. "It has pleased the Father that in Him all fullness should dwell." "Who has blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places (things) in Christ." Christ is both the believer's armory and his granary. The weapons of our warfare, and the supplies of our necessities—all are in Christ. And the life we live as warriors and as pilgrims must be a life of continuous coming to, and trusting in, a full Christ, an all-sufficient Savior. If as each morning dawns, and before we gird ourselves for the conflict, the duties, and the trials of the day, we breathe from our hearts to our Heavenly Father the prayer, "Give me, my Father, this day my daily bread; I look to You for the wisdom that counsels me, for the power that keeps me, for the love that soothes me, for the grace that sanctifies me, and for the presence that cheers me, now supply my need, and do unto me as seems good unto You," we should experience the blessedness of living upon a Father's bounty, upon the Savior's grace, and upon the Spirit's love.

JANUARY 31.

And he that sent me is with me: the Father has not left me alone. John 8:29.

OUR Lord's was a solitary life. He mingled indeed with man, He labored for man, He associated with man, He loved man; but He "trod the twine press alone, and of the people there was none with Him." And yet He was not all alone. Creatures, one by one, had deserted His side, and left Him homeless, friendless, solitary—but there was One, the consciousness of whose ever-clinging, ever-brightening, ever-cheering presence infinitely more than supplied the lack. "Behold, the hour comes, yes, is now come, that you shall be scattered every man to his own, and shall leave me alone; and yet I am not alone, because the Father is with me."

The disciples of Christ, like their Lord and Master, often feel themselves alone. The season of sickness, the hour of bereavement, the period of trial, is often the occasion of increased depression from the painful consciousness of the solitude and loneliness in which it is borne. The heavenly way we travel is more or less a lonely way. We have at most but few companions. It is a "little flock," and only here and there we meet a traveler, who, like ourselves, is journeying towards the Zion of God. As the way is narrow, trying, and humiliating to flesh, but few, under the drawings of the Spirit, find it. If, indeed, true religion consisted in mere profession, then there were many for Christ. But if the true travelers are men of broken heart, poor in spirit, who mourn for sin, who know the music of the Shepherd's voice, who follow the Lamb, who delight in the throne of grace, and who love the place of the cross, then there are but 'few' with whom the true saints journey to heaven in fellowship and communion.

But not from these causes alone springs the sense of loneliness which the saints often feel. There is the separation of loving hearts, and of kindred minds, and of intimate relationships, by the providential ordering and dealings of God. The changes of this changing world—the alteration of circumstances—the removals to new and distant positions—the wastings of disease, and the ravages of death, often sicken the heart with a sense of friendlessness and loneliness which finds its best expression in the words of the Psalmist, "I watch, and am as a sparrow alone on the housetop."

But should we murmur at the solitary way along which our God is conducting us? Is it not His way, and therefore the best way? In love He gave us friends—in love He has removed them. In goodness He blessed us with health—in goodness He has taken it away. And yet this is the way along which He is conducting us to glory. And shall we rebel? Heaven is the home of the saints; "here we have no continuing city." And shall we repine that we are in the right road to heaven? Christ, our heart's treasure, is there. And shall we murmur that the way that leads us to it and to Himself is sometimes enshrouded with dark and mournful solitude? Oh, the distinguished privilege of treading the path that Jesus walked in!

But the solitude of the Christian has its sweetness. The Savior tasted it when He said, "the Father has not left me alone;" and all the lonely way that He traveled, He leaned upon God. And you cannot be in reality alone, when you remember that Christ and you are one—that by His Spirit He dwells in the heart, and that therefore He is always near to participate in each circumstance in which you may be placed. Your very solitude He shares; with your sense of loneliness the sympathizes. You cannot be friendless, since Christ is your friend. You cannot be relationless, since Christ is your brother. You cannot be unprotected, since Christ is your shield. Want you an arm to lean upon? His is outstretched. Want you a heart to repose in? His invites you to its affection and its confidence. Want you a companion to converse with? He welcomes you to His fellowship. Oh sweet solitude, sweetened by such a Savior as this! always present to comfort, to counsel, and to protect in times of trial, perplexity, and danger.

FEBRUARY 1.

Behold, the eye of the Lord is upon those who fear him, upon those who hope in his mercy; To deliver their soul from death. Psalm 33:18-19

A FATHER'S eye beaming with tenderness upon a rebellious, wandering child, inviting, welcoming his return—what adamant can resist it? The deepest, bitterest, truest grief for sin is felt and expressed beneath God's eye alone. When the wakeful pillow of midnight is moistened, when the heart unveils in secret to the eye of Jesus, when the chamber of privacy witnesses to the confidential confessions and pleadings of a contrite heart, there is then felt and expressed a sorrow for sin, so genuine, so touching, as cannot but draw down upon the soul a look from Christ the most tender in its expression, and the most forgiving in its language.

Let us always endeavor to realize the loving eye of Jesus resting upon us. In public and in private, in our temporal and spiritual callings, in prosperity and in adversity, in all places and on all occasions, and under all circumstances, oh! let us live as beneath its focal power. When our Lord was upon earth, "a man of sorrows," His eyes were dim with grief; but now that He is in heaven, they are as "a flame of fire,"—to His saints not a burning, consuming flame, but a flame of inextinguishable love. Deem not yourself, then, secluded believer, a banished and an exiled one, lost to all sight. Other eyes may be withdrawn and closed, distance intercepting their view, or death darkening their vision; but the eye of Jesus, your Lord, rests upon you ever, with unslumbering affection. "I will guide you with mine eye," is the gracious promise of your God. Be ever and intently gazing on that Eye—"looking unto Jesus." He is the Fountain of Light; and in the light radiating from His eye you shall, in the gloomiest hour of your life, see light upon your onward way. "By His light I walked through darkness."
"Bend not your light-desiring eyes below,
There your own shadow waits upon you ever;
But raise your looks to Heaven—and lo!
The shadeless sun rewards your weak endeavor.
Who sees the dark, is dark; but turns toward the light,
And you become like to that which fills your sight."

"We all, with open face, beholding, as in a glass , the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord."

FEBRUARY 2.

Until the day break, and the shadows flee away, I will get me to the mountain of myrrh, and to the hill of frankincense. Song 4:6

THAT we dwell so much in the region of present clouds, and so little in the meridian of future glory, entails upon us a serious loss. We look too faintly beyond the midnight of time, into the daylight of eternity. We are slow of heart to believe all that is revealed of the bliss that awaits us, and do not sufficiently realize that in a little while—oh how soon!—the day will break, the will flee away, and we shall bathe our souls in heaven's full, unclouded, endless light.

And when does this day begin to break, and the shadows to flee? Go, and stand by the side of that expiring believer in Jesus—the daybreak of glory is dawning upon his soul! He is nearing heaven; He will soon be there—in a few hours, perhaps moments—and oh! what wonders, what glories, what bliss will burst upon his emancipated spirit! Hark, how he exclaims to the loved ones who sincerely would detain him a little longer here—"Let me go, for the day breaks!" Oh blessed day now opening upon his view, as shadow after shadow is dispersed, revealing the wall of sapphire, and the gate of pearl, and the jasper throne, and Him who sits upon it, of the New Jerusalem, all inviting and beckoning him away.

But the noon-tide splendor of this day of glory will be at the SECOND COMING of our Lord in majesty and great power, to gather together His elect, and consummate the bliss of His Church. "He shall come to be glorified in His saints, and to be admired in all those who believe." Precious in the sight of the Lord as is the death of His saints, and blissful to the saints themselves as will be the time of their departure, yet not our death, but the Redeemer's glorious appearing, is the hope set before us in the Scriptures. "Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Savior Jesus Christ." Suffering Christian! look rather to this blessed hope of the perfect day, than to the gloomy passage the dark valley. "I will come again," says your gracious Lord, "and receive you to myself; that where I am, there you may be also." Let our hearts respond, "Come, Lord Jesus, come quickly."

And where shall we resort until then? Listen to her words: "Until the day break, and the shadows flee away, I will get me to the mountain of myrrh and to the hill off frankincense." The Lord has fragrant places of safety and repose people until He comes to fetch them to glory. What a "mountain of myrrh" is Jesus!—in whom we may abide, to whom in all lowering clouds we may repair, "until the day break, and the shadows flee away." Closer and closer let us cling to Christ, whose name is "as ointment poured forth " to the Lord's faint and weary ones—until we see Him face to face. And oh! how fragrant are these "hills of frankincense," which the Lord has provided for His people, in the means of grace, to which He invites, and where He meets and communes with them "until the day break, and the shadows flee away." Such is the secret place of prayer—the place of social prayer—the place and public prayer, where the incense of devotion and love ascends, so precious, so cheering and strengthening to the weary. And what is the ministration of the truth, and what is the word of God, but the "hills of frankincense," to which we are privileged to betake ourselves until our Lord comes to us, or until we go to Him. To these fragrant hills of safety and repose let us constantly repair. "Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is, but exhorting one another; and so much the more, as you see the day approaching."

FEBRUARY 3.

But let every man prove his own work, and then shall he have rejoicing in himself alone, and not in another. Galatians 6:4

"OH that I were quite sure that I was more than a mere professor!" But why be in doubt? Never was so momentous a matter more easily and speedily settled. "He that believes in the Son of God has the witness in himself." Thus from yourself you need not travel in order to ascertain your true spiritual condition. No one can be a substitute in this great matter for yourself: It is a thing which has too close and personal a relation to you as an individual, to admit of a transfer of its obligations to another. You must feel for yourself—you must experience for yourself—and you must decide for yourself alone. Thus may you come to a right and safe decision in a question involving interests as solemn and as deathless as eternity. Seek the inward witness of the Spirit. Witnessing to what? that your heart has been convinced of sin—that you have renounced your own righteousness—that you have fled to the Lord Jesus Christ—and that your soul is breathing after personal holiness. Do not, I beseech you, rest short of this. Do not be concerned about others; let your first and chief concern be about yourself.

Give all diligence in the use of the means of grace, if you desire a flourishing state of soul. They are the Divinely appointed channels of conveyance from the Fountain. They are the tributary streams from the great Ocean. You cannot possibly maintain a healthy, vigorous state of the inner life without them. You cannot neglect with impunity private prayer, meditation, and self examination—or public ordinances—the ministry of the word, the services of the sanctuary, the assemblies of the saints. A slight thrown upon these must entail a severe loss to your soul. It is in the way of diligent, prayerful waiting upon the means, that the Christian "goes from strength to strength, until he appears before God." Search, oh search, for this living grace. No man shall wait upon the Lord in vain. "Those who wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength." They who plough deeply the fallow ground, and in its furrows sow the precious seed, shall not lack the Holy Spirit's descending influence, in silent dew by night, and in copious showers by day, to quicken and to fructify it. Only honor the God of grace in all the means of grace, and God will honor you by imparting to you grace through the means. "The diligent soul shall be made fat."

Reader, examine yourself, prove your own self, and ascertain truly if you have "Christ in you the hope of glory." Satisfy not yourself with external ceremonies, with the observance of days, of matins and vespers, and frequent communions—with alms-giving and charities. Is Christ dwelling in your heart by his Spirit? This, this is the great and momentous question which, in the near prospect of death, and of the judgment that follows death, it behooves you to decide. "He that has the Son has life, and he that has not the Son of God has not life. These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life, and that you may believe on the name of the Son of God."

FEBRUARY 4.

Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. John 1:13.

THE real believer in Jesus is a gracious man. He is a "living soul." He is the partaker of a new and a divine nature, and is the depository of a heavenly and a precious treasure. But grace is a thing foreign to the natural state of a man. His possession of it is not coeval with his birth, nor can it be his by right of hereditary law. No parent, however holy, can transmit a particle of that holiness to his posterity. But see how this mystery is cleared up in the conversation which Jesus held with the Samaritan woman, as He sat wearied upon the mouth of Jacob's well: "Jesus answered and said unto her, If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that says to you, Give me to drink, you would have asked of him, and he would have given you living water." This is the grace of which we speak, and this is the source from where it flows into the hearts of all the truly regenerate. It is in you, Christian reader, a "well of water," a springing well, mounting upward, and ascending to the source from where it rises. Blessed words—"springing up into everlasting life"! As the first blush of morning is a part of the day, so the least dawn of grace in the soul is a portion of heaven.

What an exalted character, and what an enviable man, is the true Christian! All the resources of the Triune God unite to replenish this earthen vessel. No angel in heaven contains a treasure half so costly and so precious as that poor believing sinner, who getting near to the Savior's feet, and bathing them with tears of penitence and love can look up and exclaim, "Whom have I in heaven but You? and there is none upon earth that I desire beside You." But what deep humility ought to distinguish the true Christian, as a real professor of the grace of Christ Jesus! The grace which you possess is a communicated grace. All that is really holy and gracious in us springs not from our fallen nature, but, like "every good and perfect gift, comes down from the Father of lights." It is the spontaneous outflowing of the heart of God—the free unmerited bestowment of his sovereign mercy. Then what meekness of heart, what profound humility of mind, ought to mark you! What a prostration of every form of self, self-confidence, self-seeking, self-boasting—should there be, as reasonably becomes those who have nothing but what they have received, and whom free and sovereign grace alone has distinguished from others!

FEBRUARY 5.

Let us search and try our ways, and turn again to the Lord. Lamentations 3:40

LET the spiritual believer but take the history of a single week as the gauge of the general tenor of his life, and what a lesson does it read him of the downward, earthly tendency of his soul! Yes, in one short week how have the wheels lessened in their revolutions—how has the timepiece of his soul lost its power—how have the chords of his heart become unstrung! But his prayer is for Divine quickening. It is his anxious inquiry—What course am I to adopt when I find deadness in my soul, and cannot feel, nor weep, nor sigh, nor desire?—when to read and meditate, to hear and pray, seem an irksome task?—when I cannot see the Savior's beauty, nor feel Him precious, nor labor as zealously, nor suffer as patiently, for Him as I would? The answer is at hand—Look again to Jesus. This is the only remedy that can meet your case. Go direct to Christ; He is the Fountain-head, He is the living Well. May the Holy Spirit open your eyes to see, that while all emptiness exists in you, all fullness dwells in Jesus—there is a fathomless depth in the heart of Christ—of love unchangeable, of grace all-sufficient, of truth immutable, of salvation from all sin and trial and sorrow—commensurate with your need and vast as His own infinity. Never can your grace be too low, nor your frame too depressed, nor your path too perplexing, nor your sorrow too keen, nor your sin too great, nor your condition too extreme, for Christ; because He is both Divine and human: thus uniting the nature that can relieve with the nature that can sympathize. "Son of God! Son of man! how wondrous and glorious are You!"

Be very honest and diligent in ascertaining the cause of your soul's deadness. The correct knowledge of this is necessary to its removal; and its removal is essential to the effectual recovery of the inner life from its relapsed state. Is it indulged sin? Is it the neglect of private prayer? Is it worldliness, carnality, unwatchfulness? Any one of these would so grieve the Spirit of God within you, as to dry up the spirituality of your soul. Do not be beguiled with the belief that the real recovery has taken place, simply because that, conscious of your state, in meaningless regrets you acknowledge and deplore it. "The sluggard desires and has nothing." Observe, He has his desires, but nothing more, because with them he is satisfied. Let not this be your state. Seek earnestly, importunately, believingly, until you possess more abundantly life from Christ. Seek a gracious revival of the life of God in your soul. Seek a clearer manifestation of Christ, a renewed baptism of the Spirit, a more undoubted evidence of your conversion, a surer, brighter hope of heaven. Thus seeking, you will find it; and finding it, your "peace will flow like a river, and your righteousness as the waves of the sea." Oh the joy of a revived state of the inner life of God! It is the joy of spring succeeding to the gloom and chill of winter. It is the joy of the sunlight after a cloudy and dark day. "Lord, lift You up the light of Your countenance upon, us." " Turn us again, O Lord God of hosts; cause Your face to shine, and we shall be saved."

FEBRUARY 6.

Unto you it is given in the behalf of Christ, not only to believe on him, but also to suffer for his sake. Philippians 1:29

Such is the nature of Christ's religion, and such the terms of His discipleship—suffering and self-denial. By those who are not initiated into the mysteries of the kingdom of grace, this is a truth hard to be understood. To them it is inexplicable how one whose person is loved by God, whose sins Christ has forgiven, whose life appears holy, useful, and honored, should be the subject of Divine correction, and perhaps in some instances should, more than others, seem smitten of God and afflicted. But to those who are students of Christ, who learn at the feet of Jesus, this is no insoluble problem. They understand, in a measure, why the most holy are frequently the most chastened. Ah! beloved, in the school where this truth is learned, all truth may be learned—at the feet of Jesus. In His light we shall see light. But men turn from the sun, and wonder that, in the study of divine truth, shadows should fall darkly upon their path. They study the Bible so little beneath the cross, with an eye intent upon Christ, from whom all truth emanates, of whom all truth testifies, and to whom all truth leads. What says "the Truth" himself? "This is life eternal, that they might know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent." The crisis in your life speeds on, when all knowledge, save the knowledge of Christ loving you, pardoning you as a guilty, saving you as a lost, sinner, and reconciling you to God as a rebellious sinner, will prove as unsubstantial as a shadow, as unreal and fleeting as a dream. Oh, let this be the one desire and earnest resolve of your soul, "That I may know Him." "Yes, doubtless, and I count all things but loss, for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord."

Such, then, as have learned of Christ can understand why a child of God should be a child of affliction. Why "the Lord tries the righteous." Declarations such as these have a significance of meaning they can well comprehend—"I have chosen you in the furnace of affliction." "Whom the Lord loves He chastens, and scourges every son whom He receives." "As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten." And when the present and hallowed results of the Divine dealings are in a measure realized—when some sheaves of the golden fruit of the precious seed sown in weeping are sickled—the heart awakened to more prayer, Christ more precious, sin more hated, self more loathed, holiness more endeared, and the soul brought into greater nearness to God—when the suffering Christian reviews the Divine supports he has experienced in his affliction, how God encircled him with the everlasting arms, how Christ pillowed his languid head, how the Holy Spirit comforted and soothed his anguish, by unfolding the sweetness and fullness of the Scriptures, sealing promise upon promise upon his smitten heart, his chastened spirit can well exclaim, "You have dealt well with Your servant, O Lord, according to Your word." You have broken but to bind up, have wounded but to heal, have emptied but to replenish, have embittered but to sweeten, have removed one blessing but to bestow another and a greater.
"You do but take my lamp away,
To bless me with eternal day."

"Whom have I in heaven but You? and there is none upon earth that I desire beside You."

FEBRUARY 7.

I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with your likeness. Psalm 17:15.

THE beatific vision has brought the believer's whole soul into the most perfect harmony with God. He is satisfied with the character and perfections of God, which now unfold their grandeur without a cloud, and fill the soul without a limit. "Now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known." An angel's sight, and an angel's knowledge, enkindle an angel's fervor; and as growing discoveries and endless illustrations of the Divine perfections increase with eternity, glory, honor, and thanksgiving to Him who sits upon the throne will be the saint's undying song. He is satisfied, too, with all God's providential dealings with him in the world he has passed. The present is the repose of faith—and faith can say, amid scenes of perplexity and peril, of obscurity and doubt, "It is well", trusting in the wisdom and faithfulness of God. And yet how difficult often do we find it to trace God's design, or connect His strange dealings with a wise purpose or a gracious end. We cannot unravel the web. Is it not so, my reader? Let faith look back upon the past of your life, not to revive its painful emotions, but that with steadier wing and bolder flight it may bear you forward. That dark cloud of sorrow that settled upon your fair prospects—that blast of adversity that swept away riches—that stroke of providence that tore from your sight the wife of your youth, or hurried the child of your hopes prematurely to the grave, or that placed the friend of your bosom, the companion of your hours, into darkness—or that came near to your own person, and arrested you with disease—you pause and inquire, Why is it thus? Ah! the full answer you may never have in this world—for faith must have scope; but, by and by, if not here, yet from a loftier position and beneath a brighter sky, and with a stronger vision, you shall look back and know and understand, and admire it all, and "shall be satisfied." The glorified are satisfied, too, with the conduct of God's grace. If there is often inexplicable mystery in providence, there is yet profounder mystery in grace. Loving him as God does, yet that He should hide Himself from His child; hating sin, yet allowing its existence, and permitting His children to fall under its influence; leaving them often to endure the fiery darts of Satan, and to tread dreary paths, cheerless, starless—the sensible presence of the heavenly Guide withdrawn, and not a voice to break the solemn stillness or to calm the swelling wave—ah! this is trying indeed!—But all, before long, will be satisfactorily explained. Now the glorified see how harmonious with every principle of infinite holiness and justice, truth and wisdom, was God's scheme of redeeming mercy; and that it was electing love, and sovereign mercy, and free favor, that made him a subject of grace on earth, and an heir of glory in heaven. And as he bends back his glance upon all the way the Lord his God brought him the forty years' travel in the wilderness—traces the ten thousand times ten thousand unfoldings of His love—the love that would not and the power that could not let him go—the faithful rebukes, the gentle dealings, the unwearied patience, and the inexhaustible sympathy of Jesus, with what depth of emotion and emphasis of meaning does he exclaim, "I am satisfied!" The saints are satisfied, too, with the heaven of glory to which they are brought. They awake up in God's likeness. Positively and perfectly holy, positively and perfectly happy, actually with Christ, and contemplating, with an intellectual and moral perception all unclouded, the glory of God, how completely satisfied is he with the new world of purity and bliss, of light and splendor, into which his ransomed spirit sprung! The last earthly passion has died away, the last remnant of corruption is destroyed, the last moan of suffering and sigh of sorrow is hushed in the stillness of the tomb; the corruptible has put on incorruption, the mortal has put on immortality, and the glorified spirit stands amid the throng of holy and adoring ones who encircle the throne, and swells the universal an them—"He has done all things well."

FEBRUARY 8.

That like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. Rom. 6:4

THE resurrection of Christ is a vital doctrine of Christianity. It sustains an essential relation to the spiritual life of the believer. Viewing it in connection with the union of Christ and His people, the two facts become identical—standing in the relation of cause and effect. Our Lord, in His great atoning work, acted in a public or representative character. He represented in His person the whole elect of God, who virtually were in Him, each step that he took in working out their redemption. In His resurrection from the grave this was preeminently so. The Head could not be resuscitated apart from the body. Christ could not rise without the Church. Thus, then, the new or the resurrection life of Christ, and the inner or spiritual life of the believer, are one and indivisible. Now, when the resurrection of the Head is spiritually realized, when it is fully received into the heart by faith, it becomes a quickening, energizing, sanctifying truth to each member of His body. It transmits a power to the inmost soul, felt in all the actings and manifestations of the spiritual life. Blessed are they who feel, and who feel daily, that they are indeed "risen with Christ," and who find every new perception of this great truth to act like a mighty lever to their souls—lifting them above this "present evil world"—a world passing away.

Perhaps no circumstance connected with the resurrection of Christ conveys to the mind a clearer idea of its bearings upon the happiness of the Church than the part which the Divine Father is represented as having taken in the illustrious event. His having committed Himself to the fact at once stamps it with all its saving interest. "Whom God has raised." "Like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father." "If the Spirit of Him that raised up Jesus from the dead." By this act of raising up His Son from the grave, the Father manifested His delight in, and His full acceptance of, the sacrifice of Christ, as a finished and satisfactory expiation for the sins of His people. So long as Jesus remained in the grave, there was wanting the evidence of the acceptance of His death; the great seal of heaven, the signature of God, was needed to authenticate the fact. But when the Father released the Surety from the dominion of death, he annihilated, by that act, all legal claim against His Church, declaring the ransom accepted, and the debt cancelled. "He was taken from prison,"—as the prisoner of justice—the prisoner of death—and the prisoner of the grave; the Father, in the exercise of His glorious power, opens the prison door, and delivers the illustrious Captive—and by the door through which He emerges again to life, enters the full justification of His whole Church; for it is written—"He was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our justification."

A more important truth—where all are of infinite moment to the happiness of man—is not found in the Word of God. As it forms the keystone to the mighty arch of Christianity, so it constitutes the groundwork of spiritual life, upon the basis of which the Holy Spirit of God quickens the souls of all, who are "the called according to His purpose." It was a knowledge of this truth which awoke the ardent desire of the apostle's soul, "That I may know Him, and the power of His resurrection."

FEBRUARY 9.

And an highway shall be there, and a way, and it shall be called The way of holiness: the unclean shall not pass over it; .... but the redeemed shall walk there. Isaiah 35:8, 9

HEAVEN is the abode of a renewed people; it is a holy place, and the home of the holy; and before the sinner can have any real fitness for heaven, any well-grounded hope of glory, he must be a partaker of a nature harmonizing with the purity, and corresponding with the enjoyments, of heaven. Heaven would be no heaven to a carnal mind, to an unsanctified heart. Were it possible to translate an unconverted individual from this world to the abodes of eternal glory, overwhelmed with the effulgence of the place, and having no fellowship of feeling with the purity of its enjoyments, and the blessedness of its society, he would exclaim—"Take me hence—it is not the place for me—I have no sympathy with it—I have no fitness for it—I have no pleasure in it." Solemn thought! But the Christian is a renewed creature—he is a partaker of the Divine nature; he has sympathies, affections, and desires, imparted to him by the Spirit, which assimilate him to the happiness and purity of heaven. It is impossible but that he must be there. He possesses a nature unfit for earth, and congenial only with heaven. He is the subject of a spiritual life that came from, and now ascends to, heaven. All its aspirations are heavenly—all its breathings are heavenly—all its longings are heavenly; and thus it is perpetually soaring towards that world of glory from where it came, and for which God is preparing it. So that it would seem utterly impossible but that a renewed man must be in heaven, since he is the partaker of a nature fitted only for the regions of eternal purity and bliss. But what is it that gives the Christian a valid deed, a right of possession, to eternal glory? It is his justification by faith through the imputed righteousness of Christ. This is the only valid title to eternal glory which God will admit—the righteousness of His dear Son imputed to him that believes. Here is the grand fitness of a poor, lost, polluted, undone sinner; the fitness that springs from the spotless righteousness of the Lord Jesus, "who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption." "He has made Him to be sin for us, who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him." Behold, then, beloved, the high vantage-ground on which a saint of God stands, with regard to his hope of heaven. He stands out of his own righteousness in the righteousness of another. He stands accepted in the Accepted One, he stands justified in the Justified One, and justified, too, by God, the great Justifier.

The spiritual life which God has breathed into our souls will never rest until it reaches its full and perfect development. Deep as are its pulsations, holy as are its breathings, it is yet but in its infancy, compared with that state of perfection to which it is destined. The highest state of sanctification to which the believer can arrive here is but the first dawn of day, contrasted with the "far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory," which will burst upon him in a world of perfect holiness. Heaven will complete the work which sovereign grace has begun upon earth. Heaven is the consummation of the spiritual life of the believer.

FEBRUARY 10.

To present you holy and unblameable and unreproveable in his sight: if you continue in the faith grounded and settled. Colossians 1:22, 23.

NEXT to an ardent desire to be assured that he possesses the truth—the believer in Jesus will feel anxious for establishment in the truth. It will not suffice for him to know, upon evidence he may not gainsay, that he is a converted man; He will aim to be an advancing Christian. Just to have touched the border of the Savior's righteousness, and obtained the healing, will not satisfy his conscience; with a strong and growing faith he will strive to wrap the robe more closely around him, in that full assurance of his "acceptance in the Beloved," of his "completeness in Christ," which supplies the strongest incentive to a walk worthy of his heavenly calling.

The Christian's faith includes not merely what we are to believe, but also what we are to practice. It embraces not only the doctrines of Christ, but equally the precepts and commandments of Christ. The true Christian desires to stand "complete in all the will of God." No longer under a covenant of works, but under the law of Christ, He aspires to be an obedient disciple, manifesting his love to Jesus by observing the commands of Jesus. He needs Christ to be his King, as he needs Him to be his Priest; to govern him, as to atone for him; to sanctify, as to save him. His faith is characterized by the apostle Jude as our "most holy faith." Its nature is holy, its principle is holy, its actings are holy, its tendencies are holy, its fruits are holy. It seeks to "bring every thought into obedience to Christ;" nor will it cease its mighty work—opposed, thwarted, and foiled, though it be—until the soul it sanctifies takes its place "without fault before the throne," perfected in the image of God and of the Lamb.

Establishment in the faith is a matter of great moment in the experience of a child of God. The relation of stability in the truth with progress in the Divine life, is the relation of cause and effect. It is impossible that there can be any progress of the inner life in connection with unsettledness and instability of opinion on the great points of the Christian faith. Hence the especial stress which the Spirit of truth has laid upon it. What says the Scripture? "As you have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk you in Him: rooted and built up in Him, and established in the faith, as you have been taught." "Now He which establishes us with you in Christ, and has anointed us, is God." "I long to see you, that I may impart unto you some spiritual gift, to the end you may be established." Welcome all God's dealings, as designed and as tending to build you up on your most holy faith, and thus advance the life of God in your soul. A hallowed possession of trial is a great mean of soul-advancement. Affliction is God's school. Every true child of God has been placed in it. Every glorified saint has emerged from it. "Blessed is the man whom You chasten, O Lord, and teach him out of Your law." Chastening—the school; instruction—the end. Humbling and painful though the process be, who, to secure such an end, would not meekly welcome the discipline?

FEBRUARY 11.

This is my comfort in my affliction: for your word has quickened me. Psalm 119:50.

OH, how many a deeply-tried Christian has set his seal to this truth! What is the comfort sought by the worldling in his affliction? Alas! he seeks to drown his sorrow by plunging yet deeper into that which has created it. He goes to the world for his comfort; that world that has already belied him, betrayed him, and stung and wounded him more keenly and deeply than the adder. But turn to the man of God. What was the Psalmist's comfort in his sorrow? Was it the lightness of his affliction? Was it the soothing tenderness and sympathy of the saints? Ah, no! it was none of these. It was the spiritual quickening his soul received through the truth of God! This healed his sorrow-stricken heart; this poured a tide of richer comfort into his deeply afflicted soul than the sweetest human balm, or even the entire removal of his trial, could have done. Oh, favored soul, who, when in deep and dark waters—when passing through the fiery furnace—are led to desire spiritual quickening above all other comforts beside—sweetly testifying, "This is my comfort in my affliction, Your word has quickened me." That word, unfolding to us Jesus, leading us to Jesus, and transforming us into the image of Jesus, proves a reviving word in the hour of trial.

By bringing us into a closer acquaintance with the word, trial stimulates the inner life. We flee to the word for counsel or for comfort, and the word proves a quickening word. Divine correction not only teaches, but it stimulates our relish for the spiritual parts of God's truth. In times of prosperity we are tempted to neglect the word. The world abates the keenness of the soul's appetite. We taste no sweetness in its promises, and cannot receive its admonitions and rebukes. "The full soul loaths a honeycomb, but to the hungry soul every bitter thing is sweet." Replenished with created good, and surfeited with earthly comfort, the soul, in its pride and self-sufficiency, loathes the divine honey of God's word. But when the Lord removes the creature, and embitters the world—both proving cisterns that can hold no water—then how precious becomes the word of Jesus! Not its doctrines and its consolations only, but even its deepest searching and its severest rebukes—that which lays us the lowest in the dust of shame and self-abhorrence—are then sweet as the honey and the honeycomb to our renewed taste. Then in truth we exclaim—"How sweet are Your words to my taste! yes, sweeter than honey to my mouth!"

FEBRUARY 12.

But God has revealed them unto us by his Spirit: for the Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God. 1 Cor. 2:10

THERE is no darkness which God's own Spirit cannot scatter, no difficulty which He cannot remove, no portion of the word which He cannot explain. All that is necessary to your salvation is revealed in the word, all that can be known of Jesus is there discovered; and all this the blessed Spirit stands prepared to snake known to you. He it is who leads you to Jesus; Jesus lifts the veil and reveals the Father; and the Father, when revealed, appears full of love, mercy, and forgiveness, to the poor returning prodigal, who, in penitence and lowliness, seeks an asylum in His heart. And, oh! how ready is the Spirit to instruct you! Such love and grace has He in His heart, the Heavenly Dove seems ever poised upon the wing, ready to fly to that soul who but sighs for His inward teaching. Does He see one oppressed with a sense of guilt, He hastens to apply the atoning blood of Jesus. Does He mark one weary with his fruitless toil? He seals the promise of the Savior on the heart, "Come unto me, all you that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give yore rest." Does He observe one combating with temptation, tormented with fear, harassed with doubts, struggling with infirmity, halting through weakness? Oh, how ready is He to show that soul where its great strength, and comfort, and grace lie—even in the fullness of a most loving, precious, and all-sufficient Savior! Oh, then, in the name of Jesus, seek this glorious gift of God. Seek Him as a life-giving Spirit, as making Jesus known to you—as leading you into the deep things of God's word—as deeply sanctifying you—as imparting to you the love, confidence, and consolation of an adopted child—as comforting you in every sorrow—as strengthening the divine life in your soul—as being to you the earnest and the seal of eternal glory.

Let it be your encouragement to remember that God knows His own work in your heart; and not only does He know, but He acknowledges it; and not only does He acknowledge, but He delights in it. Your faith may be feeble, your strength small, your grace but little, your knowledge limited, your experience defective; yet, if by the Eternal Spirit you have been led out of yourself, to take refuge in Christ, you are one over whom God rejoices with joy. Beauteous to His eye, and dear to His heart, is that mark of holiness in your soul. What is it but the product of His own power, the germ of His own grace, the fruit of His own Spirit, the outline of His own image? Will He, then, despise, overlook, or turn His back upon it? Never! never! Have you been made willing in the day of His power? Have you laid upon His altar the richest and the best of the sacrifice? Oh, honored servant you! Oh, rich, costly, and acceptable offering! Your God delights in it; yes, delights in you! Ask, and you shall receive a fuller teaching and anointing of the Holy Spirit. Possessing Him, your path to glory will grow brighter and brighter unto the perfect day. "If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him!"

FEBRUARY 13.

Why let those who suffer according to the will of God commit the keeping of their souls to him in well-doing, as unto a faithful Creator. 1 Peter 4:19

THE God who is now dealing with you is love, all love—a God in Christ—your covenant God—your reconciled Father. All His thoughts towards you, peace; all His feelings, love; and all His dealings, mercy. Soon will you be in His heavenly presence, and behold His unveiled glory as it beams forth from the eternal throne. Soon will you be with Jesus, shall see Him, be like Him, and dwell with Him forever. Darkness, and conflict, and sickness, and death shall cease, because sin shall cease. Then, in your blessed experience, will be realized the beatific vision—"And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain; for the former things are passed away." Let this prospect reconcile you patiently to wait all the days of your appointed time, until your change come. God is faithful. Christ, in whom you believe, is able to keep that which you have committed unto Him against that glorious day. He will perfect that which concerns you. Nothing shall be consumed in your present fiery trial, but the tin and dross. The precious and imperishable gold shall be "found unto praise, and honor, and glory, at the appearing of Jesus Christ." Not more safe were Noah and his family, when they sailed in the ark through the storm, than is that soul who is shut up in Christ. If you have come out of yourself, have left all, and have fled to Jesus, this is your encouragement—not a soul ever perished whom the Father gave in covenant to his Son—whom the Son redeemed—whom the Spirit has regenerated, and in whom He dwells. A threefold cord keeps that precious saint—the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. "Kept by the power of God, through faith, unto salvation." Oh, precious declaration! Press it with a stronger faith to your heart; for if God be for you, who can be against you? In your present state of suffering you find it difficult to think or to pray. But He, who formed you, knows your frame, "He remembers that we are dust." There is One who thinks and prays for you. It is Jesus, your Elder Brother; the "brother born for adversity;" the great High Priest, wearing your nature, who has passed within the veil, "now to appear in the presence of God for us." Jesus intercedes for you moment by moment. Your faith shall not fail, your grace shall not decline, your hope shall not make ashamed; for He who came down to earth, and was wounded for your transgression, and was bruised for your iniquities, rose again from the dead, and ascended on high, now to appear in the presence of God for you. Christ prays for you, and that, when by reason of confusion of mind and weakness of body you cannot pray for yourself. Precious Jesus! You are that gentle Shepherd, who over-drives not Your little ones. When they cannot run, You do permit them to walk; and when, through feebleness, they cannot walk, You do carry them. You are He of whom it is said, "He shall feed his flock like a shepherd, he shall gather the lambs with his arm, and carry them in his bosom."

FEBRUARY 14.

For every high priest taken from among men is ordained for men in things pertaining to God, that he may offer both gifts and sacrifices for sins: Who can have compassion on the ignorant, and on those who are out of the way; for that he himself also is compassed with infirmity. Hebrews 5:1-2

OVERLOOK not the fitness of the Lord Jesus to meet all the infirmities of His people. There are two touching and expressive passages bearing on this point. "Himself took our infirmities, and bare our sicknesses." Wondrous view of the Incarnate God! That very infirmity, Christian reader, which now bogs you to the earth, by reason of which you can in no wise lift up yourself— your Savior bore. Is it sin? is it sorrow? is it sickness? is it want? It bowed Him to the dust, and brought the crimson drops to His brow. And is this no consolation? Does it not make your infirmity even pleasant, to remember that Jesus once bore it, and in sympathy bears it still? The other passage is—"We have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities." Touched with my infirmity! What a thought! I reveal my grief to my friend, I discern the emotions of his soul. I mark the trembling lip, the sympathizing look, the moistened eye—my friend is touched with my sorrow. But what is this sympathy—tender, soothing, grateful as it is—to the sympathy with which the great High Priest in heaven enters into my case, is moved with my grief, is touched with the feeling of my infirmity?

Let us learn more tenderly to sympathize with the infirmities of our brethren. "We that are strong ought to bear the infirmities of the weak, and not to please ourselves." Oh for more of this primitive Christianity! The infirmity of a Christian brother should by a heartfelt sympathy become in a measure our own. We ought to bear it. The rule of our conduct towards him should be the rule of our conduct towards our own selves. Who would feel bound or disposed to travel from house to house, proclaiming with trumpet tongue, and with evident satisfaction, his own weaknesses, failings, and infirmities? To God we may confess them, but no divine precept enjoins their confession to man. We unveil them to His eye, and He kindly and graciously veils them from all human eyes. Be this our spirit, and our conduct, towards a weak and erring brother. Let us rather part with our right hand than publish his infirmity to others, and thus wound the Head by an unkind and unholy exposure of the faults and frailties of a member of His body; and by so doing cause the enemies of Christ to blaspheme that worthy name by which we are called.

Honor and glorify the Spirit, who thus so graciously and so kindly sympathizes with our infirmities. Pay to Him divine worship, yield to Him divine homage; and let your unreserved obedience to His commands, your jealous regard for His honor, and your faithful hearkening to the gentle accents of His "still, small voice," manifest how deeply sensible you are of His love, His grace, and His faithfulness, in sympathizing with your sorrows, in supplying your need, and in making your burdens and infirmities all and entirely His own.

Nor let us forget that, so condescending is Jesus, He regards Himself as honored by the confidence which reposes our sorrows upon His heart. The infirmity which we bring to His grace, and the sin which we bring to His atonement, and the trials which we bring to His sympathy, unfold Jesus as He is—and so He is glorified. Consequently, the oftener we come, the more welcome we are, and the more precious does Jesus become.

FEBRUARY 15.

You are the salt of the earth. Matthew 5:13

WHEN our Lord reminds His people that they are "the salt of the earth," He describes the gracious state of all real believers. The grace of God is that "salt," apart from which all is moral corruption and spiritual decay. Where Divine grace exists not, there is nothing to stunt the growth, or to check the progress, or to restrain the power, of the soul's depravity. The fountain pours out its streams of corruption and death, bidding defiance to all human efforts either to purify or restrain. But let one grain of the salt of God's grace fall into this corrupt fountain, and there is deposited a counteracting and transforming element, which at once commences a healing, purifying, and saving process. And what parental restraint, and the long years of study, and human law, had failed to do, one hour's deep repentance of sin, one believing glance at a crucified Savior, one moment's realization of the love of God have effectually accomplished. Oh the intrinsic preciousness, the priceless value, the sovereign efficacy of this Divine salt—God's converting, sanctifying grace! Effecting a lodgment in the most debased and corrupt heart, it revolutionizes the whole soul—changing its principles, purifying its affections, and assimilating it to the Divine holiness.

Thus all true believers in Jesus, from their gracious character, are denominated "the salt of the earth." And why so? Because all that is divine, and holy, and precious, exists in them, and in them only. It is found in that nature which the Holy Spirit has renewed, in that heart which Divine grace has changed, in that soul humbled in the dust before God for sin, and now, in the exercise of faith which He has given, reposing on the atoning work of Jesus, exclaiming—
' Other refuge have I none,
Hangs my helpless soul on you."

There, where God's love is felt—there, where the Holy Spirit is possessed—there, where the Savior's atonement is received, and His image is reflected—there is found the precious "salt of the earth." The world does not know it, and even the lowly grace may be veiled from the eye of the Church—few mark the silent tear, or see the deep prostration of the Spirit before the Lord, or are cognizant of its hidden joy, or measure the extent of the holy influence, noiselessly yet effectually exerted; but God, looking from His throne of glory through the ranks of pure intelligences that encircle Him, beholds it; and in that humble mind, and in that believing heart, He sees the divine and precious "salt," which beautifies, sanctifies, and preserves the world. He sees true holiness nowhere else; He recognizes His own moral image in no other. The Christian is emphatically "the salt of the earth."

FEBRUARY 16.

But if the salt have lost its savor, with which shall it be salted? Matthew 5:13

THE indestructibility of the divine life in the soul of man, the imperishable nature of real grace, is a truth so deeply involving the holiness and happiness of the Christian, and—what is of still greater moment—the glory of God, that we would place it in the fore-ground of the statement we are about to advance. In the most searching investigation we would make into the state of religion in the soul, we would never forget, that where there exists real grace, that grace is as imperishable as the God who implanted it; that where true faith has led your trembling footsteps to Jesus, to receive Him as all your salvation, that faith is as deathless as its author.

But with this broad and emphatic statement of a great and holy truth, we must proceed to justify the affecting declaration of the Savior's words, that the salt may lose its savor. In what sense will this apply to the spiritual life of the believer? Most clearly and indisputably, in the sense of a relapsed state of grace, and of its consequent loss of vigorous influence. The first symptom of this state which appears may be a change which the individual detects in his own soul as to his actual, personal enjoyment of religion. Put to him the question—With all your observance of external religious duties and activities, what amount of spiritual enjoyment have you of vital religion in your soul? Have spiritual truths that holy savor and sweetness to your taste which indicate a healthy state of soul? Do you know habitually what close, filial, and confidential communion with God is?—the purifying power of confession?—the frequent sprinkling of the atoning blood?—the meek submissive temper of mind in trials sent by God, or under provocation received from man? Were he to reply to these close, searching interrogatories as a man honest with himself and to his God, he would perhaps unhesitatingly answer—"Alas! the salt has lost its savor! There was a period when all this was the happy experience of my soul. There was then a savor in the very name of Jesus—but it is gone! There was a reality in divine truth—but it is gone! There was an attraction in the throne of grace—but it is gone! I once walked filially with my Heavenly Father—I felt the power of godliness in my soul—I knew what heart religion was, what secret, closet religion was—but alas! the salt has lost its savor!"

But a solemn question is proposed—"With which shall it be salted?" In other words, how can such a relapsed state of the spiritual life be recovered? The recovery is not impossible, and the case, therefore, is not hopeless. The salt may again be salted; the waning strength may be restored. Impossible as this may be to man, with God it is possible. By infusing a new life into the renewed nature, a fresh impartation of grace to the heart, and thus by putting His hand again to the entire work of restoring and reviving the whole inner man, the salt, re-salted, may regain its former sweetness and power. The means by which this great and gracious recovery may be effected are such as His wisdom will suggest, and His sovereignty will adopt. But of this we may rest assured, all will be under the direction of unchangeable love. Whether it may be by the gentle gales of the Spirit, or by the severe tempest of trial, is but of little moment in comparison of the happy and glorious result. If the salt that has lost its savor be but re-salted, the mysterious process by which it is effected we will calmly and submissively leave in His hands. "This also comes forth from the Lord of Hosts, who is wonderful in counsel and excellent in working."

FEBRUARY 17.

Give ear, O Lord, unto my prayer; and attend to the voice of my supplications. In the day of my trouble I will call upon you: for you will answer me. Psalm 86:6-7

THE grace that is brought into exercise in the season of affliction must necessarily tend greatly to promote the revival of the life of God in the soul of the believer. How liable is grace to decay, when all things smile upon a path smooth and unruffled! But God sends affliction, and the grace that lay concealed is brought to view, and the grace that remained dormant is summoned to arms; the whole soul is awakened, and inspired as with new life. "The trial of faith works, patience." Thus one tried grace stirs up another grace, until all the links in the golden chain feel the electric influence, and are set in motion. Oh blessed trouble, that so stirs up the life of God in the soul as to make each grace of the Spirit a "new sharp threshing instrument having teeth;" a weapon re-cast, and newly furbished in the furnace, and so coming forth with keener edge and more polished blade, to "fight the fight of faith" with mightier power and success.

But the influence of sanctified affliction upon the inner life is, perhaps, the most evident and powerful in the revival of the spirit of prayer. Strange, that to this, the highest, holiest, and sweetest privilege prepared for the Christian, he is often the most indifferent, and in its observance his feelings are the most chilled and sluggish. What an evidence—one more melancholy there cannot be—of the moral deadness of the soul by nature, that even after it is quickened with a life that brings it into union with the life of God, after the Spirit of God has entered and made it His abode there, ever dwelling and reigning and working in it, there should still remain so much deadness to that which is spiritual, especially the most spiritual of all duties, and the most precious of all privileges—communion with God.

But in the time of trouble we awake to the conviction that we are in possession of a mighty instrument, which when exerted brings all heaven and the God of heaven into our soul. We start as from a dream; and just at the identical moment when all creature assistance droops, and all earthly resources fail, we discover that we are furnished with a power of relief mightier than the mightiest angels—a power which, when exerted (we speak it with reverence), overcomes, like the wrestling patriarch, Omnipotence itself—the power of prayer! And what is prayer but God's power in the soul of a poor, feeble worm of the dust over himself? It was no human might of Jacob which enabled him to wrestle with, and prevail with, the Angel of the Covenant; it was the power of the Holy Spirit in his soul; and when the Divine Angel yielded, He yielded but to himself; and so God had all the glory—and shall have, of all that He has wrought for us, and of all that we have wrought by Him, through eternity. Oh costly and precious privilege, that of prayer! "You people, pour out your heart before him; God is a refuge for us."

FEBRUARY 18.

I was dumb, I opened not my mouth, because you did it. Psalm 39:9.

THERE are few lessons taught in God's school more difficult to learn, and yet, when really learned, more blessed and holy, than the lesson of filial submission to God's will. There are some beautiful examples of this in God's word. "And Aaron held his peace." Since God was " sanctified and gloried," terrible as was the judgment, the holy priest mourned not at the way, nor complained of its severity, patient and resigned to the will of God. Thus, too, was it with Eli, when passing under the heavy hand of God: "It is the Lord, let Him do what seems Him good." He bowed in deep submission to the will of his God. Job could exclaim, as the last sad tidings brimmed his cup of woe, "The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord." And David was "dumb and opened not his mouth, because God did it." But how do all these instances of filial and holy submission to the Divine will—beautiful and touching as they are—fade before the illustrious example of our adorable and blessed Lord: "O my Father, if this cup may not pass away from me, except I drink it, your will be done." Oh, how did Jesus, in the deepest depth of His unutterable sorrow, "behave and quiet himself as a child that is weaned of his mother: his soul was even as a weaned child." Such, beloved, be the posture of your soul at this moment. "Be still!" Rest in your Father's hands, calm and tranquil, quiet and submissive, weaned from all but Himself. Oh, the blessedness of so reposing!
"Sweet to lie passive in His hands,
And know no will but His."

"God's love!" It is written upon your dark cloud—it breathes from the lips of your bleeding wound—it is reflected in every fragment of your ruined treasure—it is penciled upon every withered leaf of your blighted flower—"God is love." Adversity may have impoverished you—bereavement may have saddened you—calamity may have crushed you—sickness may have laid you low—but "God is love." Gently falls the rod in its heaviest stroke—tenderly pierces the sword in its deepest thrust—smilingly bends the cloud in its darkest hues—for "God is love."

FEBRUARY 19.

Until the day dawn. 2 Peter 1:19.

THERE awaits the believer such a day as earth never saw, but as earth will surely see—the daybreak of glory. Oh, what a day is this! It will be "as the light of the morning, when the sun rises, even a morning without clouds." Grace now yields its long-held empire, and glory begins its brilliant and endless reign. The way-worn "child of the day" has emerged from the shadows of his pilgrimage, and has entered that world of which it is said, "there shall be no night there." Contemplate some of the attributes of this day of glory.

It will be a day of perfect knowledge. When it is said that there will be no night in heaven, it is equivalent to the assertion that there will be no intellectual darkness in heaven; consequently there will be perfect intellectual light. It is said that we shall then "know every as also we are known." The entire history of God's government will then be spread out before the glorified saint, luminous in its own unveiled and yet undazzling brightness. The mysteries of providence, and the yet profounder mysteries of grace, which obscured much of the glory of that government, will then be unfolded to the wonder and admiration of the adoring mind. The misconceptions we had formed, the mistakes we had made, the discrepancies we had imagined, the difficulties that impeded us, the controversies that agitated us, all, all will now be cleared up—the day has broken, and the shadows have fled forever. Oh, blessed day of perfect knowledge, which will then give me reason to see that all the way along which my God is now leading me, through a world of shadows, is a right way; and that where I most trembled, there I had most reason to stand firm; and that where I most yielded to fear, there I had the greatest ground for confidence; and that where my heart was the most collapsed with grief, there it had the greatest reason to awaken its strings to the most joyous melody.

It will be a day of perfect freedom from all sorrow. It must be so, since it is written, that "God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain; for the former things are passed away." What a cluster of sweet hopes is there! What a collection of bright beams, throwing, in focal power, their splendor over that cloudless day! Child of sorrow! sick ones dear to Christ! bereaved mourners! hear you these precious words, and let music break from your lips! God will dry your tears. As the mother comforts her sorrowing one, so God will comfort His. Yes, child of grief, there will be no more weeping then; for—oh, ecstatic thought!—"God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes." And "there shall be no more death." No more rending asunder of affection's close and tender ties; no more separations from the hearts we love; the mourners no more go about the streets; for death is now swallowed up in victory! "Neither sorrow, nor crying." Grief cannot find existence or place in an atmosphere of such bliss. No frustrated plans, no bitter disappointments, no withered hopes, no corroding cares, there mingle with the deep sea of bliss, now pouring its tide of joyousness over the soul. "Neither shall there be any more pain." Children of suffering! hear you this. There will be no more pain racking the frame, torturing the limbs, and sending its influence through the system, until every nerve and fibre quivers with an indescribable agony. "The former things are passed away."

It will be a day of perfect freedom from all sins. Ah! this methinks will be the brightest and sweetest of all the joys of heaven. The Canaanite will no more dwell in the land. Inbred corruption will be done away; the conflict within us will have ceased; no evil heart will betray into inconsistencies and sorrows; not a cloud of guilt will tarnish the unsullied purity of the soul. You holy ones of God! weeping, mourning over indwelling and outbreaking sin, the last sigh you heave will be a glad adieu to pollution—to be tormented with it no more, to be free from it forever. "I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with your likeness." This is heaven indeed.

FEBRUARY 20.

How sweet are your words unto my taste! Yes, sweeter than honey to my mouth. Psalm 110:103

THIS similitude is one of frequent occurrence in the Bible. Moses says, that the Lord made his people to "suck honey out of the rock, and oil out of the flinty rock." It is quite clear, then, that we may regard this species of food as the symbol of great spiritual blessings. The sources from where the Christian's nourishment is derived are various. We should be grateful to God that He has not limited us to one secondary source of spiritual nourishment. It was proper, it was wise and gracious in God, that there should be but one Plant of Renown, but one Rose of Sharon, but one Lily of the Valley, but one Living Vine, in other words, that there should be but one Savior and Redeemer, but one Head and Reservoir of the Church. But there are offshoots from this divine plant, there are streams issuing from this sacred fountain-head, from each of which the believer may, by faith, extract the nourishment that strengthens and revives hone?

And what is the word of God but this honey? And from where does this honey fall, but from the heart of God? It is the unfolding of the heart of God. His mind conveys the word, but His heart dictates the word. Take the promises; how "exceeding great and precious" they are. Have you not often found them sweet to your taste as the honey and the honeycomb? When some portion of the word suited to your present need has been brought home to your heart by the sealing power of the Holy Spirit, how have all other sweets become bitter to your taste compared with this! Your Heavenly Father saw your grief, your Divine Captain beheld your conflict and your exhaustion, and bade His Spirit go and drop that sweet promise into your sad heart, and you found the entrance of God's word gave light and comfort to your sad and gloomy spirit.

The love of God in Christ! Oh, it is sweeter than honey. The love that gave Christ—that chose us in Christ—that has blessed us in Christ—that gives us standing in Christ—surely it passes all knowledge. To see it traveling over all the opposition of our unbelieving minds, and the corruption of our depraved hearts, and meeting us at some peculiar stage of our journey, in some painful crisis of our history, in some bitter lonely trial through which we are passing, how does this exalt our views of its greatness, and bring us into the experience of its sweetness! Such too is the love of the Spirit, His love as tasted in His calling—in His comforting—in His sanctifying—in His witnessing, and in all His effectual and unwearied teaching. "God is love;" and on this truth—sweet in our present experience—we shall be living through eternity, "if so be we have tasted that the Lord is gracious."

FEBRUARY 21.

For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. John 3:16.

RICH is the provision which God has made for poor broken-hearted, humble, penitent sinners "God so loved the world." Oh what love was that! This is the love to which, as a trembling sinner, I invite you. And what has this vast and astounding love provided? A "Savior and a great one." Jesus is that Savior! Has the Spirit convinced you of sin? Do you feel guilt a burden, and does the law's curse lie heavy upon you? Then He is your Savior. Believe in Him, embrace and welcome Him. See, how He points to His atoning blood, and bids you bathe in it! See, how He shows you His wounded side, and invites you to take refuge in it! Hear Him say, "Come unto me, all you that labor, and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Him that comes to me, I will in no wise cast out." Oh come to Jesus! A full Christ, a willing and an able Christ, a precious Christ, a tender, compassionate, loving Christ is He. There is a fullness of pardon, a fullness of righteousness, a fullness off grace, a fullness of love in Jesus; enough for you, enough for me, enough for every poor, penniless comer. Your vileness, your unworthiness, your poverty, your age, are no hindrance to your coming to Jesus. Where can you take your guilt, your burden, your sorrow, but to Him? Go, then, nothing doubting of a welcome. "Only believe," and you are saved. Free, free as God's grace can make it, is the blessing of salvation. Your own righteousness will avail you nothing in the procurement of Divine forgiveness. Coming, building on any work of your own, you will be as surely rejected, as he who comes building on Christ's work alone will be surely received. "Being justified freely by his grace, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus." "By grace you are saved, through faith." Oh, glad announcement to a poor bankrupt sinner!—without works! without merit! without money! without worthiness! Of faith! By grace! The Spirit of comfort speaking these words to your broken heart, you may exclaim in an ecstasy of joy, "Then I am saved!" God is mine, Christ is mine, salvation is mine, heaven is mine! Such, my reader, is the Lord Jesus. Oh! for a thousand tongues to tell of His dying love to poor sinners—the readiness and the gentleness with which He heals a broken heart, binds up a wounded spirit, soothes a disconsolate mind, and gives the "oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness." "Whoever believes on him shall not be ashamed."

FEBRUARY 22.

Let a man examine himself. 1 Cor. 11:28.

THERE is nothing clearer than this, that man must be a new creature if he would enjoy heaven. God could not make you happy, unless He made you like Himself. God must make you divine—He must give you new desires, new principles—He must create you "new creatures in Christ Jesus." And you must ascertain whether this great change has passed over you. The question must be—Have I "passed from death unto life"? Has my heart been smitten for sin—broken by the Holy Spirit? Have I come as a poor guilty sinner to the Lord Jesus Christ? Do not take all this for granted, but examine yourself, and see whether your heart has been laid upon God's altar—whether it is a "broken and contrite heart, which He will not despise." Examine yourself to ascertain the existence of love to God, and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. It is a most certain truth that "love is the fulfilling of the law." Enmity against God is the great characteristic of the carnal mind—love to God is the great characteristic of the renewed mind. Do you feel that the name of Jesus creates a thrill of joy in your soul? Do you love God because He is holy, and because He is righteous? Are you in love with His government and with His law? Is it your delight and do you desire to be conformed to its teachings? Is it the supreme wish of your heart that God should rule you—and that you should submit to Him? Do you love Him for sending Jesus—His "unspeakable gift"? Do you love God as your Father—and because He sent His dear Son to bleed and die for you? Examine your own heart on these matters.

Examine your heart also, as to its governing principles. There are many deceitful things in the world. The wind is deceitful—the ocean is deceitful; but the most deceitful thing of all is the human heart. God searches the heart, and looks at all the principles by which we are governed; and no service is acceptable in His sight which does not spring from right motives. And oh, what self-seeking, what self-complacency, what desire for human approval is there in all our actions! But ask yourself—Is my heart governed by love to the Lord Jesus, and by the fear of God? Can I unveil my heart in this transaction as under the eye of one who pierces my inmost thoughts? Can I appeal to God and say—Lord, sinful as I am, I desire to do all for Your glory, and to be governed only by love to You. Examine your heart then, and see what are the principles which actuate you. If they are false—oh cast them away, and ask God so to destroy the power of sin in you, and so to govern you by His love, that you shall only do that which is pleasing in His sight. No service can be acceptable, but that which springs from love to Him, and a simple desire for His glory. But oh how acceptable, then, is even the smallest offering! It may be only the "widow's mite"—or the "cup of cold water,"—but it is pleasing in the sight of God. It may be a service trying to yourself, and perhaps despised by others; but God sees your motives, and will accept your offering, if it springs from a principle in harmony with His will: "For the Lord sees not as man sees; for man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart."

FEBRUARY 23.

Commune with your own heart upon your bed, and be still. Psalm 4:4

How spiritual and solemn is the engagement of communing with our own hearts! The heathen nations have enunciated it as an essential principle, "Man, know yourself,"—but with how much greater power does the Gospel enforce the important duty of self-communion. Let me offer one or two suggestions, as to the manner of engaging in this great work.

There must be an earnest seeking of the Spirit's grace, in this spiritual duty; and if you thus seek, the Holy Spirit will be given to aid you. He will help, and guide, and teach you, and then it shall prove a most delightful exercise. Oh, seek the influence of this promised Spirit—that Spirit of Light—that Spirit of Love—that Spirit of Jesus which is so ready to aid you—and you shall then reap the most blessed results.

"Commune with your own heart" in communion with the heart of God. Let this self-communion be maintained at the "mercy-seat," in earnest prayer. Feel that God loves you, and that though your love may have waned and become cold, yet that His is unalterably the same—that there is not one thought or pulsation in God's heart which is against you. Feel that you are communing with your Father in heaven, and that you are His child, who, though full of weakness and sin, are yet standing in the closest relationship to your God. "Commune with your own heart," with your eye of faith constantly fixed on the cross. You will find nothing in the bleeding heart of Jesus but love. And though you may feel burdened under a sense of guilt, yet look to Christ, and rest all your hope on His finished work.

The blessings which will result from this self-communion are many and great. Such a process of self-investigation will keep you acquainted with the exact state of your own soul. You will know how matters stand between God and your conscience. The creature cannot then encroach on that affection which is due to God, and you not know it. The world shall not make advances, and you not be aware of it. Come away, then, from the family circle—from all the turmoil of the world—seek your chamber—let no one intrude, and there "commune with your heart;"—not with your brother's, not with your sister's heart—but with your own heart; for this is a personal matter. Let the voice of conscience be heard—I must die alone—I must stand at the judgment-seat alone—I am to be searched alone. Let me then draw away my heart from all those I love, and who perhaps too fondly love me, and let me see how I stand with God. Another blessing which will follow this self-communion will be the great promotion of personal sanctity, and increase in holiness. It is impossible for a child of God thus to commune with himself, and not "grow in grace." Only converse with your own heart, and you will be prepared to meet all the temptations that surround you, to resist all the hindrances that beset you. This communion will endear Jesus to your soul. You cannot become more acquainted with your own heart, and not know more of His heart. He will become more precious who has said, "My blood has pardoned all your sin, my righteousness wraps you round, and I will present you faultless before my Father."

FEBRUARY 24.

When he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high. Hebrews 1:3

WHAT a blessed declaration is this!—the words are inexpressibly sweet. Having finished His work, having made an end of sin, having brought in an everlasting righteousness, having risen from the grave, having ascended up on high, Christ has sat down at the right hand of God, reposing in the full satisfaction, glory, and expectancy of His redeeming work. And for what object is He there seated? Why is He thus presented to the eye of faith? That the Church of God might have visibly and constantly before its view a risen, living Christ. Oh how constantly is the Lord teaching us that there is but one Being who can meet our case, and but one Object on which our soul's affections ought to be supremely placed—even a risen Savior. We have temptations various; trials the world know nothing of, crosses which those who know and love us the most, never suspect; for often the heart's acutest sorrow is the least discoverable upon the surface.

But here is our great mercy—Christ is alive. What if we are unknown, tried, tempted, and sad; we yet have a risen Savior to go to, who, as Rutherford says, "sighs when I sigh, mourns when I mourn, and when I look up He rejoices." How can I want for sympathy, when I have a risen Christ? how can I feel alone and sad, when I have the society and the soothing of a living and an ever present Jesus—a Jesus who loves me, who knows all my circumstances, all my feelings, and has His finger upon my every pulse—who sees all my tears, hears all my sighs, and records all my thoughts—who, go to Him when I will, and with what I will, will never say to me no, nor bid me depart unblest—who is risen, exalted, and is set down at the right hand of His Father and my Father, His God and my God, to administer to me all the blessings of the everlasting covenant, and to mete out, as I need them, all the riches of His grace and the supplies of His salvation? Why then should I despond at any circumstance, why despair at any emergency, or sink beneath any trial, when I have a risen, a living Christ to go to? Oh the amazing power of the Lord's resurrection! Oh the preciousness of the fruit that springs from it! Communion with our heavenly Father, near walking with God, a life of faith in Christ, living on high—living not only on Christ's fullness, but on Christ himself; not only on what He has, but on what He is, in His godhead, in His humanity, in the tenderness of His heart, as well as the fullness of His salvation; living in the blessed anticipation of glory, and honor, and immortality; rising in the morning and saying, "This day, and every day, I would consecrate to my God;"—these are some of the fadeless flowers and precious fruits that grow around the grave of Jesus, when faith, listening to the voice that issues from the vacant sepulcher—"He is not here, but is risen"—looks up and beholds Him alive, "seated at the right hand of the Majesty on high." Then, oh then, it exclaims in a transport of joy, "Whom have I in heaven but you? and there is none upon earth I desire beside you," you risen, living, and glorious Redeemer!
"Oh, there is nothing in yon bright sky,
Worthy this worthless heart to own;
On earth there's nothing; friends, creatures, fly;
I pant, my Lord, for You alone."

FEBRUARY 25.

Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin. Rom. 6:6

THE great evil and power of sin lies in the sin of our nature, the body of death which we bear about with us. And herein consists true mortification—the slaying of the principle from where all sin proceeds; the subduing of the original corruption, the strength of which weakens the actings of grace, by impairing the principle of grace. Oh, then, be earnest in seeking this attainment! Do not be content to arrest the stream while the fountain runs, nor to sever the branches while the root remains. But going to the source of the evil, descending to the depth of the corruption, begin the holy work where the potency of sin mainly lies. What is your predominant sin?—lay the axe at its root. Seek its death and destruction, or it will be death and destruction to you as long as it prevails. It must bring a deathliness into the life of God within you, and prove the ruin of your peace and joy and happiness. "Therefore, brethren, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live after the flesh. For if you live after the flesh, you shall die; but if you through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, you shall live." Oh, then, take this sin which seeks to have dominion over you, to the cross of Jesus, and transfix it there; and as it dies, your soul shall live. Nothing but the cross of Jesus will prove its death, and your life. "I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live." There must be the crucifixion before the life; Christ's death for sin must be our death unto sin: no mere outward mortification, no fastings, nor self-inflictions, nor painful austerities, will ever weaken the principle or mortify the root of sin; nothing but faith in the atoning blood of the Son of God can effectually meet the case. Far be it from me to speak indifferently of that aid to the mortification of in-being sin which God's word encourages. I would not lightly esteem, as auxiliary to faith in the atonement, the diligent reading of the word—frequent meditation upon its truths—seasons of retirement from others, and from surrounding objects—private communion with God—self-examination—self-judging—and honest, minute confession of sin. Nor would I overlook the immense blessing which often flows from deep affliction, from painful, bitter trial, traced in the deeper mortification of sin in the temper, spirit, and life of the true believer. But in this great and solemn work our constant motto must be, " Looking unto Jesus." Without the eye of faith upon the cross, apart from the efficacy of the atoning blood and the power of the grace that is in Jesus, there can be no effectual progress in the real work of sanctification. One sight of a crucified Savior imparted by the Holy Spirit will more effectually weaken the power of in-dwelling sin than all other means combined. Oh the might of the cross! Oh the virtue of the blood! Oh the power of the grace of Jesus to crucify, cleanse, and subdue our iniquities! Suffer not any sin, then, to have power over you, seeing Jesus can enable you to oppose it, and will crown your sincere and persevering opposition with a certain and glorious victory. "He will subdue our iniquities."

FEBRUARY 26.

It is good for me that I have been afflicted; that I might learn your statutes. Psalm 119:71

THE believer, regarding all God's dispensations in the light of needed discipline, cheerfully acquiesces in the wisdom and righteousness of the Divine procedure. Discipline by trial is an essential element in the Christian's sanctification and instruction. Our adorable Lord, as man, exemplified this truth in His own personal history. We read that, "Though he were a Son, yet learned He obedience by the things which He suffered." The lesson which Christ learned—to Him a new one—was the lesson of obedience—obedience to the will of His Father in suffering. As the curse dilated before Him into more perfect and awful proportion, He came to learn more of the evil of sin and more of the difficulties of redemption, and so more deeply the lesson of obedience—doing and suffering the will of God. It was thus our blessed Lord was perfected through suffering. And this, beloved, is the school in which the "many sons" Christ is bringing to glory learn submission to the Father's will. The discipline which was becoming in the case of the Head, cannot be without its need and its blessing in the case of the members. There is much—many deep truths of God, and many holy lessons of practical Christianity—to be learned in the pathway trodden by the Savior, which can be learned in no other path—the path of afflictive discipline! But, oh, how needful and how wholesome this discipline! Who would be exempt from it, that has once plucked and tasted the fruit which clusters so richly on the blossoming rod? If submission to the Divine will is ever learned, beyond all question it is where Christ learned it—by the things which we suffer. And, oh, what holy fruit is this—the will of God accomplished in us! The pathway may be through the furnace, whitened seven-fold with the heat, but your will has become more pliant with the will of your Heavenly Father. If the Christian character has become purified, and the graces of the Holy Spirit have become strengthened, and a wider and freer scope has been given to faith, and hope, and love, then ought we not to rejoice in tribulation? The canker-worm has perhaps been busy at the root of your pleasant gourd, the cold east wind has blown rudely over the long-nurtured buds, and the fell hand of death has laid the cedar low, and in the anguish of your soul you exclaim, "Is it nothing to you, all you that pass by? behold and see if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow, which is done unto me, with which the Lord has afflicted me in the day of his fierce anger." But the Son of God drank a deeper and bitterer cup, and trod a more suffering path, than you, and yet could say, "My Father, not my will, but Your be done;" and shall you shrink from a training and a discipline through whose courses God led the Elder Brother and High Priest of our profession? "Oh, no!" you reply "the self-knowledge I have already attained unto has been so needful and so salutary, that I would not that the cup of sorrow had passed my lips untouched. I little thought I was so unbelieving until the Lord tried my faith. I little imagined that I was so impatient, self-willed, and restive, until God bade me wear the yoke and wait His will. I little supposed that my strength was so small, until the Lord laid upon me the burden. Little did I believe how limited was my knowledge of Christ, how deficient was my acquaintance with divine truth, and how estranged my heart was from true prayer, until the affliction of my God set me upon examining my resources to meet it. Then I discovered how shallow was my experience, and how low and meager was my Christianity. Thus when we trace the discipline to its necessity, the chastisement to the evil it was designed to correct, the meek and lowly heart can say, "It is good for me that I have been afflicted."

FEBRUARY 27.

Say you to the righteous, that it shall be well with him. Isaiah 3:10

IN all the spiritual exercises through which the believer in Jesus passes, it must in truth be well with him as to his real standing in Christ. You may be walking in darkness, or in light. You may be mourning in the valley, or rejoicing on the mount; now conquering, now foiled; now weeping, now rejoicing; yet it is still well with you as a pardoned, justified, saved sinner. Nothing can touch your interest in the Savior, or expel you from the covenant, or change the love of God towards you. There are tides in the faith and comfort of a child of God, even as there are in the ocean. The believer has his ebb and flow, his fluctuations of spiritual feeling. It is often low tide with his soul. The waves of spiritual joy and peace ebb, and all looks barren and cheerless. And now he begins to question the reality of all his former experience, and the sincerity of all his past professions. He abjures his adoption, doubts his interest in Christ, puts from him the promises, appropriates the judgments, keeps back from the ordinances, and his soul refuses to be comforted. But, beloved saint of God, is there no flow, as well as ebb, in the spiritual joy and comfort of the believer? Is there no return of the tide of faith and consolation and hope, in the Christian's experience—the wave of love's infinite ocean, of the soul's perfect peace, of glory's anticipated joy, rolling back again upon the shore, in sweet heavenly cadence? Oh yes! Listen to the Divine assurances of this: "I have loved you with an everlasting love." "I have chosen you, and not cast you away." "I will never leave you, nor forsake you." "I have prayed for you, that your faith frill not." "I will restore comforts unto you." "I will not leave you comfortless." You have a little strength." "Therefore will the Lord wait that he may be gracious unto you." "He will be very gracious unto you at the voice of your cry: when he shall hear it, he will answer you." "He restores my soul." All these exceeding great and precious promises, beloved, are yours. They are your Father's epistles of love, and He bids you read, believe, and enjoy them.

Oh, it is, it must be, well with those whose sins are forgiven through Christ, whose people are accepted in the Beloved, whose God is the Lord, and upon whom His eye of love and delight rests from the beginning of the year to the end of the year. Say not it is ill with your soul, and not well, because the Holy Spirit is inserting the plough more deeply into your heart, thus discovering more of its hidden evil, detecting the lurking sin where its existence was not suspected, and discovering the flaw and the failure in the action, the principle, the motive, the end, which the fair surface, self-flattery, or specious reasoning had concealed. Oh say not that it is ill with your soul, and not well, because Jesus does not speak, God does not smile, and prayer is not answered. "For a small moment," says God, " have I hid myself from you; but with great mercies will I gather you." In the dreary, lonely, trying path you now tread, trace you not the footsteps of the flock, and, yet more distinct and blessed than all, the footprints of the Shepherd of the flock? Do not be, then, cast down. The Lord will bring you through this night of weeping into a morning of joy. And your knowledge will be the deeper, and your faith the stronger, and your joy the fuller, and your hope the brighter, and your song the sweeter and the louder, for all the painful exercises through which your soul has passed, and with deeper emphasis you shall exclaim, "It is well."

FEBRUARY 28.

An inheritance among all those who are sanctified. Acts 20:32.

UNDER the figure of an inheritance, heaven is here presented to the mind. Nor is this the only passage in which the same similitude occurs. In the first chapter of the Ephesians, and the eleventh verse, we read—"In whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of Him who works all things after the counsel of His own will:" and in the thirteenth verse of the same chapter, it will be observed, we have a pledge or an earnest of this inheritance—"In whom, also, after you believed, you were sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise, which is the earnest of our inheritance, until the redemption of the purchased possession, to the praise of His glory." And if it be inquired what the saints of God do thus inherit, the answer will be found in the twenty-first chapter of the Revelation by John, and the seventh verse: "He that overcomes shall inherit all things; and I will be his God, and he shall be my son." How vast, how illimitable, then, the inheritance of the saints—inheriting "all things"! It is a beautiful idea of heaven; it is a lovely picture, on which the eye of faith delights to dwell. The earthly heir looks at his inheritance, surveys it, walks through it, luxuriates amid its beauties, and anticipates its full possession. The heir of glory has his inheritance too; it is heaven. He looks to it, he longs for it; and soon the Savior will come in personal glory, and institute him into its full and eternal possession. But whose is this inheritance? It is the inheritance of the Lord's holy ones, of every nation and from every fold. They form the whole election of grace—the chosen, ransomed, called people of God, be their outward name among men what it may—all who are sanctified by God the Father—all who have been washed in the blood of the Lamb—all who are renewed by the Holy Spirit—all who have "the white stone" and the "new name" in that white stone—all who are living holy, godly lives, in whom dwells the Holy Spirit—and by whose grace the Lord is, day by day, step by step, carrying on that blessed kingdom of grace in their hearts, which will soon fit them for the full possession of eternal glory.

And what is the great end of all God's dealings with His people? For what purpose is the Lord's furnace in Zion, and His fire in Jerusalem? It is to purify, and sanctify, and fit the believer for "an inheritance among all those who are sanctified." All your heaven-blessed trials, all your sanctified temptations, all the covenant transactions of God with you, beloved, in the way of afflictive providences, are designed but to fit you more thoroughly for your inheritance. In this point of view, who would not welcome the severest chastisement? who would not drink willingly the bitterest cup? who would not be willing to have the fetter unbound, the chain snapped, the bond severed, that gives liberty to his struggling and ascending spirit, and brings him in a state of holy fitness nearer and still nearer to heaven?

FEBRUARY 29.

Who is a wise man and endued with knowledge among you? let him show out of a good conversation his works with meekness of wisdom. James 3:13

THE knowledge and the grace that God has given You, though for yourself primarily, are not for yourself exclusively. God, in making you a possessor of Divine grace, designed that, through the consistency of your walk, the holiness of your life, and the personal activity of your grace in the cause of God and of truth, it might be dispersed abroad for the benefit of others.

To the true believer it is given to know the mysteries of the kingdom, while from others they are hidden. Where may we look for an understanding of the revealed mind of God but to him? Who knows the secret of the Lord, and to whom does he show His covenant, but to those who fear Him? Having an "unction from the Holy One," he knows all things. He knows something of that mystery, which no philosophy of man can teach him—the plague of his own heart. He knows something, too, of the value of Christ—His person, His work, His glory, His fullness, His tenderness, His sympathy, His preciousness. He knows something of the character and dealings of God—as a holy God, as a just God, and yet who blots out sin, and remembers it no more forever. He knows in some measure what the intricacies of the intricate way are; what the narrowness of the narrow path is; what are the difficulties of walking with God; what are the conflicts, the trials, the tribulations of the Christian life. The Spirit of holiness inhabiting him, despite the corrupt sediment of his fallen nature, he contains and dispenses abroad that stream of holy influence which carries with it a blessing wherever it flows. Where do we look for true holiness save in the soul born again of the Spirit? A holy man is earth's greatest blessing—is the world's richest ornament and shield. How full of compassion is the real Christian! He it is who, taught the priceless value of his own eternal happiness, has affections of compassion for the souls of others involved in like ruin with himself. "Oh that my head were waters, and mine eyes a fountain of tears!" says Jeremiah. "Rivers of water run down mine eyes, because they keep not Your law!" exclaims David. The Lord Jesus, the great Mourner, who wept not for Himself, but for others, has His bottle for the tears of those whose sympathies, prayers, and exertions flow forth for the conversion of sinners, for the salvation of souls. Full of charity, too, is the true Christian. Where shall we look for the Divine cement, the true bond, which unites the heart of man to man, but in the one Church of God? Who is the true peace-maker, the diligent sower of peace, the zealous promoter of love, charity, and good-will among men, but he in whose heart the love of God finds a home? Who has such sincere pity for the poor—whose hand is more ready to relieve their necessities, than he who himself is a conscious partaker of the benevolence of God? Such, dear reader, are some of the characteristics of true Christians.

MARCH 1.

For he says to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion. Romans 9:15

THERE is a sovereignty in all the works and dealings of God. If it be asked, what God's own definition of His sovereignty is, we refer the inquirer to His words, "I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy." Here is the Sovereign! How like Himself He speaks! He carries forward His gracious purposes of infinite wisdom and love—chooses or rejects—reveals or withholds, "working all things after the counsel of His own will," and "giving no account," either to angels or to men, "of any of His matters." We will not expand this part of the subject, by citing the numerous examples of this truth which abound in the Scriptures. We would urge the reader to examine the cases of Jacob and Esau—the Publican and Pharisee—Saul of Tarsus and the men who journeyed with him—the two thieves upon the cross—and mark, if the sovereignty of the Divine choice, and the operation of the Eternal Spirit, are not written out in their histories as with a sunbeam.

Is the reader a child of God? Then we will not confine him to the word of Divine truth. We summon him as a witness to the sovereignty of the blessed Spirit's operation. "You are my witnesses," says God. Who and what made you to differ? You have been taken out of your family, your kindred, your friends, your companions. From this circle you alone have been selected, called, and made a child of grace, an heir of glory. The others, where are they? Still dead in trespasses and sin. Where are they? Living in the world, and to the world—lovers of pleasure, lovers of self, lovers of sin, hating God, rejecting Christ, and warring against the Spirit speaking to them in the word, through providences, and by the conscience. Where are they? Bursting through every restraint, and bending their footsteps down to the doom of the lost. Where are they? Gone, many of them, into eternity—past the confines of mercy, "in hell lifting up their eyes, being in torments." And what are you? A sinner saved by grace—a sinner chosen and called, pardoned and justified, washed and clothed, adopted and sanctified—brought to the foot of the cross, constrained to welcome Jesus, to take up His cross, and to follow Him. Oh the electing love of God! Oh the distinguishing grace of Jesus! Oh the sovereign operation of the Eternal Spirit! "Who are you, O man, that replies against God?" Bow down to the sovereignty of His will—silently wonder, and adore Him who says, "Be still, and know that I am God."

Has my reader hitherto found this doctrine a "hard saying"? Has he been prone to cavil at it, or passed it by? I would with all meekness and affection urge him seriously, candidly, and prayerfully to examine it by the light of the Divine word—to cavil not at it, lest he be found to "fight against God;"—to pass it not by, lest he "grieve the Spirit," and rob his own soul of an inestimable blessing. Oh precious truth! It stains the pride of human merit—it lays the axe at the root of self—it humbles and abases—it empties and lays "low in a low place," and ascribes all the praise, honor, and glory, might, majesty, and dominion of the new creation in the soul to the Triune God.

MARCH 2.

So then it is not of him that wills, nor of him that runs, but of God that shows mercy. Rom. 9:16

INTIMATELY connected with the sovereignty, is the free grace of the Spirit's operation. No worthiness of the creature allures Him to the sinner's breast. What worthiness can be supposed to exist—what merit in an adjudged criminal—an outlawed rebel—a poor insolvent—one whose mind is enmity, whose heart is swelling with treason against God, His government, and His Son—one who owes ten thousand talents, and has "nothing to pay"? None whatever. And that the Eternal Spirit should enter the heart of such an one—convincing of sin—subduing the hatred—breaking down the rebellion—leading to Jesus, and sealing pardon and peace upon the conscience—oh! what but free grace—unmerited mercy—sovereign love, could thus have constrained Him? In exercising his sovereignty in conversion, let none suppose that that which decides Him in the selection of His subject is anything more worthy, or more lowly He discovers in one than in another. Oh no! He often selects the poorest, the vilest, the most depraved and fallen, as if utterly to explode all idea of human merit, and to reflect in its richest luster the free grace of His heart.

Behold, then, the grace of the blessed Spirit's operation, He comes—He knocks—He unbars—He enters, and creates all things new, irrespective of any merit of the creature, if merit that may be called, which is so wretched and poor, that language fails adequately to describe it. Oh the riches of His grace! How it is magnified—how it is illustrated—how it shines in the calling of a poor sinner! "Lord, what did you see in me," exclaims the convinced soul, "that moved You with compassion, that drew You to my breast, and that constrained You to make me Your temple?" Nothing, on my part, but poverty, wretchedness, and misery—on Your part, nothing but love, sovereignty, and unmerited favor." Reader, turn not from this glorious feature of the blessed Spirit's operation; it glorifies God, while it humbles man—it exalts Jesus on the ruins of the creature.

Poor in spirit, blessed are you! You are rich in your poverty—you are exalted in your lowliness. All the love that is in God—all the grace that is in Jesus—and all the tenderness that is in the Spirit, all, all is for you. Lift up your head, then, and let your heart sing for gladness. Though poor, though nothing, though despised, though worthless in your own eyes—ah! and in the eyes of the vaunting Pharisee—yet for you Jehovah pours out all the treasures of His grace—gave His well-beloved Son, and sent His blessed Spirit. "All things are yours," you poor in spirit, you broken in heart—"all things are yours." How vast the compass of your blessings! "All things are yours; for you are Christ's, and Christ is God's." Oh, could you know how dear you are to the heart of God—could you know with what tenderness Jesus yearns over you—how the blessed Spirit delights to make you His dwelling-place, you would rejoice in that you are made low. "For thus says the high and lofty One that inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy, I dwell in the high and holy place, with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite ones."

MARCH 3.

I will never forget your precepts: for with them you have quickened me. Psalm119:93.

IT is no small attainment to arrive at the full belief of the heart in the truth of the Divine record. I speak not now of the historical credence which an enlightened judgment may yield—I speak of a higher faith than this. Nor do I confine myself to that entire assent of the mind, and trembling belief of the heart, upon the grounds of which the soul may have ventured an humble reliance upon Christ, although this is no small attainment; but I allude to that firm, unmoved, and immoveable belief of the truth, which is often an after-work—a work of time and of deep experience, before the heart becomes thoroughly schooled in it. Let me not be supposed to undervalue the smallest degree of faith. To believe that God's word is true, and on the strength of that belief to be willing to renounce all other dependence, and to rest simply and implicitly upon its revealed plan of salvation, is a blessed attainment—an attainment only to be realized by the power of the Holy Spirit; but, to know it from a deep experience of its sanctifying power, from the heartfelt preciousness and fulfilment of its promises, from its sustaining and soothing influence in sorrow, its all-sufficient light in darkness and perplexity—to be brought to trust the naked promise because God has spoken it—to believe, and to go forward, because he has said it, is a still higher step in faith's ladder, and a more illustrious display of the grace and power of the Spirit.

It is an unspeakable mercy to be well grounded in the belief of the truth. Let those speak who have thus been blessedly taught. Let them testify that God's word was, when they first believed, as a sealed book, compared with what it now is—that since they have advanced in the Divine life, led and instructed by the Spirit of truth, it has opened to their minds with all the light and freshness of a new revelation; doctrines, once mysterious, are now beautifully lucid—promises, once unfelt, are now sweetly consolatory—precepts, once insipid, are now powerfully persuasive. And to what is this maturity in the full belief of the truth to be ascribed? We unhesitatingly reply, the witness of the Spirit—the Holy Spirit deepening His work in the heart, teaching the soul more experimentally, and guiding it more fully into all truth—in a word, bringing the truth to the mind with a more realizing and convincing power.

MARCH 4.

Whoever is born of God does not commit sin; for his seed remains in him: and he cannot sin, because he is born of God. 1 John 3:9

THESE words have received two interpretations, both of which we believe are equally true. The more general one is, that he who is born of God does not willingly sin, having "put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness," he cannot sin with the full consent and concurrence of the will. He hates it, he fights against it, he resists it. But it may be inquired, is not all sin an act of the will? We reply, not the renewed will. The apostle speaks of two wills in a believer, or rather, the same will under two opposite influences. Thus, Rom. 7:15: "That which I do, I allow not: for what I would, that do I not; but what I hate, that do I." Ver. 19: "For the good that I would, I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do." Few will question that Paul here speaks of himself as a regenerate man. And yet he refers to two antagonist principles dwelling in him—the one on the side of holiness, the other on the side of sin. "What I hate, that I do." No man can possibly hate sin, unless he is "born of the Spirit." "The fear of the Lord is to hate evil." And still he says, "what I hate," the sin that is so abhorrent to me—"that I do." Is there volition in the act? True philosophy demands that we reply, "Yes." Every sin must be voluntary; if not so, it cannot be sin. Is there the concurrence and consent of the renewed will in the act? True grace demands that we reply, "No." "For what I hate,"—there is the mark of the regenerate man—"that do I,"—there is the act of the will under the influence of indwelling sin.

But there is another and a stronger interpretation of which the passage is susceptible. It is this—He that is born of God, as such, sins not at all—there is in him a regenerate soul, an indwelling, living principle of grace and holiness, whose natural and constant bias is to holiness. "He" (the new man) "cannot sin, because he is born of God." "He cannot sin;"—why? "because his seed remains in him;" and what is that seed? "Incorruptible,"—"Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible." In accordance with Christ's own words, "That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit." It is spiritual, holy, "from above," "the Divine nature,"—it "cannot sin, because it is born of God."

Again, we beg the reader to mark this great evidence of regeneration. "Whoever is born of God does not commit sin." He does not commit it with the total, absolute, and complete assent and concurrence of the renewed will. He does not give himself over to sin "with greediness." He "would do good." He hates sin. Grace reigns, not sin. Sin dwells in him, but does not govern—it has power, but does not rule—it torments, but does not reign with a continued, unbroken supremacy; in accordance with the promise, "sin shall not have dominion over you." It may for a moment triumph, as it did in David, in Solomon, in Peter, and in a host of other eminently holy men; yet still the promise is verified, as we see in the restorings of the blessed Spirit in their spirit and conduct, in their humblings and confessions, and their holy and upright walk with God in after-years. Reader, have you ever been made sensible of the inward plague? What do you know of the warfare within—of "the flesh lusting against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh"? Your honest reply will decide the great question, whether you are born of God.

MARCH 5.

For the law made nothing perfect, but the bringing in of a better hope did; by the which we draw near unto God. Hebrews 7:19

THE Holy Spirit teaches the believer to plead the atoning blood of Christ. He puts this great and prevailing argument in his mouth; and when sin seems a mountain, when unbelief would suppress the aspiration, and a deep consciousness of unworthiness would cause the soul to "stand afar of ," He opens to his view this precious and encouraging truth, the prevalency of the blood of Jesus with God on behalf of His people. In a moment, the mountain is leveled, unbelief is checked, and the soul, unfettered and unrestrained, draws near to God, yes, to the bosom of its Father. What a view does this give us of the love of the Spirit, as the Author of prayer! Who has not experienced it who is not yet a stranger to the blessed exercise of communion with God? How often has guilt caused the head to hang down, and the sense of utter vileness and worthlessness has covered the soul with shame, and even the very destitution has kept back the believer, just as the penury, the wretched covering, the loathsomeness of the poor beggar have kept him from the door—then does the blessed Spirit, in the plenitude of His grace and tenderness, unfold Jesus to the soul, as being all that it needs to give it full, and free, and near access to God. He removes the eye from self, and fixes and fastens it upon the blood that pleads louder for mercy than all his sins can plead for condemnation; he brings, too, the righteousness near, which so clothes and covers the soul, as fits it to appear in the presence of the King of kings, not merely with acceptance, but with delight. Beholding him thus washed and clothed, God rests in his love, and rejoices over him with singing.

Nor must we overlook the understanding which subsists between God the Father and the Spirit. The Father, the searcher of hearts, knows the mind of the Spirit. He understands the desire and the meaning of the Spirit in the souls of His saints. He understands the "groanings which cannot be uttered." He can interpret their sighs, yes, He can read the meaning of their very desires. And, when feeling has been too deep for utterance, and thought too intent for expression, when the soul could but groan out its needs and requests, then has God understood the mind of the Spirit. Oh the inconceivable preciousness of a throne of grace! To have a God to go to, who knows the mind of the Spirit—a God who can interpret the groan, and read the language of desire—to have promise upon promise bidding the soul draw near; and when, from the fullness of the heart, the mouth has been dumb, and from the poverty of language, thought could not be expressed—that then, God, who searches the hearts, and knows what is the mind of the Spirit, should say, "Never did you, my child, pray to me as you did then—never was your voice so sweet, so powerful, so persuasive, never were you so eloquent as when my Spirit made intercession for you with groanings which you could not utter." It was, perhaps, your last resource; refuge failed you, no man cared for your soul; friends failed you, your heart failed you, all forsook you and fled; and, in your extremity, you did betake yourself to God, and He failed you not. You did find the throne of grace accessible; you did see a God of grace upon it, and the sweet incense of the Redeemer's precious merits going up; and you did draw near, and sigh, and groan, and breathe out your needs, and did say, "It is good for me to draw near to God." Yes! "He knows the mind of the Spirit." The secret desire for Jesus, the longing for Divine conformity, the hidden mourning over the existence and power of indwelling sin, the feeblest rising of the heart to God, the first sigh of the humble and contrite spirit, all are known to God. Oh let this encourage you, dear reader, when you feel you cannot pray by reason of the weakness of the flesh, or the depth of your feeling; if the Spirit is interceding in you, your heavenly Father knows the mind of the Spirit, and not a sigh or a groan can escape His notice.

MARCH 6.

For the Father himself loves you, because you have loved me, and have believed that I came out from God. John 16:27

THERE is in us a secret tendency to partiality in our estimate of the cost of redemption. There is a proneness to keep out of sight the interest which the Father took in the salvation of His Church; and to look upon the work of the Son as though it originated and purchased all the love, the benevolence, and the allurings which God the Father is represented as manifesting towards His revolted but recovered family. You have studied but imperfectly the wonders of redemption—have but partially seen its glories—with shallow line have fathomed its depth—and with feeble pinion have soared to its height, if you have not been accustomed to associate the Father's purpose of grace and love with every step which the Son took in working out the recovery of a lost Church. So used are we to fix our admiring and adoring gaze upon the incarnate Son—so used to attach our exclusive affections around Him who for us "loved not His life unto the death," as to come short of the stupendous and animating truth, that all the love, grace, and wisdom, which appear so conspicuous and so resplendent in salvation, have their fountain-head in the heart of God the Father!

May we not trace to the holding of this partial view, those hard and injurious thoughts of His character, and those crude and gloomy interpretations of His government, which so many of us bear towards Him? And was it not this contracted and shadowy conception of the Father, which Jesus so pointedly, yet so gently, rebuked in His disciples, "If you had known me, you should have known my Father also: and from henceforth you know Him, and have seen Him." To this, His incredulous disciple still objected, "Lord, show us the Father, and it suffices us. Jesus says unto him, Have I been so long time with you, and yet have you not known me, Philip? He that has seen me, has seen the Father; and how say you then, Show us the Father?" What further testimony, and what more conclusive proof, need we? "He that has seen me, has seen the Father." Do we see the glory of Jesus beaming through the attempted concealment of His humanity?—it is the glory of the Father shining. Do we follow Jesus in His walks of mercy, and behold Him lavishing the exuberance of His tenderness and sympathy, upon the objects of misery and want, who thronged His way?—strange though it may seem, yet, in those displays of love, in those meltings of compassion, in that voice of mercy, and in those tears of sympathy, we see and hear the Father Himself. Do we contemplate the love of Jesus, laboring, suffering, dying?—we see the Father's love in equal vastness, strength, and intensity. He that has thus seen the Son, path seen the Father also.

MARCH 7.

And we have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Savior of the world. 1 John 4:14

WOULD we breathe a syllable, or pen a line, tending to lessen your attachment to the Son? God forbid! Rather would we heighten your love, and elevate it to a standard never reached before. We claim for Christ your highest admiration and your supremest affection; and unhesitatingly declare, that there is not an object in the universe so worthy of them as He. But we are jealous of the Father's glory; and we wish to guide you through the channel to the Fountain from where it flows—even the eternal purpose, the everlasting love, the covenant mercy of God the Father. Here is the grand secret revealed, of God so loving the world. His love originated the salvation of His Church—the salvation of the Church did not originate His love. Do not think, then, that the work of Jesus was the procuring cause of God's love to sinners! Oh no! You do Him sore injustice and wrong if so you interpret His affection. He loved the Church long before He tore His Son from His bosom to die for it. There was the love, thirsting, panting, and longing for an outlet, and only finding it through the riven heart of Jesus. Oh! to see that every step which Jesus took to work out our redemption from the curse was in perfect harmony with the purpose, the mind, and the heart of the Father! He could, with all truth, say, as He travailed in soul, "I and my Father are one." "I do always those things which please Him." "The Father that dwells in me, He does the work." "I am in the Father, and the Father in me."

Behold, then, the Fountain of living waters! the infinite, the eternal, and inexhaustible Fountain—the Father's love! Do you now marvel at redemption? Do you now wonder at His un speakable gift? The mystery is explained in the Father's love. "In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent His only-begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him." "Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us, and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins."

Learn, dear Christian reader, to include the Father in the affections that cluster around the Son. Eternally welled in His infinite heart was the love which constrained Him not to spare His own Son that He might spare you. Give to Him an equal place in your thoughts, your affections, your worship, and your service. Blend Him with every view which you take of Jesus. Associate His love who gave with every hallowed remembrance of His love who was given. And when you see the heart of the Son impaled upon the Roman's spear, think that it "pleased Jehovah to bruise Him, and to put Him to grief," for the love which He bore the Church.

MARCH 8.

But as he which has called you is holy, so be you holy in all manner of conversation; because it is written, Be you holy; for I am holy. 1 Peter 1:15, 16

IF this motive to sanctification came clothed with such solemnity and power, and was so felt by the Jewish Church, what should be its authority and influence with the Church as it now exists! The increased power and solemnity of this motive is drawn from the more resplendent exhibition of God's holiness in the cross of Christ. With no such development of the Divine purity, as an argument to sanctification, were the saints of the Old Testament favored. But we possess it; so that if we continue in sin, after we have believed, we are "without excuse," and God is "clear when He judges." Here, in the cross, is God's grand demonstration of His holiness. Here has He, as it were, unveiled His great perfections, and shown what a sin-hating, holiness-loving God He is. What! could He not pass by His dear Son—did He give Him up to the "shame and the spitting,"—did He not withhold His "darling from the potter of the dog,"—did justice sheathe its sword in the heart of Jesus—did it smite the Shepherd? And why all this? The answer comes from Calvary, "I, the Lord, am a holy God." And then follows the precept—oh how touching!—"Be you holy, for I am holy." See how the justice of God (and what is the justice of God but His holiness in exercise?) revealed itself as a "consuming fire" on Calvary. Our dear Lord was "a whole burned-offering" for His people; and the fire that descended and consumed the sacrifice was the holiness of God in active and fearful process. Here, then, springs the solemn necessity for sanctification in the believer. The God he loves is holy—his Father is holy, and He has written out that holiness, in awful letters, in the cross of His well-beloved Son. "Be you holy, for I am holy." We must study God in Christ. There we see His holiness, justice, wisdom, grace, truth, love, and mercy, all unfolded in their richest glory and most benevolent exercise.

The necessity for sanctification also springs from the work of Christ. The Lord Jesus became incarnate and died as much for the sanctification as for the pardon and justification of His Church; as much for her deliverance from the indwelling power of sin as from the condemnatory power of sin. His work had been but partial and incomplete, had no provision been made for the holiness of the believer. But He came not only to blot out sin, but to rend asunder its chain—not only to remove its curse, but to break its scepter. The believer in Jesus may be but imperfectly aware how closely associated his sanctification is with the obedience and death of Christ. Yes, that the very death of Christ for sin out of him, is the death of sin in him—that no inroads are made upon the dominion of indwelling sin, no conquests obtained, no flesh crucified, no easy-besetting sin laid aside, save only as the believer hangs daily upon the cross. Observe how the Holy Spirit connects the two—the death of Christ and the holiness of the believer "And for their sakes," says Jesus, "I sanctify myself, that they also might be sanctified through the truth." As their High Priest to atone and purify, He set Himself apart as a holy sacrifice to the Lord God for the Church's sake: "For their sakes I sanctify myself," or set apart myself. Oh, what a motive to holiness is this! Saint of God! can you resist it?

MARCH 9.

But we are bound to give thanks aways to God for you, brethren beloved of the Lord, because God has from the beginning chosen you to salvation through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth. 2 Thess. 2:13

THE work of sanctification is preeminently the product of the Spirit. He is the great Sanctifier of the soul. The implantation of the germ of holiness in regeneration is of Him. For let it still be borne in mind, that a renewed soul has within him the "incorruptible seed" of holiness; and although its growth, in many instances, may be slow, and scarcely perceptible; though, during a long period of his journey, the believer may be the subject of strong corruptions and clinging infirmities, which in a degree act like frosts upon the tender scion, checking its advance to maturity, yet the seed is there, and indwelling sin cannot destroy it, the frosts cannot kill it; it is "incorruptible," cannot be corrupted; and in process of time, under the tender and faithful culture of the Eternal Spirit, it shall deepen and expand its roots, and put forth its branches and its boughs, and then shall appear the fruit, "first the blade, then the ear, after that the full corn in the ear;" varying in its degree of fruitfulness among the saints, "in some twenty, some sixty, some an hundredfold," but in all, of the same nature, and the product of the same Spirit.

It has been the constant effort of Satan to divert men from the great point we are now considering. In two ways has he proved successful. First, in setting them upon the work of mortification of sin before regeneration; and second, in setting them upon the same work after conversion, in their own strength. With regard to the first, sanctification is not the antecedent work of an unbeliever: although it is awfully true that "without holiness no man shall see the Lord," yet the attainment of holiness is an utter impossibility so long as the heart remains a stranger to the regenerating operation of the Holy Spirit. Repentance and faith are the first duties in the order of time, with an unconverted man. And with regard to the second effort of Satan to deceive the soul, equally ruinous is it to all true mortification of sin. No child of God can accomplish this mighty work in his own strength. Here lies the secret, be assured, of all our failure and disappointment in the work. Forgetting that he who would prove victorious in this warfare must first learn the lesson of his own weakness and insufficiency, and, thus schooled, must go forth in the strength that is in Christ Jesus, and in the "power of His might," girt with the shield of faith, the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit—forgetting this important truth, we march to the overthrow of our giant corruptions in our own fancied wisdom and power; and the result always has been, and with the same means ever will be, our complete discomfiture. Oh! when shall we learn that we are nothing, that we have "no might," and that our feeblest enemy will triumph if his subjection be attempted in our own insufficiency?

The Holy Spirit is the efficient cause of all holiness in the believer. If we look into the prophecy of Ezekiel, we find clear intimations of the promise of the Spirit to this effect. There God unfolds what may be regarded as the foundation of all sanctification—the removal of the stony heart, the implantation of a new spirit. "I will give them one heart, and I will put a new spirit within you." "A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you." Let us see the doctrine as more clearly unfolded in the writings of the apostles. "And such were some of you but you are sanctified, but you are justified, in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God." "Elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through sanctification of the Spirit." We are far from excluding the Father and the Son from any part in this great work—we believe they are deeply interested in it, as the Divine word shows: "Those who are sanctified by God the Father," Jude 1. "Those who are sanctified in Christ Jesus," 1 Cor. 1:2. But the Holy Spirit is the special and immediate Agent to whom the work of sanctifying the believer is assigned.

MARCH 10.

Then drew near unto him all the publicans and sinners for to hear him. And the Pharisees and scribes murmured, saying, This man receives sinners, and eats with them. Luke 15:1, 2.

NEVER was there a tongue like Christ's—so learned, so eloquent, and so skilled. "Never man spoke like this man." Greece and Rome, in their "high and palmy state," never exhibited such philosophy as He taught, such erudition as He displayed, or such eloquence as He breathed. Had He so chosen it, He could have placed Himself al the head of a school of His own, and with a beck might have allured to His feet all the poets and the philosophers of His day, proud to own Him as their Master. But no! the wisdom and the eloquence of this world possessed no charm for Jesus. He drew the learning and the melting power with which He spoke from a higher, even a heavenly, source. His was Divine philosophy; His was the eloquence of God! "The Lord Jehovah has given me the tongue of the learned."

And to whom did He consecrate this learning, this wisdom, and this eloquence? To the very objects whom the proud philosophers and the doctors of His day despised and neglected—even the weary. What a field was here for the exercise of His skill, and for the play of His benevolence! How fully would he demonstrate that He truly possessed the "tongue of the learned"! If to interest the feelings of the exhausted—if to enchain the attention of the weary—if to concentrate upon one subject the powers of a mind jaded and burdened—if to awaken music from a heart whose chords were broken and unstrung, mark the loftiest reach of eloquence, then His was eloquence unsurpassed—for all this He did. The beings whom He sought out, and drew around Him, were the burdened, the bowed, the disconsolate, the poor, the friendless, the helpless, the ignorant, the weary. He loved to lavish upon such the fullness of His benevolent heart, and to exert upon such the skill of His wonder-working power. Earth's weary sons repaired to His out-stretched arms for shelter, and the world's ignorant and despised clustered around His feet, to be taught and blessed. Sinners of every character, and the disconsolate of every grade, attracted by His renown, pressed upon Him from every side. "This man receives sinners," was the character and the mission by which He was known. It was new and strange. Uttered by the lip of the proud and disdainful Pharisee, it was an epithet of reproach, and an expression of ridicule. But upon the ear of the poor and wretched outcast, the sons and daughters of sorrow, ignorance, and woe, it fell sweeter than the music of the spheres. It passed from lip to lip, it echoed from shore to shore—"This man receives sinners." It found its way into the abodes of misery and want; it penetrated the dungeon of the prisoner and the cell of the maniac; and it kindled a celestial light in the solitary dwelling of the widow and the orphan, the unpitied and the friendless. Thus received its accomplishment the prophecy that predicted Him as the "Plant of renown," whom Jehovah would raise up. Thousands came, faint, weary, and sad, and sat down beneath His shadow; and thousands more since then have pressed to their wounded hearts the balsam that exuded from His bleeding body, and have been healed.

MARCH 11.

And Jesus was left alone, and the woman standing in the midst. John 8:9

WHAT an object was here, befitting the Savior's sympathy and power! Do you think, reader, that from it His pure and gentle spirit shrunk? Would He feel terrified or polluted by so close a proximity to an object of guilt and wretchedness? Ah, no! Come, you vaunting philanthropists of poetry and romance, who dissolve over a fiction, and petrify at a reality—come, you who have your tears for imaginary woe, and recoil from contact with true misery—who deem it pollution to take kindly the hand of a poor wanderer, exclaiming, "Stand by yourself, come not near to me; for I am holier than you!"—come you, and learn what true philanthropy and sensibility mean. Our Lord's was no mawkish, sentimental humanity, standing aloof from the fallen and the despised, and attracting to itself only the virtuous and the worthy. It was a humanity that identified itself with our fall, and with all its consequent miseries. Itself pure, it yet took our impurity; itself happy, it yet took our sicknesses and our sorrows. He came as the Savior, and sinners were the objects of His love and compassion. He was a man, and to nothing that was human, but its essential taint, was he a stranger. He even carried our sins, as a crushing weight, upon that sinless frame; and that heart, to which sorrow was unknown, became "acquainted with grief."

Oh, it is wondrous to see how closely the Son of God linked Himself with fallen, suffering man. Touch what chord you may of the human heart, and there comes up from the depths of His an instantaneous and harmonious response. With what effect would some of these hidden springs of feeling in the human soul of Jesus now be touched! He would remember, as His eye fell upon this trembling object of His sympathy, that He Himself was born of a woman, amid her perils and her pangs. He would remember, too, that there still was one who bore to Him the endearing appellation of mother, and that yet others stood to Him in the sweet relation of sisters, and all that was tender in His heart would be moved. Looking at her humiliation, and thinking of His own, pity would melt His heart; and while listening to the voice of her clamorous accusers, with the garden of Gethsemane and Calvary full in view, her sin would stir to its center the deep fountain of His mercy. Then was fulfilled the Messianic prediction of the Psalmist, "He shall deliver the needy when he cries: the poor also, and him that has no helper; for He shall stand at the right hand of the poor, to save him from those who condemn his soul."

MARCH 12.

And the servant of the Lord must not strive; but be gentle unto all men, apt to teach, patient. 2 Timothy 2:24

ONE exercise of Christian love will be its endeavor to avoid all occasions of offence. These, through the many and fast-clinging infirmities of the saints of God, will often occur. But they are to be avoided, and, in the exercise of that love which proves our Christian character, they will be avoided. The child of God will desire to "keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace." Whatever tends to weaken that bond he will endeavor to lay aside. Whatever He may discover in his communion with the saints calculated to wound, to distress, to alienate, to offend, either in his manner or in his spirit, the healthy exercise of holy love will constrain him to overcome. He will avoid "giving offence." He will be modest in the expression of his own opinion, respectful and deferential towards the opinion of others. He will avoid that recklessness of spirit which, under the cover of faithfulness, cares not to estimate consequences; but which, pursuing its heedless way, often crushes beneath its rough-shod heel the finest feelings of the human heart; saying and doing what it pleases, regardless of the wounds which, all the while, it is deeply and, irreparably inflicting. How sedulous, too, will he be to avoid anything like a dictatorial manner in enunciating his judgment, and all hard words and strong expressions in differing from authorities of equal, perhaps of greater, weight than his own. Oh! were this divine affection but more deeply lodged in the hearts of all those who "profess and call themselves Christians," what courtesy of manner—what grace of deportment—what tender regard of each other's feelings—what kindness in word and in action—what carefulness to avoid inflicting even a momentary pain—what putting away, as becomes saints, all wrath, anger, evil speaking, and malice—and what constant remembrance of His solemn words who said, "Whoever shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better that a mill-stone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depths of the sea," would each believer exhibit! Lord, fill our souls more and more with this lovely grace of love!

Especially in Church communion will the grace of forbearance be called in requisition. When the providence of God has thrown together a community of individuals, composed of a great variety of character, of mind, and of constitutional temperament, although each grade may be more or less modified by the renewing of the Spirit, there will still be a broad field for the passive exercise of love. In a Church, necessarily imperfect, there may exist many things, in which taste as well as judgment will be found at fault, calculated to engender a feeling of dislike, and even of disgust, in a mind refined and delicate. But here Christian forbearance must be exercised. They are the infirmities of the weak of Christ's flock, and they who are stronger in grace should kindly and patiently bear them. In pursuing a different course, we may wound some of the most gracious, humble, and prayerful saints of God. We may be but little aware with what frequent and deep humiliation in secret their conscious failings may overwhelm them. And we ought to bear in mind, that if we sometimes might wish to see in them less that was rough in speech, abrupt and forward in manner, and fault-finding in disposition, they may detect in us a loftiness of spirit, a coldness of demeanor, and an apparent haughtiness of carriage, which may be an equal trial to them, demanding the exercise on their part of the same grace of forbearance towards us. How watchful, how tender, how kind, then, should we be, ever standing with the broad mantle of charity in our hands, prepared to cast it over the failings of a Christian brother, the moment it meets the eye!

MARCH 13.

You have ascended on high, you have led captivity captive. Psalm 68:18

As a victorious King, our Lord is now enthroned in glory. He went back to heaven as a Conqueror over sin, hell, and death. Never did a Roman victor return from the battle-field, bearing such spoil; or amid such glory and acclamation, as that with which Jesus reentered His kingdom. The Captain of our salvation had gotten Him the victory over every foe of His Church. He met and battled, single-handed and alone, the combined hosts of His enemies and hers. And although He fell in the conflict, He yet won the battle. He conquered by submitting to conquest; He overcame in being overcome. He slew death in being slain by death. Want you a confirmation to your belief in the essential Deity of your Lord? Behold it, beloved. Where will you turn to the record of a battle so strange, between combatants so opposite, and attended by results so wondrous? That, in the greatest weakness, our Lord should demonstrate His greatest strength; that, by a decided defeat, He should prove the victor; and that in succumbing to the power and dominion of death, He should be the death of Death—oh, how truly Divine does He appear!

Believer in Jesus! the King, whose banner waves over you, has fought and won all your battles. One with Him, every believer is victorious. Treading in his Lord's footsteps, he overcomes, even as Christ overcame. It is impossible but that the weakest believer must obtain the victory in the severe conflict which he is waging with the foe. He may at times be foiled, embarrassed, and overcome, but he will ultimately triumph. The battle may go against us, but not the war. Faith, realizing its union with the Lord, obtains the victory. And never does the believer go forth to face the enemy in the name of Jesus, but with the disciples he may exclaim, "Lord, even the devils are subject unto us through Your name." Come, you faint and exhausted warriors! refresh your spirits and renew your strength with this precious truth—your Captain is victorious! He who lives for you upon the throne, He who dwells in you by His Spirit, is He who rose to glory with your every foe chained in defeat and humiliation to His chariot, carrying "captivity captive." Do you still hesitate to believe so great a truth? Hark how His angelic escort heralded His approach to glory. "Lift up your heads, O ,you gates; and be you lift up, you everlasting doors; and the King of glory shall come in. Who is this King of glory? The Lord strong and mighty, the Lord mighty in battle."

MARCH 14.

Then comes the end, when he shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father; when he shall have put down all rule and all authority and power. For he must reign until he has put all enemies under his feet. 1 Cor. 15:24, 25.

OUR Lord, although a victorious, is not a triumphant King. Nor will He be, until He comes the second time to receive His kingdom, and to reign in undisputed and universal supremacy in the bosom of a gathered Church, and over a subdued and renovated world. He will then appear "more than a conqueror,"—even triumphant. He is represented as having, "after He had offered one sacrifice for sins, forever sat down on the right hand of God; from henceforth expecting until his enemies be made his footstool." What are we to gather from this statement? Much that is deeply and gloriously significant. It describes the Redeemer in the interval between the victory and the triumph—the victory which signalized His past humiliation, and the triumph which will aggrandize His coming glory. It defines His position of repose and His attitude of expectation. It is impossible not to perceive, in these remarkable words, a reference to another and a final conflict—the issue of that conflict being the crowning act of His glory.

Are His enemies yet His footstool? Are all things yet subdued under Him? Is the world subdued? Is sin subdued? Is Antichrist subdued? Are the powers of darkness subdued? Is Death subdued? No! But they shall be. At what time? When Christ "shall appear the second time without sin,"—or a sin-offering, and therefore no more as a Priest who is to die; "unto salvation"—and therefore as a King who is to reign. "For He must reign, until He has put all enemies under His feet." Then, then will our Lord appear as a triumphant King to your eye. Picture the scene! Every foe now falls before Him. Death, the last enemy, is destroyed. All His enemies are "consumed with the spirit of His mouth"—the universal diffusion of His gospel—"and with the brightness of His coming"—the kingly power of His advent. All antichrists retire—their imposture exposed, their pretensions confounded—and Christ remains in triumph. All earthly kingdoms are dissolved—their dominion destroyed, and their glory passed away—and the kingdom of Messiah fills the world. All principalities and powers lay down their sovereignty at His feet, and Immanuel triumphantly reigns, having on his vesture and on his thigh a name written—"King of kings, and Lord of lords."

MARCH 15.

Let us be glad and rejoice, and give honor to Him: for the marriage of the Lamb is come, and his wife has made herself ready. Rev. 19:7

"Behold, the Bridegroom comes!" Jesus sustains no relation to His Church more expressive than this. From all eternity He betrothed her to Himself, and forever. He asked her at the hands of her Father, and the Father gave her to Him. He entered into a covenant that she should be His. The conditions of that covenant were great, but not too great for His love to undertake. They were, that He should assume her nature, discharge her legal obligations, endure her punishment, repair her ruin, and bring her to glory. He undertook all, and He accomplished all—because He loved her. The love of Jesus to His Church, is the love of the most tender husband. It is single, constant, affectionate, matchless, wonderful. He sympathizes with her, nourishes her, provides for her, clothes her, watches over, and indulges her with the most intimate and endearing communion. "Christ also loved the Church, and gave Himself for it; that He might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, that He might present it to Himself a glorious Church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish." Reader, know you what this union with Jesus is? Apart from its experience, pride not yourself upon any other union. The dearest, choicest ties of human affection are but as brittle glass. They are easily broken, and soon destroyed. No union, but that which is with Jesus, and in Jesus, extends beyond the grave. He must share in every tie of creature love, if it be holy and permanent. Do not think that the union of holy hearts is dissolved by death. Oh no!—death does not sever, death unites the sanctified. The bonds of the holy are beyond his ruthless power to break. The love which the image of Jesus, reflected in His people, inspires, is as deathless as the love of Jesus Himself; it is as immortal as their own redeemed, transformed, and glorified nature. But the Lord Jesus will come in the clouds of heaven, and this will be the occasion of His public espousal of His Church. Her present union to Him is secret and unknown—invisible to the world, and often concealed to herself. But He will appear, openly and visibly to take her to Himself; and before His Father and the holy angels He will solemnize her eternal union. Oh what a time of splendor and of rejoicing will that be! Arrayed in His nuptial robes, Jesus will descend to make her His own; and she, "prepared as a bride adorned for her husband," will go forth to meet Him. Then will be heard the song of angels, "Let us be glad and rejoice, and give honor to Him; for the marriage of the Lamb is come, and His wife has made herself ready." Yes! "Blessed are they which are called unto the marriage supper of the Lamb." May the writer and the reader, through grace, sit down together there!

MARCH 16.

How can you believe, which receive honor one of another, and seek not the honor that comes from God only? John 5:44

THE life of the renewed soul, springing from the indwelling of Christ by the Spirit, includes the crucifixion of self in us. "I live, yet not I." What a depth of meaning is contained in these words! We may not in this life be able fully to measure its depth, but we may in some degree fathom it. There is not—indeed there cannot be—a more sure evidence of the life of Christ in the soul, than the mortifying of that carnal, corrupt self-boasting that is within us. For its utter annihilation, in this present time-state, we do not plead. This would be to look for that which the word of God nowhere warrants. But we insist upon its mortification; we plead for its subjection to Christ. Who has not detected in his heart its insidious working? If the Lord has given us a little success in our work, or put upon us a little more honor than another, or has imparted to us a degree more of gift or grace, oh what fools do we often make of ourselves in consequence! We profess to speak of what He has done—of the progress of His work—of the operation of His grace, when, alas! what burning of incense often is there to that hideous idol self! Thus we offer "strange fire" upon the altar.

But the most gracious soul is the most self-denying, self-crucifying, self-annihilating soul. "I live, yet not I. I believe, and am comforted—yet not I. I pray, and am answered—yet not I. I preach, and sinners are converted—yet not I. I labor, and good is done—yet not I. I fight, and overcome—yet not I, but Christ in me." Beloved, the renewed life in us will be ever striving for the mastery of self in us. Self is ever seeking to take the glory from Jesus. This is one cause of the weakness of our faith. "How can you believe," says the Savior, "which receive honor one of another, and seek not the honor which comes from God only?" "We know but little of God," remarks an eminently holy man, "if we do not sicken when we hear our own praise." And if we have kept the glory of God in view, rather than our own, remember, it is the gift of God, the work of His Spirit, which has gained a victory over self, through faith in Christ. Oh that the life of Christ within us may more and more manifest itself as a self-denying, self-mortifying, self-annihilating life—willing to be a fool for Christ, yes, to be nothing, that Christ may wear the crown.

MARCH 17.

In all their a action he was afflicted. Isaiah 63:9

HERE is open the true and blessed source of comfort, in the hour and the circumstance of sorrow. The Lord's people are a tried people—Jesus was a tried Savior. The Lord's people are an afflicted people—Jesus drank deep of its bitter cup. The Lord's people are a sorrowing family—Jesus was a "man of sorrows and acquainted with grief." He brought Himself down to a level with the circumstances of His people. He completely identified Himself with them. We are not however to suppose that in every peculiarity of trial there is an identity with our dear Lord. There are trials growing out of peculiar circumstances and relations in life, to which He was a stranger. But Jesus took upon Him pure humanity in its suffering form, was deeply acquainted with sorrow as sorrow; and from these two circumstances, became fitted in all points to support, to sustain, and to sympathize with His afflicted, sorrowing people, whatever the cause of that affliction or sorrow was. It is enough for us that He was "bone of our bone, and flesh of our flesh." It is enough for us that His heart was composed of all the tenderness, sympathy, and gentleness of our nature, and that, too, freed from everything growing out of the infirmity of sin, that could weaken, and impair, and blunt His sensibilities. It is enough for us that sorrow was no stranger to His heart, that affliction had deeply furrowed His soul, and that grief had left its traces upon every line of His countenance. What more do we require? What more can we ask? Our nature?—He took it. Our sicknesses?—He bore them. Our sorrows?—He felt them. Our crosses?—He carried them. Our sins?—He pardoned them. He went before His suffering people; trod out the path; left His foot-print; and now invites them to walk in no way, to sustain no sorrow, to bear no burden, and to drink no cup, in which He has not Himself gone before. It is enough for Him that you are a child of grief, that sorrow is the bitter cup you are drinking. He asks no more. A chord is in a moment touched in His heart, which vibrates to that touched in yours, whether its note be a pleasing or mournful one. For let it be ever remembered that Jesus has sympathy for the joys, as for the sorrows, of His people. He rejoices with those that rejoice, and He weeps with those that weep.

But how does Jesus sympathize? Not in the sense in which some may suppose—that when we weep He actually weeps, and that when we suffer He actually suffers. This may at one time have been so, but we no more know Christ in the flesh, as He was once known. Ah! there was a period when "Jesus wept"! There was a period when His heart was wrung with anguish, and when His body agonized in pain. That period is no more. There yet is a sense, and an important one, in which Jesus feels sympathy. When the believer suffers, the tenderness of Jesus is drawn forth. His sustaining strength, His sanctifying grace, His comforting love, are all unfolded in the experience of His child, while passing through the furnace. The Son of God is with him in the flames. Jesus of Nazareth is walking with him on the billows. He has the heart of Christ. And this is sympathy—this is fellowship—this is to be one with Christ Jesus.

MARCH 18.

For this God is our God forever and ever: he will be our guide even unto death. Psalm 47:14

THE natural man is a god to himself. Yes, he has his gods many. Whether it be self-righteousness, self-gratification, the world, wealth, family, in whatever form it appears, "other lords have dominion over him," to the exclusion of the one true and living God. The nature of the human mind is such, that it must love and worship some object supremely. In his state of innocence, Jehovah was the one and supreme object of the creature's love and adoration. Seduced from that state of simple and supreme affection by the tempter's promise, that if they ate of the fruit, forbidden of God, "they should be as gods," in one moment, they threw off their allegiance to Jehovah; renounced Him as the object of their supreme love, the center of their holiest affections, and became gods to themselves. The temple was ruined, the altar was thrown down, the pure flame was extinguished; God departed, and "other lords" entered and took possession of the soul. But what a change does grace produce! It repairs the temple, rebuilds the altar, rekindles the flame, and brings God back to man! God in Christ is now the supreme object of his love, his adoration, and his worship. The idol self has been cast down, self-righteousness renounced, self-exaltation crucified. A stronger than it has entered, cast out the usurper, and, "creating all things new," has resumed His rightful supremacy. The affections, released from their false deity, and renewed by the Spirit, now turn to, and take up their rest in, God. God in Christ! how glorious does He now appear! Never did the soul see in Him such beauty, such excellence, such blessedness as it now sees. All other glory fades and dies before the surpassing glory of His character, His attributes, His government, and His law. God in Christ is viewed as reconciled now; enmity ceases; hatred has passed away; opposition grounds its weapons; hard thoughts of His law, and treason thoughts of His government, subside; love kindles in the soul, and in one precious Christ, the one Mediator, God and the sinner meet, embrace, and blend. Truly they become one. God says, "You are mine." The soul responds, "You are my God. Other lords have had dominion over me, but henceforth You only will I serve, You only will I love. My soul follows hard after You; Your right hand upholds me."

God in Christ is his Father now. "I will arise and go unto my Father," is the first motion of a renewed soul. "Father, I have sinned against You," is the first confession rising from the broken heart. The Father hastens to meet and embrace his child, and clasping him to his bosom exclaims, "This my son was dead, and is alive again." Reconciled, he now looks up to Him truly as his father. "You shall call me My Father; and shall not turn away from me." Does God speak? it is the voice of a Father he hears. Does God chasten and rebuke? it is from his Father he feels. Are his hopes disappointed, his plans crossed, his cisterns broken, his gourds withered? "My Father has done it all," he exclaims. Blessed spirit of adoption! sweet pledge and evidence are you of the new creature.

God in Christ is now the object of confidence and trust. Trust in a reconciled God and Father was no mark and portion of his unrenewed state. It was then trust in self, in its imagined wisdom and strength and goodness. It was then trust in the arm of flesh, in second causes. Now the soul trusts in God; trusts him at all times and under all circumstances; trusts Him in the darkest hour, under the gloomiest dispensation; trusts Him when His providences look dark and lowering, and God seems to hide Himself; yes, trusts Him "though he slay." Oh, how safe he feels in God's hands and under His government now! His soul, his body, his family, his business, his cares, are completely surrendered, and God is all in all. Reader, this is to be born again.

MARCH 19.

And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you forever; Even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it sees him not, neither knows him: but you know him; for he dwells with you, and shall be in you. John 14:16-17

GOD has never revoked this gift. He has never removed His Spirit from the Church—He is still her Divine, personal, and abiding Resident. All that we spiritually know of ourselves—all that we know of God, and of Jesus, and His word, we owe to the teaching of the Holy Spirit; and all the real light, sanctification, strength, and comfort, we are made to possess on our way to glory, we must ascribe to Him. To be richly anointed with the Spirit is to be led into all truth; and to be filled with the Spirit is to be filled with love to God and man. To plead for the bestowment of that which God has already so fully and graciously given, seems to mark an unbelief in, and an overlooking of, the mercy, as ungrateful to the Giver as it is dishonoring to the gift.

But for a larger degree of His reviving, anointing, and sanctifying influences we do most earnestly plead. The Spirit, though the ever-blessed and abiding occupant of the Church of Christ and of the individual believer, may not always be manifestly present. The prayerless, unholy, and trifling walk of a believer will cause Him to withdraw His sensible presence. The coldness, formality, worldliness, and divisions of a church will compel Him to withhold the plentiful rain or the gentle dew of His precious influence. He may be so disowned, dishonored, wounded, and grieved, as to retire within the curtains of His secret glory, leaving for a while the scene of worldliness and strife to the curse and the reproach of barrenness. All we want is a richer and more enlarged degree of the reviving, sealing, and witnessing influence of the Holy Spirit. This will sanctify and bless the learning, the wealth, and the influence, now so rich an endowment of Christ's redeemed Church; and without which, that learning, wealth, and influence will but weaken her true power, impede her onward progress, and beget in her a spirit of human trust and vain-glory. This, too, will consume in its holy fire the unhallowed spirit of jealousy and party strife, now the canker-worm of the one body; and without asking for the compromise of truth, will yet, in the love it shall enkindle, so cement the hearts of the brotherhood, and so throw around them the girdle of a heaven-born and uniting charity, as will establish an evidence of the truth of Christianity—the last that Christ will give—which all its enemies shall not be able to gainsay or resist. Descend, holy and blessed Spirit, upon all Your churches, Your ministers, and Your people! Descend You upon Jew and Gentile; everywhere and among all people manifest Your glory, until the Church scattered up and down the earth shall acknowledge, receive, and welcome You, her ever-blessed and ever-abiding Indweller, Sanctifier, and Comforter!

MARCH 20.

According as he has chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love. Ephesians 1:4

THE very election of the believer to eternal life provides for and secures his holiness. There could possibly be no holiness without election, because election provides the means of its attainment. Thus clearly does the Spirit of truth unfold it in our motto, and in 2 Thess. 2:13, "We are bound to give thanks aways to God for you, brethren, beloved of the Lord, because God has from the beginning chosen you to salvation through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth." Let us be clearly understood. On the ground of no foreseen holiness in the creature, did God thus purpose to save him; but seeing the indispensable necessity of sanctification in order to eternal glory—the impossibility of the one without the other—He chose us in Christ "that we should be holy."

Let not the Christian reader turn away from, or treat lightly, this precious revealed truth of God's word—an election of a people unto holiness here and glory hereafter. The prejudice of education—early modes of thought—a preconceived system—and more than all besides, the neglect of a close and prayerful investigation of God's word for himself, may lead to the rejection of the doctrine. But He who first cavils, and then renounces it, without a thorough and prayerful sifting of its scriptural claims to belief, stands on solemn ground, and assumes a fearful attitude. What God has revealed. "that call not you common." What He has commanded, that turn not from, lest you be found to have turned from God Himself. Why it has so pleased the Lord to choose a people, it is not our province to inquire, nor, we believe, would it be for our happiness to know. We attempt not to explain the doctrine, much less to account for it. We simply, and we trust scripturally, state it, leaving God to vindicate and bless it. He is the best defender and apologist of His own sacred truth. "Secret things belong unto the Lord our God: but those things which are revealed belong unto us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law." The secret thing in the doctrine of election is, why God has done it—the thing which is revealed is, that He has done it. Let us not, then, seek to be wise above what is written, though it is our duty, as an acute writer has remarked, to be wise up to what is written; leaving the more perfect knowledge of the things that are now seen as "through a glass darkly" to that period of perfect illumination when we shall "know, even as we are known." But thus much we know, that it is the eternal purpose of God, revealed and provided for in the covenant of grace, that all who are chosen, called, and justified, shall, with a view to their being glorified, be "partakers of his holiness." Heaven is a holy place, its inhabitants are a holy people, and He whose glory fills the temple is a holy God. Behold, then, the provision God has made for the sanctification of the believer in the everlasting covenant of grace. The foundation is laid in the death of Christ, it commences in the effectual calling of the Spirit—and by all the precious assurances of grace, and wisdom, and strength, provided in the covenant, it is carried forward to a glorious completion.

MARCH 21.

Also, you son of man, shall it not be in the day when I take from them their strength, the joy of their glory, the desire of their eyes, and that whereupon they set their minds, their sons and their daughters, That he that escapes in that day shall come unto you, to cause you to hear it with your ears? Ezekiel 24:25-26

WHAT is the history of creature idolatry, but a mournful record of beautiful and inviting cisterns of happiness, which, nevertheless, God has destroyed. This is a wide and an affecting circle. We enter it cautiously, we allude to it feelingly and tenderly. We touch the subject with a pen that has often sought (though in much feebleness it is acknowledged), to comfort the mourner, and to lift the pressure from the bowed spirit. We enter the domestic circle—oh! what beautiful cisterns of creature good, broken and empty, meet us here! The affectionate husband, the fond wife, the devoted parent, the pleasant child, the faithful friend, laid low in death. They were lovely cisterns, and the heart loved to drink from them its bliss. But lo! God has smitten, and they are broken, and the sweet waters have passed away! Was there not a worshiping of the creature, rather than the Creator? Was not the object deified? Was not the attachment idolatrous? Did not the loved one occupy Christ's place in the heart? Ah! the wound, the void, the desolateness, the lonely grief of that heart, but too truly tell who was enthroned upon its strongest and its best affections.

Turn every loss of creature-good into an occasion of greater nearness to Christ. The dearest and loveliest creature is but a cistern—an inferior and contracted good. If it contains any sweetness, the Lord put it there. If it is a medium of any blessing to your soul, Jesus made it so. But do not forget, beloved, it is only a cistern. And what more? Shall I wound you if I say it? Tenderly do I speak—and if, instead of leading you to, it draws you from, the Fountain, in unerring wisdom, in tender mercy, and in faithful love, the Lord will break it, that you might learn, that while no creature can be a substitute for Him, He Himself can be a substitute for all creatures. Thus His friendship, His love, and His presence are frequently the sweetest, and the most fully enjoyed, when He has taken all things else away. Jesus loves you far too much to allow another, however dear, to eclipse and rival Him. "The day of the Lord will be upon all pleasant pictures," and then the poor, imperfect copy will retire, and give place to the divine and glorious Original; and God in Christ will be all in all.

MARCH 22.

Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, says the Lord of hosts. Zech. 4:6

WHAT a mystery is the operation of the Holy Spirit in the soul! That a work so renewing, so gracious, and so holy, should ever transpire in the heart of a poor sinner, is itself a wonder. What a marvelous view of the power, nor less of the grace, of God does it present! Every step in the mighty process awakens new amazement. The first conviction of sin that saddens the heart—the first beam of light that illuminates the mind—the first touch of faith that heals the soul, possesses more that is truly wonderful than the most sublime mystery, or the profoundest secret, in nature. There is more of God in it; and the more of God, the more of wonder; and the more of wonder we see in His work and operations, the more readily should reason assent, and the more profoundly should faith adore. The mystery of grace is illustrated by the mystery of nature. "The wind blows where it wills, and you hear the sound thereof, but can not tell where it comes, and where it goes: so is every one that is born of the Spirit." I saw one but as yesterday, living without God, in total neglect of his soul's salvation. The solemn eternity to which he was hastening gave him not a moment's serious concern. His heart was filled with pharisaical pride, worldly ambition, and covetous desires. Self was his god—the only deity he worshiped; the world was his paradise—the only heaven he desired. Today I see him the subject of deep and powerful emotion, a humble suppliant, in the spirit of self-abasement, pleading for mercy as the chief of sinners. What a change has come over him! How in a moment have old things passed away, and all things become new! And he who but as yesterday was dwelling among the tombs, himself dead in trespasses and sins, today is sitting as a lowly disciple and an adoring worshiper at the feet of Jesus. Where this wondrous transformation—this new creation? Oh, it was the Spirit of God who wrought it, and the work is marvelous in our eyes.

Nor does the sustaining and the carrying forward of this work of grace in the soul unfold less of the wonderful power of God the Holy Spirit. When we take into consideration the mass which the little leaven of grace has to transform—the extent of that revolted territory which the new kingdom has to subjugate to itself—then the sustaining and the perfecting of this work is one continued miracle of wonder. To see one strong in conscious weakness—maintaining his position in the face of much opposition—buoyed up amid billows of sorrow—growing in grace in the midst of circumstances the most unfavorable—witnessing for God and His truth at the loss of family affection and long-endeared friendship—is a spectacle that must fill the mind with adoring thoughts of the love and faithfulness and power of that divine Spirit whose work it is.

MARCH 23.

I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith. 2 Tim 4:7

WE are here invited to contemplate the Christian in the character of a conqueror. The battle consists of a moral conflict with inward and outward enemies, all leagued in terrible force against the soul. To this is added—what, indeed, was most peculiar to the early Church—a war of external suffering, in which penury, persecution, and martyrdom constituted the dark and essential elements. Now it will be instructive to observe in what way Christ provides for the holy warrior's passage through this fiery contest. It will be perceived that it is not by flight, but by battle; not by retreat, but by advance; not by shunning, but by facing the foe. The Captain of their salvation might have withdrawn His people from the field, and conducted them to heaven, without the hazard of a conflict. But not so. He will lead them to glory, but it shall be by the path of glory. They shall carve their way to the crown by the achievements of the sword. They shall have privations, and distress, and suffering, of every kind; yet while beneath the pressure, and in the very heat of the battle, victory shall crown their arms, and a glorious triumph shall heighten the splendor of their victory. And what spiritual eye does not clearly see, that in conducting His people across the battle-field, the Lord wins to Himself more renown than though He had led them to their eternal rest with entire exemption from conflict and distress?

But in what sense are we conquerors? Just in that sense in which the Holy Spirit obtains the victory. It is not the believer himself who conquers; it is the Divine Spirit within the believer. No movement is seen, no tactics are observed, no war-cry is heard, and yet there is passing within the soul a more important warfare, and there is secured a more brilliant victory, than ever the pen of the historian recorded. In the first place, there is the conquest of faith. Where do the annals of war present such a succession of victories so brilliant, achieved by a weapon so single and simple, as is recorded in the eleventh chapter of the Epistle to the Hebrews? And what was the grace that won those spiritual and glorious victories? It was the grace of faith! "This is the victory that overcomes the world, even your faith." Faith in the truth of God's word faith in the veracity of God's character—faith in the might, and skill, and wisdom of our Commander and Leader—faith, eyeing the prize, gives the victory to the Christian combatant, and secures the glory to the Captain of his salvation. Then there is the triumph of patience. "That you do not be slothful, but followers of them who through faith and patience inherit the promises." "And so, after he had patiently endured, He obtained the promise." Oh, is it no real victory of the Holy Spirit in the believer, when beneath the pressure of great affliction, passing through a discipline the most painful and humiliating, the suffering Christian is enabled to cry, "Though He slay me, yet will I trust in him"? "The cup which my Father has given me, shall I not drink it"? "Not my will, but your, be done"? Suffering child of God, "let patience have her perfect work, that you may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing." And then there is the conquest of joy. "Having received the word in much affliction, with joy of the Holy Spirit." "My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into diverse temptations," or trials. Why is trial an occasion of joy? Because it is the triumph of the Holy Spirit in the soul. And does not Christ say, "You shall be sorrowful, but your sorrow shall be turned into joy"? Who but Jesus can turn our sorrow into joy?—not only assuaging our griefs, alleviating our sufferings, and tempering the furnace-flame, but actually making our deepest, darkest sorrows the occasion of the deepest gladness, praise, and thanksgiving. Oh, yes! it is a glorious victory of the Holy Spirit, the Comforter, in the soul, when it can enable the believer to adopt the words of the suffering apostle, "I am filled with comfort, I am exceedingly joyful in all our tribulation." Suffering reader! Jesus knows how to turn your sorrow into joy. Confide your grief to Him, and He will cause it sweetly to sing.

MARCH 24.

For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. 1 Cor. 15:53

OUR present existence is one of deep humiliation and certain decay. In the strong and emphatic language of Scripture, this physical structure, which we adorn with so much care, and which others so extravagantly admire, is described as a "vile body," as "corruption," as "mortal.'' Has the fact with many—perhaps, my reader, with you—become so common-place as to have changed its character, from one of the most affecting and humbling, to one the existence and contemplation of which awakens in the mind no deep and serious reflection? Have you grown so familiar with disease, and become so conversant with death—the inanimate clay, the shroud, the coffin, the hearse, the grave—those sad emblems of our mortality, as to feel sensible of no solemn emotions when the Holy Spirit brings the fact before the mind? Is it with you a light matter to die? Ah! death is no trifle; and he will find it so who knows not Him who is the "Resurrection and the Life."

But, display the Stoic and act the philosopher as you may, give place to mirth and hilarity and thoughtlessness as you will, in all your vivacity, your pomp and power, you are mortal, and must die. "Dust you are, and unto dust shall you return." You shall "say to corruption, You are my father; and to the worm, You are my mother and any sister." To this humiliating end all are tending: and although some of our race move to the tomb in greater state and luxury than others, yet "The grave is my house" is the affecting exclamation of all. There the rich and the poor meet together—Dives and Lazarus side by side. "There the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest." Yet how few feel the solemnity and admit the force of this truth! How few pause to consider, that this body which they now pamper with such studied luxuriousness, and adorn with such refinement of taste, will before long need no clothing but the winding-sheet, no house but the coffin, and no home but the grave! And that so changed will be the countenance, once lined with beauty and radiant with thought—and so decayed the body, once so graceful and athletic—that those who regarded it with the fondest love, and even worshiped it with the deepest devotion, will be the first to exclaim, "Bury my dead out of my sight." Oh, how dire the humiliation of our present existence! "The body is dead because of sin." But there glows around the grave of the believer in Jesus the halo of a blessed hope. "He that raised up Christ rom the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies." No pomp or circumstance may attend him to the tomb, no marble monument may rear its chiseled form to record his virtues, to perpetuate his name, or mark the spot where his ashes repose. Those ashes the ocean's cave may contain; his only tombstone the crested billows; his only requiem, chanted to the wild sea-bird, the solemn music of the waves as they dash and die upon the shore—but He sleeps in Jesus, and slumbering thus, his flesh rests in hope of a glorious resurrection and a blissful immortality. What a new and impressive character does Christianity give to the entire scene of the believer's departure out of this world to go unto the Father! To the eye of sense, the outer door of the tomb appears hideous and for bidding. The deadly nightshade and the overshadowing ivy entwine darkly and thickly over its dismal arch, while the trail of the worm and the time-gathered mold upon its bars deepen the air of its repulsiveness. But viewed by faith, how changed that tomb! As seen by its piercing eye, it is all radiant around, and all refulgent within. The Redeemer has been there, touching and gilding all with life and glory. And when the inner door opens upon heaven, what a scene of grandeur bursts upon the spirit's view! Glory, streaming from above, bathes it in its celestial beams, and lights its pathway to the skies. This is the tomb of a believer in Jesus. No; it is no longer a tomb—it is a triumphal arch, all radiant and garlanded, through which the spiritual conqueror, laden with the spoils off his last victory, passes, amid the acclaim of angels and the welcomings of kindred spirits, to his crown and his rest.

MARCH 25.

I will sing of mercy and judgment: unto you, O Lord, will I sing. Psalm 101:1

How shall we enumerate all the blessings which result from the chastening of love? We might tell how prayer is quickened, how pride is abased, how weanedness is attained, how charity is increased, how character is formed, how meditation and solitude are sweetened, how Christ is endeared, and how God is glorified. It will be recollected, that in the ark of the covenant there was "Aaron's rod that budded." Our glorious covenant of grace has, too, its rod—its budding, its blossoming rod—and precious is the nature and rich the variety of the fruit which it bears. But in that ancient ark there was also the "pot of manna.'' "Mercy and judgment," bitter and sweet, light and shade, are blended in the covenant dealings of God with His people. The rod and the pot of manna go together. If the one is bitter, the other is sweet. God will never send the rod unaccompanied with the manna. Jesus, exhibited in the word, and unfolded by the Spirit, in the sweet sympathy of His nature, in the tenderness of His heart, as the "Brother born for adversity," is the manna—sustaining and strengthening the believer, passing under the covenant-rod of God. Thus, if afflictions be grievous, the fruit they bear is gracious.

In the history of the Jewish Church there is yet another type, beautifully illustrative of God's dealings with the chastened Christian. I allude to the pillar, which guided the pilgrimage of the Church in the wilderness. By night it was a pillar of fire, and by day it was a pillar of cloud. The darkest night of weeping that can possibly enshroud the child of God has its bright light—its alleviation, its promise, its guiding. And in the most prosperous period in the Christian's experience, it is ordered by unerring wisdom and infinite love that there should be some counter-dispensation of trial, to preserve the just balance of the soul. It has been well remarked, that "Things never go so well with God's children, but they have still something to groan under; nor so ill, but they have still some comfort to be thankful for."

I would have you, then, my reader, not overlook the truth, that the covenant of grace has made provision for everything in the life of a child of God, especially for the life of suffering. It strews the richest blessings and the most profusely upon the chequered path—the path inlaid with stones of various colors, and yet each one most needful and most precious. "Oh you afflicted, tossed with tempest, and not comforted, behold I will lay your stones with fair colors, and lay your foundations with sapphires." It is true that the covenant has anticipated as much the perilous season of prosperity, as the dark hour of adversity; but it always supposes the way to glory to be one of trial and of danger. A heavenly-minded man will learn to look upon the earthly distinction and wealth which the world, so lavish sometimes of its favors, may confer upon him, as a trial and a snare, to one desirous of bearing the cross daily after his crucified Lord; and yet for this specific form of danger the covenant of grace amply provides. Be satisfied, my reader, with any station your God may assign you; believing that for every station in which He places His child, there is the grace peculiar to its exigencies treasured up for him in the everlasting covenant.

MARCH 26.

Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened unto you; but rejoice inasmuch as you are partakers of Christ's sufferings. 1 Peter 4:12, 13.

IF, dear reader, you are in possession of real faith, even in the smallest degree, expect its conflict and its trial. It is truly remarked by the holy Leighton, that God never had but one Son without sin, and never one without suffering. The existence of faith seems necessarily to imply the endurance of suffering—not because of any intrinsic defect in faith, but in consequence of the impurity of the heart in which that faith is lodged; its perpetual admixture with the alloy of a mind but partially renewed, its constant contact with the objects and scenes of sense and of earth, render trial as essential to the purification of faith, as the flail to the pure wheat, and as the crucible to the precious metal.

The trials and temptations, therefore, with which God visits His people, are designed as tests of faith. Without them we should lack some of the strongest evidences of experimental Christianity. Who would wish the stubble and the chaff to render doubtful the existence of the true grain, or the tin and the dross to obscure the luster of the fine gold? Welcome, then, every trial and test of your faith. Welcome whatever stamps its reality, increases its strength, and heightens its luster. Nor be surprised that this, above all the graces of the Holy Spirit, should be a mark for the great enemy of God. As faith is the grace which most glorifies God, which brings the greatest degree of joy and peace into the soul, and which constitutes its mightiest shield in the conflict, it becomes an especial object of Satan's malignant attack. The most Christ-exalting, God-honoring, and sanctifying of all the Spirit's graces must not expect to escape his fearful assaults. If this "gold " was "tried in the fire" in the sinless person of Jesus, is there not a greater necessity that in our fallen and corrupt nature it should be subjected to a second process of trial? It was tried in the Head, to show that it was real gold; it is tried in the members, to separate it from the alloy with which t becomes mixed in its contact with our hearts. In the one case, the trial was to stamp its divine nature; in the other case, the trial is to purify it from the human nature. Thus are we honored to suffer, in some small degree, as our Lord and Master suffered. Therefore, beloved, "rejoice, inasmuch as you are partakers of Christ's sufferings, that when His glory shall be revealed, you may be glad also with exceeding joy."

MARCH 27.

Who is even at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us. Romans 8:34

THE exaltation of Jesus in heaven is associated with the dearest interests of His people on earth. Joseph was forgotten when Pharaoh lifted up the head of the chief butler. But our Lord, amid the honors and splendors to which God has highly exalted him, still remembers his brethren in bonds, and makes intercession for them. How expressive is the type of our Lord's present engagement on behalf of His people. "And he (Aaron) shall take a censer full of burning coals of fire from of the altar before the Lord, and his hands full of sweet incense beaten small, and bring it within the veil: and he shall put the incense upon the fire before the Lord, that the cloud of the incense may cover the mercy-seat that is upon the testimony." The passing of Aaron into the holy of holies was the shadowing forth of our Lord's entrance into heaven. The blood sprinkled at the mercy-seat was the presentation of the great Atonement within the veil. And the incense overshadowing with its fragrant cloud the mercy-seat, thus touched with blood, was the figure of the ceaseless intercession of our great High Priest in the holiest. "For Christ is not entered into the holy places made with hands, which are the figures of the true: but into heaven itself now to appear in the presence of God for us."

It is an individual, an anticipative, and a present intercession. It embraces all the personal needs of each believer, it precedes each temptation and each trial, and at the moment that the sympathy and the prayers of the Savior are the most called for, and are felt to be the most soothing, it bears the saint and his sorrow on its bosom before the throne. Just at a crisis of his history, at a juncture, perhaps, the most critical in his history, the heart, oppressed with its emotions, cannot breathe a prayer—Jesus is remembering him, sympathizing with him, and interceding for him. Oh, who can fully describe the blessings that flow through the intercession of the Son of God? The love, the sympathy, the forethought, the carefulness, the minute interest in all our concerns, are blessings beyond description.

Tried, tempted believer! Jesus makes intercession for you, Your case is not unknown to Him. Your sorrow is not hidden from Him. Your name is on His heart; your burden is on His shoulder; and because He not only has prayed for you, but prays for you now, your faith shall not fail. Your great accuser may stand at your right hand to condemn you, but your great Advocate is at the right hand of God to plead for you. And greater is He that is for you, than all that are against you. The mediatorial work of Christ shuts every mouth, meets every accusation, and ignores every indictment that can be brought against those for whom He died, rose again, ascended up on high, and makes intercession.

MARCH 28.

He has filled the hungry with good things; and the rich he has sent empty away. Luke 1:53

BEWARE of placing any limit whatever to the grace of Jesus. Be your circumstances what they may, remember that "God is able to make all grace abound towards you; that you always, having all sufficiency in all things, may abound to every good work." Make no allowance for sin, frame no excuses for inactivity, shrink from no cross, be dis-heartened by no difficulty, give place to no temptation, yield to no excessive grief; for Jesus has spoken it, and He now speaks it to you, "My grace is sufficient for you." Since, then, the grace of Jesus is illimitable, take with you in your journeyings to the one Source of supply a vessel of large capacity, that you may receive abundantly. Remember that, as a believer in the Lord Jesus, "All things are for your sake, that the abundant grace might, through the thanksgiving of many, redound to the glory of God." Let your life be a perpetual traveling to this grace. Do not be satisfied with what you have already received. Go, again and yet again, to this Divine Fountain, taking every corruption as it is developed, every sin as it is felt, every sorrow as it rises, to Jesus; remembering for your encouragement, that though you have received much, yet "He gives more grace," and is prepared to give you much more than you have yet received.

Rejoice that the emptiness of the vessel is no plea against the filling of the vessel. If the Spirit of God has made you "poor in spirit," has wrought in you a "hungering and thirsting for righteousness," betake yourself to the grace of Jesus. The full vessel He needs not, nor does the full vessel want Him. He invites, He draws, He receives none save the empty. He will have all the honor of our salvation. He will magnify His grace in the creature's nothingness. Your emptiness shall eternally glorify His fullness. With the example and the words before me of him who styled himself the 'chief of sinners,' I hesitate not to encourage the greatest sinner to come to Christ. "Who was before a blasphemer, and a persecutor, and injurious: but I obtained mercy... And the grace of our Lord was exceeding abundant with faith and love which are in Christ Jesus. This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief." Truly might he exclaim, "By the grace of God I am what I am." Beware, then, I beseech you, of going to Christ for salvation in any other character than as an empty sinner. Had the vessels been brought other than empty, to receive the miraculous oil, they would have been refused, filled though they had been with ambrosia itself. Nothing should mingle with the oil. Nothing should shade the luster of the miracle. And so is it with the grace of Jesus. Brilliant genius, profound erudition, costly benevolence, and the purest ethics of natural religion, avail nothing in the matter of the soul's salvation. These are the ambrosia, of which the vessel must be emptied before it comes to Christ. It must all be laid aside as constituting a plea of acceptance. The only plea admissible with Christ is, that without His grace you perish forever. "Lord, save, or I perish."

MARCH 29.

For what nation is there so great, who has God so near unto them, as the Lord our God is in all things that we call upon him for? Deut. 4:7

ARE you not ready to exclaim, "What a glorious privilege is prayer?" Ah, yes! and you may add, "What mighty power, too, it possesses!" The power of a holy wrestler with God approaches the nearest to an act of omnipotence of any display of finite might whatever. Angelic mightiness must be weakness itself in comparison. What eloquence in that one word 'Father,' lisped in believing prayer! Demosthenes and Cicero, in the glory of their eloquence, never surpassed, no, never equaled it. It is breathed—and heaven's door expands; it is uttered again—and the heart of God flies open. With such a key in the hands of faith, which may at any moment unlock the treasury of God, as prayer, why do we not oftener use it! Oh that the Spirit of God might stir us up to more earnest prayer!—teaching us to enshrine everything, to pervade and saturate everything, in the heart and with the spirit of humble, importunate, believing prayer. What real and immense gainers should we be, did we "in everything, by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let our requests be made known unto God." "For what nation is there so great, who has God so near unto them, as the Lord our God is in all things that we call upon Him for?"

In a word, my Christian reader, "have faith in God" at all times, and in all things. This is the utmost that He asks at your hands—no unreasonable or impossible requirement. Would Jesus have limited you to this single duty, making your whole happiness for both worlds dependent upon it, were it so? Never! Relinquishing your own wisdom, resting from your own toil, and ceasing from man, God would have you now cast yourself upon Him in simple faith for all things. You have had faith in the creature, and it has disappointed you; in earthly good, and it has faded away; in your own heart, and it has deceived you. Now, have faith in God! Call upon Him in your trouble, try Him in your trial, trust Him in your need, and see if He will not honor the faith that honors Him. "Have faith in God,"—words of Jesus, oh how sweet! spoken to allure your chafed and weary spirit to its Divine and blessed rest. Press the kind message to your grateful heart, responding, in a strain of blended praise and prayer, "Lord, I believe; help You my unbelief."

By this grace you may be assimilated with the Divine will, may be transformed into the Divine image, may be trained for active toil or for passive endurance. Limit not a Divine blessing so inexhaustible in its resources, and so free in its bestowment; but out of the Savior's fullness receive grace for grace, that in all things "the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in you, and you in Him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ."

MARCH 30.

And he said unto them, Come you yourselves apart into a desert place, and rest awhile." Mark 6:31.

SUFFER me, dear reader, to urge upon you the daily and diligent cultivation of that Christianity which derives its freshness, its vigor, and its radiance, from much hidden communion with Jesus. We plead not for the religion of the recluse. A monkish Christianity is not the Christianity of the Bible. When God, in the exercise of His sovereign grace, converts a man, He converts him, not for himself only, but also for others. He converts him, not for the Church alone, but also for the world. He is to be a monument, whose inscription all may read—a city whose beauty all may admire—a burning and a shining light, in whose radiance all may rejoice. He is to live and labor, and, if need be, die for others. But we plead for more of that Christianity which is often alone with God: which withdraws at periods from the fatigue of labor and the din of strife, to renew its strength, and to replenish its resources, in a secret waiting upon the Lord. Christians must be more alone with Jesus. In the midst of what a whirlpool of excitement and of turmoil do numbers live! How few withdraw from domestic and public enjoyments—the calls of business, the duties of committees, of secretaryships, and of agencies—to hold communion alone with God! This must not be. The institutions which they serve, the calling at which they toil, the families for whom they labor, would be the gainers, rather than the losers, by their occasional sequesterment from the world, to be alone with God. And were our Lord still upon the earth, contemplating their incessant action, their little devotional retirement, and consequent leanness of spirit, would He not be constrained to address them as He once tenderly did His jaded and exhausted disciples, "Come you yourselves apart into a desert place, and rest awhile." He would allure them from others to Himself.

Do not be surprised at any way which the Lord may take to bring your weary soul to rest in Himself. It is not always in the crowd that He speaks most tenderly to the heart. More frequently He leads His people out, and takes them apart by Himself alone. It is often in the privacy of separation and retirement, when the soul is curtained within his pavilion, that the greatest and the sweetest nearness to Jesus is experienced. "Behold, I will allure her into the wilderness, and speak comfortably to her,"—(margin, speak friendly to her heart). Has the Lord been leading you about—severing this tie, and breaking up that repose; disappointing you here, and thwarting you there? Amazed, you have asked, "Lord, why this?" And the only reply has been the comfort which He has spoken to your weary, desolate heart. Thus does He make good in your experience His own exceeding great and precious promise—"I have satiated the weary soul, and I have replenished every sorrowful soul."

MARCH 31.

For the Lord takes pleasure in his people: he will beautify the meek with salvation. Psalm 149:4

YES, God delights in the people of His love. They are precious, inconceivably precious, to His heart. He keeps them as the apple of His eye. Their people in their own view may be vile, polluted, worthless; but seen by Him in Jesus, He can, and He does, say to each one, "You are all fair, my love; I see no spot in you." Resting in Jesus, the Son of His love, He rests in His people, the objects of His love. He may afflict and chasten, rebuke and try them, or permit them to be severely assailed; He may even hide His face from them for a little moment, and speak harshly to them, like Joseph to his brethren; He may disturb their resting-places, and scatter their creature-mercies to the winds—nevertheless, you saints of God, "The Lord your God in the midst of you is mighty; He will save, He will rejoice over you with joy; He will rest in His love, He will joy over you with singing." Nor will He be satisfied until He has gathered them all around Him within His house in heaven—Jesus presenting to Him the whole body, "a glorious Church," exclaiming, "Behold I and the children whom You have given me." Then, and not until then, will the joy of the Lord over His Church be full. Then, and not until then, will His rest in the people of His love be complete.

God delights in the manifestation of His love. Even in our fallen state, with our impaired affections clinging to us, like the green ivy around a splendid ruin, we can understand something of this feeling. If love exists, where is the heart that can conceal the affection? It must, in some mode or other, express the sentiment it feels. If revealed only to God, the heart must unburden itself of its hidden, trembling emotion. But how delightful is the expression of affection! The parent feels it when he presses his little one to his fond heart; the mother, when she clasps her infant to her thrilling bosom; the friend, when he communes with his friend. But if this principle be so strong, and its expression so delightful, in such a nature as ours, all of whose affections are so sinful and selfish, what must it be in God! Conceive, if it is possible, what must be the holy delight of God's heart in lavishing its affection upon His people; what must be the joy of Christ when He comes and manifests Himself to His saints, as He does not unto the world. A benevolent mind delights in the exercise of benevolence. God is infinitely so. Infinite, therefore, must be the satisfaction of His heart, intense the delight of His soul, when He sheds abroad His love in the hearts of His people, when he draws near in the day that they call upon Him, and manifests Himself as a loving, tender, faithful Father. "You meet him that rejoices and works righteousness, those that remember You in Your ways." Since then the Father delights to unlock the springs of His love, and to fill the heart to overflowing, take your poor, timid, doubting heart, and place it beneath those springs, that it may be perfect in love—and perfected in love, all slavish fear will be expelled.

APRIL 1.

Behold, God is great, and we know him not, neither can the number of his years be searched out. Job 36:26

THERE is a state of mind often enfeebling to the exercise of prayer, arising from the difficulty of forming proper views of the spiritual nature of the Divine object of prayer. The spirituality of God, through the weakness of our nature, has been felt to be, by some, a stumbling-block in the approach of the soul. "God is a Spirit," is a solemn announcement that meets it at the very threshold, and so completely overawes and abashes the mind, as to congeal every current of thought and of feeling, and well-near to crush the soul with its inconceivable idea. Nor is this surprising. Prayer is the approach of finity to Infinity; and although it is the communing of spirit with Spirit, yet it is the finite communing with the Infinite, and that through the organs of sense. Is it any marvel, then, that at periods a believer should be baffled in his endeavor to form some just conception of the Divine existence, some faint idea of the nature of that God to whom his soul addresses itself; and, failing in the attempt, should turn away in sadness, sorrow, and despair?

The remedy for this state of mind, we believe, is at hand. It is simply scriptural. That we can enlarge our thoughts with any adequate idea of the nature and the appearance of the Divine Spirit is an utter impossibility. He that attempts it, and thinks he has succeeded, lives in the region of fancy, and opposes himself to the revelation of God Himself, which expressly declares, "No man has seen God at any time." "Who only has immortality, dwelling in the light which no man can approach unto; whom no man has seen, nor can see." This being then admitted, as it must be by all reflective minds, the question arises, "How am I to view God? what idea am I to form of His existence in approaching Him in prayer?" In reply, two things are necessary in getting proper thoughts of God as the object of prayer. First, that the mind should resign all its attempts to comprehend the mode of the Divine existence, and should concentrate all its powers upon the contemplation of the character of the Divine existence. In what relation God stands to the creature, not in what way He exists in Himself, is the point with which we have to do in approaching Him. Let the mind be wrapped in devout contemplations of His holiness, benevolence, love, truth, wisdom, justice, &c., and there will be no room for vain and fruitless imaginations respecting the fathomless and inconceivable mode of His existence. The second thing necessary is, that the mind should view God in Christ.

APRIL 2.

He that has seen me has seen the Father; and how say you then, Show us the Father? John 14:9.

IF the mind is baffled and perplexed, as it surely will be, in its attempts to unravel the spiritual nature of God, let it seek a resting-place in the "incarnate mystery." This was one part of the gracious design of God in assuming human nature. It was to bring, so to speak, the Infinite in a direct angle with the finite, so that the two lines should not merely run parallel, but that the two extremes of being should meet. It was so to embody His essential and surpassing glories, as would present an object which man could contemplate without fear, worship without distraction, and look upon and not die. The Lord Jesus Christ is "the image of the invisible God," "the brightness of His glory, the express image of His person." "He that has seen me (His own declaration), has seen the Father." Wondrous stoop of the great God! In all approach to God then, in prayer, as in every other kindred exercise, let the eye of faith be fixed upon Him who fills the middle seat upon the throne—the Day's-Man—the Mediator—the incarnate Son of God! How quieting to the mind of a praying soul is this view of God! What a mildness invests the throne of grace, and what an easy access to it presents itself, when the eye of faith can behold "the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ" If the mind be embarrassed in its attempt to conceive an idea of His spiritual nature, it can soothe itself to repose in a believing view of the glorified humanity of Jesus, "God manifest in the flesh." To this resting-place He Himself invites the soul, "I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man comes unto the Father, but by me." And thus, too, He calmed the fears of His exiled servant, who, when the splendor of His glorified humanity broke upon his view, fell prostrate to the earth: "And when I sate Him," says John, "I fell at his feet as dead, and He laid His right hand upon me, saying unto me, Fear not; I am the first and the last: I am He that lives, and was dead; and behold, I am alive for evermore, Amen; and have the keys of hell and of death."

There is no access to God but through Jesus. If there do not be an honoring of Christ in His person, blood, righteousness, intercession, in prayer, we can expect no answer to prayer. The great encouragement to draw near to God is Jesus at the right hand of God. Jesus is the door. Coming through Him, the poorest, the vilest, the most abject, may approach the throne of grace, and ask what He will. The glorious Advocate is on the throne, to present the petition, and urge its acceptance, and plead for its answer on the basis of His own infinite, atoning merits. Come then, you poor; come, you disconsolate; come, you tried and afflicted; come, you wounded; come, you needy; come and welcome to the mercy-seat; for Jesus waits to present your petition and press your suit. Ask nothing in your own name, but ask everything in the name of Jesus; "ask and you shall receive, that your joy may be full." The Father may reject you, but His Son He cannot reject.

APRIL 3.

And that he died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him which died for them, and rose again. 2 Cor. 5:15.

How high the obligation to live to God! Are we born again? Can we think of the "horrible pit, the miry clay,"—the "valley of bones,"—the "rock where we were hewn,"—and then remember that if we are born again, we have in our souls, at this moment, the buddings of eternal life?—oh, can we think of this, and not desire an unreserved surrender of all we are, and all we have, to God? Christian! watch over your principles—your daily walk—your communion with the world, and see that the evidences of the new birth signalize every action of your life. The world is a close observer. Narrowly and vigilantly are you watched. It weighs your actions, scrutinizes your motive, sifts your principles, and ponders all your steps, waiting for your halting. Disappoint it! Live out your religion, carry out your principles; they are designed not merely for the Sabbath, but for the week—not merely to be exhibited in the place and at the hour of prayer and social Christian communion, but they are to be carried into Four haunts of business, into your shop, your countinghouse, your study, your profession; you are to exhibit them, not in a spirit of vain-glory, but in "lowliness of mind," in all your communion with a world lying in wickedness. To be born again! oh, it is a mighty work! Let the evidences of its reality in you be such as shall compel the gain-sayer to admire the work, though He may hate the change. Oh, be in spirit—in temper—in life—like Jesus.

What have you not to praise God for, tried and afflicted reader! Born again! Now light are your afflictions, when compared with this! Take the scales, and weigh the two. Place in one your every sorrow. Is it domestic?—place it there. Is it personal—a nervous frame, a feeble constitution, trying circumstances?—place it there. Are friends unfaithful, are saints unkind, does the world frown?—place it all there. Then in the other cast your hidden life—your sense of pardon—your hope of heaven; these outweigh them all. "For I reckon," says Paul, "that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us."

APRIL 4.

Because you say, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and know not that you are wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked: I counsel you to buy of me gold tried in the fire, that you may be rich; and white clothing, that you may be clothed, and that the shame of your nakedness do not appear; and anoint your eyes with eye salve, that you may see. Rev. 3:17-18

SUCH is the fallen condition of the soul—such its poverty, ignorance, and infirmity, it knows not its real weakness and deep necessity—until taught it by the Holy Spirit. This is even so after conversion. A dear child of God (and it is awfully true, without any qualification, of an unrenewed man) may fall into the state of the Laodicean church; a believer may not know his real condition, his absolute need. There may be a secret declension in his soul—the enfeebling and decay of some spiritual grace—the slow but effectual inroad of some spiritual enemy—the cherishing of some Achan—the feeding of some worm at the root of his holiness, and all the while he may remain ignorant of the solemn fact. And how is he to know it, unless some one teach him? And who is that teacher but the Spirit? As He first convinced of sin, so, in each successive stage of the believer's experience, He convinces of the daily want, the spiritual necessity, the growing infirmity, the increasing power of sin, and the deepening poverty. Overlook not this important part of His work. To go to the throne of grace, we must have something to go for—some errand, to take us there, some sin to confess, some guilt to mourn over, some want to supply, some infirmity to make known, nor would we leave out—some blessing to acknowledge. How is all this to be effected, but by the blessed Spirit? Oh what an unspeakable mercy to have One who knows us altogether, and who can make us acquainted with ourselves!

It is a far advanced step in grace, when we know our real undisguised condition. A man may lose a grace, and may travel far, and not be sensible of his loss. The world has come in, and filled up the space. Some carnal joy or pursuit has occupied the mind, engrossed the affections and the thoughts; and the soul has not been sensible of the loss it has sustained. Thus have many lost the sense of adoption, and pardon, and acceptance—and the graces of faith, of love, of humility, have become enfeebled, until the description of Ephraim may truly and painfully apply to them—"Ephraim he has mixed himself among the people; Ephraim is a cake not turned. Strangers have devoured his strength, and he knows it not; yes, grey hairs are here and there upon him, yet he knows it not." But the blessed Spirit at length discovers to the soul its loss, convinces it of its departure, makes known its real condition, and in this way leads it to the throne of grace. Dear reader, cherish high views of this work of the Spirit. To have One near at hand, yes, in you, as He is, to detect so faithfully and lovingly, as He does, the waning grace, the feeble pulse, the spiritual decay; to awaken sensibility, godly sorrow, and draw out the heart in confession, is to possess one of the most costly blessings. Honor the blessed Spirit, laud Him for His work, extol His faithfulness and love, and treat Him as your tenderest, dearest Friend.

APRIL 5.

If a man say, I love God, and hates his brother, he is liar: for he that loves not his brother whom he has seen, how can he love God whom he has not seen? 1 John 4:20.

HERE is a test of relationship to the family of God which never fails. "We know that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren." From this the weakest believer may extract the greatest consolation. Other evidences, beloved, may be beclouded. Divine knowledge may be deficient, Christian experience may be limited, and the question, "Am I a child of God?" may long have been one of painful doubt; but here is an evidence which cannot deceive. You may doubt your love to God, but your love to His people, as such, proves the existence and the reality of your love to Him. Your attachment to them, because they are holy, is an evidence of your own holiness, which no power can invalidate or set aside. Since the Holy Spirit has constituted it as evidence, and since God admits it as such, we press its comfort, with all the energy which we possess, upon the heart of the doubting, trembling child of God.

You may often have questioned the reality of your love to God, scarcely daring to claim an affection so great as this. Your attachment to Jesus, so inconstant, so wavering, and so cold, may often have raised the anxious fear and the perplexing doubt. But your love to the people of God has been like a sheet-anchor to your soul. This you have not questioned, and you could not doubt. You have loved them because they were the people of God; you have felt an attachment to them because they were the disciples of Christ. What does this prove, but your love to God, your affection to Jesus, and your own participation in the same Divine nature? It were a thing impossible for you to love that which is holy, without a corresponding principle of holiness in yourself. Speaking of the enmity of the ungodly against His people, our Lord employs this language; "If you were of the world, the world would love his own; but because you are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hates you." Now, if there is the opposite feeling to this glowing in your hearts, be sure that, as the hatred of the world to the saints proves that it loves only its own, so your love to the saints places the fact of your union with them beyond all doubt. Try your heart, beloved, by this test. Do you not love the people of God, because they are His people? Is not Christ's image in those who upon which you so delight to gaze, and gazing upon which, often enkindles your soul with love to Christ Himself? Do you not love to cull the choicest flowers of grace in the Lord's garden—growing in what bed they may—as those in whom your soul has the greatest delight—their different tints, their varied beauties and odors, rather increasing, than diminishing, the pleasure which they afford you? Then, let every Christian professor test his religion by this grace. Let him who has been used to retire within his own narrow enclosure ask himself the question, "If I love not my brother whom I have seen, how can I love God whom I have not seen?"

APRIL 6.

And whether one member suffer, all the members suffer with it; or one member be honored, all the members rejoice with it. Now you are the body of Christ, and members in particular. 1 Cor. 12:26, 27.

IN this exercise of Christian sympathy "the members have the same care one for another." The Church of God is a suffering Church. All the members are more or less and variously tried. Many are the burdens of the saints. It would be impossible, we think, to find one whose lip has not touched the cup of sorrow, whose spirit has not felt the pressure of trouble. Some walk in doubt and darkness—some are particularly set up as a mark for Satan—some suffer from a nervous temperament, discoloring every bright and beautiful picture of life—some are the subjects of personal affliction, pining sickness excluding them from all participation in the songs of Zion and the solemn assemblies of the saints—some are bereaved, sorrowing like Rachel for her children, or mourning like the sisters of Bethany for their brother. Some are suffering from narrowed and exhausted resources; and there may do not be a few suffering even from actual want itself. Ah! how many will say, "You have touched upon every sorrow but mine,"—so extensive is the field of Christian sympathy! But what scope for the play of those heaven-born affections exists in the heart of each true believer! "A new commandment give I unto you," says Christ, "that you love one another." And how is this commandment to be obeyed? The apostle answers, "Bear you one another's burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ." Therefore the bearing of one another's burdens is a necessary effect and proper exercise of this holy love. It will delight to recognize the suffering Savior in His suffering members. It will go and lift the pressure from the spirit, chase the sorrow from the heart, dry the tear from the eye, and supply the pressing need. Or if it cannot accomplish this, it will take its place by the side of the sufferer, sharing the sorrow and the want it has no power to comfort or remove. Is this law of Christ—the law of love—thus exhibited in you?

Christian forbearance is another beautiful exhibition of this feeling. The image of God is but imperfectly restored in the renewed soul. The resemblance to Christ, in the most matured believer, is at best but a faint copy. In our communion with the saints of God, we often meet with much that calls for the exercise of our indulgence; many weaknesses of the flesh and of the spirit, and many peculiarities of thought and of manner. There are, too, diversities of gifts and degrees of grace. Some are more deeply taught than others—some are strong and some are weak—some travel rapidly, and others slowly—some are fearless and intrepid, others are timid and scrupulous. Now all these things call for the exercise of Christian forbearance. The apostle clearly defines the rule that should guide us here: "We that are strong ought to bear the infirmities of the weak, and not to please ourselves."

APRIL 7.

I know your works, that you have a name that you live, and are dead. Rev.3:1.

IN a land where the institutions and the ordinances of religion are so strictly and so properly observed—where religious training from infancy, the habit of an early connection with the visible Church, and the consequent observance of the Lord's Supper expected and enjoined, are such marked characteristics—would it be overstepping the bounds of propriety and delicacy, if we press upon the professing reader the importance of close self-examination, and of trial by the word of God, touching the great change, apart from which the most splendid Christian profession will but resemble the purple robes and the fine linen with which Dives moved in grandeur and in state to the torments of the lost. Professors of religion!—Church communicants!—office-bearers!—have you the root of the matter in you? Have you Christ in you? Are you temples of the Holy Spirit? Are you walking humbly with God? Are you born from above? Rest not short of the great change—the heavenly, the divine birth. Place no reliance upon your external relation to the Church of God. Do not be deceived by a false semblance of conversion. You may go far in a Christian profession, and even may live to see the Lord come in the air, and yet have not one drop of "oil in your vessel with your lamp."

Have you sometimes trembled under the powerful exhibition of the truth? so did Felix, and yet he never truly repented! Have you heard the Gospel gladly, and under its momentary influence have done many things? so did Herod, and yet he kept Herodias, and beheaded John! Do you show much apparent zeal for the Lord? so did Jehu, but it was zeal for himself! Are you the associate and the companion of good and holy men? so was Demas, and yet he loved this present evil world. Have you been united to the Church upon a profession of faith and by baptism? so was Simon Magus, and yet he was in the gall of bitterness and in the bond of iniquity. Do you desire to die the death of the righteous? so did Balaam, and yet he died as the fool dies! Oh, look well to your religion. Take nothing for granted. Think less of burnishing your "lamp," than of having a large supply of oil, that when the Lord sends or comes, you may not be found in darkness, not knowing where you go. Without converting grace in your heart, your Church relation is but the union of a dead branch to a living stem; and your partaking of the Lord's Supper, an "eating and drinking of the Lord's body and blood (as symbolically represented therein) unworthily." Receive in love these faithful admonitions, penned by one whose only hope, as the chief of sinners, is in the finished work of Immanuel, and let them take you to prayer—to the Word—to Christ.

APRIL 8.

For our conversation is in heaven; from where also we look for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. Philip. 3:20.

HEAVENLY-MINDEDNESS can only be maintained by the strictest vigilance. It is a delicate and fragile flower, susceptible of every variation of the spiritual atmosphere. Guard against that which checks its growth. Many are not aware how much great exuberance of spirits, light conversation, foolish jesting, witticisms at the expense of Scripture sanctity, novel reading, carnal music, unfit the heart for communion with God, and lessen the tone of its spirituality. Close communion with mere nominal religious professors is particularly to be avoided. Much more injury to spiritual-mindedness accrues from intimate friendship with such, than from those who assert no pretensions to a religious character; as with the one we are apt to be less on our guard than the other. Avoid the world's amusements; they will eat as a canker into the very core of your spirituality. "Do not be conformed to this world," is a prohibition—"Our conversation is in heaven," is an exhortation, which should never be absent from the eye of a traveler to the heavenly city.

And why should not our conversation be in heaven? Are not its attractions many and powerful? It is a holy place, and it is the place of the holy. There is the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem; an innumerable company of angels, and the general assembly and church of the first-born, which are written in heaven; God the Judge of all, the spirits of just men made perfect, and Jesus the Mediator of the new covenant. How rich is heaven! And there we, too, will shortly be. Why, then, should not our conversation be there? It will be recollected that when the high priest entered within the veil, bearing in his hands the blood of atonement and the smoking censer, the eyes of the congregation who stood without followed him to the entrance as the curtain parted, and then veiled him from their gaze. Many a thrilling heart and trembling hope followed him within that holy place, its fervent sympathies clustering around him while he presented the offerings, and made intercession for the people. And many a longing eye intently and fondly watched for his return, when, with uplifted hands, he would bless the waiting congregation. Our great High Priest has passed within the veil. As our Advocate, he fills heaven's high chancery. He loves us—remembers us—sympathizes with us—intercedes for us—and wears our names on His breastplate and His ephod. Soon He will return in person, to bless with the first-resurrection glory all those who "love His appearing." Oh! shall not our hearts be more where our most precious treasure is, where our holiest and dearest hopes center, and where we ourselves shall shortly be? The Lord grant that we may increasingly experience, that "to be spiritually-minded is life and peace;" and in order to attain to this blessed state, we must live upon the Lord Jesus—be filled with the Spirit—be often at God's confessional—and, taking up our cross daily, be pressing onward and upward—"denying all ungodliness and worldly lusts, and living soberly, righteously, and godly in this present world; looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Savior Jesus Christ; who gave Himself for us, that He might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto Himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works."

APRIL 9.

Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God is one Lord and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might. Deut. 6:4, 5.

IN nothing has God acted more worthily of His nature, than in constituting love as the soul and essence of religion, and Himself its supreme object. In doing so, He has as much consulted the happiness of the creature as His own honor; as much our benefit as His glory. Indeed it would seem as if, in enjoining the obligation, in issuing the requirement of our motto, He had a view to our happiness beyond every other end. Apart from the honor which accrues to Him from our obedience to this precept, what advantage can He derive from our affection? Himself the infinite sea of love, full to the eternal satisfaction of His own nature, what good could arise to Him from the tribute of affection poured from every heart? But He would bring us to a more perfect enjoyment of Himself, by bringing us to love Him with a supreme affection. He who loves God, walks with God, dwells with God, is like God. He has not far to travel in order to find God. Let him look within upon his own tranquil conscience, let him wander through the illuminated chambers of his own soul, and there, in finding love, he finds God. If love is not there, neither is God there; for where love is, there is God enthroned upon the heart. "God is love; and he that dwells in love dwells in God, and God in him."

It is, then, the great characteristic of true believers, that they love God. Their love embraces each person in the Godhead. They love the Father—for to Him they are indebted for His unspeakable gift. They love the Son—for to Him they owe their redemption. They love the Spirit—for having renewed them, He dwells in them forever as His temple. Such are all the children of God. Oh the blessedness they feel in loving God in Christ! Oh the happiness that springs from this divine, this heavenly emotion, expanding, purifying, and ennobling the soul! They ascribe its possession to no motive existing in themselves; but, with the apostle, are ever ready to acknowledge, "We love Him, because He first loved us." It is true, their love to God, the Triune God, is at best but an imperfect emotion, mingling with a thousand frailties, an affection unworthy of themselves, still more deeply unworthy of Him, yet they love Him sincerely; He has drawn their hearts, has overcome them by His grace, and they are enabled to say, "Whom have I in heaven but You? and there is none upon earth whom I desire in comparison with You."

The deathlessness of love to God is a beautiful idea of Scripture. Every other grace will cease but that of love. Faith!—that precious grace which has been as the sheet-anchor of our soul in the wildest storms; which, as our compass, has steered us through the deep billows, and brought us in safety to the port; which, amid all the trials, needs, and perils of the way, was so great and so sweet a solace—when we reach the world of glory we shall need it no more, for faith must then give place to sight. Hope!—that pole-star of the soul, which cheered us with its mild luster many a weary step of our desolate journey, gilding the dark pictures of our earthly pilgrimage with its heavenly brightness, and alluring us on to the heaven from where it shone—when we reach the world of glory we shall want it no more, for hope will terminate in full fruition. But Love will live forever! It will tread with us the dark valley, it will cross with us the swelling river, and enter with us into the realms of eternal blessedness—its home, from where it came, and where it again returns. "Whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away." But "Love never fails," it lives forever.

APRIL 10.

And of his fullness have all we received, and grace for grace. John 1:16.

THE word fullness in this passage is sometimes employed to express the idea of abundance. "The earth is the Lord's, and the fullness thereof;" that is, the abundance of the earth is the Lord's. But in this connection it has a meaning still more impressive. It signifies not only the fullness of abundance, but the fullness of redundance. The vessel is not only full to the brim, but it runs over, and rushes on in ten thousand streams to the utmost limit of man's necessities. Such a redundance of grace was required to bring God and the sinner together. The gulf which separated these two extremes of being was just that which separates the bottomless pit in hell from the highest throne in glory. No finite being could annihilate it. All the resources of wisdom, and power, and benevolence of all the angels in heaven could not bridge it. But the redundant grace that is in Christ Jesus has crossed this gulf, and God and man meet and are reconciled in one Mediator. And now from the glorious heights of pardoning grace on which he stands, the sinner can look down upon a hell deserved, but a hell escaped.

Such a redundant fullness of grace was never seen until Jesus appeared. The patriarchs and prophets saw this grace, but not as we are privileged to see it. They realized its sufficiency, but not its redundancy. The truth was revealed to them, but by degrees. The light beamed in upon their minds, but in solitary rays. The grace distilled, rather than flowed. They had the dew, rather than the showers of grace. And yet it was sufficient to meet their case. When Jehovah opened this fountain of grace to two of the greatest sinners the world ever saw, and declared that "the seed of the woman should bruise the serpent's head," dim and partial as was the discovery, it was sufficient to lift them from the dark borders of despair and of hell, into the sunny region of hope and of heaven. Thus the saints of the former dispensation saw this grace, but not so clearly as we see it. They dwelt amid the shadows, we in the full blaze of glory. They lived in the twilight of grace, but we in its meridian day. They had the law, but we have the gospel. They had grace in the hands of Moses, but we have grace in the hands of Jesus. They were the "children of the bondwoman," but we are the "children of the free-woman." They had the "spirit of bondage unto fear," but we have the "spirit of adoption " unto love. And one passage will explain the reason of this great difference: "God, who at sundry times and in diverse manners spoke in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, has in these last days spoken unto us by His Son." Spoken unto us by His Son! Behold the fullness, the redundance, the sufficiency of this grace! "The law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ."

Such, reader, is the fullness of Jesus—this Divine Vessel of grace. And now, if this grace were sufficient for God—sufficient to enable Him to extend mercy to the utmost, to sinners the vilest, and yet remain strictly just—then, I ask, is it not sufficient, my reader, for you? If God, on the basis of this grace, can come forward and extend His hand of reconciliation to you, may you not with the plea of this same grace advance and extend your hand of faith to God? If there is no difficulty or reluctance on the part of God, why should there be on the part of man? And has God ever hesitated? Has He ever refused on the footing of Christ's merits to save the penitent sinner, who, having heard that the King of heaven is a merciful King, has cast himself upon that mercy, like the servants of Benhadad, with sackcloth upon their loins, and ashes upon their head, humbly suing for life? Never! It is the delight of God, as it is His glory, to prove the power and the sufficiency of His grace in Christ Jesus, to save man to the uttermost extent of his guiltiness and woe. How overflowing with saving grace does the heart of God appear in these words: "Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the Lord, and He will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for He will abundantly pardon!" Oh, place your empty vessel beneath this overflowing fountain of grace! and remove it not until, in its measure, it becomes the "fullness of Him who fills all in all."

APRIL 11.

Verily, verily, I say unto you, Whatever you shall ask the Father in my name, he will give it you. John 16:23

THAT God should have erected in this lower world a throne of grace, a mercy-seat, around which may gather, in clustering and welcome multitudes, the helpless, the burdened, the friendless, the vile, the guilty, the deeply necessitous—that no poor comer, be his poverty never so great, his burden never so heavy, or his case never so desperate, should meet with the refusal of a hearing or a welcome, does greatly develop and magnify the riches of His grace, His wisdom, and His love to sinners. What a God our God must be, thus to have appointed a meeting-place, an audience-chamber, for those upon whom all other doors were closed! But more than this,

That He should have appointed Jesus the door of approach to that throne—should have given His only-begotten and well-beloved Son to be the "new and living way" of access, thus removing all obstruction in the path of the soul's coming, both on the part of Himself, and on the part of the sinner; that the door should be a crucified Savior—the wounds of the Son of God—that through blood, and that blood the blood of the incarnate Deity, the guilty should approach—wonder, O heavens, and be astonished, O earth! Shall we say even more than this? For there is a yet lower depth in this love and condescension of God—that He should have sent His Spirit into the heart, the Author of prayer, inditing the petition—breathing in the soul—implanting the desire—convincing of the existing necessity—unfolding the character of God—working faith in the heart—and drawing it up to God through Jesus—seems the very perfection of His wisdom, benevolence, and grace.

It must be acknowledged by the spiritual mind that all true prayer is of the inditing of the Spirit—that He is the Author of all real approach of the soul to God. And yet how perpetually we need to be reminded of this! Prayer is one of the most spiritual employments that can possibly engage the mind. It is that holy act of the soul which brings it immediately in contact with a holy God. It has more directly to do with the "high and lofty One" than any other exercise. It is that state of mind, too, that most deeply acknowledges its dependence on God. Prayer is the expression of want—it is the desire of need, the acknowledgment of poverty—the language of dependence—the breathing of a soul that has nothing in itself, but hangs on God for all it needs. It must therefore be a highly spiritual and holy exercise. But still more so will this appear, if we consider that true prayer is the breathing of the life of God in the soul of man. It is the Spirit dwelling and breathing in him. It is the new nature pouring out its vital principle, and that into the ear of God where it came. It is the cry of the feeble child turning to the Father it loves, and in all its conscious weakness, dependence, and need, pouring out the yearnings of its full heart into the bosom where dwells nothing but love. In a word, it is God and the creature meeting and blending, in one act of blessed, holy, and eternal fellowship.

APRIL 12.

God gives not the Spirit by measure unto him. John 3:34.

WE needed just such a glorious head of His Church as Jesus. Moses could not have done; Aaron could not have sufficed. We wanted a head in whom "dwelt all the fullness of the Godhead bodily." We needed One not only "filled with the Spirit," but possessing it illimitably, even without measure; with sufficient not only for Himself, but for a poor needy people, who as empty vessels should hang upon Him as their true Eliakim. In Him there was no lack of the Spirit's anointing. And oh how much of that Spirit needed He Himself in order to work out the great problem of man's recovery! How could He have accomplished it, considered in His inferior nature as man, but as He was replenished or sustained by the supernatural grace of the Spirit! As the Head of the Church, then, expect from a source so full, so rich, and so ample, all spiritual blessings. With Him is "the residue of the Spirit." He is our true Aaron, whose anointing flows down to His feet in streams of grace, adequate to the deepest necessity of the most feeble and lowly believer. To that fullness repair, nothing doubting of a welcome and a blessing. There was a sufficiency of the Spirit in Christ for Himself, and there is a sufficiency in Him for you. Come, then, and receive "grace for grace,"—grace needed by you, equal to all grace dwelling in Him.

A solemn inference from this subject is—if our blessed and adorable Lord needed the Spirit, how much more do His people! If He needed Him to strengthen, to comfort, to uphold, to teach, to anoint, how much deeper is our necessity of the same exalted blessing! He had no human sinful infirmity; there was no conflict in His soul between the antagonist principles of sin and holiness; and yet as man He was a pensioner each moment upon the sanctifying, teaching, upholding grace of the Spirit, His deity operating by this divine and glorious Agent. But our need of the same Spirit, oh how infinitely greater! We are encompassed with innumerable sinful infirmities; we have a law in our members warring against the law of our mind, and bringing us into captivity to the law of sin which is in our members. We are constantly assailed by Satan, and as constantly liable to yield. Oh with what power, and constant actings of faith, should we throw ourselves upon the Spirit! How ceaselessly should we pray to Him with all supplication, imploring His guiding, teaching, sealing, comforting grace, to help us in every time of need!

APRIL 13.

In whom also after that you believed, you were sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise. Eph. 1:13.

WHAT do we understand by the sealing of the Spirit? What does the word of God teach upon the subject? There are various passages in which the same figure is employed, but which do not convey the idea we ascribe to His present operation. For example, there is a sealing spoken of in 2 Timothy 2:19: "Nevertheless the foundation of God stands sure, having this seal, The Lord knows those who are His." We think it clear that the seal here alluded to has respect to the Father's sealing His people in election with the seal of His foreknowledge, which, of course, is an operation anterior to the existence of faith in the soul, and is within Himself, and not upon them. It is, so to speak, His secret designation of His people, known especially and only to Himself. There is also a sealing spoken of in Sol. Song 8:6: "Set me as a seal upon your heart, as a seal upon your arm: for love is strong as death." Equally clear is it that this cannot refer to the work of the Spirit, but to Christ's strong and unchangeable love to His people. They are set as a seal upon His heart, the dwelling-place of love, and upon His arm, the instrument of power; unchangeable love and omnipotent power being pledged to their eternal security. As a seal set upon His heart, and worn upon His arm, they are precious to, and valued by, Him.

Nor are we to interpret the sealing under consideration to mean the extraordinary gifts of the Spirit; for it is a remarkable fact, which speaks solemnly to those who are forming a higher estimate of gifts than of graces—that the Corinthian Church, the most distinguished for its possession of the gifts of the Spirit, was at the same time most remarkable for its lack of the sanctifying graces of the Spirit. It was the most gifted, but at the same time the least holy, community gathered and planted by the apostles.

The question still recurs—what are we to understand by the sealing of the Spirit? It is that act of the Holy Spirit, by which the work of grace is deepened in the heart of the believer, so that he has an increasing and abiding conviction of his acceptance in Jesus, and his adoption into the family of God. It is a clearer and more undoubted manifestation of Christ to the soul—a larger degree of the sanctifying, witnessing, and anointing influences of the Holy Spirit—evidencing itself in a growing holiness of character. Let us not be misunderstood. We speak not of some peculiar and sudden impulse on the mind—of some immediate suggestion or revelation to the soul—some vision of the night, or voice in the air. No; we speak of a growth in the knowledge of Christ—in sanctification of heart—in holiness of life—in an increasing and abiding moral certainty of the believer's "calling and election." The Holy Spirit is both the seal and the sealer; even as Jesus was both the sacrifice and the priest. He deepens the work of grace in the heart—He witnesses to the believer that he is born of God He seals the soul to the day of redemption, and by His indwelling and anointing influences enables him to say, "I know in whom I have believed. He has loved one, and given Himself for me."

APRIL 14.

Whereof the Holy Spirit also is a witness to us. Hebrews 10:15

THIS is sometimes a sudden work of the Spirit. A soul may be so deeply sealed in conversion—may receive such a vivid impression of Divine grace—such an enlarged communication of the Divine Spirit, as it never afterwards loses. It is sealed "unto the day of redemption;" and that, too, in the most simple way: in the hearing of a single sermon, the reading of a single chapter of God's word, some promise brought with the power of the Holy Spirit and sealed upon the heart; in a moment the soul is brought into the full assurance of understanding and of faith. Take for example that one precious promise which the Spirit has sealed, never to be effaced, upon many a poor sinner's softened heart—"him that comes to me I will in no wise cast out." Oh, what a sealing is this! God speaking to a poor, distressed, and disconsolate soul, assuring it of a cordial welcome and of a free pardon—that though no tongue can express its vileness and poverty, and no imagination conceive its deep sorrow, yet, coming to Jesus just as it is, it shall in no wise be cast out! Is not this an impression of the seal in the hands of the great Sealer, which is unto the day of redemption?

Sometimes it is as the Holy Spirit unfolds to the anxious soul that great truth, that Christ is the Savior of a sinner. You have been long waiting for some reward, some gift, some price with which to come—long lingering on the margin of the fountain, waiting for some preparation to enter—in other words, for it amounts to this, waiting to feel less vile, less unworthy, in order that you may be more welcome. And now the blessed Spirit opens to your mind that great and precious truth, that "Christ died for the ungodly,"—that He is the mighty and the willing Savior of a sinner—that no gift, no price, is asked—no previous fitness or self-preparation is necessary—that the more vile and unworthy, the more fit and the more welcome. Oh, what an impression of the seal is this upon a wounded heart! When the glorious announcement is brought home to the soul—a full and free pardon for a poor sinner—the blood of Jesus cleansing from all sin—is it any marvel that no change of time or circumstance can ever obliterate the impression or the remembrance of that moment from the mind? It was a sealing of pardon upon a heart which God had made soft, and which was the sure prelude to, yes, the beginning of, eternal glory.

But, in most cases, the sealing of the Spirit is a more gradual work. It is a work of time. The soul is placed in the school of deep experience—is led on step by step, stage by stage. The knowledge of self and of Christ increases—deeper views of indwelling sin are discovered—the heart's treachery is more acutely felt—the devices of Satan are better known—the mystery of God's gracious and providential dealings with His children more clearly unfolded and better understood—and all this, it may be, arrived at through a process of deep and painful, yet sanctified, discipline of the covenant—so that years may elapse before a child of the covenant attains to the full sealing of the Spirit. And yet, blessed be God, the work of regeneration is so perfect in itself—the blotting out of all a believer's sins so complete, and his justification so entire—that a saint of God dying in the first stages of the Divine life is safe forever. May we not refer to the thief upon the cross, as an example illustrating and confirming this?

APRIL 15.

A bruised reed shall he not break, and smoking flax shall he not quench, until he send forth judgment unto victory. Matthew 12:20

SURELY, it is a question of all others the most interesting and important, "Am I, or am I not, a true believer in the Lord Jesus Christ?" We do not say that the state of doubt and uncertainty from which this inquiry arises necessarily invalidates the evidence of grace which already exists; nor would we have it inferred, that the question itself indicates a healthy, vigorous tone of mind. But what we affirm is, that where there exists the principle of life, and a growing acquaintance with the plague of the human heart, with a conscience increasingly tender, the question will sometimes arise—"Am I a living soul in Christ?"

In enabling us to meet and satisfy this inquiry, how kind and condescending is God the Holy Spirit! A state of uncertainty as to his personal salvation cannot be regarded by the believer as the most favorable for the cultivation of personal holiness. He, indeed, is the most heavenly-minded, happy, and useful child of God, who, with the lowly confidence of the great apostle, can say, "I know in whom I have believed." But we must admire the love of the Spirit in providing for the necessities of the weakest state of grace. If saints of advanced stature in Christ can but little sympathize with the timidity, the fearfulness, and the weakness of children of more dwarfish proportions, not so the loving, faithful Spirit of God. He is never above His own work. The smallest part is too precious to His heart, to allow of the withdrawment of His eye from it for a single moment. It is not the extent of the territory which He has subjugated to Himself in the soul, that most thrills His heart with delight—this He is sure to perfect—but it is His having at all effected an entrance, and established Himself permanently there. This is the ground of his greatest triumph, the source of His highest joy—that after all the opposition and the difficulty, He should at last have gotten Himself the victory. Is it possible, then, that the tenderest bud of grace, or the faintest glimmering of light in the soul, can be a matter of indifference to Him? Ah no! Would Titian have despised a painting, upon whose outline He had stamped the impress of his genius, because its pencilings were not complete? Would Canova have destroyed his sculpture, almost breathing with life, because its chiselings were unfinished? And will the Holy Spirit, in drawing the moral likeness of God upon the soul, in modeling the mind for heaven, slight this, His master-piece of wisdom and of power, because of its present incompleteness? No! The faintest outline of the Divine image, the roughest shaping of the Divine nature in man, presents to His eye more beauty, and symmetry, and skill, than the finest pencilings of nature, or the most perfect modelings of are. The universe of loveliness and of wonder contains nothing that can compare with it.

APRIL 16.

For innumerable evils have compassed me about: mine iniquities have taken hold upon me, so that I am not able to look up; they are more than the hairs of mine head: therefore my heart fails me. Psalm 40:12

IN the more advanced stages of the Christian life, we find much into the experience of which the believer is brought, tending to cast down the people of God. Without minutely describing the many causes of soul-disquietude which exist, we may group together in one view those, the most fruitful, which conspire to this abasement of the spirit. We may mention, as among the most powerful, the clinging body of sin, to which his renewed spirit is enchained, from which it sighs to be delivered, but from which death only frees it; consequently, there is the daily battle with a heart of unbelief, incessantly departing from God. Then there are the labyrinths of the desert, the straitness of the narrow way, the fears within, and the fightings without, the trials of faith, the chastisements of love, the offence of the cross, the intricacies of truth, the woundings of the world, the unkindnesses of the saints, and the varied difficulties and afflictions of the wilderness—all these create oftentimes great disquietude and despondency of soul. When to these are added the yet more painful and humbling remembrance of his sins since conversion, his stumblings and falls, his unkind requitals of God's love, the base returns which he has made, and the deep ingratitude which he has felt for all the Divine goodness, with the consequent hidings of God's face, and the withdrawments of Christ's presence, he exclaims in the bitterness of his spirit, "My soul is cast down within me;" "my heart fails me."

Ah! there is no humiliation like that which a sight and sense of sin produces, the heart laid open and the soul laid low before God. The world's bitter scorn, the creature's cold neglect, are nothing in comparison. In the one case, the heart is only mortified; in the other, it is truly humbled. The one is a feeling that has to do with man only—the other is an emotion that has to do with God. And when once the believer is solemnly conscious of acting beneath the eye of God, the gaze of other eyes affects him but slightly. Oh how little do some professors deport themselves as though they had to do only with God! How imperfectly do they look upon sin as God looks upon it! But did they live more as setting the Lord always before them, how superior would they rise to the poor opinion of their fellow-sinners! To them it would then appear a very little matter to be judged of man's judgment.

APRIL 17.

God, that comforts those that are cast down. 2 Cor. 7:6

IF there is much to cast down the child of God, there is more to lift him up. If in his path to glory there are many causes of soul-despondency, of heart-sorrow, and mental disquietude, yet in that single truth—God comforts the disconsolate—he has an infinite counterbalance of consolation, joy, and hope. That "God comforts those that are cast down," His own truth declares. It is in His heart to comfort them, and it is in His power to comfort them. He blends the desire, deep and yearning, with the ability, infinite and boundless. Not so with the fondest, tenderest creature. The sorrow is often too deep and too sacred for human sympathy to reach. But what is fathomless to man is a shallow to God.

I have said, that it is in the heart of God to comfort His people. Everything that He has done to promote their comfort proves it. He has commanded His ministers to "speak comfortably" to them. He has sent forth His word to comfort them. He has laid up all comfort and consolation for them, in the Son of His love. And in addition to all this, He has given them His own Spirit, to lead them to the Divine sources of "all consolation" which He has provided. Who could comfort the disconsolate but God? Who could effectually undertake their case but Himself? He only knows their sorrow, and He only could meet it. There is not a moment in which God is not bent upon the comfort of "those that are cast clown." All His dealings with them tend to this—even those that appear adverse and contrary. Does He wound?—it is to heal. Does He cause deep sorrow?—it is to turn that sorrow into a deeper joy. Does He empty?—it is to fill. Does He cast down?—it is to lift up again. Such is the love that moves Him, such is the wisdom that guides Him, and such too is the end that is secured in the Lord's disciplinary conduct with His people. Dear reader, it is in God's loving heart to speak comfortably to your sorrowful heart. Let but the Holy Spirit enable you to receive this truth in simple faith, and your grief, be its cause and its degree what they may, is more than half assuaged. Not a word may yet be spoken by the "God of all comfort," not a cloud may be dispersed, nor a difficulty be removed; yet to be assured by the Divine Comforter that the heart of God yearns over you, and that consolation is sparkling up from its infinite depths, waiting only the command to pour its tide of joyousness into your sorrow-stricken bosom, and it is enough. Yes, I repeat it—for every reiteration of so precious a truth must still be but a faint expression of its magnitude—it is in the loving heart of God to lift up your disconsolate soul from the dust. Listen to His words—there is melody in them such as David's harp spoke not when its soft and mellow strains soothed the perturbed spirit of Saul—"I, even I, am He that comforts you." Mark with what earnestness He makes this declaration. How solicitous does he appear to impress this truth upon the heart—that to comfort His own tried saints is His sole prerogative, and His infinite delight. "I, even I, am He that comforts you."

APRIL 18.

For our gospel came not unto you in word only, but also in power, and in the Holy Spirit, and in much assurance; . . . And you became followers of us, and of the Lord, having received the word in much affliction, with joy of the Holy Spirit. 1 Thes. 1:5, 6

THUS does the Spirit of God empty the soul, preparing it for the reception of the grace of Christ. He 'sweeps and garnishes' the house. He dislodges the unlawful inhabitant, dethrones the rival sovereign, and thus secures room for the Savior. He disarms the will of its rebellion against God, the mind of its ignorance, and the heart of its hatred. He prostrates the barrier, removes the veil, and unlocks the door, at which the Redeemer triumphantly enters. In effecting this mighty work, He acts as the Divine Forerunner of Christ. What the Baptist was to our Lord, "crying in the wilderness, Prepare you the way of the Lord," the Holy Spirit is, in heralding the entrance of Jesus to the soul. He goes before, and prepares His way. The Divinity of the Spirit furnishes Him with all the requisites for the work. He meets with difficulty, and He removes it—with obstruction, and He overcomes it—with opposition, and He vanquishes it. His power is omnipotent, His influence is irresistible, His grace is efficacious. There is no soul, however filled with darkness, and enmity, and rebellion, which He cannot prepare for Christ. There is no heart of stone which He cannot break, no brazen wall which He cannot prostrate, no mountain which He cannot level. Oh, for more faith in the power of the Holy Spirit in the soul of man! How much do we limit, and in limiting how do we dishonor, Him in His work of converting grace!

The providential dealings of God are frequently instrumental in the hand of the Holy Spirit of accomplishing this emptying process, thus preparing the soul for the reception of Christ. The prophet thus strikingly alludes to it: "Moab has been at ease from his youth, and He has settled on his lees, and has not been emptied from vessel to vessel." It was in this way God dealt with Naomi. Listen to her touching words: "I went out full, and the Lord has brought me home again empty." Thus it is that the bed of sickness, or the chamber of death, the loss of creature good, perhaps the loveliest and the dearest, has prepared the heart for Christ. The time of bereavement and of solitude, of suffering and of loss, has been the Lord's time of love. Providence is the hand-maid of grace—and God's providential dealings with man are frequently the harbingers of the kingdom of grace in the soul. Ah! how many whose glance falls upon this page may testify "Even thus has the Lord dealt with me. I was rich, and He has impoverished me. I was exalted, and He has laid me low. Not one cup only did He drain, not one vessel only did He dash to the earth, but many. He has emptied me 'from vessel to vessel.' " Happy shall you be if the result of all this emptying and humbling shall be the filling and enriching of your soul with larger communications of grace and truth from Jesus. A cloud of witnesses around you testify to this invariable principle of the Lord's procedure with His people—that He enriches by impoverishing them; strengthens by weakening them; replenishes by emptying; and exalts by laying them low.

APRIL 19.

And I looked, and, lo, a Lamb stood on the mount Zion, and with him an hundred forty and four thousand, having his Father's name written in their foreheads. Rev. 14:1

DO NOT FORGET, O believer, that you are journeying to the mount of God, and will soon be there. Behold it in the distance! What wonders encircle it! What glory bathes it! The exile of Patmos, lifting a corner of the veil, has presented it to our view in the words of our motto. Oh what a spectacle of magnificence is this! There is Jesus the Lamb as it had been slain. To Hin every face is turned, on Him every eye is fixed, before Him every knee bends, and every tongue chants His praise, "Worthy is the Lamb that was slain." Around Him are gathering each moment the One Church of God, redeemed from among men. In the light and splendor of the scene all distinctions are absorbed, all minds assimilate, all hearts blend, all voices harmonize, and the grand, visible manifestation of the Unity of the Church is perfected.

To this consummation you are hastening—keep it full in view. Turn not aside, yielding to the enchanting scenes through which you pass; but forgetting the things that are behind, press forward to the mark of the prize of your high calling of God in Christ Jesus. To Mount Zion you will certainly arrive at last. Your feet shall stand upon its summit. Your voice shall blend with its music. Your heart shall thrill with its gladness. Your soul shall bathe in its glory. Oh! kindles not your spirit with ardor, and is not your heart winged with love, while the mount of God unveils its splendor to your view? Speak, Elijah! for you have reached that exaltation, and tell us what it is to be there! No, you cannot tell. You have heard its deep songs of joy—but their strains are unutterable. You have seen its ineffable glory—but that glory is unspeakable. Let but your mantle fall upon us, and a double portion of your spirit be ours, and at our departure let your chariot of fire convey us to the skies, and we will be content to wait and gaze for awhile upon the distant vision—like some early traveler pausing upon the mountain's side to admire the ascending sun, until his features and his vestments borrow the crimson glow—until, "changed into the same image from glory to glory, as by the Spirit of the Lord," we reach it at last, and delight ourselves forever amid its transcendent beams—ceasing from our conflict, and reposing from our toil, in the beatific presence of God!

APRIL 20.

When the even was come, they brought unto him many that were possessed with devils: and he cast out the spirits with his word, and healed all that were sick: that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Elijah the prophet, saying, Himself took our infirmities, and bare our sicknesses. Matthew 8:16, 17

IN one respect only may it be said, that our Divine and adorable Lord would seem to have been exempted from the physical infirmities peculiar to the nature which He so voluntarily and entirely assumed—it does not appear that He was ever, in His own person, the subject of sickness or disease. It is indeed declared by His inspired biographer, thus confirming at the same time a prediction of one of the prophets, "Himself took our infirmities, and bare our sicknesses;" but this He did in the same manner in which He bore our moral sicknesses, without any personal participation. He bore our sins, but He was Himself sinless. He carried our sicknesses, but He Himself was a stranger to disease. And His exemption from the one will explain His exemption from the other. His humanity knew no sin; it was that "holy thing" begotten by the Holy Spirit, and as stainless as God Himself. As sin introduced into our nature every kind of physical evil, and disease among the rest, our Lord's freedom from the cause necessarily left Him free from the effect. He was never sick, because He never sinned. No, He had never died, had He not consented to die. With a nature prepared and conceived totally without moral taint, there were no seeds of decay from which death could reap its harvest. Under no sentence of dissolution, death had no power to claim Him as its victim. As pure as our first parents before the fall, like them in their original state of holiness, He was naturally deathless and immortal. Had He not, by an act of the most stupendous grace, taken upon Him the curse and sin of His Church, thereby making Himself responsible to Divine justice for the utmost payment of her debt, the "bitterness of death" had never touched His lips. But even then His death was voluntary. His relinquishment of life was His own act and deed. The Jew who hunted Him to the cross, and the Roman by whose hands He died, were but the actors in the awful tragedy. The "king of terrors" wrenched not His spirit from Him. Death waited the permission of Essential Life before he winged the fatal dart. "Jesus yielded up the spirit," literally, made a surrender, or let go His spirit. Thus violent though it was, and responsible for the crime as were its agents, the death of Jesus was yet voluntary. "I lay down lay life," are His expressive words.

The control and power of Christ over bodily disease form one of the most instructive and tender pages of His history when upon earth. We can but briefly refer the reader to a few of the different traits of the Divine Physician's grace, as illustrated by the various cures which He effected. His promptness in healing the nobleman's son, John 4:43—54. His unsolicited cure of the sick man at the pool of Bethesda, and the man with a withered hand, John 5:1—9; Mark 3:1—6. The humility and delicacy with which He heals the centurion's servant, Matt. 8:5—13. The tenderness with which He restored the widow's son, Luke 7:11—17. The simplicity with which He recovered the man born blind, John 9:1—7. The gentle touch with which He cured the man, sick of the dropsy, Luke 14:1—6. The natural and spiritual healing of the paralytic, Luke 5:17—28. The resistless compassion with which He cured the daughter of the Syrophenician woman, Mark 8:24—3O. The wisdom and the authority with which He healed the lunatic child, Luke 9:37—43. The power with which He ejected the demons from the man, permitting their entrance into the swine, Matthew 8:28—34. Truly the name of our Divine Physician is "Wonderful!" All this skill and power and feeling He still possesses; and in their exercise, in His present dealings with His suffering saints, is He glorified.

APRIL 21.

And Jesus answering said unto them, Those who are whole need not a physician; but those who are sick. Luke 5:31

THAT Physician is He who spoke these words. The power of the Son of God over the moral and physical diseases of men, prove Him to be just the Physician which our circumstances require. Want we skill? He possesses it. Sympathy? He has it. Patience, tenderness, perseverance? all belong to Jesus. Wonderful Physician! No disease can baffle You, for You are Divine. No suffering can fail to move You, for You are human. Are your deep anxieties awakened, my reader, on behalf of some loved object, now pining in sickness, perhaps, to all appearance, in circumstances of extreme danger? In simple faith call in the aid of this Physician. Let the prayer of Moses for Miriam be yours, presented with the faith and urged with the importunity of the Syrophenician mother, "Heal her now, O Lord, I beseech You." "I will come and heal her," will be His reply. Deem not the case beyond His skill. Thus reasoned the sister of Lazarus: "Lord, if You had been here, my brother had not died. But I know that even now, whatever You will ask of God, God will give it You." Go in prayer and faith, and lay your sick one at His feet. Jesus is with you. One word from Him, and the disease shall vanish; one touch of His hand, and health shall be restored. He who raised Lazarus from the grave, can bring back from its brink the dear one around whose fast-waning life the veins of your heart are entwined. Ask believingly, ask submissively, ask importunately, and then leave the result with Him.

When human power has come to its end—when skill and affection can do no more—when man retires, and hope is extinguished, and the loved one is despairingly abandoned to death—then to see the Lord step forward and take the case in His hands, arresting the disease, rebuking the distemper, bringing back the glow of health to the cheek, vigor to the frame, elasticity to the limb, and brilliance to the eye, raising as from the very grave itself—oh how glorious does He appear in that chamber of sickness! Who bowed down His ear to the whisper that faintly cried for help and support? Who heard the fervent agonizing prayer that that precious life might be spared, which in another room broke from the lips of some anxious, holy wrestler—a parent, a brother, a sister, a friend, it may be? It was the Son of God! and oh how is He glorified in the recovery!

Or, if that sickness terminates in death's slumber, is He less glorified? Ask the spirit just emerged from its shattered tenement, and soaring away to its home on high—ask it as it enters the portals of heaven, the blaze of eternal glory bursting upon its view—ask it as it finds itself before the throne of God, once an earthly, polluted creature, now whiter and brighter than an unfallen angel—ask it as it rests in the bosom of its redeeming Savior, blissfully conscious of its final and eternal safety, and reposing in expectation of its complete glorification, when its reunion with the spiritual body shall take place on the morning of the first resurrection—ask, and it will testify how great was the glory brought to the Son of God, by the termination of a sickness which, while it left kindred and friends weeping around the death-bed below, demonstrated His life, and power, and love, "who has abolished death, and has brought life and immortality to light through the gospel."

APRIL 22.

All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: that the man of God may be perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works. 2 Tim. 3:16, 17

IT has seemed good to the Holy Spirit, the Divine Author of the Bible, to embody and exhibit some of the most important spiritual and magnificent truths of His word in the form of type, symbol, and similitude. Neither His wisdom nor His love, in thus throwing a veil of apparent obscurity around revelations so momentous, can be questioned. It cannot be reasonably denied that God, who saw proper to unveil His own mind, and in a way of extraordinary relation communicate His will to man, could as easily, if so it pleased Him, not only have accompanied that revelation with the self-evident assurance that He, and no other, was the speaker; but that also He could have cleared away whatever was mysterious and obscure from each truth, causing it to stand forth, palpable and demonstrative, bathed in the splendor of its own Divine effulgence. But with a view, doubtless, of simplifying the meaning, of heightening the grandeur, and of deepening the solemnity of truth in the estimation of the human mind, this peculiar mode of conveying it is, in part, adopted.

Nor for these reasons alone. The spirit of earnest and persevering research is the spirit which a proper and successful study of the Bible demands. It is not everywhere upon the surface of God's word, that the most important instruction is found; though even there truths the most spiritual and precious are sometimes scattered, like brilliant constellations pendant from the firmament, and visible to the naked eye, or as gems detached from the ocean's cave are sometimes thrown upon the shore, and gathered up by the passing traveler. But in most cases the truth of God lies deep and invisible. A superficial and careless research will not conduct the investigator to its richest revelations. The mine must be excavated, the firmament must be explored, the ocean must be fathomed—in other words, the Scriptures must be searched with much prayer for the Spirit's teaching, and with "patient continuance," or their greatest beauties and their costliest treasures will remain concealed. "All Scripture is given by inspiration of God," and there is no type, nor symbol, nor parable, nor story, nor song, which enfolds not some profound truth, and which conveys not some deep practical lesson of wisdom, some rich word of comfort, or some precious unfolding of Jesus, the "price of which is above rubies."

APRIL 23.

For the Lord will not forsake his people for his great name's sake: because it has pleased the Lord to make you his people. I Samuel 12:22

GOD rests in the immutability of His love. It is a love that knows no change in its character, and no variation in its degree. There never has been a period in which the love of God in Christ towards His people has been more or less than it is at this moment. It must have been great before conversion, because then it was that He gave His only begotten Son, that they might live through Him. Then, too, it was He sent His own Spirit to regenerate their minds, and to make them new creatures in Christ Jesus. If He thus loved them before conversion, when they were yet sinners, do you think, dear reader, that His love can be less since conversion! Impossible! God rests in the unchangeableness of His love towards His saints. Nothing can move Him from it. When He set His heart upon His people, He foresaw and foreknew all that was in them. He knew when they would revolt, when they would start aside like a broken bow, when they would startle and fall. He knew all their waywardness, folly, and ingratitude. "I knew that you would deal very treacherously," says God. And yet He loved them. Acquainted with their sin, does He not chasten it? and in chastening, does He withdraw His love from them? Listen to His own words—"If his children forsake my law, and walk not in my judgments; if they break my statutes, and keep not my commandments; then will I visit their transgressions with the rod, and their iniquities with stripes. Nevertheless my loving-kindness will I not utterly take from him, nor suffer my faithfulness to fail." What language can more strongly set forth the Lord's determination to correct the departures of His people, while yet resting in the unchangeableness of His love towards them?

If God thus rests in His love towards us, how jealous ought we to be of the fervor and fidelity of our love to Him! Ah! how inconstant, wavering, and restless have been our affections! How little have we rested in our love to Christ! Other objects have attracted us away from it; we have been as changeable as the wind, and as unstable as the sea. But let us watch over this holy affection, apart from which God takes no pleasure in our sacrifices or services. Let it be our aim to yield up whatever rivals Christ. He sacrificed all for the love He bore us; let us sacrifice all that He requires for the love we bear Him. Jesus is worthy—oh how worthy!—of our deepest, strongest, most self-consuming affection. And God, who gave us His Son, asks nothing in return but that we give Him our hearts. Let His love, then, constrain us to a more unreserved obedience, to a holier walk, to a more ardent, inseparable attachment to Him, to His people, and to His cause. Let us, in this day of easy and abounding profession—this day of papal encroachment and of popish imitation—this day of exaltation of human authority above the word of God—this day of error, of rebuke, and of blasphemy—this day of rapid and of excited action—this last solemn dispensation of the world, the events of which are rapidly ushering in the coming of the Son of man—let us, under the influence of more simple faith, more fervent love, and brightening hope, "go forth unto Jesus without the camp, bearing His reproach," resting amid our conflict and our toil, where the Father rests—where the sinner rests—where we may rest—in Jesus.

APRIL 24.

Jesus said unto them, If God were your Father, you would love me: for I proceeded forth and came from God; neither came I of myself, but he sent me. John 8:42

THIS is the key to the infinite grace of God. "I am in the Father," said Christ, "and the Father in me." Glorious announcement! Collecting together all the riches of His grace, the Father places them at the disposal of His Son, and bids Him spread them out before the eyes of a fallen world. True to His covenant engagement, the Eternal Son appears, "made like unto His brethren," and announces that He has come to lift the veil, and show to us the heart of a gracious, sin-pardoning God. In declaring that the "Father Himself loves us," and that "he that had seen Him," so full of grace, "had seen the Father," He affirms, but in other words, that He is a copy, a representation of the Father. That the love, the grace, the truth, the holiness, the power, the compassion, the tenderness, that were exhibited by Him in such a fullness of supply, and were distributed by Him in such an affluence of expenditure, had their origin and their counterpart in God. Oh how jealous was He of the Divine honor! He might, had He willed it, have sought and secured His own distinction and advancement, His own interest and glory, apart from His Father's. He could, had He chosen it, have erected His kingdom as a rival sovereignty, presenting Himself as the sole object of allegiance and affection, thus attracting to His government and His person the obedience and the homage of the world. But no! He had no separate interest from His Father. The heart of God throbbed in the bosom of Jesus—the perfections of God were embodied in the person of Jesus—the purpose of God was accomplished in the mission of Jesus—the will of God was done, and the honor of God was secured, in the life and death of Jesus. "I seek not mine own will, but the will of Him that sent me," was a declaration emblazoned upon His every act.

Anxious that the worship which they offered to His deity, the attachment which they felt for his person, the admiration which they cherished for the beauty of His character and the splendor of His works, should not center solely in Himself, He perpetually pointed His disciples upward to the Eternal Father. It would seem, that such was His knowledge of His Father's grace to sinners, such His acquaintance with His heart of love, that He could find no satisfaction in the affection, the admiration, and the homage yielded to Himself, but as that affection, admiration, and homage were shared equally by His Father. With Him it was an ever-present thought—and how could He forget it?—that the Father's grace filled to overflowing this glorious vessel. He had just left the bosom of the Father, and this was well near the first announcement which broke in music from His lips, "God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life." And as He pursued His way through the awe-struck and admiring throng, He might often be heard to exclaim, in a voice that rose in solemn majesty above their loudest plaudits, "I seek not mine own glory; I honor my Father."

APRIL 25.

Grace be with you, mercy, and peace, from God the Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of the Father, in truth and love. 2 John 3

THE spiritual mind will at once perceive, that our object in the preceding reflections has been to place the character of God, as the "Lord God, merciful and gracious," in its own proper light. It is possible that this truth may appear to the reader, as a newly-discovered planet in the firmament of revelation. It may be to him a new truth, presenting to his eye a fresh and a more kindly view of the paternal and gracious character of God. God, the original source of grace to sinners, has, perhaps, hitherto been but a timidly received doctrine, if received at all. In the first thirstings of your newly-quickened soul, you sought and found the gentle rivulet of grace issuing from some sequestered and shaded spot in your lone path, and you "tasted that the Lord was gracious." Grateful for its refreshing, but panting for larger draughts, you coursed the rivulet to the stream, and drank yet deeper of its fullness. Not satisfied with this, but longing to explore the glorious mystery of the supply, you traced the streamlet to the "broad river," transported with joy to find that "all fullness dwelt in Jesus," and into it you plunged. But here you have rested. Enamored of the beauty, and lost in wondering delight at the "breadth, and length, and depth, and height" of this river, you have reclined upon its green and sunny bank, forgetting that this river was but the introduction to an ocean, and that that ocean was nothing less than the heart of the Father, infinitely and eternally full of grace. Ah! little did you think, as you sipped from the rivulet, and drank from the stream, and bathed in the river of grace, that there was a depth still deeper, which, like Ezekiel's vision of the holy waters, was so deep that it "could not be passed over."

"What!" exclaims some tried believer, "is the heart of Jesus a transcript of the heart of God? Is the Father as full of forgiveness, of love, of mercy, of compassion, of tenderness, as the Son? How different from all that I had conceived Him to be! I thought of God, and was troubled. His terrors made me afraid. His dealings with me have been severe. His way has been in the whirlwind and in the storm, and his 'path in the great waters.' His judgments have been 'a great deep.' He has set a hedge about me, that I cannot pass. He has spoken to me out of the thick cloud. He answered me by fire. He has spoiled my pleasant pictures, and dashed my cup with bitter. What! is this God all that you represent Him to be? Is He so full of grace and truth? Is He my God, my loving, reconciled Father?" Yes, even so! "It pleased the Father that in Him should all fullness dwell."

Who can contemplate the work of Jesus, and not be convinced of the costliness and preciousness of this grace? How precious is the grace that pardons, that justifies, that adopts, that sanctifies, that comforts, the vilest who believe in Jesus! And yet all this Jesus does. He died for sinners. He receives sinners. He saves sinners to the uttermost. Oh, precious grace! that has opened a fountain which cleanses every stain; that has provided a robe which covers every spot; that "reigns through righteousness unto eternal life" in the soul it has renewed! Reader, have you felt the power, and tasted the sweetness, of this grace? If so, you will feel that no imagination can conceive its beauty, and that no words can express its preciousness. You will regard it as worthy of your warmest love and your highest praise. You will aim to live upon it constantly, to draw from it largely, and to magnify it holily. Nothing this side of glory will be so lovely in your eyes, or so dear to your heart, as the grace of Jesus. Ah yes! inestimably precious is it! There is more of God and of heaven, more of holiness and of happiness, unfolded and experienced in one drop of this grace, than in ten thousand worlds like this. Let others toil for wealth, or pant for glory, or plume themselves with gifts; Lord, give me your grace; this is all my salvation, and all my desire!

APRIL 26.

And they shall look upon me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for him, as one mourns for his only son, and shall be in bitterness for him, as one that is in bitterness for his firstborn. Zech. 12:10

His this humiliation for your state reached your heart? Has this contrition for sin touched your spirit? Are you acquainted with that godly sorrow which is unto life, that repentance which needs not to be repented of? Do not think indifferently of this conviction. It is the first link in the chain of your salvation. It is the first step in your journey to the cross. No man will arise and go to Jesus, until convinced that he stands in need of Jesus. A Savior weeping, as it were, tears of blood, will only be looked upon by a sinner weeping tears of godly sorrow. A broken-hearted Savior, and a broken-hearted sinner, dwell together in the sweetest harmony. Thousands pass by the cross of Jesus, and never raise a glance towards it. And why? The problem is easy of solution. They have never experienced a heart pierced and sorrowing for sin. The veil that is upon their mind hides the cross of Christ from their view. The look of forgiveness beaming from the eye of that Divine Sufferer never meets their imploring look of sorrow and of faith. They have felt no burden of sin to lay upon Jesus—no sense of guilt to lay upon Jesus—no 'fears,' no 'changes,' no 'bands,' to lay upon Jesus—and so they pass Him blindly, coldly by. Oh awful condition! To be borne down with a load, which Jesus only can unbind; to be enchained by sins, which Jesus only can break; to be suffering from a distemper, which Jesus only can heal; to be dying a death, from which Jesus only can deliver; to be going down to a hell, whose door Jesus only can shut—and yet to remain insensible and indifferent, is appalling indeed.

Reader, if this is your state, of what are you thinking, of what are you dreaming? Of what opiate have you drunk, that you are so unconscious? By what spell are you bound, that you are so infatuated? With what delusions are you ensnared, that you are so insane? Do you imagine that your condition will always continue as it now is? Will not the fumes of that anodyne evaporate, and the world's spell be dissolved? Will not the mental hallucination vanish, and this corpse-like coldness and this grave-like darkness to all the great and momentous realities of eternity, give place to other and appalling emotions? Doubtless they will! There is fast approaching a period that will change the entire scenery of your future existence, and the relations of your present being. A sick and dying bed will impart another aspect to everything around you, and will place your character as a responsible, an accountable, and an immortal being, in a new and an awful light. Do you now anxiously inquire, "What then must I do?" The word of God supplies the answer, "Repent and be converted." Relinquish your hostility to God! Humble yourself under His mighty hand. Lay down the weapons of your rebellion before the cross. You must repent, or you cannot be converted. You must be converted, or you cannot be saved. The whole case resolves itself into this—repent or perish!

APRIL 27.

Lord, I believe; help you mine unbelief. Mark 9:24

IT must be the mournful acknowledgment of every spiritual mind, that, after all the clear revealings of truth, and the deep teachings of the Holy Spirit, our views of what God is in Himself, of what He is to His people, and, we may add, of what His people are to Him, fall so far below what they ought to be. May not this disproportion of our conception of their magnitude and preciousness be traced, in a great measure, to the deficiency of our faith in the plain matter-of-fact statements of God's word? We stumble at the very simplicity of the truth. Take, for illustration, that single declaration—"God so loved the world, that He gave His only-begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life." The most unhesitating, simple belief of this, shall we say, matter-of-fact, yet astounding announcement—faith just receiving it without any qualification or demur, exactly as it is found in the Bible—will teach us more in one hour of what God in Christ is to a poor penitential believer, than a century of human teaching. The truth is, we do but half believe the word of God. We doubt, we hesitate, we reason, we cavil, we add to it, and we take from it—we receive just so much as we can understand, and reject just so much as is not palatable or clear; and the sad consequence is, God reproves our unbelief, by leaving us for a season to its painful effects.

But although we believe not, yet He remains true to every jot and tittle of His revealed truth. The imperfect credence which we give to its statements cannot invalidate His promise, nor alter the word that has gone out of His mouth. In the midst of all our slowness of heart to believe, and insensibility of heart to love, "He abides faithful." There, more immovable than the rock of the ocean, more impregnable than the battlements of heaven, firmer than the pillars of the universe, our God, our own covenant God, abides; for "He will rest in His love."

The believer in Christ should of necessity be a happy man. Though like the Master whom he loves—and loving he serves—his path in some places may be paved with flint, or fenced with briar, yet amid it all, fed from the fullness of Christ, and living upon the supply of the covenant, yes, upon the God of the covenant, he is, and he must be, a truly happy man. Beloved reader, we live below, far below, our spiritual privileges. We claim not all the blessings of our birth-right, which, in this present time-state, are ours to enjoy. And if we rise not to the experience of what God has provided and promised for us now, what marvel that we so faintly imagine, and yet more faintly realize, the glories prepared for us hereafter?

APRIL 28.

O God, you know my foolishness; and my sins are not hid from you. Draw near unto my soul, and redeem it: deliver me because of mine enemies. You have known my reproach, and my shame, and my dishonor: mine adversaries are all before you. Psalm 69:5, 18, 19.

SATAN, we know, is the great accuser of the saints. And yet how insensible are we of the great power which he still exerts over the people rescued forever from his grasp. It was Satan who stood up to persuade David to number Israel; it was Satan who would have prompted God to slay Job; and it was Satan who stood at the right hand of Joshua, to condemn his soul. Thus is He ever ready to assert his charge against the people of God. Not less malignant is the world. Infidel in its principles, God-hating in its spirit, and Christ-rejecting in its whole conduct, it is no marvel that it should be the antagonist and the accuser of the saints. Sitting in judgment upon actions, the nature of which it cannot understand—interpreting motives, the character of which it cannot decide—ingeniously contriving and zealously propagating reports of evil—ever ready to defame and to detract—all who live godly in Christ Jesus must expect no mercy at its hand. Nor Satan and the world only. How often, as the history of holy Job testifies, have the saints been found the accusers of the saints (and with the deepest humiliation be it written), with an uncharitableness and censoriousness which might have kindled the world's cheek with the blush of shame. Thus does the Church herself testify, "My mother's children were angry with me." "The watchmen that went about the city found me; then smote me, they wounded me: the keepers of the wall took away my veil from me." And from whom did our blessed Lord receive His deepest wounds? Were they not from those who ranked among His friends and followers.

But what so keen and so bitter as self-reproach? Accusations proceeding from others are often most unfounded and unjust. We have felt at the time the secret and pleasing consciousness that we "suffer wrongfully." The shaft flies, but the arrow falls not more pointless and powerless than it. But far different is the accusation which the true believer brings against himself. Seeing sin where others see it not—conscious of its existence and its perpetual working, where the saints applaud, and even the world admires—he lays his hand upon his heart, his mouth in the dust, and exclaims, "I am vile! I abhor myself!" Ah! no reproaches are like those which an honest, sincere child of God charges upon himself. No accusation so true, no reproof so keen, no reproaches so bitter. Happy are they who deal much in self-condemnation. If we judged ourselves more, we should judge others less; and if we condemned ourselves more, we should be less condemned.

But what a privilege in all times of accusation, come from what quarter it may, to be alone with Jesus! With Him, when we know the charge to be untrue, to appeal to Him as an all-seeing, heart-searching, and righteous Judge, and say, "Lord, You know my principles, my spirit, my motives, my aim, and that with honesty, purity, and singleness, I have sought to walk before You." Oh it is a solace, the preciousness of which the throbbing heart may feel, but the most eloquent pen cannot describe. And when the accusation is just, and the believer feels, "Vile as I am in the eyes of others, yet more vile am I in my own eyes;" yet even then to be left alone with Jesus, self-reproved, self-condemned, is to be thrown upon the compassion of Him, "very great are whose mercies." Alone with Him, not a reproving glance darts from His eye, nor an upbraiding word falls from His lips. All is mercy, all is tenderness, all is love. There before Him the self-condemned may stand and confess; at His feet the penitent may fall and weep, and find, alone with Jesus, His arm a shield, and His bosom an asylum, within which his bleeding, panting heart may find safety and repose.

APRIL 29.

In the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried, saying, If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink. John 8:37

LOOK at the false teaching of the day. What are the heretical doctrines which are now defended with such ability, and propagated with such zeal, but so many cisterns of error hewn out by man as substitutes for the fountain of revealed truth? Doctrines that sink Revelation and exalt tradition, and so deny the word of God; that ascribe regenerating grace to sacraments, and so deny the Holy Spirit; that teach the "real presence" in the Lord's Supper, and so do away with the sacrifice and atonement of Christ; that make religion to consist in a mere observance of external rites, and so deceive and ruin immortal souls; that obliterate the revealed truth of future and eternal punishment, thus weakening the power and shading the glory of God's moral government. We hesitate not to say, that these, and their kindred heresies, are the inventions of man, and designed to beguile souls from the pure fountain of truth. They are cisterns of human contrivance, which hold no water but the water of death.

Shall we find nothing in the true Church of God which would seem to indicate a proneness to substitute some object in the experience of the believer for Christ? Verily, we think so. To adduce an example, alas! but too common.—When the act of faith is substituted for the object of faith, what is this but the hewing out of a broken cistern? Whatever I put in Christ's place necessarily becomes a substitute for Christ. If I look to my faith for comfort, and peace, and evidence, instead of my faith looking to Christ for these, I exchange the Fountain for the cistern. We are now touching upon a truth of vital moment. Jesus is the fountain of all life, light, grace, and love to the believer. Faith is but the channel through which these blessings are received. And yet, who has not detected in his heart a tendency to look to faith for the evidence of his Christianity, instead of to Christ? thus making the act of believing a substitute for the object in which we believe.

You have long been pleading, as your reason for the unsettled and unhappy state of your mind, the weakness of your faith. What, I ask, is this, but the making a Savior of your faith? It was not faith that died for you—it is not faith that saves you. It is Christ, and Christ alone. Your evidences, your peace, your joy, your hope, all, all must flow from Jesus. "You have made me glad through your work," was the Psalmist's experience. And your soul also will be made glad through the atoning, finished work of Christ. That you should have found faith a broken cistern of soul-comfort, should create in you no surprise. The Lord is jealous of His glory—He will not give it to a creature, nor will He give it to a grace. Precious as that grace may be, it never can be a substitute for Christ's precious work. If by any means I exclude the sun from my garden, should I wonder that my seed did not germinate, that my flowers did not appear, and that my plants drooped and died? Surely not. And if I veil the Sun of Righteousness from my soul—if some intervening object is allowed to arrest His beams, so that they fall not directly and warmly upon the "incorruptible seed" sown in my heart, need I wonder that it springs not forth in blossom, or that the blossom falls before it sets in fruit? But turn, O believer, from this broken cistern, to Jesus the fountain. Draw your comfort, not from the channel, but from the source where it proceeds. Stumble no longer at the weakness of your faith. Turn your eye from every object but the Lord our Righteousness, in whom you may stand before God, the object of His love and delight.

APRIL 30.

Although my house do not be so with God; yet he has made with me an everlasting covenant, ordered in all things, and sure: for this is all my salvation, and all my desire, although he make it not to grow. 2 Samuel 23:5

GOD sometimes comforts the cast-down, by bringing them to rest in the fullness and stability of the covenant. David was a man of great grace, a man after God's own heart, and yet he was deeply tried. The greater the amount of precious ore which the refiner places in his furnace, the severer the test to which he subjects it. This may explain what, perhaps, to some minds is a mystery in the Divine conduct—why the most distinguished saints have ever been the most tried saints. But see how God comforted David, in the deepest trial which could wring a believing parent's heart. He had arranged, as he thought, for the best welfare of his family. God steps in, and disarranges all. Incest, treason, murder are crimes which find an entrance within his domestic circle. His children make themselves vile, and he could not restrain them. What a cloud was now resting upon his tabernacle! How bitter were the waters he was now drinking! But see how God comforted him. "Although my house do not be so with God; yet He has made with me an everlasting covenant, ordered in all things and sure; for this is all my salvation, and all my desire, although He makes it (his house) not to grow."

Believer, this covenant is equally yours. You have the same individual interest in it that David had. The "sure mercies" of the true David are yours, as they were those of "the sweet Psalmist of Israel." In the midst of domestic trial—family changes—thwarted designs—blighted hopes, God has made with you in the hands of Jesus, its Surety and Mediator, "an everlasting covenant." In it your whole history is recorded by Him who knows the end from the beginning. All the events of your life, all the steps of your journey, all your sorrows and your comforts, all your needs and your supplies, are ordained in that covenant which is "ordered in all things." While mutability is a constituent element of everything temporal—"passing away" written upon life's loveliest landscape, and upon the heart's dearest treasure—this, and this alone, remains sure and unchangeable. Let, then, the covenant be your comfort and your stay, your sheet-anchor in the storm, the bow in your cloud, upon which God invites you to fix your believing eyes; yes, all your salvation and all your desire, though He makes not domestic comfort to grow.

MAY 1.

"For he is our peace, who has made both one, and has broken down the middle wall of partition between us." Ephes. 2:14

BEHIND this wall Jesus did once stand, and although thus partially obscured, yet to those who had faith to see Him, dwelling though they were in the twilight of the Gospel, He manifested Himself as the true Messiah, the Son of God, the Savior of His people. "Abraham rejoiced to see my day," says Jesus, "and he saw it, and was glad." But this wall no longer stands. The shadows are fled, the darkness is dispersed, and the true light now shines. Beware of those teachers who would rebuild this wall; and who by their superstitious practices, and legal representations of the Gospel, do in effect rebuild it. Remember that "Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believes."

It is behind "our wall" that Jesus stands—the wall which we, the new covenant saints, erect. Many are the separating influences between Christ and His people; many are the walls which we, alas! allow to intervene, behind which we cause Him to stand. What are the infidelity, I had almost said atheism, the carnality, the coldness, the many sins of our hearts, but so many obstructions to Christ's full and frequent manifestations of Himself to our souls? But were we to specify one obstruction in particular, we would mention unbelief as the great separating wall between Christ and His people. This was the wall which obscured from the view of Thomas his risen Lord. And while the little Church was jubilant in the new life and joy with which their living Savior inspired them, he alone lingered in doubt and sadness, amid the shadows of the tomb. "Except I thrust my hand into His side, I will not believe." Nothing more effectually separates us from, or rather obscures our view of, Christ than the sin of unbelief. Not fully crediting His word—not simply and implicitly relying upon His work—not trusting His faithfulness and love—not receiving Him wholly and following Him fully—only believing and receiving half that He says and commands—not fixing the eye upon Jesus as risen and alive, as ascended and enthroned, leaving all fullness, all power, all love. Oh this unbelief is a dead, towering wall between our Beloved and our souls!

And yet does He stand behind it? Does it not compel Him to depart and leave us forever? Ah no! He is there! Oh wondrous grace, matchless love, infinite patience! Wearied with forbearing, and yet there! Doubted, distrusted, grieved, and yet standing there—His locks wet with the dew of the night—waiting to be gracious, longing to manifest Himself. Nothing has prevailed to compel Him to withdraw. When our coldness might have prevailed, when our fleshliness might have prevailed, when our neglect, ingratitude, and backslidings might have prevailed, never has He entirely and forever withdrawn. His post is to watch with a sleepless eye of love the purchase of His dying agonies, and to guard His "vineyard of red wine night and day, lest any hurt it." Who can adequately picture the solicitude, the tenderness, the jealousy, with which the Son of God keeps His especial treasure? And whatever would force Him to retire—whether it be the coldness that congeals, or the fierce flame that would consume—yet such is His deathless love for His people, "He withdraws not His eyes front the righteous" for one moment. There stands the "Friend that sticks closer than a brother," waiting to beam upon them a glance of His love-enkindled eye, and to manifest Himself to them as He does not unto the world, even from behind our wall.

MAY 2.

"That God in all things may be glorified through Jesus Christ, to whom be praise and dominion forever and ever. Amen." 1 Peter 4:11

God's dealings with His people in seasons of bodily sickness have this for their ultimate and great end—"the glory of God." How illustrious was the glory brought to Jesus by the sickness and death of Lazarus! Shall we contemplate it for a moment? Let us go, then, in hallowed imagination, and stand—not by the sick bed, for the mortal struggle was now over—but by the grave of Lazarus. What a halo surrounds it! It scarcely seems like the place of the dead, for Essential Life is present, and the grave is preparing at His command to yield back its prey. Wrapped in His winding-sheet, reposing in the stillness of death, lay one whom Jesus loved. "Groaning in His spirit, and troubled," He approached the spot. Behold the sensibility of the Divine Redeemer! "Jesus wept." How truly human does He appear! How like the Elder Brother! Never more so than now. Philosophy may scorn to betray emotion, and human genius might deem it beneath its dignity to weep. But the philosophy and the genius of Jesus were Divine, and imparted a dignity and a sacredness to the sensibility and benevolence of His humanity: and if it be true that by genius a tear is crystallized and exhibited to the admiration of future ages, surely the tears of sympathy and love which Jesus dropped over the new-made grave of Lazarus, will thrill the holy heart with feeling to the remotest period of time, and perpetuate their wonder through eternity. Bereaved mourner! cease not to weep! Stifle not your emotions, impede not the flow of your tears. They well up from the fountain of feeling placed in your bosom by the Son of God Himself; who, as if longing to experience the luxury of human sensibility, bowed His Deity to your nature—and wept. This only would I say, let your tears fall like the dew of heaven—gentle, noiseless, chastened; or rather, like the tears of Jesus—meek, resigned, submissive.

But not illustrious does appear His humanity only. Behold, on this occasion, how His Deity shone forth resplendent and overpowering. He who had just wept, and while yet the tear-drops lingered in His eye, with a voice of conscious, God-like power, which showed how completely Essential Life held death within its grasp, exclaimed, "Lazarus, come forth! And he that was dead came forth." Behold the spectacle, you condemners of His Divine nature—you who would pluck the diadem from His brow, and force us by your soulless, lifeless creed to a reliance upon a created Redeemer—gaze upon the wondrous scene! See the Savior bathed in human sensibility like a man—behold Him summon back the dead to life like a God! Never did the glory of His complex person—the Son of man, the Son of God—burst forth with more overpowering effulgence than at this moment. Who will deny that the sickness and death of Lazarus brought glory to the Deity of the Savior?

But what was true of this servant of Christ is also true of all the sick whom Jesus loves—their sickness is for His glory. Trace it in the origin of your sickness. It came not by accident nor by chance—words which should never find a place in the Christian vocabulary of a child of God. It was God who stretched you on that bed of languishing. By the arrangement of your heavenly Father, those circumstances transpired which resulted in your present painful visitation. You have been looking alone at second causes—I do not say that they are to be entirely excluded in attempting to unravel the mystery of the Divine procedure, for they often develop links in the chain of God's providence most harmonious and instructive—but there is such a thing as resting in second causes, and not using them rather as steps in the ladder which conducts us up to God Himself, as the first great cause of all the circumstances of our history, from our cradle to our grave. Oh how is the Lord glorified when the sinking patient whom He loves traces the mysterious and strange event which, arresting him in the midst of health and usefulness, has severed him from active life, from domestic duties, and public engagements, imprisoning him in that lone chamber of sickness and solitude, the prey of disease, and perhaps the destined victim of death—to the infinite, infallible, unerring wisdom of the Son of God!

MAY 3.

"The crown is fallen from our head: woe unto us, that we have sinned!" Lam. 5:16

MAN, in his original constitution, was a glorious temple. Two facts will prove it. First, he was like God in his moral image; and second, God dwelt in him. He was in every respect worthy of such a resident. He was the holy temple of a holy God. Not a flaw was there. The entire man was holy. There was perfect knowledge in the judgment, perfect holiness in the will, and perfect love in the heart. "Holiness to the Lord" was the inscription written on every window and every door, yes, on every part of this temple. A beautiful structure was man in his original state! Well did the mighty Architect, as He gazed upon His work, pronounce it "very good."

But, behold what sin has done! Man has lost his original resemblance to God. It is true, he yet retains his spiritual, intelligent, and immortal nature; these he can never lose. But his moral likeness to God—his knowledge, purity, justice, truth, and benignity, these glorious lineaments are blotted from his soul; and darkness, impurity, desolation, and death reign there. With the obliteration of his moral resemblance, the soul has lost all love to God. More than this; there is not only the absence of love, but there is positive enmity. "The carnal mind is enmity against God," that enmity showing itself in a thousand ways; principally in its seeking to dethrone God. From his affections he has dethroned Him. To eject Him from the throne of His moral government in the universe is the great and constant aim of the carnal mind. If not so, why this perpetual war against God—against His being, His law, His will, His supreme authority to govern and reign? Why this refusal to acknowledge and obey Him? "Who is the Lord God, that I should obey Him?" Oh! there is no mystery in the case. Man has revolted from God, and having thrown off all allegiance to Him as his sovereign, he seeks to be a god to himself. Self is to him what Jehovah once was—the object of supreme delight. Having cast out God, he moves in a circle of which he himself is the center—all he does is from self, and for self. From this all the lines diverge, and to this they all again return. It needs not the argument or the illustration of a moment to show that this being the moral destitution of man, God has ceased to dwell in him. The temple polluted, defaced, and destroyed, the Divine resident has gone; and the heart, once so sweet a home of Deity, is now the dwelling-place of all sin. Another occupant has taken possession of the ruin; like ancient Babylon, it has become the den of every ravenous beast, a habitation of dragons, the impure abode of every foul, malignant passion. Reader, it is as impossible that God can make your bosom His dwelling-place, while every thought, and feeling, and passion is up in arms against Him, as it would be for Christ to dwell with Belial, or light to commingle with darkness. You must be renewed in the spirit of your mind. You must be born again.

MAY 4.

"O Israel, you have destroyed yourself; but in me is your help." Hosea 13:9

IT was God's eternal and gracious purpose to restore this temple. Satan had despoiled His work—sin had marred His image—but both usurpers He would eject, and the ruin of both He would repair. Oh, what mercy, infinite, eternal, and free, was this, that set him upon a work so glorious! What could have moved Him but His own love, what could have contrived the plan but His own wisdom, and what could have executed it but His own power? In this restoration, man was no auxiliary. He could be none. His destruction was his own, his recovery was God's. He ruined himself, that ruin he could not himself repair. It was a work as far surpassing all finite power, as it was first to speak it out of nothing! Yes, the work of restoration is a greater achievement of power than was the work of creation. To repair the temple when ruined was more glorious than to create it out of nothing. In one day He made man; He was four thousand years in redeeming man. It cost Him nothing to create a soul; it cost Him His dear Son to save it. And who can estimate that cost? He met with no opposition in creating man; in re-creating him, Satan, the world, yes, man himself, is against him.

We have said that it was God's gracious and eternal purpose to restore this ruined temple. The first step which He took in accomplishing this great work was his assumption of our nature, as though He Himself would be the model from which the new temple should be formed. This was one of the profoundest acts of God's wisdom, one of the greatest demonstrations of His love. "The Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us" (marg. tabernacled among us). His human body the temple; His Godhead the indwelling Deity. Was ever a temple so glorious as this? "Immanuel, God with us." "God manifest in the flesh." Oh awful mystery! what imagination can conceive, what mind can fathom it? We can but stand upon the shore of this vast ocean of wisdom and love, and exclaim, "Oh the depth!" "Great is the mystery of godliness, God was manifest in the flesh." This was the first step towards His work of replenishing the earth with spiritual temples, to be filled now and eternally with the Divine presence and glory. The entire success and glory of His undertaking rested here. This was the foundation of the structure. He could only obey the law as He was "made of a woman;" He could only "redeem those who were under the law," as He was God in our nature. The absolute necessity, then, of His Godhead will instantly appear. Had the basis of the great work He was about to achieve been laid in any other doctrine—anything inferior, and of course less infinite, less holy, less dignified—had the foundation been laid in mere creature excellence, however exalted that excellence might be—there could have been neither strength, permanency, nor glory in the temple. It would have fallen before the first storm of temptation, and fearful would have been its destruction. God well knew at what cost the work of redemption would be achieved. He knew what His violated law demanded—what his inflexible justice required—and through what costly channel His love must flow; therefore "He laid help upon one that was mighty,"—yes, "mighty to save." And what was the secret of His might?—His absolute Deity. Take a lower view than this, and you reduce the work of Christ to nothing—you tear the soul from the body, pluck the sun from the firmament, wrench the key-stone from the arch, and the foundation from the building. But look at His work through His Godhead, and oh, how vast, how costly;' how glorious does it appear! what a basis for a poor sinner to build upon! what a resting-place for the weary soul! what faith, hope, and assurance does it inspire! how perfect the obedience, how infinitely efficacious the blood, and prevalent the intercession—all derived from the Godhead of Jesus! Glorious temple were You, blessed Son of God!

MAY 5.

"Jesus answered and said unto them, Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up. But he spoke of the temple of his body." John 2:19, 21.

THIS temple was to be destroyed. Jesus must die! This was the second step in the accomplishment of the great work. Thus did He announce the fact to the obtuse and incredulous Jews "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up." His death was as necessary to the satisfaction of justice, as His life of obedience had been to the fulfilling of the law. As the substitute of His people, He must yield up His life; as the Surety of the covenant, He must completely surrender Himself into the hands of Divine justice; as the Testator of His own will, there must of necessity be His death, otherwise the testament would have been of no force at all while He lived. There was no possible avenue for His escape, even had He sought it. He, or His people, must die. He must taste the bitterness of the death that was temporal, or His elect must have tasted of the bitterness of the death that was eternal. Oh yes, Jesus wished to die. Never for one moment did He really shrink from the combat. He well knew the conditions upon which He had entered into a covenant engagement in behalf of His people. He knew that the price of their pardon was His own blood, that His death was their life, and that His gloomy path through the grave was their bright passage to eternal glory. Knowing all this, and with the awful scene of Calvary full in view—the cross, the sufferings of the body, the deathly sorrow of the soul—He yet panted for the arrival of the moment that was to finish the work His Father had given Him to do.

Dear reader, how ready was Jesus thus to die! Where this eagerness? It sprang from His great love to sinners. Oh, this was it! We must go down to the secret depth of His love, if we would solve the mystery of His willingness to die. "God commends His love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." Thus was the "temple of His body" destroyed, that "through death He might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver them who through fear of death were all their life-time subject to bondage." See, dear reader, the source of your free pardon, the ground of your humble trust, the secret of your "strong consolation." It is all involved in the death of Jesus. You cannot ask too much, you cannot expect too much, you cannot repose too much at the foot of the cross. All is mercy here—all is love—all is peace. Sin cannot condemn, Satan cannot tempt, the world cannot allure, conscience cannot accuse; "there is no condemnation" to a poor soul that shelters itself beneath the cross of Jesus. Here every dark cloud withdraws, and all is sunny—here every tear is dried, but that of joy, and every voice is hushed, but that of praise.

MAY 6.

"And we declare unto you glad tidings, how that the promise which was made unto the fathers, God has fulfilled the same unto us their children, in that he has raised up Jesus again." Acts 13:32, 33

GREAT stress is laid upon the doctrine of the resurrection of Christ in the word. And the child of God may be but imperfectly aware, what an essential pillar it is to his hope, and how sanctifying and comforting the blessings are that spring from its full belief. The resurrection of Jesus is the great seal to the character and perfection of His work. Yes, His work, touching its saving effects, had been nothing apart from this Divine attestation. His perfect keeping of the law, and His suffering unto death, were but parts of the vast plan, and, taken separately and distinctly, were not capable of perfecting the salvation of the Church. The apostle so reasons. "If Christ do not be risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain. Yes, and we are found false witnesses of God; because we have testified of God that He raised up Christ; whom He raised not up, if so be that the dead rise not. For if the dead rise not, then is not Christ raised: and if Christ do not be raised, your faith is vain; you are yet in your sins. Then they also which are fallen asleep in Christ are perished." A moment's reflection will justify the conclusions which the apostle deduces from the supposition that Christ had not risen.

Our dear Lord endured the "curse of the law;" a part of that curse was death—death legal, death temporal, death eternal. He was "made a curse or us," and died. So long as He remained imprisoned in the grave, "death had dominion over Him." It had been in vain that we had looked to His obedience and sufferings for the proof of the all-sufficiency and acceptableness of His satisfaction, so long as the iron scepter of the king of terrors held Him in subjection. Oh what a momentous period were the three days that intervened between the giving up of the spirit upon the cross, and the bursting of the tomb—the salvation of the whole Church hung upon it—all who had already "fallen asleep" in Him, and all whom it was the purpose of God yet to call, were deeply interested in this one fact. But, on the third day, the destroyed temple was raised again—death had no more dominion over Him—his sting was extracted, his scepter was broken, the curse was rolled away, and the redemption of the Church was complete. "He was delivered for our offences, and rose again for our justification."

Through the incarnation, obedience, death, and resurrection of Christ, a way was opened, by which God could again dwell with man—yes, resume His abode in the very temple that sin had destroyed, and show forth the riches and glory of His grace far more illustriously than when this temple stood in its original perfection and grandeur. Here was the foundation of every successive temple that grace was about to raise. "Other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ." On the dignity of His person, His finished righteousness, His perfect atonement, His all-sufficient grace, and His inviolable faithfulness, believers, "as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house," for the everlasting indwelling of God the Holy Spirit.

MAY 7.

"And they come unto you as the people comes, and they sit before you as my people, and they hear your words, but they will not do them: for with their mouth they show much love, but their heart goes after their covetousness." Ezek. 33:31

FEW, save those who have been taught of the Spirit, and who have accustomed themselves to analyze closely the evidences of true conversion, are aware how far an individual may go, not merely in an outward reformation of character, and an external union to Christ, but in a strong resemblance to the positive and manifest evidences of the new birth, without the actual possession of a single one. In the exception that we make, we refer to a knowledge of the truth that is not saving in its effects, is not influential in its character, and which has its place in the judgment only, assented to, approved of, and even ably and successfully vindicated; while the soul, the seat of life—the will, the instrument of holiness—and the heart, the home of love, are all unrenewed by the Holy Spirit.

Beloved reader, you cannot be too distinctly nor too earnestly informed, that there is a great difference in Divine knowledge. There is a knowledge of the truth, in the attainment of which a man may labor diligently, and in the possession of which he may look like a believer; but which may not come under that denomination of a knowledge of Christ, in allusion to which our dear Lord in His memorable prayer uses these words, "This is life eternal, that they might know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent." The fatal error to which you are exposed is—oh that you may have escaped it!—the substituting a knowledge of Divine truth in the judgment, for the quickening grace of God in the heart. It is surprising how far an outwardly moral individual may go in Divine attainments—spiritual knowledge—eminent gifts—and even great usefulness; and yet retain the carnal mind, the rebellious will, the unhumbled and unbroken heart. If the volume of Divine truth had not informed us of this, and supplied us with some striking cases in proof, we should be perpetually beguiled into the belief that a head filled with rational, speculative, theoretical truth, must necessarily be connected with some degree of Divine grace in the affections. But not so. Balaam's knowledge of Divine things was deep; he could ask counsel of God, and prophesy of Christ, but where is the undoubted evidence that he "knew the grace of God in truth?" Saul prophesied, had "another spirit" given him, and asked counsel of God; but Saul's heart was unchanged by the Holy Spirit. Herod sent for John, "heard him gladly, and did many things," and yet his heart and his life were strangers to holiness. Addressing the Pharisees, the apostle employs this striking language, "Behold, you are called a Jew, and rest in the law, and make your boast of God, and know His will, and approve the things that are more excellent, being instructed out of the law:" and yet deep hypocrisy was their crying sin. Oh let no man be so deceived as to substitute knowledge for grace. Better that his knowledge of the truth should be limited to its mere elements, its first principles, and yet with it be enabled to say, "Behold, I am vile," but "He has loved me, and given Himself for me," than to possess "all knowledge," and live and die destitute of the renewing grace of God upon the heart.

MAY 8.

"The Lord tries the righteous." Psalm 11:5

THE furnace works wonders for a believer. Oh that he should ever wish to be exempt from it! Indeed, it may be remarked, that real grace is inseparable from a state of trial. Where there is real faith, the Lord will try it. Where there is the true ore, the Refiner will prove it in the furnace. There is not a grace of the Spirit, but, more or less, and at one time or another, Jesus tries that grace. "The Lord tries the righteous." He tries their principles—tries their graces—tries their obedience—proves His own work—brings out the new man in all its muscular fullness—develops the nature and character of His work—and shows it to be His mighty product, and in all respects worthy of Himself. Much then as we would wish at times exemption from a state of trial, anxious for the more smooth and easy path, yet, if we are really born of God, and His grace has truly made us one of His family, like them, we have been "chosen in the furnace of affliction," and with them in the furnace, we are brought into the possession of some of the most costly blessings of our lives.

Real grace, then, is tried grace. And mark how, in the process of its trial, the blessed and Eternal Spirit more deeply seals the believer. The hour of affliction is the hour of softening. Job bore this testimony, "He makes my heart soft." The hardness of the heart yields—the callousness of the spirit gives way—the affections become tender—conscience is more susceptible. It is the season of holy abstraction, meditation, and prayer—of withdrawment from the world and from creature delights, while the soul is more closely shut in with God. The heart, now emptied, humbled, and softened, is prepared for the seal of the Spirit; and what an impression is then made—what discoveries of God's love to the soul—what enlarged views of the personal glory of Christ—of the infinite perfection of His work—of the preciousness of the atoning sacrifice—of the hatefulness of sin, and of the beauty of holiness! His own personal interest in this great work of Christ is made more clear and certain to his soul. The Spirit bears a fresh witness to his acceptance, and seals him anew with the adopting love of God. It was the Psalmist's wisdom to acknowledge, "It is good for one that I have been afflicted."

MAY 9.

"The Spirit itself bears witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God." Rom. 8:16

THREE important things are involved in these words—first, the Witness—then that with which He witnesses—and lastly, the great truth to which He witnesses. First, "the Spirit itself bears witness." The great business of making known to a poor sinner his acquittal in the high court of heaven, and his adoption into the King's family, is entrusted to no inferior agent. No angel is commissioned to bear the tidings, no mortal man may disclose the secret. None but God the Holy Spirit Himself. "The Spirit itself" He that rests short of this testimony wrongs his own soul. Dear reader, be satisfied with no witness to your "calling and election" but this. Human testimony is feeble here. Your minister, your friend, schooled as they may be in the evidences of experimental godliness, cannot assure your spirit that you are "born of God." God the Eternal Spirit alone can do this. He only is competent—He only can fathom the "deep things of God,"—He only can rightly discern between His own work and its counterfeit, between grace and nature —He only can make known the secret of the Lord to those who fear Him; all other testimony to your sonship is uncertain, and may fearfully and fatally deceive. "It is the Spirit that bears witness, because the Spirit is truth." Again and yet again would we solemnly repeat it—take nothing for granted touching your personal interest in Christ—rest not satisfied with the testimony of your own spirit, or with that of the holiest saint on earth; seek nothing short of "the Spirit itself." This only will do for a dying hour.

The second thing to be observed in the declaration is—that with which He witnesses—"the Spirit itself bears witness with our spirit." It is a personal testimony—not borne to others, but to ourselves—"with our spirit." The adoption of the believer into the family of God is so great a privilege, involving blessings so immense, for beings so sinful and in all respects unworthy, that, did not their heavenly Father assure them by His own immediate testimony of its truth, no other witness would suffice to remove their doubts and quiet their fears, and satisfy them as to their real sonship. The Eternal Spirit of God descends and enters their hearts, as a witness to their adoption. He firsts renews our spirit—applies the atoning blood to the conscience—works faith in the heart—enlightens the understanding—and thus prepares the believing soul for the revelation and assurance of this great and glorious truth—his adoption into the family of God. As it is "with our spirit" the Holy Spirit witnesses, it is necessary that, in order to perfect agreement and harmony, he who has the witness within himself should first be a repenting and believing sinner. He who says that he has this witness, but who still remains "dead in sins,"—a stranger to faith in the Lord Jesus—to the renewings of the Holy Spirit—in a word, who is not born of God—is wrapping himself up in an awful deception. The witness we plead for is the holy testimony, in concurrence with a holy gospel, by a holy Spirit, to a holy man, and concerning a holy truth. There can be no discrepancy, no want of harmony, between the witness of the Spirit and the word of God. He witnesses according to, and in agreement with, the truth. Vague and fanciful impressions, visions, and voices, received and rested upon as evidences of salvation, are fearful delusions. Nothing is to be viewed as an evidence of our Divine sonship which does not square and harmonize with the revealed word of God. We must have a "Thus says the Lord," for every step we take in believing that we are the children of God. Let it be remembered, then, that the Spirit bears His testimony to believers. His first step is to work repentance and faith in the heart; then follows the sealing and witnessing operation. "In whom also, after that you believed, you were sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise."

The last particular is the great truth to which He testifies, "that we are the children of God." The Spirit is emphatically spoken of as a Spirit of adoption. "For you have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but you have received the spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father." And again, "And because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father." Now it is the peculiar office of the Spirit to witness to the adoption of the believer. Look at the blessed fact to which He testifies—not that we are the enemies, the aliens, the strangers, the slaves, but that we are "the children of God." High and holy privilege! "The children of God!" Chosen from all eternity—"having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will,"—all their iniquities laid on Jesus, their blessed Surety, justified by the "Lord our righteousness,"—called by the effectual operation of the Eternal Spirit—inhabited, sanctified, sealed by God the Holy Spirit. Oh exalted state! oh holy privilege! oh happy people! Pressing on, it may be, through strong corruptions, deep trials, clinging infirmities, fiery temptations, sore discouragements, dark providences, and often the hidings of a Father's countenance, and yet "the children of God" now, and soon to be glorified hereafter.

MAY 10.

"By terrible things in righteousness will you answer us, O God of our salvation." Psalm 65:5.

DEEPER experience of the truth of God is frequently the result of sore but sanctified trial. A believer knows but imperfectly what he is in himself, or what the truth of God is to him, until placed in circumstances favorable to the development of both. The Lord will have His people, and especially the ministers of His gospel, experimentally acquainted with His truth. They shall not testify of an unknown, unfelt, and unexperienced Savior. They shall be enabled to say, "That which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled of the word of life, declare we unto you." And more valuable and precious is one grain of the truth of God experienced in the heart than the whole system occupying a place only in the judgment. To deepen, then, their knowledge of the truth—to ground and settle them in it—to bring it out in all its practical power, a good, a covenant God often places His children in sore trial and temptation. It is in the storm and the hurricane, amid rocks and shoals, that the mariner becomes practically acquainted with his science. All that he knew before He launched his vessel on the ocean, or encountered the storm, was but the theory of the school; but a single tempest, one escape from shipwreck, has imparted more experimental knowledge than years of mere theoretical toil. So learns the believer. Oh, how theoretical and defective his views of Divine truth—how little his knowledge of his own heart—his deep corruptions, perfect weakness, little faith—how imperfect his acquaintance with Jesus—His fullness, preciousness, all-sufficiency, sympathy, until the hand of God falls upon him!—and when, like Job, messenger after messenger has brought the tidings of blasted gourds, of broken cisterns—when brought down and laid low, like him they are constrained to confess, "I have heard of You by the hearing of the ear; but now mine eye sees You. Why I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes."

Welcome whatever makes you more acquainted with God; despise nothing that will deepen your intimacy with God in Christ. Welcome the cross—it may be heavy; welcome the cup—it may be bitter; welcome the chastening—it may be severe; welcome the wound—it may be deep; oh! welcome to your heart whatever increases your knowledge of God; receive it as a boon sent to you from your Father; receive it as a heaven-sent message to your soul. And hearken to the voice that is in that rod: "My child, I want you to know me better; for in knowing me better you will love me better, and in loving me better you will serve me better. I send this chastening, this loss, this cross, only to draw you closer and closer to my embrace—only to bring you nearer and nearer to me." Welcome, then, whatever brings you into closer transaction, communion, and fellowship with your heavenly Father.

MAY 11.

"The Comforter, which is the Holy Spirit." John 14:26

IN no one aspect does the happy tendency and, we may add, the indispensable necessity of the discipline of the covenant more manifestly appear, than that through this channel mainly is the believer brought into communion with, and into enjoyment of, the tenderness and sympathy of the Spirit. The wisdom, the faithfulness, and the power of the Spirit, the soul has been brought to acknowledge and experience in conversion; but to know the Spirit as a Comforter, to experience His tenderness and sympathy, His kindness and gentleness, we must be placed in those peculiar circumstances that call it into exercise. In a word, we must know what sorrow is, to know what comfort is: and to know what true comfort is, we must receive it from the blessed and Eternal Spirit, the Comforter of the Church.

The God and Father of His people foreknew all their circumstances. He knew that He had chosen them in the furnace of affliction, that this was the peculiar path in which they should all walk. As He foreknew, so He also fore-arranged for all those circumstances. In the eternal purposes of His wisdom, grace, and love, He went before His Church, planning its history, allotting its path, and providing for every possible position in which it could be placed; so that we cannot imagine an exigency, a trial, a difficulty, or a conflict, but is amply provided for in the covenant of grace. Such is the wisdom and such the goodness of God towards His covenant family!

The great provision for the suffering state of the believer is the Holy Spirit—the special, the personal, and abiding Comforter of the Church. It was to this truth our dear Lord directed the sorrowing hearts of His disciples, when, on the eve of His return to His kingdom, He was about to withdraw from them His bodily presence. His mission on earth was fulfilled, His work was done, and He was about to return to His Father and to their Father, to His God and to their God. The prospect of separation absorbed them in grief. Thus did Jesus mark, and thus too He consoled it. "But now I go my way to Him that sent me; and none of You asks me, Where go you? But because I have said these things unto you, sorrow has filled your heart. Nevertheless I tell You the truth; it is expedient for you that I go away for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I depart, I will send Him unto you." Mark the circumstances of the disciples; it was a season of deep sorrow. Then observe, how Jesus mitigated that sorrow, and chased away the dark cloud of their grief, by the promise of the Spirit as a Comforter—assuring those who the presence and abiding of the Spirit as a Comforter would more than recompense the loss of His bodily presence. What the Spirit then was to the sorrowing disciples, He has been in every successive age, is at the present moment, and will continue to be to the end of time—the personal and abiding Comforter of the afflicted family of God.

MAY 12.

"Christ, who is our life." Coloss. 3:4

THE renewed man is a living soul, in consequence of his union with the life of Christ. We too little trace the life which is in us to the life which is in Jesus. The Spirit Himself could not be our life apart from our union to Christ. It is not so much the work of the Spirit to give us life, as to quicken in us the life of Christ. The apostle thus briefly but emphatically states it—"Christ, who is our life." Hence we see the relation and the fitness of the second Adam to the Church of God. In consequence of our federal union to the first Adam, we became the subjects of death—he being emphatically our death. And in consequence of our covenant union to the second Adam, we become the subjects of life—He being emphatically "our life." Hence it is said, "The second Adam is a quickening spirit."

The headship of Christ, in reference to the life of His people, is written as with the point of a diamond in the following passages:—"In Him was life;" "The Son quickens whom He will:" "The dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear shall lave;" "I am the resurrection and the life: he that believes in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live;" "He that eats me, even he shall live by me." Now this life that is in Christ becomes the life of the believer in consequence of his union with Christ. "You are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God;" "I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ lives in me." And what is the crowning act of Christ as the life of His people? What but His resurrection from the dead? "We are risen with Christ;" "You are also risen with Him;" "That I may know the power of His resurrection." This doctrine of the Lord's resurrection is the pivot upon which the whole system of Christianity hinges. He is risen, and in virtue of this, His people are partakers of a resurrection-life to eternal glory. It is utterly impossible that they can perish, for they have already the resurrection-life in their souls. Their own resurrection to everlasting life is pledged, secured, antedated, in consequence of the risen Christ being in them the hope of glory. Thus is Christ the life of His people. He is the life of their pardon—all their iniquities are put away by His blood. He is the life of their Justification—His righteousness gives them acceptance with God. He is the life of their sanctification—His grace subdues the power of the sins, the guilt of which His blood removes. He is the life of their joys, of their hopes, of their ordinances; the life of everything that makes this life sweet, and the life to come glorious.

MAY 13.

"Because I live, you shall live also." John 14:19

THE divine life of a believer, from its very necessity, is deathless. The life of Adam was never so secure, even when he lifted his noble brow in spotlessness to God. The new life is more secure in a state of imperfection, than his was in a state of innocence. He stood in his own righteousness, upheld by his own power, and yet He fell. But we are more secure, because we stand in the righteousness, and are kept by the power, of God. His life was hidden in himself; our life is hidden in Christ, and is as secure in Christ as Christ's is in God. It is truly remarked by Charnock, that "Adam had no reserve of nature to supply nature upon any defect;" but out of Christ's fullness we receive grace upon grace. How much more ready are we to complain against this small measure of grace, than to praise God for the weakest grace, and to thank him for an inexhaustible source, on which we may at all times fall back. The believer ever has a reserve of grace. His resources may often be exhausted, but he has a stock in Christ's hand, and which, for the wisest end, is kept solely in Christ's hands, upon which he is privileged at any moment to draw. Well is it that that supply of grace is not all in our own hands, else it would soon be wasted; and well is it that it is not in angels' hands, else they would soon be weary with our continual coming. But the covenant was made with Christ, He being the Mediator as well as the Surety; and in Him it pleased the Father that all fullness should dwell. Thus, in His hands the Father has entrusted the keeping of His weakest child—even your soul, beloved, though you are the weakest of the weak. An infant as much belongs to the family as the most matured member. Its place in the parent's heart is as strong, and its claim upon its share of the patrimony is as valid. So is it with the feeblest child of God.

And most faithfully does our Lord Jesus discharge His office. Is the Church a garden? Jesus repairs early to the vineyard, to see "whether the tender grapes appear, and the pomegranates bud." Is it a flock? Jesus "feeds His flock like a shepherd: he gathers the lambs with His arm, and carries them in His bosom." Can any imagery more affectingly set forth the tenderness not towards weak grace—the weak lamb carried, not on the shoulders, not in the arms, but in the bosom of the Shepherd? Yes, there is one image, the most expressive and tender in the universe of imagery—a mother's love for her infant. Does God compare His love to this? Hearken words: "Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? Yes, they may forget, yet will I not forget you." Oh that you would, in the simplicity of faith, press this precious truth to your trembling, doubting, fearful heart. Nothing does the Holy Spirit seem to take such pains in comforting and strengthening, as real grace in its greatest weakness. Would He indulge our weak faith? Oh no! But while He would have us sue for the highest degrees, He would yet watch over the lowest degree of grace in the soul.

MAY 14.

"Why gird up the loins of your mind, be sober, and hope to the end for the grace that is to be brought unto you at the revelation of Jesus Christ." 1 Peter 1:13

ALL things and all events point us to, and are leading us towards, eternity. Oh how we absorb in our present sufferings and light afflictions the thought of the coming death—the coming grave—the coming judgment—the coming heaven—the coming hell! Our sojourn here is but brief. We flit away like the shadow across the sun-dial. We weep today, we are wept for to-morrow. Today we are toiling, and fighting, and suffering; and anon, if believers in Jesus, we are with Him, and "are come unto Mount Zion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly and church of the first-born, which are written in heaven, and to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect, and to Jesus the Mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling, that speaks better things than that of Abel."

Christ will soon appear in the clouds of heaven. "The coming of the Lord draws near." "The Lord is at hand." Let us hew out no more cisterns off earthly good; but following the stream of the Lord's love—deepening and widening as it ascends—let us rise to the fountain-head in glory; having our conversation in heaven, and our affections on things above, where Christ sits—and from where He will come again—at the right hand of God. "Drink, yes, drink abundantly, O beloved," of this river, is your Lord's loving invitation. You cannot take to it too many vessels, nor vessels too empty. The precious "fountain opened to the house of David, and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem," is "for sin and uncleanness." Then, as sinners, plunge into it, "wash and be clean." Think not that you are alone in your grief, as cisterns of creature-good thus broken. A "cloud of witnesses" surrounds you, all testifying that the fled joy of earth gives place to the full and permanent bliss of heaven; that Jesus now turns His people's sorrow into joy, by the sustaining power of faith and the sweet discoveries of love; and that He will perfect that joy when He brings them to drink of the "pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God, and of the Lamb."

MAY 15.

"For I have satiated the weary soul, and I have replenished every sorrowful soul." Jer. 31:25

His preeminent fitness for this peculiar and difficult office is apparent. His identity with their very nature describes Him as well calculated to address Himself to their case. Of the nature thus oppressed and weary He in part partook. But for this, so infinitely removed had He been from their condition, He had been incapable of meeting its peculiar necessity. Absolute Deity could not, through the medium of sympathy, have conveyed a word of comfort to the weary. There had been wanting, not the power to relieve, but the mode of relieving, the oppressed and sorrowful heart. There had been needed the connecting and transmitting chain—the heavenly highway of thought, of feeling, and of sympathy—between these extremes of being, the loving heart of God and the desolate heart of man. Unacquainted with grief, untouched by sorrow, unbeclouded by care, unaffected by weariness, an absolute God could not possibly offer the support and the condolence which sympathetic feeling alone could give, and which a jaded spirit, a sorrow-touched, care-oppressed, and sin-beclouded soul demanded.

Nor could angels afford the help required. The only burden which they know is the burden of love; the only weariness they feel is the weariness of ever-burning devotion and zeal. It is this which gives strength to their wings, and swiftness to their flight. They are represented as "hearkening to the voice of the Lord," ready to speed their way on some embassy of mercy and love. In fulfilling this their ministry, their eye never slumbers, their pinions never droop. But we needed a nature so constituted as to enter into, and as it were become a part of, the very weariness it sought to relieve. Look at Jesus! "Behold the man!" With weariness in every form He was intimate; He knew what bodily weakness was. Do you not love to linger in pensive thoughtfulness over that touching incident of His life which describes Him as sitting fatigued upon Jacob's well? "Jesus, being wearied, sat thus on the well." Picture Him to your eye! See the dust upon His sandals, for He had walked forty miles that day—the sweat upon His brow, the air of languor upon His countenance, and the jaded expression in His eye! Do we deify His humanity? No. It was real humanity—humanity like our own. It is our joy, our boast, our glory, our salvation, that He was really man, as He was truly God.

Consider, too, what He endured for man, from man. This was no small part of the weariness of our nature into which He entered. How soon did He come to the end of the creature! Alas! the creature has an end, and sooner or later God brings us to it—and in the exercise, too, of the tenderest love of His heart. When most He needed its sheltering protection, He found the creature a withered gourd—and He bore His sorrow alone. And when He repaired to it for the refreshing of sympathy, He found it a broken cistern—and He panted in vain. Where were His disciples now? He was in trouble, but there was no one to help; He was in the storm, but no one would know Him; refuge failed Him, no man cared for His soul; He was in sorrow, but no bosom proffered its pillow; He was accused, but no tongue was heard in His defense; He was scourged, but no arm was lifted to repel; He was condemned, but no one vindicated His innocence, nor sought to arrest His progress to the cross! Oh how fully did Jesus realize the creature's nothingness, and so enter into His people's condition of weariness!

MAY 16.

"Preaching peace by Jesus Christ (he is Lord of all)." Acts 10:36.

LET us turn our attention to the subject-matter of our Lord's address to the weary. What does He speak to them? Some would reply, the law. No; but the law of God never spoke a word of comfort to the weary. It was not designed for such. Its very nature forbids it. It can anathematize, alarm, and wound; but not a solitary word of consolation and soothing can it address to a soul weary and heavy-laden with sorrow and with guilt. But it is the glorious gospel of the blessed God that the Lord Jesus speaks to His weary ones. It was designed and framed especially for them. Its very nature fits it for such. Every word is an echo of the love of God's heart. Every sentence is fraught with grace, mercy, and truth. The word which Jesus speaks is just the word the weary want. It unfolds a free pardon, complete acceptance, perfect reconciliation with God, and all-sufficient grace to perfect this work in holiness. It bids me as a sinner approach just as I am; my poverty, my vileness, my guilt, my utter destitution forming no just hindrances to my salvation, because His atoning work has made it a righteous thing in God to justify the guilty, and a gracious act in Jesus to save the lost. Yes, He condescends to assure me in that word of a free-grace gospel, which He speaks with a tongue so eloquent, that I honor Him in accepting His proffered boon, and that I glorify Him by trusting my soul into His Almighty hands.

The Lord Jesus speaks at the present time to the weary. We need constantly to bear in mind the immutability of our Lord; that "Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, and today, and for ever." That all that He ever has been—and oh! what has He not been!—He is at this moment. What countless numbers are now bathing their souls in the bliss of heaven, whose tears were once dried, whose fears were once quelled, whose burden was once removed, by those precious words spoken in season—"Come unto me, all you that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest"! Oh could they, bending now from their thrones, but speak to us, they would testify what substance, what reality, what sweetness, what power, and what charm they once found in them; and they would bid every weary spirit, every weeping penitent, every tried saint, believe and press the promise to their heart. But a dearer, a lovelier, and a better than they bids you receive it. Jesus Himself speaks to you: "Come unto me—and I will give you rest." All that He was in their happy experience, He will be in yours. The grace that made them what they once were, and what they now are, is sufficient for you. Go, and lay your weariness on Christ. Ask not, "Will He bear my burden." He bears every burden brought to Him. Not one poor weary, heavy-laden sinner does He turn away. You are perhaps a mourning penitent—He will receive you. You are perhaps a vile outcast—He will welcome you. He says He will, and He cannot deny Himself; it is impossible that He should lie.

MAY 17.

"And Jacob was left alone; and there wrestled a man with him until the breaking of the day. And when he saw that he prevailed not against him, he touched the hollow of his thigh; and the hollow of Jacob's thigh was out of joint, as he wrestled with him. And he said, Let me go, for the day breaks. And he said, I will not let you go, except you bless me." Genesis 32:24-26

NEVER was there a conflict of so illustrious a nature, and of so strange a result, between powers so dissimilar and extreme. The incarnate God, as if to demonstrate His own Divine power, and at the same time to make the victory of human weakness over infinite might more illustrious and palpable, touches the wrestling patriarch, and he is a cripple! Then at the moment of his greatest weakness, when taught the lesson of his own insufficiency, that flesh might not glory in the Divine presence, Omnipotence retires as if vanquished from the field, and yields the palm of victory to the disabled but prevailing prince. And why all this? To teach us the amazing power of prayer, which the feeblest believer may have when alone with Jesus.

No point of Christian duty and privilege set before you in this work will plead more earnestly and tenderly for your solemn consideration, dear reader, than this. It enters into the very essence of your spiritual being. This is the channel through which flows the oil that feeds the lamp of your Christian profession. Dimly will burn that lamp, and drooping will be your spiritual light, if you are not used to be much alone with Jesus. Every feeling of the soul, and each department of Christian labor, will be sensibly affected by this woeful neglect. He who is but seldom with Jesus in the closet will exhibit, in all that he does for Jesus in the world, but the fitful and convulsive movements of a mind urged on by a feverish and unnatural excitement. It is only in much prayer—that prayer secret and confiding—that the heart is kept in its right position, its affections properly governed, and its movements correctly regulated. And are there not periods when you find it needful to leave the society of the most spiritual—sweet as is the communion of saints—to be alone with Jesus? He Himself has set you the example. Accustomed at times to withdraw from His disciples, He has been known to spend whole nights amid the mountains' solitude, alone with His Father.

Oh the sacredness, the solemnity of such a season! Alone with God! alone with Jesus! no eye seeing, no ear hearing, but His; the dearest of earthly being excluded, and no one present save Jesus only, the best, the dearest of all! Then, in the sweetest and most unreserved confidence, the believer unveils his soul, and reveals all to the Lord. Conscience is read—motives are dissected—principles are sifted—actions are examined—the heart is searched—sin is confessed—iniquity is acknowledged, as could only effectually be done in the presence of Jesus alone. Is there, among all the privileges of a child of God, one in its costliness and its preciousness surpassing this?

MAY 18.

"Not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect: but I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus. Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus." Philip. 3:12-14

OH holy resolve of a regenerate man! Here is the springing up of the well of living water in the heart. Here is the turning of the soul to God. See how the fountain rises! See how the flame ascends! It is the mighty energy of God the Holy Spirit, drawing the soul upward, heavenward, Godwards.

Nothing more strikingly and truly proves the reality, we would say the divinity, of the work within, the vital principle of grace implanted in the heart of the regenerate, than the growing energy and holy tendency that ever accompany it. It is the property of that which has life in itself to increase—to multiply itself. The seed cast into the earth will germinate. Presently will appear the tender sprout, this will advance to the young sapling, and this in time to the gigantic tree, with its overshadowing branches, and richly laden with fruit. Obeying the law of its nature, it aspires to that perfection which belongs to it. It must grow. Nothing can prevent it, but such a wound as will injure the vital principle, or cutting it down entirely. The life of God in the soul of man contains the principle of growth. He that is not advancing—adding grace to grace, strength to strength—fruitful in every good word and work—increasing in the knowledge of God, of His own heart, of the preciousness, fullness, and all sufficiency of Jesus, and in Divine conformity, "growing up into Christ in all things,"—has great reason to suspect the absence of the Divine life in his soul. There may be much that marks a resemblance to the new birth, there may be the portrait finely executed, the marble statue exquisitely chiseled, but there is not the living man, "the new creature." We can expect no increase of perfection in a finished picture or in a piece of statuary; that which has not life in it cannot grow. This is self-evident. An individual may look like a believer, and even die with a false peace, like that of the righteous, and all the while retain his dwelling among the tombs.

Let no dear child of God write hard and bitter things against himself, as he reads this last sentence. Let him not come to any hasty, unbelieving, doubting, and God-dishonoring conclusions. What are you to yourself?—worthless—vile—empty? What is Jesus to you?—precious—lovely—all your salvation and all your desire? What is sin to you?—the most hateful thing in the world? And what is holiness?—the most lovely, the most longed for? What is the throne of grace to you?—the most attractive spot? And the cross?—the sweetest resting-place in the universe? What is God to you?—your God and Father—the spring of all your joys—the fountain-head of all your bliss—the center where your affections meet? Is it so? Then you are born again—then you are a child of God—then you shall never die eternally. Cheer up, precious soul! the day of your redemption draws near. Those low views of yourself—that brokenness, that inward mourning, that secret confession, that longing for more spirituality, more grace, more devotedness, more love, does but prove the existence, reality, and growth of God's work within you. God the Holy Spirit is there, and these are but the fruits and evidences of His indwelling. Look up, then, beloved reader, and let the thought cheer you—that soul never perished, that felt itself to be vile, and Jesus to be precious.

MAY 19.

"And we desire that every one of you do show the same diligence to the full assurance of hope unto the end." Heb. 6:11.

THE doctrine of an assured belief of the pardon of sin, of acceptance in Christ, and of adoption into the family of God, has been, and yet is, regarded by many as an attainment never to be expected in the present life; and when it is expressed, it is viewed with a suspicion unfavorable to the character of the work. But this is contrary to the Divine word, and to the concurrent experience of millions, who have lived and died in the full assurance of hope. The doctrine of assurance is a doctrine of undoubted revelation, implied and expressed. That it is enforced as a state of mind essential to the salvation of the believer, we cannot admit; but that it is insisted upon as essential to his comfortable and holy walk, and as greatly involving the glory of God, we must strenuously maintain. Else why these marked references to the doctrine? In Colossians 2:1, 2, Paul expresses "great conflict" for the saints, that their "hearts might be comforted, being knit together in love, and unto all riches of the full assurance of understanding," etc. In the Epistle to the Hebrews, 10:22, he exhorts them, "Let us draw near with a true heart, in full assurance of faith;" with similar language in our motto. To crown all, the apostle Peter, 2nd Epistle 1:10, thus earnestly exhorts, "Why the rather, brethren, give diligence to make your calling and election sure." We trust no further proof from the sacred word is required to authenticate the doctrine. It is written as with a sunbeam, "the Spirit itself bears witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God."

It is the duty and the privilege of every believer diligently and prayerfully to seek the sealing of the Spirit. He rests short of his great privilege, if he slights or undervalues this blessing. Do not be satisfied with the faint impression which you received in conversion. In other words, rest not content with a past experience. Many are satisfied with a mere hope that they once passed from death unto life; and with this feeble and, in many cases, doubtful evidence they are content to pass all their days, and to go down to the grave. Ah, reader, if you are really converted, and your soul is in a healthy, growing, spiritual state, you will want more than this; and especially, too, if you are led into deeper self-knowledge—a more intimate acquaintance with the roughness of the rough way, the straightness of the straight path—you will want a present Christ to lean upon and to live upon. Past experience will not do for you, save only as it confirms your soul in the faithfulness of God. "Forgetting those things that are behind," you will seek a present pardon, a present sense of acceptance; and the daily question, as you near your eternal home, will be, "How do I now stand with God?—is Jesus precious to my soul now?—is He my daily food?—what do I experience of daily visits from and to Him?—do I more and more see my own vileness, emptiness, and poverty; and His righteousness, grace, and fullness?—and should the summons now come, am I ready to depart and to be with Christ?" As you value a happy and a holy walk—as you would be jealous for the honor and glory of the Lord—as you wish to be the "salt of the earth," the "light of the world"—to be a savor of Christ in every place—oh seek the sealing of the Spirit. Rest not short of it—reach after it—press towards it: it is your duty—oh that the duty may be your privilege then shall you exclaim with an unfaltering tongue, "Abba, Father," "My Lord, and my God!"

MAY 20.

"Until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ: which in his times he shall show, who is the blessed and only Potentate, the King of kings, and Lord of lords; Who only has immortality, dwelling in the light which no man can approach unto; whom no man has seen, nor can see: to whom be honor and power everlasting." Amen. 1 Tim. 6:14-16

STRONG is the testimony of the Holy Spirit in the word to the essential Deity of our blessed Lord. And if He has laid such amazing stress upon it, surely it should be a solemn matter with us how we think of and treat it. The great, the grand glory of Immanuel is His essential glory—the glory of His Godhead. It is only in this light that we can approach Him with the hope of pardon and acceptance. It is then we talk of Him as a Mediator—it is then we view Him as the Sin-bearer of His people—it is then we contemplate Him as their Surety, their Righteousness, their covenant Head. In vain we speak of His atoning blood, of His finished righteousness, of His mediatorial fullness, if we look not up to Him in the "glory He had with the Father before the world was." This it is that imparts such efficacy to His work, and throws such surpassing luster around it. And what is the witness of the Spirit to this doctrine? It is this; that all the names, the perfections, the works, and the worship proper only to Deity belong to Christ—thus proclaiming Him with a loud voice to be, what He really is—Jehovah Jesus.

Reader, ponder the testimony. Jesus of Nazareth, the anointed Savior of poor sinners, is emphatically styled the "great God," Titus 2:13; the "mighty God," Isa. 9:6; the "only wise God," Jude 25; the "true God," 1 John 5:20; the "only Lord God," Jude 4. The name Jehovah peculiarly belongs to God: it is never in a solitary instance applied to a mere creature. "I am Jehovah; that is my name." And yet the very name is ascribed to Jesus by the Holy Spirit, "This is the name whereby He shall be called, Jehovah our Righteousness." He is then Jehovah Jesus, "God over all, blessed for evermore." Could testimony be more clear and decisive? O precious truth on which to live—O glorious rock on which to die! Jesus is Jehovah He is "Immanuel, God with us"—"God manifest in the flesh." Hold fast to this truth, reader. Let nothing weaken your grasp upon it. It is your plank, your life-boat, your ark, your all. This gone, all goes with it! You will need it when you come to die—in that solemn hour when all else fails you—when sin in battle-array rises before you, and you think of the holiness of a holy God—then you will want a rock to stand upon; and as the Spirit leads you to Jesus the Rock, testifies to your soul of His blood, witnesses to His Godhead, unfolds Him in His essential glory, you shall be enabled to shout "Victory! victory!" as you pass safely and triumphantly over Jordan. The blood that speaks peace will be felt to be efficacious—and the righteousness that justifies will be seen to be glorious—and the Rock that sustains will be felt to be firm and immovable, just as the blessed Glorifier of Christ witnesses to the truth of His Deity. Oh then to see the Lawgiver in the character of the Law-fulfiller—to behold the God-man obeying, suffering, dying—and therefore the law honored, justice satisfied, and the Father well pleased—truly may the believing soul adopt the triumphant language of the apostle, and take up H is challenge—"Who is he that condemns? it is Christ that died." Dear reader, set a high value on the doctrine of our Lord's Deity—guard it with a jealous eye, pray to be established in its full experimental belief; for the more you see of the dignity of His person, the more you will see of the glory of His work.

MAY 21.

"And for this cause he is the mediator of the new testament, that by means of death, for the redemption of the transgressions that were under the first testament, they which are called might receive the promise of eternal inheritance." Heb. 9:15

VIEWED in its proper aspect, the humanity of our Lord will be found to occupy a place in the scheme of salvation, as important and essential to its perfection as His Deity; that the humanity was pure humanity, and the Deity absolute Deity, while the mysterious union of the two, in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ, constituted Him the proper and the "one Mediator between God and man." Glorious is this aspect of our Lord's complex person; full and clear is the testimony of the Spirit to its truth. Where Christ speaks of Himself as inferior to the Father—as having received "glory from the Father,"—as receiving "life from the Father,"—of "the Father being greater than He,"—He must invariably be regarded as alluding to Himself in His mediatorial office only, and not in His Divine character. He is equal to the Father in nature, subordinate to Him only in office. On this truth hinges all the glory and efficacy of redemption.

It was, then, essential to His fitness as the Surety and Mediator of His covenant people, that He should be "bone of their bone, and flesh of their flesh." That forasmuch as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, He also Himself likewise took part of the same; "it behooved Him to be made like unto His brethren." The nature of His office, and the success of his undertaking, required that the union of every Divine and human perfection should meet and center in Him. He was to be the middle person between God and man. He was to bring together these two extremes of being—the Infinite and the finite. He was to mediate for the offended Creator and the offending creature. How could He possibly accomplish this great and peculiar work, without a union of the two natures—the Divine and the human? Jehovah could admit of mediation only by one of equal holiness and glory, and man could negotiate in this great business of reconciliation but with one "in all points (sin excepted) like canto himself." Behold this wondrous union in the person of Jesus. As man, he was made under the law—honoring it in its precepts by His obedience, and in its penalty by His sufferings. As God, He imparted a dignity to that obedience, and a virtue to those sufferings, which rendered them eternally efficacious in the salvation of men, glorious in the sight of angels, and infinitely satisfactory to law and to justice.

Beloved reader, stand not aloof from the pure humanity of your blessed Lord. It was humanity that obeyed, that bled, and that died for you. Cling to the doctrine of His Deity. It was God in the man that rendered His obedience meritorious for your justification, and His death effectual for your redemption. Oh glorious person of the God-man Mediator! What a foundation is here laid for a poor condemned sinner to build upon! What a "new and living way" to God is opened—what a wide door to His very heart! He may come now, and feel that not a perfection of Jehovah is trampled upon in His coming—that not an iota of His law is dishonored in His salvation—but that the law appears in its richest luster, and every perfection shines in its resplendent glory, in the full and free redemption of a sinner through the blood and righteousness of the Son of God. Is it any wonder that over the door of mercy should be written in letters of brightness that might dazzle an angel's eye, "Whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have everlasting life"?

MAY 22.

Therefore, behold, I will allure her, and bring her into the wilderness, and speak comfortably unto her. Hosea 2:14

How does God comfort those who are cast down? His method is various. He adapts the comfort to the sorrow. He first writes the sentence of death upon all comfort out of Himself. If you have been accustomed to scrutinize narrowly God's way of dealing with you, you will often have marked this peculiar feature—that before He has unsealed the fountain, He has cut off the spring. In other words, He has suspended all human channels of comfort, preparatory to the fulfillment of his own exceeding great and precious promise—"I, even I, am He that comforts you." It was thus He dealt with His Church of old, as described in our motto. In that wilderness, as a "woman of a sorrowful spirit," she is brought; in that wilderness, she is separated from her companions; yet in that dreary, lonely wilderness, the God of all comfort speaks to her heart. Then follows the song of the Lord in the strange land—the music of the wilderness—"And she shall sing there, as in the days of her youth, and as in the day when she came up out of the land of Egypt." Overlook not this process. It may be painful, humiliating, and trying to faith; but the issue, like all the conduct of our heavenly Father, will be most blessed and holy. Is He now, in your case, writing the sentence of death upon all creature-comfort? Does no eye pity you, no heart feel for you, no tongue address you, and is no hand outstretched to rescue you? Look now for God; for He is on the way, in this the time of the creature's failure, Himself to comfort you.

Take heed that it is God, and not man, who comforts you—that your consolation is Divine, and not human. It may be the duty of your minister, and the privilege of your friend, to speak a promise to the ear, and to spread out before you the riches of Divine comfort in the word; but it is the prerogative of the Holy Spirit alone to apply the promise, and to give a heartfelt possession of those comforts. Jealous of His love to you, and of the glory that belongs to Himself, God will delegate the office and commit the power of lightening the burden of your oppressed spirit, of soothing the sorrow of your disconsolate heart, to no created hand. "As one whom his mother comforts, so will I comfort you." Beware, then, of a creature-comfort and of a false peace. Let no one comfort you but God Himself, and let nothing give you peace but the peace-speaking blood of Jesus. A wound may be covered, and yet not be healed; a promise may be spoken, and yet not be applied. To the "God of all comfort," then, repair in your grief. To the precious blood of the Incarnate God go with your burden of sin. Oh! how welcome will you be, coming just as you are! How sacred will be your sorrow to His heart, how eloquent your pleadings to His ear, and how precious in His sight the simple child-like faith, that severs you from all other dependences, and leads you to Him alone for comfort! Then will you exclaim—and not David's harp could discourse sweeter music—"My heart trusted in Him, and I am helped. You have turned for me my mourning into dancing you have put off my sackcloth, and girded me with gladness; to the end that my glory may sing praise to you, and not be silent. I love the Lord, because He has heard my voice and my supplications. Because He has inclined His ear unto me, therefore will I call upon Him as long as I live."

MAY 23.

"Verily, verily, I say unto you, The hour is coming, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God: and those who hear shall live." John 5:25

THE condition from which the renewed man passes is that of death. This was his Adamic, or natural state. The sinner is by law dead; the curse is upon him, and condemnation awaits him. No, he is now condemned. "He that believes not is condemned already." As in a state of grace heaven is commenced below, so in a state of nature hell is commenced below. Grace is the beginning of glory, and nature is the beginning of condemnation. The one has in it the element of eternal happiness; the other has in it the element of eternal woe.

But the believer in Jesus is one who has "passed from death unto life." The Spirit of God has breathed into him the breath of life, and He has become a living soul. What an amazing truth is this! We see into what a new and holy life the believing sinner has passed. Quitting forever the low life of sense, he now enters on the exalted life which every believer lives—the life of faith on the Son of God. He has now learned to lean upon Jesus, his righteousness and his strength, his consolation and his support. He is happy in sorrow, joyful in tribulation, strong in weakness, as by faith he leans upon Christ. What a life, too, is the life of communion with God, springing from his life of oneness with Christ! The believer now holds communion with essential life, with essential holiness, with essential love. The holy breathing of his soul is the fellowship of Christ below with the Father above. It is the one life in heaven and on earth. What is prayer to you, my reader? Is it communion? is it fellowship? Does God meet you, and open His heart to you? Are you ever sensible that you have, as it were, attracted His eye, and possessed yourself of His ear? Is prayer the element in which your soul lives? Do you make every circumstance of life an occasion of prayer? As soon as sorrow comes, do you take it to the Lord's heart? As soon as burdening care comes, do you take it to the Lord's arm? As soon as conscience is beclouded, do you take it to the Lord's blood? As soon as the inward corruption rises, do you take it to the Lord's grace? This, beloved, is the life of faith. Mistake not the nature of prayer. True prayer is never more eloquent and prevailing than when breathed forth in real desires, and ardent longings, and groans that cannot be uttered. Sighs, and words, and tears, flowing from a lowly, contrite heart, have a voice more powerful and persuasive than the most eloquent diction that ever clothed the lips of man. Oh to be led by the Spirit more perfectly into a knowledge of the nature and the power of prayer! for this is the grand evidence of our spiritual life. "Behold, he prays."

MAY 24.

"For whatever is born of God overcomes the world: and this is the victory that overcomes the world, even our faith." 1 John 5:4

How does victory over the world mark one born of God? It proves it in this way. That which overcomes the world must be superhuman, of almighty power. It cannot be anything of the world, nor can it be of the flesh; for the flesh has no power over the flesh, and the world will never oppose itself. The flesh loves itself; and the world is too fond of power, quietly and unresistingly to yield its dominion. What then is that which overcomes the world? Faith is the conquering grace—this it is that gives the victory—this it is that crushes this tremendous foe. And what is faith but the "gift of God," and the work of the eternal Spirit in the soul? So that He who possesses that faith which is of the operation of the Spirit is "born of God;" and "whatever is born of God overcomes the world," and the instrument by which he overcomes the world is faith—"Who is he that overcomes the world, but he that believes that Jesus is the Son of God?"

And how does faith overcome the world? By leading the believer to the cross of Jesus. True faith deals with its great object, Jesus. It goes to Him in the conflict, it goes to Him when hard pressed, it goes to Him in its weakness, it goes to Him in deep distress—on Him it leans, and through Him it always obtains the victory. Of the martyrs it is recorded, that they "overcame through the blood of the Lamb;" and Paul employs similar language in describing his victory: "God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world." It is faith in Christ that gives us the victory. How could a feeble saint, with no strength or wisdom in himself, overcome so powerful and subtle an enemy as this, without supernatural aid? Never could he. Look at the world! There are its ten thousand temptations—its temptations of pleasure—its temptations of ambition—its temptations of wealth—its false religion—its temporizing policy—its hollow friendship—its empty show—its gay deceptions—its ten thousand arts to ensnare, beguile, allure, and charm; oh, how could one poor weak believer ever crush this fearful, powerful foe, but as he is "strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus"? The cross of Christ gives him the victory. Christ has already conquered the world, and faith in His blood will enable the feeblest soul to exclaim, while the enemy lies subdued at his feet, "Thanks be unto God, which always causes us to triumph in Christ."

Reader, have you obtained the victory over the world, or has the world obtained the victory over you? One of the two is certain—either you are warring against it, or you are its passive and un resisting victim; either you are "born of God," and "have overcome the world," or you are yet unregenerate, and the world has overcome you. On whose side is the victory? Perhaps you are a professor of the Lord Jesus, and yet loving the world, and conforming to its maxims, its policy, its principles, its fashions, its dress, its amusements, yes, its very religion—for it has its hollow forms of religion. Is it so? Then hear what the word of the Lord says to you: "Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him." Solemn declaration for you, you professors of Christ, and yet lovers of the world! You cannot love God and love the world at the same time. Do not be deceived! The outward garb will not save you. The mere name, the empty lamp—these will avail you nothing when you come to die. If the world has never been ejected from your heart—if you have never been crucified to it, then the love of God is not there; and the love of God absent, you are a stranger to the new birth.

MAY 25.

"For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse: Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened." Romans 1:20-21

WE cannot forget that the God of revelation is the God of nature—that in exploring this vast territory, we trespass upon the domain of no foreign potentate, we invade no hostile kingdom, we tread no forbidden ground. The spiritual mind, fond of soaring through nature in quest of new proofs of God's existence, and fresh emblems of His wisdom, power, and goodness, exults in the thought that it is his Father's domain he treads. He feels that God, his God, is there; and the sweet consciousness of His all-pervading presence, and the impress of His great perfections which everywhere meets his eye, overwhelm his renewed soul with wonder, love, and praise. Oh the delight of looking abroad upon nature, under a sense of pardoning, filial love in the soul, when enabled to exclaim, "This God is my God." Let it not therefore be supposed that nature and revelation are at war with each other. A spiritual mind may discover a close and beautiful relation and harmony between the two. The study of God in His external operations is by no means discouraged in His word. "The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament shows His handiwork. Day unto day utters speech, and night unto night shows knowledge." And in the first verse of our motto, the apostle refers to the rejection of this source of evidence by the heathen.

But if natural theology has its advantages, it also has its limitations. It must never be regarded as taking the place of God's word. It may just impart light enough to the mind to leave its atheism "without excuse," but it cannot impart light enough to convince the soul of its sinfulness—its guilt—its exposure to the wrath of a holy God, and its need of such a Savior as Jesus is. All this is the work of the eternal and blessed Spirit; and if my reader is resting his hope of heaven upon what he has learned of God and of himself in the light of nature only—a stranger to the teaching and operations of the Holy Spirit upon his mind—he is awfully deceiving himself. Natural religion can never renew, sanctify, and save the soul. A man may be deeply schooled in it as a science—he may investigate it thoroughly—defend it ably and successfully, and even, from the feeble light it emits, grope his dark way to the great edifice of revelation—but beyond this it cannot conduct him: it cannot open the door, and admit him to the fullness of the gospel therein contained. It may go far to convince him that the word of God is true, but it cannot "open the book and loose the seals thereof," to disclose to the mind its rich and exhaustless treasures. Oh no! another and a diviner light must shine upon his soul; another and a more powerful hand must break the seals. That light, that hand, is God the Holy Spirit. He only can make the soul acquainted with this solemn truth, "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked." He only can explore this dark chamber of imagery, and bring to light the hidden evil that is there. He only can lay the soul low in the dust before God at the discovery, and draw out the heart in the humiliating confession—"Behold, I am vile!" He only can take of the blood of a precious Savior, and the glorious righteousness of the God-Man Mediator, and, working faith to receive it, through this infinitely glorious medium seal pardon and acceptance, and peace upon the conscience. Oh you blessed and loving Spirit! this is Your work, and Your alone. Your to empty, Your to fill; Your to lay low, Your to exalt; Your to wound, Your to heal; Your to convince of sin, and Your to lead the soul, all sinful, guilty, and wretched as it is, to the precious blood of Jesus—"the fountain opened for sin and uncleanness." You shall have the praise, and wear the CROWN!

MAY 26.

"O God, you have taught me , from my youth: and hitherto have I declared your wondrous works. You, which have showed me great and sore troubles, shall quicken me again, and shall bring me up again from the depths of the earth. You shall increase my greatness, and comfort me on every side." Psalm 71:17, 20, 21.

A CAREFUL reader of David's history cannot but be impressed with the early discipline into which this eminent servant of God was brought. He had scarcely slain Israel's vaunting foe, while yet the flush of victory was upon his youthful brow, and the songs of applause were resounding on his ear, when he found himself placed in a position of the keenest trial and most imminent peril. The jealousy of Saul at the unbounded popularity of the youthful warrior, in whom he at once beheld a rival in his people's affection, if not a successor to the throne, instantly dictated a policy the most oppressive and murderous. From that moment the king sought his life. And thus from being the deliverer of the nation, whom he had saved with his arm—an idol of the people, whom he had entranced with his exploit, David became a fugitive and an exile. Thus suddenly and darkly did the storm-cloud rise upon his bright and flattering prospects.

Two deeply spiritual and impressive lessons we may gather from this period of his history. How rapidly, in the experience of the child of God, may a season of prosperity and adulation be followed by one of trial and humiliation! It is, perhaps, just the curb and the correction God sends to check and to save us. We can ill sustain too sudden and too great an elevation. Few can wear their honors meekly, and none apart from especial and great grace. And when God gives great grace, we may always expect that He will follow it with great trial. He will test the grace He gives. There is but a step from the "third heaven" to the "thorn in the flesh." Oh, the wisdom and love of God that shine in this! Who that sees in the discipline a loving and judicious Father, would cherish one unkind rebellious thought?

Another lesson taught us is, that our severest and bitterest trials may be engrafted upon our dearest and sweetest blessings. It was David's popularity that evoked the storm now beating upon him. The grateful affection of the people inspired the envy and hatred of the king. How often is it thus with us! God bestows upon us blessings, and we abuse them. We idolize the creature He has given, and cling too fondly to the friend He has bestowed—settle down too securely in the nest He has made—inhale too eagerly the incense offered to our rank, talents, and achievements—and God often adopts those very things as the voice of His rebuke, and as the instruments of our correction. Thus may our severest trials spring from our sweetest mercies. What a source of sorrow to Abraham was his loved Isaac; and to Isaac was his favored Jacob; and to Jacob was his precious Joseph; and to Jonah was his pleasant gourd! And what deep spiritual truth would the Holy Spirit teach us by all this?—to seek to glorify God in all our blessings when He gives them; and to enjoy all our blessings in God, when He takes then away.

MAY 27.

"The Lord has done great things for us; whereof we are glad. Those who sow in tears shall reap in joy." Psalm 126:3, 5

TURN we again to David. What would be the result of his review in after-years of the early and severe discipline in which the God of love placed him? Would He not, when his great enemy was laid low, and He had come to the throne, awaken his harp to the sweetest praise and thanksgiving, for the schooling of trial in the morning of life? Oh yes, when binding his sacrifice upon the horns of the altar, or administering the kingdom, he would think of the cave of Adullam, and of the wilderness of Ziph; and as he recounted all the way God had led him, and remembered the deep lessons he had learned in those seasons of deep trial, with what a swelling heart and tuneful voice would he exclaim, "Blessed is the man whom You chasten, O Lord, and teach him out of Your law; that You may give him rest from the days of adversity, until the pit be dug for the wicked."

What an echo to its truth does this sweet strain awaken in many a heart! We, too, can praise God for trial. We, too, can thank God for sorrow. It has been to us, though a painful, yet a much needed and a most blessed school. The cave and the wilderness have been heavenly places on earth. True, it may be, the sorrow early came. It distilled its bitter into our cup, and flung its shadow upon our path, when that cup was so sweet and that path was so bright with life's young dream of joy; yet it was well for us that we bowed to the yoke in our youth, it was good for us that we were early afflicted. The lessons which we have been taught, the truths which we have learned, the preciousness of the Savior which we have experienced, the love of God which we have felt, the sweetness in prayer we have tasted, and the fitness for labor we have derived, all, all testify, as with one voice, to the unutterably precious blessings that flow through the channel of early, sacred, and sanctified sorrow.

Dear reader, painful and sad as may be the path you now are treading, fear not; the issue will be most glorious. The seed you are sowing in tears shall yield you a golden harvest of joy. Adversity is the school of heaven. And in heaven—where no sorrow chafes, where no tears flow, where no blight withers, where no disappointment sickens, and where no change or coldness chills, wounds, and slays—the sweetest praises will be awakened by the recollection of the early and sanctified sorrows of earth. Thus the moral beauty of the redeemed soul here, and its inconceivable glory hereafter, will be found to have been deepened by those very circumstances that threatened to deface and becloud it.

MAY 28.

"Brethren, if a man be overtaken in a fault, you which are spiritual, restore such an one in the spirit of meekness; considering yourself, lest you also be tempted." Gal. 6:1

THE duty of brotherly admonition and reproof is a perfectly legitimate exercise of Christian love. It may be found the most difficult, but the result will prove it to be the most holy and precious operation of this grace. The Church of God is one family, linked together by ties and interests the closest, the holiest, and the tenderest. It is natural, therefore, that each member should desire for the others the utmost perfection of Christian attainment, and must feel honored or dishonored, as the case may be, by the walk and conversation of those with whom the relationship is so close. In Christian friendship, too, the same feeling is recognized. We naturally feel anxious to see in one whom we tenderly love the removal of whatever detracts from the beauty, the symmetry, and the perfection of Christian character. Here, then, will the duty of brotherly admonition and reproof find its appropriate sphere of exercise. Few things contribute more to the formation of Christian character, and to the holy walk of a church, than the faithful, Christ-like discharge of this duty. It is true it requires no ordinary degree of grace in him who administers, and in him who receives, the reproof. That in the one there should be nothing of the spirit which seems to say, "Stand by, I am holier than you," nothing to give needless pain or humiliation, but the utmost meekness, gentleness, and tenderness; and that in the other, there should be the tractable and humble mind, that admits the failing, receives the reproof, and is grateful for the admonition. "Let the righteous smite me," says David, "it shall be a kindness; and let him reprove me, it shall be an excellent oil." Thus, while this duty is administered and received in the spirit of the meek and lowly Jesus, the church will be kindly affectioned one to another, knit together in love, and growing up into that state in which she will be without spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing.

True Christian love will avoid taking the seat of judgment. There are few violations of the law of love more common than those rash and premature judgments, which some Christians are ever ready to pronounce upon the actions, the principles, and the motives of others. And yet a more difficult and delicate position no Christian can be placed in than this. To form a true and correct opinion of a certain line of conduct, we must often possess the heart-searching eye of God. We must be intimately acquainted with all the hidden motives, and must be fully in possession of all the concomitant circumstances of the case, before we can possibly arrive at anything like an accurate opinion. Thus, in consequence of this blind, premature pre-judgment, this rash and hasty decision, the worst possible construction is often put upon the actions and the remarks of others, extremely unjust, and deeply wounding to the feelings. But especially inconsistent with this love, when small unessential differences of opinion in the explanation of scriptural facts, and consequent nonconformity in creed and discipline, are constructed into rejection of the faith once delivered to the saints, and made the occasion of hard thoughts or of unkind and severe treatment. Let us then hear the Lord's words, "Judge not, that you do not be judged;" and the apostle's, "Why do you judge your brother? or why do you set at nothing your brother? for we shall all stand before the judgment-seat of Christ."

MAY 29.

"Why are you cast down, O my soul? and why are you disquieted within me? Hope you in God: for I shall yet praise him, who is the health of my countenance, and my God." Psalm 42:11

In all His dispensations—the severest and the darkest—have faith in God. This is, perhaps, one of the greatest achievements of faith. To believe in God when He smiles, to trust in Him when conscious of His nearness, to have faith in Him when the path is flowery and pleasant, were an easy task. But to have faith in Him when "He holds back the face of His throne, and spreads His cloud upon it; to love Him when He frowns; to follow Him when He withdraws; to cleave to Him when He would seem to shake us off; to trust in Him when His arm is raised to slay—this were faith indeed. And yet all this the faith of God's elect can achieve. If not, of what value is it? Of what possible use to the mariner would be the compass which would only work in the day, and not in the night? which only served to steer the vessel in light winds, and not in rough gales? Faith is the believing soul's compass, guiding it as truly and as certainly to the heavenly port through the wildest tempest as through the serenest calm. To change the figure, faith is that celestial telescope which can pierce the thickest haze or the darkest cloud, descrying suns and stars glowing and sparkling in the far distance. It can discern God's smile under a frown; it can read His name to be "love" beneath the dark dispensation; it can behold the Sun of Righteousness beaming through the interstices of gloomy clouds; and now and then it can catch a glimpse of the harbor itself, with the towering turrets and golden spires of the "new Jerusalem" glittering in the distance. Oh, it is a wonderful grace, the precious faith of God's elect!

Is God dealing with you now in a way of deep trial, of dark providence, mysterious to your mind, and painful to your heart? Is He even chastening you for your backslidings, correcting you for your sins? Still "have faith in God." Sensible appearances, second causes, cannot in the least degree affect the ground of your faith which is God Himself—His immutable nature, His unchangeable love, His eternal purpose, His everlasting covenant, His own Divine and glorious perfections. Believe that you are in His heart, and that your interests are in His hands. Have faith in His wisdom to guide, in His love to direct, in His power to sustain, in His faithfulness to fulfill every promise that now relates to your best welfare and happiness. Only believe in God—that all things in His disposal of you, in His transactions with you, are working together for our present and eternal good. All that He expects and requires of you now is to have faith in Him. The cloud may be dark, the sea tempestuous, but God is in the cloud, and "the Lord sits upon the flood." Even now it is the privilege of your faith to exclaim, "My soul, hope you in God. He is my God; I will trust, and not be
afraid."

Oh, what inspiring words are these—"hope you in God!" I hesitate not to say, my reader, you may hope in God. Though your case may seem desperate, to your eye cheerless and hopeless, not merely too intricate for man, but too unworthy for God—yet you may hope in God. Take your case to Him, hoping against hope, and believing in unbelief. Will He close His heart against you? Never! Will He repel you when you fly to Him? Never! It is not in the heart of God, no, nor is it in His power, to do so. Take hold of His strength—I speak it humbly, reverentially—and you have overcome God. You disarm Him of the instrument and of the power to punish you; you have laid your hand of faith upon the strength of His love, and have made peace with Him. You cannot cherish a hope too sanguine, nor exercise a faith too implicit in God, hopeless, cheerless, and extreme as your case may be. Impossible! God never appears so like Himself, as in the season of the believer's darkness and suffering. At the very moment in which he sees the least of God, God appears the most what He is. The tenderest unfoldings of His heart are in sorrow, the brightest exhibitions of His character are in darkness, and the most glorious displays of His wisdom, power, and grace are seen gleaming through the mist.

MAY 30.

"Whoever eats my flesh, and drinks my blood, has eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is food indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. He that eats my flesh, and drinks my blood, dwells in me, and I in him." John 6:54-56

FROM where do the ordinances derive their efficacy and power, but from the vitality of the Redeemer's blood? There could be no life, for instance, in the ordinance of the Lord's Supper but as that institution presented in a lively picture to the faith of the recipient the life-blood of the Savior. With what clearness and solemnity has He Himself put forth this truth, in the verses of our motto; thus declaring that he who in lowly and simple faith drinks of the blood of Jesus, partakes of the life of Jesus, because the life of Jesus is in the blood. Should the eye of an unconverted soul light upon this page, or should it arrest the attention of an unbelieving and therefore an unworthy recipient of the ordinance, let that individual seriously ponder these solemn words of Jesus—"Except you eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink His blood, you have no life in you." The ordinance has no life of itself; the mere symbol possesses no spiritual vitality whatever; it cannot impart life, nor can it sustain life. But the life in the ordinance flows from the exercise of faith, through this medium, with the life-blood of Jesus. Therefore, if you rest only in the symbol, if in this ordinance you partake not by faith of the blood of Jesus, your soul is destitute of spiritual life. In the words of Jesus Himself, "You have no life in you."

But oh what life does the believing communicant find in the atoning blood! what food, that refreshment, what nourishment! Is it any wonder that Jesus should be to Him the chief among ten thousand, and that the blood of Jesus should be the most precious thing in the universe? If the death of Jesus is his life, what must the life of Jesus be! If the humiliation of Jesus is his honor, what must the exaltation of Jesus be! If the cross of Jesus is his glory, what must the throne of Jesus be! If Jesus crucified is his boast, what must be Jesus glorified! "If, when we were enemies, we were reconciled by the death of His Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by His life."

Reader, is the blood of Jesus the life of your soul? So momentous is this truth, bear with me in pressing it upon your attention. Believe me when, with all affection and solemnity, I say that Your religion, your creed, your profession, are lifeless if they are not vivified, pervaded, and animated by the blood of the Son of God. God have no dealings with you in this great matter your salvation, but through the blood. He cannot "reason" with you about your sins of "crimson" and of "scarlet" dye, but on the footing of the blood. He cannot meet you for one moment in any other character than as a "consuming fire," but as He meets you at, and communes with you from above the mercy-seat sprinkled with blood. The blood of atonement is everything to God in the way of satisfaction, of glory, and of honor; and should be everything to you in the way of acceptance, pardon, and communion. There is not a moment in which God's eye of complacence is withdrawn from the blood of His Son in the perpetual acceptance of the believer; and there should not be a moment in which our eye of faith, in every circumstance of our daily walk before Him, should not also be upon this "blood of sprinkling, that speaks better things than that of Abel."

MAY 31.

"I drew them with cords of a man, with bands of love." Hosea 11:4

THE word of God teaches us, that "a soft answer turns away wrath." And, again, it is said, "By long forbearing is a prince persuaded, and a soft tongue breaks the bone." It was by kindness that David calmed down the enraged temper of Saul, obtaining thus a two-fold victory—a victory over himself; and a victory over the wrathful king. Kindness is the great law of the Divine government; and in man is the strongest element of human power. How does God overcome an evil; is it not by good? And based upon this is a like precept enforced upon us: "If your enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him drink: for in so doing you shall heap coals of fire on his head. Do not be overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good." There is no weapon so powerful as kindness. It is by the love of the cross the enmity of the carnal mind is subdued, and its inbred evils overcome; and would we be exquisitely severe to the faults and delinquencies of the erring and the hardened, we must be exquisitely kind. The very severity of love will more quickly and effectually subdue, win, and reclaim, than all the harsh, cruel treatment, unfeeling upbraiding, and bitter threats, that sternness ever invented. The human heart expands to the looks, and words, and actions of human kindness and sympathy; just as the wild rose and the delicate flower nurtured in our gardens open to the light and warmth of the morning sun.

We should remember this in our walks and labors of benevolence. Brought, as we sometimes are, into contact with extreme cases of guilt and crime, we should not overlook the material we yet possess, with which to repair the fallen structure. No heart should be considered too polluted—no mind too dark—no character too debased—for the power of God, working by human instrumentality, to restore. The surface may present to the eye the iron features of a hardened and a reckless character; nevertheless, there are springs of thought and feeling and memory, beneath that repulsive surface, which, if touched by a skillful and a delicate hand, will unlock the door of the heart, and admit you within its most sacred recesses. Thus with gentleness and kindness you may soften the most hardened, disarm the most ferocious, calm the most violent, and attain complete possession of a mind that has long resisted and repelled every other subduing influence. The true disciple of Christ, like the beloved John, who leaned on the bosom of Jesus, and felt and imbibed the warmth of its gentleness, tenderness, and love, will ever desire to exhibit the loving, sympathizing, forgiving spirit of his Lord and Master, from whose lips no words of harshness ever breathed.

JUNE 1.

"Howbeit you are just in all that is brought upon us; for you have done right, but we have done wickedly." Neh. 9:33

IT would be incorrect to suppose that the chastisements of our heavenly Father were in themselves pleasant and desirable. They are no more so than the physician's recipe, or the surgeon's lancet. But as in the one case, so in the other, we look beyond the medicine to its sanative qualities, we forget the bitterness of the draught in its remedial results. Thus with the medicine of the soul—the afflictions sent and sanctified by God. Forgetting the bitter and the pain of God's dealings, the only question of moment is, what is the cause and what the design of my Father in this? The answer is—our deeper sanctification.

This is effected, first, by making us more thoroughly acquainted with the holiness of God Himself. Sanctified chastisement has an especial tendency to this. To suppose a case. Our sense of God's holiness, previously to this dispensation, was essentially defective, unsound, superficial, and uninfluential. The judgment admitted the truth; we could speak of it to others, and in prayer acknowledge it to God; but still there was a vagueness and an indistinctness in our conceptions of it, which left the heart cold, and rendered the walk uneven. To be led now into the actual, heart-felt experience of the truth, that in all our transactions we had to deal with the holy, heart-searching Lord God, we find quite another and an advanced stage in our journey, another and a deeper lesson learned in our school. This was the truth, and in this way Nehemiah was taught. "Howbeit you are just (holy) in all that is brought upon us; for you have done right, but we have done wickedly." Oh blessed acknowledgment! Do not think that we speak unfeelingly when we say, it were worth all the discipline you have ever passed through, to a have become more deeply schooled in the lesson of God's holiness. One most fruitful cause of all our declensions from the Lord will be found wrapped up in the crude and superficial views which we entertain of the character of God, as a God of infinite purity. And this truth He will have His people to study and to learn, not by sermons, nor from books, not from hearsay, nor from theory, but in the school of loving chastisement—personally and experimentally. Thus beholding more closely, and through a clearer medium, this Divine perfection, the believer is changed more perfectly into the same moral image. "He for our profit, that we might be partakers of His holiness."

The rod of the covenant has a wonderful power of discovery. Thus, by revealing to us the concealed evil of our natures, we become more holy. "The blueness (that is, the severity) of a wound cleanses away evil." This painful discovery often recalls to memory past failings and sins. David went many years in oblivion of his departure from God, until Nathan was sent, who, while he told him of his sin, with the same breath announced the message of Divine forgiveness. Then it was the royal penitent kneeled down and poured forth from the depths of his anguished spirit the fifty-first Psalm—a portion of God's word which you cannot too frequently study. "I do remember my sin this day," is the exclamation of the chastened sufferer. Thus led to search into the cause of the Divine correction, and discovering it—perhaps after a long season of forgetfulness—the "blueness of the wound," the severity of the rod, "cleanses away the evil;" in other words, more deeply sanctifies the soul. "Show me why you contend with me."

JUNE 2.

"For you, O God, have proved us: you have tried us, as silver is tried." Psalm 66:10

FAITH has its trials, as well as its temptations. Affliction is a trial of faith; sorrow in any of its multitudinous forms is a trial of faith; the delay of mercy is a trial of faith; the promise unfulfilled is a trial of faith; the prayer unanswered is a trial of faith; painful providences, mysterious dispensations, straitened circumstances, difficulties, and embarrassments, all are so many trials of faith, commissioned and designed by God to place the gold in the crucible, and the wheat in the sieve, that both may be purified and tried. Ah, is it no trial of the believer's faith, when the foundation upon which it rests is assailed? Is it no trial of faith to have distorted representations of God presented to its eye, dishonoring thoughts of God suggested to the mind, unbelieving apprehensions of Jesus, His love, His grace, and His works, foisted upon the heart? To entertain for one moment the idea that God is unfaithful to His word, or that in His dealings He is arbitrary and unkind? that Jesus is not what He represents Himself to be, an all-sufficient Savior of the lost, the healer of the broken in heart, the tender, gentle Savior, not breaking the bruised reed, but supporting it, not quenching the smoking flax, but fanning it? Oh yes, these to a holy mind are painful trials of faith, from which the tender conscience shrinks, and the sensitive heart recoils.

It is only true grace that is really tried. No man puts mere dross into his furnace, or mere chaff into his sieve. All his toils and pains-taking would go for nothing, for it would come forth in its nature unaltered and unchanged—the dross would still be dross, and the chaff would still be chaff. Now the Lord tries, and Satan tempts, nothing but genuine grace. It is the wheat, and not the tares, that is made to pass through the fiery trial. Thus do afflictions and trying dispensations prove tests of a man's religion. When there is nothing but tinsel in a profession of Christianity, the fire will consume it; when there is nothing but chaff, the wind will scatter it. The furnace of temptation and the flail of affliction often prove a man's work of what sort it is, long before the discovery is made in a world where no errors can be corrected, and when it will be too late to rectify mistakes. Thus it is that so many professors, who have not the root of the matter in themselves, but endure for awhile, are offended and fall away when tribulation or persecution arises because of the word.

And why is the "wheat" thus sifted? why is so Divine and precious a grace subjected to a process so humiliating and severe? Certainly not because of any intrinsic impurity in the grace itself. All the graces of the Spirit, as they proceed from God, and are implanted in the heart, are pure and holy; as essentially free from sin as the nature from where they flow. But in consequence of the impurity of the heart, and the defilement of the nature in which they are deposited—the body of sin and death by which they are incased—they become mixed with particles of earthliness and carnality, the fine gold with dross, and the pure wheat with chaff. To purify and separate the graces of the Holy Spirit from these things, so foreign to their nature, the Lord permits these temptations, and sends these trials of faith.

Not only may the faith of a child of God be severely assailed, but there are times when that faith may greatly waver. Is this surprising? No, the greatest wonder is, that with all these severe shocks, through which it passes, it does not entirely fail. Nothing but the Divinity that dwells within that grace keeps it. Were it not Divine and incorruptible, fail entirely it must. Look at Abraham—on one occasion in the strength of faith offering up his son, and on another occasion in the weakness of faith denying his wife! Look at David—in the strength of faith slaying Goliath, and in the weakness of faith fleeing from Saul! Look at Job—in the strength of faith justifying God in the severest of His dealings, and in the weakness of faith cursing the day that He was born! Look at Peter—in the strength of faith drawing his sword and smiting a servant of the high priest's, and in the weakness of faith forced by a little maid to deny the Lord whom he had but just defended! Oh! the wonder of wonders is, that there remains a single grain in the sieve, or a particle of metal in the furnace, or a solitary spark in the ocean—that all is not utterly scattered, consumed, and annihilated! Nothing but the power of God and its own incorruptible and imperishable nature, preserve it.

JUNE 3.

"Behold, he prays." Acts 9:11

WHAT a precious fruit of the renewed heart is true prayer! If there is a single exercise of the soul that places the fact of its regeneracy beyond a doubt, it is this. Prayer, that comes as holy fire from God, and that rises as holy incense to God—prayer, that takes me, with every want and infirmity, with every sin and sorrow, to the bosom of the Father, through the smitten bosom of the Son—prayer, that sweetens my solitude, that calms my perturbed spirit, that weakens the power of sin, that nourishes the desire for holiness, and that transports the soul, by anticipation, beyond the region of winds, and storms, and tempests, into the presence of God, where all is sunshine and peace—oh what a wondrous privilege is this!

That there is much of awful mystery yet to be unraveled, in relation to this holy exercise of the soul, we readily admit. How prayer operates upon God, we know not. That it can effect any alteration in His purpose, or change His will, or afford Him information, no one for a moment supposes. And yet, that it should be an ordained medium by which finite weakness seems to overcome Infinite strength, a human will seems to turn the Divine will, and man's shallow mind seems to pour knowledge into the fathomless mind of God—that it should arrest a threatened judgment, remove an existing evil, or supply a present want—is a marvel in which, like all others of Divine revelation, I submit my reason to my faith, receiving and adoring what my reason cannot, unless I were God, perfectly comprehend. The only solution which we have of this mystery of prayer is contained in these words: "He that searches the hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because He makes intercession for the saints according to the will of God;" the Holy Spirit thus inditing just that petition which is in harmony with the purpose, will, and love of Him who is emphatically the hearer and the answerer of prayer. What a volume might be composed on the subject of prayer, and yet the half would not be told! A compilation of its achievements would of itself be the work of the longest life. Blessed are they who can enter into the spirit of these words—"I give myself unto prayer." "It is good for me to draw near unto God." "Pray without ceasing." "Praying always with all prayer." "If we ask anything according to His will, He hears us; and if we know that He hears us, whatever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we desired of Him." Have you, reader, this fruit? Then restrain not prayer before God.

JUNE 4.

"They are of those that rebel against the light." Job 24:13

So far from cooperating with the Spirit in the new creation, the natural man presents every resistance and opposition to it. There is not only a passive aversion to, but there is an active resistance of, the work. The stream of man's natural inclinations runs counter to all holiness. A strong and steady current has set in against God and all that God loves. The pride of reason, the perverseness of the will, the enmity of the mind, the heart's love of sin, all are up in arms against the entrance of the Holy Spirit. Satan, the great enemy of God and man, has been too long in quiet and undisturbed possession of the soul, to resign his dominion without a strong and a fearful struggle to maintain it. When the Spirit of God knocks at the door of the heart, every ally is summoned by the "strong man armed" to "quench the Spirit," and bar and bolt each avenue to his entrance. All is alarm, agitation, and commotion within. There is a danger of being dispossessed, and every argument, persuasion, and contrivance must be resorted to, in order to retain the long-undisputed throne. The world is summoned to throw out its most enticing bait—ambition, wealth, literary and political distinction, pleasure in her thousand forms of fascination and power—all are made to pass, as in review, before the mind. The flesh, exerts its influence—the love of sin is appealed to, affection for some long-cherished lust, some long-indulged habit, some "fond amusement," some darling taste—these, inspired with new vigor, are summoned to the rescue. Thus Satan, the world, and the flesh are opposed to the Father, the Son, and the Spirit, in the great work of spiritual regeneration. Oh let no individual be so deceived as to believe, that when God the Eternal Spirit enters the soul, He finds the temple swept, and garnished, and prepared for His reception—that without the exercise of His own omnipotent and irresistible power, the heart bounds to welcome Him, the reason bows submissively to His government, and the will yields an instant and humble compliance. Oh no! if He that is in the regenerate were not greater and more powerful than he that is in the world, such is the enmity of the heart to God, such the supreme control which Satan exerts over the whole empire of man, God would be forever shut out, and the soul forever lost. See how clearly regeneration is proved to be the work of the Spirit. God has written it as with a sunbeam, "that we are His workmanship," and that the Eternal Spirit is the mighty agent.

JUNE 5.

"For they being ignorant of God's righteousness, and going about to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted themselves unto the righteous ness of God." Rom. 10:3

WHAT is man's own righteousness, the best that he ever made, but the hewing out of a created cistern, in the place of the infinite fountain? His obedience, at best, must be but a partial and an imperfect one; and, failing in a single point, entails eternal despair. "For whoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all." But not only is it a shallow and contracted, it is also a "broken cistern." It can hold no water of life or of peace, of consolation f or of joy. In vain his spirit, tormented with guilt and agitated with fear, repairs to it for satisfaction and repose—it supplies it not. Let a man, for example, who is thus seeking salvation by the law, take the holiest day in the calendar of his life; let it be as free as it is possible for a fallen creature to make it from sin; let it be filled up with religious duties and services—it closes, and the curtains of night have drawn around him. Reposing on his pillow, he throws forward a glance into the eternal world—he thinks of the holy God, of the righteous law, of the solemn judgment, and the question, "What if this night I should be summoned to stand before my Judge!—what if to-morrow's sun should rise upon my corpse, and I, a departed spirit, should be mingling with the dread realities of an unseen world?"—and he trembles and turns pale. What! has not his best obedience, his holiest day, his strictest observance, brought peace to his conscience and quietness to his soul? What! does no bright hope of glory play around his pillow, and no loving, peaceful view of God cradle him to rest? Ah, no! He has "forsaken the fountain of living waters, and has hewed him out a cistern, a broken cistern, that can hold no water," and his night closes in upon him with the drapery of hopeless gloom.

To you, reader, is this solemn word now sent. Ah! while your eye has been scanning this page, has there not been in your heart the secret conviction of its truth? You have forsaken the righteousness of God, and for years have you been digging into the law, hoping thus to find in its strictest observance some well-spring of life and peace to your soul. But all your toil has been in vain, and all your time misspent. And why? because "by the works of the law should no man living be justified." As true peace only flows through the channel of justification by faith, turning your back upon that channel, there is, there can be, no peace for your soul. Oh that this voice, now sounding in faithfulness on your ear, might awaken you to a sense of your delusion and your folly, and win you to the "good and the right way." Oh that you might be persuaded to abandon the implements of a self-wrought righteousness, with which you have so long fruitlessly labored, and just as you are—poor, guilty, vile, helpless, and hopeless—betake yourself to the "righteousness of God, which is by faith of Jesus Christ." The law is a "broken cistern;" it holds no sweet waters of salvation, it gives out no streams of peace. But the Lord Jesus is a living fountain. He is the "end of the law for righteousness to every one that believes." He has brought in a new and an "everlasting righteousness," for the full justification of poor sinners, such as you. Abandon at once and forever the broken cistern of a creature-righteousness—too long has it allured but to deceive you—and repair to the fountain of a Divine righteousness, which never has and never will deceive a believing sinner. Drink, oh drink, from this life-giving fountain. Here are peace, joy, confidence, and hope. Clothed in this righteousness, you can look your sins in the face, and death in the face, and fear nothing.

JUNE 6.

"The righteous shall be in everlasting remembrance." Psalm 112:6

HOW great the power and charm of a holy life! The world is replete with beauty. There is beauty in nature, beauty in art, beauty in countless forms; but there is no beauty like "the beauty of holiness." The brightness which gleams through a good man's life outshines the sun in its meridian splendor. The world, too, is mighty in its forces. There is the power of intellect, of learning, and of genius, the power of wealth, of influence, and of rank; but there is no power so commanding and so effective as the power of holiness. The power it wields is omnipotent for the achievement of good. And a more precious and enduring legacy parental affluence and affection cannot bequeath to posterity, than the record of a life traced by the sanctifying influence of faith, the achievements of prayer, and the endowments of holiness. Such a life is a living demonstration of the Divinity of the Bible, and does more to confirm its veracity, and spread its truths through the world, than all that has ever been spoken or written on the evidences of Christianity.

How measureless the loss of such saints of God! To their family and friends, to the Church of Christ and the world, the withdrawal forever from earth of their living piety, fervent prayers, holy conversation, and consistent example, is a serious and far-reaching calamity. And yet they still live among us, not in our hearts and memories only, but in the undying influence of a holy life. "The righteous shall be in everlasting remembrance." The grave hides them from sight, but not from memory. Neither the green turf nor the salt wave can bury the still surviving and still molding recollections of the holy dead. In the embalmed remembrance of their graces, their prayers, and their actions, they still live to guide, stimulate, and cheer us in our homeward march. Nor do we cease to live with them. They remember and love us still. Bearing their friendships with them to the skies, purified, sublimated, and enlarged, they yet think of us, yearn over us, and pant to have us with them there, with a tenderness of interest, and an intensity of affection, such as they never felt on earth. For anything that we know, they still hover around our people, encompassing our path to the abodes of bliss. Angels are ministering agents to the heirs of salvation; and may we not suppose that many of the glorified spirits of "just men made perfect" are gifted with a like embassy? "They serve Him day and night in His temple;" and who will say that it may not enter essentially into that service for the Lord, to administer in some unknown way to their former companions in tribulation, and the expectant sharers of their glory? But until we rejoin them in the home of the Father, we should think of them but to follow their holy example, to gather encouragement from their faith and patience, to learn lessons from their failings, and to take up and carry forward the work of the Lord, which dropped from their dying hands; until we, too, are summoned to rest from our labors, and receive our reward.

JUNE 7.

"For now the see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known." 1 Cor. 13:12

THE expansion and perfection of the intellectual faculties will result in a consequent enlargement and perfection of knowledge; and this is no inferior element of the future happiness of the redeemed. All that is gracious and sanctifying in the soul of the believer has its basis in a certain degree of spiritual knowledge. The mind is the medium through which the first communications of the Spirit are received. A knowledge of ourselves has led to a knowledge of Christ; and a knowledge of Christ has laid the foundation of all the joy, and peace, and hope, the soul has experienced. And as our spiritual knowledge increases—the mind becoming more and snore informed in Divine truth, there is a corresponding and proportioned increase of the blessing which an experimental acquaintance with the truth yields.

Now, if this be so here, what must it be in the glorified state? Think we not that it will greatly augment the happiness, and heighten the glory, of the saints in heaven, that in their enlarged mental capacity, in the fullest development of their intellectual powers, they shall be enabled to take a wider range of thought? That they shall compass a greater knowledge of God, and see infinitely more of the glory and drink infinitely deeper of the love of Christ, than the most exalted angel in heaven? If in the present school of God—often the school of deep trial, as we advance from truth to truth, knowing more of Jesus, and increasing in the knowledge of God, we grow more holy and more happy; our peace flowing like a river, and our righteousness as the waves of the sea; our confidence in God strengthening, and our affections cleaving more closely to the Savior—what, we ask, will be the glory deepening around us, when all the present obstructions and impediments to our advancement in spiritual knowledge are removed, and our intellectual faculties, then unclouded and unfettered, expand their long-folded wings, to sweep an infinite circle of intelligence—knowing even as we are known? If our progress in spiritual knowledge is an accession to our happiness here, what hereafter will be the felicity ever expanding our glorified souls through the medium of an enlarged mind, illimitable as its range of thought, and pure and transparent as the atmosphere it traverses? Deem it not, then, O expectant of heaven! an inferior element of the glory that awaits you, that your intellectual enjoyment, perfect in its nature, shall ever be augmenting in its degree. "Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father," and "then shall we know even as also we known."

JUNE 8.

"They are without fault before the throne of God." Rev. 14:4

A STILL higher element of future glory will be perfect holiness. The very utterance of the thought seems to awaken music in the soul. Seeing Christ as He is, and knowing Him as we are known, we also shall be like Him. Perfected in holiness! Oh, what a conception! what a thought! No more elements of evil working like leaven in the soul. No more traces and fetters of corruption. No more evil heart of unbelief, perpetually departing from God. No more desperate depravity. No more sin warring within, and no more temptation assailing from without. All is perfect holiness now! The outline of the Divine image is complete, for the believer has awakened in the finished likeness of his Lord. The spirit of the just man is made perfect. Is there not enough in this anticipation to make us long to be there? What now shades your spirit, and embitters your joy; suffuses your eyes with tears, and inflicts the keenest pang? Not adversity, nor sickness; not changed affection, nor blighted hopes; not the shaded landscape of life, nor the hollow falling of the earth as the grave closes from your view the heart's precious treasure. Oh, no, not these! It is the sin that dwells in us! Extirpate all sin, and you have erased all sorrow. Complete the grace, and you have perfected the glory. You then have chased all sadness from the heart, and have dried all tears from the eye. That glory will be the glory of unsullied purity. Nothing of sin remains save its recollection, and that recollection but heightens our conception of the preciousness of the blood that shall have effaced every stain, and of the greatness and sovereignty of that grace which shall have brought its there. "Let the saints be joyful in glory," for their battle with sin is over. "These are they which follow the Lamb wherever He goes. These were redeemed from among men, being the first-fruits unto God and to the Lamb. And in their mouth was found no guile: for they are without fault before the throne of God."

"We through the Spirit wait for the hope of righteousness by faith." We wait the Bridegroom's coming. We wait the descent of the chariot. We wait the Father's summons to our home. We wait the Master's call to our rest. We wait the uncaging of the spirit, that it may fly. The desire to depart is ardent, but patient. The longing to be with Christ is deep, but submissive. For the full realization of a hope so sublime, so precious, and so sure, we can patiently wait. The theater of suffering is the school of patience; "And patience works experience, and experience hope;" and hope, in the depth of the trial and in the heat of the battle, looks forward to the joy of deliverance and to the spoils of victory. It is well remarked by Calvin, that "God never calls His children to a triumph, until He has exercised them in the warfare of suffering." Thus all who shall eventually wear this palm must now wield the sword. For the consummation of this hope, then, let us diligently labor, meekly suffer, and patiently wait. Living beneath the cross, looking unto Jesus, toiling for Jesus, testifying for Jesus, and cultivating conformity to Jesus, let us be always ready to give a reason of the hope that is in us; and be always ready to enter into the joy and fruition of that hope, the substance and security of which is—"Christ in you the hope of glory."

JUNE 9.

"Not every one that says unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that does the will of my Father which is in heaven. Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in your name? and in your name have cast out devils? and in your name done many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, you that work iniquity." Matthew 7:21-23

OUR blessed Lord foresaw and forewarned men of this evil, that an outward profession of the Gospel may exist, and yet the heart be a stranger to its power. Let His words—searching and solemn as though now uttered from the judgment-seat—sink down into our ears. If, in the days of our Lord, and of His faithful and vigilant apostles—the days when a public profession of attachment to Christ was to mark a man for the cross and the stake—if in their days, and under these circumstances, there were found those who could take refuge in a mere outward profession, is it astonishing that now, when it costs a man nothing to profess Christ, but rather adds to his worldly influence and emolument, thousands should run upon this quicksand, and make shipwreck of their souls? Oh, it is no marvel.

There may be in an individual's frame of mind and outward conduct much that bears a strong affinity and resemblance to many of the positive evidences of the new birth, without a single step towards that state having been taken. There may be, as regards the state of mind, a deep and clear knowledge of Divine truth, a strongly enlightened judgment, and a sound and scriptural creed. There shall be a strong attachment to, and a zealous maintenance of, some of the distinguishing doctrines of grace—even a desire to hear of Christ, and an ability to judge between sound and unsound, savory and unsavory preaching, and all the while the heart shall be encased in the hardness of impenitence and unbelief—a stranger to the regenerating influence of the Spirit of God. Do not misinterpret our meaning. We speak not anything against a true, spiritual, and experimental acquaintance with Divine truth. We do not forget that there can be no faith in Christ, without some knowledge of Christ. The very existence of faith in the heart implies the existence of, and an acquaintance with, the object of faith—the Lord Jesus. We speak not against an enlarged possession of Divine knowledge. It would be well for the Church of Christ, and would greatly promote her stability and real spirituality, were the standard of Divine knowledge more elevated in her midst. It would screen her from much of the unsound theology and false philosophy, which, at this moment, threaten her purity and her peace. It cannot, with perfect truth, be said—touching an elevated and spiritual taste and thirst for experimental truth—that "wisdom and knowledge are the stability of our times." Much of the prevalent religion is characterized by "itching ears," 2 Tim. 4:3;—habit of change, Proverbs 24:21;—unstableness, 2 Peter 3:16;—affected by "every wind of doctrine," Eph. 4:14; and which, in its influence, is "barren and unfruitful," 2 Peter 1:18. Were there a more diligent and prayerful study of God's word—a more regular and constant attendance upon a stated ministry (if that ministry be found productive of spiritual benefit), connected with frequent seasons of retirement, consecrated to meditation, self-examination, and secret prayer, there would be less of that superficial Christianity which marks the many in this day of high and universal profession. We want more depth of knowledge—more spirituality—more experience—more of the life and power of true godliness; in a word, more of the anointing and sanctifying influences of the Holy Spirit in the Church.

JUNE 10.

"My spirit has rejoiced in God my Savior." Luke 1:47

THE regenerate soul possesses and acknowledges a new Savior. How glorious, suitable, and precious is Jesus to him now! Not so formerly. Then He had his saviors, his "refuges of lies," his fatal confidences many. Jesus was to him as "a root out of a dry ground, having no form nor loveliness." It may be, He denied His Deity, rejected His atonement, scorned His grace, slighted His pardon and His love. Christ is all to him now. He adores Him as the "mighty God, the everlasting Father, the Prince of peace;" as "over all, God blessed forever;" as "God manifest in the flesh;" as stooping to the nature of man, becoming bone of our bone, and flesh of our flesh; as offering Himself up, the "propitiation for our sins;" as dying "the just for the unjust." His righteousness is glorious, as "justifying from all things,"—His blood is precious, as "cleansing from all sin,"—His fullness of grace is valued, as "supplying all need." Oh how surpassingly glorious, inimitably lovely, and unutterably precious is Jesus to a renewed soul!

Truly He is a new Savior. "Other lords" he has renounced; "refuges of lies" He has turned his back upon; "false Christs" He no longer follows. He has found another and a better Savior, Jesus, the mighty God, the Redeemer of sinners; the "end of the law for righteousness to every one that believes." All is new to his recovered sight: a new world of glory has beamed on his mind; Jesus the Lamb is the light and glory thereof. Never did he suppose there was such beauty in His person, such love in His heart, such perfection in His work, such power and such willingness to save. That blood, which was trampled under foot, is now precious. That righteousness, which was scorned, is now glorious. That name, which was reviled, is now as music to the soul, yes, "a name that is above every name."

Jesus is his only Savior. Not an allowed confidence has he out of Christ. The covenant of dead works he has renounced. The Spirit, having brought him out of and away from it, has led him into the covenant of grace, the substance and stability and glory of which is Jesus. On the broad basis of Immanuel's finished, atoning work he rests his whole soul; and the more he presses the foundation, and the more he leans upon the corner-stone, the stronger and the more able to sustain him does he find it. True, a self-righteous principle he feels closely adhering to him all his journey through the wilderness. When he prays, it is there; when He labors, it is there; when he reflects, it is there: he detects it when suspicion of its existence would be most at rest. But in the sober moments of his judgment, when prostrate beneath the cross, and looking up to God through Jesus, this principle is searched out, abhorred, confessed, and mourned over; and with the eye of faith upon a suffering Savior, the language of his expanding heart is,
"Other refuge have I none,
Hangs my helpless soul on You."

JUNE 11.

"Partakers of the heavenly calling." Heb. 3:1

WHAT are some of the attributes of this calling? It is holy. "Who has saved us, and called us with an holy calling." They who are the subjects of this call desire to be holy. Their direst evil is sin. It is, in their experience, not a silken chain, but a galling fetter, beneath whose weight they mourn, and from whose bondage they sigh to be delivered. It is a high and heavenly calling. "I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus." "Partakers of the heavenly calling." How does this calling elevate a man—his principles, his character, his aims, his hopes! It is emphatically a "high vocation." So heavenly is it, too, it brings something of heaven into the soul. It imparts heavenly affections, heavenly joys, and heavenly aspirations. It leads to heaven. Could he look within the veil, each called saint would see a prepared mansion, a vacant throne, a jeweled crown, a robe, and a palm, all ready for the wearing and the waving, awaiting him in glory. Thus it is a call from heaven, and to heaven. It is an irrevocable calling. "The gifts and calling of God are without repentance." God has never for a moment repented that He chose, nor has the Savior repented that He redeemed, nor has the Spirit repented that He called any of His people. Not all their wanderings, nor failures, nor unfruitfulness have ever awakened one regret in the heart of God that He has called them to be saints. "I knew that You would deal very treacherously." "Then will I visit their transgression with the rod, and their iniquity with stripes. Nevertheless my loving-kindness will I not utterly take from him; nor suffer my faithfulness to fail." "Faithful is He that calls you."

Nor must we overlook the Divine sovereignty, which appears so illustrious in this especial calling. All ground of human boasting is removed, and God has secured to Himself, from eternity, the entire glory of His people's salvation. So conspicuously appears the sovereignty of God in this effectual calling, that all foundation of creature-glory is annihilated. And if it be asked by the disputers of this truth, why one is called and another is left?—why Jacob, and not Esau?—why David, and not Saul?—why Cornelius the Gentile, and not Tertullus the Jew?—why the poor beggars in the highway, and not the bidden guests? why the woman who washed with her tears the Savior's feet, and not Simon, in whose house the grateful act was performed?—the answer is, "He will have mercy upon whom He will have mercy." To this acquiescence in the sovereignty of the Divine will our Lord was brought, when He beheld the mysteries of the Gospel veiled from the wise of this world: "I thank You, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that You have hid these things from the wise and prudent, and have revealed them unto babes. Even so, Father: for so it seemed good in Your sight." To this precious truth let us bow; and if the efficacious grace of God has reached our hearts, let us ascribe its discriminating choice to the sovereign pleasure of that Divine and supreme will, which rules over the armies of heaven and among the inhabitants of earth, and to which no creature dare say, "What do you?"

JUNE 12.

"Now to him that is of power to establish you according to my gospel, and the preaching of Jesus Christ." Romans 16:25

THE Holy Spirit breathed the spiritual life in the soul, and He keeps, and nourishes, and watches over it. Let it not be supposed that there is anything in this life that could keep itself. There is no principle in Divine grace that can keep it from decline and decay. If it do not be watched over, nourished, sustained, and revived perpetually by the same omnipotent power that implanted it there, it is liable to constant decline. What experienced child of God has not felt this? Where is the believer that has not been made, solemnly and painfully, to learn it? That there is not a grace of the Spirit in him, but that grace needs, at times, greatly invigorating—not a particle of faith, but it needs strengthening—not a lesson, but he needs to re-learn—not a precept, but requires to be re-written upon his heart. Now this is the work of the ever-watchful, ever-loving, ever-faithful Spirit. He watches over, with a sleepless, loving eye, the work He has wrought in the soul. Not a moment but He has His eye upon it. By night and by day—in summer and in winter—when it decays, when it revives, He is there its guardian and its protector—its author and its finisher.

And how does He nourish it? Spiritually. As the life is spiritual, so the support is spiritual. "As new-born babes, desire the sincere milk of the word, that you may grow thereby." "Nourished up in the words of faith and of good doctrine." How does He nourish it? By leading the soul to Jesus, the substance of all spiritual truth. By unfolding His fullness of all grace, and strength, and sanctification. By leading constantly to His blood and righteousness. By teaching the believer the sweet lesson of living out of himself, his convictions, his enjoyments, his fruitfulness—upon Christ, and Christ alone. What is there in a child of God, in his best estate, that can supply adequate nourishment and support for this principle of Divine life? He has no resources within himself. He cannot live upon evidences—how soon they are clouded! He cannot grow upon enjoyment—how soon it is gone! He cannot find nourishment in any part of the work of the Spirit within him, precious and glorious as that work is. Christ is the "true bread," that sustains the life of God in the soul of man. Jesus said, "I am the living bread which came down from heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live forever." Again, "As the living Father has sent me, and I live by the Father: so He that eats me, even he shall live by me." The renewed soul only lives as it lives on Jesus—it only advances, grows, and "Brings forth much fruit," as it draws its vigor, its nourishment, its support, and fruitfulness simply and entirely from Christ. These again are His words, "Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself except it abide in the vine; no more can you, except you abide in me."

Dear reader, long, it may be, have you been looking to yourself for nourishment, for strength, for comfort, and for fruitfulness. And the more you have looked within yourself, the more emptiness, poverty, and barrenness have you discovered. And now, the blessed Spirit, the nourisher, as He is the author, of the life within you, may give you such a new and enlarged view of Jesus as you have never had before. It may be, He will unfold to your soul such a fullness in Him—strength for your weakness, wisdom for your folly, grace for every corruption, tenderness and sympathy for every trial—as will bring you out of your bondage, introduce you into a "large room," and cause you to exclaim, "Thanks be unto God for His unspeakable gift." Thus does the Spirit nourish and sustain the work He has wrought in the soul. He leads to Jesus.

JUNE 13.

"You ask, and receive not, because you ask amiss, that you may consume it upon your lusts." James 4:3

A believer may urge a request that is in itself wrong. The mother of Zebedee's children did so, when she asked the Lord that her two sons might sit, the one on His right hand, and the other on the left, in His kingdom. Who does not mark the self that appears in this petition? Although it was a mother's love that prompted it, and, as such, presents a picture of inimitable beauty, and one exquisitely touching to the feelings, yet it teaches us that a parent, betrayed by his love for his child, may ask that of God which is really wrong in itself. He may ask worldly distinction, honor, influence, wealth for his child, which a godly parent should never do; and this may be a wrong request, which God, in His infinite wisdom and love, withholds. This was the petition of the mother, which our Lord saw fit to deny. Her views of the kingdom of Christ were those of earthly glory. To see her children sharing in that glory was her high ambition; which Jesus promptly but gently rebuked. Let a Christian mother ask for spiritual blessings for her children, and whatever else is needful the Lord will grant. Let converting, sanctifying, restraining grace be one and the constant petition presented at the footstool of mercy, and then she cannot ask too much, or press her suit too frequently or too fervently.

To allude to another illustration of our remark it was wrong in Job to ask the Lord that he might die. "Oh that I might have my request " (are his words), "and that God would grant me the thing that I long for! Even that it would please God to destroy me; that He would let loose His hand, and cut me off!" It was an unwise and sinful petition, which the Lord in great mercy and wisdom denied him. Truly "we know not what we should pray for as we ought." What a mercy that there is One who knows!

A child of God may ask for a wise and good thing in a wrong way. There may be no faith in asking, and no sense of God's freeness in bestowing. No filial approach—going as a child—as one pardoned—"accepted in the Beloved,"—as one dear to the heart of God. There may be no honoring of the Father in Himself—no honoring of Him in the Son—no honoring of the Blessed Spirit. There may be no resting upon the cross—no pleading of the atoning blood—no washing in the fountain—no humble, grateful recognition of the "new and living way" of access. There may be a want of lowliness in the mind—brokenness in the spirit—sincerity in the heart—reverence in the manner—sobriety in the words. There may be no confession of sin—no acknowledgment of past mercies—no faith in the promised blessing. How much there may be in the prayer of a dear child of God that operates as a blight upon his request, that seems to close the ear and the heart of God! But oh, to go to Him with filial confidence—sweet faith—love flowing from a broken heart—to go to Him as the people of His choice—dear to Him as the apple of His eye—viewed each moment in His Son—and who would, for the love He bears us, undeify Himself, if that would be for our real good, and His own glory. Did He not once empty Himself of His glory—did He not become poor—did He not humble Himself—did He not take upon Him human nature, all for the love He bore His people? That was approaching so near, in appearance, the cessation of Deity, that, as we gaze upon the spectacle, we wonder what another step might have produced! We seem to think He could not have gone further without ceasing to be God. Behold the broad basis, then, on which a child of God may approach Him in prayer. His love, oh how immense! it is past finding out!

JUNE 14.

"As you have sent me into the world, even so have I also sent them into the world." John 17:18

NOT into the solitude of the desert—not into the calm but selfish repose of the domestic circle—not into the hallowed but restricted fellowship of the Church—but into the world—encircling them, for a season, by its vanity, and subjecting them to its trials. And what is their mission? That they should love the world? comport with the world? fraternize with the world? Oh, no! not for this were they sent into it. An object more worthy of His wisdom who sends, and more in harmony with their high calling who are sent, is before them. They are sent into the world that their lives should be a constant, uncompromising, and solemn protest against its vanities and its sins.

Mark again the words of Christ, in our motto "As you have sent me into the world, even so have I also sent them into the world." Christ was commissioned to testify of the world, that the works thereof were evil. He came to labor for the world—to bless the world—to honor His Father in the world. It was the glory of the world that the Son of God was sent into it—that He made it for awhile the place of His temporary abode, and the scene of His stupendous redemption. It was the glory of the earth, that He trod upon its turf. It was the glory of the ocean, that He sailed upon its bosom. It was the glory of the sun, that it beamed upon His head. It was the glory of the air, that it fanned His brow. It was the glory of the waters, that they quenched His thirst. It was the glory of the flowers, that they perfumed His path. It was the glory of the sky, that it spread above Him its blue canopy. What planet has been so honored as this? What world so visited, so distinguished, so blest? Such is the Christian's pattern. Why has Christ placed you in the position you now occupy? Why are you begirt with so much folly, and trial, and danger? You are converted in the midst of the world—your family is in the world—your associates are in the world—your calling is in the world. Why is it so? Even that, like your Lord and Master, you might, by your unworldly, heavenly life, testify of the world that the works thereof are evil, and only evil, and evil continually.

Saints of God, have close relations and intimate dealings with your Elder Brother. Repose in Him your confidence, yield to Him your affections, consecrate to Him your service. He regards you with ineffable delight. With all your interests He is identified, and with all your sorrows He sympathizes. He may, like Joseph, at times speak roughly to His brethren, in the trying dispensations of His providence; yet, like Joseph, He veils beneath that apparent harshness a brother's deep and yearning love. Seek a closer resemblance to His image; to which, ever remember, you are predestined to be conformed. In order to this, study His beauty, His precepts, His example; that "with open face, beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, you may be changed into the same image, from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord."

JUNE 15.

"Ourselves also, which have the first-fruits of the Spirit." Romans 8:23

THE figurative allusion is to a familiar law of the Jewish economy. It will be recollected that, under the Levitical dispensation, the Lord commanded that the first-fruits, in the form of a single sheaf, should be sickled and waved before him by the priest; and that this wave-offering was to be considered as constituting the herald, or the pledge, of the ripened and full harvest. And not only should it be an earnest and a pledge, but it should represent the nature and character of the fruit which, before long, in luxuriant abundance, would crowd with its golden sheaves, amid shouts of gladness, the swelling garner. When, therefore, it is said that believers in Jesus have the "first-fruits of the Spirit," the meaning clearly is, that they have such communications of the Spirit now, as are a pledge and foretaste of what they shall possess and enjoy in the great day of the coming glory. "In whom also after that you believed, you were sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise, which is the earnest of our inheritance, until the redemption of the purchased possession, unto the praise of His glory."

We remark, in general terms, that if we are believers, then are we partakers of that grace which is the earnest of glory. Do we partake of the grace of life? It is the same life which beats in the souls of the glorified. In us its pulsations are faint and fluctuating; in them they are deep and constant—yet the life is the same. And if we have the spirit of life dwelling in us now, then have we the first-fruits of the life which is to come. Have we the spirit of adoption? What is it but the earnest and the seal of our certain reception into our Father's house? The love to God which overflows our hearts, the yearnings of those hearts to be at home, are the first-fruits of our consummated and glorified sonship. Thus might we travel the entire circle of the Christian graces, which form, sanctify, and adorn the Christian character; illustrating the truth, that each grace wrought by the Spirit in the heart, on earth, is the germ of glory in heaven, and that the perfection of glory will be the perfection of each grace. The present character and tutelage of the child of God are preparatory to a higher state of being—yes, they are essential parts of that being itself. Oh, it is a holy and inspiriting thought, that every development of grace, and every aspiration of holiness, every victory of faith, every achievement of prayer, and every gleam of joy in the soul here below, is the earnest-sheaf of the golden ears of happiness and glory garnered for the saints on high. "He that goes forth and weeps, bearing precious seed, shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him." Have yore the "first-fruits of the Spirit"? Guard them with tender, sleepless care. Nature, in her richest domain, yields no such fruits or flowers as these. Employ all the means and appliances within your reach, to keep verdant and fruitful the sacred garden of your soul. Unveil it to the sun's light, the gentle showers, and the soft gales of heaven. Let your incessant prayer be, "Awake, O north wind; and come, you south; blow upon my garden, that the spices thereof may flow out. Let my beloved come into his garden, and eat his pleasant fruits." Oh, guard those precious "first-fruits"! Soon the glory they foreshadow will be revealed. The autumnal tints are deepening, the golden ears are ripening, the reaper's sickle is preparing, and before long we shall join in the song of the angels' harvest-home, "Grace, grace unto it!"

JUNE 16.

But this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins for ever, sat down on the right hand of God; from henceforth expecting until his enemies be made his footstool. Heb. 10:12, 13

AND what was that sacrifice? It was God's own Son, "who gave Himself for us," "when He had by Himself purged our sins." By this sacrifice He "condemned sin in the flesh." The word never implies simply to destroy or remove. Consequently the present and entire destruction of sin in the believer, was not the condemnation secured by the sacrifice of Christ. But in two senses we may understand the word. First, He bore the condemnation and punishment of sin, and thus forever secured our pardon. Secondly, and chiefly, He actually so condemned sin in His own material actually body, that it lost the power of condemning His spiritual body, the Church. So that neither sin, nor the consequence of sin, can ever lay the believer under condemnation. Thus, while sin condemned Jesus as the Surety, Jesus condemned sin as the Judge, assigning it to its own dark and changeless doom. That, therefore, which itself is condemned, cannot condemn. Thus it is that the last song the believer sings is his sweetest and his most triumphant—"O death! where is your sting?" Sin being condemned, pardoned, and forever put away, death, its consequent and penalty, is but a pleasing trance into which the believer falls, to awake up perfected in God's righteousness. Let us, in deep adoration of soul, admire God's illustrious method of meeting the impotence of the law. How suitable to us, how honoring to Himself! Relinquishing all thought of salvation by the works of the law, let us eagerly and gratefully avail ourselves of God's plan of justification. Let our humble and believing hearts cordially embrace His Son. If the law is powerless to save, Christ is "mighty to save." If the law can but terrify and condemn, it is to drive us into Christ, that we might be justified by faith in Him. In Him there is a full, finished, and free salvation. We have but to believe, and be saved. We have but to look, and live. We have but to come, and be accepted. Disappointed of our hope in the law, and alarmed by its threatenings pealing in our ears louder than seven thunders, let us flee to Jesus, the "hiding place from the wind, and the covert from the tempest."

There is no condemnation in Christ Jesus. All is peace, all is rest; all is security there. The instant that a poor trembling sinner gets into Christ, he is safe to all eternity. Nor can he be assured of safety one moment, out of Christ. Repair, then, to the Savior. His declaration is—"him that comes unto me I will in no wise cast out." None are rejected but those who bring a price in their hands. Salvation is by grace; and not to him that works, but to him that believes, the precious boon is given. The turpitude of your guilt, the number of your transgressions, the depth of dour unworthiness, the extent of your poverty, the distance that you have wandered from God, are no valid objections, no insurmountable difficulties, to your being saved. Jesus saves sinners "to the uttermost"—to the uttermost degree of guilt—to the uttermost limit of unworthiness—to the uttermost extent of time. And not only let us look to Christ for salvation, but also for strength. Is the law weak? "Christ is the power of God." He is prepared to perfect His strength in our weakness. And the felt conviction of that weakness will be the measure of our strength. Without Him we can do nothing; but strong in His might, we can do all things. "In the Lord have I righteousness and strength."

JUNE 17.

"He says to him again the second time, Simon, son of Jonas, loves you me? He says unto him, Yes, Lord, you know that I love you." John 21:16

"God is love," and the expression of that love is the sending His own Son into the world, to achieve what the law, in its weakness, could not do. Was ever love like this? "God so loved." And was Jesus willing to engage in the embassy? Did He voluntarily clothe Himself in our rags, stoop to our poverty, consent to be arrested and thrown into prison for us? Was He made a curse that He might deliver us from the curse? Did judgment pass upon Him, that we might be saved from the wrath to come? Oh here is infinite, boundless love! Then let Him have in return our love; it is the least that He can ask, or we can make. Let it be a hearty, cordial, obedient, increasing love. Alas! it is but a drop, when it should be an ocean. It is but a faint spark, when it should be a vehement flame.

How should our best affection flow out toward Him who assumed, and stills wears, our nature! What an attractive, winning object is the Incarnate God, the God-man Mediator! Fairer than the children of men, the chief among ten thousand, the altogether lovely, He is the wonder and admiration, the beloved and the song, of all heaven. Why should He not be equally so of all earth? Did the Son of God take up our rude and suffering nature, and shall we be loth to take up His lowly and despised cross, and follow hard after Him? Forbid it, Lord! Forbid it, you precious Savior! What humiliation, what abasement, can be too much for us, the sinful sons of men, when You, the sinless Son of God, did so abase and humble Yourself! Let Your love constrain us to stand firm to You, to Your truth, and to Your cause, when the world despises, when friends forsake, when relatives look cold, and all seem to leave and forsake us. And as You did condescend to be made in the likeness of our human and sinful nature, oh conform us to the likeness of Your Divine and holy nature. As You were a partaker with us, make us partakers with You. As You were made like unto us, in what was proper to man, make us like You, in what is proper to God. And as You did come down to our sinful and dim earth, lift us to Your pure and bright heaven!

What a privilege is nearness to Christ! Yet, dear and precious as it is, how sadly is it overlooked! We may trace this, in some degree, to the believer's oversight of his oneness with Christ. Yet to forget this truth is to forget that He lives. As the branch has one life with the vine, the graft one life with the tree, so he that is united to Christ, and grafted into Christ, has one life with Christ. Go where he may, he is one with Christ. Be his circumstances what they may, he is one with Christ. And as he is in Christ, so Christ is in him. And if Christ be in him, dwelling in him, living in him, walking in him, so also is Christ in every event, and incident, and circumstance of his history. He cannot look upon the darkest cloud that overhangs his path, but he may say, "Christ is in my cloud; Christ is in my sorrow; Christ is in my conflict; Christ is in my need; Christ is all to me, and Christ is in all with me."

JUNE 18.

"Once have I sworn by my holiness that I will not lie unto David." Psalm 89:35.

HOLINESS is an essential perfection of God: it is an inseparable part of His being. To conceive of a God infinite in essence, divine in majesty, almighty in power, wise in counsel, and eternal in duration, and yet destitute of holiness, infinite, essential purity—to suppose such a Being possessed of the least contagion of moral evil, would be to portray to the imagination—in reverence be it written—an infinite monster! We should picture Him before us arrayed with infinite power, wisdom, and duration, and yet wanting in that perfection which tempers, chastens, and beautifies all, and which makes Him truly what His word reveals Him to be—a God of love. A denial of His being would not be a crime so fearful, nor involve guilt of deeper dye, than would be a denial of His holiness. He who refuses to acknowledge that God is immaculately holy breathes a more tremendous libel against God than the atheist, who, standing in the midst of ten thousand overwhelming demonstrations of His existence, yet impiously declares there is no God!

How rich and palpable are the Scripture proofs—rather say, revelations and unfoldings—of God's holiness. One or two must suffice. That is a sublime and conclusive one uttered by the lips of the veiled cherubim—"And one cried unto another, and said, Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord of hosts: the whole earth is full of His glory. And the posts of the door moved at the voice of Him that cried, and the house was filled with smoke." Was there no other Divine perfection, which they might have thus extolled? Oh yes! Jehovah was infinitely wise, infinitely powerful, and infinitely good; but holiness was the greatest and grandest of all; and so they cry, "holy, holy, holy, is the Lord of hosts!" thus breathing forth their adoration to the holy Triune God.

Again, in the words of our motto, "Once have I sworn by my holiness that I will not lie unto David." Why did not God swear by His veracity, by His wisdom, or by His power? Because He was about to enunciate a great truth to the house of David; and with a view of imparting to that truth its greatest force, solemnity, and beauty, He swears by His holiness. As if He did say "Holiness is my most illustrious perfection, my grandest attribute; and by it I swear that I will make good my word, that I will not lie unto David." For as "men, verily swear by the greater," so God swears by His holiness, His greatest perfection and highest glory. Oh, you saints of the Most High, who, standing in the region of doubt, and enshrouded by dark providences, are led to ask, "Will God make good the promise upon which He has caused my soul to rest?"—look at this great truth—God has sworn by His holiness that He will not lie, and you have the warrant and the encouragement to trust in God, to confide in His word, and to resign yourself and all your interests into His fatherly, faithful, though chastening hands. By this solemn oath He has bound Himself to make good to the letter His every precious promise.

JUNE 19.

"And that you put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness." Eph. 4:24

TAKE another view of this subject. Holiness is the image which God transfers from Himself to the renewed creature. God, in regeneration, draws upon the soul of man His own moral portrait. And what is the image of Himself which He thus transfers, glorious and imperishable, to the renewed mind? Is it His wisdom? No! Is it His truth? No! Is it His love? No! It is His holiness! as if He would say, "I will draw my image upon the renewed man, and it shall be that which is my glory, my beauty, my grandest perfection; and in making the creature holy, I will make him like myself." How strikingly has the Holy Spirit brought out this truth in the words of our motto: "And that you put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness;" a truth worthy of our profoundest study. In nothing does the renewed soul so closely resemble God, as in holiness. May the Lord, the Spirit, write this truth deeply upon our heart!

But how has God manifested His holiness? He has not only revealed the fact in His word, but He has exhibited the perfection in various ways. Its most palpable, awful, and august demonstration is in the cross of His Son Jesus Christ. Behold the redemption which He has wrought; contemplate this the most stupendous of God's works, and where will you find such a demonstration of God's holiness, as that which the cross of the incarnate God exhibits? Not all the vials of judgment that have ever been poured or that ever will be poured out—not the flaming furnace in the conscience of the ungodly—not the irretrievable vengeance of God against the angels who kept not their first estate—not all the woe and suffering of the condemned in hell, convey any adequate idea of the holiness of God, compared with the death of His own beloved Son. There hung the holy, spotless Lamb of God! He had never sinned; there had never been the slightest hostility of His will to His Father's; He had never harbored one treason thought against Jehovah, but had "always done those things which pleased Him." Yet we behold Him exhausting the cup of Divine wrath, His human soul scathed by the lightning-stroke of Divine justice, and His sinless body bruised, and wounded, and slain. What do we learn from the spectacle, but that God was so righteous, so holy, He could not pass by the iniquity of the Church, but as He punished it with the utmost severity in the person of its Surety. And what was the perfection of God, the contemplation of which in the hour of His agony upheld Him? In prophetic language He tells us—"My God, my God, why have You forsaken me? why are You so far from helping me, and from the words of my roaring? Oh my God, I cry in the day-time, but You hear not; and in the night season, and am not silent. But You are holy." This was the truth which gave His agitated soul rest, beneath its overwhelming pressure. He saw God so holy in His withdrawment, so holy in the billows which went over His soul, so holy in taking vengeance for His people's sins, that He bowed His head in meek acquiescence to the Divine will: "But You are holy."

JUNE 20.

"It is God that justifies." Rom. 8:33

IT would appear that there are two links in this marvelous chain—the purpose of God, and its final consummation; both so remote and invisible, as to bring the mind to a calm, unquestioning belief in certain doctrines of God's word, which may more properly belong to the "deep things of God." But while the two extremes of this chain of truths must for the present be left invisibly locked in God's hand; there are certain intermediate and visible links, upon which if the perplexed and inquiring reader lay hold, he shall be saved, though all the rest remains wrapped in the profoundest mystery—like its Divine Author, dwelling in lone and unapproachable grandeur. It is not essential to our salvation that we lift the veil of that awful mystery, and penetrate the depths of a past predestination, and a future glory; but it is essential to our salvation that we are called of God, and that by God we are justified. We may arrive at heaven without fathoming the awful profound of the one extreme, and with but twilight views of the magnificence spreading over all the other; but we cannot get to heaven without the Spirit's grace and Christ's righteousness. Grasp in faith, and receive into your heart, these two central and essential truths, and they will by and by lift you into a sunnier region, where all the rest will stand forth, clear and transparent, bathed in the noontide splendor of heaven's own glory.

"It is God that justifies." We believe that by many this cardinal doctrine of God's justification is but imperfectly understood, and but indistinctly seen in its results. The lofty position of security in which it places the believer, the liberty, peace, and hope, into which it brings him, are points dim and obscure in the spiritual vision of many. We also believe that much of the weak, sickly Christianity of numbers is traceable, in a great measure, to the crude and gloomy conceptions they form of God, produced by not clearly seeing the interest which he felt, and the initiatory part which he took, in the great matter of our justification. Let our faith but trace the act of our justification to God, and we have placed ourselves upon a vantage-ground of the boldest defiance to all our enemies. Survey the truth in this light for a moment. Against whom have you sinned? Adopting David's confession, you exclaim, "Against You, You only, have I sinned." Having sinned against God, from God, then, you looked for the condemnation. You had violated His law, and from the lips of the Lawgiver you waited the sentence. When, lo! He declares Himself on your side. Descending as from His tribunal, He comes and stands in your place, and avows Himself your Justifier. "It is God that justifies." Upon you, a culprit, trembling at His bar, He throws His own righteousness, "which is unto all, and upon all those who believe;" and from that moment you are justified. Shall we, then, be indifferent to the part the Father took in the great question of our acceptance? Shall we cherish the shy and suspicious thought of God, as if He looked coldly at us, and felt that in pleading for His mercy, we were infringing upon His righteousness? Oh, no! Away with such thoughts of God! He it is who pronounces the act of your acquittal, and from His lips sound the glorious words, "No condemnation!" "It is God that justifies."

JUNE 21.

"Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect?" Romans 8:33

WHO in heaven; who on earth; who in hell? God will not; sin cannot; Satan dare not. Who? If there be in this wide universe an accuser of those whom God has justified, let him appear. There is none! Every mouth is closed. "Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect?" If there remain a sin unpardoned, a stain uneffaced, a precept unkept, by the Mediator of His Church, let it appear. But there is none! The work of Christ is honorable and glorious. It is a finished work. And on the basis of this complete atonement, God, while He remains just, is the justifier of him that believes. Oh, embrace this truth, you who, in bitterness of soul, are self-accused and self-condemned before God! Satan could accuse, and the world could accuse, and the saints could accuse, but more severe and true than all, is the self-accusation which lays your mouth in the dust, in the deepest, lowliest contrition. Yet, as a poor sinner, looking to Jesus, resting in Jesus, accepted in Jesus; who shall lay anything legally to our charge, since it is God—the God against whom you have sinned—who Himself becomes your Justifier? May you not, with all lowliness, yet with all holy boldness, challenge every foe, in the prophetic words of Christ Himself-"He is near that justifies me: who will contend with me?"

This truth is an elevating, because a deeply sanctifying one. It exalts the principles, and these, in their turn, exalt the practice of the Christian. The thought that it is God who justifies us at an expense to Himself so vast, by a sacrifice to Himself so precious, surely is sufficiently powerful to give the greatest intensity to our pantings, and fervency to our prayers, for conformity to the Divine image. Deep sorrows, and sore trials, and fiery temptations we may have, and must have, if we ever enter the kingdom; but, what is sorrow, what is trial, what is temptation, if they work but in us the fruits of righteousness, fit us more perfectly for heaven, and waft us nearer to our eternal home? Press, in humble faith, this precious truth to your heart; for God has forgiven all, and has cancelled all, and has forgotten all, and is your God forever and ever. "No weapon that is formed against you shall prosper; and every tongue that shall rise against you in judgment you shall condemn. This is the heritage of the servants of the Lord, and their righteousness is of me, says the Lord."

JUNE 22.

"Every one that loves him that begat loves him also that is begotten of him." 1 John 5:1

THE feeling here referred to is a love to the saints, as saints. Whatever natural infirmities we may discover in them, whatever different shades of opinion they may hold to us, and to whatever branch of the Christian Church they may belong, yet the feeling which is to establish our own divine relationship is a love to them as brethren. Irrespective of all dissonance of creed, of denomination, of gifts, of attainment, of rank, of wealth, of nation—when we meet in a Christian professor the image of Christ, the family-likeness, our love will prompt us immediately to recognize that individual as a believer in Jesus, and to acknowledge him as a brother in the Lord. And what are the grounds of my affection? I may esteem his character, and prize his gifts—may admire his talents, and feel there is an assimilation of disposition, of taste, and of judgment—but my Christian love springs from an infinitely higher and holier source. I love him because the Father is in him, because the Son is in him, because the Holy Spirit is in him. I love him because he is an adopted child of the same family; a member of Christ, and of the same body; and a temple of the same Holy Spirit. I love him that is begotten, because I love Him that begat. It is Christ in one believer, going out after Himself in another believer. It is the Holy Spirit in one temple, holding fellowship with Himself in another temple. And from hence it is that we gather the evidence of our having "passed from death unto life." Loving the Divine Original, we love the human copy, however imperfect the resemblance. The Spirit of God dwelling in the regenerate soul yearns after the image of Jesus, wherever it is found. It pauses not to inquire to what branch of the Christian Church the individual resembling Him belongs; that with which it has to do is the resemblance itself.

Now, if we discover this going out of the heart in sweet, holy, and prayerful affection, towards every believer in Christ—be his denominational name what it may—the most to those who most bear the Savior's image—then have we the Spirit of Christ dwelling in us. A surer evidence we cannot have. There is the affection which surmounts all the separating walls of partition in the Church, and in spite of sects, and parties, and creeds, demonstrates its own divine nature and heavenly birth, by its blending with the same affection glowing in the bosom of another. And where this love to the brethren exists not at all in any Christian professor, we ask that individual, with all the tenderness of affection consistent with true faithfulness, where is the evidence of your union with the body of Christ? You have turned away with contractedness of heart, and with frigidity of manner, if not with secret disdain, from one whom God loves, whom Christ has redeemed, and in whom the Holy Spirit dwells, because he belonged not to your sect. Yes, you have turned away with coldness and suspicion from Christ Himself! How can you love the Father, and hate the child? What affection have you for the Elder Brother, while you despise the younger? If you are a living branch of the same vine, can you, while cherishing those feelings which exclude from your affection, from your sympathies, and from your fellowship, other Christians, more deeply wound Jesus, or more effectually grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom they are "sealed unto the day of redemption"? Perhaps you have long walked in darkness and uncertainty, as to the fact of your own personal adoption into the family of God. Anxious fear and distressing doubt have taken the place of a holy assurance, and a peaceful persuasion that you were one of the Lord's people. In endeavoring to trace this painful state of mind to its cause, did it never occur to you, that your lack of enlargement of heart towards all saints, especially towards those of other branches of the same family, has, in all probability, so grieved the Spirit of adoption, that he has withheld from your own soul that clear testimony, that direct witness, by which your interest in the covenant love of God, and your union with Christ, would have been clearly made known to you? You have grieved that same Spirit in your brother, who dwells in you, and upon whom you are so dependent for all your sweet consolation and holy desires; and He has suspended the light, and peace, and joy of your own soul.

JUNE 23.

"Then came Peter to him, and said, Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? until seven times? Jesus says unto him, I say not unto you, Until seven times: but, Until seventy times seven." Matthew 18:21-22

IF there is a single exercise of divine grace in which, more than in any other, the believer resembles God, it is this. God's love to man is exhibited in one great and glorious manifestation, and a single word expresses it—forgiveness. In nothing has He so gloriously revealed Himself as in the exercise of this divine prerogative. Nowhere does He appear so like Himself as here. He forgives sin, and the pardon of sin involves the bestowment of every other blessing. How often are believers called upon thus to imitate God! And how like him in spirit, in affection, and in action do they appear, when, with true greatness of soul and with lofty magnanimity of mind, they fling from their hearts, and efface from their memories, all traces of the offence that has been given, and of the injury that has been received! How affecting and illustrious the example of the expiring Redeemer! At the moment that His deepest wound was inflicted, as if blotting out the sin and its remembrance with the very blood that it shed, He prayed, as the last drop fell, and as the last breath departed, "Father, forgive them." How fully and fearfully might He have avenged Himself at that moment! A stronger than Samson hung upon the cross. And as He bowed His human nature and gave up the spirit, He could as easily have bowed the pillars of the universe, burying His murderers beneath its ruins. But no! He was too great for this. His strength should be on the side of mercy. His revenge should wreak itself in compassion. He would heap coals of fire upon their heads. He would overcome and conquer their evil, but He would overcome and conquer it with good: "Father, forgive them."

It is in the constant view of this forgiveness that the followers of Christ desire, on all occasions of offence given, whether real or imaginary, to "forgive those who trespass against them." Themselves the subjects of a greater and diviner forgiveness, they would be prompt to exercise the same holy feeling towards an offending brother. In the remembrance of the ten thousand talents from whose payment his Lord has released him, he will not hesitate to cancel the hundred pence owing to him by his fellow-servant. Where, then, will you find any exercise of brotherly love more God-like and divine than this? In its immediate tender, its greatest sweetness and richest charm appear. The longer it is delayed, the more difficult becomes the duty. The imagination is allowed to dwell upon, and the mind to brood over, a slight offence received, perhaps never intended, until it has increased to such magnitude as almost to extend, in the eye of the aggrieved party, beyond the limit of forgiveness. And then follows an endless train of evils—the wound festers and inflames; the breach widens; coldness is manifested; malice is cherished; every word, look, and act is misinterpreted; the molehill grows into a mountain, the little rivulet swells into an ocean, until happiness and peace retire from scenes so uncongenial, and from hearts so full of all hatred and strife. But how lovely in its appearance, and how pleasurable in the feelings it enkindles, is a prompt exercise of Christian forgiveness! Before the imagination has had time to distort, or the wound to fester, or ill-minded people to interfere, Christian love has triumphed, and all is forgiven!

How full of meaning is our blessed Lord's teaching on this point of Christian duty, in our motto! It behooves us prayerfully and constantly to ponder His word. True love has no limits to its forgiveness. If it observes in the bosom of the offender the faintest marks of regret, of contrition, and of return, like Him from whose heart it comes, it is "ready to forgive," even "until seventy times seven." Oh who can tell the debt we owe to His repeated, perpetual forgiveness? And shall I refuse to be reconciled to my brother? Shall I withhold from him the hand of love, and let the sun go down upon my wrath? Because he has trampled upon me, who have so often acknowledged myself the chief of sinners, because he has slighted my self-importance, or has wounded my pride, or has grieved my too sensitive spirit, or, it is possible, without just cause, has uttered hard speeches, and has lifted up his heel against me, shall I keep alive the embers of an unforgiving spirit in my heart? Or rather, shall I heap coals of fire upon his head, not to consume him with wrath, but to overcome him with love? How has God my Father, how has Jesus my Redeemer, my Friend, dealt with me? Even so will I deal with my offending brother. I will not even wait until he comes, and acknowledges his fault. I will go to him, and tell him that at the mercy-seat, beneath the cross, with my eye upon the loving, forgiving heart of God, I have resolved to forgive all, and will forget all.

JUNE 24.

"And the ransomed of the Lord shall return, and come to Zion with songs and everlasting joy upon their heads: they shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away." Isaiah 35:10

THE absence of all evil will be an eminent feature of the coming glory. Take the long catalogue of ills we suffer here—the cares that corrode, the anxieties that agitate, the sorrows that depress, the bereavements that wound, the diseases that waste, the temptations that assail—in a word, whatever pains a sensitive mind, or wounds a confiding spirit; the rudeness of some, the coldness of others, the unfaithfulness and heartlessness of yet more; and as you trace the sad list, think of glory as the place where not one shall enter. All, all are entirely and eternally absent. "God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away."

The presence of all good will take the place of the absence of all evil. And in the foreground of this picture of glory we place the full, unclouded vision of Jesus. This is the Sun that will bathe all other objects in its beams. We see Him now through faith's telescope, and how lovely does He appear! Distant and dim as is the vision, yet so overpowering is its brightness, as for a moment to eclipse every other object. How near He is brought to us, and how close we feel to Him! Encircled and absorbed by His presence, all other beings seem an intrusion, and all other joys an impertinence. Reposing upon His bosom, how sweetly sounds His voice, and how winning His language: "O my dove, that are in the clefts of the rock, in the secret places of the stairs, let me see your countenance, let me hear your voice; for sweet is your voice, and your countenance is lovely." These are happy moments. But how transient, and how brief their stay! Some earthly vapor floats athwart our glass, and the bright and blissful vision is gone—veiled in clouds, it has disappeared from our view! But not lost is that vision; not withdrawn is that object. As stars that hide themselves awhile, then appear again in brighter, richer luster, so will return each view we have had of Christ. The eye that has once caught a view of the Savior shall never lose sight of Him forever. Long and dreary nights may intervene; the vision may tarry as though it would never come again, yet those nights shall pass away, that vision shall return, and "we shall see Him as He is." And if the distant and fitful glimpses of the glorified Christ are now so ravishing, what will the ecstatic and overpowering effect of the full unclouded vision be, when we shall see Him face to face?

JUNE 25.

"After this I beheld, and, lo, a great multitude, which no man could number, of all nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues, stood before the throne, and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, and palms in their hands; And cried with a loud voice, saying, Salvation to our God which sits upon the throne, and unto the Lamb." Rev. 7:9-10

WITH the unveiled sight of the glorified Redeemer, will be associated the certain reunion and perfected communion of all the glorified saints. We are far from placing this feature of glory in an obscure distance of our picture of heavenly happiness. A source of so much pure and hallowed enjoyment now, surely will not be wanting nor be more limited hereafter. It is a high enjoyment of earth, that of sanctified relationships and sacred friendships. The
communion of renewed intellect, the union of genial minds, and the fellowship of loving and sympathizing hearts, God sometimes kindly vouchsafes, to smooth and brighten our rough and darksome path to the grave. But death interposes and sunders these precious ties. And are they sundered forever? Oh, no! We shall meet again all from whom in faith and hope we parted—whom we loved in Jesus, and who in Jesus have fallen asleep. "For we believe that through the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ we shall be saved even as they." Heart-breaking as was the separation, it was not final, nor will it be long. The time-piece we wear upon our people reminds us at each second, that the period of our reunion is nearing. Yes! we shall meet them again, in closer and purer friendship. They wait and watch for our coming. Do not think that they forget us: that cannot be; and thinking of us, they love us still. The affection they cherished for us here death did not chill; they bore that affection with them from the earthly to the heavenly home; and now, purified and expanded, it glows with an intensity unknown, unfelt before. Heavenly thought is immortal. Holy love never dies. Meeting, we shall know them again; and knowing, we shall rush into their warm embrace, and sever from them—never! "I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning those who are asleep, that you sorrow not, even as others which have no hope. For if ace believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him." What a soothing, sanctifying thought—what a heaven-attracting hope is this!

In our anticipations of the coming glory, we must not overlook the glorified body of the saints. The first resurrection will give back this "vile body," so changed that it shall be "fashioned like unto Christ's glorious body." We have two examples of what this "glorious body" of our Lord is. The first was at His transfiguration, when the "fashion of His countenance was altered, and His face did shine as the sun, and His clothing was white as the light." The second was when He appeared to John in Patmos, arrayed in such glory that the apostle says, "When I saw Him, I fell at His feet as dead." Fashioned like unto Christ's glorious body, will be the glorified bodies of the saints. No deformity, no wrinkle, no defect whatever, shall mar its beauty. "It is sown in corruption; it is raised in incorruption: it is sown in dishonor; it is raised in glory: it is sown in weakness; it is raised in power: it is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. And as we have borne the image of the earthly, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly." "We shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is."

JUNE 26.

"Why, beloved, seeing that you look for such things, be diligent that you may be found of him in peace, without spot, and blameless." 2 Peter 3:14

IS not the anticipation of the coming glory most sanctifying? Ought it not to have so powerful an influence upon our minds, as to lessen the value of the things that are seen and temporal, and enhance the value of those which are unseen and eternal? We are at present in a state of nonage—children under tutors and governors. But before long we shall attain our full age, and shall be put in possession of our inheritance. And because we are children, we are apt to think as children, and speak as children, and act as children—magnifying things that are really small, while diminishing those that are really great. Oh, how little, mean, and despicable will by and by appear the things that now awaken so much thought, and create so much interest! Present sorrows and joys, hopes and disappointments, gains and losses—will all have passed away, leaving not a ripple upon the ocean they once agitated, nor a footprint upon the sands they once traversed.

Why, then, allow our white garments to trail upon the earth? If glory is before us, and so near, why so slow in our advance to meet it? Why so little of its present possession in our souls? Why do we allow the "Bright and Morning Star" to sink so often below the horizon of our faith? Why, my soul, so slow to arrive at heaven, with heaven so full in view? Oh, to press our pillow at night, composed to slumber with this sweet reflection—"Lord, if I open my eyes no more upon the rising sun, I shall open them upon that risen Sun that never sets—awaking in Your likeness." Oh, to be looking for, and hastening unto, the coming of the Lord; that blessed hope, that glorious epiphany of the Church, which shall complete, perfect, and consummate the glorification of the saints!

How should the prospect of certain glory stimulate us to individual exertion for Christ! What a motive to labor! With a whole eternity of rest in prospect, how little should we think of present toil and fatigue for the Savior! Shall we, then, be indolent in our Master's cause? Shall we in selfishness wrap our graces as a mantle around us, and indolently bury our talents in the earth? Shall we withhold our property from the Lord, complaining that the calls of Christian benevolence are so many, the demands so pressing, and the objects so numerous? Oh, no! It cannot, it must not be. Let us live for Christ—labor for Christ—suffer for Christ—and, if needs be, die for Christ—since we shall, before long and forever, be glorified with Christ. And who can paint that glory?

JUNE 27.

"For before his translation he had this testimony, that he pleased God." Heb. 11:5

BEHOLD the character of those with whom God is pleased. They are a spiritual people, and God, who is a Spirit, must love and delight in that which harmonizes with His own nature. Faith may be feeble, grace may be limited, and knowledge may be defective; yet, if there be just that strength of faith that travels to, and leans upon, the sacrifice of Jesus, and just that measure of love that constrains to a sincere, though imperfect, obedience, with just that extent of knowledge that discerns Christ to be the Savior of a poor lost sinner, then, there is one who is pleasing to God.

They are also an accepted people, and therefore their people are pleasing to Him. The delight of the Father in the person of His Son reveals to us the great secret of His marvelous delight in us. "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased." Blessed truth to those who see enough defilement and imperfection in their best doings, to cover them with eternal confusion and shame!—who, after the most spiritual performances, are constrained to repair in penitence and confession to Him, who bears the iniquity of His people's holy things. Sweet truth to fall back upon in all the failures and flaws we are perpetually discerning in our works, in our motives, and our ends—blots not appearing upon the surface, but visible to the microscopic eye of faith, which sees material for self-condemnation, where others, in their fond and blind affection, approve and applaud. If God, my Father, is well pleased in His Son, then is it a truth, strictly inferential, that He is well pleased in me whom He beholds in His Son. But not their people only, their offerings also are equally pleasing to God. "I will accept you" (the person first), "with your sweet savor" (the offering next). Their preceptive walk likewise pleases Him. Is the obedience of the child, springing from love, a pleasing and acceptable offering to a parent's heart? Ah! how imperfectly are we aware of the beauty and fragrance there are to God in a single act of filial, holy obedience, the fruit and offering of a divine and deathless affection!

How great and exalted the heavenly calling of the Christian! Aim to walk worthy of it. Debase it not by allying it with a carnal mind. Impair not your spiritual life by enchaining it to spiritual death. Let the friendships which you cultivate, and the relationships of life which you form, be heavenly in their nature, and eternal in their duration. Seek to please God in all things. Rest not where you are, even though you may have attained beyond your fellows. Let your standard of heavenly-mindedness do not be that of the saints, but of Christ. Study not a copy, but the original. High aims will secure high attainments. He is the most heavenly, and the happiest, who the most closely resembles his Divine Master.

Be much in your closet. There is no progress in spiritual-mindedness apart from much prayer: prayer is its aliment, and its element. But leave not your religion there; let it accompany you into the world. While careful not to carry your business into your religion—thus secularizing and degrading it—be careful to carry your religion into your business—high integrity, holy principle, godly fear—thus imparting an elevation and its concerns. Be the man of God wherever you are. Let these solemn words be held in vivid remembrance—"I have created you for my glory. I have formed you for my praise. You are my witnesses, says the Lord."

JUNE 28.

"Jesus wept." John 11:35

PERHAPS to some whose tearful eye may glance on these pages, the most touching and endearing chapter in our Lord's life of varied and affecting incident is that which portrays Him in Bethany's house of mourning, and bending over the grave of Lazarus—thus illustrating His peculiar sympathy with the bereaved. It would seem as if Jesus loved to visit the haunts of human woe. "Lord, if You had been here, my brother had not died," were words bursting from the lips of the two bereaved sisters, which seemed to chide the delay of an interposition, which might have averted their sad calamity. And why that delay? Would it not seem as if one reason was, that the cup of woe was not yet brimmed, and thus the time for the richest display of His human sympathy and Divine power had not yet come? But when death had invaded that happy circle, had cast its shadow over the sunny home, and the sorrow of bereavement was now bursting each heart—lo! Jesus appears, gently lifts the latch, and enters. And who has passed within that dark abode of grief? The Creator of all worlds, the Lord of angels and of men, robed in a real, a suffering, and a sympathizing humanity, to mingle with the daughters of sorrow.

Returning from the house of mourning, we follow Him to the grave. Groaning in spirit, He asks, "Where have you laid him?" And then it is written—and oh, never were words more full of meaning—"Jesus wept!" The incarnate God in tears! Oh marvelous sympathy! such as earth never before saw, and such as heaven in astonishment looked down to see. But why did Jesus weep? Was such an expression of sensibility in keeping with the occasion? Was He not about to recall His friend to life again? And did He not know, that before the sun had declined an hour, He should have robbed death of his victim, and the grave of its prey, restoring gladness to those bereaved sisters, and the sunshine of joy to that desolate home? Most assuredly. And yet "Jesus wept!" Oh, it was sympathy! Those tears were the outgushing of a sensibility He could not repress, nor wished to conceal. Moved by His own loss, He was yet more deeply moved with the loss of Martha and Mary. He stood at that grave, as though He were the chief mourner, upon whom the brunt of the calamity had fallen; and there were no tears flowing at that moment like His. He wept, because He was human—He wept, because He was bereaved—He wept, because others wept. It was a sympathetic emotion, that now agitated to its center his whole soul. Behold Him who makes His people's sorrows all His own!

Bereaved one! that speaking, weeping Brother was born for your adversity! Though now in glory, where no tears are shed, He still sympathizes with the sorrows of the bereaved on earth—yes, sympathizes with yours. Into all the circumstances of your present calamity—the irreparable loss it has entailed, the deep void it has created, the profound grief it has awakened, the painful changes it involves, the sable gloom with which, to your bedimmed eye, it enshrouds all the future of life—He fully enters. And though, when the storm-cloud of Divine vengeance was darkling above His head, Gethsemane and Calvary full in view, not a nerve quivered, nor a tear fell—yet, lo! He comes and weeps with you, and breathes the soothing balmy influence, of a human sympathy over the scene and the sadness of your sorrow. Christian mourner! the weeping One of Bethany is near you! Christ is with you, Christ is in your sorrow.

JUNE 29.

"Choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season." Hebrews 11:25.

THE believer should never fail to remember that the present is, by the appointment of God, the afflicted state to him. It is God's ordained, revealed will, that His covenant children here should be in an afflicted condition. When called by grace, they should never take into their account any other state. They become the disciples of the religion of the cross—they become the followers of a crucified Lord—they put on a yoke, and assume a burden: they must, then, expect the cross inward and the cross outward. To escape it is impossible. To pass to glory without it, is to go by another way than God's ordering, and in the end to fail of arriving there. The gate is strait, and the way is narrow, which leads unto life; and a man must become nothing, if he would enter and be saved. He must deny himself—he must become a fool that he may be wise—he must receive the sentence of death in himself, that he should not trust in himself. The wise man must cease to glory in his wisdom, the mighty man must cease to glory in his might, the rich man must cease to glory in his riches, and their only ground of glory in themselves must be their insufficiency, infirmity, poverty, and weakness; and their only ground of glory out of themselves must be, that "God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life."

The believer in Jesus, then, must not forget that if the path he treads is rough and thorny, if the sky is wintry, if the storm is severe, and the cross He bears is heavy, that yet this is the road to heaven. He is but in the wilderness, why should He expect more than belongs to the wilderness state? He is on a journey, why should he look for more than a traveler's fare? He is far from home, why should He murmur and repine that he has not all the rest, the comfort, and the luxuries of his Father's house? If your covenant God and Father has allotted to you poverty, be satisfied that it should be your state, yes, rejoice in it. If bitter adversity, if deep affliction, if the daily and the heavy cross, be your portion, yet, breathe not one murmur, but rather rejoice that you are led into the path that Jesus Himself walked in, to "go forth by the footsteps of the flock," and that you are counted worthy thus to be one in circumstance with Christ and his people.

JUNE 30.

"Save me, O God, by your name, and judge me by your strength. Hear my prayer, O God; give ear to the words of my mouth. For strangers are risen up against me, and oppressors seek after my soul: they have not set God before them. Selah. Behold, God is mine helper: the Lord is with those who uphold my soul." Psalm 54:1-4

WHERE was David now? "In the wilderness of Ziph, in a wood." With not a follower or companion, this favorite of the nation was a homeless wanderer, hunted like a partridge upon the mountain by the bloodthirsty king. But oh, the deep teaching of which he would now be the subject! The nothingness of earthly glory—the emptiness of human applause—the poverty of the creature—the treachery of his own heart—in a word, the vapid nature and utter insufficiency of all earthly good, would be among the many holy and costly lessons he would now learn. Nor this alone. Driven from man, he would now be more exclusively and entirely shut in with God. In his happy experience, that wilderness would be as a peopled world, and that wood as a blooming paradise. From the profound depths of its solitude and stillness, there would ascend the voice of prayer and the melody of praise. The wilderness of Ziph would be another Patmos, all radiant with the glorious and precious presence of Him, who laid his right hand upon the exiled Evangelist, and said, "Fear not, I am He that lives."

See we no fore-shadowing of Jesus here? Oh yes; much, we think. Nor is this strange, since David was preeminently a personal type of Christ. There were periods in our Lord's brief and humiliating history on earth, when, indeed, He seemed for awhile to ride upon the topmost wave of popular favor. After some stupendous prodigy of His power, or some splendid outgushing of His benevolence, sending its electric thrill through the gazing and admiring populace, He would often become the envy and the dread of the Jewish Sanhedrin. Jealous of His widening fame and growing power, they would seek to tarnish the one by detraction, and to arrest the other by His death. Escaping from their fury, He would betake Himself to the fastnesses of the rock, and to the solitude of the desert—but, alas! with no human sympathy to strengthen His hands in God. Oh, how strangely has Jesus trodden the path, along which He is leading His saints to glory!

Is there nothing analogous to this in the experience of the faithful? Who can witness for the Lord Jesus—conceive some new idea of doing good—occupy some prominent post of responsibility and power—or prove successful in some enterprise of Christian benevolence—and while thus winning the admiration and applause of the many, not find himself an object of the unholy envy and vituperation of a few? "Woe unto you when all men shall speak well of you!" Thus may an active, zealous, successful Christian be crucified between human idolatry on the one hand, and creature jealousy on the other. Well, be it so, if self be slain, and God is glorified. The great secret, however, to learn here is, entire deadness to both. Going forward in the work of the Lord, as judgment dictates, as conscience approves, and as Providence guides—dead to human applause, and indifferent to human censure; ever taking the low place, aiming at the Lord's glory, and seeking the honor that comes from God only—this is happiness. Oh, to live and labor, to give and to suffer, in the meek simplicity of Christ, and with eternity full in view! The Lord grant us grace so to live, and so to die!

JULY 1.

"Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can you, except you abide in me." John 15:4

The union of the believer with Jesus, and the consequent fruitfulness, is a glorious truth: the Holy Spirit, in His word, has laid great stress upon it. It is spoken of as a being in Christ—"Every branch in me." "If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature." "So we, being many, are one body in Christ." "Those who are fallen asleep in Christ." But in what sense are we to understand this being "in Christ"? To be in Christ truly, spiritually, vitally, is to be in that eternal covenant of grace made with Christ, as the Surety and Mediator of His people; one of the number spoken of as the Lord's "peculiar treasure;"—"For the Lord has chosen Jacob unto himself, and Israel for His peculiar treasure;" and concerning whom the Holy Spirit declares that they are elected in Christ—"Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly things in Christ: according as He has chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love." To be in Christ truly, is to stand accepted in His righteousness, to be justified by Him freely from all things; it is to be brought to the knowledge of our own vileness, insufficiency, and guilt; to be made to cast aside all self-dependence, that is, all works of human merit, and to come as the thief on the cross came, without any allowed confidence in anything of self, but as a poor, helpless, ruined, condemned sinner, all whose hope of pardon and acceptance is through the free mercy of God in Christ Jesus. To be in Christ is to be the subject of a living, holy, influential principle of faith; it is to be brought into the blessed state thus described by the apostle as his own—"I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave Himself for me." To be in Christ is to be one with Him; it is to be a member of His mystical body, of which He is the spiritual Head: and the Head and members are one. It is to have Christ dwelling in the heart—"Christ in you the hope of glory." Yes, it is to dwell in the heart of Christ; it is to rest there in the very pavilion of His love, to abide there every moment, to be sheltered there from all evil, and to be soothed there under all sorrow. Oh blessed state of being in Christ! Who would not experience it? Who would not enjoy it? "There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit."

These are the living branches, united to the true vine, which bear fruit. From their union to the living vine their fruit comes—"From me is your fruit found." "As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine, no more can you, except you abide in me." And oh, what precious fruit does such a living branch bear! The broken heart—the contrite spirit—the mourning over sin—the low, abasing, humbling views of self—the venturing by faith on a full, mighty, willing Savior—the going out of self, and resting in His all-atoning work and all-satisfying righteousness. This is followed by a progressive advance in all holiness and godliness, the fruits of faith which are by Jesus Christ abounding in the life, and proving the reality of the wondrous change—the close walk with God—the submission of the will in all things to His—the conformity of the life to the example of Jesus—the "power of His resurrection" felt—the "fellowship of His sufferings," known—and "conformity to His death," marking the entire man.

These are some of the fruits of a truly regenerate soul. The Holy Spirit testifies, that the "fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness, and righteousness, and truth;" and still more minutely, as consisting of "love, joy, peace, patience, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance."

JULY 2.

"O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God!" Romans 11:33

Behold this wisdom, as it shines in the recovery of lost and ruined man by Christ. Here is a manifestation infinitely transcending in greatness and glory the first creation of man in holiness. In the first creation, God had nothing to undo; no dilapidated temple to take down, no occupant to dispossess, no ruin to repair, no rubbish to remove, no enemy to oppose. But in the re-creation of man, how vastly different! The beautiful temple is a ruin—dilapidated and fallen. God is ejected; another and an antagonist occupant dwells in it, and enmity to its Creator is written in letters of darkness upon every part and over every inlet. In rebuilding this structure, all things were to be created anew. "Behold," says God, "I create a new thing in the earth." It was a new and profounder thought of infinite wisdom, unheard, unseen before. Fallen man was to be raised—lost man was to be recovered—sin was to be pardoned—the sinner saved, and God eternally glorified. Now were the treasures of wisdom, which for ages had been hid in Christ, brought forth. Infinite wisdom had never developed such vast wealth, had never appeared clothed in such glory, had never shone forth so majestic, so peerless, and Divine. Oh, how must angels and archangels have wondered, admired, and loved, as this brighter discovery of God burst in glory upon their astonished vision—as this new temple of man rose in loveliness before their view!

The greatest display of infinite wisdom was in the construction of the model upon which the new temple, regenerated man, was to be formed. This model was nothing less than the mysteriously constituted person of the Son of God. In this, its highest sense, is "Christ the wisdom of God." Here it shone forth in full-orbed majesty. Gaze upon the living picture! Look at Immanuel, God with us—God in our nature—God in our accursed nature—God in our tried nature—God in our sorrowful nature—God in our suffering nature—God in our tempted nature—yet untouched, untainted by sin. Is not this a fathomless depth of Divine wisdom? To have transcended it, would seem to have transcended Deity itself.

The next step in the unfolding of this Divine wisdom is the spiritual restoration of man to a state corresponding in its moral lineaments to this Divine and perfect model. This is accomplished solely by "Christ crucified, the wisdom of God." And here, again, does the glory of God's wisdom shine in the person and work of Jesus. Every step in the development of this grand expedient establishes His character as the "only wise God," whose "understanding is infinite;" while it augments our knowledge, and exalts our views of the Lord Jesus, as making known the Father. Here was a way of salvation for perishing sinners, harmonizing with every perfection of Jehovah, sustaining the highest honor of His government; bringing to Him the richest glory, and securing to its subjects, as the rich bequest of grace, happiness eternal, and inconceivably great. Oh, how truly did God here "work all things after the counsel of His own will"! How has He "abounded towards us in all wisdom and prudence"! In Jesus' sacrificial obedience and death we see sin fully punished, and the sinner fully saved—we see the law perfectly honored, and the transgressor completely justified—we see justice entirely satisfied, and mercy glorified to its highest extent—we see death inflicted according to the extreme tenor of the curse, and so vindicating to the utmost the truth and holiness of God; and yet life, present and eternal life, given to all whom it is the purpose and grace of the Father to save. Tell us, is not Jesus the great glory of the Divine wisdom?

JULY 3.

"For we who live are always delivered unto death for Jesus' sake, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our mortal flesh. We having the same spirit of faith, according as it is written, I believed, and therefore have I spoken; we also believe, and therefore speak." 2 Corinthians 4:11, 13

What is the life of faith which the believer lives, but a manifestation of the life of the Lord Jesus? The highest, the holiest, the happiest life lived below, is the life of faith. But nature contributes nothing to this life. It comes from a higher source. It is supernatural—it is opposed to nature. It springs from the life "hid with Christ in God." "I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God." Here is a glorious manifestation of the life of Jesus. If we desire any evidence that Jesus is risen, that He is alive again, and that He is the life of the soul, here it is! See the faith of a child of God sifted as wheat, yet not one grain falling to the ground—tried as gold, yet not one particle lost—though in the flame, yet never consumed. And why? Because Christ lives in the soul. Dear believer! your faith may be sharply tempted—severely tried—but never, never shall it quite fail; for Jesus lives in you, and lives in you forever. Oh blessed trial of faith, that manifests in, and endears to, you the life of Jesus! It is the precious trial of "precious faith,"—a faith which the more deeply it is tried, the more deeply it manifests the risen life of its Divine "Author and Finisher."

And what, too, are all the supports of the believer in seasons of trial, suffering, and bereavement, but so many manifestations of the life of the Lord Jesus? What is our path to glory, but the path of tribulation, of suffering, and of death? Our Lord and Master, in the expression of His wisdom and love, forewarns us of this—"In the world you shall have tribulation." And His apostles but echo the same sentiment, when they affirm that it is "through much tribulation we must enter the kingdom." But the life of our risen Lord is daily manifested in us. This it is that keeps the soul buoyant amid the billows, strong in faith, joyful in hope, soaring in love. Thus is Jesus the life of every grace, the life of every promise, the life of every ordinance, the life of every blessing; yes, of all that is really costly and precious to a child of God, Jesus is the substance, the glory, the sweetness, the fragrance, yes, the very life itself. Oh! dark and lonely, desolate and painful indeed were our present pilgrimage, but for Jesus. If in the world we have tribulation, in whom have we peace?—in Jesus! If in the creature we meet with fickleness and change, in whom find we the "Friend that loves at all times"?—in Jesus! When adversity comes as a wintry blast, and lays low our comforts, when the cloud is upon our tabernacle, when health, and wealth, and influence, and friends are gone—in whom do we find the covert from the wind, the faithful, tender "Brother born for adversity?"—in Jesus! When temptation assails, when care darkens, when trial oppresses, when bereavement wounds, when heart and flesh are failing, who throws around us the protecting shield, who applies the precious promise, who speaks the soothing word, who sustains the sinking spirit, who heals the sorrow, and dries the tear?—Jesus! Where sin struggles in the heart, and guilt burdens the conscience, and unbelief beclouds the mind, whose grace subdues our iniquities, whose blood gives us peace, and whose light dispels our darkness?—Jesus! And when the spark of life wanes, and the eye grows dim, and the mind wanders, and the soul, severing its last fetter, mounts and soars away, who, in that awful moment, draws near in form unseen, and whispers in words unheard by all but the departing one, now in close communion with the solemn realities of the invisible world—"Fear not; I am the resurrection and the life: he that believes in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live; and whoever lives and believes in me shall never die"?—still, it is Jesus! "

JULY 4.

"It is the Spirit that quickens, the flesh profits nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life." John 6:63

The Spirit of God undertakes the achievement of a stupendous work. He enters the soul, and proposes to restore the empire of grace, the reign of holiness, and the throne of God. He engages to form all things anew; to create a revolution in favor of Christ and of heaven. He undertakes to change the heart, turning its enmity into love; to collect all the elements of darkness and confusion, educing from them perfect light and perfect order; to subdue the will, bringing it into harmony with God's will; to explore all the recesses of sin, turning its very impurity into holiness; in a word, to regenerate the soul, restoring the Divine image, and fitting it for the full and eternal enjoyment of God in glory. Now, in accomplishing this great work, what instrumentality does He employ? Passing by all human philosophy, and pouring contempt upon the profoundest wisdom and the mightiest power of man, He employs, in the production of a work in comparison with which the rise and the fall of empires were as infants' play, simply and alone, the "truth as it is in Jesus." With this instrument He enters the soul—the seat of the greatest revolution that ever transpired. He moves over the dark chaos, without form and void, and in a moment a world of immortal beauty bursts into view. He overshadows the soul, and a vital principle is imparted, whose stream of existence, once commenced, flows on with the eternity of God Himself. How divine, yet how natural, too, the process! In the lapses of human thought, in the overtasked powers of the human intellect, how often is the mind impaired and shattered by the severe process through which it passes! But here is a revolution which touches every faculty of the soul, which changes all the powers of the mind; and yet, so gentle, so persuasive, and so mild, is the Spirit's operation, that, so far from deranging the power or disturbing the balance of the intellect, it develops resources, awakens energies, and inspires strength, of which until now it knew not its possession. "The entrance of Your word gives light; it gives understanding unto the simple."

And to what shall we turn for the secret of this? To the gospel, so replete with the glory of Jesus—that gospel, the substance of which is the incarnate God; the theme of which is Christ crucified—that gospel which testifies of His Godhead, which declares His manhood, which unfolds the union of both in the person of a glorious Redeemer; and which holds Him up to view, mighty, and willing to save to the uttermost. Oh, how sanctifying and comforting is the truth which testifies of Jesus! It has but to point to Him, and, clothed with the energy of the Spirit, the strongest corruption is subdued, the deepest grief is soothed. Of what value or efficacy is all our knowledge of the truth, if it lead us not to Jesus; if it expand not our views of His glory; if it conform not our minds to His image; if it increase not our love to His person, and if it quicken not our obedience to His commands, and our zeal for His cause; and mature us not, by a progressive holiness, for the enjoyment of His beatific presence?

JULY 5.

"Faith which works by love." Galatians 5:6

Love is that grace of the Spirit that brings faith into active exercise; and faith, thus brought into exercise, brings every spiritual blessing into the soul. A believer stands by faith; he walks by faith; he overcomes by faith; he lives by faith. Love is therefore a laboring grace—"God is not unrighteous to forget your work and labor of love, which you have showed towards His name." There is nothing indolent in the nature of true love; it is not an inert, sluggish principle: where it dwells in the heart in a healthy and vigorous state, it constrains the believer to live not to himself, but unto Him who loved and gave Himself for him; it awakes the soul to watchfulness, sets it upon the work of frequent self-examination, influences it to prayer, daily walking in the precepts, acts of kindness, benevolence, and charity, all springing from love to God, and flowing in a channel of love to man.

The Holy Spirit distinguishes love as a part of the Christian armor—"Let us, who are of the day, be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and love." Without ardent and increasing love to God, the believer is but poorly armed against his numerous spiritual and ever aggressive foes; but what a breastplate and helmet is this in the day of battle! Who can overcome a child of God, whose heart is overflowing with Divine love? What enemy can prevail against him thus armed? He may be, and he is, in himself, nothing but weakness; his foes many and mighty; hemmed in on every side by his spiritual Philistines; and yet, his heart soaring to God in love, longing for His presence, panting for His precepts, desiring, above and beyond all other blessings, Divine conformity! Oh, with what a panoply is he clothed! No weapon formed against him shall prosper; every "fiery dart of the adversary" shall be quenched, and he shall "come off more than a conqueror, through Him who has loved him."

In a word, love is immortal; it is that grace of the Spirit that will never die. This is not so with all the kindred graces: the period will come when they will no more be needed. The day is not far distant, when faith will be turned into sight, and hope will be lost in full fruition; but love will never die; it will live on, and expand the heart, and tune the lip, and inspire the song, through the unceasing ages of eternity. "Whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away;" but love never fails; it is an eternal spring, welled in the bosom of Deity: heaven will be its dwelling-place, God its source, the glorified spirit its subject, and eternity its duration.

JULY 6.

"The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me; because the Lord has anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek; he has sent me to bind up the broken-hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound." Isaiah 61:1

We can with difficulty realize, as the eye traces this evangelical declaration, that we are reading the prophecy, and not its fulfillment; the shadowy writings of the Old, and not the noontide revelation of the New Testament; so luminous with the gospel, so fragrant with the name, so replete with the work of JESUS is it. Oh, what tidings of joy and gladness are here to the heart-broken, burdened captive! Could announcements be more suited to his case, more appropriate to his circumstances, more soothing to his heart? Here, from the very heart of the Bible, Jesus Himself speaks. And never, in the days of His flesh, when preaching from the mountain or in the synagogue, were sweeter sounds uttered from His lips than these. This was the work that was before Him—to seek and to save lost sinners, to save them as sinners, to rend asunder their chains, to deliver them from their captivity, and to introduce them into the glorious liberty of the sons of God.

The quiet, lowly, unostentatious character of Jesus, blending with the most exquisite tenderness of heart, the pen of the evangelical prophet with equal vividness and beauty portrays—"He shall not cry, nor lift up, nor cause His voice to be heard in the street. A bruised reed shall He not break, and the smoking flax shall He not quench." Was not the entire life of our Lord in exact harmony with this prophetical portrait? Did not the glory of His lowly life, which Isaiah saw with a prophet's far-reaching eye, illumine, as with a living light, every step and every act of His history? Verily it did! Truly might He say, "Learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart." The most sublime miracles, the most stupendous exertions of power, and the most brilliant displays of philanthropy, on which a self-aggrandizing man would have established successfully his claims to profound and universal homage, He only referred to as sustaining the glory of His Father in His Divine mission; while all earthly honor and temporal power that might have accrued separately to Himself, He utterly rejected, veiling His own person in the deep folds of that humility which clothed Him as a garment. Shrinking from the intense gaze of a delighted multitude, and from the murmuring breath of popular applause, He would vanish as in a moment from the scene of His benevolence, either to lavish His boundless compassion on other and more wretched objects of suffering and woe, or to hide Himself amid the gloom and solitude of the desert. Never was humility like Your, you meek and lowly Lamb of God! Subdue this hated self in us—lay low this pride—suppress these inward risings, and draw, in fairer and deeper lines, Your own image on our souls!

JULY 7.

"Buried with him in baptism, wherein also you are risen with him through the faith of the operation of God, who has raised him from the dead. And you, being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, has he quickened together with him; having forgiven you all trespasses." Colossians 2:12, 13

Is Jesus alive? then the saints of God are a risen people. What a glorious character is theirs! Mystically they are risen with Christ from the tomb, and spiritually they are risen from the grave of death and sin to newness of life. One of the most fruitful causes of a feeble Christianity is the low estimate the believer forms of his spiritual character. Were this higher, were it more proportioned to our real standing, our responsibility would appear in a more solemn light, our sense of obligation would be deeper, and practical holiness of a high order would be our more constant aim. Ours is a glorious and exalted life. Our standing is higher, infinitely higher, than the highest angel; our glory infinitely greater than the most glorious seraph. "Christ is our life." "We are risen with Christ." By this we are declared to be a chosen, an adopted, a pardoned, a justified, and a quickened people. This is our present state; this is our present character. We bear about with us the life of God in our souls. As Jesus did bear about in His lowly, suffering, tempted, and tried humanity the hidden essential life; so we, in these frail, sinful, bruised, dying bodies, enshrine the life derived from a risen Head—the hidden life concealed with Christ in God. What an exalted character, what a holy one, then, is a believer in Jesus! Herein lie his true dignity and his real wealth—it is, that he is a partaker of the Divine nature, that he is one with the risen Lord. All other distinctions, in comparison, vanish into insignificance, and all other glory fades and melts away. Poor he may be in this world, yet is he rich in faith, and an heir of the kingdom; for he has Christ. Rich he may be in this world, titled and exalted, yet, if Christ is in his heart, that heart is deeply sensible of its native poverty—is lowly, child-like, Christ-like.

If this is our exalted character, then how great our responsibilities, and how solemn our obligations! The life we now live in the flesh is to be an elevated, a risen, a heavenly life. "If you be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sits on the right hand of God. Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth. For you are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God." What is the holy state here enjoined?—heavenly-mindedness. On what ground is it enforced?—our resurrection with Christ. As a risen people, how heavenly-minded, then, ought we to be! How incompatible and incongruous do groveling pursuits, and carnal joys, and earthly ambitions appear, with a life professedly one and risen with the incarnate God! But even here much heavenly wisdom is needed to guide in the narrow and difficult way. To go out of the world—to become as a detached cipher of the human family—to assume the character, even in approximation, of the religious recluse—the gospel nowhere enjoins. To relinquish our secular calling, unless summoned by God to a higher and more spiritual service in the church—to relax our diligence in our lawful business—to be indifferent to our personal interests and responsibilities—to neglect our temporal concerns, and to be regardless of the relative claims which are binding upon us, are sacrifices which a loyal attachment to our heavenly King does not necessarily demand; and, if assumed, are self-inflicted; and, if made, must prove injurious to ourselves and displeasing to God.

But to be heavenly-minded, in the true and Scripture sense, is to carry our holy Christianity into every department of life, and with it to elevate and hallow every relation and engagement. There is no position in which the providence of God places His saints, for which the grace of Jesus is not all-sufficient, if sincerely and earnestly sought. Nor is there any sphere or calling, to which the life of Jesus in the soul may not impart dignity, luster, and sacredness. Christianity, through all grades, and classes, and occupations, is capable of diffusing a divine, hallowing, ennobling influence, transforming and sanctifying all that it touches. Blessed and holy are they who know it from personal and heartfelt experience!

JULY 8.

"Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God." Philippians 4:6

It must be admitted that the believer requires constant exhortation to the sweet and precious privilege of communion with his heavenly Father—that he needs to be urged by the strongest arguments and the most persuasive motives to avail himself of the most costly and glorious privilege this side of glory. Does it not seem like pleading with a man to live?—reminding him that he must breath, if he would maintain life? Without the exercise of prayer, we tell a child of God, he cannot live; that this is the drawing in of the Divine life, and the breathing of it forth again; that the spiritual nature requires constant supplies of spiritual nourishment; and that the only evidence of its healthy existence is its constant rising towards God. We tell him, Cease to pray, and your grace withers, your vigor decays, and your comfort dies.

Observe how prayer, as a duty, is enjoined in God's word—"Call upon me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you, and you shall glorify me." As though the Lord had said, "Call upon me when all is dark, when all is against you. I speak not now of the day of prosperity, of the sunny hour, when your soul prospers, when all things go smooth with you, and the sky above you is cloudless, and the sea beneath you is unruffled; but call upon me in the day of trouble, the day of want, the day of adversity, the day of disappointment and of rebuke, the day when friends forsake, and the world frowns upon you, the day of broken cisterns and withered gourds—call upon me in the day of trouble, and I will deliver you." Observe, too, how our dear Lord enjoined this precious duty upon His disciples—"You, when you pray, enter into your closet, and, when you have shut your door, pray to your Father which is in secret." And observe how He also encouraged it—"Verily, verily, I say unto you, whatever you shall ask the Father in my name, He will give it you." In harmony with this, is the sweet exhortation of the apostle—"Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God." And what a striking unfolding of the true nature of prayer does the same writer give us in another passage—"Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for all saints." The apostle James bears the same testimony—"If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that gives to all men liberally, and upbraids not, and it shall be given him."

But we take higher ground than this; we urge the exercise of prayer, not merely as a solemn duty to be observed, but also as a precious privilege to be enjoyed. Happy is that believer, when duties come to be viewed as privileges. What! is it no privilege to have a door of access ever open to God? is it no privilege when the burden crushes to cast it upon One who has promised to sustain? When the corruptions of an unsanctified nature are strong, and temptations thicken, is prayer no privilege then? And when perplexed to know the path of duty, and longing to walk complete in all the will of God, and, as a child, fearing to offend a loving Father, is it then no privilege to have a throne of grace, an open door of hope? When the world is slowly stealing upon the heart, or when that heart is wounded through the unkindness of friends, or is bleeding under severe bereavement, is it then no privilege to go and tell Jesus? Say, you poor, you needy, you tried, you tempted souls! say, if prayer is not the most precious and costly privilege this side heaven.

JULY 9.

"He shall baptize you with the Holy Spirit." Mark 1:8

"Neither will I hide my face any more from them; for I have poured out my Spirit upon the house of Israel, says the Lord God." Ezekiel 39:29

In a more enlarged communication of the Holy Spirit's gracious influence lies the grand source and secret of all true, spiritual, believing, persevering, and prevailing prayer; it is the lack of this that is the cause of the dullness, and formality, and reluctance, that so frequently mark the exercise. The saints of God honor not sufficiently the Spirit in this important part of His work; they too much lose sight of the truth, that of all true prayer He is the Author and the Sustainer, and the consequence is, and ever will be, self-sufficiency and cold formality in the discharge, and ultimate neglect of the duty altogether. But let the promise be pleaded, "I will pour upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and of supplication;" let the Holy Spirit be acknowledged as the Author, and constantly sought as the Sustainer, of this holy exercise; let the saint of God feel that he knows not what he should pray for as he ought, that the Spirit itself makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered, and that God knows the mind of the Spirit, because He makes intercession for the saints according to His will; and what an impulse will this give to prayer! what new life will it impart! what mighty energy, what unction, and what power with God! Seek, then, with all your blessings, this, the richest, and the pledge of all, the baptism of the Spirit; rest not short of it. You are nothing as a professing man without it; your religion is lifeless, your devotion is formal, your spirit is unctionless; you have no moral power with God, or with man, apart from the baptism of the Holy Spirit. Seek it, wrestle for it, agonize for it, as transcendently more precious than every other mercy. Submerged in His quickening and reviving influences, what a different Christian will you be! How differently will you pray, how differently will you live, and how differently will you die! Is the spirit of prayer languishing? is its exercise becoming irksome? is closet-devotion abandoned? is the duty in any form becoming a task? Oh, rouse you to the seeking of the baptism of the Spirit! This alone will revive the true spirit of prayer within you, and this will give to its exercise sweetness, pleasantness, and power. God has promised the bestowment of the blessing, and He will never disappoint the soul that seeks it.

JULY 10.

"Ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and to enter into his glory?" Luke 24:26

As the faithful servant of the everlasting covenant, it was proper, it was just, it was the reward of His finished work, that Christ's deepest humiliation on earth should be succeeded by the highest glory in heaven. "For the joy that was set before Him,"—the joy of His exaltation, with its glorious fruits—"He endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God." How proper, how righteous does it appear, that the crown of His glory should follow the cross of His humiliation! Toilsome and faithful had been His life; ignominious and painful had been His death. From both there had accrued to God—is now, and will yet be accruing, through the countless ages of eternity—a revenue of glory, such as never had been His before. He had revealed the Father gloriously. Drawing aside the veil as no other hand could do, He caused such Divine glory to beam forth, as compelled every spotless spirit in heaven to cover Himself with His wings, and fall prostrate in the profoundest humility and homage.

The glorious perfections of God!—never had they appeared so glorious as now. The mediatorial work of Jesus had laid a deep foundation, on which they were exhibited to angels and to men in their most illustrious character. Never before had wisdom appeared so truly glorious, nor justice so awfully severe, nor love so intensely bright, nor truth so eternally stable. Had all the angels in heaven, and all creatures of all worlds, become so many orbs of divine light, and were all merged into one, so that that one should embody and reflect the luster of all, it would have been darkness itself compared with a solitary beam of God's glory, majesty, and power, as revealed in the person and work of Immanuel. Now it was fit that, after this faithful servitude, this boundless honor and praise brought to God, His Father should, in return, release Him from all further obligation, lift Him from His humiliation, and place Him high in glory. Therefore it was that Jesus poured out the fervent breathings of His soul on the eve of His passion: "I have glorified You on the earth; I have finished the work which You gave me to do: I have manifested Your name, and now, O Father, glorify You me."

The ascension of Jesus to glory involved the greatest blessing to His saints. Apart from His own glorification, the glory of His church was incomplete—so entirely, so identically were they one. The resurrection of Christ from the dead was the Father's public seal to the acceptance of His work; but the exaltation of Christ to glory was an evidence of the Father's infinite delight in that work. Had our Lord continued on earth, His return from the grave, though settling the fact of the completeness of His atonement, could have afforded no clear evidence, and could have conveyed no adequate idea, of God's full pleasure and delight in the person of His beloved Son. But in advancing a step further—in taking His Son out of the world, and placing Him at His own right hand, far above principalities and powers—He demonstrated His ineffable delight in Jesus, and His perfect satisfaction with His great atonement. Now it is no small mercy for the saints of God to receive and to be well established in this truth, namely, the Father's perfect satisfaction with, and His infinite pleasure in, His Son. For all that He is to His Son, He is to the people accepted in His Son; so that this view of the glorification of Jesus becomes exceedingly valuable to all who are "accepted in the Beloved." So precious was Jesus to His heart, and so infinitely did His soul delight in Him, He could not allow of His absence from glory a moment longer than was necessary for the accomplishment of His own purpose and the perfecting of His Son's mission; that done, He showed His Beloved the "path of life," and raised Him to His "presence, where is fullness of joy," and to "His right hand, where there are pleasures for evermore. "

JULY 11.

"I have surely heard Ephraim bemoaning himself thus; You have chastised me, and I was chastised, as a bullock unaccustomed to the yoke: turn you me, and I shall be turned; for you are the Lord my God. Surely after that I was turned, I repented; and after that I was instructed, I smote upon my thigh: I was ashamed, yes, even confounded, because I did bear the reproach of my youth." Jeremiah 31:18, 19

The divine life in the soul of man is indestructible—it cannot perish; the seed that grace has implanted in the heart is incorruptible—it cannot be corrupted. So far from trials, and conflicts, and storms, and tempests impairing the principle of holiness in the soul, they do but deepen and strengthen it, and tend greatly to its growth. We look at Job; who of mere man was ever more keenly tried?—and yet, so far from destroying or even weakening the divine life within him, the severe discipline of the covenant, through which he passed, did but deepen and expand the root, bringing forth in richer clusters the blessed fruits of holiness. Do you think, dear reader, the divine life in his soul had undergone any change for the worse, when, as the result of God's covenant dealings with him, he exclaimed—"I have heard of You by the hearing of the ear, but now mine eye sees You: why I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes?" No, the pruning of the fruitful branch impairs not, but rather strengthens and renders more fruitful the principle of holiness in the soul.

It is the will of God that His people should be a fruitful people. "This is the will of God, even your sanctification,"—the sanctification of a believer including all fruitfulness. He will bring out His own work in the heart of His child; and never does He take His child in hand with a view of dealing with him according to the tenor of the covenant of grace, but that dealing results in a greater degree of spiritual fruitfulness. Now, when the Lord afflicts, and the Holy Spirit sanctifies the affliction of the believer, is not this again among the costly fruit of that discipline, that self has become more hateful? This God declared should be the result of His dealings with His, ancient people Israel, for their idolatry—"They shall loathe themselves for the evils which they have committed in all their abominations." And again—"Then shall you remember your ways, and all your doings wherein you have been defiled; and you shall loathe yourselves in your own sight, for all your evils that you have committed." To loathe self on account of its sinfulness, to mortify it in all its forms, and to bring it entirely into subjection to the spirit of holiness, is, indeed, no small triumph of Divine grace in the soul, and no mean effect of the sanctified use of the Lord's dispensations. That must ever be considered a costly mean that accomplished this blessed end. Beloved reader, is your covenant God and Father dealing with you now? Pray that this may be one blessed result, the abasement of self within you, the discovering of it to you in all its deformity, and its entire subjection to the cross of Jesus.

JULY 12.

"Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins." 1 John 4:10

It is a self-evident truth, that as God only knows, so He only can reveal His own love. It is a hidden love, veiled deep within the recesses of His infinite heart; yes, it seems to compose His very essence, for, "God is love,"—not merely lovely and loving, but love itself, essential love. Who, then, can reveal it but Himself? How dim are the brightest views, and how low the loftiest conceptions, of the love of God, as possessed by men of mere natural and speculative knowledge of divine things! They read of God's goodness, even in nature, with a half-closed eye, and spell it in providence with a stammering tongue. Of His essential love—His redeeming love—of the great and glorious manifestation of His love in Jesus, they know nothing. The eyes of their understanding have not been opened; and "God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness," has not as yet "shined into their hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ."

But God has declared His own love—Jesus is its glorious revelation. "In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him." Oh, what an infinite sea of love now broke in upon our guilty and rebellious world, wafting in upon its rolling tide God's only begotten Son! That must have been great love—love infinite, love unsearchable, love passing all thought—which could constrain the Father to give Jesus to die for us, "while we were yet sinners." It is the great loss of the believer that faith eyes with so dim a vision this amazing love of God in the gift of Jesus. We have transactions so seldom and so unbelievingly with the cross, that we have need perpetually to recur to the apostle's cheering words, written as if kindly and condescendingly to meet this infirmity of our faith—"He that spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things!"

But, behold God's love! See how He has inscribed this glorious perfection of His nature in letters of blood drawn from the heart of Jesus. His love was so great, that nothing short of the surrender to the death of His beloved Son could give an adequate expression of its immensity. "For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son." Here was the greatest miracle of love—here was its most stupendous achievement—here its most brilliant victory—and here its most costly and precious offering. Seeing us fallen, obnoxious to the law's curse, exposed to its dreadful penalty, guilty of innumerable sins, and deserving of as many deaths, yet how did it yearn to save us! How did it heave, and pant, and strive, and pause not, until it revealed a way infinitely safe for God and man; securing glory to every Divine attribute in the highest degree, and happiness to the creature, immense, unspeakable, and eternal.

JULY 13.

"And all mine are your, and your are mine; and I am glorified in them." John 17:10

The manifested glory of Christ in His church is clearly and manifestly stated in the sublime prayer of our Lord. Addressing His Father, He claims with Him—what no mere creature could do—a conjunction of interest in the church, based upon an essential unity of nature. What angel in heaven could adopt this language, what creature on earth could present this claim—"All your are mine"? It would be an act of the most daring presumption; it would be the very inspiration of blasphemy: but when our Lord asserts it—asserts it, too, in a solemn prayer addressed on the eve of His death to His Father—what does it prove, but that a unity of property in the church involves a unity of essence in being? There could be no perfect oneness of the Father and the Son in any single object, but as it sprang from a oneness of nature. The mutual interest, then, which Christ thus claims with His Father refers in this instance specifically to the church of God. And it is delightful here to trace the perfect equality of love towards the church, as of perfect identity of interest in the church. We are sometimes tempted to doubt the perfect sameness, as to degree, of the Father's love with the Son's love; that, because Jesus died, and intercedes, the mind thus used to familiarize itself with Him more especially, associating Him with all its comforting, soothing, hallowing views and enjoyments, we are liable to be beguiled into the belief that His love must transcend in its strength and intensity the love of the Father. But not so. The Father's love is of perfect equality in degree, as it is in nature, with the Son's love; and this may with equal truth be affirmed of the "love of the Spirit." "He that has seen me," says Jesus, "has seen the Father." Then he that has seen the melting, overpowering expressions of the Redeemer's love—he that has seen Him pouring out His deep compassion over the miseries of a suffering world—he that has seen His affectionate gentleness towards His disciples—he that has seen Him weep at the grave of Lazarus—he that has followed Him to the garden of Gethsemane, to the judgment-hall of Pilate, and from thence to the cross of Calvary—has seen in every step which He trod, and in every act which He performed, a type of the deep, deep love which the Father bears towards His people. He that has thus seen the Son's love, has seen the Father's love. Oh, sweet to think, the love that travailed—the love that toiled—the love that wept—the love that bled—the love that died, is the same love, in its nature and intensity, which is deep-welled in the heart of the TRIUNE GOD, and is pledged to secure the everlasting salvation of the church. "God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself." "In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him."

JULY 14.

"And not only so, but we glory in tribulations also: knowing that tribulation works patience." Romans 5:3

By a patient endurance of suffering for His sake, the Redeemer is greatly glorified in His saints. The apostle—and few drank of the bitter cup more deeply than he—presents suffering for Christ in the soothing light of a Christian privilege. "Unto you it is given in the behalf of Christ, not only to believe on Him, but also to suffer for His sake." "But if you be reproached for the name of Christ, happy are you;" for thereby Christ is glorified in you. Believer, suffering for Christ, rejoice, yes, rejoice that you are counted worthy to suffer shame for His sake. What distinction is awarded you! What honor is put upon you! What a favored opportunity have you now of bringing glory to His name; for illustrating His sustaining grace, and upholding strength, and Almighty power, and infinite wisdom, and comforting love! By the firm yet mild maintenance of your principles, by the dignified yet gentle spirit of forbearance, by the uncompromising yet kind resistance to allurement, let the Redeemer be glorified in you! In all that you suffer for righteousness' sake, let your eye be immovably fixed on Jesus. In Him you have a bright example. "Consider Him that endured such contradiction of sinners against Himself, lest you be wearied and faint in your mind." Remember how, for your redemption, He "endured the cross, despising the shame," and, for your continual support, "is set down at the right hand of the throne of God."

Remember, too, that it is one peculiar exercise and precious privilege of faith, to "wait patiently for the Lord." The divine exhortation is, "Commit your way unto the Lord; trust also in Him; and He shall bring it to pass." "Rest in the Lord, and wait patiently for Him." This patience of the soul is the rest of faith on a faithful God; it is a standing still to see His salvation. And the divine encouragement is, that in this posture will be found the secret of your real power. "In quietness and in confidence shall be your strength." Be watchful against everything that would mar the simplicity of your faith, and so dim the glory of Jesus; especially guard against the adoption of unlawful or doubtful measures, with a view to disentanglement from present difficulties. Endure the pressure, submit to the wrong, bear the suffering, rather than sin against God, by seeking to forestall His mind, or to antedate His purpose, or by transferring your interests from His hands to your own.

Oh, the glory that is brought to Jesus by a life of faith! Who can fully estimate it? Taking to Him the corruption, as it is discovered—the guilt, as it rises, the grief, as it is felt—the cross, as it is experienced—the wound, as it is received; yes, simply following the example of John's disciples, who, when their master was slain, took up his headless body, and buried it, and then went and poured their mournful intelligence in Jesus' ear, and laid their deep sorrow on His heart; this is to glorify Christ! Truly is this "precious faith," and truly is the "trial of our faith precious," for it renders more precious to the heart "His precious blood," who, in His person, is unutterably "precious to those who believe."

JULY 15.

"Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise him; he has put him to grief: when you shall make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hand." Isaiah 53:10

In the person and work of Christ the holiness of God is revealed with equal power and luster. It is only through this medium that we possess the most clear and perfect demonstration of this divine and awful perfection. Where was there ever such a demonstration of God's infinite hatred of sin, and His fixed and solemn determination to punish it, as is seen in the cross of Christ? Put your shoes from off your feet; draw near, and contemplate this "great sight." Who was the sufferer? God's only-begotten and well-beloved Son! His own Son! In addition to the infinitely tender love of the Father, there was the clear knowledge of the truth, that He, who was enduring the severest infliction of His wrath, was innocent, guiltless, righteous—that He, Himself, had never broken His law, had never opposed His authority, had never run counter to His will; but had always done those things which pleased Him. At whose hands did He suffer? From devils? from men? They were but the agents; the moving cause was God Himself. "It pleased the Lord to bruise Him; He has put Him to grief." His own Father unsheathed the sword: He inflicted the blow: He kindled the fierce flame: He prepared the bitter cup. "Awake, O sword, against my shepherd, and against the man that is my fellow, says the Lord of hosts: smite the shepherd." "The cup which my Father has given me, shall I not drink it?" "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" And what were the nature and degree of His sufferings? Imagine, if we can, what must have been the outpouring of God's wrath upon the whole church for all the sins of that church, through eternity! Can you compute the amount of her transgressions? can you conceive the degree of her punishment? can you measure the duration of her woe? Impossible! Then, who can tell what Jesus endured, when standing in the place and as the Surety of His church, in the solemn hour of atonement, and in the day of God's fierce anger? Never had God so manifested before, and never will He so manifest again, His essential holiness—His spotless purity—the inconceivable heinousness of sin—His utter hatred of it—and His solemn purpose to punish it with the severest inflictions of His wrath; never did this glorious perfection of His being blaze out in such overwhelming glory, as on that dark day, and in the cross of the incarnate God. Had He emptied the vials of His wrath full upon the world, sweeping it before the fury of His anger, and consigning it to deserved and eternal punishment, it would not have presented to the universe so vivid, so impressive, and so awful a demonstration of the nature and glory of His holiness, of His infinite abhorrence of sin, and the necessity why He should punish it, as He has presented in the humiliation, sufferings, and death of His beloved Son. What new and ineffably transcendent views of infinite holiness must have sprung up in the pure minds even of the spirits in glory, as, bending from their thrones, they fixed their astonished gaze upon the cross of the suffering Son of God!

JULY 16.

"Nevertheless I have somewhat against you, because you have left your first love." Revelation 2:4

Should the humiliating truth force itself upon you, my dear reader—"I am not as I once was; my soul has lost ground—my spirituality of mind has decayed—I have lost the fervor of my first love—I have slackened in the heavenly race—Jesus is not as He once was, the joy of my day, the song of my night—and my walk with God is no longer so tender, loving, and filial, as it was,"—then honestly and humbly confess it before God. To be humbled as we should be, we must know ourselves; there must be no disguising of our true condition from ourselves, nor from God; there must be no framing of excuses for our declensions: the wound must be probed, the disease must be known, and its most aggravating symptoms brought to view. Ascertain, then, the true state of your affection towards God; bring your love to Him to the touchstone of truth; see how far it has declined, and thus you will be prepared to trace out and to crucify the cause of your declension in love. Where love declines, there must be a cause; and, when ascertained, it must be immediately removed. Love to God is a tender flower; it is a sensitive plant, soon and easily crushed; perpetual vigilance is needed to preserve it in a healthy, growing state. The world's heat will wither it, the coldness of formal profession will often nip it: a thousand influences, all foreign to its nature and hostile to its growth, are leagued against it; the soil in which it is placed is not genial to it. "In the flesh there dwells no good thing;" whatever of holiness is in the believer, whatever breathing after Divine conformity, whatever soaring of the affections towards God, is from God himself, and is there as the result of sovereign grace. "That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit." What sleepless vigilance, then, and what perpetual culture are needed, to preserve the bloom and the fragrance, and to nourish the growth, of this celestial plant. Search out and remove the cause of the decay of this precious grace of the Spirit; rest not until it is discovered and brought to light: should it prove to be the world, come out from it, and be you separate, and touch not the unclean thing; or the power of indwelling sin, seek its immediate crucifixion by the cross of Jesus. Does the creature steal your heart from Christ, and deaden your love to God?—resign it at God's bidding; He asks the surrender of your heart, and has promised to be better to you than all creature love. All the tenderness, the deep affection, the acute sympathy, the true fidelity, that you ever did find or enjoy in the creature, dwells in God, your covenant God and Father, in an infinite degree. He makes the creature all it is to you. Possessing God in Christ, you can desire no more—you can have no more. If He asks the surrender of the creature, cheerfully resign it; and let God be all in all to you.

JULY 17.

"I acknowledged my sin unto you, and mine iniquity have I not hid. I said, I will confess my transgressions unto the Lord, and you forgave the iniquity of my sin." Psalm 32:5

This is just what God loves—an open, ingenuous confession of sin. Searching and knowing, though He does, all hearts, He yet delights in the honest and minute acknowledgment of sin from His backsliding child. Language cannot be too humiliating; the detail cannot be too minute. Mark the stress He has laid upon this duty, and the blessing He has annexed to it. Thus He spoke to the children of Israel, that wandering, backsliding, rebellious people—"If they shall confess their iniquity, and the iniquity of their fathers, with their trespass which they trespassed against me, and that also they have walked contrary unto me; and that I also have walked contrary unto them, and have brought them into the land of their enemies; if then their uncircumcised hearts be humbled, and they then accept of the punishment of their iniquity; then will I remember my covenant with Jacob, and also my covenant with Isaac, and also my covenant with Abraham will I remember; and I will remember the land." Truly may we exclaim, "Who is a God like unto You, that pardons iniquity, and passes by the transgression of the remnant of His heritage! He retains not His anger forever, because He delights in mercy." And how did the heart of God melt with pity and compassion when He heard the audible relentings of His Ephraim! "I have surely heard Ephraim bemoaning himself thus: You have chastised me and I was chastised, as a bullock unaccustomed to the yoke: turn me, and I shall be turned; for You are the Lord my God." And what was the answer of God? "Is Ephraim my dear son? is he a pleasant child? for since I spoke against him, I do earnestly remember him still; therefore my affections are troubled for him: I will surely have mercy upon him, says the Lord." Nor is the promise of pardon annexed to confession of sin unfolded with less clearness and consolatoriness in the New Testament writings. "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." How full, then, the blessing, how rich the consolation connected with an honest, heart-broken confession of sin! How easy, and how simple too, this method of return to God! "Only acknowledge your iniquity." It is but a confession of sin over the head of Jesus, the great sacrifice for sin. Oh, what is this that God says? "Only acknowledge your iniquity!" Is this all He requires of His poor wandering child? This is all! "Then," may the poor soul exclaim, "Lord, I come to You. I am a backslider, a wanderer, a prodigal. I have strayed from You like a lost sheep. My love has waxed cold, my steps have slackened in the path of holy obedience, my mind has yielded to the corrupting, deadening influence of the world, and my affections have wandered in quest of other and earthly objects of delight. But, behold, I come unto You. Do You invite me? Do You stretch out Your hand? Do You bid me approach You? Do You say, 'Only acknowledge your iniquity?' Then, Lord, I come; in the name of Your dear Son, I come; restore unto me the joy of your salvation.'" Thus confessing sin over the head of Jesus, until the heart has nothing more to confess but the sin of its confession—for, beloved reader, our very confession of sin needs to be confessed over, our very tears need to be wept over, and our very prayers need to be prayed over, so defaced with sin is all that we do—the soul, thus emptied and unburdened, is prepared to receive anew the seal of a Father's forgiving love.

JULY 18.

"Whatever you shall ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son." John 14:13

In the matter of prayer, ever cultivate and cherish a kindly, soothing view of God in Christ. Without it, in this most solemn and holy of all transactions, your mental conceptions of His nature will be vague, your attempts to concentrate your thoughts on this one object will be baffled, and the spiritual character of the engagement will lessen in tone and vigor. But meeting God in Christ, with every perfection of His nature revealed and blended, you may venture near, and in this posture, and through this medium, may negotiate with Him the most momentous matters. You may reason, may adduce your strong arguments, and throwing wide the door of the most hidden chamber of your heart, may confess its deepest iniquity; you may place your "secret sins in the light of His countenance;" God can still meet you in the mildest luster of His love. Drawing near, placing your tremulous hand of faith on the head of the atoning sacrifice, there is no sin that you may not confess, no want that you may not make known, no mercy that you may not ask, no blessing that you may not crave, for yourself, for others, for the whole church. See! the atoning Lord is upon the mercy-seat, the golden censer waves, the fragrant cloud of the much incense ascends, and with it are "offered the prayers of all saints upon the golden altar which is before the throne." Jesus is in its midst—

"Looks like a Lamb that has been slain,
And wears His priesthood still."

"Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, and having an High Priest over the house of God, let us draw near." Open all your heart to God through Christ, who has opened all His heart to you in Christ. Remember that to bring Himself in a position to converse with you, as no angel could, in the matter that now burdens and depresses you, He assumed your nature on earth, with that very sorrow and infirmity affixed to it; took it back to glory, and at this moment appears in it before the throne, your Advocate with the Father. Then hesitate not, whatever be the nature of your petition, whatever the character of your need, to "make known your requests unto God." Coming by simple faith in the name of Jesus, it cannot be that He should refuse you. With His eye of justice ever on the blood, and His eye of complacency ever on His Son, Himself loving you, too, with a love ineffably great, it would seem impossible that you should meet with a denial. Yield your ear to the sweet harmony of the Redeemer's voice, "Verily, verily, I say unto you, Whatever you shall ask the Father in my name, He will give it you. Hitherto have you asked nothing in my name; ask, and you shall receive, that your joy may be full."

JULY 19.

"For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, has shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ." 2 Corinthians 4:6

That God was under any obligation or necessity to reveal Himself to man, is an idea that cannot for a moment be seriously entertained. It will follow, then, that such a revelation of Himself, His mind and will, to fallen creatures, having been made, it must be regarded as an astounding act of His sovereign mercy, irrespective of any claim whatever arising from the creature man. The source where it originates must be entirely within God Himself.

The only full and perfect revelation of the glory of God is seen in the Lord Jesus; and apart from a spiritual and experimental knowledge of the Son there can be no true, adequate, and saving knowledge of the Father. "No man has seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he has declared Him." The vast importance of a correct knowledge of God is a truth which finds an assent in well-near every judgment. Every awakened conscience desires it; every believing mind admits it; every tried soul feels it. It lies at the basis of salvation; it forms the material of happiness; it supplies the true motive to holiness; it is the ground-work and the prelude of future and eternal glory.

As all knowledge of God out of Christ is defective and fallacious, examine closely, and in the light of the revealed word, the source and character of your professed acquaintance with the nature, character, and perfections of God. Ponder seriously this solemn declaration of Christ Himself. "No man knows the Son, but the Father; neither knows any man the Father, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal Him." Has your knowledge of God overwhelmed you with a sense of your sinfulness? Have you caught such a view of the Divine purity, the immaculate holiness of His nature, as to compel you to exclaim, "Woe is me! for I am undone, because I am a man of unclean lips,…for mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of Hosts; why I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes?" Has your study of His law forced upon your mind the deep and solemn conviction that you are a fallen, ruined, lost, guilty, condemned sinner, at this moment lying under the wrath of God, and exposed to future and everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and the glory of His power? Has it laid you beneath the cross of Christ? Has it brought you to His blood and righteousness for pardon and acceptance? Has it led you utterly to renounce all self-trust, self-confidence, self-boasting, and to accept of Jesus, as "made of God unto you wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption"? If it has not wrought this for you, your knowledge of God is but as "sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal." "This," says Christ, "is life eternal, that they might know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom You have sent." If you know not the Son, you know not the Father. "No man knows the Father, but he to whom the Son shall reveal Him,"—Jesus Himself has declared. Consider well the mercy of having transactions with such a God, in such a Christ. A God so holy and just, so good and wise, in a Christ so truly human, so spotless, so near, so dear and precious! God in Christ! Oh the immensity of the truth! Oh the glory of the revelation! That God reconciled, one with the believer; all His feelings love, all His thoughts peace, and all His dealings parental; each perfection harmonizing in the most perfect agreement with all the others, to secure the highest amount of good here, and of happiness unspeakable and eternal hereafter.

JULY 20.

"I pray with all my heart; answer me, Lord! I will obey your principles. I cry out to you; save me, that I may obey your decrees. I rise early, before the sun is up; I cry out for help and put my hope in your words. I stay awake through the night, thinking about your promise." Psalm 119:145-148

To be heavenly-minded, in the true and scriptural sense, is to carry our holy Christianity into every department of life, and with it to elevate and hallow every relation and engagement. There is no position in which the providence of God places His saints, for which the grace of Jesus is not all sufficient, if sincerely and earnestly sought. Nor is there any sphere, however humble, or calling, however mean, to which the life of Jesus in the soul may not impart dignity, luster, and sacredness. Christianity, through all grades, and classes, and occupations, is capable of diffusing a divine, hallowing, and ennobling influence, transforming and sanctifying all that it touches. Blessed and holy are they who know it from personal and heartfelt experience.

But "if we be risen with Christ," what is it to seek those things which are above, and to set our affections not on things on the earth? In other words, what is true heavenly-mindedness? It involves the habitual and close converse with God. The life of the soul can only be sustained by constant and ceaseless emanations from the life of God. There must be a perpetual stream of existence flowing into it from the "Fountain of Life." And how can this be experienced but by dwelling near that Fountain? Of no practical truth am I more deeply and solemnly convinced than this, that elevated spirituality—and, oh, what a blank is life without it!—can only be cultivated and maintained by elevated communion. The most holy, heavenly-minded, devoted, and useful saints have ever been men and women of much prayer. They wrestled with God secretly, and God wrought with them openly; and this was the source which fed their deep godliness, which supplied their rich anointing, and which contributed to their extensive and successful labors for Christ. Thus only can the life of God in the soul of man be sustained. Other duties, however spiritual—other enjoyments, however holy—other means of grace, however important and necessary, never can supply the place of prayer. And why? because prayer brings the soul in immediate contact with Christ, who is our life, and with God, the Fountain of life. As the total absence of the breath of prayer marks the soul "dead in trespasses and sins," so the waning of the spirit of prayer in the quickened soul as surely defines a state in which all that is spiritual within is "ready to die." Let nothing, then, rob you of this precious mean of advancing your heavenly-mindedness—nothing can be its substitute.

The believer should correctly ascertain the true character of his prayers. Are they lively and spiritual? Are they the exercises of the heart, or of the understanding merely? Are they the breathings of the indwelling Spirit, or the cold observance of a form without the power? Is it communion and fellowship? Is it the filial approach of a child, rushing with confidence and affection into the bosom of a Father, and sheltering itself there in every hour of need? Examine the character of your devotions; are they such as will stand the test of God's word? will they compare with the holy breathings of David, and Job, and Solomon, and the New Testament saints? Are they the breathings forth of the life of God within you? Are they ever accompanied with filial brokenness, lowliness of spirit, and humble and contrite confession of sin? See well to your prayers! "The Lord is far from the wicked: but He hears the prayer of the righteous." "The Lord is near unto all those who call upon Him, to all that call upon Him in truth."

JULY 21.

"Hide your face from my sins, and blot out all mine iniquities. Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from your presence; and take not your Holy Spirit from me. Restore unto me the joy of your salvation; and uphold me with your free Spirit." Psalm 51:9-12

All religion that excludes as its basis the state of mind portrayed in these words is as the shell without the pearl, the body without the spirit. It has ever been a leading and favorite scheme of Satan to persuade men to substitute the religion of man for the religion of God. The religion of man has assumed various forms and modifications, always accommodating itself to the peculiar age and history of the world. But we have observed that the religion of man—be its form what it may—has ever kept at the remotest distance from the spiritual; everything that brought the mind in contact with truth, and the conscience and the heart into close converse with itself and with God, it has studiously and carefully avoided; and thus it has evaded that state and condition of the moral man which constitutes the very soul of the religion of God—"the broken and contrite heart."

The state of holy contrition described in these words of David mark an advanced stage in the experience of the spiritual man; a stage which defines one of the most interesting periods of the Christian's life—the Divine restoring. David was a backslider. Deeply and grievously had he departed from God. But he was a restored backslider, and, in the portion we are now considering, we have the unfoldings of his sorrow-stricken, penitent, and broken heart—forming, perhaps, to some who read this page, the sweetest portion of God's word. But of the truth of this we are quite assured, that in proportion as we are brought into the condition of godly sorrow for sin, deep humiliation for our backslidings from God, our relapses, and declensions in grace, there is no portion of the sacred word that will so truly express the deep emotions of our hearts, no language so fitted to clothe the feelings of our souls, as this psalm of the royal penitent: "Have mercy upon me, O God, according to Your loving-kindness: according unto the multitude of Your tender mercies blot out my transgressions. Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin. For I acknowledge my transgressions; and my sin is ever before me. Against You, You only, have I sinned, and done this evil in Your sight: that You might be justified when You speak, and be clear when You judge." Thus upon the altar of God he lays the sacrifice of a broken heart, and seems to exclaim, "Wretch that I am, to have forsaken such a God, to have left such a Father, Savior, and Friend! Has He ever been unto me a wilderness—a barren land? Never! Have I ever found Him a broken cistern? Never! Has He ever proved to me unkind, unfaithful, untrue? Never! What! did not God satisfy me, had not Jesus enough for me, did not a throne of grace make me happy, that I should have turned my back upon such a God, should have forsaken such a bosom as Christ's, and slighted the spot where my heavenly Father had been so often used to meet and commune with me? Lord! great has been my departure, grievous my sin, and now most bitter is my sorrow—here at Your feet, upon Your altar, red with the blood of Your own sin-atoning sacrifice, I lay my poor broken, contrite heart, and beseech You to accept and heal it."

"Behold, I fall before Your face;
My only refuge is Your grace.
No outward forms can make me clean;
The leprosy lies deep within."

Such is the holy contrition which the Spirit of God works in the heart of the restored believer. Brought beneath the cross, and in the sight of the crucified Savior, the heart is broken, the spirit is melted, the eye weeps, the tongue confesses, the bones that were broken rejoice, and the contrite child is once more clasped in his Father's forgiving, reconciled embrace. "He restores my soul," is his grateful and adoring exclamation. Oh what a glorious God is ours, and what vile wretches are we!

JULY 22.

"Yes, everything else is worthless when compared with the priceless gain of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. I have discarded everything else, counting it all as garbage, so that I may have Christ" Philippians 3:8

Endeavor to enrich and enlarge your mind with more spiritual apprehensions of the personal glory, love, and fullness of Christ. All soul-declension arises from the admission of things into the mind contrary to the nature of indwelling grace. The world—its pleasures, its vanities, its cares, its varied temptations—these enter the mind, disguised in the shape often of lawful undertakings and duties, and draw off the mind from God, and the affections from Christ. These, too, weaken and deaden faith and love, and every grace of the indwelling Spirit: they are the foxes that spoil the vines; for our "vines have tender grapes." The world is a most hurtful snare to the child of God. It is impossible that he can maintain a close and holy walk with God, live as a pilgrim and a sojourner, wage a constant and successful warfare against his many spiritual foes, and at the same time open his heart to admit the greatest foe to grace—the love of the world. But when the mind is preoccupied by Christ, filled with contemplations of His glory, and grace, and love, no room is left for the entrance of external allurements; the world is shut out, and the creature is shut out, and the fascinations of sin are shut out; and the soul holds a constant and undisturbed fellowship with God, while it is enabled to maintain a more vigorous resistance to every external attack of the enemy. And oh! how blessed is the soul's communion, thus shut in with Jesus! "Behold, I stand at the door and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me." "I would come in," says the dear Lamb of God, "and dwell in you, and take up my abode with you, and sup with you, and you with me." This is true fellowship! And oh, sweet response of His own Spirit in the heart, when the believing soul exclaims—"When You said, Seek you my face; my heart said unto You, Your face, Lord, will I seek!" Enter, You, precious Jesus; I want none but You; I desire no company, and would hear no voice, but Your; I will have fellowship with none but You. Let me sup with You; yes, give me Your own flesh to eat, and Your own blood to drink! Ah! dear Christian reader, it is because we have so little to do with Jesus—we admit Him so seldom and so reluctantly to our hearts—we have so few dealings with Him—travel so seldom to His blood and righteousness, and live so little upon His fullness—that we are compelled so often to complain, "My leanness, my leanness!" But if we "be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sits on the right hand of God:" let us seek to know Christ more, to have more spiritual and enlarged comprehensions of His glory, to drink deeper into His love, to imbibe more of His Spirit, and conform more closely to His example.

JULY 23.

"Will you not revive us again; that your people may rejoice in you?" Psalm 85:6

A fresh baptism of the Holy Spirit forms the great secret of all personal revival. This a declining soul needs more than all beside. Possessing this in a large degree, he possesses every spiritual blessing; it includes and is the pledge of every other. Our dear Lord sought to impress this, His last consoling doctrine, upon the drooping minds of His disciples: His bodily presence in their midst, He taught them, was to be compared with the spiritual and permanent dwelling of the Spirit among them. The descent of the Holy Spirit was to bring all things that He had taught them to their remembrance; it was to perfect them in their knowledge of the supreme glory of His person, the infinite perfection of His work, the nature and spirituality of His kingdom, and its ultimate and certain triumph, in the earth. The descent of the Spirit, too, was to mature them in personal holiness, and more eminently fit them for their arduous and successful labor in His cause, by deepening their spirituality, enriching them with more grace, and enlarging them with more love; and fully did the baptism of the Holy Spirit, on the day of Pentecost, accomplish all this: the apostles emerged from His influence, like men who had passed through a state of re-conversion; and this is the state, dear reader, you must pass through, would you experience a revival of God's word in your soul—you must be re-converted, and that through a fresh baptism of the Holy Spirit. Nothing short of this will quicken your dying graces, and melt your frozen love, and restore your backsliding heart. You must be baptized afresh with the Spirit; that Spirit whom you have so often and so deeply wounded, grieved, slighted, and quenched, must enter you anew, and seal, and sanctify, and re-convert you. Oh, arise, and pray and agonize for the outpouring of the Spirit upon your soul; give up your lifeless religion, your form without the power, your prayer without communion, your confessions without brokenness, your zeal without love. And oh, what numerous and precious promises cluster in God's word, all inviting you to seek this blessing! "He shall come down as rain upon the mown grass; as showers that water the earth." "Come, let us return unto the Lord; for He has torn, and He will heal us; He has smitten, and He will bind us up. After two days will He revive us; in the third day He will raise us up, and we shall live in His sight. Then shall we know, if we follow on to know the Lord: His going forth is prepared as the morning; and He shall come unto us as the rain, as the latter and former rain unto the earth." Seek, then, above and beyond all other blessings, the renewed baptism of the Holy Spirit. "Be filled with the Spirit;" seek it earnestly—seek under the deep conviction of your absolute need of it—seek it perseveringly—seek it believingly: God has promised, "I will pour out my Spirit upon you;" and asking it in the name of Jesus you shall receive.

JULY 24.

"We also joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received the atonement." Romans 5:11

Not a single perfection of God can a believing mind view in Christ, but it smiles upon him. Oh! to see holiness and justice, truth and love, bending their glance of sweetest and softest benignity upon a poor trembling soul, approaching to hide itself beneath the shadow of the cross! What a truth is this! All is sunshine here. The clouds are scattered, the darkness is gone, the tempest is hushed, the sea is a calm. Justice has lost its sting, the law its terror, and sin its power: the heart of God is open, the bosom of Jesus bleeds, the Holy Spirit draws, the Gospel invites, and now the weary and the heavy-laden may draw near to a reconciled God in Christ. Oh, were ever words sweeter than these, "God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them." "Whom God has set forth to be a propitiation through faith in His blood." "He is able to save to the uttermost those who come unto God by him"?

God in Christ is the covenant God of His people. He is their God; their tender, loving, condescending Father. They may lose for a while the sight and the enjoyment of this truth, but this contravenes it not; it still remains the same, unchangeable, precious, and glorious. Nothing can rob them of it. In the tempest let it be the anchorage of your faith; in darkness the pole-star of your hope. Let every circumstance—the prosperity that ensnares, and the adversity that depresses, the temptation that assails, and the slight that wounds—endear to your believing soul this precious thought—"God reconciled, God at peace, God a Father in Christ, is my God forever and ever, and He will be my guide even unto death." If to view God in Christ is a comforting truth, it is also a most sanctifying truth. Why has God revealed Himself in Jesus? To evince the exceeding hatefulness of sin, and to show that nothing short of such a stupendous sacrifice could remove it, consistently with the glory of the Divine nature and the honor of the Divine government. Each sin, then, is a blow struck at this transcendent truth. The eye averted from it, sin appears a trifle; it can be looked at without indignation, tampered with without fear, committed without hesitation, persisted in without remorse, confessed without sorrow. But when Divine justice is seen, drinking the very heart's blood of God's only Son in order to quench its infinite thirst for satisfaction—when God in Christ is seen in His humiliation, suffering, and death—all with the design of pardoning iniquity, transgression, and sin, how fearful a thing does it seem to sin against this holy Lord God! How base, how ungrateful appears the act, in view of love so amazing, of grace so rich, and of glory so great! Cultivate a constant, an ardent thirst for holiness. Do not be discouraged, if the more intensely the desire for sanctification rises, the deeper and darker the revelation of the heart's hidden evil. The one is often a consequent of the other; but persevere. The struggle may be painful, the battle may be strong, but the result is certain, and will be a glorious victory—VICTORY, through the blood of the Lamb!

JULY 25.

"Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Savior Jesus Christ." Titus 2:13

Let us now contemplate the appropriate and spiritual posture in which it behooves all, and especially Christ's church, to be found in view of so glorious and near an event as the second coming of Jesus. For "behold the Lord comes, with ten thousand of his saints." Faith in the doctrine of a coming Savior is the basis of a holy posture of expectation. Without a belief of this truth, there can be no looking for this blessed hope. "When the Son of man comes, will He find faith"—in this doctrine—"on the earth?" No, it is to be feared that many in the church will be found sadly wanting here. They had believed in the coming of death, but they had not believed in the coming of Him who "abolished death." They had expected with trembling the "king of terror," but had not expected with joy the "King of glory." They had hoped to go to Christ, but they had not hoped that Christ would come to them. But the "glorious appearing" of Jesus, and not the death of the saints, is the "blessed hope" of the church of God. On this one grand event the eye of faith is bade to rest, as the pole-star of the soul, "until the day-star arise in your hearts." And how much more soothing to a believing mind is such an object of faith than the terrific monster—Death! To look up upon the "bright and morning Star," and not down in to the misty vault of the grave—to anticipate the glorious coming of the great Captain of my salvation, and not the gloomy and subtle approach—perhaps by slow and lingering steps—of the "last enemy of my being—to hope for the coming of the Conqueror, and not to live in dread expectation of the foe—surely is more strengthening to faith, animating to hope, and stimulating to love.

Faith, thus firmly grasping the doctrine that reveals, will inspire the hope that expects the event. The child of God, first believing it, will then be found looking for it. Resembling the faithful and affectionate wife, who frequently retires to read over the letters of her long-absent and far-distant husband, lingering with especial interest and delight over the assurances of his certain and speedy return to her again, love will constrain you to dwell upon the promise—"I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go to prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you unto myself; that where I am, you may be also." Thus a quickening power and holy exercise are given to these sister graces of the Spirit, faith, hope, and love. Faith believes it; hope expects it; love desires it.

With this firm belief in the doctrine of the Lord's coming, the truth itself will be found an eminently influential one. Is it asked, of what practical use is this blessed hope to the church of God? We answer, "much every way." Chiefly in the emptiness and nothingness to which it reduces all worldly glory, and in the holy elevation which it gives the believer above all sublunary enjoyments. And is this no great attainment in holiness? The grand duty of the believer is to live above the world: he is not of the world, even as Christ was not of it. But we require powerful motives to influence us to this. We are moved by motive, and the religion of Jesus is preeminently a religion of motive. The certain and speedy coming of Christ to glorify His church, oh, what a motive is here! Were you to rise in the morning impressed with this truth, how sweetly would it carry you through the day!—how effectually would it dim the luster of the world's pomp, deaden its joys, soothe your sorrows, dry your tears, lighten your burdens, reconcile you to poverty, to crosses, to losses, yes, to whatever your Lord ordains! You would feel, "What have I do with the world's vanities, its smiles, and its glories? I am waiting, expecting, looking, hoping, praying, for that blessed hope, the appearing of my Redeemer." Oh, what an eminent Christian would you be! What a burning and shining light! What vigorous faith, what lively hope, what fervent love, what a holy living for God, for Christ, and for eternity, would henceforth distinguish you!

JULY 26.

"And take the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God." Ephesians 6:17

The Bible was given not as a text-book of human science, but as a divine revelation of God's will. It was designed, not to make skillful disputants or dry theologians, but converted sinners and holy Christians; not to inform the judgment merely, but to renew and sanctify the heart. Above all blessings, then, seek in the study of the Bible large degrees of the grace, influence, and teaching of the Holy Spirit; apart from this, the Word of God, with all the human subsidiary aid you can bring to its investigation, will remain but as a sealed book—an unrolled scroll. Remember, there is a gracious influence and operation of the Holy Spirit separate from, though in harmony with, the written word. Without that influence, you cannot understand the Bible, nor will its revelations come to you with a quickening, saving power. "The letter kills, but the Spirit makes alive." Dishonor and grieve not the Spirit by supposing that He brings to bear upon the mind no other influence than that which the mere letter of the written word contains. There are those who hold this doctrine, to the leanness of their souls, and to the denial of the Spirit. If this doctrine were true, how came it to pass that our Lord, the great Prophet of His people, promised that, on His departure to glory, He would send the Comforter, the Spirit of truth, who should guide us into all truth? If the written word were enough, why promise such a guide? why send the Holy Spirit? why enjoin upon us to ask His bestowment, and to seek His teaching! Oh! it is alone the Spirit that quickens! It is the Spirit alone that unseals the word! It is the Spirit that takes of the things of Christ, and shows them unto us! The word is the "sword of the Spirit;" He it is who makes the word effectual. Without the wielding of His arm, polished as is its blade, and sharp its edge, and fine its point, and beautiful its ornament, it yet is but a passive and a powerless weapon—it pierces not, it wounds not, it slays not; there is no "dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow;" nor is there any "discernment of the thoughts and intents of the heart." You have, perhaps, hitherto been baffled and confounded in your at tempts to understand the Scriptures. But have you not come to the study of God's word as to a mere human production? Instead of humbly bringing the word to the teaching of the Spirit, have you not proudly brought it to your reason? Have you not attempted to fathom the fathomless, to measure the illimitable, to know what God has not made known, to comprehend what He has not revealed, even hidden purposes, mysteries, and modes, which must ever remain concealed in His own infinite mind, forgetting that "secret things belong to God"? Trace then your embarrassment and difficulty in understanding the sacred word to its real cause, and see if it may not be found to exist in a secret pride of intellect, and in a consequent restraining of prayer for the direct teaching of the Holy Spirit. Oh, let our fervent petition from this moment be—"Teach me, O Lord! You who alone teach to profit! Open my eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of Your law! Waiting upon You, eternal, creating Spirit, would I daily be found seeking as a little child, as a humble learner, that 'anointing which teaches of all things.'"

JULY 27.

"Look unto me, and be you saved, all the ends of the earth; for I am God, and there is none else." Isaiah 45:22

A true spiritual beholding of the Lord Jesus, in the great matter of our eternal salvation, requires that we look from every other object that would divide our attention, to Him alone. We must look from ourselves. This is, perhaps, the most common and insidious object that comes between the eye of the soul and Jesus. When God was ejected from the heart of man, self vaulted into the vacant throne, and has ever since maintained a supremacy. It assumed two forms, from both of which we are to look, in looking savingly to Jesus. We must look from righteous self; from all works of righteousness which we can perform—from our almsgivings, from our charities, from our religious observances, our fastings, and prayers, and sacraments—from all the works of the law, by which we are seeking to be justified; from all our efforts to make ourselves better, and thus to do something to commend ourselves to the Divine notice, and to propitiate the Divine regard; from all this we must look, if we rightly look unto Jesus, to be saved by His righteousness, and by His alone. The noble language of the apostle must find an echo in our hearts—" What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ--the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith."

We must equally, too, look unto Jesus from unrighteous self. Our sins, and transgressions, and iniquities—red as crimson, countless as the sands, and towering as the Alps—are not for one moment to intercept or obscure our looking unto Jesus for salvation. Jesus is a Savior, as His precious name signifies. As such, He came to save us from our sins, be those sins never so great for magnitude, or infinite for number. It is impossible that we can look unto Jesus, and feel the joy of His salvation flowing into our hearts, while at the same time we are looking at the number and the turpitude of our sins. We must not look at the sin and at the Savior at the same time; but beholding by faith Him who "bore our sins in His own body on the tree," who was "made a sin-offering for us," who was "wounded for our transgressions, and was bruised for our iniquities," who shed His precious blood that the guiltiest may be cleansed and the vilest saved, and between whom and the penitent sinner, though he were another Manasseh, another Saul of Tarsus, another dying malefactor, no transgression and no crime can interpose an effectual barrier, we shall see the exceeding greatness and sinfulness of sin in a clearer and more searching and solemn light than we possibly could, viewing it apart from the cross. Look unto Jesus, then, from your sins: their magnitude and their number interpose no difficulty, and form no real discouragement to your immediate approach to Christ. No argument based upon your unworthiness can avail to exclude you from an interest in His great salvation. He came into the world to save sinners, even the chief. It is His work, it is His joy, it is His glory to save sinners. For this He exchanged heaven for earth, relinquished the bosom of His Father for the embrace of the cross. He was never known to reject a poor sinner that came to Him; He has never refused to take within His sheltering side, to hide within His bleeding bosom, the penitent that sought its protection, fleeing from the condemnation of the law to the asylum of the cross. "Whoever comes unto me, I will in no wise cast out." With such a declaration as this, flowing from the lips of Jesus, who can refuse to look from the greatness of his own sin and guilt, to the greatness of His love, the greatness of His grace, the greatness of His salvation, "who came into the world to save sinners"?

JULY 28.

"I sleep, but my heart wakes, it is the voice of my beloved that knocks, saying, Open to me, my sister, my love, my dove, my undefiled: for my head is filled with dew, and my locks with the drops of the night." Song of Solomon 5:2

"I sleep, but my heart wakes." Here was the existence of the divine life in the soul, and yet that life was on the decline. The church knew that she had fallen into a careless and slumbering state, that the work of grace in her soul was decaying, that the spirit of slumber had come over her; but the awful feature was, she was content to be so. She heard her Beloved knock; but, so enamored was she with her state of drowsiness, she gave no heed to it—she opened not to him. Her duty would have been instantly to have aroused herself from her sleep, and admitted her Lord. A believer may fall into a drowsy state of soul, not so profound as to be entirely lost to the voice of his Beloved speaking by conscience, by the word, and by providences: and yet so far may his grace have decayed, so cold may his love have grown, and so hardening may have been his declension, he shall be content that this should be his state. Oh, alarming symptom of soul-declension, when the indulgence of sloth and self is preferred to a visit from Jesus!

Then observe, that when she did arise, Christ had withdrawn Himself. "I opened to my Beloved, but my Beloved had withdrawn Himself, and was gone; my soul failed when He spoke. I sought Him, but I could not find Him; I called Him, but He gave me no answer." Weary with waiting so long, and wounded by her cold repulse, He withdrew His sensible, loving presence, and left her to the consequences of her sad departure. The Lord never withdraws Himself from His people willingly: He is never actuated by an arbitrary impulse of His will. Such is His delight in His people, such His love towards them, and such the joy He derives from their fellowship, that He would walk with them all the day long, and sun them with the unclouded light of His countenance. But when He hides Himself for a little moment, He is driven from their embrace by their lukewarmness of heart and unkind resistance of His love. Possessing a tender heart Himself, the slightest indifference discoverable in His child wounds it; an ocean of love Himself, the least lukewarmness in the love of His people causes Him to withdraw. And yet this momentary withdrawment is not a judicial, but a fatherly, loving correction, to bring them to a knowledge and confession of their state. "I will go and return to my place, until they acknowledge their offence, and seek my face: in their affliction they will seek me early."

There is yet one more remarkable feature in the state of the church, too instructive to pass by unnoticed; we allude to the persuasion she felt, that though the divine life in her soul was at a low ebb, still Christ was hers, and she was Christ's. "I sleep, but my heart wakes: it is the voice of my Beloved that knocks." In the worst frame that can affect a true child of God, there is always some indication that the divine life in the soul is not quite extinguished. In the darkest hour, there is that in the nature of true grace, which emits some scintillation of its essential glory; in its greatest defeat, that which asserts its divinity. Just as a king, though deposed from his throne and driven into exile, can never entirely divest himself of the dignity of his regal character; so real grace, though often severely tried, sharply assailed, and sometimes momentarily defeated, can never sink its character, nor relinquish its sovereignty. Mark the proof of this in the case of the apostle Paul: "Now then it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwells in me. For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do. Now if I do that I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwells in me." And so the church expresses it, "I sleep, but my heart wakes." In her most drowsy, slothful state, she could not forget that she was still her Beloved's, and that her Beloved was hers. Glorious nature, and blessed triumph of the life of God in the soul of man!

JULY 29.

"And he saw that there was no man, and wondered that there was no intercessor; therefore his arm brought salvation unto him; and his righteousness, it sustained him." Isaiah 59:16

How frequently, clearly, and solemnly does the Holy Spirit unfold this great truth in His word, that salvation is entirely in and of God, irrespective of all worth, worthiness, or power of the creature; and that as the salvation of His covenant people is supremely and solely His own work, so in every respect it is infinitely worthy of Himself. God can do nothing but what harmonizes with His own illimitable greatness; He can never act below Himself. All the productions of His creative power in nature, all the events of His directive wisdom in providence, bear the impress, from the smallest to the greatest, of His "eternal power and Godhead." But in salvation it is supremely and preeminently so. Here, the whole Deity shines; here, the entire Godhead is seen; here, Jehovah emerges from the veiled pavilion of His greatness and glory, and by one stupendous exercise of power, and by one august act of grace, and by one ineffable display of love—before which all other revelations of His glory seem to fade away and well-near disappear—walks abroad among men in His full-orbed majesty. "And I heard a great voice out of heaven, saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people; and God Himself shall be with them, and be their God." This glorious "tabernacle" that is "with men," what less is it than the manifestation of Jesus in our own nature—God manifest in the flesh? Truly may we say, "His glory is great in our salvation." Is He the only wise God?—His salvation must needs be the most profound result of that wisdom. Is He most holy?—His salvation must be holy. Is He just?—His salvation must be just. Is He gracious?—so must be His salvation. It bears the imprint of every attribute; it embodies in its nature the manifestation of every perfection. No other conception of His wisdom, no other product of His power, no other revelation of His greatness, gives any adequate conception of God, but the cross of His beloved Son. Salvation, with all the blessings it involves, originated in the very heart of Jehovah. Where could the thought else have originated, of saving a guilty world, and saving it in such a way, and at such a sacrifice? It was a stupendous thought—even that of saving, of showing mercy to rebellious man. The bare idea of exercising love towards the apostate race was in itself so mighty, that God alone could have conceived it. But when the plan of salvation is viewed—when the method of mercy is contemplated—when the sacrifice, "the price of pardon," is weighed—that sacrifice, His only-begotten and well-beloved Son—that price, His own most precious blood; oh the grandeur of the thought! It was fit only to have originated with God, and is in every view worthy of Himself. "God commends His love towards us, in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us. Much more then, being now justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him."

JULY 30.

"Therefore I love your commandments above gold; yes, above fine gold. Therefore I esteem all your precepts concerning all things to be right; and I hate every false way." Psalm 119:127, 128

To the true believer there is glory, harmony, and excellence in spiritual truth. Every part to Him is precious—no portion undervalued. In whatever form it presents itself, whether doctrinal or preceptive—with whatever tone it speaks, whether it rebukes or comforts, admonishes or cheers, he welcomes it as God's own eternal truth, more precious to him than gold, yes, than much fine gold. In His eye it is a perfect system; dismember it of any one part, and you mar its beauty. It is a sovereign panacea; take out of it any single ingredient, and you impair its efficacy. He must have it with no doctrine dissevered, with no precept diluted, with no institution perverted. He can consent to no compromise; he has bought the truth, and the truth he cannot sell. Not only does he feel bound to watch it with a jealous and vigilant eye, because it is God's own truth, but he loves it for its perfect adaptation to his own case. It has disclosed to him his sinfulness, and has revealed to him a "fountain open for sin." It has led him in his ruin, helplessness, poverty, and condemnation, to the cross, and there introduced him to a Savior all-sufficient and willing to repair that ruin, assist that helplessness, enrich that poverty, and remove that condemnation. Is it any marvel that to such an individual God's revealed truth should be precious? that he should guard it vigilantly, and love it ardently?

This leads us to revert to the close and important yet much forgotten connection which exists between a clear, spiritual perception of God's truth, and a holy, humble, and close walk with God. The two can never be separated. A distant and careless walk not only veils the mind to the glory of the truth, but hardens the heart to the power of the truth. The world in the heart, guilt upon the conscience, and unmortified sin in the life, have a fearful and certain tendency to petrify the moral sensibilities, and render powerless the sword of the Spirit. Let not such a professor of Christ wonder that appeals the most thrilling, truths the most solemn, and motives the most persuasive, all, all are disarmed of their force in his case. Let him not be amazed that, with an enlightened judgment, and a scriptural creed, and a spotless orthodoxy, he knows nothing of the holy spiritual actings of the life of God in the soul; and that he does but hang a lifeless, sapless, withered branch upon the vine, ready to be removed at the husbandman's bidding. Let him not be astonished that there is no close and fervid fellowship with the Father and His dear Son Christ Jesus—that his prayers are cold and formal, the habitual frame of his mind earthly and sensual—and that all taste and desire for the "communion of saints," and for a spiritual searching ministry, should have become extinct in his soul—this is no marvel. The greater wonder would be if it were otherwise; that if, while living in a state of distance from God—the ordinances neglected, and sin unmortified—the Father and the Son should yet draw near and manifest themselves, and so make known that secret which peculiarly belongs to those that fear Him. But oh, to have Christ in the heart!—this, this is the truth of God experienced. Call you it enthusiasm? Blessed enthusiasm!—we exult in it, we glory in it. Let the formalist, let the man of notional religion, let the mere professor, call it what he may, deride it as he will; we admire the grace, and adore the love, and extol the power, which has formed "Christ within us the hope of glory." Reader, be satisfied with nothing short of this.

JULY 31.

"Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same." Hebrews 2:14

The Divine compassion and sympathy could only be revealed by the incarnation of Deity. In order to the just exhibition of sympathy of one individual with another, there must be a similarity of circumstances. The like body must be inhabited, the same path must be trod, the same, or a similar, sorrow must be felt. There can be no true sympathy apart from this. A similarity of circumstances is indispensably necessary. See, then, the fitness of Christ to this very purpose. God took upon Him our nature, in order to bear our griefs, and carry our sorrows. Here we enter into the blessedness that flows from the human nature of Christ. As God merely, He could not endure suffering, nor weep, nor die; as man only, He could not have sustained the weight of our sin, grief, nor sorrow. There must be a union of the two natures to accomplish the two objects in one person. The Godhead must be united to the manhood; the one to obey, the other to die; the one to satisfy Divine justice, the other to sympathize with the people in whose behalf the satisfaction was made. Let not the Christian reader shrink from a full and distinct recognition of the doctrine of our Lord's humanity; let it be an important article of his creed, as it is an essential pillar of his hope. If the Deity of Jesus is precious, so is His humanity; the one is of no avail in the work of redemption apart from the other. It is the blending of the two in mysterious union that constitutes the "great mystery of godliness."

Approach, then, the humanity of your adorable Lord: turn not from it. It was pure humanity—it was not the form of an angel He assumed; nor did He pause in His descent to our world to attach Himself to an order of intelligent being, if such there be, existing between the angelic and the human. It was pure humanity, bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh, which He took up into intimate and indissoluble union with His Deity. It was humanity, too, in its suffering form. Our Lord attached Himself to the woes of our nature; He identified Himself with sorrow in its every aspect. This was no small evidence of the love and condescension of Jesus. To have assumed our nature, this had been a mighty stoop; but to have assumed its most humiliating, abject form, this surpasses all our thoughts of His love to man.

It was necessary that our Lord, in order to sympathize fully with His people, should not only identify Himself with their nature, but in some degree with their peculiar circumstances. This He did. It is the consolation of the believer to know, that the Shepherd has gone before the flock. He bids them not walk in a path which His own feet have not first trod and left their impress. As the dear, tender, ever-watchful Shepherd of His sheep, "He goes before them;" and it is the characteristic of His sheep, that they "follow Him." If there were a case among His dear family, of trial, affliction, or temptation, into which Jesus could not enter, then He could not be "in all points" the merciful and sympathetic High Priest. View the subject in any aspect, and ascertain if Jesus is not fitted for the peculiarity of that case. Beloved reader, you know not how accurately and delicately the heart of Jesus is attuned to yours, whether the chord vibrates in a joyous or a sorrowful note. You are perhaps walking in a solitary path; there is a peculiarity in your trial—it is of a nature so delicate, that you shrink from disclosing it even to your dearest earthly friend; and though surrounded by human sympathy, yet there is a friend you still want, to whom you can disclose the feelings of your bosom—that friend is Jesus. Go to Him—open all your heart; do not be afraid—He invites, He bids you come. "For in that He Himself has suffered being tempted, He is able to support those who are tempted."

AUGUST 1.

"So then, after the Lord had spoken unto them, he was received up into heaven, and sat on the right hand of God." Mark 16:19

The circumstance of the Lord's ascension and exaltation meets with frequent and marked allusion in the word of God. The Holy Spirit has attached to the fact the greatest weight. The writings of the Old Testament frequently and distinctly speak of it. Thus, in Psalm 47:5, "God is gone up with a shout; the Lord with the sound of a trumpet." It is impossible to misunderstand the obvious allusion of these words. He came down as God; He went up as "God manifest in the flesh." The ascension was worthy of His Deity. It was royal and triumphant. He went up as a "great King," and as a mighty Conqueror, "leading captivity captive." Attended by a celestial escort, and amid the shouts and acclamations of all the heavenly hierarchy, He passed within the portals of glory. The demand was made, the challenge was given, the answer was returned: "Lift up your heads, O you gates; and be you lift up, you everlasting doors; and the King of glory shall come in. Who is this King of glory? The Lord strong and mighty—the Lord mighty in battle. Lift up your heads, O you gates; even lift them up, you everlasting doors; and the King of glory shall come in. Who is this King of glory? The Lord of hosts, He is the King of glory." Yes, our Immanuel, God with us, is "gone up with a shout;" the Lord, JEHOVAH-JESUS, "with the sound of a trumpet." And although no echo of the heavenly minstrelsy was heard on earth, and the cloud which received Him veiled His receding form from the gaze of His disciples, hiding from the view the deepening glory which encircled His ascending flight, yet all heaven reverberated with the song, and grew resplendent with the majesty of His entrance within its gates.

The scene and the circumstances of our Lord's ascension were of thrilling interest, and deeply spiritual in their meaning. The period, which it is important distinctly to specify, was just forty days after His resurrection; thus affording ample time to establish, by the most irrefragable proof and tangible evidence, this master-fact of His history. Not only did He take this occasion to answer all the reasonings, and resolve all the doubts, of His still incredulous disciples, but He crowded into this brief space of time instructions the most needed, precious, and momentous to the well-being of His church. Drawing closer around Him, as if by the new and more powerful attraction of His risen body, His devoted apostles—the future builders of His spiritual temple—He proceeds to renew their divine commission to preach the gospel, widening it to the exigencies of the world that gospel was intended to bless. Opening their understandings more perfectly to understand the Scriptures, He cleared and enlarged their view of His Divine nature, the spiritual character of His kingdom, and the offices, ordinances, and discipline which were to be observed in each gospel-constituted section of His church. Thus, even after His atoning work was finished, and the great seal of heaven was affixed to it, our adorable Lord was still engaged in His Father's business, still intent upon promoting His glory, and the eternal welfare of His people. Oh, what love was the love of our Immanuel!

Let us now ascend in spirit with Jesus, and contemplate the glory of His exaltation. His entrance into heaven was the signal for the full development of His mediatorial power and glory. This was the promise of His Father, and this the reward of His death. "I have set my King upon my holy hill of Zion." "Unto the Son He says, Your throne, O God, is for ever and ever." "I appoint unto you," says Christ, "a kingdom, as my Father has appointed unto me." Thus His exaltation at the right hand of the Father was His full induction into His mediatorial kingdom. Now was He exalted "heir of all things"—now were "all things put under His feet"—now "all power in heaven and on earth was given to Him;" and from that moment that He touched the crown, and grasped the scepter, and the government was placed upon His shoulder, His truth was to advance, and His kingdom widen, with ever-growing power, until, supplanting all error, and subduing all kingdoms, He was to reign "King of kings and Lord of lords."

AUGUST 2.

"Let us lift up our heart with our hands unto God in the heavens." Lamentations 3:41

Prayer is the spiritual pulse of the renewed soul; its beat indicates the healthy or unhealthy state of the believer. Just as the physician would decide upon the health of the body from the action of the pulse, so would we decide upon the spiritual health of the soul before God, by the estimation in which prayer is held by the believer. If the soul is in a spiritually healthy, growing state, prayer will be vigorous, lively, spiritual, and constant; if, on the contrary, the heart is wandering, and love waxes cold, and faith is decaying, the spirit and the habit of prayer will immediately betray it.

The spirit of prayer may decline in the believer, and he may not at once be sensible of it. The form and the habit of prayer may for a while continue—but the spirit of prayer has evaporated, and all is coldness and dullness—the very torpor and frigidity of death! But of what real worth is the habit of prayer, apart from the spirit of prayer? Just what this planet would be without the sun, or the body without the living, animating, breathing soul—what but a cold, lifeless form? Yes, and a believer may be beguiled into this lamentable state, and not a suspicion of its existence be awakened; he may observe his accustomed habit, and use his empty form, and not suspect that all is cold and breathless as death itself. Oh, it is not the rigidly-observed form that God looks at; nor is it great volubility, and eloquent fluency, and rich sentiment, and splendid imagery, and rounded periods, that God regards: far from this; a man may not be able to give expression to his deep emotion in prayer, his thoughts may find no vehicle of utterance, language may entirely fail him; and yet the spirit of prayer may glow in his breast—and this—the true language of prayer—finds its way to the ear and to the heart of God. Reader, look well to the state of your soul; examine your prayers; see that you have not substituted the cold form for the glowing spirit—the mere body for the soul. Real prayer is the breathing of God's own Spirit in the heart: have you this? It is communion and fellowship with God: know you what this is? It is brokenness, contrition, confession, and that often springing from an overwhelming sense of His goodness and His love shed abroad in the heart: is this your experience? Again, we repeat it, look well to your prayers; test them, not by the natural or acquired gift which you may possess—this is nothing with God; but test them by the real communion you have with God—the returns they make to your soul.

There should be the searching out and the removal of that which hinders prayer. Many things weaken true prayer: unsubdued sin—unrepented sin—unpardoned sin (we mean the secret sense of it upon the conscience)—worldly-mindedness—light and trifling conversation, vain disputations—much and frequent communion either with unconverted individuals, or cold and formal professors—all these combined, or any single one, will, if suffered to prevail, unfit the mind for converse with God, and cause a decay of the spirit of prayer in the soul. Regard that as injurious which touches the devotional frame of your mind, which abridges the hour of prayer, and removes the fine edge of its holy enjoyment.

AUGUST 3.

"And many other signs truly did Jesus in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book: but these are written, that you might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing you might have life through his name." John 20:30, 31

All the value and efficacy of the atoning blood is derived solely and entirely from the dignity of the person who sheds it. If Christ do not be absolutely and truly what the word of God declares, and what He Himself professes to be, the true God, then, as it regards the great purpose for which His atonement was made, namely, the satisfaction of Divine Justice, in a full and entire sacrifice for sin, it were utterly valueless. We feel the vast and solemn importance of this point; it is of the deepest moment—it is the key-stone of the arch, sustaining and holding together every part of the mighty fabric. Our examination of the claims of Christ to proper Deity cannot be too close; we cannot too rigidly scrutinize the truth of His Godhead; Jesus Himself challenges investigation. When personally upon earth, carrying forward the great work of redemption, on all occasions, and by all means, He announced and proved His Deity. Thus was He used to declare it—"I and my Father are one." "Verily, verily, I say unto you, before Abraham was, I AM." "I come forth from the Father, and am come into the world; again, I leave the world and go to the Father." Thus was He used to confirm it—"I have greater witness than that of John; for the works which the Father has given me to finish, the same works that I do, bear witness of me that the Father has sent me." "If I do not the works of my Father, believe me not; but if I do, though you believe not me, believe the works; that you may know and believe that the Father is in me, and I in Him." Our blessed Lord saw and felt the importance of a full belief in the doctrine of His Godhead. If the foundation of our faith were not laid deep and broad in this, He well knew that no structure, however splendid in its external form, could survive the storm that will eventually sweep away every lying refuge. And what, to the believing soul, is more animating than the full unwavering conviction of the fact, that He who bore our sins in His own body on the tree was God in our nature? that He who became our surety and substitute was Jehovah Himself—"God manifest in the flesh?" that, as God, He became incarnate—as God, He obeyed, and as God-man, He suffered the penalty? What deep views does this fact give of sin! what exalted views of sin's atonement! Pray, dear reader, that the blessed and eternal Spirit may build you up in the belief of this truth. It is a truth on which we can live, and on no other can we die. That Satan should often suggest suspicions to the mind respecting the veracity of this doctrine we can easily imagine. That a dear saint of God should at times find his faith wavering in its attempts to grasp this wondrous fact, "the incarnate mystery," we marvel not. It is the very basis of his hope; is it surprising that Satan should strive to overturn it? Satan's great controversy is with Christ. Christ came to overthrow his kingdom, and He did overthrow it. Christ came to vanquish him, and He triumphed. This signal and total defeat Satan will never forget. To regain his kingdom he cannot. To recover what he has lost he knows to be impossible. Therefore his shafts are leveled against Christ's members; and the doctrine, to them most essential and precious—the doctrine of Christ's Godhead—is the doctrine most frequently and severely assailed. Let no believer sink in despondency under this severe temptation. Let him look afresh to the cross, afresh to the atoning blood, and faith in Him, whose word stilled the angry waves of the Galilean lake, and whose look prostrated to the ground the soldiers sent to His arrest, will give Him the victory.

AUGUST 4.

"For as the sufferings of Christ abound in us, so our consolation also abounds by Christ." 2 Corinthians 1:5

Christian reader, we suppose you to be no stranger to grief; your heart has known what sorrow is; you have borne, perhaps for years, some heavy, painful, yet concealed cross. Over it, in the solitude and silence of privacy, you have wept, agonized, and prayed. And still the cross, though mitigated, is not removed. Have you ever thought of the sympathy of Christ? Have you ever thought of Him, as bearing that cross with you?—as entering into its peculiarity, its minutest circumstance? Oh, there is a fiber in His heart that sympathizes, there is a chord there that vibrates, to that grief of yours. That cross He is bearing with you at this moment; and although you may feel it to be so heavy and painful, as to be lost to the sweet consciousness of this, still it rests on Him, as on you; and were He to remove His shoulder but for a moment, you would be crushed beneath its pressure. "Then why, if so tender and sympathizing, does He place upon me this cross?" Because of His wisdom and love. He sees you need that cross. You have carried it, it may be, for years: who can tell where and what you would have been at this moment, but for this very cross? What evil in you it may have checked; what corruption in you it may have subdued; what constitutional infirmities it may have weakened; from what lengths it has kept you; from what rocks and precipices it has guarded you; and what good it has been silently and secretly, yet effectually, working in you all the long years of your life—who can tell but God Himself? The removal of that cross might have been the removal of your greatest mercy. Hush, then, every murmur; be still, and know that He is God; and that all these trials, these sufferings, these untoward circumstances, are now working together for your good and His glory.

And what would you know, may we not ask, of Jesus—His tenderness, and love, and sympathizing heart—but for the rough and thorny path along which you have been thus led? The glory and fullness, the preciousness and sympathy of Christ are not learned in every circumstance of life. The hour of prosperity, when everything passes smoothly on—providences smiling—the heart's surface unruffled—the gladsome sunlight of creature-happiness gilding every prospect with its brightness—this is not the hour, nor these the circumstances, most favorable to an experimental acquaintance with Christ. It is in the dark hour of suffering—the hour of trial and of adversity, when the sea is rough, and the sky is lowering, and providences are mysterious, and the heart is agitated, and hope is disappointed—its bud nipped, and its stem broken, and creature comfort and support fail—oh, then it is the fullness, and preciousness, and tenderness of Jesus are learned. Then it is the heart loosens its hold on created objects, and entwines itself more fondly and more closely around the Incarnate Son of God. Blessed Jesus! You Brother born for our every adversity! did You take our nature into union with Your own? And can You, do You, weep when we weep, and rejoice when we rejoice? O You adorable Son of God! we stand amazed, and are lost in this love, this condescension, and this sympathy of Your. Draw our hearts to Yourself; let our affections rise and meet in You, their center, and cling to You, their all.

AUGUST 5.

"Knowing that Christ being raised from the dead dies no more; death has no more dominion over him." Romans 6:9

The resurrection of Christ was the consummation of His glorious victory. Until this moment, the Redeemer had all the appearance of one vanquished in the great fight. He was left slain upon the battle-field. Indeed it would appear that He had really endured a momentary defeat. He was now under the dominion of death; and as death was the consequence and penalty of sin, so long as He was subject to its power, He still lay beneath the sins of His people. Cancelled although they were by the blood He had just shed, the great evidence of their remission did not and could not transpire until the resurrection had passed. What gloom now enshrouded the church of God! The Sun of Righteousness was setting in darkness and in blood; and with it was descending into the tomb, the hopes of patriarchs and prophets, of seers and apostles. The "king of terrors" had laid low his illustrious victim; and the cold earth had closed upon His sacred body, mangled and lifeless. Oh, what a victory did hell and sin, death and the grave, now seem to have achieved! But the "triumphing of the wicked is short." In three days the tomb, at the mighty fiat of Jehovah, unveiled its bosom, and yielded back its Creator and Lord. The Sun of Righteousness ascended again in cloudless glory and peerless majesty, to set no more forever. The church of God, now "begotten again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead," arose from the dust, and put on her beautiful garments. Now was the scene changed. His enemies, no longer wearing even the semblance of victory, were overthrown and vanquished. Hell was disappointed, and its gates forever closed against the redeemed. Sin was thrown to an infinite distance, and "death had no more dominion over him, God having loosed its pains, because it was not possible that He should be holden of it." He rose a mighty and an illustrious Conqueror. And all this conquest, let it not be forgotten, was achieved in behalf of a chosen and a beloved people. It was our battle that He fought, it was our victory that He won. Therefore, called though we are to "wrestle against principalities and against powers," and exhorted though we are to "take unto us the whole armor of God," we are yet confronted with enemies already vanquished. It would seem as though we were summoned, not so much to go out upon the field of battle, as upon the field of conquest; not so much to combat with the foe, as to gather up the spoils of victory. For what is every successful conflict with our spiritual adversaries—what is every corruption mortified—what is every temptation resisted—what is every sin overcome—but a showing forth the great victory already won by the Captain of our salvation? Every triumph of the Holy Spirit in the heart of a regenerate man is a display of the triumph of Him who, in hanging on the cross, and in rising from the grave, "spoiled principalities and powers, and made a show of them openly, triumphing over them in it."

AUGUST 6.

"Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Spirit; which he shed on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Savior." Titus 3:5, 6

The conversion of a sinner to God is a convincing and precious evidence that Jesus is alive. In the regeneration wrought in the soul by the Holy Spirit, the life of Jesus is imparted. He breathes into the soul morally dead the breath of life, and it becomes a living soul. Until, in the exercise of His distinct office, this Divine Person of the adorable Trinity convinces of sin, quickens and brings the soul to Christ for acceptance, risen with Christ though that soul mystically is, it yet remains totally dead to, and insensible of, its great privilege—an utter stranger to that new life which springs from oneness with the "second Adam." The new nature which the Eternal Spirit now imparts is nothing less than the creation of the life of Christ in the soul; yes, even more than this, it is the bringing of Christ Himself into the soul to dwell there the "hope of glory" through time, and glory itself, through eternity.

Here, then, is an evidence that Jesus is alive, to a renewed mind the most convincing and precious. Thus quickened by the Eternal Spirit, believers become temples of Christ. Jesus lives in them. "I in them." "Know you not that Christ is in you?" "Christ lives in me." "Christ in you the hope of glory." Thus every believer is a living witness that Jesus is alive, because he bears about with him the very life of Jesus. By the indwelling of the Spirit, and realized by faith, Christ abides in the believer, and the believer abides in Christ. "I in them, and you in me, that they may be made perfect in one; that they also may be one in us."

We have already stated that this glorious entrance of Christ within the soul transpires at the period of the new birth. What, then, is every new conversion, every fresh trophy of redeeming grace, but a new manifestation to the universe of the life of Jesus? I see the sinner pursuing his mad career of folly, rebellion, and guilt. Suddenly he is arrested, I see him bowed to the earth, his heart broken with sorrow, his spirit crushed beneath the burden of sin. He smites upon his breast; acknowledges his transgression, confesses his iniquity, deplores it in the dust. Presently I see him lift his eye, and rest it upon a bleeding Savior; he gazes, wonders, believes, adores—is saved! By whom is this miracle of grace wrought?—The Spirit has descended to testify that Jesus is alive. That newly-converted soul, so lately dead in sins, but now quickened with Christ—that sinner but recently dwelling among the tombs, whom no human power could tame, now sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in his right mind—demonstrates that Christ is in heaven, and is alive, for evermore. Oh, it is the heaven-descending life of Jesus. Show me, then, a soul just passed from death unto life, and I will show you an evidence that Jesus is alive at the right hand of God.

AUGUST 7.

"And if they be bound in fetters, and are held in cords of affliction; then he shows them their work, and their transgressions that they have exceeded. He opens also their ear to discipline, and commands that they return from iniquity." Job 36:8-10

The very discipline which a covenant God employs with His child proves the existence and reality of grace in the soul. It is not the lifeless branch that He prunes, it is not the spurious one that He puts in the furnace. When He takes His child in hand to deal with him, it is with a view of drawing forth the grace which He has first implanted in the soul. The very trial of faith supposes the existence of faith; and the trial of any one grace of the Spirit supposes the previous indwelling of that grace in the believer. No man goes to a dry well to draw water from it; no man goes to a bank, in which he has made no previous deposit, to draw money from it. When God, the spiritual husbandman of the church, comes into His garden, and walks amid the "trees of righteousness," and in His sovereignty marks one here and another there for discipline, for pruning, whom does He select for this blessed purpose, but the trees which He has Himself planted? Jesus has declared that every plant which His heavenly Father has not planted shall be rooted up! And have we not often seen the solemn fulfillment of this threatening in the case of graceless professors?—the first blast of temptation has carried them away. God, perhaps, has brought them into deep trial; the storm of adversity has fallen upon them; death has snatched away the "desire of their eyes with a stroke;" riches have taken wings and flown away; character has been assailed; temptations have overtaken them; and what has been their end? We look for their religion—it has fled away like the chaff of the threshing-floor before the sweeping hurricane; their profession—it is all gone; their prayers—they have evaporated into empty air. The solemn "place of the holy," that knew them, knows them no more; the furnace tested the ore, and it proved nothing but tin; and so it will be with every plant that our heavenly Father has not planted; and so with all the wood, hay, and stubble, built upon an outward acknowledgment and profession of Christ.

But the true child of the covenant the Lord tries; and there is that in every believer, yes, the most eminent child of God—eminent for his holy and close walk—that needs trying. We cannot always see the necessity of the discipline; we wonder often why such a believer is so constantly and, in a sense, so severely dealt with. But what says God?—"I, the Lord, search the heart." Here is the secret revealed; the hidden evil of that holy man of God we could not discover. The powerful corruptions that dwelt in his heart—which he, in a degree, knew, and mourned over, and confessed daily before the Lord—were concealed from our eye; and while we were judging from outward appearance, the Lord was probing and searching the heart, and, for the subjugation of the evil that He discovered there, was thus disciplining His beloved child.

Afflicted believer, do not forget that it is "whom the Lord loves He chastens;" and again He declares, "Whom I love I rebuke and chasten." Then thank Him for the sanctified trial, that weans you from earthly things, that deadens your heart to every rival of Christ, and that imparts an upward spring to faith, hope, and love. Not one unkind thought is there in the heart of the God that now chastens you. True, He may have cut off all your earthly springs, He may lead you down into the deep valley of abasement; yet still is He love, and nothing but love. Could you look into His heart, not a spring would be found dwelling, nor a pulse beating there, that would not speak of love to you at this very moment. All that He seeks with regard to yourself is your increased fruitfulness; and to promote your real sanctification is to promote your real happiness. In all God's dealings with His covenant people, He seeks their greatest good, their highest happiness, and in nothing more manifestly than in this does he show the intense love which dwells in His heart towards them.

AUGUST 8.

"We love him, because he first loved us." 1 John 4:19

All love to God in the soul is the result of His love to us; it is begotten in the heart by His Spirit: He took the first step, and made the first advance—"He first loved us." Oh heart-melting truth! The love of God to us when yet we were sinners, who can unfold it? what mortal tongue can describe it? Before we had any being, and when we were enemies, He sent His Son to die for us; and when we were far off by wicked works He sent His Spirit to bring us to Him in the cloudy and dark day. All His dealings with us since then—His patience, restoring mercies, tender, loving, faithful care, yes, the very strokes of His rod—have but unfolded the depths of His love towards His people; this is the love we desire you to be filled with. "The Lord direct your hearts into the love of God." Draw largely from this river—why should you deny yourselves? There is enough love in God to overflow the hearts of all His saints through all eternity; then why not be filled? "The Lord direct your hearts into the love of God;" stand not upon the brink of the fountain, linger not upon the margin of this river; enter into it—plunge into it; it is for you—poor, worthless, unworthy, vile, as you feel yourself to be, this river of love is yet for you! Seek to be filled with it, that you may know the love of Christ, which passes knowledge, and that your heart, in return, may ascend in a flame of love to God.

Deal much and closely with a crucified Savior. Here is the grand secret of a constant ascending of the affections to God. If you do find it difficult to comprehend the love of God towards you, read it in the cross of His dear Son. "In this was manifested the love of God towards us, because that God sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him. Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us, and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins." Dwell upon this amazing fact; drink into this precious truth; muse upon it, ponder it, search into it, pray over it, until your heart is melted down, and broken, and overwhelmed with God's wondrous love to you, in the gift of Jesus. Oh, how will this rekindle the flame that is ready to die in your bosom! how it will draw you up in a holy and unreserved surrender of body, soul, and spirit! Do not forget, then, to deal much with Jesus. Whenever you detect a waning of love, a reluctance to take up the daily cross, a shrinking from the precept, go immediately to Calvary; go simply and directly to Jesus; get your heart warmed with ardent love by contemplating Him upon the cross, and soon will the frosts that gather round it melt away, the congealed current shall begin to flow, and the "chariots of Amminadab" shall bear your soul away in communion and fellowship with God.

AUGUST 9.

"Know you not that you are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwells in you." 1 Corinthians 3:16

The believer may cherish an imperfect consciousness of the indwelling of the Spirit in his heart, and in this sense may the Holy Spirit of God be grieved. For the Holy Spirit effectually to call, renew, sanctify, and take possession of the soul, make it His temple, His permanent dwelling-place; and yet for that soul to entertain inadequate views of this great truth, forget who is dwelling with, and in him, slight his heavenly guest, and go out and come in, and live and act, as if he were not a temple of the Holy Spirit—what can be more dishonoring to the blessed and Eternal Spirit! Oh that this momentous truth should even for a single moment be lost sight of by the believer! That he should be the dwelling-place of the Most High, "the High and Lofty One that inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy," the residence of the Holy Spirit, and yet entertain a feeling or a thought not in perfect harmony with so great a fact, does indeed show the necessity of the apostolic admonition, "Grieve not the Spirit of God."

When, too, the Spirit's still small voice is unheeded, and His gentle constraints are not yielded to, there is a slight put upon His work of a very grievous nature. The abiding Indweller of the saints of God, the Spirit, is perpetually speaking to, admonishing, leading, drawing, and constraining the soul; His great work there is to teach, to sanctify, to shield, to check, and to comfort the believer. Every holy shrinking from sin, every firm resistance of its power, every victory achieved over its motions, every aspiration after holiness, and every feeble desire to walk in the way of filial obedience to, and sweet communion with, God, is the fruit of the indwelling Spirit in the heart. How grieving, then, to that Spirit, when this loving voice of His, and these gentle constraints of His, are overlooked, stifled, disregarded, and slighted by the soul He so tenderly loves, and so faithfully watches over! Grieve not thus the Holy Spirit of God. In all His dealings with you, He seeks but your real good; He aims to deepen His own work in your hearts; He seeks but to promote your holiness, and to mature your soul for the joys and the companionship of the saints in light. Yet more; He desires your true happiness—He would draw you off from carnal things, He would allure you from objects of sense and sin, and open to you springs of higher and purer enjoyment, and lead you into fairer and greener pastures; this would He do by unfolding to you what you possess in Jesus, in the covenant of grace, and in a covenant God. Let your ear, then, be open to the persuasive voice of the Spirit, and follow promptly and implicitly His secret and gentle leadings.

AUGUST 10.

"Look to yourselves, that we lose not those things which we have wrought, but that we receive a reward. Whoever transgresses, and abides not in the doctrine of Christ, has not God. He that abides in the doctrine of Christ, he has both the Father and the Son." 2 John 8, 9

Dear reader, in whose righteousness do you at this moment stand? Is it all profession merely? Startle not at the question—turn not from it; it is for your life we ask it. Do you wonder that such a scrutiny into the ground of your hope should be made? Are you astonished at the solemn fact implied in this question? Do not be so. Many have lived in the outward profession—have put on Christ in the external garb—have talked well of Him—have been baptized in His name—given liberally for His cause, and, after all, have gone into eternity holding up the empty lamp! Oh, marvel not, then, that we repeat the question—in whose righteousness do you at this moment stand? Mere profession will not save your soul; your being found mingling among the wise virgins will not secure you an admittance with them into heaven; your talking respectfully of Jesus will avail you nothing; your church membership, your liberality, your spotless morality, your regular attendance on the sanctuary, all, all are in vain, without the justifying righteousness of the God-man upon you. What do you know of the broken heart and the contrite spirit? What do you know of the healing blood of Jesus? What do you know of a sense of pardon and acceptance? What do you know of the witness of the Spirit? What do you know of a humble, low, abasing view of yourself? What do you know of a holy and a close walk with God? What do you know of communion and fellowship with the Father and His dear Son? In a word, what do you know of yourself as a helpless, ruined sinner; and of Jesus, as a rich, able, and present Savior? Ponder these solemn questions. The hand that pens them trembles with awe as it traces this page. This is a day of great profession—a day of great ingathering into the church—a day when much chaff must necessarily be gathered with the wheat. It solemnly behooves, then, each professing member of Christ's church, of every name and denomination, narrowly to scrutinize his motives, deeply to prove his heart, and closely and habitually to examine the foundation on which he is building for eternity. Thus shall he walk, if he be an adopted child, in the sweet and holy realization of his pardon and acceptance; thus shall he experience the blessedness of "the man whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered;" and thus, too, shall he constantly be "a vessel unto honor, sanctified, and meet for the Master's use, and prepared unto every good work."

AUGUST 11.

"These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God; that you may know that you have eternal life, and that you may believe on the name of the Son of God." 1 John 5:13

No imagination can fully depict, nor language adequately describe, the importance of this life, the grandeur of its nature and destiny, and the necessity of its progression and its manifestations. Reader, the world without you teems with sentient existence. All is life, activity, and progress. There is vegetable life, and animal life, and rational life. To this may be added a species of moral life maintained by many, developed and embodied in religious forms, observances, and sacrifices. But there is a life as infinitely superior to all these, as the life of Him whose mind conceived the towering pyramid is to that of the little insect that flutters its brief hour in the sun-beam, and then vanishes forever. It is the life of God in the soul of man. Deep planted in the center of his spiritual nature, lodged within the hidden recesses of his deathless mind, diffusing its mysterious but all-pervading and renovating influence through the judgment, the will, the affections, and linking his being with a future of glory, which "eye has not seen, nor ear heard, neither has it entered into the heart of man to conceive"—the world rushes on, and knows not its existence, and sees not its glories, and heeds not its joys—so deeply veiled from human eye, ay, and so far removed from human power, is the spiritual life "hidden with Christ in God." Reader, there is a religion towering as far above your religion of merit, and of works, and of forms, as the heavens are above the earth, even as the spiritual life of God is above the sensual life of man. It is the religion of a renewed mind, of a renovated heart, of a conquered will, of a soul, all whose sanctified faculties are consecrated to the glory of God here, and are destined to the enjoyment of God hereafter. Have you thus "passed from death unto life"? Have the avenues of the heart, closed and barred against the admission of Christ, been thrown open? Has the fearful alienation, and the withering curse, and the deep guilt, which portrays to you God as an enemy, and which arms all the powers of your soul against Him as His foe, been revealed, felt, and deplored? Has the captive spirit been disenthralled, the prey taken from the mighty, the power of the destroyer broken, and the soul awakened from its deep slumber to listen to its Creator speaking in tones of mercy, and in thoughts of love? Has light, emanating from the abodes of glory—invisible to others—dawned upon the midnight of your moral desolation? Has a voice speaking from the throne of heaven—unheard by others—startled your spirit in its deep trance, and dispelled its floating dreams? Has a hand, mighty and unseen, riven the chain, thrown open the dungeon, and led you forth to liberty and joy, to life and immortality? In a word, has another and a diviner life, descending from God, and begotten within you by the Spirit, and unfolding to your view a heaven of brightness, full of purity, and fragrance, and song, been communicated to your soul, thus creating you a new creature, and constituting you an "heir of God, and a joint heir with Christ Jesus"? If so, then you may adopt the language of Paul, and exultingly exclaim, "I live, yet not I, but Christ lives in me." Oh, deem not this a vain thing, for it is your life!

AUGUST 12.

"That you may be blameless and harmless, the sons of God, without rebuke, in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation, among whom you shine as lights in the world." Philippians 2:15

Christian influence begins with the first grain of grace, the first throb of life, the first beam of light, the first tear of godly sorrow, the first glance of faith—but its impressions and its results are as lasting as eternity. Solemn thought! The holy, gracious influence of a good man stretches far into the invisible world. But consider his present influence; his sphere, be it what it may, is just what God has made it—but in that sphere, be it limited or boundless, he is God's "salt," designed to preserve and to transform, by the holy influence which he exerts, the community in which he dwells. What a blessing is that Christian! Be the relation what it may that binds him to society—a husband, a wife, a parent, a child, a brother, a sister, a friend—he shines as a light in the circle in which he moves. That little spark which glows in his bosom may light the steps of some benighted wanderer to eternity; that measure of grace, diffusing its fragrance through his soul, may cheer and invigorate some tried and drooping spirit; that degree of spiritual knowledge which he possesses may confirm some waverer, or guide some anxious and perplexed seeker after truth. The holy and commanding influence which God has given him may, with its power, awe and subdue the mightiest agent of evil; or with its smile, cheer and encourage the weakest and lowliest effort of good. Blessed of God, he is a blessing to man. Of course we are describing the character and influence of a spiritually-minded Christian—of the influence exerted by one in whom the spiritual life is in a healthy, vigorous, active state. Such a believer is an incalculable blessing in any sphere in which he may move; we feel, when we converse with him, that we are in the presence of a true Christian, that we are holding communion with one who is used to hold communion with God, one who dwells near the cross, who lives beneath the anointing blood, who walks humbly with God, who lives as: "beholding Him who is invisible." There is that in him which bespeaks the gracious man—there is an echo to your voice, a response to your thought, a vibration to your touch, which rebounds upon your own soul with thrilling effect. You have caught the contagion of his holiness—his example has rebuked you, his zeal has quickened you, his love has melted you, his faith has invigorated you, his grace has refreshed you, his smile has gilded the dark cloud that, perhaps, hung around your spirit, his word has fallen balmy and healing upon your sorrowing, bleeding heart—and the secret of all is, he is "a sweet savor of Christ" to your soul. Seek, then, dear reader, to "let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is heaven."

AUGUST 13.

"For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life." Romans 5:10

God in Christ is the covenant God of His people. He is their God; their tender, loving, condescending Father. They may lose for a while the sight and enjoyment of this truth, but this contravenes it not; it still remains the same, unchangeable, precious, and glorious. Nothing can rob them of it. In the tempest let it be the anchorage of your faith, in darkness the pole-star of your hope. Let every circumstance—the prosperity that ensnares, and the adversity that depresses, the temptation that assails, and the slight that wounds—endear to your believing soul this precious thought, "God reconciled—God at peace—God a Father in Christ is my God forever and ever, and He will be my guide even unto death."

This thought is in the highest degree soothing, comforting, and encouraging. It seems to introduce us into the very pavilion of God's heart. There, curtained and shut in, we may repose in perfect peace. Not a single perfection can a believing mind view in Christ but it smiles upon him. Oh! to see holiness and justice, truth and love, bending their glance of sweetest and softest benignity upon a poor, trembling soul, approaching to hide itself beneath the shadow of the cross! What a truth is this! All is sunshine here. The clouds are scattered, the darkness is gone, the tempest is hushed, the sea is a calm. Justice has lost its sting, the law its terror, and sin its power: the heart of God is open, the bosom of Jesus bleeds, the Holy Spirit draws, the gospel invites, and now the weary and the heavy-laden may draw near to a reconciled God in Christ. Oh, were ever words sweeter than these, "God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them." "Whom God has set forth to be a propitiation, through faith in His blood." "He is able to save to the uttermost those who come unto God by Him."

If to view God in Christ is a comforting truth, it is also a most sanctifying truth. Why has God revealed Himself in Jesus? To evince the exceeding hatefulness of sin, and to show that nothing short of such a stupendous sacrifice could remove it, consistently with the glory of the Divine nature, and the honor of the Divine government. Each sin, then, is a blow struck at this transcendent truth. The eye averted from it, sin appears a trifle; it can be looked at without indignation, tampered with without fear, committed without hesitation, persisted in without remorse, gloried in without shame, confessed without sorrow. But when Divine justice is seen drinking the very heart's blood of God's only Son in order to quench its infinite thirst for satisfaction—when God in Christ is seen in His humiliation, suffering, and death, all with the design of pardoning iniquity, transgression, and sin, how fearful a thing does it seem to sin against this holy Lord God! How base, how ungrateful, appears the act, in view of love so amazing, of grace so rich, and of glory so great! Cultivate a constant, an ardent thirst for holiness. Do not be discouraged, if the more intensely the desire for sanctification rises, the deeper and darker the revelation of the heart's hidden evil. The struggle may be painful, the battle may be strong, but the result is certain, and will be a glorious victory—VICTORY, through the blood of the Lamb!

AUGUST 14.

"When the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory." Matthew 25:31

Surpassing in glory all that the eye has ever seen, or the imagination has ever conceived, will be the second personal appearing of the Son of God. A perfect contrast will it present to His first advent. Then He appeared a king, but disguised in the form of a servant, without a retinue, without the insignia of royalty, without visible glory, His throne a cross, His crown the thorns, His scepter a reed. But His second coming will be in perfect contrast with this. He will now have thrown off the garment of humiliation, and will appear clad with the robe of majesty, the King acknowledged and adored.

In the first place, He will appear in the glory of the Father. "The Son of man shall come in the glory of His Father." As the representative of the Father, He appeared in the flesh: "He that has seen me, has seen the Father." But when He appears the second time, it will be with a clearer, brighter manifestation of the Father's glory; He will come as the Father's equal—as His own beloved Son, and with all the glory which the Father gave Him as the mediator of His church. This will contribute immensely to the splendor of the scene. The Father's glory and the Son's glory will now be seen to be one glory. All His former claims to a oneness with the Father, to a perfect equality with Him in essential dignity, will now be made good. How gloriously will shine out the Father's love, the Father's grace, the Father's wisdom, when the Son of God appears in the clouds of heaven with great glory and majesty! Exalted and precious as had been our previous view of the Father, methinks it will appear as nothing compared with the revelations which at that moment will burst in overwhelming power on the soul.

But more especially will He appear in His own personal glory. "The Son of man shall come in His glory." He will come in the glory of His Divine nature. His Deity will now be unveiled, unclouded, and undenied, the "God over all, blessed for evermore." He will appear as the "Great God, even our Savior." The question of His Deity will be set at rest forever. Will men deny it now? Will they refuse Him divine honor? Will they withhold from Him divine worship? Will they now lift their puny hands, and pluck the crown of Godhead from His brow? No! "At the name of Jesus every knee shall bow, and every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father." Angels will laud Him, saints will crown Him, devils fear Him, His enemies will bow to Him; every tongue shall confess His Deity. His own glory will shine out to the confusion of His foes, and to the admiration of His friends.

But He will also appear in the glory of His human nature. This was concealed beneath the cloud of sin and sorrow, when He was on earth. Although it was holy, spotless, flawless, yet it was humbled, bruised, and trodden under foot. But He will "appear the second time without sin unto salvation," that same humanity now robed in glory, and exalted in dignity. Especially will the glory of His priestly character now burst forth; and like the Jewish high priest, who, after he had offered the sacrifice, entered the holy of holies, taking in his hands the blood of atonement, then when he had sprinkled the blood upon the mercy-seat, put on his gorgeous robes, and appeared again to bless the congregation; so Jesus, our great High Priest, having offered Himself a sacrifice, and having entered within the veil with His own blood, will appear the second time, robed in majesty and glory, to bless His people, and to take them to Himself forever.

Angels and saints will contribute to the glory of the scene. The celestial beings who sang His natal song, and who escorted Him back to heaven, with ten thousand times ten thousand, and thousands of thousands more, will now throng His descending way. Clustering around still nearer to His person will be the ransomed church, the "holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband." And as she nears the new earth, the future scene of her rest and glory, a "great voice out of heaven" will be heard, saying, "Behold the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself shall be with them, and be their God. And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes: and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain; for the former things are passed away." Oh, blessed hope and glorious appearing of the great God our Savior, when He "shall come to be glorified in His saints, and to be admired in all those who believe"!

AUGUST 15.

"My Father, which gave them me, is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father's hand. I and my Father are one." John 10:29, 30

The doctrine of Christ's pre-existence affords a most exalted and satisfactory view of the nature, glory, and stability of that covenant of grace entered upon by the infinitely glorious people of the triune God in behalf of the church. This covenant must be rich in its promises of mercy, seeing that it is made by Jehovah Himself, the fountain of all holiness, goodness, mercy, and truth, whose very name is "love." It must be glorious, because the Second Person in the blessed Trinity became its surety. It must be stable, because it is eternal. It must meet all the circumstances of a necessitous and tried church, because it is "ordered in all things." It must be sure, seeing its administration is in the hands of an infinitely glorious Mediator, who died to secure it, rose again to confirm it, and "ever lives" to dispense its blessings, as the circumstances of His saints require. How animating are the words which direct the believer to the fullness of this precious covenant: "Incline your ear, and come unto me: hear, and your soul shall live; and I will make an everlasting covenant with you, even the sure mercies of David." And when the children of the covenant are brought by the converting grace of the Holy Spirit into this visible relation, what says God concerning them? "I will make an everlasting covenant with them, that I will not turn away from them, to do them good; but I will put my fear in their hearts, that they shall not depart from me." And what is the precious blood of Jesus, but the "blood of the New Testament," the "blood of the everlasting covenant," deriving all its value, efficacy, and preciousness from the personal dignity and pre-eternal glory of Him who shed it?

The eternal love, grace, and fullness of Christ to His church spring from this glorious truth. Is the eternity of Christ's being a doctrine of revealed truth? equally so is the doctrine of the eternity of His love, with all the streams of blessing of which it is the spring-head. The love of Jesus runs parallel with His being; and as that is from all eternity to all eternity, so is His love towards the church which He has purchased with His own blood. "I have loved you," says the Lord, "with an everlasting love." "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ: according as he has chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy, and without blame before Him in love." Hard though this truth is to be believed by some, yet in the clearer light of heaven will every child of God see that electing love brought Him there, and but for which He had been lost forever.

Call you this doctrine of Christ's pre-existence a dry, speculative, and uninfluential article of faith? Oh, no! it is manna and fatness to him that believes it with his heart, while it supplies him with the most powerful and persuasive motive to a holy, godly life. On this truth, experimentally and practically received, he can live; and on it in the simple exercise of faith, he, can die. More precious is it to him than gold, yes, than much fine gold, since it endears to his soul the incarnate God, sustains him in his conflicts, comforts him in his trials, strengthens his aspirations for Divine conformity, and will, in the final hour, and amid the swellings of Jordan, enable him to exclaim, "Thanks be to God for His unspeakable gift!"

AUGUST 16.

"Watch you therefore, and pray always, that you may be accounted worthy to escape all these things that shall come to pass, and to stand before the Son of man." Luke 21:36

How closely and beautifully has our dear Lord connected together these two important Christian duties—"Watch and pray!" The one as necessary as the other is sublime. Watchfulness implying uncertainty as to time; prayer expressive of an earnest desire to be found in an appropriate attitude for the event. "Therefore, be you ready also; for in such an hour as you do not think, the Son of man comes." "Behold, I come as a thief. Blessed is he that watches, and keeps his garments." Surely if our affections were supremely fixed on Jesus—were He to us as the "chief among ten thousand," and did we really feel in our hearts the sentiment which our lips so often utter, "Whom have I in heaven but You? and there is none upon earth that I desire beside You," the return of our Lord would be to us a matter of most delightsome expectation and wearisome desire. Our earnest prayer would oftener be, "Why are Your chariot-wheels so long in coming? Come, Lord Jesus, come quickly!"

Dear reader, are you prepared for the coming of the Lord? Are you ready to enter in with Him to the marriage supper? Are you a professor? Have you grace-renewing, humbling, sanctifying, Christ-exalting grace in your heart? Is your preparation one of principle, one of habit? Will it abide the searching scrutiny of that day? Examine and see. Take nothing for granted, in deciding a matter so solemn, and involving interests so momentous. Christ must be all in all to you—the entire ground-work and fabric of your salvation. Mere notions of truth—external membership with the church—sacraments—regular attendance upon means—punctilious observance of days, and forms, and ceremonies, in themselves are no fit preparation for this awful event. As the fruit of a living faith in Jesus, they are valuable; but standing alone, without repentance towards God and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, they are the wood, the hay, the stubble which the last fire will consume.

Believer in Jesus! the day of your redemption draws near! The Lord is at hand. Behold, the Judge stands at the door. The days we live in are eventful—the times are perilous. The signs, thickening and darkening around us, are deeply and fearfully significant. We are standing on the eve of events perhaps more awful than the world has ever seen. A period of glory for the church, brighter than has yet shone upon her, and a period of woe to the world, more dark than has yet cast its shadows upon it, seems rapidly approaching. Then, "let us not sleep as do others, but let us watch and be sober." "And that, knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep; for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed. The night is far spent, the day is at hand." "Watch you, therefore: for you know not when the Master of the house comes; at even, or at midnight, or at the cock-crowing, or in the morning: lest coming suddenly, He find you sleeping." Oh, to blend the steady thought of our Redeemer's coming with every present duty, privilege, and effort, how would it hallow, cheer, and dignify us, consecrating by one of the most solemn motives the lowliest work of faith and the feeblest labor of love!

Thus, too, would there be a growing preparedness of mind for the judgments which are yet to come upon the earth. "For there shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be." "Men's hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth; for the powers of heaven shall be shaken. And then shall they see the Son of man coming in a cloud, with power and great glory. And when these things begin to come to pass, then look up, and lift up your heads; for your redemption draws near."

AUGUST 17.

"Having made known unto us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure which he has purposed in himself; that in the dispensation of the fullness of times he might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth; even in him." Ephesians 1:9, 10

That we have a partial discovery of God, His wisdom, and power, and goodness, in creation, is not enough to satisfy a mind convinced that God is holy, to quiet a conscience convicted of sin, and to soothe a heart bowed with godly grief. The grand inquiries with such a soul are, "How can I be just with God? How can I satisfy His justice, appease His wrath, and propitiate His regard? How may I know that He is my God, my reconciled Father? How may I be assured that He loves, has pardoned, and accepted me, and that I shall be with Him forever?" Traverse in imagination the extent of creation, wander over the most beautiful landscape, pluck the most fragrant flower, glide upon the surface of the fairest lake, scale the highest mountain, soar to the furthermost star, still the momentous question rushes back upon the mind, "How may I stand with acceptance before this holy Lord God?" Poor anxious searcher for peace, all nature unites in testifying, "It is not in me! it is not in me!"

The knowledge of God derived from His law must also necessarily be partial and shadowy. It is true, the holiness of God is discovered in its precepts; and the justice of God is inferred from its threatenings; but the law can never be more or less than what the Holy Spirit has declared it to be—the "ministration of condemnation." As a fallen creature, revolving the great matter of the soul's salvation, it can afford no satisfactory reply to the great question, "What must I do to be saved?" It breathes not a sound of mercy to a poor sinner; not one kind, soothing, saving accent falls from its lips. It speaks of death, but not of life; of condemnation, but not of salvation. It asserts the authority, reflects the holiness, and denounces the vengeance of God; but not one beam of hope springing from His mercy, His grace, or His love, does it throw upon the gloomy path of a soul passing on to judgment, bowed beneath the terrors of the Lord. Reader! are you seeking salvation by the law? Alas for you! How can that save which but condemns? How can that give life, which in its nature and design is but the minister of death? Mount Sinai is no refuge for your soul, poor guilty, condemned, heart-broken sinner. Get you down from the mount, before you are consumed. Abandon, as utterly futile and deceptive, all your legal expectations of acceptance, and betake yourself to the one only refuge of your guilty soul—the cross of the incarnate God.

We are now conducted to the consideration of the great point. We have seen that upon an extensive scale a great and fatal experiment had been made by man to know God and happiness. That God existed he had every demonstrative proof. The same evidence which authenticated His being, proved Him to possess great and glorious attributes; and the manner in which these attributes were displayed gave some insight into his character; "so that they are without excuse." Wearied as the creature was with a laborious, and dispirited with a fruitless research, God, in the depths of infinite mercy and wisdom, takes the work of salvation into His own hands. He sends His only-begotten and well-beloved Son into the world, and declares Him to be the perfect revelation of Himself to man. On this important truth Jesus Himself laid great stress. "Have I been so long time with you, and yet have you not known me, Philip? He that has seen me has seen the Father; and how say you then, Show us the Father? Believe you not that I am in the Father, and the Father in me? The words that I speak unto you I speak not of myself; but the Father that dwells in me, He does the works."

The great revelation of the Godhead, Jesus, is equally the revelation of all the perfections of the Godhead. Is "God only wise"? Jesus is the glory of that wisdom—"Christ, the wisdom of God." He is the master-piece of Divine wisdom; its highest manifestation; its most perfect, finished production. We trace the lesser forms of wisdom in nature; we ascend a scale higher in providence; we reach the summit in grace. Here we launch into a boundless immensity, and, overwhelmed with its greatness, can but exclaim, "Oh the depth of the riches, both of the wisdom and knowledge of God!"

AUGUST 18.

"Blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to his cross." Colossians 2:14

THE atonement of the blessed Redeemer was a full and entire blotting out of the sins of the believer. Need we say anything upon the vast importance of this truth? Need we say how closely it stands connected with the peace, the sanctification, and the eternal glory of the sinner that builds on Christ? The phraseology which the Holy Spirit employs in announcing the doctrine of Divine forgiveness confirms the statement we have made—"I have blotted out, as a thick cloud, your transgressions, and, as a cloud, your sins: return unto me, for I have redeemed you." Where would be the constraining-power of the motive to "return to God," but on the ground of a full and entire blotting out of all sin? This it is that subdues, overcomes, and wins back God's wandering child. This it is that abases the soul, deepens the conviction of its vileness, makes the sin of departure, of ingratitude, of rebellion, so abhorred, when, on the broad basis of a full and free blotting out of sin, God bids the soul "return"—"I have blotted out all your sins, therefore return. Though you have gone after other lovers—though you have departed from me, forgotten, and forsaken me, yet have I blotted out, as a thick cloud, your transgressions: return, for I have redeemed you." Again, "In those days, and in that time, says the Lord, the iniquity of Israel shall be sought for, and there shall be none; and the sins of Judah, and they shall not be found." "He will turn again, He will have compassion upon us; He will subdue our iniquities; and You will cast all their sins into the depths of the sea." What an astounding truth is contained in these two passages! In the one it is declared, that if the iniquity of Israel, and the sin of Judah, be sought for, they shall not be found. So entire was the blotting out, so glorious was the work of Jesus, so perfect His obedience, that if the eye of God's holy law searches—and where can it not penetrate?—it cannot discover them. In the other, it is declared, that, so fathomless are the depths of that sea of atoning blood, which Christ has poured out, that in it are cast, never to be found again, all the sins of the believer. So that the trembling soul may exclaim, "You have, in love to my soul, delivered it from the pit of corruption; for You have cast all my sins behind Your back."

Look up, you saints of God, who are disconsolate through fear of condemnation. See all your sins charged to the account of your mighty Surety. Yes, see them all laid upon Him as your substitute. See Him bearing them away—sinking them in the ocean of His blood—casting them behind His back. Look up and rejoice! Let not the indwelling of sin, the remains of corruption, cause you to overlook this amazing truth—the entire blotting out of all your sins, through the atoning blood of your adorable Immanuel. It is truth, and it is your privilege to live in the holy enjoyment of it. Fully received into the heart by the teaching of the Holy Spirit, its tendency will be of the most holy, sanctifying, abasing character. It will weaken the power of sin—it will draw up the heart in pantings for Divine conformity—it will deaden the influence of the objects of sense—expel the love of the world and of self—impart tenderness to the conscience, and cause the soul to go softly—"walking worthy of the Lord, unto all pleasing, being fruitful in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God."

AUGUST 19.

"And he is before all things, and by him all things consist. And he is the head of the body, the church: who is the beginning, the first-born from the dead; that in all things he might have the preeminence." Colossians 1:17, 18

In this striking and beautiful passage, Jesus is declared to be before all created things; could this be true, if He Himself were a created being? Christ is either created, or He is uncreated. He is a creature, or the Creator. If a mere creature, then it were absurdity to suppose Him creating all things; for He must have been created before He could create: then He could not have been before all created things. If, too, He were a mere creature, how could He uphold all things? for He would need an upholding power for Himself. No mere creature ever has, or ever can, sustain itself. The angels could not, for they fell. Adam could not, for he fell. And Christ could not have sustained Himself in the solemn hour of atonement, when standing beneath the mighty load of His people's sins, had He not been more than creature—the uncreated Jehovah. His humanity did indeed tremble, and shudder, and shrink back; but, upborne by His Godhead, secretly, invisibly, yet effectually sustained by His Deity, He achieved a complete triumph, made an end of sin, and brought in a new and everlasting righteousness. If, too, He were a creature only, how could He give spiritual life to the dead, and how could He sustain that life when given? All spiritual life is from Christ, and all spiritual life is sustained by Christ—"Christ who is our life"—the life of the soul, the life of pardon, the life of justification; the life of sanctification, the life of all the Christian graces—the life of all that now is, and the life of all that is to come. Glorious truth this, to the saint of God!

Turn to our blessed Lord's conference with the Jews, in which He asserts His eternal existence: "Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Before Abraham was, I am." What a consoling view do we derive of Christ, from this revealed attribute of His nature! Is He eternal ?—then His love to His people is eternal; His love to them being coeval with His very being. It is not the love of yesterday or of to-day—it is the love of eternity: its spring-head is His own eternal existence. Is He eternal?—then must He be unchangeable too: His precious love, set upon them from all eternity, can never be removed: having given them Himself, Himself He will never take away. Blessed thought! He may blight earthly hopes, He may break up earthly cisterns, He may wither earthly gourds; He may send billow upon billow, breach upon breach, but never, never will He take Himself from the people of His love. Dear reader, you may be conscious of many and great departures; this single view of your Father's unchangeableness may recall to your recollection backslidings many and aggravated; forgetfulness, ingratitude, unkindnesses without number; murmurings, rebellion, and unbelief. Still does God, your God, say to you, "Though you have dealt so with me, though you have forgotten me, though your name is rebellious, yet do I love you still. Return unto me, and I will return unto you." What a soul-humbling, heart-melting thought is this! Does your Father love your sins? No! Does He look complacently on your wanderings? No! He hates your sins, and He will follow your wanderings with His chastising rod; but He loves your person, beholding you in the Beloved, fully and freely accepted in the glorious righteousness of Jesus, who is the same "yesterday, today, and forever." If this truth, dear reader, be broken up to your soul by the blessed and eternal Spirit, the effect will be most holy and abasing. The legitimate tendency of all spiritual truth is sanctifying. Hence our blessed Lord prayed that the truth might be the medium through which His people should be sanctified. "Sanctify them through your truth." And hence the apostle reasons, "Christ also loved the church, and gave Himself for it. That He might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water, by the word." That God's truth has been and is abused by wicked and ungodly men, is no argument against the truth. They abuse it to their own condemnation; they turn it from its right and legitimate use to their own loss. Still the truth stands firm in its peerless dignity and holy tendency, and when unfolded to the understanding, and laid upon the heart by the Holy Spirit, Christ's prayer is answered in the progressive sanctification of the soul.

AUGUST 20.

"Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight: for by the law is the knowledge of sin. But now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets; even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all those who believe." Romans 3:20-22

Thus does Paul triumphantly establish the perfect freeness and unconditional character of a sinner's acceptance with God. By "the deeds of the law," he has reference to those many and fruitless efforts to obey the law which men in a state of nature are found so zealously to aim at. Are you striving, dear reader, to conform to the requirement of this holy, this inflexible law of God? Let me assure you, that all these strivings, all these works, all this toiling, is worse than worthless in God's holy sight; they are sinful—they proceed from an unregenerate nature, from an unrenewed, unsanctified heart—they flow not from faith and love; and therefore, the heart being thus a fountain of corruption, every stream that branches from it must partake of the foulness of the source from where it flows. Let the failure of the past suffice to teach you that this holy law you can never keep. Let your formal prayers, your lifeless religion, your vows forsworn, your resolutions broken, all confirm the solemn declaration of the apostle: "by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in His sight." Again: "For by the law is the knowledge of sin." Accompanied by the Spirit of God, it discloses to the soul the sinfulness of the heart and life, and brings it in guilty and self-condemned before God. Now, how is it possible that the law can ever be an instrument of life and an instrument of death to a sinner? It is utterly impossible that it can be. It never yet gave spiritual life to the soul—it never yet emancipated the soul from its thraldom—it never yet conducted it to Jesus—it never yet whispered liberty and peace. It can and does condemn—it can and does curse—and this is the utmost extent of its prerogative. Oh, then, resign all the hope you fondly cherish of life, peace, and acceptance by "the deeds of the law," and betake yourself to Him who has, by His most precious blood, "redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us."

Having established the incapacity of the law to justify the sinner, the apostle then proceeds to unfold the glory, fitness, and freeness of that righteousness which can and does justify the soul before God. He takes up and argues two important points—the nature of the righteousness, and the instrument by which it is received. With regard to the first, he declares it to be "the righteousness of God"—and nothing but "the righteousness of God" can justify a soul in the sight of God. It must not be the righteousness of angels, nor the righteousness of Adam, nor the righteousness of Moses—it must be the righteousness of God in our nature. Away with every other refuge—away with every other covering; and let not the reader dream of entering with acceptance into the presence of a holy and heart-searching God, clad in any other righteousness than that which the adorable Immanuel wrought out. In this righteousness the believing sinner is safe, and safe forever; take him for a moment out of this righteousness, and he is lost, and lost for ever!

The instrument by which this divine righteousness is received is the second point established by the apostle. He clearly proves it to be by faith. Thus: "Even the righteousness of God, which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all those who believe." How perfectly does this statement of the instrument or medium by which the blessings of pardon and justification are received into the soul harmonize with every other portion of God's word! Thus, for instance—"By Him all that believe are justified from all things." "Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and you shall be saved." "God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life." Oh see, disconsolate soul, the freeness of the gift! "To him that believes"—not to him that works, not to him that deserves, not to the worthy, but "to him that believes." "Where is boasting, then? It is excluded. By what law? Of works? No, but by the law of faith. Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith (in Christ) without the deeds of the law."

AUGUST 21.

"Herein is my Father gloried, that you bear much fruit; so shall you be my disciples." John 15:8

This "much fruit" is often found mostly in those with whom the Lord mostly deals. He has created His people for His own glory, and this He will secure to Himself in their abundant fruitfulness. This is why the most illustrious saints have ever been the most deeply tried, severely pruned: their great fruitfulness sprang from their great afflictions. And yet, beloved, the Lord deals with His saints according to His holy sovereignty; not by one line, or in one path, does He always conduct them. Is God smiling upon you? does the summer sun shine? is your sea smooth and flowing? does the "south wind" blow upon you? See, then, that you walk humbly with God; "Do not be high-minded, but fear." If God in His providence has elevated you a little in the world, you have need to besiege His throne for great grace to keep your spirit low in the dust before Him. Do your fellows admire your talents, extol your gifts, applaud your works, and court your society? oh, how closely, and softly, and humbly ought you now to walk with God! That breath of adulation that lighted upon you will prove a blight upon your graces, if you go not upon your knees before God; that flattering word which fell upon your ear will prove as the fly in the apothecary's ointment to your soul, if you get not closer down at the foot of the cross. Let every circumstance and state take you there; whether the north wind or the south wind blows, whether the dark cloud of adversity gathers over you, or the sunshine of prosperity beams upon you—still let your posture ever be low before the Savior's cross: nothing can harm you there. See that the season of outward prosperity is the season of your soul's fruitfulness; see that every mercy takes you to God; convert every new blessing into a fresh motive for living, not unto yourself, but unto Him from whom the blessing came.

And if you are constrained to take your worst frames to Christ, your sins as they rise, your weakness as you are conscious of it, your corruptions as they discover themselves, even so shall you be a fruitful branch of the true Vine. In the very act of going, just as he is, to Christ, the believer brings forth fruit. For what marks the frame of the soul thus traveling up to the cross, but self-distrust, self-abasement, deep conceptions of its own nothingness, high views of Christ's sufficiency? And is not this precious and costly fruit? I know of none more so.

And let the fruitful believer anticipate the approaching period of his translation to a more genial and healthy soil. In heaven, the home of the saints, there will be nothing to blight the flower of grace; no frosts of winter, no burning heat of summer, no crushing storms, no sweeping tempests; the former things will all have passed away, and a new heaven and a new earth, in which dwells righteousness, shall have succeeded them. Happy hour of his release! Here he is a "lily among thorns;" there he will be a tree of righteousness, on which the storm will never rise, on which the sun will never set.

AUGUST 22.

"Turn, O backsliding children, says the Lord; for I am married unto you." Jeremiah 3:14

Let the Christian reader call to mind the period and the circumstances of his first espousals to Jesus. If there ever was a blissful period of your life—if a spot of verdure in the remembrance of the past, on which the sunlight ever rests—was it not the time, and is it not the place where your heart first expanded with the love of Jesus? You have, it may be, trod many a thorny path since then; you have traveled many a weary step of your pilgrimage—have buffeted many storms, have waded through many deep afflictions, and fought many severe battles, but all have well-near faded from your memory; but the hour and the events of your "first love," these you never have forgotten, you never can forget. Oh ever to be loved, ever to be remembered with deep songs of joy, with adoring gratitude to free and sovereign grace, the period when the chains of your bondage were broken—when your fettered soul broke from its thraldom, and sprang into the liberty of the sons of God—when light discovered your darkness, and that darkness rolled away before its increasing luster—when the Spirit wounded you, then healed that wound with the precious balm of Gilead—when He gave you sorrow, then soothed that sorrow by a view of the crucified Lamb of God—when faith took hold of Jesus, and brought the blessed assurance into the soul, "I am my beloved's, and my beloved is mine;" and when Jesus whispered—oh, how tender was His voice!—"Your sins, which were many, are all forgiven you; go in peace." Blissful moment! Oh that the Lord should ever have reason to prefer the charge, "you have left your first love."

It is an affecting and humbling truth that the grace of love in a child of God may greatly and sadly decline. We speak, let it be remembered, not of the destruction of the principle, but of the decline of its power. This spiritual and influential truth cannot be too frequently nor too strongly insisted upon—that though faith, and love, and hope, and zeal, and their kindred graces may greatly decline in their vigor, fervor, and real growth, yet that they may entirely fail even in their greatest decay, or severest trial, the Word of God assures us can never be. To believe the opposite of this is to deny their Divine origin, their spiritual and immortal character, and to impeach the wisdom, power, and faithfulness of God. Not a grain of the true wheat can ever be lost in the sifting, not a particle of the pure gold in the refining. Remember, that though your love has waxed cold, the love of your God and Father towards you has undergone no diminution—not the shadow of a change has it known. What an encouragement to return to Him again! Not one moment has God turned His back upon you, though you have turned your back upon Him times without number. His face has always been towards you; and it would have shone upon you with all its melting power, but for the clouds which your own waywardness and sinfulness have caused to obscure and hide from you its blessed light. Retrace your steps and return again to God. Though you have been a poor wanderer, and have left your first love—though your affections have strayed from the Lord, and your heart has gone after other lovers—still God is gracious and ready to pardon; He will welcome you back again for the sake of Jesus, His beloved Son, in whom He is well pleased; for this is His own blessed declaration—"If his children forsake my law, and walk not in my judgments; if they break my statutes, and keep not my commandments; then will I visit their transgressions with a rod, and their iniquity with stripes. Nevertheless my loving-kindness will I not utterly take from him, nor suffer my faithfulness to fail."

AUGUST 23.

"To whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory." Colossians 1:27

The believer in Jesus is a partaker of the Divine nature. He is "born of the Spirit;" Christ dwells in him by faith; and this constitutes his new and spiritual life. It is not so much that the believer lives, as that Christ lives in him. Thus the apostle expresses it: "I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ lives in me." Do we look at the history of Paul as illustrative of the doctrine? Behold the grand secret of his extraordinary life. He lived unreservedly for Christ; and the spring of it was, Christ lived spiritually in him. This it was that rendered him so profound in wisdom, rich in knowledge, bold in preaching, undaunted in zeal, unwearied in toil, patient in suffering, and successful in labor—Christ lived in him, and this forms the high and holy life of every child of God—"Christ who is our life." To Him, as the covenant head and mediator of His people, it was given to have life in Himself, that He might give eternal life to as many as the Father had given Him. Christ possesses this life, Christ communicates it, Christ sustains it, and Christ crowns it with eternal glory. A peculiar characteristic of the life of God in the soul is, that it is concealed. "Your life is hid with Christ in God." It is a hidden life. Its nature, its source, its actings, its supports, are veiled from the observation of men. "The world knows us not." It knew not Jesus when He dwelt in the flesh, else it would not have crucified the Lord of life and glory. Is it any wonder that it knows Him not, dwelling, still deeper veiled, in the hearts of His members? It crucified Christ in His own person, it has crucified Him in the people of His saints, and, if power were given, would so crucify Him yet again. And yet there is that in the divine life of the believer which awakens the wonderment of a Christ-rejecting world. That the believer should be unknown, and yet well known—should die, and yet live—should be chastened, and yet not killed—sorrowful, yet always rejoicing—poor, yet making many rich—having nothing, and yet possessing all things—is indeed an enigma, a paradox to a carnal mind; yes, there are moments when the believer is a mystery to himself. How the divine life in his soul is sustained in the midst of so much that enfeebles, kept alive surrounded by so much that deadens, the glimmering spark not extinguished, though obscured, amid the billows—to drop all figure—how his soul advances when most opposed, soars when most hardened, rejoices when most afflicted, and sings the sweetest and the loudest when the cross presses the heaviest, and the thorn pierces the deepest, may well cause him to exclaim, "I am a wonder to others, but a greater wonder to myself!" But, if the nature and the supports of the divine life in the soul are hid, not so are its effects, and these prove its existence and reality. There is that in the honest, upright walk of a child of God which arrests the attention and awakens the surprise of men, who, while they hate and despise, cannot but admire and marvel at it.

Yet another characteristic of the divine life in the soul is its security. "Your life is hid with Christ in God." There, nothing can touch it: no power can destroy it. It is "hid with Christ," the beloved Son of the Father, the delight, the glory, the richest and most precious treasure of Jehovah: still more—it is "hid with Christ in God"—in the hand, in the heart, in the all-sufficiency, yes, in the eternity of God. Oh the perfect security of the spiritual life of the believer! No power on earth or in hell can move it. It may be stormed by Satan, assaulted by corruption, scorned by men, and even, in the moment of unbelief and in the hour of deep trial, its existence doubted by the believer himself; yet there it is, deep lodged in the eternity of God, bound up in the heart and with the existence of JEHOVAH, and no foe can destroy it. "I give unto them eternal life, and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand." Let the sheep and the lambs of the "little flock" rejoice that the Shepherd lives, and that because He lives they shall live also.

AUGUST 24.

"For the Lord will not cast off forever: but though he cause grief, yet will he have compassion according to the multitude of his mercies. For he does not afflict willingly, nor grieve the children of men." Lamentations 3:31-33

Oh! what emptying, what humbling are necessary in order to make room for the lowly Lamb of God in the heart of a poor believing sinner! And for years after the first reception of Jesus, are this emptying and humbling needed. If it were not so, would our dear Lord discipline as He does? Would He cut off this and that dependence? would He take us off of creature trust, and that sometimes in the most painful way? Oh no! by these means He seeks to establish Himself in our affections—He would have our whole hearts. And when thus unhinged from earthly trust, when emptied of confidence in self, when deprived of earthly comforts—oh how unutterably precious does Jesus become! Then do we see Him to be just the Jesus we want, just the Savior that we need; we find in Him all that we ever found in the creature, and infinitely more—wisdom, strength tenderness, and sympathy, surpassing all that men or angels ever felt, or could possibly feel for us. Then it is His blood and righteousness are endeared; then we fly to His fullness of all grace; and then the tender, bleeding branch takes a firmer hold on its stem, and henceforth looks only to it for all its vigor, its nourishment, and its fruit. "As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine, no more can you, except you abide in me." Ah! beloved reader, if you are His child, He will cause you to know it, and will endear Himself to you as such. And this is seldom done, save in the way of severe discipline. Shrink not from it, then. All the good that the Lord ever takes from you, He returns ten thousand-fold more in giving Himself. If you can say, "the Lord is my portion," then what more do you, can you, want? And remember, too, the Lord will deprive you of nothing that was for your real good. He is the judge of what is best for you—not yourself. We are but imperfect judges of what tends best to our spiritual or temporal benefit. That which we may deem absolutely essential to both, the Lord in His wisdom and love may see proper to remove; and as frequently, that the removal of which we had often besought the Lord, He may see fit to retain. Thrice Paul prayed for the removal of his infirmity, and thrice the Lord denied his request: but the denial was accompanied by a promise, calculated to soothe into sweet acquiescence every feeling of the apostle—"My grace," said the Lord, "is sufficient for you." Let it ever be remembered by the tried believer, that supporting grace, in the season of trial, is a greater mercy than the removal of the trial itself. The Lord Jesus did seem to say to His servant, "I see not that it would be for your good to grant your prayer, but I will enable you to bear the infirmity without a murmur: I will so support you, so manifest my strength in your weakness, my all-sufficiency in your nothingness, that you shall not desire its removal." "Lord," he might have replied, "this is all that I desire. If You in Your wisdom and love do see fit still to afflict me, I am in Your hands to do with me as seems good in Your sight. The continuance of the trial will but prove the strength of Your grace, and the tenderness and sympathy of Your heart." After this, we hear no more of Paul's thorn in the flesh: the grace of the Lord, doubtless, proved all-sufficient for him.

AUGUST 25.

"Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ." Ephesians 1:3

Our blessed Redeemer is glorified in being the covenant Head of all blessing to His people. He is our true Joseph, with all the treasures which a Father's love can bestow, or which the covenant of grace provides, placed in His hands and at His disposal. It has "pleased the Father" to constitute Him the Head of the church, and that in Him, as such, "all fullness should dwell." He, too, is our true spiritual Eliakim, of whom it is sweetly prophesied, "And they shall hang upon Him all the glory of His Father's house, the offspring and the issue; all vessels of small quantity, from the vessels of cups, even to all the vessels of flagons." Who sustains, as a "nail fastened in a sure place," all the glory of the church, but Jesus? In Christ the church is chosen. In Christ it is preserved. In Christ it lives. In Christ it is pardoned. In Christ it is justified. In Christ it is sanctified. In Christ it will be glorified. Thus does all the glory of the spiritual house hang on Christ—He is its foundation, He is its cornerstone; in Him "fitly framed together, it grows up a holy temple in the Lord," and He will be the top-stone, which shall be brought forth on the day of its completion, amid the shoutings of "Grace, grace unto it."

On Him, too, hang the "vessels" of the house, the "vessels of cups and the vessels of flagons;" the small and the great, the young and the old, the feeble and the strong, all the saints hang on Jesus, and Jesus supports and supplies all. See how the "vessels of cups, the vessels of small quantity," hang upon Him, and how He supplies them. "And, behold, there came a leper, and worshiped Him, saying, Lord, if You will, You can make me clean. And Jesus put forth His hand, and touched him, saying, I will; be you clean. And immediately his leprosy was cleansed." "And one of the multitude answered and said, Master, I have brought unto You my son, which has a dumb spirit…and ofttimes it has cast him into the fire, and into the waters, to destroy him: but if You can do anything, have compassion on us, and help us. Jesus rebuked the foul spirit, saying unto him, You dumb and deaf spirit, I charge you come out of him, and enter no more into him." "And he said unto Jesus, Lord, remember me when You come into Your kingdom. And Jesus said unto him, Verily I say unto you, Today shall you be with me in paradise." Behold, how these "vessels of small quantity" hang on Jesus; and behold, how He sustains and fills them. They are but as "vessels of cups"—their knowledge is defective, their grace is limited, their experience but shallow, their faith but small, and they themselves but little—oh! how little, who can tell?—in their own eyes; yet coming thus to Jesus' grace, exclaiming,

"Other refuge have I none,
Hangs my helpless soul on You,"

He receives them, He welcomes them, He bears them up, He supplies them, He fills them; He rejoices in their feeble grace, He despises not their little strength, He crowns their weak faith, He grants them the utmost desire of their hearts. Oh, what a Jesus is our Jesus! Were ever such gentleness, tenderness, and skill manifested towards the "bruised reed and the smoking flax"? Dear reader, are you a vessel of "small quantity"? It may be that, through the infirmities that encompass you, the trials that oppress you, the temptations that assail you, the clouds that surround you, you can receive Christ's fullness but in a limited degree; truth is understood but partially, there being doctrines, perhaps, hard to be understood, and precepts still harder to be obeyed. Christ's grand atonement, His one perfect obedience, His great and finished work, the sprinkling of His blood upon the conscience, the completeness of a believing soul in His righteousness, and the consequent "peace and joy in the Holy Spirit," but little known. Yet, feeling your own vileness, and Christ's sufficiency and preciousness, and constrained to hang on Him solely and exclusively, as all your salvation and all your desire; though you can receive but a "small quantity" of knowledge, of grace, and of love, you are yet a "vessel of gold" in His house, and Jesus bears you on His heart, sets you as a seal upon His arm, and presents you each moment before God complete in Himself.

But there are also in this house "vessels of flagons"—the larger vessels—saints of deep grace, of profound knowledge. Hear one of them exclaim, "I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ lives in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave Himself for me." Oh how abundantly did this beloved apostle drink of the "river of God"! How deeply did he sink into the ocean of Christ's fullness! How high did he soar into the beatific presence of God, until, sweeping the heavens with his expanded pinions, all the treasures that sparkle there seemed gathered into his soul. Yet, a large vessel though he was, in himself he was poor, vile, and empty, counting himself as the "chief of sinners," esteeming himself "less than the least of all saints," and ascribing all that he was as a renewed man to the "grace of God." In this his poverty, vileness, and emptiness, he hung with the small vessel, solely, entirely, on Christ. The thief saved at the last moment, and Paul, the great apostle of the Gentiles, side by side, hung on Jesus. "Of His fullness have all we received, and grace for grace." Both were pardoned by the same blood, both were justified by the same righteousness, both were filled from the same source, and both are now in glory, chanting the same song, and together casting their crowns before the throne. Thus is Jesus made the "Head over all things to His church;" and His church becomes in all its members, be they small or great, "the fullness of Him that fills all in all." Thus is Christ glorified in them, and oh, what finite mind can compute the revenue of glory thus accruing to the Redeemer through His saints?

AUGUST 26.

"The hour is coming, in the which all that are in the graves shall hear his voice, and shall come forth." John 5:28, 29

"But how are the dead raised up?" That there is much of sublime mystery associated with this event, we readily admit. But its very mystery endears Him to the soul, "who has abolished death" (or, rendered it of none effect), "and has brought life and immortality to light by the gospel." Thus is this mystery explained: "It is sown in corruption; it is raised in incorruption: it is sown in dishonor; it is raised in glory: it is sown in weakness; it is raised in power: it is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. Behold, I show you a mystery. We shall not all sleep; but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality." Yes, this very body, as much redeemed by the precious blood of the incarnate God as the deathless principle it enshrines, shall rise again! and by what power? The power of Omnipotence! "He that raised up Christ from the dead, shall also quicken your mortal bodies by His Spirit that dwells in you." Every entombed saint of God is an entombed temple of the Holy Spirit. Think of this, and tread lightly, as you carry it to the grave. You bear a temple of the Holy Spirit! Precious is the dust, and hallowed the urn that contains it. And shall that temple lie in ruins forever? God forbid! Oh, it is a mighty and a glorious work to resuscitate, remold, and reoccupy this dilapidated structure!—to gather from the four winds of heaven every particle of the scattered dust—to bring bone to bone, and sinew to sinew—to invest the re-formed skeleton with a covering more soft and delicate than an infant's—to summon back its former occupant, and then to lift it to glory, outliving, in its deathlessness, the stars of heaven, and outshining in its brilliancy the brightest angel before the throne. Oh, it is a stupendous work! But, stupendous as it is, it transcends not in its mightiness the power of God. Oh, we deal too faintly with the almightiness of Jehovah! We limit the power of the Holy One of Israel. Bring but this power to bear upon the doctrine of the resurrection, and all its mystery is explained, and all its difficulty vanishes. On this divine perfection rested the faith of Abraham, who, in obedience to God's command, bound his child upon the altar, and took the knife to slay him, "believing that God was able to raise him up again, even from the dead." Shall it, then, be thought a thing incredible, that God should raise the dead? The difficulties of summoning together every atom of dust, borne though it may have been by the winds to the furthermost parts of the earth, or strewn upon the waves of the sea—of distinguishing what element belonged to each individual, and appropriating to each his own—of clothing the framework with a new and a deathless nature, and animating it with the same human soul which it contained in the long years of its humiliation, oh, how do they vanish before one touch of Omnipotence! What! shall He who at first formed man out of the dust, and breathed into him the breath of life—shall He at whose fiat world on world started into being, each one, for anything that we know, teeming with a population partaking of His likeness, and sharing in His immortality—shall He who "upholds all things by the word of His power," who "takes up the isles as a very little thing," who "holds the winds in His fist, and the waters in the hollow of His hand," who "has His way in the whirlwind and in the storm, and the clouds are the dust of His feet"—shall He be perplexed and baffled when He comes to unlock the world's charnel-house, quickening, and summoning to His bar, each slumbering occupant? Oh, it will be a stupendous and a glorious work! but reason and revelation unite in ascribing it to Him as worthy of His infinite greatness, majesty, and glory.

AUGUST 27.

"And now I am no more in the world, but these are in the world, and I come to you. Holy Father, keep through your own name those whom you have given me." John 17:11

In the Redeemer's exaltation we have the strongest pledge of His continued sympathy, support, and deliverance in all our trials and temptations. It is delightful to the believing mind to reflect, that in passing from the scene of His humiliation to that of His glory, and in the spiritual change which His body must have undergone, thus to fit it for the region which flesh and blood cannot inherit, His humanity lost none of the tender sympathies of our nature which so closely clung to Him when upon earth. The same compassionate nature—the same loving heart—the same deep sympathy with all our sorrows, and the same outstretched hand to relieve them, distinguish the glorified state of the precious Son of God! Do you think that, though dwelling in yon region of light, and holiness, and joy, and glory, He has forgotten the days of His humiliation—the "strong crying and tears"—the "wormwood and the gall"? No! He has them still in remembrance. And can He forget the church in the wilderness—His tried and suffering people? Never! Hark how He prays for them: "I pray for them; I pray not that you should take them out of the world, but that you should keep them from the evil." "As you have sent me into the world, even so have I also sent them into the world." Yes, He forgets not that His church is yet in the world—a polluting, persecuting, harassing world, demanding all the infinite resources of His sympathy and might. Oh how sweet and holy is the thought, that, having passed within the veil though He has, there is still a chain of the closest sympathy suspended from the glorified Redeemer on the throne, touching the most lowly and tried of the redeemed on earth! How can Jesus forget that He still bears our nature, a part of our very being?—the "head so full of bruises," the body so scarred, reminding Him of the suffering state of the church below, and pleading with a power which omnipotence itself cannot resist, for the support, comfort, and deliverance of every tried and tempted member of that body. "Seeing then, that we have a great High Priest, that is passed into the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our profession. For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities."

Thus, through the channel of our glorified Redeemer, what immense and varied blessings may the believer expect and receive! "Exalted a Prince and a Savior, to give repentance unto Israel, and forgiveness of sins," will He not with these costly mercies freely give us all things? What an open door is here for a humble suppliant, bowed with sorrow, and pressed with want! Do you think that He can close His heart, or withdraw His hand, or falsify His promise? Ah, no! our Jesus in His exaltation is more mindful of His people in their low estate than the chief butler, in His advancement, was of Joseph imprisoned in the dungeon. He thinks of us still—He speaks a good word for us to His Father—bends upon us each moment a glance of the most ineffable love, with whose expression infinite compassion sweetly blends. Nor is there a moment in which He is not exerting Himself on our behalf, hedging up the way of one believer, and opening the way of another; strengthening the tried faith of some saints, and soothing the deep sorrows of others. Oh, see what costly blessings are bound up in the exaltation of Jesus! All sanctification to make us holy—all love to make us happy—all wisdom to guide—all grace to uphold—and all glory to crown. "Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need."

AUGUST 28.

"But now being made free from sin, and become servants of God, you have your fruit unto holiness and the end everlasting life." Romans 6:22

The Word of God means by Gospel justification, the imputation of Christ's infinite and finished righteousness to a repenting, believing sinner; the making over of His perfect obedience in behalf of His church to him that believes. Christ obeyed not for Himself, but for His church. And on the ground of His obedience—His obedience or righteousness imputed to them, in the same manner in which their sins were imputed to Him—they stand before God, the holy, the heart-searching God, fully and freely "justified from all things." "For He has made Him to be sin for us, who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him."

What consideration shall we urge upon the Christian reader why he should welcome this truth of God's word? Shall we say his sanctification is intimately connected with it? and what an argument should this be with a child of God! To be holy—to be like God—to be conformed entirely to the will and image of Christ—to have the temper, the taste, the principles, the daily walk, all like our blessed Immanuel, who is "the chief among ten thousand, the altogether lovely"—oh! can a believer aspire to a more lofty aim? And this righteousness, this infinite, this divine, this finished righteousness, received in the heart by the power of God the Holy Spirit, broken up to the soul, lived upon daily, will promote all this: "In Your righteousness shall they be exalted." The righteousness of Christ has a most exalting tendency; it exalts a believer's view of God, of His character and perfections; it exalts his view of Jesus, His person, work, and love; it exalts the believer himself, it takes him out of himself, above and beyond himself; it exalts his principles, his practice, his affections, and conforms him to Christ. Shall we say his happiness is intimately connected with it? And where is the believer that does not desire to walk happily with God? This is the attainment the world are eagerly in search of—but the believer in Christ is its only possessor; he has found it, and found it in Jesus; he has found it in a renunciation of self-righteousness, and in a humble reception of Christ; and there is no happiness worthy of the name, that is sought and found out of Jesus. What true happiness can the heart feel while it is unrenewed, its sins unpardoned, the soul unjustified, and therefore under condemnation, and exposed to the wrath of a holy and just God? Oh, dream not of happiness, reader, until you have gone as a repenting sinner to the cross of Christ; until the atoning blood has been applied to your conscience, and the Spirit bears His witness to your adoption.

If this, and this only, is the source of all true happiness, then the more constantly and closely the believer realizes his full and complete acceptance in the Beloved, the greater must his happiness be. You may be a son or a daughter of affliction; in this furnace you may be chosen, and through this furnace it may be the Lord's holy will you should pass all your days. You may be a child of poverty, possessing but little of this world's comforts, lonely, neglected, despised; yet oh, look up! you are precious in God's sight—dear to Him as the apple of His eye. His heart yearns over you with more than a mother's exquisite fondness for her child, because He has loved you with an everlasting love, and, to the praise of the glory of His grace, has accepted you in the Beloved. Realize this, and though rough and thorny may be your path, and fiery the furnace, and deep your poverty, and lonely your situation, you shall experience a peace and a happiness to which the world around you is an utter stranger. "Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. By whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God."

AUGUST 29.

"For to this end Christ both died, and rose, and revived, that he might be Lord both of the dead and living." Romans 14:9

Thus is it clear that Jesus is the God of providence. The government of all worlds and of all creatures, according to the prediction of prophecy, is upon His shoulders. Is not this thought full of rich comfort and consolation to the experienced believer? Jesus is the God of providence. All your steps, dear reader, if you are His, are ordered and directed by Him—by Him who is God in your nature—by Him who loved you unto the death—by Him who is your Elder Brother, your Prophet, Priest, and King. Oh how tranquillizing to the soul in the hour of its deepest sorrow and bereavement, to know that it is sheltered in the hollow of those very hands which were once pierced for us!—that Christ has blended with His mediatorial character His providential government—that the Redeemer, who died to save, is the God who lives to sway the scepter! It has been well remarked, that Providence was intended to be the handmaid to Grace, but that Grace only can unfold the steps of Providence. It is only the experimental believer who can clearly discern the movements of an invisible hand in all the affairs and incidents of life. He has learned to acknowledge the Lord in all his ways, and to commit to His disposal all his steps. And He who thus guides and governs is the Mediator—the Christ who obeyed, suffered, and died in our behalf. Oh consoling thought! Christian reader, ponder this! What are your present circumstances? Are you persecuted for Jesus' sake? Listen to His own cheering words—"Marvel not if the world hate you, for you know that it hated me before it hated you." "In the world you shall have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world." Are you in circumstances of want?—what does He say?—"Take no thought for your life, what you shall eat, or what you shall drink; nor yet for your body, what you shall put on. Is not the life more than food, and the body than clothing? Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns, yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much better than they?" "But seek you first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you." Are you perplexed to know the path of duty?—longing to know the way the Lord would have you walk?—this is His promise, "Call upon me in the day of trouble, and I will deliver." "Commit your way unto the Lord; trust also in Him, and He shall bring it to pass." Are you sore pressed by temptation?—see how the Holy Spirit would lead you to the sympathy and tenderness of Jesus—"He took not on Him the nature of angels, but He took on Him the seed of Abraham. Why in all things it behooved Him to be made like unto His brethren, that He might be a merciful and faithful High Priest in things pertaining to God, to make reconciliation for the sins of the people. For in that He Himself has suffered being tempted, He is able to support those who are tempted." "For we have not an High Priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities, but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need." Are you oppressed by present or anticipated trials? Hearken again to His dear voice—"Let not your hearts be troubled; you believe in God, believe also in me." Whatever may be the dark and gloomy aspect of things around you, yet Jesus does all things well—and all things, however adverse, and apparently severe, yet all things are working for your present and ultimate good.

AUGUST 30.

"I have chosen you in the furnace of affliction." Isaiah 48:10

With what is the Divine will, as stated in these words, connected, respecting the afflictions of the believer? Is it with the circumstances of time? Is it since they were brought into existence that God determined upon the circumstances that should surround them, and the path they should tread? Oh no! The trying circumstance, the heavy affliction, stands connected with the great and glorious doctrine of God's eternal, sovereign, and unconditional election of His people. They were "chosen in the furnace"—chosen in it before all time—chosen in it from all eternity—chosen in it when He set His heart upon them, entered into an everlasting covenant with them, and took them to be His "chosen generation, His royal priesthood, His holy nation, His peculiar people." Oh, thus to trace up every affliction that comes from God to His eternal choice of His people; to see it in the covenant of grace; to see it connected with His eternal purpose of salvation—thus viewed, in connection with His eternal love, in what a soothing light does it place the darkest dispensation of His providence.

But there is another thought in the passage equally blessed. "I have chosen you"—in what? in prosperity?—no: in the bright summer's day? —no: in the smooth and flowery paths of worldly comforts?—no. "I have chosen you in the furnace of affliction." The furnace of affliction!—is this according to our poor finite ideas of love and tenderness? Oh no! Had we been left to choose our own path, to mark out our own way, it had been a far different one from this. We should never have thought of affliction as a source of blessing. But God's thoughts are higher than our thoughts, and His ways above our ways.

The path of affliction, along which the believer walks, is the path of God's own appointment; and walking in this path, he comes into the possession of rich and varied blessings not found in any other. This is a truth much forgotten, especially by the young Christian, who has just set out on his pilgrimage. To his eye now opened to the new world into which grace has introduced him, all seems fair and lovely; "The love of his espousals" is the one theme of his heart. He thinks not that all, now so fair, will soon change; that the summer sea will be lashed by angry billows; that the sky will look dark and threatening; that the fragile bark will be tossed from billow to billow, and that the port will be lost to sight. How needful, then, that this important truth, "through much tribulation we must enter the kingdom," should be ever kept in view. In looking into God's word, we find it full and decisive on this point: "And I will bring the third part through the fire, and will refine them as silver is refined, and will try them as gold is tried." "Behold, I have refined you, but not with silver; I have chosen you in the furnace of affliction." Our Lord's own testimony harmonizes with this declaration—"in the world you shall have tribulation." As though He had said, Expect nothing less: it is a world of sorrow, and while in it you shall have tribulation. It is your lot. It is the way of my appointment—it is the path I have ordained you to walk in. It is the path I have trod myself; and I leave you an example that you should follow my steps. "In the world you shall have tribulation, but in me you shall have peace." And so taught His apostles. They went forth confirming the souls of the disciples, and exhorting them to continue in the faith; and that we must "through much tribulation enter into the kingdom of God."

From the declarations of God's word, let us pass to consider the examples. The entire histories of the Old and New Testament saints present to us a people "chosen in the furnace of affliction." Paul inquires, "What son is there whom the Father chastens not?" He seems to throw out a challenge—"Where is the exception to this principle of the Divine procedure? Where is the child taken into God's family, where is the adopted son, who has never felt the smartings of the rod—whom the Father chastens not?" More than this. Let it not be supposed that the feeblest of God's saints—those who have the least measure of grace and strength, who find the ascent difficult, and whose advance is slow and tardy—are those whom the Lord most frequently and sharply afflicts. Oh no! In looking into the word of truth—in reading the memoirs of God's ancient saints, it will be found that those whom He blessed most, who were the most distinguished for some eminent grace of the Spirit, some mighty exploit of faith, some great act of devotedness, were those whom He most deeply afflicted. "The branch that bears fruit, He purges it, that it may bring forth more fruit." Let the histories of Abraham, Jacob, Moses, Job, and David testify. Let Paul's thorn in the flesh speak. And what is the testimony?—that the most eminent of God's saints are the most afflicted. Their eminence grew out of their afflictions. Like their blessed Lord, they were perfected through suffering. They became thus strong in faith, holy in life, close in their walk, devoted in the service of their Master, by the very discipline through which they passed. They were eminently holy, because eminently tried.

AUGUST 31.

"What man of you, having an hundred sheep, if he lose one of them, does not leave the ninety and nine in the wilderness, and go after that which is lost, until he find it? And when he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders, rejoicing." Luke 15:4, 5

Here is the gentleness of the shepherd—"he lays it on his shoulders." Too feeble itself to walk, too exhausted in its wanderings to return, the gentle shepherd, having sought and found it, "lays it on his shoulders, rejoicing." Touching picture of the Savior's gentleness in restoring a backsliding soul! What but infinite gentleness is seen in the restoring of Peter? It was but a look—not a word fell from the lips of the Savior—not an unkind rebuke, not a harsh upbraiding word did He breathe; yet that look so full of love, so full of gentleness, so full of forgiveness, did seem to say, "I am going to die for you, Peter: all this and more I suffer for you; will you, can you, deny me?" That look, so touching, so melting, so eloquent, and so forgiving, reached the heart of the backsliding apostle, melted it, broke it, and sent him from the judgment-hall weeping bitterly. There was no expression in the look which Jesus bent upon Peter, but love. Let this truth be fixed in the heart of every backsliding believer. The Lord restores the soul gently. The moment He discovers to it its sin, He conveys some token of His pardoning mercy; the balm is applied the moment the wound is given; the remedy is at hand the moment the distemper is discovered. There is a tenderness, an unutterable tenderness, in the heart and hand, in the mercy and the method of the Lord's recovery of His child, which only He can feel. See it in the case of David. How did God bring his sin to remembrance? By the chastising rod? by heavy judgment? by severe expressions of displeasure? No; none of these were His messengers: but He sent a kind, tender, faithful prophet to discover to him his awful backsliding; and the astounding words, "You are the man," had scarcely died away upon his ear, before he pours in this healing balm, "The Lord also has put away your sin, you shall not die." Oh, what gentleness, what tenderness, are thus shown in the Lord's restorings of His wandering child! From whom could this have been expected but from Him whose nature and whose name is love—from whom, but Him who could thus speak to His backsliding Ephraim—"Is Ephraim my dear son? is he a pleasant child? for since I spoke against him, I do earnestly remember him still; therefore my affections are troubled for him: I will surely have mercy upon him, says the Lord." This is an outgushing of tenderness towards a poor, returning, backsliding soul, which could only have had its dwelling-place in the heart of Jehovah.

All real return of a backsliding soul is through Jesus. Jesus is God's great door of approach to His throne. No other entrance will conduct us to the golden scepter; no other will bring us to the holy of holies. Thus has the Holy Spirit unfolded this truth—"Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way, which He has consecrated for us, through the veil, that is to say, His flesh; and having an High Priest over the house of God; let us draw near." Oh blessed door of return for a poor, backsliding, heart-broken believer!—a crucified Savior, in whom God is well pleased, and for whose sake He can receive the sinner, and put away his sin, can welcome the backslider, and heal his backsliding.

SEPTEMBER 1.

"And the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush: and he looked, and, behold, the bush burned with fire, and the bush was not consumed. And Moses said, I will now turn aside, and see this great sight, why the bush is not burned. And when the Lord saw that he turned aside to see, God called unto him out of the midst of the bush, and said, Moses, Moses. And he said, Here am I. And he said, Draw not near here: put off your shoes from of your feet, for the place whereon you stands is holy ground. Moreover he said, I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. And Moses hid his face; for he was afraid to look upon God." Exodus 3:2-6

This type—a type it doubtless is—is radiant with the glory of Christ. It shadows forth Christ in the mysterious constitution of His complex person, and in the great work for the accomplishment of which he became so constituted.

The first point demanding our attention is the Divine manifestation. That Jehovah was here revealed, the evidence is most conclusive. When Moses turned aside to see the great sight, "God called unto him out of the midst of the bush." It was no mere vision that he saw, no hallucination of the mind had come over him; he could not be deceived as to the Divine Being in whose immediate and solemn presence he then stood. How awe-struck must have been his mind! how solemn his impressions! how sacred his thoughts! But if further proof were needed, the declaration of God Himself sets the question of the Divine appearance at rest—"I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob." No truth could be more clearly established.

But in which person of the sacred and adorable Three, it may be asked, did God thus appear? We have every scriptural reason to believe that it was JEHOVAH-JESUS; that it was a manifestation anticipative of His future appearance in the flesh, of the Godhead of Christ. Thus, then, the type sets forth the glory of the Divine person of our dear Lord. How solemn, and yet how delightful to the mind, and establishing to our faith, is the truth, that the same God who under the old dispensation, on so many occasions, in so many gracious and glorious ways, and in so many remarkable and undoubted instances, appeared to the ancient believers, is He who was born in Bethlehem, who lived a life of obedience to the law, and died an atoning death upon the cross; the Savior, the Surety of His people! What reality does it give to the salvation of the saints! Beloved, remember at all times, the same Jehovah who spoke from the midst of the flaming bush, and said, "I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob," speaks to you from the cross and in the Gospel, and says, "Come unto me, all you that labor and are heavy-laden, and I will give you rest." Oh "glorious Gospel of the blessed God!"

The second point of consideration in this remarkable type, as setting forth the glory of Immanuel, is the symbol in which He appeared. It is full of instruction. And what symbol did our Lord select in which to embody His Deity? Did He choose some tall cedar of Lebanon, or some majestic oak of the forest? No; but a bush—the most mean and insignificant, the most lowly and unsightly of all trees—was to enshrine the Godhead of Him whom the heaven of heavens cannot contain. And what is the truth it conveys? Oh, most glorious and precious. It points to the incarnate glory of the Son of God—the lowliness and lowliness of His nature. Referring again to the type, it will instantly appear that the unveiled, unclouded, and unembodied glory of Jehovah would have appalled and overwhelmed with its ineffable brightness the awe-stricken and astonished man of God. He could not have looked upon God and lived. "There shall no man see me and live," says the Lord. It was therefore proper, yes, it was merciful that all the manifestations of God to His people in the old dispensation should be through the medium of objects on which the eye could look without pain, and on which the mind could repose with out fear. Veiled in a cloud, or embodied in a bush, God could approach the creature with condescending grace, and reveal His mind; the creature could approach God with humble confidence, and open his heart. How kind and condescending in Jehovah to subdue and soften the splendor of His majesty, thus attempting it to the weak vision of mortal and sinful man!

But this was typical of that more wondrous and stupendous stoop of God in the new dispensation. All the subdued and obscure manifestations of the Godhead in the former economy were but the forecasting shadows of the great mystery of godliness then approaching; and possessed no glory, by reason of the glory that excels. But mark the condescending grace, the deep abasement, the infinite lowliness of the Son of God. When He purposed to appear in an inferior nature, what form of manifestation did He assume? Did He embody His Godhead in some tall archangel? Did He enshrine it in some glowing seraph? No! "For verily He took not on Him the nature of angels; but He took on Him the seed of Abraham." He lowered Himself to our mean and degraded nature—He selected our fallen, suffering, sorrowing, tempted humanity—He takes into union with Deity a creature, not of the highest rank and beauty, but a spirit dwelling in a temple of flesh; yes, not merely the inhabitant of the temple, but He unites Himself with the temple itself: for the "Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us;" and even this flesh not connected with its state of primeval glory, but associated with all the humbling, though sinless, infirmities of its fallen condition. Behold, too, the lowliness of Christ in the world's eye. In Him it sees no glory, and traces no beauty; His outward form of humiliation veils it from their view. He is to them but as a "root out of the dry ground, having no form nor loveliness."

SEPTEMBER 2.

"And the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush: and he looked, and, behold, the bush burned with fire, and the bush was not consumed." Exodus 3:2

There is yet another part of this significant type to be considered, equally important and rich in the view it conveys of the glory of Jesus in His work. "And he looked, and, behold, the bush burned with fire, and the bush was not consumed." The symbol of fire was expressive of the holiness and justice of God. It is thus frequently employed—"The Lord your God is a consuming fire." "And the sight of the glory of the Lord was like devouring fire." "Our God is a consuming fire." But that which formed the greatest wonder,—which riveted the eye, and attracted and enchained the feet of Moses to the spot, was the bush unconsumed. "And Moses said, I will NOW TURN aside, and see this great sight, why the bush is not burned."

But a more marvelous and stupendous spectacle meets us in the cross of Christ—Jesus enduring the fire of His Father's wrath; wrapped in the flame of His justice, and yet unconsumed! Let us turn aside from all inferior objects, and for a while contemplate this "great sight." It is indeed a great sight! The Son of God is bound upon the altar as a "burned-offering"—a sacrifice for sin. The fire of Divine justice descends to consume Him; holiness in fearful exercise heaps on its fuel, and the flame and the smoke ascend in one vast column before the throne of the Eternal, "an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling savor." But behold the astonishment! Jesus suffering, and yet rejoicing! dying, and yet living! consuming, and yet unconsumed! These prodigies marked the offering up of our great High Priest upon Calvary. The dark billows of sorrow rolled over the human soul of Christ, but the Godhead remained calm and peaceful, its tranquility unruffled by a wave of grief, its sunshine undimmed by a cloud of darkness. He thus passed through all these throbs, and throes, and agonies of death, descended into the grave, rose again, lived, and still lives, the Fountain of life to the created universe. Behold the GOD! Say you, He is a mere creature? Preposterous thought! Mad conception! Soul-destructive belief! Had He been less than Divine, suffering as He did for sin, the devouring fire would have consumed Him in its quenchless flame.

To a heart-broken sinner, how attractive and glorious is this spectacle of an almighty Redeemer, sustaining the wrath, and suffering the justice of God for transgression! Mourning soul! turn aside, and behold yet again this "great sight." "Put off your shoes from off your feet, for the place whereon you stands is holy ground." Lay aside your fleshly reasoning, your carnal views of self-justification, self-salvation, and human power. Put off all your fleshly ideas of God, of His grace, and of His goodness; divest yourself of all your unbelieving and hard thoughts of His power, willingness, and readiness to save you. Thus prepared, approach—gaze—wonder—and adore! No one can stand on this holy ground, but he who stands on his own nothingness; none are welcome here but the poor, the empty, the bankrupt, and the vile. Are you all this? is this your case? Then draw near! God will speak from amid the flame of the sacrifice, and say to you, "Fear not!"

Dear tried and suffering reader, do you resemble this burning bush? Are you in the fire, passing through the furnace? Does some strong temptation assail you—some sore trial oppress you—some deep sorrow wound you? He who dwelt in the bush, dwells in you! and He who kept the bush unconsumed amid the flame, will keep you! Let your greatest care and deepest solicitude be to "glorify God in the fires." Be more prayerful for sustaining and sanctifying grace, than for the removal of your trial. This will bring richer glory to God. Beseech your Father that the flame may not be extinguished until the alloy is consumed, and the tried gold has come forth reflecting more vividly from its surface the image of Jesus—your soul partaking more deeply of the Divine HOLINESS.

SEPTEMBER 3.

"Behold the Lamb of God." John 1:36

In the deep study of the holiness of the law, and the strictness of Divine justice, what a suitable and glorious object for the alarmed and trembling spirit to look upon, is He who came to honor that law, and to satisfy that justice! Are you agitated by thoughts of the Divine holiness, and your own impurity? Do you tremble as you contemplate God's determination to punish sin, by no means clearing the guilty? Look unto Jesus, and let your trembling subside into the calmness with which His whisper stills the tempest. He has become "the end of the law for righteousness, to every one that believes." His atonement, while it vindicates the majesty of the Father's government, spreads its mighty shield around the Father's child, and thus protected, neither the thunder of the law nor the flaming sword of justice can reach him. Oh! the blessedness of looking, by faith, to Jesus, from the wrath and the condemnation justly due to our transgressions; to see all that wrath and condemnation borne by Him who wept and bled in the garden, who languished and died upon the tree; to see Jesus, with the keys of all authority and power suspended from His girdle, closing up our hell, and opening wide our heaven. In the season of solitude and sorrow, Christian reader, when thoughts of God's holiness mingle with views of your sinfulness, and fears of Divine wrath blend with the consciousness of your just deserts, darkening that solitude, and embittering that sorrow, oh! turn and fix your believing eye upon the Divine, the suffering, the atoning Savior, and peace, composure, and joy will lull your trembling spirit to rest. You are not sick, nor in solitude, nor in sorrow, because there is wrath in God; for all that wrath was borne by your redeeming Surety. You are so—oh, that you could believe it!—because God is love. It must be, since Jesus so bore away the curse and the sin, that God now brims the cup He emptied with a love that passes knowledge. "My son, despise not the chastening of the Lord, neither be you weary of His correction: for whom the Lord loves He corrects, even as a father the son in whom he delights.

In every position of life, our privilege is to look unto Jesus. God can place us in no circumstances, be they humble or exalted, in which we may not repair to Christ for the wisdom and the strength, the grace and the consolation, those circumstances demand. It is our mercy to know that God adapts Himself to every position of His saints. He knows that in times of prosperity, the feet of His saints are apt to slide; and that in times of adversity, they are often pierced and wounded. Thus, in the smooth path, as in the rough, Jesus is to be the one object to which the eye is raised, and upon which it rests. If He exalts you, as He may do, to any post of distinction and responsibility, look unto Jesus, and study the self-annihilation and lowliness of His whole life. If He lays you low, as in His dealings with His people He often does, from the depth of your humiliation let your eye look unto Jesus, who reached a depth in His abasement infinitely beneath your own; and who can descend to your circumstances, and impart the grace that will enable you so to adapt yourself to them as to glorify Him in them. Thus you will know both how to abound, and how to suffer need.

In each season of affliction, to whom can we more appropriately look than to Jesus? He was preeminently the man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. If you would tell your grief to one who knew grief as none ever knew it—if you would disclose your sorrow to one who sorrowed as none ever sorrowed—then in your affliction turn from all creature sympathy and support, and look to Jesus: to a tenderer bosom, to a deeper love, to a more powerful arm, to a more sympathizing friend, you could not take your trial, your affliction, your sorrow. He is prepared to embosom Himself in your deepest grief, and to make your circumstances all His own. So completely and personally is He one with you, that nothing can affect you that does not instantly touch Him. Tender to Him are you as the apple of His eye. Your happiness, your reputation, your labors, your necessities, your discouragements, your despondencies, all pass beneath His unslumbering notice, and are the objects of His tenderest love and incessant care. If Jesus, then, is willing to come and make, as it were, His home in the very heart of your sorrow, surely you will not hesitate in repairing with your sorrow to His heart of love.

SEPTEMBER 4.

"But none says, Where is God my Maker, who gives songs in the night?" Job 35:10

Who but God could give songs in the night? No saint on earth, no angel in heaven, has power to tune our hearts to a single note of praise in the hour of their grief; no, nor could any creature above or below breathe a word of comfort, of hope, or of support, when heart and flesh were failing. Who but the incarnate God has power enough, or love enough, or sympathy enough, to come and embosom Himself in our very circumstances—to enter into the very heart of our sorrow—to go down into the deepest depth of our woe, and strike a chord there that, responding to His touch, shall send forth a more than angel's music? It is God who gives these songs. He is acquainted with your sorrows: He regards your night of weeping: He knows the way that you take. He may be lost to your view, but you cannot be lost to His. The darkness of your night-grief may veil Him from your eye, but the "darkness and the light are both alike to Him." Then repair to Him for your song. Ask Him so to sanctify your sorrow by His grace, and so to comfort it by His Spirit, and so to glorify Himself in your patient endurance of it, and so to make you to know the why of your trial, and your trial so to answer the mission on which it was sent, as will enable you to raise this note of praise—"You have turned for me my mourning into dancing: You have put off my sackcloth, and girded me with gladness; to the end that my glory may sing praise to You, and not be silent."

In giving you a throne of grace, God has given you a song, methinks, one of the sweetest ever sung in the house of our pilgrimage. To feel that we have a God who hears and answers prayer—who has done so in countless instances, and is prepared still to give us at all times an audience—oh! the unutterable blessings of this truth. Sing aloud then, you sorrowful saints; for great and precious is your privilege of communion with God. In the night of your every grief, and trial, and difficulty, do not forget that in your lowest frame you may sing this song—"Having boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way, I will draw near, and pour out my heart to God." Chant, then, His high praises as you pass along, that there is a place where you may disclose every need, repose every sorrow, deposit every burden, breathe every sigh, and lose yourself in communion with God—that place is the blood-besprinkled mercy-seat, of which God says, "There will I meet with you, and I will commune with you."

Ah! but perhaps you exclaim, "Would that I could sing! I can weep, and moan, and even trust, but I cannot rejoice." Yes, but there is One who can give even you, beloved, a song in the night. Place your harp in His hands, all broken and unstrung as it is, and He will repair and retune it; and then, breathing upon it His Spirit, and touching it with His own gentle hand, that heart, that was so sad and joyless, shall yet sing the high praises of its God. How much of God's greatness and glory in nature is concealed until the night reveals it! The sun is withdrawn, twilight disappears, and darkness robes the earth. Then appears the brilliant firmament, studded and glowing with myriads of constellations. Oh the indescribable wonder, the surpassing glory, of that scene! But it was the darkness that brought it all to view; thus is it in the Christian's life. How much of God would be unseen, how much of His glory concealed, how little should we know of Jesus, but for the night-season of mental darkness and of heart-sorrow. The sun that shone so cheeringly has set; the grey twilight that looked so pensively has disappeared; and just as the night of woe set in, filling you with trembling, with anxiety, and with fear, a scene of overpowering grandeur suddenly bursts upon the astonished eye of your faith. The glory of God, as your Father, has appeared—the character of Jesus, as a loving tender Brother, has unfolded—the Spirit, as a Comforter, has whispered—your interest in the great redemption has been revealed—and a new earth redolent with a thousand sweets, and a new heaven resplendent with countless suns, has floated before your view. It was the darkness of your night of sorrow that made visible all this wonder and all this glory; and but for that sorrow how little would you have known of it. "I will sing of mercy and of judgment: unto You, O Lord, will I sing."

Suffering, sorrowful believer! pluck your harp from your willow, and, with the hand of faith and love, sweep it to the high praises of your God. Praise Him for Himself—praise Him for Jesus—praise Him for conversion—praise Him for joys—praise Him for sorrows—praise Him for chastenings—praise Him for the hope of glory—oh praise Him for all! Thus singing the Lord's song in a strange land, you will be learning to sing it in diviner sounds—

"With those just spirits that wear victorious palms,
Hymns devout, and holy psalms
Singing everlastingly."

"And they sing the song of Moses, the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb, saying, Great and marvelous are Your works, Lord God almighty; just and true are Your ways, O King of saints. Who shall not fear You, O Lord, and glorify Your name? for You only are holy: for all nations shall come and worship before You."

SEPTEMBER 5.

"These things said Elijah, when he saw his glory, and spoke of him." John 12:41

It will be observed, that John affirms of Isaiah that he saw the glory of Christ. The glory of the Redeemer has ever been an object visible to the spiritual eye. What the evangelist here records of the prophet, he also avows of himself and his fellow-disciples. "And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory." Here is a point of vital moment, entering deeply into the very soul of experimental Christianity. May the Spirit of all truth give us a clear and solemn perception of it! If a man sees not the glory of Christ, we hesitate not to say of him, that with regard to all other spiritual objects he is totally blind—he is yet a stranger to the illuminating grace of the Holy Spirit. To see the Redeemer's glory, the eye must be spiritual; a spiritual object being only discerned by a spiritual organ. Hence the apostle prays in behalf of the Ephesian Christians, "That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him: that the eyes of your understanding being enlightened." And enlightened by the Spirit of God, the believer beholds the glory of Jesus. Brought to see no glory in himself, yes, nothing but deformity in that on which the eye once so complacently rested, the glory of the Redeemer, as it is reflected in His person, in His atoning blood and justifying righteousness, His infinite fullness of grace to pardon and to sanctify, fills now the entire scope of his moral vision, and lifts his soul in admiring and adoring thoughts of the holiness and love of God!

More than this, such is its transforming influence, he comes to be a partaker, in a degree, of that very glory which has arrested his eye and ravished his heart. On him the glory of the Lord has shone, the Sun of Righteousness has risen—he rises from the dust, and shines arrayed in garments of light from Christ's reflecting light. A sight of Jesus assimilates the soul to His Spirit; a contemplation of His beauty transforms the believer more and more into "the child of the light;" and thus perpetually "looking unto Jesus," the path he treads kindles and glows with an increasing effulgence, until its luster expands into perfect cloudless day. "We all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image, from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord." The medium through which the spiritual eye beholds the glory of Christ is faith. It is a hidden glory until the Eternal Spirit imparts this mighty principle to the soul. The eye of reason cannot discern it—the eye of intellect and of sense cannot behold it—it remains a veiled thing, "dark with excessive brightness," until God the Holy Spirit utters His voice, "Let there be light." "Abraham," says Christ, "rejoiced to see my day; and he saw it, and was glad." At that remote period, how did he see it?—by faith. Through the long and dreary vista of advancing ages he saw the day dawning, the sun rising. By faith he beheld Jesus approaching. He saw His blood, His righteousness, and His own interest there, "and he was glad." Oh yes, a sight of Jesus by faith—be it distant and dim, be it shadowy and imperfect—fills the soul with ineffable gladness, lights up its onward way, sweetens its solitude, enlivens its loneliness, and soothes it amid its deepest sorrows.

Isaiah not only beheld the glory of Christ, but he also "spoke of it." He could not but speak of that which he saw and felt. And who can behold the glory of the Redeemer, and not speak of it? Who can see His beauty, and not extol it—who can taste His love, and not laud it? "Come," will be the invitation, "see a man who told me all things that ever I did: is not this the Christ?" The church of old, as her eye wandered over the beauties of her Lord, broke forth in expressions of wonder and praise; and, after particularizing and extolling these beauties, she then exclaims, as if all language were exhausted, "Yes, He is altogether lovely. This is my beloved, and this is my friend." "In His temple does every one speak of His glory." Yes, the saints of the Most High must speak of the King in His beauty. They are constrained to show forth His praise, and tell of His love and loveliness, who is to them more precious than the gold of Ophir; yes, dearer than life itself. The Pharisee may murmur, the worldling may scorn, and the cold-hearted professor may rebuke; yet, "if these should hold their peace," who have been redeemed by His most precious blood, and who are looking forward to His second appearing, as an event which shall conform them to His likeness, "the stones would immediately cry out."

SEPTEMBER 6.

"And, having made peace through the blood of his cross, by him to reconcile all things unto himself; by him, I say, whether they be things in earth, or things in heaven. And you, that were once alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now has he reconciled." Colossians 1:20, 21

Only trust the salvation of Christ—He would have us commence with what He has constituted the central truth of the gospel—the cross. God has made it the focus of His glory—for around no object do such wonders and glories gather as the cross of Christ—and He would have us make it the central fact of our faith. What a sure ground of trust for a poor sinner is here—the great and complete salvation of the Lord Jesus! Here God Himself rests; for He has confided all His glory to Christ, whom "He has made strong for Himself." And surely if the work of Jesus were sufficient to uphold the moral government and secure the eternal honor of God, there need be no demur, no hesitation on the part of the sinner, there to place his entire trust for forgiveness and acceptance. Sinner as you are, here is a salvation worthy of your confidence. "Christ died for the ungodly." "He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities." "Through His blood we have redemption, even the forgiveness of our sins." "By Him all that believe are justified." The great debt of Divine justice Christ has paid. His resurrection from the dead by the glory of the Father is His complete discharge, and now, "whoever will, may come and drink of the water of life freely." To each guilt-stricken, heart-broken, sorrow-burdened, weary sinner Jesus says, "Only trust me." Beloved reader, no partial trust must this be. Your foothold on every other foundation must give way—your grasp upon every other support must loosen—your clinging to duties, to works, to self, in every form, must yield—and your whole, implicit, sole trust for salvation must be in the one atonement which God has provided, in the one salvation which Christ has finished, in the only name given under heaven whereby we must be saved. "Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved."

Never was there before—nor has there been since—nor ever will be again—such ancient, marvelous, stupendous love as the love of Jesus. It is the astonishment of heaven, it is the wonder of angels, and, in their best, holiest, and most self-abased moments, it is the marvel of saints on earth, and will be, through eternity, their study and their praise. His condescending stoop to our nature—His descent from heaven's glory to earth's lowliness—His bearing our sins—His endurance of our curse—His suffering our penalty—His exhaustion of our bitter cup—His resurrection from the grave, and His ascent into heaven, are facts which speak, louder and sweeter than an angel's trumpet, the love of Christ to His church. "Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave Himself for it." But not only was Jesus the unveiler of His own heart, but He came to unveil the heart of God. He came, not to inspire the heart of God with an affection for man, but to make known a love already and from eternity existing. He, who only knew the secret love of God's heart, came to reveal that love, its only revealer, and its most precious gift. Christ is God's love embodied—God's love speaking, God's love acting, God's love weeping, God's love dying, God's love inviting. Blessed truth, that he whose arms of faith embrace Christ, in and through Christ also embrace the Triune Jehovah. The Lord Jesus would have us trust His love when it wears the disguise of displeasure—when, changing its appearance and its tones, it looks and speaks threatening and unkind. What a harsh disguise did Joseph wear to his brethren; and yet beneath it there never heat a more loving, tender, or kinder heart than his. Such is our Jesus—the Brother who has saved us from famine and from death, and has done for us more than Joseph did for his brethren—has died for us. Let us trust this love. Trust it when veiled—trust it when it threatens to slay—trust it when it appears to frown—trust it when even we cannot trace it; still, oh, still let us trust in Jesus' love, when, to our dim sight, it would seem never to smile or speak to us again. The time may come, or the circumstances may arise, that shall put to the utmost test our confidence in the Savior's love. When it shall say to us, "Can you make this sacrifice—can you bear this cross for me?" oh, blessed if your heart can reply, "Lord, relying upon Your grace, trusting in Your love, I can—I will—I do!"

SEPTEMBER 7.

"Holding faith, and a good conscience, which some having put away, concerning faith have made shipwreck." 1 Timothy 1:19

Faith is an essential part of the spiritual armor: "Above all, taking the shield of faith, with which you shall be able to quench the fiery darts of the wicked." Faith is also spoken of as the believer's breastplate: "But let us, who are of the day, be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith." There is not a moment, even the holiest, but we are exposed to the "fiery darts" of the adversary. The onset, too, is often at a moment when we least suspect its approach; seasons of peculiar nearness to God, of hallowed enjoyment—"for we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places"—are frequently selected as the occasion of attack. But, clad in this armor—the shield and the breastplate of faith—no weapon formed against us shall prosper; no "fiery dart" shall be quenched, and the enemy shall be put to flight. Faith in a crucified, risen, conquering, exalted Savior—faith in a present and ever-living Head—faith eyeing the crown glittering, and the palm waving in its view, is the faith that overcomes and triumphs. Faith, dealing constantly and simply with Jesus, flying to His atoning blood, drawing from His fullness, and at all times and under all circumstances looking unto Him, will ever bring a conflicting soul off more than conqueror. "This is the victory that overcomes the world, even our faith. Who is He that overcomes the world, but he that believes that Jesus is the Son of God?"

Faith is a purifying grace: "Purifying their hearts by faith." It is a principle holy in its nature and tendency: he is most holy who has most faith; he who has least faith is most exposed to the assaults of his inbred corruptions. If there is in any child of God a desire for Divine conformity, for more of the Spirit of Christ, more weanedness, and crucifixion, and daily dying, this should be his ceaseless prayer—"Lord, increase my faith." Faith in Jesus checks the power of sin, slays the hidden corruption, and enables the believer to "endure as seeing Him who is invisible."

Nothing, perhaps, more secretly and effectually militates against the vigor of a life of faith, than the power of unsubdued sin in the heart. Faith, as we have just seen, is a holy indwelling principle; it has its root in the renewed, sanctified heart; and its growth and fruitfulness depend much upon the progressive richness of the soil in which it is embedded: if the noxious weeds of the natural soil are allowed to grow and occupy the heart, and gain the ascendancy, this celestial plant will necessarily droop and decay. In order to form some conception of the utter incongruity of a life of faith with the existence and power of unmortified sin in the heart, we have but to imagine the case of a believer living in the practice of unsubdued sin. What is the real power of faith in him? where is its strength? where are its glorious achievements? We look for the fruit of faith—the lowly, humble, contrite spirit—the tender conscience—the traveling daily to the atoning blood—the living upon the grace that is in Christ Jesus—the carrying out of Christian principle—crucifixion to the world—patient submission to a life of suffering—meek resignation to a Father's discipline—a constant and vivid realization of eternal realities—we look for these fruits of faith, but we find them not. And why? Because there is the worm of unmortified sin feeding at the root; and, until that is slain, faith will always be sickly, unfruitful, and "ready to die."

A looking off of Christ will tend greatly to the weakening and unfruitfulness of faith. It is said, that the eaglet's eye becomes strong through the early discipline of the parent; placed in such a position when young, as to fix the gaze intently upon the sun, the power of vision gradually becomes so great, as to enable it in time to look at its meridian splendor without uneasiness, and to observe the remotest object without difficulty. The same spiritual discipline strengthens the eye of faith; the eye grows vigorous by looking much at the Sun of Righteousness. The more constantly it gazes upon Jesus, the stronger it grows; and the stronger it grows, the more glory it discovers in Him, the more beauty in His person, and perfection in His work. Thus strengthened, it can see things that are afar off—the promises of a covenant-keeping God, the hope of eternal life, the crown of glory; these it can look upon and almost touch. "Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." O precious, costly grace of the Eternal Spirit! who would not possess you? who would not mortify everything that would wound, enfeeble, and cause you to decay in the soul?

SEPTEMBER 8.

"And our hope of you is steadfast, knowing, that as you are partakers of the sufferings, so shall you be also of the consolation." 2 Corinthians 1:7

Affliction and poverty are the distinctive features of the saints of God under the new dispensation; affluence and exemption from great suffering were probably those of the saints of the former economy. The character of the gospel economy is unique. It is the dispensation of suffering, the economy of the cross. The suffering of the old dispensation was more in type, and shadow, and symbol; that of the new is the great, the dark filling-up of the outline of the picture. The Son of God suffered—the Son of God died! And Christianity derives all its efficacy, and the Christian dispensation all its character, and the Christian all his glory, from this single, this wondrous fact.

Tracing affliction and suffering, whatever its nature, to God as the first great Cause, faith calmly acquiesces and says, "It is well." From nothing does the believer find it more difficult to disengage his mind, in the first blow of his affliction, than second causes. The reasoning of the bereaved sisters of Bethany finds its corresponding frame of mind in almost every similar case. "Lord, if you had been here, my brother had not died!" But with second causes the child of God has nothing to do. Second causes are all by the appointment and under the control of the First Cause. They are but the agents God employs, the means which He selects, to accomplish His own eternal purpose. "He Himself has done it," is the voice of His word, and faith responds, "It is well." Rise, then, above the circumstances of your calamity, and rest in the Lord, from whom your affliction proceeds.

Child of adversity! can you say, "It is well," now that God may have taken from you health, friends, riches, earthly comforts, and creature supports? It must be well, since providence and not accident, God and not man, has done it. But weep not, do not be cast down, all is not gone. God is still your God and Father, Christ is still your Friend and Brother, the Spirit is still your Comforter and Guide, the covenant is still your inexhaustible supply, the promises are still left you, and all these losses and trials are working together for your good. God will not leave you in this time of adversity. In Him let your faith be filial, implicit, unwavering. If you honor Him, by trusting Him now, He will honor your trust by and by. Give yourself to prayer, you will find it a sweet outlet to your full and burdened heart; all will yet be well. Stand still, and let God solve His own deep problems; and you will then see how much infinite love, and wisdom, and faithfulness, and goodness was enfolded in this dark, distressing calamity.

Sick one! "it is well." Is it so, can it be? you doubtfully inquire. Yes, it is, and must be so, since He who loves you has permitted, no, has sent this sickness. His wisdom cannot err, His love cannot be unkind. God's ways are not as our ways, nor His thoughts as our thoughts. He works His purposes of mercy and love towards us in a way often directly opposite to all our anticipations and plans. This sickness may appear to you a heavy calamity; the result may prove an untold blessing. Sanctified by the Spirit's grace, that bed of suffering, that couch of weakness, those wearisome days, and long sleepless nights, shall teach you truth, and realize to you promises, and bring your soul so near to God, and so endear the Savior to your heart, as shall constrain you to exclaim, "Lord, it is well!" "Commune with your own heart upon your bed, and be still." "Let patience have her perfect work, lacking nothing." And suppose this should be unto death—will not that be well? What! not to be released from a body of infirmity and sin? Not to go home, and take possession of your glorious inheritance! Not to go and see Christ in His glory, and be reunited to those who have gone before, and mingle with prophets, and apostles, and martyrs, and be as they are—perfected in holiness and love? Oh, yes! it will be far better to depart and be with Christ, if He sees fit. Tremble not to cross the flood. Our true Joshua has paved the path with precious stones—the doctrines, truths, and promises of His word—upon which your faith may plant its feet, and so to pass over dry-shod into the heavenly Canaan. The bitterness of death is passed, to all who believe in Jesus.

Saints of the Most High! over these broken waters of a sinful, sorrowful, toilsome life we shall soon have passed, and standing upon the "sea of glass," with the harp of God in our hand, there shall be reflected from its tranquil bosom the glory, and there shall breathe from every string the praise, of our God in having done all things well. Oh, what harmony shall we then see in every discrepancy, what pardon, what tenderness, and love, and gentleness, and forethought in every stroke of His hand, and in every event of His providence! The mystery of God will be finished, and God will be all in all.

SEPTEMBER 9.

"Having loved his own which were in the world, he loved them unto the end." John 13:1

Dear reader, ever trust in the sympathy of Christ. The blessing of creature-sympathy we would not undervalue. The word of God does not. The Scriptures of truth enjoin and encourage it; yes, command it. "Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others." "If one member suffer, all the members suffer with it." We believe it to be no small evidence of grace, and to assimilate in no little degree with the mind that was also in Christ Jesus, to "weep with those that weep." And yet so enamored of it may we be, so look and cling to it, as to be insensible to the higher, purer, deeper sympathy of Christ. The power of human sympathy—like everything created—must necessarily be limited. A Christian brother or sister has so much personal trial, anxiety, and pressure of his own, the marvel is that a single chord of a heart, all whose strings are stretched to such tension on its own account, can emit a solitary note of real sympathy with our grief. Let us, then, be thankful to God for the smallest measure of true human sympathy. But there is no limit, no fathom, to the sympathy of Jesus. It is real, human, most tender, boundless, fathomless. It enters into all our sorrows, and, with a penetration and delicacy indescribable, it insinuates itself into all the shades and peculiarities of our sorrow. It even enters into our infirmities. Infirmities into which others cannot enter, and still more, with which we can ill bear ourselves, Jesus sympathizes with. Infirmities of temperament—infirmities of constitution—infirmities of habit—infirmities of education—infirmities of position—bodily, mental, and spiritual infirmities—there is One who enters deeply into all! He has borne them all—bears them still. Commiserating the feebleness of our nature—for it is still the robe He wears in heaven—He patiently bears with us, tenderly deals with us, and gently soothes, supports, and sustains us. "For we have not a High Priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin. Let us, therefore, come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need." In this sympathy Jesus would have us confide. And if upon your opening path there falls the forecasting shadow of some approaching sorrow—if the sky is lowering, and the surge is swelling—meet it by a renewed appeal to the anticipated compassion and intercession of Christ. JESUS!—what a plenitude of sympathy, tenderness, and grace is in that name! Run into it, and you shall be safe from the coming storm. And when the darkling sorrow comes—the rose-hue of health paling—blossoms falling—flowers withering—hope expiring—fame, fortune, friends, like the orient tints of evening, fading one by one away, remember that in JESUS you have a Brother born for your adversity, a Friend who loved you in eternity—loved you on the cross—loves you on the throne—and will love you unto the end. He will make the cloud His chariot—will walk upon your stormy waters—and will say, "Peace, be still!"

SEPTEMBER 10.

"Go and proclaim these words toward the north, and say, Return, you backsliding Israel, says the Lord; and I will not cause mine anger to fall upon you; for I am merciful, says the Lord, and I will not keep anger forever." Jeremiah 3:12

Where is the heart, deeply conscious of its backsliding, that can resist the power of language like this? Here is the warrant for your return—God's own free invitation! You need no more. What if Satan discourages, what if your sins plead against you, what if guilt, and unbelief, and shame combine to impede your way, if God says, "Return!"—that is sufficient for you. You need no more; if He is willing to receive you back, to pardon your sins, to forget your base ingratitude, to heal your backslidings, and restore your soul, you have the broad warrant to return, in the face of all opposition and discouragement. Yet again, the cheering invitation runs—"Only acknowledge your iniquity that you have transgressed against the Lord your God." "Turn, O backsliding children, says the Lord, for I am married unto you." "I will heal their backsliding, I will love them freely; for mine anger is turned away from him."

The character of God is such as encourages the return of a backsliding soul. In the invitations He has given, He urges them upon the ground of what He is: "Return, you backsliding Israel, says the Lord; and I will not cause mine anger to fall upon you: for I am merciful, says the Lord." Oh, touching, soul-subduing, heart-melting argument—"Return unto me, for I am merciful!" Merciful to receive you, merciful to pardon you, merciful to heal you. Oh, the boundless mercy of God in Christ towards a soul returning from its wanderings! Will not this draw you? Again: "I have blotted out as a thick cloud your transgressions, and as a cloud your sins; return unto me, for I have redeemed you." "Return, for I have blotted out your transgressions— return, for I have put away your sins: return, for I have redeemed you. The work is already done—the pardon has already gone forth—the backsliding has already been forgiven; then linger not, but return, for I have redeemed you." Here, on the broad basis of the Lord's free and full pardon, the wandering soul is urged to return. Truly may the apostle say, "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness."

Thus is the character of God, as a merciful, sin-pardoning God, held out in the word as a motive and an encouragement to return. This is just the view of God which you need. In yourself, you see everything to discourage, everything to forbid your return; but God comes forth, and vindicates His own gracious character, unfolds His own love, and, in accents most encouraging and persuasive, addresses Himself to His wandering child, and says, "Return, you backsliding Israel, for I am merciful."

In the parable of the prodigal son, we have the character of God towards a returning soul truly and beautifully drawn. The single point we would now advert to is the posture of the father on the approach of his child. What was that posture?—the most expressive of undiminished love, of yearning tenderness, of eagerness to welcome his return. Thus is it described: "And when he was a great way off, his father saw him, and had compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him." All this is God to you, dear returning soul! He is on the eager watch for your first movement towards Him; He is looking as with outstretched neck for the first sign of your soul's return, for the first sound of your footsteps, for the first relentings of your heart: yes, even more than this—or this were nothing—He sends His own Spirit to work that return in your soul, to break your heart, to rouse your slumbering spirit, to draw you, win you to His arms. This is your God—the God whom you have forsaken, from whose ways you have declined, but who in the very extremity of your departure has never withdrawn His eye of love one moment from you.

SEPTEMBER 11.

"But those things, which God before had showed by the mouth of all his prophets, that Christ should suffer, he has now fulfilled." Acts 3:18

Our adorable Lord was a sufferer—the Prince of sufferers—the Martyr of martyrs. None had ever suffered as He; no sorrow was ever like His sorrow. Scarcely had He touched the surface of our sin-accursed earth, before the cup of suffering was placed to His lips. The deep fountain of human woe, stirred to its very center, poured in upon His soul its turbid streams from every source and through every channel. Human malignity seized upon Him as its victim, and mingled the first draught that He tasted. Linked though He was by the strongest sympathies to our nature, descending though He had, to elevate, sanctify, and save him, man yet ranked himself among His first and deadliest foes. Oh that condescension and love to our race so profound should have met with a requital so base!

The necessity of Christ's sufferings is the chief point that arrests the mind in contemplating this subject. In His wayside conversation with the two disciples journeying to Emmaus, our Lord clearly and emphatically pronounced this characteristic of His passion—"Ought not Christ to have suffered?" The following considerations would seem to justify this plea of necessity.

The sufferings of Christ were necessary in order to accomplish the eternal purpose and counsel of God. To suppose that His sufferings were contingent, originating in the circumstances by which He was surrounded, is to take a very low and defective view of truth. But the light in which the Scripture presents the doctrine of a suffering Redeemer is that which gives the most exalted view of redemption, and reflects in the richest manner the glory of the Triune God. The truth we have now advanced, the apostle Peter embodies in his awakening discourse on the day of Pentecost, and which truth the Holy Spirit employed in the conversion of three thousand souls—"Him being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, you have taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and slain." Our Lord Himself confirms this doctrine when he says, "The Son of man goes, as it was determined." Dear reader, behold the fountain-head, where arise all those precious streams of covenant mercy which flow into your soul—the electing love of God, which constrained Him to present His beloved Son as an atoning Lamb for the slaughter, from before the foundation of the world! oh! that must be infinite love—vast love—costly love—unchangeable love—which had its existence in the heart of God towards you from all eternity. Oh, repair with humility and gladness to this holy and blessed truth. Welcome it joyfully to your heart as God's truth, from which you may not, you dare not turn, without robbing your soul of immense blessing, and incurring fearful responsibilities. And when by faith you stand beneath the cross, and gaze upon its glorious Sufferer, remember that in His death were fulfilled the eternal purpose and counsel of the Triune Jehovah; and that to predestination—rejected and hated as this truth is by some—you owe all that is dear and precious to you as a ransomed expectant of glory.

To fulfill the types and to make good the prophecies concerning Him, it was necessary that Jesus should suffer. The Levitical dispensation and the prophetical Scriptures point steadily to Jesus; they are replete with Christ crucified. He who reads and investigates them with his eye turned from Jesus will find himself borne along upon a rapid stream of prophetic annunciation he knows not where, and involved in a mass of ceremonial usages to him perfectly chaotic and unintelligible, "without form and void." But with the Spirit of God opening the spiritual eye, and moving upon the word, a flood of light is poured upon every page, and every page is seen to be rich with the history and effulgent with the glory of a suffering Messiah. Thus does our Lord assert this truth—"Think you that I cannot now pray to my Father, and He shall presently give me more than twelve legions of angels? But how then shall the Scriptures be fulfilled, that thus it must be?" Again, "But all this was done that the Scriptures of the prophets might be fulfilled." It was necessary, therefore, that Christ should humble Himself—should be a man of sorrows—should drink deep the cup of suffering, and should be lifted upon the cross, in order to authenticate the Divine mission of Moses, to establish the consistency of the Jewish dispensation, to vindicate the truth of the prophets, to fulfill the counsel of the Lord, and thus to verify His own most blessed word.

SEPTEMBER 12.

"Endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There is one body, and one Spirit, even as you are called in one hope of your calling." Ephesians 4:3, 4

The unity of the mystical church of God consists not in a unity of creed. A higher, a diviner, and more enduring principle united her than this. Ardently as it should be desired, and fervently as it should be prayed for, that the promised day of millennial blessedness might speedily come, when the "watchmen shall see eye to eye," when from every battlement in Zion the silver trumpets shall emit one sweet harmonious sound, yet, even then, not more essentially will the church of God be one than she is now. True, her unity will be more visible, her divisions will be healed, her bleeding wounds will be staunched, her internal conflicts will have ceased; "Ephraim shall not envy Judah, and Judah shall not vex Ephraim more;" and the harsh sounds of strife, now so loud and discordant, shall be lost in the sweet strains of peace and love floating from every lip; yet is the church at this moment essentially one and indivisible. Not, then, in a unity of creed or of ecclesiastical polity does the real unity of the church consist, but in the "unity of the Spirit"—unity sustained by the "bond of peace." She has been baptized, not into one form of church government, nor into one system of doctrinal truth, but "by one Spirit we are all baptized into one body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether we be bond or free; and have all been made to drink of the same Spirit." The "one Spirit" regenerating all the children of God, fashioning alike their hearts, uniting them by a living faith to the Head, equally dwelling in, teaching and guiding, comforting and sanctifying them, demonstrates the perfect oneness of Christ's body. And thus, then, when an individual crosses our path in whom the Spirit of Jesus breathes, who betrays a union to the Head, and who speaks the language and bears the image of the Father, and a resemblance to the one family, be his climate and color, be his name and minor points of creed what they may, it becomes our solemn duty, as it is our great privilege, to extend to him the recognition, and to greet him with the tender and holy affection of the one brotherhood. In the Lord's eye he is a member of His body and he should be so in ours. And if, refusing to own the relationship, we withdraw the hand of Christian love, we render our own regeneration doubtful, we wound, and grieve, and deny the Spirit in him. It is written—yes, it is written by the pen of the Holy Spirit, "Whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ, is born of God: and every one that loves Him that begat, loves him also that is begotten of Him."

I would recur to what may be considered one of the most fruitful and painful causes of the defective Christian union which so much mars the beauty and impairs the moral power of the church of God in our day. I allude to the great distance from Christ which characterizes the spiritual walk of so many believers. The effect of this upon the operation of Christian love is obvious. A distance of spirit from the Head leads to distance in spirit from the members of the body. As with the beams of the sun, the farther they recede from their center, the wider are they separated from each other; so is it with the "children of the light." Each believer is a solar beam—an emanation from the Sun of Righteousness. The more remote he lives from Christ—the center of the soul—the wider will he be alienated in affection and in spirit from the members of Christ. His eye less simply and constantly looking unto Jesus, his sense of union to, and communion with, Him weakened, love waning, faith declining, there will, of necessity, be a lessening attachment to the church of Christ. But the converse, oh, how precious! The rays of light reflected back to the sun, meeting and rejoicing in their center, meet and rejoice in themselves. So with the saints. Drawn closer to Jesus—our wandering steps retraced—restored by those sanctifying unfoldings of the cross which the Spirit delights to impart, the eye of penitence and faith, swimming though it be in tears, once more turned on Christ, love rekindled in the heart—oh how will the affections, in their fondest and holiest power, go forth towards "all them who love our Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity!" His image will be their passport to our hearts; His name will secure their welcome to our homes.

SEPTEMBER 13.

"Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it." Ephesians 5:25

Our Lord Jesus Christ suffered most voluntarily. In this consisted greatly the perfection of His sacrifice. His penal death had proved of no atoning efficacy but for this willing obedience, and the Divine merit that was in it. It would have been unjust in justice to have inflicted punishment upon an innocent and unwilling person. The full and free concurrence of His own will was essential to the perfection of His sacrifice. Yes, had it not been most free, and acting in perfect harmony with His Father's consent, our sins could not have been imputed to, the punishment inflicted upon Him. Entering, then, most freely into a bond to cancel the mighty debt, it was righteous in God, it was just in justice, and it invested the throne of the eternal Jehovah with surpassing glory, to arrest, in default of the debtor, the Surety, and to exact from Him the uttermost payment.

And here, my reader, is the great point to which we are aiming to bring you—the wonderful love of Jesus in so willingly suffering, "The just for the unjust." Oh, how readily did He humble Himself, and become obedient unto death, even the death of the cross! "I delight to do your will, O my God: yes, your law is within my heart." "I have a baptism to be baptized with, and how am I straitened until it be accomplished!" "Who gave Himself for us." "Christ also has loved us, and has given Himself for us." This is the spring of all that He has done, for, "Christ has loved us." Constrained by this, He gave Himself as the Son of God, and as the Son of man—His soul and body, His life and death, yes, all that He possessed in heaven and on earth, He freely gave for us. What was there above or below—in His previous state of glory, or subsequent state of humiliation—that He retained? What part of the price did He withhold? When He could give no less—for all angels and all men would not have sufficed—and when He could give no more, He gave Himself. Ah! this made His "offering and sacrifice to God a sweet-smelling savor." And still it perfumes the oblation, and sends it up each moment fragrant and acceptable before the throne of the Holy One. Oh, surpassing love of Jesus! With the burden of sin—the fire of justice—the wrath of God—the ridicule of man—the malignity of devils—the sorrows of Gethsemane—the pains of Calvary, and the sea of His own blood, all, all in vivid prospect before Him, He yet went forward, loving not His own life unto the death, because He loved ours more. Oh, let your heart bend low before this amazing love. Yield to its sweet and attractive influence; let it draw you from yourself, from the creature, from all, to Him. Are you wounded? Does your heart bleed? Is your soul cast down within you? Is your spirit within you desolate? Still Jesus is love, is loving, and loves you. He has suffered and died for you; and, were it necessary, He would suffer and die for you yet again. Whatever blessing He sees good to take from you, Himself He will never take. Whatever stream of creature love He sees fit to dry, His own love will never fail. Oh, can that love fail—can it cease to yearn, and sympathize, and soothe, and support, which brought Jesus from heaven to earth to endure and suffer all this for us? Be still, then, lie passive and low—drink the cup, and let the surrender of your sin, your obedience, and yourself to Him be as willing and as entire as was the surrender of Himself for you. Then shall you, in a blessed degree, be "able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height, and know the love of Christ, which passes knowledge, filled with all the fullness of God."

SEPTEMBER 14.

"Your throne, O God, is forever and ever: the scepter of your kingdom is a right scepter. You loves righteousness, and hate wickedness: therefore God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness above your fellows." Psalm 45:6, 7

The Divine anointing of the Lord Jesus Christ, constituting an important feature of His official glory, and opening a channel of the most costly blessing to the church, forms a distinct and sacred theme of the prophetical writings. "The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me." "And there shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a Branch shall grow out of his roots: and the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him." This anointing was upon the Redeemer, in infinite richness and fragrance. "God gives not the Spirit by measure unto Him." As essentially Jehovah, He needed it not; but as the great High Priest, and the mediatorial head of His "church, which is His body, the fullness of Him that fills all in all," it was necessary that the anointing oil should be upon Him in its utmost plenitude. As one with Him, all the members alike participate. "It is like the precious ointment upon the head, that ran down upon the beard, even Aaron's beard: that went to the skirts of his garment;" even to the lowest believer. Ah! and he that lies the lowest, obtains the most of this "precious ointment," as it descends from Jesus; the hand of faith, that touches but the hem of His garment, receives from Him who was "anointed with the oil of gladness above his fellows." Dear reader, are you professedly one with Jesus and His saints? then seek, oh, diligently seek, a large and still larger degree of this holy and fragrant anointing. Rest not short of it. Be not satisfied to proceed another step without it. Do not be content with a mere profession, having a name to live, yet lacking all the essential evidences of real life, while discovering many of the fearful attributes of actual death.

The possession of this anointing of the Holy Spirit will decide the momentous and perhaps, with you, doubtful question of your union with Christ. Men will take knowledge of you, that you have been with Jesus, and learned of Him. Your life will be a reflection, faint at best, yet a reflection of His holy life. You will bear some resemblance to the "altogether lovely" One; your spirit will breathe His meekness; your demeanor will be stamped with His gentleness; your whole conversation will be seasoned with His grace; all your "garments will smell of myrrh, and aloes, and cassia out of the ivory palaces;" an unction will pervade your prayers, a power irresistible will accompany your labors, and in every place you will be a sweet savor of Christ, blessed and a blessing.

SEPTEMBER 15.

"Christ Jesus; who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: but made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: and being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross." Philippians 2:6-8

There could have been no restoration and no satisfaction to law and justice, but in the humiliation of the Son of God. The very necessity of the case demanded it. The Divine government had been dishonored—that dishonor could only be removed by the humiliation of one equal in dignity, holiness, and glory—even an infinite Being. The humiliation of every angel in heaven would not have effaced a single stain of its reproach, nor have restored a single beam of its glory. The law of God had been humbled—justice demanded, as a price of its reparation, the humiliation of the Lawgiver Himself. The incarnate God did humble Himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. Thus it was Jesus "restored that which He took not away." He restored holiness to the law—satisfaction to justice—dignity to the Divine government—honor to God, and happiness and immortality to man. "Then I restored that which I took not away." Oh, what stable foundation is thus laid for the full salvation of every believer.

The humiliation of the Redeemer opens a fountain of infinitely great and ever-glorious grace. Nothing could we have known of the glory of His person, nothing of the character of God, and all the things of His hidden love must have remained forever sealed, had He not so humbled Himself. His coming forth, invested not with the dazzling robes of His infinite Majesty, but wearing our degraded nature, descending to our state of deep abasement—yes, sinking infinitely deeper than we—throws open a treasury of grace as rich in its glory, and ample in its supply, as were the dark humiliation and deep poverty which made it ours. Here is glory springing from His abasement—it is the "glory of His grace;" "We beheld His glory, full of grace." This fullness of grace in Jesus includes all that a poor sinner needs, all that a necessitous believer requires, all that the glory of God demanded. Here is the grace of pardon in all its fullness—the grace of justification in all its fullness—the grace of sanctification in all its fullness—the grace of consolation in all its fullness—the grace of strength in all its fullness. "It pleased the Father, that in Him should all fullness dwell." Grace is poured into His lips, and gracious words proceed from His lips. Hearken! "Come unto me, all you that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." Hearken again! "Him that comes unto me, I will in no wise cast out." Does He not bind up the broken heart? Does He not preach glad tidings to the meek? Does He not "satisfy the hungry soul, and satiate the weary soul with goodness"? Has He ever sent the poor empty away? Was He ever known to turn His back upon one humble comer drawing near, bowed with guilt, disconsolate with sorrow, oppressed with trial? Never! never! Oh, it is with infinite delight—delight, the depth of which we can form no conception—that He welcomes poor sinners. He thinks of His own humiliation for sin—He remembers His own sorrows and tears, agonies and death, and throwing Himself, as it were, into the very center of a bosom storm-tossed with godly grief, He seeks to soothe and hush it to a calm. And how does He allay the tempest? He pours the oil of His own love upon the waves; He sprinkles the conscience with that blood which cleanses from all sin, and bids the soul go in peace. Dear reader, where least we should have expected it, Jesus is set before us the "door of hope," even in the deep valley of His humiliation. "I will give the valley of Achor for a door of hope." The gospel of this precious promise is found in the wondrous theme we are now contemplating—the humiliation of the incarnate God. To that humiliation we must sink; into that valley we must descend. Convinced of sin—separated from all self-reliance and creature trust—emptied, humbled, laid low in the dust before God, we shall then find Jesus to be the "door of hope" set open for us in the deep and dark valley of our poverty, hopelessness, vileness, and abasement. Just the Door we need, is Jesus. A door to a Father's forgiving heart, a door to God's reconciled love; a door to the sweetest, closest, holiest fellowship and communion; a door into heaven itself; a door so wide, that the greatest sinner may enter—so free, that the penniless may come.

SEPTEMBER 16.

"Do not be faithless, but believing." John 20:27

When any grace of the Spirit is in a sickly and declining state, an effect so painful must originate in a cause that needs to be searched out: the great difficulty in a backsliding soul is to bring it to the spiritual and needed duty of self-scrutiny. But as the cure of any disease, or the correction of any evil, depends upon the knowledge of its cause, so does the revival of a declining believer closely connect itself with the discovery and removal of that which led to his declension. Declining believer! what is the cause of your weak faith? Why is this lovely, precious, and fruitful flower drooping, and ready to die? What has dimmed the eye, and paralyzed the hand, and enfeebled the walk of faith? Perhaps it is the neglect of prayer: you have lived, it may be, days, and weeks, and months, without communion with God; there have been no constant and precious visits to your closet; no wrestling with God; no fellowship with your Father. Marvel not, beloved, that your faith languishes, droops, and fades. The great marvel is, that you have any faith at all; that it is not quite dead, plucked up by the root; and, but for the mighty power of God, and the constant intercession of Jesus at His right hand, it would long since have ceased to be. But what will revive it?—an immediate return to prayer; revisit your closet; seek your forsaken God. Oh how can faith be revived, and how can it grow, in the neglect of daily, secret, and wrestling prayer with God? The Eternal Spirit laying this upon your heart, showing you your awful neglect, and breathing into you afresh the spirit of grace and supplication, will impart a new and blessed impulse to faith.

Perhaps you have been misinterpreting the Lord's providential dealings with you; you have been indulging in unbelieving, unkind, unfilial views of your trials, bereavements, and disappointments: you have said, "Can I be a child, yet be afflicted thus? can He love me, yet deal with me so?" Oh, that thought! Oh, that surmise! Could you have looked into the heart of your God when He sent that trial, caused that bereavement, blew upon that flower, and blasted that fair design, you would never have murmured more: so much love, so much tenderness, so much faithfulness, so much wisdom would you have seen, as to have laid your mouth silent in the dust before Him. Wonder not that, indulging in such misgivings, interpreting the covenant dealings of a God of love in such a light, your faith has received a wound. Nothing, perhaps, more tends to unhinge the soul from God, engenders distrust, hard thoughts, and rebellious feelings, than thus to doubt His loving-kindness and faithfulness in the discipline He is pleased to send. But faith, looking through the dark cloud, rising on the mountain wave, and anchoring itself on the Divine veracity and the unchangeable love of God, is sure to strengthen and increase by every storm that beats upon it.

Is it the enchantment of the world that has seized upon your faith? has it stolen upon you, beguiled you, caught you with its glitter, overwhelmed you with its crushing cares?—come out from it, and be separate; resign its hollow friendships, its temporizing policy, its carnal enjoyments, its fleshly wisdom, its sinful conformity. All these becloud the vision, and enfeeble the grasp of faith. Would you be "strong in faith, giving glory to God"?—then yield obedience to the voice which with an unearthly tongue exclaims to every professing child of God, "Do not be conformed to this world; but be you transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect will of God."

Is it the indulgence of unbelieving fears touching your interest in Christ? Yield them, and let the wind scatter them. There is no ground for the doubts and unbelief of a child of God; there may be much in himself to cast him down, but nothing in the truth which he professes to believe; there is nothing in the subject-matter of faith, nothing in Christ, nothing in the work of Christ, nothing in the word of God, calculated to beget a doubt or a fear in the heart of a poor sinner; on the contrary, everything to inspire confidence, strengthen faith, and encourage hope. Does his sin plead loud for his condemnation? the voice of Immanuel's blood pleads louder for his pardon. Does his own righteousness condemn?—the righteousness of Christ acquits. Thus there is nothing in Christ to engender an unbelieving doubt in a poor convinced sinner. Himself he may doubt—he may doubt his ability to save himself—he may doubt his power to make himself more worthy and acceptable—but never let him doubt that Christ is all that a poor, lost, convinced sinner needs. Let him not doubt that Jesus is the Friend of sinners, the Savior of sinners, and that He was never known to cast out one who in lowliness and brokenness of heart sought His compassionate grace. Oh seek, reader, more simple views of Jesus; clearer views of His great and finished work; take every doubt as it is suggested, every fear as it rises, to Him; and remember that whatever of vileness you discover in yourself that has a tendency to lay you low, there is everything in Jesus calculated to lift you from the ash-heap, and place you among the princes.

SEPTEMBER 17.

"Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom." Colossians 3:16

The diligent and prayerful reading of God's holy word is a great means of increasing and promoting spirituality of mind. This, we fear, is not an element in the Christianity of many. It defines a duty sadly and, to a great extent, totally neglected. The tendency of the age is to substitute the writings of man for the Book of God. Let them come but with the robe of religion gracefully thrown around them, and whether they assume the form of history, or story, or song, they are devoured by the professing multitude, who would deem their true spirituality unquestionable! But the Divine life of the soul is not to be fed and nourished by the profound discoveries of science, or the recondite axioms of philosophy, or the brilliant flowers of genius, or the dreams of a poetical imagination. It ascends to a higher and a diviner source; it aspires towards the nourishments of its native climate. The bread that comes down from heaven, and the water that flows, pure as crystal, from beneath the throne of God and the Lamb, can alone feed, and nourish, and refresh this hidden principle. Jesus is its sustenance; and the gospel, as it unfolds Him in His glory and grace, is the spiritual granary from where its daily food is drawn. To this it repairs, oftentimes pressed with hunger, or panting with thirst, weary and exhausted, drooping and faint, and it finds its doctrines and its precepts, its promises and its admonitions, its exhortations and revelations, a "a feast of fat things, a feast of wines on the lees; of fat things full of marrow, of wines on the lees well refined." And thus refreshed and satisfied, the grateful soul adoringly exclaims, "Your words were found, and I did eat them; and Your word was unto me the joy and rejoicing of my heart." Truly did Jesus testify, "Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except you eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink His blood, you have no life in you;" evidently and solemnly implying, that if there exists no appetite for spiritual food, there is lacking the great evidence of the life of God in the soul. A mere semblance of life, an informed judgment, a "fair show" of religion "in the flesh," can content itself with anything short of the spiritual aliment contained in God's word. But the Divine life of a quickened soul, while it disdains no auxiliary to its spiritual advance, can yet feed on nothing but Divine food. The "flesh and the blood of Immanuel can alone meet and satiate its hungering and thirsting. It is from heaven, and its supply must be heavenly; it is from God, and its nourishment must be Divine. Jesus, and Jesus alone, received into the heart, rested in, and lived upon by faith, is the food of a believing man. Nothing but Christ—"Christ all" in Himself, and Christ "in all," means "in all" ordinances, "in all" channels, "in all" seasons, sustains a soul whose "life is hid with Christ in God." Dear reader, do you see the importance and feel the solemnity of this truth? Oh, it is a great and solemn one! Except by faith you "eat the flesh and drink the blood of the Son of man, you have no life in you!" Nothing short of Christ—Christ's righteousness, Christ's atonement, Christ's flesh and blood, Christ in us, Christ without us, Christ risen, Christ alive at the right hand of God, yes, "Christ all and in all"—can meet the deep, immortal necessities of your soul. You need all that Christ is in the matter of pardon, and justification, and sanctification, and wisdom, and redemption. If anything less than Jesus had sufficed, if an expedient less magnificent, or if an expenditure less costly, had answered for God and man, then less would save you. But since the incarnate God alone is the Savior of a poor, lost sinner, see that you detract not from, or add to, this salvation by any works of human merit.

Be exhorted, then, to an intimate acquaintance with God's holy word, as supplying a powerful help to the progress of the soul in deep spirituality. And if your time for reading is limited, limit it to one book, and let that one book be—the BIBLE. Let it be the companion of your hours of solitude; the solace in your seasons of sorrow; the store-house in all your necessities; the man of your counsel in all your doubts and perplexities. Then will your blessed experience resemble that of the psalmist: "Your word have I hid in mine heart, that I might not sin against You. This is my comfort in my affliction: for Your word has quickened me. Your word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path. I rejoice at Your word, as one that finds great spoil."

SEPTEMBER 18.

"In the year that king Uzziah died I saw also the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and his train filled the temple. Above it stood the Seraphim: each one had six wings; with twain he covered his face, and with twain he covered his feet, and with twain he did fly. And one cried unto another, and said, Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory. And the posts of the door moved at the voice of him that cried, and the house was filled with smoke. Then said I, Woe is me! for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips; and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips: for mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts." Isaiah 6:1-5

What an august revelation of the glory of Christ's Godhead was this which broke upon the view of the lowly prophet! How instructive is each particular of His beatific vision! Mark the profound humility of the seraphim—they veiled with their wings their faces and their feet. They were in the presence of Jesus. They saw the King in His beauty, and covered themselves.

But the effect of this view of our Lord's divine glory upon the mind of the prophet is still more impressive: "Then said I, Woe is me! for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips…for mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts." What prostrated his soul thus low in the dust? What filled him with this self-abasement? What overwhelmed him with this keen sense of his vileness? Oh, it was the unclouded view he had of the essential glory of the Son of God! And thus will it ever be. The beaming forth of Christ's glory in the soul reveals its hidden evil; the knowledge of this evil lays the believer low before God with the confession, "I abhor myself. Woe is me! for I am undone." Beloved, let this truth be ever present to your mind, that as we increasingly see glory in Christ, we shall increasingly see that there is no glory in ourselves. Jesus is the Sun which reveals the pollutions and defilements which are within. The chambers of abomination are all closed until Christ shines in upon the soul. Oh, then it is these deep-seated and long-veiled deformities are revealed; and we, no longer gazing with a complacent eye upon self, sink in the dust before God, overwhelmed with shame, and covered with confusion of face. Holy posture! Blessed spectacle!—a soul prostrate before the glory of the incarnate God! All high and lofty views of its own false glory annihilated by clear and close views of the true glory of Jesus. As when the sun appears, all the lesser lights vanish into darkness, so when Jesus rises in noontide glory upon the soul, all other glory retires, and He alone fixes the eye and fills the mind. "With twain they covered their faces, and with twain they covered their feet." Their own perfections and beauty were not to be seen in the presence of the glory of the Lord. How much more profound should be the humility and self-abasement of man! Have we covered ourselves—not with the pure wings of the holy cherubim, but with sackcloth and ashes before the Lord? Have we sought to veil—not our beauties, for beauty we have none—but our innumerable and flagrant deformities, even the "spots upon our feasts of charity," the sins of our best and holiest things; and, renouncing all self-glory, have we sunk, as into nothing before God? Oh, we are yet strangers to the vision of Christ's glory, if we have not. If the constellation of human gifts and attainments, distinctions and usefulness, on which unsanctified and unmortified self so delights to gaze, have not retired into oblivion, the Sun of Righteousness has yet to rise upon our souls with healing in His wings.

SEPTEMBER 19.

"But now when Timothy came from you unto us, and brought us good tidings of your faith and charity, and that you have good remembrance of us always, desiring greatly to see us, as we also to see you: therefore, brethren, we were comforted over you in all our affliction and distress by your faith: for now we live, if you stand fast in the Lord." 1 Thessalonians 3:6-8

Oh, it is a lovely and a holy sight, the strong attachment of a pastor and a church! Earth presents no spectacle of moral beauty surpassing it; and angels, bending from their thrones in heaven, must gaze upon it with new ecstasy and delight. We would not breathe a word, or pen a sentence, tending to mar the symmetry, or shade the beauty, or impair the strength of such a union. This only would we say to the church—receive your pastor reverently and gratefully, as the Lord's messenger, esteem him very highly in love for his work's sake; yet hold him infinitely subordinate to Christ, and with a loose and gentle grasp. If heavenly-minded, and the channel of blessing to your souls, he is the Lord's gift, and as such only is he to be regarded. All that he possesses, really valuable, is from Jesus—his gifts, his acquirements, his grace, his usefulness, his moral loveliness, and even those minor attractions of person and address, which, if possessed, may, without much holy caution, but strengthen the heart's idolatry, and shade the infinite loveliness of Christ, came from God, are the bestowments of His undeserved mercy, and were intended but to lead you up to Himself, the source from where they proceed. Then lend your ear and yield your heart to the needed exhortation, as it bears upon this point, "Set not your affection on things on the earth." Cherish a devout and grateful spirit for the precious and invaluable gift of a holy, affectionate, and useful minister; but rest not in him short of Jesus. Give to him his proper place in your affections and thoughts—a place infinitely beneath the adorable Son of God, God's "unspeakable gift." He is not his own, nor yours, but the Lord's. And He, whose he is and whom he serves, may, in the exercise of His infinite wisdom and sovereign will, and, I may add, tender love, suspend for awhile his labors, or transfer him to another section of the vineyard, or, which would be more painful, crumble the earthen, though beautiful, vessel to dust, and take the precious treasure it contained to Himself. Still, Christ is all, He is your all; and, as the chief Shepherd and Bishop of His church, He will never take Himself from her. The happy secret of retaining our mercies is to receive and enjoy Christ in them; to turn every blessing bestowed into an occasion of knowing, and loving, and enjoying more of Jesus, apart from whom, poor indeed were the most costly blessing. Blessed indeed would our blessings then be! Leading our affections up to God; giving us a deeper insight into a Father's love; laying us lower in the dust at His feet; filling the spirit with secret contrition and tender brokenness, the heart with adoring love, the mouth with grateful praise; endearing the channel through which it descends, and the mercy-seat at which it was sought and given; encouraged and stimulated by the gift, to devote person, time, influence, and property, more simply and unreservedly, to the glory of God; then should we keep a longer possession of our sanctified blessing, nor fear the thought, nor shrink from the prospect, of its removal; or, if removed, we should be quite satisfied to have God alone as our portion and our all.

SEPTEMBER 20.

"The Holy Spirit was not yet given; because that Jesus was not yet glorified." John 7:39

Our adorable Lord, as He approached the termination of His sojourn on earth, went more fully into the work of the Spirit, than at any former period of His ministry, laying especial stress on this truth, that His own personal residence on earth in permanent conjunction with the presence of the Spirit, was a union not to be expected by the church. Why such an arrangement might not have been made, we proceed not to inquire. Sufficient should be the answer to this, as to all questions involving the sovereignty of the Divine will—"Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in Your sight." But the promise to which He directed the eye of His disciples, and with which He sought to soothe their sorrow in the prospect of His personal withdrawment from the church, was the descent of the Holy Spirit in an enlarged degree, and in continuous outpouring to the end of the Christian dispensation. This event, dependent upon, and immediately to follow, that of His inauguration in His heavenly kingdom, is thus alluded to by our Lord—"Nevertheless, I tell you the truth: it is expedient for you that I go away; for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I depart, I will send Him unto you."

The descent of the Holy Spirit upon the church in His most enlarged degree, and for the highest and most gracious ends, rendered the glorification of the Head necessary and expedient. Holding in His hands, not only the keys of hell and of death, but of all the fullness of God, all the riches of the covenant, all the treasures of His Father, He could only dispense these blessings in His exalted state. As it was necessary in the case of Joseph—a personal type of our glorious Redeemer—that he should be exalted to the office of prime-minister in Egypt, in order to possess dignity, authority, and power to dispense the riches of Pharaoh, so was it expedient that the great Antitype should assume a mediatorial exaltation, with a view of scattering down mediatorial blessings upon His people. The delay of this event was the only barrier to the outpouring of the Spirit upon the church. "The Holy Spirit was not yet given, because that Jesus was not yet glorified." Now here, second to Himself, was the gift of gifts—the donation of the Holy Spirit, the greatest God could give, the richest man could receive—suspended upon the single fact of the Redeemer's ascension to glory. It would seem as if the baptism of the church by the Spirit was an event especially reserved to signalize the enthronement of the Son of God in His mediatorial kingdom. God would demonstrate how great was the glory of Jesus in heaven, how perfect was the reconciliation which He had effected between Himself and man, how spiritual was that kingdom which He was about to establish in the earth, the foundation of which His own hand had laid—and how full, and immense, and free were the blessings ready to be bestowed upon all who, in poverty of spirit, and sincerity of heart, and fervency of soul, should seek them, by opening the windows of heaven, and pouring down the Holy Spirit in all His converting, life-giving, sanctifying, and comforting grace. And oh, how must this Divine and Eternal Spirit—occupying as He did a personal existence in the glorious Trinity, possessing equal glory, honor, and love with the Father and the Son, as equally engaged in securing the salvation of a chosen people—how must He have rejoiced at the consummation of an event which permitted Him to give full vent to the overflowing fountain of His heart's grace and love over a church which He was about to renew, sanctify, and dwell in through eternity! "The love of the Spirit" pleaded eloquently for the exaltation of Jesus.

SEPTEMBER 21.

"And you said, I will surely do you good." Genesis 32:12

God, in the administration of His all-wise, all-righteous, all-beneficent government, has night seasons as well as day—seasons of darkness as well as seasons of light—and in both He must be contemplated, studied, and known. As the night reveals glories in the firmament, which the day concealed, so dark dispensations of Divine Providence bring to the believer's eye, as viewed through the telescope of faith, glories in the character and wonders in the government of Jehovah, which the milder and brighter displays of Himself had veiled from the eye. Oh, beloved, how scanty were our experience of God—how limited our knowledge of His love, wisdom, and power—how little should we know of Jesus, our best Friend, the Beloved of our souls, did we know Him only in mercy, and not also in judgment—were there no lowering skies, no night of weeping, no shady paths, no rough places, no cloud-tracings, no seasons of lonely sorrow, of pressing need, and of fierce temptation. "In the way of Your judgments, O Lord, have we waited for You; the desire of our soul is to Your name, and to the remembrance of You."

Nor should we overlook the full play and exercise of faith which occurrences, to us dark, discrepant, and mysterious, call into operation. Faith in God is the most precious, wondrous, and fruitful grace of the Holy Spirit in the renewed soul. Its worth is beyond all price. Its possession is cheap at any cost. One saving view of Jesus—one dim vision of the cross—one believing touch of the Savior—a single grain of this priceless gold—millions of rubies were as nothing to it. Then were its exercise and trial good. And but for its trial how uncertain would it be! Were there no circumstances alarming in the aspect they assume—somber in the form they wear—rude in the voice they utter—events which threaten our happiness and well-being—which seem to dry our springs, wither our flowers, blight our fruits, and drape life's landscape in gloom—how limited would be the sphere of faith! It is the province of this mighty grace to pierce thick clouds, to scale high walls, to walk in the dark, to pass unhurt through fire, to smile at improbabilities, and to master impossibilities. As the mariner's compass guides the ship, coursing its way over the ocean, as truly and as safely in the starless night as in the meridian day, so faith—the needle of the soul—directs us safely, and points the believer in his right course homewards as truly, in the gloomiest as in the brightest hour. Oh, how little are we aware of the real blessings that flow to us through believing! God asks of us nothing but faith; for where there is faith in the Lord Jesus there is love—and where there is, love there is obedience—and where there is obedience there is happiness—and where there is happiness, the soul can even rejoice in tribulation, and sit and sing sweetly and merrily in adversity, like a bird amid the boughs whose green foliage the frost has nipped, and the autumnal blast has scattered.

It is God's sole prerogative to educe good from seeming evil—to order and overrule all events of an untoward nature, and of a threatening aspect, for the accomplishment of the most beneficent ends. This He is perpetually doing with reference to His saints. The Spirit of love broods over the chaotic waters, and life's dark landscape appears like a new-born existence. The curse is turned into a blessing—the discordant notes breathe the sweetest music. You marvel how this can be. What is impossible with man is more than possible with God. Often in your silent musings over some untoward event in your life, sad in its nature, and threatening in its look, have you asked, "What possible good can result from this? It seems utterly opposed to my interests, and hostile to my happiness. It appears an unmixed, unmitigated evil." Be still! Let not your heart fret against the Lord and against His dealings—all things in your history are for your good—and this calamity, this affliction, this loss, is among the "all things." The extraction of the curse from everything appertaining to the child of God converts everything into a blessing. Christ has so completely annihilated the curse by obedience, and has so entirely put away sin by suffering, nothing is left of real, positive evil, in the dealings of God with His church. Jesus, because His love was so great, did all, endured all, finished all; and it is not only in the heart of God, but it is in the power of God—a power exerted in alliance with every perfection of His being—to cause all events to conspire to promote our present and eternal happiness. I cannot see how God will work it, or when He will accomplish it, but assured that I am His pardoned, adopted child, I can calmly leave the issue of all things in my life with Him; confident that, however complicated may be the web of His providence, however hostile the attitude or discouraging the aspect of events, all, all under the government and overruling will of my Heavenly Father are working together for my good. The result, then, of this matter, my God, I leave with You.

"Your ways, O Lord, with wise design,
Are framed upon Your throne above,
And every dark and bending line
Meets in the center of Your love."

What is there of good we need, or of evil we dread, which God's heart will withhold, or His power cannot avert? Oh, it is in the heart of our covenant God to lavish every good upon us—to "withhold no good thing from those who walk uprightly." Lord, lead us into Your love—Your love infinite, Your love unfathomable, Your love hidden and changeless as Your nature!

SEPTEMBER 22.

"This is my blood of the new testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins." Matthew 26:28

The atoning blood of Christ possesses a pardoning efficacy. Through this blood, God, the holy God—the God against whom you have sinned, and whose wrath you justly dread, can pardon all your sins, blot out all your transgressions, and take from you the terror of a guilty conscience. Oh what news is this! Do you doubt it? We know it is an amazing fact, that God should pardon sin, and that He should pardon it, too, through the blood of His dear Son, yet take His own word as a full confirmation of this stupendous fact, and doubt no more—"The blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin." Oh yes—blessed declaration! it cleanses us from all sin—"all manner of sin." We ask not how heavy the weight of guilt that rests upon you; we ask not how wide the territory over which your sins have extended; we inquire not how many their number, or how aggravated their nature, or how deep their dye; we meet you, just as you are, with God's own declaration, "the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses from all sin." Many there are who can testify to this truth. "Such were some of you," says the apostle, when writing to the Corinthian converts, who had been fornicators, idolaters, adulterers, effeminate, thieves, covetous, drunkards, revilers, extortioners; "such were some of you, but you are washed." In what had they washed?—where were they cleansed? They washed in the "fountain opened to the house of David, and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, for sin and uncleanness." To this fountain they came, guilty, vile, black as they were, and the blood of Jesus Christ cleansed them from all sin. Mourning soul, look up—the fountain yet is open, and open too for you. Satan will seek to close it—unbelief will seek to close it—yet it is ever running, ever overflowing, ever free. Thousands have plunged in it, and emerged washed, sanctified, and saved. To this fountain David, and Manasseh, and Saul, and Peter, and Mary Magdalene, and the dying thief, and millions more, came, washed, and were saved; and yet it has lost nothing of its sin-pardoning, sin-cleansing efficacy—sovereign and free as ever! Oh say not that you are too vile, say not that you are too unworthy! You may stand afar from its brink, looking at your unfitness, looking at your poverty, but listen while we declare that, led as you have been by the Holy Spirit to feel your vileness, for just such this precious blood was shed, this costly fountain was opened.

This "blood of the new testament" is peace-speaking blood. It not only procured peace, but when applied by the Holy Spirit to the conscience, it produces peace—it gives peace to the soul. It imparts a sense of reconciliation: it removes all slavish fear of God, all dread of condemnation, and enables the soul to look up to God, not as "a consuming fire," but as a reconciled God—a God in covenant. Precious peace-speaking blood, flowing from the "Prince of Peace!" Applied to your heart, penitent reader, riven asunder as it may be with godly sorrow, it shall be as a balm to the wound. Sprinkled on your conscience, burdened as it is with a sense of guilt, you shall have "beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness."

It is through simply believing that the blood of Christ thus seals pardon and peace upon the conscience. Do not forget this. "Only believe," is all that is required; and this faith is the free gift of God. And what is faith? "It is looking unto Jesus;" it is simply going out of yourself, and taking up your rest in the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ—this is faith. Christ has said, that "He saves to the uttermost all that come unto God by Him;" that He died for sinners, and that He saves sinners as sinners: the Holy Spirit working faith in the heart, lifting the eye off the wound, and fixing it on the Lamb of God, pardon and peace flow like a river in the soul. Oh, stay not then from the gospel-feast, because you are poor, penniless, and unworthy. See the provision, how full! see the invitation, how free! see the guests—the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind! Come then to Jesus just as you are. We stake our all on the assertion, that He will welcome you, that He will save you. There is too much efficacy in His blood, too much compassion in His heart for poor sinners, to reject you, suing at His feet for mercy. Then look up, believer, and you shall be saved; and all heaven will resound with hallelujahs over a sinner saved by grace!

SEPTEMBER 23.

"In a little wrath I hid my face from you for a moment; but with everlasting kindness will I have mercy on you, says the Lord your Redeemer." Isaiah 54:8

Many are the seasons of spiritual darkness, and sensible withdrawments of God's presence, through which the believer is often called to pass. Seasons, during which his hope seems to have perished; and God, as he believes, has forgotten to be gracious; seasons, during which he cannot look up as a pardoned sinner, as a justified soul, as an adopted child, and say, "Abba, Father!" All is midnight gloom to his soul. And while God seems to have withdrawn, Satan instantly appears. Taking advantage of the momentary absence of the Lord, for let it be remembered, it is not an actual and eternal withdrawment—he levels his fiery darts—suggests hard thoughts of God—tempts the soul to believe the past has been but a deception, and that the future will develop nothing but darkness and despair. Satan, that constant and subtle foe, frequently seizes, too, upon periods of the believer's history, when the providences of God are dark and mysterious—when the path, along which the weary pilgrim is pressing, is rough and intricate, or, it may be, when he sees not a spot before him, the way is obstructed, and he is ready to exclaim with Job, "He has fenced up my way that I cannot pass, and he has set darkness in my paths." Or with Jeremiah, "He has hedged me about that I cannot get out." Let it not then be forgotten by the soul that walks in darkness and has no light, that the providential dealings of a covenant God and Father, which now are depressing the spirits, stirring up unbelief, and casting a shade over every prospect, may be seized upon by its great enemy, and be appropriated to an occasion of deep and sore temptation. It was thus he dealt with our blessed Lord, who was in all points tempted as His people, yet without sin. And if the Head thus was tempted, so will be, the member—if the Lord, so the disciple. And for this very end was our blessed Lord thus tempted, that He might enter sympathetically into all the circumstances of His tried and suffering people—"For in that He Himself has suffered being tempted, He is able to support those who are tempted."

But a momentary sense of God's withdrawment from the believer affects not his actual security in the atoning blood; this nothing can disturb. The safety of a child of God hinges not upon a frame or a feeling, the ever-varying and fitful pulses of a believing soul. Oh no! the covenant rests upon a surer basis than this; the child of the covenant is sealed with a better hope and promise. He may change, but his covenant God never; his feelings may vary, but his Father's love never veers: He loved him from all eternity, and that love extends to all eternity. As God never loved His child for anything He saw, or should see, in that child; so His love never changes for all the fickleness, sinfulness, and unworthiness, He daily and hourly discovers. Oh where would the soul fly but for this truth? When it takes into account the sins, the follies, the departures, the flaws of but one week—yes, when it reviews the history of but one day, and sees enough sin in a single thought to sink it to eternal and just perdition—but for an unchangeable God, to what consolation would it resort?

SEPTEMBER, 24.

"Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him." Romans 5:9

What forms the great security of the believer? what, but the atoning blood? This, and this only. The Father, beholding His child in His beloved Son, washed and clothed, pardoned and justified, can "rest in His love, and joy over Him with singing." The atonement guarantees his eternal safety. What formed the security of Noah and his family, when the deluge of God's wrath descended upon an ungodly world?—the ark in which God had shut him in. What formed the security of the children of Israel in Egypt, when the destroying angel passed through the camp, waving in his hand the weapon of death?—the blood of the paschal lamb, sprinkled on the lintel and door-posts of their dwellings; and where this sacred sign was seen, into that house he dared not enter, but passed on to do the work of death where no blood was found. Exactly what the ark was to Noah, and the blood of the lamb was to the children of Israel, is the atoning blood of Christ to the believing soul. It forms his eternal security. Reader, is that blood applied to you? Are you washed in it? Is it upon you at this moment? Precious blood! precious Savior who shed it! precious faith that leads to it! how it washes away all sin—how it lightens the conscience of its burden—heals the heart of its wound—dispels the mist, and brings down the unclouded sunshine of God's reconciled countenance in the soul! Oh, adore the love and admire the grace that opened the fountain, and led you to bathe, all guilty, polluted, and helpless as you were, beneath its cleansing stream! and with Cowper let us sing,

"E'er since by faith I saw the stream
Your flowing wounds supply,
Redeeming love has been my theme,
And shall be until I die."

Surely the Christian will ever strive to live near this fountain—the only spot where his soul shall flourish. As the gentle flower which blooms unseen by the side of some veiled spring is, from the constant moisture it receives, always beautiful and fragrant, so is that believing soul the most fruitful, holy, spiritual, and devoted, who daily dwells by the side, yes, in the "fountain opened for sin and uncleanness." We see not how a child of God can be fruitful otherwise. A sweet and abiding consciousness of pardon and acceptance is essential to spiritual fruitfulness. The great impelling motive to all gospel obedience is the love of Christ in the heart. David acknowledged this principle when he prayed, "I will run the way of Your commandments, when You shall enlarge my heart." The apostle admits it when he says, "the love of Christ constrains us." In order to walk as an obedient child, to bear the daily cross, to delight in the precepts as in the doctrines of God's truth, the atoning blood must be realized. How easy and how sweet will then become the commandments of the Lord: duties will be viewed as privileges, and the yoke felt to be no yoke, and the cross to be no cross.

No believer can advance in the divine life, wage a daily war with the innumerable foes that oppose him, and be fruitful in every good work, who is perpetually in search of evidence of his adoption. We need all our time, all our energies, all our means, in order to vanquish the spiritual Philistines who obstruct our way to the heavenly Canaan: we have none to send in search of evidences, lest while they have gone the Bridegroom comes. Oh, then, to know that all is right; the thick cloud blotted out—the soul wrapped in the robe of righteousness—ready to enter in to the marriage supper of the Lamb. To die will be quite enough; to face and grapple with the king of terrors will be sufficient employment for the spirit struggling to be free: no time, no strength, no energy then to search for evidences. Let not the professor of Christ leave the "sealing" of his pardon and acceptance to that fearful hour; but let him earnestly seek it now, that when he comes to die he may have nothing to do but to die; and that will be quite enough.

SEPTEMBER 25.

"And he said to them all, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me. For whoever will save his life shall lose it: but whoever will lose his life for my sake, the same shall save it." Luke 9:23, 24

The life of our adorable Lord was a life of continuous trial. From the moment He entered our world He became leagued with suffering; He identified Himself with it in its almost endless forms. He seemed to have been born with a tear in His eye, with a shade of sadness on His brow. He was prophesied as "a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief." And, from the moment He touched the horizon of our earth, from that moment His sufferings commenced. Not a smile lighted up His benign countenance from the time of His advent to His departure. He came not to indulge in a life of tranquility and repose; He came not to quaff the cup of earthly or of Divine sweets—for even this last was denied Him in the hour of His lingering agony on the cross. He came to suffer—He came to bear the curse—He came to drain the deep cup of wrath, to weep, to bleed, to die. Our Savior was a cross-bearing Savior: our Lord was a suffering Lord. And was it to be expected that they who had linked their destinies with His, who had avowed themselves His disciples and followers, should walk in a path diverse from their Lord's? He Himself speaks of the incongruity of such a division of interests: "The disciple is not above his Master, nor the servant above his Lord. It is enough for the disciple that he be as his Master, and the servant as his Lord." There can be no true following of Christ as our example, if we lose sight of Him as a suffering Christ—a cross-bearing Savior. There must be fellowship with Him in His sufferings. In order to enter fully and sympathetically into the afflictions of His people, He stooped to a body of suffering: in like manner, in order to have sympathy with Christ in His sorrows, we must, in some degree tread the path He trod. Here is one reason why He ordained, that along this rugged path His saints should all journey. They must be like their Lord; they are one with Him: and this oneness can only exist where there is mutual sympathy. The church must be a cross-bearing church; it must be an afflicted church. Its great and glorious Head sought not, and found not, repose here: this was not His rest. He turned His back upon the pleasures, the riches, the luxuries, and even the common comforts of this world, preferring a life of obscurity, penury, and suffering. His very submission seemed to impart dignity to suffering, elevation to poverty, and to invest with an air of holy sanctity a life of obscurity, need, and trial.

We have seen, then, that our blessed Lord sanctified, by His own submission, a life of suffering; and that all His followers, if they would resemble Him, must have fellowship with Him in His sufferings. The apostle Paul seems to regard this in the light of a privilege. "For unto you," he says, "it is given in behalf of Christ, not only to believe on Him, but also to suffer for His sake." It seems, too, to be regarded as a part of their calling. "For even hereunto were you called: because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that you should follow His steps." Happy will be that afflicted child of God, who is led to view his Father's discipline in the light of a privilege. To drink of the cup that Christ drank of—to bear any part of the cross that He bore—to tread in any measure the path that He trod, is a privilege indeed. This is a distinction which angels have never attained. They know not the honor of suffering with Christ, of being made conformable to His death. It is peculiar to the believer in Jesus—it is his privilege, his calling.

SEPTEMBER 26.

"Jesus said unto him, If you will be perfect, go and sell that you have, and give to the poor, and you shall have treasure in heaven: and come and follow me. But when the young man heard that saying, he went away sorrowful: for he had great possessions." Matthew 19:21, 22

There cannot, perhaps, be a position, however peculiar and difficult, in which the believer may be placed, but he will find that Jesus, either by precept or example, has defined the path in which he should walk. The subject of this meditation pointedly and solemnly addresses itself to the rich. Circumstanced as you are by the providence of God, you have need closely and prayerfully to ascertain how, in your situation, Jesus walked. One of the peculiar snares to which your station exposes you is high-mindedness, and consequent self-trust and complacency. But here the Lord Jesus presents Himself as your example. He, too, was rich; creating all things, He possessed all things. The Creator of all worlds, all worlds were at His command. Yet, amazing truth! in the days of His humiliation, He was as though He possessed not—"Though He was rich, yet for our sakes He became poor." In view of such an illustrious pattern, what is your duty? Simple and obvious. You are in a degree to become poor, by devoting your substance to the glory of God. To amass wealth, for the purpose of hoarding it, is contrary to the spirit of the gospel, and is opposed to the teaching and example of Christ. It is a sin, an awful, a soul-periling sin. Your property is a talent, for which, as a steward, you are as certainly and as solemnly accountable to God as for any other. It is, perhaps, the one talent that He has given you. What if you bury it in covetousness and parsimony, or in a prodigal expenditure and self-indulgence, refusing to relax your grasp of it to promote His cause and truth, who became poor to enrich us, how will you meet His scrutiny and His glance when the judgment is set, and He demands an account of your stewardship? Nor is it a small, though perhaps a solitary talent. Bestowed upon but few, the obligation becomes the greater to consecrate it unreservedly to the Lord. And how can you withhold it in view of the claims which crowd upon you on either hand? What! are you at a loss for a channel through which your benevolence might flow? Are you inquiring, "How shall I devote my property to God? In what way may this, my one talent, best answer the end for which it is bestowed?" Cast your eye around you—surely you cannot long hesitate. Survey the map of Christian missions—is there no part of Christ's kingdom languishing through an inadequacy of pecuniary support? Is there no important enterprise impeded in its course of benevolence by the lack of funds? No useful society discouraged and crippled through the narrowness and insufficiency of its resources? Is there no important sphere of labor in your vicinity neglected, no spot in the moral wilderness entirely untilled, because the means to supply an effective agency have been lacking? Is there no faithful, hard-working minister of Christ within your knowledge and your reach, combating with straitened circumstances, oppressed by poverty, and toiling amid lonely care, embarrassment, and anxiety, studiously and delicately screened from human eye, which it is in your power to alleviate and remove? Is there no widow's heart you could make to sing for joy? no orphan, whose tears you could dry? no saint of God tried by sickness, or need, or imprisonment, from whose spirit you could lift the burden, and from whose heart you could chase the sorrow, and from whose feet you could strike the fetter? Surely a world of need, and woe, and suffering is before you, nor need you yield to a moment's hesitation in selecting the object around which your charity should entwine.

Here, then, is your example. Jesus became poor, lived poor, and died poor. Dare you die a rich man—an affluent professor? I beseech you ponder this question. If your Lord has left you an example that you should follow His steps, then you are called upon to become poor, to live poor, even to die poor for Him. Especially are you exhorted to rejoice in that, by the grace of God, you are made low. That in the midst of so much calculated to nourish the pride and lofty independence of the natural heart, you have been made to know your deep spiritual poverty, and as a sinner have been brought to the feet of Jesus. By that grace only can you be kept low. Here is your only security. Here wealth invests its possessor with no real power or greatness. It confers no moral or intellectual glory. It insures not against the inroad of evil. It throws around no shield. It may impart a measure of artificial importance, authority, and influence in the world's estimation; beyond this, what is it? Unsanctified by Divine grace, it entails upon its unhappy possessor an innumerable train of evils. As a Christian man, then, exposed to the snares of even a moderate degree of worldly prosperity, your only security is in drawing largely from the "exceeding riches of Christ's grace;" your true wealth is in the fear of God ruling in your heart, in the love of Christ constraining you to "lie low in a low place;" to bear the cross daily; to walk closely, obediently, and humbly with God; employing the property with which He has entrusted you as a faithful steward; your eye ever "looking unto Jesus" as your pattern. You "know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ"—the rich, the amazing, the sovereign, the free grace of Jesus, to which you owe all that is precious and glorious in the prospect of eternity—let this grace, then, accomplish its perfect work in you, by leading you to glory only in Jesus, to yield yourself supremely to His service, and to regard the worldly wealth God has conferred upon you as valuable only as it promotes His kingdom, truth, and glory, who "though rich, for your sakes became poor, that you, through His poverty, might be made rich."

SEPTEMBER 27.

"Be merciful unto me, O God, be merciful unto me: for my soul trusts in you: yes, in the shadow of your wings will I make my refuge, until these calamities be overpast. I will cry unto God most high; unto God that performs all things for me." Psalm 57:1, 2

The exercise of faith strengthens, as the neglect to exercise, weakens it. It is the constant play of the arm that brings out its muscular power in all its fullness; were that arm allowed to hang by its own side, still and motionless, how soon would its sinews contract, and its energy waste away! So it is with faith, the right arm of a believer's strength; the more it is exercised, the mightier it becomes; neglect to use it, allow it to remain inert and inoperative, and the effect will be a withering up of its power. Now when gloomy providences, and sharp trials and temptations, thicken around a poor believing soul, then is it the time for faith to put on its strength, and come forth to the battle. God never places His child in any difficulties, or throws upon him any cross, but it is a call to exercise faith; and if the opportunity of its exercise passes away without improvement, the effect will be a weakening of the principle, and a feeble putting forth of its power in the succeeding trial. Do not forget, that the more faith is brought into play, the more it increases; the more it is exercised, the stronger it becomes.

Some of the choicest mercies of the covenant brought into the experience of the believer, come by a travail of faith: it maybe a tedious and a painful process; faith may be long and sharply tried, yet the blessings it will bring forth will more than repay for all the weeping, and suffering, and crying, it has occasioned. Do not be surprised, then, at any severe trial of faith; be sure that when it is thus tried, God is about to bring your soul into the possession of some great and perhaps hitherto unexperienced mercy. It may be a travail of faith for spiritual blessing; and the result may be a deepening of the work in your heart, increase of spirituality, more weanedness from creature-trust, and more child-like leaning upon the Lord; more simple, close, and sanctifying knowledge of the Lord Jesus. Or, it may be a travail of faith for temporal mercy, for the supply of some need, the rescue from some embarrassment, the deliverance out of some peculiar and trying difficulty; but whatever the character of the trial of faith be, the issue is always certain and glorious. The Lord may bring His child into difficult and strait paths, He may hedge him about with thorns so that he cannot get out, but it is only to draw the soul more simply to repose in Himself; that, in the extremity, when no creature would or could help, when refuge failed, and no man cared for his soul, that then faith should go out and rest itself in Him who never disowns His own work, but always honors the feeblest exhibition, and turns His ear to the faintest cry. "Out of the depths have I cried unto You, O Lord. Lord, hear my voice; let Your ears be attentive to the voice of my supplication." "In my distress I called upon the Lord, and cried unto my God: He heard my voice out of His temple, and my cry came before Him, even into His ears." "O magnify the Lord with me, and let us exalt His name together. I sought the Lord, and He heard me, and delivered me from all my fears." "This poor man cried, and the Lord heard him; and saved him out of all his troubles." Here was the severe travail of faith, and here we see the blessed result. Thus true is God's word, which declares that "weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning."

The trial of faith is a test of its degree. We know not what faith we possess, until the Lord calls it into exercise; we may be greatly deceived as to its nature and degree; to walk upon the stormy water may be thought by us an easy thing; to witness for Christ, no hard matter: but the Lord brings our faith to the test. He bids us come to Him upon the water, and then we begin to sink; He suffers us to be assailed by our enemies, and we shrink from the cross; He puts our faith to the trial, and then we learn how little we possess.

SEPTEMBER 28.

"But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honor." Hebrews 2:9

There was an honoring, but not a glorifying of our humanity, when the Son of God assumed it. Its union with the Deity—its fullness of the Spirit—its spotless holiness—its deep knowledge of, and intimate fellowship with, God—conspired to invest it with a dignity and honor such as no creature had ever before, or ever shall again attain. But not until its ascension into heaven was it glorified. Oh, through what humiliation did it pass, what indignity did it endure, when below! What sinless weaknesses, imperfections, and frailties clung to it! It hungered, it thirsted, it labored, it sorrowed, it wept, it suffered, it bled, it died! "The poor man's scorn, the rich man's ridicule," what indignities did it endure! It was scourged, it was bruised, it was mocked, it was smitten, it was spit upon, it was nailed to the tree, it was pierced, it was slain! Oh, what eye, but that of faith, can, through all this degradation, behold the person of the incarnate God?

But now "we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels, for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honor." Even after His resurrection, it must be acknowledged that a change, approximating to that state of glory, had already passed over Him. So spiritualized was He, that even His disciples, when they saw Him, knew Him not. What, then, must be the glory that encircles Him now that He has passed within His kingdom, and is exalted at the right hand of God, "far above all heavens, that He might fill all things"! John, during his banishment at Patmos, was favored with a view of His glorified humanity, and thus describes its dazzling appearance—"I saw seven golden candlesticks; and in the midst of the seven candlesticks one like unto the Son of man, clothed with a garment down to the foot, and girt about the breasts with a golden girdle. His head and His hairs were white like wool, as white as snow; and His eyes were as a flame of fire, and His feet like unto fine brass, as if they burned in a furnace; and His voice as the sound of many waters. And He had in His right hand seven stars; and out of His mouth went a sharp two-edged sword; and His countenance was as the sun shines in his strength. And when I saw Him, I fell at His feet as dead. And He laid His right hand upon me, saying unto me, Fear not; I am the first and the last: I am He that lives, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive for evermore, Amen; and have the keys of hell and of death." Sublime description of the "glory and honor" which now crown the exalted humanity of our adorable Redeemer! Did the awe-stricken and prostrate evangelist entertain any doubt of the glorious person who thus appeared to him? that doubt must all have vanished the moment he felt the "right hand" of Jesus laid upon Him, and heard His own familiar voice saying unto him, "Fear not." Oh, what a tangible evidence and what a near view did he now have of the exalted and glorified humanity of his Lord! At that instant he saw Him to be divine, and he felt Him to be human!

Yes! the very tabernacle of flesh in which He dwelt, the identical robe of humanity that He wore, He carried up with Him into heaven, and sat down with it upon the throne. There it is, highly exalted. There it is, above angels, and higher than saints, in close affinity and eternal union with the Godhead. There it is, bathing itself in the "fullness of joy," and drinking deeply of the satisfying "pleasures" which are at God's "right hand for evermore." Oh, what must be the holy delight which the human soul of Jesus now experiences! Sin presses upon it no more; sorrow beclouds it no more; the hidings of God's face distress it no more; infirmity clings to it no more: it exults in the beams of God's unveiled glory, and it swims in the ocean of His ineffable love. If the vision upon Mount Tabor was so glorious—if the splendors there encircling that form which yet had not passed through the scenes of the crucifixion, the resurrection, and the ascension, were so overpowering—if the attractions of that spot were so great, and the ecstasy of that moment was so ravishing—what, oh, what must be the glory, the joy, the bliss of heaven, where we shall no longer see Him "through a glass darkly," but "as He is," and "face to face"!

SEPTEMBER 29.

"For if the blood of bulls and of goats, and the ashes of an heifer sprinkling the unclean, sanctifies to the purifying of the flesh: how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?" Hebrews 9:13, 14

But for a crucified Savior, there could be no possible return to God; in no other way could He, consistently with the holiness and rectitude of the Divine government, with what He owes to Himself as a just and holy God, receive a poor, wandering, returning sinner. Mere repentance and humiliation for and confession of sin could entitle the soul to no act of pardon. The obedience and death of the Lord Jesus laid the foundation and opened the way for the exercise of this great and sovereign act of grace. The cross of Jesus displays the most awful exhibition of God's hatred of sin, and at the same time the most august manifestation of His readiness to pardon it. Pardon, full and free, is written out in every drop of blood that is seen, is proclaimed in every groan that is heard, and shines in the very prodigy of mercy that closes the solemn scene upon the cross. Oh blessed door of return, open and never shut to the wanderer from God! how glorious, how free, how accessible! Here the sinful, the vile, the guilty, the unworthy, the poor, the penniless may come. Here, too, the weary spirit may bring its burden, the broken spirit its sorrow, the guilty spirit its sin, the backsliding spirit its wandering. All are welcome here. The death of Jesus was the opening and the emptying of the full heart of God; it was the outgushing of that ocean of infinite mercy that heaved, and panted, and longed for an outlet; it was God showing how He could love a poor guilty sinner. What more could He have done than this? what stronger proof, what richer gift, what costlier boon could He have given in attestation of that love? Now, it is the simple belief of this that brings the tide of joy down into the soul; it is faith's view of this that dissolves the adamant, rends asunder the flinty rock, smites down the pyramid of self-righteousness, lays the rebellious will in the dust, and enfolds the repenting, believing soul in the very arms of free, rich, and sovereign love. Here, too, the believer is led to trace the sin of his backsliding in its darkest lines, and to mourn over it with his bitterest tears—

"Then beneath the cross adoring,
Sin does like itself appear;
When the wounds of Christ exploring,
I can read my pardon there."

If the Lord has restored your soul, dear reader, remember why He has done it—to make you hate your sins. He hates them, and He will make you to hate them too; and this He does by pardoning them, by sprinkling the atoning blood upon the conscience, and by restoring unto you the joys of His salvation. And never is sin so sincerely hated, never is it so deeply deplored, so bitterly mourned over, and so utterly forsaken, as when He speaks to the heart, and says, "Your sins are forgiven you, go in peace." As though He did say, "I have blotted out your transgressions, I have healed your backslidings, I have restored your soul; that you may remember and be confounded, and never open your mouth any more because of your shame, when I am pacified toward you for all that you have done, says the Lord God."

If your heavenly Father has restored your soul, not only has He done it from the spring of His own unchangeable love, but that which has prevailed with Him was the power of the sweet incense of the Redeemer's blood before the mercy-seat. Moment by moment does this fragrant cloud go up, bearing as it ascends all the circumstances of all the Israel of God. There is not only the blood already sprinkled on the mercy-seat, which has satisfied Divine justice, but there is the constant pleading of the blood, by Jesus, the Priest, before the throne. Oh precious thought, oh comforting, encouraging truth, for a soul retreading its steps back to God! Of its own it has nothing to plead but its folly, its ingratitude, its wretchedness, and its sin; but faith can lay its trembling hand upon this blessed truth—faith can observe Jesus clothed in His priestly garments, standing between the soul and God, spreading forth His hands, and pleading on behalf of the returning believer the merits of His own precious obedience and death. And thus encouraged, he may draw near and touch the scepter: "If any man sin, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous." "Christ is not entered into the holy places made with hands, which are the figures of the true; but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us.

SEPTEMBER 30.

"Then said Jesus to those Jews which believed on him, If you continue in my word, then are you my disciples indeed; and you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." John 8:31, 32

In proportion to a believer's simple, filial, and close walk with God, will be his deep and spiritual discoveries of truth. "If any man will do His will, he shall know of the doctrine whether it be of God." The more steadily he walks in God's light, the clearer will he see the light. The nearer he lives to the Sun of Righteousness, the more entirely will he be flooded with its glory, and the more vividly will he reflect its brightness. The more simply and entirely the believing soul lives on Christ, the more enlarged, experimental, and practical will be his ideas of all truth. The central fact of the Bible is, Christ crucified. From this, as their center, all the lines of truth diverge, and to this, as by a common attraction, they all again return. To know Christ, then—to know Him as dwelling in the heart by His own Spirit —is to have traversed the great circle of spiritual truth. What is His own testimony? "He that has seen me, has seen the Father." "I am the Father's great revelation. I have come to make Him known. To unveil His attributes, to illustrate His law, to pour forth the ocean fullness of His love, and to erect one common platform on which may meet in holy fellowship God and the sinner—the two extremes of being. Learn of me; I am the way, the truth, and the life."

Not only will a spiritual perception of the beauty and fitness of the truth be the result of a close and filial communion with God, but the assurance that God's word is truth, and not fiction, will increase. And to be thoroughly established in this is no small attainment. To know that God's word is true—to cherish no doubt or hesitancy—to give Him full credit for all that He has said—to repose by simple faith upon the promise, and on the faithfulness of Him that has promised—is a blessing earnestly to be sought, and, when found, diligently to be kept.

To quote the striking words of the apostle, "He that believes on the Son of God has the witness in himself." He has the inward witness to the truth. He needs no outward demonstration. He is in possession of a sort of evidence to the truth of God's word which scepticism cannot shake, because it cannot reach it. He may not be able to define the precise nature of his evidence; his reply to the unbelieving objector is, "It must be felt to be known, it must be experienced to be understood. This evidence is not the result of a labored process of thought. I arrived not at it by mathematical reasoning. I was convinced by the Eternal Spirit of sin, fled to Christ, ventured my all upon Him, and now I know of a surety that God's blessed word is truth." And not more completely was his sophistry confuted, who attempted to disprove the doctrine of motion, by his opponent immediately rising and walking, than a humble, spiritual, though unlettered believer may thus put to silence the foolishness and ignorance of men. Their sophistry he may not be able to detect, their assertions he may not be able to disprove, yet by a walk holy and close with God he may demonstrate to the unbelieving universe that Jehovah's word is true.

Christian professor! are you one of Christ's true disciples, following Him closely, or are you walking at a distance from Him? A distant walk will as certainly bring darkness into the soul, with its painful attendants—unbelief—loss of evidence—hard thoughts of God—slavish fear—as if an individual were to close every inlet of a habitation to the rays of the sun, and sit down amid the gloom and obscurity with which He has enshrouded Himself. There is no true spiritual light but that which beams from the Sun of Righteousness, and to this every inlet of the soul must be open. To enjoy this light, then, a believer must dwell near the Sun—he must live close to Christ; he must live the life of daily faith upon Him—he must look away from himself to Jesus—he must walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing—he must be found prayerful and diligent in the means; while, rising above them, he draws all his life, light, and peace from the God of the means. Oh, what losers are they who walk as Peter walked—at a distance from their Lord; what seasons of endearing communion—what tokens of love—what visits of mercy they rob themselves of! What losers are they who neglect the means of grace—closet prayer—church fellowship—the communion of saints—the blessed ordinances of baptism and the Lord's supper—these channels, through which a covenant God conveys such untold blessings into the soul of His dear child; for "The secret of the Lord is with those who fear Him;" and to fear Him is not to dread Him as a slave, but as a child to walk in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless. "Oh, send out Your light and Your truth; let them lead me, let them bring me unto Your holy hill and to Your tabernacles. Then will I go unto the altar of God, unto God my exceeding joy: yes, upon the harp will I praise You, O God, my God."

OCTOBER 1.

"The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul." Psalm 19:7

Emanating from a Being infinitely perfect in every moral perfection, it follows as a natural sequence from this truth, that the law, designed to be a transcript of what God is—a copy of Himself—must be in every respect a most perfect law. How could it be otherwise? Is it rational to suppose that a Being of infinite holiness, wisdom, and goodness would form a rule for the government of moral creatures, that would fail to place before their eye the loftiest standard of excellence, and that should not demand and secure their supreme obedience and happiness? It follows, then, that the law being essentially and perfectly holy, all its requirements must be equally so. It cannot change, nor compromise, nor soften down either the nature or the outline or the enforcement of a single enactment. It demands of every creature the profoundest homage, the most implicit obedience, and the most perfect love. In requiring this, the creature shall have no ground for impeaching the Divine goodness. He shall have no reason for alleging of God that He is harsh and austere. As if fearful of perplexing the mind with a multitude of enactments, our Lord has presented one precept of the law, the perfect keeping of which resolves itself into a virtual fulfillment of all—"Jesus said unto him, You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the first and great commandment."

Who but an infinitely wise Lawgiver could have embodied all the requisitions of an extended code in a single one? What an unfolding of the wisdom of God is here! In securing to Himself the supreme love of His creatures, He wins a willing obedience to every precept of His law. Such is the all-commanding, all-constraining power of love to God! Employing no other than this gentle and persuasive motive, God asks your intellect—your time—your service—your rank—your substance—your person—your life—your all. In demanding this complete surrender, His law stands forth, in view of all created intelligences, as a rule worthy of Him from whom it emanates. Oh yes! it is a most righteous law.

OCTOBER 2.

"But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, even the hidden wisdom, which God ordained before the world unto our glory." 1 Corinthians 2:7

There is much of deep mystery in revelation. God, considered both in Himself and in His operations, is a mystery stretching far beyond the most sublime power of finite reason. "Can you by searching find out God? can you find out the Almighty unto perfection?" and of His operations may we not exclaim with the inspired penman, "Lo! these are parts of His ways; but how little a portion is heard of Him!" Christ, too, is the great "mystery of godliness." Whether His complex person is regarded—the union of the Divine and human natures in one—or whether we look at His work—His obedience and death constituting a full atonement to Divine justice in behalf of the sins of His people—it must be acknowledged a depth too profound for human thought adequately to fathom. What can poor finite reason accomplish here? What beams can its feeble, flickering light cast upon this world of mystery? And if ever it stands forth invested in its own native impotence, it is when it sits in judgment upon the doctrines and facts of revelation, discarding or retaining such only as are intelligible to its dwarfish capacity. "Which things," says the apostle, "the angels desire to look into." Mark his expressions! He represented not these celestial beings of purity and intellect as scaling the heights and diving into the depths of redemption's mystery, but "which things the angels desire"—scarcely dare—but "desire to look into." And yet for a fallen and unrenewed mind to sit in judgment upon God's truth can only be exceeded in its temerity by the depravity which prompts it.

If the truth of God, in its doctrines and facts, is a mystery incomprehensible to unrenewed reason, what shall we say of the truth as experienced in the heart? If reason cannot understand the vast framework of truth, how can it comprehend the secret power by which it operates? The very fact, that to be understood it must be experienced, accounts for the difficulty. The transforming operation of the Holy Spirit upon the mind—giving it a new bias, new inclinations, turning its darkness into light, and kindling its enmity into love; the life of God in the soul, creating the man anew in Christ Jesus—that life which is hidden, ever productive of a holy life that is seen—its hopes and its fears, its defeats and its triumphs—the causes which operate to deaden it, and the spiritual nourishment by which it is supported—all, all is incomprehensible to human reason. Truly "the world knows us not."

The cause of this incapacity of reason, in its natural state, to comprehend spiritual and experimental truth is its corruption and perversion by sin. Sin has impaired our mental faculties—enslaved, clouded, and debased our reason. We open God's word, and it declares that since the fall the nature of man has been corrupt, and his reason blind; his understanding darkened, and his heart, the seat of his affections, polluted: "having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart." The natural man, while in that state, so far from being able to explore the wide domain of spiritual truth, hates and flees from it when proposed to his consideration, "receiving not the things of the Spirit of God, they being foolishness unto him." This being the state of man, God's word consequently declares it necessary that, before spiritual truth can be understood, he should be "transformed by the renewing of his mind;" that he should be restored to that sound mind, and enlightened understanding, and spiritual discernment, with which his nature was endowed when it came originally from the hand of God; in a word, that he should be born again, created anew in Christ Jesus; that old things should pass away, and that all things should become new. Then, and then only, will he be able to understand the "truth of God in a mystery."

OCTOBER 3.

"But they had heard only, That he which persecuted us in times past, now preaches the faith which once he destroyed. And they glorified God in me." Galatians 1:23, 24

In the conversion of His people—their translation from nature to grace—the Redeemer is glorified. This is the first step to a manifest glorifying of Christ in His called saints. Conversion is the commencement of an endless revenue of glory to Christ. To behold a poor sinner living a life of practical enmity to God, hatred to Jesus, rebellion against the Divine government, and willful and determined hostility to the one glorious plan of salvation—perhaps a blasphemer, a persecutor, and injurious—now changed, now conquered, now sitting at the feet of Jesus, "clothed and in his right mind," oh, is there no glory thus brought to the grace of Christ Jesus? To see him translated out of darkness into God's marvelous light, emancipated from the power of sin and Satan, and made the Lord's free-man—the rebellious will conquered, the hard heart subdued, the proud spirit humbled, the hatred turned into love, and the long roving mind now finding its center of rest and fountain of happiness in a reconciled God—oh! is there no crown of glory placed on the head of Jesus in all this. Say, you angelic spirits, bending over the mercy-seat in deep contemplation of its awful mysteries of incarnate grace and dying love—whose eyes glisten with new effulgence, and whose bosoms expand with new joy, over one sinner that repents—do you see no glory deepening around the Son of God, as each vessel of mercy is called in, emptied of self, and filled with Jesus? Oh, how are the power, the wisdom, the grace, the love of the Redeemer glorified, and God through Him, by every new accession thus made to the number of the redeemed! Aim to be instrumental of bringing one soul to receive the Lord Jesus as all its salvation, and you bring more glory to His name than were a thousand worlds like this to start into being at your fiat. "Those who be wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament; and those who turn many to righteousness as the stars forever and ever."

In what a solemn and responsible position is every believer placed! "You are my witnesses, says the Lord." "I have created him for my glory." "You are my servant, O Israel, in whom I will be glorified." Then how "very jealous for the Lord of hosts" should we be! How vigilant, lest in any degree, or in any way, we withhold from Christ the glory due unto Him! There are many ways by which we may be betrayed into this grievous sin—a careless walk—unmortified sin—self-indulgence—a light and volatile spirit—a neglect of means—a distant walk with God—coldness of love towards the saints; but especially mixing up with, and indulging in, a sinful conformity to the world—its fashions, its pleasures, its literature, its religion! Christian reader, put the question fairly, honestly, and closely to your conscience—"Do I bring glory to Christ? Is my Redeemer magnified in me before the world and the church?" Oh, aim for a high standard! Do not be an ordinary Christian. "Herein is my Father glorified, that you bear much fruit; so shall you be my disciples." Thank God for the little, but, oh, aim for the "much fruit"—strong faith, ardent love, self-consuming zeal, unreserved obedience, holy, entire, and supreme surrender. Come, drawn by grace, constrained by love, attracted by the glory and the preciousness of Jesus—come now to that one "altar which sanctifies both the giver and the gift;" and as you lay yourself upon it, body, soul, and spirit, exclaim with the apostle, "Christ shall be magnified in my body, whether it be by life or by death." The solemn vow is taken! The holy surrender is made! It is seen, it is heard, it is ratified in heaven! May you be so strengthened from above, "that the name of our Lord Jesus Christ may be glorified in you, and you in Him, according to the grace of God and the Lord Jesus Christ."

OCTOBER 4.

"But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the first fruits of them that slept." 1 Corinthians 15:20

The resurrection of Christ is the pledge and earnest of the glorious resurrection of the believer. This great event—the crowning bliss of the church—has long been as a star of hope, on which the eye of faith has loved to gaze. Who does not recognize the doctrine of the resurrection, and trace the yearning of his soul for this glorious event, in the expressive and touching words of Job?—"There is hope of a tree, if it be cut down, that it will sprout again, and that the tender branch thereof will not cease. Though the root thereof wax old in the earth, and the stock thereof die in the ground; yet through the scent of water it will bud, and bring forth boughs like a plant." How strikingly and beautifully significant is this figure of the resurrection! His faith grafted upon the doctrine, see how his heart longed for the arrival of the event—"Oh that You would hide me in the grave, that You would keep me secret, until Your wrath be past; that You would appoint me a set time, and remember me! If a man die, shall he live again? All the days of my appointed time" (not the appointed time of his death, as some interpret it, but of his resurrection, for this is the event he is now anticipating), "will I wait until my change come. You shall call"—oh! how sweetly will fall the sound of the archangel's trumpet upon the ear of those who sleep in Jesus!—"You shall call, and I will answer: You will have a desire to the work of Your hands." But, if possible, in terms yet more distinct and glowing, the holy patriarch announces his faith in this doctrine, and expresses his ardent longing for this event—"I know that my Redeemer lives, and that He shall stand at the latter day upon the earth: and though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God; whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold, and not another; though my reins be consumed within me."

The hope to which the resurrection of the Lord has begotten the believer is termed by the apostle a "lively," or, as it may be rendered, a "living hope." Its life springs from the resurrection-life of Christ, just as the same glorious event imparts quickening to the whole Christian economy. "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which, according to His abundant mercy, has begotten us again unto a lively hope, by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead." Thus the believer, and he alone, can adopt the language of his Lord, as he resigns his body to the dust—and oh! Let it be the epitaph of all who sleep in Jesus—"MY FLESH ALSO SHALL REST IN HOPE." A living hope, based upon the resurrection of Jesus, smooths his suffering pathway to the tomb; hope dissipates its gloom, and kindles within its somber recesses an immortal radiance; and hope—the beacon of the sepulcher—throws its bright beams across the dark waters of eternity, revealing in all its glory an "inheritance incorruptible and undefiled, and that fades not away." Observe how closely the two events—the resurrection of Jesus, and that of the believer—are interwoven one with the other. "Now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the first-fruits of those who slept." "Every man in his own order: Christ the first-fruits; afterwards they that are Christ's at His coming." What was the meaning of the first sheaf, which, under the law, was commanded to be presented before the Lord in His temple? Was it not to be considered as an earnest, a pledge, and a pattern of the future harvest, ripening for the sickle? So was the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. In like manner He burst from the grave, the "first-fruits," the earnest, the pledge, and the pattern of a future and a glorious harvest. As surely as He rose, so surely shall all His people rise. As certainly as the first golden sheaf has been presented in the temple, and waved before the throne of God, as certainly shall the "blade, the ear, and the full corn in the ear" be sickled in and gathered home, "and not the least grain fall upon the earth." "For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with Him."

OCTOBER 5.

"Yet made we not our prayer before the Lord our God, that we might turn from our iniquities, and understand your truth. Therefore has the Lord watched upon the evil, and brought it upon us: for the Lord our God is righteous in all his works which he does." Daniel 9:13, 14

All backsliding has its commencement in the neglect of prayer: it may date its beginning at the throne of grace. The restraining of prayer before God was the first step in departure; and the first step taken, and not immediately retraced, was quickly succeeded by others. Reader, do you tremble at the possibility of ever becoming a backslider? do you dread the thought of wounding Jesus, then restrain not prayer before God; vigilantly guard against the first symptom of declension in this holy exercise, or if that symptom has already appeared, haste you to the dear Physician, who alone has power to arrest its progress, and heal your soul.

A distant walk from God will super-induce distant thoughts of God, and this is no light consequence of the soul's declension in the spirit and habit of prayer. If the simple axiom be true, that the more intimate we become with any object, the better we are prepared to judge of its nature and properties, we may apply it with peculiar appropriateness to our acquaintance with God. The encouraging invitation of His word is, "Acquaint now yourself with God, and be at peace." Now, it is this acquaintance with God that brings us into the knowledge of His character as a holy, loving, and faithful God; and it is this knowledge of His character that begets love and confidence in the soul towards Him. The more we know of God, the more we love Him: the more we try Him, the more we confide in Him. Let the spiritual reader, then, conceive what dire effects must result from a distant walk with God. When He appears in His corrective dealings, how will those dealings be interpreted in the distant walk of the soul? As of a covenant God? as of a loving Father? No, far from it. They will receive a harsh and unkind interpretation, and this will neutralize their effect: for in order to reap the proper fruit of the Lord's dealings with the soul, it is necessary that they should be viewed in the light of His faithfulness and love. The moment they are otherwise interpreted, the soul starts off from God, and wraps itself up in gloomy and repulsive views of His character, and government, and dealings. But this will assuredly follow from a distant walk. Oh guard against a declension in prayer; let there be no distance between God and your soul!

Do not forget that the season of trial and of bereavement is often the sanctified occasion of a revival of prayer in the soul. The Lord has marked your wanderings, He has had His eye upon the declension of your soul. That voice, always so pleasant to His ear, has ceased to call upon Him; and now He would recover you; He would hear that voice again, and how will He effect it? He causes you to "pass under the rod," sends some sore trial, lays on you some weighty cross, brings trouble and sorrow into your soul, and then you cry unto Him, and do besiege the mercy-seat. Oh how eagerly is God sought, how attractive and how precious does the throne of grace become, when the soul is thus led into deep waters of trial! No longer silent, no longer dumb, the believer calls upon God, pleads with "strong crying and tears," wrestles and agonizes, and thus the slumbering spirit of prayer is stirred up and revived in the soul. Oh sweet affliction, oh precious discipline, that brings back the wandering soul to a closer and a holier walk with God!

Again we exhort the believer—guard against the least declension in prayer; let the first unfavorable symptom that appears alarm you, go to the Lord in your worst frames; stay not from Him until you get a good one. Satan's grand argument to keep a soul from prayer is—"Go not with that cold and insensible frame; go not with that hard and sinful heart; stay until you are more fit to approach God!" and listening to this specious reasoning, many poor, distressed, burdened, longing souls have been kept from the throne of grace, and consequently from all comfort and consolation. But the gospel says—"Go in your very worst frames;" Christ says—"Come just as you are;" and every promise and every example but encourages the soul to repair to the cross, whatever be its frame or condition.

OCTOBER 6.

"Many are the afflictions of the righteous: but the Lord delivers him out of them all." Psalm 34:19

How many and diversified are the peculiar trying circumstances of God's dear family! Each heart has its own sorrow—each soul bears its own cross; but Jesus is enough for all—He has sympathy for each and all His suffering people. Are you suffering from pining sickness? are your days wearisome, and your nights sleepless, from the inroads of disease? Then there is sympathy in Christ for you: for it is written, "Himself took our infirmities, and bore our sicknesses." He remembers that you are but dust—and we doubt not, His blessed body knew what languid days and sleepless nights were. Oh, then, think of Jesus. That disease that wastes—that pain that racks—that debility that unnerves you, Jesus knows full and sympathetically. True, He is now beyond all physical feelings, yet His tender heart sympathizes still.

Are you suffering from temporal poverty? Are sources on which you depended broken up? Friends on whom you have leaned removed? Does want stare you in the face? And are you at a loss to know from where the next supply may come? Even here, my brother, even here, my sister, can Jesus sympathize with you. He, like you, and like the greater part of His people, was poor in this world's goods. No home sheltered, no daily-spread table provided for Him; He was a poor, homeless, houseless, friendless wanderer. The foxes had holes, and the birds had nests, but Jesus had not where to lay His blessed head—that head that ached and bled for you. Take your poverty to Him—take your needs to Him. Let the principle of faith now be exercised. Has He died for your soul—has He pardoned your sins—has He given you Himself, then will He not with Himself freely give you all things necessary for your temporal comfort, while yet a pilgrim upon earth? Take your poverty and your want simply and directly to Jesus; He has an ear to hear your cry, a heart to sympathize with your case, and a hand to supply all your need. Then again we say, take your needs simply and directly to Christ.

Has death entered your domestic circle, plucking from it some precious and valued member? Has He put lover and friend far from you, leaving the heart to weep in silence and sadness over the wreck of hopes that were so bright, and over the rupture of ties that were so tender? Oh, there is sympathy in Christ for this! Jesus knew what it was to weep over the grave of buried love—of friendship interred; He knew what it was to have affection's ties broken, leaving the heart wounded and bleeding. He can enter into your sorrow, bereaved reader; yes, even into yours. See Him at the tomb of Lazarus—see Him weep—"behold how He loved him." What! do you repair to the grave of the dear departed one to weep, and Jesus not sympathize with you? Let not unbelief close up this last remaining source of consolation—the tender sympathy of Christ. He can enter into those tears of yours: the heart's desolateness, loneliness, and disappointment are not unknown and unnoticed by our blessed Immanuel. And why has the Lord dealt thus with you? why has He torn the idol from its temple? why has He emptied the heart, and left it thus lonely and desolate? Oh why, but to prepare that temple for Himself; why, but to pour into its emptiness the full tide of His own precious love and sympathy. For this, beloved, has He been, and, it may be, is now dealing with you. That heart belongs to Him—He bought it at a costly price; it belongs to Him—He vanquished it by the omnipotence of His Spirit; it belongs to Him—He sealed it with His precious blood. And He would have you know this, too, by deep and sweet experience. He would have you know how He has loved you, and loves you still; He would have you know that you are His—His by eternal election—His by gift—by purchase—by conquest—by a covenant that all your departures, all your unfaithfulness, all your unworthiness, all the changing scenes through which you pass, shall never and can never alter. All this it is His will you should experience. Then bow with submission to the discipline; as a weaned child, sit you at His feet, adopting His own blessed words, "Not my will, but Your be done."

OCTOBER 7.

"But God commends his love towards us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." Romans 5:8

From what other and higher source could the atonement have proceeded, if not from the very heart of God? And from His heart it did proceed. And not more freely does the sun pour forth its streams of light, and not more freely does the air fan with its refreshing influence, and not more freely does the ocean-billow heave, than the atonement flows from the heart of God! "God is love;" and the seat of that love is His heart. Towards a sinner standing in the righteousness of His Son, that heart is love, and nothing but love. Not an unkind thought lodging there; not a repulsive feeling dwelling there; all is love, and love of the most tender character. Yes, we dare affirm, that towards His chosen people there never has been, and there never will be, one thought of unkindness, of anger, of rebuke in the heart of God: from eternity it has been love, through time it is love, and on through eternity to come it will be love. What! are not their afflictions, their chastisements, the rough and thorny path they tread, proofs of God's displeasure? What! is that individual loved of God, whom I see yonder bearing that heavy and daily cross; against whom billow after billow dashes, to whom messenger after messenger is sent; whose gourds are withered in a night, and whose fountains are all broken in a day; who is poor, feeble, and dependent; what! is that individual beloved of God? Go and ask that afflicted saint; go and ask that cross-bearing disciple; go and ask that son and daughter of disease and penury; and they will tell you, their Father's dealings with them are the most costly proofs of His love: that instead of unkindness in that cross, there was love; instead of harshness in that rebuke, there was tenderness; and that when He withered that gourd, and broke up that cistern, and removed that earthly prop, it was but to pour the tide of His own love in the heart, and satiate the soul with His goodness. Oh, dear cross! oh, sweet affliction! thus to open the heart of God; thus to bring God near to the soul, and the soul near to God.

Let it not be forgotten that the atonement had its origin in the heart of God; it follows, then, that it must be free. Does the sun need bribing in order to shine? does the wind need persuasion in order to blow? does the ocean-wave need argument in order to roll? is the sun-light purchased? is the air purchased? is the water that flows from the fountain purchased? Not less free is the love of God, gushing from His heart, and flowing down through the channel of the cross of Christ, to a poor repenting, believing sinner, without works, without merit, without money, without price, without a previous fitness. Convictions do not merit it; repentances do not merit it; tears do not merit it; faith does not merit it. Pardon to the chief of sinners—forgiveness to the vilest of the vile—the blotting out of sins of the deepest dye—the justification and acceptance of the most unworthy—all, free as the heart of God can make it. The hungry and the thirsty, the poor and the penniless, the weary and the heavy-laden, may come to the gospel provision, for the heart of God bids them welcome.

The objects contemplated in the special and gracious design of the atonement establish its perfect freeness beyond all question. Who are they? Are they spoken of as the worthy, the righteous, the deserving, the rich, the noble? The very reverse. They are sinners, ungodly, unworthy. "When we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly." And see how our blessed Lord confirms this statement: "I am not come to call the righteous (that is, the self-righteous—those who were righteous in their own estimation, and despised others), but sinners to repentance." And who did He save when upon earth? Were they the worthy or the most unworthy? were they the righteous or sinners? Take the case of Saul of Tarsus. His own description of his previous character will certainly be believed: "which was before a blasphemer, and a persecutor, and injurious." And yet he "obtained mercy:" and why? "That in me Jesus Christ might show forth all long-suffering, for a pattern to them who should hereafter believe on Him to life everlasting." If Saul of Tarsus, then, obtained mercy—obtained it as a sinner of the deepest dye—obtained it fully, freely, aside from all human merit—penitent reader, so may you.

OCTOBER 8.

"But to him that works not, but believes on him that justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness." Romans 4:5

Faith has to do with the understanding and the heart. A man must know his lost and ruined condition before he will accept of Christ; and how can he know this, without a spiritually enlightened mind? What a surprising change now passes over the man! He is brought, by the mighty power of the Holy Spirit, to a knowledge of himself. One beam of light, one touch of the Spirit, has altered all his views of himself, has placed him in a new aspect; all big thoughts, his affections, his desires, are diverted into another and an opposite channel; his fond views of his own righteousness have fled like a dream, his high thoughts are humbled, his lofty looks are brought low, and, as a broken-hearted sinner, he takes his place in the dust before God. Oh wondrous, oh blessed change! to see the Pharisee take the place, and to hear him utter the cry, of the Publican—"God be merciful to me a sinner!"—to hear him exclaim, "I am lost, self-ruined, deserving eternal wrath; and of sinners the vilest and the chief." And now the work and exercise of faith commences; the same blessed Spirit that convinced of sin presents to the soul a Savior crucified for the lost—unfolds a salvation full and free for the most worthless—reveals a fountain that "cleanses from all sin," and holds up to view a righteousness that "justifies from all things." And all that He sets the poor convinced sinner upon doing to avail himself of this, is simply to believe. To the momentous question, "What shall I do to be saved?" this is the only reply—"Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and you shall be saved." The anxious soul eagerly exclaims—"Have I then nothing to do but to believe?—have I no great work to accomplish, no price to bring, no worthiness to plead?—may I come just as I am, without merit, without self-preparation, without money, with all my vileness and nothingness?" Still the reply is, "Only believe." "Then, Lord, I do believe," exclaims the soul in a transport of joy; "help my unbelief." This, reader, is faith—faith, that wondrous grace, that mighty act of which you have heard so much, upon which so many volumes have been written, and so many sermons have been preached; it is the simple rolling of a wounded, bleeding heart upon a wounded, bleeding Savior; it is the simple reception of the amazing truth, that Jesus died for the ungodly—died for sinners—died for the poor, the vile, the bankrupt; that He invites and welcomes to His bosom all poor, convinced, heavy-laden sinners. The heart, believing this wondrous announcement, going out of all other dependencies and resting only in this—receiving it, welcoming it, rejoicing in it, in a moment, all, all is peace. Do not forget, reader, that faith is but to believe with all the heart that Jesus died for sinners; and the full belief of this one fact will bring peace to the most anxious and sin-troubled soul.

OCTOBER 9.

"That you may know how you ought to behave yourself in the house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth." 1 Timothy 3:15

God has been graciously pleased to appoint His church the great conservator of His truth, and His truth the especial medium of sanctification to His church; there is a close and beautiful relation between the two. The church may be compared to the golden lamp which contains the sacred oil, which, in its turn, feeds the flame of its light and holiness. The church is to guard with a jealous and vigilant eye the purity of the truth, while the truth is to beautify and sanctify the ark which preserves it. Thus there is a close relation, and a reciprocal influence, between the church of Christ and the truth of God.

Every individual believer in Jesus is himself a subject, and therefore a witness, of the truth; he has been quickened, called, renewed, and partially sanctified through the instrumentality of God's revealed truth: "Of His own will begat He us with the word of truth." "For the truth's sake which dwells in us." "You are my witnesses, says the Lord." Here is unfolded one of the most solemn and affecting truths touching the character and individual responsibility of a child of God. He is a subject of truth, he is a repository of the truth, and he is a witness for the truth; yes, he is the only living witness to the truth which God has on earth. The world he lives in is a dark, polluted, God-blaspheming, Christ-denying, truth-despising world. The saints who have been called out of it according to His eternal purpose and love, and by His sovereign, distinguishing, and free grace, are the only lights and the only salt in the midst of this moral darkness and corruption. Here and there a light glimmers, irradiating the gloomy sphere in which it moves; here and there a spot of verdure appears, relieving the arid and barren desolation by which it is surrounded. These are the saints of the Most High, the witnesses of the Divine character, the omnipotent power, and the holy tendency, of God's blessed truth. Let the saints of God, then, solemnly weigh this affecting fact, that though the written word and the accompanying Spirit are God's witnesses in the world, yet they are the only living exemplification of the power of the truth, and, as such, are earnestly exhorted to be "blameless and harmless, the sons of God without rebuke, in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation, among whom you shine as lights in the world." Let them be careful to maintain good works, and so walk in all the holiness of the truth they profess; let them see that by no carelessness of deportment, by no want of integrity, by no worldly conformity, yes, by no inconsistency whatever, they bring a slur upon the holy doctrines they avowedly maintain and love; but let them show that, with the truth in their judgments, they possess grace in the heart, and unspotted holiness in the life.

OCTOBER 10.

"Our backslidings are many; we have sinned against you." Jeremiah 14:7

All spiritual declension in the true believer necessarily implies the actual possession of grace. We must not lose sight of this truth. Never, in the lowest condition of the believer, does Christ deny His own work in the soul. "You have a little strength," are His heart-melting words to the backsliding church in Sardis. Oh, what a gracious, patience Savior is ours! But let us briefly trace this melancholy state to some of its causes, that we may be better able to point out its appropriate remedy.

The first cause undoubtedly is, the unguarded state of the soul. A Christian living in the daily neglect of self-examination must not marvel if, at a certain period of his religious course, he finds himself trembling upon the brink of gloomy despondency, his evidences gone, his hope obscured, and all the past of his Christian profession appearing to his view as a fearful delusion. But here let me suggest the cure. Examine before God the real state of your soul. Ascertain where you have lost ground. Retrace your way. Look honestly and fairly at your condition. Discouraging and repelling as it may appear, look it fully in the face, and lay it open before God exactly as it is, in the spirit and language of the Psalmist: "Search me, O God, and know my heart; try me, and know my thoughts; and see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting."

The grieving of the Spirit of God is a most fruitful cause of spiritual relapse. We have yet much to learn of our entire dependence upon the Holy Spirit, and of our eternal obligation to Him for all the blessings of which He is the author and the conveyancer. What themes for grateful contemplation to the spiritual mind are the love of the Spirit—the faithfulness of the Spirit—the tenderness of the Spirit—the patience of the Spirit! And yet in the long catalogue of the believer's backslidings, not the least is his grieving this Holy Spirit of God. But there is a remedy. Seek that Spirit whom you have driven from your presence; implore His return: beseech Him for Jesus' sake to revisit you, to breathe His reviving influence as of old upon your soul. Then will return the happy days of former years, the sweet seasons of your early history, and you shall "sing as in the days of your youth, and as in the day when you came up out of the land of Egypt."

"Return, O holy Dove, return,
Sweet messenger of rest;
I hate the sins that made You mourn,
And drove You from my breast."

Distance from the cross contributes greatly to a state of spiritual declension. Retiring from beneath its shelter and its shade, you have left the region of safety, light, and peace, and, wandering over the mountains of sin, worldliness, and unbelief, have lost yourself amid their darkness, solitude, and gloom. Turning away from the cross of Jesus, you have lost the view you once had of a sin-pardoning, reconciled Father; and judging of Him now by His providences and not by His promises, and contemplating Him through the gloomy medium of a conscience unsprinkled with the blood of Christ, you are disposed to impeach the wisdom, the faithfulness, and the love of all His conduct towards you. But listen to the remedy. Yield yourself afresh to the attractions of the cross. Return, return to it again. No burning cherubim nor flaming sword guards its avenue. The atoning blood there shed has opened the way of the sinner's approach, and the interceding High Priest in heaven keeps it open for every repentant prodigal. Return to the true cross. Come and sit down beneath its grateful shade. Poor, weary wanderer! there is life and power, peace and repose, for you still in the cross of Christ. Mercy speaks from it, God smiles in it, Jesus stands by it, and the Holy Spirit, hovering above it, is prepared to reveal it to you afresh, in all its healing, restoring power.

OCTOBER 11.

"He was led as a sheep to the slaughter; and like a lamb dumb before his shearer, so opened he not his mouth: in his humiliation his judgment was taken away: and who shall declare his generation? for his life is taken from the earth." Acts 8:32, 33

In the person of the Son of God, the two extremes of being—the infinite and the finite—meet in strange and mysterious, but close and eternal union. The Divine came down to the human—Deity humbled itself to humanity. This was humiliation indeed! It was not the creature descending in the scale of creation, but it was the Creator stooping to the creature. "God was manifest in the flesh." "He humbled Himself." Oh, it is an amazing truth! So infinitely great was He, He could thus stoop without compromising His dignity, or lessening His glory.

But, if possible, a step lower did He seem to descend. Thus in prophetic language did he announce it: "I am a worm and no man." What astounding words are these! Here was the God-man sinking, as it were, in the depths of abasement and humiliation below the human. "I am a worm, and no man!" In the lowliness which marked His external appearance, in the estimation in which He was held by men, in the contemptuous treatment which He received from His enemies, the trampling of His glory in the dust, and the crushing of His person on the cross, would seem in His own view to have robbed Him, not only of His glory as God, but even to have divested Him of His dignity as man! "I am a worm, and no man!" Oh, here is glory—glory surpassing all imagination, all thought, all power of utterance! He who bent His footsteps along this flinty path, He who sunk thus low, was Jehovah, the "mighty God, the everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace." Wonder, O heavens, and be astonished, O earth! Lowliness and majesty, humiliation and glory, how strangely were they blended in You, O incarnate God!

The assumption of our nature, in its depressed and bruised condition, constituted no small feature in the abasement of the Son of God. That, in the strong language of the Holy Spirit, He was "holy, harmless, undefiled, and separate from sinners," is a truth we cannot too distinctly affirm, or too earnestly maintain. The least misgiving touching the perfect sinlessness of the human nature of our Lord tends to weaken the confidence of faith in the atonement, and so to enshroud in darkness the hope of the soul. As a single leak must have sunk the ark beneath the waves, so the existence of the slightest taint of sin in Jesus would have opened an inlet through which the dark billows of Divine wrath would have rolled, plunging both Himself and the church He sustained in eternal woe. But that "holy thing" that was begotten of the Holy Spirit knew not the least moral taint. He "knew no sin," He was the sacrificial "Lamb without spot." And because He presented to the Divine requirement a holy, unblemished, and perfect obedience and satisfaction, we who believe are "made the righteousness of God in Him."

But His taking up into subsistence with His own our nature in its fallen condition, comprehends the sinless infirmities and weaknesses with which it was identified and encompassed. When I see my Lord and Master bowed with grief and enduring privation, when I behold Him making the needs and sorrows and sufferings of others His own, what do I learn but that He was truly a "man of sorrows and acquainted with grief"? Is there any spectacle more affecting, than thus to behold the Incarnate God entering personally and sympathetically into all the humiliations of my poor, bruised, vile nature, and yet remaining untouched, untainted by its sin?—taking my weaknesses, bearing my sicknesses, sorrowing when I sorrow, weeping when I weep, touched with the feeling of my infirmities, in all points tempted like as I am.

OCTOBER 12.

"Then Jesus spoke again unto them, saying, I am the light of the world: he that follows me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life." John 8:12

Are you, my reader, a searcher of this life? Are you breathing for it, panting after it, seeking it? Then be it known to you, that He who inspired that desire is Himself the life for which you seek. That heaving of your heart, that yearning of your spirit, that "feeling after God, if haply you may find Him," is the first gentle pulsation of a life that shall never die. Feeble and fluctuating, faint and fluttering, as its throbbings may be, it is yet the life of God, the life of Christ, the life of glory in your soul. It is the seedling, the germ of immortal flower; it is the sunshine dawn of an eternal day. The announcement with which we meet your case—and it is the only one that can meet it—is, "THIS MAN RECEIVES SINNERS." Oh joyful tidings! Oh blessed words! Yes, he receives sinners—the vilest—the meanest—the most despised! It was for this He relinquished the abodes of heavenly purity and bliss, to mingle amid the sinful and humiliating scenes of earth. For this He quitted His Father's bosom for a cross. For this He lived and labored, suffered and died. "He receives sinners!" He receives them of every name and condition—of every stature and character and climate. There is no limit to His ability to pardon, as there is none to the sufficiency of His atonement, or to the melting pity of His heart. Flee, then, to Jesus the crucified. To Him repair with your sins, as scarlet and as crimson, and His blood will wash you whiter than snow. What though they may be as clouds for darkness, or as the sand on the sea-shore for multitude; His grace can take them all away. Come with the accusations and tortures of a guilty conscience, come with the sorrow and relentings of a broken heart, come with the grief of the backslider, and with the confession of the prodigal; Jesus still meets you with the hope-inspiring words—"Him that comes unto me, I will in no wise cast out." Then, "return unto the Lord, and He will have mercy upon you; and to our God, for He will abundantly pardon!"

OCTOBER 13.
"Who are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation." 1 Peter 1:5

This salvation takes in all the circumstances of a child of God. It is not only a salvation from wrath to come—that were an immeasurable act of grace—but it is a present salvation, anticipating and providing for every exigency of the life that now is, including deliverance from all evil, help in all trouble; comfort in all sorrow, the supply of all want, and through all conflicts, assaults, and difficulties, perfect safety and final triumph. The present and certain security of the believer is provided for in the covenant of grace, made sure in Jesus the covenant Head, and revealed in the glorious covenant plan of salvation. May the Holy Spirit unfold to us this great and consoling truth, that in the midst of all their weakness, waywardness, and tendency to wander, the Lord is the keeper of His people, and that they whom He keeps are well and eternally kept.

The Lord could not in truth be said to be the keeper of His people, if there were anything of self-power in the believer, any ability to keep himself—if he were not weakness, all weakness, and nothing but weakness. Of this the believer needs to be perpetually put in remembrance. The principle of self-confidence is the natural product of the human heart; the great characteristic of our apostate race is a desire to live, and think, and act independently of God. What is the great citadel, to the overthrow of which Divine grace first directs its power? what is the first step it takes in the subjection of the sinner to God? what, but the breaking down of this lofty, towering, independent conceit of himself, so natural to man, and so abhorrent to God? Now, let it be remembered, that Divine and sovereign grace undertakes not the extraction of the root of this depraved principle from the heart of its subjects. The root remains to the very close of life's pilgrimage; though in a measure weakened, subdued, mortified, still it remains; demanding the most rigid watchfulness, connected with ceaseless prayer, lest it should spring upward, to the destruction of his soul's prosperity, the grieving of the Spirit, and the dishonoring of God. Oh how much the tender, faithful discipline of a covenant God may have the subjection and mortification of this hateful principle for its blessed end, who can tell? We shall never fully know until we reach our Father's house, where the dark and, to us, mysterious dealings of that loving Father with us here below shall unfold themselves in light and glory, elevating the soul in love and praise!

What an affecting confirmation do the histories of some of the most eminent of God's saints afford to this most important truth, that the creature, left to itself, is perfect weakness! If the angels in their purity, if Adam in his state of innocence, fell in consequence of being left, in the sovereign will of God, to their own keeping, what may we expect from a fallen, sinful, imperfect creature, even though renewed? Do we look into God's blessed word, and read what is there declared, touching the power of a renewed creature to keep itself? How affecting, and at the same time conclusive, these declarations are: "Having no might;" "Without strength;" "Weak through the flesh;" "Out of weakness were made strong"! Could language more forcibly set forth the utter weakness of a child of God? An what are their own acknowledgments? "The Lord is the strength of my life;" "Hold You me up, and I shall be safe;" "Hold up my goings in Your paths, that my footsteps slip not;" "Yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me;" "By the grace of God I am what I am." And what are the examples? Look at the intemperance of Noah, the unbelief of Abraham, the adultery and murder of David, the idolatry of Solomon, the self-righteousness of Job, the impatience of Moses, the self-confidence and trimming, temporizing policy of Peter. Solemn are these lessons of the creature's nothingness; affecting these examples of his perfect weakness!

But why speak of others? Let the reader, if he is a professing child of God, pause and survey the past of his own life. What marks of perfect weakness may he discover, what evidences of his own fickleness, folly, immature judgment, may he trace, what outbreakings of deep iniquity, what disclosures of hidden corruption, what startling symptoms of the most awful departure and apostasy from God, does the review present! And, this, too, let it be remembered, is the history of a believer in Jesus, a renewed child of God, a partaker of the Divine nature, an expectant of eternal glory! Holy and blessed are they who, relinquishing all their fond conceit of self-power and self-keeping, shall pray, and cease not to pray, "Lord, hold You me up, and I shall be safe!" "Let him that thinks he stands, take heed lest he fall."

OCTOBER 14.

"Being filled with the fruits of righteousness, which are by Jesus Christ, unto the glory and praise of God." Philippians 1:11

There is a perpetual proneness to seek our fruitfulness from anything save a close, spiritual, and constant dealing with the cross of Jesus: but as well might we expect the earth to clothe itself with verdure, or the tree to blossom, and the blossom ripen into fruit, without the sun's genial warmth, as to look for fruitfulness in a regenerate soul, without a constant dealing with the Lord Jesus Christ; for just what the sun is to the kingdom of nature, Jesus the Sun of righteousness is to the kingdom of grace—the blessed source of all its verdure, fragrance, and fruitfulness. Then, let all your expectations be centered here. No real good can come to you, no healing to your spirit, no fruitfulness to your soul, from a perpetual living upon convictions of sin, legal fears, or transient joys; the Divine life can derive no nourishment from these. But live upon the atoning blood of Jesus—here is the fatness of your soul found; this it is that heals the wound, wins the heart, and hushes to repose every fear of condemnation; this it is that enables a poor sinner to look full at God, feeling that justice, holiness, truth, and every Divine perfection are on his side. It is the blood of Jesus, applied by the Spirit, that moistens each fibre of the root of holiness in the soul, and is productive of its fruitfulness; this it is that sends the warm current of life through every part of the regenerate man, quickening the pulse of love, and imparting a healthy and vigorous power to every act of obedience. And when the spiritual seasons change—for it is not always spring-time with the soul of a child of God—when the summer's sun withers, or the autumnal blast scatters the leaves, and winter's fiercer storm beats upon the smitten bough, the blood and righteousness of Christ, lived upon, loved, and cherished, will yet sustain the Divine life in the soul, and in due season the spring blossom and the summer fruit shall again appear, proving that the Divine life of a believer is "hid with Christ in God." Then shall be said of you, as was said of the church by her Beloved: "The winter is past, and the rain is over and gone; the flowers appear on the earth, the time of the singing of birds is come, and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land. The fig-tree puts forth her green figs, and the vines with the tender grape give a good smell. Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away." Then let your heart respond, "Awake, O north wind, and come, you south, blow upon my garden, that the spices thereof may flow out."

Let the believer be aware how he despises what little fruitfulness the Lord the Spirit may have given him: there is danger of this. But, dear reader, it is a mercy for you to know that the Lord does not regard your estimate of a fruitful state; else, were the Lord to judge and condemn us as we do ourselves; were He to despise His own work as we too frequently do, it would indeed go hard with us. But He does not: that which we have often thought unworthy of His notice, He has looked down upon with the greatest complacency and delight. See, then, that you despise not what the Lord has wrought for you. Any desire of the heart for Christ, any secret brokenness, any godly sorrow over indwelling sin, any feeble going out of self and leaning on Jesus, is the gracious work of the Holy Spirit in the soul, and must not be undervalued or unacknowledged. A truly humbled view of self is one of the most precious fruits of the Spirit; it indicates more real fruitfulness, perhaps, than any other state of mind. That ear of corn which is the most full of grain hangs the lowest; that bough which is the most heavily laden with fruit bends the nearest to the ground. It is no unequivocal mark of great spiritual fruitfulness in a believer, when tenderness of conscience, contrition of spirit, low thoughts of self, and high thoughts of Jesus, mark the state of his soul. "Who has despised the day of small things?"—not Jesus.

OCTOBER 15.

"He looks upon men, and if any say, I have sinned, and perverted that which was right, and it profited me not; he will deliver his soul from going into the pit, and his life shall see the light." Job 33:27, 28

Let the child of God be encouraged to take all his sins to his heavenly Father. Have you sinned? Have you taken a single step in departure from God? Is there the slightest consciousness of guilt? Go at once to the throne of grace; stay not until you find some secret place for confession—stay not until you are alone; lift up your heart at once to God, and confess your sin with the hand of faith upon the great, atoning Sacrifice. Open all your heart to Him. Do not be afraid of a full and honest confession. Shrink not from unfolding its most secret recesses—lay all bare before His eyes. Do you think He will turn from the exposure? Do you think He will close His ear against your breathings? Oh no! Listen to His own encouraging, persuasive declarations—"Go and proclaim these words towards the north, and say, Return, you backsliding Israel, says the Lord; and I will not cause mine anger to fall upon you: for I am merciful, says the Lord; and I will not keep anger forever. Only acknowledge your iniquity that you have transgressed against the Lord your God." "I will heal their backsliding; I will love them freely; for mine anger is turned away from him." Oh, what words are these! Does the eye of the poor backslider fall on this page? And as he now reads of God's readiness to pardon—of God's willingness to receive back the repenting prodigal—of His yearning after His wandering child—feels his heart melted, his soul subdued, and, struck with that amazing declaration, "Only acknowledge your iniquity," would dare creep down at His feet, and weep, and mourn, and confess. Oh! is there one such now reading this page? then return, my brother, return! God—the God against whom you have sinned—says, "Return." Your Father—the Father from whom you have wandered—is looking out for the first return of your soul, for the first kindlings of godly sorrow, for the first confession of sin. God has not turned His back upon you, though you have turned your back upon Him. God has not forgotten to be gracious, though you have forgotten to be faithful. "I remember you"—is His own touching language—"the kindness of your youth, the love of your espousals." Oh! then, come back; this moment, come back; the fountain is still open—Jesus is still the same—the blessed and eternal Spirit, loving and faithful as ever—God ready for pardon: take up, then, the language of the prodigal and say, "I will arise and go to my Father, and will say unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven and in Your sight, and am no more worthy to be called Your son." "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness."

The blessings that result from a strict observance of daily confession of sin are rich and varied. We would from the many specify two. The conscience retains its tender susceptibility of guilt. Just as a breath will tarnish a mirror highly polished, so will the slightest aberration of the heart from God—the smallest sin—leave its impression upon a conscience in the habit of a daily unburdening itself in confession, and of a daily washing in the fountain. Going thus to God, and acknowledging iniquity over the head of Immanuel—pleading the atoning blood—the conscience retains its tenderness, and sin, all sin, is viewed as that which God hates, and the soul abhors.

This habit, too, keeps, so to speak, a clear account between God and the believer. Sins daily and hourly committed are not forgotten; they fade not from the mind, and therefore they need not the correcting rod to recall them to remembrance. For let us not forget, God will eventually bring our sins to remembrance; "He will call to remembrance the iniquity." David had forgotten his sin against God, and his treacherous conduct to Uriah, until God sent the prophet Nathan to bring his iniquity to remembrance. A daily confession, then, of sin, a daily washing in the fountain, will preserve the believer from many and, perhaps, deep afflictions. This was David's testimony—"I acknowledged my sin unto You, and mine iniquity have I not hid. I said, I will confess my transgression unto the Lord, and You forgave the iniquity of my sin."

OCTOBER 16.

"By faith Abraham, when he was called to go out into a place which he should after receive for an inheritance, obeyed; and he went out, not knowing where he went." Hebrews 11:8

The entire spiritual life of a child of God is a life of faith—God has so ordained it; and to bring him into the full and blessed experience of it, is the end of all His parental dealings with him. If we desire to see our way every step of our homeward path, we must abandon the more difficult though more blessed ascent of faith; it is impossible to walk by sight and by faith at the same time—the two paths run in opposite directions. If the Lord were to reveal the why and the why of all His dealings—if we were only to advance as we saw the spot on which we were to place our foot, or only to go out as we knew the place where we were going—it then were no longer a life of faith that we lived, but of sight. We shall have exchanged the life which glorifies, for the life which dishonors God. When God, about to deliver the Israelites from the power of Pharaoh, commanded them to advance, it was before He revealed the way by which He was about to rescue them. The Red Sea rolled its deep and frowning waves at their feet; they saw not a spot of dry ground on which they could tread; and yet this was the command to Moses— "Speak unto the children of Israel that they go forward." They were to "walk by faith, not by sight." It had been no exercise of faith in God, no confidence in His promise, no resting in His faithfulness, and no "magnifying of His word above all His name," had they waited until the waters cleaved asunder, and a dry passage opened to their view. But, like the patriarchs, they "staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief; but were strong in faith, giving glory to God." Have little to do with sense, if you would have much to do with faith. Expect not always to see the way. God may call you to go out into a place, not making known to you where you go; but it is your duty, like Abraham, to obey. All that you have to do is to go forward, leaving all consequences and results to God: it is enough for you that the Lord by this providence says, "Go forward!" This is all you may hear; it is your duty instantly to respond, "Lord, I go at Your bidding; bid me come to You, though it be upon the stormy water."

"Having begun in the Spirit," the believer is not to be "made perfect in the flesh;" having commenced his divine life in faith, in faith he is to walk every step of his journey homewards. The moment a poor sinner has touched the hem of Christ's garment, feeble though this act of faith be, it is yet the commencement of this high and holy life of faith; even from that moment the believing soul professes to have done with a life of sense—with second causes—and to have entered upon a glorious life of faith in Christ. It is no forced application to him of the apostle's declaration: "I am crucified with Christ; nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God."

OCTOBER 17.

"These words spoke Jesus, and lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said, Father, the hour is come; glorify your Son, that your Son also may glorify you: as you have given him power over all flesh, that he should give eternal life to as many as you have given him." John 17:1, 2

The certain glorification with Jesus of every believer is a truth as much involving the honor of God, as it does the present comfort and future happiness of the church. The opposite sentiment—the possibility of a child of God falling short of eternal glory (a doctrine, let it be observed, at total variance with the entire Scriptures of truth), by unhinging the soul from God, and throwing it back completely upon itself, must necessarily lead to low and dishonoring views of the Divine character; while it begets in the mind a spirit of bondage, and a sense of the most painful apprehension, both equally inimical to a healthy and fruitful Christianity. But the most solemn, I may say awful, light in which the doctrine of the believer's final insecurity presents itself is, that it casts a thick veil over the glory of Immanuel. It touches every perfection of his being. Oh could the dear saints of God, thus tossed in the troubled sea of doubt, and thus agitated with a "fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation," but be brought to see how the Jesus whom they love is wounded, dishonored, and shorn of His glory by this unscriptural tenet, would they not unhesitatingly renounce it as leading to a result so fearful? Can that, I earnestly ask, be a doctrine of Divine revelation, which tends in the slightest degree to shade the glory of Christ? If one of those given to Him of His Father—one whose sins He carried, whose curse He bore, whose soul He has renewed by the grace of His Spirit—were permitted finally and eternally to perish, where would be His glory? where the glory of His truth? where the glory of His power? where the glory of His love? where the glory of His work? Gone! Every perfection of His Divine being would be impeached, and every beam of His Divine glory would be tarnished.

But all shall be brought safely to heaven. Hark, how distinctly and authoritatively He pleads for this, their crowning blessing, when on the eve of His mysterious passion, and about to spring from His cross to His throne. "Father, I will that they also whom You have given me be with me where I am; that they may behold my glory." Sublime prayer!—comprehensive and tender petition! How did the Head long to have with Him, where He was, each member of His body! Having had fellowship with Him in His humiliation, it was His desire that they should have fellowship with Him in His glory. And this He asks not as a gift, but claims as a right. In virtue of His covenant engagement with the Father, His full satisfaction to Divine justice, His perfect obedience to the Divine law, His finished redemption of His people, He reverently bows at the mercy-seat, and pours out His full soul, and unburdens His loving heart, in the most sublime petition that ever ascended from mortal lip: "Father, I will that they also whom You have given me be with me where I am." And mark the reason why—"that they may behold my glory." Consummation of glory!—overflowing cup of bliss!—height of perfect holiness! Was it the parting charge of Joseph to His brethren—"You shall tell my father of all my glory in Egypt, and of all that you have seen; and you shall haste and bring down my father here"? Our Joseph, with love infinitely more intense, desires that all His brethren be brought to heaven, that they may behold His glory there—the glory of His unveiled Deity—the glory of His glorified humanity—and the glory to which, as Mediator, His Father has advanced Him.

OCTOBER18.

"But not as the offence, so also is the free gift. For if through the offence of one many be dead, much more the grace of God, and the gift by grace, which is by one man, Jesus Christ, has abounded unto many." Romans 5:15

From the want of clear and spiritual views of the freeness of the atonement, the perfectly unconditional bestowment of the blessings of pardon and justification, many are kept, even among those "called to be saints," from entering fully into the liberty and peace of the gospel. They have been convinced of their need of Christ; they have been made to hunger and thirst for pardon and acceptance; they have been brought, it may be, through a deep "law-work of the soul," to stand as on the very borders of the land that flows with milk and honey; but looking more to themselves, and less to Christ—lingering on its margin, while the river flows so richly and so freely at their feet, waiting for some condition to be performed, some fitness to be experienced, or some price to bring—they are kept back from those rich and untold blessings which a closing in with Jesus the Savior of sinners would assuredly bring into their possession.

Where will be found more distinct and glorious views of the atonement—its nature, design, and freeness—than are found in the Old Testament writings? This is the testimony to the perfect freeness of the gift: "Ho! every one that thirsts, come you to the waters; and he that has no money, come you, buy and eat; yes, come, buy wine and milk, without money and without price." Behold the freeness of the rich and inestimable blessing! "Without money—without price." The simple meaning of which is—without worthiness, without fitness, without condition. So that the most unworthy, the most vile, the most penniless, may come and drink water freely out of the wells of salvation. This is the language of God by the mouth of His prophets. What a gospel then is here revealed! how full the supply! how free the gift! And if this was the language of God under the obscure exhibition of the gospel, what must be His free welcome to poor sinners under the full meridian glory of the gospel? Now that Christ has come, and the atonement has been made, and the fountain has been opened, and the invitation has gone out, can we suppose that the blessing of pardon will be less freely bestowed? Again—"The Spirit of the Lord is upon me; because the Lord has anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek: He has sent me to bind up the broken-hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound." Mark the expressions as descriptive of the characters to whom our blessed Lord came—"broken-hearted"—"captives"—"those who are bound." Where was the worthiness here? What price with which to purchase their redemption had these "broken-hearted," these "captives," these "bound"? See, then, how the glorious atonement received its stamp of freeness, even under the legal dispensation. Come we now to the clearer revelations of the new dispensation.

Take those remarkable words—"And when they had nothing to pay, he frankly forgave them both." Oh sweet expression! "Nothing to pay". Entirely bankrupt. Poor, wretched, penniless, bereft of all—nothing to pay, and yet frankly forgiven; that is, fully, freely, cordially forgiven—forgiven with all the heart of God. But one other passage is adduced— "And the Spirit and the bride say, Come. And let him that hears say, Come. And let him that is athirst come. And whoever will, let him take the water of life freely." See how the word of God closes with the proclamation of a free-grace salvation. The last words that linger in sweet vibration on the ear, as the blessed canon of Scripture closes, are, "the water of life freely"!

OCTOBER 19.
"But I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning those who are asleep, that you sorrow not, even as others which have no hope." 1 Thessalonians 4:13

It is a magnificent and expressive image this by which Christianity presents to the bereaved mind the departure of brethren in Christ. They are not dead, they are asleep. The question instantly arises—What is it which, in the experience of the believer, has so materially changed the aspect of death? What is it that invests this solemn, this fearful crisis of our being with so softened and mitigated a character? What is it that throws around the pillow of the expiring saint an air of repose so sacred, so peaceful, and serene? The ATONEMENT of the Son of God alone supplies the answer. The influence of His death, and the power of His resurrection, have changed, in the case of all believers in Christ, the entire character and aspect of death. The Savior, by dying, conquered death. Plucking his pale crown from his brow, hurling him from his towering throne, snapping in twain his proud scepter, and with His own blood washing away the venom of his dart. Lo! Death is no more the "king of terrors" to those who believe. Entering within his gloomy palace—there slumbering awhile—then returning victorious the "Resurrection and the Life"—henceforward to the Christian to depart is not to die, but—to sleep!

And what is that sleep? No unconsciousness of the soul is it! No intermediate state of dreamy insensibility—of cold, silent torpidity of spirit, waiting the voice of the archangel and the trumpet of God to dissolve its slumber. The believer sleeps; but it is the sleep of the body, and not of the soul. "Absent from the body," in the full, unclouded, unimpaired consciousness, intelligence, and joyousness of the spirit, he is "present with the Lord." Death to him is but a change of place; not of state. As the natural sleep of the body is not the extinction, nor even the momentary suspension, of the soul's intellectual faculties—for who has not experienced that some of the profoundest thoughts and most sublime soarings of the imagination have been those which have played around the pillow of midnight slumber, like gleams of summer lightning upon the lurid night?—so, in like manner, when death has sealed in profound unconsciousness the material senses, the immaterial and the immortal is expatiating amid the glories and the wonders of the spiritual world, as it springs from star to star and from sun to sun—and thus sleep becomes the gentle and expressive emblem of the Christian's death. They "sleep in Jesus," who is the "Resurrection and the Life;" how, then, can it be possible that the soul is unconscious, since it is in union—personal, changeless union—with Him who, in His office as Mediator, has said, "Because I live, you shall live also"?

The death-sleep of the believer is a season of complete bodily and mental repose. How precious is this prospect to the child of God! lighting up even the grim visage of the last foe with a smile of pleasantness. We naturally attach the idea of rest to sleep. What a rest remains even in the grave for the people of God! "There the wicked cease from troubling, and there the weary be at rest." Who so wearied as the believer in Jesus? With him the world is a toilsome desert—life a scene of conflict and of trial—the travel to heaven a pilgrimage arduous, self-denying, and lonely. We have to contend with principalities and powers, to conflict with foes visible and invisible, to subdue indwelling sin, and repel outward temptation. Then there are the "many afflictions" which belong to the "righteous," the trials peculiar and sore with which the Lord in love tries His people. In the midst of all this, and superadded as an element of weariness yet more potent, there is often the drooping of faith, the chill of love, the obscured evidences, the beclouded hope, the withdrawment of the Divine presence, the suspension of the sensible comforts and consolations of the Holy Spirit; all conspiring to make this a weary land. Thus the soul of the believer is frequently cast down within him because of the way. But "the sleep of a laboring man is sweet;" and such is the sleep in Jesus of the believer, the Christian laborer. In view of this truth, how chastened and cheered should be our sorrow when visiting the graves of the holy dead. Not a wavelet disturbs their calm repose. No painful sufferings, no convulsive throes, no affrighting dreams; no mental wanderings, no confused sounds, no fantastic fancies disturb their peaceful slumber. The world is rushing on, as before, in turmoil, sin, and conflict—the war-cry, the martial music, the sigh of sorrow, and the wail of agony are heard—but not a spent echo mars their placid rest. The body reposes in the tomb, the soul in the Paradise of God, and over their graves is heard a voice, saying, "Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth; yes, says the Spirit, that they may rest from their labors; and their works do follow them."

OCTOBER 20.

"Though he were a Son, yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered; and being made perfect, he became the author of eternal salvation unto all those who obey him." Hebrews 5:8, 9

The basis or cause of the completeness of Christ's atonement arises from the infinite dignity of His person: His Godhead forms the basis of His perfect work. It was this that gave perfection to His obedience, and virtue to His atonement: it was this that made the blood He shed efficacious in the pardon of sin, and the righteousness He wrought out complete in the justification of the soul. His entire work would have been wanting but for His Godhead. No created Savior could have given full satisfaction to an infinite law, broken by man, and calling aloud for vengeance. An obedience was required, in every respect equal in glory and dignity to the law that was violated. The rights of the Divine government must be maintained, the purity of the Divine nature must be guarded, and the honor of the Divine law must be vindicated. To accomplish this, God Himself must become flesh; and to carry this fully out, the incarnate God must die! Oh, depth of wisdom and of grace! Oh, love infinite, love rich, love free! Love

"Not to be thought on, but with tides of joy;
Not to be mentioned, but with shouts of praise."

The pardon of a believer's sins is an entire pardon. It is the full pardon of all his sins. It were no pardon to him, if it were not an entire pardon. If it were but a partial blotting out of the thick cloud—if it were but a partial canceling of the bond—if it were but a forgiveness of some sins only, then the gospel were no glad tidings to his soul. The law of God had brought him in guilty of an entire violation. The justice of God demands a satisfaction equal to the enormity of the sins committed, and of the guilt incurred. The Holy Spirit has convinced him of his utter helplessness, his entire bankruptcy. What rapture would kindle in his bosom at the announcement of a partial atonement—of a half Savior—of a part payment of the debt? Not one throb of joyous sensation would it produce. On the contrary, this very mockery of his woe would but deepen the anguish of his spirit. But go to the soul, weary and heavy-laden with sin, mourning over its vileness, its helplessness, and proclaim the Gospel. Tell him that the atonement which Jesus offered on Calvary was a full satisfaction for his sins;—that all his sins were borne and blotted out in that awful moment;—that the bond which Divine justice held against the sinner was fully cancelled by the obedience and sufferings of Christ, and that, appeased and satisfied, God was "ready to pardon." How beautiful will be the feet that convey to him tidings so transporting as this! And are not these statements perfectly accordant with the declarations of God's own word? Let us ascertain. What was the ark symbolical of, alluded to by the apostle, in the ninth chapter of his Epistle to the Hebrews, which contained the manna, Aaron's rod, and the tables of the covenant, over which stood the cherubim of glory shadowing the mercy-seat? What, but the entire covering of sin? For, as the covering of the ark did hide the law and testimony, so did the Lord Jesus Christ hide the sins of His chosen, covenant people—not from the eye of God's omniscience, but from the eye of the law. They stand legally acquitted. So entire was the work of Jesus, so infinite and satisfactory His obedience, the law of God pronounces them acquitted, and can never bring them into condemnation. "There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus; who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit." "Who is he that condemns? It is Christ that died, yes rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us."

OCTOBER 21.

"Why say my people, We are lords; we will come no more unto you? Can a maid forget her ornaments, or a bride her attire? yet my people have forgotten me days without number." Jeremiah 2:31, 32

When God becomes less an object of fervent desire, holy delight, and frequent contemplation, we may suspect a declension of Divine love in the soul. Our spiritual views of God, and our spiritual and constant delight in Him, will be materially affected by the state of our spiritual love. If there is coldness in the affections, if the mind grows earthly, carnal, and selfish, dark and gloomy shadows will gather round the character and the glory of God. He will become less an object of supreme attachment, unmingled delight, adoring contemplation, and filial trust. The moment the supreme love of Adam to God declined, the instant that it swerved from its proper and lawful center, he shunned converse with God, and sought to embower himself from the presence of the Divine glory. Conscious of a change in his affections—sensible of a divided heart, of subjection to a rival interest—and knowing that God was no longer the object of his supreme love, nor the fountain of his pure delight, nor the blessed and only source of his bliss—he rushed from His presence as from an object of terror, and sought concealment in Eden's bowers. That God whose presence was once so glorious, whose converse was so holy, whose voice was so sweet, became as a strange God to the rebellious and conscience-stricken creature, and, "absence from You is best," was written in dark letters upon his guilty brow.

And where this difference? Was God less glorious in Himself? Was He less holy, less loving, less faithful, or less the fountain of supreme bliss? Far from it, God had undergone no change. It is the perfection of a perfect Being that He is unchangeable, that He can never act contrary to His own nature, but must ever be, in all that He does, in harmony with Himself. The change was in the creature. Adam had left his first love, had transferred his affections to another and an inferior object; and, conscious that he had ceased to love God, he would sincerely have veiled himself from His presence, and have excluded himself from His communion. It is even so in the experience of a believer, conscious of a declension in his love to God. There is a hiding from His presence; there are misty views of His character, misinterpretations of His dealings, and a lessening of holy desire for Him: but where the heart is right in its affections, warm in its love, fixed in its desires, God is glorious in His perfections, and communion with Him the highest bliss on earth. This was David's experience—"O God, You are my God; early will I seek You: my soul thirsts for You, my flesh longs for You in a dry and thirsty land where no water is; to see Your power and Your glory, so as I have seen You in the sanctuary. Because Your loving-kindness is better than life, my lips shall praise You."

Not only in the declension of Divine love in the soul, does God become less an object of adoring contemplation and desire, but there is less filial approach to Him. The sweet confidence and simple trust of the child is lost, the soul no longer rushes into His bosom with all the lowly yet fond yearnings of an adopted son, but lingers at a distance; or, if it attempts to approach, does so with the trembling and the restraint of a slave. The tender, loving, child-like spirit that marked the walk of the believer in the days of his espousals—when no object was so glorious to him as God, no being so loved as his heavenly Father, no spot so sacred as the throne of communion, no theme so sweet as his free-grace adoption—has in a great degree departed; and distrust, and legal fears, and bondage of spirit have succeeded it. All these sad effects may be traced to the declension of filial love in the soul of the believer towards God.

OCTOBER 22.

"Sanctified by the word of God." 1 Timothy 4:5

It is the natural tendency of Divine truth, when received into the heart, to produce holiness. The design of the whole plan of redemption was to secure the highest holiness and happiness of the creature; and when the gospel comes with the power of God unto the salvation of the soul, this end is preeminently secured. The renewed man is a pardoned man; the pardoned man becomes a holy man; and the holy man is a happy man. Look, then, at God's word, and trace the tendency of every doctrine, precept, promise, and threatening, and mark the holy influence of each. Take the doctrine of God's everlasting love to His people, as seen in their election to eternal life. How holy is the tendency of this truth! "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ; according as He has chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love." Let not my reader turn from this glorious doctrine, because he may find it irreconcilable with others that he may hold, or because the mists of prejudice may long have veiled it from his mind; it is a revealed doctrine, and therefore to be fully received; it is a holy doctrine, and therefore to be ardently loved. Received in the heart by the teaching of the Holy Spirit, it lays the pride of man in the dust, knocking from beneath the soul all ground for self-glorying, and expands the mind with the most exalted views of the glory, grace, and love of Jehovah. He who receives the doctrine of electing love in his heart by the power of the Spirit, bears about with him the material of a holy walk; its tendency is to humble, abase, and sanctify the man.

Thus holy, too, is the revealed doctrine of God's free, sovereign, and distinguishing grace. The tendency of this truth is most sanctifying: for a man to feel that God alone has made him to differ from another—that what he has, he has received—that by the free, distinguishing grace of God he is what he is—is a truth, when experienced in the heart, surely of the most holy influence. How it lays the axe at the root of self! how it stains the pride of human glory, and hushes the whispers of vain boasting! It lays the renewed sinner where he ought ever to lie, in the dust; and places the crown, where it alone ought to shine, bright and glorious, upon the head of sovereign mercy. "Lord, why me? I was far from You by wicked works; I was the least of my Father's house, and, of all, the most unworthy and unlikely object of Your love and yet Your mercy sought me—Your grace selected me out of all the rest, and made me a miracle of its omnipotent power. Lord, to what can I refer this, but to Your mere mercy, Your sovereign and free grace, entirely apart from all worth or worthiness that You did see in me? Take, therefore, my body, soul, and spirit, and let them be, in time and through eternity, a holy temple to Your glory."

All the precepts, too, are on the side of holiness. "If you love me, keep my commandments;" "Be you holy, for I am holy;" "Come out of the world and be you separate, and touch not the unclean thing."' "God has not called us unto uncleanness, but unto holiness;" "That you might walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing, being fruitful in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God." Holy precepts! May the eternal Spirit engrave them deep upon our hearts.

Not less sanctifying in their tendency are the "exceeding great and precious promises" which the word of truth contains. "Having, therefore these promises, dearly beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God."

Thus holy and sanctifying are the nature and the effect of Divine truth. It is in its nature and properties most holy; it comes from a holy God and whenever and wherever it is received in the heart, as the good and incorruptible seed of the kingdom, it produces that which is in accordance with its own nature—HOLINESS. As is the tree, so are the fruits; as is the cause, so are the effects. It brings down and lays low the high thoughts of man, by revealing to him the character of God; it convinces him of his deep guilt and awful condemnation, by exhibiting the Divine law; it unfolds to him God's hatred of sin, His justice in punishing and His mercy in pardoning it, by unfolding to his view the cross of Christ; and taking entire possession of the soul, it implants new principles, supplies new motives, gives a new end, begets new joys, and inspires new hopes—in a word, diffuses itself through the whole moral man, changes it into the same image, and transforms it into "an habitation of God through the Spirit."

OCTOBER 23.

"Remember therefore from where you are fallen, and repent, and do the first works." Revelation 2:5

Let the backsliding believer be brought to this first step. "Remember from where you are fallen"—revert to your past history, your former spiritual state—remember your first sorrow for sin, the first joy of its pardon—remember the spring-tide of your first love—how precious Jesus was, how glorious was His person, how sweet was His cross, how fragrant was His name, how rich was His grace—remember how dear to you was the throne of grace, how frequently you resorted to it, regarding it of all spots on earth the most blessed—remember how, under the anointings of adopting love, you walked with God as with a Father—how filial, how close, how holy was your communion with Him—remember the seasons of refreshing in the sanctuary, in the social meeting, in the closet; how your soul did seem to dwell on the sunny sides of glory, and you longed for the wings of a dove that you might fly to your Lord; remember how, publicly and before many witnesses, you put off sin and put on Christ, and; turning your back upon the world, took your place among the followers of the Lamb—remember how holy, and circumspect, and spotless your walk, how tender was your conscience, how guileless was your spirit, how humble and lovely your whole deportment. But what and where are you now? Oh, remember from where you are fallen! Think from what a high profession, from what an elevated walk, from what holy employments, from what hallowed joys, from what sweet delights, and from what pleasant ways have you declined!

But in the exhortation given to the backsliding church at Ephesus, there is yet another instruction equally applicable to the case of all wanderers from the Lord: "Repent, and do the first works." How can a departing soul return without repentance? by what other avenue can the prodigal reach his Father's heart? Repentance implies the existence and conviction of sin. Ah! is it no sin, beloved reader, to have turned your back upon God? is it no sin to have lost your first love, to have backslidden from Jesus, to have transferred your affections from Him to the world, or to the creature, or to yourself? is it no sin to go no more with the Shepherd, and to follow no more the footsteps of the flock, and to feed no more in the green pastures, or repose by the side of the still waters? Oh yes! it is a sin of peculiar magnitude; it is a sin against God in the character of a loving Father, against Jesus in the character of a tender Redeemer, against the Holy Spirit in the character of a faithful Indweller and a Sanctifier; it is a sin against the most precious experience of His grace, against the most melting exhibitions of His love, and against the most tender proofs of His covenant faithfulness.

Repent, then, of this your sin. Think how you have wounded Jesus afresh, and repent; think how you have requited your Father's love, and repent; think how you have grieved the Spirit, and repent. Humble yourself in dust and ashes before the cross, and through that cross look up again to your forgiving God and Father. The sweet promise is, "They shall look upon Him whom they have pierced, and shall mourn for Him as one mourns for his only son."

OCTOBER 24.

"My tongue shall sing aloud of your righteousness." Psalm 51:14

If we cannot sing of Jesus and of His love in the night of our pilgrimage, of what, of whom, then, can we sing? As all music has its ground-work—its elementary principles—so has the music of the believing soul. Jesus is the basis. He who knows nothing experimentally of Jesus has never learned to sing the Lord's song. But the believer, when he contemplates Jesus in His person dignity, glory, and beauty—when he regards Him as God's equal—when he views Him as the Father's gift—as the great depository of all the fullness of God, can sing, in the dark night of his conscious sinfulness, of a foundation upon which he may securely build for eternity. And when too, he studies the work of Jesus, what material for a song is gathered here! when he contemplates Christ as "made of God unto him wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption;" when he views the atoning blood and righteousness which present him moment by moment before God, washed from every stain, and justified from every sin, even now he can sing the first notes of the song they chaunt in higher strains above: "Unto Him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in His own blood, and has made us kings and priests unto God and His Father; to Him be glory and dominion, forever and ever. Amen." Oh! yes, Jesus is the key-note—Jesus is the ground-work of the believer's song.

Is it a season of heart-ploughing, of breaking up of the fallow ground, of deeper discovery of the concealed plague? Still to turn the eye of faith on Jesus, and contemplate the efficacy of His blood to remove all sin, and the power of His grace to subdue all iniquity, oh, what music in the sad heart does that sight of Him create! "My soul does magnify the Lord, and my spirit has rejoiced in God my Savior."

In giving you a throne of grace, God has given you a song, methinks one of the sweetest ever sung in the house of our pilgrimage. To feel that we have a God who hears and answers prayer—who has done so in countless instances, and is prepared still to give us at all times an audience—oh! the unutterable blessedness of this truth. Sing aloud, then, you sorrowful saints, for great and precious is your privilege of communion with God. In the time of your every grief, and trial, and difficulty, do not forget that, in your lowest frame, you may sing this song—"Having boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way, I will draw near, and pour out my heart to God." Chaunt, then, His high praises as you pass along, that there is a place where you may disclose every want, repose every sorrow, deposit every burden, breathe every sigh, and lose yourself in communion with God; that place is the blood-besprinkled mercy-seat, on which God says, "There will I meet with you, and I will commune with you."

OCTOBER 25.

"So also Christ glorified not himself to be made an high priest; but he that said unto him, You are my Son, today have I begotten you." Hebrews 5:5

The Atonement of Christ is of infinite value and efficacy. If Christ were a mere creature, if He claimed no higher dignity than Gabriel, or one of the prophets or apostles, then His atonement, as it regards the satisfaction of Divine justice, the honoring of the law, the pardon of sin, the peace of the conscience, and the salvation of the soul, would possess no intrinsic efficacy whatever. It would be but the atonement of a finite being—a being possessing no superior merit to those in whose behalf the atonement was made. We state it, then, broadly and unequivocally, that the entire glory, dignity, value, and efficacy of Christ's precious blood which He shed for sin rests entirely upon the Deity of His person. If the Deity of Christ sinks, the atonement of Christ sinks with it; if the one stands, so stands the other. How strong are the words of Paul, addressed to the Ephesian elders: "Take heed therefore unto yourselves, and to all the flock over which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to feed the church of God which He has purchased with His own blood." How conclusive is this testimony! The blood that purchased the church was Divine. It was indeed the blood of Christ's humanity—for His human nature alone could suffer, bleed, and die—yet deriving all its glory, value, and efficacy from the union of the human with the Divine nature. It was the blood of the God-man, Jehovah Jesus—no inferior blood could have sufficed. The law which Adam, our federal head, broke, before it could release the sinner from its penalty, demanded a sacrifice infinitely holy, and infinitely great: one equal with the Father—the dignity of whose person would impart infinite merit to His work, and the infinite merit of whose work would fully sustain its honor and its purity. All this was found in the person of Christ. In His complex person He was eminently fitted for the mighty work. As God, He obeyed the precepts and maintained the honor of the law; as man, He bore its curse and endured its penalty. It was the blending as into one these two natures; the bringing together these extremes of being, the finite and the infinite, which shed such resplendent luster on His atonement, which stamped such worth and efficacy on His blood. Dear reader, treat not this subject lightly, deem it not a useless speculation; it is of the deepest moment. If the blood of Christ possess not infinite merit, infinite worth, it could never be efficacious in washing away the guilt of sin, or in removing the dread of condemnation. When you come to die, this, of all truths, if you are an experimental believer, will be the most precious and sustaining. In that solemn hour, when the curtain that conceals the future parts, and eternity lets down upon the view the full blaze of its awful realities—in that hour, when all false dependencies will crumble beneath you, and sin's long catalogue passes in review before you—oh, then to know that the Savior on whom you depend is God in your nature—that the blood in which you have washed has in it all the efficacy and value of Deity—this, this will be the alone plank that will buoy up the soul in that awful moment, and at that fearful crisis. Oh precious truth this, for a poor believing soul to rest upon! We wonder not that, fast anchored on this truth, amid circumstances the most appalling, death in view, wearing even its most terrific aspect, the believer in Jesus can survey the scene with composure, and quietly yield his spirit into the hands of Him who redeemed it.

OCTOBER 26.

"That in the ages to come he might show the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus. For by grace are you saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God." Ephesians 2:7, 8

It was no little kindness in our God, that as one saving object, and one alone, was to engage the attention and fix the eye of the soul, through time and through eternity, that object should be of surpassing excellence and of peerless beauty. That He should be, not the sweetest seraph nor the loveliest angel in heaven, but His own Son, the "brightness of His glory, the express image of His person." God delights in the beautiful; all true beauty emanates from Him; "He has made all things beautiful." How worthy of Himself, then; that in providing a Savior for fallen man, bidding him fix the eye of faith supremely and exclusively upon Him, that Savior should unite in Himself all Divine and all human beauty; that He should be the "chief among ten thousand, the altogether lovely." Adore the name, oh! praise the love of God, for this. In looking to Jesus for salvation, we include each Divine Person of the glorious Trinity. We cannot look unto Jesus without seeing the Father, for Christ is the revelation of the Father. "He that has seen me," says Christ, "has seen the Father." Nor can we contemplate Jesus exclusive of the Holy Spirit, because it is the Spirit alone who imparts the spiritual eye that sees Jesus. Thus, in the believing and saving view a poor sinner has of Jesus, he beholds, in the object of his sight, a revelation of each separate Person of the ever blessed Trinity, engaged in devising and accomplishing his eternal salvation. Oh! what a display of infinite love and wisdom is here, that in our salvation one object should arrest the eye, and the that object should embody an equal revelation of the Father, who gave Jesus, and of the Holy Spirit of truth, who leads to Jesus, and that that object should be the loveliest being in the universe. God has deposited all fullness in Christ, that we might, in all need, repair to Christ. "Looking unto Jesus," for our standing before God—for the grace that upholds and preserves us unto eternal life—for the supply of the Spirit that sanctifies the heart, and meets us for the heavenly glory—for each day's need, for each moment's support—in a word, "looking unto Jesus," for everything. Thus has God simplified our life of faith in His dear Son. Severing us from all other sources, alluring us away from all other dependencies, and weaning us from all self-confidence, He would shut us up to Christ above, that Christ might be all and in all.

For the weakness of faith's eye remember that Christ has suitably provided. His care of, and His tenderness towards, those whose grace is limited, whose experience is feeble, whose knowledge is defective, whose faith is small, are exquisite. He has promised to "anoint the eye with eye-salve, that it may see," and that it may see more clearly. Repair to Him, then, with your case, and seek the fresh application of this divine unguent. Be cautious of limiting the reality of your sight to the nearness or distinctness of the object. The most distant and dim view of Jesus by faith is as real and saving as if that view were with the strength of an eagle's eye. A well-known example in Jewish history affords an apposite illustration: the wounded Israelite was simply commanded to look to the brazen serpent. Nothing was said of the clearness of his vision or the distinctness of his view; no exception was made to the dimness of his sight. His eye might possibly be blurred, the phantoms of a diseased imagination might float before it, intercepting his view; no, more, it might already be glazing and fixing in death! Yet, even under these circumstances, and at that moment, if he but obeyed the Divine command, and looked towards, simply towards, the elevated serpent, distant and beclouded as it was, he was immediately and effectually healed. Thus is it with the operation of faith. Let your eye, in obedience to the gospel's command, be but simply raised and fastened upon Jesus, far removed as may be the glorious object; and dim as may be the blessed vision, yet then "looking unto Jesus," you shall be fully and eternally saved: "Being justified freely by His grace, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus: whom God has set forth to be a propitiation through faith in His blood."

OCTOBER 27.

"The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord." Job 1:21

Bereaved Christian, God has smitten, and the stroke has fallen heavily. The blessing you thought you could the least spare, and would be the last to leave you, God your Father has taken. Why has He done this? To show you what He can be in your extremity. It may be difficult for faith, in the first moments of your calamity, to see how it can be well to be thus afflicted; but be still and wait the issue. Banish from your mind every hard thought of God, stifle in your breast every rebellious feeling, suppress upon your lip every repining word, and bow meekly, submissively, mutely, to the sovereign, righteous will of your Father. The blessings, like spring flowers blooming on the grave over which you weep, that will grow out of this affliction, will prove that God never loved you more deeply, was never more intent upon advancing your best interests, never thought more of you, nor cared more for you, than at the moment when His hand laid your loved one low. Receive the testimony of one who has tasted, ay, has drunk deeply, of the same cup of grief which your Father God now mingles for you. Let us drink it without a murmur. It is our Father's cup. As a father pities his children, so does He pity us even while He mingles and presents the draught. It is bitter, but not the bitterness of the curse; it is dark, but not the frown of anger; the cup is brimmed, but not a drop of wrath is there! Oh, wondrous faith that can look upon the beautiful stem broken; the lovely, promising flower, just unfolding its perfection, smitten; the toils and hopes of years, and in a moment, extinguished, and yet can say—"It is well!" Go, now, you precious treasure! God will have my heart, Christ would not I should be satisfied with His gift of love, but that I should be satisfied with His love without the gift. "You only are my portion, O Lord." The world looks dreary, life has lost a charm, the heart is smitten and withered like grass, some of its dearest earthly affections have gone down into the tomb, but He who recalled the blessing is greater and dearer than the blessing, and is Himself just the same as when He gave it. Jesus would be glorified by our resting in, and cleaving to, Him as our portion, even when the flowers of earthly beauty, and the yet more precious fruits of spiritual comfort and consolation wither and depart. Satan would suggest that we have sinned away our blessings and forfeited our comforts, and that therefore the Lord is now hiding His face from us, and in anger shutting up His tender mercies. But this is not really so; He is hiding the flowers, but not Himself. In love to them, He is transferring them to His garden in heaven; and in love to us, He thus seeks to draw us nearer to His heart. He would have us knock at His door, and ask for a fresh cluster. We cherish our blessings, and rest in our comforts, and live upon our frames and feelings, and lose sight of and forget Him. He removes those who we might be always coming to Him for more. Oh, matchless love of Jesus!

But the place where the clearest view is taken of the present unfathomable dispensations of God, and where their unfolding light and unveiling glory wake the sweetest, loudest response to this truth—"He has done all things well"—is heaven. The glorified saint has closed his pilgrimage; life's dark shadows have melted into endless light; he now looks back upon the desert he traversed, upon the path he trod, and as in the full blaze of glory each page unfolds of his wondrous history, testifying to some new recorded instance of the loving-kindness and faithfulness of God, the grace, compassion, and sympathy of Jesus, the full heart exclaims—"He has done all things well." The past dealings of God with him in providence now appear most illustrious to the glorified mind. The machinery of Divine government, which here seemed so complex and inexplicable, now appears in all its harmony and beauty. Its mysteries are all unraveled, its problems are all solved, its events are all explained, and the promise of the Master has received its utmost fulfilment, "What I do you know not now but you shall know hereafter." That dispensation that was enshrouded in such mystery; that event that flung so dark a shadow on the path; that affliction that seemed so conflicting with all our ideas of God's infinite wisdom, truth, and love; that stroke that crushed us to the earth—all now appears but parts of a perfect whole; and every providence in his past history, as it now passes in review, bathed in the liquid light of glory, swells the anthem—"HE HAS DONE ALL THINGS WELL!"

OCTOBER 28.

"For God has not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ." 1 Thessalonians 5:9

Salvation is God's greatest work; in nothing has He so manifested forth His glory as in this. He embarked all His infinite resources, and staked all His Divine honor, in the accomplishment of this work so dear to His heart—the salvation of His church. The universe is full of His beauty, but myriads of worlds, on a scale infinitely more vast and magnificent than this, could give no such idea of God as the salvation of a single sinner. Salvation required the revelation and the harmony of all the Divine perfections. Creation affords only a partial view of God. It displays His natural but not His moral attributes. It portrays His wisdom, His goodness, His power; but it gives no idea of His holiness, His justice, His truth, His love. It is but the alphabet, the shadow of God. These are parts of His ways, and how little of Him is known! But in the person of Immanuel, in the cross of Christ, in the finished work of redemption, God appears in full-orbed majesty. And when the believing soul surveys this wondrous expedient of reconciling all the interests of heaven, of uniting all the perfection of Jehovah in the salvation of sinners by the blood of the cross—"Mercy and truth meeting together, righteousness and peace kissing each other"—it exclaims in full satisfaction with the salvation of God—"Oh the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God!"

The anxious question of an awakened soul, as it bears its weight of sin to the cross, is, "Is the salvation of the Lord Jesus a work commensurate with my case? Will it meet my individual condition as a sinner? May I, in a deep conviction of my guiltiness, venture my soul upon Jesus? Am I warranted, without a work of my own, apart from all my merit or my demerit, to believe in Christ and indulge the hope that I shall be saved?" The Bible, in brief but emphatic sentences, answers these inquiries. "Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and you shall be saved." "Him that comes unto me I will in no wise cast out." "By grace are you saved." "If by grace, then it is no more of works." "You are complete in Him." The Holy Spirit giving the inquirer a possession of these declarations, working the faith that receives the Lord Jesus into the heart, the believing soul is enabled to say, "I see that it is a salvation for sinners—for the vilest, the poorest, the most unworthy. I came to Christ, and was received; I believed in Him, rested in Him, and I am saved. Christ is mine, His salvation is mine, His promises are mine, His advocacy is mine, His heaven is mine."

Dear reader, is your soul saved? Are you converted by the Spirit of God? Everything else in comparison is but as the bubble that floats down the stream. This busy life will soon cease; its last thought, and care, and anxiety will yield to the great, the solemn realities of eternity. Are you ready for the result? Are you in a state of pardon, of justification, of peace with God through Christ? How is it with your soul? Will it be well with you in death, well with you after death, well with you at the judgment-seat of Christ? Have you come to the Lord Jesus as a Savior—to His blood for cleansing, to His righteousness for acceptance, to His cross for shelter, to Himself for rest? Have you fled as a sinner to Jesus as the Savior? Look these questions, I beseech you, fairly, fully in the face, and answer them in your own conscience, and as in view of that dread tribunal at whose bar you will soon be cited. What if you should prosper in temporals, and be lean in spirituals! What if you should pamper the body, and starve the soul! What if you should gain the world—its riches, its honors, its pleasures—and be yourself through eternity a castaway! To die in your sins, to die without union to Christ, to die unreconciled to God, tremendous will be the consequences; so dire will be your condition, so fearful and interminable your sufferings from the wrath of a holy and righteous God, it would have been good for you never to have been born. The unrighteous will be "punished with everlasting destruction, from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of His power."

But there is hope! Does this page meet the eye of a penitent mourner—one whose heart is smitten with godly grief for sin? Be it known you, that the sacrifice of a broken heart and of a contrite spirit God will not despise. Despise it! oh, no! It is the precious, holy fruit of His Spirit in your soul, and in His eye it is too holy, too costly, too dear to be despised. Bring to Him that broken heart, and Jesus will bind it up, heal and fill it with joy, and peace, and hope. It was His mission to receive and save sinners—it is His office to receive and save sinners—it is His delight and glory to receive and save sinners; and if you will but approach Him, exactly as you are, He will receive and save you.

OCTOBER 29.

"I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures; and that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the Scriptures." 1 Corinthians 15:3, 4

What are some of the great truths confirmed by the resurrection of Jesus, and in the belief of which the believer is built up, by this glorious and life-inspiring doctrine? They are many and vast. Indeed, it would not be too much to affirm of the entire system of Divine truth, that it depended mainly for its evidence upon the single fact of Christ's resurrection from the dead. In the first place, it establishes the Bible to be the revelation of God. If the types which shadowed forth, and the prophecies which predicted, the resurrection of the Lord, received not their substance and their fulfillment in the accomplishment of that fact, then the Scriptures were not true, the types were meaningless, and the predictions were false. For thus do they unite in setting forth this glorious and precious truth. First, as it regards the types. What was the receiving back of Isaac after he had been laid upon the altar, and the knife raised to slay him, but the shadowing forth of Christ's resurrection? As the binding of him upon the wood prefigured the sacrificial death of Christ, so the unbinding of him from altar, and his surrender to his father the third day from the time that he received the command to sacrifice him, prefigured the risen life of Christ. Significant type! radiant with the glory of a Jesus! In the one part we see Him dying, the other part we see Him rising. The one shadows forth His atoning sacrifice, the other His risen glory. And here did the mind of Abraham rest. His towering faith rose above the type; he looked beyond the shadow. His soul embraced a crucified and a risen Lord. Strong in the exercise of a prospective faith, he beheld before him as vividly, and he reposed in as firmly, a dying and a living Redeemer, as did John when the sweet voice broke upon his ear, "I am He that lives and was dead." "By faith Abraham, when was tried, offered up Isaac…Accounting that God was able to raise him up even from the dead; from where also he received him in a figure."

The type of the slain and the living goat embodies in vivid outline the same essential doctrine. Aaron was commanded to kill the goat of the offering, and bring his blood within the veil. But upon the head of the live goat he was to place both his hands, and confess over him all the iniquities of the children of Israel, and then to send him away by the hand of a fit man into the wilderness. "And he shall let go the goat in the wilderness." Our adorable Lord was the glorious substance of this expressive type. Both parts met and were realized in Him. "He was delivered for our offences, and rose again for our justification."

The prophetic Scriptures are equally as explicit in setting forth the resurrection of Christ. "My flesh also shall rest in hope. For You will not leave my soul in hell, neither will You suffer Your Holy One to see corruption." "You are my Son, this day have I begotten You." "I will make an everlasting covenant with you, even the sure mercies of David." Now mark how these portions of the prophetic Scriptures are quoted by the apostle Paul, and strictly applied by him to the resurrection of Christ. Acts 13: "But God raised Him from the dead: and He was seen many days of those who came up with Him from Galilee to Jerusalem, who are His witnesses unto the people. And we declare unto you glad tidings, how that the promise which was made unto the fathers, God has fulfilled the same unto us, their children, in that He raised up Jesus again; as it is also written in the second Psalm, You are my Son, this day have I begotten you. And as concerning that He raised Him up from the dead, now no more to return to corruption, He said this wise, I will give you the sure mercies of David. Why He says also in another Psalm, You shall not suffer Your Holy One to see corruption. For David, after he had served his own generation by the will of God, fell on sleep, was laid unto his fathers, and saw corruption; but He, whom God raised again, saw no corruption." How brightly does the doctrine of a risen Savior shine throughout this remarkable portion of God's holy word! Truly the life of Jesus is the life of the Scriptures. Again, "Your dead men shall live, together with my dead body shall they arise." "I know that my Redeemer lives." Thus does the resurrection of Christ from the dead confirm the truth of God's holy word. The types find their substance, and the prophets their fulfillment, in Him who was emphatically the "plague of death, and the destruction of the grave."

OCTOBER 30.

"What think you of Christ?" Matthew 22:42

Reader, what do you think of Christ? Do you see beauty, surpassing beauty, in Immanuel? Has His glory broken upon your view?—has it beamed in upon your mind? Has a sight of Jesus, seen by faith, cast you in the dust, exclaiming, "I have heard of You by the hearing of the ear: but now mine eye sees You; why I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes"? Your honest reply to these searching questions will decide the nature and the ground of your present hope for eternity. On the confines of that eternity you are now standing. Solemn consideration! It is of infinite moment, then, that your views of the Son of God should be thoroughly examined, sifted, and compared with the inspired word. A crown now lowered on your brow, a kingdom stretched at your feet, a world gained and grasped, were as infant's baubles, compared with the tremendous interests involved in the question, "What think you of Christ?" And what do you think of Him? Is He all your salvation and all your desire? Have you laid sinful self and righteous self beneath His cross? and in all your poverty, nakedness, and vileness, have you received Him as made of God unto you "wisdom and righteousness, sanctification and redemption"? Does His glory dim all other glory; and does His beauty eclipse all other beauty in your eye? Can you point to Him and say, in the humble confidence of faith and joy of love, "This is my Beloved, and this is my Friend"? Eternal God! but for the righteousness of Your Son, I sink in all my pollution! but for the atoning blood of Immanuel, I perish in all my guilt! Holy Father, look not on me, but behold my shield, look upon the face of Your anointed! and when Your glory passes by—the glory of Your majesty, Your holiness, and Your justice—then put me in the cleft of the rock, and cover me with Your hand while You pass by.

Cultivate frequent and devout contemplations of Christ and of His glory. Immense will be the benefit accruing to your soul. The mind, thus preoccupied, filled, and expanded, will be enabled to present a stronger resistance to the ever-advancing and insidious encroachments of the world without. No place will be found for vain thoughts and no desire or time for carnal enjoyments. Oh, how crucifying and sanctifying are clear views of the glory of Immanuel! how emptying, humbling, and abasing! With the patriarch we then exclaim, "I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes." And with the prophet, "Woe is me! for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips. Mine eyes have seen the King." And with the apostle, "God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world." Oh, then, aim to get your mind filled with enlarged and yet expanding views of the glory of Christ. Let it, in all the discoveries it affords of the Divine mind and majesty, be the one subject of your thoughts, the one theme of your conversation. Place no limit to your knowledge of Christ. Ever consider that you have but read the preface to the volume, you have but touched the margin of the sea; stretching far away beyond you, are undiscovered beauties, and precious views, and sparkling glories, each encouraging your advance, inviting your research, and asking the homage of your faith, the tribute of your love, and the dedication of your life. Go forward, then! The glories that yet must be revealed to you in a growing knowledge of Jesus, what imagination can conceive, what pen can describe them! "You shall see greater things than these," is the promise that bids you advance. Jesus stands ready to unveil all the beauties of His person, and admit you into the very arcana of His love. There not a chamber of His heart that He will not throw open to you; not a blessing that He will not bestow upon you; not a glory that He will not show to you. You shall see greater things than you have yet seen—greater depths of sin in your fallen nature shall be revealed—deeper sense of the cleansing efficacy of the atoning blood shall be felt—clearer views of your acceptance in the Beloved—greater discoveries of God's love—and greater depths of grace and glory in Jesus shall be enjoyed. Your "peace shall flow like a river, and your righteousness as the waves of sea." Sorrow shall wound you less deeply; affliction shall press you less heavily; tribulation shall affect you less keenly: all this, and infinitely more, will result from your deeper knowledge of Jesus. Ah, wonder not that the apostle exclaimed, "Doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord. That I may know Him, and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being made conformable unto His death." "Then shall we know, if we follow on to know the Lord."

OCTOBER 31.

"And the Lord said, I have surely seen the affliction of my people which are in Egypt, and have heard their cry by reason of their taskmasters; for I know their sorrows; and I am come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land unto a good land and a large, unto a land flowing with milk and honey." Exodus 3:7, 8

But a greater work, a mightier and more glorious deliverance, did our Almighty Redeemer come down to effect. To this the Spirit of Christ which was in the prophet Isaiah testified: "The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me; because the Lord has anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek; He has sent me to bind up the broken-hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound." The Lord saw from heaven the affliction of His chosen people which were in Egypt—the land of spiritual darkness, bondage, and oppression: He heard their cry by reason of their hard task-masters; He knew their sorrows, and He came down to deliver and to bring them out of that land into a good land—a large place—a land truly flowing with milk and honey. Oh, from what a land of gloom, from what an iron furnace, and from what a hard oppressor, has Jesus delivered His people! He has rescued them from a state of nature, and brought them into a state of grace—from ignorance of God, of Christ, and of themselves, in which the fall had involved them—from the guilt of sin, and the condemnation of the law—from the captivity and tyranny of Satan, and from their hard and oppressive servitude. And, oh, into what a land of rest, blessedness, and plenty has He brought them! Into covenant relationship with God, as His adopted children—into a state of pardon and acceptance—into the enjoyment of His love and presence; to know God as their reconciled Father—to know their oneness with Jesus their exalted Head, and their union with the body as its members—to a state of most holy and blessed liberty, as chosen, called, and adopted saints. Into the experience of all these blessings has a greater than Moses brought us. "When the fullness of the time was come, God sent forth His Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons." Let then, "give thanks unto the Father, which has made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light: who has delivered us from the power of darkness, and has translated us into the kingdom of His dear Son," "even Jesus, which delivered us from the wrath to come."

And how shall we set forth the love of our Redeemer—the deep and precious love of Christ? Persuasion did not induce Him to undertake our redemption. Compulsion did not bring Him to the cross. His own love constrained Him. Love for His church, His bride, bore Him on its soft wings, from the highest throne in glory to the deepest abasement on earth. How forcibly and touchingly was His love depicted in His bearing, when on the eve of suffering!—"Jesus, therefore, knowing all things that should come upon Him, went forth." He not only knew that death awaited Him, but with equal prescience He knew all the circumstances of ignominy with which that death would be attended. The storm, the outskirts of which had already touched Him, was now thickening and darkening, each moment concentrating its elements of destruction, and preparing for the tremendous outburst. Yet He went forth, as if eager to meet its central horrors, not with the fame-panting spirit of Achilles, when he hastened to the Trojan war, knowing that he should fall there; but with the irresistible power and constraint of His own love, which would have nerved Him for a thousand deaths, had His Father's law demanded, and the salvation of His church required it. "Christ also has loved us, and has given Himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God, of a sweet-smelling savor." Truly is Jesus, our Great Deliverer, "counted worthy of more glory than Moses."

NOVEMBER 1.

"Now if I do that I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwells in me." Romans 7:20

The entire testimony of God's word, and the stories of all the saints recorded in its pages, go to confirm the doctrine of indwelling sin in a believer. The Lord has wisely, we must acknowledge, ordained it, that sin should yet remain in His people to the very last step of their journey; and for this He has graciously provided His word as a storehouse of promises, consolations, cautions, rebukes, admonitions, all referring to the indwelling sin of a believer. The covenant of grace—its sanctifying, strengthening, invigorating, animating provision, all was designed for this very state. Yes, the gift of Jesus—all His fullness of grace, wisdom, strength, and sympathy—His death, resurrection, ascension, and advocacy—all was given with an especial view to the pardon and subjection of sin in a child of God. Perfect holiness, entire sinlessness, is a state not attainable in this life. He who has settled down with the conviction that he has arrived at such a stage has great reason to suspect the soundness, or at least the depth, of his real knowledge of himself. He, indeed, must be but imperfectly acquainted with his own heart, who dreams of perfect sanctification on this side of glory. With all meekness and tenderness, I would earnestly exhort such an individual to review his position well—to bring his heart to the touchstone of God's word—to pray over the seventh chapter of the Epistle to the Romans, and to ascertain if there are not periods when the experience of an inspired apostle, once "caught up to the third heaven," will not apply to him—"I am carnal, sold under sin,"—the "sin that dwells in me." The writings and the preaching of men—mistaken views of truth—yes, I would add, even what was once a sincere and ardent desire for sanctification—either of these, or all combined, may have led to the adoption of such a notion as sinless perfection, the nature and tendency of which are to engender a spirit of human pride, self-trust, self-complacence; to throw the mind off its guard, and the heart off its prayerful vigilance, and thus render the man an easy prey to that subtle and ever-prowling enemy, of whose "devices" (and this is not the least one) no believer should be "ignorant."

Oh yes, sin, often deep and powerful, dwells in a child of God. It is the source of his greatest grief, the cause of his acutest sorrow. Remove this, and sorrow in the main would be a stranger to his breast. Go, ask yon weary, dejected, weeping believer the cause of his broken spirit—his sad countenance—his tears. "Is it," you inquire, "that you are poor in this world?" "No." "Is it that you are friendless?" "No." "Is it that worldly prosperity shines not upon you—your plans blasted—your circumstances trying—your prospects dark?" "No." "What is it, then, that grieves your spirit, clouds your countenance, and that causes those clasped hands and uplifted eyes?" "It is sin," the soul replies, "that dwells in me: sin is my burden—sin is my sorrow—sin is my grief—sin is my confession—sin is humiliation before my Father and God—rid of this, and the outward pressure would scarce be felt." Truly does the apostle say—and let the declaration never be read apart from its accompanying promise—"If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us. My little children, these things write I unto you, that you sin not. And if any man sin, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous."

NOVEMBER 2.

"And all things, whatever you shall ask in prayer, believing, you shall receive." Matthew 21:22

Draw near, then, seeking soul, with boldness; not the boldness of a presumptuous, self-righteous man, but that of one chosen, called, pardoned, and justified. Draw near with the lowly boldness of a child—with the humble confidence of a son. Dear are you to your Father. Sweet is your voice to Him. Precious is your person, accepted in His Beloved. You can not come too boldly—you can not come too frequently—you can not come with too large requests. You are coming to a King, that King your Father, that Father viewing you in His beloved Son. Oh, hang not back. Stand not afar off. He now holds out the golden scepter, and says, "Come near; what is your request? Come with your temporal want. Come with your spiritual need. Ask what you will, it shall be granted you. I have an open hand, and a large heart." Is it your desire—"Lord, I want more grace to glorify You. I want more simplicity of mind, and singleness of eye. I want a more holy, upright, honest walk. I want more meekness, patience, lowliness, submission. I want to know more of Jesus, to see more of His glory, to feel more of His preciousness, and to live more simply upon His fullness. I want more of the sanctifying, sealing, witnessing, and anointing influences of the Spirit"? Blessed, holy desires! It is the Spirit making intercession in you according to the will of God; and entering into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, the Lord will fulfill the desires of your heart, even to the half of kingdom.

Watch diligently against the least declension in the spirit of prayer. If there be declension here, there will also be declension in every part and department of the work of the Spirit in your soul. It is prayer that keeps every grace of the Spirit in active, holy, and healthy exercise. It is the stream, so to speak, that supplies refreshing vigor and nourishment to all the plants of grace. It is true, that the fountain-head of all spiritual life and "grace to help in time of need," is Christ; "for it pleased the Father that in Him should all fullness dwell." And Paul's encouragement to the Philippians was, "My God shall supply all your need, according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus." But the channel through which all grace comes is prayer—ardent, wrestling, importunate, believing prayer. Suffer this channel to be dry—permit any object to narrow or close it up—and the effect will be a withering and decay of the life of God in the soul.

Guard, then, against the slightest decline of prayer in the soul. If prayer—family prayer, social prayer, most of all, closet prayer, is declining with you, no further evidence is needed of your being in a backsliding state of mind. There may not yet have been the outward departure, but you are in the way to it—and nothing but a return to prayer will save you. Oh, what alarm, what fearfulness and trembling, should this thought occasion in a child of God, "I am on my way to an awful departure from God! Such is the state of my soul at this moment, such my present state of mind, such the loss of my spirituality, such the hold which the world has upon my affections, there is no length in sin to which I may not now go, there is no iniquity which I may not now commit. The breakers are full in view, any my poor weak vessel is heading to and rapidly nearing them." What can shield you from the commission of that sin, what can keep you from wounding Jesus afresh, what can preserve you from foundering and making shipwreck of your faith, but an immediate and fervent return to prayer. Prayer is your only safety. Prayer, for grace to help in your time of need. Prayer, for reviving grace, for quickening, restraining, sanctifying grace. Prayer, to be kept from falling, to be held up in the slippery paths. Prayer, for the lowly mind, for the contrite spirit, for the broken heart, for the soft, and close, and humble walk with God.

NOVEMBER 3.

"But the God of all grace, who has called us unto his eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after that you have suffered a while, make you perfect, establish, strengthen, settle you." 1 Peter 5:10

There is a painful forgetfulness among many of the saints of God of the appointed path of believers through the world. It is forgotten that this path is to be one of tribulation; that so far from being a smooth, a flowery, and an easy path, it is rough, thorny, and difficult. The believer often expects all his heaven on earth. He forgets that whatever spiritual enjoyment there may be here, kindred in its nature to the joys of the glorified—and too much of this he cannot expect—yet the present is but the wilderness state of the church, and the life that now is, is but that of a pilgrimage and a sojourning. Kind was our Lord's admonition, "in the world you shall have tribulation:" and equally so that of the apostle, "we must through much tribulation enter into the kingdom." Affliction, in some of its many and varied forms, is the allotment of all the Lord's people. If we have it not, we lack the evidence of our true sonship; for the Father "scourges every son whom he receives." But whatever the trial or affliction is, the Holy Spirit is the Comforter. And how does He comfort the afflicted soul? In this way.

He unfolds the love of his God and Father in the trial. He shows the believer that his sorrow, so far from being the result of anger, is the fruit of love; that it comes from the heart of God, sent to draw the soul nearer to Himself, and to unfold the depths of His own grace and tenderness; that whom he "loves He chastens." And, oh, how immense the comfort that flows into a wounded spirit, when love—deep, unchangeable, covenant love—is seen in the hand that has stricken; when the affliction is traced to the covenant, and through the covenant, to the heart of a covenant God.

The Spirit comforts by revealing the end why the affliction is sent. He convinces the believer that the discipline, though painful, was yet needed; that the world was, perhaps, making inroads upon the soul, or creature love was shutting out Jesus; some indulged sin was, perhaps, crucifying Him afresh, or some known spiritual duty was neglected. The Comforter opens his ears to hear the voice of the rod, and Him who had appointed it. He begins to see why the Lord has smitten, why He has caused His rough wind and His east wind to blow; why He has blasted, why He has wounded. And now the Achan is discovered, cast out, and stoned. The heart, disciplined, returns from its wanderings, and, wounded, bleeding, suffering, seeks more earnestly than ever a wounded, bleeding, suffering Savior. Who can fully estimate the comfort which flows from the sanctified discipline of the covenant? When the end for which the trial was sent is accomplished, it may be in the discovery of some departure, in the removal of an obstruction to the growth of grace, of some object that obscured the glory of Jesus, and that suspended His visits of love to the soul, "Blessed discipline," he may exclaim, "that has wrought so much good—gentle chastisement, that has corrected so much evil—sweet medicine, that has produced so much health!"

NOVEMBER 4.

"Jesus says unto her, Woman, why are you weeping?" John 20:15

In unfolding the tenderness and sympathy of Jesus, the Spirit most effectually restores comfort to the tried, tempted, and afflicted soul. He testifies of Christ especially in the sympathy of His manhood. There can be no question, that in His assumption of our nature Jesus had in view, as one important end, a closer affinity with the suffering state of His people, with regard to their more immediate comfort and support. The great end of His incarnation, we are well assured, was obedience to the law in its precept, and the suffering of its penalty. But connected with and resulting from this, is the channel that thus is open for the outflowings of that tenderness and sympathy of which the saints of God so constantly stand in need, and as constantly receive. Jesus is the "Brother born for adversity."—"It behooved Him to be made like unto His brethren, that He might be a merciful and faithful High Priest."—"In that He Himself has suffered, being tempted; He is able support those who are tempted."—"We have not an High Priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities, but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin."

Come, dear reader, what is your sorrow? Has the hand of death smitten? Is the beloved one removed? Has He taken away the desire of your eyes with a stroke? But who has done it? Jesus has done it; death was but His messenger. Your Jesus has done it. The Lord has taken away. And what has He removed?—your wife? Jesus has all the tenderness that ever your wife had. Hers was but a drop from the ocean that is in His heart. Is it your husband? Jesus is better to you than ten husbands. Is it your parent, your child, your friend, your all of earthly bliss? Is the cistern broken? Is the earthen vessel dashed to pieces? Are all your streams dry? Jesus is yet enough. He has not taken Himself from you, and never, never will. Take your bereaved, stricken, and bleeding heart to Him, and repose it upon His, once bereaved, stricken, and bleeding, too; for He knows how to bind up the broken heart, to heal the wounded spirit, and to comfort those that mourn.

What is your sorrow? Has health failed you? Has property forsaken you? Have friends turned against you? Are you tried in your circumstances? perplexed in your path? Are providences thickening and darkening around you? Are you anticipating seasons of approaching trial? Are you walking in darkness, having no light? Go simply to Jesus. He is a door ever open. A tender, loving, faithful Friend, ever near. He is a Brother born for your adversity. His grace and sympathy are sufficient for you. The life you are called to live is that of faith—that of sense you have done with. You are now to walk by faith, and not by sight. This, then, is the great secret of a life of faith—to hang upon Jesus daily—to go to Him in every trial—to cast upon Him every burden—to take the infirmity, the corruption, the cross, as it rises, simply and immediately to Jesus. You are to set Christ before you as your Example to imitate; as your Fountain to wash in; as your Foundation to build upon; as your Fullness to draw from; as your tender, loving, and confiding Brother and Friend, to go to at all times and under all circumstances. To do this daily constitutes the life of faith. Oh to be enabled with Paul to say, "I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ lives in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave Himself for me." Oh holy, happy, heavenly life!—the life Jesus Himself lived when below; the life all the patriarchs and prophets, the apostles and martyrs, and the spirits of just men made perfect, once lived; and the life every true-born child of God is called and privileged to live, while yet a stranger and pilgrim on the earth.

NOVEMBER 5.

"Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that hears my word, and believes on him that sent me, has everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life." John 5:24

Let us consider what this condition does not imply. It does not include deliverance from the indwelling of sin, nor exemption from Divine correction, nor the absence of self-accusation; still less does it suppose, that there is nothing for which the believer deserves to die. All this exists where yet no condemnation exists. The battle with indwelling evil is still waged, the loving chastisement of a Father is still experienced, the self-condemnation is still felt, and daily in the holiest life there is still transpiring that which, were God strict to mark iniquities, merits and would receive eternal woe; yet the declaration stands untouched and unimpeached—"No condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus."

The freedom of the believer is just what it is declared to be—entire exemption from condemnation. From all which that word of significant and solemn import implies he is, by his relation to Christ, delivered. Sin does not condemn him, the law does not condemn him, the curse does not condemn him, hell does not condemn him, God does not condemn him. He is under no power from these, beneath whose accumulated and tremendous woe all others wither. The pardon of sin necessarily includes the negation of its condemnatory power. There being no sin legally alleged, there can be no condemnation justly pronounced. Now, by the sacrifice of Christ, all the sins of the church are entirely put away. He, the sinless Lamb of God, took them up and bore them away into a land of oblivion, where even the Divine mind fails to recall them. "How forcible are right words!" Listen to those which declare this wondrous fact. "I, even I, am He that blots out your transgressions for mine own sake, and will not remember your sins." "You have cast all my sins behind Your back." "Having forgiven you all trespasses." Their sins and iniquities will I remember no more." The revoking of the sentence of the law must equally annihilate its condemnatory force. The obedience and death of Christ met the claims of that law, both in its preceptive and punitive character. A single declaration of God's word throws a flood of light upon this truth: "Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us." The sentence of the law thus falling upon Surety, who was "made under the law, that He might redeem those who were under the law," there can be no condemnation from it to those who have taken shelter in Him. Thus, then, it is evident that both sin and the law are utterly powerless to condemn a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ.

The perfection of Christ's satisfaction supplies the meritorious and procuring cause of our condemnation. No legal obedience—no personal merit or worthiness of the sinner whatever—is taken into the account of His discharge. This exalted position can only be reached by an expedient that harmonizes with the attributes of God, and thus upholds, in undimmed luster, the majesty and honor of the Divine government. God will pardon sin, and justify the sinner, but it must be by a process supremely glorifying to Himself. How, then, could a creature-satisfaction, the most perfect that man, or the most peerless that angel could offer, secure this result? Impossible! But the case, strange and difficult though it is, is met, fully, adequately met, by the satisfaction of Jesus. The Son of God became the Son of man. He presents Himself to the Father in the character of the church's substitute. The Father, beholding in Him the Divinity that supplies the merit, and the humanity that yields the obedience and endures the suffering, accepts the Savior, and acquits the sinner. Hence the freedom of the believer from condemnation: "There is, therefore, now no condemnation." It is the existence of a present condition. It is the enjoyment of a present immunity. It is the simple belief of this fact that brings instant peace to the bosom. A present discharge from condemnation must produce a present joy. Christian! there is now no condemnation for you. Be yours, then, a present and a full joy.

NOVEMBER 6.

"If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." 1 John 1:9

Deal much and closely with the fullness of grace that is in Jesus. All this grace in Christ is for the sanctification of the believer. "It pleased the Father that in Him should all fullness dwell," for the necessities of His people; and what necessities so great and urgent as those which spring from indwelling sin? Take the corruption, whatever be its nature, directly and simply to Jesus: the very act of taking it to Him weakens its power; yes, it is half the victory. The blessed state of mind, the holy impulse that leads you to your closet, there to fall prostrate before the Lord in lowliness of spirit and brokenness of heart—the humble confession of sin, with the hand of faith on the head of Jesus, the atoning sacrifice—is a mighty achievement of the indwelling Spirit over the power of indwelling sin.

Learn to take the guilt as it comes, and the corruption as it rises, directly and simply to Jesus. Suffer not the guilt of sin to remain long upon the conscience. The moment there is the slightest consciousness of a wound received, take it to the blood of Christ. The moment a mist dims the eye of faith, so that you can not see clearly the smile of your Father's countenance, take it that instant to the blood of atonement. Let there be no distance between God and your soul. Sin separates. But sin immediately confessed, mourned over, and forsaken, brings God and the soul together in sweet, close, and holy fellowship. Oh the oneness of God and the believer, in a sin-pardoning Christ! Who can know it?—He only who has experienced it. To cherish, then, the abiding sense of this holy, loving oneness, the believer must live near the fountain. He must wash daily in the brazen laver that is without; then, entering within the veil, he may "draw near" the mercy-seat, and ask what he will of Him that dwells between the
cherubims.

Thank God for the smallest victory gained. Praise Him for any evidence that sin has not entire dominion. Every fresh triumph achieved over some strong and easy-besetting infirmity is a glorious battle won. No victory that ever flushed the cheek of an Alexander or a Caesar may once be compared with his, who, in the grace that is in Christ Jesus, overcomes a single corruption. If "he that rules his spirit is better than he that takes a city," then, he who masters one corruption of his nature has more real glory than the greatest earthly conqueror that ever lived. Oh, how God is glorified—how Jesus is honored—how the Spirit is magnified, in the slaying of one spiritual enemy at the foot of the cross! Cheer up, precious soul! You have every encouragement to persevere in the great business of sanctification. True, it is a hard fight—true, it is a severe and painful contest—but the victory is yours! The "Captain of your salvation" has fought and conquered for you, and now sits upon His throne of glory, cheering you on, and supplying you with all needed strength for the warfare in which you are engaged. Then, "Fight the good fight of faith, be men of courage,"—"be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus,"—for you shall at length "overcome through the blood of the Lamb," and be "more than conquerors [triumphant] through Him that has loved us." Here, beneath the cross, would I breathe for you the desire and the prayer once offered by the apostle of the Gentiles, in behalf of the church of the Thessalonians: "And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly; and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus. Christ." Amen and amen.

NOVEMBER 7.

"For consider him that endured such contradiction of sinners against himself, lest you be wearied and faint in your minds." Hebrews 12:3

The assaults of the adversary contribute not a little to the sense of weariness which often prostrates a child of God. To be set up as a mark for Satan; the enemy smiting where sensibility is the keenest; assailing where weakness is the greatest; taking advantage of every new position and circumstance, especially of a season of trial, of a weak, nervous temperament, or of a time of sickness—distorting God's character, diverting the eye from Christ, and turning it in upon self—are among Satan's devices for casting down the soul of a dear believer. And then, there are the narrowness of the narrow way, the intricacies of the intricate way, the perils of the perilous way—all tending to jade and dispirit the soul. To walk in a path so narrow and yet so dangerous, that the white garment must needs be closely wrapped around; to occupy a post of duty so conspicuous, responsible, and difficult, as to fix every eye; some gazing with undue admiration, and others with keen and cold suspicion, ready to detect and to censure any slight irregularity—add not a little to the to toilsomeness of the way. Notice, also, the numerous and varied trials and afflictions which pave his pathway to heaven—his tenderest mercies often his acutest trials, his trials often weighing him to the earth—and you have the outline of a melancholy picture, of which he whose eye scans this page may be the original. Does it surprise, then, that from the lips of such a one the exclamation often rises, "Oh that I had wings like a dove! for then would I fly away, and be at rest. I would hasten my escape from the windy storm and tempest."

Remember, there will be a correspondence between the life of Christ in the soul, and the life which Christ lived when he tabernacled in the flesh. The indwelling of Christ in the believer is a kind of second incarnation of the Son of God. When Christ enters the heart of a poor sinner, He once more clothes Himself with our nature. The life which Christ lived in the days of His sojourn on earth was a life of sorrow, of conflict, of temptation, of desertion, of want, and of suffering in every form. Does He now live a different life in the believer? No; He is still tempted and deserted, in sorrow and in want, in humiliation and in suffering—in His people. What! did you think that these fiery darts were leveled at you? Did you suppose that it was you who were deserted, that it was you who suffered, that it was you who were despised, that it was you who were trodden under foot? No, my brother, it was Christ dwelling in you. All the malignity of Satan, all the power of sin, and all the contempt of the world, are leveled, not against you, but against the Lord dwelling in you. Were it all death in your soul, all darkness, sinfulness, and worldliness, you would be an entire stranger to these exercises of the renewed man.

Behold the love and condescension of Jesus! that after all He endured in His own person, He should again submit Himself to the same in the persons of His saints; that He should, as it were, return, and tread again the path of suffering, of trial, of humiliation, in the life which each believer lives. Oh, how it speaks that love which passes knowledge! How completely is Christ one with His saints! and yet, how feebly and faintly do we believe this truth! How little do we recognize Christ in all that relates to us! and yet He is in all. He is in every providence that brightens or that darkens upon our path. "Christ is all, and in all."

NOVEMBER 8.

"And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth." John 1:14

Before this Vessel of grace let us pause in adoring admiration of its greatness and its beauty. It is the "great mystery of godliness." Angels are summoned to adore it. "When He brings in the first-begotten into the world, He says, And let all the angels of God worship Him." It was the profoundest conception of God's wisdom, the masterpiece of His power, and worthy of their deepest homage. Such an unveiling of the glory of God they had never gazed upon before. In the countless glories with which He had enriched and garnished the universe, there was not its symbol, nor its type. All other wonders cease to astonish, and all other beauty fades, in comparison with this, the grandest, the peerless of all. As if fathoming the utmost depth of infinity, and collecting all its hidden treasures of wisdom and power, of grace and truth, God would seem to have concentrated and embodied, to have illustrated and displayed them all, in the person of His Incarnate Son, "God manifest in the flesh." In this was found to consist the fitness of Immanuel, as the covenant Head of grace to the church. The Divine and costly treasure, no longer confided to the guardianship and ministration of a weak, dependent creature, was deposited in the hands of incarnate Deity, One whom the Father knew, His "equal," His "fellow," made strong for Himself; and thus it was secured to His church, an inexhaustible and eternal supply.

But not in His Divine nature only did the fitness and beauty of our Lord, as the one Vessel of grace, appear. His human nature, so perfect, so sinless, so replenished, enriched, and sanctified with the in-being of the Holy Spirit, conspired to render Him "fairer than the children of men."—But in what did the chief excellence and beauty of our Lord's humanity consist? Was it the glory of human wisdom, of worldly grandeur, of secular power? No; not in these! It was that which the world the least esteems, and the most hates, which formed the rich endowment of our Lord's inferior nature—the grace which dwelt within Him. The world conferred no dignity upon Christ, save that of its deepest ridicule and its bitterest scorn. In His temporal estate, He preferred poverty to wealth, obscurity to distinction, insult to applause, suffering to ease, a cross to a throne. So indigent and neglected was He, though every spot of earth was His, and all creatures were feeding from His hand, He had no nightly shelter, and often no "daily bread." How affecting to those who love the Savior, and who owe all their temporal comforts to His deprivation, and all their glory to His abasement, are expressions like these—"Jesus hungered;" "Jesus said, I thirst;" "Jesus sighed deeply in His spirit." "Jesus groaned within Himself;" "Jesus wept" "The Son of man has not where to lay His head." Thus low did stoop the incarnate God!

But in the midst of all this poverty and humiliation, God did seem to say, "I will make Him, my Son, more glorious than angels, and fairer than the children of men. I will endow Him immeasurably with my Spirit, and I will replenish Him to the full with my grace. I will anoint Him with the oil of gladness above His fellows." When He appeared in the world, and the eye of the evangelist caught the vision, he exclaimed with wondering delight, "The glory of the only-begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth." How did all that He said and did, each word and action, betray the fullness of grace that dwelt within Him! The expressions that distilled from His lips were "gracious words;" the truths He thus taught were the doctrines of grace; the works He performed were the miracles of grace; the invitations He breathed were the promises of grace; the blessings He pronounced were the gifts of grace; in a word, the blood He shed, the righteousness He wrought, the redemption He accomplished, the salvation He proclaimed, the souls He rescued, and the kingdom He promised, were the outgushings, the overflowings, the achievements, the triumphs, and the rewards of grace.

NOVEMBER 9.

"Him has God exalted with his right hand to be a Prince and a Savior, for to give repentance to Israel, and forgiveness of sins." Acts 5:31

How glorious an object is this Savior, whom the gospel thus reveals! It is true His essential greatness, like the peace which He Himself gives, "passes all understanding;" yet, like that peace, He may be known, though He cannot be measured. "We may know experimentally," as Owen beautifully remarks, "that which we cannot know comprehensively; we may know that in its power and effect, which we cannot comprehend in its nature and depths. A weary person may receive refreshment from a spring, who cannot fathom the depth of the ocean from where it proceeds." That this is true of the "love of Christ, which passes knowledge," is equally true of the person of Christ Himself, whom "no man knows but the Father." Do not think that all His beauty is concealed. They, in whom it has pleased the Father to reveal His Son, "behold His glory;" they "see the King in His beauty;" the discovery of His excellence often captivates their soul, and the sense of His love often cheers their hearts; while in lively faith and joy they exclaim, "I am my Beloved's, and my Beloved is mine."

Take one more view of Him, who is the "chief among ten thousand." Look at His sinless yet real humanity; without a single taint, yet sympathizing with all the conditions of ours: afflicted in our afflictions; tempted in our temptations; infirm in our infirmities; grieved in our griefs; "wounded for our transgressions, bruised for our iniquities;" and now that He is in glory, still cherishing a brother's heart, bending down His ear to our petitions, ever standing near to catch our sighs, to dry our tears, to provide for our needs, to guide us by His counsel, and afterwards to receive us to glory. Oh what a Savior is Jesus Christ! Wonder not, my readers, that when He is known, all other beings are eclipsed; that when His beauty is seen, all other beauty fades; that when His love is felt, He becomes supremely enthroned in the affections; and that to know Him more is the one desire of the renewed mind, and to make Him more known is the one aim of the Christian life.

What glorious tidings, too, does the gospel announce! Take the doctrine of pardon, the very mention of which thrills the soul with gladness. Pardon through the blood-shedding of God's dear Son; for "all manner of sin," and for the chief of sinners! What myriads have gone to glory, exulting with their expiring breath in those melodious words, "the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin." Is there no music in this declaration, to the ear of a sin-burdened soul? And when the called children of God behold in that blood of Immanuel the sea which has drowned all their sins, the fountain which has cleansed all their guilt, the source of their reconciliation, the cause of their peace, and the ground of their access—is not the gospel a joyful sound to their ears? And yet how few live in the full enjoyment of this truth—"You will cast all my sins behind Your back." "You have forgiven all their iniquity." "I have blotted out as a cloud your transgression, and as a thick cloud your sins." Precious truth! Since God has spoken it, faith exclaims, "I believe it. On this I can live holily, and on this I can die happily."

NOVEMBER 10.

"Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loves is born of God, and knows God." 1 John 4:7

It were as much a libel upon the religion of Jesus to represent it as destroying the instincts of our sympathetic nature, as it were a dim conception of the Divine power of that religion, to suppose that it does not increase, to an intensity and tenderness almost infinite, the depth and power of those instincts. It is generally admitted, that, compared with the Christian economy, the Old Dispensation was characterized by many essential and palpable features of terror and harshness and that those who lived under its sway would naturally imbibe the spirit of the economy to which they belonged. Yet, oppressive as appear to have been many of its laws, unfeeling many of its requirements, and harsh the spirit of its whole economy, we find in that dispensation some of the most real, tender, and touching exhibitions of sympathy springing from holy hearts, recorded in the Bible. Who, as he wanders amid the vine-clad but deserted hills of Palestine, with a heart of cultivated affections, and an ear attuned to plaintive sounds, does not regard it as the sacred home of sensibility—its valleys and its mountains still vocal with the sighings of sympathy and the lamentations of love? There would still seem to vibrate the touching tones of Jacob, pouring forth the tenderness of his soul, for his beloved Rachel, and for his darling son. There, too, would seem yet to linger the mournful requiem of David for the fallen sovereign whom he venerated, for the faithful friend whom he loved, and for the unhappy son whose untimely death he deplored. Could sympathy be portrayed in a picture more vivid, or embodied in words more heart-subduing, than this: "And the king was much moved, and went up to the chamber over the gate, and wept: and as he went, thus he said, O my son Absalom, my son, my son Absalom! would God I had died for you, O Absalom, my son, my son!" Such is a recollection of Palestine. And who can thus think of that hallowed land, and not associate with it all that is elevating, grateful, and touching in sympathy!

But another and a more sympathetic economy has succeeded. Christianity is the embodiment, the incarnation of love. It not only inculcates, but it inspires, it not only enjoins, but it originates, the most refined sensibility of soul. Sympathy is no by-law of Christianity, it is the embodied essence of all its laws; and Christianity itself is the embalmed sympathies of Him, in whom dwelt bodily the fullness of Divine and Essential Love. If the ancient economy, with all its coldness, harshness, and severity, dedicated its temples and tuned its lyres, lent its holy oracles and consecrated the very scenes and scenery of nature, to the highest, noblest, and purest sympathies of the soul; surely the gospel will not frown or pour contempt upon the feelings, emotions, and breathings, which the law held precious and sacred. Oh no! the religion of Jesus is the religion of love. It is the school of the affections; and it is only here that they are fully developed, sanctified, and trained. To love man as man should be loved, God must be the
first and supreme object of our love.

NOVEMBER 11.

"Why the rather, brethren, give diligence to make your calling and election sure: for if you do these things, you shall never fall: for so an entrance shall be ministered unto you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ." 2 Peter 1:10, 11

The doctrine of an assured belief of the pardon of sin, of acceptance in Christ, and of adoption into the family of God, has been, and yet is, regarded by many as an attainment never to be expected in the present life; and when it is expressed, it is viewed with a suspicion unfavorable to the character of the work. But this is contrary to the Divine word, and to the concurrent experience of millions who have lived and died in the full assurance of hope. The doctrine of assurance is a doctrine of undoubted revelation, implied and expressed. That it is enforced as a state of mind essential to the salvation of the believer, we cannot admit; but that it is insisted upon as essential to his comfortable and holy walk, and as greatly involving the glory of God, we must strenuously maintain. Else why these marked references to the doctrine? In Col. 2:1, 2, Paul expresses "great conflict" for the saints, that their "hearts might be comforted, being knit together in love, and unto all riches of the full assurance of understanding." In the Epistle to the Hebrews, 7:11, he says, " We desire that every one of you do show the same diligence to the full assurance of hope unto the end." In chap. 10:22, he exhorts them, "Let us draw near with a true heart, in full assurance of faith." And to crown all, the apostle Peter thus earnestly exhorts, "Why the rather, brethren, give diligence to make your calling and election sure." We trust no further proof from the sacred word is required to authenticate the doctrine. It is written as with a sunbeam, "The Spirit itself bears witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God."

It is the duty and the privilege of every believer diligently and prayerfully to seek the sealing of the Spirit. He rests short of his great privilege, if he slights or undervalues this blessing. Do not be satisfied with the faint impression, which you received in conversion. In other words, rest not content with a past experience. Many are satisfied with a mere hope that they once passed from death unto life, and with this feeble and, in many cases, doubtful evidence, they are content to pass all their days, and to go down to the grave. Ah, reader, if you are really converted, and your soul is in a healthy, growing, spiritual state, you will want more than this. And especially, too, if you are led into deeper self-knowledge—a more intimate acquaintance with the roughness of the rough way, the straitness of the strait path, you will want a present Christ to lean upon, and to live upon. Past experience will not do for you, save only as it confirms your soul in the faithfulness of God. "Forgetting those things that are behind," you will seek a present pardon, a present sense of acceptance; and the daily question, as you near your eternal home, will be, "how do I now stand with God?—is Jesus precious to my soul now?—is He my daily food?—what do I experience of daily visits from and to Him?—do I more and more see my own vileness, emptiness, and poverty, and His righteousness, grace, and fullness?—and should the summons now come, am I ready to depart and to be with Christ?" As you value a happy and a holy walk—as you would be jealous for the honor and glory of the Lord—as you wish to be the "salt of the earth," the "light of the world"—to be a savor of Christ in every place—oh, seek the sealing of the Spirit. Rest not short of it—reach after it—press towards it: it is your duty—oh that the duty may be your privilege; then shall you exclaim with an unfaltering tongue, "Abba; Father," "my Lord my God!"

NOVEMBER 12.

"If you then, being evil, know how to give good unto your children: how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him." Luke 11:13

God has ordained that prayer should be the great channel through which His covenant blessings should flow into the soul. If it is your anxious desire to attain this sealing influence of the Spirit, I would quote for your direction a remark of that eminent servant of Christ, Dr. Goodwin, "Be sure of this," says he, "that before God ever communicates any good to a soul, He puts that soul in a state of holiness to receive it." To confirm and illustrate this thought, let me ask—what was the state of the apostles, when the Holy Spirit descended upon them in His witnessing, anointing, and sealing influences? It is described in these words—"These all continued with one accord in prayer and supplication, with the women, and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with His brethren," Acts 1:14. What is the important lesson thus taught us? That God would have His child in a waiting, seeking, supplicating posture; and in this holy state, prepared to receive the high attainment He is ready to bestow.

Do you earnestly desire the sealing of the Spirit? "Ask, and you shall receive; seek, and you shall find." As sure as you petition for it—sincerely, humbly, believingly—seeking it in the name of Jesus, through the cross of Christ, you shall have it. The Lord the Spirit is ready to impart it to you. It is the free gift of His love, without respect to any worth or worthiness on the part of the soul that receives it. It is a gift of grace—for the poor, the dependent, the unworthy—those that are little in their own eyes, and little in the eyes of others; and if this is your conscious state, then is it for you. And oh, the blessed results!—who can describe them? Sealed! How will all your legal fears and unbelieving doubts in a moment vanish away! your soul, so long fettered and imprisoned, shall now go free; the cross you have so long looked at, not daring to bow your shoulder to it, shall now be taken up with a cheerful mind; Christ's yoke, so long resisted, will now be easy, and His burden, so long refused, will now be light; and, with a heart enlarged with the love of Jesus, you will "run the way of His commandments," esteeming His precepts better than life. Prayer, importunate prayer, will bring the blessing we plead for into your soul. Seek it with your whole heart—seek it diligently, perseveringly. Seek it by day and by night—seek it in all the means of grace—in every way of God's appointment—especially seek it in the name of Jesus, as the purchased blessing of His atoning blood. "Ask what you will in my name," are His own encouraging words, "and it shall he granted unto you." Then ask for the sealing of the Spirit. Ask nothing less: more you do not want. Feel that you have not "attained," until you possess it—that you have not "apprehended that for which also you are apprehended of Christ Jesus," until you have "received the Holy Spirit" as a sealer.

NOVEMBER 13.

"Be filled with the Spirit." Ephesians 5:18

The possession of the Holy Spirit in the fullness of His grace contributes essentially to the constitution of the spiritual mind. The antagonist of carnality is the Spirit. "If we walk in the Spirit, we shall not fulfill the lusts of the flesh." As the Spirit of God, He is the author of all that is spiritual. As the Spirit of holiness, He maintains and carries forward the work of sanctification in the soul. He it is who forms, and He it is who leads forward, the spiritual mind. The large possession of the Spirit! nothing can exceed the blessing. Without the Spirit of God, what is man? He is the mark of every fiery assault, the prey of every prowling foe—a magazine of corruption, around which a thousand sparks—sparks of his own kindling—fall. But possessing the Spirit; even in its most limited measure, what is man? A living soul—a holy being—a temple of God—an heir of glory. But suppose him possessing the Spirit in the plenitude of His grace, not partially, but "filled with the Spirit—what must be the invincibility of his might in the resistance of sin! what the potency of his shield in disarming the power of temptation! and what the eminence of his attainments in spiritual-mindedness, as a child of God! While others are girding for the conflict, or are adjusting their armor, he is covering himself with glory on the battle-field. While others are training for the race, he has well-near reached the goal. "Filled with the Spirit," he is filled with all the fruits of the Spirit. Faith is vigorous, hope is bright, love is fervent. He is mighty in the "Spirit of power, and of love, and of a sound mind."

It was this possession of the Spirit in His fullness which gave to the apostles, who until then were so timid and unbelieving, such irresistible boldness and power on the day of Pentecost. Some in their hearing exclaimed, "These men are full of new wine." But the secret was, "They were all filled with the Holy Spirit." And the hearts of the great mass to whom they preached the crucified Savior bowed before the power of their preaching, "as the trees of the wood are moved with the wind." Oh seek to "be filled with the Spirit"! then will your thirstings for God be deeper, your breathings after holiness more intense, your communion with your heavenly Father closer, and your faith in Jesus stronger. The indwelling of the Spirit is the root of all holiness; but the communication of the Spirit in the plenitude of His gracious, sanctifying, Christ-transforming influence, is the secret of an elevated tone of heavenly-mindedness. Would you repel some strong assault, or vanquish some powerful corruption, or throw off some clinging infirmity, and abide by the verdant banks and quiet waters of fellowship with the Father and with His Son Christ Jesus?—oh ask, and you shall receive, the fullness of the Spirit.

Beware of being guided by any other than the Spirit of God. The temptation is strong, and the tendency to yield to it equally so, of being biased in forming our theological views, and in modeling our Christian practice, by the profound research, the distinguished talents, the exalted piety, and admired example of men. But this must not be. It is inconsistent with the honor that belongs, and with the love that we owe, to the Spirit. A human must necessarily be a fallible guide; against the influence of whose doctrinal errors, and practical mistakes, no extent of learning, or depth of spirituality, or eminence of position on their part, can insure us. We are only safe, as we constantly and strictly follow our Divine and heavenly guide. Blessed and Eternal Spirit! to Your teaching would I bow my mind. To Your love would I yield my heart. To Your consolation would I carry my sorrows. To Your government would I resign my entire soul. "You shall guide me by Your counsel, and afterwards receive me to glory."

NOVEMBER 14.

"And the Lord shall deliver me from every evil work, and will preserve me unto his heavenly kingdom; to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen." 2 Timothy 4:18

Things temporary and transient, be they sad or of joyous, pleasant or painful; indwelling sin, temporary trial, occasional temptations, the momentary suspensions of God's realized love—none of these, or any other things present; shall separate from Christ. What human foresight can predict the future of the earthly history of the child of God? What human hand can uplift the veil that conceals the events that shall yet transpire in his history, before he reaches that perfect world where there will be no future, but one eternal present? Oh, what goodness hides it from our view! But be that future what it may—shady or sunny, stormy or serene—God will stand fast to His covenant with His church, and Christ to His union with His people. Things to come, be they more terrible than things that are past, or that are now, shall not touch their interest in the Lord's love.

No elevation to which He may advance them, no height of rank, or wealth, or honor, or influence, or usefulness, shall peril their place in His love. Thus it was the Lord advanced Moses, and David, and Joseph, and Gideon; but in their elevation to worldly distinction, power, and affluence, they were kept walking humbly with God—and this was the secret of their safety. "The Lord God is my strength, and He will make my feet like hinds' feet, and He will make me to walk in mine high places." From the loftiest height to the lowest depth of adversity, God can bring His servant, yet love him still with an unchanged and deathless affection. But no depth of soul-distress, no depth of poverty, or suffering, or humiliation, shall disturb the repose, or peril the security, of a believing soul in the love of God.

If there be any other thing or being in the wide universe that wears a threatening or unkindly aspect towards the Christian, Divine power shall restrain its force, saying to the proud waves, "Thus far shall you come, and no farther." And thus all the billows, amid which the ark has for ages been tossed, shall but bear it gently and triumphantly onward to the mount of God. On that mount, beloved, where now are gathering all who have the Father's name written on their foreheads, we too, through grace, shall stand, eternally extolling the Lamb, through Him who, because He died, there is for us no condemnation from Divine justice, and through Him who, because He lives, there is for us no separation from Divine love.

NOVEMBER 15.

"For the creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him who has subjected the same in hope." Romans 8:20

The vanity here referred to is opposed to the state of glory in anticipation, and therefore expresses the condition of corruption and trial in the midst of which the renewed creature dwells, and to the assaults of which it is incessantly exposed. The world through which the Christian is passing to his rest may be emphatically called a state of vanity. How perpetually and forcibly are we reminded of the king of Israel's exclamation, "Vanity of vanities, all is vanity and vexation of spirit." "Surely every man walks in a vain show." His origin, the earth; his birth, degenerate; his rank, a bauble; his wealth, but glittering dust; his pomp, an empty pageant; his beauty, a fading flower; his pursuits, an infant's play; his honors, vexations of spirit; his joys, fleeting as a cloud; his life, transient as a vapor; his final home, a grave. Surely "man at his best state is altogether vanity." And what is his religion but vanity?—his native holiness, a vain conceit; his natural light, Egyptian darkness; his human wisdom, egregious folly; his religious forms, and rites, and duties, "a vain show in the flesh;" his most gorgeous righteousness, "filthy rags." In the impressive language of Scripture, of him it may be said, "That man's religion is vain." "Lord, what is man, that you take knowledge of him! or the son of man, that you make account of him!"

Truly "vanity" is inscribed in legible characters on each created good. How, then, can the renewed creature escape its influence? He is "subject to vanity," Dazzled by its glare, captivated by its fascinations, ensnared by its promises, he is often the victim of its power. But it is not a voluntary subjection on the part of the renewed creature. "For the creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly." It is not with him a condition of choice. He loves it not, he prefers it not, he glories not in it. From it he would sincerely be freed; beyond it he would gladly soar. "For we who are in this tabernacle do groan, being burdened." His prayer is, "Turn away mine eyes from beholding vanity; and quicken me in Your way." He pants for a holier and a happier state—a state more congenial with his renewed nature. Like the Israelites under the Egyptian bondage, he is a most unwilling servant, groaning beneath his galling yoke, and sighing for the glorious liberty of the children of God. Ah, yes! God has given you another will, O renewed creature! and your present subjection to this poor, vain world is an involuntary subjection of the divine nature within you. Why God should have subjected the renewed creature to vanity does not appear; we well know that He could have transferred us to heaven, the moment that He renewed us on earth. But may we not infer that in sending His people into the world, after He had called them by His grace, and; in a sense, taken them out of it—that in subjecting them for so many years to this state of vanity—He has best consulted His own glory and their good? The school of their heavenly teaching, the scene of their earthly toil, and the theater of their spiritual conflict they are kept in this world for a season; "made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of Him who has subjected the same in hope."

NOVEMBER 16.

"I therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you that you walk worthy of the vocation with which you are called." Ephesians 4:1

The calling here referred to is that inward, effectual calling of which the same apostle speaks in another place "Among whom are you also the called of Jesus Christ: to all that be in Rome, beloved of God, called to be saints." What a glorious vocation is this! To have heard the Holy Spirit's divine yet gentle voice in the deep recesses of the soul—to have felt the drawings of the Savior's love upon the heart—to have listened to a Father's persuasive assurance of a love that has forgotten all our enmity, forgiven all our rebellion, and that remembers only the kindness of our youth, and the love of our espousals—"called to be saints," God's holy ones—called to be sons, the Father's adopted ones—oh, this were a vocation worthy indeed of God, and demanding in return our supremest, deepest affection!

The principle upon which this call proceeds, is said to be "according to His purpose." Thus it is a calling over which we have no control, either in originating or frustrating it, and therefore there is no ground of self-boasting. "In whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of Him who works all things after the counsel of His own will." It excludes all idea of merit on the part of the called. "Who has saved us, and called us with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began." Oh, yield your heart to the full belief and holy influence of this truth. Does it clash with your creed?—then your creed is defective. Does it awaken the opposition of your heart?— then your heart is not right. Are you really among the "called of God"?—then ascribe it to His eternal purpose, and believe that you have no ground of boasting, in the possession of a favor so distinguished, save in the sovereign will and most free grace of the most holy Lord God who has called you. Has this call reached you, my reader? Ministers have called you—the gospel has called you—providences have called you—conscience has called you—but has the Spirit called you with an inward and effectual vocation? Have you been called, spiritually called, from darkness to light—from death to life—from sin to holiness—from the world to Christ—from self to God? Examine your heart and ascertain. It is a matter of the greatest moment that you know that you are truly converted—that you are called of God. Has the thrilling, life-inspiring music of that call sounded and reverberated through all the chambers of your soul?

Are we called? Then let us heed the earnest entreaty of the apostle, in the words of our motto, "I therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you that you walk worthy of the vocation with which you are called." Let the lowliest and the highest vocation of life be dignified and sanctified by the heavenly calling. Wherever you are, and in whatever engaged, do not forget your high calling of God. You are called to be saints; called to a separation from the world; called to a holy, heavenly life; called to live for God, to labor for Christ; and soon will be called to be with the Lord forever!

NOVEMBER 17.

"Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind. But why do you judge your brother? or why do you set at nothing your brother? for we shall all stand before the judgment seat of Christ. Let us not therefore judge one another any more; but judge this rather, that no man put a stumbling-block or an occasion to fall in his brother's way." Romans 14:5, 10, 13

The exercise of private judgment is the natural and inalienable right of every individual. Sanctified by the Spirit of God, it becomes a precious privilege of the believer. He prizes it more than riches, claims it as one of the immunities of his heavenly citizenship, and will surrender it only with life itself. Christian love will avoid infringing, in the least degree, upon this sacred right. I am bound by the law of love to concede to my brother, to its fullest extent, that which I claim for myself. I am moreover bound to believe him conscientious and honest in the views which holds, and that he maintains them in a reverence for the word, and in the exercise of the fear of God. He does not see eye to eye with me in every point of truth—our views of church government, of ordinances, and of some of the doctrines are not alike. And yet, discerning a perfect agreement as to the one great and only way of salvation—and still more, marking in him much of the lowly, loving spirit of his Master, with an earnest desire, in simplicity and godly sincerity, to serve Him—how can I cherish or manifest towards him any other than a feeling of brotherly love? God loves him, God bears with him; and Christ may see in him, despite of a creed less accurately balanced with the word of truth than mine, a walk more in harmony with the holy, self-denying, God-glorifying precepts of that truth. With an orthodoxy less perfect, there may be a life more holy. With less illumination in the judgment, there may be more grace in the heart. How charitable in my interpretation, then, how loving in my spirit, how kind and gentle in my manner, should I be towards him. How jealous, too, ought I to be, of that independence of mind, in the exercise of which he may, notwithstanding, have arrived at conclusions opposite to my own.

Cherishing these feelings, Christians who differ in judgment, will be placed in a more favorable position for the understanding of each other's views, and for the united examination of the word of God. Diversity of judgment, through the infirmity of our fallen nature, is apt to beget alienation of feeling; and consequently, the development of truth is hindered. But where harmony of affection is cultivated, there will be a greater probability of arriving at more perfect agreement in sentiment, thus walking in accordance with apostle's rule—"I beseech you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you: but that you be perfectly joined together in the same mind, and in the same judgment."

NOVEMBER 18.

"But the salvation of the righteous is of the Lord; he is their strength in the time of trouble. And the Lord shall help them, and deliver them: he shall deliver them from the wicked, and save them, because they trust in him." Psalm 37:39, 40

Of all the consolations which flow into the soul of the afflicted believer, not the least is that he has a covenant God to go to in prayer. What can surpass this? What could supply its place? Nothing. In no way does God more effectually comfort those that are cast down, than by drawing them to Himself. For this He has instituted prayer, sprinkled the mercy-seat with the blood of His Son, and sends the sweet promise and grace of His Spirit, to invite and draw the disconsolate to Himself. "A Christian, when he is beaten out of all other comforts, has a God to run unto. He can wrestle, and strive with God by God's own strength, can make use of His own weapons, and plead with God by His own arguments. What a happy estate is this! Who would not be a Christian, if it were but for this, to have something to rely on when all things else fail?"

Approach, then, disconsolate soul! and pour out your sorrow to God in prayer. Your God is upon the throne of grace, and "waits that He may be gracious unto you." Then "you shall weep no more: He will be very gracious unto you at the voice of your cry; when He shall hear it, He will answer you." Why are you then cast down? "Trust in God, grace will be above nature, God above the devil, the Spirit above the flesh. Be strong in the Lord; the battle is His, and the victory ours beforehand. If we fought in our own cause and strength, and with our own weapons, it were something; but as we fight in the power of God, so are we kept by that mighty power through faith unto salvation. Corruptions are strong, but stronger is He that is in us than the corruption that is in us. Our corruptions are God's enemies as well as ours; and therefore in trusting to Him, and fighting, we may be sure He will take our part against them."

In each season of casting down, ascend your watch-tower in the full expectation of an especial blessing. This would seem to be the order God: "When men are cast down, then you shall say, There is lifting up." Expect great mercies through the medium of great trials; great comforts through great sorrows; deep sanctification from deep humiliation. All the trying dispensations of God in the histories of His people are preparatory to their greater grace. It was in this school the distinguished apostle of the Gentiles was taught the greatest and holiest lesson of life. Descending from the third heaven, all fragrant with its odors, and glowing with its light, he was plunged into the deepest humiliation, in order that he might be instructed more thoroughly in that truth, which he could not experimentally have learned even in paradise itself—the sufficiency of Christ's grace to sustain the believer the deepest trial. Tried believer! suffering saint! expect an especial blessing to your soul. If Lord has led you in by the north gate, he will lead you out by the south gate. Dark though the cloud may be, and painful the path, have patience in your affliction, and God will give you a happy issue out of all your troubles. And, oh, blessed result, if sin is embittered, if holiness is sweetened, if some tyrant corruption is mortified, if communion with God is quickened, if Jesus is endeared, if your Father in heaven is glorified! "Why are you cast down, O my soul? and why are you disquieted within me? hope in God; for I shall yet praise Him, who is the health of my countenance, and my God."

NOVEMBER 19.

"In whom we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins." Colossians 1:14

The blood of Jesus is the life of our pardon and acceptance: "Whom God has set forth to be a propitiation through faith in His blood, to declare His righteousness for the remission of sins that are past through the forbearance of God—that is, the transgressions of the Old Testament saints; the life-giving blood of Jesus extending its pardoning efficacy back to the remotest period of time, and to the greatest sinner upon earth; even to him "by whom sin entered into the world, and death by sin—such is the vitality of the atoning blood of God's dear Son. And if the pardoning blood thus bore an antecedent virtue, has it less a present one? No! listen to the life-inspiring words! "In whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according the riches of His grace." Once more, "The blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin. It has a present life, an immediate efficacy. The life of our pardon! Yes! the believing though trembling penitent sees all his sins cancelled, all his transgressions pardoned, through the precious blood of Jesus. Nothing but the life-blood of the incarnate God could possibly effect it. And when, after repeated backslidings, he returns again, with sincere and holy contrition, and bathes in it afresh, lo! the sense of pardon is renewed; and while he goes away to loathe himself, and abhor his sin, he yet can rejoice that the living blood of the Redeemer has put it entirely and forever away.

And what is the life of our acceptance but the blood of Immanuel? "Justified by His blood!" The robe that covers us is the righteousness of Him who is "the Lord our Righteousness;" who, when He had, had, by one act of perfect obedience to the law, woven the robe of our justification, bathed it in His own lifeblood, and folded it around His church, presenting her to His Father a "glorious church, not having spot, or any such thing." Not only is it the ground of our present acceptance, but the saints in heaven, "the spirits of just men made perfect," take their stand upon it. "Who are these," it is asked, "which are arrayed in white robes? and where came they?" The answer is, "These are they who came out of great tribulation, and have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. Therefore are they before the throne of God." Thus now, pleading the justifying blood of Jesus, the believing though distressed and trembling soul may stand before God, "accepted in the Beloved." Wondrous declaration! Blessed state! Rest not, reader, until you have attained it. No, you cannot rest, until you have received by faith the righteousness of Christ.

From where, too, flows the life of spiritual joy, but from the life-giving blood of Immanuel? There can be no real joy, but in the experience of pardoned sin. The joy of the unpardoned soul is the joy of the condemned on his way to death—a mockery and a delusion. With all his sins upon him, with all his iniquities yet unforgiven, every step brings him nearer to the horrors of the second death; what, then, can he know of true joy? But when the blood of Jesus is sprinkled upon the heart, and the sense of sin forgiven is sealed upon the conscience, then there is joy indeed, "joy unspeakable, and full of glory." From where, also, flows peace—sweet, holy, divine peace—but from the heart's blood of the Prince of Peace? There can be no true peace from God, where there does not exist perfect reconciliation with God. That is a false peace which springs not from a view of God pacified in Christ, God one with us in the atonement of His Son, "speaking peace by Jesus Christ." "The blood of sprinkling speaks better things than that of Abel," because it speaks peace.

NOVEMBER 20.

"In whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of him who works all things after the counsel of his own will: that we should be to the praise of his glory, who first trusted in Christ." Ephesians 1:11, 12

The doctrine of predestination is well calculated to confirm and strengthen the true believer in the fact and certainty of his salvation through Christ. Feeling, as he does, the plague of his own heart, experiencing the preciousness of the Savior, looking up through the cross to God as his Father, exulting in a hope that makes not ashamed, and remembering that God the Eternal Spirit only renews those who are chosen by God the Father, and are redeemed by God the Son, this doctrine is found to be most comforting and confirming to his faith. The faintest lineaments of resemblance to God, and the feeblest breathing of the Spirit of adoption he discovers in his soul, is to him an indisputable evidence of his predestination to Divine sonship and holiness.

Another blessing accruing from the doctrine is, the sweet and holy submission into which it brings the mind under all afflictive dispensations. Each step of his pilgrimage, and each incident of his history, the believer sees appointed in the everlasting covenant of grace. He recognizes the discipline of the covenant to be as much a part of the original plan, as any positive mercy that it contains. That all the hairs of his head are numbered; that affliction comes not out of the earth, and therefore is not the result of accident or thence, but is in harmony with God's purposes of love; and that thus ordained and permitted, must work together for good—not the least blessing resulting from this truth is its tendency to promote personal godliness. The believer feels that God has "chosen us to salvation through sanctification and belief of the truth;" that He has "chosen us that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love;" that we are "His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God has before ordained that we should walk in them." Thus the believer desires to "give all diligence to make his calling and election sure," or undoubted, by walking in all the ordinances and commandments of the Lord blameless, and standing complete in all the will of God.

And what doctrine more emptying, humbling, and therefore sanctifying, than this? It lays the axe at the root of all human boasting. In the light of this truth, the most holy believer sees that there is no difference between him and the vilest sinner that crawls the earth, but what the mere grace of God has made. Such are some of the many blessings flowing to the Christian from this truth. The radiance which it reflects upon the entire history of the child of God, and the calm repose which it diffuses over the mind in all the perplexing, painful, and mysterious events of that history, can only be understood by those whose hearts have fully received the doctrine. Whatever betides him—inexplicable in its character, enshrouded in the deepest gloom, as may be the circumstance—the believer in this truth can "stand still," and, calmly surveying the scene, exclaim: "This also comes forth from the Lord of hosts, who is wonderful in counsel, and excellent in working. He who works all things after the counsel of His own will has done it, and I am satisfied that it is well done."

NOVEMBER 21.

"You are fairer than the children of men: grace is poured into your lips: therefore God has blessed you forever." Psalm 45:2
"No man knows the Son, but the Father." Matthew 11:27

These two passages of God's word convey to the mind the most forcible and exalted views of the personal excellence and dignity of the Lord Jesus. The first portrays His matchless beauty, the second His incomprehensible greatness. The Psalmist doubtless refers here to the perfection of His human excellence. As man, His beauty transcends the comeliest of human beings—"fairer than the children of men." Their beauty is mixed; His is pure. Theirs is derived; His is from Himself. Theirs decays; His is imperishable. His body prepared of God, His mind filled with all the wisdom, grace, and holiness of the Spirit—He stands forth the "bright and morning star," the perfect, peerless Son of man. Oh for an eye to see and admire His excellence! and not admire only, but to imitate. Oh for grace to lie at His feet, and learn of His meekness! to lean on His bosom, and drink of His love! to set the Lord always before us, never moving the eye from this perfect model, but ever aiming to transcribe its lineaments upon our daily life! Yes! "You are fairer than the children of men!" You altogether lovely One! And as I gaze upon Your perfection, passing from beauty to beauty, my admiration increases, and my love deepens; until, in the assurance of faith, and in the transport of joy, I exclaim, "This is my Beloved, and this is my Friend."

Respecting His superior nature, not less clear and emphatic is the declaration of His essential greatness: "No man knows the Son, but the Father." Surely these words are sufficient to remove all doubt as to His Deity. Were He only man, with what truth could it be affirmed of Him, that "no man knows the Son"? It is the property of an angel, that he understands the angelic nature; and of man, that he understands the human nature. It is the perfection of God, that He only understands the nature of God. Who, then, but the Infinite can measure the infinite greatness of the Son of God? The loftiest created imagination, the mightiest human intellect, the profoundest angelic research, falls infinitely short of what He is. The Father alone knows the Son, because He is of the same nature and mind with the Father. Beware of holding this doctrine lightly. A more important one—one more glorious or more precious—asks not the confidence of your faith. Hold it fast, even as the vessel in the storm clings to its anchor. This gone, the next mountain wave drives you upon the quicksand of doubt and perplexity, and then where are you? Consider how important must be that single truth, on which the value, the preciousness, and the efficacy of all other truths depend. Such a truth is the Godhead of Christ.

NOVEMBER 22.

"For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death." Romans 8:2

The interpretation we propose for the adoption of the reader is that which regards the "law of the Spirit of life," as describing the gospel of Christ, frequently denominated a "law"—and emphatically so in this instance, because of the emancipation it confers from the Mosaic code, called the "law of sin and death," as by it the knowledge of sin, and through it death is threatened as the penalty of its transgression. But in what sense is the believer free from this deadly law? As a covenant he is free from it. The believer's union to Christ frees him from the condemnatory power of this law. He looks not to it for life; he rests not in it for hope; he renounces it as a saving covenant, and under the influence of another and a higher obligation—his union to Christ—he brings forth fruit unto God. Was ever liberty so glorious as this—a liberty associated with the most loving, cordial, and holy obedience? Not a single precept of that law, from whose covenant and curse he is released by this act of freedom, is compromised. All its precepts, embodied and reflected in the life of Christ—whose life is the model of our own—appear infinitely more clear and resplendent than ever they appeared before. The obedience of the Lawgiver infinitely enhanced the luster of the law, presenting the most impressive illustration of its majesty and holiness that it could possibly receive.

The instrument to whose agency this exalted liberty is ascribed is the "law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus." The term law is forensic; though not infrequently used in God's word to designate the gospel of Christ; indicating it in the text, as the great instrument by which this freedom is obtained. The gospel is the law which reveals the way of salvation by Christ. It is the development of God's great expedient of saving man. It speaks of pardon and adoption, of acceptance and sanctification, as all flowing to the soul through faith in His dear Son. It represents God as extending His hand of mercy to the vilest sinner; welcoming the penitent wanderer back to His home, and once more taking the contrite rebel to His heart. It is also a quickening law—emphatically the "law of the Spirit of life." What numbers are seeking sanctification from the "law of sin," and life from the "law of death"! But the gospel speaks of life. Its doctrines—its precepts—its promises—its exhortations—its rebukes—its hopes—are all instinct with spiritual life, and come with quickening power to the soul. "The words that I speak unto you," says Jesus, "they are spirit and they are life." Oh, there is life in the gospel, because it is the "law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus." It testifies of "Christ who is our life." It declares that there is no spiritual life but in Him. And although "the letter kills," working alone, yet in the hands of the Spirit it gives life. Thus clothed with the energy of the Holy Spirit, the gospel proves a "savor of life unto life," to all who believe in it to the saving of the soul.

Believer; a holy, filial, joyful liberty is your birthright. It is the liberty of a pardoned and justified sinner; of a reconciled, adopted child; of one for whom there is "now no condemnation." Yet how few of God's people walk in the full enjoyment of this liberty! How few pray, and love, and confide, as adopted children! Oh, sons of God, rise to this your high and heavenly calling! Your freedom was purchased at a high price—undervalue it not. It is most holy—abuse it not. It binds you by the strongest obligations to yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead. Be these the breathings of our soul: "Lord! my sweetest privilege is obedience to You; my highest freedom wearing Your yoke—my greatest rest bearing Your burden. Oh, how love I Your law after the inward man! I delight to do Your will, O my God!"

NOVEMBER 23.

"Now our Lord Jesus Christ himself; and God, even our Father, which has loved us, and has given us everlasting consolation and good hope through grace, comfort your hearts, and establish you in every good word and work." 2 Thessalonians 2:16, 17

Upon the subject of comfort great stress is laid in the sacred word. It is clearly God's revealed will that His people should be comforted. The fullness of Christ, the exceeding great and precious promises of the word, the covenant of grace, and all the dealings of God, bear upon this one point, the comfort and consolation of the saints. A brief reference to the Divine word will convince us of this. This is the very character He Himself bears, and this is the blessed work He accomplishes. Thus, "Blessed be God, even the, Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies, and the God of all comfort; who comforts us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort those who are in any trouble by the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted of God." 2 Corinthians 1:3, 4. Kindred to this, are those striking words in Isaiah 40:1: "Comfort you, comfort you my people, says your God." This was God's command to the prophet. It was His declared will that His people should be comforted, even though they dwelt in Jerusalem, the city which was to witness the crucifixion of the Lord of life and glory. What an unfolding does this give us of Him who is the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our tribulation, and that, too, in every place!

To comfort the saints is one important end of the Scriptures: "Whatever things were written aforetime were written for our learning, that we through patience and comfort of the Scriptures might have hope." Romans 15:4. And thus the exhortation runs—"Comfort the feeble-minded." "Why comfort yourselves together, and edify one another, even as also you do." "Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air; and so shall we ever be with the Lord. Why comfort one another with these words." Thus has the Holy Spirit testified to this subject, and thus is it clear that it is the will, and it is in the heart, of God, that His people should be comforted.

The Spirit comforts the believer by unfolding to his eye the near prospect of the coming glory. Heaven is near at hand. It is but a step out of a poor, sinful, sorrow-stricken world, into the rest that remains for the people of God. It is but a moment, the twinkling of an eye, and we are absent from the body, and are present with the Lord. Then will the days of our mourning be ended, then sin will grieve no more—affliction will wound no more—sorrow will depress no more, and God will hide Himself no more. There will be the absence of all evil, and the presence of all good; and they who have come out of great tribulation, and have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb, shall take their stand before the throne of God, and shall "serve Him day and sight in His temple: and He that sits on the throne shall dwell among them. They shall hunger so more, neither thirst any more; neither shall the sun light on them, nor any heat. For the Lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall feed them, and shall lead them unto living fountains of waters: and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes." Why, beloved in the Lord, let us comfort one another with these words, and with this prospect.

NOVEMBER 24.

"And my speech and my preaching was not with enticing words of man's wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power: that your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God." 1 Corinthians 2:4, 5

True wisdom has been defined as that power which accomplishes the greatest results by the simplest means. Then, here is wisdom! To save souls from eternal death, by the "foolishness of preaching," must be regarded as the highest point to which wisdom can soar. It is recorded of the apostles, that they "so spoke, that a great multitude, both of the Jews, and also of the Gentiles believed." They presented Christ so prominently—they divided truth so skillfully—they preached with such power, point, and simplicity, that "multitudes were added to the Lord." See with what contempt they looked down upon the unsanctified wisdom and lore of this world. Addressing the Corinthians, their great leader could say, "My speech and my preaching was not with enticing words of man's wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power." By the influence of his preaching, pagan altars were destroyed, senseless idols were abandoned, the Pantheon and the Lyceum were forsaken, and "a great company of the priests were obedient to the faith;" but it was not with the "wisdom of this world," in order that their "faith should not stand in the wisdom of man, but in the power of God."

And why may not the same results in the employment of the same means be ours? Preach we not the same gospel? Deal we not with the same intelligent and deathless minds? Draw we not our motives and our appeals from the same eternity? True, we possess neither the spirit of prophecy nor the gift of miracles. We need not. Nor did they in their grand work of converting men to God. They never, in a single instance; quickened a soul by the power of a miracle. The extraordinary gifts with which they were endowed were bestowed for another and a different purpose. The cases of our Lord and of His fore runner are strikingly in point. The ministry of Jesus, although attended by a succession of miracles the most brilliant and convincing, resulted in fewer conversions than the ministry of John, who did no miracle. To what divine agency, then, did the apostles themselves trace the extraordinary result of their preaching? To what, but the "demonstration of the Spirit"? Oh for tongues of fire to proclaim the glad tidings of the gospel! With such a Savior to make known—with such revelations to disclose—with such souls to save—with such results to expect—is it not marvelous that we should speak with any other?

The true preacher of the gospel, then, is so rightly to divide God's word, as not to confound truth with error—so discriminatingly to proclaim it, as to separate the precious from the vile— and so distinctly and prominently to hold up the cross of Christ, as to save immortal souls. The cross, the cross, must be the central exhibition of our ministry, to which every eye must be directed, and before which all the glory of man must fade. The Holy Spirit, too, must be more honored—His anointing more especially sought—His influence more earnestly insisted upon. Apart from this, no ministry, be its character in other respects what it may, has any real power. How poor a thing it is, distinguished only by its learning, genius, and eloquence; and destitute of the vital warmth, and impassioned earnestness, the soul-subduing and heart-awakening energy of the Holy Spirit! Weighed in the balance of the sanctuary, it is as light as air; estimated in view of the judgment, it is an awful mockery.

NOVEMBER 25.

"And that he might make known the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy, which he had afore prepared unto glory, even us, whom he has called, not of the Jews only, but also
of the Gentiles." Romans 9:23, 24

Let us for a moment transport our thoughts to the future. The future! oh, how bright it is, and full of blessing, to the "vessels of mercy afore prepared unto glory"! The grace, ceasing on earth, is now succeeded by "an exceeding and eternal weight of glory." He who has tasted that the Lord is gracious shall assuredly see that the Lord is glorious. "How may we know," is often a trembling inquiry, "that our departed friends are with Jesus?" Were they partakers, in the most limited degree, of the grace of Jesus? then, their safety is beyond all doubt. The grace which they possessed was the seedling, the germ, the first-fruits of glory. The light which illumined their souls was the twilight dawn of heaven. It was utterly impossible that germ could die, or that light could be extinguished. It was as imperishable and as immortal as God Himself. The weak grace battled with sin, and the feeble light struggled with darkness, but both conquered at last. There they are—"standing on the sea of glass," chanting the high praises of the grace that brought them there. Yonder they are—in the Father's house, in the Savior's mansions; they conflict no more; they weep no more; they hunger and thirst no more; for He who once gave them grace, now gives them glory. "Grace is glory militant, and glory is grace triumphant; grace is glory begun, glory is grace made perfect; grace is the first degree of glory, glory is the highest degree of grace."

Lift up your heads, you, gracious souls! Heaven is before you, and your full redemption draws near. "The Lord is at hand." His coming is near. That "blessed hope" of the church, His "glorious appearing," will soon be realized, bursting upon your soul in all its blissful splendor, and then you shall be perfectly like, and forever with, the Lord. But should you go to Him, before He returns to you—for if Jesus does not come for you, He will send for you—fear not to descend the dark valley, already trodden by your Lord and Savior. Dying grace is bound up in the covenant of grace; and Jesus, full of grace, to the last moment, will be there to dispense it to your need, His left hand under your head, and His right hand embracing you.

His aged saints are the especial objects of God's loving, tender, faithful care. Lean, in all the decrepitude of years, in all the weakness, pain, and tremulousness of advanced age, in all the fears, misgivings, and becloudings of life's close, upon this Divine rod and staff. Now that you are old and grey-headed, your God will not forsake you. Rest in the faithfulness of God, lean upon the finished work of Jesus, and hope on for the glory so soon to be revealed. Let your believing prayer be, "Cast me not off in the time of old age; forsake me not when my strength fails." And God's faithful answer will be, "Even to your old age I am He; and even to hoar hairs will I carry you."

NOVEMBER 26.

"Praying in the Holy Spirit." Jude 20

A more holy and solemn engagement enlists not the thoughts, and feelings, and time of the believer, than the engagement of prayer. In proportion, then, to the spirituality of a duty, will be the keen sense of the opposition it meets from either the mental or physical frailties which encompass the Christian. The apostle Paul thus defines this infirmity—"We know not what we should pray for as we ought." How shall we describe it? With what feature shall we begin? There is first the difficulty which some feel in reference to the nature of prayer. Simple as prayer is, we see how even an apostle could be perplexed, for he includes himself in this general description of the saints. Three times did he urge a petition the granting of which would have proved a curse rather than a blessing. "What am I to pray for?" is the earnest inquiry of some. "Am I to limit my requests in petitioning for spiritual blessings, or may I include in my petitions blessings that are temporal?" "What is real prayer?" is the yet more earnest question of another. "I fear mine is not true prayer. May I characterize by such a holy and significant term the cold effusions of my closet, the feeble ejaculations of the wayside, the wandering devotions of the sanctuary, the moanings of a spirit wounded, the sighs of a heart oppressed, the upward glancings of a mind beclouded, the breathings of a soul whose spiritual exercises are at times so opposite and contradictory? Is this prayer?" Then there is the infirmity of the act of prayer. The vagrancy of thought—the coldness of affection—the intrusion of low cares—the consciousness of unreal petitions, of unfelt confessions, of undesired requests—the felt oppressiveness of a distasteful task, rather than the felt luxury of a precious privilege—the slovenliness of the performance—the little solemnity of mind—all mark the infirmity which attaches to this transcendently spiritual employment.

Then as to the mode of prayer; this also is felt to be a source of painful embarrassment by some. There are many Christians who find it difficult, if not impossible, to give expression to the heart's utterances, in what is termed free prayer. Compelled, through an infirmity they cannot conquer, to restrict themselves to a liturgical form of devotion, while others pour out their souls to God in unfettered breathings, in unrestricted communion, they are, at times, perplexed to know whether they are acquainted with the reality and power of true prayer. Thus many a saint of God, whose needs are not the less real, whose desires are not the less spiritual, and whose breathings are not the less fervent and divinely acceptable, may, through this his infirmity, be much cast down and discouraged. But who, whatever be his mode of prayer, is free from some clinging infirmity, interfering with the sanctity and power of this hallowed engagement? Who is not mournfully sensible, that of all his spiritual privileges, this, his highest, most sacred and solemn, is the most encompassed with, and marred and fettered by, the deep corruptions of his fallen and depraved nature? that after all his rigid observance of the duty, his many devotional engagements, public and private, there should yet be so little felt nearness to God, so little confidential communion—in a word, so little real prayer. Oh, how much prayerless prayer do we have to mourn over! How little brokenness of heart; how little sense of sin; how faint a taking hold of the atoning blood; how imperfect a realization of God's relation to us as a Father; how little faith in His promise to hear, in His ability to aid, in His readiness to bless us! Such are some of the infirmities associated with prayer, often suggesting the gospel petition, "Lord, teach us to pray."

NOVEMBER 27.

"No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us." Romans 8:37

The apostle had enumerated certain things which, to the obscure eye of faith, and to the yet obscurer eye of sense, would appear to make against the best interests of the Christian, regarded either as evidences of a waning of Christ's love to him, or as calculated to produce such a result. He proposes an inquiry—"Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?"—and then proceeds to give the reply. That reply sets the question entirely at rest. He argues, that so far from the things which he enumerates shaking the constancy of Christ's love, periling the safety of the Christian, or shading the luster of His renown, they but developed the Savior's affection to him, more strongly confirmed the fact of his security, and entwined fresh and more verdant laurels around his brow. "No, in all these things we are more than conquerors."

"Through Him that loved us." Here is the great secret of our victory, the source of our triumph. Behold the mystery explained, how a weak, timid believer, often starting at his own shadow, is yet "more than a conqueror" over his many and mighty foes. To Christ who loved him, who gave Himself for him, who died in his stead, and lives to intercede on his behalf, the glory of the triumph is ascribed. And this is the song he chants: "Thanks be to God, which gives us the victory, through our Lord Jesus Christ." Through the conquest which He Himself obtained, through the grace which He imparts, through the strength which He inspires, through the intercession which he presents, in all our "tribulation and distress, and persecution, and famine, and nakedness, and peril, and sword," we are "more than conquerors." Accounted though we are as "sheep for the slaughter," yet our great Shepherd, Himself slain for the sheep, guides His flock, and has declared that no one shall pluck them out of His hand. We are more than conquerors, through His grace who loved us, in the very circumstances that threaten to overwhelm. Fear not, then, the darkest cloud, nor the proudest waves, nor the deepest needs—in these very things you shall, through Christ, prove triumphant. Nor shrink from the battle with the "last enemy." Death received a death-wound when Christ died. You face a conquered foe. He stands at your side a crownless king, and waving a broken scepter. Your death shall be another victory over the believer's last foe. Planting your foot of upon His prostrate neck, you shall spring into glory, more than a conqueror through Him that loved you. Thus entering heaven in triumph, you shall go to swell the ranks of the "noble army of martyrs"—those Christian heroes of whom it is recorded, "They overcame him by the blood of the Lamb."

NOVEMBER 28.

"Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not love, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not love, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not love, it profits me nothing." 1 Corinthians 13:1-3

There is no truth more distinctly uttered or more emphatically stated than this—the infinite superiority of love to gifts. And in pondering their relative position and value, let it be remembered, that the gifts which are here placed in competition with grace are the highest spiritual gifts. Thus does the apostle allude to them: "God has set some in the church, first apostles, secondarily prophets, thirdly teachers, after that miracles, then gifts of healing." Then follows the expressive declaration of our motto. In other words, "Though I were an apostle, having apostolic gifts; though I were a prophet, possessed of prophetic gifts; or though I were an angel, clothed with angelic gifts; yet, destitute of the grace of love, my religion were but as an empty sound, nothing worth." Is there in all this any undervaluing of the spiritual gifts which the great exalted Head of the church has bestowed upon His ministers? Far from it. The apostle speaks of the way of spiritual gifts as excellent, but existing alone, they cannot bring the soul to heaven. And love may exist apart from gifts; but where love is found, even alone, there is that most excellent grace, that will assuredly conduct its possessor to glory. "Grace embellished with gifts is the more beautiful; but gifts without grace are only a richer spoil for Satan."

And why this superiority of the grace of love? Why is it so excellent, so great, so distinguished? Because God's love in the soul is a part of God Himself; for "God is love." It is as it were a drop of the essence of God falling into the heart of man. "He that dwells in love, dwells in God, and God in him." This grace of love is implanted in the soul at the period of its regeneration. The new creature is the restoration of the soul to God, the expulsion from the heart of the principle of enmity, and the flowing back of its affections to their original center. "Every one that loves is born of God." Is it again asked, why the love of His saints is so costly in God's eye? Because it is a small fraction of the infinite love which He bears towards them. Does God delight Himself in His love to His church? Has He set so high a value upon it, as to give His own Son to die for it? Then, wherever He meets with the smallest degree of that love, He must esteem it more lovely, more costly, and more rare, than all the most splendid gifts that ever adorned the soul. "We love Him because He first loved us."

Here, then, is that grace in the soul of man which more than all others assimilates him to God. It comes from God, it raises the soul to God, and it makes the soul like God. How encouraging, then, to know the value which the Lord puts upon our poor returns of love to Him! Of gifts we may have none, and even of love but little; yet of that little, who can unfold God's estimate of its preciousness! He looks upon it as a little picture of Himself. He sees in it a reflection—dim and imperfect indeed—of His own image. As He gazes upon it, He seems to say—"Your parts, my child, are humble, and your gifts are few; your knowledge is scanty, and your tongue is stammering; you can not speak for me, nor pray to me in public, by reason of the littleness of your attainments, and the greatness of your infirmity; but you do love me, my child, and in that love, which I behold, I see my nature, I see my heart, I see my image, I see myself; and that is more precious to me than all besides." Most costly to Him also are all your labors of love, your obedience of love, your sacrifices of love, your offerings of love, and your sufferings of love. Yes, whatever blade or bud, flower or fruit, grows upon the stem of love, it is most lovely, and precious, and fragrant to God.

NOVEMBER 29.

"But Christ being come an high priest of good things to come, by a greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this building; neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by his own blood he entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us." Hebrews 9:11, 12

The work of intercession constituted an essential and a delightful part of the priestly office of our Lord Jesus. Not to atone only, but upon the ground of that atonement to base His office of advocate, and with the plea of that atonement to appear in the presence of God as an intercessor, equally entered into the engagements of Christ in behalf of His people. A moment's reference to the Levitical type will throw much light upon this part of the Savior's work. It will be recollected that the high priest, on the day of expiation, was to slay and to offer the sacrifice in the outer part of the tabernacle; after which he entered within the sanctuary, bearing in his hands the blood of atonement, and sprinkled it seven times upon and before the mercy-seat. He was then to bring a censer full of burning coals from off the altar, and his hands full of sweet incense beaten small, within the veil, and place it upon the fire before the Lord, "that the cloud of the incense might cover the mercy-seat." All this was beautifully typical of the atonement and intercession of Jesus, our great High Priest. The basis of our Lord's intercessory work is the great atonement of His own blood, with which He has fully met the claims of justice, paid to the law its extreme demands, and blotted out the handwriting that was against His people, in pronouncing their sins entirely and forever cancelled.

Upon His atonement Jesus takes His stand as an Intercessor in heaven, within which He has gone to sprinkle His blood upon the mercy-seat, and to present the incense of His infinite and precious merits. Having purged our sins, He is forever set down at the right hand of God, not in a state of inglorious ease, nor cold forgetfulness of His church on earth, but to plead as its Advocate, and to pray as its Intercessor each moment with the Father, pressing His suit on the ground of justice, and resting His petition on the basis of merit. "For Christ is not entered into the holy places made with hands, which are the figures of the true; but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us." "He ever lives to make intercession." Look up, O you of tried faith, and behold within the veil your Savior there, clothed in His sacerdotal robes, the great High Priest of heaven's temple, the glorious Advocate of heaven's chancery, representing His church, and for each individual as for the whole body, praying the Father that the weak and tried faith of His saints might not fail. This is no image of the imagination. This is no picture of the fancy. It is a blessed and glorious reality, that our once atoning and now risen and exalted Redeemer is in heaven, bearing the breastplate upon His heart, and the ephod upon His shoulder, in which each name is set of all the tribes of Israel. Yes, poor tried and suffering believer, your name is there, written not only in the Lamb's book of life, but written in the Lamb's heart of love. In approaching God in any spiritual service, why is it that your person is an object of His complacent delight? Because Jesus presents it. Why do your prayers, imperfectly framed and faintly breathed, come up before the altar with acceptance and power? Because Jesus is in heaven, and as your pleading Advocate separates your petition from all its flaws, and as your interceding Priest purifies it from all its sin, and presents it as a "golden vial full of odor" to His Father. And when in pensive sadness you have trodden your lonely path, the spirit chafed, the heart wounded, the world desolate, and a thousand images of terror and of gloom filling the vast void, oh little did you think that within that veil, so awfully mysterious to you, there stood One—your Friend and Brother, your Advocate and Priest—who knew your secret sorrow, and who at that moment was pouring out His full heart, His whole soul, in powerful and prevalent intercession, that your tried and wavering faith might not fail.

NOVEMBER 30.

"But when we are judged, we are chastened of the Lord, that we should not be condemned with the world." 1 Corinthians 11:32

How great the dignity, and how precious the privilege, of chastened believers! They are the children of God. "Behold, what manner of love the Father has bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God!" Angels, bright, sinless angels, stand not so closely and endearingly related to God as they. Wonderful love of God! that He should not think it a dishonor to own them as His sons, and to call Himself their Father who by nature are the children of wrath, slaves to Satan, and the servants of sin. How great our dignity! Seek, Christian reader, to know it, to enjoy it, to live according to it. If there has been no sealing of your adoption upon the heart, give the Holy Spirit no rest until there is. If, in the holy, humble confidence of faith, there never has been an "Abba, Father," upon your lip—as one professing to be a child, and soon to be in eternity, it is time that there should be. Seek it earnestly, seek it importunately, seek it believingly, and you will have it. "You shall call me, my father." "If I then be a Father," says the same God, "where is mine honor?" Have you ever honored Him, loved Him, obeyed Him, glorified Him as your Father? Bending over you, the Spirit of adoption waits to impress the sacred seal upon your heart. Loving you, the Father yearns to clasp you to His bosom, assuring you that you are His loved, pardoned, accepted child. As the loved, then, whom the Lord rebukes and chastens, let our carriage be that of children, even as His discipline is that of a Father. Let us receive the correction with meekness, and hear the voice of the Lord with reverence, since God is parental and loving in all His conduct towards His saints.

Nor let us fail to remember, for our comfort, that all the chastisements of the children of God are on this side of heaven. Not so with the ungodly. Sinner! unconverted soul! you may laugh now, sport now, rejoice now, but remember—your chastisement is to come! your condemnation is to come! your stripes are to come! all your real woe is to come! It is coming now, it comes fast, it is near at hand, even at your door—for there is but a step between you and hell! Have you ever thought what it must be to lie down in eternal torment, what it must be to meet an angry God, to confront a despised Savior?—to take the fearful plunge, without one ray of hope, into a starless, sunless, hopeless eternity? Oh happy moment! if the Eternal Spirit so bless to your soul the perusal of this page, as to awaken you to a solemn, an honest, and earnest seeking of the Lord; to give up your procrastinations, your waiting for a more convenient season—your worldly excuses—your refuges of lies—the sparks of your own kindling in which you must lie down in sorrow—your dream of a future, a death-bed repentance; and, casting all aside, you hasten as a poor, lost, dying sinner to Christ, exclaiming, "I am a dying man! I want a Savior! I want the influence of the Holy Spirit to reveal that Savior, to lead me to that Savior, and to tell me that Savior is mine." But no future sorrow awaits the children of God beyond the grave. They are chastened now, that they may not be condemned hereafter. All to come is joy and gladness, is purity and bliss. "God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away."

Learn from this subject that you are not less the object of God's love, because He corrects you. The suspicion has, perhaps, pressed coldly and darkly upon your heart—"He cannot love me, and force this bitter cup to my lips." Hush, that murmur! Be still, that thought! and know, O chastened child, O daughter of sorrow, that "God is love;" and, because you are His loved child, His loving correction now makes you great. Then, in the words of your suffering Head, say, "The cup that my Father has given me, shall I not drink it?"

DECEMBER 1.

"And now also the axe is laid unto the root of the trees: therefore every tree which brings not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire." Matthew 3:10

It is a solemn and a veritable thought, that human character is training and molding for eternity. Nothing in the universe of matter or of mind is stationary; everything is in motion; the motion is progressive—the movement is onward. Things whose being is limited by the present state, obeying the law of their nature, advance to their maturity, and then perish. They attain their appointed and ultimate perfection, and then die. Beings destined for another, a higher, and a more enduring state, are each moment tending towards that existence for which their natures are formed, and to which they aspire. There is, innate in man, a principle which incessantly yearns for, and reaches after, a state of perfection and deathlessness. He would sincerely, at times, quench in eternal night the spark of immortality which glows in his breast. A morbid distaste of life, or a pusillanimous shrinking from its evils, or the anticipation of some impending calamity—in most cases springing from a mind diseased, and destroying the power of self-control—has tended to inspire and to strengthen this desire. But eternal sleep is beyond his reach. He sighs for it, but it heeds not his moan; he invites it, but it comes not at his bidding; he inscribes the sentiment over the charnel-house of the dead, but it changes not their estate—he may slay the mortal, but he cannot touch the immortal. The compass of his soul points on to life. The long, bleak coast of eternity, its shores washed by the rough billows of time, stretches out before him; and towards it his bark each instant tends, and to it will assuredly arrive. Such is the chain that links man to the invisible world! So interesting and important a being is he. An eternity of happiness or of misery is before him; from it he cannot escape, and for one or the other, mind is educating, and character is forming.

A truth kindred in its solemnity to this is the nearness of judgment to every unconverted individual. To his eye—its vision dimmed by other and diverse objects—it may appear far remote. Damnation may seem to linger, judgment to tarry. Sentence executed against an evil work may appear delayed. But this is an illusion of the mental eye, a deception of Satan; a lie which the treacherous and depraved heart is eager to believe. Never was a snare of the devil more successful than this. But death, judgment, and hell are in the closest proximity to man; nearer than he has any conception of. His path winds along the very precipice that overhangs the billows of quenchless flame. Let him assume what position he may, high or low, fortified or unguarded, from that position there is but one step between him and death, between death and judgment, between judgment and a fixed and a changeless destiny. As one has truly remarked, what a creature of time is eternity! Time is, in some respects, more solemn and important than eternity. The present decides the future. The future is all that the present makes it. It is troubled or serene, inviting or revolting, happy or miserable, a blessing or a curse, as time, omnipotent time, ordains it.

DECEMBER 2.

"But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in sins, has quickened us together with Christ (by grace you are saved;) and has raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus." Ephesians 2:4-6

All real spiritual-mindedness is the offspring of a new and spiritual life in the soul. It is the effect of a cause, the consequent upon a certain condition of mind. Before a man can exercise any degree of true heavenliness, he must be heavenly. Before he can bring forth the fruits of holiness, he must be holy. Dear reader, is this your condition? Have you the life of God in your soul? Have you passed from death unto life? Is the fruit you bear the result of your engrafting into Christ? You attend upon the service of the sanctuary; you visit the abodes of the wretched; you administer to the necessities of the poor; you are rigid in your duties, and zealous in your charities; but does it all spring from faith in Christ, and from love to God? Is it from life, or for life? Oh! remember, that the spiritual-mindedness which the Bible recognizes, of which God approves, has its root in the life of God in the soul!

But in what does spiritual-mindedness consist? It is the setting of the mind upon spiritual objects. The heart is fixed on God. The bent of the soul—its desires and breathings—are towards Him. It is a firm, growing approximation of all the renewed faculties to spiritual and heavenly realities. God in Christ is the attraction of the heart. That the needle of the soul always thus steadily points to Him, we do not affirm; there are false attractions which lure the affections from God, and deaden the spirituality of the mind. To be carnally-minded brings a kind of death even into the renewed soul; but this is not his reigning, predominant state. Let God remove that false attraction, let the Eternal Spirit apply with His own quickening power some precious truth to the heart, and the wayward, tremulous needle returns to its center; the heart is again fixed on God, its exceeding joy. Oh, how holy and precious are these restorings!

Individual and close communion with Jesus, in the matter of confession of sin, and washing in the atoning blood, strongly marks the state of spiritual-mindedness. No Christian duty forms a surer test of the spiritual tone of the believer than this. The essence, the very life, of spiritual-mindedness is holiness; and the deepening of heart-holiness is the measure of our sanctity of life. Now, there can be no progress in holiness apart from a habit of frequent laying open of the heart, in the acknowledgment of sin, to Christ. The conscience only retains its tenderness and purity by a constant and immediate confession; the heart can only maintain its felt peace with God, as it is perpetually sprinkled with the blood of Jesus. The soul, thus kept beneath the cross, preserves its high tone of spirituality unimpaired, in the midst of all the baneful influences by which it is surrounded. The holy sensitiveness of the soul that shrinks from the touch of sin, the acute susceptibility of the conscience at the slightest shade of guilt, will of necessity draw the spiritual man frequently to the blood of Jesus. Herein lies the secret of a heavenly walk. Acquaint yourself with it, my reader, as the most precious secret of your life. He who lives in the habit of a prompt and minute acknowledgment of sin, with his eye resting calmly, believingly, upon the crucified Redeemer, soars in spirit where the eagle's pinion ranges not. He walks in secret with God, and "sits in heavenly places in Christ Jesus."

DECEMBER 3.

"And the Lord direct your hearts into the love of God." 2 Thessalonians 3:5

Love to God is the governing motive of the spiritual mind. All desire of human admiration and applause pales before this high and holy principle of the soul. Its religion, its devotion, its zeal, its toils, its sacrifices spring from love. Love prompts, love strengthens, love sweetens, love sanctifies all. This it is that expels from the heart the rival and false claimant of its affections, and welcomes and enthrones the true. It may, at times, like the pulse of the natural life, beat languidly; yet, unlike that pulse, it never ceases entirely to beat. The love of God in the soul never expires. Fed from the source from where it emanates, the holy fire, dim and dying as it may appear at times, never goes out.

Have you this evidence of the spiritual mind, my reader? Does the love of Christ constrain you? It is the first and the chief grace of the Spirit—do you possess it? "Now abides faith, hope, and love; but the greatest of these is love." It is the main-spring, the motive power, of the spiritual mechanism of the soul; all its wheels revolve, and all its movements are governed, by it. Is this the pure motive that actuates you in what you do for God? Or, do there enter into your service and your sacrifice anything of self-seeking, of thirst for human approbation, of desire to make a fair show in the flesh, of aiming to make religion subserve your temporal interests? Oh, search your hearts, and see; sift your motives, and ascertain! Love to God—pure, unmixed, simple love—is the attribute of the spiritual mind; and, in proportion to the intensity of the power of love as a motive, will be the elevated tone of your spirituality. Nor need there be any lack of this motive power. "God is love," and He is prepared to supply it to the mind's utmost capacity. We are straitened in ourselves, not in Him. The ocean on whose margin we doubtingly, timidly stand is infinite, boundless, fathomless. The Lord is willing to direct our hearts into its depths, but we hesitate and draw back, awed by its infinite vastness, or stumbling at its perfect freedom. But to a high standard of heavenly-mindedness, we must have more of the love of God shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit, which He has given unto us. We must love Christ more.

DECEMBER 4.

"For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit: and these three are one." 1 John 5:7

That the doctrine of the Trinity is a truth of express revelation, we think it will not be difficult to show. We may not find the term employed to designate the doctrine in the Bible, but if we find the doctrine itself there, it is all that we ask. On opening the Bible, with a view to the examination of this subject, the first truth that arrests our attention is a solemn declaration of the Divine Unity—"Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord." Deut. 6:4. Prosecuting our research, we find two distinct people spoken of in relation to the Godhead, under the titles of the "Son of God," and the "Holy Spirit of God," to whom are ascribed the attributes of Deity, and the qualities of a person, implying Divine personality. A step further brings us to a passage in which we find these three distinct, Divine people, associated in an act of solemn worship—"Go, teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit." What conclusion must we draw from these premises? First, that there is a unity of the Godhead; and second, that in this unity, or in this one Godhead, there is a trinity of people, or three distinct subsistences, styled the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Here, then, we have the doctrine for which we plead.

The following passage clearly teaches the same glorious truth, Matt. 3:16, 17: "And Jesus, when He was baptized, went up immediately out of the water: and, lo, the heavens were opened unto Him, and He saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove, and lighting upon Him: and, lo, a voice, from heaven, saying, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased." What a conclusive evidence is this passage of the blessed Trinity! The Father speaks from the excellent glory; the Son ascends from the water, and receives the attestation of His Father; and the Holy Spirit descends from the heavens, and overshadows Him. Here are three distinct people, to each of whom the marks of Deity are ascribed, and between whom it is impossible not to observe a bond of the closest and tenderest unity. Again, 1 Cor. 12:4-6: "Now there are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit. And there are differences of administration, but the same Lord. And there are diversities of operations; but it is the same God who works all in all." With what a sunbeam is this glorious truth here written! How richly it glows with light peculiarly its own! That here are three distinct subsistences, who can deny? And that they are equal, who can doubt? In Gal. 4:6, "And because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father." Again, here are three people announced in connection with the blessed act of the Father's adoption of His people. Jude 20, 21, "But you, beloved, building up yourselves on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life." Wilfully or judicially blind must he be who sees not in these words the great truth for which we plead. And it is the glory of our land, and the joy of our hearts, to know, that from every Christian pulpit, the doctrine of the blessed Trinity is proclaimed whenever the apostolic benediction is pronounced: "The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit, be with you all. Amen."

DECEMBER 5.

"And have put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him." Colossians 3:10

One important witness which the eternal Spirit bears for Christ is, when He impresses upon the believer the image of Christ. It is the peculiar work of the Spirit to glorify Christ; and this he does in various blessed ways, but none more strikingly than in drawing out the likeness of Christ upon the soul. He glorifies Christ in the believer. He witnesses to the power of the grace of Christ in its influence upon the principles, the temper, the daily walk, the whole life of a man of God. The image of Christ—what is it? In one word, it is Holiness. Jesus was the holiness of the law embodied. He was a living commentary on the majesty and purity of the Divine law. The life He lived, the doctrines He proclaimed, the precepts He enjoined, the announcements He made, the revelations He disclosed, all, all were the very inspiration of holiness. Holiness was the vital air He breathed. Although in a world of impurity, all whose influences were hostile to a life of holiness, He yet moved amid the mass of corruption, not only untouched and untainted, but reflecting so vividly the luster of His own purity, as compelled the forms of evil that everywhere thronged His path, either to acknowledge His holiness and submit to His authority, or to shrink away in their native darkness. And this is the image the Holy Spirit seems to draw, though it be but an outline of the lineaments upon the believing soul. What a testimony He bears for Christ when He causes the image of Jesus to be reflected from every faculty of the soul, to beam in every glance of the eye, to speak in every word of the tongue, and to invest with its beauty every action of the life!

Oh that every child of God did but more deeply and solemnly feel that he is to be a witness for Jesus!—a witness for a cross-bearing Savior—a witness to the spotless purity of His life, the lowliness of His mind, His deep humility, self-denial, self-annihilation, consuming zeal for God's glory, and yearning compassion for the salvation of souls—a witness to the sanctifying tendency of His truth, the holiness of His commands, the purifying influence of His precepts, the elevating power of His example. It may not be that all these Divine characteristics center in one person, or that all these lovely features are reflected in a single character. All believers are not alike eminent for the same peculiar and exalted graces of the Spirit. It was not so in the early and palmy days of the gospel, when Jesus Himself was known in the flesh, and the Holy Spirit descended in an extraordinary degree of sanctifying influence upon the church: it would therefore be wrong to expect it now.

DECEMBER 6.

"A new commandment I give unto you, That you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this shall all men know that you are my disciples, if you have love one to another." John 13:34, 35

There is one test—a gentle, sweet, and holy test—by which the most timid and doubting child of God may decide the genuineness of his Christian character—the evidence to which we allude is, love to the saints. The apostle John presents this as a true test. He does not say, as he in truth might have said, "We know that we have passed from death unto life, because we love God;" but placing the reality of this wondrous translation upon a lower evidence, the Holy Spirit, by the inspired writer, descends to the weakest exhibition of the grace which his own power had wrought, when he says, "We know that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren." Thus so costly in God's eye would appear this heaven-born, heaven-like grace, that even the faint and imperfect manifestation of it by one saint to another, shall constitute a valid evidence of his relation to God, and of his heirship to life eternal.

Our blessed Lord, who is beautifully said to have been an incarnation of love, places the evidence of Christian discipleship on precisely the same ground; "By this shall all men know that you are my disciples, if you have love one to another." He might justly have concentrated all their affection upon Himself, and thus have made their sole and supreme attachment to Him the only test of their discipleship. But no! In the exercise of that boundless benevolence which was never happy but as it was planning and promoting the happiness of others, He bids them "love one another;" and condescends to accept of this as evidencing to the world their oneness and love to Himself.

This affection, let it be remarked, transcends all similar emotions embraced under the same general term. There is a natural affection, a humane affection, and a denominational affection, which often binds in the sweetest and closest union those who are of the same family, or of the same congregation; or who assimilate in mind, in temper, in taste, or in circumstance. But the affection of which we now speak is of a higher order than this. We can find no parallel to it; not even in the pure, benevolent bosoms of angels, until, passing through the ranks of all created intelligences, we rise to God Himself. There, and there alone, we meet the counterpart of Christian love. Believer, the love for which we plead is love to the brethren—love to them as brethren. The church of God is one family, of which Christ is the Elder Brother, and "all are members one of another." It is bound by a moral tie the most spiritual, it bears a family likeness the most perfect, and it has a common interest in one hope the most sublime. No climate, nor color, nor sect, affects the relationship. If you meet one from the opposite hemisphere of the globe, having the image of Christ, manifesting the fruits of the Spirit; who, in his walk and conversation, is aiming to cultivate the heavenly dispositions and holy habits of the gospel, and who is identifying himself with the cause of God and of truth—and you meet with a member of the one family, a brother in the Lord, one who calls your Father his Father, your Lord his Lord; and one, too, who has a higher claim upon your affection and your sympathy than the closest and the tenderest natural relation that life can command.

DECEMBER 7.

"My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into diverse temptations; knowing this, that the trying of your faith works patience." James 1:2, 3

"It is good for me that I have been afflicted," has been the exclamation and the testimony of many of the Lord's covenant and tried people. It is often difficult at the moment to justify the wisdom and the goodness of God in His dealings with His saints. David found it so, when he saw with envy the prosperity of the wicked. Job found it so, when, in the hour and depth of his afflictions, he exclaimed, "You are become cruel to me: with Your strong hand You oppose Thyself against me." Jeremiah found it so, when in his affliction he said, "He has hedged me about, that I cannot get out: He has made my chain heavy." And yet, where is the furnace-tried, tempest-tossed believer, that has not had to say, "In very faithfulness has He afflicted me"? During the pressure of the trial, at the moment when the storm was the heaviest, he may have thought, "all these things are against me;" but soon he has been led to justify the wisdom and the love, the faithfulness and the tenderness, of His covenant God and Father in His dealings.

The furnace is a needed process of sanctification. If not, why has God so ordered it? If not, why is it that all His people are "chosen in the furnace of affliction"? Why do all, more or less, pass through it? The furnace is needed—it is needed to "purify the sons of Levi, and purify them as gold and silver, that they may offer unto the Lord an offering in righteousness;"—it is needed to consume the dross and the tin which adhere so closely to the precious ore, to burn up the chaff that mingles with the precious grain, to purify the heart, to refine the affections, to chasten the soul, to wean it from a poor empty world, to draw it from the creature, and to center it in God. Oh the blessed effects of this sanctified process! Who can fully unfold them? That must be blessed indeed, which makes sin more exceedingly sinful—which weans and draws away from earth—which endears Jesus, His precious blood and righteousness—and which makes the soul a "partaker of His holiness." This is the blessed tendency of the sanctified discipline of the covenant, and in this way does the Holy Spirit often sanctify the child of God.

DECEMBER 8.

"But let patience have her perfect work, that you may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing." James 1:4

Are you a child of affliction, dear reader? Ah! how many whose eye falls on this question shall say, "I am the man that has seen affliction!" Dearly beloved, so too was your Lord and Master, and so too have been the most holy and eminent of His disciples. Then "think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened unto you: but rejoice, inasmuch as you are partakers of Christ's sufferings; that when His glory shall be revealed, you may be glad also with exceeding joy." This is the path along which all the Lord's covenant people are led; and in this path, thorny though it be, they pluck some of their choicest flowers, and find some of their sweetest fruits.

I am not addressing myself to those who are strangers to sanctified sorrow—whose voyage thus far has been over a smooth and summer sea—whose heart's affections have never been sundered, whose budding hopes have never been blighted—whose spring blossoms have never fallen, even while the fruit was beginning to appear—or whose sturdy oaks around which they fondly and closely clung, have never been stricken at their side: to such, I speak a mystery when I speak of the peculiar and costly blessings of sanctified affliction. Not so the experienced child of God, the "man that has seen affliction by the rod of His wrath." He is a witness to the truth of what I say. From this mine, he will tell you, he has dug his richest ore—in this field he has found his sweetest fruit. The knowledge of God to which he has here attained—His tender, loving, and wise dealings with His people—of His glorious character and perfections, His unchangeable love and faithfulness—his knowledge of Christ—His all-sufficiency and fullness, His sympathy and love—the knowledge of himself—his poverty, vileness, unworthiness—oh where, and in what other school, could these high attainments have been made, but in the low valley of humiliation, and beneath the discipline of the covenant of grace? thus does the Spirit sanctify the soul through the medium of God's afflictive dispensations; thus they deepen the work of grace in the heart—awaken the soul from its spiritual drowsiness—empty, humble, and lay it low—thus they lead to prayer, to self-examination, and afresh to the atoning blood; and in this way, and by these means, the believer advances in holiness, "through sanctification of the Spirit."

Blessed school of heavenly training! By this afflictive process, of what profounder teaching, what deeper purification, have we become the favored subjects! It is good for us to have been afflicted. Now have we, like our Lord, learned obedience by the things which we have suffered; and like Him, too, are being made perfect through suffering. The heart has been emptied of its self-confidence—the shrine has been despoiled of its idol—the affections that had been seduced from God, have returned to their rest—the ties that bound us to the vanities of a world, perishing in its very using, have become loosened—the engagements that absorbed our sympathies, and secularized our minds, have lost their fascination and their power—the beguiling and treacherous enjoyments that wove their spell around us, have grown tasteless and insipid—and thus by all these blessed and hallowed results of our trial, the image of the earthy has become more entirely effaced, and the image of the heavenly more deeply engraved, and more distinctly legible.

DECEMBER 9.

"Remember now your Creator in the days of your youth." Ecclesiastes 12:1

Remember Him who created you, and who created you for His glory—who fashioned your form, who endowed your mind, and who placed you in your present position in life, be it of rank and influence, or of lowliness and obscurity. Remember Him as a holy, sin-hating God, and that you stand to Him in the relation of a fallen creature, impure and unrighteous, impotent and hostile, unworthy to live, unfit to die. Remember what He must have done, and what He must do for you if ever that relation is changed, and you become a new creature, an adopted child, an heir of glory. Remember the strong and inalienable claims He has upon you—claims which He will never relax or revoke. He who commanded that the first of the ripe fruits, and creatures of the first year, to be offered to Him, bids you remember Him in the days of your youth!—your first days, and your best, while the body is in health, and the mind is vigorous, and all the faculties of the soul fit you especially for His service and His glory. Oh, remember Him now, before other things and other objects come and occupy the place which belongs to God alone.

Remember your breath is in His hands; that the axe of judgment lies at the root of the green tree as well as the dry, that the blooming flower and the young sapling are often cut down long before the stately cedar or venerable oak bows itself to the earth. Build not upon length of days; plume not yourself with the laurels which profound learning, or brilliant talent, or successful enterprise, may already have won for you. See how soon they fade upon the brow which they adorn! Think of Kirk White, and of Spencer, of Urquhart, and of McCheyne, of Taylor, of Swain, and of Griffin—those beautiful cedars of God's Lebanon—how verdant and how fragrant were the honors which went down with them to the tomb. But they early lived in the Lord, and unreservedly for the Lord—and the Lord took them early to live with Himself forever. They gave to Him the first and the best, and He took them the first to glory, and has given them the best of glory. Who would not live and die as did they?

Build, then, on nothing beneath the sky, save an immediate and undoubted interest in Christ. Until you are born again, you are in peril; until God possesses your heart, as to any real holiness, usefulness, and happiness, your life is a perfect blank. You live to yourself; and not to live to Him who created you, who upholds you, and who will soon judge you—is a poor life indeed. Oh, give to Christ the golden period of your life. Bind the early sacrifice upon the altar. Lay upon it the first-fruits; Jesus is worthy of your young affections, and of your earliest development of the mind. Oh what a treasure is Christ! To begin life with Christ in the heart, is to begin with a radiant morning—the sure prelude of a smiling day, and of a cloudless evening!

DECEMBER 10.

"Jesus answered, You say that I am a king. To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth. Every one that is of the truth hears my voice. Pilate says unto him, What is truth?" John 18:37, 38

"What is Truth?" Momentous question! The anxious inquiry of every age, of every church, of every lip. Pilate knows it now! And he might have known it when the question first fell from his trembling lips—for Eternal and Essential Truth stood as a criminal at his bar!

But summon the witnesses, and they shall testify what is truth. Ask the devils, who beheld His miracles and quailed beneath His power, and they will answer—"It is Jesus, the Son of God Most High." Ask the angels, who beheld His advent and announced His birth, and they will answer—"It is the Savior, who is Christ the Lord." Ask His enemies, who nailed Him to the tree, and they will answer—"Truly it is the Son of God!" Ask His disciples, who were admitted to His confidence, and who leaned upon His bosom, and they will answer—"We believe and are sure that it is Christ, the Son of the living God." Ask the Father, testifying from the "secret place of thunder," and He will answer—"It is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased." Summon witnesses from the inanimate world. Ask the water blushing into wine—ask the sea calmed by a word—ask the earth trembling upon its axis—ask the rocks rent asunder—ask the sun veiled in darkness—ask the heavens robed in mourning—ask all nature agonized and convulsed, as He hung upon the tree—and all, as with one voice, will exclaim—"JESUS IS TRUTH!"

Happy are they, who, through the teaching of the Holy Spirit, receive Jesus into their hearts as the truth—believe in Him as the truth—walk in Him as the truth—and who, under the sanctifying influence of the truth, are employing their holiest energies in making Him known to others as "the way, the truth, and the life"—thus, like their Lord, "bearing witness unto the truth." In the Lord Jesus, then, as the head of the new-covenant dispensation, grace and truth essentially and exclusively dwell; and sitting at His feet, each sincere, humble disciple may receive grace out of His fullness, and be taught the truth from His lips. "The law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ." Added, to this, let us not forget that the "Spirit of truth" is promised to "guide us into all truth."

DECEMBER 11.

"Obey those who have the rule over you, and submit yourselves: for they watch for your souls, as those who must give account, that they may do it with joy, and not with grief: for that is unprofitable for you. Pray for us: for we trust we have a good conscience, in all things willing to live honestly." Hebrews 13:17, 18

Oh you flocks of the Lord, you churches of Christ, you saints of the Most High, pray, pray for your ministers! No one more deeply needs, no one more affectingly asks your prayers than he. For you he toils in the study, wrestles in the closet, and labors in the pulpit. For your best welfare he consecrates his youthful vigor, his mature experience, his declining years. To you he has been the channel of untold blessing. Often has the Lord spoken through him to your oppressed heart, thoughts of peace and words of love. He has often been instrumental of removing doubt from your mind, of clearing up points of truth that were hard to be understood, and of building you up on your most holy faith. Often, too, has he been the means of endearing Christ to you, leading you to Him as a Counselor, as a Brother, as a Friend, and as a Redeemer; thus unveiling His glory to your eye, and His preciousness to your heart. Perhaps he first told you of Jesus! From his lips you heard the life-giving sound of the gospel; by him you were wounded, by him you were healed, and by his hands you were received within the pale of the Christian church. Is it an unreasonable request that he should ask especial remembrance in the petitions which you breathe to God for "all saints"? Think how often you have filled his mind with thoughtfulness, his heart with anxiety, his eyes with tears, his mouth with holy, fervent pleadings at the throne of grace. Then, will you not continue to pray for your pastor? Gratitude demands it.

Remember him not in your petitions on ordinary occasions merely, but let there be especial seasons of prayer set apart for him alone. Particularly if you know him to be passing through a season of trial, or sorrow, or mental anxiety—take him constantly and especially to the Lord. You need not know the cause of that sorrow. Proper feelings dictating, you will not wish to know. It will be enough for you that, with delicacy of perception, you have seen the shade of sadness on his brow; the look of anxiety in his eye; the expression of deep thoughtfulness upon his countenance; you will instantly take him in your heart to the Lord. And oh! who can unfold the extent of the blessing, which your prayers may thus be the channel of conveying to his soul? You may deem yourself, my reader, but an insignificant member of the flock. The grace which the Lord has given you may constrain you to think meanly of yourself, and to retire into the shade; but mean and feeble though you may be in your own eyes, yet you have power with God in prayer. See you yon little cloud sailing athwart that blue sky? it has absorbed its precious treasures from some hidden spring, and, guided by God's invisible hand, is going to unbosom itself upon some parched and thirsty spot, refreshing, gladdening, and fructifying it. The little rivulet, that flows noiseless and unseen from that shaded spot, has thus transmitted from its sequestered glen an influence felt far beyond it, and to an extent it never conceived, and never can know! Such, dear reader, may be the character, and such the results, of your intercessions in behalf of your pastor. Silver and gold you may have none to offer him; he asks not this at your hands. But your prayers you may give, and your prayers he does ask. He beseeches you, earnestly and affectingly, for the Lord Jesus Christ's sake, and for the love of the Spirit, that you strive in your prayers to God for him! And oh! the hallowing, cheering influence which those prayers may shed upon his mind—eternity alone can reveal! The return of blessing to yourself will be incalculable and immense. The moisture absorbed from the earth, returns again to the earth in grateful and refreshing showers. And thus every prayer which you in fervency and in faith breathe to heaven for your pastor, will, through him, return again in "showers of blessing" upon your own soul.

DECEMBER 12.

"The mystery of the gospel." Ephesians 6:19

The apostle doubtless borrows the word from the secret rites of the heathen temples, to which none were admitted, and which none understood, but the initiated. To all others they were mysteries. Freed from its original and profane use, it is here appropriately applied to designate the nature and the doctrines of the gospel of Christ; and thus becomes, by its association, a hallowed and expressive term. Nor is this the only place in which it occurs in the same use. Thus in 1 Cor. 2:7, "We speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, even the hidden wisdom which God ordained before the world for our glory." Equally clear is it, that none are initiated into this mystery of the gospel, but those who are partakers of the second birth. For, "unless a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God." It is to him a mystery. He is blind, and cannot see the glorious mysteries of this kingdom of grace. Addressing His twelve disciples, our Lord further elucidates this idea, when He reminds them of their great and gracious privilege: "Unto you it is given to know the mystery of the kingdom of God; but unto those who are without, all these things are done in parables." Still more clearly is this truth developed in His remarkable prayer, thus recorded: "In that hour Jesus rejoiced in spirit, and said, I thank You, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that You have hid these things from the wise and prudent, and have revealed them unto babes: even so, Father; for so it seemed good in Your sight."

If, dear reader, you have been led in any degree into the knowledge of this glorious mystery of truth, hesitate not to ascribe it to the grace of God. Unto you it has been given to know the mystery of the kingdom. The sovereignty of God has so ordered it. The learning, the intellect, the philosophy of the worldly-wise and prudent, have afforded you no help in the solution and unraveling of these divine and glorious enigmas. "But God has revealed them unto us by His Spirit: for the Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God." To babes in Christ—to the lowly-minded disciple—to the learner, willing to receive the kingdom of God as a little child—God unfolds this mystery, that no flesh should glory in His presence. Oh favored, happy soul, if you, through the illuminating grace of the Holy Spirit, have been led into the mystery of the Father's love in Christ to poor perishing sinners! "Even so, Father; for so it seemed good in Your sight."

DECEMBER 13.

"In the multitude of my thoughts within me your comforts delight my soul." Psalm 94:19

As a system of Divine and unfailing consolation, there is a charm in the gospel of Jesus of indescribable sweetness. Originating with that God, not only whose name and whose perfection, but whose very essence is love, and who Himself is the "God of all comfort," it must be a gospel of "strong consolation," commensurate with every conceivable sorrow of His people. Let those testify who, amid the trials and the conflicts of their pilgrimage, have thus experienced it. Indeed it is only by this test that its real character can be estimated. As we can convey no adequate idea of sound to the deaf, of color to the blind, or life to the dead, neither can we by the most elaborate reasoning or eloquent description, impart to a mind estranged from sorrow—if such there be—any proper conception of the magic power of the gospel, as a consummate system of the richest consolation and support. But let a Christian be placed in circumstances of the deepest grief and sorest trial—the bread and the water of affliction his food—the iron entering his soul—the heart bereaved—the mind perplexed—the spirit dark—all human hopes blighted, and creature cisterns failing him like a spring in the summer's drought—then let the Spirit of God, the Divine Paraclete, open this box of perfume, breathing into his soul the rich consolations, the precious promises, the strong assurances, the divine counsels, and the glowing hopes which it contains, and in a moment the light of love appears in his dark cloud, his fainting spirit revives, and all is peace. What a wondrous gospel must that be which can meet the necessities of man at every point; whose wisdom no human perplexity can baffle, and whose resources of sympathy and comfort, no case of suffering or of sorrow can exhaust.

Tried soul! repair to this unfailing spring of comfort. God speaks to you in it—it is the unsealing of the heart of Jesus—it is the still small voice of the Spirit. It speaks to you—it bids you "Cast your burden on the Lord, and He will sustain you;" "Call upon Him in the day of trouble, and He will answer you." It assures you that, amid all your perplexing cares, "He cares for you." It promises you that, for your flint-paved path, your "shoes shall be iron and brass;" and "that as your days, so shall your strength be." It tells you that "a woman may forget her nursing child, yet will not God forget you;" that in all your assaults, you "shall dwell on high, your place of defense shall be the munitions of rocks," and though hemmed in on every side by a besieging foe, and all other supplies cut off, yet "your bread shall be given you, and your water shall be sure." It invites you to lay your griefs and weep out your sorrows upon the bosom of Jesus, and so, "leaning upon your Beloved, ascend from the wilderness." Oh, to be led into the heart-felt experience of these truths, even while passing through billows of sorrow to a martyr's flames!

DECEMBER 14.

"It is Christ that died." Romans 8:34

"Delivered Him up for us all." If any other expression were necessary to deepen our sense of the vastness of God's love, we have it here. Who delivered up Jesus to die? Not Judas, for money; not Pilate, for fear; not the Jews, for envy—but the Father, for love! "Him, being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, you have taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and slain." In this great transaction we lose sight of His betrayers, and His accusers, and His murderers, and we see only the Father travailing in the greatness of His love to His family. And to what was He delivered? To the hands of wicked men—God's "darling to the power of the dogs." To poverty and want, to contempt and infamy, to grief and sorrow, to unparalleled suffering, and a most ignominious death. "It pleased the Lord to bruise Him, He has put Him to grief." And for whom was He thus delivered up? "For us all;" for the church purchased with His own blood. For all in that church He has an equal love, and for all He paid an equal price. Deem not yourself—poor, unlettered, and afflicted as you may be—less an object of the Father's love, or less the purchase of the Savior's merits. Oh, blessed, comforting truth! For us all! For you, who are tempted to interpret your afflictions as signals of wrath, and your sins as seals of condemnation; your poverty as the mark of neglect, your seasons of darkness as tokens of desertion, and your doubts and fears as evidences of a false hope and of self-deception; for you, dear saint of God, Jesus was delivered up.

The death of Christ formed the first of all the subsequent steps, in the working out of the great plan of the church's redemption. To this, as its center, every line of truth converged. It was as a suffering Messiah, as an atoning High Priest, as a crucified Savior, as a Conqueror, returning from the battle-field with garments rolled in blood, that the Son of God was revealed to the eye of the Old Testament saints. They were taught by every type, and by every prophecy, to look to the "Lamb slain from the foundation of the world." Christ must die. Death had entered our world, and death—the death of the Prince of Life—only could expel it. This event formed the deepest valley of our Lord's humiliation. It was the dark background—the somber shading of the picture of His life, around which gathered the light and glory of all the subsequent parts of His history.

But in what character did Christ die? Not as a martyr, nor as a model, but as a substitute. His death was substitutionary. "God has not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us." This great truth the apostle, in another place, appropriates to Himself. "The Son of God, who loved me, and gave Himself for me." Here was the personal application of a general truth. And this is the privilege of faith. There breathes not a babe in Christ, who may not lay his hand upon this glorious truth—"Christ gave Himself for me." Since Christ bore our sins, and was condemned in our place; since by His expiatory death the claims of Divine justice are answered, and the holiness of the Divine law is maintained, who can condemn those for whom He died? Oh, what security is this for the believer in Jesus? Standing beneath the shadow of the cross, the weakest saint can confront his deadliest foe; and every accusation alleged, and every sentence of condemnation uttered, he can meet, by pointing to Him who died. In that one fact he sees the great debt cancelled, the entire curse removed, the grand indictment quashed—and "No condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus," are words written as in letters of living light upon the cross.

DECEMBER 15.

"Yes rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God." Romans 8:34

This is the second part of the mediation of Christ, which the apostle assigns as a reason why none can condemn the believer. It would seem by the word "rather," that we are taught to look upon this fact of our Lord's life as supplying a still stronger affirmation of the great truth He was establishing. A few observations may make this appear. The atoning work of Christ was in itself a finished work. It supplied all that the case demanded. Nothing could possibly add to its perfection. "I have finished the work which You gave me to do." But we wanted the proof; we required that evidence of the reality and acceptance of the atonement, which would render our faith in it a rational and intelligent act. The proof lay with Him, who was "pleased to bruise Him, and put Him to grief." If God were satisfied, then the guilty, trembling sinner may confidently and safely repose on the work of the Savior. The fact of the resurrection was therefore essential, to give reality to the atonement and hope to man. Had He not returned in triumph from the grave, the sanctity of His precepts, the sublimity of His teachings, the luster of His example, and the sympathies awakened by the story of His death, might have attracted, charmed, and subdued us—but all expectation of redemption by His blood would have been a mockery and a delusion. But "this Jesus has God raised up" and, grounded on this fact, the believer's acquittal is complete. When He bowed His head and gave up the spirit, the sentence of condemnation was reversed; but when He burst the bonds of death, and appeared in the character of a victor, the believer's justification was forever sealed. "For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by His life."

Here, then, lies the great security of the believer. "Delivered for our offences, He rose again for our justification." Resting his hand of faith upon the vacant tomb of his living Redeemer, the Christian can exclaim, "Who is he that condemns? it is Christ that died, yes rather, that is risen again." Oh, to feel the power of His resurrection in our souls! Oh, to rise with Him in all the reality and glory of this His new-born life; our minds, our affections, our aspirations, our hopes, all quickened, and ascending with our living Lord. "Because I live, you shall live also."

"Who is even at the right hand of God." The exaltation of Christ was a necessary part of His mediatorial work. It entered essentially into the further continuance of that work in heaven—the scene of the intercessory part of the High Priest's office. "The right hand of God" is a phrase of expressive power and dignity. "When He had by Himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high." "Who is gone into heaven, and is on the right hand of God; angels, and authorities, and powers being made subject unto Him." What stronger assurance has the believer that no impeachment against him can be successful than this? His Savior, his Advocate, his best Friend, is at the right hand of the Father, advanced to the highest post of honor and power in heaven. All power and dominion are His. The revolutions of the planets, and the destinies of empires, His hand guides. The government is upon His shoulders; and for the well-being, security, and triumph of His church, power over all flesh, and dominion over all worlds, is placed in His hands. Who, then, can condemn? Jesus is at the right hand of God, and the principalities and powers of all worlds are subject to His authority. Fear not, therefore, O believer! your Head and Redeemer is alive to frustrate every purpose, to resist every plot, and to silence every tongue, that would condemn you.

DECEMBER 16.

"Partakers of the Holy Spirit." Hebrews 6:4

Too lax views of the Holy Spirit we may entertain, but too exalted views we cannot. The great danger is in dishonoring and grieving Him, by low thoughts of the place which He occupies in the Church of God, and of the part which belongs to Him in the salvation of man. But who can trace His operations in our Lord, and not rise from the contemplation of the subject with the deepest conviction of the necessity and the importance of possessing a large portion of the Spirit, in order to deep holiness of heart and great usefulness of life? Christian reader, accustom yourself to address the Spirit in your approach to the footstool of mercy, as a Divine and distinct person; recognizing Him in all the offices which He sustains in the great economy of grace. This will very much tend to expand your mind with exalted views of His Divine and personal glory; and, at the same time, by devoutly contemplating His all-sufficiency, will make you more thoroughly acquainted with your own deep and urgent necessity of His grace. And whatever that necessity may be, ever bear in mind the Spirit is more than equal to it.

Who can reveal Jesus to the soul, save the Spirit? As He only could work in Christ the glory which beamed forth from the Godhead through the manhood, so He only can throw that glory in upon the soul of man. Do I want the peace-speaking blood of atonement upon my conscience?—the Spirit applies it. Do I desire to know my acceptance in the righteousness of Christ?—the Spirit seals it. Do I long to see the Father revealed in the Son?—the Spirit unfolds Him. Do I need in all my trials and conflicts to see the Lord Jesus to be my comfort?—the Spirit, the Comforter, takes of the things that belong to Him, and shows them to my soul—Thus in these, and in a thousand other ways, the Spirit glorifies Christ, first in Himself, and then in His people.

To the Christian reader I would once more say—Jesus is in heaven, alive at the right hand of God, having received the promise of the Father, and is prepared to bestow the Spirit in all the plenitude of His grace on those who ask the gift at His hands. He who so fully possessed the Spirit Himself, waits to give it as richly to others. As man, Jesus knew His own need—as man, He sympathizes with yours. Do not be content, then, with asking this most precious of all boons in a stinted measure, but seek it in its fullness. You are coming to a heart that loved you unto death—that bled for you on the cross—that lives for you on the throne; that desires with all the intensity of infinite affection to pour down upon you the greatest, the richest of all blessings—His own Spirit. Do you want to gain the ascendancy over your easy-besetting sins? then, "be filled with the Spirit." Want you to hold creatures and creature-blessings in their proper place? then, "be filled with the Spirit." Want you that Jesus should be the chief in your affection? then, "be filled with the Spirit." Want you that there shall be no room in your heart for carnal joys, for worldly delights, for sinful pleasures? then, "be filled with the Spirit." Want you to have much of the element of heaven below, inspiring you with longing desires for the full fruition of heaven above? then, "be filled with the Spirit." Thus will you be a living "epistle, known and read of all men." Thus will the world "take knowledge of you that you have been with Jesus." And thus, whatever your lawful calling may be, inscribed upon yourself, your labor, your all, shall be Holiness to the Lord.

DECEMBER 17.

"Lord, how is it that you will manifest yourself unto us, and not unto the world?" John 14:22

Such is the infinite majesty, and such the superlative beauty of the Lord Jesus, that were He, in our present state, to stand before us fully unveiled to the eye, overwhelmed with the effulgence of His presence we should exclaim, "Lord, temper Your glory to my feeble capacity, or enlarge my capacity to the dimensions of Your glory!" When in the days of His humiliation He stood upon Mount Tabor, in close converse with Moses and Elias, upon the decease which He was about to accomplish at Jerusalem, glowing with the grandeur of the theme, and fired with the thought of the redemption that was before Him, the veil of His humanity would seem for a moment to have dropped, and the Godhead it could imperfectly conceal shone forth with such overpowering splendor, that the disciples who were with Him fell at His feet as dead. After His ascension into heaven and His inauguration at the right hand of His Father, He again manifested forth His glory in an apocalyptic vision to John at Patmos; and again the same overpowering effects were produced: "And when I saw Him," narrates the exiled evangelist, "I fell at His feet as dead."

And yet this is the Savior "whom the nations abhor," whom men despise and reject; possessing to their eye "no form nor loveliness why they should desire Him." This is He to whom the world He created refused a home, and whom man suffered not to live, casting Him out as an accursed thing, too vile in their view to dwell among them—fit only to die! "Oh that my head were waters, and mine eyes a fountain of tears," that I might weep, dear Lord, while meditating upon the ignominy, the insult, and the suffering to which my species subjected You. Had another order of being so insulted Your person, so mangled Your form, so requited Your love, so slighted and abhorred You, I might have wept in secret places, mourned, and afflicted my soul, and vowed eternal vengeance against Your calumniators and Your murderers—but it was hatred, ingratitude, and malignity, wearing my own nature—it was man, yes, Lord, it was I myself! But for my sin, my crime, my hell, that spotless soul of Your had known no burden, that gentle spirit no cloud, that tender heart no grief, and that sacred body no scar. And when I read the story of Your wrong—how they calumniated You, blasphemed You, scourged You, spit upon You, mocked You, smote You, and then bore You to a felon's death—I could cover me with sackcloth, bury my face in ashes, and no more cherish the sin—the hateful, the abhorred, the accursed sin, that caused it all.

But overpowering as a full unveiling of the majesty of the Lord Jesus would be to us in our present imperfect state, it yet ranks among our most prized and precious mercies, that He does at times so graciously and especially manifest Himself, as to awaken the exclamation, "This is my Beloved, and this is my Friend!" Holy and blessed are such seasons! Delighted, yet amazed, the believer inquires, "Lord, how is it that You will manifest Yourself unto us, and not unto the world?" He answers and resolves the mystery—as He does the mystery of all His dealings with us—into love. "He that loves Me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him." Our experience of these divine manifestations of Christ, forms one of the strongest evidences of His indwelling in our hearts. To none but those who fear the Lord, is the mystery of His covenant revealed. "The secret of the Lord is with those who fear Him." They whose posture of soul most resembles that of the "beloved disciple," are led the deepest into the secret of God's love to us in Jesus. Their intimate acquaintance with Jesus, must bring them into a closer relation and communion with God; it must result in more perfect knowledge of Him—His glory, His mind, and His love. Blessed, but much forgotten truth—he who knows much of the Son, knows also much of the Father.

DECEMBER 18.

"Knowing, brethren beloved, your election of God." 1 Thessalonians 1:4

The question has often been asked by the trembling life, "How may I be assured of an interest in the eternal purpose and everlasting love of God? By what evidence may I conclude that I am one 'whom He predestinated?'" Listen to the words of the apostle, addressed to the Thessalonian saints: "Knowing, brethren beloved, your election of God." But how did he know this? Had he read their names in the Lamb's book of life? No! See how he solves the mystery. "For our gospel came not unto you in word only, but also in power, and in the Holy Spirit, and in much assurance." By this he knew their election of God. And by a similar test you must bring the question to an issue. Has the gospel come to your heart by the Holy Spirit? In other words, have you been called by the inward call? Have you fled as a poor sinner to Christ, and is He all your salvation and all your desire? Assume the truth of nothing, take nothing for granted as to your salvation, until this is the case.

It is with the fact of your open call, and not with the fact of your secret predestination, that you have mainly to do. It is this central and visible link in the chain that you must grasp. Secret things belong to God. The things revealed belong to us. You are assuming an attitude of the most appalling temerity, in attempting to force your way into the secret counsels of the Most High, plunging into the fathomless depths of a past eternity, and intruding into those mysteries, veiled and unsearchable, upon whose awful threshold an angel's foot dare not tread. But oh, how near, how visible, how precious, the truth with which you have to do—God standing in the most impressive and winning attitude of a gracious, sin-pardoning God—inviting you; imploring you, all guilty, and burdened, and sorrowful as you are, to accept His mercy; to avail yourself of His forgiveness, to believe in His Son; and thus, by grasping the outstretched hand, by heeding the earnest call, and accepting the gracious invitation, you may set forever at rest the question of your salvation. Let the great, the all-absorbing question with you be, "What shall I do to be saved?" Postpone every other inquiry, adjourn every other debate, until this is met and fairly settled, that you are the called of God. Take hold of the full and free invitations of the gospel—and Christ, and salvation, and heaven, are yours.

And for your encouragement we would say, that the feeblest puttings forth of grace in the soul are indisputable evidences of the inward and effectual call of the Spirit. If in the spring-time I mark the tender buddings of the costly plant, I rejoice, yet with trembling. The cold wind may blow, and the hoar frost may light upon those buds, and so nip and kill them, that they shall never burst into the beautiful and fragrant flower. But when I trace the buddings of grace in the heart of a poor sinner, when I observe the evidence of the Spirit's operation in the soul, I feel no misgiving, I cherish no fear, for I am assured that He who has begun the good work will carry it on, and perfect it in glory. No worm shall kill its root, no frosts shall nip its leaf, no winds shall scatter its fruit; it shall never, never be destroyed. God will complete the work to which He puts His hand. Oh, precious truth, replete with encouragement to the sorrow-stricken, sin-burdened, Christ-seeking soul! Sweeter music is not heard in heaven than these words addressed to you—"Him that comes to me I will in no wise cast out."

DECEMBER 19.

"When I see the blood I will pass over you." Exodus 12:13

It will be recollected that, upon Pharaoh's refusing to release God's people from bondage, the Lord commanded the first-born in every house to be slain. It was a night of woe in the land of Egypt, long to be remembered. The only exception in this work of destruction was in favor of the children of Israel. And yet even they could not escape the judicial punishment, but in the strictest compliance with the Divine method for their safety. They were ordered on the eve of that fearful night, to take "a lamb without blemish, a male of the first year," and to "slay it, and take of the blood, and strike it on the two side-posts and on the upper door-posts of the houses; and the blood," says God, "shall be to you for a token upon the houses where you are; and when I see the blood I will pass over you! and the plague shall not be upon you to destroy you, when I smite the land of Egypt." They obeyed God. And when the angel of death sped his way through the land, smiting the first-born of each Egyptian family, he paused with solemnity and awe when he beheld the sprinkled blood—sheathed his sword, and passed on to do the work of destruction where no blood was seen.

Thus will it be with the soul who has no interest in the life-giving and the life-saving blood of Jesus! The sinner who has not this Divine and sacred sign upon him is marked for condemnation; he is under the awful sentence of death! That sentence has gone forth—the destroying angel has received his commission—the sword is drawn—the arm is uplifted—one final word from that God who has long stretched out to you His beseeching, yet disregarded hand—that God whose patience you have abused, whose mercy you have despised, whose law you have broken, whose Son you have rejected—and the stroke falls—and heaven is lost forever! Oh, fly to the atoning blood of Jesus! Not a moment is to be lost. Your only hope is there—your only protection is there—your only safety is there! "When I see the blood I will pass over you." Blessed words! Where He beholds the pure heart's blood of His own Son—so precious to Him—sprinkled upon the broken, penitent heart of a poor sinner, He will pass him over in the great outpouring of His wrath; He will pass Him over when the ungodly, the Christless, and the prayerless sinner is punished; He will pass Him over in the dread day of judgment, and not one drop of wrath will fall upon Him. Escape, then, for your life! Hasten to Christ. It may be late—your evening's sun may be setting, the shadows of eternity may be deepening around you, but you have the Divine promise—plead it in faith, and God will fulfill it in your experience—"And it shall come to pass that at evening time it shall be light." Relinquish now all the strongholds of your long rebellion against God, and Christ, and truth—give up your vain reasonings, cavilings, and excuses, and come to the Lord Jesus as a penitent, believing sinner; throw yourself upon His mercy, take hold of His blood, get beneath the covering of His righteousness, and tell Him that if He casts you off you are lost, eternally lost—and you shall be saved! "I went, and washed, and received sight."

When the chill of death is congealing the life-current of your mortal existence, and heart and flesh are failing—the world receding, eternity opening—what think you will then bring life and peace into death itself, illumine the valley, and place you in safety upon the highest wave of Jordan?—It will be the living blood of the Divine Redeemer, at that awful moment applied to the conscience by the Holy Spirit, testifying that all sin is blotted out, your person accepted, and that there is now no condemnation. "Precious blood! precious blood that has secured all this!" will be the grateful expression of your expiring lips, as your ransomed soul crosses the dark stream into the light and glory of heaven.

DECEMBER 20.

"And to Jesus the mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling, that speaks better things than that of Abel." Hebrews 12:24

The subject lifts us to the very porch, and within the porch of heaven. And what is the great truth which it presents to our view there?—the prevalency of the life-blood of Jesus within the veil. The moment the ransomed and released soul enters glory, the first object that arrests its attention and fixes its eye is—the interceding Savior. Faith, anticipating the glorious spectacle, sees Him now pleading the blood on behalf of each member of His church upon earth. "By His own blood He entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us." "For Christ is not entered into the holy places made with hands, which are the figures of the true; but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us." There is blood in heaven! the blood of the Incarnate God! And because it pleads and prays, argues and intercedes, the voice of every sin is hushed, every accusation of Satan is met, every daily transgression is forgiven, every temptation of the adversary is repelled, every evil is averted, every want is supplied, and the present sanctification and the final glorification of the saints are secured. "Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect? It is God that justifies. Who is he that condemns? It is Christ that died, yes rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us." Draw near, you Joshuas, accused by Satan! Approach, you Peters, whose faith is sifted! Come, you tried and disconsolate! The mediatorial Angel, the pleading Advocate, the Interceding High Priest, is passed into the heavens, and appears before the throne for you. If the principle of the new life in your soul has decayed, if your grace has declined, if you have "left your first love," there is vitality in the interceding blood of Jesus, and it prays for your revival. If sin condemns, and danger threatens, if temptation assails, and affliction wounds, there is living power in the pleading blood of Immanuel, and it procures pardon, protection, and comfort.

Nor let us overlook the sanctifying tendency of the pleading blood. "These things I write unto you, that you sin not." The intercession of Jesus is holy, and for holiness. The altar of incense is of "pure gold." The advocacy of Christ is not for sin, but for sinners. He prays not for the continuance of sin, but for the putting away of sin. "The righteous Lord loves righteousness." If sensible of our sin—if mourning over our sin—if loathing and turning from our sin—we come to God through Christ, then "we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the Righteous." The odor-breathing censer is in His hand—the fragrant cloud goes up—the mercy-seat is enveloped—the Father smiles—and all once more is peace! Then, "I will arise and go to my Father, and will say unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and before you, and am no more worthy to be called your son."

DECEMBER 21.

"Be you also patient; establish your hearts: for the coming of the Lord draws near." James 5:8

If the apostle, in his day, could thus exhort the saints, how much stronger reason have we for believing that the "Lord is at hand!" Every movement in the providential government of God, indicates the near approach of great events. The signs of the times are significant and portentous. The abounding profession of Christianity—the advancement of human science—the increase of the papal power—the spirit of despotism, of infidelity, and of superstition, these three master principles at this moment expanding through Europe, struggling each with the other, and all with the gospel, for supremacy—and the extra-ordinary movements now going forward in reference to the return of the Jews—are heralding the approaching chariot of the King of kings. The church of God will yet pass through severe trials—"many shall be purified, and made white, and tried;" nevertheless Jesus lives, and Jesus shall reign, and the church shall reign with Jesus. Let the thought of His coming be an influential theme of meditation and joy, of hope and action.

The present is the suffering state of the church. It is through much tribulation that she is to enter the kingdom prepared for her by her coming Lord. But, amid the sorrows of the pilgrimage, the perils of the desert, the conflicts of the field, the blasphemies, the taunts, and the persecutions of the world, the pangs of disease, and the wastings of decay, we will have our "conversation in heaven, from where also we look for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto His glorious body, according to the working, whereby He is able even to subdue all things unto Himself." He, "whom not having seen we love," will soon appear, and then He will chase away every sorrow, dry up every tear, annihilate every corruption, and perfect us in the beauties of holiness. Then there will be no more rising of inward corruption, no more exposure to temptation, no more solicitations of evil, and no more wounding of the bosom upon which we recline. The heart will be perfected in love; and the mind, developing its faculties, enlarging its knowledge, and yielding up itself to those "intellectual revelations, to that everlasting sun-light of the soul," which all will enjoy who love, and long for, Christ's appearing—will merge itself in the light, the glory, the holiness of the Eternal Mind. Oh that the reign of Christ may be, first, by His grace in our hearts, then we may indeed expect to reign with Him in glory. The cross below is the only path to the throne above. The crucifixion now, the glory then. The scepter in our hearts here, the crown upon our heads hereafter. Precious Jesus! hasten your coming! We love You, we serve You, we long for You, we look for You. Come, and perfect us in Your likeness.

DECEMBER 22.

"But whoever has this world's good, and sees his brother have need, and shuts up his affections of compassion from him, how dwells the love of God in him? My little children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue; but in deed and in truth." 1 John 3:17, 18

Christian liberality in alleviating the necessities of the Lord's poor, is an eminent attribute of the brotherly love of the one family. The greater number of the Lord's people are "poor in this world." "I will leave in the midst of you a poor and an afflicted people, and they shall trust in the Lord." The poor the church has always with her. They are a precious legacy committed to her care by her ascended Lord.

The line of Christian duty is clear respecting them. Even in the old dispensation, we find more than a dim shadowing forth of this duty. "If your brother be waxen poor, you shall relieve him. You shall not give him your money on usury, nor lend him your victuals for increase," Lev. 25:35. "If there be among you a poor man, of one of your brethren, you shall not harden your heart, nor shut your hand from your poor brother: but you shall open your hand wide unto him, and shall surely lend him sufficient for his need. And your heart shall not be grieved (i. e. shall not begrudge the gift, but shall give cheerfully) when you give unto him," Deut. 15:7, 8,10. This duty becomes still more obligatory, and is enforced with still stronger motives, under the Christian dispensation, as in the words of our motto. Also in the apostle's command to Timothy: "Charge those who are rich in this world, that they do not be high-minded, nor trust in uncertain riches, but in the living God, who gives us richly all things to enjoy; that they do good, that they be rich in good works, ready to distribute, willing to communicate." Thus "by love we serve one another."

What holy luxury of feeling has the Lord associated with the discharge of this Christian duty! Who has not realized, in obeying this sweet and lovely precept, a blessing peculiar to itself? Who has not felt that it was "more blessed to give than to receive;" that here the greatest expenditure has always resulted in the greatest increase; and that in supplying Christ's need in His poor, tried and necessitous representatives, Christ has Himself met us in the way, with some manifest token of His gracious approval? Oh, for more love to Christ, as exhibited towards His people! To see only Christ in them—be they mean, poor, tried, or infirm, despised or reviled, sick, in prison, or in bonds, to recognize Christ in them, to love Christ in them, and to serve Christ in them. This would bring more sweet discoveries of the indwelling of Christ in our own souls. How could we show our love to Christ in another, and not feel the sunshine of His love in our own hearts? Impossible! Oh! to hear Him speak, when the case of need presents itself—"Inasmuch as you have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, you have done it unto Me."

DECEMBER 23.

"For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain." Philippians 1:21

It will not be disputed that the true test of excellence is its nearest approach to perfection. To nothing will this rule more strictly apply, than to the Christian character. Essentially considered, there can be no difference between one believer and another. Both are equally the objects of God's love, and alike the subjects of His regenerating grace. Both stand on an equal footing of acceptance, and participate in the immunities which belong to the children of God. But it cannot be denied, nor must it be concealed, that there is a great and marked difference in the moral influence which one Christian exerts beyond another. In the measure of his grace—in the depth of his Christianity—in the vigor of his faith—in the luster of his holiness—in the glory he brings to God—and in the consequent happiness of which he is conscious—it may be truly said of the church on earth, as of the church in heaven, "one star differs from another." And to what is this variation to be traced? Undoubtedly to a difference in the tone of spiritual-mindedness. The one is the man of a low, the other of a high Christian standard. Drawing their life, light, and support from one center, they yet seem to move in widely distant orbits. The one appears nearer to the sun than the other. And thus, standing in a closer proximity to the Fountain of all grace, he draws from its fullness the more largely, and dispenses the more freely. His humble walk with God, his close adherence to Christ, his following the Lord fully, imparts a charm to his piety, a brilliance to his example, and a potency to his influence, which place him at once in the highest rank of Christian men.

The last epoch of the Christian's life—such a life as this—cannot but be peculiarly interesting and impressive: It were, perhaps, incorrect to speak of it as the most instructive part of his history. A prolonged course of unreserved consecration to Christ, the record of which would be but a continuous testimony to the truth of the Bible, the character of God, and the power of the Savior's grace in upholding and succouring, sanctifying and comforting the believer, must necessarily constitute a volume of instruction, such as the most triumphant departure could scarcely supply. If this be so, of how much greater moment, then, is it that the Christian should be solicitous how he should live, rather than forestall, by vain and fruitless speculations, the question how he shall die? It is the life, and not the death, that supplies the most satisfactory and assured evidence of real conversion. "Tell me not," says the excellent John Newton, "how a man died; rather tell me how he lived." Let but the religion of an individual be a living, practical embodiment, of the noble sentiment of Paul, "For me to live is Christ," and he need not be unduly anxious about his final change; that change, be it whatever God appoints, must be his gain. It is not always that a life of transcendent beauty—"the beauty of holiness "—is closed by a departure of corresponding interest and grandeur. As if to illustrate the importance and to enforce the lesson of a holy life as a thing of essential moment, God has sometimes disappointed a too eager, and, perhaps, too curious expectation, and has taken home His child, not in a chariot of fire, but of cloud. In other cases, however, we trace the harmony between an eminently godly life and a singularly happy death. Indeed, so strangely and beautifully alike are the two, it were difficult to decide which the most became that bright example, and which brought most honor to God—the dying life, or the living death. Both were emphatically—life in Jesus.

DECEMBER 24.

"And without controversy great is the mystery of godliness." 1 Timothy 3:16

The doctrine of the Incarnation presents a gospel mystery, if possible, more astonishing than that of the Trinity. We can more easily understand that there should be three people in a unity of subsistence, than that God should be manifested in the flesh. The analogy of the one meets us everywhere; turn we the eye within ourselves, or turn we it without upon the broad expanse of God's creation—from every point of observation, a trinity of existence bursts upon our view. But, of the other, in vain we search for anything approaching to resemblance. It was a thing so unheard of and so strange, so marvelous and so unique—that there was nothing in the sublime or the rude, in the bold or the tender, of nature's varied works, to prepare the mind for, or awaken the expectation of, a phenomenon so strange, so stupendous, and so mysterious. Not that the possibility of such an event astonishes us. With Jehovah all things are possible. "Is anything too hard for me?" is a question that would seem to rebuke the first rising of such an emotion—

"A God allowed, all other wonders cease."

But we marvel at the fact itself. Its stupendousness amazes us—its condescension humbles us—its glory dazzles us—its tenderness subdues us—its love overpowers us. That the uncreated Son of God should become the created Son of man—that the Eternal Word should be made flesh and dwell with men—that He should assume a new title, entwining in the awful letters that compose His divine name, others denoting His inferior nature as man, so revealing Himself as Jehovah-Jesus! Oh wonder, surpassing thought! Before this, how are all others infinitely outshone; their luster fading away and disappearing, as stars before the advancing light.

The mystical union of Christ and His church is also declared to be one of the mysteries of the gospel. "This is a great mystery;" says the apostle, "but I speak concerning Christ and His church." That Christ and His people should be one—one as the head and the body—the vine and the branch—the foundation and the house—is indeed a wondrous truth. We cannot understand how it is; and yet so many, palpable, and gracious are the blessings flowing from it, we dare not reject it. All that a believer is, as a living soul, he is from a vital union with Christ. As the body without the soul is dead, so is a sinner morally dead without union to Jesus. Not only His life, but his fruitfulness is derived from this source. All the "beauties of holiness" that adorn his character, spring from the vital principle which his engrafting into Christ produces. He is skillful to fight, strong to overcome, patient to endure, meek to suffer, and wise to walk, as he lives on Christ for the grace of sanctification. "Without me you can do nothing." Is it not indeed a mystery that I should so be one with Christ, that all that He is becomes mine, and all that I am becomes His. His glory mine, my humiliation His; His righteousness mine, my guilt His; His joy mine, my sorrow His. Mine His riches, His my poverty; mine His life, His my death; mine His heaven, His my hell? The daily walk of faith is a continuous development of the wonders of this wondrous truth. That in traveling to Him empty, I should return from Him full. That in going to him weak, I should come away from Him strong. That in bending my steps to Him, in all darkness, perplexity, and grief, I should retrace them all light, and joy, and gladness. Why marvel at this mystery of the life of faith? My oneness with Jesus explains it.

DECEMBER 25.

"God was manifest in the flesh." 1 Timothy 3:16

Viewed as a medium of the most costly blessings to the church of God, how precious a mystery does the incarnation of our Lord appear! The union of the Divine and the human in Immanuel, is the reunion of God through the second Adam with fallen man. The first Adam severed us from the Divine nature—the second Adam reunites us. The incarnation is the grand link between these two extremes of being. It forms the verdant spot, the oasis, in the desert of a ruined universe, on which God and the sinner can meet together. Here are blended in marvelous union the gloomy clouds of human woe, and the bright beams of Divine glory—God and man united! And will you, O theist, rob me of this truth, because of its mystery? Will you yourself reject it, because reason cannot grasp it? Then might I rob you of your God (whom you ignorantly worship), because of His incomprehensibleness, not one attribute of whom can you understand or explain. No! it is a truth too precious to part with so easily. God in my nature—my God—my Brother—my Friend—my Counselor—my Guide—my Redeemer—my Pattern—my all! God in my nature, my wisdom, my righteousness, my sanctification, my redemption!

But for this heaven-descending communication, of which the patriarch's ladder was the symbol and the type, how could a holy God advance towards me, or I draw near to Him? But He takes my nature that He may descend to me, and He gives me His nature that I may ascend to Him. He stoops, because I could not rise! Oh mystery of grace, wisdom, and love! Shall I doubt it? I go to the manger of Bethlehem, and gaze upon the infant Savior. My faith is staggered, and I exclaim, "Is this the Son of God?" Retiring, I track that infant's steps along its future path. I mark the wisdom that He displayed, and I behold the wonders that He wrought. I mark the revelations that He disclosed, the doctrines that He propounded, the precepts that He taught, the magnanimity that He displayed. I follow Him to Gethsemane, to the judgment-hall, and then to Calvary, and I witness the closing scene of wonder. I return to Bethlehem, and with the evidences which my hesitating faith has thus collected, I exclaim, with the awe-struck and believing centurion, "Truly this is the Son of God!" All the mystery of His lowly incarnation vanishes, and my adoring soul embraces the incarnate God within its arms. We marvel not that, hovering over the spot where this great mystery of godliness transpired, the celestial choir, in the stillness of the night, awoke such strains of music along the plains of Bethlehem as were never heard before. They left the realms of glory to escort the Lord of glory in His advent to our earth. How gladly they trooped around Him, thronging His wondrous way, their benevolent bosoms dilating in sympathy with the grand object of His mission. And this was the angel's message to the astonished shepherds: "Fear not: for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day, in the city of David, a Savior, which is Christ the Lord. And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God, and saying, Glory to God in the highest, and on Earth peace, good will toward men." Shall angels rejoice in the incarnation of the Son of God, and our hearts be cold and unmoved? Forbid it love, forbid it gratitude, forbid it, O my soul!

DECEMBER 26.

"Now all these things happened unto them for examples: and they are written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the world are come." 1 Corinthians 10:11

What an untold blessing to one believer may be the dealings of God with another! As "no man lives to himself," so no Christian is tried and supported, wounded and healed, disciplined and taught, for himself alone. God designs by His personal dealings with us to expound some law of His government, to convey some lesson of instruction to the mind, or to pour some stream of consolation into the heart of others. Thus the experience of one child of God may prove the channel of peculiar and immense blessing to many. God, in this arrangement, is but acting in accordance with a law of our nature of His own creating—the law of individual and reciprocal influence. No individual of the human family occupies in the world a position isolated and alone. He is a part of an integral system. He is a member of a complete and vast community. He is a link in a mighty and interminable chain. He cannot think, nor speak, nor move, nor act, without affecting the interests and the well-being, it may be, of myriads. By that single movement, in the utterance of that one thought, in the enunciation of that great truth, he has sent a thrill of sensation along an endless line of existence.

Who can tell where individual influence terminates? Who can place his finger upon the last link that vibrates in the chain of intelligent being? What if that influence never terminates! What if that chain never ceases to vibrate! Solemn thought! In another and a remote period, in a distant and an undiscovered region, the sentiment, the habit, the feeling, once, perhaps, thoughtlessly and carelessly set in motion, has gone on working for good or for evil, owned and blessed, or rejected and cursed of heaven. Nothing can recall it; no remorse, nor tears, nor prayers, can summon it back; no voice can persuade, no authority command it to return. It is working its way through myriads of minds to the judgment-seat, and is rushing onward, onward, onward through the countless ages of eternity! Thought is immortal. Its propagation is endless. It never dies, and it never ceases to act. Borne along upon the stream of time, who can calculate the good, or compute the evil, or observe the end of a single life? My soul! aim to live in view of this solemn fact!

But especially is this true of the child of God. He belongs to a people within a people, to a church within a church, to a kingdom within a kingdom—designated as a "chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a peculiar people." In this separate and hidden community, there is a divine cement, an ethereal bond of union, which unites and holds each part to the whole, each member to the body, in the closest cohesion and unity. The apostle more than recognizes—he emphatically asserts—this truth when, speaking of the church of God, he describes it as the "whole body fitly joined together, and compacted by that which every joint supplies." And again, when speaking of the sympathetic influence of the church, he says, "And whether one member suffer, all the members suffer with it." And so also of the consolation. When Paul penned the letter to the church at Corinth, he was with his companions in circumstances of deep trial. He was "cast down," and disconsolate. God sought to "stay His rough wind in the day of His east wind," by sending to him an affectionate Christian minister and beloved brother. "Nevertheless," writes the apostle, in recording the fact, "God, who comforts those that are cast down, comforted us by the coming of Titus." He who wrote these words has long since been in glory; and yet the experience he then traces upon the page has been, and is still telling upon the instruction, the comfort, and the holiness of millions, and will go on telling until time shall be no more. Remember, my reader, you must quit this world, but your influence will survive you. Your character and works, when dead, will be molding the living; and they, in their turn, will transmit the lineaments and the form of a mind whose thoughts never perish, to the remotest posterity. "He, being dead, yet speaks." What an expressive epitaph! A truer sentiment, and one more solemn, never breathed from the marble tablet. The dead never die! Their memory speaks! Their character speaks! Their works speak, and speak forever!

DECEMBER 27.

"The Father loves the Son, and has given all things into his hand." John 3:35

Especially in the Lord Jesus, the Mediator of the new covenant, are all great and glorious blessings prepared and treasured up. No conception can fully grasp the greatness of that declaration, "It pleased the Father that in Him should all fullness dwell." Fullness of justification, so that the most guilty may be accepted. Fullness of pardon, so that the vilest may be forgiven. Fullness of grace, so that the most unholy may be sanctified. Fullness of strength, of consolation, and of sympathy, so that the most feeble, afflicted, and tried, may be sustained, supported, and comforted. Oh how imperfectly are we acquainted with the things which God has prepared in Jesus for those who love Him! He would seem to have laid all His treasures at our feet. We go to Pharaoh, and he sends us to Joseph. We travel to the Father—and sweet it is to go to Him!—but we forget that having made Christ the "Head over all things to the church," He sends us to Jesus. Every want has the voice of the Father in it, saying, "Go to Jesus." Every perplexity is the Father's voice—"Go to Jesus." Every trial is the Father's voice—"Go to Jesus." If it pleased the Father to prepare in Christ all these spiritual things for those who love Him, surely it must be equally pleasing to Him that I, a poor, needy, ignorant, guilty creature, should draw from this supply to the utmost extent of my need. I will, then, arise with my burden, with my sorrow, with my want, and go to Christ—and prove if His infinite willingness to give is not equal to His infinite ability to provide for me all that I need.

It was only in Christ that the Divine perfections employed in saving man could meet, and harmonize, and repose. But one object could reconcile their conflicting interests, maintain the honor of each, and unite and blend them all in one glorious expedient of human salvation, as effectual to man as it was honoring to God—that one object was God's only and beloved Son. The essential dignity of the Son of God was such, that all agreed that the rebel sinner should live, if the Divine Savior would die. Divine justice—vindicating holiness, and sustained by truth—pursued the victim of its vengeance, until it arrived at the cross. There it beheld the provision of mercy, the gift of love—God's dear Son, suspended, bleeding, dying in the room of the sinner, "giving Himself a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling savor"—and justice was stayed, stood still, and adored. It could proceed no further in arrest of the rebel, it had found full, ample, perfect satisfaction, and returned, exclaiming, "It is enough!" and God rested in His love. Yes! Jesus is the rest of the Father. Listen to the declaration which He loved so frequently to repeat—"This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased." With what holy satisfaction, with what fond complacence and delight, does He rest in Him who has so revealed His glory, and so honored His name! How dear to His heart Jesus is, what mind can conceive, what language can express? Resting in Him, delighting in His person, and fully satisfied with His work, an object ever in His presence and in His heart, the Father is prepared to welcome and to bless all who approach Him in the name of His Son. "The Father Himself loves you, because you have loved me." Therefore Jesus could say, "Whatever you shall ask the Father in my name, He will give it you." Behold, the Father resting in His love—resting in the Son of His love—resting in the gift of His love. Approach Him in the name of Jesus, and ask what you will, "He will give it you."

DECEMBER 28.

"And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God." Romans 8:28

The comprehensiveness of this privilege is boundless. "All things" under the righteous government of God must necessarily be a working out of good. "You are good, and do good." In Him there is no evil, and consequently nothing can proceed from Him that tends to evil. The passage supposes something antagonistic to the well-being of the believer, in God's conduct at times. He would appear to place Himself in an attitude of hostility to those who love Him, to stand in their path as with a drawn sword in His hand. And yet to no single truth does the church bear a stronger testimony than to this, that the darkest epochs of her history have ever been those from which her brightest luster has arisen; and that those very elements which wore an aspect so portentous and threatening, by a mutual and concurrent influence, under the guiding hand of God, have evolved purposes and plans, have developed thoughts and feelings, and have terminated in results and ends, all seeking and advancing the best welfare, the highest good, of the church of Christ.

Let us pass within the individual circle of the church. Shall we take the gloomiest and most painful circumstances in the history of the child of God? The Word declares that these identical circumstances, without a solitary exception, are all conspiring, and all working together, for his real and permanent good. As an illustration of this, take tribulation as the starting-point. Thus says the apostle: "We glory in tribulation also: knowing that tribulation works patience"—the grace that shines with such surpassing luster in the furnace; "and patience experience"—apart from which all religious profession is vain; "and experience hope"—the pole-star of the believer voyaging homeward; "and hope makes not ashamed"—but confirms and realizes all that it expected. And yet, from where this flow of precious blessing—serene patience, vital experience, and beaming hope?—all flow from the somber cloud of tribulation! That tribulation was, perhaps, of the most mysterious character—of the most humiliating nature—of the most overpowering force—yet behold the blessings it flung from its dark bosom! Who with a finite prescience could have predicted, still less have commanded, that from a bud so bitter and unsightly, a flower so sweet and fair should have blown?—that a cloud so dark and foreboding should have unbosomed a blessing to brilliant and so precious?

DECEMBER 29.

"Why seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which does so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us." Hebrews 12:1

The Bible is rich in its illustrations of this principle of the Divine government, that all that occurs in the Lord's guidance of His people conspires for, and works out, and results in, their highest happiness, their greatest good. Take, for example, the case of Jacob. Heavy and lowering was the cloud now settling upon his tabernacle. Severe was the test, and fearful the trembling of his faith. His feet were almost gone. The sad recollections of his bereavement still hovered like clinging shadows around his memory; gaunt famine stared him in the face; and a messenger with tidings of yet heavier woe lingered upon the threshold of his door. And when those tidings broke upon his ear, how touching the expression of his grief!—"Me have you bereaved of my children: Joseph is not, and Simeon is not, and you will take Benjamin away: all these things are against me." But lo! the circumstances which to the dim eye of his faith wore a hue so somber, and an aspect so alarming, were at that moment developing and perfecting the events which were to smooth his passage to the grave, and shed around the evening of his life the halo of a glorious and a cloudless sunset. All things were working together for his good!

Joseph, too, reviewing the past of his chequered and mysterious history, arrives at the same conclusion, and confirms the same truth. Seeking to tranquilize his self-condemning brothers, he says, "But as for you, you thought evil against me; but God meant it unto good, to bring to pass, as it is this day, to save much people alive." The envy of his brethren, his being sold as a slave, his imprisonment, were all working out God's purpose and plan of wisdom and love. And yet, who could have foreseen and predicted, that from those untoward events, the exaltation, power, and wealth of Joseph would spring? Yet all things were working together for good.

Thus is it, too, in the history of the Lord's loving corrections. They are all the unfoldings of a design, parts of a perfect whole. From these dealings, sometimes so heart-crushing, what signal blessings flow! "You have chastised me, and I was chastised." And what was the result? It awoke from Ephraim this precious acknowledgment and prayer—"Surely after that I was turned, I repented; and after that I was instructed, I smote upon my thigh: I was ashamed, yes, even confounded, because I did bear the reproach of my youth." Oh, who can compute the good, the real, the permanent good, that results from the trying dispensations of God?—from the corrections of a Father's love? The things that appear to militate against the believer, unfolding their heaven-sent mission, turn out rather for the furtherance of his best welfare and his highest interest.

DECEMBER 30.

"The Lord is on my side; I will not fear: what can man do unto me?" Psalm 118:6

God must be on the side of His people, since He has, in an everlasting covenant, made Himself over to be their God. In an especial manner, and in the highest degree, He is the God of His people. In the most comprehensive meaning of the words, He is for us. His love is for us—His perfections are for us—His covenant is for us—His government, extending over all the world, and His power over all flesh, is for us. There is nothing in God, nothing in His dealings, nothing in His providences, but what is on the side of His people. Enshrined in His heart, engraved on His hand, kept as the apple of His eye, God forms a mighty bulwark for His church. "As the mountains are round about Jerusalem, so the Lord is round about His people from henceforth even forever." In Christ Jesus, holiness, justice, and truth, unite with mercy, grace, and love, in weaving an invincible shield around each believer. There is not a purpose of His mind, nor a feeling of His heart, nor an event of His providence, nor an act of His government, that is not pledged to the happiness, the security, the well-being of His people. What Joshua said to the children of Israel, trembling to encounter the giants of Anak, may be truly said to every believer in view of his foes, "The Lord is with us, fear them not."

Not the Father only, but the Son of God, is also on our side. Has He not amply proved it? Who, when there was no eye to pity, and no arm to save, undertook our cause, and embarked all His grace and glory in our salvation? Who slew our great Goliath, and rescued us from Pharaoh, discharged our debt, and released us from prison? Who extinguished the fires of our hell, and kindled the glories of our heaven? Who did all this by the sacrifice of Himself? Oh, it was Jesus! Need we further proof that He is for us? Who appears on our behalf within the veil? Who sits for us as a priest upon His throne? Whose blood, first shed on Calvary, now sprinkles the mercy-seat? Who pleads, and argues, and intercedes, and prays for us in the high court of heaven? Whose human sympathy flows down in one continuous stream from that abode of glory, blending with our every trial, and suffering, and sorrow? Who is ever near to thwart our foes, and to pluck our feet from the snare of the fowler? Oh, it is Christ! And there is not a moment of time, nor a circumstance of life, in which He does not show Himself strong in behalf of His people.

And so of the Holy Spirit. Who quickened us when we were dead in trespasses and in sins? Who taught us when we were ignorant, enlightened us when we were dark, comforted us when we were distressed; and when wounded and bleeding, and ready to die, led us, all oppressed with guilt and sorrow as we were, to Jesus? Who inspired the first pulsation of life, and lighted the first spark of love; who created the first ray of hope in our soul, and dried the first tear of godly grief from our eye? Oh, it was the eternal Spirit, and He, too, is for us. Survey the record of your own history, dear reader. What a chequered life yours, perhaps, has been! How dotted the map of your journeyings, how many-colored the stones that have paved your path, how varied and blended the hues that compose the picture of your life! And yet, God constructed that map, God laid those stones, God pencilled and painted that picture. God went before you, God is with you, and God is for you. He was in the dark cloud that enshrouded all with gloom, and He was in the sunshine that gilded all with beauty. "I will sing of mercy and of judgment; unto You, O Lord, will I sing." Who has carried forward the work of grace in our souls—checking our feet, restoring our wanderings, holding up our goings, raising us when we had fallen, and establishing our feet more firmly upon the rock? Who has befriended us when men rose up against us? Who has healed all our diseases, and has filled our mouths with good things, so that our youth has been renewed list the eagle's? It was the Lord who was on our side, and not one good thing of all that He has promised has failed.

DECEMBER 31.
"Father, I will that they also, whom you have given me, be with me where I am; that they may behold my glory." John 17:24

As suffering precedes glory, so glory assuredly follows suffering. Thus was it with our Lord. "Ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and to enter into His glory?" Our Lord is in glory! The head that once bowed in death, pale and bleeding, is now raised in life, encircled with a glory brighter than ten thousand suns. The humanity that was despised from the lowliness of its birth, that was mocked, and scourged, spit upon, and slain, is now, from its indissoluble union with the Deity, exalted far above principalities and powers, glorified with the glory He had with the Father before the world was. Having purged our sins, He is set down on the right hand of the Majesty on high.

To that glory which belongs to Him as the Mediator of the church, each suffering confessor of Christ shall be exalted—the body with the Head, and each part of that body with the whole. A joint-heirship of suffering, it is now a joint-heirship of glory: "We shall be glorified together" with Christ. Still the oneness is manifest, and never so clearly seen as now. Glory bathes it in its light, and eternity impresses it with its seal. It is an undimmed and changeless glory. And Christ acknowledges their right to this oneness in glory. As they were not ashamed of Him among men, He is not now ashamed of them among angels. As they linked themselves to His cross, He leads them to His throne. As they confessed Him before the world, He now confesses them before His Father: "Glorified together." Wondrous words! Elevated to His side—leaning upon His bosom—gazing on His beauty—listening to His voice—entering into His joy—at home, and forever with the Lord. Now is answered in its fullness, the prayer mingled with tears, breathed from the scene of His suffering below—"Father, I will that they also whom You have given me, be with me where I am; that they may behold my glory." Welcome the suffering, succeeded by such glory! Welcome the cross, followed by such a crown!

Let us learn to regard our present tutorage as preparatory to our future inheritance. "The heir, as long as he is a child, differs nothing from a servant, though he be lord of all; but is under tutors and governors until the time appointed of the father." Thus it is with us. But soon we shall attain our majority, and come into possession of our estate. Before long we shall have done with governors and tutors, and need no more the lessons of the school, and the discipline of suffering. Oh, let us live in its near anticipation. To the poor of Christ's flock, how animating the prospect! "Has not God chosen the poor of this world, rich in faith, and heirs of the kingdom which He has promised to those who love Him." What though straitened resources, pinching poverty, or even absolute want, be your present allotment; lift up your heads with joy, for you have a joint-heirship with Christ in a kingdom which your heavenly Father will give. Confide in its security: it is made sure to you by Divine oath; "Wherein God willing more abundantly to show unto the heirs of promise the immutability of His counsel, confirmed it by an oath." Thus inalienably is it secured. Death, which robs the earthly heir of his inheritance, puts you in possession of yours. Your estate comes not to you robed in mourning, for your Father never dies. No succession awaits you, for your inheritance is yours forever. "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to His abundant mercy has begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fades not away, reserved in heaven for you, who are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation, ready to be revealed in the last time."

With consolations so rich, and with a hope so glorious, let us close the year through which we have traveled, with a feeling of thanksgiving and with a song of praise. We will thank God for all the way He has led us, chequered though it may have been; and we will trust Him for life's future, dark and uncertain though it may appear. We have found Christ enough for all the past—loving, faithful, wise, He is enough for the present; and we are quite sure all that He has been He will again be—"Jesus Christ the same yesterday, today, and forever." Before another year begins, or closes, we may be with Jesus forever! "Come, Lord Jesus, come quickly!" Your love will fill our hearts, Your beauty will engage our thoughts, and Your praise will employ our tongues, through eternity.

THE END.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

THE PRECIOUS THINGS OF GOD

Foreword

Preface

1. The Preciousness of Christ

2. The Preciousness of Faith

3. The Preciousness of Trial

4. The Preciousness of God's Thoughts

5. The Preciousness of the Divine Promises

6. The Preciousness of Christ's Blood

7. The Precious Anointing

8. The Preciousness of God's Children

9. The Preciousness of God's Word

10. The Preciousness of Prayer

11. The Preciousness of Christ's Sympathy With Our Infirmities

12. The Death of the Saints Precious

FOREWORD

For several years, I have kept an old used copy of "The Precious Things of God" near my desk, often using it as a devotional to stir up my heart to treasure those sacred truths of Scripture which are to mold our thoughts, words, and actions if we aim to live Christ-like. As is true of all of Dr. Winslow's writings, this volume is a precious gem about precious truths, replete with memorable statements and written for spiritual edification.

Octavius Winslow, a descendant of one of the leading New England Puritans, Edward Winslow, was born in London on August 1, 1808. His father, Thomas, was an army captain who died when Octavius was seven years old, shortly after his God-fearing mother had taken the family of ten children to New York to prepare a new home. Despite the loss of their father, the Winslow family would be greatly blessed. All ten of the Winslow children would eventually be regenerated by the Holy Spirit; three sons would become evangelical ministers. Octavius would later write a hefty volume (which also begs reprinting) filled with spiritual content on his mother's life and experiences, Life in Jesus: A Memoir of Mrs. Mary Winslow, Arranged from her Correspondence, Diary and Thoughts.

Raised and educated in New York, Octavius was also ordained to the ministry there on June 21, 1833. Not long after, however, he returned to England where he became one of the most valued non-conformist ministers of the nineteenth century, largely due to the devotional earnestness of his preaching, and the practical excellence of his prolific writings. He held pastorates at Leamington Spa, Bath, and Brighton. He was also in demand as a speaker for special occasions, such as the opening of C.H. Spurgeon's Metropolitan Tabernacle in 1861.

Most of Dr. Winslow's works went through several editions. A glance at their titles will reveal the convictions of his soul: Born Again, or, From Grace to Glory; Heaven Opened; The Fullness of Christ; Christ Ever With You; The Glory of the Redeemer in His Person and Work; The Man of God, or Spiritual Religion Explained and Enforced; The Tree of Life; Emmanuel, or the Titles of Christ; Hidden Life; Midnight Harmonies; Morning Thoughts; Evening Thoughts; Divine Realities; No Condemnation in Christ Jesus; Grace and Truth; Human Sympathy; The Inquirer Directed to an Experimental and Practical View of the Atonement; The Inquirer Directed to an Experimental and Practical View of the Work of the Holy Spirit; Personal Declension and Revival of Religion in the Soul; The Silver Trumpet; Christ the Theme of the Missionary; Glimpses of the Truth as it is in Jesus.

Octavius Winslow knew no denominational walls. Broad in his interests and sympathies, he nevertheless clung to the old Puritan theology. His life was devoted to the promotion of an experimental knowledge of the precious truths of God, as also this volume so poignantly exemplifies. Our corrupt nature, Jesus Christ and Him crucified, and a lifestyle of gratitude—such truths he taught shall and must be known experimentally in the soul of each believer. After a short illness, Octavius Winslow died on March 5, 1878, and was buried in Abbey Cemetery, Has.

We wholeheartedly wish this special volume a wide circulation. May the Holy Spirit bless its contents to many in our day as He has done in a former day when Dr. Winslow was one of the most esteemed authors among Christians.

Dr. Joel R. Beeke
Grand Rapids, MI
March 1993

PREFACE

A slight glance at the contents of this volume will convey an idea of its character and design. It is intended to be, not so much a systematic treatise of theology, as the companion, in his hours of devotional, meditative retirement, of the experienced and spiritual Christian. The truths which it contains, and the style in which they are presented, are perhaps more adapted to those peculiar seasons in the Christian experience of the believer, in which profound discussion and labored thought would not only be distasteful, but out of place. Bearing with him the volume in his sequestered walks with God, or making it the sharer of his temporary seclusion from the active engagements of life, the "precious things of God" which it unfolds may serve to shed the perfume and the luster of Jesus' name and work around his lone and pensive path—cheering solitude, soothing grief, and dissolving doubt, depression, and gloom. Many and costly are the precious things of God not enumerated in this work; blessed are they who, from the volume of their personal and spiritual experience, can complete the catalogue, and supply the Author's lack. These pages address themselves pointedly and strongly to that essential principle of vital religion—the experimental. We really know as much of the gospel of Christ, and of the Christ of the gospel, as by the power of the Holy Spirit we have the experience of it in our souls. All other acquaintance with Divine truth must be regarded as merely intellectual, theoretical, speculative, and of little worth. But, to apprehend, in some measure, the value, the glory, and the preciousness of the Lord Jesus, and, as a consequence, to esteem Him above all good, to reflect His image, to labor in His service, and to be found preparing and waiting for the happy moment described with such exquisite beauty by Doddridge, and as he only could portray it,—

"That blessed interview, how sweet!
To fall transported at His feet;
Raised in His arms, to see His face
Through the full beamings of His grace!"

—this, this is spiritual LIFE. And, compared with the heart-experience of this, when we take a close, realizing survey of eternity, all other subjects of study and employments of time appear but solemn trifling with our destiny.

The Author regrets, that to the discussion of themes so transcendently important and precious he should have brought so much human feebleness and infirmity. His work, planned amid the happy tranquility and repose of a long and warmly-attached pastorate, and finished amid the scenes of anxiety, excitement, and toil incident to a new and more extended sphere of ministerial labor, has necessarily been exposed to much that was unfavorable to that matured thought, careful composition, and literary finish which he considers efforts of this kind should possess. His hope, however, is, that, imperfect as is his production, the Divine Spirit may yet deign to bless it to the saving of precious souls, give it acceptance with the Church of Christ, and use it for the advancement of the cause of God and truth in the world,—and the glory shall be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, three Persons in the One God, world without end. Amen.

Bath, September 1859

THE PRECIOUSNESS OF CHRIST

"Unto you therefore who believe He is precious." 1 Peter 2: 7.

A felt conviction of the preciousness of the Savior has ever been regarded by enlightened ministers of the gospel as constituting a scriptural and unmistakable evidence of the existence of divine life in the soul; and in moments when neither time nor circumstance would admit of the close scrutiny of a theological creed, or a nice analysis of spiritual feelings and emotions, the one and simple inquiry upon which the whole matter is made to hinge has been- "What is your experience of the worth of the Savior? Is Christ precious to your heart?" And the answer to this question has been to the examiner, the test and the measure of the soul's spiritual and vital change. And how proper that it should be so. In proportion as the Holy Spirit imparts a real, intelligent sense of personal sinfulness, there will be the heart's appreciation of the value, sufficiency, and preciousness of the Lord Jesus. An enlightened and thorough conviction of the nature and aggravation of the disease, will enable a physician to form a just conception of the remedial process by which it may be arrested and cured. We estimate the force of a motive power by the strength of the body it propels. Thus, as the conviction of our lost and undone condition deepens, as sin's "exceeding sinfulness " unveils, as the purity and extent of God's law opens, as the utter helplessness and impotence of self is forced upon the mind, the glory, the worth, the suitableness, and the preciousness of Jesus will, through the teaching of the Spirit, present itself vividly to the mind and heart, as constituting the one only foundation and hope of the soul!

The Bible recognizes but two specific and distinctive characters- the SINNER- the SAVIOR; and all others are but modifications of these. The saint is but the sinner converted, justified, pardoned, adopted, sanctified, saved, glorified. And all the official relations sustained by Christ in the economy of salvation are but so many varied and beautiful forms of the one Savior, of whom it is said, "Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is no other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved." Thus, then, as you feel your sinfulness, you will estimate the fitness and suitableness of the Lord Jesus Christ as your Savior. There will be a perfect agreement between your consciousness of guilt and your believing apprehension of the excellence of the Atonement to meet your case. Your sinnership and Christ's Saviorship will harmonize and dovetail in exact and beautiful fitness and proportion.

Oh, what a divine and blessed arrangement is this! With what grandeur, yet with what simplicity, does it invest the scheme of salvation! What solemnity, yet what hope, does it throw around the present and the future of the soul! It seems to fathom the lowest depth of my sinfulness, while it lifts me to the loftiest height of God's grace. In a volume designed to place before its readers a few of the precious things of God's revealed word, we commence, as is most proper, with the foundation and source of them all- the dignity, worth, suitability, and preciousness of Christ. The great truth upon which we are about to expatiate is announced in the words placed at the head of this chapter- "Unto you therefore who believe He is precious."

In the unfolding of this subject may there rest upon the writer and the reader the fresh anointing of the Holy Spirit, even Him of whom Jesus said, "He will bring me glory by revealing to you whatever he receives from me" -that, while we treat of a precious Savior, His preciousness may be FELT in our hearts, filling the whole soul with penitence, faith, and love. We propose, in the present chapter, to group our thoughts around two specific views of the subject- the Preciousness of Christ - and the Character of those to whom He is precious.

We commence with a consideration of CHRIST'S PERSONAL PRECIOUSNESS- His preciousness in Himself. It is the conviction of Christ's personal dignity and worth that gives to faith such a substantial realization of the greatness and preciousness of His work. We have need, beloved, to be cautioned against an error into which some have fallen- of exalting the work of Christ above the person of Christ- in other words, not tracing the efficacy of Christ's sacrifice to the essential dignity of Christ's person. The Godhead of the Savior admitted- His atoning death becomes a fact of easy belief. Once concede that He who died upon the cross was "GOD manifest in the flesh," and the mind will experience no difficulty in admitting that that death was sacrificial and expiatory.

The sufferings and death of a Being so illustrious must be in harmony with an object, and in connection with a result of equal dignity and momentousness; and where will there be found such an object and such a result as the SALVATION of man? The brilliant achievements of a general rushing to the rescue of a beleaguered garrison may so exalt his personal genius and valor as to invest his name with a glory peerless and immortal; but the reverse of this holds good with Christ.

There had been no glory in His achievements, no significance in His work, no efficacy in His blood, had there been no divine dignity and worth in His person. And, had He not taken a single step in working out the salvation of man- had He repaired no breach, wept no tear, endured no agony, shed no blood in the redemption of His Church,- had He, in a word, conferred not a solitary blessing upon our race- He still had been the ETERNAL SON OF GOD, divine, peerless, glorious- the object of supreme love, adoration, and worship by all celestial beings and through all eternal ages.

While, then, His sacrificial work illustrates His marvellous grace and love to sinners, that work owes all its acceptance and efficacy to the value imparted to it by the essential Deity of His person. Thus, it is the personal preciousness of Christ that imparts an official preciousness to His work. Who, then, is the Lord Jesus Christ? In common parlance, men term Him, "our Savior." But do the great body pause and reflect who Christ really is? Do they regard Him as the CREATOR Of this world- of all worlds? of their being- of all beings? Do they consider that "all things were made by Him; and without Him was not anything made that was made?" If so, would they not give Him divine homage, since that Who creates must be antecedent to and above the thing created, and therefore must be pre-existent and divine?

But what a grand and glorious truth is this to the believing soul- the absolute Deity of the Savior- the essential Godhead of Christ! How it endears Him to the heart as the Rock of ages upon which its hope is built! How precious must be every evidence of the divine strength, stability, and durability of that basis upon which the believing sinner reposes his whole salvation. Precious, then, is Christ as God. Precious in His Deity- precious as a distinct person in the adorable Godhead- precious as "God over all, blessed for evermore."

But pause, Christian reader, for a moment, in wonder and praise before this august truth. If there is a spot where we should put off the shoes from our feet, surely it is this. With what profound reverence, with what silent awe, yet with what adoring love should we contemplate the GODHEAD of our Redeemer! But for that Godhead we had been forever lost! His obedience to the law, His satisfaction to the justice of Jehovah, had been of no efficacy or avail, except only as it partook of the authority, dignity, and virtue of His higher nature. Do not question the existence of the fact because of the mystery of its mode. How Jehovah could become incarnate is a wonder we shall never, in this state of limited knowledge, fully understand; enough that it is so. Let reason reverently adore, and faith implicitly trust.

Hesitate not, then, to give full credence to all the glorious truths of the gospel, and to place the entire weight of your soul upon the Atonement of Jesus, and to believe that, sinner though you are, be it the very chief, such is the divine worth and sovereign efficacy of His sacrifice, you will, you must, you shall be saved to the uttermost, because your Creator is your Savior, and your Judge is your Justifier.

But this personal representation of the Lord Jesus involves also the preciousness of His manhood. His personal alliance with our nature, His condescending stoop to our humanity, is not the least endearing feature to the heart of His believing saints. We have claimed for the Son of God absolute Deity; we now claim for Him perfect humanity. "Flesh," real and substantial, yet, "holy, harmless, undefiled, and separate from sinners," was He "made." A humanity identical with His people in all but its original and actual sinfulness. "He knew no sin."

And yet, what a sin-bearer was He! All the transgressions of His elect met upon Him! But He could only bear sin, as He himself was essentially free from its taint. Had there been the remotest breath of pollution adhering to Him- had one drop of the moral virus circulated through His veins, it had rendered Him utterly and forever incapable of presenting to the justice of God, an atonement for sin. He then would have needed, like the high priest of old, to have offered for sins "first for Himself, then for the people." How precious, then, beloved, is our Lord Jesus as "bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh."

Think of His perfect humanity- a humanity free from sin, and therefore capable of dying for the ungodly, -a humanity laden with sorrow, and therefore capable of sympathizing with the afflicted. Precious to our hearts as God- precious as Man- precious as both united in one- inconceivably and eternally precious is He, whose name is "Wonderful," to His believing saints. Tell, oh tell, how precious is that humanity of the Son of God that partook, by actual participation, and still bears, by the most perfect sympathy, all the sinless weaknesses, infirmities, temptations, and sorrows of His people. Precious humanity! to which, when other human friendships are changed, and other human love is chilled, and other human sympathy is exhausted, you may repair, and find it an evergreen, a perennial stream, a gushing fountain of unchanged affection, tenderness, and sympathy, meeting and satisfying, to their utmost capacity, your hearts' deep pantings!

Precious humanity! that dries each tear, that bears each burden, that is touched with each infirmity, that soothes each sorrow, and that succours each temptation of His people. "In all things it behooved Him to be made like unto His brethren, that He might be a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make reconciliation for the sins of His people. For in that He himself has suffered being tempted, He is able to succor those who are tempted." Oh, love the Lord, then, all you His saints; laud Him, all you His people; and, in all your deep griefs, your lonely sorrows, your sore trials, your fiery temptations, your pressing needs, your daily infirmities, repair to the succourings, and the sympathies, and the intercessions of His humanity, and learn how precious Jesus can be to the hearts of His suffering and sorrowing ones.

Upon this rock of Christ's complex person God has built His Church, and the gates of hell cannot prevail against it. Precious is the Lord Jesus in His work. That must be a costly and substantial superstructure that reposes upon a basis so divine and perfect. No wise or experienced architect would, at a vast expenditure, lay a deep, broad foundation for the purpose of rearing upon it a small and fragile fabric. Look at the ground work of our salvation. "Thus says the Lord God, Behold, I lay in Zion, for a foundation a stone, a tried stone, a precious corner-stone, a sure foundation." Upon such a foundation we look for a superstructure in all respects worthy of its costliness and capability. We find it in the work of Jesus.

Oh, what a superstructure is it--nothing less than the salvation of His Church! Such a work was worthy of God, and of all the glory, wisdom, and power embarked in its accomplishment. Nowhere have we such a perfect view of the Divine glory as through the medium of the cross! That magnificent sky that spreads above us, studded and glowing with countless myriads of worlds, pales before the subdued glory, the softened splendor of the cross of Christ! Nowhere does Jehovah-Jesus appear to the spiritual, believing mind so exalted as when He stoops! so glorious as when in eclipse! so holy as when bearing sin! so loving as when enduring its punishment! so triumphant as when vanquished upon the cross!

Oh, do not study God in the jeweled heavens- in the sublimity of the mountain- in the beauty of the valley- in the grandeur of the ocean- in the murmurs of the stream- in the music of the winds. God made all this, but all this is not God. Study Him in the cross of Jesus! Look at Him through this wondrous telescope, and although, as through a glass darkly, you behold His glory- the Godhead in awful eclipse, the Sun of His Deity setting in blood- yet that rude and crimsoned cross more fully reveals the mind of God, more harmoniously discloses the perfections of God, and more perfectly unveils the heart of God, and more fully exhibits the glory of God, than the combined power of ten thousand worlds like this, even though sin had never marred, and the curse had never blighted it.

Study God in Christ, and Christ on the cross! Oh, the marvels that meet in it- the glory that gathers round it- the streams of blessing that flow from it- the deep refreshing shadow it casts, in the happy experience of all who look to Jesus and live- who look to Jesus and love- who look to Jesus and obey-who look to Jesus and embrace that blessed "hope of eternal life which God, who cannot lie, promised before the world began." A worthy structure this of a foundation so divine!

What could be more worthy of God, whose essence is "love," than the salvation of His people? In nothing could He appear more like Himself. Upon no platform could He so honorably and completely withdraw the veil from His perfections, and stand forth in His full-orbed majesty, "mighty to save," as this! Humble believer in Christ, you are saved! Happy saint of God, you shall be in heaven! Christ has paid your debt, opened your prison, broken your chains, and set you free from the law's curse, from sin's condemnation, and from death's penalty, and you will be forever with the Lord! Is not this enough to make your whole life, clouded and chequered though it be, a sweet psalm of praise- thus learning the first notes of the song that will employ your tongue through eternity?

How precious is the righteousness of Christ- a righteousness that fully justifies our person, completely covering all our deformity, and presenting us to God, "lovely through His loveliness put upon us;" wherefore the renown of the clothed and adorned Church goes forth through all the earth, and men inquire, "Who is she that looks forth as the morning, fair as the moon, clear as the sun, and terrible as an army with banners?"

And look at the preciousness of His sacrifice, which is as a "sweet-smelling savor unto God," ascending ever from off the golden altar before the throne, in one continuous cloud of incense, wreathing the people, perfuming the prayers, accompanying the offerings, and presenting with acceptance every breath of devotion, every accent of praise, and every token of love which His people here below lay at His feet. "By one offering He has perfected forever those who are sanctified." That "one offering," offered once for all, was so divine, so holy, so complete, so satisfactory, it has forever perfected the pardon, perfected the justification, perfected the adoption, and will perfect the sanctification when it perfects the glory of all the elect of Jehovah. Beloved, is not this enough to check every sigh, to quell every fear; to annihilate every doubt, and to fill you with peace and joy in believing? What shouts of praise to Jesus should burst from every lip as each believer contemplates the sacrifice that has secured his eternal salvation!

When Titus liberated the imprisoned Greeks, they clustered around his tent, chanting his praises and exclaiming, with impassioned fervor, "A savior! a savior! a savior!" Oh, with what deeper emphasis may every child of God, freed from the chains of sin and of death by the "liberty with which Christ has made him free," extol the person and chant the praises of that glorious Savior, and exclaim, "Jesus! Jesus! Jesus! He has saved His people from their sins!" Believer, demonstrate your sense of the preciousness of this great sacrifice by bringing to it daily sins, by drawing from it hourly comfort, and by laying yourself upon it, body, soul, and spirit, a "living sacrifice unto God."

How precious is Christ in all the offices and relations which He sustains to His people. Precious as the Head, the 'covenant surety' Head, of His people, the source of life, the seat of power, the fountain of all blessing. Reader, hold fast the Headship of Christ. Acknowledge no legislative head, no administrative head, no authoritative head, no reigning head of the Church, but the Lord Jesus Christ. There are under-currents of priestly domination in the Church of God in the present day, subversive of this cardinal truth, against which it behooves us to be on our guard. Acknowledge no spiritual Head and King in Zion but the Lord Jesus; and demonstrate your recognition of, reverence for, and love to, His government, by vindicating His Headship, bowing to His authority, and obeying His laws!

Oh, how blessed to be under the holy, benevolent, and gentle government of Christ, whose scepter is a scepter of righteousness, so mild and loving in its sway, that "He will not break the bruised reed, nor quench the smoking flax." Precious is He as the Husband of His Church, to whom He is united by the closest and most indissoluble ties, pledged to discharge all her obligations, to supply all her need, to soothe, by sympathy, her every sorrow, and to increase, by participation, her every joy.

Precious is He as a Friend -the Friend whose love is infinite and boundless, changing not with circumstances, chilling not with indifference, nor wearying with lapse of years- a Friend who shows himself friendly, who loves at all times, and who sticks closer than a brother.

Precious as a Brother, our kinsman-redeemer, our next of kin, claiming and exercising, as such, the right of redemption, and proving Himself, by His help and succor in all the calamities of His brethren, to be a "Brother born for adversity." Thus might we travel over all the offices and relations which the Lord Jesus sustains to His saints, and find in each that which endears Him to their souls, enthroning Him upon their hearts as the "chief among ten thousand," and exhibiting Him as "the altogether lovely one."

But to whom is Christ precious? This is a most important question. He is not precious to all. It is a privileged class, a peculiar people, a little flock, few and scattered, hidden and unknown, who feel the Savior's preciousness. Only to the believer is Christ precious; the declaration of the Holy Spirit is, "Unto you therefore who BELIEVE He is precious." This is philosophically as well as scripturally true. There cannot possibly be a felt conviction of the worth of an object of which we have no intelligent and clear perception. There must be something to create interest, to awaken admiration, to inspire love; the object must be seen, known, and tried.

Now, the only spiritual faculty that discerns Christ, and in discerning Christ realizes His preciousness, is faith. Faith is the optical faculty of the regenerate, it is the spiritual eye of the soul! Faith sees Christ, and as Christ is seen His excellence is recognized; and as His excellence unfolds, so He becomes an object of endearment to the heart! Oh, how lovely and how glorious is Jesus to the clear, far-seeing eye of faith! Faith beholds Him the matchless, peerless One; His beauty eclipsing, His glory outshining, all other beings! Faith sees majesty in His lowliness, dignity in His condescension, honor in His humiliation, beauty in His tears, transcendent, surpassing glory in His cross!

In natural things, as the beauty of an object unveils to the eye, it awakens in the mind a corresponding interest. The grey mist of morning slowly rising from off the face of nature, revealing a landscape of rich and varied beauty- the blending of mountain and valley, the green meadows and winding streams, presents an object which, in every mind susceptible of the sublime and the beautiful, inspires the feeling of admiration and delight. Beloved, in proportion as the personal dignity, beauty, and excellence of the Lord Jesus unfolds to the believing eye, He becomes more sensibly and deeply enshrined in the heart's warmest love! We must know the Lord Jesus to admire Him, and must admire Him to love Him, and must love Him to serve Him.

The believer, too, beholds a suitability in Christ, sees Him to be just the Savior adapted to the necessities of his soul; and this renders Him peculiarly precious. "I see Him," exclaims the believer, "to be exactly the Christ I need- His fulness meets my emptiness- His blood cleanses my guilt- His grace subdues my sin- His patience bears with my infirmities- His gentleness succours my weakness- His love quickens my obedience- His sympathy soothes my sorrows- His beauty charms my eye. He is just the Savior, just the Christ I need, and no words can describe His preciousness to my soul!"

There is thus an appropriation of Christ in the personal experience of every believer which endears Him to the heart. A Christ unappropriated is a Christ whose worth is undervalued, and whose preciousness is unfelt. The believer can say, "Christ is mine, and I have all things in one, even in Christ, who is my all and in all." This simple, trembling faith, sublime in its simplicity, mighty in its tremblings, sweeps all the treasures of the everlasting covenant of grace and all the fulness of the Surety of the covenant into its lap, and exclaims, "All is mine, because Christ is mine, and I am Christ's."

Do not shrink, beloved reader, from what the quaint divines of other days, and, perhaps, of a deeper experience and of a sounder creed than ours, were wont to term a "Christ-appropriating faith." If you have fled to Jesus as a poor, empty, believing sinner, there is not a throb of love in His loving heart, nor a drop of blood in His flowing veins, nor a particle of grace in His mediatorial fulness, nor a thought of peace in His divine mind, which is not yours, all yours, inalienably yours, as much yours as if you were its sole possessor! And in proportion as you thus deal with Christ, individually traveling to Him, living upon Him, living out of Him, dealing as personally with Him as He deals personally with you, He will involve Himself in your concerns, and will become growingly precious to your soul.

There are peculiar circumstances in the believer's experience when Christ becomes especially precious to the soul. For example: in the deeper ploughings of the heart's hidden sinfulness- when the Holy Spirit reveals more of the innate corruption of our nature, and gives a more spiritual perception of sin's exceeding sinfulness, oh, how precious does the finished work of Christ then become! how precious the blood that cleanses from all sin! If God is leading you through this stage of Christian experience, beloved, be not alarmed; it is but to build up His dear Son upon the wreck and ruin of your own merit, strength, and sufficiency. He will have us love His Son with a love like His own- a love of divine, supreme, ineffable affection- and this can only be felt in the region of our own nothingness!

In circumstances of spiritual relapse, how precious does Christ become, as the Restorer of His saints, as the Shepherd that goes in quest, of His stray sheep, and brings it back to the fold with rejoicing! How unspeakably dear is the Savior to the wandering yet restored heart! Our backslidings are perpetual and aggravated, our affections fickle and truant, our faith fluctuating, our love waning, our zeal flagging, our walk often feeble and unsteady; but Jesus does not withdraw His eye from His own work in the soul, and never for a moment loses sight of His stray-going sheep. Ah, there are few aspects of the work of Jesus more precious in the experience of the saints of God than His divine and gracious restorings. "He restores my soul," is a declaration of David which finds its response in every believer. Precious, then, is that Savior who breaks the heart, checks its waywardness, restores its wanderings, heals its backslidings, rekindles its love, and once more wakes its languid, silent chords to sweetest harmony.

How precious is Christ in the season of fiery temptation! When the arch-foe comes, robed as an angel of light, with gentle tread, and oily tongue, and soft persuasiveness, seeking to ensnare and beguile the unsuspicious and unwary -leveling his darts at the very foundations of our faith- insinuating his doubts of the truth of the Bible, of the being of God, of the sufficiency of the Savior, of the reality of a future world- thus seeking to shake the confidence, obscure the hope, and destroy the comfort of the Lord's people- oh, how precious then is Christ as the Conqueror and Spoiler of Satan; as He who enables the trembling believer to quench the fiery dart in His own blood, and to take refuge beneath His outspread, all-sheltering wing!

How doubly precious must the Savior have been to the tempted Peter, when Christ assured him that, by an anticipated intercession, He had blunted the keen edge of the sword by which the subtle enemy sought the downfall of his disciple. Tempted believer, the Tempted One, He who, alone and unaided, battled with Satan those forty days and nights in the solitary wilderness- is He who was "in all points tempted like as we are," and "knows how to deliver the godly out of temptation," and will shortly bruise Satan, crushed and conquered, under your feet.

In the hour of adversity, of trial, of sorrow, oh, how precious is Christ in the experience of the believer! It would seem, beloved, as though we had never really known Him until then. Certainly, we never knew from experience that there was so much that was human, tender, and compassionate in His heart until sorrow touched our own. We had no conception what a fount of sympathy was there.

A new bend in your path, a new epoch in your history, or a new stage in your journey, has frosted with the snowflake and swept with the storm-blast of winter, the entire landscape of life; fortune gone, friends removed, health failing, poverty threatening, need pressing. Oh, how dreary and lonely seems the path you tread! But pause- it is not all winter! Jesus approaches! He unveils a bosom once pierced, shows a heart once sad, and drawing you within its blest pavilion, hides you from the wind and covers you from the tempest. You never thought Jesus had a heart of such exquisite tenderness until now.

I do but give utterance to the experience of many a timid believer, many an afflicted Christian, when I say that, looking back upon all the way the Lord our God has led us, we can thank Him for the swelling surge, can bless Him for the wintry blast, can praise Him for the falling blow that veiled the sky, and draped the landscape, and smote the idol, since that was the suitable occasion of making the Savior better known to you, and of endearing him unutterably to your heart!

"You have known my soul in adversities." And that adversity was the time in which you were more fully brought to know Him. Chastening seasons are teaching seasons; suffering times are Christ-endearing times; trying dispensations are purifying processes in the experience of the godly. The whirlwind that swept over you has but cleared your sky and made it all the brighter, but deepened your roots and made them all the firmer. Earth may have lost a tie, but heaven has gained an attraction. The creature has left a blank, but Christ has come and filled it. Setback has made you poor, but the treasures of divine love have enriched you. In the Lord Jesus you have more than found the loved one you have lost; and if in the world you have encountered tribulation, in Him you have found peace. O sweet sorrow! O sacred grief, that enthrones and enshrines my Savior more pre-eminently and deeply in my soul!

There is a supremacy in the feeling of Christ's preciousness to the believer, which is worthy of a remark. Christ has the pre-eminence in the affections of the regenerate! "Whom have I in heaven but you? and there is none upon earth that I desire beside you." Listen to His own words, asserting His claim to a single and supreme affection: "Whoever loves father or mother, brother or sister, wife or children, more than Me, is not worthy of Me." There are natural ties of affection- the parental, the marital, the filial. There are ties, too, of human love and friendship, linking heart to heart; but not one word does He who inspired those affections, who formed those ties, breathe, denying their existence or forbidding their exercise.

No, the religion He came to inculcate distinctly recognizes these human relations, and seeks to strengthen and intensify by purifying, elevating, and immortalizing them. But mark the emphatic word employed by Christ- "MORE than Me! " All these affections are to have full play and exercise, but ever to be maintained in profound subordination to Himself, and to be so sanctified and employed as to become auxiliaries and aids to the higher and purer affection of supreme attachment to the Savior! In a word, Christ should become more supreme and precious to our hearts by all the sweet, sacred relations and affections of life. We should enjoy the creature in Him, and glorify Him in the creature.

Christ is not only supremely, but He is increasingly precious to the believer. It must be so, since a closer intimacy with a perfect being increases our knowledge of His perfection, and, in the same ratio, our admiration and love. The further the believer advances in the divine life, the more he must necessarily become acquainted with Christ; for his spiritual progress is the measure of his growing knowledge of the Lord Jesus. We can only really advance in grace, truth, and holiness, as we have close relations with Jesus, constant transactions with the Savior.

Christ is our life; and our growth in spiritual life is Christ increasing within us. It is as utterly impossible to cherish a holy desire, to conceive a heavenly thought, to perform a good action, to conquer a single infirmity, or to baffle a solitary temptation, apart from a direct communication with Christ; as for the lungs to expand without air, or light to exist without the Sun. Oh, yes! Christ is increasingly precious to the believer. The absence from His beatific presence- distance from His blest abode- the vicissitudes of life- the fluctuations of time- the advance of infirmities- the increase of anxieties and cares- and the formation of new friendships, do not render the Savior less precious to the believing soul.

Other objects often lose their attraction, their desire to interest, or their power to charm us, by the lapse of years; but JESUS is that glorious object who grows more precious to the heart in time, as His capacity unfolds of making us supremely happy; and in eternity will become increasingly the object of our love, and the theme of our song, and the source of our bliss, as growing ages unveil His loveliness, His glory, and His grace!

Beloved reader, is Jesus increasingly precious to your soul? Each day's history, each day's trial, each day's sin, each day's need, should endear the Savior to your heart, because in each and all of those circumstances you should have direct and close dealings, daily and personal transactions, with Christ! You cannot cultivate an intimacy with Christ and not be enamored of His beauty, charmed with His graciousness, and absorbed with His love!

Be cautioned against an eclipse of the Savior! Let no object come between your heart and Christ! Do not be presumptuous when in high spiritual frames, nor be depressed when in low ones. Do not let your conscious shortcomings, failures, and stumblings estrange your affections from Jesus. Nor allow pride or carelessness to insinuate itself, if the Lord confers upon you some especial favor or proof of His regard.

The foot is more apt to slide in the smooth than in the rough path; and it is more difficult to carry with a steady hand the brimmed than the empty cup. Walk humbly with God in all circumstances, especially after seasons of peculiar nearness to Him in your soul. Forget your spiritual attire, and your ornaments, and think of and love only Him who clothed you so beautifully and who adorned you so magnificently. Do not toy with your graces, but look to Him who gave them. Let all your thoughts, affections, and admiration be concentrated in that precious Savior, who took all your sins, deformity, and sorrow upon Himself, and who transferred all His righteousness, beauty, and blessing upon you!

Oh, let your heart and Christ's heart be one heart! Receive as precious everything that flows from the government of Jesus. A precious Christ can give you nothing but what is precious. Welcome the rebuke- it may be humiliating; welcome the trial- it may be painful; welcome the lesson- it may be difficult; welcome the cup- it may be bitter; welcome everything that comes from Christ in your individual history. Everything is costly, salutary, and precious that Jesus sends. The rude tones of Joseph's voice, when he spoke to his brethren, were as much the echoes of his concealed affection, as the softest, gentlest accents that breathed from his lips. The most severe disciplinary dispensations in the government of Christ are as much the fruit of His eternal, redeeming love, as was the tenderest and most touching expression of that love uttered from the cross.

All is precious, wise, and salutary in the dealings of Christ. His teachings, His woundings, His withholdings, His withdrawings, His slayings, His changed countenance, His altered tones,- when, in a word, His uplifted hand lands heavily upon us, smiting us seven times, even then, oh, how precious should Christ be to the believing soul! Then it is we learn by experience what a balsam exudes from His pierced heart for the very wound His own hand inflicted! What a covert from the stormy wind, and what a hiding-place is He from the fierce tempest which His own providence created! What a succouring, appropriate to our sorrow, springs from the very hand that winged the dart which pierced us through and through!

Oh, precious Christ! so divine, so all-sufficient, so indescribably precious, may we not welcome with thankfulness and receive with submission all that You do send- the mingled ingredients of bitter and sweet, the blended tints of light and shade, of all the wise, righteous, and salutary dispensations of Your wise, loving, and ever watchful providence?

But there is approaching a period-ah, how it speeds! -which will be the most solemn and severe, yet the sweetest and truest test of the sustaining, soothing power of Christ's preciousness in the experience of His saints- the last sickness and the closing scene of life. Imagine that moment to have arrived! All of earth's attraction ceases, all of creature-succor fails. Everything is failing- heart and strength failing- mental power failing- medical skill failing- human affection and sympathy failing; the film of death is on the eye, and the invisible realities of the spirit-world are unveiling to the mental view. Bending over you, the loved one who has accompanied you to the shore of the cold river, asks a sign. You are too weak to conceive a thought, too low to breathe a word, too absorbed to bestow a responsive glance. You cannot now assert your faith in an elaborate creed, and you have no profound experience, or ecstatic emotions, or heavenly visions to describe. One brief, but all-emphatic, all-expressive sentence embodies the amount of all that you now know, and believe, and feel; it is the profession of your faith, the sum of your experience, the ground of your hope- "Christ Is Precious to My Soul!" Enough! The dying Christian can give, and the inquiring friend can wish no more.

Dearest Savior, be close to me in that solemn moment! Tread the valley by my side, pillow my languid head upon Your bosom, speak these words of heart-cheer to my struggling, panting, departing soul, "Fear not, I Am with you" -then, it will be happiness for me to die, -death will have no venom- the grave no gloom- eternity no dread; and, from the measured experience of Your preciousness on earth, I shall pass in triumph through the shadowy portal into the full sunshine and perfect realization and eternal enjoyment of all that faith believed, and love desired, and hope expected, of Your full-orbed glory and preciousness in heaven. "In your presence is fulness of joy; and at your right hand there are pleasures for evermore!"

"Precious Jesus! O how lovely are You to my longing heart.
Never, never let me grieve You, never from You let me depart.
Precious Jesus! all in all to me You art."

THE PRECIOUSNESS OF FAITH

"Precious faith." 2 Pet. 1:1

The indispensableness of faith as an essential element of salvation, and as an influential instrument in all well-doing for God, is very clearly and impressively set forth in the apostle's declaration, "Without faith it is impossible to please Him." And yet, what crude and superficial views of this eminent grace of the Spirit do the most of us entertain. To believe is by many regarded as a most facile and commonplace thing. They suppose that an individual can believe when he will, and may believe what he will; that faith is the mere assent of the judgment to a certain creed; and that with this intellectual reception of the truth, there requires no other operation of faith to give its mold to the character, and to impart root and acceptableness to the actings of the Christian's life. And have not even the most enlightened and spiritual of God's people to mourn over their deficiencies touching their conviction of the nature, worth, and preciousness of this grace of the Holy Spirit, apart from which nothing is well-pleasing to God; but springing from which, the lowliest action, the faintest desire, the gentlest throb of the spiritual believing soul, is infinitely precious in the view of Jehovah?

Having in the preceding chapter considered the preciousness of the Object of faith, it seems proper that our thoughts should next be directed to a consideration of the preciousness of faith itself. We desire, as God the Holy Spirit shall guide us, so to unfold the nature and operations of this cardinal grace of the Christian character, as that the unbelieving reader may learn the true nature of saving faith, and that the reader who through divine grace does believe, may have his views of faith so cleared, and faith itself so nourished and invigorated, as shall result in a deeper experience of the power and preciousness of the doctrine of faith. The faith of which we are now to speak is described by the apostle in the passage from whence our motto is taken, as being "like precious faith with us." The "faith of God's elect" in all ages of the world, and in all dispensations of the Church, is essentially and identically the same. There is a divine unity in faith which no distance of time, or differences of nation, or standards of theological opinion, or modes of religious worship, or forms of ecclesiastical polity can touch. True faith is essentially and unchangeably the same, in every age, and in every Church, all the world over. Just as the sun that now pours its golden beams by day, and in the moon's soft luster sheds its reflected silver rays by night, is the same that shone on Eden's bowers, that veiled its face in sackcloth when its Incarnate Creator died, and that illumines all creation, so the "precious faith of God's elect," that now pulsates in the lowliest breast of the believer, is essentially the same as that which poured the joy and luster of a glorious hope upon the trembling spirit of our primeval parent, when God, in evening's twilight, revealed to Adam the promise of a Savior. We propose, in the present chapter, to unfold the preciousness of faith in two or three particulars.

We have already expatiated upon the preciousness of the Object of faith; but we revert to it again, for a moment, as illustrating the preciousness of the character of the grace of faith.

The believing soul, while it reposes on the three persons in the ever adorable Trinity, fixes its eye, in the great matter of salvation, especially upon One—the central Person of the Godhead—embracing whom, it includes in its faith, and enfolds in its affection, the Father and the Holy Spirit. There is a unity and simplicity in all Jehovah's works. In nothing is this more traceable than in the salvation of man, the master-work of God. The object which the gospel presents for his belief is, the Lord Jesus Christ. "Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and you shall be saved." Thus, a simple and not a complex object is upheld to his eye. There is here nothing to divide the attention, and thus bewilder the mind. As the pole which Moses erected in the wilderness was single—no other object commanding the look of faith—so single and simple is the object of salvation presented in the gospel. "Look unto me, and be you saved"—"Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and you shall be saved," is the united voice of the two witnesses for Christ, the Old and the New Testament, touching the one Object of faith—a crucified Savior.

Thus, while human religions, be they Romish or Protestant, present a plurality of objects for belief—false saviors many—to the eye, the Bible presents but One—Christ crucified. It is interesting and instructive to trace the interweaving of this blessed doctrine—the unity of the Object of faith—like a thread of gold, throughout the entire Scriptures of truth. In the Levitical economy, every type however varied, every symbol however mysterious, every shadow however profound, had JESUS for its object—all conspired to exalt, and all pointed to, the Lamb of God as the one object of saving faith. Thus, too, with the prophetical writings of Scripture,—"TO HIM gave all the prophets witness." And in the New Testament the agreement is perfect touching this typical and prophetical testimony to the unity of the object of faith—"And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me." In another place, the same Divine Savior says, "This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He has sent." "And, as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so shall the Son of man be lifted up, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life." Oh, rejoice, beloved reader, that in the great matter of your salvation, your faith has to look to one object only; that, amid your own fluctuations of spiritual feeling, and the conflicting judgments of men, you can—like the roving dove, sweeping with drooping wing the troubled waters and finding no repose, until, weary and panting, she retreats back to the ark,—turn to a full and perfect rest in that one, precious object of faith—the LORD JESUS CHRIST. You find creed contradicting creed, opinion conflicting with opinion, church opposed to church, and your heart sickens within you; but, amid your embarrassment and depression, you bethink yourself of JESUS, and betake yourself to His feet; and in that one object, forever blessed and precious, and in this lowly posture, your fluttering, believing heart finds perfect rest. Oh, thank God that the object of saving faith is one; that, in knowing Jesus, in looking to Jesus, in trusting in Jesus, in confiding your soul to Jesus, you have no fear, misgiving, or doubt; but, in the confidence of a humble, yet unwavering faith, can exclaim, "I know in whom I have believed, and am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I have committed unto Him against that day."

Thus, then, does faith derive a preciousness from the preciousness of its Object—precious in His person, to which faith looks; precious in His atonement, to which faith leads; precious in His fullness, from which faith draws; precious in His intercession, in which faith relies; precious in His example, by which faith walks. Thus, let faith contemplate the Lord Jesus in any one of His ten thousand forms of beauty—as the sun unveils the landscape's loveliness, while the landscape endears the luster of the sun—its preciousness is enhanced by contemplating Christ's beauty, while the loveliness of the Savior illustrates the costliness of faith. Precious faith dealing with a precious Christ enriches the believer with the two most precious things of God.

But faith is not only relatively, it is intrinsically precious—precious in itself. It is emphatically denominated, "precious faith." And with this description of its character will correspond the experience of every true believer in the Lord Jesus. As the universal testimony of men will confirm the value of gold, all evidencing by their earnest, and many by their covetous, pursuit of the metal, its intrinsic value; so shall each believer, though possessing but the smallest portion of this divine gift, witness to its essential and priceless worth. One grain of this precious grace, in his estimation, has in it more of real value, more of positive good, than all the wealth which ever has been, or which yet may be, dug from the mines of the earth. Glance at some of those essential features which stamp the preciousness of faith.

Faith is a divine grace, consequently precious. It has not its origin here. It is a plant indigenous not to our fallen humanity. Faith in that which is created, springs from the creature; faith in that which is human, is human; but the faith which deals with God, believes His word, trusts in His Son, beholds the invisible, and is the "substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen," must be divine. It deals with the spiritual, and itself is spiritual; it has to do with the divine, and itself is divine. We are not born believers. A parent, as Cecil did, may explain to his child by a simple and ingenious illustration the nature of faith, but the faith itself he cannot give. A minister may enforce upon his hearers the necessity of faith (and it is his duty so to do), but be forgets not that the Holy Spirit has written, "Faith is the gift of God." Thus, then, faith is a superhuman grace. It comes from God, it descends from above; and because it is a supernatural and heavenly grace—proceeding from heaven, and leading to heaven—it is of itself inconceivably precious. Do not think lightly, then, beloved reader, of the faith which you may have, measured though it may be in its degree and feeble in its exercise—it is divine and precious; and although of this gold from God's mint you may possess but the smallest coin, yet that coin, bearing the superscription of God, will secure your admission into glory, and will put you into the full and eternal possession of that "inheritance which is incorruptible, undefiled, and which fades not away, reserved in heaven for you who are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation."

But faith is precious being the product of the Holy Spirit. As a fruit of the Spirit, it is preeminently costly. "The fruit of the Spirit is—faith." As He is the Author of all that is divine, and holy, and sanctifying, He is, and must be, the Author of that divine root of all holiness in the heart—the grace of faith. The lowliest fruit of the Spirit in the regenerate soul is of priceless worth. And how low and feeble that work may be, who can tell? How hidden—how unsuspected—how faint? Yet, be it but a tear of godly sorrow falling in secret—a sigh soft as an infant's, and breathed to the lone winds of heaven—the eye smiting the earth with its downcast glance of conscious sin—it is truly an emanation of the Spirit, and is as essentially the offspring of faith as is the 'abundant entrance' into the kingdom of grace with which, when in full sail, faith wafts the believing soul. How full is God's word of this! The imagery of the Bible, illustrative of this truth, is exquisitely beautiful. We read of the lily springing among thorns—of the lamb browsing among wolves—of the tremulous touch of the hem—of the dim look—of the bruised reed—of the smoking flax—of the faith that doubts Christ's power while it believes His willingness—of the faith that disbelieves His willingness, yet reposes in His power. Why these varied and expressive images, but to teach us that grace in the soul may be limited in its degree, and yet real in its character,—that faith may be weak in its actings, yet divine in its nature,—that God despises not the day of small things in the spiritual experience and exercises of a gracious soul? Is there a single product of God in nature upon which He looks down with disdain? is there a spire of grass—a shaded flower—a buzzing insect—a winged sparrow—a line of beauty—a gleam of light—a morning's dew-drop, or an evening's zephyr unnoticed or disregarded by Him? No! He despises nothing that He has made. How much less will He regard with indifference, or look with a frown upon the weakest, obscurest, faintest putting forth of the faith of His own Spirit in the soul! If the lowliest product of nature—fading in its beauty, and evanescent in its duration—is arrayed with loveliness and invested with interest worthy of His notice, how much more the tenderest bud, the lowliest flower of divine grace in the renewed heart!

Not only is faith precious in itself, but the trial of faith is precious. The Holy Spirit thus asserts this truth: "The trial of your faith being much more precious than gold that perishes, though it be tried with fire." The process as here described is severe—it is the trial of fire. Yet that is the element by which the refiner tests and separates his precious metal. God condescends, as it were, to borrow from man an illustration of His wonder-workings in regard to our faith. He places it in the furnace heated by fire. Thus we find how frequently and pointedly the figure is employed in the Bible. We read of a "fiery furnace" (Dan. 3:6); of the "fiery darts of the wicked" (Eph. 6:16); of the "fiery trial" (1 Pet. 4:12); of "the baptism of fire" (Matt. 3:11); and in the words already quoted—"the trial of your faith, though it be tried with fire." And yet, severe and painful, and, to all appearance, destructive as this process is to which the faith of God's elect is subjected, it is described as one of the precious things of God in the experience of the saints. Why so? Let us see.

The trial of faith is precious because it attests its reality. Apart from its trial, what an uncertainty attaches to faith! Untried faith is uncertain faith, just as unsmelted ore is suspicious ore. A believing man knows not upon what he is really leaning until God brings his dependence to the proof. Has he wealth? has he strength? has he friends? has he influence? has he interest? has he gifts? How far he may be secretly and unsuspectingly leaning upon one or more of these and not upon God, he cannot know until God tries him. But when all these creature-dependencies, these human supports, tremble and fall from beneath him—when the flood-tide of sorrow has swept them away, or the wintry blast of adversity has scattered them, then comes the grand test of his true support,—he stands or falls, raises his head in hope or droops it in despair, just as is the reality and strength of his faith in God. Trace in some of its illustrious examples the sustaining power of real faith in the hour of its severe trial. "I had fainted," says the Psalmist, "unless I had BELIEVED to see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living." In an earlier stage of his tried experience we read, concerning this man of God, that, "David was greatly distressed; for the people spoke of stoning him,…but David encouraged himself in the Lord his God." In the prophecy of Habakkuk, there occurs a remarkable and beautiful instance of a like result of a severe trial of faith: "Although the fig-tree shall not blossom, neither shall fruit be in the vines; the labor of the olive shall fail, and the fields shall yield no meat; the flock shall be cut off from the fold, and there shall be no herd in the stalls: yet will I rejoice in the Lord, I will joy in the God of my salvation." Trace the power of real faith when brought to the trial of that most certain and solemn of all tests—a dying hour: "My flesh and my heart fails: but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever." It would seem impossible to surpass these instances of the supporting, sustaining power of real faith in the hour of extreme trial. And yet there is one—the most illustrious—that distances them all, extraordinary and precious though they are. When suspended upon the cross, amid its agony and gloom, in the exercise of a faith that doubted not, staggered not, Jesus clung to a frowning, hiding, deserting Father, exclaiming—"MY GOD, MY God, why have you forsaken me?" Behold the Man—the God-man—the Author, the Giver, the Sustainer, and the Finisher of your faith, treading the path of faith's trial, and leaving you an example that you should follow His steps. Thank God, then, believer in Jesus, for every fresh evidence of the reality of that faith, which is "like precious faith" with the faith of the Son of God. The test may be severe, the trial may be fiery, yet if it confirms you in the blessed assurance, "I know in whom I have believed," you cannot afford to lose it, scorching and painful as the furnace may have been; that trial may be as severe as Abraham's, when commanded to slay his son—as David's, when the people talked of stoning him—as Job's, when hurled from the pinnacle of health, affluence, and adulation to the lowest depth of sickness, poverty, and contempt—as Daniel's, when cast into the lion's den—as the three children, when thrown into the fiery furnace—or as Paul's, when the messenger of Satan buffeted him—nevertheless, it is the ancient path to glory, and severe though the trial, blessed, eternally blessed, will be the result.

The trial of faith is precious, because it purifies faith. In its own nature faith, as it comes from God, is pure and without alloy. Essentially there is no admixture whatever with the faith the Holy Spirit inspires—it is as pure, sinless, and untainted as was our humanity when it first came from the hands of God. But, as the mountain stream which starts from its hidden source pure and sparkling, partakes of the earthiness and tint of the soil through which it courses its way into the valley beneath, so the faith which proceeds from God holy and unmixed, mingles with the hidden corruption and unbelief of the heart in which it dwells, and thus becomes alloyed and impaired. Hence the necessity and the preciousness of its trial. The fire separates—the furnace purifies—the crucible refines; and so, in the happy experience of the believer, the trial of faith becomes "much more precious than gold, though it be tried as by fire." Oh to have the dross of carnality, and the alloy of unbelief, which so dims the luster and paralyzes the vigor of faith destroyed! Nothing, after the fiery trial, may be left, of all that looked so divine, so holy, and so spiritual, but one grain of the pure gold of faith—yet that one grain of faith, obscure, infinitesimal as it may seem, outweighs in its real value millions of worlds, and it shall never, never perish.

But we may illustrate the preciousness of faith by its actings and fruits. Faith is a wonderful plant in the garden of the soul—it yields all manner of precious fruits, and, like the tree of life in the midst of the streets of the New Jerusalem, it bears fruit all the year. Dear reader, there is no holiness in the soul but faith is its root. Springing from, resting in, and looking to Jesus, from whom its fruit is found, faith produces love, joy, peace, patience, holiness, humility, and every grace that adorns the character, and beautifies the walk of a believer in Jesus. Faith is precious, too, in its wonder-workings. It has a powerful faculty of sight and of extraction. It can see both sides of the guiding pillar—the cloudy and the bright. It can extract a smile from God's frown, love from God's displeasure, mercy from God's judgment, encouragement from God's refusal, hope from God's delays; can find a door of hope in the valley of Achor, and can sing as sweetly in the dreary night season as in the bright and sunny day. Wonderful triumph of faith that can say, "The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away, blessed be the name of the Lord!" Thus faith, laying one dispensation over against another—placing in the scales apparent opposites and contradictions in God's government—can see light in darkness, can produce harmony from discord, and can gather encouragement from defeat; and, dipping its pencil in the darkest colors of sad and gloomy providences, can trace upon the canvas of the Christian's life some of its most brilliant and cheerful pictures.

From this general view of the fruits of faith, let us specify two or three in particular.

What is peace but a blessed fruit of faith? The peace which God gives, which the Holy Spirit creates, which the Atonement of Christ secures, and which in its nature and blessedness "passes all understanding," is only received from precious faith dealing with a precious Christ. Were you, my reader, banished like John to some lone isle, bearing with you but a fragment of the Bible—that fragment the single but full and sublime declaration, "Being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ"—it were enough to calm, cheer, and assure your mind, amid all the dreadful consequences of sin, with the hope of a full acceptance with God through Christ. Oh, how real and tranquillizing the peace which simple faith brings into the soul the moment Jesus is seen as the "Prince of peace," as "making peace," as "our peace," and as bequeathing "peace," His last legacy of love to His saints! All peace is contained in that one word—RECONCILIATION. Reconciled to God through the peace-making, peace-speaking "blood of the everlasting covenant," there is no longer any ground of condemnation, nor fear of hell. "If God be for us, who can be against us?" God pacified towards us, no matter who accuses or condemns; the believing sinner, at peace with God through Christ, can afford to be at war with the world, the flesh, and the devil. Beloved, bring all your sin and guilt to the atoning blood of Jesus, and the "God of peace" will give you peace; and "when He gives quietness, who then can make trouble?"

And what is true joy—a twin grace with peace—but a precious fruit of faith? The apostle reminds us of this—"Now the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing." In the same proportion to the directness and simplicity with which your faith deals with Christ, looks to Christ, lives upon the fullness of Christ, rests in the complete salvation, the finished work of Christ, draws all its evidences and hopes from Christ, will be your "joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ." Nothing can enkindle this holy joy in the heart but a believing view of what the Lord Jesus is, and what He has done. It is only a sense of full pardon, of free justification, of gracious adoption, of the hope of glory, that can awaken real joy in the soul of a believing sinner. What joy can there be in the heart of a convicted felon, or of a condemned criminal, or of a convict paying the sad penalty of his crime in lonely exile, toil, and degradation? None whatever. But convey to him a free pardon, unbar his prison, break his manacles, and bid him go free; restore him to his country, his family, his home, and, bruised and broken though that heart be with a consciousness of guilt and a sense of shame, you yet have awoken in its sad chambers the sweetest chimes, and joy, entrancing joy, thrills and dilates his bosom. Such is the picture of a soul cleansed from the guilt of sin, and freed from the condemnation of the law by a believing acceptance of the Lord Jesus Christ. That moment Christ is received into the lowly, penitent, and believing heart—the instant that Christ is seen paying the great debt, suffering the penalty, enduring the condemnation—a joy springs up in the soul such as never thrilled an angel's heart, and all this joy is "joy in believing." "In this rejoice not," says the Savior, "that the spirits are subject unto you; but rather rejoice, because your names are written in heaven." Oh, how much more joyful would the saints of God be did they deal less with themselves, and more with Jesus! They look at their sins, pore over their unfitness, pine at their leanness, and succumb to their failures and infirmities, their poverty and emptiness, and so all sweet, sacred joy droops and dies within their souls. But, "the joy of the Lord is your strength." "The meek shall increase their joy in the Lord." And seeing that the Lord has "clothed them with the garments of salvation, and has covered them with the robe of righteousness," it is the privilege of their soul "greatly to rejoice in the Lord, and to be joyful in their God" (Isa. 61:10). But, beloved, remember that Christ's joy can only remain in you, and your joy be full, as in childlike faith you look directly, and only, and constantly to Christ. "We joy in God, through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received the atonement." Oh for a higher tone of holy joy among the Lord's redeemed! Who in this vast universe have such reason to make the valley resound and the mountain echo with the glad notes of praise, as you who are freed from servitude, who are delivered from hell, and who are on your way to heaven, to spend your eternity—"forever with the Lord?" Beloved reader, if you are saved—if, in the exercise of the lowliest faith, you can cherish the hope of acceptance, as a poor sinner, with God through Christ—you may rejoice in tribulation, and glory in infirmity, and count the sufferings of this present time not worthy to be compared with the glory that will be revealed in you. "Rejoice in the Lord, and again I say, Rejoice."

This precious faith is equally the parent of all holiness, and in this view is not less precious to the child of God. There is no true holiness apart from faith in the Lord Jesus—it is the root of all real sanctification. "Purifying their hearts by faith" (Acts 15:9). "Faith, that purifies the heart and works by love" (Gal. 5:6). How much is there in the outward religion of many that has all the appearance of holiness, but which is yet unholy in the sight of a holy God! The religious worship, practices, and duties of some, clothed with an air of sanctity so profound, and which awaken the awe, win the admiration, and elicit the applause of so many, pass for nothing with that infinitely holy Being concerning whom it is written by the Holy Spirit, "Without faith it is impossible to please God." Faith is a revealing, emptying, impoverishing grace—it gives its real possessor to see the depravity of his own nature, the vileness of his own heart, the worthlessness of his own righteousness, and the innumerable flaws, spots, and failures of all holy spiritual doings. It opens the eye, too, to Christ, and by its gentle and persuasive influence leads the soul, thus emptied and impoverished, to Him, as having all fullness of righteousness, all riches of grace, all soothings of love treasured up for the "poor in spirit," and for those who "hunger and thirst after righteousness." Faith resting in Christ, beholding Him who is invisible, will mold and influence the believer's entire walk. It begets holy principle, and holy principles inspire holy practice, and a holy practice will be "filled with the fruits pf righteousness, which are by Jesus Christ, unto the glory and praise of God" (Phil. 1:11). This precious faith will influence a man to walk prayerfully, circumspectly, and vigilantly. His daily prayer will be, "Let integrity and uprightness preserve me." In his worldly calling he will seek to glorify God. The false balance, the scanty measure, the exaggeration of the seller, the depreciation of the buyer, the rash speculation, the prodigal expenditure, the grasping covetousness, love for the world, its pleasures, attire, and show, an uncharitable, unforgiving, censorious, malicious spirit, with all the corruptions and sinful infirmities of our fallen nature,—true faith, looking to Christ and dealing with eternal realities, will constrain the believer to war against, crucify, and conquer. "This is the victory that overcomes the world, even our faith." Oh for more of this heart-purifying, soul-elevating, Christ-assimilating, God-glorifying, heaven-attracting faith! When your worldly business opposes God's glory, your interests Christ's honor, your temper the Spirit's witness, your conduct the high and heavenly calling you profess, remember that true faith will not cause a moment's hesitation as to your duty. Oh that at that moment, the most critical it may be of your life, when the balance quivers between self-interest and the Divine honor, your faith may take one close view of the cross, one piercing glance into eternity, and so bring you off more than a conqueror, covered with the deathless acclaim and reward of a Christ-exalting triumph!

Precious, indeed, is that faith that leans upon God in adversity, that goes to Jesus in trial, and that repairs to the Spirit in sorrow. Precious faith, that finds a promise for every condition, a helper in every emergency, a soother for every sorrow,—that can hope against hope, taste a sweet disguised in every bitter, and see a bright light veiled by each dark cloud. This is the true gold that procures all blessings and enriches its possessor with all good. He that has FAITH IN GOD has every desire of his heart fulfilled. He can dive into the treasures of God's word and say, "All these are mine, for they are my father's epistles of love." He can turn to the Redeemer's fullness and exclaim, "It pleased the Father that all this fullness of grace, and truth, and love, should dwell in Jesus for me." He can repair to the throne of grace and say, "Here I am permitted to draw near to God, burdened with sin, laden with want, oppressed with trial, assailed by temptation, crushed with sorrow, casting, by an act of faith, all my care upon Him." Is not that precious faith that enriches my poverty, that dignifies my lowliness, that guides my perplexities, that cheers my loneliness, that calms my grief, that defeats my foes, that paints a bow upon every cloud, and that brings all heaven into my soul? Yet such is the fruit of that faith of which God is the giver, the Spirit the author, Christ the object, and a poor, empty, unworthy soul the happy possessor!

But rich and inviting as this subject is, we must conduct the present chapter to a close. In doing so, suffer me to exhort you not to despair when God sees fit to deal with you as He did with the father of the faithful—assure you of a promise, and then put death into all the means leading to its fulfillment. Be it so—that promise, lifeless though it may seem, yet stands good against all that militates against its accomplishment. One affirmative of God may be weighed, against ten million negatives of man,—one Divine promise against a universe of human improbabilities and impossibilities,—a grain of faith against a pyramid of unbelief. "Let God be true, and every man a liar." With second causes faith has nothing to do. It sees God only, deals with God only, believing that "with God all things are possible."

Beware of making a Christ of your faith, precious as it is. If you are staying away from the Savior because your faith is weak, you are substituting your faith for Christ—the channel for the Fountain of comfort, peace, and salvation. If I have a mission to the sovereign of these realms—some petition to prefer—and I linger upon the steps that conduct me to the royal presence, or in the corridor that leads me into the royal chamber, what marvel if I have no audience, and, consequently, no response to my request? That lofty flight of steps, that magnificent corridor, are but introductions to my approach to the sovereign, not the sovereign herself. Such is faith! Divine and precious as it is, faith is but the path that leads us to the King. And although it is often with hesitation and weakness we tread this royal pathway, yet each new step upon which we place our foot brings us nearer to Jesus. We must, however, beware of lingering upon the steps, or of loitering in the ante-rooms, substituting our going to Christ for our having actually come to Christ. Onward we must press, discouraged not by our slow, nor elated by our rapid progress—counting nothing of our faith but as a mean to an end—that end our full reception of the Lord Jesus—until we find ourselves in the royal presence, "beholding the King in His beauty." It follows, then, that faith does not save you, it being but the instrument of salvation; that your weak faith is no reason why you should stay away from Christ, and that your strong faith is no plea recommending you to Christ. It is CHRIST, and Christ only, from first to last, that saves; and your faith is precious and valuable only as it brings you to Him to be saved through His imputed righteousness alone. The truth we are endeavoring to explain is so vital and important, we would venture to simplify and enforce it by another illustration. The ship riding in the roads heaves not her anchor in order to aid the little boat which has just put out from the shore, and contending with wind, and tide, and wave, struggles to approach her. But casting forth a line, she bids the frail vessel grasp it and draw itself to the ship. Thus, it is not the ship that approaches the boat, it is the boat that approaches the ship. Trembling soul! setting out for Christ, leaving the shore of a sinful, delusive world, and loosening yourself from the strong grasp you have long had of your own righteousness, let me remind you that Christ is in heaven, and that He comes not down again from above to meet the soul battling with sin, and guilt, and unbelief in its struggles to come near to Him. What, then, does He? He gives an exceeding great and precious promise—"Him that comes unto me I will in no wise cast out;" and bidding the sinner take hold of that promise by faith, He invites it to approach Him and receive all the blessings of salvation, and all the treasures of grace of which He is the Author, the Head, and the Giver. Faith does not bring Christ to the soul (the blessed Redeemer is self-moved—moved by His own graciousness and love), but faith brings the soul to Christ. Faith fastens itself upon Jesus, "exalted a Prince and a Savior to give repentance unto Israel, and remission of sins," and so it draws the soul to Christ. "Say not in your heart, Who shall ascend into heaven? (that is, to bring Christ down from above;) or, Who shall descend into the deep? (that is, to bring up Christ again from the dead). But what says it? The word is near you, even in your mouth, and in your heart: that is, the word of faith, which we preach; that if you shall confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus, and shall believe in your heart that God has raised him from the dead, you shall be saved." Here is the divine cord that draws the sinner to Jesus, and will, if taken hold of in simple earnestness, assuredly bring the weakest, most trembling, and unworthy soul to the Savior. "If you will BELIEVE in your heart,…you SHALL be SAVED."

Then, let no sin-distressed soul, bending over this page, despair of being saved. Numberless, aggravated, great as your sins may be—death and condemnation staring you full in the face—confronted as if by the grim, gloomy instrument of your execution—behold, here is a full and free pardon asking but the acceptance of your faith. "Only believe." When the trembling jailor of Philippi rushed into the cell of Paul with the memorable inquiry, "What shall I do to be saved?" did the apostle send him to religious ordinances, or to duties, or to pious doings—to baptism, to the Lord's supper, to prayer, and fasting, and charities? Oh no! These were proper in their place, but sadly out of place here, and therefore most improper. But what is the work the apostle puts the anxious penitent upon?—the work of believing. "Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and you shall be saved." This is the work,—"And this is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He has sent." And when a poor woman came and poured an alabaster box of precious ointment upon His head, what did Jesus say to her? what was the act which He commended? He mentions not her tears, though she wept; He speaks not of her fondness, though she kissed His feet; He commends not her liberality, though her anointing was very costly and precious. He does not say, Your repentance has saved you, your love has saved you, your liberality has saved you; but He says, "Woman, YOUR FAITH has saved you; go in peace." He passes by all her other qualities, and places the crown of acceptance upon the head of her faith. Dear reader! Jesus is just the same at this moment that He was then—as ready to receive, accept, and save you—as ready to crown your feeble, trembling faith with such a diadem of glory as angels never wore. "Go in peace, your FAITH has SAVED you." Oh that with the believing, weeping father in the Gospel, you may exclaim, "Lord, I believe; help you mine unbelief."

Is it with you a season of great strait, difficulty, and want? Now is the time to set faith to work. Your faith may long have been inactive and dormant. The sword has so long reposed in its scabbard that you can with difficulty withdraw it, now that it is a time of need; and your arm has become so enfeebled from disuse that you can scarcely wield the sword even when drawn. But God has sent this pressure in order to restore and quicken your confidence in Himself. Oh, have faith in God that He will appear in your behalf, and glorify Himself in you. His name is Almighty—God all-sufficient. Listen to the language of one who thus, from a chapter in his own deep experience, unfolds the blessedness of that simple, believing confidence in God to which we would urge you in this hour of need:—"I have seemed to see a need of everything God gives me, and want nothing that He denies me; there is no dispensation, though afflictive, but either in it or after it I could not have done without it. Whether it be taken from me or not given to me, sooner or later God quiets me in Himself without it. I cast all my concerns on the Lord, and live securely on the care and wisdom of my heavenly Father. My ways are in a sense hedged up with thorns, and grow darker and darker every day; but yet I distrust not my good God in the least, and live more quietly in the absence of all, by faith, than I should do, I am persuaded, if I possessed them all. I think the Lord deals kindly with me to make me believe for my mercies before I have them. The less reason has to work on, the more freely faith casts itself on the faithfulness of God. I find that while faith is steady nothing can disquiet me, and when faith totters nothing can establish me. If I tumble out among means and creatures, I am presently lost, and can come to no end; but if I stay myself on God, and leave Him to work in His own way and time, I am at rest, and can sit down and sleep on a promise when a thousand rise up against me; therefore my way is not to cast beforehand, but to work with God by the day. 'Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.' I find so much to do with my calling and my heart that I have no time to puzzle myself with peradventures and futurities. Faith lies at anchor in the midst of the waves, and believes the accomplishment of the promises through all these overturning confusions and seeming impossibilities. Upon this God do I live, who is our God forever, and will be our guide unto death. Methinks I lie becalmed in His bosom; as Luther, in such a case, I am not much concerned, let Christ see to it. I know prophecies are still dark, and the books are sealed, and men have all been deceived, and every cistern fails. Yet God abides faithful, and faithful is He that has promised, who also will do it. Many things now I might say, but enough; O brother! keep close to God, and then a little of the creature will go a great way. Maintain secret communion with God, and you need fear nothing. Lay up all your goods in God, so as to be able to overbalance the sweetness and bitterness of all creatures. Spend no time anxiously in forehand contrivances for this world; they will never succeed; God will turn His dispensations another way. Self-contrivances are the effects of unbelief. I can speak by experience, would men spend those hours they run out in plots and contrivances in communion with God, and leave all to Him by believing, they would have more peace and comfort."

Such, then, is the preciousness of faith—it is so precious that none but God can bestow it, and when bestowed it is so precious that it brings into the soul, as the queen-grace, untold blessings in its royal retinue. It has been remarked by an eminent minister of Christ, now in glory, that were God to limit him to one prayer it would be the apostle's—"Lord, increase our faith." And this is no exaggerated sentiment, because the increase of faith brings with it an increase of love, joy, peace, obedience, and every grace of the Holy Spirit. But while not content with any limit to your growth in this grace of faith, yet remember for your encouragement who do you think have no precious faith, that it may exist in the soul, and for the most part does, in the smallest degree. Who will affirm that he has yet attained unto faith, small even as the grain of mustard seed? Then we ask such a boaster that he say to this mountain, Be you cast into the sea; to this sycamore tree, Be you plucked up: for our blessed Lord has told us that "if we have faith as a grain of mustard seed, nothing shall be impossible unto us." Thank God, then, for the least degree of faith, though it be less than the grain of mustard seed, for the smallest measure will conduct you fully into heaven. And yet do not forget that there is no difficulty that faith in God, however small, cannot surmount, no mountain it cannot level, no tree it cannot uproot, simply because it deals with the power of God. Calling to its aid omnipotence, allying itself with the Almighty, it can thrash the mountains small, and make the hills as chaff, it can leap over a wall and run through a troop, and though often lame and halting, it yet can take the prey.

We conclude the present chapter with a brief glance at the crowning act of precious faith—the glory it brings to Jehovah;—and this is the crown of its preciousness. If the faith of a child of God terminated in himself—even though it were to put him in the full possession of heaven—it would come short of its highest, holiest, noblest end. It is worthy of God that He has made all things to center in Himself. "The Lord has made all things for himself" (Prov. 16:4). "I have created him for my glory" (Isa. 43:7). In no being in the universe has God put forth so much of His glory, and by none will He finally appear so illustrious as a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ. God has done more for that saved soul, and will more magnify His great name in him, than for all the unfallen intelligences of heaven. He will appear more glorious, His perfections will shine forth with more full, harmonious, and complete luster in one sinner saved, than in the final and eternal destruction of the myriads who people the regions of the lost. In the case of the lost, justice and holiness appear in dreadful severity; but in those who are saved, justice and holiness—yet more awfully illustrated in the soul-sorrow and dying agonies of Jesus—are seen blended with love, mercy, and grace; so that men and angels see more of the divine glory in the salvation, than in the condemnation of man. It is the glory, then, of faith, and the perfection of its preciousness, that it gives glory to God. "The reason why faith is said to give glory to God is, because faith answers God's faithfulness. Great faith is said to give glory to God: one of the special commendations of Abraham's faith is, 'He was strong in faith, giving glory to God' (Rom. 4:20). God magnifies His name of faithfulness above all His name; the believer magnifies his faithfulness by his believing; therefore he gives glory to God. There are three honorable services that some men get put into their hands, and which are denied to angels. There is preaching of Christ, suffering for Christ, and believing in Christ. Let us consider wherein there is an honoring of God by believing; for it is a point very rarely believed. Who is there of believers that think that by bare believing they give God more glory than any other way they can do?

"Faith gives glory to God, because it brings nothing to Him but poverty, want, and emptiness. All graces bring something to God, but faith brings nothing. Love brings a flaming, burning heart to God; repentance brings a bleeding, broken heart to God; obedience brings a working hand to God; patience brings, as it were, abroad back to God, let Him lay on what He will; poor faith brings just nothing, but the poor man's bare hand and empty dish. The poorer man comes to God the more glory to God. It is remarkable that, in those cases wherein we bring something to God, we are very apt to carry away something of the glory that belongs to Him: faith brings nothing at all to God; it brings no more than broken bones and sores to the great Physician (Rom. 3:27).

"Faith glorifies God, for it seeks all in Him, and from Him: as it brings nothing to Him, so it expects everything from Him, whatever its wants be. The language of faith is, 'All my wants be upon You, O Lord;' there is no other way of bearing them; it expects all from Him, and from the single warrant of His word. (John 3:33.)

"Faith always glorifies God, for it ventures its all upon His word. The believer is still in this frame, in the exercise of faith: 'Now, here I have God's faithful promise; and if it should fail me, I should certainly sink forever. My soul, body, reputation, privileges of the gospel, all my concerns whatever, are all laid upon the faithfulness of God; they are all put in that bottom of the ship; if I miscarry, I am gone for ever.' Who is there of believers that believes this, that a bare adventuring of your eternal salvation upon the Son of God, by virtue of the promise of God, brings more glory to God than all things else can do? (1 Cor. 1:30, 31.)" (Traill.)

If this be true—and most true it is—then, beloved, besiege the throne of grace for more of this Christ-crowning, Spirit-honoring, God-glorifying grace of faith. Oh, it is the mightiest grace of the Holy Spirit in the soul, and because it is so, it brings the richest revenue of praise to the Triune Jehovah! Behold, how like a queen she enters the soul, her train composed of the costliest material, her train-bearers the sister-graces of the Spirit. "The king's daughter is all glorious within; her clothing is of wrought gold." Seek, O seek it, then; earnestly, diligently, importunately seek it. Every new deposit of this precious coin augments your real wealth; and every new victory this grace of faith achieves adds another precious stone to the diadem of glory with which your Savior is crowned. Whatever may be your present circumstances, "have faith in God." Stand still, and see His wonder-working on your behalf. He will smite that rock—He will part that sea—He will level that mountain—He will exalt that valley—He will roll from off the tomb of your buried mercy the stone you can not move. Only have faith in Him! "Commit your way unto the Lord, trust also in him, and he shall bring it to pass." Thus, your soul, in the exercise of this "precious faith" that looks from self, ceases from man, and trusts alone in God, shall repose in Him, acquiescent, tranquil, and safe as an infant on its mother's breast. Then will the Psalmist's enviable experience be yours—"Surely I have behaved and quieted myself, as a child that is weaned of his mother: my soul is even as a weaned child."

"Leave God to order all your ways,
And hope in Him, whatever betide;
Thou'lt find Him in the evil days,
Your all-sufficient strength and guide;
Who trusts in God's unchanging love,
Builds on the rock that nothing can move.

"What can these anxious cares avail,
These never-ceasing moans and sighs?
What can it help us to bewail
Each painful moment as it flies?
Our cross and trials do but press
The heavier for our bitterness.

"Only your restless heart keep still,
And wait in cheerful hope; content
To take whatever His gracious will,
His all-discerning love has sent.
Doubt not our inmost wants are known
To Him who chose us for His own.

"He knows when joyful hours are best,
He sends them as He sees it meet;
When you have borne the fiery test,
And are made free from all deceit,
He comes to you all unaware,
And makes you own His loving care.

"Sing, pray, and swerve not from His ways,
But do your own part faithfully,
Trust His rich promises of grace,
So shall they be fulfilled in you;
God never yet forsook at need
The soul that trusted Him indeed."
(Newmarch, 1653.)

THE PRECIOUSNESS OF TRIAL

"The trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perishes." 1 Pet. 1:7

It is the preciousness of trial in general, including the preciousness of the trial of faith in particular, to which the apostle thus refers. We propose, therefore, to amplify the truth, and to illustrate in the present chapter the preciousness of all those trials of which, more or less, the saints of God are partakers. This view may present the subject of trial in a point of light more soothing and sanctifying than the reader has been used to contemplate it. You have thought of trial, have anticipated trial, have met trial, have shrunk from trial as the patient recoils from the surgeon's lance, forgetting that that very trial was the needed process by which God was about to work out some great good in your personal experience; and that so far from being dreaded, it should be welcomed as among the most precious things of God, the richest blessings of the everlasting covenant. The points we propose to illustrate are trial—the preciousness of trial—and the blessings that spring from trial.

The term is expressive. It refers to a process by which the character or strength of a thing is tested. The engineer tries the base of his arch, the architect tries the foundation of his building, the refiner tries the nature of his ore. The word trial thus acquires a significant import in relation to that disciplinary process by which God proves His people. Trial, then, becomes a necessary element in the schooling and training of the children of God for duty and service upon earth, and for enjoyment and glory in heaven. Exempt the Church of God from trial, and she is excluded from a process the results of which are incalculable in her experience.

It will tend to open this subject more forcibly, if we consider who the Lord tries in the sense in which the term is now employed. There is one passage in God's book which contains—as many brief sentences of inspired truth do—a volume in a word, and it will supply the answer to the question, Who does the Lord try? "The Lord tries the righteous." The furnace in which God places His people—in other words, the process of trial by which He proves them—is not the same by which the ungodly world is tried. "The fire in Zion, and His furnace in Jerusalem," are only for His own elect. He has the crucible for gold, and the crucible for earth—the fire of love, and the fire of wrath; and in nothing will He more distinguish His own people from the ungodly,—the gold from the "reprobate silver,"—than in the mode by which both are thus dealt with. He tries the righteous because they are righteous; He chastens His sons, because they are sons; He reproves, rebukes, afflicts them, because He loves them, having "chosen them in the furnace of affliction." What touching words of Christ are these—who can read them without emotion?—"As many as I love I rebuke and chasten." Again, "Whom the Lord loves he chastens, and scourges every son whom he receives." Thus, it is His own people, His righteous, His holy ones, on whom His afflictive hand is often the most severely and heavily laid. "The Lord tries the RIGHTEOUS."

But what does the Lord try? It is not our fallen nature that He tries, the existence of whose depravity is clear and unmistakable. There needs no proof that we are sinful and corrupt, and that "in our flesh there dwells no good thing." But the Lord tries His own wondrous work of grace in the soul. He tries everything that is divine, and good, and holy in the regenerate. He tries their principles, He tries their motives, He tries their graces, He tries their knowledge, He tries their experience, He tries His own work. Take, for example, a few of the spiritual graces which He more especially brings to the test of trial. He tries the believer's love. "Loves you me more than this?" is often the probing question of Jesus to His disciples. He will test the reality, the sincerity, the strength of our love to Him—whether it can confide in Him when He smites, cling to Him when He retires, obey Him when He commands—whether it will entwine around Him the closer that the storms seek to tear it from its hold. "Can you resign this blessing? will you undertake this service? are you able to drink this cup, or bear this cross for me?" is the significant language of many a trial with which the Lord tries the righteous. Happy if your love sustains the test of its sincerity, and your heart replies, "Yes, Lord; Your love inspiring my love, Your grace helping my infirmity, Your strength perfected in my weakness, I can—I will—I DO."

The Lord tries also the patience of His people. There is, perhaps, no grace of the Spirit, or adornment of the Christian character more overlooked than this, and yet there is not one more precious, God-honoring, and beautifying. To find this divine and rare pearl, we must often pass from the surface of society, and seek it—where, indeed, the piety and taste of few lead them—amid scenes of suffering, of grief, of adversity. In some secluded apartment, on some couch of languor, or bed of sickness, shaded by poverty and loneliness, this divine grace may exist—no eye beholding its sparkling amid the surrounding gloom, but His whose "eyes are over the righteous, and whose ear is open to their cry." There may be seen the patient, quiet spirit of a humble believer in Jesus, enduring without a murmuring word, bearing without a rebellious feeling; suffering without a hard thought of Him who has smitten—with a calm, submissive, dignified surrender to the Divine disposal—the will of God. And yet, who, in whatever path he walks, finds not, in some circumstances of his daily history, the "need of patience?" The trying circumstances of life—the chafings of the hourly cross—the constant contact with dissimilar tastes, uncongenial minds, unsympathizing hearts—the delays in answer to prayer—the ceaseless pain—the restless head—the nervous temperament, to which the buzzing of a fly is agony—above all, the hidings of God, the tarrying of Jesus, the suspension of the Spirit's consolation—all, all demand the exercise of that patience with which the believer possesses his soul. This is the grace the Lord tries! Ah! how little know we of the impatience of our spirit—the petulance and unsubmissiveness which will brook no delay, which frets against the Lord, and rebels against His dealings—until the Lord tries us. But He tries our patience only to increase it. Humbled under the conviction how rebellious and repining is our spirit, we are led to cry mightily to God to give to us this grace, meekly to endure, silently to suffer, and cheerfully to do His will. "The Lord direct your hearts into the patience of Christ." "You have need of patience, that, after you have done the will of God, you may receive the promise." We are exhorted to "let patience have her perfect work, that you may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing." "Here is the patience of the saints."

I have spoken of the trial of faith. Without recalling the train of thought already pursued, it may be well briefly to remark, that faith being the queen-grace of the graces—all others constituting her regal attendants—the Lord especially tries this grace of the believer, and by so doing He indirectly tries and so strengthens all the cognate graces of the soul. Thus, we read, "The trial of your faith works patience." And what are the ends to be accomplished in the trial of faith? The Lord tries our faith to test its genuineness, to promote its purity, to invigorate its power—thus to bring us into a more intimate acquaintance with Himself. Never should we try God as we do did He not try us as He does. We should, alas! be content to travel many a stage without Him. No child-like sense of dependence—no holy communings—no seeking His will—no trying of His love, faithfulness, and wisdom. How seldom would the Lord see our uplifted face, or our outstretched hands, or hear the plaint accents of our voice, did He permit this grace to lie sluggish and stagnant in the soul. But it is "living water" which Christ has deposited within the regenerate, and trial is needed to keep it pure, sparkling, and ascending. Be you sure of this, then, beloved, that the Lord thus exercises your faith only to make you a richer possessor of this most enriching of the graces. It is a kind process of Jesus by which He seeks your greatest good. The more your faith is tried, the more it deals with God, and travels to Christ; and it is impossible for you to spend one minute with God, or to catch one glimpse of Christ, and not be sensibly and immeasurably the gainer. The more your faith leads you to the throne of grace, the more precious will prayer become. The more your faith deals with the atonement of Christ, the more will the glory of His work unfold to your mind. The more your faith takes hold of the Divine promises, the more will it be confirmed in the truth of God's word. Thus faith—so supernatural and wondrous a grace is it—transmutes everything it touches into most precious gold, and so confers upon its tried but happy possessor "greater riches than the treasures of Egypt."

But who can travel the circle of all the trials to which the saints of God are subject? How great their variety! how peculiar often their character! Each child of God seems to move in a groove peculiar to himself, to revolve round the great center in an orbit of his own. The Lord deals with us as individuals that we may have individual dealings with Him. Therefore, among the catalogue of the Christian's trials, those of an individual nature may take the precedence of all others. It is a great mercy when we can retire from the crowd and deal with God individually—when we can take the precious promises to ourselves individually—when we can repair to Jesus with individual sins, infirmities, and sorrows, feeling that His eye bends its glance upon us, His ear bows down to us, His hand is outstretched to us, His whole heart absorbed in us, as though not another claimant, suitor, or sufferer unveiled a sorrow or preferred a request—as if, in a word, we were the solitary object of His love. Oh, deal with Christ personally, even as He deals personally with you. His invitation is, "Come unto ME,"—and He would have you come,—and you cannot honor Him more—recognizing His personality, and His personal relation to yourself, and disclosing your personal circumstances, making confession of personal sin, presenting personal wants, and unveiling personal infirmities, backslidings, and sorrows.

But, in addition to personal, there are often relative trials, which many are called to experience. It is impossible for feeling hearts not to make the circumstances of those to whom they are bound by close and tender ties of love and friendship in a measure their own. The religion of Jesus is the religion of sympathy. It teaches us to "weep with those that weep, and to rejoice with those that rejoice"—to "bear one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ." And what a touching exemplification of this our religion did its great Author present when bending over the grave of Lazarus; as the evangelist tells us—"JESUS WEPT." He had griefs of His own—oh, how bitter!—but He buried them deeply and silently within His breast, and seemed to feel and to weep only for the griefs of others. "In all their afflictions he was afflicted." And thus, too, it often is with the Christ-like believer. Concealing his personal sorrows, and bearing in lonely and uncomplaining silence his own burden, he is often found, from his unselfishness and sensibility, to be more deeply afflicted and oppressed by the sorrows and burdens of others. "Who is weak, and I am not weak? who is offended, and I burn not?"

But there are spiritual trials peculiar to the children of God. The world, as it cannot sympathize with the joy of the believer, so it cannot participate with his spiritual sorrow. The Lord tries the righteous as righteous. What knows the world of trials springing from the indwelling of sin, from the temptations of Satan, from spiritual darkness, from the conflict of unbelief, from the infirmities of prayer, from leanness of soul, coldness of love, hardness of heart, perpetual tendency to spiritual relapse? Nothing whatever! But such are the soul exercises of many a saint of God, and these constitute his sorest trials.

But it is not so much on the fact of the Christian's trials that we would dwell, as upon a particular aspect of those trials which—especially in the actual process of trial—we are prone to overlook—their preciousness. The apostle clearly intimates this—"The trial of your faith being much more precious than of gold." It is to the preciousness of the trial of faith, not so much to the preciousness of faith itself, to which he refers. Let us briefly pursue this idea, and see in what respects the child of God may contemplate his trials as among he precious things of God.

Trial is precious, because that which it tries is so. The work which God brings to the test of affliction is worthy of all the pains He takes to prove its reality, to promote its purity, and to advance its growth. Nothing is so precious, so costly, so indestructible as the work of the Holy Spirit in the soul. If, beloved, you have a broken heart for sin, if you possess faith less even than a grain of mustard seed, if there glows in your heart a solitary spark of Divine love, or there beats in your soul a throb of spiritual life,—if, in a word, there is the outline of the restored moral image of God, faint and imperfect though it is, no figure can illustrate its beauty, nor words describe its worth. It distances all idea in its intrinsic preciousness. Now this is the work the Lord tries. These are the Divine principles, holy emotions, heavenly feelings He brings to the test. He tries it because it is worth the trial, and so the trial itself becomes a precious thing because it has to do with a precious work.

Trial also derives a value from its being the discipline of a loving Father. The moment faith can see the extraction of any drop of the curse from the cup of sorrow, and trace in its ingredients nothing but the elements of love, wisdom, goodness, faithfulness, righteousness, it realizes the costliness of the discipline. The very rod is loved because it is the rod of Him who is "Love." The chastening is sweet because it is parental. And the true believer exclaims, "My Father designs by this to teach me some salutary lesson, to inculcate some divine truth, to rebuke me for some folly, to correct me for some sin, to recall my truant heart, to restore my wandering soul, to endear Himself, and by detaching my affections and sympathies from earth's attractions, to allure and bind them closer to heaven. Precious trial that is the dictate of a wise and holy discipline, that leaves traces of a Father's hand, that is loving in its origin, loving in its nature, loving in its results!"

Trial is precious because it increases the preciousness of Christ. It is in adversity that human friendship is tested. When the wintry blast sweeps by, when fortune vanishes, and health fails, and position lowers, and popularity wanes, and influence lessens, then the summer birds of earthly friendship expand their wings and seek a warmer climate! The same test that proves the hollowness of the world's affection and constancy confirms the believer in the reality, power, and preciousness of the friendship of Jesus. To know fully what Christ is we must know something of adversity. We must be tried, tempted, and oppressed—we must taste the bitterness of sorrow, feel the pressure of want, tread the path of solitude, and often be brought to the end of our own strength and of human sympathy and counsel. Jesus shines the brightest to faith's eye when all things are dark and dreary. And when others have retired from our presence, their patience wearied, their sympathy exhausted, their counsel baffled, perhaps their affection chilled and their friendship changed, then Christ approaches and takes the vacant place; sits at our side, speaks peace to our troubled heart, soothes our sorrows, guides our judgment, and bids us "Fear not." Beloved reader, when has Christ appeared the nearest and most precious to your soul? Has it not been in seasons when you have the most stood in need of His guiding counsel and of His soothing love? In the region of your heart's sinfulness you have learned the value, completeness, and preciousness of His atoning work, of His finished salvation. But the tender, loving, sympathetic part of His nature, you have been brought into the experience of only in the school of sanctified trial. Oh, how precious has that trial made Him! Into what sacred intimacy and close fellowship and conscious nearness has it brought you. When He has approached with an expression so benignant, with a look so winning, with words so soothing, with an influence so tranquillizing, and told you that He was acquainted with your sorrow, entered into your loss, felt all the keen, delicate touches of your grief; and then spoke words of comfort to your spirit, bound up your broken heart, gently drew you into a sweet, holy, cheerful submission to His will and full justification of His dealings, oh, has He not enthroned Himself upon your soul at that moment more supremely and firmly than ever? You once thought you knew Him, and you did in some degree, but now, in the depth of your hallowed sorrow, a sorrow into which the Man of sorrows and the Brother born for adversity has enshrined His whole self, you exclaim, "I have heard of you by the hearing of the ear; but now mine eye sees you." We ask, Is not trial a precious discipline, a precious correction, a precious school, that leads you more fully into the heartfelt experience of the preciousness of the Savior? Shrink not from, nor rebel against, that which makes you more intimately acquainted with your best Friend, your dearest Brother, the tender, sympathizing, Beloved of your soul. You will know more of Jesus in one sanctified trial than in wading through a library of volumes or in listening to a lifetime of sermons.

It is impossible either to contemplate the costly results of trial, and not find an evidence of its preciousness. Trial is a fruitful process; and, though often painful as the incisions of the amputating knife, the results, like those incisions, are salutary and healthful. Sanctified trial opens an outlet for the escape of much soul-distemper. Deep-rooted, hidden, and long pent-up evil, the existence of which has been as a fretting sore, inflaming, irritating, and impairing the whole spiritual constitution of the soul, has by this process been thrown off, and thus a more wholesome state and healthful action has supervened. Oh, what selfishness, what carnality, what rebellion, what worldliness, what secret declension, has God's lancet brought to light, revealing it but to inspire self-abhorrence, sin-loathing, and sin-forsaking—and all this the costly fruit of a deeply sanctified affliction!

Trial, too, stirs us up to lay hold upon God in prayer. Nothing, probably, in all the Lord's means of grace and dispensations of providence so leads us to prayer, incites us to call upon the Lord, as the pressure of affliction. And so high a privilege is access to God, so sweet a spot is the throne of grace, so great and holy the blessings that spring from a waiting of soul upon the Lord, that must be a wholesome discipline that leads to such results. Oh, count it a precious trial, a golden affliction, that brings your heart into a closer communion with Christ! Your Elder Brother's voice may, like Joseph's, sound harshly and alarmingly upon your ear, filling you with fear and foreboding; yet it is the voice of your Brother, the "voice of the Beloved," and it speaks but to rouse you to a more full, confiding opening of your heart in prayer. Oh, precious trial! Oh, heaven-sent affliction! that breaks down the barriers, removes the restraints, thaws the congealings that intercept and interrupt my fellowship with God, and with His dear Son Christ Jesus. Our heavenly Father loves to hear the voice of His children; and when that voice is still, when there is a suspension of heart-communion, and the tones are silent which were used to fall as music upon His ear, He sends a trial, and then we rise and give ourselves to prayer. Perhaps, it is a perplexity, and we go to Him for counsel; or it is a want, and we go to Him for supply; or it is a grief, and we go to Him for soothing; or it is a burden, and we look to Him for upholding; it is an infirmity, and we repair to Him for grace; it is a temptation, and we fly to Him for support; it is a sin, and we repair to Him for pardon; but, be its form what it may, it has a voice—"Rise, and call upon your God!" and to God it brings us.

How much, too, does deeply sanctified trial correct our false judgments. We conceive dark thoughts of God's character, wrong views of His dealings, crude interpretations of His word—our judgments often miscarry in their opinions of persons, of actions, and events; but when under God's hand how much of this is corrected. The passing tempest has swept the clouds away, cleared our intellectual, and purified our moral atmosphere, and a brighter, serener sky has smiled upon us from above, and our path has become easier and pleasanter. We see God's character and our own in a different light—His so glorious, our own so vile. We interpret His dealings differently and more favorably, and begin to learn that there is no individual who has not, perhaps, more in his character to admire and love than to censure and condemn; and that there is no event in Divine Providence that has not a lesson of truth and a message of love.

We are deeply indebted to trial—and it thus fully sustains its character as among the precious things of God—as authenticating the fact of our divine sonship. Erase sanctified trial from the catalogue of the Lord's dealings with you, and you would cancel one of the strongest evidences of your adoption. What earthly father corrects not the waywardness, self-will, and disobedience of his child? and shall not our heavenly Father, in the exercise of a wisdom and love yet greater, employ a holy and wholesome discipline towards His children? Every stroke of His rod is a proof of His love, and every correction of His hand an evidence of our sonship. How tender and touching the admonition, "My son, despise not you the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when you are rebuked of him. For whom the Lord loves he chastens, and scourges every son whom he receives." Thus, then, our hallowed afflictions and trials are among the choice, precious things of God, because they are signs and seals of our gracious adoption into His family. Be not cast down, O tried believer! as though some strange and untoward thing had happened to you. Misinterpret not the dealings of God, as though your present sorrows, difficulties, and trials, were marks of His displeasure, and evidences against your true and divine relationship. Many of the Lord's people who appear exempt from those trials by which others are severely afflicted are prone to argue from thence against their being the true children of God. Most true is it that the religion of Jesus is the religion of the cross, and that there never was a true Christian without a cross. And yet the painful misgiving, arising from exemption from the crosses which others bear, may itself be the cross the Lord appoints you. The heart-searching and prayer, the earnestness and anxiety, which this conviction produces, may be just the self-discipline which those peculiar trials—from the absence of which you augur ill against yourself—are designed to effect. God can as richly teach, and as deeply sanctify us by the absence as by the presence of a trial. But ah! are there no crosses other than reverse of circumstances, loss of health, chilled affection, changed friendship, heart-crushing bereavement? Yes, beloved reader; this body of our humiliation, the power of indwelling sin, the assaults of Satan, the seductions of the world, the wounding of the saints, spiritual becloudings and despondencies, is enough, in the absence of all external trial, to discipline the heart, to humble the soul, and keep the believer near to the cross of Jesus. Thus, there is no believer without a trial, and no Christian is without the cross.

"A lady of rank and great piety complained that, whereas in Scripture the cross is everywhere spoken of as useful and necessary for the children of God, yet she, for her part, must acknowledge that hitherto the Lord had never deemed her worthy of one, and that this often raised within her melancholy thoughts and doubts whether she was one of His children or not. Gotthold said to her—I confess that complaints like yours are not common, inasmuch as few Christians have any ground to lament a lack of the cross, while others, whose share of it is exceedingly small, nevertheless imagine that it is quite as large as they are able to bear; and in particular, those who are yet unaccustomed to it, are prone to fancy that their cross is too great and heavy for them. As for your case, however, it seems to me that you are actually bearing a cross without being conscious of it. You are vexed with gloomy thoughts because you have no cross. These gloomy thoughts, however, appear to me to be themselves a considerable cross, and also a very salutary one, for they not only evince, but nourish and augment your desire to resemble the Lord Jesus, and to take up your cross and follow Him. Besides, the words of our Savior, 'Whoever does not bear his cross, and come after me, cannot be my disciple,' relate not merely to the common hardships of human life, but are also and especially to be understood of the crucifixion of the old man, of his sinful lusts and desires, of self-denial and the subjugation of the will. For the rest, we cannot and ought not to make crosses for ourselves, for this would end in hypocrisy. The Lord holds the cup of affliction in His own hand, and pours out of it when and as much as He will. That He has spared you hitherto, acknowledge with humble gratitude; He is the Searcher of hearts, and perhaps knew that, with the cross, your heart would not have felt towards Him as it has done without it. Recollect, however, that the drama of your life has not yet been played to the end, and that, for ought you know, your gracious God may still have some little cross in reserve for you, to be imposed in due time. The fiercest tempests often come in the evening of the finest summer days, and it is after the pure wine has been run off that the lees are used to follow. It ought to be another ground of gratitude to God, that He has given you time to prepare for all emergencies, and provide yourself with the armor necessary for your defense." (Gotthold's Emblems.)

It is not the least hallowed result of sanctified trial, thus increasing its preciousness, the deeper acquaintance into which it brings us with God's word. In trial we fly to the Scriptures as the unfailing source of guidance and comfort. Whatever may be the nature of our sorrow, or the singularity of our path, we are sure of finding in God's word light, sympathy, and soothing corresponding therewith. God sends us into this school of affliction to learn. Thus He dealt with David—"It is good for me that I have been afflicted, that I might learn your statutes." God's word at all times should be our study and delight. "Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom." But there is, through outward distractions and inward conflicts, a tendency to neglect the word, to lose our relish for its sweetness, or to turn from its faithful rebukes. And as a parent or a teacher sometimes employs the rod to stimulate his pupil to learn, so our Heavenly Father, our Divine Teacher, often sends His rod of correction to drive us to the study of the truth; then we testify, "It is good for me that I have been afflicted (corrected, chastened, rebuked), that I might learn your statutes." And oh, with what increased clearness and beauty does the Bible often unfold to us in the time of precious trial! We understand the Scriptures now as we never did before. We may have consulted critics and expositors, and by our own ingenuity and skill have endeavored to penetrate the sacred mysteries of the word, and yet but to little perception of the truth. But the rod of correction has proved our best expositor under the guidance of the Spirit of truth! "Then opened He their understanding, that they might understand the Scriptures." Dark, mysterious, and trying providences—trials which we thought so untoward—have been our best commentaries on the deep things of the word. What a honied sweetness, in our personal experience, has the bitterness of trial imparted to it! We did not know that there was so much sweetness in the word until we found so much bitterness in the world; nor so much fullness in the Scriptures until we found so much emptiness in the creature. We see the Bible now to be full of Jesus—Christ its revelation, its glory and sweetness, its Alpha and Omega, its beginning and end. Satiated with creature comforts, and surfeited with self-satisfaction, we had loathed the manna of the word, and it had no more relish to our spiritual than the most insipid element to our natural taste. But sweet, sanctified, precious trial has led us to the Book of the tried—God's own word—and we have "rejoiced at it as one that finds great spoil." With the Psalmist we have testified, "How sweet are your words to my taste! yes, sweeter than honey to my mouth." "This is my comfort in my affliction: for your word has quickened me." Oh welcome, then, cheerfully and submissively the precious trial that renders more precious in your experience the preciousness of God's word.

The time of trial often sets us upon a closer examination of our Christian progress and hope. In the season of worldly sunshine and prosperity, gliding along upon the smooth and calm current, how much do we take for granted as to our true spiritual state. We deem all right within because all is smiling without. The world smiles, friends approve, ministers commend, the heart flatters, and the candle of the Lord shines round about us—alas! alas! with what slight evidences of conversion, with what dubious marks of grace, with what a slender hope of heaven, are we then satisfied! How shallow our self-acquaintance, how imperfect our knowledge of Christ. But the trial comes, bearing the disguise of a foe, yet in reality a friend. And now the first blast of adversity scatters the fig-leaf covering, and destroys the beautiful tresselled wall which our own hands had constructed for our beauty and defense. What we thought was substance proves but a shadow, what we imagined was a reality proves but an appearance. The faith we thought so strong, the love we thought so fervent, the grace we thought so real, the growth we thought so unmistakable, all, all vanish before the dealings, the probings, the siftings of the Searcher of hearts in the day of trial. Trial has brought us to our right place—the feet of Jesus. There, in the spirit of self-examination, of self-loathing, of self-renunciation, we have been led to ask, "Will this evidence serve me when I come to die? will this love give me boldness in the day of judgment? will this faith present me faultless before the throne of God and the Lamb?" Thus relinquishing our vain fancies, our foolish dreams, our dubious evidences, we have been enabled to take a renewed hold of Christ, to fly afresh to the fountain of His blood, and to enfold ourselves more closely within the robe of His righteousness. Thus emptied, humbled at His feet, we praise and adore Him for the discipline that consumed the dross, scattered the chaff, swept from beneath us the sand, and that strengthened our evidences, brightened our hope, unfolded the Spirit, and enthroned the Redeemer, more vividly and supremely within our soul. O precious trial! dark though you are, that yet bear beneath your somber wing blessings of grace so sacred and costly as these!

As a moral discipline it would seem impossible to overrate the preciousness of trial. No believer has been placed in a true position for the formation, development, and completeness of his Christian character who has not passed in some degree through this discipline. Not more essential is it that the vessel of the craftsman should be exposed to the heat of the furnace, in order to impart transparency to the material, consolidation to its form, and brilliance and permanence to the colors his pencil has traced upon it, than it is for a "vessel of mercy whom God has afore prepared unto glory," to be tried though it be as by fire. From this moral discipline there is in the family of God no exception. It is a remark of the seraphic Leighton—true as it is beautiful—that, "God had but one Son without sin, and never one without suffering." How touching and conclusive the argument and appeal of the apostle—himself purified in this crucible and instructed in this school—"You have forgotten the exhortation, which speaks unto you as unto children, My son, despise not you the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when you are rebuked of him: for whom the Lord loves he chastens, and scourges every son whom he receives. If you endure chastening, God deals with you as with sons: for what son is he whom the father chastens not? But if you be without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then are you bastards, and not sons. Furthermore, we have had fathers of our flesh which corrected us, and we gave them reverence: shall we not much rather be in subjection unto the Father of spirits, and live? For they verily for a few days chastened us after their own pleasure; but he for our profit, that we might be partakers of his holiness. Now, no chastening for the present seems to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless afterward it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto those who are exercised thereby." Thus is it clear that chastisement or trial is an evidence and seal of adoption; and that without it we should lack that spiritual discipline, apart from which there is no proper symmetry and completeness of Christian character. Who has not marked the wide and striking difference in the character and deportment of a child trained beneath the wholesome discipline of a parent, and a child who has grown up without that discipline, left to its own self? To what is that difference to be traced but the forming influence of discipline in the one, and its entire absence in the other? There is a development and strength of character, a maturity of mind and mellowed refinement of feeling and address in the child thus schooled, which you in vain look for in the child neglected. "A wise son hears the instruction of his father." In the Hebrew this passage may be literally rendered, "A wise son is the chastisement of his father." On this text, thus rendered, in all probability the Jews founded their proverb, "If you see a wise child, be sure that his father has chastised him." Now, how gracious and tender is our heavenly Father to condescend thus to deal with us! In everything would He sustain the relation He stands to us as a Father. Not only in loving us, thinking of us, providing for us, guiding and keeping us, but also chastising us. He has undertaken a father's office, and He will fully and faithfully discharge it, even though it may compel the frequent and painful, though loving and righteous, use of the rod. Oh to be assured that this stroke is a fresh seal of adoption! Who would not cheerfully exclaim, "The cup which my Father has given me, shall I not drink it?"

And yet we think there is a yet higher end accomplished by precious trial, even than this authentication of our adoption. We refer to the Divine holiness to which it assimilates us. "He for our profit, that we might be partakers of his holiness." Next to his justification, sanctification must be the grand aim of the believer; and whatever is promotive of this must be precious. God would make us happy, but He can only make us happy by making us holy. Happiness and holiness are cognate truths: they are relative terms; they are twin sisters. He must be happy who is holy. Sin is the parent of all misery; holiness the root of all happiness. Now the holiness which God would bring us into sympathy with, and make us partakers of, is His own holiness. There is much that passes in the religious world for holiness which is spurious in its nature, and which is disowned by God. There is no real holiness but that which moulds us into the Divine image—that which makes us God-like. We cannot possess God's essential holiness, but we may partake of His imparted holiness. In the same sense in which we are said to be "partakers of the Divine nature" (2 Pet. 1:4), we are "partakers of the Divine holiness." What a portrait is a child of God purified, sanctified, and disciplined by trial! God is the divine original; he is the human copy. Upon that heart softened, upon that spirit subdued, upon that will laid low, the holy Lord God has imprinted, inlaid, His own likeness. And as the polished mirror reflects the likeness of the man who looks into it, and as the glassy lake images the sun that beams down upon it, so does the disciplined child of God,—the grossness of the fleshly eliminated from the spiritual—the dross of the natural separated from the divine—his purified soul reflects, and sparkles, and shines with the holiness of God. Oh, to be like God, who would not welcome the trial, exclaiming with the psalmist, "I know, O Lord, that your judgments are right, and that you in faithfulness has afflicted me." How tenderly, soothingly, lovingly does your Father address you, His tried child—"My son, despise not you the chastening of the Lord." Is there rigor in the discipline?—there is love in the rod. Is there bitterness in the cup?—there is sweetness upon its brim. Is there acuteness in the suffering? there is soothing in the relation—"My son!" Never can He forget in the severest discipline, in the most painful correction, that He is our Father, and we His children. "Is Ephraim my dear son? is he a pleasant child? for since I spoke against him, I do earnestly remember him still: therefore my affections are troubled for him; I will surely have mercy upon him, says the Lord." Never does God employ a rebuke without a cordial, or the pruning knife without the balm. How frequently the mercy precedes, and thus prepares for, the judgment. It was so in the case of our first parents. Before God pronounces the dreadful sentence, He breathes the gracious promise. Mercy digs the channel of judgment—prepares and paves its way. Thus, God's corrections, rebukes, and chastisements come tempered, softened, and subdued; and like the smitings and reproofs of the righteous, are a "kindness," and "an excellent oil, which shall not break the head." Thus it is that the tried believer can look into the face of his Father and say, "Righteous are you, O Lord, when I plead with you; yet let me talk with you of your judgments" (Jer. 12:1). How sweetly and tenderly did Jesus blend the warning with the consolation, "In the world you shall have tribulation, but in me you shall have peace!" Our Lord wisely and graciously presents the world to us as a scene of sorrow, trial, and tribulation, but the counterpart shall be that in its midst we shall experience His presence, love, and grace as our peace. Thus the remark of a quaint writer holds good, "Affliction's rods are made of many keen twigs, but they are all cut from the tree of life. It is a great mercy to have a bitter put into that draught which Satan has sweetened as a vehicle for his poison." Never is the believer so near to Christ's heart, and the Spirit's comforts, and Heaven's joys, as when the flood of dark and broken waters is surging beneath and around him, lifting him upon their crested billows. The higher the ark which bore the Church of old rose upon the flood, the nearer it mounted toward heaven. As earth receded, heaven approached; and the vessel, floating away upon the bosom of the swelling deep, mounted higher and higher. Is it not so with the believing soul when floods of great waters come into it? As these waters swell and rise, sinful follies, worldly vanities, carnal pursuits, pride, self, and ignorance, disappear, and the soul gets nearer to heaven. Precious trial that buries earth's vanity and corruption, and unveils heaven's joy and glory to the soul! Thus out of the eater comes food. The trial that looked so threatening has brought such mercy. The cloud that seemed charged with electricity empties a fruitful shower. Oh, trying seasons are our most spiritual, most prayerful, most Christ-endearing, Christ-conforming seasons, and so trial becomes precious. Stars shine the brightest in the darkest night; torches are the better for the heating; grapes do not come to the proof until they come to the press; spices smell sweetest when pounded; young trees root the fastest for shaking; vines are better for bleeding; gold looks the brightest for scouring; glow-worms glisten best in the dark; juniper smells the sweetest in the fire; the palm tree proves the better for pressing; cammomile, the more you tread it the more you spread it. Such is the condition of all God's children; they are then most triumphant when most trampled, most glorious when most afflicted; often most in the favor of God when least in man's; as their conflicts, so their conquests; as their tribulations, so their joys; they live best in the furnace of persecution, so that heavy afflictions are the best benefactors to heavenly blessings, and when afflictions hang heaviest corruptions hang loosest, and grace that is hid in nature, as sweet water in rose leaves, is then most fragrant when the fire of affliction is put under to distill it out." (Spencer.) Favored child of God, whose Father's discipline in providence and grace wafts such blessings into the soul! Precious trial that makes Jesus more precious, the throne of grace more precious, the discipline of the covenant more precious, holiness more precious, the saints of God more precious, the word of God more precious, and the prospect of going home to glory more precious! "Happy the believer who, the more afflictions assail him, cleaves the more closely to the Lord. Like the traveler overtaken in a storm, who, when the rain beats upon him, or the snow drifts upon his person, or the mountain wind drives furiously against him, lays firmer hold of his cloak and wraps it closely around him, he, amid the storm of troubles, keeps faster hold of the 'Man who is an hiding place from the wind and a covert from the tempest.'"

A time of trial is a time of sensibility. God often sends it for this very end. There is nothing in the gospel of Christ that forbids emotion, everything to awaken it; there is nothing in the religion of Jesus to crush sensibility, everything to create it. Christianity is a religion of feeling—deep, hallowed, sanctified feeling. It is the only religion that thoroughly appeals to our emotional nature, that touches the deep, hidden springs of our humanity, and tells us we may—weep. With Christ's tears at Bethany, and with his drops of blood in Gethsemane before us, surely we may express the deepest sympathy with the adversity of others, and may indulge in deep, chastened grief with our own. Weep on, then, beloved mourner! We would not seal up those tears. "Jesus wept," and you too may weep. "No chastening for the present is joyous, but grievous;" therefore, it is no sin to give expression to emotion, to indulge in sensibility, to "water our couch with tears, and to make our bed to swim." Without a measure of grief our affliction would leave no trace of good. When God speaks, we should hear; when He smites, we should feel. Only let your grief be moderate, chastened, and submissive, embodying its sentiment, and expressing its intensity in the language and spirit of the "Man of Sorrows," "Not my will, O my Father, but your be done."

What shall we then say to these things? Shall we not count among the precious things of God, not the least precious, the trial whose discipline removes from us so much evil, and confers upon us so much good? How little should we know experimentally of the Lord Jesus—what depths there were in His love, what soothing in His sympathy, what condescension in His grace, what gentleness and delicacy in His conduct, what exquisite beauty in His tears, what safety beneath His sheltering wing, and what repose upon His loving heart, but for this very adversity. Your ark is tossed amid the broken waters, but you have Christ on board your vessel, and it shall not founder. He may seem, as of old, "when asleep upon a pillow," ignorant of, and indifferent to, the storm that rages wildly around you; yet the eye of His Godhead never slumbers, and He will, and at the best moment, arise in majesty and power, hush the tempest and still the waves, and there shall be peace. And will you not then count that a precious adversity that awakens in your breast the adoring exclamation, "What manner of man is this, that even the winds and the sea obey him?" Yes; Christ treads the limpid pathway of your sorrow. He comes to you walking upon the sea of your trouble. He approaches to quell your fears, to calm your mind, to give you peace. And but for this alienation of property, this sore bereavement, this terrible calamity, this wasting disease, this languor, suffering, and decay, these restless days and wakeful nights, oh, how many a precious visit from the Beloved of your soul would you have lost! Be still then; trial will bring a precious Jesus to you; and the presence, the love, the sympathy, and the grace of Jesus will lighten, soothe, and sweeten your trial. We shall soon be at home, where "God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain." The last truth of God will be seen, the last lesson of holiness will be learned, the last taint of sin will be effaced, and there will be no more need of sorrow's discipline, nor the hallowing influence of precious trial; the last ember of the furnace will be extinguished, the last wave of trouble will die upon the shore, and we shall be forever with Jesus. Until then, "commit your way unto the Lord," leave your concerns in His hands, "trust in Him," and come up from the wilderness clinging to His almighty arm, and leaning upon His loving breast, to uphold you in weakness, to soothe you in grief, and to bring you home to Himself, where the days of your mourning shall be ended, and "GOD SHALL WIPE AWAY ALL TEARS FROM THEIR EYES."

"When sore afflictions crush the soul,
And riven is each earthly tie,
The heart must cling to God alone:
He wipes the tear from every eye.

"Through wakeful nights, when racked with pain,
On bed of languishing you lie,
Remember still your God is near
To wipe the tear from every eye.

"A few short years, and all is o'er;
Your sorrows, pains, will soon pass by;
Then lean in faith on God's dear Son,
He'll wipe the tear from every eye.

"Oh, never be your soul cast down,
Nor let your heart desponding sigh,
Assured that God, whose name is Love,
Will wipe the tear from every eye!"
—Mrs. Mackinlay

THE PRECIOUSNESS OF GOD'S THOUGHTS

"How precious are your thoughts unto me, O God! how great is the sum of them!" Psalm 139:17

It is marvelous that God should think of us as He does. That, infinitely great and holy—all worlds, all beings, all events occupying His mind—He should yet have individual thoughts of us, those thoughts not mere passing glances of the mind, but involving the pre-determination and pre-arrangement of each event, circumstance, and step of our personal history, trivial though it be as a hair falling from the head—is a truth too mighty to grasp were it not too precious to refuse, and too divine to disbelieve. You have, doubtless, beloved, often appeared in your own view so obscure and insignificant a being—a mere cipher in the great sum of human existence, a single drop in the vast ocean of human life—as to be almost at an infinite remove from God's notice. You could not, indeed, relieve yourself from the conviction of individual responsibility, nor stifle the reflection that for each transaction of the present life the future holds you accountable; yet that, isolated and solitary, perhaps, poor and mean, as you may be, God, the great, the holy Lord God should think of you, notice you, regard you, set His heart upon you—that His thoughts, more precious than the ocean's gems, and more numerous than the sands which belt it, should cluster around you, clinging to you with a grasp so fervent and intense as to lift you to the distinction and privilege of a being in whom, the Divine regard were solely and supremely absorbed—is a truth distancing all conception, and well-near overwhelming you with its mightiness. And yet so it is! Each child of God dwells in His heart, and engages His mind as though he were the sole occupant of this boundless universe—a tiny insect swimming in the ocean of infinity. Such is the truth to which the psalmist gives utterance in a burst of devout, impassioned feeling, "How precious are your thoughts unto me, O God! how great is the sum of them!" "Unto me!" Here is faith attracting to, and concentrating upon, its individual self all the precious thoughts Jehovah has of His people. Oh, there is not a thought of His wisdom, nor a thought of His love, nor a thought of His power, nor a thought of His grace which does not entwine itself with the being, and blend itself with the salvation of each child of His adoption. The subject now engaging our meditation is—THE PRECIOUSNESS OF GOD'S THOUGHTS—and may the theme lay low all high, towering, sinful thoughts of ourselves, and inspire and raise our holy, grateful, adoring thoughts of Him—His glory, beauty, and love—until, with a depth of adoration, and an intensity of affection, worthy the theme, our hearts respond, "How precious are your thoughts unto me, O God! how great is the sum of them!" Let us first contemplate a few characteristics of God's precious thoughts of His saints.

God's thoughts of His people are—infinite. Believers deal too little with the infinitude of God. Hence the tendency to "limit the Holy One of Israel." Thus, too, it is, that our confidence in God is so hesitating, our views of His power so dwarfish, our love so defective, and our requests and expectations so contracted. "I am a great King, says the Lord God." All His thoughts are vast, infinite, worthy of His greatness. His electing thought of us was a great thought; His thought of redeeming us was a great thought; His thought of making us divine by the regeneration of the Holy Spirit is a great thought; His thought of bringing us to glory to enjoy Him fully and forever is a great thought. All these thoughts of God are as great as they are precious, as precious as they are great. O child of God! do not think lightly of the thoughts God has of you—they are so vast, nothing can exceed, so precious, nothing can equal them. The thoughts of an Infinite Mind encircle and enfold you more closely and fondly than the ivy clasps the elm, or the mother her new-born infant. Whether they appear clad in darkness, or robed in light, they are equally the great and precious thoughts of your covenant God and Father. "How precious are your thoughts unto me, O God! how great is the sum of them!"

God's thoughts of His people are—hidden. The thoughts of the Invisible One, they must necessarily be so. It is His glory to conceal until it becomes His wisdom and love to reveal them. Treasured up in the Divine Mind, they repose in profound mystery until each circumstance in our daily life unfolds and makes them known, then we learn how real and how precious God's thoughts of us are. There is not a moment, beloved of God, that the Lord is not thinking of you; nor is there a moment that He is not, in some form or other, embodying those thoughts in His gracious and providential dealings with you. His wisdom withholds, and His love veils them, until the event transpires that gives them utterance and form. Therefore, when God is silent, let us be still; when He speaks, let us hearken. Hidden to us though His precious thoughts are, they are all known to Him. "I know the thoughts I think towards you, says the Lord; thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you an expected end." Attempt not, therefore, to fathom the Divine Mind, or to penetrate the thoughts that are hidden there. Know you that they are thoughts of everlasting love, thoughts of assured peace, and let this bring your heart into silent, patient waiting, until all these thoughts shall stand unveiled in His wise, loving, and holy dispensations, here, and in heaven's own light hereafter. Enough is revealed by Christ to satisfy you that God's thoughts of you are thoughts of reconciliation—that there exists not in the Divine Mind a solitary thought adverse to your well-being. Jesus, our Friend, reposes in His people the same confidence His Father has reposed in Him. "All things that I have heard of my Father I have made known unto you." Jesus is the expression and embodiment of our Father's mind. Jesus is God thinking, God loving, God working, God redeeming. "He that has seen me has seen the Father." Be not, then, troubled in mind at the dark and mysterious in your path. God is dealing well with you. By His light you shall walk through darkness. Confiding in the wise and loving, though concealed, thoughts of your heavenly Father, your trustful heart can respond, as those thoughts gradually unfold, "How precious are your thoughts unto me, O God!"

Unchangeableness is another characteristic of God's thoughts of His people. This is self-evident, since they are the thoughts of the Unchangeable One. Change implies imperfection. God is a perfect Being, consequently He cannot change. "I the Lord change not." With Him is "no variableness, neither the shadow of a turning." He may vary His providences, multiply His dispensations, and shift the ever-moving scene of human life, but—
"His eternal thoughts move on,
His undisturbed affairs."

How precious is this truth to the child of God! Human thoughts change; mind itself fails, and with it fades from memory countenances that were familiar, and names that were fond, and scenes that were sacred. Human thoughts that cluster and cling so warmly and closely around us today, before many weeks are past, attracted by new objects of interest, or absorbed by new engagements of time, have fled and gone, and we are alone and forgotten. But there is ONE whose thoughts of us never change, whose mind never ceases for a moment to think of us. "O Israel, you shall not be forgotten of me," is His own loving declaration. Directing us to a mother—the last earthly home of human tenderness, sympathy, and love—He tells us, "She may forget, yet will not I." Beloved, whatever fluctuation you find in human thought, or change in human affection, God's thoughts of love, and care, and faithfulness, are changeless. Have they ever darted into your heart like solar beams, causing that heart to sing for joy? Then, though in darkness, loneliness, and sorrow you are led to exclaim, "Has the Lord forgotten to be gracious?" God still bears you in His thoughts and on His heart. Relatives may forget, friends may forget, the saints may forget, but your God never can. He thinks of you at this moment as lovingly, as carefully, as from all eternity. Once in the thoughts of your covenant God, you are in those thoughts forever. Be not cast down, then, if God appears to forget you. "My way is hid from the Lord," says the desponding Church. "No," says God; "I have engraved you upon the palms of my hands; your walls are continually before me." Amid all your mental wanderings, your fickle, faint thoughts of Him, He still remembers you. In the multitude of your anxious and perplexed thoughts within you, awakened by a sense of your ungrateful oblivion of God, or by His trying and mysterious dealings, let this comfort delight your soul, that He never forgets you. But let us particularize some of God's thoughts of His saints.

He thinks of their persons. Each believer has a personal interest in the Divine Mind. The acceptance of our person before that of our sacrifice is God's order. It is man's folly, deep and fatal, to reverse this. "I will accept you and your sweet savor," says the Lord God—first, the persons, and then the offerings of His people. Now, the Lord's people are an accepted people—"accepted in the Beloved." You may, in some moments of spiritual despondency, appear to your own view so vile and unlovely as to be beyond the pale of God's loving and complacent regard. You can only think of, and view yourself with, the deepest self-abhorrence. And yet at that moment of spiritual prostration, your person, standing in Christ, clad in His imputed righteousness, and lovely through the loveliness He has put upon you, is an object of His ineffable delight; and all His parental, gracious, and tender thoughts are entwined around you with a grasp from which nothing shall ever separate you.

He thinks of His own work in your soul—that divine kingdom of righteousness, joy, and peace in the Holy Spirit which has its home in every regenerate man. Its development and growth, its progress amid indwelling sin, the fluctuation of spiritual feeling, the varied phases it assumes, the summer's drought, the winter's frost through which it passes—occupies the incessant thoughts of God. He has His eye upon that hidden kingdom of grace in the soul more intently, more fixedly, more benignantly than He views the most powerful and gorgeous kingdom upon earth. "The kingdom of God is within you," says the Savior; and all other kingdoms shall fall and disappear, when this kingdom of grace in the saints shall emerge from its veiled obscurity and feebleness, and expand and brighten into an eternal kingdom of glory. Yes, beloved, God thinks of all the spiritual exercises through which you pass—your fears and hopes, your doubtings and your trustings, your high and your low frames, your infirmities of prayer, of faith, and love—yes, there is not a throb of your heart, not a feeling of your soul, not a thought of your mind growing out of the work of Divine grace within—all that elevates or depresses, that grieves or cheers, that shades or brightens—that does not engage the thoughts of your God.

The thoughts of God, too, are occupied with the returns His people make. Nothing you do escapes His notice. What! is there anything done by you for God to which He is indifferent? Ah, no! He thinks of all your sincere desires to love Him, your lowly endeavors to serve Him, your earnest efforts to obey Him, your feeble, imperfect attempts to honor and glorify Him. He thinks of all the poor returns you make of loving toil, of patient endurance, of filial obedience. Have you a passing remembrance of Him as you thread your way through the crowd?—God thinks of it. Is there a gush of love welling up from your heart in secret communion?—God thinks of it. Bear you with stealthy step to an obscure abode the cup of cold water to moisten the fevered lips of some poor suffering saint?—God thinks of it. Have you relinquished some fond idol, or mortified some darling sin, or resisted some potent temptation, or discharged some act of self-denial for the honor of His name?—God thinks of it. Every habit you lay down, or cross you take up, or burden you bear, or yoke to which you bow for Jesus, shall be treasured up in the thoughts of your God through eternity.

We have now, in the progress of our remarks, arrived at a delightful part of the subject—the preciousness of God's thoughts. And where is there a heart touched by divine grace that does not respond from its innermost shrine to the exclamation of David—"How precious are your thoughts unto me, O God! how great is the sum of them!" They are in truth precious, than which nothing is really so. To feel that God has one loving thought of us, to know that He thinks of us—that He remembers us with a constancy which no forgetfulness on our part of Him can efface, to be quite sure that in His thoughts of love, His thoughts of peace, His thoughts of complacent delight, His true, constant, faithful thoughts we have a personal share—oh, there is a preciousness in this truth, a repose, a confidence, a sanctity, which distances all conception! "How precious are your thoughts unto me, O God!" Let us go into a few particulars.

God's thoughts are precious in themselves—they are essentially precious. They must be so, since they are a Father's thoughts. How precious are His thoughts of eternal love towards us! What! is there no preciousness in this truth to your soul, beloved? I trust the honey from the comb is not half so sweet. "I have loved you with an everlasting love, therefore with loving-kindness have I drawn you." Is there no sweetness in this truth, in comparison of which all carnal sweetness is as gall? You have tasted the gracious stream, and found it sweet; but have you followed that stream to the fountain whence it flowed—the everlasting love of your covenant God—and tasted yet more sweetness there? Be you assured of this, not one drop of honey distills into your cup, but it comes from the heart of God. It exudes from that "Tree of Life" which He planted in this sinful, sorrow-stricken world, scathed, wounded, by His own hand of justice. "Stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted, it pleased the Lord to bruise him; he has put him to grief," that through this costly, touching, winning channel—the wounds of our Immanuel—might flow into our souls His everlasting thoughts of love. Then you exclaim, "Did God love me from all eternity? did He think of me then? was He preparing all my future happiness and eternal blessedness, treasuring up for me all grace here, and all glory hereafter?—O God! how precious are Your thoughts of love to me!" Yes, they are precious, because they are God's thoughts, and not man's—divine, and not human—thoughts of Divine love, and not of anger—of peace, and not of wrath.

As redeeming thoughts they are precious. It was a thought, which could only find its conception in the Divine Mind, that of saving sinners by the sacrifice of God's beloved Son. No finite mind would ever have thought of saving man; once lost, he would to that mind seem lost irrecoverably. To secure the integrity of His moral government intact, the glory of His Divine nature unsullied—to harmonize justice with mercy, holiness with love, truth with grace, and thus to reconcile all the jarring interests of heaven in the salvation of sinners, by the blood of the Cross, was a thought worthy of God. Go to the cross of Calvary, and learn how costly and precious are God's redeeming thoughts of you. His thought of rearing that cross in the center of a revolted part of His empire—of impaling upon it His only begotten and well-beloved Son, a sacrifice for the salvation of its rebellious subjects—His thought of laying all our sins and all our curse upon Jesus, extinguishing the fires of our hell by the life-blood of Immanuel—of opening the kingdom of heaven to us through the pierced, broken heart of Christ the Anointed One—oh, it were infinitely worthy of Him who is "wonderful in counsel, and excellent in working!" O God, when I read your heart in the cross, in the wounds, in the tears, in the anguish, in the blood of your Son, Jesus Christ, how precious are your thoughts unto me!—thoughts that planned and accomplished my redemption, by an expedient so vast, and at a cost so precious.

Trace these thoughts of God as they compassed our path through all the days of our unregeneracy—how precious are they! We too much overlook this—the patience and forbearance of God during the period of our unconverted days. Surely the 'long-suffering of God' through all these stages and acts of enmity and rebellion was 'salvation.' How often, when gliding upon the treacherous rapid that bore us onward to the gulf, or when standing upon the brink of the yawning precipice, eternal wrath flaming beneath our feet, God thought of us in mercy and redeemed our life from instant and everlasting destruction! And along all the winding path of waywardness and sin, of worldliness and folly, still His thoughts of electing love and sovereign grace pursued us, nor lost their sight, nor relaxed their hold of us, until the appointed and happy hour that brought us into the bond of the covenant.

How precious His thoughts in conversion. What must the love and tenderness of those thoughts have been at the moment that saw us prostrate at His feet, all our self-righteousness, rebellion, and hostility, all our false dependencies and refuges falling in wreck and ruin from around us; and our soul in that blessed posture which He Himself has portrayed, as none but He could, in language the most tender and touching: "To this man will I look, even to him that is poor and of a contrite spirit, and that trembles at my word!" Oh, what must have been His gracious, condescending, loving thoughts when He traced our first tear, saw our first sorrow, and heard our first appeal to His mercy! When afar off, he beheld us approaching in penitence and contrition, marked the downcast look, the hesitating step, the trembling heart, and heard the secret resolve, "I will arise and go to my Father, and will say unto Him, I have sinned." And when He looked and beheld the glance, the touch, the venture of faith on Jesus—saw the trembling soul embrace His blessed Son, receive His unspeakable gift, and trust in His great salvation—how precious must have been His thoughts of us at that moment?

How precious are His restoring thoughts. These may, at times, appear greater than His thoughts in conversion. Why? Because these restoring thoughts are after all our sinful wanderings, repeated backslidings in the face of love the most tender, of goodness the most unwearying, of faithfulness the most unwavering, of dealings the most kind. That still His thoughts of pardon and of restoration should follow us, seeking us, bringing us back, and restoring to our souls the joys of His salvation, oh, how precious in themselves are God's thoughts! "I have gone astray like a lost sheep; seek your servant; for I do not forget your commandments."

God's providential thoughts of His people are precious. God is thinking of our wants, of our circumstances, of our emergencies, every moment. His providential thoughts of us are anticipative; they prevent us with their goodness. That same God who fed Elijah beneath the sycamore tree,—who prepared a dinner for the disciples, weary with their night of fruitless toil, as they landed upon the shore,—who feeds the ravens when they cry, and makes those ravens feed His children,—who, when the meal and the oil are well-near exhausted, sends support,—is our God of providence, all whose thoughts are acquainted with, anticipate, and supply our daily need and emergency. Blessed is it to trace a Father's thoughts of us in our providential mercies: to feel that this good has come, this mercy has been bestowed, this table spread, this want supplied, this pressure met, this evil averted, by God's careful providential thought of us. Oh, how precious are these thoughts to him who lives upon a Father's bounty, who can trace a Father's hand, feel a Father's heart, and hear a Father's voice responsive to the petition, "Give us this day our daily bread."

But God's thoughts are not only precious in themselves, they are so also in the personal experience of the believer. David's language expresses this, "How precious are Your thoughts unto me, O God!" This is not an abstract truth—no revealed truth is so to the child of God. If through the truth he is sanctified—"Sanctify them through Your truth"—then every truth of God forms an essential ingredient in God's grand recipe for all believers. Christ pledged the promised, and now given, Spirit, that "when He is come He shall guide you into all truth." Oh, did we more distinctly recognize this office of the Holy Spirit, and honor Him more by availing ourselves of His teaching—ceasing to "hear the instruction that causes to err;" especially ceasing from our own fancied wisdom and attainments—we should not be the children in knowledge and the dwarfs in holiness that we are, but men in both. Into the personal experience, then, of this truth the Holy Spirit is prepared to guide us—the preciousness of God's thoughts. Oh, yes, they are precious at all times, in all places, and under all circumstances. Wreathed in dark clouds or glowing in sunlight, whatever the form they assume or the tint they wear, they are still the thoughts of a covenant God, and as such are inexpressibly precious to the believing soul. Who will affirm that thoughts of love—a creature's love though it be—are not precious? The fond remembrance borne to us from some remote spot, assuring us that time has not effaced nor distance annihilated that sacred affection, that early love that first enstamped its image upon the heart, is more precious to us than rubies. These thoughts of love thus wafted to us are more fragrant than the violet breath of spring. But oh, how do the thoughts of divine love distance this! That human heart must die, and in that very moment those thoughts of love perish. But God can fill and satisfy our souls with Himself in the entire absence of all creature good. How precious and soothing to our sad and lonely, perhaps aching and anguished hearts, is the reflection that God thinks of us in love! And when we deem no one bears us in fond remembrance—when our path is dreary, our faith is low, our comforts few—when resources are failing, and creatures are withdrawing, and Satan is tempting—when a train of untoward circumstances are weaving their net-work around our feet, forming a labyrinth to human ken of inexplicable and inextricable difficulties—and when, from the many and deep waters in which we sink, our appeal is heard, "My heart is overwhelmed; lead me to the rock that is higher than I"—oh, how precious to us then are the covenant, faithful, loving thoughts of our God!

There is another peculiar stage of Christian experience in which the soul experiences the preciousness of God's thoughts. We refer to the season of mental disquietude and depression, it may be of despondency and despair. You cannot at that moment command your mental powers, control your thoughts, or fix and concentrate them upon any consecutive train of serious and devout reflection. Oh, is it not then soothing and precious to be reminded that your heavenly Father has thoughts of you, that your High Priest in heaven has thoughts of you, that the Holy Spirit on earth has thoughts of you, that each Divine Person of the glorious Godhead has you in remembrance, breathing the words with which He once comforted His Church in the wilderness, "I know the thoughts that I think towards you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you an expected end." Oh, let no child of God—around whose mind thick clouds are hovering, walking in darkness and having no light, tempted to doubt God, to cast away his confidence and abandon his hope in Christ—yield himself to the desponding reflection that he has no place in God's thoughts of peace. Christian sufferer! child of the light walking in darkness! your Father's thoughts of you never were more tender, compassionate, and faithful than at this season of mental gloom, of spiritual despondency. You may not behold Him through the cloud that shades Him from your eye; but He, from whom no darkness hides, sees you, and knows the way that you take. Though you may have relaxed your hand of faith on Him, He has not withdrawn His hand of love from you, but is leading you by a right way to bring you to your heavenly and eternal home. "I am poor and needy, yet the Lord thinks upon me."

Let this subject test the bearing of our minds towards God. What are our thoughts of Him? It is a mark of the ungodly, that "God is not in all their thoughts." It is a distinctive feature of the children of God, that they "think upon His name." Oh, is there an occupation of the mind to be compared with this? Thinking of God! meditating upon Christ! There is no other subject of meditation that can calm your perturbed thoughts, fix your wandering thoughts, purify your sinful thoughts, harmonize your perplexed thoughts, quench your panting thoughts, soothe and comfort your sad and mournful thoughts, as thinking upon God! Here is repose—here is peace—here is hope. Oh, that He did engage more of our thoughts! What an infinite, boundless, ennobling theme! "My meditations of Him shall be sweet." Thoughts of His love will comfort you in sorrow, thoughts of His power will calm you in danger, thoughts of His holiness will check you in temptation, thoughts of His wisdom will encourage you in doubt, thoughts of His all-seeing, all-pervading, all-enshrouding presence will sweeten the solitude, smooth the roughness, and illumine the gloom of your path homeward across the desert.

And remember how precious to His heart are your thoughts of Him. "Those who feared the Lord spoke often one to another: and the Lord hearkened, and heard it, and a book of remembrance was written before him for those who feared the Lord, and that thought upon his name." (Mal. 3:16.) Imperfect, transient, sinful as your thoughts of God are, yet there is not a humble, grateful, adoring thought of Him in your heart that is not more precious to Him than countless worlds. Those worlds, innumerable and glorious, will before long be swept from their spheres; but not one lowly, loving, holy thought of God, that once found a moment's home in your heart, shall ever be erased from His book of remembrance. These holy thoughts of God in Christ, that struggled amid indwelling corruption—that, like grains of gold amid beds of earth, sparkled in their veiled and lowly beauty, seen only by Him from whom nothing holy, as nothing sinful, is hidden—these thoughts of His love and faithfulness which, in seasons of depression, and circumstances of trial, and scenes of sorrow, darted, sun-like, athwart your gloomy desponding mind—"My Father loves me now, cares for me now, is thinking of me now—how precious are Your thoughts unto me, O God!"—all, all comes up as a memorial before Him, more beauteous than morning light, more fragrant than the breath of spring, more costly, precious, and endurable than ocean's richest gems? No tongue can describe how precious and glorifying to Christ is a penitential, believing, loving, adoring, grateful remembrance of His name, welling up from the renewed heart of a poor sinner. He seems to say, "Have you, my disciple, one thought of Me? I have, for that one thought, ten thousand thoughts of you. And when I seem to be deaf to your voice, and silent to your petition, and you are led to exclaim, 'The Lord has forsaken me, and my Lord has forgotten me,' listen to my words—'Can a woman forget her nursing child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? Yes, she may forget, yet will not I forget you.'"

Seek the daily purification of your thoughts of God in the atoning blood of Jesus. All your truant, unbelieving, murmuring, rebellious thoughts, oh, take them to the Fountain which alone can blot them out, leaving no tracings upon God's tablet but your penitential thoughts of His holiness, your grateful thoughts of His love, your adoring thoughts of His glory, your peaceful thoughts of His grace! One holy, loving, adoring thought of His name He will never, never forget.

And suffer no humbling conviction of personal unworthiness, or blinding influence of deep sorrow, to veil from your mind the precious truth that God still thinks of you. You may be forgotten by some, and may deem yourself too insignificant and obscure to be remembered by others; but He upon whom all worlds hang, and all beings depend, has thoughts of kindness and of love towards you. Listen to His gracious declaration addressed to you, "You shall not be forgotten of me, O Israel!" Oh, wondrous grace, matchless love, that entwines you, His beloved child, in His thoughts of peace, and care, and sympathy, with an intensity, individuality, and minuteness, which seem to exclude from His mind every other being in the universe, so completely does God absorb His people within Himself. Bereaved and desolate widow! God, your God, thinks of you, and of your little ones. Lone and friendless orphan! God thinks of you, for "in Him the fatherless find mercy." Mourning one! God thinks of you, for He has declared, "I, even I, am He that comforts you." Wanderer, penitent and heart stricken! God thinks of you, for He says, "I have surely heard Ephraim bemoaning himself. Is Ephraim my dear son? is he a pleasant child? for since I spoke against him, I do earnestly remember him still: therefore my affections are troubled for him; I will surely have mercy upon him, says the Lord." Tried, tempted, afflicted one! God thinks of you. "I know their sorrows," says the Lord. "Come, my people, enter you into your chambers, and shut your doors about you: hide yourself as it were for a little moment, until the indignation be overpast." Sick one! amid your languor, pain, and solitude, your God thinks of you, for "He knows our frame, He remembers that we are dust;" and He has promised "gently to lead those who are burdened." Stay, then, your mind upon Jehovah-Jesus. "You will keep him in perfect peace, whose mind (margin, whose thoughts) is stayed on you: because he trusts in you." Let nothing inexplicable in God's dealings with you unhinge your mind from this confidence in the wisdom, love, and righteousness of His procedure. Remember His declaration, "My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, says the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts." (Isa. 55:8, 9.) Thus, confide in those covenant, unchanging, loving thoughts of God, and believe that, high as the billows mount, these divine thoughts of your Father's love tower infinitely above all your unworthiness, sins, sorrows, and fears. Although at times so absorbed in a sense of your sinfulness and littleness you may appear to yourself but like an animalcule swimming in the ocean, or a mote floating in the sunbeam, yet the God who gave to that insect its being, and sustains its life, thinks of, and cares for, and loves you. Go, then, and exclaim, "How precious are your thoughts unto me, O God! how great is the sum of them!" "CASTING ALL YOUR CARE UPON HIM; FOR HE CARES FOR YOU."

"Mighty God! on whom the cares
Of the whole creation lie;
And whose ample bosom bears
The load so patiently:
'Midst the worlds that lean on Thee,
You have loving thoughts of me.

"Ever quickly You do hear
Your children's feeble cry;
And do keep them everywhere
Beneath Your watchful eye:
'Midst the worlds that lean on Thee,
You have faithful thoughts of me.

"Anxious care and heavy woes
Often agitate my breast;
And no balm that here grows
Can give my spirit rest:
But 'midst worlds that lean on Thee,
You have gentle thoughts of me."

THE PRECIOUSNESS OF THE DIVINE PROMISES

"Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises." 2 Peter 1:4

The promises of God are the jewelry of the Bible. Every page of this sacred volume is rich and sparkling with these divine assurances of Jehovah's love, faithfulness, and power towards His people. We can scarcely cite, as illustrating His beneficence and forethought, a more appropriate and costly evidence of God's wisdom and goodness than this peculiar provision which He has made for the exigencies of His Church. It meets the believer at every step of his journey, confronts every circumstance of his life, and chimes with each phase of his mental and spiritual experience. Upon no spot in the wilderness can he plant his foot, strange and untrodden though that path may be, but a gem from this casket meets his eye, the sight of which inspires his heart with confidence, his spirit with comfort, his soul with hope.

Now, God, in giving us these divine assurances, proceeds with His Church upon the same principle which holds together the social fabric of human society, that is, promise and trust. It is promise, in some form or other, and trust in that promise, which binds man to man; and it is the confidence we repose in his word which gives credence to his statements, his discoveries, and his testimonies; and which lures and sustains us in our individual path of acquisition and research. The promise of gold allures the avaricious, the promise of glory fires the ambitious, the promise of pleasure stimulates the worldly, the promise of intellectual reward sustains and animates the student. And although these promises may prove as visionary and fitful as a dream, yet, for the moment, they impart confidence and inspire hope. Thus man's credulity in man is the great ligament of human society, and the promise of reward the pole-star of his life, Now, our heavenly Father deals with His children precisely upon the same principle—of promise and trust. He speaks, and challenges our belief; He promises, and asks our confidence; He utters His word, and bids us rely implicitly on His love, faithfulness, and power to make it good.

Among the precious things of God, then, how inconceivably precious and indispensable are His promises! Imagine what would have been the condition of His children apart from the divine promises of which the blessed volume is so full. What must have been the desolateness, the sadness, and the sinking had we not the divine assurances of God's Word on which to rely; and in the realization of which we are guided in our march heavenward, are upheld in weakness, cheered in depression, and conducted step by step to final blessedness. Oh, were it possible to erase from the sacred volume all those precious promises which cluster in its pages, like golden fruit bending from the Tree of Life, what a wintry gloom would enshroud the whole of your future, both the life that now is, and the life which is to come. Rob a man of God of the "precious promises," and you extinguish the sun of his moral skies, and roll back the darkness and confusion of chaos. Rob him of the promises, and you cut off every spring of comfort and consolation that cheers and gladdens his heart in this valley of suffering and tears.

Another observation we make refers to the fact, that these are not the promises of man, but of God. They are the promises of Jehovah, the promises of an Infinite Being; the promises of a God who cannot lie—consequently He will fulfill them; and of a God of Omnipotence,—and consequently He possesses the power to make them good. We bid you keep this truth vividly before you, that the promises on which God has caused you to hope are the promises of JEHOVAH—consequently there is the certain pledge of their timely and complete fulfillment.

They are, moreover, comprehensive in their character, and are adapted to all the varied circumstances of individual history—so comprehensive and so adapted, that we cannot conceive of any condition in which you, as a child of God, may be placed, any circumstance by which you may be surrounded, any sorrow by which you may be depressed, any perils that may confront, any darkness that may overshadow you, or any wants of which you may be the subject, in which you may not find some promise of His blessed Word that meets your case. Away with the promises (as it regards my personal experience) if I thought there was a sorrow feeding at the core of my heart which God's word of promise could not console, an intricacy in my path through which it could not guide me, a bitter in the cup God causes me to drink for which it had no sweetness. Beloved, we want you to keep this view of the precious promises of God's Word constantly before you. They are comprehensive, and adapted to all the circumstances of your personal history, and so prove themselves to be the precious promises of Jehovah.

Yet one more observation. These promises of God are covenant promises; that is, they are the promises of the new covenant of grace. We deal too much with the old covenant, and too little with the new. Our faith is too much of a Jewish faith, and too little of a Christian. A more glorious covenant is the covenant of grace; and its promises are "better promises"—promises of more precious blessings than ever appertained to the old covenant. They are all signed and sealed with the heart's blood of the Mediator of the covenant, and, consequently, they are the precious promises of our Covenant God. That covenant must be broken, the oath of that covenant must be violated, the God of that covenant must change, and the "blood of the everlasting covenant" must cease to be efficacious if one solitary promise on which your poor, trembling, and anxious soul hangs its all, should fail. They cannot fail, because they are the promises of the new covenant of grace. Well may they be called "exceeding great promises." They are the promises of a great God, and of a great covenant. They are "great," in themselves, because they promise us great blessings. They are "exceeding great," because they are the promises of JEHOVAH. They rest upon four foundations, or pillars; and so long as these pillars stand, so long must stand the precious promises of God's word. God's holiness is one pillar upon which they stand, which will not suffer Him to deceive; God's goodness is another which will not suffer Him to forget; God's truth is another, which will not suffer Him to change; God's power is the fourth, which enables Him to accomplish all that He has promised. With these few general observations, we now proceed to a more particular illustration of their preciousness and efficacy. "Exceeding great and precious" is the character given to them by the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit never uses words without profound significance and meaning.

They are "precious promises," because of the source from whence they originate. What are these promises? They are the unfolding of the heart of God; they are the revelation of the mind of God; they are the exponents of the will of God; they are, in a word, God Himself. If a faithful and true friend, a man of probity, integrity, and honesty, who would rather pluck out his right eye, or sever his right hand than violate his word, makes us a promise, it is but another exhibition of his own self. In that promise we read his veracity, his kindness, his love. We receive the promise, believe the promise, act upon the promise, because we know the man, and feel sure that the promise is a reflection of his character. We want no other endorsement than the probity, integrity, and friendship of the promiser. Look at the promises of God. They are exceedingly precious, because of the source whence they originate. They are the throbbings of the infinite and deathless love of God. I cannot, with a weeping eye, light upon a precious promise, but the moment I see it I behold my Father's love exhibited and unveiled. I read God's heart in the promise. I seem to hear the gentle, tender accents of His voice; therefore, as the revelation of my Father's love, the promises of God become exceeding precious. Oh, how often has your heart been touched with the kind promise of a parent! You have read in that assurance the love whence it originated. Beloved, read the love of your heavenly Father in the precious promises. They are but the echoes of His heart sounding from each page of the sacred volume.

They are precious, too, from the channel through which they flow. All the promises of God come to us through a channel—the same channel through which every blessing flows—but which, we fear, is too much overlooked, and in our sad forgetfulness of which we have such low thoughts of Jesus, and such dim views of God's love. Beloved, there is but one channel through which God bestows any blessing upon us. You ask what it is. I give it you in God's own precious words:—"There is one Mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus." All your blessings flow to you through Jesus. Your providential mercies, the higher blessings of grace—your sins pardoned, your name written in the Lamb's Book of Life, the glories of heaven unfolding to your faith—all flow to you through the one Mediator. Jesus is the medium through which the precious promises of the word come to us. We ask you, then, if the promises are not precious? if they do not derive inconceivable value and sweetness from the channel through which they flow? Oh, it is kind of God to send you a blessing or a rebuke through one who loves you! Dearly beloved, look at the precious promises. They all come to you through the merits, mediation, finished work, atoning sacrifice, the incessant and ever-prevalent intercession of the Lord Jesus Christ. Consequently, they become exceedingly precious. No, more than this. Every promise meets and centers in Christ. "All the promises of God are yes and amen in Christ Jesus." Not a solitary promise that buoys you above the surging billows, or that paints its bright bow on the dark cloud that overshadows you, or that distills its drop of sweetness into your nauseous draught, but that promise is in Christ, through Christ, from Christ and will be made good to you in virtue of your union with Christ. Here the case of many of God's saints is met who say, "I dare not claim the promise; I am so sinful, so unworthy, so unbelieving, I have so often looked at the promise and rejected the comfort that it gives, that I dare not now appropriate it." Dearly beloved, the ground on which you stand with regard to the promise of God, is the finished work of Jesus Christ; and these promises come to you in virtue of what Christ has done; consequently, there is not a sin-burdened, sorrow-stricken soul but may stretch forth his hand and receive these precious jewels as they flow out from the open casket of God's word.

They are precious in themselves. Take the promise addressed to a soul under a conviction of sin, spiritually and earnestly inquiring his way of pardon, acceptance, and salvation. The Holy Spirit has given you a deep sense of your sinfulness. You see your heart to be vile, your nature depraved; smitten with godly grief for sin, and bowed in the dust of self-abasement, you are almost on the brink of despair. But Christ's promise meets your case—"Come unto me, all you that are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest." "Look unto me and be you saved all the ends of the earth." "Him that comes unto me I will in no wise cast out." The moment your eye of faith, though misted with tears, can observe these promises, hope springs up in your heart. Oh, precious promise, that bids me come weary and heavy laden with sin to rest in the Lord Jesus Christ, and receive Him as all my salvation and all my desire! Will you not say that is an "exceeding great and precious promise," that bids the sin-weary find rest in Jesus? Or, are you oppressed by some of those varied mental and spiritual exercises that do so much cast down the child of God? How precious is the promise—"Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you disturbed within me? Hope you in God, for I shall yet praise Him, who is the health of my countenance and my God." Or, are you a child of the light walking in darkness, no starlight, no sunlight, not a solitary beam to cheer your way—all spiritual gloom around you? Listen to that precious promise—"Who is among you that fears the Lord, that walks in darkness and has no light, let him trust in the name of the Lord and stay himself upon his God." What a precious promise is that? Or, are you suffering from a sense of the Divine withdrawment, the suspended manifestations of the Lord's love to your soul? What a precious promise is this—"For a small moment have I forsaken you, but with great mercies will I gather you. In a little wrath I hid my face from you for a moment; but with everlasting kindness will I have mercy on you, says the Lord your Redeemer?" Or, conscious of backsliding and departure from God, having gone astray like a lost sheep, your heart smitten with godly grief, beginning to doubt the reality of your former Christian experience? Hear the touching words of the Lord—"Return, you backsliding Israel, says the Lord, and I will not cause mine anger to fall upon you, for I am merciful, says the Lord, and I will not keep anger forever. Only acknowledge your iniquity." Oh, what precious promises are these to the poor, heart-broken penitent! Is there nothing in these gracious assurances that meets your case? Or, are you in trouble, difficulties hemming you in on every side, all things seeming to make against you? Is there no preciousness in that promise—"Call upon me in the day of trouble, I will deliver you, and you shall glorify me?" Oh, how many a tried and afflicted saint, buffeting with the storm, has been buoyed up and kept above the waves by this one solitary and precious promise of God, "Call upon me in the day of trouble!" Or, are you assailed by the fiery darts of the enemy? Listen to the promises addressed to the tempted, "The Lord knows how to deliver the godly out of temptations." "There has no temptation taken you but such as is common to man; but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above what you are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that you may be able to bear it." Are you in deep affliction, in sore adversity? Listen to the promise of your God—"When you pass through the waters I will be with you, and through the floods they shall not overflow you." "All things work together for good to those who love God." "Casting all your care upon Him, for He cares for you." Are you troubled because answers to prayer are delayed; because the vision tarries and appears not? The promise is—"Wait on the Lord, be of good courage, and He shall strengthen your heart." Are you anticipating an evil, looking at it in the distance, and trembling at its approach? Hear the soothing word of your Father—"Come, my people, enter you into your chambers, and shut your doors about you, hide yourself, as it were, for a little moment, until the indignation be overpast." Could sweeter chimes breathe upon your troubled spirit words more appropriate or more soothing? Are you afraid of coming short of eternal glory—of perishing at last in sight of heaven? Listen to the promise—"He that has begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ." "Now unto Him that is able to keep you from falling." Thus kept, how can you perish? Are friends and kindred alienated, and do you feel desolate and lonely?—"When my father and my mother forsake me, then the Lord will take me up"—"I will never leave you, nor forsake you," is the precious promise of your God. Do the infirmities and weaknesses of age accumulate around you? "Even to old age, I am He, and even to hoar hairs will I carry you. I have made and I will bear. Even I will carry and deliver you." This is the precious promise to God's dear aged saints. Let us learn from these words to be very tender, sympathizing, and patient towards the aged. They are dear and precious to the heart of God, and it is an honor—oh, how great!—to place our arm beneath the aged one whom God carries in His loving heart. Are you afraid of temporal poverty, that the cruse of oil and the barrel of meal will fail you? Hear your God—"Your bread and your water shall be sure." "Seek you first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all things shall be added to you." Are you in bondage through the fear of death? Cling to the precious promise—"This God is our God forever and ever. He will be our guide even unto death." Thus have we traveled through a few of the varied circumstances in which you may be placed, for each one of which God has provided a precious promise, on which He causes your soul to hope.

Precious, too, are these promises in the experience of His people. You can testify to their inconceivable preciousness. What, my beloved, would you have done without them? Have they not stanched many a bleeding wound? and dried many a falling tear? Have they not calmed many a perturbed moment? Have they not guided your feet through many a labyrinth, shed light on many a lonely path, been as oil on the broken waters of many a dark billow, and like voices of music have broken sweetly on many a dreary night of weeping and of woe? You have fled to them in times of necessity, have entwined your arms of faith around them in weakness, and having tested their soothing and support, you can put your seal to the truth, that the promises of God are "exceeding great and precious."

Precious are they, too, in the fruit they bear. Who can describe the peace and joy of the soul when faith takes hold of the Divine promises? Who will not say they are "exceeding great and precious promises," as he beholds the precious fruits these promises bring forth in the happy experience of the saint of God? With this bare outline of the subject, let us, in conclusion, refer to one or two practical inferences.

We exhort you, beloved, to take hold of the Promiser in the promise. The mere promise is nothing to us if we cannot observe that which underlies the promise,—and that which we are to deal with in the promise is, the Promiser Himself. Abraham staggered not at the promise of God, "because he counted Him faithful who had promised." He would have staggered at the promise of man, because it was so marvelous; but when he saw the Divine Promiser in the promise, he knew that what was impossible with man was possible with God, and so he believed Him faithful that had promised. Rest in Jesus, you wearied and burdened ones,—rest in God, you tried and tempted ones,—rest in the Holy Spirit, you sad and mournful ones; for all the precious promises of God, on which He has caused you to hope, are but the unfoldings of God Himself. Deal, then, with the Promiser in the promise, and you will find the promise to be like a rock of adamant beneath your feet.

We exhort you to store your heart richly with the precious promises of God. Take them on board your bark plentifully, for you have yet many a storm to weather, and you will need them to ballast your vessel in the tempestuous sea. Furnish your memories abundantly with them; let your heart deal closely with them; the time will come when the promise will be more precious to you than gold, yes, than much fine gold; and when affliction comes, and the dark cloud gathers, oh then, how precious will you find the promises of your Covenant God to be with which you stored your mind and fed your faith!

Recollect, they are God's gifts, and are not your purchase. "Whereby are given unto you exceeding great and precious treasures." Come, then, to God empty-handed. Do not reason and hesitate because of your past unbelief; but as gifts of God's free favor, welcome and trust in them.

God may sometimes write the sentence of death upon a promise, and everything in His providence may seem opposed to its fulfillment, though for years you have clung to it. Be not, however, staggered at that. There is a life in that promise, beloved, that never can die. Take, as an illustration, the seed you have sown in the earth. You go and look at it, and find it, apparently dead and decayed—a mass of dust only; but there is a vital principle there that cannot be lost, and in process of time that seed will germinate and become a beauteous flower. So is it with the precious promise of God. Month after month, year after year has rolled by, and you see no fulfillment of the promise; but wait God's appointed way and His ordained time, and the promise shall rise again in all its life, loveliness, and fruit. God will cease to be rather than not fulfill the word on which He has caused your soul to hope.

Walk in the holiness of the promise. Oh, those are solemn words in 2 Cor. 7:1—"Having therefore these promises, dearly beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God." The crowning glory and preciousness of these promises is, that they are sanctifying, promoting that holiness of life "without which no man shall see the Lord." Having therefore these rich clusters of precious promises bending down from the Tree of Life, whence we may pluck them at all times, in all seasons, and under all circumstances, let your life be a holy life, and let the sanctifying influence of the promises mold and govern your conduct.

In all your future path "be you followers of them who through faith and patience inherit the promises," in all their fullness, blessedness, and preciousness. Follow them as they followed Christ; imitate them as they imitated God; press after them as they pressed forward and reached the goal and won the prize, for before long you too shall be put into their full possession—the promise of grace terminating and expanding in the full enjoyment of the promise of glory. And when the time of your departure is at hand, your work finished; your battle fought, and your victory won, and when the soles of your feet smite the chill waters of death, then shall you find the path through those waters all paved and glowing with the exceeding great promises of your covenant God. Standing upon these precious stones, when heart and flesh are failing, and you are about to leave a wife in lonely widowhood, or children in friendless orphanage—eternity, a solemn, untried eternity, unveiling its realities to your view—with what firmness will faith plant its feet upon these Divine promises—so shall you pass peacefully, triumphantly over Jordan, and all the harpers will meet and welcome you on the other side. The Lord grant that these exceeding great promises may become increasingly precious to our hearts, and purifying to our lives, and all the praise and honor shall redound to Him who has declared, "Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my word shall not pass away." Lord, help us to receive Your promise, and to trust in You the Promiser!

"How often have sin and Satan strove
To rend my soul from You, my God!
But everlasting is Your love,
And Jesus seals it with His blood.

"The oath and promise of the Lord
Join to confirm the wondrous grace;
Eternal power performs the word,
And fills all heaven with endless praise.

"Amid temptations sharp and long,
My soul to this dear refuge flies;
Hope is my anchor, firm and strong,
While tempests blow and billows rise.

"The gospel bears my spirit up;
A faithful and unchanging God
Lays the foundation of my hope
In oaths and promises and blood."

THE PRECIOUSNESS OF CHRIST'S BLOOD

"The precious blood of Christ." 1 Peter 1:19

The Word of God is the only book that conveys to us a correct idea of the sanctity and meaning of blood. The instructions of God as to its nature and use in the Levitical economy present the spectacle to the mind invested with an impressiveness dreadful in its character, and profound in its meaning. In God's eye blood was a sacred thing. The solemnity with which He regarded, and the vigilance with which He shielded it, are remarkably striking. We marvel not at this. By the instrument of blood Jehovah was to unfold His Divine character, illustrate His moral government, and achieve His miracle of mercy in behalf of fallen man, in a way so wonderful and resplendent as the intelligent universe had never beheld. That one thing—BLOOD, was to fill the world with His glory, heaven with His redeemed, and eternity with His praise! Hence the sacredness and value of blood in God's view. What an impressive spectacle would meet the eye of the devout Israelite as he entered the temple to worship. He would see blood upon the altar—blood upon the sides of the altar—blood in the bowls of the altar—blood flowing around the altar; and in that blood, so profusely shed and minutely applied, his penitent heart would confront the truth, "Without shedding of blood there is no remission;" and his believing eye would behold the "precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot," "slain from the foundation of the world."

Such is the vital truth which is now to engage our thoughts. Among all the precious things of God there is not one so precious, so inestimable, so influential, as the "precious blood of Christ." All salvation, all purity, all peace, all holiness, all hope, all heaven, is bound up in the atoning blood of Immanuel. There is no acceptance for the sinner, no cleansing for the guilty, no pardon for the penitent, no sanctification for the believer, but in the vicarious sacrifice of the Son of God. With nothing are honesty and tenderness of conscience, soul-prosperity, the power of prayer, purity of heart, holiness of life, unreserved obedience, peace, joy, and hope, so intimately related, so closely entwined, as the "precious blood of Christ." It becomes, then, of the greatest moment that we should have scriptural, spiritual, realizing views of this great truth. The point at which we are liable to come short is, not so much our depreciatory views of the essential worth of atoning blood as of the necessity of the application of it to the conscience. How few there are of the Lord's people who are walking with the blood upon the conscience! "For this cause many are weak and sickly among you, and many sleep." We detect this deficiency and defect in the experimental religion of many, by the absence of a wakeful conscience, of deep spirituality of mind, of minute confession of sin, of closeness of walk, and a Christ-like temper and spirit. Nor this alone. To what may we trace the doubt and uncertainty as to their personal salvation, the want of assured peace, joy, and communion with God, which imparts a sickly hue to the Christianity of so many, which dims their light, impairs their vigor, and makes them so easy a prey to Satan's assaults and the world's seductions, but to the absence of close dealing with the atoning blood? The application of blood was a truth distinctly seen, even amid the dim twilight shadows of the Levitical and prophetical dispensations. The blood of the sacrifice was of no avail until it was applied, brought into contact with the object. That object then—whether a person or a thing—became relatively holy. Touched by the sacrificial blood it was regarded as sanctified—as set apart for the holy Lord God; but until the blood was applied it was a common thing. How glorious the gospel of this! The believing soul must come in contact with the atoning blood of Christ; and in order to maintain holiness and closeness of walk with God—the essence of true religion—and to pass through life's duties, trials, and temptations, as a royal priest, realizing our high calling of God, there must be the constant application of the blood of Christ. We will not anticipate subsequent parts of this chapter, but proceed to lay the basis of our subject by directing the reader's attention to the essential dignity and worth of the "precious blood of Christ."

It would seem impossible, by any illustration or argument, to over-estimate the intrinsic value of Christ's atoning blood. There are some things in religion of which we may entertain a too exalted and exaggerated conception. For example, we may have too high a view of the Church of Christ, exalting it above Christ Himself. We may hold too exaggerated and too exclusive views of Church ordinances, displacing and magnifying them, substituting their observance for vital religion, for a change of heart, for faith in Christ exclusively for justification. But no such danger lies in our study of the blood of Christ. Here our views cannot be too high, our contemplation too profound, our hearts too loving and adoring.

Consider for a moment, beloved, the ends that were accomplished by the shedding of Christ's blood. We often estimate the value of a mean by the end it secures. The Atonement of Christ was to meet the claims of God's moral government. By man's sin its holiness had been invaded, its authority contemned, its sanctions, laws, and commands outraged. Over all its glory a cloud had passed. God's eternal purpose was to save man. But He could save him only by an expedient that would remove that cloud and cause the glory it shaded to shine forth with deeper and more resplendent luster. The expedient that would thus meet the claims of the Divine government must be Divine. The Atonement that would link justice with mercy, and holiness with love, in the salvation of the Church, must be infinite in its character, and priceless in its worth. Such, in a few words, were the two grand ends to be secured, and which were secured, by the offering up of the Lord Jesus Christ. Viewed only in this light, how precious does the blood of Christ appear! Blood that could harmonize the Divine attributes—uphold the righteousness of the Divine government, making it honorable and glorious in God to save sinful man—must be precious.

It is precious blood, because it is virtually the 'blood of God.' This is a strong but a scriptural expression. Paul, in his parting address to the Ephesian elders, employs it—"The Church of God, which He has purchased with His own blood." This it is which stamps the atoning blood of the Savior with such dignity and virtue—it is the blood of Jehovah-Jesus. It possesses all the worth and glory of the Godhead—all the divine virtue and efficacy of the Deity. From this it derived its power to satisfy, its virtue to atone, its efficacy to cleanse. And this is the reason why one drop of this precious blood, falling upon a sin-burdened conscience, in a moment dissolves the weighty load, and fills the soul with joy and peace in believing. And this is why there exists not a stain of human guilt which the atoning blood of Immanuel cannot utterly and forever efface. Why, in a word, it is blood that "cleanses from ALL sin."

But it follows that it is the blood of a pure and sinless humanity, and this by no means lessens our idea of its preciousness. A deep mystery, we admit, is the incarnation of God; but mystery confronts us everywhere, and in everything; therefore it would be un-philosophical, as unbelieving, to cavil at this fundamental doctrine of Christianity—the profoundest mystery in the universe—because it transcended, though it does not contradict, human reason. Our humanity is the incarnation of a spiritual nature; we are not one, but three parts—body, soul, and spirit—and yet we do not deny our own being. Let us go to Bethlehem, and see this great sight, not to reason, but believe, not to fathom, but adore. How great the folly of man in his endeavor to sound the depths of God's infinity! Here, then, exists an essential element of preciousness in Christ's blood—it flowed from arteries untouched, untainted by the virus of sin; from a humanity upon which not a breath of pollution had fallen. "He knew no sin." Begotten by the Holy Spirit, He was that "holy thing" born of a virgin. "Holy, harmless, undefiled, and separate from sinners," He came into the world, lived in it, died in it, and left it as pure and immaculate as the Deity He enshrined. His Godhead wore not the tainted fleece, was clad not in the leprous garment of our fallen, apostate, and sinful nature. A holy Savior offered up a sinless Atonement for unholy, sinful man. Hence the preciousness of His blood. Look at it, beloved, in this light, and let your hearts glow with love, adoration, and praise, as you kneel before the cross, and feel the distilling upon your conscience of that blood, that pardons, covers, cancels all your guilt. From this view of the essential preciousness of Christ's blood, let us consider its preciousness to God.

We have referred to the law of the Levitical dispensation relating to blood. The minute directions which God gave concerning it marked the sacredness and significance of blood in His holy eyes. Can we for a moment suppose that the blood of the Atonement offered upon the cross of Calvary should not be of yet more infinite worth and preciousness to God? Beloved, we believe that of all the great truths upon which in this volume we are expatiating, we shall find in the hour of death this to be the most essential, supporting, and comforting—the preciousness and acceptableness to God of that Divine sacrifice for sin upon which, in that dreadful moment, we are relying—to know then that God is well pleased with that blood upon which, as a poor, guilty sinner about to appear in eternity, we rest; and that in its acceptance we are accepted, by its virtue we are washed whiter than snow, and that through its merit we shall appear before God in righteousness—surely, with this truth witnessed to by the Holy Spirit in our souls, death will have no sting, and the grave no terror.

The atoning blood of Christ must be precious to the Father, because it is the blood of His own Son. There was an essential, close, and endearing relation between the Victim and the Offerer. Is the blood of a child precious to the heart of a parent? Thus precious was the blood of Jesus to God. Oh, methinks, if ever God loved His Son, He loved Him then! Gazing from His throne in glory upon the dreadful scene on earth, He saw the Son who dwelt in His bosom from eternity impaled upon the accursed tree, suffering the just for the unjust, vindicating the rectitude of His government, and pouring out His holy soul unto death, that He might bring us unto God.

But there was not only the yearning of parental affection in God, but in the sacrifice of His beloved Son He beheld the salvation of His Church fully and forever secured. In that vital stream He saw the life, the spiritual and eternal life, of His people. His everlasting love had found a fit and appropriate channel through which it could flow to the vilest sinner. Divine Mercy, in her mission to our fallen planet, approached the Cross of Calvary, paused—gazed—and adored. Then dipping her wings in the crimson stream, pursued her flight through the world, proclaiming, in music such as angels had never heard, "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace and good will to men!"

And when God raised His Son from the grave, exalted Him to glory, set Him at His own right hand, and then sent down the Holy Spirit, the seal of His acceptance was affixed to His own deep sense of the preciousness of Christ's blood. "Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us, and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins." Trembling soul! approach this Atonement. God has accepted it—will not you? Surely you may with confidence and hope rely upon that sacrifice with which He has thus declared Himself well pleased. You cannot come to it too hopefully, nor rely upon it too implicitly, nor believe in it too simply, nor rejoice in it too fervently. It is precious to God, and, in virtue of its preciousness, your person is precious, your prayers are precious, your offerings of love are precious—fragrant to Him as the "smell of a field which the Lord has blessed." Plead but the precious blood of Christ for renewed forgiveness, urge it as your argument in prayer, and draw from it your motive to self-surrender as a holy, living sacrifice to God, and you shall not fail of acceptance with the Holy One.

But there is another view of our subject which illustrates the endearing character of Christ's blood. It is not only precious to God, but it is also precious in the experience of the believer. God will make that precious to His people which is precious to Himself. He will endear to their hearts that which is dear to His own. It is precious to the saints, because it is the blood of their Great High Priest. There was no personal relation between the sacrifice and the priest under the Levitical dispensation. But here the Antitype transcends the type. We see in the blood of Christ the blood of one who stands to us in the varied and tender relations of a Priest, a Shepherd, a Friend, a Brother, a Kinsman, a Redeemer. Oh, to travel to the cross and behold in that illustrious Sufferer One who combined in Himself every endearing, tender, and precious relation! It was no stranger who hung there. It was no wayfaring man of grief who died there. It was our Elder Brother, our Goel, our Friend. How precious, then, to our penitent, believing, loving hearts must that blood be! With what reverence should we speak of it, with what faith should we trust in it, with what gratitude should we welcome it, and with what holiness of life should we show forth its praise!

As all his salvation it must possess an indescribable preciousness to the believer. There is no salvation for the soul but in the atoning blood of Immanuel. Whatever else presents itself as such is a delusion and a snare. Baptism is nothing here. Sacraments are nothing here. Priestly power is nothing here. Works of human merit are nothing here. The blood of Christ—God's own expedient—stands unrivaled and alone, the only hope of a lost sinner. The teaching and authority of God's Word are decisive and ultimate on this momentous and vital point. Christ's sacrifice is declared to be a "propitiation through faith in His blood" (Rom. 3:25); "Being justified by His blood" (Rom. 5:9); "We have redemption through His blood" (Eph. 1:7); "That He might sanctify the people with His own blood" (Heb. 13:12); "Who has washed us from our sins in His own blood" (Rev. 1:5); "These are they which came out of great tribulation, and have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb: therefore are they before the throne" (Rev. 7:14). In these declarations it will be seen is inscribed the great essential truth—SALVATION ALONE BY THE ATONING BLOOD OF CHRIST. This is the 'Stone' which is set at nothing by all who seek some other way to heaven—who build their hope upon the sand—a way the end of which is death. But "neither is there salvation in any other; for there is none other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved." Before the power and glory of this one precious name, every false religion shall vanish, and to it every knee shall bow. Around a dying bed the scaffolding of all ecclesiastical systems falls, leaving the man who has reposed his all upon it, to his ghostly hope. But to that departing soul, to whom the savor, power, and preciousness of the name of JESUS is as ointment shedding its fragrance round the room where disease and death with united force are battling with life, oh how supporting, soothing, and hope-inspiring is the precious blood of Christ which is felt at that dreadful moment, when the transgressions of a life crowd upon memory, to "cleanse from ALL sin!"

The peace which flows from the application of the atoning blood of Christ increases greatly the believer's sense of its preciousness. Who can describe the repose of conscience, the mental serenity, the heart-ease which this blood seals upon the believing soul? It must be experienced to be understood. Beloved, as your eye traces this page, there may rage within your breast, unknown and unsuspected by others, the storm of sin's conviction. So sunlight and serene is, perhaps, the surface, not a shadow or a wavelet betrays the hidden and deep emotion. And yet you feel yourself a sinner—a lost sinner—the chief of sinners. You are filled with sin-loathing, self-abhorrence, sorrow, and grief. A deep conviction of your utter vileness, unworthiness, and hell-deserving is the cause. And what is the remedy? The precious blood of Christ! Brought beneath that blood, as like a crimson tide it flows from the cross, peace—perfect peace—the peace of God which passes all understanding, will flow into your soul, and there shall be a great calm. And then will you joyously exclaim, "I am at peace with God through Christ. The tempest is hushed; the thunder-cloud has passed away; the Sun of Righteousness pours its golden beams into my soul, and heaven and earth seem to meet and kiss each other."

The present efficacy of the atoning blood must form an endearing element to the heart whose pantings and breathings are for purity. This will need no argument to those of my readers who are used to keep a vigilant oversight of the spiritual state of their souls. You will feel, beloved, that you cannot close your day, in which, despite the greatest watchfulness and prayer, there will be found, in things done, or in things undone, much to produce contrition and humility, without a fresh application to the Fountain. The atoning blood of Jesus is of present efficacy. This, one of its essential elements, is much over looked. Many of the Lord's people postpone an immediate confession of sin and application to the blood. The effect is to produce searedness of conscience, and a kind of moral ossification of the heart, most injurious to personal holiness. The conscience thus losing its tenderness, and the heart its sensibility, sin comes to be seen in a light less abhorrent, sanctification less sought, and Christ less endeared. Remembering, then, that it is an open and a flowing Fountain—that no sin, no backsliding, however great and aggravated, dare interdict or intercept your approach, repair immediately in faith to the blood, wash, and be clean. The atoning blood of Immanuel is the Divine Has of the soul. Take an illustration. The physical man is kept healthy and vigorous only by perpetual ablution. And he is not acting in obedience to the laws of his being, as well as the commands of his Maker, who, deeming as unworthy his notice the claims of his physical structure to his regard, despises those precautionary measures, and refuses to employ those restorative and sanative means which God has imposed for the preservation and recovery of bodily health. We have no more right to trifle with the body than with the soul. If, as a professing Christian, suffering from wasting disease, you refuse to avail yourself of the sanative aids God has kindly placed within your reach, the skill and the appliances His providence has provided, you are, undoubtedly, acting presumptuously, and not in faith. God has ordained the mean as the end, and no man can attempt to sunder them without violence to his own best interests, and dishonor to God. With this we must blend the thought, that all means of recovery are futile without His blessing; but that, looking to Him in prayer and confidence, we shall realize the truth of His word—"And the prayer of faith shall save the sick." Or, if that petition is withheld, it is but to confer a blessing yet more precious—it may be, the soul's translation to that world of blessedness, "the inhabitants of which shall no more say, I am sick." And now let us return to the truth thus illustrated.

Infinitely more needful is the constant cleansing of the soul. We repeat the assertion, that atoning blood is the Divine laver of the believer. The existence of a fretting leprosy within, and the hourly contact with a raging plague without, necessitates perpetual soul-ablution. Let it not be supposed that we are advocating a habit calculated to impress the mind with light thoughts of sin, or to make Christ its minister. Far from this will be the effect of a constant and conscientious dealing with Christ's atonement—of frequent bathing in the blood. The blood of Christ is sanctifying, as well as purifying. It not only effaces the immediate stain of guilt, but it intensifies the heart's thirst for holiness. No believer can cultivate an intimate acquaintance with Christ, or bathe frequently in the fountain of His blood, and not experience a growing sanctification. It is the blood of a holy sacrifice, and it leaves the traces of holiness wherever it flows. And when he comes afresh and closely to the "blood of sprinkling," and again goes forth to the Christian conflict, it is to fight more successfully, to walk more circumspectly, and to yield himself more unreservedly unto God. How clearly and forcibly does the apostle put this truth—the sanctifying influence of the blood. "Now the God of peace, that brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great Shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant, make you perfect in every good work to do His will." (Heb. 13:20, 21.) Let it not, then, be supposed, that in pleading for frequent application of the Savior's sacrifice, a constant cleansing from sin, we advocate a lax, careless walk. We believe that the heart is only thoroughly examined, sin is only deeply known, principles, motives, and aims are only closely sifted, analyzed, and seen, by the power of the atoning blood of Christ. The blood not only cleanses, but it searches; it not only purifies, but it probes. Its influence is powerful and penetrating, imparting a keen perception of sin where its existence and taint were not seen or suspected. In proportion to the filtration of a lake, or the polish of a mirror, is the power of reflecting the object imaged upon the surface. Keep your heart, O believer, much beneath the cross, your conscience in frequent and close contact with the blood, and the slightest touch of sin will make you restless and unhappy until you have confessed, and God has forgiven. This is the secret—which, alas! few see, or care to know—of preserving the garments white amid pollution, the mind serene amid turmoil, the heart happy amid sorrow, the life radiant and transparent as the sun, and the spirit, temper, and carriage Christ-loving, and Christ-like. Oh the wonders of the precious blood of Christ! Who can exalt it too highly, adore it too profoundly, love, magnify, and honor it too deeply and exclusively? Will it not constitute the theme of our study, the burden of our song, and the source of our bliss as ages roll on, and never cease to roll? Beloved, the surprise then will be, that here below we should have prized it so little, traveled to it so infrequently, and glorified it so imperfectly, and have regarded it with an affection so fickle and so cold!

The last is not the least precious view, to the saints of God, of the atoning blood of Christ, which this chapter presents—viz., its voice and power in heaven. It is a delightful, sanctifying truth—the pleading of the blood within the veil that now separates the saints of the Most High on earth from the glory of the upper and inner sanctuary. Our great High Priest has passed within that veil, has entered into that sanctuary, bearing in His hands the blood He shed on Calvary. And with that blood—basing His intercession upon its divine and changeless efficacy—He pleads for the Church with an individual, momentary, and ceaseless intercession. Surely the present power of the blood in heaven will not admit of a moment's doubt in his mind who remembers its virtue ages antecedent to its oblation. God, in anticipation of this sacrifice, upon the promise of Christ to give Himself an offering, extended His full forgiveness to those who, amid types, and shadows, and symbols, believed in the "Lamb slain from the foundation of the world." Upon Christ's bond to release His Church, long before the actual payment of the ransom, the "prey was taken from the mighty, and the lawful captive was delivered." God accepted the Savior's suretyship, and extended pardon to Adam, and Abel, and all the Old Testament believers, upon trust and credit of a future sacrifice. Thus did the atoning blood of Jesus do what the law never could have done—"redeem from transgressions under the first testament;" and, by its antecedent and anticipative merit, procure the "remission of sins that are past." If, then—and this is our argument—the blood of Christ was so efficacious ages before it was shed, how much more efficacious is it at the present moment, now that it is actually shed! The testimony of the Holy Spirit touching this truth is clear and conclusive:—"Christ being come an High Priest of good things to come, by His own blood He entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us." (Heb. 9:11, 12.) "Christ is not entered into the holy places made with hands, which are the figures of the true; but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us" (ver. 24). "The blood of Christ, which speaks better things than the blood of Abel." Here, then, blood is one of the precious things of God—most precious! Christ is sitting at the right hand of God, enveloped in the incense-cloud of His merits, praying for you with a ceaseless and successful advocacy. Amid your trials and toils, your temptations and sins, your wants and woes, your fears and tremblings, the voice of Immanuel's blood speaks for you in heaven, and that voice is echoed back to earth in the succourings, upholdings, and soothings, in the strength, grace, and love which its pleadings secure for you below.

And what a balm for the sin-distressed conscience is the precious blood of Christ! There grows not in the universe another tree whose balsam can heal the wounded conscience but this Tree of Life—a crucified Savior. O beware, beloved reader, of a false healing! "They have healed the hurt of my people slightly," says God; that is, imperfectly, falsely. There is no balsam for a wounded conscience but that which exudes from the wounds of Christ. "With His stripes we are healed." Bring your wound to Christ's wounds, and it is in a moment healed. "Heal me, O Lord, and I shall be healed." David testifies, "I cried unto You, and You have healed me." And is not this the especial office and gracious mission of Jesus? Listen to His precious words: "He has sent me to heal the broken-hearted." Oh the luxury of a broken heart for sin, thus soothed, bound up, and healed by "the precious blood of Christ!" Who would not cry, "Lord, subdue, break, dissolve my heart for sin; let its grief be never so deep, pungent, and bitter, may it but be brought into contact with the virtue, the peace, and preciousness of Your most precious blood?" Again, we beseech you, beware of a spurious healing! Remember, no tear can heal a wounded conscience—no confession can heal it—no sacrament can heal it—no minister can heal it—nothing in this wide universe can heal it but the precious atoning blood of Christ. That can heal it in one moment. It can efface, not only the faintest breath of guilt from the troubled conscience, but it can wash out the deepest, darkest, foulest blot of sin that ever existed upon the human soul. Do you think there is no pardon for you? Deem you beyond the pale of salvation because you are so great, or so aged a sinner—"a sinner of a hundred years old," it may be? Look at Adam, the poisoner of his species, the murderer of his race. The precious blood of Christ availed for him, and in virtue of it he is now in glory, the greatest, the chief, the head of all sinners, hymning the high praises of the blood that brought him there. Will you, then, hesitate to believe? will you despond and despair while this monument of saving mercy, of sovereign grace, of Christ's atoning blood, stands as "a pattern to those who should hereafter believe on Him to everlasting life?"

Are you approaching the solemnities of a dying hour? Oh, turn you now from everything but the precious blood of Christ! Let go every object but the cross. Relax your hold of churches and creeds, duties and ordinances, ministers and saints, and let one object absorb every thought, and feeling, and desire—filling the entire scope of the brief and solemn space that now divides time from eternity—THE PRECIOUS BLOOD OF CHRIST! Cast yourself upon it in simple believing—look at it with the feeblest, dimmest eye of faith, and it will speak pardon, peace, and joy to your soul, unveiling to your departing spirit a hope radiant with immortality.

Beware of the false religions of the day. They are all designed and tend to veil the cross of Jesus. We want no other 'altar' than Christ. We need no other sacrifice but His. Christ is our only altar; Christ is our only sacrifice; Christ is our only door into heaven; Christ is all, and in all. Value ministers, churches, ordinances, means of grace, only as they are stepping-stones that lift you above themselves, and lead you upward and onward, closer and closer to Jesus. Around Him entwine the arms of your faith; clasp Him to your loving heart; and be you sure of this, that such is His grace, such His compassion, such His tenderness, sympathy, and love, He will never tear from His bosom the poor, trembling, penitent soul that has fled within it for shelter. Approach this divine Altar, this one finished Sacrifice, you poor in spirit—you that smite upon the breast—you that mourn for sin—you that cry, "Unclean, unclean!"—you that see your own righteousness to be but filthy rags—you that disclaim and abjure every other salvation, and lay your mouth in the dust, acknowledging your iniquity, transgression, and sin; draw near to this ATONING BLOOD, and behold your welcome in the free grace of a sin-forgiving, sin-pardoning God. This precious blood will give you liberty—this precious blood will give you peace—this precious blood will sign and seal you as one upon whom the 'second death' shall have no power. Then, when Christ is coming, and the trumpet is sounding, and the dead are rising, and the great white throne is unveiling, and all are pressing round it for judgment, then will be fulfilled, as never before, the precious promise of God—"AND WHEN I SEE THE BLOOD, I WILL PASS YOU BY." Sprinkled with that blood, sheltered by that blood, washed from every stain in that blood, not a drop of divine wrath will light upon you; and you shall hear the Judge of all pronounce you pardoned—accepted—saved! Then will it be said of you—"These are they who came out of great tribulation, and have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. Therefore are they before the throne." And from every heart and tongue of that goodly company of apostles, and prophets, and martyrs, and the spirits of just men made perfect, will the glorious anthem swell—"Unto Him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in His own blood, and has made us kings and priests unto God; to Him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen." Oh the bliss of that moment! May it be ours to join that number, and to unite in that song! Amen, and Amen.

"We have an ALTAR and a PRIEST
Within the riven veil—
All typal sacrifice has ceased,
Remove that 'altar rail!'
With holy boldness venture nigh;
The Golden Altar stands on high.

"'Tis sprinkled with the costly blood
On which the Father smiles,
That blood which from the Offerer flowed
For all whom sin defiles.
Look there, and meet your Father's eye,
THERE learn the priestly mystery.

"The bronze altar smokes no more
On which the Victim lay,
Where sin's unmeasured doom He bore,
When you had nothing to pay;
'Go forth without the camp,' and see
What God's High Priest has done for thee.

"Then look within 'the Inner Shrine,'
Where now He pleading stands,
Not God's High Priest alone, but thine—
What say those wounded hands?
The Father, when those scars He healed,
Once, and for aye, your pardon sealed.

"Though now in heaven, the Priestly King
Long ministered on earth;
His life one 'whole burnt-offering,'
Sweet-savored from his birth;
The fragrance of that life divine
Perfumes and fills 'the Inner Shrine.'

"No 'rood screen' shields it from the eye
Of those whose sight is true;
That 'Inner Shrine' in yon pure sky
Is open now for you.
All conscience-cleansed and free from sin,
The full-robed Priest says, 'Welcome in.'

"Behold those jewels on His breast,
Each as a signet graved!
Close to that bosom, warmly prest,
Lie those by Jesus saved;
And you are saved, whoe'er you art,
If Jesus has your willing heart.

"The golden frontlet on his brow,
With 'Holiness' inscribed,
Tells that the law is honored now,
In vain with tinsel bribed:
The perfect work of One alone
Will God's all-searching justice own.

"Hark to the music of those bells!
How sweet their silver voice!
Of Peace, Good-will, and Grace it tells—
How can you but rejoice,
When God Himself delights to hear
Those silver tones salute His ear!

"A golden lamp sheds forth its ray;
The Spirit is your guide;
He shows the New, the Living Way—
The rent veil opens wide:
A seven-fold light that lamp imparts,
And courage gives to trembling hearts.

"And say, have you not often regaled
Upon that living Bread,
Which, when all earthly comfort failed,
Your craving spirit fed?
That heavenly Manna, Show-bread sweet,
Which none but white-robed priests may eat.

"The Laver stands. If earth-defiled,
Go, wash your hands, your feet,
And simply as a pardoned child
Approach the Mercy-seat;
Within the veil your censer bring,
And burn sweet incense to the King.

"For know, that since God's Lamb was slain,
All typal rites have ceased;
Nor until MELCHISEDEK shall reign,
May earth behold a priest,
Save those who, washed in Jesus' blood,
Are now made white-robed priests to God.

"They walk 'the outer court' a while,
But live within the veil;
Look out and weep, look in and smile,
And chant the melting tale
Of Him who blessed the bread and wine—
'THE PRIEST' within 'THE INNER SHRINE.'
—By the Author of "Wild Thyme."

THE PRECIOUS ANOINTING

"The precious ointment upon the head, that ran down upon the beard, even Aaron's beard: that went down to the skirts of his garments." Psalm 133:2

It is to this striking emblem—the anointing oil—rather than to the truth it illustrates, the present chapter especially relates. The truth illustrated in this beautiful passage, we admit, is a great and holy one—brotherly love. "Behold, how good, how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity!" Would that we saw more of it in the professing Church of God! Then would the disciples of Christ be more marked and distinguished as such. "For by this shall all men know that you are my disciples, if you have love one to another." But it is the holy and precious anointing itself to which we especially direct the reader's attention. The subject is of essential importance. It is the personal possession of this anointing that constitutes our true Christianity. The religion of vast numbers is but the religion of sentiment, the religion of form, the religion of ritualism—a religion utterly destitute of one particle of this divine and precious anointing. It is therefore of the greatest importance that each reader of this work should institute the most rigid self-scrutiny to ascertain his real possession of the Holy Spirit, the Anointer and the anointing, without an interest in which we possess but "a name to live while we are dead;" "having a form of godliness, without the power thereof." To aid the devout reader in his inquiry into this subject, it will be our object to illustrate the precious nature of this divine anointing, its application to Christ, the true spiritual Aaron and Head of the royal priesthood,—and its communication through Him to all who form a part of the one Anointed Priesthood. Oh that as we meditate upon this soul-reviving truth, the "oil of gladness" may diffuse its influence and fragrance through our souls, endearing Him to our hearts whose precious "name is as ointment poured forth" to those who know and love it.

The office of the priesthood under the Levitical dispensation was regarded as one of the highest designations of God in His Church. The priest stood, as it were, in God's place. He was Jehovah's viceregent—the medium of communication from God to the people, and from the people to God. He was to receive the word from the mouth of God, and communicate it to the people; and, on their part, he was to make sacrifice, take of their offerings, and present them to the Lord. It will thus be seen that the priesthood was one of the highest and holiest offices in the Church of God. It was in fact associated with royalty. Melchisedek was both a priest and a king—a royal priest. In this respect he was a remarkable type of our Lord Jesus Christ, who, by one of the prophets, is designated a "Priest upon His throne," and who stands to His Church in the twofold relation of King and Priest. Such is the dignity to which their union with Christ raises His people. They are, in virtue of that union, a "royal priesthood," "offering up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Christ."

We have remarked, respecting the priesthood under the old economy, that, so important was the institution, the instructions God gave for the selection of the priests, and their designation to the office, were of the most minute and significant character. Our present subject limits us to a single and specific one—the anointing. The directions of God touching the composition of the unguent—the precious oil—by which Aaron and the priests were set apart to their holy office, are minute and instructive:—"Moreover the Lord spoke unto Moses, saying, Take you also unto you principal spices, of pure myrrh five hundred shekels, and of sweet cinnamon half so much, even two hundred and fifty; and of sweet calamus two hundred and fifty shekels, and of cassia five hundred shekels, after the shekel of the sanctuary, and of oil olive an hin: and you shall make it an oil of holy ointment, an ointment compound after the are of the apothecary: it shall be an holy anointing oil. And you shall anoint Aaron and his sons, and consecrate them, that they may minister unto me in the priest's office." (Exod. 30:22-25, 30.) How deep and precious the spiritual significance of all this! The great truth it is designed to illustrate is the nature and preciousness of that holy anointing of which all the "royal priesthood" of Christ are partakers, and apart from which all religion, the most intellectual, poetical, and strictly ritual, is vain and dead, spurious and worthless. One drop of this holy oil, this divine anointing, has in it more of God, more of Christ, more of the Holy Spirit, and more substance, sweetness, and preciousness, than all the religions of man, the most costly, splendid, and imposing, combined.

In one sentence we define the divine nature and the essential value of this precious anointing—it consists in the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in the soul. We marvel not, then, that in the typal unfolding of this truth, there should be such an accumulation of precious, fragrant, and costly things. And yet how far below the Antitype does it fall! What earthly things, the most rare and precious, can convey any adequate idea of the divine nature and the essential worth of the Holy Spirit? Who is He? There are those who would reduce Him to a mere attribute of God—an influence of the Most High—an emanation of the Deity—a divine principle! Alas! how many, even of the Lord's own people, have but the most dim and imperfect views of the personal dignity and official work of the Holy Spirit, who yet would recoil with abhorrence at the thought of holding a sentiment in the slightest degree derogatory to His glory. And among those who utterly and openly impugn the divine dignity of the Spirit, denying totally His personal oneness with the Godhead, to what subtle distinctions and hollow sophisms, in the enmity of the carnal mind to God's revealed truth, will they resort, rather than accept the plain and simple declarations of the Bible? But who is the Holy Spirit? Our mind is filled with sacred and solemn awe as we inscribe the words—THE HOLY SPIRIT IS THE THIRD PERSON IN THE GODHEAD. When we open the revealed Word and read the words which compose the formulary of baptism, and the apostolic benediction, who can doubt this truth? Touching the former we read, "Go you therefore and teach all nations (make disciples), baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit." (Matt. 28:19.) Touching the latter it is written, "The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit, be with you all. Amen." (2 Cor. 13:14.) What shall we say to these distinct, emphatic declarations? Doubt them? Cavil at them? Reduce them to figures of speech? Deny and reject them? God forbid! Beloved reader, is there no secret thought in your mind derogatory to the Divine Personality of the Holy Spirit?—no lurking suspicion of His claims to your love, worship, and obedience? Do you cherish towards Him like feelings of holy awe, filial reverence, and implicit faith with those with which you regard the Father and the Son? In a word, do you honor, and love, and pray to the Holy Spirit even as you love, honor, and pray to the first and second Persons of the ever-blessed Trinity? Oh, do not forget that the debt of love, confidence, and obedience which you owe to the Spirit is the same! As you could not be redeemed and saved without the blood-shedding of the Son, so you could not be regenerated and sanctified but by the divine power of the Holy Spirit. Such, then, is the sacred anointing of the royal priesthood! The possession of the Holy Spirit, in all His divine perfections and official relations, by each believer in Jesus, is the precious anointing by which he is set apart as a priest of the Most High God. Can we conceive of any blessing more costly and precious? Of this blessing you are the recipient if you are a believer in the Lord Jesus. And the Word of God declares it:—"You have received the Spirit of adoption." "He has given you the earnest of the Spirit." "The Spirit of God dwells in you." How easy were it to multiply these proofs!

Passing from the person of the Spirit, we advert for a moment to the work of the Spirit. How precious is that work!—so precious that all language, all imagery, fails adequately to express it. If, beloved, you are a temple, a sanctuary of the Holy Spirit, there is more of God, more of divine glory, dwelling within your soul, than in all the worlds that God has made, known and unknown. Oh, how imperfectly we estimate the value and high calling of a saint of God! But as we are to speak of this in a distinct chapter of the present work, we but refer to it now as illustrating the costliness of this anointing. The glory of a believer in Christ—like the glory of Him whose son he is—is a concealed glory. "The King's daughter is all glorious within." Where her dark corruption dwells, where the great conflict is passing, even there, amid so much that is opposite in nature and hostile in spirit, the great glory of the child of God dwells, and all that hidden glory consists of the work of the Holy Spirit in the soul. A broken heart for sin, the spirit of self-abhorrence, the trembling faith in Christ, the thirst for sanctification, the breathings after God, are component parts of that divine and precious anointing which has sanctified you as a priest of the Most High God.

The influences of the Holy Spirit enter essentially into the precious anointing of the believer. What progress in the divine life can there be apart from these? This sacred anointing needs perpetual care and replenishing. The spirit of prayer in our souls—how restrained! The spirit of adoption—how it droops! The spirit of love—how it languishes! The spirit of faith—how it fluctuates! The spirit of Christ—how it wanes! But the Holy Spirit quickens, revives, and restores by fresh inspirations of His influence. A gale from Him bears on its wings life, fruitfulness, and fragrance. When the 'south wind' blows upon the soul, the spices thereof flow out, and Christ comes into His garden, eats His pleasant fruit, and gathers His myrrh and His spice. And then, thus revived and refreshed by a renewed emanation of the Spirit's grace, the moral atmosphere in which the Christian walks is all permeated and perfumed with the fragrance of this precious anointing. Can you, then, estimate its worth? That heart-outpouring, that soul-breathing, that glimpse of Jesus, that hour of nearness to God, that moment's enjoyment of the Divine presence—oh! would you have bartered it for earth's choicest, costliest, fondest joys! Beloved, live not, as a priest of God, without the sensible indwelling of the Holy Spirit. Live in conscious union and communion with Him—seek to be filled with His influences. If prayer languishes—if grace decays—if affection chills—if there is any discovered relapse of your soul in the divine life, seek at once and earnestly the fresh communication of this divine anointing. "Let your garments always be white, and your head lack no ointment."

The indestructibleness of this anointing is the last element of its preciousness to which we allude. It is no small mercy to a child of God, that amid the evanescence of spiritual feeling, the ebb and flow of Christian experience, nothing affects the imperishable nature of that divine anointing by which he was once and forever consecrated to an unchangeable priesthood. All earth's perfumes evaporate and die; the blight is upon every flower, the curse is in every sweet; but here is that which can never be destroyed. Once the Holy Spirit quickens the soul with the breath of life, once He enkindles a spark of love to God in the heart, once He breathes upon the believer this celestial perfume, he possesses a blessing which no age can impair, and which no circumstance can change. Hostile influences there may be which would seem to peril its existence—the indwelling taint of sin would threaten its purity and sweetness—yet nothing shall ever prevail to destroy the work of the Spirit in the heart of the regenerate. It is an anointing incorruptible—it has a fragrance imperishable. The power and perfume thereof shall go down with the believer into the grave, shall embalm and preserve the slumbering dust of God's elect, until, in the morning of the first resurrection, the trumpet of the archangel bids them rise to meet their Lord in the air. What behold I in that narrow house? What see I reposing in that clay-cold bed? A ruined temple of the Holy Spirit! Will it ever be restored again? Oh, yes! "We look for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto His glorious body, according to the working whereby He is able even to subdue all things unto Himself." (Phil. 3:20, 21.) Thus precious is this holy oil, the divine anointing of the believer in Jesus. It imparts dignity to his person, for it constitutes him a priest-royal. It imparts fragrance to his sacrifices, for it makes them "an odor of a sweet smell, a sacrifice acceptable, well-pleasing to God." His prayers are precious, his praises are precious, his labors are precious, his every lowly act of love, obedience, and service is inconceivably precious to God, touched with this divine and holy oil. And as the perfume of the rose still lingers upon the broken and crumbled ruins of the shattered vase, so the divine perfume of the Holy Spirit's indwelling, regenerating, sanctifying grace shall cling to the believer, his works and labor and memory, long after death shall have ruined the material structure, and it shall have returned to the dust from whence it came. "The righteous shall be had in everlasting remembrance." "The memory of the just is blessed."

But while we thus maintain the essential indestructibility of this precious anointing, we would by no means fail to caution the believer against that which yet may seriously impair its vigor, obscure its beauty, and lessen its fragrance. Essentially it may not perish, influentially it may. Intrinsically it cannot be destroyed, efficiently it can. A noxious element may insinuate itself into this divine unguent, and blend with it a mixed and ungenial redolence. "Dead flies cause the ointment of the apothecary to send forth an ill savor: so does a little folly him that is in reputation for wisdom and honor." (Eccles. 10:1.) An uneven walk, an unwatchful spirit, an unChrist-like deportment may blend with this precious anointing, and thus destroy its fragrance, and impair its power. The moral influence of the Church in the world is in proportion to her spiritual separation from the world. The light she emits throughout the earth will be graduated by her holy elevation above the earth. The chandelier which illumines an apartment is suspended from its center. The Church of God is the world's moral chandelier. The Divine Sun from whom she receives her holy luster, has condescendingly, but emphatically, pronounced her the "light of the world." It follows, then, that the spiritual influence which the Church is to exert in the world as a conservator of the truth, as a witness for Christ, and as an instrument to guide men to the Savior, will be potent and successful, healthy and powerful, in proportion to her own moral elevation, holiness, and spirituality. What applies to the Church as a corporate body, equally applies to the individual Christian. Oh, what a blessing in the sphere in which he moves is a man of God, living under the rich anointing of the Holy Spirit! It is impossible he can be hid. "The ointment of his right hand betrays itself." And the moral savor of that ointment—the holy, heavenly fragrance that floats around him—testifies to all who are brought within its influence, of God, of Christ, of eternity. See, then, that your religion is not half Christian, half Infidel—half Protestant, half Popish—half sincere, half compromising. Beware of the "dead fly in the ointment." Worldliness of living—covetousness of heart—an unforgiving temper—an earthly, groveling mind—an uncharitable, censorious spirit—a want of integrity and uprightness of principle in your dealings with men—a secret rebellion of will against the government, the providence, the disposal of God, may just be that "dead fly." These may be the things, or others of a like character, which lessen your heavenliness of mind, impair your spiritual vigor, shade your divine light, veil your precious anointing, and render your moral influence as a laborer for Christ so little useful to man, and your walk as a believer in Jesus so little honoring to God.

A vital part of our subject remains to be considered—the confluence of this precious oil in the Lord Jesus Christ, the true spiritual Aaron of the "Royal Priesthood." We term this a vital truth, and justly so, because it is the source of all spiritual life to the believer. We are Christian in truth only as we are one with Christ. We are living branches in reality only as we have union with Jesus the Living Vine. We are an anointed priesthood only in virtue of our sacerdotal relation to Him, the Great High Priest of His Church. Here is—union; and this union is—life. Now, our blessed Lord Jesus was anointed with the Holy Spirit. His human nature was filled with the Spirit, and in this consisted His divine anointing, and in this anointing His consecration as the Royal Sacerdotal Head of a succession of royal priests. How clear and beautiful are the inspired testimonies to this truth! For example, in the Old Testament we read, "I have found David my servant; with my holy oil have I anointed him." (Ps. 89:20.) "You loves righteousness, and hate wickedness: therefore God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness above your fellows." (Ps. 45:7). "Behold, O God, our shield, and look upon the face of your anointed." Now, in what did this anointing of Christ consist but the fullness of the Holy Spirit? So we read, "God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit." (Acts 10:38.) So the indwelling fullness of the Spirit, "For God gives not the Spirit by measure unto him." His humanity was indebted for the wisdom with which it spoke, for the understanding by which it discerned, which made Him of "quick understanding in the fear of the Lord," for the power with which it wrought, and for the beauty which, amid its humiliation and woe, made it so transcendently glorious, to the indwelling fullness of the Holy Spirit. Oh, what would our humanity be were it filled, as was the Son of God's, with the fullness of the Spirit! And if, in our Christian character, we would approximate to this model—in a word, if we would be Christ-like—we must be more richly replenished with the Holy Spirit. "Hereby we know that He (Christ) abides in us, by the Spirit which he has given us." (1 John 3:24.) We shall be assured of our union to Christ, of His home in our hearts, of our relation to the seed-royal, the true priesthood, by the inhabitation of the Spirit. O Divine and Holy Spirit! enter us, unworthy though we are; make Your home in our hearts, vile though they be; breathe life and love, peace and joy, into our souls; quicken us, seal us, teach us, sanctify us, and make us divine, by making us Christ-like—happy, by making us holy,—and so fill and occupy us with Yourself that there may be no room for the reign of sin, the power of the world, and the love of self. Beloved, you cannot besiege the throne of grace for a more needed and a greater blessing than the fullness of the Holy Spirit. Do not think that we employ an expression too strong when we speak of the fullness of the Spirit. It is recorded of Stephen that he was "full of faith, and of the Holy Spirit." And that this was not a peculiar or privileged case, the apostle exhorts all believers to be "filled with the Spirit." Seek, then, beloved, for your own soul this divine anointing. Be not satisfied with a measured bestowment of the precious blessing, but in earnest and importunate supplication open your mouth wide, that He may fill it! Oh the readiness of the Spirit to impart the boon! Oh the willingness of Christ, the Anointed, to satiate every longing soul, and to replenish every hungry soul from His own overflowing fullness! The straitness is in us, not in Jesus. Seek, then, with a seeking that will take no denial, the fullness of the Spirit!

The holy oil was poured upon the head of Aaron. This is most significant. The Lord Jesus—our Aaron—was anointed with the Spirit, as the HEAD of His Church. "He is the Head of the body, the Church." And the fullness of the Spirit that dwelt in Him was not for Himself alone, but to be communicated to all the members of His mystical Body. Trace the course of this holy oil thus poured upon the head of Aaron. It "went down to the skirts of his garment." How expressive and instructive the type! In virtue of our union with Christ, we become partakers of His precious anointing. So clearly and indissolubly are we one with Jesus, the Great High Priest, we share in all that He is, and partake of all that He possesses. He imparts to us His life, clothes us with His righteousness, washes us in His blood, replenishes us from His fullness, and will finally raise us to His glory, share with us His throne, and we shall reign with Him forever.

This anointing that flows from Christ is received by us through faith. The life we live amid daily conflict, trial, and toil, we live by the faith of the Son of God. This is the channel through which the sacred anointing flows down to us. What a mighty principle is this! When, at the close of the day, we throw our head upon our pillow, and in silent reflection review its brief history, we often marvel how we traveled through it. We look back upon the pressure, the temptation, the trial, the sorrow, and we are a wonder to ourselves. What was it that bore up and brought us triumphantly through? Oh, it was the power of faith conveying into our souls the fullness of Christ! It was the downflowing of this holy oil of grace and strength, of gladness and joy, from our enthroned and glorified Head that imparted wisdom in the perplexity, clearness in the judgment, strength in the temptation, fortitude in endurance, meekness in provocation, patience in suffering, and calmness, peace, and quietness amid the keenness of sorrow and the surgings of grief. Faith leaning upon, and drawing from, Christ, is the secret of it all.

But not merely in virtue of union to Christ, or through the medium of faith, are we the recipients of this precious anointing. It flows from the loving heart of Christ, and is the free, spontaneous bestowment of His grace. There is not a being in the universe that Christ loves as He loves the saints. He is constantly ordering, and arranging, and disposing all events and circumstances for the promotion of their well-being. He would have His joy remain in us, and our joy to be full. And every feeling of holy gladness that thrills us, every spring of sacred joy that refreshes us, every gleam of divine sunshine that falls upon our path, is an emanation from the Divine anointing that distills from Christ upon our souls. Love is the source of it all, love is the conveyancer of it all, love is the end of it all. Light pours not more freely from the sun, nor water from the fountain, than does the "oil of gladness" flow from the heart of Jesus into the hearts of His saints. See how freely the precious anointing flows—"The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me; because the Lord has anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek; He has sent me to bind up the broken-hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captive, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound; to appoint unto them that mourn in Zion, to give unto them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness." O wonderful words! O precious announcements! Come, my soul, and listen! Jesus' anointing was not for Himself, but for others. It was for the "meek," it was for the "broken-hearted," it was for the "mourners in Zion," it was for the "captive," it was for "those who are bound," it was for those who are bowed down to the dust with the "spirit of heaviness." It was for poor, empty sinners—souls that hunger and thirst for righteousness—who feel their vileness, necessity, and nothingness; who come to Him as empty sinners to a full Savior. Who lowers a full bucket into the well? Who carries a full pitcher to the spring? It is emptiness that travels to fullness. So must you come to, deal with, live upon, and receive from, Jesus. A full Christ and an empty sinner travel the same road, side by side, step by step, hand in hand, to glory. With no other will Christ walk. The proud, the self-sufficient, He knows afar off; and they know Him afar off. But the spiritual mourner, the brokenhearted, the poor in spirit, these are they upon whom Jesus delights to pour the oil of joy and gladness, which causes their hearts to glow, their faces to shine, their lips to praise. "Ointment and perfume rejoice the heart." One drop of this precious anointing will turn your sorrow into joy, your mourning into dancing, your complaining into singing; make the name, the work, and sympathy of Jesus more fragrant and precious, and cause the lamp of love and holiness to burn more freely and more brightly than ever. Such are some of the precious privileges and blessings of a vital, inseparable union of a believing sinner with the Lord Jesus.

One instructive point yet remains to be considered. The precious ointment that was on the head of Aaron went down to the skirts of his garments: it reached to the extremity of his sacred person. The spiritual significance of this is peculiarly precious and encouraging to the "poor in spirit,"—to those whose self-acquaintance leads them to walk humbly with God. The humble, believing soul, that lies the nearest and the lowest at Christ's feet, receives the most abundantly of this overflowing and downflowing grace. There is no spot in the universe which concentrates upon itself so much blessedness—where meet and cluster, in focal power, so many holy, precious privileges, as the feet of Jesus. There we learn, there we receive, there we shelter. We are safe, because we are low—we are happy, because we are near. "He gives grace to the lowly," and the lowliest, the most near, receive the most grace. Is this your place, O believer? Do not think meanly of it. There is but one that surpasses it—it is the foot of the throne in glory! And no soul will find itself at the foot of the throne in heaven, that does not find itself at the feet of the Savior on earth. The lowliness of the posture may possibly blind the eye to its peculiar blessedness: a bolder and more confident one may be considered preferable. But let us not be deceived; give me Mary's tears rather than Peter's boasting. Let me sit with her at the feet of Jesus, rather than stand with the self-confident apostle in the judgment-hall. In pleading for this lowly posture, we plead not for a state of mind that excludes holy joy, and an assured hope, as elements foreign to this condition. Far from it. The anointing of Christ—is it not the "oil of gladness?" and does He not give "the oil of joy?" Most assuredly. Then, the believing soul that lies prostrate at His feet—close to the Fountain of all grace, sympathy, and love—partakes the most largely of the "joy of the Lord, which is the strength of their soul;" for "the meek shall increase their joy in the Lord." There, too, hope sheds her brightest beams. For if ever the "good hope through grace" which the gospel unveils, shines the most resplendent upon the soul, it is when, reclining at Jesus' feet, it clings in faith, glows in love, and melts in contrition.

Be exhorted, beloved reader, not to be content without the consciousness of this precious anointing. Rest not satisfied with but a "name to live." Do not surmise or trust that you are Christ's disciple, or child of God, but seek this inward, divine testimony. Plead with God the Holy Spirit to communicate to your soul freely and daily of this precious anointing. This holy oil will impart clearness to your mind, so that you shall have a "right judgment in all things;" it will impart sweetness to your temper, gentleness to your spirit, and will give you a lowly, loving, self-condemning heart. It will make more Christ-like your carriage towards others. Vacating the judgment-seat, and ceasing to be censorious, fault-finding, and condemning, you will be filled with charity and love: the grace of kindness will be in your heart, and the law of kindness on your lip. This precious anointing is so soul-transforming, so Christ-assimilating in its influence, that it is impossible to partake of it in any degree and not be like Jesus. When you see a religious professor proud in heart—lofty in spirit—covetous in his aims—condemning others, justifying himself—detracting, unsympathizing, harsh,—you see one lacking this anointing. He is not sitting at the feet of Jesus. It is only there that the believer sees so much to censure, to loathe, and to condemn in himself, that he has not an eye to discover, nor a tongue to revile, nor a hand to unveil the faults and imperfections of a brother. The holy oil empties and lays low. If in faithfulness it prompts to admonish and to rebuke, it will impart such tenderness, gentleness, and kindness of spirit, of tone, and of words, as shall be an "excellent oil" upon a Christian brother's head, winning him back to Christ by the irresistible law of love. And, oh, if your soul thirsts to know more of Jesus, seek more abundantly the influence of the Holy Spirit. Rest not until He reveals Christ to you. As a royal priest, anointed of God, you possess that indwelling Spirit, who is pledged to instruct, sanctify, and comfort you, until the Master comes and takes you home. "This anointing which you have received of him abides in you, and you need not that any man teach you: but as the same anointing teaches you of all things, and is truth, and is no lie, and even as it has taught you, you shall abide in him." Living beneath this anointing that flows from the Head of His Church, down to the lowest, lowest, poorest, obscurest, feeblest member of His body, your heart will often sigh and long for his appearing, and will pray—"Come, Lord Jesus; come quickly."

THE PRECIOUSNESS OF GOD'S CHILDREN

"The precious sons of Zion, comparable to fine gold." Lamentations 4:2

In our endeavor to evade what from conviction we deem to be erroneous, there is often a tendency to verge to an opposite extreme of error. One of the most serious and popular errors among the many by which the truth of God is assailed is, the exaltation of the Church above its legitimate and assigned position in the Christian economy. With multitudes the Church is an idol, virtually a savior. It is elevated to a pinnacle, enthroned as a sovereign, and invested with an authority and power which God never designed. Dreadful perversion of truth! In a word, the creed and the religion of numbers substitutes the Church for Christ, invades the legislative authority of God, and imposes upon the conscience of Christ's free disciples yokes which Christ's gospel nowhere enjoins. In avoiding this error we are, without due caution and study, liable to run into its opposite—the setting aside the value, the mission, and the glory of the Church of Christ altogether. Both these extremes are anti-christian and fatal. Let us endeavor to find the truth that lies midway between them; and thus walking in the middle path, hold the truth in an equal balance, finding it instructive, sanctifying, and comforting. "Thus says the Lord, Stand you in the ways, and see, and ask for the old paths, where is the good way, and walk therein, and you shall find rest for your souls." (Jer. 6:16.)

It is the glory of God that He has in the world A CHURCH—that it is composed of His elect, chosen from eternity, redeemed by Christ, and called by the Holy Spirit, a people gathered out of all lands, found in all Christian communions, and constituting, as a whole, an incorporate body, of which the Lord Jesus Christ is the Head. This body may be, as alas! it too much is, divided and sundered by differences of judgment on external and unvital points, but essentially and indivisibly it is ONE Church of God—one Family—one Bride of the Lamb—one spiritual house—and "all built upon the foundation of apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself the chief corner-stone," of whom, as such, we shall in a subsequent chapter of this work more particularly speak. Our present object is not so much to define the nature or expound the principles of Christ's one Church, as to assert its existence, unfold and illustrate its worth and preciousness. There is much sanctifying, comforting teaching involved in this truth—the preciousness of God's children. It is impossible to study it, and not rise from an admiration of the beauty, glory, and preciousness of the Church, to the transcendent beauty, glory, and preciousness of Him whose Church she is, in whose righteousness she is clothed, and in whose loveliness she is lovely. "The precious sons of Zion, comparable to fine gold." Let us consider the title, and the preciousness of God's people, as suggested to our minds by this passage.

It is a high and honorable appellation "the sons of Zion." The world holds the Church of God very cheap. No gold, nor fine gold is it in the eye and estimation of the ungodly. And yet the world owes its existence to the Church. The Church of Christ is, instrumentally and subordinately, the world's savior. It is the conservator of the world, its salt, its light. Take out of the world all who are witnesses for God, for Christ, and for the Gospel—all who are living "godly, righteously, and soberly in this present evil world"—all who mourn for sin, who trample on their own righteousness, and trust alone in the righteousness of the Lord Jesus; in a word, all the good and holy and useful, and what remains but a mass of unmitigated evil—a world of unrelieved corruption—an empire wholly in rebellion against God, and in supreme subjection to Satan?

Thus, extract the salt, extinguish the light, sift the wheat, separate the gold, and eliminate the pure truth from the mass of error, and nothing is left but fuel for the final and fearful conflagration. This is the doom that awaits it when the last son of Zion shall have shaken its dust from his feet, and this earth shall no longer be the home and dwelling-place of the Church. Unclasp the vine that imparts beauty to, that climbs around, holds together and preserves the decayed and crumbling trunk, and it falls to dust and ruin. Thus will it be with this world when the Lord shall come and remove from it the Church which has so long been its moral preservation and its beauty. But the Church of God is His Zion, whom He loves, His dwelling place. "Jehovah-Shammah"—The Lord is there—is its name. His Church is His only home upon earth. He dwells not in temples made with hands—the gorgeous cathedral, the Gothic abbey, the costly sanctuary, the material structure, planned, reared, and adorned by human device and are. A spiritual being, He can only dwell in the spiritual. "God is a Spirit," and His temple, His worship, and His offerings must be spiritual. Therefore has He declared that His fit, favorite, and only dwelling upon earth is the humble mind, the broken heart, the contrite spirit, the empty, lowly, penitent, and believing soul. Listen to His solemn averment of this great and holy truth:—"Thus says the Lord, The heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool: where is the house that you build unto me? and where is the place of my rest? For all those things has mine hand made, and all those things have been, says the Lord: but to this man will I look, even to him that is poor, and of a contrite spirit, and trembles at my word." (Isa.66:1, 2.) This is the house we will build to the Lord, and this is the place of His rest! Does this page meet the glance of such a one? Blessed saint! There rears not its proud head a structure in the universe so distinguished as you. Your soul is the habitation of Him who is the "high and lofty One that inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy," who has said; "I dwell in the high and holy place, with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit."

The Church of God, then, is His Zion. His people are denominated the "sons of Zion," in reference to the fact of the Church being the spiritual birth-place of His people. "As soon as Zion travailed, she brought forth her children." (Isa. 66:8.) "And of Zion it shall be said, This and that man was born in her." (Ps. 87:5.) The Church of God is the spiritual birth-place of His people. Every true child of God, every convert to Christ, is a son and a inhabitant of this city. He is born through the labors of the Church of Christ, he is nourished by the instructions of the Church of Christ, he is watched over and trained for heaven by the care and discipline of the Church of Christ, "who is the mother of us all." And "the Lord shall count, when he writes up the people, that this man was born there." Oh precious privilege this, to be registered among God's people, to be written among the living in Jerusalem," to be numbered with the children of God! Have you, my reader, any evidence that this is your honored place? Does your name stand upon the sacred roll of those who are "called to be saints?" What if it should not appear when the Lord "writes up the people!" Search, examine, and ascertain. Are you among the "mourners in Zion?" Do you "love her solemn feasts," and are you walking in her holy ways, your face fully set towards the Mount Zion of glory, of which John in the Apocalypse had a vision, "And I looked, and, lo, a Lamb stood on the mount Zion, and with Him an hundred forty and four thousand, having His Father's name written in their foreheads?" If this is your present condition, the Zion of God your spiritual home, and the God of Zion your covenant God, then may you clap your hands with joy. "Glorious things are spoken of you, O city of God;" and in these "glorious things" that now are, and that are yet to be revealed, you shall share. Of the preciousness of the Lord's people—these sons of Zion—let us now speak.

The Holy Spirit compares them to "fine gold." The precious sons of Zion, comparable to fine gold." We have yet much to learn, even the most deeply instructed, concerning the preciousness and privileges of God's people. Are we not in great danger of taking divine truth for granted? Instead of sifting its evidences, searching into its blessedness, and realizing its power and sweetness in our souls, we give to it too much of a cold intellectual assent. We assume that the Lord's people are a privileged and precious people; but we little surmise how much blessedness, sweetness, and holiness is bound up in this truth—how much there is of God and of Christ in it. It is impossible, as we have remarked, to study the character and trace the history of God's Church, and not know more of the wisdom, power, and love of God. It is in the salvation of this Church that He has embarked all His glory, and has revealed Himself in a way that will fill all the celestial intelligences, saints and angels, with wonder, love, and praise through eternity. My reader, study the history of God's Church, for therein God is revealed in a volume second only in its grandeur, interest, and importance to the volume of His revealed Word. And now let us proceed to illustrate and open up the preciousness of the Lord's people—"The precious sons of Zion, comparable to fine gold."

We begin with the groundwork of the subject—the preciousness of God's people to God Himself. The proof He has given of this is His everlasting love towards them; His eternal choice of them to salvation; His anticipation of their fall in the first Adam, and His provision for their recovery in the second Adam. Who can read the following declarations, and not rise to a lofty conception of God's estimate of the worth and preciousness of His people?—"Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ: according as he has chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love: having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, wherein He has made us accepted in the Beloved." (Eph.1:3-6.) Not His election of them only, which is the spring-head of all the subsequent displays of His grace and favor, but His provision for their salvation, in the gift of His beloved Son, demonstrates God's estimate of their preciousness. Ponder the declaration of this truth—"In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him. Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us, and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins." (1 John 4:9, 10.) Behold, beloved, how precious you are to God! That which God chooses, upon which He sets His eternal mind and heart, that which He secures to Himself at a sacrifice so great and costly, must be precious to Him. Upon no beings has He expended so much divine perfection, and in none has He made such illustrious displays of His glory, as His saints. All His eternal decrees and purposes—all His everlasting grace and love—all His marvelous works in time, center in this one body—His elect, redeemed Church, "to the intent that now, unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places, might be known by the church the manifold wisdom of God." His adoption of His people, in union with their election and salvation, forms another striking illustration of their preciousness to God's heart, and of their beauty in His eye. "Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to Himself." "As many as received Him, to them gave He power" (or privilege) "to become the sons of God." (John 1:12.) "Behold, what manner of love the Father has bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God!" (1 John 3:1.) "And because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father." (Gal. 4:6.) What more shall we say? Can anything add to the proof of God's estimate of the worth and preciousness of His people? He has loved them, chosen them, adopted them, saved them; and in each one and all of these successive demonstrations, He has declared to the universe how dear to His heart, and glorious to His eye, are "the precious sons of Zion, comparable to fine gold." In this Zion of His love and choice He dwells, displays the tokens of His especial favor, and shows forth His greatest glory. "For the Lord has chosen Zion; he has desired it for his habitation. This is my rest for ever: here will I dwell; for I have desired it. I will abundantly bless her provision: I will satisfy her poor with bread. I will also clothe her priests with salvation; and her saints shall shout aloud for joy." (Psalm 132:13-16.) And in the assurances He has given in His revealed Word of their ultimate and eternal glory—the final, full, and certain gathering together of all His children in their "Father's house" above—He has put the climax to the evidence of their worth and preciousness. "And they shall be mine, says the Lord of hosts, in that day when I make up my jewels" (or, special treasure); "and I will spare them, as a man spares his own son that serves him." (Mal. 3:17.) Well may God challenge His people, and say, "And now, O inhabitants of Jerusalem, and men of Judah, judge, I pray you, between me and my vineyard. What could have been done more to my vineyard, that I have not done in it?" (Isaiah 5:3, 4.) When a God of infinite resources says He could have done no more, oh, what a stupendous, marvelous, overwhelming demonstration have we of the preciousness of His Church to His heart!

Thus far have we contemplated the Church of God in its collective form. But all that Zion is to God as a Church, it is to Him in its individual capacity,—"The precious sons of Zion." Each son of Zion is equally precious to Him as the whole. It cost Him as much love, as much power, as much grace, as much glory to save one sinner, as to save His whole elect Church. Who, then, can decide how dear you are to the Father? your person, your love, your obedience, your service, your offerings, regarded as His especial treasure, and as accepted in the Beloved? Angels are not so near or so dear to God as you. Their music is not so melodious as your poor, faltering praises. Their persons are not so glorious to Him as yours, clothed with the righteousness of His Son. Their tributes of adoration and glory are not so fragrant to Him as your sacrifices offered in faith and love, all-perfumed with the atoning merits of Jesus. He has pardoned your sins—has justified your persons—has provided, in Christ, for your necessities—is schooling and training you, by the hallowed discipline of the covenant, for the many-mansioned home He has provided, and Christ is preparing for you; and you shall dwell in His presence, and swim in His love, and bask in His glory through endless ages. Child of God! Son of Zion! is not this enough?

Equally precious are the "precious sons of Zion" to the Eternal Son of God. How shall we attempt to vindicate and unfold the love of Christ to His people—the great and costly proof of that affection which He has given? Who can fathom its depth, scale its height, or measure its length and breadth? That which is infinite is measureless; that which is eternal is boundless. And yet, though we may not compass its dimensions—for it is "a love that passes knowledge"—we may "know the love of Christ." For the affection He bore us He voluntarily espoused our cause in eternity—bound Himself in an unalterable covenant to accomplish our redemption, and, travailing in the greatness of His power and love, finished it. His love made Him willing to become incarnate, to assume our curse, to bear our sins, and to suffer and die in our stead. Rising from the dead, He completed our justification; and ascending up on high, He passed within the veil, "now to appear in the presence of God" as our Advocate and Intercessor. There is no other object upon earth that engages the thoughts or fills the heart of Jesus but His people. His presence, invisible and noiseless, yet real and powerful, perpetually surrounds them. Where the Kingdom is, there is the Sovereign; where the Body is, there is the Head; where the Church is, there is Christ. "Lo, I am with you aways, (literally, all days,) even unto the end of the world." For the accomplishment of the number of His elect, He preserves the world in existence—makes and unmakes empires—puts down one; and raises up another—is guiding the deliberations of cabinets—is employing all human agencies—and is overruling every event and circumstance in the history of this vast universe.

But how precious to Him are the sons of Zion in their individual relation and history. Is there one who has ventured to appeal to His love—to trust in His grace—to accept His salvation, who is not more dear and precious than all the angels in heaven? Oh, how precious to Him the tear of godly sorrow—the touch of trembling faith—the look of lowly love—the offering of sincere gratitude—the yearning and longing of holy desire! So precious to Him are they, His ear is attentive to their faintest cry—His thoughts are never withdrawn from them for a moment—His hand is ever extended to support, and those who touch them touch the apple of His eye. So precious, He sits at the fountain of grace to supply all their need—He bows His shoulder to their heaviest burden—He unveils His heart to their deepest sorrow; and in all places where they dwell, fulfils in their experience the beautiful prediction of the prophet, "He shall feed His flock like a shepherd; He shall gather the lambs with His arm, and carry them in His bosom, and shall gently lead those that are with young." O believer, live not without a deep, constant realization of your preciousness to Christ, and of the depth, tenderness, and constancy of the love He bears towards you. All your present holiness, happiness, and support, springs from your believing apprehension of this fact, that you are precious to the heart of Jesus. Let your faith grasp it, amid the varied phases and changes of your Christian course, and it will be as a sweet flowing stream gliding and sparkling by your side all through the sandy desert, imparting swiftness to your feet in travel, strength to your hand in labor, nerve to your arm in battle,—soothing, reviving, and refreshment to your spirit when sad, faint, and drooping by the way. The Holy Spirit, testifying to your soul of the love the Savior bears you, will remove all that constraint, shyness, and following Him at a distance, which too much characterizes the bearing of so many of His disciples. Be assured of your personal interest in Christ, of your place in His affections, of your home and sanctuary in His heart, and no act of obedience, of love, or of service on your part, will be too costly. Your love to Him will be the inspiration and reflection of His love to you, proportioned in its degree and intensity to the vividness with which His is seen and realized. Nor for this alone would we love Him. Apart from all that He has done, and is doing now, Jesus challenges our admiration and affection. His personal worth, His official work, His glory, and His government, all demand our profoundest homage. This He receives from celestial beings, who, not having sinned, need no repentance, and not having fallen, need no Savior; and this He will receive, in that day when to Him every knee shall bow, and every tongue shall confess; how much more is He worthy of it from those whom He has redeemed with His most precious blood! Reader, has your eye seen His beauty? has your heart bowed before His cross? have you fallen at his feet? and have you crowned Him Lord and Sovereign of your soul? Oh, what is Christ to you—despised, hated, and rejected?—or, adored, loved, and welcomed? Have you received Him, not as a helper, but as a Savior—not as a model, but as a Redeemer? Is He all in all to you? If so, then doubt not your preciousness to Him. "I love those who love me." If His name is as ointment poured forth to your soul, it is an evidence that He has set you as a seal upon His heart and upon His arm, and will wear you as an ornament forever.

Not less precious to the Holy Spirit are the children of God. It must be so, since He has renewed, sanctified, and made them His temple. The work of the Spirit is as essential to our salvation as the finished work of Jesus. There is in many a tendency to regard it as less important, and consequently, with proportionally less reverence and interest. Individuals who would shrink from holding a view of Christ's Atonement derogatory to the essential value and glory of that work, or calculated to neutralize its power, have yet been found to entertain views of the Godhead and work of the Holy Spirit, the effect of which has been to veil the glory of His divine person, and render nugatory His regenerating and sanctifying operation. And yet it is just as fatal an error to believe in the dogma of Baptismal Regeneration—the antagonistic error to the work of the Spirit—as to believe in the dogma of the Mass—the antagonistic error of Christ's sacrifice. So essential, then, is the work of the Spirit in the heart of the regenerate, so divine, holy, and efficacious is it, that all in whom it is wrought, however feeble and obscure it may be, are to Him "the precious sons of Zion." So glorious and so precious to Him is the new creation of the soul, the universe has no beauty, no grandeur, no sublimity in His eye in comparison of it. Dwelling in the soul, He guards with a sleepless eye that new creation which His own Divine power and skill has wrought, and which no inward corruption or outward assault shall ever destroy. Precious to Him is every spiritual desire, every heaven-sent thought, every holy aspiration, every feeble, languid, yet sincere hunger and thirst of the quickened soul after righteousness. All your grateful remembrances of God, all your loving thoughts of Jesus, all your breathings after Him, all your pantings for deeper sanctification, your daily and sore conflicts with sinful desires, and wandering thoughts, and vain imaginations; your infirmities in prayer, your derelictions in duty, your failures in service, your falterings in obedience—all, all are cognizant to His unslumbering eye. And but for His indwelling, His ceaseless vigilance and divine power, this flood of evil, this whirlwind of passion, would upheave the foundations and carry away the edifice of your faith and hope. But the Holy Spirit is enshrined in every believer, and He guards this blood-ransomed, grace-won, and heaven-kept soul night and day, lest any being or anything hurt it. Oh that our hearts may bow in profounder adoration before this Divine Spirit, and ascend on the wing of more ardent, glowing, praiseful love to Him—listening to His voice more attentively, grieving His heart less frequently, and obeying His promptings more implicitly, who has wrought so great, so holy, so indestructible a work in our souls!

"The precious sons of Zion, comparable to fine gold." By this figure the Holy Spirit seeks to illustrate the relative preciousness of the Lord's people. Their clothing is costly, it is of "wrought gold," even the righteousness of God by faith in Christ Jesus. Their ornaments are costly, "comparable to fine gold," even the graces of the Spirit—"love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance"—awakening the admiration of those who have a spiritual discernment of their beauty: "Your cheeks are lovely with rows of jewels, your neck with chains of gold." (Song Sol. 1:10.) This commendation of the Church, which is the commendation of all the Lord's people, is all the more precious, since it follows her own humiliating confession of unworthiness—"I am black." When the believer is low in his own eyes, he is exalted in Christ's. We are never more lovely in His view than when we appear the most unlovely in our own. These words of her Lord teach that though His people have many infirmities, yet there is exceeding great loveliness to be seen in them—they are "comparable to fine gold." There is, too, a plurality of ornament in the believer—not one jewel, but "jewels;" not one chain, but "chains of gold." The graces of the Spirit are not solitary and isolated, they are always conjoined and blended with others. The grace of imputed justification is a cognate grace of imparted sanctification, never separated in the believing soul. He who has one grace has all graces. How minutely does God describe the beauty with which He adorned the soul in conversion, and this is the distinguished condition of every true believer in the Lord Jesus—"I decked you also with ornaments, and I put bracelets upon your hands, and a chain on your neck. And I put a jewel on your forehead, and earrings in your ears, and a beautiful crown upon your head. Thus were you decked with gold and silver." (Ezek. 16:11-13.) Let us select one or two of these spiritual ornaments, as illustrating the preciousness of the believer to Christ.

How precious to Him is your love. Sincere love is precious, even as a human affection, find it in what heart you may. What must be His estimate of divine love in the human heart whose essence is 'love?' Oh, with what ineffable delight He gazes down upon a soul pulsating with a holy, divine affection towards Himself! Can you, beloved reader, say, "Lord, though I am the chief of sinners, the lowest of Your saints, unworthy to loose the shoe-latchets of Your disciples, a poor backslider, a slow traveler, a dull learner, a rebellious child, yet You know that I love You, that You are the sovereign of my affections, the beloved of my heart; that I am in covenant with You, Your child, Your servant, one of Your precious sons of Zion, comparable to fine gold?"—then, beloved, your affection is inconceivably precious to the Lord.

How precious to Him is the obedience of His people. The loving, prompt obedience of a child—how grateful to a parent's heart! There is not an evidence of the sincerity of filial love more true or precious. The loving child is the obedient child; he obeys because he loves. Such is the test of love our adorable Lord—"the everlasting Father" of His people—has demanded. If you love me, keep my commandments." The Lord delights in the obedience of His people. He loves it above any other evidence of love. "To obey is better than sacrifice,"—the most rare and costly you can lay upon God's altar. One holy precept observed, one divine law obeyed, one lowly cross taken up, one cherished sin laid down for Christ's sake, has more of fragrance and acceptance in it to Jehovah than the most glowing, blinded zeal that ever bore a martyr to the stake. Beloved, in this spirit of filial love, search and study the commands of Christ, the laws and institutions of His kingdom, the precepts and examples of His gospel. Tamper not with convictions, do no violence to conscience, resist not the teaching and promptings of the Holy Spirit. If, on a careful research into God's Word, and a faithful examination of your own walk, you discover a command unobeyed, a precept unobserved, a self-denying cross from which, checked by the fear of man, you have shrunk, beware of a persistent course of disobedience! Oh, by all the love you profess to the Savior, walk in obedience to His commands! They are not grievous, but pleasant; they are not arbitrary, but loving; they are not optional, but binding. Essential they may not be to salvation; essential they are to a holy and happy walk. We have already cited obedience to Christ as the test of love. Our Lord, on the same principle, has made conformity to His precepts an evidence of Christian discipleship. "Whoever does not bear his cross, and come after me, cannot be my disciple." And, as if to win our reluctant hearts to obedience, in another place He emphatically says—"Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and you shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light." Soon you will have done with the judgment of this poor world. With your head pressed upon a dying pillow, and with eternity slowly rising upon your view, human opinion will weigh but little with you then. Oh to meet the Savior as a loving disciple, as an obedient child, bearing the "marks of the dying of the Lord Jesus," the scars and chafings of the crude and heavy, yet blessed cross, borne for Him! It will then be of little moment whether you ruled an empire, or swept a crossing; wore a mitre, or served the Savior in the most obscure and lowly sphere of His Church. Found in Christ, standing "complete in all the will of God," you will hear the plaudit and receive the welcome of your Lord and Master—"Well done, good and faithful servant: you have been faithful over a few things, I will make you ruler over many things: enter you into the joy of your Lord."

As belonging to the blessed number of the sons of God, remember that filial and cheerful acquiescence with His parental will is a distinctive feature. The precious sons of Zion are known by their submission to God. It is for this that they are chastened and disciplined, tried and purified; that, comparable to fine gold, they may emerge from the furnace a pure and holy reflection of the Divine image. This is the great secret of repose amid restlessness, calmness amid agitation, confidence amid dark providences,—the will brought into complete subjection to the Divine will,—the heart beating in unison with Christ's heart. The moment you are led to see that all is right, that God has done it, and that it must be well done, you are happy. There is no happiness—not a moment's—in opposing God. Fretting against His dispensations, murmuring at His disposals, fighting against His dealings, resisting His providences, tossed amid the waves of second causes, is just the uplifting of the flood-gates of all distress into the soul. But to lie down at His feet, as the wheat His hand has sifted,—to repose in His heart, as the child His rod has smitten,—to drink the cup His love has mingled, exclaiming, "Not my will, O my Father, but your be done!"—this is happiness indeed! You tried, afflicted sons of Zion, not less precious to the heart of Jesus are you because you are chastened. You have argued against yourselves, and have pleaded against God from the afflictive dispensations of His providence. You have deemed yourselves cast out of His heart, and out of His mind, and out of His sight,—"reprobate silver," and not "fine gold,"—because He has cast you into the "furnace that is in Zion." Listen to the language of one who thus reasoned, but soon discovered how false that reasoning was "I said in my haste, I am cut off from before Your eyes: nevertheless You heard the voice of my supplications when I cried unto You." (Ps. 31:22.) Be not hasty in the conclusion you draw from God's dealings with you. Wait patiently until He unveils the purpose, and clearly shows you the end of the Lord. "Be of good courage, and He shall strengthen your heart, all you that hope in the Lord." Oh the blessedness, the quietness, the perfect peace of a cheerful acquiescence in the will of God! To have a blended will, a united heart, a submissive spirit with Him in His government of you, is to be like God. There is nothing more divinely assimilating and Christ-like. To be like Christ in Gethsemane is to be like Christ in the glory of His throne. To drink the cup in His spirit of profound submission, is to reign with Him forever and ever. The Lord pardon where we have cherished the least rebellion against His dealings,—when we have refused to drink the cup; when we have thought Him hard, and harsh, and arbitrary,—when we have, in our ignorance, supposed we could have devised, and planned, and arranged with more skill and wisdom, and with a happier result than He! May the intercession of Jesus on our behalf avert the correction which our murmuring, repining, and rebellion have evoked! May the sprinkled blood blend every thought, and feeling, and desire with Jesus!

"I did You wrong, my God,
I wronged Your truth and love;
I fretted at the rod,—
Against Your power I strove.

"Come nearer, nearer still;
Let not Your light depart;
Bend, break this stubborn will;
Dissolve this iron heart!

"Less wayward let me be,
More pliable and mild;
In glad simplicity
More like a trustful child.

"Less, less of self each day,
And more, my God, of Thee;
Oh, keep me in the way,
However rough it be.

"Less of the flesh each day,
Less of the world and sin;
More of Your Son, I pray,
More of Yourself within.

"Here molded to Your will,
Lord, let Your servant be;
Higher, and higher still,
More, and still more like Thee!"

It would be an imperfect close of this chapter were the spiritual reader not reminded of the animating truth, that among the "glorious things" that are "spoken of Zion, the city of our God," is the future glory that awaits all her "precious sons." The latter-day glory of the Church, the new Jerusalem of the saints, the return of all the scattered children of Zion in triumph and joy to their final and eternal home in the new earth all radiant with righteousness, with a new heaven smiling from above, presents the most animating and sanctifying prospects that ever unveiled to mortal eye. The COMING OF THE LORD JESUS in personal majesty and official glory to make up His jewels, to perfect the number of His elect, to gather together in one the scattered sons and daughters of Zion, and to present them in their essential and visible unity, "a glorious Church," to the Father, as His Bride, is the one all-revealed, all-consoling, all-inspiring, all-sanctifying hope of the saints. "Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Savior Jesus Christ." "Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many, and unto those who look for Him shall He appear the second time without a sin-offering unto salvation." With a hope before you so blessed and assured, what a motive to believers—what an incentive to devotedness—what a reason for watchfulness—what a bond of unity! What manner of persons ought we to be in all holy conversation and godliness! What separation from the world—what crucifixion of sin—what unreserved consecration to Christ—what wakeful vigilance—what patience in suffering—what meekness in persecution—what communion with the Invisible—what vivid realization of eternal realities, should trace and track our every step towards the full consummation of our bliss! The Lord is at hand! Christ is coming! The Bridegroom is putting on His royal robes! The Bride is longing for His coming! All things indicate the nearness of His approach! The snow-clad mountains of this wintry, dreary world are already edged with the golden streaks of the up-rising Sun. Soon will that Sun appear in its full, its meridian splendor. "Let me go, for the day breaks!" Sin—enchain me no longer! world—attract me no more! creatures—leave your shrine, and loosen your hold upon my affections! sorrow, suffering, trial—your hours are numbered! My Redeemer is coming! My Beloved is hastening! My Lord will soon appear, and receive me to Himself! "Let me go, for the day breaks!" "In a little while He that shall come will come," for "the night is far spent, the day is at hand." Then will the magnificent vision of the Apocalypse be realized, "I John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God. And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away." Sons and daughters of Zion! on, then, and still on, praying, fighting, toiling, suffering, enduring, hoping, for "the morning comes." Then, "the ransomed of the Lord shall return, and come to Zion with songs and everlasting joy upon their heads: they shall obtain joy and gladness; and sorrow and sighing shall flee away."

"Savior! if of Zion's city
I through grace a member am,
Let the world deride or pity,
I will glory in Your name.

"Fading is the worldling's pleasure,
All his boasted pomp and show!
Solid joys and lasting treasure,
None but Zion's children know."

THE PRECIOUSNESS OF GOD'S WORD

"The word of the Lord was precious in those days." I Samuel 3:1.

Among the precious things of God the saints of the Most High will ever regard as transcendently precious His revealed Word. But for this revelation we had known nothing of those precious things upon which this volume is designed to engage the reader's thoughts. The works of creation, varied and rich in their forms of beauty, while they testify to " His power and Godhead," -thus leaving man inexcusable for his atheism, -nowhere supply an answer to the momentous question, "What must I do to be saved?" They bear a palpable and solemn witness to man's apostasy, but they testify nothing to his recovery. They tell of a fallen, but not of a restored humanity. They speak not of a Savior of a salvation of hope of heaven. I may wander in sad and pensive thought upon the sunny banks of its flowing rivers, I may tread its carpeted vales, or climb its cloud-capped mountains, reveling amid its beauty, its grandeur, and sublimity, and yet find no repose for this restless mind, no peace for this troubled heart, no hope for this sinful and lost soul. Not a flower below, not a star above, tells me of JESUS, a Savior!

I turn to the "GLORIOUS GOSPEL of the blessed God," and my case as a ruined, self-destroyed, condemned sinner, is met by that single, but comprehensive and sublime announcement- "This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners." Beloved reader, the kingdom of nature, replete as it is with the wisdom, power, and benevolence of Jehovah, every spire of grass, every lowly flower, every towering mountain, every glimmering star, rebuking the "fool's" denial of a God, can never disclose how you may be pardoned, justified, and saved. No solution can it supply to the great moral problem of the universe how God can be just, and yet the justifier of the ungodly.

The "gospel of the grace of God," which these pages propose to unfold, meets to the utmost your case as a sinner, bringing life and immortality to light, and thus revealing to you a hope, resplendent and eternal, beyond the gloom and corruption of the grave.

In the prosecution of our subject, let it be premised that there are points which it is not our province to discuss. The reasonableness of a revelation from God, the necessity of a revelation, the fact that such a revelation is given to us in the Bible, are questions we must assume as established. It is rather to the worth and preciousness of God's Word, than to any line of argument in proof of its divinity, that we must bend our thoughts. And yet, let it not be supposed that we slight or undervalue evidence as substantiating the truth of the Bible. Everything that is solemn and precious to us as believers is bound up in the fact, that the BOOK upon which we ground our hope of the future is, what it declares itself to be, the WORD OF THE LORD. The moment our faith in the divinity of the Holy Scriptures is shaken, everything else trembles with it. Life, in all its moral relations, wears another and a totally different aspect. Its foliage is withered, its flowers are blighted, its springs are embittered, and the entire landscape of the present and the future is enshrouded in, gloom and despair. No marvel, then, that error should plant its strong and stern battery in front of this the most precious doctrine of our faith -the Divine inspiration of the Scriptures.

How truly has the apostle described the unbelieving mind -"The god of this world has blinded the minds of those who believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them." We hold it, then, of infinite moment that our faith in the divinity of the Bible. in the plenary inspiration of the Scriptures, should grow stronger and stronger; and that whatever tends to instruct and confirm us in this doctrine of our faith, be it a fact in history, a discovery in science, or a page in the volume of our personal history, should be welcomed by us with eagerness, and be acknowledged with devout thanksgiving and praise.

The Lord keep you, my reader, from the low views of divine inspiration prevalent in this day! If this foundation be destroyed, or even apparently shaken, what else has your immortal soul to build upon but quicksand, every step, passing to eternity, over which sinks your soul deeper and deeper in doubt, darkness, and despair ?
As the Word of the Lord, then, it is most precious. It could possess no real intrinsic worth apart from this fact. The Bible claims to be nothing less than the WORD OF GOD. " All scripture is given by inspiration from God," and "holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit." We part the lids of this sacred volume, and we listen to God's voice sometimes in terrific thunder, at others in entrancing music now in sublime majesty, then gentle as an infant's whisper, in mercy and in judgment God's Word speaks. That infidelity should wish to disbelieve and stifle this divine voice speaking from the Bible, is no marvel, since, if the Bible is true, infidels have no hope. An illustration of this may be cited. The late William Wilberforce, when passing through a town in which a noted infidel was imprisoned for blasphemy, called to see him. He endeavored to engage the unhappy sceptic in a conversation upon the Scriptures, but he declined, saying, that he had made up his mind, and did not wish his conclusions disturbed. Pointing to the Bible in the hands of his visitor, he remarked, in a manner which betrayed deep malignity of heart, blended with mental despair, " How, sir, do you suppose that I can like that Book, since, if it be true, I am undone forever?" "No," replied the illustrious philanthropist and Christian, " this is not a necessary consequence, and need not be. This Book excludes none from hope who will seek salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us, that whether we wake or sleep we may live together with Him." Thus infidelity rejects the Bible for fear it is true! We recur to the thought that God's Word is precious because it is truly and emphatically His Word, the Word of JEHOVAH. And when the believer opens the Bible, it is with the profound and solemn conviction that he is about to listen to the voice of God!

But not only is the Word of God precious as a revelation of His being and perfections, but to the child of God it is peculiarly so as revealing the mind and will of God. What the thoughts and purposes of God were could be but dimly gathered from the external works and operations of nature. If these divine thoughts were ever made known to man, GOD himself must reveal them. "Can you by searching find out God? can you find out the Almighty unto perfection?" We cannot fully fathom even the finite mind; how much less the Infinite! If at all acquainted with the science of physiognomy, we may trace some faint glimmer in the human countenance of the mental emotions, but this is all the index we have of the hidden thoughts and feelings of the soul. Now, by a similar process, we may learn something of God. The face of nature the natural countenance of God is replete with his power, wisdom, and beauty. There is enough of His Godhead to confound and silence the deepest and loudest atheism of man. But nature can go no further. It leads me to the vestibule, but cannot conduct me into the glory within. It tells me there is a God, but it reveals not His nature and character as a Father and a sin-forgiving God. But where nature leaves me, revelation comes to my aid. Hence the high estimate in which God is represented as regarding His own Word. "You have magnified Your Word above all Your name." That is, God has magnified His Word above every other manifestation of His name, there being no such revelation and illustration of the Deity as is found in His revealed Word. Do the heavens and the earth declare the glory of God? Does providence testify to His divine government? How much more His revealed truth! Truly, "You have magnified Your Word above all Your name." As a revelation of His character, the Word of God is precious. What we gather of God's moral character from the kingdom of nature is more inferential than positive. From its creation, we infer the being of God; from its loveliness, we infer that God is beautiful; from its wonders, we infer that God is great; from the admirable unity and fitness of all its parts, we infer that God is wise; from the merciful blessings so richly and profusely scattered over its surface, we infer that God is good; and from the judgments which follow sin, and land upon the sinner, we infer that God is holy and just. But for the clear, positive, and complete revelation of God's character as a righteous, holy, wise, merciful, and sin-pardoning God, we must repair to His written Word. God has unfolded more of His moral character, perfections, and glory in the following words, spoken to Moses on Mount Sinai, amid the awful emblems of His majesty, than in all the beauties, wonders, and sublimities of His created work: "And the LORD descended in the cloud, and stood with him there, and proclaimed the name of the LORD. And the LORD passed by before him, and proclaimed. The LORD, the LORD God, merciful and gracious, long-suffering, and abundant in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty; visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon the children's children, unto the third and to the fourth generation." (Exod. xxxiv. 5-7.) What a glorious unfolding of God! What a foreshadowing of the yet richer unfolding of the gospel! If God was so glorious on Mount Sinai, what must be His glory as revealed on Mount Calvary!

As a revelation of the love of God, His Word is inexpressibly precious. We want to know more than the mind of God. We are sinners, and we want to read His heart—His loving, gracious, sin-forgiving heart. We want to know, not only what His thoughts and purposes are, but what are His feelings towards us. Does He love us? Does His justice smile on us? Does His heart expand with mercy, and glow with affection towards us ? The Bible alone supplies the answer to these momentous questions. There we read—as we read it tableted in no part of this vast and beautiful universe— "GOD is LOVE." And when we approach the subject yet closer, penetrate more deeply into the heart of God, what a transcendent, marvellous unfolding of His love is presented in the gift of His beloved Son! Read the declaration, often read before, yet to read again and again with deepening wonder, gratitude, and praise— "God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life." "In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him. Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us, and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins."
How precious ought that Word to be to our hearts which contains such declarations and reveals such truths as these! Well may the apostle exclaim, "Here in is love!" as if he had said, and he might have added, "and nowhere else but here!" Nowhere in the heavens above, or in the earth beneath, or in the waters under the earth; no star, no flower, no creature, so reveals, expresses, and embodies the love of God as the gift of His dear Son to die for our sins. Oh, what love is this! "God so loved the world!" So loved, that He gave Jesus! Jesus is the most precious exponent of God's love; Jesus descends from the bosom of His love; Jesus draws aside the veil of His love; Jesus is God's love expressed, God's love incarnate, God's love speaking, laboring, dying, redeeming! Beyond this it would seem impossible that love could go. Oh, let every affection of our heart, every faculty of our soul, every power of our mind, every action of our life, embody as its grateful response the words of the adoring apostle, "Thanks be unto God for His unspeakable Gift!"

We are conducted to another view in the progress of our subject, illustrating the preciousness of God's Word. We refer to its gospel announcements. Jn this light, we cannot conceive of a more costly, precious blessing than the Word of God. The Gospel is the most valuable treasure the believer possesses. Everything else is shadowy, chimerical, transitory, passing away. Nothing is real, nothing substantial, nothing satisfying and abiding, except the "glorious gospel of the blessed God." Jt is the glorious gospel, because it is replete with real glory in reveals a glorious God, it makes known a glorious Savior, it proclaims a glorious salvation, and it unveils the hope of a glorious immortality. And all other glory in comparison of the "glorious gospel of the blessed God" is as visionary and fleeting as a midnight dream. Nowhere does Jehovah appear so glorious as in the gospel of His grace. There He is revealed as a sin-forgiving God; there He is mirrored forth as a "just God and a Savior," there He is portrayed as a reconciled God in Christ; and there He is represented as standing in the relation, and exercising the love, of a FATHER. O glorious gospel that presents such a view of God to the sinner's believing eye! "God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself. What declaration can more clearly indicate the love of God to us, as the moving, originating cause of our salvation, than this?

There is a marked, and we think, essential defect in the theology of many Christians touching this subject, which tends much to obscure the Divine glory, and to lessen in our view the greatness of God's love in man's salvation. We refer to the statements which represent God as angry, incensed, and vindictive, and as appeased, pacified, and reconciled by the death of Christ. Is not this an essential misapprehension of God's everlasting love to His people? Would it not appear from this representation of God that the Atonement of Christ was the originating cause of His love, rather than that His love was the originating cause of the Atonement? We think so. We look upon this notion of God as enshrouding the glory of redemption, by the palpably false view it presents of the Divine character. But the correct statement is the converse of this. God loved us- and as a result, Christ died for us. The Atonement of the Son of God was not the procuring cause, but the consequence, of the Father's love. Christ did not inspire God with love to man, but expressed it. He did not die to originate the Divine affection, but to expound and exhibit it. The love of God to His people was as eternal as the eternity of His being, as everlasting as His uncreated nature. "I have loved you with an everlasting love." It panted, it yearned for an outlet. It sought and found it in Christ. The Atonement of Jesus, uniting and harmonizing all the perfections of the Deity, supplied the channel through which the ocean of Divine love washed the shores of this earth, its soul-healing waves spreading like a sea of life over our sin-tainted, curse-blighted, sorrow-stricken humanity.

When, therefore, the Scriptures speak of Divine reconciliation, as in the passage just quoted, we are to understand the full expiatory satisfaction given to God's moral government through the Atonement of Christ, by which His law is honored. His justice is satisfied. His holiness is secured, His truth is maintained, and He appeared upon earth walking among men, "reconciling the world unto Himself."

But the experience of the believer supplies, perhaps, the most powerful and conclusive testimony to the preciousness of God's Word. We have not been advancing a vain thing, but a well-attested fact, in affirming the divinity and value of revelation. We are now about to cite the child of God- yes, the whole Church of Christ as testifying to the preciousness of the Word of the Lord. How many a truth-experienced, gospel-believing, Christ-loving heart will respond to the words of David, "How sweet are Your words unto my taste! yes, sweeter than honey to my mouth." What says Jeremiah? "Your words were found, and I did eat them; and Your word was unto me the joy and rejoicing of my heart." Corresponding with this is the experience of the universal Church, find it where we may, whatever may be the dissonance of opinion prevailing upon less essential and important questions of polity and worship.

It is precious to the believer, first, because it is divine, attested, experienced Truth. Is it not so that, to you who believe in God's Word, every other word in comparison seems a fiction and a fable? And that, as you grow in grace, as your acquaintance with, and experience of, the Word of God deepens, as you near eternity, your hold upon everything else grows fainter and fainter, and your grasp upon it grows firmer and firmer?

Now, God's Word is truth. He who is emphatically " the Truth," because He is essential truth, and the substance of revealed truth, has affirmed this in His sublime and memorable prayer—properly the Lord's Prayer—"Your Word is truth." Pursue this thought for a moment. There would seem to exist a necessity that it should be so, since it is the Word of the God of truth, partaking of the nature of that God whose truth it is. All that emanates from God must be a transcript, in some degree, of what He is. It is faintly so in the works of nature; yet more clearly so in the kingdom of providence: perfectly so in the empire of grace. The great truth, then, to which these three witnesses testify is this, "He is the Rock, His work is perfect: for all His ways are judgment: a God of truth and without iniquity, just and right is He." (Deut. xxxii. 4.) It follows then, as clearly as any conclusion can from premise, that His Word is true—eternally, essentially, immortally true. True in the Savior it reveals—in the salvation it declares—in the doctrines it expounds—in the precepts it enforces— in the promises it speaks—in the hopes it unveils —and in the threatenings it denounces. "YOUR WORD is TRUTH."

As divine truth, then, it is most precious to the believer who has staked his all of future and eternal happiness upon its veracity. Let your faith, beloved reader, have more close dealing with the truth of God's Word. Whatever gloomy and untoward providences may gather their shadows around your path, hold fast your confidence in the truth of God's Word. You shall find mutability in everything but this. God will vary His providences, but cannot alter His Word. "Forever, 0 Lord, Your Word is settled in heaven." Heaven, with its resplendent glory and surpassing wonder—earth, with its countless myriads of beings, its beauty, and its history, shall be a thing of yesterday, not a vestige remaining to tell of its existence, its grandeur, and its greatness; but "the Word of the Lord shall endure forever."

All that God has Whispered in mercy, or has thundered in judgment—the promise of love, the threatening of wrath—all the precious words upon which He has caused our souls to hope the succourings pledged, the sure mercies covenanted, the assurances given, the consolations engaged, the oath sworn, shall all be fulfilled. Then, amid the fluctuations and the vicissitudes of all sublunary things, the home of childhood changed, the place of hallowed memories and sacred associations changed, the friends and companions of our choicest, sunniest years changed, adversity and death flinging their deep shadows upon life's landscape, we will approach the closer and cling the firmer to the eternal, unchangeable TRUTH of our God. Your faith, beloved, in God's word of promise may be severely tried by God's dealings with you in providence the one may appear to oppose and contradict the other but ever remember that God cannot deny Himself, nor alter the word that has gone out of His mouth. If the sentence of death seems pronounced upon the promise of God by His strange and mysterious procedure, forget not that there is yet life in the Word of the Lord; and that when the stone that sealed the tomb of all your mercy is rolled away, the Word upon which your soul has reposed, upon which your heart has lived, to which your faith has clung, and which has kept alive the spark of hope within your breast, shall come to life again, every sentence, word, and syllable fulfilled to the letter by Him of whom it is said, "It is impossible that God should lie." Oh, cling then to Christ's Word, as the mariner to the plank, as the mother to her infant, yes, as a humble believer in that divine and gracious Savior who has said, "Him that comes unto me I will in no wise" literally, "I will never, no, never, cast out."

As testifying of Jesus and His salvation, the Word of God must ever be transcendently precious to the believer. The Bible is, from its commencement to its close, a record of the Lord Jesus. Around Him the divine and glorious Center -all its wondrous types, prophecies, and facts gather. His Promise and Foreshadowing, His holy Incarnation, Nativity, and Baptism, His Obedience and Passion, His Death, Burial, and Resurrection, His Ascension to heaven, His Second Coming to judge the world, and to set up His glorious kingdom, are the grand and touching, the sublime and tender, the priceless and precious truths interwoven with the whole texture of the Bible, to which the Two Witnesses of Revelation the Old and the New Testaments bear their harmonious and solemn testimony. Beloved, let this be the one and chief object in your study of the Bible the knowledge of Jesus. The Bible is not a history, a book of science, a poem, it is a record of Christ. Study it to know more of Him, His nature, His love, His work. With the magnanimous Paul, "count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus your Lord."
Then will God's Word become increasingly precious to your soul, and its truths unfold. You will trace the history of Jesus, see the glory of Jesus, admire the work of Jesus, learn the love of Jesus, and hear the voice of Jesus, in every page. The whole volume will be redolent of His name, and luminous with His beauty. Oh, what were the Bible to us apart from its revelation of a Savior! Is there not great danger of studying it merely intellectually and scientifically, of reveling among its literary beauties and its grandeur, blind to its true value, and without any desire to know that precious Savior who died for sinners, that Divine Redeemer who purchased the ransom of His Church with His own blood; that Friend who loves us, that Brother who sympathizes with us, that enthroned High Priest who intercedes for us within the veil?

May we not resort to it as mere controversialists, polemics, and partisans, searching it but for weapons of attack upon a Christian brother's system or creed, or quoting it but to give countenance and complexion to a favorite dogma? But do we study the "Word of Christ" spiritually and honestly, as those whose souls hunger and thirst for this the bread and water of life? Do we search it diligently and earnestly as for hid treasure—treasure beyond all price? Can we say with David, "O how love I your law ! it is my meditation all the day?" "The entrance of your Word gives light; it gives understanding unto the simple. I opened my mouth, and panted: for I longed for your commandments,"—"Your Word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path."

Do we read it with a child-like mind, receive it with a believing heart, bow to its teaching with reverence of soul, and receive its decisions in all questions of faith and practice as decisive and ultimate? In a word, do we search the Scriptures humbly, prayerfully, depending upon the guidance of the Spirit, to find Jesus in them? Of these Scriptures He is the Alpha and the Omega—the substance, the sweetness, the glory—the one, precious, absorbing THEME. Listen to His own words, "Search the Scriptures, for these are they which testify of me." Moses wrote of Me—David sang of Me—seers prophesied of Me—evangelists recorded My life —apostles expounded My doctrine—and martyrs have died for My name. "THESE ARE THEY WHICH TESTIFY OF ME." Yes, Lord! Your word is precious to our souls, because it reveals to us Your glory, and tells us of Your love!

Precious, too, is the Word of God, as containing doctrine, precept, and promise. The doctrines are precious, as affording instruction to the mind, and establishment to the faith of the child of God. There can be no real, stable building up in God's truth when the great doctrines of grace are faintly believed and loosely held. These doctrines, then, which exalt the Lamb of God, which lay the glory and power and boasting of the creature in the dust, and which exhibit the electing love and sovereign grace of God in his salvation, are most precious to the truth-experienced heart of the believer in Jesus.

Not less precious to him is the preceptive teaching of God's Word. When there is a real experience of the power of the doctrines, there will be a love of the precept. You will desire to be sanctified, as well as justified—to have your heart purified, and your life molded by the holiness of the truth. The precept that enjoins separation from the world—that teaches us to deny all ungodliness, and to live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present evil world—that bids us take up our daily cross and follow a crucified Savior, and realizing our resurrection life in Him, thus to seek those things that are above, where Christ sits at the right hand of God—must be precious, inconceivably precious, to a Christ-loving heart.

The rebukes, too, of God's Word, humbling though they are, yet are welcome to the believer. The Word that gently chides your backslidings, unveils your follies, checks your inconsistencies, lays your pride, self-seeking, and self-boasting in the dust, is precious to your soul. The Christian feels, that "all Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works," and therefore he welcomes all. Beloved, count not less dear to your heart, or as less the tender unfolding of God's love, those parts of His truth which reprove humble, empty, and lay you low. The rebukes and reproofs of God's Word are as valuable and precious in themselves as the promises, since both equally seek the sanctification of the believer, and both emanate from the same Divine mind, and flow from the same loving heart.

As a source of Divine consolation how many will testify to the preciousness of God's Word! The Bible, while it is a proclamation of mercy to the vilest sinner, is equally the book of the afflicted. As a system of consolation Christianity has no equal. No other religion in the wide world touches the hidden springs of the soul, or reaches the lowest depths of human sorrow, but the religion of Christ. Saints of the living God! suffering members of a suffering Head! we cite you as witnesses to this truth. When your hearts have been overwhelmed, when adversity has wrapped you within its gloomy pall, when the broken billows of grief have swollen and surged around your soul, how have you fled to the Scriptures of truth for succor and support, for guidance and comfort! Nor have you repaired to them in vain. "The God of all comfort" is He who speaks in this Word, and there is no word of comfort like that which He speaks. The adaptation of His truth to the varied, the peculiar and personal trials and sorrows of His Church, is one of the strongest proofs of its divinity. Take to the Word of God whatever sorrow you may, go with whatever mental beclouding, with whatever spirit-sadness, with whatever heart-grief; whatever be its character, its complexion, its depth unsurpassed in the history of human sorrow, there is consolation and support in the Word of God for your mind.

There is in these sacred pages a voice of sympathy and soothing chiming with your grief; and thus "by the comfort of the Scriptures you have hope" that God will not leave you in trouble, but will sustain you in it, will bring you out of, and sanctify you by it, to the endless glory and praise of His great and precious name. O you sons of God whose faith has been strengthened by the histories of the Old Testament saints whose minds have been instructed by the dealings of God with His Church in the wilderness whose hearts have been comforted by the rich experience of David in the Psalms -whose views of God's kingdom prophets have enlarged -whose knowledge of Christ's history evangelists have deepened -whose souls apostles have established in the faith, we cite you as witnesses to the divinity and preciousness of God's Word. "You are my witnesses, says the Lord."

Testify to an infidel world what the Bible is, and to the saints what you have experienced it to be. Tell how its revealed truths have established you, how its illustrious examples of piety, faith, and love have animated you, how its exceeding great and precious promises have comforted you, and how the glorious hope of heaven which the gospel unveils has inspired you to run with patience the race set before you, looking unto Jesus. Tell how this precious Word of God has made clear many a perplexity, has illumined many a dark road, has cheered many a lonesome way, has soothed many a deep sorrow, has guided and upheld many a faltering step, and has crowned with victory many a feat of arms in the great battle with Satan, the world, and sin. May we not say of the Bible, as David said of Saul's sword, "There is none like it."

Christian mourner, let me once more direct your eye too dimmed perhaps by tears to behold this divine source of true, unfailing comfort. God's Word is the book of the afflicted. Written to unfold the wondrous history of the "Man of Sorrows," it would seem to have been equally written for you, 0 child of grief! God speaks to your sad and sorrowing heart from every page of this sacred volume, with words of comfort, loving, gentle, and persuasive as a mother's. "As one whom his mother comforts, so will I comfort you." The Bible is the opening of the heart of God. It is God's heart unveiled, each throb inviting the mourner, the poor in spirit, the widow, the fatherless, the bereaved, the persecuted, the sufferer, yes, every form and child of affliction and grief to the asylum and sympathy, the protection and soothing of His heart. Oh, thank God for the comfort and consolation of the Scripture! Open it with what sorrow and burden and perplexity you may, be it the guilt of sin, the pressure of trial, or the corrodings of sorrow, it speaks to the heart such words of comfort as God only could speak.

Have you ever borne your grief to God's Word, especially to the experimental Psalms of David, and not felt that it was written for that particular sorrow? You have found your grief more accurately portrayed, your state of mind more truly described, and your case more exactly and fully met, probably in a single history, chapter, or verse, than in all the human treatises that the pen of man ever wrote. What a proof that the Bible is the Word of God! We verily believe that no Christian is thoroughly versed in the evidences of the truth of the Bible, or is in a right position to understand its divine contents, until he is afflicted. Luther remarks that he never understood the Psalms until God afflicted him.

Fly to the Word of God, then, in every sorrow. You will know more of the mind and heart of God than you, perhaps, ever learned in all the schools before. We must be experimental Christians, if Christians at all. A bare notionalist, a mere theorist, an empty professor of religion, is a fearful deception. Study to know God's Word from a heartfelt experience of its quickening, sanctifying, comforting power. Sit not at the feet of men, but at the feet of Jesus. His Word can alone instruct you in these sacred and precious truths. You must learn in Christ's school, and be taught by the Holy Spirit. And if you are truly converted, spiritually regenerated, a real believer in the Lord Jesus, think not that some strange thing has happened to you when the Lord causes you to pass under the rod of discipline, brings you into trial, and makes you to partake of what may seem to you a soul-diet that is anything but healthful and nutritious, "the bread of adversity, and the water of affliction." (Isa. Xxx.20)

But affliction is one of the Lord's moulds for shaping you into an experimental Christian. And to be an experimental Christian His Word must be inwrought into our soul. What can we know of the promises, the succourings, the sympathy of God's Word, its perfect adaptation to the crushed and sorrowful condition of our humanity, but for trial? Thus, more than one-half of the Bible is a "garden inclosed, a spring shut up, a fountain sealed," until the Lord lays sorrow upon our hearts, and brings us into circumstances of adversity. Then this garden unveils its beauty, and this spring pours forth its refreshment, and this fountain overflows with its rich and varied supply. Oh, with what power, depth, and sweetness does the Word of God unfold to us then! It is as though a new book had been composed, another constellation in the spiritual hemisphere had burst upon the telescope of faith, another Arcadia had floated into view, a new world had been discovered!

"Blessed is the man whom You chasten, O Lord, and teach him out of Your law." "Unless Your law had been my delight, I should then have perished in my affliction." Draw, then, O child of sorrow, your consolation from God's Word. Put it not away as if it were for others, and not for you. There is not a promise in the Bible, of pardon, of grace, of help, of sympathy, but it is yours, because you are Christ's, "in whom are all the promises of God, and in Him are Yes and Amen to the glory of God the Father." Oh, clasp this precious Word of comfort to your sorrowful heart, and exclaim, "It is mine! The Jesus of whom it speaks is mine, the salvation it reveals is mine, the promises it contains are mine, the heaven it unveils is mine, and all the consolation, comfort, and sympathy which wells lip from these hidden springs, is MINE."

The Word of God is equally valuable and precious to the believer, because of its quickening power. There is a divine vitality in the Word, which, like Ezekiel's vision of the waters, conveys life wherever it comes in "the power and demonstration of the Spirit." As the instrument of regeneration and of sanctification, the Bible is beyond all price. The statements touching these two points are many and conclusive. We quote but a few: "The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul, making wise the simple, rejoicing the heart, enlightening the eyes." (Ps.xix. 7, 8.) See how David extols its quickening power: "This is my comfort in my affliction: for Your word has quickened me." "I will never forget Your precepts: for with them You have quickened me. "As the instrument of the new birth, thus does the Holy Spirit speak of it: "Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the Word of God, which lives and abides forever." (I Peter i. 23.) "The Word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart." (Heb. iv. 12.)

And alluding to it equally as the appointed instrument of holiness, our Lord prays to His Father, "Sanctify them through Your truth." And to the disciples He employs similar language: "Now you are clean through the word which I "have spoken unto you." Employing the same argument, the apostle thus exhorts the saints: "Seeing you have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit unto unfeigned love of the brethren, see that you love one another with a pure heart fervently." Clearly, then, is God's Word an instrument of spiritual life and of gospel holiness, and as such commends itself to the deepest reverence, the warmest love, and the most diligent study of the believer. Allow, beloved reader, a few words of exhortation bearing upon this subject.

Study the Scriptures of truth with a heart in prayerful uplifting for the accompanying power, light, and anointing of the Holy Spirit. The Word is but a dead letter, unattended by the Spirit. The Word of God is a "sword," but the sword is effectual only as it is wielded, by the power of the Spirit. "The sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God." Expect, then, this Word to be powerful in your own souls, as in the souls of those upon whom you bring it to bear, only as it is clothed with the divine and irresistible might and energy of the Holy Spirit. Then it will quicken, enlighten, and convince; then it will convert, comfort, and sanctify. Ever remember that the Divine Author of the Bible is at your side—invisible and noiseless—when you sit down to read it. Graciously and kindheartedly He is bending over you, prepared to explain what is difficult, to harmonize what is contradictory, and to shed a flood of light upon each page, causing Heaven's glory to dart into your soul from the diamond spark of a single passage!

Such, beloved, are the effects of the gospel, when clothed with the authority and power of God the Holy Spirit. It was the folly of the Jews to think to find life in the Scriptures without Christ: life in the letter without the Original of life. (John v. 19,40.) 'Except the Lord build the house (that is, the temple), they labor in vain that build it.' Without God all endeavors to build a spiritual temple, are like the strivings to wash a blackamoor white. No believing in the Word, though preached a thousand times, without God's revealing arm. (Isaiah liii. I.) It is not the tool that makes the watch, but the artist by it. No instrument can act without the virtue of some superior agent. It is the altar that sanctifies the gold, and Christ that sanctifies the ordinance.

Paul may plant by his doctrine and miracles, Apollos may water by his affectionate eloquence, but God alone can give the increase by His almighty breath. Man sows the seed, but God only can make it fructify. Then have your eyes fixed upon God. It is the Word of His lips, not of man's, whereby any are snatched out of the paths of the destroyer, as well as kept from them. Man's teachings direct us to Christ; God's teachings bring us to Christ. Man brings the gospel at most to the heart; the Spirit only brings the gospel into the heart. Man puts the key to the lock; God only turns it, and opens the heart by it. It is God only can knock off the fetters of spiritual death, and open the gates that the King of Glory may enter with spiritual life. If any, therefore, will regard the Word more than as an instrument, or a partner with God in His operations. He may justly leave you to the weakness of this, and deny the influx of His own strength.

Cultivate a profound reverence for God's Word. Nothing is more grievous to the Holy Spirit than a trifling with revelation. The words of Scripture are divinely inspired. "Holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit." "Which things also we speak, not in the words which man's wisdom takes, but which the Holy Spirit takes." Stand in awe of this Holy Book! Beware of referring to it doubtfully, or of quoting it with levity. To adopt the words of Scripture irreverently, to speak of any of its parts with suspicion, or to employ its phraseology flippantly, is to cast discredit upon inspiration, to press it into the service of the flesh, and to make the Word of God the jest-book of the profane. This is awful trifling with the thoughts and words of the Holy Spirit. God says, "I will look to him . . . . who trembles at my Word." This was David's holy reverence, "My heart stands in awe of Your Word." And this his prayer, "Order my steps in Your Word, and let not any iniquity have dominion over me."

This profound conviction of the divinity and authority of God's Word will constrain you to bring the state of your soul, your doctrinal sentiments, and your daily life, to its unerring test. The only divine and sure standard is the Word. "To the law and to the testimony," should be our constant rule. Regard, in all matters of faith and practice, the Word of God as authoritative in its teaching, paramount in its voice, and final in its decision. Whatever doctrine or practice squares not with this standard, that will not stand the searching test of this divine touchstone, reject as unworthy your belief and adoption. Let this be your daily practical acknowledgment. "Your Word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path." Taking into your hands this lamp, and guiding your steps by this light, your feet will never slide. Cling to the Word of God the more firmly, as others attempt to sap the foundations of its divinity. Be "valiant for the truth on the earth," and " contend earnestly for the faith once delivered to the saints." "Let the Word of Christ dwell richly in you in all wisdom," hiding it in your heart, that you sin not against Him. Read it with prayer for the teaching of the Holy Spirit, comparing scripture with scripture, spiritual things with spiritual. Search it to know more of Christ, more of His atoning work, more of His mediatorial suitability to meet your every state of mind and heart. Study it to know the will of God, the love of your heavenly Father. Take every doubt, perplexity, and sorrow to the Word of God. And before you unfold its sacred leaves, lift your heart in prayer to the Eternal Spirit to guide your reading, to open your understanding, and to unveil your eye to this divine well-spring of life. This is the only rule we suggest for the spiritual and practical reading of God's Word.

Human helps may aid you in the study of the sacred literature of the Bible; but to read it with a view to the feeding and nourishing of the divine life in your soul, that you may grow in knowledge, faith, and holiness, that you may be instructed, comforted, and armed for the holy war, you need but rely upon the teaching of the Holy Spirit, who is promised to guide you into all the truth as it is in Jesus.

Beware of studying the Bible as a lover of history, of science, of poetry. Study it as a sinner, anxious to know how you may be saved. Read it to ascertain how God can pardon, justify, and take you to heaven when you die. Lay aside your caviling, debating, and speculating, and approach the Bible as a little child, as a sincere inquirer, as a humble learner, desirous of knowing the Scriptures, that are able to make you wise unto eternal life. In a research so momentous, lay aside all other books, and be the student of this one the Book of God. Salvation is its one, its grand and absorbing theme, and this is all you need to know as a sinner bound for the judgment-seat of Christ.

A notional, speculative reception of the Bible prepares an uneasy pillow for a dying hour; and it is marvellous and solemn to reflect how every subject, every theme, every question growing out of the history, philology, or destiny of God's Word, gives place in that awful moment to the one momentous, sublime salvation therein revealed, by which the soul may escape from hell and soar to heaven. Who then desires to listen to learned disquisitions upon the literature, the eloquence, the poetry, or the sublimity of the Bible? Who, when nature is dissolving, earth is receding, eternity is opening, is in a condition to weigh, examine, and sift the evidences of the divinity of the Scriptures? The earnest, imploring language of such a one, alive to a conviction of sin and danger, is, "Is there pardon, is there salvation, is there hope for such a sinner as I am? Does the Word of God tell me how I may be saved ? Read to me of Christ. Tell me of the Savior. Point me to the Lamb of God. Direct my eye to the cross, and let me behold Him whose blood cleanses from all sin. Read to me, speak to me, tell me only of JESUS."

Precious Book, that fully meets a crisis of our being, and an awakened, alarmed state of mind, so tremendously solemn as this! We close this chapter with an earnest appeal to your judgment, conscience, and heart in favor of the Word of God. Whatever you neglect, neglect not the Bible. If a professed believer, beware how you blend in your reading the chaff of human fiction and story, with the wheat of God's Word. It is utterly impossible, reason as you may, that you can cultivate a spiritual and devout taste and desire for the truth of God and the fiction of man. The Bible and the novel can never stand side by side. As a Christian, guard against the light, frivolous, frothy literature of the day. It will lessen your conviction of what is true, it will depreciate the value of what is divine, it will impair your taste for what is spiritual, and it will bring poverty, barrenness, and death into your soul. God speaks to you from every paragraph and sentence of this Holy Book. It is His voice that we hear, His signature that we behold, His ineffable glory, which, the more it is viewed in this bright mirror, may the more powerfully command our wonder and praise. When we approach these divine oracles, and hear the voice of God sometimes speaking out of the midst of the fire, but more often from the blood of sprinkling which speaks better things than the blood of Abel, we may well bend our knee, and take the shoes from off our feet, for the ground on which we stand is holy. Oh that power might come down upon us from the Spirit of truth and grace, and beams from the Sun of righteousness break in upon our minds as we contemplate the intrinsic glories of the Bible! Let the truth and weight of these revelations sink deep into your ears. As men of this world merely, as creatures of time, more especially as the proprietors of immortality, you have a thousand-fold deeper interest in the Bible than in any other, or all other books. It is just as important that you who have the opportunity should become acquainted with the Scriptures, and believe, and love, and obey them, as it is that you should be saved. This Book offers to you that which most you need, that which is infinitely more to you than all other things, glory, honor, immortality, and eternal life. We cannot but look upon the prevailing indifference with which the Word of God is regarded, as one of the evils over which we are loudly called to mourn.

You send the Bible to the ignorant and destitute, you carry it to every cottage and waft it to every country, and thanks to God that you do so. But to what extent is it studied in your churches, read in your families, taught to your children? There is no surer evidence of living without God in the world than living without intimate communion with the Bible. Who that does not mean to remain in impenetrable obduracy, who that does not form the deliberate resolve to close every avenue to the divine influence, that is not prepared to plunge the dagger of the second death into his own bosom; can live in the neglect of these Scriptures of God? And if you believe them, and understand them, will you refuse them the submission of your heart and your everlasting obedience? Do you accredit the stupendous truths contained in this volume, and shall they awaken no deep interest, and urge you to no solemn preparation for your last account? There is not one among those who will not prove a savor of life unto life, or of death unto death. What can we add more to this searching, solemn appeal to you who are living in a wilful neglect of that Book which tells you of life in this world, and out of which you will be judged in the world which is to come? Disbelieve, or neglect the Word of God, and you reject the only chart to eternity.

THE PRECIOUSNESS OF PRAYER

"Golden vials, full of odors, which are the prayers of saints." Rev. 5:8

If there be an argument which establishes beyond all dispute the doctrine of the fall, and the necessity of a restored and regenerated nature, it is the fact, that from it nothing that is holy, spiritual, or good emanates. The moral soil is so utterly degenerate, that even the flowers which adorn it—the natural virtues still clinging to our humanity—are, in the sight of a holy God, but as noxious weeds, destined finally and utterly to perish. Such was the complete wreck, such the entire paralysis of our nature. "In my flesh," says the apostle, dwells no good thing." If, then, in the midst of this utter and universal corruption, there should be found springing any bud, or blossom, or fruit of real holiness—anything truly gracious, spiritual, heavenly—it must be the product of a divine principle, of a new nature implanted within us by God the Holy Spirit. A striking proof and illustration of this is presented in the subject of this chapter. There exists not a more undoubted evidence of a renewed nature than—PRAYER. The absence of it is the unmistakable evidence of—death; its existence a palpable and positive evidence of—life. Prayer is the most vital, spiritual, and pure emanation of the indwelling of the Spirit in the soul. If, in a case of suspended animation, we marked the slightest symptom of life—the gentlest heaving of the heart—the faintest moisture breathed upon the surface of a mirror—we should certainly hail it as proof of the existence of the vital principle. We should not ask for strong spasmodic action, and postpone all efforts to rouse the dormant pulse, before we pronounced the individual alive. We should be satisfied that the spark still glowed, and this would reassure our hope, and animate our labor. Prayer is the spiritual life of the renewed soul. There may be the absence of profound religious knowledge, great depth of Christian experience, fiery zeal and gigantic energy—nevertheless, if of one thus apparently dormant it is said, "Behold he prays!"—if, in the secret walk, all deeply veiled from human eye, there is fellowship with God, communion with the Invisible,—there is life—life divine, life spiritual, life eternal. To change the figure—here is a plant of righteousness growing in a corrupt soil, here is a flower of holiness blooming and exhaling amid sin, corruption, and death! Surely this cannot be indigenous to our fallen humanity, but must be a seedling, a germ, a graft from the paradise of God. Among the most precious things of God is this—the principle and spirit, the power and sweetness of—PRAYER.

We select the idea from a scene in the Apocalyptic drama which passed before the eye of John. In this vision, among other sublime revelations, he beheld "four beasts and four and twenty elders fall down before the Lamb, having every one of them harps, and golden vials full of odors, which are the prayers of saints." That these elders belonged not to any order of angelic intelligence, is conclusive from the subsequent verse, in which they are represented as acknowledging themselves to be "redeemed to God by the blood of the Lamb." It is clear, then, that they formed a part of the Church redeemed from among men. The whole vision is designed to present the fact, that the Church of God is a praying Church; and that the prayers of the Lord's people ascend before JEHOVAH as precious incense, holy, fragrant, and acceptable, through the infinite and atoning merits of Jesus Christ. THE PRECIOUSNESS OF PRAYER, then, is our theme, and the following is the order in which we propose to present it:—The sacred incense,—the "golden vials," from whence the incense ascends,—and the preciousness and acceptance of the incense to God. "Golden vials full of odors, which are the prayers of saints."

But observe, in the outset, whose prayers are these:—"The prayers of saints." "Odors (or incense), which are the prayers of saints." What saints? Not the glorified saints. The saints in heaven have done with prayer. The service and the employment, which before was to them the most precious and hallowed, has now ceased forever. That which is perfect is come, and that which was but in part is done away. Prayer and supplication, which on earth was the source of their sweetest solace and their richest comfort—the vital atmosphere in which they lived—is exchanged for praise. Adoration, thanksgiving, and worship fill every soul, attune every heart, and employ every tongue, in this world of blessedness. Beloved, there is no prayer in heaven, save that of the Great Interceding High Priest. It is a remarkable fact—and it stands in direct refutation of the dogma held by the idolatrous communion of Rome—that there is recorded in the Bible but a single appeal from creatures on earth to the saints in heaven—but one instance of supplication addressed to the glorified spirits—and that was denied! We refer to the appeal of Dives to Abraham. Thus the Romish idea of the invocation of saints is directly opposed to the Word of God. There is but one recognized Intercessor in heaven, the Lord Jesus Christ, who "by His own blood entered once into the holy place," and "ever lives to make intercession for us." With such a Mediator before the throne, whom the Father hears aways, why invoke the aid, the sympathy, the prayers of creatures—angel or saint? The Great High Priest is in heaven—will not that suffice? With Him the Father is well pleased—is not this enough? His intercession never fails—what more can you desire? Begirt with His ephod, and wearing His breast-plate, He bears the burdens and participates the sorrows of His Church below. By no avenue but His bleeding heart can they enter,—up no ladder but His cross can they ascend,—and with no name may they entwine their supplications but the one name which transcends every name, the name of—JESUS. Who can fully unfold the blessedness of this truth to the saints of God? Do we not, beloved, rob our souls of the peculiar blessing—the support, the comfort, the grace—bound up in the intercessory work of our Immanuel within the veil? What can be more encouraging and animating than to know that Christ remembers us, prays for us, and upholds us in heaven?—that he thinks of us with a Friend's affection, compassionates us with a Brother's sympathy, prays for and supports us with a Savior's meritorious intercession? See you Him not, by faith, standing before the golden altar in glory, presenting the sacred incense of His merits, the temple all filled with its perfume? Do not think that the Church below has no tokens, unmistakable and precious, of her Great High Priest's intercession within the veil of glory. Has the type of this truth no significance? A part of Aaron's vestment was "a golden bell upon the hem of the robe round about." And the Divine instruction was, "It shall be upon Aaron to minister; and his sound shall be heard when he goes in unto the holy place before the Lord." (Exod. 28:34, 35.) How expressive and how sweet must that sound have been to the waiting congregation without! It was to them an evidence and a token that the priest was within the veil, ministering before the altar, bearing them upon his breast-plate, presenting their sacrifices, and securing by his intercession their acceptance and God's response. Beloved, our Great High Priest has passed within the veil, and appears in the presence of God for us. Hear you not the music of His bells? How entrancing their melody! How precious their significance! Every covenant blessing sent down from God—every gracious answer to prayer returned—every pure beam of love darting into your soul—every spring of joy; and peace, and hope welling up in your heart—every burden sustained—every grief soothed—every temptation broken, is the chiming of these bells upon the robe of Jesus as He ministers before the throne of God in glory. How sweet, how precious, how soothing their melody! Child of God!—

"Lift up your eyes to the heavenly seat,
Where your Redeemer stays;
Kind Intercessor! there He sits,
And loves, and pleads, and prays.

"Petitions now and praise may rise,
And saints their offering bring;
The Priest, with His own sacrifice,
Presents them to the King.

"JESUS alone shall bear my cries
Up to His Father's throne;
He, dearest Lord! perfumes my sighs,
And sweetens every groan."

"The prayers of saints." If prayer be the breathing of the indwelling Spirit in the soul—if the expression of deeply-felt want—if the language of a child—and if the incense of the heart wafted to heaven through faith in Christ, then the saints of God are the only individuals who offer true prayer. Prayer is too holy and spiritual an exercise for any but the holy ones. None prostrate themselves at the mercy-seat but the poor in spirit—the self-abhorring—Christ-desiring! To them this spot is the dearest in the universe. Here is attraction which, find them where it may, irresistibly draws and indissolubly binds them. All may be gloom beyond—all is sunshine here. The saint in audience with JEHOVAH is the most morally sublime spectacle in the universe. Angelic spirits must look down upon it with an emotion of blended awe and delight. Such is the privilege of a—Saint. Let the world deride the name, and trample in the dust him who wears it, yet is it the most honored and sacred appellation God ever conferred upon mortal. "Called to be saints"—what a high calling, beloved, is this! Made lower than angels by sin, we are made higher than angels by grace. Redemption has exalted our humanity above every other nature but the Divine. To be clothed upon with the "righteousness of GOD," is to occupy a position of dignity and glory to which no other creature can aspire. Angels stand in the aphelion, saints in the center, of the Sun of Righteousness. Lord! let the infidel deny the character, and the worldling scorn the name, number me among your saints everlasting, upon whom is conferred the privilege of fellowship and nearness with You here, and glory, honor, and immortality with You hereafter!

But what is the incense?—"the prayers of saints." The emblem is exquisitely beautiful and expressive. It is one of the highest conceptions of poetry, in one of its most sacred forms. Prayer is holy incense. The margin of the passage so renders it, and David so employs the expression in connection with prayer: "Let my prayer come before You as incense, and the lifting up of my hands as the evening sacrifice." We have but glanced at the truth that the saints of God are a praying people—that communion with the Triune Jehovah is an essential characteristic. The thought is so important, we propose in a few pages to amplify it. We have said that devotion is a symptom of life, an evidence of true piety, a characteristic of a saint of God. This remark holds good in its universal application. True prayer is that one vital principle that animates, energizes, and sanctifies the universal family of God. Whatever their differences of ecclesiastical polity, discipline, or worship—whatever their varied gifts, attainments, or position in society, prayer is the moral atmosphere of the one Church of God. "Moses and Aaron among His priests, and Samuel among those who call upon His name; they called upon the Lord, and He answered them." No man is a saint of God who is not a praying man; and a praying man, find him where you may, is a saint of God. He may prefer the place and the mode of prayer which his conscience best approves; and whether that place be a cathedral or a barn, and the mode be liturgical or free, is of no essential moment. If, penetrating within the inner and hidden shrine, he waves before its altar the censer of a truly contrite, believing, adoring heart, drawing near to God in the name of Jesus, and holding fellowship with the Invisible, that man is a man of prayer, is a recognized saint of the Most High, and as such we should recognize and commune with him as a Christian brother beloved.

But not only is prayer essential to the character of a saint of God, his whole history implies that he is a man of prayer. Your Christian life, beloved reader, necessitates this walking with God in all its minute detail. If it be a divine precept, as it is a precious privilege, to "acknowledge the Lord in all our ways," then this habit of recognizing the being and government of God, His love and care for us, His providential guidance of our every step, must keep us in constant and close contact with our Father and Friend. And when to this we add the more spiritual part of our history,—the Christian conflict we wage, the constant discoveries of sin we make, the seductions by which we are assailed, the daily trials, sorrows, and disappointments to which we are subjected,—surely PRAYER must be the living, enshrouding atmosphere of a saint of God. Not one moment could we live without it. Prayer—either breathed from the believer's heart on earth, or from the lips of the Great Intercessor in heaven—sustains each moment the life of God in the soul of man. Ah, beloved! where could you go with those burdens, those wants, those chafings, those backslidings, those shortcomings, those sorrows, which compose so large a part of daily life, but to the throne of grace? Where could you resort for mercy, for strength, for fortitude, for patience, for comfort and soothing, but where the God of love and power meets you and talks with you through Jesus, as man communes with his friend? It is in this light we come to regard prayer, not merely as a divine command, or as a Christian duty, but as the holiest, sweetest, and most precious privilege God has given to us on earth. Look at its grandeur—a mortal, a sinful mortal, in audience with the God of heaven! And when we consider that mortal in the light of a child and that God in the character of a Father, the spectacle becomes one of unsurpassed beauty and tenderness. But look at its preciousness. It comprehends all the minutiae of our daily life. "Casting all your care upon Him." "Be careful for nothing; but in everything, by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known unto God." What a tender, loving rebuke is this of that restraining of prayer, and limiting of God, which restricts our petitions to the major concerns of life, while it leaves unprovided for the minor ones. And yet, beloved, God is as deeply interested in your small cares as in your large ones. Those comparatively trivial events, those lesser circumstances of your history, are often those which you feel the most keenly, which chafe the most severely, and upon which so much that is important and momentous in your life depends. Learn, then, the blessedness, and appreciate the privilege, of hallowing with prayer the minute details of daily life. Infinite as Jehovah is, He stoops to our little trials, little cares, little wants, little sorrows. Nothing is too small for God that concerns you, His loved child. Study the life of Jesus when on earth. Was there a circumstance, or a want, or a temptation in the history of His disciples too mean or unimportant for His notice? He who, by similitude so significant and impressive, could vindicate and explain the particular providence of God in the affairs of His people, assuring those who the very hairs of their head were all numbered, was not likely to pass unnoticed and unmet the fasting and languor of His disciples, when on one occasion He said unto them, "Come you yourselves apart into a desert place, and rest awhile." He who created the minute things of nature, alike regards the minute things in providence, and despises not the "day of small things" in grace. God made the atoms that form the pyramids, the mote that dances in the sunbeam, the insect that swims in the ocean drop. Do you think, then, that He can be indifferent to, or regard as beneath His notice, the smallest care, the most delicate sorrow, the lowest want, the lowest interest, that relates to you? Impossible! Learn, then, to entwine with your petitions the small cares, the trifling sorrows, the little wants of daily life. Whatever affects you—be it a changed look, an altered tone, an unkind word, a slight, a wrong, a wound, a demand you cannot meet, a charge you cannot notice, a sorrow you cannot disclose—turn it into prayer, and send it up to God. Disclosures you may not make to man you can make to the Lord. Man may be too little for your great matters, God is not too great for your small ones. Only give yourself to prayer, whatever be the occasion that calls for it. Send up your heart unto God just as it is. Send up a whole heart, and He will return it a broken heart. Send up a broken heart, and He will return it a healed heart. Send up a cold heart, and He will return it a loving heart. Send up an empty heart, and He will return it a full heart. Send up a praying heart, and He will return it a praising heart. Only send up your heart to heaven, whatever its frame or condition, its desires or wants, and your Heavenly Father's loving, gracious heart will descend and meet it when its pinions have scarce left the earth to sweep in faith and prayer the skies. "Trust in Him at all times. You people, pour out your heart before Him. God is a refuge for us." "And it shall come to pass that before they call, I will answer: and while they are yet speaking, I will hear." Wonderful encouragement to prayer!

Having thus spoken of the sacred incense, it is meet that we now advert to the censer. You will observe these "odors" are described as ascending from "golden vials." "Golden vials (or bowls) full of odors, which are the prayers of saints." These "golden vials," or bowls—as some critics more literally render the word philae—are the censers of the saints. It is, then, an interesting and important question, What are the censers which the saints of God wave before the altar? In other words, to speak less figuratively, From whence does true prayer spring? It is not, beloved reader, every man who bends the knee before God who offers prayer from a golden censer. There is no religious duty so little understood, or more generally abused, as prayer. How much passes current for prayer with man, which is not prayer with God! It is like mistaking the artificial convulsions of galvanism for the actual breathing of life—the contortions of nature for the actings of grace. An individual may offer to God "strange fire" from an earthly censer. God says, "I cannot away with it." Beloved, true incense floats from a golden censer—what is it?

Shall we begin with the censer of a broken and contrite heart? Here is a censer of the purest gold! Take not man's estimate of it—he, in his blindness, is constantly mistaking the spurious for the true, the precious for the vile. The world holds lightly a broken heart for sin. But take God's estimate,—"Thus says the high and lofty One that inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy; I dwell in the high and holy place, with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit." A broken heart for sin is God's dwelling! Again,—"To this man will I look, even to him that is poor and of a contrite spirit." God will look at him—He will not look at a proud, self-sufficient, self-justifying heart—for "the proud He knows afar off;" but His eye—His eye of love, His eye of delight, His eye of approval—will rest upon the humble, broken, and contrite heart. Despised by the worldly, scorned by the proud, overlooked often by the saints, yet how beautiful, how costly, how precious to Christ is this golden vial! True, it is a contrite heart,—true, it is an empty heart,—true, it is a self-abased heart; but there waves not a censer in heaven, save the Great High Priest's, more beauteous, more costly, more precious than it. This "golden vial" is of heavenly construction. A Divine Craftsman made and formed it. God the Holy Spirit alone wrought this penitence, inspired this contrition, awakened this conviction of sin. He it was who abased that pride, laid low that loftiness, stained that glory, and smote that stricken, smitten heart in the dust. His the power that wakes that more than melody from those pale, trembling lips—"God be merciful to me a sinner!" Melody! Oh, angels' harps breathe not sweeter music than this! And God, when He hears it, looks down and sees on earth no spectacle of interest or grandeur to surpass it—one more precious to His heart. Bruised and broken though that spirit be, clad in the habiliments of woe and grief, filled with self-loathing and sin-abhorrence, it is in God's eye a golden censer, wafting to His throne earth's sweetest, holiest, richest incense. "The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: a broken and a contrite heart, O God, You will not despise."

The believing heart is a golden censer, from which the holy incense of the prayer of faith ascends to God. A heart that humbly believes in the Lord Jesus,—that accepts without demur or hesitation, and as His free gift, His finished salvation,—that rests child-like and wholly upon the one offering by which Jesus has perfected forever the salvation of His people, is a "golden vial." All real prayer is the prayer of faith. It is offered in faith in God's word—His promise—and in what He is Himself as God,—able and willing to answer prayer. The prayer of faith is but taking God at His word:—"If you who are evil know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your heavenly Father give good things (even the Holy Spirit) to those who ask Him?" Now, the prayer of faith is the pleading of this promise with God, thus taking Him at His word. The Lord Jesus here places a blank card in the hands of His saints, and bids them inscribe upon it just what they want. It is a note of hand which He bids them fill up to any amount or character of blessing they require, and He will grant it. "Ask what you will." Beloved reader, the Lord gives you this promise, and bids you send it up to Him for fulfillment with the prayer of faith, trusting Him to make it good. There is much wisdom and love of our heavenly Father displayed in giving us this general promise that we might give it a particular application. Faith in God's promise is not so much a belief that a particular request will be granted—for that request is not named in the promise. But the stipulation is to grant any good asked, anything supplicated, any petition preferred, if only asked in faith—faith in God's faithfulness and power to make good His word, and to obtain the blessing asked. It is a general promise connected with a particular application. The Lord Jesus says, "If you shall seek anything in my name, it shall be granted you." Therefore do not hang back and say, "My particular need is not mentioned in the promise; my especial case is not provided for in the Word." It is, beloved, if you will but take hold of the general promise of God, and plead it with the prayer of faith. No particular temporal good may be mentioned,—no especial spiritual blessing may be promised,—no single case may be specified; but if the censer of a believing heart waft the incense of the prayer of faith to God, God will grant that particular temporal good, or bestow that especial spiritual blessing, or meet that peculiar and urgent case. It was thus that Jacob prayed. "You said, I will surely do you good." What good? Any good, all good! There was the pleading by faith of God's general promise in a particular case of urgency. And when he met the Angel of the Covenant at Peniel, he exclaimed, "I will not let You go except You bless me…And He blessed him there." The prayer of the Syrophenician woman was the prayer of faith. "Call me a dog, tread me down beneath Your feet—only grant me my request, and come and heal my child." Her faith had a general apprehension of Christ's power to eject the demon from her daughter, and then she flung her particular sorrow upon that heart that never was known to reject a plea, or cast a sorrow back again. Such is the power which the prayer of faith has with God! It is irresistible. No unworthiness, no sinfulness, no backsliding, no unfaithfulness, no depth of want, or peculiarity of case shall prevail with God to turn a deaf ear to the cry of faith. Faith in His word of promise, in His illimitable power, in His boundless resources, in His beloved Son, is so honoring to His nature and glorifying to His name, that the faintest incense which the censer of a lowly, believing heart ever sent up to heaven, reaches the Majesty on high, and brings back the blessing in a gracious and loving response—more than we either asked or thought of. We have to do not only with a prayer-answering, but also with a prayer-exceeding God—a God who always bestows more than we supplicated, because He delights to give, not according to our stinted desires, and measured requests, but according to the infinite merits of His beloved Son and His own wondrous love and power. Ask this faith of prayer at the hands of Jesus. He is not only its Object and its Medium, but He is also its Author and its Giver. Beseech Him to infuse this precious faith into your feeble, stammering petitions. Implore Him to intensify and energize your faint and faltering supplications with this divine heaven-descending and heaven-ascending principle. "Lord, increase my faith! Let me ask in faith, nothing doubting. Nerve my poor, faltering arm, so ready to hang down; stay my fluttering heart upon You, so prone to swerve; and help my soul to cast itself upon Your precious promise to save to the uttermost, and I shall be saved. Lord, I believe; help You mine unbelief." Or, is your faith faltering faith—tempted faith—tried faith—sinking faith? Listen to the words of Jesus, once addressed to a doubting believer, and now addressed to you. "O you of little faith, wherefore did you doubt?" "Gracious Savior! do You acknowledge my 'little faith?' Then my 'little faith' shall acknowledge You! I will come to You,—I will confide in You, I will look to You; come what will, sink or swim, live or die, saved or perish, I will cleave and cling, dear Lord, to You! You are and You shall be my All in all." Wave this censer before the altar of sacrifice, and your prayer of faith shall be accepted. "This is the confidence that we have in Him, that, if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. And if we know that He hear us, whatever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we desired of Him." (1 John 5:14, 15.) The prayer of faith will pardon sin,—the prayer of faith will heal the sick,—the prayer of faith will open heaven,—the prayer of faith will move the Arm that upholds the universe! Ask in faith, nothing doubting, and you shall have the petitions you desire of Him.

A Christ-loving heart is also a "golden vial" full of precious incense—the incense of love. And such is the heart of all who are renewed by the Spirit, and are in a state of reconciliation and peace with God. There may be fluctuation in this holy affection, it may ebb and flow,—it may be tried, tempted, grieved,—yet a heart in which glows a solitary, glimmering spark of divine love, a heart which can say, "Lord, You know all things, You know that I love You," is a golden censer, wafting its grateful incense to God. But let us not be satisfied with a dubious or imperfect love to God. Let our return of affection be worthy the Object that inspires it. There are no changes in the tide of Christ's love to us—it is always a flow, never an ebb. What may to our short ken appear an ebb, is in reality not so. It is not that the tide of God's love recedes from us, it is that we recede from the tide of God's love. We quit the depths of this infinite and never-receding ocean, and repair to the shallows of creature good, of human affection, of worldly enjoyment; and then, chilled, disappointed, perhaps wounded, we marvel that our love to God has so soon congealed, ceasing to flow in its customary warm and undivided current. We wonder that the Bible has not the same interest, the means of grace the same attraction, prayer the same sweetness, and the ministry of the word the same power. Alas! the change is in our humanized divine affections, in our lessened spirituality, in our lessened tone of heavenliness, in our truant affections, our undecided heart. We have allowed the idolatry of the creature, the love of the world, or the too eager pursuit of its calling, or the too earnest desire to please and stand well with its friends, to insinuate itself into our heart, and steal away its affections from Christ. But let us retrace our steps,—the door of return is yet open,—and come back to Christ. Repairing afresh the altar where His sacrifice was offered, let us from its holy fire replenish our cold censer with living embers, and once more send up the holy, precious, fragrant incense of a restored, loving, surrendered heart to God.

Not less precious to the Lord is the censer of a praiseful heart. Alas that the elements of thanksgiving and praise should be so wanting in our religion! Yet so it is. We speak of prayer-meetings, but seldom of praise-meetings,—of gatherings for humiliation, confession, and supplication, but how rarely do we assemble to give thanks to God, and to render to Him the praise due unto His great Name. When the pressure is upon us, we are eager to draw in the Divine goodness by prayer; when the pressure is removed, how slow to breathe out the acknowledgment by praise! And yet for our encouragement God has said, "Whoever offers PRAISE glorifies me." Since the Lord's government of His people is a government of love, it follows that, whatever the decision of that government may be, it is in love He deals with them. "Whom I love, I rebuke and chasten." If this be so, there is nothing in the dealings of God that may not prompt you to wave before Him the golden censer of a thankful heart. Oh, precious the cloud thus ascending, filling heaven with its odor! In heaven, all is adoration, thanksgiving, and praise. And when we offer praise to God, we approach in our worship on earth the nearest to the worship of the glorified in heaven. Oh, let us, then, not be slow to wave this golden censer, and offer Him the precious incense! We will praise Him for electing love—praise Him for Jesus—praise Him for a divine righteousness—praise Him for a free-grace salvation—praise Him for a full pardon—praise Him for a throne of grace—praise Him for the Rock that towers above our head, sheltering us with its shadow, and refreshing us with its streams—praise Him for the blessing given, for the blessing withheld—praise Him for the restorings, for the upholdings, for the chastenings, for the rebukes, for the wounds,—for the darkness of sorrow, for the brightness of joy,—for the retrospect of grief, for the prospective of bliss,—yes, for all that is past, that is present, and that is to come;—for all, all flows from one Divine source—the everlasting and unchangeable love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

One point of deep interest yet remains to be considered—the preciousness of the incense: "golden vials, full of odors." Be the incense that is offered to God through Christ what it may—prayer—confession of sin—supplication—praise, yet ascending from the heart, oh, how full of sacred odor is the vessel! It may be a sinful, and yet a contrite heart,—a wandering, and yet a sincere heart,—a changeful, and yet a loving heart; still, in God's eye, it is a "golden vial," and the Lord smelled a sweet savor in the incense wafted from it to His throne.

Prayer must be precious incense to God, because, in the first place, it is the fruit of the Holy Spirit in the soul. All true prayer—be it but a desire, a groan, a tear, a sigh—is the inspiration of the Spirit. "The Spirit also helps our infirmities: for we know not what we should pray for as we ought: but the Spirit makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered." It is this truth that stamps a value upon the weakest prayer the saints of God ever breathed, and which imparts to that weak prayer a richer fragrance to God than earth's choicest perfume. We but faintly conceive the costliness and beauty of the lowest work of the Holy Spirit in the soul. It is nothing less than the begetting of the Divine nature in man: the erection and up building of a structure of righteousness that shall outlive all material grandeur, and be radiant with the glory and resound with the praises of Jehovah to all eternity. That must be the power of God the Holy Spirit that can extract incense so sweet, so fragrant, so precious, from hearts so sinful, so vile, so worthless as ours! Such are the prayers breathing from your heart, dear reader. They may be mixed with much of the earthliness of the channel through which they flow,—you may complain of coldness, formality, wandering thoughts, the intrusion of things foreign to your feelings, desires, and enjoyments,—yet, pouring out your heart to God in the most retired, lonely, feeble way, your Father in heaven recognizes it as the voice of a child, and "accepts you with your sweet savor." Oh, see, then, that the prayer that breathes from your lips, whether from the pulpit or the closet, whether in public or in private, be the breathing of the Holy Spirit! Seek to be filled with the Spirit. Rest not short of His vital power, and sanctifying influence, and fragrant anointing in your soul. Then, although your prayers may be mixed with tears, and groans, and confessions,—though with a stammering tongue and quivering lip you address the Majesty of heaven and earth, God will observe the voice of His Spirit in your prayers, and will speedily and graciously respond.

But that which imparts the richest fragrance to the prayers of the saints is the atoning merit of Christ's obedience and death, through the medium of whose mediatorship they are offered, and on the ground of whose merits they are accepted. The apostle beautifully propounds this truth:—"Christ also has loved us, and has given Himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling savor." This sacrifice it is—divine in its dignity, expiatory in its character, complete in its offering, and accepted by God—that invests with a cloud of divine incense, most fragrant and precious, every broken petition, every penitential confession, every believing supplication wafted to God from the heart of a saint on earth. The sacrifice of Christ on earth opened a door by which the believer approaches God in heaven. The intercession of Christ, which is the presentation of His merits before the golden altar, secures the acceptance of his petitions in glory. We marvel not now that these "golden vials" should be "filled with odors, which are the prayers of saints." The Holy Spirit fills the censer, and then Jesus the obedient One, Jesus the crucified One, Jesus the risen One, Jesus the ascended, glorified, interceding One, throws the divine fragrance of His offering around the prayers of His people, and thus they find favor with God. What an encouragement is this to draw near to God in prayer! Who that approaches, though with taint, and fear, and imperfection in his petitions, yet with sincerity, penitence, and faith, shall fail of finding acceptance both of his person and his offering, seeing that the Lord Jesus Christ imparts His merits, employs His advocacy, and blends with the much incense of His sacrifice every humble suit, every heaven-directed petition? "We are many times dejected at the remembrance of our prayers; but the concern that Christ has in them is a ground to raise us. We have an Advocate that knows how to separate the impertinences and follies which fall from the mouths of His clients; He knows how to rectify and purify our bills of requests, and present them otherwise than we do. How happy a thing is it to have One to offer up our prayers in His golden censer, and perfume our weak performances by applying His merit to them! Satan distracts our prayers, but cannot blemish Christ's intercession. When we cannot present our own case, by reason of diseases and indispositions, we have One to present our cause for us, that can never be distempered, who is more quick to present our groans than we are to utter them. Besides, all prayers put up in His name shall be successful. (John 16:23.) The arguments we use from Christ's merits are the same fundamentally upon which the plea of Christ in heaven is grounded, and if God should deny us it, it were to deny His Son, and cast off that delight He Himself has in the merits of His death; but God loves that mediation of His Son, and that this work of His should be honored and acknowledged. And though we have no promise to have our prayers heard, yet there is no doubt but He will hear the prayers of Christ for us, for Him He hears always. (John 11:42.)"

In another part of the Apocalypse we have a beautiful unfolding of this truth,—the mediation of Christ in connection with the saints' prayers:—"And another angel came and stood at the altar, having a golden censer; and, there was given unto him much incense, that he should offer it with the prayers of all saints upon the golden altar which was before the throne." (Rev. 8:3.) This "angel" was Jesus, the Angel of the everlasting Covenant, who now stands before the golden altar, waving the golden censer, blending the precious incense of His own divine and atoning merits with the prayers of all His saints. Oh, how powerful, then, with God must be the prayers of His people, entwined and blended with the much incense of such a sacrifice! How can we doubt the success of every petition sent up to the court of Heaven, with such an Advocate to present and plead it? Let us, then, "draw near;" let us come boldly to the throne of grace and ask what we will. Is it pardon? ask it. Is it acceptance? ask it. Is it grace? ask it. Is it some temporal good needed? ask it. The petitioner may be unworthy, and the petition imperfect—there may be much sinfulness in the one, and many flaws in the other; but Christ's merit puts it all right. Upon the ground of that merit, God says to you—"I will accept you with your sweet savor." The person first finds favor, and then the offering. Our persons, "accepted in the Beloved," secure the gracious acceptance of our prayers. Tell me not, then, that there is so much sinful taint marring the fragrance of your prayers—such coldness of spirit—such vagrancy of mind—such intrusion of sinful imaginations and desires—such formality, unbelief, and insincerity—such a lack of power, life, and unction,—in a word so much unpraying prayer; still, approaching as a true penitent, with some yearnings of spirit after God—some Christ-thirsting, Christ-longing in your soul, and asking in His name, and pleading His blood, there shall be a gracious acceptance of your person, and a prompt answer to your prayers, secured by the cloud of incense which goes up moment by moment from the golden censer which the Angel of the everlasting Covenant waves to and fro before the golden altar in heaven. One touch of that censer, one breath of that incense, annihilates in a moment and forever all the sinful faults and human imperfections adhering to your prayers. "The prayers of all saints." Sweet and encouraging declaration! No one excluded; the weak, the trembling, the fearful, the unbelieving, those of but shallow knowledge, of little grace, and of tried circumstances, who write themselves "less than the least of all saints,"—even their prayers, presented in the name of Jesus, and offered with the much incense that floats from the golden censer, cover the mercy-seat of heaven with their cloud, and fill heaven with their fragrance. Poor trembling soul! doubt no more the full acceptance of your prayers.

How precious, then, is prayer! Prove its preciousness by personal experience, beloved reader. Are you afflicted?—give yourself to prayer. Are you burdened with sin?—give yourself to prayer. Are you oppressed with sorrow?—give yourself to prayer. Are you bereaved of those you loved?—give yourself to prayer. Does God hide the light of His countenance from your soul?—does Jesus suspend the visits of His love, the gracious manifestations of His presence?—give yourself to prayer. Does Satan tempt—does the world persecute—do the saints wound?—give yourself to prayer. Does loneliness depress—does disease invade—does sickness lay low?—give yourself to prayer. Or, are you approaching the valley of the shadow of death—the solemn moment nearing of your spirit's entrance into the eternal world—the grave unveiling its bosom to receive the lifeless tenement?—GIVE YOURSELF TO PRAYER. Listen to the gentle voice, the kind invitation of your covenant God and Father,—"Come, my people, enter into your chambers, and shut your doors about you; hide yourself as it were for a little moment, until the indignation be overpast." These "chambers" of repose and security are many and precious. They include the everlasting love of God,—the cross of Jesus, the covenant of grace,—the mercy-seat,—the promises of Jehovah,—the full and free invitation of the gospel,—the pavilion of Christ's grace, the cleft of the Rock; yes, to sum all up in one, "the secret place of the Most High," which is the very heart of God's heart, hidden, enshrined in which, no evil shall touch you. "For in the time of trouble, He shall hide me in His pavilion; in the secret of His tabernacle shall He hide me." Oh, the charm, the soothing, sanctifying power of PRAYER! "Prayer is an all-efficient panoply, a treasure undiminished, a mine which never is exhausted, a sky unobscured by clouds, a haven unruffled by storms; it is the root, the fountain, and the mother of a thousand blessings. I speak not of the prayer which is cold, and feeble, and devoid of energy; I speak of that which is the child of a contrite spirit, the offspring of a soul converted, born in a blaze of unutterable inspiration, and winged like lightning for the skies. The potency of prayer has subdued the strength of fire; it has bridled the rage of lions, hushed anarchy to rest, extinguished the wars, appeased the elements, expelled demons, burst the chains of death, expanded the gates of heaven, assuaged diseases, repelled frauds, rescued cities from destruction; it has stayed the sun in its course, and arrested the progress of the thunderbolt: in a word, it has destroyed whatever is an enemy to man. I again repeat, that I speak not of the prayer engendered by the lips, but of that which ascends from the recesses of the heart. Assuredly, there is nothing more potent than prayer; yes, there is nothing comparable to it. A monarch vested in gorgeous habiliments is far less illustrious than a kneeling suppliant, ennobled and adorned by communion with his God. Consider how august a privilege it is, when angels are present, and archangels throng around; when cherubim and seraphim encircle with their blaze the throne; that a mortal may approach with unrestrained confidence, and converse with heaven's dread Sovereign! Oh, what honor was ever conferred like this! When a Christian stretches forth his hands, and invokes his God, in that moment he leaves behind him all terrestrial pursuits, and traverses on the wings of intellect the realms of life; he contemplates celestial objects only, and knows not of the present state of things during the period of his prayer, provided that prayer be breathed with fervency. Could we but pray with fervency; could we pray with a soul resuscitated, a mind awakened, an understanding quickened, then, were Satan to appear, he would instantaneously fly; were the gates of hell to yawn upon us, they would close again.

"Prayer is a haven to the shipwrecked mariner, an anchor unto those who are sinking in the waves, a staff to the limbs that totter, a mine of jewels to the poor, a security to the rich, a healer of disease, and a guardian of health. Prayer at once secures the continuance of our blessings, and dissipates the cloud of our calamities. O Prayer! O blessed Prayer! you are the unwearied conqueror of human woes, the firm foundation of human happiness, the source of ever-during joy, the mother of philosophy! The man who can pray truly, though languishing in extremest indigence, is richer than all besides; while the being who never bends the knee, though proudly seated as a monarch of nations, is of all men most destitute. Let us, then, direct our thoughts to Him that was poor; yet rich; rich, because He was poor. Let us overlook the enjoyments of the present, and desire the blessings of the future; for so shall we obtain the blessings both of the present and the future. Oh, may we all obtain them through the grace of Christ our Lord, to whom, with the Father and the Holy Spirit, be ascribed all glory, now and for evermore! Amen." (Chrysostom.)

Prayer is one of the essential elements of the hidden and sequestered walk of the believer with God. It is an engagement so sacred,—often blended with an unfolding of the heart so confidential and hallowed,—it would seem as if this were the soul's most suitable and loved companion in solitude. There can be no painful sense of loneliness when the believer is in converse with God. All places are peopled, and all space is filled when occupied by Him. Complain not that the world is a solitude, while Jesus treads its lone and shaded paths by your side. Mourn not that no responses of love and sympathy wake its stillness—that no echoes break upon your ear but those of your moaning spirit, when Christ talks with you by the way, your Friend and Brother. Oh no, you cannot be alone,—without love, without friendship, without sympathy, without society,—when your spirit is absorbed in God, who is all life, all love, all presence. The affecting sentiments of one whose solitude was hallowed and whose loneliness was cheered with holy converse with God, have sublimely expressed these pensive feelings of the heart—

"Like the low murmur of the secret stream,
Which through dark alders winds its shaded way,
My suppliant voice is heard,—ah, do not deem
That on vain toys I throw my hours away!

"In the recesses of the forest valley,
On the wild mountain, on the verdant sod,
Where the fresh breezes of the morn prevail,
I wander lonely, communing with God.

"When the faint sickness of a wounded heart
Creeps in cold shudd'rings through my sinking frame,
I turn to You,—that holy peace impart,
Which soothes the invokers of Your dreadful name.

"O all-pervading Spirit! Sacred beam!
Parent of life and light! Eternal Power!
Grant me through obvious clouds one transient gleam
Of Your bright essence in my dying hour!"

Prayer is so spiritual an exercise, it behooves us to be cautious how we confound the gift with the grace of prayer. There may exist in some the gift apart from the grace, and in others the grace apart from the gift. It is of great moment that those especially who are to plead with God in behalf of others keep this distinction in view; and while seeking from God the gift, may be yet more assiduous and intense in their seekings of the grace of prayer. Alas, what spiritual deadness, what perfunctory formality may invade our pulpit devotions! What empty censers may we wave in public, and before our God! There may be the beauty of thought, the elegance of diction, the copiousness of language, without, alas! the reality and power of prayer. Oh for the effusion of the Spirit of prayer upon the pulpits of our land! But not here alone may be traced the deadening influence of a spirit of formality—the existence of the gift apart from the grace of prayer—but the domestic altar and the closet may witness to this separation. How may we know the difference? We think by the following marks. The gift without the grace of prayer is more used to vent itself in public; but the grace of prayer most seeks the privacy of communion, and loves to pour itself out when none but God and the conscience are the listeners. The gift of prayer alone inflates the soul with pride; the grace of prayer lays it low in its own eyes, and the greater its enlargement and power, the profounder its humiliation before God. The gift of prayer, working alone, inspires the soul with the fond conceit of its own strength; the grace of prayer constrains it to take hold of the strength of Christ. The gift of prayer, apart from the Spirit, is satisfied with the applause of man; the grace of prayer waits in lowliness upon God, seeking no response save the still small voice of the Spirit in the soul. The gift of prayer contents itself with cold, intellectual, rational views of God, His character and works; but the grace of prayer deals closely with the crucified Savior, is pervaded with the atoning blood, and is mixed with contrition of spirit, confession of sin, filial love, thanksgiving, and adoration. What need have we, then, to look well to our prayers,—honestly to examine our hearts, and ascertain whether our souls have been baptized with the "Spirit of grace and supplication," and if, when we present ourselves before God either in public or in private, we can in some measure adopt the language of Paul, and say, "Truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ!" Those who restrict themselves to a Formulary of devotion have need to be doubly watchful of the prayerful state of their souls, lest the constant repetition of a "form of sound words" be a substitute for the inward and spiritual grace of prayer. There are many who read prayers—how few who pray them! We can see no serious objection to a prearranged formulary of devotion, provided the heart accompanies the sentiments and words expressed. The form of supplication taught His disciples by our Lord—which indeed, as we have elsewhere observed, is more properly the disciples' prayer—was intended doubtless as a model rather than a mold. We can see no reasonable argument in favor of its rejection; on the contrary, much that pleads for its employment as a summary of great and important petitions needed by the Christian, the Church, and the world. And yet, while thus conceding the lawfulness of a formulary of devotion, we must still keep in mind the essential element of all true prayer,—the spiritual state of the heart with God.

Our subject is suggestive of close self-examination. Prayer is the moral barometer of the soul,—it proves the existence, and tests the tone of our spiritual life. As a man is in his walk with God, so is he as a man of God. As vital religion is from God, so to God it returns, and with God it deals. It is more solicitous what God thinks, how God approves, and to what degree it lives for God, than it is to commend itself to man. The religion that so shapes its course as to stand well with the world,—that can accommodate itself to the world's opinions, blend with the world's pleasures, win the world's smile,—that thinks as the world thinks, acts as the world acts, temporizing, compromising, assimilating,—that is not the religion of God and of the Bible. It may clothe itself in a sanctimonious garb—it may multiply its religious forms and ceremonies, keep its saints' days, its matins and vespers, and yet possess not an element of real godliness. O God, search and try us, and give to us grace to search and try ourselves, lest there be found in us any false principles, anything untrue and unsound in our religion, any element fatal to our salvation, anything that interposes between us and Christ's finished, atoning work! Now here, beloved reader, is a divine and certain test—the existence and power of prayer in our souls. Prayer restrained, prayer cold, prayer totally neglected, is symptomatic of a low and lifeless state. Reverse this, and you have the clear and unmistakable indices of a vital, healthy, and spiritual action of the soul. Let us, then, bring our hearts honestly, frequently, and closely to this test. What is the state of your soul's barometer? Unlike that which indicates the natural atmosphere, the mercury of the soul rises when the moral atmosphere lowers. When clouds are gathering thickly and darkly, when storms are rising, and tempests are sweeping, then it often is that prayer is the most vigorous, the most powerful, the most ascending to God. The seasons of adversity, trial, and sorrow, are the most praying seasons with God's people. Prayer often languishes in prosperity. The spiritual barometer is the most depressed when the sky is the most cerulean, and the atmosphere the most serene, and the sun the most brilliant. Ah! how difficult to maintain a humble, watchful, honest walk with God, when the star of temporal good is in the ascendant. We lose sight then of the Star of Bethlehem—of Him whose birth was mean, whose condition was poor, whose life was wreathed with storms, and whose life closed in humiliation, agony, and blood. But seasons of adversity, of sorrow, of suffering, of need,—when the earthly star is fading and sinking,—are halcyon seasons in the history of the child of God. Then it is that spiritual prayer is in the ascendant, that the sun of the soul attains its meridian. Then we turn to God, betake ourselves to the throne of grace, take the low place, humbled, chastened, child-like, and dependent—the will subdued, the heart prayerful, the spirit praiseful, the soul ascending. Look, then, often and closely to the barometer of your soul. This suggests another thought.

Study to maintain an aptitude of soul for prayer. This, we imagine, is the meaning of the divine precept, "Pray without ceasing." Literally this may not be. It would be impossible for you to be incessantly in the act; or breathing out the expressions of prayer. Nor is this necessary. The bird is not always on the wing. There are moments of repose, when it smooths its ruffled plumage, and its pinions gather strength. But it is ever ready for its flight; and at the first pressure of hunger, or the first note of alarm, it expands its wings and soars. So let us cultivate the spirit of prayer—the heart attuned to the holy duty; the mind sitting so loose to earthly employments and cares, as that at any moment of danger or need it may come into the dreadful presence of God with devout and solemn reverence. This is to "pray without ceasing." We are to relax no season or habit of prayer—but in the closet, in the family, in the social circle, and in the public sanctuary, call upon the name of the Lord. "We are to maintain an uninterrupted and constant spirit of prayer. We are to be in such a frame of mind as to be ready to pray publicly if requested; and when alone, to improve every moment of leisure which we may have when we feel ourselves strongly inclined to pray. That Christian is in a bad state who has suffered himself, by attention to worldly cares, or by light conversation, or by gaiety and vanity, or by reading an improper book, or by eating and drinking too much, or by late hours at night among the thoughtless and the vain, to be brought into such a condition that he cannot engage in prayer with proper feelings. There has been evil done to the soul, if it is not prepared for communion with God at all times, and if it would not find pleasure in approaching His holy throne." (Barnes.) Prayer is to the believer what wings are to the bird—it assists his soul heavenward; and when the crude winds of adversity blow, and the seductions of the world would enchain him to earth,—then, resorting to prayer, the believer soars as on eagle's wings to a purer atmosphere and sunnier skies. Such is the Divine promise,—"Those who wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint." See, then, O child of God! that the pinions of your soul are ever ready for their heavenly flight. Sit so loose to carnal good, hold the creature, however dear, by a band so slight, and creature-blessings by a tie so slender, that at any moment, and in any place, your heart may turn to God, and exclaim,—"Whom have I in heaven but You? and there is none upon earth that I desire beside You." And as the bird requires no preparation for its flight, save only its instincts of danger or of need, so your soul needs no preparation before it draws near to God, before it betakes itself to the throne of grace, save the deep conviction of your poverty and want, your heart's thirst for holiness, your spirit's yearning for Christ. Alas! how many restrain prayer before God because of their low frames! They find their minds are so earthly, their hearts so cold, their spirits so depressed, so strong and unconquerable a distaste and disinclination for prayer, that, yielding to their feelings, they relinquish this, the most quickening and reviving, as it is the most precious and comforting, of all spiritual privileges. But, beloved, the Lord demands of you, before you approach Him in prayer, no self-fitness, no previous preparation, but that you, a poor, sinful, unworthy soul, needing Christ, coming empty to Christ, bringing all your sins and backslidings, and sorrows and wants to Christ, may "receive out of His fullness grace for grace." Approach Jesus as you are—come with elevated frames, or with depressed frames; with the language of praise, or with the utterance of want; with the gloom of despondency, or with the aspiration of hope,—only fall prostrate at the feet of Jesus, and receive the blessing He is able, and is willing, to bestow—the blessing found only there.

"All the fitness He requires
Is to feel your need of Him."

This suggests another thought. There is great danger of a willful quenching in our minds the spirit of prayer. If, when the Holy Spirit prompts us to pray—if, when we feel the soft, silent, gentle stirrings of our heart to rise to God, we suppress the emotion, unheed the voice, or postpone the act, we quench the Spirit's influence, and withdrawing, He leaves us to a cold and smokeless censer—a heart from whose altar no real prayer ascends. Oh, it is a serious and solemn thing not to have an ear quick to catch the voice of the Spirit—a heart ready to respond to the call of Christ. With more than oriental poetry has the inspired penman, in his graphic description of the Church, portrayed this state:—"I sleep, but my heart wakes: it is the voice of my beloved that knocks, saying, Open to me, my sister, my love, my dove, my undefiled: for my head is filled with dew, and my locks with the drops of the night. I have put off my coat; how shall I put it on? I have washed my feet; how shall I defile them? My beloved put in his hand by the hole of the door, and my affections were moved for him. I rose up to open to my beloved; and my hands dropped with myrrh, and my fingers with sweet-smelling myrrh, upon the handles of the lock. I opened to my beloved; but my beloved had withdrawn himself, and was gone: my soul failed when he spoke: I sought him, but I could not find him; I called him, but he gave me no answer." (Song of Sol. 5:2-6.) She heeded not the monition of the Spirit,—she responded not to the voice of Jesus,—she quenched the spirit of prayer in her soul; and when she arose to meet her Lord—lo! He was gone! Cultivate then, beloved, a holy aptitude for prayer, an earnest, watchful heeding of its earliest and gentlest call. Then prayer will not be a strange employment or an irksome task. In your closet, in your counting-house, in your morning or evening rambles, amid domestic cares or professional engagements, your heart will feel the attraction of heaven, and prayer, like a pillar of incense ascending from the altar, will rise wafted to the throne of God.

There is an important view of prayer we must not overlook. Are we not great losers from not cherishing a watchful spirit unto prayer? We ask, we petition, we invoke, but how little expectation is there of God's response; how little patient waiting for the Lord's answer, how little watching for the blessing! Verily, this is an essential and serious defect in our Christianity which must be remedied. But what is the Divine precept touching this point? "Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for all saints." (Eph.6:18.) "WATCHING THEREUNTO WITH ALL PERSEVERANCE." The same idea is presented in other words:—"Blessed is the man that hears me, watching daily at my gates, waiting at the posts of my doors." (Prov. 8:34.) The allusion here is to the position of the priest, waiting at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation where the Lord had promised to speak unto him, in holy expectation of the Lord's answer; it depicts also the expectant attitude of the congregation itself, watching the opening of the temple-gate, whence the priest would come, bearing in his hands the blessing his intercession had procured. Such must be our watching and waiting for the answer of our prayers. Expect God will answer you, and He will answer. Look for the blessing you have craved, and you shall receive it. To petition, and expect no response,—to ask, and look for no reply,—to pray, and care for no answer,—to implore a boon, and turn away in indifference and unbelief, is to cast the deepest dishonor on a prayer-hearing and a prayer-answering God. Marvel not that God answers neither by fire, nor by dew, nor by the still small voice—you are not waiting at the door of the tabernacle, nor watching at the temple-gate in holy, earnest, sincere desire for, and expectation of, the blessing! This was the Psalmist's position—"I will direct my prayer unto You, and will look up." Oh, be this our holy attitude!—looking up above all human improbabilities and impossibilities,—looking above all our sinfulness and unworthiness,—looking above all the dark, depressing, painful circumstances of our position,—looking above creature help, sympathy, and support,—looking up to God alone! The more we look up to God, the less we shall find it necessary to look down to man. The more we look up to God, the more thoroughly we shall be schooled in the holy are of looking up. David looked up when he had breathed his prayer to God. The disciples looked up when Christ ascended into heaven, and a cloud received Him out of their sight. Stephen looked up amid the agonies of his martyrdom, and saw Jesus standing at the right hand of God. My soul! do you look up above your broken cisterns, your dark clouds, your difficulties and your sorrows, and behold your God waiting to be gracious, ready to answer. "Why are you cast down, O my soul? and why are you disturbed within me? hope in God; for I shall yet praise Him, who is the health of my countenance, and my God." (Ps. 43:5.) Be you found, then, beloved, honoring God by a holy, believing expectation. He will regard your cry, and the answer will come. "For the vision is yet for an appointed time, but at the end it shall speak, and not lie: though it tarry, wait for it; because it will surely come, it will not tarry." (Hab. 2:3.) Oh, for stronger confidence in Jehovah touching prayer! Lord, increase our faith! Is there a suppliant You will reject? a case You will despise? a blessing You will withhold? a want You can not meet? a sinner You refuse to comfort? a sin You will not pardon? or a poor humble penitent You will not accept? No, not one. Then, Lord, I come, and will wait and watch, nor let You go until You bless me! Arise, my soul! He calls you. Behold, Lord, I come! I come!

With such encouragements to prayer—the Spirit inditing, Christ endorsing, the Father responding—let us draw near and ask large blessings. Already, in answer to prayer, the Church of God in America, in Ireland, in Scotland, and in some parts of our own land, is receiving the baptism of the Spirit. As the tidings reach us of thousands pressing into the kingdom of God in connection with a work too scriptural in its character, too supernatural in its power, and too decided in its results to be mistaken for the work of man, we exclaim with the wondering and grateful feelings of the Psalmist, "You, O God, did send (marg. shake out) a plentiful rain (marg. a shower of liberalities), whereby You did confirm Your inheritance, when it was weary." (Ps. 68:9.) The "signs of the times," the spiritual and intelligent study of which we too much overlook, are mighty and impressive in their significance. Christ is about to do great things in behalf of His Church—to "shake out showers of liberalities." The Holy Spirit is on His march through the land, traveling in the greatness of His strength and in the marvels of His grace. The moral barometer of the world indicates the approach of showers of blessings—"the former and the latter rain abundantly." The cloud, now larger than a man's hand, is stretching across continents, oceans, and islands, freighted with life, light, and love to a lost world. "Your kingdom come," has long been the prayer of the Church. His kingdom has, in measure, come; but it is destined to come in the full triumph of its grace, and in the final acclaim of its glory. It is yet to come with a power, a victory, and a majesty such as the world never yet has beheld. Jesus is to take to Him His great power and reign. What are these extraordinary movements of the Spirit but a preparing the way for the personal coming and reign of the Lord? Before that great and glorious advent, "this gospel of the kingdom is to be preached in all the world for a witness to all nations, and then shall the end come." In view of this great and predicted fact, we look upon religious Revivals as the ordained and surest pioneers of Christian missions. The baptism of the Holy Spirit in this and other nations is but the arising and girding of the Church of God to go up and possess the land which His Providence has made ready for the "feet of Him that brings good tidings, that publishes peace." The uprootings and overturnings of the nations of the earth are but the usherings in of the kingdom of Jesus. The strongholds of error and of despotism upon the continent of Europe, impaired by time and shaken by revolution, are preparing to yield to truth and liberty. The chains of idolatry, superstition, and caste in heathendom, smitten by rebellion and loosened by mutiny, are ready to fall from the myriads they have for centuries enslaved. India and China, Turkey and Japan, with well-near the entire world, for ages hermetically closed to Christ's gospel, are throwing wide their gates to admit and even welcome the messenger and the almoner of Christ's Church. What encouragement this to united, believing, persevering PRAYER! "Thus says the Lord, the Holy One of Israel, and his Maker, Ask me of things to come concerning my sons; and concerning the work of my hands command you me." (Isa. 45:11.) Infinite condescension!—worthy of Him who "made Himself of no reputation, and took upon Him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men." Lord, behold us at Your feet, wrestling with Your word of promise—"COMMAND you me!" "Drop down, you heavens, from above, and let the skies pour down righteousness; let the earth open, and let them bring forth salvation, and let righteousness spring up together."

Let us not be hindered and straitened in our prayers for this precious blessing—the outpouring of the Spirit upon ourselves, upon our families, upon the Church of God, and upon the world—by the idea that the Spirit is already in the Christian Church, the promise and gift of her Lord a present and inalienable blessing, and that therefore we are not warranted to pray for and expect a fresh outpouring of the Holy Spirit. That the Holy Spirit is the Indweller of the Church of God, abiding with her forever, and that the renewing and sanctifying of the saints is by Him, we fully and gratefully acknowledge. No declaration of our Lord could be more unmistakable when He says, "I will pray the Father, and He shall give you another Comforter, that He may abide with you forever; even the Spirit of truth." But the presence of the Holy Spirit in the Church, and the gracious and especial MANIFESTATION of the power of the Spirit in the conversion of sinners, are two different things—the one not a denial or a contradiction of the other. How cold, how deathlike, how unscriptural that teaching which tells us that because the Spirit is already the Indweller of the Church of God, all prayer and supplication for the expression of His convincing, life-giving, and sanctifying power is a work of supererogation! The outpouring of the Spirit, the Word of God warrants us to look for in these last days. Peter thus quotes the prophecy of Joel:—"And it shall come to pass in the last days, says God, I will pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh." The effusion of the Spirit on the day of Pentecost was but the commencement of a series of Revivals—the first instalment of the blessing—that were to trace and signalize the gospel and final dispensation. We do not regard these especial baptisms as the giving of another Spirit; it is the same Holy Spirit who converted the three thousand on the day of Pentecost whom we now invoke, and who, in response to these invocations, is graciously pleased to visit the Church with "times of refreshing from the presence of the Lord." We have our Lord's own warrant to ask in faith the bestowment of the Spirit—"If you, then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him." This promise and this warrant touching supplication for the manifestation and outpouring of the Holy Spirit was designed to prompt the desire, and guide the prayers, and feed the faith, and inspire the hopes of the Church of Christ to her latest age. And sad will it be for us when we shall cease to offer unto our ascended and glorified High Priest that incense of believing and importunate prayer, which shall enclose the Church and the world within the descending, all-enfolding cloud of a quickening and sanctifying Spirit! "The time is coming, and prophecy has foretold it, when in every land there shall be offered to God a peace-offering—when from the closet and the sanctuary, from the hill-top, the field, the forest-side, where the children of God shall, like Isaac, walk forth at eventide to meditate—the voice of pious supplication shall ascend in one continuous stream; until our globe, as it rolls along its orbit, shall seem but a censer revolving in the hand of the Great High Priest, and pouring out at every aperture a cloud, dense and rich, of incense, fragrant and grateful to God." (William R. Williams)

"Come, then, and added to Your many crowns,
Receive yet one, the crown of all the earth,
You who alone are worthy!—
The very spirit of the world is tired
Of its own taunting questions, asked so long—
'Where is the promise of your Lord's approach?'
Come, then, and added to Your many crowns,
Receive yet one, as radiant as the rest,
Due to Your last and most effectual work—
Your word fulfilled, the conquest of a world."

THE PRECIOUSNESS OF CHRIST'S SYMPATHY WITH OUR INFIRMITIES

"Himself took our infirmities, and bare our sicknesses." Matt. 8:17

Our Lord's union with our nature—the essentially divine in coalescence with the perfectly human—was not, as the Doecetae, a branch of the Gnostics, heretically taught, a mere appearance of humanity, a fiction, and illusion;—it was an actual and personal, a living and tangible humanity,—a mysterious and profound, but not less true and visible, manifestation of God in the flesh! It was, probably, in part to refute this early heresy that the Apostle John wrote his Epistle, in which he thus condemns the errorist while he affirms the truth:—"Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God: and every spirit that confesses not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God: and this is that spirit of antichrist, whereof you have heard that it should come; and even now already is it in the world." (1 John 4:2, 3.) It is not, then, less a doctrine essential to the Christian system, or less an evidence of a true Christian, and of a sound Christian teacher, than it is a source of the richest consolation and soothing to the Christian Church, that the Son of God became, by a mysterious union of the two extremes of being, the Son of Man; and as such—"Himself bearing our infirmities, and carrying our sicknesses"—becomes at once a fount of sympathy and love, its soothing and its healing spreading like a sea over our sin and sorrow stricken humanity. In this point of light, the truth of Christ's sympathy with our infirmities—which furnishes the theme of the present chapter—presents itself with an actuality and vividness the most realizing and personal. The proper discussion of our subject suggests, in their order, the consideration of the infirmities which appertain to our humanity—our Lord's personal participation in those infirmities—and the preciousness of His sympathy with the varied infirmities of His people.

The existence of physical infirmity in the saints of God is a fact so self-evident as to require no labored argument. It is the natural effect of sin—a part of the curse under which our humanity came in consequence of the fall. To assert that we were "conceived in sin, and born in iniquity"—as the Bible most distinctly and emphatically does—is to claim for our whole being—physical, moral, and intellectual—the existence of weakness, imperfection, and decay, which no surviving and still lingering emblems of our original stateliness and grandeur can possibly annihilate or conceal. How true a picture of the animate and the inanimate world has the pen of inspiration drawn, when it describes "the whole creation as groaning and travailing in pain together until now!" In this paralyzed and convulsed condition the saints of God are equally involved. Our humanity is essentially the same as that from which the electing love and sovereign grace of God has rescued and separated us. We are "by nature children of wrath, even as others." Our humanity differs from the most enslaved and degraded of our species only as Jesus has borne its sins, removed its curse, and, by the Spirit's renewing and indwelling, has made it the temple of God. Before we enter more fully upon this subject, let us remark, that the bodily infirmities under which the children of God labor are to be regarded rather as the consequences of sin than as in themselves sinful. For the want of clearly observing this distinction, many of the Lord's people walk in bondage. Sin is the cause, infirmity the effect. In all the instances in which the word is employed in the Bible, this idea would seem prominent. Thus, for example, physical deficiencies, bodily weaknesses, or actual sickness, are described as infirmities of our nature. We read of "a certain woman which had been healed of a spirit of infirmity." Her spinal cord was contracted, and she was bowed down and could in no wise lift up herself. We also read that many came to Christ "to be healed of their infirmities;" and that, "in that hour He cured many of their infirmities." And when Paul enjoined upon Timothy the use of a little wine, the plea upon which he enforced the duty was his "often infirmities." And when, in the lowly spirit of the Gospel, he abjures all self-glorying, laying his mouth in the dust, and esteeming himself the chief of sinners and the least of saints, he exclaims, "If I must needs glory, I will glory in the things which concern mine infirmities." And in another place he says, "Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses, for Christ's sake: for when I am weak, then am I strong." Let it then be distinctly remembered that sin is not an essential adjunct, a necessary concomitant of our nature—it is rather an accident of our being. Our nature was created sinless, reflecting, without a line to deface its beauty, or a shadow to becloud its luster, the intellectual and moral image of God. This curious and magnificent mechanism, as it came from the hands of the Divine Craftsman, was pronounced by Him to be "very good." What a glorious creature was man! No shade of care upon the brow, no hectic flush upon the cheek, no paralysis benumbed the limb, no trembling agitated the nerve, no heart flutter, nor convulsions, nor pain, nor restlessness—nothing, in a word, to shade, deform, or depress his humanity,—he was without sin, and consequently without suffering. We may therefore infer, and the inference is replete with comfort to the holy and spiritual mind, that our bodily infirmities are not sins, and are only to be viewed in that light as, through our unprayerfulness and unwatchfulness, they become causes or occasions of sin. But let us take a more comprehensive view of this subject, seeing that Christ's sympathy extends to all the infirmities to which His people are subject—this it is which makes that sympathy so precious.

Chief and prominent we must place the indwelling of sin—the believer's great infirmity, and the source and parent of all others. Sin is a word easily spoken, soon written—a mere monosyllable—but of what mighty and solemn import! Sin is the cause of all evil, the source of all sorrow, the spring of all suffering—its guilt, tyranny, and condemnation only met, cancelled, and removed by the incarnation and sacrifice of the Son of God. What must be the nature, the magnitude, the terribleness of sin, to demand on the part of God's moral government such an expedient! Now, it is this indwelling of sin in the believer that forms the baneful root of all infirmity, and is to his holy mind the greatest of them all. Listen to the inspired language which, in all ages and dispensations, has been but the one cry of the Christian Church—"O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?" A deep truth is unfolded here—the principle or body of sin in the believer, as constituting the ground of his profoundest humiliation and sorrow. It is not the dark speck here and there, as indicating the existence and process of the moral gangrene that produces the painful anxiety of the apostle—it is the corrupt body itself. We come short of just views of sin if we only estimate its enormity by its outbreak here and there—the spots upon the surface. The evil lies deeper and is concealed. We speak of the principle of sin, from which all sin originates. We do not ask you, reader, if you confess and mourn over sin in its external and overt acts,—this, doubtless, you often do with de

ep self-abasement. But the deepest sorrow for sin is that which springs from the conviction and consciousness of its indwelling principle and power—this should be our profoundest humiliation before God. To think of the depraved nature, the evil heart, the corrupt mind, the empoisoned and impure fountain, the body of sin and death constantly borne about with us—lying down and rising up with us—carried into our most sacred places, and with us in our most hallowed engagements—constantly, inseparably, ever prompting to evil—oh, this is our humiliation, and this should be our sorrow. Beloved, count not yourself to have arrived at any proper or adequate view of the burden and sinfulness of sin, until you have been brought to embody in your daily acknowledgments, humiliation, and sorrow, the sin that dwells in you. Then shall we be set upon the great work of mortification—and only then. No longer seeking merely the moral filtration of the impure streams, we shall task our utmost energies to the work of purifying the fountain. And who sees not that, this done—the source of evil met, the heart seasoned with grace—we shall then the more cheerfully and successfully address ourselves to the work of "cleansing ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God?"

There are other infirmities which may be classed as constitutional. Our spiritual and mental constitutions, like our physical, vary. As each individual has a natural constitution peculiar to himself, so has he a moral and intellectual one. Our constitutional infirmities are not all alike. The temperament of some is warm, excitable, impetuous; they have ardent, impulsive feelings; their affections are fervent, their sensibilities strong, their emotional nature intense—they can sympathize, can weep, can love. The temperament of others is cold, phlegmatic, immovable; they have but little of the emotional, the susceptible, the sympathizing, and it requires a great calamity often to rouse them to feeling. There are yet others, whose mental characteristics are those of depression, despondency, and gloom. Overlooking the bright and cheerful tints of life's landscape, they love to ruminate upon its dark and somber hues,—always gazing upon the gloomiest aspect of the picture, and dwelling with morbid pleasure upon the most unpromising and hopeless. Others, again, are of a sanguine and hopeful temperament; they live in a world of illusion and romance; without adequate premises they leap to conclusions, and without proper data they assume facts; credulous, unsuspecting, and confiding, they take for granted what some minds accept only upon demonstration. Now, all these are, doubtless, constitutional infirmities. It is an infirmity to be too feeling; it is an infirmity to be too cold. It is an infirmity to be too trusting; it is equally an infirmity to be too suspicious. It is an infirmity to be totally fascinated by the sunny, golden, and mellow tints of the picture, and equally so to be mentally absorbed and depressed by its shaded and gloomy coloring. "This is my infirmity," may be the exclamation, as each one passes in review. Yes, they are infirmities: levity, gravity; the sanguine, the desponding; the feeling, the phlegmatic; the confiding, the distrusting; the sensitive, the impassable; the ardent, the frigid; the liberal, the parsimonious; the credulity that believes anything, the skepticism that believes nothing;—all these—and a thousand more constitutional characteristics that might be adduced—in consequence of the sin that dwells in us, are infirmities clinging to our fallen humanity, the source and the occasion frequently of our deepest and bitterest sorrows.

And then there are infirmities purely of a physical nature. We embody and bear about with us the seeds and germs of all disease and decay, which, in any climate, in any place, and at any moment, may develop itself, and which, indeed, are gradually and imperceptibly, but most surely, conducting us to the grave. Who can behold the frailty of some, the nervousness of others, the incessant suffering of others more,—of multitudes who know not a day's perfect health, an hour's freedom from pain, a night's unbroken sleep—and not be convinced that the Church of God is "compassed with infirmity?"

Under this head of infirmity may be classed, too, the sufferings and persecutions, the privations, trials, and temptations, to which the saints are constantly exposed, and by which they are frequently assailed. The soul has its infirmities as well as the body; there are spiritual and mental, as well as natural and physical, weaknesses and frailties. Sin, and the curse which followed in its wake, have sown man's path, from his cradle to his tomb, with mingled seed. At each step, and each bend, there springs up a multitude of various ills, and woes, and sorrows. The tare grows side by side with the wheat; the thistle with the rose; the nightshade with the myrtle; the cypress with the laurel;—joy and sorrow, laughter and tears, hope and despondency, the marriage and the tolling bell, all, all blend together in our march to eternity. The woof of our humanity is of many colors; the stones that pave our pathway to the grave are of variegated hues. Such are the varied and dissimilar conditions of God's people. It is the infirmity of one believer that his faith is always faltering; of another, that his courage is always failing: of one, that he is of a desponding tendency of mind, taking but little of the comfort and hope of the gospel; and of another, that he confides too implicitly in himself, and looks too exclusively to his ever-varying and fluctuating experience for the strength and evidence of his Christianity. The experience of Asaph is, doubtless, that of many:—"Will the Lord cast off forever? and will He be favorable no more? Is His mercy clean gone forever? does His promise fail forevermore? Has God forgotten to be gracious? has He in anger shut up His tender mercies? And I said, This is my infirmity." (Ps. 77:7-10.)

It must always, too, be considered one of the infirmities of our spiritual condition, that we look so much to the dark providences of God in our history, rather than to His power, faithfulness, and love in the providence. God must be in all His providential dispensations. They are the chariots in which He rides. "He makes the clouds His chariot." When, then, we are absorbed in a fearful, unbelieving view of the chariot that comes near to us, and overlook Him who sits in it—the God of love, our Father, our Friend—it is no marvel that, with good old Jacob, we exclaim, "All these things are against me." Beloved, there is nothing that is really against you if you are in union with Christ Jesus. There is no enchantment, no divination. It is a "curse causeless!" It may be a tedious way, a narrow way, a thorny way, a self-denying way, a way bedewed with your tears, vocal with your sighs, perhaps tinted with the oozings of your heart's blood—nevertheless it is a right way by which Jesus is leading you, step by step, home to God. You will see that it was all right when you arrive there; and then with the countless minstrelsy of heaven redeemed like you by precious blood, and who with you have come out of great tribulation, you will exclaim, "He has done all things well."

There is a tendency, too, through the infirmity of our faith, to hesitate and falter when summoned to walk in some path of duty. It is seldom that God so leads us but at the sacrifice of some creature good, the surrender of some cherished idol. It is a part of that moral discipline that imparts symmetry and completeness to our Christian character. The call of duty is always the call of God. And yet how we hesitate and demur! How we linger upon the loved spot we are to leave—how we cling to the precious ties we are to sunder—how we grasp the sacred enjoyments we must perhaps forever relinquish! But the path of duty is onward—and onward must be our course. Then we learn how great is the infirmity of our grace. We once thought we could do anything for Christ—now that His glory and our interests clash, we pause, we weep, we reason. But it is only our infirmity, and the Lord knows that it is so. And as sure as He enables us by His grace to take the first step in the path of duty—fearful, trembling, hesitating though it be—He comes and helps each succeeding one by the sympathy of His love, and by the succourings of His grace; and we exclaim, "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me." In this way of duty, in which there is so severe and lingering a crucifixion of self, lessons in the divine life are learned, and truths in God's Word are experienced, such as, probably, would not be in any other way. In the world there are schools for different branches of knowledge and science, where the principles and systems peculiar to each one are alone taught. Christ has different schools for His disciples:—there is the school of correction, the school of trial, the school of sorrow, the school of temptation, the school of self-denial, the school of active service, the school of patient endurance—in one or all of these schools Jesus is instructing the disciples on earth, and training them for heaven, teaching them the peculiar lessons, and bringing them into the experience of the peculiar truths found in no other way. There are two natures in the believer, the active and the passive—both of which the Lord will unfold and discipline, and both shall alike honor and glorify Him. Peradventure you have reasoned thus—that, because the infirmities of the body or of the mind prevent you from the active service of Christ, you are therefore but a dry tree, a useless member of the body, a cumberer of the ground. Ah! my reader, the Lord has wisely chosen for you another and a different school—that of passive submission to the Divine will—the school of suffering, which is the school of God. Your duty, strength, and service for Christ is to sit still, to cultivate in your soul the passive graces of the Holy Spirit; and so by meekness, quietness, and silence, glorify your Father in heaven.

"They also serve, who only stand and wait."

But it is possible the Lord sees fit to train you for glory in the school of active and laborious employ. He may summon you to a post of labor at home which, perhaps, your judgment would the last have selected, or from which your taste, feelings, and inclinations recoil Or, it may be, He sends you to the far heathen, severing the fond and sacred endearments of home, and sundering the ties that bound you by associations so precious to the land of your birth. Well, beloved, it is Christ's school, in the which He is teaching, disciplining, and training you for heaven. By nature, by providence, and by grace He has fitted you for active service in the Church, and into His vineyard He condescendingly sends you. While others are learning the same lesson, and are being taught the same truth—the lesson of their own poverty and nothingness, and the truth of Jesus' all-sufficiency and unspeakable preciousness—amid scenes of trial and sickness, of suffering and want, you are being taught by the Master in the school of toil, of hardship, and of self-denial. Be it so, beloved. Each line from the circumference leads to the one center—JESUS; and Jesus will before long bring both the active and the passive disciple He has trained for glory on earth, to rejoice together in the same happy and eternal home in heaven.

We have now reached an essential and touching part of our subject—Christ's personal participation with the infirmities of His people. "Himself took our infirmities, and bare our sicknesses." "Himself" did it. It was a personal act. He confided the task to, and He imposed the burden upon no other. Nor would He admit a partner in the transaction. None should share it with Him. Not a sin, not a sorrow, not a pang, not an infirmity, not a tear, not a sigh would He divide with another. He would tread the path alone, and of the people there should be none with Him. "HIMSELF took our infirmities." Oh, in what a touching light this places the love of our Jesus—the all-concentrating, all-absorbing, all-engrossing love of our Emmanuel—for His people! He so loved us that He would do all for us Himself, nor share the work, nor divide the glory, nor participate the love of another being in the universe. Himself did it, and—did it alone. The question then arises—In what way may we regard our Lord as taking our infirmities and bearing our sicknesses? We think the answer will be supplied by the following considerations:—

First, by His assumption of our humanity. He could only come under the obligation to participate in our circumstances by taking up into union with the Godhead the nature that sin and the curse had bowed to the earth. The human nature to which His Godhead stooped was as free from the taint and pollution of sin as His divinity, and yet was it real humanity. "A body have you prepared me." "He was made sin" (or an offering for sin) "for us who knew no sin." He was "holy, harmless, undefiled, and separate from sinners." Keep firm hold of this doctrine of your faith, O believer! The shadow of a shade of sin in the human nature of the Son of God would have been eternal destruction to His elect Church—fatal to the accomplishment of His sacrifice, and the salvation of His people. We have said that it was real, true, actual humanity. Its mysterious and close union with the Godhead did not alter it, even as there was no essential change in the Godhead when it took up into union the manhood. There was a union—a personal and inseparable union—of the two natures, but no change in either—both retained their peculiar and essential properties. The humanity was blest by its union with the Deity, but not changed, in the least degree, into the essentially divine. It was filled and enriched with excellent gifts—even the Holy Spirit without measure—but was not in the least degree elevated into an equality with the Divine nature—it retained its own property intact. In taking upon Him the form of a servant, Christ did not abdicate the form of God. He, indeed, emptied Himself and made Himself of no reputation, and was reputed a man, and a very poor and despised man, too; yet He never ceased to be God. The glory of His Godhead was indeed enshrouded, but not extinguished; it was obscured, but not lost. Our infirmities shaded the luster of the Sun, but the Sun behind those infirmities shone with undimmed and undiminishable splendor. "He could not have been a sufficient Mediator had He ceased to be God, and He had ceased to be God had He lost any one perfection proper to the Divine nature; and losing none, He lost not this of unchangeableness, which is none of the lowest belonging to the Deity. Why by this union with the Divine nature should He lose this any more than He lost His omniscience, which He discovered by His knowledge of the thoughts of men; or His mercy, which He manifested to the height in the time of His suffering? That is truly a change when a thing ceases to be what it was before. This was not in Christ. He assumed our nature without laying aside His own. When the soul is united to the body, does it lose any of those perfections that are proper to its nature? Is there any change either in the substance or qualities of it? No; but it makes a change in the body, and of a dull lump it makes it a living mass, conveys vigor and strength to it, and by its power quickens it to sense and motion. So did the Divine nature and the human remain entire; there was no change of the one into the other, as Christ by a miracle changed water into wine, or men by are change sand or ashes into glass. And when He prays for the glory He had with God before the world was, He prays that a glory He had in His Deity might shine forth in His person as Mediator, and be evidenced in that height and splendor suitable to His dignity, which had been so lately darkened by His abasement; that as He had appeared to be the Son of man in the infirmity of the flesh, He might appear to be the Son of God in the glory of His person, that He might appear to be the Son of God and the Son of man in one person." (Charnock.)

But His assumption of our humanity—"the Word made flesh"—was only a part of His participation with our infirmities—the physical infirmities of our nature. The body He took was but the vehicle by which He acted. He approached yet closer to the actual bearing when he was made under the curse, and took upon Him our sins. As sin and the curse which followed are the sources of all our infirmities—mental, moral, and physical—so, by becoming a sin-offering for the one, and coming under the other, He "Himself took our infirmities, and bare our sicknesses." By this act of bearing our sins, He more truly and strictly took our infirmities than though He had actually sinned as we have sinned. Our great, our grand, our chief infirmity is—SIN! This is the parent, and root, and spring of all infirmity. Jesus took our sins: "He bare our sins in His own body on the tree;" "He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities." Could language be stronger? Not merely the punishment for sin, but sin itself was laid upon Him!—yet was He "without sin." And thus it was our blessed Lord "took our infirmities, and bare our sicknesses." And now trace His own actual, personal participation in our infirmities. Jesus knew what it was to be weary—to hunger and thirst—to be homeless and friendless—to be maligned, traduced, slandered—to be wounded by foes—to be deserted by friends—to be taunted by men—to be tempted by Satan—to be forsaken by God. Was not this a taking upon Him our infirmities? Did not this include them all? What is your infirmity, O child of God? Is it sin?—Jesus bore it. Is it sickness?—Jesus carried it. Is it a weak, infirm, frail body?—Jesus assumed it. Is it loneliness?—Jesus lived much in solitude. Is it irritability, impatience, fretfulness, nervousness?—Jesus bore the sin and curse from whence this springs. Is it wounded love, betrayed confidence, disappointed friendship?—Jesus trod this shaded path before you. Is it poverty, straitened circumstances, humiliating dependence?—Jesus too was poor, and, supported by the charities of those who ministered of their substance to His wants, was subjected to this humiliation. Are you bereaved?—keenly did Jesus feel this sorrow, when His tears fell fast and thick upon the grave of His friend at Bethany. Tell me, then, have you an infirmity which your Lord did not bear before you? "Himself took our infirmities, and bare our sicknesses."

How illustriously did Christ exhibit this assumption of, and sympathy with, our infirmities when He was on earth! Take a general survey. He healed the sick—restored sight to the blind—made the lame to walk—the deaf to hear—and lifted up those that were bowed down. Nor this only. He restored reason to its throne—ejected demons from their usurped dominion of the soul—chased the cloud of sadness from the spirit, and made the widow's heart to sing for joy. How beautiful and artless the narrative—how graphic and lifelike the description!—"When even was come, they brought unto Him many that were possessed with devils: and He cast out the spirits with His word, and healed all that were sick: that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Elijah the prophet, saying, Himself took our infirmities, and bare our sicknesses." Pause, and contemplate the scene—it is full of poetry and power. It is twilight—or, as Mark narrates, "at even when the sun did set." All nature is in harmony with the touching spectacle. The sun has almost finished his daily course, his burning wheels reposing upon the utmost verge of the sky. The last smile of day yet lingers, gilding with liquid gold the lofty dome of the Temple, and tipping with streaming silver the mountain's brow and the leafy spires of the grove. All is hushed, as if Nature itself were dead. The confused din of the tumultuous city has ceased, and the toil-worn laborer rests from his employ. The weary winds forget to blow—the gentle gales have fanned themselves to rest—not a wavelet breaks the smooth surface of the lake. The aspen ceases to quiver, and echo herself slumbers. This is the hour and this the scene Jesus has chosen for His works of benevolence and power. Holy and precious the instruction! Is it, beloved, the twilight of life with those on whose behalf we would implore the compassion and help of the Savior? Is the sun of human existence just setting, his last, his latest rays falling upon the world's gray landscape, now receding into the deep shades of night? Hear you their plaintive cry, "Woe unto us! for the day goes away, for the shadows of evening are stretched out?" Take heart, my brother! The sun has not yet gone down—night's darkness has not yet come; it is not too late to bring in faith and hope the objects of your sympathy and love to Jesus. It was "at even, when the sun did set, they brought unto Him all that were diseased, and He healed them." What Jesus then was He is now, "the same yesterday, today, and forever." Despair not, then, of their salvation. Lay them down at His feet, cast them upon His heart, take hold of His robe, nor let Him go until He speaks the word, and lo! "at evening-time it shall be light." Blessed Savior! The world's din is hushed—the thick shades of evening are gathering over life's landscape—the sun of human probation touches the horizon—the long, dark night of eternity approaches—the all-important crisis has arrived—one look, one word, one touch from You, and there shall be healing, there shall be light, there shall be life!

How precious, then, the sympathy of Christ with human infirmity! His fitness thus to sympathize is portrayed by the apostle as inspiration alone could depict it—"We have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time need. For every high priest, taken from among men, is ordained for men in things pertaining to God, that he may offer both gifts and sacrifices for sins: who can have compassion on the ignorant, and on those who are out of the way; for that he himself also is compassed with infirmity." Behold your Lord's fitness to share and sympathize with all your infirmities! He was "encompassed with infirmity." He knew what hunger and thirst were—He knew what labor and fatigue were—He knew what languor and sleeplessness were—He knew what pain and suffering were—He knew what spiritual depression and mental darkness were—He knew what the fiery darts of temptation were—He knew what the weight, and curse, and sorrow of sin were—He knew what the assaults of the world, the malignity of foes, the fickleness of friends, the distrust and woundings of brethren were—He knew what it was to be denied by one disciple, to be betrayed by another, and to be forsaken by all! Child of God! what more shall Christ endure, what ruder path shall He tread, what deeper sorrow shall He experience, what bitterer cup shall He drink, what darker cloud shall He penetrate, what infirmities more human, more severe, more humiliating, shall He take, in order to be touched with the feeling of yours? Will not this suffice to wake your heart to love, to win your mind to confidence, to inspire your soul with hope, to replenish your spirit with joy, and tune your lips with praise—that Christ's sympathy, so human yet divine, all so tender, all so clinging, all so personal, entwines around your every infirmity—bodily, mental, spiritual—and makes it all His own? "Touched with the feeling of our infirmities."

"And do you weep in sorrow, brother?
Do not think you have a lonely lot;
The very pang now your, Another
Endured for you, and murmured not.

"To consecrate the path of sorrow,
He left the glory of the skies;
And deigned our suffering flesh to borrow,
That He with grief might sympathize.

"Do mourn beneath the fierce temptation?
On Him the tempter's shafts were cast.
Are your the waves of tribulation?
Often o'er His soul those waters passed.

"Each suffering that enthrones your pillow,
Is felt within your Savior's heart;
His hand will hold you o'er each billow,
For He has felt your every smart.

"He who stood by the sisters weeping,
Their brother raised, and dropped the tear,
Marks all your tears with eye unsleeping,
When grief bends o'er the recent coffin.

"Though far removed from mortal vision,
His heart still beats with sympathy;
The sufferings of His earthly mission
Have left deep scars, which plead for thee.

"In all your sufferings, do not think, brother,
Your is a lone, unfriended lot;
Look up, and feel there is Another,
In sympathy who ceases not."
—W. J. Brook

"And bare our sicknesses." You inquire, How could this be, since Christ knew not bodily disease? But it was not necessary, in order to constitute a perfect sympathy in Christ with our physical infirmities, that He should know in His own person what sickness was. He bare our sicknesses when He bare our sins, and by His atonement put them for ever away. If He bore the cause of all our sorrows and infirmities, surely He is fitted to sympathize with its effects—and sickness is one. And when Jesus ministers at our sickbed, imparting support and soothing, alleviation and recovery,—when He approaches and vouchsafes patience of spirit, and strength of endurance, and submission to the Divine will, giving gracious manifestations of Himself by day, and songs of praise and thanksgiving in the night season, and then raises you up again to health, to duty and service—surely, then, He may be said, in a most emphatic sense, to bear our sicknesses. Sick believer! you are not alone—Christ is with you. He knows all your weakness, infirmity, and pain. He understands perfectly the mysterious relation of mind and body, and can enter into all those delicate shades and subtle distinctions in the mutual operation of the one upon the other, which escape the eye even of the most skillful and vigilant. What is purely mental, what is simply physical in your case, and how they sympathize and often seem to blend, is to Him who bear our sicknesses when He took our sins, and who rebukes and heals all our diseases now, an object of the intensest interest. Suffering one! Christ is bearing that suffering with you. The burning fever, the writhing pain, the faintness, the languor, the sinking—all is known to Him. The difficulty of concentrated and consecutive thought, your inability to meditate, to read, to pray, the absence of spiritual enjoyment, the dimmed evidences, the beclouded hope, the fears and tremblings—all, all are entwined with your Redeemer's sympathy. His "grace shall be sufficient for you," His "strength shall be made perfect in your weakness;" and thus you shall be enabled to "glory in your infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon you."

With the infirmity of prayer we may especially invoke and expect the aid of Christ's precious sympathy. That there is a close relation between the two, is clear from the passages we have already quoted, and, for our argument, will quote again. The reasoning of the apostle is, "We have not an High Priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin." Then follows the exhortation—"Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need." The connection of our infirmity in prayer, and the tender, succouring sympathy of Christ with that particular infirmity, is adduced as an encouragement to pray. And who is not sensible of infirmity in prayer? In no spiritual duty, perhaps, is our earthliness, weakness, and failure more manifest. In proportion to the elevation, spirituality, and solemnity of the engagement, is our frailty and shortcoming. It is your infirmity that you feel such a reluctance to pray, and that when you rouse yourself to the privilege, it is to you a burden and a task. It is your infirmity that, at the Mercy-Seat, your mind is so wandering, your thoughts are so vagrant, your heart is so divided; that, in spite of your endeavors to concentrate the mind on the great business of converse with God, it starts off like a broken bow; and the feelings, that ought to dissolve and flow forth in one ardent current of affection, congeal as into icicles around the Mercy-Seat, bathed in the very sunbeams of Divine love. The deep consciousness, too, of your sinfulness operates often as dissuasive to prayer. You cannot imagine how one so unworthy may be permitted—yes, invited—to approach; and when you approach, the suspicion haunts your breast that such petitions as yours can never find acceptance with God. But we have not an High Priest who cannot be touched with the feeling of this infirmity. What a provision has His mediatorial work made for it in the unceasing sympathy of the Holy Spirit! Thus reasons the apostle—"Likewise the Spirit also helps our infirmities: for we know not what we should pray for as we ought; but the Spirit itself makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered." (Rom. 8:26.) To this intercession of the Spirit He adds the merits of His own oblation. Blending, as we have shown in the preceding chapter, the incense of His merits with the incense of our prayers, and tenderly commiserating the feebleness and frailty of a nature which, "when it would do good, finds evil present with it," He graciously purifies and perfumes each petition, and then presents it with acceptance to God. Come boldly, then, to the throne, you timid, trembling souls!—you whom sins distress, whom guilt burdens, whom sorrow bows, whom infirmity disheartens,—for you have a "High Priest who can be touched with the feeling of your infirmity," and who invites you to draw near and ask what you will in His name.

If Christ patiently bears and tenderly sympathizes with your infirmities, be you as patient and sympathizing towards the infirmities of your fellow-Christians. In this respect "let the mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus." Our brethren are encompassed with infirmity—each having his own and peculiar cross to carry, his burden to bear. Learn to be like Christ—gentle, patient, charitable, and sympathizing. The sympathy which the Gospel inculcates in the disciples of Christ towards our fellow-disciples is large and comprehensive in its nature. The precept is —"Rejoice with those who do rejoice, and weep with those who weep." The exhortation is—"We then that are strong ought to bear the infirmities of the weak, and not to please ourselves." Now, the feeling implied in these words is something more than sympathy, or at least as commonly understood,—it is sympathy in its strict, literal, and legitimate import,—something far exceeding ordinary pity or commiseration. The family of God is one household, one brotherhood. And the essential unity of this one family is in nothing more truly and touchingly exhibited than in the oneness of sorrow and of joy which pervades alike each member of the sacred household. But, as if the Holy Spirit would define yet more clearly the nature of true sympathy, the Church of God is presented under the similitude, not of a family only, but of a body. Alas! we find not always in a family the mutual affection and confidence, the sympathy and communion which ought to distinguish and hallow an institution so sacred and precious as the domestic. But if we pass from the similitude of the family to that of the body, we think we shall have a more vivid conception of the nature of that sympathy which ought to animate the Church of Christ. "Now you are the body of Christ, and members in particular." The sympathetic union of the body—each part with the other, and all with the whole—is of so close, tender, and inseparable a nature as not to be surpassed nor equaled. The sympathy which a sound member of the body has with a suffering member, is a sympathy which makes that suffering its own. The net-work of nerve, so fine and universal, which extends from the censorium to the furthest extremity, indicates to the remotest member the existence of suffering in any one part of the body, and instantly awakens a responsive sympathy, which amounts, in fact, to a corresponding uneasiness and suffering. There may be said to be actual pain in one member when there is sympathy with positive pain in another. So should it be in the Church of God, which is "the body of Christ." In virtue of our individual membership, we are to make a brother's or a sister's affliction, sorrow, and infirmity as much ours as if it were our own. If one brother is wronged, wounded, slandered—or another is bereaved, afflicted, tried—or yet another is borne down by some heavy, clinging infirmity,—I am to make that brother's wound, that brother's affliction, that brother's infirmity my own. That blow is to be upon me as well as upon him, and that wound is to penetrate my heart as it penetrates his:—"That there should be no schism in the body; but that the members should have the same care one for another. And whether one member suffer, all the members suffer with it; or one member be honored, all the members rejoice with it." (1 Cor. 12:25, 26.) "Bear you one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ." Such is the sympathy of our great and glorious Head. "In all their afflictions He was afflicted." And the trials, and sorrows, and infirmities which still adhere to His Church on earth, the Holy Spirit denominates the "afflictions of Christ." In behalf, then, of Christ's infirm and suffering body, we bespeak your patience, gentleness, and sympathy. Speak gently, or, rather, speak not at all, of a brother's failing; unveil not a sister's weakness to another eye. Act towards that infirm or erring one as though that infirmity and that error were your own. Imitate your Lord and Master. "For even Christ pleased not Himself; but, as it is written, The reproaches of them that reproached you fell on Me." Guided by this principle, actuated by this spirit, and imitating this example, you will be gentle towards those who are "weak in the faith," will participate in "the infirmities of the weak," and, "if a man be overtaken in a fault, you which are spiritual will restore such an one in the spirit of meekness considering yourself, lest you also be tempted." Do not think, beloved, that we are exacting too much from you in requiring that you should thus identify yourself with the Christian sufferer, and act as though that sufferer were yourself. Your common Christianity demands it, and your exemplification of the sympathy is one of the surest tests of your membership. And our identification with a brother's infirmity is nothing more than the practical recognition of our being "members one of another; "and nothing less was meant by the apostle when he enjoined on believers, that they should "remember those who were in bonds," not merely as pitying and commiserating, but as actually "bound with them." Lamb of God! mold us to Your truth, and make us like Yourself!

"Lord, leave us not to wander lonely
Through this dark world, unloved by Thee;
All other friends are helpless only,
Though full of love as friends may be.
Drear are the fondest homes around us,
Sad, like our hearts, when You are far;
When You have sought us, heard us, found us,
How sweet Your consolations are!
Hear us, cheer us,
Lord, and leave us not!

"Leave us not when pride and anger
In the heart would dare rebel;
Claim us in our utmost danger,
Calm us at the mouth of hell.
Leave us not until we inherit
Charity that works no ill,
And we hear Your gentle Spirit
Inwardly whisper—'Peace, be still!'
Hear us, cheer us,
Lord, and leave us not!

"Leave us not in days of trial;
Let us act at duty's call,
Though it lead to self-denial,
Though we have to give up all.
Raised on high, or humbled lowly,
Praised or scorned from land to land,
Bear us up, our Father holy,
Bear our burdens in Your hand.
Hear us, cheer us,
Lord, and leave us not!

"Leave us not when all has left us,
Health and vision, strength and voice;
When of friends death has bereft us,
Let us still in You rejoice:
Near us when in doubt, to guide us;
Near us when we faint, to cheer;
Near in battle's hour, to hide us;
Nearer ever, and more dear.
Hear us, cheer us,
Lord, and leave us not!

"Leave us not when foes come nigher,
Cheer us when the grave looks cold;
Lead us onward, upward, higher,
Forward to the gates of gold.
Leave us not when ailing, failing,
Sore depressed, and bending low;
Be Your love then most availing,
Then to aid us be not slow.
Hear us, cheer us,
Lord, and leave us not!

"Leave us not until You have brought us
To the holy, wealthy place,
There to see You who have bought us
Fought our fight, and won our race:
There to hear no more the shouting,
And the thunder of our foes;
Danger past, and past all doubting,
And the grave's austere repose.
Hear us, cheer us,
Lord, and leave us not!"
—Emmet

THE DEATH OF THE SAINTS PRECIOUS

"Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints." Ps. 116:15

There are two stand-points from which the believer views death, so widely separated and so totally dissimilar as essentially to change both its character and its appearance. The first is the prospective view—the looking forward to death. From this position the spectacle is one from which even the feelings of the Christian instinctively recoil. Death is a part, a terrible part, of the curse; and no firmness of faith in Christ, or brightness of Christian hope, can entirely disarm the feeling, that it is a momentous thing even for a saint of God to die! In the prospective view of death, it appears in its pure, unmitigated character—an arbitrary sovereign, an armed despot, a relentless foe, a melancholy and inevitable crisis of our being; severing the spirit from the body, the soul from home, the heart from all its loved and cherished ties of earth; and terminating, too, the believer's witness for God, his service for Christ, and his mission to man. In looking forward, then, upon death, we marvel not that, from this stand-point of time, the saints of God should shudder at the prospect.

But the second view of death is the retrospective—the looking back upon death. How different the spectacle! how changed its aspect! It is from the stand-point of glory that "the spirits of just men made perfect" survey death. The dread crisis is passed, the cold river is crossed, the enemy is conquered, the victory is won; and standing among the heavenly minstrelsy, the palm-bearing throng who line the golden sands of the heavenly Canaan, and from thence looking back upon their defeated foe, they raise their paean of triumph yet more expressive and melodious than that which rose in the triumphant song of Israel, "Sing to the Lord, for He has triumphed gloriously; the horse and the rider has He thrown into the sea." "Death is swallowed up in victory, mortality in life!"

But even the prospective of death is not without its gleams of irradiation to the believer in Jesus. It is not all sadness and gloom, blessed be God! Separating from it all that is of nature and sense, and viewing it in the light of the cross and with the eye of faith, we can see the beauty and feel the force of the words of the epitaph which the Spirit has inscribed upon the tomb of all who sleep in Christ—"Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth: yes, says the Spirit, that they may rest from their labors; and their works do follow them." Believer in Jesus! we are about to present to you the Gospel view of death; and although it is the sad prospective, yet it is not all cypress which climbs around the gloomy portal that conducts you into the dark valley; the laurel is there; the ever-bright, ever-living laurel, entwines with the dreary cypress, and tells of victory and of hope. "Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints."

In the preceding pages we have portrayed the character, defined the principles and privileges of the saints of God, unfolding, in the progress of our discussion, many great and precious things appertaining to their order. One view yet remains—and this will form an appropriate close to the volume—their departure to glory to be forever with Christ, and the preciousness of their translation to the Lord. "Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints."

Until the personal coming of the Lord to which we may presently advert—to quicken the sleeping saints and to translate the living, death is the inevitable condition of the saints. They die as others die—it is a part of the curse to which all must submit, although, in the experience of the believer, it truly is the "curse causeless." The Lord could, if so it pleased Him, exempt them from the long and painful process of disease and decay, and without their seeing death, without a cloud or a fear, take them to glory. In the case of some He does. In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, they are absent from the body and they are present with the Lord. This He sometimes does with those whom He early calls by grace and as early calls to glory. It is not that He loves them less, but that He loves them more, that He takes them soonest to be with Himself. "Whom God loves best He takes soonest." The son of Jeroboam, who only of that family had "something good in him toward the Lord God of Israel," came to an early grave. We repeat that God could, if most for His glory, take all His saints to heaven without their tasting the "bitterness of death." But it pleases Him that they should tread the path their Lord and Master trod, who, in all the events of His life, "left us an example that we should follow His steps." But while the saints of God must die, there yet is much in death from which they are exempt. They are exempt from it as a penalty, as a sting, as a condemnation. Death in the case of believers is not a curse, but a blessing; it is not a penalty, but a privilege. Death is one of the precious blessings of the covenant of grace—quite as much so as life. "All things are yours…whether life or death." Death is as much a covenant blessing as is the pardon of our sins, or the justification of our persons. Christ met death, the "king of terrors," clad in all the darkness, and horror, and bitterness of the curse. He grappled with it, tasted it, received its sting, and bowed to its mandate. Having thus passed through its terrible ordeal, as our Surety and Redeemer, He gives it back to us clad in a robe radiant with luster, holding a broken scepter in one hand, and a wreath in the other, with which He crowns each believer who succumbs to his momentary power, thus essentially changing its character and appearance, so that now the death of God's own saints is precious. This, beloved, is a pleasant view of death. It is delightful for you who, "through fear of death, are all your lifetime subject to bondage," to contemplate it among the precious things of God.

The death of His saints is precious to the Lord, because their persons are precious to Him. We shall never fully know, though sounding its fathomless depths, and scaling its illimitable heights through eternity, the love of God to His saints. When the finite can compass the Infinite, we may then understand to its extent the "love of Christ which passes knowledge." So great is this love, it extends not to the persons only, but to all that belongs to a child of God. It separates not between the believer and his minutest interest, there being nothing attaching to an accepted sinner that is not dear to God. Human friendship affords an apt, though necessarily an imperfect, illustration of this. Real affection is undivided and supreme. We cannot love the person of a friend and feel indifferent to his personal interests. His happiness and well-being, his character and usefulness, will ever be closely and inseparably interwoven with our deepest interest and with our warmest love. Entwining him with our sacred affections, we have entwined in the same coil of love all the elements of his being, and all the circumstances of his history. His sorrows becloud, his joys brighten, our spirit; in his depression we are depressed, in his honor we are honored. The atmosphere in which he lives influences the emotional of our nature, and our sensibilities rise or fall, are elated or depressed by his moral temperature. Of all the definitions of friendship, none can equal the truth and beauty of the inspired—"Your friend, which is as your own soul." (Deut. 13:6.) Sanctified by the grace of Jesus, what a tender, touching affection is this, linking us to another being, and to all that being's interests, as closely and as faithfully as though they were our own!

"It is the secret sympathy—
The silver link, the silken tie—
Which heart to heart, and mind to mind,
In body and in soul can bind."

There are few gifts of God more rare and precious than such a friendship—a friendship which becomes an inseparable part of our own being. We are, perhaps, but little aware how deeply we are indebted to its molding, soothing, preserving influence. Who that has felt it finds not a response to the poet's language?—

"Friendship! mysterious cement of the soul!
Sweetener of life, and solder of society!
I owe you much. You have deserved of me
Far, far beyond what I can ever pay.
Often have I proved the labors of your love,
And the warm efforts of your gentle heart,
Anxious to please."

But the friendship of God transcends all friendship, even as the love of God transcends all love. God loves not only the persons but the interests and concerns of His people. There is nothing, beloved, appertaining to you that Christ does not feel an interest in. He is concerned in all your sorrows, in all your trials, in all your infirmities, in all your wants, in all your temptations. Do not think His is a divided affection. Oh, no! your person precious to His heart, all that relates to you is precious—your life is precious—your death is precious. Can you think of the departure to eternity of one you love with indifference? Can you stand by that dying bed, and mark the ebbing of life from "your friend, which is as your own soul," without emotion?—without the feeling that your own existence were passing from you? Oh, no! Think, then, how precious to the Lord must be the death of His saints! It is as if His own life—the life He inspired, the life He ransomed, the life He renewed, the life He kept—were dissolving into immortality, yes, were dissolving into Himself! The life of the believer is the life of God in his soul; and when disembodied, it ascends to glory, it rises to the Divine source from whence it came, and although maintaining a separate and personal existence, becomes, in a measure, absorbed in God, and God, in the fullness of its joy, becomes all in all. Precious, then, to Christ is the death of His saints. When they die, He is with them. He is there to support with His grace, to soothe with His presence, to brighten with His glory. He is there to nourish the faith that droops, to quench the temptation that assails, to dissipate the cloud that darkens, to remove the guilt that distresses, to quell the fear that agitates, and to cheer the solitude and loneliness of the valley with gracious manifestations of Himself, and to breathe words of kindness, comfort, and love, as the soul

"Passes through glory's morning gate,
And walks in Paradise."

Believers die in reliance upon the atoning sacrifice of Christ, and so their death is precious in His sight. They die without a shred of human righteousness to cover them, without an argument that springs from themselves to plead for them, reposing in simple, childlike faith—the faith of an empty, helpless, believing sinner—upon the finished work of Immanuel. His blood and righteousness, beloved, will be your only hope in death, as in life, and that will be quite enough to meet the dreadful solemnity of that hour. We have witnessed and have read of the closing scenes of many believers—some eminent as preachers, scholars, and writers—but we never saw or heard of one who, in that solemn hour, derived any evidence, or comfort, or hope from his holiness, his labors, or his usefulness of life,—all exclusively and humbly have relied upon the Redeemer's blood and righteousness, and died clinging as sinners to the Savior, as the guilty to the Crucified. And must not such a death be inconceivably precious to Jesus?

True believers die in the Lord, and this imparts a character and preciousness to their death delightsome to God. What significance and depth of meaning in these words—"Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord!" The thought of dying out of Christ may well impart to the unbeliever a fearful dread of dying. Such may truly regard death as the most terrible of all terrible things. Unconverted reader! better never to have been born into this world than to pass into the next out of Christ. It is to die as you were born—in sin, in rebellion against God, unconverted, under the curse, and condemned forever. "He that believes on the Son has everlasting life: and he that believes not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abides on him." (John 3:36.) Oh, to confront the "king of terrors" with all your sins upon you, with all your guilt attaching to you, cherishing the enmity against God of your carnal mind, the weapons of rebellion in your hand, the love of sin, and the supremacy of Satan and the slavery of the world in your heart! Oh! is this the proper state in which to stand before a holy and a righteous God? Are you willing to die in this condition? Have you made up your mind to go into eternity without reconciliation, without pardon, without the wedding-garment, without an interest in Christ? Surely you have not seriously and intelligently considered your position, nor have weighed—if, indeed, they can be weighed—the fearful consequences of dying in your sins—unrepentant, unbelieving, unconverted. Think of passing through that dark, mysterious avenue that leads from time into eternity, without the presence of Jesus! Think of finding yourself disembodied in the world of spirits, yourself a spirit, affrighted, agitated, trembling, your escort up to the judgment-seat, lost, condemned spirits like your own! Think of appearing before the tribunal of Infinite Justice without a plea, without an argument, without a Savior! Think of the trial—think of the scrutiny—think of the unveiling of your whole life—think of the sentence—think of the condemnation—banishment from God, exile from heaven, the loss of the soul, the undying worm, the unquenchable fire, forever dwelling with the devil and his angels! "Take you the unprofitable servant, and cast him into outer darkness; there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth." Dreadful words to fall from the Lamb of God, who died on Calvary for the greatest of sinners! Have you carefully pondered these things? "What will you say when He shall punish you?" But there is hope! Death has not yet cited you to Christ's dread bar. Your adversary has not yet delivered you to the judge. God yet gives you space for repentance. Count His patience salvation. Repent! Ground your weapons beneath the Cross! Fall in the dust before God! Cry mightily to Him for mercy! Escape for your life, and look not behind! Betake you to Christ, and give not sleep to your eyes nor slumber to your eyelids until you have shut yourself within Christ, where not a drop of the wrath of God shall ever touch you. Need we remind you what a Savior He is,—that He casts out none who come to Him—that He welcomes all poor penitents—heals every broken heart—binds up every wounded spirit—washes in the fountain of His blood the guiltiest, clothes the naked, pardons the vilest, accepts the chief of sinners, and saves to the uttermost all that come to God by Him,—and all this on the ground of His most free, unconditional grace? "How shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation?"

But believers die in Christ. They die interested in Christ, they die shut up in Christ, they die clothed with Christ, they die in a union with Christ from which nothing shall ever separate them. In the fullest, broadest, most emphatic and blessed meaning of the words, they "die in the Lord;" and precious in His sight is their death.

The glory which the death of the saints brings to God must endear to Him their departure. "This spoke He, signifying by what death He should glorify God." The Lord is glorified by the death of His saints. Their faith in Him at that solemn hour glorifies Him. The grace that sustains them under their sufferings glorifies Him. Their confidence in His promises, their hope in His salvation, their patient submission to His will, and their longing to depart to see His face, to be perfected in His likeness, and to be with Him forever, glorifies Him. And do you think not that glory surpassing all conception is brought to Christ when the dying saint, in that solemn moment, commits, entrusts, and breathes out his precious soul into the hands of Jesus, exclaiming, "I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I have committed unto Him against that day?" "Lord, into Your hands I commit my spirit, for You have redeemed me."

Precious, indeed, must the death of His saints be to the Lord, because then it is that He gathers them to Himself. "Father, I will that they also whom You have given me be with me where I am, that they may behold my glory." Behold how Christ longs to have His saints in heaven with Him! So near and precious are they to His heart, He will not rest until all the travail of His soul, all the sheep of His fold, all the precious gems of His cabinet, encircle His throne, cluster around His person, fill and sparkle in His jeweled diadem. Not one shall be lost. Not a babe of the family, not a lamb of the flock, not a crown jewel shall be missing in that day. "They shall never perish, neither shall any one pluck them out of my hands." Deity has redeemed them, Deity has preserved them, and, enshrined in the glories of Deity, they spend their happy eternity. Blessed truth! glorious hope! Weak saints shall be there, doubting believers shall be there, restored backsliders shall be there—the hand that but touched the hem shall wave the palm—the eye that but dimly beheld the cross shall drink in all that splendor—the tongue that but lisped, "My Father," shall join the song and swell the chorus. Child of God! trembling believer! doubting, fearful one, to whose heart the Savior is more precious than life itself! you shall be there. There is a place in that crown, a mansion in that home, a bower in that paradise for you. And when death releases you from the bondage of corruption, and your happy spirit wings its way to heaven, the angels will clap their wings, and all the family above will strike their golden harps and cry, Welcome, welcome home! So precious are you to Jesus—the fruit of His dying agonies, the "pearl of great price," bought with His most precious blood, and kept by His Divine power—He must have you to behold His glory, to see His face, to repose upon His breast, to bask in His smiles, to chant His praises, to serve Him day and night in His temple, to be like Him and with Him forever. We wonder not, then, that "precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints."

But is it death to die? Approach that chamber where the saint of God is departing. Enter with a hushed footstep, for solemn is that scene, sacred is that spot—it is the verge of glory, it is the expanding gate of heaven. Celestial beings, viewless and noiseless, are there—angels and the spirits of the glorified hover round that bed. The Triune Jehovah is there—the Father watching the child He adopted, the Son upholding the soul He redeemed, the Holy Spirit strengthening the heart He had made His temple. Is this the chamber of death? this the last enemy, the final conflict, the closing scene? Surely this is not dying! What! this mental calmness, this spirit-joy, this soul-sunshine, this victory of faith, this stupendous, glorious triumph of the immortal over the mortal—is this death? Hark! What angel sounds are those? Whence this melody? It is the voice of the departing one. Listen to the strains—

"Jordan's stream shall ne'er overflow me
While my Savior's by my side;
Canaan, Canaan lies before me,
Soon I'll cross the swelling tide.

"See the happy spirits waiting
On the bank beyond the stream,
Sweet responses still repeating,
Jesus, Jesus is their theme."

And then all is still! The "silver chord is loosed," and the panting spirit, borne on the wing of song, has swept upwards into the beaming presence of God, and rests in the embrace of Christ. Call not this death—it is LIFE! Call it not destruction—it is the renewal of vigor of the soul, the moment when it renews its youth and expatiates amid the wonders, glories, and sublimities of its new-born creation. All this triumph, all this glory, all this joy, we owe to Jesus' death and resurrection. In the faith of the atonement—

"It is not death to die—
To leave this weary load,
And, 'midst the brotherhood on high,
To be at home with God.

"It is not death to bear
The wrench that sets us free
From dungeon chains, to breathe the air
Of boundless liberty.

"It is not death to fling
Aside this sinful dust,
And rise, on strong exulting wing,
To live among the just.

"Jesus, you Prince of Life!
Your chosen cannot die;
Like You, they conquer in the strife,
To reign with You on high."

Precious, too, because death is the end of all their sorrows and sufferings, their infirmities, sicknesses, and sins. It is the termination of all evil, the birthday of all good. Oh, precious death, that dissolves the last link that binds me to corruption, that breaks the last fetter of sin, stifles the last groan, hushes the last sigh, dries the last tear, and introduces me to the sinless, sorrowless companionship of those who are before the throne of God and the Lamb "without fault!" Oh, who with but the lowliest hope in Christ longs not, wearies not, sighs not to be there? How the contrast intensifies this yearning! Here is earth—there is heaven. Here is sin—there is purity. Here is toil—there is rest. Here is continual sorrow—there is fullness of joy. Here is exile—there is home. Here are imperfect saints—there, the "spirits of just men made perfect." Here are partings and changes—there, eternity restores the holy loves of earth, sanctifies and fixes them forever! Oh, pants not your spirit for the eagle's flight that you may be there?

"Earth—with all its sin and sadness,
Pain and sickness, grief and care;
Heaven—with its unspoken gladness,
Light and love, and all that's fair;
How the two contrasted stand—
This dark world, and that bright land.

"Here the eye grows dim with weeping,
Here the cheek is wan with woe,
For the loved ones who are sleeping,
For the hopes that are laid low.
In the light of heaven's ray,
Tears of earth are wiped away.

"Here our toilsome way pursuing,
Compassed round with many foes,
Pleasures are not worth the wooing,
Thorns are found with every rose;
There—the sorrowful are blest,
There—the weary are at rest.

"Here a lonely watch we're keeping
On the battle-plain of life,
Lest the foe should find us sleeping,
And unfitted for the strife;
There the war and conflict cease,
Heaven's atmosphere is peace.

"Here the songs of praise we're singing
Often languish as they rise;
Fettered is the spirit's winging,
Cold and dead its harmonies;
In the chorus of the sky
Hallelujahs never die.

"Here our painful cross we're bearing,
Where our Master leads the way;
Here the shame and grief we're sharing,
That for us upon Him lay;
There, we lay our burden down,
Change the cross into the crown.

"Here the parting word is spoken,
Where our hearts the closest cling,
And upon the spirit broken,
Like a knell its accents ring;
There—before the Savior's throne
Parting is a word unknown.

"Here—we long to be like Jesus,
Here—we taste His matchless grace;
But whenever from earth He frees us,
We shall see His blessed face;
With His saints forever stand,
In our glorious fatherland."
Willis

But while thus, beloved, we have concentrated your meditation for a time upon the death, the preciousness of the death, of all who believe in Jesus, we by no means would have you infer that this is the subject which should the most preeminently, earnestly, and exclusively arrest and fix the thoughts and expectations of your soul. THE COMING OF THE LORD, and not the death of the saints, is the grand theme, the "blessed hope," which the Holy Spirit proposes for our meditation, and presents to our faith. The great motive to watchfulness and prayer, to separation from the world, holiness of life, and readiness of habit to meet the Lord, is drawn, not from our going to Christ by death, but from Christ's coming to us in personal glory. Death is a part, and a fearful, gloomy, repulsive part, of the curse. View it in its most pleasant and attractive light, it is a humiliation. It is a conquest—it is a separation—it is a change—it is a decay—it is a solemn, a fearful plunge of the spirit into a world mysterious, invisible, unknown! But turn your thoughts to the COMING OF THE LORD. How different the spectacle! It is a glory—it is a triumph—it is a reunion—it is the advent of a Conqueror—it is the appearing of a Savior—it is as the coming of a Friend. Not, then, by the approach of death—precious though to Christ that death may be—but by the yet more powerful, yet more precious, yet more persuasive, lovely, and soothing prospect of the COMING OF JESUS, does the Holy Spirit seek to awaken, sanctify, and comfort the saints. How impressive is the language—"Waiting for the coming of the Lord Jesus"—"To the end He may establish your hearts unblameable in holiness before God, even our Father, at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ with all His saints"—"I pray God your whole spirit, and soul, and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ"—"We beseech you by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and by our gathering together unto Him"—"Be patient, therefore, brethren, unto the coming of the Lord"—"For the coming of the Lord draws near"—"Looking for the blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Savior Jesus Christ"—"To all those who love His appearing"—"I will come again and receive you unto myself, that where I am there you may be also"—"He which testifies these things says, Surely I come quickly. Amen. Even so, COME, Lord Jesus." Is not this a prospect worthy the study, the hope, the longing, the future, the destiny of the Church? Dwell upon the scene—a master's hand has sketched it. "In the first place, it presents to the expectation of the saints all that is to be loved and desired in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ, by whom he has been redeemed, and upon whom he has been nourished and sustained, not in His humility, as heretofore, but traveling in the greatness of His strength; not as a servant, but as a sovereign, uniting in Himself all the tender intercessions of the priest and the powerful majesty of the king, a priest upon his throne forever. We shall behold Him whom, not having seen, we loved; we shall see Him as He is, in whom, while yet we saw Him not, we rejoiced with joy unspeakable, and full of glory. We shall see all the glorious attributes of God made manifest in manhood: the son of Mary glorified into the Son of God, and clothed with the all-sustaining power of the Word of God. In the next place, we shall behold all enemies put under His feet; Satan, the accuser of the brethren, cast out of the earth, and with him all his evil angels which dwell in the natural man, and rule the world. And we shall see the prison-doors of death unbarred, and the grave yield up her dead; and then shall come to pass that saying of the prophet, 'Death shall be swallowed up in victory.' In the next place, we shall be gathered with all the saints of God since the world was, who shall all stand in their lot in the latter day, and in their flesh shall see God—the general assembly of the first-born, whose names are written in heaven; the Church of the living God, the patriarchs, the prophets, the apostles, the glorious army of the martyrs, the whole host of the redeemed, whom He shall bring with Him; and we, who remain until His coming, shall be caught up with Him into the air, and shall be forever with the Lord. This is not a cheerless parting, but a joyful meeting and eternal union of those who are spiritually dear to one another; and, as touching natural affections, let it be remembered, that the natural man is then no more, the spiritual man alone is, and his affections alone remain. Then our father and mother, brother and sister, are they who have fulfilled the will of our heavenly Father. In the next place, this body of wickedness, this body of sin and death, shall be exchanged for the likeness of Christ's glorious body; for sinful flesh and blood shall not inherit that kingdom, nor corruption incorruption; mortality shall be swallowed up of life; it is sown a natural, it is raised a spiritual body; it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in honor; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power. So that all shall be strength, harmony, and union within us; the perfect man, the holy man, complete in all things, and wanting nothing. In the next place, we shall be forever with the Lord, partakers of His throne, partakers of His crown, and partakers of His government; His assessors in judgment, His deputies in power, ruling over the cities of His dominion, and judging the tribes of the sojourners of the earth. For though I inquire not into the mode or manner of our being, yet this I am not ashamed to declare, that we shall be like the Lord who ascended up from earth as easily as He descended; who after His resurrection, and even before it, passed to and fro without let or impediment of matter, and governed the elements with a sovereign control. And so shall we, in the exercise of that government and sovereignty which we shall then be permitted to hold of the earth, be as Adam, a king in his majesty whom the elements of nature and all living, moving creatures upon the earth harmed not, but delighted to obey. Finally, we shall behold the earth and all the sojourners therein living in peace and blessedness, under the government of the Lord Jesus Christ; nature repossessed of all her original beauty, and society of all its proper blessedness; peace, gentleness, and meekness restored on every hand; all men blessed in Jesus, and calling Him blessed: 'nothing to corrupt or to destroy in my holy mountain, says the Lord; for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, as the waters cover the channels of the deep.'" Look, then, on this picture and on that, and say which is the most pleasant, and attractive, and hopeful—which the best calculated to soothe in grief, to sustain in trial, to fortify in assault, to nerve in conflict; to animate in service, to stimulate to holiness, and to throw over all the future of the soul the glory and radiance of Christian expectation and hope—the dread approach of the grim king of terrors, or the glorious appearing of the great God our Savior? For His coming, then, let us be looking—for it let us be prepared. Gird up the trailing robe, trim the waning lamp, nerve the trembling arm, and rouse the drooping heart. Our Lord is coming to bring us to Himself. All things betoken His near approach. Soon we shall behold His chariot, hear His voice, see His face, and fall in love and ecstasy upon the bosom that sorrowed, and sighed, and bled for us on the cross. "Let your loins be girded about, and your lights burning; and you yourselves like unto men that wait for their lord, when he will return from the wedding; that when he comes and knocks, they may open to him immediately. Blessed are those servants whom the lord, when he comes, shall find watching."

And now, my beloved reader, we part! We have spent many a sacred hour, have traveled many a pleasant path, and have discoursed upon many a hallowed theme together as we have roamed through these pages. Have we the experience of these "precious things of God" in our souls?—their preciousness in our hearts?—their sanctifying power and influence in our lives? Then, though now we separate, each to his toil, his care, his conflict, in a little while and we shall meet again, to part no more forever! Then, beloved, you will not need the human tongue to tell the preciousness, nor the human hand to portray the beauty, nor the human imagination to unveil the glory of our IMMANUEL, for we shall "see Him as He is," and be with God forever. Oh, look to JESUS—cling to JESUS—live, labor, die for JESUS! Ten thousand lives, ten thousand deaths—spent in exile, endured in martyrdom—were little, indeed, for such a Savior! Build your hope of heaven solely, exclusively, upon this "precious Corner-stone." Sweep from its surface all the wood, hay, and stubble of human merit and creature trust—all the chaff, rubbish, and dust of sacramental grace and religious ceremonial,—and plant your foot of faith, hope, and love, firm upon the bare, the naked ROCK—the "Rock that is higher than you." Never, never will you perish, if upon this Divine FOUNDATION—this "CHIEF CORNER-STONE, ELECT, PRECIOUS"—you lay your many sins, rest your weary soul, lean your dying head, and rear your hope of glory, Then, "when He shall come to be glorified in His saints, and to be admired in all those who believe," you will rise from the dust, enter into joy, and revel amid the PRECIOUS THINGS OF GOD in endless blessedness. Amen, and amen.

"Our Jesus is the Corner-stone
Jehovah built His Church upon,
And never fallen to the ground
Shall that blest edifice be found.
The worldly-wise, with boasted sense,
Count Him a rock of great offence;
And all who are not newly born
Behold Him with contempt and scorn.
Sufficient goodness of their own
Makes Jesus but a stumbling-stone;
By reason of their blinded eyes,
God's way of saving they despise.
But when, in His appointed hour,
The Holy Spirit comes with power,
And leads the soul to Sinai's mount,
And opens there the black account,
He stands condemned, and looks around;
No friend nor helper can be found.
But when the Comforter comes near,
And sweetly whispers in his ear
That Jesus came for him to bleed,
His name is precious then indeed;
Precious as God's appointed way
His own perfections to display.
For what of God is understood
Save through the Lamb's redeeming blood?
He's precious all our journey through,
As when the first believing view
Removed the heavy load of sin,
And brought the peace of God within.
He's precious as our covenant Head,
And precious when, in sinners' stead,
He paid the law's immense demands
Into His righteous Father's hands;
And precious when ''Tis done,' he cried,
And bowed His sacred head, and died.
Then death forever lost its sting;
The Church may now of victory sing.
Precious when faith beholds Him rise
Victorious to His native skies;
And precious, now in heaven He pleads,
And for His members intercedes.
If varied often be our case,
He's precious then in various ways;
When weary, weak, or sore oppressed,
He's precious as a place of rest.
When clouds of darkness intervene,
And Jesus' beauties can't be seen,
Why do we linger by His cross,
And count all else but dung and dross?
Because He's precious to us still,
Nothing on earth His place can fill.
When under fresh-contracted guilt
Sorrow and heartfelt shame are felt,
The blessed Spirit comes again,
Sprinkles the blood, and heals the pain.
How precious, then, the Son of God,
From whose dear side the fountain flowed!
With joy we lift our heads again,
And sing the Lamb that once was slain.
Sometimes, lest we should lift our head,
As if the Man of Sin were dead,
We're left to feel a deadly blow,
To humble pride and keep us low.
God shows us some inherent sin,
Which makes us cry, Unclean! unclean!
Yet 'midst the thorns He'll safely keep
The feet of all His helpless sheep.
He but designs from self to wean,
And make us more on Jesus lean.
While traveling through a hostile land,
With mighty foes on every hand—
When called in battle to engage,
And hot the fight through Satan's rage—
How precious, then, our conquering Lord!
How sweet to hear that cheering word,
'You need not fear, you need not flee;
Stand still, and my salvation see.'
Then shout, you saints, the battle's won!
Your Captain is to glory gone!
Gone up your places to prepare,
And soon He'll fetch and place you there,
With all the heavenly host to praise
A PRECIOUS CHRIST through endless days."
—Sturton

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

From Grace to Glory

"For the Lord God is a sun and shield--the Lord will give grace and glory--no good thing will he withhold from those who walk uprightly." Psalm 84:11

"Out of nature into grace, out of grace into glory."

What Is Not the New Birth

What Is the New Birth?

The Evidences of the New Birth

The Fruits of the New Birth

The Assurance of Conversion

Anxiety for Conversion

The Trial of the New Birth

The Relapse and Recovery of the New Nature

Early Conversion

From Grace to Glory

If the words of Jesus be true--and He who spoke them was Eternal and Essential Truth--"Except a man be Born Again, he cannot see the kingdom of God," then the human pen was never employed upon a subject of more vital importance than that which these pages but briefly and imperfectly discuss. His aim throughout the volume is to show that, as the New Birth is a spiritual work, the Holy Spirit must be its Divine and sole Author, from its commencement in grace to its consummation in glory.

WHAT IS NOT THE NEW BIRTH

"You have a name that you live, and are dead."--Rev. 3:1

The reader, possessing a taste and an eye for the fine arts, must often have stood entranced before a picture of natural still-life, in which, with masterly genius, the artist had portrayed the subject with such vivid effect as to invest it with all the charm and power of reality. So successful is the illusion, and so intense the feeling produced, it would seem, while gazing upon the painting, that the fawn must bound from the canvas, the purple flow from the grape, and the perfume breathe from the rose. And yet, with all this appearance and glow of animation, it is but--a picture of still-life.

In the passage which suggests the leading thought of this chapter we find a striking analogy to this. It is the picture of spiritual still-life, or false conversion, sketched by the hand of a Divine Artist--"you have a name that you live, and are dead." This delineation of spiritual still-life--in other words, this description of the New Birth in profession and appearance only--is perfect. Here is conversion in all but its reality! Here is spiritual life--but it is the appearance of life only. Here is spiritual death--and it is a solemn fact. The one is an illusion, a fiction, a counterfeit; the other a grim, stern, cold reality. The very life itself is--death! Such is the spiritual state we are about to delineate in the present chapter--such the portrait for which thousands might stand as the original. And can the sanctified imagination conceive a state more sad or appalling? To believe that we are born again, to assume the exterior, and claim the privileges of the truly converted, while yet dwelling in the region and shadow of spiritual death, is of all spiritual conditions the most dangerous and fatal.

In a treatise devoted to an exposition of the nature and evidences of the New Birth, it is proper that we take first the NEGATIVE bearings of the subject, showing what is not real conversion. We need scarcely bespeak the reader's solemn and prayerful consideration of this subject, for it bears upon its surface the impress of infinite importance. Surely, if apart from the New Birth there is no state of grace here, and no state of glory hereafter, the question must come home to every thoughtful bosom with irresistible impressiveness and power. "Is mine a real or a false conversion? Am I truly born again?" Instructed by the Divine Spirit, we propose to assist you in this momentous inquiry, by showing how far you may advance in a profession of Christianity, in the appearance of the New Birth, and not be born again--having a name to live, and yet dead!

1. And, first, let us remark that a spiritually-enlightened understanding, or a mere intellectual acquaintance with Divine truth, is not of itself the New Birth. Light is not life. We may admit through the window the morning's roseate beams in all their brilliancy and power into the chamber of death, but the corpse around which they play remains, pulseless and lifeless, a corpse still. The body is bathed with the light, the pallid countenance is illumined with its radiance, and the shroud is fringed with its hues, but all still is death. The sun has not quickened into life a solitary throb!

And thus there may exist in the religion of an individual an enlightened understanding, much intellectual acquaintance with Divine things, a sound judgment, and an intelligent mind, yet entirely dissevered from spiritual life. We may accept the Bible as wholly true--a great concession this!--may believe in it historically, understand it intellectually, and expound it ably, and not be born again--substituting speculative knowledge, or a theoretical acquaintance with Divine truth, for the kingdom of God in the heart--religious light in the understanding, for spiritual life in the soul.

But the truth as it is in Jesus demands more than the mere assent of the understanding. It does not, indeed, bypass the province of reason, nor set aside the aid of the intellectual powers of man; but, while it appeals to this tribunal, and exacts its homage and its belief--carrying triumphant the noblest and loftiest powers of the soul--it enters the HEART, and there puts forth its mightiest power, achieves its greatest triumph, receives its profoundest love and conviction, claiming and securing the affections for Christ.

Believe me, my reader, your theology may be biblical, your creed orthodox, your mind well-furnished and fortified with Christian evidence, and yet all this may be accompanied with no more spiritual life than is produced by the moonbeams falling in cold, silvery luster upon an alpine peak.

2. Religious emotion is not the New Birth. You may be the subject of deep, intense, religious feeling; the conscience, brought into close contact with solemn truth, may be aroused; the sensibilities, appealed to, may be excited; the mind, reasoned with, may assent--and yet death in the soul maintain its gloomy scepter. A description of Christ's sufferings may dissolve you to tears, a picture of heaven's glory may entrance you with hope, a delineation of hell's woe may paralyze you with fear, and spiritual death still reign within your soul. No subject moves our natural feelings like religion. To nothing does our emotional nature so quickly and deeply respond as this. Hence how easy and how soon are those sensibilities of our being wrought upon which may assume all the resemblance and actings of life, and yet be spiritually dead. It is life, but, alas! it is still-life.

Real conversion does not petrify the natural or the moral feelings. Far from it. There is no real conversion apart from feeling, often the most profound and intense. A true spiritual conviction of sin will sometimes stir the soul to its lowest depths. It was so with the tax-collector, and thus was it with the Philippian jailer. There is nothing so startling, so appalling, so overwhelming, as a spiritual sight of the heart's depravity. Who can have an insight into this dark, mysterious chamber of imagery, this seat of all iniquity, as unfolded by the Holy Spirit, and not shudder, and tremble, and weep, exclaiming, "What must I do to be saved? Lord, save! or I perish."

But, in all faithfulness we must add that, intense sensibility, deep religious feeling, and great alarm may co-exist with spiritual death in the soul--it may be found apart from real conversion. The stony-ground hearer received the word with joy. Herod heard John preach the gospel with gladness. The devils believe and tremble. Thus the opposite emotions of joy and fear may exist apart from a spiritual change of heart. Beware, then, of this deception!

3. Mere religious convictionis not real conversion. There may be in the subject some intelligent knowledge and insight of sin, some vivid apprehension of its existence and guilt, attended with pungent conviction and mental distress, springing from its present and remote consequences, without any spiritual sense of sin, as sin, against the holy Lord God. While there is no real conversion without the conviction of sin, mere natural conviction alone, unaccompanied with a spiritual renewal of the heart, cannot be denominated real conversion. An individual may for months and years be what is termed "under conviction of sin," and his soul yet remain without very decided evidence of spiritual life.

But, if these convictions which you have are of the Holy Spirit's producing, if they arise from the effectual work of Divine grace in your soul, they will, they must, before long, eventuate in your real conversion to God. If the result of animal excitement only, the mere emotional part of your nature stirred--if but a transient flash of thought, a sigh, a tear, a passing feeling--it will all evaporate, subside, and vanish as the foam upon the billow, as the morning cloud and as the early dew. There is, indeed, the appearance of life; but, alas! it is spiritual still-life. "You have a name that you live, but are dead."

4. Nor does real conversion resolve itself into the mere possession and exercise of spiritual gifts. The history of the Church of God affords lamentable proof of the existence of the most splendid and powerful spiritual gifts not in alliance with one atom of converting grace. The Corinthian Church supplies a sad chapter to this history. If God endows an individual with great and brilliant parts, and that endowment is in connection with a religious profession--it may be the holy office of the Christian ministry--the inference is not necessarily logical and true that the individual so furnished and installed is spiritually and thoroughly and truly converted.

Our adorable Lord--that great Prober of the human heart--He who only knew what was in man--forewarned us of this. "Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name? and in Your name have cast out devils? and in Your name have done many wonderful works?" And what is the solemn, the inevitable result? "And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you--depart from me, you that work iniquity." Oh you who are endowed with popular gifts, who plume yourselves with your brilliant attainments, who walk amid the golden candlesticks, distinguished lights and brilliant orbs, tremble, lest in the deep treachery of the heart you should be found substituting these meretricious ornaments, these tinsel garnishings of the Christian profession, for that spiritual renewal of the heart which leads its possessor to walk holily and humbly with God. How easy the deception! how woeful the result! We may speak with the entrancing eloquence of men, or with the soft music of angels, without one spark of real love to God glowing upon the lifeless, flameless altar of the heart.

We shudder to think how far human intellectualism and eloquence may pass current in the office of the Christian ministry, with those who fill and with those who worship it, totally dissevered from all spiritual life. These are grand weapons of Satan and of Error. Availing themselves of human learning, an acute intellect, and brilliant attainments, the eloquence of speech, and the fascination of address, those united foes of Christ and the Church--Satan and Error--seek to upheave the foundations of truth and righteousness, and to sow the seeds of "damnable heresies," consigning men's souls to everlasting perdition.

Great giftedness, disunited from great grace, has ever been the bane of the professing Church. The Lord lead us into solemn self-examination, and give us to prize one grain of real grace above all the most splendid gifts of nature, the most polished attractions of art, the noblest attainments of the schools that ever endowed and adorned the human intellect. To walk holily and humbly with God, to lie as a sinner at the feet of Jesus, to be living day by day upon the blood and righteousness of Christ, and to do the Lord's work in the spirit of self-abnegation, lowliness, and love, has more of holiness and heaven in it, and brings more honor and glory to God, than the most costly gifts and the most brilliant achievements ever possessed--apart from the grace that empties us of self, sanctifies our hearts, and fills us with the mind and temper of Christ.

5. A high standard of moralitymay exist apart from true conversion. The ungodly and unconverted world furnishes many and marvelous examples illustrating this thought. Men of integrity and uprightness in all the relations of domestic, social, and commercial life; who can walk among their peers with dignity and honor, who yet are living in the region of spiritual unregeneracy and death. True, most true, there is no vital religion without morality, but there may be morality of a high and commanding order without vital religion. The minor morals of life may bud and blossom upon human character and conduct separate from the root of grace in the soul, and the soul's vital engrafting into Christ. It is fruit, but not the fruit of righteousness, nor the result of faith and love. It is life, but not the life that is hid with Christ in God.

It is at best but a negative righteousness, such as the proud, vaunting Pharisee wrapped around him when, with supercilious disdain, he looked down from the height of his self-sufficiency upon his humble fellow-worshiper in the temple, who, meekly standing afar off, smote upon his breast, and exclaimed, "God be merciful to me a sinner!"

You may be able to dignify and adorn all the relations of life, be a man of virtue and honesty, benevolence and integrity, and yet not be born again of the Spirit. Your morality may have much of the appearance, attraction, and fascination of real holiness, but it is mere morality still; and mere morality is no passport, signed and sealed by the Great King, to a heaven of glory. It may look like the engrafting and the fruit of spiritual life, but it is life in alliance with death, cold, inanimate death, death in all but the name. "You have a name that you LIVE and are DEAD." Yet more pointed and solemn the testimony of Him who spoke these solemn words, "Except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees, you shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven."

6. Nor can religious activity and usefulness be regarded as either a substitute for, or a valid evidence of, real conversion to God. And yet we know not of a more specious and fatal danger than this. In a Christian age like the present, distinguished for its religious spirit and enterprise--an age in which the romance of pious zeal seems to have reached its highest culture, there exists a great and fatal temptation of substituting spiritual still-life for spiritual quickened-life, Christian activity for Christianity, and Christianity for Christ; the spasmodic throes and convulsions of religious zeal and excitement, for real, vital religion, the name to live while nothing really lives but--death!

Christian energy and success are, at best, but negative and dubious data upon which to predicate the actual existence of spiritual life in the soul. That an individual perfunctorily engaged in religious work may be useful in guiding the steps of others, as the sign-post planted midway between two diverging roads may direct correctly the doubtful footsteps of the traveler, itself remaining stationary, numberless cases testify. We may point the pious pilgrim the right way to heaven, we may lead the anxious inquirer to Jesus--we may, in various ways, be employed in the cause of truth and in the kingdom of Christ--in praying and exhorting and preaching; in instructing the ignorant, in reforming the vicious, in reclaiming the wanderer--and the vineyard of our own soul remain untilled by one solitary act of spiritual culture--not a seed, or bud, or flower, or fruit of grace and holiness, relieving its barrenness, or evidencing its spiritual life.

Doubtless, the antediluvians were useful in aiding righteous Noah to construct the Ark for the saving of his house, while they themselves perished in the flood, clinging, perhaps, to the sides or clutching the keel of the vessel as it floated serenely on its way. The scaffolding is useful in the erection of the building, but, constituting no essential part of the structure, is removed when the edifice is complete. How delusive and unsafe, then, the evidence we glean from Christian activity and usefulness that we are personally born again, are truly converted to Christ. Such is the danger of becoming ourselves insensible to what we recommend and enforce, or assume that we possess it when in reality we do not.

We are overwhelmed with the apprehension that in a day of unexampled religious activity and stir, of enterprise and excitement, when association after association starts up, each demanding and each receiving a new host of volunteers, offering not only their wealth and influence, but their talents and time to the work, numbers may be beguiled into the belief that all this is saving religion, that all this is real conversion! Never doubting that they must experimentally know what they theoretically teach, and must spiritually love what they earnestly commend, they pause not to examine their own hearts as to their personal acquaintance with these things. In proportion, also, as these associations multiply, and with their multiplication the rate of activity and excitement increases, does the necessity of pausing for self-examination exist.

The increased magnitude and consequent velocity and din of the machinery of Christian activity must necessarily lessen the opportunity and the desire for a quiet converse with our own soul. The necessity, therefore, of special self-examination increases precisely at the same rate with the energy employed in promoting the spiritual well-being of others. Let it not be supposed that no individual can be employed in advancing the kingdom of grace who himself lives without grace; that we cannot promote the holiness of others without the possession of holiness ourselves; that we cannot be spiritually useful to others while we yet ourselves remain in an unrenewed state. He has studied the history of the Christian Church but to little advantage who has not learned that God has often employed unholy agencies for the accomplishment of His will and purpose; and that, when in His sovereignty He has so employed, He can in His sovereignty destroy them. "For the scripture says unto Pharaoh, Even for this same purpose have I raised you up, that I might show my power in you, and that my name might be declared throughout all the earth," (Rom. 9:17.) How should this truth, then, lead us to dive into our own hearts, bring our souls to the unerring touchstone of God's Word, drive us out of every subterfuge, and allow nothing--the most fair and plausible and good--to come between our hearts and their true, thorough conversion to Christ.

7. With many the idea is not less false and fatal, that a diligent and externally-devout attendance upon the means of grace and ordinances of God's Church constitute the great spiritual change of which the Bible speaks as essential to salvation. As though God would or could accept, in lieu of the heart spiritually renewed, divinely loving and holy--the mere externals of the Christian faith, the empty signs and symbols of Christianity! But, my reader, we must endeavor to dislodge this fatal delusion from your mind. You may be punctual in your attendance at the house of God, be externally a serious and devout worshiper; you may go to and fro with gilded Bible and Prayer-book in your hands, you may remain, when the great congregation is dispersed, and join the few who approach the solemn symbols of the Savior's dying love, and with all this still continue unregenerate, unborn again, living in the distant region and dark shadow of spiritual death.

"We ate and drank in Your presence," will be the plea, earnestly but vainly urged, in the great day when no plea for admittance within the pearl gate that expands to admit the Bride to the marriage banquet of the Lamb will avail but the new birth. The only response to that appeal will be, "Depart from me, I never knew you." Oh yes! you may descend to the shades of endless despair--from the house of God--where judgment must first begin--from the table of the Lord, your lips moist with the dreadful symbols of a Redeemer's dying love, with no more valid hope of salvation than the deluded felon who stands beneath the fatal drop clasping the adored crucifix to his breast--another victim to the long, gloomy procession of lost souls, who presumed to substitute the lifeless forms of religion– "Devotion's every offering but the heart"– for the great spiritual change of the new birth; having a name to live, and yet dead. Examine yourselves, prove your own selves in this matter.

8. Among the most plausible yet most fatal errors is, the substitution of denominational religionfor the religion of the renewed heart. And yet how common is this delusion! To what an alarming extent does it denominationalism divide all classes of religionists! An individual may be a fiery partisan, a stern bigot, a martyr for his creed, a holocaust upon the altar of his Church, and vainly imagine that this is all that Jesus meant when He thundered with reiterated force those solemn words upon the ears of the Jewish ruler, "You must be BORN AGAIN."

But zeal for a denomination, love to a Church, a wedded attachment to an ecclesiastical system, may exist, and in numberless cases does exist, in alliance with a nature entirely unrenewed by the Holy Spirit, with a heart totally destitute of the love of God. We have known individuals who have sacrificed health, substance, and even life itself in the arena of ecclesiastical warfare, closing their deluded and melancholy history unrelieved with one solitary ray of true Christian hope. What is this religion better than that of the Mohammedan, the Hindoo, or the Papist? There is nothing in it of spiritual vitality, nothing of Jesus, nothing of God, nothing of eternity. It may enable its partisan to pass muster with his peers, it may give him high position and great renown in his denomination, it may enthrone him upon the highest pinnacle of the temple, the demigod of his party. But, when the hour, the solemn, the appalling hour comes, to meet, whose tremendous reality, denominationalism, and ecclesiasticism, and priestlyism--systems, creeds, and sacraments--must all retire from the scene and give place to a foundation more real, to a religion more vital, to hope more substantial, what, oh what will this 'baseless fabric' of a denominational religion do for us then!

Reader, with all your denominational love, your party zeal, your earnestness and devotion and sacrifice to promote the ecclesiastical branch to which you belong, you must be born again, or share the fate that awaits all mere sects and systems, forms and ceremonies, rituals, creeds, and Churches. "O Lord, save us from so subtle, so dangerous, so fatal a delusion! Allow us not, in a matter of such infinite importance, to substitute a dream for a reality, a system for Christ, a lying fiction for a good hope of eternal life. Give us the reality and the earnestness and the vigilance of Divine grace to make sure work for eternity. Create in us a clean heart, and renew in us a right spirit!"

9. By how many is the fatal delusion fostered that, afflictions, adversity, and sorrow are, of themselves, valid evidences of the new birth! Were this a reality and not a phantom, the truth and not a lie, it would follow that this world, all enshrouded with the winding-sheet of woe, groaning and travailing in the throes and convulsions of suffering, sorrow, and death, is thronged with new-born and regenerate beings, temples of the Spirit, and heirs of the kingdom! We hasten to dispel the delusion.

There are both judicial and the parental judgments of the Most High God with the children of men. His afflictive dispensations with the ungodly are those of a Judge; with the righteous, they are those of a parent. And, although the season of adversity, the hour of sorrow, is ofttimes, in the purpose and arrangement of God, the period of the new birth--the occasion of the translation of the soul from darkness to light, from death to life--the rod of affliction driving the man from his shattered idols, his blighted hopes, his false dependences, to the Savior; yet, there is not necessarily a solitary link between the darkest adversity, the most crushing affliction, the profoundest sorrow--and that spiritual new birth indispensable to a state of grace on earth, and a state of glory in heaven; nothing but a wide, dark chasm, which can only be spanned by Divine, sovereign, and regenerating grace.

Shall I suppose you, my reader, an illustrative case? God, perhaps, has afflicted you heavily. Wealth, hard earned and stored, has disappeared like Alpine frost beneath the burning rays of a meridian sun. Health, rosy and robust, has waned and drooped as a mid-summer day dissolving into the twilight shades of evening. Death has invaded the sanctuary of your home, sundering some fond tie, withering some beauteous flower, snapping some strong stem of domestic bliss, leaving its deep, dark shadow still lingering upon that spot of verdure, sunshine, and joy. And what is the effect? What the position of your smitten and bleeding spirit? Is it not that of sullen, gloomy, cold, involuntary resignation? You had no power to avert the catastrophe, no skill to ward off the blow, and now that it has fallen upon you, and fallen with an irresistible and crushing effect--you bow your head, but not your heart; you surrender your idol, but not your idolatry; you relinquish your treasure, but not your will; you are submissive, but not resigned to the dealings and government of God.

Perhaps the affliction has had, for the moment, a subduing and humbling effect. Your heart is softened, your pride is mortified, your lofty spirit is laid low, and the subject and the ordinances of religion, for a season, engage your thoughts, rouse your interest, and command your attention. While the heavy hand of God is upon you, you seem to lie in the dust at His feet. You read your Bible, repair to God's house, retire from the haunts of worldly gaiety and from the scenes of sensual pleasure, and even suspend, for the time, the cares and anxieties of business.

But is this conversion? is this true religion? is this the dawn of grace? is this the spiritual birth of the soul? The RESULT shall supply the answer. The stunning effects of the blow are subsiding, your sorrow is lessening, your tears are drying, the deep shadows of your night of woe are dissolving into the morning's dawn of sunshine, and you have returned to the engagements and the cares of life--the mart of business and the haunts of pleasure--as indifferent to religion and the claims of your soul and the solemnities of eternity as if the hand of God had not touched you, and His voice had not uttered the admonition in your ears, "Turn! turn! why will you die?" And thus you supply another solemn confirmation of the truth that an individual may pass through all the stages of adversity and yet remain unregenerate, unsanctified, unsaved.

But has no precious visitation continue? no fearful responsibility incurred? does no solemn account remain? Yes! emphatically yes! God rode in that chariot-storm, spoke from that cloud of thunder, commissioned that crushing sorrow. He designed to humble you, to instruct you, to subdue you to repentance, and win you to faith and love. And while the cloud was upon your tabernacle, and the thunder of His power rolled above you, and the grief lay heavy upon your heart, you were awed and softened, thoughtful and mute. But, alas! the affliction passed away, the tempest subsided, health has taken the place of sickness, the dead are forgotten, and you are yet unborn again. Be not deceived! Do not think that because you have been chastened and afflicted of the Lord, that therefore you are a favorite of the Lord's. That, having drunk of the cup of sorrow at His hand, you have therefore tasted that He is gracious.

There is nothing essentially converting in the nature or power of affliction. Far from it. The furnace does not transmute base metal into gold, it burns and destroys it. And while the brass, the tin, and the lead, the wood, the hay, and the stubble, are consumed and perish, the gold, the silver, and the precious stones, by the same fire, are purified, refined, and saved.

But, blessed, thrice blessed, are they who by the storm are driven to Jesus, the Refuge and the Hiding-place; who, when God cuts up all earthly hopes by the roots, blasts the human gourd, dries the creature spring, are led by the Spirit in the dark hour of adversity to discover that they have nothing to take hold of but Christ; that, knowing their sinfulness and condemnation and emptiness, are led to see the Lord Jesus Christ to be just the all-sufficient, able, willing, precious Savior that they need--and so, as amid the fire, and as by the fire, are saved from the worm that never dies and the fire that is never quenched. Oh, what countless harpers tread the gold-paved streets of glory, chanting the praises of 'sanctified trial', and testifying that, but for the fire, the whirlwind, and the earthquake of affliction, suffering, and adversity, they would never have basked in heaven's sunshine, nor bathed them in its sea of bliss!

10. It is important, in presenting the negative aspect of our subject, that we should give emphatic utterance to the truth that, an external and avowed profession of Christis not real conversion. This, among all we have specified, forms, perhaps, the most popular, as the most plausible and fatal error. There is something in an avowed profession of Christianity so religious and holy in appearance, so apparently genuine and true, so like the actual and the real; and, added to this, there is with it a feeling of self-complacency so strong and deceptive, it is no marvel that multitudes should be ensnared by the delusion, that a Christian in profession is a Christian in principle, that a believer in name is a believer in reality; that nominal religion is vital religion, and that the external clothing of the sheep is all that is necessary to authenticate love to, and union with, the Lord Jesus, the Great Shepherd of the flock.

How few will be found in society who are not 'professors of religion'. The great mass wear the distinctive external clothing of heaven, the uniform of the Christian, the holy and sacred name of Christ. And yet it is one of the most appalling reflections how few will be found among these religious professors who are really savingly converted to God, being truly born again. The Word of God is solemn in its instances of this fearful and fatal delusion. Simon Magus was a religious professor, yet was in the gall of bitterness and bond of iniquity. Demas was a religious professor, yet loved this present evil world. Judas Iscariot was a professor and an apostle, yet betrayed his Lord and Master. These men were types of a class the most popular and numerous in this professing age of the world--those who have a name to live, and are dead.

11. It follows that the ordinances of God's house--the institution ofBaptism and the Lord's Supper, of which all religious professors are partakers--possess of themselves no converting, sanctifying, saving efficacy. Those who maintain that Baptism is an essentially converting rite, or that the Lord's Supper is a saving ordinance, contravene the direct teaching of God's Word, argue against the existence of facts the most incontrovertible and solemn. The 'automatic grace' principle, as maintained by a certain school holding semi-Romanist views--with which, alas! so many professing Protestants secretly sympathize--is an unblushing denial and blasphemous ignoring of the official work of the Holy Spirit in the new birth, reducing conversion--the divinest, most essential, and momentous change that can possibly revolutionize the soul--to the mere observance of an external rite, as destitute of its significance as of vitality and power. If this sacramental notion of the Romanized school of theology be true, then the teaching of the Bible on the subject of the new birth is false--for the two views are diametrically opposed the one to the other--a conclusion at which we shudder to arrive.

But let God be true, and every man who would contravene His word a liar. But what says the Scripture? The following declarations, because they cut from beneath us all ordinances as coming into competition with, and as substitutes for, vital godliness, cover the entire question, and are as applicable to Christian institutions as to any Jewish rite whatever--"In Christ Jesus neither circumcision avails anything, nor uncircumcision, but a NEW CREATURE," (Gal. 6:15.) "The kingdom of God" (that is, the kingdom of grace in the soul) "is not food and drink; but righteousness, and peace, and joy in the holy Spirit," (Rom. 14:17.)

The order here observed by the Spirit is most impressive. First, the righteousness of Christ forming the foundation of the believing sinner's acceptance; then, peace, the effect of righteousness; and then joy, a higher order of peace--peace in its bolder range. Righteousness, peace, joy in the Holy Spirit. And shall we reduce this great spiritual change, apart from which there is no salvation--no grace here, and no glory hereafter--to a mere submission to a rite, a symbol, a sign? This were to believe that thousands are regenerate, sanctified, and saved, and when they die will die the death of the righteous, who, once baptized, are now living in all the enmity of the carnal mind against God--the captives of Satan and the servants of sin! In view of this appalling conclusion, we hesitate not to pronounce the Romish dogma of sacramental grace--the Papistical doctrine of baptismal regeneration--to be the pre-eminent lie of Satan--the most subtle and fatal weapon which this arch-foe of our race ever forged for the destruction of men's souls in perdition.

With the deepest earnestness and solemnity of feeling we address you as holding this fatal error. We appeal to your sober judgment as to the truth of what we say. If baptism be the new birth in the Scripture sense, then whatever the Bible teaches concerning the expressions regeneration, born again, or created anew, will hold true of baptism. In this light read the following passage, substituting the word 'baptized' instead of the phrase 'born of God', and see how it sounds--"Every one that is BAPTIZED sins not; but he that is BAPTIZED keeps himself pure, and the evil one touches him not." Is this true? Who will dare affirm that it is? And yet, to be consistent with your notion of baptismal regeneration, you must believe it to be true. Does baptism produce such a spiritual change in its subject as that "old things have passed away, and all things have become new?" This is true of all who are born again. But we drop the argument. We appeal to your conscience, to your condition as a sinner, to your feeling as a dying man, to your prospect for eternity.

Do not build your hope of glory upon your baptism. You are lost to all eternity if you do. You must be born again if ever you enter the kingdom of heaven. If you are not born again of the Spirit, you have not the least ground of hope. Not a solitary bright ray trembles upon the dark cloud that enshrouds your future. Plunge into eternity, clutching the airy fiction, the fatal notion, that you passed from death into life in your baptism--that in baptism you were regenerated, adopted, justified, made holy and saved--and you have staked your eternal happiness upon the most fatal lie!

But yet there is hope. Feeling your lost and ruined condition as a sinner, quickened into spiritual life by the Holy Spirit, and by that same Spirit secretly led to a believing acceptance of the blood and righteousness of the Lord Jesus, you may, you must, you shall be saved. With a soul-loving, yearning heart, we entreat you to pause, examine, and reflect. You lose nothing by relinquishing your delusion of baptismal regeneration--you imperil everything by holding it. Abandon it, then, at once and forever. Seek a baptism more vital, a religion more saving, a foundation more sure, a hope more true. Implore the Holy Spirit to teach you the good and the right way; to breathe into your soul the breath of life; to reveal the Lord Jesus to you as He who died for us that we might live through Him; and from your spiritual ruin, corruption, and death you will emerge a beauteous, holy, living temple of God through the Spirit, filled with His love, reflecting His glory, and hymning His praise through eternity.

12. We recur again to the thought, that a mere profession of Christianity, a submission to rites, an observance of ordinances, constitutes not the New Birth. What! is this all that Jesus meant in His memorable conversation with Nicodemus? Is this all the Bible means when it declares that, "If any man be in Christ, he is a NEW CREATURE?" My reader, be warned, be instructed, be entreated. Stake not your eternal well-being upon a lie so false and fatal as this. Attempt to keep this base, this spurious coin--bearing neither the image of Christ nor the superscription of the Holy Spirit--and yours will be the just and the terrible doom of the most daring, the most guilty, and the most fearfully condemned of all counterfeiters--the counterfeiter of a lying and spurious conversion!

13. We must limit our negative view of the question to but one more illustration. A calm, tranquil, peaceful deathcannot safely be regarded as affording a valid evidence of that great, spiritual change which our Lord taught as indispensable to admission into heaven. "He died so peacefully, so calmly, so lamb-like," is the exclamation of many who dismiss the departed to the realms of bliss with no more authentic passport, no more assured hope than this! But what is the language of God's Word? "I was envious at the foolish, when I saw the prosperity of the wicked. For there are no bands in their death--but their strength is firm. They are not in trouble as other men; neither are they plagued like other men."

How many pass out of this world wrapped in the profound stupor of spiritual insensibility, which, with those not enlightened of the Holy Spirit, passes for the tranquillity of 'divine peace', for the hope of real conversion, for the holy slumber of a sleep in Jesus! Alas! it is but the fatal security, the false repose, the spiritual insensibility of spiritual death. They pass out of spiritual death into natural death, and out of natural death into eternal death. But be not deceived! Because you have no fear of death, experience a composure in view of its dreadful solemnities, unruffled by a fear, undisturbed by a shudder, deem not yourself therefore really converted! It is a distinctive mark of the truly regenerate that, "through fear of death they are all their lifetime subject to bondage." It is a distinctive mark of the unregenerate that, "they have no bands in their death."

How unsafe, then, to rest our evidence of the New Birth upon a foundation so dubious and slender. You may, indeed, die a lamb-like death, at peace with yourself and with all mankind, and yet, with the untamed heart of the lion, at enmity against God, His Christ, and His truth. The death of the regenerate is truly a peaceful death. "Mark the perfect man, and behold the upright--for the end of that man is peace." And again, "The righteous has hope in his death." But it is not the peace of spiritual insensibility, nor is it the hope of the self-righteous. It is the tranquil, peaceful, hopeful death of him who, while he lived, lived unto the Lord, and when he dies, dies unto the Lord, and going hence, he is ever with the Lord. No false peace is that, no spurious hope, which springs from faith, reposes on the blood and righteousness of Christ. Life's last hour may bring its momentary conflict and cloud, its rippled sea and shaded pathway; but this will only test the reality of the work of grace in the soul, and render all the more illustrious and precious the atonement of Jesus on the cross. But we must bring this chapter to a close.

This state of spiritual still-life which we have endeavored to portray is eminently perilous in many points of view. It is so, because it tends deeply to foster the fatal spirit of self-deception. So long as we have a name to live, while yet we are dead, we cherish the delusion that all is right with our soul. The very deception feeds and strengthens itself. And of all deceptions self-deception is the most fearful! To pass current for a true Christian, deceiving those who have recognized us as such, is most solemn; but to go down to the grave dreaming that we are truly converted, while yet the heart has known nothing of a sense of sin, faith in Jesus, and love to God, is more solemn still!

Such a state is perilous, also, because once it becomes fixed and permanent it is the most difficult of all states to remove. The Gospel proclaimed to the heathen mass completely ignorant of the existence and the very name of conversion would be a more hopeful task. The long-cherished delusion at length comes to be regarded as a reality; the fiction a fact; the profession of spiritual life for life itself. And so, all arguments and persuasions to the contrary, the unhappy victim of the delusion passes away, in many instances, undeceived until the deception is too late to rectify. Awake, then, to the conviction of your real state as having only a name to live while yet dead. Compare the state of your soul with that revealed and unerring Word which is to confront and judge you at the last day, and in its divine and searching light see and know it as it really is, concerning the great, the solemn, the essential change--the change of the New Birth.

In conclusion, we must remark that the New Birth doubtless involves each and all these negatives in its nature and actings. While false conversion may exist with them, real conversion does not exist without them. In false conversion they are but counterfeit resemblances of the real, in true conversion they appear in all their genuineness and harmony. Thus far may we travel in a religious life, and yet stop short of real and vital religion. Having a name to live, we yet may be dead. Carrying the oil-less vessel with the untrimmed, unlit lamp of an outward Christian profession, we dream that all is safe until the startling summons to meet the Bridegroom awakes us to consciousness, to conviction, to despair!

But let no trembling soul close this chapter in hopeless despondency. If the Lord has given you a holy fear of self-deception, a deep, earnest, solemn dread of false conversion, and has set you upon the task of examining your foundation for eternity, and looking well to the state of your soul, we think you may safely accept your experience as an evidence that the work within you is true and genuine--even the work of God's Spirit in your heart. Look afresh from off yourself to Jesus. Lay your doubt, and fear, and trembling down at His cross, and then look up, and rest your believing eye upon the sin-atoning Savior; and that close, believing look at Jesus will resolve doubt into certainty, melt cloud into sunshine, and calm fear into perfect peace and repose.

Did He from that cross ever dismiss a soul unblest? Look at that empaled body! gaze upon that purple stream! peer into those gaping wounds! Do they seem as though Christ could reject one true, penitent sinner who came to Him? Settle it, then, in your mind that no poor sinner ever descended from that cross into the shades of outer darkness in whose breast dwelt the holy fear that perhaps now trembles in your own. The spiritual impartation of the New Birth is not without its throes and pangs. The period may be protracted and painful. Many doubts and fears, many conflicts and despondencies may attend it, but the issue is certain, the advent glorious; and angelic strains, chiming sweetly with those which broke upon the plains of Bethlehem at the birth of the infant Savior, will ring the glad tidings through the bowers of heaven, "An heir of glory born!"

WHAT IS THE NEW BIRTH?

In reply Jesus declared, "I tell you the truth, no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again." John 3:3

We pass from the negative to the POSITIVE aspect of this great subject--the New Birth--purposing in the present chapter to consider its nature, author, and necessity.

1. The NATURE of the New Birth.

It is one of the most momentous questions we have to consider--pregnant with vital, precious, and deathless interests--What is the New Birth? All questions of human legislation, science, and learning dwindle into insignificance in comparison with this. The only inquiry worthy the study of a rational and immortal being is, "Am I converted, or am I not?" In conducting our study, we shall keep close to the teaching of God's Word; for the subject of our research is too vital and precious to be jeopardized by any other than a Supreme authority. In this matter we sit only at the feet of that Divine and Heavenly Teacher at whose bar we are to stand in judgment. In His memorable conversation with Nicodemus, our Lord, pressing home upon his attention that great spiritual change indispensable to salvation, compares it to a birth; and because it is essentially alien from the first or natural birth, He denominates it the SECOND or NEW birth."I tell you the truth, no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again."--born over again. Guided by the analogy, we shall in this point of light, mainly, present the positive bearings of the subject.

The emblem is most expressive. The first, or natural birth, introduces us into a new world of being, of thought, and feeling. It ushers us into a new state of existence, in which all things are new. Now, between this and the New Birth there exists a strong and significant resemblance. In conversion the soul is ushered into a new, spiritual world--emphatically born again. The first birth introduces us into the natural world, the second introduces us into a spiritual world. The first birthushers us into a world of sin, and woe, and death; the second birth, into a world of holiness, and happiness, and life. It is the birth of the soul into grace.

In keeping with our analogy, the New Birth is also represented as a quickening. "You has He QUICKENED, who were dead in trespasses and in sins." "And has QUICKENED us together with Him." It is described as "passing from death unto life." And by an appropriate and graceful image it is represented as a resurrection. "As the Father raises up the dead, and quickens them, even so the Son quickens whom He will."

The New Birth, then, takes us out of a state of spiritual death into a state of spiritual life--reverses entirely our moral being. The truly-converted soul is a living soul, quickened from a death of sin into a life of righteousness. The life, the new-born life, which now animates him, is the life of God, communicated in virtue of his union with Christ, who is our life, and by the agency of the Holy Spirit, the Divine Quickener. All now is life--new, spiritual, holy, deathless life. The bitterness of spiritual death is past, its sovereign dethroned, its dominion destroyed--and the glory, the reign, and the power of a divine and new-born life triumphantly enter the soul; and from henceforth exists an empire as lasting as the being of Him who created it.

And now the soul begins really to live. It swims in an infinite sea of life--the life of God. As from and in Him, so to and for Him that life is now lived. Christ is his life, and to Christ that life is consecrated. Spiritual death--dead faith, dead obedience, dead hope--is abolished, and the spiritually-quickened soul bathes itself in a divine ocean of vitality and bliss. Henceforth, for him to live is Christ; henceforth, whether he lives or dies, it is to the Lord. The tree, no longer exhibiting the fruitless bough, the seared and withered leaf, bursts forth into all the bloom, beauty, and fertility of life, laden with the fruits of righteousness, which are by Jesus Christ.

How precious are its actings! Prayer, is life breathing; faith, is life trusting; love, is life adoring; service, is life laboring; submission, is life patiently suffering. Life of God in the soul of man! how do you manifest your origin, prove your existence, and foreshadow your destiny, O divine and glorious thing!

My reader, here let us press the personal inquiry, Have you passed from death unto life? Do you feel the life of God pulsating within your soul? Are you expatiating in a new-born world of thought, and feeling, and action? In holy meditations on God, in spiritual breathings after holiness, in loving desires for Christ, and in ardent aspirations for glory? Does this living water--the indwelling of the Spirit of life--spring up, and ascend heavenwards? In a word, are you living for God? If so, then we confidently address you in the language of Paul, "You has He QUICKENED, who were dead," for you are born again!

The New Birth likewise consists in the restoration of the Divine image to the soul.The moral image of God was effaced in the fall of the first Adam. Sin obliterated the divine holiness, and we became more human and less divine. The righteousness and holiness in which God originally created us gave place to the empire and reign of sin; and the image and superscription of a usurped sovereign became enstamped upon the coin of the soul. But the New Birth is a restoration of the lost image of God to man. By Christ, the Second Man, it is effectually and indelibly recovered.In regeneration, the soul is formed in the likeness of Christ. The New Birth, then, is the restoration of the image of God to the soul of man.

But the apostle puts it yet more distinctly, "The new man, which is after God [or, the image of God] is created in righteousness and true holiness," (Eph. 4:24.) We know not a more correct, and at the same time a more precious, view of the New Birth than this. It is nothing less, it cannot possibly be more than, the repencilling of the obliterated moral image of God--the image of holiness--upon the fallen but now regenerate soul. "Partakers of the divine nature"--"Partakers of His holiness,"--for these are the expressions of the Holy Spirit--we become, in regeneration, GOD-LIKE.

A higher, holier, diviner image than that which angels wear is ours. Theirs is the image of nature, ours the image of grace. Theirs is angelic, ours divine. They stand, by reason of their first creation, remote from the Sun--we, by reason of our second creation, stand in the inner circle, close to Christ the Center, the human assimilated to the Divine, mortal swallowed up in Immortality, the creature absorbed in the Creator, man in God! Again we press the inquiry, Whose moral image do you bear? Is your soul reinstated in the likeness of God? Does the Divine holiness attach to your being? Are you living in the cultivation of that holiness without which no man can see the Lord? If so, you then are born again!

A new or changed heart--a heart renewed and sanctified--entersessentially into the New Birth. "A new heart will I give you," is the Divine promise pointing to this great change. What multitudes rest satisfied that they are converted who know nothing of the renewed heart involved in this great spiritual change. Vainly imagining that the natural instincts of love and benevolence, of amiability and kindness, of virtue and truth, are the "beauties of holiness" which adorn and evidence the New Birth, they recognize not the necessity of being renewed in the spirit of their mind, and of seeking that purity of heart which only exists in the new-born soul, and without which none can see God. By nature, the heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked. But by grace it becomes penitent and believing, loving and holy, the temple of the Spirit, the home of the Savior, the shrine of God. Marvelous is the change! divine the conquest! The converting grace of God has achieved the wondrous revolution. The rebellious heart has become penitent; the proud heart, humble; the unclean heart, pure; the selfish heart, loving; the heart that despised Christ now embraces Him; that which was at enmity against God, now loves Him; that which strove with the Spirit, is now His willing sanctuary.

My reader, it is here the New Birth begins, it is here it carries on and terminates its mighty transformation. Its commencement, so gentle and veiled; its advance, so gradual and progressive; its victories, so unseen and noiseless; a mightier revolution than ever upheaved a dynasty, or overthrew an empire, has transpired, and none but God and the soul may know it!

Oh, it is a great thing to have a new heart--a heart reconciled to God in its affections, entwined with Jesus in its faith, pure and heavenly in its breathings, the temple of God by the washing of regeneration, and the renewing of the Holy Spirit. Allow no sight and discovery of your heart's deep-rooted sinfulness to persuade you that you are not a subject of the New Birth. Hail this discovery rather as an evidence that you are born again of the Spirit. You would be ignorant of the depravity of your nature, would feel nothing of the vileness of your heart, would weep and lament not over the deep and desperate evil within, were you not quickened to life by the Spirit. Here is holy sensibility, here is spiritual life. A Divine hand has withdrawn the veil from your heart, revealing the plague, the darkness, and the sin of this chamber of abominations; and that same hand of love will perfect the work thus so divinely and so effectually begun.

There is not a solitary exercise of your soul at this moment that is not an evidence of your spiritual quickening. Your thirst for more grace proves your heart gracious. Your cry for stronger faith in God proves your heart believing. Your desire for intenser love to Christ proves your heart loving. Your panting for a deeper inspiration of spiritual life proves you a living soul. These evidence the work of grace within you, as the perfume wafted from a bank of violets upon the soft south wind divulges the flower whose fragrance it breathes. These holy aspirations--heaven-descending, heaven-returning--are the crystal-jets of the living water welled within you, "springing up into everlasting life." Take courage, then, dear heart! Lift up the hands that hang down, and the feeble knees, for you have Christ in you the hope of glory.

In unfolding the nature of the New Birth, we must not omit a very important and impressive illustration. It is represented, and most appositely, as a translation out of darkness into light. Thus it is expressed, "Who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light," (1 Pet. 2:9.) And again, "God who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, has shined into our hearts, to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ." The analogy between the natural and the spiritual creation in this particular will suggest itself to the reflective mind. Darkness covered as with a pall the whole earth when, "God said, Let there be light, and light was." In a moment the mist rolled from off the face of creation, and a world clad in loveliness, resplendent in glory, and bathed in perfume, burst into view. By that same voice the moral chaos of man's soul gives place to the existence, symmetry, and splendor of a new-born spiritual creation. The spiritual darkness of the unrenewed mind, of the alienated heart, of the rebellious will, is such as might be felt. So deep, so impenetrable its gloom, no light can pierce it, no voice can change it, no power can uplift it but God's. He who commanded the light to shine out of darkness speaks--"Let there be light!" and in a moment spiritual light bursts upon the soul--light is--and a divine creation starts into being, and all the sons of God shout together for joy.

"Marvelous light" it truly is! Marvelous its power--marvelous its revelations--marvelous its glories--marvelous the grace and love from whence it flows. And now, the newborn soul sees its sin, beholds its Savior, and looks upon its reconciled God. Floating upon the wings of light, it soars towards its native skies, and loses itself in the "Fountain of light." Henceforth, that new-born soul stands, where stood the apocalyptic angel, in the sun, itself a center of light in the orbit in which it moves, living and walking and acting as a child of the light, scattering the rays of holiness and truth on a darksome world, his path of righteousness shining more and more unto the perfect day.

Again we press an individual application of our great subject, and inquire, Has this divine light shone in upon your soul? Revealing the blackness, the emptiness, the depravity within, has it led you to Jesus the true light; in His light to see light on the pardon of your sins and the acceptance of your person in Him the Beloved?

We will not protract our description of the new birth longer than briefly to remark that it is a transfer of the soul into the kingdom of Christ--"Who has delivered us from the power of darkness, and has translated us into the kingdom of His dear Son." This illustration is remarkably relevant. Our nature in its unregenerate condition is under the dominion of the prince of darkness--the god of this world. Dreadful picture! But not less appalling than true. Each individual of the human race is either a subject of Satan or of Christ, is under the power of darkness or a subject of the kingdom of God's dear Son. But conversion reverses this state. The new birth is a translation--a divine translation--from the galling, degrading power of darkness into the light and rule, the privileges and liberty of the kingdom of Jesus.

There are two words employed by the apostle in this remarkable passage very significant--delivered and translated. The former--implying a spiritual state neither desired nor deserved by its subject--has reference to the uplifting of a dead weight from a pit. By God's Spirit we are taken up out of the horrible pit and miry clay of corruption, and are brought into a state of grace. In the passage under consideration, it is represented as a deliverance from the power of darkness, or the dominion and will of Satan, the prince of darkness, who rules in the children of disobedience, and maintains his ascendancy by ignorance in the mind, rebellion in the will, and hardness in the heart. Therefore sinners are called "children of the night," and sins are denominated "the works of darkness."

Thus, there must first be in the new birth this emancipation from the bondage of Satan--the Pharaoh of this world--before there is the translation of the soul into the kingdom of Jesus. The two dominions cannot co-exist in the soul. We must first be drawn out of the pit of corruption, delivered from the power of darkness, before we are placed in a state of grace, or translated into the kingdom of God's dear Son.

Nor can the two images coexist in the same individual--the image of God and the image of Satan. The one must be erased and destroyed before the divine lineaments of the other can be drawn by the Spirit upon the soul. This deliverance from the power of Satan and the corruption of sin in the new birth is not such a deliverance as totally frees us from the indwelling of sin, or entirely emancipates us from the temptations and harassings of Satan. With these the regenerate have to contend until life's last hour. That which is born of the flesh remains flesh until this corruption shall put on incorruption. And Satan, the accuser, will hover around the hour of the saint's departure intent upon winging his fiery darts to the very last. But, notwithstanding this, it is a blessed and glorious deliverance and disenthrallment which grace achieves. It is a deliverance from sin's guilt, condemnation, and reign. It is a disenthrallment from Satan's dominion, rule, and power. And so God, in the exercise of His sovereign grace, has delivered us who believe from the power of darkness, and for this deliverance heaven's high arches shall ever more ring with our shouts of praise!

But God not only delivers us from the power of sin, but He puts us in a state of grace. Hence the expression, "Has TRANSLATED us into the kingdom of His dear Son." Translated, that is, transferred from one kingdom into another. It follows that, all who are born again are the subjects of Christ's rule and government and law. They have been translated into the mediatorial kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ, and henceforth are governed by His special grace, restraining and mortifying their corruptions, daily renewing them in the spirit of their minds, will, and affections, bringing every thought, aim, and desire into obedience to Christ.

Again, we pause, and press the inquiry, Have you been thus delivered and thus translated? Do you know what it is to have those galling fetters broken which bound you to the corruption of sin? Do you know what it is to have the yoke removed which bowed you under the service of Satan? This it is to be born again, and by this deliverance and translation you may know your condition as either regenerate or still unregenerate. And if by a careful examination of your real state as before God, and by bringing yourself to the unerring touchstone of the gospel, you are enabled to come to a scriptural and satisfactory conclusion that you are born again, hold fast the liberty with which Christ has made you free, and be not again entangled with the yoke.

Ever remember that you have liberty indeed in Christ Jesus, but that it is a spiritual and not a carnal, a holy and not a lawless, liberty. You have become freed from the curse of the law, Christ having been made a curse for you; from the rigor of the law, Christ having given it an exact and full obedience; and from the guilt, tyranny, and condemnation of sin, Christ having washed you in His own most precious blood. But you have no liberty TO sin, to use your liberty as an occasion for the flesh, but are bound by the most sacred, solemn, and eternal obligations to "deny all ungodliness and worldly lusts, and to live godly, righteously, and soberly in this present evil world."

If the description which we have thus given of the nature of the new birth be true--and scripturally true we verily and solemnly believe it to be--no lengthened argument will be needed to establish the proposition that it is a DIVINE and SUPERNATURAL work. Holy ancestry does not insure it, pious parentage does not convey it, human eloquence does not inspire it, moral persuasion does not produce it. As high as the heavens are above the earth, so high is the accomplishment of this work above created power. How clear does the Holy Spirit put this--"As many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to those who believe in his name. Who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God," (John 1:12, 13.) "That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the spirit is spirit." "Born again"--marg., "born from above."

But we wish in this necessarily brief statement to concentrate the reader's attention upon a single truth--the divine agency of the Holy Spirit in the accomplishment of the new birth. One passage from God's Word will suffice to establish this point--"IT IS THE SPIRIT THAT QUICKENS, THE FLESH PROFITS NOTHING." Clearly and indisputably, then, to be born again is, to be "born of the Spirit." Now, HOW does He produce this great change? By what steps does He conduct the soul to this divine and heavenly birth?

There is first, the Holy Spirit's work in the convincing of sin.He uplifts the veil that enshrouds the heart, and shows its plague and sin and defilement. He makes the sinner to know himself--the first step in real conversion. He breaks up the fountain of feeling, produces godly sorrow, inspires holy contrition, awakens true and saving repentance. It was by His power that Job exclaimed, "I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes." It was by His power that David cried out, "Against you and you only have I sinned, and done this evil in your sight." It was by His power that the tax-collector prayed, "God be merciful to me a sinner." Has He wrought this repentance for sin, beloved, in you? Uplifting the veil, has He given you an insight into the chamber of imagery within your breast; in other words, has He so uncovered and revealed and dissected your heart to your own eye as to force from you the exclamation, "I am vile! I am undone! Lord, save me, or I perish!" O blessed discovery! O glorious revelation! O life-breathing cry! You are born again! Flesh and blood did not reveal this to you. Unregenerate nature never sent to heaven such an appeal. Spiritual death never breathed to Jesus such a living cry. It is the Spirit who has shown you your blackness, your vileness, your ignorance, your death, and having thus begun the good work in you, He will conduct you from grace to grace, and from glory to glory.

The next step of the Holy Spirit is to lead the soul to Christ.He deals not cruelly with the poor sinner--revealing the plague, and not the remedy; wounding, and withholding the balm; showing the sinner himself, and veiling Christ from the eye. Having wrought repentancetowards God, His next step in the process is to work in the heart faithin the Lord Jesus Christ. Making the soul to feel the sickness of sin, He leads it to the balm that is in Gilead, and to the Physician who is there. He takes of the precious things of a precious Christ, and shows them to the soul. He leads to the atoning blood, and applies it. He takes the robe of righteousness, and imputes it. He conducts the trembling soul to Jesus, and unveiling His love, and grace, and merits, brings it to a believing recumbence upon Christ; resting, not only in the blood and righteousness of Jesus, but resting in Jesus Himself.

And what a life-giving, hope-inspiring discovery is JESUS! Penitent, heart-broken, humble sinner, Jesus is just the Savior you need, just the Friend you seek. You have come to the end of your own righteousness, and strength, and striving--you have besought in vain every physician, and have tried every remedy with no avail, and now you have lain you down to die--helpless, hopeless, despairing! Behold the Lamb of God, wounded, bleeding, slain for you! He took your sins, endured your curse, bore your condemnation, paid your debt, and now invites you to the cleansing of His blood, to the investiture of His righteousness, to the pavilion of His love, to the free acceptance of all the precious things of His grace. "Look unto me, and be saved, all the ends of the earth; for I am God, and none else." "Come unto me and I will give you rest." Doubt not either His ability or His willingness to accept and save you to the uttermost extent of your sinful, unworthy, and hopeless condition.

But we must advert to the INSTRUMENTwhich God has ordained in accomplishing in the soul the new birth. The Spirit of God being the Divine and efficient Agent, the Word of God is the Divine and passive instrument of regeneration. A few quotations from this Divinely-inspired Word will establish this. "Being BORN AGAIN, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, BY THE WORD OF GOD, which lives and abides forever," (1 Peter 1:23.) "Of His own will He BEGAT us WITH THE WORD OF TRUTH," (James 1:18.) The apostle gloried in the gospel of Christ, because it was "the power of God unto salvation." The psalmist testified to this truth--"The law of the Lord is perfect, CONVERTING the soul." But the testimony of the Lord Himself sets the question at rest--"The WORDS THAT I SPEAK UNTO YOU, they are spirit and they are life."

Thus then, the revealed word of God is, in the hands of the Holy Spirit, the appointed and Divine instrument of our being born again. As God never works apart from instrumentality, when instruments are made ready for His use, so the Holy Spirit never accomplishes this great and marvelous change in the soul apart from the truth of God. In His hands the gospel is a rod that works the miracle, a sword that pierces the soul, a fire that burns the dross, a hammer that breaks the rock, a light that dispels the darkness, a balsam that heals the wound, a seed that germinates, a voice that awakes the dead. And all this it does because it is the Word of the living God.

Shall we impugn its Divine authority--tracing thus its miraculous and marvelous effects? There are those who dare to do so! But, we ask the bold skeptic, can that be other than a mirror of Divine construction which, faithfully upheld to the soul, brings to view every thought and feeling, purpose and aim, deep-veiled within its secret cloisters? Would the God of truth invest a lie with the mission and power which clothes the gospel of His grace? Would He from whom comes down every good and perfect gift bless a fiction, a falsehood, a myth, as He has blest the gospel in the conversion of countless myriads of souls, of all nations, and tongues, and peoples, who, in the great day of His coming, shall crowd the throne of Christ the Lamb, all attesting its divinity, and witnessing to its effects?

What has wrought such moral revolutions in the world, achieved such spiritual changes, conferred such intellectual freedom, battered down such strongholds of error, as the Gospel of God? If the devotee of superstition has been converted by it, the slave of sin disenthralled by it, the captive of Satan delivered by it, the soul raised from death by it--if it has made the spiritual blind to see, the lame to walk, the deaf to hear, has tamed the lion, transformed the wolf into the lamb, and the vulture into the dove--if it soothes the deepest anguish of the heart, calms the fiercest tempest of the soul, sweetens the bitterest calamity of life, and in life's last hour unfurls the banner of victory over death, and sheds upon the Christian's tomb the radiance of a glorious immortality--then, achieving such marvels, attended by such signs and attested by such evidences, we accept the Gospel as of God, believe in its Divine authority, bow to its ultimate decisions, and stake our eternal all upon its doctrines, promises, and hopes. "Though we or an angel from heaven preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed."

"Should all the forms that men devise,
Assault my faith with treacherous art,
I'd call them vanity and lies,
And bind the gospel to my heart."

What mighty power, then, has the Word of God in the hands of the Spirit! What heavenly dew distills from its promises; what spiritual life breathes from its doctrines; what sanctifying power flows from its precepts; what a heaven of glory is unveiled in its hopes! "One word of the gospel, a single sentence, has erected a heavenly trophy in a soul, which all the volumes of the choicest mere reason could never erect. One plain scripture has turned a face to heaven that never looked that way before, and has made a man fix his eye there against his carnal interest. One plain scripture has killed a man's sins, and quickened his heart into eternal life. One word of Christ remembered by Peter made him weep bitterly; and two or three scriptures pressed by the same Peter upon his hearers pierced their hearts to the quick. How has hell flashed in the face of the sinner out of the small cloud of a threatening, and heaven shot into the soul from one little diamond-spark of a promise. A little seed of the word, like a grain of mustard-seed, changed the soul from a dwarfish to a tall stature." (Charnock.)

This, and this only, is the preaching which will beget souls again, people the world with new creations, and erect, from the ruins of the fall, living temples of the Holy Spirit. Before it the wisdom of man dwindles into foolishness, and the power of man dissolves into weakness, and the glory of man pales into insignificance. To supplement it with human teaching is to blunt the edge of the sword, and to veil the luster of the diamond, and to render the Word of God of no effect. God has made His Word the tabernacle for the Sun of Righteousness to move in, and he who preaches it not fully and faithfully, without reserve and without deceit, throws the pall of hell's darkness around that divine Orb, and leaves the endangered and deathless soul to plunge, unillumined by one ray, into the darkness that is outer and eternal.

We reiterate the important truth that, the Word of God--than which the Church on earth possesses not a treasure so divine, costly, and precious--is the instrument employed by the Spirit in commencing, carrying on, and completing that work of grace on earth which is the soul's preparation for the enjoyment of glory in heaven.

For one moment we venture to detain the reader with a glance at some of the OPERATIONS of the truth of God in the soul. As God's word of wisdom, it makes wise unto salvation. As the word of life, it quickens. As a divine word, it converts the soul. As the truth which is after godliness, it sanctifies. As a nourishing word, it promotes growth in grace. As a word of consolation, it comforts. As a storehouse of supply, it thoroughly furnishes us unto all good works. As the divine light, it is our guide. As a spiritual sword, it is a mighty weapon in the hands of the Spirit. And when the books are opened, it will judge us at the last day. Such is the word of God, which lives and abides forever.

Our Lord, in announcing the momentous doctrine of the new birth to the inquiring ruler, emphatically and solemnly insisted upon its necessity. "Marvel not that I said unto you, You MUST be born again." Were this great spiritual change a matter of no moment in its relation to our future; were it placed upon the same footing in the Bible with baptism, or the Lord's Supper--institutions, the observance of which is not essential to salvation--we could afford to view it with comparative indifference. But, seeing that it is an indispensable condition of salvation, and seeing that without it we cannot enter into the kingdom of grace on earth, and must be forever exiled from the kingdom of glory in heaven, it is a change, the absolute necessity of which we must press with all the arguments which the Scriptures supply, and with all the solemnity which eternity inspires.

What are some of the grounds of the ABSOLUTE NECESSITY of the new birth? Briefly these. It is necessary, in order to fulfill the eternal purpose of God with regard to His people. All His saints are born again. In the mystery of the Spirit's operations--viewless, noiseless as the wind; in the sovereignty of His grace--that wind blowing where it wills--all His elect people pass through the process of the heavenly birth. "So is every one that is born of the Spirit."

It logically follows that the new birth is necessary in order to authenticate our spiritual union with the Lord's people. We possess no scriptural, valid evidence that we are the true disciples of the Lord Jesus, or that the privileges of God's Church, and the immunities of the heavenly citizenship are ours, until we are born again. The true Church of God is composed alone of living stones; the Family, of reconciled and adopted children, the Kingdom of Jesus, of living subjects made willing in the day of His power. All other materials now outwardly mixed up with this--the wood, the hay, the stubble--will be consumed in the fire of the last day, for that day shall try every man's religion and hope of what sort it is.

Solemn thought! Reader, is your conversion of such a nature as to stand this fiery test? Are you spiritually, truly born again? Away with your rites and rituals, your forms and ceremonies, your morals and splendid virtues, your ecclesiastical relations, lifeless creeds, and costly doings. It is written, yes, it is written, "You MUST be BORN AGAIN!"

The New Birth is necessary, also, to the bringing forth of real holiness. There is not one grain of holiness in our unrenewed, unsanctified nature. There dwells in the flesh no good thing. In vain we garnish and adorn this sinful and corrupt humanity with the external beauties of holiness--it is but an embalmed corpse. We admit that the moral virtues are necessary to the adornment and well-being of human society. For what would this fallen world be apart from this restraint? And yet, spiritually viewed, what are they, in their highest cultivation, but 'refined flesh'? A picture is not a living being, a glow-worm is not a star, the sun reflected from a lake is not a sun; so, nature 'improved' is not nature 'renewed'; and the soul beautified with virtues is not the soul sanctified by grace; and the life regulated by the recognized laws and conventional manners of society is not a life quickened, ennobled, consecrated by the indwelling Spirit of God. Apart, then, from the New Birth, there is no true holiness, and "without holiness no man can see the Lord."

The last plea for the New Birth is a solemn one--without it there is no admission within the kingdom of heaven. Eternity begins with time--heaven commences on earth--glory has its first fruits in grace. The soul must be educated and disciplined for heaven, brought into holy sympathy and moral assimilation with its nature, character, and employments. An unholy being could not exist for one moment in glory. Its atmosphere would be too pure, its society too holy, its worship too spiritual, its enjoyments too refined. If the pilot, soaring to a lofty altitude above the earth, finds the air too thin to exist; surely an unholy being, in a moment translated to heaven, would discover that in its perfectly pure and holy atmosphere he could not for a moment breathe.

To be fitted for glory, we must be gracious; to dwell in heaven, we must be heavenly; to see God, we must be pure and holy in heart; to be forever with the Lord, we must partake His nature, cultivate His image here, and, constrained by love, confess His name, and bear His cross until we pass from grace to glory.

"Marvel not that I said unto you, you must be born again."

The EVIDENCES of the New Birth

"If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature--old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new."--2 Cor. 5:17

It demands great skill in the holy art of dealing with Christian evidence--the evidence of the life of God in the soul of man. The fact we seek to confirm is so momentous, the evidences of that fact so varied, and the counterfeits of those evidences so many, that the work of sifting the true from the false, the genuine from the spurious, is more difficult and delicate than appears upon the surface. He who undertakes faithfully to delineate the new creation of the soul has need to adopt as his sole guide the landmarks of God's Word, watchful of the false lights which gleam along the narrow channel through which he courses his intricate way, which seek to decoy the unwary voyager upon the shoals and quicksands of error which line the shores.

It is thus we must deal with the subject of which the present chapter treats--the EVIDENCES of the New Birth in the soul. That these evidences vary, and that they are counterfeited, we have already intimated. It is of the utmost significance, then, that no reader of these pages should in matters of such infinite importance be misled. Born again or not born again, spiritually dead or spiritually alive, are the two spiritual conditions of our present being. And, seeing that between these two conditions there is no neutral position, and that either one or the other decides and foreshadows our future state of being, how great the responsibility resting upon him who deals with these evidences! Solemnly conscious of this, we shall adhere as closely as possible to the description which the apostle gives us of the New Birth, in the words placed at the head of this chapter, "If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature--old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new;" and, presenting what Bacon terms, "a gentle crush of Scripture," shall give a running exposition of the passage in its order.

1. The doctrine of the indwelling of the renewed soul in Christ is the first truth that arrests our attention. "If any man be IN CHRIST." To be in Christ is to be in union with essential life. Life can only communicate life. The soul quickened with spiritual life is a reproduction of the life of Jesus. It is not that the soul lives, as that Christ lives in the soul. In Christ our death is quickened into His life, our demerit is merged into His merit, our unrighteousness merges into His righteousness, our blackness is lost in His loveliness. And thus Christ is the Divine principle, the root, the substance, the alpha and the omega of all that is godly in us.

"Christ, who is our life." From the commencement to the completion of grace in the soul--from the first tear of godly sorrow wept on earth, to the first note of holy joy sounded in heaven--Christ is essentially and indivisibly one with His people. The spiritual life of the soul springs from the cross, is entwined with the cross, is fed by the cross of Jesus; and, when that life springs into heaven, it will be from the foot of the cross that shaded and sheltered it in all the vicissitudes through which it passed in its journey from grace to glory.

The New Birth, then, is the spiritual reinstating of the soul into Christ. Sin broke the stem of Eden's beauteous flower--the sinless creature man--and flung it, a poisoned weed, upon the dark, seething waters of the curse, henceforth to drift away upon the treacherous current toward the yawning gulf of endless woe. But the New Birth recovers this broken stem, reinstates it into Christ, henceforth to bear the precious fruits of grace here, and, in full bloom, to be laden with the golden fruits of glory hereafter.

With every step in this divine and marvelous recovery of man it is instructive to trace the union of the Lord Jesus--how all flows from Christ, leads to Christ, and through Christ conducts us up to the Father, from whose ineffable love it first springs, and to whose divine glory it shall eternally redound. The Church was loved in Christ, chosen in Christ, blessed with all spiritual blessings in Christ, is called in Christ, preserved in Christ, and with Christ will be ultimately glorified. How clearly and impressively does His inimitable figure illustrate this truth, "I am the vine, you are the branches."

Sweet to trace all 'streamlets of grace' to JESUS--eternal election, preservation in unregeneracy, effectual grace, full pardon, free justification, divine adoption, full salvation, endless glory. Not a link can we strike in this golden chain of covenant blessing but it echoes the name of Jesus! Touch the lowest on earth, and it sends its vibration of faith and love up to the central throne of heaven, where sits and reigns and intercedes the Lamb that was slain. O believer, how ennobling your union, how exalted your position, how secure your standing! You are in Christ--vitally, inseparably one with Him, your life is with His life, your heart is enshrined within His heart, your interests are entwined with His interests, your hand is locked in His hand, and His eye, beaming with love, bends ever over you. The Lord, having espoused your person, has become surety for all your interests, temporal, spiritual, and eternal.

So entirely are you spiritually incorporated with Christ, your sins are drowned in His blood, your demerit is lost in His righteousness, your hell-deservings are annihilated in His heaven-winning merits, your entire self is absorbed in Him, and you stand before God without one law-condemning charge, or one guilt-effacing spot. "There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus."

What! am I now and forever acquitted at the bar of infinite justice--all my accusers silenced, all my charges met, the indictment quashed, and the sentence of full and free justification pronounced? Yes! Jesus has done it all, leaving me nothing to do but believingly to accept the free gift of His love. His obedience honored the precepts of the law, His death satisfied the claims of justice, His resurrection ratified and sealed the engagements He undertook, and I go forth to breathe the free air and to bask in the warm sunshine of a present and a full salvation. The debt is cancelled, the prison is thrown open, the lawful captive is delivered, and heaven shall ring with hallelujahs, and God shall be eternally glorified. "Be astonished, O heavens, at this!"

Reader, endeavor to get into Christ. Rest not short of it. Be not satisfied without the assurance that it is your true position. Christ is an open door to all poor comers--enter and be saved. Wait not to mend one filthy rag, to obliterate one dark spot, to heal one festering wound; approach and enter, all sinful and unworthy as you are, and once in Him, your filthy garments are exchanged for beautiful attire, your soul is made whiter than snow, the bruise is healed, the scar is effaced, and you are COMPLETE in Him.

What a consolatory truth is this, also, in deep trial! Christ's interest in His people is not a divided interest. He does not separate their persons from their circumstances. One with you, He is one with all that appertains and attaches to you. He moulds and pencils all the events of your life--giving to each its form and complexion; is pledged to the supply of every need, to guide each step, sustain in every sorrow, and to keep you by His power unto the end. Oh, the blessedness of being in Christ! Here alone is liberty, security, and peace. The foe cannot assail you, the arrow cannot wound you, the storms cannot reach you, encompassed by His divine perfections, and pavilioned within His living, loving heart.

Living in Christ, it is the privilege of the believer to depart hence in Christ. "Those who sleep in Him." It is not death to die in the Lord. It is life in all but the name. We call it death, but He "has abolished death," and the believer in Jesus shall not see death. And when the last enemy approaches, all armed for the dread battle, he finds the soul he had thought to claim as his victim has become his victor, and he retires vanquished from the field amid the shout of the departing conqueror, "O death! where is your sting?" And when the Lord shall descend from heaven, all those who died in the Lord shall swell His train. "For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with Him." "And the dead in Christ shall rise first."

2. A new creation. But the second truth brings us still nearer to our present subject, "If any man be in Christ, HE IS A NEW CREATURE," or, a new creation. The Word of God scarcely supplies a simile more expressive of the New Birth than this. Was not that a new creation when God, from the disorder and darkness of chaos, educed this magnificent world, teeming with life and radiant with beauty? It is true, matter existed, but the earth was without form and void, and darkness flung its sable mantle over all. But the Spirit of God moved upon the face of creation, and a new world floated into view.

The spiritual analogy is perfect. The New Birth of the soul is emphatically a new spiritual creation. The same Divine power that formed the original elements of creation, that woke it from its deep sleep, quickened it with life, and clothed it with light, recreates the soul of man, and forms it a new creature. Behold all things are new! The regenerate soul has found a new life, for the Second Adam, who is a quickening Spirit, has breathed into him the breath of life. He never before felt the power, or tasted the sweetness of life until now. He surveys the past of his existence, and it seems as if he had been dwelling in a tomb, wrapped within the winding-sheet of death. But now born again from above, quickened by the Spirit, he emerges from his "grave of sin" into newness of life, and henceforth he lives for God. A new principle of life animates him, a new atmosphere of life encircles him, a new object of life engages him, and he finds himself bathing his soul in a new element of existence, worthy of his dignity and destiny as a rational, accountable, and immortal being.

Even the world of NATURE seems to him as a new-born creation now that he has passed from death unto life. The sun shines brighter, the air breathes softer, the flowers smell sweeter, the landscape is clad with deeper verdure and richer loveliness; in a word, the whole creation appears in new-born beauty and sublimity, since seen by an eye that traces in all a Father's hand.

It may be truly said, that the spiritual creation of the soul in the New Birth presents the being and character of GOD in a new light. It is like a new revelation of Jehovah to the mind. The unregenerate man does not worship the God of the Bible. The God therein revealed and made known to us, only in and by the Lord Jesus Christ. Worshiping a god of his own imagination, he rears his altar to "THE UNKNOWN GOD." Divesting the God of Scripture of His divine perfections--His holiness, His justice, His truth, His power--he completely undeifies Him, robbing Him of His glory, and annihilating His very being.

But, now born again, a new creature, lo! the God of the Bible bursts upon his new-found vision and his wondering gaze, as a newly-revealed God. Clothed with new attributes, arrayed with new perfections, bathed with new glory, standing in a new relation, the new creature falls down at His feet in adoring admiration and love, exclaiming, "I have heard of You by the hearing of the ear--but now my eye sees You. Therefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes." Never did the being of God appear so true, the perfections of God so glorious, the character of God so great, the government of God so holy, the relation of God so endearing as now. Born into a new world, the GOD Sun of that world--the GOD of the new creation--unveils to the eye as infinitely, ineffably lovely.

Like a being born and grown up in a dark mine, and brought to the earth's surface to gaze upon the sun in its noontide effulgence, the new created soul is astonished, bewildered, overpowered by the splendor, glory, and greatness of the being, character, and perfections of Jehovah.

Reader, test your conversion by the experience of this truth. What is God, the God of the Bible, the God who gave us Christ, the God whose glory shines in the face of Jesus, the God who has revealed Himself as reconciled--what is this God to you? What is He as a God of holiness, of spotless purity, who cannot look upon sin but with abhorrence? What is He as a God of righteousness, just and upright in all His ways? What is He as a God of truth, keeping covenant, fulfilling His word, in which it is impossible for Him to lie? What is He as a God of love, sending His dear Son into the world that we might live through Him--a God pardoning iniquity, transgression, and sin? What is He as a God pacified in Christ Jesus, all His perfections harmonized, bending upon you a Father's eye, and sending His good Spirit into your heart, awakening the response, "Abba, Father?"

Oh, see if the God you love, the God you adore, the God you worship, the God you hope to dwell with through eternity, is the God who sent the Bible, who gave His beloved Son to die for sinners, who was in Christ reconciling us to Himself, not imputing our trespasses unto us. This is the God who dwells amid the new creation of the soul, pronouncing it very good, taking infinitely more delight in it than when He spoke the universe out of nothing, irradiating every faculty of the soul with His glory, and tuning every power with His praise.

And in what a new-born light does the SAVIORappear to the new creature! Until that moment of quickened life, when the veil is withdrawn from the heart, and the scale falls from the eye, Christ was never truly, experimentally, savingly known. He may have acknowledged Him with the lip, have bent the knee at the mention of His name, and called Him, 'our Savior,' and this was all he knew of Jesus. But, born again, he has found a new Savior, has discovered who Jesus is, and what He is, and he marvels that he never until now saw His glory, discovered His beauty, realized His presence, or felt His love.

Now he sees Jesus to be the Sin-bearer, the Atoning Sacrifice of His people, the physician, not of the whole, but of the sick; the Savior, not of saints, but of sinners; receiving and saving, not the righteous and the worthy, but the vile, the ruined, the lost. Probably there is nothing which more truly and distinctly evidences the new birth than the revolution it creates in all our apprehensions of the Lord Jesus Christ. It transposes every view, changes every conception, transforms every thought, and revolutionizes every feeling relating to the glorious and precious Savior of sinners.

The soul quickened with spiritual life is brought to its grand center, Christ. Finding that center, it has found God; it stands in the focus of His love, in the sun of His glory. The Lord Jesus Christ is both the Revealer and the Revelation of God. The fullness of the Godhead bodily dwelt in Him, and, "no man knows the Father but he to whom the Son shall reveal Him." How glorious and excellent does Christ, then, appear to the soul born again of the Spirit! How the eye admires Him, how the heart loves Him, how the spirit adores Him, how closely, inseparably, and supremely does every faculty, power, and desire of the whole being center in, and entwine around, this matchless, peerless, altogether lovely One--the Lord Jesus Christ!

How precious, also, to the believing heart, does He now become. His Person, as the God-man--precious. His blood, cleansing from all sin--precious. His righteousness, justifying from all things--precious. His grace, subduing all iniquity--precious. His sympathy, soothing every sorrower--precious. His intercession, presenting us to God in heaven--precious. His name, as ointment poured forth--precious. Truly, "unto those who believe He is PRECIOUS."

My reader, what do you think of this Christ? Is He lovely to your eye and precious to your heart? Is He the Teacher at whose feet you sit, the Pattern whose example you imitate, the Savior in whom you trust, the All in All of your soul? Then you are born again! Flesh and blood revealed not to you this wondrous Christ; nature taught you not to admire and accept, to love and serve Him whom the world hates, despises, and rejects. The love that glows in your heart to Him, though it appears but as a spark; the discovery of His excellence which you have made, though but partial; the sight of His cross which you have caught, though but dim; and the desire to depart and to be with Him which you cherish, though but feeble--all evidence the great, the spiritual, the blessed change through which, in the sovereignty of Divine grace, your whole being has passed.

You are a new creation. Jesus is its Sun, the Spirit its Author, and God its glory. On earth there are none to be compared with Jesus; in heaven there are none to surpass Him. Whom have you in heaven but Christ, and who is there on earth that you desire before Him?

"Jesus! the very thought is sweet!
In that dear Name all heart-joys meet;
But sweeter than the honey far
The glimpses of His presence are.

"No word is sung more sweet than this,
No Name is heard more full of bliss;
No thought brings sweeter comfort nigh,
Than Jesus, Son of God, Most High.

"Jesus! the hope of souls forlorn,
How good to them for sin who mourn,
To those that seek You, oh, how kind!
But what are You to those that find?

"No tongue of mortal can express,
No pen can write the blessedness;
He only who has found it knows
What bliss from love of Jesus flows.

"O Jesus! King of wondrous might,
O Victor glorious from the fight,
Sweetness that may not be expressed,
And altogether loveliest!"

The reader will infer from the preceding statement, touching the nature and evidence of the New Birth that, as a spiritual and divine work its Author must be supernatural. The Scriptures of truth leave us in no doubt as to this essential point. We are told by our Lord emphatically that, "it is the Spirit who quickens, the flesh profits nothing." Again--"Born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God." To the Holy Spirit, then, the third person of the ever blessed Trinity, the breathing of the divine life in the soul, the new spiritual creation of man, is ascribed. Having already adverted to this truth in the preceding pages, a brief reference to it in this connection is all that will be required. And yet, how momentous it is that we keep perpetually and distinctly in view the divine and sole agency of the Holy Spirit in conversion! Ignore or lose sight of this doctrine, and Baptismal Regeneration is in the ascendant. And from this soul-destroying heresy the Lord deliver His Church!

The Spirit of God commencing this work of the new creation of the soul, carries it on to final and eternal completion. He who unsealed the first tear of godly sorrow for sin, and created the first trembling touch of faith, and inspired the first thrill of holy joy, carries forward the work from step to step, from stage to stage. It is the Spirit who teaches us more of Jesus, increases our knowledge of God, deepens our sanctification, seals to us the pledge of our inheritance, witnesses to our sonship, speaks the promise, and conveys the consolation of the Lord of all comfort to our soul. Oh, the debt, the deep, the eternal debt, we owe to the Spirit--what arithmetic can compute it? Shall we not give Him divine honor, acknowledge His personal glory, listen to His still small voice, obey His holy injunctions, and in all things seek to please and magnify Him?

My reader, is your professed conversion the work of the Spirit? Is He the author of your hope for eternity? Has He discovered to you your guilt, danger, and universal corruption of your nature? Has He roused you from a state of carnal security, of spiritual stupidity and indifference, to an affecting view of the holiness of God, of the purity and strictness of His law, of the terrors of its penalty, of the great evil of sin, and of your exposure to the Divine displeasure because of it?

Has He, thus giving you to pass through these pangs and throes of the New Birth, unveiled to you the cross of Calvary, revealing to your faith the Redeemer of men, the Savior of sinners, hanging upon that tree, wounded and bruised, bleeding and dying for our transgressions?

Has He enabled you to let go everything else--baptism, and sacraments, and church, self-righteousness, and unrighteousness--and look to the cross, and touch the Savior, and grasp Him as the limpet the rock, and stake your eternal salvation upon the blood, the righteousness, the merit, the finished work of the Lord Jesus? Have you got, as Rutherford expresses it, "a grip of Christ?" These are vital questions, which must be met and answered and disposed of graciously and savingly now, or to our eternal confusion and condemnation in the great day of judgment.

But there is one view of this new creation which we must earnestly vindicate and scripturally and distinctly place before the reader, seeing that there exists so many ideas that are vague and erroneous concerning it. Let it be clearly understood that the new creation of which we speak is not an integral, component part of the old creation, or a mending and improvement and development of the fallen and corrupt nature which we possess in the first Adam. Far from this. It is entirely, totally, essentially different.

It is a new, a divine, a holy nature imparted to the soul; so that the believer becomes the possessor of two natures--the one, the old nature, essentially and totally sinful; the other, the new nature, essentially and totally holy. The new creation of the believer is not a superadded, supplementary thing engrafted upon the old; it is a substitution, a thing wholly and entirely distinct in itself, essentially, incorruptibly holy. The Scripture statements of this truth are clear and unmistakable. "That you put off, concerning the former conversation, the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts; and be RENEWED in the spirit of your mind; and that you put on the NEW MAN, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness," (Eph. 4:22-24.)

It is in the light of this truth we get some insight into the meaning of the apostle John, when, personifying the renewed nature, he employs this remarkable language, "Whoever is born of God does not commit sin; for His seed remains in him--and he cannot sin because he is born of God." This, and similar declarations in the epistles of the same evangelist, have received various interpretations from different writers. Some, by an unwarranted accommodation of the passage, have pressed it into the service of teaching, and countenancing the doctrine of sinless perfection. But nothing can be clearer than that the apostle, neither here or elsewhere, nor any of the apostles, taught a doctrine so opposed to the whole teaching of divine truth, and so contradictory to the uniform experience of the entire Church of God. "If we say that we have NO SIN, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us."

Others have interpreted the text as teaching the inability of the Christian to sin wilfully, or habitually, or, "in such a sense as to lose all true religion, and be numbered with transgressors." But neither can we accept this as the mind of the Holy Spirit by the apostle. What, then, is the meaning?

The evangelist is now speaking of the new nature, which is the divine nature in the soul of the regenerate. He personifies this new nature thus--"And that you put on the NEW MAN, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness," (Eph. 4:24.) "And have put on the NEW MAN, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of Him that created him," (Col. 3:10.) Now, it is of this new, this divine nature in the soul of the regenerate of which the apostle speaks that IT cannot sin. "He"--the new man--"cannot sin, because he is born of God."

The new nature of the believer is so essentially holy, it cannot be tempted to sin, for it is incorruptible; it is so essentially divine it cannot of itself sin, for it is of God. "We know that whoever is born of God sins not." Such we believe to be the true and only logically correct interpretation of this remarkable text. That the best of God's saints have fallen into the worst of sins, is a fact patent in the history of the Church of God. That the most holy and matured Christian is perpetually battling with the existence of sin and the propensities to evil within, is equally true. To what conclusion, then, can we arrive but this, that, while in the flesh of the regenerate dwells no good thing--flesh remaining flesh until corruption returns to corruption--there exists in the renewed soul "the NEW MAN, created according to God in righteousness and true holiness;" and this "new man," essentially, perfectly, and unchangeably holy, is not, as we have previously shown, an engrafting of grace upon the old and fallen nature by which its evil is either exterminated or else changed into good; but is a separate and distinct nature in the believer, intrinsically divine and holy, the result of the creative operation of the Holy Spirit, and forms the germ of his future, higher, and nobler state of spiritual being, before long to be unfolded in its perfection and glory in heaven, dissevered from all that would taint its purity, mar its beauty, or shade its luster.

3. The evidence of the new birth.

But from this unfolding of the nature of the new creation in the soul of the regenerate, we pass to consider its evidenceas laid down by the apostle. "Old things are passed away, behold all things are become new." This is the Spirit's comment upon His own previous declaration. "He is a new creature," says the Spirit. The evidence?--"Old things are passed away, behold all things are become new." The first idea suggested by these words is, the VISIBILITY of the New Birth. We are invited to look upon it. "Behold!" The change produced by the internal regeneration of the Spirit is often thus described as open and seen. It is the visible expression of an invisible work; an alteration of life consequent upon a change of heart. If conversion revolutionizes our entire being, molding our principles, sanctifying our minds, purifying our hearts, shaping and tinting our spiritual feelings, our words and actions, then the passing away of old things and the taking their place by new must be discerned by ourselves and be discernible to others. The great spiritual change is so real that it cannot be concealed--the effect on the life is so palpable it cannot be mistaken.

The WORLD takes knowledge of us that we have been with Jesus and have learned of Him. They behold our light--for it shines. They mark our faith--for it works. They trace our love--for it constrains. They behold our religion--for it influences. How writes the apostle Peter? "Be careful how you live among your unbelieving neighbors. Even if they accuse you of doing wrong, they will SEE your honorable behavior, and they will believe and give honor to God when he comes to judge the world." 1 Peter 2:12.

The best of men, as were Christ and His apostles, are exposed to the shafts of an ungodly world. The man of God may not always be able to avoid false accusation, misinterpretation, and malicious calumny--even the doctrines he holds and the good he does shall be evil spoken of. But, by the grace of God, he may so live as to refute the calumny and even to convert the calumniator. We thus see that the New Birth is a visible thing in its effects. It should be so. Our Lord and Master justly expects that those who assume His name should honor it; that those who profess His religion should exhibit it; that, confessing Him and His words before men, they should everywhere be known and recognized as truly His disciples. That, children of the day, they should let their heavenly light shine, as lighthouses shine, illumining the dark ocean of life, and guiding, it may be, the perilous pathway of some benighted and bewildered voyager, so bringing glory to God.

The religion of a child of God should be visible and unmistakable. An epistle of Christ, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God--a living epistle--the writing should be manifest, legible, and readable. He should not so live as that those who see him are surprised when they are informed that he is avowedly a professor of religion, a disciple of Christ, a guest at the table of the Lord. "What! he a Christian, a follower of the Savior, a partaker of the Spirit of Christ? I would not have thought it possible!" But, if old things are passed away and all things are become new, it will be said of him, "Behold an Israelite indeed!" Be this our highest aim to reflect the image of Christ.

If Christ in truth is in us, our Christianity will be as the light, pure and visible, transparent and illuminating. It will not be that we are seen so much, as that Christ is seen in us. The New Birth will be manifest in our Christlike temper and mind and spirit. The old things of our unrenewed nature will give place to the new things of our regenerate nature--and this will be manifest and visible. The moroseness and churlishness, the pride and selfishness, the worldliness and frivolity, the levity and man-pleasing which cropped up so luxuriantly from the soil of our unsanctified heart, will now, in a great measure be supplanted by the fruits of righteousness springing from a heart changed, sanctified, occupied by the Spirit of God. The walk and conversation of a renewed man will be the outward and visible reflection of an inward and invisible grace.

As the stream cannot ascend higher than its level, neither can fall below it, so the holiness of the Christian's life will be in proportion to the sanctification of his heart. As the hands of a clock moving upon the face of the dial indicate the condition and working of the hidden mechanism of the timepiece, so the holy living and conversation of the regenerate point to the divine power from which they originate, and evidence the renewed and sanctified heart from whence they flow.

Let, then, beloved, your conversion be manifest, your religion be molding and visible. Let it impress its divine shape and impart its hallowed tint to all your actions, pursuits, and recreations. Let it influence and sanctify all the domestic, professional, and social relations and doings of life. Let its home power be visible and influential. Move amid the domestic circle as a new creature, a being of holiness and love, living for eternity; a beam flowing from the infinite sun, irradiating, softening, cheering in its hallowed influence on all around. As a parent, and as a child, as a brother, a sister, a domestic, so let your light shine, so let your life evidence its reality, so let your religion be visible in its lowliness and gentleness, its loveable and loving spirit, as to command from all who see it the admiring exclamation, "Behold! old things are passed away, and all things are become new!"

O Lord, let the new nature within me be an open vision, a luminous and faithful copy of Your own. It is Your nature, united though it be with frail, and sinful, suffering flesh; Your own divine workmanship, destined hereafter and forever to reflect Your glory and hymn Your praise--and upon Your head, O Christ, shall the crown flourish!

The effect produced by the new creation of the soul is radical and thorough. "ALL things are become new." The work of God, like Himself, is perfect. The conversion which man would effect has respect to a partial reformation only, leaving the heart untouched and unchanged. But God's work of grace is radical and thorough. It begins at the center and works its way to the farthest circumference of the whole man.

The heart--once so hateful and hating--has now become a fountain of sweet waters, transmitting its pure and holy streams throughout the whole soul, changing the entire conduct of the individual, and working out, in its degree, a universal holiness of his whole being. "Old things have passed away." The world he once loved is now as a crucified thing. The pleasures he once indulged have lost their charm. The sins he once committed are now loathed and forsaken. The society he once enjoyed no longer attracts or pleases. In a word, old things have passed away with the old nature, and with the advent of a new nature behold all things are become new! How comprehensive the words, how vast the change!

Trace it in some of its radical results–

IMPENITENCEis replaced by a broken and a contrite heart. The old hardness and insensibility of the unrenewed nature have passed away, and God has made the heart soft by grace, and the Holy Spirit has wrought that godly sorrow for sin which lays the mouth in the dust, and dissolves the soul into holy contrition at Jesus' feet. Sweet contrition! Sweeter far the bitterest tears for sin at Christ's cross, than the sweetest pleasures of sin in tents of worldly enchantment.

Reader, has the old impenitence and hardness of your heart passed away, succeeded by a heart spiritually softened and divinely sealed? Has the Spirit emptied, humbled, and laid you low? You know nothing experimentally and savingly of Christ until He has. He is the Great Healer, but He heals with His blood and binds up none but sin-wounded consciences and guilt-broken hearts. "The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit--a broken and a contrite heart, O God, you will not despise." What, my reader, is yours?

The old principle of UNBELIEFis passed away, and the new and divine principle of faith in Christ has succeeded. And with this new-born principle in the soul, behold, all things are become new. Faith changes the character and the aspect of everything in the experience of the believer. It revolutionizes the entire range of his vision. It diminishes things that are present, and enlarges things that are future. The visible things fade upon the sight, the invisible things unveil their grandeur. It is microscopic in its view of things that are seen and temporal, it is magnifying in its view of things that are unseen and eternal. It looks alone to Christ, and in Him it sees the Father revealed, and beholds the glory of God in that face once marred more than the face of any man. It deals only with the blood and righteousness of Christ, rests alone and confidently in His merits, obedience, and sufferings, and commits the keeping of the soul to His hand, and exclaims, "I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I have committed unto Him against that day." Thus the old unbelief which rejected Christ, and excluded the soul from salvation, has passed away, and behold the new principle of faith which receives Christ, and rests in Christ, has succeeded it; and with the advent of this divine and new-born principle are the first fruits of glory in the soul.

My reader, do you believe in the Son of God? Have you the faith that travels--sinful, poor, and empty-handed, to Christ, and accepts with child-like, unquestioning trust, the full and complete salvation which Jesus purchased at a price so costly, and gives with a love so free?

Not less conspicuous among the evidences afforded of the reality of the New Birth is, the essential change which takes place in the views and feelings of the regenerate with regard to SIN. Originally shaped in iniquity, and conceived in sin, the love of sin, and the hatred of holiness, are born with us. But when by the Holy Spirit we are born over again, and are made partakers of the Divine nature, this original and natural love of sin, and hatred of holiness, are reversed. A new and heavenly principle is implanted which leads the regenerate to hate sin and love holiness. In nothing are the reality and divinity of this momentous change more apparent than in this.

We have shown that the new nature in the regenerate is essentially and inalienably holy. It not only is of itself uncorrupted, but it is incorruptible by any power whatever--it CANNOT sin. Now, it is in this divine principle that the love of holiness in the believer is implanted, and a power in antagonism to sin is implanted in his heart. What a reverse now transpires! The regenerate now love what they once hated, and hate what they once loved. We loved sin, lived in sin, in some of its many forms--intellectual sin, gross sin, refined sin, open sin, secret sin. "The lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, the pride of life," the power of Mammon, the fascination of the world, the idolatry of the creature, the love of self, some or all these forms of sin maintained the supremacy, held their unbroken, undisputed rule.

Oh, how changed a man is he now! The sins which he before committed, the objects which he loved, the tastes which he cultivated, the sensualities in which he indulged, have lost their power to fascinate, to please, and to enthrall. The principle of sin may still exist embedded in the renewed heart; but the new man, day by day increasing in strength, advancing in holiness, and, growing in grace, gradually obtains the ascendancy; and so the believer puts off the old man with his deeds, and puts on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness.

O Lord, give to me this evidence, that I am born again! Implant in my heart the principle of holiness, deepen in my heart the love of holiness, strengthen in my heart the power of holiness, adorn my heart with the beauties of holiness, and enrich my heart with the fruits of holiness. Whatever brilliant gifts You withhold, whatever active service You forbid, whatever great achievements You restrain, whatever sacred honor You shade, oh, grant that I may be a true and humble partaker of that divine HOLINESS--deepening, ripening, perfecting--arrayed in which I shall behold Your face in righteousness, satisfied when I awake with Your likeness. Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me.

The spirit and carriage of the renewed soul under ADVERSITYis no slight evidence of the reality and blessedness of the New Birth. Adversity before conversion, and adversity after conversion, seem not the same discipline. Affliction BEFORE the New Birth transpires in the soul, unsanctified by the grace of God, stirs up the enmity of the natural heart, increases the rebellion of the carnal mind, and arms the hostility of the will against Jehovah. The natural man kicks against God, flies in the face of His providence, and is as a bullock unaccustomed to the yoke.

But when the new nature, descending from heaven, makes its triumphant and glorious entrance into the soul, oh, how changed is everything! The rebellion of the will transformed into submission, the enmity of the mind changed into love, the hostility of the soul subdued into harmony, the afflictive and corrective dealings of God are now interpreted and received as the righteous, wise, and loving discipline of a Father, who because He loves chastises us, who because we are sons scourges us.

Mark the spirit of the chastened believer--"And Aaron held his peace." Listen to the language of the afflicted child--"The cup which my Father has given me, shall I not drink it?" Contemplate the picture of the sorrowful saint--"I have behaved and quieted myself, as a child that is weaned of his mother--my soul is even as a weaned child." Truly have old things passed away, and all things have become new! Afflicted and chastised one! be your spirit and demeanor under God's present dealings a bright reflection of this. The hand of God may be heavy upon you. Dark may be the cloud shading your tabernacle, mingled the draught brimming your cup, and painful the sword which enters into your soul--nevertheless, in all this God is love--paternal love, unchanging love; and His present discipline of sorrow is but to bring your soul more deeply into the experience of His love, and to increase and burnish the evidences of your new and heavenly birth.

You are traveling the family-road to heaven--the King's highway to glory, trodden by the King Himself. Through much tribulation we are to enter the kingdom. Your present affliction, your present trial is in the covenant, appointed and ordained by everlasting love, infinite wisdom and righteousness. God, your own covenant God and Father, has appointed all, has shaped all, is overruling all, and is with you in all. Dark and mysterious as is this event, it involves a wise and loving needs be. God deals intelligently as well as righteously, wisely as well as lovingly, with His children. Every trial has its mission, every cross its lesson, every sorrow its blessing.

We little comprehend how much wise love is contained in what at first sight seems directly adverse to our best interests, to militate against our true happiness. A trial that seems a severe correction is often a wise prevention; a cross that wears a threatening aspect often proves a timely and wholesome check. The path of worldly sunshine, and often that of spiritual prosperity, may be as a sea of ice; and so God strews it with the sand of affliction, that our feet may not slide. He roughens the smooth way, that we may be safe.

When the Holy Spirit restores to the renewed soul the lost image of God, repencilling it with the lineaments of His holiness, the Lord sees fit that the newly-created vessel should pass through the fire, in order to deepen, consolidate, and perpetuate the sacred imprint. The Divine likeness is burned indelibly in the soul. This led the holy but afflicted Job to exclaim, "When He has tried me I shall come forth as gold." And so shall every furnace-tried believer issue forth a vessel purified and fit for the Master's service.

Do not think, then, O afflicted one, that God is dealing with you strangely! It is by the discipline of sorrow--it may be sickness, bereavement, loss of earthly substance, or the calamity befalling one we love--that our Lord is assimilating us to Himself. And is there not a holy congruity that the disciple should be as his Lord? Who would not be like Christ? Shall the Head be thorn-crowned and tried, and the Body be exempt from sorrow and suffering? Shall the Bridegroom be a man of sorrows, and the Bride a wife of pleasures? Oh, no! forbid it, love! forbid it, faith! forbid it, hope of glory! Jesus left us an example of suffering, that we should follow His steps.

The Lord tries the righteous, in order to deepen, mature, and bring forth their righteousness in noontide light. Sanctified trial develops and advances the new nature in the soul. The effects of trial in the godly are in striking contrast with the effects of a similar discipline of the ungodly. While affliction stirs up the corruption of the unregenerate heart, it stirs up the grace of the renewed heart. The one emits a noxious and loathsome exhalation; the other breathes its sweet and fragrant aspirations, bounding heavenward as the springing of a fountain of perfume. Oh, marvelous grace, that can extract purity and sweetness from hearts so vile as ours!

Lord, of Your own we give You; Your grace shall wear the diadem of praise, of all that is divine, and holy, and lovely within us! In the light, beloved, of these truths read the present discipline of God. He may now seem to be taking you down, but it is only to build you up and put you together again--a fairer, lovelier, and more symmetrical temple. He is teaching you, also, by trial as you could learn in no other school. Now you interpret the dark symbol which before was so difficult to decipher--that the saints' afflictions stand for God's blessings--blessings, indeed, when He is blessed for sending them. "The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away, BLESSED be the name of the Lord."

What if He has imposed a daily cross, heavy, and chafing? You have not long nor far to carry it. "This light affliction is but for a moment." The "little while" of cross-bearing, of furnace-trial will soon be past and gone--gone like the foam that crests the ocean billow--and you will stand triumphant upon that shore, washed by no waves but bliss, and will awake the golden strings of your harp to the sweetest praise of Immanuel for every cross, tribulation, and trial.

Oh, could we even now but see the reason God has for appointing each sorrow--the wisdom that ordained it, the goodness that sends it, the power that controls it, the grace that sanctifies it, the sympathy that soothes it, and the mission of love on which it bends its dark wing to our abode--we would not feel a moment's anxiety or trouble in our mind; but, like David, behave and quiet ourselves as a weaned child, calmly, confidently waiting the blessed outcome--our more perfect fitness by grace for a perfect heaven of glory.

Let, then, your spirit and deportment under trial evidence, beloved, that with you old things are passed away and that all things are become new. Glorify God in the fires. Be meek, mute, resigned. Nothing but love is in this deep, dark calamity. Then shall grace triumph over nature, and your heavy affliction shall but unveil the love, illustrate the power, and increase the glory of Jesus. He, once the sorrowing and the suffering One, but now the loving and the sympathizing One, has not left you alone in this adversity. In all your afflictions He is afflicted; and His grace will heal the sorrow, and His love will control the grief, and His power subdue the rebellious will, and His sympathy soothe the suffering; and so the name of the Lord Jesus shall be glorified in you.

We ought to refer for one moment to the INDESTRUCTIBILITYof the new nature in the regenerate. Old things have passed away, never more to reassert or regain their ascendancy. The new nature may pass through varied and trying vicissitudes, for the Christian life has its lights and shadows; but it continues the same nature still, uncorrupted by the sin in which it dwells, unmixed with the alloy of earth through which it travels, unshaded and unextinguished by the clouds and waves through which it courses its way to glory; its path is as the shining light, which shines more and more unto the perfect day.

"He that has begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ." Nothing shall arrest its progress or imperil its safety. It is a good work, and what is good is imperishable; it is God's work, and God's work is perfect. And since He annihilates nothing that He has made, not an atom of matter, do you think that He will destroy, or allow to be destroyed, the work of His new creation in the soul? Will He permit one grain of precious faith to perish, one spark of holy love to expire, one life-look at Jesus to be death-glazed? Will He allow a soul redeemed with the heart's-blood and the death agonies of His Son, quickened by His Spirit, called by His grace, kept by His power, to perish? Never, no never!

The new nature of the believer is as holy, as indestructible, as immortal as the God who created it. The gifts and calling of God are irrevocable. He will never revoke a pardon He has given, call back a grace He has bestowed, efface a divine lineament He has pencilled upon the soul. Angels shall never be summoned to hush their harps to silence because of the apostasy, the final ruin, of one over whose repentance and conversion those harps once woke their jubilant melody.

Cheer up, then, dear heart! You weak and trembling saint, your touch of faith has saved you; your look of love has won the heart of Jesus, and no poor sinner that once crowned Him with the weakest faith, or clung to Him with the faintest love, shall ever hear Him say, "Depart!" Listen to His own assurance, and with this we close the argument of the final perseverance of all the regenerate--"My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me; and I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man (any one) pluck them out of my hand." And thus the new creature which could not sin because it was born of God, and which could not perish because God was in it, shall advance towards its destined completion, from grace to grace, until it is changed from glory to glory.

Before we close, let us solemnly and personally ask the reader, Have you these evidences of the New Birth? Are you a real Christian, a visible Christian, a thorough Christian, a growing Christian? Do not think that we exaggerate the importance of the great change, or that we demand evidences of its reality so high that you cannot attain unto them. If you question the correctness of our view of the subject, examine the Scriptures for yourself. Suppose that, after all, we should be right. Then what is your hope for eternity? And that we are right, it is spoken--spoken by Him who is the Truth, and who cannot lie--"you MUST be born again." What could be more explicit or more solemn? It is unequivocally appointed of God that you pass through this spiritual change. It is absolutely necessary in order to your entrance into heaven. Your eternal and changeless destiny turns upon the balance. Heaven or hell--the undying worm or the unfading crown--the quenchless fire or the eternal song--with demons and lost souls, or with Christ and glorified spirits forever are the solemn, momentous issues suspended upon your decision. Search the Scriptures, examine your heart, look into your life, and ascertain if of a truth you are BORN AGAIN.

But there yet remains one test of the reality of the new creation of the soul--the last and most solemn, the all-important hour when DEATH, the foe of nature but the friend of grace, approaches, loosens the silver cord, and translates the believer from earth to heaven. That all death-beds of God's people are precisely alike, that all exhibit the same jubilant joy, and exultant hope, and triumphant entrance into glory, we do not affirm. But whatever may be the dying experience of the departing saint--whether God puts His child to sleep in the dark or in the light--whether he departs hence with the lowly prayer of the tax-collector, or with the triumphant song of the martyred apostle breathing from his lips, the renewed nature will evidence its reality and exhibit its power; and no holy watcher of the solemn scene shall retire from that chamber but with the conviction that it was not the Christian, but death that died.

You may go down to the bank of the river in fear, in gloom, and in tears, but you shall pass through it in confidence, in light, and in song. Oh, how will the new creature prove its heavenly birth, unveil its divine wonders, and evidence its deathless existence then! Emerging from its long and deep veiling--the sin that enwrapped it, the infirmities that impaired it, the sorrows that shaded it, the body of sinful, suffering flesh that imprisoned it--it will burst forth into a reality and a grandeur that will awe while it delights, astonish while it entrances the spirits of saints and angels gazing down intent upon the spectacle.

In all this, how glorious and precious will Christ appear! Living or dying, Christ is all in all to the believer. IN Christ has been his heaven below; WITH Christ will be his heaven above. To Him we owe all the grace that saves us now, and will ascribe all the glory that glorifies us hereafter. Blessed Lord Jesus! You who stooped to my fallen, sinful, sorrowful nature to raise it into union with Your own divine, pure, and happy nature--You who carried my cross in weariness, in shame, and woe, that I might sit with You upon Your throne--oh, claim my heart for Yourself, and rule and reign without a rival!

"My heart is fixed, Eternal God,
Fixed on Thee;
And my immortal choice is made–
Christ for me.
He is my Prophet, Priest, and King,
Who did for me salvation bring;
And while I live I mean to sing,
Christ for me.

"In Him I see the Godhead shine,
Christ for me.
He is the Majesty Divine,
Christ for me;
The Father's well-beloved Son,
Co-partner of His royal throne,
Who died for human guilt alone,
Christ for me.

"Let others boast of heaps of gold,
Christ for me;
His riches never can be told,
Christ for me.
Your gold will waste and wear away;
Your honors perish in a day;
My Portion never can decay,
Christ for me.

"In pining sickness or in health,
Christ for me;
In deepest poverty or wealth,
Christ for me.
And in that all-important day,
When I the summons shall obey,
And wing my heavenly flight away,
Christ for me!"

The FRUITS of the New Birth

"Being filled with the fruits of righteousness, which are by Jesus Christ, unto the praise and glory of God."--Phil. 1:11

From tracing some of the more distinctive marks of the New Birth, we pass to a consideration of its FRUITS--a more advanced view of the same subject. There may be certain marks or features in a tree which, to a skillful eye, indicate its genus, while it is the fruit the tree bears which alone clearly proves the species to which it belongs. We have thus far in these pages reviewed but the elementary principles of conversion, sufficiently distinctive, however, to enable the general reader to arrive at a correct conclusion as to the real state of his own soul for eternity. The present chapter will present the New Birth in its more developed or advanced stage--tracing some of the more appropriate and matured fruits of the great change from death unto life.

If we infer, and correctly so, that the individual is born again by his hating the things he once loved, and loving the things he once hated, we have more than inferential proof, we have positive and unmistakable evidence of the fact in the ripened fruits of holiness which adorn and sanctify his life. We trace not the gentle bud, or the opening blossom of grace merely, but the mellowed and golden fruit of righteousness, yielding yet loftier praise and richer glory to God. "Being filled with the fruits of righteousness, which are by Jesus Christ, unto the praise and glory of God."

The figurative language of the passage will be familiar to the reader of his Bible. It is a favorite mode of address with the Holy Spirit. Believers are called, "trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that He might be glorified." In landscape scenery, God has constituted the tree the principal object of beauty. In the spiritual world it is the Church. The Church of God is the beauty of the world--its only adornment and sanctity. Take the saints out of the world, and the salt is removed--its real conservative element is gone, and nothing is left but spiritual putrefaction--fuel for the flame.

Now, the leading thought we wish to place prominently before the reader is, that of APPROPRIATENESS. The tree is a "tree of righteousness"--the fruit it bears is the "fruit of righteousness." This idea must not be superficially passed over. It supplies all infallible test of Christian character, a sure criterion of real conversion. Believers are known to be trees of righteousness, or righteous trees, by their righteousness of life. The tree is known by its fruit. The deadly upas tree is distinguished by its shadow of death. The sandal tree is known by the fragrance which it breathes. In the spiritual world it is precisely the same, with this difference--that the test is yet stronger, and the result more certain.

An UNCONVERTEDstate will bear fruit corresponding with its own nature. It must, in the nature of things, be so. It would be a miracle, a miracle of grace, were it not. "Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles?" So is it in the spiritual world. The enmity against God of the carnal mind, the rejection of the Lord Jesus, the governing principle of SELF, the supreme ascendancy of the world, the slavery of sin, indicate, unmistakably, the unrenewed, unregenerate nature from which they spring. Old things have not passed away. We do not expect you to yield the fruits of holiness from an unholy nature. The life you live is in keeping with the unrenewed heart you possess. You are of the earth, earthly. It is consistent with your unregenerate nature that you should be of the world, should love the world, and that the world should love you and claim you as its own--that the things of the world--its pursuits, and pleasures, and sins--should harmonize with your nature, charm your taste, delight your senses, and bind your affections in their spell. It is only the thistle and the thorn yielding the fruit proper to their nature.

You walk, as others, according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, and so you clearly evidence that you are not born again. In the absence of the fruits of righteousness, your present religious condition, and your future and eternal destiny, are melancholy and perilous in the extreme. Lose not a moment in examining your true position for eternity! With death all around you, its sentence upon you, eternity before you, the judgment-seat of Christ soon to confront you, postpone not the consideration of the great matter of conversion, lest you should be compelled to take up the lamentation, "The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and I am not saved!"

But we turn to the RENEWED nature. We enter the Church of God where the trees of righteousness His own hand has planted grow. What a sacred and solemn enclosure is this!--a spot reclaimed from the world's wilderness by sovereign grace, and walled around with the ineffably glorious attributes of Jehovah. And now we stand amid the wonders and the glories of the new creation of the soul! Truly it is the garden of the Lord, the spiritual Eden of this fallen universe. A new and Divine sun quickens into deathless life every tree and flower and fruit. A new and heavenly atmosphere encircles it; new and exhaustless springs water it, a new and eternal heaven shines above it--lo! Christ has in His Church made all things new. It is a field which the Lord has blessed, does bless, and will through eternity bless. Such is the one, elect, redeemed Church of God, composed of all the trees of righteousness--trees of various sizes and forms and degrees of beauty and fruit, yet all trees of righteousness--of His own right hand planting, that He might be glorified.

But it is the fruit of the new nature of which we are now more especially to speak--the fruits of holiness which at once indicate its divinity and evidence its vitality. One word expresses emphatically the idea--"RIGHTEOUSNESS." "The fruits of righteousness." The bitter, poisonous fruits of unrighteousness meet us at every turn. They confront us in every species and shape and tint. Oh, what an ungodly world is this! Who would not sigh and cry for all the abominations that are done beneath the sun of heaven? The impurity, the insanity, the frivolity, the fraud, the oppression, the wrong, the cruelty, the injustice, the selfishness, the baseness, the torture, the profanity, the hypocrisy, the utter, total defiance of God, disbelief of His Word and rejection of His Son, all, all unite to confirm the truth of the inspired declaration, "The whole world lies in wickedness"--in the Wicked One. Such are some of the fruits borne by the unrighteous tree.

But the plants of God's setting, the trees of His own planting, are righteous, and the fruit they bear corresponds with their nature--divine, fragrant, precious fruit of righteousness by which His great and holy name is glorified. The regenerate are emphatically the righteous. The language is strong which sets this forth. Speaking of the Church of God, the prophet says, "This is the name with which she shall be called, The Lord our righteousness." The very name applied to the Lord Jesus is here given to His Church! It is fit that the Lamb's Wife should bear the name of her Divine and Royal Husband--"The Lord Our Righteousness." Standing in His imputed righteousness, the believer is counted as righteousness in Christ. "Their righteousness is of me, says the Lord." "He has made Him to be sin for us, who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him."

In addition to this external imputation of righteousness--constituting the full and free justification of the Lord's people--is the internal righteousness of the Spirit--the germ of holiness implanted in regeneration, which, as remarked, is the work of the Holy Spirit in the soul. Such, then, is the nature of the fruit the believer bears. While all other trees--at the root of which the axe is laid prepared to fell them to the earth at the bidding of God--bring forth not good fruit, these, through electing love and sovereign grace, in the springtide of youth and in mellow old age bring forth good fruit, even the fruits of righteousness, and God is glorified.

What are you, O reader? A tree of righteousness, or of unrighteousness? What is the fruit you bear? What is the life you are living? Think of your responsibility, remember your accountability, meditate upon your immortality! Are you sowing to the flesh or to the Spirit, for time or eternity, for a harvest of woe or a harvest of bliss, for heaven or hell? Rest not short of real conversion. Until you pass into the experience of the new birth, all the moral fruit you bear--though like the apples of Sodom, lovely and pleasant to look upon--is but the bitter fruit of a sinful, unregenerate nature, supplying fuel for the last, the terrible, the eternal fire. "And now also the axe is laid unto the root of the tree--therefore every tree which brings not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire."

But there is fruit that endures unto eternal life. Let us examine it. Having stated its nature, let us attempt a brief classification. The apostle speaks in the plural--"fruits of righteousness." The Lord's trees of righteousness bear all manner of holy fruit. For, "the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance." Let us consider some.

In the foreground of our picture we place the fruit of FAITH. The contrast in this particular with the unregenerate is very striking. Unbelief is the great characteristic--the master sin--of the world. Referring to the coming of the Holy Spirit, our Lord intimates this. "When He has come, He will convince (or convict) the world of sin, because they BELIEVE NOT on me." We live in a world unbelieving as to all that relates to the world to come. It will believe everything as to the world that now is, though it be the most ridiculous illusion that ever floated before the wildest fancy; it will believe nothing as to the world to come, though God, who spoke in times past unto the fathers by the prophets, has in these last days spoken unto us by His Son.

But faith is the grand characteristic of the trees of righteousness. Basing his belief upon the BIBLE as a divine revelation, receiving it as the Book of God without demur or qualification, the Christian believes all that the Holy Scriptures of truth make known. The faith that accepts and spiritually understands the Bible, possesses and understands the Library of the universe. Marvelous volume! Without it what a blank would the annals of the present world be, and how bewildered would be our historians and sociologists, philosophers and moralists, to account for a large proportion of the phenomena which meet them at every step! How inexplicable the creation of the world, the introduction of natural and moral evil, the history of the primogeniture of the race, the manners and customs of the early ages, the multiplicity of races and of languages existing on the earth, the history of that most astonishing of all people the Jews, the remarkable phenomena in the internal structure of the earth, as well as the existence of 'marine remains' found upon the summits of some of the loftiest mountains far remote from the sea! And yet, there are those in this enlightened age who, with the solemn vows of God upon them to believe and defend the Divine inspiration of the Scriptures, are endeavoring to shake our faith in their integrity.

But the most prominent characteristic of the faith of the Christian is its repose in the Lord Jesus Christ as its great Object of reliance. There is no true faith in God, or in His Word, where there exists unbelief in Christ--the Christ whom God's Word reveals as the Sent of God. We may have just that faith in the existence of God which saves us from absolute atheism, but not that faith in God which brings us into actual theism. An ocean plant exquisitely formed, a coral reef curiously constructed, a simple flower shedding its fragrance amid alpine snows, may, in their silent, convincing eloquence, testify to you of 'a God'--that He formed that marine plant so exquisitely; created the insect that piled up that coral reef so curiously; pencilled the flower that blooms amid those frosts so sweetly; but, believing only in God as the God of nature and not in Him as the God of grace--the God who sent His beloved Son into the world to save it--your faith still leaves you in the gall of bitterness and in the bond of iniquity--the servant of sin and the slave of Satan.

The carnal mind is at enmity against God; and faith in His 'natural attributes' will not dissolve into love one atom of its malignity. And what regard has God for the faith which brings to Him but the Cain-offering of fruit and flower, while it disbelieves in His beloved Son, rejects His unspeakable gift, and brings no Abel-offering of faith in atoning sacrifice for sin? It is the utterance of Jesus Himself--"He that honors not the Son, honors not the Father who sent Him."

But the faith of the true believer embraces Christ, and believing in the Son, it embraces also the Father--"Then Jesus cried out, When a man believes in me, he does not believe in me only, but in the one who sent me." Such is the fruit clustering in all its beauty and fragrance upon the trees of righteousness! And no language can adequately describe the worth and preciousness of that faith that accepts without hesitation or qualification, on God's terms, the Lord Jesus Christ. The honor which this act of faith brings to JEHOVAH--the diadem of glory which it places upon His head--can but find its expression in the words of Jesus--"This is life eternal, that they might know You the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent."

The confused and vague conceptions which many cherish of faith tend very much to render the fruit of this grace slender and sickly. It is impossible to entertain views too simple of the nature and operation of faith. Departing from the teaching of God's Word, and submitting themselves to human reasoning--the definitions and teachings of man, which tend to obscure rather than to elucidate Divine truth--they are lost in endless and fruitless speculations touching this most Divine, most fruitful and precious grace of the Spirit. And yet, taking the Bible as our manual, nothing is more simple and clear than its teachings concerning faith. What is faith? It is simply to believe what God says. The words are--"Have faith in God." "BELIEVE that I am able to do this?" "BELIEVE in the Lord Jesus Christ." "Lord, I BELIEVE." "Be it unto you according to your FAITH." "Your FAITH has made you whole." "Blessed are they who have not seen, and yet have BELIEVED." "It is of FAITH, that it might be by grace."

Now, the faith that receives Christ is the most direct, simple, and saving exercise of this marvelous grace, and the most lovely and precious exhibition of this fruit. To believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, is everything to the soul. An eternity of bliss is involved in it. Believe in Christ, and the treasures of heaven are swept into your bosom. Believe in Christ, and a present salvation is yours. Believe in Christ, and the hope of glory dawns upon your soul. Believe in Christ, and you are linked with the bliss of eternity.

You have nothing to do, only to BELIEVE. Away with conditions--away with reasonings--away with questionings--and immediately, simply, only BELIEVE that Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners, and you are SAVED! It is when faith in Christ is simple that it is strong; when its hand is empty that it is full; when it comes in its deepest poverty that it is rich; and when it is the most weak in created dependencies that it is the strongest in God. See, then, that you bear this fruit of righteousness, and so evidence your new creation. Have faith in God--in His word of promise, in His infinite power, in His immutable faithfulness.

Take Him at His word, and though He slays you, yet trust in Him. Be your faith that before whose far-seeing eye the present pales, the future brightens; which diminishes the present things of trial, and suffering, and need, and magnifies the future things of happiness, fruition, and glory. Be your faith that which purifies the heart, which works by love, which walks humbly with God, which lies securely and peacefully at anchor upon the promise in the storm, which reposes quietly in the very bosom of Him whose chastening hand has smitten you. O glorious fruit of righteousness! Lord, let Your sun warm, let Your springs water, let Your hand prune my soul, that I may be filled with this precious fruit of faith, to the greater honor and glory of Your holy name!

In close proximity to the fruit of faith is that of LOVE. Love is that Divine principle which more than all others, perhaps, assimilates us to the Divine nature. "God is love." And when the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts, sanctifying our character, molding, influencing, and constraining us, we are like God. The religion of Jesus is the religion of LOVE. It is the revelation of love--the sacrifice of love--the story of love--the love of the Savior to sinners; and, as the subjects of His religion, the fruit of love will be seen in the life we live. Love, then, is the fruit of the new birth--"Love is of God, and every one that LOVES is BORN OF GOD, and knows God."

The absence of this fruit of righteousness--love to God supreme influencing and assimilating; love to Christ constraining us to obedience and conformity; love to the saints because they are saints, tiding over all differences of judgment, prejudices, and infirmities, manifesting our love to the Lord in the disciple; love to the Word of God, delighting in it more than in our necessary food, sweeter to our taste than the honeycomb, and more precious in our estimate than pure gold--negates our claim to the possession of the new birth; for, if we are begotten of God we shall partake the nature and reflect the image of God, and shall love, not only Him that begat, but them also who are begotten of Him.

How truly lovely and precious is this grace of love! The obedience that springs from it is sweeter far and more honoring to the Lord than the obedience which is the result of fear only. As fruit forced in a conservatory has not the flavor of fruit of spontaneous growth, fruit brought to perfection by the sun, so the obedience that is coerced by the law lacks the sweetness and fragrance of the obedience that is constrained by the gospel. Love makes all the difference!

Now, in proportion to the growth of the Divine nature within us, and the fidelity of our likeness to God, will be our love--love to Jesus Christ and to all His saints--the poorest, the lowest, the weakest. And we ought to love the saints wherever we meet them, unlovely though their natural properties may be. Does not the Lord Jesus, the great High Priest, bear engraven upon His heart the names of all His people? Then, surely we, as a royal priesthood, ought to bear upon our hearts, in affection, sympathy, and charity, all who thus are borne upon the heart of Christ. No, more, we are called upon, as partaking of the Divine nature, to love our enemies--"I say unto you, Love your enemies."

An unregenerate man will love his friend, but hate his enemy; a regenerate man, under a proper and holy influence, will love both--his friend and his foe. Such is the fruit borne by the renewed nature. But, oh, how lamentably deficient are we of this fruit of love! How little of it exists in the professing Church of God! Here and there a cluster is seen--its very rarity increasing its preciousness--but the easily offended demeanor of ecclesiastical and doctrinal systems too thickly veils it from view, even where it exists; and so the Church of God is robbed of much of her loveliness and power, and God and Christ of much of their praise and glory.

But, oh, cultivate this fruit of righteousness! Look well to this, the badge of your Christian discipleship, the evidence of your new birth. Lacking it, what though you speak with the tongues of men and of angels; what though you have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge; what though you have all faith, so that you could remove mountains; what though you bestowed your goods to feed the poor, and give your body to be burned--yet, lacking the grace of charity, or LOVE, you lack the most genuine and authenticating evidence that you are born of God; and all else is but as sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal, (1 Cor. 13:1-3.)

And what precious fruit of righteousness is that which appears in the breathing of the renewed and devout soul after GOD and HOLINESS!One of the finest pages in David's recorded experience is that traced with these holy breathings--"O God, You are my God; early will I seek You--my soul thirsts for You, my flesh longs for You in a dry and thirsty land, where no water is." Here is the divine nature ascending to its Divine Savior, rising to its level; and where it exists, to that Savior it will ever ascend. That which is divine reaches after the divine. That which is holy breathes after holiness. That which is of and from God is, in its nature and actings, godly.

The moral gravitation of the unregenerate is earthward--that of the regenerate heavenward. Having borne the image of the earthly, the believer now bears the image of the heavenly. Oh, it is a holy and impressive spectacle that of the soul breathing after God! When none but God will satisfy your longings; when your spirit pants for Him as the deer pants for the water-brooks, and more intensely; when, amid the din and turmoil of the world, like Isaac, you go forth to meditate in the field at eventide, your heart ascends to God in holy breathings, devout desires, and spiritual prayers, it is as though earth were kissing heaven, the human rising to the Divine, the finite losing itself in the Infinite. Such is prayer! a worm basking in the sun; a beggar at the beautiful gate; a child in communion with its parent; a sinner in audience with the Savior; a saint in fellowship with God. Drawing near to God in either of these relations, the nature and the actings of the renewed heart are exhibited in one of their holiest and most impressive forms.

Beloved, seek earnestly more of this religion--the religion of vital communion with God. Earth has no sweets, the creature no delights, sense no joys like this. It is the only religion that proves its divine source and its heavenly nature. It is the only religion that meets the yearnings of the soul, that satisfies its desires, quenches its thirst, and sustains it amid afflictions and trials--the religion that deals closely, filially, humbly with God. Whatever heaviness, leanness, or sadness you may feel--when you have not a word to express, nor a heart to pray--never be tempted to give up prayer, to forsake the throne of grace. Go with your dullest, lowest frame--go with your shaded spirit, your sealed lips--and if you but lie in the presence of the Lord, detained, sad and mute, before the Ark, you will yet be conscious of a presence and a power which, soft and silent as the light, will diffuse life, joy, and radiance through your soul. Oh, give yourself to prayer!

God knows your sorrows, Christ interprets the language of your tears, the Holy Spirit understands the meaning of your groans. May this fruit of righteousness abound in us, who through grace believe, more and more! May our Christianity be more marked by poverty of spirit and mourning for sin; more faithful dealing with conscience and with our own hearts; more intense thirsting after holiness and more close communion with God; in a word, more of that divine vitality that ascends to, and loses itself in, God, the infinite Fountain of uncreated bliss! "As the deer pants after the water-brooks, so pants my soul after You, O God."

But by whose grace and vitality does the believer bring forth these fruits of righteousness? The apostle tells us--"Being filled with the fruits of righteousness, WHICH ARE BY JESUS CHRIST." Here is the true source of our fruitfulness. We bear no holiness but in union with Him--"From Me is your fruit found." Engrafted into Christ, we necessarily become one with Christ; and in virtue of this vital and spiritual union we bear the fruits of righteousness. One with Christ, we are one with Deity, are one with mediatorial life, and so one with all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. Surely, if ever there existed a true, vital graft, it is this. Blessed union! one with the Lord Jesus! One with Him, as the branch is one with the vine. Thus united to Christ, by Christ dwelling in us through the Spirit, we partake of His life, and His life germinates in us; and so we yield the fruits of righteousness by Him.

Not only in virtue of our union with Christ, but in consequence of our receiving from Christ, we become fruitful. Once more we quote that most remarkable and significant declaration in Hosea--"From Me is your fruit found." The New Testament echo of these Old Testament words is in John 15:4--"Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can you, except you abide in Me." Now, this abiding in Christ is the believer's own act, and involves the life of faith he lives on the fullness, sufficiency, and person of the Lord Jesus. As the branch extracts its life and nourishment from the vine, and thus becomes fruitful, so the believer receives out of Christ's fullness grace following upon grace, strength succeeding strength, life quickening life; and thus he is filled with the fruits of righteousness, which are by Jesus Christ.

Oh, it is by the life of Jesus, the supplies from Jesus, the intercession of Jesus--drawing constantly and largely from His overflowing fullness--taking to Him every corruption, confessing every sin, unveiling to Him every sorrow--that we become fruitful in faith, and love, and prayer. From Christ, and not from ourselves, we derive the skill by which we foil our foe; the grace by which we accomplish our service; the strength by which we sustain affliction; the life, the energy, the self-denying spirit by which, in whatever position we are placed, we glorify God. Leaning thus upon Christ--abiding thus in Christ--traveling thus to Christ--associating Christ with every duty, and cross, and trial, and service--doing nothing, undertaking nothing, enduring nothing without Jesus--we shall be filled with holy fruit.

How sweet it is thus to have Jesus blended with every thought, and feeling, and act! Conscious of His presence, to enter upon every self-denying service, to bear every painful cross, to lay down every precious idol, to drink every bitter cup to which He calls us--this it is to bear fruit by Jesus Christ. It is our fruit, indeed, but it is from Him we derive and by Him we bear it. Oh, how kind and gracious of the Lord to call it our fruit, as if it were all our own, and not all from Him! But this is so like Jesus. He takes the crown, as from His own head, and places it upon that of His saints. "YOUR FAITH has saved you." And yet, that faith was all the work of His own Spirit and the free gift of This own grace. And still He commends and crowns the lowly recipient, as though the merit and the achievement of the faith were all our own! Oh, what a gracious, condescending Savior is ours!

Lord, we give You back the crown You would place upon the head of our graces; for, from You alone is our fruit found, and to You belong, without a rival, the garland of our praises and the diadem of Your own glory. Without You, severed from You, we can do nothing. Shade Your sun, suspend Your showers, withdraw Your life, and we droop, wither, and die. Every grace perishes. Faith falters and fails; hope droops and is crushed; love wanes and expires; and we become barren and unfruitful, cast forth as a branch that is withered.

Look, then, O believer, to Christ the living vine to make you fruitful of holiness. No spiritual fertility of soul will be promoted by looking either within yourself or to your duties. You must ABIDE in Christ. Realizing your union with Him, your acceptance and completeness in Him, your supplies of grace as from Him; looking to Christ, living upon Christ, associating everything with Christ--you will become filled with the fruits of righteousness. "Herein is my Father glorified, that you bear much fruit; so shall you be my disciples."

The great END of all our fruitfulness is, the praise and glory of God. And what an appropriate and sublime conclusion is this! It is a solemn, and yet a glorious truth, that everything God has created shall terminate in Him as its great and final end. All shall result in His glory. "I have created him for my glory." "The Lord has made all things for Himself." The salvation of the righteous, and the everlasting destruction of the wicked, shall alike show forth His praise and illustrate His glory. Yes, those fruits of righteousness--that lowly faith, that humble love, that feeble grace, that imperfect service, that weak endeavor to please Him, that victory over the tempter, that conquest of sin, that heavy cross carried, that bitter cup drank, that long, lingering illness, that suffering of death--all, all shall redound to the praise and glory of JEHOVAH'S grace when the Lord shall come to be admired by His saints, and to be adored in all those who believe. If only the preparation of the soil, the sowing of the seed, the culture of the plant, the maturing of the fruit, brought such praise and glory to the Lord God here, oh, how great will be the revenue of praise and glory He will receive when all the golden sheaves are sickled, and the fruit is garnered, and heaven resounds with the song of the HARVEST HOME!

The ASSURANCE of Conversion

"I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I have committed unto Him against that day."--2 Tim. 1:12

If there is one question involving our personal well-being upon which, above all others, there should not linger the shade of a shadow of uncertainty and doubt, it is the momentous question of our conversion to God--our preparedness for death and eternity. Other questions relating to the present life may reasonably admit of distrust and postponement, even of indifference and neglect; but, the question of our New Birth--the issues of which are solemn as eternity--admits of no uncertainty or delay.

In the preceding pages we have represented the new nature of the believer as a thing visible in its transforming effects. The spiritual change of the heart is evidenced by the moral revolution of the life. The world beholding it, exclaims, "Old things are passed away, behold, all things are become new!" Now, if this great moral change is thus so evident to those who only trace its external evidence, how much more so should it be to the regenerate themselves! Surely, if others recognize and acknowledge it, we ourselves ought to be quite sure that we have passed from death unto life--are born again of the Spirit. Such is the holy state which we purpose in the present chapter to present--such the truth we shall endeavor to unfold--the believer's spiritual certainty, or, Divine authenticity, of his conversion to God. "I know whom I have believed." The points we shall briefly illustrate are--real conversion a self-evidencing fact--the way this assurance may be attained, and then the blessedness of its attainment.

I. Real conversion is a self-evidencing fact.

By a self-evidencing thing we, of course, mean that which is of itself so convincing and demonstrative, as to require no process of reasoning to establish. We say of the Bible that its divinity is self evidencing; that, apart from collateral proof of its Divine inspiration, to an honest and intelligent mind it possesses in itself the proof and evidence of its divinity, cumulative and conclusive; so that, no ingenuous and devout inquirer can rise from its study without the overwhelming conviction that it demonstrates and authenticates its Divine authorship--as the book of God. Now, the new birth admits of a similar line of proof. The moral change it produces is so great and radical, so spiritual and divine, its happy subject knows that he is a new creature--that he is regenerated, adopted, pardoned, justified beyond the shadow of a doubt, and can say, "I KNOW whom I have believed."

That we are not placing too lofty a Christian attainment before the reader, the following few declarations of God's Word, which seem to inculcate the state of assurance as attainable by the believer, we think will show. "We KNOW that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren." "We KNOW that we are of God, and the whole world lies in wickedness." "KNOWING, brethren beloved, your election of God." In Col. 2:2, the apostle speaks of "the full assurance of understanding." In another place he employs this language--"Let us draw near with a true heart, in full assurance of faith." Thus it will be seen that the doctrine of assurance is a truth of Divine revelation, that it rests upon the Bible as its basis. Corresponding with these divinely-inspired declarations is the experience of God's saints in all ages of the world. Job could say with assurance, "I KNOW that my Redeemer lives." David could exclaim with assurance, "When I pass through the valley of the shadow of death I will fear no evil, for you are with me." How full of sweet and holy assurance was the exclamation of Thomas, "My Lord, and my God!" We need not multiply these quotations; they are sufficient to convince the mind that the feeblest believer in the Lord Jesus may arrive at a moral certainty that he is born again of the Spirit.

But the point of light in which we desire to place this subject is that of a present salvation--a truth as replete with comfort as it is with sanctification. Our object will be to confirm the believer in the assurance of the fact that he is saved--saved now--saved as certainly as he will be when the redemption of the body shall be as complete as the redemption of the soul. We predicate this fact upon the declaration of the Lord, "Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that hears my word, and believes on Him that sent me, HAS everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but HAS PASSED from death unto life." The language of the apostle speaks as assuringly of the same fact--"By grace you ARE SAVED." Such is the truth we present. We earnestly desire to confirm you in the scriptural assurance of your present standing before God, knowing how much your comfort and holiness are involved in its experience.

Take, for example, the state of PARDONin which Divine grace places the believer. Is it a present or a future pardon of sin which he receives? Most assuredly a present one. If pardoned, it is a pardon now, a pardon full, and a pardon forever. It is not a blessing we have to hope for or expect. If we are truly converted, really born again, Divine and sovereign grace has put us in a present forgiveness, in the personal and holy enjoyment of which it is our privilege to walk. How consonant with this truth is the Word of God, which alone could reveal it. "You, being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, has He quickened together with Him, HAVING FORGIVEN you all trespasses," (Col. 2:13.) And what the language of Jesus to the penitent woman bathing His feet with tears? Did He dismiss her still laden with guilt, still polluted with sin? No! Listen to His words--oh, words none more precious!--"And He said unto her, Your sins ARE FORGIVEN." Need we multiply, which we could to a great extent, these proofs?

Beloved, knowing your election of God, we write these things unto you. If your souls are really regenerate, the blotting out of your sins is not a thing to be realized and experienced at some future period of your life, but is a present blessing, and should be a present enjoyment. If washed in the atoning blood of Jesus, you are clean every whit. Not more fully pardoned are the glorified spirits in heaven than you are at this moment. For this you have the Divine asseveration--"I HAVE blotted out as a thick cloud your transgressions, and as a cloud your sins." He has done it, and having done it, He will never undo it. Once pardoned, fully pardoned; pardoned freely, and pardoned forever. Oh, realize your present standing as a pardoned sinner! Do not keep going over the great debt as still existing against you.

Suppose that the original amount has been fearfully augmented by superadded debts--debts infinite in number and aggravated in character? Be it so. Still it is written--"Having forgiven you ALL trespasses." "Your sins ARE FORGIVEN you for His name's sake," (1 John 2:12.)

Do not think that God, whose work is perfect, works this His master-work partially and imperfectly. Is it like Him to exercise this the highest prerogative of His moral government and the greatest act of His grace in a way that would lower its dignity, impair its power, and neutralize its effects? No! His pardons are worthy of His infinite greatness and love. He pardons like a God. "Who is a God like unto You, that pardons iniquity, and passes by the transgression of the remnant of His heritage?"

Again, we press upon you the realization of your present state as standing in God's sight, washed in the blood of Christ from all past, present, and future sin. Never was there a more entire annihilation, a more perfect canceling of anything, than the forgiveness of sin which has passed upon all God's people. "In those days, and in that time, says the Lord, the iniquity of Israel shall be sought for, and there shall be NONE; and the sins of Judah, and they shall NOT BE FOUND--for I will pardon them whom I reserve," (Jer. 50:20.) "You will cast all their sins into the depths of the sea," (Micah 7:19.) Timid child of God! loving disciple of Christ! see your sins all cast into these unfathomable depths. Sought for by justice, by the law, by Satan, by yourself, you shall never find them--all, all entirely and eternally forgiven--annihilated by God Himself. Walking in the happy sense of a present forgiveness, you will walk carefully, circumspectly, holily, hating your sins, and the sin still dwelling within you, all the more that God, your sin-pardoning God, has entirely and forever forgiven you.

Take the state of ACCEPTANCE. Is it a present or a future blessing? Is it a state the believer first enters into when he enters into glory? or, does he enter into it now, as the condition and the earnest of that glory? Most assuredly, if we are not brought into a state of justification by grace here, we have no pledge of a state of justification in glory hereafter. The act of justification passes upon the believing soul in this life, and is his title-deed to the inheritance of the life which is to come. The language of the Holy Spirit is confirmatory of this truth--"To the praise of the glory of His grace, wherein He HAS MADE US ACCEPTED in the Beloved." "BEING JUSTIFIED by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ." And then we have the statement respecting the righteousness of Christ, which justifies. It is declared to be, "unto all and UPON all those who believe." Believe this to be your present state before God. Not more fully, though more openly and declaratively, justified will you be when the Lord shall extend the welcome, "Come, you blessed of my Father," than you are now if you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ to the salvation of your soul. "ACCEPTED"--present time--not may be, or shall be, but, "ACCEPTED in the Beloved."

Oh, what peace will follow from the Spirit's witness to this your present condition as in the sight of God! Realizing that you are clothed in white garments--that God looks upon you only in Christ, lovely through His loveliness put upon you--you will daily clasp the belt of prayer and faith round the robe of righteousness, and so walk with Jesus in all the growing holiness of a full, a free, a present justification of your soul by Jesus Christ our Lord.

A present salvation, also, involves a present act of ADOPTION. This cannot possibly be a future, remote exercise of God's love. If we are in a state of regeneracy, born again by the Spirit of adoption, then, beloved, "Now are we the sons of God." "And because you ARE Sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying, Abba, Father." It is on the basis of this our present adoption that we draw near unto God as our Father who are in heaven. We call Him "our Father"--we feel Him to be our Father--He responds to us as a Father, and when we depart out of this life, in the words of Jesus, our Elder Brother, we "go to the Father."

Walk, then, with God, beloved, in the sweet, holy consciousness of your present adoption. Not more fully adopted, not more really will you be a child of God when you arrive in heaven and see your Father there, than at this present moment, if, born again, you have received in faith the Lord Jesus Christ. "As many as received Him, to them gave He power [or privilege] to BECOME THE SONS OF GOD, even to those who believe on His name." Such is your present filial standing before God. Oh, what a motive to walk worthy of so high a relationship!--what an encouragement to draw near to God as to a Father, acknowledging sin, unveiling sorrow, revealing need, and in all circumstances and places--in mental sadness, in heart-grief, in temporal need--pouring all into that Father's ear, embosoming all in that Father's heart!

Equally, also, is our SANCTIFICATIONby the Spirit a present attainment of grace. It is of great importance to keep this prominently before us, since our holiness here is our fitness for our glory hereafter. "Sanctification, indeed, unlike the parts of the new creation we have referred to, is a gradual work, yet, seminally, it is a complete thing. In its growth progressive, yet in its nature perfect. Still, gradual and incomplete, as our personal holiness is, it is an actual and a present grace, and may be advanced to a high standard of culture. "This is the will of God, even your SANCTIFICATION." Again we read, "God has from the beginning chosen you to salvation, through SANCTIFICATION of the Spirit."

For this high attainment let us press onward. Possessing in the renewed nature the germ of perfect holiness--its perfection arrived at only in glory--let us seek its development and growth, that we may be more holy, more separate from the ungodly world, more decidedly on the Lord's side, fairer copies of the mind, the loveliness, and example of Christ, maturing in grace here, amid all its opposition and difficulty, for the glory that is to be revealed in us at the coming of the Lord Jesus.

II. The way this assurance may be attained

The question now arises, how may the believer arrive to this assurance of his personal and present salvation? That it is attainable, we have shown from the precepts and examples cited from the Word of God. The question is, how may I attain unto this grace?

1. We answer, first, by a direct and simple dealing with the Lord Jesus. An assurance of salvation must necessarily spring from the great Object of salvation. We only know that we are in the light by coming to the light. No one immured in a dungeon can speak of the warmth and radiance of the sun experimentally. He must emerge from his darkness and stand in the light. A sick man could hardly expect to derive healing but from the process of healing. He could not reasonably expect to be cured but by the remedy prescribed for the cure. Now, how may we arrive at a comfortable assurance that we are saved? By dealing with the Lord Jesus, by whom and in whom we are saved. We derive light only from the sun, vitality only from the air, sustenance only from the bread. It is by a personal, believing, simple apprehension of Christ, looking only to Him, resting only in Him, receiving only from Him, that we can possibly know that we are saved.

Assurance will never arise from looking at ourselves, or from mixing up anything with Christ. How can we possibly know that our guilt is cleansed, but as we wash in the blood? how that our people are justified, but as we put on the righteousness? how that God has accepted, and delights in us, but as we know that we stand in the Beloved? This is assurance of salvation--the full, unqualified acceptance of Christ. Approaching as a poor, empty, miserable sinner, and standing in this Divine Sun, all bathed in His light, all invested with His beams, all covered with His glory, we shall no more question the fact of our being saved, saved now, and saved forever, than we should, in our right minds, doubt the fact that the sun shines at noon while gazing upon its meridian splendor. This is assurance of salvation, looking believingly at the Savior.

What ground have we for knowing that we are saved, but as we see our great debt paid by the offering and sacrifice of Jesus? our sins forgiven through His atoning merit? our persons justified, and we counted as righteous through the imputation of His obedience? We must in faith behold the Lord Jesus answering for all as our Surety, undertaking all as our Mediator, accomplishing all as our Divine Redeemer, before we can possess a firm persuasion that we are saved. The blood and righteousness of the Lord constitute the basis of assurance. Taking our stand upon this, we can exclaim with humble assurance, "'I KNOW whom I have believed.' I believe in Jesus, that He has merited all, suffered all, perfected all for me--paying all my debt, enduring all my punishment, endowing me with all His wealth, and investing me with all His glory."

You have, perhaps, dear reader, long been in want of the assurance that you are saved. But you have sought it in yourself, and not in Christ. You have been searching for evidences amid the shadows and the taint of your own heart, the imperfect traces of your own doings, the varied exercises of your mind, and have sought them in vain. But now try the experiment--an experiment that has never failed one poor soul--of finding the evidence of your present salvation in a believing looking to a present Savior. Rest in Jesus from the burden and the guilt of sin; rest in Jesus from the conflict with doubt and fear; rest in Jesus from the fear of death and the dread of condemnation; rest in Jesus from your entire self; rest in His finished work, in His accepted sacrifice, in His boundless grace, in His unchanging love, and present intercession, and your assurance will be built upon a rock, against which no force of Satan or unbelief shall ever prevail.

The chief instrument by which assurance is obtained is, FAITH. It flows through the channel of believing. Indeed, the best definition of assurance of present salvation is, a lively and continuously-acting faith on the Lord Jesus. Assurance is believing, and nothing more. Believing that Jesus died for sinners--believing the record God has given concerning His Son--believing that His death was a sufficient atonement, and that His resurrection was its acceptance of the Father--simply, unquestioningly believing this--faith laying hold of the great salvation with a believing and assured grasp--hope sweetly and firmly resting upon it, yes, as sweetly and as firmly as upon the everlasting hills--assurance of salvation will follow, as any effect follows its cause. Now, according to the degree and strength of your faith will be the degree and strength of your assurance of salvation. In proportion as you believe in the Lord Jesus, faith will bring into your soul the peace, joy, comfort, and hope which ever follow in its channel; and the deeper and the wider the channel, the deeper and the wider will be the blessings which it conveys to your soul. It shall be unto you according to your faith.

Oh, then, cease to do, and labor, and desire--all which exercise profits nothing. Cast overboard the oars with which you have impelled your bark against the tide, and spread your canvas to the heavenly gale. Trust to the irresistible power of believing prayer. Let your faith, dropping every other confidence, take hold of Christ--His person, His love, His word of promise. And the sun which shines, and, in its shining, warms into life, loveliness, and fertility the landscape of nature, will not diffuse more vitality, gladness, and song, than will that simple faith which clasps its arms around the Savior, and so brings the ocean-fullness of a present salvation into your soul.

In proportion, then, to the simplicity of your faith in the Lord Jesus will be the personal conviction of your safety. Brood not over your sins, but confess them with a humble, lowly, and believing heart to Jesus, and the assurance of pardon will follow. Be not dismayed at your demerit, but take it to the infinite merits of Christ, and the assurance of acceptance will follow. Rescued by a lifeboat from drowning, I am saved; if, however, I have any doubt of the fact that I am actually within the rescuing vessel, my conviction and joy of safety must be seriously diminished by that doubt. But, firmly believing that I am in the vessel, floating securely and calmly upon the foaming billows, at which now I smile, the assurance that I am actually saved, and the transport springing from that assurance, will be unimpaired and unclouded by a doubt. In proportion to the hold which your believing heart has upon the Lord Jesus--the Divine Lifeboat of the soul--for He came into the world to save sinners--will be the strength and the joy of your personal salvation. Believe that you are actually in Christ--realize your union with Him--deal only with the infinite sufficiency of His person and the complete fullness of His work--receive Him as a sinner all guilty, as a bankrupt having nothing to pay, as sin-diseased, having resorted to every physician, having tried every remedy, and as being nothing bettered but rather grown worse--dealing simply, and fully, and only with Jesus the Savior--and, with the holy apostle, you, also, shall triumphantly exclaim, "I KNOW whom I have believed."

In addition to the assurance of salvation which a believing apprehension of the Lord Jesus imparts, we have the witness of the Holy Spirittestifying to our possession of the new nature. Having formed this new and divine nature within us, it is His office, as His delight, always to authenticate its existence and unveil its glories. In the new creation of the soul, the noblest achievement of His creative power, He has made His personal and permanent abode. "He [the Spirit] shall ABIDE with you forever." "The Spirit himself bears WITNESS with our spirit that we are the children of God." Thus we have the highest source of assurance--the testimony of God the Holy Spirit Himself. Earnestly seek it. His seal, His attestation, His endorsement will quell every fear, annihilate even doubt, and not the shadow of a shade shall veil the existence or becloud the luster of God's new creation in your soul.

Eternal and blessed Spirit! though I have slighted, grieved, and wounded You times without number, stifling the still small voice of Your love, and checking the gentle constraints of Your grace, yet shine upon Your new creation in my soul, awaken the joys of God's salvation in my heart, dispel my sadness, dissolve my darkness, and turn my night of weeping into a morning of joy!

Such are some of the channels through which the assurance of a present state of salvation flows to us.

The means of its attaining assurance.

Let us, in conclusion, glance at some of the means of its attainment. PRAYER shall be the first we quote. For this great, comforting, and sanctifying attainment in grace the Lord will be inquired of to give it. It comes not forth but by prayer. As communion with God is the chief characteristic of the new creature, the life of God in the soul, so it is by this means that that life is kept vigorous, health, and progressive. The willful neglect of prayer--the soul withdrawing even from what is holy, that it might enter into the "Holy of Holies" for secret communion with the Invisible One--will seriously affect the assurance of our salvation. But closeness of walk with God, frequent communion with Jesus, will keep the heart in bloom, will nourish the germ of holiness, and so encompass the soul as with a shield as shall prevent the accumulation of these corroding doubts and fears around the heart which render its spiritual action sluggish and feeble. Then, give yourself to prayer! Draw near unto God, and He will draw near unto you. He inspires prayer, loves prayer, listens to prayer, answers prayer; and by prayer you shall live in the happy, holy experience of a present salvation, walking in the full assurance of your saving interest in Christ, of your adoption into the family of God.

Meditation on God's Word essentially aids our comfortable assurance. The truth as it is in Jesus is the manna of the renewed soul, the spiritual nourishment of the life of God within us. "Your words were found, and I did EAT them; and your word was unto me the joy and rejoicing of mine heart." "Man shall not live by bread alone, but by EVERY WORD that proceeds out of the MOUTH OF GOD." There is nothing so nourishing to the new nature--nourishment so appropriate to the new man--as the pure wheat of God's Word. Its glorious doctrines of grace strengthen it, its divine precepts mold it, its precious promises comfort it, its blessed hopes animate it. It is from this Divine granary that the true nutriment is drawn by which the new man lives. Hold fast God's Word in its integrity, contend earnestly for the faith, live upon every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God, let your soul stand in awe of His Word, read it meditatively, study it prayerfully, treat it reverentially, believe it fully--so shall it feed and nourish and render fruitful the new nature of God within your soul. Thus shall you be a man of God, thoroughly furnished unto all good works.

Nor would we fail to remark that full assurance is only found in the way of holy obedience. Speaking of the relation of Christian evidence with evangelical holiness, our Lord says, "If any man will DO His will, he shall KNOW of the doctrine whether it be of God." By the same test--doing the Divine will--a man of God may know his heavenly calling. Ever remembering that, "to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams," reverence for the lowliest command of Christ will be a deep and prevailing sentiment of the true believer. Obedience to one divine command will be, in his estimation, of more importance than the costliest sacrifice. Now, in this path of holy, unreserved obedience the Lord meets His disciples with tokens of His favor.

In seeking to carry out the Lord's will in the small as the great precepts of His Word, in the minor as the more important concerns of life, in all things and under all circumstances doing the will of God, the believer shall lack no evidence of his new birth. "You meet him that rejoices and works in righteousness, those that remember you in your ways." Oh, rich the comfort, deep the peace, unclouded the assurance which will flow into his heart who seeks to stand complete in all the will of God.

Christian assurance and unreserved obedience are inseparably linked in the experience of God's saints. This, perhaps, may suggest a defect in your walk, my reader. You have been seeking the assurance of your salvation, but not in the path that has been most honoring to the Divine commands as a child of God. Examine well your obedience! Is there any command of Christ wilfully dishonored, any divine precept knowingly slighted, any required cross daily neglected in your Christian walk? Then marvel not that the trembling fear, the anxious doubt, the darkling cloud intercepts the comfortable possession of your interest in the Savior. Take up the cross, however self-denying, and follow the Lord fully, and you shall know from most happy experience that in keeping His commands there is great reward.

To sum up the whole matter--prayerfully and watchfully avoid whatever tends to impair and becloud your assurance. A distant following of Jesus, much contact with the world, too close communion with cold-hearted, half-hearted Christians and inconsistent religious professors, trifling with conscience, neglect of confession of sin, dealing slightly with atoning blood, looking into self instead of looking unto Jesus, needless exposure to temptation, reserves in obedience, a shrinking from the cross, undervaluing the means of grace--because of these things many of the Lord's people are weak and sickly, and many sleep, and walk not in the peaceful, joyous, holy experience of a present salvation.

But, beware of making a savior of assurance. This were to rob you of the blessing altogether. Whatever in the experience of the believer displaces Christ, casts a deep shadow upon his soul. Whatever is exalted above its proper place, or is exaggerated beyond its legitimate position in the plan of salvation, must materially affect the happiness of the Christian. Christ is all in our salvation. The alpha and the omega, the first and the last. Place assurance of salvation upon a level with salvation itself, and you have introduced a disturbing element. Exalt any part of Christian experience to a level with Christ, make it essential to salvation, and you dishonor the Lord Jesus, and veil the sun from your soul.

Assurance that you are saved is not an essential principle of your salvation. It may be necessary to your holy and happy walk to be fully persuaded that you are a believer in Christ, but it is not necessary to your standing with acceptance before God. Christ, and Christ alone. Christ, and nothing more. Christ, and nothing less. Therefore, in the absence of that full and comfortable persuasion of your eternal safety which you desire, still keep your eye intent upon Christ, who can save you, and is prepared to save you and bring you to His eternal glory, though in weeping and mourning, you follow Him to the grave. Mary weeping at the tomb had no assurance that her Lord was alive; and yet how she loved, and how He loved, and how near Jesus was to her! Look not, then, to your assurance, but--look simply, directly, and only to Christ.

But, make sure work of conversion! Let not this essential, all-important, all-momentous change be a dubious, uncertain, unauthenticated matter with you. So long as you remain unconverted, your condition is one of imminent peril. What, if leaving your home in the morning radiant with life, before nightfall you are borne back to it--a corpse? For what is life but a vapor? And among all uncertainties what more uncertain than it? "In the morning it flourishes and grows up, in the evening it is cut down and withers." What, if amid the still hours of midnight, the summons should be heard, "Your soul is required of you?" and, before morning light, your body lies a 'ruined tent' upon the ground? Are you in readiness to meet the solemn change? We beseech you, then, make sure work of the NEW BIRTH. Take nothing for granted in a matter involving interests so momentous and precious. Be satisfied only with LIFE in your soul. All things new, the divine image restored, Christ precious, the new nature blooming and fruitful, maturing beneath the Sun of Righteousness for its native paradise on high. But scorn it, trifle with it, postpone it if you will–
"This fearful truth will still remain,
The sinner must be BORN AGAIN,
Or sink to endless woe!"

Thus living upon a present Savior--present ever at your side, in all places and at all times--you will live upon a present salvation. It is with the present, fleeting though it be, rather than with the future, we have more immediately to do. The present is more solemn and momentous than the future, since the future is all that the present makes it. A present of grace involves a future of glory. The Lord has graciously provided for the present of the believer in the life of faith He has appointed him to live. The life he now lives in the flesh, with all its needs, sorrows, and trials, is by the faith of the Son of God. So live! Go and tell the Lord Jesus every present need, perplexity, and trial. "To whom COMING." Coming now--coming incessantly--ever coming--coming with the same trials and needs, the same backslidings and infirmities, the same sins and sorrows--never ceasing to come so long as the heart has a corruption to be subdued, earth a sorrow to be comforted, or life a service to be done.

What an evidence is afforded of the DIVINITY of the Savior in the assurance which the apostle expresses, and into which we desire to mold every Christian reader of this volume! What was the treasure which Paul committed to Jesus Christ? It is something personal, something valuable, something precious. What was it? What but his immortal soul--his redeemed body--his whole interests for eternity? Would he entrust this deposit--a deposit compared with which the wealth of the universe were as the dust in the balance--to a creature--a man--a mere man--an arm of flesh--a human savior? Oh, extreme of folly! Oh, dream of madness! He knew whom he believed. He knew Him to be GOD--absolute God--the "Almighty God"--the only-begotten Son of God--the "brightness of His Father's glory, and the express image of His person"--"God manifest in the flesh." To no other hands but those of a DIVINE REDEEMER can we safely confide our undying soul.

Who that possesses a sense of the value of his soul--that has an enlightened view of its relation to eternity, its sinfulness, its accountability, its immortality, its exposure to an ever-living death--would confide its deathless interests to any than to Deity? My reader, Paul never dreamed of entrusting the keeping and salvation of his soul to a created Redeemer. Man, though Christ was, Paul knew that the light of Divinity gleamed from His eye, that the thunder of Divinity slumbered in His arm, and that the words and power of Divinity were upon His tongue. Well, also, did he know that, possessing all the essential attributes of God, Christ had attested His Divinity by the miracles which He wrought. He transformed water into wine, fed thousands with a few loaves, raised the dead, restored the paralyzed, healed the sick, ejected demons, controlled the elements, and trod the earth, as a province of His empire, with the keys of the invisible world pendent from His belt. And then dying, all nature testifying her sympathy with her expiring Creator, He burst from the imprisonment of the grave, and was declared to be the Son of God with power by the resurrection from the dead. We marvel not at the bold, triumphant language of Paul, "I know whom l have believed."

To that same Divine Redeemer, as unto a faithful Creator, you too, O believer, have entrusted the salvation of your soul; and with like precious faith, and with like full assurance, you may confide your interests for time and for eternity--your present of grace and your future of glory--confidently and safely in the hands of Jesus. Oh, do you think that He will not securely keep what you have committed to His care against the great day of judgment? Do you think that he will not guard, as with unslumbering eye, the soul for which he sorrowed and sobbed in Gethsemane--suffered, bled, and died on the cross? Stagger not, then, at this Divine and precious truth through unbelief. Command your doubts to be gone. Give your fears to the winds. Jesus will keep to the end, and will conduct in safety and in triumph from grace to glory, the lowest, weakest of His saints. Not one shall perish. The hand that touched with trembling faith the border of His robe, shall sweep the golden harp of heaven to His praise. The eye that caught the dimmest view of His cross of humiliation, shall gaze with unclouded vision upon the throne of His ineffable glory. Christ shall see of the travail of His soul and shall be satisfied, and both the Savior and the saved shall rejoice together through eternity. "I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day."

ANXIETY FOR CONVERSION

"What must I do to be saved?"--Acts 16:30

Many readers of this work may have traveled through its pages to the present chapter with a sad conviction that hitherto their spiritual state touching the momentous subject of which it treats has been unmet. Feeling that they cannot lay claim to Christian experience so advanced, they are ready to close the book in despair of having any part or lot in the matter--as possessing no scriptural evidence of spiritual quickening in the soul. To meet the case of such, whose very anxiety is no small sign of life, we devote the present chapter of our work, designed to exhibit conversion in its incipient form--the sincere, earnest anxiety of a soul to be converted. We select, as the illustration of this stage, the often-quoted and familiar, but not less appropriate and instructive, case of the Philippian jailer. The inquiry which he proposes must, more or less intense, be the inquiry of every individual born again. All must commence their spiritual course from this starting-point--all with that momentous inquiry, "What must I do to be saved?"

It is an inquiry which only God can answer, as it is a state which only the Holy Spirit can produce. It is the most profound, the most weighty, the most solemn question that ever stirred human feeling or awakened human thought. Traverse the circle of human inquiry, and select the most learned, important, and thrilling subject that ever engaged the intellect or called into being the energy and enterprise of man, and place it in contrast with this single, simple question--"What must I do to be saved?"--and it pales into the profoundest insignificance. It is as the child gathering pebbles on the shore, compared with the diver searching for the pearl, or the miner excavating for the diamond. It will be seen, then, how much importance we attach to the first or incipient stage of the new birth. So far from despising the day of small things in grace, so far from regarding with indifference the anxious, trembling state of mind which the question betrays, it presents itself to our view as the most important, touching, and lovely stage of conversion.

Can there be any difficulty in tracing this anxiety for salvation to other than its proper and legitimate SOURCE? Man could not convey it, nature could not inspire it, flesh and blood could not reveal it. It is of God. We turn to the trembling jailer. Two great convulsions were transpiring at the same moment. The one was natural--the earth quaking; the other was supernatural--the soul morally convulsed from a sense of sin. God is at no loss for means to bring to Himself His chosen people. He can employ an earthquake, a flash of lightning, a thunder-clap, a sudden bereavement, to rouse the soul to the all-important concerns of eternity. Tell us not that, that conversion is not genuine, that, that spiritual change is not real, because produced by some stirring, alarming event of God's providence--a convulsion of nature, the prostration of health, the loss of property, the knell of a departed soul. "Lo, all these things works God oftentimes with men."

God grant that the solemn, startling events of His providence in your history, my reader, may not be without their spiritual impress upon your soul! Sad, yes, most dreadful, if, when your present probation closes in a destiny changeless as the throne of Him who will appoint it, it should appear that you were deaf when God spoke, you trifled when God was serious, were impenitent when God called; and that all His startling providences, solemn warnings, earnest and touching appeals tended but to fit you all the more for condemnation, as the sun's heat seasons the fuel for the flame. But we address the soul anxious for salvation.

We approach the consideration of this state of mind with solemn and tender interest. If the angelic host contemplate the spectacle with wonder, and find in its study material for joy--beholding in it the fruit of Christ's death and the wondrous working of God's grace, the struggles and the pangs of a soul passing into the new birth--surely we are justified in regarding it as possessing vital and transcendent interest, worthy of our deepest, tenderest consideration.

Anxiety for salvation is, as we have remarked, conversion in its latent or incipient state. It may arise from various causes, but essentially it is the same. You feel yourself a lost sinner. You have made the startling, momentous discovery that you are not saved! Hitherto, living in ignorance of yourself as a sinner, and of your state as under condemnation; living for the world as your portion and for self as your god, you now awake as from the sleep of death, and find and feel yourself lost, guilty, self-destroyed. Your great anxiety now is--how you may be saved. Shall we attempt to analyze your anxiety? You feel yourself--a SINNER. This is the great concern of your soul. Sin is your distress, your burden, your alarm. Sin as sin against God, sin as polluting your entire being, sin as exposing you to condemnation, sin as the most oppressive weight that ever crushed you to the earth, sin as separating you from the holy on earth and from the glorified in heaven, is the cause of present conviction, anxiety, and alarm.

But, startling and solemn as this discovery of your condition as a sinner is, be not more startled if we pronounce it as most blessed! It is the first dawn of light, the first pulse of life in your soul. Before you are healed, you must feel that you are diseased. Before you are cleansed, you must feel that you are unclean. Before you are saved, you must feel that you are lost. Before you repair to the Savior, you must feel that you are a sinner. Do you see the fitness of all this?

Administer medicine to a corpse, and supply it with nourishment. Is there a fitness, a harmony in the means you are employing to the end? Most assuredly not. But, let there be life--conviction of disease, sense of hunger--and your proceeding is rational and proper. Now, all this will apply to your spiritual condition. None come to Jesus but under the vital drawings of the Spirit. None come for healing but the sin-sick. None repair to Him for the bread of life but the soul hungering for salvation. I am now supposing this to be your case. You are inquiring the way of life. You are anxious to be converted. You long to be saved. This is just the process the Holy Spirit is taking to bring you to the Savior. The illumination of the understanding, the conviction of sin, the enkindling of godly sorrow, is a work supernatural and divine. To withdraw the mental veil, to remove the spiritual cataract from the spiritual eye, to unlock the chamber of the heart, to crush the rebellion of the will, and to subdue the whole soul before the cross, oh, this is the work of God the Spirit, and is the sure precursor of that New Birth, which, transpiring in grace here, shall be perfected and eternized in glory hereafter.

The soul-anxiety you now feel, being the fruit of the Holy Spirit, will terminate in your full conversion to God. Conversion does not depend upon the depth of sin-conviction, nor upon the clearness of faith's eye. In one night the Philippian jailer repented and believed, was converted, saved, and baptized. That night that heard, amid the trembling of the earth, the earnest inquiry of the alarmed and anxious penitent, heard songs of gladness in heaven over one sinner that was saved.

And why not you? In one hour you may be awakened, converted, saved. Listen to the recorded conversion of an eminent saint of God in tracing the way the Lord brought him to Himself--"As I was alone in the field, all my past life was opened plainly before me, and I saw clearly that it had been filled up with sin. I went and sat down in the shade of a tree, where my prayers and tears, my longing and striving for a better heart with all my doings, were set before me in such a light that I perceived I could never make myself better, should I live ever so long. Divine justice appeared clear as condemnation, and I saw that God had a right to do with me as He would. My soul yielded all to His hands, fell at His feet, and was silent and calm before Him. And while I sat there I was enabled by Divine light to see the perfect righteousness of Christ, and the freeness and richness of His grace, with such clearness that my soul was drawn forth to trust in Him for salvation, and I wondered that others did not also come to Him who had enough for all. The Word of God and the promises of His grace appeared firmer than a rock, and I was astonished at my previous unbelief. My heavy burden was gone, tormenting fears were fled, and my joy was unspeakable. Yet this change was so different from my former ideas of conversion, that for above two days I had no thought of having experienced it. Then I heard a sermon read which gave the characters of the children of God, and I had an inward witness that those characters were wrought in me--such as a spirit of prayer, a hatred of sin, an overcoming of the world, love to the brethren, and love to enemies; and I conclude that I then had the sealing of the Spirit of God, that I was a child of His. New ideas and dispositions were given me; the worship and service of God and obedience to His will were the delight of my soul. I found such happiness therein as I never had in all the vanities of the world." (Memoir of Rev. Backus of America.)

Such may be the joyous termination of your present serious impressions, anxious feelings and desires. Your inquiry is--how you may be saved. If so, then your mind is brought into sympathy with the greatest work in which the God of heaven ever embarked--the work of saving sinners. Salvation! It is but one word, and yet, oh how pregnant with significance! How glorious its meaning! Salvation was the one thought of the Father from eternity, when He devised the scheme of its accomplishment. Salvation was the one thought of Jesus when he made His advent to our world, with the blood-sweat, the sighs, and sobs of Gethsemane, the cross, the agonies, and the passion of Calvary confronting Him. His one mission was to--save. He objected not at the price, hesitated not at the terms, shrank not from the sacrifice. Though it involved such humiliation, and such sorrow, and such suffering, and such a death, and such a sacrifice as convulsed the universe--struck terror into hell and awoke amazement in heaven--the Son of God dying for the chief of sinners!--yet he voluntarily undertook and faithfully finished the salvation of countless millions. One life sacrificed--and by that one life sacrificed innumerable lives saved. "He saved others, Himself He cannot save." Such is God's salvation, worthy in all respects of Him who embarked His all of love, and power, and wealth in its accomplishment!

Contemplate it in some of its transcendent blessings. WHAT IS IT TO BE SAVED?

1. To be saved is to be delivered from the guilt and despotism of sin. And what a salvation is this! Who can estimate its greatness and its preciousness, but he who has felt the burden of sin uplifted and removed, the corrodings of guilt cleansed and effaced entirely and forever? This the blood of Jesus effects. That blood was sacrificial and atoning, expiatory and cleansing. "Who His own self bore our sins in His own body on the tree." "He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities." "He bore the sin of many." "The blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin." "His name shall be called Jesus, for He shall save His people from their sins."

What truth can be more luminous or what declaration more precious than this? What could avail to efface so deep a stain, to blot out so dark a spot, to annihilate so heinous a thing as SIN, but the atoning blood of Immanuel, the incarnate God? And this BLOOD has done it!--has done it now, has done it fully, and has done it forever in the happy experience of all who believe in Jesus. Bring your sins, your crimes, your transgressions in believing contact with Christ! Let them touch the cross--and the cloud shall dissolve, the chains shall fall, the burden shall vanish, and no sounds shall linger upon your ear but the Words of Jesus--"Your sins are forgiven--go, and sin no more."

2. To be saved is to be delivered from the condemnation of the law. In an unconverted, non-saved state, we lie under the curse, and are shut up to the eternal condemnation of the law. "The law works wrath." "Cursed is everyone that continues not in all things written in the book of the law to do them." But the salvation of the Lord Jesus is a deliverance from the law in its anathematizing and condemnatory power. It flashes no more curse, and rolls no more condemnation over the heads of those who are in Christ Jesus. "Christ has delivered us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us." And oh, what a salvation is this! The curse annihilated, the sentence repealed, the condemnation removed, and yet the law fully repaid, perfectly obeyed, divinely honored and magnified in the eyes of all holy intelligences, in the life of Him "by whose obedience many are made righteous." Thus, our Lawgiver is our Law-Fulfiller; and His fulfillment of the law is imputed to us who believe; and so we become the righteousness of God in Him, which righteousness is unto all and upon all those who believe.

3. It follows from the preceding statement, strictly logical, that the salvation of Christ insures our deliverance from the wrath which is to come. If there is no present condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, then the future, with all its tremendous realities, its dreadful solemnities, unveils no dread, awakens no terror, to those who are saved. The Lord Jesus, offering Himself as our substitute, engaging as our surety, obeying for us, suffering for us, dying for us, has exhausted the curse of the law, drained the cup of wrath, and saved us from its future outpouring. Having by sovereign grace turned from idols to serve the living and true God, we now "wait for His Son from heaven, whom He raised from the dead, even Jesus, who delivered us from the wrath to come." Oh, what a salvation this! Saved from the quenchless flames, from the undying worm, from the companionship of the lost, from the pangs of the death which is eternal! Who would not utter the cry--never ceasing to utter it, until, piercing the heart of the Savior, it brought down the gracious response--"Lord, save, or I perish!"

And still the great question remains unanswered--"What must I do to be saved?" We wish the anxious inquirer particularly to mark how the apostles--those sons of consolation, those blessed heralds of the cross, to whom was given the tongue of the learned, that they might know how to speak a word in season to the weary--met the question. They did not commence, as, alas! too many human teachers unskilled in the Word do, by investigating the nature or gauging the depth of the jailer's conviction; nor did they set him upon the hopeless task of doing something of himself to soothe the intense anguish of his soul; neither did they direct him to an external reformation of his habits--to go to the synagogue, to partake of baptism, or the communion of the Lord's supper--to fast, and pray, and read. Still less did they exhort him to throw off his serious thoughts, to drown his mental distress in scenes of worldly frivolity and excitement. Oh, no! Miserable comforters they would have been, physicians unskilled in the are of spiritual healing, to have employed means like these--means which must have proved a vain and cruel mockery of a case so peculiar and desperate.

But what did they? They at once preached to him JESUS--they uplifted the cross--directed his eye to the Crucified--brought him to the Savior. "Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and you shall be saved." What a marvelous announcement! How suitable, how simple the remedy! This was all they prescribed. Not a word about election, or baptism, or church, or reformation. The one instrument of healing was faith; and the one Object of that faith, the Lord Jesus Christ.

And such is the gospel, the glorious gospel, of the blessed God. It proclaims with clarion notes of sweetest melody, everywhere and to all, "BELIEVE, and be SAVED!" All man's working, all human merit, all self-doing of the anxious soul is utterly ignored. What says the Scriptures? "However, to the man who does not work but trusts God who justifies the wicked, his FAITH is credited as righteousness." Anxious soul, listen to the joyful sound!--welcome the good news of the gospel of the grace of God! Sinner though you are--the vilest, the greatest, the very chief--receive in faith the Lord Jesus Christ, and you shall be saved!

Do not hesitate because of the feebleness or the dimness of your faith. Faith is not your Savior, but JESUS. The mightiest faith ever possessed would not save you, apart from the sin-atoning Lamb. Therefore it is that the weakest, dimmest faith ever exercised in the Lord Jesus will save from going down to the pit the greatest criminal. Jesus is mighty to save, is willing to save, is pledged to save, is eternally glorified in saving. Without a work, without one particle of merit--as a poor bankrupt sinner, having nothing to pay--He has promised, and is pledged to save you to the uttermost. Did He ever repel a sincere penitent? Did He ever reject an humble suppliant? Did He ever refuse to save a poor sinner? Did He ever scorn and reject a trembling, sorrowing outcast? Oh, never! That case is yet to transpire of a soul convinced of sin by the Spirit, and falling down at the Savior's feet seeking His pardoning mercy, on whom He bends a frown of anger, exclaiming, "Begone! you are too vile, too unworthy, too great a sinner to be saved; the sins of your youth, of riper years, of old age, exclude you from my mercy--place you beyond the pale of my salvation. You have resisted light, have stifled conviction, have striven with the Spirit, and there remains to you no room for repentance, no sacrifice for sin, no hope of pardon." We say, this fact is yet to transpire. And when it does, there will be a profound and prolonged silence in heaven, and a loud laugh of fiendish triumph in hell!

What, then, hinders your coming to Christ, and coming to Him now, O anxious soul? Is it ELECTION? Election is among your greatest encouragements to come to Christ; since, were you not one of His elect, the Holy Spirit would not have convinced you of sin, and Christ would not have inclined you to come, by His grace. All that the Father gave to Him shall come to Him; and your coming to Christ under the drawing of the Spirit is just the evidence that you are one of those given to Him of God. Who will dare affirm that you are not one included in the eternal purpose of God, whom He has made to see, feel, and deplore your impotence, vileness, and nothingness in His sight? "Whom He predestinated, them He also CALLED;" and the voice of His effectual grace is now calling you to Himself, and so you have irrefutable evidence that you are one of His. Making your calling sure, you will make your election sure; and so, taking hold by faith of the lowest link in the golden chain of God's salvation, you shall rise to the highest, and before long partake of the rapture of the saints, and find yourself in heaven--having passed from grace to glory!

What hinders you coming now to Christ? Is it your SINS? Why should this be a bar? Jesus made His advent into the world to save sinners; He shed His atoning blood to save sinners; He gave Himself a sacrifice to save sinners; He rose again from the dead to save sinners; and He is now exalted at the right hand of God to give repentance and remission of sins to poor sinners. In addition to all this, He has left on earth His great and glorious promise, that, "him that comes unto me, I will never cast out." Upon this magnificent, this precious promise you may venture, and hope, and rely.

This plank has saved many a drowning soul from going down into the yawning pit; and if you will with simplest faith grasp it, it will save you. Accumulate all the arguments, objections, and difficulties to your coming to Christ which it is possible for sin to allege, unbelief to suggest, or Satan invent, and hurl them in faith against this one Divine and gracious promise, and they will fall as powerless, broken, and scattered as the billows which launch their thunders against the ocean's rock. Bunyan, in his own quaint but forcible way, thus puts it--"'But, I am a great sinner,' say you. 'I will never cast out,' says Christ. 'But, I am an old sinner,' say you. 'I will never cast out,' says Christ, 'But, I am a hard-hearted sinner,' say you. 'I will never cast out,' says Christ. 'But, I have served Satan all my days,' say you. 'I will never cast out,' says Christ. 'But, I have sinned against light,' say you. 'I will never cast out,' says Christ. 'But, I have sinned against mercy,' say you. 'I will never cast out," says Christ. 'But, I have no good thing to bring with me,' say you. 'I will never cast out,' says Christ.

Thus might I go on, and show you that this promise was provided to answer all your objections, and to ease all your fears. Many, like you, have feared that the Savior would not receive them; but 'I will never cast out' is a promise of Christ upon which millions more will yet rely, and which, when the grass is withered and the flower faded of all creature strength and glory, shall endure forever. You blessed spirits in glory! tell us, is it not a faithful saying that Jesus Christ saves sinners?" You Saul of Tarsus, who once gloated in the dying agonies of Christ's first martyr, yourself a Pharisee and blasphemer, tell us, is it not a faithful saying that Jesus receives and saves sinners, even the very chief? And you Mary Magdalen, once demoniacally possessed, tell us, is it not a faithful saying that Jesus has might to cast out the Evil One, and save to the uttermost the poor victim of his power? And you expiring malefactor, appealing in penitence and faith to the crucified Savior, at whose side you did languish and die, "Lord, remember me when You come into Your kingdom," tell us, is it not a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptance, that Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners?

And what, my anxious reader, is the testimony which this great cloud of witnesses bears?--"Oh, yes, it is a most true and precious saying, worthy of all belief and acceptance. We came to Jesus as sinners, the vilest, the greatest, the very chief, and He welcomed and saved us; we washed in His blood, and we clothed us in His righteousness, and He saved us by His grace, and brought us home to glory, and now we sing, Unto Him who loved us, and washed us from our sins in His own blood, and has made us kings and priests unto God and His Father, to Him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen." Anxious soul! humble penitent! come to Jesus, and come now! For, "we believe that, through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, we shall be saved, even as they."

THE TRIAL OF THE NEW BIRTH

"The Lord tries the righteous."--Psalm 11:5

It is the perfection of God that He does everything for Himself; this, while it is the greatest imperfection of the creature, is the highest perfection of the Creator. The works of creation exhibit the glory of God. Not an insect floats in the sunbeam, not a flower blooms in the valley, not a dewdrop sparkles upon the rose leaf, but has its end in God. It is equally so in the works of providence. All its events--the greatest, the most minute, the mysterious, and the lucid illustrate His wisdom and promote His glory, and terminate in Himself. If in the kingdoms of creation and of providence it is so, how much more in the kingdom of grace! The fall of man from his original righteousness, to his recovery from that condition by electing grace, and his final translation to glory, is that masterpiece of Divine workmanship which will fill heaven with God's glory and replenish eternity with His praise.

We have a striking illustration of this thought in the subject to which the present chapter is devoted--the process of trial through which God permits the renewed nature of the believer to pass. It might seem to a superficial eye, or to the mind of a young convert to Christ, at first sight strange and incongruous that the Lord, who loves the righteous, as He does, should often subject them to trials so severe and so prolonged. That He should impose sufferings so intense, and permit sorrows so many and deep, to come upon those whom He has pronounced the chosen objects of His love, in whom is all His delight, who are His peculiar and costly treasure, tender and precious to Him as the apple of His eye, seems mysterious, if not inequitable.

And yet, all is right! It is proper and befitting that the new nature of God in the souls of His people should evidence its genuineness, develop its power, and unveil its glory. And the mode which the God of love and wisdom has chosen for this is just that one the best adapted to promote and accomplish the great end--"The Lord tries the righteous." Such is the view we are about to present to the reader of this volume. But a brief description in the first place of the "righteous" is necessary, since in a preceding chapter we have dwelt at length upon the character.

Contemplate the ''righteous" in their PRIVILEGE, as righteous in the righteousness of God. It is called "the righteousness of God," not because it is the essential or abstract righteousness of God, for this is incommunicable, and cannot, therefore, describe the righteousness in which the believer is justified. But it is called "the righteousness of God" because it is the righteousness of Christ, who is God. To quote a text more than once referred to in this volume, "He has made Him to be sin for us who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him"--observe, made the righteousness of God in Christ. Thus, we stand by imputation, in the righteousness of Christ--God in our nature, Immanuel, God with us; "The Lord our Righteousness."

What a vital and precious truth is this to the believer! The more the mind revolves round this doctrine, the more glory we see in it, and the more we seem to clasp it, as the drowning mariner the plank. And how some can talk of sin, and confess sin, and yet think of standing before God without this righteousness, is most puzzling! When we study the law of God--its spirituality and strictness; when we think that for one thought, one glance of the mind, it curses and condemns; that, it demands the body, the soul, the time, the talents, yes, our all for God--else it were a most wicked law--that, its terms are blood for blood, life for life--how suitable, how perfect, how glorious does the righteousness of an incarnate God appear which has met every demand, honored every precept, and which is unto all and upon all those who believe!

And when we consider that there bends not a believer over this page, however weak his faith or small the buddings of Divine grace in his soul--he may have been the vilest sinner, and now the weakest believer--yet looking to Jesus, notwithstanding all his imperfections and failures, he stands complete in the righteousness of God, how magnificent and precious does this doctrine appear! O blessed truth! how it abases, and yet how it exalts! To know that while our feelings fluctuate, and our frames vary, and our experience ebbs and flows as the tide, yet our righteousness varies not, changes not, and that we are not justified one moment more really, more freely, more completely than another, is a mercy unspeakably great.

And when we examine our principles and their fruits, our aims and their results--striving to reach the center--the mark of the prize of our high calling--yet ever falling short, had we not this righteousness to stand in before God, how could we dare look up? O you saints of the Most High, you who are traveling on through much failure, through much infirmity, it may be through much trial and tribulation, shout the hallelujahs of heaven! Christ is yours, His righteousness is yours, His work is yours, His glory is yours, for you are complete in Him. Such are the "righteous" in their great privilege.

Let us look at them in their CHARACTER. They are denominated "the righteous." It is here the existence and vitality of the new nature appear so evident and illustrious. All the holiness that vitalizes and adorns the life of the child of God, all the righteousness which renders his path so luminous, his influence so sanctifying, his character so glorifying to God, is the new and Divine nature in his soul exercising its power and putting forth its fruit. Born of God, believers advance in spiritual stature, from the babe in Christ to the young man, from the young man to the father, and from the father to the hoary head found in the way of righteousness. And, as they grow up into Christ, the new nature exhibits more and more of its vitality, unveils more and more of its loveliness, and accomplishes more and more of its achievement.

Growing up into Christ in all things, their religious progress is a gradual development of Christ's nature and image in them, and in the same ratio a gradual putting off the old man with his deceitful lusts and putting on the new. In other words, the believer growing up into Christ grows less like himself and more like Christ, less earthly and more heavenly. Thus does his newness of nature appear in the righteousness of life which he lives--"He that does righteousness is righteous, even as He is righteous," (1 John 3:7.)

This will constitute the grand distinctive feature of the human race in the great day of judgment--righteousness. The distinction of races and of languages, of rank and wealth, of churches and creeds, will vanish in that solemn day, and nothing will mark the great separating distinction of man from man but the righteousness of God imputed, and the righteousness of the Holy Spirit imparted, to those who shall be saved. "They shall be mine, says the Lord of hosts, in that day when I make up my jewels; and I will spare them, as a man spares his own son that serves him. Then shall you return, and discern between the righteous and the wicked; between him that serves God and him that serves him not," (Mal. 3:17, 18.)

"Jesus, Your blood and righteousness,
Your beauty, are my glorious dress;
'Midst flaming worlds, in these arrayed,
With joy shall I lift up my head.

"When from the dust of death I rise,
To take my mansion in the skies,
Even then shall this be all my plea–
Jesus has lived and died for me.

"Bold shall I stand in that great day,
For who aught to my charge shall lay?
While, through Your blood, absolved I am
From sin's tremendous curse and shame."

But, "the Lord TRIES the righteous." To this truth let us now direct our attention. Trial is an essential part of our advance in grace here, and of our fitness for glory hereafter. There never was a saint of God exempt from trial. As has been remarked, God had but one Son exempt from sin, but never one exempt from suffering. Thus it is said of Jesus, "Though he was a Son, yet learned He obedience by the things which He suffered." Trial, as a part of earth's discipline for heaven's enjoyment, is nowhere a fact disguised or qualified in God's Word. It confronts us upon the very threshold of our conversion, that, if we become the true disciples of Christ, it must be by bearing His cross and following Him through much tribulation to the kingdom. God thus speaks of His Church, the remnant according to the election of grace--"And I will bring the third part through the fire, and will refine them as silver is refined, and will try them as gold is tried," (Zech. 13:9.)

The testimony of the New Testament is not less clear and emphatic. Thus taught the first apostles of the faith. They went forth preaching the gospel in every city, "Confirming the souls of the disciples, and exhorting them to continue in the faith, and that we must through MUCH TRIBULATION enter into the kingdom of God."

The very constitution of the renewed nature of the Christian implies its exposure to trial. Its existence in the living soul is where sin's empire is. It is a kingdom of light irradiating amid a kingdom of darkness--an empire of righteousness reigning amid an empire of sin--a spark of fire glowing amid the heaving ocean. What is the daily life of the believer from the moment he raises his head from his pillow in the morning until he replaces it at night, but a battle with inward corruption and with external temptation? Thus our very constitution, as those that are born again, is in direct and incessant antagonism with evil, and, consequently, is one of perpetual comment upon the inspired declaration, "The Lord TRIES the righteous."

The discipline of trial to which the righteous are subjected is essentially different to what the world blindly supposes it to be. In the world's estimate the trial of the saints is a retributive judgment--a penal evil--a divine condemnation. But, as represented by God, what is the trial of the righteous? It is variously denominated. Thus, for example, trial is the believer's testimonial for heaven, (Matt. 5:10;) the gift of God, (Phil. 1:29;) the Spirit of glory resting upon him, (1 Pet. 4:14;) a baptismal consecration, (Mark 10:38, 39;) a filling up of the Lord's sufferings, without which Christ's sufferings in His Church are not complete, (Col. 1:24;) the evangelical perfection of the righteous, (James 1:3, 4) a refining of their faith, (1 Pet. 1:7;) their enhancement of glory, (2 Cor. 4:17;) their conformity to Christ their Head, (2 Tim. 2:11, 12.) Such are a few of the lights in which the Holy Spirit, in the Word, places the process of trial by which the Lord tries the righteous.

It were a truism to remark that the trials of the Lord's people are VARIOUS. No individual can carefully and thoughtfully read and study God's Word, or his own personal history, without arriving at this conclusion. As the Lord's garden is planted with trees of various sizes--as God's family is composed of children of different growth--as Christ's body, the Church, is composed of different members; so the spiritual discipline of God with the righteous varies. Some of the Lord's people are tried in body and some in soul; some in their circumstances, and others in their families; some by the world, and some by the Church. Like a wise and loving parent, like a skillful and attentive physician, like an experienced and judicious husbandman, the Lord adapts and moulds the discipline, the treatment, and the pruning in His trial of the righteous according to the nature and requirements of the case, so that every believer's cross and trial is just what the Lord makes it, and just what his case required.

But whatever the trial to which the Lord in His love and wisdom may see fit to subject the new nature, it will but result in its greater development and maturity. When we remember how much there is within us opposed to its progress, how much to veil its beauty, to weaken its power, to shade its luster, and almost to imperil its very existence, is it any marvel that He whose work, whose nature, and whose image it is--jealous of His own glory, as its Author--should subject the righteous to the discipline of trial, that their righteousness might appear as the light, and their judgment as the noonday?

The apostle Paul, in a passage already quoted, speaks of filling up that which is behind by the afflictions of Christ in his flesh. It was a noble sentiment worthy of his magnanimous spirit. But it expressed more than this. It sets forth a truth most consolatory to the believer– that is, that the afflictions of Christ's people are the afflictions of Christ Himself, so perfect is the oneness of Christ and His Church. Now, if it were an essential part of the Divine economy--if it were necessary as perfecting Him as the mediator of His Church, that Christ, the sinless Son of God, should pass through the process of trial--should be tried from every quarter and in every part, shall we count it a strange thing if God subjects His own work in our soul to the searching process of the crucible?

It is written, "THE LORD tries the righteous." Sweet is this assurance, that it is the Lord Himself who tries them. Jesus is the Refiner. The work of our sanctification shall be His own. He will not allow His saints to fall into the hands of man for the perfecting of that which concerns them. The moment that the afflicted saint recognizes the Lord in the chastening, sees God in the calamity, he passes beyond the region of second causes--with which, alas! the latent infidelity and atheism of our heart deal so much--and the chastened soul rests in the First Great Cause of all events--Jehovah. "I was silent; I opened not my mouth, because You did it," and so he behaves and quiets himself as a child that is weaned of his mother.

Receive this strong consolation, chastened and afflicted one! "God HIMSELF has done it," therefore it is well done. God can do nothing wrong. His work, like Himself, is perfect. And, if perfection traces His work of grace, shall we suspect imperfection in His work of providence? That be far from us! He who gave us His beloved Son, will He compromise our interests, imperil our happiness, rob us of one real blessing in the severest discipline of His hand? Oh no! infinite love prescribes, infinite wisdom shapes, infinite faithfulness and power execute all His purposes, thoughts, and doings concerning His people.

Again, we repeat the truth--He to whom you are more delightsome and precious than myriads of planets like this; who laid all your sins and curse upon His beloved Son; who sustains to you the divine and the tender relation of a Father, has sent this present trial, this discipline of grief which bows your spirit to the dust. Look above the proximate causes of the event, and see the rod, the sword, the cup in your Father's hands, and hear Him say, "I will do you no hurt," (Jer. 25:6.)

But you have in this present trial with which the Lord is trying your grace more than a negative, you have a positive assurance of good. See how the faith of Jacob pleaded it with God--"You said, I will surely do you good." Imitate the patriarch. God is honored when His people remind Him of His word of promise. Our faith has nothing stronger, yes, has nothing else to rest upon than the word of the living God. And faith asks no more. "Your word is TRUTH," is the grateful acknowledgment of its deep, firm conviction. It deals with a God who cannot lie, whom it is impossible that He should deny himself, (Tit. 1:2.)

Change is written upon every being and object but God. All is passing away! The verdant grass withers, the beauteous flower fades, the tall cedar bows, the aged oak falls, and in one hour the light of the home is extinguished, its center and attraction gone! Time passes, and removes the friend around whom the heart's fibers fondly entwined, and, like the vine wrenched from its support, our hearts lie torn and bleeding in the dust. Events, unexpected and startling, transpire, and in one short day the whole scenery of life is changed!

And yet we go on in our creature idolatry, still loving, and clinging, and trusting; carving new idols, hewing out new cisterns, planting new gourds, so loath to hear the voice of love, which says, "Arise and depart, this is not your rest; it is polluted."

But the unchanged and unchangeable, the infinitely blessed and all-satisfying One is--GOD! And He will assert His own supremacy in His people. Everything outside of Him is unsubstantial, unsatisfying, and passing away. Nothing is real, no one true, but God. It is often trial alone, and that the most painful and humiliating, that will school us into the experience of this truth. Emptied from vessel to vessel, earthly hopes crushed, creature blessings torn up by the roots, human resources failing, we then are shut up alone to God, and never knew until then what a Fountain of bliss He was.

Oh, what a true, all-satisfying, all-sanctifying portion is God! An infinite being, He is a boundless, inexhaustible Good. Creating the soul with a capacity to enjoy Him, He never intended that man should be happy in any other than Himself. And since the creature committed the crime of renouncing Him as its chief and only good--since man forsook Him, the Fountain of living waters--all His dealings in providence and in grace have been but to win and woo the soul back to Himself, its original, inalienable, and eternal Good. To accomplish this purpose, the Son of God--the same in divine essence with the Father, co-eternal and co-equal--assumed our nature, that the chain now broken, which once bound us in righteousness, and holiness, and love to God, might re-attach us to His being, that henceforth and ever He might be the–
"The sea of love,
Where all our pleasures roll;
The circle where our passions move,
The center of our soul."

O Lord, though it were a trial that brings us to You; though to reach You we wade through billowy seas, walk over broken cisterns, tread upon withered flowers of human good, yet will we praise and bless You for all, if it but draw us nearer to Yourself, that we might loose ourselves in Your infinite bliss!

"I thank You for sickness, for sorrow and care,
For the thorns I have gathered, the anguish I bear,
For nights of anxiety, watchings, and tears;
A present of pain, a perspective of fears.
I praise You, I bless You, my King and my God,
For the good and the evil Your hand has bestowed.
The flowers were sweet, but their fragrance is flown,
They yielded no fruits, they are withered and gone;
The thorn it was poignant, but precious to me,
'Twas the message of mercy--it led me to THEE!"

Before we conduct this chapter to a conclusion, it may be profitable to mention some of the spiritual BENEFITSaccruing to believers from the trials to which the Lord subjects His own new nature in the soul of the regenerate.

1. The first we quote is, the closer acquaintance into which it brings them with their own hearts.There are corruptions deeply embedded in the heart of the most holy, which the discipline of sanctified trial alone removes. It was not intuitively that the Church in the wilderness came into the experience of this fact. Thus we read, "He led you through the wilderness these forty years, to humble you, and to prove you, TO KNOW WHAT WAS IN YOUR HEART," (Deut. 8:2.) Until the hour of trial, how little know we of this the seat and chamber of all evil! What pride, what selfishness, what infidelity, what carnality, what idolatry, what ingratitude, what murmuring, what rebellion against God are there! Trial is searching in its tendency. It is the furnace alone that reveals the alloy, and separates it from the pure gold, and so brings to view the new nature in its reality, loveliness, and purity.

Speaking of His Church in Jer. 9:6-7, God says, "Through deceit they refuse to hear me. Therefore, thus says the Lord of hosts, Behold, I will melt them and try them." As though He had said, "I will cast them into my furnace of love, and then will I discover themselves to themselves, and they shall know what was in their hearts." Thus the Lord by the same process deals with us. And then, in astonishment, we exclaim, "Woe is me! what a heart is mine! Did I suspect the existence of such latent virulence, such deep-seated depravity? How ignorant of myself have I been! Where is my faith in God, my love to Christ, my strength in service, my patience in suffering, my rejoicing in tribulation, my power in prayer? Instead of this, what do I discover but self-love, creature-idolatry, distrust of God, earth-bound affections, rebellion of will, and discontent of spirit against my God, my Father, my Friend!

What sad memories, also, does my trial awaken! Since God has let in a little of His displeasure upon my soul, I am made, as it were, to recollect the sins of my youth, sins of riper years, sins of old age--so easily committed and so soon forgotten--and with the brethren of Joseph exclaim, 'We are certainly guilty concerning our brother.' Thus searching and humbling is trial.

But if, like the surgeon's lance, the Lord's trial of His people is sometimes painfully probing, it is equally salutary and healing in its result. All this sad discovery of our hearts drives us more entirely out of ourselves to the Lord Jesus. We value Him as we learn to undervalue our own selves. Our thoughts of Him rise as thoughts of ourselves sink. In proportion as we learn by experience--and there is no school like God's school of trial--our own emptiness and nothingness, we learn what a full, all-sufficient, all-powerful Christ we have. Trial, deepening our self-acquaintance, deepens our acquaintance with the Lord; and to know more experimentally the Lord is worth all the discipline of chastening and of suffering it involves. Then we seek to straighten what is crooked, to strengthen what is weak, to restore what is lame, that it may not be turned out of the way, but that it may be rather healed.

2. By means of trial we are also brought into closer communion with God. In times of prosperity, there are many things which insinuate themselves between God and the soul. When the heart grows fat and is surfeited with creature-good, we are prone to forget and to forsake God, and even to kick against Him. Our communion with Him is invaded, and sometimes superseded. The compass is disturbed, and the needle of the soul swerves away from God.

But the Lord sends trial, and by it He restores the balance of the affections, attracting them again to their Divine and blessed Center. Responding to its touch, the truant heart flies back to God, under His most gracious restorings. Sensible of its backsliding, tasting the bitterness of its departure, it returns to its rest, and exclaims, "Lord, You have made my heart for Yourself, and it is restless and unquiet until it can rest in You." And, then, He who rebuked and chastened puts forth His hand, and receives back the weather-beaten dove, and the soul folds its weary wing upon the bosom of God.

To be stirred up to prayer is to be roused to our sweetest privilege and highest blessing. Therefore it is that God's tried ones are His most praying ones. The spirit of prayer is within them, but the lance of trial is often needed to draw it forth. "In return for my friendship they accuse me, but I am a man of prayer."David's adversaries gave themselves to persecution and wickedness, but he gave himself to prayer. The more they persecuted, the more he prayed. As his troubles multiplied, so did his heaven-sent petitions multiply.

So long as God keeps us in the furnace of trial, so long does He keep us on our knees at the throne of grace. "Is any afflicted? let him pray." Prayer is the true sweetener and solace of affliction. Affliction rouses us to prayer, and prayer in return soothes and hallows the affliction. Not only do our prayers multiply in trial, but they intensify. We pray not only more frequently, but more fervently. Of our blessed Lord it is recorded that, "being in an agony, He prayed MORE EARNESTLY," until He sweat great drops of blood falling down to the ground.

Prayers that satisfied us in prosperity will not meet our state in adversity. Petitions which answered well enough for the day of peace and prosperity will not serve our turn when the hour of temptation comes, and the cloud of sorrow darkens. The remembrance of the cold, dreary, formal devotions which congealed as they rose to our languid lips, covers us with shame and confusion when the Lord tries us. It would seem as though we never knew the reality, the power, and the intensity of real prayer until now. And never did God listen to our voice with so attentive ear. "O my dove, you who are in the clefts of the rock, in the secret places of the stairs; let me see your countenance, let me hear your voice, for sweet is your voice, and your countenance is lovely," (Song 2:14.) Beautiful in His eye as was His dove, her wings covered with silver, and her feathers with yellow gold, most sweet as was the cadence of her voice, yet more beautiful is she now, bedewed with tears, trembling with emotion, and peering out from beneath the rock and the stair, that veiled her from His view. Yes, the Lord tries the righteous, that He might behold the loveliness of their countenance, and listen to the sweetness of their voice.

3. Trial, also, imparts to the new nature a more quickened and intense desire for the nutriment and sweetness of God's Word.The Bible is the book of the afflicted. We fly to it in times of correction. Then it is we read it more attentively, counsel with it more closely, understand it more clearly, relish it more sweetly, and receive it as the engrafted Word into the heart more experimentally. But in times of worldly engagement or prosperity, the Word of God is apt to be slighted and unread. As we then pray to God carelessly, so we read God's Word carelessly. Prayer and the study of the Word go hand in hand. But God uses His rod, and by its discipline, like indolent or careless children, we are chastened to a closer and more diligent study.

This was David's testimony--"It is good for me that I have been afflicted, that I might learn your statutes." Divine chastening and instruction are thus connected. Again--"Princes have persecuted me without a cause; but, my heart stands in awe of your word." While Saul and his princes were meditating his downfall, David was found meditating in God's statutes. While they were consulting with the oracles of hell how they might best sin, he was consulting with the Oracles of God how he might best not sin. While they were coming against him with the sword, the spear, and the shield of human might and prowess, he went forth in the name of the Lord of Hosts, armed only with the sling of God's Word, and the smooth stones of its exceeding great and precious promises.

Oh, how sweet and nourishing do we experience God's Word to be in times of soul-hunger and trial! "The full soul loaths the honeycomb;" but when God intensifies our spiritual hunger, even the bitterness of trial becomes sweet, because it endears Him to us who is the sweetness of the Word. He wisely and mercifully permits a famine, that He might show how He can keep our soul alive in its midst by the pure wheat of His own truth. "I have made," says one, "many a meal's food upon the promises when I have lacked bread." Oh blessed trial, that increases our love to, deepens our experience of, and satisfies our soul with, God's Word!

4. Another hallowed fruit of the Lord's trial of the righteous is, the examination and test of their salvation. It is when His afflictive hand is upon us that we more especially feel the necessity of that sound evidence and assured conviction of our salvation, and of heaven, which, in its support and consolation, more than balances the heaviest trial. Before the hour that brings our religion to the test, with what superficial grounds, with what slight evidence, with what a dubious hope, are many religious professors satisfied! When the candle of the Almighty shines upon their tabernacle, when all is peace within and prosperity without, they can walk as upon high places, and float as upon the placid tide, and speak confidently of the haven of eternal rest. A little religious profession, and still less religion, goes a great way with them, just serving their present turn.

But, when the hour of adversity comes, when the storm breaks over them, when death knocks at the door, oh, then they discover that the 'fig-leaf covering' and the foundation of sand--the Christless, lifeless, prayerless religion--which sufficed for the sunny hour, fails now that the hand of God is heavily upon them. Oh, what a test of real religion, of vital godliness, of the new nature in the soul, is the hour of trial! Shadows and chimeras, dreams and phantoms, flee away then, and one scriptural, real, spiritual evidence of interest in Christ, of the love of God, is worth ten thousand worlds.

My reader, look well to your religion, look well to your hope of the future. Ask yourself, "Will this covering avail me when I appear in the presence of God? Will this faith sustain me when my heart and my flesh are failing? Will this love give me boldness in the day of judgment? Will this evidence answer the solemn purpose, when I lay me down to die?"

But the true believer finds evidence of real grace, of soundness of profession, of a fixed hope, in the time of trial. The crucible tests his religion, the furnace consumes the spurious, the sieve scatters the chaff; and when God has tried him, he comes forth as the fine gold, as the pure wheat, testifying to the sweets of adversity, and chanting the praises of correction, rejoicing that the Lord tries the righteous.

5. Not the least hallowed and happy result of the Lord's trial of the righteous, is, the mellowness which it imparts to the Christian character.There is much, in some believers, which, like iron in its native state, is hard and intractable. It will receive no impress, and yield to no mold. There is the absence of that refinement of feeling, and ripeness of Christian character, so marked and distinguished a characteristic of the believer disciplined by sorrow. But, like to the ore to which we have compared it, let it be subjected to the fiery trial of the furnace, and the grace that is in the believer can be molded to any shape, and will receive any impress God may please. "I will melt and try you," says the Lord. "God makes my heart soft," is the experience of Job.

No believer attains to anything like completeness of Christian grace, who has not been a tried believer. The file has smoothed the roughness, the fire has softened down the sharp angularities of his character, imparting a tone and air so gentle and courteous and winning, as to rank him among those who 'wear soft clothing, and dwell in king's houses.' "Each one resembled the children of a king."

Emerging from beneath the hand of God, the tried believer presents a more beautiful and perfect copy of the mind, spirit, and demeanor of the Lord Jesus--meek, lowly, and loving. Trial, while it has more vividly impressed the seal of genuineness upon his Christianity, has developed more of its intellectual robustness and moral beauty, imparting a new mold to the entire man. Oh, how needful is affliction to perfect us in grace and to fit us for glory! We shall read this truth, before long, in a serener, clearer light, and shall then fully see, what now we perceive so imperfectly, that our present trials were indispensable parts of our spiritual education for earth's service, and of our holy preparation for heaven's enjoyment. Then shall we learn that, with not a solitary trial could we have dispensed; that there was nothing arbitrary, unkind, or unwise in any of the dealings of our God; that, that event wrapped in such dreadful mystery--that calamity so fearfully crushing--that trial which, like a two-edged sword, pierced our hearts through and through, was the message of a Father's wisdom and love, and formed an essential part of our holy training for eternity. Oh, to what lofty music shall we then wake our golden harp in remembrance of all the way the Lord our God led us home to glory, and home to Himself!

6. We have reserved for the last of the hallowed results of trial, its crowning and most precious one, the closer intimacy into which it brings us with the Lord Jesus.Much of our knowledge of Christ, before the Lord tries us, is but theoretical. Experience of Christ and His truth is only derived in the school of self-knowledge, and in the discipline of adversity. The soldier and the mariner are but mere theorists in their respective sciences, until the one stands amid the thunder of the battle-field, and the other amid the fury of the storm. It is thus God trains His Church for heaven. He will have us know His beloved Son not from books, or sermons, or hearsay only, but from a personal and heartfelt experience of what He is.

But it is to the school of trial we more especially refer. When clouds of adversity are gathering--when death is invading, and ties are dissolving, and friends are leaving, and resources are failing, and health is drooping, and the long-drawn shadows of sorrow are falling many and darkly upon the future of life's landscape, we turn to Christ, and the closer transactions into which we then are brought with Him deepens our intimacy and increases our knowledge; and then we more fully experience what a Redeemer, what a Friend, and what a Brother Christ is.

And now we rejoice in tribulation, since it has made us better acquainted with Jesus. We have learned more of Christ in one sanctified trial than from all the books we ever read! Sorrow brought us to Him, and brought Him to us; and so correction has been our teacher. Jesus loves to be where His saints are in trial. Are you in search of Him? Go where adversity in one of its many forms has found a home; go where there is a couch of weakness to strengthen, a pillow of sickness to sustain, a bed of death to cheer, a house of mourning to comfort, a wounded, sad, and lonely heart to heal and solace, and there you will find Jesus. Imitate Christ, and, perhaps, in striving to help, strengthen, and comfort a suffering fellow-disciple, the sorrow concealed within the cloister of your own sad heart may be comforted with the comfort with which you have comforted another.

Here would we pause and inquire– What, my reader, is the hallowed fruit of your affliction? The Lord has, perhaps, brought you through fiery trial, out of much tribulation. You have had sickness, bereavement, loss of property, or, some crushing woe. Sit down, examine and reflect. Turn in upon your heart, and ask, "What spiritual benefit have I derived from my affliction?--what lessons have I learned from the catechism of trial?--what blessings have I received from the discipline of sorrow? Have I in suffering learned that there is no evil in the world like sin, and that there is no sin so great as that of my own heart? Have I found from experience that there is no good so great, no treasure so precious, and no Savior so suitable in the universe, as Christ? Do I come forth from beneath God's chastening hand a converted man--born again? Am I, as a Christian man, more deeply sanctified? Am I more like Christ? the world less in the ascendant in my thoughts? and the creature less the idol of my heart? Has the Word of God become more precious, and communion with God more sweet? Am I, in a word, as was the Captain of my salvation, perfected through suffering? God, my Father, has consecrated suffering to me; has suffering consecrated me to God?"

Such, my reader, be our self-examination. Oh, it is sad to taste the bitter root and not the sweet fruit of sorrow; to experience its curse and not its blessings--its fainting, but not its cordial. "I have smitten you, yet have you not returned unto me, says the Lord," (Amos 4:9.) May our testimony to the hallowed results of divine correction be that of David--"It is good for me that I have been afflicted, that I might learn your statutes. Before I was afflicted I went astray--but now have I kept your word." Then shall we go down to the grave and up to glory, chanting the praises of sanctified correction, and in eternity shall adore God for all the discipline of trial that fitted us for its endless enjoyment, and treasure up within the sacred ark of our memory, the rod of affliction that budded with blessings so many and so great.

Thus have we endeavored to trace in the present chapter, which now must close, the process of trial to which the Lord subjects the new nature of His people. If this nature, as represented by the Son of God, passed through suffering--though He was without sin--shall we marvel that the same nature in us, dwelling as it does amid so much that is unholy, is made to pass through much tribulation to the kingdom? Meekly, submissively, no, cheerfully, let us drink the cup which Christ's own hand has mingled, rejoicing that we are counted as worthy to drink of the cup that he drank of, and to be baptized with the baptism with which He was baptized.

Soon--its coming speeds fast!--we shall require this training and this discipline no longer. We shall arrive unto the stature of perfect men in Christ Jesus, and our education and fitness by grace for glory will be complete. A few more 'winter days of suffering' and we shall be perfected. The last thorn of the crown will pierce us--the last cup of suffering will distress us--the last fiery dart will assail us--the last touch of sin will taint us--and we shall outshine the brightest angel, and sing more sweetly than the sweetest seraph, casting down our diadem of glory at the feet of Him whose atoning blood will have brought us there!

THE RELAPSE AND RECOVERY OF THE NEW NATURE

"O spare me, that I may recover strength, before I go hence and be no more."--Psalm 39:13

Our blessed Lord, in those remarkable words addressed to His erring apostle, "When you are converted, strengthen your brethren," unfolded one of the most authentic and sad, yet difficult chapters in the history of the believer. Peter, to whom the exhortation was spoken, was already a converted and gracious man. He had fallen, and fallen deeply, but he had not fallen from the principle and possession of grace. This he could never fully or finally lose. And yet the Lord speaks of his conversion--"When you are CONVERTED." The real state of the disciple will at once explain the meaning of the Lord.

Peter had backslidden. He had fallen, not, as we have intimated, from the principle and possession, but from the profession and power of grace. In denying his Lord and Master he had fearfully sinned, had awfully relapsed; the locks of his spiritual strength were shorn, and he was powerless in the hands of his foe. Jesus came to his rescue. Bending upon him a look of forgiving love, which in a moment dissolved his heart into penitence, he addressed those memorable words, "when you are converted, strengthen your brethren."

In other words, "When you are restored from your backsliding, turned back from your wandering, rescued from your fall, as an evidence and fruit and acknowledgment of your recovery, strengthen your brethren--your brethren who, through weakness of faith, littleness of grace, and manifold infirmities, are liable to fall through the force of a like temptation." We are to understand, then, by the re-conversion of the believer, his restoration from those spiritual lapses to which, more or less, all the Lord's people are subject, to that healthy and robust state of grace from which his soul had declined.

The experience of the Psalmist--which suggests the subject of the present chapter--harmonizes in its essential features with that of all the people of God. David was now, as from a sick couch, taking a solemn and close survey of eternity. Anticipating his departure, he roused himself to the task of self-examination. The result of that scrutiny was the startling discovery of his soul's declension--the loss of spiritual vitality and strength. Hence his prayer--"O spare me, that I may RECOVER STRENGTH, before I go hence and be no more." How much is there in this spiritual lapse of grace with which the condition of many believers corresponds!

Nothing is so liable to fluctuation, nothing more sensible of change, as the renewed nature of the believer. The conviction of spiritual loss to which this giant in grace was roused in view of his departure, describes the state into which many imperceptibly decline, and suspect not its existence, and are not conscious of their loss, until the solemn charge is heard, "Set your house in order, for you shall die, and not live." Let us briefly consider some of the spiritual lapses to which the new nature in the soul is exposed, and the means of recovery.

It is a melancholy state thus portrayed--to witness a man of God drooping, a standard-bearer fainting, a stalwart competitor for the great prize acknowledging, just as he was about to finish his career and reach the goal, the decay of spiritual vitality and power, is a spectacle startling and painful in the extreme. And yet how frequent its occurrence! There is nothing in the renewed nature to exempt it from spiritual fluctuation. It is a divine, but not a deified, nature; it is of God, but it is not God. It dwells in a body of sin and of death, and is exposed to all those hostile influences which spring from the fallen and corrupt nature in the midst of which it dwells. Just as the barometer is depressed or elevated by atmospheric influences, or just as the compass is disturbed by the proximity of objects naturally affecting its regularity, so the new man is constantly exposed to deterioration from the opposite and baneful influences springing from our fallen and corrupt nature. The depressions, therefore, of the new nature arise not from any essential defect in that nature--for it is incorruptible--but from the sin that dwells in us. Thus it is that the believer loses strength.

"That I may recover strength." The strongest may become weak, yes, weak as the weakest, when sin is allowed for a moment the ascendancy. But when conscious of the feebleness of our own native strength, of the fallibility of our own wisdom, of our soul's emptiness, poverty, and nothingness; when thus acquainted with, and so weaned from our own selves, then are we strong--strong in the Lord, and in the power of His might--strong and mighty in Jehovah. This was the testimony of Paul--"When I am weak, then am I strong."

But let us consider--In what is this loss of spiritual strength the most visible? Where is the child of God the most sensible, especially when he takes a close view of death and eternity, of soul-weakness?

With regard to the principle and action of FAITH, this decay of vigor may be visible. As faith is the 'parent grace' of all the Christian graces, the root of all the fruits of the Spirit, the mainspring of all the holy actings of the soul, it will be at once perceived that any decay, weakening, or slumber of this precious grace, must paralyze, in a measure, the entire Christianity of the soul. When faith droops, all the springs of the soul are down; when faith rises, the soul mounts as on eagle's wings. Peter trod the broken waves manfully so long as the eye of his faith rested upon Jesus, its Author and Object. But when the winds increased in might, and the sea grew more billowy, he looked from Jesus to his watery pathway, and his faith failing, he began to sink--"Lord, save; I perish!"

And how weakening to faith is the looking off from Jesus to our sins and infirmities--to our trials, difficulties, and dangers! The moment 'faith' forms an alliance with 'sense', it droops. A healthy body chained to a sick body would, before long, itself grow sickly. A living body fastened to a dead body would soon itself die.

Now, faith in itself, is a divine, healthy, vigorous principle. Left to its own actings, resting simply upon God's Word, looking only to the Lord Jesus, and dealing chiefly with the invisible, it will achieve wonders. It will overcome the world; it will foil the stratagems of Satan; it will deaden the power of sin; it will tread firmly the broken waters of trial; and will do and suffer all the will of God. What great things this divine principle wrought in the worthies of old! "By faith these people overthrew kingdoms, ruled with justice, and received what God had promised them. They shut the mouths of lions, quenched the flames of fire, and escaped death by the edge of the sword. Their weakness was turned to strength. They became strong in battle and put whole armies to flight. Women received their loved ones back again from death. But others trusted God and were tortured, preferring to die rather than turn from God and be free. They placed their hope in the resurrection to a better life."

With such a picture before us, how sad is the thought that our faith should ever suffer weakness or decay. And yet what a waning of the strength of faith may the believer discover in his soul just at the hour when he needs more than ever all the might and power of this wondrous grace!

My soul, is your faith weak, and does your heart tremble? Are you looking at the broken waves beneath you, at the dark clouds above you? Is it now the fourth watch of the night, and Jesus not come to you? Are resources narrowing, needs pressing, difficulties accumulating, and your heart dying within you? Fear not! He who trod the limpid waves with Peter, who gently said to him, "O you of little faith, why did you doubt?" then stretched forth His hand and caught him, is at your side, and will not allow you to sink and perish beneath these waters. Hope in God; for you shall yet praise Him who is the health of your countenance, and your God.

There may likewise be a loss of strength in the LOVEof the renewed nature. The love of the changed heart to God is so pure, unearthly, and divine a sentiment--a feeling so spiritually sensitive--it is soon affected by any change in the moral atmosphere by which it is encircled. How soon and how easily may it be wounded, chilled, and impaired! The ever-pressing cares of this life, the undue ascendancy of the creature, the captivity of sensual objects, the insidious power of the world, will, any single one of them, seriously affect the purity, simplicity, and intensity of our love to the Lord.

"Do you love me more than these?" is a question which we need our Lord to put to us on every occasion. How condescending His grace to place Himself in competition with the objects of sense! "More than these? More than these creature claimants? More than these earthly honors? More than these worldly riches? More than these domestic comforts? More than parent or child, brother, sister, friend, or country? Do you love me singly, supremely, above all, and even amid ten thousand suitors for your heart?"

Oh, blessed they who from the depth of their sincerity can respond, "Lord, You know all things, You know that love You!"

And yet when life approaches its close--when human objects of love, and creature objects of interest, are losing their power and their hold, and the soul peers beyond the present into the solemn, mysterious future, how many a child of God has found reason to exclaim, "O spare me, that I may recover strength!" Love has lost its power; its strength is impaired, its luster is shaded, its hold upon Christ is weakened, and the soul begins to doubt all past, as all present experience of its existence. But, thank God, the principle of love to Christ can never utterly perish. It is a part of the new nature, is born in the soul when the soul is born again, and can only perish with the destruction of the ransomed, renewed, and saved soul itself--and this can never, never be! Watch, then, against the waning of your love, lest when about to fly to a world where all is love, you find how impaired is the vigor of this grace of the Spirit.

Reposing your head upon the lap of some too fond and too indulged creature-delight--be it the world, be it the creature, or be it SELF--you awake to the startling discovery, how sadly the locks of its strength have been severed, and with how little of this heavenly grace you are about to enter heaven, and meet Him whose love to you had never, never faltered, chilled, or changed. "O spare me, that I may recover strength."

How frequently, too has it transpired in the experience of the child of God, that just at the hour that the HOPE of glory is about to enter upon its full fruition, its sun is setting amid darkling clouds! "Where now is my hope? My hope is perished from the Lord!" is the mournful exclamation of the departing Christian. Oh, sad and melancholy discovery! But is it really so that Christian hope--the good hope, through grace, enkindled in the renewed heart by the "God of hope"--hope reposing upon Christ, and entwined with His cross--hope which, like a brilliant star, poured its silver rays down upon many a tempestuous sea--hope which buoyed up the soul in many a season of sorrow and darkness, despondency and despair--hope which looked for the coming glory, and anticipated living forever with the Lord--can it be possible that that hope, however feeble its strength, or dim its luster, or obscure its vision, shall ever perish? Never! no, never!

There is hope in your end, O believer in Jesus; however weak and veiled that hope may be, it shall not make you ashamed; and when all other hopes--earth's fondest, brightest--languish and expire, the Spirit of God will fan this faint and feeble spark, and again shall its flame burn brightly, and pour its radiance upon the upward pathway of the departing spirit. And yet, at that solemn hour, when heart and flesh are failing, you may find it needful to breathe the prayer of David, "O spare me, that I may recover strength." Study to keep your hope lively--its lamp daily fed and brightly burning. "The God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that you may ABOUND IN HOPE through the power of the Holy Spirit."

And thus, also, with regard to EVIDENCES, these may grow dim when the strongest evidences alone will meet the necessities of the solemn case. Evidences of conversion and of safety, which amid the buoyancy of health, and the heyday of life, the excitement of religious activity, and the influence of religious ceremonial, pacified the conscience and tranquilized the feelings, are found to be unsatisfactory and insufficient when the soul is about to appear before God. Searching thus for evidences of salvation, many a child of God has for the first time discovered his loss of spiritual strength. One by one has failed him, and he is compelled to close his Christian course as he commenced it, in looking as a poor, empty, lost sinner to the Lord Jesus, clinging to that exceeding great and precious promise of the Savior, as the last and only plank that could sustain him--"Him that comes unto me, I will in no wise cast out."

He has now learned what books and sermons failed to teach him before--that the great, the grand evidence of our salvation is in a direct and simple faith in the Lord Jesus Christ; that it is not in looking to ourselves, or in searching within ourselves for evidences that we are enabled to say in humble assurance, "I know whom I have believed;" but in looking out of and off from our own selves, upon the Lord Jesus Christ, the Savior of sinners, even of the chief. Such has been the experience of some of the holiest saints, whose piety and labors have adorned the Church or blest the world. Searching in that solemn moment for evidences of salvation, how many a believer has taken up the language of the Psalmist--"O spare me, that I may recover strength."

The SPIRITUAL LIFEof the renewed soul is equally exposed to this loss of vitality and vigor. A long-existing and deep spirit of drowsiness may enwrap the believer, of which he is scarcely conscious. He knows that he has life in his soul, but he is not aware how depressed is its vitality, how low are its springs. Much has passed for life which was no real evidence of its existence. Periodical awakenings, spasmodic action, religious activity and excitement have, for the time, supplied the absence of that holy retirement, devout meditation, self-examination, secret prayer, closeness, and watchfulness, and holiness of walk which formed the only safe and authentic evidences of the life of God in the soul.

But now that the spirit is about to enter the eternal world, the solemn discovery is made--"How low are the springs of life in my soul! How faint, how feeble, how imperceptible almost, is its pulse! 'O spare me, that I may recover strength.'"

But we need not multiply these varied lapses of grace in the soul of the believer. When there exists the element of spiritual declension and decay in any one part of the renewed nature, the whole is more or less sympathetically affected. The drooping of one grace will impart languor and feebleness to every other. Our true wisdom is to watch the first beginning of declension, and the moment it is discovered, to seek the remedy and apply the check.

One of the most solemn and affecting views of our subject is, that this decay of which we speak is always secret, unnoticed, and unsuspected. In the graphic language of the prophet, "Gray hairs are here and there upon him, yet he knows not," (Hos. 7:9.) Old age steals on, and we are insensible of its encroachment. The hair is silvered, the eye loses its luster, the limbs their elasticity, and memory its vigor, and yet we take no thought of time. In fact, we strive to banish from our mind the conviction that "old age" is actually advancing. Thus is it with the decay of grace. It goes on slowly, imperceptibly, and unsuspected, yet most sure. Spiritual strength becomes weakened, the eye of faith grows dim, its divine and precious Object becomes distant and obscure, the hand of faith upon Jesus loses its grasp, the spiritual action of the heart becomes languid, the pulse of life beats feebly, and the soul loses its zest and relish for divine things--for fellowship with God--for communion with saints--for the public means of grace, and for a spiritual, practical, Christ-exalting ministry. "Gray hairs are here and there upon him, yet he knows not."

Nor does he desire to know it. It is an unmistakable evidence of this state of decay of grace--the reluctance of the heart to know its real state before God. Just as some individuals would efface each new mark of growing years, and shrink from every sad memento of approaching senility--as if ignorance of the fact would arrest the march of time, and each evidence of its ravages obliterated would win back the spring-tide of youth! so the soul, losing its spiritual vitality and vigor, loves not to be reminded of its spiritual loss, declension, and decay, but is content to live on in its lukewarmness, making no effort to strengthen the things that remain, that are ready to die, until, like David, the prayer is wrung from the trembling lip, "O spare me, that I may recover strength, before I go hence and be no more."

Alas! that the child of God should so lose his strength of soul as not only to frame excuses for his drowsiness, but even exclaim, "A little more sleep, and a little more slumber." Such was the case of the Church in the Song--"I sleep, but my heart wakes." What a contentedness was there here with her state of slumber! And, then, to Christ's approach--"Open to me, my sister, my love, my dove, my undefiled--for my head is filled with dew, and my locks with the drops of the night," she replies, "I have put off my coat; how shall I put it on? I have washed my feet; how shall I defile them?" She was not only in a state of drowsiness, a state of heart-departure from her Lord, but she was satisfied to be so, and framed excuses in justification of her continuance in that state. Distinctly did she recognize the voice of her Beloved. Well did she know that it was He who so gently was knocking at her door, while, as with irresistible tenderness, the heart-melting words were falling upon her still wakeful ear, "My head is filled with dew, and my locks with the drops of the night;" and yet she loved the bed of sloth too well to arise and admit her Beloved.

Oh, what a sin was this! It was sin added to sin--it was sin begetting sin. There was first the sin that led to her slothful condition; then there was the sin of her backsliding; then the sin of contentedness with her state; and then the crowning sin of all; the excuses with which she repelled the loving, tender appeal of Him who loved her, and whom yet she loved. In all this see we not ourselves? Behold, to what a low state of grace the renewed nature may decline! See how far the Christ-loving heart may wander from the Lord! See what excuses even a saint of God may frame for his sins!

But what a patient Jesus! Gaze upon the one picture and then upon the other, and mark the contrast! The backsliding saint--the still loving, clinging, wooing Savior! There is no slumbering of Christ's love towards His saints, no denial of them, no indifference to their circumstances. They may forget that they are His children, God never forgets that He is their Father. Listen to His touching, astounding language--"Turn, O backsliding children, says the Lord; for I am married unto you," (Jer. 3:14.)

There may be besides, as we have just remarked, seasons of spiritual wandering or depression in the Christian's experience, when he may lose sight of his adoption, may sink the character of the son in that of the slave, the heir in the servant; but God never forgets that they are still children, and He still a Father. And how tender and irresistible the invitation, "Return unto me!" And again--"I said after she had done all these things, Turn unto me." Yet once more--"Return, O backsliding Israel, says the Lord; and I will not cause my anger to fall upon you--for I am merciful, says the Lord, and I will not keep anger forever. Only acknowledge your iniquity." Child of God! conscious of departure, bemoaning grievously your sad declension, shedding tears of bitter grief over your willful and aggravated backslidings, can you resist the gracious invitation of the God from whom you have wandered? "Return unto me; unto me from whom you have backslidden, against whose grace you have sinned, whose love you have slighted, whose Spirit you have grieved. Return to me, who will heal your backslidings, will love you freely, and will remember your transgressions no more forever. Look not at my holiness or my justice, but at my grace, my goodness, and my mercy; how can I put you away, for my compassion and my pardoning love are kindled within me! Though you have backslidden a thousand times over, yet, return again unto me."

It may be proper in this part of the chapter to group together a few of those CAUSESwhich have a tendency to produce that spiritual weakness, that soul-declension which so many Christians discover and deplore when on the eve of entering upon the eternal world. The life of God in the renewed soul is so holy, and divinely sensitive, there is scarcely a quarter from which it may not be seriously affected.

The WORLDis a great robber of spiritual strength. It is impossible to go much into it, even when lawful duty summons us, and not be conscious of its deteriorating influence. How much more is this the case when we voluntarily and needlessly expose ourselves to its snares! Oh, how this world eats as a canker-worm into the spirituality of so many! We cannot unite Christianity and the world--walking with Jesus and association with the world--the pleasures of religion and the pleasures of the world--the strength of the strong and sinful conformity to the spirit, the dress, the enjoyments, and the gaieties of the world. The ungodly world is the great Delilah of the Church of God. Alliance with her in any shape will beguile the spiritual life, liberty, and power of the Church into the hands of the uncircumcised Philistines, who will but mock the victim they have ensnared, and make merry with the weakness and disfigurement they have wrought.

Saint of God, you cannot be strong to labor, skillful to fight, powerful to testify for Christ and His truth, if you are indulging in worldly habits or recreations inconsistent with your heavenly calling. Marvel not that you are weak in faith, in prayer, in conflict, and are hastening to the solemn hour of your departure unassured of your salvation, and with but a dim prospect that that departure will be unclouded and serene.

There are other equally potent causes of spiritual decay, which we have only space to group together. Superficial views of sin--unmortified corruptions--unsanctified affections--the indulgence of unbelieving fears and of speculative doubts--a slighting of the means of grace--the habit of reasoning rather than of believing with regard to divine truth--an unsettled ministry--residing in a land where no living gospel springs are--acting as unto man and not wholly as unto the Lord--reserves in child-like obedience--a spirit of levity and humour unbefitting the saintly character--a profane and unhallowed dealing with God's Word--an uncharitable and unforgiving spirit--a tendency to look more at the difficulties than at the encouragements of the way, more at trials than at the promises, more at evidences than at the cross of Jesus, more at self than at Christ--all these, single or united, will sap and undermine the strength of the soul; and when the last enemy approaches, instead of the victorious shout of the mighty, will be heard the plaintive prayer of the feeble, "O spare me that I may recover strength, before I go hence, and be no more!"

Conscious of spiritual relapse, oh, seek instantly and earnestly a re-conversion of your soul! Let your prayer be--"Restore unto me the joy of Your salvation." Without ignoring your past experience, denying not the converting, renewing grace of God in your soul, yet, in your return to Christ, begin at the beginning. Come as first you came--a poor, empty sinner to the Savior. Your first love lost, you may win it back by a renewed baptism of the Holy Spirit, by a fresh taking hold of Jesus. And remember that, one end of your re-conversion is that you may strengthen your brethren who are weak, warn those who sin, uplift those who have fallen, and win back those who have erred from the way, ever walking yourself humbly with God. (Ps. 51:12, 13.)

But it is often reserved for the solemn hour of death to discover to the believer the sad waning and loss of spiritual strength. It is at this appalling crisis that many of the saints for the first time awaken to a knowledge of their spiritual decay. Then they discover the "gray hairs" upon them in thick and startling array. About to battle with the last foe, they find the sword has rusted in its scabbard, and the "armor of God" has become loose and poorly fitting. Then they pray, "Lord, yet a little longer spare me, that I may renew my strength, examine my hope, recover my evidences, and experience once more a renewed manifestation of Your love to my soul!"

This clearly was the experience both of David and of Hezekiah, and this may be ours. The prayer--breathed though as with the departing breath--is heard and answered; and divine grace, and strength, and hope are given for the dying hour. And now the departing soul, renewing its spiritual strength like the eagle, uplifts its pinions for the flight. Oh, what a marvelous change have we witnessed at that hour! We have seen spiritual life that throbbed so faintly, divine grace that looked so sickly, holy love that beat so languidly, Christian hope that shone so dimly, now emerge as from a long and dark entombment, clad with all the bloom and vigor of a new-born creation. The petition sent up from the quivering lip of death has been washed in the blood, perfumed with the merits, and presented through the intercession of the great High Priest, and accepted of God. Strength has been given, the foe has been conquered, and with the shout of the conqueror--"O death! where is your sting? O grave! where is your victory?"--waking the echoes of death's lonely valley, the renewed and ransomed soul has winged its flight to heaven.

"When death is near,
And your heart shrinks with fear
And your limbs fail,
Then lift your heart and pray
To Christ, who smooths the way
Through the dark valley.

"Death comes to set you free;
Oh, meet him cheerily,
As your best friend;
And all your fears shall cease,
And in eternal peace
Your sorrows end!"

EARLY CONVERSION

"All Israel will mourn for Abijah and bury him. He is the only one belonging to Jeroboam who will be buried, because he is the only one in the house of Jeroboam in whom the Lord has found some good thing toward the Lord God of Israel." 1 Kings 14:13

God, who calls His people by His grace, calls them, for the most part, early in life. That there are countless exceptions to this we do not question; for the Lord God is a Sovereign, and He works all things after the council of His own will, and gives no account of any of His matters. Many, we admit, are called by grace in the meridian of life, others at the eleventh hour of its closing scene, and not a few even when the eleventh hour has passed, and the twelfth was about to strike its last solemn note. All that the Father has given to the Son shall come to Him sooner or later, whether it be the babe and the suckling--sanctified as from the womb--or the hoary-haired sinner being a hundred years old; not one shall perish.

But the majority of conversions are in favor of early life. Divine grace, in the sovereignty of its exercise, has ever delighted to engraft itself upon the spring-bud of youth bursting into beauty, or upon the tall and graceful sapling just shooting up into life, as if, while seeking emblems of its own loveliness and strength, it yet would illustrate the truth how infinitely the beauty of grace transcended and eclipsed the most surpassing loveliness and attractions of nature.

We have selected from God's Word a most touching and instructive confirmation of this fact. It places before us an example of early piety in its feeblest and most limited form. Abijah, to whom the case refers, was the young son of Jeroboam, and heir-apparent to the throne. Jeroboam was one of the worst of the kings of Israel. Scarcely had he reached the throne than he turned aside from the worship of the only true and living God, and established in its place a system of the vilest idolatry. After a while his son Abijah was smitten with sickness. Jeroboam, a wily diplomatist, as an unholy man, sent his wife in disguise to inquire of the prophets of the Lord whether the child should recover. Why of the prophets of Israel did he inquire? Why not seek the gods his own hands had set up, and which he and his court worshiped? The fact supplies the solution of a solemn problem.

When God sends affliction and adversity upon ungodly men, they then discover how little faith they had in, and how little support they derive from, the vain confidences in which they had been accustomed to repose. The world, the heart's idols, and theoretical and speculative notions of God's Word, utterly fail to administer light, consolation, and hope when God's hand is upon them, when adversity crushes them, when health and wealth, creatures and reputation, take wing and fly. How often the most ungodly and profane discover that there is but one Being who can help them!--that one Being is GOD. How true the language of the prophet--rather, how true the word of the living God--"Lord, in trouble have they visited You; they poured out a prayer when Your chastening was upon them," (Isa. 26:16.)

The wife of Jeroboam brought back to the king a sad and woeful message--that the entire family of the king, with a solitary exception, should die, dishonored, unmourned, and unwept. "Him that dies of Jeroboam in the city shall the dogs eat; and him that dies in the field shall the fowls of the air eat--for the Lord has spoken it." All this came to pass. Thus we read–"Baasha killed Nadab in the third year of King Asa's reign in Judah, and he became the next king of Israel. He immediately killed all the descendants of King Jeroboam, so that not one of the royal family was left, just as the Lord had promised concerning Jeroboam by the prophet Ahijah from Shiloh."(1 Kings 15:28, 29.) To this terrible infliction of divine judgment there was, as we have intimated, one solitary exception. It was Abijah, the young son of Jeroboam. Of him said the Lord, "All Israel will mourn for him and bury him. He is the only one belonging to Jeroboam who will be buried, because he is the only one in the house of Jeroboam in whom the Lord, the God of Israel, has found anything good."

Let us now turn our attention to the SPIRITUAL INSTRUCTION which this remarkable instance of early piety inculcates.

1. The first important inference we draw is,GOD'S TENDER REGARD FOR THE YOUNG.It is a period of human life especially dear and interesting to the Lord. Christ in His own person passing through this stage of life, honored and sanctified it. He was "the holy child Jesus." It is the golden period of human life. It is to life what the bright morning is to the day, and what the spring-time is to the year. It gives to the future its character, mold, and complexion. It is the preface to the history of our being, present and future; and he who ponders thoughtfully this preface may, without the sagacity of a prophet, form a correct conception of the character of the volume. As a young person sows in early years, so shall he reap in later life. Approach the crowd of hoary heads bending to the grave beneath the snows of many winters, and ask of each what relation their youth sustained to that distant and solemn period of life, and each will testify that, the memories of early years, sad or joyous, clouded or sunny, clustered around that closing scene; imparting to it a character, a solemnity, and an impressiveness indescribable and ineffaceable. Memories of early consecration to God, or of the sins of youth against Him; memories of a father's counsels and of a mother's prayers, of first religious thoughts and impressions, of prayers and promises and vows--oh, how they link the past with the present, sunny youth with hoary age, life's first dawn with its last sunset!

Such is the importance of youth in its relation to conversion. This period of human life passed unawakened, unsanctified by the new birth, the probabilities of conversion lessen with each revolving year. We speak now after the manner of men. Well assured are we that all the Lord's hidden ones shall be brought in, were it when the twelfth hour of life were about to strike its last moment, or, were the working of a miracle necessary for its accomplishment. The eternal Word of the living God affirms it; the everlasting covenant of grace provides for it; the atoning blood of Jesus secures it; and the covenant engagement of the Spirit in conversion gives to it its fullest and most blessed realization.

Cheering, consolatory truth to those who, amid much discouragement and despondency, little or no fruit, and, perhaps, much difficulty and opposition, are laboring in the Christian ministry, or by other means, to win souls to Christ. What though you see no immediate result from your arduous, anxious, self denying labors, the promise yet remains sure--all Israel shall be gathered, and as many as are ordained to eternal life shall believe. You are only responsible to your Divine Master for the fidelity and integrity, the singleness of eye and honesty of purpose, the prayer, the earnestness, the watching, and the faith with which you plough the soil and sow the seed. The blessing, the harvest--the golden and waving grain, the sickled and garnered fruit--are the Lord's.

And yet, tracing the Lord's work in the sovereignty of His grace in conversion--especially in this the last of the latter days--the great majority of those who are called by grace are taken from the ranks of the young, the very babes and sucklings perfecting His praise. Oh, spectacle of surpassing loveliness! Earth has none to compare with it, the Church not one to surpass it.

2. The loveliness of early piety can only be equaled by its ADVANTAGES. They who are born again early in life; who, while the sun is but just seen above the horizon, have set out in the Christian pilgrimage, are thoroughly armed and equipped for the temptations, duties, and trials of their course. The pleasures of religion--transcending all pleasures--are theirs, amid the toil, the battle, and the sufferings of life. They begin their race with the surrender of their hearts to Christ--continue it with His presence encompassing them--and close it with the crown of life, which His own hands will place upon their brow. And should their sun go down while it is yet day, it will but the sooner rise again in that land of glory where there are no more sunsets of life; for it is written, "There shall be no night there." Oh, seek the Lord early in life, for He has said for your encouragement, "I love those who love me, and those who seek me early shall find me."

But what made the youthful Abijah an exception to Jeroboam's family? "Because in him there is found some good thing toward the Lord God of Israel."And what was that good thing? It was not rank, nor talent, nor influence. It was nothing of nature or of man. It was some good, some gracious, some spiritual, some holy thing, not born with Abijah, but implanted in his heart when, by the grace of God, he was born again. No interpretation but this fully meets the expression, "some good thing toward the Lord God of Israel." Observe, it had reference to God. It was "toward the Lord God of Israel." It came from God, and it returned to God. What could it be but the new, spiritual creation of the soul--the converting grace of God--filial fear and holy love--"the root of the matter" implanted in his young heart by the power of the Holy Spirit? It is said, "SOME good thing.'' The expression seems to imply the ''incorruptible seed" sown, or the seed in the first stage of growth--just germinating, budding; perhaps, the first gentle blade bursting through the crustations of the heart.

How feeble and obscure may be the first appearance and growth of Divine grace in the soul. No one may discover it, know it, acknowledge it, but the Lord. Yes, he in whose heart the good thing is wrought may be the last one to recognize it. But the Lord knows His own work in the heart of a poor sinner--recognizes His own image in the renewed soul; and He who has begun the good work will perfect it. "As for God, His way is perfect." "Some good thing." What is it?

Is it a broken and a contrite heart?What a good thing is this! It is the beginning, the groundwork, the earnest of good things to come. Apart from true repentance for sin, there is no good thing. If the Lord the Spirit has given you, my reader, to see and know and feel yourself a sinner, a marvelous "good thing" has been wrought in your soul. The world thinks lightly of repentance; the formalist ignores it, the self-righteous despise it; but if there is a "good thing" in the heart of man in which God takes delight, over which saints and angels rejoice, and upon which all heaven looks down with ineffable wonder and praise, it is a penitential spirit, a broken and a contrite heart for sin; it is the spectacle of a soul prostrate in the dust--self-abased, self-abhorred, sin-loathing--before the holy Lord God. If, beloved, you have nothing to offer to God except the sacrifice of a broken and a contrite heart, there is some good thing in you towards the Lord God of Israel; and a more costly and acceptable sacrifice you could not lay upon His altar, (Ps. 51:17.)

Is it a simple, childlike, believing acceptance of the Lord Jesus that marks us? Then, there is some "good thing" in our heart towards the Lord of priceless worth. Faith is a good and precious thing. There is more real good and worth in one infinitesimal grain of real faith wrought in the heart by the Holy Spirit--the faith which gets the dimmest view of Jesus, which touches but His robe--than in all the good of which the world can ever boast. How small the degree of faith in the youthful Abijah! Yet God pronounced it "good."

As a young believer but just setting out in the Divine life, with but slight views of sin, little knowledge of self, still less of Christ, your faith may be weak and trembling; nevertheless, if it has led you to trample your own righteousness in the dust, and has brought you, as a sinner, to a simple, believing reliance upon the Savior, then you possess a "good thing" in reality, before whose beauty earth's highest type of loveliness fades, and the luster of its most dazzling gems pales into darkness. Is this good thing found in you? Do you believe in the Son of God? Has your faith led you to turn your back upon the world, and upon your sins, and upon a life of sense and sensuality--henceforth to be the decided follower of the Lord Jesus? Then, God sees some good thing in you in which He delights.

And is there any degree of real love in your heart towards the Lord God? God has set a high estimate upon love to Him! Marvelous grace! wondrous condescension! that He should say, "My son, give Me your heart." Standing, as it were, a lowly suitor at the door of your young affections, he says, "I love those who love Me. Do YOU love Me? Does my beauty charm you? does my love win you? does my grace draw you? does my cross attract you? have my sufferings and my death subdued you to penitence, faith, and love? Am I dearer to you than earth's dearest attractions, more precious than the heart's most precious treasure? Can you part with all, and every one for Me?"

Oh, if from that young heart, beating high with warm and noble impulse, there rises the gentlest response, "Lord, I love You! You who know my heart's most sacred cloister, who have Your finger upon its faintest pulse, read its most hidden thoughts, and know its most secret desire, You know that I love You!" then a "good thing" has been wrought in your heart which shall never perish.

"Do I not love You, O my Lord?
Behold my heart and see;
Gently dislodge each idol thence
That seeks to rival Thee.

"You know I love You, dearest Lord;
But, oh, I long to soar
Far from the sphere of mortal joys,
And learn to love You more!"

And who will say of the prayerof a young heart that there is not some "good thing" there towards the Lord God? It is a precious thing when a young person is led to pray. The spectacle in its spiritual beauty is unsurpassed. What would thrill the heart of a pious parent with deeper joy, next to his personal salvation? Would it not be the intelligence that the child of countless parental prayers had now become himself a praying child? Would it not be to witness the door closed for prayer, and to hear the gentle breathings, the fervent petitions of the young heart as they ascended in holy prayer to God? Truly, if the heart is incited by the Holy Spirit to pray--feeble, imperfect, stammering as its accents may be--there is "some good thing" in that heart towards the Lord God which marks that soul as born again of the Spirit, as a new creature in Christ Jesus.

Once more mark the expression, "some good thing." It is not EVERY good thing. Young believers are often perplexed and discouraged because they do not find in themselves all the grace and knowledge and Christian attainment they see in others. But this is not to be expected. It was not so with Abijah, the young son of Jeroboam. And yet there was some good thing in his heart towards the Lord God, and for that God marked him as His own. Thank God for the least degree of life, for the smallest measure of faith, for the faintest spark of love; and press on for more. Place no limit to your Christian attainments. Be not satisfied with your measured knowledge of the Lord Jesus. "That I might know Him," was the language and the desire of a saint of God far in the ascendant of the greatest saint among us. Imitate the great Apostle of the Gentiles, and, forgetting the things that are behind, press on to know Christ more--to love Him more--to serve Him more--to glorify Him more--that for you to live may be Christ, and that for you to die may be gain.

The young Abijah died, and God honored him in his death and burial. The Lord, my young reader, is perhaps taking you early home to glory. Disease, insidious and fatal, is slowly wasting your frame, and bringing you to an early tomb. The anticipations of youth, the hopes of life--once so ardent and bright--are now darkening with the shadow of death. Be it so! What a matter of rejoicing is this! Early ripe, early gathered. Think it not hard to die so soon, deem it not sad to relinquish life so early. Think of the sins and temptations, of the conflicts and the sorrows, you so soon and forever shall escape. Think of the heaven of glory into whose joy and bliss and society you so soon and forever will enter. And let not the reflection distress you that you cannot be fitted for heaven because your Christianity has not been matured and tested by many years of experience--that your spiritual knowledge of the Bible has been so deficient--your acquaintance with Christ so short--your service for the Lord so unfruitful--your battles so few and your laurels so scanty--your holiness for heaven so imperfect.

Remember that, if there is only "some good thing in your heart towards the Lord God," you have an unmistakable evidence of being born again; and, born again, though but a babe in Christ, with the smallest faith, the weakest love, the dimmest hope--that faith, that love, that hope, the "good thing" wrought in your soul by the Holy Spirit--when you die, though your sun go down while it is yet day, Jesus will take you to His bosom, and your happy spirit shall repose within its Divine pavilion forever.

"It matters little at what hour of day
The righteous fall asleep; death cannot come
To those untimely, who are fit to die;
The less of this cold world, the more of heaven;
The briefer life, the earlier immortality."
–Milman

FROM GRACE TO GLORY

"The Lord will give grace and glory."--Psalm 84:11

We reach the last stage in this brief history of the new nature in the regenerate--its translation from a state of grace to a state of glory. God has not left His Church on earth without some pledges and visions of heaven. Now and then the pearly gate of the celestial city expands to faith's far-seeing eye--perhaps, when attending some beloved saint to the brink of the river, or when, in seasons of rapt communion, we ascend the summit of our spiritual Pisgah--and then we seem, for a while, to be encircled with the sunbeams, to breathe the odors, and to hear the music of the glorified; and, like the disciples amid the scene of the transfiguration, we would gladly build our tabernacle and abide there forever.

We have had occasion to remark, in the progress of our little treatise, that the grace of God in the soul was the pledge of its coming glory. It is indeed more than the pledge, it is essentially and undeniably a part of the glory itself. Present grace is to future glory what the outline is to the picture, the seed to the flower, the twilight to the day. He who has the smallest degree of grace in his soul has the first beginnings of glory. The question of our final entrance into heaven is not the first which should engage our earliest and most anxious thought. There is another, a more immediate and important one. "Have I the converting grace of God in my heart? Am I born again?" If this question is fairly met and satisfactorily answered--if the Holy Spirit authenticates His own work in the soul, then the ulterior question of our final entrance into glory is forever set at rest, and set at rest in a way which should annihilate every doubt and quell every fear. The believing soul grasping the first and lowest link in the chain--converting grace--gradually ascends from link to link in the process of knowledge, and strength, and holiness, until, touching the last and highest, it finds itself in glory.

The fitness of the two states to the circumstances of the believer is evident. Grace is the believer's portion here; glory is his reward of grace hereafter. The one is an essential element of his present condition; the other of his future condition. Glory in its fullness cannot be realized on earth, seeing that it appertains to a perfect state of being; and grace cannot be exercised in heaven, seeing that it has reference to sin and sorrow in their endless forms, both of which are there utterly and forever unknown. So long as we dwell in this imperfect state of being, we are sustained, sanctified, and comforted by grace; but when we are delivered from the burden of sin, and the soul is divested of its earthly vestments, the mission of grace is done, its work complete, and we are then received up into glory. The two things which will now briefly engage our attention, and thus close the volume, are--Grace and Glory. Both are the gift of God. "The Lord will give grace and glory."

GRACE is one of the most precious and significant terms of the Bible. It tells of God's free and unconditional choice of a people, everlastingly loved. It speaks of His mercy to the miserable, of His pardon to the guilty, of His favor to the lost, of His free and boundless love to poor sinners. Seeing, then, that none are saved but those who are saved by grace--electing, sovereign, free grace--and seeing, also, that all the precious streams of sanctification, peace, joy, and hope flow from this Divine and marvelous Fountain, is it any wonder that from the lowest depths of the soul the believer should sing–
"Grace! 'tis a charming sound,
Harmonious to the ear!
Heaven with the echo shall resound,
And all the earth shall hear?"

"The Lord will give grace." This He does in the first place, by giving Himself, the Infinite and Eternal Fountain of grace. Who gives this grace? It is Jehovah, whose title is, "The God of Grace." He is so essentially. The light which flows from the sun, the water which gushes from the spring, are dependent elements upon a higher and creative power; and yet we may employ these figures to illustrate the spontaneity and freeness of this great blessing--the grace of God. The greatness of God is the greatness of grace. The infinitude of God is the infinitude of love. When Jehovah would portray Himself, is it not as the God of grace? Gaze upon the picture, wonder and admire! "And the Lord passed before him, and proclaimed, The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and GRACIOUS, long-suffering, and abundant in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin," (Exod. 34:6, 7.)

Who could reveal the Divine nature thus but God Himself? Who could tell that He was merciful and gracious to sinners, to the most guilty, to the most vile, to those who had forsaken Him the fountain of living waters, who had rebelled against His government, who had derided His authority, who had sought to annihilate His very being, had He not revealed it himself? And when God would win us to confidence, and encourage our trembling heart to draw near to Him, all guilty as we are, what is the argument which He Himself employs? Oh, so like Himself! "It shall come to pass, when he cries unto me, that I will hear; for I am gracious!"

What a nature is our God's! What a heart is His! The Lord of all grace--all-pardoning, all-accepting, all-sanctifying, all-comforting grace to the ungracious, to the unworthy, to the poor, to the bankrupt, to the vile, the sinful.

See the spring-head of our ELECTION to eternal life! It was grace in eternity which chose us in Christ, and blest us in Him with all spiritual blessings, and, to the praise of the glory of that grace, made us accepted in Jesus Christ the Beloved. In this light I wish you, my reader, to study the character of God. Study Him not in the light of your sins--look not upon Him through the haze of your guilt; but behold Him in the Divine light of His boundless grace--look upon Him through the pure, gracious medium of the Son of His love. It is a delightful and consolatory reflection that no distortions of His character--no misrepresentations of His Word, or blind views of His conduct, consequent upon the guilt of our sin, or the working of our unbelief--can possibly affect His true character, or change the relation He sustains to His people. "Though we believe not, yet He abides faithful; He cannot deny Himself." Approach Him, then, as "the God of all grace." Confess your sins, make known your requests, unveil your sorrows. Cast upon Him all your care--acknowledge Him in all your ways--revere, honor, and glorify His great name, for, "God is able to make all grace abound toward you; that you, always having all sufficiency in all things, may abound to every good work." Marvelous declaration! but not more marvelous than true!

The Lord Jesus, the unspeakable gift of God, is the DEPOSITORY of this grace. It is a treasure too divine and too precious to be placed in other hands--to be confided to the keeping or the administration of any other being than the beloved Son of God. As the God-man Mediator, the Lord Jesus is the Head and Fountain of all grace to His saints. "It pleased the Father that in Him all fullness should dwell." "Full of grace." The first Adam became a bankrupt in grace, and impoverished and ruined his posterity. The Second Adam, the Lord from heaven, is He in whom "dwelt all the FULLNESS of the GODHEAD bodily." His resources, like His being, are infinite--His supplies, like His nature, are inexhaustible. He has been administering this grace from the time of the first transgression until now, and will administer it until there shall no longer exist a vessel to receive out of His fullness.

Will you hesitate, then, saint of God, to sink your emptiness in this fullness--to drink abundantly from this supply--to go to Jesus with every sin, the greatest; with every temptation, the strongest; with every need, the deepest; with every trial, the severest; with your mental despondency, your lowest spiritual frame--yes, exactly as you are--and receive from Christ's boundless grace--grace to help you in the time of need? Hesitate not! Every drop of Christ's fullness of grace is yours! And you have not a sin this grace cannot cancel, not a corruption it cannot subdue--not a trial of faith or patience it cannot sustain--not a cross or burden it cannot enable you to bear.

Yes, the Lord will give grace! He will give us grace for every position in which His providence places us. He will give sustaining grace under every trial He sends us. He will give preserving grace in every path of peril along which He leads us. He will give comforting grace in every afflictive dispensation by which He seeks to promote our holiness here, and so to advance our fitness for glory hereafter. Yes, He gives more grace. There is no stintiness, no limit in the Triune-God. He has given you grace for past exigencies, and He is prepared to give you more grace for present ones. The Lord keeps His people poor, that He might keep them dependent. They shall have no grace in hand, that they might live daily, hourly upon His bounty. It is under the pain and pressure of a present trial we learn the value and preciousness of this grace, and fly to its appropriate and boundless supply, and find in our personal experience the promise fulfilled, "My grace is sufficient for you."

We only add, the Lord will give dying grace. That day, that solemn day so long anticipated, so fearfully dreaded, comes, but with it comes the GRACE that cheers its solemnity, sustains its sinking, strengthens its languor, quells its fear, disarms its dread, and transforms it into a scene of life, of bliss, of glory. You who, all your lifetime in bondage through the fear of death, die a thousand deaths in the anticipation of one, give your gloomy, desponding apprehensions to the winds, and calmly, hopefully wait the appointed hour. With your sickness will come the grace that sanctifies it; with your parting will come the grace that soothes it; with your dying will come the grace that sustains it; with your death will come the grace that disarms its sting, and glorifies God in it. He, who from His infinite fullness gave you grace to live, from the same boundless, exhaustless source will give you grace to die!

And then follows THE GLORY! "The Lord will give grace and glory." If there is any one revealed truth more true than another, it is this, the final GLORIFICATION of all who believe in Jesus. "Whom He justified, them He also GLORIFIED!" The translation of the Christian is out of grace into glory. In the first place, the Lord gives the first-fruits of glory in the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in the renewed soul. First-fruits are specimens and pledges of the harvest. The apostle speaks of the saints of God as having "the FIRST-FRUITS of the Spirit." And Christ our Lord is said, by the same apostle, to have "risen from the dead the FIRST-FRUITS of those who slept." He, then, who has the Spirit of God dwelling in him--and every soul born again has this--binds to his believing heart a sheaf of the first-fruits of heaven. Oh, realize this in your personal experience! Don't you know that if you are a temple of God, the Spirit of God dwells in you? And he in whom the Spirit dwells, by that very indwelling possesses the pledge, the seed, the dawn of future and eternal glory. Heaven opens to your believing eye. Often pause amid the weariness of your heavenward journey, and recline upon the sunny slopes of the Delectable Mountains, and gaze upon the glory so soon to burst in all its fullness and splendor upon your soul.

The Lord gives us FITNESS for glory. It is an impressive thought that each day's history in the life of the believer is a schooling, a training of his soul for heaven. The deeper discovery of indwelling sin, the more experimental teaching of the Holy Spirit, the increase of our intimacy with the Lord Jesus, the discipline of sickness, of sorrow, of trial, all, all is but to mature us for the inheritance reserved in heaven for those who, for that inheritance, are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation.

Oh, accept every stroke of His rod, every lesson of His love, every dispensation of His providence, every gift of His grace, as sent to prepare you for the prepared glory! Let your interpretation be, "This affliction, this rebuke, this event is designed by my Father to promote my personal sanctity, to wean me from creatures, to disengage me from earth, and to set me to seek those things which are above, where Christ sits on the right hand of God, and to terminate in His own undivided and endless glory."

The Lord gives, also, the TITLE to glory. No individual can legally make good his claim to an earthly domain without a valid title. Look well to your title-deed to the inheritance of glory. There is but one--it is the imputed righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ, received by faith, put upon us by the Holy Spirit, and authenticated by a holy and a godly life. This was the panting desire of the apostle, "That I may win Christ, and be found in him, not having my own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith."

Christ's merit is our merit for heaven. Christ's worth is our worthiness for glory. Christ's cross is our ladder to the throne. The groundwork of our glory, then, is the atoning sacrifice of the Lord Jesus--the finished work of Immanuel--the perfect obedience He gave to the law in His life, and the infinite satisfaction He offered to Divine Justice in His death. Invested with the righteousness of Christ--your own righteousness abjured and trampled in the dust--when you pass into eternity, and knock at the gate of glory, it will in a moment open to your touch, and usher you within its untold, its ever-telling, ever-deepening happiness and splendor; and so you shall ascend from grace to glory.

Then comes the GLORY ITSELF! Who can describe it? To stand in the presence of God--to behold Jesus in His glorified form--to be perfectly like Him--to mingle with the goodly fellowship of the apostles, with the noble army of martyrs, and with the spirits of just men made perfect--to be reunited with the saints from whom we parted on the confines of glory--to come again with Jesus when He appears in the clouds of heaven--in a word, to be forever with the Lord in the new heavens and the new earth--oh, this, this is glory indeed! We know but little of heaven in its details. God has given us a grand outline in His Word, and this must suffice for our present limited range of knowledge, and satisfy our present ardent aspirations, until the blissful moment when our personal experience shall put us into possession of the fullness of joy that is in God's presence, and of the pleasures that are at His right hand for evermore. "As for me, I will behold your face in righteousness--I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with your likeness."

From these general statements let me, in conclusion, reiterate a few particulars of the coming glory of the saints. 1. It will bethe glory of perfect HOLINESS.Transporting thought! All remains of sin will be annihilated; and, body and soul pure and sinless as Christ is pure, we shall be arrayed not only in the beauty, but resplendent with the glory of holiness. Oh, how the heart bounds in anticipation of that state!

2. It will be the glory of perfect LOVE. Dwelling in the home of love, standing in the Divine Center of love, and bathing in the crystal sea of love, our love to God and to the Church of God will be perfect. All that tainted and jarred and shaded it here below will be consumed in the conflagration of the last day, and we shall be complete in holy love.

3. It will be the glory of perfect KNOWLEDGE. That which is in part done away, we shall then know even as also we are known. The dark environment through which our intellectual powers now look will then be exchanged for the perfect expansion of all our faculties; and with the vast field of divine knowledge thrown open to our view, the unfettered, unclouded soul will expatiate in a world of study and thought, illimitable in its range, infinite in its resources, and eternal in its duration.

4. It will be the glory of perfect COMPANIONSHIP.The social instincts of our being, developed and sanctified in the highest and noblest degree, will then revel in the goodly fellowship of apostles and prophets, of the nobler army of martyrs, of the spirits of just men made perfect, of the whole assembly and church of the first-born, and an innumerable company of angels, with whom we shall sit down at the banquet of the Lamb. Oh, what a glory will encircle that august and blissful assembly!

5. There will be the glory of REUNION.Even the heathen philosophers cherished dim, vague conceptions of this. Socrates, before he drank his poison, cheered his last moments with the prospect of meeting and conversing with his beloved Orpheus and Homer. But Christianity not only reveals the fact, but unveils the glory of the future condition of the renewed soul. And not the least glory which it flashes upon the believing eye is, the certain, the intelligent, and holy reunion and communion in heaven of all who knew and loved each other in this life, and who died in the assured hope of meeting again forever in the life which is to come.

6. But, transcending all glory will be the glory of BEING FOREVER WITH CHRIST. Whom, not having here seen, we loved; but beholding Him now in beatific vision, how intense will be our affection, and how consummate will be our glory! I marvel if for ages we shall desire to gaze upon any other object than Jesus! It would seem as though He would fill the entire orbit of our admiration, love, and bliss--the all-glorious, all-absorbing, all-satisfying One. Bending upon each saint a smile of ineffable complacency and love, how will He welcome each to glory as the precious fruit of His soul-travail, introduce each one to the Father, and enfold all within His loving and capacious bosom! Oh! is not this prospect worth living to gain, and worth dying to possess? Until then, let us seek to have more heavenliness, and to live more entirely for heaven. Looking and longing for the glorious appearing of the Lord, be it our aim to deny all ungodliness and worldly lusts, and to live godly, righteously, and soberly in this present world; that, at Christ's coming, we may be found of Him in peace, without spot and blameless.

"For the Lord God is a sun and shield--the Lord will give grace and glory--no good thing will he withhold from those who walk uprightly." Psalm 84:11

"Death comes to take me where I long to be;
One pang, and brighter blooms the immortal flower.
Death comes to lead me from mortality,
To lands which know not one unhappy hour;
I have a hope, a faith--from sorrow here
I'm led by death away--why should I start or fear?

"A change from woe to joy--from earth to heaven--
Death gives me this--it leads me calmly where
The smile that long ago from mine were riven
May meet again! Death answers many a prayer.
Bright day, shine on! be glad--days brighter far
Are stretched before my eyes than those of mortals are!

"Death comes, but with it comes the Lord of death,
The Christ who gave His life a sacrifice for me;
And I with joy will yield my parting breath,
Wrapped in the splendor of the home I then shall see–
And thus from GRACE to GLORY I shall go,
Have passed from earth, with all its scenes of weariness and woe."

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Our God

Table of Contents

THE GOD OF LOVE

THE GOD OF HOPE

THE GOD OF PATIENCE

THE GOD OF COMFORT

THE GOD OF BETHEL

THE GOD OF GRACE

THE GOD OF HOLINESS

THE GOD OF PEACE

THE GOD OF LIGHT

THIS GOD IS OUR GOD

THE GOD OF LOVE

"For this God is OUR GOD for ever and ever; he will be our guide even to the end." Psalm 48:14

PREFACE.

It was a characteristic remark of Luther that, he loved the personal pronouns of Scripture. This may be termed the holy egotism of the Bible; and it recognizes and teaches an important truth- the believer's personal appropriation to himself of the doctrines, precepts, and promises of God's Word. If "all things are ours," then, it is the province of faith to lay its hand upon the great charter- the sufficiency of Jehovah, the fullness of Christ, the provisions of the covenant, the blessings of the Gospel, and the promises of God- claiming and appropriating all as its own. The Bible is replete with these personal pronouns. "My beloved is mine, and I am His." "Christ loved me, and gave Himself for me." "I am Yours." "I live." "I am not behind the very chief apostle." "By the grace of God, I am what I am."

To endeavor to raise the believer to this elevated and proper standard, in his personal religion is the design of these pages. Losing sight of all non-essentially religious differences and ecclesiastical distinctions, and recognizing all who possess like precious faith, as constituting 'One Body in Christ,' essentially and individually one, it aims to cluster all around the Mercy Seat, sealing upon the lips of all the declaration of the sacred Brotherhood- "This God is OUR GOD forever and ever." Should this object, in a single case, be promoted, these pages will not have been written in vain. To neutralize the doubts, dissipate the fears, and confirm the faith of a single believer in Christ, thus aiding him to place his foot upon another and higher round in heaven's ladder, is a work worthy of a life.

We but imperfectly realize the greatness of God's love to His people, their preciousness to the heart of Jesus, and how incessantly they are the objects of the Spirit's care and comfort. Viewed in this threefold light, may not the writer hope that his cup of cold water, offered to the saints in name of, and because dear to, Christ, will be acceptable to the disciple, be approved of by the Master, and be abundant also of many thanksgivings unto God? To the triune God shall be the praise!

THE GOD OF LOVE

"God is love." John 4:16

In commencing a series of studies designed to unfold some of the perfections of "Our God," as they are revealed in the Bible and are embodied in Christ, we begin with what may be regarded the central one of all- the perfection of LOVE- around which, in the salvation of men, all the others cluster, and with which they harmoniously and resplendently blend. If one perfection of God shines out in redemption with greater effulgence than any other, it is this. Love is the focus of all the rest, the golden thread which draws and binds them all together in holy and beautiful cohesion. Love was the moving, controlling attribute in God's great expedient of saving sinners. Justice may have demanded it, holiness may have required it, wisdom may have planned it, and power may have executed it, but love originated the whole, and was the moving cause in the heart of God; so that the salvation of the sinner is not so much a manifestation of the justice, or holiness, or wisdom, or power of God, as it is a display of His love.

Had not God's love resolved to save man, all His other perfections must have been employed and displayed in destroying man. Love set its heart upon man, yearned to save man, and resolved to embark in the expedient of his salvation; and this it did by conceiving a plan which should harmonize all the other attributes of His nature, and engage them in the divine and wondrous work of redeeming mercy. It is not, therefore, without reason and design that we make the love of God the concentric truth from which we start.

The character of God, as the God of love, is but imperfectly apprehended, even by those who are the especial objects of His regard. There are but few saints of God who study His character, and read His dispensations, in the light of this wondrous perfection of His nature. They are awed by His greatness, impressed with His holiness, tremble at His power; but how few are subdued and drawn to Him by His love! They do not, for the most part, conceive that loving view of His character, and cherish those kindly thoughts of His mercy, as would disarm their minds of the terror of the slave, and fill their hearts with the affection of the child. And yet a believing apprehension of God's loving and lovable character, of the great love with which He loves His saints, lies at the root of all holy, filial, and unreserved obedience.

As there is no such commanding, controlling, all-constraining power as that of love, so, in proportion to the deep view we have of the love of God to us in Christ Jesus, will be the quickened response it awakens of confiding love in our hearts, and of obedient love in our lives. May the present unfolding of God, as the "God of love," dissipate those cold, distrustful, and dishonoring views and feelings of His character and government which we have too deeply cherished; enabling us to read and understand, in a new and clearer light, the divine and wondrous declaration upon which our meditation is founded- "God is love."

You have thought of Him, perhaps, as the God of holiness, as the God of justice, as the God of power, as the God of judgment; come now and meditate upon Him as the God of love; and while you thus muse on this marvelous and soul-subduing truth, may the fire of a responsive affection kindle in your heart, and your tongue break forth into thanksgiving and praise.

God is essentially the God of love. The words which suggest our present meditation emphatically declare this: "God is love." This is, perhaps, the most sublime sentence of the Bible. It is a sentence which only could arise from a divine mind. It is at once simple and grand, intelligible and affecting. It involves a truth in which an angel's mind might expatiate, and which a child's can grasp. It reaches to the highest, and descends to the lowest intellect. That the abstract term love, and not the concrete term loving, should be employed, expresses something beyond the ordinary meaning of the word. And what is the truth thus embodied? Just the one we are now attempting to vindicate- that God is essential love. Love is not so much an attribute of God as it is His very essence. It is not so much a moral perfection of His being as it is His being itself. He would not be God were He not love. To deny that He is love would be to deny that He is God. To unrobe Him of this essential quality of His nature would be tantamount to the unrobing Him of His essential Godhead. He would not be God were He not love!

As I have remarked, this is the central perfection, around which, as satellites, all the others revolve, and from which, as harmonized in the salvation of man, they derive their position and luster. Thus, for example omnipotence is the power of love; omniscience is the eye of love; omnipresence is the atmosphere of love; holiness is the purity of love; justice is the fire of love; and thus might we travel the circle of the Divine perfections, and each one would be found to be but another form of the essential perfection of love.

In the words, "God is love," we have a perfect portrait of the eternal and incomprehensible Jehovah, drawn by His own unerring hand. "The mode of expression here adopted differs materially from that usually employed by the inspired writers in speaking of the Divine perfections. They say, God is merciful, God is just, God is holy; but never do they say, God is mercy, God is justice, God is holiness. In this instance, on the contrary, the apostle, instead of saying, God is loving, or good, or kind, says 'God is love,' love itself. By this expression, we must understand that God is all pure, unmixed love, and that the other moral perfections are so many modifications of this love. Thus, His justice, His mercy, His truth, His faithfulness, are but so many different names of His love or goodness. As the light which proceeds from the sun may easily be separated into many different colors, so the holy love of God, which is the light and glory of His nature, may be separated into a variety of moral attributes and perfections. But, though separated, they are still love. His whole nature and essence is love. His will, His works, His words, are love; He is nothing, and can do nothing but love." (Payson)

Love is so completely the essence of God, that it shines out in every perfection of His nature, and is exhibited in every act of His administration. He is nothing, and can do nothing foreign to Himself; consequently He is nothing, and can do nothing in which His love is not an essential quality. All the streams of a fountain must partake essentially of the source from where they rise. All the rays of light, whatever their prismatic hues, must partake essentially, of the sun from where they flow. And were not God's perfections thus modified and softened by love- were they not led on by this commanding perfection of His nature, each one, and all combined, would be terribly against us. His wisdom would baffle, His power would crush us, His holiness would terrify us, His justice would condemn us, and His truth would stand by, pledged to the stern and utmost fulfillment of their terrible and righteous display.

Now, God is essential love. He is not only loving, but He is love; is not only good, but goodness. All others are loving and good, not of themselves, but by derivation. The essence of all creatures is good, because God made them so, and so pronounced everything which He made; but they are not essentially good, else they could not change their nature and become bad. God is love, from Himself, and not from another; He is absolutely, independently love. His love is not a quality or accident of His being, imported into His essence– something foreign to Himself; it is His essence itself. If we admit His eternity- and we cannot rationally deny it; we must admit, that love is the eternal, necessary, and independent essence of His being. Creatures are lovable and loving, but God is love. Every creature must necessarily derive its love, and its capacity of loving, from God. But God derives His love, and His power of loving, from no other being but Himself.

Here let us pause, in deep adoration of a truth so vast yet so intelligible, so glorious yet so precious. In coming to a God of absolute love- that love flowing to us through the cross of Christ- we feel we are coming to One whose love can cover over all our sin, misery, and unworthiness, meeting our utmost need, without diminishing a hair's breadth of its boundless sufficiency. It is a great comfort to faith thus to deal with Him who is essential love, no fear haunting the mind as to the sufficiency of the supply. I may fear that the river may dry out, but not the ocean that feeds it; that the beam may vanish, but not the sun that emits it- because their resources are within themselves, independent, and inexhaustible. And thus, when we come to God through Christ, as to a Father whose nature and whose name is "love," we are assured that, whatever other sources of power and sympathy fail, God will never disappoint us, but, accepting our draft upon His all-sufficiency, will honor it to its utmost demand.

This suggests another and a kindred view of God as the God of love. His love is INFINITE in its degree. We have just seen that God and love are sacred synonyms, divinely and essentially the same. His love, therefore, must partake of the infinitude of His being. It is a serious defect in the religion of many that their faith deals too faintly with the infinity of God. This leads to a limiting of the Holy One of Israel. Finite beings ourselves, all our ideas and conceptions of God's greatness are bounded by the finite. This 'restricting of Jehovah' dwarfs our personal Christianity, and robs Him of His divine glory. But God is infinite, and therefore His love to us is boundless and fathomless. This view of His infinite greatness is not to paralyze, but to strengthen our faith; not to repel, but attract us. The very IMMENSITY of God is one of our greatest encouragements to approach Him. If David made the greatness of his sin a plea with God for its pardon- "For Your name's sake, O Lord, pardon my iniquity, for it is great" – surely we may plead the greatness of God's love when we ask anything at His hand.

And although in thus coming to His infinity, we may appear like a child dipping its tiny shell into the depth of the ocean thinking to exhaust it, nevertheless, small though may be the vessel with which we draw, we must feel that nothing less than infinite love can meet the deep need and satiate the intense yearnings of our soul. In proportion as the Holy Spirit leads us to see the depths of our sinfulness, poverty, and nothingness, we shall learn that nothing less than a God of infinite love, grace, and sufficiency could meet our case.

Approach, then, this love, my reader, with the full persuasion of its infinite measurement. It can fill the large vessel as well as the small, and the small vessel as well as the large, to its utmost capacity. It can flood over all the ruggedness and barrenness of your nature, its sweetly flowing waves filling the shallows and veiling the chafings of life's daily conflict with sin and sorrow. Let not the greatness of your transgressions appall you; let not the deep needs of your soul discourage you; let not the turpitude of your guilt dismay you; let not the intensity of your grief overwhelm you. You deal with a God whose love is infinite, and can infinitely more than reach the farthest extent of your need. Come with your great and your minor sins; come with your deep and your shallow needs; come to His infinite ocean of love, in which the elephant may swim, and which the lamb may wade.

Before we reach the different illustrations of God's character as the God of love, we may remark that, LOVE IS THE CENTRAL ELEMENT OF HIS GOVERNMENT. In human governments it is not so, and in this exists a marked difference between God's government and man's. God's government begins where man's government ends- in mercy. Man works from the central attribute of justice; God from the central attribute of love. Before He draws His hand from His bosom, and whets His glittering sword of justice to punish, that bosom would seem to devise all schemes of mercy, and to employ all means of kindness, that, if possible, mercy might rejoice over judgment.

Sinner! thus has the God of love been dealing with you! Long has He dealt with you in the way of mercy and forbearance. Judgment has lingered. There has been the "hiding of His power." His mercy has restrained His wrath. And but for this, hell must have been your present abode. And still you sin, still you fight against God. Still you despise His Son, reject His grace, scorn His salvation, and rush heedlessly, madly upon the thick bosses of His buckler. "Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil."

But there is a limit even to Divine forbearance and infinite mercy. When God, so to speak, has exhausted all means of kindness and love, justice steps in and executes His righteous vengeance and wrath. Mercy gives place to judgment, and the sinner is righteously and eternally condemned. What do you say then, sinner, to this love? Has it interested, instructed, won you? Presume not upon its patience and continuance. Throw down the weapons of your rebellion, and submit to the government of God. Repent and believe. Cast yourself in contrition at His feet, and embrace in faith the scepter of His grace, extended in the Person and work of His beloved Son, Jesus Christ. That scepter will not always be outstretched, neither will it always be the scepter of grace. God is a God of justice as well as of love; a God that takes vengeance; as well as a God that shows mercy. Listen to His awful words: "When I sharpen my flashing sword and begin to carry out justice, I will bring vengeance on my enemies and repay those who hate me." Oh! "it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God!" "Our God is a consuming fire."

Do not make light of eternal punishment. Do not think it a small thing to fall under the vengeance of a holy, just, and gracious God. Mercy is fearful when it turns to wrath! love is consuming when it turns to anger! There is no wrath like "the wrath of the Lamb!" With hell flashing in your face- with the "wrath to come,"- wrath, forever and ever to come- preparing for its dread and endless outpouring- with the certain prospect before you of the undying worm of conscience, and the unquenchable flame of bodily and soul suffering- why, oh! why will you die? Is sin so sweet, the world so attractive, the creature so satisfying, that for it you are willing to imperil your everlasting happiness, to barter your soul? Conceive, oh! conceive, if possible, what it is to dwell in everlasting burning, to lie down in eternal fire! Spirit of the living God! awaken the sleeping sinner, quicken the dead soul! Cause men everywhere to realize, in some degree, what a fearful, what an appalling, indescribable thing it is to be lost forever!

Oh, what a mercy that you are not already in hell, and that there is a door open to you into heaven! That door is Christ. "I Am the Door." Cease striving to enter heaven by the door of your good works and religious duties; by the merits and intercessions of men, of saints, or angels. There is but one door into heaven- faith in the Savior, who died for sinners on the cross, and whose blood and righteousness supply all the merit God requires, or man can bring. Jesus came to save sinners- saves them now, saves them to the uttermost, saves there freely and forever. Why not you?

The remaining pages of this chapter will be devoted to THE DIFFERENT MODES BY WHICH GOD HAS MANIFESTED AND REVEALED HIS LOVE TO MAN.

All NATURE is a tracing of the God of love; dim, it is true, marred by the fall, and tainted by sin, yet sufficiently vivid and palpable to indicate, if not that God is love, yet that God does love. He must be an atheist of the deepest dye who can gaze upon the worlds above and the earth beneath, and see no trace of Divine goodness, no evidence of the fact that God loves man. If creation demonstrates the being of God- if the things that are made clearly evidence His eternal power and Godhead, so that men are left without excuse who deny His being- then every star that glows, and every flower that blooms, and every gem that sparkles, and every spring that murmurs, is an evidence that He who made all for man, loves man with the love of infinite benevolence.

It is true, nature reveals not the moral character of God, nor answers the great question, "What must I do to be saved?" Yet it testifies that God is, and that God is good; and from the hyssop on the wall, to the lofty cedar in Lebanon; from the atom dancing in the sunbeam, to the Alp piercing the clouds; it summons man to fall down and worship Him whose goodness is reflected in all His works.

PROVIDENCE, too, is an unfolding of the God of love. What is providence but the Divine goodness molding and tinting, shaping and directing, all the affairs of the children of men? And that man's life must needs be a blank in which no trace of God's love is found- nothing in his creation, preservation, and all the blessings of this life- nothing in the changes through which he has past, of prosperity and adversity, of sunshine and shade- nothing in the hand which so strangely guided his steps, mapped his path, overruling and directing all the events and affairs of daily life, educing good from evil, transmuting misfortunes into blessings, extracting sweet from the bitter, which tells that God is good, that God is love.

Truly in all this the goodness of God is visible. My reader, look only into the book of providence- that providence as it is seen in your personal and daily history- and see if there exists no trace of the God of love in it all. Thus all nature, and all providence, whether it is the sunbeam that smiles, or the tempest which darkens, testifies that God is, and that God is love.

"There's nothing bright above; below,
From flowers that bloom, to stars that glow,
But in its light my soul can see
Some feature of Your Deity.
"There's nothing dark below, above,
But in its gloom I trace Your love;
And meekly wait the moment when
Your touch shall turn all bright again,"

But not in creation nor in providence do we find so clear and emphatic a manifestation of the God of love, as in the "GLORIOUS GOSPEL of the blessed God." The Gospel is all that man, as a sinner on his way to eternity, needs. It meets all the inquiries and yearnings of His soul. It supplies an answer to the most momentous inquiry that human lips ever asked– "How shall man be just with God?" And it supplies a solution to the most solemn and profound problem of God's moral government- "How shall God be just, and yet justify the ungodly?"

Where, then, but in the "Gospel of the grace of God " can the sin-burdened soul find an answer to its earnest, anxious inquiry- "What must I do to be saved?" Oh! what a marvelous unfolding of the love of God to man is the proclamation which the Gospel makes of the pardon of sin- of the justification of the sinner- of the adoption into God's family of him who was an enemy- all founded upon the one atonement, the perfect sacrifice, the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ!

In the great catalogue of blessings a God of love has given you, place at the very beginning His glorious Gospel. Truly, it is a joyful sound, good news, glad tidings. Not with a melody so entrancing, nor with announcements so thrilling did the trump of jubilee in the fiftieth year echo through the camp of Israel, proclaiming its glorious amnesty, as does the good news which the Gospel brings of sin forgiven, of the great debt paid, of deliverance from the captivity of sin and Satan, of an inheritance lost but regained, of peace with God through Christ that passes all understanding, and all by free grace and through simply believing. Oh! thank God for the Gospel! Prize it above your choicest blessing.

Pitch your earthly tent close by its ever-flowing, life-giving, life-sustaining streams. Devote your substance, consecrate your powers, and employ your time and influence in maintaining and propagating this joyful sound of a full, free, and present salvation to poor, lost, self destroyed souls. "Blessed are the people who know the joyful sound." Seek to be enrolled among their number. Whatever else you seek to know, seek, above all, to know and understand the Gospel of the grace of God. Become its lowly student, its earnest inquirer, its humble believer, its devout and holy liver. Count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus the Lord. In the solemn, the tremendous hour of death- that hour of hours when all other knowledge will prove of no avail- the Gospel of Christ will stand by you, and with the salvation which it will then unfold, the consolation it will then impart, the love of God it will then reveal, and the hopes it will then inspire, will invest the closing scene of life with dignity and repose; and light up the valley down which you pass with a radiance that shall deepen in its effulgence until lost amid the splendor and the purity of eternal day!

But the great manifestation of the love of God yet remains to be considered- Gods love as embodied and expressed in THE PERSON AND WORK OF THE LORD JESUS CHRIST. How emphatic are the terms in which this great truth is recorded. Listen to Jesus Himself– "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life." Listen to His apostle; "God showed how much he loved us by sending his only Son into the world so that we might have eternal life through him. This is real love. It is not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to take away our sins."

How corrective these declarations are of an erroneous view of God's love which some have entertained- that is, that the coming of Jesus as the Savior was to procure, rather than to manifest; to inspire, rather than to reveal; God's love to man. In other words, that Christ died to redeem us, and therefore God loves us- that He originated rather than expressed the love that filled the bosom of Jehovah. What a dishonoring misapprehension is this! What a libel on the character of God as the God of love!

But take the converse of this idea and you have the correct interpretation of God's love- that is, Christ died for us, because God loved us; in other words, the atonement of Christ was not the cause, but the consequence; not the origin, but the manifestation; of the great love with which God loved us.

Who can ever fully spell that marvelous monosyllable, "so"? "God so loved us." Who can fathom the immensity of the love compressed within its wondrous, boundless meaning? Our ennobled and perfected faculties will be the only suitable instrument- heaven the scene- and eternity the limit of its study.

Behold how great and resplendent the love of God appears AS MANIFESTED IN JESUS! It would have been impossible- reverently we speak it- to have transcended this manifestation of love. He then must have eclipsed Himself. It is no ideal and exaggerated expression. His love was so divine, He alone could know it; so hidden, He alone could reveal it; so vast, He alone could express it; and so precious, no costlier gift could embody it than His own co-equal, co-eternal, and beloved Son. Herein is love, and only here! In all other things, as we have remarked, we infer that God does love, here, in the person and work of Jesus, we learn that God is love. All other manifestations of His love are shadows. Christ is the full-orbed Sun, pouring down in subdued and softened rays an infinite tide of light, life, and beauty around a sinful and rebellious empire.

"God so loved the world"- with a love of benevolence, and so loved the Church with a love of redemption, that He gave His only- begotten Son. By the love of benevolence, the world is kept from instant destruction; and by the love of redemption, His elect Church is taken out of the world, saved, and glorified.

Now, it is just in this light God would have His people study His character and read His heart as the God of love. This is the only mirror which truly and perfectly reflects, as with focal and resplendent power, the marvelous truth that, "God is love." It is only in Christ we read His sin-forgiving love. "Where is another God like you, who pardons the sins of the survivors among his people? You cannot stay angry with your people forever, because you delight in showing mercy."

It is love, O believer! that has forgiven you all your great debt, has blotted out your transgressions as a thick cloud, that has cast all your sins behind His back, and will remember them no more forever, because He is love. My soul! measure this great love by the greatness, the number, and the enormity of your sins, and then exclaim, "Oh! the depth and immensity of that love, that could flood over and bury forever sins red as crimson, transgressions countless as the sands!"

God's love is a SOUL JUSTIFYING love. It throws a robe of righteousness around the believing soul, which presents it before Him, the holy Lord God, unblemished, and unreproveable in His sight. Oh! wondrous love, that provides, imputes, and invests the soul with a righteousness so divine, as discharges it from the court of divine justice, the indictment quashed, the conviction reversed, the sinner fully and forever delivered from condemnation, and all through the "righteousness of God, which is by faith in Jesus Christ, unto all and upon all those who believe." "There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ , Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit."

The love of God is ADOPTING love. It makes us His children, who once were rebels; His friends, who once were foes. By an imminent act of His electing and sovereign grace, it has taken us into His family, makes us heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ, teaching us to approach Him in prayer, crying, Abba, Father! "Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God." What more shall we say? It is a love that will not cease- nor ceasing then- until it has brought its home to Himself in heaven, having enabled us to glorify Him here, permitting us to enjoy Him fully, and forever, hereafter.

We have yet to trace the love of God IN HIS DEALINGS WITH HIS PEOPLE. The path along which our heavenly Father is conducting us homeward, is a chequered and a varied path. It is paved with stones- precious stones- of many shapes and hues. But faith reads it all, and gratitude accepts it all, as resolved into God's eternal and unchangeable love. There can be nothing but love in the conduct of Him- mysterious and painful though that conduct may be- who laid our sins, and curse, and condemnation on His beloved Son, wounding, bruising, and putting Him to grief and to death for us. In this light, then, we are to read all His dealings with us, whether they be of judgment or of mercy. Is it judgment? Is the discipline of God with you a discipline of trial, of sorrow, of suffering? Still is He the God of love, and from His love all this discipline of trial springs; and love will control the furnace, and temper the flames, and conduct the whole to so salutary and holy a result as will cause the desert to ring, and heaven to resound with the music of your thanksgiving and praise. "Those whom the Lord loves, He chastens, and scourges every son whom He receives." "As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten."

In the holy light, then, of His love, read and interpret every cloud that shades you, every dispensation that afflicts you, every sorrow that wrings your heart with anguish. Is your song of mercy? Then love has dropped the veil it wore, and stands before you in its own undisguised and unmingled tenderness and power, challenging your warmest acknowledgment and your loftiest praise. Thus God's love shapes and guides the whole scene. It traces all, and blends with all His doings. It sweetens the bitter dispensation, and makes the sweet one sweeter. It brightens the dark cloud, and makes the bright one brighter. It may be a hard lesson for faith to learn, a bold acknowledgment for grace to make, a startling inference for love to draw that, all God's trying, wounding, disappointing dispensations towards His people, is the result of His everlasting love; nevertheless, it is so.

He is the God of love, and He cannot change. He who smiles today, and who frowns tomorrow- who kisses now, and smites us then- is the same tender, faithful Father, whose love knows no change, and whose faithfulness never fails. And when the sorrow is past, and the storm subsides, and in calmer moments we review all the way that He has led us, to what conclusion can we come but that, through it all, true to His nature and faithful to His promises, He was the God of love?

And now we see that love planted that thorn-hedge; that love crushed that fond hope; that love stirred up that soft nest; that love blighted that sweet flower; and that love alone permitted you to take that step which involved you in such perplexity, and plunged you into such grief. Thus, out of the ravenous eater comes food, and from the fiery furnace, silver so pure and gold so refined.

"My soul, your gold is true, but full of dross;
Your Savior's breath refines you with some loss;
His gentle furnace makes you pure as true;
You must be melted before you are cast anew."

One more view of this subject; and this shall be a practical and sanctifying one. God so loves us, as to make love the great controlling motive power of our religious life. "love is the fulfillment of the law." "If you love Me, keep My commandments." Such is the teaching of His Word. The religion we receive from Christ is the religion of love, and the religious life to which it is to give birth in us is to be a life of love to God, securing our obedience, enlisting our service, and constraining us, by the mercies of God, to yield our bodies living sacrifices; thus teaching and strengthening us to "deny all ungodliness and worldly lusts, and to live godly, righteously, and soberly in this present evil world."

In proportion to our EXPERIENCE of the love of God in our souls, it will become a motive power in our lives. The outward holy life of a believer is the result of an inward principle of love to God. "The love of Christ constrains us." For this cause the apostle breathed that precious prayer in behalf of the Thessalonian saints: "The Lord direct your hearts into the love of God." Standing as upon the shore of this boundless, fathomless ocean, he prays that the Lord, the Spirit, might lead their hearts into its infinite depths. What a needed and holy prayer! What a vast and precious blessing! Their hearts were sinful, and sad, and weary; guilt tainted them, bereavement shaded them, conflict and service exhausted them; and now, just as their heart was, the apostle prays that it might be led into the sanctifying, soothing, life-refreshing love of God.

Into this ocean of divine love, my reader, let your heart, just as it is, plunge. Repair, with all its sin, and sorrow, and weariness, to no other purifying, comforting source, but to the shoreless, soundless sea of the love of God in Christ Jesus. Oh descend, in simple, child-like faith, into its depths, and lose yourself amid its boundless infinitude! The love of God thus filling and overflowing your heart, all will be well. Winter will bloom into spring, and spring will blush into summer, and summer will ripen into the golden fruit of autumn. Oh, how the love of God changes the aspect of everything! Afflictions are then seen to be 'disguised blessings'; trials, proofs of Divine faithfulness; clouds, chariots paved with love, and penciled with light, in which the Savior comes to us.

God, revealing His glory and His grace in Christ Jesus to your soul, will bring you into the sweetest acquiescence with all His will, and cause you to go forth, and by the sacred, all-powerful influence of a holy life- silent, luminous, and penetrating as light- proclaim to every object, rational and irrational, that "God is love," that God loves You, and that you love God! Blessed Savior!

"I'd carve Your passion on the bark;
And every wounded tree
Shall droop, and bear some mystic mark
That Jesus died for me."
"The suitors shall wonder when they read,
Inscribed on all the grove,
That Heaven itself came down and bled,
To win a mortal's love."

Go forth and BE LOVING, even as your Father in heaven is loving. Let your heart be as large in its creature capacity as God's heart is in its divine. If He has a large heart for you, beware of a small heart for your fellows. If His heart is open, see that your heart is not closed. And since He departs at no sinfulness or ingratitude, at no injury or unworthiness on the part of the recipient of His goodness, be an imitator of God. "Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good." God has so dealt with you, overcoming and winning your evil heart with the goodness and love of His own. Go and do likewise towards all who have injured you, wounded you, and despitefully used you, and so shall you be perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect. Live for God, and act towards others as one who, in a little while, will flee from a world of sin, infirmity, and strife- from all its taintings, woundings, and misunderstandings, and find yourself playing upon the surface, and plunging into the depths of the ocean of love which flows and sparkles beneath and around the throne of God and the Lamb.

O Lord Jesus Christ, if a little taste of Your love here below, as it flows through the channels of Your sacred word and ordinances, is so sweet, what will the full draught be above!

When shall this happy day of rescue be!
When I shall make a near approach to Thee,
Be lost in love, and wrapped in ecstasy?
Oh, when shall I behold You, all serene,
Without this envious, cloudy veil between?
'Tis true, the sacred elements impart
Your virtual presence to my faithful heart,
But to my sense still unrevealed You art.
This, though a great, is an imperfect bliss;
To see a shadow for the God I wish.
My soul a more exalted pitch would fly,
And view You in the heights of majesty."

"But God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners." Romans 5:8

THE GOD OF HOPE.

"May THE GOD OF HOPE fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit." Romans 15:13

From a meditation upon God as the God of love, we pass, by an easy transition of thought, to a meditation upon God as the God of Hope. These two titles are beautifully harmonious. Where there is divine love to man, there is divine hope for man. God's love assures me that I may hope in Him for everything that love can give, for all that belongs to Him is mine. Once assured that I have a home in His heart, I feel that I may repose in every perfection of His nature. What good may we not expect from Him who is love, and who has demonstrated that love in the transcendently great and precious gift of his son? If He has so loved us, what else will not such love bestow of present blessing, and of future good? We have but to know, by the witness of the Spirit, our present standing in Christ, thus to be brought into the experience of present peace, joy, and hope; and to be equally assured that, far away beyond the region of sin and sorrow, there awaits us a heaven where faith is turned into sight, hope is lost in fruition, and love bathes the soul in its boundless sea of bliss.

The present title of God, the "God of hope," is peculiarly expressive and endearing to the believing mind. His title as the God of love, has especially to do with our present. His title, as the "God of hope," has to do with our future life. The first, assures us of a salvation now- a present pardon, a present acceptance, a present adoption; the other, leads our thoughts onward and upward, and paints its rainbow-tints upon our solemn and eternal future, assuring us of a certain and full salvation to come. As the God of love, I dwell forever in His heart; as the God of hope, I shall dwell forever in His heaven. Let us proceed to examine the import of this remarkable title of God, and then the blessings flowing therefrom, as invoked by the prayer of the apostle; "May THE GOD OF HOPE fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit."

God is the God of essential hope- that is, hope in Him is an inherent element, a part of His essence. He is Hope itself. Of no other being can this be affirmed. The hope that springs up in the soul of all other intelligences, human or angelic, is a communicated thing, a passion extraneous from themselves. It is a beam flowing from God, as a ray of light from the sun, as a jet of water from the fountain. But hope in God, is as part of His nature-it is God Himself; He would not be God were He not the "God of hope." Hope, in Him, is a duality which no vicissitude can change, no cloud shade, no object eclipse. Thus, from God all intelligent beings receive the inspiration of their hope. A few particulars will illustrate this.

God is the Author of NATURAL hope. He has mercifully constituted man the creature of hope. What a wise provision, what a beneficent bestowment is this! What sustains man amid the toils, the troubles, and disappointments of the present life? It is hope. What quickens his intellectual powers, makes in him the spirit of enterprise, impels him onward in the accomplishment of great purposes, sustaining him amid toils the most exhausting, soothing him in trials the most severe, and bearing him up beneath reverses and disappointments the most crushing and bitter?

It is hope. The pole-star of hope fixing his eye, what labor will he not undergo, what sufferings will he not endure, to what privations will he not submit? Extinguish hope in the human heart, and you have enthroned grim despair, like a demon of darkness, upon the soul. Life has lost its sweetness, the creature its attraction, the world its charm, and all the future of the soul is shrouded in midnight gloom.

Hope, in man has been variously defined. Divines have discoursed of its nature, orators have declaimed of its influence, poets have chanted its pleasures, and even artists have symbolized its beauty. It has been described as the oxygen of the soul, as the last ray the cloud obscures, as the lighthouse pouring its golden beams over life's ocean, as the firstborn offspring of reason. It is at once man's kindest friend and his greatest foe. It keeps him from sinking in the bosom of the waves, and yet often allures him on to depths in which there is no standing, and to rocks from which there is no rescue; and so, by its promises and its flattery, plunges its too confiding victim into irremediable ruin and despair.

And yet, natural hope is God's kind and beneficent gift to man. It sits perched on the warrior's crest, it illumines the captive's cell, it lightens the slave's chain, it sustains the spirit of the exile, it strengthens the couch of languor, soothes the bed of suffering, and lulls to balmy repose the subject of mental disquietude and bodily disease. The hope of success in toil, of deliverance in difficulty, of return from exile, of recovery from sickness; in a word, the hope of realizing some future good, imparts its inspiration to man, feeds the lamp that cheers him onward, tints with prophetic ray the clouds and shadows that drape life's tomorrow.

"What is hope? The beauteous sun
Which colors all it shines upon.
The beacon of life's dreary sea,
The star of immortality.
Fountain of feeling, young and warm;
A day-beam bursting through the storm.
A tone of melody, whose lute
Is, oh! too sweet for earth!
A blossom of that radiant tree,
Whose fruit the angels only see.
A beauty and a charm, whose power
Is seen, enjoyed, confessed each hour.
A portion of the world to come,
When earth and ocean meet-
the last overwhelming doom."

And yet how insensible is the unrenewed man of his obligation to God, even for the natural hope with which He has inspired him! In the folly of his atheistic outcry, "there is no God," he pauses not to reflect upon the misery into which he would instantly plunge were God to extinguish this merciful inspiration within his heart. "Oh that man would praise the Lord for His goodness, and for His wonderful works to the children of men."

My reader, are your circumstances trying? are your resources lessening? are clouds gathering? and do you find yourself tempted to succumb to despondency and despair? There is hope for you in God! All other sources and gleams of hope may have expired, but God is the "God of hope," and in His power and love, in His word and faithfulness, you may hope, even against hope. Take heart, then, and look up. Never yield to despair while there is hope in God. If things look discouraging, and prospects are gloomy, there is one Being to whose providence you may always turn with the full assurance of hope, that in His divine love and infinite resources, you will find compassion, support, and help.

Job reminds us that, "men see not the bright light that is in the cloud;" seeing it not, they succumb to despair. There is no pure, unmixed evil in our history. God's judgments are tempered with mercy. There is always, through His goodness and love, a precious pearl in sorrow's cup; and when that cup has been drank, and its bitterness is past, we shall find it undissolved, all the purer and more precious by the sanctified dealings of Him who, as a refiner and purifier of silver, purifies His people as gold and silver are purified, that they may offer unto the Lord an offering in righteousness.

Thus there are always some softening, mitigating circumstances in our deepest, sorest trials, something that tells of God's love and speaks of future hope. Oh, it is not all night with those who love God, nor even with those who do not love Him. When the sun sets, the moon rises; and when the moon is hidden, the stars shine out; so that, if earth is dark, heaven is light, and the night is all the more glorious for the very splendor which the darkness reveals.

Thus far we have spoken chiefly of natural hope in man, for which he is indebted to the power and goodness of God. But God is the Author of a higher, more spiritual, and immortal hope than this– the good hope, through grace, of eternal life, in and through the Lord Jesus Christ, and made known to us by His gospel. It is in this sense the apostle, in the passage upon which this chapter is based, speaks of God as the God of hope. We can know nothing of God as the God of hope but as He is made known to us in Christ. Out of Christ, there is no hope of salvation for man in God. Man lost all hope in himself when he sinned, and all hope in God when, for that sin, he was driven out of paradise, to he henceforth a fugitive and wanderer on the face of the earth, dark despair enthroned upon his brow. But, even before his expulsion from Eden, hope- the hope of salvation- trembled upon the dark cloud which shrouded that paradise of purity and bliss, in gloom. "From now on, you and the woman will be enemies, and your offspring and her offspring will be enemies. He will crush your head, and you will strike his heel." Here the first promise of a Savior, the first dawn of hope for sinners. This promise Goal fulfilled, and this hope mall realized when "God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life."

When the Lord Jesus, the Sun of Righteousness, made His advent into our world, the sun of hope rose with Him. The hope of salvation which faintly dawned in paradise, which shone brighter and brighter through the Mosaic, Patriarchal, and Prophetic dispensations, now burst upon mankind in meridian splendor. Christ had come, the long-promised Savior, and now, upon those who had sat in the region and shadow of death, a great light had risen– the light of life, the hope of salvation, the glory of God's forgiving love, in the face of Jesus Christ. Thus, there is not one ray of hope in God for a lost sinner outside of Christ.

He is, indeed, the God of hope, an infinite ocean of hope, boundless, fathomless, but it flows to the sinner only through one channel, it darts its beams only through one medium- Jesus the Savior, Christ the crucified One. Not a ray of hope emanates from His mercy, or from His goodness, or from His love, or from His power, but as it shines through the darkness and the suffering of the cross, in upon the soul prostrate in penitence and faith at its foot. With what fullness and glory does the atoning work of Christ appear, when seen in this light, as revealing the God of hope to sinners, who, tremblingly expected, and justly deserved, nothing but eternal despair. Let us now show more explicitly in what sense God is the God of hope to those who truly and humbly believe in the Lord Jesus Christ.

There is the hope of JUSTIFICATION in God through Christ. The Scriptures of truth set forth the obedience of Christ to the law, as constituting the righteousness of God unto all and upon all those who believe. Thus, "by the obedience of One many were made righteous." "Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believes" -mark, the end of the law." He traveled in His obedience to the end of all its precepts, to the end of all its commands, and to the end of all its curse. As a condemning law, as a justifying law, as a life-giving law, Christ, by His personal and full obedience, traveling to its utmost limit of requirement, made an end of it; as such, He abolished it; and he who believes in Christ; accepting in faith, Christ's righteousness as his justification before God, fully answers the end for which the law was given.

Thus, the meaning of the apostle evidently is, that Christ was the termination of the law, its scope, its fulfilling and accomplishment, "for righteousness to every one that believes." And now there is the hope of justification with God through Christ the Lord, our righteousness. Christ's obedience to the law has made it righteous on the part of God to justify the ungodly. It is now His supreme delight, as it is His sole prerogative, legally and justly, without any violence to His government, or shadow upon His character, to acquit, no, to justify the sinner who believes in Jesus.

Christ has made it so honorable, yes, righteous, on the part of God to reveal Himself as the God of hope to the guilty and condemned, that it is written, as with a sunbeam, upon the inspired page, "It is God who justifies!" What a glorious hope then, is this! The hope of a righteous and full acquittal from present and eternal condemnation, through the imputed righteousness of Christ. This hope have all the saints; for all who believe in Him are justified from all things from which they could not be justified by the law of Moses.

My reader, this hope may be yours. If, seeing you renounce the worthlessness of your own righteousness, you are led to enfold yourself by faith in the all-justifying righteousness of the Savior, then you pass from the dreary region of condemnation into the sunshine of a present, free, and changeless justification before God. With the advent of this hope of acceptance in your soul; will be a "peace passing all understanding," and a "joy unspeakable and full of glory." Rest not lentil you attain it. One believing look at Christ, and the shadows of guilt and condemnation which drape your soul, will dissolve into the bright dawn of a hope that Christ has espoused your cause, has become your Surety, has paid your debt, and that you pass out of the court of God's justice not only acquitted, but justified; not merely without blame, but "unblameable and unreproveable in His sight." Oh, how divine, perfect, and glorious must be the righteousness of Christ, which can thus so fully and freely justify such vile, guilty sinners, as we! "Therefore, since we have been made right in God's sight by faith, we have peace with God because of what Jesus Christ our Lord has done for us."

There is also the FORGIVENESS OF SIN in God through Christ. The forgiveness of sin is one of the divinest and most kingly prerogatives of God. To pardon with perfect satisfaction to divine justice; to forgive sins of the greatest number, and guilt of the grossest turpitude, without a stain upon the holiness of His character, or a shadow upon the glory of His name, was a problem in the administration of His moral government, the solution of which He alone was able to supply.

The gift of His co-equal and co-eternal Son, to die an atoning death, to offer Himself as a sacrificial victim to divine justice, fully met the otherwise insurmountable difficulties of the case. What in this matter was impossible with man, was possible with God. The entire scheme of human redemption is, in every part, impressed with the finger of God. If any expedient ever bore the visible and exclusive stamp of God's mind, it is this. Who but Jehovah could have devised a plan of salvation that would involve not the slightest compromise of the Divine glory? The more a spiritual, reflecting mind studies the whole economy of redemption, the more profound will be the conviction that a Divine heart alone could have conceived, and a Divine mind alone could have planned, and a Divine power alone could have executed, the scheme that saves fallen man. But how precious is the hope of pardon of which God in Christ is the Author and the Giver! No truth illumines the pages of inspiration with greater brightness than this– "There is forgiveness with You, that You may be feared." "Who is a God like You, that pardons iniquity, and passes by the transgressions of the remnant of His heritage?" "You are a God ready to pardon."

Since Jesus has shed His most precious blood, it is now glorious on the part of God to dart a ray of the hope of pardoned sin into the darkest, vilest heart that ever wept, and sobbed, and confessed at His feet. Approach, O sin-distressed, guilt-burdened one! there is the hope of forgiveness for you in God. He delights in mercy. And since He can forgive all your transgressions for Christ's sake, and be glorious in the eyes of angels and of saints in so doing, do you think that he will spurn you from His throne of grace, if you but acknowledge your transgressions, with the hand of faith resting upon the head of Christ, the sin-atoning lamb of God?

How real and effectual, then, must be the sacrificial work of Jesus, thus to have unsealed a spring of Hope in God for guilty men! Who will question the vicarious nature of His sufferings, the atoning design of His death, contemplating it in this convincing light? In no other way can the holy Lord God, consistently with His righteousness, reveal Himself to sinners as the God of hope. All other hope is a fallacy. All hope in the abstract mercy of God, or in the fancied meritoriousness of man, is a false and vain hope, which must inevitably and irretrievably plunge its subject into shame and everlasting contempt. Your hope, then, my reader, lies in your taking hold of Christ the eternal life of your soul. Not a ray gleams forth from any other source but the cross of Christ. Here there is hope for the vilest wretch, the chief of sinners, but only here! The dark shadow of despair is lost amid the effulgence of hope which bathes in unclouded sunshine the cross of Calvary. All who stand beneath the divine bow which spans this sacred hill, may uplift their eyes to God as their reconciled Father, and to heaven as their future and eternal home, with a full-orbed and unclouded hope. This suggests another thought.

God is the divine author of THE HOPE THAT IS IN THE SAINTS, and thus emphatically He is the "God of hope." We are told by the apostle, in that magnificent and precious schedule of spiritual blessings, the eighth chapter of the Epistle to the Romans, to be "saved by hope." Each believer has "Christ in him, the hope of glory." And the indwelling of the Spirit is the pledge and earnest of its certain and full realization. Oh, what a mercy to have within us, "a good hope through grace" of eternal life! A hope well grounded, firmly fixed, immovably anchored on Christ. It is the hope of a penitent sinner, who sees nothing to hope in within himself but a fallen nature, a soul smitten with the leprosy of sin, a heart deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked. But more than this.

It is the hope of a believing sinner that sees in the person of Christ a Divine, gracious, all-sufficient Savior, and in the work of Christ a salvation finished, full, and free; having come to Christ in child-like belief, nothing questioning, nothing demurring, by a personal act of faith in a personal Savior. How real and precious is now the hope of glory in the soul, which, like the sun in its orbit, is fixed there, the center and the fount of life, light, and joy.

Beloved reader, if you are the possessor of this hope; if your soul rejoices in its purifying, elevating, heart-soothing influence; render all praise, thanksgiving, and obedience to Him who, as the God of hope, has planted this blessed hope within your soul as a sun that will never set.

Now the apostle breathes a prayer on behalf of those who have Christ in them, the hope of glory; "May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that you may abound in hope, through the power of the Holy Spirit."

The first blessing is "all joy"- that is, all true joy. There is a species of religious joy that is spurious; and there are carnal joys which are but the prelude and the preface to endless sorrow. "The joy of the hypocrite shall perish;" "The joy of the hypocrite is but for a moment." Solemn words, heart-searching declaration! The joy that springs from the mere excitement of a stirring appeal, or a glowing picture of heaven, or impassioned description of religious experience, the flights of fancy, or the delusions of a morbidly-distempered mind, is but as the crackling of thorns under a pot– blazing noisily for a moment, and then expiring in midnight darkness. But the apostle prays that the saints may be filled with the "joy of the Lord, which is their strength." The joy of pardoned sin, the joy that springs from Christ, the joy of reconciliation with God, the joy the Holy Spirit imparts, and which, like living water, springs up in the soul into eternal life. "All joy,"– that is, all filial, believing, sanctifying, hopeful joy– joy even in tribulation and sorrow, in suffering and loss, for Christ's sake.

"Peace in believing," is another blessing which flows from the God of hope, and for which the apostle prays. Peace, divine peace, assured peace, peace which passes all understanding, is a Christian attainment of the highest order, and within the experience of all believers. It flows from friendship with God, is the fruit of acceptance in Christ, is the result of the application to the conscience of the peace-procuring, peace-speaking blood of Christ. This peace flows not through the channel of doing, or enduring, or meriting, but is emphatically "peace in believing." These two features belong to it; it comes from Christ, and through faith. "He is our peace." And as faith, pure, simple faith, travels empty-handed to Christ's blood for pardon, to Christ's righteousness for acceptance, to Christ's Spirit for sanctification, to Christ's heart for sympathy, to Christ's fullness for supplies of grace, strength, and comfort; peace, in silvery streams and flowing like a river, will diffuse a divine serenity and repose throughout the whole soul.

The last blessing flowing from the God of hope is, our "ABOUNDING IN HOPE through the power of the Holy Spirit." The infinite fullness of hope in God, and manifested through Christ Jesus, justifies and encourages the believer's enlarged measure of this faith. The hope of too many Christians is but limited, beclouded, and uncertain. They hope in God through Christ, it is true; but they have not the full assurance of hope. Now, it is our precious privilege to live in the constant and free exercise of this grace and although there may be much in us to question and becloud it, though our iniquities prevail, and our backslidings abound, and our infirmities and trials are many. Yet, trusting in the all-sufficiency of our God, and in the infinite fullness of Christ, our hope of present good and of future bliss may much more abound, through the power of the Holy Spirit.

So divine and holy a grace is the grace of hope- by no human power kindled, and by no human power kept alive- there is no limit to its experience. A thousand times over it had perished, had man inspired and dad man guarded it. Hope, in the Christian, is a divine grace, and divinity keeps it; it is heavenly, and its nourishment comes from heaven, And that self-same Spirit who quickened us into spiritual life, who enkindled in the saint the first spark of hope, now enables us to abound in this grace to our own comfort and peace, and to the praise and glory of His divine name. Oh, then, let us not be satisfied with a little measure of this grace, content with a bare hope that we are saved; but let us beseech the Holy Spirit to cause this grace of hope to abound in us, and that our souls may abound in it,
to the "full assurance of hope to the end," unshaded by a doubt, unruffled by a fear.

God is an infinite sea of hope; the finished work of Jesus lays the basis of the strongest hope; and the Holy Spirit dwelling in the heart, is the pledge and first-fruits of a hope that shall grow large and shine brighter as it nears its full and eternal consummation. If we desire to "abound in hope," we must abound in faith. Just in the same proportion to our believing, looking to Christ, our growing in a knowledge of Christ, living upon the fullness of Christ, will be the measure and luster of our hope in Him. If, for example, we look down into a dark well, we see the image of the sun but dimly reflected from its shaded surface; but uplifting our eyes to the blue heavens, we see the sun as it is, in its full-orbed glory, and we exclaim, "Surely the light is sweet, and a pleasant thing it is for the eyes to behold the sun."

Thus, if we look down into the deep, dark recesses of our own hearts, we see the image of Christ but imperfectly reflected, if reflected at all, from our partially renewed and sanctified nature, and doubts and fears assail us; but if we look out of, and off from, our sinful selves, directly to Christ, we shall have such an unclouded view of His glory and fullness, His sufficiency and love to receive and save us just as we are, as will fill us with joy unspeakable and full of glory, and thus our souls will abound in hope, through the Holy Spirit taking of the things of Christ and showing them unto us.

So important is this view of our subject, I venture to repeat the thought that, the measure of our simple, direct faith in Christ, will be the measure of our abounding in hope of eternal life. Not a ray of hope springs from within or from without ourselves, in anything that we are, or in anything that we do, or endure. The toil of a slave, the obedience of a serf, or the death of a martyr, would avail us nothing as to the reality of the hope that we were saved. But, one believing direct look at Jesus will neutralize every doubt, dissipate every cloud, and quell every fear concerning the fact of our salvation; and the blessed hope of being forever with the Lord will shed its sunshine through our whole being. Oh, then, earnestly, importunately pray for this abounding in hope, and rest not until you have attained to its richest experience.

To this I would add, for the encouragement and comfort of any of my readers, be thankful to God for the least measure of hope in your soul. It is not the degree, but the reality, not the vividness, but the existence of hope within you, that constitutes your assurance and comfort. One grain of real gold, is of more worth than thousands of the counterfeit and the false. One ray of a good hope through grace, beaming down from the cross of Christ into your heart, is worth more than world on world, and infinitely outweighs the value, and outshines the splendor, of the most costly religion and the most gorgeous ritual man ever devised. Despise not, then, your humble hope in Christ. Has your heart caught a beam? Hold it fast, cherish it, nourish it, guard it, by living constantly upon the Savior, from where that sunbeam came. "Behold, the eye of the Lord is upon those who fear Him, upon those who hope in His mercy." "Be of good courage, and He shall strengthen your heart, all you that hope in the Lord."

Abandon not, then, your feeble, humble hope in Christ, for millions of worlds. Hold it fast, though, like the tide, it may ebb and flow, and, like the sun, be sometimes hidden behind a passing cloud. That hope in Christ, faint and fluctuating though it may be, will never expire. The sun shall cease to shine, and the moon shall withdraw her light; the heavens shall pass away, and all things created shall be dissolved, but the hope enkindled in your regenerate soul by the "God of hope," and resting upon Christ, who is our hope, and kept alive by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, though it be like a spark, tossed amid the ocean, shall never die; but, guarded by the power of God, the intercession of Christ, the grace of the indwelling Spirit, and bound up with the immutable promise of Jehovah, it will be lost only in the full fruition of eternal glory.

The hope of the believer in Christ is a SANCTIFYING hope. It must necessarily be so. The fountain of it is the holy God of hope, the foundation of it is a holy Savior, and the author of it is the Holy Spirit. Thus the apostle argues- "Every man that has this hope purifies himself, even as He is pure." Just as the beams of the sun travel to a stagnant stream, not to partake of its exhalations, but to cleanse its impurities, so the hope that shines from God in Christ into the soul, blends not with its moral corruptions, but exerts a purifying, sanctifying influence, molding the heart into its own divine beauty and holy nature. Oh, then, if we have this hope in us, however humble and faint it may be, let us aim after purity of heart and holiness of life, that before long we may "see God" in glory!

Strong is the consolation in circumstances of difficulty, trial, and hopelessness which flows from faith in God as the God of hope. Our condition, at times and under some circumstances, may appear entirely hopeless to our view. Not one ray of hope may illumine the darkness, or cheer the desolateness of our position. Nevertheless, there is hope in God. When all other hope, and hope in all other sources fails us- we may turn to God in prayer, and faith, and hope, and find in Him all that we need. "Why are you cast down, O my soul? and why are you disquieted within me?- hope in God; for I shall yet praise Him, who is the health of my countenance, and my God."

Never give up hope in God! Everything may look dark, and threatening, and hopeless; needs may press, and difficulties may interpose, and impossibilities may present themselves in your case; nevertheless, cling in prayer, and faith, and hope, to the "God of hope,'' and your hope in Him, through Christ, however slender and dim, shall not make you ashamed. Hope on, like Abraham, "who against hope believed in hope," and who "staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief, but was strong in faith, giving glory to God," and you shall be brought, like him, safely and triumphantly through all your trials, difficulties, and needs. Oh for more faith in God as the God of hope! With Him nothing is too hard; with Him all things are possible. In Him all resources of wisdom and power, of riches and love, dwell.

And in order to bring you into a closer and more experimental acquaintance and communion with His character as the "God of hope," He may write the sentence of death and despair upon everything, and upon every being but Himself. How solemn the exhortation bearing upon this; "Don't put your confidence in powerful people; there is no help for you there. When their breathing stops, they return to the earth, and in a moment all their plans come to an end. But happy are those who have the God of Israel as their helper, whose hope is in the Lord their God."

The subject is a heart-searching one. It supplies a motive to close self-examination. There is nothing in which self-deception is more involved, no grace which may be more easily or is more universally counterfeited, than hope. No marvel that David so fervently prayed, "Let me not be ashamed of my hope." No wonder that many religious professors, when they approach the hour of death, are led to exclaim, in all the terrors of despair, "Where is now my hope?" Let us, then, look well to the foundation and character of our hope. If it is only the hope of the worldling, or the hope of the formalist, or the hope of the hypocrite, or the hope of the professor, it is a vain and spurious hope, and the sooner we abandon it and fly to Christ, and take hold of Him, the Hope of eternal life, the better will it prove for our everlasting well-being.

Oh, let your hope be only in God, revealed to you in the Son of His love; and built on nothing else but Christ crucified. Accept no authentication of its genuineness, save the witness of the Spirit with your spirit. If you feel the plague of sin in your heart, and see the worthlessness of your own righteousness, and run unto Christ, hide in Him as in a cleft of the Rock, then lift up your head with joy, and "hope to the end for the grace that is to be brought unto you at the revelation of Jesus Christ."

We must not forget the HOPE OF THE COVENANT, which our God of hope has graciously given us. This hope has, in all ages of the Church and experiences of the Christian, been as a sheet-anchor to the soul. When times have been trying, and providences have been dark, and the truth has been assailed, and men of God have trembled for the ark tossing amid the waves, what a cable of strength, what an anchor of hope, has the covenant of grace been to the believing mind! David found it so. "It is my family God has chosen! Yes, he has made an everlasting covenant with me. His agreement is eternal, final, sealed. He will constantly look after my safety and success. This covenant of grace stands by us amid the vicissitudes and changes of this ever-changing scene. When creature props break, on which we too confidingly leaned; when human hopes fade, which we too warmly cherished; when earthly friends depart, to whom we too fondly clung; when the sky is lowering, and the morn is dark, and the shadow of death, and the damps of the grave drape our poor, smitten, lonely hearts, oh then, this well-ordered and most sure covenant throws its bright rainbow upon the clouds, smiling down upon us in its many-tinted hues of peace, joy, and hope, bidding us trust in the faithfulness and love of our covenant God.

There are times when the most matured saint of God may pass through A MOMENTARY OBSCURATION OF HIS HOPE. Bodily disease may induce mental despondency, this, in its turn, may cause spiritual darkness, and this, again, give rise to soul-conflict; and thus the "good hope through grace," which "God, who cannot lie," has given to all His children, may for the moment be obscured. Be it so. Does this imply that your hope is forever lost? By no means. Is the anchor of the vessel lost, or the sun in the heavens extinguished, because it is invisible? Neither is the hope of the believer lost when some intervening object, such as guilt on the conscience, unbelief in the heart, or despondency of mind, throws it, for a moment, in partial, or even total, eclipse. Desponding saint of God, your interest in Christ, and your hope of heaven, are not lost because the sensible realization, and the happy enjoyment of it, are for a while suspended! The anchor may not be visible, but it still holds the vessel, and she will ride peacefully and safely through the storm, fastened to that anchor. You have nothing to fear; your soul is in Christ's keeping, not yours; your hope is not fastened on things below, but on things above, where Christ sits at the right hand of God.

How calculated is this subject to soothe the grief, and to mitigate the bitterness, of parting in death with those for whom we "sorrow not as others who have no hope!" Oh yes! we have hope in their death. They lived in hope- they departed in hope- their flesh rests in hope of a glorious resurrection; and we sorrow not over a hopeless grave. They are with Christ. Absent from the body, they are present with the Lord. Their faith may have been feeble, their joy, limited, their hope humble- nevertheless, looking only to Jesus, resting solely on Christ, it is our comfort to know that it was not the strength of their faith, nor the depth of their joy, nor the vividness of their hope, that saved them– but, "Jesus only." And now they are with Him. Oh, how holy, how blissful, how glorious! They conflict no more with sin, are assailed no more by temptations, are beclouded no more with doubt and fear– they sorrow, mourn, and weep no more! And soon we shall be with them, and all of us forever with the Lord.

THE GOD OF PATIENCE

"The God of Patience." Romans 15:5.

There is no study of "our God" which more impressively presents to our view the Infinity of His nature than the study of His perfections; and among those perfections there is not one which, perhaps, more strikingly illustrates that Infinity than His patience. It is impossible to contemplate the fact of God's patience with this fallen world, from the moment of man's transgression until the present, and not be profoundly inspired with the truth– what but an Infinite Being could have borne with this revolted, ungodly race until now? The patience of all the created beings in heaven combined would long since have been exhausted had it been left to deal with sinful man. Such is the subject of these pages. Whether we view it in relation to the divine glory, or in its bearings upon the Church and the world, it is impossible, under the guidance of the Spirit of truth, to study the patience of God without deep instruction. Let us, in the further consideration of this subject, speak of the nature of God's patience, its objects, and the holy lessons it teaches.

THE NATURE OF GOD'S PATIENCE
The wide difference between the grace of patience in the Christian and the perfection of Patience in God will at once appear to the spiritual and reflective mind. In the Christian, patience is an implanted grace, wrought in the soul by the Holy Spirit, trained and exercised in the school of suffering and sorrow. But in God, patience is an essential attribute of His being, a part of His nature, yes, a part of Himself, so perfect that it needs no discipline for its culture. As with the divine perfection of love and of Hope, unfolded in the preceding chapters of this work, God could not be and cease to be the God of patience. If He could disrobe Himself of one perfection of His nature, He could of all; and what were this but to suppose it possible that he could undeify Himself? We are again reminded that, in all our dealings with God we deal with Infinity. The Lord's people too frequently forget this. Would there be the limiting of God, the circumscribing of His power, patience, and love, did we more continually remember that, in coming to God in prayer, in looking to God for help, our faith has to deal with the Infinite, and therefore with the illimitable and the fathomless?

The sin of limiting the Holy One of Israel is one of the most God-dishonoring chargeable upon the believer. And yet, alas! How constant its commission! Is there a difficulty, a trial, or a need, in dealing with which we detect not the working of this evil within us- the tendency to compress the infinite within the finite, to circumscribe the boundless, to limit the Illimitable One?

But what is the Patience of God? It is the power of God over Himself. God's patience with man is only surpassed by His patience with Himself. "The Lord is slow to anger," and then it follows, "and great in power." What is the inference we draw from these sublime words of the prophet but that, God's patience towards His creatures is His power over Himself? It is, in the strong language of inspiration, "the hiding of His power." But for the infinite restraint God puts upon Himself, this fallen world could not exist a moment. Mercy withholds judgment, goodness restrains justice, patience curbs power, and thus the patience of God is the salvation of man. "He that rules his spirit is better than he that takes a city." God's slowness of anger, His patience towards man, is the ruling of himself. That prince of Puritan writers, Charnock, thus puts it- "He that can restrain his anger is stronger than the Caesars and Alexanders of the world, that have filled the earth with their slain carcasses and ruined cities. By the same reason God's slowness to anger is a greater argument of His power than the creating a world or the power of dissolving it by a word; in this He has a dominion over creatures, in the other over Himself. This is the reason he will not return to destroy; because 'I am God, and not man.' 'I am not so weak and impotent as man, who cannot restrain his anger.'

This is a strength possessed only by a God, wherein a creature is no more able to parallel Him than in any other; so that He may be said to be the Lord of Himself, as it is in the verse, that He is 'the Lord of anger.' The end why God is patient is to show His power. "What if God, willing to show His wrath, and to make His power known, endures with much patience the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction" to show His wrath upon sinners, and His power over Himself, in bearing such indignities and forbearing punishment so long upon men, mere vessels of wrath fitted for destruction, of whom there was no hope of amendment? Had He immediately broken in pieces these vessels, His power had not so eminently appeared as it has done in tolerating them so long, that had provoked Him to take them off so often.

There is, indeed, the power of His anger and the power of His patience; and this power is more seen in His patience than in His wrath. It is no wonder that He who is above all is able to crush all; but it is a wonder that He that is provoked by all does not upon the first provocation rid His hands of all. This is the reason why He did bear such a weight of provocation from vessels of wrath, prepared for Him, that He might show what He was able to do, the lordship and royalty He had over Himself. The power of God is more manifest in His patience to a multitude of sinners than it could be in creating millions of worlds out of nothing; this was a power over Himself."

Let it not, however, be inferred that, by thus representing the other divine perfections as yielding to that of patience, we are in any measure superseding their place or even compromising their dignity. For instance, there is no negation of His truthfulness in the exercise of His patience. In the threatenings of God there may be a delay in execution- patience restraining- and yet sooner or later God will vindicate His truthfulness by executing the threatening. God very rarely appoints the time when His judgments shall be displayed. He is therefore left free to send them when He chooses, without in the slightest degree compromising His veracity. In due time the judgment comes, though long delayed- patience intercepting it with its gentle and merciful restraint, and thus delaying its immediate and dire execution. When God, as in the case of Adam, said, "In the day you eat thereof you shall surely die," and in the case of Nineveh, "Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be destroyed," seems to fix a time for the outpouring of His judgment, it is generally accompanied with a condition upon the performance of which the execution of the sentence depends. Adam did not actually die the very day that he ate the forbidden fruit; nor was Nineveh destroyed at the end of the forty days fixed by God, because in both cases the patience of God waited for the accomplishment of the great ends He had in view in arresting the immediate execution of the threat.

Neither is the equity of God impeached by the exercise of His patience. The justice of God shall never know a cloud. He must cease to be God, if he cease to be just. The exercise, therefore, of His patience in no degree lessens His righteousness. He may "pass sentence against an evil work," and yet not "execute it speedily" the infliction of punishment thus giving place to the restraint of patience, and yet remain a holy and a righteous Lord God. Would it argue the condoning of a fault on the part of a parent because, in the exercise of parental leniency, he did not immediately administer the punishment? Or, would it involve an impeachment of the justice of the sovereign if, in the exercise of the mercy of the crown, the criminal were not immediately hurried from the bar to the gibbet? And shall God be regarded as less holy or less just, if, in the exercise of His marvelous patience, he spares the guilty sinner, giving space for repentance? Oh, no! To a superficial eye He may seem to overlook wickedness because the sentence against it is not speedily executed; and the wicked man, presuming upon the arrest of judgment, may harden himself in his wickedness; nevertheless, God hates the sin though He bears long with the sinner, and sooner or later the wrath that has been thus long 'treasuring up against the day of wrath' will overtake and overwhelm the ungodly.

God's character should be seen and admired and reverenced by men as a whole. Were God's judgment instantly to follow a crime, were punishment immediately to light upon a sin, there would be the hiding of His patience, which is an emanation of His goodness, and nothing would be seen but holiness in the awful display of justice. No, more. We believe that the exercise of divine patience is a wonderful balance to the greater luster of all the other divine perfections. When divine patience is, as it were, exhausted, and when holiness is vindicated and justice is displayed in the righteous and fearful doom of the sinner, the spotless purity of the one and the perfect equity of the other will shine forth with augmented luster in the eyes of all intelligent beings. The holiness of God will appear more holy, and the justice of God more just, when the flood-gates of His wrath, long closed, are opened, and His fiery justice, long pent up, is let loose, and the wicked are 'driven away in their wickedness.' Then from every lip will ascend the exclamation, "You are righteous, O Lord, in that you have judged thus!"

We have thus shown that the patience of God is not a blind, unintelligent perfection, displayed at the expense of the related attributes of Jehovah; that, although it precede, it does not supersede, still less destroy them, but rather renders their manifestation the more palpable and their glory the more resplendent.

Such is the character of God as reflected by the single perfection of patience. And oh! how gracious and glorious does it appear! What a bright beam of mercy is patience! What a pure, sweet, and engaging emanation of goodness is patience! It is purely a truth of His own revelation. Had He not so revealed it, man, in the blindness which the fall has created, would have never discovered it. Listen to His declaration! "The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, patient, and abundant in goodness and truth" The patience of God seems like a central link in this golden chain of attributes. Mercy could have no room to act if patience did not prepare the way, and His truth and goodness in the promise of the Redeemer would not have been made manifest to the world if He had shot His arrows as soon as men committed these sins and deserved His punishment.

This perfection is expressed by other phrases; as, keeping silence; "These things have you done, and I kept silence." This signifies to behave one's self as a deaf and dumb man. "I did not fly in your face, as some do, with a great voice or for a light provocation, as if their life, honor, and estates were at stake. I did not presently call you to the bar, and pronounce judicial sentence upon you according to the law, but demeaned myself as if had been ignorant of your crimes, and had not been invested with the power of judging you for them. In the Chaldee, 'I waited for your conversion.' God's patience is the silence of His justice, and the first whisper of His mercy." (Charnock)

Here let us consider, admire, and love! What a God is our God! When we remember how holy He is, "of purer eyes than to look upon iniquity;" when we remember how powerful He is, "He looks upon the hills and they tremble;" and when we remember how just He is, "a God without iniquity, just and right is He," "and will by no means clear the guilty;" and then contemplate His infinite patience with sinners and with sin, bearing long with the one and keeping silence as to the other, oh! what a God is our God! Sinner! this is the God whose great patience you are trying to the utmost by your persistent sinfulness and impenitence, your determined unbelief and rebellion. Truly is this patience His dominion over Himself.

What an unfolding have we here of the goodness and mercy of God! of His character as a God delighting in mercy, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance! Sinner! "Do you despise the riches of His goodness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that the goodness of God leads you to repentance?" Oh that this truth might dissolve your heart, disarm your rebellion, and lay you at His feet subdued, conquered, won; henceforth to throw down your weapons and array beneath the all-constraining, all-victorious banner of His love- His disciple, His follower forever!

But we have yet to contemplate the patience of God in its clearest, its truest light. I refer to the Lord Jesus Christ as the foundation on which it rests, and the channel through which it flows. There could be no manifestation of the divine goodness, mercy, or patience, but for the work and death of Christ. All God's perfections, outside of Christ, are united in their hatred of sin, and are pledged to punish the sinner. This must necessarily be so. If not harmonized in the administration of love, they must be united in the administration of justice. Had a Savior been provided for angels, then the great patience of God had been extended to them who "kept not their first estate;" but seeing that no such merciful provision was made for them, the moment they sinned they were hurled from the heights of glory into the abyss of woe, and are "reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day."

But the moment man sinned, Christ saved man. When Adam fell, divine patience was instantly extended to the fallen sinner, and an arrest of judgment put in, Christ throwing Himself in the breach, exclaiming, "To my account let the sin be charged; upon me let the penalty fall; from me let the payment be exacted. I am the sinner's Substitute; and if I must be arrested, and bound, and slain, let these elect souls on whose behalf I have from eternity covenanted to die, and have pledged myself to save, go their way." Thus Christ, our Days-man, interposed for our relief, "giving Himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet- smelling savor." On no other ground than that of the Son of God engaging, in the eternal purposes of Jehovah, and actually in the fullness of time taking our nature, could God's infinite patience and pardoning grace be extended to man.

In the everlasting covenant, He bound Himself to honor the law by His obedience, and to satisfy justice by His death, and so make it righteous and honorable in God to hold out His hand of patience all the day long to a sinful and gainsaying race. Finding in the person of Christ a divine dignity equal to the claims of His moral government, in His obedience a full honoring of the law, and in His sufferings and death a full satisfaction to justice, God could stand upon the Mount, and, while the thunder of His power rolled, and the lightning of His justice flashed, exclaim, "The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, long-suffering, and abundant in goodness and truth,"- and thus it became righteous and honorable in God, to hold out His hand all the day long to a sinful and gainsaying race. It was on the ground of this covenant engagement that God could appear upon Mount Sinai, and amid those awful emblems of His majesty, declare Himself "The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, long-suffering, and abundant in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity, transgressions, and sins."

Let those who reject the idea of God's everlasting love, and who ignore the covenant of grace, reflect upon these words. Let them pause and inquire, Had not Christ from eternity interposed as the Mediator anti Redeemer of men, upon what other grounds could God, amid these solemn displays of His holiness and power, have proclaimed Himself to sinners as a God "patient and abundant in goodness and truth?" If, under the law, God could so reveal Himself, how much is His patience heightened under the Gospel? Glorious as thus was Mount Sinai, it had no glory by reason of the glory that excelled on Mount Calvary, where the patience of God to sinful man culminated to its highest pitch of grandeur and glory.

Thus reasons the Apostle when arguing the superiority of the Gospel to the Legal dispensation- "That old system of law etched in stone led to death, yet it began with such glory that the people of Israel could not bear to look at Moses' face. For his face shone with the glory of God, even though the brightness was already fading away. Shouldn't we expect far greater glory when the Holy Spirit is giving life? If the old covenant, which brings condemnation, was glorious, how much more glorious is the new covenant, which makes us right with God! In fact, that first glory was not glorious at all compared with the overwhelming glory of the new covenant. So if the old covenant, which has been set aside, was full of glory, then the new covenant, which remains forever, has far greater glory."

If, then, the patience of our God was so manifest and glorious amid the dim shadows of the Legal dispensation, how much more real and glorious does it appear in the full blaze of the Gospel dispensation, and as exercised amid the sublime and impressive scenes of Calvary! In a word, if for the sake of the sacrifice of a lamb, or a goat, or a heifer, God would bear, in much patience, with men's sin and rebellion, how much more honorable and fitting on His part to extend to sinners His patience on the ground of Christ's only and complete sacrifice!

This explains the world-wide indirect influence of Christ's Atonement. That Atonement has a particular reference to the elect Church of God; but, since it was necessary that the world should be kept in existence- a wicked, ungodly, mutinous world though it is- in order that God might take out of it His chosen people, the indirect effect of the sacrifice of Christ is, as to enable God to "bear with much patience the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction!"

Oh, the marvelous blessings that flow from the death of Christ! Oh, the variety of precious fruit that grows upon the cross of Calvary! So marvelous, so strange and unheard of a thing was it that, the incarnate God, the Maker of all worlds, the Creator of all beings, should die, it would seem impossible that there should be a spot in the universe, or a being on the globe, to whom the far-reaching influence of Christ's death should not extend in some of its countless effects, direct or indirect, either of saving mercy, or of restraining and sparing power. In this sense the Divine Merchantman "purchased the field"- the world- for the sake of the "pearl"- the Church- " hidden in that field." And so, the patience of God in sparing the world, for the sake of the Church He intended to take out of it, is an indirect result of the Savior's suffering and death upon the cross. Thus, in the strong language of the Apostle, He is described as "the Savior of all men, especially of those who believe."

For this reason God spared the old world while the ark was preparing. Long and patiently He bore with it, its wickedness crying mightily to heaven for judgment. But the framework of the ark cast a benign and restraining shadow upon the ungodly race. And so long as the vessel was building, the wicked ante-diluvians dwelt peacefully and securely beneath its shade. It was the indirect merciful influence of the ark that spared them so long from instant and utter destruction. But when the ark was complete, and the family for whom it was built were safe beneath its roof, and God had shut them in, the fountains of the great deep were broken up, and the flood came and swept them all away.

So God bears with much patience a wicked world now. The shallow of the cross preserves it! but, when the purposes of mercy according to the election of grace, are accomplished, and the mystery of God shall be finished, divine patience will give place to divine wrath, and He will thoroughly purge His floor, and gather His wheat into His garner; but He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire. The ark afloat- the church saved- the purposes of God accomplished- the divine patience, that for so many centuries bore with our ungodly world, will cease; and divine justice, long restrained, will blot it from the universe, superseding it by "a new heaven and a new earth, in which will dwell righteousness."

But if such are the indirect blessings from the death of Christ- the chief of which is God's unwearied patience with the wicked; what must be the greatness and preciousness of the blessings directly and immediately resulting to the Church of God! As a believer in the Lord Jesus, you have a personal and inalienable interest in a present salvation and in a future glory, all flowing from His atoning death. The death of Christ places you, if a believer, in the position of a sinner saved now. Yours is a present salvation, a present pardon, a present justification, a present adoption. But how few realize this to be their standing! How few walk in the happy enjoyment of it as those whose sins are forgiven, whose souls are accepted, whose persons are adopted!

How few, in the language of the prophet, "possess these possessions." But the word of God fully justifies this view of a present salvation. Listen to its language. "I write unto you, little children, because ,our sins are forgiven for His name's sake " Observe, it is a present forgiveness! " To the praise of the glory of His grace, wherein He has made us accepted in the Beloved." Observe, it is a present acceptance! "Beloved, now are we the sons of God" Mark, it is a present adoption! "There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus " Notice, it is a present acquittal! Such is the authority upon which we earnestly urge you to realize your present standing in Christ.

Let it not be with you a future question. If you are a slave emancipated, a criminal acquitted, a sinner pardoned, an alien adopted, a wanderer reclaimed, then realize it, and let your whole life, amid all its trials and sorrows and battles, be as a sweet and pleasant psalm of praise and thanksgiving to the God of patience who bore with you so long, to the Savior of sinners whose grace called you at last, and to the Spirit of holiness who, by His work of progressive sanctification, is gradually fitting you for the inheritance of the saints in light.

But who are the OBJECTS of God's patience? They include both the sinner and the saint. First, there is God's patience with the UNGODLY. This He shows in various ways. By the warnings which precede His judgments. God never acts impulsively, His justice is never hasty in its execution. The threat is issued, the warning is given, the rod is shaken, but the smiting tarries. Patience waits, mercy pleads, power restrains, and the sentence against the evil work is not executed speedily. As there is space between the lightning's flash and the thunder's roll, so space is afforded the sinner between the warning and the judgment, the threatening and the execution. God speaks twice in His mercy; and once in judgment. He gives the sinner space for repentance. Sinner! all this is verified in you! The warning is gone forth, but the executions lingers. God is speaking once in warning, twice in mercy. Judgment slumbers, but forbearance is awake. The indictment is laid, but the trial is postponed; the verdict is given, but the sentence is delayed. And why? That God's infinite patience might induce you to turn from your wickedness and live; to renounce your sins and flee from the wrath to come. Delay no longer! Think of all the past illustrations of God's patience; recall the many instances in which His goodness has interposed between your sin and its consequences, your aggravated provocation and His tremendous wrath.

Another example of God's forbearance with the sinner is seen in the many ways He employs to persuade him to repentance, before He administers the chastisement. He is intent upon affording both the time and the means for repentance. One of the fathers, in illustrating this idea, remarks that, God took six days to create the world, but was seven days in destroying Jericho. He was quick to build up, but slow to pull down. To the sinner going on in his rebellion, He says, "How shall I give you up? how shall I deliver you, Israel?" As of old, so it is now; "But He, being full of compassion, forgave their iniquity, and destroyed them not; yes, many a time turned He His anger away, and did not stir up all His wrath.'' The original is more expressive; "Many a time He recalled, or ordered His anger to return again," as if He hesitated to punish, was irresolute what to do.

What God did aforetime for Jezebel, He does now; "I gave her space to repent." Impenitent sinner! God is giving you space, or time, to repent; and except you do repent, like the wicked prophetess, you must perish. Do you ask, "How can I repent?" Fall at the mercy-seat, and seek the grace from Heaven. "Christ is exalted a Prince and Savior, to give repentance." Precious gift! a princely gift, not a purchase; a divine principle wrought in the heart by the power of the Spirit. One stroke of the rod of His grace, and, like the rock which Moses smote, your heart will be broken, and the waters of godly penitence for sin will gush forth, and flow in a hallowed stream beneath the cross. Remember, the two distinctive elements of conversion are, "repentance towards God, and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ" Oh! seek truly, earnestly, perseveringly, these two royal gifts of God. Apart from their possession, there can be no real conversion now, and, consequently, after death, no heaven.

We will only further remark that, God shows His patience with sinners in lessening and softening the judgment when it comes. He does not deal with the sinner after his sins, nor reward him according to his iniquities. The stroke is lighter than the crime. God does not, in His punishment, exhaust the vials of His displeasure. The judgment is less heavy than the threat, and the punishment less severe than the provocation. The sword is bathed in heaven- so gentle, so slight the wound. Oh! what a God is our God, even to His enemies! Behold, therefore, the goodness and severity of God; His goodness tempering, softening severity; His severity upholding and vindicating the holiness of goodness.

Will not this view of God's dealings dissolve you into penitence, gratitude, and love? Will you continue sinning against such a Being? Will you persist in your rebellion against such a God? "Don't you realize how kind, tolerant, and patient God is with you? Or don't you care? Can't you see how kind he has been in giving you time to turn from your sin? But no, you won't listen. So you are storing up terrible punishment for yourself because of your stubbornness in refusing to turn from your sin. For there is going to come a day of judgment when God, the just judge of all the world, will judge all people according to what they have done."

Equally great is the patience of God WITH HIS OWN PEOPLE. In one point of light it is even greater than in the case of the ungodly. God has to put up with greater provocation in the saint than in the sinner, and, consequently, His patience and patience towards His people is greater. The sin of the unconverted is the natural growth of their fallen and unrenewed nature; the sin of the converted is against grace, and pardon, and love. The rebellion against God of the converted is that of a child. The sin of the one is that of all unforgiven soul; the sin of the other is that of one all whose sin is blotted out. When, therefore, we consider what God has done for us, what Jesus has endured for us, what the Holy Spirit has wrought in us, and then contrast this with our deep ingratitude, our base murmurings, our countless backslidings, our cruel unbelief and secret rebellion, with the little we do for God and suffer for Christ, and with the sin and infirmities with which that little is mixed and defiled, truly we must feel that the patience of our God towards the saint is greater than His patience towards the sinner.

Oh! the tenderness, the graciousness of the Lord's patience with His people! How patiently he hears with their ungrateful repinings, with their secret rebellion, with their cold love, with their cruel unbelief, with their continuous and aggravated backslidings! Truly, the patience of God, after grace, is greater than His patience before grace. How should this thought humble us in the dust! How should it subdue our rebellious spirit, break our hard heart, and lead us, in every fresh remembrance, to the blood of Christ, to wash in the fountain open for sin and uncleanness!

It is only as we keep fast by this cleansing Fountain, wash in it daily, that we shall leave spiritual discernment to see when we sin against God's patience, and how we provoke the just chastisement of His fatherly displeasure. Oh for more simple coming to the blood of sprinkling! Oh for more constant bathing in the open fountain! This alone will keep the heart clean, the conscience tender, the mind quickly susceptible of the slightest oscillation of its thoughts, imaginations, and desires towards sin. Never should a single day pass in the experience of a child of God without washing in the blood. The blood should be upon all his religious duties and engagements and services. Everything should be purged, and purified, and perfumed with the blood of Jesus. This will cleanse, sanctify, and beautify all we are and all we do, and render the smallest offering of faith, and the lowliest service of love, a sacrifice and an offering to God of a sweet-smelling savor. Such is our God, the God of patience! Many are the LESSONS we may learn, and the BLESSINGS we may glean, from this instructive and fruitful subject.

Does God exercise patience towards us? Then let us learn to bear, with Christian patience, all His disciplinary dealings with us. If God is patient with our sins and misdoings against Him, we may well receive with uncomplaining meekness and submission all the trials and corrections, the rebukes and sufferings, His wisdom and love righteously lays upon us. And yet how uneasy are we beneath the yoke! how we kick against the goads! and allow our poor, puny will, to rise in opposition to His will, supremely wise and infinitely holy!

Are you a child of sorrow or of suffering? Is our God leading you, so blind and helpless, in a way you know not, and in paths you had not known? Is He pressing to your lips a cup of woe before untasted; and tasting which, you turn away, and exclaim, "Let this cup pass from me?" Think of the God of patience, and be still. Know that He who is wise is counseling you, He who is strong is leading you, He who is love is directing, and shaping, and tinting the whole scene through which, with a skillful hand and in the integrity of His heart, He is conducting you home to glory. His is a school where the grace of patience receives its highest culture, its purest, and host beauteous development.

"Tribulation works patience," and patience, in its turn, works our experience. Afflicted saint, "you have need of patience;" and He who sends the affliction knows your need, and knowing, will supply it, by giving you abundantly of this soul-sanctifying, God-glorifying grace of holy patience. Thus, by meeting your calamities with calamities, by waiting humbly the issue of events, the mystery of which you cannot penetrate, and the direction of which you cannot control, and by waiting in the patience of hope for that eternal life which God, who cannot lie, promised to all who believe in Christ, and for the enjoyment of which present suffering is perfecting you, "patience will have its perfect work, lacking nothing," and "in patience you shall possess your soul."

Is your path dark and lonely? are your prayers still unanswered? is the promise still unfulfilled and the blessing still withheld? Now is the time to "rest in the Lord, and wait patiently for Him," and by so doing glorify your Father who is in heaven. Thus will your experience and your testimony be that of David, "I waited patiently for the Lord to help me, and he turned to me and heard my cry. He lifted me out of the pit of despair, out of the mud and the mire. He set my feet on solid ground and steadied me as I walked along. He has given me a new song to sing, a hymn of praise to our God."

Let us learn from the God of patience a patient spirit and carriage TOWARDS OTHERS. In this grace we may truly be "Imitators of God." The Apostle's exhortation is one you have need to bear in mind, "Be patient toward all men." There is much sin in the ungodly; and what is yet harder to bear, of infirmity in the saints, which calls for the constant exercise of this grace of the Spirit. But, what a divine and illustrious example of this grace have we in Jesus! "He was led as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearer is dumb, so opened He not His mouth." "Who, when he was reviled, reviled not again; when he suffered, He threatened not." Learn, then, to bear with uncomplaining patience the weaknesses and infirmities, the slights and woundings of your fellows- the hatred of the world and the smitings of the Church– looking to the God of patience for strength and grace silently and patiently to bear it. And, whether you are buffeted for your faults, or are misinterpreted and censured for your well-doing, you take it patiently, this is acceptable to God.

"Lord, and am I yet alive,
Not in torment, not in hell?
Still does Your good Spirit strive
With the chief of sinners dwell?
Tell it unto sinners, tell,
I am, I am out of hell!
Yes, I still lift up my eyes,
Will not of Your love despair,
Still in spite of sin I rise,
Still I bow to You in prayer.
Tell it unto sinners, tell,
I am, I am out of hell!
Oh, the length and breadth of love!
Jesus, Savior, can it be?
All Your mercy's height I prove,
All the depth is seen in me.
Tell it unto sinners, tell,
I am, I am out of hell!
See a bush that burns with fire,
Unconsumed amid the flame!
Turn aside the sight admire,
I the living wonder am.
Tell it unto sinners, tell, I am,
I am out of hell!
See a stone that hangs in air,
See a spark in ocean live!
Kept alive with death so near,
I to God the glory give.
Ever tell- to sinners tell,
I am, I am out of hell!"

THE GOD OF COMFORT

"THE GOD WHO COMFORTS US. He comforts us in all our troubles so that we can comfort others. When others are troubled, we will be able to give them the same comfort God has given us." 2 Cor. 1:3-4

How soothingly fall these words upon the ear of the sorrowful, sweeter and more powerful than angel-chimes floating from the celestial hills! What grief-smitten heart, bending in tears over them, is not conscious of a power and a charm, at once the evidence of their divinity and the pledge of their truth. The religion of Jesus possesses in the experience of its disciples this remarkable characteristic; there is more true holiness in the heart's thirst for sanctification, and more solid happiness in a passing thought of God, and more real life in one believing look at the Savior, and more perfect repose in one single promise of God's Word, and more of the reality of heaven in a glance within the veil, than this world could ever give, or its religion inspire. Empty, were it possible, the whole world into the soul, and still the worldling's inquiry would be, "Who will show me any good?" Thus confirming the truth of God's Word, "In the midst of plenty, he will run into trouble, and disasters will destroy him." But let one devout, holy, loving thought of God in Christ enter that soul, and its satisfaction is full, its happiness complete.

Such, in a measure, we believe will be the effect of these words of the apostle placed at the head of this chapter. What child of affliction and of sadness scanning them will not feel that, desperate as is his case, and profound as is his grief, hope springs in his breast that yet there may be comfort even for him! You have, perhaps, given yourself to inconsolable grief, "refusing to be comforted." You have thought that even the consolation of God could not fathom your sorrow, and that your wound must bleed unstaunched, and your sore must run unhealed. But these wondrous words have met your eye- "The God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our tribulation," and lo! a gleam of hope suddenly falls upon your spirit, and for the first time since your calamity you begin to think that, God has not entirely forsaken you; that, though He kills, yet He makes alive; that, though He wounds, yet He heals; and that, though He brings low, yet He raises up again. If, then, these words, dimly read with tears, prove so soothing and assuring, may we not hope that, as the Spirit, the Divine Paraclete, unfolds them in these pages, they may prove to your sad spirit as the breaking forth of waters in the parched desert, "satiating the weary and replenishing the sorrowful soul."

The first thought that suggests itself to the reflecting mind will be the necessity that existed for this revelation of God as the "God of all comfort." There is nothing unmeaning or superfluous in the relations which God sustains to His Church. Each unfolding of His character, and each perfection of His being, points to some relation or need of His people. When, therefore, God is revealed as the "God of all comfort," as "God who comforts those that are cast down," and when also we find Him commanding His servants the prophets to comfort His people, to what conclusion can we come but that His Church is an afflicted Church, His people a tried and sorrowful people, standing in need of that comfort which He only could impart?- in a word, that there exists a peculiar condition of His Church answering to this special relation of God to them as the "God of all comfort " To this thought let us briefly address ourselves.

There is no fact in the history of God's people more strongly confirmed by their individual experience than that, He has "chosen them in the furnace of affliction." Like the burning bush which Moses saw, God's Church has ever been in the furnace, and yet, like that bush, it has never been consumed. Many and great are the blessings which accrue to the Church of God from this divine arrangement. Not the least one is, the more perfect interpretation of the Bible which this school of God imparts. Affliction places the believer in a position for understanding the Scriptures which no other divine dispensation does. Luther remarks that he did not understand the Psalms until God afflicted him. How many will find in the volume of their Christian experience a page corresponding with this! How apocryphal– sealed, shut up, and mystical– is much of God's Word until read in the ashen glow of the furnace! Until then the sunshine of prosperity shone brightly upon them, and parts only of God's Word were read and studied. But adversity has come! The light on your path has faded into the shadow of sorrow, and sorrow has deepened into the darkness of despondency, and gloom envelops the entire scene of your life. And now how new and precious has God's Word become! Affliction has driven you to the Scriptures, and the Scriptures have revealed to you Christ, and Christ has brought you near to God, and the God of all consolation has soothed your mind, "through the patience and comfort of the Scriptures."

God will have His saints experimentally acquainted with His truth, and with Christ, who is the truth. A mere theoretical Christian, a notional religionist, is of little worth. We need a religion upon which we can live holily, and upon which we can die happily. This can only be attained in a personal acquaintance with Christ and His Gospel. All God's children are taught of God, all in the same school, the same truths, and by the same Divine Teacher, and thus "He fashions their hearts alike." Oh, count the faith that touches with its experimental hand but the fringe of the Savior's robe more precious than "the faith which moves mountains," but is nothing more than an intellectual acquaintance with the truth. If, then, this experimental acquaintance with the Bible is the result of affliction, welcome the discipline whose rod of correction blossoms into such golden fruit as this. What an evidence have we here of the divinity of the Bible, in its adaptation to all the trials and afflictions of God's saints, as to all the shades of Christian character and experience! Of what other book could this be said! Accept with gratitude every evidence that confirms your faith in the divinity of God's Word.

But we return to the truth that God's people are an afflicted people, and need comfort, and hence the revelation of God as the "God of all comfort." We too much forget that there is a moral fitness for heaven as well as a legal title to its possession; the one, the internal holiness wrought in our hearts by the Spirit; the other, the outward justification of our persons through the imputed righteousness of Christ. An heir to an estate may possess the right, but not the fitness for its possession. There may be no flaw in his title, but there may exist a mental or a physical incapacity in his person for its enjoyment. Now, with regard to the heirs of the heavenly inheritance, the title- the obedience and death of Christ- is perfect; no possible flaw in the deed invalidating the legality of their claim. But, in their present partially renewed and imperfectly sanctified state, they are not in a fit condition to enter upon its immediate and full possession.

There must be a moral fitness for heaven. Heaven is a holy place, and is the dwelling of the holy. Where Jehovah dwells, must be holy, and all who dwell with Him are holy for "without holiness no man can see the Lord." Viewed in this light, how indispensable appears the afflictive dispensation of God's people. It is sometimes difficult at the moment to see how any possible good can ever result from such an evil, or how sweet can ever distill from such a bitter, or how "God's bow made quite naked" can ever bear upon its arrows- feathered, it may be, from our nest of down- blessings so costly and precious; yet, though the "chastening for the present seems not joyous, but grievous, nevertheless, afterward it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto those who are exercised thereby."

And thus, clearer than the noontide sun, we see the wisdom and rectitude, the faithfulness and love, of our Heavenly Father in all the way He leads us through the thorn-bush, across the desert, home to Himself. Oh, to be as a weaned child– quiet and silent! or, if we speak, only to exclaim, "It is the Lord; let Him do as seems Him good."

There is a passage of God's Word bearing so directly on this subject, we may venture to offer upon it a passing comment. "Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened unto you." We have in this passage the character of those trials to which God's people are sometimes subjected. It is a "fiery trial." The same word, in the original is rendered, in the 8th chapter of Revelation, "burning;" and the emblem is suggestive of the following ideas–

First, intense severity. God, addressing His Church of old, says, "When you walk through the fire, you shall not be burned, neither shall the flame kindle upon you." And the apostle Peter, employing the same emblem, thus speaks of the severity of faith's trial- "The trial of your faith being much more precious than gold that perishes, though it be tried with fire." Oh, how severe may our trials be! Think of David, tried by the treason of Absalom; of Eli, by the iniquity of his sons; of Abraham, in the surrender of the heir of promise; of Job, involving, as in one conflagration, children, possessions, health. And thus might we travel down through the different ages of the Church, and we shall find that the history of one believer, of one dispensation, and of one age, has been more or less that of all- "The fiery trial which is to try you."

Beloved, there is one modification of this severity of trial; there is not one spark of hell in it. There may be fire, but it is not the fire of the bottomless pit. There may be displeasure, but there is no wrath; discipline, but no condemnation. Oh, blessed thought! You pass through the fire, but you are not burned. Like the three children of Israel cast into the burning fiery furnace, you emerge from the sheets of flame with not even the smell of fire upon your garments. He who walked through the fire side by side with Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, has been with you in the afflictive dispensation, has trod side by side the fiery trial through which God was conducting you home to Himself, and you have emerged from it unhurt.

Our trials are not only often severe, but like fire, they are always searching. The Lord sends them for this end. They search our hearts through and through. They analyze, separate, and sift. They bring out the innate evil of our nature; reveal and expose to our view the hidden and unknown corruptions and subtlety of our hearts. Oh, how much sin, concealed and unsuspected, they bring to light! What evil mixed with good in our principles, motives, and aims, they expose, separate, and destroy! They lead us, too, to an honest turning-over the page of conscience, to a deep probing of heart, and examination of our state as to our real conversion, our true standing before God, and the holiness, uprightness, and integrity of our walk and conversation in the world.

One fiery trial, sanctified by the grace of the Holy Spirit, has done more to break up the crusted ground of the heart, to penetrate beneath the surface, to dissect, and winnow, and separate, than a life-time of reading and hearing could have done. Oh, what secret sins have been detected, what carelessness of walk has been revealed, what spiritual and unsuspected declension of soul has been discovered, all leading to deep self-loathing, and to the laying the mouth in the dust before God! Then has the prayer gone up with an agony and sincerity never experienced before, "Search me, O God, and try me, and know any heart, and see if there be any evil way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting." And all this the fruit of one hallowed trial!

We may refer to the PURIFYING power of a fiery trial as not the least blessed result of the discipline. It is the nature of fire to purify. God so employs the image. "I will bring the third part through the fire, and will refine them as silver is refined, and will by them as gold is tried." "He shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver; and He shall purify the sins of Levi, and purify them as gold and silver, that they may offer unto the Lord an offering in righteousness." Blessed and holy fruit of trial! Who now will shrink from the process? who would wish exemption from the fire that but consumes the dross and the tin and the earth of the soul, making the silver so bright and the gold so pure, both reflecting, as they never reflected before, the nature and image of the Divine and lovely Refiner? And when we see the man of God thus emerge from the furnace of affliction, we lift our hearts in thanksgiving and praise to our Heavenly Father for providing in the covenant of grace a discipline so effectual in the accomplishment of results so blessed. "By this, therefore, shall the iniquity of Jacob be purged: and this is all the fruit to take away sins."

Blessed Lord, if this be the result of Your fiery trial; if it be to burn up and consume the self and carnality, the worldliness and unbelief of my heart, if it be to destroy the alloy and to scatter the chaff, then let the fire burn, let the furnace glow. May I, by this burning discipline, but be made more thoroughly a partaker of Your holiness.

"Often the clouds of deepest woe
So sweet a message bear,
Dark though they seem, 'twere hard to find
A frown of anger there.
It needs our hearts be weaned from earth,
It needs that we be driven,
By loss of every earthly tie,
To seek our joys in heaven.
And what is sorrow, what is pain,
To that parental care,
That breaks the conscious heart from sin,
When sin is hated there?
Kind, loving is the hand that strikes,
However keen the smart,
If sorrow's discipline can chase
One evil from the heart."

The apostle then proceeds in this passage to remind us that trial is no strange thing in the experience of the saints. "Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial that is to try you, as though some strange thing happened unto you." Yes, trial is not a strange thing. Common to all, it is yet more common in the history of God's people. There are many reasons why trial should not be considered by us as a strange thing. One is given in the passage under consideration- "The trial that is to try you." Trial is necessary to promote fruitfulness, to test our hope, and to eliminate in the kingdom of God within us the precious from the vile, the purity of Divine grace from the corruption of fallen nature.

Nor should we regard trial and affliction as a strange thing, since it is the appointed and beaten path of all the saints who have either safely arrived, or are wending their pilgrim way home to God. "If God doesn't discipline you as he does all of his children, it means that you are illegitimate and are not really his children after all." And again, the apostle Peter says, "Knowing that the same afflictions are accomplished in your brethren that are in the world."

No, more. Trial is not a strange thing, since our blessed Lord Himself was "a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief." Significant and instructive words! None were ever so intimate with sorrow, or so closely acquainted with grief as Jesus. He was acquainted with it in its every form, met it in its every aggravation, and tasted it in its every bitter. Standing between the wrath of God and the hatred of man, and enduring both to its utmost strength and extremity, truly never was one so acquainted with grief as Jesus was. Think it not, then, beloved, strange concerning the fiery trial that is to try you, as though some strange thing happened unto you, since the members must be conformed to the Head, and the flock, even "the flock of the slaughter," must follow the Shepherd wherever He goes.

In such illustrious company as this, and identified in suffering with a Savior so precious, shall we not drink the cup our Father has given us with sweet submission to His righteous and sovereign will? Shall we shrink from the knife that but prunes, and from the fire that but refines, increasing our holiness, and so promoting our happiness and usefulness here, and by the same discipline advancing our fitness to take our place before the throne with those who have come out of great tribulation, and have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the lamb?

But God has fully and graciously met this condition of His Church. If He has faithfully and clearly revealed the fact that He has chosen His people in the furnace of affliction, He has, with equal fidelity and distinctness, revealed the truth that He stands to them in the relation of the "God of all comfort," who comforts them in all their tribulations. To an unfolding of this truth, let us devote the remainder of this chapter.

The true comfort of God's Church demands all the resources of Deity. Sin is the cause of all sorrow, and sorrow is "legion" in its name, and protean in its shape. Many are the afflictions of the righteous; and the varied forms which those afflictions assume, are limited only by their countless number. It is not, then, without thought we assert, that the resources of God's nature alone could meet, mitigate, and remove the many afflictions, trials, and temptations to whose wholesome discipline His saints are subject, in their education for heaven, in their preparation for eternity.

And, oh, how sweet is the thought that, in all trials, and afflictions, and sorrows, we have to deal with God, even the "God of all comfort!" From Him comes the discipline! While sorrow springs not from the ground, even in the history of a fallen world, the Lord's people are taught, not only to trace His hand in the evil that is in the city, but especially their personal affliction, to His arrangement, faithfulness, and love. How submissive the language of the afflicted saint! "But what could I say? For he himself had sent this sickness." "Now I will walk humbly throughout my years because of this anguish I have felt. I am silent before you; I won't say a word. For my punishment is from you." "It is the Lord's will. Let him do what he thinks best."

Thus, in all our fiery trials, we are at once brought to God. We recognize, in the Hand that is to heal, the Hand that has wounded. In the very Being to whose bosom we fly in our grief, we see the Sender of our sorrow. Thus, the Author of our affliction and the Comforter of our grief is one, even our own God, the "God of all comfort." Naturalists tell us that by the side of every poisonous plant grows its antidote. Yet more certain is the truth recorded by the inspired penman, and revealed by Jehovah Himself: "Look now; I myself am he! There is no god other than me! I am the one who kills and gives life; I am the one who wounds and heals; no one delivers from my power!"

In looking more closely at this truth, let us remark, in the first place, that IT IS IN THE HEART OF GOD TO COMFORT HIS PEOPLE. We need to begin with this central truth. All real comfort for any sorrow flows from sympathy; and true sympathy is the reflection of the heart. All our divine comfort is the pure reflection of the heart of God. Oh, how imperfectly we deal with this truth! God's heart is our heart; in it we dwell, as in a home, and within it we are enclosed as in a pavilion. Can we for a moment doubt the heart of God, when within His bosom He found the Lamb for our sin-offering? If, then, He spared not His own Son, but gave Him up for us all, shall the shadow of a doubt be allowed to rest upon our minds, shading the ray of hope that rests there of comfort from God in the depth of our deepest grief and woe? In the very heart that gave us Jesus, is welled the divine spring of all the true consolation, which flows at our side through this valley of tears. Daughter of affliction, child of sorrow! God loves you from His heart. Its every pulse of life, its every throb of love, its every spring of compassion, its every drop of sympathy is yours.

God's heart speaks to your heart. Its deep love chimes with your deep grief. Do you doubt this? Listen to His command to His servant, the prophet; "Comfort, comfort my people," says your God. "Speak tenderly to Jerusalem. Tell her that her sad days are gone and that her sins are pardoned. Yes, the Lord has punished her in full for all her sins." And mark the tenderness of God's comfort. Still it is the heart, and the heart of a mother! Whose heart so full of love, and tenderness, and sympathy, and yearning, as hers? Listen to the touching words; "As one whom his mother comforts, so will I comfort you." "As one whom his mother comforts." From what source of love so pure, what fountain of sensibility so deep, what spring of tenderness so sweet, does sympathy and comfort flow, in seasons of adversity and sorrow, as hers? A mother's heart is the first home which love enters, and the last it leaves. Born with our birth, it grows with our growth, clings to us through all life's vicissitudes, smiles when time smile, weeps when we weep, and, when hoary hairs have silvered the brow, and age has dimmed the eye, and the snows of many winters bow down the womanly form, the mother's love is as deep, and fresh, and warm, as when first it clasped its new-born treasure to its bosom. Such is the comfort with which God comforts His people. "As one whom his mother comforts, so will I comfort you."

Add to this beautiful and expressive image, the thought that, God's comforts are infinite and divine, while the tenderest yearnings of a parent's heart are but finite and human, and you have the most perfect idea of the comfort with which God, your Father, is prepared to comfort you, His sad and sorrowful child.

We anticipate, in the foregoing remarks, the idea that God's comforts are parental. He comforts us as a father. All God's corrections are fatherly; so is His comfort. The hand that slays, and the hand that makes alive, the hand that wounds, and the hand that binds up, are both a Father's hand. "If you endure chastening, God deals with you as with sons, for what son is he whom the father chastens not." "As a father pities his children, so the Lord pities those who fear Him." Such is the image which finds an echo in every parental heart. How soothing thus to trace the discipline of trial to a Father's hand! And truly God rebukes, and chides, and corrects us, even as a father the children that he loves. How this view softens, subdues, and heals! "If this cup is from my Father," exclaims the afflicted child, "then will I drink it without a murmur. He has pierced my heart through and through; He has smitten my sheltering gourd, and He has blighted my lovely flower, and He has shaded my pleasant picture; but He is my Father still, and I will yield Him reverence, bowing silently and submissively to the rod which only love has sent, and which already is bursting into bud so promising, and is maturing into fruit so precious, making me a partaker of His holiness."

Accept, then, the comfort with which your Heavenly Father seeks to support and soothe you in your present calamity. Refuse not to be comforted. To refuse divine comfort because God's hand has smitten, is to cherish a murmuring and rebellious spirit against God. Your persistent rejection of all the promises, and assurances, and consolations of your Heavenly Father, is as much as to say, "God has deeply, sorely wounded me, and I will not forgive, and cannot forget." Do you do well to be angry? Who caused the sheltering vine to grow? who reared the oak, around which the tendrils of your heart so long and so closely entwined? Who revealed that spring, that refreshed you so often from its clear and sparkling stream? Your Heavenly Father! Then He has but recalled what was His own; and shall not the judge of all the earth do right? Refuse not, then, the comfort which His own hand offers.

In love He sent this temporal reverse; in love He shaded your home with death; in love He transferred earth's flower to bloom in heaven's paradise; and will you now reject the consolation He would sincerely pour into your heart, exclaiming, in the spirit of contumacy and rebellion, "My soul refuses to be comforted"? God forbid! Yield your drooping heart to that comfort, as the fainting flower to the dew, as the sickly plant to the sun, and, in the depth of your gratitude, exclaim, "Blessed be God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies, and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our tribulations!"

He is the "God of all comfort"- "all comfort," and for "all our tribulations." It is a delightful thought, that in His own infinite heart, in the covenant of grace, in the Gospel of His love, and in our Lord Jesus Christ, He has made provision for all the afflictions, trials, and sorrows of His people. So that no new trial springs up in your path, no new grief shades your spirit, no new calamity crushes you to the earth, but the God of all comfort has anticipated that very need in the comfort He has provided for His Church. "Oh, how great is Your goodness which You have laid up for those who fear You; which You have wrought for those who trust in You before the sons of men!"

And what a comfort is THE LORD JESUS CHRIST to His people! There could be no revelation of God, as the God of all comfort, but in and through Christ. He is the great Depository of our consolation. Yes, He is called the "Consolation of Israel." Christ is our comfort, and the Holy Spirit is our Comforter. Who can listen to these words of tenderness and love which distilled from His lips into the sorrowing hearts of His disciples on the eve of their separation from Him, and not feel that Christ is truly the Consolation of His people; "Let not your heart be troubled; you believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father's house are many mansions!" Does your sorrow spring from a sense of sin? Jesus' blood pardons. Is it from a conviction of condemnation? Jesus' righteousness justifies. Is it from the power of indwelling sin? Jesus' grace subdues. Is it from some pressing temporal need? All resources are in Jesus, and He has promised to supply all your need, and that your bread and your water shall be sure.

Is bereavement- sore, crushing bereavement- your grief? Where will you find such tender sympathy with your sorrow as dwells in His heart, of whom it is recorded, "Jesus wept"? Who can comfort that sorrow, but Christ?- and He can, and He will comfort it. Does some foe menace you, or does some insurmountable difficulty lie in your way? All power is Christ's, and He will defend you from your enemy, and will roll your stone of difficulty from before your feet. Does suffering, and languor, and waning health affect your spirits? He who "bore our sicknesses" is your Consolation now, and will not leave you to suffer and pine alone, but can either heal your malady with a word, or so make all your bed in sickness, by the supports of His grace, and the discoveries of His love, as shall make you willing to lie there patiently so long as it pleases Him.

A few practical deductions shall conclude this chapter. Learn from the subject to take all your troubles at once to God. God wants you- speaking after the manner of men- to make use of Him as the God of comfort. Why has He revealed Himself as such, if not that you should repair to Him immediately and without hesitation in every tribulation? They are sent for this purpose that you might "acquaint yourself with Him." Many a poor soul has made his first acquaintance with God in some deep, sore trial. It was not until God tore up all his earthly comforts by the root that he was led to see that all his life he had been living "without God in the world."

But it is in after-stages of our religious life that we know more of the character of God, learn more of His loving heart and of His revealed word as we fly to Him in our tribulations for the comfort He alone can give. And oh, the blessedness of nearness to Him into which our trouble has brought us! How have we kissed the rod and blessed the hand whose smitings have made known and unsealed to us a source of such comfort and a fountain of such blessing!

And let us not overlook the VARIOUS CHANNELS through which God comforts us. He comforts us by HIS WORD, its doctrines, promises, and precepts. He comforts us through the channel of PRAYER, drawing us to His mercy-seat, and bringing us into communion with Himself through Christ. Oh, what comfort flows through this channel! The moment we arise and give ourselves to prayer, we are conscious of a mental quietness, of a soothing of heart indescribable. Prayer has unloosed the burden- prayer has dissolved the cloud- prayer has proved an inlet of peace, joy, and hope, passing understanding and full of glory.

God comforts us by the MINISTRY of His Word. For this purpose He furnishes His servants with gift and grace, and while some are as John the Baptist, "crying in the wilderness," others are like Barnabas, "sons of consolation," able to speak a word in season to those who are weary. How expressive the words of the apostle, "God, who comforts those who are cast down, comforted us by the coming of Titus." Nor must we forget to remind you that God often comforts His people by writing the sentence of death upon all comfort out of Himself. Thus He spoke to His Church, "Behold, I will allure her, and bring her into the wilderness, and speak comfortably unto her"- margin, "speak to her heart." Is He thus bringing you, beloved, into the wilderness of separation, of entanglement, of solitude? Be sure it is but to comfort you, to speak to your heart, and to reveal Himself to you as the "God of all comfort who comforts us in all our tribulation."

Thus, then, we learn that if we would have true comfort and consolation we must in faith run to heaven for it. It is a treasure found in no earthly climate. It is a jewel of heaven, a flower of paradise, found in no mine or growing in no garden below. We can carve our own crosses, we cannot make our own comfort. Seeking it from creatures, and amid creature good, we, alas! but seek the living among the dead. "When I said, my bed shall comfort me, You scared me with dreams."

Has Jesus given you an excess of comfort? Go and pour its overflowings in some stricken heart. Remember one end of God's comforts- it is "that we might be able to comfort those who are in any trouble, by the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted of God." Oh, high and holy privilege- godlike and divine- of repairing to some house of mourning, to some chamber of sickness, to some bed of suffering, to some believer in Jesus passing through adversity, and of some child of the light walking through darkness, and of strengthening and comforting them in God. Be this our mission, and then shall we be imitators of God, the "God of all comfort."

Let me remind you what a fountain of comfort you have in the truth that this God of all comfort is your God. Thus while you possess the streams, the streams lead you to their source, and all that is in God is yours. I will suppose your case one of extreme woe. I will imagine you tried in your families, straitened in your circumstances, afflicted in your person, friendless, and homeless; and yet, against all this, I will weigh the truth that the God of all comfort is your God, and knowing how infinitely this blessing outweighs all your destitution and sorrow, I would call upon you to make the solitude through which you are traveling echo and reverberate with your shouts of joy and your songs of praise.

What if your home is desolate and your provisions are scanty; what if your heart is lonely and your body is diseased; if God is your God, and Christ is your Savior, and heaven is your home? In the midst of all your trials, sorrows, and discomforts, you have more cause to be happy and to sing than the brightest angel or the sweetest seraph before the throne. They stand in their own righteousness, you in the righteousness of God; they worship at a humble distance from God, you are brought near by the blood of Christ, enter into the holiest, and call Him Father!

And is it no comfort to be assured that Christ is yours, and that you are Christ's? With such a Savior and Friend, with such a Patron and Intercessor in heaven as Jesus, how comforted should you be in all your tribulations! Jesus knows you; others may not. The world assails, the saints judge; friends misinterpret and foes condemn, just because they neither know nor cannot understand you. Jesus knows you! Let this suffice. What a comfort that you can admit Him to every cloister of your soul, to every secret of your heart, with the feeling that He sees all, knows all, and understands all; and, what is more, sympathizes with, and approves all, which must, from the nature of the case, be profoundly veiled and inexplicable to human eye.

Oh to live independently of the saints, and above the world, upon Jesus!– this is true comfort. The moment you are brought fully to realize– "Christ knows me altogether: my personal infirmities, my secret sorrows, my domestic trials, my professional anxieties, all the workings of my inner life," you are comforted as no friend on earth or angel in heaven could comfort you. Oh, what a Christ is ours! How should we love Him, trust Him, serve Him, and if need be, suffer and die for Him.

Poor worldling! what is your comfort?– the creature that soon must die? the world that you soon must leave? a life that is but as a shadow? the prospect of a death without a Savior? and an eternity without a heaven? Is this all? Yes, this is all the real comfort which you possess. Oh, fly to Christ without a moment's hesitation or delay! Secure an interest in Jesus, make Him your Friend, trust in Him as your Savior, accept Him as your Portion, and you shall be comforted in this life, and be happy forever in the life that is to come.

"May our Lord Jesus Christ and God our Father, who loved us and in his special favor gave us everlasting comfort and good hope, comfort your hearts and give you strength in every good thing you do and say." 2 Thes. 2:16-17

THE GOD OF BETHEL

"I am the God of Bethel." Genesis 31:13.

God is now His own Artist. Hitherto, the divine portraits upon which we have gazed with such sacred delight, were drawn by human hands, "holy men of God, as they were moved by the Holy Spirit," presenting such views of the character of God as met the varied conditions of His people; thus confirming our previous observation, that each title and perfection of God harmonized with some particular need of His Church. But, in the present chapter of our work, the Great I AM shall present His own Divine likeness, drawn with a vividness and fidelity such as He only could command. "I am the God of Bethel."

Who can mistake the Artist, or question the identity of the picture? The language of the one is too stately and commanding, and the likeness of the other too divine and life-like, to admit of a moment's doubt. It is Jehovah who speaks, and speaking of Himself, says "I am the God of Bethel." The word "Bethel" means, "the House of God," and the occasion on which it was thus used marked a memorable event in the history of Jacob, suggesting some spiritual reflections appropriate and profitable to the Christian and devout mind.

The patriarch was now an exile and a wanderer, fleeing from the vengeance of Esau. He had, on this occasion, been journeying more than four hundred miles through wild and inhospitable deserts; and at night, weary and footsore, he took a stone for a pillow, and laid himself down on the cold, dewy earth to sleep. That was a memorable night in his history. While he slept, a vision of singular character and glory appeared to him. It was a 'ladder,' its foot resting on the earth, and its top in heaven. Ascending and descending this mystic communication between the two worlds, innumerable angels were seen, 'ministering spirits,' doubtless, sent from heaven to 'minister' to this tried servant of God. But the most significant and glorious part of this vision was the appearance of Jehovah at the top of the 'ladder,' addressing the lonely and desolate patriarch slumbering at its foot. The words which He uttered, and the tones in which He spoke, were well calculated to quell the fears, to comfort and assure the mind of God's servant, now passing under the corrective hand of a righteous yet loving Father– a fugitive from man's rage, yet 'beloved of God,'– a lonely exile, yet waited on by angels– a stranger and destitute, yet the heir of the very land upon which he lay– single and alone, yet destined to be the head of a race countless as the dust of the earth, and through whom, as concerning the Messiah, "all the families of the earth should be blest."

Not less consolatory and assuring was the gracious promise of the Divine presence and care which God spoke to him on that memorable night: "Behold I am with you, and will keep you in all places where you go, and will bring you again into this land; for I will not leave you until I have done that which I have spoken to you of." What a vision of glory, and what a night of repose must that have been to the desolate mind, lonely spirit, and weary body of the patriarch! How he must have desired to prolong it, and how have regretted its close! And when he awoke, we marvel not at the wondering exclamation of his awe-stricken mind, "Surely the Lord is in this place, and I knew it not"– that is, I did not expect such a vision of God in such a place.

"He was afraid and said, What an awesome place this is! It is none other than the house of God—the gateway to heaven!" The next morning he got up very early. He took the stone he had used as a pillow and set it upright as a memorial pillar. Then he poured olive oil over it. He named the place Bethel—house of God."

God, in a subsequent period of his history, reminded him of this memorable incident, doubtless with a view of strengthening his faith and comforting him under a new and severe trial through which he was then passing- the grinding avarice and base treachery of Laban, his father-in-law. Speaking to him again in a dream, God said, "I have seen all that Laban does unto you." Mark, God notes all the unkindness and injustice done to His saints, and will vindicate their wrong, and avenge the wrong-doer.

"I am the God of Bethel, where you anointed the pillar, and where you made a vow unto me." What an unfolding of the character of God is here! What tender love, what covenant faithfulness, what Almighty power! Surely, if ever God gave Jacob a song in the night season of woe, it was now! Angels must have bent an ear to that song, and have learned new strains from its melody. God's dealings with men, His dealings especially with His Church, must form a subject of profound study and of rich instruction to these celestial students. The Church is their Bible, in the marvelous history of which its election and redemption, its calling and keeping, its grace and glory- they see the will, and study the mind, and fathom the heart, of Jehovah– "Which things the angels desire to look into."

Here we may for a moment pause, and in faith appropriate to ourselves the promise which God made to His servant Jacob, "Behold I am with you." That promise was not his alone, but is ours also, on whom the ends of the world are come. We are taught that, "no prophecy of Scripture is of any private interpretation"- that is, that no individual believer has a personal and sole right to any part of God's Word, exclusive of other believers; but that, as there is "one God and Father of all," "of whom the whole family on earth and in heaven is named," so the promises of God, from Adam downward, are the property alike of all the children of that one family, not a solitary member, the obscurest and the weakest, being exempt.

Oh, what a uniting truth is this! How should it constrain us to recognize and love as brethren all the members of the one and indivisible family of God, even though they may occupy different apartments, and feed at different tables, in the one Great House, than ourselves. God loves them all; Christ died for all, and recognizes in all His own divine image; and the Holy Spirit dwells alike in all, and seals on the lips of all, "Abba, Father!"

We repeat, what an exceeding great and precious promise of our covenant God is here- intended for all saints, intended, my beloved, for you! "Behold I am with you, and will keep you in all places where you go." What is the New Testament but the echo of the Old? Hear we not the echo of this promise in the words of Jesus spoken to His disciples on the eve of His departure from them, when, like the patriarch, they were to be left as orphans in the world, "Lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world." Take hold of this divine promise of your Lord, repeated with yet more earnest emphasis, and given under yet more affecting circumstances than it was to Jacob, and Jehovah Jesus will make it good in your individual and daily experience. God in Christ is with you, His child, and will keep you in all places where His providence leads you. No time or circumstance shall interpose to prevent its fulfillment.

How soon did God fulfill His promise in Jacob's experience! Listen to his touching admonition with Laban, "In fact, except for the grace of God—the God of my grandfather Abraham, the awe-inspiring God of my father, Isaac—you would have sent me off without a penny to my name. But God has seen your cruelty and my hard work. That is why he appeared to you last night and vindicated me." Our God is unchangeable. The same divine faithfulness and love are pledged to make good the same divine promise in your history. Like Jacob, you may be an exile and a wanderer from the land of your birth, and from the home of your parents. But Jacob's God is your God, and the promises made to Isaac and to Jacob, were equally made to all their spiritual seed, were made, beloved, to you.

Oh! then, embrace in faith, and clasp to your lonely heart, this precious promise that God in Christ is with you in all places, and will never leave nor forsake you. You are not alone. You are not Fatherless, nor homeless; you are neither a fugitive nor an orphan. Oh, no! Christ, your Friend and Brother, is with you. His heart is your dwelling-place, and His Father is your Father, and His God is your God. "Happy is he that has the God of Jacob (the God of Bethel) for his help, whose hope is in the Lord his God."

We have remarked upon the word "Bethel," as signifying the House of God. This naturally suggests the subject of our present chapter– PRAYER, or, communion with God, as "the God of Bethel." The believer has a Bethel everywhere, since there is no place where God is not. The pious home, the secret closet, the public sanctuary, and even the fields where he walks at eventide to meditate, is a Bethel– the place where God in Christ meets him and communes with him from above the mercy-seat.

Next to the revelation of God as the God of atonement, the God that pardons sin, the most needed and precious revelation of Him is, as the God that hears and answers prayer. Prayer is everything to the believer. It is his vital element, the right hand of his power, his invincible armor, the feet with which he runs in the way of obedience, the wings which uplift his soul to God, and which waft him within the veil of glory. But let us, on so interesting and important a subject, exchange these general observations for a few particulars illustrative of the nature, privilege, and influence of prayer.

Our first and most natural inquiry relates to the OBJECT of prayer. To whom is prayer properly to be addressed? Reason would answer, God; but revelation goes further, and explains who God is, and the Triune relation He sustains to us as the Being that it answers prayer, and to whom all flesh should come. We are at once brought in contact with the revealed truth, that prayer is addressed to the Triune-Jehovah, and yet separately and equally, to each distinct Person in the Godhead. There may be a mystery in this statement to some minds, even as there is a mystery in the doctrine of the Trinity itself. But, let it be observed that, if the human mind could fully comprehend this truth, either God must cease to be divine, or man must cease to be human.

But we may possibly simplify this statement by presenting it in a kind of syllogistic form, thus- There are Three distinct Persons in the one God- the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. God is the Divine Object of Prayer; therefore, each distinct Person in the Godhead is a Being to whom it is proper that prayer should be separately, divinely, yet unitedly addressed. We get this truth in the Epistle to the Ephesians (2:18), a passage which affords one of the most remarkable and conclusive evidences of the doctrine of the Trinity found in the Bible, "Through Him (Christ), we both (Jew and Gentile) have access by one Spirit unto the Father." Apart from the clear light in which this text places the doctrine of the Trinity- a doctrine upon which the entire superstructure of Christianity rests- its relation to the article of prayer is as conclusive as it is beautiful. We have here God the Father as the Object of prayer- God the Son, as the Medium of prayer- and God the Spirit, as the Author of prayer. Each as a Divine Person is thus essentially engaged in the divine act of receiving prayer, as each one is embraced in the believer's act of offering prayer. There exists no inferiority of nature, as there is nothing subordinate in office- the Father receiving, the Son presenting, the Spirit inspiring, the prayers of all saints, and these Three essentially and indivisibly One.

Let us address our thoughts, in the first place, to the FATHER. What a warrant and encouragement have we in prayer to approach the "God of Bethel" as a Father! Such is His divinely paternal relation to us. It is the highest relation He sustains. To pardon our sins is a great act of His grace; but to adopt us into His family, a yet greater. It were a great act of the sovereign's clemency to pardon the criminal at the bar; it were a yet more transcendent act of the royal favor to adopt that criminal as his son, and share with him the dignity and privileges of his throne. But all this our God has done, "having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of His will."

Concerning this view of prayer, how explicit is the teaching of God's Word in reference to the paternal relation of God! "You shall call Me FATHER, and shall not turn away from Me" These are wonderful words of God Himself. With such a warrant, what child of God will hesitate, through unbelief or unworthiness, to approach God in prayer as his Father? When we have God's warrant, we have the strongest ground to believe. He cannot go higher than His own word, confirmed by an oath, and sworn by Himself: "for when He could swear by nothing greater, he swore by Himself." Here, then, is His own word of invitation, bidding you draw near to Him as a Father, yes, as our Father. Hesitate not to recognize His paternal relation, and, though it may be with the lisping accents of a babe, draw near, and cry, "My Father."

The apostle inculcates the same truth, illustrated by his own example. "For this cause I bow my knees unto the FATHER of our Lord Jesus Christ, of whom the whole family in earth and in heaven is named." Here you have the example of one who esteemed himself the "chief of sinners," and "less than the least of all saints," bowing his knees in prayer to God as his FATHER, yes, as the Father of the one family of God. Why, then, should we hesitate? Why stand afar off, trembling in the bonds of a slave, when we may draw near in the free spirit of a child?

But, more illustrious and mightier than all, is the precept and the example of Christ himself. Listen to the holy precept; " When you pray, say, our FATHER who is in heaven." One great design of Christ's conning was to dissipate the clouds of ignorance and guilt which gathered around the human mind concerning the Fatherhood of God. Until He dissolved and scattered those clouds, no man, by his own ingenuity or research, could discern this wondrous truth. Here are our Lord's emphatic words; "My Father has given me authority over everything. No one really knows the Son except the Father, and no one really knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him."

And how touching and forcible His own filial example! How frequently the endearing name of Father breathed from His lips, in language like this- "O Father, Lord of heaven and earth," "Righteous Father," "My Father." Behold, then, beloved, the God of Bethel as your Father, and approach Him in prayer as such, with a heart dissolved and poured out in filial love and communion at His feet. Your highest attainment in the divine life is to arrive at the assurance of your adoption, and your highest privilege as a believer is to commune with God as your Father. This His Spirit can give you.

Many, alas! are satisfied with knowing no more of the parental relation of God than what they learn in a continuous and parrot-like repetition of "Our Father who is in heaven." But this will not bring us to the Father's house. This will furnish no title or fitness for the many-mansioned home of heaven. And yet thousands of poor formalists, it is feared, have descended into the shades of eternal despair with these very words upon their lips!

But we hope better things of you, O humble and sincere believer in Jesus! You have not in the school of Christian experience, and in the region of your own heart's plague and nothingness, so learned Christ. Approach Him, then, in prayer as a child, beloved of God, as one standing in, and accepted through, Christ, and pour out your heart before Him, emptied of all its sorrow, sin, and need, as into the listening ear and loving heart of your Father in heaven.

Come as a child! Are you in need? "Your Father knows that you have need of these things." Are you in sorrow? "As a father pities his children, so the Lord pities those who fear Him." Have you sinned, and are you returning as a humble penitent to His feet? "And when he was yet a great way off, his father saw him, and had compassion, and ran and fell on his neck, and kissed him." Is the cloud of adversity darkening, is the wave of sorrow swelling, is trouble near? "The cup which my Father has given me, shall I not drink it?" Has the stroke fallen? Has the flower faded? Is the strong and beautiful staff broken? "My Father, not my will, but Yours be done." These, my beloved reader, are but the several parts of the magnificent Litany, breathing from the heart and uttered by the lips of a humble child of God bowing the knee before Him in the filial, loving, obedient spirit of a child.

Equally with the Father is the SON an object of prayer. Who can doubt it, at all intelligently acquainted with the Bible, and taught experimentally the truth as it is in Jesus? And yet that some have mooted this point, whom we might suppose to have been better instructed, and from whom we should have expected an enlightened and spiritual acquaintance with the truth, shows how important it is that we should "prove all things," while we "hold fast that which is good." If Christ is God, as essentially and most truly He is, then it equally follows that He is a Being to whom prayer is rationally, properly, and scripturally to be addressed. Who can reasonably doubt the Scripture warrant and propriety of addressing prayer to the Lord Jesus Christ, who is acquainted with the history of the early Church, and is conversant with the numerous examples illustrating the fact? The informed reader will not fail to recall to mind the famous letter of Pliny addressed to the Emperor Trajan, furnishing an explicit and unbiased testimony to the practice and purity of the early Christians, especially as it bears upon the point in question- divine worship addressed to Christ. "When they were assembled together," says Pliny, "they sang a hymn to Christ as God."

Such is the testimony of an enemy. Could anything be more explicit bearing upon the fact that the first disciples offered divine worship to their God and Savior Jesus Christ? But we have their own testimony. For instance, we find the apostle Paul dedicating his Epistle to the Corinthians, "We are writing to the church of God in Corinth, you who have been called by God to be his own holy people. He made you holy by means of Christ Jesus, just as he did all Christians everywhere—whoever calls upon the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord and theirs."

This would appear to set the question at rest, as it embraces the whole body of the early Christian Church. Added to this, we have the memorable and touching instance of the thief on the cross praying to Christ with his last breath, "Lord, remember me when You come into Your kingdom." Superadded to this is the equally conclusive and not less affecting instance of Stephen, the first martyr to the Christian faith, thus addressing his dying prayer to Jesus the Savior: "Lord Jesus, receive my spirit." What further testimony do we need? Imitate these illustrious examples of prayer addressed to Christ, and hesitate not to add to your sincere faith in Jesus your Savior the humble tribute of your worship of Him as your God.

What a severe deprivation would it be were we debarred from approaching Christ as our Savior, Friend, and High Priest, presenting our needs, unveiling our sorrows, and confessing our sins? "Lord, to whom shall we go but unto You? Into whose ear should we breathe our sins- upon whose breast should we weep our sorrows- upon whose shoulder should we cast our burdens- and upon whose arm should we lean, as, in weakness and weariness, we come up out of the wilderness, but Yours? Oh, the precious privilege of going, as the bereaved disciples of John did, and telling Jesus all and everything!

Unscriptural is that creed, lifeless that religion, and cruel that teaching, that would rob me of the precious and comforting privilege of offering my sacrifice of prayer and praise to my Savior. The glorified saints worship Him, praise Him, and adore Him in heaven, casting, their crowns at His feet, and exclaiming, "Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honor, and glory, and blessing,"- and who shall debar us this privilege on earth?

The same argument applies to prayer as addressed to the HOLY SPIRIT. A distinct Person in the Godhead– of the same nature and substance with the Father and the Son– He is equally an Object of divine worship, and on this ground we are authorized and justified in praying to Him as GOD. One or two Scripture examples will suffice. That of Ezekiel is remarkable, in which the prophet thus invokes the power and presence of the Holy Spirit: "Then he said to me, "Speak to the winds and say: 'This is what the Sovereign Lord says: Come, O breath, from the four winds! Breathe into these dead bodies so that they may live again. So I spoke as he commanded me, and the wind entered the bodies, and they began to breathe. They all came to life and stood up on their feet—a great army of them."

We have another example in the case of the apostles; "Who, when they were come together, prayed for them (Peter and John), that they might receive the Holy Spirit. . . . Then laid they their hands on them, and they received the Holy Spirit." Here was an invocation of the Holy Spirit scarcely made before it was manifestly granted. And what was the effusion of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost, but an answer to the prayer addressed to Him by the little company of praying disciples, who, assembled in an upper room, "continued with one accord in prayer and supplication"? And while thus "they were all with one accord in one place," their invocation of the Spirit was answered; "And they were filled with the Holy Spirit, and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance."

Need we multiply, as we might, these Scripture proofs of prayer addressed to God the Eternal Spirit? Hesitate not then, with these examples before you, to honor the Spirit, even as you honor the Father and the Son, by addressing to Him, as a Divine Person in the Godhead, your prayers, and supplications, and praises. Are you in affliction?- pray to the Spirit for comfort. Are you sensible of your spiritual ignorance?- pray to Him for His teaching. Are you discovering more of the hidden evil of your heart?- pray to Him for His sanctifying grace. Are you thirsting for a clearer sense of your salvation?- pray to Him for His assuring, sealing power. Do you long to know more fully your adoption?- pray to Him to breathe "Abba, Father," in your heart. Does your soul travail in prayer for the conversion of those dear to you?- cry earnestly to the Spirit. Do you desire the vineyard of your own soul to be fruitful and fragrant with His grace?- pray to the Spirit; "Awake, north wind! Come, south wind! Blow on my garden and waft its lovely perfume to my lover."

"Eternal Spirit! we confess
And sing the wonders of Your grace;
Your power conveys our blessings down
From God the Father and the Son.
Enlightened by Your heavenly ray,
Our shades and darkness turn to day;
Your inward teachings make us know
Our danger and our refuge too.
The troubled conscience knows Your voice,
Your cheering words awake our joys;
Your words allay the stormy wind,
And calm the surges of the mind."

"I am the God of Bethel." What encouragement does this title of our God hold out to draw near to Him, and "by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, make known our requests"! All that He was to Jacob, He is to us. Like him, are we passing through a night of loneliness and sorrow? Are we flying from a foe, or do we dread some impending trouble? Behold the mystic "ladder"– to Jacob but a vision, to us a divine and glorious reality, on whose rounds we may ascend near, nearer, and still nearer, to heaven, until we find ourselves in wrapped communion with the God that hears and answers prayer. That ladder is Christ Jesus, the "one Mediator between God and man," whose invitation to ascend is contained in His own gracious and assuring words: "Whatever you shall ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son." "If you shall ask anything in my name, I will do it."

With such a " new and living way" to God, with such steps raising you above trial, above sorrow, above need, above your enemies round about you, uplifting your soul to Him whose ear hears you, whose hand is outstretched to support you, all whose boundless resources are at your command, will you not draw near by the blood of Christ, enter into the holiest, and take hold of the "God of Bethel," nor relax your hold until He bless you?

Oh, the mighty power of prayer with the God of Bethel! "Let him take hold of my strength, that he may make peace with me; and he shall make peace with me," says God. Take hold of "Christ, the power of God," and you have taken hold of God's strength; and the "worm Jacob" though you are, you shall prevail with the God of Jacob, even with the God of Bethel. "Do not be afraid, O worm Jacob, O little Israel, for I myself will help you," declares the Lord, your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel. You will be a new threshing instrument with many sharp teeth. You will tear all your enemies apart, making chaff of mountains. You will toss them in the air, and the wind will blow them all away; a whirlwind will scatter them. And the joy of the Lord will fill you to overflowing. You will glory in the Holy One of Israel."

The night of your woe maybe dark and long; and you may "wait for the Lord more than those who watch for the morning," but that night, dark and long though it is, shall not be without its blessed vision of faith. You shall see Jesus! Through Him shall see God your Father, all whose thoughts are thoughts of peace, ordaining and shaping your every step with a wisdom that can make no mistake, with a power that nothing can baffle, with a faithfulness that cannot falter, and with a love that knows no variableness,, neither the shadow of a turning, and your night of weeping shall brighten into a morning of joy!

You are perhaps puzzled as to the scope of prayer. You wonder if its range is so wide as to embrace the needs of the present, as the hope of the life that is to come. But why debate this question for a moment? Has not Christ told you that, whatever you ask in His name He will grant you? Has He not instructed you to ask of your Heavenly Father your "daily bread"? Does He not bid you look down upon the lily of the field, robed with a beauty which Solomon might have envied, and then bid you learn that He who so clothed that lily will clothe you? Does He not bid you, on some lovely morning of spring, upraise your eyes to the bird floating above you in the richest plumage and with the sweetest song, and then learn that He who provides for the sparrow will not allow His children to need.

The scope of prayer, then, clearly embraces supplication for all temporal good. Look at that flower! It toils not, it spins not; and why? because your Heavenly Father clothes it. Look at that bird, leaping from bow to bow, springing from hill to valley, sparkling with beauty, gushing with song, and wild with ecstatic delight! It has not a thought or care of its own; and why? because God thinks and cares for it. Oh, you of little faith! Why do you hesitate to trust all your personal interests, to confide all your worldly affairs, to disclose all your temporal needs and sorrows in prayer to God? He is not too high for your lowest need, nor too great for your smallest care. "If the buzzing of a fly troubles me," says John Newton, "I may take it to God." This is not mere sentiment. It is the practical embodiment of a principle of experimental religion most honoring to God and sanctifying to us- the principle of faith, which acknowledges God in all our ways, sees God in everything, and takes everything, the smallest, to God.

But if prayer in its scope takes in things temporal, much more does it embrace our spiritual and higher interests. Where can we repair with our varied soul-exercises but to Christ? Even His ministers may either not understand, or understanding, may yet grow weary of them. Our spiritual exercises may be beyond their own personal experience, our soul-perplexities may baffle their acutest skill, our spirit's sorrow distance their deepest sympathy. An eminent minister of Christ was on one occasion observed to betray deep emotion while a member of his flock was unfolding to him her spiritual case. "Have I said anything to wound your feelings?" she earnestly inquired. " No," was the humble reply of the man of God, "but I am affected with the thought that you are unfolding a stage of Christian experience to which I have not yet myself attained." This is a possible case.

We may in our ministries overstep the boundary of our own personal experience, or we may not be able to reach the more advanced experience of our hearers. But, prayer brings us to the feet of Him who can understand all our religious exercises, can harmonize all our doctrinal difficulties, can guide all our soul-perplexities, and bring us safely through all our spiritual temptations, doubts, and fears. Jesus leads us along no path untraveled by Himself. The flock shall not walk where the Shepherd's footprint is not seen, for in everything "He has left us an example that we should follow His steps." Then give yourself to prayer, and the "God of Bethel," who is a prayer-hearing, a prayer-answering, and a prayer-exceeding God– for He is "able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we are able to ask or think"- will withhold from you no blessing that will be for your good to receive and for His glory to bestow.

Are you living a prayerless life, knowing nothing of communion with the "God of Bethel?" Then, dying so, you die a hopeless death. A prayerless life involves a Christless death. What! never pray? Never pray from a broken heart, never pray with a humble, contrite spirit? Sinner! the time is coming when you will pray, but too late! So prayed the rich man, lifting up his eyes in torment, "Send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, for I am tormented in this flame." But it was too late to pray then. Hell is the only place where God turns a deaf ear to prayer. Rise, then, and pray, though it be but in the publican's words, "God be merciful to me a sinner." That prayer, breathed from the heart, and offered in the name of Jesus, will enter the ear of the "God of Bethel," and bring down the saving mercy for which it pleads.

"The time will come, when, humbled low
In sorrow's evil day,
Your voice of anguish shall be taught,
But taught too late, to pray.
When, like the whirlwind over the deep,
Comes desolation's blast,
Prayers then extorted shall be vain,
The hour of mercy past.
The choice you made has fixed your doom,
For this is Heaven's decree
That, with the fruits of what he sowed,
The sinner filled shall be."

In concluding this chapter, let the truth remain deeply and permanently fixed upon the reader's mind that, without prayer we are necessarily without life in, or from, Christ; and in God's eye are dead in sin. It is most true that prayer does not save us. Salvation is only in Christ. By His merits and intercession alone are we saved. Nothing meritoriously and vitally enters into our salvation, but His blood and righteousness. The one cleanses us from our sins; the other justifies us. But the necessity of prayer arises from the fact, that there is no other divinely-appointed channel by which we make known our needs to God, and by which God meets them. True, He knows our needs before we make them known; but He has said: "For this cause will I be inquired of to do it for them." We may, indeed, reach heaven without books, or learning, or talents; but we can never reach heaven without prayer.

"Behold, he prays!" is Heaven's first recognition of the sinner's conversion on earth. A soul without prayer is like a house exposed to the pelting storm without a covering. How can the temptations of Satan be repelled? How can the corruptions of the flesh be resisted? How can the seductions of the world be overcome, but by prayer? Then, above all things, cultivate prayer– closet prayer, family prayer, sanctuary prayer, social prayer. Pray, pray, pray; above all things, PRAY.

Seek the aid of the Holy Spirit, promised to "make intercession for us, according to the will of God." He will teach you how to pray, and what to pray for. And when He has laid a burden on your heart, you may be well assured it is according to the Divine will, and that the God of Bethel will answer your prayer in that particular thing for which you have besought Him. And when your heart is led out to pray, not for worldly wealth and distinction, as did the mother of Zebedee's children, but for an increase of faith, that you may crucify the world, live as a stranger and pilgrim here, love Jesus more, have more zeal for God, more resemblance to Christ, more of the spirit of adoption, a clearer sense of your present acceptance in the Beloved, more love to, and union with, "all saints," you may be assured that you are asking those things which are in accordance with His will; and you may with boldness enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, and draw near to the God of Bethel with a true heart, and in full assurance of faith that your penance shall, like Queen Esther's, find acceptance, and your petition, like hers, be granted, not merely to the half, but to the whole of Christ's kingdom; for, not as the world gives does Jesus give His royal favors to His people.

Let our homes be Bethels, where the "God of Bethel" loves to dwell. Oh, that our children, our servants, ourselves, may be molded into Christian families, pious households, whose altars, domestic and private, are reared in the Name and consecrated to the worship of the God of Bethel, even the God of Jacob, "in whom, and in whose seed, shall all the families of the earth be blessed."

"O God of Bethel! by whose hand
Your people still are fed;
Who through this weary pilgrimage
Have all our fathers led.
"Our fervent prayers we now present
Before Your Throne of grace
God of our fathers! be the God
Of their succeeding race.
"Through each perplexing path of life
Our wandering footsteps guide;
Give us each day our daily bread,
And clothing fit provide.
"Oh, spread Your covering wings around,
Until all our wanderings cease,
And at our Father's loved abode
Our souls arrive in peace."

"Call upon me in the day of trouble. I will deliver you, and you shall glorify me."

THE GOD OF GRACE

"The God of all grace." 1 Peter 5:10

There is not, perhaps, in the Bible a word more expressive, or, to the believing ear, one more sweet, than the word GRACE. It at once discloses the secret of salvation, defines the underlying principle of redeeming mercy, and indicates the golden thread which runs throughout and knits together all the great doctrines of the gospel, emphatically designated the "gospel of the grace of God." The definition of the word is simple as it is precious. It means, God's good-will and free favor to man, in and through Christ Jesus. Thus is it employed, "By grace you are saved;" "The grace of God that brings salvation;" "It is of faith, that it might be by grace;" "By the grace of God I am what I am;" "We believe that through the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ we shall be saved, even as they."

This principle of God's favor, or free grace, as we have just remarked, underlies and binds together all the great truths indicated by the previous titles of God. The whole plan of salvation is based upon free grace, or, in other words, God's good-will and unpurchased favor to sinners. This idea, of course, repudiates and ignores all worth and worthiness whatever on the part of the creature, constituting man God's debtor, instead of- as the scheme of salvation by human merit does- God being a debtor to man. Let this not be lost sight of, that salvation by works lays God under obligation to the creature, whereas salvation by grace lays the creature under eternal obligation to God. Human merit, therefore, is entirely excluded as an element entering into our salvation; the whole scheme, from first to last, being by grace. "And if by grace, then it is no more of works, otherwise grace is no more grace; but if it be of works, then it is no more grace."

All the religions of men- and their name is "legion"- are based upon the principle of human merit- all are founded upon some fancied good and power in the creature, the effect of which is totally to set aside the Atonement of Christ and the work of the Holy Spirit in the soul. In fact, the doctrine of creature merit is the fatal element of man's religion, the moral poison of his soul, the remedy for which is only found in a believing reception and heart-felt experience of the free grace salvation of the Lord Jesus Christ.

And yet how much even the Lord's people have yet to learn of this great truth! How dim their views, how faint their realization, how little their enjoyment of it! How much forgetfulness of the truth that Christ died, not for saints, but for sinners; that He receives, not the worthy, but the unworthy; that He came to heal, not the whole, but the sick; to call, not the righteous, but sinners, to repentance! Always looking for some good thing in themselves, instead of looking only to Christ for that worthiness which never can be found out of Him; ever dealing with their sins, in the place of sin's Great Sacrifice, substituting sanctification for justification; thus making a saving merit of their holiness, putting faith in the place of Christ, the Object of faith, and so making a Savior of their religious experience, it is no marvel that they realize so faintly their completeness in Christ, and the peace and joy, the hope and holiness springing therefrom. For this reason, "many are weak and sickly among them," and many travel in doubt, and fear, and tears to the brink of the river of death, though, blessed be God, none ever go doubting, and fearing, and weeping over it; for, at the last, grace triumphs, and the weakest faith gets the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

In considering this divine title of our God, the first and most obvious idea it suggests is that God is the eternal and essential Source of all grace to man. This opens up to us a great and precious truth. As the "God of all grace," He must be the first and originating Cause of this, as of every other blessing. But for the existence of this fact, there had been no Savior; and no Savior, there had been no salvation; and no salvation, there had been no heaven for sinners. This divine Fountain of grace, mercy, and love unsealed, fallen man would have righteously shared the doom of fallen angels, there being no difference between the darkest spirit in the world of woe and the brightest spirit in the world of bliss, but what the sovereign grace of God makes.

The Lord's people seriously and frequently err in sinking below this truth. Satisfied with the sweetness of the stream of grace, they ascend not to the source from where it flows. Not thus indifferent are the scientific men of this world, who in their generation are wiser than the children of light. How much valuable life has been sacrificed, and what vast wealth expended, in attempting to trace the source of the Nile! And still the problem remains unsolved. Content with having "tasted that the Lord is gracious," having "drunk of the brook in the way," how few of the recipients of divine grace explore the divine and eternal source from where their salvation has come! "There is a river, the streams whereof shall make glad the city of God," and of this River God Himself is the Eternal Head. With Him originated the great plan of redemption. Who can study it- its character and history, its philosophy and results- who can contemplate its fitness for God, its adaptation to man- without a profound conviction that the Mind that conceived, and planned, and executed the Redemption of fallen man must be Divine, and that that Mind was God the Father's?

He must be insensible to what is great, blind to what is grand, stupid to what is convincing; who can rise from the study of Redemption without the overwhelming conviction that such an expedient could have originated only with God; that His heart conceived it, His mind planned it, His power executed it, and that the whole resolves itself in an eternal monument of His free and sovereign grace to sinners! Truly, "Salvation is of the Lord."

A few particulars will illustrate this precious truth. As "the God of all grace," the grace He has so graciously revealed to sinners, is in Him AN ESSENTIAL PROPERTY. It is not grace inspired by our sinfulness, or moved to its display by anything on our part. No condition of ours, however abject and miserable, originated or elicits it. It dwells in Him as essentially as His own essence. He would not be God, if He were not the God of all grace. He must cease to be God were He to cease to be gracious. Listen to His own words thus portraying Himself: "The Lord God merciful and gracious." Not so independently, and spontaneously, and freely do light and heat flow from the sun, as does saving grace from the nature of God to poor sinners. God cannot act but His grace displays itself in some one of its endless forms.

What is forgiveness, but God's grace remitting our sins? What is justification, but God's grace accepting our persons? What is sanctification, but God's grace purifying our hearts? What is adoption, but God's grace making us sons? What is our final salvation, but God's grace keeping us from falling, and preserving us into His eternal kingdom? Thus, each round of the ladder that lifts us from the mouth of hell to the gate of heaven, is an unfolding of the boundless grace of God to lost sinners, vile, graceless, and hell-deserving.

Do you think, then, that coming to God by Jesus Christ, and casting yourself upon His grace as a poor, lost, worthless sinner, He will cast you off? Never! God may cast down a poor soul– and this He often does in love, to lay it low, even to the dust, that he may learn that salvation, from first to last, is of His free grace– but He will never cast off a poor soul that has fled to the asylum of His mercy, that has cast himself upon His boundless grace to sinners. He is too gracious, too divinely, essentially gracious for this. He must cease to be God if He cease to be gracious, and He must cease to be gracious if He refuse to receive and save a poor, broken-hearted sinner who casts himself on that grace.

Thus we have endeavored to lead your mind up, my reader, to the Fountain-Head of all grace. Rest not below it. Precious as is the channel, as we shall presently see– Holy as is the object, as will ultimately appear, and sweet as are the streams, as all who have only tasted that the Lord is gracious will testify– it must be acknowledged that all this is infinitely increased when we rise to the Divine, Essential, and Eternal Source from where it all flowed down to us– even the God and Father of all grace.

That is a word of rich consolation spoken by the apostle- it has been as a sunbeam in many a cloudy day- to God's dear, tried, needy ones– "My Lord shall supply all your needs according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus." Who can measure the depth and height, the length and breadth of meaning which this assurance contains? How many a tear it has dried, how many a fear it has removed, how many a need it has met! Our great sin is in limiting God, the Holy One of Israel. We measure His infinity by a finite scale. We too much resemble the insect traversing the tree leaf, and imagining that that leaf bounds the utmost limit of creation; or, like the child that dips its tiny shell into the sea, and fancies the ocean is lessened by its draught. We forget that our God is divine, and therefore all-sufficient; that He is infinite, and therefore illimitable; that, while the universe receives its life and existence from Him each moment, and all the Church has been living upon His all-sufficiency ever since its being, His infinite sufficiency and grace have not sunk one hair's breadth. Oh, we need to deal more simply and closely with the all-sufficiency of God! He condescends to ask this at our hands. "I am God Almighty." "I am the Lord God that brought you up out of the land of Egypt." "Is anything too hard for me? says the Lord God."

Now, it is from this infinite Ocean of grace that "God so loved the world as to give His only-begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life." That must be an eternal, essential, fathomless, boundless Ocean of grace that could, from its all-sufficiency and freeness, provide such a Savior, and such a salvation, and such a heaven, for poor, lost sinners! Truly is He the "God of all grace." He that gave His only Son, well beloved and precious, to suffer and die for His people, surely, from that same infinite sea of grace, he is prepared, as freely and as fully, to give us all other things, from a crust of bread, to the banquet of heaven; from a cup of cold water, to the ocean fullness of joy that is in His presence; and to the rivers of pleasures for evermore that are at His right hand.

Away, then, to God, even the "God of all grace", with your every need, temporal and spiritual. Ask not, "Can He provide a table in the wilderness? He has brought me through six trills, will He deliver me out of the seventh? He has pardoned me ninety-nine times, will He pardon the hundredth? He has rolled many a stone from off my buried mercy, and out of my path of difficulty, will He, can He, remove this great mountain that covers me with its deep, dark shadow, and make my way a plain?" Oh you of little faith! is not our God the God of all grace? Wherefore, then, do you thus reason, and doubt, and fear?

Bring your perplexities to God, and He will guide them. Bring your needs to God, and He will supply them. Bring your mountains to God, and He will level them. Bring your sins to God, and He will forgive them. Bring your sorrows, trials, and temptations to God, and He will sustain you under, and will bring you through them, to the praise and glory of His great Name, as the "God of all grace." Your supplies may be exhausted, but not His fullness. Your need may press, but there is no pressure on His sufficiency. Your power may be limited, but His is illimitable. Your grace may be shallow, but His is fathomless. And you may ask, "From where will my next supply come?" while, at the moment that the anxious question is trembling upon your lip, the supply that is to silence it is laid up in the inexhaustible treasures of His grace, and will be sent just at the moment that will awaken in you the sweetest song, and yield to Him the richest glory.

An important and interesting part of out subject now invites our attention. We refer to THE LORD JESUS CHRIST, AS THE OFFICIAL AND RESPONSIBLE HEAD IN THE COVENANT OF GRACE, OF ALL HIS GRACE TO SINNERS. Every reservoir has its conduits, every fountain its channels, every spring its rivulets. The infinite and eternal fullness of grace in God would have availed us nothing, had not a suitable channel been provided for its conveyance. The Father would, in the impressive language of the sacred song, have existed as "a Fountain sealed," secluded, eternally sealed, but for Jesus. There would have been no channel of grace from God to the sinner, no possible avenue of the sinner's approach to God, but for the "One Mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus."

This channel through which His grace was to flow, this medium by which the sinner was to approach, was of the Father's own providing. It must, in all respects, be worthy of the Being with whom it originated, whose honor it was to vindicate, whose glory it was to secure; and it must be in all respects suitable to the sinner, whose grace and glory, whose salvation and heaven it was to accomplish. All this Jesus, the Mediator of the new covenant, was. Our Arbitrator, laying His right hand on the Father, and His left hand upon us- the right hand of His Godhead upon God, and the left hand of His manhood upon man- so making peace by the blood of His cross; so opening a medium through which God, consistent with His holiness, and man, despite our sinfulness, could meet in a state of at-one-ment. This matter of reconciliation on the part of God has been one of some perplexity to many pious minds, giving rise to much obscurity, if not unsoundness of idea on the subject.

The chief difficulty has been the harmony of the two ideas of everlasting love and reconciliation. If God's love to the Church were, as He affirms it to be, "from everlasting," the question arises, where exists the necessity of mediatorship and reconciliation? Perhaps the following remarks, not before published, of an eminent and deeply-taught saint of God (Mary Winslow), may in some degree elucidate this important and interesting point- "If the holiness of God were never incensed against the Church fallen in Adam, then there had been no need of the death of Christ. Christ died to reconcile God to us and us to God. From where sprung the wrath of God which Christ endured? The proper answer to this question will give us a loving view of God as a reconciled Father in Christ Jesus. A mediator supposes the parties between whole he mediates at variance the one with the other, else there had been no necessity of mediatorship. The reconciliation which Christ effected was not to the love of God towards His people- for that was never lost- but to the justice of God offended by sin. Christ is the Peacemaker- 'He is our peace.' Justice, Holiness, and Truth are all reconciled and harmonized towards His people in Jesus, so that it is proper, as it is sweet, unspeakably sweet, to speak to and of Him as a reconciled God in Christ Jesus." 'All things are of God, who has reconciled us to Himself by Christ Jesus.'

We think the point is fully met in these few observations by the remark that, Christ died, not to reconcile the love, but the Justice of God towards His people. The love of God never was alienated or affected by Adam's fall, but His Justice and His Holiness were. Christ's atoning death met their every requirement, and now both are on the side of the sinner, so that we are as much saved on the footing of justice as of love, of holiness as of grace. How sure is the Foundation God has laid for the salvation of a poor sinner! How tried the Corner-stone upon which this hope reposes! To be saved on the basis of justice would seem to place the salvation of the soul upon a higher, and surer footing, than even of love, since God can now be just to Himself in saving us; and not to save the sinner believing in Christ were to be unjust to us. If saved thus, you stand on the broad foundation of justice, and you can justly claim, through Christ, a mansion in the house of your Father in heaven. God is therefore bound, on the principle of righteousness, to save your soul, cast in simple faith upon Jesus. Thus, "Grace reigns unto righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord."

But we return to the truth, that the Lord Jesus is the Covenant Head, the official and responsible Administrator of this grace. It was once entrusted to Adam, the federal head of the human race. But the responsibility was too great, the treasure too costly, for a mere creature to sustain and hold. We know how soon the vessel of clay which the Divine Potter had made, and in which the grace of our salvation was deposited, was marred and destroyed by the Fall. Foreknowing this catastrophe, and bent on the salvation of His Church, God amply provided for the case, by placing the grace that was to bring it to glory in the hands of His beloved Son. And so He, the divine Artist, seeing the destruction of the first vessel of grace, "made it again another vessel, as seemed good to the Potter to make it."

If the first vessel- Adam, in his sinlessness reflecting the pure and perfect image of God, was beautiful, it yet had no beauty by reason of the beauty that excelled and eclipsed it in the mysteriously and wondrously constituted Person of the Son of God. The incarnation of God is the greatest wonder in the countless wonders which crowd the universe. It will be the study of angels, the theme of saints, the song of heaven, the marvel of eternity. It is the central truth of Christianity, the divine sun of the system, around which all other truths of our gospel circle. It gives to all their character, glory, and place. It gives to atoning blood its all-sovereign virtue; to imputed righteousness its all-justifying efficacy; to the cross of Calvary its power, attraction, and glory. In a word, "God manifest in the flesh," is the key that unlocks the pavilion of every other mystery of the gospel, while it remains itself, and will forever remain, the greatest and most sublime mystery of all.

Such is the Head in which it pleased the Father that all fullness of grace should dwell. For what purpose could this delegated fullness of grace thus deposited in Jesus be, but to furnish Him, as the Head over all things to His Church, with supplies of "all grace" for His people. There are two fullnesses described as being in Christ- the "fullness of the Godhead," which is His Deity, or His essential fullness; and then the "fullness" which it pleased the Father should dwell in Him, which describes the fullness of grace treasured up in Him for all the needs of a most needy Church.

Let us, then, look at some of the particulars of this grace dwelling thus essentially in the Father, the administration of which was placed in the hands of the Lord Jesus. The title of our God under consideration is as comprehensive as it is precious. "The God of ALL grace." "ALL grace." Marvelous declaration this! Precious announcement! It chimes with every circumstance; it meets every trial; it confronts every temptation; it supplies every need; it is so worthy of God, so like Jesus, so suitable in all respects to the saints. "ALL grace."

In the first place, there dwells in the Lord Jesus, as the Father's Depository, all SIN-FORGIVING GRACE. Pardon is the highest prerogative of sovereignty, as it is the richest boon of the subject. So great is this exercise of divine favor, so rich and free a blessing of His grace, God not only has not, but could not, delegate the power to any created being. He reserves, and justly so, the right of forgiveness in His own hands. Imagine, then, what an insult to His divine Majesty, what an invasion of His sovereign prerogative, the daring and blasphemous assumption of the court of Rome- call it not Church, for Church it is not- in claiming and professing to exercise a right which God has never entrusted to any authority of man, still less to a sinful mortal! O sinner! bound to the judgment, there is forgiveness with God, and with God only, and to Him hesitate not to repair, in the spirit of a humble penitent, with the petition breathing from your heart, "God be merciful to me a sinner!"

But this sin-pardoning grace is lodged in the hands of Jesus. The grace that remits the greatest sin, that pardons the vilest sinner, is with Christ. How often did the wondrous words breathe from His lips, "Your sins are forgiven you!" The Scribes and Pharisees charged Him with blasphemy because He assumed a divine function, and exclaimed, "Who can forgive sins, but God only?"- thus, indirectly and undesignedly, blending with the indictment an acknowledgment of the fact that Christ was God.

Oh, yes! child of God, there is in Christ the grace of forgiveness- grace that can remit every transgression, pardon every crime, blot out every sin; grace that, where sin has abounded, much more, yes, infinitely more, abounds. "Through Him," says the apostle, "is preached unto you the forgiveness of sins." "In whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sin, according to the riches of His grace." What encouragement for you who feel yourself to be a sinner, your sins so great, even the greatest, that the "remembrance of them is an intolerable burden," to repair to Jesus for the grace that will entirely pardon and cancel all!

Bear in mind that the forgiveness of sin, for which God has provided at a cost so immense to Himself, is His free gift to sinners. It is entirely an act of grace. We read, "And when they had nothing to pay, He frankly forgave them both." The pardon of sin, while it is not too, great a blessing for God to give, is too great a blessing for man to purchase. And were it not free, entirely free, not the least worthiness on the part of the sinner claiming, and not his greatest unworthiness disclaiming it, it never could personally be ours. Approach, then, the sin-cleansing Fountain of Christ's own atoning blood- blood possessing all the sovereign efficacy of His Deity, wash, and be clean. And thus washing by faith in this precious, sin-atoning, guilt-effacing blood, God declares, "Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool."

All JUSTIFYING GRACE is in Christ Jesus. The two conditions of the saved soul- the forgiveness of sin and the justification of the sinner- though inseparable in its salvation, are yet to be kept distinct as defining the two essential parts of Christ's mediatorial work- His obedience and suffering- and as describing the two essential conditions of the believer. The sinner is pardoned through the blood of Christ, and he is justified by the righteousness of Christ. By the disobedience of the first Adam, we are plunged into condemnation; by the obedience of the Second Adam, the Lord from heaven, we are delivered from condemnation; by the one we are made sinners, and by the other we are made righteous. (See Romans 5:17-19.)

Study these passages, my reader, in prayer for the illumination of the Spirit on a matter of such vital moment, especially important in the present day, when the doctrine of imputed righteousness, as taught by Paul, as held by the Reformers, as bled for by Ridley and Wycliffe and Huss, and others of the "noble army of martyrs," and so distinctly embodied in the doctrinal articles of the English Church, has come to be disputed and denied by many. But this grace of justification the "God of all grace," by whom the believing sinner is justified- for "it is God who justifies "- is deposited in Christ Jesus, who is emphatically the "Lord our Righteousness." Believing in Him, we are now freely and forever justified. His righteousness becomes, by the imputation of the Spirit, and through the receiving faith of the believing soul, our righteousness; so that, in the strong language of Scripture, "we are made the righteousness of God in Him."

Oh, what a glorious and precious truth is this! How it exalts and ennobles the soul! "In Your righteousness shall they be exalted." Equally free with the grace of pardon is the grace of justification. Both are the gratuitous blessings of God. Thus the apostle proves it. "Being justified by faith (and "faith is the gift of God"), we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ." Again, "Being justified freely by His grace, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus."

What joyful news, what glad tidings are here for you who, after laboring and striving, have happily come to the end of all your own doings, and can do no more! You have traveled to the "end of the law," and find you have, if not in the letter, yet in the spirit, broken its every commandment, and so are conscious of being guilty of all. And now your cry is, "Wretched one that I am! who will deliver me from this condemnation?" Lo! Jesus appears! He has seen you 'toiling in rowing,' He has watched all your well-meant strivings and sincere attempts to keep the law, and has marked all your inability and failure. And now He presents Himself before you wearing that splendid and significant title, 'The Lord our Righteousness,' and He says to you, "I am the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believes; I am your righteousness without a work of your own; I have kept the law, have obeyed every command, and have honored every precept; believe only in me and you shall be justified from all things from which you could not be justified by the law of Moses, or by the most perfect obedience of your own."

And now methinks I see the poor toiling soul cast overboard its oars, and ceasing any longer to stem the tide of its sins, infirmities, and failures, spread its sails to the gale of God's free grace, wafting its long tempest-tossed barque into the calm waters of perfect peace through Jesus Christ our Lord.

"The God of all grace" has also deposited in Christ Jesus the fullness of ADOPTING GRACE. "You are all," says the apostle, "the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus." And in another place he says, "Because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father." Into what a dignified position does this adoption of grace place the believing soul! A rebel made a son, a foe made a child, an alien made an heir, "an heir of God, and a joint-heir with Christ Jesus." What divine, what marvelous, what free grace is this! Believer in Jesus, know your adoption. Child of God, realize your sonship. Son of God, claim your heirship, and live in anticipation of your inheritance.

So divine, so loving, so free is the grace flowing from the "God of all grace," and welled in the humanity of Christ, as the Head of all grace to His Church, that "now are we the sons of God; and it does not yet appear what we shall be; but we know that when He shall appear we shall be like Him for we shall see Him as He is." Go to this God of grace, then, through Jesus, in the filial spirit of a loved child, and disclose to Him your every need, unveil to Him your every grief; acknowledge to Him your every sin; make known to Him your every temptation, and assault, and difficulty, keeping back nothing which a loving, dutiful child, should pour into the heart of a fond, faithful, and all-powerful Father. Oh that the grace of adoption might so fill our souls as to dislodge all servile fear, dissolve all legal bonds, and enable us to walk in the holy, happy liberty of the children of God!

The God of all grace has equally deposited all fullness of SANCTIFYING GRACE in Christ Jesus. Here is another kindred yet distinct condition of the believing soul. It may be regarded, perhaps, as the effect and fruit of all the other related doctrines of grace. If, for example, I am a, pardoned sinner, I am justified; and if I am a justified sinner, I am an adopted child; and if I am all these, then I am holy, sanctified, separated, and set apart wholly for God. "Holiness to God" is inscribed on my brow.

Similar to this was the apocalyptic vision which John beheld, and thus graphically describes: "Then I saw the Lamb standing on Mount Zion, and with him were 144,000 who had his name and his Father's name written on their foreheads." Do we thus personally possess the seal, and are we thus visibly wearing the sign, of our adoption? Do the saints, (for "the world knows us not'') see our Father's image, and read the Father's name, in our holy walk, in our filial devotion, in our loving spirit? That this may be so, do not forget that all grace is treasured up in Christ to promote our personal holiness. We are as much to live upon Christ for sanctification as for pardon and justification. The grace that delivers us from hell fits us for heaven; that grace which cancels our guilt, subdues also our corruption; that grace which emancipates us from our servitude, equally dethrones the tyrant. O wondrous, precious grace that, by its divine sanctity and power, brings first one, and then another indwelling corrupt principle, passion, and desire of our hearts into subjection to itself, and all in obedience to Christ; that moulds and fashions us into the image of Jesus!

Nor must we overlook the part the Holy Spirit takes in the conveyance of this grace from the Father, the God of all grace, "through Jesus Christ, full of grace and truth," to the happy recipients of this grace– poor, needy, graceless souls. While the Father decrees this grace and provides it; and while the Son holds the key of all this treasure and metes it out "grace for grace" - or, as it is in the original, "wave upon wave"- the Holy Spirit makes us to know and feel our deep need, and then conveys the blessing into the soul. Is not this the meaning of the words of Jesus- "He shall glorify me, for He shall take of mine and show it unto you." And how appropriate is thus the office of the Spirit. Having implanted His own graces in the soul, does He leave them to their self growth, does He abandon them to the unkind, uncongenial soil in which they were implanted? Oh, no! Having begun a good work, He carries it on to completion. He watches over, waters, and nourishes by fresh supplies the graces He has implanted. He it is who waters the roots, He it is who strengthens the stem, He it is who forms the blossom, He it is who expands the bud, He it is who ripens the fruit and conducts it to perfection.

Honor the Spirit in this work, glorify Him in His person, guard against wounding and grieving Him, and daily acknowledge your indebtedness to Him for conveying down from God the Father, through Christ the Son, the streams of grace which keep in bloom, fragrance, and beauty His own graces of faith, and love, and joy, and peace, and hope in your soul.

Is He the God of all grace? Then in Christ He has made provision for all COMFORTING GRACE. What a blank would exist in this provision- a need which nothing ever could meet- were there no consolation, no comfort, no sympathy, in Christ Jesus for poor, sorrowing, suffering saints! Alas! how large the number! How many a tried, afflicted believer, will bend over this chapter, and perhaps find nothing that meets his case until he reaches the close, and is reminded of what he has often been told before, but which, now that he is passing through the deep, dark waters of grief, seems like a newborn truth to his soul, that Jesus is the "Consolation of Israel."

Yes, afflicted and sorrowing one, the God of all grace is the God of all comfort, and has deposited in Christ all comfort for you. He knows the nature of your sorrow- for He sent it. He marks the pressure of your cross- for He imposed it. He is acquainted with the bitterness of your cup- for He mixed it. All His promises of succour and support are Yes, and Amen in Christ Jesus. All the tenderness, the compassion, the sympathy, the grace that it pleased the Father should dwell in Christ, is designed for your personal and present sorrow. Listen to the words of Jesus; "Let not your heart be troubled." Oh, who knows your heart's deeply veiled anguish, its doubts and sorrows- who can reach, fathom, and control it; who can soothe, chasten, and sanctify it, but Jesus? His grace will support, strengthen, and calm you now, enabling you to glorify God in the fires. Oh, it were worth all the sorrow that ever brimmed our cup, to know what the Lord Jesus Christ is a Brother born for adversity!

Live, then, upon this God of all grace. Remember, there is no limit to its extent– it is "ALL grace." Take your heart to God through Christ, and He will fill it with every blessing you ask, with every grace you need. Your sins, your needs, your trials, your temptations, your sorrows, can never exceed the "ALL grace" that dwells in God, and which Jesus waits to communicate. Go with an empty hand- go with the exhausted vessel- go with the often-told tale of grief- go with the old, old story of backsliding, and unworthiness, and need; only go to Jesus, and sink your vessel, be it large or small, in His fathomless ocean of grace, and you shall "find grace to help you in every time of need."

Listen to His cheering words; "My grace is sufficient for you." You are, perhaps, anticipating with fear the hour of death. It is, indeed, a solemn thing, even for a Christian, to die. But do not forget that our God is the God of all dying, as of all living grace. And that, when the hour is come for your departure out of this world to go unto the Father, the grace that was all-sufficient for the trials, and sorrows, and sins of life, will be all-sufficient for the demands and solemnities of death. Do not forget that Christ does not give us grace in hand for future difficulties, but reserves it for the time of its requirement, and that, when death comes to you, Jesus will come with it, and you shall not see death, but Jesus only. And then will be experienced the last and most solemn and precious fulfillment of His promise, "my grace is sufficient for you."

"Humble sinner, mourning soul,
Over whose bosom sorrows roll,
Tis for you the Savior says,
Mine is all-sufficient grace.
"Do you mourn an evil heart?
Or some cursed fiery dart?
Do not yield to slavish fear-
All-sufficient grace is near.
"Are you full of needs and woes?
Or does unbelief oppose?
Does Your Jesus hide His face?
Trust His all- sufficient grace.
"Can no care with your compare?
Do not yield to black despair
For the worst of Adam's race
Christ has all-sufficient grace."

THE GOD OF HOLINESS

"You only are holy." Rev.15:4

No perfection of "our God," thus far considered, presents Him to our view so like Himself as the perfection of holiness. We can form no proper idea of God apart from this. Even the unrenewed mind is conscious that it has to deal with God who cannot connive at sin. It is true, its conceptions must be obscure, its views defective; for, what proper notion of Divine holiness can a sinful being form? His views must necessarily be just what those of an untutored peasant would be of the sun beheld through a misted and distorted medium. There would be in that peasant's mind the conviction that there was a sun, and that it was light; but the mental conception of the nature and splendor of the orb would, from the necessity of the case, be obscure and defective.

There is in the human conscience the conviction that God is a God of holiness- for conscience, left to its natural bias, is ever in the interests of truth and righteousness, and, as the vice-regent of the soul, faithfully whispers in the ear what is right and what is wrong. But the highest and clearest views of the Divine holiness cherished by the unrenewed mind, in consequence of the sinfulness and darkness of the mind, fall infinitely short of what God is as the God of holiness.

Such is the Divine perfection to which we now bend our devout contemplation. We are profoundly sensible of the awesomeness and solemnity of our theme. The ground upon which we stand is, indeed, most holy, and we have need to put off the shoes from our feet, for "Who can stand before this holy Lord God?" Only as we keep our eye upon atoning blood, can we for a moment gaze upon the unsufferable brightness of the God of holiness. Only can we deal with the Divine purity as we deal with the Divine Savior. The Great Atonement must come between us and the Divine Sun of infinite purity, or the effulgence of its beams would overpower and the holiness of its glory would consume us. Let us, standing beneath the shadow of the cross of Jesus, meditate upon this lofty theme; and thus, with our believing eye reposing upon the blood, which cleanses from all sin, we may pass within the veil, and sinful though we are, hold sweet fellowship with Him who "only is holy."

The passage upon which the present subject is based suggests the first thought we offer– that is, the ESSENTIAL HOLINESS of God. God is essentially holy. This must he the meaning of the remarkable words addressed to Him in the anthem of the glorified saints, "You only are holy," not holy merely as others are holy, but as positively and essentially holy, in comparison of whom none are holy. "You ONLY are holy." "You only are divinely holy, You only are holy, from the necessity of Your nature; You only are infinitely, absolutely holy." Such is the key-note, and such the substance of the triumphant song of Moses and the Lamb.

As there is none good but God, so there is none holy but God. His creatures are derivatively holy; He is holy from Himself– absolutely, independently holy. "No one is holy like the Lord! There is no one besides you; there is no Rock like our God." 1 Samuel 2:2. In comparison of God, none are holy, so essentially pure and spotless is He. The heavens are not clean in His sight, and He charges His angels with folly. These are remarkable words! Just as the stars pale before the sun, creature holiness grows dim and is eclipsed by the divine and essential holiness of God. In comparison of His holiness, the holiest creatures and things are not clean in His sight.

It is said of God that, "He only has immortality." All created beings are immortal, but God is absolutely so. He only has immortality as an essential perfection of His nature. All others derive their immortality from Him; He from Himself. What a great and glorious being, then, is God! He is "glorious in holiness." He could possess no glory were He destitute of perfect holiness. Divine in His nature, endowed with infinite perfections, and possessing resources vast and boundless as His infinity, imagine what a being He would be- how powerful for evil, how potent for destruction- were not every perfection of His nature imbued with, and under the control of, infinite and perfect holiness!

We measure the extent of a fallen creature's capacity for good or for evil by the amount of his intellectual and moral resources. In proportion to his ability to control the minds, shape the opinions and influence the actions of others, we regard the extent of evil or of good he is capable of accomplishing. Imagine, then, measured by this rule, what a being God would be were He destitute of perfect holiness while yet armed with infinite power! It is the fallen intellect of Satan that gives him the almost omnipotent power and unlimited range which He possesses. All the perfections of God would arm Him with tremendous forces for evil, bounded and restrained only by the universe He had formed and the creatures He had made, were He not a being infinite in holiness, spotless in purity. Compared with His, the intellect of Satan would be a dwarf's, his wisdom idiotic, his strength an infant's. But we need not attempt to imagine what God would be destitute of infinite purity; rather let us think what a being He is "glorious in holiness."

Who that has seen anything of the beauty, and has felt anything of the power, and has tasted anything of the happiness of holiness, would for a moment cherish the wish that God were less holy than He is? Rather, is it not the intense desire and fervent prayer and ardent struggle of the renewed soul to be holy as God is holy? Sinful though we are, conscious of innumerable infirmities, failures, and backslidings, is not our highest bliss to commune with, and to be in some degree assimilated to, the spotless purity of God? When are we so happy as when breathing after divine purity, overcoming sin, "yielding our members servants to righteousness," "perfecting holiness in the fear of God"? Not for thousands of worlds would we that He were less holy.

The deeper our views of His holiness grow, the deeper grows our love. We love the truth, because it is on the side of holiness; we love the saints, because they are the reflection of holiness; we love the discipline of our heavenly Father, because it makes us partakers of His holiness; how much more intense, then, our affection for God, as the holiness of His being, the purity of His character, unveils to our admiring eye!

A question, often asked, may possibly here arise in the mind of the reader. If God is essentially holy, and could have prevented sin, why, then, did He permit it? The entrance of sin into the world is one of those mysterious problems in its marvelous history, the solution of which awaits us in the world to come. The brief space at present at our command, will only allow us to meet this question by a single and simple reply. Sin entered into the world, not by God's approving, but by His permissive will. He was under no obligation either to prevent its origin or to hinder its advent. Where an obligation exists, ceasing to act when that action would prevent a crime were unquestionably to sin. An individual receiving from another the confession that he was about to commit a deadly crime, and yet, under the professed seal of secrecy, takes no steps to prevent its commission, is but one remove from the actual guilt of the crime itself; the concealer of the murder is well-near as criminal as the perpetrator of the deed. He is under a moral obligation to disclose the intended crime and denounce the criminal. He is bound by the tie of a common humanity, equally by the law of a common charity, to avert the deed and save the victim.

But God stands in a totally different relation to His creatures. He was under no such obligation to prevent the entrance of sin into the world. If He was, to whom? and what was the nature of the obligation? Let the speculatist reply. To him we must leave the solution of the problem of sin's introduction, satisfied with the only rational conclusion at which the Bible warrants our arrival, that God permitted it, and permitted it for His own glory. Let not your mind, my reader, be perplexed with what must be regarded- without insinuating anything of a skeptical character to those who raise these questions- but as speculative discussions. "There are secret things that belong to the Lord our God, but the revealed things belong to us and our descendants forever, so that we may obey these words of the law."

Let us be satisfied with, and be profoundly grateful for, the clearness with which God has revealed to us the way by which, as sinners, we may be saved. That Jesus Christ died for the ungodly, and by the love He has displayed, and the mission He has undertaken, and the work He has finished, and the invitation He has issued, is pledged to cast out none who believe in Him, saving to the uttermost, and without a work of their own, all who come unto God by Him.

Let this, too, be a matter of joy and thanksgiving to us, that the most appalling event which the history of this universe records- the fall of man- has, through infinite wisdom, goodness, and power, resulted in such a manifestation of God's glory, and in such a great and endless blessing to man, as could not possibly have been the case even had sin never entered into the world. Assured of this, let us refer all that is obscure and mysterious and speculative in the history of the world, and in the revelation and government of God, to that day when we shall know even as we are known, when the mystery of God shall be finished, and God be all in all.

God is also DECLARATIVELY HOLY- His word is a revelation of His holiness. He is styled– "the Holy One;" "The Holy One of Israel, whose name is Holy;" "You are of purer eyes than to behold evil, and cannot look upon iniquity;" "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts;" "The four living creatures rest not day and night, saying, Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty." God selects this perfection of His nature to swear by– "Once have I sworn by my holiness that I will not lie unto David;" "The Lord will swear by His holiness." The saints are called to praise His holiness– "Sing unto the Lord, O you saints of His, and give thanks at the remembrance of His holiness."

Need we multiply these Scripture declarations of God's holiness? We might increase the proofs, but could scarcely strengthen the revealed fact that God is holy. And yet, in these days of low views of Inspiration, of lax principles Concerning the truth of the Bible, we should be jealous of every word of that sacred volume, especially as it bears upon what is the crown of Jehovah– His essential and perfect holiness.

Beware, my reader, of indulging in doubts concerning the divine veracity or the correct rendering of any part of God's word. The most profound human judgment is after all, but fallible, and human learning often contradictory. The safest path is to accept the Bible as it is, and not to allow your confidence in its Divine integrity to be disturbed by this rendering or by that, by one manuscript or by another; but to hold fast the memorable and precious declaration of the Savior- a declaration which may be fearlessly asserted in the face of every doubt cast upon the Divine Inspiration of the Scriptures- "Your Word is Truth."

God is JUDICIALLY HOLY. His judgments are manifestations of His holiness- His holiness in dreadful exercise. "The Lord is known by the judgments which He executes. What was the flood which destroyed the Antediluvians- the fire which consumed Sodom and Gomorrah- the armies which besieged Jerusalem, and leveled her to the ground, but the dreadful exhibitions of the holiness of God, solemn demonstrations of His hatred and punishment of sin? In this light we must ever read and interpret the Divine judgments that befall an ungodly world, whether in its natural, social, or individual character. And yet, blinded by sin and ignorance, the men of this world see not this solemn fact.

Never rising above the second causes of the judiciary dealings of God- the pestilence and the famine, the earthquake, the whirlwind and the fire, the commercial panic, and the blighted harvest- they recognize not the fact that, far above the immediate and proximate causes leading to these natural and social convulsions, there is One of purer eyes than to look upon iniquity, whether it be in an individual, a family, or a nation, and who, when His patience has long waited, but in vain, and will wait no longer, unseals the vials of His wrath, and writes His name holy in letters of tremendous and impressive significance.

It is in this light we read the expressive declaration of the prophet, "When your judgments come upon the earth, the people of the world learn righteousness." Isaiah 26:9. That is, God's judgments are such unmistakable and tremendous demonstrations of His holiness, that the ungodly world shall recognize the fact, and from these terrible visitations of His providence learn to loathe themselves in His sight, to repent of their sins, and renounce their iniquities, and turn to the Lord.

My reader! is the Lord dealing with you individually in the way of judgment? Has He "Uncovered his bow, and called for many arrows?" Do His arrows fall thick and piercing? Is there the loss of health, or the destruction of property, or the visitation of bereavement? Is your song of judgment as well as of mercy? Oh! interpret these dispensations of God in the light of a holy and righteous, yet loving discipline, designed to correct an evil, to arrest a declension, and to bestow upon you the highest honor God could confer- the making you a partaker of His holiness. "This," says the prophet, "is all the fruit, to take away sin."

God is also MEDIATORIALLY HOLY. This illustration of our subject presents a more solemn and impressive view of the Divine holiness than any we have yet considered- the view exhibited in the cross of Jesus. Not hell itself, awful and eternal as is its suffering- the undying worm, the unquenchable fire, the smoke of the torment that goes up forever and ever- affords such a solemn and impressive spectacle of the holiness and justice of God in the punishment of sin, as is presented in the death of God's beloved Son.

An eminent Puritan writer thus strikingly puts it- "Not all the vials of judgment that have or shall be poured out upon this wicked world, nor the flaming furnace of a sinner's conscience, nor the irrevocable sentence pronounced against the rebellious devils, nor the groans of the damned creatures, give such a demonstration of God's hatred of sin, as the wrath of God let loose upon His Son!"

Never did Divine holiness appear more beautiful and lovely than at the time our Savior's countenance was most marred in the midst of His dying groans. This Himself acknowledges in that penitential psalm (Ps. xxii. 12), when God turned His smiling face from Him, and thrust His sharp knife into His heart, which forced that terrible cry from Him, "My God, my God, why have You forsaken Me? But, You are holy." Such an impressive view of God's holiness the angels in heaven never before beheld, not even when they saw the non-elect spirits hurled from the heights of glory down to the bottomless pit, to be reserved in chains of darkness and woe forever.

But it will be asked, Wherein did lay the great proof that God was holy in the soul-sorrow, bodily suffering, and ignominious death of Jesus? We answer– It is found in the fact that He was the innocent One dying for the guilty, the holy One dying for the sinful. Divine justice, in its mission of judgment, as it swept by the cross, found the Son of God impaled upon its wood, beneath the sins and the curse of His people. Upon Him its judgment fell, on His soul the wrath was poured, in His heart the flaming sword was plunged; and thus, from Him, justice exacted the full penalty of man's transgression- the last farthing of the great debt.

Go to the cross, then, my reader, and learn the holiness of God.

Contemplate the dignity of Christ's person, the preciousness of the Son of God to His Father's heart, the sinlessness of His nature; and then behold the sorrow of His soul, the torture of His body, the tragedy of His death, the abasement, the ignominy, the humiliation, into the fathomless depths of which the whole transaction plunged our incarnate God; and let me ask, standing, as you are, before this unparalleled spectacle, Can you cherish low views of God's holiness, or light views of your own sinfulness?

But look at this mediatorial representation of the Divine holiness in two or three particulars. The PARDON OF SIN exhibits the holiness of God. How is sin pardoned? By the atoning blood of Jesus alone. "In whom we have redemption through His blood, even the forgiveness of sin." There is no remission of any sin but by the atoning blood of Christ; while, by that blood-shedding, there is the remission of all sin in those that believe. That which cleanses us from all sin, must itself be free from all sin. The slightest taint of sin in Christ would have invalidated His whole sacrifice, and have rendered His atoning blood totally inefficacious in the canceling of our guilt. But we are "redeemed by the precious blood of Christ, as of a Lamb without blemish and without spot."

And herein God's holiness appears so conspicuous, in that He provided a spotless victim, a sinless sacrifice, a holy Savior; thus, while securing the rights of holiness on the one hand, on the other cleansing and effacing, fully and forever, the deepest stain of man's transgression. And now, because God is so holy, and because He has vindicated, to the utmost, the righteousness of His moral government, behold Him "waiting to be gracious," "ready to pardon" the vilest, the guiltiest, the very chief of sinners, casting himself, in penitence and faith, at His feet. And in thus extending to that penitent sinner a full and free forgiveness, He receives and magnifies His own holiness in the eyes of angels and of men. Thus the apostle puts it; "For God sent Jesus to take the punishment for our sins and to satisfy God's anger against us. We are made right with God when we believe that Jesus shed his blood, sacrificing his life for us. God was being entirely fair and just when he did not punish those who sinned in former times."

Hesitate not, then, to cast yourself upon God's pardoning mercy in Christ Jesus, since, in the very act of conferring upon you the forgiveness of all sin, His holiness will appear all the more illustrious. Oh, the marvelous love of our God in providing such an expedient as can efface every, and the darkest spot, and the foulest stain, and the deepest dishonor of sin, presenting the sin-cleansed soul to Himself "whiter than snow," and yet the sinner's sins appear all the more sinful, and His holiness all the more holy. "But with you there is forgiveness; therefore you are feared."

JUSTIFICATION equally secures and illustrates the holiness of God. Our justification- in other words, our acquittal from all blame and consequent condemnation- could only be secured on the footing of the perfect holiness of God's government. But the obedience of the Lord Jesus to the law on behalf of the sinner was so complete, yes, so magnifying of the holiness of that law, and so honorable to the character of the Lawgiver, that now it becomes proper, on the part of God, to "justify the ungodly." He can do this without the slightest compromise of His divine and essential purity.

The righteousness in which the believing sinner stands, is emphatically denominated the "righteousness of God." Consequently, it must be a holy righteousness, since not only is it a righteousness of God's appointing, and of God's accepting, but it is the righteousness of Him who was God, and who is God. In contrast with this, how impure appears our own obedience, how filthy the rags of our own righteousness! And, if we accept this righteousness of God, how entirely must we cast away from us the imperfect, sullied, worthless garment of our own righteousness, and enfold ourselves within that divine robe of the "righteousness of God, which is unto all and upon all those who believe."

REGENERATION, or the spiritual renewal of the soul, is a not less, in some respects, it is a more, striking illustration of the Divine holiness. It is so, in point of fact, since it is the restoration of man to the image of God, and, consequently, the manifestation of God's holiness in man. How clearly the apostle states this: "And that you put on the new man, which, after God, is created in righteousness and true holiness." "And have put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of Him that created him." The writer already quoted thus pointedly puts this; "As election is the effect of God's sovereignty, our pardon the fruit of His mercy, our knowledge a stream from His wisdom, our strength an impression of His power, so our purity is a beam from His holiness."

The great, the grand end, the accomplishment of which is the design of God in our spiritual regeneration, is our restoration to holiness. Thus, God designs more than our happiness, since, in making us holy, He makes us happy; in restoring us to holiness, He restores us to happiness– the one including the other, as the effect involves its cause, the shadow its substance. God might have assimilated us to His love, or to His mercy, or to His power, or to His wisdom, and yet, leaving our nature to the uncontrolled power and dominion of its innate depravity, we still would have been miserable. But, in assimilating us to His holiness, He assimilates us, in a measure, to His happiness- the highest happiness of heaven being its highest degree of holiness. The perfection of glory is the perfection of grace, and the perfection of grace is its perfect assimilation of the soul to the holy image of God.

It will, I think, be obvious to the mind of the spiritual and intelligent reader, that in this view of the Divine holiness we include the Godhead in its Triune personality– the holiness of the Father, the holiness of the Son, the holiness of the Spirit- the Three Persons constituting the One Holy Lord God. Christ was essentially holy concerning His Deity, and He was perfectly holy concerning His humanity. How remarkable the words of the angel announcing Christ's birth to Mary! "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the baby born to you will be holy, and he will be called the Son of God." Yes, Christ, who was "holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners," and because He was thus without sin, and "knew no sin", His atoning, precious blood, "cleanses us from all sin."

Equally holy is the Spirit. Therefore He is emphatically designated "The HOLY Spirit," "the Spirit of holiness." The Spirit is the Sanctifier of the church, the Divine Author, Sustainer, and Finisher of all that is holy in the regenerate, to whom belongs the work of fitting their souls for the inheritance of the saints in light. Hold fast with unswerving faith this essential doctrine of salvation- the doctrine of the Trinity. Its belief is essential to our being saved, its experimental acquaintance is indispensable to our being holy. And may "the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit," be with all those who believe this doctrine simply, who live it holily, and who earnestly contend for its truth as for the faith once delivered unto the saints!

But we must conclude this subject, thus briefly and imperfectly discussed, with some deductions drawn therefrom.

It supplies us with THE REASON OF MAN'S NATURAL OPPOSITION TO GOD. The sinner hates God because He is holy! "For the sinful nature is always hostile to God. It never did obey God's laws, and it never will." Sin can never be enamored with holiness, nor can holiness ever hold fellowship with sin. There must therefore ever be– until divine and sovereign grace interpose– a wide and impassable gulf between God and the sinner, God's holiness loathing the sinner, because of his sin; man's sinfulness hating God, because of His holiness.

Can anything present a more just and melancholy view of the awful condition of the natural man than this- hating God because He is holy! Unconverted man, this is your state! Your carnal mind is hostile against God, and will continue its hatred and rebellion, unless converting grace changes you; or until your spirit stands before Him in judgment. And then you will wake up to the awful discovery that all your life long you have been fighting against God; but that it proved an unequal, as it was an unholy, contest; and that at last God proved stronger than you, and has gotten the victory; consigning you to a righteous and an endless condemnation.

In view of this statement what is your proper and immediate course? In one word would I state it- throw down your weapons of rebellion, submit and be reconciled to God. To hate this holy Lord God, whose name is love, is the deepest crime! To fight against Him who is infinite in power and omnipotent in strength, is the deepest madness. Think of the appalling consequences! Think of Him who has power to cast both soul and body into hell. Think who it is you hate and against whom you rebel– the God who made you, who preserves you, who has fed and clothed you, who has lavished upon you every blessing, who has poured in ceaseless flow, the tide of His mercy around your every path, who has never wronged you, or injured you, or done you harm, but has always blessed you with nothing but good!

And yet, instead of love, you return Him hate; instead of obedience, you meet Him with rebellion; instead of submission, you offer Him defiance; instead of His heaven, you prefer His hell! For in your present state you are utterly unfitted for heaven! It is written with the pen of the Holy Spirit, "Without holiness no man can see the Lord." Heaven, therefore, would be too holy for your enjoyment. You would have no moral fitness for the place, no sympathy with its enjoyments, no love for its inhabitants, and would long to escape as from an atmosphere too pure in which to breathe, from employments in which you would have no taste, and from the fellowship of beings with whom you had nothing in sympathy.

Oh, fall down before God in penitence and prayer. Throw down your weapons at His feet, submit to His scepter, and cast yourself upon His pardoning mercy in and through Christ Jesus. Lo, He waits to be gracious to you. Listen to His affecting language, "All day long have I stretched out my hands." And in His infinite patience, in His unwillingness that any should perish, that hand is stretched out still. "Why! will you die? " "Be reconciled unto God."

But others of another class may scan these pages. The weeping penitent, through his blinding tears, will search for one word of promise from which he may extract assurance and hope that such a sinful, guilty soul may find forgiveness, acceptance, and salvation with this holy Lord God. Yes, there is forgiveness, there is acceptance, there is salvation, oh, humble, penitent sinner, in Christ Jesus, the Savior of sinners, for you! His blood cleanses from all sin, His righteousness justifies from all things; so that, in default of any holiness and merit in yourself, Jesus supplies you with all that God demands and that you require, and thus, in the strong language of the apostle, "You are complete in Him."

One word of caution in this connection. Beware of putting sanctification in the place of justification. Many are so doing, and the consequent effect is, they are ever striving after that which they can never in this way attain– a clear sense of their acceptance in Christ. It is not for a holiness wrought in us that God accepts us, but for a righteousness wrought outside of us; not on the ground of the Holy Spirit's work of sanctification, but on the ground of Christ's work of justification. Thus, to look at our holiness for Divine acceptance, instead of at Christ's work, is to substitute sanctification for justification, the Spirit's regenerating work for the Savior's atoning work. This will never give you peace and joy and hope, since all your own strivings after holiness- on the ground of which you are in vain looking for salvation- will prove but sad and repeated failures; while one believing sight of Christ, as "made of God unto us wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption," will bring a blissful tide of peace, joy, and assurance unto your soul. Cease, then, your strivings after holiness in order to win the favor of God; and set yourself upon the great yet simple, the mighty yet easy, work of believing- believing in Jesus- and thus, "being justified by faith, you will have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ."

And still, it must be our aim to be holy! But how is this to be attained? We cannot be holy and be of the world. We cannot be holy- it were a contradiction of terms- and live in any known sin. We cannot be holy and pamper the flesh, and love the society of the ungodly, and so walk after the course of this world. What does the apostle say? "Stop loving this evil world and all that it offers you, for when you love the world, you show that you do not have the love of the Father in you. For the world offers only the lust for physical pleasure, the lust for everything we see, and pride in our possessions. These are not from the Father. They are from this evil world."

How earnest and touching the language of the apostle, "And so, dear Christian friends, I plead with you to give your bodies to God. Let them be a living and holy sacrifice—the kind he will accept. When you think of what he has done for you, is this too much to ask? Don't copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will know what God wants you to do, and you will know how good and pleasing and perfect his will really is." And yet again how precious his prayer for the Thessalonian saints, "Now may the God of peace make you holy in every way, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless until that day when our Lord Jesus Christ comes again."

And is this our desire, this our aim, and this, in some degree, our real attainment? Are we hungering and thirsting after righteousness? Do we long and pant after holiness, with a deepening conviction of the "exceeding sinfulness of sin," and a growing spirit of self-loathing and sin-renunciation? Oh, then, we have the truest, the strongest evidence, that we are God's true saints, His holy ones; that we are regenerate, have passed from death unto life, and are born again from above, our bodies the temples of God, through the Spirit.

There exists not a stronger evidence- and without it, our religion is vain- of our being partakers of the Divine nature than this one- our desire and aim after sanctification of heart, leading, as it inevitably will, to holiness of life. "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God."

But in all our failures in our strivings after holiness- and failures many and sad there will be- let us repair to the "Fountain open for sin and uncleanness," and wash, constantly, daily, ceaselessly wash, and be clean. It is only thus that we shall be kept from a spirit of bondage, yes, from a spirit of despair. A simple looking off ourselves- off both our successful and our unsuccessful attempts after holiness- to Jesus, must be our constant habit, if we would walk at peace and in fellowship with God. To His atoning blood let us bring all our holy things, that they may be cleansed and purified.

Sin taints, impurity mars, imperfection traces, all we do for God. Thus, the most holy service in which we engage, the most heavenly mind we cherish, the most spiritual and useful day we spend, needs the atoning blood of Jesus to cleanse, purify, and present it without fault, holy, and acceptable unto God, sweetly incensed with the fragrance of His own most precious merits. How expressive is the typical teaching of this truth- referring to the mitre on the head of Aaron the priest- "Aaron will wear it on his forehead, thus bearing the guilt connected with any errors regarding the sacred offerings of the people of Israel. He must always wear it so the Lord will accept the people." Exodus 28:38. Thus Christ, our true Aaron, puts away the iniquity of our holy things by the cleansing of His precious blood.

See that your holiness is evangelical. Not the holiness of human merit, not the holiness of pious duties, not the holiness of ceremonial observance, not the holiness of ritual, but the holiness of the Gospel, the holiness that flows from faith in Christ alone, from love to God, and by the grace and power of the Spirit in the soul. In a word, the holiness that springs in looking away from self in every shape, from duties of every kind, believingly, simply, unto Jesus, embodied and expressed in obedience to Christ, under the all-commanding constraint of His love.

In the light of your personal holiness, interpret all the disciplinary dealings of God. All your trials, afflictions, bereavements, adversities, are sent as corrections of your heavenly Father but to promote your profit, that you might be a partaker of His holiness. "For our earthly fathers disciplined us for a few years, doing the best they knew how. But God's discipline is always right and good for us because it means we will share in his holiness. No discipline is enjoyable while it is happening—it is painful! But afterward there will be a quiet harvest of right living for those who are trained in this way." "Then, Lord," you are ready to exclaim, "if this is the great end of Your discipline- if it be but to conform me to Your will, to expel sin from my heart, to imbue it with Your Spirit, and to mold me to Your Divine image, kindle the flame, fuel the furnace, use the flail, refine Your gold from the dross, and winnow Your wheat from the chaff- and let Your will, and not mine be done."

Anticipate the coming of the Lord, for "we know that, when He shall appear, we shall be like Him; for we shall see Him as He really is." O blissful thought, perfect and eternal freedom from sin!

"And now, may the God of peace, who brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, equip you with all you need for doing his will. May he produce in you, through the power of Jesus Christ, all that is pleasing to him. Jesus is the great Shepherd of the sheep by an everlasting covenant, signed with his blood. To him be glory forever and ever. Amen." Hebrews 13:20

THE GOD OF PEACE

"Now may the God of peace make you holy in every way, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless until that day when our Lord Jesus Christ comes again." 1 Thes. 5:23

It is a striking and suggestive fact, that the Divine Perfection associated by the angels with their Advent Song when announcing the birth of Christ was, the attribute of Peace. They might have placed in the forefront of their proclamation of glad tidings, the Love of God in originating, or the Wisdom of God in planning, or the Power of God in executing the great expedient of saving man by the Incarnation of the Son of God. But no! they bore from heaven to the inhabitants of a sin-tainted world over which the dark waters of the curse fiercely surged, the olive branch of Peace. Their mission was a mission of peace, their commission was to proclaim a divine amnesty– peace from heaven, peace with God, peace between God and man. Listen to their song- how entrancing its strains which broke the silence of that stilly night, and which floated in such melody over the plains of Bethlehem– Suddenly, the angel was joined by a vast host of others—the armies of heaven—praising God: "Glory to God in the highest heaven, and peace on earth to all whom God favors."

Such is the Divine perfection we invite you to consider– God not only proposing peace with the subjects of a revolted empire, not only devising the scheme by which a peace honorable to Himself and available by man may be received, but revealing Himself divinely and essentially as "the God of peace." Our subject is a great and comprehensive one, fraught with blessed instruction and hope to those who, convinced of their natural enmity against, and revolt from, God, are anxiously and earnestly inquiring how they may return to God, and in what way propitiate His regard and be at peace with Him.

About to celebrate, as we are, the Advent to our world of earth's Great Visitant- the Incarnate God, the Divine Savior of men– it will not be an inappropriate subject of meditation, the attribute and character of God as- "The God of Peace." The passage from where our subject is selected is a prayer of the apostle on behalf of the Thessalonian saints. He had been addressing to their minds holy and earnest exhortations, urging sanctity of heart and holiness of life to the extent even of avoiding the "appearance of evil." Then, as if remembering the impotence of these saints, unaided by a higher power, to reach the lofty standard he places before them, he concludes his exhortation with one of the most expressive and touching prayers ever breathed from mortal lips- "Now may the God of peace make you holy in every way, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless until that day when our Lord Jesus Christ comes again."

What a prayer! what a motive! what an attainment!– perfect holiness unto the coming of the Lord! Thus the subject now engrossing our thoughts unites with our personal and complete holiness the two Advents of Jesus– the First Advent to make peace, and the Second Advent to consummate and crown it. The subject is of vital importance and of precious interest. The great event of human life is, to be at peace with God. So long as there is variance and alienation between God and the soul- holiness on the part of God separating Him from the sinner; enmity on the part of the sinner placing him in antagonism to God– there can be no peace, reconciliation, or fellowship. "How can two walk together except they be agreed?"

Oh, it is of the utmost moment that we know, and clearly understand, God's way of peace. And that thus knowing it, we are found walking in it in all the sweet consciousness of perfect reconciliation with God, holiness of body, soul, and spirit, the natural and the blessed consequent and fruit. Let us, then, briefly address ourselves to the opening up of this important subject, showing in the first place IN WHAT SENSE WE ARE TO REGARD GOD AS THE "GOD OF PEACE" and then, if our space permits, considering the prayer of the apostle founded thereupon.

Our first remark relates to God as, essentially the "God of peace." There could be no revelation of God in this particular apart from this fact. Peace with man originated with God. It was a divine thought, as its mode was a divine conception, and its execution a divine power. But this could only have been the case as it found its property essentially in God. If peace had not been a divine inherent, an essential perfection of God, no proposition of peace with men could have obtained a moment's hearing, and no expedient for its accomplishment the slightest shadow of success. Herein is seen the overflowing of God's mercy and grace to sinners!

With the injured, the outraged One– with Him against whom the appalling crime of revolt had been committed, against whose Being and government the sinner had uplifted his arm of treason and defiance, and poured out his deadly hate; originated the conception and the expedient, the offer and the proclamation of peace! Could this possibly have been the case had not peace been an essential perfection and quality of His nature? Oh, it is delightful, beloved, to trace the springs, the rivulets, the rivers of salvation up to the Divine and Infinite Ocean from where they flowed. To see GOD in our salvation, to refer it to His very essence, to know that, because He is what He is, there is salvation for the most lost of our race, pardon for the guiltiest sinner, peace for the greatest rebel that ever defied the power, trampled upon the authority, insulted the Majesty, and denied the very existence of God.

How earnestly and impressively has God Himself vindicated this perfection of His being, as if jealous of its existence and anxious to assure the mind of the rebel sinner that if he but return from the error of his ways, relinquishing his hostility, and grounding his weapons of rebellion, he shall find no hand outstretched towards him but the divine hand of peace. "Fury is not in me; who would set the briers and thorns against me in battle? I would go through them, I would burn them together. These enemies will be spared only if they surrender and beg for peace and protection." Thus God declares that He is not an angry God, but a God of peace, all day long stretching out His hand to a gainsaying and rebellious race, waiting to be gracious. Oh, what a God is our God!

As ORIGINATING AND DEVISING THE PLAN OF PEACE with sinners, He is the "God of peace." The negotiation of peace between God and man could only have its origin in God Himself. The thought of a reconciliation between the offended Creator and the offending creatures, no created mind, human or angelic, would ever have conceived; to a creature's eye, the breach appears too great ever to be repaired, the gulf too wide ever to be passed; the difficulties in the way of a reconciliation of too vast proportions ever to be overcome. Divine justice must be perfectly satisfied, Divine holiness perfectly secured, the Divine government fully upheld, the Divine law honored and magnified. What mere created mediator, what arbitrator less than Divine, could have met and answered this demand? Who shall reveal Jehovah as the God of peace? Who shall loosen the seals of His decrees, and make known His eternal thoughts of reconciliation and peace to man?

Ah! angels and men might have wept through eternity before the divine, the impenetrable secret had been discovered, if the "God of peace" had not assumed the initiative in the great matter; if He had not taken the first and only effectual step in declaring to the fallen world that He had looked within Himself, and there found, in the person of His beloved Son, dwelling in the bosom of the Father from all eternity, the Peace-maker between God and man, even the man Christ Jesus.

We cannot be too conversant with the truth that, "Salvation is of the Lord." While there is, essentially, the human element in our redemption, there is, and must as essentially be, the Divine element. All God's works are impressed with His divinity, all "declare His eternal power and Godhead"– from the atom dancing in the sunbeam, to the Alp piercing the clouds– from the hyssop that springs out of the wall, to the cedar tree that is in Lebanon– all witness to the wisdom, power, and goodness of Him who made them. Is it to be supposed, then, that His greatest, His master-achievement– that work which reveals and illustrates, unites and harmonizes, every perfection- of His being and attribute of His character, every thought of His mind and feeling of His heart- the redemption of man by the Incarnation obedience and death of the Son of God– should not be so manifestly a Divine work as shall awaken the homage and praise of His own people, and as shall extort, even from His enemies, the tribute of their wonder and admiration?

It is no light thing, beloved, to have our faith well confirmed in the Divine Inspiration of the Scriptures of truth, and in the Divine origin of the salvation of the Church. In no other work of our God does He appear so full-orbed in every perfection as here. Here is no shading, no obscuration of our Divine Sun. In the work of creation God is, as it were, in partial eclipse. We see only parts of His ways, His "back parts." But in the salvation of the cross, in the great expedient by which peace, reconciliation, and love are restored between God and man, God is seen in His full meridian majesty, every perfection of His being exhibited, every attribute of His character revealed– His mind and heart fully unveiled.

What confidence does this give to the poor, trembling faith of the soul that ventures itself upon Christ, that humbly sues for pardon and peace at the cross of Jesus! Because salvation is of the Lord, and because the blood that cleanses is the "blood of God", and because the righteousness that justifies is the "righteousness of God", therefore Jesus is able to save to the uttermost all who come unto God by Him. We are fully justified, yes, commanded, unhesitatingly to accept the peace God has provided, and Christ has made, and the Spirit imparts, on the ground that our God is the "God of peace." If He from whom we have so deeply revolted, and against whom we have so greatly sinned, is the first to make the overture of peace, the first to extend the olive branch of amity, who are we that we should disbelieve and hesitate, demur and refuse? Will not our very refusal fully to accept in humble faith and gratitude the reconciliation God has provided, increase our sin and augment our punishment? Away, then, with all vain excuses and puerile fears concerning your warrant in the Gospel to accept the overture of God's pardoning mercy in Christ Jesus, and, in the language of the apostle, "Be reconciled to God."

This conducts us to an essential part of our subject- GOD'S METHOD OF PEACE, the plan of reconciliation by which He has written His name as the "God of peace," as He nowhere else has written it. Concerning the NECESSITY of a Divine plan of peace, we need not enlarge. We must rather, seeing our space is limited, and how important it is that we have scriptural and clear views of God's way of peace, assume the fact as proved, than attempt its proof. All that we can venture to state is, that the wide severance between God and man created by the fall, renders a Divine method of reconciliation necessary, if peace be at all restored.

Prior to the fall, all was love and fellowship between the Creator and the creature. Every faculty of man was in harmony and communion with every perfection of God. The reign of perfect holiness was the reign of perfect love. Oh, what a paradise of peace and beauty was Eden! Not an alienated affection, or a discordant feeling, or a dissonant thought, or a jarring note! The song of peace filled every grove with melody, and the aroma of love every bower with sweetness. Oh, what will the New, the renovated Earth and Heaven be when sin shall be extirpated, love restored, and peace enshroud with her balmy wings a world in which will dwell righteousness!

But we have now to deal with a fallen race, a depraved nature. God is at variance with man, on the ground of Holiness, Justice, and Truth, and until these perfections of His nature are honored, and harmonized with Love, Mercy, and Grace, there can be no reconciliation on His part with man. Such is the wide and terrible breach, such the two extremes of being- the Infinitely holy and the totally sinful- between whom a reconciliation is to be effected. And how shall this breach be healed? By what expedient shall beings so opposite in nature, so extreme in purity, be reconciled and brought into a state of at-one-ment, without compromising holiness on the one hand, or in the least degree condoning the offence on the other? Such was the great problem the solution of which Deity alone could supply.

An expression of the inspired apostle gives us a clue to the unravelment of the great and glorious mystery. "God was in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself." Here we are at once referred to Christ as embarking in the great work of the Peacemaker, undertaking and accomplishing His divine and pacific mission. Hence to Him belong, and most justly, the high and honorable titles of, "Our Peace," "The Prince of Peace," "The Arbitrator, laying His hands on both." It was the greatest work He ever embarked in, the adjustment of the claims of justice, holiness, and truth, with the yearnings of love, mercy, and grace, so as to maintain the dignity of God's moral government intact, and yet effect a full and perfect reconciliation between God and man.

But our divine and gracious Peacemaker- blessings forever on His name!- was in all respects fitted for the undertaking. Absolutely divine, God could negotiate terms of peace, through His beloved Son, strictly honorable and glorifying to Himself. Perfectly human, He was fitted to undertake the work of making peace on the part of man, and He is denominated the "One (and there is only One) Mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus." Thus our beloved Lord partook of the nature of both the parties between whom He mediated. As God, He mediated for God; as man, He mediated for man.

The question arises, 'In what way does the Lord Jesus become our peace?' The answer to this question leads us at once to the great plan of atonement. He presented to God a full, honorable, and accepted Atonement for our transgression. The only thing that could separate between God and man was sin. This removed- removed in a way that would secure the interests of justice and holiness- peace was made. By the offering of Himself as a sacrifice for sin, by His obedience to the law, and by His death-penalty to justice, He presented a full equivalent to all the demands of the divine government, bearing our sins, suffering, bleeding, dying, and so making peace by the blood of His cross.

And now, by the great sacrifice of Christ once for all, we are one with God, one with Him in mind, one in affection, one in will, one in fellowship, God and the believing sinner brought into a state of at-one-ment by the Atonement of "Christ who is our peace." "But now you belong to Christ Jesus. Though you once were far away from God, now you have been brought near to him because of the blood of Christ. For Christ himself has made peace between us Jews and you Gentiles by making us all one people. He has broken down the wall of hostility that used to separate us. By his death he ended the whole system of Jewish law that excluded the Gentiles. His purpose was to make peace between Jews and Gentiles by creating in himself one new person from the two groups. Together as one body, Christ reconciled both groups to God by means of his death, and our hostility toward each other was put to death. He has brought this Good News of peace to you Gentiles who were far away from him, and to us Jews who were near."

The great practical question which arises at this stage of our subject is, does God stand TO US in the relation of the "God of peace?" Is He at peace with us through Christ Jesus, and are we at peace with Him? It is of the utmost moment that we believe and are sure that our peace is made with God, and that we are in a state of friendship with Him. This peace is not a thing made by us- for no sinner can make his own peace with God- it is a peace made by Christ the Mediator for all those who believe, and is available to us as we accept the terms of God's reconciliation, which are that we believe in Him whom He has sent. "This is the commandment, that we should believe on the name of His Son Jesus Christ."

You earnestly desire to know that you are on terms of amity with God, and perhaps have long sought to possess the precious, priceless jewel of peace in your soul– its divine and richest treasure. Your heart is dissatisfied, your mind is anxious, your conscience far from repose. You regard God more in the light of an angry, offended God, than of a reconciled Father. You obey Him from slavish fear, rather than from filial love. His commands are as a heavy yoke to your neck, rather than wings to your soul, bearing it onward and upward in the path of filial obedience and heavenly joy. The great want and craving of your soul is- peace, peace with God.

Everywhere and earnestly have you in vain sought to meet this want, and have failed. You have sought it in the diligent and successful pursuit of wealth, and "your gold and your silver is cankered; and their rust is a witness against you." You have sought it in the pleasures and gaieties of the world, and you but "sowed to the wind and have reaped the whirlwind." You sought it in the love and fellowship of the creature, and God shattered the vase, and the beautiful flower faded. You sought it in the walks of literature, in the researches of science, and in the creations of art, but the shadow of peace fled your grasp, and left your heart colder and more desolate than ever. You have perhaps sought it in the less pure and refined enjoyments of lust, and the fruit you plucked from the upas tree of sin, fair and inviting as it was, has proved bitter as the apples of Sodom.

But, make one effort more in a new and an opposite direction- seek it in Christ, and seeking, you will find it. The moment that your penitent and believing heart accepts Jesus as your Savior, the Lord as your righteousness, Christ's sacrifice as your hope, you will then have found repose from the oppressive consciousness of guilt, release from the galling tyranny of sin, deliverance from the fear of death and the dread of judgment.

Again, that which more immediately brings peace into the sin-wounded and guilt-troubled conscience is, THE PEACE-SPEAKING BLOOD OF CHRIST. The blood of Abel called for vengeance; the blood of Jesus pleads for pardon, and speaks peace. There is no balm for the wounded conscience but the Atonement, no healer but Christ, and no healing but His blood. All other remedies cry, "Peace, peace, when there is no peace"- it must be Christ, and Christ only. All your legal endeavors, all your religious duties, all your pious alms and ceremonial observances, will bring no real healing to your conscience, no true peace to your mind, no divine joy and comfort to your soul. Your peace with God must be procured by the cross, and must flow from the wounds of Jesus, in whom God is reconciled and pacified for all that we have done. And now, God's command is, "Let him take hold of my strength (Christ), and be at peace with me; and he shall be at peace."

The few remaining pages of the present chapter must be a reply to the question- to whom does the "God of peace," through Christ, speak peace? God speaks peace, through Christ, TO THE SIN-TROUBLED SOUL. If it were possible for God to regard one gracious soul with a deeper interest and more especial favor than another, it is the soul of whom He thus speaks "The high and lofty one who inhabits eternity, the Holy One, says this: "I live in that high and holy place with those whose spirits are contrite and humble. I refresh the humble and give new courage to those with repentant hearts." "To this man will I look, even to him that is poor and of a contrite spirit, and trembles at my word."

Can you, my reader, discern in your soul any reflection, however faint, of this gracious character? Do you see in yourself some lineaments of resemblance, however faint, to this divinely-drawn, this gracious portrait? Are you humbled in the dust for sin, seeing and confessing at the cross your nothingness, emptiness and poverty? Then, God extends to you, in Christ Jesus, the scepter of peace, and bids you approach, touch it and be at peace with Him. There exists not in the heart of God in Christ Jesus an unappeased feeling or an angry thought towards a poor, broken-hearted sinner. His marvelous language towards you is, "I know the thoughts I think towards you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace, and not of anger." Cheer up, then, sin-distressed, guilt-burdened soul! God is at peace with you in Jesus, and it is your high and holy privilege to walk in a sense of pardoned sin, of Divine acceptance, and gracious adoption, your heart singing in the ways of the Lord, as you travel homeward, to be forever with Christ.

God in Christ speaks peace to the afflicted soul. What does He say to such?- "O you afflicted, tossed with tempest, and not comforted; I, even I, am He that comforts you. As one whom his mother comforts, so will I comfort you." Beloved, it is worth all the tempest and billows through which we pass, to see Jesus coming to us in the dark night of our woe, walking upon the broken waves of our sorrow, and saying, "It is I; do not be afraid. Peace, be still."

Yes, even the winds and the waves of soul-distress, of heart-sorrow, of life's adversities, obey Him! The voice of Jesus quells the storm of sin's conviction, stills the tempest of life's adversity, calms the troubled mind, and peace, like a river, flows into the soul. If, then, God is leading you through deep and dark billows, if He is feeding you with the "bread and the water of affliction," and His discipline is such as to drape the serene and sunny picture of life with cloud-veil and storm, believe, only believe, that, when the "floods have lifted up their voice, the floods lift up their waves," the voice of Jesus "on high is mightier than the noise of many waters, yes, than the mighty waves of the sea," and that, in the greatest perplexity, in the most overwhelming calamity, in the profoundest grief, He will speak peace to your soul; and "when He gives quietness, who then can make trouble?"

And, amid the corroding cares of domestic life, the anxieties of business, the pressure of need, the forebodings of evil, the foreshadowing of calamity, the distant mutterings of some gathering storm, how peacefully God in Christ can keep you! And when the "strife of tongues," the envenomed tooth of malice, the whisperings of envy, the spirit of jealousness and all uncharitableness would wound your heart, destroy your peace, and rob you of comfort- assailing character, reputation, usefulness– God, your reconciled Father, will put you within the curtained pavilion of His love, in the secret place of His perfections, and keep you there, safe, calm, and even cheerful, until the calamity be passed. "You will keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on You; because he trusts in You."

This page may meet the eye of some who are postponing the great matter of their peace and reconciliation with God to a dying hour, or, perhaps, to a period beyond it, when they vainly suppose that their good works will already have preceded them to eternity, as pleas and arguments with God. False and fatal delusion! My reader, your peace, if ever made with the holy Lord God, must be made in this world. If death cites you to God's bar with the weapons of rebellion against Him in your grasp, with all the signs of hatred and treason against God staring and thick upon you, your doom of woe is irrevocably fixed "where the worm never dies, and the fire is unquenched."

If you are not at peace with God through Christ Jesus here, you will be at war with Him, and He with you forever hereafter. The kingdom of heaven is entered in this world, and as we grow in grace, we have a more abundant entrance into it now, until the white-robed angel of death comes, and opens the door of our imprisoned soul, and we ascend fully and triumphantly to enter into it in glory. Hasten, then, to be at peace with God by accepting Christ in faith. The blood of Christ applied to your soul alone can bring you to a state of peace with God. No doings of your own, no human merit, no religious rites and ceremonial, will bring peace to your soul. You may travel from Church to Church, from minister to minister, from duty to duty, from ordinance to ordinance, and each and all will exclaim, "Peace is not in us."

But go just as you are to Jesus; wash by faith in His peace-speaking, conscience-healing blood, and "the peace of God, which passes all understanding," will flow in gentle waves into your soul. "Settle matters quickly with your adversary who is taking you to court. Do it while you are still with him on the way, or he may hand you over to the judge, and the judge may hand you over to the officer, and you may be thrown into prison. I tell you the truth, you will not get out until you have paid the last penny." Oh, then, accept without a moment's delay God's way of peace, and lay not your head upon your pillow until you have thrown down your weapons of rebellion and have become reconciled to Him through Christ Jesus. Oh, to die an enemy of God! Oh, to meet Him with hate in the heart, and with the weapons of defiance in the hand! What will He say? "And now about these enemies of mine who didn't want me to be their king—bring them in and execute them right here in my presence."

HAVE YOU LOST YOUR PEACE? Rest not until it is restored by a renewed application of the peace-restoring blood of Christ to your conscience. You may have broken your covenant of peace with God, but He has not broken His covenant of peace made with you in the Son of His love, and never will. "For the mountains shall depart, and the hills be removed; but my kindness shall not depart from you, neither shall the covenant of my peace be removed, says the Lord that has mercy on you."

Avail yourself of the rich and precious legacy of peace Jesus your Mediator and Surety has bequeathed you in His last Will and Testament. The terms of this covenant are– "peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you; not as the world gives, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid." Christs' last thoughts and words and deeds were those of peace. Present your claim and ask your share of this precious, priceless bequest, for if you believe in and love Him, you may be assured that He remembered you in His Will, and left you this legacy. And as He rose from the dead and ascended into heaven for the express purpose of being His own Administrator, He is prepared, in answer to your prayer, as "the God of peace Himself, to give you peace always, by all means."

Is God pacified towards you for all that you have done for Christ's sake? Then seek to cultivate PEACE WITH YOUR FELLOW-CREATURES. You cannot walk in the sweet enjoyment of God's peace, and harbor at the same moment in your heart hatred, malice, and all uncharitableness towards a, fellow-being, especially a fellow-saint. Impossible! Go and be reconciled to your brother. Make your peace with your sister. Confess your own fault, and forgive his or hers. Think of the infinite patience of God towards you; think of the ten thousand talents which you owed, but which He has cancelled; of the "seventy times seven" which He has forgiven you; of the peace and joy of His pardoning love, so often shed abroad in your heart; and think of a dying hour, and of the final and eternal meeting in heaven with your brother, and go and extend to him the olive branch of peace, and forgive him, even as God for Christ's sake has forgiven you.

Strive to promote FAMILY PEACE. Be a peacemaker there! It is one of the saddest pictures of domestic life, and one of the most painful and humiliating evidences of fallen humanity– the strifes and feuds, the enmity, alienation, and division, which too often are seen marring and shading the domestic circle. The smallest trifles will be allowed to engender differences of judgment and alienation of affections and unholy jealousies of heart, where there should exist the most perfect confidence, the freest communion, and the warmest and holiest love. A picture, a jewel, a piece of plate, a slight misunderstanding, after death has removed the family head and broken up the domestic circle, has often been allowed to sever and separate those who, as the ties of family lessened one by one, should but have drawn all the closer together in affection, union, and sympathy. Do all, then, that is in your power to cultivate in yourself, and to promote in others, family peace. "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God." "Get rid of all bitterness, rage, anger, harsh words, and slander, as well as all types of malicious behavior. Instead, be kind to each other, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, just as God through Christ has forgiven you."

CHRISTIAN UNION among the members of different branches of Christ's one Church is a sweet fruit of our peace with God through Christ. "The God of peace" has but one Family, and but one Church; and it is His will that members of this one Family and of this one Church should "lead a life worthy of your calling, for you have been called by God. Be humble and gentle. Be patient with each other, making allowance for each other's faults because of your love. Always keep yourselves united in the Holy Spirit, and bind yourselves together with peace. We are all one body, we have the same Spirit, and we have all been called to the same glorious future."

Thus walking in Christian love and union with Christ's members of other communions than our own, we shall walk worthy of, and glorify Christ, bring peace into our own souls, and impart extension and strength to the bond of peace which should knit and unite in one mystical body the whole Church of the elect. Oh, were the peace of God more in our own souls, our aim would ever be to "live peaceably with all men,'' especially with the "household of faith." We should not think that we are coming down from some high altitude of ecclesiastical eminence, and are conferring a distinction and an obligation on a Christian Church, or on a Christian brother, by the extension of our right hand of fellowship and love; but that we were honoring ourselves, and, above all, were honoring Christ, by cultivating the "communion of saints" with all those who love our Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity.

And what a PRAYER does the apostle blend with this expressive title of our God! He prays for the entire sanctification of the Thessalonian saints: "Now may the God of peace make you holy in every way, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless until that day when our Lord Jesus Christ comes again." Who that has felt the peace of God flowing through Christ into his soul longs not to experience the answer to this prayer for holiness in his own soul? The believer, standing between the two Advents of Christ, finds in both the most powerful persuasives to universal holiness. From the cross of Jesus, where the Prince of Peace died, and from the throne of Jesus, where the Prince of Peace lives, he draws the most, powerful motives to yield himself up unto God, body, soul, and spirit. The cross, in its dying love, and the throne in its living, glory, constrain him to "deny all ungodliness and worldly lusts, and to live godly, righteously, and soberly in this present world."

Thus, while our God is the "God of peace," He is the God of holiness; and all in whose hearts the peace of God, which passes all understanding, reigns; hunger and thirst after righteousness, and are made, through trial, suffering, and sorrow, "partakers of His holiness." Thus the peace which God gives, which Jesus procured, and which the Holy Spirit speaks, is a holy, sanctifying peace; and he who lives in sin, and yet affirms that he is walking in peace with God through Christ, is deceiving and deceived. "And now, may the God of peace, who brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, equip you with all you need for doing his will. May he produce in you, through the power of Jesus Christ, all that is pleasing to him. Jesus is the great Shepherd of the sheep by an everlasting covenant, signed with his blood. To him be glory forever and ever. Amen."

Let us remember that God's way of peace is our way of holiness. "You meet him that rejoices and works righteousness, those who remember You in Your ways." The path of peace is ever found parallel with the path of evangelical purity and obedience. And walking in this path, God, as the "God of peace," meets His children, and says to them, "Peace be with you!" Oh, walk closely with God, keep the conscience beneath the blood, live above the world and the creature, and your peace will flow like a river, and your righteousness as the waves of the sea.

"Now may the God of peace make you holy in every way, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless until that day when our Lord Jesus Christ comes again. God, who calls you, is faithful; he will do this." 1 Thes. 5:23-24

"Let us hail the blissful morning-
Dawn of peace to sinful earth!
Which the promised Savior gives us,
By a new and wondrous birth;
And, with angels,
join in hymns of holy mirth.
'Twas for us the King of Glory,
For a manger left His throne
Bore the curse–then went to heaven,
In a nature like our own
Blessed compassion!
To a world of rebels shown!
Lord, we praise You for Your mercy,
And would spread Your name abroad,
Until each tongue, and tribe, and nation,
Know You as their Savior God
And rejoicing,
Feel the virtue of Your blood."

THE GOD OF LIGHT

"God is light." 1 John 1:5

"Truly the light is sweet, and a pleasant thing it is to behold the sun." In what believing heart will not these words awaken a quick and grateful response? The renewed man is the only being who knows what true light is, because he only, really knows Jesus. All others are like miners dwelling from their birth beneath the surface of the earth, having never seen the sun, through whose eternal gloom not one vivifying ray has ever pierced. "Darkness covers the earth, and gross darkness the people." When man sinned, God went out of the temple, luminous and glorious with His presence, and the sun of the soul set in guilt, darkness, and death. Henceforth the natural man walks in darkness, not knowing where he goes, until the time of electing love and sovereign grace draws on, when He who at creation's dawn said, "Let there be light, and light was," causes the light of life to shine, and the soul is immediately "translated out of darkness into His marvelous light," henceforth and forever to be a child of the light and of the day. "You were once darkness, but now are you light in the Lord walk as children of light." But the present pages have more especially to do with God Himself as the God of light. We are invited to consider, less the reflection and effects of God's light, than the Divine Fountain from which it flows.

The image is sublime and expressive. Creation, from her boundless variety, would be at a loss to suggest a material object more worthy of her Creator-God. There is nothing in nature more familiar to the sense, beautiful to the eye, or essential to growth than light. It possesses three distinct elements, perhaps, more appropriate to the illustration of our present subject than any others– luminousness, velocity, and vitality. Thus, in God's own light we see light upon His character, dealings, and Word.

More rapid than the travel of natural light is the entrance of converting light into the soul of man. And the life, thus darting in upon the soul, quickens it with spiritual life, and causes the heart to bloom and blossom with the graces and fruits of the Spirit. Such is the image of God, and such the blessings, among countless others, which flow from Him concerning whom the sublime expression of the Psalmist is employed, "You cover Yourself with light as with a garment."

Let us, in the further contemplation of this title of our God, consider the different views which it presents for our study. In the first place, God is ESSENTIAL LIGHT. It will be observed, the concrete, and not the abstract form of the expression is employed by the Holy Spirit. It is not said that God is brightness, or, that God enlightens; but, that "God is light,"– that is, Essential, uncreated light. Light is His essence. "God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all." All other light flows from Him, the "Fountain of Light," compared with which it is as darkness. Thus, the light of day has been termed the "shadow of God." And if such the shadow, what must God's essential light be! His abode is the dwelling-place of light. "He alone can never die, and he lives in light so brilliant that no human can approach him. No one has ever seen him, nor ever will. To him be honor and power forever. Amen." The Greek expresses it, "Inhabiting unapproachable light." So divine, pure, and dazzling is the light in which He dwells, no mortal eye could behold, or even endure it. Encircled by divine and unapproachable glory, He dwells in His own solitary grandeur, and from His own essential fullness, pours light on every other being and object in the universe.

What a sublime view does this give us of the greatness of the "God of light." We too imperfectly deal with God's essence. The natural and inevitable result of which is, we measure the Infinite by the finite, the Divine by the human, and think that God is such an one as ourselves! Hence the contracted views we cherish of His power, the false judgments we form of His designs, and the incorrect interpretations we arrive at of His word- the dishonor we cast upon Him, and the injury we inflict upon ourselves. All this leads to unbelieving distrust and fleshly reasoning. So when trouble is near we tremble, and when need is pressing we despair, and when temptation assails we yield, and when grief overshadows we sink, and when the rod corrects we rebel. And, when the guilt of sin and conscious backsliding weigh us down to the dust, and the chastening we so righteously evoked lands heavily upon us, we mournfully inquire, "Will the Lord cast us off forever, and will He be favorable no more? Is His mercy clean gone forever? Does His promise fail forevermore? Has God forgotten to be gracious? Has He in anger closed up His tender mercies?"

Such is the fruit of unbelief, such the natural result of an imperfect knowledge of the perfections, character, and government of our God. We believe that wrong views of God lie at the root of all that is erroneous in doctrine and low in practice. Imperfect acquaintance with His character, and inadequate views of His law, must necessarily result in loose thoughts of inspiration and lax views of holiness. And when God's truth is not regarded as His truth, it ceases to exert its proper influence as the instrument of sanctification, and a defect in personal holiness must necessarily be the result. But do even the saints really believe half they profess to believe, or fully possess what they do possess? Well did our blessed Lord exhort, "Have faith in God," since the lack of faith is the root of all our evil. Oh, to have higher views of God, more enlarged thoughts of His all-sufficiency! To believe that such is the extent of His power, and such the depth of His love, and such the infinitude of His resources, and such the tenderness of His compassion, we crave not a blessing, we have not a want, we feel not a sorrow, we dread not a trial, we prefer not a request which He is not prepared immediately and fully to meet.

God is the Author of NATURAL LIGHT. God is light, and streams of light broken into a thousand prismatic rays of beauty and power- now of strength and then of wisdom, here of love and there of grace– gleam along our homeward path, shining brighter and more beautiful unto the perfect day. And thus while the atheist's creed banishes the God of light from His own beauteous world- writing upon every tree and flower and star, "There is no God"- the believing heart gratefully acknowledges and devoutly contemplates the Creator in His creation; loves to trace up to Him the light which colors the world by day, and which silvers it by night; which paints the lily, and kindles the diamond. Such is our God, the God of natural light. "The day is Yours, the night also is Yours. You prepare the light and the sun."

The solar system, by virtue of which this vast globe is lit up with countless glories, pursues its trackless course through the starry heavens, bearing on its resistless course its magnificent furniture of animate and inanimate nature, exhibits traces of a Divine intelligence, an All-creative power, which, while it invites our profoundest contemplation, and challenges our unquestioning faith, infinitely transcends the loftiest flight of our reason. Oh, let us be true worshipers of this Divine Sun! And while the blinded Persian, in his idolatry, prostrates himself before the 'shadow of God,' let us worship Him in spirit and in truth who gave the sun to rule by day and the moon by night, Himself the Divine Sun of our soul.

Passing from this view of God as the Author of natural light, let us contemplate Him in the LIGHT OF HIS PROVIDENCE. Here is presented a yet brighter view of our God. Providence were but a dark mystery– a cloud-veil over God and His dealings, unpenetrated by a single ray- but for the light which flows from God. It is in His light we see light upon those events and circumstances of the Divine administration which else would be to us altogether inexplicable. How unsearchable the ways He often chooses to accomplish His purposes of mercy and His designs of goodness towards us! The event is, perhaps, enshrouded in the deepest obscurity. The handwriting upon the wall is entirely unintelligible.

Thus was it with dear old Jacob, and thus, too, with that eminent personal type of Jesus, Joseph. Who can study their histories and not learn that God's way with the people He loves is often in the pathless deep, and that His footsteps are not known? There is a "wheel within a wheel," and the whole machinery is so complex, complicated, and involved, as to baffle the most sagacious and confound the most intelligent.

Is your God, beloved, thus dealing with you now? His thoughts are, perhaps, a great deep, His ways with you past finding out. The event is mysterious, the calamity dark, the blow crushing. You are awe-struck and gazing in mute astonishment upon the scene, you marvel what He means and where the whole will end. But, "God is light." What to your mind is mysterious is to Him as a perfect whole. What to your eye is obscure, to His is all luminous. And like some rustic gazing with mute wonder upon a piece of machinery, lost in ignorant conjecture, we are confounded and silent, God stands by, and, smiling at our fruitless speculation, with a word says, "Let there be light," and in a moment the whole scene is radiant with brightness; and in this light we see with what skill and harmony, wisdom and love, He was working all things after the counsel of His own will, and all things for our good.

Such will be the course of His present dealings with you. Let your only aim be to glorify Him amid the dark and enigmatical events of His providence. "Unto the upright there arises light in the darkness." Be your one single aim to walk uprightly in this dark event, this mysterious providence, and the light which is sown for the righteous will spring out of darkness, and the whole will appear to you one beauteous and harmonious whole. Well does God remind us, "My thoughts are completely different from yours," says the Lord. "And my ways are far beyond anything you could imagine. For just as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts higher than your thoughts."

All may be dark to you now– circumstances dark, Providence dark, your path draped with the deepest, gloomiest shadow. Be it so. God is light, and God is love, and God is unchangeable. And if, in this time of dark Providence, integrity and uprightness are restraining you from any false step, from the employment of any dubious, carnal means of relieving the gloom that enshrouds you, then shall be fulfilled the precious promise we have already quoted, "Unto the upright their arises light in the darkness."

Another not less beautiful and precious promise will God also make good in your present experience, "Light is sown for the godly, and joy on those who do right." Oh, blessed truth, oh, comforting thought that, dark and dreary though our way may be to us, it is all light to our God, for "in Him is no darkness at all." "He knows your walking through this great wilderness," knows the way that you take- the dreary way, the lonesome way, the intricate way, the perilous way, and the light that is sown for the righteous shall spring forth and shed its brightness and its bloom along all the way your God is leading you.

Oh, how beauteous and smiling the flowers that spring from God's light sown! How they gem and irradiate, soften and cheer the solitary and somber, the rough and winding paths we tread through the wilderness, across the desert, home to heaven. They are God's smiles. Sunbeams flowing from Him who is light, all light, and nothing but light to those who are light in the Lord, and whose path is that of the 'just,'– the justified in Christ, the accepted in the Beloved- 'shining more and more unto the perfect day.' "Commit your way unto the Lord, and trust also in Him, and He shall bring it to pass; and He shall bring forth your righteousness as the light, and your judgment as the noon-day."

Remember, that the darkest part of the night immediately precedes the dawn of day; and that, if your present position is ever so shaded or depressing, your circumstances ever so entangled, and your way ever so intricate and hedged up, the long, dreary night of weeping shall terminate in a morning of joy, brighter far, it may be, and more cloudless, than any that ever broke upon your spirit.

Your way, not mine, O Lord,
However dark it be,
Lead me by Your own hand-
Choose out the path for me.
"Smooth let it be, or rough,
It will be still the best;
Winding or straight, it leads
Right onward to Your rest.
"I dare not choose my lot-
I would not, if I might.
O choose for me, my God
So shall I walk aright."
"The kingdom that I seek
Is Yours; so let the way
That leads to it be Yours,
Else I must surely stray.
"O take my cup, and it
With joy or sorrow fill,
As best to You may seem-
You choose my good and ill.
"O choose for me my friends,
My sickness or my health
O choose my cares for me,
My poverty or wealth.
"Not mine, not mine the choice,
In things either great or small,
O be my Guide, my Strength,
My Jesus, and my all."

God is light IN HIS WORD OF TRUTH. Here we approach still nearer to the light. Beauteous and glorious as is God's light in creation, testifying, as it does, to His "eternal power and Godhead," it is but the mere shadow of God. Yet brighter as is God's light in providence, it is but as the twilight of God. But, in the revelation which He has given of Himself- in His Word of truth, His light beams out more gloriously than in the most brilliant and dazzling unfoldings of nature or providence. By the mere light of creation, fallen, sinful man, can never find his way to God. The most magnificent landscape, the loftiest mountain, the most stately tree, the most lovely flower, the brightest star, can supply no answer to the great question, "What must I do to be saved?" God has written the inscription of His power and Godhead across the sky, but not His redeeming, saving love.

Therefore it is written, "The world by wisdom knew not God." "Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible man, and to birds, and four-footed beasts, and creeping things." Read the treatises of ancient philosophers who attempt to treat of God and of His works. Are they not but as the scintillations of the glowworm in the hedge compared with the light of the noontide sun, when contrasted with the revelations God has made of Himself in His Word? God's Word is a divine and pure reflection of Himself, and all is spiritual darkness until this light breaks in upon the soul. "The entrance of Your Word gives light." "Your Word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path."

By no other light- the light of creation, the light of reason, the light of science, the light of education- can a poor, lost sinner, find his way to God. Through these media we see God but "through a glass darkly," "His back parts", or dark parts only. We can trace the nature and attributes of God– His wisdom, and power, and goodness; but His moral attributes- His justice, and holiness, and truth- which must all harmonize with mercy and love in the scheme that saves us- we do not even see in part. But, the entrance of God's revealed Word gives light. And one portion of divine truth brought home to the understanding and the heart by the power of the Holy Spirit, scatters the clouds and shades of spiritual ignorance, and pours the light of God in upon the soul.

Oh, how divine, how unerring, how blessed is this light! One solitary beam from God, how good is it! What are the writings of MEN, the most enlightened and spiritual, but as dim lanterns reflecting the light of God's truth, compared with God's truth itself, as it flows, pure and sparkling, from Him, the fountain of truth? It is true that there are revelations which challenge our faith rather than our reason; which demand the humble reception of the heart rather than the full grasp of the intellect– truths which transcend, though they do not contradict, our reason. Such, for example, are the doctrines of the Trinity, the Incarnation of the Son of God, the Atonement and Sacrifice of Christ, the Regenerating work of the Spirit in the soul; nevertheless, these doctrines, while they transcend, do not contradict our natural reason.

But if these are parts of God's Word which, through their 'excessive brightness,' are dark to our fallen understanding- that is, secret things in God's revelation which belong to God alone, the full understanding of which awaits us in the world of which it is said, " here is no night there"– there yet is sufficient light flowing from the inspired page to teach us how, as sinners, we may be saved and become fitted for endless glory. It pours a flood of divine and golden light upon the great questions of our pardon, our justification, our adoption, our final safety, our fitness for the "inheritance of the saints in light." It tells of Jesus; how He became our Surety and Sin-bearer, how His obedience becomes our righteousness, His death our satisfaction, His blood our guilt-cleansing, His indwelling Spirit our sanctification and preservation to eternal glory.

Enlightened on these vital and precious truths, we can patiently wait the light above, when, no longer seeing through a glass darkly and knowing but in part, we shall know even as we are known, and love even as we are loved. Thus our God is light in the Scriptures of truth. And it is because the "wise and the prudent" of this world- the men of fleshly wisdom; will not walk by the light of God's Word, but in the light of the "sparks of their own kindling"- their natural and blinded reason- that they "err, not knowing the Scriptures." But we who hope that, through sovereign grace, we belong to the 'babes' to whom the Father has revealed the great things of His law, the precious things of His love, and who accept God's Word as our only rule of faith and of practice in this life, and as our only light and guide in our travel to the life that is to come.

Oh, let us in this day of lax views of Inspiration, a day in which everywhere, among professed friends and avowed foes, God's Word is so flagrantly tampered with, its truth so openly and defiantly assailed by Rationalistic and Ritualistic views, cling closer and warmer to His Divine Word; "whereunto we do well that we take heed, as unto a light that shines in a dark place, until the day dawns and the day star arises in our hearts." Thus, we see enough in God's Word to satisfy us that the evidences of its divinity are many and conclusive- that, it contains a revelation of Himself, His mind and will, found nowhere else; that, it is an unveiling of His love to man seen in no part of His creation; that, it demands our universal holiness and teaches us the lessons of its attainment; and that, it contains a wisdom infinitely transcending the most exalted finite understanding, which will furnish the enlarged and perfectly sanctified mind with material for thought and study, widening, increasing, to all eternity.

But God, in the revelation of His light, has surpassed all His works of creation and wonders of providence, and even of His word, in THE PERSON AND WORK OF THE LORD JESUS CHRIST. The Son of God is the great revelation of God's light. In Him God appears not in profile or in dim twilight, but in express image and in full-orbed light, softened, indeed, and toned to our visual organs, for no man can see God and live, seeing that He dwells in light which no man has seen or can see; yet so full, clear, and resplendent as to be "the brightness of His glory, and the express image of His Person." Herein our God is light. Christ is the "Sun of Righteousness," and every truth He revealed, and every promise He spoke, and every invitation He issued, was a radiant beam flowing from God through Christ His Incarnate Son.

How fully does this statement accord with the Old Testament Scriptures of truth. The prophet Isaiah calls the Savior a "Great Light," the "Light of Jehovah," the "Light of the Gentiles." With this perfectly agrees the teaching of the New Testament. John, Christ's forerunner, styles Him the "True Light." It is true, Christ testifies of John that he was a "burning and a shining light"- a lamp, a candle, as the original expresses it, but his light was kindled by Christ, the true Light. Our Lord's own declarations on this point are decisive. He speaks of Himself as the "Light of the world," and as the "Light of life." This He is, as He represents and reveals the Father. God is light, but because He is essential light, no created eye could look upon Him. But God, in the fullness of His benevolence, would so unveil and manifest Himself to the eyes of His own created intelligences, angels and men, as should permit them to gaze upon Him and live.

The mode was in all respects worthy of Himself; it was such a mode as could only find its conception in a Divine mind. And what was the mode thus conceived and adopted? "Let us go even to Bethlehem, and see this thing, which has come to pass, which the Lord has made known unto us." What thing? The most marvelous, unheard of, and glorious the universe ever beheld- the Incarnation of the Son of God, "God manifest in the flesh."

Here is the mode by which God has manifested His light to man. We go to Bethlehem, and we behold in Christ "the brightness of His glory, and the express image of His person." "God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, has ''shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ." Thus, Christ is the light, or revelation, of God. Hence He said to the inquiring disciple, "He who has seen Me has seen the Father." Behold how God has subdued, and softened, and toned down the splendor of His essential person to the gaze of mortal man! True, in gazing upon Christ, we gaze but upon the rays of the Divine Sun; nevertheless, we accept the invitation, "Look unto Me, all you ends of the earth, and be you saved; for I am God, and there is none else;" and in so looking in simple faith, we are saved. We look upon God, revealed to us in the Son of His love, reconciled, pacified towards us, and behold, we live!

We learn from this subject the NECESSITY AND IMPORTANCE OF THE HOLY SPIRIT'S ILLUMINATION. If, as we have endeavored to show, we only really see God's light as it is revealed in Christ, it follows as a truth equally conclusive, that we only truly know Christ as He is made known to us by the Spirit. Veiled and subdued as the glory of Christ is, it is yet too pure and resplendent for the visual intellect of man, unillumined by the Spirit. The natural man sees no glory or beauty in Christ. He is as a "root out of the dry ground, having no form nor loveliness." How truly is this confirmed by God's Word! "The natural man receives not the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness unto him, neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned." Behold, then, the essential importance of praying to the Holy Spirit for His Divine illumination.

If it is the office of Jesus to lead us to the Father, it is equally the office of the Spirit to lead us to Jesus. We only spiritually and savingly know the Father through the Son, and the Son by the Spirit. And thus we learn the existence and necessity of the Trinity in the economy of grace. No system of theology is complete, and no hope of salvation is sure, that excludes this essential doctrine of the Christian faith. If its existence is essential to God's plan of mercy, and its belief is absolutely necessary to salvation, then, if it be ignored and rejected, we ask, By what other means can the rejecter possibly be saved? To illustrate this statement: if, as a drowning man, I thrust from me the plank that would have floated me in safety to the shore– or, if resolved to reach it by some expedient of my own, I persistently refuse to enter the life-boat launched for my rescue, it follows that I must inevitably perish, and most righteous and deserved will be my doom.

There is but one divinely-revealed way of salvation– faith in Jesus. "Neither is there salvation in any other; for there is none other name under heaven, given among men, whereby we must be saved." Jesus has said, "I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life." If, then, I walk not in Christ the Way, believe not in Christ the Truth, and accept not Christ the Life– in other words, if I deny His Person, ignore Atonement, reject His offered salvation- I must inevitably perish in my sins, and every perfection of God will approve and countersign my fearful yet most righteous, condemnation.

Betake yourself, then, in prayer to the Holy Spirit, earnestly imploring Him so to enlighten your understanding, and to convince your heart of sin, and to renew you in the spirit of your mind, that you may henceforth walk in the light of the Lord. Remember God's order: Christ leads you to the Father, and the Holy Spirit leads you to Christ.

Another truth is taught us by this subject. Our Christian discipleship pledges us to BE FAITHFUL AND CLEAR REFLECTORS OF GODS LIGHT. Our blessed Lord recognized this Christian duty when He said, "You are the light of the world. Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven." True believers are light in the Lord. This light is a borrowed, but it is solar light, kindled from no human shrine. It flows from Christ, the Sun of righteousness, beholding whose glory, as in a glass, they are transformed into the same image, as by the Spirit of the Lord; and thus, "in the midst of a wicked and perverse nation, they shine as lights in the world."

This gospel truth was beautifully typified by the Urim and the Thummin worn by Aaron on his breastplate- the literal meaning of which is, light and perfection. Such are all the true Israel of God. Christ, our great High Priest, bears them upon His breastplate within the veil; and thus borne upon His bosom, the blaze of ten million suns pales into darkness before the light and perfection of every believer, flowing from Christ Jesus, their Lord. Allow, then, the word of solemn exhortation. See to it that your religious light is not borrowed from a Church, or from a minister, or from a creed, but is derived directly and only from Christ. Let your knowledge of Christ, your faith in Christ, your love to Christ, your obedience to Christ, be the test and the measure of the light that is in you. God denounces those spurious prophets who borrowed their religion from others." I am against the prophets who steal from one another words supposedly from me."

Is there not a great danger of stealing, or of borrowing, our religious thoughts, sentiments, and phraseology, from others? And was not this the case with the foolish virgins in the parable, when they exclaimed, "Give us of your oil, for our lamps are gone (or, are going) out?" Oh, it is of the utmost importance that our religious light is not a borrowed or false light. See that your religion is your own- the personal, vital experience of your own heart. It is easy– nothing easier, more deceptive or fatal; than to make a religious profession, adopt a religious ceremonial, imitate the experience, and quote the language of others.

A borrowed or a counterfeit religion is of all religions the most ensnaring and dangerous. Do not go to the grave clad in the religious habiliments of others, but robed in Christ's true and joyous garments of salvation, "girded with the golden girdle" of truth, holiness, and love. Bear not to death's gate the empty, Oilless, flameless lamp of a mere religious profession, dark and hopeless as the valley down which you pass; but, see that you have Christ in you, the hope of glory- a living, burning light, shining brighter and brighter through the dark passage, until it ushers you into the meridian splendor of heaven's eternal light.

We learn, too, from this subject, how rapid may be the dawn of spiritual, converting light, in the soul of man. The Bible abounds with illustrations of this fact– the dying malefactor, is perhaps the most touching and conclusive. There is no necessity why conversion should be a process long and tedious. The kingdom of nature, which is but a type of the kingdom of grace, disproves this theory. He who said, "Let there be light," and the darkness of chaos vanished in a moment before His all-commanding voice, has but to speak the word, and the soul shall as quickly pass out of darkness into marvelous light, henceforth to shine a child of the light and of the day forever.

But the full unveiling of God's light awaits us above. HEAVEN is beautifully described as the "inheritance of the saints in light." Of the new Jerusalem it is said, "And the city has no need of sun or moon, for the glory of God illuminates the city, and the Lamb is its light. The nations of the earth will walk in its light, and the rulers of the world will come and bring their glory to it. Its gates never close at the end of day because there is no night there." Oh, who would not so live as to be an inhabitant of this glorious city, to walk in this light, and to dwell forever where there shall be 'no night' of ignorance, and 'no night' of sorrow, and 'no night' of sin!

Dwell much, my reader, on the sunlight slopes of heaven. There are bright gleams of glory here below, if we but seek and enjoy them. God is light; and God's light shall shine around our path if we seek first His kingdom and righteousness- that is, if we make real religion the first, paramount, and chief object of our desire and aim, the all-molding, all-controlling, all-commanding object of life. Oh, seek to walk in the light of the Lord! In this light let us live. To this light let us bring all our sins and follies, all our perplexities and trials, all our griefs and woes. "Truly the light is sweet, and a pleasant thing it is for the eye to behold the sun." Why be content to walk in the shade when it is our high privilege, as the children of light, to walk in the sunshine of God's countenance?

Or, should it be the discipline of our Heavenly Father that we for a season travel, as Jesus Himself did, in soul-darkness, nevertheless, faith is still to trust the faithfulness and unchangeable love of God, clinging all the closer to Christ, as the timid child clings in the night-season to the arms that embrace, and to the bosom that enfolds it. "Who among you fears the Lord and obeys his servant? If you are walking in darkness, without a ray of light, trust in the Lord and rely on your God."

Such is our God. All light His beauteous offspring– natural and intellectual, spiritual and eternal light; springing from Him, the "Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning." Clods of earth though we are- of the earth earthy- and returning to the earth from where we came; the Holy Spirit, by His regenerating power, can make us more radiant and luminous than a thousand suns, each in his own orbit reflecting the image of Christ, and giving glory to God.

Thus, there is no light, as there is no beauty, so transcendent as HOLINESS. Holiness assimilates us more closely to God's nature than any other endowment. We may be intellectual, and discerning, and loving, and not be God-like. Alas! vice of the greatest enormity, and sin of the deepest hue, has been found in the closest alliance with greatest intellectual powers, and with the deepest and strongest sensibilities. But holiness cannot deceive us. He that is holy is like God. His mental powers may be cramped, his range of thought limited, his attainments in literature and science measured; nevertheless, if his heart is regenerate, and the spirit of his mind is renewed, and his life is endowed and adorned with the gifts and the beauty of holiness, then is he one of whom it may be said, "Truly, this is a man of God."

Be your light, then, the light and luster of divine holiness. Welcome all the discipline of your Heavenly Father, as but designed to make you a more burning and a shining light. In the dark furnace of affliction, in the gloomy chamber of sickness and sorrow, the light of your graces– patience, submission, faith, and love; shall shine forth with a purer, richer luster; and so seeing it, the saints will rejoice in your light, and you shall glorify God in the fires.

And when the "candle of the wicked shall be put out," you shall burn stronger and brighter, until death quenches it in this world, but to rekindle in the world to come, where "they need no candle, neither light of the sun; for the Lord God gives them light." Then, "your sun shall no more go down; neither shall your moon withdraw itself; for the Lord shall be your everlasting light, and the days of your mourning shall be ended."

"Walk in the light! so shall you know
That fellowship of love
His Spirit only can bestow,
Who reigns in light above
"Walk in the light! and sin abhorred
Shall never defile again;
The blood of Jesus Christ, our Lord,
Shall cleanse from every stain!
"Walk in the light! and you shall find
Your heart made truly His,
Who dwells in cloudless light enshrined,
In whom no darkness is.
"Walk in the light! and you shall own
Your darkness passed away,
Because that light has on you shone,
In which is perfect day.
"Walk in the light! and even the tomb
No fearful shade shall wear;
Glory shall chase away its gloom,
For Christ has conquered there.
"Walk in the light! and you shall see
A path, though thorny, bright;
For God by grace shall dwell in thee,
And God Himself is Light"

THIS GOD IS OUR GOD

"For this God is OUR GOD for ever and ever; he will be our guide even to the end." Psalm 48:14

Strong language this! But not too strong for faith to employ. In some believing minds, of doubting, though not of doubtful faith; of fearful, yet not of despairing hearts; it may sound like a vain-glorious boast, and appear a claim almost too presumptuous for a sinful mortal to prefer. Nevertheless, it is truth, and, more or less profound, is the experience of every child of God, and may be the language without any exaggeration of the weakest believer that ever touched the fringe of the Savior's robe. We too much forget that what has been the spiritual attainment of the saints in a past dispensation, may be equally the experience of the saints in every succeeding one. If, amid the twilight shadows of the old economy, believers could embody their faith in language as strong as this, why should believers, dwelling amid the full blaze of the present dispensation, upon which the Sun of Righteousness has risen in noontide splendor, speak in language more timid and doubtful?

Saving Faith and its Divine Object have been the same in every dispensation and age of the Church. The faith of Adam, the first and greatest sinner of his race, which looked to the Promised Seed, before, yet the gates of Eden were closed upon him, is essentially and objectively of "like precious faith," with which the penitent thief washed himself in the crimson fountain flowing at his side. Thus we must be careful of supposing that there is any eminence in the divine life, to which other saints have attained, unattainable by us. That there is any sacred height in grace, holiness, and assurance which they have reached to which we may not ascend- or, that there is any knowledge of Christ, any conformity to His likeness, any intimate relations with Him experienced by others, which may not be our experience too. Thus, strong and bold as is the language of David, there lives not a child of God who may not adopt it as his own, and exclaim, "For this God is OUR GOD for ever and ever; he will be our guide even to the end."

With an exposition of this truth, the present volume approaches its close. Let us consider some of the sacred ideas suggested by the remarkable expression– "THIS God." It is evident that the inspired speaker refers to some especial attributes of God upon which he had been expatiating, which designate Him as the covenant and redeeming God of His people. "This God- this very God- this great and glorious God, is our God." What, then, are some of these distinctive attributes which especially identify Jehovah as the "OUR God" of His people?

In the first place, 'This God' of REVELATION is 'our God.' This God, who has made such a divine and wonderful revelation of Himself- His Being and mind, His will and heart; in His word, is, 'our God.' In other words, the God of the Bible is ours. All that that inspired and precious volume declares concerning Him, all the thoughts of His mind it reveals, all the love of His nature it makes known, all the teaching of His Spirit it conveys, all the precious promises, all the gracious invitations, and the glorious hopes, and solemn warnings and faithful admonitions it contains, are ours, because the God of the Bible is ours. Accept the Bible as your own. Read it as the letters of your Heavenly Father addressed personally to you. Let no sophistry shake your confidence in its divine inspiration. Beware of that false reasoning that teaches that God's Word is in the Bible, but that the Bible is not God's Word. The giant evil of the day is infidelity unblushingly assailing the truth, and impeaching the integrity of the Sacred Scriptures. Be vigilant and prayerful here. Lose your Bible, and you lose your all. If, then, the God of revelation is yours, the revelation of God is equally yours. All that this blessed volume contains belongs of a right to you. The Divine Redeemer, the glorious gospel, the free salvation, the precious promises, the gracious invitations, the rich consolations, the blissful hopes, the holy admonitions, all, all are ours, because the God who wrote the Bible, who gave the Bible, who has preserved the Bible, and who dwells in the Bible, is 'OUR God.'

May the hand of your faith upon this Divine Charter of blessings, and exclaim, "It is mine, all, all is mine, because the God who inspired it is my God. In giving me Himself He gave me all that was His and this is His most precious gift, next to His beloved Son, whom it reveals. Let me believe it firmly, deal with it reverently, read it devoutly, and walk in its divine precepts holily, and do all in my power to give to all who may not possess, as I do, this heavenly chart, this divine compass, this unerring light in the soul's solemn travel to eternity."

"Holy Bible, book divine,
Precious treasure! you are mine!
Mine to tell me where I came;
Mine to teach me what I am;
"Mine to chide me when I rove;
Mine to share a Savior's love;
Mine are you to guide my feet;
Mine to judge, condemn, acquit.
"Mine to comfort in distress,
If the Holy Spirit bless;
Mine to show by living faith
Man can triumph over death;
"Mine to tell of joys to come,
And the rebel sinner's doom
Oh, you precious book divine,
Precious treasure! you are mine!"

This INCARNATE GOD is 'our God.' The great truth of the Bible is- "God manifest in the flesh"- the Incarnation of the Son of God. And the belief of this truth, an essential doctrine of salvation, is equally essential to our being saved. No soul can possibly have eternal life who disbelieves, and, disbelieving, rejects this great cardinal doctrine of the Christian faith. "This is how you can recognize the Spirit of God: Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, but every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you have heard is coming and even now is already in the world. If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in him and he in God."

From these words we infer that, apart from faith in the Divinity of Christ, and a believing and personal reliance upon His Atonement, no man living can be saved. But how assuring and comforting is the truth that this Incarnate God is 'our' God! This God who left the heavens and came down, not in the nature of angels, but of men, who was "made flesh," who was "made in the likeness of man," and as Man was encompassed with our sinless infirmities, hungered and thirsted, wearied and sorrowed as we, lived a life of toil and poverty, was sustained by charity, was assailed by persecution, moved in comparative obscurity and solitude, and then died a felon's death– this wondrous Being, this God in our veritable nature, this Incarnate God, this Jesus is our God.

Claim your relation to, and your possession of, this God-man, my reader. He is bone of your bone, and flesh of your flesh. He is "very man of very man," as He is "very God of very God." You have not a human element that did not enter into His humanity. Nothing that was human– for sin is a Satanic and not a human element, an accident and not an original concomitant of our creation- was foreign to Him. It is, therefore, your privilege to claim Him as your Elder Brother, "in all things made like unto His brethren," and in all your afflictions of mind, body, and estate, to repair to Him as a "brother born for adversity."

Oh, what a distinguished blessing from among our precious and endless catalogue of blessings is this– the blessing of knowing that Jesus is ours! That all the fullness of the Godhead essentially dwelling in Him, and all the fullness of the manhood mediatorially His, belongs to us! That every perfection of His being, and every element of His nature, and every pulse of His life, and every fiber of His heart- His every thought and affection and feeling- is ours! "Behold the Lamb of God!" "Behold the man!" for this God, this very God-Man, this very Man-God, is ours!

Christ loves you to recognize your personal interest in Him. He is honored by your claim of free grace to all that He personally and officially is. He is glorified by your continuous coming to the "unsearchable riches" of His grace, wisdom, and love, and from their inexhaustible fullness making large and unlimited draughts. "All things are yours, for you are Christ's, and Christ is God's." Receive, then, this "great mystery of godliness, God manifest in the flesh," which, in other words, is the great mystery of love, and prefer your personal claim to its untold wealth exclaiming, "This incarnate God, this God who stooped to my nature, who girded Himself with my sinless weaknesses and infirmities, my sickness and sorrows, is my God; all the sinlessness of His nature, all the sympathy of His manhood, all the tenderness of His love, all the filial oneness of His relation as the Elder Brother, all is mine!"

This REDEEMING God is our God. The Redemption of man is the achievement of God. Not so evident is creation a divine work– the sun, the moon, and the stars which He has made evidencing 'His eternal power and Godhead'- as is the work of man's salvation. Upon this, His last and greatest work, He has concentrated the boundless resources of Deity. Here His glory meets in its focal power and splendor. God spoke the universe out of nothing, and formed man from the dust of the earth, but in the Redemption of man, He became incarnate in the person of His beloved Son, exhausting heaven of its richest treasure, and conferring that treasure upon man in the person of Jesus the Savior, 'His unspeakable gift.'

Behold your divine possession! This Redeeming God is our God. This God who has redeemed us at a cost so dear and precious to Himself, as the gift, the sufferings, and sacrifice of His only-begotten and beloved Son, who charged all our sins to Him, laid all our curse upon Him, exacting from Him, as our Surety and Substitute, the utmost penalty of our transgressions and hell-deserving; this God of redemption, this redeeming God is our God. If, then; and this is the logical deduction of faith- if the God of Redemption is our God, it follows that the Redemption of God is ours. This is our warrant to believe in Christ, and to trust in God, and to commit our souls to Jesus, and to accept unhesitatingly, unreservedly, His complete and free salvation; this God, who provided so suitable and so great a redemption, is our God: therefore, we are justified in casting ourselves upon the infinite merit, the atoning work, the sacrificial death of Jesus; yes, upon Jesus, our personal Savior Himself, and believe and be saved.

Trembling, fearful saint, oh, possess this your possession! If the God who redeemed you is yours, then avail yourself of all the precious blessings flooring from that great redemption– a present salvation, a full forgiveness of all sin, completeness in Christ, peace with God passing all understanding, and joy unspeakable and full of glory.

With your personal unworthiness, with your countless sins, with your deep poverty, you have nothing to do. The only object that is now to engage your thoughts, and fix your eye, and inspire your hopes, is Jesus! If you were under a great pecuniary liability, and an wealthy friend were to assume your responsibility, and cancel it to the utmost fraction, you would justly reason- "Why need I more be troubled about this matter? Why yield to fear and despondency? I am released from responsibility, my obligation is cancelled, my debt is paid, and I am legally discharged from all liability, arrest, and judgment. I will emerge from the shadows of my imprisonment into the bright sunshine of heaven, and will walk at liberty, bearing with me my legal protection and my full discharge, none daring to make me afraid."

Apply this simple reasoning to the salvation of your soul, and see to what a blessed conclusion and happy peace it will conduct you. Christ bound Himself in the covenant of grace to be our Surety. He became responsible to the moral government of God His Father for all its claims upon His people. He said, in terms virtually in accordance with that engagement, "Upon Me let their sins meet; with Me let their curse rest; upon Me let their punishment and condemnation fall. All that my Church owes I will pay; all for which My Bride is responsible I will discharge; all that My saints have most righteously incurred I will freely and fully endure. Let these go their way."

Oh, wondrous love! Oh, matchless grace! Oh, self-sacrificing mercy! Wonder, O heavens! be astonished, O earth! With such an all-sufficient Savior, with such a full, finished, and free discharge from the guilt of sin, the condemnation of the law, and the arrest of justice, will you any longer pursue your heavenly journey- your soul bowed down to the ground, like a bulrush, your harp of song silent upon the willow, your path bedewed with tears, and the desert vocal with nothing but your sighs, groans, and complaints? Rise! He calls you! Jesus bids you come and walk in the light and joy of His salvation. Uplift your head, take down your harp, retune and sweep its strings to the high praises of Emmanuel, for your great debt is paid, and "there is now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus." With the Church of the Old Testament let the Church of the New sing, but with a louder and sweeter strain, "I will greatly rejoice in the Lord, my soul shall be joyful in my God; for He has clothed me with the garments of salvation, He has covered me with the robe of righteousness."

This COVENANT GOD is our God. God has ever been a covenant God to His Church. Whether it be the Old Covenant or the New- the covenant of the law or the covenant of grace- the covenant with our father, the first Adam, or the covenant with Christ, the Second; He has always sustained the endearing relation of the covenant God of a covenant people. But it is especially by the nature, obligations, and promises of the new covenant of grace made in and by Christ, that God, even our own God, has bound Himself to us. The old covenant of works made with Adam, the federal head of his race, the terms of which were, "Do and live; sin and die," was broken by our first parents, and by its violation compromised the present and eternal happiness of their posterity. But the new covenant of grace entered into by the Sacred Three on behalf of elect sinners, on whom grace and glory were eternally and forever settled in Christ Jesus, their covenant Head, Surety, and Mediator, is absolute and new, filled with all spiritual blessings, signed and sealed by the blood of the New Covenant, accepted and ratified, on the part of God, by His raising up Christ from the dead. "I will," says God, "make an everlasting covenant with you, even the sure mercies of David." "This is my blood of the new covenant" says Christ.

And similar to this is the prayer of the apostle- "Now the God of peace, through the blood of the everlasting covenant, make you perfect." Take hold, then, by faith, beloved, of this covenant; for the God of this covenant is your God. 'By two immutable things in which it is impossible for Him to lie,' He has engaged Himself to be your covenant God, to supply all your need, to guide your journeyings through the wilderness, to keep you by His power, and to conduct you safely from grace to glory, from earth to heaven.

Again, I say, take hold of the covenant! All your history is arranged, all your needs are provided for, all your trials, and afflictions, and sorrows are appointed in this covenant. Not more truly is it like a rainbow round about the throne of heaven, bright like an emerald, than it is round about your person and your path, as to that throne and to that heaven your covenant God is gently, skillfully, surely leading you.

This tried, this proved God is our God. The religion of the true believer is experimental; it is the religion of the heart. He has no dealings with an unknown, imaginary God. He does not know God from the hearing of the ear, or from the reading of books, or from the religious conversation of others merely, but He knows Him from personal acquaintance, from heartfelt experience, from close and constant dealings. There has been a manifestation of God in Christ to his soul, and with Job he can say, "I have heard of You by the hearing of the ear; but now my eye sees You." And with the converted Samaritans, "Now we believe, not because of your saying; for we have heard Him ourselves, and know that this is indeed the Christ, the Savior of the world."

Oh to be a true, an experimental Christian! The religion of the ear, or of the eye, or of the imagination, or of the intellect, will not, and cannot bring the soul to heaven. The abodes of endless woe are peopled with souls who went down to its regions of despair with no better religion than this! Oh, give me the humility of the publican, the trembling faith of the diseased woman, the flowing tears of the penitent Magdalene, the last petition of the dying thief, rather than the most intellectual religion or the most gorgeous ceremonial that ever the mind invented, or the eye beheld.

But our God is the tried, the proved God of His people. His Word has been tried, and proved divine. His promises have been tried, and proved true. His veracity has been tried, and proved faithful. His love has been tried, and proved unchangeable. His compassion has been tried, and proved real. In a word, His children can all testify, by personal, holy, and loving experience, that God is all that His revealed Word declares Him to be, and that the Lord Jesus is all that the prophet declares Him to be- the 'Tried Stone' for sinners to build upon, and for saints to trust in.

Oh, the blessedness of knowing that this prayer-hearing, prayer-answering, and prayer-exceeding God; this promise-making and promise-keeping God; this love-unchanging, and covenant-keeping God is 'our God!' What encouragement have we to deal personally, constantly, and closely with our God in all the circumstances and events of daily life! We repair to Him in need, in difficulty, and in trial, in the firm persuasion that in the history of His Church He has proved all that we now require Him to be; that all that He has been He is now; and that what other saints have found Him in their experience we shall find Him in ours.

"Come, all you that fear the Lord, and I will tell you what He has done for my soul." "And what He has done for my soul," every believer might have added, "He will also do for yours. I came to Jesus as a sinner, and He saved me. I called upon God in trouble, and He heard me. I said unto Him, You are my God; and He said, you my people." Oh, repair, then, to the Lord as to one whom others have found to be all you want in your present circumstances, and have found faithful to His promises, all-sufficient in His aid, unchangeable in His love, a very present help in time of trouble.

And if you feel that you dare not venture with your sin and need and burden; upon a faith so feeble and slender as your own, go on the faith and testimony of others, believing that God is what He says He is, because they have found Him so; and He who has proved a Father and Friend and Helper to them will not turn away His mercy from you, nor your prayer from Himself, and send you away unblessed. It is an instructive incident in the life of Jesus, that when the friends of the palsied cripple unroofed the house and let him down in the midst where Jesus was, it is recorded, "And when Jesus saw their faith (not the faith of the palsied man), He said unto the sick man with the palsy, Son, your sins be forgiven you."

Thus are we instructed by this remarkable incident, that a poor, miserable sinner may venture to come to Christ on the believing assurance of another- as many of the Samaritans went to see the Savior on the testimony of the woman who said, "Come, see a man that told me all that I ever did; is not this the Christ?" And when the believing soul has taken hold of Christ, it is henceforth then both its duty and privilege to become a true witness for Christ, exclaiming, "Now we believe, not because of your saying; for we have heard Him ourselves, and know this is indeed the Christ, the Savior of the world."

"Now will I tell to sinners round
What a dear Savior I have found;
I'll point to Your redeeming blood,
And say, Behold the way to God."

The suggestive incident to which we have just referred, is equally encouraging to those who are anxious for the salvation of their unconverted relations and friends. The poor paralyzed man had no power to come to Christ himself; but his believing friends brought him to Jesus. Precious sympathy! Wondrous faith! No marvel that He in whose eye faith is so precious a thing, now crowned their faith by an immediate response, granting even more than was asked.

Our unconverted loved ones are spiritually impotent! The malady of sin has paralyzed and deadened their whole being, and they "will not come to Christ that they might have life." Let us, in default of all spiritual power on their part, bring them in the arms of believing and importunate prayer to Him, and, despite every obstacle and discouragement, uncover the roof, if need be, and lay them down at Jesus' feet, whose Spirit alone can quicken, and whose touch alone can heal. Who can tell?

We only venture further to remark that, this PARENTAL, RECONCILED GOD is our God. This God, who has so clearly and so often revealed Himself in His Word as a reconciled Father to His people, and whom Christ has taught us so to approach Him, stands to us in the close and endearing relation of, "Our Father." Oh, costly and precious privilege of looking up to this great, this holy Lord God, and exclaiming, "My Father, God!" It is in this character He would have you recognize Him, in this relation He would have you come to Him, in this light He would have you view and interpret all His dealings both of mercy and of judgment. "And because you have become his children, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, and now you can call God your dear Father. Now you are no longer a slave but God's own child. And since you are his child, everything he has belongs to you."

Hesitate not, then, beloved, in all your needs and trials, in all your mental and spiritual depressions, in all your conscious waywardness and disobedience, and in all the corrections and rebukes of His discipline- hesitate not still to love Him, to trust in Him, to submit to Him as your Father. Are you in need? He is pledged to supply it. Are you bereaved? His hand has done it. Are you sick? His providence has sent it. Are you in the garden of sorrow, with the cup of adversity trembling in your hand? Take it, drink it, looking up to Him with a filial, loving, submissive spirit, and exclaiming, "The cup which MY FATHER has given me, shall I not drink it?"

We reach an impressive and precious part of our subject- the ETERNITY OF OUR DIVINE PORTION. "This God is our God forever and ever." Everything here in this present world is changing. "The world passes away." A rope of sand, a spider's web, a silken thread, a passing shadow, an ebbing wave, are the most fitting and expressive emblems of all things belonging to this present time's state. The homes that sheltered us in childhood we leave; the land which gave us birth we leave; the loved ones who encircled our hearths pass away; the friends of early years depart; and the world that was so sunny, and life that was so sweet, is all beclouded and embittered; the whole scenery of existence changed into wintry gloom.

Still more sad and depressing are the spiritual vicissitudes to which our soul is constantly exposed. The waning of love, the decays of grace, the fluctuations of faith, the languor of life; true symptoms of spiritual declension of soul; are among the most startling and affecting illustrations of the mutability of all temporal and spiritual things.

But in the midst of all, "This God is our God FOREVER AND EVER!" All beings change but God. All things change but heaven. The evolutions of time revolve, the events of earth go onward, but He upon whom all things hang, and by whom all events are shaped and controlled, moves not. "I, the Lord, do not change." "Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today, and forever."

Is this God our God? Then He is ours forever! Our affairs may alter, our circumstances may change, our relations and friends may depart one by one, and our souls in a single day pass through many fluctuations of spiritual feeling; but He who chose us to be His own, and who has kept us to the present moment, is our covenant God and Father forever and ever, and will never throw us off and cast us away.

Such, too, is the immutability of Jesus. "Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today, and forever." "Having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them unto the end." We need the influence of this truth! Christ unchangeable– to soothe and solace us under the saddening, depressing effects of life's vicissitudes. We need it, too, and yet more deeply, amid the incessant fluctuations of our Christian experience through which we pass- the ebb and flow of the life of God in our soul. To know that no congealing of our love to Him can chill His love to us; to remember that, though we believe not, yet He is faithful, and cannot deny Himself- that our unbelief cannot make void His promises, nor our mutations affect the stability of His covenant- oh, this is strong consolation indeed, for which let our heartfelt praises ascend!

"Forever and ever!" Solemn words! Reader, what will YOUR forever and ever be? You die once, but to live and die no more! Your soul is immortal. Your being ceases not. Death, so far from being an annihilation, is not even a momentary suspension of your existence. Your present life, if life it may be called, for which you toil so incessantly, guard so assiduously, and love so intensely, is a transient, troubled dream; yet more, it is the tide that floats you rapidly upon its eddies onward to the solemn, endless future.

"Life is like a painted dream,
Like the rapid summer stream,
Like the fleeting meteor's ray,
Like the shortest winter's day,
"Like the fitful breeze that sighs,
Like the waning flame that dies,
Darting, dazzling on the eye,
Fading in eternity."

What will your eternity be? Where, how, and with whom will you spend it? Will it be forever and ever in heaven, or, forever and ever in hell? There is no middle state, no dream-land island between those two vast Continents. A deep and wide gulf divides them, and there is no passing from the one to the other. "These shall go away into everlasting punishment; but the righteous into life eternal." Of the first it is said, "And the smoke of their torment ascends up forever and ever!" and of the second, "Those who are wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament, and those who turn many to righteousness as the stars, forever and ever." Decide this momentous question now; antedate your future condition by seeking an interest in a present salvation, by accepting at this moment a divine and personal Savior; in a word, by repentance toward God, and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. "Behold, NOW is the accepted time, NOW is the day of salvation."

"He will be our guide, even unto death." The path to a future world is, in truth, difficult and perilous. Thousands of deathless souls undertake to travel it in the light of their own fire, in the sparks that they have kindled. Some, by the dim ray of reason; others, by the glowworm light of nature; yet others, by the treacherous light of their own righteousness. All these are false beacons; beacons which shine but to bewilder, and lead but to ensnare all those who trust to them.

"But watch out, you who live in your own light and warm yourselves by your own fires. This is the reward you will receive from me: You will soon lie down in great torment."
Isaiah 50:11. But God in Christ is the guide of the just. By His light they see light along all the dangerous way. Guided by that light, they walk through darkness, as at noon; their path to heaven, as the shining light which shines more and more unto the perfect day. Beloved, an unknown future is before you– a future of the present life; and a yet more real and solemn future of the life that is to come. But, tremble not, nor be dismayed. God, even your own God Father, is Your Guide and Christ, Your Shepherd, goes before you, and with a skillful, faithful, and gentle hand, will guide you safely to the end– yes, even unto death.

"Unto death"– what a precious and solemn assurance is this! Death is that crisis of our being we all must meet, yet all so dread. Its sting, its terror, its wrench, its obscured and changeless consequences all enshrouded in a mystery so awful and profound; is just that one event of life, the anticipation of which throws a shadow so dark over all brightness of existence. But faith in the Divine assurance that, this great and glorious, this incarnate and redeeming, this covenant and faithful God is 'our God, even unto death,' dissolves our fetters, dispels our fears, and we can anticipate, and even at times long for, the blissful moment that confronts us with the foe, unclothes us of mortality, and invests us with the robes of immortality and eternal life, and we are "clothed with our heavenly dwelling."

Cast from you, then, all your bondage through the fear of death, seeing that, down to the last moment, your God in Christ will be with you, at the presence and sight of whom, Death itself will turn pale and die. Oh, if this God is your God in life, do you think that, having guided and guarded you so long and so far on your journey, He will, at that solemn moment, when heart and flesh are failing, leave your side, and abandon you to go down 'the valley' all solitary and alone? Never! "This God is Our God Forever and Ever; He will be our guide even unto death"- in death- through death- and beyond death- Forever and Ever!

Oh, that blissful word 'forever!' Forever in heaven- forever and ever associated with saints and angels- forever and ever gazing on the beauty of Jesus- forever and ever basking in the sunshine of His glory- forever and ever chanting the song of the Lamb- forever and ever swimming in the ocean of God's love- forever and ever growing in knowledge and holiness and glory- forever and ever with the Lord! Oh, who would not forsake the world, and crucify the flesh, and bear the cross, confess and serve the Savior, live for Him, and die for Him who has by His death, resurrection, and ascension, so blessedly opened the kingdom of heaven to all believers!

"Forever with the Lord!
Amen, so let it be!
Life from the dead is in that word
'Tis immortality.
"Forever with the Lord!
Father, if 'Tis Your will,
The promise of that faithful word
Even here to me fulfill.
"So when my latest breath
Shall rend the veil in twain,
By death I shall escape from death,
And life eternal gain.
"Knowing as I am known,
How shall I love that word!
And often repeat before the throne,
Forever with the Lord!"

Confide in Him for the new year upon which you have embarked. Commit your every way unto Him, trust also in Him, and He shall bring to pass all that He has ordained and appointed for you in the everlasting covenant. Cast not about to know how this need shall be supplied, this difficulty met, and this affliction sustained; but, trust to the wisdom, and skill, to the faithfulness and love of your divine and heavenly Guide, until He brings you to glory. Let your one and only aim be to obey, please, and honor Him. Taking care of His glory, He will watch over your interests for time and for eternity. Take heed how you walk, and seek that a new epoch of time, a yet untried stage and untrodden path of your pilgrimage, shall be more holy, more Christ-exalting, more God-glorifying, and more heavenly than any you yet have passed.

The Divine command is, "Speak unto the children, that they go forward." Forward in obedience and duty- forward in service and suffering- forward in conflict and toil- forward, Christian, forward, even though the foe pursues, and the pathless water roll at your feet. Onward, Onward, "For the Lord your God knows your walking through this great wilderness." Blessed Lord! "You shall guide me with Your counsel, and afterwards receive me to glory. Whom have I in heaven but You? and there is none upon earth that I desire beside You."

'Tis Jesus, the First and the Last,
Whose Spirit will guide us safely home;
We'll praise Him for all that is past,
And trust Him for all that is to come.

"For this God is OUR GOD for ever and ever; he will be our guide even to the end." Psalm 48:14

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

MONERGISM BOOKS

The Works of Octavius Winslow, Copyright © 2011

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Table of Contents

1. Go and Tell Jesus

2. My Times in God's Hand

3. None Like Christ

4. The Preciousness of Christ

5. The Preciousness of God's Word

6. The Entire Pardon and Justification of the Believing Sinner

7. The Tried Believer Comforted

8. The Prophetical Glory of the Redeemer

9. The Glory of the Redeemer in His People

10. Christ's Sympathy to Weary Pilgrims (a selection of some of Winslow's best quotes)

11. CONSIDER JESUS (Thoughts for Daily Duty, Service, and Suffering)

12. Christ is Ever with You!

13. COUNSEL AND CONSOLATION FOR THE TEMPTED

14. DAILY NEED DIVINELY SUPPLIED

15. EMMANUEL, or Titles of Christ

16. GLIMPSES OF THE TRUTH AS IT IS IN JESUS

17. GRACE AND TRUTH

18. HELP HEAVENWARD

19. LIGHTS AND SHADOWS OF SPIRITUAL LIFE

20. MIDNIGHT HARMONIES

21. NO CONDEMNATION IN CHRIST JESUS

22. NONE LIKE CHRIST

23. PISGAH VIEWS (Heaven)

24. SOUL HEIGHTS and SOUL DEPTHS

25. THE FOOT OF THE CROSS

26. THE FULLNESS OF CHRIST

27. PERSONAL DECLENSION & REVIVAL OF RELIGION IN THE SOUL

28. THE HOLY SPIRIT, An Experimental and Practical View

29. THE INNER LIFE

30. THE LORD'S PRAYER

31. THE MAN OF GOD

32. THE MINISTRY OF HOME

33. THE NIGHTINGALE SONG OF DAVID

34. THE SYMPATHY OF CHRIST

35. THE TREE OF LIFE

36. DIVINE REALITIES

37. WORDS OF DIVINE COMFORT (a 31 day devotional)

38. THE GLORY OF THE REDEEMER

39. THE ATONEMENT

40. THE OFFICER'S DAUGHTER

41. GATHERED FLOWERS

42. THE HIDDEN LIFE (Gleanings from the journal of Whitmore Winslow)

43. MORNING AND EVENING THOUGHTS (a 365 day devotional)

44. THE PRECIOUS THINGS OF GOD

45. FROM GRACE TO GLORY

46. OUR GOD

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1. What a boundless, fathomless ocean!

2. Lean hard!

3. The flaming sword of justice quenched in the holy, loving bosom of Jesus!